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#230 CNC Machine Washdown System Update, Shipping, Customer Service, and Freight Debacle, Threading 4140 Steel, Exciting Fusion 360 Updates & More!
176 Plays4 years ago
Topics:
- Saunders Get Hosed by the DIY CNC Machine Washdown System
- Plastic VS Brass Quick Disconnects
- Grundfos MQ3-35 Pump
- The Worst Freightmare Ever: A Perfect Storm
- Customs Duties & Warranty Work
- Ted Lasso - A Dose of Optimism & Leadership
- Threading
- Fusion 360 Imperial VS. Metric for .STL file export & Improved Contour Selection
- Multi-Part Probing & Renishaw Macros
- Re-cutting Chips, High Feed Mill, Swiss Cheese Fixture
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business and Machining episode 330. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. This is the podcast where every week for five, six lots of years, John and I have been chatting every week about business and just giving ourselves each other that ear to lean on and open up to about business and life and machining and everything. Yes.
Pump Problem and Solution Exploration
00:00:27
Speaker
How are you doing?
00:00:29
Speaker
Uh, good. I've got some, uh, I've got some updates. I've got some, some loops to close on last week. So
00:00:38
Speaker
Reluctantly, we figured out the pump issue like 10 minutes after you and I hung up. Yes. And we, if you folks weren't listening, we purchased a proper centrifugal coolant pump through, I believe it was three quarter horsepower. It was approximately $560. Like quote unquote should have worked had a 50, about a 60 GPM. So about one gallon per minute.
00:01:08
Speaker
I don't know what a gallon is, a couple of liters. It should hose you down. And when Alex fired it up, it was getting a fraction of that. It was taking 10%. Something was clearly wrong. We checked the RPM, the wiring. What we thought were the usual suspects. And we just thought, man, what's going on here? We actually did have some folks emailing with some helpful advice. I probably should have clarified. We were just testing this straight out of a bucket into another bucket so there was no
00:01:36
Speaker
meaningful amount of vertical head. But what we realized and egg on my face is I had been, when we were trying to use a different pump a while back, I had purchased some Home Depot style plastic garden hose quick disconnects, which will be useful in this system for maintenance and flexibility downstream in the future. I want those quick disconnects in there if at all possible.
00:02:02
Speaker
But we didn't love the plastic nature of them and wanted something more robust. And so I had found some brass ones on McMaster for only like 10 bucks. It was not a premium price at all in my opinion for what you were getting.
00:02:15
Speaker
And they were great fitting. They didn't leak. They had a much more positive connection, very much like the saga, like, you know, like, okay, I know this is exactly what I was waiting for. Well, ends up that the way that quick disconnect works is the male side, instead of being a through hole,
00:02:32
Speaker
is kind of a blind hole that just has two like three sixteenths or maybe three four millimeter holes on the left and right sides with two holes so what should be like a almost 12 millimeter half inch through diameter was being not only choked down but choked down with two radial exit holes and so as soon as we pulled that quick disconnect out of a loop
00:02:57
Speaker
In fact, we were like, okay, well that clearly was the culprit. We took it off. We turned it back on and I'm holding the hose in the bucket at the bottom expecting a good amount of flow and I just got soaked. That's fantastic. So is it the kind of quick disconnect that will seal when you take it off?
00:03:18
Speaker
Well, it's irrelevant because we're not using it. I got to find a new type. Yeah. But it's just like the garden kind that you have where you pull the collar down and slip it over. Because I know when we were looking at quick disconnects for our water system, some kinds will stay open on both ends when you remove them and they'll leak like water. But some will actually have a little ball valve or something inside that will seal. Sorry, I didn't realize this is what you're asking. I don't actually remember. For the use case here,
00:03:46
Speaker
the flow is more important and the ceiling when it's connected together, like long-term leakage is the bigger priority or lack of leakage. I guess it could be nice if it auto seals when you disconnect it, but that's not critically important. I'll tell you, it's actually, I want to figure out what we're going to make of this, as I've mentioned a few times in terms of like a bill of materials or advice for folks in the form of a video.
00:04:13
Speaker
It has been really helpful that the coincidence that Alex is taking, I don't know what exactly the class is called, but something to do with like fluid dynamics or fluid calculations in course college right now because even the fact that we were moving from a three quarter pecs, which is maybe five eighths. So what is that? Like 13, 14 millimeter ID is way too limiting for the flow rate of that pump. Okay.
00:04:39
Speaker
As a layman, it looks like it would be throaty enough. But Alex did the math about, hey, we really need to be running one-inch pecs. And we can be a little bit more choking downstream, but with the main flow from the pump to the bulkhead and then the bulkhead inside the machine pushing it to the major points, we've got to open that diameter up. And then that pump should work, which means total is going to be still probably about $1,000 in some work.
