99 Unfinished Projects: Jack gets more help

So this week, Jack has been working on Jack Rafters. there are 14 of them, running in pairs at 45 degrees off each of the hip rafters, plus 2 additional jack rafters that run from the corner rafters to the front wall.

After Jack cut the first two, and tried to position them according to our plans, he ran into a problem. Up to this point, the plans had been perfect, and everything had gone together very well. When the first set of Jack Rafters was placed on the wall, they were too long to fit where the plans required.

Jack called the engineer for the company that sells these plans, and to summarize what the engineer said, just put em where they fit, it will be fine.

Heres some photos of the problem:

In this first photo, we see the jack rafter is double-mitered, a 30 degree cut with a 45 degree bevel. On the opposite end, we see the birdsmouth that is supposed to sit on the double top plate.

The jack rafter is 37.5 inches along the top edge. We drew a center line at 13" on the double top plate. the other two lines should bracket the rafter when it is centered on the 13" line.

This is what actually happens though: the board is too long!

Some experimenting reveals this rafter would hit at around 20 inches rather than 13, and the other jack rafter that is on this hip rafter, would hit at about 40 inches. This wall is 60 inches long... so these rafters as cut per the plans, would hit the wall evenly spaced. That is not what the plans describe. However, these numbers seem reasonable to us, and seemed reasonable to the engineer too evidently.

So, on Saturday, Jack enlisted the help of his son-in-law, to pick up the *correct* shingles, the ones his wife wants, and help us put up the remaining jack rafters.

It is getting very hot here, so our work day had a couple of water and cooling off rest periods, but here is where we are now:

All the Jack Rafters are cut and tacked onto the hip rafters about where they go. From here we have to make some adjustments to the rafters, insuring the lines for the plywood that will be the roof are all straight.