Completing the roof.

I have now had a good think about the shed roof, and I reckon that if I can stick some dowel in the ends of the legs, then cut a piece of wood which has matching holes in, I can then attach those bits of wood to the roof part and the roof can lift on and off.   Still with me?  Glad someone is!

So, I got to work.  The legs had little stoppers on top stop the table scratching the floor, so I prised them off which left a handy little hole for me to start with the drill.

This is my Dad’s drill, and the drill bits borrowed from the neighbour next door. I have never used a drill in my life!  First time for everything eh?

 

Well, that went better than expected.  I suspect the drill bits are not as sharp as they could be, either that or drilling is a very slow process, as it took quite a long time to drill a hole of about 1.5cm.

Next I cut a piece of wood the length of the table and drilled a hole in the end of that too. Measuring carefully so the holes would match.  I stuck a length of dowel in to check and luckily they did

So I cut 4cm of dowel for each leg and used my trusty glue to stick them into place.

The next morning, however, I wasn’t quite so happy. I had just stuck the dowel in the holes without checking that they would match up to the holes in the wood lengths, and of course they didn’t! They were only a tiny bit out, a few millimetres, but enough that the wooden length would not go over them both at the same time.

That was a bit of a disaster really.  The dowels were stuck fast and could not be pulled out. I was really annoyed with myself for failing to check such a simple thing.

So I tapped them with the hammer.  That didn’t work.

So I tapped the legs with the hammer. That didn’t work either.

Then I whacked the legs with the hammer and dislodged some of the side slats across the table.

It was time to put the hammer down and walk away.

I made a coffee.

 

How could I tackle this from a different angle? 

I know, I could make the holes bigger in the wood lengths.

So, I dug out my old Dremel, found a sandpaper bit for it and sanded the holes until they were big enough to slot over the dowel.  Result!

Now to stick the wood lengths to the actual roof part.  This is just a temporary measure until I can figure out how to screw or nail on an angle.

Yeah, so this was a bit trickier. How was I going to keep the wood in place while the glue set?

A quick text message to a friends husband to ask if he had “any of those strap things that holds things in place” got me a set of strap things. Good job people can work out what I am asking for!

I glued the two pieces of wood in like this, measuring carefully.  And, yep, you’ve guessed it, it didn’t fit!

So I banged one of the pieces back out again, put the roof in place and THEN glued the slat into place. Let’s see if this will work out better.

It’s starting to look like a shed now.  Happy days!

I’ve spent another couple of hours on this part, so hours spent so far on this project is now 15.