Beiträge von Jim Rogers

Recently working with the latest updated version this work-around doesn't seem to always work.
What I've had to do to overcome this again is to delete the tenon all together and then re-insert the tenon.
Doing this will establish two tenon and two mortises.
Hope this helps.
Jim Rogers
Jim Rogers Timber Designs
Georgetown, MA, USA

Recently while updating a project or modifying that frame drawn, I had a problem with re-connecting joints.
What I did was I changed the shape of a post from a jowl or gun-stock post to a straight post. Then I needed the braces connecting to the old post to connect to the new post. Using 317 form a new connection worked. Well sort of. What would happen is that it would connect to the post but then the program would remove the connection to the beam on the other end of the brace. If I went to the beam end and made a new connection using 317 it would remove the connection to the post. This was very frustrating. I opened the process box on the brace and reprocessed both tenons but this didn't help.
But after reprocessing and forming the new connections then reopening the processes box and viewing the tenon line it had a $ (dollar sign) in front of the line. Of course we all know this is a link to the other timber that will remain linked if you move the piece.
I found if you exploded the tenon link, removing the $ sign, and saved and went to the other end and used 317 to form a new connection that the connection would form. That was my solution.
I really don't understand why this works, but it does for me now.
It was very frustrating trying to make changes and not have any of the old timbers connect to the new one.
Hope this helps someone else to understand a work around to a problem that may happen to you.
Jim Rogers
Jim Rogers Timber Designs
Georgetown, MA USA

I know this forum is an international forum and laws from different countries are different than the USA. But how do you understand the copyright of design question.
I've been lead to believe that the designer holds the copyright of the design and that the customer is just paying for the printed drawings of that design, and that they don't own that design.
Any and all thoughts on this subject would be helpful.
Jim Rogers Timber Designs.
USA

Markus:
Thanks for your advice.
I'll check my program settings, once I convert from mm to inches.

Also, I've been converting almost all my drawing to black line color as I felt that's what a customer would expect to see.
I've printed some drawings with color lines on some beams and found that some colors are hard to see on the drawing paper, by me and by others. That's why I usually convert all colors to black.
Some of the beams in red, blue and green do show up nice, but the yellows and light blue don't.
Maybe it's just me.
Jim Rogers Timber Designs

To All:
When printing drawings, either shop drawings or bent views, what line weight do you use for the timber?
And what line weight do you use for the dimension lines?
Are they the same or different and why?
By line weight I mean thickness of the line.
Thanks in advance.
Jim Rogers
Jim Rogers Timber Designs

When I create a 3-d frame with all joinery in place and need a four sided drawing of one piece, I highlight that piece and hide all others. Then I save a rotated 2d view of that piece. Then I import that view into the 2d program to create a dimensioned drawing. Once that side has been dimensioned on the drawing. I return to D-CAM and rotate the piece to the next face. Save that side and import that view into the same drawing aligning it with the first. Then add the new dimension that need to be shown for that face. On and on until all for faces are done.
Or sometimes I turn on "hidden line" and dimension to them as they show threw the beam and you can see two sides from one view.
Another users copies a beam to four new locations in the air above the frame and rotates each one to a different face. Highlights them and hides all others, then saves that view and imports that into the 2-d program and dimensions them as needed.
It all depends on one's personal style or method of creating a drawing.
On my 2-d drawing of this piece I'll save a 3-d view and paste in on the page so that the timber framer can see what the joint should look like in real life. Sometimes from several different views.

I hope others will post some reasons or methods for you to review.
Jim Rogers

At the recent eastern conference was a seminar titled "Real Time Problem Solving".
I found this very interesting as many different subjects were discussed.
I am interested in starting a thread about a design question.
Recently I customer asked me to design a frame and on the end gable bents he wanted queens posts into a collar beam, and then the collar beam into the rafters.
The span is 20' and the roof pitch is a 10/12. I had planned the rafter feet to connect to the top of the tie beam as he also wanted an interrupted plate and not a traditional continuous plate.
My concern was that the queens post would intersect the collar beam near the end of the collar beam and weaken it.
I felt that if the collar beam entered the sides of the queens posts it would weaken them.
I opted for both the collar beam and the queens posts to enter the rafter either side of the center point. The center point being half way from the eave to the ridge.
Having these enter the rafters here made it necessary to have a long mortise, but I felt that this was offset by the support given by the queens posts, and that the rafters were not weaken.
So, my questions is what is the best solution?
A queens to collar the collar to rafters.
B queens to rafter and collar to queens.
C queens and collar to rafter.

I'd appreciate any and all comments and reasons why any one way is better than another.

Jim Rogers
Jim Rogers Timber Designs

(In the picture below the tools are on one of the two queens posts. And the saw tip is pointing to the joint in question.)

