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Our guest on today’s podcast is 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 relevant, getting young people into machining, and what it’s like to work closely everyday with your dad—who’s also the boss. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Find us on Social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog Main Points Custom Attachments Elliott says that customers come to BME when they want to make a part on a cam screw machine but can’t figure out how to make it happen. The company offers an extensive line of proprietary attachments such air operated pickoff assemblies, rotary recess attachments, and synchronized slotting/milling attachments.  Elliott’s father, Brett, started BME 15 years ago. Nine years ago, Elliott started working at the company at age 14. His first job was cutting steel bars with a bandsaw. Later he worked in shipping and receiving, and then graduated to assembling attachments for multi-spindles. After studying engineering for a few years he began working in tandem with his father engineering attachments. Generally they are tasked with tweaking attachments already in their product line to suit the jobs of specific customers. A few times a year, they are called upon to engineer more novel devices, when a customer’s job calls for something special that they haven’t invented yet. Elliott says his father, Brett, is the “idea guy.” Brett analyzes what he wants to accomplish, then Elliott puts the idea down on paper (often CAD). They both are constantly putting their heads together to solve problems. It’s not uncommon for the two to stand at several whiteboards for long periods of time, brainstorming various drawings, trying to work out a solution. Elliott says they have a good chemistry at work, and over the years his role has changed as his knowledge and skills have grown. He admits that when he was younger and less experienced he may have been too overconfident in his ideas and he had to be put in his place. But nowadays, it sounds like he is genuinely challenging his dad in the engineering room. Acme Rebuilding  As a used machinery dealer myself, selling old cam multi-spindles, I grilled Elliott on a lot of the same questions we grapple with at Graff-Pinkert, our family business. I asked him if rebuilding old multi-spindles from the ground up, particularly Acmes, was a good business to be in. Graff-Pinkert still refurbishes some cam multi-spindles such as Wickmans and Davenports, but the work we do is much less comprehensive than that of BME. Also, we stay away from doing a lot of work on Acmes. The parts for Acmes can be very expensive, and the Acme rebuilding process is extremely labor intensive. For a rebuilt Acme, BME charges several hundred thousand dollars. The price depends a lot on what kind of turnkey the customer requires, if any. Elliott says the rebuilding and attachment businesses compliment each other. Often the rebuilt machines come equipped with BME’s proprietary attachments. He says he believes the cam multi-spindle business has a significant future because the machines are often still the best option for high volume jobs, assuming companies have the personnel to run them. Elliott May, Engineer at BME Young People in Machining  I asked Elliott why it’s a struggle to get young people to go into manufacturing and an even greater struggle to get them to run old multi-spindles. He says manufacturing has to shake off its bad reputation from the past, as having a top-down style of management that doesn’t care about the needs of employees. He suggests that if manufacturing employees could count on a clean, pleasant work environment, and felt supported and heard by management, more people would want to go into the field.  Working with His Dad I was very curious to get Elliott’s perspective about working closely with his father, as I also work with my father. I asked him if he felt like he was in a strange position as someone who is not the boss, but also not a normal employee either. It’s a position that I’ve often analyzed for over a decade.  Despite being only 23, Elliott says he has the advantage of having the longest tenure at BME of all its employees. He also says because of his experience and confidence in his ability, he earns the respect of his coworkers. I remarked to him during the interview that he often referred to his dad in the third person as “Brett,” rather than “my dad.” He says it’s a useful way to draw less attention to himself as the boss’s son, even if everybody knows he is. I personally have seldom used this strategy because referring to my dad as “Lloyd” just feels strange. But I admit that I sometimes refer to him as “the boss,” or some other euphemism, when I’m talking about him at work. It was Brett’s idea for me to ask Elliott to be on the podcast. I could genuinely feel his enthusiasm about the idea when he suggested it to me over the phone. I joked to him that it seemed like he was really “kvelling” about his son excelling in the business. He easily inferred the meaning of my Yiddish.  After interviewing both Brett and Elliott, it’s clear to me that both men share a passion for the nuts and bolts, and working together. Question: What’s something important you learned from your father?

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 what their purpose is, beyond just making money. He has found that if he can give people purpose in what they do, it inspires those they work with and their clients as well. Listen to the podcast below the video. Question: Is making money purpose enough for you?

