Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#401 Stress in your business
3k Plays10 days ago
TOPICS:
- Heat treated A2 dimensions
- Grimsmo Fjell update
- Robot loading solutions
- Endmill consistency
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 401
00:00:00
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 401. My name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:06
John S
My name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And this is the, uh, your weekly dose of manufacturing from two business owners who've been doing this for more than a decade.
The Stress of Business Ownership
00:00:15
johngrimsmo
Um, and, uh, just kind of touch base with each other, see how we're doing and see what's, what's new and what we can maybe flush out in good ideas and bad.
00:00:15
John S
Yeah. Okay, how's your like daily life stress level? Are you feeling like you and your business or are you feeling like your business owns you?
00:00:23
John S
yeah
00:00:25
John S
yeah how's your like daily life stress level um are you feeling like you and your business or are you feeling like you are business owners you
00:00:34
johngrimsmo
I'm flip-flopping constantly. ah You know, some days I feel like I put myself in control and sometimes I feel like I'm just being like a ragdoll in the wind kind of thing.
00:00:43
John S
tossed. Yeah, yeah.
00:00:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:00:45
John S
Yeah. Some of that I wonder how I wonder if a wiser person or mentor would agree with this, but some of it is, I think our job as owners to kind of suck up, soak up, would be a bit of work, soak up those undulations of craziness um on the flip side.
00:00:58
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep.
00:01:03
John S
You know, some of us know people that are constantly kind of like in that state and like, nope, I can do it. Like we're like ah all the bad day every once in a while because whatever, and that's my job and no big deal, but like I'm not doing this if it's organized k unorized chaos chaos.
00:01:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
Balancing Craft and Family
00:01:18
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Yeah, and I absolutely love what I do. I find a lot of passion and enjoyment in the the craft of what we're building here, um in being a machinist and an entrepreneur and a business owner and a leader.
00:01:27
John S
Yeah.
00:01:31
johngrimsmo
And like there's so many things for me to grow on. And I love to grow. I love to push myself and challenge and learn new things and try and fail. And like I love the stress of it sometimes, not when it's overwhelming, but you know like of a challenge, of I can't figure it out.
00:01:48
johngrimsmo
And this business provides me all that and far more. So I do enjoy it, but it has to pay off both financially and and emotionally and all the things. It has to tick the boxes to make it worth it for me. And it is, but you know, I make sure it is, you know?
00:02:06
John S
Yeah. I think I've had a more concerted effort in balancing my joy as being a technician of you know getting involved in certain machining or or applications.
00:02:18
John S
like And I'll talk more about that with the automation, with the robots that we got going on, some puck chuck stuff, grinding.
00:02:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:25
John S
you know I love all of that. I don't desire to own the asphalt company here.
00:02:28
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:02:28
John S
You're the paving company. But ah on the flip side, I've had a couple of tough days where I was soaking up a lot of stuff.
00:02:30
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:02:35
John S
and um It's kind of like, okay, like that's going to happen. No big deal. And so for what I then do is start to, and this is a very personal thing, so it may not be helpful to others or very individualistic approach, but, um, you know, you can only do one thing at a time, you know, quote unquote file bankruptcy, like just wipe out your to-do list, just focus on what's getting thrown at you right now.
00:02:50
johngrimsmo
yep
00:02:55
John S
And then. I'm perfectly happy to say, okay, one night this week, I'll stay late at work and, and sacrifice time with the family or I'll come in on the weekend. Like it's no big deal. And then usually what happens is you find that like, that doesn't even, you know, it's not the case that I'm here at 8 AM on Saturday through dinnertime, you know, slaving away. No, it's just more like, Hey, let's.
00:03:15
John S
Um, literally days off in the shop, like it's freaking great. Like
Focus and Flexibility in the Shop
00:03:18
John S
being able to to come back and focus on that stuff.
00:03:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:03:20
John S
But in the moment, um, if I'm being candid, you know, cause I don't like the whole like, yeah, I'll pound my chest. Everything's perfect. A couple of tough moments.
00:03:27
johngrimsmo
Absolutely. um When you spend extra time in the shop, evenings, weekends, what do you think the split is of kind of days off in the shop, like extra projects that will be nice to get done or things like, I just got to get this done.
00:03:44
johngrimsmo
Like it's important.
00:03:44
John S
it's almost It's almost all days off in the shops, like, okay, I'm gonna go in, i'm gonna it's rifle shot focus, like I just wanna mount this five gallon bucket and hook up this hose to test out this new idea in the system.
00:03:56
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:03:56
John S
I don't multitask, I don't create to-do lists, it's just go and do it with a caveat that obviously some of our machines are just busy during the day, so if I need to time on the horizontal or I need time on the UMC, sometimes on the weekend I'll come in and and do that.
00:04:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:04:11
johngrimsmo
he
00:04:11
John S
you You, your your schedule is much more fluid.
00:04:14
johngrimsmo
yeah i mean i spend i ah This past year, especially school year, I've been spending purposefully a lot more time with the family um at the expense of not having as many hours a day at work, especially during the workday.
00:04:28
johngrimsmo
um So I do spend um a lot more evenings, not so much weekends, some days, um mostly evenings, even evenings on the weekends. That's my like open free time.
00:04:37
John S
Yeah, right.
00:04:38
johngrimsmo
It's like, everybody's had dinner. You don't need me anymore. I'm going to work.
00:04:42
John S
See
00:04:42
johngrimsmo
um Yeah. Like love you guys, but I got stuff to do. So my split would probably depends on how free I feel. You know, sometimes it's great to come in and just,
00:04:55
johngrimsmo
lap something flat because I heard a new way to do it from Spencer or something.
00:04:59
John S
Yeah.
00:05:00
johngrimsmo
And that's fun. And I like that. But I'm probably 75%. This is the thing I need to get done. It's usually forward looking like new project kind of like a thing, but it's, it's a task.
00:05:11
johngrimsmo
It's a like, whether I do it during the day or I do it at night, like I have to get this done. It's a me thing.
00:05:17
John S
It's something that makes the beer taste better. Like it's a customer part or a fix, like it relates to the core.
00:05:21
johngrimsmo
yeah Yep. Yep.
00:05:22
John S
Yeah.
00:05:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah, especially with developing this new field. There's been so many so many days of that.
00:05:25
John S
Yeah.
00:05:27
johngrimsmo
like I just kind of test this hard milling recipe. I just got to aim the coolant nozzle or like you know but get the Wilhelmin up and running, things like that.
00:05:33
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:05:38
johngrimsmo
And then maybe 25% here and there of, like I want to 3D print this handle for this tool that's just going to be nice.
Machining Challenges and Techniques
00:05:46
johngrimsmo
It kind of breaks up the the monotony of you know stressful projects.
00:05:49
John S
Yeah.
00:05:51
johngrimsmo
Um, would you?
00:05:54
John S
ah I'll have some of that to do because we have that whole palette, like LTL palette full of horror of heat treated, A2 that came back from the heat treater. And because we didn't know how the sizes were going to change, we intentionally didn't spend extra time machining the parts to certain tolerances in areas that we thought, well, we know they're going to move.
00:06:22
John S
Let's just get them done. And then we'll hard mill them. No big deal. And we'll know. well And so then what we did was we sent, I think we sent a couple hundred parts out.
00:06:30
johngrimsmo
Okay, like Puckjucks?
00:06:31
John S
And we serialized.
00:06:33
johngrimsmo
So serialized, they're pre-machined.
00:06:35
John S
They're machined soft A2.
