Ah, had a wonderful day today. Had a customer visit to talk about a current mold fix we are working on. Apparently the shop that built the mold didn't feel there was a sense of urgency to get it fixed and turned around. The customer asked us to help out and we stepped up for them. After some inspection we found the slide burns were .005 off and mismatched. That's too bad because it's a good looking mold. The just didn't take care when setting up their EDM burn and obviously never checked it when completed. We're almost complete with the fix and we'll have it back in the press well under the time the original mold builder was thinking.

Spent the second part of the day making phone calls trying to find out why a few of the customers aren't paying their bill. Naturally no one wants to answer the phone or respond back. I'll be at it again tomorrow morning. It's kind of funny, big companies that you you've met all your commitments too and deliver a quality tool on time can't pay their bill on time. I know if we were two weeks late delivering a tool they would be all over our butts. That's the one big thing that can be discouraging about being in business (not to mention NY State breaking chops). Only a few problems and they used to be good at paying the invoices. Most of our customers are great and appreciate the effort we put forth and the relationships we have developed. I must find more. My quest continues.

Been going steady for us. Knocking out some smaller jobs and some quick turn around engineering changes. Looking to start getting some new marketing material made up. Time to put a hard press on our marketing and sales efforts. Also looking to unload some older equipment we don't use much anymore. The newer equipment is so much faster and more efficient.

Looking to sell this Agie AC-50 Wire EDM machine. We have another identical machine we have taken offline and kept in case we needed any spare parts. This machine is still as accurate as can be but our new Mitsubishi EDM cranks the work out at a much faster pace. We haven't needed this more than a few times in the past year. 

2 forward, 1 back

It was a hot one today. The day started a little humid but cool and breezy. Th guys opted to have the doors open for fresh air. Needless to say buy lunch time it was hot and humid in the shop. We have a concrete roof and that just absorbs the sunlight and radiates the heat into the building. The weather forecast is the same for tomorrow. The AC goes on.

It really hurts when building a tool, that we miss something and shoot ourselves in the foot. Costing time and money. It's even worse we one of our suppliers does it to us. We got burned today by a supplier fat-fingering a catalog number into their system. We take the component out of the box, go to mount it and find there is an interference that cannot be avoided. So much for shipping the tool today. Fortunately, we have a very understanding customer.

Welcome

Welcome to the Turning Point Tool blog. We'll be using this site to keep you up to date on some of the things going on with us and the industry. Post some interesting articles and cover some a of the random stuff that happens daily around here. You'll get introduced to some of the characters who work here and pass by, and also some insight into some of our trials and triumphs.

This week is starting out with us trying to wrap up a single cavity gun stock mold. Our schedule of wrapping up last week we interrupted when the customer's tooling manager wanted to make some minor improvements to the tool to avoid potential mishaps and down time. We also have some other tooling we're working on including an 8 cavity connector and a 2 cavity ferrule mold with collapsible cores. We had to call in one of our contract workers to help us out with the glut of grinding we have on the eight cavity mold. We'll call him Walt, to protect his innocence or lack there of. Walt came right in and took charge right where he left off. Cleaning his area and organizing my toolbox to the way he likes it.

Our lunch times are usually entertaining as we always find ways to break chops about the latest headlines, sporting event or figuring out the daily NY Times crossword. Today we talked about the Fiat commercial on during the Bills game. The one with the four girls in bikini's rushing out of the car. The voice-over says the car sits 4...or 5 and shows a crab in the car snapping it's claws. Larry thought the commercial might be about the girls having crabs. I had to correct him that the crab was the fifth person in the car pinching their butts.

Yep, that's what it's like here.