1860 BARN 2.5

 RAFTERS

The scarf and building structural elements secured, I wanted the thing dried in. Especially since I had a plywood floor. And rain, though not as constant as in winter, fall and late summer, will be more constant as spring approaches. It was time for a roof.

Rafters!

Can't have a roof without them.

So I decided to dip into my wood bank and go for it. Might as well, since the weather was finally cooperating.

But I had one thing to do first; to protect the board and batten siding on the shop. The few boards I'd been installed last year were only to make the appraiser happy (he was anyway), so they needed attention now. Rain had begun to gray out the bottom of the boards, and the heart pine, not meant to be exposed to the weather without a protective coating, was splitting.

So I did what any frugal Yankee-type would do. I used what I had to do the job. The front gutter on the house had been removed before the new roof was installed, and I intended to replace it, hopefully with a more period-friendly half-round gutter. But times change, and I now had no extra money to buy the half-round. But I did have the old K-style aluminum seamless the roofers had removed, and it was pretty much intact despite the dents. I'd asked them to remove it carefully. So I took an afternoon to install it on the shop.

Of course it took TWO afternoons.

First, I had to remove the crappy fascia that was rotting at the ends of the rafter tails. Then, I had to install new blocks at the ends of those rafter tails, also rotting because end grain is but a sponge that sucks in water. I actually found a bunch of pressure-treated blocks and installed them on edge so the end grain wasn't an issue. If I wasn't racing the approaching rain (a constant problem in construction, especially around here), I'd have taken better pictures. I removed the  old fascia, added the blocks, and installed a new fascia nearly three times the width of the old, as I'd extended the metal roof back in the fall. I used pressure-treated wood I already had (cheap Yankee), knowing I wouldn't have time to paint it.

I pieced two aluminum gutters together with a dollar forty-one joint and some silicone I already had, drilled holes in the gutter and fascia, and used the ferrules and aluminum nails to install the damn thing after popping a line to make it drain on a building tilting the other way.

SEE HOW EASY IT IS????

This pic was taken before I installed a downspout and a  60 degree elbow, the former at the left side and the latter at the right side. The right side elbow, which points away from the building, would eventually be removed and the outlet blocked, and the left side would have its downspout reconfigured when the board and batten was complete. The rain was approaching.

Needles to say, it got done, the gutter works, and I'll get back on it after the 1860 barn is dried in.

The barn roof hadn't been attended to since 2015, and its west end needed jacking. I'd jacked it when I removed the south rafters and roof (eight layers of shingles), and the stifflegs I installed above the 6x6 oak girt below still held. But that part of the flooring had rotted, and I hadn't jacked it to level anyway. Now as the time.

So the first thing I did was to asses the connecting structure, and the original rafter-to-plate joint on the north side was attached only with nails. Very LARGE nails, but I couldn't see them except in one or two places. I decided to augment their attachment, as it was essential for the roof not to collapse. Oh, SURE, a roof collapsing on my head would be FUN, but who would feed my dogs when I lay there dying for five days?

So I used the cheap tinfoil Simpson "hurricane ties" that code requires. Hurricane, my ass. They wouldn't keep a feather in place in a twenty mile an hour breeze.

Okay, I exaggerate. I have better methods for securing rafters, and if you keep reading, you'll see how it's done if you are an anal-retentive asshole such as myself.

But I already had these (Frugal Yankee), so I installed them.

Hey, they couldn't hurt. And they actually are effective, despite their small size and the fact that they are made from foil chewing-gum wrappers.

So I used two per rafter.

Then I had to deal with the back corner/plate joint. Granted, I wasn't going to remove the stifflegs and put the two-ton weight of the roof onto the new rafters (that weight is not a joke), but I might as well make it safe while I stood below it. Years ago I'd seen that the mortise and tenon joint of the original 6x6 corner and girt had deteriorated, so I had installed some underplates, a few 2x6 scabs, and a huge OSB gusset to reinforce the corner.

Hey. Don't laugh. It held for almost four years.

Are you getting this? Is the terminology too much for you? Well, you're using a computer. Look up the terms. OSB, underplates, girts and posts, mortises, tenons, and scabs. These are technical terms, people, but they are not Sicherese! Any drooling half-wit carpenter's apprentice knows what I'm talking about, so you should too.

If you're from Glumfrecht.

The last rafter had, for some reason, a huge hole right where it needed the wood grain to be continuous for strength. Lucky me. So I had to figure a way to reinforce it. I'd have to screw a 2x6 scab to it.