Our guest on today’s podcast is Dr. Andrew R. Thomas, best selling author and Associate Professor of Marketing and International business at the University of Akron. Thomas says today reshoring is finally happening. After decades of sending manufacturing work to China, Western companies are finally realizing this strategy is often not the answer for generating better profits. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Find us on Social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog Main Points Why Manufacturing First Left the U.S. Thomas challenges the claim that most Western companies sent manufacturing operations to China solely out of greed. Starting in the 1990s many U.S. manufacturers, particularly small and medium sized companies, were pushed to move operations to less expensive labor markets because of a change in the dynamics of the American business model. For 30 years, business schools and consultants preached to maximize efficiencies and focus on core competence. They prescribed the “Toyota model”—outsource what you don’t do well and focus on what you do best.  In the 1980s and 1990s big box stores like Walmart signed large contracts with American manufacturer suppliers. At first, the suppliers prospered from having such large customers, but after a few years, the Walmarts began to squeeze them on price. The suppliers did not have negotiating power because they no longer had a diverse group of smaller customers to compete for their business. They were forced to seek cheaper labor overseas just to survive. For decades, reshoring did not even appear to be an option for Western companies. The Pandemic and Labor Markets Because of the supply chain problems brought about by COVID-19 and the country’s increasing wages, China is no longer the answer for many Western manufacturers to produce the cheapest parts. Thomas points out that manufacturing work is currently coming back to the West, but not exclusively to the United States. Much of the work leaving Asia will land in Latin America and Eastern and Central Europe. In those regions labor is cheaper and more abundant. While the United States and Western Europe provided a safety net to businesses and unemployed workers in 2020 and 2021, poorer countries did not have the resources to do so. Thomas says in countries such as Panama, where he lives much of the time, the only government assistance people received was a modest stipend for food and necessities, and free rent. These desperate conditions have made people in poorer countries eager to work. Andrew R. Thomas, Author and Associate Professor American Legacy of Global Leadership According to Thomas, since the United States was founded, Americans have always had the notion their country was special. They believed it was important to share their values and lead the world. This identity was solidified in 1944, when 44 allied nations sent delegates to the Bretton Woods conference in New Hampshire. The conference set up a framework to regulate an international monetary system. It created the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It ultimately established a dominant economic position for the United States and the U.S. dollar. More than just setting up an international economic framework, Thomas says Bretton Woods spawned a gentleman’s agreement between the United States and its allies based on four guaranties.  —If a country allies itself with the United States, the U.S. will provide that country with military protection. —The U.S. will provide countries with capital to rebuild post war economies.  —The U.S. will encourage open trade. —The U.S. will secure the world’s supply chain with its Navy.   Much of these foundations are still present today despite claims of the last few U.S. presidents that they want to meddle less in international conflicts and focus more on the domestic economy. Self-Reliance from New Energy Security Thomas says one factor changing U.S. international trade is the current revolution in fracking technology. A trillion and a half dollars in private capital has been invested to build an infrastructure for fracking. For the first time in recent memory the U.S. has a choice to not be carbon dependent on foreign countries, which would give it considerable power. It will be interesting to see how much the United States’ legacy as the world’s watchdog lives on, while its ability to focus its energy inward grows. Question: Have you seen reshoring in your business?

