Ok... so, things have been progressing. In case anyone is interested, here's the scoop: A few months ago I finally quit my gov't job of 16 years to work full time at Tuff Writer. While I've been making and selling pens for over 8 years now, it was until now a part-time gig. At first solo then with Peachy and eventually we added a couple of employees. While we were still growing it became apparent over time that Tuff Writer would never reach its potential (whatever that may be) with us only running it part-time. Someone had to make the leap and while a nice fat government paycheck and pension are appealing, sometimes you need to step into the unknown and see what you can make with your own two hands (and a few carbide endmills). Where does that leave us? I'm glad you asked.
The shop:
I've spent the past few years at Gateway college in the industrial design and manufacturing technology program. The goal was to be able to do all of our own design and engineering work but it quickly grew past that. While we've always had a huge part in making all of our products (designing, finishing, assembling, etc), over the past few years we've been bringing more and more hard manufacturing in-house to the point where we decided that we should just bring (almost) everything in-house. Joe, Peachy, Savannah and I have spent the past year building out the shop and over the past six months or so we have been purchasing equipment. Not just band-saws, compressors, blasting cabinets, grinders and buffers but also CNC machines. What kind of CNC machines, you ask?
At the moment we've got a HAAS ST-20SSY lathe (Y-axis and live tooling... smooth like butter):
We've also got a HAAS VF-2SS mill (a typical day at the office):
These were a big investment (huge, actually... I can kiss my mid-life crisis Porsche goodbye) but it's something we thought we had to make happen. A few months ago I read an article in The Economist that had a fantastic quote by Elon Musk where he stated, "Companies create value by doing things that are hard." This really struck me because he's so very right. Value creation lies in doing things which are inherently difficult, in creating things which are hard to make. So many companies have limited specialties and focus on cost cutting efficiency or economies of scale, "focused core competencies" and minimizing their footprints and capital outlays. You know, business stuff. Many of these companies have lost sight of of why manufacturing actually exists (our industry happens to be an exception). That said, good companies are those who focus on doing the things that are difficult (General-Electric) while great companies are those who do things that are thought by most to be impossible (Space X). In order for us to grow and become the company we know that we can be, we needed to take these steps and do the hard things. Take risks, learn new skills, get our hands dirty and build something special, then do it again and even better than before.
So, thank you for your patience with us while we've been balls deep in this painful growth and build-out phase this past year and stick with us to see where this all goes (cuz I sure as shit want to see it myself).
Who knows... with your help we might just make something special here.
-Jack
