Briefs: Grizzly starts shipping to Canada

Grizzly Industrial Inc. announced it will now begin shipping product to Canada.

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"We've had incredible demand from Canadians over the years," says Shiraz Balolia, president of Grizzly. "Many made special trips to our Washington and Pennsylvania showrooms to make their purchases, as previously we did not ship into Canada. This would require them to cross the border and go through the hassle of waiting in line, filling out customs paperwork and determining any duties. Now, with our direct shipping, it will save them the time, money and headaches.

"We've negotiated a special deal with UPS to automatically process all customs paperwork for each Canadian shipment. Since we ship such high volumes with UPS, we can offer our customers huge discounts on brokerage services and freight costs - probably a fraction of the cost they would pay if they arranged those same services themselves. The way we have it set up, the customer just needs to place their order. UPS will then contact the customer to arrange for the duties, if they even apply, when the machine arrives. It's very easy."

Grizzly sells directly to the end user rather than through a dealership network.

For information, contact Grizzly at 800-523-4777 or visit www.grizzly.com.

ShopBot offering West Coast training classes

ShopBot Tools is now offering basic training classes on the West Coast. The classes will be taught quarterly at Ilan Dei Studio in Venice Beach, Calif., and the curriculum will coincide with the classes that are currently taught every month at ShopBot's headquarters in Durham, N.C.

ShopBot's basic training is a two-day course in part design and operation of a ShopBot CNC system. The program includes one day of introduction to ShopBot control software and mechanical systems and one day of using PartWorks design software to create ShopBot part files.

Contact: ShopBot Tools Inc., 3333 Industrial Dr., Durham, NC 27704. Tel: 919-680-4800. www.shopbottools.com

Stiles signs new distribution agreement

Stiles Machinery has expanded its finishing product offerings for non-wood applications by partnering with Makor SRL and Venjakob Maschinenbau GmbH. As a result, Stiles can now offer parts, service and production engineering to its customers who work with plastics, composites, glass and more.

Stiles will continue serving traditional woodworking clients for the rest of the year per its agreement with Cefla Finishing America. In December, Stiles says it will terminate its distribution agreement with Cefla and sell the Makor and Venjakob products exclusively.

Contact: Stiles Machinery Inc., 3965 44th St. S.E., Grand Rapids, MI 49512. Tel: 616-698-7500. www.stilesmachinery.com

Flexner starts new venture

Bob Flexner has joined TheFinishingStore .com, an online finishing store operated by Apollo Sprayers Inc., to provide articles on finishing. Flexner is the author of "Understanding Wood Finishing" and a regular contributor to Woodshop News.

Flexner will contribute two articles per month and shorter "Tips and Tricks" to address specific finishing problems. "I had to teach myself step by step. I want the articles I write for TheFinishingStore.com to serve as the course in finishing that I wanted, but couldn't find," says Flexner.

Visit www.thefinishingstore.com.

This article originally appeared in the April 2010 issue.