Category: Rafters

This morning, we finally managed to get out there and get the big heavy O Ridge rafter installed!! We checked to how dry the rafter was and brushed off the dirt that has splashed on from all the rain we had!!
It was the usual case of moving the two towers into place and lifting this 130kg piece of structural roofing element up and swinging it along into place. We had to carve off a small chunk of wood at the steel I-Beam end of the rafter so it can avoid hitting the sticking out upper flange of the I-Beam but apart from that and being very tight indeed, it fitted quite well indeed!!

Now we can measure the final three special rafters and have them created, nothing complicated about them, just straight and we will get them done in quick time!

We spent the day inside our workshop to avoid more rain. It has been quite wet these last few days and we are having to do other work while we wait for better weather to arrive. So in our workshop, we did several different things. Firstly, we repaired the hood over the circular saw blade that serves both as a safety net against fingers touching the spinning blade, and the hood to act as a vacuum collection chamber to remove the sawdust.

We improved on the previous design to have two arms instead of one, and also these multi-jointed arms are much stiffer, thus making the hood much more stable and won’t bounce around anymore.

The second task we did, was to slice up all the remaining sheets of the polystyrene foam into lots of strips with width of 250mm.

We are about 25% through slicing each block into the required 38mm thick strips. We did this job because the weather got bad again and we didn’t want to get our plywood boards wet sitting on the trolley outside the workshop doors as we pass each sheet through the circular saw, so we switched over to do the foam boards instead.

Today, we tidied up the two sections of the O Ridge rafter by running the power planer along all the edges, the top and bottom edges. This made sure that they were fresh and clean as possible, ready for the gluing and bolting on of the steel strips.
Then dragging out half the workshop tools (well it seems so!) and brought out our two sections of the rafter and laid them on trestle legs. We proceeded to drill the eight bolt holes on around the steel elbow bracket and bolted the two plates together. While this was done, we took the two 6 metre steel strips and bent them at the required 45 degrees angles and drilled and bolted those two strips on too.
After a quick lunch (as there was rain forecast to come in the middle of the afternoon), we then unbolted the two big plates off and, after cleaning the metalwork with orange oil cleaning cloth, spread glue all over the surfaces (both the metal and wood) and re-bolted them back on again. The next job was to take off each edge strip one at a time to clean them and apply glue and again bolted it all back together. Nice and tight this time!
Finally, we got out the metal primer paint to quickly cover up the bare metal strips to protect them against rust while it is still exposed. Thank goodness that this paint dries very fast indeed!

We dashed back indoors with all our tools, electric cable and bits and pieces and just made it before the heavier rain came down!! That was close!! Grin!

This morning, we resumed our work on the O Ridge Rafter. The first part (the horizontal Ridge section) was vacuumed and then glued and nailed together. Then the second part (the 45 degrees angled section) was cut, sliced and adjusted for all the bits and pieces and after lunch, was sanded and vacuumed and again, glued and nailed together.

Having done that job nice and quick, we had time to take our other rafter, namely the one going into the LM corner, and take it outside to install it into position. The end results was a clean and neat job without fuss! Yippee!

Tomorrow, we will take out the two sections of the O Ridge and start assembling it with the metal elbow joint and the two metal strips on the top and bottom edges, hopefully the thunderstorm weather front will keep away as promised by the forecasters!! Smile!

This morning, in a bit of a stiff breezy and chilly wind, we took out our first of the two rafters we completed on Saturday, but before that, I just remembered, we sliced off the bevel angled cut at the top end of the rafter (the end that fits into the metal bracket up on the I-Beam).
We shoved the scaffolding towers around, connected up the hoist and winched the IJ rafter up into the air and got it approximately into position. It looked good so we got the glue out and prepared the IJ corner leg with the glue and did the same up at the metal bracket too. Then we slid the rafter into place and with encouragement from our club hammer, managed to get it to fit nice and tightly!

