The timberframe company I work for is making a hip roof pavilion. These
sticks are the hips - sixteen foot long 6 x 10s, fresh sawn hemlock. Each
stick weighs about 400 pounds - just rolling them over on the horses takes
a lot of effort and care.

The cuts on the ends, where the two hips meet at the ridge, is the most
counterintuitive bit of geometry I've ever seen. The pictures show a
matched pair (they are the same size, but one is further back in the end
view picture). The two irregular pentagonal faces butt to each other at 90
degrees, and the two irregular tetragonal faces form a plane that lands on
an angled cut on the end of the ridge beam.

The layout of these bad boys is enough to give Euclid a headache. We
mocked up a model before attacking the actual sticks - not a lot of room
for error on a job like this!

Scott Cramer