Framing: Crown Plate, Toe Nails, Lifting & Bracing Ep.48

[Music] welcome back to our jobsite we're going to continue to look at some really classic framing moves some fairly standard situations some of what is I think the real meat and potatoes of this trade and you will also see me continue to detail and plate as we go now I mentioned that ideally everything is plated in detailed before you start and in a perfect world that's how it would be done but we don't build things in a perfect world do we we build things in the world that we have and so today I'm having to go back and forth between keeping Daniel and Lenny busy assembling the walls that I've laid out and detailed and detailing and laying out the walls that they will soon be assembly so I'm keeping my fingers crossed doing the best that I can to pay attention to the things that are so easy to overlook and trying to keep these young men productive before a wall is assembled or before it's completely assembled and gets so heavy you can't move it I like to toenail the bottom plate to the deck when it's a wood deck that's what I'm doing here I'm setting the bottom side of the bottom plate flush with the inside of the wall line with those two lines lined up perfectly I shoot a toenail through about every four or five feet and ideally that toenail will be at a 45 degree angle entering the plate about an inch and a half up and then exiting the plate and entering the decking right at the juncture between the corner of the plate and the chalk line this holds the bottom plate perfectly straight while we're framing and more importantly it keeps the bottom plate exactly where it goes when we begin to lift this wall otherwise the tendency would be as the top of the wall is lifted for the whole wall to slip right off the deck but these toenails c16 Penny's toe nailed down into the subfloor keep it where it goes and Bend creating a hinge or a pivot as the wall stands up these are the studs that will make up the interior and exterior planes of the wall that is the flat surfaces that will receive the plywood OSB sheathing on the outside and the drywall on the inside they've already been cut to the correct length and Daniel is looking at the layout marks on the bottom plate here and getting them in the right place in addition to getting them on the layout marks he is crowning them this means siding down the board to see if there is a bow in one direction or the other and making sure all the bows sweep in the same direction up that way they will lay flat and still on the subfloor and everything will be closer to being in a plane when the wall is built and raised up and receiving the sheeting on the outside and the drywall on the inside now you don't have to stress too hard about getting perfect there are some boards that might crown a little here and then be straight or maybe a gentle S shape just use your best judgement and don't be afraid to throw away a board that is radically bowed or cut it into blocks or I don't care what you do with it but don't put anything in the wall that is just plain so far out of line that is gonna create an ongoing problem in your wall now to really be productive on a framing site every carpenter needs to have their own saw your cutting & fitting almost constantly just it's as regular as clockwork that you're going to have to reach over and grab a saw and do something in order to stay productive nailing things together and having to share a saw just kills productivity now that doesn't mean you don't occasionally share a tool if you're both on the same end of the house or working close to a set of sawhorses that have somebody saw on it that's okay everybody does that but it means that just like every carpenter needs their own tool belt and their own hammer and their own tape and their own pencil they really pretty much need their own saw also now if you're a new carpenter on the framing site maybe you're the it's the first day on the job you don't have to have a saw there because you're gonna be laboring anyway but I really recommend that a circular saw be one of the first tools you add to your tool kit now a lot of times people think of framing residential wood framing as a job or a trade that happens really fast and maybe that's because you might drive by a jobsite in the morning there's some foundations there's some stacks of lumber doesn't look like much is going on and then on the way home bang there are walls up everywhere and it's amazing you can't understand how it could happen and it sort of feels the same way on the job it only takes a minute or two to bang a wall together with a crew of pros and lift it in place and tack it down and all of a sudden you've got a house taking shape around you but just because the wall is up and on its feet doesn't mean your work is done there are a few things to check before you really start nailing and bracing it in place the first thing is that this wall you've built has to be standing in the right place look at the chalk lines on the deck make sure the wall is perfectly inside these lines not skewed not crooked not off-center next is to get the wall plumb this means vertical now we're getting this done with an eight-foot level but it's a nine-foot wall so an eight-foot level is enough but you you still have to be careful you have to make a couple accommodations but in any case