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#211 - So When Should You Quit Your Day Job?
210 Plays4 years ago
TOPICS:
- Saunders talks about his experience with quitting his day job and when you should to.
- Do you spot holes in machining?
- Saunders goes into a huge rabbit hole of 3d printing.
- Lathes, Lathes and more Lathes!
- Hot glue in the shop? What are the uses?
- Saunders does a shop tour at Area419
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Goals
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 211. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. This is our weekly conversation to check in on each other and see where we're doing right and what we need to what's on our mind. Yeah, what we could be aware of too.
When to Quit Your Day Job?
00:00:19
Speaker
Check in. I'm in a reminiscent mood because I just filmed a video called When to Quit Your Day Job. Big deal. Yeah. And I honestly really like it because I try to avoid some of the common
00:00:40
Speaker
explanations of well it depends and and rather give folks uh questions that they should ask themselves questions that they should ask other folks around them as well as sort of introspective ways of thinking about the scenario and and of course there isn't you know a formula that makes it right for everybody but nevertheless um i i've shared i think probably the first time openly like i actually quit my job or tried to quit my job
00:01:06
Speaker
and sort of spilled the whole beans with my boss. And he was like, keep doing what you're doing on the side. We'll pretend we never had this conversation and quit when you're really ready. And I wasn't ready. I thought I was and for a bad reason. So, um, so you kept going.
00:01:21
Speaker
I did, yeah. Which felt incredible because there's a sense of betrayal. There's a sense of, hey, I've been working on something on the nights and weekends. And look, my story isn't going to be, of course, perfectly apples to apples with everybody else's, but I've learned some good lessons. We've done some things right. We've done some things that I wish I had the benefit of hindsight on.
00:01:44
Speaker
I think the key is that ability to ask yourself, is it the right time? I don't have the right reasons. Where's the opportunity? What can I do? One of the big themes of the video is what can I do to not quit my job? Not because I want you to not quit your job, but because you want to do everything you can to stack the deck in your favor and succeed with your new business.
Financial Realities of New Businesses
00:02:02
Speaker
Exactly. Because new business, especially in the beginning, I mean, as you like to say, growth eats cash for breakfast. And new business especially, it's difficult. Like you hear the,
00:02:12
Speaker
success stories even on a very small scale where the guys like bought a tormac and paid it off in a month from the work and like just crushed it and quit his job immediately and sure that happens and that's that is possible but so is winning the lottery and it's possible it took Eric and I
00:02:30
Speaker
I think it took us probably six years before we paid ourselves regularly, every two weeks. That's silly. And we have a good business, air quotes.
00:02:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And that's okay. It's okay. Yeah. Of the things that I wish I had the benefit of hindsight on, the way we did it, taking time and growing organically, and I think slowly, we're certainly growing more quickly these days, as are you. But you know, we got here on a foundation that's strong. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Both of us almost 10 years in.
00:03:07
Speaker
Yeah. Patience is weird because everybody, myself included, is impatient and is like, I want it now and I want to do all the things. And why wait? I'm not going to wait five years to do that. And then five years goes by and maybe it still hasn't happened yet, but you're still working towards it. And it's progress is the key that I'm finding now. And if I can make progress every single day towards certain things, then I know I'm moving. And it's
00:03:34
Speaker
I'm, you know, making moves, getting there, you know, and I feel it.
Machining Experiences and Insights
00:03:39
Speaker
Speaking of that, what have you been up to? Uh, so I'm also kind of reminiscent because last night I filmed the five and a half years later buying my first VMC. That's incredible. The more he's five and a half years old.