00:06:38
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:06:38
John S
And so we then we Alex fiber laser them with serial numbers only on 1015 parts deep enough that I knew that the laser markings would not get erased and he treat like I didn't didn't think that would but he really didn't want them to come back and be ah the laser markings gone.
00:06:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:06:52
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:06:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:06:56
John S
um And then we did all our measurements. And the great news is it was very consistent. um And it was actually less than we thought.
00:07:06
John S
um
00:07:07
johngrimsmo
Still some measurable.
00:07:08
John S
this Some yes, but so it's a funny thing because it reminds me back to the tour at the Sandvik facility if you take a traditional turning insert like a CCMT or whatever CNMG it's a Diamond shape that has a hole in the middle of it. So when if it starts in a 33% larger state when it's pressed powder But before it's vacuum or center centering is heat with pressure, right? So it shrinks it down in the binder. I believe the binder um
00:07:39
John S
or if it completely burns off or significantly reduces how much volume it takes up.
00:07:41
johngrimsmo
something. Yeah.
00:07:43
John S
But the inserts shrink down pretty consistent percentage.
00:07:46
johngrimsmo
he
00:07:46
John S
The question is kind of like, well, do you make the center hole smaller or big? And the punchline to the trick question is that if even though the the parts <unk>ote grow, and so I believe that's correct.
00:07:53
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:07:58
John S
But does the whole does the part grow? the The hole grows, but it also the whole thing shrinks. So it's basically a wash.
00:08:06
johngrimsmo
okay
00:08:07
John S
Anyway, the good news is that we now know exactly what we want to hit on these tighter tolerance stuff, pre-heat treat, should be good post-heat treat, but I've got probably 40, 50 parts that I have to do a one minute or two minute heat hard milling cycle on, which no big deal.
00:08:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:24
John S
That's a good example of something I'll probably just come through one night and just bang them all out rather than look at them, loom over me, be like, oh, what am I gonna get to that?
00:08:27
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:08:32
John S
um Got a good fixture to do that quickly.
00:08:32
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:08:34
John S
And what was I gonna say about that?
00:08:35
johngrimsmo
Do you think you can you can soft mill those features and they will be acceptable after he treat going forward?
00:08:42
John S
i I think we can, and I think we' or think we'll get way closer, and we do now have, we're starting to build a little, actually I'll put that on my list here, drill, press, or lap.
00:08:54
John S
um
00:08:55
johngrimsmo
I have a question about that.
00:08:56
John S
We have one, right now we have one McMaster car barrel lap. They're like 15 bucks. And we have some 120 grit, which I believe is a hundred micron aluminum oxide, also from McMaster slightly annoying cause you have to buy like $70 worth of it.
00:09:10
John S
And I don't, that'll blast me to three lifetimes. Um, I also just, Amazon ordered the lowest diamond grit I could find, which is 400 grit, I believe. Um, I'll look up them.
00:09:20
johngrimsmo
Most of the diamond grits I see are in micron.
00:09:23
John S
Yeah, I'm sorry. Everything here is in microns. I just think, Chris, which is my own fault.
00:09:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. I actually, I made myself an Excel spreadsheet that converts all of them. Just copying numbers I found online, but it's like, I know where to find it.
00:09:31
John S
This is
00:09:34
johngrimsmo
I know it's easy.
00:09:35
John S
60 to 80 micron, of course, like, yeah.
00:09:37
johngrimsmo
Okay. Of course. Yeah. Cool. Very course.
00:09:40
John S
And I got a new lap. I got some new jars to store our lapping solutions. Although this stuff, the diamond stuff is out of syringe, sorry.
00:09:45
johngrimsmo
This is, this is for a hole, like a large diameter hole, one inch or whatever half inch.
00:09:49
John S
Yes, half a toll.
00:09:51
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:09:52
John S
where so well i
00:09:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah, 60 microns going to eat that hole for breakfast.
00:09:58
John S
Well, that's, we're looking to pour a bowl of Wheaties here.
00:09:59
johngrimsmo
But we use two micron. We use two micron for our, or four maybe, for our holes, our pivot holes.
00:10:06
John S
So using a dual cordless drill and the and the aluminum oxide, I could no problem get a tenth or two opened up on the board.
00:10:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah, same.
00:10:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:17
John S
That's fine. ah Some of these I need to take about a thou or 12 thou, 12 tenths off.
00:10:23
johngrimsmo
ye
00:10:23
John S
um I ain't doing that with a lap. I'll be here forever.
00:10:26
johngrimsmo
With 60, 60 micron diamond, I think it would take a minute in my guest.
00:10:27
John S
So, yeah. Well, so we're gonna, those are the ones we're hard milling. It's a thou, we can probe it in, we got we got enough, we we have enough, it'll be okay to hard mill those.
00:10:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:40
John S
i The thing I don't love that I'm learning with the lap is the only way you actually increase the lap, the lap diameter is by adjusting that set screw, and that is and incredibly fickle.
00:10:51
John S
I mean, you move that set screw
00:10:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
Improving Shop Tools
00:10:53
John S
one or two degrees, and now all of a sudden the the drill wants to bind up.
00:10:59
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:10:59
John S
um It just gets, it's fresh, yeah.
00:11:02
johngrimsmo
You're using the blind hole barrel laps with the.
00:11:06
John S
happens to be the blind hole one. These these are actually are through holes, but we' only we've always owned the blind hole one laps.
00:11:09
johngrimsmo
There are through holes.
00:11:13
johngrimsmo
We used to be there, too, so the blind hole ones have a set a tapered sesquir in the end, which flares out the end of the barrel lap, and we've converted entirely to the through hole style barrel laps, which have a more.
00:11:28
johngrimsmo
It expands in the middle of the brass and instead of, instead of right on the end.
00:11:29
John S
God bless you. That's exactly, I hate how it's the very tip and it's like, well, this is no good.
00:11:33
johngrimsmo
Yep. Cause then the tip gets bigger. You can't fit in the hole and ah I'm in the same boat as you. Like we only use the, um, the blind hole once forever. And I'm like, it's fine guys.
00:11:44
johngrimsmo
What are you talking about? And then Angelo and Eric and everybody was like, no, these ones work better. So I had to, you know, ignore my own feelings and just be like, it's fine to get what you want. And, uh, it's great.
00:11:53
John S
You just made my day.
00:11:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:11:56
John S
um
00:11:57
johngrimsmo
Except you need a tool to, like an Allen key, can't tighten them. So we keep a little croissant wrench next next to the thing.
00:12:03
John S
Yes.
00:12:05
johngrimsmo
So you can just tighten it with that.
00:12:07
John S
Well, and I've also become a big fan of, and this again, falls under the days in the shop, days off in the shop ethos of quality of life improvements, but, um, cause it's relevant to indicator stands, well which I'll get to in a second.
00:12:19
John S
But on those, uh, we do actually own one, uh, open ended lap that has the protruding PEX pattern. That's where I'll print a three inch diameter, neural 3d jig.
00:12:30
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:12:31
John S
And that way you've got very easy, fine motion on it.
00:12:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I see what you mean. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Our barrel laps mostly are one eight seven five. So like three sixteenths of an inch.
00:12:38
John S
Okay. Yeah.
00:12:40
johngrimsmo
Um, very small, but but okay.
00:12:43
John S
Yeah.
00:12:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Half inch ones are large and in charge. Um,
00:12:48
John S
Well, so that's what I want to learn is because I've heard diamond cuts way faster.
00:12:53
johngrimsmo
way faster.
00:12:53
John S
I'm yeah.
