Transcript
John S: Good morning and welcome to the business of machining. My name is John Saunders.
johngrimsmo: and my name is John Rimsmo.
John S: I have strict instructions from my wife that we need to be special today because it is episode 400.
johngrimsmo: That is an insane number. um For a weekly podcast that we've only missed a handful of, a big handful. Yeah, how many?
John S: some more recently as kind of an unspoken protest against our own podcast for reasons of posterity of like, do we own our podcast or does our podcast own us, right?
johngrimsmo: I'm like family. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're allowed to take a week off every now and then. So if I go 400 divided by 52 weeks, 7 .69 years of of us doing this every week, it's been awesome.
John S: Crazy.
John S: It's an interesting way of bookending things. It reminds me of when my dog Judd passed away two years ago and you kind of realize, wow, when Judd was born, I was, you know, with a tag or Tormach.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: I actually went with Tormach. Similarly, like our, you know, my, William would have been two, three years old.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Your kids would have been, you know, similar, like ah young, like, mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. And I remember we both did this at home at the time. And, you know, it was seven o 'clock in the morning and the kids would walk in and like say hi to each other.
johngrimsmo: And it was great.
John S: Yes. Yeah.
John S: I don't think it does not feel to me like you and I have spent seven years of weekly, like in a good way.
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep.
John S: Cause it's, you know what I mean?
johngrimsmo: Yep. That's good.
John S: Like we don't go to school for seven years.
johngrimsmo: and we Yeah.
John S: You don't go to like, you know, like one school or, or, you know, um,
johngrimsmo: Totally. to do To do one very specific thing so frequently, so often is...
John S: yeah.
johngrimsmo: a I'm impressed.
John S: are we Are we better off for this?
johngrimsmo: Congratulations. I think so. I think it's a good touch in.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It's the whole reason we do this is to see how we're doing and to help each other out and to to work out, like mentally hash out these things that are stressing us out or confusing us or like just weird funny things.
John S: Yeah.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like I've got a weird funny thing for you.
John S: Good.
johngrimsmo: And it's just to share those cool things. Like you're you're my guy. you know You understand all this nerdy stuff that my family just glazes over when I'm like, I'm like, guys, flatness, flatness is amazing.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: like
John S: So I had a moment that I kind of resonate with. I was watching, I think like a lot of America, I was reading and watching videos on DeepSeek last night and this retired Microsoft engineer had a 10 minute video that's like the definition of a good YouTube video these days.
John S: Like had an opinion, was backed up with facts to the point, well edited, good sound, like digestible, like 10 minutes, I can watch it on two X, so it's a five minutes for me.
johngrimsmo: yeah yeah
John S: And at the end, his call to action was like, folks, I just do this, for point for I do this for the likes and follows, like it's a point of pride, so if you're willing to do like it. The way he said it was even better than I just said it, but it reminds me of, um I guess to some extent there is a conscious acknowledgement that this podcast is a little bit narcissistic and that you and I were just both talking about our own stuff.
John S: But for whatever reason, it seems seems to have quite the following in a good way, makes you proud.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
John S: like I guess we don't look, so we don't know if there's,
johngrimsmo: absolutely
John S: Well, we do know but because I've seen the numbers at one point, but ah there the numbers aren't public and I don't think it would change if it was 10 people that really got a lot out of it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yep. and
johngrimsmo: Totally. Yep.
John S: um
johngrimsmo: No, I think we have, we have absolutely a core group of following. We get pretty much the same amount of listens on every episode. So we have, you know, people coming back consistently. They like the story and we're not doing anything to try to grow it other than Yvonne's posting the story every week, which is great.
John S: Yeah, but I think my point would be like, it's not, it to me, values change in life. um And I am trying to be ahead of the curve on recognizing that I'm past, I don't think I'm past my prime, um but I also don't think I'll know when I'm past my prime.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And I just had a really good call with a mentor who,
johngrimsmo: yeah
John S: Actually, it's kind of a crazy story. He talked talked about a long time right hand man moved on. And I want to keep it super generic here. But um I was surprised.
John S: And I thought, oh boy, that could be a rough day. And in the end, that one of the takeaways was recognizing the need to empower the next generation. This makes it sound more ominous than the situation was.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John S: but um the I was a great example or other younger, fresher energy, fresher perspective, having that cycle through. It doesn't mean a discount, like having great core people. I think that i worry that that could get taken out of context in this anecdote. But ah I lost my train of thought.
johngrimsmo: But that this is how industries grow and you know families grow. Ideally, we learn from our parents, you know the good the good and the bad.
John S: Yes.
johngrimsmo: And I want my team to learn from my mistakes and from my successes.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And want I'm really transitioning more and more towards training, empowering everybody on my team, um giving them credit and and letting them grow and letting them thrive, even if that is being hard on them to help them get better.
John S: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Because at the end of the day, that's that is my genuine goal. And maybe it wasn't many years ago. you know Maybe I was just so much on my plate.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: on i I'm just trying to keep my head above water here. But now, as we have a more core, solid staff, it's it's allowing me to you know step back and be like, um I'm supposed to step back.
johngrimsmo: I'm supposed to give these responsibilities to other people. So I'm responsible for the people, not so much the job they're doing.
John S: Yeah, exactly.
johngrimsmo: you know
John S: Sorry. And you reminded me of what I just lost my turn of thought of, which was kind of the like, I don't.
John S: I don't want, I enjoy just having this be something that's not a job, it's not an expectation or it's something you, we've talked about this privately and ah publicly, like do we wanna, if somebody paid us four or five figures for an ad spot, would we do it?
