Boxed Eaves Construction and Lining

Today we commenced construction of our external eaves on our small roof. We split up into two teams, Rhys was partnered with Greg, and Dan, Mike and I teamed up. Greg and Rhys worked on an exposed eave where the hardiflex was lined ontop of the rafters, to sit underneath the battens. The hardiflex also fitted into a rebate that was cut into the back of the tilt batten. Underneath they had to cut and fit a birdboard that was to fit up against the wall and run up to the bottom of the hardiflex. The birdboard seemed like a bit of a challenge as it had to fit nice and flush.
Dan, Mike and I worked on the other side of the house on a boxed eave. This consists of a tilt batten, a wooden facia board with a rebate cut 25mm up from the bottom to house the hardiflex, a wall plate that runs along the wall horizontally level with the facia groove and small trimmers that butt join into the wall plate and are nailed alongside each rafter. The trimmers are used to nail the hardiflex to. In the picture you can see the trimmers nailed horizintally into the wall plate and screwed alongside the rafters.

First of all we measured out 600mm from the wall along the two end rafters and marked a plumb line with a level. We then squared this level mark across the top of the rafter (35mm edge). Then we put in a nail on each line at each end and pulled a string line tightly across. We levelled vertically down from the string line on each rafter and then removed the string line. After this we cut with a circular saw all of the plumb lines.
The next stage was to use a small piece of the tilt batten to make a depth mark on an end rafter. By putting the tape measure perpendicular to the rafter and next to the vertical tilt batten piece, we could sight when the tilt batten was 35mm up from the rafter at an angle of 25 degrees. Once we had achieved this mark on each end rafter we could run a string line across them.
We also used a tape measure to mark 40mm in from the edge of the rafter, once again on each end rafter and ran a string line from each point using nails.
Once all of the rafters had been marked with the string line using a spirit level we then set the saw at 25 degrees and set it to roughly the right depth, we cut down the vertical plumb cut lines, whilst keeping the 25 degree circular saw plate flat on the rafter. Then we set the saw to 0 degrees and to the right depth and cut the horizontal marks. By hand sawing and chiselling we could neaten up the the check outs.
Next we simply screwed on the tilt batten into the checkouts. Then we placed the facia board up and checked whether any of the bottoms of the rafters had to be cut to free up the rebate cut into the facia board, which they had, but only by 10 or so millimetres. Once this was done we could then screw on the facia board, as seen in the picture below, flush with the checkout at the top.
Using a spirit level, we levelled across the from the top of the rebate to the wall and made marks on each consecutive stud, this was so we knew at what height to place the wall plate at. We then screwed on the wall plate.
After this we then measured each trimmer and cut it to length. By using a small piece of hardiflex as a measuring guage as such, we put the hardy into the rebate on the facia board, pulled down the trimmer ontop of it and then screwed the trimmer into the side of the rafter. This way the trimmers would hold the hardy down, and push it down against the bottom of the rebate so there was no gap and it was aesthetically pleasing. We then nailed in the trimmers into the wall plate.
Once this was done we could measure and cut our hardiflex to the right width and slide it into the rebate. We then held it tight into the rebate and hand nailed the hardy onto the trimmers underside.
With this done we then put our wooden lining on up against the wall and up against the underside of the wall plate. The hardy only covered 2/3 of the wall plate bottom, so by nailing on the wooden lining it covered the rough cut of the hardiflex and gave it a nice finish.
This concluded the construction of the boxed eave.
I thoroughly enjoyed doing the box eave as it was fairly involved with sawing, nailing and screwing, and also involved problem solving figuring out how to accurately measure the checkouts by using string lines. It kept us three busy so our conversations only concerned the work at hand, but it was also easy work so it kept us enthused. It also gave us a great sense of pride once we had completed the eave because it had been a product of our knowledge and hand skills without the help of Paul. I certainly enjoy the hands on work and from what i gather so do the other blokes. It also is a great team building excersise and i can feel things flowing very well when Dan, Mike and I work together.