Restoring a Tri-ang DH/7 Townhouse - Part Three

The roof of my house had sustained a bit of damage over the years. 

There was an area where the ply had been damaged along one of its edges and part of one of the corners was broken off.

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos as I made my repairs, so I can only describe how I did them, though I do have before and after photos too.

This was the area where the plywood had delaminated on the bottom edge of the roof. To repair it, I used a thin (1 mm) sheet of balsa wood from my stash. 

I could see that the damaged area was three layers of ply deep, so with a craft knife, I cut a small piece of balsa to fit into the deepest part of the damaged area and glued this in place.

Next, I cut another piece of the balsa to fit the second deepest part of the delaminated area and glued this in place too (over the first piece).

Lastly, I cut a piece of balsa to fit the remaining part of the damaged area and glued this in place (over the previous two pieces) bring the surface up to the correct level.

I then used wood filler to fill in the little gaps around the balsa. When the wood filler was dry, I gave the whole area a sand down with a sanding block for a nice flat, smooth finish.

I could have just filled the whole area with filler but because it was on the edge of the roof and was quite deep I felt that wood would give the repair more strength.

Repairing the corner piece was a bit trickier and so is describing how I did it, largely because I was making it up as I went along!

I started with a length of balsa wood about 2 cm deep and perhaps 3 cm wide and cut the length to match the length of the area which needed to be reinstated.

Then, using a craft knife, I basically whittled the underside of the piece to fit the shape of the roof corner it would sit on. The process was: shave a bit off, try the piece in the gap, shave a bit more, try it in the gap, and so on until I had decent fit.

Next I glued the piece in place on the corner of the house. This left me with quite a clunky square corner which I then shaved (with my craft knife) and sanded into the correct shape.

Again, I used wood filler to fill the gaps between the original wood and my repair and sanded it all smooth once the wood filler was dry.

I must admit that I was quite proud of how it worked out! The old "just give it a go" motto never fails. Actually, it really does but we won't go into that. 🙃

Until next time,

Zoe