Episodes

I encounter a lot of friction in my work. Too many obstacles get in the way of me doing the things I need to do and the things I like to do. I know all of you out there have friction in your work too, and if you’re in the manufacturing business you likely encounter friction when you have to achieve the necessary quality to be ISO certified. Today’s guest on the show, Adam Marsh, has a company called Ledge Inc. that guides manufacturers through the ISO certification process. Getting ISO certif...

If you have not already listened to Part I, you can find it here. After serving in the Navy SEALs for nine years, Bill Berrien retired from the military in 1999, ready for a new chapter in his life. He attended Harvard business school where there were six other SEALs in his class. After graduating from Harvard, Bill worked as a Six Sigma Blackbelt at General Electric Health Care, which brought him to the Milwaukee area in 2002. Rather than climb the ladder at a large corporation, Bill’s ambition...

Bill Berrien has had an extraordinary professional journey. He earned an MBA at Harvard, worked for General Electric and then in private equity. Ten years ago, he purchased Pindel Global Precision, a successful two-generation machining company near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which he has modernized and grown over the past decade. Oh, I forgot to mention, he was also a Navy SEAL officer for nine years. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Ap...

At IMTS 2024, I learned about the latest technology for CNC lathes, robots, and most notably 3D printing. Stratasys was the first 3D printing company I visited at the show. I spoke with Foster Ferguson, Director of Aerospace, and Tom Leach, Commercial Leader at Stratasys, about 3D printing applications for automotive and space vehicles. Then I spoke with Evan Hochstein and Allison Harbaugh, Business Managers for the Stratasys Medical Team, about the capabilities of Stratasys 3D printers to repl...

Today’s podcast episode is the second half of our interview with Dr. Onome Scott-Emuakpor, the founder of Hyphen Innovations, a firm that develops low cost, damage resistant aerospace components. When Onome does engineering research, he fuels his creativity by embracing resource constraints and what he calls the “fail fast” mentality. The fail fast mentality means you can look at failure during the problem solving process as a positive. If “failing” means you learn something that propels you fo...

Noah is attending IMTS this week, so we are resharing one of our favorite podcasts from last year. This episode of Swarfcast was recorded in March of 2023. The second part is also available online here. On today’s podcast, we talk about how you can apply the artistic side of your brain to solve engineering challenges. Our guest is aerospace engineer, Dr. Onome Scott-Emuakpor, founder of Hyphen Innovations, a firm that develops new advanced aerospace components for the Department of Defense and ...

Terry Iverson is a lifer in the machining industry. His grandfather sold machines for Hardinge over 100 years ago, and for 40 years he ran the Hardinge machinery distributor for the Midwest. Today Terry focuses his efforts on getting young people in America into manufacturing. He wrote two books directed at parents to open their eyes to manufacturing careers for their children. His latest project is a machining camp called Camp CHAMP, in which middle school kids are mentored by high school kids...

This podcast episode is the second part of our interview with Will Healy III about how to get the most out of trade shows, which we did before IMTS 2022. It’s a great time run the best of, as IMTS 2024 is coming Sept. 9! We suggest you listen to Part I of the podcast before you tune into this one. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Faceboo...

The 2024 IMTS International Manufacturing Technology Show coming up in two weeks in Chicago! We did an awesome podcast two years ago about preparing for trade shows and IMTS in particular, so we will be rerunning both this week. The following is a summary of our 2-part interview with Will Healy III. Will has been going to machining industry trade shows such as IMTS for a long time, as an exhibitor, a speaker, and attendee. I myself have been to quite a few trade shows over the years, including...

Our guests on today’s show are Michael Ottenweller and Terry Hanson, of Ottenweller Company, a medium-sized fabrication and machining company headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Ottenweller is a 108-year-old fourth generation family business. I spoke with Michael and Terry about how a family business can grow and thrive for over a century and continue to find new quality talent. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your fa...

Often the best deals and business decisions happen when you’re doing something that seems crazy to other people and even a little bit crazy to yourself. As used machinery dealers, putting our money down to stock old, dirty machines that we’re only interested in for resale, we have to have chutzpa. To some people, the business model seems a bit ridiculous, but it’s how we eat. These days I often question if it even makes sense stocking machines. Often we make a good profit brokering machines we’...

Today’s show is the second episode in our season about Swiss machining. I interviewed Chris Armstrong last week while he was parked at a rest stop somewhere in Texas. He was en route on an all day trip to service a customer’s Citizens. I met Chris and his partner, Ryan Madsen, owners of Texas Swiss, a few years ago, trying to sell them some Citizen L20s from Asia. Texas Swiss, formerly named Mad Science, is a CNC Swiss job shop not far from Houston that focuses primarily on Oil & Gas and Defense...

