Here we have a typical shed dormer roof . The old roof has been removed and the deck overlaid with 30lb felt paper. At the eave end a copper drip cap has been fabricated and installed to give the copper panels a place to terminate and a hold down for them.(see arrow) The two sides or rakes have copper jointer pieces fabricated and installed. These each have locks on them to receive the panels on the sides.

The first standing seam panel has been fabricated on a shop brake. They have 1 inch standing seams to be double rolled after the adjacent panels are all in place. The panels are held down with copper clips which hold down on the male locks and are placed about every 16 inches. I also added my son Joshua for added effect, ha ha !

Each clip is nailed with two copper nails. Care should be taken to hold clips tight to the seam while nailing it firmly into place. The clips are nailed about 16 inches apart. These clips will hold the pans down but allow them to move during expansion and contraction.

The next panel is laid in place and hooked onto the drip cap and locked on tight with 3 inch seamers. This panel is then in turn clipped and nailed into place.

The final panel is put in place hooked on both side locks.

All three pans are now in place and the seams have been double locked together with a double set of lockers from John Stortz & Son, Inc. Notice here the upper area of the three pans at arrow. The upper 1 3/4 inches of the pans has been tinned at our shop and folded back to form a lower flat lock. This lower flat lock will then accommodate an upper flat lock from the tie-in pan.

Now the upper edges of the pans are clipped and nailed into place. These clips are flat lock seam clips as differing from the standing seam clips mentioned before . They are also nailed with two copper nails a piece. This upper edge will join with the tie-in flat panel which will be soldered where the two meet.

Finally the tie-in panel is brought to the roof. It is designed to lock on its bottom edge to the upper edge of the three standing seam pans, also to lock into the side standing seam rake edges and flange up under the slate roof atop it.

Dry fitting the pan first to make sure it was fabbed perfectly is important.

The two shop tinned flat locks have come together perfectly. They are ready to be tamped down tightly to form an air tight lock that will be easy to solder and create a strong joint. The standing seam joint is ready to be rolled together also.

Seaming the outer edges of this tie-in pan is achieved with the use of a pair of three inch straight hand seamers. First the down leg of the “female” lock is folded up under the horizontal leg of the “male” lock.

Now the second roll is mastered by folding the first crimp down. This two step process can still be done totally in the field without the use of preforming on a bending brake if you want to do it the old fashioned way our fore fathers did it. John Stortz & Son, Inc. has all the right tools for the job.

Once all the locks have been firmly tightened the soldering process can begin. The equipment is an Express LP fired iron from Stortz. The solder also from Stortz is a rosin core lead/tin strand solder-which took me many years to source.

With all seams locked and the flat seam soldered, the upper part of the tie-in pan is ready to be secured and readied for the slating in process.

Cutting the soft Pennsylvania slates is easily achieved on a Stortz cutter. The slate is cut upside down so as to create a beveled edge like the other edges.

The cut now complete the slate is ready to install. Notice the finest slating hammer ever made in my hand!

As the slating in progresses across, the next cap course slate can be installed. Cap course slates are laid side ways and holes must be punched in them so copper roofing nails will go in between the slates immediately under them. Also note that plastic roof cement is troweled in place to help hold them on and seal where the copper nails go through. This should be done very cleanly so no cement slops out onto the slate .

With the slates coming across the copper a canting strip is added to support the slates and keep them properly angled. This is achieved by hanging a piece of plasterer’s lath down onto the copper with two thin strips of copper thus avoiding nailing through the flange. An alternative to this could be soldering a copper piece across which is bent into a square channel to give the slates support.

Another cross slate has been installed and another cap slate . I usually avoid nailing through copper flashings. It’s generally not good practice. Here it would have been impossible to get the top course and cap course nailed down properly without going through, and I might add I’ve taken off tons of old roofs where nailing through copper was done -even with steel nails!  Most of the time it wasn’t a problem, but I still usually avoid it.

Completed slating over the copper shed roof. Please see my other tutorials for more information.