Machine Shops in Puerto Rico?

rudolf · Apr 16, 2009

i'm taking a trip to Puerto Rico this summer in June and i am interested in having a look at a machine shop or industrial facility while there. similar to what i was trying to do last year with my trip to Croatia.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showthread.php?t=154381&highlight=croatia

does anyone have leads on a place to visit?

67Cuda · Apr 16, 2009

Hopefully this is a business trip, I'd hate to think anyone would want to seek this type of stuff out while on vacation.

Tom

USMCPOP · Apr 16, 2009

I once got a tour of a votech school machine shop in Thailand. Saw a kid sawing away with a file and pointed it out to the instructor. Of course he then had to jump in and show him the proper way to file.

In Bangkok, they have a tool selling market area and there are some machine shops. One was a small gear making shop, filled to the brim with machines and barely room to walk. Somewhere back inside, you could see grandma sitting watching tv or something. Maybe PR will have similar attractions.

medwards · Apr 16, 2009

My company has a customer in Arecibo, Puerto Rico called Thermo King. They are a division of Ingersol Rand and manufacutre AC units for Tractor Trialers. I've been to their plant once a couple years ago. They didn't have a lot of machining, mostly tube bending and stamping equipment. They were in a very industrial area that had a lot more mfg. It was right off the interstate at the Arecibo Exit right next to a huge convention center. Roughly an hour west of San Juan.

While your in the area, go see the Arecibo Observatory (seen in the James Bond movie). http://www.naic.edu/ It's at the same exit as the industrial park.

I stayed in San Juan while I was there for the week and I don't remember seeing many industrial areas anywhere near there. Unless you call the Bacardi distillery industrial.

Everyone in San Juan speaks english for the most part. Outside of San Juan everyone speaks spanish only.

rudolf · Apr 16, 2009

thanks Arecibo is one of the cities i will be in while i am in Puerto Rico. i tried to make it to the radio telescope the last time i was there but it didn't work out. i will be giving it another shot this time for two reasons. mostly because i have an interest from a geologic perspective in the sink hole that the telescope is in. secondly because years ago i participated in the seti@home program analyzing data from the telescope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI@home

people in the US think we have it bad unemployment in Puerto Rico is running about 13% last time i looked at the news.

rudolf · Apr 16, 2009

67Cuda said:
Hopefully this is a business trip, I'd hate to think anyone would want to seek this type of stuff out while on vacation.

this is indeed a vacation. i enjoy seeing how things are done in different places in the world. when i travel as well as seeing the tourist or other sites that are all polished up i try to have a look at the industrial infrastructure. this tells me alot since i am familiar with the industrial infrastructure at home and i can make a direct comparison of something i am familiar with. finally i enjoy machining and manufacturing so i enjoy seeing it even on vacation.

Kris P · Apr 20, 2009

Been to PR before...

There is some industry on the Northwest corner, around Aguadilla. I know HP had a big facility there, don't know if it's still open. I would imagine there must be some support around as well.

I considered going down to nose around and see if there was any work there. It can't be but a couple of days to ship parts there from florida. It just so happens that there is incredible surfing in the area, my favorite activity.
I haven't run it past my bookeeper yet to see if it's write-off-able.

Other than that, places to visit are the phosphorescent bay, very cool, Old San Juan is okay. All in all, PR is not my favorite Latin American country, but there's enough to keep most interested for a week or two. I'll go again as a "guys surf trip" .

surplusjohn · Apr 23, 2009

When in Italy a few years ago, we rented a place in Tuscany for a week so I had time to wander around. We were near Ramapolo and I walked in a few stone cutting shops and the guys just let me walk around, didn't even ask me why. We also visited Carera where the marble quarries are. that was in the intro segment of the last Bond movie, BTW. Very cool place. I also wandered into a tiny basement carving shop that was doing real high end wood carvings for alters. You literally climbed thru a window to get in. two old toothless guys who were were delighted to show me what they do. Unbelievable workmanship. When you get out of the tourists areas you can find this stuff.

qualitymachinetools · May 1, 2009

Probably one of the coolest things that I had seen on Vacation was a machine shop with some guys working in it, was touring around Cancun, Mexico, and was on a bus tour and it was a little motor shop where they fixed anything and everything, Boats, Trucks, Motorcycles, etc.
They had a few lathes, mills, it was almost like it was outside though, kind of covered, but more like a porch roof, they had these machines and old lincoln welders and worked outside, it was like an open air machine shop.
Dont know the quality of the work, but it was just neat to see. Of course everyone I was with thought I was nuts, they were at the place checking out the local food, while I was checking out the local machines.

rockcampbell · May 1, 2009

Bacardi tour was not bad

I took the Bacardi tour a few years ago and it was pretty interesting seeing how they ran their rum stills and bottle line. Being from KY I kind of had an interest to see how they did things there compared to our bourbon operations.

Contrary to what the news media would have you believe about our drugs coming from Canada a very large quantity of our pharmaceuticals are made in PR around Vega Baja. Pharmacea & Upjohn, Warner Lambert, Bristol Myers, Squibb etc. all had major facilities in PR when I was there on equipment service calls multiple times in the late 90's.

I don't think they had tours at that time though. Some of the tablet making rooms for consumer products like Certs, Rolaids, and Efferdent had press & packaging capacities in excess of 40,000 tablets per minute when running full speed. The prescription products ran in smaller lots but they had more capacity for manufacturing pharmaceuticals there than anywhere else I ever saw. http://www.piapr.com/members/index.asp is the link to drug companies on the island.

Gary E · May 2, 2009

With the proper preplanning you can turn a biz trip into a vacation where most of the costs become biz expenses and thus deductable.
In other words... lets make this vaction cost almost free

CFreytes · Sep 13, 2012

If your coming to Puerto Rico let me tell you that we have the most machinist per capita i think of the US ,i really don`t know in what line of machining you were interested ,Medical ,Electronics,Aviation ,heavy machinery ect... we have in P.R. a well rounded selection of Machine Shops, i work in a Pharmaceutical enviroment with manual mills,lathes and surface grinders and a bridgeport C.N.C. with Fagor Controls and a Haas VF-3 the baby of the house ,for those interested of coming to P.R. on Vacation remember we are (MACHINING IN PARADISE)

BA in Tampa · Jul 4, 2013

Many industrial areas in PR. Caguas, Ciba, Bayamon and more. Stryker & Medtronic are there and several shops with CNC machines support the medical manufacturers.

gmatov · Jul 5, 2013

" people in the US think we have it bad unemployment in Puerto Rico is running about 13% last time i looked at the news."

That should, "People in the Lower 48" as Puerto Rico is part of the US. They vote in our elections. They are Citizens.

George

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