mrcaptainbob
Platinum Member
Thanks for that, Phantom. A real good picture story. Neat name ya' got, too. Seems like there's a song there somewhere!!! /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
DIY Cheap Equipment Storage Barn
- Thread starter phantom309
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BB_TX
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That's really good looking truss work. Did you design those for a specific load? Or did you just build them heavier than you thought you would need? I worked for a truss company many years ago when I was in college and vaguely remember that they had predefined charts and tables to determine the iron sizes and web spacing for specific loads over specific lengths. I am considering a foot bridge using similar construction and would like to be able to find that kind of information.
OP
phantom309
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Howdy BB_TX-
I "borrowed" the design of the trusses from a company in town that builds metal buildings. They claimed that their design had been engineered to hold snow and wind loads typical of our area and exceeded city code.
I then overbuilt the barn a little by using slightly heavier square tubing, adding the extra brace across the top of the rafters and also by spacing the rafters about 4ft apart vs the builders 5ft.
Funny that you mention building a bridge using trusses. We have a little dry (most of the time) creek that I need to build a new bridge across and am thinking of going the truss route. It's really amazing how strong the trusses are considering their weight. So I'd also be interested in finding out some official numbers about trusses. Sorry that I don't have the info to offer you.
Mark
I "borrowed" the design of the trusses from a company in town that builds metal buildings. They claimed that their design had been engineered to hold snow and wind loads typical of our area and exceeded city code.
I then overbuilt the barn a little by using slightly heavier square tubing, adding the extra brace across the top of the rafters and also by spacing the rafters about 4ft apart vs the builders 5ft.
Funny that you mention building a bridge using trusses. We have a little dry (most of the time) creek that I need to build a new bridge across and am thinking of going the truss route. It's really amazing how strong the trusses are considering their weight. So I'd also be interested in finding out some official numbers about trusses. Sorry that I don't have the info to offer you.
Mark
BB_TX
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The company I worked for used a design very similar to yours except they used 2 pieces of angle iron back to back at the top and bottom. The bar went up between the pieces of angle iron to give more surface area to weld to. They made trusses for very large buildings. Some of the trusses as I remember were more than 3 ft tall and I forgot how many feet long.
If I find any info on the calculations, I will let you know.
If I find any info on the calculations, I will let you know.
lpigott
Gold Member
Nice job! When you get done with the neighbors head on over and throw me one up too/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif What size is the barn? 24'x40'?
yooperdave
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Hi Mark,
The trusses look very nice - similar to bar joist used for commercial buildings.
How are you taking the thrust out of the roof? These trusses are somewhat similar to scissors style trusses. The raised collar tie is usually in tension under gravity loading and creates substantial stresses in the rafter portion of the truss.
If the collar tie were located at the base or eave of the rafter, then there would be no additional stress on the rafter due to the tie.
This kind of truss configuration is not unusual, but the rafter portion of the truss is usually beefed up very substantially.
Did you also provide some continuous bridging thru the trusses for lateral stability? Though bridging is not expensive, it is highly desireable to laterally brace webs and chords. This bridging would not be required if all the truss members were all designed as unbraced - this is not a good assumption.
Take a look thru some Steel Joist Institute standard specifications for some additional information if you have some time.
Good luck with your barn.
Yooper Dave
The trusses look very nice - similar to bar joist used for commercial buildings.
How are you taking the thrust out of the roof? These trusses are somewhat similar to scissors style trusses. The raised collar tie is usually in tension under gravity loading and creates substantial stresses in the rafter portion of the truss.
If the collar tie were located at the base or eave of the rafter, then there would be no additional stress on the rafter due to the tie.
This kind of truss configuration is not unusual, but the rafter portion of the truss is usually beefed up very substantially.
Did you also provide some continuous bridging thru the trusses for lateral stability? Though bridging is not expensive, it is highly desireable to laterally brace webs and chords. This bridging would not be required if all the truss members were all designed as unbraced - this is not a good assumption.
Take a look thru some Steel Joist Institute standard specifications for some additional information if you have some time.
Good luck with your barn.
Yooper Dave
Anonymous Poster
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This has to be one of the most innovative things I've seen in a long time. I'm like you, having to do things by myself most of the time, so your construction ideas were great.
Agree with the above posts on the terrific step by step details of the construction. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Agree with the above posts on the terrific step by step details of the construction. Thanks for sharing your experience.
JohnMiller3
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Hi Mark,
What a great job you did...! Very very very impressive what determination can do ... and just about all by yourself...
Hey TBN'ers... if you ever need any incentive on what you can truly do on your own... <A target="_blank" HREF=http://users.arn.net/~usnick/barn.html>check out Mark's barn building step-by-step plans...</A> /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif
Now Mark, did I tell ya how impressed I am... /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
What a great job you did...! Very very very impressive what determination can do ... and just about all by yourself...
Hey TBN'ers... if you ever need any incentive on what you can truly do on your own... <A target="_blank" HREF=http://users.arn.net/~usnick/barn.html>check out Mark's barn building step-by-step plans...</A> /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif
Now Mark, did I tell ya how impressed I am... /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif
arkydog
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Hi, Mark.
