Swarfcast

I was touring a shop once, and the owner told me the engineers can draw up whatever they want. It never comes out like that on the machine. At IMTS, I brought that up with Greg Walker and Bob Folts of Spatial Integrated Systems. They told me it can. As long as you’re honest with the software. Greg is president and co-owner of SIS, a Siemens partner based in Broadlands, Virginia. They sell and support Siemens software, primarily for aerospace, defense, and federal customers. Bob is their advanc

A few years ago, Richtech Robotics would call hospitality groups and offer them robots. They got laughed out of the office. The answer was always the same. We’re a people company. Now they’re building an 8,000 square foot factory in Las Vegas. Three production lines for robots and sensors, all managed by AI. They’d planned it for 2027, but a new FCC rule made them move it up to this year. I talked with Richtech’s COO, Phil Zheng, at IMTS. He told me why their humanoid robots have eyes that don

My guest today, Doug Rizzo, has been working in machine shops for over 55 years, and he’s only 62. Doug worked in his father’s company through good times and terrible, and did applications for Doosan. Now, he’s a plant manager by day and runs his own shop for six or seven hours at night. Doug says he loves all of it, from doing applications, to making fixtures, to cleaning oil off machines. He says it’s where he’s meant to be. It’s where he finds flow. ******** Listen on your favorite podcast

Open your fridge and grab a beer without knocking anything else over. It’s usually not hard for a human to do it. But getting a robot to do the same task can take an engineer weeks or months. George Konidaris is a professor of computer science at Brown University, director of the Intelligent Robot Lab, and cofounder of Realtime Robotics. Their technology does that kind of motion planning in minutes instead of weeks, and it’s running on the manufacturing lines of major automakers right now. He

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 buil

The first quarter of 2026 stunk for Graff-Pinkert’s used machinery business. But fortunately, in the last few months, we’ve made some really good deals, selling old Davenport and Acme screw machines, as well as some expensive late model CNC multi-spindles. Today, Lloyd Graff and I give our take on why the year unfolded this way and what we predict the machining industry will look like for the rest of the year. We’re optimistic because it seems like onshoring is real and tariff surprises are no l