Mike, I am 4th generation doing this stuff, my dad did phenomenal trim work and built a decent kitchen cabinet. My grandfather was a builder/developer and would build dozens of houses at one time (post war boom). Dad built all of the kitchen cabinets in them. But, dads real love of carpentry was framing. He excelled at that as well but told me many times that he would rather frame a house than do anything else. He particularly enjoyed roof framing, the more complicated the better. Hence myself and my brothers all learned at a very young age how to lay out a rafter, whether it be common, jack, valley, hip etc. Everytime I see a house going up now (most of the time with trusses) I wonder how many of the 'carpenters' would know how to hand frame the roof if need be. We would have a test when hiring a new carpenter. Give them a framing square and a 16' 2x6, tell them the dimension of the house, the pitch and then ask them to lay out a rafter. I think the fail rate was about 99%! I dont mind framing, but it is by far not my favorite part of the building business. IF I could make a decent living just working out of my shop I would be happy.
