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#219 - Area 419 Tour & 15+ Hour Run Times!
208 Plays4 years ago
TOPICS:
- How do business leaders spend their time inside their company?
- Saunders wants to hire a machinist or an operations manager.
- Saunders did an awesome tour with Area 419.
- DT1 Favorite machines.
- "Leadership is being present."
- Lathe facing passes and how to get the best finish.
- Saunders QC bin for diamond parts is getting better and better.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Passion for Machining
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 219. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmough. John and I talk each week to help improve our own businesses and share our enthusiasm for manufacturing and hopefully some of that trickles down to the folks that listen. Yeah. And enthusiasm is a really good word for it. I mean, I'm just such a nerd for this stuff. I love it. Yes. I will work so hard in this industry just because
00:00:28
Speaker
I mean, yeah, it's my own business and I have the passion for that, but I really do like it. And I feel like I'm pretty good at it. It's nice to tie those together. I know, it's nice to have that package when you kind of feel like you found your way in life. I didn't have that feeling 10 years ago. Yes, that's a fair point. You felt like you were looking at it
00:00:51
Speaker
as something you needed to become. And yeah, I think at the risk of speaking for you, you know, now we are, but it doesn't feel like that. Like I'm still still got that fire and hustle. Yeah. Yeah. Still working my butt off. Still feel like I don't know what I'm doing a lot of the times and still feel like, you know, busy. You bought a
Balancing Work and Family
00:01:10
Speaker
will. Yeah. Cause I'm pushing myself and trying new things and always like, I'm like the master problem solver. Cause I just keep throwing new problems at myself.
00:01:20
Speaker
That's what's interesting. I wish I had a better like daily fly on the wall perspective of your life because from the outside and probably talk to you, you and I probably talk more than, intimately than anybody else, right? Like at this level, but I still don't have a good sense of how much you get to be a surgeon and John Grimsmough and just pour yourself into tool passing machines versus the fires of putting out fires and running a shop.
00:01:48
Speaker
Yeah, up until like this whole year, the past four months or so, I've been kind of transitioning to a later schedule, later and later, staying up to like two or three a.m. I get a lot of hours at home by myself to do that, to dive into those toolpaths and do my research and do my planning and programming and designing.
00:02:07
Speaker
Um, but coming into the shop later gives me, you know, four or five hours with the whole team to put out the fires. And then I stay, you know, 5pm to 8, 9, 10, um, to have that surgeon time, that time by myself. Um, which has been like, I love the shop by myself because I just get to be me.
Leadership and Shop Independence
00:02:28
Speaker
Um,
00:02:29
Speaker
However, past week or so, I'm talking with my wife. She's like, it'd be nice to have you around more when we're awake and stuff. So I'm trying to pull back to a normal schedule and see how that feels. But you otherwise will just stay home in the morning? Is that what it is and come in later? Yeah, or like sleep in. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I can't do that. I need a normal. Most of the year, I've come in like 10 to 12. But then I stay till 8, 9, 10 PM.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. When I was walking around with John at area 419, nobody seemed to ask him any questions. Maybe that's because you were there? That's sort of the...
00:03:19
Speaker
That was his answer. Yeah. Yeah I sort of am naive like I think I just show up in film and it's funny the more places we come to or go to film now it's been like prep work ahead of time and people know we're coming and there's everyone's in the know and there's like Which is humbling and kind of just chuckling and funny, but he's like no I get a lot more questions when you're not here. We're not filming people know to leave me alone today, but But I think
00:03:45
Speaker
Uh, it's still the probably number one thing on my radar is thinking about what we need to do with, you know, policies, procedures, stuff to help, um, avoid, you know, just to build something that's scalable here. I mean, good for you. If you're not, if you're even not even coming in, I assume what times is what time do people get to your shop in the morning?
00:04:07
Speaker
Uh, seven to nine. Okay. So those people are rocking and rolling without absolutely. Yeah. I can literally not show up for a day and everything happens. Yeah. That's great.
00:04:18
Speaker
And even if there are fires, they'll put them out. So there's been that benefit of it
Internship Program and Hiring Plans
00:04:23
Speaker
too. It's like, wow, I don't have to be there every hour of every day because it's almost good that I'm not there sometimes because the team is now more self-sufficient and self-reliant and leans on each other, not on me so much. And if I'm there, it's like, oh, ask John. If I'm not there, it's like, well, we got to figure this out.
00:04:44
Speaker
And so that's been a really nice kind of unforeseen perspective of that practice. And yeah. And then kind of the other side benefit, because we leave a lot of the machines running at night. If I'm here several hours after everybody else, I'm like, oh, Tool 8 broke again. Let me fix it and get it going again. And then I text Angela and be like, yeah, Tool 8 broke again. But I got it going, so we're good. Not funny, because I'm literally fighting Tool 8 in my shop right now.
00:05:15
Speaker
totally unrelated. Is your tool a 1 16th four flute stub? No, it's a monster. It's a three eighths inch four fluter. We'll come back there. I actually do want your help on that. What was I going to say?
00:05:31
Speaker
I know and I have known that we need one more machinist and we need a full-time person to focus on an operations management role. It can do a variety of things from helping to run machines, to helping to clean machines, to helping to receive deliveries and so forth.
00:05:51
Speaker
So we're actively looking. What I'm practically also thinking about is we're about a month away from school being out. And we've really succeeded, I think, done a great job with the internship program.
Insights from Area 419 Visit
00:06:05
Speaker
We actually have four interns right now.
