Transcript
johngrimsmo: Good morning and welcome back to the Business of Machining episode 453. My is John Grimsmo.
John Saunders: My name is John Sonners.
johngrimsmo: And this is the manufacturing podcast where sometimes we sit on a chairlift and have a great conversation, but typically we sit in our offices and talk about our business.
John Saunders: I think I was inclined to say good to see you even though two weeks ago I was actually sitting with you, but this is our normal thing.
johngrimsmo: Yes, exactly.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Now I get to see you digitally again, but man, it was good to see you.
John Saunders: It was great. That whole week was a ah it was a blur. It feels like it was three months ago, but also ah well it was great.
johngrimsmo: Yep. quick recap, how was the Mammoth Tool Summit? Like now that you've had a week or two to think about it.
John Saunders: um you know really good i think what to al and the toolpath team pulled off is what i'd hoped to to see which is not so much a trade show not sales pitches you know a lot of people getting together um just lots of conversations um so i think i think there was enough upside kind kind word commentary that was floated out there that i don't want to just to be a cheerleader even though that was the absolute outcome i think the takeaways are um you have to put yourself into those conversations.
John Saunders: Like it's the, there were panels that were, some of them were excellent.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
John Saunders: Some of them were, were good, not like excellent, which is good. Um, the condo conversations were excellent that either heard myself or heard from others, except you couldn't be at every condo conversation.
johngrimsmo: I know that's my gripe too.
John Saunders: Um,
johngrimsmo: It's like great that it's only 15 ish people and you get an intimate conversation. You can ask questions directly, but it kind of sucks that all the good ones are at the same time. Like I missed a lot of, I didn't even know about them.
johngrimsmo: And then guys are like, did you, talk did you hear about that one?
John Saunders: I know.
johngrimsmo: Did you go to that one? So it's, it's like fine, but.
John Saunders: But I don't want the, you know, they chose not to record them. It probably would have been a lot of hurdle to do so, but also no, like this is a intimate conversation that doesn't need to be recorded for the rest, like for the all of time.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: So that was there. And then look, there was some,
John Saunders: You know, it was one of the first, we brought employees to things before, but like, you know, having brought grant, I was like, I really wanted to make sure that I wasn't guilty of just seeing the people that I've come to become friends or even good friends. Like want to make sure you have those conversations and you learn more. And every time I did, like, it was great when you hop in a gondola or sit down the table and it was somebody new, you learned a lot. So that's why I i really liked that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and sitting down at the tables, like like I sat down and I saw Jay Pearson and Mark Terryberry at a table having dinner.
John Saunders: You, you.
johngrimsmo: I'd never met Mark directly, so that was good, but we know each other, I guess, through the internet. And then there were like a few other people around the table too that I got to be introduced to and like that I didn't know. So it it seeds spark in conversation and things like that.
johngrimsmo: It's easy to be drawn drawn to the people you know and you're like, hey, I haven't seen you in a while.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: How are things? But then to meet the new people was super great. And i actually missed some of the panel talks because um i was like having wonderful little side conversations.
johngrimsmo: And one time I was talking, me and Justin were talking next to the panel conversation and Al comes up to us and puts his arm around us.
John Saunders: OK. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And he goes, you guys are welcome to talk. Just get out of here. Like not right next to the panel. I thought that was funny. I had an amazing conversation with Jim Belosick from Send, Cut, Send.
johngrimsmo: And I'd never met him before. And but we made a great impression on each other.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Very smart dude, very hungry and aggressive with decision making, fast decisions. So I talked to him and his lead machinist, Phil, for an hour and a half.
johngrimsmo: um And it was transformative. Like it was just really, really good to hear what directly from the horse's mouth, like what they've accomplished and what they want to do next and what they're like, how they make decisions and how they, you know, think about things.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: Want to elaborate?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, a couple of the the pointers that Jim said, kind of like quotes that I guess his staff tends to remember, one of which is, do you as a machinist, obviously, we want to be right, but do you want to be right? Or do you want to make money?
johngrimsmo: And that that like hurt me in a way because I'm like, of course I want to be right. And honestly, I probably want to be right more than I want to make money like in a weird way.
John Saunders: But they kind of like, you know, welcome to the 12 step program, admitting the truth is the first step, like, okay.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly. Right. And that's, that's why I was like, please elaborate. Cause this stings. And I'm like, I want to know more.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And so it was, it was really helpful. And obviously there's the balance. We make a very like premium product and I need to pour myself into it, not chase the money and cut corners and cut costs and things like that.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But at the cost at the, the caveat of sometimes I go way too down the rabbit hole and have no concept of making money and I'm just burning time.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: so that I can like be right or like do it the hard way or things like that. And there's probably a very healthy middle ground for me personally where I can have both.
johngrimsmo: um I can be right some of the time, most of the time, even let my team be right. I i really try to do that. But like always consider the making money part of side too.
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: What you... what you Speaking for you, you don't want to sell your soul. I respect you for that.
johngrimsmo: ye
John Saunders: I continue to find odd inspiration from my like very tangential connection to the art world back in the day. and like I think I've said it before, but remember a friend telling me once, because if you go into super bougie, high-end, stuffy art galleries, like you're just kind of like...
John Saunders: how are they making money? Like what what? And sometimes they like put on a show speech featuring a newer artist or a less commercially viable artists, et cetera, cetera. And a friend who is in that world was just like, dude, these places are just, I think his phrase was like, they are Huckin' Warhol prints behind the scenes.
John Saunders: Like you wouldn't believe it. um
johngrimsmo: Really?
