Weekend Workbench

This weekend I assembled one of the row-houses I lasercut some weeks ago. The following is a short tutorial for the Wednesday Gamers to assemble their own.

To assemble a row-house you only need white glue and a careful hand. However, having a collection of Lego available for making jigs for ensuring square corners is very helpful.
There are two tools that you will likely need to create. The first tool is used to apply pressure around the perimeter of the house as it is drying.
The second tool is used to apply the window stone work. This will be shown later.

To help keep track of parts, place each part from the polybag on to the parts diagrams. Extra diagrams are available at parts diagram 1 and parts diagram 2. (Note that there are extra parts that were part of the original design and no longer needed.)

First create the roof. Take the gable end and chimney parts and glue them together as shown. Note that all edges face the sides of the building. It is expected that the buildings will be place in a row and so the building's sides will not been seen as much.
The roof is supported by the two gable ends and by two internal rafters. Glue each rafter so that the rafter's peak aligns with the roof's top edge. (The top edge is the one with the notches for the chimneys.) The rafters are placed 1 1/4" from each side.
Once the gable ends are dry then assemble the roof. (Note that chimney parts do not connect well to the roof. This is a design mistake.)
Finish off the chimneys with their tops. (This can be done when assembling the gable ends too.) Note that a couple of coats of white glue over the tops will help hide the seams.
The row-house has three floors. The first floor has 3 windows and a door per side. The second floor has 4 windows per side. The third floor has 4 windows per side. It is important to note that the third floor is shorter than the other floors. So pick your parts carefully.

Each floor is assembled in the same way. A front and a side are glued together.

 
While these are drying prepare the floor. The floor is raised 1/16" within the walls. Glue to each corner the L-shaped raisers. Note that when the floor is glued to the sides the raises are underneath.
Now glue the two front and side parts together and to the floor. I found it is best to apply a lot of glue to the edge of the floor and the edge of the walls and then push the walls to the floor. The perimeter tool is now used. It surrounds the walls and is angled upwards at a corner so as to apply equal pressure to each wall. 
With the perimeter tool in place your hands are free to adjust the upper parts of the wall so that they align and are square. Again, corner jigs made with Lego are helpful.

Your row-house is will look like this at is point.
Finish assembling the floors. Your row-house is almost complete.
At this point, the building is not stable. The roof and the floors sitting upon the one below and so a small bump to them or the table with topple them.

The reason why the floors were raised is to allow room for the alignment tabs. Add the alignment tabs to the second and third floors.

 Add alignment tabs to the roof.
The last step is to apply the window and door stonework. This task can be very fiddly, but is made less so with a small tool. This tool is assembled from the portion of the window that was cut out, glued to a slightly wider rectangle, and a handle is added to the back. (The window part is in the polybag and has the letter W written on it.)
Now a window's stonework can be place on the tool, glue added to the stonework with a brush, and the stonework is push into the window's opening. A stiff brush is used to push the stonework against the wall.
This is a slightly better design for this tool:
 With the window and door stonework applied the row-house is ready for painting.
END