00:06:07
Speaker
And so I part of, I was thinking about this yesterday from a, you know, kind of take a step back and think about what's going on in the shop. What's the, what's the, you know, do your best to think about what are the temperature of things, morale, mood, focus. And I'm like, we, we really need these additional roles. And, but then I thought, well, wait a minute here. Come summer, we're going to have almost a influx of people, almost too much potentially. So. Yeah.
00:06:35
Speaker
My current plan is to, I'm saying this out loud to welcome you to challenge me or just think it through, but my current plan is keep looking for a full-time machines, keep looking for a full-time kind of operations management or shop manager guy, but also recognize we're going to have plenty of help between now and say August. And so really come July, August could be a better time to really crank up or focus in that search.
00:07:03
Speaker
Sure. It's great that you have two or three months to prep like your mind around it and what you want the role to be and how many roles there are. And while you're kind of loosely looking and then hopefully when the applicant market gets flush, you're much more ready. Like if you were actually hiring for that role today,
00:07:26
Speaker
It's just less prepared than maybe you will be in two months. Right. Yeah. So that's the goal. And I think there's a lot of value where the value will come in of a full-time person versus an intern is just that level of commitment, obligation, part of the team. Yeah. It's actually, I wanted to spend one last, I know we've talked about area four when I know a lot, but yeah, it was actually a conversation I was having
00:07:54
Speaker
Yesterday with Ryan from Seneca Woodworking, who's a fellow entrepreneur like you and me, I really respect a lot of his opinion, especially on the marketing side of things. And he was the one, I remember how much do you love this question, which made me love it more, which was maybe two years ago, he goes, think about asking somebody something that you're, what did he say? Something that you're good at or known for that maybe they don't think
00:08:20
Speaker
is about themselves. Remember that question? You remember what that was? Ask him. Tell me something you don't think you know about yourself. Something like that, you know? From your own perspective or from the other person's perspective? So it would be like, I'm going to tell you, John Grims, of something I think about you that maybe you don't think. Gotcha. I think that's what it was. Regardless. And I don't think that could be a pretty personal conversation.
00:08:50
Speaker
What he had said about me was, God, I hope I'm quoting him correctly, because I certainly don't mean to misquote him. You don't realize how good and how influential you are at helping share manufacturing, entrepreneurship, resources, and knowledge. He's like, that's what I think about what you do better than anybody else. It's not just like CAD stuff or fusion stuff or shop tour. Those are good, but it's really tying that all together from that business aspect.
Investing in Quality Tools
00:09:15
Speaker
I kind of struck a nerve with me because I am proud of that.
00:09:20
Speaker
But that's not what you would lead your resume with. Your elevator pitch, maybe. Well, that's a good point.
00:09:28
Speaker
Yeah, well, I don't like represent myself. No, because you'd be like, I'm an entrepreneur. I love manufacturing. I build a business. I like to make things, you know? Yeah. Well, so what it got us talking about was what were the takeaways from the area 4192? And look, it's an awesome video. It's an hour and a half long. But I distilled it down.
00:09:52
Speaker
to five, and there's a bonus, but five things that I really took away, like little individual nuggets that I wanted to share that you can, you know, dive further down them by watching the whole video, but I thought I'd share them relatively quickly. Number one is, after we're looking through the sea of awesome new machines, the DMG Bories, the Grove, we come to their Haas DT1 and
00:10:19
Speaker
John the owner said that his operations guys like this is his favorite machine times a thousand. He would buy more of them in a heartbeat and
00:10:26
Speaker
I love it because it strips away the brand and the emotion. It focuses on the footprint, the capability, the price point, the ROI, the right tool for the job to the point where I have a DT2 quote sitting on my desk. Even if we have to potentially replace one of our current machines with it, I realized it was a mistake to not look better at that because we've got a lot of parts where we do tapping or a lot of quick operations with a lot of tool changes where
00:10:52
Speaker
We're not like a cycle time shop per se, but there are parts that we make where that's going to make a difference. Yep. Period. Second one was torque wrenches. Did you watch the video yet? I have not had a chance yet, but I absolutely will. The torque wrenches all the way from some.
00:11:08
Speaker
mildly expensive hand ones to permanent flex arm driven, computer driven torque wrench stations. I mean torque wrenches, both literally the specific torque wrenches that they have purchased, but also just the philosophy behind how they chose to implement. In one case, they have a rock lock
00:11:29
Speaker
They used, they sort of cannibalized a rock lock base to have it on a rotating, like, you know, how you're going to put cat forties in a bench holder and then rotate the tool. They did that for a rock lock so that way you can index it four times on the tombstone. They have a torque system on a flex arm built into it that has the digital counters. So it knows if you correctly tightened and loosen all of the clamps. Okay.
00:11:52
Speaker
I mean, that's a major investment, but he walks through it. He's like, look, maybe we missed the mark. Maybe I'll regret it. But I don't think so, because if you think about the cost of not correctly tightening a clamp, you're at least blowing up a $50 to $100 carbide
Leadership Reflections and Business Challenges
00:12:08
Speaker
end mill. You're probably knocking the rotary out of alignment. You're ruling one, if not all the parts on that tombstone are requiring a lot of hassle on reprogramming. You know how this goes, right? You could be putting a dent in your machine base. Yeah.
