The Machine Shop at James Engineering

The Colorado-based OEM shop is known for their one-of-a-kind deburring and chamfering machines, but they also have a precision-focused machine shop that’s willing to take on any project that comes their way. If you’re in the market for a low to medium volume machine shop who guarantees quality products, reach out to James Engineering today at (303) 444-6787.

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What is our shop capable of?

Dave: We have 3 mills and 2 lathes. One of the mills has 4th axis capability. We’re capable of holding concentricity within 5/10ths in most cases without have to do any crazy set ups. We can do round parts, square parts, just about any shape part that you want.

Scott: We’ve got a live tool lathe with a bar feed option and multiple seats of programming software. We’ve got that 4th axis mill, another smaller mill with a 20-inch bed, and we’ve got a 60-inch bed large mill.

How many parts a week do we typically make?

Dave: That’s pretty subjective because we do short run production, so most of our time isn’t spent making parts, it’s getting ready to make a part and getting a part set up to run. Typically, we could spend half hour programming, half our setting up, and basically we could run for 15 minutes and then be done (in some cases). We can’t really quantify the quantity of parts per week because we’re more set up to be a tooling or prototype shop versus a production shop.

Can customers send in their own designs?

Dave: We quote on stuff and have stuff made for outside companies. We have engineering services, so people can send in a concept and we could do the whole thing, or they could send in a thing that’s basically done and we could create drawings for them, things like that. We have start-to-finish capability, or we can pick up a project that they’re already halfway through. We can also provide good drawings, give them a model.

What are some basic jobs we do frequently?

Dave: We do a lot of gun parts, automotive stuff, motorcycle parts. It really is just a gamble. Basically, anybody who walks into the door with a project, we can take a look at it and see if it fits our capabilities fairly easy and we’ll do it. We’ve done a lot of welding jobs lately, too. We’ve done a lot of stuff for RoboCon; we’ve made a lot of platforms and fixturing.  We’ve made brownie bowls, and stuff for volleyball companies, it doesn’t really matter what industry comes in.

Scott: So we’ve got a lot of high end, high precision parts that we make. For example, we’re making a mount for a vehicle right now. Our perfect job is a volume job. We’re really looking for anything from prototype to a few thousand parts a week. I wouldn’t call ourselves high volume where we’re tens of thousands of parts per week, but we’re definitely looking for that low to medium volume area.

What makes our shop stand out?

Dave: Our attention to detail and the quality of our parts. That’s something that we take a lot of pride in. We try to go that one step above, whether it’s by deburring or not putting a scratch on it by pushing it across surfaces, things like that. We take really good care of all the parts we make, and it’s a lot easier to go in and get the quality you’re looking for when you’re not making thousands and thousands of parts.

Why is it significant for our machine side of business that we make our own parts in-house?

Dave: We can control our own quality because our standards are really high. To be able to get the tolerances and stuff we need we can hardly get other people to make them for us. We put a dimension on a drawing and expect you to hold it, so in some cases we put really tight tolerances on things with reason, and when other companies see those tight tolerances the cost goes up automatically (whether it’s justifiable or not). It’s more cost efficient for us to do it.

Scott: We have to make all of these parts here in-house because we really can’t afford to job much of this out. We’ve got to keep our profit margins where they need to be. We have to hold pretty precision fits because we’ve got a 3.2 million resolution encoder here turning all of these [parts] on this five-axis manipulator.

How do your own deburring machines fit into the machine shop process?

Scott: When we make these parts, we do a lot of in-machine deburring. We’ll go through and we’ll machine this edge with a chamfer tool. But the problem is, when we machine the edge with the chamfer tool, the chamfer tool creates two sharp edges. We still have this problem where a technician has to go in with Scotch-Brite and deburr this. So we don’t want that abrasive to get into our CNC machine, because if that abrasive gets into our machines, it gets down into ways and slides and it wears the machine out. That’s where the market is for our deburring machine.