John Saunders: Not in a bad way, but just like,
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: they have a ah ah four week show of some edgy contemporary artists and they may make, you know, they may frankly make 15% of what they need to cover their operating overhead for that same period, which is like super not sustainable.
John Saunders: But what you don't see is they have a hundred clients that they're sourcing Andy Warhol, print it's a kind of a euphemism, but like, um it kind of reminds me the whole, like have something that helps generate cashflow while you can also take risks.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly. And I'm a big fan of taking risks. and I need to constantly remember, like bring myself back to the surface about the cash flow side of things too. So that was super helpful. The other one that his machinist Phil told me was, they call it the 40-70 rule.
johngrimsmo: And we've all heard the eighty twenty rule. this is not the 80-20 rule. The 40-70 rule is if you have 40% of the information to make a decision, you probably have enough information.
johngrimsmo: If you have more than 70% of the information, you have too much information and you're wasting time.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: And that hit me last night. Like I was doing and work on GURP, adding new features and stuff. And I'm like, John, you're at 72% right now. I want to get to 90%.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: I don't need to get to 90%. I'm like ready to launch this. I'm ready to like add this feature and like move on with my life. But I want to get to 90%, you know? And these are made up numbers, but um it's really interesting to think like as far as speed of decisions, Senkutsen is a company that has been literally a rocket of innovation and speed.
John Saunders: Uh-huh.
johngrimsmo: And um as I'll talk about in a bit, being around the companies in Silicon Valley, speed is their favorite word.
John Saunders: Yes.
johngrimsmo: And yeah, so that was my Jim Belosek takeaway. That and much else was just wonderful.
John Saunders: That kind of feeds into some moments I wanted to have after the summit, not about the summit so much as some of the discussion around it.
John Saunders: And I'm not, I'm certainly not always right. And in fact, I know sometimes I'm too pessimistic or i choose to antagonistically take the counter viewpoint simply because it's healthy for somebody to do so.
John Saunders: And so And this is for sure not directed at Jim and Senka Sen. He seems like an awesome guy. I got all like, I talked to him, but got to meet him the first time and what they've done in sheet metal.
John Saunders: I mean? He shared the numbers. I think they've shipped 30 million parts already. They're shipping, like they're buying.
johngrimsmo: Like 36,000 new customers a month or something like like weird numbers.
John Saunders: Yeah, like they have a problem disposing of the pallets from the candy that they buy to put in the orders. Like the levels here are are not even funny.
John Saunders: And so, but I wanna say this up, but I wanna make sure it's not construed as to be a criticism of them or anybody else, but it just in general. One thing I've seen over the years is the sort of founder success fallacy.
John Saunders: Being good at one thing doesn't make you good at the other. And in fact, sometimes gives you a false sense of confidence. And one could say here, being good at sheet metal doesn't mean you're good at machining.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: It's just, but you know, now you've got a deep talent pool and critical momentum, dude, rock and roll because buckle up because you're gonna change it. But yeah, that That analogy applies elsewhere.
John Saunders: you know guy who's successful starting up a crypto company doesn't mean he's going to do well running a... or whatever. You can get the idea.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yep. yeah And we fall into that too.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: You know? Yeah. Anyway.
John Saunders: And that speed of decision thing, look, you're right. We overanalyze stuff, bla blah, blah, blah. But also the context of 40, 70 type stuff or what we see when we talk to our friends that are have direct exposure to that aerospace world or the funded the tech funded world.
John Saunders: Those conversations need to occur through a cycle and we just haven't been through a cycle, John. You just haven't been through the economic cycle.
johngrimsmo: What do you mean to cycle?
johngrimsmo: Okay. Yep.
John Saunders: We just have it. Again, this is where I'm going to sound irrationally pessimistic. I don't mean to be, but the reality is the folks that don't think that there will ever be a time where some of those tech companies don't have two two nickels to rub together could could come to be.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: But being right on a thesis is wrong on the timing, which is kind of what I am at right now. I think I have a thesis that this stuff could soften, but when is the same thing as being wrong?
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: You just don't get on a crystal ball.
johngrimsmo: Well, I mean, we had it with tariffs last year, like pretty it hit us pretty hard from out of the blue.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: Right. Um, bit of a different situation, but still like out of our control. Um,
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah, but like you told me um Apple Computer was going to send us $3 million dollars worth of work a year to make new AR glasses.
John Saunders: If we bought XYZ machines on our end and took that risk, zero chance I would do it. I mean, I know it's a fict fictitious example, but like anyway.
johngrimsmo: yeah.
John Saunders: But the one that I actually had the most thought about because it bothered me was people were... so comfortable discussing raising prices. And I think that's probably a healthy conversation to have with yourself or your team or your spouse, because sometimes we're all guilty. The consultants, the product makers, the job shops, we just don't always charge enough or we're too generous, et cetera, et cetera. But there was also some pretty aggressive discussion that, um you know, you hear the whole, like there was the analogy, double your prices and hope that you get half the work because that's the same amount of revenue. um And I don't, I'm not here to weigh on whether that's right or wrong. I think if it works, it's actually probably a pretty darn good validation. But I think where there maybe felt like a smidge of hubris was this idea of like, yeah, but you're also opening the door to competition.
John Saunders: I just didn't hear that discussed much. um
johngrimsmo: By raising your prices too high and then competition scooping you out. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's a good point. my My dad's been saying that for 20 years, 30 years. You know, double your prices half your customers and you work half is less and you make the same money.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like literally since the 90s, he's been telling me that.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But that's a good point.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I don't know. And and we've like our prices have been stable for the past several years, and there's definitely the option to raise our prices as high as we want, but there is a market demand. there's a
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: there's There's a lot of feel to it, right? And maybe you could nickel and dime every month and like slowly increase in way that people don't feel it, but I don't know yet. At the end of the day, you got to you got to do well
John Saunders: Yeah, no, for sure. And look, I mean, I think that's what's, I know this is a recorded podcast, but like you and I both do this cause we want to do it. I think if you want it to be a sellout or similarly, I think there's probably whatever different ways you could act ethically or business ventures, et cetera, if you just wanted to just make money.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Um, I, but I do think like we're we're re-evaluating how we think about stuff.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Um,
johngrimsmo: Since the show. All right.
