Page 4 of this illustrated build will take us all the way to the end of the main structure. We left you last time finishing up on the lines for where the Soffits will attach to the walls. I hope you marked above/below the line according to the plans so you know where to put these soffits. Let’s attach the soffits now. 

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So we get started on gluing the soffits into place.  Assuming you marked the walls correctly, you simply add the Gap filling CA Glue to the edge of the Soffit piece and stick it on there.  Since these pieces will be just ‘hanging there’ until we get the roof pieces on, you’ll probably want to hold it tightly in place for about a minute, and – as long as it looks good – go ahead with the thin CA glue to get it really secure. 

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The actual order of placement of the soffits isn’t really essential to the process, but you’ll want to be sure you can get all the pieces in without disturbing any other pieces too much.  I chose to jump from the outside wall to the short wall, but you can do yours in any order. 

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And you can see the soffits are now in place.  Add an extra line of the thin CA glue for extra strength and allow to dry completely before continuing.  Our next steps will be to add the angeled roof pieces so it will want to break these soffits off if it’s not well dryed. 

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While using the thin CA glue, be sure to hit the connections between the two soffits, not just the connection between the soffit and the wall.  Anywhere a piece connects with another piece. 

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This seems as good a place as any to stop for a moment and allow the soffits to dry really well before continuing.  As we move into the roof pieces in these next steps, you’ll need to really plan ahead.  With the fast gluing times and the complicated angles, you’ll need to know what is going on where and when to get it all in place quickly.  An extra set of hands is really helpful here. 

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While the soffits are drying, we move to the roof pieces.  This picture shows the outside lines marked on the bottom side of the flat roof piece.  There is no defined ‘bottom side’, so pick a side and it will do.  Using the same technique as in the beginning, mark the edges all of the edges of this roof piece.  Check with the plans to see how this is all going to go together in the end. 

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After marking the edges, we now layout the top bracing, making particular note of the orientation of each piece, then we glue, using the same method as on everything else.  First – the Gap Filling, then the Thin stuff.  Notice the extra glue on the connections between each bracing. 

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This is the front step-out for the walls, with all the top bracing glued into place.  Notice I haven’t run the thin stuff along the edges (I ran out and had to go buy more at the local hobby shop). 

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Now it’s time for the more difficult parts.  Because of the odd angles that are generated due to the double-angled roof, the pieces may not fit as perfectly as you’d like at first.  The objective is to get enough gap filling glue in place to hold them until they dry.  You won’t want them to be completely dry until you have them all in place with the flat roof piece on top.  An extra set of hands here is very helpful as well.  (in this image you can see I cut my front window wall soffit pieces just a hair short – oops). 

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In this picture, you can see I have the side walls roof pieces in place, along with the two short side roof pieces and it’s ready to receive the front roof piece.  If you do it in this order, you can ensure that the front piece is centered on the soffit. 

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With all of the angled roof pieces in place and with the glue in a semi-dry state, you can now dump the glue on the top edges and prep to put the actual flat roof in place.  If you have the pieces all correct, the bracing you put on the bottom side of the flat roof will fit perfectly just inside each of the angeled roof pieces. 

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With plenty of glue in place, get the Flat Roof piece to sit into place, applying sufficient pressure down so that the seems are as tight as you can get them.  Assuming the soffits are on strong and the angled roof pieces are at least semi-dryed, it should be plenty strong to add that pressure downward.  On this one, you’ll probably want to hold it there for a number of minutes.  If it’s secure enough, some good heavy books may also help while the CA glue finishes drying.  Since you can’t use the thin CA glue from the underside, you’ll probably need to wait for this flat roof piece to dry, turn the whole thing over, and then apply liberal amounts of thin CA glue to the seams. 

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It’s almost done now – add the two back pieces, holding in place until it’s well set.  If everything is in it’s perfect place, this back piece will fit in perfectly.  If not – you’ll need to fenagle it just a bit.  Put in both the top and bottom back pieces.  When completed, you, as the builder, will decide whether you want to fully close off the back with spare flat material.  

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And that’s it!  All of the structure pieces are in place, they are all glued and strengthened and tight.  Eveything fits and looks great.  Well – almost all of the pieces – you are probably wondering about the extra couple of smaller pieces.  These are the exterior base pieces and we suggest finishing them with texture and/or paint prior to applying to the structure.  They are really more of a finish piece and not a structure piece so they aren’t included on this build process.   The other big piece you have left over is for the back of the Atrium.  We’ll document that later. 

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So here it is - the final structure completely assembled.  What did it take you?  2 hours?  Maybe 3?  Not bad for having the major portion of this house complete.  Now we move onto much more detailed and finish pieces that will take more work and time.  

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So – I hope you’ve enjoyed this illustrated guide to building the main structure of the Christmas Vacation Advent House.  We are always interested in your comments, questions and suggestions at our Forum.   Be sure to stay signed up there and keep an eye out for more detailed information coming.  Be sure and buy all your parts here and save yourself time and frustration of miscuts.(cj)

Advent House Plans

So if you followed through with all of the steps from the previous postings, you should now have all the front walls in place with just the two side walls to add. So let’s do that…..

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After gluing the vertical bracing onto the side wall, you are now ready to glue the side wall into place.  Following the same steps as previously mentions, use the Gap filling glue and be sure to hit the outside edge of the bottom bracing.  You’ll also want to be sure to add glue to the front edge of the side wall as well as the side of the vertical bracing.

