The mold makers.

• Author: Castaneda, Eliza
• Position: Colorado Pattern Company Inc.

Disdaining computerization, Colorado Pattern still handcrafts the forms for everything from plastic tableware to Caterpillar bulldozers.

Imagine a company that does none of its business by computer. None. Not CAD, not CAM. The business has no web site, no e-mail. Invoices are generated by typewriter, not word processor. And when customers call, an actual person answers the telephone.

Now imagine this old-fashioned business makes patterns for high-tech molds for the likes of Martin Marietta and IBM, crafting parts to specs of several thousandths of an inch.

The low-tech company in question: Denver-based Colorado Pattern Co. Inc.

Colorado Pattern's workers bear more resemblance to artists than assembly line workers. All the company's products are made the old-fashioned way - by the hands of skilled craftsmen. Working with blueprints and tools, the pattern-maker creates an exact replica of the desired product, usually out of wood. Standard patterns for shorter production runs are crafted from softer woods like sugar pine. Hardwoods like Honduras mahogany are used for high-volume patterns that will be used repeatedly. Rarely, the company makes aluminum patterns for really high-volume use.

The pattern maker first shapes the wood with a table saw, then uses lathes, mills, sanders and other woodworking machinery to complete the shape. Next, the pattern-maker carefully sands and files the shape with hand tools. Then, molten metal is poured from a foundry to complete the mold of the finished prototype. The company has made patterns for products as small as a Water Pik filter, and as big as a Caterpillar bulldozer.

"Nearly everything that is cast for manufacturing needs a pattern," explains owner Joe Taleck.

Taleck started Colorado Pattern with a partner and two employees in 1952. The idea stems from his childhood in Racine, Wis., where he used to walk past a pattern shop on his way to junior high school. Taleck admired the workers' clean white shirts and the finely crafted, diverse designs they created.

Colorado Pattern found its footing in about 1955, when Taleck and then-partner Bill Funk bought the company's 10,000-square-foot building. Business has been steady ever since, and the 79-year-old Taleck still manages the company's daily affairs.

Now, Colorado...