00:05:08
Speaker
That's a no-brainer, as long as the system works overtime because of how much time we're spending washing down the machine. Yeah. Cool. And are you expecting to have just a waterfall, a consistent flow? Or are you shooting jets of water in corners and stuff?
00:05:26
Speaker
We're going to start shooting, uh, more focused jets into a few corners that they tend to build up. The thesis is that if you can keep enough, uh, from building up, then you don't need as powerful of a pump to, cause it, I'll tell you, chips are like just really good at not moving. Once they get up into piles, um, we will, we don't have enough flow out of that pump, nor frankly, even with the 95 gallon coolant tank, I don't think it's just big enough period to have what you've seen like on the.
00:05:56
Speaker
The production palette ties horizontal. It is a wall of coolant every face and surface. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, that's progress. That's progress. I had to laugh. Yeah. It's funny because after we had that chat, I went and used our pump and I had to fill up a bucket with just water.
00:06:22
Speaker
So before our pump hits the mixed drone, we have it like a ball valve and a T. So I just filled up the bucket from our RO pump water and I'm turning on the ball valve more and more and more and it's like splashing up out of the bucket and I'm at 25% throttle on that ball valve. This pump is, this is plenty for what you need. That's that Grundfos. Grundfos, yeah, the constant pressure one.
00:06:48
Speaker
It's a large diameter pump like it's the size of a watermelon Mm-hmm big watermelon. But yeah, that's a lot of power. Yeah, you know what the input power like is that a single phase? It's 110
00:07:02
Speaker
110 single phase. I'm going to look that up now to see if I still am not convinced that we can't find an adequate pump that is either less expensive or this one is 243 phase, which isn't a big deal because that's what the other pumps are on the Haas, but nevertheless, the bootstrapper in me, I want to size this incorrectly.
00:07:29
Speaker
Just let me search for Grundfos MQ3-35. Yeah, they're not cheap, but they're 7, 800 bucks US. Oh, OK. Well, that's OK. Well, I honestly would rather pay a few bucks more to have a simpler, safer thing. The difference with this is it will keep a constant pressure. And when you turn off your coolant gun, it keeps pressure in the lines. And it turns itself off when it's built up pressure. There must be a bladder inside or something.
00:07:58
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's really cool. So if you hook the pump directly up to a spray down gun, the pump will turn on, pressurize the line, and then turn itself off. And the second you open the valve, it'll turn on again and hold your line pressure. Interesting. So to do an automated wash down, you would just want a solenoid that opens it up while it's washing down the machine, I guess. You'd be constantly washing down, wouldn't you?
00:08:25
Speaker
Yeah,
Challenges with Logistics and Shipping
00:08:26
Speaker
sometimes the machine sits for three hours with no one doing anything on it. Yeah, but then you have a solenoid machine-based, M code-based or something, right? Exactly. Yeah, so that might not be the right specific pump for you, but I know Grundfos makes everything. Yeah.
00:08:42
Speaker
Um, the other update is I, you kind of have to just smile. It was the absolute perfect storm. Uh, I don't know that we'll ever replicate this again. And that's a good thing. Um, we had a, our LTL freight company lost a shipment that went to a customer on kind of the West coast area. So it was confirmed lost. Well, they're still looking for it, but I mean, it's lost.
00:09:09
Speaker
Most, I mean, again, these are pallets and it sounds crazy, but then when you really think about how many literally hundreds or thousands of trucks they're running every day and it happens, it's probably, my guess is it's probably at some giant, it was probably misdelivered to some giant distribution facility that just hasn't even realized that they have it. And it was probably a decent chance sometime in the next month or two, they'll be like, oh, this isn't ours. They'll call back the freight company and say, hey, come take this. And then we actually may get it back.
00:09:40
Speaker
So that was lost first time that's ever happened. We had one other issue where it got kind of screwed up on the final truck. So there was one more, like it was a legitimate pickup, but the first time we had the freight piece lost.
00:09:52
Speaker
The replacement plate that we would have needed to fill that order since we lost that plate is a stock plate and we were out of stock, but we had already pursuant to Lex. It had already flagged it. We had already made more. We had sent them out to anodizing and, uh, they were done and the anodizer shipped us the wrong
00:10:15
Speaker
thing. We've been using this anodizer for four years and they've never made a mistake. They accidentally shipped us another customer's parts. They're like, we're so sorry. They caught it like right away. It had already been shipped. They pulled the freight back and they're like, sorry about that. We will send your order out tomorrow on our dime. When they sent it out, they paid for it and they used a different freight company who lost the order.