As the end of 2021 approaches, Lloyd and I spent this podcast reflecting on the last year. Though the pandemic continued for a second lap, a lot of companies in the machining business enjoyed a tremendous rebound. Thankfully for us, our used machinery business, Graff-Pinkert, did really well too, which we needed after a miserable 2020. If you find time to listen to this episode, we hope you will enjoy our rambling. We like to think there are at least a few interesting parts of the conversation. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Find us on Social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog Main Points My Mentor When I introduced Lloyd at the start of the podcast, I referred to him as my dad, my boss, my mentor, and my partner. He responded by saying he considered me as mentor to him, which seemed a bit strange, as he has been selling used machines since before I was born and he’s one of the smartest people I know. He told me that I have taught him about engaging customers on a deep level as well as negotiation principles from one of my favorite business books, Never Split the Difference.  I told him that I’ve tried to learn from the way he envisions potential deals. He is skilled at knowing when to take a chance on imperfect equipment that other buyers shy away from. A Good Year for Graff-Pinkert I’m happy to say that 2021 was an excellent year for Graff-Pinkert, which we really needed because 2020 was so horrible. Interestingly, much of our best business was selling old cam multi-spindle screw machines—Acme-Gridley machines and a lot of Davenports sold to Mexico. Two or three years ago, nobody wanted these machines. We had a few nice ones that sat in our warehouse for years. But in 2021, were fortunate that while other dealers were hunting for the same popular modern CNC equipment, we were looking for different types of machines, machines that are often older than me, which many sellers were more than ready to part with.  Stitch em up, Sew em up A big trend we saw in 2021 was the huge production of medical and gun parts, sometimes even by the same companies. Those parts have huge demand right now, while the automotive sector remains cold.  Personally, Lloyd and I are not “gun people.” But at the end of the day, we accept that guns are how our customers make a living. Some of our most important relationships happen to be with companies producing gun parts.  Lloyd says in the machinery business he often grapples about which companies he feels comfortable doing business with. Graff-Pinkert does not sell machines to Russia nor many other countries where we feel the governments are unjust. Yet, ironically, we still sell machines to China despite the country’s human rights violations and current genocide of the Uyghurs.  Onshoring  Another milestone of 2021 is that there was finally real manufacturing work coming back from Asia to North America. The supply chain bottlenecks have meant that US companies can no longer feel secure they will get the materials and products they need. Ford Motor Company is even building its own chip making factory. Lloyd recently bought stock in Ford Motor Company going into the new year. He says when Ford hired former Tesla visionary Doug Field, it was indicative that the company will succeed in selling electric F150 trucks in 2022, beating its American competitors in the electric truck race. Meanwhile, the European automotive companies seem inept at getting a viable electric car on the street. Noah Graff and Lloyd Graff of Today’s Machining World An Unvaccinated Machining Industry? One thing we observed in 2021 is that despite the wide availability of COVID-19 vaccines in the US, a great number of people in the machining industry have preferred to stay unvaccinated. I’ve asked some of Graff-Pinkert’s unvaccinated customers why they’re not vaccinated, and I get a number of answers. Some people say they don’t want to take the vaccine because they feel the government is trying to take away their freedom, others say that the science is unproven. My opinion is that most people are strongly influenced by those with whom they spend the majority of their time. I live in the city of Chicago, and all of my friends and family are vaccinated. They would tell me I was nuts if I was not vaccinated. However, if all of the people I was closest to were unvaccinated, I suppose it’s possible I would follow their example.  Nonetheless, I have my views. I know several unvaccinated people and I still like them, but their decision bothers me a lot because I believe they are putting me, my family, and the general population more at risk.  Personal Stuff Announcement! I’m ecstatic (and overwhelmed) to say that my wife, Stephanie, is pregnant with our first child, and she happens to be the biggest anti-anti-vaxxer I know! I digress. Becoming a future father after a long time of unsuccessful “trying” is by far the most important thing to happen in my life in a long time.  Lloyd says he’s grateful to have celebrated the 13th anniversary of his near fatal heart attack in 2008. He’s also grateful to continue doing work he enjoys at a high level at the age of 76 along side me. We’re both thankful that we have a great family we love spending time with, who we finally visited in person this year. I look forward to doing this podcast next year. I’m often desperately looking for new guests, so please contact me if you know of someone who would be good. FYI, I also happen to be picky about who I interview. Desperate but picky. The story of so many people’s lives. Question: What is something you will remember from 2021?

