Machining for the Stars

March 2010
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Machining for the Stars

2009 MTV Music AwardsPhoto courtesy of Tait Towers

Michael Tait threads his pinky through a loop of fabric on the side of a piece of the stage for Bon Jovi’s “The Circle World Tour.” It’s one of more than 40,000 moving parts that Tait’s company, Tait Towers, has designed and predominantly manufactured for the massive tour stage.

“You think this looks simple, but roadies come in and tell us that this should be up three inches or to the right a bit. We’ve got to be precise, got to get it right,” said Tait, a former roadie and lighting director himself back in the early 1970s for the
band Yes. “We have some of the world’s most demanding customers and they can’t bear to have things screwed up.”

Tait Towers is the premier builder of sets for rock tours and elaborate casino and set shows. It’s a fun business, Tait admits, but it would be nowhere without his sophisticated machine shop filled with CNC machines. His designers and machine operators play the computer keyboards like Rachmaninoff at the piano and most often come up with staging as mellifluous and intricate as any of the great composer’s concertos.

When it isn’t Bon Jovi counting on Tait’s headquarters way out in Pennsylvania’s Dutch country it’s Bruce Springsteen, for whom Tait developed a now-ubiquitous click-and-lock, thus nut-and-boltless connecting system for decking and modular parts.

“This is a business that relies on getting from place to place, mostly on a daily basis,” said Tait. “The easier we can make it to take apart and put together these sets, the more valuable we are. And I have to say that CNC has made our growth, production and our advances really possible.”

Tait studied engineering at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in his native Australia before wandering off to England, entranced by the rock scene. The Clair brothers, owners of a leading audio, video and lighting/design firm, invited him to sleep on their couch when he wanted to devise what was then an elaborate set for Yes. It was circular and cut in pie-shaped pieces so the band could play in the round and, thus, have a bigger audience encircling them.

“But we did it with saws and rulers and whatever passed as modern in the 1970s,” laughed Tait, leaning on his Haas CNC lathe, one of a dozen CNC machines the company uses in its four-building campus. “When one part didn’t fit because it was too wide or not straight enough, we sanded it and did it again.”

“It’s almost laughable now that we have minute tolerances from the CNCs, but you did with what you had back then. Now you can do just amazing stuff without worries,” said Tait.

Aluminum Extrusion Inventory Racks. Photos courtesy of Tait Towers

Teaming up with the Clair brothers, Tait built up his rock staging reputation and soon, like the better mousetrap maker, everyone started beating a path to his remote door in Lititz—ironic because also headquartered in Lititz is Woodstream, the makers of the Victor
mousetrap, the largest-selling trap in the world.

“With Woodstream, our businesses and Wilbur Chocolates and others, we have an amazing workforce here,” said Tait, who employs about 120 workers, almost all hailing from the Lititz/Lancaster area.

One of them is Jared Keim, who at 25 is Tait Towers’ machine shop manager. Keim was an avowed motorhead in high school and didn’t think he would ever go to an academic college. Instead, he headed to Thaddeus Stevens, a local technical school, and discovered that
working with computers and machines was his thing.

“I really didn’t know that Tait was this rock business. It was just a job where

CNC Mill for machining aluminum staging members. Photos courtesy of Tait Towers

I could use the CNC training I got,” said Keim, talking while squeezing a box on his computer that would display a part for the stage of Lady Gaga’s tour. He showed off a coffin lock, perhaps the most integral part of any rock stage, he said. It comes apart like those Russian dolls-within-dolls, a set of three larger pieces, each containing several smaller metallic and plastic parts. The coffin locks bind together the larger slab parts of the staging—which for Tait usually measure four by eight feet. The coffin locks have both springs to make sure the staging has a little give for the always-bouncing rock stars and, on the outside, a plastic sheathing that keeps it tight as well. Tait laughs and says that in the rock world, that piece is called a “fluffer.” “That’s what they call the woman in porn movies who, well, keeps things rigid,” he said.

It’s CNC technology, said Tait, that keeps things going at Tait Towers, which he said is set to be a $50 million business in 2010.

“When I bought my first Komo 15 years ago people thought I was nuts,” he said. What was the purpose of that? How was I going to make enough use of it?

“In the end, though, rock bands wanted more and more bells and whistles. With those CNCs, we were able to make whatever parts we could design,” he said.

