Last week, I heard a story about an old customer of Graff-Pinkert who lost three key machinists because a shop down the street was paying more. It led me to make a post on Linkedin, asking if machinists and setup people were paid enough to attract young people to the machining field. On the whole, commenters vented that they were not compensated what they felt they deserved working in the machining industry. The post has 53 comments so far (I’m usually lucky to get one). The big question is, are manufacturing jobs in the United States, machining jobs in particular,…
Author: Noah Graff
Is an Acme-Gridley the mink coat of machine tools? A well made product that still does a great job, but nobody wants another one. In 2025? No. Not yet. On today’s podcast, Lloyd and I talk about our used machinery business over the last year. We saw one customer drop 20 million for five INDEXs to replace every cam screw machine in their shop. At the same time we sold machines to a multinational automotive supplier who is buying hundreds of Davenport screw machines—many older than me—I’m 45 by the way. Why?
Today I’m talking to a guy who believes every company needs to be built to last—not just to flip. Neil Lansing is a turnaround specialist who left private equity to bet his own money on small, underperforming businesses. He’s taken companies from 18 employees to over 400. From $2 million to $40-50 million in revenue. And when everyone else was laying people off in 2008, he told his refrigeration company’s team: “We need more clients.” After transforming mom-and-pop service companies one after another, he found his final stop, Piedmont Machine & Manufacturing. At 67, he’s not looking for the next…
Our guest on today’s podcast is Joe Bennett, Vice President of Sales at Seaway Bolt and Specials, a privately held cold heading company in Columbia Station, Ohio, founded in 1957. In the cold heading process, coiled steel is cut into slugs, which are then hit multiple times, ultimately pounding them into a desired shape. The cold heading process is capable of producing several hundred pieces per minute. Some cold-headed products are net shaped blanks that are shipped to machining companies who then finish the parts. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone…
The last six months I’ve been using AI to help me with everything from business negotiations to dealing with my kid’s pneumonia. It’s become a daily part of how I operate—at work and at home. The big difference between it and just googling is that you have a conversation with it. Check out the video I made for my YouTube Channel, I Learned It on a Podcast! What the Heck is AI Anyway? If you’ve used ChatGPT or heard about it, you might still be wondering what it actually does. Wharton professor Ethan Mollick calls it “the world’s fanciest autocomplete.”…
We’re seeing an uptick in the Swiss market on the Graff-Pinkert side of the business, particularly Citizen machines. In response, we thought now was a great time to share an interview Noah conducted in 2021 about Swiss-Type CNC machining. He talks to Marc Klecka, founder and president of Concentric Corporation, a prominent distributor of Citizen-Cincom CNC Swiss lathes in Cleveland, Ohio. Read more below or tune in! ************* Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link. . View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss…
“Rare earths aren’t actually rare, nor are they earths,” Julie Klinger told me. Julie is an associate professor at UW Madison and literally wrote the book on rare earth elements—Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes. I interviewed her last week, the day after Trump signed a rare earths deal with China, which had been threatening export restrictions. I knew from all the hubbub they were important for US national security and our supply chain, but I didn’t realize these elements seem to pop up in everything, including a ton of the materials used in precision machining. *************…
In part 1 of my interview with Bill Cox, owner of Cox Manufacturing in San Antonio, Texas, Bill talked about the power of his company’s robust apprenticeship program. But how does Cox Manufacturing get so many employee candidates, while most machining companies are dying to get any job applicants? Answer—the company has built a strategic recruiting program. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Some of the company’s strategies for finding new employees are simple common sense, such as keeping good records of everyone…
Unlike the majority of machining companies right now, struggling to find enough skilled people to fulfill demand, Cox Manufacturing in San Antonio, Texas, boasts a continuous pipeline of new talent. In fact, Bill Cox, the company’s owner, says right now the company has a stack of applications for shop apprenticeships, of which he will pick an average of one for every 50 candidates. Cox Manufacturing specializes in producing high volumes of turned parts. I’ve been to his facility several times and can vouch that it’s a treasure trove of some of the best European multi-spindle screw machines, CNC Swiss, and…
Last week another machinery dealer mentioned that being a family business was part of why she wanted to work with us at Graff-Pinkert. I don’t know if that was the deciding factor, but it reminded me that persuasion often happens before you say a word. This concept of convincing someone before you even start making your pitch was coined “pre-suasion,” by bestselling author Robert Cialdini, one of the world’s leading experts on persuasion. I often use his techniques in our machinery business. Some of it just seems magical. (More blog under the video) Check out the video I made breaking…