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Ep. 11: Shear Madness
68 Plays22 days ago
Join Curt and Jamie as they deal with the chaos of a jam-packed schedule.
The Lone Machinist:
- Website: https://thelonemachinists.com/
- Merch: https://www.jspeceng.com/online-store
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/TheLoneMachinists
Jamie:
Curt:
Recommended
Transcript
Casual Opening and Episode Delay Explanation
00:00:47
jamie peacock
Oh, is it good? how are you doing today?
00:00:49
Curt
I'm doing much better. How you doing, Jamie?
00:00:52
jamie peacock
Yeah, carrying on. Had a bit of a long day. was up early this morning to chat to John, the previous co-host.
00:00:55
Curt
Oh, yeah?
00:00:58
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:00:59
jamie peacock
Yeah, so chatted with him on a Tuesday morning. So we chatted while we both did CAD work. Just ah shot the shit for like two hours and then went and was a little bit productive this morning.
00:01:05
Curt
Oh, nice.
00:01:11
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:01:12
Curt
Sick. Oh, and sorry for the listeners if we're a day late on this one.
00:01:13
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:01:15
Curt
I was feeling like death yesterday, so we had to postpone by a day. So we'll see how we'll see how fast Jamie gets this out.
00:01:21
jamie peacock
I know it'll go out tomorrow. It'll be one day behind when it normally goes out. Danica was, yeah, she wants it to be on a schedule. So it'll be out.
00:01:29
Curt
right. and well
00:01:30
jamie peacock
Well, I say it's going to be out tomorrow, but the people are only going to listen tomorrow. So it'll be out today when you're listening to it.
00:01:34
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:01:36
jamie peacock
um
00:01:37
Curt
Okay.
00:01:37
jamie peacock
Yeah. So, but yeah, no, no worries. I'm happy to shift the schedule around a bit to make it work for both of us.
00:01:43
Curt
I appreciate it.
00:01:44
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, no problem.
3D Printing and Robot Preparation Challenges
00:01:46
jamie peacock
So yeah. Yeah. I've had a bit of a week. I see you've got some fun stuff to talk about as well. um But yeah, let me let me start off because this one's been on there for two weeks now.
00:01:46
Curt
So looks like you've had one busy week.
00:01:56
jamie peacock
The 3D printed shims.
00:01:57
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:01:59
jamie peacock
So I've got i've got some parts that need a chamfer, but there's like a little land of maybe eight millimeters and then it starts tapering up. um So in order to hold it in the fixture, our 3D, our resin printed some shims to take up the gap so the part will sit level.
00:02:17
jamie peacock
But I also also got a new resin printer this week because I could.
00:02:17
Curt
Oh, OK.
00:02:22
Curt
Wait, like another one or the one that you got for like ah that prototyping job?
00:02:24
jamie peacock
Yes. ah Yeah, no, that one was annoying me. So I bought another one. Also cheap.
00:02:30
Curt
Did you return the previous or?
00:02:31
jamie peacock
Like, no, going sell it to one of my mates.
00:02:34
Curt
Oh, gotcha. OK.
00:02:35
jamie peacock
So he had one um and then his LCD broke and it was more expensive for a new LCD than to just buy a printer. So I told him I'll sell him this one at like half of what I paid for it.
00:02:42
Curt
Nice.
00:02:45
jamie peacock
And then he's got a printer again. um like I bought a, um I mentioned it last week. I bought the Creality Hollet. It's not Hollet, it's Hollet. Yeah.
00:02:55
Curt
Okay.
00:02:56
jamie peacock
Yeah. I bought that thing and wow, not in day compared to the inner cubic photon. Mono two that I had like not in day. I've printed a bunch of stuff for my, yeah, no, like so much more reliable.
00:03:06
Curt
Oh, really?
00:03:10
jamie peacock
Like, I don't know if it's just slasher that's better. Um, But using Harlot Box from Creality, yeah, got it dialed in. ah I was having to go to heavy supports so that the part wouldn't rip itself off the supports.
00:03:21
Curt
Yeah.
00:03:23
jamie peacock
I couldn't get the parts off the supports. So I went to light and it just prints perfectly.
00:03:26
Curt
Oh, nice. Yeah.
00:03:28
jamie peacock
You grab the part and you go and rip it off the parts, off the supports.
00:03:32
Curt
Oh, beautiful.
00:03:32
jamie peacock
It's amazing.
00:03:33
Curt
Nice.
00:03:34
jamie peacock
Printed a whole bunch of gears and wheels for my combat robot because we've got a tournament this weekend. So I've been doing stupid things again. um
00:03:43
Curt
Mm.
00:03:44
jamie peacock
We've got 150 gram weight limit. So making that when you are kind of pushing the envelope on what's expected in a robot is a bit difficult. Like on the third iteration, fully printed chassis, trying to cut weight, build the robot.
00:03:54
Curt
Nice.
00:03:59
jamie peacock
Okay, I'm still 10 grams over. Where can I take weight out? And I've managed to, I've switched from PLA to ABS, cut a whole lot of
Machining Techniques and Local Sourcing
00:04:07
jamie peacock
material out of the robot. And I think I'm going to make weight by like 0.5 of a gram.
00:04:13
Curt
that's not a lot weight to have like a battery motors microcontroller weapon some wings to actually get yeah
00:04:16
jamie peacock
It's not. So it's okay if you've got two motors, your two drive motors and a lifting servo and your battery and whatnot, then it's easy. No, not Jamie, two drive motors, which are belt driven four wheel drive.
00:04:26
Curt
sure
00:04:31
jamie peacock
a lifter, a lifter servo that isn't the 11 gram servo. It's a 20 gram servo. That's two S rated and like overpowered. And then another motor that drives the conveyor belt on the top of the robot.
00:04:43
jamie peacock
So if I can get under you, I can drag you on top of me and then drive you where I want.
00:04:44
Curt
Oh, nice.
00:04:48
jamie peacock
So yeah, it's it's something different because our retired grope is actually over there on the shelf. and That's my robot shelf now with all the trophies on top of it.
00:04:57
Curt
Nice.
00:04:57
jamie peacock
Um, That's retired. like I shared the plans on the group and I'm like, now I'm forced to retire that. So yeah, been messing with that. Printed gears. ah yeah Really, really liking the new prints. Also ran off 16 parts since I've had it for these guys. I've got a meeting tomorrow and then they want me to print 50 parts before the 25th, which is going to be tight because that's like three and half hours of print.
00:05:22
jamie peacock
And I can only fit two of them on the bed.
00:05:23
Curt
are you
00:05:24
jamie peacock
Well, it's seven hours of print. I can fit two at a time on the bed.
00:05:28
Curt
Are you using the like the slicer it came with? Are using a third party? or
00:05:32
jamie peacock
Yeah. No, the one it came with. I do seem to have picked up an issue with the firmware updates.
00:05:34
Curt
Oh, nice. Oh, OK.
00:05:37
jamie peacock
I did a firmware update. so And now I can't print right to the edge of the the build platform.
00:05:39
Curt
Hmm.
00:05:42
jamie peacock
If I do, it takes like 20 mils off of this side and sticks it on that side of the build platform. It's really weird.
00:05:50
Curt
Oh, weird.
00:05:50
jamie peacock
But it's just, ah yeah i haven't haven't bothered diagnosing it yet. So yeah, just some funny, funny business.
00:05:56
Curt
Slick.
00:05:57
jamie peacock
But yeah, I've got to go to meeting there tomorrow. They did their break testing that they wanted to do. Now they want me to print 50 units for them to roll out for pre-production samples, basically, before they commit to an injection mold.
00:06:11
Curt
Nice. Well, that's a good i mean good way to pay for the printer then.
00:06:12
jamie peacock
Yeah. Well, it's the print is paid for already by the last version of this job.
00:06:18
Curt
Oh, perfect.
00:06:19
jamie peacock
So yeah, I'm like, I like having, mean, yeah, like $300 is really for bugger all.
00:06:20
Curt
Yeah. I guess they are pretty inexpensive. Yeah.
00:06:25
jamie peacock
And then I'm running the Anycubic ABS-like resin.
00:06:26
Curt
Yeah.
00:06:30
jamie peacock
So it's got a bit of flex to it. It's actually really nice resin.
00:06:33
Curt
Hmm.
00:06:33
jamie peacock
I'm thoroughly enjoying using it. I've gone through a liter of it already in like four days.
00:06:39
Curt
I find all those Anycubics print so well. I i switched over to Soraya Tech Blue series just because it's like insanely durable, but it is a super huge pain to dial in.
00:06:45
jamie peacock
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:06:48
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:06:51
Curt
Like they're just crazy annoying. to butt Once they print nice, they're fantastic. But.
00:06:55
jamie peacock
There's a ah blue wheel for the robot.
00:06:56
Curt
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:06:58
jamie peacock
I bought Psoritec Blue to make wheels and I just cannot get the backside to print nicely.
00:06:58
Curt
Yeah.
00:07:03
jamie peacock
It's translucent.
00:07:04
Curt
Yeah.
Podcast Merchandise and Support Options
00:07:05
jamie peacock
So eventually I just gave up. I'm like, I got the bottle pretty well priced. It can sit there and look pretty. I've got the ABS stuff working well now.
00:07:12
Curt
Yeah.
00:07:14
jamie peacock
And for what I needed for that, that's all it needs to do.
00:07:17
Curt
Yeah.
00:07:18
jamie peacock
But yeah, I'm astonished.
00:07:18
Curt
Yeah, no, it's.
00:07:19
jamie peacock
Like this one's only got a 50 micron spot or pixel size, which isn't great, but plenty good enough for what I need it for.
00:07:28
Curt
Yeah, no, exactly. That's all that matters.
00:07:28
jamie peacock
Like I think my Anycubic one had like 20 micron pixel size. So the new one's actually lower res, but it just, it does so much better of a job. It's also got dual linear guides for the Z-axis.
00:07:39
Curt
Nice. Nice.
00:07:44
jamie peacock
Like actual square linear guides, like 15 size.
00:07:44
Curt
Oh, cool. Okay.
00:07:47
jamie peacock
It's robust.
00:07:48
Curt
Oh, nice. Nice.
00:07:49
jamie peacock
It was the last one, so I bought the floor sample. I convinced them to sell it to me.
00:07:53
Curt
ah i sick Oh, so you just got it like locally or whatever.
00:07:54
jamie peacock
But yeah. but Yeah, I went to the 3D printing store locally and just went and bought one.
00:08:00
jamie peacock
actually know the agents for Creality stuff, but I needed a printer and I was in the area.
00:08:01
Curt
Oh, nice.
00:08:01
Curt
Oh, convenient.
00:08:06
jamie peacock
don't remember why I was in the area.
00:08:07
Curt
Hmm.
00:08:08
jamie peacock
I went to drop something off or something, so I just went and bought it so that I had it. Because that is super convenient.
00:08:14
Curt
Slick.
00:08:15
jamie peacock
But yeah, I see you've been ah prototype printing...
00:08:17
Curt
Nice. Yeah, I had a... I don't want to oust him, but I had a customer reach out that was doing some silicone casting and he wanted to try it in some resin prints. was like, you know what? I have so much... like i print so little. i My resin will like age out before I end up using it.
00:08:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:08:32
Curt
So i'm like, just send me your files. I'll print them. I'll discharge you basically like... nothing essentially. um And if they work out for you, we can move forward with that.
00:08:39
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:08:40
Curt
So he's pretty jazzed about that. So got that out of my hair, printed. They were big parts in my world, like, you know, maybe fist sized. um And my printer only prints about maybe two fists at max.
00:08:46
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:08:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:08:50
Curt
So, but yeah, they came out really well. It's kind of fun to print something that I haven't printed before.
00:08:52
jamie peacock
Yup. actually printed I actually printed sheet metal samples this morning. Customer sent me three step files like, please, can you print these? that Their customer wants to see them before they commit to which model they want.
00:09:01
Curt
so
00:09:06
jamie peacock
Only way to do it is to make press tools. So I 3D printed, I resin printed them for them. I'll take them through tomorrow and be like, yeah, your three samples are, and then invoice them appropriately.
00:09:14
Curt
nice
00:09:16
jamie peacock
Like, I'm going to rip the ring a bit because I can, because it's ah like... Not a lot of people, like there's a million guys who will print stuff, but most of them it'll come out like shit. So you can afford, if you can do it well, you can afford to charge for it. yeah
00:09:31
Curt
Well, yeah, that's what even this guy said.
00:09:31
jamie peacock
not yeah
00:09:32
Curt
he was He was chatting with me and he's like, yeah, the problem is he's like, I have lots of friends that have resin printers, but he's like, it seems like every time I talk to them, they're like, oh, well, this is broken or this isn't quite working or I could print it for you, but it's just like, yeah, they are a bit tedious, but like, i don't know.
00:09:44
jamie peacock
i'm Not that bad.
00:09:45
Curt
and
00:09:45
jamie peacock
my My friend Dave won't touch or wouldn't touch resin printed stuff because he sent some stuff out for resin printing and it came back like some of the worst prints I've ever seen.
00:09:46
Curt
They're not that bad, no.
00:09:57
jamie peacock
Like you could have got better stuff off of an FDM printer. And then he had some delicate stuff printed and the guy's like, yo, no, be careful. It's going to just shatter if you drop it. And I'm like, well, he's using the wrong fucking resin. Like you need to be using an appropriate material.
00:10:08
Curt
Yeah.
00:10:10
jamie peacock
So yeah, there's a lot that goes into actually being useful at resin printing.
00:10:16
Curt
Yeah, no doubt. Yeah.
00:10:18
jamie peacock
But mean, I was printing ABS on my printer this week as well.
00:10:18
Curt
Yeah.
00:10:22
jamie peacock
Like I put a picture on our robot group and the guy's like, oh, also like to live dangerously because he doesn't have an enclosure. I'm like, dude, draft shield. You enable it and it prints fine. Like you clean the PI bed and it just it's fine.
00:10:35
Curt
yeah yeah no yeah
00:10:35
jamie peacock
Like, yeah. Like printers are super useful tools, especially for prototyping. Like, It can't be understated.
