NUMBER 02 - Haas Automation, Inc.

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Story and photos by Richard Berry “American Chopper,” the unlikely little television reality series focused on the daily doings at a fatherand-sons custom motorcycle shop, has grown into a full-fledged global phenomenon. Over the seasons, we’ve watched the size of this shop, the skill of the builders and the sophistication of the dazzling bikes all grow before our eyes. Yet, all we’ve seen so far is just the tip of this venturesome iceberg. | www.HaasCNC.com
“You’re wasting time!” booms Senior, flying out of his office in a clinched-fist fury. Out on the floor, the prodigal sons respond true to form: Paulie digs in for a fight, while Mikey backs off with a smirk. The Orange County Choppers shop is, once again, a certifiable war zone. “It ain’t what you do,” bellows Senior’s almighty voice of clout, “it’s the way that you do it!” Custom Bikes for All The well-known management at Orange County Choppers (OCC) is busy laying the groundwork to make the company the best-known and most influential bike builder in the world. Paul Teutul Senior’s behind-the-scene business planners, designers, machinists and builders are settling in to manufacture a new line of standardized production bikes to support a growing chain of OCC retail dealers. Until now, each bike has been specifically made to order for each customer, so the move represents a major shift in the way everyone at OCC must approach his work. Perhaps no one faces greater changes than OCC’s machine shop manager Jim Quinn. “It’s definitely a challenge,” says Quinn. “In some ways it’s easier, but in many ways it’s more difficult. Because of the way we’ve networked our machines, once we’ve made a part to spec, it’s just a matter of loading the program and we can duplicate it again without any problems.” But trying to dedicate machines to manufacturing production, while building one-off bikes under the pressures of television deadlines, is no simple matter. “That’s the other part of it,” says Quinn with a smile. “It never fails. As soon as I get a machine set up to run production wheels all day, it’s ‘Oops!’ we’ve got to break in and run a special design for one of the bikes for the show.” Realizing they suddenly had a lot more irons in the fire, the OCC gang set out last year to virtually double the size of the machine shop. Paul Senior and son Mikey, with a full video crew in tow, dropped in on the one-million-square-foot Haas Automation factory in Southern California, and humorously scribed their names on the machines they wanted. Jim Quinn and many others had thoughtfully coordinated the expansion and suggested which machines to acquire weeks before the stars left for the sunny coast; but Senior’s impromptu “This one’s mine!” scrawl, staged during the factory tour, was much more entertaining on camera. Back home, the OCC machine shop began to expand, spilling over into what had been the warehousing area of the 30,000-square-foot building. This new annex holds a recently installed Haas Mini Mill, TL-1 Toolroom Lathe and EC-500 horizontal machining center – all tied in with the crew’s everbusy VF-5/50, VM-3 and VF-2SS vertical machining centers and SL-20 lathe. CNC MACHINING | 5
Page 1 and 2: NUMBER 02
Page 3 and 4: In This Issue Welcome to the second
Page 5 and 6: Steffen Brück, general manager of
Page 7 and 8: Unlike other machine tool case stud
Page 9 and 10: control, which means if you can pro
Page 11 and 12: Downhill from the Start Story and s
Page 13 and 14: NICOLAI MOUNTAIN BIKES is owned and
Page 15 and 16: The frame that Nicolai developed wa
Page 17 and 18: Nicolai GmbH selects employees care
Page 19 and 20: SIDEBAR A Perfect Bike is a Perfect
Page 21 and 22: adjust production on the spot. This
Page 23 and 24: In the past, enclosed transmissions
Page 25: pers Orange County Motorcycle’s R
Page 29 and 30: New Reality With the challenging ex
Page 31 and 32: CNC Machining: Do you feel you’
Page 33 and 34: In a huge and unprecedented effort
Page 35 and 36: CNCMACHINING cycle Time Windshear
Page 37 and 38: Haas CNC Racing Haas CNC Racing is
Page 39 and 40: N1 (Sub-program tool path) N2 (Sub-

NUMBER 02 - Haas Automation, Inc.

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