Take the Bon Jovi tour set, for instance. Bon Jovi wanted innovative video as part of his tours. Tait Towers came up with a sort of Venetian blind effect, with doublesided video screens that open and close, expanding from 10-by-10-feet to 10-by-30 feet. When they are closed, crowds see full video 360 degrees around. When they separate, the crowd sees Bon Jovi live.

“As you may imagine, there has to be precise tolerance for all of that,” said Tait. “It is used many times and has to be packed away carefully to go to the next stop. You just couldn’t do that before CNC. We discovered that first, so we got the reputation and the business.”

Back in his Yes days it was a big deal to have two trucks to cart sets around. Now, Tait said, it is not unusual to have 20 trucks carrying a set from a Friday night show in Seattle to a Saturday show in Portland, or wherever. He estimated that the Bon Jovi set Tait is currently working on would need 23 trucks. For the last U2 tour, the group’s elaborate set had to go by plane to its opening show in Barcelona—a cost of $300,000 just to start.

“We are not cheap, at least up front,” said Tait, who would not reveal any particular charges but noted that seven-figure design and
construction costs were the norm. “What we save them in road workers and break-down and put-together costs are immense later on.”

Aluminum components for the Bon Jovi show. Photos courtesy of Tait Towers

Tait moves his hand along a piece of staging from Metallica’s last tour. The ends are rounded, the connecting parts smooth and with precise tongue-and-groove fits, no bolts are seen. With shipping and tight corners in trucks, he said, jagged corners are intolerable. There are no jigsaws or power drills in rock-roadie hands any more.

“We machine everything as smooth as we can,” he said. In her 2006 tour, Barbara Streisand wanted to come down a long staircase with sparkling railings along the side. Naturally, those railings had to come in pieces, but Streisand was going to slide her hands down them. “Each piece had to fit seamlessly together. Imagine Streisand gasping after she caught her hand on some edge, or if she even looked unsteady. Our machines were able to make it seemless, and have it be taken apart and put back together just as precisely at each stop.” Tait repeated that seamless railing for the Michael Jackson show that never happened because of the singer’s death. It’s not only older singers who need such joints on long, cylindrical items—as is apparent in Britney Spears’ pole-dancing sets or Lady Gaga’s almost-maniacal acts.

Down the road a bit from Tait’s unobtrusive building in the middle of a small industrial park is Tait’s new warehouse. It stores lots of old sets and items that rock groups either don’t want any more or couldn’t store anyway. In a way, it is a sort of rock museum. There are
the spray-foam guns that Tait designed for the Jonas Brothers, Britney Spears’ mainstage decks, Elton John’s piano deck and Springsteen’s video walkway. Each piece still has its sign and coding along the facing, so it could be snapped together again if another date came up—Metallica, the Eagles, Radio City, celebrating the stages of life.

“You could say this is just another boring machine shop, because in some ways it is what anyone would do—have an order and get it done,” he said. “But then these orders are from some of the great artists of our time who know what they want—or at least have cocktail
napkins that say what they want.”

Tait said that his company has thrived, ironically, because the recording business has dived.

“They have to make their money on tours, and thus they want everything newer and newer, but want to know it won’t fail them,” he said. “Our reputation as a machine shop is important. We’re not just pie-in-the-sky, but people who can talk to their tech guys and assure them that it will all go together and come apart, so all [the artists] have to do is play the music and dance.”

Actually, said Tait, few if any musicians come to Lititz. The rock tour business is larger—the design and tech employees outnumber the musicians these days, and that is who Tait deals with. He had lunch with Bette Midler in downtown Lititz once, but he said no one even asked for her autograph.

“The people out here are respectful of your business, and they keep to theirs,” he said. Tait recalls a story that his sound-company friend, Roy Clair, told him about the day Billy Joel came to Clair Brothers to do a little testing.

“He was on the main street in the back of a car and was a bit lost,” said Tait. “He rolled down the window and asked someone where Clair Brothers was. The person said, ‘Oh, I can’t tell you that. They like to be private.’

“This is why I am in Lititz,” said Tait with another Australian chuckle. “Billy Joel, be damned. We are a good machine shop.”

March Madness Swarf

By Lloyd Graff

Tattoos on NBA players irritate me. Lebron James has 17 body tattoos that have been identified. Though it is suspected that he has others which have not appeared in photos.

I see the proliferation of body hieroglyphics as a reflection of the “look at me I’m a star” braggadocio that sullies the slam dunk league. I am an old school basketball purist who revels in team play and a flawless fast-break. I love a Steve Nash or a Chris Paul because they can score and dish and improvise the game into Brubeck jazz.

