Shop Profiles

When it comes to components for industrial machines, Montana Hydraulics LLC owners Mark and Della Ehlke say there isn’t much they can’t make. “We’re able to pretty much take on just about anything,” Mark said. “In fact, we had a tagline at one point: ‘If you can imagine it, we can build it.’”

To build cars, appliances and airplanes, it takes tools made in Idaho. At Micro 100 Tool Corp., a cutting-edge operation helps create cutting tools. "We make carbide cutting tools that are used in all machining and manufacturing operations around the world," said Dale Newberry, president of Micro 100 Tool.

Some people say there is an art to machining. In some cases, there is actual artwork. Machinists Inc. in Seattle, the largest precision machining shop in the Northwest, has made big sculptures since the early 1990s. The first piece was a 17'×13'×3' steel sculpture that hangs in Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, and many more have followed. However, art accounts for only about 1 percent of the manufacturer’s work, said Weld Engineer Steve Pollard, who has been with the company for 30 years.

John and Miles O’Brien are two of a few South Bend, Ind., business founders whose product is still being manufactured in the United States. John and Miles, born in Ireland in 1868, were identical twins whose family immigrated to the U.S., settling in Connecticut in the 1870s. At the age of 35, they went into business for themselves in a one-room building at the corner of West Washington and Johnson streets in South Bend. They began manufacturing lathes, at the time the most vital machine for any industry using metal or steel parts.

Customers of Cobra Carbide asked the company for made-in-America cutting tools and the West Coast manufacturer of drills, endmills, reamers and burs met their request. Until late 2016, Cobra sold tools in the U.S. that were produced either at its Riverside, Calif., facility or a plant it owned in India, which the company recently sold. It now produces all its tools in Riverside. “As more and more customers asked for made-in-the-U.S. product, we changed accordingly,” said Cobra Carbide’s CEO, Rakesh Aghi.

As product miniaturization continues, micromachining continues to make inroads into the manufacturing industry, and CTE will once again provide a special section about micromachining in our May issue. At the other end, I’ve noticed more developments in large-part machining, and, coincidentally, our April issue will include a focus on that topic.

Cutting Tool Engineering (CTE) is seeking machine shop candidates to be featured in an episode of our new Shop Ingenuity video series, which debuted earlier this year. The series is open to any shop that would like to share its story of shop innovation.