The machine, appropriately named The Spiral Machine, started out as a simple idea. Sidney wanted to create a wooden pocket watch that would hang on the wall – two feet in diameter with 48-inch long twisted wood chains. The design sounded great, but Sidney needed to cut the wood into a slight spiral for the chain links of the clock.
“I developed a machine with a hand crank, gearbox, sprockets and a chain to cut this twisted chain shape I needed,” says Sidney. “The machine could hold wood 6 inches in diameter and up to 48 inches in length, but the chain link shape failed because the machine could not cut the proper shape I wanted.”
That didn’t stop Sidney, who began to experiment with other shapes on his hand crank machine. After making a few candle holders and plant stands for friends and family, a builder asked Sidney to cut two spiral columns into a hollow shape that were about 7 feet long. The hand crank machine had been restructured to hold wood 96 inches long, but the cranking was taking a toll on Sidney, especially when the builder changed his request from two columns to 11 columns.
“It about killed me cranking all the columns by hand. I realized I needed to figure out something different,” Sidney says. “I needed to automate the process if I wanted to continue making that type of woodwork.”
And he did. On a scratch piece of paper, Sidney sketched out a machine that would hold one column 8 inches in diameter and 8 feet long. Not wanting to stop there, Sidney then redesigned the sketch to include a machine that could cut three columns at a time up to 13 inches in diameter and 10 feet long.
“With 25 years of machine design experience I made a set of real design drawings with AutoCAD to finalize the design,” Sidney says. After working through the possibilities with his wife, Mary, the couple refinanced their home for the $14,000 to buy computer controls, four servo motors and gearbox drives. Sidney also ordered 1,500 pounds of steel and aluminum to build the machine in his garage. “I cut, drilled, bolted and welded together the entire frame and moving gantry system.”
Eight months after Sidney finished the design, he cut his first piece of wood. “I was so proud of that first piece of wood I cut after all those months of work, but the first piece was beauty impaired,” Sidney says, laughing.
Learning from trial and error, Sidney cut various columns with interesting shapes and designs – officially starting his business, Spirals By Design, in 2001. From the beginning, Sidney brought in large orders for builders and new homes, and in March 2002, he rented a warehouse with a 1,000 square-foot workshop and moved The Spiral Machine, working out of that workshop for five-and-a-half years before he realized he needed to expand once more. Currently he works out of his 4,500 square-foot workshop and showroom in the Las Cruces West Mesa Industrial Park.
Since starting, Sidney has made thousands of columns and arches over the years, many times adapting The Spiral Machine to work with various designs. “We have adapted The Spiral Machine many, many times to fit the customers cutting requirements. If you want something, I’ll adapt to make it,” he says, devoting the rest of his time to Mary and their two children, Steve and Angie.
It is safe to say that if you have ever walked into a home featured in Showcase or Parade of Homes, you have seen some of Sidney’s columns. He sells to such builders as Enchanted Desert Homes, Copper Canyon Homes and Desert Springs Construction and has great relationships with local lumber yards in town. Sidney also created a wood column for Architectural Elements to use as a mold for newly erected, concrete spiraled columns placed in the Downtown Mall walkway.
Sidney’s talent doesn’t just look great in the home; it helps boost home value. “Surveys have shown that for every $100 a homeowner invests into decorative woodwork, it increases the value of the home by $300. That’s a very sizable return of investment,” he says.
Sidney, along with a great deal of talent and smarts, is also one of the nicest people you will ever meet, and he loves making other people happy with his work. “I love the creativity and I love seeing people who like the work,” he says. “It is a great feeling to see my product highlight a home’s décor.”
With endless styles, designs and engravings, Spirals By Design provides beautiful art, uniquely created with the help of Sidney and his intellectual creativity.
This man and machine – a perfect match.
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