G5 Factory Tour- How the T2 is Made

Hey everybody, I wanted to bring you to Grace Engineering. This is Matt Grace, we're at G5, and I started using G5 products, I think in 2004, actually, with the Montech, right? When that first came out, and you guys were on my very first DVD, and what I loved about it was I was in Wisconsin, you're in Michigan, awesome products made right here in the U.S., and we just launched the T2 Broadhead right here, launched this officially probably three weeks or a month ago, I guess, once it hit the stores, and it's going crazy, and obviously there's a lot of people asking a lot of different questions, and I thought the best thing to do would be to come here and let you all see what really separates a G5 product from the other products that are out there, because yes, I love a two-blade mechanical, and yes, there's other two-blade mechanicals on the market, but I really wanted to bring this to the USA, bring it to a place that could simplify something that I love and make it better, and I just think telling the story is so much more important than trying to compare two products or three products to each other, because I buy into people, I buy into places, I buy into manufacturing, because that's where I started, and so to literally come in here to this first room and see this, this is this kind of thing that tells the why. We can talk about all the manufacturing, and we can talk about the devastation that this thing can do, but the reality is there's a big difference in the people that are putting forth one product to another, and when it comes to repeatability and dependability, that comes from a family-owned business, a family-owned machine shop that's been here for generations, your brothers are here, so walk us through this. I want people to know who is Grace Engineering and what is the DNA of G5? Yeah, so we've been, it's a third-generation family business, and it's over 50 years now, so 1968 is when my grandparents, so we have this kind of photo collection here, just kind of the history, and actually my grandparents right here actually started the business in 1968, and it's important, too, to emphasize, because a lot of people say, well, my grandfather started it, which he did, he was very technically, he worked in Detroit, we're only an hour from downtown Detroit, so he worked in shops down there, and he was very smart, very mechanically inclined, and just, he ended up being kind of the problem-solver of the shop floor, and that's how he solved that. So he had some ideas, and he wanted to start his own machine shop, but I think what's critical is ultimately it came down to a team, because my grandmother, who wasn't the technical part of it, or maybe the brains of that piece of it, but she was the brains of the business part of it, and it really takes a team, so, as you know, in your business. Yeah, with Sharon, 100%. I'm just a face, she's the business, you know what I mean? She's the business. I'm the problem-solver, you know? I do the products, I fix anything, and try to come up with a better, and try to describe the why, but there's a lot that has to happen for everybody else to be able to do their day-to-day, and get a paycheck on time. Exactly, so we've been doing precision metal components, basically, it's really been our forte, if you will, since we started. We, in the 70s, our big product line was actually, we were making, when printing involved moving components, we were making printing bands, and components for barrels, and some other large corporations, and so it was actually these components right here, so very, very small, very, very. Precise. Precise, so it involved machining the components, and then there was actually. You were turning, three generations ago. Yeah, exactly, so machining is, and I think really intricate, precise components has really been our specialty. Yeah, and honestly, that plays right into one of the biggest separators for product is the ferrule. Yeah, exactly. I mean, this ferrule is freaking amazing. It's steel, it's not like the others, they're true, and the way everything fits inside that, so it's not rattling, and so the deployment is consistent, and the flight is consistent. I've had, so in the last two weeks, I've been at work, and I've actually been fielding some customer service calls for overflow, and a lot of them have been on new T2 feedback because, and our team isn't educated on it yet, so I'm jumping on with some people because I want to be able to hear, and I'm relaying stuff to you guys, but I've talked to two people in the last week that run really big broadhead groups where they go out and they shoot. I had a guy that said he shot one of the heads like, he thinks almost 100 times in the layered foam and still going, but he's like, this thing at 100 yards is better than any mechanical that we've shot, which is insane to get that from a broadhead testing group because I'm sure you guys know they're definitely gonna be hard on any positive and any negative as well. So the fact that the base and ultimately the DNA of you guys is turning the heart of what that broadhead