First Light XXVII

I was in the process of showing the initial fit of the upper ridgepole when I left off last time – here it is a little further down:

I seated it a little further, could see that it was looking okay, needing a few minor fiddles, and thus decided I could trim the ends of the ridge to their slope lines:

After these cuts were taken, I used the jury-rigged shooting board and plane to clean the end grain cuts up.

Following that step, I next needed to trim a ledge at the inside of the cog joint so as to allow the upper ridge to slide down a little lower over the barge boards and thus conceal the double-dovetail joint completely:

Here’s how that finished out:

Another fitting of the upper ridge:

You can still see that the ridge needs to drop a little bit, as the lower arrises of the ridge are intended to meet the lower outer corners of the barge board tops.

A view from the side, showing the junction of the top end of a barge board and the housed dovetail mortise on the upper ridge:

Still a slight gap visible there, but not to worry as it still needs to drop about 1/16″ (1 mm). The tricky thing is that the upper ridge engages with the slope on each side of the the barge board, 2 slopes per board for 8 locations altogether, plus the engagement of the lower surface of the ridge with the upper surface of the roofing boards along their length (10 surfaces total) plus the interior of the double dovetail joints (14 surfaces total), plus the meeting points at the front of the barge boards. So, one must proceed cautiously.

Fitting takes a certain kind of mindset to come out well, and if I feel my mind wants to be elsewhere at such a time, I move on to other tasks that are more straightforward, like processing the backing cuts atop the ridge, which I did with my 54mm plane:

The completed backing cuts:

And here’s a perspective on the roof assembly at this point in the process:

I was pleasantly surprised at how much rigidity the upper ridge adds to the roof – it really locks up the the barge board miter joints.

And just for fun, a view looking up:

The roof may be looking more or less complete, but there is still heaps of work to do on it yet:

– fitting of the intermediate locking ribs, three per side (these will be challenging)
– fitting of the ‘wall’ panels to block off the section above the ceiling board
– fabrication of the 4 locking keys/wedges to hold the two ridgepoles together
-fitting of the lower sliding draw bars, and their lock wedges, to fix the barge boards to the lower end of the lower roof boards
– fitting of the hi-uchi locking pins for the upper wall plate

I’m sure other things will come to mind as I move along. once the roof is done, I will start on the lantern housing grille panels, which should be entertaining to make.

Oh yes, and there’s one more thing to deal with in regards to the roof: the construction of the two hanging fish, and their attachment to the roof. That will be the subject of the next post or two.

See you next time – I’ve got some work to do.