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#235 Planning For The Future & Asking Why
241 Plays4 years ago
TOPCIS:
- Mental health in running a business.
- Asking why 5 times.
- Saunders got a new machine! Okuma M660!
- All about surface grinding and finishing.
- Robot Pallet Loader?
- Process reliability.
- Think of something you are grateful for every night.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Philosophy
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the Business of Machining, episode 235. Sorry we were out last week, but my name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmough.
00:00:10
Speaker
This podcast, John and I talk each week about business health, operational health, and I'll call it mood health. When you say mental health, you start thinking about things that I think are perhaps outside of the framework of what I mean by that, which is more just like, are we feeling aggressive and are we feeling hungry? Are we feeling not anxiety in the sense that it's paralyzing, but what's our mind? That makes sense?
00:00:33
Speaker
Yeah, mental health has such a negative connotation to it, but it's something I've been paying attention to a lot for the past few years, but specifically for the past few months. Eric and I have been talking about it a lot and it's not a bad thing. It's just like nobody talks about it in an open, honest, like helpful way. It's just like all mental health, like, oh, you got a problem, you know? Yeah, right. But it goes back to why I think why you guys started talking and why if somebody
00:01:02
Speaker
asked me, what's the single shortest reason you explain why you and John do this podcast or talk? It's because everybody else out there that's putting out content podcasts, whatever, generally is frankly putting on a fake face about like, hey, we all have highs and lows. None of us are in this to be self-loathing or
00:01:22
Speaker
or pity parties, the things we said, but darn it, if it isn't the times where you've got great highs, but you've got some mediums and some low lows.
Managing Moods & Philosophies
00:01:32
Speaker
Yeah, some deep lows. It's the mediums that are confusing though. You look around, you're like, everything's great. I've got an amazing family, I've got an amazing business. I have basically everything I want right now. Why do I feel weird right now? Why am I not on high?
00:01:46
Speaker
I have those days and it's confusing and it's annoying and it's like, come on, slap out of it, snap out of it, like, come on, go. And sometimes I can snap myself out of it and just start running towards something fun, but sometimes you're just confused.
00:02:04
Speaker
Do you have a plan? Do you have a thing you try or do? I'm curious. I'm much quicker at noticing those moods and I take immediate action on something if I want to get out of it. Sometimes I just want to
00:02:21
Speaker
um, Salk in it for a couple hours and, you know, put on a movie and just kind of not do. And that's fine. That's totally fine. Um, but if, if I'm in that mood or it's like, no, I got lots of stuff to do. Let me just, what, what action can I take right now? What can I, if I do something, I will feel better. Yeah. You know, so work on a project or something. Um, I,
00:02:46
Speaker
I have more questions and answers here. I also care about it and look happy to like good grief like I feel like that's the one thing I just just be wholesome like hey we not every day is crushing it.
00:03:00
Speaker
The interesting recent takeaways, which I think have some lasting power, are both Ted Lasso and Relentless. Relentless about Michael Jordan really focuses on a wonderful concept that I didn't expect, which is don't think. Quit thinking, because I think we're prone to overthinking it, analyzing it, and inevitably, a lot of thinking
00:03:21
Speaker
in my experience, has a lot more to do with the past than the future, especially when you get in those lows. It actually ties wonderfully into ... Have you watched Ted Lasso yet? I haven't because I don't have Apple TV or whatever and I don't want to get it. That's mandatory for us to continue our friendship. I will watch it.
00:03:39
Speaker
Um, it's, it's, I mean, it's wonderful because it's just the most enlightening smiling it's in and of itself. If like, I wasn't at work watching an episode of Ted Lasso was probably a great way to just kind of do a little reset. But, um, one of the things he talks about is be a goldfish. You know, goldfish have the shortest memories out there. Um, and that's okay. You know, if you lose a game Salk for two minutes, do what you need to do. Be a goldfish. Yeah.
00:04:06
Speaker
I love it. It's really good. That ties into something Eric and I have talked about a lot. Meg's been reading all these stoic philosophy books. It's basically a concept of everything that is right now, it is. You can feel bad about what happened in the past, but it is. This is your situation right now. You can't change it right now. You can move forward. You can take an action, go a different way, but you can't
00:04:33
Speaker
Like, why are you sulking about the past? Because it exists. It just is. It's that quote that that gentleman mentioned to me a month or two ago in the parking lot that I shared from my late grandfather who said, there's no value in worrying about it. If you can fix it, go fix it. Otherwise, really, you got to sit there and synthesize that and think about it. It's wonderfully true.
