Week 13: December 14 - 20

Week 13! All of our rafters are in place and this picture doesn't make it terribly clear, but I am cutting the facia for each rafter. On the rafter immediately behind me, you can see the facia marking. This is the line I am cutting along.

And here I am working on some more gable end studs. Exactly the same process as the one we practiced on our mock-ups. 

Cutting more facia. A better picture.

In this picture you can see the plumb bob we've hung from the ridge board. The distance from the end of the ridge board to the plumb bob, and the distance from the outside of the floor framing to the plumb bob should be the same measurement. If they're not, then the roof is out of square, and must be racked accordingly. Our roof ended up being racked to the left about a 1/16".

A picture of our fully sheathed shed. The gable end studs were finished, so we were able to throw sheathing up over them.

In the picture above, we've secured some scrap sheathing to the plumb end of our rafters. This will stay in place while we build our ladders for the sides of the shed. The ladders will go right up and under the extended sheathing on the roof, giving more support. The sheathing anchored to the end of the rafters lets us have something to butt the ladder up against while testing our dry fits.

A picture showing the ridge vent on top of the roof. I was up there cutting the excess sheathing off after the ladders were secured in place. The vent allows gases and moisture to escape. While we predominately want the building to be sealed up tight, there still needs to be some ventilation capabilities built into the framework itself.

And finally a picture showing the completed ladders up in place on the left and right side of the shed. The roof is now fully supported. The ladders were built using the same pitch as the roof (as it needs to be flushed up against it.) The boards on the inside and outside measured 7/8", and the total width of the ladder setup was not to exceed 7 3/4". Therefor our blocking down the center was cut to 5 1/2". This is where we will leave things over break. Back for more on the 20th of January! Merry Christmas  :)

Week 12: December 7 - 13

After determining the pitch of our roof, we were finally able to cut our rafter patterns. We dry fit the pattern to the existing roof and, once we found them to be a good fit, we went ahead and cut the two other rafters that would be seated on the outside.

In the picture above we are seating the end of the rafter on the outside framing. After that has been toe nailed securely, we will secure the rafter to the ridgeboard.

Here we have all four rafters in place, as well as the mock wall the shorter rafters are resting on. When we were calculating the pitch of the roof, we were taking into account the height of the wall, and the alignment of the rafters resting on it with the mock roof that had been previously erected. (12/12 slope).

Now that our rafters were in place, we were able to begin working on our gable end studs. We laid the on center spacing out on the bottom plate. Then, taking a 2x4, we flushed it up against the outside rafter, while it was seated in the on center marking. Using a level to make sure the stud was... level... we marked the wood with a pencil where the rafter and stud met. Because the rafter itself is 1 1/2", we wanted to cut the gable stud to 1 1/2" (using the cut in method), so that it would fit in nicely with the rafter. 

A few more gable end studs in place.

Not the best picture, but looking up the length of the rafter, you can see the protrusion of the first gable end stud. Ideally, there would be absolutely no extension beyond the rafter. Any aforementioned could interfere with sheathing and siding.

Now that the mock set up was complete, we were ready to move forward with cutting rafters for our 10' x 12' shed. In the picture above I am cutting out the rafter pattern, specifically the bird's mouth cut.

Here I am using the pattern (with some guide blocks anchored to the top of the rafter.) to cut out the remainder of our rafters. This was only done after we dry fit tested the rafter pattern.

A big ol' stack of cut rafters. The top most rafter has the guide blocks along it's top edge. By securing those in this place, I was able to flush up each potential rafter board with the pattern, and efficiently move through the stack of rafter boards with minimal margin of error.

Our shed with some rafters anchored in place, and our ridge board!

Securing a few more rafters...

 

It's important to have more than one person helping when putting rafters in place. It can be very difficult to determine if the rafter is in the correct location without some extra assistance. Also, holding the rafter in place while anchoring it to the ridge board requires and extra set of hands!

Week 11: November 30 - December 6

Here in Week 11, we have a better picture of the top plates that will interlock. The left wall is still missing it's second top plate in this picture, but when it is added, the left wall's top plate will overlap the back and front walls first plate - butting right up against their top plates.

And here we're finishing our work on the right wall with a rough door opening. Just adding the second top plate.

Nailing... You can also see in this picture the clamp we're using to hold the walls flush together. The clamp will keep the walls in the position we will ultimately want them to end up in. Whatever shape they're taking when we start to nail (or screw) them together, is the shape they'll hold as an end result.

Here we are adding more bracing. These are called spring braces, and help us to push or pull the walls into square and alignment. The top board is screwed into the top of the wall and into the subfloor. The second, shorter board is squeezed into a leverage position somewhere in the middle. As we push the second shorter board, it pushes up on the top board, creating tension. This tension pulls the wall the top of the board is nailed into, in.

The photo above and the two that follow, depict us setting up staging. The cross bars go into anchored spots on the top and bottom of the ladders, to the left and right. These keep the staging spread and upright. 

The staging platform added on top also helps to hold everything together... as well as providing a vantage point for us to work from!

u

For the latter part of the week, we worked on practicing rafter layout. The pitch of this mock roof was determined and rafters were cut to their specified sizes. The first rafters to be laid are the two just inside of the outermost rafter locations. The outermost rafters should be placed last, because they're the most difficult to adjust.

