35 years of experience with certain types of connectors used for the assembly of wood structures and their components

This paper describes some of the author’s personal experiences in the field of connectors used for the assembly of wood structures and their components. The paper also lists some 250 publications covering this subject. Certain connectors described have been successfully used, or are proposed for use, for connecting members and components of lumber trusses and, in particular, trussed rafters, frames, and other building components made of wood. Some of these connecting devices have also served to reinforce components of wood pallets such as notched stringers; connections of deckboards to stringers, stringerboards, and blocks of wood pallets; as well as anti-splitting devices for railway ties, scaffolding planks, and pallet stringer ends. Over the years, the performance of five types of connections has been observed in the assembly of trussed rafters of W-design and 9.1-m (30-ft.) free span in an architectural laboratory building of the Building Construction Dept. of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ. at Blacksburg, Va. Erected 35 years ago, these trussed rafters did and, hopefully will, continue to serve their purpose for many years to come. The connectors used include lumber and plywood gusset plates nailed or nail-glued to the structural members, split-ring connectors, and solid and prepunched metal-plate connectors. None of the trussed rafters described were assembled using metal-plate connectors with integral teeth in common use today.

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