is, which is the ferrule, is so important, and it's a big reason why I wanted to partner with you guys because even the Montechs were like that. From the first second I started getting them, they spun amazing, and they were easy to sharpen. So I love that head. Sharon still shoots that head. When did you develop, start branching outside of that particular field and going into some of the others? Yeah, making parts for other people or kind of trying to contract manufacturing. So it was in 2000 is when we started G5. Okay. So my brother Nate and I had been involved with the business for several years at that point and we're making parts for other people, the contract manufacturing side of things. But we had this idea, actually it was my dad's idea originally, to use metal injection molding to make a broadhead, which is what the- The first MIM process. The first MIM process for the Montech, and actually the first broadheader that we actually developed was the B52. Yeah. It was a two blade, so that was actually our first product. We've gone a long way in flight characteristics since that baby. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, we learned a lot. We learned a lot over the past 24 years, for sure, about broadheads and the market and just everything it takes. So we had the manufacturing base, which is great, and ultimately having that manufacturing base here, it's a key separator for us as you're speaking to. But what we've had to learn since 2000 and before as we were working on the design is how to develop products for it and then ultimately go out to market and sell it as well. One of the things that was cool for me is we walked up and they showed a picture of a guy right here, a kid that's literally a teenager in this photo and he's still back here turning parts right now. And a lot of times what makes and break companies is when employees are embedded there and when employees become lifers of their process. Because when people get fully skilled at a very, very specific type of tool and die job, then their ability to problem solve on the line becomes a difference of people having these huge bad batches of product that are already in the market before you know there was an issue. Having someone like that on the line, at least that's my experience from the manufacturing places where I've worked and where I've toured is when you get those people that are lifers, well, the owners and the leaders, they can work on new designs, new innovation and let the people focus on the quality and the precision of the part. I'm excited to see what we got going on back there. Excited to show you. All this kind of tucked over here and then this side's race, which, was that real or was that just his laugh? Sometimes we do this just to get frustration out, you know? I love it. Here we go. What were you at, 90? Yeah. That's probably about mine at 40 yards. I would guess. Somewhere in there. Dude, check that out. Are you kidding me? That dude, that is ridiculous. Amazing. I love that. Mission successful. So then you would turn them and try like angles and you could do all, I mean, look how much that aluminum had to bend too. Oh yeah. That is incredible. I mean, how fricking tough is that? I mean, come on. Amazing. One thing that I've learned as a hunter that has been part of projects like this and bow projects and arrow projects and honestly more like shooting through things than what you publicly want to say in the industry. But obviously testing is critical to being ethical. So it's like part of what everybody has to do. But when stuff holds up like that, this is the thing that you have to have because what most people don't realize and what nowadays with high speed footage, one of the things that you can see is what actually happens to an arrow when it's hitting a solid surface that's in motion. And like knock whip and arrow shaft flex and even blade flexing and barrel flexing, like all this stuff factors in. And until you've really pulled those cavities apart and you've shown like, for example, I shot a doe on that hunt that we were on and purposely, you know, we were talking about aiming at the bone mass. So I was like aiming just above tip the elbow, hit the back of that bone, kind of took a big hunk out of that bone, hit the opposite side knuckle. And you know, that thing whipped and the arrow was barely hanging out the other side. It wasn't a full pass through, but you got to remember when you're banging and banging off two different things, like not quite like this, but so much is happening that you can't physically see. Yeah, I mean, that's the arrow hit perfectly perpendicular with a short, super stiff, you know, hardened steel, you know, arrow basically. It's going to drive a true and that's kind of what we're trying to do for consistency. But yeah, you take this thing, you know, 30 inches long, right. Carbon that's going to, you know, and then the thing's moving. It's kind of the same of shooting small game. You think you would just pass that arrow through, but they, they roll with it. Like hockey players when they get checked, right. They get up and