Business

Imports from Asia are rising again. China is allegedly going to allow its currency to rise. Scrap steel is leaving the U.S. and foreign steel is rushing in to fill the warehouses.

Much of the trade in goods travels in metal shipping containers, those 20 and 40 foot long boxes you see on rail cars and trucks everyday.

Normally about 20 percent of the containers on ships at any given moment are empty, especially those headed toward Asia. This imbalance costs shipping companies billions of dollars each year, but it presents a gigantic entrepreneurial opportunity for inventors and engineers to make a killing. In the April 12th Wall Street Journal, John W. Miller wrote a fascinating piece on the race to build stackable or foldable shipping containers. It’s an idea that has been floating around for years, but so far nobody has been able to build one that meets all of the demands of shipping firms.

The Port of Rotterdam in Holland is Europe’s busiest port, and container ideas are flowing out from there. Rene Giesbers has designed a composite fiberglass container whose vertical walls fold inward, giving it an “x” shape as it collapses on itself. It supposedly saves 75 percent of the fuel needed to transport it and won’t rust.

Another Dutch engineer, Simon Bosschieter, has designed a container made of steel alloy with folding walls that slide into each other.

An Indian banker, Avinder Bindra, also designed a container with folding walls, but his are stacked vertically instead of horizontally.

With such a big pot of gold out there awaiting a killer design, somebody is going to get it right.

How about you?

Personally, I have no three dimensional brain—I can’t even rearrange my closet. But for people who can envision how to cut precise metal parts in their sleep and who have knowledge of materials, the collapsing container is the Rubik’s Cube of a lifetime.

Why not give it a go?

By Lloyd Graff

Chuck DeLong says he “can’t deal with people,” but he loves his old CNC machines, which he cajoles to run perfect pieces like other people baby their pet Corvettes.

DeLong’s machine shop is out in the sticks, yet only 30 miles from the Charles River in Boston where he keeps his 37-foot Silverton Sport Fisherman. He says it’s the boat he doesn’t use because every fill-up is $1100.

When he isn’t boating Chuck is running his Hardinge CHNC-1 and CHNC-3 lathes which he claims make parts just as exquisite as a 2010 Mazak or Mori if you treat them with respect and use sweet oil. His operating philosophy is to run his machines slowly but steadily and then adjourn to his desk to write boating articles.

DeLong is 64, he loves being a machining artisan. He makes 100 grand in a crappy year like 2009 and $150,000 in a livelier one. He works a lot of hours at the shop but looks for any opportunity to bop over to the nearby lake to use his boat of choice, a 1965 Cavalier ski boat with Chris Craft engines, made in 1965. He bought the boat on eBay three years ago.

Chuck just bought a 1994 Haas VF-2 CNC mill from Graff-Pinkert, which he also spotted on eBay.

DeLong likes the solo business life. He used to have 20 employees, but shed them for the companionship of his vintage Hardinge and Haas buddies. He prefers the simplicity of doing it all by himself.

His introduction to the machining business was in 1959 when his parents bought three Brown & Sharpes which they ran in their basement. His folks would trade places running the machines. Their house was filled with clackety background noise, but after all these years he has developed a talent for tuning it out.