One of the biggest challenges we have had so far in building the cabin, was not having a flat surface to work on. With the cabin sub-floor built this was now solved. Even though we weren’t going to be needing them for some time we figured it was time for building the roof trusses.

Using a chalk line we laid out on the sub-floor what the roof trusses were going to look like. After we were happy with the first truss, we screwed blocks down to setup the jig. This would ensure the roof truss pieced together would all match.

With the first truss built we then cut all of the material needed for building roof trusses. The trusses were built with two 2×6’s butted together with another 2×6 for the tie beam. We used 1/2 inch plywood for the gussets to hold them all together.

As we were building the roof trusses we started to realize just how large (and heavy) there were going to be. By themselves each piece was not bad, but as we screwed them together they started getting heavier and more unwieldy.

After each truss was assembled on one side we needed to flip it over and glue and screw the gussets on the other side.

Building the Roof Trusses

Just Sharon and I doing this at ground level was a challenge. When finished we were going to have to handle them ten feet up without a floor to stand on. Not sure how that would work, but that’s a problem for another day.

Slowly but surely the pile of roof trusses got larger and larger. Stacked them one on top of the other, we could confirm there were all the same size and shape.

Fifteen trusses were needed for the front and back part of the cabin. The loft area trusses were a differed shape so we need a different layout for them.

We completed building roof trusses for the main cabin then moved them off the sub-floor. This allowed room to build the trusses for the loft area.