Update on Rafter cutting

I ran across an old post from 2010, and thought I would update it a bit.

While wandering around the internet, I ran up on the Rafter Angle Calculator at Construction Resource.com. It looked like a nice resource. It brought back some memories. (Unfortunately, I cannot presently, July 2022, connect to that site. After 12 years, I do not remember for sure, but I assume it was an online device to calculate rafter cuts.)

Once upon a time I was a rafter man on a framing crew. I have not excelled at many things in my life, but at that I did. I was a master rafter crafter. 😀 All that seems far away now. It’s been probably 25 years or so since I did much construction work – excluding the recent “playdominium” I built for my grandchildren. There are some days when I miss both framing in general and rafter cutting in particular, but sweating profusely in the Texas summer heat building the “playdominium” was not one of them!

After finding the “Rafter Angle Calculator,” I did some further searching on rafter cutting. It appears to be a skill whose practitioners are dwindling. Pre-made trusses are one major factor in this, replacing cut rafters on many projects. Curiously, while reading about the subject online I didn’t notice anyone mentioning that rafters could be laid out with a framing square. Does anyone know how to do this anymore? [Note: I found this article on Rafter Layout with a Framing Square. I skimmed over it, and it seems to be reliable. Have not read it word for word.]

After learning to cut rafters from my Dad, I tried to add to my skill through reading and practice. One of the best was an old textbook cast off by some school – Simplified Roof Framing by John Douglas Wilson and Schurer Olaf Werner, 1927. I think I found it at a garage sale or junk sale.

Eventually, I would cut an entire roof ahead of or at the beginning of construction. In order to not have thousands of dollars of 2X6’s cut wrong, I used a three-part “safety system.” (1) I laid out the rafter with a framing square. (2) I calculated the length of the rafter with a Construction Master Calculator by Calculated Industries.1 (My boss bought one for me; their look has changed a good bit since back then). (3) I used a rafter table booklet titled Full Length Roof Framer by A. F. J. Riechers.2 If/when these three were the same, I was confident there was no mistake and the 6-1/2" worm drive Skil Saw® was ready to take its bite. If you find a house with rafters that I cut it will have a pattern rafter (or more than one, according to roof type). The pattern rafter was the one from which others were laid out, and also had notes with all the information about the rafter – cut, span, length, depth of seat cut, overhang, etc., as well as my signature of approval. (This was useful on several occasions when we went back and added to a house we had already built. I found the pattern rafter and had all the information to create a newly matching rafter.)

Those were the days.

Other info on roof framing
A Roof Cutter’s Secrets to Framing the Custom Home by Will L. Holladay
Basic Roof Framing Instructions online
Rafter Calculator
Roof Framer’s Bible: The Complete Pocket Reference to Roof Framing by Barry D. Musse
Roof Framing by Marshall Gross (Carlsbad, CA: Craftsman Book Co., 1998)

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1. The Construction Master Calculator can calculate in feet/inches and figure pitch, rise, run, etc.
2. The Full Length Roof Framer has been in publication over 100 years, since 1917, and is still not outdated. The author, Augustus Frederick John Riechers, was born May 31, 1889 in Pennsylvania. He died October 23, 1978 in San Mateo County, California. His daughter (J. Remmel) published a metric edition of Full Length Roof Framer in 1992.
3. A blogger gives some helpful drawings he thinks could have been included in Full Length Roof Framer and Simplified Roof Framing.