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 pasta making machines for 26 years, and for the last decade, he has simultaneously run a CNC machine shop. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Find us on Social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog When Antonio started his career in manufacturing at a young age in Como, Italy, he apprenticed at a company that produced fresh pasta machines. For folks unfamiliar with fresh pasta, not all pasta comes as dry noodles in a box. Fresh pasta is soft and looks like dough. When restaurants boast that they serve “homemade pasta” they’re talking about fresh pasta. Often fresh pasta noodles are formed with an extrusion process, which is great for producing tubular shapes, like rigatoni, spaghetti, or penne. The other main method for producing fresh pasta noodles is the lamination process (rolled process), which is used for flat noodles like pappardelle and fettuccini. When I asked Antonio to tell me his favorite pasta noodle, he explained that choosing the right pasta depends on the marriage between the specific pasta noodle and the sauce. For tomato sauce, he likes spaghetti because of its thin diameter. For meat sauce, he says gnocchi or short rigatoni (mezze maniche) are ideal counterparts. As an apprentice in Italy, Antonio set up and serviced industrial pasta machines weighing as much as 5,000 pounds. Often he worked on machines that made tortellini and ravioli because those machines required more fine tuning than those making simpler noodles. Decades later, when Antonio bought his machining company, GAM Precision, he realized that Brown & Sharpe screw machines operate using the same principles as tortellini machines. Like operating a Brown & Sharpe, in which a cam indexes the turret, in a tortellini machine a cam indexes the stuffing or moves the filling injector.  Antonio and Maja Adiletta, owners of Arcobaleno and GAM Precision Antonio eventually moved to Canada where the Italian pasta machine company that employed him had opened a distribution office. He worked there several years setting up and servicing machines. In 1995, he started his own company, which built industrial fresh pasta machines in-house. In 2002, Antonio and his wife moved their business to the United States. At first they continued to build their own line of machines. However, after a while, they decided that business model was too labor intensive, so they went back to distributing machines from a supplier in Italy. In 2012, Antonio and Maja purchased GAM Precision to diversify their business. It seemed like a good fit because they already owned some CNC equipment and had experience in manufacturing. Within a decade, they have modernized GAM from a cam screw machine shop to a highly automated CNC job shop, featuring some of the most powerful Citizen Swiss CNCs on the market. Pasta Extruder + Mixer from Arcobaleno Antonio says in the United States Arcobaleno has no competitors who can match its service in the industrial pasta machine space. However, the pasta machine business is challenging because unlike precision parts customers, who consistently demand more product, pasta machine customers often don’t need to buy new machines for many years because they are so durable. This means the company has to constantly look for new customers.  At the end of the interview, Antonio walked around his showroom to explain various industrial pasta machines in his product line. He also showed me some colorful consumer models sitting under a Christmas tree. He told me about the challenges of making gluten free pasta—“because the gluten is really like a glue, that holds it together.” We compared the lighter gnocchi made in southern Italy to that of northern Italy composed of a much higher ratio of potato to flour. He preached the importance of salting the water abundantly before cooking pasta—enough to make it taste like sea water.  Antonio knows that it’s the little details that produce perfection. Question: What’s your favorite pasta dish?

On today’s podcast I spoke to Achim Bauer, one of the most knowledgeable people I know about Tornos DECO CNC Swiss machines. His company, Bauer & Licht Industrietechnik OHG, in Pforzheim, Germany, is one of the only companies in the world that specializes specifically in rebuilding Tornos DECOs. Recently, I had the privilege to pick his brain about the nuances of the powerful sliding headstock machine that’s no longer manufactured yet still has a vast group of loyal users worldwide. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Main Points Achim worked at Tornos in Germany from ‘90s until 2011 when he and his partner started their own company, Bauer and Licht. Sometimes Bauer & Licht buys used Tornos DECO machines to rebuild and resell, but Achim says his preferred business model is rebuilding Tornos DECO machines that customers already own. The company offers different options of service to repair or overhaul the machines depending on customers’ needs and budgets. They are capable of taking a machine down to its barebones and creating virtually a new machine, able to produce parts of an extremely high standard. Bauer and Licht’s basic overhaul consists of replacing a machine’s ball screws, slides, coolant pump, cables, and fans. Sometimes the company makes software upgrades and installs accessories such as high frequency spindles or high pressure pumps. There are four models of Tornos DECOs. DECO10 machines can have as many as 9 axes, and the other three models can feature up to 10 axes. The DECO10 has a maximum 10mm capacity, the DECO13 has a maximum 16mm capacity, the DECO20 has a 20mm capacity but can be expanded to 25.4mm, and the DECO26 has a maximum capacity of 32mm. Tornos DECOs have Fanuc controls, but the controls are entirely different than those on a different brand of Swiss machine such as a Star or Tsugami. On a Tornos DECO the operator cannot input a program directly on the machine’s control. Instead, the operator writes a program using software on a PC, which is then transferred into the machine tool’s control using a usb drive or a good old fashioned floppy disc.  