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#280 - Part of a Journey is Coming to an End
235 Plays3 years ago
Topics:
- Saunders opens up about his 11- year CNC companion - Grimsmo takes on more duties while Angelo attends CMM Training - Eumachs Sold! Avid CNC Router to cut foam for GK - SMW Training begins July 19th - Renishaw Probe Repair & Settings - Willemin/WileMILL Probe Issues & 3D Printed Key Bracket - HDPE Plastic Warp: Will annealing solve the lakes/hills? - Rust Prevention: Looking for Input!
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 280
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the Business of Machining episode number 280. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmill. This podcast is the story of our journey.
Emotional Farewell to Judd
00:00:11
Speaker
And I'm having a really tough time today because part of my journey is coming to an end. And I'm really sorry for
00:00:22
Speaker
kind of having a hard time putting it together, but it's okay. It's just my dog. It's not just your dog. It's your family. It's yeah.
Journey to Machining and Judd's Role
00:00:33
Speaker
So Judd is 11 and he, you know, I,
00:00:40
Speaker
wanted so much to get into manufacturing and machining. I knew it was my life's calling. I will never forget the warm memories and fond memories of being in New York City and trying to develop this rifle target and buying the tag and realizing
00:00:58
Speaker
There's Bobcat cam and sheet cam and a Libre and end mills and high-speed steel junk from China and two-inch manual probe light gauge block setters. And I just found this energy that continues to this day in my life.
00:01:16
Speaker
If I've embellished a few stories over my life, forgive me, but one that's not an embellished story is I convinced my wife to leave New York City and move to the suburbs to buy a Tormach because I knew that that was the step that I needed to take to get the RA interchangeable TTS tooling and to me at the time an incredibly capable machine that can help us make these prototypes.
00:01:39
Speaker
And she agreed. And it's hard to explain how weird that was because no one moves out of Manhattan into the suburbs until you have a kid. You just don't like we were meeting people in the suburbs and they're like, where's your kid? And I'm like, oh, no, I just moved out here to get a basement and a vehicle so I could drive around and get materials and start a machine shop in my basement.
How Saunders Met Judd
00:02:00
Speaker
You're darn right.
00:02:03
Speaker
The way I actually found Judd was there's a Beretta store on Madison Avenue in New York City. Now, this is like super high brow, fufui store, like super high end clothing and stuff. But they also have a legit collection of Beretta firearms and shotguns and the portfolio of companies that Beretta owns, including Sako and Tika and those others now. And so I was just poking around the store one day.
00:02:28
Speaker
It's fun because it's just not something you would expect to find in actually technically is the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but like right there smack dab in the middle of New York City with, you know, all these firearms on it. And so the fellow who was working the gun store level of this brownstone was named Andrew and we kind of hit it off and I've gone back a couple more times and got to talking about how I've always grew up with dogs and really thinking about getting one now that we lived in the burbs and fast forward.
00:02:55
Speaker
He is the owner of Judd's biological father. The dog was named Yoshi. And so when Andrew said that they were having a litter, Yvonne and I were really interested and we ended up getting Judd.
Reflecting on Memories with Judd
00:03:10
Speaker
Although that's somewhat off topic, it's not because Judd has been there with me since the beginning. I spent thousands of hours in my basement in the suburbs and then
00:03:26
Speaker
traveling around and then moving back to Ohio. And for the first few years down on the farm, Judd came to work with me every single day. And it was so cold in that shot that we had a wood fire Peter thing. And he would wear his jackets. And we've been going through memories the last few days of he would put his hand, I would put a dog bed up on the bench
00:03:47
Speaker
table next to me and he would put his head over on top of my hand to stop me from using the mouse. There's a video of him watching a CAM simulation toolpath like moving his head back and forth.
00:03:59
Speaker
And my journey was a lonely one, not in a sympathetic way. But yes, now we have 10 employees in this big shop and all these machines. But from 2007 until 2017 or so, it was me. And maybe toward the end, one more person. And Judd was there by my side that whole time. And it wasn't until recent when Yvonne lost her job and was at home. And we were getting
00:04:22
Speaker
We never had an issue, thank God, but we had had some freight truck drivers and issues with Judd Veen at what is now a pretty active factory, if you will, like people on photographs. It got to the point where it was not as appropriate to have him here. At the time, it was the right call. Of course, now I have mixed emotions because as you're grieving and so forth, you think about
00:04:48
Speaker
I'm trying to be positive and think of the fond memories, but Judd was there for me. He was wonderful to our kids. He just was such a big part of my adult life in this journey.
Difficult Decisions About Judd's Health
00:04:58
Speaker
So he hasn't responded well to the medicine. I don't even remember. Did I mention that he's losing weight? Yeah. What's the situation right now?
00:05:07
Speaker
So he just turned 11 in April. And I remember joking the day turned 11. Like, man, I'm going to be a mess when Judd goes. Because he was fine. It was kind of one of those, like, rock on. And his dad's still alive. Vishals can live to 13, 14, for sure. And then, oh, six weeks ago, he started losing weight big time. We took him to the vet, got him on a steroid. He responded well. And then that tapered off. And then he lost the weight again after being off the steroid. We put him back on it.
