Today was a sad day at DeGeest Steel Works. We had to retire the first machine that ushered us into the CNC machine era. The Whitney 647 Punch/Plasma was purchased in 1987 by Clint DeGeest, our founder. He flew to Florida to look it over and was impressed enough to purchase it before returning. This machine required a flex-o-writer to create the programs. Programming was much different back then. Someone would write a program on paper one code line at a time. Then enter the code using the flex-o-writer (similar to a typewriter) which punched the code onto a black paper ribbon. If at any point a wrong button was pushed, you had to rip it out and start all over. Can you imagine?! The programmed ribbon was placed on the reader and played like an old movie reel to operate the Whitneys punch or plasma cutting capabilities. Without a doubt this machine was a good investment by Clint. We had since retrofitted it with computer programming to continue using it as a punch press. The speed and accuracy of our lasers replaced its cutting capabilities. Just as innovation steers us today, 27 years ago we were the only company in the area with a machine that could punch and cut complex 2D parts.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 01:00:31 +0000
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