Thanks guys for responding. I guess I wasn,t all that clear with my question. Basically I'm not as concerned with the rafter/post joinery as I am with total frame workmanship. The frame in question is your basic "Benson-esque" high-posted cape with a 4' knee wall, 12-12 pitch so simple 45 deg. everywhere. I know why the gap occured (queen post a tad too long) but this particular bent was raised in two sections to allow me to install drop-from-above intermediate plates.
Ya Jimmy I hear you about test fitting and I do it 90% of the time but I'll tell ya, I mill my own sticks like you do and you know as well as me that a 20' white pine 8x10 weighs slightly less than the moon so I tend to forgo moving the big ones too much.
So far my frames have allowed me to snap full size lines on the shop floor and use those to come up with measurements of the more math reliant pieces like rafter beams and collars. I could I suppose resort to SOA-COA-TOA (or is it COA-SOA TOA?) but I just can't seem to trust trig enough when it comes time to put saw to timber (sorry Tom!)
Thanks for the encouraging words Mark and Collin. Yours are kind of what I was wanting to hear I guess. It occured to me later on that aside from being in old barns and a visit to Jack Sobon's place a couple of years ago that I had never really seen anyone else's work first hand. This got me wondering how my work stacked up to others out there. Do they have gaps also? I agree with you Mark that most people don't really notice the flaws and are usually thrilled with the frame or don't really give a crap one way or another. I, or WE as framers on the other hand do give a crap about the mistakes, in fact a mistake like my "gap" drives me nuts but I must admit I'm starting to get over it.
Mojo...thanks brother. I tell ya, at the time I was looking for anybody to blame. I was going to blame this one guy who nobody seemed to know but he offered me a beer so I figured he wasn't such a bad dude. I did think it would work if I hung my jacket over the joint but I figured someone just might move the jacket some day and discover my flaw.
Thanks to all. Feel better already.
