Parting Shots

No, this isn’t the latest haul from a fishing expedition; it’s actually trusses on their way to a jobsite. Northwest Building Components, Inc. in Rathdrum, ID, designed, manufactured and delivered the trusses for this project expecting to drop them off at the jobsite, which was a fishing cabin. Only when the driver arrived at the delivery location, a boat dock, did he realize this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill delivery.

This project first featured in SBC Industry News piqued many readers’ interest. Now back by popular demand, this amazing 80'-wide Ponderosa Pine log truss built by Deadwood Log Homes shows that trusses come in all sizes—including enormous. So enormous, in fact, that Deadwood’s owner, Rick Johnson, has applied to have the truss considered by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest log truss in the U.S.

You’re never too young to start designing and engineering structures. John Gruber, P.E. of Sheppard Engineering submitted this photo of his son Alex’s wood tower for his high school physics class. The project, which called for students to construct a tower of balsa wood (G=0.15), limited the tower’s height to 50 cm, with a maximum 8 cm diameter above 15 cm, and required the base to span a 20 cm opening with any orientation. The tower was loaded vertically from the top with both a hanging weight and weights applied to the top. While the tower only weighed 66.7 g (2.35 oz), it certainly stood up to the challenge, resisting 160 lb of applied load without failing—1,089 times its weight!

Most holiday trees have probably been taken down by now, but when we received these photos from Sun State Components, we just had to run them. A few years ago, a production manager at the Surprise, AZ, facility created these ingenious truss ornaments from balsa wood and silver gum wrappers. “We wanted to add something unique to our tree and customize it for the truss industry,” said Davi-Ann Farmer, Engineering Department Manager at Sun State. She added that these ornaments are a favorite every year, and always receive comments from customers.