Tornos started making DECOs in the mid-1990s and stopped producing them in the latter 2000s, replacing them with the EvoDECO. Achim says the EvoDECO is also a good machine and has some nice new features such as quieter spindles, a Fanuc 31i control, and some standard modern safety features. Still, a great deal of Tornos DECO users do not want upgrade to the EvoDECOs because they can cost upwards of $300,000. Also, DECO devotees, some of whom have been using the machines for 25 years, already have the tooling, expertise, and confidence that their current equipment will make parts to the standards they require. For this reason, Achim’s company has a great niche.  Achim says despite leaving Tornos to start Bauer and Licht, his company still has a good relationship with Tornos. Tornos supplies them with spare parts, and in the past Bauer and Licht has even helped Tornos with a little bit of service for DECO customers.  Achim has serviced and bought used Tornos DECOs around Europe, in the U.S., and in Asia. He says one of main problems he sees with the machines he encounters is that people do not keep them clean and fail to do maintenance. Usually the biggest offenders are automotive companies who claim they do not have time to stop the machines to clean and maintain them. He says the companies producing watch parts in Switzerland and medical parts in eastern Germany generally have machines in the best condition. Bauer and Licht has the most customers in Bavaria and in the southern areas of Germany. Achim says that business is currently going well for Bauer and Licht. They are working on as many machines as they can handle. He says in Europe the medical sector and the small connector business are doing well, while the automotive sector is struggling because of supply chain issues with electronic parts.   Question: Which other machine tools do you prefer the older versions of compared to the current ones?

On today’s podcast we’re telling the life story of F.C. Phillips in Stoughton, Massachusetts, a fourth-generation machining company that lived from 1911 until January of 2020. Our guest is Brian Snow, former co-owner of the company and a grandson of its founder, F.C. Phillips. I spoke to Brian about what enabled his company to last for over a century and what ultimately led it to shut its doors. In addition to this podcast, Today’s Machining World produced a short documentary (below) about the history of the company, which is being auctioned off next week. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. For much of F.C. Phillips’ existance, a significant portion of its revenue came from the athletic shoe spikes business. For a long time, it was the number one athletic spikes producer in the United States. In the early twentieth century the South Shore region of Massachusetts had a large shoe industry. F.C. Phillips’ first foray into the shoe business was around 1915, making threaded rods that went into shoe trees. A few years later, the company developed a specialty, producing metal spikes on Acme-Gridley screw machines for the bottoms of logging shoes as well as athletic shoes for a number of sports, golf shoes in particular. F.C., the company’s founder, patented a way for the spikes to be assembled, which led to the company not only producing the spikes but also the plates in the soles of the shoes in which the spikes screwed into. Unfortunately, many decades later, the athletic spikes business was devastated when golf course greenskeepers outlawed golf shoes with metal spikes, claiming they were tearing up their courses. Today only the pro golfers get to wear them. Also, when the bulk of shoe manufacturing moved to Asia it further hurt the athletic spikes business. However, up until F.C. Phillips closed in 2020, it was still making metal spikes for track shoes. In addition to its athletic spikes business, F.C. Phillips had some great contracts over its 109 years. The company made parts for M16 rifles during the Vietnam war and had a very lucrative contract with General Dynamics in the ‘80s and ’90s, making fasteners that secured ceramic plates to the sides of Israeli army tanks. It also made parts for Snap-On and Hewlett Packard. Brian started working at the company after college in the late ‘60s and retired five years ago as Vice President. I asked him why F.C. Phillips folded after being a successful business for over a century. He says the main contributing factors for its downfall were lack of investment in modern equipment and not pushing hard enough to get new customers.  It’s easy see an ending like that of F.C. Phillips through a negative lens. A business that made important components for so many people, including thousands of athletes, no longer exists, and many talented people have lost their jobs. But if you listen to the podcast, Brian doesn’t seem sad. He is definitely sentimental about his family’s legacy and the place he went to work for so many years, but he appears to have come to terms with the end of the company. He says he thinks his grandfather, F.C., would have been astounded that the company survived as long as it did. Most companies can’t claim to have lasted over 100 years spanning four generations.  Brian even says he had a lot of fun preparing for the shop’s auction. He discovered hidden treasures, such as a pristine 100-year-old anvil in the shop’s basement. He also enjoyed helping to make the documentary about the company, which perhaps has given him further closure. I highly recommend everyone check the video out. It’s everything you could want! Acmes, anvils, drone shots and lot of heart. Question: What’s your favorite and least favorite thing about family businesses?

