Razor USA, the company best known for introducing the world to the Razor Scooter back in 2000, uses a Tormach PCNC 1100 for prototyping and product development. Billy Griggs, a retired BMX racer and product developer at Razor, says “Since [the success of the scooters], it’s been a long journey into electrics, electric ride-ons, and fantasy-type toys. We’ve really grown as a company well beyond the scooters.”
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Griggs’ journey to using a Tormach CNC mill started when he retired from professional BMX biking. “Having a love of BMX bikes after retiring, my passion became a desire to develop and design bikes that I knew needed to ride a certain way,” he explains. “That drove me to learn all of the fabrication and design skills necessary for those development processes.” Griggs spent seven years in the bike industry before finding his way to Razor. “When Razor started to move on to a more diverse product line [apart from the scooters], that’s where the opportunity opened for me to come work here and bring some of those fabrication skills to an R&D shop for Razor USA.”
Razor has had their PCNC 1100 since 2010, and have had to do little maintenance to keep the CNC machine running to their liking. “We’ve only done some repainting to keep it looking fresh.” “We use our Tormach the most when we’re prototyping concept ideas,” Griggs continues:
“A lot of times we need multiple parts. Before we had the Tormach, we had to make them manually. Now, we’re able to knock out parts and make revisions and develop our products a little bit further than what we used to do. So as our products become more intricate, it’s been a great asset.”
The Tormach CNC mill found its way into the Razor shop because it fit the company’s budget, space requirements and according to Griggs, “it seemed like a really easy machine to get started on – since we had no previous CNC experience. We were going to learn as we went. It seemed like the kinder, friendlier, fit all our requirements kind of machine… It’s really suited our needs and productivity level perfectly.”
One of the company’s more popular products, the Crazy Cart, was in development for seven or eight years. “It wasn’t a front-burner project until all of a sudden it was. It was a good thing that we had the Tormach all along to help with that,” Griggs says. “It’s sort of a drifting simulator go-kart. It can do a few things that a real drift cart can’t do, like tea cup spins. We made a lot of pieces and parts for that product on the Tormach – it required a really intricate steering limiter which was designed and built on the Tormach. Various linkages and other components that are critical for the function of critical elements of the design.”
Razor USA continues to utilize their PCNC 1100 for product development, creating the latest and greatest in fun for kids, as well as the occasional toy for Griggs and his team to play with.
