John reinvents the future

Despite the slump facing companies whose traditional rug of manufacturing is being pulled from under their feet, John Ridehough, owner of Great Harwood-based Metal Wood Machining, will never be short of something to do.

 From precision engineering to wooden furniture, executive ‘toys’ and objets d’art, via motorcycle accessories, it’s difficult to know where Metal Wood Machining ends and John begins.

John is an amazing man. When you’ve looked death in the face more than once and survived, it’s bound to give you a new take on life, but there’s more to John than just a different philosophy.

Perhaps the brushes with death – a serious illness and a motorbike accident – have made him determined to act on his whims. Being self-taught may have something to do with it too, he thinks. Having no preconceptions he tends, in his words, to ‘rush in where angels fear to tread’.

Whatever the reason, John has a passion for designing and making things, ‘a headful of inventions’ and he never stops being inspired. He says: “I’ve always been that way. When the other kids were playing cowboys and indians, I was building a scale model of a Roman siege catapult in the back garden.”

So at the company’s workshop alongside the usual range of drilling and milling machines, metal shavings and girlie calendars, you’ll also find a 5-foot tall clock which is driven by a wheel and ballbearings; a faithfully reproduced moving model of a bulldozer, levers, dials and all; a chair; a scale model of another chair based on a hand; a giant open football; a lampstand ... I could go on. Hard to put into words, but seeing is believing.

John designs the pieces on his AutoCAD system, then gets the plywood laser-cut to size and design, each component part accurate to thousandths of an inch. Incredibly he doesn’t use screws or glue and each item can be put together without tools of any description – at very most you would use a small mallet to tap the wooden pegs into place.

Two of these creations have even been exhibited in The Lowry in Manchester – a measure of how impressive and unique they are. That led to John being commissioned to design and build a spiral staircase ... but that’s another story.

So what is the business here? Is it Metal Wood Machining or John’s forays into designing and building?

Actually the two are inextricably linked. With MWM’s aerospace market dwindling – “the quietest year so far” according to John – he’s keen to find new outlets for his company. Whilst the wood range may remain a personal sideline of one-off commissions, he has also delved into another area of potential business – and another of his passions – motorbikes.

John rides a Yamaha R1 which, to those in the know, is a lean, mean racing machine. Yet he has customised it beyond recognition, mostly with his own inventions. One – an adjustable footrest unit – has been much admired and lauded by motorcycle aficionados. Says John:  “The problem is that the bike aftermarket is all sewn up by four big  players and if punters don’t recognise one of those names on the kit, they won’t buy it.”

But John isn’t giving up. He says: “MWM is a jobbing engineering shop. It’s not a factory and never will be so I’m not planning to start manufacturing anything here. That means I still need a way of  getting my ideas to market.

So that’s where Business Link comes in. John says: “With Business Link’s help, I’m hoping to meet a potential manufacturer with a view to selling the motorcycle product design on. For the future of the company, we need a product, but I didn’t go into business to become a business man, I did it so that I could make things. And that’s what I intend to carry on doing.”