00:10:41
Curt
absolutely
00:10:42
jamie peacock
Like I know a few people who are listening who don't have 3D printers come to the dark side.
00:10:47
Curt
her
00:10:48
jamie peacock
It's super, super useful tool. So just like I use mine today, I printed I think it's actually on the list. Is it? No, it isn't. Okay. um I'm making a new coolant manifold for my, for my machine.
00:11:00
Curt
Oh, okay. I saw and all that in your stories. Mm-hmm.
00:11:03
jamie peacock
Yeah. So I printed ah ah part this morning. I just basically removed all the material, printed it, bolted it on, checked I had clearance because I'm now ordering aluminum to machine it out of aluminum.
00:11:14
jamie peacock
And then I'll anodize purple because why not?
00:11:15
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:11:17
jamie peacock
And then I'll have my coolant move with the head of the machine. So when I run stupid things, I don't have to adjust my coolant lines.
00:11:25
Curt
Yeah, i was kind of jealous of that. i was like, I mean, mine works, but to get around my fourth, it'd be nice to have something like you have where it's like right on the head.
00:11:31
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:11:32
Curt
I'm like, yeah, that'd be nice.
00:11:32
jamie peacock
Does your spindle have bolt holes there?
00:11:33
Curt
I
00:11:35
jamie peacock
Mine conveniently had two bolt holes.
00:11:36
Curt
oh i don't know if it, I mean, it's got ah gobs and gobs of room, but I don't know it has bolt holes there. Maybe it does. It has something because it has a, yeah, it has an air, an airline right there.
00:11:43
jamie peacock
Put a camera and do a tool change.
00:11:47
Curt
So I know there's some spare space.
00:11:48
jamie peacock
Yeah. Because, yeah, I've got an airline going into my spindle as well for a constant bearing purge. So my coolant block has to hop over that.
00:11:55
Curt
Nice.
00:11:59
jamie peacock
But that's, I mean, that's a minor detail.
00:12:00
Curt
Oh,
00:12:01
jamie peacock
Like that's just put a but a little machined out notch because I'm making it a two piece out of 25 millimeter alley block. Like it's not exactly lightweight. um
00:12:11
Curt
OK.
00:12:11
jamie peacock
And then I'm going to run, I think i'm going to run two coolant lines up next to the spindle because there is enough space, have them stick out over the top and loop back to the current coolant pickups and then just spring them to the roof like put a fucking bungee cord it'll be good enough like i i don't want it because i could go down and under but then there's a loop that could hook something potentially yeah so we'll see that that is going to be engineered very much yolo i'm going to go buy some fittings buy some pipe and just yolo it together when it gets uh gets to the time that i need to put it together
00:12:24
Curt
ah okay
00:12:26
Curt
Yeah. Sure.
00:12:34
Curt
Right. Yeah.
00:12:39
Curt
Yeah.
00:12:46
Curt
Yeah, that's that's one thing I've been like super like cognizant about with this machine is trying to keep all my tools like close to the exact same length so I never have to adjust the nozzles. like They point one spot, like they should be good for every tool I run.
00:12:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:12:58
jamie peacock
So I ah run into the issue where I run a long part and then I'll slitting saw off.
00:12:58
Curt
so
00:13:05
jamie peacock
And then the coolant's good here, but bad here.
00:13:06
Curt
Oh, right.
00:13:07
jamie peacock
So I've actually got fan nozzles, but then you're blowing right on the air purge of the bearings with coolants by the time you get to the bottom of the bar.
00:13:14
Curt
is Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:13:15
jamie peacock
which I don't like the idea of that. so So I turned some little stainless ball units to squirt coolant and I'll build the thing out yeah over the next the next coming while because I've got an alley order that's got to go in tomorrow.
00:13:17
Curt
Yeah.
00:13:28
jamie peacock
i'm just waiting for an updated quote.
00:13:31
Curt
Nice.
00:13:31
jamie peacock
Yeah, so yeah we'll we'll get to why I'm ordering alley later in the podcast because some smart dick decided to reinvent something.
00:13:37
Curt
That's
00:13:41
jamie peacock
But yeah, so so we went so we went to ProPack today. So let let me blast through all these topics quickly because most of them are from ProPack. So ProPack is a yeah as was a packaging expo.
00:13:50
Curt
sounds good. Oh.
00:13:54
jamie peacock
So there was FoodPack, ProPack, and PrintPack. It's like all in one. It was bigger than Machine Tool Africa, like three times the size. um So Danik and I went through there today and had a look at all sorts of fun things. met up with the guys from Argus who actually phoned me last week.
00:14:11
jamie peacock
They finally got the lead that was generated at IMTS and phoned me about that last week.
00:14:16
Curt
oh
00:14:18
jamie peacock
I'm like, are you going pro pack? They're like, yeah, but I will see you there. So I went and met up with that guy today. And then it dawned on me that I can use the Argus Dryland products for my part loading solution.
00:14:29
jamie peacock
and I don't need to use linear guards. Like, why not give the dryland stuff a try?
00:14:31
Curt
Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:14:33
jamie peacock
I've never actually played with it.
00:14:34
Curt
yeah
00:14:35
jamie peacock
And for what it's doing, it's not huge loads um and not hugely fast. So I've got their catalog. I'm going to go through that and have a look and see. mon Give it a bash. Like, we've got nothing to really lose.
00:14:47
jamie peacock
um And then, ah yeah, SMC were also there. They do a vacuum generator. you know, the the normal Venturi vacuum generator, you pump air, it makes vacuum.
00:15:01
jamie peacock
They've got one that has a built-in pressure switch.
00:15:01
Curt
Yes.
00:15:03
jamie peacock
So if your system is airtight, it will pull a vacuum and switch off.
00:15:08
Curt
Oh, clever.
00:15:09
jamie peacock
And then switch back on if if there starts being a leak and switch on and off, on and off. We're playing with it at the show today. So I've asked the guy for a...
00:15:15
Curt
Does, did it work? Okay.
00:15:17
jamie peacock
It seemed to work fine for for their demo.
00:15:21
Curt
Like, ah yeah, wonder how airtight those systems end up being, but that there that's a good idea.
00:15:22
jamie peacock
Like... So you start you start leaking and it'll pulse on and off to hold the value.
00:15:28
Curt
Hmm.
00:15:28
jamie peacock
it Because it's got a little digital thing. You set there there what you want the the vacuum to be.
00:15:30
Curt
Right.
00:15:33
jamie peacock
So you're not sucking air the whole time.
00:15:34
Curt
Right.
00:15:37
Curt
Right. Yeah. You're not just, yeah.
00:15:38
jamie peacock
so And they reckon 20 milliseconds back on.
00:15:39
Curt
Taxing your compressor.
00:15:40
jamie peacock
So if vacuum starts dropping, 20 milliseconds, it's better that's what their solenoid switching time is.
00:15:42
Curt
Hmm.
00:15:46
Curt
That's pretty good.
00:15:47
jamie peacock
So I got a manual from them or a catalog and then sent off an RFQ this afternoon. So... Hopefully I'll get a quote in the next couple of days for that. The guys seem to think they weren't super expensive, which I find hard to believe.
00:16:00
Curt
Hmm.
00:16:01
jamie peacock
But if it's... Say, hang on. Imperializer, let's go to Freedom Units here. Do conversion.
00:16:12
jamie peacock
So if the thing costs me $200 or $250, and it means my compressor runs barely ever, as opposed to having to buy another compressor for $250, may as well buy the Venturi.
00:16:17
Curt
Yeah.
00:16:25
jamie peacock
No.
00:16:26
Curt
Yeah.
00:16:26
jamie peacock
It's, yeah.
00:16:27
Curt
That's, that's the reason I haven't really looked at them.
00:16:27
jamie peacock
I'd rather... yeah like Yeah, that's the thing. like even the So even their inline Venturis burn 13 liters a minute of air. It's a lot of air.
00:16:38
Curt
Yeah.
00:16:39
jamie peacock
no And that's the problem. like This one will burn, i think, 20 liters a minute, but once it's at vacuum, it burns zero. which is really cool.
00:16:47
Curt
Right.
00:16:49
jamie peacock
So yeah, we'll see. I've sent the guy a RFQ to ask him for a price on that and the inline ones because I need an inline one or I can use the one I built ah for sucking the bar pusher back in the Enco because I'm building that external bar pusher for it.
00:17:02
Curt
Oh, OK. Yeah,
00:17:03
jamie peacock
So I want to be able to retract the bar pusher without having to shove a stick down the spindle and poke it.
00:17:10
Curt
yeah, yeah.
00:17:11
jamie peacock
It works, but I'd rather be fancy because ran 120 parts there of material would really like that be a bar
00:17:14
Curt
Sure.
00:17:17
jamie peacock
of twenty five more material and i would really like that to be a ball pusher
00:17:22
Curt
Yeah, yeah that's that's how I do it my hard engine. I put the stock in the front of the spindle and just basically push the piston all the way back.
00:17:26
jamie peacock
yeah
00:17:28
Curt
But I'm i'm loading like two bars a day, not like one every 10 minutes.
00:17:31
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:17:31
Curt
So it's not a big deal.
00:17:32
jamie peacock
Well, that's a thing. Like these, I think we've got to load one every 30 minutes or so. So it's, it's going to become tedious.
00:17:38
Curt
Yeah.
00:17:39
jamie peacock
So I'd rather have it just retract by itself.
00:17:40
Curt
Yeah, totally.
00:17:41
jamie peacock
So I've got all the rest of the the plumbing requirements. I just need a vacuum generator. Well, I have one, ah but for now it's going to, it's going to get used for a different job. I'm, Depending on how quickly I can get this SMC unit will determine whether I use it on this batch of parts or whether I'll buy it and use it on the next batch.
00:18:02
Curt
Nice.
00:18:02
jamie peacock
Because I have a i have a ah vacuum generator, but it doesn't have enough...
00:18:02
Curt
but um um Right, yeah, yeah.
00:18:09
jamie peacock
The surface area isn't enough on the parts I want to run, but now I'm going to run, instead of one part, I'm running 12 parts at a time. So I've got a ah whole bed full of parts. So the vacuum area is greater.
00:18:21
jamie peacock
And then I'm going to just break the parts. So I won't cut through. I'll leave comma two of a mil and then I'll just put it through a router with a chamfer bit and just ah following chamfer bits, chamfer the edges, problem solved.
00:18:34
jamie peacock
But yeah, still need to build a fixture for that.
00:18:35
Curt
Nice.
00:18:36
jamie peacock
That's this week's, one of this week's many, many things that I have to get done.
00:18:41
Curt
and i see Yeah. Vacuum fix ring is the key. I mean, my old job, we ran big like gantry CNC routers and they had huge, like 20 horsepower vacuum pumps and it just pulls through MDF, like just a sheet of MDF and it pulls vacuum through it.
00:18:47
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:18:52
Curt
And then we'd put like sheets of PVC or aluminum right on it. And same thing, you skin it by like, you know, 10 thou run through router when you're done.
00:18:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:18:57
Curt
But yeah, it's just doesn't no work holding, throw a sheet on, hit the vacuum. Boom. You're good to go.
00:19:01
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:19:01
Curt
Like they're pretty incredible.
00:19:02
jamie peacock
That's great. Yeah, so I want to...
00:19:04
Curt
until you break through the vacuum.
00:19:05
jamie peacock
i ah Yeah, so this... Where all the through holes are I'm putting O-rings and holes, so I'm not... Like I'm not actually going to hold it super well. I'm going to just hold it with like four four bars of vacuum to hold the plate down.
00:19:18
Curt
Right. Yeah.
00:19:19
jamie peacock
And then everything else is like in between there, all the all the holes and stuff I must put. Because again, it's going to be a hundred parts now and then potentially 500 or a thousand next month. So I'm trying to build out my processes.
00:19:30
Curt
Yeah, cool.
00:19:31
jamie peacock
Like that that is my thing, build out processes. But yeah, then we saw packaging stuff. They had a really cool... um Cardboard crinkling machine.
00:19:43
jamie peacock
That's the only way I can describe it. So you buy a roll of crap paper, like fucking craft paper, um and it literally pulls out the center of the roll, goes through this machine and shoots out lengths.
00:19:57
Curt
Right.
00:19:57
jamie peacock
So they were saying it was, hang on, sorry, I just want to one five there So it's $81 a roll for this crap paper. And then if you buy 10 rolls, you get the machine for free.
00:20:12
Curt
OK, so it's like a void, a void fill machine like it's yeah.
00:20:13
jamie peacock
It's a shitload. yeah it's Yeah, it's a shitload of paper.
00:20:18
Curt
Gotcha.
00:20:19
jamie peacock
But I'm thinking profits might need to look a bit lower.
00:20:20
Curt
Yeah.
00:20:23
jamie peacock
So I might just buy one, just buy the paper, get the machine and write it off as business expense. And then I have paper for the rest of my life, basically.
00:20:33
Curt
Yeah, easier to store that way too, I suppose.
00:20:36
jamie peacock
Well, it's in these big ass rolls. And then yeah I'm looking now at how I'm going package the pallet systems reliably.
00:20:44
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:20:44
jamie peacock
Now, yeah, i chatted to one of my one of my customers who ships stuff around the world. And unfortunately, they use the same solution I have, which is by far not the cheapest.
00:20:53
Curt
Hmm.
00:20:54
jamie peacock
Like, significantly not the cheapest.
00:20:55
Curt
Yeah. Yeah,
00:20:57
jamie peacock
um Yeah, it's like $200 to send a parcel to the US per pallet system.
00:21:04
Curt
that's significant. That's rough.
00:21:06
jamie peacock
it Yeah, it's not a small amount. I looked into... um uh what's it uh what ship station when we spoke about last week yeah no not supported yeah because i live in the arse end of africa yeah so i'm just quickly checking here um but yeah and then yeah gum tape machines saw gum tape they'll do custom printed gum tape which is kind of cool um
00:21:14
Curt
Oh, yeah. Yep. Oh, no.
00:21:20
Curt
Yeah. yeah that makes sense.