I ask myself if my annoyance with tattoos is latent racism, generational divide, or just hoops snobbery. It probably has some of all three elements. Though I see a Chris Anderson as the ultimate narcissist, a mediocre white player displaying himself like a spooked peacock.

Anybody who follows my writing knows that I am a sports enthusiast. Basketball has been a love since I watched Bob Cousy make no-look behind the back passes to Bill Russell for the Boston Celtics. I think Lebron is the most talented basketball player I’ve ever watched, but watching him take over a game with one on one play in the fourth quarter is as annoying as looking at his tattoos.

Question: Do you feel that body ink is symptomatic of a thuggified cult of personality NBA or am I a hopelessly out of touch Frank Sinatra white guy in a Lil Wayne’s world?


Chris Andersen & his tattoos

GibbsCAM 2010 to be Demonstrated at WESTEC 2010

Includes New Plunge Roughing, Additions to 5-axis and Advanced 3D Machining, Plus 64-bit Implementation

MOORPARK, CA – March 1, 2010 – Gibbs and Associates, developer of GibbsCAM® software for maximizing programming efficiency of CNC machine tools and a Cimatron company, announced today that it will be demonstrating GibbsCAM 2010 during the WESTEC 2010 show at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California from March 23-25, 2010 in booth #2236.  This new release includes multiple new features, additions, enhancements, and productivity tools.  

“We have been working very hard to provide customers new functionality across the GibbsCAM product family,” says Bill Gibbs, founder and president of Gibbs and Associates. “We added many capabilities to make programming and machining easier and more efficient, especially with new features in 5-axis and solids machining. We also implemented 64-bit operation to enable faster processing of long programs and complex parts, added support for new tools and tool holders, extended functionality within various modules, and extended and updated interoperability with various CAD systems,” he adds. “All this is in addition to the recent integration of VoluMillTM and making GibbsCAM compatible with the Windows® 7 operating system.”

 

Key GibbsCAM 5-axis Enhancements

These include more spiral machining options, new gouge check projection options, a new lead in/lead out “flip” option, a new axial shift damp option for trimming applications, and support for countersink and keyway cutters. More specific additions are the following.

Geometry Creation – A Surface Tools plug-in has been added to create surfaces for repairing or improving machinability of surfaces from solids.

Adaptive Cuts – This new option enables regulating the distance between paths based upon the angle of the surface to be machined to provide a consistent surface finish, regardless of surface angle.

Impeller Roughing – Has been enhanced with functionality that covers more contingencies, especially useful when roughing near and around splitter blades.

Tool Retraction – A new option, Retract Through Tube Center, enables retracting cutting tools from angled pockets while avoiding walls, especially useful for machining cylinder head ports and similar geometry.

Key Enhancements to Solids Machining

New, More Capable Plunge Roughing – No longer a plug-in, it is a tile in the CAM palette, with the ability to calculate material removal strategies that accommodate carbide-inserted drills, which require special motion for no-drag retractions, while avoiding collision in tight or narrow areas.

Enhancements to Advanced 3D Machining – These include the addition of Hit Flats with specified tools for Pocketing, the ability to specify flatness tolerance in Flats Cut to ensure all desired “flat” areas are machined, locking high feed rate for Shortest Route and Minimal Vertical retract styles, addition of Trim to Ramp Advance as a Contour option for waterline cuts, specifying surface finish with step-over distance or scallop height parameters, and using Stock Bounding Box as an additional machining boundary.

Addition of Option for Stock – Facet bodies, generated from a previous machining process, or brought in through a data file, can now be used as initial stock in solid pocketing.

64-bit Implementation

A significant development, the 64-bit implementation allows taking advantage of the more powerful, multi-processor PCs equipped with 4GB or more of RAM. This provides tighter interoperability with 64-bit CAD systems that are co-resident with GibbsCAM on a PC. Also, 64-bit operation reduces computation time when processing extremely long programs or working with complex geometry. It will also enable users to take advantage of system enhancements when running under the Windows 7 operating system.

Even More Enhancements

GibbsCAM 2010 includes many more features, some for ease of use, and others to extend functionality, including enhancements to the user interface and for the Milling, MTM (multi-task machining) and Wire EDM modules, as well as new add-ins for data exchange to support Inventor 2010, SolidWorks 2010, and additional CAD file import and translation. Furthermore, the Macros menu was enhanced with changes for easy access, uninterrupted operation, and support for 5-axis and Advanced 3D processes and calls to plug-ins.

