[Shop-talk] How to connect skewed beams?

Jim Franklin jamesf at groupwbench.org
Sun Jul 12 10:44:48 MDT 2020


Hope you're all avoiding the ridiculous heat. I am buidling a deck like the rest of the nation, so my tshirt tan will be well developed in a few weeks.

I'm trying to connect two double 2x beams to each other. They meet at about 33 degrees from parallel. Simpson doesn't have anything that I can find that works outside the 45-90 range. Since any fasteners will be near the end of the angled beam, I'm hesitant to drive something like Ledger Loks through for fear of splitting it. I don't have a way to support it from underneath, it can only hang from the main beam with a hanger that clamps over the top, or be face connected in shear. The angled beam is 8.5' long so it will have significant weight on it if the deck ever sees people. 

The other end of the angled beam isn't built yet, and it will be resting on its own post, so I could splay them such that the end in question uses two separate single beam connectors, but I come up empty there too except for a bendable angle bracket that I won't be able to fasten on the inside angle:

http://embed.widencdn.net/pdf/plus/ssttoolbox/8yq2wqljay/C-C-2019-p284.pdf

The other option is to have them meet at their cut faces over a post, but the post is a 4x6 and I don't know if that would be enough purchase to provide support. I would have to fasten everything into the post; there is no post-to-beam connector for beams meeting at 33 degrees.

thanks,
jim


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