Engineering Every Day

Between designing new parts on SolidWorks and working on his car, Zack Lindsey keeps busy. While Lindsey grew up besides the Rocky Mountains as a Colorado native, he was taking apart and rebuilding anything he could get his hands on; he was destined to be an engineer before he even knew it. Eventually, Lindsey graduated from CU Boulder with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in economics. Completing a bachelor’s program is no small feat, and Lindsey reflects on his toughest class: “The capstone senior project was definitely the most immersive class [I took]. It’s really like a mini engineering job; that’s how I’d describe it. You’re doing all the steps in the engineering process—you’re designing, making sure your customer is happy, purchasing parts, testing everything, manufacturing everything. It was really comprehensive.” Lindsey later confirms that whilst this was the most challenging class he took, it was also the one that prepared him the most for his career outside of school.

Example of LiDAR imaging

“[My team] worked with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association), and we designed a LiDAR scanner. Essentially, it was a big gimble mount that had a LiDAR laser underneath, and they wanted to be able to point it in any direction in the sky within a whole dome without it ever being limited.” LiDAR is an acronym for “light detection and ranging” and is a method of laser sensing used by scientists and meteorologists to study different environments, both natural and manmade. “The LiDAR beam detects particulates in the atmosphere, and it allows us to get data on how much particulate is in atmosphere, [as well as] its direction and speed. So it’s really helpful for high level and low level wind maps, making predictions, and finding the highs and lows in a [specific] area.” LiDAR isn’t only used for weather-predicting purposes, however—it can also be found in everyday items, such as phones and cars. Apple began utilizing it in 2020, and now the entirety of the iPhone series uses it to enable Face ID and enhance camera quality. Car brands such as Nissan, Subaru, Mercedes, and Volvo have also implemented LiDAR technology, which allows cars to sense any objects around them to prevent unnecessary collisions.

After taking a couple months off to recoup from his breakneck studies, Lindsey found a place to land at James Engineering as our design engineer. When asked to describe what a typical day looks like for him here, he laughs and says, “There isn’t really such a thing as an average day. Some days I’m here [at my desk] designing new parts, some days I’m just doing drawings. Other days I need to fix a problem on a machine, so I’ll design something, make the part, go out into the shop, install it, test it, make sure it’s what I want, and make revisions on the computer [if need be].” A tedious process, but one that’s essential for business. Without the engineering team’s relentless drawing, testing, and redrawing, assemblies would fall apart after the first build. “I also organize lists for different machines to figure out what parts they need manufactured, purchased, powder coated, anodized, things like that.” There are a lot of moving parts within James Engineering, and Lindsey’s organization is key to maintaining a smooth operation.

With as many responsibilities as Lindsey carries, he faced a steep learning curve when he first stepped into his position at James Engineering, but he ultimately defeated it with determination. “There’s definitely a lot of tasks I didn’t know how to do beforehand and I kind of just had to learn how to do it on the fly. It has been challenging but it’s been really helpful in the long run.” Here at James Engineering, we encourage asking questions and hands-on experience. Senior engineers are readily available to teach valuable lessons that can be applied in and out of the workplace, and it was these mentors that helped Lindsey find his footing. We urge our engineers to get their hands dirty and help out in the machine shop when they can, as well as execute their own innovative ideas. Afterall, engineering is inherently centered around creativity and problem solving. So as a creator himself, Lindsey finds great satisfaction in perfecting his projects, especially when they are done “on the fly”. He talks on his most rewarding moments at James Engineering: “Every time a machine goes out that door which I’ve done a lot of the design work on it’s really fulfilling, seeing it on the truck and leaving.” Lindsey offers some advice to people who are just getting started as engineers, saying, “The best way to design is to just do it and see if it works. You’re never going to get it right the first time, so you learn from your mistakes. Another piece of advice I’d give is design in a failure point or else the system is going to design it in for you!”

Outside of his time at James Engineering, Lindsey enjoys spending his time working on his car. “I’m a big car guy, so I like to make parts and sell them.” Even when out of the office, Lindsey is developing his skills as an engineer. “I’d love to develop my own racecar parts one day, but I’m not quite there yet.” In the meantime, you can find Lindsey working diligently on different tasks throughout the shop. “The thing that’s helped me the most is learning to work with a manual machine because I’ve really learned what the capabilities of the shop are. [It’s] learning how to make a part in a way that will make it easier for the machinists.”

It's thanks to motivated employees like Zack Lindsey that James Engineering and other manufacturers alike can thrive. Whether they know they want to be an engineer from the start, or discover it years down the line, their knowledge, expertise, and efforts strengthen the engineering world one part at a time.

