Vent: Talked with an old framer in Duluth last Tuesday

Guy straight up told me I've been reading my speed square wrong for 10 years. He showed me the rafter square trick for hip jacks in like 30 seconds. Anyone else had their whole method flipped by someone who's been doing it since the 70s?

2 comments

2 Comments

claire_fisher417d ago

That thing about reading the speed square wrong hit me hard. I actually just read an article in Fine Homebuilding about the same rafter square trick for hip jacks, and it blew my mind. The old timers have a way of seeing the geometry in things that a lot of us just missed completely in our training. It made me realize I'd been overcomplicating a bunch of roof cuts for years, basically working twice as hard as I needed to. Makes you wonder what else they've got up their sleeves that YouTube hasn't covered yet.

gavinperez6d ago

Hang on @claire_fisher41, I gotta push back a little here. I get that the old timers have tricks but I think we romanticize them too much. Half the time those "tricks" from the old guard are just shortcuts that work for one specific scenario and fall apart everywhere else. I've seen guys try to use a speed square for complex hip valley stuff and end up with a roof that looks like a roller coaster because they skipped the math. YouTube might not have every secret but it does have actual engineers breaking down why things work, not just "this is how my grandpa did it." Plus most of the old tricks assume you're using 2x4s and standard pitches forever, which isn't real life anymore. Sometimes working harder upfront saves you from ripping out a whole section later.

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