Playhouse Rocketship - Lessons Learned

The Rocketship is not complete. I still need to finish up :

• adding a cone on top
• adding trim pieces to cover the joint where the two halves meet up in the body of the rocket
• adding some stickers or painting the rocket - Canadian flag
• adding a periscope that sticks out of the top

I've got somewhere between 10-15 hours into the project but if I was to build it again I would make some changes.

First, the things that worked.

• Rocket engines made up of 2x material
• Bandsaw circle jig - doesn't cut perfect circles but close enough for this kind of project
• White hardboard - cheap and easy to bend
• Cargo strap clamps
• Titebond III
• Cheap roto-zip clone for cutting white hardboard
  

Things to improve for next time

• Rather than overlapping halves for the inner ribs I should have just made two circles halves then bolted them together
• When gluing the White hardboard on the rocket body, I neglected to put masking tape on the upper base circle which led to the hardboard gluing to where I didn't want it to. This made separating the two halves very difficult

Still, it's been a fun and somewhat challenging project. Joshua played in the rocketship with his cousin on the weekend and they had a great time. I'm not sure when I'll get to finish it up as Rosemary has me working on other things, but in the meantime at least he's got half a rocketship.

Playhouse Rocketship - Part 10

After letting the rocketship 'cook' (dry) in the clamps for 24hrs, I removed the clamps and screws then attempted to pull the two halves apart. No dice. More persuasion did not help.

I climbed inside and slid a thin blade around on the first half or back of the rocket which should have only been glued to the bottom circle. Ahh, not so. There were two spots where glue must have squeezed out from the bottom circle onto the top one and securely fastened the side to the top circle. I freed up some of the mess with a flush cutting saw and eventually had to use a chisel to completely free it. I should have used masking tape on the top circle for that half. In any case I eventually got it apart...


It took a little help from my persuader which slipped and bashed a nice crack in the side of the rocket. A curse or two may have been heard in the shop after this incident.


Presto - a crack becomes a back 'escape' hatch.


I used my hand card to move the rocket halves separately to the house. They are pretty light but are large and so awkward to move single handely - as you can see I had some assistance.


Here's the complete-enough-for-now rocketship playhouse fully assembled in Joshua's room. I attached the rocket engines to the bottom circle with 2.5" wood screws before sliding in the top half. Plenty of room for Joshua and I to go inside and read some space books - the first one we read was 'Astronaut Handbook'.

Playhouse Rocketship - Part 9

A short one today. After the first half had dried I struggled with the clamps and installed the second half. There are two plywood circles in the base, this section was glued to only the top circle. To protect the bottom circle from squeeze-out I covered it in masking tape and was very careful when applying the glue to the top circle.

After I had everything in place I had Joshua come out and inspect the end result. Now this is really starting to look like a rocketship. (Or a grain silo)

Playhouse Rocketship - Part 8

It was quite a struggle to get it done, but I managed to get half of the rocket covered. I had picked up two cargo strap clamps to get the wood home on top of my car and I'm glad I did as they came in very handy to clamp the outer skin in place. I used up most of the rest of my clamp collection to lock it in place and I'll let it dry overnight.


After all the hard work was done Lauren and Joshua came out to inspect my work. Joshua also helped clean up the workshop a little which is always appreciated. Though it was going to be a surprise for Joshua, I ended up telling him about it since it was past his birthday anyways. He is climbed inside to check it out and is looking forward to the completed project.



Lastly I measured and cut the other half of the outer skin, then used a roto-zip tool (actually a really cheap imitation) to cut a door and a few windows. After the cutting was done I glued up some plywood ribs to the outer edges to stiffen it up for gluing.

Playhouse Rocketship - Part 7

The rocketship will be wrapped in 1/8 hardboard which is brown on one side and some sort of durable white finish on the other. This saves me from having to paint it. It's also really cheap at less than $10 per 4x8 sheet.