00:21:33
jamie peacock
So I was just ogling all the fancy machines today at ProPack. And they'll also sell me gum tape without the machine. And I can just make my own frigging printed machine that wets the gum tape.
00:21:44
jamie peacock
Because the machines, the machines weren't cheap. Like, if I... I will probably never recoup the cost on that. um It's like $500 for a gun tape machine. It's silly.
00:21:57
jamie peacock
That was the manual one. Yeah, it was a manual one.
00:21:57
Curt
Yeah, that's up there.
00:21:59
Curt
Oh, wow.
00:21:59
jamie peacock
They apparently have cheaper options. um But yeah, it's still a bit brutal. Okay, there we go. just So I've just been, I got sent the the pricing for shipping.
00:22:11
jamie peacock
Oh no, wait, hang on. Three, six, two, five. ah Yeah, $195 for shipping.
00:22:20
Curt
ah Yeah, that's brutal.
00:22:21
jamie peacock
Yeah, it is a bit rough. So, no, and no, no, it's discontinued and replaced with... Okay, cool. um Yeah, so the shipping is brutal, but I think we have a way to to eat up some of that.
00:22:38
jamie peacock
So it's not all going to be passed on to the customer. Like... But we'll we'll have to see how that how it all shakes out.
00:22:42
Curt
Yeah.
00:22:44
jamie peacock
But yeah, how's your screw machining going?
00:22:45
Curt
Yeah, it'd be hard to part.
00:22:48
jamie peacock
Well,
00:22:49
Curt
screw machine is going great um that's uh i was actually super impressed so i i just ordered all the tooling to do the torx milling this morning so it should be here in a couple days which is nice because that's all made locally um like tooling is made locally which is super cool um yeah yeah love i love their tooling and i've switched all my tooling over to it because their pricing is right in line it's made in canada like i don't get and i'm subject to all the weirdness going on right now um
00:22:52
jamie peacock
that's...
00:22:57
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:23:02
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's from Deboer. Okay. Nice.
00:23:08
jamie peacock
Nice.
00:23:15
Curt
And that's part of the reason I want to make my own screws too, is just to...
00:23:16
jamie peacock
No.
00:23:18
jamie peacock
Sorry, I'm just, sorry, I'm just looking now. I got the the quote back from SMC, like literally as we're talking.
00:23:18
Curt
Yeah.
00:23:26
Curt
yeah
00:23:27
jamie peacock
ah So the guy was wrong. It wasn't 2,000 Rand. It was for that switches on and off. And $13. $13. two hundred and fifty dollars for the the fancy one that switches on and off and thirteen dollars For the inline one, that is just an inline Venturi.
00:23:49
Curt
Yeah, that's a pretty big increase. so
00:23:52
jamie peacock
Yeah. It's really cool. Anyway, ah cool. I can probably still justify that. Like, pretty easily.
00:23:58
Curt
Yeah, well, like yeah if it drops a duty cycle way down, I'd be interested in it. But if it's like if it drops a duty cycle down from 100% to 80%, it's like, hey whatever.
00:24:03
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:24:06
Curt
like I'll just suck up the extra energy.
00:24:07
jamie peacock
Yeah, I think if you've got, yeah, if you've got good vacuum sealing, you're going to hold it all day. Like it's going to go down and then it's just going to sit there until you poke through it.
00:24:19
Curt
Yeah. I mean, you you could probably also put a tank like in line with it and then use like use the tank in vacuum as opposed to in pressure.
00:24:24
jamie peacock
Yeah, evacuate the tank. Yes, so that you've got ah a bit of a booster.
00:24:26
Curt
Yeah. And then... Yeah. I mean, then youre you're still goingnna it's still going to run and then you're not really changing your duty cycle, but you're letting your compressor cool, I guess.
00:24:35
jamie peacock
Well, you've got a bit of a buff if you break through. It's not going to instantly, instantly die.
00:24:39
Curt
Yeah.
00:24:42
jamie peacock
Anyway, sorry, you were saying you ordered your tools.
00:24:42
Curt
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Screw machine. um So yeah Ordering all the tools, machining all my screws just because like, why not? I can machine it. Like the lathe has downtime.
00:24:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:24:51
Curt
It's just sitting here now. So I made about like 30 or 40 screws. um That was the first thing to do is turn them to see if I could actually turn them.
00:24:56
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:24:57
Curt
Cause it's a long stick.
00:24:57
jamie peacock
what
00:24:58
Curt
Oh, like it's a, it's a 256 size screw with a 10 millimeter thread.
00:25:01
jamie peacock
What is the diameter on that?
00:25:05
jamie peacock
Roughly.
00:25:05
Curt
Uh, 256 would be like two millimeters, just over two millimeters.
00:25:10
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:25:11
Curt
so roughly-ish.
00:25:12
jamie peacock
256. Yeah, Yeah, that's not unreasonable.
00:25:13
Curt
um
00:25:14
jamie peacock
I've made a bunch of M2 and M2.5 stuff.
00:25:15
Curt
oh
00:25:17
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:25:18
Curt
Yeah, and just getting like a nice reasonable um stick out. and Anyways, so yeah, they they machined beautifully.
00:25:22
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:25:24
Curt
like I had no issues with it. I kind of Swiss turned them. I basically just knocked it all off in one go um just to kind of maintain rigidity. rigidity
00:25:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:25:31
Curt
And yeah, threaded it and got all my chamfers and everything nicely. And they popped off the machine beautifully. So now I'm going to make a little fixture. Actually, that's where your little zero point is going to eventually come in handy. But I'm going to make ah just a temporary fixture where I'll screw this.
00:25:41
jamie peacock
Okay. Apparently I need to pull my finger out of my ass with that one and get it off to you then.
00:25:45
Curt
Oh, no rush. No rush. I got lots of prototyping to do. i'm going to make it cheap um like I'm going to make a cheap block just to actually make sure there this all works.
00:25:50
jamie peacock
Yeah. Just little...
00:25:53
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:25:53
Curt
Yeah, because I'm like trying to thread them in and make it so that they're going to be tedious to put into the fixture, but that's all point of making two fixtures is just load one in, let it run for you know an hour or two, and then load the next one.
00:25:59
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:26:03
Curt
um
00:26:03
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:26:04
Curt
Yeah, I'm excited to see how that works. like The end mill I have to use is a 10,000 end mill, so it'll be the smallest end mill I've ever ran.
00:26:10
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's tiny.
00:26:10
Curt
But yeah, curious to see how it works.
00:26:12
jamie peacock
I need to get used to...
00:26:14
Curt
It's pretty tiny. Less than 0.3, I think. 0.2 mil? 0.3 mil? point two mill know
00:26:19
jamie peacock
Oh, two five point too far for
00:26:22
Curt
Yeah, so it's tiny.
00:26:24
jamie peacock
Yeah, 0.25. 0.254. there's also a working imperializer in your box.
00:26:28
Curt
I'm so excited. i am so excited for this.
00:26:29
jamie peacock
And a couple blank boards, so you can make a custom. And then...
00:26:33
Curt
We're going to do something fun for the podcast.
00:26:35
jamie peacock
I need to tumble these so that I can send these to you. want to send you a couple of them.
00:26:41
Curt
Sick. The proper ruler.
00:26:42
jamie peacock
Yeah. The proper ruler. um I've got some stupid ideas. It's going to be a 376.2. Yeah. I'm
00:26:53
Curt
Nice. Yeah.
00:26:54
jamie peacock
going put the dumbest things I could possibly put on there just to just to annoy the Imperial users.
00:26:55
Curt
my
00:27:01
jamie peacock
But yeah, dude, so yeah, the screw, i'm cut I'm very keen to see how, but I mean, you got 20K on your spindle, so machining with that size NML shouldn't be too much of a problem.
00:27:07
Curt
yeah
00:27:09
Curt
Yeah, I'm going to set up the cam probably later today and just, yeah, I mean, for the most part, like I'll block out the middle of the screw with with the drill. I'll block off the corners of the torques with the drill.
00:27:16
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:27:19
Curt
And then the little 32nd is going to come through and clean it.
00:27:20
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:27:21
Curt
And then a 10th is going to do the last little bit where I can't quite um get in there with, you know, smaller tools.
00:27:25
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:27:27
Curt
So I think it should work.
00:27:28
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:27:29
Curt
I think it should work.
00:27:29
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, it should work. it It's also like, yeah, if you can make your own screws, then you can do silly things on them too.
00:27:36
Curt
Yeah, well, that's the whole point is like I can chamfer them.
00:27:37
jamie peacock
and Yeah.
00:27:38
Curt
I want to put fancy decorations in the bottom so like people look under microscope, you're like, whoa, like you put a floor finish in there. it's like, yeah, yeah, I did because I can.
00:27:44
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:46
jamie peacock
Exactly.
00:27:46
Curt
And the machine is sitting right now.
00:27:47
Curt
It's not running. So it could easily be running screws at night or like it's such a low risk thing.
00:27:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:27:51
Curt
Like, oh, I and i mean, the screws, the the hard engine can crank out a screw in like, don't know, a minute. um
00:27:57
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:27:58
Curt
So it's not, and titanium is, it's not that expensive for the, I mean, it's mainly It's way, it's cheaper to buy them.
00:28:03
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:28:06
Curt
It's still cheaper. Like screws cost me about four bucks each to buy them. um
00:28:09
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:28:10
Curt
But I also have a bunch of machine time and a bunch of titanium that I'm not using, you know, odds and ends.
00:28:14
jamie peacock
So, yeah.
00:28:15
Curt
So
00:28:16
jamie peacock
You may as well make fancy things from it.
00:28:18
Curt
yeah.
00:28:18
jamie peacock
100%.
00:28:19
Curt
Yeah. They will technically cost me more, but I know. like to make stuff.
00:28:22
jamie peacock
That's fun.
00:28:23
Curt
It's fun. It's fun.
00:28:23
jamie peacock
Yeah, making stuff is fun.
00:28:24
Curt
Yeah. Totally.
00:28:25
jamie peacock
Like I'm busy, I'm busy running through a bunch of, uh, drone parts now tilt mechanisms for a VTOL.
00:28:26
Curt
Totally.
00:28:33
jamie peacock
Uh, speaking of Roger, we need to talk. You put, you put bloody fillets on a chamfer. Um, now went to program it today and it's chamfered. And then the top and bottom the chamfer have bloody fillets on them.
00:28:45
jamie peacock
So I ended up having to surface it because apparently Roger believes in surfacing everything. um, And I know he listens to this.
00:28:53
Curt
Well, it's long.
00:28:54
jamie peacock
So yeah, thought I'd call him out for that. And then yeah, busy.
00:28:57
Curt
Well.
00:28:57
jamie peacock
yeah That's what I was finishing up now. um I mean, each part's got 40 minutes of machining in turn and I still have another one or two ops to do on them. And it's small little parts. I'm thinking it's stupid. But yeah, I'll get those knocked out and then those will go into being production parts.
00:29:13
jamie peacock
So that's why I'm putting it all there. made all the fixturing and stuff today for that while going gallivanting.
00:29:19
Curt
Oh, I saw that.
00:29:20
jamie peacock
But yeah, and then you've got other folding um sorry folding arm mechanisms that I'm busy with for another drone that you basically screw off a big nut and then the arm folds.
00:29:21
Curt
Yeah.
00:29:31
jamie peacock
And a heat sink for that drone that I also want to try and knock out this week. And I can just get that stuff off the books.
00:29:32
Curt
um
00:29:36
Curt
nice
00:29:39
Curt
nice
00:29:39
jamie peacock
ah joe Yeah, last night I was ah ah was making aluminum dowel pins on the Emco.
00:29:46
Curt
i saw that yeah
00:29:47
jamie peacock
Yeah, 17 millimeters long, three diameter.
00:29:51
Curt
Okay, yeah, so that's decent aspect ratio.
00:29:51
jamie peacock
Same Swiss style.
00:29:53
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:29:53
jamie peacock
Yeah. Turn, turn down the, uh, rough it down and then I turn it. I can't go quite to finish. So I go down to like from eight down to think five. And then I do a finish boss. Then I just, first one comes off market and then I just program a taper and then it compensates for the deflection and done.
00:30:03
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:30:10
jamie peacock
Knock them off. Like they were all within like 10 microns. They don't need to be, they're getting pressed into a 3d print, but yeah, they're lighter than a screw.
00:30:18
Curt
Oh.
00:30:19
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:30:20
Curt
That's actually ah one thing I wanted to do you have a CCMT holder somewhere in your possession?
00:30:25
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:30:26
Curt
Yeah.
00:30:27
jamie peacock
Yeah, why?
00:30:28
Curt
Okay. I'll send you a pardon. I'll send you some of those.
00:30:30
jamie peacock
Why?
00:30:32
Curt
I'll send you some of those tongue away inserts. I use like next time I send you something.
00:30:34
jamie peacock
Oh, yes, okay. Well, yeah, used CCMT-09s in my main production run.
00:30:35
Curt
Cause I was.
00:30:41
Curt
Okay. I think that's what I'm using as well.
00:30:42
jamie peacock
What size are yours? Yeah, I would think they'd be the 09s.
00:30:44
Curt
I have to double check.
00:30:45
jamie peacock
Yeah, the 06s are freaking tiny.
00:30:46
Curt
Probably. Um,
00:30:49
Curt
Yeah, these ones, I'm pretty sure they're all nine. Anyways, I'll send you some because I was roughing some aluminum just on the manual lathe last week to make some fixtures for the fourth.
00:30:51
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:30:54
jamie peacock
Ah, okay.
00:30:56
jamie peacock
Ah, yes. Yeah.
00:30:56
Curt
And I was like, I was honking on it pretty good, like taking what would be like three, four mils off per side and ah probably equivalent to like maybe 15 or like, what would be?
00:31:03
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:31:07
Curt
15 thou per rev. fifteen thousand
00:31:08
jamie peacock
Hang on. 15 thou.
00:31:09
Curt
perevz
00:31:10
jamie peacock
0.015. So yeah, 0.4. That's a decent feed. 0.38. Yeah. Yeah. so yeah point four that's a decent feed point three eight
00:31:16
Curt
um Yeah, so it's all and it just like super tiny little itty bitty like sees like just it breaks chips beautifully.