00:05:37
Speaker
And he wasn't responding to it. And, you know, typical symptoms of not eating or not being able to keep it down and the runs, all that stuff. And then he got really bad over this, for us, holiday, long weekend, July 4th, really bad. And so yesterday, we recorded this on a Wednesday,
00:05:58
Speaker
We took them back into the vet and that was kind of the wake up call I needed to hear of the vet sort of saying, wonderful, wonderful vet with balancing compassion with reality. We needed to talk about a plan and when it's time and quality of life. And they gave us some really good kind of last ditch effort medicine and food. And that's when it really hit me.
00:06:24
Speaker
And I would be much, frankly, much more okay if he just passes. I kind of want him to, because that tells me that's the way it's going to be. But we otherwise have an appointment for Friday afternoon, and that's going to be really hard. Yeah. Man. So I'm sorry. Yeah. It's okay. Thanks. Yeah.
Judd's Impact and Interactions
00:06:50
Speaker
This is the other side of not only running a business but having a life that most people don't show. We want to put on a smile, good face all the time.
00:07:03
Speaker
So many of our the folks have followed our journey are so kind about Judd and he loved being at the training classes and at the open house he jumped up on my lap in the middle of this big speech where there's hundreds of people in the room and people would see him on the Instagram posts in the background and say hi and he made the New York Times like, you know, I'm so grateful for having such a wonderful dog.
00:07:43
Speaker
It's okay. Yeah. So thank you to everybody for being part of that journey and thank you and go hug your pets and loved ones and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I visited your shop two or three times, I think. So I got to meet Judd and hang out with him and play and he met our kids and it's just a wonderful, wonderful dog.
Cherished Memories of Judd
00:08:10
Speaker
Yeah, we couldn't find him right after we brought Jane home from the hospital. That's an exaggeration. We couldn't find it. We weren't sure where he was and he had crawled underneath the like five inch gap between the floor and the bottom of her crib and he had wedged himself underneath her crib.
00:08:28
Speaker
you know, which I have to assume is some mechanism of like protecting her. Yeah. And it's just one of those wonderful memories. And that's what part of that's what's been hard about this is this has been a major kind of pause the last 48 hours to kind of go back down memory and we're looking through old photos and the kids and I mean, just so many memories that are that are truly wonderful.
00:08:56
Speaker
So, and it's, you know, to be, oh, make a weird transition.
Leadership and Compassion
00:09:01
Speaker
It's a great memento to where we are right now, which is that, you know, I took yesterday afternoon off to spend time with Judd and, you know, we've got a great team and I really appreciate that. I really do.
00:09:17
Speaker
Yeah. Just to be candid, do I make, I feel, um, I have very mixed feelings about, um, my leadership because, you know, Vince just lost the dog and Vince is, I know how much they need to him. And, um, I want to, you know,
00:09:36
Speaker
There's some things I've actually found some old notes going through of, you know, kind of one on one out of life at very certain points in my life. I just saw them when I was looking through Judd stuff. And you know, one of the things is like trying to treat people as you would want to be treated. And I made me want to make sure I'm doing the same
00:09:55
Speaker
here and not, you know, it's, um, this is as personal thing as it gets losing your own dog. It's not something that other people, it's not a family member or a life like that, but, um, make sure I'm fair and kind to other people when they're going through it. Yep. Yep. And things affect people differently and it could, you know, a much smaller event could affect somebody even harder depending on, as a leader, you have to be as compassionate as possible. So, you know, what would I want in that situation?
00:10:24
Speaker
What does that person need to get through it?
Impact of Pets at Work
00:10:27
Speaker
How can I help?
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah. I'm, I'm trying to be that for you right now. And I don't know what to say. No, that's okay. But, um, yeah, it would be easier. It would, I would, I would love for him to pass away. I really would. I have a really, it's time. I have a really hard time, um, you know, deliberately taking him in and, and, and consoling him as they put him down. Um,
00:10:57
Speaker
But as a pet owner, that's something you've got to be doing. Everyone around, be the vet and some good friends have kind of confirmed, John, this is time. I just have this fear that if it's just a classic denial, if it's just like a GISU and you can power through it, he could have two years left. But he's not good. Yeah, he's not responding.
00:11:25
Speaker
How are you? Eric's dog here, Falcor, comes to work every day. Works in the front shop with Eric. We see him every day at the meetings. And been a big, huge part of Eric's life the past, since 2015. So it's seven years. So he's really seven, seven and a half years old. Had him since a puppy. And he's been having more seizures lately. And it's been going on for a couple of years, but it's been
00:11:53
Speaker
couple more frequently now, so Eric's really on top of it, but tough as well, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's been a big part of our journey. Personally, I'm not a dog person because I'm allergic. And as a kid growing up allergic to everything furry, you just kind of don't like animals. I hate to say it, but it's my truth, right? But being close to Falkor is
00:12:18
Speaker
It's been good. It's been a good experience. It is a great, wonderful dog. He's good with the kids. Super excited to see everybody all the time. I can see it. I see it in Eric. I see it in you. What an actual pet lover, pet owner. A bunch of the other guys here have pets, dogs as well. I get it. Even if I don't personally have that in my life, but I have children as well. I remember visiting you.
