Cutting Rafters

65 degrees with mostly sun and a few dark clouds.

(Saturday)
This morning I got up and uncovered my stacks of plywood and 2x6 material from the tarps and began building the small triangular shaped sheathing pieces that go around the top ends where the ridge beam now sits.  I glued and nailed these pieces into place and also nailed the ridge beam where it is now centered into the opening.  It is nice to see the stacks of wood finally clearing out.

The two saw horses were setup to hold my one rafter that I'm now using as a master template for all of the other rafters.  I first cut four to then see how they actually fit.  I tried to get all of these measurements accurate back when I had the plywood on the driveway as I was building the end walls but I wanted to just cut four and get them up on the top of the building before I cut the others.  Thankfully they all fit well.

Last bit of sheathing on the top of the side wall is done and the four rafters are nailed onto the outside.

I cut spacer blocks for the rafters that are attached to the outside of the building at a 30 degree angle on the ends of the spacers to make them look nice.  You can also see how I cut the bottom of the rafters to flare out a little.  This is similar to the way the German Pointed House was constructed.

The rest of the day was spent cutting the rafters and gluing and nailing the tails.  The ridge beam had a little bow in it but this was easily resolved by setting in the center rafters and clamping them in to force the beam to be strait.

Fourteen rafters up, fifteen more to go.

Hey, get down from there!

Outer rafters nailed into place.

The rafter template down on the horses.

Nailing in the top of the rafters to the ridge beam.

The center rafter needs to be clamped to force the ridge beam into place.

Well, it was another productive day.  More rafter building tomorrow and then I will be able to start sheathing the back side of the roof and framing the dormer window.