00:12:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:55
John S
So I'll be curious to see, um, never owned diamond lapping pace.
00:12:56
johngrimsmo
Okay. You haven't tried it yet. You've tried the aluminum oxide.
00:13:01
johngrimsmo
Welcome to the world of precision.
00:13:02
John S
So yeah. Yeah. Right.
00:13:05
johngrimsmo
um Yeah, McMaster has little tubes for 15 bucks of every grit, every micron size. um We actually just started using a 0.5 micron for polishing a certain track on one of our blades.
00:13:14
John S
oh really
00:13:19
johngrimsmo
I just did this morning. I taught one of the guys like, let's try this, you know?
00:13:23
John S
What I want to come up with is a, the the wall cordless thing is okay. We also actually have been using them in our China speed lathe, our little seven inch Vivor Amazon, which is it's great.
00:13:32
johngrimsmo
I love it.
00:13:36
John S
I'm glad we have it. but I think what I want to find is a, and it probably doesn't exist, is a small benchtop drill press that has that has a torquey motor, exactly.
00:13:45
johngrimsmo
That doesn't suck.
00:13:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:13:49
John S
Because then I can 3D print a jig, it's a little bit safer, it's a little bit more reliable because you get that dual angle, drill angled a little bit and ah it's just stupid.
00:13:56
johngrimsmo
Same. Yep. You ever get it to bind up and like get stuck?
00:14:03
John S
If anyone hasn't, they're lying.
00:14:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah, like every other time, right? I mean, we're holding a knife blade when we do this.
00:14:08
John S
Okay, touche.
00:14:10
johngrimsmo
So we always hold it like edge away from us.
00:14:13
John S
Yeah.
00:14:13
johngrimsmo
And then it's not sharpened in obviously, but still pokey.
00:14:16
John S
Oh yeah, no, it's that's hilarious.
00:14:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah. But for us, if we are doing a handheld still and the the drill, it's very easy to make an either ovalized hole or slightly crooked off center hole.
00:14:26
John S
Yeah.
00:14:28
johngrimsmo
And how much does it matter? I don't know.
00:14:29
John S
Yeah.
00:14:29
johngrimsmo
But we all know that it's. potential for for growth. um So to dedicate a drill press that doesn't suck to this operation could be beneficial. We've been talking about that.
00:14:41
John S
Yeah. And like thinking out loud, I've been on kind of a side stint watching some of the 3D printed concrete formed hobby between tool videos.
00:14:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I saw some of those.
00:14:50
John S
And then it's like, well, I could just put an inline motor spindle on a linear rail to get that. This is not. The point of being able to lap is we think the heat tree pre-post will be enough to be okay.
00:15:05
John S
But if one needs to open a 10th or two, hitting it with a ah drill or a jig is easy.
00:15:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Okay.
00:15:12
John S
And then cleaning it versus, okay, now we need to take a you know half a million dollar machine tool and stop what it's doing and put a fixture in it and like rework these.
00:15:18
johngrimsmo
Sure. Do a one minute cycle.
00:15:21
John S
huh Yeah.
00:15:22
johngrimsmo
So, uh, it's a half inch diameter bore. How long is it? Like how deep?
00:15:27
John S
Uh, two quarter, 250,000, six millimeters.
00:15:29
johngrimsmo
Oh, so it's like a little, just a whole window at the bottom.
00:15:30
John S
um It's, uh, it's, it's, I mean, it's that hole right there. Yeah.
00:15:37
johngrimsmo
Is there a pin or something that goes in there?
00:15:39
John S
So this is a precision locating feature on the puck chuck which can be used but does not need to be used.
00:15:43
johngrimsmo
Uh, okay. Got it.
00:15:48
John S
So the tolerances would be, we call it a half a toll, it would be 500, I think it's 5003 to 5004. So we want three to four tenths over is our goal.
00:15:58
John S
I think the acceptable actual range is two to six or two to seven.
00:16:02
johngrimsmo
Sure. So you're literally plus or minus two 10ths or better.
00:16:03
John S
Yeah.
00:16:06
John S
Yeah, that's the goal.
00:16:07
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:16:09
johngrimsmo
Okay. That makes sense. I, yeah, I thought it was the, um, the grippy slider thingy that goes in the side of the puck chuck.
00:16:17
John S
Oh no, it actually doesn't have to have as tight a tolerance as you might think, which is nice.
00:16:18
johngrimsmo
That's a different hole. Yeah, figure. Interesting.
00:16:26
John S
Well, on that note real quick, I um was very pleased. The gentleman from Gorilla Fab reached out and was like, hey, dude, no worries.
00:16:33
johngrimsmo
Oh, yeah.
00:16:34
John S
cause i i we I would never feel right if I heard somebody say something that was wrong about yeah know our company or or grims your company. And I'm um glad that you corrected me.
00:16:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:16:45
John S
And then he was like, dude, all good. And hopefully it actually gives him some good publicity.
00:16:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:16:49
John S
um I am actually interested in maybe getting one of his I looked at buying another Herman Schmidt, which is $450. What I don't love about the Herman Schmidt is there isn't a big area to tap on it.
00:17:04
John S
I call it history system. I don't even know if that's the right word. But when I am dialing in a 50 million test indicator apart, I like to tap on the body base to make sure we're stable.
00:17:13
johngrimsmo
Everything. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:16
John S
So I actually went the other route. And so far, I'm happy. I bought the $44 Shars base.
00:17:22
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:17:23
John S
And then, of course, it showed up and in in the the pivot actually was dog baloney.
00:17:23
johngrimsmo
I think I have one of those.
00:17:29
John S
So I took this part out. I hid it on a belt grinder and a scratch right wheel to basically clean up. There's like, look, well, like a plasma dross on it.
00:17:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:41
John S
So it's like, well, that's easy to clean up. And then I ordered a new set screw to because that's primarily what drives the action.
00:17:47
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:17:47
John S
And so instead of having this janky and like saw cut and set screw, it'll now have a.
00:17:53
johngrimsmo
Yep, like a point contact or something.
00:17:53
John S
um but Yeah, well, I got to order one with a ball on it.
00:17:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:57
John S
and And then if that works, I'm going to 3D print a much larger rotation handle.
00:18:00
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:18:01
John S
And I actually think this would be a very good outcome for 45 bucks and 20 minutes elbow grease.
00:18:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Curious how stable it is.
00:18:11
John S
Very.
00:18:13
johngrimsmo
It is stable?
00:18:13
John S
It honestly is. So what I had to do is there was sort of the pivot, obviously no no one's been able to watch on this, but there's a quarter inch bracket that holds the hole at mechanism.
00:18:14
johngrimsmo
Really?
00:18:22
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:18:25
John S
That thing pivots up and down. That's your height adjustment. It also can slop in the in the slot.
00:18:31
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:18:33
John S
And I set screws to tighten that up. If this all works, I'm going to take some shim sock that we have and actually shim that in with some high pressure lubricant and get that motion down.
00:18:44
John S
But right now, I'm very comfortable taking this tense indicator and using the thing, like I'm happy.
00:18:50
johngrimsmo
So you're going full tool maker on this and realizing that you know craftsmen have been solving this for the past 80 years or whatever it
00:18:57
John S
Yeah.
Logistics and DIY Solutions
00:18:59
johngrimsmo
is.
00:18:59
johngrimsmo
um by fine tuning and tweaking and knowing it's sloppy in this direction, but I can still measure good parts. you know It's great, I love it.
00:19:06
John S
Yeah, totally. It's a 10 millimeter shaft. I'm going to either cut this or replace it as well. And then I'm actually going to put the handle knob above it.
