#Exposed rafter tail designs how to
#Exposed rafter tail designs professional

Experiment with different patterns to see what looks best your particular project.Įditor’s Note: Mark Clement is a professional contractor and co-host of the MyFixItUpLife radio show. The choices in pattern design are limited only by the size of the wood and your imagination. Lots of notches and detail can add a sense of ornate elegance to a rafter tail design, while simpler geometric patterns give them a more basic, streamlined appearance. The only down side is a jigsaw cuts much more slowly.Īfter cleaning up the cut edges of the tails with a sander, use your completed rafter as a pattern template to trace a matching profile on all the other rafters of your project. The thin blade of a jigsaw can follow the curved path of your swoop, and its straight-cutting action can finish the incomplete cuts that the round blade of a circ saw leaves behind.

A Speed Square makes a handy guide to keep cut marks square.Ĭlement suggests you save time cutting by using a handheld circ saw on all straight cuts. You can also put fewer tails (like every 32') Use 3/4' T&G boards for the sheathing on the exposed tails. screws partially driven into the lumber on each side of the metal strip to hold its arched position as you mark the cutline.Īccentuate the swoop design with notches and angles. Re: exposed rafter tails You can build your roof with no tails, then scab the tails on with a better grade wood (i.e. Use treated lumber for outdoor projects or a wood species such as redwood that has natural preservatives.Ī neat trick for making a decorative swoop on a rafter tail is to use a straight strip of sheet metal as a cutting guide. The broader the face of the board, the more material you have to incorporate the swoops and notches that comprise the rafter-tail pattern. For both a sense of visual balance and structural strength, these framing members are generally made from large boards measuring 2×8 or wider.

Rafter tails generally dress up large outdoor structures. With a few basic carpentry tools and an eye for creativity, you can create a design that puts a personal stamp on your next outdoor building project. With a limitless array of patterns, these stylistic enhancements to the ends of a beam or rafter can give a unique look to a pergola, a rose arbor, a trellis or covered patio. They begin by drawing the birdsmouth, or the rafter cut out that fits over the wall plate (see Cutting Common Rafters, Mar/17).

#Exposed rafter tail designs how to

Alternative Heating & Fireplace Insertsĭress up your rafters with a decorative tail patternĪt the recent Remodeling Show/ Deck Expo in Baltimore, Maryland, the EHT staff caught up with our friend Mark Clement, who was giving a demonstration on how to cut decorative rafter tails. Once the design is completed and put on the blueprints, most framers I know make a full-scale drawing of the eaves detail on the end of a straight piece of rafter stock or piece of sheathing. rafters is when all the bearing surfaces are exposed to view they can thus be more accurately fitted, to admit of the pressure being evenly distri- buted.