what do we need to know about roof flashings?

[phil]

despite all the drama I loved junkyard wars. that link you sent showed a whole bunch of english and US shows I never knew existed and now want to see them all . Just a week ago I put on junkyard wars to see if it interested my girlfriend.. not so much lol
I love the concept of building stuff with whats around , using tools for purposes they weren't intended for and If I didn't have to work I could easily keep my self entertained by all the stuff I can do with Craigslist free, my version of running loose in a scrapyard lol.. in my day job i have to fix all sorts of broken stuff all the time so I often have to invent workarounds. often it takes too long to wait for parts or machines too old or too custom to find parts so I do use the skills in my job and its fun.
at one job they were organizing a team building event and I suggested setting up a challenge like that instead of the usual rally or event. They told me I would be good at that but thought others wouldn't.. I think it would be a riot and it really does make people work as a team the way junkyard wars is structured.
also we do live in such a wasteful time and place. I think if we can use and reuse and re-purpose stuff, we might do it to save money but it is also better for the environment to re-use stuff so I'm all for that. We haven't learned our lesson yet as a society but to make junk like they do in China now and throw it out and buy more and to keep doing that. Its simply not a sustainable system. sooner or later the environmental damage will catch up so if we can do little things and re-use stuff it is usually something to feel good about.

and the people who give stuff away on craigslist. I've met so many nice people that were happy to see stuff not go to landfill. sometimes I can help them back more often they are just really nice people who are downsizing stuff.

Just today I spoke to a carpenter who wants to build a hunting tent. He had invented this elaborate system to bend and laminate all these curved boards that will make hoops. he had cut rectangular holes in sheets of plywood and arranged them so when he glued up the boards and pushed them through the holes they were held at a certain curve, its about a 30 foot radius.
Its going to be a round structure sort of like a teepee I guess only with bands of wood around the circumference.. well low and behold I just happened to have acquired a big bolt of old stock heavy canvas and he was just ready to buy new stuff for the job.
the hardest part is to be selective. Its easy to make your house and lot into a hoarder type environment so I have to stop myself sometimes.
all this stemmed from my father and his 1930's mentality. he showed me a lot about how to save money and to only buy what he needed and have fun fixing stuff in inventive ways. I love that stuff. when I was younger I would say this is a waste of time but I finally realized it was often more about the challenge to not spend money than the money itself. we were never poor or needy and he did well for himself.
You kind of have to admire what people do in countries like India or Cuba where they come up with workarounds to keep cars running without new parts. those guys are the real experts at being resourceful. Id love to go there to see in person how they do things.

[phil]

It's been raining on and off the past couple of weeks so I tarped what I was working on finishing. I had a little break on the weekend and nailed the last few shingles up for the one side I'm doing.
Since I haven't yet finished or even started the other side it's a good place to stop for winter. I just ran the shingles up to the peak and let them kind of droop over the peak.
No point trying to put the ridge cap on so I just found I had some spare 3 tab shingles that were black so I temporarily nailed them to the unfinished side and let them droop over. from that side too. that should be ok for now.

on the second side I have 4 little separate areas, there is a little peak at the front of my house plus a little roof over the bay window. since the roof over the kitchen was given a different slope it is sort of like two separate areas. I think I'll move on to other stuff until we hit spring and I can depend on the weather a bit more. The rest is pretty much a repeat of what I've done but with a few more edges and flashings and stuff. at least the side I did re-roof looks nice now so I'm kind of half way there. I could do a bit more by removing tarps and re-tarping at the end of each session but it's nicer to be up there in good weather. If it should leak I've got tarps ready.
the shingles I did the first side with were old leftovers so they are all 10 years old but they were still in packages and ok. If there is a slight difference in color it won't show much this way. so I've now got half of a new roof at least I learned a lot, the next side will be easier since I have a better idea what to do although it's a little more complicated with the step flashings around the chimney and such. my home made shingle lift sure helped. although it's a bit slow I didn't have to carry any shingles up the ladder.