Today’s guest on the podcast is Jon Perin, owner and President of Perin Industries, a young CNC machining company in Webster City, Iowa. Jon, started Perin Industries in 2018, after a 12-year career as a hospital administrator. Like many entrepreneurs, Jon has had to face some daunting challenges. Starting out, he aggressively bought new state of the art CNC equipment to make parts for the medical sector. When he had trouble penetrating that market he successfully pivoted to fire arms work. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Main Points When Jon Perin started Perin Industries in 2018, he planned on making parts for the medical industry. Early on, Perin Industries devoted a lot of resources to obtaining ISO 9001 and AS9100D certifications. Achieving those certifications was costly, so before the company could start the process of obtaining medical work certifications it had to start producing revenue. Also, Jon realized that medical customers prefer to work with companies who have established track records and experience, so he steered the company to work in more general industry.  Jon grew up around his father’s screw machine shop and learned to run ACME multi-spindles in high school. His shop is right across the street from his father’s shop, which is now primarily managed by Jon’s sister. Jon attended college in Florida and after graduating went to work as a hospital administrator for 12 years. Working in the hospital environment played a part in Jon’s interest in making medical parts. Jon says he appreciates the manufacturing business’s simplicity compared to that of the health care field. He says it is easier to quantify success working in manufacturing because success can be measured by the quality of parts produced. Perin Industries has eight full-time employees. In addition to managing the company, Jon does CNC programming and setups. He jokes that he is also the janitor. He says his employees are becoming more capable to perform setups, which will free him up to focus on more administrative tasks in the future.  Jon Perin, Owner and President of Perin Industries When Jon started his company, intending to do medical work, he purchased state of the art complex CNC equipment, including an INDEX C200 twin spindle/3-turret lathe he bought new for around a million dollars, and a Traub TNX65/42 twin spindle/4-turret lathe that he bought used for around $500,000. He says that after attending Design-2-Part trade shows around the US he concluded that the opportunities for Swiss work and traditional screw machine work were extremely competitive and dominated by established companies. This influenced him to invest in sophisticated turning centers. After being unsuccessful in penetrating the medical sector, Perin Industries pivoted to the fire arms business, primarily making parts for Glock barrels and slides. Jon says that many companies produce the same parts using Haas machines. However, using his turning centers Jon can single-op the parts, making them in less than a third of the time as his competitors. Getting into medical work is still Jon’s longterm goal. He also aspires to one day buy his dad out, which would open his company up to many new types of customers. Jon says he preferred to start his own company rather than go into business with his dad, but he says one of the main reasons he has been able to keep his startup company going is having good mentors such as him. Jon’s first year in business he made some costly mistakes, many of which experienced companies are also guilty of. Sometimes he took the wrong types of jobs, he bought equipment too early, and some jobs took him twice as long to set up than he had planned. Through it all, Jon’s father and another mentor have guided him to stay resilient. Jon says he’s grateful his company didn’t make enough bad decisions to fail. He plans to keep learning from the past and push forward. Question: If you could go back in time and give yourself advice, what would you say?

