SHED BUILDING VIDEO 4 OF 15

How to Build Homemade Roof Trusses for a Shed

Build your own trusses for any small shed or outbuildings quickly and easily. We take you through every step to ensure your trusses are strong and reliable.

Taught by Henry Reinders, a professional builder, renovator and woodworker with more than 45 years of hands-on experience.

Popular Video Chapters

Select a topic to jump directly to that part of the video.

0:11 Understand the site-built truss design

Understand the site-built shed truss design and how a full-size floor jig keeps repeated trusses consistent.

3:15 Measure and cut the bottom chords

Learn how to measure, cut and match the bottom chords before laying out the roof-truss components.

6:17 Mark lumber crowns and prepare rafters

Henry shows how to identify lumber crowns and prepare matching rafter cuts for a straight roofline.

9:14 Lay out and cut plywood gussets

See how to lay out plywood gussets, cut them efficiently and keep their orientation consistent.

12:48 Mark the truss layout on the shed floor

Mark the full truss outline on the shed floor so the peak, span and rafter positions remain accurate.

14:43 Build blocking for the floor jig

Build and secure the floor-jig blocks that hold each chord and rafter in the correct position.

18:40 Glue and fasten the truss gussets

In this step, apply construction adhesive and fasten the gussets while keeping every joint tight.

22:10 Allow for soffit and sub-fascia finishes

Henry explains how the truss ends must allow for the planned soffit, sub-fascia and roof finishes.

← Video 3: Frame the Floor

All 15 Shed Videos

Video 5: Frame Walls →

Homemade Roof-Truss Quick Reference

Henry builds these trusses right on the finished floor, using it as the jig. Here’s what makes it work and things to watch for.

Key specs at a glance

Bottom chord length: shed-floor width plus 1/4 inch
Crown direction: all rafters and bottom chords crown up
Gussets: plywood ripped along the grain, not crosscut
Truss jig and assembly surface: the finished shed floor, before walls go up
Engineering note: site-built design shown, not engineered — check local requirements

Common mistakes to avoid

Framing walls before trusses and losing the flat floor as an assembly jig
Mixing crown direction on rafters or bottom chords
Cutting gussets from crosscut plywood instead of grain-aligned strips
Skipping a local permit or engineering check where one’s required
Cutting the bottom chord to exact floor width with no alignment allowance

PROJECT RESOURCES

Download the free Excel costing sheet to enter current local prices, provided for both shed plan sizes and both old and recent Excel formats (just in case you need the older file format).

Download the Excel Costing Sheets

Frequently Asked Questions

Questions are based on the topics covered in this video and common questions Henry receives from customers via email.

Why build the trusses before the shed walls?

The finished shed floor provides a large, flat assembly jig. This works only when the floor is already square, level and accurate with no walls in place. Watch at 0:11

How long should the bottom chord be?

For the method shown, measure the full shed-floor width and add 1/4 inch. This leaves approximately 1/8 inch of extra length at each side for alignment on the wall plates. Watch at 3:15

Which way should the lumber crowns face?

Mark the crown on every rafter and bottom chord and assemble all of them with the crown facing upward. Watch at 6:17

Why should the plywood gussets be cut along the grain?

Plywood ripped along its length and grain is substantially stronger for these gussets than plywood crosscut across the grain. Watch at 9:14

Are these trusses engineered?

No. The video describes a previously used site-built design, not engineered trusses. Confirm local approval and required load capacity where engineered trusses or permits are required. Watch at 0:11

Complete Video Transcript

Use the expandable transcript to read Henry’s instructions found in this video – with timestamps linked to each section in the video.

Open the complete video transcript

Welcome to CountryLifeProjects.com. I’m Henry Reinders. This is video four of 15 videos in our shed project. In this video, I will be showing you how to build your own trusses for the shed. It’s not that hard. We’re going to be using the floor as a jig. We’re going to be building it on site. That is one of the reasons that we’re building the trusses before we actually do the walls because we are going to use the floor for our layout. It’s also why it’s important to make sure that your floor is accurate, level, and square. So, let’s get started on the trusses. These are sight bill trusses. We’re going to be making them ourselves. It’s very easy.