Each half of the rocketship will get it's own covering, so I started off with a 5' long, 43" high piece to wrap around half of the rocket. After struggling with bar clamps, quick clamps and some tie-down clamps for about 45 minutes, I realized I need to add some support to the edges of the hardboard. It will be secured at three points on the internal structure and the edges in between the rings that were free floating were bowing outwards too much. After much head scratching I realized that I could glue up some 3/4" plywood supports to the very edges of the hardboard to stiffen them up. I used a good glue to make sure they stayed (Titebond III) and pinned them in place before clamping them down to dry.


Lastly I finished up the rocket motors with a second coat of black paint.

Playhouse Rocketship - Part 6

A few days ago I gave up on the idea of getting this done for Joshua's Birthday. I was planning to take a day of this week to finish it up, but I had to take the day off to watch him as school ended one day earlier for him than Rosemary. I'll have to start earlier next year...

I glued up the circular ribs for the rocketship. The outer panels will be glued to these ribs. They are made up in four parts and each half is glued together, than secured to the other half with 1 1/4" wood screws. If I had the inclination, bolts would have been better, but assembly shouldn't have to happen very often - just to bring it into the house.

I originally planed to use the router and a straight cutting bit to trim down the ribs so that the circle pieces would all be on the same plane but gave up on that idea after trying it on some scrap - maybe next time. I used the larger circle as a template, stacked the pieces then glued and screwed two joints and screwed the other two to get a full circle. After doing this twice I had my two rib circles.


The circular ribs will be supported by some vertical ribs that will be attached to the bottom circles. I cut up three vertical ribs, one 3/4" longer than the other two. The longer piece was secured to the bottom circle, then I cut a recess in the top circle of plywood to slide it into place. Next the other two vertical ribs were glued and screwed to the top circle. My pin nailer made all of this much easier - pin the pieces in place then drill the countersink and screw them down. In the photo below you can see the cutout in the bottom plywood for the closes vertical rib.


Next I stacked up the circular ribs, adding another layer of vertical ones in between. The idea is that each circular rib half is connected to one of the circles on the bottom. The sides of the rocket will be secured to one half of the circular rib and the adjoining circle on the bottom. The circular ribs can be unscrewed and the rocket can be divided into two for transport. Since it is slightly larger than 40" it won't fit through a doorway unless this is done.



One coat of black paint on the rocket engines - looks good to me!

Playhouse Rocketship - Part 5

Early in the evening, Lauren took a quick trip out to the workshop with me and I glued up the rocket motor blanks while she played with some scrap wood and sawdust. Too bad the camera batteries died before I could get her picture :(

Later that night I finished cutting out all the quarters that will form the ribs of the rocket. The process went like this :

• trace master template onto plywood
• rough cut blank from plywood with jigsaw or bandsaw
• use pin nailer to attach two blanks, then pin the master template onto the top blank
• use bandsaw to get with 1/8-1/16 of the template
• over to the router to use a straight cutting bit with a bearing guide to cut right to the template
• disassemble and remove pins with pliers

Took about 10 minutes per set of two blanks once all the pieces were rough cut.



Lastly I put a coat of primer onto the rocket motors using a disposable foam brush. I'm tired of cleaning brushes.

Playhouse Rocketship - Part 4

A few things done but it looks like time is running low on this project. Hopefully I'll scrape together some time to get things done this weekend.

I had some other painting to do, so all I got done were two more 'quarters' for the ribs of the rocket ship. I stacked two up with the template and ran both through the bandsaw and router at the same time - this will save me a bit of time as I've got 12 total to do and only 3 done!


Lastly I finished up the 6" circles that will be the top of the rocket engines. Here's what the finished rocket engine will look like. Still debating whether or not they should be painted - Rosemary votes no.


It was a good time in the workshop as nothing bit me :)

Playhouse Rocketship - Part 3

Today I finished cutting up the last two blanks for the rocket motor circles. I've still got one more set of circles to make up (6") but I haven't glued up those blanks yet. I'll get that done today.

