Roof Construction: Open Heart Surgery - Day 3

The roof is still half open to the elements so today we're hoping to finish the steel installation and start closing the roof up.

The first step is to install the final piece of steel at the hip rafter and splice it to the lower one. Once that's in, we're going to insert stained pieces of wood into the steel channel so we can easily fasten the rafters, rather than having to deal with steel. It's much easier and faster to screw wood together than having to deal with steel (am a bit fed-up with steel at this point). The other advantage of the stained wood infill, is that it will present a more finished look. Once we wood is in, we'll start setting the rafters back and if we're lucky we can start installing planks.

The morning - steel on one side of the hip rafter, but not the other.

Cutting the ends of the final piece

Bolting the last pieces of steel together

The last splice

The steel reinforcement completed

Installing the wood infill

First piece of stained wood installed

Installing the last piece of wood infill.

Setting the rafters

We ran into some trouble installing the rafters. While we were setting them, I had a sinking feeling that something was wrong...sure enough I soon realized that the rafters were not being installed in a straight line. That may sound easy --if you're just sitting behind a desk--but in reality the slightest difference will create a wavy surface for the planks and slates...definitely a problem. I again realized that I needed to use my knowledge of geometry (and desire for precision) to correct the problem.

Tomorrow we're going to have to unscrew most of the rafters and reset them using a string line and a long, flat piece of wood to double check we were getting a flat surface. The guys ended up getting annoyed at me when i made them stop to figure this out as it was dark and late, but unfortunately this is absolutely necessary.

The wavy rafter