Tom Barnard didn’t grow up dreaming to someday open his own business, become an entrepreneur. Rather, he planned to work hard all of his life, excel in his trade, that of Journeyman tool grinder, and then retire. He knew tool grinding as well as any expert you will meet, having started literally as a teenager growing up in a small town outside of Eugene, Oregon.
But life often has different plans for us. In Tom’s case, he spent 3 decades as a tool grinder (and subsequently a tool and fixture designer), many of which were with his long-term employer in the Salt Lake City area. The company changed names throughout Tom’s tenure due to acquisitions. (E-Systems, which was acquired by Raytheon Aircraft Corp, and then sold to Moog.) Finally, the large entity announced that it would be moving operations to the Philippines.
Tom says, “The company gave us a few years notice before they relocated to the Philippines. It gave me time to plan to open my own business, which I named Exact Tool Grinding.” Tom continued to work for his employer, but he and his wife worked 2-3 jobs to save enough money for when Tom would actually go out on his own.
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Tom says, “My wife and I taught motorcycle safety classes, I was a machine shop teacher at Salt Lake City Community College, I worked full time for my employer, and I opened my business, where I worked evenings and weekends at a friend’s machine shop.”
When the day finally arrived when all the machinists working for Moog would no longer be employed by the large corporation, Tom was ready to begin running his business full time. He purchased some of the manual grinding machines from his previous employer, and leased his own private shop, where he still resides today.
Tom says, “The machinists I had worked with at our past employer spread out into new positions in various machine shops all over the valley. This gave me an entree into a number of companies, and they knew me for my specialty.”
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Business grew from the time Tom went full time in 2009 through the next years, enough so that Tom had to hire his first employee to support the company’s growth. Tom’s son Jess was working as a plumber, and though the skills for plumbing and machine tool grinding are quite different, Jess shared Tom's mechanical aptitude, and he would learn from a Journeyman tool grinder.
“Tom can manually grind tools you would expect to be done on a CNC grinder”, one of his long-term customers said. “He is just that good.” Still manual grinding of tools is clearly more time consuming than it would take with a CNC grinder, and it was not as accurate.
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He also called Smith Machinery Co, who carries the ANCA grinder machine line. “Everyone views ANCA as a superior grinding machine.” He continued, “Just as important as the quality of the machine I was buying was the company I would be buying it from. Smith Machinery was immediately very helpful, and they scheduled time for me to meet with some of ANCA’s engineering and support team”, he said. Tom was familiar with the best-known CNC grinding machines from his previous employer, but he says he wasn’t involved in the purchase decisions, nor did he have experience running the machines.
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Tom contacted a couple of local dealers in Salt Lake City. “One dealer never even called me back, and I then called the regional manager for the builder, and he too never followed back up with me.”
Tom says, “I am very conservative by nature. I knew that when Jess joined the business, if we were to make this a viable entity that would continue for the next decades, we would need to invest in a CNC grinding machine. But we didn’t believe that we could afford one or that we could get the financing we needed.
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Jess and Tom now have several months of experience running their ANCA FastGrind. Tom says, “The quality and consistency of the tools is now superior to what we could do manually.” The company continues to utilize their manual grinding machines, and Tom says the manual machines are best sometimes when they are just grinding one tool or for insert modifications. He says the FastGrind offers the following:
• Quick and easy set-up
• Superior tool accuracy • High quality surface finish • Flexibility to grind a large variety of tool types • Machine reliability and accuracy |
Tom knows that he made the right decision in purchasing the ANCA. “For one thing”, he says, “We are very pleased with the service we get both from Smith Machinery and from the team at ANCA.” He continued, “I didn’t plan to make any money on this machine for 6 months.” Jess attended ANCA’s weeklong training in Detroit just after the company bought the new machine. Tom says, “Last month, less than 6 months after owning the new machine, 57% of our business was derived from the ANCA. And while I initially thought I would have this machine for 10 years, and buy my second ANCA in 5 years, I now believe it will happen much sooner than my original time line.”
Exact Tool Grinding is well known for its re-grind capabilities, and they perform this service to more than 100 shops, most of who are in Utah. But they do more than re-grinding. Much more. They do a substantial amount of tool design, much like what Tom did at his previous employer. Tom says they also do a substantial amount of building solid carbide form tools. “Our sweet spot is tools that are ¾” and smaller, but we can support customers’ larger tooling requests. For example, when we have a customer who comes to us with a 1” tool that needs fluting, while it is time consuming for us to do, we are still often able to turn the tool around to them in a timely manner -- versus several weeks if they were to order it from a catalog house.” The company additionally has customers who purchase a generic end mill and have Exact Tool Grinding tool it with a corner radius or a corner chamfer. Tom says customers request this service to save money on their tooling. The company also is able to ‘re-flute’ tools.
Exact Tool Grinding’s customers appreciate them for a number of reasons, most importantly that the quality they will receive from their regrind or custom tools is second to none. Additionally, as a small shop, Tom is extremely flexible. “I know if one of our customer’s machine is down, it is costing the shop over $100 per hour. If it’s down because they don’t have a tool, we are here to help the best we can to get them running again”.
If you need tool grinding or custom grinding,
Exact Tool Grinding is an excellent choice.
You can reach them at 801-712-2720 or visit ExactToolGrinding.com
Article courtesy of A2Z Metalworker
41 West Guest Avenue
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
Phone: 801-263-6403
Fax: 801-263-6404
Email: smc@smithmachinetools.com
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
Phone: 801-263-6403
Fax: 801-263-6404
Email: smc@smithmachinetools.com
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