I’m going to show you a way where you don’t have to worry about what kind of roof pitch you have. We’re going to be using strictly a 30° angle and 60° angles for the bottoms. And uh we’re going to start by showing you how to lay that out. Before we start laying out and cutting our truss parts, just take a quick look at this diagram. This is the actual truss layout that we have. You’ll see that we have a bottom chord, two rafters, and our plywood gussets. In the next videos, I’m going to show you how to make these parts before we actually make the jig and start assembling our

trusses. What we’re going to do now is I’m going to show you how to get the measurement for your bottom chord. It’s really quite important. You just take the full width of your floor to here and then add a 1/4 inch. Now, what that’s going to do is ensure that when the bottom chord or truss is sitting on top of your wall on your top plates, that they’re not too short. If they’re too short, they’re not going to sit flat. They’re going to actually ride a little bit. So, we want to make sure by making these a quarter inch longer that they’re sitting completely flat on there and you got a little bit

of play to work with when you’re lining up your trusses as well. So, next I’m going to show you how to set up your bottom cords and put the angles on them. very similar to your gussets. Okay, before we start uh cutting our rafters and our bottom chord, what we have to do, and it’s the same thing we did with the joist, is we got to determine where the crown on the on the lumber is. So, same thing. You take a look down your lumber. It’s going to be a bit of a while probably. Most pieces do have it. Some are less than others, but you’re always going to have some. And so, you want to find that that bow and just take

a look at down. This one here, it’s on this side here. So, we’re going to mark that with a crown, a C. You want to do that with all your rafters, all your bottom cords, and they’re all going to be on the up side of your truss. So, we’ve done that. Now, we’re going to start laying out the bottom chord here. It’s pretty much the same as the gussets. We’re going to use the same triangle square. We’re going to start on one end here and we’re going to put the square right there. And we’re going to turn this until we have our 60° angle. Just make sure you’re still at the

pivot point there. Mark that off. That’s right to the end. Then we’re going to measure from there. And we’re going to go 93 and then quarter. We’re making this a quarter inch longer than the width of our floor. We’re going to do the same thing on this end. We’re going to put the pivot point on that line. Turn this till we have the 60° mark. Mark that off. 60° angle on both ends. We’re going to get those cut. We need six of these all together. So, we’ll get those cut and then we’re going to do the rafters after that. Okay, for the rafters, we cut the one end at 30°. Make sure that’s precise. That’s critical in our layout.

Make it easy. We’re leaving them full length. And then we’re going to mark them off after we have these in our jig. And I’m going to show you why because it’ll make it very easy for you to determine the actual length using a sample of the set material that’s going to be used. Uh we’ll go into that more detail on that here shortly once we get these put into a jig. Okay, we’re going to uh be doing our plywood gussets now. But before we get started, I have some material here. I want to show you the right way to cut it. This is a cross cut. You don’t want to do that. It’s very

weak. This is plywood cut with the grain. It’s 38 plywood. Grains going the same way both sides, typical. But there is a huge difference in the strength. And I’m going to show you if you cross cut and you use that for your plywood gussets. It’s very weak. You can just snap them just like that. You take ripped plywood and you can It’s going to take a lot. I’m not even going to try and break it right through, but it takes a lot to break it. So, you can see the difference in the strength. Just wanted to make sure you know that before you get started. So, next I’m going to

show you how to do the peak gussets and how to lay them out. and we’ll get started on that now. Okay, shoot. Okay, we’re going to start laying out the gussets for our peaks. These are going to be 36 in wide. Our strip of plywood is 10 and 38 in deep. When we lay these out, we’re going to be coming across from one side to the other. It’s going to allow us to get the most amount of pieces out of one piece of plywood as possible. I’m going to start laying that out now just to show you how to do it. We’re going to go 36 in wide. We’re just going to measure from the one side and then 72

over here. Then we’re going to use our triangular square, which is ideal for marking out these kind of angles. What you want to do on the very corner here, which is what we call our pivot point. Even says that on the square for you, we’re going to bring this over until we get over to 60°, which is right here. Make sure we’re still on the corner there. I’ll hold that down. Mark that one off. Markings are on both sides. So, you can just flip the square over. And we go to 60° here. Do the same thing. Flip this over. We’re going to continue doing this on each one of these marks.