John S: And it's not that I would say no, to be fairly clear, I'm not saying I would say no, but it's also like, it's great that that that's not what matters to me right now. um And I like,
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: I mean, I think I've talked about this a lot, but like we're, as we're now overhauling parts of our shop with kind of funny been here almost 10 years, John, which is crazy. And so like actually literally tonight we're gonna repaint, my wife and I are gonna repaint some of the office rooms.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John S: Got a quote to have it done. The quote was kind of a no quote, like, oh my gosh.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And we can do this in like two hours. So yeah, it reminds me how long it's been in a, I don't know.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm.
John S: Sorry, Ramblin again.
johngrimsmo: That's the point. in This is episode 400. We can do, we can talk about this stuff.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, yeah, I mean, we just renewed our lease, uh, at this shop for, we've been here for five years, uh, signed up for another five more.
John S: Oh yeah.
johngrimsmo: We'll see if we last that long or, you know, move on to our own place. But, uh, I don't know.
John S: There's still, um I'm trying to be like introspective and have an opinion that I don't even know if it is correct, but you and I are still, our businesses remain shockingly similar in weird ways about like size, product line, like complexities, struggles, machines, staffing levels.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: But like, I still think our businesses are this, and I haven't heard somebody put a business -y term around it. It doesn't need to be one, but I do think it's an interesting point.
John S: We are still these like, kind of like hybrid craftsmen, small business, you know, you and I are still way too involved then.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: And the way I think of what kind of helped me solidify this was I've talked a lot about this idea, what would you do if you inherited a big amount of money?
John S: And that works for me when I'm in the right state of mind, but it doesn't always, sometimes it takes some effort to really try to think about that. And to me, that was kind of weird. I found a better way to think about that scenario, which is let's say your business went from where it is today to selling, and I'm just going to put a number out here for the sake of this six technology.
John S: Let's say you were moving $50 ,000 worth of product a day.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: That puts you somewhere in the like, I don't know, 10 million a year range or something. It's, um, it's enough. It would, when when the business is that size, you would think about things differently.
John S: Like now it's, yeah, it's like, okay, it's not a question of if I can afford it.
johngrimsmo: Absolutely half. Yep.
John S: It's like, I need to get the right equipment with the right support.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And the bootstrapper is going to, the bootstrapper and John that's still there every day that I fight with internally is gone. Cause it's like, now I need, like, I need DSI, you know, to get me the posts, I need to get the Hermelet installed.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: I need that CMM. I need a new person to like, all of a sudden you're deploying capital and managing.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John S: I'm not saying we won't get to that point. It's not something I have like a plan to do or actively want to do. This makes sense like my clip.
johngrimsmo: Absolutely, ye no I think about this a lot.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And I think we are heading in that direction in our company. And I would like to get to that point, but we've been kind of steady for the past three years in in revenue and staff and things like that.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I want to grow past this phase of, you know, feeling like we're kind of stuck where we are because there's more I want to do.
John S: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: Um, and maybe it's literally me, maybe it's me holding us back, the entrepreneur in me that just likes to come in and mess around and make new stuff. And, uh, Everybody's working really hard, but there's changes that have to be made to to work towards that.
johngrimsmo: And your other analogy, which I thought you were going to go with on this one, but, um, if, if you, uh, if you had a paving company and that's, yeah, that's such a weird, but beautiful analogy.
John S: Oh, yeah, that's the same thing. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like if you were managing a paving company, if you owned a paving company or went out and bought one or something, you would run it completely differently than you're running Saunders right now. And that's a good mental exercise of like, how can I apply those changes to this business?
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Why why am I fighting that change on this business? Well, it's because you know because that's just how I've always done it. Or that's because I'm the guy. Or that's because we don't have the whatever.
johngrimsmo: We'll solve it. like And i I fight with my own brain on these things like quite a lot, in a good way mostly.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: ah Sometimes in a destructive way.
John S: But I don't think you and I, like call space, I don't think you and I are ever gonna change. We might evolve a little bit, like you buy the paving company, it's like, hey, I'm gonna bring Joe on board.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: Joe has been the equipment manager. He's gonna go out to Cat, Ohio to look at new equipment, like done. I don't think Sondras is ever gonna get to a point where somebody else here is like, yeah, I really like this new Akuma Multus.
John S: We're gonna get one for a couple of years and see how it works like. That's just not in my blood, sorry.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, ah but that'd be a lot of power to have somebody else be in that seat, unless you, over the next 20 years, pull back and let somebody else become that person, you know?
John S: i want to be in
John S: for sure. um But even then, like, I, it's just too much in and it's okay.
johngrimsmo: I know.
John S: But for for the record or for the like, I'm okay with all this like I like.
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep, I am 100 % responsible for all capital purchases in this company, but I have a team around me that can get ideas from.
John S: um
johngrimsmo: Um, but we haven't bought anything big in a couple of years, but still not to say we won't.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, but yeah, I'm, I'm too deep in the weeds to really consider pulling back on that anytime soon.
John S: Yeah, it's part of what we do.
johngrimsmo: It's just to who we are, but I can pull back on all kinds of other stuff.
John S: and and
johngrimsmo: You know, the one thing I think about all the time is where am I most valuable? Like, like me, where is my unique talent? Where, where can I make the biggest impact in this company?
John S: Yeah. yeah
johngrimsmo: And literally probably half my time is not spent doing those things. It's been doing things that other people can do. Like what Al has told us, he's like, yeah, I used to do all these things to you know to not burden my staff and I hated doing these things.
John S: Oh, yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then they actually love doing those things and they just feel like I'm taking their work from them. And I'm probably still in that boat in a lot of ways.
