Category: Roof

Today, we carried on configuring and adapting various equipment and tools to help us with the task of lifting these roof Rafters up into place. For example, we reinforced the other winch support arm to stiffen up the vertical pole. We did this by welding on two angle iron pieces on the opposite side of the metal pole so that the bending moment is much stronger in the direction of the winch arm hanging over the side of the tower. The other thing we did, was to extend the cable for the control buttons for this same tower. By adding another 10 metres to the four-core electric cable going from the control box and the winch mechanism itself, now allows us to control the winch motor from ground level and have much better control when we are positioning the ends of the rafter on top of the wall and getting it to slide onto a leg too.
We then moved both towers to the next position where the AB LVL diagonal valley Rafter will be going, rotating the towers so their ends are parallel to the wooden beam to make it easy to lift up smoothly up the sides.
The next job was to slice the 41° angled cut off the top end of the rafter (the one fitting into the metal bracket) up on the C Ridge, and then cut out a clearance hole on the webbing at the other end where it fits over and on the top plate of the wall corner.
We humped this 6metres long piece of work outside and got it up with our winches, did a test fit and all it well.
The next job was to get the corner leg fitted, by cutting it down to size (exactly 2381mm high) and doing a quick test fit there too.
After that, we squirted lots of the glue all over the contact areas where the legs fits into, both ends of the rafter and the metal bracket too and then slotted everything into place!

Beam-AB-installed

Today, we resumed the challenge of lifting our very long rafter (well there are two of them waiting to go up .. but one at a time – thank you!) and after talking about different types of lifting mechanisms, we decided that the pulley “block & tackle” system wasn’t flexible enough (like for example, when we need to stop hauling, we would need to tie off. but when we need another 6 inches or so, then untie, pull and then tie up again!) so this morning, we abandoned the pulleys in favour of electric winch motors instead. We took the support arm down and adapted them again so we can slide the winches all the way along the arm, back to the vertical pole. We welded a couple of pieces of square 5mm plates on the sides of the support arm so it would lock the winch machines into place and stop them rotating and tripping the safety switch that cuts the motor!!
We went out with these new versions of our lifting mechanisms, installed them on top of the towers and then started lifting our DE rafter beam.
But ..
We didn’t get the tower lined up parallel with where the rafter needed to go so it was too far out and we bent our vertical pole section of our lifting support arm (again!). We took that one down again and straightened it out and tried again but this time, to get the tower lined up better with the rafter right up close to the tower. We were able to lift the rafter all the way this time, at last!
But ..
We discovered that the way the rafter needed to be fitted, our winch was NOT high enough to get the rafter clear of the steel I-Beam to allow the bottom end to slide back into the corner! Oh Blow! Drat! Phew!
Everything goes back down to ground level, disconnect electric, tidy up one winch set and cover it up against the weather and the other set was taken down completely so we could start thinking a new design, using bigger, stiffer, taller metal pole, this time another 1.5 metres taller!!
We found an old heavy duty pole that was an used for an old washing line and used that as our new vertical pole. It was just the right diameter to slide down inside the scaffolding tower’s poles in the corner but we had to bash out the dents made by the locking bolts. While that was being done outside, the new pole was having bits and pieces welded to it (like the old support arm off the original version).
Tomorrow, we will finish off welding of extra bits and pieces to this new pole and then we will try lifting our rafter for the fourth or fifth time – We Forget Now! Smile!

This morning, we sliced off the bevel wedge that needed removing off the top end of the LVL Rafter so it will slide and fit tight into the metal bracket. Then, at the other end, re removed a small section of the webbing so it can fit across the 76mm thick top plate on the walls.
That done, we organised the scaffolding towers so that we could use our block and tackle to lift up the 60kg rafter beam without having to use the electric winch machines and instead use man power on ropes going through two pairs of 2 pulleys blocks to increase by 4 fold the lifting power.
But, Hey Hoy, we had an incident involving a metal collar on our extending arm at the top of the tower and the fact that it snapped apart into two pieces under the twisting action and dynamic loading on the end of the extension arm.

Broken-Connector

Updated-hoist-arm

Hoist-arm-bends

It looked that it really needed a second leg to support the other end of the extended arm so we fetched our old wooden crane legs, reduced the height of where the horizontal pole fits through the wooden section and tried getting it to marry up and connect to our support arm. But it was leaning over drunken and we couldn’t get it to slide all the way into the metal collar!!

Supporting-hoist-arm-with-a-leg

At this point, it started raining so we abandoned this work and went back indoors to carry on with our vacuum unit instead. PHEW!

Today, we assembled the two LVL diagonal Rafters in our template and glued and nailed it all together. These particular rafters are just under 6metres long and they weigh 60 Kg each – phew!

