Sunday 11/4/21
Today’s task was to cut the jack rafters for the righthand hip of the softwood roof. These were going to need individual adjustment because of the actions I took on Friday to overcome the ‘rocking straight edge’ problem. These actions resulted in the king rafter having a non-standard birdsmouth so all the jack rafters were going to need a non-standard birdsmouth too.
I started this process by cutting a standard birdsmouth in the shortest jack rafter, the one closest to the hip rafter, using the birdsmouth template.
I then put the jack rafter in position under the ‘height above plate’ line I’d set-up on Friday and adjusted the seat of the birdsmouth until the jack rafter fitted under the line without lifting it. I repeated this for each of the jack rafters.
Each adjustment was done with the circular saw and finished with a chisel.
With the jack rafters completed…
…I fitted them and they passed the ‘straight edge test’ – they all lined up with each other and the two hip rafters.
However, all the fettling of the king rafter that was done on Friday has left it short (see image). It is 31mm short to be precise.
I will start tomorrow by making a replacement king rafter 31mm longer using the existing king rafter as a template.
I ended the day by disassembling the softwood roof. I put all the rafters under cover. I’m keen to keep them dry so that I can paint the ends of them before the tent comes down.
Tomorrow Ben will re-join me and we will mark-up and fit the righthand green oak hip rafters under the softwood ones.