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“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
​ Author Unknown
​
If you had a strong desire to perpetuate precision manufacturing in the United States, and you could clone one young person to help achieve this, high on your list should be Graydon Udelhoven. This young man, not yet 30 years of age, is not only a mechanically gifted entrepreneur, he exudes passion for our manufacturing industry. His enthusiasm is absolutely contagious and the Quotation, Author Unknown, speaks to Graydon’s philosophy.
Graydon opened his fabrication business, which he named ‘Forbidn’, in August of 2012. Graydon was 22 when he launched the Billings, Montana, based business. He says, “Honestly, nothing specifically pointed me to owning my own business, but when I was attending high school through college, and fabricating components for a diesel company and then a chassis builder, I felt like I wanted
my own niche, to design my own products, and not to be told what to do.” He added, “I also had such an appreciation and infatuation for machining, which I had experienced just a bit with manual machines in high school.”
Prior to opening Forbidn, Graydon felt that a mechanical engineering degree would help him to achieve his goals. He attended the local community college in Billings and then went off to Bozeman to complete his degree in mechanical engineering. “I quit – in college I quickly realized most work being completed was theoretical; math problem after math problem that wasn’t applicable to a
physical component solution sitting in front me. My mind works in a way I must constantly be testing theory against a physical environment, they were testing our determination more than our imagination and I work in the opposite.”
Graydon had more ability than he gave himself credit for. He helped his grandfather Larry Udelhoven on his farm when he was growing up, fixing machinery that broke down. “I learned a lot from my grandfather, who was also a pilot and race car driver”, he adds.
When asked how he came up with the company name ‘Forbidn’, Graydon chuckles. “I thought I was pretty cool in high school, and I thought the name signified developing products that were such high quality, so outstanding that they would be forbidden to gain. Also, I knew that if I created a company, I would need a website, and the website name should be simple and effortless to navigate – it should match the business name exactly and be available as a domain. I searched available domains at the time and Forbidn.com was available. It just worked out.” And so 22-year old Graydon launched Forbidn in an 1800 square foot building with a few manual machines, including a tube bender, a welder, and a sheet metal brake. His first client commissioned the company to build a roll cage. Word spread, and Graydon kept the business open by building one-offs for various customers who came to him, learning about him through word of mouth.

Graydon quickly earned the reputation for his mechanical aptitude, where he could design a part, or re-engineer a factory
component, and make a product that was better than the original. He was building a number of parts for a diesel customer,
multiple parts that he had designed, he was sending out for machining. “Shops were giving me 4-6 week turnaround schedules,
which didn’t work well, and then they were scrapping up to 20% of the parts. This wasn’t a good business model for me, so I
decided to bring machining in-house.” (Note: Though Graydon was very mechanically gifted and quite skilled in fabrication,
he had no experience in CNC machining).
Just months after launching Forbidn, Graydon moved the business from its 1800 square foot facility into a larger building,
at 4600 square feet; it would offer the space needed for the machines he would eventually purchase. “I was going after the
power sports and job shop industry and it just so happened we ended up in the oil and gas industry”, Graydon says.
​Graydon called all the machine tool dealers who supported
Montana, (Haas Automation, Okuma, DMG Mori, Makino, and Mazak) and he says only 2 came to his shop. “Klaus Lassig, Sales Engineer for Smith Machinery, was one of the two who made the visit. Here’s what sets Klaus apart from other sales guys. I was young and I wanted the coolest most advanced machine out there. I wanted the Mazak INTEGREX. Instead of selling it to me, Klaus talked me out of buying the machine, and we settled on the Mazak Vertical Machining Center (VTC-300).” Klaus says, “Graydon was young, he was ambitious, but without
a background in machining, I knew that the Mazak INTEGREX was overkill for him, at least initially.”
Graydon says, “I did get nervous about my decision when the Mazak VTC-300 was being delivered. I talked to the driver, and I asked him if he frequently picked up Mazaks from machine shops that were closing down. The driver told me that when he delivered a new Mazak machine to a customer, the only thing he did down the road was deliver a 2nd and maybe a 3rd Mazak machine. He said he hadn’t ever picked up a Mazak from a shop that was going out of business, he just kept them coming.” Graydon says this helped solidify his decision, especially when even the truck driver knows of the Mazak euphoria.

