Complex roof geometry is a challenge most framers face eventually. The skill of drawing complex shapes has been taught for centuries by the French, German and Japanese carpentry traditions; it enables the carpenter to directly measure working angles and scale dimensions rather than calculating them. Learning developed drawing is one goal for this course and is key to understanding the geometry of complex roof intersections. The combination of drawing and basic roof math empowers the builder with a far wider variety of building shapes. The skills learned in this course are applicable to conventional framing as well as timber work, furniture with splayed legs, stairs, finish carpentry and any project where angled planes and pieces meet at a combination of angles.

These problems can be solved either mathematically or visually, but the complete carpenter will have a variety of skills to call upon, including geometry, trigonometry and traditional scribing techniques. In this course we will demonstrate various methods of laying out and cutting hip and valley systems using lofting, framing square, calculator and visualization. Students will work in pairs to layout and cut models they can take home which will include a hip and jack rafter system, a dormer valley and jack purlin system and an irregular valley.

Instructor Will Beemer is the author of "When Roofs Collide", a series of articles on complex roofs appearing in Timber Framing, the journal of the Timber Framers Guild.