PCNC Success Stories

Creativity and crowd-funding can be a powerful combination. Learn more about how self-taught CNC machinist and PCNC 1100 owner, Brad Martin, took a creative desgin idea and a gamble on Kickstarter to successfully launch a new product. His custom desgined bottle opener was only the beginning of what has lead to several popular Kickstarter projects and the path to his own small business.

Frankie Flood, Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, teaches Jewelry and Metalsmithing at the Peck School of the Arts. His motorcycle-themed pizza cutters have been sold around the world and were featured on the Bravo television series Top Chef. Learn more about Frankie, his class and see his PCNC Owner Story Video.

Amateur guitarist and professional technologist John Bower in Santa Cruz, California uses his PCNC 1100 to supply some of the world’s most renowned luthiers with parts for their hand-crafted guitars.

Twin Cities father and son design team, David and Lynn Fliger developed the Fusion Plate, an Arca-Swiss style quick release plate for a camera tripod, with a PCNC 1100. The Fusion Plate allows a photographer to quickly move from shoulder strap to tripod without any need to thread anything on or off their camera

On the front lines as licensed dental hygienist in Washington State, Lee Emmons knows firsthand that necessity is the mother of invention. Forming EMS Dental Designs, Emmons is the inventor and patent owner of the Hammer Head^® suction mirror, a Class I medical device used to remove water and debris out of the oral cavity while providing over 180 degrees of visibility.

Experienced tool and die maker Greg Deptula uses his PCNC 1100 on a daily basis. With a reputation for precision work, Deptula Precision specializes in short run precision aluminum parts. Greg hopes to expand his in Cherry Hill, New Jersey machine shop and credits his success to word-of-mouth referrals as well as a growing demand for CNC.

Learn how manufacturing Engineer Todd Wyant uses a PCNC 770 to prototype each iteration of the Alpha Hearing System, as well as low-volume production and creating jigs and fixtures for production and assembly. Todd is with Sohpono, Inc, a Biomedical device startup based out of Boulder, Colorado. Sohpono is using their PCNC 770 to help revolutionize the treatment of severe hearing loss.

Custom Pistolsmith Scott Mulkerin from SDM Fabricating was kind enough to spend a few minutes speaking about craftsmanship and "making things" with us in Episode 4 of our Tormach Owners Story video series.

For Ariel Bolanos, 2013 marks the second year as owner and operator of Boss & Sons, LLC a small family-owned machine shop located in DeForest, Wisconsin. Now in his early 30’s, Ariel’s machining background started at the age of twelve under the instruction of his father Jorge.

With an engineering background, an established career in the aerospace and medical industries and power tools, Rob Green is no stranger to the machine shop.

Playing laser tag for the past seventeen years, Tom Baker of Lafayette, Indiana has turned a teenage hobby into a successful business—all while innovating the future of the game.

Although only twenty-two years old, Will Moon has been working with metal, tools, and CNC for nearly his entire life. Over the past few years, Moon focused his efforts into Will Moon Custom Knives, where he uses a Tormach PCNC 1100 to create high-end custom knives and scales.

Mechanical engineer by day, PCNC 1100 owner Vesa Silegren revs things up a bit on the weekends. Performance racing enthusiast and self-taught machinist, when Silegren isn’t out on the course in his Honda CRX, he’s back home in his Chattanooga, Tennessee based shop SV Technologies, LLC.

While in high school, Scott Pobjoy took a part-time job at Cash Manufacturing Company, a custom machine shop and specialty manufacturer of supplies and accessories for firearms. High school ended and Pobjoy accepted a position as a full-time machinist in the shop. Purchasing the company from founder Ted D. Cash in 2006, Pobjoy has ramped up production. Cash Manufacturing now boasts a catalog of 100 parts and accessories.

David Stanavich’s career in fabrication and machining began back in 1989, after studying painting and fine art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

At age 26, John Seaber knows more about running a successful business than most his age. A recent electrical engineering graduate from Missouri University of Science and Technology (Rolla), John is the owner and president of JDS Labs, Inc. in Glen Carbon, Illinois. JDS Labs has quickly made a name for themselves in the audiophile industry as a manufacturer of customized, high-performance headphone amplifiers and digital-to-analog converters (DACs).

When Dave and Lynda Rygmyr purchased NorthWest Short Line in 2008, they became the new owners of the world's largest manufacturer of model railroad upgrade and repair parts. NorthWest Short Line manufactures wheels, axles, and gearboxes. If you've got a model locomotive that's 50 years old, odds are the Rygmyrs can help you find a spare part.

For brothers Troy and Gary Chatmajian, machining is more than a way of life—it's their legacy. As fourth-generation metal workers, they are part of a family tree brimming with craftsmen who have been working with metal since the late 1800s.