Balancing Work & Personal Life
00:05:02
Speaker
Yeah. So how are you? I'm crushing it great. Joking aside, I took last week off, went up to Michigan with the family, had a great time. And from a podcast business standpoint, I give it a 10 out of 10. I was for sure on email checking stuff here and there. But I can't think of a single work thing that I
00:05:31
Speaker
Did that make sense? Like I didn't really order material. I didn't really put out fires. Um, so I give a lot of credit to our team and the people here and how it's running. And it's a, it's a benefit of a deliberate effort over the past year. Um, it doesn't mean we're, we don't have room to improve and hiccups here and there, but, um, I think in this, in the spirit of talking about what we just talked about mood health, you know, um,
00:05:57
Speaker
and relentless, Michael Jordan would win a championship and the next morning would be talking to his trainer about what he needs to do for next season. I generally don't care to even talk about celebrating our wins. I care about pushing forward. You know what I mean? Maybe you guys celebrate the wins a little because darn it, that was an absolute wonderful small business anecdote of getting to that point. Yeah. Even you being able to step away for a week and know that the shop is
00:06:26
Speaker
90% running on its own. It's fine. Yeah. That's a huge win. It doesn't happen until you step away, until you actually try it and make it happen. I might actually take off now.
00:06:43
Speaker
first week of September. So like two weeks from now, take a week off and just, we're not going anywhere. We're not doing anything. We're just, I'm just not going to come into work and we'll see. Yeah, no, right. I mean, there's that kind of, if you sit down with an old wise man, you know, if you sit down with Yoda and
00:07:00
Speaker
It's kind of like that question of, do you own your business? Or does your business own you? Now, I don't love working. I always say that because I very much like what we do. I love machining, if that makes sense. But yeah, it's kind of like, good for you. Do it. Why wouldn't you do it?
00:07:22
Speaker
Um, yeah, the other great question that came about, I don't remember where now, but, um, Oh, it was on a, um, there's a random podcast I was listening to about climbing K2. And, uh, the guy was talking about kind of mountain climbers and why they do what they do and getting into some, you know, existential things there. But, uh, when you're debating something, whether it's a medium day or a low day or whatever, ask five why questions. Yeah.
00:07:53
Speaker
It's interesting where you get to where you get. Why are you stressed? Why is that stressful because of this? Why is that? You know what I mean? It's pretty quick to distill it down. It's kind of like six degrees of separation. At some point, the road ends. The wise word ends. Yeah, right. Only by asking those questions can you get to things you won't consciously think about.
00:08:22
Speaker
Because there's like the surface Y, the first answer, and it's so easy to stop there and be like, well, it's because of this. You just blame that. Yes. Cool. I got to do that more. Yeah. We have some exciting machining news. Go.
New Machine Acquisition
00:08:42
Speaker
We purchased a new machine. I'm really excited. We purchased an Okuma Genos M660.
00:08:52
Speaker
There's a 660. Yeah. So the 560 is, I think, I believe they're kind of most popular three-axis vertical. It's kind of the typical 20 by 40 format. And we wanted the larger work envelope travel on effectively a bridge mill. So the key here was C frames are great. We love, we honestly legitimately have loved the machines that we run, which have almost all been Haas machines.
00:09:18
Speaker
The benefit of a bridge machine has some real benefits, the design of a bridge style machine. Most bridge mills tend to get quite large. The Genos is effectively that design in the right footprint, in the right travel and work envelope and so forth. That's awesome. Every time I see guys post up the 440 or 550 or whatever, the other Okuma Genos machines,
00:09:42
Speaker
It's just like they're so nice. They're fast, they're accurate, they're super strong, they're super rigid. You can change tools while it's running. Yeah. Not something I ever thought I'd care about five years ago. Yeah, exactly. Access to the ATC door. It's a big deal. And it's a machine that just makes sense. What does the table just move in Y just from the back? Yep. And the head just moves left to right and up and down.
00:10:10
Speaker
Right. So if you think about a traditional C-frame vertical milling machine, when you look at it from the side, it's a big C loop. For us, when we're doing really deep Y parts, you've got a lot of overhanging. The Akuma has dual column traveling X and Z. So you're never changing your spindle
00:10:34
Speaker
I think you're overhanging. The kinematic loop effect is never changing. Now, it's interesting. You do have kind of a downside, which is that the Z also is always a relatively high Z point because on a C frame, as you lower your Z, you're shortening that kinematic loop because Z is way lower. Whereas on the bridge mill, the Z is always pivoting from the rail, the left to right X rail. That makes sense.
00:11:01
Speaker
Okay, I see what you mean. Because on a C-frame, as the Z comes down, you're actually lowering the top part of that C. The Z, yeah, exactly. But the C-frame nature. Yes, the C-frame. Right, right, yeah. But your Y doesn't really change. Because your spindle overhang on a C-frame machine is always going to be kind of the same. Always the same, exactly. Yeah, right. Whereas some of the machines like most of the new DMG machines,
00:11:29
Speaker
have the tunnel where the Z comes out in Y, I think. Okay. Yeah. So the, uh, not the ego line, uh, C 11. Thank you. It is the opposite. It has a fixed Y table. The table moves in. Oh no, the table's totally solid. No, the table moves in X Y. No, the spindles and Y is in the spindle.
00:12:00
Speaker
I'm sure. I don't know. It's one of them. The spindle comes out like a tube. Right. And X. So X is on the table then.