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And that’s the main structure of this Christmas Vacation Advent House.  Be sure to run the Ultra thin glue lines on all inside connection points, as well as on the front of the inside corner between the short wall and the main window side wall. 

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This is another shot from the front.  You can clearly see the vertical bracing extending up above the walls (reason forthcoming).

Now would be a good time to carefully test your connection points and add the Ultra Thin CA glue where needed to ensure you have a solid structure.

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This would make a great stopping point and encourage you visit our forums to ask questions, relate to others going through this same process and look for additional tips and tricks.

This next section involves angles so taking a short break here might provide you with a little extra patience in case things don’t line up exactly as you want them too.  Keep in mind that you have the option of adding an exterior roof finish to cover any possible roof contruction flaws. 

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Now we start to add the Middle bracing which will provide additional support to the angeled roof pieces, as well as provide a little more outwards extension of the roof pieces.  Without these pieces, either the roof pieces would sit too low or the wall piece would be too tall and you’d have window problems.

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You can see here that the middle bracing pieces come pre-edged with the needed angle.  Glue these Middle Bracing pieces in with the sloped edge out and the angle sloping up and back.

Use the same gluing techniques discussed earlier to attach all of this middle bracing.  Be sure to dry-fit the pieces first to ensure they are all properly oriented.

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After gluing all of the Middle Bracing pieces into place, you’ll note that the ends of the middle bracing are not angled correctly.  You can use sandpaper or a dremel tool to sand these end edges equal to that of the connecting bracing..

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Now we mark for the soffits that are to attach to the front of each wall.  Refer to the plans for the exact location of these markings.  Using a straight-edge of some sort, mark the full line where the soffit will sit.  Be sure to mark where the soffit will sit on that line (above or below the marked line).

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This picture shows the marking of the soffit line on the front wall assembly.

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If you look closely at this picture, you can see the markings along this side wall for where the soffits will be glued on.  Having marked all of the walls on the exterior, at the location specified on the plans, you are now ready to glue the soffits on.  That will be next…

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Stay tuned for the next set of steps.  We’re getting really close to already having finished the main structure.  A few more pieces and we’ll be ready to get into the other details like the Advent House Windows and the Atrium!

We left off last time by showing make a point of the caution needed while using CA glue. In case you are interested, you can read more about CA glue here, but in short, CA glue is a fast acting and powerful glue used in many different applications. I was introduced to CA Glue when I got into RC Model Airplanes. I found that CA Glue is particularly useful in bonding MDF due to how smooth and dense the material is. However, at the same time, CA Glue can be dangerous. Be very careful not to get it on your skin – it can take days to wear off, and please, please, please don’t get this in your eyes. Safety goggles aren’t a bad idea here. Lastly, once this stuff drys/cures – it’s solid and trying to separate 2 pieces of MDF once it is glued will result in broken MDF and not a broken bond. So please be sure you know where the piece is going before you glue it down. ok? – ok, enough of that.

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So now we glue.  I used the ‘Gap Filling’ CA Glue for the main attachments.  I found the ‘Gap Filling’ version was far less likely to run, it didn’t soak into the material too quickly and was just flexible enough to allow changes for just a few moments upon placing the part.  If you work quickly (having planned ahead), you can probably get several pieces on (like the 3 right-side pieces) before they are fully set.  However, better to plan on just putting them on correctly the first time.

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The amount of glue needed will depend on surface area and will take some practice.  Again – I’ll make a note here - if you have some glue push out and run, Please, do not wipe it with your finger.  Use a paper towel and keep your fingers away from this glue.  If the paper towel sticks too much, it’s easy to scrape off with your X-Acto knife or sand off with sandpaper.  I can’t say the same about getting this glue on your skin.

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This picture shows the Bottom Bracing all glued down to the Bottom Piece.  Make note that there are only 3 pieces on the left side and 3 pieces on the right side.

We are very impressed with how strong this bond is.

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So after giving the bottom piece just a few moments to become solid, you are ready to start preparing the walls for attachment to the base.  You start by fitting the short side wall into place (reference the plans for placement locations) and holding the Vertical Bracing in place.  Again – check the plans for placing of the vertical bracing.  Please make note that the vertical bracing sits on top of the bottom bracing, thus causing it to stick up and above the height of the wall, since the wall is actually sitting on the bottom piece.  Yes, this has a reason that you will see when adding the Middle Bracing to the structure.

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The following few posts will be to used illustrate my recent build. The purpose of these posts is to show you, step-by-step, how to build the main structure of the Advent House. The details/descriptions here, with the images, will provide you with greater detail and make your build faster and easier. Questions and comments can be posted in the AHP Forums.  

As it is with all of the pieces included in these pictures, the dimensions and details about each piece are provided in the Advent House Plans, that you can puchase here. You’ll need a number of tools to build this advent house structure as shown in these images.  Here is the intitial list: 

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• ~2+oz Super Thin CA Glue (Hobby/RC Airplane shop)
• ~2+oz Gap Filling CA Glue (Hobby/RC Airplane shop)
• X-acto Knife
• 12″ Hard-edged Ruler
• Paper Towels
• Sharpened Pencil
• Sandpaper (100-200 grit) or a dremel tool with sanding drum(s)

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There will be other tools needed as we get further into the build (like the Atrium and the Windows).  But for the structure of it all, this is a pretty good list.

Be sure to follow these postings and post questions and comments on the AHP forums.

Hello World.  Yeah, yeah – the obligatory ‘Hello World’.  But, none-the-less – here it is.  This will be the blog posting location for notices and updates (other than forum listings) for Advent House Plans.