00:31:18
jamie peacock
yeah
00:31:21
jamie peacock
um Okay, yeah.
00:31:23
Curt
it's but chip So I was like, oh, yeah.
00:31:23
jamie peacock
Because right now I'm having to do, I'm having to use pecking, like on the M car using pecking, and the whole machine's vibrating, because I'm doing one millimeter peck and then 0.1 retract.
00:31:24
Curt
me some
00:31:30
Curt
Yeah.
00:31:33
Curt
Yeah.
00:31:35
jamie peacock
But then it runs unattended, it doesn't make long shavings, and I can actually run it like that with a bar pusher and not worry.
00:31:44
Curt
that's all that matters.
00:31:45
jamie peacock
But yeah, that's a DCMT, uh, DCGT on that, that specific job. But I'll, yeah, I'll check out, I'm sure there's a Tangaloy agent somewhere here in South Africa.
00:31:55
Curt
Yeah, I mean, I have a bunch of them and I don't actually go through them that fast.
00:31:58
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:31:58
Curt
And they're they're decently inexpensive for me to get.
00:31:58
jamie peacock
Yeah, I can, okay.
00:32:00
Curt
So like, I don't know they'd work in aluminum so well, but yeah, they work.
00:32:02
jamie peacock
No, sweet.
00:32:04
Curt
I think that PSF chip breaker, that's just the key.
00:32:04
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:32:07
Curt
That thing works so well on
00:32:08
jamie peacock
Because I'm running just Chinese inserts from BB Tool on AliExpress. And they're running brass. It's a non-issue. And I mean, I'll run 4,000 or 5,000 parts on a single insert, on a single side of a single insert because I'm cutting brass.
00:32:17
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:32:23
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:32:24
jamie peacock
So yeah, but we're now running a bit more aluminum on on the Emco. Well, tomorrow I've got a setup for stainless. I ran stainless for like a week on it, now I'm going to carry on running stainless.
00:32:34
jamie peacock
That poor little machine.
00:32:35
Curt
Nice.
00:32:36
jamie peacock
yeah
00:32:36
Curt
Yeah.
00:32:37
jamie peacock
it's ah ah The finishes coming off it are beautiful. like for For a 35 or 36-year-old machine, it's amazing. like Bertha is starting to show her age.
00:32:49
jamie peacock
like The surface finishes I'm getting off Bertha on interpolated moves are getting worse and worse.
00:32:49
Curt
yeah
00:32:54
jamie peacock
But the majority of what it does is straight lines and threading, so it's fine. ah
00:33:00
Curt
is it
00:33:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's... There's going to be a conversation.
00:33:03
Curt
Is that like a dove?
00:33:05
jamie peacock
It's dovetail with Turcotte and linear guides.
00:33:08
Curt
Gotcha.
00:33:08
jamie peacock
I redid the Turcotte, but I never redid the linear guides.
00:33:09
Curt
Gotcha.
00:33:11
jamie peacock
The guides are still poked. I just didn't have the money to do it when I retrofitted it.
00:33:14
Curt
Oh.
00:33:18
jamie peacock
it
00:33:18
Curt
Yeah.
00:33:19
jamie peacock
Again, it's going to be a conversation of, okay, do I throw ah bunch of money at this machine and limp along for a while? Or do i just put that money aside and buy a machine to replace it?
00:33:30
Curt
Right. Yeah.
00:33:30
jamie peacock
Because if we if we're planning on making the pe pallet systems in any meaningful quantity, I'm going to need a better lathe, preferably with live tools, so that I can take three of the components and make them single operation components.
00:33:31
Curt
yeah
00:33:47
jamie peacock
or very close to it. um Because right now the the landing pad is lathe, then mill, then grinder. That could go straight lathe grinder.
00:33:58
jamie peacock
um The gripper could be lathe and then one op on the mill, not lathe, mill, five ops on the mill.
00:34:08
jamie peacock
And then the diamond pins I would like to make in-house because they are the single most expensive item on that bill of materials.
00:34:08
Curt
Yeah.
00:34:09
Curt
Yeah, fair.
00:34:16
Curt
yeah
00:34:17
jamie peacock
Like, they cost more than the raw material for any of the other components. Like, they're silly expensive. So I would like to look at making those in-house, but I don't know that the Emco is going to manage holding that in hard turning, like holding those tolerances.
00:34:34
Curt
yeah fair
00:34:34
jamie peacock
So I'd rather, yeah I'd rather a new lathe do that. But you anyway, that' that's a problem for another day.
00:34:40
Curt
Well, yeah, and you'll know in the next few months here to see what kind of response you get and kind of scale from that.
00:34:41
jamie peacock
Like, exactly, like...
00:34:45
Curt
Yeah.
00:34:45
jamie peacock
Yeah, my plan is to to get these out at some point in the future, the samples, and then we're going to go and i' redesign the thing. Because why not?
00:34:55
Curt
that That V4 is so sexy. Like, if that comes to market, this the V3 is, I'm going bolt it to my bench.
00:34:58
jamie peacock
It is.
00:35:02
Curt
It's going to be my unloading spot, and I'll ah'll buy a gang of the fours.
00:35:05
jamie peacock
Oh, speaking of unloading spots. So speaking of the unloading spots, they're on my printables. there is a file for the the dry dock.
00:35:14
Curt
ah Yeah.
00:35:18
Curt
I saw that. Yeah.
00:35:18
jamie peacock
Because obviously naming, I got you, it's three pieces you print and I just, I two-way tape mine to my toolbox and that's my reload station.
00:35:18
Curt
That's cool. Of course.
00:35:26
jamie peacock
And the nice thing, where it locates is not the same set of surfaces that it locates in the pallet, in the system. So if you get a chip or something on your reloading station or you vigorously put it down, it doesn't ding the main critical surfaces.
00:35:36
Curt
Okay.
00:35:40
Curt
Ah.
00:35:44
Curt
That's smart.
00:35:44
jamie peacock
like a bit of A bit of thought went into this.
00:35:48
Curt
Yeah, no, that makes sense. It's like not you don't need a positionally perfect when you're loading parts into it, so that makes and makes sense.
00:35:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:35:51
jamie peacock
No, exactly. I want to machine them out of HTTP as well, but that's a later down the road problem.
00:35:54
Curt
That's intelligent.
00:35:58
jamie peacock
But yeah, i was chatting to to Justin and he pointed out that I should probably just put the Lang studs in and machine the OP2 using a Lang base. So now I want a Lang base to make my pallet systems.
00:36:11
jamie peacock
Because like the the thing is the whole stack up is like, I think it's 48 and a half millimeters and I can buy 50 mil material.
00:36:11
Curt
Yeah.
00:36:18
jamie peacock
So I don't have a lot of material to play with. So my plan is to, I was doing it the other way around.
00:36:22
Curt
Right. Nice. Yeah.
00:36:24
jamie peacock
And then Justin was like, hang on, you got these Lang studs. Why don't you machine that first, put it on an anchor point, put it in your anchor point system and machine the second side. So that's the plan. I've got, I'm waiting for rfq and then I can place the order um for material for two more of the V4 bodies and the pallets to make the V4 bodies.
00:36:35
Curt
nice
00:36:46
jamie peacock
And then I'm going to convert my one, my V3 into a v four Because that's the thing you can, mechanism-wise, it's identical. So in theory, I could send you a new body and you could transplant it if you really wanted.
00:36:59
Curt
I'll just buy new ones. see I'll support you.
00:37:00
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:37:01
Curt
i don't give fuck.
00:37:01
jamie peacock
Well, the thing they're also going to be super consistent on height.
00:37:01
Curt
I mean, I don't care.
00:37:07
jamie peacock
So they the drawing still going to have a comma one tolerance, but we're going to hold way tighter than that because now our tolerance will come from the grinding of the the pad and that will hold really tight.
00:37:07
Curt
Right.
00:37:07
Curt
Yeah. yeah
00:37:19
Curt
Hmm.
00:37:21
jamie peacock
So that will probably try and hold like a 10 micron tolerance on it.
00:37:21
Curt
Hmm.
00:37:24
jamie peacock
And then the bodies will be set to the lang plate when we get to that point. So I will end up buying a lang plate because if I've got to make lots of them,
00:37:35
jamie peacock
the anchor point isn't quite rigid enough for how I want to rough it.
00:37:39
Curt
Gotcha. Yeah.
00:37:41
jamie peacock
I want to evaporate that material. So we're going to see, it's going to be a good test because that's how I'm going to start.
00:37:43
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:46
jamie peacock
um The other reason i want to get a Lang plate is because then I get a 90 degree adapter for it. And I can put them on side with their studs and do the side hole because there's one side operation I need to do on the things because I internally ported everything.
00:38:02
Curt
Nice. Nice.
00:38:03
jamie peacock
Yeah, i got I got fancy. Like, it's got a little cur like O-ring that sits in a little curved groove. ah Yeah, um I'm pretty happy with the V4.
00:38:09
Curt
hey
00:38:11
jamie peacock
We'll see when I manufacture one, but I am pretty, pretty happy with that. Because with it being the Lang stud compatible, you could machine your and you could buy four of the units and just slap them all on on your own base plate.
00:38:25
jamie peacock
So you could machine a base plate in your machine perfectly flat and then just bolt four, well, you'd have to take it off to bolt them on, but bolt four units on.
00:38:25
Curt
right
00:38:33
jamie peacock
And there'll also be markings for internally um porting them.
00:38:39
Curt
Mm.
00:38:39
jamie peacock
So through your own methods, you could port them.
00:38:42
Curt
Nice.
00:38:42
jamie peacock
You wouldn't have to have a pipe sticking out.
00:38:43
Curt
That's sick.
00:38:46
Curt
Oh, that'd be cool.
00:38:46
jamie peacock
So yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of background stuff going on to get that all properly sorted out.
00:38:47
Curt
I like that idea. I like that idea.
00:38:54
Curt
Yeah, because I was kind of trying to debate that, too, because like I very much like like
00:38:55
jamie peacock
But I think it'll be...
00:39:00
Curt
The system will work for 90, it'll work for 100% of my production. But I'm like, I want to be able to wait, like a way to swap in
00:39:05
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:39:07
Curt
That's why I had you machine the bottom for a vice right now. Cause I'm like, I need vices for certain things, especially like prototyping.
00:39:09
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:39:12
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:39:12
Curt
i need vices, but yeah, having something where you can have your own plate machined where you could pop them off like repeatedly with all the pneumatics already in there.
00:39:18
jamie peacock
yeah Yeah, the...
00:39:19
Curt
That'd be sick. Cause then you could make attachments for vices and drop a vice in there if you need to, as opposed to having to have the stack up.
00:39:23
jamie peacock
Exactly. So the the porting there would get... yeah Like that's the thing. i want to It's now gotten lower as well. It's now shorter by... ah think it's shorter by like a half an inch, somewhere around there, because it's now 49 millimeters total stack apart as it sits on your table.
00:39:37
Curt
Mm.
00:39:41
Curt
Nice.
00:39:42
jamie peacock
So it's compared to 62 mils, that's, yeah, 13 mils. That's half an inch shorter, which I think and for guys with smaller machines, I think that's going to be critical that they're not losing half their travel to a pallet system.
00:39:54
Curt
Yeah.
00:39:58
jamie peacock
But yeah, the big issue now Yeah, for us, it's not an issue. We've got RoboDrill-style machines.
00:39:58
Curt
Yeah, I think for me and you, it's...
00:40:04
Curt
Yeah, way too much Z. Yeah.
00:40:05
jamie peacock
Yeah, way too much C.
00:40:06
Curt
Yeah.
00:40:07
jamie peacock
I mean, I've got an 80mm riser in my machine at all times so where my vases go.
00:40:11
Curt
Yeah.
00:40:12
jamie peacock
Otherwise, I can't chamfer my vase. Like, the bottom rails of my vase, I can't hit them with my standard chamfer tool. So, ah yeah, ran into that a few times.
00:40:19
Curt
Yep.
00:40:21
jamie peacock
Now everything's just lifted, and that's fine. Like, I mean, even my anchor points on, I think, a 60 or 70mm riser.
00:40:30
jamie peacock
so that it's at a not stupid height.
00:40:34
Curt
Yeah, that's why all my tools are 100 mil gauge length because yeah I can just reach.
00:40:34
jamie peacock
But yeah, that's exactly.
00:40:38
Curt
Like I'm doing all my machining at like 95% of machine travel because it's just like right at the bottom.
00:40:44
jamie peacock
So like now when I buy more tool holders, I buy the 100 millimeter ones, especially for the smaller tools. Like for the four millimeter and smaller, everything's in 100 millimeter lengths.
00:40:50
Curt
Yeah.
00:40:53
jamie peacock
And then I've got some 60s and 70s that I have my bigger tools in because I want those closer to the bearings.
00:40:59
Curt
Of course, yeah.
00:41:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, but yeah i mean, it's amazing what what these little machines can do. I mean, I'm running, was running stuff today. 10 millimeter rougher is nearing end of life.
00:41:12
jamie peacock
Having removed 200, 250 kilograms of material, I think it's it deserves a break.
00:41:18
Curt
That's nuts.
00:41:18
jamie peacock
The one tip of the flute is gone.
00:41:19
Curt
That's nuts.
00:41:23
jamie peacock
ah It's now a two and a half flute.
00:41:24
Curt
ah
00:41:26
jamie peacock
Still works and they're expensive. So not replacing it if I don't have to. Like, yeah, that thing's done some serious material removal. Like, a shitload of material removal.
00:41:37
Curt
That's awesome. so
00:41:38
jamie peacock
Did 100 kilos in four days.
00:41:42
Curt
That's awesome.
00:41:42
jamie peacock
But yeah, and then I was machining tufnel today. Your favorite kind of material? Dusty as hell.
00:41:49
Curt
No, ah pass. Pass.
00:41:51
jamie peacock
I've actually, so, I'm busy in the process of designing and coating with but these guys to do big tufnel parts, like,
00:41:51
Curt
Unsubscribe.
00:42:00
jamie peacock
680 millimeters long by like 300 mil blocks in the LK.