00:12:09
Speaker
must be, right? Because it's not everything in there. Coincidentally, Airy 409 has one of these. So we looked at it on that shop tour video. And then a friend was just asking about one. And I was actually talking to John at Airy 409 about positives and negatives. And that's a longer conversation. But the interesting negative relative to a Haas is Haas does such a good job of integrating accessories, probing,
00:12:35
Speaker
Um, just one kind of solution, whereas the other, other machines, there's a lot more complications about, Hey, this accessory was throwing an alarm and I have to go solve that elsewhere. Like I have to go around the machine to clear an e-stop on a different, you know, we kind of saw that with a FANUC. It's like, is the robot mad? Is the, is the security thing mad? Is the machine mad? Is a drawer triggering something? Um, anyway.
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah. One time I had, we bumped the E-stop on the LNS chip conveyor because it was behind a table. We never saw it. And the machine was just mad for like a day. Didn't tell you why. We could not figure out why until we eventually found that tripped E-stop and, uh, did it. But that's funny. But yeah, that CMX is apparently the updated version of my Maury Dura vertical. Um, but it is quite a bit different machine. Yes. Oh, totally different machine for sure.
00:13:29
Speaker
So yeah, separately, coincidentally, but nevertheless, separately, we are going to part ways with our original VM3 and our UMC 750. So if anyone is interested, feel free to reach out. Both have been great machines. The VM3, we've effectively replaced with a VF3 and a DT.
00:13:52
Speaker
totally better machines for us at this point for what we're doing. And the UMC, I love it, but it's that hard decision I have to make between being a person that loves machining and running a business. And right now, Saunders MachineWorks needs to allocate resources elsewhere. We don't need a five axis. And when I bought that machine, I always thought, hey, I'm gonna buy this, learn it, and then eventually we'll get, frankly, the UMC 500 was interesting or the newer design. So I told myself,
00:14:22
Speaker
with some hesitation, but realizing it's the right call. Let's move on. That's cool. Yeah. So when does the Okuma come in?
00:14:30
Speaker
should be here in about a month. Nice. Yeah. It's going from port to their Charlotte place right now where they add on the accessories that we bought, the chip conveyor and coolant system filter, all that. I'll go into more detail, probably do a video on it, but it was really eye-opening and interesting to go through that process. It's not necessarily easy to figure out what you want and what the options are. On Haas, you just look at the website and you click a couple of buttons and you click order.
00:14:57
Speaker
They do a great job on that. Seriously. So what was it like differently with the Okuma? There's like five different conveyors that have different specs that it's not super easy to see what is exactly what they cost, what are the downsides, what are the upsides. You have to go through a dealer obviously, the Okuma deal. So is there a lot of back and forth emails like, oh, can you quote this? Can you quote the high pressure coolant? Yes, it was months. Yeah, it's annoying, isn't it? I mean, that's how most of my machines were like too.
00:15:26
Speaker
You're right. And it's just because it's like you don't want to make a bad decision. This is kind of the outcome of the little things like, Hey, do we, there weren't that many actual machine options, if you will. Um, but one of them was the automated loop system. So part of me is like, Oh my gosh, yes. I don't want to not have an automated lubrication system, but it ends up that it was a very expensive upgrade. Uh, and the machine, their OSP software will tell you when it needs.
00:15:54
Speaker
cycled. It's not that often. All you do is walk around to the back of the machine and push a handle once. That's fair. If the machine tells you, then you're not going to forget. I could see that. If it's a $500 option, you just do it. It's 20 times that.
00:16:10
Speaker
then they'll thank you. Well, and I don't think of it as that because if I'm being honest and introspective, I do have a very difficult time taking off my bootstrapper hat because it's kind of like, John, let's go make money. Let's not worry about under
00:16:25
Speaker
buying the wrong machine because you're trying to spare time. What I do think about was we went for the much higher end ship conveyor. I care so much about my process for reliability around evacuating ships and cleaning the coolant. I know that was a good trade off. Awesome. I was just thinking the other day, thinking about the Maury, how it's
00:16:50
Speaker
It's almost, it's cheaper to buy the right extra options when you first buy the machine. Yeah. Because to add a $15,000 option two years later when you have to pay cash for that. Well, you don't necessarily know. And you don't know. So the problem is you don't want to overbuy. That's dangerous. You don't want to buy every option for the machine because it's too much. But I mean, get the right chip conveyor, get through spindle coolant. Did you get through spindle coolant?
00:17:17
Speaker
John, I am a yes. Of course. Holy cow, yes. That's what I'm thinking about. I didn't get it for the Maury. I mean, I was super frugal and cheap back then, and I probably wouldn't have anyway. But looking back, I'm like, if I had it, it would have been great this whole past six years. I know we've talked about this a lot. Go get it done, John. It's ready. I'm going to add it. I've got a quote in with DMG Maury. Okay.
00:17:43
Speaker
So I'm just waiting for them to hear back. Or if you don't need it, don't worry about it. No, I do want it, even just for chip flushing, like for little pockets and cavities and stuff. I'm using it on the current a lot now and it's like, oh, this is amazing. Because I was under the wrong impression that it's just for deep drilling.
