Popular Mechanics - USA (2019-07-Special)

↓ MSTORYY^ PATENT^

Before there’s a patent, there’s an idea.

Before that, there’s a person with a problem to solve.

(2) LAST NAME (3) FIRST NAME (4) APPLICATION NO.

(1) PAT E NT

COLUMNS

22 July/August 2019 _ PopularMechanics.com

Adrian Skip 7,140,118

Workpiece Center and Edge Finder

Having Visual Light Indicator

Tell us your patent story at [email protected].

A Laser-Guided Tool for the Machine Shop

An inventor applies for his first patent at 65—an update to a standard

machinist’s tool. He winds up with clients in medicine and aerospace.

(5) My older brother has a genius IQ.

He’s like 168 or so. I’m just normal.

(6) He’s the one who talked me into try-

ing college. When I started, I didn’t

stop until I had my doctorate. I’ll stick

to something if it seems worthwhile.

(7) I got my doctorate in education, spe-

cializing in aviation, and I worked for

a while on electric vehicles. In most

blueprints they’ll say: Find the edge,

go in so far, and drill a hole. The typi-

cal edge finder that is out there, you put it in your quill, and

it has top and bottom parts that rotate independently. You

touch it to the edge of the workpiece, and when the two parts

spin flush with each other, you’ve found the edge. But before

you put in your drill bit, you have to move the worktable

again to actually align the center of the quill with the edge.

(8) I taught at California State University, Fresno. I was watch-

ing our students struggle with the edge finder, and I’d been

using a laser pointer in the classroom. I thought, Hmm, I

wonder if I could mate the two together?

(9) Call it the direct method: You put our laser edge finder in the

quill and move the table until the beam makes a line down

the side of the workpiece. You’ve found the edge, that quick.

(10) I filed for a patent. Being that I was already 65, they put

you at the top of the list, figuring you may not be around

by the time they go through their normal process. Around

the same time there was a hobbyist show for machinists in

Visalia, just south of us. My wife and I put 300 of our units

together. We sold out in hours and spent the next couple

days just taking orders. So we knew we had kind of a hit.

(11) In many cases, say, a Boeing machinist reads The Home

Shop Machinist magazine, sees our ads, and says, “Oh,

hey, we could use that.” We’ve sold eight different Boe-

ing locations our laser tools. For every wing that’s built,

there’s a jig that has two of our units on it. You can imagine

a 70-foot-long water-jet table with a carbon-fiber,

raw-material wing worth about $1.5 million.

They use our tool to make sure it’s centered

before they commit to cutting.

(12) The applications boggle my mind.

(13) Johns Hopkins medical research bought a red-

laser unit from us, and about three days later

they called and said, “Could you make us a green

unit?” Because they wanted to send a green

dot out through a fiber-optic cable. The batter-

ies in our units, they’ll go f lat in three hours.

The same batteries on a green laser? Five min-

utes. So that’s what caused me to introduce the

AC-powered units.

(14) Those are things I would never have thought of,

but just working with the customer, finding out

what they need, and wondering if I can do it or

not—that’s led to new products.

(15) It’s just been leads from one thing to another.

Like when the CIA called.

(16) I didn’t ask what they were going to do with it.