00:10:46
Speaker
No. We actually just found out this morning we may be getting it today. I'm not making this up. It's just hilarious. We got the customer taken care of. We got a different plate made quickly anodized, turned around. They were great. We worked with them. But yeah, that was the perfect switch.
00:11:07
Speaker
Right? And it's interesting. You're like, what's the lesson learned? In some respects, as much as we appreciated their gesture of picking up the cost of the freight, it was that they didn't use our company. And that was a big part, I think, of why it got botched. Yeah, you're just adding different variables to a rushed situation. Yeah. Yeah, that's like outsider looking in. You're like, oh, I don't know if that's going to work. But insider doing it, you're like, let's just rush it out. Let's do it. Let's make this guy happy.
00:11:37
Speaker
So yeah, the final thing is it is imperative and it's a choice to keep a positive attitude. That doesn't mean things aren't tough. There's actually segues into a bigger thing I wanted to talk about today, but I'm gonna deliberately throw some shade toward the post office USPS. It's not because things don't happen and they don't lose packages, which is what happened here. It's because if you're listening as a fellow business owner,
00:12:07
Speaker
There's, everybody makes mistakes, everything happens. It's not that, it's how the company and the systems are built to handle it. And we have had fairly good, sometimes so frustrating, but it's fairly good resources and interactions as we've dealt with
00:12:26
Speaker
Things like FedEx, UPS, DHL, hiccups. Doesn't mean they're always the most enjoyable conversations, but nevertheless, you get it done. The reason I'm selling hard against the post office these days is there's just no framework for a business.
00:12:43
Speaker
You're effectively put into the same system as some single person who once time ever shipped a single item. It's very difficult to get
Leadership and Optimism in Business
00:12:52
Speaker
out of the automated column trees these days. They're making that more difficult. And in our case for international shipments, it's incredibly, it's just very frustrating because we get kicked around a lot and everybody who's listening probably has heard of that.
00:13:05
Speaker
But I finally talked to a warm body on the business services side, who was a great individual, very helpful, but he's like, look, I know, so we do five figures of priority melee here. I was like, does that get us an account rep, an actual number? And he's like, nope, it doesn't. You've got to be big enough where we reach out to you. And I don't know what that level was. He wouldn't tell me, but I'm guessing it's a factor
00:13:36
Speaker
tenfold, if not bigger, where you have this, in my opinion, what you need and what we get out of it. I have a warm body, a DHL that I can call or email and say, whatever, Jack, hey, there's a hiccup here. Can I get some help tracking this down or dealing with a claim or something?
00:13:54
Speaker
That's too bad. Too bad to hear. Is USPS too big to handle itself? Yeah. I get it. They're dealing with every single person that spent $7 to ship something, priority mail, that's fine. But when you spend, again, five figures, in this case, we have a $225 postage to a order going overseas, and you don't have a system, a way of dealing with that, no good.
00:14:23
Speaker
Is it disappointing? Go ahead. With Canada Post, we do have a business service rep had for about three-ish years or so because the local Canada Post distribution center is like four blocks away from us. Okay.
00:14:39
Speaker
Nice and handy. That's where he works from, Craig. He's been great. Every time, if we have a loss package or we just need something tracked down or we want a cheaper shipping rate or something, we talk to Craig. He's been decent. It has been nice to have that communication, that layer. He'll reach out every now and then because he'll review our account once a year or whatever.
00:15:03
Speaker
And he'd be like, oh, I see you guys are growing in volume. Maybe we can cut you down in the slightly next price break or something like that. That's great, John. I know. It's awesome. Because we do, I think I see a monthly bill of about $2,500. Oh, yeah. There you go. Yeah. So we're a decent sized company. Shipping costs. So I don't know. It's been fine.
00:15:27
Speaker
And a bright point in this story. Shout out to the Zanesville Postmaster. She has been wonderful. She answers the phone. She's sympathetic. She cares. She's just handicapped. She can't do... And I completely believe her. I mean, she's driven up here. She's been great. She calls me back when she says she's gonna come back. She's like, I literally don't have any means of offering you a refund or starting a case claim or investigation. That all has to be pushed through the systems. And hey, I get it.
