New inventions may fade away, but most provide valuable lessons, like the concrete truss machine. Not many of these were built, but they seemed to Cal Jureit to be the logical match for his new truss plate, and they set the course for all his future machines. Jureit had to have been...

Our contemporary floor machines were ready for the resurgence of demand that has followed the pandemic. These new models had many fascinating features, accumulated from the multiple iterations before them. They were more durable, they lessened labor, and they built a quality truss, embedding all...

Wars seem to surround us today, but this has been the case since the founding of our country and our industry. While we are troubled by today’s calamities, we should stop and reflect on those who have fought these wars, especially on this coming Veterans Day, November 11.   Take...

Component manufacturers learned one very painful floor truss lesson in the 1970s that needed to be remedied in the 1980s – nightmare repairs can result from plates not being fully embedded. That predicament usually resulted from insufficient tonnage to fully press the larger plates found...

A robot visited the BCMC Show floor again this year, and, for the first time, really showed its stuff, picking truss plates like there was no tomorrow. And its dynamic demo couldn’t be missed, as House of Design (HoD) positioned their Nail Plate Picking Cell right at the exhibit’s...

Seeing floor trusses for the first time, Dick Rotto immediately pursued an order, even before he had a floor machine or the know-how to build floor trusses. He and his young crew at Trussway had many questions though, as did every CM taking on this intriguing new product. What kind of table...

As we celebrate SBCA/WTCA’s forty years, let’s also recognize the entrepreneurs behind them, especially these twelve who made outstanding contributions. While each of them added something unique, their work was interrelated, and formed the foundation for today’s truss industry....

The advent of floor trusses gave us new insights that continue to be refined today. They also gave us a peek into whole house design with the promise of a fully componentized house. For the first time, they challenged us to build something that people could live on top of, rather than just...

With the recent passing of Tom Denig, which was not long after Gene Toombs’, we should take a moment to reflect on their stunning success, gained while working separately and together. They both took over highly technical companies in the early 1990s, Denig at Trus Joist and Toombs at...

It wasn’t enough for Jack Schmitt, President of Truswal, to introduce wood-web floor trusses. He also had to demonstrate how to build them, and that required a special machine. Schmitt turned to his trusted associate, Carl Virta, to come up with a process, and Carl knew who could help him....