If I compare the truss layout and design software used in the early 1980s to what is available today, it’s mind boggling. Actually, comparing layout software wouldn’t be possible since the first layout software at our company didn’t show up until around 1989! Up to that point,...

Joe Hardy of 84 Lumber was the last of the World War II veterans to whom we owe our industry. Ed Ryan of Ryan Homes (now NVR) and Cal Jureit of Gang-Nail (now MiTek) were also major contributors. All three returned from winning that war with a drive to transform home building, and they helped...

On July 5, 1960, in a marathon session, a dozen entrepreneurs set standards for a brand new industry, and, in the process, met a government deadline. These early truss plate adopters came well-prepared and didn’t hesitate to make far-reaching decisions. Fortunately, they left a detailed...

For anyone who’s ever wanted to take a trip Down Under, I have the perfect reason for you to go – visiting Vekta! December brought an exciting opportunity for me to make my first trip to visit the Vekta headquarters and factory in Perth, Australia. I started as the General Manager of...

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...

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...

Generally speaking, I write most of the editorials for Component Advertiser – but when I was speaking to Tony McCoy, our Sales Manager from Texas and South Central, he asked if he could write an article from the heart, and I just couldn’t resist publishing his thoughts. Tony has been...

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...

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...

Today, linear saw technology provides unmatched efficiency with profound differences to productivity, service, and reliability. An automated linear saw can also reduce the lumber cut waste by batching and combining different cuts of various pieces known as lumber optimization. So what is the one...