John Saunders: Well, yeah yes, to be fair, yes, not to take credit away from the show. We also were already evaluating it beforehand and we're basically not, we're no longer going to do the whole, hey, if every quarter or six months or every year, should we look at it?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: We're now going to do kind of inspired by what SenCutSense said about how they are constantly kind of adjusting it. um I could go into it more if people want to hear about it. um It's not so much I want to be private about if I'm just not sure how much I want to about it yet.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John Saunders: But, um
johngrimsmo: That's fine.
John Saunders: We are going to move away from that whole, like a VF2 plate should cost, you know, round number, $1,990 or whatever. We're going to probably end up being more at like, oh, it's going to be $2,064.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: Or like people, we're not retail. You're not walking through shelves. Like most time when you add stuff to the car, it's a weird number anyways.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And so that will then let us say bump a price, you know, maybe you raise it every month by 0.3% or whatever, you know. Sure. Sure.
johngrimsmo: Yep, or even raise it as material prices fluctuate. it It gives you, yeah, like we've got the round numbers thing too, like a Norseman is 990 plus options. So the final option, the final price could be a little weird, but we're not going to price titanium went up by 10%.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So the, not the retail price, but like we got to charge a little bit more.
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: We're not doing that. We're absorbing all that cost right now. um And maybe that is something we need to consider going forward because otherwise costs keep going up and we keep charging the same. We're literally losing, like making less money and at some point losing money on it.
John Saunders: Yeah, for sure.
johngrimsmo: So that doesn't work.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Cool.
John Saunders: um I quickly would like to share, really happy we had the last few weeks have gone post summit.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: I believe the horizontal is sold. um
johngrimsmo: Good for you.
John Saunders: Sorry, it is sold pending inspection, but that's great. We have one machine left, which we do need to sell. The VF6B, laser long gone, but yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: late No. Good. I mean, not good, but right.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: Your second VF six. Yeah.
John Saunders: So we thought we might need to keep it and we don't. we got ah The guys did a great job. We got a lot of the work done and we have a another Okuma Genos M660 and we have a Doosan DNM 6700 that are now on our floor.
John Saunders: And we were going to wedge the VF6B in and keep it running while those were commissioned. And now we're just, it' it's now in the... warehouse Bay. So if anyone's interested in the VF six, we do need you to get that one moved. Let me up, but I want to share that quickly because I want to hear about your post post summit shenanigans.
johngrimsmo: Yes, so i was at the summit for five days, I guess. And then I spent another seven days traveling California. And what started out as like one shop tour drew me to the coast, to San Jose.
johngrimsmo: And i was like, that quickly grew to six. And then by the time I got there and was going through them, it became 11 shop tours.
John Saunders: no
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and I was able to film at nine of them and I filmed like probably 20 hours of footage. So there's going to be nine very long, very in-depth shop tours of of some very cool places that some of them have never been filmed before.
johngrimsmo: So that's super cool. I'll give you the quick rundown list. Being in San Jose, our buddy Jeff Titican texted me and said, hey, you should come by our satellite company. i was like, okay. It's like a 20 minute Uber ride away. i was like, I'll be right there. He's like, yeah, fine. Come on over at 630 at night.
johngrimsmo: I'll be here.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and And so it's a space company. It's a satellite company. They are developing, engineering, making, and having SpaceX launch, but they're like mission controlling.
johngrimsmo: their own fleet of satellites. I think they've launched 11 so far and their goal is to launch 50 and have an array, um, typically for measuring or, viewing forest fires in the middle of forests where nobody is around.
johngrimsmo: So like middle of the Amazon jungle from space, they can now, they have like lenses and like fancy cameras and IR sensors and stuff that can see forest fires and react to them and like tell people on the ground.
johngrimsmo: Um,
John Saunders: It's crazy.
johngrimsmo: So I got to see, like, Jeff's been involved with this for many years now. And Muon Space is the company. They kind of bought him and all of his equipment and all of his shop and just moved him into their new big building, 150,000 square foot building.
johngrimsmo: And now his all of his possessions are in this machine shop corner. And they kind of own him now, but he's happy. And and he knows. i mean, he's a very boisterous guy, but he really knows this whole company.
johngrimsmo: Because not just the machining part, but, like, literally he toured me around. He knows everything. you know, the surface level of everything in the company, which was really cool to see. And hes he was a really good host.
johngrimsmo: So they have two locations.
John Saunders: This is the photo where I saw you in a bunny suit.
johngrimsmo: Yes. So at the second location, he's like, he's like, this is our clean room, like class, whatever, 100, whatever they call it. Because the satellites need to be like super clean, especially the optics.
johngrimsmo: So they actually have two levels of clean room. There's like the bunny suit room. And then there's the air curtain washed down, like perfect one that is in the optics room.
johngrimsmo: And I was like, as a recent obsession with optics, I've seen a lot of optics videos and I never really thought of optics in a clean room. Cause all the videos are like just on a lab bench, like mirrors and lasers and stuff. And I was like, oh yeah, like obviously that's like a really clean room environment.
johngrimsmo: So I got dressed up in the bunny suit and Jeff told me some of the rules. It's kind of counterintuitive. You want to go top to bottom so that if any hair further falls, you're like covered.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: um So we filmed all that. That was great. And then I got to talk to the CEO and he kind of tore me around a little bit and got to just hear the story. And that was like a surprise, but a really cool trip.
johngrimsmo: After that, I went to Surface Engineering, which is a shop run by my buddy, Paul Doyle. And I met him at the current event. Basically, they'd make air bearing spindles and they make ultra, ultra precise. Like they're chasing the micron and the submicron with grinding and machining and things like that. They have a...
johngrimsmo: think this is right, I got on video, a DMU250U.
