Green Valley Pump House

FIXING THE ‘BENDY BIT’

What I was referring to earlier was that the roof with bits of 3D prints and stripwood glued to cardstock tries to open up. The brick top has about a 65° angle – the roof tries to relax a bit – like 50°. The question was then .. how to fix that? Adding gussets to the inside of the roof sounds good except that I have a piece of stripwood running on the inside from peak to peak of the end walls. Well .. the kit drawings show trim running along the top of the front and rear walls up against the roof. If I could print trim that would act ass an exterior gusset/brace that might work. Here was my first idea – simply trim like in the kit drawing with a slot at the top to fit around the ridge board. I could then glue the trip piece to the outside rafters.

This was a start but I immediately realized that area below the gap would act as a hinge – and that small hinge would fail if stressed much at all .. but was a start

TRIM BRACE V2

Well .. ok. The trim/brace would be weak at the point where it would start to hinge just under the slot for the ridge board. So .. what if I added a piece of horizontal trimwork between the vent opening and the window. This building is supposed to have been built c.1900 – so the carpenters could easily add such .. right? I quickly printed off a couple – spritzed on some color and let dry while I slept.

V2 TEST FIT

This morning I test-fitted them to the pump house .. and .. yeah .. look pretty good to me. Yea me – except … now .. kinda plain …

TRIM BRACE V3

Sooo … those carpenters ‘back when’ – c.1900 – would have not left it so plain .. so I added some detail – boards nailed up0 to form the same shape as V2 but fancier …

I quickly printed these off (this is why I love my 3D printer .. you imagine it .. you can probably create it). “Safe Harbor Statement” – these are not perfect since they were created on a FDM printer .. but .. with some weathering .. “good nuff”

ROOF BRACED

v3 in place. I still need to add that dang vent screen, apply roofing (shingle? Asphalt/Cedar? That would be easiest since I have both. Tin would kick it up a bit but .. that will take work. … decisions .. decisions …)

Note: If were to do this again I think I would replace the watercolor cardstock with some sheet brass as it would be much stronger. I noticed that the edges of the paper are trying to curl from my fat fingers.

Note: Still not happy with the brace. This version is too heavy .. as someone mentioned it looks more like cast iron. I’m going to see if I can make it more ‘delicate’ .. as it were.