move with it to kind of absorb the energy. So when an animal is moving, a lot of things can happen. If it was planted and it just sucked up that arrow, like, you know, like an elk or something, you know, pass throughs sometimes are just easier on a bigger animal because they're not moving. Yeah. But yeah, the mass is stationary. It's like a Turkey, you know, the Turkey is kind of all puffed up and half on his feet tip toe. And it's like, it's like shooting a bag target. That's on two strings. It just absorbs millions of likely scenarios. And when you pull that trigger to, to be able to pull it back to what was the head or the arrow or the knock or the, you know, to be able to look at the performance of a product, like, like that was just one, you know, event. Yeah. But you have dozens of events and the idea is to get even more and more dozens and dozens of events to be able to put it through its test, not to just build the one event. I know for a shadow of a doubt, one of the questions I get asked most of all is, this just seems like a blah, blah, blah head, which everyone knows I liked and shot for awhile. And I can tell you right now, that tip would not look like that. This ferrule with being steel, shorter and more compact. And I was amazed at how you cut that out to have the type of strength that it does. But I mean, I would say that's barely turned, but not folded. I mean, that is amazing. I mean, what more could you expect? If it was just through the wood, it wouldn't be that way. Yeah, but when you cut the whole sheet of aluminum right there. If the aluminum wasn't there, the head would have gone as, basically it would have gone right through until the block basically hit the wood. Yeah. Wow. There's a difference right there. Most of us, 98 foot pounds doesn't sound like a big number. Holy smokes, I love this. I was wondering what the heck you kept, when you kept talking to me about guillotine, you were getting a little bit over the top on your guillotine torture testing, but now I get it, my man. Look at that. Amazing. Holy smoke. Literally the blades can't cut through the aluminum, but that thing is intact. Yeah, you can see how it's definitely deformed more because of where the blades hit. And what actually is starting to happen now, the blades are starting to bend. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, all right, cyber truck, let's freaking bring it on. Need to build a hundred pounder for the cyber trucks. We're going to TT one of those suckers. Look at that. Seriously. All right. Look at that tip held together better than that. That one's amazing. That is amazing. And the retention clip's still in there. Wonder if the blades would close, pull it out. There you go. More dirt, more grit. I love it. Okay, what do we got here? It kind of behind us is our blue cabinet of broadhead tests. So the guillotine before that, what the predecessor of it, whatever we call that thing. There's 25 years of broadhead testing here. So we have a lot of our heads, even models T3 and the Havoc that we don't even make anymore. Yeah. But the dead meat, just drawers of tests that we've done through the years. So hundreds of tests. Sometimes we'll get a deviation. Sometimes they don't work. Yeah. Yeah, well, some of it's development. Some of it's just in production. You know, maybe the raw material, the heat treat was a little bit off of spec. So let's test it, make sure. Some of it's just a sanity check. Because, you know, one of the things that people don't understand is there's so many things that went into the mechanical. Blade angle, you know, obviously ferrule length, the blade angle. Honestly, how you developed the rear of the blades and the ferrule for the deployment, how that deployment actually functioned. Yeah, that took quite a few revisions. Like you can do as much math and we can argue about it, but it's just make it, tweak it, keep moving it. And doing tests like that, you know, that can kind of give you some indicator of that. But we have another test that we do for deployment, but it's the same here. You know, with our dead meat, there was a lot of development on the back side. Yeah. Because it's a two-piece ferrule, how do you keep that connected? So that took, you know, months and iterations to figure out how to keep that intact. But we have drawers of our competitors as well. Some do well, some don't. And again, everything can fail. And that's part of that test is take everything to failure, see how it fails and why. So you can understand things better. That one didn't open. Yeah, that one didn't even open. Nice, strong ferrule, blades didn't open. So that was the competitors. We won't say who. All right, what's next? I want to see more destruction. Damage. More damage? Pretty cool. We got some of the very first 125 T2s coming out right here. Here's your ferrules coming out. That's the new 125. I dropped that one. But I just love this. Swear I cut my teeth in archery, really. Imagine being an 18, 19-year-old person running around in a bow company. Machines like this are going on. You're able to grab risers and grab parts coming out of