00:19:17
John S
So that way you have like a, it looks like there was one of those us radar planes that like flies around to find submarines, but, um, and it'll be three or four inches.
00:19:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:19:25
John S
It'll be great. I actually pretty fired up about this.
00:19:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Sweet. Yeah, i I checked in with ah Bastion on the GorillaFab, and I was like, just curious if you've got a tracking number for me, because I shipped it at the end of the year, like December, and it's been a month.
00:19:31
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:19:39
John S
Oh no.
00:19:41
johngrimsmo
And then I look at the tracking DHL, um because Canada Post was on strike at the time, and it shipped by boat.
00:19:45
John S
ah Oh. Oh.
00:19:50
johngrimsmo
So it's moving, but it's just that literally this slow boat to Canada.
00:19:52
John S
Yeah.
00:19:54
John S
Well, that was one of my, and this is just me venting. One of my tough frustrations earlier this week was, um, we had a giant piece of equipment incorrectly delivered to us.
00:20:07
johngrimsmo
Oh, OK.
00:20:08
John S
like not ours. And I, of course you want to do the right thing, which is like, Hey, this is a five figure or more like thing. Like that freight company was like, would you be willing to hold it?
00:20:21
John S
It's way easier if we can pick it back up at your shop and have it go into like the abyss of who knows where.
00:20:26
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:20:26
John S
And so we're like, yep, this was on Thursday and on Friday, they were supposed to pick it up. drum roll got picked up yesterday, Tuesday.
00:20:30
johngrimsmo
OK.
00:20:32
John S
So i we held it for like four or five days. It was an annoyingly large in our shipping area. And then like, we have to get the forklift out with extensions and then it barely fit in the truck. We're sitting there, dicking around with it.
00:20:43
John S
And I'm like, it's not my job. Like I was trying to be nice guy and like, yeah, I was frustrated.
00:20:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah. So, ah so many questions. um Give us a visual of like, is this tormax sized? Is this Okuma sized? Is it semi-truk sized?
00:20:56
John S
Oh, it would be, yeah, I mean, it was probably Oh, it was huge. I mean, you know when like a box truck backs up and it's rolls up the the floor or even a 53 footer, it was almost full width and it was so tall that I had to like jostle the forklift up and down in the in the roll to get it into the door.
00:21:14
johngrimsmo
Wow.
00:21:17
John S
Yeah, probably six feet.
00:21:17
johngrimsmo
Do you know who who it was for? Like, do you know the company or but local?
00:21:20
John S
I do now. um I didn't care because on Thursday when this happened, I was just like, nobody deal to pick it up and like be done with it. And that would have been so much easier because
00:21:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:21:29
John S
whatever, and I was getting annoyed.
00:21:31
johngrimsmo
But also not not my problem.
00:21:32
John S
Well, yeah. Bye. So um I'd like to think, you know, life's a long time. Karma, pay it forward, do the right thing.
00:21:40
johngrimsmo
Totally.
00:21:41
John S
All good now, but I was pretty hot on this about 24 hours ago.
00:21:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I get that.
00:21:47
John S
On that note too, that goes back to the roll-up door, which I had some great suggestions. um One was just do it yourself. So I'm going to throw myself with the mercy of a topic that's usually not well received from this podcast of DIY.
00:22:03
John S
But if you got a roller, put some tarp on it with a weight at the bottom of the tarp. Actually, I found Uline sells these things for doors. They sell them as just static curtains that are weighted at the bottom.
00:22:13
johngrimsmo
OK.
00:22:14
John S
um We could put on a roller, put a stepper in a and ah rotating drum and just build our own.
00:22:19
johngrimsmo
I just.
00:22:20
John S
like done. This is not complicated.
00:22:21
johngrimsmo
For a tarp, sure.
00:22:24
John S
Yeah, control the control the speed.
00:22:24
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:22:26
John S
You can put some safety stuff into it, although it's not going to hurt anybody because it's just a tarp.
00:22:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:22:31
johngrimsmo
This one, it comes down and if it's weighted, depends on how weighted it is, but yeah, yeah.
00:22:33
John S
yeah It's weird, like a pound, not a hundred. It's not going to crush somebody.
00:22:37
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:22:38
John S
Um, so I honestly like that. Um, yeah.
00:22:40
johngrimsmo
That's kind of neat.
00:22:42
John S
And the other one I saw, oh, there's like PVC crash doors that are kind of meant for this that are a little bit more, um, little bit more rigid and they can like, they can swing open or swing up a little, um, some other ideas there that I'm looking at in order to be, I don't want it to be janky.
00:22:57
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm. Cool.
00:23:00
John S
That's my like one thing about that though.
00:23:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:23:03
johngrimsmo
Hmm. tarps tend to look janky the older they get.
00:23:08
John S
Yeah. um This Uline one, I'll send it to you.
00:23:10
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:23:12
John S
Or if anybody wants to look up, um it's Uline H is in Harry 6339. um And they make some different versions. Some of them even have clear, like a see-through part to it. But that doesn't,
Project Prioritization and Knife Manufacturing
00:23:28
John S
that's not a deal-stopper. And this is only gonna be,
00:23:31
John S
So I guess what we would do is we would, in a perfect world, we would open the garage door, which is going to be, it will be on an opener, which it's not now. And, but that'll take 20 seconds to open.
00:23:42
John S
And then if it's super cold out, you could hit the button that will drop the curtain so that when you're out in the driveway with the forklift or parking lot, it's down. And then you could hit the cut curtain. Maybe when I say that, it just seems like maybe we wouldn't even use it.
00:23:54
johngrimsmo
redundant redundant yeah and it's it's like it's February now it's almost the end of winter sure interesting I mean same for the summer kind of you don't lose all your air condition
00:23:55
John S
Yeah.
00:24:01
John S
It's like five days where it's bitter cold and it really stinks. I know.
00:24:10
John S
Agree. Agree. But it has to be more, talking through that workflow, it's like, now I've got to think about these different buttons and when I can hit what, like, eh, no, no, no good.
00:24:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:24:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. And it's totally fun to deep dive on these side quests, but like we we have to pull ourselves back. I told my kids this too, like I got to focus on the right ones.
00:24:32
johngrimsmo
Otherwise I'll just run in all directions and do all this cool stuff that doesn't matter.
00:24:36
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:38
johngrimsmo
Or is solving a problem. That's not really a problem.
00:24:41
John S
That as well.
00:24:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:24:43
John S
Yeah. Okay. Thank I probably needed to hear that.
00:24:46
johngrimsmo
do
00:24:50
johngrimsmo
And is as in my case, sometimes we just need to move forward.
00:24:53
John S
Yeah.
00:24:53
johngrimsmo
So this week we are assembling Fjell's.
00:24:57
John S
Awesome.
00:24:57
johngrimsmo
Things are going good. Um, last Friday, I think we kind of, we're like, okay, we need to get a bunch of us together and do some mock assemblies. And like, I need to download information to these guys and let them assemble it and ask questions and talk about it.
00:25:13
johngrimsmo
And why are we doing it like this? That's fine. And we were going to do it in the finishing room where they normally do this, but it's distracting and there's people and there's other things. So we just took our lunch room over for an hour and we brought all the tools, brought all the parts, brought everything, laid them out on the table and just kind of sat there and discussed.
00:25:23
John S
Good.
00:25:28
johngrimsmo
And it was, Angela was was firm on this point. He's like, we can't do it in the shop. We have to do it somewhere different.
00:25:37
John S
Okay.
