Interview with Omar Uriarte: CNC MASTERS

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what is your personal history in CNC and manufacturing.

I believe like most machinists, you are brought into the field at a young age by a father who needs help milling out some parts.  So he teaches you how to machine at a young age in order to improve the turn around time for his waiting customers, and most importantly, he does not need to sub-contract out.  At least that’s my history when it comes to machining.  Machining is not something I dreamt about when I was a kid, its just something you fall into.  CNC was just the next step up.  If you are a machine shop and you don’t own a CNC mill, you can’t compete.

what is the history of your company.

We established CNC MASTERS back in 1990 with the CNC Jr Table Top Milling Machine, and have sold thousands of these machines since then.  We first engineered a CNC Retrofit kit for Bridgeport milling machines and were lucky to sell 1 to 3 kits a month with advertisement in our local newspaper classified section.  After a few months of doing this business on the side, we had an elderly gentleman, local to us that had a mid-size milling drilling machine in his home garage that he wanted to convert over to CNC.  He contacted us.  He was very excited with the results because he was able to do true 3 axis interpolated movements which he could not achieve before manually.  He told us it would be great if we sold these mill-drills with CNC on it already instead just selling CNC conversion kits.  He said there was nothing in the market for it, and he was right.  CNC MASTERS was the first to manufacture the CNC Jr Mill for it’s class.  Almost 20 years later, we have sold thousands of the CNC Jr Mill alone, out of line CNC machinery around the world.

CNC Jr. Mill

which newer or smaller companies do you believe have alot of potential right now.

I believe that companies, small or large in the USA will have huge potential if they tap into the market of alternative energy engineering.  We have to stop relying on foreign oil.  Companies that break through in developing alternative energy products will succeed. CNC MASTERS is looking forward to that!  Why?  Because they are going to need CNC machinery to prototype and mass-produce their parts for this new industry.

how do you believe the economy will effect the manufacturing industry in America.

Our USA economy will become very strong if we become the leaders of alternative energy.  This will open our door for an entire new string of manufacturing.

what cad-cam software do you recommended and use and why.

We deal out CAD-CAMs with our CNC machinery.  We mainly like to push Rhino CAD and Visual Mill CAM as a bundle package with our CNC MASTERS brand milling machines.  They are effective in what they do.  It’s user-friendly, so much of a learning curve, and they have great technical support.  Most importantly, our customers are happy with the software and the parts they are able to machine using our CNC mills.

what sets your company you apart from the rest.

CUSTOMER SERVICE.  See our testimonials page, it pretty much speaks for itself the type of company we run:    We back up and offer support on any of our CNC MASTERS brand machinery 100%.  The main reason why many customers choose us over our competition is because of our reputation they are hearing about us.  We do not turn our backs from our customers when they need operational support.  We know that down time is losing money in the machining world, and a majority of our customers are one-man operations and have entrusted the operation of their business to CNC MASTERS.  That’s a big honor for us, and we plan to be there for them should they ever need our support.  It’s an honor for us when a huge Fortune 500 company who can easily afford higher-end CNC machinery, purchase our competitively priced machines from us, not just one, but several.  Why?  Because they know CNC MASTERS will give them that support they need when they need it most.  Our CNC milling machines are very easy to learn and operate which is why customers new to the CNC world choose us over the rest as well.

what are your most popular machines, and what jobs are they best suited for.

We offer the CNC Jr Mill, the CNC Baron Mill and the CNC Supra Vertical Knee Mill.   All three are popular machines.  Can’t really say which one sells more.  They all use our CNC MASTERS brand controller and operational software.  So it really depends on the customers, his machining needs, and the square footage he has available in his shop.