00:42:03
Curt
Ooh. Ooh.
00:42:05
jamie peacock
Because I have a coolant vacuum, I run with coolant, and I filter it afterwards.
00:42:08
Curt
Yeah.
00:42:11
Curt
I guess, yeah.
00:42:12
jamie peacock
I literally, on this job, I will probably, yeah, I'm not going to be gentle, let's put it that way.
00:42:13
Curt
Yeah.
00:42:19
jamie peacock
They want me to put this in my machine? Gentle is not the word that is going to be used to describe my pricing on this. I'm going to rip the fucking ring because... Basically, it's it should be ongoing production work as well.
00:42:32
jamie peacock
And if that's the case, I want to buy another machine in a very short time span because the LK is going to get chewed out by that stuff.
00:42:41
Curt
Yeah, well, I mean, if it pays for it, then go nuts, but...
00:42:42
jamie peacock
No. Well, that's the thing. I was chatting to and a customer here today. Yeah. They've got a ah little sensor that has resettable fuses in it.
00:42:56
jamie peacock
They don't obviously only reset a certain number of times. And they've got like a thousand of these units that are now bricked. So they were heating up and picking at it with a screwdriver to get to these components that are potted in, desoldering and soldering in new ones.
00:43:04
Curt
Hmm.
00:43:09
Curt
Hmm.
00:43:10
jamie peacock
And they're like, could we possibly machine this? I'm like, bring me samples. Come stand with me for an hour. Let's dial this process in. So dialed it in for them today. 27 seconds. Pocket machined.
00:43:21
jamie peacock
So machined down to above the other components.
00:43:22
Curt
Oh, nice.
00:43:24
jamie peacock
And then a little pocket to the components they want to replace. And half the component machined off as well. And then they just heat it up, pick at it, resolder the things that they've got a workflow that doesn't take them 45 minutes of picking at the the potting compound.
00:43:30
Curt
Oh, nice.
00:43:39
Curt
Oh, that works out then.
00:43:39
jamie peacock
Yeah. So, and then, yeah, they'll bring up 500 of those. Obviously not going to charge a lot for them because it's 20 seconds of machining. But yeah, then I make my wife stand there and load them.
00:43:49
jamie peacock
It's the best. The bar loader, or in this case, the sensor loader.
00:43:49
Curt
Huh.
00:43:55
jamie peacock
Put her to work.
00:43:56
Curt
nice
00:43:56
jamie peacock
But yeah I'm um busy mulling over how I'm going to do the bar pusher on the Emco because that can also work on Bertha. Similar, similar setup. But I'm thinking it's going to end up just being... want to rearrange the workshop a bit, so I've got a shelf that needs to get yeeted, and I can slide the Emco into the workshop more.
00:44:17
jamie peacock
And then I can run thee ball the bar pusher with permanently in place. Because I'd like to just have nice sheet metal bracket made, and then have it bolt on top there that I can adjust and tram it in, and it just lives there permanently.
00:44:30
jamie peacock
Like...
00:44:31
Curt
why Why don't you...
00:44:32
Curt
Because you can pull with all those machines. Why are you not pulling? like Why are you building a pusher?
00:44:36
jamie peacock
I can't... Pulling with the Emco is a bit tricky.
00:44:41
Curt
Okay.
00:44:42
jamie peacock
um The Emco, if you use DCMT-11, insert so it's a slightly bigger dcmt insert the tip of the insert is inside the turret if you want to if you want to index the turret like the back clearance is like maybe maybe 25 millimeters it's super super tight on the back side like silly tight like there's actually scratches in the sheet metal from the previous owner
00:44:51
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:06
Curt
OK.
00:45:11
Curt
OK.
00:45:14
jamie peacock
where they had something sticking out a little bit too far, it is insanely close. So I could probably build a puller, but like bar pushers.
00:45:14
Curt
Oh, OK, I got it.
00:45:19
Curt
OK.
00:45:23
Curt
Fair enough, yeah.
00:45:25
jamie peacock
it wasn't in It wasn't ideal when the spindle took forever to turn on and off. Now that it's a servo, it's super quick. So it might be something to look into.
00:45:32
Curt
Yeah.
00:45:34
jamie peacock
You have a point, damn it. The only annoying thing is making the bar pusher or bar puller.
00:45:37
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:41
jamie peacock
Because the the way the Emco tools attach is a bit annoying to do. I think last time I ended up blazor cutting ah laser cutting some little angles so that I could set it at 30 degrees. Because it's not 45, it's freaking 30 degrees.
00:45:55
jamie peacock
the Because it's got it's flat then with just holes at an angle that pull it into the into the corner of the into the corner of the turret's um cutout.
00:45:55
Curt
ah
00:46:07
jamie peacock
But yeah, that might be a not-shit plan. I like that idea.
00:46:07
Curt
Right.
00:46:11
Curt
Or you could do like super hacky and just like use a parting tool and machine a groove into it. Like run a macro that just cuts ah you know, whatever, half-inch groove into something or, you know, and then just use ah like a little V piece of sheet metal or something to pull your part.
00:46:25
jamie peacock
Kurt, you very bad influence.
00:46:25
Curt
Different ways it skin to skin a cat.
00:46:27
jamie peacock
You are a very, very bad influence because I have a spot in the material that I could actually do that. the but Again, the problem is mounting it in the turret.
00:46:34
Curt
Hmm.
00:46:38
jamie peacock
So if going to have to go and make something to mount it, I've got a dead stop.
00:46:39
Curt
Right.
00:46:42
jamie peacock
I can just unbolt that and bolt in something else. it's It's a case of, in my mind, it's this huge ordeal.
00:46:45
Curt
Yeah.
00:46:49
jamie peacock
In reality, it's 10 minutes.
00:46:52
Curt
No, totally. Yeah, that's everything is.
00:46:53
jamie peacock
It's literally, ah if I put my mind to it, in 10 minutes i can build a I can program and be machining a bar pusher.
00:46:53
Curt
Yeah.
00:46:59
jamie peacock
But in my head, it's this massive task that is, yeah, that's why I haven't done it.
00:47:03
Curt
yeah
00:47:05
jamie peacock
Because it's this massive task when really isn't.
00:47:09
Curt
Yeah.
00:47:09
jamie peacock
But that tends to happen. Because, yeah, bar pulling is easy. Stop, pull, clamp, go.
00:47:16
Curt
Yeah. Especially you if you're turning it off or if you don't, don't care about the material, you burn a little bit of it, like whatever.
00:47:17
jamie peacock
It's actually...
00:47:21
jamie peacock
It's also a little bit more reliable than pushing because it's a 5C, so it pulls back. So if I've got it in something, it is going nowhere.
00:47:26
Curt
Yeah, no. Yeah.
00:47:29
jamie peacock
It'll be exact, and I can probably eek another part out of every bar.
00:47:30
Curt
Yeah.
00:47:35
Curt
yeah Yeah, I guess yeah you can pull right. like Even mine, has like it goes into the 5C when it pushes. But I still, I mean, my remnants are remnants.
00:47:40
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:42
Curt
They're tiny. They're like 4 and 3 inches. But still, it's like.
00:47:44
jamie peacock
I know, I have a lot long remnants because... I'm just trying think now. My average remnant length is probably 100 millimeters, 120 mils, depending on what material it is.
00:47:55
Curt
OK, that's sizable.
00:47:56
jamie peacock
Like it's decent. Yeah, decent, but then it gets put on a shelf usually or in a bucket. And then like i had a job come through and I literally ran the whole job out of remnants because I'm not going to set it up.
00:48:01
Curt
Yep.
00:48:06
Curt
yeah
00:48:08
jamie peacock
It's 20 parts. i'm not going to set it up to run automatically. So I as well use remnants.
00:48:12
Curt
No, totally.
00:48:13
jamie peacock
I actually had a job come in this week that I quoted.
00:48:13
Curt
and know I know how to.
00:48:16
jamie peacock
um The guys want 30 millimeter diameter washers, tapped M6. So I've got some old scrap material. I don't have any 30 mil bar stock. So I'm just going to manual chuck three or four parts at a time, turn the OD ah shampfa port schmfer po chamfer part, chamfer part, just set up two tools and just let it make blanks.
00:48:38
jamie peacock
And then they'll go into the LK and I'll thread mill the threads in there quickly.
00:48:39
Curt
Yeah.
00:48:43
Curt
Nice.
00:48:43
jamie peacock
not Yeah, i need to. Well, I told him like two and a half weeks lead time because I was going to laser cut the blanks. And then I was like, hey, wait, i have material.
00:48:52
jamie peacock
No.
00:48:52
Curt
I know.
00:48:52
Curt
Same thing. I keep all my off cuts and then either like a while ago, I said, him there's ah another pen maker. He's like, I want to play with titanium. i was like, well, have I got a deal for you? I'm like, pay for shipping. and I'll send you a box of titanium. So he was like, that's just so sweet.
00:49:01
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:49:02
Curt
He's like, now I can experiment. I exactly. It gets it out of my hair. and ah keep saving it for a rainy day, but I get a lot.
00:49:05
jamie peacock
Well, that's the thing. Yeah, well, I mean, I've got a couple mates who've got small lades, like hobby lades and things. And I'm like, come get material. you want PTFE? Do you want brass?
00:49:15
Curt
Right.
00:49:15
jamie peacock
Do you want mild steel? Do you want aluminium? Just come and take. Because if you don't take, it's going in the bin or to scrap.
00:49:19
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:22
Curt
Yeah.
00:49:22
jamie peacock
It's one of those things where, I mean, even the Torx bits I make, every, what's we cut it to a half meters. So every 500 mils, we get one part that we throw away is worth of material. But I'm not going to stand and load those one part at a time
00:49:34
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:49:37
jamie peacock
to save that the job is quoted at 30 parts per length of material. We could in theory get, what's it, we could get 36 parts out, but I'm not going to hand load those for the extra, for a effectively a minute apart, no.
00:49:48
Curt
Right.
00:49:54
jamie peacock
No, just throw it in the bin and get paid for the scrap. Like, yeah, automate everything.
00:49:59
Curt
Yeah. I don't even look into these when i was making these screws. I'm like, oh, I have all these little off cuts. That'd be perfect for screws. I could just like what load one in every minute, 30 seconds and come back. was like, now find another use for him.
00:50:11
Curt
I just put a brand new bar and it was like, it's cheaper, whatever.
00:50:12
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:50:14
Curt
I don't care.
00:50:14
jamie peacock
yeah
00:50:15
Curt
My time is more expensive than the material.
00:50:15
jamie peacock
you No, that's it. Like, if you don't have to stand at the machine and baby it, it's all the better.
00:50:21
Curt
Yeah.
00:50:21
jamie peacock
Like, I'm looking at automating stuff. Danica ran probably about half the parts that we ran out of Ali, but she ran it while I did other stuff, and then she had to go out, so I came and I stood by the machine, and, like, I was jumping around, and...
00:50:35
Curt
yeah
00:50:36
jamie peacock
pulling it manually for now because i didn't feel like well I didn't build a bar puller or a bar pusher yet so you just run them one at a time it's only 120 parts it's not not the end of the world but when that becomes 500 parts it becomes a thing like yeah high quantity things are really shitty to load one at a time
00:50:50
Curt
yeah
00:50:58
Curt
no totally yeah i'll wait i'll wait till my when my girls are older then they can have a they can have a job sit and load single parts into the lathe and make screws for dad
00:51:00
jamie peacock
like I'm uh I mean ah don't think I ordered material today
00:51:07
jamie peacock
Well, so my nephews came past yesterday and the the small one, he he's three. He must've been about two.
00:51:18
jamie peacock
He was on my hip. I went into the workshop. I was running something and he wanted to push buttons. So I loaded something up and I pushed the green button and then the machine starts running. So then he was in there a few months later and the machine was off. I'm going to push the button. He pushes the button and looks at the door to see if the machine's moving.
00:51:35
jamie peacock
He was so ecstatic. Danica was letting him, she was getting him to unclamp the spindle so she could pull the bar forward, clamp the spindle, and then hit pause so it'd run away and then hit start. This lot, he was so excited to make the machine run.
00:51:45
Curt
Cute.
00:51:50
Curt
Nice.
00:51:50
jamie peacock
Now, he was having the time of his life.
00:51:53
Curt
yeah
00:51:54
jamie peacock
Little does he know, I'm going conscript him and make him run thousands of parts for me.
00:51:54
Curt
That's so cute.
00:51:58
Curt
Yeah, you're just training, exactly.
00:52:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, exactly. He thinks it's fun, but it's training. No, and I mean, yeah, we churn out a lot of, well, Danica churns out a lot of pots. I get her set up and then the machines just run. She knows how check tolerances and I spec what the tolerances are and she keeps an eye on it.
00:52:15
jamie peacock
And if it starts drifting, I come and I tweak it.
00:52:16
Curt
That's awesome.
00:52:17
jamie peacock
like She was tweaking tolerances on some jobs at one point, but it's just easier if I do it. Like we're setting up tomorrow for a job that's, you can see if it goes out by comma one of a mil.
00:52:24
Curt
Sure, Thanks.
00:52:29
jamie peacock
You can see in the part that it's not right because it's different shape. yeah you It's clearly visible after like 20 parts. You can see if it's in or out of spec, but it's also got a wide open tolerance.
00:52:40
Curt
like
00:52:42
jamie peacock
So it's got like plus minus comma one. So I try and hold it in the middle within like, 20 to 50 microns. And usually we hold it there, like we'll run until insert chips and then we'll carry on running.
00:52:54
jamie peacock
And then it's super consistent so because it is 316.
00:52:56
Curt
Nice.
00:52:57
jamie peacock
So it's a bit of a bastard to work with. But yeah, we're going to run off a whole pile of those in the next few days.
00:53:02
Curt
Yeah, I know.
00:53:06
Curt
Yeah. Yeah,
00:53:08
jamie peacock
But yeah. And then, okay. Yeah. Let's get back to your things. You've got all the things and you've told us about none of them.
00:53:15
Curt
yeah I got a whole wackadoo with stuff.
00:53:15
jamie peacock
What is Canada's all the things?
