Next on the list was the roof. These were the easy part:
I had thought long and hard about how to make the oak rafters at the front elevation. They were a real complication, because you need the ridge in place to mark out its location on the rafters, but the ridge stops you getting the rafters in place to mark anything out. So, I decided to make the softwood rafters, and use a pair of those to capture the position of the ridge beam:
Having got the birdsmouth over the ridge beam sorted, and the feet cut, I then offered the rafters up into position to mark for the joints with the tie/ door head, and the little window heads. There is a big bridle joint at the top, and I made this next:
That one joint was nearly half a days work, and, frankly, it was a little too loose. I also chopped out the mortises for the connection to the tie beam/ door head.
The joint on the end of that tie beam looks a bit odd because it is joining a 5x5 piece to a 4 inch wide rafter:
It went together absolutely beautifully. I couldn't have hoped for better:
Finally, the little window heads which retain the rafter feet needed their joint doing:
At this stage, the porch had gone backwards from where we were a couple of days ago:
Time to start putting it all together again.Window heads on, tie beam on, and a pair of rafters fixed securely to the house. Before doing the latter I had trued everything up and got the walls exactly where I wanted them (they still flapped about a bit at that end):
I put in another temporary ridge support beam, whilst I come up with something nice in oak. Then the ridge went in:
Finally, I could offer up the oak rafters, and located the Savolit infill panels:
The only way the rafters could move was horizontal, because of the tenon on the tie beam. I had to wax all the bearing surfaces and all the joints, and get my biggest sledge hammer. It took some messing around, and lots of loud hammering, but everything dropped into place beautifully. I captured all the pieces top and bottom with stainless steel screws, with pegs to follow in the next day or two:
Finally, I was able to nail up the softwood rafters:
There's a reason for the odd spacing, which you'll see tomorrow. You'll also hopefully see oak sprockets, and membrane and battens, giving us a watertight roof.