Machining Projects Update
00:12:45
Speaker
It would have been the last time because you were
00:12:47
Speaker
cramming, figuring out, I think I just started to lay out where the, is it a star? No, Tornos. Tornos, yeah. I was going to go and I was, you know, you were going to like move that table by the garage door in the old, this is obviously the old shop. And you're just like, wait, I'm here. This is insane. Like machines stacked on top of machines. And I think that was the first or only time I met Falkor and it seemed like a wonderful dog. And then I kind of took it because you guys are all crammed into the shop and you're allergic. Yeah.
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah, I was just used to being allergic and drippy and sniffly all the time. Here now that we have two buildings and Falkor lives in the front building and basically never comes to the back building, I don't have those allergies anymore. It's great. I still get to see them and Eric gets to see them every day. But as you said, there are issues with having a shop doc and a busy
00:13:32
Speaker
a busy shop. He's a trip hazard, literally, because he will park himself at your feet and you turn around and you trip, but both with the dangers of machine shop and flying dirty, dropping a blade and things like that, and delivery drivers. Anytime an Amazon driver comes, he goes nuts and tries to say hi.
00:13:52
Speaker
A lot of people, most of the vendors and visitors coming are totally dog people, but there's some that are terrified. Is that an issue that needs to be dealt with? I'm avoiding it at the moment. When it really started to hit me yesterday, Tuesday, I brought Judd into work and it was one last time to bring him in and I brought his bed back in and just wanted him to have that last memory.
00:14:20
Speaker
Judd used to, you know, when he was here every day, he would let himself, we would let him out to use the restroom and he would then walk across to FedEx, which had a motion sensor door and he would let himself into FedEx. And the woman that works there is so kind and she actually had kept treats for Judd and would love to him and loved, you know, it just was wonderful. But then it was also funny because sometimes I would have to be like, where's my dog? And I'd have to walk back over and retrieve him. And so I took him over yesterday and,
00:14:50
Speaker
had a good cry and she was all, what's wrong, what's happened. It's part of the grief and grieving process. Let's move on. All right. How are you? Excellent. Things are busy this week. Angelo is at the C&C training class or the CMM training class this week. Awesome. I'm getting short little texts. He's like, the first day he basically said,
00:15:17
Speaker
The lesson was, it's not a milling machine. Don't pretend it's a milling machine. It's a measuring machine. What's that mean? Don't smash into things. Imagine it has zero power because it's a touching device, not a speed thing. I don't know. That was a quick text. But also, he's learning a lot of the deeper ins and outs, like settings we need to optimize and change.
00:15:42
Speaker
Today's day three and then tomorrow's day four. I don't know if he's run it yet. I don't know. I'm only getting tiny little updates, but he seems to be enjoying it. He already said there's an advanced training class that's another three or four days for the harder stuff. He's like, we should probably take that. I'm feeling that already that we should do that, which is good to know.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, so that's cool. So I'm definitely feeling the lack of him being here. And so all his responsibilities are on my plate now. And on top of what I normally do, I'm feeling it. There's stuff not getting done. It's totally OK. But it's refreshing to me to be in the role that he is in and have to do a lot of the daily operations that he does. And it's eye-opening and adds a lot more respect to the role.
00:16:37
Speaker
now that I'm in it. That's good, but otherwise things are good. The guys put together our CNC router kit last night. I just saw the Instas on that. Remind me or what's the brief summary of that? The company is Avid CNC. It used to be cncrouterparts.com back in the day. It's a semi-prebuilt kit.
00:17:02
Speaker
I mean, I saw them unbox it at two o'clock and then I left for a meeting and I came back at four thirty and it was done. Oh, wow. And like not done, but like together in the picture I showed on Instagram, it's like it looks like a router.
Selling Equipment for Training
00:17:19
Speaker
And that made huge progress real fast, which is good. Mm hmm.
00:17:24
Speaker
Oh, that's going to do the foam instead of the... Instead of the U-MOCs. Thank you. Yeah. And I have an interested buyer from the podcast, I believe. Great. Guy in New Brunswick, Canada that totally wants both of them. He put his deposit down the other day.
00:17:45
Speaker
He's in. He's looking for a project I know. It's totally clear. I was like, look, you're going to have to electrical gremlin this thing because it's going to take a little work. We're using it. We're currently filming a video, like a walkthrough. When this happens, do that. When you have that error, restart it five times and it should be happy.
00:18:06
Speaker
Probably a good idea if you went through the entire machine and replaced every single capacitor you saw because some of them are worn out and it caused like VFD issues in the spindle. So we actually, because we have two machines, we took the spindle capacitors out of the one VFD and solder them into the one we're using and that solves the spindle problem. And the caps were like bulging a little bit and just getting old.