Damn! And I thought I'd run rafters today!

But we were back to smelf and grall.

Can't get to four without going through two and three. Or, as I said a  couple of posts ago, through smelf and grall, if you happen to live on the planet Glumfrecht.

Been there, smelly place. No 7-11s, so there's that.

Worse than the rafter end, I had two barns joined together decades ago. The two corner posts, neither which I'd reinforced at the bottom, were nailed together by some farmer in the past. Since I needed to reinforce the 1860 barn corner post, I had to separate it from the 1730 barn corner post. So the first thing I did was to remove the stacked long wood I'd lazily put in the corner (see the second previous picture) so I could access the corner itself.

I removed the ancient oak block to which the lower door pulley was attached (had to use chisels and flat nailbars to split it; no pulling those nails in this picture, they had to be cut off with a grinder) and tried to figure the best solution that would not bring down the entire barn (and especially the two-ton ceiling above my head). I decided to deconstruct the corner gusset I'd installed four years before.

But But BUT!

  For some reason that escapes me, I'd NAILED the OSB gusset to the oak timber behind back in 2015 using gun nails (I almost ALWAYS use screws). Notoriously difficult to remove, these.

After trying for a few minutes (and getting the result you see), I decided to leave the gusset and 2x6 corner behind it and concentrate on the stupid piece of pine that was nailed to the two big plates. That's the tilted thing above the OSB in the picture above. I figured it would be as hard to remove as the OSB.

But it was nailed with square nails, which are really easy to remove. But I ain't that stupid, people. I also knew that if I removed that piece, I might find it was the only thing keeping the barns from swaying in the wind. So I went below and added some temporary support to keep the barn posts together. 1860, meet 1730.

My 2x6 festooned with Timberlok screws awaits in the foreground. It would be attached to the  back plate and extend out to eventually tie the two barns together forever when I restored the 1730 barn to the right,

Here you see the removed door..no you don't! (go back to read about this door, grrrr….)

And here you see the scabs I screwed into both corner posts to keep them from going in different directions. Honestly, I still don't know why anyone would build a separate barn right next to an existing one.

Unless they are Frugal Yankees.

NOW I could start to lay out the rafters!

Well, no I couldn't. I took measurements from the newly reframed girts and flooring of the front half of the barn and found that the west roof end was four inches lower than the east roof end. I couldn't change out the rafters without rebuilding the entire barn, so I did what I'd done four years ago. But this time I did it right and FINISHED the job. I jacked the roof's west (left) end. First I had to separate the stiffleg on the left, the short one connecting the roof's horizontal support, from the 6x6 center girt below. Then I had to plan a way to make sure it didn't have the ability to come crashing down on my head as I lifted it. Did I mention that eight layers of asphalt shingles made up the roof? In addition to the full-sized 2x6 rafters, pine decking (called 'roofers' up here), and original cedar shakes? Granted, the last element wouldn't have killed me, but everything else would too...

So I got the jack in place above the oak 6x6 and...

Oh, DAMN!

Smelf and grall raise their scaly heads again!

The west center post that supports the oak 6x6 I used as a base for my jack had been, uh, somewhat, uh, compromised in the past.

Its base had, anyway. And I hadn't repaired it with a scarf joint and then wrapped it like I did the front posts. So I put a couple of 6x6 scabs onto its end and whacked some big rocks under the post to (hopefully) support it as I jacked. I'd scarf it later.

SOME support.

My measuring device/failsafe was simple. As I jacked the roof, the secondary short support on the west side, the one on top of the oak girt, would move to the north, as would the short 4x4. I would monitor the secondary's progress and inset blocks of 3/4" and 1 1/2" between the moving support and the last of the impossible-to-remove oak blocks (on the left) as the support moved to the north with each pump of the jack. This started with the 2x4 against the block, and when this picture was taken, the roof was up by one and a half inches and the support had moved five and a quarter inches to the right (north). I also continuously added wedges, shims, and finally blocks to the main 4x4 support to the right of the jack, but it didn't move nearly as much as the west support, since that was closer to the jack.

I was amazed at how easily the jack moved, with very little backpressure at all. If a jack takes a lot of strength to move, it is likely overburdened and the jacker  should think twice.

I KNOW about this, trust me.

My jack, an eight-ton hydraulic, was wedged to match the tilt from the 6x6 below (see the post to the left) to the temporary horizontal support above, making sure it didn't "hinge," which can cause catastrophic failure.

I KNOW about this, trust me.