00:15:56
Speaker
I love systems, I love building systems, but also, it just doesn't work for us. And we had some folks say the problem is that the other carriers do these sort of upcharges for like remote destination fees and other quirky scenarios. So I guess if somebody wants to ask us to re-allow
00:16:17
Speaker
that option internationally, we'd be happy to do so so long as there's a written understanding that we're not going to be able to pursue remedies that are available to us with the other carriers. That's tricky. Tricky. We've been trying to figure out how to do warranty claims across the border because they don't like
00:16:44
Speaker
Canada Customs doesn't like to import knives and prohibited things like that. One-handed flipping devices, whatever. We're allowed to make them and sell them within Canada and outside Canada and everything, but we can't import them back in. But bringing back a warranty is not importing it. That's just like our property coming back to fix it and we'll send it back out again. Since this weird little loophole, we're trying to figure out how to
00:17:08
Speaker
how to manage and who to talk to, to allow us to safely and reliably do that and not lose knives and customs coming back for warranty work. It's been this like fear of ours. Should you not look at getting some sort of a manufacturer's license? Yeah, that's kind of what we're thinking of. Well, yeah, you can get your license to manufacturer prohibited items, firearm, stuff like that. But I don't think
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah, that might help. I don't know. But you'd still have to have an avenue at Canada Customs that
00:17:45
Speaker
flies you through somehow. They know you're unapproved, so and so. Right. I wonder if we can just pursue that. We've got some feelers out. We're going to make some phone calls this week and just see what's possible. Got it. Because if we sent the customer a prepaid UPS posted postal thing that's got all of our proper information on it and say here, ship it UPS, here's the label, it'll come, it'll fly through this channel.
00:18:12
Speaker
and we'll get it, you know what I mean? As opposed to just like, yeah, go to the post office and USPS and, you know, cross your fingers. I don't like that. Yeah, sure.
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder, I don't know anything about... I remember actually briefly talking to Angelo when I was at your shop a while back about the process I think of becoming a... I guess it's a firearms manufacturer, which may not be what you want to do, but maybe you don't have a choice. Yeah, it's your prohibited weapons. I don't know what it's called. It doesn't have to be for firearms, but it typically is. Yeah, right. But yeah, he's talked about it several times and it's very possible if we wanted to go that route and if it would benefit us, I don't know.
00:18:50
Speaker
Yeah. Well, do you heed the advice of taking a step back and thinking about what the problem is that you're really trying to solve? As Sondra's MachineWorks has changed, and my role here has changed, and we've grown, it's so
00:19:13
Speaker
easy to get laser focused on some like customs process or permit process when in reality, you know, think about why are we getting a warranty work? Is there a different way of solving it? You know, and just take that step back. That's a good point. Like, I mean, luckily, we have very little warranty work, but there is the odd stuff every now and then that it's just better if we look at it, if we fix it.
00:19:37
Speaker
I've never been happy with our current setup. Of course, it's a question of the scale. I don't want to imply that you guys have a lot of words. You work, you stop the ownership. But if you have three of these things a day, you need to be able to get knives back, period. But if it's one a month, one option, it doesn't have to be forever, is partner with somebody in the US who could be your eyes and ears.
00:20:00
Speaker
We've definitely thought about it. It's tricky because the people that have the skill to do that come and go. It's hard to manage their skill level. Fair enough. And dedication. There are people to do that, but I don't know how comfortable I feel doing it. You're right. It would be theoretically sweet, but it just brings extra potential for error. Maybe I'm making it up, but it's nice for us to handle our own stuff. Right.
00:20:28
Speaker
I don't have another solution other than, I mean, unless it's, you work with like a freight forwarders, not the right word, but a logistics company that people send the knives to, and then they can bash them up with the correct customs stuff. But then that gets very clunky.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yeah, but there might be some sort of customs broker that we could funnel things through that's all legit and just has our paperwork and information and we are then an approved importer for warranty work purposes and we'll never abuse that power and you can check up on us as much as you want, but here's the legality. We're allowed to do this. That's kind of my dream scenario and maybe it's very possible. We just got to talk to the right people.
00:21:09
Speaker
Interesting. Since 90 plus percent of our customers are in the US, if we were based in the US, people would just ship us warranty work much easier, much quicker. I'd be much more willing to do it. But even the once a year fear of somebody losing a knife at customs is not fun.
00:21:30
Speaker
If this is all getting sent from the US to Crimson knives, is that to be a USPS and Canada post? Yeah. So you got to switch to one of the private carriers there. That's part of the problem, John. There's a market difference in how customs is handled. I think we've talked about this before, but there's sort of this weird sometimes with the post office, they just don't apply like fees, but either way, like it's kind of unclear
00:21:56
Speaker
why, but it's advantageous if you're thinking I'm trying to skirt fees, but we have never once had the private carriers
00:22:06
Speaker
have so many customs for more than, I want to say like 12 hours, 24 hours. It's just immediately through, whereas the post office has regularly multiple days of darkness. Agreed. Yep, especially because 97% of our packages leave Canada. Everybody's like, it's stuck in Chicago for the past week. Tracking's not updated. I think it's lost. We're like, no, I just got to chill. Sorry. It sucks. I know, but there's nothing we can do about it.
