Month: April 2024

Earthrise 2024

Posted on by Stacey

Earthrise 2024

“Earthrise” taken on December 24,1968 by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders - Public Domain.

A fresh perspective can be life changing. Fifty-five years ago, this image met the crew of Apollo 8 as they orbited the moon. The astronauts were in awe as they scrambled to find a roll of colour film for Bill Ander’s camera.  

The photo that Bill Anders took, shows Earth, set in the vacuum of space above a cratered, lifeless moon surface. How does this image make you feel?  What thoughts does it give rise to, about this planet, about life, and your place in it?

For many, an image like this brings up complex feelings: empathy for Earth, a sense that we don’t get how special our home is, that there must be a way for people to treat each other better, that life is beautiful, so fragile, and rare.

All our individual and collective actions speak to how we view our Earth home.  On balance, it can be argued that our species has been unkind to the living world and the planetary support systems upon which all life depends.  This must change and it’s why we mark Earth Day and consider our role in bringing about positive change.

On a planetary scale, any single action seems trivial, almost worthless.  But if we worked ourselves into trouble by a few billion unwise actions, we must find our way out by billions of responsible actions, no matter how small.  Everyone has a part.  

At Cornerstone Timberframes we’re actively working on several fronts, to bring about positive change.  Here’s our Earth Day update on what we’re doing:

  • In 2017 we started working with mass timber, which allows for a low-embodied carbon approach to commercial construction.  Mass timber also provides for faster construction while storing large amounts of carbon in the finished building. By 2030 we expect that 75% of our projects will be built with mass timber.
  • Our joinery and finishing shops use a lot of electricity – equal to what 44 Manitoba homes need in a year!  We’re preparing to go solar. This will free up power during peak daytime hours for use in homes, businesses and in the transition to EV transportation. 
A second use for roofs: this is what 375 Kilowatts looks like!
Touring a harvest area in the Trout Lake Forest, near Ear Falls, Ontario
  • Last year we changed our purchases of engineered wood products to 100% FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified wood. This category of wood makes up an increasing share of our production.  FSC sets high standards for preserving the forests that provide the timber we use.
  • In 2024 we’ll be addressing our wood waste stream that currently needs to be hauled away.  We’ll be using it in a high-efficiency boiler to heat our shops, reducing our reliance on electricity, and ending our need for natural gas.
  • Cornerstone encourages employees to carpool or use active transport whenever possible. Uptake for both initiatives has been good, but we can still do better.  Spring is a great time to tune up our bikes and commit to using the car a little less.
  • In March we joined WoodWorks Ontario, the Canadian Wood Council, and the Ontario Forest Industry Association, to visit sawmill and harvest areas in NW Ontario.  What we found was inspiring.  More First Nations are managing forest lands, deciding how the forests are harvested, renewed, and protected for future generations.  The sawmills we visited have more women in leadership roles and more employees from under-represented communities. Welcome changes that move us toward the world we need.

Being good to our planet also brings good things into our lives. Here are a few of our favourite small-scale ideas that Cornerstone employees are working on in their own lives and communities:

  • Volunteering at the community bike repair shop.  Helping more folks get back onto their bikes, or onto their first bike! 
  • Planting fruit trees in our shop yard (apple, cherry, pear…). Beauty and food combined.
  • Replacing more of our lawn with native plantings like highbush cranberry, milkweed, bluestem, gallardia, wild raspberry. It’s amazing how the butterflies find it! 

At Cornerstone Timberframes, we believe in using Earth Day as an opportunity to evaluate our practices and strive towards being better. We hope that this inspires you to do the same!

Inside Our Shops

Posted on by Stacey

Inside Our Shops

Technology, People, Diversity, Respect

Cornerstone’s roots run deep in the soil of traditional timber framing. From the company’s inception in 1991, the founding Peters brothers maintained a steady focus on technical excellence and quality.  Complementing their deep respect for traditional skills and methods, an interest in finding “better tools”, allowed them to see that new materials, digital design and state of the art equipment did not threaten the craft but freed it to be so much more.

Pete & Wayne Peters, timber frame experts and owners, 1991-2015

By the time Cornerstone began its foray into mass timber construction in 2017 it was clear that the company was ready to automate much of its cutting. Under new owners, Tanya (Pete’s daughter) and husband Nevin Bachmeier purchased our first Hundegger K2, a used CNC machine that quickly proved its worth.  Within three years the limitations of this machine were reached and a new, K2 Industry with Robot Drive was ordered, arriving in mid-2022.

The CNC technology in the latest generation of machines is especially impressive for the range of cutting tasks they can perform, their speed and exceptional accuracy.  Imagine a 24” flangeless saw, a 5-axis universal mill, a slot cutting tool, a drilling unit, and a 6-axis robot with access to a rack of 24 specialized tools, all working from a 3D mass timber model that has been checked for compliance with the architect’s BIM design.

The K2i + Robot Drive can do the work of fifteen carpenters with zero errors and millimeter accuracy.
High quality, dimensionally accurate timber is the starting point for every job entering the shop. An automated, four-sided planer designed for large, long timbers is an essential partner to the CNC.
The K2i can handle timbers up to 60’ long, 12” high by 51” wide. Timbers are checked as they enter the K2 to identify and adjust for any variance that might affect connection accuracy.
With long timbers, a traditional forward facing forklift doesn’t work so well. Omni-directional and side-running forklifts have been a great addition to our shop.

A common criticism of modern wood-working technology is that it replaces people and discourages those left behind from retaining craft skills.  Our experience has shown this to be unfounded: we employ the same number of carpenters as we did before our first CNC arrived.  Injuries and repetitive stresses are reduced, and the variety of creative work and skills being learned has only increased. 

Modern timber framers are comfortable with computer modelling, they’re familiar with a wide variety of tools and techniques and are better able to see the whole project.

Our shop is a meritocracy: skill and cooperation lead to personal and group success
And while CNC cutting can do almost everything, there are a few details that still look better when a human hand guides the saw. A 30’ long chamfer, cut at precisely 26.6 degrees.
When every piece is unique but appears similar, good labelling is vital. New RFI tags incorporated into nails may eventually make these labels redundant.
Not automated. Our dedicated finishing shop hand applies three coats of stain to every timber. Robotics for finishing is widely available and will eventually manage the range of sizes and shapes we produce for our structures.

Cornerstone Timberframes will always seek out and embrace “better tools”.  Our choices will be shaped by our people, a respect for our craft and a love of wood.  The mass timber revolution is going to change our company, but only for the better.