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Component Manufacturing dverti$ dverti $ er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
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November 2021 #13268 Page #10
Sixty Years of Machines Part XXIV: Opposites Attract
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David and Goliath struggle was brewing over the linear saw, and it was ready to boil over at BCMC in October 2002. It would pit Jim Urmson, a lone mechanic who was pioneering his first machine, against Alpine’s engineers, who had launched multiple winning machines. Though Urmson had stirred up Florida CMs and made his competitors take notice, Alpine was the first to respond decisively. And it all began with a phone call to their Director of Engineering, Dave McAdoo.
Joe Kannapell
“If you can build an upgraded TCT saw, I’ll sell ten the first year,” Randy Yost told McAdoo. That was in late 2001, after Yost had watched TCTs delight many of his Florida accounts for almost a year. Yost was Alpine’s South Florida road warrior who understood the difficulty of his CMs’ work. While he was impressed with the speed of the TCT, he recognized that much of its output would have to be handled again to be bevel cut. He realized that if a single process could handle these cuts, he’d have many takers. Yost’s call was music to McAdoo’s ears. Though he had successfully launched several new machines over the past ten years, equipment sales were currently in the doldrums, forcing Alpine to reduce staff and suspend development of new machines. He quickly realized that processing lumber linearly through a saw would have several advantages. This would be the best way to cut the “one-sies” and “two-sies” that were becoming the industry norm. And this would also permit additional marking to be applied to expedite the truss assembly process. He concluded that this could be the game changer that would put Alpine way ahead of its competitors, but only if his new management concurred. Following the death of co-founder Charlie Harnden in 1998, Alpine was enduring the most difficult period in its 30-year history. Oddly, it was acquired by a South African entity, Dorbyl Ltd., that had no industry-related experience. After a short time, Dorbyl ousted Alpine’s head, Ron Donnini, and installed their own associate, Chris Cronje, as President. Dorbyl seemed to be intent on “flipping” Alpine, (which they did 3 years later), and would be inclined to veto any expensive new machinery project, especially one outside Alpine’s wheelhouse. It would take incredible justification to get the linear saw funded.
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