00:22:32
Speaker
create a label with DHL, FedEx, UPS, somebody, and I will send it to me and I will ship you a like just junk pocket knife. Yeah, and the other caveat with shipping products out via a different carrier is
00:22:50
Speaker
that $800 limit. What's that limit? If we declare the knife for anything for more than $800 and send you a package for more than $800, you'll have to pay duties or taxes or something on it. Canada Post USPS doesn't have that limit. That's what I was talking about those fees though. I don't think it's an actual exclusion. I just think for some reason the post office chooses to ignore it. I know. It makes sense. Yeah.
00:23:17
Speaker
Would I have to pay it, or is that just going into care? I don't know that we pay, I guess, import duty. I thought about experimenting with a known customer, like a cool, somebody we have a history with. See, they buy a package. We'd be like, we're going to sip it UPS. I want to experiment. Let me know when it comes. If you have to pay fees, we'll cover whatever. I'm going to try that just so we get some answers. Yeah. So anyway. OK.
00:23:47
Speaker
Shipping is a necessary evil of business. Yeah. Our kind of business anyway. It's like you want to make cool stuff, it has to be able to leave your shop. Right. But no issue on a saga going back and forth, huh? Not easy. Cake. Got it. Well, the big thing that I wanted to share this week was a friend recommended the show Ted Lasso.
00:24:13
Speaker
I've heard about it. What's his name's in it? Jason Sudeikis. Yeah, yeah. It is awesome. Yeah, it's a show. It's a show. It's like Apple TV plus, whatever, hashtag to any streaming services. It's about soccer.
00:24:34
Speaker
The premise, which is not giving anything away, is it's a United States American football coach, like NFL college football coach, who is hired to go coach a good European team, which is obviously a ripe for parity situation. And it is great. And I think it's kind of one of the things I love. I love finding these like nuggets of leadership and kind of business wisdom out of
00:25:01
Speaker
TV shows. Yeah, well, like even the founder and other shows. Because, you know, books are great. But I don't read as much as I wish I did. And I'm not, you know, that's a choice. So the shows are phenomenal. And you got to watch the show. It's not something that you can just convey via explanation. But he has he's a very quirky personality in terms of being hugely optimistic, like to a fault, you want to say? Yeah.
00:25:31
Speaker
and it pushes you outside your comfort zone. I think a lot of us are trained to believe that optimism like that is actually a sign of weakness and a detachment from reality and maybe leaves yourself to be viewed as naive or even taken advantage of. I think we're still
00:25:50
Speaker
almost over the first season. I think that's all that's out right now. But I think it's a great example of it doesn't have to be that way at all. You can have that contagious energy that doesn't mean you're also not a good decision maker or leader. Yeah. Cool. I will definitely check that out. Is it funny or is it like what's the genre? Yes.
00:26:10
Speaker
I mean, it's not like a, you know, I could be like laughing, falling over laughing. Yeah. But it is a lighthearted comedy. Very little about actually about soccer. So if you know, if you're not into sports, that won't matter.
00:26:25
Speaker
But the other thing, which I think is a really good example for you and me to keep in mind is, you know, the role of a soccer coach or any sports coach as an analogy to running, you know, Grosso knives and Saunders machine works, um, Ted Lasso in the soccer player, he's not the machinist, he's not out on the field. If frankly, he's not even a good soccer player. Um, now you like playing soccer, you like machining. Um,
00:26:51
Speaker
And I do too, but make sure that that's not then leaving a hole in the direction, the leadership of the company. Yeah, I've definitely heard that there are especially an entrepreneur founder
00:27:08
Speaker
you know, solopreneur that turns grows a big business, the person who started the business should not be the one to continue it kind of thing. Typically, you know, I'd like to think we're the exceptions. But because yeah, like you said, as we've got our head focused down, I just want to get this toolpath right. You're not stepping back and looking up at the whole of the business whereas a proper CEO
00:27:31
Speaker
doesn't get his hands dirty. He sees the whole entirety of the picture and makes sure that it's flowing in the right direction as opposed to you and I get pulled away by Raspberry Pi projects because it's amazing. Which again, I don't have a problem with that so long as there's still that leadership happening
00:27:54
Speaker
to the exact needs to recognizing that we are all biased at thinking it's okay. Even if it's, if it's not right. Like, and you need that role, you know, the coach making decisions about who to start or who to bench or how to, uh, lead the team is, is huge, huge. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I remember the, you know, the, the joke like through high school are, um, the high school's football coach was not in shape. He was a very, very large guy.
00:28:24
Speaker
He was a gym teacher, right? So you're in gym class and he's telling you to run. You're like, come on, you run too. Who are you to say that? But then as you grow and as you see leadership examples, Ted Lasso sounds like the perfect example of that. He's not the world's best soccer player. He's not even good, but he can still be an amazing coach. It's the same with leadership.
