Ken Cooley, President of ShapeMaster Inc. (USA)

I received an amazing e-mail from Ken, president of ShapeMaster, a few weeks back and after finding out a bit more about his company, asked if he’d like to share some of his knowledge and he agreed! You can visit Ken’s company at http://www.shape-master.com.

Jon, thank you for the article on Thermwood. (read Interview with Ken Susnjara of Thermwood Corp (USA), will open in a new window)

I am the owner of a small thermoforming, manufacturing company in Illinois and have two of their routers. One was bought used and after a few years we employed them to come and completely rebuild it on site. Very good decision.

The second was purchased from them after they did a three month rebuild and update on a 5 axis. It is handy for us that they are so close to our facility and within a few hours drive. They represent good old hard working America that I grew up loving and their Southern Indiana ethic means you always get more than you pay for. We are on the verge of ordering another new router from them even as I type this note. Yet another 100K well spent.

In my nearly 35 years of offering custom solutions in many materials to our region and the world I have never been more happy than to work with a company like Thermwood. Thanks again for your work. I will now follow you and request my CNC department staff do the same.

Best regards,

Ken Cooley
ShapeMaster, Inc.

Can you tell me a bit about your background and how you eventually fell into providing custom forming services?

I have been designing and building things for sale since I was 12 years old. Learning methods of manufacture, marketing, direct sales and promoting our product in retail stores.

For over 33 years I have been working in wood and metal to create displays for retail. Since right out of high school and through college in machine tool technology I was taking projects in to pay for new tools and equipment I was purchasing. Always “bootstrapping” my way into a business and shop. The best way to pay is with cash.

What was the spark that ignited enough passion in you to start your own company almost 25 years ago?

This business ShapeMaster began as a need to “mold” plastic into three dimensional shapes.

I had been interested in plastics since high school in 1975 and dabbled with them in R/C airplane and boat building but it never met the need or desire I had to learn how to mold a part 3D.

My pattern making abilities learned in my first wood working business that launched in 1981 and ran through end of the 80’s gave me a start. I began asking questions, read a lot about machine building and launched into building my first vacuum forming machine.

Actually I took in a job that required advanced vacuum forming methods and I needed to build a machine to do that work on. Nothing like a deadline and pressure to get you moving.

After my first machine was built and making me money I continued on the design of a new “proto” machine that would let me free up my first forming machine that was now being run in production runs which consumed it and kept me from having time available on it for my quick “one-off” prototype projects which we built our business around in the early days.

Next came growth, a new building, full and part-time employees were added and with each passing year we attempted to build a new building, add equipment and improve what we had. At the same time working very hard to promote our company nationally and do it on a shoestring.

Advertising in The Thomas Register of American Manufacturers, locally and word of mouth we found that always without fail those who referred us via “word of mouth” did the best for us. We have a nice network of friends, business owners and customers who think highly of our goods and services and this is the best form of advertisement you can ever have. It begins with trust and ends with fulfillment of that trust.

From 1994 when we moved into our current Main Street location, weathering the 1996 tornado that destroyed much of this town, growing through Katrina which brought us a huge deluge of work from one of our largest customers, a dehumidifier manufacturer, to plowing profits and labor back into the company we have grown to over 6 times the square footage and have all new facilities with many new pieces of equipment. It hasn’t been easy but it has been rewarding. We’ve weathered many storms quite literally and a fire or two along with too many economic downfalls in the state and nation. Still, our company has such a wide range of diversity and appeal that we continue on riding high as we look at 2014. We are coming up on 20 years in this location in Ogden, IL.

You contacted me telling me how pleased you were about Thermwood’s routers and that you just bought another one (giving you 3 CNC routers now). What is it about their machines that stand-out especially when you consider there are far cheaper alternatives from abroad?

We currently have two Thermwood Routers. A 3 axis I bought used in the winter of 2006 from a professor of metallurgy in Madison Wisconsin. He was machining aluminum panels on this for Melges racing boats, http://www.melges.com and we nearly took over that work for Melges.

