How To Make Roof Rafters

This video shows how to make roof rafters with a rafter square and or a speed squ.

How to make roof rafters. The roof rafters provide integral structural support to the roof. How to build a shed roof step by step. Before you cut your boards you ll need to measure the width of your building and calculate the exact length of each rafter. Floor beam span tables of residential structural design we will now look at roof rafter and beam design.

The image below shows a cross section of our simple 12 x 13 house from the joist span tables section of this tutorial. Laying out hip valley and jack rafters takes experience and skill but if you re building a simple gable or shed roof all you need is the common rafter the basic building block of roof framing. The ridge cut also called the plumb cut at the top of the rafter the birdsmouth cut. Measure from the bottom end of the plumb cut line marked in step 5 and make a mark at 2 inches.

For every foot. This marks the notch or bird s mouth cut of the rafter which rests on top of the exterior wall. For example if your roof is 24 feet long you can have a 4 12 roof pitch. Let s consider a basic gable wood roof framing design.

Here we have a wood framed gable roof. Lean to rafters then connect to a ledger board against a wall of another shed or house. Building installing roof rafters. Fink trusses were originally invented for the purpose of beefing up bridges but many contractors now use them to increase the strength of interior structures.

You can use common rafters on any shed roof but they make the most sense when constructing a gable roof or lean to type shed roof where they can sit on or attach to top plates of a wall. When you cut the rafters you ll need to make 3 separate cuts. To lay out a common rafter you need the pitch of the roof expressed in units of rise per foot of run in the gable roof example shown here a rafter with 6 in 12 pitch rises 6 in. The first step in building the roof rafters is to cut one rafter board to length with the ends angled properly and then to mark and cut the birds mouth and seat on the rafter.

Build a fink truss to bolster a floor roof or deck. This video shows how to make roof rafters with a rafter square and or a speed squ. Before you begin building rafters you need to determine that you have the right tools materials and measurements. The first thing to determine is the pitch your roof will have and the span your roof needs to cover.

Continuing on from part 3.