For more information about GibbsCAM, or to locate your local GibbsCAM reseller, go to www.GibbsCAM.com, call 1-800-654-9399, or email info@GibbsCAM.com.

GibbsCAM 2010

Planit appoints Ambo Technologies as new Radan Reseller

Planit have extended their relationship with Toronto-based Ambo Technologies to include Radan, the market leading software for sheet metal fabrication.

Ambo have been an Edgecam Reseller for more than 13 years and made the decision to switch to Radan from their current sheet metal application after careful technical and commercial consideration.
Radan provides solutions for design (2D & 3D), manufacturing (punching, profiling, nesting and bending) and production control (cost estimation, process management).

“By offering both Edgecam and Radan, we are able to better serve the Canadian market and our existing customers by providing solutions for nearly every sector of metals manufacturing. We have already seen a number of existing customers of our previous sheet metal solution switch to Radan with great success.” said Bogdan Steiu, owner of Ambo Technologies.

“Ambo Technologies have been an important partner for many years and this new agreement further cements our relationship. Bogdan Steiu and his team continue to provide great products and services to their customers, helping them remain competitive in this challenging economic climate” commented Steve Sivitter, Planit’s Regional Director for the Americas.

AWEA Supply Chain Manager to Explore Renewable, Wind Energy at WESTEC, March 23-25, in Los Angeles

DEARBORN, Mich. March 2, 2010 – Energy is Matt Garran’s forte. A supply chain manager for the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Garran will offer insights on how manufacturing companies can grow in the renewable energy and wind industry at WESTEC 2010 Thursday, March 25 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Garran’s keynote address will kick off another full day of informative sessions for manufacturing engineers, at WESTEC 2010, an event organized by The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).

Garran identifies and resolves issues related to the production and installation of wind turbines for the AWEA. Prior to joining the association, Garran was the director of technical services for the Great Lakes Wind Network. He has extensive experience in the manufacturing, construction and mining industries.

The definitive West Coast event for manufacturing professionals, WESTEC 2010, will run three days, from Tuesday, March 23 – Thursday, March 25 and be chockfull of informative sessions to help manufacturing companies prepare for and take advantage of the coming period of economic recovery.

Attendees at WESTEC 2010 will be able to see demonstrations of the latest technologies, watch free show floor presentations and hear three keynote addresses and a panel discussion addressing the wind energy supply chain and prospects in aerospace/defense and renewable energy. More than 400 exhibitors are expected.

WESTEC 2010 will also feature free sessions on

  • How to Position a Company for Future Aerospace Supply Chains,” by Richard Scofield, U.S. Air Force Lt. General (retired)
  • “Lean Manufacturing is Green Manufacturing,” by Isidro “Izzy” Galicia, president and CEO, Incito Consulting Group
  • “Staying Ahead in a Global Market—US Tax Incentives,” by Randy Eickhoff, president, Acena Consulting, LLC
  • “Health Insurance Programs for Machine Shops,” by Michael Dochterman, Valley Insurance Services

Aerospace manufacturing professionals can also opt in for an Aerospace Global Forecasting Luncheon featuring Richard Aboulafia, vice president of Analysis at Teal Group Corporation and aerospace industry analyst, technical sessions on advanced materials, machining, metalworking fluids, non-traditional machining processes, tooling or mold-making and metrology.

Find more information on WESTEC 2010 and register for the luncheon or paid sessions at www.westeconline.com .

Time to Develop Young Machining Talent

By Lloyd Graff

The most stunning conclusion I reached from the Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA) Management Update Conference last weekend in Phoenix is that the precision machining operations business is good right now. Whether it was the automotive contingent, the aerospace guys from the coasts, the mixed baggers, the brassers or the ammo and firearms suppliers, the PMPAers were generally happy. What a change from a year ago.

The PMPA’s statistics show the same reflection of business. Sales levels are still off peak levels but profits are solid because of significant gains in productivity. The pruning effect was referred to by almost everybody I talked to. Weak employees have been shed. Processes have been sharpened. Companies are lean and hungry.

Contrary to the idea that nobody is hiring, the folks in Phoenix were looking. What they were seeking is youth and energy. Skills are a plus but they can be developed. We are at a point in the business cycle where you can find smart eager young people who are ok with starting out on the cheap and working their way up.

