How To Layout Hip And Valley Rafters With Framing Square Step Off Method - Part One

in this video i will provide you with the method used by old carpenters and this would be before the calculator came out however it's rarely used today but that doesn't mean you can't benefit from this method it might be easier to understand and something that will work for you and the first thing i want to do is show you how we're going to use three common rafters here that are exactly the same size to locate the intersection point for the hip rafter and this is probably the most common method used however the hip does hang down a little bit and it will protrude past the framing plates nothing you can do about this either or should i say you might be able to do something about it if you use smaller lumber or wider framing plates and of course the seat cut here and now let's take a look at the second method and the one we're going to be using in the video and it's going to have the same seat cut on the bottom however at the top we will have a different cut and i went ahead and left the other common rafter in to give you an idea of what we did along with how far we extended the hips to make it work and of course this design here will provide the lower section of the hip with a little more support as it rests up against the ridge and it's common to use a larger board for the hip and in our example here we have two by six common roof rafters and two by eight for the hips and the ridge and even though i'm using this method here you can choose either method to lay out your hip rafter and we will be working with an eight foot span eight foot distance over over on the outside of the wall to the outside of the wall and if we divide that number in half it's going to provide us with four feet and when it comes to laying out our hip rafters we're not going to be using the 12 inches anymore we're still going to be using the 5 just not the 12 and i do have other videos if you're looking for more information about why we're using the number 17 here so feel free to visit the website and check those videos out next up let's go ahead and zoom in here on the framing square you can see where we have the number 17 and the number five here where we're lining up this part of the framing square in this part with the edge of the lumber so again the number 17 here and the number five on the other side and you will change this number here if the roof pitch changes for example if we were using a 3 and 12 roof pitch then we would be using the number 3 here instead of the number five and lining the number three up with the edge of the board and that's probably the only change you're going to need to make when laying out a hip roof rafter with a different roof pitch so the number 17 will stay this one here will change the next step will be to mark the inside of the framing square with our first section so that we can move the framing square or slide the framing square down while lining up the same numbers again so we're going to line the number 17 the inside of the framing square up where this line intersects with the outside of the board and i put a little mark there to make it a little more clearer more obvious about what we're doing so again the number 17 and the number five and then we're going to mark it again and when you are done it should look something like this and the reason why i have six of them one two three four five six is to allow for the overhang or the eaves the bottom section of the roof framing now in this next example i'm going to move this line back three quarters of an inch or half the thickness of the hip for example if we're going to have a hip that is an inch and a half wide on the edge here then we're going to move this back three quarters of an inch and that measurement is going to come square off of here and this might make a little more sense as we go along in the video so the theoretical measurement for the point that the hip intersects the ridge at the center points is going to be right here the end of this line here and then we're going to come back so we can cut a 45 degree angle on both sides so again this point right here is going to be the point where the top of the hip intersects with the other hip along with the center of the roof ridge and again these lines right here will be cut at a 45 degree angle as long as you're using a standard hip design so again the center point here theoretical measurement where it meets the center of the ridge and butts up against the other roof hip along with part of the common roof rafter and you will need to deduct a little more if you're going to use the first example in the video where we had three common roof rafters here and if that doesn't make sense don't worry about it because you're going to be able to make minor adjustments to the first hip you're going to cut and then use the measurements from that one to lay out the other hip or valley roof raptors and this is where it can get tricky this measurement here will be the same as the measurement on our common roof rafter the only difference is that we're going to have to come in half the thickness again of the roof framing hip and in some cases this measurement might be a little different than half the thickness so here we have 5 and 3 16 of an inch measurement lining up with the wall and if we go over to the other side where we have our common roof rafters we've already cut our common roof rafters with the seat cuts we want and to get this measurement we're going to need to lay out our common roof rafter first and i know a lot of carpenters and i've done it myself where we drop the hip roof rafter and there's really no need to do that if you use this method here so again we're going to have a plumb line or a vertically level line there and as long as these measurements are the same everything should line up and create a nice flat roof plane at the top