00:18:31
Speaker
Our guy Pierre was happy to do that and found that and solved that problem. That led him to believe these machines are 20 years old. They're 2002 machines. Maybe some of these gremlins are also bad caps or bad like some other thing in the electronics. If you want to take the time, the caps are not expensive, it might solve some issues right off the bat.
00:18:59
Speaker
Because there's a lot of random e-stops in the middle of nowhere. You're just machining and it just e-stops. And relatively simple problem to fix once you find it. And we have to put our energy elsewhere at the moment. So I'm happy to see them go. I don't want to dissuade the future buyer from anything. I think he'll have a really fun time with them. But for us, yeah, I'm happy.
00:19:26
Speaker
And it's a funny balance because the kind of campsite good guy rules of why we do what we do. It's like, hey, you're honest and fair and open about what the machines are and are not. But it's also, I'm going to give my best effort to show you a bunch of things. But then we're selling them because we're selling them. This is a partnership. Yeah, exactly.
00:19:50
Speaker
I want to get some of our thoughts on video so that I'm happy to do a little bit of text support over time just because we do have experience with them. If we can hit the ground running with this guy, then it'll be better. On that note, we also came to a realization
00:20:08
Speaker
with our training class that we might sell our VF2SS. And the reason is we're in the process of moving it next door and we will be using it for at least the first training class here in a couple of weeks.
00:20:25
Speaker
I kind of realized, OK, what's the take off, put on the have a vision hat of what this could really be. And what I realized is I want to offer world class training in a facility that's going to allow folks to do what we've already done, but just just a better facility with the right equipment and the curriculum, the teaching and the staff and all that. And so that means we're going to need
00:20:51
Speaker
You know vertical machine centers five axis machine centers turning centers to offer the various curriculum but rewind back to the constraints of real life my plan is to actually use five axis machines as verticals for the vertical classes believe i believe you can.
00:21:09
Speaker
On a UMC, I believe you can actually lock out on the control, the B and C axis so they don't even jog. And obviously if you're posting with the three axis posts, it won't do that. So we'll be able to, and we might even like put a fixture plate down on the training table. So it kind of looks a little bit more like a vertical, but from a real estate standpoint and a capital standpoint, having say two UMC 500s that could be used for the five axis classes as well as for the vertical three axis classes to me is a logical step with really no drawback. There isn't
00:21:38
Speaker
I mean, Haas, not a secret that Haas uses, they build their five access machines with various different parts out of the three extrovertible lineup. So it's kind of like, it's not like it's a totally different capability, rigidity, et cetera. So if anyone's listening who's interested, it's the 2017 VF2 SS that
00:21:58
Speaker
We use, to this day, daily. It's a similar thing. It doesn't happen. You mock the level gremlins by any means, but it's a five-year-old machine. It's going to be at the point where it's going to need some deferred maintenance or preventative maintenance, but we use it daily, and it's been a great machine.
Balancing Personal and Work Challenges
00:22:17
Speaker
My question is,
00:22:20
Speaker
You now basically have two businesses that you're creating. The training class will be its own business. It will have its own machines that are not really used for production. And then you've got your production company that runs machines all day long.
00:22:32
Speaker
So the VF2SS is getting sold. Is it getting replaced with another production machine? Or what's the reason? It's called an MB4000 horizontal. No, the one we already have. It might be a little bit stressful to pull it off of the Saunders line right now. And we could still use it next door, although that's far from ideal.
00:22:54
Speaker
Is it to free up some capital to inject into buying machines for the training classes? Yeah, basically, yes. I don't want to, I'm just conscious of where we're at and not getting over. For sure. Money is a very finite resource. Yeah.
00:23:12
Speaker
And the VF, the Akuma, I could go on with excuses. The first two tombstones, bringing those online, we crushed it. I mean, they were running parts and had been running parts, and that was the big focus. So that was all fine. The next few have kicked our butt, and that's some of my own fault with not being as focused on it. They actually, yesterday,
00:23:34
Speaker
I did cut the first set of soft jaws on the new DIY tombstone, which is working great so far. This is where I feel embarrassed, but I have to be honest. With Judd, I was in a head space where I was working, I was focused, but I just knew if I made a mistake, it would be stupid of me. Look, I can go program parts. I can do accounting, catch up stuff. Let me go do other stuff today, John. Don't beat yourself up over that.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, totally fine. There's times to step away and there's times to like, I just need to focus on a relatively simple work task to kind of keep my mind active, but not have a high risk of danger here. Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:18
Speaker
I mean, we've seen that too. As a leader, if someone of your staff is struggling with something, you have to maybe step in and be like, maybe now's not the time to do this dangerous operation. Step back, do something else. Go home. Yes.
00:24:34
Speaker
Which is totally true, and there's a there's truly a lot to be said for compassion I also want to make sure I have people in my life that at some point tell me hey John you got to get back up on the horse You know go go do you know I can't That's one one of the reasons that makes this personally tough is I wish you would just pass away because I don't really want to spend it's not appropriate to spend days or weeks in lingo like this and
00:24:59
Speaker
Anyway, so that's why kind of Friday's the deadline. Yeah. Back to the on topic. Speaking of hostos, super exciting. We talked about it last week. The Renaissance probe is fixed and is working nice with what eBay replacement parts.