00:18:00
Speaker
Right. Totally agree. It's not just for deep drilling. It's fantastic. In holders on insert tooling, putting the coolant where you want it, process reliability, we use it regularly for cleaning our products. Yeah. Okay. So we will blow coolant off through spindle coolant off to evacuate chips. Then we'll come through with either air blast or fans to dry off the product. Yes.
00:18:25
Speaker
Yeah, I got to give a shout out to Chris Fox, the fellow down in Australia that runs, I think it's Ignited. Yeah. I was kind of on the, he doesn't even know this, but I was on the fence because the chip, the higher end chip conveyor was not, you know, a small amount more. And then you were coincidental. And like, this is where social media shines. Because all he did was make a post. He's like, hey, I wish we had bought the better one the first time around. And he, on his Akuma, is replacing
Social Media Influence & Manufacturing Plans
00:18:54
Speaker
whatever they got with that hiring. It was the same one that we were looking at. I'm like, just absolutely cemented my conviction. I want to make sure I'm not getting crazy here. Rock and roll. That's fantastic. You got probing as well? Yep, got probing. Did not get
00:19:12
Speaker
The BK micro tool break wands, which was something we thought a lot about, which is a flimsy wire, not flimsy wire, but a pivot wire that just does a very crude check to make sure the tools there are missing by 10, 20, 30,000 mounts, I think. It's not that precise.
00:19:34
Speaker
The reason we thought about that was that we're going to do some work on that machine where we will remove the table probe. So do we want that? But ultimately, I feel pretty confident. We've gotten pretty darn good with the Haas ATM. And I think we'll be able to do the same with the OSP and the Akuma to look at
00:19:54
Speaker
knowing and tracking tool life, drill life, tap life. So in theory, we shouldn't need a crude tool break detection because we already know. Yeah. Very exciting. Yeah. I'm nervous to be honest. Yeah, for sure. It's a big investment. It's a new control.
00:20:15
Speaker
For us, a new relationship of service and support and all that. Ed and I had gone down to Charlotte though and kind of did a test on the machine, had a great time doing that and learned a lot. Yeah. So being somebody who makes workholding, what is going to sit on that table? Picture place. What's your base going to be?
00:20:42
Speaker
We use fixture plates to make fixture plates. Okay. Yeah. I mean, uh, we basically hold the fixture plates in mod vices. Yeah. I was telling Dustin, our marketing guys, like, you know, it's kind of funny. Like I literally started our tag. I found this company going, Oh no, I sound Vince. This, because we were talking about some hobby accessories from a company that's, I believe now gone called eight to ZCNC. I remember that. You're right. You know, they're, uh, are they up here in Canada? They were thinking of somebody else.
00:21:11
Speaker
Okay. They were in Colorado because I remember thinking, um, yeah, I remember them. Yeah. They had a Haas tour room mill and a lathe. And back in 2008, I was like, Oh my gosh, they have a hot, like that's amazing. They are like, I just thought the world of that so cool. And they made a tag fixture plate and I bought that thing and had it on my take. And those videos are still up on YouTube. Um, anyway, yeah, there I confirmed they are according to CNC zone out of business. Uh,
00:21:41
Speaker
So basically one of the first things you're going to make is a large fixture plate for itself. Yeah, exactly. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Can you make it on the Okuma?
00:21:58
Speaker
Oh. Without having a base fixture? Or you can make it on the VF6 or something? Probably on the sixes. So we are keeping our sixes, which are similar travel machines. They have been great. What I have found is there can be slight thermal changes, which I frankly don't really fault. 32 inches of live travel. And it's not that they, because we thought a lot about this. I'm like, are we?
00:22:27
Speaker
Are we taking the wrong approach because we've learned so much about setups and process reliability and tooling and so forth. We can get a great result on those almost all the time. Every once in a while, they'll move on us a little. To be honest, I guess I don't have enough time on a different machine to know that that won't also be true there.
00:22:46
Speaker
Kinematics are kinematics. I believe the nature of C frame droop is very different than and then the Design and I wanted the big plus spindle Haas doesn't offer the cat 40 big plus because one of the things we're doing I debated a lot about
00:23:07
Speaker
how we're going to approach this from kind of a marketing standpoint. But sometimes when we get stuff back from grinding, it is slightly out of spec, especially at the far quarters. And that really irks me. Because I think a lot about how inspiring you've been, John, or guys like Tyson Lam, on like quality and just absolute dedication to what that is. And what was crazy to me is we figured out how to, we fixed those plates. We now machine stuff that was already ground. And
00:23:36
Speaker
I hesitate to say this because it sounds ridiculous, but we are holding insane parallelism specs. What was wonderful was talking to somebody a while back who had no idea that this was anything involved with us. They had no familiarity with
00:23:53
Speaker
what we're doing here. And they were like, Yeah, we're talking about grinding machines. And they're like, it's interesting how the grinding industry has changed over the last 510 years, because so much more work can just be done directly on machining centers, because there's so much better. And I was kind of like, Oh, man, that's so validating, because
00:24:10
Speaker
I, you know, yes, we like pushing the envelope, but I also don't ever want to be arrogant. Like, Oh, we can machine better than you can grind. Like, no, no, no, but, um, but we can't prove us in the pudding. We check, we check them. Do you see them? Look at them. And it's awesome. Nice.
