Bar Mills - Sokol's Furniture and Mattress Company Build

[ReadingBob]

The two front walls have had their edges mitered and now it's time to glue them together at the correct (I hope) angle using the formers included in the kit and the template in the instructions as a guide.



Now it's time to attach the front (anyway I guess it's the front  ) wall assembly to the three walls that were glued together earlier.  I had to remove a cross brace I had added to those three walls to get the front to fit nice and neat.  Not a big deal, I needed to remove it anyway to drop lights into the structure when I get around to lighting it.  More formers are used to keep the angles close to correct.



At this point the instructions say to drink a beer if you drink beer.  Who am I to not follow instructions?     Looks pretty good doesn't it?  The structure, not the beer.  Okay, the beer too.  Anyway, there's a problem with the structure.  I'll get to that in a little bit.



Time to assemble the foundation.  There were a lot of corners to miter on this one too.  It has to match the structure of course.  Some of the joints will be hidden by the loading docks so there's no reason to be overly fussy with them unless your obsessed with such things.   



Okay, the problem with the structure.  No, it's not the little corner of the wall that I ripped off with the plane.  That'll be covered up with trim later on.  It's actually the lower wall itself.  I kind of, sort of, knew that it wasn't right when I braced it, painted it and weather it.  Had I looked ahead I would confirmed it before getting this far.  The problem, which is really hard to see, is that the wall was cut upside down.  The clapboards run the wrong way.  From any distance it looks fine.  I left it this way for a few days but I just couldn't do it.  It bugged me and I had to correct it.



I'm 100% certain that had I (or Tom) contacted Bar Mills we would have had a new wall ASAP.  But I happened to have some clapboard siding in my stash that was a perfect match for what's used in this kit so I cut out a new wall, braced it and weathered it.  If it had been any wall other than one with only three large door openings I would have contacted Bar Mills for a replacement.  No way would I want to cut out a bunch of window openings like Jan did on his grain elevator build.   



More in a moment...

[ReadingBob]

Removing the upside down wall was easy work using a single edge razor blade.  With the right side wall in place now I can sleep better at night.    



Time to start the loading docks.  I debated, with myself, whether to stain the parts prior to assembly or after the fact.  Normally I like to stain first but I talked myself out of it and went with after the face, which is what the instructions recommend.  I had to identify the parts for each dock, remove them from the sheets and assemble them using either the peel and stick materials and/or glue.  I found it best to locate the parts for one particular section first, assemble it and them move on to the next.  If you gathered up all the parts for all the docks at one time you'd probably have a hard time figuring out which was which.



More loading dock assembly.  Using a mini angle to get the legs on straight.



Still working on the various loading docks.



That's all the pictures I've uploaded so I guess now's a good time to stop.     Hopefully the next update won't take nearly as long to appear as this one did.

Thanks for following along!   

[deemery]

An old trip I remember from high school wood shop (A Long Time Ago) is to butt a piece of wood up against that edge when planing, so if the plane chips off something, it comes from the sacrificial wood, rather than the model.


I like those spring clamps for bracing and for laminating sheeting to subwalls.  You can't have too many clamps!



dave

[Zephyrus52246]

Great work so far,Bob.  Nice job on the signs.


Jeff

[ACL1504]

Bob,

Wonderful job on the build. I'm very sorry you have had the trouble with the kit. I'll replace the clapboard and of course you can get from my staff of Slim's LED's for what you will be using. Now I know for sure you'll never buy lunch again.

Tom

[ReadingBob]

An old trip I remember from high school wood shop (A Long Time Ago) is to butt a piece of wood up against that edge when planing, so if the plane chips off something, it comes from the sacrificial wood, rather than the model.


I like those spring clamps for bracing and for laminating sheeting to subwalls.  You can't have too many clamps!



dave

Great tip Dave!  Thanks for sharing.  I store those spring clamps right on the power cord for the Ott light on my work bench.  They are really handy and use then quite often.

[ReadingBob]

Great work so far,Bob.  Nice job on the signs.


Jeff

Thanks Dr. Jeff!  Great to have you following along.   

