Framing settings

What it is

Framing settings describes the roll former your shop runs, what it costs to make a metre of light-gauge steel frame on it, and the wind classification a new frame starts from. The frame designer builds steel frames from the machine's catalogue and flags a member it cannot roll; the LGS calculator costs them from the figures here. No price lives on this page. Each costed item points at a row in your rate book or a labour category, and the book is where the number is kept and changed.

Before you start

• You need to be an admin to save. Others see the page read-only.
• The prices the costing points at live in the Rate book. The Rate Book module needs to be on for the labour rates to be read; if it is off, the page says so.
• The frame designer itself is on a job's Frames page under Design.

How to

Set the default wind classification

1. Under Site, pick the Default wind classification (AS 4055), or leave it at "Not set" to take the site's default (N2 where nothing else applies). A new frame starts from this; each frame can say otherwise.
2. Press Save framing settings.

Describe your roll former

1. Under Roll former, pick Your machine from the list, or "None" for generic LGS sections.
2. Tick the gauges you stock; at least one stays ticked. Set the Lip within the machine's range, and override the strip width per profile where yours differs from the calculated one.
3. Press Save framing settings.

The designer picks from this catalogue, and a stud check uses the gauges you stock.

Set the production costing

1. Under LGS production costing, enter the Crew size, Wall lm per person-hour, and the output rates for wall panels, joists and trusses (each shows the figure it would use if left blank). Enter Hours per day, Days per month, the Coil ordered in kilograms, the steel density and the zinc coating.
2. Under Where each price comes from, pick the rate-book row that prices each line: Feedstock coil (per tonne, with an optional different coil price per gauge), Assembly screws, Drafting / detailing, Engineering compliance + certificate, Design software and Machine running (all per lineal metre). Point Assembly / machine crew at a labour category; if the category has no rate yet, type an hourly rate and press Set in labour rates to create it in the rate book from here.
3. Press Save framing settings.

The LGS calculator on Manufacturing now costs a frame from these.

What happens on its own

• The page watches the rate book. When a linked row's rate or a labour rate changes, in the rate book or through the assistant, the figures shown here refresh.
• The tables this page does not edit (span rules, bracing capacities, connectors, tooling) are kept exactly as they were when you save.
• A project in the Northern Territory starts at C2 from its address when no default is set here, because Darwin is cyclonic Region C.

Things that surprise people

• You cannot type a price here. If a line says the rate-book row has the wrong unit, fix the row in the rate book; the page shows the mismatch rather than converting.
• Set in labour rates writes to the rate book, not to this page. The link here is to the category; the dollars live there.
• Choosing a machine narrows the designer. A member the machine cannot roll is flagged on the frame, which is the point.
• Nothing on this page saves until Save framing settings. Changing the machine and leaving loses the change.

Related

• Rate book, where every price on this page actually lives.
• Frames, the designer that builds from this machine.