How Do We Plane Big Glulam Arches?

At our plant, we have a huge planer that we use on our beams and arches after they have been glued. But, on large arches with deep knees, even this planer isn't wide enough. In those cases, we have to glue and plane the arch and knee separately and then assemble them in our finishing department. On even larger arches, where shipping width is a concern, we would remove the knee block again for final assembly in the field.

The photos below show an arch with a detached knee that we had going through our plant this week.

Two arches without knees just after planing

Arch with unattached knee

Finished arch with knee