00:25:38
johngrimsmo
like in a meeting room kind of thing. And it worked out really well because we had no distractions, nothing else, no other work to do. It's like focus, discuss, talk, listen to each other. And it was it worked out great.
00:25:49
johngrimsmo
um So the past few days, some of our guys have been putting together fails, asking a lot of questions, getting stuck on a couple of things. And I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot. it I forgot to tell you about that one.
00:25:59
John S
Yeah.
00:25:59
johngrimsmo
Sometimes you got to do it like this. And then The tricky thing is, and I knew this would be, they're putting together the last of the AP models, the artist proof ones, which the point of them was to evolve the process.
00:26:12
johngrimsmo
So they're putting together the weird ones first and struggling with it.
00:26:14
John S
Sure.
00:26:15
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, well, that's how they are.
00:26:18
John S
Right.
00:26:19
johngrimsmo
And then they get better and better and they're just getting into the first production ones now. um So I'm hoping with that experience, they will smooth out and they'll just go together better and better and better. And it's going great.
00:26:31
John S
Good, that's great.
00:26:32
johngrimsmo
Yep. So we'll be selling some this week for sure.
00:26:33
John S
So when you say it's good, I'm just gonna ask you, are APs gonna be on the site?
00:26:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:26:38
John S
Are those pre-sold?
00:26:39
johngrimsmo
They're all pretty, pretty spoken for. Yeah.
00:26:41
John S
Okay.
00:26:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And then we're doing the first batch is going to be first, the first hundred it's engraved on the front of the knife. First hundred.
00:26:47
John S
Awesome.
00:26:47
johngrimsmo
um
00:26:50
johngrimsmo
I'm using a 10 thou ball mill from Harvey, like very small ball mill to engrave these letters in the front.
00:26:53
John S
Okay.
00:26:59
johngrimsmo
I don't have it on mine, but on the front of the handle, like very small letters.
00:27:02
John S
Okay. Yep. Oh, interesting.
00:27:05
johngrimsmo
They're like 60 thou tall, the letters. So 10 thou ball mill. And I'm like, there's no way that tool is going to last. so And I'm stepping down, you know, one thou at a time cutting, one thou at a time cutting.
00:27:13
John S
Yeah.
00:27:17
johngrimsmo
That tool has made over a hundred handles.
00:27:20
John S
It's hilarious.
00:27:21
johngrimsmo
And all it's doing is engraving two words, but you know, small engraving animals, they die, especially in titanium.
00:27:25
John S
Yeah. Right.
00:27:27
johngrimsmo
And this tool is an expensive tool from Harvey, but man, sometimes the right tool for the right job just does the thing um in the current.
00:27:33
John S
It's awesome. You're running it in which machine? Yeah.
00:27:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah, hey exactly.
00:27:38
John S
It's that American quality.
00:27:41
johngrimsmo
We will get into that in a minute. um but Okay, what else for those? So the first hundred, we've decided to make them all. The machine is finished. So the handle is not getting tumbled.
00:27:53
johngrimsmo
It's not getting polished, not getting deburred.
00:27:54
John S
Okay.
00:27:55
johngrimsmo
It is like literally off the Kern, getting assembled, getting shipped out.
00:27:57
John S
oh So a flex.
00:27:59
johngrimsmo
Cause we're so proud of the finish. It's a total flex. The finish, the surface, the, um, no burrs anywhere, no defects, no scratches, no, it's, it's pretty cool.
00:28:10
John S
good I like that.
00:28:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so it's gonna be good the blade and the clip are are getting tumbled so it's a nice contrast between that the button is getting highly polished so it's a lot of really nice contrasting surfaces and Yeah, we've made the hundred handles. We've made almost 80 blades and Starting to put them all together
00:28:31
John S
So if folks want to patronize Grimms and Knives, should they what should they do to maximize their odds of being able to acquire FEL?
00:28:40
johngrimsmo
The GoToOur website on the Fial page, there's a signup list where we're we're collecting names and then the plan is to randomly pull names from that list and offer them a chance to buy a Fial.
00:28:44
John S
Okay.
00:28:52
John S
okay
00:28:53
johngrimsmo
And that's how we've been doing pretty much everything.
00:28:53
John S
Okay.
00:28:55
johngrimsmo
And then we'll do some some random drops on Instagram as well and just kind of have fun with with selling these things.
00:28:56
John S
Okay.
00:29:00
johngrimsmo
And the demand is already huge, which is fantastic.
00:29:01
John S
Good for you. Good for you.
00:29:04
johngrimsmo
And now we just need to make as many as humanly possible.
00:29:07
John S
Awesome.
Exploring Automation in Machining
00:29:08
johngrimsmo
And even even Eric's trying to lower my standards and I'm like, no, we got to do it like this. I know it takes another 30 seconds, but for now, anyway, let's keep this step in because it makes it that much nicer.
00:29:19
John S
Yeah.
00:29:23
John S
So that's an awesome transition to what we're trying to do, which is I want to be able to do that 30 second extra step because it makes the product better. It makes the beer taste better, but I don't want to have to have anybody do it. I want the robot to do it.
00:29:37
johngrimsmo
Mmm.
00:29:37
John S
so um Grant is in Wilhelmin training with a robot right now, and we already have video footage of the Wilhelmin, of the robot taking a part out of the Wilhelmin, putting it in a clean, like letting it sit in an ultrasonic or just a solution, and then it can move it over the missed away of the downdraft table, the blow off table, so blow it off right there.
00:29:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:29:55
johngrimsmo
Bluff, yeah.
00:29:59
John S
I'm gonna order, I actually need to put out my to-do list, a automation direct PLC. I need to get the specifics on that automation direct. Marcus was telling us that there is a, rather than get in the guts of the UR, it has an easy ethernet interface that you can buy with this automation direct PLC, where you then control everything through that.
00:30:19
John S
And if it breaks or you unplug it, it doesn't matter, like you're fine. Just keep using the robot. But if we wanted to say when the robot is over the downdraft table, you can also have a pneumatic line turn on that blows the part off actively and then puts it in a tray.
00:30:33
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm. Hmm.
00:30:35
John S
It's pretty cool. Yeah.
00:30:37
johngrimsmo
That's cool. So you need extra hardware to make that work. Like I've never touched a you are but I've only heard read about it on the internet.
00:30:45
John S
ah Ask me that in a month.
00:30:47
johngrimsmo
Got it.
00:30:48
John S
i I believe there are ways you could do that with what comes from a you are, but yeah I got a steep learning curve in front of me.
00:30:57
johngrimsmo
Yep, absolutely.
00:30:59
John S
i mean ah Instagram viewer asked me to clarify why we weren't looking at one of the many um kind of OEM systems that would load pallets in and out. Some of them are quite snazzy, like built into machines. Some of them are bolt-on, aroas, whatever. um And the simple answer is because I'm i'm not interested in a pallet loading solution right now. That could be where we end up concluding makes more sense. But um what I'm interested in is work loading, part loading, raw material loading, all the same phrase for the same thing.
00:31:34
John S
um And that in and of itself isn't super rare, but what is less common is what we're looking for where the one system can load different sizes of materials and it can either so it can somehow swap out the work holding.
00:31:51
John S
um So and obviously that's going to mean it also could have to change end effectors or other things of the sorts. And I want to give a tip of the hat to Dylan. I've asked him this question because he was looking for topics with an episode he did on with intolerance with Chris Dappatini, who's super dialed. I did not know him.
