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Building construction is by far my favorite part of display building and the farm toy hobby. There are so many different styles and shapes of buildings that the possibilities of recreation are endless. I find myself spending more time researching the buildings that I want to build for my display than I do actually building them. But all that research pays off in the end with an accurately recreated model to put on my display or shelf.
Like I said in my last article, I do make some mistakes. I think it would be good to point out a few mistakes in one of my more recent projects. I recently completed a pole barn for storing equipment in. I was really excited to build this building, so the planning stage was short, really short. I just headed to my shop one afternoon and started building. The lack of planning resulted in a few unnecessary mistakes.
The first major flaw that I found after completing the building was that the pole spacing was incorrect. When I was building the shed, I just grabbed a tractor and made a guess as to what looked good for pole spacing. The poles ended up being placed on 14 foot centers. While doing research for another project, I ran across the website www.bgsplanco.com. On this site I found a few different plans for pole barns. More importantly I found out that their typical pole spacing was 12 foot on centers on an open front shed. Whoops. Then mistake number two came along. I had poles placed at 14 foot centers on the open side and the closed sides. In the plan that was of the same size as the building I built, the poles on the enclosed sides were placed on 6 foot centers.
These little mistakes were not that big, but there was one other thing about the shed that was bothering me. When I was installing the tin on my building, I glued the rows of tin together before I glued them to the shed. This was no big deal on the back wall where the tin was only one panel high, but on the sides and roof where the tin overlapped this became a problem. Not all seams line up perfectly on real buildings, but for the most part they are close. None of the seams lined up very well on my building. A friend of mine said it added character to the building, which it does. But it was not the prototype look I was personally going for.
So now I am in the beginning stages of rebuilding this shed with my new found knowledge in hand. Hopefully this time I can stick to Mr. Schomburg’s rule of building so it only has to be built once. These mistakes have also given me the inspiration and knowledge to build a few other buildings in the same style for my new display.
Where to start? I think I have hit on the plan before you build by now, so my first stage of construction is laying the building out. The main concern with these buildings is having the correct pole spacing. I have decided to build these building with the roof in place, so I have a little more freedom in construction methods. I decided that a 1/8 inch masonite ceiling and roof assembly would be great for these buildings. With this I would have a solid and accurately built roof. After getting a ceiling piece cut to the approximate size I began to lay out where my holes would need to be drilled for the poles. Once I was satisfied with the placement, I drilled an 1/8 hole where each pole would be. The holes are just drilled in at this point; the dowels will be glued in later in construction.
Once I got all of the holes drilled, I trimmed the ceiling section to correct size. From there I moved on to cutting the roof sections. From my research, I found that most farm buildings have either a 4/12 or 4/10 roof sloop. This means that there is 4 feet of rise for every 10 feet of run in the rafters. I decided to use a 4/10 roof slope. I began by cutting another piece of masonite to the same width as each building. I then laid out the correct roof slope and cut out each piece. I made enough angled pieces to have a few supports spaced out in the roof section. I then glued them to the ceiling section. After the angled pieces had dried, I began working on the roof.
The roof sections were constructed out of two pieces of 1/8 inch masonite. I began by cutting an angle along one side of each piece so the two pieces would fit together well along the ridgeline. I then glued them to the angled pieces. Once the glue had dried, I cut the edges off so they would be flush with the ceiling section.
This gives you a good idea of the first few steps in constructing a pole barn. Next month I will go through the steps of framing and finishing these sheds.
Until next month,
Chris
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