[ReadingBob]

Bob,

Wonderful job on the build. I'm very sorry you have had the trouble with the kit. I'll replace the clapboard and of course you can get from my staff of Slim's LED's for what you will be using. Now I know for sure you'll never buy lunch again.

Tom

Don't worry about the wall Tom.  Like I mentioned, I'm sure if we had asked the Bar Mill's guys would have had one in the mail ASAP.  Don't worry about replacing the clapboard.  That's the first time I used it and it only took a small piece.  I think I bought five sheets of it so I have plenty left.   

[GPdemayo]

When stuff happens, it's all about the recovery.....good work Bob. 

[postalkarl]

Hi Bob:

Looks like its coming along nicely. That is A complicated kit. It has lots of parts. Continue on and good luck with your build.

Karl

[ReadingBob]

Time for an update on this one.  Well, maybe past due time for an update.   

Next up I assemble the various doors.  Most are made up of layers and the trim components use the 'peel and stick' stuff.  I had painted the doors with Floquil Primer and the trim with Polly Scale Reefer Gray and weather them before assembly.  First I peeled off the backing.


Okay, this is just me.  I don't totally trust the peel and stick stuff so I add a few small dots of glue to the back of the trim piece before attaching it to door.


Then I position it in place and wipe off any glue that might ooze out.  I know, if I didn't add the glue I wouldn't have to do that.


Next up I attached all the loading docks to the oddly shaped foundation.  They fit really well.  I was quite happy with the end result.  At this point they haven't been stained yet.  I did that after they were glued in place.


Back to the doors.  I attached the precut 'glass' planes (after spraying one side of the glass with DullCoat and allowing it to dry) to the doors using MicroScale Industries Micro Kystal Klear as glue.  I also use this stuff as glass but it works well for gluing glass planes in place.

 
Now that the doors are together I wanted to glue them in place prior to attaching the structure to the foundation.  I figured it'd be easier to clamp them in place, when necessary, while the foundation is not attached.


More in a moment... 

[postalkarl]

Hi Bob:

Hey looking great so far. It is a rather complicated kit. I know what you mean. I wouldn't have slept well with an upside down wall either. anyway great work so far.

Karl

[ReadingBob]

This picture is similar to the last one I posted but from a lower angle.  It gives you a good sense for how unusual the shape of this structure is.


Next up I assembled the cornice.  Like the doors this is a multi layer component that uses some peel and stick materials.


And, like the doors, I added a little glue here and there in spite of the peel and stick backing.   


When the cornice pieces are assembled they need to be glued to the top edge of the walls.  45 degree angles need to be sanded for the normal corners and, for the odd angled corners there was some trial and error involved.  I used an old NWSL True Sander and took my time to get everything to fit as best I could.


Overall I was pretty happy with the cornice when I was done.  I was a bit worried about it going into this step but it wasn't as bad as I had feared it would be. 


Next it was time to move on to the shed and skylight that go on the roof.  These are kits within a kit but I won't go into too much detail on either.  I'll just highlight one or two things about them.


More in a moment... 

[ReadingBob]

Hi Bob:

Hey looking great so far. It is a rather complicated kit. I know what you mean. I wouldn't have slept well with an upside down wall either. anyway great work so far.

Karl

Thanks Karl!  It's been a fun one overall.  I hope it's worthy of a place on Tom's layout when I done with it.

[ReadingBob]

The little shed on the roof has a small water tank on top of it.  A nice little option the builder is given is to wrap the tank in boards and then attach bands around the boards or to wrap it with a Sokol's sign.  I opted for the sight.  I cut the sign out and lightly weathered it to tone it down a bit and then stuck it on some 3M transfer tape and trimmed the tape to fit.


I made sure the sign was the exact height of the tank so there'd be no overhand and trimmed it, length wise, so it would just reach around the tank and touch itself.  I did all that before removing the backing for the 3M Transfer Tape.


Time to peel off the backing.


Then I carefully wrapped the tank with the sign.


Both the shed and the skylight come with cardstock roofs.  The instructions note that these are to be painted.  There's no additional roofing material to apply to them.  I have some roofing paper I picked up a the Expo last year so I opted to use that on both.  I glued the cardstock roofs in place (after painting the underside my trim color and applying 3M Transfer Tape to them).


More in a moment...