Crown @ Roof Eaves

[QUOTE=jimAKAblue;596868]In my experience, the slope of the "front" roof on the hip returns were shown on the side elevation. Of course, on some houses, they are entirely hidden from view, especially on minimal "designer" plans.

My course of action was to always check the side elevation AND scale the rise showing on the "front" roof. I'd typically compare the two to see if they were within a normal range of accuracy. If the plans scaled properly, then typically, the finished look would mirror the drawing, assuming that I held all the dimensions..... [/QUOTE]

Jim, Jim, Jim....
Slow down a bit. If you read my 2nd post in this thread, you'll see where I addressed this. The plans are [I]very[/I] well-drawn, and I always check things just like you're saying: Scale the rise...look at side-views to see if they agree...scale the "run" using the roof plan views...check the rise/run ratios to see if they agree with the pitches called out on the drawings...all that stuff. I am very thorough when it comes to roof framing.

Since the rake and eave crowns lie in the same plane, vertically, the rake crown obscures the view of the front roof, when looking at the side elevation. (He [I]could have[/I] ([I]should[/I] have?) drawn a dotted line to indicate the hidden roof line, but what fun would that be? lol!) So even though I can scale the rise from the front elevation (which I did, btw), without knowing if the upper end of the hip terminates at the face of the gable wall, or instead dies at some place on the rake soffit, the pitch of that front roof cannot be determined from the plans.

And I'm fine with that, because I like having some say in the design of things like this.

Right now, the way I have it drawn with the hip resting on the gable wall, the roof is a 6/12. The more I think about it, I may need to pull the hip forward, so it dies into the soffit and increases the pitch. Because at this pitch, you can't see the roof until you're at least 40' out in front of the house. (This house is tall-- basement that's mostly above-grade, with 2 additional stories. Ceiling heights are 9, 10, and 9.)

OTOH.... (I got 5 more fingers!! lol) In the older parts of town, there are many, many houses with gables on the front elevation, that have returns that are actually [U]flat-roofs[/U]. I've built them that way too.

So even though the plans show a shingled roof, is there any "rule" that says you need to be able to [I]see[/I] it?

Things that make you go, hmmm...

Tom

By the way... Jim, I get what you're saying about scaling the drawings and building the roof to that, and it comes out looking right. What I was trying to get across, was that a roof really never looks like the drawings, because when you're standing down on the ground looking up, the roof does not [I]appear[/I] like it does in typical architectural drawings (unless they were drawn in 3-D perspective, which would be rare, unless it was the cover sheet...).

Most of the time this is a non-issue. But I remember one time building 2 dormers with hip roofs. Plans showed the roof as a 6/12, and it looked fine. But this was a 2-story house, and they were attic dormers, which essentially placed them up in the 3rd story. Down on the ground, you couldn't even see the roof until you walked all the way out on the pier (waterfront home).

Looked good on plans. Perspective view in real-life: Totally different look. I recall we changed it to a 12/12!

Tom

[QUOTE=jimAKAblue;596877]... I was assembling those hip returns, on the ground in about 15 minutes each. ...by using the "right" type of components and systems, it sped things up considerably.[/QUOTE]

Yep, true dat!! Here's a couple of pics of the last ones I did. (No crown though!)

Tom

[QUOTE=mike maines;596589]...To be historically correct the crown molding should not wrap around the return though, but should follow the roof plane.[/QUOTE]

How does that work Mike?

I mean, imagine 2 pieces of crown with typical 38 degree angles, meeting each other at an outside corner, on your living room ceiling. Now, imagine one of those pieces is your rake crown on a 9/12 roof, and rotate it up 37 degrees so it follows the rake. If you maintain the connection at the outside corner where both pieces meet each other, rotating it up changes the spring angle of the [I]other[/I] piece, (which is the eave piece) to about 75 degrees!

Seems to me, unless I'm not seeing something, you need a (3rd) transition piece. Cuz dats gonna look weird.

Tom

Tom, most of the roofs we worked on were irregular hipped roofs. That usually dictated that the returned eave was a lower slope. For the most part, we really never had to deviate much.

I do understand that many of the details that we are speaking of are impossible to see unless you are a bird.

Here's a picture of a wall being flown in with a couple of easy returns on them. In that particulate sub-division the builder had us installing crown at the frieze/plancier connection. Obviously, it's a much easier detail to deal with than your situation.

[QUOTE=TSJHD1;596970]How does that work Mike?
Tom[/QUOTE]

Is this what you mean, Mike?
[url]http://www.finelinesmaine.com/exteriors.cfm?row=21[/url]

--Ben

That looks good to me Ben.

Obviously, each crown has it's own profile or it wouldn't go together like that.

Hey Ben--

Yeah, that's a good example. Molding companies and molding plane-makers used to have profiles that would match up like that. We often do a "poor-man's crown" version now, with flat stock, like this:

Maybe it would be helpful (if it is not too late) to point out that the horizontal part of the return can be done, and perhaps should be, without any crown mold on it. Check out all the examples you can find of pre-turn of the century returns. The idea is to avoid a crown-over-crown situation, crown mold having the function of throwing water away from the building. Stacking it is similar in functional terms to having two sections of guttering stacked horizontally.

You will see that split filet picks up at the bottom of the raking crown and continues horizontally across the return.

[QUOTE=Bill Robinson;595839]You know Tom you can use sheet metal or vinyl coil stock to create that detail with less risk of moisture damage to the crown material.

[url]http://www.industrialladder.com/productDetails.do?productID=7471&categoryID=64[/url][/QUOTE]

Here is a small job I did using the roller and coil stock to create crown.

scott