00:25:17
Speaker
I did order the replacement glass, which should be arriving soon. They were only available from China, but we were able to confirm it works fine without the glass. I think the glass is on there if you turn the coolant on, which it's easy to test it without that risk. What had happened was some combination of
00:25:37
Speaker
us messing with it or the batteries dying or being replaced, reset too many of the Renishaw foam settings. And if you've ever looked through the, it comes with like a wire ring bound booklet or there's a PDF. It's totally doable, but it's like, you got to be focused to, you have to like preload the probe tip, hold it down as you put the batteries in to turn it on. And then it starts Morse coding you in these jets.
00:26:02
Speaker
colors that aren't as different looking as you'd like them to be. It's like orange, yellow, purple, green, red, and the pattern that those show tell you what mode you're in, and then you have to switch all these different modes. And so Patrick, our intern did an awesome job of looking at how some of the other ones were already set up and what the defaults should be. And what had happened last week when we recorded the podcast is he had updated one of the probe settings, and it
00:26:28
Speaker
made it better, but it still wasn't perfect. And that's why on the podcast, I was like, I don't know. And right when I came out of recording, he said we updated that last, I think it was the default timeout setting of like, do I stay on for some amount of time? Or do I allow the transmitter to turn me off? And as soon as he updated that, the probe is
00:26:47
Speaker
back to good and fun. That's fantastic. Yeah. I do remember doing those settings once, maybe twice on our Maury and it's like, yeah, blue, purple, red, green, orange, yellow. And yeah, it's a bit brutal. Um, actually I was just thinking about that on the Willemon probe because I turned the machine on yesterday and, um,
00:27:07
Speaker
I haven't really played with the probe yet, but I know it works. It turns on. When you type G65 P9832, it turns on and the 33 should turn it off. 33 wasn't turning it off. I don't know why. But that could be the same setting. Yeah, it could be. I don't know what turns it off, but it seems to turn off after about a minute or maybe when I hit reset. I don't know yet.
00:27:31
Speaker
That's literally the same behavior we were having. I would like to know the answer to this, so I know the behavior of the machine. Because 9833 did not turn it off like it does on the Maury. So I don't know. Yeah. Well, if you get stuck, I can have Patrick. You'll figure it out, but try that. Cool. How is the will?
Setting Up Willemon Machine Probe
00:27:51
Speaker
It needs the, what do you call it? Some sort of dynamic calibration. You put a tooling ball in the turning spindle up at an angle.
00:28:01
Speaker
I 3D printed a bracket to hold it up at that angle, and then you calibrate it. I got to do that, basically.
00:28:10
Speaker
And then I have to touch off the turning tools, which is kind of weird, but not going to be that hard once I just put the brain space to it. After that, I should be able to post and make a part. OK. I'm there. I've been there for a couple of weeks. I just haven't taken the time to play on the machine. But I said, yesterday, I got my new Mari tool. Do you even lay the brow t-shirt? And I was like, oh, I'm still wearing this all day, which means if I wear this t-shirt, I have to play on the Wilhelmin.
00:28:40
Speaker
So I did. Will a mill. The tooling, the calibration is like the machine won't function until it's satisfied that that's been met or is it more of a like, it's not going to make accurate parts. It's more of a fine tuning thing. Okay.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah, like lining on the turning tools, I can eyeball them and like turn a feature, but I really want them on center and understand what the XY, there's a spindle rotation value that has to be input so that your turning tool face is properly angled towards the part, which coincidentally is like degrees of rotation divided by 10.
00:29:20
Speaker
So it's like the value is like 9.1 or something, which is 91 degrees or something weird. And it took me a while to understand that, but now it makes sense. At the risk of opening a can of worms, are we converting it to inch? We are. Okay. I'm still waiting to hear back from Wilhelmin for the actual update package, but yeah, it'll be fine. Okay.
00:29:47
Speaker
And then the last thing was it came with the door interlock key, but it came with no bracket to mount that key onto the door. So at the previous shop, they probably just ran it without and reach up. But you have to actually activate the key often to use the machine. So while you can keep it in your pocket or hanging on the door or whatever, it's not safe, obviously.
00:30:14
Speaker
to run the machine well like you want it attached to the door because the machine just needs that. It needs your input often to open the door and close things like that. So anyway, Williman sent me a CAD file for the sheet metal bracket that they typically make. So I 3D printed it just for fun. And it was not right. So Pierre hacked it with a hacksaw and drilled another hole or whatever and made it work.
00:30:41
Speaker
And then last night I took that home and I took it to my computer and modified my model to do what it needs to be. Made it thicker, made it stronger, put a big gusset on the back. Now that I know what needs to be right, like what it needs to function properly. So I 3D printed that light last night on my Voron and looks really good this morning. Brought it in. Pierre's going to put it in right now. Should be mint. The holes are in the sheet metal for this bracket, I assume. Yes. Yeah, they're thread holes. The bracket's just missing. Exactly.
