Category: Skylights

Today, we rubbed down all the pieces of our Skylight framework, making sure that any dribbles, drips and sags were removed. It was a slow process and it took most of the day to process 43 individual pieces, and we also applied more wood filler, especially on knots as these were upsetting the curing process of the polyester resin coatings.
We managed to apply a second undercoat layer to all the critical areas where the triple glazing will be fitted, to ensure a good air tight seal on the surfaces.
Tomorrow, in the afternoon, we will check this second coat, do any further rubbing and then start applying the final white glossy layer.

Yesterday, we started the process of painting the framework of the Skylight. We first removed all the tarpaulins we had covering things against any possible rain showers, and then unscrewed and dismantled the whole thing. All 33 rafters came into the workshop and the longer ridge beams and rim parts were left outside in the house but grouped together and much further away from any chance of being showered upon.
The first job was to coat these longer pieces with an undercoat layer of the polyester resin paint (this is a two part mixture) and leave it to cure hard. We almost did all 12 of the longer pieces.
Today, we finished off the last 3 pieces we couldn’t do yesterday and then returned back to the workshop to continue with the undercoat process on the 33 rafters. A filled some holes, sanded and then painted them with the resin.

We finished with a little time to spare so we started sanding the first dry layer on the longest pieces outside to get rid of the spikey bits and get it smooth ready for the second coat, on Monday, when it will be the white coloured covering.

Over the last couple of days, we have been fitting the final set of wedge shaped pieces to the outer rim of the skylight framework.
We got interrupted by rain for a little bit but instead, we came into our workshop, this was yesterday, and made some 24mm thick gap filling timber pieces, made from two layers of 90mm wide 12mm thick and 8feet long strips! They were glued and nailed together using the short 20mm brad nails. These gap fillers are for doing the wide steel parts of the kerb where we need to bring the triple glazing unit support batten closer to where the inner surface of the Skylight.
Today, we continued fitting the remaining wedges , including using our new gap fillers and got it all done by the end of the day. We managed to cover our finished framework with plastic tarpaulin sheets, before the rain came!
Tomorrow, we will take the whole thing apart, back into their individual pieces and start the process of applying some level of wood filler to hide various defects, knot holes, joints and anything else that may prevent a good contact area between the rubber gaskets and the glass of the glazing units. On top of that will then have the finishing coating of the white resin to seal the timber from against moisture movement and evaporation.

With yesterday’s short afternoon and today’s full day, we continued with the task of fitting the extra battens to all the rafters, the ridge and the outer rim areas, to support the triple glazing units. We finished off the two ends of the Skylight with the ones for the rafters and then proceeded to put on the first set of the “wedge” shaped battens up on the ridge beam, lining them up to the two rafter battens so the glass will seat as flat as possible.

We started on the second set of the wedge shaped battens, this time down on the rim outer sections and will continue with that tomorrow.

Yesterday and today, we worked on creating a set of glazing holders that will take the triple glazing units (TGU) that goes up inside the Skylight later on next year when we have constructed the first floor.
They are a series of “wedge “shaped pieces with a plywood strip glued and nailed on top. These pieces are shown in blue in the diagram.

We made 14 thinner ones for holding at the top on the ridge beam, a further 13 for the bottom position on the narrow sections of the kerb and another 9 to sit on the wider kerb sections.
We used our circular table saw machine to slice up the wood with various 15degrees angles, then put them through the planer to smooth off the sawn surfaces. Then we pulled out a sheet of 9mm high quality hardwood plywood and sliced 45mm wide strips, a total of 38 of them. 14 of them went into the planer to trim one surface to produce a 15degrees flattened area (this is where the tray of moisture absorbing powder will sit) when the plywood is stuck to the “wedges”.

We then stuck the plywood to all the tops of the wedge shaped pieces made earlier.


We spent the last hour outside, screwing and locking down the rafters to the ridge beam and to the rim edges so we can be confident that the alignment of the wedges (when we come to screw and glue them into place) will match the existing long batten already on the rafters.
So on Saturday, we can start doing that job and by early next week, we can paint all the wood work with the white resin and glass fibre and have that all done. The only job left to fiddle with is the Bird Disruptor system (we are waiting for our stainless steel order to arrive).