Today’s podcast is the second half of our conversation about Graff-Pinkert’s business in 2021. I particularly liked this part of the conversation because we dug deeper into our approaches to selling machinery, talking to people, and one of our favorite subjects—how to find serendipity. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Main Points Lloyd says one thing he wants improve on as a machinery dealer is his tolerance for risk. He believes taking gambles on used equipment is the key to being successful and having fun in the machinery business. Noah asks Lloyd if his willingness to take risks has waned now that Graff-Pinkert is not in debt for the first time in a while. After a moment of reflection, Lloyd says he still wants to take risks and that risk taking is what enabled Graff-Pinkert to get out of debt. Also, he is pleased to say he now sleeps better at night because he is less worried about keeping the machinery business afloat.  Noah says he is working on getting to know customers more in-depth when they contact Graff-Pinkert. He says it is easy to allow phone conversations to remain merely transactional, only talking about what machines customers are looking for or what they want to sell. In his experience, spending extra time to really get to know people leads to learning important things about business and the world in general. He believes the more information he gathers about a customer, the more chances for serendipitous opportunities—lucky breaks. Also, spending extra time to get to know customers can lead to rewarding relationships that can pay dividends long-term.  Lloyd says he admires Noah’s conversations and often finds them fascinating to listen to, but he feels he doesn’t have enough energy to have a lot of long phone conversations. His brain is constantly consumed with trying to piece together clever deals. “Connecting the dots,” he calls it. He marvels that all three of his children have careers that revolve around having in-depth conversations. His daughter Sarah is a rabbi and son Ari is a therapist.  Noah says he wants to work on talking a little bit more during conversations, rather than remaining passive the entire time. While it is great to be an attentive listener and question asker, he says participating more actively is helpful to bring out new important information and create stronger bonds. He tries to use “serendipity hooks,” a phrase coined by Christian Busch, the author of the book The Serendipity Mindset, who he interviewed on a podcast. Serendipity hooks are various statements one inserts into a conversation to spur new discussions. For instance, one person in a conversation could mention they love a certain book or they are passionate about a certain hobby, which then could create a new interesting connection between people. Lloyd ponders the idea that he likes blogging because it gives him a chance to express himself. He says to Noah that he is disappointed when he doesn’t get any comments on what he writes, interpreting that means the piece didn’t leave an impression on readers. For both men, connecting with readers/listeners, clients, and especially with each other, helps make life meaningful. Question: What are you working on in your professional life?

For today’s podcast, I decided it was a good time for us to reflect on our used machinery business so far in 2021. It’s been an interesting and profitable nine months for Graff-Pinkert, so we had plenty to talk about—enough to stretch it into a double episode. Also, I was having trouble finding a new guest I wanted to interview.  Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Main Points Lloyd says the word “rebound” is the first thing that comes to his mind when he thinks about Graff-Pinkert’s business in 2021. In 2020, the pandemic threw a wrench into the used machine tool business, putting Graff-Pinkert in survival mode. The only constant work machining companies seemed to be doing was supplying parts for guns and ventilators. However, by September of 2020, most shops were off and running again. Yet still, they were often too indecisive to purchase many machine tools. The 2020 contested election, which concluded with an incoming Democratic president and congress, caused machining companies to remain uncertain about the future. Lloyd says Graff-Pinkert’s first quarter of 2021 started relatively slow, but the momentum of the business accelerated in February and March. In the second quarter, business was excellent, while in the third quarter it has softened a bit. Perhaps there is some new indecisiveness in the market due to the resurgence of Covid-19.   Noah questions Lloyd’s theory that Graff-Pinkert’s business success is directly connected to various market factors. He makes the case that a string of a few great machinery deals can make a fantastic month. He suggests that success is not reliant on all customers doing well, just the right ones doing well. However, Lloyd contends that confidence in the economy can tip indecisive customers one way or the other—if they will buy a machine or stand pat. Both agree they are often baffled when customers don’t purchase equipment that seems like a small investment with a huge upside. Lloyd says that Graff-Pinkert’s Wickman spare parts business has been weak in 2021 in comparison to its relative success in 2020. He theorizes that lately shops are replacing their multi-spindles with CNC Swiss machines because they don’t have the people to run the old equipment.  Noah points out that Graff-Pinkert has done well in 2021 selling older cam multi-spindles. However, the majority of those machines were sold to plants in Mexico that have the personnel to run them. Graff-Pinkert has also done well selling cam multi-spindles because most used machinery dealers are afraid to spec on them. Lloyd says he is willing to take a chance on old cam multi-spindles that he knows he might end up scrapping because he can purchase them with a modest investment. Lloyd and Noah have observed that more customers lately are choosing to buy new machines rather than used ones. They hypothesize this trend is due to the technical service and warrantees new machine tool builders provide. Noah asks Lloyd what excites him most about the used machinery business. Lloyd says that the challenge of making deals is the reason he went into the business and the reason he has stayed in the business a half century. He says he loves the way it is fueled by serendipity and connecting the dots to create deals. He also admits to enjoying the gambling aspects of the business, particularly placing contrarian bets on equipment others overlook. Both he and Noah say that one of their favorite parts of the business is getting to work alongside each other.  Question: Has your business followed a similar pattern this year to that of Graff-Pinkert?