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!