We finished the morning off by tidying up all the equipment and wrapping up the winch motor again to protect it against the forecast rain (which duly arrived!).
After lunch, we started preparing the bits and pieces for the O Ridge rafter (this is the bent one with the metal elbow joint in the middle of it). We doubled checked the distances of the NO and OP corners against the I-Beam and the bracket at that end point, which turned out to be also pretty much on the spot too! So with this reassurance, we proceeded to cut and slice the LVL timber (we brought in the correct set of 4 lengths before lunch) putting a 6.5degrees angle on one end of the set of two LVL pieces and then cut the same 6.5 degree angle off the end of the webbing plywood bits too. Plus the usual internal noggins too. Everything was sanded to clean the surfaces and that concluded our day’s work.
Tomorrow, we will first vacuum the prepared bits and then glue and nail the rafter together, and after that, weather permitting, we will put up the other rafter, the LM rafter to get that one out of the workshop! Lovely!

Today, resuming where we left off from the very short morning’s work day yesterday (which was cutting the legs for corners IJ and LM and then measuring the distance from these legs up to the metal bracket at the point up on the I-Beam meets the K Ridge, which turned out to be 5860mm and 5855mm and only 10mm and 15mm off what the drawing indicated – not bad!!), we got on with the job of assembling all the bits and pieces (10 strips of the 423mm wide plywood webbing, 5 strips of the polystyrene foam strips, 4 LVL timber lengths, and a heap of noggings – some angled and some straight). We spent the morning preparing each of these bits with the correct angle slices (24.2° to be exact) for all the LBL timber pieces, the 8 strips of the plywood and 4 noggings. Then we sanded everything to clean up the surfaces for maximum gluing strength and finally adjusted the template to handle these 423mm wide rafters.
After lunch, we went into the task of vacuuming all these bits and pieces, putting each into the template, and as usual, gluing and nailing the webbing on each side, flipping the rafter over and doing the other side. All this repeated again for the second rafter and .. oh boy .. we finally finished quite late just before 7pm!

It is good that we got these two rafters done so they can dry and be ready for installing on Monday first thing (after we have sliced the bevel on the top end first!!) and then we can get on with doing the O Ridge “elbow” rafter and tackle the final section of the specialised roofing job!

Today in the pleasant sunshine, we tackled the job of hoisting up the next two rafters, which are the rafters going into the corners JK and KL. After fiddling with the tower and the winch, we managed to lift them up separately into position and glue and nail everything together!

It is slowly coming together, the roof skeleton framework, we have two more diagonal rafters to do for this section of the roof and then we will have only the O Ridge complex over the Great Room to do and that’s it! Well, at least, these LVL special rafters will be done, after that, it will be building and installing dozens and dozens of “regular” rafters to fill in between all these skeleton hips and valley rafters! Phew!!

Today, we carried on with the creation of the rafters for the corners where wall J and K meets and again for walls K and L meet, all part of the extension where Bedroom 2 lies.
The usual construction is done, the webbing had their ends sliced with a 28.6degrees angles off them and cut-away notches removed at the other end. Then the LVL timber chopped with the same 28.6degrees angle too and the bird’s mouth notch cut as well.
The whole lot was sanded and then vacuumed before piling each layer into the template and applying the glue and then nails.

These two rafters are now drying overnight before tomorrow, we will hoist them up and install them into position .. weather permitting!!

After lunch, we resumed the task of creating the next rafter, this time, the JK diagonal LVL going from the K Ridge and down into the far outside corner of the Bedroom 2 extension. We double checked the measurements outside now that the K Ridge is up. The corner leg was pulled out of the stack and sliced down to 2382mm high and and then measured from that point back up to the metal bracket up on the K Ridge, which turned out to be 4912mm distance. The other task we did outside, was to cut the corner cement board away and a piece of the top-plate too, to make a receptacle for the bird’s mouth on the JK rafter to slot into.
Back in the workshop, we sliced 28.6 degree angles on the end of four pieces of the 455mm wide plywood webbing strips and then proceeded to do the same to the beginning of the LVL timber and also one noggin 89mm timber piece too.
That concludes our day today! Tomorrow, we will continue with this rafter and also start preparing for the KL rafter too.