Chapter 98 - Two External Hanging Lanterns, Finishing for the Underside of the Eaves, Adding Shingles

September 4 - 8th 2014

First thing I did was to take out all the little pieces for the hanging lanterns.  I wanted to paint them a green that mimics bronzed green so instead of mixing colors now, I’d decided to wait till I got to the chapter with the other two lanterns then paint them all in one go. 

So, I started on the finishing touches to the underside of the eaves.  First I had to cut the 10 wooden strips into 54mm pieces.  I sanded the outer edges of each one since that would be the edge which shows under the eaves.  I then positioned them as per the instructions starting out from the center and measuring 18mm between each one.  I noticed that the length varied a little so I adapted and cut the strips at 55mm to allow for extra shaping on the ends.  Then I just had to slowly work all around the underside eaves.  Once they were positioned, I sanded down the ones that seemed to overhang too much.  I cleaned them up and painted the tips white.  It seemed strange that this underside eaves were going to remain unpainted so I skipped ahead just to confirm it.  In fact, they would remain unpainted.  So I just white tipped the ones I installed thus far.

Cutting the strips down to 55mm lengths.

Decoration the underside eaves and adding white tips.

Next was the placement of the tiles.  They are supplied in 13cm lengths and they have a tapered shape - slightly thinning down towards the top.  But the first row was to overextend the roof edge by 0,5mm which is really not a lot.  Since the first row is the most important, I had to find a way to give myself a straight edge to work with.  I found a 1cm wooden beam (that is for the back of the house once the lighting is installed) and used that to make a straight edge measuring up from the gutter lip.  I then placed the first two strips and glued them in place.  The next row had to be matched up a bit as each strip is not exactly the same as the others.  The kit does give instructions to sand down where needed but I figured I’d just sort till I found ones that fit rather well between rows.  It was pretty clear that the tile strips are by no means consistent in length, width or height. So probably there will be lots of fitting going on later.  I tried to see the strength of the strips by bending one a bit and it broke in two.  That means I will probably just have to use heat to bend the ones that will go on the sloping areas.  There are instructions for that but right now I just want to start tiling. 

Penciling in some guidelines.  The plastic tile.

Positioning the tiles and gluing in place.

First set of tiles installed.  You can see diffeerences in tiles.

Another milestone in any case today because it's the last chapter in the second giant book I created for the instructions.  Basically, I put all the instructions into book form.  I suppose since I have all the parts lists and the instructions, if someone wanted to build this house using just those to build from scratch, they could in theory do it.  

Starting the final of three books.  Wow....