John Saunders: Whoa, the big one, the ultra precise, holy.
johngrimsmo: which is it's like It's massive and there's a U version which is the ultra precise version. So it's like the size of a room with a 12 station pallet, it looks like ah like a small apartment complex.
John Saunders: Right.
John Saunders: Oh my God.
johngrimsmo: And they're making they were making actually little linear stage roller bearing things on it. They were doing the finished cuts with like diamond tooling, but they also make big housings on it. That's why they got it. But it can do big stuff and little stuff, which is really cool to see. But that shop, ah that kind of is what drew me to the coast. I was like, Paul invited me a long time ago and I was like, yeah, one day I'm in Mammoth. So the precision that they do there, both grinding and milling and lapping and inspection and things like that is...
johngrimsmo: you know, one of the most accurate shops I've seen.
John Saunders: Yeah, that's.
johngrimsmo: So I really wanted to go there and like learn everything. And so I filmed a lot there. I spent nine hours at that shop and they were, they were gracious enough to show me around.
johngrimsmo: So I did muon space in the morning and then I spent nine hours at Paul's shop.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then I get a message right at the end from my buddy, Jason, who makes my flashlight that I've been carrying this from Prometheus flashlight.
John Saunders: Oh, yeah, Prometheus. Awesome.
johngrimsmo: And he's like, Hey, I'm like five minutes away. Do you want to like come by? I can come pick you up. I'm like, yeah, come pick me up at 630. And so I spent the evening with him and I toured his shop. We went out for Mexican food. And so like the whole rest of the trip was these kind of full day, three shop tour days.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Like it was amazing. Yeah. um Down the list, the next morning I met up with Ethan Perrin, who's got Mitres West, their kind of made up um makerspace kind of shop.
johngrimsmo: And he's an MIT graduate, currently a Tesla battery engineer, just like one of those dudes who's like, speaks at 1.5 times speed, and is really, really, really smart, like really clever.
John Saunders: Yeah, I've heard he's very sharp.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. very sharp and see he's like yeah come on by check out our shop and they basically created makerspace but private amongst their like 10 friends and they all pay rent and they all had they all like rent so zap um rents an office in that space and
John Saunders: Okay. oh
johngrimsmo: So Ethan has like, he has his mill and his lathe and they're building a Formula SAE car and they have like, there's a laser guy that's got his optics corner and it's just like a candy store of auction finds and projects that are probably never going to get finished, but they just get to have a place to play and it's the ultimate garage.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: And so that was really cool. And then he actually drove me up to San Francisco where Cyrus invited us to tour where he's hanging out with or where he's working right now. So Cyrus Lloyd is one of our precision nerds.
johngrimsmo: He's become a good friend. And so he's working at Atomic Semiconductor and they're making You know, the big ASML chip making machine is half a billion dollars, right?
johngrimsmo: They're making like, I think the number was under $100,000, like 3D printer sized machines that will make chips.
John Saunders: interesting.
johngrimsmo: And that's all I can talk about because I literally signed an NDA. But... Cyrus was able to like come in and within six months basically invent his own machine. like We've all wanted to make a machine, right? He's been able to do that using all the precision knowledge that he has and he used like to solve a problem, like a pretty serious machine.
johngrimsmo: And he was very it was fun nerding out and having him show us that.
John Saunders: And we owe him a correction. he is now a co-host of the Precision Microcast.
johngrimsmo: He is. Yes, which I haven't gotten to that episode yet.
John Saunders: I think we neglected.
johngrimsmo: I'm on episode nine.
John Saunders: Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm really solid individual.
johngrimsmo: I'm so happy for him. Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Very smart. One of those really smart guys. That's like, um so that was cool. And then, you know, the YouTube channel Breaking Taps with Zach, he was there too.
John Saunders: Of course he's mess he's Massachusetts.
johngrimsmo: He was in Massachusetts. He moved to the Bay Area.
John Saunders: interesting oh that's cool is he working at atomic okay okay okay
johngrimsmo: So he was there too. So i got to meet him and we got to hang out and we all got to tour Atomic.
johngrimsmo: No, but he wants to. No, he's good. um Yeah, so that was awesome to meet him. We've chatted over Instagram for a couple of years, but, and he's he's he's kind of made his own, like, yeah, he's made his own lithography machine to make chips and things like that.
John Saunders: sure sure oh john i'm for sure tomo
John Saunders: for
johngrimsmo: So he he knew more than I did. And I was the dumbest person in the room. And that was one of those situations, you know, they always say, like, be the dumbest person in the room. That was me, um which was, now that I think about it, was really awesome.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: And the other engineers there got to meet the owner, the CEO, also a really, really sharp dude. He actually was biting his tongue at first.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then he goes, oh, wait, you guys have signed the and NDAs. And then he opens right up.
John Saunders: Oh my god. Yeah, that's awesome.
johngrimsmo: was like, whoa, cool. So that was just incredible.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So then Ethan's in the morning, Atomic in the afternoon. And then in the evening, most of us, except for Zach, went over to Laney Machine Tech, where adam was Adam runs the Laney College manufacturing department, where they have...
