The people behind the teeth
Engineers first, salespeople never.
TorqueForge started in 1987 as a two-man hobbing shop in a rented bay on Millrace Road. Werner Kalb, a toolmaker from Stuttgart, and his son Erich bought a used Gleason hobber at auction and began cutting replacement gears for the paper mills along the Rock River. The work was unglamorous and the tolerances unforgiving — which turned out to be the perfect training ground.
Today the third generation runs a 68,000 sq ft plant on the same street, with 42 CNC machines, an in-house vacuum heat-treatment line and a climate-controlled metrology lab. What has not changed is the operating rule Werner chalked above the first hobber: measure it, or you made it twice.
We serve agriculture, rail, mining, robotics and energy customers across North America and Europe — from one-piece prototype pinions to multi-year production programs.
Werner and Erich Kalb open the shop with a single used Gleason hobber, cutting mill replacement gears.
A Reishauer profile grinder brings AGMA Class 10 work in-house and opens the door to OEM contracts.
The vacuum carburizing line cuts average lead times by three weeks and ends outsourcing risk.
Lena Kalb takes over as CEO; the plant expansion adds a metrology lab and a large-gear grinding bay.
MACHINE PARK
48 years at the machines. Still walks the floor every morning with a micrometer in his pocket.
Mechanical engineer (Purdue) who ran our grinding cell for six years before taking the helm in 2024.
Built our metrology lab from a single height gauge to a Klingelnberg-equipped, ISO 17025-aligned operation.
We started cutting gears when CNC hobbing was still new and have never stopped chasing the last micron of accuracy. Our people run the same machines they set up, our heat-treat is validated in-house, and every job carries the tribal knowledge of thousands of gear sets that came before it.
Plant tours welcome
We schedule customer walk-throughs every Thursday. Watch your gear geometry come off the grinder and meet the people who will run your program.