00:28:50
Speaker
First off, you need a coach. And then it's a question of whether it's a good coach, right? I think you and I are similar in that, like.
00:28:58
Speaker
It's not that we don't enjoy coaching or leading, right? But there is a chance that you would, I don't know how to create this example in theory, but there's a chance that you would join on another team as like a Swiss five-axis current guru making parts. Like there's a chance that you would do that. I don't think there's a chance that you would ever go work as an office worker management leader of a knife company where you just
00:29:27
Speaker
handled the office work leadership. Yeah, I would share my nerd skills more than my leadership skills, like in a different company. Yes, there you go. Yeah, agreed.
00:29:43
Speaker
Whereas you see coaches, they can go from team to team or even industry to industry or a career CEO. I managed this grocery store chain and now I'm going to manage this dog food store and it's totally different industries.
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah. I remember talking, this is four or five years ago, a friend who was working at Tormach was sort of talking about, gosh, they tragically lost their founder in a sailboat accident, drowned when a sail fell overboard and the rope, safety rope ironically, I think pulled him under water as it's going through there. It's a really sad day. And as they were sort of looking at the next stage of leadership and that company had grown a bit and
00:30:28
Speaker
And you wanted somebody who's been through taking a company through an ERP system implementation or through a fulfillment or through the difference between just selling some machines and having all the documentation, support structure and all that stuff. It's kind of cool to see about, but you're like, I want it to go well, but I don't want to do that stuff. Yeah.
00:30:56
Speaker
But they seem to have thrived since that unfortunate accident. I think they had some real growing pains on their, I think it was an ERP system implementation, which I think a lot of companies do. I think it was hard on them, but this is like three years ago type things.
00:31:20
Speaker
Can
Tool Maintenance and Machining Insights
00:31:21
Speaker
I ask you a machine question? Yeah. Gross threads. We had these single pointing these threads on the lathe.
00:31:32
Speaker
They look great, they feel great, they gauge great, no issues whatsoever. And then looked at them under the 45X loop and just disgusting. Talk to me. The world is different under a microscope. That is for sure. What's the material? 4140. Yeah, it should be nice. Is the insert clean, not chipped or anything?
00:31:57
Speaker
This was a few weeks ago. I can take a look. Yeah. Yeah. Usually it's either the material is weird or the insert is built up edge or smearing or something like microchipped on the edge. Built up. It almost looked like it was tearing the material out.
00:32:15
Speaker
Again, these are such a small thing that the threads look great and they feel great. How much of a problem do we really have? Well, I care. However that thread is being made, it doesn't look sustainable. It looks like it will get worse, not better. I don't like it. When you cut threads, even under 45x loop, when you're looking at it, they look good.
00:32:38
Speaker
Titanium for sure. 17.4 stainless ones. Yeah, I think they do look good. Okay. It's been a while. But I've definitely looked at threads that were smearing and galling and like pits of metal balling up, you know, all along the thread crest and you're like, what is happening? That's disgusting. It still fits and goes in and everything. But no, no, thank you. Yeah, I feel like some of the steels I cut like
00:33:05
Speaker
When did I cut steel? I don't remember, but I've seen it before and it's just depressing. Isn't titanium more difficult to get clean cut? I guess the tool is sharp. Okay. Yeah.
00:33:19
Speaker
Got it. Yeah, titanium usually cuts beautifully if everything's right in the world. Would you play with your surface footage in a situation like that? Yeah, threading's weird because I've always kind of just been default thread settings, like 500 RPM. I do all my threads at 500, but maybe that's a big part of it. Maybe 1200 RPM is better for whatever diameter you're doing, but if your default mode is wrong for this one big thread you're doing,
00:33:47
Speaker
Then you got to look at weird stuff like that, right? I was actually looking at a drill bit, a through cooling drill bit yesterday and it had built up edge. I just pulled it out of the current and I was like, how's this tool doing? Oh, it's a couple little microchips in the edge and there's built up material on that edge. It's like, I should probably replace that soon.
00:34:09
Speaker
You just caught it by chance, huh? Just by chance, yeah. Because I broke it different through coolant drill. So I was like, well, let me look at this other one, see how the tool life is doing. Because I don't have a tool life limit on those tools yet. And I'm like, why did this one break? It broke because it went
00:34:23
Speaker
the handle was misplaced on the pallet just by 20 thou. So when the drill entered the hole at the edge of the handle, it missed and it walked off the handle ever so slightly but enough to break the tool and I could eventually see that happened yesterday.
