How a house is built
The plate at a joint
The plate or gusset at a truss joint transfers the force. The joint is not a place to cut or drill.
Arrow keys turn the house. Plus and minus, or the zoom buttons, change the zoom. A horizontal drag turns it after you tap the drawing. Reset view returns to the step camera.
The drawing needs WebGL. The notes on the page still stand.
Members of a truss meet at a joint. A metal plate pressed into the wood, or a nailed plywood gusset on site-built work, transfers the force from one member to the next. The plate size and the tooth pattern are part of the truss engineering. The lumber face alone is not the connection.
Do not cut, notch, or drill the plate or the member at that joint to run a duct or a wire. If a service has to pass, it passes through an opening the truss design already allows. This page shows the joint. It is not a plate specification.