Vekta is known in the industry for our market-leading Razer V5 Linear Saw, but it’s our culture of innovation that defines our unique product and systems solutions.
Today, Vekta’s current system technologies range covers many of the manufacturing processes involved in producing Frames and Trusses for the component manufacturing industry:
- Material Handling – Stacking lumber on the infeed side of the manufacturing process, then the automatic selection and transfer of the materials ready for cutting with no manual intervention required,
- Cutting & Printing – Various types of lumber can be automatically optimized, leaving less waste, and each individual component can be labeled by printing its position-dependent information on each side of the cut members in real time,
- Innovative Conveying – Utilizing technology that has significantly improved worker safety, performance, efficiency, and consistency; conveying each component at high speed to its final destination and then using automated stacking of the end product, thereby removing hazardous material handling tasks.
Even so, one area within component manufacturing is still highly labor intensive and challenging, and it has received little attention from automation companies. That is, until now – Raking Wall Frames!
Getting Over the Raking Wall
A raking wall, where the height of the wall changes as you progress along the wall, presents unique challenges for prefabrication. By definition, every stud in the raking panel is a different length. Accurate positioning of the stud is made difficult due to the swelling of the lumber impacting the position of the stud. These problems are not nearly as profound in the more common parallel wall panels. Previously, raking walls have been deemed too complicated for cost-effective automation, with framing solutions being focused on the less-complicated parallel walls. The raking wall frame has remained an entirely manual assembly process. However, with the increase in popularity of raking walls, and with most parallel wall framing lines focused on volume rather than output-per-man-hour efficiency, Vekta’s R&D team decided it was time the industry saw some fresh innovation in this space!
The Vekta Raking Framer is an automated solution that caters to both parallel and raking frames. Its modular design allows customers to select the most cost-effective version for their specific needs at a particular point in time. Our objective has been to develop a solution that reduces or eliminates the number of times an operator needs to touch the lumber.
How the Vekta Raking Framer Works
- The process starts with the operator loading raw uncut lumber onto the automated loading areas – for stud and noggin/blocking (optional) components.
- The operator then places the top and bottom plates in the starting position, checks to ensure there are enough screws and nails loaded, and simply hits “start” on the operator console.
- The machine then lines up the top and bottom plates for the first stud while simultaneously cutting the stud (and noggin/blocking if applicable).
- The stud length is cut to the nominal length, compensated for any measured swelling in the top/bottom plates, while the nog length is cut to compensate for any stud swelling – ensuring that the overall height and width of the frame are exactly right.
- If a noggin is required, it is nailed to the cut stud before the stud–noggin combination is inserted into the frame at the correct position – without any operator intervention.
- The stud is then nailed and/or screwed to the plates and the panel is indexed forward to the next stud location.
- Multiple screws/nails can be fastened at various positions, i.e., the positions and quantities are adjusted automatically.
- Verification sensors are used to confirm all nails/screws are fastened correctly.
- Meanwhile, the second stud–noggin combination is being cut/nailed and made ready for insertion.
- If noggins/blocking is used, the center gun nailer will nail off the second stud to the first noggin/blocking – it caters to both inline and offset noggins.
- The center gun nailer is also capable of holding and nailing off overs and unders to the sills, etc., essentially automating and optimizing the framing workflow.
The Bottom Line
The machine can handle parallel, raking, and stepped frames – the design intent is to reduce the amount of labor needed to build a frame while simultaneously creating a better overall product than could be framed in a traditional manner by subcomponent makers. [For images, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]
Modular in design, the system can be ordered with just the core raking framer system or with automatic subcomponent makers. It is capable of screwing and/or nailing studs to the plates.
The innovation of the Vekta Raking Framer resulted in Vekta being awarded the inaugural 2023 SBCA Innovation Grant against 27 other submissions from the industry. To learn more about the Raking Framer and other Vekta framing solutions, visit booths #1600 and #1602 at BCMC Indianapolis in September. We can’t wait to show you what innovation actually looks like!