Roof Covering

A section of the Eveleigh Paint Shop's sawtooth roof is visible from the inside, the structural steel trusses spanning across the workshop hall with the glass panels of each saw-tooth bay fitted in between. Each tooth has a steep north-facing glass panel and a shallower south-facing solid panel, alternating along the length of the building. The glazing is the original timber-framed sash work, set into the steel framing. Dust has settled on the upper face of each pane, softening the light coming through. The structural steel is painted in a pale industrial green. From below the trusses, the geometry of the roof reads as a continuous saw blade laid flat above the work floor.

The sawtooth south-light roof was a late-nineteenth-century industrial standard for any workshop that needed even daylight on its work surfaces. At the Eveleigh Paint Shop, completed in 1887 by NSW Government Railways engineer George Cowdery, the geometry was set so the glass panels faced north, giving a flat, shadowless light that suited paint matching and finishing work on the carriages below. The roof has been re-glazed several times across the building's working life; the steel framing and the bay pattern are the originals. The Paint Shop carries the highest grading on the NSW State Heritage Register for the North Eveleigh precinct, and the roof is one of the defining features of that listing.