I actually have the e-mail, I kept it from 2006 when a buddy
emailed me, like hey just FYI I found a new good site for Internet videos youtube dot com,
because no one knew about it was not a household thing and so on a whim i
started uploading these videos youtube just thinking that if I'm interested in...
this, there's got to be so many people that are interested in...
what you know, wasn't nearly as big a market then as it is now and so I bought this...
bench top machine. This mill was literally next to the pillow...
of my twin bed in a one bedroom apartment in New York so God bless my wife.
And so we moved into what's called a junior four, which in New York City terms is it's
a two bedroom but we legally we can't call it a two bedroom because the second bedroom
isn't big enough. And that's what I made into the little machine shop and had the
the Tag in there and then I bought a little 7 inch lathe and I bought a finger
break, a grinder, a drill press... I mean this was like heaven to me.
I started doing sort of work for other people it was it was friends, it was family
it was cuff links for people...
or little tchotchke's, something I got paid for that I have a for a lot of it was just I was just...
happy to be able to be able to make something. It was so cool that this was perfect. And it was...
great because I learned, over these first two to four years,
no there's a pressure. It was just fun.
I had done this research and I was dead set on a Tormach machine.
It was just perfect. It was all I wanted. And I was like, this thing is a monster machine...
for me it will let me make this stuff that was so slow to make a machine and
so I finally convinced my wife to move out of manhattan the suburbs
specifically to get a Tormach machine.
I know that sounds crazy, but that's okay because you grow this business in and so...
forth, but all i wanted was a walk out basement so that we can fit 1100 and the
basement or the garage and that's that's kind of how that went. Here is a small...
residential house in New York and I had a little factory inside and the truth is we...
lot of money and we made...
thousands of products on this mill behind me. The exact one and then I started a new
company and then we started building a job shop for and this is all I'm doing a day...
job as well. We crushed it. And then we were getting paid to make stuff. I'm very sympathetic to people...
that were in my shoes 10 years ago which is trying to get from nothing or an idea...
to something. So I love that. I enjoy wearing that I think I still do some of
the job shopping is a tough business. I still do a lot of it because i enjoy the...
satisfaction of working with customers but also... I've never...
I don't think about having insecurities about a being machinist in that sense but I've...
...never...I'm always looking to figure out how to push myself to be better and,
I'm always wondering, when I might not be able to do this, because I just don't know enough.
and I can't it figure out. I actually spent a lot of time doing the YouTube videos.
I really enjoy it and,
it's just something where I spent a lot of personal time because the youtube
channel also grew in group popularity and that's really our sources of traffic for
the training classes and the job shop stuff.
So then it's cool because it's fun to be some form of a source, or a leader in...
what's going on here. And then we just started doing..
CNC training. So we have these in-person classes where folks can come
and that's actually a big reason why we're moving next door. We'll have a dedicated..
classroom. We got two 1100's,
two 440 machines, and so it's two and three days of CNC intensive learning classes.
We're definitely not what do you think of it as a traditional...
machine shop at all. We never will be.
Just because...I think we...I think I'm certainly younger than your average guy...
that's running a shop, and I certainly have a much different background.
I have a heavier technology background...
I think if I grew up as a machinist while it's fun to think that that would..
have be awesome,
I think I never would have been here it just would have..in some respects what
to do right
When I first bought that Taig bench top mill, literally the engineer that we hired...
...to help us...
great guy, told us, "do not buy that, that's a huge mistake. You can't run those things",
and he was wrong, but it was a little more taboo then than it is now. And I think...
that's one reason why, joking or corniness aside, I really enjoyed...
working with Tormach and getting to know them both with the products but also the company,
is it it's all about the democratization of manufacturing. I don't care if you don't..
have a certain background or you're not a certain type of person like you could do it now.
there are people who i think has gone through traditional machine programs who
think it's unfortunate that someone could do to do this but again I don't
care
I usually tell people not machines I'm just a guy happens to run machines and i
love it and enjoy learning to love those guys keep fender add-on cetera a
continual I mean that's what I love learning was not living like sharing and
I helped a couple them out when i can on the CNC summer katic am stuff to remove
the book was but it's a guy talks about 10,000 are you going to do something
10,000 our like the Beatles played together for ten thousand hours of guys
that do certain things or whatever i'm pretty sure i put in some number close
to that machine so you can teach yourself anything if you got that
disappoint but yeah and then it goes back to it goes back to you know being
able to not just use the machines but put more business with you
you know the other day I am i love the fact that talk to the part of my story
that we had so much success with the machines but just do it and if that
means you've got build your own see you gotta find something to use or whatever
just do it
the top let's do more you know now again but I think about it how little
information that was out there how expensive the thousands of dollars for
cattle him and just much more of a black hole about getting some after now then
you've got a fusion 360 which is free for home people and you've got things
like Kickstarter a facebook where you can push our products and knowledge and
you can learn and ready to learn
depending on youtube it is agreed to
I think we all should be thanked for an awesome time
yeah