Machine Tool & Fabrication...a Fostoria Company for 20 Years
January 4, 1998, article one

PIX #1 - Tooling Around Shannon Blaser uses a Proto Trak machine at Machine Tool & Fabrication Inc. to drill out a tooling component.

Twenty years ago, Greg Ridge was five years out of high school and had a good job at Norton Manufacturing. But that wasn't exactly what he had in mind for himself.

What he really wanted was to have his own business. At the very young age of 23, Greg ventured to do just that. In July 1978, he opened the Machine Tool & Fabrication, Inc. Today, Machine Tool & Fabrication remains one of Fostoria's going concerns.

"We started off as a tool and die business," said Greg. "Primarily, we did a lot of stamping die work building new dies. As the years progressed, we got more involved in building special machinery, automated equipment for transfer and assembly-type work. That's the direction our business has grown. We build automation equipment for primarily automotive related companies."

Greg began to glimpse the possibilities of a career in manufacturing when he took vocational machine shop classes his junior and senior years at Fostoria High School. He graduated in 1973 and went to work for Norton. He also has his tool and die journeyman's card, a credential it takes four years to earn.

When Machine Tool & Fabrication opened, it was located on East North Street near Gray Printing. Three months ago, Greg moved his operation to a new site on Sandusky Street near Bliss Charters. He has expanded the new plant from 6,000 to over 20,000 square feet. On December 18 the company had an open house so folks could see the new accommodations.

The shop floor is home to more than two dozen pieces of sophisticated machinery that build automation equipment and also perform tool work. Machine Tool & Fabrication also makes dies and punches, the tools that make parts. For example, Machine Tool & Fabrication manufactures stamping dies for use by Fostoria Industries.

Greg's new Bridgeport Easy Path is a programmable lathe. This machine might be used to make a nut that might lock down an attachment on a spindle shaft. The metal is turned on the lathe and the internal threads are cut. Then the part if transferred to a milling machine to mill the slots.

Two Proto Trak machines are also new and are computer programmable in three axes so the machines' tables can move in and out, up and down, and left or right.

"It takes all the guesswork out of it," said Greg. "These programmers do all the math for your. If you've got, say, a bolt pattern, all you do is tell it how many holes and what the radius is and it will automatically calculate it. You push a button and it will automatically advance to those positions."

One of the larger pieces of equipment is a Giddings and Louis horizontal boring machine. It's capable of operations on large pieces of metal. If you had a large block of steel and wanted to cut the face of it, you could attach a drill chuck or cutter to a spindle that moves in and out. Then the boring machine can drill or cut the inside of a hole or cut the perimeter of a part.

These machines are advanced products of our ever-changing computer age.

"The technology is moving so fast," said Greg, indicating the computerized lathe. "They keep updating their models. This machine here will be old in six months and they'll have something bigger, better and faster."

The advanced nature of the machinery puts a premium on a skilled workforce. While Machine Tool & Fabrication does employ a few general laborers, most of its 20 employees are either full journeymen toolmakers or in apprenticeship programs.

Young people not looking forward to college, but interested in making a good living in the technological world can do well in a company like Machine Tool & Fabrication if they've had the proper courses in high school or taken advantage of vocational training of the sort offered nearby at places like Terra Community College and Vanguard Sentinel.

"We're constantly looking for help," said Greg. "We'll hire people tomorrow if they have the right skills."

In addition to all the machine and tool work, Machine Tool & Fabrication manufactures a very curious specialty item, a reinforced vinyl door, the Para-Port Fabric Bottom-Roll Door. Greg purchased the product line from DLM Plastics in Findlay who developed it 30 years ago.

The door's material is about 1/32 of an inch thick with polyester threads in it. It's translucent which allows sunlight in which reduces heating costs. This product is popular for airplane hangers and can be manufactured in sizes up to 145 feet wide by 50 feet high.

It's very practical in cold weather climates since the door won't stick in ice or snow. Para-Port doors are in service at Lunken Field in Cincinnati, the Lear Jet Paint Facility in Tucson and Ashland Oil's hangar in Ashland, Kentucky.

Greg's partner in the business is his wife of 22 years, Sandy, a 1974 St. Wendelin High School graduate.

She remembers that in the early days, they combined child care and work. "When we first started the business, we used to take our daughter, Sarah, in her playpen up to the office and she'd sit in her playpen while we worked."

Sandy also recalls that starting the business had it's unsettling moments. Like the time Greg went out and sold just about everything the two owned to get the company going - including her car, a nice Cutlass. He replaced it, though - with a "$100 junker."

"I was nervous," said Sandy, "but Greg wasn't. He was always confident. I'm proud of him. He's done a lot."

And after 20 years, they intend to continue doing a lot.

"I've always enjoyed this work," said Greg. "It's challenging. It's never repetitious. It seems like there's always something different."

One thing we trust isn't different is the success the company has enjoyed. We wish Greg and Sandy and all the employees of Machine Tool & Fabrication well in their new facility and hope the second 20 years are as good as the first.