00:12:21
Speaker
Um, next one, this was actually a comment that came up in the YouTube. So we did a premiere. For some reason people are like, premieres are uncool. I don't really care because I got the guys from area four nine to join in. So we all just live chatted during the debut. Yeah. How'd that go? Did it work? It's great. Yeah. I love it.
00:12:42
Speaker
Unclear to me how work why those aren't cool. Don't care unsubscribe moving on the comment though came somebody asked a question about culture and leadership and I think it was Craig area 409 who was kind of run in the chat and he was like look leadership is being present and
00:13:00
Speaker
And it kind of hit a nerve with me of this idea that leadership is not always what you say and even what you do. It's just being there as part of that story. We're very hands-on owners. I have a little bit more of a weird schedule these days.
00:13:18
Speaker
which means I'm not always exactly here, which I'm self-conscious about. But no, John, we love what we do. You're here, you're out there working, you're building parts, you're programming parts, you're leading by being present. That make sense? You're not just showing a good example, but you're there to help, you're there to reinforce, you're there to
00:13:41
Speaker
You think of leadership as like rah-rah motivation, like having the perfect speech every day, and I feel guilty that I'm not good at that. And we have our meetings every day at noon, and I usually leave feeling unfulfilled of my own ability to lead the group and rah-rah, because maybe that's just not who I am.
00:14:01
Speaker
Yeah, but don't feel bad about that. Or if you do, fix it. But don't keep having that own insecurity because it doesn't... What's the goal, right? That's my thing. Would they have an insecurity to address them or get over them? Not easy, but lead. You lead by the fact that
00:14:22
Speaker
Like, if I came to work for you, I know you're going to be the guy that finds and figures out that Willamette, and you're programming that current, and you're going to tackle that Swiss. Like, that's leadership.
00:14:32
Speaker
Yeah, to me. Next one, number four, feed the fire. Area 419 happens to have found a product or an industry where people are buying. And I would put you in the same boat. So pour gas on the fire, put oxygen on the fire, buying the machines, hiring people, feed the fire. Yeah.
00:14:53
Speaker
And the last one, not counting the bonus, is packaging, both their product packaging and their vendor stuff. Like we showed this in the video, how they have built crates and tube systems and racking. So how they store parts, how they ship it to anodizing and heat treat. It's some of the best quality stuff that I've seen. Now it's new, so maybe it'll look a little worse for way after a few years of use, but still absolute leader in recognizing and allocating the resources to do that.
00:15:25
Speaker
And my bonus one is when you walk in and tour that shop without a question, you understand what they do. They are in the business of manufacturing these products. So you don't see clutter. You don't see old, irrelevant, unrelated stuff.
00:15:41
Speaker
You actually do see some toys, like they've got a couple of quads or like sport, like those gators that I think are probably more related to the fact they have a shooting range in the backyard. So are tangentially related, but, um, but it strikes a nerve with me because it's, it's a process that we've gone through of focusing in on the multi-year clinic, clean purge focus. What are the systems and tools that we need, uh, and not, well, we're hanging onto
Knife Preferences and Business Operations
00:16:05
Speaker
that because I paid a lot for it and I want to figure out how to make it work, but it's right. It's like, no, no. Why is that here?
00:16:11
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, incredible. Yeah, that was my takeaway. So
00:16:21
Speaker
I'd be here to see if you have a chance to watch it. What do you think? Yeah. Oh, I will. Maybe it's because you did the premiere thing. It's like I want to set aside time to watch. I don't want to pick it away. I don't want to watch it while washing the dishes. I want to sit down on the sofa on the TV and watch this. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Yeah. OK. Can I get your help on a lathe?
00:16:43
Speaker
Uh, yeah. One more thing about area four, nine. Uh, he DM me the other day and he's like, so is the Norseman like much bigger than the Rask. And then like one minute later, he's like, nevermind. I just bought a couple of them. I'm like, okay. Yeah. Thank you so much. That's awesome. Uh, it's great. What they were, they're just available on the site now. For brief periods of time. Yeah. Sneaky. Cool.
00:17:11
Speaker
Good for you. Yeah, they were. I had shown them my saga, which I have, which I have EDC, lost twice, found twice until EDC. But my Norseman has been moved back to the case for a while. I really kind of want to rask. I like the, I don't like the Norseman tip for daily use. That makes sense.
00:17:32
Speaker
Mm hmm. Are you carrying a knife now? I have been carrying a micro tech. Yeah. I also really like the one handed. I guess a nurse is one handed, but I like to ease in and out of it. Yeah, I don't feel bad about it. It's just, you know, it's a not throw away, but I don't care about.
00:17:52
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, that's a worthy, uh, you know, pocket replacement for, for the time being. Yeah. I'll take that. Yeah. My North, my, uh, Norseman's like my, like dress up knife, like my good knife. Cool. So lathes. I can't
Improving Facing Finish Techniques
00:18:06
Speaker
get, this may be a simple answer, but I can't get the facing finish I'm looking for on a quarter inch part. So it just looks streaky and yucky main or sub main 41 40. It should be beautiful.
00:18:22
Speaker
So I think I'm using a CNMG that's a 432. So what is that? Like a 40,000, 30,000 radius? It's a relatively large radius. And it's molded, not ground? Correct. And it turns beautifully on the OD, which it does subsequent to facing. Do you use the reduced feed per rev when you're facing to zero? Like the spindle ramps up, CSS or whatever?
00:18:52
Speaker
Uh, yes. Yeah. That's the one where it constantly, the spindle speed constantly goes faster and faster and faster. Well, so I use CSS, but there's a setting infusion where you can change your feed per rev after you get down to, no, I don't. Okay. You don't.
