TAMPA, Fla. (BRAIN) — American Classic founder Bill Shook has launched a new mechanical design consulting business, Bill Shook Engineering LLC, serving clients both inside and outside the bike industry.
"It's pretty much any industry that needs mechanical design," Shook said, noting that he did work for a design engineering company involved in various industries while he ran American Classic. Shook closed American Classic's factory in Taichung, Taiwan, early last year and sold off the brand's remaining inventory. The company's IP remains for sale.
Shook is currently working with one client in the bicycle industry as well as a manufacturer of pumps and motors.
"I come up with ideas to solve problems and then design the parts and figure out how they're going to be manufactured. I'm really good at that, and that's pretty much what I did for our business in the bike sector," Shook told BRAIN. "I can do that for a lot of different industries, because the mechanical design is pretty much all the same. You're just solving problems trying to fit something into a space or coming up with a mechanism to make something happen."
One focus of the business will be designing fixturing and tooling as economically as possible without sacrificing product quality, Shook noted.
"To make something with a low enough investment in tooling but still get quality output is the goal. And of course, if you pay less for tooling the lower the price of the object is going to be. Sometimes you don't need to put a huge amount of money into the tooling to design the right solution," he said.
Shook holds bachelor of science and master of science degrees in mechanical engineering from Ohio State University. He founded American Classic in 1982.
Companies interested in working with Shook can contact him at billshook.engineer@gmail.com.