00:03:51
Speaker
So now that it is fully paid off and we own it outright, did our five-year lease, I filmed probably over an hour of footage of just talking about it, talking about everything, every option, every chip conveyor, everything we got for it, what we like, what we don't, what's gone wrong with the machine, what hasn't, what's been solid, do what I like, what I don't, and kind of
00:04:17
Speaker
The tone of the video is towards the person buying like their first machine, their first big boy machine. And, uh, it was really fun, fun to go through. And like, uh, I know Fraser's been digging through old footage cause we've been filming for the past five and a half years and kind of picking out little things that I've said here and there, or just cool footage of the machine running. And, uh, it's great. You, you, you nailed it. I mean, that's a, I don't know how much conviction you had at the time, but like, that's one of the best three axis verticals.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's been like, I'll say the video, but the only thing that's gone wrong is the door interlock switch broke and we had to overnight a new one for like 400 bucks. And other than that, nothing's gone wrong with it. And I've crashed it hard many times. Don't, don't say that. I'm just saying it can bounce back. It's a very stout machine. Yeah. It's still linear guideways. Right. Right. Yeah. It's linear rails.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, so nuance that man, I don't know that a ton about this stuff, but I think if I'm correct, linear rails imply ball bearings and linear guideways and plow and ply roller bearings.
00:05:21
Speaker
of which the latter have more contact area and are higher quality and grow up. I'm sure you could have lower load capacity or something. Yeah, they have the potential to be better. I always think of it as round spherical ball bearings, just linear rails. That's just my mental go to but I can't think of an example that uses the roller guide ways for, but I'm sure like big machines have that.
00:05:49
Speaker
Cool. You haven't got, you haven't gotten to that chapter in the Moore book yet. Ah, I did read the entire section on roundness, which was fascinating. And it was really cool because they, they talked about something ground on a, um, centerless grinder, which is supposed to make things really round actually makes them try lobular or five lobular or whatever. And that you can't measure that with a micrometer.
00:06:13
Speaker
Because it's three points. It's weird. So you need to measure 360 around it with an electronic indicator or something. And it kind of blew my mind, some of those things. I'm like, I never even thought about that.
00:06:27
Speaker
Crazy, right? And then I apply it now to the Swiss lathe because if you run the guide bushing a little bit loose, your parts come out oval and you can note, you can measure two tenths oval easy just by rotating the part and measure again. And I'm like, why am I getting different readings? Every like rotation? Well, guide bushing is too loose, you know, or it's just the nature of Swiss because it has to run a little bit loose. Is that a constant kind of adjustment?
00:06:52
Speaker
No. OK. No. If you buy really good bars, which we do, like ground to two-tenths diameter. It's crazy. Centerless ground. Yeah. So there's still triangles. It's basically a three-jaw chuck inverted. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, we don't really play with that. I mean, we just accept two-tenths of roundness error sometimes, some of the parts.
00:07:16
Speaker
But as you're measuring, you're like, OK, 1 8 7 0 is the goal. And then you rotate, and it's 1 8 7 1, and 1 8 6 9, and same part. What the heck? It's funny, too, because you think as a lady, you think, no, it has to be perfect. The diameter could be off, but it's just turning. How could it not be the most perfect object in the world? No, it's not. Yeah. And it's even harder to wrap my head around a fixed jaw, like a three-jaw chuck or a collet or something that still makes
00:07:44
Speaker
out of round parts because you're like it's a spinning jaw against a fixed tool like it should just be perfect but it's not and you know the swiss is supposed to be the epitome but there's slop in the guide bushing minor but it's there that whole concept of the physics and engineering around things that need to be slip fits but but as like tight as possible is so cool yeah yeah totally obsessed with that like they said in the book um
00:08:11
Speaker
You know, why does, if you have a perfect hole, say it's quarter inch hole and you have a quarter inch or, you know, one 10th under dowel pin and a one 10th under gauge pin. Um, maybe I'm saying the number's wrong, but the dowel pin won't fit because it's centerless ground. Right. Whereas gauge pin is like lapped, even though they're the exact same, you know, size.
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah, you can get into pretty lengthy conversation about the lack of quality and standard dowel pins because they're centerless ground and because they may have a taper or they don't relatively wide tolerance potentially. Right. You can get over and under sets and so forth.
