Swarfcast

Today’s podcast is part two of an interview we did with Bruno Schmitter, CEO and COO of Hydromat USA. When Bruno came to America in 1979, his competition was National Acme and New Britain Multi-Spindles. Today he says his competition is mainly CNC Swiss and 5-axis Turning Centers. Bruno argues that having one machine that can do many operations at a time is a better option than having multiple mac...

Today’s podcast is part one of a two part interview we did with Bruno Schmitter, CEO and COO of Hydromat USA. In 1979 at the age of 25, Bruno came to St. Louis to sell and popularize the previously unknown transfer machine in North America. Bruno told us that at a young age growing up in Switzerland his father began encouraging him to go into the machine tool business. He also discussed his first...

Today’s podcast is part 2 of an interview we did with John Habe IV, President of Metal Seal Precision, a machining company based in Mentor, Ohio. Listen to the podcast on the player below. Over the last several years John has grown Metal Seal Precision both organically and through major acquisitions. According to John, growing through acquisitions can be financially rewarding but does not come eas...

Today’s podcast is part 1 of a two part interview we did with John Habe IV of Metal Seal Corporation, a machining company based in Mentor, Ohio. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. John and his two brothers own Metal Seal and several other machining companies, along with some granite countertop firms. He told us that since they purchased their father’s machining business in 1999 they have built...

In Throwback Thursday fashion, Lloyd and Noah are out of town this week, so we’re sharing one of our favorite podcasts from the past. Be sure to listen in and weigh in on the new question below. In December, we interviewed John Saunders, founder of  Saunders Machine Works  and the creator of the  NYC CNC  YouTube channel . John is an innovative entrepreneur who lives and breathes CNC machini...

In today’s podcast I was interviewed about a book I am writing which documents a year in which I have met at least one new person every day. I started 364 days ago when I met a guy named Tommy, working the bar at a restaurant in Chicago called the Blue Door Farm Stand. Listen to the Podcast on the player below. Over this year I estimate I have met 450 to 500 strangers. I have met people on the str...

On today’s podcast we interviewed Jay Sauder, owner of Sauder Machine in Plymouth, Ohio. One of Sauder’s specialties is making hydraulic wheel cylinders for Amish horse-drawn buggies using sophisticated CNC equipment. Sauder and his 10 employees are all members of the Mennonite church. Earlier in his life, Jay himself drove a horse and buggy, but today he chooses to drive a pickup truck. However,...

Have you ever asked yourself what your purpose is when you go to work in the morning? Sometimes I wonder if I’m spending enough time making an important impact on the world, or if I’m too wrapped up in the mechanics of making deals on machine tools. In this week’s podcast we interviewed Brent Robertson of Fathom . Brent is a business philosopher and consultant. His mission is help people discover...

In today’s podcast I interviewed Ben York, an inventor and consultant for machining companies. I met him at the 2019 Precision Machining Technology Show where his company, Theory 168, was presenting his Perfect Zero Alignment system . The system uses a camera installed in a CNC machine to set work coordinates and align and set tooling (see demonstration video below). Ben said his mission is to “ta...

In today’s podcast we interviewed Graeme Sinclair, owner of Parish Engineering, a prominent precision machining shop in Australia. Graeme has been in the machining business for 60 years, since he served his apprenticeship at age 14. In the interview Graeme discussed the challenges faced by machine shops in Australia verses the rest of the world, his eclectic taste in CNC machines, and his passion...

On today’s podcast we interviewed Ed Crowley, owner of Crowley Tool Company , a company that specializes in making custom insert form tools and quick change tooling packages for the precision machining industry. Ed explained in detail how his company has developed modular tooling that an operator can change on the fly, which can reduce set up time from days to minutes. He admits that the marketsha...

Like many people, I get overwhelmed at work. Sometimes I don’t get the work done I want to do, so I stay at the office an hour or two extra. By the time I get home I feel like I don’t have enough free time for relaxation and other activities. Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Ari Meisel. I have been repeatedly listening to a book called The Art of Less Doing , by Ari Meisel, today’s podcas...

