Tim, You said:
>I would be curious as to how you arrived at your Roof design, and, why that wouldn't have suggested, or forced, a rafter to Plate connection?
Well, I basically needed good headroom on the second floor, and after a lot of looking I found barn plans from the Extension Service Out West that had both the gambrel spans I needed (32 feet) and snow load rating that I needed. Those plans spec'd the 2 by 8's . I'm pretty sure I'm going to combine the housing suggested earlier with the conventional carpenters birds-mouth to get 'enough' side-force bearing area, which I think is 4 square inches (Taking the compression load rating of wet hemlock at 360 PSI) to get a rating of 1440 lbs side force. The Plans I have show a side force of 1000 pounds in the 100 year worst-case wet snow load of 75 pounds per square foot. (The US Weather service says 50 pounds is OK here, but I have some data from nearby New Hampshire through the Army Cold Weather Lab that says 75 is possible.)
One of the books I read early on said something like "We should build barns so that 200 years from now they'll say 'Those Old Geezers knew how to build 'em!' ". So I'm aiming at that.
Yeah, the 1 inch peg is a Bad Idea. Can someone point to an online supplier for those "Oly Log Screws"?? I've never actually seen one. Our log cabin has these huge 14" spikes...
Thanks for the help; I'll put some photos up WHEN I get this farther along.