John S: if you're saying if you're If you're saying that, then you are right.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
John S: um Yeah, so we had that realization too of um Short version, we're looking for an intern to some of the local programs we work with, then somebody reached out through that program that they were actually looking for full time met with them, and kind of made us realize, okay, what we could do is a full time that's probably three days machinist two days, um or sorry to be clear, three days like operator intern level machinist so more.
John S: to be blunt more button pushy than like programming at this, at least at the parts of time, as well as helping with QC, order fulfillment, assembly, all this other stuff. And um unclear if that candidate's gonna work out, because it's maybe different than what we wanted, but it also made me realize, okay.
John S: Now we're at the point where we need to bring another person on board to help relieve some of Serena's time and shipping in order for them in assembly, all that, and then also Grant's time. Because Grant's time could be better spent. I mean, he's got the UR robot now installed and other value -added stuff, and then takes some of the stuff off his plate.
johngrimsmo: Yep. And as you've learned over the decade of having employees, um, good people are just good people. So as you're interviewing a new people, maybe it's not, there's always the scenario where it's like, that's not exactly what I was looking for, but this is a good person.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like, how do we make this person fit if, if needed, right?
John S: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I mean, we did that last a couple of years ago when we hired for a finishing department guy, we interviewed a bunch of people and two of them were such good candidates for one role that we just hired them both.
John S: Oh, really?
johngrimsmo: Yeah. And they've both been here for two years.
John S: How'd that work out?
johngrimsmo: It's fantastic. Absolutely.
John S: Good.
johngrimsmo: Um, maybe it was too much, like, like we didn't need that much manpower in the beginning. Um, but now we do. That's great.
John S: Good.
johngrimsmo: Totally worked out.
John S: good
johngrimsmo: All right. I got a funny story for you.
John S: Shoot.
johngrimsmo: Uh, yesterday morning, so I come in and Angelo and Steven are confused. And, and Steven shows me these two ceramic bearing balls in a little baggie and says, I found these in the coolant tray of the speedio.
John S: Oh my god.
johngrimsmo: Where did they come from? And they're like, did the spindles, the bearing fall out of the spindle, like the tool g gripper, the um drawbar, whatever. Where on earth did the ball screw start falling apart? Like where are these bearing balls from? They're ceramic.
johngrimsmo: um And they already, they had a couple hours already to look through it and try to figure it out. They googling on Practical Machinist and, you know, according to the Practical Machinist post, it's the drawbar bearings that hold the tool in place.
johngrimsmo: So he's looking up there with a flashlight and everything. And I'm like, well, what size are they? They're three sixteenths. What size are they exactly? Like, is that a guess? Is it a caliper, a mic, whatever.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So they mic them. It's exactly three sixteenths, like one eight seven five. I'm like, this is a Japanese machine.
John S: Yeah. Not an inch.
johngrimsmo: not, there's not an inch part on this machine.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Okay, that's that's one thing. Second, I know I have a bag of these somewhere and I know I touched them in the last month, but I cannot remember how or why I touched these.
John S: ah
johngrimsmo: And I feel like it's not do with this machine and I can't remember. So when I got the bag and I held the bag and I kind of jiggled it and I'm like, did I use these for and then it hit me. Remember I talked about a couple of weeks ago, I used the put um pull out dowel pins. So I drill and I rim a hole and then I push in a dowel pin that's threaded so you can like pull it out.
John S: No, I don't, sorry.
johngrimsmo: Okay, well, one of the ways we're locating, so we're locating our blades with dowel pins, um but not not exactly, yeah.
John S: You push.
John S: Okay, oh you want removable ones then. Okay, so it's like a shoulder bolt without the head.
johngrimsmo: So it's it's a dowel with a thread in the middle.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: an ID thread. um Anyway, so it's sticking above the fixture a little bit so that we can butt up a glade a blade against three points, basically.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Got three points of contact. And it works really well, because then we can pull them out, surface the fixture if we have to, stone it, whatever.
John S: Yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: um It works great, except for some reason, the first palette I made, I drilled the holes too deep. So I go to push the dowel pin in, it goes all the way to the bottom.
John S: Ah.
johngrimsmo: I'm like, well, then thankfully I can remove it. Now I just need some three sixteenths -ish thing to space this thing up. And so I popped in these de these bearing balls, totally forgot about it.
johngrimsmo: And then later had to remove those dowel pins and drill new locations, because it changed up the way I oriented the part. But I forgot the balls were still in there. So they were just chilling in there for like weeks until eventually the coolant hit it in just the right way that it must have fallen out, both of them, or the air blast or whatever.
John S: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Anyway, that is that's the end of the story there.
John S: That's really funny.
johngrimsmo: But it definitely confused them for a little bit. And they're like, so we're good? Yeah, it's fine.
John S: I'm impressed that they found them in the cooling tank.
johngrimsmo: Sorry.
John S: They were just like, Oh, okay.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, in the chip tray.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: and We use like filter paper, so it was, I guess it was pretty obvious.
John S: Got it. Yeah. Hilarious. That's really funny. Well, good. I'm glad this all was.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly.
John S: Um, we are cranking just like kind of what I've been up to this week. Um, do it is still going well. I find myself still falling back into the trap of thinking about it too much.
johngrimsmo: Mm.
John S: I think, Oh, do I want to do that now? Should I do that now? Is there better things I should do? And it's a simple answer that I still struggle to apply to myself, which is that your job is not to think about it.