What I’ve learned many times is that people who work in a business in a hobby they enjoy many times have no idea what that project is actually costing them vs. the profits they need to receive to stay in business. Much was the case here and after just a few larger than the table size .5” thick panels were machined in my shop I declined the contract and sent Melges back to their own area to find a company who could make these for them. This router was doing a bang up job making rudders and boards for the best racing boats in the world but I couldn’t make money on them so we decided machining aluminum on the Thermwood in production was not for us.

We had this router rebuilt from the ground up in 2011 February. This crew from Thermwood does such a professional job and we were very, very impressed with them. They came in and tore this machine down to the steel. All new controls, table, vacuum system, spindle, the whole 9 yards and done right here in our shop.

Prior to purchasing this machine used we purchased a new 2005 HAAS 3 axis mill that would allow us to cut aluminum tooling and build plastic and aluminum molds for our vacuum forming and plastic casting departments.

The Thermwood added large sheet plastic and wood routing along with the added Z height of 11” we could do surfacing of new tooling and even trim plastic parts in production.

I cannot stress the importance of good software though. Solidworks and Mastercam kept to most recent level and full maintenance from a qualified sales company is important. Also, we hired a good friend who is outside independent trainer of software for CAD modeling and programming and he comes in to train initially our new recruits. This combination has given us an edge in the industry because we know how to save and store files, proper methods of design in CAD so we are not designing like “CAD” guys but machinists and knowledge of our materials for both tooling and production materials. All of these things are key.

We have a man who is leading our CNC department who is very accomplished. He is a veteran Marine and over 5 years at the University of Illinois graduating with an electrical engineering degree has given him or enhanced many of his personal discipline and thought processes to make him a great in house trainer but also department head.

In the Winter of 2012 we added a new 5 axis router for trimming and tool and fixture building purposes. Those parts that best benefit from the 5 axis trimming are run across this machine. Tooling can be built on it and we use both mechanical clamping and vacuum hold down to complete this process. This machine can handle up to 5 foot X 10 foot by 36” height on the table. With a 6 tool changer we can use it for multi-tool trim-drill-saw and also machining soft vacuum form tooling. Very handy.

Once again we found Thermwood’s technicians to be of the upmost help in setting up this machine and training our staff. I can’t say enough good about Thermwood.

Our newest purchase will be a brand new built for us 3 axis 5×10 foot table with new vacuum hold down system for routing flat panels of plastic which has grown to become a major part of our fabrication work.

Are there some very common design problems you see repeatedly when customers send you their files for a quote? What is the solution to these issues?

With our business being custom we see everything from a scribble on a napkin to an attempt by an engineer to use CAD software to create a vacuum formed part.

We must be able to import every file known to man. If we were solely in house design/manufacture we could get by just fine but we are not and most of the files sent us are from those with various forms of software from “educational” to Pro-E advanced.

The primary issue is that most of the folks submitting have very little design for vacuum forming background and invariably want us to make a part that cannot be made with nearly any process on earth. So, the education begins and if they allow us to we teach them about vacuum forming of plastics so they can design parts in the future with limited or zero undercuts and create shapes that are economical to mold. This is the key. Make a design that CAN be made and can be made for a reasonable sum.

As for solutions, I propose that anyone wanting to submit an idea for manufacturing quote should first of all contact the vendor and determine if they will help them with design. Why do it twice, or even ten times before a shape is achieved that is manufacturable?

After basic sketches and hazards of design are discussed then a preliminary design may be created in CAD and submitted.

This begins the dialogue. Don’t be shy, just ask.

ShapeMasters offers a host of services from vacuum forming to CNC machining to custom fabrication and drafting services. Did you envision being able to offer so many services to customers from the start or did you just grow where demand seemed to lead you?

To be quite honest with you this company and the level it has achieved has been a dream come true for me. I hoped to one day have manual machining equipment like a Bridgeport mill in my personal shop as I attended a local college back in 1980. We have CNC and manual mills and a lathe as well which makes it nice for those fun personal projects when designing items for my motorcycles.

I have a small line of parts for Suzuki motorcycles which ship throughout North America and the world on a weekly basis. It’s fun to see your designs on bikes in Russia, Australia and Brazil.

