Saturday, March 24, 2012

Day 168 - Coverin' it up

Whew. Long day but once again I'm thrilled with the progress. The next few days are focused on the roof and today was the start of it.

Lots of sawdust to start the day out. The first thing to do today was to trim the edges of the roof. I drove locating screws through the top and then used a chalk line to snap straight lines down the sides and around the front. I set the saw for ten degrees to match the slop of the roof so the trimmed off sides would be vertical then started cutting.

Mildly annoying, as I was doing the cutting from the ladder. It just wasn't safe to be standing on the shelf, I was too close to being off-balance. So, up the ladder to cut a couple feet, down the ladder, move the ladder, up the ladder, cut another couple feet, repeat.

After cutting the sides I reset the saw to ninety degrees and cut the front and then using the sander I rounded off the front corners.


All that cutting made a ton of sawdust and it all ended up on the roof. I grabbed the hand broom and started sweeping the roof off. When I had reached as far as possible I gingerly got up on the roof. Because of the height of the shed I was able to work my way from the front to the back on my hands and knees, just missing the insulation with my back. I won't fully trust this roof until the fiberglass is done and the forward windows are in for the support and rigidity.

Next I set up the table saw to rip some 3/8" plywood for the panels that would go on the sides of the roof. I was originally going to get all fancy and do a tugboat roof, but the existing roofline has grown on me the past few days so I've decided to basically leave it alone. The strips along the sides are only 1/2" taller than the roof and are there to act as gutters so the water isn't dripping off the sides and instead will flow either forward or backward. I mixed up some epoxy, liberally coated both the strips and the roof edges and screwed them into place. With the flat plywood and the newly cut edges there was no need for peanut butter.

I set up the table saw and ripped some 2-1/2" wide pieces of 1-1/8" plywood. I'll continue working on those tomorrow preparing them to be used as hand grips to be attached to the roof.

The green edges of the fiberglass I had put on the shelves yesterday had been bugging me all day so I trimmed it off.

After a brief break to get some dinner, I got to work fiberglassing the top of the roof. This was the last of the really big areas to fiberglass and it was big! 10' 5" long by 7' 2" wide! I decided to cover it with two full size pieces of fiberglass running side to side and one small strip. I borrowed the garage, swept the floor real well, rolled out the fiberglass, cut it to length and rolled it back up on my PVC pipes. Then I made a large batch of epoxy, carefully climbed back up on the roof and spread the epoxy where the first piece of fiberglass would go. The fiberglass was unrolled across the roof and then using the serrated epoxy roller the fiberglass was pushed down into the epoxy. I then repeated the process for the second large piece of fiberglass and the small strip. More epoxy was made and used to paint in the dry areas. And finally I used the utility knife to trim the fiberglass right in the valley between the roof and the sides. No need for a fillet there!


Looking good!

Tomorrow I'll trim that green glass and roll on the fill coat of epoxy. I'm running low on epoxy so I need to figure out how much more I need to order to finish. :-) I'll be able to work on the grab rail as well as getting a side strip on the back edge of the roof. That edge needs some work as it's a little rough right now. And I still need to cut some strips to go side to side between the grab rails for stuff to sit on and rub the paint off of. ;-)

10.5 Hours