John S: It's just go do it. It's 10 minutes, it's 15 minutes. there's no There's nothing I would ever ruin my day by delaying it 15 minutes by because I had to do a assigned task. like It's just not a big deal, but it's just still...
johngrimsmo: Yeah,
John S: I just think about it instead of just stopping and going and doing it. But it is wonderful stuff. It's like spackle some walls or go take some old air lines that we want to keep that are need to get moved back, stored, wiped down.
johngrimsmo: yeah.
John S: like um I love it, it's but it's still not without some friction to do it.
johngrimsmo: Of course. just Does it feel non -productive?
John S: It feels hyper.
johngrimsmo: Like you'd rather be doing high value things?
John S: John, I think I just overthink stuff.
johngrimsmo: For sure, that's why I'm asking.
John S: Yeah, I mean, sure, today it's like, oh man, I wanna get the grinder running, or I wanna get some parts uploaded to, actually, funny story, I thought I was gonna send out some J5 parts to 3D print from Clafground, and I saw the price, I was like, oh, that's great, I'll just dump them there and be done with it.
John S: And then I realized that they upload it in millimeters on inches, and so they're a factor of like 25 .42 small or something, as the price is now not interesting, I'll just make them on the bamboo.
johngrimsmo: Yup.
John S: um So I was going to get some of that stuff uploaded this morning and then, um I mean, I have a full plate right now because we're tackling stuff. I'm getting quotes on plumbing work.
John S: I'm getting quotes, actually funny story. There's a car dealership in town that has really, really fast garage doors that open and close.
johngrimsmo: Oh yeah?
John S: Super nice and I would like.
johngrimsmo: Did you literally drive in and say, can I ask you about these?
John S: ah Yeah, I got the brand name of the company and called, they came, classic example, like how stupid the world is. Called, interviews myself, what we are, would like to get a quote. And I was like, yeah, I'd love to come down. Like, I'm not gonna stop him for coming down. I just wanted a quote or ballpark. And fast forward, it is $40 ,000 per garage door.
johngrimsmo: my gosh
John S: And it's like, dude, what are you, like, you could have just told me this, like, sorry, like, what, what yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, save yourself a trip.
John S: um So there's a local garage company that cannot do these Rytec speed doors.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: um And what they're saying is that every other garage door is just the normal up, down, slow. And, you know, a lot of times our door opens to just load or unload a truck with one pallet. So we're in and out in maybe one to three minutes.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: So it's just awkward enough that you don't want to close the door or at least a regular speed door when you go out. But it's also a lot of cold air blows in. So now I'm looking at either rubber strips, which kind of look janky and weird feels weird to drive the forklift through them, but it would probably work.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John S: Or um interesting would be a 12 foot air curtain. You seen these?
johngrimsmo: Explain it.
John S: Well, I've seen air curtains on mandoors that is usually ah like an air knife above the door header.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And when you open the door to like the coffee shop, bingo, stops the,
johngrimsmo: Yeah, coffee shops, like, i'm I'm like, I always wondered, how are they not just wasting so much hot air?
John S: right, right.
johngrimsmo: But there's science behind it, okay.
John S: So yeah, and they work pretty well for a mandor, but they've never seen a mandor on a 12 by 12 foot roll up door.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: um So putting the feelers out on, This is classical. One of the things like the company that makes them is going to tell you they work great.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: I want to hear from somebody who actually uses them. Um, so that, and then putting an aquarium pond heater in the Okamoto grinder tank, because I started tracking the temperature and it moves about five or six degrees, which actually isn't as much as I thought, but, um, for 30 bucks, it can't hurt to stabilize the coolant of on the grinder a little.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I mean if you can keep it at that upper warm like ideal zone, then that'd be great.
John S: Yeah.
John S: I'll still do a warmup, I think it'll just make the warmup better.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
John S: And then this,
johngrimsmo: What is that giant suppressor?
John S: yeah, you know you're actually not really wrong. So good example of like, I think where Do It shines for me is, And this is going to sound a little weird. I'm a smart person.
John S: I can sit down. I can figure something out. A lot of things I can do well if I just sit down and focus on it.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: We want to stop draining the air compressor stuff outside or in a way that just sucks. So the problem with draining 140 gallon air compressor bleed off like auto drain into a five gallon bucket is that it's super noisy and it blasts everywhere.
John S: So, you know, I borrowed with some ideas of I want a cheap, doable, simple and to function like a gun silencer in the sense of just take a fluid of volume and put it into a larger area. So model this up in fusion in about 10 minutes, printed one overnight. It's got threads of this one was actually the threads are a little janky, which I didn't care about. um And it has two inputs for garden hoses. So we're going to switch from the quarter inch a quarter inch hose, which sometimes doesn't hold up over time to garden hoses, which will.
John S: And the larger volume or the larger diameter of the garden hose will, I think, reduce the pressure.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: The parts are arriving tomorrow.
johngrimsmo: The velocity or whatever.
John S: Yeah. And then these go into here and inside of it are two shower loofahs for $2 each.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: which do a great job at dissipating and stopping the fluid from energetically blowing out into the five, and this goes into the five -gallon bucket.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: The five -gallon bucket is the bucket that has a screw -off lid, so you can actually seal it and maintain it, has perforated holes to balance the air pressure, and that gets mounted on the wall, and the five -gallon bucket itself has a float flag, to tell you if the bucket's full visually, and it has a ball valve drain, so when you need to drain it, you just walk up to it, open the drain into another bucket, then you can get rid of that, like,
johngrimsmo: Okay.
johngrimsmo: No.
John S: it's It is still, you still hear it, but the noise is markedly better.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, because ours is scary.
John S: Is it?
johngrimsmo: Like, but yeah, especially if something's kind of quiet, shop kind of thing, and you just hear the into the wet bucket.
