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Day 6
I started off the day with a good breakfast including our first 7 eggs! After breakfast I went out and got busy on the coop. I wanted to get all the rafters up today. I had figured out how I was going to do it by myself, and things have been looking nice and plumb, level, and square, but I was still a bit nervous about getting them just right with no gaps or other weirdness. Even though I did carpentry work for about 3 years I never got a chance to set rafters.
I started off by making one, and then tried it in all 10 spots. It was looking good except I needed to change the angle by a couple degrees. I made up another, it looked great, so I made up a few more and put them in place. It all went smoothly and came out nice. I made up the rest and put them in place. I had to move pretty quick at the end because it was starting to drizzle. I put in some temporary collar ties to keep things in place, and I took down the temporary supports so I could really see what things look like.
I'll be cutting the ends off the rafters once I figure out exactly how I'm going to setup the ridge venting and therefore will know exactly how long the rafters need to be. I'm glad I got 10ft 2x6s for the 8ft (minus a few inches) rafters because it gave me extra room to avoid knots in the wood and re-cut a few of the top angles when the angle of the saw moved by accident.
WOW! The coop now has it's shape!
I'm pleased with how they call came out. There's no gaps, those are shadows on the second and third rafters on the right.
I'll be adding some blocking and clips to help keep things together and resist lift from the 2ft front and rear overhangs and 1 1/2ish side overhangs.
I walked part way down the driveway and got a look at how the coop fits in. It looks good. I'll stain the coop to match the house and am going to order some steel roofing that's really close to matching the color of the shingle roof on the house. The lit windows face south.
Here's a good reminder of why you should always keep your hands further than the length of the nails away from the nose of the nail gun IN ALL DIRECTIONS. I was aiming it in the direction of the red arrow and the nail hit a knot or another nail which caused it to bend and come out in an unexpected spot. Glad I didn't have my hand there. I've never been bit, knock on wood.
I did come really, really close once when I was nailing a rim joist corner on the second floor of an addition. I was on a ladder and having a hard time keeping everything in position. I had my right hand holding one of the rim joists and had the nailer pointed at the corner back towards that hand. I accidentally bump-fired a second nail and it shot along the surface of the joist between my hand and the wood, just leaving a deep scratch in the callouses of my fingers. Yikes! I keep my nailer out of bounce mode now unless I'm nailing off sheathing. This picture also shows where I pre-drilled holes to put nails in the tips of the rafters without splitting them.
I managed to get in about 5 hours. I have a busy week ahead of me so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get much done until next weekend. My wife pointed out that I should temporarily capture the loose ends of the rafters so they don't do something funky, especially with the mix of sun and rain in the forecast for next week. I'll try to squeeze that in tomorrow along with some temporary diagonals across the rafters to keep them from racking and slightly loosening the nails.
I started off the day with a good breakfast including our first 7 eggs! After breakfast I went out and got busy on the coop. I wanted to get all the rafters up today. I had figured out how I was going to do it by myself, and things have been looking nice and plumb, level, and square, but I was still a bit nervous about getting them just right with no gaps or other weirdness. Even though I did carpentry work for about 3 years I never got a chance to set rafters.
I started off by making one, and then tried it in all 10 spots. It was looking good except I needed to change the angle by a couple degrees. I made up another, it looked great, so I made up a few more and put them in place. It all went smoothly and came out nice. I made up the rest and put them in place. I had to move pretty quick at the end because it was starting to drizzle. I put in some temporary collar ties to keep things in place, and I took down the temporary supports so I could really see what things look like.
I'll be cutting the ends off the rafters once I figure out exactly how I'm going to setup the ridge venting and therefore will know exactly how long the rafters need to be. I'm glad I got 10ft 2x6s for the 8ft (minus a few inches) rafters because it gave me extra room to avoid knots in the wood and re-cut a few of the top angles when the angle of the saw moved by accident.
WOW! The coop now has it's shape!
I'm pleased with how they call came out. There's no gaps, those are shadows on the second and third rafters on the right.
I'll be adding some blocking and clips to help keep things together and resist lift from the 2ft front and rear overhangs and 1 1/2ish side overhangs.
I walked part way down the driveway and got a look at how the coop fits in. It looks good. I'll stain the coop to match the house and am going to order some steel roofing that's really close to matching the color of the shingle roof on the house. The lit windows face south.
Here's a good reminder of why you should always keep your hands further than the length of the nails away from the nose of the nail gun IN ALL DIRECTIONS. I was aiming it in the direction of the red arrow and the nail hit a knot or another nail which caused it to bend and come out in an unexpected spot. Glad I didn't have my hand there. I've never been bit, knock on wood.
I managed to get in about 5 hours. I have a busy week ahead of me so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get much done until next weekend. My wife pointed out that I should temporarily capture the loose ends of the rafters so they don't do something funky, especially with the mix of sun and rain in the forecast for next week. I'll try to squeeze that in tomorrow along with some temporary diagonals across the rafters to keep them from racking and slightly loosening the nails.
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