00:31:11
Speaker
I was going to laugh if you said that you put the 3D, the hacked up solid version in the Zeiss. It's a reverse cloud point. Reverse engineer it, yeah. I have played with the Zeiss a little bit more. I'm sort of at this weird crux because Ancel is learning it properly and I could play with it and poke my head at it, but I have other things to do. Maybe I should just wait.
00:31:39
Speaker
But I've used it to measure some bores and some diameters just to have a way to measure. I don't have a caliper that can measure a five and a half inch.
00:31:48
Speaker
circle or an OD because the caliper won't reach around that throat. I put this vice palette, shunk palette on the CMM, scanned around the outside and I'm like, oh, cool. Yeah. Okay. That's awesome. I have two features. One fits into the other and I wanted to see what their factory or chunks factory tolerance is on this slip fit and it's about five-tenths. I was like, oh, that's cool.
00:32:17
Speaker
That's great. That's good to know. Sure. That's what I love about the CMM is that you don't have the whim of hand measurement, where you're locating a hand measuring tool, how much force you're applying.
Ensuring CMM Measurement Accuracy
00:32:29
Speaker
It's going to be unbelievably consistent in the parts not being held or moved. It's really cool. There is some consideration to how the part is held on the table.
00:32:40
Speaker
I'm looking at the part, I'm like, is that heavy enough to not move when it gets scanned? Probably. But maybe I should just put a little clamp to make sure it doesn't. Yeah, right. Oh, yeah. Does it? I can't imagine that that would be an easy thing to put an intense indicator on it and watch the needle. Yeah. There's a spec for the gram weight setting of how much force it puts into the head, whatever. And it's almost nothing, but it's still something. And since you're measuring tents here, you like you want it to be accurate.
00:33:10
Speaker
I was being lazy when we were playing with that Renishaw probe so often to figure out what was going on. And we actually had a broken tip in our probe drawer that we had kept for this exact reason. So I super glued the broken shaft with the Ruby onto a broken base. And it was, of course, way out of line, but it didn't matter. Because I was like, if I'm going to be playing with a potentially damaged Renishaw probe body, I don't want to roll in another tip.
00:33:33
Speaker
And so I was just laying the ring gauge, which weighs a fair amount. I mean, maybe it weighs half a pound, but I was just laying it down to the table instead of clamping it down. Because when I had to calibrate the problem, I don't care about the values right now. It was fine. But still, those are one of the considerations. I've got smaller ring gauges that probably aren't going to move, but they might. A tenth is not much when it comes to a shift.
00:33:56
Speaker
The one that came with the current has three little magnets glued to the bottom of it. There you go. Which is pretty sweet. It's pretty smart. I'll just say that that, or I know Tom Whipton had talked about this, which gives me the comfort of kind of blessing here of using hot glue on surface plates to temporarily
Probing and Calibration Strategies
00:34:13
Speaker
hold things. And it does a good job of holding things. Granted, it's obviously going to have a thermal component to it, which could matter. But then it also, the wonderful hot glue as it comes off.
00:34:22
Speaker
cleanly. Yeah. Do you guys still use that battery operated hot glue gun? You talked a couple years ago. Yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. We don't use hot glue in the shop. And I think if we've had that, we would. Yeah. Battery, all of the things, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:38
Speaker
I wanted to ask too, I have two questions, but one is we're machining some HDPE covers for a customer for their fixture plates. And the issue is it's one, I think it's one inch, maybe it's 750 plate. So I can't answer off the top of my head, whether it's extrusion or cast, which probably matters greatly, but whatever we have is warping on us. And we had thought of this might happen.
00:35:07
Speaker
and interestingly is warping in y the shorter dimension not in x rectangular sort of plate profile if you will and
00:35:17
Speaker
We, if anybody's listening who does a lot of work with this aspect ratio, you know, PE, HTP, like kind of thin, big sheets of it, I'd welcome any input or advice. The only things that we can think of so far have been to actually anneal it, try to have it annealed before or after machining, which will not be particularly, I don't know how we're going to go about doing that, but yeah.
00:35:39
Speaker
Do you want to go like, I don't even know how that would work just below melting temperature and hold it there for a while or something? I don't know. Grant had pulled up some info on that, so I'm happy. Those guys are our teams. It's a good example of me helping, trying to help, but also not getting in their way. It does not have to be flat by any means. We have a tolerance for unconstrained flatness, which is relatively wide, but we're outside of that tolerance. Yeah. Who came up with that tolerance? Just curious. Customer. Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:08
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. So I got to, um, we machine the first one as a, we call it lakes and Hills because we're not, I don't, I don't like using the word convex and kind of, um, so the first one we machine as a, uh, a lake.
Challenges with Machining HDPE Covers
00:36:25
Speaker
So, and we're machining the underside of it. So the idea was that the part had a bow, um,
00:36:33
Speaker
like it was a lake, like it would hold water in the middle of it. And that didn't go great. So in the next one, we're going to try as a hill. This is a cover for a fixture plate, like a storage cover or a table. Protective cover. Yeah. Yeah. How big? Roughly 20 by 30. That's large. 3D printed in sections and glued together.
