Dan Kitchen, 8 Sep 2026
Why We Took Up the Baton at Colpitts Design
Dan Kitchen on why Invent Art took up the baton at the Colpitts Design shop in Uxbridge, Ontario, and what stays the same at 192 Main Street North.
Invent Art now runs the machine and mold shop at 192 Main Street North in Uxbridge, the shop that ran as Colpitts Design since 1992. My partner Wes Found and I took up the baton in September 2026.
When a small shop changes hands, its customers tend to brace for the worst: new owners, new rules, the familiar people gone. We took this shop on to keep it working the way it already works, and the reason is personal. I ended up running a machine shop because I couldn't find one.
The shop I needed
I trained in classical animation, then spent about seven years at a software company, where I moved into development. In 2014 I went independent and started Invent Art.
I also run Make Stuff Move, a company that makes tools teachers use in classrooms. Its products are used in over 30 school boards. Growing it meant making physical products, and making physical products meant finding a shop that would make them with me.
The shops I tried charged me for design specs documented far beyond what I needed. They wanted purchase orders of 50,000 to 100,000 units.
I couldn't find what I needed, and the company couldn't grow past what I could get made.
What the shop did differently
Then I found Colpitts in Uxbridge. They didn't need a finished drawing to start. They talked the product through with me, made the tooling in their own shop, and made the parts.
They talked to me like I mattered, and like the idea was solvable. They let me test odd new materials and run the mold runs I wanted. It was as much an education as it was problem-solving.
The cork and plastic composite my company uses was developed in the shop. The shop has made our screwdrivers and Servo Socks for four years.
Cork did not mold like plain plastic. Temperature, pressure and the amount of cork all had to be dialled in before the cork would blend with the plastic. Under heat and pressure, tannins leach out of the cork and foul the mold, so the shop accepted cleaning the molds almost daily to keep production running. Cork also brought a surprise. Its springiness acts like a natural blowing agent, helping push material into the cavity as pressure is released, so once the process was dialled in the shop got thicker sections and fewer sink marks.
That is what a small product company needs: someone who takes the idea seriously at the stage it's actually at.
Why we took it on
Shops like this are hard to find. When one closes, the knowledge and the tooling go with it, and the next person with an idea has to travel further, wait longer, or let the idea go.
I didn't want that to happen here. So Wes and I took up the baton where the shop stands, with the same machines, and the same people running them.
The address hasn't changed, and the shop has worked from it since 1992. The way of working hasn't changed either: a conversation first, then the work. What Invent Art adds is product design, and the experience of running a product business of our own.
In Uxbridge today that means product development, laser cutting and engraving of non-metal sheet and architectural pieces, woodworking and carpentry, and embedded-electronics builds with firmware and controller coding, alongside the machining and injection molding with aluminum tooling. For PCB and circuit design, heavy sheet metal, fiber laser, waterjet and wire EDM, we work with partner engineers and shops.
Who it suits
A shop like this isn't the answer to every job. If your drawing is finished and you only need a part cut from it, an online machining service may suit you well. The shop is most useful earlier than that, when the idea is still a sketch, a sample or a problem, and someone has to work out with you what the part should be.
The shop is still here for the next person in the spot I was in. That was the point.
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