Barnacle's TARDIS

[barnacle]

Interior of the roof is all clean and sparkly white with paint.  Tomorrow, weather permitting, will be the prepping and painting of the exterior.  Must de-wax and rough up the fiberglass so the paint will adhere.  That and suck it up on the lantern engineering...

[galacticprobe]

That and suck it up on the lantern engineering...

Brandon, what's the sticking point in your "lantern engineering"? I looked back at some of your diary and it looked like you had a decent Fresnel lens to use. Give us brief "flashback" on your lantern and maybe someone will have an idea that could get your lantern moving again.

Dino.

[barnacle]

Brandon, what's the sticking point in your "lantern engineering"? I looked back at some of your diary and it looked like you had a decent Fresnel lens to use. Give us brief "flashback" on your lantern and maybe someone will have an idea that could get your lantern moving again.

Inertia.  

The biggest problem I've had on any given day is getting my bum out of the chair and going to work on it.  Here's what's involved:

--roughing up stainless pan lid, so that paint may adhere
--cutting dowels, drilling the ends ((that's probably the trickiest bit))
--attaching brim to pan lid, which involves some short sheet metal screws and somehow getting holes drilled in the lid, then a rude amount of Liquid Nails for insurance
--drilling gently through the roof for the mounting points.  Fortunately I centered the whole thing and drilled the pilot holes through the brim AND the roof, so they'll line up pretty well.

So, really, inertia.  I promise.  Look for more pics by EOD.  

[Volpone]

We reach. For me...I've had so many good, foolproof plans go horribly sideways that while I don't specifically know anything that could go wrong, I fear that something will go wrong.  So the longer I hold off doing something, the longer it remains a "perfect" plan.  Or, as sounds more like your case, I just know how much retched work is involved.  Right now, my bathroom renovation is a little of each. 

When I bought the house, I hoped I just had to take out an odd acoustic drop ceiling (yes, in the bathroom) and put in a vent fan.  When I actually moved in, I found a very prominent vinyl tile in the floor was ruined.  I've been unable to find a replacement, so I'm going to have to wind up redoing the whole floor--which means pulling the toilet and the sink.  Speaking of the sink, they just put the vanity over about 4" of HVAC duct, so one side is flush with the wall and one side is out about 1/8".  None of it is caulked to the wall; it's just standing there.  They put up the mirror wrong, so I had to redo that.  Taking down the drop ceiling also brought down most of the paint on the walls (it was latex and it stuck to the ceiling framework better than the walls).  It also revealed about a 1x4' chunk of ceiling where the plaster had come apart (which was probably why they put in a drop ceiling in the first place. 

So yeah, I totally understand holding off on the lamp.  Oh! More germane story:  My own lamp.  The Plan was to make the bottom half galvanized steel and then attach the legs to the top half, with magnets on the bottoms of the legs.  Set the glass chimney on the lip of the bottom (that also served to keep out water), set the top over the glass.  Magnets hold everything together, Bob's your uncle.  Unfortunately, the legs were awfully wobbly and the magnets were awfully weak, so Plan B involved just caulking everything into place and using a putty knife to take it apart if I needed to work on anything. 

[barnacle]

Dry fit of the lantern bits:



I was a little worried about scale, but I think I'm good.  The dowels are a little thick but I went as skinny as I dared with still drilling into the end of them.

Not pictured?  First coat of primer.  I think I'll double up on the fiberglass priming--first coat went on a little thin.

[Senseidale]

Been snooping LOL  I am about to start on my roof section and was some what i a dilemma on how to construct it, however thanks  to your pics of roof build, I have a clearer idea of how to carry on,
Great build loving it again thanks for the tips.

Dale

[Volpone]

Dry fit of the lantern bits:

...

I was a little worried about scale, but I think I'm good.  The dowels are a little thick but I went as skinny as I dared with still drilling into the end of them.

Not pictured?  First coat of primer.  I think I'll double up on the fiberglass priming--first coat went on a little thin.

