A
Th e
Component Manufacturing dverti$ dverti $ er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$$er
November 2023 #15292 Page #10
Floor Truss Technology, Part VI: The Last Round of Floor Machines ur 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 of the plates properly. Even so, these advancements hadn’t come quickly. It took 30 years of trial and error and millions of miles of floor trusses, but they made the floor truss machine robotic-ready.
By Joe Kannapell
O
The forerunner of the modern machine, Ronnie Wright’s 1979 Fatman, established a corollary to the theory that truss plates must be double rolled for proper embedment. Although he initially believed otherwise, Wright found from later experience that a single roll can fully embed the top plate only if there is precise control of the gap between the roller and the table. And machines that allowed any variance in that gap would not be around long. The Fatman picked up another capability in 1984 that was intended to maintain high quality joints without gaps. Wright’s partner, Mike Rosser, repurposed a fire hose, inflating it with air rather than water, and used it to continuously clamp trusses tightly into their jig. This greatly simplified the machine, ridding it of air leaks and damage to cylinders. While this use of fire hoses was an effective method of clamping, depth adjustments became more difficult, so later machines retained air cylinders for their dual capabilities. However, Rosser’s invention highlighted the advantage of removing or relocating the air system from on top of the table, which protected its vulnerable components while trusses were being flipped. This also created additional room on the table top for labor-saving mechanisms such as are shown here schematically in the area between the air hose assemblies. And this became a compelling benefit going forward. One of the first machines to leverage this advantage was MiTek’s roller floor machine, which was a scaled-down version of the roof gantry system that they had acquired from Bob LePoire’s Diamond Machinery. This table used a series of devices, later called trucks, that were connected every few feet to the side of the steel clamping angle. The bottoms of these trucks were attached to air cylinders operating beneath the table. This arrangement not only protected the air system but cleaned up the table top. Despite these advantages, this machine design ran contrary to Wright’s corollary, because the gantry ran on a track attached to a floor that might not be level, resulting in unseated plates. Likewise, TeeLok’s and Klaisler’s early floor gantries were driven on a railroad track on the floor. Continued next page
PHONE: 800-289-5627
Read/Subscribe online at www.componentadvertiser.com
FAX: 800-524-4982