The WhistleSmith Visits Grizzly Industrial

My wife Nadiene and I usually get in some vacation time in the fall. We leave when the autumn leaves are finished in Maine and are still beautiful in the rest of New England. This year we traveled from Presque Isle to Portland for a days visit on the historic waterfront and a chance to check out some shopping and for me to do a hands on look around the Rockler store. Then it was on to Scranton, Pennsylvania where we pick up Route 81 and head down the Blue Ridge toward Virginia and the town of Mineral where my older son Rodney Lee runs the Montana tractor dealership and Ultra Touch Landscaping.

We have traveled this way several times before and it is a spectacular ride that roller coasters through the mountains and down through the scenic valleys. When we got to the intersection of routes 81 and 80, we turned right and followed 80 west to Bloomsburg, Pa. where we had planned to stay the night. After a long day on the road, we found the Hampton Inn to be a welcome sight and checked in to spend the night in Bloomsburg and travel the short distance to Muncy the following morning.

After a pleasant supper, I got a call from Rodney Lee and while we were talking, he checked out our location on MapQuest to see how far we were from Mineral. “You are about a hundred and twenty five miles off course according to MapQuest. How can you be in Bloomsburg?” he asked? Well, we were in Bloomsburg all right, the Town of Bloomsburg (which it turned out was where we should have been all along). and we were on route 81 which was the correct interstate. Turns out that Pennsylvania has two Bloomsburgs, one is the Town of and the other Bloomsburg showing on MapQuest which is a City. They are about 125 miles apart and when we inquired at the desk if they often got missing customers, the desk did not know there were two places with the same name. It turned out that the management was new and from California and knew almost nothing about the local area as they had just arrived!

The next morning we were up and at ‘em and on our way to Muncy up Route 180. After a short ride, we pulled into the Lycoming Mall Circle and up to the entrance of the Grizzly showroom. The building is 230,000 square feet on 22 acres of ground and the showroom is just spectacular. This is probably the largest machinery show room in the world and it is packed with every type of wood and metal working machinery that your could ever ask for. Every article that is sold in their catalog is on display and that is a whole lot of stuff to go through. We needed to buy some air tools and a specialty stapler plus a lot of small cutters and reamers for the Whistle shop. So picking up a tally board, we set out to fill our list. Write down the item number and the listed amount and you can begin working through your shopping list. No carts to push and nothing to carry, you get everything filled at the end of your shopping by a fast and efficient crew in the warehouse.

Here is a small amount of Grizzly Mill and Drill Machinery.

The first thing you notice at Grizzly Industrial is the absolutely spotless showroom. You are walking into the best kept showroom that you will ever set foot into. There is not a spot of dust anywhere. The floors, machinery, display cases and displays are absolutely maintained to a very high level. The restrooms were so clean that I thought the building must have just opened! You can tell a lot about a company by looking how it is run and how things are maintained and this is the most impressive showroom I have ever seen.

Nadiene and the giant Grizzly Bear

The staff on the floor are very cordial and most are retired product inspectors. They can answer technical questions that you might have on any piece of machinery on the floor. Gordon Patterson was working the morning we arrived and he showed me the various milling machines. I found that he was interested in my project and went out of his way to show me the machines that would be the easiest and most economical to use to get the results that I wanted.
There are many different projects on display and we especially enjoyed the woodworking pieces. This is a terrific collection done by a Canadian woodworker using all Grizzly machinery and tools.
So what does all this have to do with the WhistleSmith? Well..., we saved a bundle on our new machinery for this spring and had a terrific time getting new ideas for the projects that are coming up.
Grizzly Industrial has a huge website at www.grizzly.com and be sure to sign up for their catalog. If you are near Muncy, you would really enjoy a visit to the showroom and the Pennsylvania scenery is beautiful on your drive over.