Hi, I've found a couple of threads relating to bracing roof trusses but they are so old the links which probably show me what I need dont work. I would like to know how the two diagonals of x bracing cross one another in the middle of the x . Do they have a lap joint or do I cut one? Or bend one over the other! The bracing timber that came with the trusses are 22mm by 97mm . Thanks.
No expert, but if it was me I would bend one over the other or pack them out at the ends so they did not bend. I would use a circular toothed wood connector with a bolt through the middle to join them. I would not risk 11 mm on a cross halving joint for a roof support.
Recently on new builds for some inexplicably inane reason the truss designers have started denoting the diagonal bracing crossing over each other, as if their previous drawings were incorrect and the millions of homes built with trusses since the 50’s are now completely wrong and should be condemned. I’ve done it both ways, cut one out to slot the other in then nail a lapped piece over the join, or bend one brace over the other and fire a couple of 90’s through the both into the truss.
I was told to put the diagonals bottom to top on the left, and top to bottom on the right (or vice versa) so any force acting on the trusses is constrained by both a compression and a tension member. And if they are both in tension or compression at the same time, you've got much bigger problems that can be solved by a bit of 1x3. Might have just been Keiths rule of thumb, but nothing I have ever built has ever fallen down
As long as the braces are running diagonally at or as close to a 45degree angle as possible then in the real world it’s all fine and will never go anywhere. Like most things, there’s an army of pen pushing tossers who’ve never picked a hammer or nail gun up trying to rewrite the specs in order to prolong their employment.