and bottom of the roof rafters next step it wouldn't be a bad idea to mark the top of the hip just simply right top on the top section to avoid any confusion because this is going to be the bottom this is where we're going to be working on our seat cut and if you remember we had to move the line over three quarters of an inch and this is so that we can get the measurement we need for our 5 and 3 16 measurement so here's the theoretical length or the end of the hip this would be at the end of the wall corner of the wall would be right here and this is the line we're going to be cutting not this one and to find the location of the top of the seat cut we're going to start from this point here and i'm going to pan out a little bit so that you can get a better look at this along with this line here remember we came in three quarters of an inch and we're coming in three quarters of an inch here and by the way the measurement at the top this measurement from here to here and this one from here to here is going to be exactly the same for those of you who might have a difficult time figuring out what we're doing here so again we're going to focus on this one here and measure down from this point here 5 and 3 16 of an inch and don't be confused with this here do not think that this is important or that we've made a mistake here or that you can just cut this line for your seed cut because it might not work out for you so let's go ahead and cut this line remember i got rid of this line and we're cutting this line here and if we measure this it's going to be about five inches so again don't get confused if you measure this distance here and it's off a little bit because the measurement we were focusing on was three quarters of an inch in from this line here so here we have the bottom of our hip roof rafter and after we cut the top at a 45 degree angle on both sides we're going to have a hip roof rafter that we're going to be able to set into place so that we can double check all of our measurements so here we have the top lining up nice and then our layout lines now i didn't point this out in the video i should have pointed it out earlier but if you remember we had an eight foot span if i cut that in half we're going to have four feet or four separate sections which we have here one two three four and these are the sections that we're going to use to lay out our seat cut and our plumb cuts at the top and the other two sections are going to be for our overhang if our overhang is 24 inches or 2 feet then you're not going to be able to measure over two feet from this corner you're going to have to use the 17 inch lines again and then try to go a little bit further maybe three or four more inches just to be on the safe side now here's the problem you're probably going to run into and that will be a gap at the bottom this gap right here is the result of using 17 inches instead of 16.97 which is the actual number we need for our hips so again that would be 16.97 instead of 17 and the longer your roof rafter is when you're using the step off layout method then the larger this gap is going to be and again another reason why you might not want to use this method but don't worry because our hip raptor is actually a little longer than it needs to be so we're going to be able to cut some off of the top now before we do that let's go ahead and remove two inches from the hip here remember our rafters our common rafters are five and a half inches they're two by six and to make everything look nice from the bottom we're going to have to have the end of the hip rafter or the part of the roof rafter that is going to be used to create a nice looking overhang match the common roof rafters by being the same size so let's go ahead and cut that this is what the c cut will look like and then let's remove the eighth of an inch from the top section of the hip and you're simply going to measure over an eighth of an inch and then cut this line here and then do the same on the other side so again this doesn't have to be extremely accurate you're going to be able to check everything with your first hip roof rafter then you can simply measure the distance from the point you need to lay out your next hip rafter and have it work out perfectly and if everything works out we can go ahead and set the hip back in place and you can always use some screws drive some screws in here to hold everything up temporarily and then go down to the bottom to check and see if the line you made on the hip roof rafter lines up with the edge of the roof framing plates and that there is no longer a gap at the bottom and if everything passes your preliminary inspection and the hip roof rafter fits nicely then you have done your job correctly and then you can use the hip or valley rafter to lay out the next hip or valley rafters instead of using the step off method for all of the hip or valley rafters needed on your project and if you need more information on how to use it as a pattern feel free to leave a comment in the comment area and i will be glad to make another video for you about that and i will also be making another video on how to deal with feet and inches instead of just feet here for example here we have an eight foot wide building but what if it was eight foot two inches or eight foot three inches or nine foot seven and a half inches then i will be making another video on that in the future and i will put that on the playlist or in the video description or comment area and let me know if you can't find that link or if you have any questions about the video feel free to leave them also in the comment area and i will try to answer them as soon as possible you

Channel: gregvancom

Views: 24,003

Keywords: roof framing, carpentry, tutorial, education, examples, measure, sections, lumber

Id: WUbhv6PeEfc

Length: 13min 29sec (809 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 10 2022