Newly developed CNC training center helps spread knowledge
“Besides selling tools, we want to teach people and help the industry grow,” said Sebastian Salemi of Terminator Diamond Products.
After two years in development, Terminator Diamond Products has finally completed construction of its new CNC training facility in Charlotte, NC. Stone World magazine, along with fabricators from around the country were invited to an open house event promoting the new center and course offerings. While attending, it became clear that the company’s mission is to educate fabricators and grow this new facility to become a value add to the entire stone industry in a new light.
“The idea came about roughly two years ago,” said Vincent Salemi, owner of Terminator Diamond Products. “We were sitting down as a family and discussing our plans for the next year. While we’d come a long way in designing tooling suitable for new age materials, such as the popular ultra-compact surfaces on the market, we found that even with proper tooling, good working knowledge of how to fabricate these materials was lacking. My wife said, ‘Why don’t you come out with a training center?’ And just like that the idea was born. We all loved it, including our award-winning CNC instructor Eric Pate. With this center, we were interested in taking the unknown out of the industry; this industry isn’t like 20 year ago. You now need to be able to work with every and all products and be able to use the proper tools and proper methods to
be successful.”
“We wanted to do something to connect with fabricators and deliver better service to them,” said Michael Salemi of Terminator Diamond Products. “While traveling around the country for years conducting numerous live tool set-ups and trainings, we learned there was only so much we could do time and man-power wise, which was a limiting factor to how many fabricators we could effectively serve. With this facility, we wanted to be able to reach and help as many people in the industry as possible. It’s something we are very passionate about.”
Terminator has partnered with Northwood and Denver and uses their machines at the CNC training facility. “Our vision is for this place is to be an asset to the industry,” said Sebastian Salemi of Terminator Diamond Products. “Besides selling tools, we want to teach people best practices and help the industry grow as a whole. To further add to this, we have a new automated CNC measuring system that we feel will set a new precedent for the next 10 years in tool calibration and maintenance.”
The machine Sebastian Salemi was speaking of is called Zares II. Zares II is a new 3D Optical CNC Tool Measuring System, which won Best of Technology and Best of Product awards at TISE 2016 in Las Vegas, NV. Stuart Young of Stoneworks, NC, recently installed a Zares II in his fabrication shop, integrating it with his two new Park Industry Titan CNC machines. By incorporating Zares II into his fabrication process, he was able to fully set-up and calibrate 126 tools in only four hours with zero CNC machine downtime. “We purchased a Zares II system and have had amazing results with it,” said Young. “Combined with an offline tool dressing system, it allows us to measure, monitor and maintain our tools better than I have ever imagined. We recently sent our first set of tools out for EDM since running the Zares II machine, and the unexpected bonus was that after 5,000 feet of running a T30R3 set, we were still producing the edge with no discernible lines on the flat. The polish wheels 5, 6 and 7 still had about 25% measured life left on them.”
“What we found is people want knowledge,” said Eric Pate of Terminator Diamond Products. “They want to know how to do things the right way and that is what we want to provide them with. As we grow, we will improve and add to our course offerings. In the future we are planning to do a college integration for the next generation of stone fabricators. “The stone industry is still behind,” Pate went on to say. “We need to help them move forward and make people more successful. If we don’t present
a good solution, then our tools won’t mean anything.”
Terminator Diamond Products will be offering a CNC Tool Calibration and Maintenance Level I Certification, and will be putting up their course schedule later this summer on the website, www.terminatordiatrainingcenter.com. Additionally, in the future they will hold an Advanced Level II CNC Tool Calibration and CNC Saw Training Course.
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Jason Kamery is the Managing Editor and Group Digital Editor of Stone World. With more than a decade of experience covering the stone and countertop industry, he has conducted hundreds of interviews with fabricators, manufacturers, and industry leaders, and hosts the Stone World. podcast. He reports from events worldwide, including TISE, Coverings, and Marmomac, and his coverage extends to worker safety and silicosis, trade policy and tariffs, and fabrication technology. Kamery has also served as a speaker and panel moderator at The International Surface Event (TISE). He graduated from Purdue University with a B.A. in Mass Communication.
email: kameryj@bnpmedia.com | office: (248) 833-7356