00:24:26
Speaker
So are you facing them on the mill to fix them? Yeah. Yeah. So we face them. And there's a lot of tricks to that. When you do it, how you do it, the depth of cut, flatness still matters. Yeah, how much stock there is, how you finish it, the kind of tool, everything. The biggest thing I've got to worry about is people expect a ground product, whether it's service ground or blanchard ground. And it looks different when it's been
00:24:51
Speaker
cut with any sort of a cutting tool, a small diameter tool or a large tool. When we were measuring step over lines with a fully dedicated three point contact thing that had one of those Mar micron dial indicators, you know those things? We get between one and a half and two microns on the step over lines.
00:25:14
Speaker
So nothing, right? Like nothing, but you still see it. It still looks like it has a step over. So that's something we're chewing on. How much do we want to kind of scratch write that out, which takes a fair amount of work, or how much do we just own it and say, look, we are delivering you a plate that has this tolerance spec. It is exceptionally good. So it has step over lines. Yeah.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah, also anything. I mean, if you're putting it face down, step side down onto the table, it's going to average out. What do you mean? If you're putting the milled side, flip it over and you mount it onto your machining center, any step lines, it's going to... You'll see step lines on both sides.
00:25:58
Speaker
I mean, it just feels backward to buy a grinder just for surface finishing when we get, and I should probably clarify, we have spent two, three years playing with like
00:26:14
Speaker
sand sanding, scotch writing, lapping, polishing, you know, and I'm not giving up, but like if there's no easy answer, we've tried nam brush, nam brushes don't touch steel. Um, but it's, you know, one and a half microns of five microns is two 10th. So that's 70 millionth step. Like it's, that's not to worry about that. Nothing. Um,
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah, for our Norseman handles, we're currently sending them out for double disc grinding to take them to 1-2-8 thickness, and then we're lapping them down to 1-2-5ish.
Production Experiments & Training
00:26:47
Speaker
But it takes quite a significant time to lap them. So as of today, I'm going to start testing milling one side. So we'll lap the one side, and then I'll mill the second side to thickness.
00:26:58
Speaker
which will save half of the lapping effort. It'll add some time to the mill, but it'll get us probably better thickness control. Because out of double disk, the thickness is not always amazing. Isn't that crazy, John? You'd think it'd be perfect, but it can swing by two thou. If we put on a lapping machine and just use a time measurement, like 10 minutes each side or whatever,
00:27:24
Speaker
you're relying on the incoming thickness to get your final thickness. Otherwise, you're measuring every part and lapping for 20 minutes or 22 minutes or 12 minutes or different per part. The theory is if we can just lap one side and then I'll machine the other side, I don't care if there's one thou or three thou, it doesn't matter as long as I get through it.
00:27:45
Speaker
I've been milling the rest candles on the inside forever and I've got a great finish. It tumbles out. It's just fine. It just takes a couple of minutes. What I was going to say is why not? I mean, milling them should be almost like seconds per handle, right? Depends on how slow you go and how you want those step over lines to be gone.
00:28:07
Speaker
Can you not do it with a face mill so you don't have stepovers? I'm clamping the handles from the top, so it's not an exposed face. Yeah, right. I have to get in there with a 316 sand mill and gently contour around. Oh, man. Yeah, it's probably not quite a surface area to do a vacuum with a custom thread to use radial support. Just do it. I was just thinking, could you not
00:28:33
Speaker
Either forget double disc, frankly, or do double disc and then machine one or both sides down, leave five tenths or a thou, and then lap from there, unknown thickness. Yeah. That's a good point. It gives a great finish. The good thing with double disc is it's a first step. Incoming material is already double disc round. It's a decent finish to put onto the lapping machine.
00:28:59
Speaker
Because raw titanium, mill titanium is not a good finish to put on the lapping machine. It's too rough. Got it. Oh, interesting. It messes up, builds up, charges up your lap. Yeah. It's just too much material to remove. Some of the titanium is hot rolled steel, just looks gross. It's sometimes like that. Right. Just raw. Yeah.
00:29:21
Speaker
Interesting. Do you own a centrifugal tumbler? I do not. I would love one. Do you own one yet? I would love one. Okay. That and the barrel tumblers, the high energy barrel tumblers who both fascinate me. Mass fin makes one. Dennis just got one. Okay. So it's like four barrels that rotate and like a ferris wheel.
00:29:45
Speaker
That's a good analogy. Yeah, it goes like a fairness wheel. And it just throws the parts around in the media and they do in 10 minutes what our tumblers do in an hour kind of thing. Oh, so it's not...
