Short History Leading up the 1993 Video
The picture above was taken in 1980, showing Francis, Adrian, Dave and Larry standing in front of one of the first production machines: the VMC 45.
Fadal moved into the North Hollywood building in 1971. With less than a dozen employees, Fadal quickly grew into one of the primer machine shops in the Southern California Aero Space industry.
In 1975, Adrian began developing the CNC control while Dave and Larry started developing the first VMC 45. At the time, Dave was able to dedicate full time engineering the design of VMC 45. He would design parts while Larry would make the prototypes. At this time, the machine shop was in full operation with Larry in charge of operation. Francis main responsibly was for quoting parts and ensuring a large volume of work came in to keep the machine shop busy.
In 1983 the VMC 40 was introduced, a simpler design at a much lower cost that immediately became very popular.
It was in 1986 that all focus was needed for production of the Fadal machines so the Job Shop division was closed and converted to full time machine production.
Below in the center of the picture shows the first building in 1971, and the some of the surrounding buildings Fadal expanded into as they grew.
Video Tour of the Fadal Factory in North Hollywood in 1993.
As production increased, Fadal acquired more buildings. Eventually they had almost a dozen buildings. It was not uncommon to see workers riding bicycles around the complex.
At the time of these videos, Fadal was getting close to shipping the 10,000th machine! That milestone didn't happen until the move to the Chatsworth facility.
In the video you'll see many custom-built machines made for working on the castings. There's even a custom horizontal made from a 4020 machine and a computerized flame hardening that Fadal built using their CNC 88 control.
Fadal Moves to Chatsworth!
In 1993, it was time to consolidate into one building. Fadal purchased a 200,000+ square foot building on Plummer Street in Chatsworth. It was a major "all hands on deck" effort to pack up all the machines, equipment and tooling and move to the new building...with minimal disruption to production.
One surprise that came up after Fadal purchased the Chatsworth building - HAAS leased two buildings directly behind the new Fadal facility. It did make it convenient for a potential buyer to visit HAAS then come see Fadal!