CBD's Bourgette Turret Roof Cap Fabrication Page

This shows a hexagon gazebo roof cap we made for a the Viking Arms Inn through President David Bourgette at 930 East Ludington Ave., Ludington, Minnesota 49431. Their Toll free phone # is 1800-748-0173.

They have a cute 12' wide public gazebo out front and we were contracted to build a unique roof cap to the clients specs of 1/6 medium size of 24" wide plus spikes for their roof that is a low 4/12 pitch. It is to have a smaller 12/12 pitch cap over a light in the center to create a soft glow over the main roof cap surface.

We built this one in copper, but it wound up being a couple inches too small once we had bent it in for the raised corners. These sort of mathematics are tricky, and I was not careful enough to make sure it would be the right size.

It also was not the right angle. It was too steep at a 7/12 pitch, so I had to start over from scratch, now that I had a much better idea of the dimensions needed. This is a good example of the benefit of making a prototype first in cardboard or a cheaper metal. I still have this unit if it happens to fit for another project.

This is the new copper cap. The new template when drawn out on the copper happened to match from start to finish without a gap. I decided to challenge myself to see if I could manage to successfully bend this all in one seamless piece. It was successful. This was a fluke that was a first and will not likely happen again.

Here is the double walled tinted polycarbonate hexagon column under the smaller cap to hide the electrical hardware. I was to position the light bulb up under the smaller cap to make it so there was no direct light shining out of the sides. I had first mounted this round white wiring box over the center copper plate to make the wiring a lot easier during the installation and servicing that may be needed in the following decades, but that required the tinted column to be several inches taller. I sent digital photos of our progress for the client's review, and he felt it did not look right. Too much like a light house he wrote. I could not disagree.

I then mounted the box under that center plate to drop the light fixture down as low as possible. He would have liked to see it be dropped down even lower. We discussed using a series of LED lights, like you see now used for modern flashlights, but I explained that would cost a lot more for the parts and wiring the dozen or so LED lights it would take to accomplish the same candle power and light dispersion. That would have added a couple hundred dollars to the cost. They make a sets of colored X-mas lights that would have been a lot cheaper and come pre-wired, but that would not have met electrical code for a permanent installation like this needs to be.

Below is the set of 2 caps I made to fill this order for just the one cap. They are sitting on the custom wood crate I made for it's safe journey back East. To the right is the cap that was a little too small with the tinted column pieces I trimmed down to drop the height of that center column.

Cost: $442.50 php