In Memoriam: In Memory of a Machinery Master Joe Kannapell, PE Pat Linton was a MiTek original, like none other, with his hands on and his arms around MiTek equipment for 44 years. He led by example, with the utmost humility, and was a key player in elevating MiTek machinery from mediocrity to magnificence. And his start, assembling two of the truss... Read More January 2023 Issue #15282 Page 86
The Last Word: The Current State of Robotics Joe Kannapell, PE I’ve been covering the industry’s evolution toward robotics, but I’d like to stop for a minute and recall the days of corrugated fasteners. These clever clips proved themselves whenever trusses were flipped or ejected. Now, perhaps ironically, they still have a role to play... Read More January 2023 Issue #15282 Page 128
The Development of the Truss Plate, Part V: Frenetic First Get-Together Joe Kannapell, PE Twelve competitors faced one another for the first time—but only because they had to. Each of their fledgling plate businesses was threatened by a July 31 deadline from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and they had less than three weeks to put together a design criterion for... Read More December 2022 Issue #14281 Page 10
The Last Word: The Last Word on Automated Material Handling Joe Kannapell, PE With automated saws and auto-jigging tables, what remains is automated material handling, and that’s what we find at Builders FirstSource’s (BFS) Austin plant. House of Design’s (HoD) robotic roof line there extends the floor truss pre-plating methodology found at their Atlanta... Read More December 2022 Issue #14281 Page 144
The Development of the Truss Plate, Part IV: Competition Intensifies Joe Kannapell, PE After Cal Jureit’s impressive debut at the 1958 NAHB Show, lumberyards and builders across America were anxious to start trussing, but they encountered several obstacles. Their deluge of inquiries couldn’t all be answered, and most were far away from the South Florida source of... Read More November 2022 Issue #14280 Page 10
The Last Word: The Last Word on Pre-Plating Joe Kannapell, PE Just as Trussmatic brought back hydraulic plate pressing, House of Design has resurrected pre-plating. Both practices proved themselves in the early days of our industry, but both required disciplined shop floor management, and each had limitations. [For all images, See PDF or View in Full... Read More November 2022 Issue #14280 Page 132
The Development of the Truss Plate, Part III: The Ingenuity of Carol Sanford and Cal Jureit Joe Kannapell, PE Carol Sanford’s invention didn’t equal Cal Jureit’s, but he made up for it with his head start and his aggressive marketing. Sanford had filed for his patent in March 1954, two years ahead of Jureit’s September 1956 filing, and had a plate design that was relatively... Read More October 2022 Issue #14279 Page 10
The Last Word: The Last Word on The First Trade Show Joe Kannapell, PE After this year’s BCMC, it’s worth considering how far our industry has progressed since we first went to a trade show. The year was 1958, and the National Association of Home Builders Show (NAHB now IBS) was the only way to reach a national audience. Fortunately, we had one... Read More October 2022 Issue #14279 Page 142
The Development of the Truss Plate, Part II: Cal Jureit’s Invention Joe Kannapell, PE Civil engineer Cal Jureit had moved on from wood structures to concrete foundations, but not completely. While he was engaged with the problem of building houses on Miami’s marshes near the Everglades, he had left the problem of wood connections unresolved. Perhaps his ongoing work on Dade... Read More September 2022 Issue #14278 Page 10
The Last Word: The Last Word on Totally Robotic Joe Kannapell, PE Attendees at BCMC 2019 stood safely right next to an awesome gesticulating robot and became immersed in observing record-breaking truss building – virtually, that is, through a VR headset. Back then, Trussmatic robots hadn’t made it stateside, and hadn’t yet handled our crazy... Read More September 2022 Issue #14278 Page 130