SAMPE Review
Dateline: 06/10/98Last week was rather hectic. I was in California on Monday and Tuesday at the annual SAMPE Exhibition. On Wednesday, I returned home just long enough to write a weekly article. Then it was off to Boston for my 10 year college reunion.
Naturally, I came back to a stack of urgent messages, both at work and at home, and I still haven't caught up. If you've sent me e-mail in the last two weeks or so, please be patient if you haven't heard back yet--I will get to your message.
Side Trip
My SAMPE trip actually started in San Diego, with a trip to Callaway Golf. One of out techs had met a Callaway engineer, and he had invited us out for a tour.
Our visit began with the standard production plant tour. The metal woods plant was closed to visitors that day, so we went through the irons plant. The tour is interesting, but don't expect to have your technical questions answered--the guide has good general knowledge but was not an engineer.
Callaway assembles its clubs from heads and shafts supplied by outside vendors. As a result, little if any composites work goes on in the production plants.
Much more interesting, therefore, was our private tour of Callaway's prototype facilities. Here Callaway designs new shafts and heads, and has equipment for making composite shafts. If you know an engineer at Callaway, I highly recommend trying to arrange for a private tour.
I wish I could provide more detailed descriptions of the production and prototype facilities, but all visitors must sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Reservations must be made for the production plant tours. They run at 9:30 am, 1:30 pm, and 3:30 pm Monday through Friday. Call 760-930-TOUR to reserve your spot.
SAMPE Exhibits
We left Callaway around lunch time and made it to Anaheim in time to spend a couple of hours in the exhibit hall. There seemed to be more exhibitors than the last time I attended (1995), but the "old timers" tell me the convention is still much smaller than it was in the good old days.
One noticeable addition to this year's exhibit was the small manufacturers. In particular, I visited Vermont Composites' and R-Cubed's booths. I had worked with Vermont Composites on the Taurus program several years ago when they were still part of Courtaulds.
I expected to breeze through the exhibits quickly, but there were so many products I was interested in that I barely made it through by Tuesday afternoon when we had to leave.
The first product that caught my eye was a tooling compound called FasTool from Integrated Composites. FasTool consists of lightweight ceramic beads held together by a resin system. It is intended to be a backing or core material for tools and is capable of high temperature autoclave cures. The beads are available in various sizes, and the higher density systems (with the smallest beads) are machinable. We think this material may have some use on the OSP program for grid-stiffened tooling.
The other products I remember discussing in detail were autoclave control systems. We have been planning to upgrade to a PC-based system, and two packages were on display: one from Taricco; and the other from Thermal Equipment Corporation. Both systems are very complex and have nice features such as control off of multiple thermocouples on the part and database storage of cure histories.
At the Integrated Technologies booth, I ran into Shreeram Raj. Because he was the only person who recognized me from this Web site, he is the winner of the "Spot the Guide" contest. I haven't received the promo items yet, so an announcement of the prize will have to wait.
We visited many other booths, too numerous to mention, and I will probably be sifting through literature for several weeks. One of our main goals was to identify high-temp resins and adhesives for a rocket motor program, and we were able to identify several candidate materials.
Not Just Materials
Of course, it's hard (and tiring) to spend the entire time visiting the exhibit booths. Even if you aren't registered for the sessions, you can find some other diversions.
The booth for the bridge building contest was at the back of the exhibit hall. The equipment was there for load testing, but I wasn't able to see any of the bridges during my short visit.
The golf club booth was in the same vicinity. After hearing about last year's booth I expected to see long lines. Although the booth was doing brisk business, though, there didn't seem to be much of a wait. Perhaps that is why the price dropped from $55 on Monday to $35 on Tuesday.
One thing you don't want to miss are the hospitality suites. The food is ample (enough for an entire meal), and they are an excellent informal setting for networking. It was at the AirTech suite where I ran into Rob Michel of R-Cubed, who informed me that R-Cubed had recently been purchased by Composite Optics.
Career Fair
My last stop was the SAMPE Career Fair--not to look for a job, but to see what the market is like. There were five or six recruiters there, primarily from moderate to large sized companies. Two of those--Northrup Grumman and Lear Astronics--have been added to my Employers page. All of the companies expressed interest in my job listings page, so keep an eye out there for new postings.
Several of the companies also told me that they regularly check the Internet for resumes, and they asked if I have any resume listings. As a result of that interest, I will be starting to host resumes within the next several weeks. I am working on a format, so please don't send me anything yet. Watch the home page for an announcement.
It appears that the demand for composite professionals is high. In addition to the company representatives, the jobs bulletin board featured two dozen or so job listings from other companies and recruitment firms.
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