00:34:46
Speaker
like looking at all the holes that it cut and then the holes that it didn't cut. I'm like, okay, it stopped here. There's no broken tool in the material, but oh, this is the one. Yep. It walked out that way. The hole's a little bit crooked. So I was able to save it by taking the same size end mill and slowly plunging it and then just continue. So that worked out.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yeah, carbide drills do not like flex flow. They don't flex. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. OSG makes those flat bottom drills that I've used a little bit. Um, apparently you can just use them like a drill bit, just plow through anything, thousands of holes. Um, I've only used them to kind of clean up holes in the bottom, make the bottom flat, but yeah, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. We've used them for a couple back. We were doing job shop work and got along great with them. Yeah.
00:35:33
Speaker
Yeah, I'm kind of tempted to just replace or use it for my three thirty second holes in titanium that I'm drilling all the time because then I get a flat bottom and then I can thread mill properly like to the bottom because most of my threads are really shallow. So I want to get as much as possible. Yeah.
00:35:52
Speaker
We are trying something new in Fusion, which actually led me to realize, I think it was the update yesterday, two things that look like huge quality of life improvements. Number one, for the folks at 3D Print, it looks like now when you export an STL, you can choose whether it was currently an inch or metric. No, finally. I know.
Software Updates and Workflow Optimization
00:36:12
Speaker
I've had to teach my 11-year-old daughter how to switch it between inch and metric. Yes.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yes, so that's a welcome to change. I only did a part real quick in Prusa and it looks like it does. I left it in inches, went into Prusa and Prusa then flagged it as, hey, do you want me to convert this? Which that is fine. That's no big deal. Just say yes. The other one is that it looks like they're really improving the
00:36:38
Speaker
automatic contour selection for, was it 2D Pocket or 2D Adaptive? Basically, yeah, it was 2D Adaptive where you can have it auto-recognize features and pockets. Super nice for certain type parts and really lends itself well to pre-packed container method and workflows. Okay, that's cool.
00:37:00
Speaker
Yeah, because just yesterday I was using 2D adaptive and my selections kept breaking as I was changing the model and updating and stuff. So I'd have to go in and reselect like every circle the right way and it's tedious. But what led me to that discovery is we want to do something better, which is if I have four parts on the
00:37:26
Speaker
on the fixture and I want to probe all four at once. I don't want to call the probe up, not only because the probe tool change time, but because we now do either chip fans or through air blasts to blow the parts off before we probe them. And I don't want to do that every time I'm pulling them up to probe. So the Renishaw, the way the Renishaw macros that we work
00:37:52
Speaker
that we use the way they work is they like it's a G98 XX on a 54 or something and that writes an output to a variable on the Haas control.
00:38:04
Speaker
So what I did for now, which it works, but I know there's a better way, and I don't even know what that way is yet. But if we have four parts, there are four different offsets, so 54, 567. What I'm doing is I'm taking the Haas variable, like 10954. 10955, those are just user-available macro variables. And I'm just probing the G54 part, and I'm stripping the value that normally gets dumped into the
00:38:32
Speaker
and I'm pushing it, copy it into 10954, and then I'm doing the same thing for the next part and the next part. And then, so there's four setups. The first setup does the probing, the second setup does the probing. NC programs is great to automate how we post this all out, but it's a weird CAM workflow because I have four setups that have each just a probing operation and an NC pass-through that does the macro variable stuff.
00:39:00
Speaker
Then below that, I have four more setups that are duplicated where you're applying, you're reassigning that variable back to the actual Brennishaw value. And then you're actually doing your machining work on it, which works. But I'm trying to think about how I could also better automate that via a post mod where it just auto stores it based on the work offset and auto applies it based on the work offset. That makes sense. I think so. Yeah.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah, you're trying to consolidate the four probing ops and do it all. Yeah. And I would just do all this by hand with G code, you know, but that's not a smooth workflow. Yeah.
Machining Strategies and Equipment Excitement
00:39:46
Speaker
Do you do you with me? I mean, the, the, I'm surprised. Maybe I'm just missing this ability of fusion, but it seems like there should be an ability to store data as you're probing and then pull it back in later. You know what I mean?
00:40:00
Speaker
Within fusion? I don't know. I don't do almost any probing within fusion. I just write my own programs. Okay. Fair enough. For what it's worth, the fusion probing has gotten way better. It just doesn't lend itself to production-ish workflows yet. It's more one-offs. Cool. Get there.
00:40:27
Speaker
Came in this morning. The current was still running. Good. That's fantastic. Let me look. What do we say? Still running right now. Uh, 15 hours, 46 minutes. Yeah. That's amazing. That's cool. Um, I've been trying this, uh, tiny little high-feed end mill, one 16th inch high-feed end mill. Whoa. Who makes it? Uh, Seaco slash Niagara tool. Okay. And, uh, yeah, I just filmed a video of it. It should go up.
