The only rough edges on our fascia panels were where the runs finish at the gable end. There are two on the north end and one on the south – the east run of fascia ends against the stub of wall that extends out from the gable end. Ric filled in the ends with bits of fascia board then cut covers from a sheet of aluminium. They wrap under the bottom of the fascia board as the panels do, but have flaps that fold round the right angle over the adjacent panel and over the top onto the sarking boards.
We coated and cooked them along with three joiners to cover where these covers lap over the panels. We coated them whilst it was raining heavily and whilst the primer went on well, the top coat was very unsatisfactory, with a lot of spots of primer showing through. We left them a couple of days and re-did them when it was warm and sunny, it all went much better and they were all fit to put up. It was a quick job to hook the covers over the bottom of the fascia board and nail through the top flap. Then we lifted the eaves trays out of the way and nailed the joiners across the join between cover and panel. Very neat.
We finished making the remaining powder-coated fascia panels we need for the north and east wings, 9 for the north side of the north wing, 6 for the east side of the east wing and a short one for the stub of fascia for the west side of the east wing, on the north end. It went smoothly enough, with fewer re-coatings needed as we improved our handling of the un-cooked panels – around three days work to cut and fold the panels, clean them, spray them with primer, cook them, spray them with top coat, cook them, make the joiners from aluminium 2” x 1/7” bar, coat them, install them and install the eaves trays above them. The joiners covered much better than with the first batch, I needed to recoat only two of them. Again, it really improved the appearance of the fascia.
With the aluminium
folder, the powder sprayer and the oven all working, we pressed ahead with
creating all the remaining dozen panels we needed for the north and east wings
on the courtyard side. We processed them in pairs, more than that and I
struggled to lift them in and out of the spray booth without brushing them
against me or the spray booth. Indeed the biggest problems throughout were
caused by poor handling. Two panels had enough defects that I recoated them, which
was OK, but did not produce as even a finish as the first topcoat.
I noticed
that the resin primer powder behaved quite differently from the polyester top
coat. It was easier and quicker to spray on in even coats and I could cover
three panels from one bottle of powder. The top coat took longer to apply, was
more liable to blow out of the sprayer unevenly, took a higher airflow setting
and used half as much again as the primer – two panels per bottle. I did get
better with the spraying, but in fact the process was quite forgiving – it was
not difficult to get a good finish. I bothered less about the top section of
each panel, which would be under eaves trays and slates, working for best
results on the bottom half. With a 90 minute cycle time to clean, spray, load
into the oven, cook, cool and remove, we could get 6 panels a day done.
As we got the panels done, we fitted the first six to the fascia boards. We lifted the panels up ladders and seated them over the bottom edge of the fascia, at which point they held themselves on. I used copper 3mm x 30mm nails to fix the top fold to the bottom sarking board, checking that adjacent panels were lined up at the bottom.
We
intentionally left 1cm gaps between panels because we intended to make brackets
to cover the ends. We wanted the brackets to be distinctively different from
the panels, so the joins did not look as though had simply been done badly. I went
back to Aalco and collected three 6-metre strips on 2” x 1/8” bar. For some odd
reason aluminium bar is still sold in imperial units. The bar was surprisingly
heavy, whippy and much stronger that I would have expected. I did not take a
saw with me and could not fold the bar, so I pushed one end up one side of the
inside of the car, pulled the other end round and pushed it up the other side.
When we got home, I took them out and they sprang back to being flat straight strips.
I cut a 40cm length off and used the vice on our big workbench to hold one end whilst I tried to fold it to match the profile of the panels. It failed because I found it very difficult to fold, being so springy. When it did fold, it failed with distinctive failure lines. I gave up for a day or so and looked for (and failed to find) alternatives. So I tried again, this time going for a smooth ‘u’ shape at the bottom. After a couple of goes, I got a wide enough fold that would fit reasonably snugly over the bottom folds on the fascia panels. I measured the top 45-degree fold against the panels as I made the brackets and did these as tight as I could even though they tended to show some signs of fracturing – these would not show under the eaves trays. The brackets were for some reason much harder to coat evenly compared to the panels, possibly because the fractured areas did not charge well from the spray gun. I got them all primed, but had to give most of them two top coats. However, I got all the brackets in in one batch. The brackets were quick to install, with a single nail through a 3.5mm hole I had drilled through the top. The effect was exactly what we had hoped for and it made the fascia panels look very classy.
I pretty much straight away put the eaves protector trays on above them. The fit mostly over the sarking and under the membrane, with the short side hanging down over top tops of the panels, to carry water safely from the membrane over the edge of the roof. Whilst it did conceal the tops of the panels, the effect was really quite neat and very effective. Rain water subsequently ran onto the trays and dripped from the edges of the trays, a few mm proud of the panels. All much better that painted fascia board.
East Byreleask Steading 