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rhythm of the rafters
Sunday, June 3 2018
It was a cool cloudy day, with a little rain in the morning, though it didn't keep me off my big outdoor project. I spent much of the day installing rafters. Generally these are all pre-cut and then installed, but I decided to cut them all custom as I worked. I got into a rhythm, propping up the two by eight against the top plate, measuring, cutting, then using the oscillating tool on the other end to make the small birdsmouth after drawing a few lines. It turns out the plans I'd articulated the other day were overly complicated (and wrong at that). I didn't need to slightly raise the birdsmouth end while measuring the top end; indeed, that introduced a small inaccuracy in the angles. Today's rafters were all satisfyingly accurate, at least at the top end. Things were a little messier where the birdsmouths rested on the dual girder (which has a two-inch air gap between its halves). Since in any one place one of the components of the girder might be slightly higher than the other, there was almost never a case where the rafter applied its weight equally on both. So I installed little cedar shims as needed. By the end of the day, I only had three rafters left to do and had mainly stopped working due to a lack of workspace on my makeshift scaffold above the collar ties. It's looking like I might need proper decking atop the other rafters to cut out the final rafters.
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