Surface Planers Being Manufactured Here by Fleming Machine Company
FORMER HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER HEADS NEW BUSINESS
"Small but growing" might well be the slogan of the Fleming Machine Manufacturing Company, 164 West Second street, a new Winona manufacturing firm.
M. J. Fleming, owner and for a long time the entire staff, will be interviewed over Radio Station KwNO Monday at 6:45 p. m. in the 31st program in the Industrial Winona series.
Mr. Fleming is one man who has combined a hobby with his business with successful results. A teacher of the machnist trade in vocational schools, the Winona man said he looked forward to the day "when I could run my own business and manufacture the things I like to make."
Surface Planer
Principal item of manufacture at present is a surface planer, made in two models. Although production is now confined to this item, Mr. Fleming said he has "other plans on the fire," which will include the construction of various other shop items such as a bench saw and drill press.
Mr. Fleming came to Winona in July 1945, when he was employed by the board of education as a machine shop instructor for vocational classes. Previous to coming here, he taught machine shop work in vocational school at Ely for 25 years and before that worked at the machinist's trade in Canada.
"In the fall of 1946 I decided had enough of teaching school," Mr. Fleming said, "and decided to go out on my own. This little shop is the result."
Now New
The surface planer is not a new idea nor as exclusive one, Mr. Fleming was quick to point out.
"During ten of the years that I was at Ely we manufactured surface planers as part of a school project," he said. "I decided on the planer as my first item of manufacture and have incorporated into my machine two things on which I have applied for patents."
Exclusive with the Fleming planer is a different type chip breaker, a device to hold the material being planed flat to the bed of the planer and a floating, elevating nut which handles any strain that might be caused by irregularities or distortion in the material being worked.
Completed Five
Since he opened his shop, Mr. Fleming said he has completed, alone, five of the machine in both the 12 and the 16-inch models. He now has orders for five more machines which are being built with the help of one other employee. Three other men are to begin work this month.
"It takes skilled machinists to construct the various parts which make up the completed planer," Mr. Fleming said. "Good men are scarcer than material."
Purpose of the machine is to smooth lumber as well as reduce it in thickness. The 12-inch machine, for example, will handle a plank 12 inches wide, one eight of an inch to four inches thick. The machine will handle 30 feet of plank a minute at a cutting speed of 3,600 revolutions per minute.
Gears Covered
Cabinet makers, lumber years and schools are the principal purchasers of the machine. With the planer, it is possible to buy rough, home-cured lumber and finish it for fine cabinet work. In the Fleming machines, one of which sells for $300 and the other for $550, all gears and moving parts are covered as a safety precaution.
Production now is slow, Mr. Fleming admitted, but he added that with additional help he plans to meet a production schedule of two machines a week by the middle of this summer and by next winter expects to be turning out one machine a day.
Plans are being made to set up a selling organization for distribution of the planer. Mr. Fleming said the Winona Motor Company will handle the major portion of the distribution, but added that details have not been "ironed out."
A native of Canada, Mr. Fleming and his family reside at 217 West Sanborn street.