Dave Knuepfer of DuPage Machined Products outside of Chicago is hiring high school kids as interns hoping one out of three will stick. Ron Bracalente of Bracalente Manufacturing in Trumbauersville, Pa., is hiring engineers out of school for $13 per hour and fast tracking them up the pay scale if they can cut it.

Precision Machining is shedding its old skin coming out of this recession. The focus in Phoenix was not about adding machine capacity, it was about acquiring young talent during one of those rare windows of opportunity.

Question: Are you using this period to acquire young talent?

Richardson Ng, 2nd year Mechanical Technician at Centennial College, watches the sparks fly off a grinder in Precision Machining lab.

From Passion to Product: Reinventing a Company Through Innovation

Today’s Machining World Archive: September 2006 Vol. 2, Issue 09

The machining community is filled with ideas about making better products. The challenge is to take the imagined product, then the tinkered prototype, and finally, the working model into the marketplace. And if the market embraces the new product, how do you take it from product to business to brand? For dreamers and contract machine shop owners, Corsa Products of Berea, Ohio, and Manth-Brownell of Kirksville, New York, are working examples of companies in the process of turning their ideas into viable market winners.

ENTREPRENEURIAL BENT

Jim Browning Sr., president of Corsa Performance, started out making exhaust components for the marine industry in his garage in 1989, after leaving his senior management job at an automotive components group. Building on his love of boats—he has built three himself—Browning went to two nearby boat manufacturers and asked what their biggest problem was. They told him it was water surging down the exhaust system into the engine. Engines at that time were equipped with valves to stop the water, but the ones on the market failed frequently, causing major headaches for boat owners and the manufacturers.

Browning set out to solve the problem, and with the help of a former NASA engineer, developed a new antisurge valve that’s now found on the majority of boats with inboard engines. Browning and his two sons started making the valves themselves, hand mixing the batches of silicone that form the water seal. His next problem was developing a new exhaust diverter valve to direct the exhaust path through the propeller for quiet operation or through the hull above the waterline for maximum performance.

A major marine engine manufacturer had a complicated pneumatically operated diverter valve that was heavy, expensive and prone to failure. Browning devised a much simpler mechanism driven by a proprietary high-power solenoid. That product was so successful the engine manufacturer dropped its product altogether.

From there, Browning developed exhaust systems that are now found in nearly 80% of boats on the market. The company grew to 115 people, selling high performance exhausts around the world to the marine and automotive markets.

Browning was satisfied making marine exhausts, until the automotive world came calling.

John Lingenfelter, a renowned builder of high-powered Corvettes, asked Browning to build an exhaust system for a new Corvette package. Of course, he needed it in two days so the car could be tested by writers for Car & Driver and Motor Trend magazines. During the tests, the car suffered from droning, a low-frequency hum that’s annoying and fatiguing for those inside the vehicle. Browning wasn’t satisfied, so he went back to his engineers for a solution.

Nine months and eight iterations later, Corsa’s patented Reflective Sound Cancellation technology was born. Browning got an early publicity boost when the exhaust was fitted to the Corvette pace car for the May 1998 Indianapolis 500. He started shipping product in June 1998.

The RSC technology uses the sound waves themselves to cancel out certain frequencies, much like waves from pebbles dropped in a pond collide and subside. Inside a car or truck equipped with a Corsa exhaust, the bothersome low-frequency noise is banished, making normal conversation possible, even in a diesel pickup truck under full acceleration. Outside, the roar and rumble that enthusiasts crave is still impressive.

The fi rst Corsa exhausts were aimed at the Corvette enthusiast market, but have since expanded to include many GM models and vehicles from other manufacturers, including Dodge, Ford and BMW.

PATENTLY PROTECTED

Browning was quick to patent his technology, even though there was little danger of anyone stealing it at the time.

“Sometimes you have an idea, and people look at it and don’t think anything of it, like our car muffler,” Browning said. “It’s taken a while for people to appreciate the value of it, but they certainly do now.”

He regrets not securing a patent on the shape of the exhaust tips, the showy chrome that lets observers know the exhaust system is something special. That shape is starting to show up on competitors’ products.

“The next time I come up with some new exhaust tips, there’s going to be as much patent protection as I can possibly get on it so we that we don’t have people stealing from us,” Browning said.

