Hindmarsh Engineering Services: Metal skills sparks business

Thursday, 25 February 2010

Lance Hindmarsh knows his way around a piece of metal.

For the Dayboro resident, being handy with his hands has led to him running his own business, Hindmarsh Engineering Services.

“I’ve been a fitter and turner for 20 or 30-odd years,” Lance said.

“I was contracted to Top Taste Bakeries, they used to ring me for equipment maintenance and repairs.

“But when the recession really started to hit I lost the contract, and a lot of companies were the same, so basically I was at home and decided I would keep it (my services) going … and keep it local.

“Even as a kid I repaired go-karts and motorbikes and, living on a farm, basically you did it all yourself. So I guess I just had a knack for it (metal work and machinery repairs) from when I was little and I was always going to go that way.”

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Metal manufacturing workers use talents to transform scraps into art

By Rick Barrett of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Feb. 8, 2010

When a piece of scrap metal falls to the factory floor at Wagner Companies, employee James Woggon may be close behind, snapping it up as material for his artwork.

So when thousands of small metal rings were going to be scrapped, Woggon used them – and a chair from the company cafeteria – to create a funky piece of patio furniture.

It was strictly for fun. Yet the talents of Woggon and fellow employee Jason Scott have not been lost on their employer, which manufactures things such as hand railings and snowplow parts. The two were hired as metal fabricators, an unglamorous job that often involves making thousands of parts in a repetitive fashion. But when work slows down, Woggon and Scott use their artistic talents in the factory.

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Donation of equipment welds together knowledge for students

By SEAN ELY, Argus-Press Staff Writer
Monday, February 1, 2010 10:17 AM EST

Terex Simplicity’s recent sales increases prompted the company to purchase new welding equipment to further improve their business.

That couldn’t have been better news for both Byron and Ovid-Elsie high schools.

“We had a number of pieces of welding equipment on reserve as backups, so we decided to find a home for them,” said Keith Shivnen, Terex general manager. “We reached out to the local schools to boost and supplement their classes.”

The high schools’ industrial arts and welding programs received the massive MIG and stick Lincoln welding machines, valued at about $500 apiece with Terex maintenance supervisor Neil Marshall coordinating pick up and delivery. Ovid-Elsie received eight machines while Byron requested two.

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But his – well, with just a few adjustments, it’s more of a possibility than you might think.

In North Kitsap, Turning Old Cars Into New Planes

By GENE YOACHUM FOR THE KITSAP SUN

Brady McCormick has his eyes on the skies.

The machine shop owner sees an opportunity looming in building experimental aircraft power plants out of 40-year-old Corvair automobile engines.

McCormick, 42, said the recent announcement that Seattle-based Boeing Co. is opening a plant in South Carolina instead of Puget Sound “creates a vacuum’’ for aircraft manufacturing locally.

“Now’s my chance to fill that vacuum,” he said, tongue planted firmly in cheek. “I haven’t found the plans yet for a 747, but as soon as I do, they are in trouble.”

McCormick’s plans for building experimental airplanes powered by Corvair engines is no joke.

Pulled from wrecking yards and scrap heaps, engines from Chevrolet’s once-popular compact car are perfect for experimental aircraft enthusiasts to rebuild and convert into airplane engines, he said.

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Chris Santistevan and John Hams (left to right)

At Arc-Zone.com we get some interesting customers, and Chris Santistevan is no exception. He not only a trapeze artist he is a welder too!

At night he dazzles visitors at the Las Vegas Ultimate Variety Show (see video below).

By day, however, he can be seen fabricating stainless steel above-ground pools for high rise hotels in the city.

Chris called us up looking for a good tungsten grinding solution– Arc-Zone.com offers the industry’s most comprehensive line up of tungsten sharpeners.

He was concerned that his newer employees were wasting a lot of time dressing tungsten on side grinders, and they were getting inconsistent welds.  We got him hooked up with a Sharpie DX-K pro-kit, and he told us a little bit about his work.

Chris fabricates stainless steel custom pool liners as well as  supply pipes, flanges, and tubes.  I didn’t know this, but evidently it’s a requirement that hotels with pools above the twelfth floor have the pool made entirely from TIG welded stainless steel!

Once completed, the pool is then sprayed with gunite to look like  a traditional pool.   As Chris points out, no one ever actually gets to see his work, but it is critical to the safety of the hotel nonetheless!

