I was going over my experience with buying items from General in Canada. A few years ago, I bought a 20 inch planer from general and I loved it before going to an oliver which gave me 4 more inches for the same foot print. So I drove up to the factory to pick this machine up. When asked why, I told the factory manager that I was interested in understanding the process that gave birth to my new toy. He was taken a back that someone would drive that distance just to see how things go in the factory... a modest little factory. I told him that and its cheaper to move this cast iron beast myself.
At any rate, he was giddy as a school boy to give me the ten cent tour. So I got to see the whole 9 yards. From the small office area where dealer orders and inquiries are processed to the big machine tools cranking out new generals. I even got to see the ONE Mazak CNC machining center they have. Its a modest little operation but the employees were very skilled and even prouder to show off their handiworks to a customer with an interest in their trades.
I even got to speak to the lead engineer who works in both design and production operations. In the back, they had just finished a run of disc sanders, lots of model 260 lathes and a two or three SS-032 shapers. The lathes were palletized and then stacked in shelves about three lathes high. It was like paying homage to the Great Wall of General.
I walked out of this place with a thought in my mind..... "This planer will not be the last General I buy!". And it wasn't. Later on I bought an SS-032 shaper which I had until I got my Hofmann shaper. The manager did not know this but he had implicitly sold the shaper my giving me the ten cent tour of his operation. Bravo Guys! Bravo to the Red Maple Leaf!
When I was looking to buy my Hofmann shaper, I remembered my experience with General. Before I lay down enough dead presidents to buy two new cars or a brand new diesel full size pick up truck, I need to know more about the company. Who are they? How do they work? How does the support system operate and how is it organized? How do they run the front office? How do they do machine work? Where do they do machine work? Any business who is working hard to make an honest living is often not only willing to share this information, but giddy to do so as well. Its their internal pride of a job well done and the fact that someone is interested in their accomplishments. German companies are esp. willing to share this information. Many even puslish it in brochures and catalogs and on the internet. You should see the Leitz Lexicon, Revision 3! HOLY COW! Its like a super catalog on blades, shaper cutters, bits, etc but also a master's degree dissertation on the design of these items and how they are made.
Hofmann provided me with a number of photos and explanations on how they run their railroad. Lots of photos of the machine shop showing how they plane the tables, the vintage planer they use for this job, the CNC lathes they have, the Deckel-Maho CNC machines in use, etc. And the interior was so clean you could eat off the floor. Hofmann is a small company that believes in doing things right. The germans have a name for bad work... "Fschuss-Arbeit". Its not a complement to have your work described with this word! There are only about 50 or so employed by Hofmann and the factory actually resembles a swiss chalet a bit with pitched roofs and colorful flowers in the window boxes out front. A machine shop with colorful flowers in the window boxes..... must be run by a woman! And sure enough, it is! Every aspect of this operation was totally impressive. And this tiny little shop just exudes pride for what they do and have done for almost 80 years.
Did I buy a Hofmann shaper? You betcha! The beastie I have is a Hofmann TFS-1200 with a left mount sliding table, HSK-80 quick change spindle and a cast iron, fully planed right extension table. The only reason martin lost out on this bid was they did not make a shaper with manual controls. I wanted manual controls and I was not willing to pay for the fully automatic, servo-centric controls of the T-26.
The page of various options you can get on a Hofmann is two pages long. TWO PAGES! Long tables, short tables, table extensions, MK type traditional spindles in a variety of sizes, HSK -80 spindles in a few sizes, power feeder swing away brackets, etc. etc. etc.
So as a cash paying customer who has purchased more than a small fortune worth of kit, I have become spoiled. If I decide to honor your presence with my hard earned coin, I expect a little hand holding. I want to know everything about the machine I am about to purchase from you. If everything is hidden behind cloak and dagger and curtains and a bit of smoke and mirrors, dude, I am outta-here!!!! I will go where the companies make me actually feel more welcome. A place where I belong!
Home-Sweet-Home!
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) to visit the Felder factory. He was very impressed, and it seems it would also meet Dev's criteria, to hear Kelly tell it.
Originally Posted by Dev Emch