John Saunders: Nice.
johngrimsmo: They teach both basic machining and have an ultra precision lab. So I got a full tour of that and I got to run the Presetec diamond turning lathe and I got to use their Zygo interferometer and we got to play and we we were there till like 10.30 at night.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: And turns out the diamond turning tool that was we were using to make this aluminum optic was dull, like microscopically dull. So Adam was so unhappy with the results of my sample piece that I was going to bring home and a filming all about. And he's like, we throw tool in there. i'm like, dude, it's 1030. Like, go
John Saunders: yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then the next day he goes in with a new tool and cuts a new piece. And he goes, see, it's supposed to be this good. Yeah.
John Saunders: I like don't understand the process by which something like a diamond up against aluminum, you know, it's such like it's David and Goliath. Like it's so strong. How does it, the manner in which yeah.
johngrimsmo: and Yeah. yeah How does dull for one? Yep.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I'm still curious about that too. Um, I'm wondering if actually it might be the touch off because he had us manually jog forward until a chip forms. I wonder if that's not good for the tool.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Like I'll have to ask him. I don't know Um, But the difference between a good part and a bad part was a good part should be flat to like, I think it was five nanometers. And my part was flat to like 50 nanometers or something.
johngrimsmo: You can literally see the grain crystals of the aluminum like pop up because the tool was not dull enough to cut them. It just bounced over there something.
John Saunders: But yeah, yeah, dissuade them.
johngrimsmo: So you look at the part and it looks kind of shimmery and you see like the crystals, which is, I think it's really cool.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Yes. Yes.
johngrimsmo: So that was a big day there. And then in the morning I popped over to Dave Precise's shop in Burbank. His new company, Final Rev, is doing some amazing things. So i was able to film a really in-depth video with him about what they're doing, both with Tool Trace, the scan outline software, which was like a little side gig that's actually turned into a pretty serious thing. And what they're doing with Final Rev, which is trying to make like local city-based job shops with instant turnaround, same-day turnaround kind of thing and and pop-up locations all around the country.
johngrimsmo: um And he's going hard at that. So he's he's having a lot of fun and it was a great video. For someone who doesn't like to be in front of the camera and just shows his orange glove, he was very, very accommodating and very happy to to do this.
johngrimsmo: So that was sick.
John Saunders: And you saw the Willow and Twinsy.
johngrimsmo: I got to see the Willemann like three serial numbers off of mine or whatever it is. I literally, I felt his door and I was like, oh, your door smooth is way smoother than mine.
John Saunders: ah
johngrimsmo: Like I must be missing some bushings.
johngrimsmo: So that was great.
John Saunders: Don't know what you don't know, right? Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then he drove me to Jason, the flashlight maker who I met two days before. He's like, hey, you wanna go flying? And I'm like, sure. i he I knew he had his pilot's license. I thought he was going to rent a plane. So Dave drives me to the hangar to to Jason's like personal Cessna 182 that he owns.
John Saunders: Sick.
johngrimsmo: And I was like, Oh, this is amazing. So we spent two hours in the air. I got to fly for like 45 minutes. We flew over Alcatraz over the golden gate bridge.
John Saunders: No way.
johngrimsmo: Yup.
John Saunders: Oh, John, that's incredible.
johngrimsmo: I filmed a lot of that. So that's going to be in the vlog that I'm posting and just hanging out more with Jason. He's such a good guy. Um,
John Saunders: Darksucks.com, right?
johngrimsmo: Exactly.
John Saunders: Little shout out to him.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Exactly. And I've been carrying this to Flashlight for nine years and it worked out great. So then my plan was to jump on a plane from Oakland or wherever.
johngrimsmo: There's like three airports around there.
John Saunders: yeah yeah
johngrimsmo: Like last minute. I don't really care. I'll figure it out. And then fly down to LA where I've got three more tours lined up. And so i was talking with Jason and Dave and they're like, I mean, you could drive. You could like rent a car.
johngrimsmo: Cause I had Monday open. I had no plans for Monday. And they're like, you could rent a car. And I'm like, I could rent a car. So I did. i rented a Dodge Hornet, which was actually a pretty great car.
johngrimsmo: And then I drove the Pacific Coast Highway down. And like I had the the day to myself. I'm like, all I got to do is be at l LA in Torrance by the morning.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: like i'll take as long as i want stop for a nice burrito a it's just so free after all those tours and mammoth and everything it was like i needed the day to myself not even really to process because my brain was still kind of jumbled but just to like have the freedom to just roam it was really nice um
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and then Tuesday morning, got to Torrance, spent the day with Joshua Shapiro Watch Company, which was absolutely insane.
johngrimsmo: Filmed so much there. One of their lead watchmakers, Eric, who I've been sort of friends with for a couple years, was very happy to walk me around and show me everything and film everything. And He said, the only thing you can't film is customers' watches before they get them because we want them to be the first ones to see them. I'm like, sure, of course. I'll give you full edit on the video afterwards. But like, please teach me everything.
johngrimsmo: And they did. i got to sit down with their watchmakers and talk about all the little details and like, tell me about Radico and tell me how I see you're doing this with your fingers. And how's that? and And he goes, actually, you're wrong on this, what you saw on the internet.
johngrimsmo: It's actually like this. And I'm like, oh my gosh.
