OK so I go a new toy a Glowforge (GF) laser cutter. My Chinese laser cutter had sucky software. I guess they could not find anything better. The Glowforge is a definite improvement. The GF software is in-the-cloud and always current and up-to-date.
I had previously cut out 22 16" long trusses by hand (oh my G-D!) a while back. Although they weren't bad they were not perfect. See the hand assembled green truss.
the GREEN truss has 10 separate parts ( if you have added that up that means 220 parts for all of the 22 trusses) to it that were cut and glued to create the verts and diagonals because I could not cut any of the inside triangle shapes with a band saw as one part. However, the laser-cut truss consists of only four(4) pieces that are interlocked together. Note also the top and bottom chord X-bracing.
Also because of the more solid jointing, the laser cut trusses will be stronger at the joints than the band saw cut trusses; because I added the bolting plates.
The green truss to hours to cut and glue; the laser-cut truss took 6 minutes to cut and after filing the joints and painting it will take a few minutes more to glue!!!
Before I assemble, I'm thinking of adding engravings of the bolting along the connected parts.
