Where it all began...

I was a 3rd year apprentice millwright and I was given the task to help an electrician make a “turndown unit” for a Weckerle lipstick machine. The exact date escapes me. I guess it was around 2005ish.

The machine had two separate motors that would turn down two separate lipsticks at the same time. The piece of equipment would fail regulary. this was not the machine that I was assigned to but it was a task that I remembered being very interested in. My task was to install a more modern gear motor that could tension the same style of timing belt and turn down two lipsticks at the same time with the same motor, just before the cap was placed on top.

I remember making this with a very talented electrician that was from South Africa. His passion was contagious. After I made this modification I kept walking by the machine watching it in action. It gave me so much pride to be part of something that made a machine run more efficientaly.