For some shops, prototype production is a part of doing business, tolerated as a service to customers, or perhaps more akin to betting on the “come” in the hope of future production contracts. But at Huntington Beach, CA’s Sertec Precision Machining & Certified Welding, prototypes are not an afterthought. They’re the bread and butter source of the company’s revenue.

“We’ve been a prototype shop from the first day my father, Ken Geisert, founded the company,” says Brian Geisert, owner and CEO of the machining job shop. “Dad started the company in 1980 with a partner and then reformed the company as sole owner. I think he started off in a 1000-sq-ft shop with a manual milling machine, a band saw and a surface grinder doing prototypes and odd jobs. Today, we’re have seven permanent employees and three temporary employees working in a 6100 sq ft building. Even so, we’re still a prototype shop, with almost all of our business coming from prototype work. Our whole operation is basically built around doing onesies and twosies. Ten parts is a really good run for us.”

Geisert says that in spite of staying with the short run work, over the years his company has built up a solid list of loyal customers, who come to him for their prototypes.

“We service a lot of people in a lot of industries,” he says. “We have customers in the aerospace, the automotive, medical devices and commercial industries. We make parts for custom cars and hot rods. We produce mounting brackets of all sizes and shapes. We make jigs and fixtures and workholding parts. We machine just about any material except beryllium. Recently we produced a complex mold component for a customer. Of course, considering the nature of our business, a lot of times our customers come in with their ideas sketched out on napkins, and we sit down with them and help them crystallize what they want. That kind of personal service has always been part of our business.”

Machine Shop Brat

Geisert started out in the business hanging around his father’s shop, riding his bicycle and playing around while his father worked.

“When my mom was busy, I stayed around the shop,” he recalls. “Then when I was about thirteen, I started asking for things. You know, I want this, I want that. So my dad says, ‘You want things? Why don’t you do some work, push a broom, maybe saw off some material. Get paid. Then you can buy what you want.’ I liked that idea and went to work. I don’t remember what I was making, but it was enough for me. I had money in hand and I could spend it on anything I wanted. I was hooked.”

A few years later, Geisert temporarily got bored with the machine shop and decided to go out on his own.

“I was really into hot rods for a while,” he says, “and I thought I wanted to do automotive repair, but it didn’t take too long before I realized that wasn’t going to be right for me. So then my dad says, ‘Do you want to come back and work with me?’ And I said, ‘That sounds good, but I think we really need to step it up a notch and get some more equipment in here. Dad agreed and made me a partner. I’ve been at Sertec every since.”

Equipping for Prototype Work

When Geisert joined his father as a partner, the company had one old Southwestern Industries ProtoTrak 2-axis knee mill retrofitted with a CNC control. Today the company has 3 CNC knee mills, a Mighty Viper V-500 machining center and a Hurco lathe.

“But that ProtoTrak was our first venture into CNC,” he says, “and it was a good one. We ran that machine for years and years. It was totally reliable. Then in 1995, we were pretty busy, and I decided to buy another CNC mill. I financed it myself and bought a Lagun 3-axis mill. Then over the years things got better and busier, and we needed more capacity.”

In 2003 Geisert finally replaced his first ProtoTrak with a ProtoTrak K4 2-axis CNC mill.

“We were buying other equipment at the time, too,” he says. “Like a new saw and other support equipment. But it was the new ProtoTrak that really had an impact. The guy who is using the K4 loves it. The old mill had a one-line display, kind of like a silent radio. If you wanted to see or change a program you had to scroll through the whole thing one line at a time. The new ProtoTrak had a great conversational controller on it with a large read out. That machine really opened our eyes to the possibilities.”

A year ago Geisert added another ProtoTrak, this time a Model DPM3, equipped with a ProtoTrak SMX controller.

“The new machine is a 3-axis mill that can handle very complex prototypes,” he says. “It weighs about 4200 pounds and is very rigid. In addition to the the 3-axis, it has a tilting head on it that makes it extremely versatile. We don’t always use its 3-D capabilities, but they’re there when we need them. The real power in that system, though, is the ProtoTrak SMX controller with the Auto Geometry Engine. It’s the easiest, most powerful controller we’ve ever used here.”

ProtoTrak SMX Controller

The Windows-based ProtoTrak SMX controller is simple to use because of its conversational programming language, Geisert reports.

“It has so many features you almost don’t know where to start talking about them,” he says. “It prompts you for all your data inputs, which is nice. You can select to run it either as a two or three axis CNC. You can quickly switch between inches and metric. It has eighteen canned cycles, which make programming really easy. Just pick your cycle and answer a few questions and you’re up and running.”

The ProtoTrak SMX has canned cycles for such operations as position, drilling, bolt holes, milling, arc, circle, rectangular and irregular pockets. It has preprogrammed routines for profiling, islands, thread milling, tapping and others. The system has a built-in G-code editor and allows fast and easy program changes. It has a built-in DXF file reader, which makes it easy to import customer files.

“It’s almost like Southwestern programmed in a highly skilled machinist,” Geisert says. “Our guys really love the controller and the machine. We love the K4, too, but the DPM3 with the SMX controller is in a class by itself. If I ever need another CNC mill, it will certainly be another ProtoTrak. These machines are perfect for the kind of low-volume prototype work we do.”

The Future

Geisert doesn’t plan to change his mode of operation, he says.

“We love the challenge and variety of work we get with prototype work,” he says. “We specialize in saying ‘Yes!’ to work others turn down because the money is not there. But the way we feel about it, if you have enough profitable low-budget jobs. Pretty soon it adds up to real money.”

But there’s another reason to stick with prototype work, he says.

“Look at it this way,” he says. “It’s a pretty secure business. Not too many people go offshore for prototypes.”

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