interview
from my skateboard, but it meant a lot then
and it still does now. The second thing I made,
an electronic hopper, was taken apart and
used to build more prototypes.
think of it in my British accent, but I chose to
come and live here (for paintball actually) and
I care about the local and national economy
more than most.
I owe my love of design to my father who was
also an engineer and helped get me involved
with problem solving and being constructive
from a very early age. My love of paintball
was actually very intertwined with my career
path as I picked courses through my studies,
like rapid prototyping, to help me make more
paintball stuff. :) When I left Uni versity I went
into Design and Concept in the Automotive
industry and worked on brands like Land
Rover, MG, Mini, Rover, BMW, Ford, Aston
Martin, Lincoln, Mercury and Jaguar. Then I
ran the UK subsidiary of a multinational CAD/
CAM company and worked on projects for all
kinds of companies from Games Workshop to
McLaren.
Josh: Please name some of the products you’ve
designed in paintball and some of the companies you’ve worked for over the years.
Simon: Um, that’s quite a list, and I am sure to
miss many things. A decent start is to see the
patents that are public on things that I have
invented. https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q=ininventor:%22Simon+Benjamin+Stevens%22
I love doing both the CAD (Computer Aided
Design) side of things and the CAM (Computer
Aided Manufacturing) which I guess is why I
now have my own CNC machines and machine shop. I bought machinery that was made
in the USA and am very proud of the fact that
I can put “Made in USA” on the things I am
doing. That may sounds strange when you
LLX3.COM
I actually just signed patent papers from KEE
for two more patents that they are working on
since I left.
The first gun I was involved with was the CNC
X-Mag for AGDE, the last gun (that has been
released at least by Empire) was the Vanquish.
The fun part is that one of the first guns I did
was a mag (The X-Mag body styling) and one
of the last guns I was involved with before
leaving KEE was the Resurrection Autococker.
That was a huge deal for me because growing
up in the sport it was all about Autocockers
and Automags.
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