Porta Framer - Hase Anyone Seen/used This?

innovous

Just saw this on another site, has anyone ever seen or used this?

http://www.portaframe.com/



Kinda sounds like a start to a joke: "Have you heard the one about the Engineer and the Framer sitting at the bar?"

Willie T

Does it do the nailing for you?

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Framer53

I think it is dumb.

Your milage may vary!

Willie T

Before I had any influence on a job I worked as a laborer/helper. We did tons of motels in those days. And our foreman was a thinker. He had us build an assembly table on each jobsite.

Off this table, we built almost all the walls needed for repetitious layouts. The motels usually had 70 to three or four hundred rooms, pretty much all identical. We slid them off the table just like that trailer, and stacked them vertically. A pettibone (high lift) took one complete set of framed walls to each room location at a rate of about one room per hour.

It was SO much easier on everyone. And multiplied production tremendously.

I think the concept is great.

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N.Schiffer

I saw it at IBS, cool for HIGH production. But other than that I think it would be useless to the residential guys.

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Willie T

I don't think this would be much good for one-off custom homes. But consider these time saving points on any job................

One lumber pile where the truck drops the bundles off.... studs and plates.

The studs stay straighter because they stay in the stack.... weather-proofed in one spot.

No carrying in arms full of studs. And don't forget re-stacking them again inside.

Less of an unnecessarily cumbersome crew crawling over top of one another in the house.

Actually, the inside crew wouldn't need to hassle with dragging hoses around. Just tack the walls up with hammers, and let a kid come behind a little later and shoot the heck out of them.

A lot less noise while trying to enjoy your tunes on the radio.

Walls could be built at the very same time layout marking is being done inside.

Chop saw right at the trailer for convenient and accurate plate duplication.

Pre-build stacks of door and window frames (if enough were identical), and just drop them into place, then nail.

No littering of cutoffs and sawdust mess to constantly police on the working slab. (Imagine 'cleanup' every day being one laborer walking through the house with a backpack vacuum/blower on his back.) Ten minutes, tops. Always a spotless house.

One trash pickup point right near the trailer... less 'back and forth' from the house.

Never any marking of stud locations except for 'specials'.

No bending over all day.

No hauling in boxes of nails... and keeping track of them. One case a day might do for the inside framing crew.

It could easily be covered with a parachute canopy for our almost unending Florida 98 degree days, or partially enclosed for shelter from your paralyzing winter winds up North. Production goes up in either case.

And probably a few more positive points I can't think of.

Only problem is finding a place for the trailer, chop saw, and lumber pile.

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"True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and only that which is."
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Chris@Sunrise

If i was a track guy this would be in my yard. Doing 100% customs this wont speed up our production as window layouts and heights are all over the place. I have built jigs for stud placement on large commercial jobs that were repetitive to build on a table but not in residential. Do any of you guys compete with a prefab framing co? We have a truss co here that prefabs the houses in shop on tables haul it out and there framed in about 4 hours single floor. Cant compete not that this is even my market but it kills the tract guys. The lumber guys say it only hurt the framers who install cause there not actually cheaper to build they just make the difference up in the field labor. Its hard buying from a lumber co thats trying to be your competition

dvon104

AMEN !!! Suppliers should not be contractors...one thing to consider in pre-fab you as the G.C. lose a little control in quality ...we have a contractor here doing pre-fab'ed wall panels with a supplier....walls are not square..studs will have mold on them from sitting in weather, twisted studs and etc..but they are a national tract builder and all they care about is turn and burn...

mikeswoods

I e-mailed the manufacturer with a link to this post---Maybe they will chime in later.

This is a very specialized bit of equipment--Be nice to hear what kind of contractors buy their goods and a few details on speed of production.--Mike--

jhark123

I don't see how this would save me any time at all.


You would need a telehandler to move the walls. If you have a telehandler, why not just move the studs to the deck and frame it on the deck? Then stand the wall with the forklift.

You might even loose time because you would have to build in 16' section, move the wall, lay it down, sheet it, then stand it.