John S: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: um And yeah, it sometimes makes me jump if if I'm the last guy here. And you know, maybe v
John S: Yeah, i'll ah I'll send you the model for this. um Print one and just and throw a shower loop in it.
johngrimsmo: This sounds like a Wednesday widget if I've ever heard one.
John S: yeah yeah as work Yeah. For those of you that are listening, um i e everybody, because we don't do a video podcast, think of it like an overgrown oil filter ah cylinder, you know something it would but between a can of pop and a two liter of pop that um just know has a bunch of perforated holes around the outside of it.
johngrimsmo: Yep. So that is still meant to be above water level in the bucket.
John S: Yeah, so this will go um kind of mounted to the the bucket lid, if you will.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yep. I like it. I like it a lot, man.
John S: Yeah, works great.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Silencer for your air compressor.
John S: Somebody said the Kaisers have some um airless drain, maybe they're newer versions that drain the water but don't push PSI air out of the system.
johngrimsmo: Not At least not, not the one we're running.
John S: So how Spencer, okay.
johngrimsmo: I forget. Yeah.
John S: Got it.
johngrimsmo: Um, it is January 29th. It's two more days in the month.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: We've made 101 plus handles.
John S: Good for you.
johngrimsmo: We have six more pieces of material, but more coming, uh, shipped today.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So it should be here in a day or two. Um, we hit the handle goal for sure.
John S: You
johngrimsmo: if There's 15 where the pivots are getting kind of tight and we might have to scrap them or fix them or something.
John S: can't relap them.
johngrimsmo: Um, There's a couple different steps that might be kind of weird.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So I still got a look at them. But anyway, like we've done it for handles. We've made over 70 soft blades um that are still flowing through heat treat, lapping, grinding, bevels, hard milling, all that stuff.
johngrimsmo: But everything's flowing really good. And we should be assembling knives tomorrow. And it's it's weird. We don't normally do like this batch production kind of thing. um To have a hundred to have a hundred handles here and not have to not have put like a finished knife together yet is weird for us.
John S: Oh yeah.
John S: What I'm just an innocent question. Why didn't you do more one piece flow? You like five at a time full assembled through.
johngrimsmo: ah Because we didn't have all the parts at any one time.
John S: Oh, okay. Literally just that got it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Got it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. The blades are a lot slower than the handles. So we just started bulking up on handles. I did do spot checks throughout and and we made a pretty rigid um measuring routine.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And like one of the features we're holding to plus or minus one 10th, um, on the current and then same feature, but opposite on the Wilhelmin we're holding plus or minus one 10th.
John S: I have pause about that.
johngrimsmo: We are, we've done it.
John S: now I spent a lot of time on the grinder this past week with puck chucks.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: We, we just got a whole, the first actual like 600 pound crate of puck chuck parts back from the heat reader.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: And so we've we've been grinding, we we grind, we hard mill, and then we grind twice again for a bunch of reasons right now. I think we can improve that workflow long -term, but for now that is a reliable way to get excellent parts, minimize scrap, and then we'll refine the process as we go.
John S: And using our height gauge, which is our probably most accurate tool, that LH mid -to -toil at 600, and using a Brown and Sharp 15 million indicator with a custom -made gauge block by mid -toil as well, it is really, really, really, really easy to get readings that vary by a tenth or two every time.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: So it's not a company is you it's more. So for example, the grinder, the parts this classic new coming example, turn the grinder off forgot to turn the magnet off. So the parts were on the magnet turned on for a couple hours.
John S: So when I went back, they were notably warmer.
johngrimsmo: Interesting. Yeah.
John S: And that was four tenths.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: I put them in the freezer for 20 minutes came back four tenths shorter for four tenths.
johngrimsmo: I could see that.
johngrimsmo: No way.
John S: It's a mile for like, yeah,
johngrimsmo: That's huge. Yeah. For like a one inch thick part or more.
John S: Two different parts that to together are just under two inches tall.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yep.
John S: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Steel is six millionths of growth per degree per cubic inch.
John S: Yep.
johngrimsmo: So whatever that stacks up to, um, ah you know, you put a lot of degrees into it, that adds up pretty quickly.
John S: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: Crazy to me to see that.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yep. Yeah. So our two features, uh, one is a slot. So we use gauge pins and one 10th increments to, uh, feel with the gauge pin and you can feel easily.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Plus, you know, one 10th doesn't fit minus one 10th is sloppy.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So that's good. And then, uh, the other feature, the mating feature on the clip made on the Willaman is just, uh, we're making the width of the wall.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And we're we're cutting it in a way that burs, chamfer burs don't go out. The wall finish puts any burs in so we can mic it like cleanly.
John S: Got it.
johngrimsmo: And that's holding really well too.
John S: And you're just showing quantum mics to measure that?
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep.
John S: Yeah, to your point, quantum mics do tend to repeat better, but the thing that spooks me is our LH600, it is really easy to hit repeat, even just on the surface plate, and you'll get, you know, 30 million difference, 60 million difference every five seconds.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I've tried that on our speedio, like if I'm Z probing with the bloom probe, just hit the same feature 10 times in a row, see what it does. And it's shockingly accurate sometimes, but if you do it enough times, even on the current, it'll it'll grow or it'll it'll do something different, um which is weird to think about.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I try not to think about it too much.
John S: On that note, our LA -600 is on a pink piece of granite that I bought seven or eight years ago at a used auction.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: And we did have it lapped and qualified once, but um it the decision we huddled up when we did that 2025 budget plan this year.