00:29:57
Speaker
complicated science. It's just moving the parts more. Yep. It's just more aggressive movement. I'm kidding. The center of fugal tumblers are basically like a salad spinner, like a big colander that spins. There's a spinning disc, like a blender basically. There's a spinning disc at the bottom that just spins the media around and they seem to be pretty awesome too. Eventually, I would love both of them.
00:30:21
Speaker
Do you know what's the difference? I mean, I understand that machine I think I understand the machine differences but like is one better for a certain size or type of part I've heard that the high-energy barrel tumblers have some downsides because you have when you pull the parts out the media is stationary and
00:30:39
Speaker
So, as you pull your knife handle out, it could scratch on the stationary media. Whereas in our tumbler, it's still rolling when we pull the handles out. So, everything's moving in liquid and like quicksand kind of thing and nothing scratches on the way out. But if we turn it off, then now you have all this stationary weight. Got it. Definitely going to scratch stuff out. So, that's one of the downsides. Like some of the big knife companies I know have the high energy tumblers to rough the handles and then they put them in a big bowl to finish them.
00:31:09
Speaker
Interesting. Because I'm thinking corn cob media, but you're actually using a stone type of thing that gets scratched. But the corn cob apparently works stupid good in those high energy tumblers or the centrifugal ones. Interesting. Avalon makes the centrifugal tumblers.
00:31:29
Speaker
For some reason, I was thinking these things were much more complicated science and that's more expensive. I mean, I'm sure they're not cheap, but it doesn't strike me as anything. I'm trying to think of the high school chemistry type things where it just spins your solution. If it spins it around, if it's an orbit that is also spinning the planet, it's just two different spinning motions. Not that complicated to make, right? Yeah, right, right. Yeah, I mean, every tumbler like that is going to be
00:31:58
Speaker
$5,000 to $15,000 for a decent, really good quality. Depends on how big you want to go, basically. Yeah. Only small parts though, right? Depends. They make huge ones. Oh, really? Yeah. There's big as you want to go on lots of this stuff, not fixture plates.
00:32:15
Speaker
No, but I was thinking it's like pen to knife parts. I can't imagine. Well, I guess you always wonder, how does Apple... I mean, that's what a great example. You've got to build 2 million laptops or something. How do you get the same finish on a MacBook or an iWatch? It's got to be machines like this. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Lots of coin cop media. Right. Right. It's funny. Interesting. What else is going on? What did we see last week?
00:32:46
Speaker
Um, working on the current a lot, teaching Angela more on the current, which is good. Uh, today we're going to go over a tool life management. Uh, he's got pallet changing and pallet scheduling figured out, which is awesome. And then, uh, yeah, we'll go over tool changing and tool life management, my system for that today, which I'm super excited. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, running that thing easy 18 hours a day.
00:33:15
Speaker
It's awesome. Yeah. It's like when, when there's no broken tool and everything works, like it's still running now. Um, it's usually off from, you know, midday till I go home at night while I play. Yeah. You know, it gives me a couple hours just to do a prototype or make something or try a new tool path or, you know, and it's sometimes it's waiting for me for that on purpose. Um, I can absolutely plan and,
00:33:45
Speaker
drop toolpaths and everything while it's still running. But I've got a scheduled run that's usually 18 to 22 hours. And when it's done with that, I just wait until the next... I'm ready to hit go on the next big run. Yeah, yeah. And it's fantastic. I got it. Look up your spindle hours for next week. Okay. I'm just thinking if I can do it right now from here, but I don't think I can.
00:34:09
Speaker
That's going to be impressive. I mean, you're probably blowing away. You might have more than our VM3 from five years ago. I don't know. That's insane. I'll make a note and I'll say it on the week next week. Because I've read articles in the past that your traditional machine shop vertical milling machine spindle utilization is like 60% is good.
Maximizing Machine Utilization
00:34:30
Speaker
It's really good. Yeah. So you think about that. That's like 20 some hours a week, John. And you're doing that maybe in a day, day and a half. No, what do you mean?
00:34:40
Speaker
If you have 60% spindle utilization on a 40 hour week, your spindles will... On a 40 hour, I thought you meant 168 hour week.
00:34:49
Speaker
No, that's how I look at it. Well, yeah, I know exactly. That's the other thing. You're changing the newer air and the denominator, like 60% on an eight-hour shift versus you're at a high percentage on all shifts. Yeah, because I'm literally looking at it as 168 hours of available time per week. I mean, guys like Dennis, that's how they do it too. It's just 24-7. It has to be. And it's so cool to have that mental thought process.
00:35:18
Speaker
And now I'm like, okay. Cause it can run. If I leave it on Friday, it'll run till four or five o'clock on Saturday. Yeah, that's amazing. Like 24 hours basically. And I'm like, okay, how do I get a story on Monday? I need, I need more palettes. I need more, uh, I need to load more parts because I have my tool. I figured out I have, um, I can forecast for the future for tool life. I know how to plan for more parts. I just have to set it up and make more parts. Yeah. But, uh,
00:35:48
Speaker
Got to know which fire to pour the gas on. Do you buy more orders? Do you hire more people? What's the bottleneck? Yep. I mean, the current is becoming a bottleneck, and I'm going to have to take work off of it and put it back on the Maury in order to do more stuff, which is great. Yeah. Does the Maury have time? Oh, it's got plenty of time right now. It used to run until 1 o'clock at night.