00:37:01
Speaker
I'm waiting for that bigger Prusa to come out, but it's not big enough for that. I'm only half joking. The other quick question I have is, we now have the fixture offset function set up on our Akuma, which allows us to use true fourth axis tool orientation in Fusion 360, so we can probe a part when it's normal.
Validating Machine Accuracy
00:37:23
Speaker
This is stuff you do on the five axes every day. I was going to say, it sounds normal.
00:37:28
Speaker
So we have set it up with using an indicator and a test bar. It's kind of like rolly dad's method if you're going back to the old school manual days, if anyone ever remembers that from like online forums. Anyway, I got the values. It was off by 6 tenths in the center rotation was off by I think 6 tenths in
00:37:48
Speaker
X that was it. So it was quite acceptable, I think. Um, but until I have those values in there, what I'd like to have somebody point me in the right direction for is what's a good test part. This is probably super simple, but like, what's a, what's a test part that I can machine at B zero, B 45, B 90, take it out and in either visually inspect it or, or measure it with the tools that we have to show improve that the machine, you know, it's a very good machine. It should be quite capable so long as the calibration is in there correctly.
00:38:18
Speaker
I feel like I've heard our buddy Dennis talk about this several times in past years. And he's like, oh, just mill a square and turn it and mill a bar this side and turn it and do that and do that and do that. And I kind of gloss over when he says it too much, but it still sticks in my mind that he's done this before. And I remember Lauren's piping up too.
00:38:40
Speaker
Yes. Something I'd love to make a video on because there's folks like me that don't have this experience. The fifth is almost easier. I could see how machining pockets and measuring the features of those pockets.
00:38:52
Speaker
Um, but like, do I face it? Do I face with the face mill when it's pointed at the spindle and then turn it 90 and then try to use an end mill to radially cut again, half, half that face, another 5,000 deeper and then measure taper and depth. I guess that's something I mean, I could come up with some ideas, but, um, I know those guys tend to be pretty darn spot on with their confidence around how those things should be done. So I'd love to see, I guess I could just ask them all what's up, but you know what I mean?
00:39:19
Speaker
Yep. But that's where your CMM comes in handy, where you make your calibration part, and then you calibrate it. You test it. We have to visit you. Yeah.
CMM Calibration Routines
00:39:29
Speaker
No, I was thinking about that on the CMM. I'm like, wouldn't it be sweet if there was a calibration part on the CMM? There's the tooling ball that you either leave on the CMM or put on every day. And I learned the hard way. I just turned on the machine, and I homed it, and then I measured a part. And it was like, I think it was way off. It's the first time I'd measured that feature, so I wasn't fully sure.
00:39:49
Speaker
But I'm like, this is not, I don't think it's what it's supposed to be. And then I calibrated the reference sphere, the little tooling ball, and then I started getting numbers that I wanted. When you say way off, like hundreds of thousands? No, like thousands.
00:40:08
Speaker
I forget. But it was often enough that I was confused. And then I realized maybe just the startup procedure always requires humming the machine and then calibrating the reference sphere. Maybe even rough calibrating every tool, every startup, every day. I heard that somewhere. And you can write an auto routine to just do that in like two minutes. OK.
00:40:30
Speaker
But those are the kind of little like daily operating notes that I haven't come across yet. And I'm sure Angela is picking up in the class right now. It's going to be really, really helpful. Have you put like a ring gauge on that you know is 1.99996 and just confirmed that matches? I haven't done that yet, but I'm kind of, I'll do that. And the sphere is a known diameter as well. It's like 20 millimeters exact or whatever.
00:40:55
Speaker
But it's a sphere, so you don't know always quickly and easily if you're on the biggest equator of the sphere. You can scan it and all that. But you're right. A ring gauge would be simple and quick. But wouldn't it be cool to have some calibration cube that just lives on the machine that's like, probe the square. Yeah, that's one inch exact. OK, everything's good. I can trust this now. Sure. Because I've heard CMM operators talk about if you trust it blindly, you'll be wrong.
00:41:24
Speaker
Yeah. If you don't calibrate your tools, if you don't verify, if you don't do this, it'll be giving you bad information and you'll trust it. While it is a super accurate machine, garbage in, garbage out kind of thing. Totally. If you're just not- All these little tricks just to make sure you're on point.
00:41:44
Speaker
I would love to know, like if I'm scratching my head one day, just to move it over to a known object to be like, okay, let me reground myself. Make sure I'm getting good data here and I don't have a major goof going on. Yep. So maybe I'll buy like five reengages and hot glue them to the cube so that I have reengages on each side. That's funny. Yeah.
00:42:07
Speaker
The other thing that we're...
Rust Prevention in Shipped Products
00:42:11
Speaker
Whatever adjective is just under below struggling with is rust. Interesting. We had a customer buy some product, picture plates in California, and then after purchasing them realized they bought the wrong ones, which is...
