07/13/2026
A cattle farm and a precision CNC shop — same property, same owner, Cox's Creek, Kentucky.
Jeff Lewis was born on 380 acres and never left. He started welding broken farm equipment in a to***co barn, bought his first machine tool, taught himself to run it, and kept going. Today, Integrity Tool machines die inserts to ±0.0004" for major automotive OEMs while cattle graze outside the shop windows.
What makes the operation worth a closer look is how Lewis has built it around the same long-term thinking that kept him on the family farm — from the equipment he buys to the people he develops. His son designs and assembles custom automation systems. His daughter holds the ISO 9001 certification. An 89-year-old mentor sat down at lunch to talk about what it means to work with your hands.
"Everything I've done has been long term. I'm not a short-term person."
The full shop tour covers die insert workflow, Schunk zero-point workholding, five-axis and horizontal machining, wire EDM, and custom automation design-build. https://www.mmsonline.com/articles/a-machine-shop-on-the-farm-he-was-born-on