John Saunders: Ooh, interesting.
johngrimsmo: So really good video coming out of there. um And then spent the whole day there, had to leave at about five o'clock, zip up to SpaceX where one of our customers works. And we got to get the tour at SpaceX, which is like an employee led internal tour. I don't think it's really open to the public, but you have to like be invited or something. don't know what the rules are, but yeah.
johngrimsmo: It was insane. i I know about SpaceX. I don't follow SpaceX. I don't really know the depth of what they're doing, but I've seen some stuff and being there and talking with one of our customers. He's got a bunch of our knives.
johngrimsmo: um He knows the place, you know, relatively inside and out. He's been there for 10 plus years and oh it was, we spent like three hours walking around SpaceX. Like,
John Saunders: What is, so like, obviously anyone who's listening to this knows SpaceX builds rockets and launches, the book like what's the next level explanation of what they do for somebody that may not really get it?
johngrimsmo: sure. Yes.
johngrimsmo: So at this facility, which is all I can really talk about, um they they were making the rockets and they are these 12 foot diameter um aluminum cans. It's literally a pop can.
johngrimsmo: And they start by making flat sheets of aluminum and they mill out the iso grid pattern and the whole spacing and all that stuff.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Then they form bend them into a cylinder, four pieces or whatever.
John Saunders: OK.
johngrimsmo: And then they friction stir weld the pieces together.
John Saunders: Yeah, so super cool.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. And I thought it was interesting. There was no end stop where the tool like comes out, the stir weld tool. It was just kind of a clean lead out at the end of the seam.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I'm like, i'm I've only seen your video on friction stir welding. I don't know much about it, but I'm like, that looks really clean.
John Saunders: I mean, anything can friction stir weld if you try hard and believe in yourself.
johngrimsmo: Exactly, exactly.
John Saunders: yeah
johngrimsmo: So, yeah, we got to see the guys hoist the cranes and move these big assemblies on top of each other. And like, you know, we had a crew of guys walking through the aisle and they're like, you guys got to just get off the aisle because we've got big equipment coming through. And it's like the action. this was eight zero o'clock at night.
johngrimsmo: And they're like, we run 24 hours. They were off the top of my head. They were probably... 200 people in that building at the time, like like working.
John Saunders: Oh my gosh, it's crazy.
johngrimsmo: um The full cafeteria, like full restaurant inside. um Carbon fiber layup room, I thought was really cool. I think I can talk about all of this. they They had, you know, like pre-preg carbon fiber where it's the sheets, but it's already got the goo in it.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: And they had this green laser shooting a triangle, laser shaped triangle on the nose cone of Dragon Capsule or whatever it is. And they're like, basically put triangle of carbon fiber here, this green laser line.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then these ladies have these sheets and they just go slap. And then they missed and i they had to like peel it off and slap it back.
John Saunders: ah
johngrimsmo: up again and And then they pat it down, they make it all nice, and then I guess it gets autoclaved or heated or whatever it happens next to make it like carbon fiber seal. But that was cool to see.
johngrimsmo: And it's just like constantly every corner something's happening. We talked about their inventory management system. He said they have line side inventory. um I think that's a ah term we can all Google.
johngrimsmo: But um where basically every work cell where they're assembling the Raptor engines, think they're called, um they can never run out of parts, like ever.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So the assembly stations need to have enough inventory, but not too much inventory.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And everything has to be traceable because aerospace. And so a lot of scanning, a lot of input, lot of systems, lot of databases, lot of things.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: So we talked a little bit about that, but it was just like, those engines are not simple and they're being assembled by humans.
John Saunders: If there's one, well, if there's one thing I would sort of say that blew me away, so I'm sort of sharing or trying to pay it forward and encouraging folks that want to learn to watch, it's go watch the evolution of the Raptor engine and where they started kind of looks like where NASA left off with like the F1 engine or something with like, you know, 450 welded external pipes.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: And as you move through the progression, it now just looks like one 3D printed blob.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and he said metal 3D printing has revolutionized the way they make that because all that stuff can be internal now.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um
John Saunders: Insane. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: It's insane. Yeah, it's fantastic. One of the cool things, they had a satellite hanging from the roof like an older one. The satellites I saw at Muon were the size of... ah footstool, like on your sofa kind of thing.
johngrimsmo: um The one at SpaceX, which I think was a Starlink satellite was the size of Volkswagen bus or or bigger. Like, I don't know. It was on the roof. So it's hard to tell, but huge wingspan. I don't know, 50 feet, a hundred feet, something like that. um And there was this tube in the middle, this large cylinder that went all the way through it. And I said, what's that? And he goes, that's the nitrogen or whatever gas that's the nitrogen thrusters.
johngrimsmo: where you know You've seen it in the movies where they go, psst, psst, and the the thing moves.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I'm like, you're telling me you launched that full of gas, whatever, nitrogen, and that's all you got for the life cycle of that thing. There's no refuel. And he goes, yep, we use very little in space.
johngrimsmo: And that has to not leak, obviously. And it has to be enough to last the whatever it is, five-year life cycle of a typical satellite before they crash and burn on purpose. um And I was like, that's, I mean, that's like the simplest thing of the whole thing, but I was like, that's really fascinating.
John Saunders: Crazy, writing
johngrimsmo: Yeah. So that was at the end of another huge long day. And then the next morning I went to Pearson and I spent the whole day waiting to Pearson. ah
John Saunders: It's like a who's who.
johngrimsmo: I know. i was like, Hey, I'm in town. Yeah. And yeah, we talked about it on the mammoth chairlift, my kind of reinvigoration of lean and Kanban and things like that.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: So I talked to Jay again at the show and i was like, hey, can I can i come by? Can I spend a day with you? Because this is really plugging my brain right now. And he was, I saw his shop in 2017.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: nine years ago. so nine years ago
John Saunders: 10, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. And I mean, same person, same vibes, same product, same shop, but times 10.
John Saunders: Roundup. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um He is quadrupled down on what he is and what he does and what he believes. And he is the most gracious host and just really, really smart guy. So we talked a lot about his business and my business and how we can implement Kanban and Lean and you know the the places where it's really going to make a difference and the problems we're having internally and how we think it could solve.