John S: And Alex was just like, let's get new granite. And I was like, you know what? Yes.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John S: um And so we ordered a couple pieces from Standridge. They came two days ago. Beautiful. Now, that was the right call for now.
John S: I'm also just sending a quote to get a quote for reconditioning. But if the new granite was 1 ,500, I want to say the last time we got it reconditioned, it was 600 or 700, maybe even more when you act factor in the travel plus the work.
johngrimsmo: Hmm. Interesting. For sure.
John S: And it's just like, I just get a new one. It's going forward, it's like get a new one and sell that one for, you know, yeah.
johngrimsmo: For cheap, like, yep, some garage guys can be like happy to get it, you know?
John S: um
John S: But I was really happy to have a new piece of grant.
johngrimsmo: So 1500 bucks for like what size?
John S: Sorry, let me throw out a 20, make sure I'm not full of it here.
johngrimsmo: I'm just guessing.
John S: um 24 by 36 is our bigger piece and then we have a we also have an 18 by 24 Yeah pulled up here ah Sorry, no, I was wrong a Stan Ridge a Zero so that is there's one great higher.
johngrimsmo: It's a big piece.
John S: I think but this is really good 973 bucks
johngrimsmo: Okay. Yeah. No way for 24 by 36.
John S: Yep. And then we bought a, we bought their castard cart with breaks. It's a really nice cart and all that. That alone was 900 bucks.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: But that was like, we have two carts, but they are, they look janky.
johngrimsmo: That's worth it.
John S: And part of me, as we're doing the shop overhaul is like, no, let's get a nice dedicated cart.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: That is not a repurpose welding cart.
johngrimsmo: and Yeah, that is a fantastic price.
John S: Um, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, yeah, I bought a small piece, I think it was 12 by 18, but like four inches thick, like crazy thick from McMaster of all places.
John S: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: And it was 300 bucks.
John S: Oh, yeah, it's not bad.
johngrimsmo: Um, and it had a really weird, like glossy top surface. like literally like a mirror.
John S: Oh, huh.
johngrimsmo: And I'm like, I emailed McMaster. This is the first time I've ever emailed McMaster, even though you've told me too many times. And I was like, what's the story with this glossy finish? Is it, I'm sure it's good, but most of them are kind of matte.
johngrimsmo: And they go, yeah, that's just how this supplier does it.
John S: Cool.
johngrimsmo: It's fine. And I was like, anyway, it's been great. It's got like the post in the back that screws onto the back of the granite. And then I've got my, ah test, not test indicator, my dial indicator, my super accurate mid to, um, millionth, you know, 20 millionth resolution dial indicator.
John S: Ah, yes.
johngrimsmo: We use it almost every day now on the fields, which is great.
John S: Yeah, that's cool. That's right. You're using it as a snap height gauge to s slide a part through it.
johngrimsmo: Exactly. Yep.
John S: Yeah, that's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Which has been awesome. But yeah, I have, I've never bought other than that piece of granite.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I've never really bought a piece of granite. I've just gotten like old CMM bases.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, never got them reconditioned or anything either. So.
John S: yeah us ah Yeah, I was happy with it.
johngrimsmo: That's a good price though, for yours. Yeah.
John S: I'm on the lookout for a new surface gauge to hold dial test indicators. um
johngrimsmo: Gorilla Fab.
John S: So I don't... Yeah. um I should...
johngrimsmo: Mine's coming in the mail.
John S: Okay. Okay. Well, now I don't want to now i don't poop to it. i First of all, it's 800 bucks.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: It's like double the price of the Hermit Schmidt.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And I heard it's not made in the US and I don't want to spread rumors.
johngrimsmo: No, it's, it's made in Germany.
John S: That's what it is. Okay, I apologize.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: i was This was a comment made yesterday just by somebody. I was inferred that it was perhaps made in the Far East.
johngrimsmo: It is not me in the U .S.
John S: um It's not, okay.
johngrimsmo: It's proudly made by a German.
John S: Okay, forgive me. Now I feel like a doofus for saying that.
johngrimsmo: OK.
John S: Well, maybe I should look at it then. Oh, it has brass feet.
johngrimsmo: Well, I mean, mine, I just texted him yesterday.
John S: That was the other thing I don't like about it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I. He is working on stainless or hardened steel dispute anyway.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I ordered it before Christmas, sort of my Christmas present to myself, a work present to myself kind of thing.
John S: Yeah,
johngrimsmo: But I don't think it's shipped yet because Canada Post was on strike last month and yada yada. Anyway, I just texted him the other day and I was like, so has it shipped yet? um Let me get it. And I'll do a full review on it.
John S: yeah sure.
johngrimsmo: I'm really looking forward to it. And because we're putting it on an old CMM granite base, there's holes all over it. his default brass feet that are like the kinematic or whatever, like they rotate.
johngrimsmo: ah He developed this kind of cool thing.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Anyway, they would fall into these holes in my base.
John S: Sure.
johngrimsmo: So I told him that, I was like, what can you do for me? And so he made like bigger feet that will be fine for me.
John S: Nice.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, so that'd be cool.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Anyway, I'm looking forward to it.
John S: Again, I feel that I need to. clarify what I was saying earlier. It was, again, I miss, I should have done my research before I said anything because I was thinking that this is a smoke and mirrors, like let's get something decently made far East and like upsell the crap out of it.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: I apologize. um
johngrimsmo: And that's a good note. Good to know that perspective, like for him to, you know, hopefully not.
John S: No, that's not, that's on me. um What I don't, we have the Herman Schmidt, which is, I hold that right in high regard and it's 450 bucks.
johngrimsmo: Absolutely. Yeah.