00:32:10
John S
Clearly many others do, I just did not until I met him at IMTS and followed his stuff better and then they had a nice talk on their recent episode and he confirmed one thing I i thought was true, which is that the two solutions that seem to exist that meet this are number one, the Hermla RS05, which is what one of these we're looking at and um the folks at Lights Out manufacturing up in Idaho who Herma is the extreme OEM high-end turnkey, we do it all, white glove, lights out, actually is also, I'm told, white glove and very thorough, but it's like, hey, you are a robot, you pick the machine tool and then we'll build this kind of integrator level solution.
00:32:48
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:32:49
John S
So um yeah, that's my that's my short answer as to what we're looking for.
00:32:56
johngrimsmo
Or roll your own if if you're willing to spend that time in.
00:33:00
John S
Well, that's what we're doing um right now. I got that Tormach robot coming to just sandbox and learn and see, and then, you know, this is how I've always succeeded.
00:33:10
johngrimsmo
yeahp Yep, yep.
00:33:10
John S
It's like, i need to be I need to be smart enough to ask the questions. You know, it's one of those crummy things about life. even Even, i I find the folks at Herma who I've never done business with, no relationship other than camaraderie, um they are the most wholesome, forward-looking, they want to set you up for success, but they're still machine tool sales folks. They're still not going to tell you, hey,
00:33:34
John S
These are some of the things that people find that they don't like after they own the system. right There's in inevitable. But like the one that always reminds me is like there are lays that have toolsetter arms. And then you find out after you buy it, the toolsetter arm is not automatic.
00:33:46
John S
And then the machine gets bolted on. I'm like, where were you on that one, sales guy?
00:33:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:33:50
John S
like That's terrible.
00:33:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. That's what our Nakamura is like. You got to bolt it on.
00:33:54
John S
I wasn't trying to pick on you. But yeah.
00:33:55
johngrimsmo
No, for sure.
00:33:57
John S
Anyway, I want to get smarter about robots.
00:33:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:33:59
John S
And and we're doing it.
00:34:00
johngrimsmo
Well, and it's the kind of thing you can sit there right now and you can be like, I want a robot that does this and this and this and this. So I'm going to buy that big system for $400,000 and install it. And then you're dis you know possibly disappointed. Whereas you are doing what I kind of do is you you just want to get your hands on it. You just want to like, I need to see it. I need to feel it. I need to test it. I need to like play with it for a while. And then that will answer so many questions in my head of what's possible or what.
00:34:26
johngrimsmo
you know, is are my expectations realistic or or do I have to change the way I think about things?
00:34:34
John S
I'm actually really excited to just like, we got a new, I ordered a pneumatic device and it's like, I just want to see if I have a robot pick up a block and put it back and redo that.
00:34:46
John S
It probably takes 30 seconds to do that. So 30 seconds means 120 times a minute times 20 hours a day. You have two, 3000 times a day. Can it do that for four days straight
Tool Precision and Performance
00:34:57
John S
and just never fail?
00:34:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and just come back and...
00:34:58
John S
Like I'm, I am like excited. Like you set up a time-lapse camera, like look at, look at why it failed.
00:35:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. I mean, at trade show demos, that's kind of what they do. They just set it on loop and I'm saying, but yeah.
00:35:07
John S
Dude, I don't trust anything at a trade show. That's all right. It's all rigged. Yeah.
00:35:12
johngrimsmo
But yeah, it'll be cool to see.
00:35:13
John S
Yeah.
00:35:16
johngrimsmo
Set up a live feed and, you know, fans can check in and be like, be like, it's still going, wow.
00:35:18
John S
Oh.
00:35:20
John S
Let's get a DraftKings set up for the how long we think this run will last for.
00:35:21
johngrimsmo
Timer next to it, like...
00:35:27
John S
Over, under, on time.
00:35:34
johngrimsmo
Nice. Um, okay. On the hard milling note, because you've been doing more and I've been doing more, um, my Maldino tools are still holding it up. Like I'm so impressed with them.
00:35:45
John S
Good.
00:35:46
johngrimsmo
I can't even understate or overstate how impressed I am. Um, and then one of my local reps reached out and said, uh, YG one just came out with a hard milling line.
00:35:50
John S
Good. Really?
00:35:56
johngrimsmo
Like just, it is called the X one dash E H.
00:36:03
John S
Okay.
00:36:04
johngrimsmo
Um, and from the literature, the videos, the pictures, um, they look like they are proper hard milling animals from what I can tell.
00:36:12
John S
Okay.
00:36:12
johngrimsmo
Having seen my moldino ones so and union ones under the microscope, I'm like, oh yeah, those are the same, like same category and significantly cheaper.
00:36:16
John S
Yeah.
00:36:22
johngrimsmo
Um, my rep just sent me prices a little bit ago and they're like half the cost of a moldino tool.
00:36:28
John S
Okay Okay Yeah, I love that I'm kind of in the grim smell bucket here though of like yeah, we're paying $70 for ours right now, but number one they're lasting and number two ah
00:36:28
johngrimsmo
And I was like, whoa, they are coming in hot. They're coming in aggressive with pricing. So put it on your radar. I know you buy a lot of YG1 and that might make it easy for you.
00:36:48
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:36:50
John S
This is kind of like the internal joke. We believe in the puck chuck. It's awesome. We're selling more. We actually had an awesome day yesterday, but we need we need six months of this, but if we do six months of puck chuck sales, i there's value engineering that I will do, saving 30 bucks across X number of those to on an end mill, it may not be one of them.
00:37:10
John S
like you know That makes sense.
00:37:10
johngrimsmo
100% I'm with you too. But I have, um, so I'm using two hard milling animals right now, but I'm planning future things where I might have 10 different skews in house and I haven't bought many of those yet.
00:37:20
John S
Fair enough.
00:37:23
johngrimsmo
So I'm, you know, try to set yourself up for what's available, what's quality, what's reliable, repeatable.
00:37:24
John S
Yep.
00:37:29
John S
Yeah.
00:37:29
johngrimsmo
Um, these Japanese tools, it is just so nice that they're all the same and you know, they, they laser exactly the same within a 10th and
00:37:40
John S
you You should elaborate on that.
00:37:42
johngrimsmo
in, in which way consistency.
00:37:45
John S
I'm really just stealing from the conversation that Adam Demuth and Josh Hacko had on the Precision Microcast, um where they talked to...
00:37:52
johngrimsmo
Oh, about NS tool and yeah.
00:37:55
John S
Yes. And I think the same is true true for union and probably Modena where the difference between them and perhaps another very good end mill, but not one of those brands is that when you buy a lot of six of them, the NS or or or union is they're going to be identical at a level that the others won't, the radius, the grind, the relief, like, and I will like, I sot i don't even worry about it.
00:38:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:38:13
johngrimsmo
Exactly. A hundred percent.
00:38:19
John S
These are so good.
00:38:20
johngrimsmo
Yup. Yup. And that's where I'm at. Um, that's why I love my Maldino tools, but I'm willing to experiment with certain, uh, engraving tools and hard milling tools from YG1, maybe see what the lead times are like and stock and all that stuff.
00:38:28
John S
Yep.
00:38:35
johngrimsmo
Cause some of the Maldino tools have come out of Japan, um, which just takes, you know, two weeks instead of three days.
00:38:40
John S
Okay.
00:38:42
johngrimsmo
Um. So on that note, I have a quick story about end mill consistency. You know, 10 years ago, when I learned that, uh, the diameter tolerance for most end mills is, you know, plus zero minus two thou in the grind, not in the shank or anything, but I don't know.
00:38:57
John S
I think it's, and I don't think it's 2,000. I think it's, well, whatever, I shouldn't. I don't think it's that much.