100 miles.  1 gallon.  Go! That’s the premise behind the upcoming One Gallon Challenge – a contest for alternative fuel vehicles to see who can get to Boston from Greenfield the fastest on one gallon of gas, if at all.

Contestants hope to drive the future into Boston

By Laura A. Bennett, Globe Correspondent

(Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe)

Roo Trimble has been holed up in his backyard shed for months. Hunched amid whirring saws and jagged metal scraps, he has been welding the aluminum skeleton of a small car, smoothing the joints between the latticed pipes, aligning the wheels, and climbing in and out of the metal hull to make sure he can fit snugly – but not too snugly – inside.

Trimble hopes the three-wheeled, almond-shaped contraption will carry him to victory Thursday in a first-time event called the One Gallon Challenge. As part of the second Boston GreenFest, Trimble and six others will attempt to drive their homemade cars from Greenfield to Boston City Hall Plaza, a distance of 100 miles, using just 1 gallon of gasoline.

“These days,’’ Trimble said, wiping his brow with the back of one hand, “we need to think about taking the snail shells off our cars – not dragging our house with us everywhere we go.’’

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Milwaukee forum brings inventors, entrepreneurs together

Tannette Johnson-Elie | Connections
Posted: July 21, 2009

As a patent attorney, Jill Gilbert Welytok frequently encounters people who come up with clever inventions but lack the resources and connections to launch their products.

Photo By: MaryJo Walicki --- Doug Bartelt stands in a heavy-duty lifter mounted in the back of his truck.

“Many people will go through great expense filing a patent for products that they couldn’t sell or make money from,” said Welytok, a managing partner with Absolute Technology Law Group LLC, a 3-year-old Milwaukee company that specializes in patents, trademarks, copyrights, licensing agreements and due diligence. “Sometimes people have a great idea or product, but what matters most is what the market thinks.”

If the market thinks your product stinks, you’re not going to make money from it. But what if you could test your invention on other inventors and entrepreneurs who have successfully developed and marketed products?

Thanks to Welytok, there now is a place where local inventors can come together to network and share ideas: The Downtown Milwaukee Inventors’ and Entrepreneurs’ Forum. The forum meets monthly at the Germania Building, 135 W. Wells St., and draws 60 to 120 people.

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Survival—Are factors other than the economy dragging down your operation?

By Art Hedrick, Contributing Writer
February 10, 2009

I’m not going to sugar-coat it; our economy stinks. As optimistic as I’d like to think I am, I am also a realist. Maybe it’s because I live in Michigan, the heart of the U.S. automotive industry. Need I say more?

Like many of you, I also have felt the effects of our economy. Financial outlooks are quite bleak for some die shops and stampers. I wish I were writing a “how to” article about deep-drawing techniques, or several ways to reduce pierce punch breakage. Something to help you reduce your stamping and die-building costs would be great. However, with the economy the way it is, I really doubt if some of the tooling tips I can offer, such as changing the clearance for a piercing operation or polishing a radius in a drawing die, will have a dramatic impact on your overall company profit. No doubt every improvement helps, but realistically, these tips probably won’t save your company.

I am not an economist, nor a financial expert, and I certainly don’t want to pretend that I have the magic solution that will solve our financial crisis. However, throughout my career as a consultant, I have made some common observations with respect to die shops and stampers. Sharing this knowledge may help your company to be far more competitive.

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What are you doing to keep your weld shop in business?

When I read Dan’s letter to the President I was impressed that it clearly tells the story of a real person trying to build something of value, and it includes facts — no emotion, no negative attacks — about the shift that has taken place in the American economy, a shift which clearly is not working.

Thanks Dan for taking the time to put your thoughts in writing — I hope you get a response, and more importantly I hope we as a nation can get back to building things of value — preferably out of metal!

You too can let President Obama know your thoughts. The White House website is easy to navigate– and you can use the easy Contact Us email form, or go old skool and write a letter.

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

I am writing today to express my belief that the bail out of financial
institutions with tax payer dollars is wrong. Private liability should
not be covered by government debt. I believe failure should be
punished. I encourage you to cease such payments and instead prosecute those in the financial sector and government who have committed fraud and embezzlement.

I have watched with dismay as the US GDP swapped from 25%
manufacturing 11% financial services in 1978 to 21% financial services
and 13% manufacturing in 2008. I believe that industries such as
manufacturing are essential to a healthy economy. What our government is doing is shifting money from industries which CREATE wealth such as manufacturing, mining and agriculture to sectors which simply TRANSFER wealth specifically financial services.

