Shingling - punishment for not paying more attention in school

 The shingling continues.  Eyeballing the middle and right hand slopes of the centre roof area, based on the lines drawn 5/8th of an inch apart on the left roof, did not work.  Not only were the shingle lines not lining up, the spacing between rows was inconsistent and it looked awful.  So out came the paint scraper and I broke off most of the shingles on the middle and right hand roofs to try again.

The next attempt I was carefully marking each row of the middle roof based on a ruler held along the bottom of the left and right shingle rows so that they would line up.  This also did not work: the middle roof rows were getting further apart to the point where the gap was going to exceed the height of a shingle.  Out came the paint scraper again.  Many shingles lost their lives in the retreat.

It was time to bring in the big guns: my son who has a major in Chemistry and now works in accounting.  The maths gene that skipped me is strong in him. Much to his entertainment, I explained my maths problem and provided photos.  He advised me to measure the angles of the roof pitches and from there it becomes a trigonometry problem.  I used a protractor to determine that the left hand gable was a 69 degree apex, whereas the bigger right hand gable was a 72.5 degree apex.  It seems likely that they are meant to be the same angle and it is down to the error inherent in putting together a plywood kit.  The middle roof I measured off a straight line on the right hand roof by folding paper into the angle, it appears to be at a 45 degree pitch.  Using this online calculator, setting the angle at 35 degrees (splitting the difference between the two gables) and setting the hypotenuse at 1.59 cm (5/8th of an inch) gave me the vertical height for one row on the lefthand roof.  Then I could use the same calculator to determine the hypotenuse for the same vertical height for a 45 degree angle.  That comes out at .72 of an inch, or 1.84cm.  So on the middle roof, I needed to mark lines that are just under 3/4" inch apart.

Trusting (skeptically) in the math, I corrected the lines on the middle roof and started sticking on shingles yet again.  By now I am heartily sick of all shingles and wishing I had just used shingle-printed paper.  Or paint.  At first it looked like once again the alignment wasn't working out, but I didn't care by this point.  However, as I got further up, it was looking increasingly okay - maybe not exactly aligned on all three roofs but close enough that you don't really notice.  

It wasn't until I broke into the second bag of shingles that I realised two things:  1) the new bag was split evenly between dark brown shingles and light shingles, no medium tones like the previous bag; and 2) all the rows I had done so far on the roof were in light shingles, unlike all the other roofs which had a mix of tones.  Presumably I'd used up all the mid-tones in previous attempts.  So after I had finished shingling the three roofs, I had to go back with a brush and some wood stain and darken random shingles across the roofs to blend in the darker shingles from the new bag.

So it's done up to the ridge line and now I need to decide how I am going to treat the ridgelines.

Build a dollshouse they said. It will be fun they said.

Stuck on shingling

 While I haven't been working on this a whole lot, when I have, I've been shingling.  It was straightforward to shingle the rear (left) roof. I haven't decided how I will treat the ridgeline yet.

The front roof (right side of house) was a bit trickier, fitting shingles around the tower, but still fairly straightforward.

The gable roofs, however, are a total PITA and thus I have been procrastinating mightily.

All three roofs have a different slope.  So in order for the rows of shingles to line up visually the way the viewer expects, they have to be laid at different spacing on each roof.  I drew lines on the right slope before I realised this. So I'm having to attach shingles one row at a time, using the spacing on the left as my guideline, and eyeballing the line around the other two sides -supplemented by measurements taken from the bottom of the valley up along the edge of the roof to keep the two sides the same. At the same time, I have to cut partial shingles to fit into the two inner valleys.  It is slowly getting there but not fun.

Tower roof covering, chimney

 I decided to go for a metal roofing look, like the New England photo I found, for the tower roof covering rather than attempting shingles on the narrow points.  I used the pattern I had traced of the roof triangles prior to assembly, and cut out segments in two pieces to simulate metal sheets overlapping.  The seams were covered with narrow strips of kraft paper scored down the middle with an embossing tool.  I glued it all on with solvent UHU to avoid moisture warping.  For the top, I dug around in my stash and found a jewellry finding that looked similar to the scalloped tips in my New England photos with a little plier squeezing.

Then I sprayed it black.

Then I gave it a wash with dark grey paint, and a drybrush with Patina coloured paint to create a weathered metal look.  I finished off with a protective spray of matt varnish.

The finished result.  I like it, it looks less 'twee' than shingles and also a lot neater.

Chimney

I covered the chimney pieces from the kit in brick paper prior to assembly.  Because I had added a back to the chimney, my side trim pieces needed to be recut to be a little longer.  Then I glued all the pieces together as per the kit instructions. This also got a protective spray of varnish. The flues that come with the kit are quite ridiculous, wo instead I added some low-key cornice trim used upside down to the top then painted that and the interior matt black.

The chimney glues into a slot in the roof.  I will need to fill and finish the underside of the slot in the ceiling of the attic room now.

I've started drawing lines on the roof to align the shingles.  I've hit the usual problem with two roof planes intersecting - the eye expects the rows of shingles to line up across the valley of the adjoining roofs, yet due to geometry, the hypotenuse of the resulting triangle is much longer so the intervals between shingles on the middle roof are significantly further apart than on the gable roofs.  Plus it's hard to get the gable roof lines to match each other since the starting points aren't the same.  I will probably end up just eyeballing it which is what I've had to do on past roof jobs.