00:39:04
johngrimsmo
It depends on the quality of the brand and all that.
00:39:05
John S
Yeah, sure, sure.
00:39:06
johngrimsmo
Um, because obviously you start with a three eighths shank, you have to cut it smaller to get a sharp edge. Like your end mill, your cutting edge will not be three eighths because otherwise you haven't cut, they haven't sharpened it.
00:39:15
John S
Touche.
00:39:20
johngrimsmo
um
00:39:20
John S
I thought what I heard was a misconception that it was plus zero minus two, uh, not microns, but like wasn't too foul, but again, I'm not trying to.
00:39:31
johngrimsmo
Anyway, um some tools are. My point is, um not just that, because that doesn't really matter, the consistency batch to batch, purchase to purchase, and where I really see it and it kicks us in the absolute butt is on single point threadmills.
00:39:48
John S
Okay.
00:39:48
johngrimsmo
um because we use them for chamfering, for top and bottom chamfering of our blades.
00:39:51
John S
Mm hmm.
00:39:54
johngrimsmo
And if the, imagine you have a 60 degree single point thread mill, there's a pointy bit, right?
00:39:59
John S
yeah
00:40:00
johngrimsmo
And then a flat on the bottom. And the dimension from the pointy bit to the flat on the bottom, we just did, I measured on our optical comparator before and after, like old tool, new tool, three thou difference.
00:40:11
John S
Yeah.
00:40:13
johngrimsmo
And that it ruined
00:40:13
John S
Yeah. Your chamber miss is gone.
00:40:15
johngrimsmo
It ruined a bunch of blades. It's undercutting, leaving a flappy burr on the top, no chamfer on the bottom.
00:40:18
John S
Oh, I'm sorry.
00:40:21
johngrimsmo
And it's it's one of those things that clearly we are now past the point of either regular off-the-shelf end mills or not measuring and preparing for all this stuff.
00:40:33
John S
Yeah.
00:40:33
johngrimsmo
um Because we are shooting for a toothout chamfer, and this blows it out of the water. A 3,000 variation kills a toothout chamfer. um So on our optical, I can measure the feature very accurately and I can comp the length in and the machine, the tool where comp length.
00:40:51
johngrimsmo
And so basically we're measuring every single tool of of these specific ones. And now it's, you know, this needs a plus two and a half thou DL length competition.
00:41:00
John S
you the blue The laser can't handle that automatically?
00:41:03
johngrimsmo
It's complicated and it gets it weird.
00:41:06
John S
Yeah, right.
00:41:06
johngrimsmo
I think it puts the center line at the pointy bit, not necessarily at the bottom where I have it programmed.
00:41:11
John S
Got it.
00:41:12
johngrimsmo
And so and we have a couple tools now that we do that.
00:41:13
John S
Yeah.
00:41:16
johngrimsmo
And once I do that, then now I can actually model chamfers infusion with that tool. Perfect. So I can, I can, I can predict infusion exactly what it's going to look like.
00:41:24
John S
Yeah.
00:41:29
johngrimsmo
And the us stock to leave top to bottom and all that stuff. And then using tools that physically match the model infusion perfectly, the
Shop Updates and Project Challenges
00:41:38
John S
yes Yes.
00:41:38
johngrimsmo
chamfers are always perfect now.
00:41:39
johngrimsmo
So it's like more steps, more work, but gets us the result in no scrap.
00:41:44
John S
It reminds me of the story. I know I've told it a long time ago, so I'll keep it quick. But touring the Glock factory 22 years ago, summer 2003 in Fairloch, Austria, and half the factory was their own in-milk grinding.
00:41:56
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:41:56
John S
And then after they ground them, they, ah yeah.
00:41:58
johngrimsmo
I didn't know that.
00:41:59
John S
Again, I didn't understand this at the time, which is a huge regret. What do you do? I just didn't know any of this stuff was. and Remember the manager plant manager was saying, like yeah, we grind our own tooling.
00:42:09
John S
And then it gets bar-coded. And then when they put it back in the machine tools, it's all all the geometry is auto-updated in terms of diameter and length. But when you and I are talking about this level of precision in glocks, glocks aren't that precise, in a sense, except they want the consistency.
00:42:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:23
John S
And the glock is very much like, hey, we're going to make 7 million of these of these you know slides or frames or whatever. And the tolerances aren't that tight. I'm making this up. They may be tight.
00:42:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:33
John S
But like it's more about like just consistency.
00:42:35
johngrimsmo
Consistency.
00:42:36
John S
yeah
00:42:36
johngrimsmo
It's funny. I was thinking about your Glock tour because you mentioned it a couple of times. You never mentioned that, but I'm, yeah, you you've mentioned several times the, um, we've got 10 years of steel inventory because I don't trust the world, like, or whatever they said.
00:42:41
John S
Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:42:50
John S
Right.
00:42:50
johngrimsmo
Um, and I brought that up just less than a week ago. Cause we were talking about inventory and steel management and all that stuff. And, uh, interesting. They make their own animals even 22 years ago.
00:43:01
johngrimsmo
That's impressive.
00:43:02
John S
Like that was the guy told me, he was like, and we didn't, we seered we toured extensively. i We obviously didn't walk every square inch, but like, it looked like about half the facility was end mill grinders. Um, yeah, it was cool.
00:43:15
johngrimsmo
That's cool.
00:43:18
John S
We filmed a shop update video sort of impromptu in know in a super fun way.
00:43:22
johngrimsmo
two
00:43:24
John S
I keep like a running list of stuff I'd like to update folks on. And then um I looked at that list and I wanted to come in Saturday to do something else. And then I was like, you know, when you just get that, like awesome intrinsic energy to do it.
00:43:36
John S
And it was 35 minutes effortless.
00:43:38
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:43:39
John S
I didn't edit hardly anything on it and shared a bunch of updates on the you element the robot ah quality of life improvements are really awesome 3d prints are air compressor drain stuff.
00:43:40
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:43:50
John S
And then spent maybe 10 minutes showing off Johnny Five. And Johnny Five is now, I'm probably spending nights and weekends, everything's at home, which has been such a good change for me.
00:44:02
John S
i it's It's a home project. So um I've got him almost all disassembled and all the way down like the track.
00:44:04
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep. Do not.
00:44:10
John S
Yeah. Yeah, it's like irony disassembling Johnny five um and ordered ordering send cut send parts getting electronics in their battery packs, like, and we'll be rebuilding him from the ground up um completely he's taken over my living room at home in a good way.
00:44:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:27
John S
but i I've been working on it for about nine months. I kind of stayed quiet because if I failed, I didn't want to let everyone down again because we dropped. Well, I'm proud of what we did. um I don't think it's crazy to think that we ran out of steam on this project, but um he he's getting finished and he's going to be freaking awesome.
00:44:39
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:44:44
johngrimsmo
I can't believe how much work is required to do this.
00:44:46
John S
Oh, it's a lot of work.
00:44:48
johngrimsmo
Just, just watching like from the sidelines as your friend, but I'm not the one doing it. It is so much work. It's impressive.
00:44:56
John S
Yeah. Thank you. I i told Yvonne, I was like, I actually genuinely enjoy it. I really do.
00:45:04
johngrimsmo
Yes. Good. Good.
00:45:05
John S
um That's why it has to be at home because like when I'm at work, I'm here to run Saunders.
00:45:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah. You have other things. Yeah.
00:45:11
John S
Yeah, it's also like, I mean, I think I placed the our largest ever McMaster order by item number, not by dollar amount, because we needed like, I think I found 27 different screw sizes and lengths and head configurations.