here. All your clothes have oil all over them because this is happening. But this is the stuff that I freaking love. And these are the partners that when I go there, our community, the knock-on nation, we're built on people that get their hands dirty. That's part of being a hunter. And that is a huge part of what makes this different than the ones that you're getting. You don't know where they come from. Seems like every pack is different. Consistency's different. Sharpness is different. Hardness is different. You come in here, they have these. They've got things telling these people what to look out for, what not to look out for. You're able to see all this. I love it. All right, now when you think about something that you might buy on Amazon that's a copy, that's honestly a rip-off of a different head, I can tell you, one, these types of checks and processes are never gonna happen. But the other thing is, keep in mind, this is only this type of quality check just on the ferrule. There's still more parts that would go in this. Each of the parts of the T2 are gonna have these exact same checks. The blades, the retainer clip, they're all gonna be checked just like this throughout the process to make sure that they're 100% okay before they go further down the line and get into the packaging. All right, so what we have here, this is gonna be an automated inspection program. So they're pretty much spot checking. Just imagine stuff coming off an assembly line. They're gonna spot check this. And this is a huge part of the consistency. When we talk about repeatability equals accuracy, consistency equals accuracy, being able to pull this over and put it in a machine where you're literally just spot checking out and this thing can run through there and tell you the precision of this ferrule. I mean, this is looking good. This is the screw for holding your blades in on the new T2. I'm working on one for a T-Rex. This is gonna be it right here. That is the screw from a T2 made right here. That's a drawer of screws. Amazing, right? Out in the machine shop, we were talking about different parts and the tolerances on the T2s, but there was also some machines that were making some stuff that weren't from the archery world. And we talked about that. The Grace family has been doing parts for a lot of places, but one of the subjects that came up that I thought was so important and the reason why we came in here, and I'm gonna show you a couple different little things, microscopes that are on here on broadheads. We've got, you know, come on over here, like, you know, just being able to really take these steps. And what we talked about was the bar and Grace has been forced to raise the bar. And I love that terminology because as a competitor, you know, it's like the 300 was this number no one could do. And, you know, or the 1400 or a clean field round. And then it's like, once someone cracks it, you gotta go and you gotta go and you gotta go. So for you guys, it's never been the archery industry that's been raising the bar of your tolerances, the bar of your precision, the bar of like the demand of what that part, either how it needs to be made, the tool, the machine. Like you got, like the archery side of Grace or G5 is being forced by some of your other people and that's making your archery products better. I love that. Yeah, I mean, archery isn't all bad, but in some of the other industries, the automotive or medical or aerospace that we've been in, they're not all great either. But there's some aspects of them that make us work harder. So we're trying to bring those things into archery. Archery, you know, a cosmetic, you know, maybe a surface quality issue or something like that was at a very high level. And sometimes the other guys don't care because it's just gonna be in the engine and nobody cares maybe what that surface, you know, quality is or whatever. So we're using the fact that we're making people, you know, outside that maybe they have a different requirement that the archery doesn't. Right. But if we require everybody here to match that level, yeah, our mindset is the bar isn't here, it's up here. And so then that, when we, like most people have a bad day or a machine has a bad day, or maybe, you know, a whole group have a bad week. Yeah. It's still above where we need to be, right? Yeah. Because it's not just, it's not just the process or the parts or the machinery. It's the people that have to do that. You know, it's like the people that have to sit there and check all these little details like that. And those are the things where I really want people to understand. There's difference in brands and it's not, unfortunately, the marketing is what the consumer sees. And there's so few of us that actually are behind the scenes and sees what actually creates what the consumers want. And there's such a huge separation in one type of company and another. Some are just masters at marketing and some are actually masters at making something that is precise. This is so cool. I love this. One of the common questions that I've got right away are when someone takes one of