info@ephrataprecision.com 717-336-2814 Home Services About Contact Free Durometer Sample Blog Ask a Toolmaker Now While He Still Knows Everything Did you ever wonder how an animal qualifies for the Endangered Species List? It turns out that a species must meet specific criteria regarding its habitat, health, and hardships. Its habitat must be threatened or shrinking, its health in decline, and its hardships nearly insurmountable. Sadly, these criteria can apply to many aspects of life outside of listing an animal or plant as threatened or endangered. For instance, we can apply the criteria to specific jobs, like the magical Tool & Die Maker. Many people will be surprised to hear that the American Tool & Die profession is marginally endangered. Why? Well, let’s look at the criteria: Habitat : As manufacturing moved overseas to cut costs, American Tool & Die Makers saw their work relocate to other countries. Health : As many businesses ultimately discovered, off-shore manufacturing did not hold their employees to the high level of professionalism America’s Tool & Die Makers had made commonplace. Tools arriving from overseas might be off by just a few thousandths, but that small margin was enough to scrap sufficient quantities of parts to increase financial losses. Who wants an eye scalpel that doesn’t meet tight FDA standards used on his eye? Businesses no longer trusted their sources. Hardships : Currently, there is a lack of Tool & Die Makers. As jobs moved off-shore, the lack of people looking for training and apprenticeships forced companies to cut back on offering these opportunities. This turned into a vicious cycle—low opportunity led to low interest that led to fewer opportunities that led to even less interest. Factor in our nation’s obvious prejudice against trade schools and manual labor, and it is no wonder young men and women spurn the trades. Now, America is at the critical point where Tool & Die Makers are in demand, and there are not enough toolmakers to fill needed positions. As costs rise due to the demands on Tool & Die Makers spread among fewer and fewer of the profession, the pain is felt in every wallet in our country. Tool & Die Makers make the world function, and we need more of them to keep our phones ringing, cars running, and candy calling. From this vantage point, the future looks bleak. Young men and women today want to make a career by vlogging on YouTube or designing video games. What happens to those careers when the Tool & Die Maker is not producing the tools to make the hardware for their computers? Thankfully, these jobs are slowly coming back to the USA as foreign manufacturers cannot meet required standards. Our task, now, is to recruit more men and women into the Tool & Die profession to meet increasing demand. Once we re-establish our habitat, better our health, and decrease our hardships, this essential and critical profession will blossom. Toolmaker, Toolmaker, Make Me a Tool! Allow me to admit up front that I am partial – I am the child of a Tool & Die Maker. Therefore, I have a healthy respect for the profession encoded in my DNA. Working for Ephrata Precision and with our Tool & Die Department has given me a new perspective on my father’s profession. The more I learn about Tool & Die Makers, the more I stand in awe of their accomplishments. There is this entire underworld - a hidden world - manufactured and serviced by Tool & Die Makers. Their work has slipped into the everyday, mundane aspects of life. Our watches, our cars, our sinks, our food – it is all made possible by the Toolmaker and his profession. The more I peel back the layers of my life and identify how much of it comes from a shop like Ephrata, the more I realize the vital role we play in this mysterious and hidden underworld. So how did Ephrata Precision Parts enter into the Tool & Die underworld? The story starts in 1962 when Bob Bensing and Joe Anthony formed Ephrata Tool. The company is remembered as one of the more innovative tool & die institutions in our area. Servicing companies like Amp, Graco, Mack Trucks, Slaymaker, and Sharpoint, Ephrata Tool earned its reputation by churning out precise and complex tools. In a calculated move, it was also one of the first companies in the county to purchase a Wire EDM machine. Even today, people in the industry recognize and remember the name of Ephrata Tool. After 33 years in business, Ephrata Tool was purchased and incorporated into Ephrata Precision Parts. Until that point, Ephrata was exclusively a machine and polyurethane shop. The acquisition brought an established tool & die department to the company. Today, Ephrata Precision’s Tool & Die Dept. has over 160 years of combined experience in designing, building, and repairing various dies. We’ve worked on punch, progressive, transfer, and forming dies – just to name a few. We either work from a drawing provided by our