BobCAD’s CAM Software Boosts Tractech Manufacturing To New Heights

Tractech Manufacturing started out as a small motorcycle repair facility in Canada, run by Tim Sauder. He creates high-performance motorcycle parts for vintage and classic markets. “We do a lot of cafe racer stuff, vintage road racing… the late 60s, early 70s and early 80s is basically our area. We make a lot of parts for Honda CB350s and 750s. More hardcore parts like the actual engine parts,” Tim says. A lot of the part ideas come from customer questions, like, “Do you make a 1980 doo-dad?” Tim tells them to send some drawings or pictures and they will turn that into a product with BobCAD.

Like most, it all started with a passion to create. “The reason I started getting into CNC is that when I was wrenching back in the 90s, I wanted to make a small hydraulic bypass plate for the bike that I owned, and I had to start carving it on a manual machine. I never did finish the project. As soon as I got a CNC and up and running, I used BobCAD and made the part,” says Tim.

Before Tim started using BobCAD’s software, he had to do everything manual on paper. It was difficult for him trying to figure out triangles to design specific parts for motorcycles. When they finally got BobCAD, Tim could draw parts up and tweak it around like, “okay, this is right, this is right, this is right,” and then make it. Perfect fit. That was a huge thing for his shop because they could start making a product for a customer right away for these race applications without having to do it multiple times.

As he began to grow, he started taking on more and more machining in order to repair the machines they were running. His machines were all manual at the time. “Then we added CNC to it because we wanted to make our own parts. We then started dropping off the repair work, then we dropped off the service machining. After that, we became a dedicated CNC shop,” says Tim. To add more production power alongside his manual machines, Tim added CNC Mills and has newly acquired Lathe machines that are in his shop and ready to be plugged in.

Tim has been a customer with BobCAD for quite some time, running Version 16 up until he recently upgraded to Version 30. In order to operate at a high level, Tim decided to visit our headquarters in Clearwater, Florida for our In-house Training to get ahead of the curve with his new software. He brought his projects and part files with him, allowing him to get the most out of his training experience. When asked about the support team at BobCAD, Tim had this to say: “Everybody is here. You make a phone call, they help you. They’ll work with your code, your picture. They’ll actually produce code if you’d like to, which is great. If you have specific problems, they’re there to help you and you don’t have to go through a dealer who might not be as familiar with the product as you want them to be. I make a phone call here and someone says I don’t know how to do that, hold on a second and I will get it over to someone who does.” He looks at training as a way to protect his investment in his software.

 

 
You’re one click away from subscribing to BobCAD’s YouTube channel. Click the link below for tips, how-tos and much more!