Category: Build Progress

This morning, in slightly breezy conditions, we took out the six rafters we have previously created and then completed the cutting of the bevel ends yesterday and got them all installed.

We did it all by hand without needing the electric hoist unit and it all went very well.
We then measured the length of the next set of rafters that will connect onto the IJ and LM diagonal valley beams and transferred the results to our spreadsheet.
After lunch, we brought in the next set of plywood webbing strips (25 of them), along with 5 lengths of the 63mm CLS and 6 lengths of the 89mm CLS timber. These were given the 33 degrees angled ends (for the last time .. no more 33 degrees roof sections after this lot!) and then cut down to the required sizes. These don’t have any clearance notches or bird’s mouths, just plain and simple.
These were sorted into five sets of two rafters for each production run in our 6 metre long template.
Then, brought in 25 straight noggings, 20 and 10 diagonal noggings (63mm and 89mm wide respectively) and 9 polystyrene foam strips.
We finished off the day by tidying up the whole workshop, taking outside a large heap of cut-offs plywood strips to our garden shed, filling up another couple bags of wooden bits of rubbish, swept the whole floor and got everything ready for Saturday to proceed with the manufacture of the next ten rafters to complete the “J” and “L” sections of the roof.

This morning, we finished off the last two rafters hanging over from yesterdays work. Then we adjusted our Bevel Slicing Machine to the new angle of 57 degrees which is by far the biggest depth of cut we have to do. The final cut surface spans across 115mm with a large cut-off pieces.

It is very slow work and very hard work for the electric motor to cut the wood, the teeth on the saw blade only just comes through the cut which means the blade is actually cutting through about 250mm of material and that is enormous amount of work!!
We did a small rafter J9, to test that it did the job and we took that one outside to fit it into place. It was ok so we glued and screwed that one! Then, we tackled the longest one, J6 which has a funny “half” bevel end on it because it fits into a metal bracket. This one also went outside and got installed into place too.
but by this time, it was getting dark so we just carried on slicing the bevel ends on the remaining rafters in the workshop, as mentioned above, doing it slowly and carefully without over straining the engine and equipment.
So tomorrow, in the predicted strong winds, we will take the six rafters outside and install them all up into the roof and then finally measure the remaining rafters we were going to do today!

Today, we finally got the eleven rafters up and installed in the Front Extension portion of the building, completing six rafters on the “B” section of the roof and a further five rafters on the “D” section.

This is our first portion of the roof that has both sides of the sloping roof finished and coming together to form a valley and we got two of them now!!
So on Monday, we will start fresh and work on the Back Extension and do “J” and “L” sections which will conclude all the rafters that have the 33 degree slopes. After that, it will be the turn of the 40 degree angled roof sections namely over the back door area (“H” section) and over the Great Room (the “P” and “N” sections).

On a very, very chilly day (temperature floating around the low single digits!), we were in the workshop slicing the bevelled ends on our eleven rafters we made yesterday. The six “B” rafters had one version of the template used to guide the giant circular saw machine and the five “D” rafters had the other second version of the template.
But first, each template had to be adjusted from their original 32 degree setup and moved over to deal with the newer 33 degree cuts, making sure they were accurate and consistent.
The Bevel Slicing Machine was set to 43.8 degrees and we carefully proceeded to cut the ends off the eleven rafters. It took us until mid-afternoon to do this task and we felt that it was going to get dark too soon so we switched plans and went outside to measure the distances for the next set of rafters over on the back extension of the house over the Bedroom Two. The “J” and “L” sections of the roof which has hardly any regular straight rafters, just one on the “J” side and all the rest having bevelled ends. This called for a different method of of positioning where the rafters will be situated. So we got out our laser line generator to hook up on top of the wall and shine perpendicularly a red vertical line onto the diagonal “JK” Hip beam. We did this for J7 and J9 and also moving over to the other side, shining a similar vertical red line on the “KL” diagonal beam to get L1 and L4 distances. We took the minimum lengths (right in the corners) which are the J9 and L1 rafters and then the longer lengths rafters, J7 and L4 which are the last to sit on the “J” and “L” walls. All this information is now in our ever growing spreadsheet and next week or indeed tomorrow, we will start preparing all the material bits and pieces to make another bunch of rafters!
So tomorrow, we will (hopefully .. weather permitting) will get installed the “B” and “D” rafters and get that section of the roof all completed.

