Rafter Tails

In this picture you can see that the rafters do not extend past the wall. Rafter tails will be added to extend the rafters to provide for an eave. Doing it this way will make room for insulation without having the appearance of a 1 foot thick roof from the outside.

So the rafter tails need to be natural log for the lower half and milled to 3 1/2 x 7 1/4 on the upper half. I built a 6' long box that will hold the log. I attached temporary 2x4 blocks to each log end. The blocks and the box have holes drilled in them so that bolts can be inserted, allowing the log to spin within the box.

The end block is exactly the same dimension as the 3 1/2 x 7 1/4 section I need to cut. For each cut, the saw blade is brought down to just touch the block. The log is rotated to position for the first cut and a screw is driven to hold it from rotating. Cut 1 is made.

Before rotating for the next cut, the side of the log is scored with the chainsaw for the plumb cut that aligns with the exterior wall face. A slot in the box positions this cut in the same place on each rafter tail that is made.

Rotate 90 degrees and set the saw blade height for the next cut...

Finish the plumb cut with a chainsaw..

And so on until all 4 cuts are made.

Here are some rafter tails installed, along with some blocking.

Spring Snow Storm

A couple of weeks ago we had a pretty good snow storm. After it was over I flew the drone up the canyon. I am still amazed at what it can do. I program the flight path on the computer before it takes off. I don't have to touch any controls while it is flying except when it returns to land.


Up Canyon After Snow from fred beal on Vimeo.

Prom 2016

On Saturday 4/16/16 Brandon had his Jr/Sr Prom. We took a few pictures before the festivities. Here are a few pics.

 

Drone Video

Yesterday I did some exploring with the drone, flying around the nearby canyons.

Here is an edited video from one of the flights. (Adjust speaker volume first).

The drone traveled 2.4 miles during this one.

https://vimeo.com/162356305

Log Framing

On Thursday I had a crane come to set the logs. I also hired two people to help. It took about 7 1/2 hours to set them all. Everything fit together well (whew!) with just a little adjusting here and there as we went along. It was a beautiful day too. Click on a photo to enlarge it then click the back button to get back to the blog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The front gable dormer still needs to be framed. I will have some log accents that will not need to be set with a crane. I will also add rafter tails to the interior logs (the ones that don't extend past the wall). Hard to explain why I am doing it this way but I will explain that later when it is in place and there are pictures to show.

 

 

The porch roof unit weighed 3000 pounds according to the crane operator.

IMG_2082 from fred beal on Vimeo.
crane from fred beal on Vimeo.