00:36:16
Speaker
almost every night because we had all Norseman parts are on there. Now half of the Norseman stuff's on the Kern. So the Maury shuts off at like 7 PM. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, this just feels gross. There's so much more potential there. Oh man. You go back, like good for you, man. That's incredible to regularly be running machines. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I mentioned to you a while ago, but
00:36:41
Speaker
I have this dream of putting a robot pallet loader on the Maury, which should get that thing running 24 hours a day too. Really? Why not? Well, actually, there's a lot of reasons why not, to be honest. Like what?
00:36:59
Speaker
like one of the best quotes I've ever heard was Rob Lockwood. We were at somewhere and somebody was like, well, you could replace all that with a robot because robots don't call out sick. And Rob very calmly and calculated says, I assure you, robots call out sick. Oh, for sure.
00:37:17
Speaker
But just the automation that I'm seeing on the Kern is so tantalizing. Yes. You know, I love it. I want it everywhere. And obviously there's a million issues. Your chip conveyor could back up. You can have a coolant spill on the floor. Tools could break, obviously. The robot could call in sick and not want to do what it's supposed to do. There's a lot of management, like programming management behind that to make it work the way I want it to. So it's a huge job. And I'm kind of having that mental battle of like,
00:37:46
Speaker
I love that machine. I own it out right now. I'd probably want to keep it forever because it's so solid. But do I invest a lot of money into making it useful, like super, super productive? Or do I get something that's already set up to be super productive, you know, like get another machine with a pallet changer built in or something? It's a weird thought to think about because I don't want to sell it. And I don't really have room to put another machining center in here.
00:38:15
Speaker
Are you, you're going to try a material load or pallet load? Pallet load. Okay. I'm more, I'm more. Yeah. Yeah. The only thing I can think of is 30 tool capacity. That's a, otherwise that machine is so solid, John. Right. Exactly. I think I can swap tools through the pallet changer. Part of me feels like that's now not worth it, John. I think it is for worn out tools and you got a spare tool.
00:38:44
Speaker
I mean, set aside the personal attachment to that machine, set aside the fact that it's paid off, set aside the fact that it's one of the best verticals ever made, which those are all difficult things to set aside. Set them aside. You might be better off with two or three, you know, Robo-drills. Speedios or Robo-drills. Each one of them has the right number of things. You can go product-specific tooling. One can be set up for automation or palletized kind of from the start.
00:39:11
Speaker
Moving controls will stink because of all the work you've done. DMG makes those mill drill things. Yeah. I love the Speedio and the Robo drill in theory. They're limiting as your only machine because there's 21 tools and whatever, but if you had a couple of them and they were set up for different things and
00:39:33
Speaker
Like, Dennis has planned to put a ROWA palette changer, exactly what I have on the current, between two speedios. Yes. And it's like, oh my goodness. Yes. You got whatever 80 palettes. And so what if you only have 21 tools because you're cutting what, dovetails or simple parts or it's fine.
00:39:55
Speaker
Grant came in my office right before we recorded the podcast this morning and was just so happy with the DT. He's like, I was tapping this or drilling at this speed and last week we tried moving some other products over to the DT, including tapping half inch holes at, I don't even know, I think they said 5,000 RPMs and they're like, no.
00:40:15
Speaker
No problem. And we have not had any noticeable downsides or drawbacks in terms of that machines tolerances or surface finishes or rigidity. Now, it is still a light duty 30 taper machine. So it's not the same as a 20,000 pound beast, but the work that come in, it makes me think like we're going to have more of those because they're so right.
00:40:42
Speaker
And having dedicated, you know, we're not, we have a, our VF two now is dedicated for mod vices. Nothing gets done. That setup doesn't get changed or broken down. That has helped so much with process reliability. We switched the fixed stream to where instead of doing just the adjustable sides or just the fixed sides, which was similar fixed stream, but nevertheless, a couple of changes now it runs.
00:41:03
Speaker
I think three of each in one batch. So it's kind of that one piece flow, moving stuff through. It helps with if you run low on one, you're not having to switch to do catch up. I mean, anyone's listening and asking yourself, should I look at that kind of a flow answer? Absolutely. Yes. You do this with your knots. You don't make, well, you make 300 pivot spaces or bearings, but you don't from the actual knife handle and
00:41:28
Speaker
Yeah, there's laid stuff that we make hundreds or thousands of at a time and that's that's laid. But for the mill, we pretty much do one piece flow. Yeah. Would you change that? No. No. Every now and then, it either gets brought up or pushed on me or I think about it batching like, oh, let's make 200 handles and let's make 200. No, just no. I don't like it. Yeah. Because there's bound to be a problem one day and you're going to have a whole bunch of scrap and you're not going to see it for a month and it's garbage, garbage, garbage.
