CutMyTimber joins Passive House Northwest Group - Looking forward to the PHNW Spring Conference in Portland

We finally joined the PHNW group and are already listed on the PHNW Passive Pages. It is great to finally formalize our relationship with the passive house community in Washington and Oregon.  We look forward to attending the upcoming PHNW Spring Conference in Portland, Oregon on March 2nd.  The list of speakers is impressive and it will be a great opportunity to catch up with other professionals passionate about promoting passive house. Given that we just finished fabricating our first passive house project in Portland, Oregon we had to make time to finally join the local organization.  You can find photos of the project on flickr.  Watch for more videos and updates about the project on this blog over the next few weeks.  We plan on releasing videos of time-lapse images of the assembly to demonstrate the benefits of panelization.  We also hope to make another video showing the cadwork model with Stefan describing the project much as he did for a Tahoe residence we did a few years ago (see the video below, it has almost 4,000 views already). 




We are already very well-connected to the Passive House community in British Columbia, represented by the Canadian Passive House Institute (CanPHI), and received our passive house training from Guido Wimmers of Building Evolution of  (we made an earlier blog post about our training here).  

We were previously members of Passive House California and need to renew membership. Next week Greg is flying to New York for a conference on Digital Fabrication of buildings and will also be meeting with the passive house team at 475, a high-performance building supply company and active members of the New York Passive House group.  We are too busy building to stay up-to-date with all of these passive house groups but are enthused that the NY, CA, and PNW groups collaborated to form the American Passive House Network (we wish it was named the North American Passive House Network so people understand collaboration with Canadian groups).

CutMyTimber at University of British Columbia CAWP Open House

The Centre for Advanced Wood Processing (CAWP) is Canada's national centre of excellence for education and research related to wood products processing and advanced wood products manufacturing. CAWP offers a wide range of training courses, continuing education programs,  and industry services, conducts applied research, and assists industry toemploy students to work on special projects by coordinating a cooperative education program.


Last Thursday, October 7th 2010 the CAWP hosted an open house day. The CutMyTimber Founders Greg Howes and Stefan Schneider were present for this important and very interesting event.

Industry leaders such as Hundegger, Cadwork, MasterCam, SCM-Group, Leuco, and others where present:

The Hundegger Canada Crew: Markus Schellenberg with his very nice wife

and of course the machine doesn't run without a tech team. These Europeans always smile if there is a beer mug around. This one is made of Fir and milled on the 5-axis K2 joinery machine (in the background):

Hundegger ran some demos on their K2-5 axis machine. The type of machine that CutMyTimber is using for most of their complex projects:

But as impressive as the K2 is the real big news was the presentation of their soon to be released (in Europe first) 6 axis K2-Robot with fully automatic tool changer:

Of course the machine doesn't run without software. Cadwork was present as well:

same with the 5-axis SCM router. Software from MasterCam:

Software and machine are capable to mill about any shape and angle. Bellow a few samples:

The event also featured multiple speakers from different organizations and companies:

A great occasion for CutMyTimber C.E.O Stefan Schneider to talk about Digital manufacturing and the future of building:

Main part of the speech was the difference between BIM and FIM and why it is critical to use accurate  Fabrication Information Models in order to produce today's buildings and building components:

The 2nd part of the presentation was about the transfer from architectural data into a 3D FIM model, process definition, export to CAM software and various processing methods for steel and timber parts as well as prefab wall panels:

Accurate and very detailed Cadwork 3D FIM model

Cadwork to Hundegger K2 CNC interface and Hundegger EKP single part CAM system

Finshed scarf joint detail cut by Hundegger K2 joinery machine

Same process for steel I-beams and steel plates. Stefan shows a video of a Steel I-beam processor in action.

And of course in the end a short outlook about the future of building. This is what CutMyTimber is all about:

....of course that leads to surprised faces and great discussions:

a big THANK YOU to the UBC CAWP team for organizing a great event!!!

Timber frame fabrication in Cascadia

Last week was an intense series of long days during which we cut 148 timbers into a net 6,200 board feet of Oregon Douglas fir in 28 hours of machine time on a 5-axis  Hundegger K2 joinery machine.

Oregon has some of the best Douglas fir on the planet and it is a great pleasure to work with it and combine advanced design technologies with traditional craftsmanship.  Working with a great team only adds to the experience.

Beautifully timbers, Technology and craftsmanship is the recipe for some great timber frames. The process starts in the office with very detailed and throughout 3D design:

We use the 3D computer model to select timbers. We try to use the nicest timbers for highly visible faces. The less nice stuff goes towards the non visible outside. It's absolutely critical to have perfectly straight parts for the exterior wall columns and gable rafters. Again the mobile netbook computer makes it easy to have complete control while sorting timbers.

Some of the more involved parts. The more complex the parts are the more we love the K2 joinery machine!!

Hip Rafter and Roof-Header with dovetail connection.

Finished dormer posts with 5ft lenght cut to make the post narrower on top. Seat-cut and mortise for dormer rafter and housing for eave plate.

The K2 ran continuously each work day while we also completed all the required craft work.

The brand new Makita KB-312 planer is amazing and a lot of fun. We ran thru 2 sets of knives to ensure an absolutely clean surface.


Old Bavarian craftsman-ship never gets rusty. " Gelernt ist gelernt !!!"

We test-fit every part to ensure a tight fit and no hand work on construction site.

Girt to post connection with Maple hardwood spline and positioning tenon. We test fit prior to final planing and sanding to ensure parts don't have to be handled once they are clean and sanded.

We use cutting edge CNC technology to produce traditional timber framing connections such as dovetails, spline and tapered shoulders with mortise and tenons.

We chamfer all tenons to ensure quick and hassle free installation. A little touch that makes a huge difference for the install crew!!

And of course proper labeling !! Certain parts have to be installed in a specific direction.

4x8" knee braces:

We used a laser cut steel template to trace our braces.

We used Landark to finish the wood.  The smell of beeswax and citrus is great.  Here is a photo of some great timbers and a team member applying the finish.

The Douglas fir was absolutely beautiful and a pleasure to work with.

Last but not least: Proper edge protection and wrapping for shipping. Edges are really fragile and need to be protected !!

Check out pictures of the installed Timber Frame.