Framing Table · 2014

A mobile wall-framing table, designed, specified and built — not a concept sketch.

Context

A stick-framed wall is normally built flat on whatever surface is available on site, then lifted upright by hand. The goal: a purpose-built table that frames the wall accurately, then lifts it upright itself, mobile enough to move between job sites — developed independently and supported by a 2014 EODP grant.

Engineering

Built from 45×45mm aluminum T‑slot extrusion on a wheeled base, with sliding tool carriages, adjustable spacers for stud layout, a gantry-saw attachment, and ball-bearing linear rails carrying the tool sliders. A full bill of materials exists — part numbers, profile lengths, sliders, fasteners, costed line by line — alongside dimensioned CAD assemblies for the table and its sub-assemblies.

3D CAD assembly of the Framing Table, showing the extrusion frame, central slider rail and tool carriage.

Dimensioned CAD assembly drawing of the table — 144

Dimensioned CAD drawing of the tool-carriage sub-assembly — profiles, ball bearings and brackets specified to the part number.

The design went through three stages, each with its own CAD set: a First Edition prototype; a Basic Edition — a 4×8 table with the gantry saw and wall-lift built in; and a Versatile Work Station, reconfigurable between horizontal framing, vertical wall-lift, drywall-installation support, and use as a plain scaffold or bench.

Built & used

The table was built and used to frame full wall panels on an actual construction site — not a demo. The photographs show the apparatus mid-build, aluminum rails and sliders underneath a real stick-framed wall inside the building it was framing.

A full wall panel framed flat on the table apparatus, aluminum extrusion rails visible beneath the lumber, on an actual construction site.

The framed wall on the table inside the timber-frame building it was built for.

CAD render of the wall-lift mechanism — the table tilts a fully framed wall section upright once it is built flat.

The business case on file

The project came with a real go-to-market plan: rent the equipment to contractors in Canada and the US, sell framed products and pre-fab cabins, export pre-fab frames and homes to European and US markets, and lease finished cabins to campgrounds and resorts. The grant application's own economic case: new local jobs, higher contractor efficiency, and municipal and federal tax growth.

Grant compliance

A Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) questionnaire for the project is signed and dated 16 September 2014 — every trigger question answered No, the project found not to require a full environmental assessment.

The signed CEAA environmental-assessment questionnaire, dated 16 September 2014.

Status

Prototype-stage product development, 2014. Not patented — no filing exists for this project; it is published here as engineering and product-design work, not as protected IP.

The same method shows up here eleven years before Löyly: design the product first, let the offer structure drive the plan, not the reverse. See Spa & Stay.