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Heel Analysis
ARCHITECTURE Heel Analysis Methods. When I design heels for a truss, I try to not use more wood than I need. Throwing wood at a problem doesn’t always fix things. For example, I have a slider on this heel as the heels are high. The top chord doesn’t specifically need them for stability or deflection. I have a pinned bearing and I can analyze the heel with a few different methods. In these two illustrations the red line represents the analog of the truss. I analyze with a single analog on the heel and my slider is several feet long as the next joint is the web. In the right…
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How to make a miter cut
Here is some simple math if you have the right tool. Trying to miter two angles is not always the easiest task. Let me preface this with I would recommend a Jobber Calculator if you convert from feet-inches to pitches, degrees or other regularly. They are not paid advertising, just the tool I use regularly. If your a math person, you know how instrumental a Casio TI-84 was in school. There is probably a Texas Instruments app for this as well that I haven’t looked into. The other tool I use all day everyday is a piece of software shown below is Mitek engineering. For this example I want to…
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Rise and Run
Vandelay Industries doesn’t architect per se. However, when I’m architecting a roof for my potato loving friends in Idaho, I use a few basic math skills. I got to thinking, I should share a few ideas with Seinfelders and future architects. Here are a few tips if you want to pretend to be an architect. In algebra there is a simple formula for calculating angles of triangles. I utilize this formula almost every day when designing roof trusses. Most all kids in the United States learn this at some point and is usually GED (general equivalency diploma) level of education. In this case today, I want to know how much…