00:53:19
Curt
Oh, that's just, uh, me basically moving every one of my, I mean, I've done a really good job at moving every one of my vendors to Canada just for reasons of I live here.
00:53:27
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:53:28
Curt
So I'm going to support everyone that I can. So over the last two, three years, I've just been like, oh, a material I get from, I mean, honestly, my material is probably made in a foundry overseas somewhere and then shipped to the U S and then I bet the ship U S comes to Canada.
00:53:30
jamie peacock
Sure.
00:53:38
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:53:40
Curt
Like Canada doesn't smelt their own titanium as far as I understand.
00:53:44
jamie peacock
No.
00:53:44
Curt
Um, think there's like two three facilities in the world that do that. Anyways, besides point, um I try to get everything I possibly can from Canada. And just lately, I've just, this has kind of pushed me even harder to just get everything I can from Canada.
00:53:56
Curt
So um yeah, I think I'm just waiting on a quote from a local spring manufacturer, actually local as in like I can throw a baseball and hit them.
00:53:57
jamie peacock
Sure.
00:54:04
Curt
um
00:54:05
jamie peacock
Oh, wow.
00:54:05
Curt
And I think they're going to, yeah, I think they're springs for my pens, which is cool. Cause then I can, I'm pretty sure they're going custom springs and I can then pick my own,
00:54:13
jamie peacock
You can then tweak it.
00:54:15
Curt
yeah i can get my own um spring weights so i can have a few different weights that people can can pick because people have asked like for heavier springs because i have a pretty light spring in my pen some people like them heavier so anyways yeah that'll be exciting so switched all that switched all my like stickers over to canadian companies um yeah just trying to move everything i possibly can because like i said there's so much weirdness in the world right now why not
00:54:19
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:54:24
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:54:33
jamie peacock
you know, no, 100%, like, i' I'm just thinking now about what I get locally, just, okay, I don't know where BMG get their stuff from, their O-rings and their balls and whatnot, um I don't actually know where the Dye Springs, I doubt they're made here,
00:54:48
Curt
Right.
00:54:52
jamie peacock
ah But all the aluminum is made in South Africa. Kuhleman refines it locally.
00:54:55
Curt
That's cool. Yeah.
00:54:58
jamie peacock
As far as I know, the K110 tool steel is also local. um Yeah, the screws are not.
00:55:03
Curt
That's cool.
00:55:04
jamie peacock
The screws are from England because I really like the fancy Accu screws.
00:55:08
jamie peacock
It's either England or China. I'd rather support England.
00:55:08
Curt
Yeah.
00:55:12
jamie peacock
no The packaging is like all local because it's locally manufactured. It's point of shipping around a cardboard box, especially when it's flat.
00:55:12
Curt
Yeah.
00:55:20
Curt
Yeah.
00:55:21
jamie peacock
So that's all local. yeah It's interesting to think about like where your where your stuff actually comes from.
00:55:25
Curt
No, no, no. Well, I'm like...
00:55:26
jamie peacock
Because generally I'm happy to put Made in RSA on anything I make because I'm proud that it's Made here.
00:55:32
Curt
Yeah, and likewise. I think everybody's proud of wherever they're from, you're proud of it. and like I mean, I get my screws right now from Thai Connector in the US and theyre they make fantastic screws.
00:55:36
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:55:40
Curt
like I have no shade to throw against them. They're doing crazy good quality for the price.
00:55:42
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:44
Curt
But like if I can make myself and or make it in Canada, like that's I don't know, it's just cool. It's cool to be able to do that, so...
00:55:49
jamie peacock
yeah no definitely well yeah
00:55:50
Curt
I think the only things I don't make are the refills. Those are made in Germany and the O-rings. The O-rings I'm pretty sure are sourced from um imagining. I mean, they're US, but they're they're probably not made in the US, I doubt.
00:55:59
jamie peacock
somewhere yeah i doubt it yeah okay
00:56:02
Curt
Maybe they are, who knows? i don't have the origin certificate on those, but yeah. So yeah, been doing that and then see what else I got.
00:56:13
Curt
Oh, I ordered some of our sweaters from our our lovely web store.
00:56:16
jamie peacock
Yes. Thank you very much.
00:56:18
Curt
Yeah, they're, oh,
00:56:18
jamie peacock
Danica already liberated that from the PayPal account. Any orders that come through for shirts or for loan machiner stuff, it comes through, it goes, the we pay the fulfillment company.
00:56:22
Curt
That's sick.
00:56:30
jamie peacock
Whatever's left, she steals out of my PayPal account. So I don't go buy machines again.
00:56:33
Curt
Cool. like good for her but yeah they're they're actually i was thinking for the price i assume they'd be very thin like the sweater i'm wearing right now which is just like eyelid skin thin um because the price was pretty low so i'm like it's going to be really low quality but they're like it's a heavy knit cotton so they're way too freaking hot for me to wear so going take them to a ah seamstress and get a zipper put into them so that i can unzip them because i'm like i can't wear right now it's too way too hot so
00:56:37
jamie peacock
Yes. She's, yeah.
00:56:44
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:50
jamie peacock
Oh, okay.
00:56:56
jamie peacock
Okay, yeah, because... Nice. Yeah. Yeah, i'm getting I'm getting some new shirts this week. um And thank you to everybody who's been listening and has been buying shirts. It's greatly appreciated. I hope that you are enjoying them.
00:57:12
jamie peacock
um Ash from... We met him at IMTS, Ash from Australia. He ordered two shirts this morning. So...
00:57:18
Curt
Nice. Oh, that's awesome.
00:57:19
jamie peacock
sent him a message to thank you. I thought I'd give him a shout out because I know he also listens because he was saying he's really enjoying the podcast. Yeah. So if you do want to support the podcast, you can pick up some of the podcast merch off of our online store at jspeceng.com or there's a link on the loanmachinists.com website.
00:57:37
jamie peacock
And then there's also a line of shirts that Danica has put up there for machinists. And there's some new ones coming. I've got some fancy shirts in the works. We try to we can't get the vinyl we normally use or the new vinyl she wants to use.
00:57:51
jamie peacock
So I'm waiting for them to get stock so I can get new t-shirts for work because mine are getting a bit threadbare.
00:57:56
Curt
ah
00:57:57
jamie peacock
No, yeah. I mean, the ones I'm wearing now are from IMTS. So they're definitely getting threadbare at this point.
00:58:04
Curt
yeah well some are coming here i'm gonna have to
00:58:04
jamie peacock
But yeah, I'm glad to hear that the... I'm glad to hear the quality is good on the on the hoodies.
00:58:11
Curt
yeah i think they actually i think they skew it to wherever your uh country of origin is because i mean yeah like mine shipped from canada
00:58:12
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:58:16
jamie peacock
ah Yes. So yours was fulfilled by, I thought it was fulfilled in Southern California when our tractors.
00:58:28
Curt
Nope. it' set It said it came from Canada, so I don't know.
00:58:29
jamie peacock
No?
Innovative Part Processing Methods
00:58:31
Curt
Anyways.
00:58:31
jamie peacock
Oh, okay. Because I know they've got fulfillment centers all over. So, and yeah, it's it's interesting to see how they're doing it. But yeah, it's one of the better, seems to be one of the better print on demand services.
00:58:44
jamie peacock
and with a really good turnaround time as well.
00:58:45
Curt
yeah I was impressed.
00:58:46
jamie peacock
Like I was quite, quite impressed with the turnaround, like, especially for one-offs.
00:58:47
Curt
No kidding.
00:58:51
jamie peacock
It's a bit, yeah, it's rather, rather good service.
00:58:53
Curt
Right. yeah exactly. Exactly.
00:58:56
jamie peacock
Oh God.
00:58:57
jamie peacock
No, sweet. And then I see you are bulk blasting.
00:58:57
Curt
yeah
00:59:01
Curt
yeah so for the longest time i mean you've you've probably seen it a million times on like instagram of guys just taking like uh essentially like a colander putting it in their blasting cabinet putting all their parts in there just aiming the nozzle at it rotating it and just blasting away so i only have
00:59:02
jamie peacock
I'm curious. Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:14
jamie peacock
Yeah, gimbal automation sell thing for that.
00:59:18
Curt
Right? Yeah. They have a nice version. And I never did it in the past because I'm like, oh, like the parts are going to ding against each other when they spin and it's going to change because my blast the blasting I use is not really like blasting. It's more of like peening, like shot peening.
00:59:29
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:59:29
Curt
It's not shot peening, but it's glass bead and it's very light pressure. So it's not not a very aggressive finish. Anyways, I have the one part I do, which is a slider. um I do that for my pens just because it functions better that way.
00:59:40
Curt
So I'm like, I'm to try it with this. I don't care if if all these get nuked, I can just make new ones. I don't care. Or I can just hand blast them all. So I made little um masking plugs that would screw into them, threw them all into a hydroponic net pot because I didn't have a colander, but I had a bunch of these little hydroponic.
00:59:52
jamie peacock
okay Yeah.
00:59:53
Curt
It's just like a pot with a billion little holes in it. And they're like a buck or two to buy. and ah threw threw them all in there, just hand held it and just blasted it and spun it, did them all perfectly.
01:00:04
Curt
So yeah, it was like, I did whatever, 30 parts in five minutes, as opposed to taking, you know a minute per part to hand do each one or two minutes, know, just like, yeah, I was, and they don't, they didn't scuff, like everything came out perfectly.
01:00:12
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:00:17
Curt
So I was super, super pleased with that. So I might build an automated system for that. Cause that's really the only part I blast can like consistently.
01:00:24
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:00:26
Curt
um kind of moving away from that for finishes. But for that specific part, nothing competes with that particular finish. So that's, yeah, that was a huge time saver.
01:00:34
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:00:37
jamie peacock
Yeah. Did you know that cable ties get tumbled in a tumbler? Like noticeably worn in a tumbler.
01:00:45
Curt
Oh, really?
01:00:46
jamie peacock
Yes. So back to the tumbling podcast.
01:00:48
Curt
i but I mean, I would assume, but yes.
01:00:49
jamie peacock
Okay. Um, so I, I used the Tumblr for what i actually built it for. So previously I was doing 20 parts at a time and that was taking about four hours per batch. ah did 120 parts at once in one hour.
01:01:08
jamie peacock
So I cable tied them all together.
01:01:09
Curt
Oh, nice.
01:01:10
jamie peacock
Uh, Cable ties, put a cable tie through the middle hole of everyone. So I bought cheap cable ties from the China shop, click it like three clicks and then throw it in the Tumblr. And then when I take them out, cut them right at the knobby.
01:01:25
jamie peacock
That way can reuse the the offcut.
01:01:25
Curt
Yeah.
01:01:27
jamie peacock
Those things took a beating in an hour.
01:01:28
Curt
Yep.
01:01:30
jamie peacock
I've got stuff in my dish in the kitchen now.
01:01:30
Curt
Oh, wow.
01:01:32
jamie peacock
I tumbled another hundred pots, bigger pots. Those went for about an hour and a half, but the pump is giving me shits on the the recirculating water system. So I need to figure out what the hell's going on there now. um But yeah, Tumblr does the thing and does it really well.
01:01:48
Curt
Oh, that's awesome.
01:01:48
jamie peacock
like ah My media is disappearing though. Like it is wearing away at a frighteningly fast pace.
01:01:56
Curt
Well, it makes sense for how aggressive everything is moving there. Like, huh.
01:02:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, I took this much material. I took probably just over an inch worth of clay out of the bottom of my ah water tank when I cleaned it out.
01:02:09
Curt
Holy smokes. Okay. That's pretty aggressive.
01:02:11
jamie peacock
I'm going to probably have to buy new media every two or three months.
01:02:13
Curt
Hmm.
01:02:14
jamie peacock
Like I am chowing through the media, something silly, but it does the job. Like these, these drone parts I'm busy with now are through. So my first setup part, I may, I ordered six pieces of material. I need to make four parts.
01:02:27
jamie peacock
So my first setup part did all the op ones set up for op two, put the parts in the wrong way. So like, okay, it's fine. Just let it machine finish that I can check clearances on tools and all that stuff.
01:02:38
jamie peacock
Okay. So then I took that, I threw that in the tumbler.
01:02:39
Curt
right
01:02:40
jamie peacock
It had some things I didn't like, so I changed the way i was doing my finishing. Second part came off, pretty happy, threw it in the tumbler, and then I machined the other four. And it's aggressive enough that it takes the tooling marks off, but not so aggressive that it rounds all the corners.
01:02:54
jamie peacock
Like, it runs really well with a few parts, but it does the job with 100 parts of it.
01:02:55
Curt
Right. Yeah.
01:03:03
Curt
Nice.
01:03:03
jamie peacock
And once's oh once again, Astro ah powder coating or knocking it straight out of the park. Dropped stuff on Friday morning. They don't run a shift on Friday. Got a phone call on Monday, middle of the day.
01:03:16
jamie peacock
ah We just want to confirm which is the front of your pot because we're racking them just on a wire. And we want to make sure there's there's a little line where the wire touches the pot. And they want to make sure that is on the backside of the pot.
01:03:28
jamie peacock
So I gave them instructions.
01:03:28
Curt
Oh, nice.
01:03:30
jamie peacock
That afternoon, here's your invoice. It's done. You can collect.
01:03:33
Curt
Sick.
01:03:33
jamie peacock
They did 150 parts in one day. Like their service is amazing.
01:03:40
Curt
Oh, that's awesome.
01:03:40
jamie peacock
Like I dropped off, I dropped off 800 parts there and I was ready two days later. Like they their, their service phenomenal.
01:03:45
Curt
Oh, that's cool.
01:03:48
jamie peacock
I can understand why um why my one customer uses them because their service is just top notch.
01:03:55
Curt
Yeah, it's that's nice finding companies like that.
01:03:55
jamie peacock
So I, Yeah. No, so I'm picking this stuff up tomorrow. Then it's going to get put on the laser to engrave 60 parts that Annika is not going to enjoy, but I won't tell her she's doing it until then.
01:04:08
jamie peacock
um The nice thing there is the laser takes a minute and a half. So it gives you enough time to actually assemble the the rest of the assembly while the part's lasering.
