Rake Soffits

 The funny thing about shou sugi ban is, because it's so dark, and my camera is so bad, it can kind of just look like... a void.

So, do you see that (apparent) void where you used to be able to see through to the roof sheathing and outriggers? That's actually a 1x6 tongue and groove shou sugi ban cedar soffit! And let me assure you, it is beautiful.

(Oh, and some siding. More on that in another post!)

I was all ready and excited to start installing the standing seam metal siding--the roof went so well, after all!--but then realized... crap, I need to install the soffit first. I need to establish where the stopping point for the siding is, you see--the metal has to go up to the soffit, not behind or above it. And I hadn't really thought about the soffit yet in a detailed, blueprint-y sort of way; I only knew that I would make it from tongue and groove shou sugi ban cedar.

The conditions that I needed to meet were simple: the rake soffit needs to make a flat plane that matches the angle of the roof and is perpendicular to the wall surface; the rake soffit must line up with the eave soffits; and there must be a slight reveal where the rake soffit meets the verge rafter. And all of those conditions had to be met minus 3/4", because the real determiner of the soffit's placement is the fastening surfaces that the 1x6s will be attached to.

Fastening surfaces visible

I don't have to again go into the problems associated with juggling multiple competing conditions and trying to meet them all in one fell swoop. The solution ended up being easy, this time, actually. Dad and I finally got the right measurement and installed a pair of ~1"x1" sticks of scrap lumber (the fastening surfaces) the correct distance up on the wall and on the inside of the verge rafter.

I measured the width of the soffit--about 10 1/2", though it varied by nearly 1/2"--and shou sugi ban'ed the wood, then cut the pieces into lengths to match the soffit width.









 Then--ba-blam! ba-blam! ba-blam! So satisfying!--I stapled the pieces into place with a pneumatic stapler loaded with stainless steel staples. I didn't bother with fastening through the groove--I just face-stapled them all, four staples per board. This should actually be a stronger installation than if I'd stapled through the groove, since each staple catches the whole 3/4" thickness of wood.

(Staples seem like the wimpiest of fasteners, and indeed they are; but they are also surprisingly strong. On another occasion, I tried to pry a piece of 1x cedar loose from the surface it was stapled to, and the wood actually broke before the staples would let it go. I feel pretty good about my soffit.)

 At the end, I had to rip a board narrower to finish--after all, my roof was not built in exact multiples of 5" (each board's coverage)! There is a slight gap, still, since I couldn't slide the last piece straight up into place--it had to slide up and over. It's not noticeable, but it might be an entry point for pests; I'll see what I'll do with it.

Just a note, the photos in this post are all from the soffit installation at the back end of the house, but I followed essentially the same procedure for the front. The only difference was that on the back end, I found that my siding panels were an inch too short--how'd that happen? Oh yeah, they never cut the panels exactly the length you ask for because on a roof you always have wiggle room...--and so I installed a 1" trim piece right under the soffit, against the wall. This piece isn't really visible from the ground; it's just a bump-down piece that blends into the soffit so that there isn't an inch of Tyvek peeking out above the siding all along the top.