Alrighty, finally have some time to catch up on CT.
For whatever reason the top of the octagon was off at the top, 2" out of parallel, one of the braces let go on the pour
So i was posed with the challenge of establishing a rafter plate to build my roof upon. As if establishing the rafter plate was not already hard enough, i had to finesse the plate in or out so that the overhang would appear fairly uniform with no dramatic tapers.
That being said, my approach involved a sheet of ply that i cut a 45* on, i set my first plate, ran it long, then i 45'd one end of my rafter plate to but it (22.5* the other end(s)) and started going around, I tacked the corner, stuffed the template in place, moved to fit and nailed it off, i would occasionally check for parallel and = diagonal measurements. 18' dead on in all directions :thumbup:
My first boo boo came when i was cutting the hips, i forgot that the x/13 of the octagonal hip was the same as the x/12 of the common rafter. My diagonal was 19' 6", i used half of that as my run... not realizing that i needed to step off 9 steps, like i did on my commons.. No big deal, thats why i only cut 2, trimmed them down and moved on. Just a question i have about stepping of hips vs commons, say the common run is 8' 7 1/2"... i would step off 8 steps on the common, and then rather then stepping 7 1/2" on the hip, i would have to figure out the hypotenuse of a triangle with 7 1/2" legs and measure square off my 8th step? I think that makes sense to me
I opted to install the hips first, i was glad i did, my instincts before i had this opportunity, was to set the commons first, but after further thought i realized hip would work better.By setting the hips, i can set my fascia board and have a measuring point for the infill, and also the hips establish a plane for me to follow to get my HAP on the commons and what not.
After hips, fascia, and infill.
I added 18" header blocks in each hip bay to terminate my commons into. My approach to get my infill layout was to find centre and "butterfly" layout from there. For me, having a perpendicular reference point was very important. I cut 2 jacks with the 67.5* bevel.. it took way to long and was hard to do accurately so i just sqaure cut em. On a regular hip i would bevel them all day long, but on such a dramatic angle its hard, and besides, whether i bevel it or not, its still the same 5 nails holding it.
One thing that really had me huffing and puffing was my jack layout. I cut 16 jacks all the same length, 8 fit right on layout, and the other 8 didn't fit on the hip where i laid out. I simply could not figure it out, my hips were all the same, the sheathing cuts were all very close to being the same all the way around, but when its 2" off layout it makes you (me) wonder, what the hells going on?
I have gotten into the habit of doing all my infill stuff, between trusses, to fascia, to beams etc, with reverse birds mouths, not only do they look good, but when you are by yourself they are self supporting, so you don't have to find a 3rd hand to steady yourself, hold the piece and nail it
I once again used my centre rafter to get my sheathing cuts, x measurement from centre at top, bottom, connect the dots and fuggedaboutit
I had alot of fun building this, and the next one will be even quicker and easier!
The framer on this house was taking too long so Chris got the guy who i worked with on the town houses in 2009 to come in and finish up. He was pretty impressed to see how i progressed . The past 2 weeks i have been there with another guy when the other framers were not there and we finished the main roof, I knew what and how to do the framing so i kinda took charge.
Even the framers there had to ask me how to do the irregular valley
I did not do the cricket, i had to get back to the city to work on my job, so i had my framer friend finish it up. It looks damn good, i was trying to figure it out, and it was just one of those days where i was better off going home early so i left it for him. I was sort of ashamed to have to surrender to it, but i was burning out and it was best to stop.
In the 5 minutes that he was there watching me sheet, he taught me a trick i will never forget, so simple but so effective, i was cutting in ply to fit on the octagon, with the hip angle, and the valley angle where it tied into the main roof with a rip. He took a series of measurements from one point (reference) and on the sheet just swung intersection arcs, connected the dots and boom. I thought it was the most awesome thing ever.:jester:
