In the early 1950's, Mr. Roelf VanDerZwaag Started VanDerZwaag Tool and Die specializing in the development of tooling and machinery. In 1958, the company was incorporated and renamed VanDerZwaag Moulds and Dies Inc. In his native Holland, Roelf apprenticed at the Philips factory in Eindhoven where he excelled at machining and manufacturing. Partnering with his brother in Amsterdam, he started a post war business making costume jewelry with Roelf handling the manufacturing side while his brother focused on sales and marketing.
In 1953, the family immigrated to Canada where Roelf quickly found employment in the tool and die shop at the W.C.Wood Company in Guelph. Later moving to Kitchener Waterloo, Roelf worked at Cluthe Mfg. in the mould shop and later at Mitchell Plastics as a Tool Room Foreman building tools supervising other mould makers and estimating work projects. Building on the entrepreneurial spirit sparked in Holland , Roelf started a home-based business serving the plastics and machinery industry. Roelf's son, Ron VanDerZwaag, was trained by his father from the age of 16. After completing his engineering degree, Ron joined the company on a full time basis in 1975 and currently acts as an advisor to the company. Today, Kevin VanDerZwaag, a 3rd generation VanDerZwaag has been at the helm of the family business for over 20 years. Kevin's extensive experience and expertise fall in the specialized areas of CAD, CNC and all aspects of machining, tooling and prototypes.
After the North American mold industry was beseiged by off-shore mold makers in 2006, the company reinvented itself into the extremely capable versatile machine shop it is today. To reflect the change in direction the company is undergoing a name change to VanDerZwaag Machining and Development. VanDerZwaag Machining and Development provides highly specialized fixtures, prototypes and components. We are set up for a wide range of materials including stainless steels, aluminiums and exotic engineered plastics. Our equipment includes CNCs with up to 75,000 RPM spindle speeds, EDM equipment and Sink EDMs. This unique blend of equipment allows us to do a wide variety of work in house and totally under our control. We recently added 3D printing capability to enhance our one-stop shop capability. We make parts with very close tolerances and can produce parts with extremely tight flatness requirements.
We work together with our customers to build up a knowledge base about customer's processes, equipment and needs and then arrive at innovative solutions on parts thought impossible. We do the work no on else wants and we do it quickly, our motto is “the impossible we do to day miracles take a little longer".