when it is in its right place and it is plumb it's nailed to the deck and it's nailed to any neighboring walls that are plumb you brace it in enough locations that you know that that wall is exactly where it goes and you know that no matter what you do moving forward with the other walls when you tie to the one you just stood up you're not gonna be sorry because it was in the right place whatever direction the top plate laps at the corners the crown plate does the opposite thing so that all of the corners all around the house are tied together permanently by the overlapping crown plate and the four or five sixteen penny nails that go through that overlap lots more to come on this idea in the next episode [Music] [Music] [Music] as you can see lifting walls by hand is a lot faster than using jacks now most of the time lifting by hand is the best way to do it with interior 2x4 partitions you know Shorty's fillers closet walls and stuff it is a no-brainer you just grab the wall and stand it up and put it in its place but those exterior walls we did were pretty heavy even without deceiving and the wall Jack's made it painless a lot of crews will avoid using jacks because the setup and the lift takes longer and there's lots of guys but if you're stuck with a small crew it's really nice to have a set of wall jacks in the truck now we are getting these walls plumb as we go and making sure they're braced and secured before we move on that being said what we have with these walls now is not quite the final answer in terms of how plumb or straight they are that will happen once they are all up are all nailed together and the whole downstairs is ready to be finally plumbed inlined we are however making everything as close to right as we can with a reasonably small investment of time before we move on because if there's a hang-up if there's a mistake if there's a length wrong or something is put in out of plumb now you don't want to just gloss that and multiply the problem bite fastening to something that is not right you got to fix it immediately it will only get more difficult to fix if you move ahead thinking oh I'll come back and deal with that later all of the walls on the first floor of this house are the same height we're not going to have that advantage in the upstairs and there are a lot of houses especially on a single-story house where you might have walls that are several different heights or raked four vaulted ceilings or you know who knows what so pay close attention to your plans as you go and try to avoid making assumptions I'm sure you've noticed by now but I have a set of plans on site and opened up every minute of every day on this job I'm writing and adding notes all over the plans as I go and they are really becoming a great resource for me and probably for anyone else who may own this house in the future [Music] [Music] even a baby [Music] a lot of you have mentioned and continue to mention Larry Han in the comments and I really should point out what an influential and important figure Larry Han has become in the framing community now his videos are really entertaining and fun to watch but his book the very efficient Carpenter is a gold mine in a lot of ways when that was written when he organized the tricks and processes that he had seen and learned and perfected he was plowing new ground or at least bringing a large number of processes and approaches into one spot for the first time and it has very nearly become a monument at this point he did a great service by consolidating and putting his wisdom down on paper there's a whole generation of carpenters and trade schools and businesses and subdivisions for that matter in the United States who really old Larry Han and his brother a debt of gratitude and I want to add my salute if you haven't stumbled onto them already his videos can be found online and they're a pleasure to watch I recommend them and we hope you're enjoying it I learned the things that I know the good habits and the bad from dozens and dozens and dozens of men who taught or demonstrated what they knew Larry Han included I never met him in person but I worked with people who had read his book and it didn't take me long to recognize a Larry Han move when I saw it coming along I took a little bit from each of the guys that I worked with and developed a way of building that has worked for me you can learn something from just about anybody if you're paying attention I'm sure if Larry was here he would say the same thing and be able to name a lot of men that he worked with over his career that helped him refine his approach [Music] thanks for watching our series if you have questions or things you would like to have more details on let us know in the comments also we have a podcast where we are discussing some of these topics in a more conversational setting a lot of the recurring questions and feedback and objections for that matter get addressed there thank you for watching essential craftsmen and keep up the good work [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 802,636

Rating: 4.9362221 out of 5

Keywords: framing, detail and plate, bottom plate, lifting walls, crowning lumber, circular saw, vertical and plumb, top plate, wall jacks, plumb, plumb and line

Id: uTY7xSZtbok

Length: 19min 51sec (1191 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 06 2019