00:41:59
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that kind of ties into the idea of is it better to have more machines that are more dedicated because it lets you make the right decisions without as much compromise and it builds a better process for
Automation vs. Human Touch
00:42:10
Speaker
growth. Well, the thing I'm struggling with, especially when thinking of a palette changer is you can have one machine with a palette changer that runs theoretically unattended, but you have one spindle. It can only do one thing at a time.
00:42:25
Speaker
although you have the reduced manpower of the machine is loading itself, which is wonderful. Or you can have three or four verticals, but now you need three or four guys loading a vice or a small fixture or something. It's a lot more manpower to
00:42:40
Speaker
do is to keep it busy. Sometimes that's great and sometimes that sucks. The way we're setting up the shop, we love automation. I love my team to be thinking critically, not just loading a vice all day long. I would rather have optimized machines that run on their own and we load as we want to, as we have time. I don't ever want the machine to wait for me.
00:43:08
Speaker
Yes. And conversely, I don't like waiting for the machine. Do the five whys, not five whys, maybe like two whys, but why don't you want me... Some of it, it's your wonderful obsession with things, but it's also like, okay, hold on, are we solving the right problem here? Do that little spin. I will.
00:43:26
Speaker
Pay yourself first, do yourself a favor and spend 20 minutes, clear your head and think about, okay, would I rather have another DMG? Would I rather have, sell a DMG and get three robos? Would I rather have, or speedos, speedos with Aroa? And try not to think about the practical issues of cost and rigging, figure out what's right, and then you can start looking at, okay, well financially, how does that tie together? And what would I really do? Would I really,
00:43:52
Speaker
Because you'd probably buy a speedio. In fact, I'm sure you'd buy one speedio before you'd also sell the DMG, even if that was the plan. Yeah. Anyway. The thing, in the past, we would load up the mori with a 12 to 14 hour run. Especially without a pallet changer, the door is closed for 14 hours.
00:44:17
Speaker
Great, but it's also annoying because if you have to do something else, the machine is completely tied up. You can't replace this tool. You can't do anything. You can on an Akuma. Yeah, I know exactly. Whereas on the Kern, since the pallet runs are max four and a half hours, I have access to the next program.
00:44:38
Speaker
within a short time period. Even those four-hour pallets, I'm like, that's a really long time. That's most of my workday. Half of my sitting here workday that I can't do anything on the machine because it's tied up. Splitting it up into smaller runs with a massive pallet changer is amazing because then you can squeak things in, little projects or new things or reschedule things and have just quicker access to the machine. It's too messy to try to program in an option stop between each pallet on the Maury so that you could
00:45:08
Speaker
but then it's waiting for you. Well, sure. But it wouldn't only be waiting for you if you thought in the first four hours, you thought, you know what? I wanted to stop between piles because I need to check something and you could hit that. And then when it's, you could have it, the tower lighter. I'm sure you would figure out a way to shoot you an email. Yeah. Yeah. Probably not with it. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. You would, I think it's appropriate to throw this in at the last second here because it was really good way to come back full circle to
Gratitude & Acts of Kindness
00:45:34
Speaker
the beginning.
00:45:34
Speaker
Right before we hit record, you mentioned something you do every night that I thought was really wonderful. Yeah, as I lay down to go to sleep, it's like my cue, that moment when you're like, okay, I'm closing my eyes, I'm going to sleep now. I think of something I'm grateful for. And I just, whether it's family or kids or swimming in the lake or a sunny day,
00:45:55
Speaker
The current. Owning a current or just crushing business or it could be a little thing, could be a big thing. It's actually hard to come up with more things after you've done this for a couple months that is not just repeating what you've always done.
00:46:10
Speaker
Yeah. But it's good because doing that consistently, I notice it throughout the day now. I actually appreciate things more, little things you always take for granted. It's brought that awareness to my everyday life so that I appreciate people more, I appreciate little acts more, I appreciate a good meal. I savor things more because I've made a conscious effort every night just think of something.
00:46:36
Speaker
Yeah. The, uh, the relentless guy talking about, you know, you gotta be you, whatever that is, you gotta be you. And, um, I didn't really want to share this cause it feels like sharing it invalidates it, but it's still worth sharing. I was at grocery store yesterday, uh, or last night and, uh, you know, I had a lot on my mind and I've been walking out and an old lady, um, with a Walker asked one of the employees for a cart and he's like, they're all the way at the end of the store. And I was already on my way out, like my bag in hand and I was like,
00:47:07
Speaker
What? As I walked out of the parking lot, there was a cart and I got the cart, I turned around and wheeled it back into her and just handed it to her and I said, have a great day. She just said, thank you very much. You do the sort of things to not show them, so I get recognized. If you don't show them, then they'll do things about it. Yeah, that's awesome. It felt great to do that. Cool. I'll see you next week. Good man. Take care. Bye.