John S: But two things I don't know about it. Number one, it doesn't have a large enough room on the base itself to tap it to check for, is it hysteresis or whatever you want to do, to like make sure you're good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And then frankly, the the knob is, it's easy to get the number I want, but it could, it should be a more fine adjust knob for what we're, what you're trying to do with an indicator.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John S: So, sorry, let me keep, when yours comes, let me know how it is.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, for sure.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: if
johngrimsmo: Cool.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, once again, hard milling, like we're in full production on hard milling now. I'm not even touching it. Steven's running it. And still it just, it just does the thing.
John S: Close your mind, right?
johngrimsmo: And I haven't actually looked at the tools, but they're still measuring. I have to comp a diameter by one 10th radial, one 10th to get the size I want.
John S: you
John S: We finally saw, I don't know if you saw our post on Instagram of the puck chucks. um
johngrimsmo: Oh, the shiny hard milled with the fingers. I did see that one.
John S: Yes.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And i I think I'm learning because I broke one of the two millimeters and I broke it because we went from hard milling the mechanical puck chuck, which didn't doesn't have protruding jaws,
johngrimsmo: o Okay.
John S: when we were hard milling it, the automatic, which does. um And so I think the tool plunged into a different part. So it broke, and so I replaced it, and when I replaced it, the tolerances had never changed, but the mirror finish definitely popped again.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John S: So that's like, okay, we were there's some, way the wares manifesting itself in that manner.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Nobody would know unless you have the AB b comparison.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. But you know.
John S: is, yes, well, John, and you like, you know, it's easy to like get aluminum up close, but like on on steel, when your hand is three inches away and it's a perfect mirror, it's like, oh, it's just like so fun.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Oh yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: That's amazing. And done on which machine?
John S: That's on the Okuma horizontal.
johngrimsmo: Okay. Did you get to track any tool life on it?
John S: I did track tool life until I broke it. So it was, well, I started and that tool had already been used.
johngrimsmo: and
John S: Oh, and you know what? That's funny. Now that you asked it, I reset it and didn't even think to write it write down what it had been. Sorry, that's dumb of me.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: I want to say it was 40 minutes in the cut or something.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: Because each one is four or five minutes of, oh yeah, it moves.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Like surprisingly fast. Um, even for our tools, each toolpath is only a couple minutes. Um, and I think I looked a couple of days ago and we're at 70 minute tool life and still making great parts.
johngrimsmo: Um, I haven't inspected the tools since they were at 40 minutes, but they look brand new at 40 minutes.
John S: Yeah. Okay, good.
johngrimsmo: So I'll take a visual at some point, maybe near a hundred or something and just, and we're tracking size on everyone and it's easy enough to comp. So.
John S: And you end up with, not Makino, Maldino, thank you.
johngrimsmo: Maldino. Yep.
John S: I was thinking Denver Union, yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. And I've, I've had union in my cart for a while now. Um, but I haven't ordered any yet. They have, ah there's a secret line, well, it's not secret, but their V series line or V line or something, which because they make, according to their literature, millions of carbide end mills for PCB manufacturing in three millimeter shank, like less than eighth inch, um they've applied that mass technology to these hard milling, the V line hard milling end mills, and they're like cheap.
johngrimsmo: They're like $20 an end mill, not 70.
John S: Oh, interesting. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um And they have a three mil shank, so not as rigid as a four or five or six mil shank, but they're like, it is what it is. You want a $20 hard milling end mill, it's got a three mil shank.
John S: Part of he's curious if that would be fine for the stuff you and I are doing Sure Do you have to like know the secret code to order them or is it just okay?
johngrimsmo: Totally. and And they've got some deflection, you know, examples and stick out and things like that. But, uh, yeah, so I kind of want to get some of those for engraving, for hard engraving, for, uh, little critical features might just be a good, cheap tool from union.
johngrimsmo: No, it's ah it's on the catalog, like in in their full PDF 200 page catalog, but it's just a little section that it didn't pop up at first for me.
John S: Yeah
johngrimsmo: you know Yeah.
John S: Got it. Well, good.
John S: What else is on your mind?
johngrimsmo: um Speaking of Wilhelmin, I haven't touched it all week, and Jeff's been running it every day.
John S: Awesome. Awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's it's good, actually. um He's already suggested a couple of tweaks to the toolpath on one of the roughing tools, because he's broken two of them.
John S: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: um And i had I had gotten the tool life up to about 13 hours on that quarter inch five flute rougher in titanium.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And then it's breaking now after four hours. And we're like, well, how did I get 13 hours out of it before? Oh, I was doing other parts, not this exact clip, which taxes that tool harder.
John S: Yeah.
John S: oh Oh, interesting, sure.
johngrimsmo: So the previous tool life was on like easier parts, all those hours that I put into it.
John S: Okay, sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: And now that we're running this production, it doesn't have 13 hours of tool life. It like you know it has less. um So just before that we hit record, Jeff and I sat down in front of Fusion and we backed off.
johngrimsmo: The feed rate a little bit of the step over from 30 ,000 to 20 ,000, just little things like that. And they always running it. So it was great.
John S: Okay, that's a great segue to why tool -like management on machine tools sucks, like sucks a big, just does.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: And we are doing our chatter install tomorrow.
johngrimsmo: Ooh.
John S: And I don't remember, I know very little about Chatter. I mean, I know the basics about it, but um one of the ideas long -term is if, and I hope I'm allowed to say this, but I don't know if it was like discussion of what it could become, but if Chatter can take over your tool life management with intelligence, because what you just said is so simply insightful, which is that,
John S: 10 hours of cutting time is different in slots versus open pockets.
johngrimsmo: Different, yeah. Yep.