Ready-for-second-plywood-web

Glue-Spread-

Valley-Beams-AB-and-DE-Finished

We have been working on sorting out the design and calculations of the first set of LVL diagonal Rafters, namely, the two rafters that comes from the C Ridge, down to the corners of where the Front Extension starts. It is the first time we have tackled this type of diagonal Rafter and it is quite complicated with different angles coming into play from different directions. It is a case of making sure that we understand exactly what is going on and how the real world measurements we got, fit with the drawings on the computer and making adjustments etc.
Finally, today we have got to the point of having a pile of parts (polystyrene foam strips, plywood webbings, internal noggings and the LVL timber) all ready and prepared for assembling tomorrow. Everything is carefully being sanded and cleaned for maximum strength as these diagonal Rafters are going to be expected to be handling quite large loads, rather than the more normal straight rafters that just goes from top to bottom!
The whole LVL rafters, including the corner Posts that we built several months ago, will be glued and nailed together and fit nice and tight – We Hope!

Today, it was the task of taking out our C Ridge beam out and installing it into place. But first, we had to cut away some little bits of wood at the end of the beam that goes next to the steel I-Beam (to clear the sticking out flanges of the I-Beam), and also insert some filler wood pieces so that the fixing nails in the side of the metal bracket will be securely and bite into solid wood.
Next, we weighed the whole beam on our scales and it came in at 61kg which is a fair weight but we could handle it fairly easily to take it outside and lay it down ready for hoisting up our scaffolding towers. First, we tried hauling on rope by our own muscle power but it proved rather difficult to lift and keep the beam in control, meaning not letting it fall back down again!
We then switched over to our old method of using our mains powered winches on our existing metal poles jammed into the corner of the scaffolding tower and hoisted the beam up nice and easy. We managed to swing the beam around and have it resting across our two towers.

Here we found that it was tricky lifting each end up by ourselves into the bracket and onto the post (on the C wall) so we ended up taking turns to be both at one end at t a time and help lift it in place. We did some slight removal of wooden material at the I-Beam end so it would fit into the metal bracket and sit more firmly back to the Kerb etc. and then we applied lots of silicone glue to the whole bracket surfaces and wooden ends to slide the beam into it final position. We then applied more glue at the other end on the post and fixed two side bracing supports to lock everything together including six fat nails in the sides of the metal bracket to anchor the beam firmly in place.

C-Ridge-in-place

C-Ridge-in-Metal-Bracket

C-Ridge-Wall-end-with-Bracing

Today, we resumed the work on creating the first Roof Element, namely the C Ridge beam that goes from the Steel I-Beam (the Skylight) to the Front Door wall, labelled “C”.
We sanded the plywood webbing like we did for the LVL timber, again to make sure that we are getting the best condition surfaces for the gluing. We then assembled the two LVL timber lengths in the template and put in a couple of little spreaders to ensure that these timber pieces are pushed outwards and not jump around when we start nailing things together. Next we vacuumed all the surfaces to clear away the last of any bits and dust to stop them interfering with the glue joint. Here we then apply the glue using our compressed air glue bottle but first we had to fill it up, sort out the compressed air hoses, and nail gun as well so everything was ready to go!
After the glue was applied, we took the plywood strips and placed them on top of the LVL timber in the template and then went along down each side, using our fabulous squeezer to ensure the glue joint is as tight as possible, and nailed it together to keep it nice and tight!!
We turned it over and glued the second side but when we were about to place our plywood strips, we suddenly remembered that we haven’t put in the noggings and polystyrene foam filling!! Eek! So we spent fifteen minutes scraping the glue off again and washing the surfaces clean!! Oops!
After lunch, we set the polystyrene foam slicing machine up and decided that it would make sense to get and install on a fourth hot wire near the top of the machine so we can slice the required width of foam without having to adjust the 3 wires which slice the foam into 38mm sheets which is what we need to fill in the space inside the box beams we are making. That took a little time to sort out as well.
Finally, we sliced up one whole sheet of the polystyrene foam board into 3 strips of 260mm wide pieces and then sliced these 3 pieces into a further 3 thinner pieces to make 9 in total of 260mm by 38mm thick by 2400mm long strips, we only need little over 2 strips today. The remainders will be used later on inside other beams.
Then we chopped up four pieces of 89mm CLS timber and shaved tiny slivers off them so they fit in between the top and bottom flange, one at the two ends, and two over the joints of the plywood webbing. After that, we inserted in the thin foam strips to fill in all the empty space and it went in quite nicely if we are allowed to say so!!
We then sanded and vacuumed the second set of the plywood strips and vacuum all the template, the LVL timber and foam and make sure it was all clean again, ready for more gluing.
We then put on the second layer of plywood strips, this time it was ok to do so! We went along again with our squeezer machine and while squashed tightly together, it was nailed tight, all the way along both edges, just like last time.

Ridge-Beam-C-Made