these out and they kind of push on the front, they're questioning like, how much tension should this have to deploy? And I tell people, if you push on it this way, once it deploys, it is gonna go and it's gonna go into your hand. Don't do it that way. You can take one of the blades and you can pull it out and then you can easily see on the other side where your finger's safe, how that does deploy. But there's more to it than just this. This was a huge part of the testing process and a huge part of the time involved because these deployments and when a broadhead opens, especially a mechanical, it's not only important of when it opens, but also the design and how fast that opens. Now, a rear deploying head like this, where these blades are deploying backwards, those blades wanna open. A jack knife style, they're gonna open once they're forced through and then they're gonna flip back. But a system like this, just the inertia of that arrow wanting to go forward, the blades are gonna wanna stay and it's gonna wanna open. So there's a ton of stuff that has to go in to when these blades open and how much pressure that has. And ultimately what you've landed on and what you wanted was exactly the same testing that you require on your other mechanicals like the dead meats. And this is a layered system that Nate has that is testing deployment and how fast that's opening based on tension. So tell us why you like this system specifically to checking deployment timing. Yeah, we've had it for quite a while. We like that it's reproducible with the materials. It's not a penetration test. This white layer, really nothing will open and be affected with it. If the blade stalls out, it won't be affected with it. So with this, it's just an indicator layer. So you can see, did it fully open or was it closed on this first layer? That's what we wanted to see. We don't want a cutting diameter any bigger than closed or it's a failure. Otherwise it's been open when it launched. Right. Yeah. Not a good thing. Especially for all mechanicals. But then it's these black layers to where all the work is being done. That's what's pushing back on the blades. Right. Like you've said, some of the tension on that, just overcoming that retainer, once it moves back a little bit, it's overcome. But some heads do that well, but then they'll stall. Yeah. And so we want to see that. And so ideally what we've seen comparatively, if we can open in the second layer, then we're as good as anybody else on the market that's ever been to this point. Yep. You know, there are some heads that are very popular, people love and are effective with, that get back into this third layer, maybe even begin on this fourth layer. I mean, you're talking three quarters of the density. Right. You know, of a Whitetail cavity, you know, Michigan Whitetail, you're kind of there. You've had ones go four and five layers deep before a full blade deployment. Oh yeah. Good grief. Yeah. And a couple of the early, early ones that we gave you were opening in the third. Yeah. They were almost fully open here, but they were fully open on the third. And then that's kind of what you saw out there. Yeah. The blade. We had one and a half inch holes, not two inch holes. And then they just kept, you know. So then we came back and worked on it until we got to open here. And then when we did that, you started to see full two inches out in the field. Yeah. A hundred percent simple, but definitely reliable and definitely something that you need if you're a bow hunter. All right. So we got an average weight arrow and he's got his bow. So there's a bow here that he's testing on and he's going to put an arrow through here. And we're literally checking when the blades fully deploy based on the layers of this target. So the first thing that we want to see is a small cut. That means it didn't pre-deploy. Perfect. Which is a very big deal. Yeah. We did not deploy. And then we'll take the strings off so we can start to look to see what happened and when. Yep. And it's not that important for penetration. Right there. Yeah. We had full deployment right there. So what I would generally do is take a ruler then kind of pull this back so you can see the corners and then measure on here. Yep. What's your exit? I mean, that was full right there. Yeah. And then you're just removing layers to make sure you're seeing. Yeah. You're tracking it back through. I mean, look at this. Yeah. You can track it each way. And so the idea, so it's not that important. I mean, obviously this has been a little bit but we're just tracking it all the way back through. That's after the third layer. You know, so this is before the third layer and still, yeah, full size. That's full. I mean, that's easily, that's a gaper. Had full right there too. And that's what we're trying to do is what we're trying to see is getting to the second. So you can see where this first layer it's a little bit undersized. Yeah, I was gonna say it's probably seven eighths of the way deployed. So yeah, you're talking just, I mean, that's awesome. I know I'm getting full gashers going in but skin and hide and