Construction Question

[Don_Papenburg]

A stick clamped to the framing square works better than the little brass buttons .  Gives a better bearing surface. 
I would use a 2x10 for the ridge board ,asa a minimum. I hate swayback roofs.
 The closer that you place the collar ties to the wall plate the better they perform.

[Jeff]

I actually need something wider then a 2 by 6. so the rafters contact the whole ridge board. I knew that, but wasnt thinking.  I think two by 8 should be plenty.

[Furby]

Don, I like the second one better, thanks!
I don't do any more figuring then I need to, I just cut and make it work!

[isawlogs]

   Furby

   Thats what I did on my shop .. use a sacrificial peice and make it fit . Works every time 

[Frank_Pender]

The this thread is going, I am waiting to see the roof of many angles.   I am just an old retired teacher that can't even spel.

[J_T]

We use to try our rafters on the outside  walls saved a lot of climing ???Then we would use one for a pattern and mark it and use it till the end . May not be clear I mean if it fitts at the footing it will fit the top if it is plumb and square

[Furby]

Kirk, you can get all the definitions you want at Google.
Type:      define:Collar Ties             or what ever word you want.
Or we can have a nice long thread about it, and I do like this idea the best.
The thing to remember is a lot of what you just asked has to do with "stick" framing.
It will differ a bit with the timber frame you have planned, and I can't even help you there.

Now if you want a hands on approach......I'll meet ya at Jeff's! How's that sound

[Jeff]

I could use, I mean Tammy can use the help. I am banned from pounding and lifting. Had my brother in law here today and we got another wall up. I measure and cut, he pounds and lifts.

[ScottAR]

Birds mouth or Crows foot depending on who you ask is the notch where the rafter meets the top wall plate.  The wall plate is the horizontial boards at the top of a 2x stick built wall. 

Ridge board or ridge beam is the board that runs the length of the roof peak.  The rafters nail to it. 

A swayback roof usually has hips and dips along the peak.

Collar ties join a rafter to it's twin on the opposite side. 

I dunno about cross beams... 

[Bibbyman]

Looks like you’re in pretty good hands there Jeff.

I’ve seen a number of carpenters lay out their rafters on the floor after they’ve studded up the outside walls.  Often they’d draw out the rafter and ridge pole with pencil and chalk line.  Then they’d make a pattern.  Then they’d cut a couple of rafters and “try fit” them over the pattern they’ve drawn.

When I was a young man I worked putting up hay for an old farmer.  He wasn’t a professional carpenter but built his own home and barns, etc.  He knew I was on summer break from studying drafting in college so told me about how to read a carpenter’s square and what all those numbers down the middle meant and how they could be used.  He said he was always called on to lay out gambrel roof barns in the area.  They would set him up in the shade with a pair of sawhorses and he’d mark out the parts and someone else would cut them.

When we were building onto our sawshed last weekend, Mary had picked up the square and asked how I was turning it to get the 5/12 pitch.  I showed her.  Later that day our son Chris stopped in to see what we were doing.  He picked up the square and said “Some day I’m going to figure out how to use this thing.”  Mary jumps in and shows him what I’d shown her earlier in the day – except she was aligning up the 5” on the inside and the 12” on the outside of the square.  I saw what she was doing and corrected her.  She snapped “What difference does it make?.   I said,  “One way’s right and one way’s wrong.”

[logmason]

That little book that comes with a rafter square shows proper layout.
The blade is the level cut, the tounge is the plumb cut. Pay attention to measuring line of rafter, this will show birds mouth depth. The calculations on the square will show rafter length per run. Don't forget to subtract half the thickness of ridge beam. Be sure to use the common scale and not the hip and valley scale.
The book that comes with a speed square shows it also, If you lost the book, buy another square , I have four 

[Furby]

The fact is, most people have no clue how to use a framing square, and the ones most box stores carry don't come with any instructions and most don't have all the tools/rules printed or stamped on them.

[SwampDonkey]

There was an old gent in the neighborhood that built alot of structures, but one thing he made you understand was that he wasn't getting up on no roof he didn't build. He never trusted any one else's carpentry.

[florida]

Assuming your gables will face the 12 foot dimension the rafter should be 6' 8 1/2" measured along the top to the outside corner of the birdsmouth. In other words, cut your top pitch angle first then measure along the top  6' 81/2" and make a mark. Square down to the bottom of the rafter from that mark and that will give you the outside corner of the birdsmouth.

[Larry]

Are we gonna have to figure out how to cut stair risers on this thread?  I hope it’s a walkout.

Really cutting rafters is the next thing to rocket science on a complex roof.  After I figured out I didn’t know what I was doing I bought a book called Roof Framing by Marshall Gross.  Just took a look and it has 474 pages on how to cut a rafter.

[mike_van]

Larry, I had  that book or one like it, read the pages out of it.  I had to do a hip & 2 valleys to connect my addition to the main house, in the end, with all that knowledge, it still came down to just starting it,  checking measurments a few times & then just cutting a rafter.  If it's something you don't do all the time, like  roofs or stairs, boy, measure 3 or 4 times unless you want to make a lot of kindling wood.  The toughest thing I ever built was a bell tower for our grade school,  there were 4 square cuts [the ends of 4 rafters] in it, everything else was an angle or compound angle. The  hip roof was a real bear,
I had 3 western red ceder 10x10's - 30' long, light poles that got rotton at the ground. I resawed it all, built this tower
for the school.  Had some volunteers to help put it up, I was kinda proud when it all fit together that day. The roof is green metal.

[D._Frederick]

 Jeff,

"I could use, I mean Tammy can use the help. I am banned from pounding and lifting. Had my brother in law here today and we got another wall up. I measure and cut, he pounds and lifts".

How is that arm and shoulder coming along, when will you be able to use it more?

 

[Minnesota_boy]

Jeff,
One thing to remember, if you don't like the way the rafters fit the ridge beam, you own your won sawmill, you can make the peices any size you like to get the fit you want.  Nothing wrong with sawing a 2x7 if it looks better for your building.

[Jeff]

How is that arm and shoulder coming along, when will you be able to use it more?
 

THey never got it fixed, in factthey are beginning to think I have some sort of "condition" that they aint figured out yet. My problems have progressed to both arms and elbows, and a leg. We dont know if they are related or not. THe leg is a nerve based problem, no feeling in my right foot and no reflexes. At times it extends up and into my hip. THis came on during phisical therapy for the shoulder.  THings keep getting worse and they dont knoiw why. I switched to a different dr to try to get some help.

[Kevin]

When I build something like that I always like to lay it out on level ground first to get all my measurements.