GROWTH MODE

Corsa recently adopted a new distribution model, leaving behind a relationship with General Motors and placing its products with major distributors and wholesalers for mail order, specialty shops and warehouses that reach about 46 % of the marketplace.

The company is also spending more on promotions, becoming a corporate sponsor at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and increasing its marketing outreach as it adds more vehicles to the lineup.

“We’ve elected to spend money on product development instead of advertising,” Browning said. “Everybody that has a Corvette knows about Corsa, but for a Chevy pickup truck, maybe not.”

With the new distribution model fueling growth, Browning is considering building a new factory and research center because the current facility is running three shifts a day and there’s no more room. It’s not the first time Browning has been in this situation, as his previous employer went through a similar expansion. The lessons he learned there enabled him to lead Corsa into its next phase, including bringing on board qualifi ed people with experience at the auto manufacturers.

CHOPPER CHALLENGE

Management at Manth-Brownell, a $24-million manufacturer of turned parts in Western New York, is looking to bring new energy and hopefully a new line of business to the company by making custom parts for the motorcycle industry.

Wes Skinner, president of Manth-Brownell, said the idea germinated in a strategic planning session.

“We said we need to be getting into higher complexity work, and we kicked around a lot of ideas,” Skinner said. “The energy in the room began to come up when we got around to things where we’re doing our own products.”

The group considered products such as jewelry and hardware, but a shared passion for motorcycles won the day. The team decided to enter the custom chopper arena by marketing to bike builders who need a steady stream of unique, high-quality bling bling for their projects.

“We are customizing anything that you can do on a motorcycle that would be unique,” Skinner said. “Our theory is to go into something where there’s a lot more energy and excitement, and position ourselves using customization. We are looking for products that flow out of that.”

After only four months on the project, TV cameras have been in the plant twice, as the Fox Network taped segments for a biker build-off program featuring custom parts turned at Manth-Brownell.

Skinner had found that building relationships with bike builders and generating publicity may be more important than machining skills.

“It’s all based on connecting with people and getting them to like you,” he said. “There’s a whole motorcycle culture, and you have to join that culture.”

Skinner and his team set aside a budget for developing the business and hired a designer. The goal is to develop a business before the budget is exhausted. Being a part of the TV shows is a step in the right direction for the fledgling effort.

“Notoriety is what we’re looking for,” Skinner said. “This is high energy, and it’s a break from screw machining. It’s something where our people get to see the end product.”

Skinner has added a graphic designer to his staff. His traditional screw machine business of Wickmans and Davenports did not prepare him for his one-of-a-kind designs for choppers. But he and his staff are learning on the fly.

The Machining Business is Coming Alive Again

By Lloyd Graff

The Valley Ho Hotel, Site of the PMPA Management Update. (Photo Courtesy of Miles Free)

Groups like the Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA) are still dominated by old white guys who can’t jump, but it’s beginning to turn over in a few ways. One of the nice things about going to a conference like the PMPA Management Update in Phoenix last weekend is to see an organization evolving.

Owners, many second and third generation machine guys themselves, are looking to rejuvenate their businesses with young talent. I heard this from almost everybody I talked to at the conference. A lot of older shop workers have retired or been pruned. The managers of many PMPA shops are looking for fresh talent out of local engineering schools, tech schools, high schools—wherever there are kids who want to work hard and are willing to use Lava soap. You can’t advertise specifically for youth, but in America today you can shop the abundant talent pools, looking for what you want. For 30 years, the constant lament at these gatherings has been “you can’t get talent.” In Phoenix, the belief was that at this moment you can get “potential” that you can develop.

I talked to several young guys—30 is young to me now—who are running things at their shops and feeling good about it. Dave Thuro is pretty much running things now at Thuro Metal products in Long Island N.Y. The company is pushing hard on exporting to Europe and Mexico. Eli Crotzer of Hi-Vol Products, LLC, an automotive cold header turned Hydromat shop in Livonia, Mich., came into the machining world through the private equity door. He says he’s about as technical as a baked potato, but he’s learning fast, selling off one shop in his boss’s portfolio and looking to more ongoing operations.

Aaron Bagshaw of W.H. Bagshaw Co. Inc., carries on the company name after 140 years in the business. He’s adding CNC bargains to his successful line of pins. He was proud of the five Nomuras he just “stole” for $23,000.

Machining is getting a life again right now as the know-nothings write it off.

Creative destruction is alive, under the rubble.

Question: Do you feel the machining business coming back to life?



White Men Can’t Jump

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