customer, or our tool designer will work with the customer to prepare prints for the manufacture of the die. Then the Tool & Die Maker will evaluate the drawings, draft a plan of manufacture, identify the best materials, and then machine each component of the tool or die. Once every component is completed, the toolmaker will assemble the die. Our toolmakers will begin with a print and finish with a fully assembled, working product. In contrast, regular machinists only make runs of individual component parts on the machines on which they have been trained. Tool & Die Makers require training on a multitude of machines including—but not limited to—mills, lathes, Wire EDMs, Grinders, Honing machines, cylindrical grinders, etc. The skill set displayed by the Tool & Die Maker in executing his job is legendary. Tool & Die Makers report high levels of satisfaction with their job. They get to manufacture and assemble a piece of machinery that actually produces a finished part. Job security is also rated highly – as long as there are metal parts that need to be made, a Tool & Die Maker will be employed in manufacturing the tool to make them. Every time a new cell phone enters the market, a Tool & Die Maker earns his wand. Spend some time examining the items in your life that you normally don’t notice. Chances are there is a Toolmaker out there somewhere making a tool to make your life a little easier. The Myth, The Man, The Legend: The Tool & Die Maker There are many modern conveniences that we humans take for granted. For instance, consider the telephone. When I was but a little human, my phone was chained to the wall with a cord and had a rotary dial. Now, we can pick up a phone and vocally instruct it to call anyone in our contact list. Once the call is completed, we stash it in our pocket and take it with us around the world. Evidence of our new reality surrounds us: phones, computers, smart appliances, medical equipment, television, cars, and new knees. Who makes all of these things? Wizards. I vote for wizards. Honestly, the real hero behind our modern world does not get much credit. He has never made Time’s “Man of the Year,” nor will she ever be interviewed by Oprah. That person: the Tool & Die Maker. Oh, you never heard of that person before? Join the club. Fifty years ago, a Tool & Die Maker was – and still is - a prestigious occupation. A predominantly male field at the time, toolmakers arrived at work in suits and ties. Employing an apron to keep their attire clean, these men set to work building the world one small component at a time. This occupation is not for the faint of heart. After conquering the machinist trade, they embark on a 4-5 year apprenticeship coupled with some college classes in order to earn the coveted title of “Tool & Die Maker.” While this career will never be listed in the brochure for Harvard or Yale, these men and women have put in more time than required to earn a four year college degree. Along the way, they learn key concepts of engineering, drafting, mathematics, technology, and electronics. This trade requires a detail-oriented person that is not scared of - and takes pride in - extremely tight tolerances (They produce parts to tolerance within a tenth of a thousandth of an inch - divide a human hair into four parts, and then divide that into ten segments—that’s 0.0001”). So why is the Tool & Die Maker eligible to be a wizard? When people today think of their handy cell phone, they probably don’t realize that someone without a Harvard degree built the die to stamp out the small parts that make it operate. That same profession is the backbone of the security industry, the medical industry, the automotive industry, the electronic industry, and so forth. It was a Tool & Die Maker that designed and stamped that scalpel and a Tool & Die Maker that made that trendy fender for the sports car. They have their magical stamp in every small component of American life. Without the Tool & Die Industry, you would not be on your phone or computer reading this blog. Someone should inform Hallmark it is time to mass produce cards (a job made possible by the Tool & Die Makers of the World) encouraging humans to “Thank a Tool & Die Maker Today.” Better yet, consider a career as a Tool & Die Maker. Who doesn’t want to be a wizard? Grill Us on Polyurethane Applications for Your Industry The moment imprints itself in a person’s memory like a flash of lightning leaves a vivid path once the eyes are closed. In this instance, it was a hamburger patty at the bottom of the box. Not just any box – a wooden box residing in the loft of the manufacturing facility where it was a sweltering one hundred degrees. Amazingly, it still looked good. It was a nice brown color with little white speckles of fat. To the touch, it was not tacky or slimy, and I could detect no odor. I carefully examined the patty, admiring the texture