A Bad Deal Wednesday, Graff-Pinkert hopefully finally buried a turd of a Swiss screw machine. You probably saw it over the years in our advertisements—a Tsugami B0205 II, Mfd. 2014, that we bought in an online auction for about $45K. The great investor, Charlie Munger, who died last week at 99, famously said, “If you mix raisins with turds, you still have turds.” Graff-Pinkert better have a lot more raisins in its stock to cancel out turds like this Tsugami. The biggest problem with the machine was that it was configured only to run blanked parts—not bar stock. We figured…
Author: Noah Graff
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…
A little while back, I was up past midnight recording a solo podcast. I was feeling tired and frustrated that it had taken me so long—longer than it “should have.” Should, by the way, is a word I have tried to purge from my vocabulary. (But that’s another blog) Then I paused. I looked at myself on the webcam with my cool microphone and my headphones, and I thought, “This is what I want to be doing.” This is what I get to do, so I should pause for a minute and enjoy this moment. This is fun creative work…
The last year and a half, I’ve been a rookie family man. I’m trying to balance selling sexy-ugly iron, podcasting, and being a good dad and husband. I’m a distractible person with mild ADHD. I like to have fun, get out of the house, and I sometimes have trouble pulling myself away from the TV. Four years ago, I read the book, The Art of Less Doing: One Entrepreneur’s Formula for a Beautiful Life, by Ari Meisel. The book had a significant impact on my life, particularly for how I do work. I’m far from having the majority of my…
Today’s guest on the show is Paul Huber, CEO of COMEX, in Monroe Connecticut. Paul is a machinery dealer specializing in cam Swiss automatics. That’s cam Swiss, not CNC. I’m talking about Bechlers, Stroms and Escomatics, not Citizens. Paul is 84, but proudly says feels like he is 60 as he raises his 17-year-old son. He has been working on screw machines for over 67 years, starting as an apprentice in Switzerland. Early in his career, Paul worked as a technician for European screw machine builders. Later, he ran his own production shop in the US. Then he became a…
In college, one of my favorite elective classes was bowling—I took it twice. Maybe you poo poo the idea of taking bowling at an expensive institution like the University of Wisconsin, but that was the class where I learned about the powerful science of “pin action.” To the bowling novices out there, do you ever wonder why the good bowlers throw those huge curve balls down the lane, rather than just throwing it straight down the middle? Pin action. When the ball comes in with that sidespin from the perfect angle into the pocket you get the best potential for…
How do you know what to charge for your product? How do you negotiate with customers and leave the least money on the table? And not just for one transaction but for the long run? On today’s episode, Part II of our interview with Jay Jacobs, we discuss strategies that you can use the next time you ask yourself, “What should I charge for my manufactured parts?” Jay’s former company, RAPID Manufacturing, grew at an average rate of 32% annually from 2010 to 2017, and one of the key reasons for the growth were his strategies to price parts. Jay also…
As Graff-Pinkert has gotten more into consulting machining businesses who want to sell their companies, we are constantly learning new things about what determines the value of machining firms. Wednesday, I flew home after visiting a client we are helping sell its Swiss machining operation. On the plane, I thought back to a favorite episode of Swarfcast in which we interviewed John Habe IV, who has grown his machining company Metalseal significantly by way of acquisition the past few years. In the interview, John discusses the difficulty in buying companies, which often have emotionally attached owners. It’s often the only…
Imagine a sheet metal prototype shop that was so fast and reliable it never turned down a job if it were physically possible to complete and the customers were willing to pay the price. My guest today, Jay Jacobs, built his former company RAPID from a team of five to over 300. Before being acquired by a publicly traded company for a price he couldn’t refuse, RAPID was manufacturing over 30,000 unique part numbers annually, 24-7-365 days a year. Then Jay co-founded Paperless Parts, a cloud based estimating and quoting software platform. On today’s show, Jay is going to tell…
Nine years ago, I traveled to Sweden to see some old Wickman multi-spindle screw machines for sale at one of the country’s largest automotive suppliers. The machines were ok, but we decided not to buy them. I stayed the night in the sleepy town of Värnamo, a screw machining hotspot of Sweden. The next morning, I knocked on a few doors of screw machining companies in the area, asking if they had any used machines for sale. They usually gave me the time of day because I had come from so far. A company called Ezze turned out to have…