After a delayed start, we got on with the creation of the rafters to complete the “B” and “D” roof sections. But first, we filled up our “compressed air” glue  dispenser and have very nearly finished our second drum of glue (25 litre bottle), we brought in our third drum to warm up with which leaves just one more 25 litre drum in the garden shed, hopefully we will have enough to finish off all the rafters for the rest of the roof!

We did the three smallest rafters before lunch and then proceeded to complete the further eight rafters in four sessions of two rafters at a time.

Tomorrow, we will slice the bevelled ends on all of them and then hopefully, weather permitting, we will get them installed up into the roof!

First thing this morning, we took outside the four and a half rafters created yesterday and got them installed up into the roof framework over the front door and Entertainment Room area. We got them all done before lunch and also without using the electric hoist as well! It went quite well indeed.

Then, after lunch, we measured the maximum and minimum lengths for both sides of the C Ridge beam for filling in the triangular sections of the roof going from the front back to the steel I-Beam.
After updating the spreadsheet, we gathered in 28 plywood webbing strips, 6 lengths of both 63mm and 89mm CLS timber, 11 strips of the polystyrene foam and a heap of various noggings.
Next was slicing the 33 degree angles on all the webbing and then cutting them down to required lengths. None needed any special notches cut into either end. Then all the CLS timber pieces were also given the 33 degrees treatment and cut down to required length too.

We now have a pile of all the bits and pieces needed to manufacture 11 more rafters tomorrow. We even swept up the saw dust and got everything ready, apart from filling up the compressed air glue dispenser – oops!!

After a slight delay to the start of the working day, we proceeded with the preparation task for the collection of rafters over the front extension of the roof. We brought in 16 more plywood strips and cut the new 33 degree angled ends on them all. Next, on half of them, cut the notch clearance for fitting onto a wall.
Then, we chopped all the pieces of timber to their required lengths and collected 12 straight noggings and 8 diagonal noggings plus also 7 strips of the polystyrene foam and finally cleaned up all the saw dust and rubbish to finish off the preparation work.
After lunch, we then proceeded to assemble and glue and nail together the four rafters in the usual fashion and got them all done in record time. We are managing to get the time down to around 40 minutes per rafter which is rewarding especially when we first started, we were running at about 60 minutes!!
Tomorrow, after the rafters has dried, and the weather being hopefully good, we will go and installed them up into the roof and then measure the next set to fill in the triangular sections up to the steel I-Beam.

For the start of the new week, we start dealing with the 33 degrees angled roof sections, namely the “B”, “D” plus the “J” and “L” sections that makes up the area over the front door and Entertainment Room extension and the area going back extending over Bedroom 2. We spent the day converting our templates for the new angle and also for the eve only sticking out a little bit less (about 20mm less), chopping up lots of internal diagonal noggings (60 pieces of the 63mm CLS, and a further 32 pieces of the 89mm CLS) and then chopped up whole load more of the straight noggins too.
Then, we went outside to measure the five rafters we are going to do, two on the “B” wall and three on the “D” wall. We measured from the top of the walls, up to the C Ridge beam and recorded the various numbers for our spreadsheet.
This resulted in us requiring to make three extra-long top flanges with a scarf joint so we did that too (to allow the glue to dry overnight) and finally got the bird’s mouths cut into three of them (B8, D3 and D4) and put half bird’s mouth ends of the other two lengths. Oh yes, we also brought into the workshop, five lengths of the 63mm CLS timber (ready for the bottom flanges) so they could warm up and dry off any dampness.
Tomorrow, we will bring in a heap of the plywood webbing and get them prepared and after that, it would be pretty much all ready to build these new rafters and off we go again!

In quite strong winds, we concluded the job of hoisting and installing the remaining rafters to complete the “E” section of the roof.

Well, actually, there is an additional bit of the “E” section to do but this is part of the porch extending over the back door over the Utility Room and that will be done when we got the roof boards laid down first.
The next job is to measure and make the long rafters that forms part of the “B” and “D” roof sections, over the Entertainment Room and Front Door, this will be the next stage of the roof construction, switching to the 33 degree sloped roof sections. These are the C Ridge and K Ridge extensions, these two being the front door, hallway, stairs and the entertainment room and then all the en-suites, bathroom and Bedroom Two going back out of the building.