everything is a little bit different. But again, the purpose of this test is the retention of that clip and how the stiffness of that blade or how weak that blade is retained in there. That immediately affects what happens at impact. So really this shows that tension is specifically designed to deploy when it does. And it also matches the same type of deployment depth is what you would get off like a dead meat or any of the others with a slightly different type of collar or retaining system. Yeah, the best heads that we've tested to the years open fully on the second layer. Okay. And that's what the T2 is doing as well. Perfect. So with blades, how do you do this? So this is a in process check. We've been doing this for years with our other mechanicals and this is just a force gauge, just measures the maximum force. And we just put the head on the slide here. To find out what the knockoff pressure is. And so the, you know, this one was 4.8 pounds of knockoff pressure, the first blade. And that's right within our tolerance window of what we're trying to do. Again, if it's below three, you start to get into that point where it could redeploy. Yeah. Two and a half, like right once you start to get for a rearward sliding blade and for the weight of these blades, being at around, I believe 11 grains, if I remember correctly. Once you get below two pounds of knockoff force, it'll start pre-deploying. Yeah. And with some of our competitors heads, they were down there, the two pound mark and their blades were a grain or two heavier. So they would get pre-deployment. So we don't want to be too low. We could be, that'd be fine. It's easy to do. Yeah. But the head needs to stay intact until it hits the target. And so our minimum that we've run through the years is three pounds. And we talked over in the foam test, some of the heads that we were giving you early on were nine and 10 pounds and we were still having full two inch cut on the entrance wounds. Yeah. Consistently. Yeah. But we're not going to live there. A lot of my first hogs, a lot of my first hogs and my first deer back in November, I believe. They were stout. They were questionable. Yeah, well, I mean. But that's why we did it, right? But we learned that, okay, they're still open, but we don't need to be that high. Right. And so our goal is three to five and a half for that initial knockoff force. Now with these being brand new, and because it's a force there, the second time you were to knock off these, it's going to be about a pound less. Yeah. So if it's just five pounds here, the next time you cycle it'll be four and then it'll live between four to three pounds for dozens of cycles. Really cool. Which has been really nice. A little surprising on my end of the reliability or the consistency of the retainer. Yeah. To be able to hold that force. That is playing around with them, shooting them into their targets. Well, that one I shot eight hogs with one head still closed. Yeah. Then the one broadhead that we have at, or we had at the booth in Michigan at the tack, that broadhead had been at the ATA show with you guys, all your dealer shows and people were still coming in and doing this with it in the booth and it was still functioning. But right now you guys are kind of assembling everything, doing a quick pre-deployment and then these things are going out as is. Now talk to us about the tolerance of that retention clip in the front and how precise that has to be. Yeah, the front part of that slot in the ferrule is narrower than the back end and that's really critical because that's where the sandwich happens, the two blades, they kind of push up against that retainer in there and that's where that force is. Because that's so critical, we hold up a .001 or a 1,000th of an inch tolerance there. The rest of that slot is like plus or minus three because it doesn't really matter. But up front, in that check that they do over at the screw machines, they do very often. Where some of the other checks aren't quite as important, they do less often. But that all drives this knockoff pressure, how easy it is to lock in. Now one of the other things, because this thing cams into place going in, it actually takes less force to go in than it does to come out. So it's actually easier, which is kind of nice so you don't actually cut yourself. You can actually do that by hand. But you can see that little witness mark, the little scour line of it coming in and then when you push it off, when you would shoot into a target, it actually comes off here. But again, this is a check that's done in process. Because we make everything in-house, because we assemble it in-house, this check is just an amazing way to be able to ensure consistency head-to-head-to-head, pack-to-pack, year after year. Yeah, it's amazing. Hope you enjoyed the tour here at G5 and I'm here by a huge patent wall and this is just all things that confirmed to me that this was such an awesome partnership. These guys have such amazing people and processes in place and hopefully this gives you an inside look at why the T2 is gonna change the game for boat owners.