QnA with Tom Te Heu Heu
We have an awesome team here at Repost, and Tom is our engineeer. He is the brains behind the equipment development and is crucial to ensure that we can get the best quality posts out to our customers. Let’s find out a little more about him.
What made you want to become an engineer ?
I wanted to become an engineer because I just thought a lot about how things were made and manufactured as a kid and now I just enjoy being innovative with designing, building and just making things happen.
How did you building the Repost nail puller come about?
Greg used to work with my partners father when he was young. Greg and Dansy were building next door to our house and Greg came over for a chat about some parts of the house build, noticed I did engineering and we got chatting about his new venture into recycling vineyard posts and we charged on ahead .
How have you found working with Repost so far?
Awesome! Repost is great to work along side, everyone is just so down to earth, hard working and always happy.
How did you come up with the new ripsaw that recycles battens?
I knew they could only be ripped one way to get the most out of them and reduce as much waste as possible, I drew bit of a plan outlining the blade configuration that I was confident would work, Greg and I had good discussion about it, then I pushed on with more design and development, started fabrication, assembled the machine and got it going then moved onto the next part which was controlling the product into, through and out of the saw safely.
This machine was a challenge to say the least, but I am proud we will be diverting more waste from landfill and It is good to be challenged!
Can you explain how the ripsaw works for those of us without engineering minds?
The ripsaw works by feeding a post into the machine laying down and then by cutting along the post with vertically installed offset blades from the top and the bottom of the machine, next it will slice through the post with a horizontal blade configuration that’s also offset, the machine is self-feeding and drives posts thorough by itself under pressure, this pressure down on the post restricts them from moving around whilst under the ripping process and also makes the machine safe for operators. I designed the machine to cut from the centre of the post rather than the side/edge of it, this there for allows us the get the most battens from every post regardless of the size of the post in return gives us less waste and more usable product
What is your favourite machine, nail puller or ripsaw?
Definitely the nail puller. The development over the last three years has been very rewarding, they’re a strong and powerful unit, they behave well to being tuned and ultimately are pretty dam reliable. They’re the first part of the Repost processing so basically every post sees this machine and they just perform well no matter how much you give them. The ripsaw however is pretty awesome to and gives us a chance to reduce even more waste!
What is a fun fact about working with Greg and Dansy people may not know?
Most things whether its in the office, on the farm, near or far or just having fun, it can and will be done in Crocs!
Repost is definitely more rewarding for it being with these two!
Lastly Crocs or work boots?
Definitely Crocs haha, I’m 30 now so prefer comfort!
The building blocks of how our nail pullers built, I start with the trailer!