Plate markers, single tool bridges, and automated saws were just a few of the enhancements that filtered into wall panel shops at the Millennium. Their adoption was quickened by the consolidation of component manufacturers (CMs) and by the increasing pressure on all CMs by busy builders. Builders Supply and Lumber (which would become Builders FirstSource in 2008) was just one of the several multi-plant owners that tested new equipment in one plant and, if it performed successfully, would purchase additional units for their other plants. Captive component producer NVR followed suit. Since these two entities were the largest wall panel suppliers in the country, their purchases quickened the buying decisions of independent CMs and created a fertile environment for other innovations. And, as had occurred with truss equipment, the first panel process to be automated was cutting. [For all photos, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]
Cutting Enhancements – The very first step in legacy panel production lines has been the cutting of top and bottom wall plates to length. Tommy Wood had skillfully allied his company with the Tiger Stop product, which automatically moves a lumber stop to a specific measurement. Others have used the Hain Measuring System in which a pointer is manually moved along a scale to the inch measurement desired, and then boards are bumped against the appropriate lumber stop corresponding to the number of whole foot desired. Both of these methods yielded accurate cut lengths, and they set the stage for downloading of data. One of the first panel saws to do so was the PF90, invented by George Blaine in 1993 to cut defects from hardwood boards and adapted by Alpine to the component industry. Blaine envisioned that a sawyer would scan the cutting list on a display screen and then examine the board in front of him to determine a cut length that could be accommodated on defect-free portions of that board.
Plate Marking – In the late 1990s, the PF90 was one of the first sawing systems that was outfitted with an ink jet printer to mark top and bottom plates for stud and junction locations. Because these ink marks were often hard to read, Virtek adapted a laser to the task, which made the markings almost permanent. As printing technology improved, a new batch of plate markers was launched including the Hornet, EasyFrame, and DeWall.
Sheathing Bridges – In the 1990s, multi-tool bridges were the norm, featuring a gang of fastening tools set 6” on center on a moveable bridge. To achieve higher fastener densities, the tools were shifted sideways, and to properly fasten sheathing at panel seams, they also had to be angled. To ensure embedment accuracy, tools had to be nearly perfectly aligned and charged with equivalent air pressure. When fastener spacing was uniform, multi-tool bridges worked well. However, when building officials began to enforce code provisions for diaphragm/braced wall design, the provisions for fastener spacing changed considerably and confounded the task of the bridge operator. To ensure adequate coverage, excessive numbers of fasteners were often applied, slowing production. For example, under the new code, one or two panels could require considerably more fasteners than the remainder of the panels in a given line of panels.
To simplify the fastening task, Panels Plus introduced the single tool bridge in 2010 that uses coil-fed nails. While a few stalwarts insist that a lower cycle time is achieved with the multi-tool bridge, the tide is turning with the introduction of Panels Plus’s Platinum series bridge that can run without an operator. On-board software reads fastener spacings from each individual panel design and directs tools along the shortest and most efficient path through the array of fastener locations. This technology has proven to be effective at Automated Products in Wisconsin.
After decades of languishing demand for panel equipment, the market has been buoyed by these improvements, and by many others from Triad, Vekta, Spida, Wasserman, Wood Tech Systems, Akhurst, and Simpson, which incorporate many productive features. Perhaps these innovations portend a bright future for panelization which has been a long time coming.
Next Month:
More Panel Automation From American Suppliers
Articles in This Series