Rafter Mystery

[alex trent]

This is about the Mtn Cabin in Nicaragua posted in owner builder projects. This is here because it is less about the build than about one specific problem that is a mystery and I hope to gain some insight from anyone.

Rafters went up on a ridge board fine..all tight and nice. Front and back ballon framed so rafters on gables also supported by studs.

I do not have a pic of the front but here is the back for reference. Front has a big header in the middle so the studs not there but some meant to go up off the header.



Today, when we went to put the header in the front of the cabin......a builder guy drove the center stud stud in hard from the header to the gable end ridge board.

Here is what I now have. I  do not have a pic of it



I first thought thought when we took the stud out it would all fall back close to place.  note the left rafter was not nailed to the ridge board and the right only had one nail (sorry me for not checking closer..but it was tight fit from the ground). Di not.  We played with it a bit and got the right one just about on the board  by raising the board a bit. All is now level on top..both rafters with the board and nothing else seems to have moved and all is level and like it was.

I am out of ideas on how to get the left rafter to lie on the board. They want to cut a bit off the upper part. That seems like it would do it...like 3/8' but I cannot figure out why we have to do that now.

Any thoughts on what we can do short of redoing the rafter...that is complicate by the fact that it is connected to studs and has 4 outliers going across and nailed to it.  What he hell happened?

[Don_P]

If the top of the rafter is laying in plane with the roof then the length is correct, you don't want to remove length unless it is sitting high. You can rip a tapered shim to slip in from the bottom. drilling a few holes from the opposite side of the ridge at a shallow angle thru the ridge, shim and into the offending rafter that will take care of securing it.

As to how it happened. It was either cut wrong, most likely, or when you cut green material at an angle as it dries the angle becomes more acute. I doubt that happened that fast. It is a compression joint, it just needs good full bearing.