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| A-frame rafters |
If you've spent much time in vacation cabins, especially in snow country, you've probably been in at least one
A-Frame. The design is a classic in its own right, fairly simple to build and having a small footprint for those tiny, yet expensive slope-side lots. If you're planning on building one of these structures yourself, we would strongly advise that you not look to the likes of HomeSteady.com for help in planning and executing construction. That's where we ran across
Alexander Callos pretending to know enough to tell people "
How to Make Angle Cuts for an A-Frame."
Sadly, the
seven-time DotD winner did not. Oh, the boy started out OK, telling his readers that,
"An A-frame is a roof that is built with a complete slope that resembles the letter A..."
...by which we assume that Callos meant that the roof of an A-Frame goes all the way to the ground, which is (close to) correct. Once he was done with that line, however, Alexander started drifting off-topic:
"You can make an A-frame out of two similarly sized beams that meet at the top of the roof at 45-degree angles."
Well, you could, but the roof angle of most
A-frames is in the range of 22 to 30 degrees, not 45 degrees. For a roof angle of 30 degrees, you'd have to cut the rafters at an angle of 75 degrees where they meet at the ridge. The angle between the rafters and the floor joists in this case is 60 degrees. Unless you've built a specialized jig, you CANNOT cut those angles on a
miter saw; you need to use a
circular saw.
That is now, however, what Callos said. No, this expert leveraged his journalism degree to tell his readers to,
"Set a miter saw... blade to 45 degrees in either direction... Cut straight through the rafter ... Turn the blade of the saw to 45 degrees in the opposite direction and slide the second rafter into the saw. Cut the rafter just like you cut the first one. Butt the two pieces together and make sure they fit properly."
The staff framing carpenter read this and began banging his head against the wall in frustration. Not only did this moron try to tell people that the roof angle in an A-frame is 45 degrees, his directions will create a 90-degree corner!
Sheesh: and some people wonder how we can hand out a
Dumbass of the Day award every day.
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DDIY - CONSTRUCTION
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