I own a small company which builds robots and other industrial
machinery. I just paid the corporate taxes for my company for this
quarter. An amount many times larger than my salary.

What will the US government do with this money? As part of the
$800,000,000,000 bail out, my corporate taxes will only pay a small
portion of _one_ of the bonuses which the banking industry paid its
executives.

Had this money remained in my company here are examples of how we have historically spent it:

1. Continue to reduce the trade deficit by building and shipping
30% of our total sales overseas (data from 2008)

2. Continue our research into new industrial techniques which
has resulted in 2 patents granted, with several more pending.

3. Purchase American made equipment which we use to build our
products. In 2008 we purchased 5 new machine tools using corporate
equity. This is in spite of a 42% tax rate penalty for using equity
financing rather than debt financing!

4. Pay for the continuing education of our personnel. We
currently are paying for books and tuition for several employees
enrolled in school.

5. Pay for 100% of the health, life and disability insurance for
our 45 employees and 33% of their families.

When hurricane Ike struck Houston, my company suffered over $100,000 in damages which were not covered by insurance. We did not receive any government assistance.

When I started my company in my garage 25 years ago, I did not receive any government assistance.

When I struggled during the early 1990s, I held my paychecks, and used my savings to survive, without any government assistance.

I have never asked for or wanted a bail out. All I ask for is a level
playing field. Now I see that the US Government rewards failure, fraud
and embezzlement, using the wealth generated by fiscally conservative hard working citizens.

Will the next generation of entrepreneurs be willing to risk everything, and work late nights when they realize that success is punished and failure rewarded? I believe in the USA, never before have I felt that the system was unfair as it is now. I am disillusioned and disappointed.

Stop the looting and start prosecuting if you want to restore our
faith in the system.

Daniel Allford, President and Owner
ARC Specialties- Houston, Texas

Now they’ve partnered with Northrup Grumman, showcasing the Spirit of Innovation Chopper on the season premiere of Orange County Choppers…

A note about Northrup Grumman– Arc-Zone.com supplies them with a variety of technical welding components — including our popular all-purpose, hybrid ArcTime(TM) tungsten electrodes. They love it!

PALMDALE, Calif. – April 2, 2009 – The B-2 bomber-themed motorcycle commissioned by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first flight of the stealthy aircraft is expected to roll into America’s living rooms on Thursday, April 9.

The custom design and build of the B-2 Stealth Bike by Orange County Choppers, Newburgh, N.Y., will be featured on the 2009 season premiere of the cable TV reality series “American Chopper,” which airs on TLC at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Check local listings for show times.

“We named our bike ‘The Spirit of Innovation’ to honor the engineering innovation and the successful Northrop Grumman/Air Force partnership

that developed and today sustains and modernizes the B-2 bomber,” said Dave Mazur, Northrop Grumman’s vice president of long range strike and the company’s B-2 program manager. “The bike also honors the airmen and families of the 509th Bomb Wing, Whiteman AFB, Mo., whose daily sacrifices keep the B-2 fleet ready to protect the nation’s interests worldwide.”

Northrop Grumman is the Air Force’s prime contractor for the B-2 stealth bomber, the flagship of the nation’s long range strike arsenal. The aircraft made its first flight on July 17, 1989.

The B-2 Stealth Bike was designed by Orange County Choppers to capture the look, feel and aura of one of the world’s most revolutionary and most survivable weapon systems. Its gas tank and extended front cowling are shaped to resemble the aircraft’s unique cockpit and fuselage. Each side of each of its wheels contains five individually machined B-2 models positioned in the shape of an Air Force star. And its handlebars, seat and “aft deck” are set parallel to the leading edge of its gas tank, mimicking the B-2′s stealthy “planform-aligned” design.

Northrop Grumman is featuring the B-2 Stealth Bike at 20th anniversary events throughout 2009. It will be appearing at aerospace industry trade shows, military air shows and on college campuses. A highlight of this celebration will be an historical re-enactment of the B-2′s first flight in July from the company’s B-2 program headquarters in Palmdale.

Orange County Choppers (OCC) is considered one of the world’s premier builders of custom motorcycles. The “American Chopper” series chronicles the lives of OCC principals Paul Teutul, Sr., Paul Teutul, Jr. and son Mikey as they battle deadlines to create custom choppers.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.

CONTACT: Brooks McKinney, APR
Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems
(310) 331-6610
Cell: (310) 864-3785
brooks.mckinney@ngc.com