00:42:25
Speaker
Unfortunately, frustrating situation, it was their fault. There was not anything we did in terms of miscommunicating or anything of those sorts. We for sure worked with them to get them replaced, but then when they sent them back, they had had minor amounts of surface rust on them that was able to be cleaned off, but it's not something I like. Now, to be fair, we've sent, I don't know the quantities, but many fixture plates across the US
00:42:49
Speaker
this year and I've not had a single recipient say, Hey, I just opened this up and there's rust on it. So I don't know why this one would have been worse except for the fact that perhaps it sat on trucks straight for two weeks. Cause it basically went to California and they got sent right back, but that's still not good. And we do
00:43:07
Speaker
We do some various things in terms of cleaning the plates and then LPS3, which is a true rust inhibitor and VCI paper, but it's not enough, and it's especially not enough for some of our long-term inventory storage. I hesitate to go to something like kind of that thick, goopy cosmoline that's just a mess to clean off, but we have to get more
00:43:29
Speaker
We have to build a better process around how we handle rust protection. And if anybody has products or processes around that to share, I would for sure welcome input on that. Yeah, I know Eric from Orange Vice obviously ships the cast iron vices in VCI paper. And I don't know what else. I think it's just VCI. Yeah.
00:43:56
Speaker
some of the shunk stuff that I'm getting is like stainless, like machine stainless fixtures and vices and things like that. And I'm like, these are nice. Wow. And they're hardened too. Like, and they're hard turned to some of the features. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And I'm like, Oh, these guys are good. That's awesome.
Managing Inventory and Production
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah. They may honestly might be as simple as more LPS three. Not that we're stingy with it, but what's the, um,
00:44:25
Speaker
I was going to say what's the opposite of a desiccant packet, but maybe you want a desiccant packet in the thing. You could. Not moisture, but add oil, like atomized oil to the thing, to the inside the VCI paper, like a wet rag with oil on it kind of thing, just to keep the atmosphere oily. Or you put a desiccant packet in there. When we got the Kern, there were football-sized desiccant packets, 50 of them.
00:44:54
Speaker
and the guys are like, I want to put this in my gun case, or I'm going to take them home and use them for whatever. Since we have the building next door now, I thought about, man, there's a paint bay paint room in that building, which I like the idea long term of maybe we want to have that as a paint room, but for now, it's a giant walk-in
00:45:11
Speaker
safe and there's no security, but I thought, man, you know, those gun safes had the, those 110 volt dehumidifier rods. So we could actually climb the control, the whole shop is climate control, but we could actually add a dehumidifier and some of those rods. And we could have this like humid or for just long-term fixture plate storage combined with more LPS three or something like that.
00:45:35
Speaker
So here's a question. When you make a fixture plate, do you immediately LPS it, wrap it, and package it, and then it's in stock? And then three months later, somebody buys it and it gets shipped out.
00:45:45
Speaker
A couple of different things. Number one, we don't immediately do anything because we usually want to allow it to dry for a day. One of the issues we think might have happened with those California plates is that the customer was anxious to get them. We actually boxed them up right after they were finished being machined. Going through our process of LPS and BCI, but we're wondering if there was some residual
00:46:06
Speaker
liquid that we didn't get off that could have contributed to the surface rust. That would help explain why no one else has had this issue. Otherwise, so we'd let the plates dry, we clean them and then add an LPS3 and then we will, for the common, so we're now Lexus Rock and Rollin, so for 90-day trailing sales, we try to keep a steel plate in stock. We don't always, but we're trying to.
00:46:29
Speaker
We either keep it in stock, or one of the things that Ed has done, which I don't love, but his head's in the right places. We've actually finished them less than what we consider kind of a very final, minor op, where we do the finished dimensions. And that would, if there were any surface rust, that would just machine it away. But that means we're listing inventory for sale that's technically not ready. And that's not good either. So anyway.
Personal and Family Updates
00:46:55
Speaker
What do you see today? That's about it. Our mom's in town. I haven't seen her in three years. Whoa. Yeah, so she came over the other day, and she's staying at our house right now, and she's staying at Eric's house, and she's coming into the shop now-ish. She hasn't seen our new building. She's only met two of our staff, not the other eight or 10. Wonderful. Yeah, so today is mostly just showing mom around. Great.
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah. That's wonderful. That's a COVID thing. Or is there? Yeah, it's yeah. She's just hasn't traveled in a couple of years and she's come every summer, but then yeah. Oh, that's great. Now it's like, I bought you a ticket. You come in. Yeah. Yeah. So it's great. It's so good to see her. Yeah. She hasn't changed it at all. So awesome. That's great. Yeah. What about you?
00:47:41
Speaker
Um, I am going to, I'm doing some month and paperwork stuff. And then I am helping Vincent Patrick kind of get training stuff. You know, we're, we're really focused on getting that set up here in the first class in less than two weeks. Um, and then probably go spend some time with Judd. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be good. Cool. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. Really. Absolutely. All right, man. Enjoy the day. Bye.