Fabricating rooflights (or Thank heavens for RSU's)
Entry posted by Killybegs
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I spent quite a while ruminating about how best to deal with the glazing on the train shed roof for Killybegs. The original plan was to use sheets of clear acrylic with glazing bars represented with plastic microstrip. I wasn't really happy that this would look right, so looked to the real thing (metaphorically speaking as Killybegs station building is long gone) for inspiration and eventually opted for a brass frame into which individual sheets of glazing could be fitted. For ease of fabrication I was going to make it up in bay sized panels but then decided to bite the bullet and make them up in single panels just under 600mm long.
The perimeter of the panel and centre lines of the glazing bars were marked out on melamine faced chipboard (the same piece that I used for the roof assembly jig!) then 1mm angles (top and ends) and 1 x 0.2mm flats (bottom) were carefully lined up, secured with bluetack and soldered up. The glazing bars were cut to length (no room for mistakes here as I could just get eight out of a 250mm length with nothing left over!) and tidied up before soldering in position using solder paste and my RSU. To facilitate the use of the RSU, I soldered lengths of resonably heavy duty wire to each end of the top member and took them back to the crocodile clip on one lead of the RSU. The glazing bars were lined up by eye and the top end tacked in place. With my digital 'vernier' gauge locked to the spacing required between the bars and positioned against one end angle, the RSU probe was used to trap the bottom of the glazing bar against the gauge while it was soldered in place. Any minor adjustment was then made to the top end. This was then repeated 66 times! An engineer's square was also used from time to time to check that everything was indeed staying square. I don't think I would have attempted this without the RSU.
The first pic shows the completed panel still mounted on its board. The second shows it blue tacked temporarily in position on the roof.
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