Stutsman Warehouse: The Roof

I was never good at math. The rest of the subjects I had no problems with, but math was always an issue. When I started my undergrad and my advisor told me I had tested well enough to take calculus but only needed a single course in business math* to meet the degree requirements, I wisely chose the latter.

26 years later, and I’m still fighting my battles with mathematics.

The roof of the Eldon C. Stutsman warehouse is an exercise in geometry, with multiple intersecting lines all connecting together in one fractal ballet. Thanks to some trial and error, with a heavy emphasis on error, I’ve been able to piece it all together.

Interior supports were built from styrene sheet cut on my Cricut Plotter. I measured as many distances as I could to construct the shapes needed to hold the roof at the correct angles. However, a lot of the supports were just eyeballed and trimmed as needed.

Continuing my obsession with Rix Products, the roofs themselves were all made from Pikestuff’s Metal Roofing and Siding sheets. As before, cuts were made with a utility knife and a straightedge.

Each individual piece was tacked together on the underside with blue painter’s tape. I like using this method because it keeps all the ridges and seams aligned across the large expanse of the roof. This is important because it will be easy to notice if they don’t line up.

The exterior seams were covered with thin strips of plenum tape to represent the rubber membrane present on the prototype between each roof panel. The tape was burnished into the sheets using the back of a paintbrush handle.

Each roof was then painted with rattle can spray paint. Most are silver/aluminum, but the office building’s roof is a rusty red. Rust-Oleum paints were used exclusively.

Once dry, the panels were permanently attached to the walls with Starbond CA glue. I’m starting to like Starbond as my go-to brand, since it has both a stronger bond and is available in larger quantities than hobby-branded glue.