Hi All,

Back from the wrong side of the world after my 7 week visit I find myself swamped with demo's, support tickets and write-ups, I have just managed to catch-up!

My trip was rewarding and challenging in equal measure, I took on the mammoth 50 day trip with the intention of having my girlfriend join me for a 2 week break mid trip, which would break up the work load nicely. As things transpired, due to the Icelandic volcano; she never made it. I was left stranded in Melbourne, trying to fill time without spending too much money whilst also trying to console Louise. Louise and I had planned a lovely trip in which we were to take in Sydney, Melbourne and the Great Coast Road, alas I found myself alone a long way from home, having to eat alone in restaurants, or in my hotel :-(.

I was so glad to get back to work, seeing new and existing customers; I just love seeing the variation in metal casters and their plant and equipment. I saw my first Desamatic production line on this trip; Wow what an impressive piece of kit that was, integrated pouring, shake out and sand reclaim. 

On the smaller scale I visited a die caster who produced parts for mobile phones and MP3 players, where I saw the smallest casting I had ever seen. This casting was approximately 2mm tall and 1mm wide, it had 2 holes in, astonished by its size i asked if I could keep an example, and they kindly let me put one or two in my shirt pocket. It took me an age to retrieve as it was so small it had fallen into the seams!! Even more astonishing was the fact that the hole was tapped with an M1 thread! on a lovingly crafter auto-tapping machine which processes some 10,000 a day - most impressive.

Returning home was an absolute joy as I had left North Wales before Spring had sprung, with no leaves on the tress and the climate was decidedly 'late winter'; coming back mid May North Wales was bursting with life, it was so green and the weather was lovely. Surprisingly for the UK the weather has been fantastic and we are having one of the bast summers for many a year.

My Camper van will be having a few outings this year and we have already planned 3 trips away in 'Bertha'...

She's a 1972 Type 2 Bay Window (Low Indicator Square back-lights for the Camper nerds out there), I bought her for Louise's 25th birthday some years ago and after using her for a bit spent 2 years restoring her. Boy that was a big task, replaced the entire bottom six inches with new metal, and also replaced the entire front panel. My MIG welding skills were improved enormously during this time! we then used her for about 4 years with trips around Wales, Cornwall & Scotland. She has been away over the last winter having a new carb, and a few repairs. I will be tackling the entire suspension system over the coming weeks, replacing the shocks, anti-roll bars and wheel bearings, I will also be lowering her just a few inches to improve her looks, can't wait to get stuck in!.

Happy camping folks!

So, so busy...and many new countries to visit.

I apologize for the length of time I have taken to write up my BLOG.

Since January...10 I have been none stop. All very interesting.

We have been installing quite a few systems and as always this leaves little room for any other work. A new group in the UK and same in the USA and I am now in New Zealand after going to Singapore to instal a new system.

Singapore

I would really like to thank the company I visited; they are keen to learn and hungry for knowledge and this always makes for a vibrant installation. The are hospitable to guests.

As a matter of respect we at Synchro rarely take photographs of customer sites; And never list our customers. Just because they are users of Synchro does not give us the right to publish information regarding what many believe is a system (Synchro32) credited with giving a great edge against their competition...

Early morning start...better than coffee and a traffic jam to get your working day off to a calm start to your working day.

Another long flight and here I am now in Auckland New Zealand....

Just begining another installation of which there are three. This is such a beautiful city...I thought I would take a birds eye view...!

Must go now...busy man has to go to sleep...I miss my partner Bean and our dog.

I Resolve to do my Blogs!

Firstly may I wish all our customers and staff a Happy New Year and indeed a Happy New Decade.

As a new year rolls in we inevitably think about resolutions, and resolve to improve ourselves, our work practices our lives, with this being a new decade I feel a pressure to have 'uber'-resolutions that will last the next ten years! Perhaps it's just me; this year marks my 40th birthday, the beginning of my 4th decade on this planet (its been my favourite planet for aeons!). I have made a few promises to myself, a few goals have been set in place, a few pictures of my future imagined. I find that goals and visions of the future are more powerful than the resolutions, which seem by definition to be broken within a week of making them.

My goals and Visions form a longer more holistic aim, I guess it comes from the 'positive thinking' school of though but I have a lot of faith in that old adage and I will continue to build these visions, dreams, goals both in my personal and in my professional life.

Its funny how in my past I recall dreaming of something like to travel the world, and here I am years later, down a twisty path my vision / dream has come true, I am sure when I first thought about the idea I imagined that I would be a lottery winner or an adventurer travelling the globe. But my dream and vision was not about how it would be achieved it was about Travelling the World, and as a bonus I get to do that whilst also fulfilling my professional aspirations / dreams.

So out with the resolutions and in with dreams and aspirations!

I aspire to do my blogs more often!!

Another month another trip to the US of A!...the Investment Casting Institute 56th Annual Technical Conference in Indianapolis and my first trade show since I have been with Synchro. I must admit I was a bit apprehensive about the show as my role tends to be more on the technical, installation and training side, however in the safe hands of Mr Shane Allen, we had a cracking show. Shane and I made a great team and It was great working with him, we built a great looking stand...


and although the show was only open for 3 hours for exhibitors we managed to make contact with about 40 people.

The remainder of my trip took me to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin thankfully the really cold weather had not descended and I was treated to some beautiful autumnal colours both in New England and in Wisconsin.