00:19:10
Speaker
What I do is for all facing passes, the first thing I do in a code is I face it straight to zero and then I pull back. Then it's the back pass that I pull back and then I do the first radius or chamfer or something.
00:19:27
Speaker
Oh, so is that backpass effectively a spring pass? I guess, yeah. You're not programming additional stock. That's just what I always do. I go straight to negative for the radius, like for me, negative 30 thou. And then straight back in Z zero. No additional movement, no retract, no whatever. So just straight to zero and then back and then start doing your chamfer.
00:19:49
Speaker
And a couple times I've gotten fusion to be able to post this like to get the toolpath to do that. Sometimes I'm just hand bombing it to do what I want. Okay. That's my standard. So how are you facing it? You go to zero and then you pull off?
00:20:04
Speaker
Well, right now I'm using a proper facing operation, which comes in from the outside of the part, goes either to zero, or like you said, you can program it to go past zero, whatever you want, which I have tested various different amounts, including just past the radius, or to the radius, and then it does retract out. I think...
00:20:25
Speaker
If I change it, I'm only facing off a very small amount of material. So I think if I change it from facing to just an OD turning, I can actually
00:20:35
Speaker
do what you're saying. I don't know if it would cut going down, but I don't really care. I could probably just come in from the at Z zero and only face it coming out of the sometimes that works. Sometimes if you're, if you're at the X, X center line, like X zero and you come in, you're sideloading the tool a lot, like, which is not a bad thing, but, um,
00:20:57
Speaker
You get a little pip at the end sometimes, just because the deflection of the insert or something. That's a good point, actually. But yeah, with that straight to zero and straight back, under the microscope, it's a perfect finish. You get your center line right, it's perfect. OK. I'm going to go back here.
00:21:18
Speaker
And we do 17 for, um, like at 45 Rockwell. So that's even more challenging than 40 41 40. Um, but for the most part, they're similar, right? What on the knock or on the Swiss? Both. Okay. What do you know what style insert you would use on the knock? Uh, on both machines, we use a V insert like quarter inch IC kind of small one with an eight thou rad. Okay. So almost always ground.
00:21:44
Speaker
I have a V ground. I think it might even be at 4th hour rad. I don't want to use it because it's the tool I use to hit the critical diameter on the diamond pins. And so I kind of like treat it like precious. And it is phenomenal. I don't want to muck it up, but kind of reminding myself, get the solution you
Swiss Machining Tool Challenges
00:22:03
Speaker
need first. And then you can figure out. I might also try switching. I just don't need a CNMG. We're not a big roughing heavy. Yeah, I don't even have one.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm thinking about buying a W which are easier to find and smaller radius for what I need. And you get six edges instead of four. Um, I think that's probably the nose radius and the fact that I'm taking so little and it's a small, you know, I've got this big three, three eighth inch insert and I'm telling quarter inch part is it, is it a huge radius and you're not digging into the radius very much with the cut for sure. That's part of it. Because what'd you say like a 40 thou radius and you're taking a five thou cut or something?
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's probably more than that off, but it's not sufficient depth of cut. I'll try that. I use an eight thou radius on everything and my first pass is usually like a 10 thou facing pass. Yeah, more than the radius. Yeah. I don't always adhere to that rule, but I guess for facing I kind of do. Yeah.
00:23:02
Speaker
Cause I always think about that as like the chip breaking function, but it's also just getting the insert or getting the cut the tool in the cut, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I always like to think of the tool as being happy. And if it's like, I have no problem doing spring passes sometimes, but if it's like halfway between a spring pass and a full cut, then it's like the tool is not happy. It's, it wants to move away from the cut, not like do the cut. Mm-hmm.
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's like skipping off the surface. Yeah, yeah. Like let it sink its teeth in. Yep, yep. Get a bite of that thing. Okay. And now it's, we bought a couple of weeks ago, I found for the Swiss, you want like quick change tool holders. Yeah. Because with the coolant tube in the back and the whole stick has to come out of the machine to be able to replace just the insert. Now Sandvik has their QS line of holders, which we have one. It chatters though.
00:23:57
Speaker
We can't get it to not chatter in the part. Um, I don't know why, I don't know if we're doing something wrong or if it's the design of the holder or whatever, but, uh, it's not giving us like in titanium, it just sings and it kills the answer quickly. So, um, a Seaco and a pH each make their own version of this kind of tool. And it's, it's like a little tiny, tiny cat 40 taper. No.
00:24:21
Speaker
So it's like a square stick with a hole, a tapered hole in the end. And then this tiny little end bit where your insert goes has a tiny little taper in the back with like a set screw that pulls the taper back. Like a slide lock? Yeah, not from the back, from the side. So it's like a tapered set screw that kind of hits the side of the taper and pulls it backwards. Got it.
