Two Brothers, One Tormach, and the Mission to Bring Honor Back to American Manufacturing, #526

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Keith and Patrick Lee didn’t start their machine shop with a giant facility, a full team, or a fleet of high-end equipment. They started with a Tormach in a one-car garage, a willingness to learn, and the belief that if they kept showing up, solving problems, and doing what they said they would do, they could build something real.

In this episode of MakingChips, Keith and Patrick share the story behind their South Jersey machine shop, from discovering CNC through high school STEM projects and YouTube videos to slowly building the business on nights and weekends. Keith brings the hands-on machining background, including time in the Air National Guard and aerospace manufacturing, while Patrick brings a mechanical engineering background and experience in heavy construction operations. Together, they’ve had to figure out not just how to make parts, but how to build a business from scratch.

Their journey is full of the kind of lessons every shop owner can relate to: learning CNC by doing, finding early work through Xometry, using LinkedIn to build real customer relationships, deciding when to invest in equipment, and building processes before hiring or automating. They also talk openly about what it’s like to work with a sibling, how they handle disagreements, and why “family before the business, family after the business” has become a guiding principle.

What sets Keith and Patrick apart isn’t flashy equipment or decades of experience. It’s their ethos: ownership, duty, discipline, honesty, and a commitment to bringing honor back to American manufacturing. They want to build a shop that treats customers like partners, pays skilled people well, and proves that doing the right thing still matters.

What’s Covered in this Episode

• (0:00) Keith’s “fake it till you make it” CNC job story
• (0:47) Keith and Patrick Lee’s origin story in manufacturing (STEM, John Saunders, and more)
• (3:47) Launching the business and building out the shop themselves
• (4:48) First real machines and early customers: Xometry to get started, then upgrading to a Haas mini mill and Prototrack lathe scored at auction
• (6:29) Take your shop to the next level with high-end DN Solutions Machining
• (7:40) Current equipment: multiple Haas machines and why standardizing on one brand makes sense at this stage
• (8:23) Learning CNC: Keith’s self-taught journey through YouTube, a year at a job shop, and why high-mix/low-volume is the best education
• (12:00) Customer acquisition and sales challenges they’re tackling
• (13:55) What actually works on LinkedIn: personal content, authentic connections, and targeted warm outreach to local companies
• (17:42) Networking group: Brett Lister’s local machinist community and how generously this industry shares
• (19:12) Your buyers have technical questions. Navu delivers reliable, accurate answers.
• (20:25) Building a process from scratch: why developing process is harder than improving one; the need for standards before automation or hiring
• (23:09) QMS and documentation: how they built their QMS, use travelers and job sheets, and adopted Infab ERP
• (25:42) Knowledge retention challenges: capturing speeds, feeds, and setup know-how before the next hire
• (28:03) Delegate and elevate: having Patrick program and set up jobs as a test run for future onboarding
• (30:15) Brand and values: ownership, duty, discipline; what actually sets a two-Haas shop apart in a crowded market
• (33:00) High say-do ratio: doing what you say you will do as the primary differentiator; treating customers like family
• (36:55) Check out the Hennig Workflow (an automated pallet delivery system)
• (41:31) General vs. niche: why being a general job shop makes sense at the start; focusing on milling in a specific size range as a core competency
• (43:44) QMS as foundation for certification: AS9100 vs. ISO 9001; getting into aerospace overflow work first before pursuing the cert
• (48:09) Closing advice: working with a sibling means family before business and family after business
• (49:38) Starting a shop: do it before it is too late; it takes twice as long and costs twice as much, and neither is a reason not to
• (50:39) Gates’s Law: overestimate what you can do in one year; underestimate what you can do in five

Resources Mentioned

• Episode Transcript
• Tormach
• Haas Automation
• Xometry
• NYC CNC (John Saunders) — YouTube
• DN Solutions
• Navu
• Hennig Workflow Automation
• The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber

Connect with Keith & Patrick Lee

• Liberty Manufacturing
• Keith Lee on LinkedIn
• Patrick Lee on LinkedIn

Connect With MakingChips

• www.MakingChips.com
• On Facebook
• On LinkedIn
• On Instagram
• On Twitter
• On YouTube