Over here. there. And one more time over here. Now, obviously, you can see this isn’t long enough to go all the way through. We’re just going to use a regular framing square to continue those through to the other side of the plywood. We need six of these all together. So, we’ve cut two strips of plywood. We’re just going to mark out the one here just so you can see what we’re doing. And you’ll see that these join up here. Just assures us that everything is accurate. And we’ll do our last line here. And there we go. So, as we cut these, when we cut this one and this one, we get this piece,

this piece, this piece over here, and this piece here. So, we’re going to get four pieces from this one strip of plywood, and we’ll just use the other one. We’ll have six pieces al together. We’ll get those cut, and then we’ll show you how to put those on later. We’re going to do the uh bottom chord gussets. They’re a little bit different. I’ll show you those now. We’re just going to put this piece away. Be right back. Okay, we’re going to be doing the gussets for our bottom cord on our trusses. It’s uh three in these are three and 12 inch wide strips. Same as well, they’re actually just a little bit under three and a half, so they will fit inside of our 2x4s and

they won’t protrude or interfere with any of our framing. First thing we’re going to do is we’re going to make these all 18 in long. So, you just go along, measure them off at 18 in increments. You’re going to need 12 of these al together. You’re going to need three strips of plywood because I’m you’re only getting five out of each strip. We then go along and we mark off the square ends first. It’s not overly critical that these are exactly 18. It can be a 1/4 inch eighth inch out. It’s not too too big a deal. It doesn’t affect anything. Now, once you have those all marked out at 18 in

pieces on the end of each piece, we’re going to do the same thing we did with the peak trusses. And we’re going to put a 60° angle line here, which we’ll be cutting off later. I’m going to go through. Do this with every piece. and let’s get going. And that’s it for each piece. So, you need, like I say, you need 12. So, you’re going to have to have three strips of plywood. You need 12 pieces all together. Get them laid out. And then uh depending on what kind of saw you’re using, I have a miter saw that can actually cut a 60°ree angle. That’s what we’ll be using. If you don’t,

just cut these with a skill saw. We’re going to be using our shed floor as our jig for making the trusses. What we need to do to start with is we need to find the center of the floor across the front. So, we’re going to do this. We already know that’s 93 in. So, we’re going to go 46 and a half. What we’re going to do is we’re going to be marking a line up here and that’s going to be used as our center point for our trusses. Once we get that done, then I’m going to show you how we’re going to do the other parts. I’m going to get it all laid out and then I’m going to go over each

part of it and show you what we’re going to be doing. Okay, we’ve got our jig laid out. We have a center line right here, which is the center of the shed. This is our bottom chord here. We’ve put some cleats on the ends of our floor here, which is to simulate the B or the top of the wall. Now, we’ve also cut these with 60° angles on either end. Both ends have 60° angles. These are 30° and they are 1/8 of an inch longer on either end than our floor. Which what that means is is that when we put these on the tops of our walls, we’re going to have an eighth of an inch play on the top

of the walls so that we can move these back and forth or if your wall happens to have a slight curve in it, we can still get our roof perfectly straight. So that is important. So we got this piece on the bottom here. Should also mention that we’ve marked all our crowns off on our rafters and the bottom chord and they’re all facing up. Now, with this jig, you don’t really have to worry about too much about lining anything up other than getting the bottom chord in place. And what you do, these are already pre-cut. You put these on the center line. You keep the bottoms tight to the bottom chord. And then when these when this joint lines up nicely and it’s nice and tight and we’re

on the center line and our raptors are touching the bottom chord and all our joints are tight, then we know we’re perfectly set up. Once you have this set up like this, mark off some lines on your floor. Just a few just so you don’t lose that spot. And then we’re going to put some blocks down in place to ensure that every truss is exactly the same. And we’re going to put one near the bottom here, one near the peak on both sides, and one near the bottom over here. We’ll get those screwed to the floor. That will ensure that every truss is identical. When you’re screwing these down, make sure none of this moves.

And make sure your blocks are tight. As you can see there, it just moved. So, make sure you Ow. Okay. So, with these blocks in place, we can just simply slide these into place like that. They should be tight on both ends. Next thing we’re going to do is put our plywood gussets on here and on the bottom chord where it joins onto our rafters. Okay, we got our jig pretty much finished here. We have our rafters in place. We got our block screwed down. We have our bottom chord in place. Keeping in mind that it is sticking over the ends by an eighth of an inch on either end.

