can anyone enlighten me on the procedure for laminating pine beams. I'm not doing anything fancy (i.e. curves), just thinking of laminating dimensional 2x material for an economical solution to barn building. (say 5 2x10's to approach an 8x10). i know the labor involved might make the difference negligible, but i'm having trouble finding a supplier here in arkansas for longer pine of large scantlings at anything approaching a sellable price.

On the American Institute of Timber Construction website (http://www.aitc-glulam.org/) they have a publications section that has a lot of good information downloadable as a PDF, including some design and manufacturing documents. They may be something helpful there. They also have a list of manufacturers, including one in Arkansas.

Glulams are expensive since they are made of stress rated material, cambered, and layed up in a particular fashion to make them as strong as possible. Couple that with the cost of labor and the clamping jigs, and, the reason for the cost becomes apparent, and, are typically more expensive than solid sawn lumber, except in a few upper limit stages.

Hope this helps,

Joe

thanks Derek for the photos and encouragement