VMC Helps Manufacturer Bring Product to Market Three Years Ahead of Schedule
Outsourcing molds to make a new boat would’ve been expensive and slow, so Hudson Boat Works acquired a Datron MLCube VMC capable of machining large molds in house to slash time from its projected product launch.
Hudson needed a machine that could accommodate large parts, such as this aluminum mold for a carbon fiber rigger, which measures 64 inches from tip to tip. The catch was that the machine must fit within 200 square feet of floor space.
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Hudson Boat Works was experiencing growing pains. The official boat manufacturer for the Canadian national rowing team had plans to build a new line of boats, but the projected leadtime would be three years in the making: It had neither the machining capacity nor the floorspace to make the molds necessary to create the Ultimate Super Predator (USP) boat’s carbon fiber parts.
The slow turnaround time and the high costs of outsourcing spurred the shop to find a better solution. An MLCube vertical machining center from Datron Dynamics fit the bill. It features a 60- by 40-inch machining area and a 95- by 90- by 77-inch footprint—enough space to accommodate the shop’s largest mold model, yet small enough to fit in the 200-square-foot area on the shop floor that Hudson had allocated for such a machine.
In just over a year, the company was able to make its own molds and move into making production parts on the same machine, ultimately bringing its product to market three years ahead of schedule.
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