John Saunders, a Well-known Machining Expert and Influencer, Selected as a Tooling Contest Judge

ANCA’s Tool of the Year contest is once again underway for the fifth year in a row. The prestigious, global competition opened for entries on May 17, 2022 and will close on August 8, 2022. The competition is based on the passion and the craft of tool making and celebrates the highly skilled tool grinding community. This year the panel of judges will include John Saunders, Saunders Machine Works, among a select group of industry experts.

John Saunders, President of Saunders Machine Works (SMW) and founder of YouTube channel NYC CNC, is excited to be a part of the selected panel. Saunders started his business about 15 years ago when he was trying to bring a product to market as a young entrepreneur. Admittedly not knowing anything about machining or even manufacturing, he ended up purchasing a benchtop CNC machine while living in New York city. At the time, his sole goal was to try to understand what machining was and how it worked. He was not planning on making parts himself, but wanted to be able to better communicate with engineers and machine shops on what parts they needed and ended up falling in love with the industry. This led to him documenting his journey on his well-known YouTube channel, called NYC CNC.

Saunders passion for “making stuff” was once again invigorated. Fast forward about 7 years into that journey, Saunders left New York city and moved back to central Ohio where he grew up. It was there, in Zanesville, Ohio, he started Saunders Machine Works as a “proper” brick and mortar business.

In the early years, the company did some job shop work and other projects, but now focuses on their line of Fixture Plates, as well as accessories, like the Mod Vise. The Mod Vise is a very popular, modular workholding system that allows one to hold small parts, big parts, dual station parts, etc.  In addition to that, SMW continues to publish a lot of YouTube videos and offers hands-on CNC training classes where folks can learn CAM and how to operate CNC Machines.

Known widely through the manufacturing field for his YouTube channel, Saunders feels the biggest development in the machine tool industry, and the part he cares about most, said Saunders, is “the knowledge one can now gain from YouTube and other online resources, and how that learning may be enough to actually prepare them to take the next step; to buy a machine or start a side business, or a young person who’s interested can get guidance on whether they go into a trade or an engineering program, and that’s something I care greatly about and I think it’s absolutely awesome and I think that’s only going to continue.”

Saunders first became familiar with ANCA while on a shop tour for NYC CNC in a facility using ANCA machinery. He is excited to attend IMTS 2022 and for his role as a judge in ANCA’s Tool of the Year contest. He says competitions are important to the industry because “they bring a sense of community and a community bonding,” plus, he feels, “It’s really about having fun and showing off what you can do.”

The winner of #MadeonANCA receives $10,000 AUD worth of ANCA innovations for parts, accessories or software that fit the winner’s grinding needs or a trip to ANCA’s headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. This amazing prize further includes access as an ANCA VIP to exclusive opportunities with our ANCA tool experts. The winner of the most innovative virtual tool will receive a full CIM software package.

To enter the ANCA Tool of the Year contest, please see: www.machines.anca.com/Tool-Of-The-Year

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