Page 60 - Lighting Magazine November 2019

UNDER
THE
RADAR
“I think my grandfather would be pleased with how the company is today.” —David Zuckerwise
have meant steady business regardless of the economy or the volatility of the housing market. Some of the accounts include thermal tempera- ture sensing equipment for spas, thermometers for oil wells, plus regulators. One of the most high- profile accounts involves decorative hardware for Wynn Design Group, which operates luxury hospi- tality properties such as the Wynn and Encore in Las Vegas and Wynn Macau in China.
cuSTom worK IS a SpecIaLTY
Within the 10,000-sq.-ft. factory are Hitachi Seiki, Miyano, and Brother CNC lathes and machining centers; Warner & Swasey and Hardinge turret lathes; plus Bridgeport, Nichols, and Cincinnati milling machines; along with a full complement of drill presses, saws, inspection equipment, plus shop machinery of every type as well as mate- rial handling equipment. Liberty is also an ISO 9001:2015 registered company and has been for over 10 years.
Among Liberty’s capabilities are fulfilling orders as small as one piece to one million in brass, bronze, stainless, cold rolled steel, and aluminum and made from round, hex, or square bar, flat stock, or tubing. “We can do decorative work to fabulous finishes and precision work to a tolerance of within .0005
of an inch and of course, we speak metric as well,” according to the website.
Product designers, manufacturers, and other businesses rely on Liberty to create prototypes and samples. “People come to us and tell me an idea, and I’ll sketch it out with approximate sizes for parts or they will sketch it out for us,” Zuckerwise states. “If they want modifications to a design, we can shorten a part or scale it up. Our catalog com- petition doesn’t have that ability [since most don’t do any manufacturing, just import finished parts].
While the company charges a fee to make pro- totypes and samples, that price is credited back with the placement of an order. In a typical month, Liberty will do 20 to 30 runs in quantities of 100 or less. “It used to be the kind of business that could support only stock items, but today people call me up and say, we need 5 to 40 pieces [in some custom size or design],” he explains.
It’s not just having the machinery and skilled labor on-hand that makes Liberty valuable to its customers, it’s also the experience. “The first thing I ask a customer is, ‘What are you trying to accomplish?’ Some younger engineers these days don’t have the decades of experience [with com- ponent parts],” Zuckerwise remarks. Since he has been working in various metals for decades with
58 enLIGHTenment magazine | november 2019
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