Saturday, May 27, 2006

'S Wonderful


I knew if I sent my crappy little truss drawing to the architect, it would incite him to draw something really cool. And it worked! I think this is going to be really great! A little time consuming to enlarge and lay out but well worth it. We still have to run it by a structural engineer and get his blessing on it though. I hope this drawing makes sense to everyone. I know what I'm looking at but sometimes when you come at a drawing cold, it can be a little disorienting. This is basically a steel I-beam. The abstract designs that are the webbing will be cut out of 1/4" steel and welded to the 1/2" flat stock that will make the top and bottom flanges. The whole thing will be just over 24' long and 1'-8" tall. I'm not sure if ya'll will be able to read the details when this thing is posted. That top drawing where the designs are imposed over a grid are just to help me enlarge the design onto a paper template.
If I understood the architect right, the design was kinda inspired by a stained glass window that he saw at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in D.C. And we even thought that later I might could install some pieces of stained glass in some of the open areas of the truss.
What do ya'll think? I love it myself and Allen even likes it. We are all having alot of fun with this.
I should have some more to post this weekend as we are going to go ahead and deck the part of the roof that we have framed and continue the rafter tails also.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess I'm going to have to see the finished truss to actually understand. But if it involves stained glass, I'm sure I will like it.

Bill said...

It does look neat.

If it is what I think it is then all the ones I've seen before were just solid. But then I know nothing about construction.

MamaHen said...

Hey Pablo! As soon as I get the truss parts cut out and partially assembled, I think it will make better sense. I know it's all kind of hard to imagine right now, even for me sometimes.

Hey Bill! Yes, I-beams are solid, so this is sort of like a combination of an I-beam and a truss.