My job at Bucher Aerospace in Everett

I am working at Bucher Aerospace since May 2011. They had bot a Haas VF4ss just 7 months befor that, and where trying to make it work with having someone coming in to set up jobs for them. I had just finished a 3 months tryout at a machine shop in the region that didn't go so well, when I applied for job with Bucher. I was hired within 24h from my last job ending. Right timing! I only had one condition,  Bucher needed to buy a Mastercam seat, for me to program the Machine.

I was used to program DMU 70V evolution 5-axis machine back in Switzerland and had rather top of the line technology at my disposal. Working with a Haas VF4ss was diffrent. It was certainly a step backward in my career. But here i was in an diffrent country in a diffrent work environment with diffrent people. To make a long story short. I worked hard in getting that machine going and going... and was surprised by the parts complexity you can reach with a machine that has only 3 axis plus a forth A axis.

6 months in to the job i was asked to become a Supervisor with no pay increase. I noticed that things were not going well for Bucher Aerospace, but could not put my finger on specifics. I was a little surprised at the early promotion offer. I just figured to take the offer so i could call the shuts in the future.

Only a year later we bought the second VF4ss machine. I didn't have much of a say in it, but was able to convince management to upgrade the curent machine with a probing system to make work a little easier and increase process stability.

With the delivery of the new machine the machining area moved in to a separate part of the building as well. I loved it. I got my own office for programing. In order to increase machine running time i was given people to help me and to train them to become CNC machinist .

I think it was in late 2012 when the big management change happened. Apparently management made some serious errors in recent years, that sent things financially in to the wrong direction. After the CEO was replaced, one by one of the managers was replaced too. It was rather difficult to witness this process. Today only a hand full of the employees, that worked at Bucher Aerospace when i started, are still working there.

In 2013 the wole company moved to a diffrent building in Everett to save rent. It is still our curent adress. I lost my office and have much less room for the machine shop to grow. But it was certainly the right thing to do.

In late 2013 finally a dream came true. We purchased the new Haas UMC750 5-Axis machine. I've been hoping ever since i started at Bucher that one day I would program for a 5-Axis machine again.  Sadly it is not a DMU 50V evolution but the Haas UMC750 was half the price of the German made machine. By the time the machine was delivered I had wrote the basics of the post processor for the machine, and had a part running within 3 days. Over the following months i fine tuned it and added 5-axis simultaneous tool path capability to it. As you can see in the little movie.

After a slow down in 2015 the company is growing again and seams bing healthy. I think the next machine we were talking about for such a long time, is geting closer to being purchased.