On today’s podcast, we interviewed Victor and Betty DaCruz, owners of DaCruz Manufacturing in Bristol, Connecticut. Victor and Betty have transformed their company over the last three decades from a multi-spindle screw machine shop with ACMEs and New Britains into a high-tech CNC turning operation. While other companies complain about not being able to find quality employees, DaCruz has created a...

On today’s podcast, we interviewed Mark Fordyce, Team Leader of the Hydromat Parts & Rebuild department at Component Bar Products in St. Louis. Mark is a Hydromat Maestro. He has been working with rotary transfer machines for over 40 years, first as a self-taught setup man in a job shop, followed by working in the engineering department at Hydromat Inc., and then at Component Bar. He is one of...

On today’s podcast, I interviewed Bryan Batten, CEO of Palmetto Precision Machining, located in Anderson, South Carolina. Palmetto Machining is a precision machining/fabrication shop specializing in tooling and automation for the automotive industry. Bryan, who jokingly refers to himself as a mechanical psychologist, discusses the difference between working with automotive companies in different c...

We interviewed Brett May of BME Inc. Screw Machine Attachments for today’s podcast. Brett’s mission in business is to make old cam multi-spindle screw machines like National Acmes, Wickmans, and New Britains into productive money makers in today’s competitive machining environment. Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Brett May. Brett builds unique attachments which eliminate secondary...

On today’s podcast, I interviewed Albert Lettmen, a Lean Six Sigma and Quality Systems consultant and educator who has worked for decades with prominent manufacturing companies around the world. Albert grew up in Jamaica, studied business in Scotland, and then worked for companies in Europe, China, Canada and the United States. I was surprised when Albert explained to me that a company eliminating...

In today’s podcast, we reflect on the machining world in 2018 through the lens of what went right and what went wrong for Graff-Pinkert’s used machine tool business and Today’s Machining World . Scroll down to listen to the podcast. One key observation from 2018 is that Graff-Pinkert is becoming more reliant on our extensive knowledge of the equipment market rather than the cam machine refurbishin...

Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Federico Veneziano. On today’s podcast we interviewed Federico Veneziano, COO and CFO of American Micro, a 100 person machining company near Cincinnati, Ohio. In the interview Federico compared the various philosophies he has observed in machining companies throughout Europe, China and the United States. Federico grew up in northern Italy and got his first...

Scroll down to listen to the podcast with John Saunders. In today’s podcast we interviewed John Saunders, founder of Saunders Machine Works and the creator of the NYC CNC YouTube channel . John is an innovative entrepreneur who lives and breaths CNC machining. When he was 24 he had an idea to sell an automatically resetting steel target for practicing firearms, but he had no engineering background...

In today’s podcast we interviewed Scott Roy, a Senior Staff Engineer at Google who specializes in artificial intelligence.  He also happens to be my brother-in-law (Lloyd’s son-in-law).  One of Scott’s most recent projects at Google is to improve the way machines communicate with people in diverse human languages—last week he was working on communicating in Bengali. Scroll down to listen to the po...

Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Rick Rickerson. Rick Rickerson is in charge of the machining lab at Purdue’s Northwest Indiana campus in Hammond.   In today’s podcast he talks about why he loves his job. “It’s all about students” he says.   His passion for teaching beams throughout the interview. Rick has been doing this job for 14 years.   His department has a half-dozen South Bend lath...

Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Jerry Levine. In today’s podcast we interviewed Jerry Levine. A chemical engineer, Jerry Levine’s working career stretched from polyester to politics. He led the team at Amoco Chemicals that conquered the production problems in making polyester in the 1960s. Jerry then learned what it was like to live under Communism when he helped set up a polyester plant...

Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Armand Barnils. In today’s podcast we interviewed Armand Barnils, plant manager of the U.S. division of Ventura Precision Components, a multinational precision machining company headquartered in Barcelona, Spain. Armand grew up on the outskirts of Barcelona and studied Industrial Engineering in Spain. Through a foreign exchange program he came to the Unite...

Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Bill Cox. In today’s podcast we interviewed Bill Cox, owner of Cox Manufacturing in San Antonio, Texas, a job shop that makes parts for a variety of industries—oil and energy, medical, and defense to name a few. Bill’s father started the company in 1956 but died when Bill was age 12. The evening of his father’s funeral a customer had the audacity to ask Bi...