Markus: This is what I was trying to create:
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I wasn't aware of that rotate function threw the middle mouse button. That is great and I can see where it will be very helpful.
Thanks a lot for that tip.
I was aware of the zoom in and out with the + and - keys. I use that all the time.
Jim Rogers

To All:
I'd like to start a "Wish List".
This could be a list where users can input ideas they have to make a Module better or more useful. And hopefully the company can see if some of these "wishes" can be incorporated into new versions of the program.

My first wish would be to create a "save as" line for user defined tenon settings. Similar to the "save as" line in 2-1-1 constant section, in D-CAM.

This would be very helpful to me.

What do you other users think?

What is on your wish list?

Jim Rogers

Recently I was involved in a project where I drew a frame using the program, created the drawings with dimensions using 2d-PlanCAD, and then taught students (of all ages) how to cut out this frame.
Below is a photo of one of the drawings (#1180-s2).
We laid out the timbers using these drawings and cut the frame.
During the fit up process of the frame parts we discovered that some of the timbers didn't line up correctly. These errors were blamed on the drawings or computer. With further investigations and drawings with more measurements and more angle labels we discovered that we had not laid out the angles or cut them correctly to the drawings.
After correcting the timbers all parts lined up correctly and we discovered that over several days of work and many different drawings all created by 2d-PlanCAD that all the drawings were correct, and that it was our layout that was wrong. And we learned to trust the drawing, and to check and double check our work.
It was a great feeling to know that the drawings I created with D-CAM and 2d PlanCAD were correct and true.
Jim Rogers
Below is a photo of the one part of the completed frame with myself (last on the left) and the students who worked on it. (#1184-s)

Markus:
By all means but my name on the correct list, and delete it from the wrong list.
I'm looking forward to the newsletter.
Manfred:
Thanks for the link.
Jim Rogers

I recently received a very nice newsletter. Unfortunately it was all in German, and I don't currently read German.
Are you planning on sending out an English version, any time soon
Or is there an easy to use translation program that we can get to help us English speaking users to read German?
Jim Rogers

Markus:
The two rafters in this drawing are 8"x8", again meeting at a 6"/12" pitch.
I had planned on a 1 1/2" tenon, cut 1 1/2" off the outside face to allow enough wood for a dove tail tenon pocket to be cut into the inside face of the fork rafter.
Of course this dove tail pocket is for the 6"x8"ridge beam and therefore would be cut vertical or plumb.

Another question about images: if you roll your mouse over the Img button above the "post a reply" box in this forum the command line changes to "Insert image: {img}http://image_url{/img}" (I have changed the bracket style to make the program show the brackets).
Does this mean if you post an image to say your own website and then use that address in between the display img codes it will display in the post?

Jim Rogers
PS. I could test it and see if it will work.....

To All:
Well we have worked threw the problem, my customer and myself, with the help of Wil Dancy of DNA.
It seems that the viewer program doesn't like any file name that has an apostrophe in it, such as mine did. Once this file was renamed without the apostrophe it could be opened by Wil.
Advice to all, name your files correctly, no symbols or spaces.
We, my customer and I, reloaded cosmos viewer from the sample disk in the tools section, selected to associate to all other file types and then selected the vrml file using "open with". Once the "open with" box was selected we chose IE and checked the box to open all such files with this program.
We can now open and view my vrml files.
Thanks again Wil.
Jim Rogers

Markus:
Thanks for the suggestion. And I had already thought of that, and of course tried that.
But on the inside of the pair I've created a drop in dovetail for the ridge beam, and because of this dovetail pocket the joint doesn't seem to work correctly.
Maybe I should delete the dovetail and then create the fork and tongue and then re-create the dovetail.
What do you think?

And also, is it possible to post a jpeg to this forum? What is the procedure?

Jim Rogers

To All:
I'm trying to create a tongue and fork connection between two roof rafters that are at a 6/12 roof pitch.
The program creates a tenon as if it was a brace tenon and will not draw the tenon and mortise at the correct angle.
It works for me years ago, just fine with a 12/12 roof pitch.
Does anyone have any solution to creating a tongue and fork rafter connection at a 6/12 roof pitch?
Thanks.
Jim Rogers

Joachim:
Thanks for clearing that up.
I totally understand.
But I would like to also ask, that if a workaround solution to a known problem is found and posted in another language section could it also be posted into this section?
So that we "all" can understand the solutions.
Jim Rogers

Markus:
I don't mind if anyone posts to this section, a solution to a problem, but if it's posted in German, the users who don't speak or read German need it translated.
I appreciate all help we can get from everyone, but as a moderator you should/could translate an all German post in this section using the "quote" function for all non German reading users.
Thanks for posting a work around solution to the save position info problem.
Jim Rogers

Markus:
I've downloaded Cortona viewer and it won't load my vrmls. Is there any size restriction to the size of files it will load and view.
I can get a small file say 475kb to load but any thing over 2000kb just won't load, at least it won't load for me.
Or am I not waiting long enough?
Jim Rogers