No machines in this blog, which probably should be on Facebook, but I don’t do Facebook. Today is my 41st wedding anniversary with my wife Risa. I think we are the rare couple who can honestly say to each other every day how blessed we are to have one another. I am a hopelessly sappy romantic who cries real tears on the cards I write for such occasions. She is the baker who makes everybody’s favorite dish for their birthday. Risa is the combination of lover and best friend, who has buoyed me up during life’s insults. I cheered her…
Author: Lloyd Graff
I haven’t gone to an old fashioned open outcry auction at an automotive factory in quite awhile. For sheer drama and boredom the Hilco Industrial four day 7000 lot sale this week was a throwback to the days when men were men and spark plugs were made on screw machines. The sale was at GM’s old Willow Run transmission plant—6 million square feet under one roof—that used to be a farm owned by Henry Ford in Ypsilanti, Michigan, near Ann Arbor. Today the biggest non-Government, non-University employer in the area is Domino’s Pizza, which is currently spending millions to advertise…
On May 12th, an interesting auction took place at Smart Parts near Pittsburgh. Smart Parts used to make paintball guns, until the recession and a big miscalculation about a Wal-Mart order for its equipment put them on the road to bankruptcy. The management of Smart Parts had been on top of the world as paintball caught fire. Wal-Mart wanted to get in on the fun and Smart Parts ordered two (CNC) Hydromat Epic machines in 2007 to meet the forecast demand. They paid well over $2 million for the two machines—then the bottom fell out and sayonara. At the sale…
Mother’s Day is one of those Hallmark Holidays I’ve always found confusing. My muddle goes back to my father’s view of the May Sunday. He hated it–probably because he hated his mother, though she was a huge presence in his life. My grandmother, Ethel Graff, was a sad and manipulative presence for my father, who watched over her for much of his life after his father, Louis, died when my dad was 23. Although, my dad indicated to me that he took responsibility for her at a much younger age because his father just could not deal with her moods.…
As some of you may have heard, Today’s Machining World will be releasing its last printed issue in June 2011. But have no fear, the magazine will continue producing new stories at its Web site: www.todaysmachiningworld.com. If you have friends who love the print magazine but don’t read our content online, suggest to them that they sign up for our weekly email blasts by going to the TMW home page and clicking the “Join Email List” tab. You can also sign a friend up yourself at the following link, or by responding to this email. We thank our readers for…
1. Is there a slowdown? My impression is that business for the builders is generally good and getting better. High gas prices do not seem to be deterring the high level of buying. The Swiss lathe importers—Citizen, Star, and Tsugami, are crazy busy. For equipment like Hydromats and multi-spindles, which are heavily focused on automotive, there is a bit of hesitancy. 2. Can the Japanese companies get inventory? Not enough. Toyota is hurting along with the others. Hyundai is out to claim 10 points of market share. In machinery, the importers tend to order far ahead. Certain sizes are scarce, like…
It strikes me that Americans are still trying to recover from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the 2008-2009 deep recession. Banks are still looking backward at the housing shock and are afraid to loan to good risks, even based on 2001 values. A large percentage of buyers today are cash buyers, often from foreign countries, or first-time buyers who don’t have to sell a house to buy one. Banks are also being closely scrutinized by examiners who have the usual government employee bias—avoid mistakes so everybody covers their behind twice, thus gumming up the lending process. The press has a…
PMTS 2011—middle of Passover, beginning of Easter, and spring break, but the machining guys turned out, at least those from the Big Ten area, to see who would make their Final Four if they were buying a lathe (or software or steel or cutting tools etc.). The PMPA sponsors this assembly of the oil stained with the Gardner Publishing group, and it ran as efficiently as a Japanese commuter train with about the same amount of pizazz. Attendance was much better than 2009, but that’s comparing a parade and a death march. George Bursac of Star called it a “nice…
The offer of $20 billion being discussed by Johnson & Johnson Inc. to purchase Synthes Inc., based in Pennsylvania, Switzerland and Germany, highlights the value of Swiss CNC machining today. J & J bought DePuy, the orthopedic implant pioneer, located in Warsaw, Indiana, in 1998. They evidently like the medical device business with millions of aging baby boomers potentially looking for spinal disc surgery and knee and hip replacements. The disturbing diabetes epidemic, fostered by America’s obesity explosion will mean more amputations and usage of Synthes surgical tools. I have no idea whether J & J is overpaying, but for…
With the PMTS show coming up next week in Columbus, Ohio, this is what I want to find out: 1. Graff-Pinkert, our machinery business, has noticed a distinct slowdown in both inquiries and sales over the last two months. Is this just us, or is it industry-wide? 2. How narrow is the Japanese pipeline of new machine and automotive components? Can the builders get fresh inventory out of Japan? 3. With the dollar falling out of bed versus the euro, how much are the Europeans raising prices, and are they able to ramp up production to meet demand? 4. Does…