and plump round shape. Glancing back in the box, I spied a few more hamburger patties littering the bottom. My find left me giddy with excitement. I had a business expo looming on the calendar, and these hamburger patties were going to be the star of the show. Of course, that was why we had been contracted to cast them in the first place. A company that manufactured equipment that formed hamburger patties asked us to cook up some samples that they could run in their machines for demonstrations. Always up to a challenge, our Polyurethane Department designed and cast numerous life-like hamburger patties. I still remember the day I discovered the patties and the story of their origins. It showcased for me how polyurethane had proven to be such a versatile and creative material. Ephrata Precision specializes in polyurethane for industrial applications, and our files are rife with interesting examples. Besides hamburger patties, we’ve manufactured metal-impregnated polyurethane chocolate bars to test metal detection lines in candy factories. For all chocolate lovers out there, making sure that metal bits do not fall into the vat of chocolate and make their way to our mouths is a very important application. I test our work frequently. The applications for polyurethane are numerous and varied. While we do our fair share of wheels, rollers, pads, and gears, it is always fun to encounter a new part or application that requires us to think outside the box. As custom molders, we enjoy the plethora of parts and colors that cycle through our shop. One customer had a boss that hated pink, so he had us cast his wheels with hot pink pigment. We have molded treads for high end patio furniture beyond our pay grade and horns for award-winning antique cars. Ephrata has cast wheels that rotate vats of cereal, pads for injured cow hooves, mats used to manufacture solar panels, and dead-blow pads that prevent metal bars from bouncing out of bins. In over three decades of existence, we have encountered fascinating applications from across the continental United States. If we can manufacture fake hamburger patties and chocolate bars, just imagine what our polyurethane can do for your business! The First Look at a New Adventure Our country nourishes a culture of “firsts” and “new beginnings.” An American was the first to walk on the moon, the first to make a telephone call, and the first to us e email. Recently, we gained our first female Vice President. Every year we celebrate “New Year’s” and look forward to beginning anew as we flip the calendar to January. This year, Ephrata Precision decided to jump on the bandwagon and premier our new website. While it is not our first website, it is certainly an improvement with cool new features. We’re publishing our first blog, premiering our new facilities page, and looking forward to meeting new customers. Here at Ephrata Precision, we love all things “new.” Our machinists love expensive new equipment, our estimators love quoting new parts, and our shipping department loves new skids. New software upgrades? Maybe not so much…. The Roman god Janus (the namesake of January) is the god of doorways, connecting the past to the future and initiating the grand entrance of something new. Ephrata Precision has a lot in our past to be thankful for as we emerge into this new technological era (well, new for us). We value our customers—some have grown with us over the past fifty years while others may have only partnered with us recently. No matter how long our association, we are thankful for each one. We appreciate our vendors— over the past five decades, we have built a trusted network of suppliers to reinforce our business. Their dedication to quality materials and knowledgeable staff has allowed us to better serve our customers. We are indebted to our employees—past and present. They are the foundation of Ephrata Precision Parts, and we daily build upon their experience and knowledge. Our future employees have some big shoes to fill. When Ephrata Precision first began in a small cigar factory with two employees almost fifty years ago, no one ever dreamed of the day we would launch a new website. Perhaps they envisioned a new ad in the local paper, but not a website capable of spanning the globe. Today, Ephrata Precision Parts steps through the doorway into a new age. We have email (to some people’s chagrin), Wi-Fi, 3D printers, cell phones, Facebook, and a new website. Life is full of possibilities—let the adventure begin. CONTACT US If you’re ready to bring an existing part or idea to life, give us a call or send us an email today to get started! 7am - 5pm Monday - Friday Closed Sat-Sun 405 N. 4th St. Denver, PA 17517 Mailing address: P.O. Box 323 Phone: 717-336-2814 Email: info@ephrataprecision.com Website designed by Oostas © 2021 All Rights Reserved | Ephrata Precision Parts Inc. | Sitemap Privacy Policy