00:24:43
Speaker
And they're not cheap. They're a little bit more expensive than the Sandvik ones. I think it was like 1,200 Canadian for this one holder assembly. Holy nuts, John. Yes, like $900 US or something. I think the Sandvik was $700 or $800 US. I don't know. But I'm like, I want to try it, because that sounds awesome. And I don't know if Pierre has put it in the machine yet. But just looking at it, I'm like, this is cool. I really like this. Dude, lean on these suppliers to give you that stuff on test.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, you don't need to buy that John No, seriously, seriously Yeah, like I've done that a little bit and usually the results are not like they're either Annoying to work with or I don't know for a thousand bucks Bring it in if it works great and if not, you know, we're like unapologetically don't feel bad I mean, I love working with these tool companies. I would never abuse a relationship like just as a customer, but don't feel bad about
00:25:39
Speaker
They're making money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny you say it because we had the, one of the Swiss vendors that came in, I asked him about the kind of quick change stuff and they were basically like, eh, like, you know, you never know one person's opinion is kind of out or not, but it's like Kapto, everyone seems to love, except sometimes maybe you're like, it's a little bit expensive for us, but like, no one has ever been like, Oh, the Kapto wasn't rigid enough or it wasn't like that stuff is dialed. But yeah, the, the little Swiss stuff seems a little bit more nichey, huh?
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's not that I'd need this for every holder in the Swiss. It'd be nice, but our turning holder is the one we replace often. That V-insert, that does all the work. Everything else is a groove tool. Even the part off lasts for a very, very long time.
00:26:28
Speaker
So I'd want like two of them in the machine, main turning and part off. And like, that's it. So I'm fine investing, you know, real money. And it's like buying Capito. It's like, yeah, it really hurts a couple grand per pocket or something. But then I don't think about it. And I just make money and like be productive. Totally. Remind me the tornos feeds from the right. So it's like the opposite of a... No, it's like your lathe. Ah, okay. So the inserts face away from you.
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, well, there's inserts on both sides and you can turn from both sides. Okay. Like the stick tools brochures, the stick tool on the main, like when you face a part, that insert though is facing away from like dark side of the moon, right? You can't see the... Yes, but there's also three spots on the far side turret or whatever gang with the inserts facing towards you. Got it. So I have my part offs there.
00:27:24
Speaker
Okay. So when you, I guess I'm trying to visualize what it's like to change. So right now that, um, facing tool is, it's just a stick tool that has a screw through the center of the insert. So you have to reach in there and screw it. The screw is blind. You have to reach around and screw it kind of blind on the, on the V turning insert, the screw is, uh, facing the sky. Like it's, it's up and you can't get a flag in there.
00:27:54
Speaker
Can't get a flag wrench in there? No, not at all. Because the next tool is half an inch away. So what do you do? You have to pull the whole stick out. Oh, that's miserable. Yeah, it's gross.
00:28:05
Speaker
And there's a coolant line in the back, so you can't remove it from the machine. You just kind of let it hang there. And depending on the length of your coolant line, you get both hands in there, coolants dripping on your forehead. And you use your flag, and you take the insert off, and you put the new one in. And then you wipe where the tool holder goes. You wipe that with your finger and clean it, make sure there's no chips in there. And then you put it back in, and it sort of repeats. Yeah, right. But in X, you're going to be off by,
00:28:34
Speaker
a few thou, so you do a test cut or you shim it or you just start making parts and dial it in after that.
00:28:41
Speaker
But with with the new seco to hold it that we have, it's like a taper, it should repeat to within 10th. Yeah, and the base stays in the machine. So cool online stays in the machine. Totally. I love it. And on the sick tool, there's no way of like metal 3d printing or EDM in a really short L wrench that may be a little bit of a pain in the butt, but yeah, it would work. Yeah. Okay.
00:29:08
Speaker
Maybe it's not the most genius idea. But then you're also L-wrenching it. You get 45 degrees of movement, maybe 90 if you're lucky.
00:29:21
Speaker
Yeah. Pain in the butt. I hear you. So the cool thing, if you were to spend the money and standardize on these Seaco tools, the quick change or Sandvik or whatever you want, but you'd have all of the bases in there and you can quick change any of the heads and any of the spots and they should all repeat. Full send. Yes. Right. So you could have, you could have two V insert holders with the next one loaded on the bench with a fresh insert and you're in and out in 10 seconds.
00:29:48
Speaker
Right. Yeah. No, I love
Quality Control Systems
00:29:50
Speaker
that. So that's cool. So it's, I mean, you bought the sequel, but haven't tried it yet. Yes, I think so. I think, I think I saw it in the box last night still. Okay. It's like out of my hands. I don't touch the Swiss anymore on it. Um, and he's, he's running a production run right now of, uh, one of the saga parts. So he's like, I want to put it in, but I just, I want to make parts too. Yeah. Right. Uh, I love that. That's awesome.
00:30:17
Speaker
So that's part of what prompted the question about the OD or the facing is leadership is being present, period. What I'm doing today, what I paused to come talk to you is doing something that we've talked about, but I haven't done a good enough job of doing, which is formalizing a combination. It's kind of a bunch of things that grow into one, but
00:30:42
Speaker
laminated revision-based product drawing, dimensional drawing QC sheets, period. And there's a lot of different elements that, like I said, you can pull into this, because you can start looking at how you have your file naming convention, where files are located, the setup sheets for the machine and the tooling and the CAM, things to watch out for, QC processes, drawings and tolerances. And I like all that possibilities. I also want to focus on
00:31:11
Speaker
getting done what we need to do. And so we're starting with the riskiest products, the stuff where we have critical dimensions or I want to make sure it doesn't get lost on us. And it's tough because we're kind of pretty good at how far we've gotten without this. In fact, we had a QC issue with a customer this week that once we dove into it, we were, I mean, so it's a lose-lose, but we were happy that it actually wasn't us. Like that feels good.
