Timber Frame Raising in Oregon, USA

The frame we cut a few weeks ago has been successfully delivered and installed.

The building site is beautiful, in the middle of Oregon's wine country. How much nicer could it possibly be?

The raising crew was lucky and had mostly nice weather. They did an amazing job and managed to install the frame in less than 3 days.The pre-cut SIP panels got installed in 3 days as well.

All  CNC pre-cut joinery fit perfectly.  The high level of details paid off and made for a stress free installation on site. Things like chamfered tenons, pre-drilled peg holes and proper labeling make a HUGE difference for the assembly crew. Read more about how we fabricated this timber frame in an earlier blog.

Nice and tight!!! Traditional tapered shoulder girt to post connection with hidden spline and position tenon.

Thanks again to my team, the raising crew, and everybody involved. You all did a wonderful job!!

Congratulations to the new owner of the house. I am sure this timber frame will last for generations making it a pleasant healthy home for you and your guest. 

CutMyTimber visiting IDSWest show October 14-17, 2010

Last Friday evening Guido Holdener from Equilibrium Consulting and myself decided to leave the traditional building  world for a few hours.  We visited to Interior Design show IDSwest.

We very much enjoyed extending our horizon and look at some of the finest design and artwork BC has to offer.It was a pleasure to see some very innovative and creative interior designers, artists, and architects.

Laminated, plywood-style exterior garden bench. Very cool!!

The main focus of our visit was the showcase home from our friends at Preform Construction in Surrey.
On display was their second iteration of their very successful pre-designed modular home. The home on display was a 1000sf house.

The modular concept glanced with top notch build and finishing quality, smart design, and very spacious feel inside. I absolutely loved the modern interior with hight ceilings, bright withe walls, lots of glass, and sharp edges. And of course Preform followed their strategy of highly energy efficient and green homes.

Congratulations to Ryan Spong at Preform Construction and his team as well as architect Tony Robins at AA Robins Architect fort a great design and concept.

Very well done! Design and realization. Hopefully this high level showcase home will get more future home owners excited for smart homes.

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.