Torchmate Before Christmas by Rachel Miller (CNC enthusiast and marketing director for Torchmate) Twas the night before cutting, and all through the house Not a fabricator was working, not even their spouse. The sheet metal was laid out everywhere, In hopes that a Torchmate soon would be there. The plasma cutters were nestled all snug [...]
What’s interesting about the Wall Street movement is that it erupted about the same time as an annual talent shortage survey by the ManpowerGroup, which found that 52% of U. S. employers are having trouble filling positions. But unfortunately for the Occupy Wallstreeter interviewed, a background in history was not on the list of sought-after skills. [...]
Anytime industrial equipment or technology initially used by industry giants seeps into the private sector, it evolves in unusual ways. Ten years ago, you could only find the regular use of CNC machines and other types of robotics in the governmental or high-end fabrication shops and factories around the world. We saw this with the [...]
I don’t remember when Dual Contact Toolholders first hit the market, but when I saw them I imagined they’d be a flash-in-the-pan product. At this point it seems like they’re more hit than miss and here to stay. I’m know there are a lot of other engineers that are far smarter than me that have [...]
It’s nice to see a company going back to the core of manufacturing. Nearly every consumer product these days is wrapped in plastic, but what most (non-machining) people don’t realize is their plastic gizmo had its start in a CNC machining center in the form of an injection mold. One prominent company is skipping the [...]
So often, shops have no company website. Moreover, their email address is from any number of generic sources; machineshopperson@att.net, anothershop@yahoo.com, i-need-a-website@hotmail.com. There’s really nothing wrong with having such an address, but using an email that includes your company’s name is much more professional. In today’s information age, the necessity of having a company website cannot [...]
Some small businesses are delaying capital purchases in hopes of the bill’s passage. Actually, this “wait-for-the-break” purchasing strategy is unnecessary for most small businesses since they can currently expense 100% of machinery purchases up to $250,000 per year or opt to depreciate the amount over seven years… a policy the Bush administration put in place.
One of the basic tenants of a successful horror movie is to never let the audience get too good a look at the monster. People always imagine something worse than can be displayed on the screen. Take the original version of “The Thing from Outer Space.” It isn’t until the heroic humans fry the Thing [...]
The saying used to be that “the sun never sets on the British Empire.” That meant that somewhere around the globe the sun was shining on one of Great Britain’s colonies. The sun set on the British Empire about the time it became the United Kingdom. England used to be the world leader in manufacturing, [...]
I’ll let you in on a little secret: I read science fiction. Not exclusively, but I do enjoy the techie stories of authors like Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, and Robert Heinlein. They blend stories about people and technology with an optimistic outlook about what’s in store for us. The characters that populate their stories are [...]
