Simpson Strong-Tie Seminar 1

[jheidt2543]

I just returned from an all day, Simpson Strong-Tie sponsored seminar on their hangers, ties and hold-downs. It was extremely well done with a binder full of information regarding gravity, wind, and seismic loadings and how to select their ties, nails and accessories. It wasn't all their hardware though, the presenter provided a lot of generic information too and keyed it to the current residential, commercial and State of Wisconsin codes.

Simpson presented the seminar free of charge, but it was equal to (actually better than) many of the seminars I've paid hundreds of $ to attend. They sure seem to be the leader in materials, design data and research on wood connectors. And, no I didn't get paid to say so.

My intent is to tell you all to check their website at

http://www.strontie.com

for the time and location of a seminar near you, if you have any interest in this topic. It was a first class, professional engineering presentation.

 

[rday]

jheidt2543,

You have a typo in the link. Left out the "g" in strongtie.

Rik

 

[jheidt2543]

rday:

Thank you! I guess the reason I think I can type so fast is because I don't type all the letters! The actual weblinks are:

http://www.strongtie.com

and

http://www.simpsonanchors.com

 

[RARWOOD]

I work for a company that sells product from one of Simpsons competitors, but attended an all day Simpson Seminar in 2004.

I highly reccomend the seminar particularly if it is presented by Jim Mailey. I have over 15 years of experience in the wood industry and have not only attended numerous wood seminars, but have also been a speaker at a number of seminars in the past. Despite my background I learned a lot at the Simpsons seminar and felt as a structural engineer it was well worth my time to attend.

 

[SlideRuleEra]

I went to a 2 hour version today - highly recommended. The instructor mentioned that if you travel to their facilities in Florida or Texas, there are other "perks". Take a look at "Hotel, Travel, & Amenities" here

http://www.simpsonstrongtie.com/workshops/23/23about.asp?Site=SST

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[jheidt2543]

RARSWC:

Yes, I had Jim too, he really knows his stuff. An even more impressive aspect of his presentation was that he didn't badmouth the competition. While he did point out the differences between Simpson products and some competitive products, his main point was that users should remain consistant in their material and accessory selection - don't mix manufacturers products on a project.

He also knows the building codes that pertain to wood connections inside and out.

I bet a tour of their facilities would be interesting, especially the one with the new shake table.

 

[jike]

jheidt2543:

I was scheduled to attend the same seminar that you did (in Madison) but was unable to attend due to a surgery for my wife. My collegue went in my place and he also said that it was very worthwhile.

 

[jheidt2543]

I should also mention that Simpson has produced a training video, "Basic Fastener Installation" in both English and Spanish. The video is directed at installers, but anyone doing inspection or design of fasteners would also benifit.

jike: Hope the surgery went well. Madison is quite the growing town, they are always building multiple somethings there. The city is very different from the "Miffland" days in the late 60's! For one thing, they have a football team and a basketball team at the UW!

 

[RARWOOD]

jheidt2543

The training video idea is a very good idea. One thing we tend to forget about as engineers, is the proper field installation of standard hangers. If they subsitute 16D sinkers in the field in place of 16D common nails it has a big impact on the hanger capacity.

I worked on one project where all the purlin hangers were specified with 1/4" diameter holes for Cleveland hanger nails. All the nails supplied were 1/4" diameter USP NA25 nails. I've allways wondered how they got the 1/4 diameter nails through the 1/4" diameter holes. It never crossed my mind that maybe they subsituted a smaller nail.

When you are working with wood, shear plates are one item that often will be miss installed in the field. The company I work for always shop installs shear plates whenever possible. This policy was developed in the past after all the shear plates on a job were used as decorative washers on the outside of the steel plate connections.

So if you are out doing an inspection on a wood project and you the shear plates or a large box of unused ones you want to make sure the ones required were properly installed.