Yesterday, we proceeded with the job of creating the four Hip Rafters, two for each end of the skylight. The tops were planed with two 10.5degrees sloping edges and then cut a very complicated doubled angled ends to fit into the corner of the rim edge.

It was quite fiddly to get all the distances correct, all the angles measured and then sliced to remove the excess material. It took us most of the day to do these four pieces.

Today, we got on with the next step in creating the skylight module, or as we discovered, some call it a “roof lantern” because of the shape and one assumes the glow of the room’s lighting will make it look like a flat lantern glowing in the dark!
Anyway, today, we created 44 pieces of timber, which are the glazing battens that will be fitted on the sides of the rafters and provide something to push the triple glazing units against. We needed 36 shorter lengths and 8 longer pieces, each being 15mm thick by 22mm high and either 1200 or 1700 mm long.
We got four lengths of our 63mm CLS timber, selected to be straighter and with not too many knots and chopped them up into ten lengths of 1200mm and four lengths of 1700mm. Each of these were then sent through our main bench circular saw and ripped them in half in both ways to create a heap of rough sawn timber measuring approximately 18mm by 29mm, at which point, each piece was bent under a little bit of stress to make sure we didn’t end up with battens that would break at a knot etc. We rejected about five of them. Next, we used our planer to trim all the surfaces smooth and get uniform thicknesses, passing all the pieces in the planer several times until we arrived at our required size. We repeated the process of testing the batten, but this time, selecting the best looking ones without too many defects or further knots and rejected half a dozen more pieces.
The final set were then passed through our router table with a little quarter round cutter so we could smooth off the outer two edges to help with the glass fibre and resin coatings we will be doing later on. Seems a lot of time to make a small pile of wood!

On Monday, we will glue and nail each of these new battens on to the sides of each rafter, making sure the batten is straight and flat (for the glass triple glazing units to press up to) and not be fooled by the rafter itself as it may “look” straight and flat but maybe not! We will make sure by using some form of a straight metal ruler etc. to position the batten as we fit each one!

Today, we continued with the task of adjusting and fitting each individual rafter to fit smoothly both at the Ridge beam and at the outer rim edge too. Another 14 were done, this time along the front.
After lunch, we started working on the two ends, cutting the ridge beam down so it is flushed against the last two front and back rafters but only cut down 65mm until reaching the last third layer which we don’t chop off. We decided that this third layer will have a sticking out ledge of 30mm, for the final three rafters to sit on. The easy rafter (the 90degrees one) was done, plus doing the shorter Rim pieces, fitting them into place doing butt joints with the outer Rim edges.

We finished off the day by starting to work on the Hip rafters, there are four of them, two at each ends. These hip rafters are angled at 10.5degrees instead of the 15degrees that all the other rafters are. Also these hip rafters have two little sloping sides on the top surface and these are also at the 10.5degrees angle.

We will continue with that task on Friday but for tomorrow, we will sit down and order samples of various slates from different companies, along with a quoted price for the amount of tiles we would need.

Today, we got on with the task of cutting and slicing the complicated shaped ends on all the rafters, each having five particular cuts in total, using our band saw and various templates to hold and guide the rafter pieces through the cutting process.

Then these 25 rafters went outside to join the other two we had already made and placed into position (but not fully seated).
Each separate rafter will be sanded at both ends so it will sit neatly into their respected slots and form a smooth join all the way around.
We got as far as adjusting all the rafters of the back set and tomorrow, we will do the front 14 rafters. Once those are done, we will tackle the two ends of the Skylight and get the hip framework sorted out, each end having two diagonal hip rafters plus one at 90 degrees, which all come together, along with the two rafters of the main section, to a single point up on the end of the ridge beam.

This afternoon, we set up our chop saw on our work table to cut up 9 lengths of timber into 25 pieces to do all the front and back rafters of the Skylight. Each is 1273mm long on the edge (or 1299mm in actual wood length), because both ends have a 15degrees angle cut.

Then we started building a template that will hold each of these rafter pieces, run along a fence guide on our band saw machine and slice a cut at a predetermined position and depth.

We want to be able, repeatedly, to put in all the rafters to get exactly the same series of cuts so we end up with the same complicated shaped ends. There are a total of five cuts needed (three on one end and two on the other) so we will have to adjust and modify our template and fence guide five times over before we have it all done.
Tomorrow, we will continue with this setup process and work on each of the five “methods” at a time to achieve our goal .. eventually – phew!