Excellent Pole Barn! Just wondering how or where you got the specifications (designs) for the roof trusses? Looks like my next project, got too many toys and not enough roof to cover them.
arkydog
Excellent Pole Barn! Just wondering how or where you got the specifications (designs) for the roof trusses? Looks like my next project, got too many toys and not enough roof to cover them.
arkydog
OP
phantom309
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Howdy Arkydog-
Thanks for the note. I don't have any formal plans or specs for the trusses. I got the idea for this type of building from a local company in town that makes commercial buildings using trusses like these. I was shopping around thinking of maybe having a barn built and when I stopped by this one place, the light switch switched on and I realized that I could make a barn like that! The big advantage (to me) of the trusses is that they are fairly light so they can be put up by man and a helper with nothing more than a (long) boom pole.
So while my original intent was not to "steal" the truss design from this company, I guess that in the end, that's what I did. I went by a couple times after work with a tape measure to measure the trusses and the components used to make them.
The trusses are made of 1" square tubing. The company in town used 0.06" wall tubing, but my experience with that stuff is that it's so thin that it's easy to burn a hole in with an arc welder. So I used 14ga which is, if I remember right, 0.08" wall. It's just thick enough to be fairly easy to weld without burning through using 3/32 6013 rod.
To make the "zig zag" webbing, I put a mark on the 5/16 round stock every 9 1/4" and then used my little bender tool to bend the zig zags. I bent the rod over until the bender tool struck the pipe at 90 degrees. When pressure was released, the zig zag would rebound back to maybe 85 degrees or so. The main thing is to make the bends consistently.
Putting this zig-zag webbing between the tubing gives a truss that's about 8 1/4" across.
My barn is 30' wide, so that's the length of the rafters. The company in town had a couple 30' and one 40' wide building on site. Their 30' buildings did not have the extra horizontal brace on the underside of the rafters. To me, that looked pretty spindly and I imagined that the stress on the union of the two trusses at the peak would be considerable. Their 40' rafters did include the horizontal brace so I figured that it would be a good idea to include this on my 30' rafters. Also as I mentioned, they put one rafter every five feet where I put one every four feet for a little peace of mind. I also added some diagonal bracing on the corners of the frame to help with the wind load and the tin also helps in this regard. I've seen covered temporary buildings in magazines with twenty (or more) feet clear spans with nothing more than some galvanized tubing for a frame so I guess that it's possible to hold a decent load and still look fairly flimsy (which, admittedly, my little trusses kinda do compared to the heavy "red iron" barn frames).
I'm not a builder, nor an ME. I have a degree in EE and took the requisite statics and dynamics classes, but as far as building trusses, rafters, barns or anything else, I'm no expert. So I can't give any specific numbers on the design limits of the trusses or rafters.
But I can say this. Three years ago we came within two inches of an all-time record snowfall for Amarillo (we got just over two feet) and the buildings built using these trusses were standing then and handled the load. So since I "overbuilt" my barn by a little bit, I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that it stays up.
Best,
Mark
Thanks for the note. I don't have any formal plans or specs for the trusses. I got the idea for this type of building from a local company in town that makes commercial buildings using trusses like these. I was shopping around thinking of maybe having a barn built and when I stopped by this one place, the light switch switched on and I realized that I could make a barn like that! The big advantage (to me) of the trusses is that they are fairly light so they can be put up by man and a helper with nothing more than a (long) boom pole.
So while my original intent was not to "steal" the truss design from this company, I guess that in the end, that's what I did. I went by a couple times after work with a tape measure to measure the trusses and the components used to make them.
The trusses are made of 1" square tubing. The company in town used 0.06" wall tubing, but my experience with that stuff is that it's so thin that it's easy to burn a hole in with an arc welder. So I used 14ga which is, if I remember right, 0.08" wall. It's just thick enough to be fairly easy to weld without burning through using 3/32 6013 rod.
To make the "zig zag" webbing, I put a mark on the 5/16 round stock every 9 1/4" and then used my little bender tool to bend the zig zags. I bent the rod over until the bender tool struck the pipe at 90 degrees. When pressure was released, the zig zag would rebound back to maybe 85 degrees or so. The main thing is to make the bends consistently.
Putting this zig-zag webbing between the tubing gives a truss that's about 8 1/4" across.
My barn is 30' wide, so that's the length of the rafters. The company in town had a couple 30' and one 40' wide building on site. Their 30' buildings did not have the extra horizontal brace on the underside of the rafters. To me, that looked pretty spindly and I imagined that the stress on the union of the two trusses at the peak would be considerable. Their 40' rafters did include the horizontal brace so I figured that it would be a good idea to include this on my 30' rafters. Also as I mentioned, they put one rafter every five feet where I put one every four feet for a little peace of mind. I also added some diagonal bracing on the corners of the frame to help with the wind load and the tin also helps in this regard. I've seen covered temporary buildings in magazines with twenty (or more) feet clear spans with nothing more than some galvanized tubing for a frame so I guess that it's possible to hold a decent load and still look fairly flimsy (which, admittedly, my little trusses kinda do compared to the heavy "red iron" barn frames).
I'm not a builder, nor an ME. I have a degree in EE and took the requisite statics and dynamics classes, but as far as building trusses, rafters, barns or anything else, I'm no expert. So I can't give any specific numbers on the design limits of the trusses or rafters.
But I can say this. Three years ago we came within two inches of an all-time record snowfall for Amarillo (we got just over two feet) and the buildings built using these trusses were standing then and handled the load. So since I "overbuilt" my barn by a little bit, I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that it stays up.
Best,
Mark