Attached is a sketch of a yard light post design I have cooked up. The little hipped roof on top is something I want to do in copper. It is 22×22, and comes to a point as can be seen in the sketch. Can each of the four sides be made as a pan, with little “U” section rib covers tinned on the seams? What would you do to seal the top, where all things come together? My concept is to have a wood arrangement underneath that supports the cap with screws driven through the perimeter lip into the wood support, but the entire roof above would need to be self-supporting. With this in mind, what gage copper should I use?
Replies
Mister Micro, Copper Roofing can be done only by a Professional.
The methods and equipment are closely guarded mysteries, not for public discussion.
Joe H
Yes, you can make 4 pans and have a cap soldered over the seams. No, I would not make it freestanding. Any practical gauge of copper will tend to dent easily and look bad quickly unless there is support underneath. Build the whole thing in plywood or whatever, then roof it over. At the top, pound the seams flat against the roof for a couple inches. Fold a square of copper into a little hat and solder it on. Or, you can miter the seams and solder.
Instead of separate "U" shaped seam covers, the traditional thing to do is to make one edge bend up in an "L" shape, say an inch, and the other "Z" shaped, up one inch and over 3/4". Then you fold the top of the "Z" tight down over the "L", forming the "U". For the very top, solder on some sort of decorative cap.
Is the wood going to be only at the eaves, or will it be a plywood pyramid more like a small hip roof? If it's only at the eaves, you might want to go with 32 oz. copper. If there's continuous plywood under it, 16 oz. will be fine.
At the eaves, figure on folding the copper under and back up inside so you have a drip edge at the bottom and no fastener penetrations except up inside where they're protected from the weather. For these small pieces, you can probably do the bending with scraps of angle iron and C clamps working as an improvised brake. I haven't started my copper roof yet, but when I'm done I'll probably have enough in scraps to do something like this.
-- J.S.
You do need something to support the copper sheet. I often build hip roofed chimney caps and use 1/8"x1" copper bar for the support frame. I don't see anything in the design you have that needs to be soldered if it's folded correctly. You could either use standing seams at the hips (which I think would be a little busy for the size I'm imagining) or flat locks. 16 oz. copper is the standard for this type thing and should be readily available.
I made a hanging light fixture with a top like that (craftsman look). Use heavy gage copper (mine was about a 1/16" thick) for the triangles. I cut them on the table saw with a carbide blade. You can cut them by hand but it is a wrist work out. I bent thinner copper for the caps and solder them to the triangles. I all so added flat copper rivets for the look. For the top I bent a piece of copper to form a pyramid and brazed the joint and then soldiered the cap to the ribs.