Truss: 1/2 plywood gussets on one side or both sides?

[mikec557]

I've done a lot of reading but it never seems completely clear to me. When making the truss using 1/2 plywood as the gusset/plate, do you put the plywood on both sides of the truss?

My goal is a simple 2 foot rise in a 6 foot run (4x12 pitch), then put some purloins on the top and cover with corragated polycarbonate patio cover style material.

Thanks for any advice or answers.

Mike

[Don_P]

Yup, both sides. Use a pattern so that the nails from each side are offset from each other.

[mikec557]

Thanks, Don.

What length nail would you recommend given two layers of 1/2 and the 1-1/2 of the 2x4?

Thanks again

[Don_P]

If you can stand the looks there's nothing better than going thru both layers and clinching them. This program does a good job calculating the forces in a simple truss, You'll need to figure your truss span, truss to truss spacing and loads.;
http://www.jhu.edu/~virtlab/bridge/truss.htm

These give member sizes and connection strength of the nails used to resist those forces;
http://awc.org/calculators/index.html

If you use something like polyurethane glue or some other structural glue, not construction adhesive. Then the glue will do the work and the nails provide a full strength redundancy. Do not discount the number of nails thinking the glue "helps" the nails though. The glue fails first then the nails take full load, they do not "help" each other, they fail in different ways.

There are ag use truss plans on several university websites that might give you some ideas, I recall North Dakota and UT had some.