On these trips it usually works out that during the 14 days I may get 1 day to myself! and when not too tired from Jet Lag or the long working hours I try my best to get out and about and to see something of the places I am visiting. On this occasion it worked out that I was in Massachusetts, and so on the middle Sunday of my trip I took myself off to the coast, more specifically the beautiful Cape Cod, the weather was a bit on the windy and cloudy side but I managed to find a lovely Vineyard Called Truro Vineyard of Cape Cod...


I spend a happy hour or so listening to the great staff talking about their wines and sampled some of their remaining 2008 vintage. I cannot resist buying a bottle or two form small vineyards, so my cases were a bit heavier for the rest of the trip, I had hoped I may be able to drink a bottle during the following week, but alas my workload and travel itinerary meant I was burdened until I returned to the UK. I continued my journey up to Provence Town, just so that I could say I went to the tip of the Cape, I really liked the place and would hope to return someday with a bit more time to explore a bit more.

This was my first Solo trip to the USA without my mentor and all round genies-arse Simon, so apprehension about missed flights and getting lost on the high-ways and free-ways of the states were high in my mind. I am glad to say the trip went very well and my travels (although some delays out of Boston due to bad weather) went very well.

My reading has increased ten fold as a result of travelling so much and during flights and delays in airports I love to get stuck into a good book so if you'll forgive me I'll use this blog as a means of keeping a record of the books I have read or am reading....

This book I found about 2 days before leaving the UK, and what a good read it is; a Biography by Suze Rotolo of her time in Greenwich Village, NY in the early to mid 1960's where she met and spent time with Bob Dylan. I have been a Dylan fan for many years and having an insight from someone so close to him was a real treat, however the book is not just about Dylan; Suze is a remarkable person in her own right, and the tales of those times in NY and beyond were fascinating..I heartily recommend this a great read...


I 'll sign off for now with a best wishes for Thanksgiving to all our US customers.

Best Regards.

Richy Raine

Busy Busy Busy

Hi All, well its been quite a busy few months for me! I've bee on three continents and in Four Different countries, some for pleasure, some for business.

As mentioned in my last post, Louise and I had a holiday in the Morvan, we spent a glorious week in July at a small gite in the National Park, the gite was attached to a larger house, which was owned by an ex-pat couple formerly from The Wirral. Mike and Barbara were perfect hosts and knew so much about the area, they also did a great wine tour around the local Vine yards, which was fantastic as we could Degustation to our hearts content and not have to worry about the driving!! Whoopie Hic! The weather was not all we hoped but we had 1 or 2 bright sunny days, and all in all a lovely holiday was had.


I then had a 10 day trip to the US of A visiting some new customers for the implementation of Synchro32. I always enjoy visiting our customers and its always a pleasure to see the different casting types in action. Saw a centrifugal casting company who manufactured tubes, it was facinating to see the set-up and also interesting from an implementation point of view, as I have not implemented a system at this type of caster before, of course Synchro32 has the capability and it just needs a bit of configuration to be fit for the job.

Shortly after returning from USA Louise and I had another Holiday, this time in search for some guaranteed sun; so it was off to Sicily and the resort of Taormina on the North East coast. Taormina is a busy resort town much favoured by the Italians, in fact it was only after we booked the trip that we read '...never visit in August...its too busy'!! It was very busy but wow what a beautiful place, and boy the weather was stunning high 30's (100+ F) through the week. Our hotel was a small hotel directly on the main town street (Corso Umberto), which is where the Italians spent the evening walking up and down 'Passegiata' (basically posing!, boy the Italians are good at that). We had a lovely Holiday and some great food and some great wine.



Within a week of coming back from Sicily It was of to Malaysia for a new install in Ipoh, a town about 2 hrs. north of kuala Lumpur. This was a fascinating trip in which i met some really friendly people and sampled some amazing food, such a variety and such a fusion of styles. I finished of a long week there with 24hrs in KL, what a city, great hotels with some amazing bars, have a look at the Sky Bar in the Traders Hotel, quite some bar with open aspect to the Petronas Towers about 500 yards away, and a pool right in the middle of the bar!





I have been back in the office for a couple of weeks now catching up on things but also preparing for my next trip to USA in October. Again visiting some new customers, and providing some top up training to a long standing customer. I will also be meeting up with Shane who I haven't seen for nearly a year, we will be in attendance at the ICI's 56th Annual Technical Conference and Expo at Indianapolis 11th - 14th October 2009 see http://www.synchro32.com/exhibitions/future_exhibitions.htm for details.

Well until next time...

Hi All,
My Name is Richy Raine, I am the latest member of the fantastic Synchro32 team. I have not blogged before so am looking forward to sharing a bit of myself with you all.
I am based in the beautiful North Wales only 60 miles from The Snowdonia National Park. I was brought up in the small market town of Denbigh...Google Map Link here. I currently live In Wrexham some 40 miles from Denbigh, with my beautiful girlfriend Louise and our dog Kaya.
I have many and varied interests some of which I will elaborate on in future Blogs, but what's keeping me busy at the moment is my car... A 2003 MGZT CDTi in Solar Red...

I got her about 15 months ago, I bought her as a Salvage repairable which needed more work than originally envisaged!! (I cannot resisit a bargain!!), the front end was pretty messed up. However I dropped lucky on another solar red MGZt with rear end damage so managed to get all the bits together for the repair from one car, great result no spraying required, just unbolted all the squished bits and bolted back the unsquished bits. My pride and joy was on the road. But the story doesn't end there, tune in next month for the next installment of the MGZTs journey.

By the time I next blog I will have been to Burgendy in France where Louise and I will be spending a week, enjoying the sun, the wine and the good food...Burgendy..J'ai hate de te voir.