Swarfcast

I’ve had a LinkedIn profile for a long time, but I didn’t pay much attention to it until two years ago when I started using it to promote this podcast. I know it’s been helpful for me, but like all social media, the way it works is an enigma. I’m guessing that many of you out there are like me. You’re on LinkedIn and wish you could use the platform to become a thought leader or promote your busine...

The concept of an ESOP to me has always seemed extraordinary yet at the same time a little hard to grasp. E-S-O-P is an acronym for Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Basically it means an employee owned company. Our guest on today’s podcast is Rich Gaffney, Vice President of Commercial Operations at Sentry Equipment , a 100-year-old manufacturing company in Wisconsin that has been employee owned sinc...

My guest on today’s show is Kris Fugate, President of Revolution Machine Works, a prominent rotary transfer machine rebuilder, specializing in Hydromats. Hydromats can seem strange and overwhelming to those unfamiliar with them. Some say they their circular shape with 12 or 16 work stations reminds them of a UFO, and the machines can crank out complex turned parts like nothing else out there. List...

Using savings to buy a 20-year-old Swiss machine that’s been sitting idle for year is a gamble. Buying one to start a machining company without any customers yet or a place to put the machine means really going ALL IN. Today’s podcast is Part II of my interview with Dulio Arellano, founder of Premier Swiss in Addison, Illinois . We’re continuing Dulio’s story, discussing how he transitioned...

Our guest on the podcast today is a machinist, entrepreneur, and master craftsman. Josh Shapiro is the owner and founder of JN Shapiro Watches, one of the few high-end luxury wristwatch makers in the United States. His latest line of watches will be priced at $70,000 dollars and up. His operation uses the most state of the art CNC Swiss and turn mills, as well as manual turning technology develope...

My guest on today’s show immigrated to the United States from Mexico at 18 years old, went to tech school, worked his way up in job shops, became one of the top technicians at Tornos, and then founded his own successful job shop. Dulio Arellano is the founder of Premier Swiss, a Tornos Swiss screw machine shop in Addison, Illinois. He is one of the most knowledgeable people I know about Tornos Swi...

This week on Swarfcast, we’re sharing an interview we originally did back in 2020 with Paul Van Metre, Co-Founder of ProShop ERP. During our discussion, Paul shares a lot of valuable and timeless information that can help your shop run more efficiently. Since we did the interview, he has also started his own podcast, called Machine Shop Mastery: https:// machineshopmastery.com/about/ . We in...

Do you ever wonder how I make a living buying and selling old iron? Sometimes Graff-Pinkert’s used machinery business boggles our own minds too. But we have some tricks of the trade that make it possible for me to pay my mortgage, and on today’s podcast I’m going to share a few of them with you. We’re running an episode from the Job Shop Show podcast, where I was interviewed last...

Pasta machines operate a lot like cam screw machines, Antonio Adiletta told me when I interviewed him for this week’s podcast. Antonio is co-owner of Arcobaleno and GAM Precision in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After growing up in Italy, Antonio moved to Canada and then eventually emigrated to the United States with his wife and business partner, Maja. He has manufactured, sold, and serviced fresh pas...

In honor of this weekend’s PMPA National Technical Conference, we’re resharing a podcast we did last year with Elliott May, engineer at BME in Port Huron, Michigan. BME builds original custom attachments for cam multi-spindles. They also rebuild Acme-Gridley screw machines. Elliott and I talked about a lot of fascinating things in this interview. How to keep old mechanical beasts relev...

I’m dealing with a customer right now who seems interested in some CNC machines Graff-Pinkert has for sale. They told me they needed this type of machine ASAP! And these machines are RARE! They even said they had a big job for the machines already and they are on the “verge of pulling the trigger any day now.” But then they stopped returning my phone calls. They’re ghosting me, and my crock brain...

On this week’s classic episode of Swarfcast, we’re talking about preventing fires inside of machinery. Our guest is Mike Campo, Midwest Regional Sales Manager with Firetrace International , makers of fire suppression systems and solutions. Fire suppression systems keep businesses, people and equipment safe by automatically detecting and suppressing fires in high-risk equipment, like CN...

