FLIM-FLAMS (Force-Lifted, Timber, Flat-Laminated Shells) is a design/construction methodology for flat fabricated and rapidly deployable bending-active, tensile shells made by utilizing two-axis milling to program radial kerf patterns into laminate wood sheet goods—thereby combining the benefits of subtractive manufacturing, such as the ability to program flat fabricated, and responsive material systems, with the ease of construction associated with force-activated and deployable structures. The paper details a process developed by the author in which Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software—typically used to analyze the structural deformation of 3D objects—is hacked to create a form-finding tool capable of simulating the elastic deformation of flat sheet goods. The method implements radial kerf patterns, coded digitally using both visual and traditional techniques, which are inputted into FEA software to simulate the behavior of the sheet when stretched upward into bending-active, vault, and dome geometries. Once optimized, the data is encoded into rigid panels via kerfing, thereby converting flat sheet goods into analog storage banks of elastic potential energy, which, upon release, transforms them into doubly curved bending-active, tensile shells.