102 The Navajo Mining Railway - Depot Shakes Part 4

It's Friday night.  I've got a hot cup of tea, and Discovery Channel's "Monsters" playing on the computer.  Let's work on the depot roof.  I want to assemble the depot this weekend, so we have to make some progress today!

We finished one roof section yesterday...so let's finish the other section tonight.

Shake, shake, shake...meanwhile two guys on tv are hunting big crocodiles using cameras and sticks.  I'm safe in the basement.  Shake, shake, shake...

Um, I'm running really low on shakes!

The guy in the boat is about to be crocodile food...I love the internet!  Shake...shake...shake...

Oh no...now I'm REALLY short of shakes.  Shoot.

I'm not going to make it.  Drat!  I need to make more shakes.  Ok, we can do this and STILL finish tonight!

This is all that is left.  I need about five times this amount.  Better get out the dye!

100 The Navajo Mining Railway - Depot Shakes Ctd...

I'm going to spend about 45 minutes putting shakes on the roof.

This is a slow, painstaking process, but an excellent way to learn patience and attention to detail.  I put on some easy listening music (Pink Floyd) and proceeded to shake!  I put the glue on a bit heavier than normal to give some hold to the shakes.

Slowly but surely, three rows are completed.  I'm careful to keep them straight and to try to overlap them as much as possible.

The silver grey color comes out well, along with some natural browns already in the wood.  Four lines done!

Here we wrap up the night with five lines done.  Yes, it takes time, but the effect is striking when its complete.  You can't get a roof like this, even with laser shingles.

096 The Navajo Mining Railway - Shakes for the Depot Roof

Let's start working on the depot roof.  Shakes were common out west, made from trees up in the mountains.  Not shingles, mind you, which are sawn.  Shakes are chopped with an axe.

The plans had a tarpaper roof, but I think the shakes would give it more character.

Shakes can be almost any size, usually between 13-16 inches long, 4-6 inches wide and 1/2 inch to inch thick, per Wikipedia.  I'm going to keep the project cheap and use coffee stirrer sticks.  I bought a box for a buck at the dollar store.  It is really rough, unpredictable wood, which is exactly what will make the roof look good!  These sticks are rough 6-8 inches scale wide.

I double distress them on each side with a razor saw.

I decided to cut them 18 inches long.

After setting up the cutter I stacked a few up to see if they look ok.  Thinking back they probably should be a tad longer, but this is going to be fine.

I figured out that we'll need about 40 stirrers.

Each of the boards was double distressed, and you can see the grain here.  I was intentionally sloppy with this as each shake needs its own character.

I'm getting about 15 shakes per board, so we'll have about 600 of these when we are done.

To pull them out of the cutter I use a very sharp tip tweezer so that I can stick the board instead of trying to grab it.

Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop....I worked on this about an hour and got tired.  Watched a video while I did this.  Headed to bed.