00:40:57
Speaker
this week sometime. It's working great. I love it. Obviously for slotting. Yeah, for slotting the lock bar cut out on the knife. So we've just been plunging, or not plunging, but slotting with a 1 16th inch foreflute for years. And it works great until it breaks.
00:41:14
Speaker
And then it works great again until it breaks. And you set your tool life so you don't break them very often, but it still sucks. Um, but now with high-feed end mill, I can go, I think it's 4,000 depth of cut and just 75 inches per minute and just fly like 27,000 RPM or something crazy like that. Um, and it just flies zip, zip, zip, zip, zip. That's awesome. And yeah, I was looking at the chips under the microscope. They're tiny and beautiful and it's great.
00:41:43
Speaker
This is the area that you were at one point gang drilling? Yes, exactly. You're saying no more gang drilling? More gang drilling. On the Maury, I was gang drilling. On the Kern, I never did. Yeah. Even with gang drilling, you're entering and leaving, and entering and leaving each hole. I hear you.
00:42:04
Speaker
And it's funny, I was it a week or two ago, you were talking about recutting chips due to magnetism, I think in the steel. And regardless of magnetism, I think I've hit a spot where recutting chips has been biting me hard.
00:42:18
Speaker
Um, making our little lock bar inserts and there's these tiny little holes and under the hole in the fixture is another cavity. That's a hole. Yeah. And I think the chips are going down and coming back up and all the flood coolant pushes them down and bounces them back up. Cause I'm destroying end mills literally every time I run parts. Yep.
00:42:37
Speaker
And it finally dawned on me that I was like, oh, because there's a whole cavity there that chips are clearly getting into and not getting out of. So I created these slots under that to flush them out and away. And I'm using a smaller end mill.
00:42:52
Speaker
that will let them come up as well instead of an almost same size end mill. And these two revelations change the way I look at everything now. I love it. Yeah, right? Right. Because literally chipping out like these 3-32nd end mills daily, more than daily. And I'm like, this is not repeatable. What the heck? How come some tools can last for weeks and weeks and I'm chewing these tools every day? Well, maybe this is why.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah. I created this Swiss cheese fixture that is for flushing. Love it. We haven't regretted a single mod like that when you allow it to flush out or you take the time to blow it out or clean it out. Yeah. How are you doing coolant on the high-feed mill, 1.16? Just regular flood coolant.
00:43:39
Speaker
external flood. Do you have any of the current holders that have cool ports in the face of the holder? Not the face of the holder, but I do have some collets that have like the three slots in them. Yeah, sure. Don't think I'm using them. I think I have some quarter inch ones.
00:43:55
Speaker
Okay. Some of the drill collets like a sealed ER16 collet that I have not only they're sealed so the cooling goes through the tip but they also have three slots so the cooling flushes down the drill and blows the chips like the bird's nest off and it actually works really, really well. Yeah, I would highly endorse the coolant through spindle cooling and the holder
00:44:20
Speaker
on almost every tool. Certainly those little guys get it right where you want it at the right pressure and just blast those ships out. That's funny. I don't think I've ever seen a 1 16th high feed. I know. Can you choke up on it? Is it short tool? It's shortish. And the neck is very swoopy and tapered and nice and comfortable. Oh, interesting. So it's not a 1 16th piece of car. It's a 1 8th carbide. Maybe even bigger. Interesting. Yeah, and the neck's down. Cool.
00:44:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's 3 16ths actually. So now I'm looking for the smaller version, the 1 32nd, like 32,000 high feet end mill and I'm having trouble finding it from anywhere but I'm sure it exists. Yeah, I don't know. I just like I remember when Lakeshore came out with the
00:45:07
Speaker
I think 316 is definitely the quarters. We played with them and look, we did a couple of videos. High feed mills are awesome because it really is no joke about their ability to
00:45:23
Speaker
accept cutting forces in the axial direction, so up the shank of the tool. They're much less prone to chatter when you've got to go deep or slot. It's a weird cutting strategy because you're cutting thousands of an inch deep, but a tenth out for two feet, right? Yeah. Just theoretically, it makes so much sense because you're scooping, you're scalloping the chip from the bottom with a radius tip of the tool and
00:45:53
Speaker
just brilliant. It's not a finishing tool, but as a roughing tool. I don't think it's faster necessarily because you have to do a million passes up and down, but for certain applications, I think it's amazing. The slotting that I'm doing, I should have done this five years ago. Yeah, that's awesome. Hey, we should wrap up, but do you have a Wilhelmin?
00:46:12
Speaker
It is coming in six days. We have an official delivery date next Tuesday. Awesome. Okay, good. Well, then I'll talk to you next week. I will have my next podcast. Awesome. Exciting. Have a good one, bud. All right. Take care. Bye.