It seems that today’s younger generations of workers, such as millennials, want to understand why they are instructed to do their jobs in a certain way more than their predecessors. Many of today’s employees are not content to just follow orders and take home a check. They want to feel invested in their work, they want it to mean something.  So we are featuring this classic Swarfcast e...

In the last year, our used machinery company, Graff-Pinkert , has been successfully growing our business brokering division. This podcast and Today’s Machining World have played a huge part in our marketing. They have established us as thought leaders in the machining industry, and that is bringing in customers. It only took 24 years of writing and six years of podcasting. Today’s podc...

Today’s episode is Part II of our interview with Roger Duffy, owner of F&F Machine Products . In Part I we touched on Roger’s natural entrepreneurial instinct and how he loves to push himself to get out of his comfort zone. In this episode, we’re delving further into Roger’s business adventures and philosophies.   He believes in a theory he calls the “Goldfish Bowl Syndrome,” which he observed...

How many times has something happened to you that really sucked but then eventually turned out to be a good thing or even a great thing that happened for you?   Today, I’m going to tell you a story about when a big machinery deal went to hell and then how its failure led to an amazing turn of events—a way better result than if things had gone the way they were supposed to go . You know. Serendipit...

Recently, we have seen a growing number of mergers and acquisitions in the manufacturing space . After these deals are finalized there’s a lot of uncertainty for the employees caught in the middle of reorganization. Our guest on the podcast today is Jennifer Fondrevay. Jennifer is a best selling author and the Founder of Day1 Ready, a consultancy that advises companies on how to prepare for challe...

At Graff-Pinkert , I’ve sold a lot of machine tools to successful entrepreneurs, including my guest on today’s show, Roger Duffy, owner of F&F Machine Products . But, just a few people like him really have stood out for their outward ballsiness in business. Roger says he loves being an entrepreneur because it allows him to take risks, to dive into the unknown, whether that means trying entirel...

“I can’t hire a cam multi-spindle operator who knows what they’re doing! I’m throwing out my multi-spindles and going all CNC.” “These old Acmes , Wickmans, or New Britains pay for themselves every three months. They’ve left a wide open field for me!” Selling screw machines for our used machine tool business, Graff-Pinkert, we hear both stories every week. It is the story o...

As the housing market has slowed recently in our current economy, alternative types of construction such as 3D printing with concrete have become more and more relevant. It brought me back to a classic podcast episode we did a while back. The technology has advanced since we recorded this episode in 2019, but still you will be wowed. ******** Our guest on today’s Swarfcast is Jonathan Ladouceur, h...

Happy New Year everybody! On today’s podcast, Lloyd Graff and I reflect on the ups and downs of machining world in 2023 and give our thoughts about what we might see 2024. As you would expect, we discuss a number of topics in addition to precision machining, such as the US’s unpredictable economy, anti-semitism, and my intention to bite off more than I think I can chew and then figure out ho...

We originally published this episode in 2019. It was a better time in Israel’s history, before the country was savagely provoked to go to war to protect its existance. Israel is a country full of industry and world class innovative companies, such as the manufacturing company Ditron Precision. This interview contains insight on how Israel is so important to the world’s metal working in...

Today I’m debuting a new episode series under the Swarfcast umbrella that I’m going to put out every so often. From April 19, 2018, until April, 19, 2019, I spent an entire year meeting at least one stranger every day and documented everyone I met. Some days I met 10 people, other days I was lucky to have a short conversation with one person. After a few months, I decided I would write about the e...

Have you considered whether your business is salable? My guest on today's podcast says only a small fraction of companies have built an organization and leadership structure that makes them attractive to buyers. Damon Pistulka is founder of Exit Your Way, a firm that helps businesses sell their companies. What’s unique about Exit Your Way is that before it tries to sell a business, it helps the bu...

Last week, Lloyd Graff wrote a blog called “What Brings Me to Work,” which we think will speak to a lot of you out there, people who work in a family business, and people of retirement age who keep working—not because they have to, but because they get to.  Maybe you’ve read the blog already, but even if you have, we think you will enjoy hearing it in podcast form, being read by the man who wrote...