Copes in Advance Steel: Parametric, Regular and Skewed Copes

To cope a beam in Advance Steel, open the Tool Palette (Home tab), go to Features and use Cope, Parametric: select the beam to cope, press Enter, select the beam it’s coped to, press Enter. Advance Steel cuts the cope to fit and opens a dialog to adjust the distances and corner. For a cope with fixed sizes, use Cope; for an angled cut, use Cope, Skewed.

Where are the cope tools?

All of them are on the Features tab of the Advance Steel Tool Palette. Open the palette from the Home tab:

How do I cope one beam to another?

Use Cope, Parametric. It’s the one you’ll use most, because it sizes the cope from the beam it fits against.

Here we’ll cope the shorter beam (1) to the longer one (2):

1. Start Cope, Parametric.
2. Select beam 1 (the one to cut) and press Enter.
3. Select beam 2 and press Enter.

The cope is made and the dialog opens:

You can set:

1. Distance web: clearance to the web of the supporting beam.
2. Distance flange, inner: clearance below the flange.
3. Distance flange, side: clearance past the edge of the flange.
4. Radius.
5. Corner size: only when the corner finish is Straight, Concave or Convex.

How do I make a cope with set dimensions?

Use Cope when you want to type the width, depth and length yourself.

1. Start Cope.
2. Click the beam near the end you want to cope.

The cope goes in and the dialog opens. Set the width, depth, length and corner finish.

Here’s a 1/2″ corner radius:

How do I make an angled (skewed) cope?

Use Cope, Skewed for a cut at an angle. There’s a step-by-step example in mini tutorial 11: clipping the beam.

1. Start Cope, Skewed.
2. Click the beam near the end to cut.

Then adjust:

• Width X:

• Distance from axis. Here the beam’s system line is at the top, so a negative value cuts down into the beam:

• X, the rotation of the cope:

• Rotation around Z:

• Rotation around the axis:

• Corner finish. Here’s Boring out:

How do I cut a beam end at an angle?

That’s Shorten, not a cope. It’s on the same Features tab.

1. Start Shorten.
2. Click the beam near the end to cut.

In the dialog, set the length and the rotation around Y and Z:

More ways to shorten a beam are in mini tutorial 06: shorten beams.

What mistakes should I avoid with copes?

• Coping by eye. Use Cope, Parametric so the cope fits the real supporting beam. If the supporting beam changes size, the cope follows.
• No corner radius. Sharp re-entrant corners at copes are a known crack starter. Use the radius your shop and engineer require.
• Cope sizes the engineer didn’t check. Deep or long copes can weaken the beam end. Cope dimensions on connections are part of the design. Verify with the engineer of record.
• Wrong beam picked first. The first beam is the one that gets cut.

You can browse all my Advance Steel tutorials here.

Related

• Mini tutorial 11: clipping the beam (skewed cope)
• Mini tutorial 06: shorten beams
• Creating miter cuts in Advance Steel
• Clip angle connection in Advance Steel