The jack button at the top of the cylinder has a composite block that supports a larger composite block so the cylinder doesn't dig into the wood of the vertical support, which, in this case, is a stack of screwed-together 2x4 blocks under a 4x4 with an adjoining 2x4 to keep the whole thing together. At each pump, the jack is examined to make sure no "hinging" is taking place.

It wasn't, and the pressure on the jack was surprisingly minimal.

As the roof moved upward, I added more blocks to the fail safe. This way it couldn't move downward more than a fraction of an inch. At this point I'm just under ten inches horizontal, which translates to about four inches vertical. Almost there!

Note the space under the doubled 2x4s to the right. I'm moving. More blocks await.

When the west side of the roof finally reached 126 1/2" inches from the level floor, which matched the east side, I installed more horizontal blocks to the 4x4 post behind the 2x4 fail-safe. All was screwed together and the roof seemed happy. So was I since I didn't die under massive amounts of ancient asphalt roofing, roofers, and rafters. Oh, sure it would have been FUN to die that way, but the roof would never have gotten done and I'd start to stink after only a few days. No one would find me at all, since I have no friends, and once my body was decomposed (takes a long time for my species, less for humanoids), only the bank would find my skeleton when they'd come to repossess the house.

Sounds like an idea to me!

Stay tuned.

NOW I could start to install rafters...

Oh no I couldn't. It was the end of the day, rain was coming (it always does), and as I looked down the roofline from a tall step ladder, I saw the dip in the middle of the roof. Doesn't look like much from here, but it translates into about two and a half inches on the measuring tape.

It would have to wait until tomorrow. I was beat and cocktail hour was swiftly approaching.

Approaching, my ass! It was almost six-thirty!

By the way, those two rafters on the right were installed by me three years ago, tied to original rotting rafters in expectation of finishing the roof. Guess what? It didn't happen.

And even as I left the barn this day, I expected I'd use those rafters in the action tomorrow. Plus I had to deal with the end rafter, an original thing not suited for more than a home for worms.

All I can say about the whole thing is "Oh, no, precious!"

NOW I can...

...no I can't.

The front plate, rebuilt from new wood around the old wood, had separated and cupped, and I hadn't installed the screws (which wouldn't have held) or the long carriage bolts (in a bucket with their nuts and screws in the back of the loft) to hold it together. By this time, I'd installed a top plate that had 3/8" spaces around it. I had to pull it together with clamps, screw it together, and put in the carriage bolts.

WILL  I EVER GET MY RAFTERS??!!

Ah, but this is what happens when cupped wood is clamped.

CCCCRRRRRRRRRRRACK!

This is also why God created caulk. And because it is structural, it won't show.

But because it is structural, I still have to add the carriage bolts. Later. I'd screw it together in the meantime

At this point I've removed the two old replacement rafters ( a neat trick for one guy, when they weigh almost two hundred pounds due to the wet rotted timbers) which lay on the staging, as well as the end rafter, which I tossed from the gable. Or what's left of it.

I still had the roof dipping in the center.

So I jacked the center, which was a bit scary. After all, it is this doubled 2x4 that supports 80% of the roof.

But it went slicker than shit through a goose. Easy as ridin'a stuffed horse. Finer than the downy on a bullfrog.

...it worked okay.

See? Straight as an arrow. Level as a playing field. Gremlech nag unc greeshus skronk.

Sorry. I'm not from around here.

Sighting along the ridge from the stepladder showed the line in perfect alliance with the peak of the 1730 barn.

So I started to go through my pile of 2x heart pine lumber, looking for the best pieces. This pile had been here since 2014 and had never been covered, though it had been stickered. Only the top layer had grayed; the rest was still pretty orange.

It took some digging to get to the right sized material.

Thanks, Brian!

After selecting the rafters and laying them on the front plate. It was about to get really crowded in the loft.

Ready to go! Finally!

You 'll notice that these 1 1/2" thick pieces have white paint on one side; that's because we were using the insides of the 7"x15" timbers from which they were cut as joists at the Pendleton-Chapman House addition in Avondale. Anything left over was to be tossed, and I asked if I could have it.

They were glad to be shed of it, as it would have filled dumpsters. Thus the paint, bolt holes, and  blackened nail holes (iron oxide, which stains the wood black) which made the 600 year-old antique pine unusable for cabinetry or fine timbers and allowed them to come to me.

But how would I get the things in place? And how would I fit them to the structure, which was three and a half inches wider at one end than at the other?

All by my lonesome?

We Kings are made of sterner stuff that THAT.

