What's happened to Straitline?

The site has been down a week or so, and the socials I can find are old.

Are they still around? Did I get the last order out of the warehouse? They certainly had some good deals on the clearance stuff.

I worked next door to Straightline until May 2020. I checked with my old company a few months ago and Straightline was going strong. They mostly do high end machining for aerospace and the bike parts side of things is because they are riders and it uses excess machine capacity. They don't spend a lot of effort on their marketing/website/SM.

Ah. Fingers crossed they're just too busy with the paying jobs and the bike stuff will return soon.

I'd miss them if they were done.

It's always possible they decide bike parts aren't worth the hassle to make vs. their main business. It seems like a labour of love not a major profit centre for their business.

I went to BCIT for my machining apprenticeship with the owners son. He rolled up every day with a DJ bike draped in Straitline stuff lol. Anyway when you have millions of dollars in CNC machines and can make tens of thousands on Aerospace jobs or tie up a machine for a few hundred on mtb stuff which would you choose.

Posted by: T-mack

I went to BCIT for my machining apprenticeship with the owners son. He rolled up every day with a DJ bike draped in Straitline stuff lol. Anyway when you have millions of dollars in CNC machines and can make tens of thousands on Aerospace jobs or tie up a machine for a few hundred on mtb stuff which would you choose.

Definitely. I worked in an aerospace composite company next door to SL and the other issue is that in order to meet aerospace quality standards everything you do is highly controlled so even if you want to do something that has lower standards you can't really flip a switch and do that so anything you make ends up being expensive to make. Now if that CNC was going to sit idle for 12hrs and you can crank out 60 sets of bike pedals that can make sense. OTOH it wouldn't make sense to put off an aerospace machining job to make a batch of bike pedals.

Posted by: Vikb

Posted by: T-mack

I went to BCIT for my machining apprenticeship with the owners son. He rolled up every day with a DJ bike draped in Straitline stuff lol. Anyway when you have millions of dollars in CNC machines and can make tens of thousands on Aerospace jobs or tie up a machine for a few hundred on mtb stuff which would you choose.

Definitely. I worked in an aerospace composite company next door to SL and the other issue is that in order to meet aerospace quality standards everything you do is highly controlled so even if you want to do something that has lower standards you can't really flip a switch and do that so anything you make ends up being expensive to make. Now if that CNC was going to sit idle for 12hrs and you can crank out 60 sets of bike pedals that can make sense. OTOH it wouldn't make sense to put off an aerospace machining job to make a batch of bike pedals.

I did Aerospace for a while and it was a bit too crazy for my liking lol. Spend all day setting up a part just to bore a hole and call it a day. It was neat using a CMM though, I could see how some machinists would really enjoy that line of work.

Posted by: T-mack

Posted by: Vikb

Posted by: T-mack

I went to BCIT for my machining apprenticeship with the owners son. He rolled up every day with a DJ bike draped in Straitline stuff lol. Anyway when you have millions of dollars in CNC machines and can make tens of thousands on Aerospace jobs or tie up a machine for a few hundred on mtb stuff which would you choose.

Definitely. I worked in an aerospace composite company next door to SL and the other issue is that in order to meet aerospace quality standards everything you do is highly controlled so even if you want to do something that has lower standards you can't really flip a switch and do that so anything you make ends up being expensive to make. Now if that CNC was going to sit idle for 12hrs and you can crank out 60 sets of bike pedals that can make sense. OTOH it wouldn't make sense to put off an aerospace machining job to make a batch of bike pedals.

I did Aerospace for a while and it was a bit too crazy for my liking lol. Spend all day setting up a part just to bore a hole and call it a day. It was neat using a CMM though, I could see how some machinists would really enjoy that line of work.

It was like that with some of the jobbing work I did. 10hrs of set-up , and 1/2hr or machining. I missed that when I went to CNC . The fun part of CNC for me was reducing cycle times and playing with tooling .

Posted by: DemonMike

Posted by: T-mack

Posted by: Vikb

Posted by: T-mack

I went to BCIT for my machining apprenticeship with the owners son. He rolled up every day with a DJ bike draped in Straitline stuff lol. Anyway when you have millions of dollars in CNC machines and can make tens of thousands on Aerospace jobs or tie up a machine for a few hundred on mtb stuff which would you choose.

Definitely. I worked in an aerospace composite company next door to SL and the other issue is that in order to meet aerospace quality standards everything you do is highly controlled so even if you want to do something that has lower standards you can't really flip a switch and do that so anything you make ends up being expensive to make. Now if that CNC was going to sit idle for 12hrs and you can crank out 60 sets of bike pedals that can make sense. OTOH it wouldn't make sense to put off an aerospace machining job to make a batch of bike pedals.

I did Aerospace for a while and it was a bit too crazy for my liking lol. Spend all day setting up a part just to bore a hole and call it a day. It was neat using a CMM though, I could see how some machinists would really enjoy that line of work.

It was like that with some of the jobbing work I did. 10hrs of set-up , and 1/2hr or machining. I missed that when I went to CNC . The fun part of CNC for me was reducing cycle times and playing with tooling .

The fun part of CNC for me is also reducing times etc but the fixturing aspect is a fun challenge. Sure there was fixturing with manual but I also like making a huge pile of parts on a fixture I made.

...and they're back up. 

Get yourself a bit of clearance ano bling while you can!

Thanks @velocipedestrian, I grabbed a few pieces of Canadian MTB history  : )

Thanks velocipedestrian, I felt that even their non-clearance bling was priced well. My stuff arrived in a coupe days 👌

Love that Straitline turquoise blue. Now just need something else that color to match seatpost collar

Some deals to be had

https://www.straitlinecomponents.com/products/seat-post-collar?variant=32197364934

Posted by: Vikb

I worked next door to Straightline until May 2020. I checked with my old company a few months ago and Straightline was going strong. They mostly do high end machining for aerospace and the bike parts side of things is because they are riders and it uses excess machine capacity. They don't spend a lot of effort on their marketing/website/SM.

http://www.straightlineprecision.com/

That website is not correct - different company. I'm sure there are several "Straightline" machine shops.