​ ​Just a month after the Mazak VTC- 300 was installed, Sanjel USA, a leader in hydraulic fracturing equipment, came knocking on Forbidn’s door. “They were having trouble with
a prototype part and they heard I had a Mazak. I told them I would take the job on, it was a difficult one, and it would force me to use the 4th axis on the new machine.” He continued, “Thanks to Smith’s AJ, (Arthur Tucker, Applications Eng.), who helped me to truly learn the machine and take pride in operating it, we completed our first prototype part together with my lack of CNC technology. Sanjel was an outstanding customer for me until they closed their United States operations.”

​Forbidn struggled with the loss of their main customer until Graydon met John Gonitzke, CEO-Emeritus of Mark Rite Lines Equipment Company (MRL). “John shares my passion and imagination for designing products, and though he doesn’t have a machining background, we problem solve together from concept to reality.” He continued, “As a team we make it happen. MRL allows me to support their R&D efforts, where we either re-engineer existing products, or develop newer more innovative designs to preserve MRL’s reputation at the forefront of the most advanced pavement marking solutions in the world.” Business with Forbidn’s customers, particularly their largest customer, MRL, was so strong that Graydon couldn’t make parts fast enough. Between designing new products that pass vigorous testing during the R&D stage, and move to production, to keeping up with the current demand of present products, there wasn’t enough time in the day to satisfy the schedule. “With a very tight labor market, the only way I could increase my productivity was to purchase another Mazak machine”, he says, “and this time it was going to be ​a Mazak INTEGREX.” |

Late last year, Graydon purchased the Mazak INTEGREX i-200S from the Smith Machinery team. Klaus says, “The Mazak INTEGREX i-200S CNC Multi-Tasking machine combines a turning center and machining center for full 5-axis simultaneous machining and productive manufacturing. It is the fifth generation Mazak multi-tasking machine (with 2 spindles), and it offers a large machining
area and high accuracy performance.” He adds, “This time when Graydon specified this machine for the growth of his business, I knew he was ready for it.”
Graydon says, “The INTEGREX has changed our business. For one part with 177 operations, we are doing 156 of the operations on the main spindle, and then the remaining 21 operations take place after the part transfer to the sub-spindle. For this part (that starts as a 5’ stainless steel bar), you are handling the part 1 time, with the benefit of Mazak’s DONE IN ONE technology the part is transformed from the solid bar in the main spindle to a finished component in the sub spindle in one setup.” He continues, “This has drastically reduced my part handling and setup times, and along with utilizing the full 5 axis simultaneous moves, I am able to make Swarf cuts
on the part in 1/16th of the time it took me to 3 axis simultaneous machine certain features in my VTC-300.” This same part, on the Mazak VTC-300, Graydon was machining 12 parts in 7 days. Today, his Mazak INTEGREX i-200S machines 6 of these parts in 1 day. Graydon says these efficiencies enabled him to bring the pricing down for his customers.
Graydon says, “The Mazak machines are fascinating. When you go to Florence, Kentucky to the Mazak manufacturing plant, you will see Mazak machines cutting parts to make the next Mazak machine. Mazak uses its own machines to build its customers’ machines because they offer tight tolerance and high accuracy. Mazak believes in their machines and they take pride in every one of them that goes out the door to a lucky customer, and that is evident by taking a quick glance across the 800,000 square foot Kentucky facility, all you see is orange.” He continued, “We were the first machine shop in Billings, Montana to buy a Mazak machine, and when people find out you have a machine of this caliber, those who know, appreciate the technology and quality of a Mazak, they take satisfaction in knowing their parts were carved by a Mazak. I can’t keep the machines at idle on the weekends with the demand we have.”
Graydon works nearly around the clock, and this includes almost every weekend, both on Saturday and Sunday. He says, “If I have
a question or I am unsure about how to proceed on the Mazak, I will call our Smith Machinery applications engineer AJ.” He continued,
“Thankfully AJ almost always answers the phone and helps me to work through the issue, and of Smith Machinery overall, I have
to say that the support I receive from Klaus, to Clark Smith, owner of the company, to AJ, is beyond excellent, it is second to none.”
Graydon adds that he will not look outside of Smith Machinery for his machine tool needs, given what they have done for him.
When Graydon was a kid (5 years ago), he loved racing cars on 1/4-mile stretches. He doesn’t do this anymore - he says not only
doesn’t he have the time, but also he’s traded his passion for racing to a passion for machining. “Designing, modeling, programing,
and then machining...it’s your imagination at work and what I do is a learning experience every day.” He adds, “ To make really extraordinary parts you must have a true respect for your machine, and you must understand it indefinitely.”
To learn more about Forbidn Manufacturing, call (406) 366-1151 or visit www. forbidn.com
Article courtesy of A2Z magazine

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