Roof structures

I have allready told you that I've had some difficulties with the roof on the I'm a giant challenge. And I'm still having difficulties with the roof, but atleast the roof structures are now done. Phew. What was most difficult was to find the perfect glue that would hold the wood pieces together.

I started out by building the general structure out of site and afterwards moved it on place.

At first I used hot glue, 'cos I thought it would be easy to use because it hardens so fast. Well, it wasn't any good, it did not attach well and it was too bendy. When I tried to attach the middle supports, I managed to break the whole thing. Argh!

Then I tried super glue and that just sucked right into the wood and no glue was left on the surface to actually work as glue. Also tried two composite epoxy resin but that was just too difficult. Then I had nothing else to use but the regular wood glue. On the end it was the best eventhough it dried so slowly that I had attach one or two pieces at a time and then take a 15 to 30 min break.

When I had the main structure done I lifted it on the teahouse and glued it on.

The traditional shrines and teahouses have a curved eaves and I wanted my tearoom to have similar type of roof. After lot of thinking and some consultation from A, I figured out how to make the eaves. I glued two pieces of balsa wood together in a 90 degrees angle, so I got both of the directions on the final product equally strong. Balsa is wood where the strength of the wood is very different depending on the angle of the fibers in the wood.

I cut out the forms of the curve of the eaves with crafting knife and glued them on the roof structure.

There you see the basic form. Then I attached the roof laths where the roof tiles will be placed on.

So, there you have it. A finished roof structure. Now left to do are gazillion roof tiles and to put them on and then the actual decoration of the tearoom. Easy peasy.

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This post belongs to the series of posts for the I'm a Giant challenge by Emily Henderson. All my posts about the challenge can be found behing this link.