00:31:37
Speaker
But nevertheless, you want to have the confidence from the get-go that you know it wasn't you and not anyway. So creating dimension drawings, focusing on tolerances that really matter. And it's been actually really fun. The one thing I would welcome any input on from folks listening are two things really. One is
00:32:00
Speaker
how to handle a revision and naming system. I don't need to over complicate it, but I do want to memorialize when we lock something down and then memorialize when we decide to make changes. It's like manufacturing 201, like it's not complicated. I've never done it and I'd love to hear what's the, what are the pitfalls or tips on that. And then the second thing is,
00:32:23
Speaker
I'm starting with our diamond pins. We just started making quarter inch diamond pins for the hobby plates. And there are little things that we don't need to 100% inspect. We do 100% inspect certain things on those, but there's other things we don't. But every 25 or 50, I want to check everything for a burr to make sure we're not having wear here or something just doesn't creep up on you.
00:32:48
Speaker
I've seen this done, frankly, on our own factory tours. I don't remember which one, but how do you create like a, do we create like a tear sheet that is stapled or zip locked to the laminate QC sheet that you pull out and then every 50th or a hundredth you.
00:33:02
Speaker
you check that box of, okay, I took the time as the operator to check this, or even took it to somebody else for them to feel it and check. That makes sense? Yeah, it does. And I know it's tricky to implement this. Like a lot of people use egg cartons, and when it's full, you check the last one fully or whatever.
00:33:20
Speaker
that works that that can work very well because it gives you a visual not like imagine if you're making hundreds of parts and you have to tell yourself every 50 from this big pile to check fully. So I like the idea of having a physical like, like visual inventory like this thing's full time to do a full inspection. And we just ran into that on one of our parts, where
00:33:44
Speaker
It's a feel thing. It's a surface finish requirement, but it's a feel thing, and there was no standard of what that should be. So we measured the RA, and it was like 17. And I'm like, that's why it feels gross. I feel this one. It feels amazing. It measures an RA of two. So I'm like, OK, no wonder why 17 feels gross.
00:34:05
Speaker
So how do we standardize this so that we're not making parts at 17RA? And they get checked every 50 parts, and everybody knows what they need to know. Because I don't want to be the guy that's like, back when I was making this, I could make them at 2RA, because that's just not the right mentality to have. And if it didn't get translated properly, that is totally on me. Right. Right.
00:34:30
Speaker
Yeah. I can't expect everybody else to take my work from me and do it as well as me without proper instruction. So what's your answer? Now that we've used the Profilometer on these parts we never had before, I'm like, oh great, we have a number now. Everything two to four RA should be amazing. Got it. Let's check them as we're making the parts, as we're setting up and dialing in the tools, it'll give us the baseline.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. I didn't realize that was the difference is now you now you have a profilometer. So you're it's not always headed. We just never measured that feature. Oh, got it. Got it. Yeah, we had a very similar thing on our
00:35:08
Speaker
You know, all of the mod vices, but especially the, uh, steel jaws, which don't have a specific tolerancing search. If you don't have a specific surface requirement per se, like it's not a bearing surface or anything like that, but darn it, if they don't look really good. And so it became that question of like, what happens at the insert start to go? I mean, they're still.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah. And so what we do or have done in the past is we have a good example and we have a, I don't remember if we have two or three, I should check on this, but we have one that's like a no go and then we have one more. It's like, okay, this is where you're starting to see.
00:35:46
Speaker
And it's that you need that reminder because, you know, constantly, unless you see it's like boiling water, the frog, you know, you don't always see it start to go down and then you look at a really good one and you're like, Oh, wait here. It used to be like that. Hold on timeout. I forgot how good it should be. Yeah. But like an RA doesn't always work on stuff like that. Cause like sometimes when the insert starts to go, it's not.
00:36:07
Speaker
an actual roughness average change, but rather you'll get like a one or two streaks that are the radius of the tool in there, like healing if you will.
00:36:16
Speaker
Um, it's a visual. Yeah.
Thread Quality and Metrology
00:36:19
Speaker
So you need, do you have like a series of pictures or do you have actual physical parts? Parts are way better. Yeah. Parts are better. Yeah. Well, I guess so. Like some of our parts are tiny. So like you need a microscope to see these features, but still you could still have a good, bad passable, like, like a three system. Um,
00:36:40
Speaker
And I've even thought about that for finished knives, because Eric assembles all the knives and finishes them. And then I check them all as a backup, make sure they're all good to go. And there's always super minor variation between them all. But where's the line? Which knife is too hard to flip? Which knife is too soft to flip? And it's still a feel thing. And over the past six months, I've been training Fraser to do it as well.
00:37:05
Speaker
because he puts them all up on the site and feels them all as well. So he's getting a really good eye for it. But it's like, what's the feel? What's the limit? You know? Do you have like a master? Well, I've thought about that. I'm like, every now and then I'll be like, this one, this is the one, this is the standard. If they all felt like this, I would be so happy. But I can't bring myself to put that aside and keep it on the shelf. You have to do that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:31
Speaker
You should. And then, hey, you could cycle it out every year and sell it as a, like, this is such a good knife that we used it as a year as our reference standard. Now we're selling it, you know, cycle through. That's not a bad idea. The 2020 reference down, 2021 reference standard. Well, then you don't have to think about it mentally as like, Hey, I took up one of our best knives and prevent it from going out. That's a tough pill to swallow. I was actually also thinking, uh, I don't have a new rask for myself yet.