Toe nailing the rafters in place... Typically the bottom of the rafter would be secured first, and then attached at the ridgeboard up top. This method allows us to perfectly seat the bird's mouth cut, and then - assuming the angle of the rafter is cut correctly - we can just raise the rafter up to meet the ridgeboard, and this will give us the correct pitch for our roof.

Seating the opposite rafter and ready to be toe nailed.

Now all four supporting rafters are in place, and the ridgeboard is being held up on it's own. The remaining rafters can all be seated and aligned with the ridgeboard.

The mock roof with all of it's rafters, and gable end studs, in place.

The heavy thinking that takes place when determining the appropriate slope for our shed's roof. Once we determine the best slope to use, we took that information and calculated the line length of our rafters, the bird's mouth cut, the projection and facia. Also, the ridge reduction will be added in. Line length is the distance from the beginning of the rafter to where the rafter will meet the outside of framing. Just beyond that we have to add a 1/2" for our exterior sheathing. From that we can add in the bird's mouth cut, which is where the rafter rests on the wall. The projection is how far the rafter extends beyond the wall framing. Lastly we add in the facia, which is where the rafter will be on the level.

Week 10: November 23 - 29

Week 10 we are working on the 10' x 12' shed. In the picture above we are working on the left facing wall, nailing in place the sole plate. We will eventually move onto securing the top plates of this wall with the top plates of the front and back walls. We have to secure the bottom plate to keep it from moving away from or over the snapped line on the subfloor.

Laying out the top and bottom plate for the right facing wall...

Here we are securing the second top plate to the first. The second top plate will overlap the front and back wall top plates, locking the walls in together.

Here the front and back walls are braced so that we can focus on the left side wall, without fear of moving the front and back wall out of alignment. Also cleaning the shed out so there's no debris in the way.

In this picture we are pulling the diagonals for the left wall. We are doing this so we can determine if the left wall is perfectly square. If not, we will make adjustments until it is so.

Pulling the second set of diagonals.

Week 9: November 16 - 22

Starting week 9 off with a plumb bob exercise! As part of our continual comp testing, we are moving on from squaring exercises on the horizontal plane, to plumbing exercises in the vertical. In this plumb bob exercise, we were asked to run a string line across the top plate, over two 3/4" blocks (screwed in on each end of the top plate). Using the string line as our guide, we were able to take measurements from the 5 studs located along the 'wall'. Taking the difference in variation from location 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc, we were left with how much the top plate would have to shift (either forward, back, left, or right, depending on what was needed to bring the wall into alignment.)

Two plumb bobs were strung from the top wall above stud 1 and stud 5. We then took measurements from the stud to the plumb line at the top and bottom. That difference told us if the wall needed to move in or out. We then took measurements from the left of the stud to the plumb line at the top and bottom. This indicated to us whether the wall needed to move left or right.

In the above picture we have the sheathing back on the wall, after we had to remove it to bring it back to true square. Before the sheathing was put in place, we braced it with a 12' 2x4, to prevent it from slipping back out of place. The 2x4 was anchored at the top into the top plates, and at the bottom into the sole plate / subfloor. We used screws to make it easier to assemble and disassemble the brace.

With our windows and door frame laid out, we were able to start working on our opposing wall layout. We screwed the top and bottom plate to the subfloor to keep it in place. This made it possible for us to mark both plates simultaneously, without any fear of movement or displacement.

A better view of the plate layout.

Putting the window and door frames in place, with the top and bottom plate. I'm using a small block to twist the cripples above the window headers into place. On the cripples under the window opening, we used bar clamps to give us better leverage. 

With all of our wall members in place, it was ready for sheathing. I'm ripping a sheet to size with a skilsaw, covering everything except for the door RO.

Here I am putting the sheathing in place. 8d nails every 6" along the outside of the sheathing. 8d every 8" along the studs.

Week 8: November 9 - 15

Week 8, we started off with heading down over the hill to check the concrete foundation out. It cured nicely and was ready for us to pull the form boards off of.

The stakes were buried very deep, so it took some finagling to get them out of the ground. Once they were removed, we were able to get at the screws holding the scabs in place. Those were taken apart, and then finally the actual form boards were uncovered and pulled away, leaving only the concrete slab. 

Now that the project with the slab, down over the hill was complete, we were all able to focus on building the sheds more. In the picture above, I am working on putting the rough frame for the door together. We used engineered lumber for the door headers, with king and jack studs being nominal dimension lumber. The engineered lumber is structurally more sound, and also more true (less twists, cups, crowns, etc.), giving us the ability to have a single header over such a wide span.

Our finished door frame and window frames (2).

Picture of our single wall up, which we felt very happy with accomplishing... until we discovered the disparity below...

In the picture above, you can see the gap between the sole plate and the subfloor. The sole plate and subfloor should be flush together. The gap insinuated that the wall was out of square.

After doing some 'square checking', we determined that the wall was, in fact, out of square. We had to remove the sheathing (which locks the wall in place), so that we could shift it back to it's correct dimensions. I am pulling nails out in the picture above. It was hard to backtrack, but after we did and resided the wall with the sheathing, it was interesting to see just how much the squareness of the wall affected the flushing of the sole plate with the subfloor!