John Saunders: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: And it won't be exactly the way he's doing it, but that's okay. um He's also had a ton of fun with AI programming. and making making his own internal systems, which he's now starting to market, called Stoke Forge Productions, which I didn't know anything about until he showed me.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I was like, dude, this is sick.
John Saunders: Like the Pearson boards.
johngrimsmo: well And he openly um accredits us, you and me, for calling it the Pearson boards.
John Saunders: ah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: He had like a weird name for it before and he's like, oh I guess it sticks if the bomb calls it Pearson boards.
John Saunders: whether yeah
John Saunders: yeah
johngrimsmo: And so Stoke Forge is a digital, super upgraded Pearson board. And he showed me it working in his shop and he's like, it's been live on our shop floor for like two weeks. Everybody adopted immediately because it's so much better and faster and easier and cooler.
johngrimsmo: And it's iterating amazingly. So like, and And he had a ah weird hack to it, kind of in the way that I told you when I built GURP, I had like ChatGPT for theory and then cursor for action.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: He, in 2009, used to work at a software company and kept two really good software friend developers, friends. And so he basically made the initial model in Cursor or Claude or whatever he did.
johngrimsmo: And then he wrote them on board and he's like, hey, like experts, can you help me like polish this and make it like really nice and really secure? And then the three of them have just been working back and forth, like collaborating and making it.
johngrimsmo: but That's why it looks so good.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, so. So that was my trip. It was fantastic.
John Saunders: I feel like I like that, like overwhelmed sense just from listening to your very, very brief, but wonderful recap. And I can't imagine what it's like to live that, you know, back when we used to really do this and film these tours, it's exhausting.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: I thought about you a lot while I was doing these tours.
John Saunders: It's overstimulating.
johngrimsmo: I'm like, I'm doing the Saunders run right now. Like...
John Saunders: It's awesome.
johngrimsmo: And we're going to we're going have nine shop tours and two vlog videos like mammoth.
John Saunders: um That's really cool.
johngrimsmo: And then my trip to post from all this.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And that's like a lot, like when people see all these shop tours, they're going to think I'm the shop tour guy, but literally that happened within six days, you know,
John Saunders: Oh, yeah, yeah, right, right. No, but do do when in Rome.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly. So it was incredible. it's It's not something I want to do. Like you see the MTD CNC guys like doing this as their job. I don't want to do this as my job.
John Saunders: Sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: But not only was it super fun and I love to share, like I learned so much.
John Saunders: Yeah, but that's what that's what makes that's why I'm gonna watch your videos is because it's not a hired gun where it's like, oh, show me your new widget.
johngrimsmo: And yeah. Yep.
John Saunders: It's like, no, I'm here because I've known these people, they've been in the trenches.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yep.
John Saunders: We've all, I don't know what, if anyone ever if anybody ever like documents this era of American manufacturing, but to some very humble extent, many of us have played a very smart part in this like story we've told in this group that we've built.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: It's far bigger than any one of us for sure, but nevertheless, it's like, hey, you've you've heard, you've seen the people that were motivated, inspired, and um and you know I always say credit to you like you.
John Saunders: Maybe a video or something you saw was what you needed to get off and make a change, but you you did it. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, you're the one doing it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So doing the shop tours, I wanted to, I kind of told everybody going in, I'm like, I have kind of two goals here. I want to show your shop and what you guys do and who you are. But I want to ask questions. I want you to teach me something I don't know yet. I want to go deep. So I feel like I asked a lot of like really interesting questions and, you know, made ah like pointed at things that they probably weren't going talk about. But I was like, no, no, no, tell me about that. Like, what's going on here?
johngrimsmo: So that's cool. And at Surface Engineering, their founder, which founded the company in the 70s, has all these isms, you know, all these little quotes, like Renzetti quotes kind of thing, because they've been in the precision industry forever.
John Saunders: Okay. Mm-hmm. 100...
johngrimsmo: And so the guys there were rattling off some of these things. And i was like, Paul, got to text me the list of of Petty's rules.
John Saunders: Dude, been
johngrimsmo: Mr. Petty was the owner. And you got you gotta to test me the list of Petty's rules because these need to be public. you know, and and a couple of them that come to mind are when you chamfer a burr, you create two burrs.
John Saunders: there. For sure, been there.
johngrimsmo: Right?
John Saunders: for sure been there
johngrimsmo: And I was like, oh, I love that so much.
John Saunders: I'm laughing because this is, this is, sir I don't know service engineering or Paul, any of these guys, but I do know precision instruments.
johngrimsmo: 50 rules, right?
John Saunders: And here's the 50 tidbits by Dave Arneson, which I keep stapled to my filing cabinet right next to my desk.
johngrimsmo: Yep. it's It's a beautiful list if anybody hasn't seen that yet. Yeah, 50 Shop Tidbits by um Dave Arneson or Jim Arneson.
John Saunders: It's Google-able. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And worth reading. So I sent that to Paul a couple days later and I was like, see this list? And he's like, oh, number seven. Read number seven right now. He goes, number seven is truth.
John Saunders: How you hold on to a part is probably going to be your greatest source of error. oh Yep. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So that kind of stuff.
John Saunders: Yeah. I love it.
johngrimsmo: That's great.
John Saunders: Good. That's awesome. um As much as I want to just sit here and soak up that what you just said for the sake of,
John Saunders: into ah um I learned a couple things recently, i think at the summit. one of it well so one thing I saw at this heard at the summit, I don't think the individual who said this was is going to care that I'm sharing it. I'm not going to name them because I don't want to betray that, but I also want to give them credit for it. They have single room home workshop.