00:38:00
Speaker
Um, and they're so good. I'm carrying my old rasp from five years ago, six years ago. Um, the new ones are so good, but I just can't bring myself to take one out of like good production and put it in my pocket. But I am so close to doing it. It's awesome. Good for you.
00:38:17
Speaker
We, as part of feeding the fire and pork wrenches, all these little nuggets, we created a new, like you see bin for the diamond pin. So like it has a dedicated micrometer and then we have, we bought some thread gauges. We've used
00:38:39
Speaker
male thread gauges, you know the thread gauges that look like screws before. We haven't used a ton of the female ones that look like a washer or nut. Yeah, like a ring. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:50
Speaker
And so I found them bottom and it's funny. It's a go and a no go set. And it's funny because when you read up on the site about how the go works, there's like, there is no proper way of checking the go other than it should go. And they're like, don't turn it, don't rotate it in and out a bunch. It's still a feel thing. You don't wear it out. You can only thread in the first thread and a half if you want. Like it's kind of the still like,
00:39:16
Speaker
You talk about the feeling of the lock-up of a night. It's still a subjectivity process. Yeah, it's still a skill, an operator skill. And Angelo brought that knowledge into our shop when he came in. He was like, the no-go is usually allowed to go in one turn or something, half turns, or whatever the number is. But if it goes more than that, it's a no-go. If it just goes that much, it just tells you that you're starting the thread, but it's not actually engaging.
00:39:45
Speaker
And yeah, we started using thread rings maybe a year or two ago. And they're different, but they're nice because it gives like we've done three wire measurements for the longest time. And it works, but it's clumsy. But it's nice because it gives you a number. It gives you a physical. Yeah, it's nice. Like your range is 3000. And I'm, you know, at
00:40:05
Speaker
Two nine whatever so that's kind of cool, but it is clumsy But there is a condition with the thread rings that I have to google to find myself out of it because I'm like What was it? They they both didn't fit or something like that and I'm like this doesn't make sense too big and It was the insert was chipped. So the root of the thread is gone. Yeah, the thread was cut thread was too big and
00:40:28
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, I'm like, it should work, but it's not weird. Three wires fine. But yeah, like an abnormality in your insert will cause the, no, it was like, I can't remember the exact thing. The no-go would go, but it was just weird. I don't know. Yeah. And it's like a known thing among gauge makers. Um.
00:40:48
Speaker
It's weird because it's only two gauges, but it actually sort of checks three conditions. Yeah. Yeah, it does. Because if it's like, if you didn't cut the bottom or the root of the, or we're talking about cutting screw threads here, cutting OD threads and checking it with an ID ring gauge, thread gauge.
00:41:06
Speaker
If the cut, if the thread didn't get cut deep enough, but it's on the right, say like right pitch that won't go in the go gauge. So that's like the first thing it checks. The second thing it checks is if it goes into go gauge, then you at least cut the pitch correctly and the depth sufficiently. But if you cut the depth too deep, then it will also go in the no go gauge, which meant, which means you need to back off your pitch diameter offset. Yeah. That you agree with all that correctly.
00:41:32
Speaker
It's hard to wrap your head around until you do it. On the diamond pins, it's not a fastener. The threaded portion of it is really only meant to pull it into the hole, but it's not like a security fastener. So we want the threads effectively to be subservient to the features. You want the booster, yeah. Yeah, so it's actually awesome. We also bought a Starrett thread mic.
00:41:58
Speaker
Okay, so we have a number as well because we needed to be able to
Automating Knife Mechanisms
00:42:02
Speaker
check our own product against each other and lots as well as like third-party products fasteners that are roll formed all that and Having a number on a thread mic is way easier than three wire or a thread gauge, which is just a binary so then we Or is it going with that the
00:42:21
Speaker
Oh, so what we do is we backed off infusion, the thread depth until it went into the no go and then we backed it off like two tents. And then it is exactly what Angelo said. Like it starts to go in the no go, but then it's not happy. Like you could force it, but it would be forming the rest of the thread. And I'm like, perfect. This means I'm right at the bottom tolerance of what I want. Exactly. It's cool. It's awesome. I love metrology. What do you see today? Um, so.
00:42:50
Speaker
Let me look real quick. I can still hear the Kern is running overnight. It is at 15 hours and four minutes. I am logging into it from my, uh, from my laptop. I can see the control screen through VNC. Um, what's it running right now? Norseman lock inserts. Yeah. 15 hours, four minutes. Yes. This is the last palette. I think that's awesome.
00:43:17
Speaker
That is so cool. That's two nights in a row. I've had 15 hour runs. How big is the coolant tank? Smaller than a VM. Maybe it's a bit smaller than a VMC. You don't ever have the evaporation issues? It happens. I just now I have my auto coolant button where I just push the button and top up. Yeah. But. No, we have to watch that through spindle drills don't like getting starved with the pumps. You don't want to hear that. Sure.
00:43:43
Speaker
Well, the machine will stop. There's low float sensors, for sure. So that if I don't watch it close enough, that happens. But I top it up once a week, once, twice a week, maybe. Whereas the Maury, it sounds like Angela's watching it.
00:43:58
Speaker
every couple days, like much more often. So that's a PSA. We've bought the optional larger coolant tanks now every chance we can. It's just such a better helps with any potential of foaming, which we've had an issue with on just one machine kind of odd and better for temperature, better for volume, just way easier.
00:44:23
Speaker
Cool. So what are you up to today? I think I'm finally after three years of thinking about it, finalized my design for a detent ball dropping mechanism that will live in a tool holder.
