Roof Phase round 1!

Well.. it's that time of the project. The one that can be one of the best times.. or one of the most stressful parts of the build. The dreaded Roof Phase.

Pretty much at this point.. all the details are in place. The figures have been seated. The priests have been set. (Once again, I'm using the figure that represents Fr. Emmit from St. Helen's.)

The R.P. will be comprised of several steps. As I outline and explain what I'm doing in those steps, I will give some of the history behind the issues I've had with the roofs in the past.

I'm working on right now the First Phase. What I'm doing is setting up the cross beams that will make up the roof grid. Something that I've used in various forms since the 2006/2007 (lcp07) project. This grid will be more closer to the lcp07 style than last season (2007/2008, lcp08) style.

The fact their will be no massive "dome" roof this season. I may have some smaller domes but over all it's going to be mostly flat panel style.

The beams that I'm working on in the end will make up five rows of brick. The first two rows will get things established. Row three will be the row that the lights are hooked from. Row four will be the white bricks that will support the various drop in panels that I intend to create. Mostly from plates.. but with some bricks. More on that in other posts.

The reason for the panel style is this. Larger projects mean gravity starts to take over. Domes even supported with a trust system do not always work well to keep things lined up. Most of my larger projects have suffered from some form of "parts shift" in one case the shifting from the left side to the right side was well over a half inch. The panels do not really solve the problem perhaps, but look nicer than me trying to get a massive dome to line up correctly.

Well that is all for now. I will make another post when I'm ready to start second part.

-John "JM" Kraemer