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for growth that may well be tied to the future of the mold-and-die trade itself. Tim Rietsma and his brother Mike started their mold-and-die shop in 2000 wanting to continue their profession’s proud heritage of skilled tool- making. But with the adoption of evolving machine tool technology has come new ways of doing things, and soon the brothers faced an unex- pected challenge to both their business and to their ideals.


The toolmaking profession had changed. Quali-


fi ed toolmakers were becoming scarce. While the trade had always been based on the development of skilled and well-rounded toolmakers, the tech schools were beginning to turn out candidates for jobs in basic machine operation. Looking back, Tim Rietsma said, “When we started our


company, I had 15 years of experience building molds and my brother had 20 years of experience building stamping


At True Die, the Romi D1000AP VMC channels coolant through a high-speed carbide drill bit to fl ush out chips. One-pass drilling has given True Die Inc. the fl exibility to manage both higher margins and more competitive pricing.


dies. The toolmaker that we had in the 1990s, I don’t think we’ll ever see that type of person again.” Originally known as Contour Tool & Engineering, the company name was recently changed to True Die with a new


www.8020.net 38 AdvancedManufacturing.org | May 2016


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