00:44:41
Speaker
and will automatically drop a 1 16th inch ball onto the handle. And then press it in and then probe it and press it in a little bit more and get the perfect. The only variable I'm missing is actually putting the ball there because I still go in and I put the ball in.
00:44:56
Speaker
Yes, right. I remember this. Wait, holy cow. Yeah, I think I've got awesome from Pierre gets all the credit for this because he's watching this guy on YouTube make a marble machine that plays music and drops marbles on drums and stuff. And he shows these much bigger scale plywood
00:45:14
Speaker
mechanisms for a crazy eccentric European guy. Yeah, probably. Yeah. What's that name? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And in this is one video where he shows a super close up of a, it's like a slider, like a drawer slide that moves out of the way, ball drops, it is fail safe. It will not fail just by design because it's so simple. And I'm like, I just need to miniaturize that. And I've, I'm
00:45:37
Speaker
80% there. Vintergarten. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, Vintergarten. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now I just need to put that into a small little package and machine it. I think I'm going to machine the first one or maybe the good one out of acrylic. I have some clear acrylic, so I can like see it all happen. These balls are like sub one millimeter, right? Yeah, there's 16th of an inch. 60,000. Okay. Okay. They're small.
00:46:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's gonna be tricky, John. Yeah, I know. It's gonna be fun. So I'm finalizing that almost ready to start cutting. Cutting that so that's one of my big projects that I'm working on right now. Have you ever seen or heard of the big loader toy construction set game or thing?
00:46:24
Speaker
Is this the one you have that you've had? Yeah, you showed me when I was there. Yes, okay, you saw it. So pull up the YouTube of that because it has a hopper that dumps balls or marbles into a dump truck and it's an ingenious mechanism. Now it's super sloppy in their big balls, but it could be similar to what you're leveraging with Pierre's design of it has two offset flaps and when they open,
00:46:54
Speaker
one flap preloads a hopper so that you don't have the pressure of, say, 100 balls on the feed gate. It lets five more balls into the secondary hopper, and then the gate opens enough to allow just one with the timing in, or it backstops it so it doesn't get... It's an ingenious way of preventing, because you don't want the gate to also shut on the next ball. It hasn't been pinched in there. Absolutely, yeah.
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's harder than you think. And apparently I did find out this is a common mechanism for making braille signs, you know, like all little dots you feel. There's this handheld device where you push down, it's full of one sixteenth inch balls, you push down and it pops one out. But these devices are $1,000. And apparently you need a license to own them.
00:47:44
Speaker
like a braille sign makers association or whatever. And I'm like, tell me what kind of legal kind of, okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's just weird. Um, but it's, it's a neat little way to do it, but I'm really liking this gate, uh, philosophy cause it preloads one and then it stops the next one and then the one is preloaded. So when you activate the cylinder, it, it just drops it right into place. So, oh, I can't wait to make this happen.
00:48:08
Speaker
The other thing I thought of may be helpful is you ever seen an automatic tennis ball machine?
00:48:16
Speaker
I've seen them. I can't say I know how they work. So you drop 50 tennis balls or a hundred tennis balls into a hopper. And at the bottom of that hopper, so it does have all the pressure of all the balls on it. There is a rotating tray that has four or however many hemispheres cut out that are approximately the shape of half of a tennis ball. And so as it rotates balls, tennis balls will fall into each one, but not more than one. And then as it rotates it around,
00:48:45
Speaker
At some point in the rotation, the whole, how does that work?
00:48:53
Speaker
Oh man, I got to go look at one. There's got to be some YouTube video drops through it. Yeah, but it's a great example though actually might be a better long-term design way because what that would do is it would segregate out one thing and feed it over to somewhere and then you could have a magnet or suction or pressure something go pick up just one, right? It's easy once you get one out of the hopper, right?
00:49:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. I'll look at how those work because I didn't think about that application. But it's like you have this need and you're like, somebody else must have figured this out already. But to find that, I would have never thought of marble dropping music machines to look up. I would have never thought of tennis ball throwers. You just like racking your brain. Literally for years, I've wanted to do this because even on the Maury,
00:49:40
Speaker
Every night we're running six Norsemen, the machine drills six holes, and then we stop the machine, M0, and then go in to manually blow out the holes and drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, and then it's good for the night.
Final Thoughts and Future Plans
00:49:51
Speaker
And on the current, it's trickier because I have a 15-minute cycle per pallet before I can put the ball in. So it's nighttime, I'm ready to go home, I've got a 45-minute cycle before I can leave.
00:50:02
Speaker
Dude, if you build a tool changeable, like whatever tennis ball or drop thing, holy. It's going to hold hundreds of them in there and I can set a counter on it. So I'll be like, okay, there's a thousand parts in here. Put the counter at 900 and, uh, and, or, or I'm going to make it clear acrylic. So I can actually see every time you change a tool, you can glance at it. You'd be like, yeah, there's still lots left. Or maybe I should just add a couple more. It would work with 50. I mean, you don't need a thousand in there.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah, but that's the question is do you load it often or do you load it so much that you forget about it and like stays full? I'm thinking about the example of why you don't put six sister tools in a machine is that.
00:50:43
Speaker
when all six are blown, you're in a real pickle. It's better off to build a recurring thing where you just top it off every three days. Yeah. Yeah. I've been using sister tools and I've got two and just yesterday I maxed out the two and I'm like, Oh, I forgot. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. That's awesome. Good stuff. All right. Take care. Bye.