You’ll know that everything is correct when your joint here is tight. You’re on the center line here. If you look down here, you will see that our joint over here is nice and tight and it’s accurate. So, that means we are set up properly. Uh we do have in this video, we are going to show you how to lay out your bottom cords. This part here is just simply a 30° angle, but we haven’t cut the ends yet. We’re going to show you why. Because we’re going to calculate what our set material is going to be, and we’re going to cut those exactly to fit the set material. Okay, as

you can see, we haven’t cut the rafters to length yet. Reason for that is is that I’m going to show you how to determine the correct measurement depending on what you’re going to use for your set material. We’re going to be using a pine tongue and groove material. which of course has to have an allowance for you to be able to get that piece in there. So when you’re laying this out, imagine that you’re underneath here. Now looking at this, you want this about this edge here, about an inch back from this point right here. That’s going to give you enough room to be able to get your material in there. Be able to slide it in. So once you have that, get it lined up. Now over here,

we’ve already cut this edge square because that’s what’s actually going to go where our fascia board is. So our fascia board will be coming down past that. So we’re going to mark that off on the 2×4. And then we’re going to go an inch and a half back from there because we have to allow for our subfasia, which is a 2×4 that’s going to go on the end of our rafters. So this will be our cut off right here. Now, what’s also important is that you want to make sure that this length that you don’t exceed 6 ft from the peak of your rafters. Reason being is that when we put the plywood on the roof,

we don’t want to have too much waste. So, if we stay under 6 ft, then we will have very little waste on the plywood. So, that basically means that you can come as far as this on your overhang. But, we’re going to go with this distance here. It fits with what we want. Okay, so we have our bottom cords all cut. We have our rafters all cut to length. We’re going to start putting everything together. Now, this is actually one of the fastest parts of building your trusses. Remember that we made these a 1/4 inch wider than the floor. So, you want to be an eighth inch over past your joist. Headers on each end. So,

we’re right there. Now, we’re going to grab some of our rafters. with our blocks here. This is really simple and quick. Snap it in there. Put in our center line. Make sure our joints tight over there. Do the same thing on this side. See how that just fits in there? And double check our center. We’re all good. So, for this for the plywood gussets, we’re just going to be using regular construction screws. They’re one and 5/8. Get them at Home Depot or Lowe’s. And we’re going to start with our peak gusset. It’s best if you put the plywood or the glue on the plywood and it’ll be there won’t be any excess on your trusses. We’ll grab that.

You can be fairly liberal with your glue. Remember that it’s only going to be going on the 2×4 underneath. You also, if you like, put a little bit the top part here between your rafters. That’ll just give it a little bit of extra strength. If you want, you can do the same thing down here. Put that up there. We’ll do the other end first. And I would keep it on the top side of the 2×4. If you put it down too low, it’s going to squeeze out and it’s going to hit your uh it’s going to go onto your plywood deck and that uh be a little bit messy. Okay. So, put them all back together.

Everything’s good. We’re still 1/8 inch past here. That hasn’t moved. We’re good here. There. We’re going to put our gusset on. Keep it about an eighth inch in from the edge. That way when you put your roof sheathing on, it won’t interfere with anything. You can counter sync these a little bit. You probably want to go about every 4 in. Now, for an 8ft wide shed like this, the plywood gusset on one side is sufficient. If you were going 10 ft wide, 12 ft wide, you might want to go both sides except for your end cables because that’ll interfere with your exterior finish. Okay, we’re still good. Everything’s centered. We’re going to go do our

bottom chord gusset now. Same thing. Put the glue on the gusset. And again, keep it back a little bit so it doesn’t interfere with any finishes or walls. Now it is very important. important that you use glue. If you don’t use glue, the only thing that’s really holding this together is the screws. So, the the glue actually helps bind everything together. And we’ll do the other end. And as you’re working, I have a habit of always kind of just checking to make sure make sure things have stayed in line. With your plywood gussets, you’re better to have a little bit too much glue than a little bit too little. So, don’t be skimpy on that part of things.

Okay, we’re in on all our edges. And that’s it. Once you have those glued on there, you can pull the truss out, do the next one, and we’ll put these aside for uh when we start the roof. But uh of course, we have to do them now while we can use the floor. Okay, we’ve got all our trusses finished. Uh this is a typical endgable truss. Uh what what we’ll be doing later is putting some studs down here for our paneling that we’ll be finishing up with. That’ll be on both ends. The other trusses are exactly like this. They’re very strong. We just finished these already. You can put a lot of weight on there. I mean,

I could probably put two people on there and it wouldn’t move. I should say though, these aren’t engineered. This is the design that I’ve used before. So if you require engineered trusses for building permits or what so on then it’s up to you to take you know determine if these are going to be strong enough for you or if your building inspector will accept these or not. So they are strong but just keep that in mind. Uh other than that these are uh ready to go.

Continue the Shed-Building Series

Follow the lessons in sequence so each completed stage is ready for the work that follows.

← Video 3: Frame the Floor

All 15 Shed Videos

Video 5: Frame Walls →