The morning I installed the rafters, I lay in bed thinking. I highly recommend it, if you have the time. The shower is good for this as well.

'HOW can I get the rafters in place as well as get the birdmouths right?

So I came up with a plan. First I'd make a block that would represent the proper angle of the common cut. I'd create a set of strong but adjustable supports for the rafter end with the common cut (the angle at which the rafters meet each other) and after adjusting the support into the proper angle by using the block, I'd attach the new rafters to the old rafters with a small piece of 3/4" plywood using only two screws. This way I could hold them in place, mark the birdmouths, and adjust them one at a time.

I did this with the first rafter to make the birds mouth (the angled cut that spans the plate in front, and they have to be fairly precise), and merely copied the cut on all the other rafters.

This works wonders on new construction. It is a recipe for disaster in restoration.

See, this building was racked. It was twisted. It was unlevel, uneven, unsupported, and unhappy. So each rafter would have to be made a little longer than the other, though the birdmouths and angle of the common cut would remain the same. That's why I installed the adjustable holder for each rafter, and after making the proper cuts for the first rafter (the shortest), I merely put that rafter onto the holder for each successively long rafter and measured the distance from the common cut at the top to the existing rafter's common cut to which it would join. I'd add this distance to the top of each new rafter.

SEE HOW EASY IT IS???

Oh, yeah. One more problem before I could put these babies into place.

Smelf and grall, grrrr….

The post on the left was almost two inches out of "square" (an extremely relative term for this structure), and though the rafters were all a little off from 24" centers, the left one was WAY off. And after the roof was on, there would be nothing I could do about it. So I took another hour (boy do these add up!) to add some more uprights to the post's left side, effectively giving that rafter support for the "square". It was almost three inches out.

The best this thing has looked in years.

The plywood mini-gussets at the common cut, the birdmouths cut around the plate in front. I was beat. At the end of the day I looked down the rafters from the east end and saw some were slightly high and some were slightly low. In addition, some of the birdmouths were high on one end or low on the other. A typical situation in restoration. I'd deal with it on the morrow, when I'd add the blocks, stiffers, and additional nailers needed for rafters or joists on 24 inch centers. I prefer 16 inch centers, but whattayagonnado? The building came that way.

An old trick; use small wedges to fill the spaces where the birdmouths don't set square on the plate. I used pressure-treated pine. Note the built-up plate, a result of wrapping the original (and partially deteriorated) 6x6. It was now 12x12, and that white 1x on top (not in this picture, but in the next, ha ha) was a perfect fit at the last moment three days before. It surprised me when I cut its ends, as it was maple. Unusual for a 1x. It had been lying around the farm for years and had never split or warped. Now I knew why. The caulk will keep water from soaking through the built-up plate until I add the roof. I used polyurethane.

The block beyond is the temporary screwing point for the rafter.

A few birdmouths were fine and needed no wedges.

More did, especially when I lifted them slightly to match the other rafters. This way I'd have a straight roof with no dips..

After toenailing the wedges with 1 1/2" brads, I used my multi-tool to cut them off flush. Why? Keep reading.

More well-placed wedges, put on both sides of the rafter.

The rest of the day was spent adding L-blocks to attach each rafter to the plate (and each other, thus cutting the wedges flush), as well as adding a hemlock stiffer to each rafter. The rafters were extremely strong heart pine, but 1 1/2" x 6" is still too weak for a 24" span, so I added the stiffers, which don't need to set on the plate or span the entire length of the rafter. Then, because I am extremely anal-retentive, I added blocks between the rafters. It's actually necessary; the plywood would need extra support here, and H-clips, the modern remedy, are as much bullshit as those tinfoil Simpson ties you saw at the beginning of this post. Code calls for them; I added the L-blocks instead at the plate.

I wonder which is stronger. This?

Or this?

Yeah. That's what I thought, too.

Replaced the mini-gussets with the real thing. I put three screws into each rafter end, and will add more later.

Handmade strength.

Strength through plywood!

Now THAT'S a roof structure you can dance on!

"Upon which you can dance," he muttered to himself.

Installing the plywood will be interesting. I'll need the extra inches from the stiffers and the blocks due to the un-squareness.

That's IF I use plywood. I only want to because I have seven pieces of Zip-Ply left over from the house roof job, and I like to use what I already have. The final roof will be 5-V metal, and only needs 1x3 purlins to nail to (I'd write 'to which to nail' but it sounds too clunky). I haven't really made up my mind yet.

Christ, I'm tired.

I can use a couple of rain days.

NO!

I DIDN'T SAY THAT!!!!