Innovating Tomorrow

Within the walls of James Engineering, a dedicated engineer works tirelessly to perfect vital components and assemblies. Dave Schlosser, head engineer for the Coloradoan OEM shop, and his crew of engineers team up to draw, assemble, and manufacture the one-of-a-kind deburring machines sold by James Engineering. But Schlosser’s career in engineering began way before he joined the J.E. family.

“I started when I was 13 in my dad’s garage; he welded, so I’d help him with welding. Then I wanted to be a machinist because my dad was one,” Schlosser states. He got his foot in the industry’s door early, which eventually nudged him to go to school for machining. Eventually, he dipped his toes into quality control before migrating into the engineering department for a different company, which was eventually bought out.

After years of completing personal projects, such as an adapter plate for his Volkswagen transmission, Schlosser realized not only was he a talented engineer, but a creator at heart. So when he found his job at James Engineering, he knew it would be the perfect position to nurture his creative desires. Schlosser gives a little insight as to what his daily tasks consist of:

“I lead the engineering team. We got a couple of interns and full-time guys. I’ll also run what goes through the machine shop and help prioritize [the projects].” When asked how the position keeps his creativity flowing, he explains, “We do drawing revisions, part revisions, and new product development.”

Updating assemblies and part drawings is crucial—this process ensures that both the engineering department and shop floor are on the same page before pieces/assemblies are completed. Concise drawings create clear communication between the two groups, which ultimately does three things: decreases the number of errors made in production, increases shop efficiency, and allows for the creation of new products. Schlosser is central to this procedure. “We started making our own cogged pulleys,” Schlosser explains, “Belt pulleys, not like gears. [These] pulleys have slots in them for grooved belts. It’s like a timing belt in a car, which has little cogs in them. This eliminates backlash in our machines. We just started doing these about six months ago.”

While this process gives Schlosser the outlet he’s always wanted, it has proven to be the biggest test for him during his time at James Engineering. “Because we are a small company, there’s a lot of tribal knowledge of how things work. It’s not quantified in a lot of cases in drawings, so that’s a big challenge—getting that knowledge from somebody’s head and getting it put [on paper].”

Despite its trials, this shared knowledge is one of the most unique parts about working at James Engineering. “There’s tech here that you don’t see anywhere else. And Jim’s got [decades] of knowledge, so I learn from him every day.” Jim Richards is the founder of the company and works closely with the engineers every day. “I take what I know and keep adding on to that.”

Schlosser has collected new information and experience throughout his whole career. The mechanical engineering industry has only continued to evolve, introducing new technology and methods to its workers at astounding rates. “When I first got into the industry, CNC machines were brand new. Now, everything is computer controlled instead of being done by hand,” Schlosser reflects. With CNC machining giving manufacturers the upper hand in efficient and speedy production, engineers such as Schlosser can turn all their ideas into reality. ‘There’s a lot of stuff I want to develop with the tech here. Jim and I talked about building a table with our gantry system where you can plug in a router and a laser. This would be used instead of having multiple machines that do the same thing. I also want to do a whole series of our own products that don’t even necessarily have to do with deburring.”

With new waves of engineers pouring into the industry every year, mechanical engineering will further evolve. Schlosser offers them his seasoned advice: “If you’re going to be a mechanical engineering designing mechanical parts, learn machining! You don’t have to be an expert at it, just know how to make parts because then you can make drawings a lot faster. Go get a job at a machine shop just so you can learn how materials are cut. With experience like that, you’ll be years ahead of your peers who also just got out of school.” As somebody who worked in a machine shop before entering the engineering field, Schlosser knows firsthand how effective this method can be. “Learn how whatever you’re working on is made, whether it’s plastic, metals, etc.”

The mechanical engineering field is one that provides countless learning opportunities, and Schlosser cannot stress enough how important it is to take each one you can get your hands on. By doing so himself, he has worked a plethora of jobs that have built upon his knowledge every day. Schlosser’s time at James Engineering has not only taught him about hydraulics and pneumatics, but it has strengthened his abilities to problem solve and lead a team. Schlosser is coming up on his third year at the shop, and is given the freedom to do what he loves best—create.

“It all comes from your head, and then it’s in your hands. That’s what’s really cool about mechanical engineering.”

A cool career, indeed.