Home Building Technology, Part XIV: Truss Equipment Proliferates

Issue #18319 - February 2026 | Page #10

By Joe Kannapell

You could say that Carol Sanford flipped the script on machinery, like he had in so many circumstances throughout his career. In the 1950s, when he couldn’t sell his modular homes in Ohio, he shipped them to Florida. When he couldn’t sell them there, he turned to selling site-built homes. When he couldn’t get Miami to accept plywood-gusseted trusses, he invented the nail-on truss plate. Finally, when his original vertical press-driven system was too complicated, he invented the roller gantry, establishing the foundation for the future development of roof truss equipment. [For all images, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]

Carol Sanford and Cal Jureit both began with designs incorporating vertical “stamping” presses. In Sanford’s conception, multiple presses were each attached to individual moveable tables. Scant detail was given on motors or hydraulic components, and the wood truss structure of the heads was wholly inadequate to resist pressing forces. Jureit’s design of a massive steel weldment filled with concrete onsite was equally suspect (see “The Last Word: The Concrete Truss Machine”). Both designs seemed to arise from within the offices of plate suppliers, clearly lacking production experience. Sanford was not known to have built any of his design, but Jureit built at least seven concrete presses. So, when Sanford found a simpler solution, he quickly pivoted, as was his habit.

Sanford’s shift from vertical press to roller gantry can be attributed to his hiring of Jim Pool, a meticulous mechanical engineer. Pool literally took the mechanism of an overhead gantry crane and turned it upside down.

In Pool’s initial effort, the idler (or bogey) wheels rode against a “Z” channel, and the motor was mounted outboard of the gear train. The length of the gantry tables was varied to match the truss height (see also “Sixty Years of Machines, Part IV: Early Roller Gantries”) and the crank handles shown in the image were used to tighten jigging that closed gaps at joints.

This first iteration of Pool’s drawings detailed a highly efficient and durable gantry design that became the mainstay of Sanford’s Roll-a-Master system. In less than two years, Pool extended all of the tables to a 14’ length and added further details of intricate jigging mechanisms on reaction pads. These pads, weighing over 50 lbs., had to be moved (with difficulty) along table tops to joint locations. The jigging details lent further evidence to the quality consciousness of the overall design, but they did not reappear on Sanford’s later gantry drawings.

By the late 1960s, Sanford had established the fundamental principle of truss plate embedment technology: a roller gantry sets the plates and a finish roller completes the embedment. In 1982, Clary Corporation’s attempt to thwart this principle with their Rapid Truss Machine (RTM), alleging “one pass” embedment, failed miserably. Instead, Alpine’s purchase of the Roll-A-Master a few years earlier ensured its dominance in the field, as Alpine’s acquired patents precluded other entrants into the roller gantry business for the next several years. Over this period, Alpine continually improved the design of the system but maintained its basic functionality and Roll-A-Master identification.

In 1985, the expiration of Sanford/Alpine patents attracted numerous competitors. Tee-Lok/Mid-Atlantic Machinery followed the basic Sanford design, while strengthening the casting of the frame and offering slotted steel tables. Alpine, Diamond Machinery, Klaisler, and PE&E Machinery offered welded-steel gantries riding on railroad tracks, although Klaisler inset the track beneath the tables. In the 1990s, most providers began offering trackless versions, in which the gantry was supported on the outsides of tables. Alpine’s Ram was the first to eliminate aisles, although others sold systems with optional aisles. But the most significant improvement to gantry systems was the incorporation of automated puck systems, which had been introduced by Alpine in 1987.

That most truss plants employ roller gantry roof systems today attests to the immense contribution of this invention. While gantry heads, tables, jigging, and ejectors have evolved, the combination of a roller gantry to set plates and a finish roller to complete embedment remains the best method of truss assembly. In 1979, Carol Sanford claimed that the Roll-A-Master system was his proudest achievement, and we can credit his dogged pursuit of success for the development of this technology.