Ray Rigaud.

He’s Noëlle’s Dad and Frank’s Father-In-Law. Aside from being an excellent machinist, a WWII military buff and a fine individual, he can make damn-near anything work.

He’s part of the team, so if you need machining services, he’s your man.

Born and raised in Bolléne, France, Ray started trade school for machining at age 14. He immigrated to New York at age 18, and has been working his magic as a machinist ever since.

His favorite hobby is tinkering. He loves rebuilding heavy machinery, and WWII is a personal favorite. He’s extremely knowledgeable and loves talking equipment specs and operations.

He’s created machined prototypes for research and engineering projects nationally, globally and even for space exploration. He can make a single part, a handful, or short-run production. He works both plastics and metals with equal skill and precision. He talks about retiring one day, but we both know that won’t happen.

This is the kind of thing he does for fun.

Ray on the cover of Equipment Echoes: Airborne Division 2005.

That’s the Clark CA1 Airborne Bulldozer and Laplant-Choate CAB1 Scraper that he had just finished restoring.

He was more than happy to take some time out to rearrange some of that pesky terrain with it.

Ray’s latest toy, his 1937 Vickers Lloyd tank.