Jeff Rasnake of Rockfish, Virginia purchased a PCNC 1100 from Tormach just over three years ago. Working full time as a Manufacturing Engineer in the Maritime Navigation Industry, Rasnake's evenings are spent in his home machine shop.

Lukas Eiserman, owner and president of Eisertech, LLC—manufacturer of spinal implants and surgical instruments—uses PCNC as a core part of his business. What started as prototypes in Eiserman's home garage are now improving the quality of lives across the United States.

In his home machine shop in the mountains of New Mexico, Tormach PCNC 1100 owner Mike Sherick has many projects. From custom musical instruments to personal aircraft and astro-photography, Sherick is currently building a 24” remote control (RC) telescope for his personal observatory.

Terry Mayhugh of Round Rock, Texas used his Tormach PCNC 1100 to build a Jerry Howell 4 cylinder twin cam 4-stroke engine—a project two years and approximately 3000 hours in the making.

Engineers at Desert Star Systems in California used a PCNC 1100 with ATC and 4^th Axis to machine molds for the flipper tag project—a solar-powered radio tag worn on the flippers of sea otters. Flipper tags are used by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to monitor the behavior of sea otters and collect data about the animals’ behavior.

Paul Breed is an unreasonable man. His video post on YouTube, one of many online artifacts that detail his progress so far, is titled “Why Neighbors Think I’m Crazy.” For the camera, Breed demonstrates the injector flow rate for his lunar lander, which he is building in his garage.

Since this Customer Showcase Story was was written Nov 25, 2009, Precision Cycling Components (PCC) has "reached an agreement with TH Industries, manufacturer of Full Speed Ahead (FSA), Gravity, and Vision Brand components, to grant them an exclusive world-wide license to our design."

Inventor of the of the All Mountain Post (AMP), an ajustable bicycle seat raised and lowered through a handlebar-mounted lever, Jim Brennan of Precision Cycling Components used a Series I PCNC 1100 to innovate in the mountain bike industry.

As the Taste in Rings Changes, Jewelers Turn into Machinists

Established in 1992 by jeweler and machinist Chris Myers, Steelwerks specializes in custom surgical stainless steel and titanium products, including designer wedding bands, engagements rings, earrings and necklaces. As medical grade materials, stainless steel and titanium will not discolor or irritate people with allergies or sensitive skin, and far exceed the durability of the more conventional jewelry materials like gold, silver and platinum.

While there wasn't an “A-HA!” moment for firefighter and inventor Tyson Schultz, there was an ongoing process of developing a new product for firemen that can both make their lives both easier and potentially safer.

Ten years ago, when Fane Jones decided to retire from the excavating business he had run for more than two decades, he sold the trucks, dozers and equipment, but he kept the Saegertown, PA building he had stored them in. He hoped that one day he might have another business there.

“Prototypes and one-offs can tie up a company's resources. Every hour spent setting up that one or two pieces is an hour spent not running parts on which you make money,” says Brian Koerner. That's why he started TXI Technologies – to produce prototypes and one-offs so production companies and machine shops don't have to.

Greg Marshall, a marine biologist, was scuba diving in Belize in 1986 when he saw a suckerfish hitching a ride on a shark’s belly. “What if I could attach a video camera to that shark?” he thought, “follow it where no human could go, and see the ocean as the shark does?”

Excerpt from September 2007 Blade Magazine article: Personal CNC: The Future of Knifemaking? -

When Steve Woods is not running his 75-employee Dallas-based catalog photography company, Steven Michael Studios, he is in the shop making his own custom knives, sold through his second business, Rock River Iron, LLC (www.rockriveriron.com).

Excerpt from September 2007 Blade Magazine article: Personal CNC: The Future of Knifemaking? -

Steve Hulett has been making his own knives for 15 years, which he sells in his own retail craft shop Seldom Seen Knives (seldomseenknives.com), located a few blocks from Yellowstone National Park. “I only have so much time because I also have to run the store,” says Hulett. “I have been probably making 40 to 50 knives a year.”

Excerpt from September 2007 Blade Magazine article: Personal CNC: The Future of Knifemaking? -

Randy Williams of Arlington, Washington is by no means a novice when it comes to CNC. A CNC machinist for the past thirty years, he’s worked many industrial-grade machines. Recently he turned his knife-making hobby into a fulltime job. “The way I design knives is the CNC way – I never did do this with belt sanders and drill presses. I was never a hand-craftsman. All my designs came from the computer.”

Excerpt from September 2007 Blade Magazine article: Personal CNC: The Future of Knifemaking? -

Craig Sword founded MIL-TAC Knives and Tools (www.mil-tac.com) in Wylie, Texas in 2005. MIL-TAC focuses on manufacturing affordable knives and tools for the harsh environments that the military and law enforcement personnel face on a daily basis.