That video with the guys moving the wall by hand just made me . You notice there are no headers, the one they do show is an I joist header. Also, they are working on a slab, no second story.


This might work for a motel framer who has a lot of interior walls to build that are all the same and has a crane on site, but it needs to be 24' long.

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Chris@Sunrise

i agree the lenght sucks at 16 ft. The jig we made was wall specific and I have a lift so they just slid them off saw horses and then the lift would come get them. I had stops for square though to so you didnt have to check square. I think with stops, and sheething it on there you could fly through simple houses.

smeagol

You think the last studs are natrual 16 o.c.s?

Gus Dering

I think the concept is a good one.

But it will take a couple things to happen before it takes off.

- It will need some more innovation. I don't think the best ideas have come yet.

- Framers are going to have to change the way they think. The old school mentality will get in the way of going this direction.

As a shop owner with a cnc machine, it is amazing to me how many other shop owners fail to see the true benefits from automated equipment. The mind is a funny thing when it comes to change.

But the framer that can incorporate some sort of automated system into a custom application will have a head start when the industry begins to go that way. Think computers and software. It is only a matter of time IMO. This trailer is just a start.

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Birch

I’ve preassembled walls on tables a lot over the years. I use them on most jobs. They are much easier to work on than a slab. And if you’re lucky enough to have some shade trees to set up under you can do the bulk of the work in the shade. (Does that make me a shade tree framer? =)

Every one of Willie T’s itemized attributes are money making, body saving, benefits of “work smarter, not harder” framing. Once you get the hang of it you’ll never want to go back.


I use my scaffold plank system to build my tables. They are 4” tall, double stacked, so they raise the work up 8”. Take 8” out of 8 hours of bending over and your back and legs will thank you. 8” of height is also easy to step over and allows you to easily access anything in the panel you need too (i.e. let-in wind bracing for instance). You don’t have to pre-build window and door units at separate stations since you can build them in place as you need them.

If we’re building a two story I’ll frame the second floor first, stack the panels to the side. Stand the first floor as they are framed, hand the 2nd floor walls up as soon as the floor is decked. And if the foundation is behind schedule I can still stay busy and get a jump ahead on the framing by building wall panels.

But I don’t think I’d like the porta framer, it’s too tall and I like to double plate my panels as much as I can too.

Tom Struble

wonder how long before the inventor comes here telling everyone ''how stupid they are''

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curtis fulton

i wonder how much they paid those guys to talk it up so much lol

Cyle

No doubt it would be good if your building the same small walls all day long. But how many walls in houses nowdays are 16' or under? Probably less then half easily. And if you've got windows, etc it doesn't save time there. I will say the working height advantage would be great, other then that no good. And, always lift walls by hand, it would be a pain trying to carry them around so far. Plus how much is that thing? $4000-5000 i'd guess? A lot of dough!

freemason21

seems kind of cool but what about when you get to the 2nd story if there is one? i guess like willie said, in high production area's it'll serve its purpose but i think it'd be more of a pain in the a$$ to frame the wall then pick it up and move it into place instead of just framing a wall in place, then standing it.

kyle_dmr

You need to look at the bigger picture. We have done several hundred panel townhouses. Everything is paneled, including the floor systems. Just drop them together nail off the sheeted butt joints and thats that. Done. Can do a 6 pack of town houses, from foundation to roof on and sheeted in under a week. Hard to argue with that production with 1 crew.

This would be great for the guy thats running 3-4 crews per subdivision. Dedicate guys to the area and don't let them leave. Even with our big customs we can panel half the house if we run into problems with engineering or floors or missing material. We don't stop work if a beams missing. Thats what a road is for... panel it.

jimAKAblue

I table framed quite a few custom homes...back in the day. Table framing is the cat's meow but I wouldn't accept that rig if you gave it to me for free.

There are significant advantages to table framing but you will need equipment to make it work. We framed every house with a boom truck and skytrack. It was a luxury to have both, we only needed one. If I had to choose only one, I'd pick the Skytrak but I loved having the boom truck on site too.

If I'd have started my career with this equipment and mindset, my back would be healthy and I'd be a wealthy man.