Well, the good thing about the lamp is, if you decide you don't like it, that's a relatively easy change.  Not like "I wish I'd done a wider bottom crossbar than all the others," where you'd have to...I don't know, jack everything up and then try to figure out how to make the cornerposts taller. 

My house had a refrigerator with an ice maker.  It was fed by a copper tube.  If you decide the dowels are too fat, maybe you could use something like that.  Or maybe some brake line from an auto parts place.  Either would be hollow but stronger than a dowel.

[barnacle]

I was a little worried about scale, but I think I'm good.  The dowels are a little thick but I went as skinny as I dared with still drilling into the end of them.

Well, the good thing about the lamp is, if you decide you don't like it, that's a relatively easy change... My house had a refrigerator with an ice maker.  It was fed by a copper tube.  If you decide the dowels are too fat, maybe you could use something like that.  Or maybe some brake line from an auto parts place. 

The longer I looked at the scale, the less happy I was.  The 1-inch dowels are being replaced by 5/8" PVC, which is drying in the garage as we speak.  Thank you for the suggestion!  Looks much more balanced that way.

[barnacle]

Been snooping LOL  I am about to start on my roof section and was some what i a dilemma on how to construct it, however thanks  to your pics of roof build, I have a clearer idea of how to carry on,
Great build loving it again thanks for the tips.

Dale

This is open sharing; I think I lifted my M.O. from someone else on here.  I'm glad that I was able to help in some way. 

Had an epiphany when cutting the sheathing; I set my circular saw to 15 degrees and made all the cuts.  Darned if they didn't come together almost perfectly!  (I used a 15-degree slope, BTW.  )

[barnacle]

Oh, and I was reminded again this evening of one of the observations of TARDIS building:

The magic goes in when the blue goes on.  Check out the pan lid sitting on the bottom of the sawhorse for the top of the lantern...

[Senseidale]

This is open sharing; I think I lifted my M.O. from someone else on here.  I'm glad that I was able to help in some way.  

Had an epiphany when cutting the sheathing; I set my circular saw to 15 degrees and made all the cuts.  Darned if they didn't come together almost perfectly!  (I used a 15-degree slope, BTW.   )
[/quote]

Thanks for adding he slop angle i was wondering about the slop and angle to make the cuts.
 you are right the magic is when the BLUE goes on

Dale

[barnacle]

The 15-degree butts on the diagonal aren't quite perfect, but they meet up pretty nicely.

HEADS UP:  I cut each slab of plywood to the correct vertical height (from frame to crown), then laid it on the stringers to mark where it met the crown (the lower edge was easy as I deliberately made the whole shebang 48 inches wide, to correspond with the width of a sheet of plywood on this side of the pond).

Once it was laid in place, then I marked where it met the crown and drew in the diagonal cut line with a straightedge.  None of that tedious mucking about with geometry (or, if you're a Discworld reader, jommetry).  With added benefit of knowing the piece will fit, it took care of the slight variances (read: "woogie") in my construction.  JUST BE SURE TO MARK WHICH SIDE IT'S FOR, which is why you can clearly see "NORTH" scrawled on the frame in the inverted picture. (Lots of planets have a north...)

[Volpone]

HAHAHAHAHA... No two panes of my windows are the same dimensions.  When I was making "pebbled glass" I had to make a custom one for each pane.  Or my old kitchen--I pulled off all the cabinet doors so I could paint them.  I lovingly labeled them all so I could make sure they went back on the original cabinets.  But I also updated all the hardware and the new hinges fit differently so in the end I wound up dry fitting each door and picking the one that fit the best, regardless of its label.

[barnacle]

Roof painted, lantern assembled and installed (with assistance from the Better Half).



Tomorrow when all the glue and caulking sets, it gets painted... and installed.  Hooray!

Once there, I've got doors, windows, and perhaps some interior stenciling of Round Things.

[galacticprobe]

You've done a smashing job on that roof, Brandon, especially with the lamp!

...perhaps some interior stenciling of Round Things.

I love the round things.

Dino.