Rafters

After decking the second floor, we now have all the rafters for the two story section assembled and raised.

This was the most difficult step so far. Each rafter is assembled from four 9-foot long 2x8 boards, with four 2x4s and a 2x8 collar tie sandwiched in between. The cuts on these boards are tricky, with angles like 36 and 54 and 16 degrees at various points. So getting the boards cut and assembled cleanly was very frustrating at times, due to slight variations in angles caused by imperfectly straight cut lines, and twists and bows in some boards. This was probably another case where our attempt at perfection went a bit too far.

As with the decking, we developed a workflow with one person below cutting the 2x8s, and the other person cutting the 2x4s and assembling the rafters on the deck.

After we built six rafters on the deck, we called in two friends to help raise them. (There isn’t room on the deck to build all twelve rafters.) We stood rafters up on the deck in pairs and braced each pair at the proper distances for the posts they were going to be placed on. Then we lifted one end of each pair onto their respective posts, then lifted the opposite end onto its posts. This was trickier than it sounds, and the first pair we raised took longer than necessary and was a bit scary. But then we worked out a method that was safe and fast (but hard to describe), and the next two pairs went smoothly.

After this, we went back to work assembling six more rafters over the next couple of days, then called in friends again for the final raising. The result is pretty exciting: this big pile of sticks we’ve been putting together is starting to look like a real house.

For the next set of rafters (to be placed on the one-story section) I’ve switched to using the miter saw instead of a hand-held circular saw. The miter saw isn’t able to cut all the way through a 2x8, so two of the cuts on each 2x8 have to be done in two passes, and probably no time is being saved. But the cuts look cleaner and more consistent, and I’m hoping that will make the assembly go faster, with less frustration about minor errors.