Today’s episode is Part II of our interview with industrial auctioneer Robert Levy. In Part I, I tried to get an understanding of what’s going on inside the mind of an auctioneer. In the second part of the interview, I asked Robert to give me some practical advice on how to be a successful bidder at an auction. The first tip Robert suggests for auction bidders is to talk to the auctioneer before the sale about what items they are interested in and even tell the auctioneer their spending targets....

Auctions are always on our mind at Graff-Pinkert. Since Internet bidding became ubiquitous in the last 15 years they’ve become more of a challenge for dealers like us to capitalize on. But sometimes you still can still find a hell of a deal. In today’s episode we’re going to discuss how. If you like this episode check out Part II! Today’s episode is Part I of a two part interview with Robert Levy, President of Robert Levy Associates. Robert has been an industrial auctioneer for 44 years and kn...

I’ve had a LinkedIn profile for a long time, but I didn’t pay much attention to it until two years ago when I started using it to promote this podcast. I know it’s been helpful for me, but like all social media, the way it works is an enigma. I’m guessing that many of you out there are like me. You’re on LinkedIn and wish you could use the platform to become a thought leader or promote your business, or maybe you’re trying to find a new job. But you’re unsure how to use the platform, so you to ...

The concept of an ESOP to me has always seemed extraordinary yet at the same time a little hard to grasp. E-S-O-P is an acronym for Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Basically it means an employee owned company. Our guest on today’s podcast is Rich Gaffney, Vice President of Commercial Operations at Sentry Equipment, a 100-year-old manufacturing company in Wisconsin that has been employee owned since 1986. Rich and I discussed the business structure of ESOPs and most importantly the profound impac...

My guest on today’s show is Kris Fugate, President of Revolution Machine Works, a prominent rotary transfer machine rebuilder, specializing in Hydromats. Hydromats can seem strange and overwhelming to those unfamiliar with them. Some say they their circular shape with 12 or 16 work stations reminds them of a UFO, and the machines can crank out complex turned parts like nothing else out there. Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link. . View the podcast on our YouTube Channel. Follow ...

Using savings to buy a 20-year-old Swiss machine that’s been sitting idle for year is a gamble. Buying one to start a machining company without any customers yet or a place to put the machine means really going ALL IN. Today’s podcast is Part II of my interview with Dulio Arellano, founder of Premier Swiss in Addison, Illinois. We’re continuing Dulio’s story, discussing how he transitioned from working in job shops to becoming one of Tornos USA’s top technicians, and then how he rolled the dic...

Our guest on the podcast today is a machinist, entrepreneur, and master craftsman. Josh Shapiro is the owner and founder of JN Shapiro Watches, one of the few high-end luxury wristwatch makers in the United States. His latest line of watches will be priced at $70,000 dollars and up. His operation uses the most state of the art CNC Swiss and turn mills, as well as manual turning technology developed as far back as the 1500s! Listen to the podcast or read the highlights to learn how Josh is produc...

My guest on today’s show immigrated to the United States from Mexico at 18 years old, went to tech school, worked his way up in job shops, became one of the top technicians at Tornos, and then founded his own successful job shop. Dulio Arellano is the founder of Premier Swiss, a Tornos Swiss screw machine shop in Addison, Illinois. He is one of the most knowledgeable people I know about Tornos Swiss machines throughout the world, and whenever we talk he always has fascinating insight about ent...

This week on Swarfcast, we’re sharing an interview we originally did back in 2020 with Paul Van Metre, Co-Founder of ProShop ERP. During our discussion, Paul shares a lot of valuable and timeless information that can help your shop run more efficiently. Since we did the interview, he has also started his own podcast, called Machine Shop Mastery: https://machineshopmastery.com/about/. We invite you to give it a listen! *** On today’s show we’re talking about how to set up machine tools efficient...

Do you ever wonder how I make a living buying and selling old iron? Sometimes Graff-Pinkert’s used machinery business boggles our own minds too. But we have some tricks of the trade that make it possible for me to pay my mortgage, and on today’s podcast I’m going to share a few of them with you. We’re running an episode from the Job Shop Show podcast, where I was interviewed last year. Host, Jay Jacobs, and I talked about a lot of fun topics, such as what to watch for when you’re buying used ...

Pasta machines operate a lot like cam screw machines, Antonio Adiletta told me when I interviewed him for this week’s podcast. Antonio is co-owner of Arcobaleno and GAM Precision in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After growing up in Italy, Antonio moved to Canada and then eventually emigrated to the United States with his wife and business partner, Maja. He has manufactured, sold, and serviced fresh pasta making machines for 26 years, and for the last decade, he has simultaneously run a CNC machine s...

In honor of this weekend’s PMPA National Technical Conference, we’re resharing a podcast we did last year with Elliott May, engineer at BME in Port Huron, Michigan. BME builds original custom attachments for cam multi-spindles. They also rebuild Acme-Gridley screw machines. Elliott and I talked about a lot of fascinating things in this interview. How to keep old mechanical beasts relevant, getting young people into machining, and what it’s like to work closely everyday with your dad—who’s also t...