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With today’s complex profiles and configurations, many truss fabricators have been relying on staples to set assembly member contact and relationships. Stapling serves as a temporary means to insure tight joints and accurate locations. Often times, however, because of the ease of multiple...

Trade shows are a great way to demonstrate products and to meet people face-to-face. They are very useful when you want to see products that require a demonstration or, as my brother Keith would say, “where you want to put your hand on the machine.” But there are even more reasons to...

It’s that time of year again, when we observe National Forest Products Week during the third week of October. National Forest Products Week began in 1960 with Congress proclaiming “our country and its people have always found constant strength, individual peace, and personal pride...

Perhaps the most important question in our lumber industry is: “What's next?” We are in the heat of the September Surge. That will soon be coming to an end, but the clock doesn't stand still. Lord willing, the sun will rise tomorrow. So, the question is, “What's...

The knowledge we take for granted today on MSR lumber is due in large part to the pioneering work of Professor Robert Hoyle, P.E. In the early 1960s at Potlatch Forest, Inc., he conducted basic research on the relationship between stiffness and strength of lumber, paving the way for the MSR...

The pace of today’s business requires agility and change to maintain success. That is the reality of our situation. But be warned: “change” is difficult. Sometimes it requires tinkering, other times it means tearing down the very structures that have taken you to the point of...

At the beginning of this year, the job opportunities JobLine had were mostly for in-office designers. Some employers were looking ahead to the summer rush and made a few proactive remote designer hires in March, but only a few. As the season approached, more remote options were on the table,...

With Hurricane Irma wrapping up, the cleanup after Hurricane Harvey’s devastation underway in Houston and more big storms already churning in the Atlantic, it seems like a good time to discuss hurricanes and high wind. There is a great deal of good information out there to help us better...

Only one part of our being can be fairly gauged: our physical heath. Our other parts—the mental, emotional, or spiritual aspects don’t register on any objective scale. But if we get a handle on that one part, we do gain insight on the others. We can gain this data via our...

They always say, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Okay, but do they really look at it from the dog’s point of view? Think about it. Hopefully, the dog is in a nice, comfortable routine. Then, here comes a person wanting him to do something new, which takes a lot...