Possibly impossible Demo Help

Hello all! I’ve spent about 5 hours today fighting a board. And I lost. I have a shed that’s old and waterlogged and I’m trying to replace an old damaged 2x6 with a new one. Let me paint the picture first. I have a shed. On the high side of the shed roof I have 10 exposed rafters. To cap/trim the rafters on their ends (on the high side of the roof) I have a 2x6x12 that I’d assumed was merely nailed/screwed in on the face side of the cap/trim 2x6. I started my day today by journeying up a ladder roughly 20ft to discover no convenient screw heads, but instead nails that have been nail gunned in past flush. Okay, a pain when up that high with no safety net but by no means undoable. I continued to deduce the best course of action was to pry the trim up a fraction of an inch, sneak my SawZaw in there, and cut the nails at the rafters. At a certain point in this process I began to think there may be some nails going from the roof that overhangs the rafters and are attached to the edge of the trim. After finishing my nail cutting, I brought my crowbars to bear against these nails. On a ladder I cranked and cranked on multiple rafters hoping to pull the roof to trim-edge nails out but alas, I then saw the plywood connecting the roof to the trim will break far before the nails to the 2x6 trim will. So I then pulled the trim off the roof, and saw that long story short I’d basically need to remove the entire metal sheet roof to reach the nailheads. Im now here, a chewed up 2x6 trim piece still firmly seated on the rafters ends, by virtue of nails going through weak waterlogged roofing plywood. No way to reach nailheads without removing roof. I figured I needed tension along the edge axis, so I tried attaching an eyehook to the edge, and ratcheting it free of the nails. But again the plywood seemed it would give before the friction of the nails. Any ideas? submitted by /u/No-Collar5539 [link] [comments]

May 16, 2025 - 06:14

Hello all! I’ve spent about 5 hours today fighting a board. And I lost.

I have a shed that’s old and waterlogged and I’m trying to replace an old damaged 2x6 with a new one.

Let me paint the picture first. I have a shed. On the high side of the shed roof I have 10 exposed rafters. To cap/trim the rafters on their ends (on the high side of the roof) I have a 2x6x12 that I’d assumed was merely nailed/screwed in on the face side of the cap/trim 2x6.

I started my day today by journeying up a ladder roughly 20ft to discover no convenient screw heads, but instead nails that have been nail gunned in past flush. Okay, a pain when up that high with no safety net but by no means undoable. I continued to deduce the best course of action was to pry the trim up a fraction of an inch, sneak my SawZaw in there, and cut the nails at the rafters.

At a certain point in this process I began to think there may be some nails going from the roof that overhangs the rafters and are attached to the edge of the trim. After finishing my nail cutting, I brought my crowbars to bear against these nails. On a ladder I cranked and cranked on multiple rafters hoping to pull the roof to trim-edge nails out but alas, I then saw the plywood connecting the roof to the trim will break far before the nails to the 2x6 trim will. So I then pulled the trim off the roof, and saw that long story short I’d basically need to remove the entire metal sheet roof to reach the nailheads.

Im now here, a chewed up 2x6 trim piece still firmly seated on the rafters ends, by virtue of nails going through weak waterlogged roofing plywood. No way to reach nailheads without removing roof.

I figured I needed tension along the edge axis, so I tried attaching an eyehook to the edge, and ratcheting it free of the nails. But again the plywood seemed it would give before the friction of the nails.

Any ideas?

submitted by /u/No-Collar5539
[link] [comments]