After finishing the cutting I moved over to my oscillating spindle sander and smoothed out all of the circles. The Ridgid OSS is a great tool and the dust collection is fine for me. I used the belt attachment to round out the circles.

The circle jig I made up the other day for the band saw works reasonably well, but the flex in the blade means the circles are not perfect. The OSS got them close enough for my rocket motors. If I need perfect circles I think I'd use the router to cut them instead. For this project perfection is not needed - it's not rocket science, it's rocket woodworking!

After the OSS it was over to the router table and a 1/4" round over bit with a guide bearing to smooth out the edges. In retrospect I probably have only done one side of the motor, but I don't think Joshua will complain.

The next thing to work on were the plywood bottoms for the rocket. These 40" diameter circles were a snap to cut on the circle jig. I first used the tablesaw to carve up two 41x41 squares, then over to the bandsaw to cut the circle out. Lastly I lined the circles up with their center holes and cleaned up the edges with the bandsaw. These two will form the base of the rocketship playouse, resting on top of the rocket motors.

Next I need 3 hollow circles to support the shell of the rocket. Two for the main body and one for the bottom of the nose cone. Rather than wasting 1.5 sheets of plywood I decided to cut quarter circles out of one sheet and glue them up to form the circles. They should be plenty strong enough for this playouse.

First I made up a template for the quarters with some scrap 3/8" plywood. I used the bandsaw circle jig to cut the quarter circle template at the same diameter as the bottoms (40"). I cut the radius by 3" to cut the inner part of the template, making the template 3" thick. The template ended up being 32" in width as I left about 3" on each side for an overlap.

I used that template to mark out blanks on a 33"x8' sheet of plywood then cut them out with a jig saw. After tacking the template to the blank with a pin nailer I cut down to within 1/8" of the line on the bandsaw.

Finally, over to the router table with a guide bit to trim the blank to the same size as the template. I was only able to finish one piece, but I've got the process down so the others should go quickly.

The last thing I did was glue up blanks for the 6" circles for the rocket motors.

Caution : OSS' bites just like the bandsaw :

Playhouse Rocketship - Part 2

I was almost out of time after making up the bandsaw circle cutting jig.

I unclamped all the blanks I had glued up for the rocket motors, used a chisel to remove the excess glue and then used a belt sander to clean them up a little. Next I used the sliding miter saw to cross cut one edge straight, measured over for the center hole and drilled it for a finish nail to use the with circle cutting jig.

Lastly, over to the bandsaw to cut the circle. They'll still need a bit of sanding on the edges, I'll use the oscillating spindle sander for that. I got about half of them done. Here's one - there's one more smaller circle to go on top.


Caution - Bandsaws Bite!

Playhouse Rocketship - Part 1

Joshua's birthday is in about a week and I decided a few days ago that I'd build him a rocketship playhouse for his birthday. One of his favourite things to do right now is to play in a little IKEA KOJA tent. He is always asking for one of us to go in the tent with him.

His little sister Lauren and Oscar the cat both like playing in the tent as well. Hopefully they'll all like the new rocketship.

With a little more than a week to go I'm not sure if I'll get this one done. Maybe the time crunch will be a good thing and force me to finish this project off in a reasonable amount of time.

First I drew up a quick plan in Sketchup :


Using Sketchup, I haven't been able to figure out how to cut the door out of the cylinder. It'll be easier to cut the hole in the wood :)

For the cylinder and cone I'll use some 1/8 masonite, white on one side and brown on the other. This'll save me from having to paint it. The floor and support rings will be out of 3/4" good one side plywood and the rocket motors are from leftover dimensional lumber.

I picked up the plywood last night and stacked it in the shop. Next I scrounged up some leftover dimensional lumber and glued up almost enough blanks for the rocket motors. I managed to use up all the Bessey clamps in the shop - does that mean I can buy some more?


Next up - a circle cutting jig for rotor and bandsaw table.