Building a Roof

Saturday was a ball buster but we did it .

Set up a couple of temporary posts to support the ridge pole at the right height .

Setting up the ridge pole .

Testing the rafter patterns we made last week for fit .

Had to go up with the ridge pole about a quarter inch but everything seemed to fit otherwise .

Then we crown , mark and cut twenty six rafters . Benjamin finish cuts the bird's mouth notch .

And Ben did a fancy stacking job of the cut rafters inside .

And we start installing rafters .

Set the the birds mouth cut out on the top plate first .

First one gets nailed onto the ridge pole .

After the first four go on the front end I switch to the back end to get the ridge pole where we need it to be .

High wire act .

That nail went in wrong .

Moving along now .

Ben caught on quickly and was starting the toe-nails on the bird's mouth so I had one less thing to mess with up high .

Alternating sides so that things don't go kadywompus on us .

Making quick headway now .

Last one goes on the left side .

Looks like a roof .

All but the end rafter tops were floating on the ridge and yet to be tacked on when I checked the walls for straight and found the left side wall bowed out about a quarter inch . So with a handy rope Ben had in his car I set up a Spanish windlass to bring it in to line with our string . And then set a temporary collar tie to keep it there .

Then I spike the tops in place . Hand nailed them as it was easier than fighting with the heavy nailgun .

By four pm I put the hustle on and we had a mad dash to get the roof sheathed . The entire roof was leaning to the back of the building about an inch and we had to bring it forward . The pole on the front was our plumb check so that we did not wind up with an out of square roof .

My nailgun is a bit worn out and does not always sink the nails so they need a whack occasionally .

Roof Monkey waits for the help to mark up the sheathing with sixteen-on-center stripes and cut us a half sheet .

Roof Monkey still waiting .

Last piece on the left side goes on .

Then we tackle the right side .

Last piece goes on the right side .

Six fifteen pm, tools packed and we have it all tarpped up for Sunday's rain .