01:04:19
jamie peacock
So as it goes, you can just assemble and stack the parts. It's kind of nice.
01:04:24
jamie peacock
But that I want to also want to get that out this week.
01:04:24
Curt
Oh, sick.
01:04:25
Curt
That's nice, yeah.
01:04:27
jamie peacock
I've got a meeting I've got to go to at that customer tomorrow for different projects. So I'll go and talk nicely and take them their punch. They wanted a punch to punch their pop rivets.
01:04:40
Curt
How so? like
01:04:40
jamie peacock
yeah your your face explained yeah Yeah, your face is great there.
01:04:41
Curt
Remove them? Wow.
01:04:44
jamie peacock
So it's on the diesel tank. So they they think the guys are unriveting the diesel sensor and softening fuel out and then re-riveting it back in.
01:04:57
jamie peacock
I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, okay, I know live in Africa, but come on. So they want to punch their company initials effectively.
01:04:57
Curt
Wow.
01:05:08
jamie peacock
when they're When the installing team installs the Poprovits, they want to basically punch initials into it so that they can go and look. And it's not going to be glaringly obvious that there's this giant thing on there.
01:05:20
jamie peacock
It's subtle. that just They know to look for it. And they can say, this was not these are not our Poprovits.
01:05:23
Curt
Yeah.
01:05:27
jamie peacock
So yeah, they think that might be why diesel's being stolen or how it's being stolen.
01:05:27
Curt
Yeah, that makes sense. that's ah That's a tedious way to go about it, but hey.
01:05:33
jamie peacock
Like, well, was chatting to them and they were saying, like a lot of their guys, they won't put diesel sensors on their fleet. so They'll put cameras or something else. And then they'll catch someone stealing diesel.
01:05:45
jamie peacock
And then all of a sudden the entire fleet of trucks gets diesel sensors put on. Like, it's really weird because they've been super quiet on that front for the last four five months. And they're saying, no, they've done maybe 100 installs a month.
01:05:58
jamie peacock
They were doing 250, 300 before. So it's just that ebbs and flows, basically, is what the guy was trying to explain to me. And I'm like, I don't give a shit. My cash flow needs to not ebb and flow.
01:06:08
jamie peacock
Order stuff. Like, I don't really care.
01:06:10
Curt
ah
01:06:11
jamie peacock
Like, I've kind of grown to this point.
01:06:13
Curt
Well, you eat on an ebb and flow. but
01:06:15
jamie peacock
um i've grown I've grown to this point by relying kind of on their business, which is less than ideal.
01:06:22
Curt
Right, yeah.
01:06:22
jamie peacock
But yeah, we'll move away from that now. Now that we know it's a potential issue, we can move away from it.
Efficiency Improvements in Manufacturing
01:06:28
jamie peacock
That's also the point of spinning up the pallet system.
01:06:28
Curt
Yeah.
01:06:31
jamie peacock
This is just another another revenue
01:06:38
jamie peacock
stream.
01:06:38
Curt
No, yeah.
01:06:39
Curt
Yeah, no, diversify that 100%.
01:06:39
jamie peacock
Yeah, words are hard.
01:06:40
Curt
Yeah. Absolutely.
01:06:40
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's it.
01:06:41
Curt
yeah
01:06:41
jamie peacock
like Maximum diversification.
01:06:44
Curt
absolutely
01:06:44
jamie peacock
And I think yeah ah everyone I've spoken to seems to think the pallet system's got some serious potential, so... we will see how much potential it has.
01:06:52
Curt
Yeah.
01:06:53
jamie peacock
Because my um our plan is to to do a batch of like 10 for the first batch. And then ah want to make them, have them ready and say, okay, cool. They are now for sale. Buy them when we ship them.
01:07:03
Curt
Yeah.
01:07:04
jamie peacock
Like that.
01:07:05
Curt
Nice.
01:07:05
jamie peacock
But yeah, I don't want the but want't the additional stress of any other way of doing it.
01:07:10
Curt
Yep. I get that. I get that.
01:07:11
jamie peacock
Yeah. Because it does get a bit stressful.
01:07:16
Curt
No, no doubt. Well, we're, uh, go ahead.
01:07:17
jamie peacock
Yeah. when When is your next batch of pens coming out?
01:07:22
Curt
Uh, probably see what time is it now? Cause I spent about a week messing around after each batch. I try to spend like a week on like improving a process or doing something like in this case of fourth axis stuff, but we can talk about that next week.
01:07:32
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:07:34
Curt
Cause we're kind of running low on time.
01:07:35
jamie peacock
Uh, no, we've got plenty of time. I need to hear about that.
01:07:39
Curt
Oh, okay. So, um, the four, I want to move everything.
01:07:41
jamie peacock
Because it looks really sweet.
01:07:43
Curt
Thanks, man. I want move everything over from my...
01:07:45
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:07:46
Curt
Because the little Grizzly is still doing the 4th axis work. And the Isogrip pens, I like doing them, but they just suck up so much time on that machine.
01:07:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:07:53
Curt
it's all 1 16th bald nose finishing. And it's just...
01:07:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:07:56
Curt
I think each pen takes about 45 minutes of just finishing.
01:07:58
jamie peacock
How many RPM do you have on the coat?
01:07:59
Curt
Which is... 6,000, but I run it at 5,000 because she gets a little warm at 6.
01:08:00
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:04
Curt
5,000 on 16th tool is... He just... so five thousand and sixteenth tools e he just
01:08:10
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's slow.
01:08:13
Curt
Tool life is fantastic, but ah it's not exactly hustling. So the whole reason of buying this machine was to move around lot quicker.
01:08:17
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:20
Curt
But I have to find a way to hold on the fourth because the fourth is just a big table. But I did realize the inner of that fourth is ground um and it's pretty clean and, you know, concentric So I built a sleeve for it and I realized an R8 taper fit easily in there.
01:08:31
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:36
jamie peacock
Ooh.
01:08:36
Curt
So I built a sleeve with a matching taper um so that the R8 can pull against that sleeve.
01:08:40
jamie peacock
nice
01:08:41
Curt
And I want the sleeve a little tighter in there. I might actually slit the sleeve so it expands with the taper, but that's a horse of a different color. how it's working right now. It should be okay. I want to test the run out, see how that is.
01:08:53
Curt
um And then, yeah, I built a little draw bar for the back of it. So I can just tighten a nut on the back of the tool. And that, um I think I talked about a couple weeks ago. I was concerned if it was two part, I would be squishing any kind of bearings that are in there, but this is one piece.
01:09:01
jamie peacock
yes oh nice okay
01:09:04
Curt
It's so the table casting goes through a tube and the tube just sticks in the back. It's got some screw bosses on it and it's just solid. So I can clamp the life out of it.
01:09:11
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:09:12
Curt
It's not going to hurt anything. Yeah.
01:09:13
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:09:14
Curt
yeah Just machined all that up, put the taper in there. i actually have to test the run out today. um But yeah, it holds 3.8 beautifully well. The one problem is I have to put some sort of a clamping stop on the front to keep the, like when you loosen the taper, it it binds in there tightly.
01:09:30
Curt
But when you loosen it, if you want to pop it out, it just pops the whole sleeve out with it.
01:09:30
jamie peacock
Yes, because it's alright. Yeah.
01:09:35
Curt
and And the taper stays clamped. So I have to find a ways to retain that sleeve.
01:09:37
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:09:39
Curt
But yeah, it works really good.
01:09:39
jamie peacock
No, that's not the end of the world.
01:09:39
Curt
And it should be rigid AF because
01:09:41
jamie peacock
Like that's just a, yeah.
01:09:42
Curt
yeah Yeah, it's couple little clamps onto the table.
01:09:43
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:09:45
Curt
be nothing. But yeah, it's it's right inside the table. So like you're not going to get more rigid than that.
01:09:48
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's, it's super compact.
01:09:49
Curt
so
01:09:51
jamie peacock
Yeah, I thought it was a 5C now that you say R8, I'm like, oh no, wait, you had a threaded rod in the end. Obviously it's R8.
01:09:56
Curt
Yeah, like 5C I wanted to go, but it's just a little too small to squeeze a 5C in there.
01:09:56
jamie peacock
Look.
01:10:00
Curt
So the last next call that I had was an R8. And I was like, hey, I wonder if that would fit.
01:10:02
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:10:03
Curt
And it just, yeah, fit loads of room. so And I only have to hold 3 8s is like the biggest bar I hold.
01:10:06
jamie peacock
Nice. Yeah.
01:10:08
Curt
So maybe half inch on the odd occasion.
01:10:09
jamie peacock
I'm assuming that R8 collage is kicking around from when you used to do turning on your mill.
01:10:17
Curt
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I had a whole set of R8 collets and got rid of a bunch of them, but just kept kind of the higher quality ones.
01:10:18
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:10:21
Curt
and I was like, hey, I can use this.
01:10:22
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:10:23
Curt
So, yeah.
01:10:24
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's convenient. No, it looks really, really sweet. I'm super keen to see how that how that goes together or how that comes together when you start engraving on there.
01:10:28
Curt
Yeah, thanks, man.
01:10:33
Curt
Yeah, it should work. i I've never done a i never did i've never done single point ah manual thread work, like ever, on any machine. I mean, I kind of did on my lathe.
01:10:40
jamie peacock
Oh, okay, yeah.
01:10:42
Curt
So I did them on, i because I machined the little drawbar on the manual lathe while doing other stuff.
01:10:45
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:10:47
Curt
But yeah, out well. was kind of fun. I've never, i've like I said, never actually done it, which is kind of cool.
01:10:50
jamie peacock
Oh, okay. No, I did internal threading on a hardened part, chasing a thread.
01:10:51
Curt
been doing this trade for a while.
01:11:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, so hard turning, yeah.
01:11:00
Curt
Oh, fun. Yeah.
01:11:02
jamie peacock
On not my own lane, on someone else's lane. Yeah, it was it was not fun. Eventually got it all set up that I could run backwards so I could thread out.
01:11:07
Curt
Could you least run the... I'd say, ah ze could you write least Yeah, could you at least run backwards?
01:11:10
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:11:11
Curt
Yeah.
01:11:14
jamie peacock
I can't actually remember if I was going backwards or forwards. I had a lightie holding a torch so I could see what I was doing. Because I'd made these pots and I made the tolerances nice and tight. They went for heat treats and they warped.
01:11:25
jamie peacock
And then they didn't fit anymore. So then I was like, no, I'll come and chase it at your workshop. Because I felt bad. Now I don't feel bad. If you don't give me a drawing, you get what you get.
01:11:33
Curt
Nice.
01:11:35
jamie peacock
Like, it went together when it left my workshop.
01:11:36
Curt
Yeah, no doubt.
01:11:38
jamie peacock
Not my problem that it doesn't go together now. Because otherwise you end up just breaking yourself, trying to solve other people's problems.
01:11:45
Curt
Yeah, no, I routinely do that.
01:11:46
jamie peacock
And that's...
01:11:47
Curt
So I try to avoid, I try to say no a lot more often now to everything.
01:11:51
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah, no, that' that's something i need to I need to be a bit more diligent on, is saying no to stupid shit.
01:11:54
Curt
But.
01:11:58
jamie peacock
But when cash flow takes a dip, you start taking on dumb things when you really, really shouldn't.
01:12:05
Curt
Yeah.
01:12:05
jamie peacock
But yeah, that's...
01:12:06
Curt
I mean, think the best lesson for me has just been like, is that calculate what I can make per day doing standard production and then look at that value.
01:12:11
jamie peacock
yeah
01:12:14
Curt
And and when I'm talking talking to somebody and they're like, hey could you do this? And I just look at that value. i'm like, are they going to pay me this? It's like not a chance in hell. Are they going to pay that? It's like, okay, well then you have to say no.
01:12:22
jamie peacock
well yeah conflict stupid but i can charge for it um
01:12:22
Curt
Say it politely. You don't say mean, but like, yeah, I got to think about what my time is worth. Yeah.
01:12:33
Curt
Except. Exactly. Mm-hmm.
01:12:36
jamie peacock
So no, no, I had a conversation with a guy today about a they sell bailers. So they obviously had packaging, bailing cardboard. the guy no, they've got one for doing chips. And he told me the price and I laughed at him because I will never, ever, ever, ever recoup that amount of money selling shavings. Like it's not where my main business is.
01:12:55
jamie peacock
um But we're discussing the pallet systems and I'm like, I'm manufacturing the pallet systems. I'm paying myself pretty much better than I normally charge with our local rates here. Um, to manufacture them and we're still making a profit on them. I it's ah can put my time into doing that I can put my time into doing some stupid thing.
01:13:15
jamie peacock
like no ah While we were at ProPack, got a call from one of my customers.
01:13:16
Curt
Right.
01:13:18
jamie peacock
He's like, hey, can you please quote me on eight of these things? but It's a part we've made for them a bunch of times. so It's a, want to say 14-minute cycle. And seven minutes of that is a stupid fillet.
01:13:32
jamie peacock
So i bought a corner radiusing tool last time I did a tooling order. haven't The order hasn't come around again. Order came around today. Eight of each, please. Now I have the corner radiusing tool. I can cut six minutes out of that cycle on every single part.
01:13:44
jamie peacock
Price is still the same.
01:13:44
Curt
Nice. Yeah, of course.
01:13:45
jamie peacock
And now I'm actually ordering material that's the correct size, not 20 millimeters bigger.
01:13:46
Curt
Yeah.
01:13:50
jamie peacock
i don't know why I had so so much bigger material.
01:13:51
Curt
Mm.
01:13:53
jamie peacock
Like, it was really stupid. um And yeah, so now we're going to just chop cycle time on those and offer them a better product at the same price. Like, I'm actually going to serialize them now because it's two parts that go together with dog bones.
01:14:07
jamie peacock
And I want to serialize each one that if the guys do take it apart,
01:14:08
Curt
Mm.
01:14:11
jamie peacock
I know that if they put all the ones from the same serial number together, it'll go back together because I do adjust the size on the dog bones and stuff every now and again.
01:14:16
Curt
Yeah.