John S: um And tracking that data at a high level that is brand agnostic or you know machine tool control agnostic um is really interesting.
johngrimsmo: Yes.
John S: Yeah. So I'll let you know how it goes.
johngrimsmo: Hmm. That's fantastic. Fascinating.
John S: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. How many machines are you putting it on?
John S: We'll find out. I think all of them, though,
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John S: Um, again, I don't remember to be totally honest. I guess this is kind of my own ignorance slash not my project, but, um, I think they're giving us all the machines with the, uh, or I think we're getting, uh, all the machines with at least the basic functionality.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: And then it's a question of, cause like I told them up front, I was like, Hey, like the UMC 350, sometimes we run it, sometimes it's off for a week. Like I don't want to pay. It's not worth it to me to have that connected all the time.
John S: So I'll so i'll let you know.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, when Chatter first came out, I think he was giving sending a Raspberry Pi for every each machine. Each machine had their own Raspberry Pi. um And then he wrote his own software that did something, so now one Raspberry Pi connects to your your network, and every machine that's Ethernet can be seen by that Raspberry Pi.
John S: yeah Well, I think we have a pie, but I do believe there's also a simple version that is software only driven on like a network computer that doesn't even need the hardware.
johngrimsmo: um and And that was two years ago, three years ago, so maybe there's even better now, I'm sure.
John S: and i think we have a pie but i do believe there's also a simple version that is software onlyly driven
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: um like a network computer that doesn't even need the hardware
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Pete is just a mad scientist with that kind of stuff. So.
John S: It's really interesting about the prospects of starting to gather some of this data um and even just the amount of work I did to get our Akuma to tell us about alarms.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: It's like now every machine can have a dash one dashboard with all the machines that we know. um Hey, there's a problem or a maintenance thing or whatever that that is, the light the light bulb really hit me on that one.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: i'm I'm really curious to see how you guys use it and what value you find most from it.
John S: Yes.
johngrimsmo: Because I kind of want to get back into it. ah It is useful. We just kind of, nobody else really picked it up. So I didn't make it useful, you know?
John S: No, and I, I'm actually more in your camp there. I'm like, just don't, don't collect data for the sake of data. And like, you're fine without it. Like it's don't force it.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: Um, again, some of this is just more a matter of convenience for me to know what's going on or why.
johngrimsmo: for sure.
John S: Um, but we'll see.
johngrimsmo: And it is really cool and kind of humbling to know actually how many hours a day each machine is running.
johngrimsmo: and It matters.
John S: care more about i care more about how much money we're making. and ah you know like
johngrimsmo: Fair, but you put the two metrics together.
John S: Yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Where it's more helpful was like when we realized, wait a minute here, if the horizontal's now turning off way earlier every night because we don't have as many parts on it, then we really could quoteot afford to go away from horizontal to a one -piece flow where a robot is taking over all the work holding and it's a much slower.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John S: Every tool change for every part, probing some parts, but it works. Like we have enough you know if you assume there's enough growth, the revenue that ah where we would have enough demand that would fill up that slower system, like the rope, the the let's say it's a hermit. Let's say it's running 24 seven now because we've grown a bunch. of Well, the amount of money we should be making at that point, we're okay. like
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: yeah
johngrimsmo: Very cool.
John S: good for Happy 400.
johngrimsmo: Happy 400 day.
John S: Happy birthday.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: 7 .69 years.
John S: Yeah, it's crazy.
johngrimsmo: It's amazing, man. No, I love talking talking with you. it's It's a good point in the week to touch base, get these things out and hear what's going on.
John S: Yeah.
John S: I'm really, I think you and I are both predisposed to like going down rabbit holes. I'm i'm hitting this robot one way harder than I expected.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Yeah. i am And it's simply, it's like what I already said about the ability to possibly do work holding and material loading. By the way, thank you.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: I got more bomb response emails from people on this topic than I think any other topic we've brought up before. So I really appreciate that. Some really good data points, companies, examples, et cetera.
johngrimsmo: Good.
John S: The UR is going in today and then I'm excited.
johngrimsmo: On the willing.
John S: Yeah, but I'm ah i'm not gonna, that one's for granted.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: Like I'm not gonna mess with that one.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: um to have a sandbox robot that I can prove this out to is I'm super excited.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, cool.
John S: And if anybody listening has any tips on roll -up doors with air curtains or strips, I'd love to know it. We just want to stop the cold air from blowing in in the winter.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: We air conditioned the shop, so in the summer it would be nice to not lose that, but it's not nearly as impactful in the summer as it is cold days, windy days.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, or especially if you have your Okamoto grinder like near a roll up door and
John S: Yup. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I'm trying to hit tents here, people.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: All right, man, you go hit those tents.
John S: Good. I'll see you next week.
johngrimsmo: All right, dude.
John S: Dude, go, go, ah go make some peels, dude.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah, we're gonna finish them.
John S: Good.
johngrimsmo: like By the time we talk next week, um we will definitely have many put together.
John S: You have some on the site?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, ah they're gonna disappear.
John S: Yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I gotta film more videos about them. That's what I need to be doing.
John S: But if you don't, you don't, like, I don't know, don't worry about it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, but I gotta explain.
John S: Yeah, you're fortunate enough to be in a position where you don't have to explain that and they'll still sell, which was a good problem to be in.
johngrimsmo: but Yeah.
johngrimsmo: That's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Cool.
John S: Yeah, awesome.
johngrimsmo: All right, man.
John S: Hey, I'll see you. Have a good day.
johngrimsmo: See you next week. Bye.
John S: Bye.
