How To Put Two Boards Together For Roof Support

The longer the overlap distance the stronger the connection.

How to put two boards together for roof support.

An easy and invisible option of joining two boards together is by using a dowel joint. Set thin evenly sized strips of wood under both ends of your boards to raise them off of your work surface. Some bracing provides a way to put up the trusses evenly while holding them and other bracing supports them after they are put up. Install flashing approved for pressure treated lumber on top of the ledger.

Use a bevel square to measure the cuts in the ridge board where the rafters will be placed. Deeper than the cut. Install house wrap over the flashing. Glue them in place with liquid nails or some other construction adhesive and fasten in place with 3d or 4d box nails two inches apart in wiggly lines down both edges of each truss member.

Line up the square with the plumb line then rotate it 180 degrees realigning the square on the other side of the board leaving at least 1 5 or 2 inches of bracing for the top edge above the seat cut and at least 4 inches of width for the support on the top cut. Raising the boards will keep your work surface clean. The side by side joists should be attached together by a nailing pattern similar to combining boards to form a beam. Draw cutlines from the center of the top ridge board to its end and make these cuts with the sawblade set 1 8 in.

When you glue and clamp your boards excess glue will seep out from the joints. Cover the top of the flashing with window door flashing tape. It is important to make sure that the cuts are equal distances from one another and are all the same width and depth. Lay the boards across strips of scrap wood.

This will put saw tracks in the bottom piece showing you where to finish the cuts. The holes should be around 1 16 inch deeper than the half the dowels length. You should overhang at least a couple of feet on each side of the beam. Position the doweling jig over the top of the mark and start drilling your holes.

Make gussets big enough to cover at least eight inches of each frame member at each joint. Trusses form the roof line on buildings and provide support for the lumber that holds shingles or other form of roof cover. Now you can put the pieces together with a couple of 8d nails near the end of the splice. Without bracing it is almost impossible to install trusses.