John Saunders: And you ready for what they did? They dumped all of their tools and drawers toolbox drawers, contents, etc, etc, etc, into a Google Sheet air table, don't know what.
John Saunders: They hooked up a point tilt tilt zoom camera that has a laser beam on it. They vibe coded it and they say, where are my four to six inch mics? And it points to the drawer.
johngrimsmo: Like out loud. Yeah.
John Saunders: And it's like done, like, or working like that's, this is why like, and I'm not gonna do that, but am I gonna use that inspiration or that energy to think about something? i sure am. Like, that's what i love.
johngrimsmo: Exactly. Exactly.
John Saunders: And then um I didn't know or I underestimated how much emphasis is being put into the verbage and the words you use in an LLM prompt.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John Saunders: Like I now learned that there are full-time prompt engineer jobs where your job is to understand how to query or how to prompt the LLM. And the thing I've since done, which has been phenomenal, um is every single LL, I mean, maybe not every request, but almost every request I put into Claude, I end with, please ask me whatever questions you need before starting these tasks.
John Saunders: And yes, 10% of the questions are silly.
johngrimsmo: Oh, before starting this task. Okay.
John Saunders: 90% of the questions are absolutely fundamentally key.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. 90%.
John Saunders: Yes, John, yes.
johngrimsmo: Oh my gosh. Okay.
John Saunders: you This is not negotiable. You guys start doing this.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. yeah Okay.
John Saunders: And you realize it makes sense because otherwise it's just like, I'm not going bother you.
johngrimsmo: Tell me, tell.
John Saunders: I'm just going to go do it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: When in reality, it's like, no, no, no, no.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. And then there's so much back and forth.
John Saunders: Like to quote Spencer Webb, the eager intern was like, man, boss, I'd really like to ask you about how I'm supposed to do that, but I don't want to, because you told me to just go do it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I feel like I'm just supposed to go do it.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And all your prompts are that.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: And there's probably a better way that I don't even know yet.
johngrimsmo: Ask me if you have any questions in order to do what I ask.
John Saunders: no Ask me whatever questions you need before starting this task.
johngrimsmo: No.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Writing that down.
John Saunders: um I was going to program there as a keyboard shortcut. I think in Claude, you can even set like rules for how you interact with it. I'm not sure I want to to do that because there are some times I don't want to ask it that or I don't want to ask every on every iteration of every prompt, but yeah it's for sure some version of an unlock doing that.
johngrimsmo: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: Beautiful. Yeah, thanks for that.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: That's good.
John Saunders: Yeah, my other notes, really happy with how we've done it here at Saunders. New machines coming on board. The Wiki plus our shared drive of assets on manuals and PDFs and instructions is really helpful.
johngrimsmo: name
John Saunders: Plus our machine tool info cards. They have all of the fluids and oils and greases linked in there, has the breaker panel listed, has who we call for service support when you need it, all that.
johngrimsmo: Displayed or scannable?
John Saunders: It's in a Google sheet that was also then printed out and put on the machine.
johngrimsmo: So have digital and physical copies.
John Saunders: um yeah yeah yeah um but that the wiki in general and just like where you start dumping all that information we have gemini on the front end sort of i want to get better at that there's some quirks to that right now they are
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: The wiki and lex are separate items. Okay. Yeah, I want GURP to be everything. i want it to be that, the single source of truth.
John Saunders: i don't actually i'm very
johngrimsmo: Okay. Oh, you've got you've got separate systems already. I don't.
John Saunders: Yeah, fair point. And I, there's probably some value to them being tied in or maybe being able to see, but i to me, the Lex and the ERP have what lives there is empirically accurate and good and in deliberate. Whereas the wiki is is very much intentionally a dump.
John Saunders: Like you can put anything you want. Like we have a page for the brother we have an out the page for the Doosan. It's very SEO, like everything you want to talk about, addict text blurb, like whatever.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: like it.
John Saunders: Another great quote that I heard a few times at the summit, stop starting and start finishing.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, that hurts.
John Saunders: but break not I'm not throwing any stones. um Yeah, but I really stop starting start finishing.
johngrimsmo: I think Eric told me that in different words yesterday.
John Saunders: Oh, yeah.
johngrimsmo: He actually said, because I'm scared of what you learned on your trip because like it it could change everything.
John Saunders: Oh, yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: And that scares me because I don't know what it is. It's this big unknown black hole of potential that, you know, John's energy has wrapped up in and,
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And that's the balance. I'm trying to you know be excited to the guys and say how good the trip was and how valuable it was to me, but without having the time to go into any detail of like what we're going to do next or change or whatever like that.
johngrimsmo: So yeah, that's funny.
John Saunders: That's what i did. I did all my, dumped all my notes over the, while I was there and on the flight back. And then, um, honestly, we, we had such a busy week last night, last week, three machines coming and going total. And so then it's like, okay, you got to get off that cloud nine. That's so fun and inspiring. But now it's like, okay, I just need to pick one thing.
John Saunders: What's one thing I can take away that can implement. And then you do that.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: What's the next thing? That's all.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Exactly. Cool.
John Saunders: Anything else?
johngrimsmo: That's about all I got for now.
John Saunders: Sweet. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: right, man.
John Saunders: That's good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Get back in the groove. This is my second day back at work.
John Saunders: Yeah. Oh, well, thanks for making it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's like new to me.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: i walk I walk into our team meeting and the guys are like, who's the new guy?
John Saunders: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yep. right, man.
John Saunders: ah Good. See next week.
johngrimsmo: right, see you next week. Bye.
John Saunders: Take back.
