That might be the single neatest job of building the pitched roof I've ever seen.  My hat is off to you Sir!

That is high praise indeed Kiwidoc as there are so many other fine examples just on this website alone! It wasn't quite the nightmare I thought it would be. I just took my time and built a practice pitched roof first to work out the kinks before I cut the final one...!

Much appreciated

-Jay

Just before I finished off the lamp housing assembly and the pedestal base that accepts it, I slipped my newly glued roof up onto the assembled box to see how well things turned out, mostly checking to see if the pitch looked good. As you can see by this time I had re-made some sign box frames and had built the corner post caps.

Look closely and you can see the bolt heads that hold the tops of the corner posts to the walls (they're tucked under the sign box frames) Should give you an idea of how those work to hold the posts in place.

After I had figured out the final height of the lamp pedestal base I was able to glue it in place in the center of the roof. I placed it such that I could build a 1/2" wide frame around its outer edge. The frame itself was the same height as the finished height of the Lamp base and was beveled on the bottom to match the roof pitch for a seamless fit. This exterior frame not only provided a home for the lamp base, but also finished off the width of the pedestal itself. 8 inches wide in this case in keeping with the Hudolin pedestal base width.

The pics below show the pedestal frame and how the lamp slips onto the roof. Nice thing about this design is there is no seem visible along the side of the lamp base. Also a removable lamp is ideal for trying to sneak this roof in through a doorway without a lamp getting in the way, as well as for changing the light bulb.

Flease forgive my poor camera shots.

wow this is really a great looking build. that lamp design works pretty good, i used a similar method. you may want to add a stripe of Velcro underneath it to hold it on so the wind doesn't blow it off or some jolt that might dislodge it.... my lens is busted by the way

Thank you!

Indeed I have two magnetic catches that will be installed soon that will secure the lamp housing once in position.

-Jay

I wanted the lamp housing to REALLY work like a real outdoor lamp would and that meant being able to completely disassemble it. Ultimately I built two lamp housings, one was more of a practice piece to get the dimensions right.

My friend and I both liked a more TYJ style lamp with its round weather cap. The design trick here was getting the support rods out far enough not to cage the lens too tightly yet with enough room at the edge of the weather cap to allow for acorn nuts to finish off the top.

Indeed I built the housing much more to fit  this lens rather then trying to re-create a perfect Yardley of Hudolin lamp housing. The only rule I had to follow was that the width of the weather cap and the width of the pedestal base needed to be identical (8 inches)

I chose a 3/8" wide aluminum tubing to slip over my threaded rods as 3/8" was the closest I could find to a centimeter. The next step up (1/2" wide) looked to bulky.

The large holes in the base of the lamp housing, as well as the bottom plate of the weather cap, were both done with a 4 1/2" hole saw. The large holes allowed me to fit the cap seated more on the lense ridges themselves rather then the fragile glass top of the lens. Don't ask me how I found out it was fragile The round 1/3 cross-section sphere placed on top of the weather cap was done by gluing two 6 inch pine circles both 3/4" thick together, then simply hand profiling it to shape with a belt sander. All circles were cut by using my router with a circle cutting jig.

Finally, brass threaded inserts were used to receive the threaded post rods rather then allowing them to be held by a nut on the bottom of the lamp base. By using threaded inserts I was able to maintain a flat surface under the lamp assembly so it would fit flush with the pedestal base on the roof. Its also a much more professional look.

A progression series of how the lamp is disassembled gives a clearer picture of how everything is built.

Those brass threaded inserts, shown above, would make a re-appearance when it came time to build removable backs for the sign boxes.

I'm finding the level of detail, accuracy and sheer 'well-thought-through' ideas in this thread utterly fascinating.. to say nothing of the build's quality! Wow.

The window frames were a fairly straight forward exercise in the art of cutting repetitive half-lap joints with a dado head blade installed in the table saw very much the same way Glen walker did in his excellent builders guide.

One detail I noticed on the Hudolin plans was that the window muntins along the perimeter of the window opening only had 1/2" exposed width as opposed to all the other window muntins that were fully 3/4 inches wide. So a little careful measuring and planing was needed to achieve this effect.

One of the tricks to producing good half-lap joinery is to make sure the two pieces of stock you wish to join are dimensionally identical. However, in this case, I allowed the horizontal window muntins to be just a bit thicker then the vertical muntins so I could achieve a slight unevenness when the two were joined.

This had the effect of adding a slight shadow line and textural change where all the window muntins joined each other and added a nice "hand made" look to the window frames rather then all being perfectly replicated Table saw cuts with each joint sitting perfectly flush. The profile on the back side of the frames was of course planed flat to allow a good gluing surface for the window glass.

You can see the change in thickness and the shadow line it creates in the photo below. The effect is subtle to be sure but when multiplied over all of the Tardis windows it's quite nice. It was great fun for me to try to a create as much interest as I could.



You can see it fairly clearly here where the horizontal center muntin crosses the two vertical muntins.

I have never heard the term "Muntin" before. Is it a window specific term? Also, have you fitted dowels or biscuits to the side panels and doors? Nice work, by the way.

"Muntin is a strip of wood or metal separating and holding panes of glass in a
window. Muntins are also called "muntin bars", "glazing bars", or "sash bars"."
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

Quote from: slidin_sidewayz on Feb 17, 2013, 09:03 am
I have never heard the term "Muntin" before. Is it a window specific term?

I had to look it up myself to refresh my memory as I was sure there was a specific term for those parts of a window frame.

Quote from: slidin_sidewayz on Feb 17, 2013, 09:03 amAlso, have you fitted dowels or biscuits to the side panels and doors? Nice work, by the way.

In order to accomplish what goal? If you mean to hold the window frames in place, I will be using what are known as Turn buttons Installed on the inside of the walls around the window openings. I'll be sure to post up pics of this process when I get to it.

Thank you for your kind words
Best
-Jay

Truly amazing!  I wish I had your talent and patience with woodworking!

One of the trickiest things I had to figure out was how I was going to attach the sign boxes.

I had seen several builds where they were attached via slip pin hinges to the corner posts. However with full walls all the way to the roof, providing rear or top access to concealed hinges would have been difficult.

As with the corner post pins I again opted to use Hangar bolts. Hangar bolts are just a wonderful way to turn any wood surface into a mechanical bolt-able design!

What I chose to do was to make the step moulding above the doorway and the top moulding we decided to use above the sign boxes (A TYJ design that creates a false third roof tier) and attach both of these elements directly to the sign boxes. Turning them into what I tend to call sign box assemblies.

The decent thickness of both the step and top moldings allowed for the use of 5/16" hangar bolts to be installed right into the moldings. All that was needed was to drill corresponding holes in each wall to accept all four hangar bolts thus allowing the sign boxes to be slipped over the corner posts and bolted directly through the walls. You simply tighten them down from inside the box. In this way they are rock solid and add further strength to the build.

You can see how the Sign box assembly is put together in a side view below. Note also the rabbet cut into the door top step molding to catch the tops of the front doors.



Remember if you're going to use a rabbet in the front door step molding to act as a door stop, make sure to add a little extra height when you cut or make your doors so they will fit up into it and "catch."