We grew with demand. Always go where the demand is. We I’ve learned from working with inventors it is very hard submitting a new product into the market place and having it get picked up and bought. Find out what people want first. In fact your best bet is making people comfortable, safe, and give them style while doing it. Don’t try an item that is your pick, give the public what they want as long as it fits your personal, moral, compass. Sometimes I’ve found you don’t need to make that item because it is not within your comfort zone and that’s OK. Not all business is good business even if they pay with “green” money.

You offer a lot of very specialized services, can you share your insight as to how you find dedicated and ambitious employees to fulfill them? Do you offer internships or have relationships with local educational institutions?

We have tried the educational institutions and find them to be of very little help. The honest truth is that I’ve had high school teachers and even local community college educators tell me “you don’t want any of these guys coming out of my classes”. Very sad.

The work ethic of many “Americans” is so poor and the “entitlement mentality” has literally sunk the ship we may need to one day sail on with regard to a resurgence of manufacturing in the States. I think the goose is cooked but perhaps a remnant exists out there of young men and women who will work hard to get ahead and strive to learn. I think they are out there because I know I’ve raised two of them myself. With the help of a very hard working woman their mother of course.

Yes, we train in house and prefer it that way. When we can find a person who doesn’t have a drug or alcohol problem and knows how to get out of bed in the morning on time we work hard to invest thousands of dollars into training them well and then pay them a good sound wage to keep them here. I don’t want to be training up good employees for my competition, right?

With the advent of 3D printing, do you still see a strong demand for your services in 10-15 years time as they are now or are you investigating jumping onto the additive bandwagon to augment your current services?

I see 3D printing as a toy, a fun thing and for the most part a novelty for now. The cheap desk top machines you can buy for under 5K are tempting for many but are not realistic for more than quick protos that go nowhere.

However, for those in manufacturing who are making real hard parts to put in an airplane like Cessna has done, or others similar they can justify both the expense of the machine and the time it takes to make one off parts. However for more than that it is dicey but still something to think about.

For the future, I see ShapeMaster jumping right into the middle of the 3D printing world and offering it from our base here in Ogden which we can very easily do. We are looking for the right machine and then will begin the investment.

For now, we do all the CAD design in SolidWorks and send the files to our friends who offer us competitive rates on printing so we can offer this service to our customers who have either no CAD software or the knowledge of making the plastic parts.

We have created 3D printed models for prototypes, mold making for casting plastic parts and in fact over the years had some of our industrial accounts invest tens of thousands in parts made for production that began with 3D then into silicone rubber and rigid part casting while waiting for our injection molding group to get tooling done for mass production runs of 10,000 parts or greater. The 3D printing has its place for sure and if used in those areas it is a wonderful addition and has in fact created a lot of new businesses and services which is just plain fun.

What are some of the more unique projects that ShapeMasters has had a role in being a part of?

Wow! from giant golf balls, to giant moose heads, to urine collection stations that rapidly cool the liquid to feces collection trays for research, a giant pig maze to determine how pigs learn cues, to giant crows for fund raising projects and giant tomato stems for a local pizza delivery truck fleet, hundreds of new projects are launched here at ShapeMaster each year, many are under disclosure and cannot be shared on line or in print.

Come to think of it we do a lot of “giant” larger than life items but also a great deal of precision vacuum thermoforming along with machine work. Much of this is run across our 3 and 5 axis Thermwood routers.

Anything else you’d like to add Ken?

Our company has grown because I never say “NO”. If we don’t do it in house we have partners who do it out of house and many times a company wants to come to us for “one stop shopping” so that we can supply the whole project and this has worked out well.

If however we in our group cannot best meet the need more than likely we know someone who can.

By being diverse you get to play in many mediums of material and processes. This gives you a great appreciation for what modern manufacturing methods are in existence but also those nearly forgotten that many times will still meet the need in the U.S. for making a nice product with a good price that is repeatable and from a source you can depend on.

I enjoy business, manufacturing and those who make things. I’m always open for discussion.

Wow… awesome business and CNC knowledge in here… thanks Ken! You can visit Ken’s company at http://www.shape-master.com.