01:14:19
jamie peacock
And I don't want it to be a problem when they're on the mine.
01:14:20
Curt
Yep.
01:14:23
Curt
Yeah, no, fair enough.
01:14:24
jamie peacock
But like Danik and I were sitting and it's, I quoted that and then I quoted idiot sticks because the guy sold a bunch of idiot sticks. So they need me to make more. And she was saying, you do realize sitting at the door, like we're literally having lunch at the show today when when I did these quotes quickly.
01:14:38
jamie peacock
She's like, you do realize you've just quoted more than she used to earn in a month. And I'm like, yeah. And the best part is that whole job is a one day job. I can turn all that work out in one day.
01:14:47
Curt
Yeah. That's awesome.
01:14:49
jamie peacock
Let's just yeah charge appropriately and you can afford to live comfortably. But yeah charging appropriately is not always an option here.
01:14:57
Curt
Yeah.
01:15:01
Curt
Yeah. No, I, yeah.
01:15:02
jamie peacock
know That's the problem with job shop work is you sometimes end up racing to the bottom.
01:15:07
Curt
I get it. Yeah. Well, like said, it depends on your economy and your climate and everything.
01:15:08
jamie peacock
And yeah, that's
01:15:10
Curt
So yeah, I, I get that.
01:15:11
jamie peacock
what it depends on what the customer can tolerate.
01:15:15
Curt
Right. Yeah.
01:15:15
jamie peacock
The trick is to find out exactly how much they can tolerate and go in just a little under that.
01:15:20
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
01:15:21
jamie peacock
and
01:15:21
Curt
Yeah. Fair.
01:15:22
jamie peacock
maximize profits. But yeah, unfortunately you can't always do that. Like I was saying to someone today, I'm directly competing with China on a bunch of the components I make.
01:15:31
Curt
Right. Yeah.
01:15:31
jamie peacock
And I'm putting China, like China can suck doll. I'm fucking undercutting them hard. Like the guys literally, i was like, what are you paying for these?
01:15:37
Curt
Yeah.
01:15:39
jamie peacock
$5. five dollars Cool. I'll make it for $5 and you can have it next week.
01:15:44
Curt
Right. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah.
01:15:46
jamie peacock
Like, and I'll put your logo on it for you.
01:15:46
Curt
Why not? Like,
01:15:49
jamie peacock
ah
01:15:50
Curt
Yeah.
01:15:50
jamie peacock
And i still, not I'm running at a good shop rate and I'm undercutting China. But that's because we do things really, really efficiently.
01:15:56
Curt
yeah
01:15:59
jamie peacock
That's only reason we can actually get away with that.
01:16:03
Curt
Yeah, well, that's the best way for companies to like succeed is like all these companies. it's like you don't You don't have to raise your prices, just like make it more efficiently.
01:16:11
jamie peacock
Get better.
01:16:12
Curt
there's so many things yeah There's so many things that are just made so poorly.
01:16:13
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:16:15
Curt
they' just like you could You could do this so much better and you wouldn't have to. you know like Yeah, that's a deep topic.
01:16:21
jamie peacock
No, that's it. Like now, even these these drone bits that I'm busy making, I made a fixture that goes in my vase.
01:16:22
Curt
but
01:16:27
jamie peacock
It's a bit of a, not the best setup, but I didn't want to commit a pallet. When they place a production order, then I'll run four to time on a pallet.
01:16:35
Curt
Right. Yeah.
01:16:35
jamie peacock
No problem. But for now, hey, they're placing order for four sample pieces.
01:16:37
Curt
Yeah.
01:16:39
jamie peacock
I'm not committing a pallet. Although a pallet is all of $5 worth of material. It's more just like brain power and principle that I don't want to do it. Like I sat this morning with John and spoke spoke to him for like an hour and a half while I programmed this job because I went to try run it yesterday.
01:16:48
Curt
Yeah, no doubt.
01:16:55
jamie peacock
Took one look at this thing, June. Nope, not happening. It's got, I think it's got like 30 operations into machining this thing because I've got to step down in different sections because I'm trying to rough out.
01:17:03
Curt
Hmm.
01:17:06
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's an unpleasant part, but it's all resolved now.
01:17:09
Curt
Hmm.
01:17:13
jamie peacock
Okay. Yeah, it's at least it's at least programmed. Do you want to do some calls to action there?
01:17:13
Curt
Nice.
01:17:17
Curt
Sick. Yeah, for sure. will, uh, why don't, uh,
01:17:22
jamie peacock
And then we'll do the the googly thing.
Podcast Support and Equipment Updates
01:17:25
Curt
That sounds fantastic. So if you want to see my wares, confoundedmachine.com, there's a bajillion different links where you can find all the information your little heart would desire and theloanmachinistpodcast.com for all the information around this show. And thank you for the Patreons that are listening. We very much, very much appreciate your support.
01:17:45
Curt
Helps a ton. And i Jamie, do you want to want to tell people where they can find your wares?
01:17:50
jamie peacock
Yeah, first I'm going to shout out Jade from Benchmark20, our Patreon who's at the top tier and gets a shout out in the podcast. Thank you very much for your support.
01:17:59
Curt
Number one, number one, number one.
01:17:59
jamie peacock
But yeah, you guys can check out, yeah, number one.
01:18:02
Curt
but Yeah.
01:18:02
jamie peacock
ah Yeah, you can check out theloanemachinist.com. That's got links to our Patreon and our merch store. And that goes to supporting the podcast. And anything left over there is going to go towards us not staying in the south of Chicago for IMTS 2026, if the world still exists then.
01:18:18
jamie peacock
ah Yeah, to check out my stuff, you can check out jspeceng.com. We've got the Frame Lock Utility Knife on our web store, along with some entertaining shirts, machinist-related shirts like...
01:18:34
jamie peacock
I'm in a G84 till she am eights. It's one of my favorites.
01:18:37
Curt
Nice.
01:18:37
jamie peacock
um yeah There's a bunch there and those will be changing every four months. There'll be a new a new couple coming to coming to the store. So check out what's there. They're not going to be there forever.
01:18:48
jamie peacock
ah They'll leave and new ones will come in a few months time. So Kurt, what have you been Googling this week?
01:18:51
Curt
nice
01:18:56
Curt
Googling some non-machinist related stuff because this podcast is forcing me to, or it's giving me excuses to spend money on things that I probably shouldn't really spend money on. So bought like a,
01:19:09
Curt
preamp mic or preamplifier for microphone and then bought some nice like I've always wanted a pair of studio headphones like just flat response curve studio headphones and these ones are just the one I'm wearing right now they're torch like little ear pads on them are gone these are like 15 years old and little Sony's and ah yeah I see tape on yours too like we all yeah
01:19:16
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:19:27
jamie peacock
Mine's taped together. Yeah.
01:19:29
Curt
Yeah, ran them to death. So I found a pair of like fairly inexpensive studio headphones. And just for editing, like I'm always editing um audio.
01:19:35
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:19:36
Curt
it's just like I put one pair of headphones on, test it, put another pair of headphones on, put them on my speakers. Like was like, okay, i can either buy monitors, like speaker monitors, or I can buy a set of like studio headphones, which I can double dip for the podcast.
01:19:47
Curt
So yeah, just bought a set
01:19:48
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:19:49
Curt
bought set of those.
01:19:49
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:19:50
Curt
Didn't buy like what I wanted. don't think there's some Sennheiser like industry standard ones, um but they're like $600. So I was like, you know what? No, no, I'm going to go a little cheaper right now.
01:19:59
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's okay.
01:19:59
Curt
So,
01:20:01
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:20:01
Curt
Yeah. Between that and then just, yeah, some Airtable stuff, which I continue to love. I'm going to to try, I'm have to have get my whole shop template set up in Airtable, but with like dumb data and then upload it.
01:20:12
Curt
Cause it's so nice. Like I just had to get some information for whatever insurance purposes today. And I just, everything was there.
01:20:17
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:20:19
Curt
Like I have all my finances, all my, yeah, just super, super convenient. So that's kind of what's been in my Google search for the last little bit.
01:20:25
jamie peacock
and Okay.
01:20:27
Curt
How about you?
01:20:27
jamie peacock
Yeah, mine's interesting. I leave all my tabs open on my phone now. So every time i want to Google something, I just open a new tab. So I have the actual dimensions of a two by four because this little ruler is going to have ah making fun of two by four dimensions because two by fours are not two by four.
01:20:38
Curt
Nope.
01:20:46
jamie peacock
um
01:20:47
Curt
Nope.
01:20:48
jamie peacock
And then, yeah, what a raspberry plant looks like because Adam and there's a raspberry plant in my front yard. It isn't, but I'm going to go and literally buy one and plant because I told my mother-in-law it is and I was arguing with her.
01:20:58
jamie peacock
So I'm going to transplant it to a different plant just so I can be right. Um, yeah, then Lang base plates from our local guys, quarter 20 drill sizes, because I was tapping quarter 20 because I don't know, uh, camera equipment.
01:21:13
jamie peacock
Um, and then sausage patties. Cause I want to make, uh, like breakfast sausage patties because I really like them and I want to make my own. And then, yeah, Melanke Nanos because I had to set one up last night and I needed to disable mixing because by default it has mixing enabled and servo stretching had to be enabled.
01:21:21
Curt
Nice.
01:21:32
jamie peacock
So I had to find the manual for it quickly. Now, those things are silly, silly easy to use.
01:21:35
Curt
Nice.
01:21:38
jamie peacock
Like you literally put on channel five of your remote, a switch, and you power the Melanke on, wait five seconds, power your remote on, toggle the switch the number of times for the setting you want to change, the light flashes that number of times and the settings changed.
01:21:39
Curt
Huh.
01:21:43
Curt
Huh.
01:21:53
jamie peacock
That's it, done.
01:21:54
Curt
Oh, nice. Nice.
01:21:55
jamie peacock
It's super, super interestingly done. Like really, really good. I forgot to talk about Bekoff PLCs, but we can save that for next week once I've actually got pricing from them.
01:22:05
jamie peacock
Because apparently those aren't as expensive as I thought either. Today was a day of finding out the world isn't as expensive as I thought.
01:22:05
Curt
Yeah, that sounds good.
01:22:09
Curt
That's nice.
01:22:14
jamie peacock
Because yeah everything I see is in relation to um machining and machining stuff is not usually cheap.
01:22:14
Curt
That's almost a nice...
01:22:21
Curt
No. No.
01:22:22
jamie peacock
Like, even a cheap Lang base is like a couple hundred dollars.
01:22:28
Curt
Yeah, well, those tiny end mills I bought, you you'd think they'd be cheaper the smaller they get, but that's not how they work.
01:22:29
jamie peacock
And that's... yeah
01:22:35
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, it's the opposite of that. Yeah, no, like the small stuff gets really, really pricey really quickly.
01:22:36
Curt
They get more expensive.
01:22:38
Curt
Yeah.
01:22:41
jamie peacock
i must say the down to, oh yes, it's in banana mode. So like I keep, yeah, i keep on hand. No, that's, oh no, that was right.
01:22:52
jamie peacock
0,5. So I keep hand.
01:22:59
Curt
Okay.
01:23:00
jamie peacock
so twenty thousand almosts
01:23:00
Curt
The hell is a 19 thou? assume it's 19 thou.
01:23:03
jamie peacock
half a millimeter.
01:23:04
Curt
Two mil or something. Oh, half. Oh, half. the Yeah, other the way.
01:23:05
jamie peacock
No, half mil.
01:23:06
jamie peacock
Yeah. So 0.25 radius. um I keep those. I keep 0.5 radius, 1 mil radius, 2 mil radius, 3 mil radius, 1.5 mil radius.
01:23:06
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
01:23:16
jamie peacock
Like those I just keep in stock, four five of them, but they're cheap. That's the nice thing. um
01:23:22
Curt
Yeah.
01:23:23
jamie peacock
They are, I think with tax, $6 each, $6.50 each.
01:23:30
jamie peacock
So I just, I keep like three or four in the draw at all times that if I break one, I have a spare.
01:23:30
Curt
That's not bad, yeah.
01:23:31
Curt
That's cheap.
01:23:36
jamie peacock
Because that is something that is invaluable is having spare tools.
01:23:36
Curt
Yeah.
01:23:40
Curt
No doubt. Yeah. No, I try to run a pretty big plethora too because same thing.
01:23:41
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:23:44
Curt
they're They're cheap in comparison to the time you'd lose.
01:23:44
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:23:46
Curt
Like, yeah, it might be a $30, $40 tool, but like, okay, well, you're going to now lose two days because you have to wait for it to come in.
01:23:47
jamie peacock
That's exactly it.
01:23:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:23:52
Curt
It's like, oh, that's way more than $30, $40.
01:23:53
jamie peacock
No, exactly.
01:23:54
Curt
Yeah.
01:23:55
jamie peacock
Did I send you a picture or video of the Imperializer? It now does currency conversions as well.
01:24:02
Curt
I think you did. Yeah. Yeah.
01:24:03
jamie peacock
Yeah. Because then you can just change the conversion rate to be in Canadian rubles and you can convert to USD.
01:24:08
Curt
ah Nice.
01:24:10
jamie peacock
I'm going to still send you the code for this. It's super, super simple. ah I haven't got a set of key printouts for you, but that I can just email you that you can print and then cut it out and stick them under the keycaps.
01:24:15
Curt
Oh,
01:24:22
Curt
oh yeah. Yeah.
01:24:23
jamie peacock
ah sent The keycaps are on the box, but the printout isn't.
01:24:24
Curt
Oh,
01:24:26
jamie peacock
But anyway, we are now rambling.
01:24:27
Curt
I appreciate it.
01:24:28
jamie peacock
I think we're going to call it there.
01:24:30
jamie peacock
Thank you. Thank you everybody for listening. Please do the ah the like and subscribe things on YouTube, the review things on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
01:24:30
Curt
Sounds good.
01:24:41
jamie peacock
And yeah, we'll see you next week, maybe a day earlier if all goes to plan.
01:24:47
Curt
That's the goal. That's the goal. Take care all.
01:24:49
jamie peacock
There we go.