How wide is the building?

It's about 29' square.


An effective way to get an overhang is to rearrange the whole assembly. Put the tie beams on top of the plate and extend them out past it maybe a foot. The primary rafters are seated into the tie. A secondary rafter is affixed to the primary ones at a slightly shallower angle and fastened to the end of the tie beam, extending below it a ways. This is a very good way of getting an overhang. Maybe I'll have to draw some pictures.

Yes, please! It sounds intriguing, but I don't have quite enough experience to picture it.

Also, where you have bolsters on top of your posts and a scarf joint above, there is no need for the lightning bolt scarf. You can use a much simpler scarf and peg it securely to the bolster block. The bolster itself serves much of the function of the complex form of the lightning bolt scarf, so you can save yourself some work there.

That's great to know. Since it's probably going to take me a decade to build this thing, saving work where I can is going to be important for this project.

I am not sure I understand the problem B). If you extend the rafters, they will extend naturally in the planes they are already a part of. If the hip rafters lie in both planes, extended hip rafters will remain in both planes.
Swiss houses very often have hips set at a steeper angle than the main roof, framed by extended rafters shot out over the purlins. There is no problem here.

Might you be able to direct me to a picture of this method? I can't quite wrap my head around that visually, either.


And finally, thanks for all your input. If I'm going to pull this off, I'm going to need a lot of help from folks like you, and I really appreciate the effort it takes to respond. I will certainly provide you the beverage of your choice should our paths ever cross in real life!

cheers,
Randy