Thanks fellas! And thanks for the back encouragement. I'm doing all the exercises the PT gave me to strengthen my core. But it seems to be more tender now… Like all exercises, it's not instant pudding and it takes weeks rather than days to make the difference. I ordered and received a microwavable heat pad to apply after exercises. It arrived today.
Didn't post yesterday which is the reason for this Saturday post. I'm annoyed at my audience. How come you guys didn't notice that I perforated the blank walls for the upper gutter outlet ON THE WRONG FLOOR! While waiting for the glue to dry on the Mansard, I started planning for the complicated downspout system. I'm staring at the building and something didn't seem right. I then started measuring for the capture boxes (to be made out of brass) and it hits me. I have the upper scupper holes coming out of the ATTIC, not the upper roof parapet.
So I mixed up some Milliput 2-part epoxy putty and plugged the errant holes, then laid out and drilled the corners of the new locations which I opened with the Dremel and a 1/16" carbide router. After some sanding and maybe additional Tamiya filler, the mistakes will be gone.
As a reminder, here's my SketchUp drawing of the downspout system. This repeats on the other blank wall so no downspouts appear in the decorative areas of the building. It's obvious that the upper collector pulls water off the upper roof, carries it to the lower junction where it joins water from the collector at the edge of the Mansard trim.
Anyway… I then tried to fabricate my first collector box out of thin sheet brass. The operative word is "tried". Here I'm drilling the inlet holes to receive the water from above and let it out the bottom. Always clamp sheet stock to a drill press table. If the drill grabs (and often does in brass), the spinning sheet would be a weapon. There was a large burr on the bottom even though I backed up the drilling with a piece of pine.
I cut the shape out with small tin snips and then a nibbler. My cutting wasn't precise AND my sheet metal design really wasn't correct. You can't bend a small sheet metal box without relieving the corners. The sides did not meet well and the joint gap was really too big for successful soldering. I bent the 1/8" thick wall tubing using a spring tube bender. Thick wall forms tight radii better than thin wall, which will collapse on tight bends.
The box is a) not square, and b) has huge gaps. In this case I laid out the cut lines directly on the brass. Now I'm going to design the box on CorelDraw and paste the drawing on the brass, and hopefully it will be a better pattern.
While all this was going on, I was pre-treating the copper foil for the flashing with chemicals to age it. I taped the copper foil with its backing on a piece of Masonite. I should have done this when I did all that copper work on Nighthawks… live and learn. The chemicals don't work well on the copper as it is. I had to use some fine steel wool to rough up the surface so the chemicals whet it evenly. First I brushed on several coats of the blackening chemical. After it reaches the darkness I wanted, I washed it off with water, dried it and then applied the patina chemical. This too required several applications. When it was dry I sprayed it with some Dull Coat to fix the patina. If not, the blue/green powder on the surface can rub off.
The last thing I did was glue the upper roof in place weighting it down down so it dried in the right location. Chimney and front gable are not glued in yet. I tested it all today and the roof and Mansards are solid, ready for further detailing. The black paint gutter makes sense when I look at it. I'm going to put some 1/4 round styrene trim at the bottom edges of all the Mansards to finish off that edge and cover any small gaps. BTW: you can see that I aged the chimney cap with some black pastel powder. I also attempted to dull down the newly painted plastic "bricks" with some white weathering powder. It helped, but could be even more.
I'll be adding the upper trim band on the Mansard upper lip which serves as the water barrier for the roof edge and the mounting space for the widow's walk trim. Still mind-wrestling how I'm going to flash the gable-to-Mansard joint. BTW: I also have to add some roofing material to the curved gable roofs.
Meanwhile, I'm doing final designs on the 40" engine house. This time, I'm actually spending that time to understand not only what it will look like, but how will I build it. I've already picked up a bunch of details that weren't thought through and would have caused troubles.
The Military Modelers Club of Louisville (of which I'm now a member) has a new member who is the technical manager of the University of Louisville's Additive Manufacturing Research Center. It is one of the most comprehensive labs for 3D printing in the nation. We're having our next meeting at that center. AND… apparently you can rent time on their laser cutters for $4.00 an hour. If that number is correct, making the engine house just got much easier. Right now I'm paying $1.00 per minute to cut my models. That price includes the raw materials, so the price may not net out to be quite as dramatic as it seems on the face. But, I can imagine that it will be much more economical for me. 1/4" MDF is not that expensive in the quantities needed for a model.
Even making the trusses for this monster is going to be challenging. Just for the raw styrene shapes it's going to cost me around $100.00, and then I have to build them. I could build the model without doing the interior work and greatly reduce the complexity and cost, but it would be nearly as cool.
