Type 40 Project: It's a new dawn,It's a new day.....

'There are always possibilities', Spock said. And if Genesis is
indeed life from death, I must return to this place again

James T. Kirk, Stardate 8141.6

So, after the "death" of my first roof (well, the sloping section at least), this morning I had had to return once again to the task at hand and start all over again.

I knew I needed more wood, as the birch ply I'd previously bought was no longer with us, and I also needed to buy the boards for the cross members that would support the roof. The diagonals of the roof were a shade over 5ft each (well, 60" 1/4 for one and 60" 3/4 for the other), so I figured two 6ft lengths about 8" wide (7.5" in real money) would serve.

So, I headed down to Lowes in Brooksville, rather than Spring Hill as somehow I felt it had more of a selection.

Imagine my surprise when I found that not only did it not have a greater selection, in conversation with one of the stout yeoman's that worked there I was told the Spring Hill was far better stocked for lumber! I left with just the 1x8x6 boards for the cross members, but all was not lost since they had a Firestorm 18v hand saw going for $11 (down from $44) - it didn't come with a battery since it is presumed that you'd already have one, and fortunately I got two with the 6 tool Firestorm set I bought earlier!

Anyway, off home I went, and set to making my cross members. Carefully measuring the length of each diagonal, I cut the boards to length and then had to start marking up for the cuts that would form the "interlock", and the angled cut for the roof pitch (I just remembered that when talking about roof angles, you normally say the pitch of the roof!).

I measured to the centre of the board and then from each side 3.25", and marked up the boards. Then from the same centre point, I measured 6 inches on either side of the centre so that I'd make up my 12" square on the top of the roof (more on this later!). I knew that I wanted the "height" of this roof section to be around 6", and I'd already glued and screwed some small wooden blocks into the inside of my roof assembly at the right height so that when my cross member boards slotted in they would rise about 5.5" above the roof assembly.

So, I marked up all the lines for the pitch, and then took the lumber to my table saw.

At this point I'd just to to stop for a moment and consider my purchase of a table saw for this project.

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When I started, I bought a set of Firestorm tools than included a circular saw, and I was of the opinion that with a workmate type affair and some clamps, the circular saw would be all that I needed.

However, I'd seen how cheaply I could pick up a table saw, and some kind of bizarre power-tool induced frenzy came over me and before I knew it, I was research table saws (see earlier posts) and eventually picked one up for about $85. Even as I took it home, I thought that I was probably just wasting money, and that I was almost certain to injure myself hideously with the device. When I got home and assembled it all, I couldn't wait to try it out like some kind of crazed junkie! I should say though that I did also buy eye protectors, gloves and a face mask and thus far I've been rigorous in wearing it all when using the table saw.

Now, I used the saw throughout the construction of the base, and my roof assembly, but none of the cuts were particular long and could've easily been done with a circular saw, if a little less conveniently.

The cross members though were a whole different kettle of fish! For starters, I needed to create two "slots" about .75" in size and then some angled cuts about 2ft long down my cross members to form the pitch.

For the slots, I thought I'd just cut down the "sides" and then use a power drill to drill out the remaining section at the bottom. However, with the table saw, I found I could just cut a good 1/8 of an inch off at a time a bit like a bacon slicer - however, the bacon was my lumber and the "slices" just ended up as sawdust!

So, the table saw made the slots really easy to make, and having cut them I tested out that both pieces slotted together nicely; which they did!

I then had to cut the pitch which is what I was really worried about. I figured any mistakes here would end up with a ruined board and I'd only bought the 2 I needed. So, I approached these cuts with some trepidation, but once again the table saw came to my rescue! As long as you've marked up your boards well, it's easy to keep the lumber on line and get a good cut - a word of advice though - since the saw itself "consumes" about 1/8" of wood, if you mark up exactly on line, always cut "to" the line on the side that is being cut "off" rather than "on" the line itself!

Anyway, barely an hour after I'd come back from Lowes, I had these:

Which, when fitted together, look like this:

Now, I was well aware that the "ends" of my cross members were flat and needed to angled to 45 degrees so that they would fit in corners of the roof assembly. My $11 hand saw I'd just bought from Lowes seemed like just the ticket!

Here's a shot of the little blocks I'd already mounted the roof assembly for the cross members to sit on.

And here are the cross members mounted in the roof assembly:

And a close up of one of the corners where the cross members sit:

Not a bad job, even if I do say so myself!

So, the next step was the sloping roof sections themselves.

This time, I'd thrown away the algebra and resorted to placing a plywood board over the cross members and marking as accurately as possible where the sloping section of the cross member met the flat part, and then using a straight rule to join the dots to produce the lines for the cuts.

Having done this, it was off to the table saw again and a few minutes later I had my first sloping section settled in position on the roof assembly!

At this point a young Timelord, barely out of the Loom, decided to pay me a visit and try out the TARDIS for size!

It looks like The Mookalon can't wait to start travelling through time and space in the TARDIS, but for the time being he'll just have to cope with travelling through the spaces within the TARDIS itself!

Anyway, having ushered The Mookalon back of to the academy, I set to making the other 3 roof sections. It is very important here to mark which section fits which part of the roof as they are custom cut, so once again my "labelling" technique (patent pending) came in useful!

At this point, I measured across the top of my roof section expected to find it was around 12", as I had planned. Imagine my surprise when it came out to 8.5". Now, it turns out that I was a little too keen to throw out Pythagoras earlier on as I needed to use him today but didn't make the call! When I was cutting my cross members, I measured 6" either side of the centre for my central flat section, but this would give me a square 12" across the diagonal! Applying Pythagoras to this, and this gives the length of the sides of my central flat section at 8.5" instead of 12".

However, in actual fact, this has rather done me a favour, since if I'd made them 12", the pitch of my roof would've been higher and even as it is it's probably a tad on the high side!

Anyway, a short while later I had all 4 roof sections, and to my surprise they fitted together quite well! I had to trip the tops of a couple of them a little, but nothing major.

As I was now quite certain this was all going to work, I used some brackets I'd purchased earlier at Lowes (forgot to mention that earlier) to secure the two cross members together.

All that was left then, was to sand down the edges of my cross members to give me a decent surface to glue my roof sections on, and then apply the glue, position the roof sections, and pin them down.

Voila! One roof, almost complete! All that's left now is to fit a small square (ok, squarish as it happens in the end) of ply to the top and apart from fittings like the light boxes and the top lamp, it's done! Oh, and painting etc, etc.

Here's some more tedious pictures of the roof close up. Some may wonder why I'm including so much detail here, and the reason young Padawan is because I hope to learn from this experience and therefore need to document it as fully as possible. Plus, others may try to follow in my footsteps (as I am following in anothers), and I want to share my experiences as fully as possible - though I doubt that The Mookalon would pay them a visit during the construction of their own time capsules!