Changes to the Canadian timber engineering codes over the last 10 years have made it necessary for the wood truss industry to update the wood truss design procedures. The Truss Research Project was established to assist the truss industry to resolve some of the issues arising from the code changes. While most of the issues deal with the analysis of metal plate connected trusses and are therefore specific to the truss industry, some issues that deal with the fundamental strength properties of lumber apply to other engineered timber construction. One area that requires research is the strength of lumber under combined bending and axial loading conditions. A program to model the within-member strength variations of lumber is underway at the University of British Columbia. The purpose of this Forintek project is to develop equipment that can test lumber under combined bending and axial loads. This equipment will be used to validate the lumber strength model. The equipment to test lumber under bending and axial loading has been developed. This report presents a discussion of the equipment specifications and some of the limitations of the equipment identified to-date. The combined loading tester for lumber is currently undergoing verification and trial testing. It will be ready for use in the 1995/96 fiscal year.