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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Copper Roof...

This roof is copper "flashing" from Lowes. it is not the real thing...copper sheet but is copper foil bonded to a plastic backing. I wish it was self adhesive-peel and stick but it is not. As the material came in a 12" wide roll, I had to cut 13" wide sections which overlapped to cover each side of my 30 x 13 roof.

I used a dulled awl to "draw" the raised seams from the bottom or baking side of the material. It is soft enough that a firm uniform pressure makes a nice line when I used a square as a guide.

I distorted the material when drawing the lines on it so that it did not want to lie flat. I needed to glue it down. I used waterproof contact cement which seemed to work quite well; but as it was cold (no power-no heat) when I did it, it came unstuck...well only partly unstuck. I was able to peel it back a bit and brush in some more glue...we'll see if it works, I guess I have enough flashing to try again.

by the way, the building in the background of the previously posted photo is roofed with ice and water sheild. this roofing underlayment was coated with grit to make it less slippery. It lasted over a year on my house in Connecticut without shingles on top and kept the house dry. I had some extra and it seems to work well on models too. I have yet to find more. it is expensive, about $100/roll, but that is enough to do about 30 scale houses!

4 comments:

The Deere's said...

I like it; I experimented with thin aluminum this winter and found it very hard to keep it strait. Even though I made a grooved jig. Your roofing looks great.

Also Mrsdeere the boats in the back ground are great too.

mrdeere

Anonymous said...

Eric what a great job. You are amazing! It's not just the vertical seams but all the edges and corners are finished off so well.
thanks for posting.
John

SCGRR said...

Eric,
That's an awesome job. I used that same material above my Bay-window on my house 30 years ago and it's still there. Hopefully yours will last that long. As a matter of fact I had a small piece left over and am using a couple small pieces on my current project as a roof cap. Same thing, thin copper with a plastic backer. You'd never be able to solder it.

Ray Trainman said...

Eric, superb job! I can't wait to see all of your structures during your open house...

BTW, Mrs Deere, those kayaks are a bit out of scale. I thought you would have commented on that...