00:45:18
johngrimsmo
Oh yeah.
00:45:25
John S
um It's fatiguing. I ended up going through the model and just like like looking through every faster I could find, checking whether we had it and then just getting in the cart because they're all organized. I got them in bins. I put up on Instagram last night.
00:45:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:45:36
John S
Like, yeah, it's you have to do it that way.
00:45:39
johngrimsmo
That's wild.
00:45:39
John S
cause otherwise you're building it and you get to a point and you're like I don't have a two inch 1024 flat head cap screw for this part I'm dead I can't do anything I actually drove to Home Depot Lowe's and tractor supply all of which have they have oddly good fastener department stuff like they have some stuff I wouldn't have thought they had but like nothing in the way of traditional
00:45:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:03
John S
Smaller I guess anything under quarter-inch in like the hex head button head flathead um That's not Phillips, but actual torques or Allen Drive No, no luck yeah Okay Yeah
00:46:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so many variations, love it.
00:46:18
johngrimsmo
I guess my last thing, I've been playing with the current post that Phil and DSI wrote for me. So I played with it last night and I posted a four axis code where the B axis tilts 90 degrees and it does an engraving on the side.
00:46:33
John S
Uh-huh.
00:46:34
johngrimsmo
It it tilted the other way.
00:46:35
John S
Boom.
00:46:36
johngrimsmo
So normally normally I always machine be negative 90 where the axis tilts clockwise 90 degrees and then I have full um clearance.
00:46:48
John S
Okay.
00:46:48
johngrimsmo
So if it tilts the other way, now your laser toolsetter is on the top.
00:46:52
John S
Oh.
00:46:53
johngrimsmo
And the spindle head kind of gets really close to the toolsetter. And it, I was like watching it and I'm like, it clears barely for this tool.
00:46:57
John S
Oh.
00:47:00
johngrimsmo
It wouldn't clear for all tools, but I let it engrave this little 10 second engraving. And it was so weird watching it engrave on the wrong side.
00:47:09
John S
Yeah, you get so used to a machine, right?
00:47:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And I'm like, well, it's all, it should be posting properly. Let me see if I can get through this run without crashing the machine. And then I'll tell Phil and I'll be like, what did I do wrong?
00:47:21
johngrimsmo
It's machining on the wrong side. And he said, it's actually in machine configurations, um, in fusion side.
00:47:28
John S
Okay.
00:47:28
johngrimsmo
Like when, in, in what do you call it? Machine model. Like when you choose a machine for your, your operation.
00:47:31
John S
Mm hmm.
00:47:34
johngrimsmo
Um, and then I told him I haven't been doing that. So.
00:47:39
John S
and then they shot you.
00:47:40
johngrimsmo
Well, i'm I'm using a bit of posted code that hasn't had a machine applied to it, but I'm using a post that kind of assumes there is a machine tied to it.
00:47:43
John S
staff You need to do machine configs.
00:47:50
johngrimsmo
what thats yeah So I'm learning i'm learning that now.
00:47:51
John S
Sorry.
00:47:55
johngrimsmo
Anyway, that's where I'm at.
00:47:56
John S
That's awesome.
00:47:57
johngrimsmo
But I think it's not a post problem.
00:47:57
John S
Yeah.
00:47:58
johngrimsmo
It's it's actually that I wasn't using machine configs.
00:48:02
John S
There is a way, I believe you can set the preference, like prefer to go this way. And when we were,
00:48:08
johngrimsmo
Negative or positive?
00:48:10
John S
I was doing something on the UMC, I guess. I don't know what else machine it would have been. And I was getting frustrated because I just wanted it to, oh, I was trying to look at like how long a tool or I need it or stack up.
00:48:20
John S
And so I just, if the machine could have moved from negative 90 to plus 90, I just updated it to go only from zero to 90.
00:48:26
johngrimsmo
oh
00:48:27
John S
Like do I just robbed it it of the ability to go the other way.
00:48:27
johngrimsmo
okay
00:48:29
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:48:30
John S
And then you can change it back later.
00:48:33
John S
Sweet. What's on tap today or what are goals this week? and
00:48:39
johngrimsmo
I'm trying to do a probe surface and update on the speedio and I think I broke the work coordinate system. Not really but it's just it's measuring 60 thou off and I'm like hold on red flag.
00:48:47
John S
Okay.
00:48:51
John S
Yeah, yeah.
00:48:51
johngrimsmo
Um, what did I do?
00:48:53
John S
Right.
00:48:54
johngrimsmo
So there's a big sticky note on the door and, uh, don't touch this. Uh, so I gotta get that figured out. I don't know what I did, but I'll reset everything.
00:49:01
John S
But not like physical a break it just weird.
00:49:02
johngrimsmo
No, no, not just the offset is not reading properly.
00:49:06
John S
Hmm.
00:49:06
johngrimsmo
Um, that's probably my big red flag for the day. And then just, uh, I got a bunch of check-in things with the field to make sure the photography and shipping guys know what to do and the assembly guys are getting stuck and things like that.
00:49:17
johngrimsmo
So that's on my list.
00:49:18
John S
Good.
00:49:20
johngrimsmo
You.
00:49:21
John S
I'm waiting to hear back from our Gossaker guy. We want to engrave. Actually, it's a good, it's a good probably my first like real hallucination. um i Alex asked if we could start engraving the serial numbers on the puck chucks when they're being milled, because it would save him a whole laser step.
00:49:37
John S
Like, OK, great.
00:49:38
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:49:38
John S
Our goal was to not worry about stuff like this, start getting product made and moved and now we can start looking at what what's the lowest hanging fruit to combine stuff, et cetera. And so I asked chatgbt to write a script um to do this on an Akuma OSP 300. And I'll tell you, like, it is awesome. It now has an elegance to how it talks with you. Like it gave me a checklist of things I need to review, checklist of things to update the code.
00:50:01
John S
I was like, hey, no, use make make the font this tall, use tool three, not tool one that it defaulted to, which it told me to update that, but just really easy to work with it.
00:50:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:50:10
John S
um But it was doing it all based on G47, and it was like, OSP 300 is great for this type. I'm making this up. but It says something about that specific.
00:50:19
johngrimsmo
yeah Interesting.
00:50:19
John S
And yeah, pretty sure G47 is only a Haas thing. I didn't actually go try to run it, but, and there is a G47 code in the Okuma manual, but when I look it up, it's just empty, and my gasket guy's like, hey, I have a script that does this, which, if G47 did it, I don't think he would have written a script, so.
00:50:37
John S
um I don't, if I'm being honest, that the thought occurred to me to go like go full Grimsmill, and I don't want to, which is sub-routines that call pre-written G code for each character that then spaces it out, like, no, there's gotta be a,
00:50:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah, we do some of that.
00:50:53
John S
No, I can't. i you God bless you, but I can't do that.
00:50:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Well, chat GPT could.
00:50:59
John S
No, I don't want to. i want to so I'll pay somebody to write.
00:51:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's fair. If the guy's got a script then, unless your font needs to be decorative and it needs to look a certain way, you just need to log the serial number.
00:51:07
John S
No.
00:51:09
John S
Right.
00:51:10
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:51:10
John S
So that's what I'm working on.
00:51:11
johngrimsmo
I like it.
00:51:12
John S
Sweet.
00:51:13
johngrimsmo
I'm in.
00:51:13
John S
See you next week.
00:51:14
johngrimsmo
See you next week.
00:51:15
John S
Take care.
00:51:16
johngrimsmo
Goodbye.