00:08:49
Speaker
You ever drilled, I don't know if you guys have a drill press, which is just like- We have a drill press collecting dust, yes. Okay, that's acceptable next to the bandsaw. You ever tried drilling like a half inch or 12 millimeter drill and something relatively thin, and when you push the drill into the material, which hopefully is well secured, because that otherwise becomes a recipe for band-aids, you can literally see it drills like a triangle. Yes, yeah.
00:09:17
Speaker
And that's, that's just weird. The first time you get you're like, huh, don't get it. Even on the mill, I see it sometimes when I spot a hole. And then you look, you happen to just see the spotted hole. And I'm like, why is that, you know, a little bit of a triangle? Really? I've never done this. Why are you still spotting holes? Habit. I don't know. We got to talk about this. Yeah. Yeah. You guys don't like, you just plow drills.
00:09:44
Speaker
Yes. 101 degree split point. Yeah. Yeah. No, dude. Any, anything to avoid a tool for you have a tool pocket, avoid a whole cam operation, machine travel tool changes. I mean, like shun. We, we spent some time looking at getting custom drills made that would
00:10:09
Speaker
for our fixture plates, you could do step drills that could drill two different diameters and, because our fixture plates are kind of both and chamfered. So it's three different tools could get replaced by one. It doesn't make sense. It is expensive and it complicates some things, but really the reason is that we absolutely want to chamfer after we've done some other things. So we didn't be coming back anyways, but oh man, like I'm playing with that now, tooling up the lathe for something. And I'm like, oh, can I get a,
00:10:38
Speaker
thread mill that has an end mill portion behind the threading portion that has a 45 degree tip. So I can also chamfer with it. Right. Why not? That would be sweet. Hmm.
Exploring 3D Printing Technologies
00:10:54
Speaker
Well, so I went down a rabbit hole that is unbelievably fun, which is 3D printing. Ooh, that kind of world. Yeah. And for sure, I'm probably behind many, but I'm going to assume that there's still some folks that are well aware of it, but not in the know.
00:11:12
Speaker
We have a Prusa 3D FDM printer. So it's the frosting extruder normal kind of one and it works. And I actually use it as some, but I don't know. I didn't know anything about it. And we, this all came up because Johnny five is back.
00:11:26
Speaker
One of the ways that we've got to finish some of these parts will inevitably involve 3D printing in some capacity, probably to either 3D print the parts or to vacuum form them, which is most likely the way they did a lot of the set robots on the movie. Really? Not exactly a secret in the proper world. Instead of like sheet metal body pen, what do you mean vacuum forming? Like for what?
00:11:51
Speaker
So all of these cosmetic panels around Johnny so he is like, it looks like they're machine to build shoulders. Yeah, or big covers over the motor or covers over his tread area. Some of it would be sheet metal, but anything that has any three dimensional surfacing in the 1980s. It was almost certainly done with build ups of MDF Bondo modeling.
00:12:12
Speaker
you know, that sort of techniques. But now with 3D printing, you can 3D print the buck or the mold, whatever you want to call it, and then we can get sheets of plastic and vacuum form it and then paint it and do so forth. You know, that in no way is that cheating. I mean, there's some parts that we have machine that are just insane, like the guys over
00:12:31
Speaker
Um, I'm not sure I'm allowed to say that they're company, but, uh, thank you, Neil. Um, and Amish did a part, the folks at Herma did some parts that should be backing form that are insane. Five acts as part we can't do that for everything. Yeah. Um, and we want to get them, we want to get them built. So, um, we are, we just bought the M M two U S like the Prusa upgrade that gives you the second material.
00:12:57
Speaker
So for your current printer. Yeah. Um, that was a no brainer because it's no brainer. Um, I've heard mixed reviews on it. It's a bit fussy because it still shares the same nozzle. Uh, the goal for me would be to print the solubles so you can print, uh, effectively Elmer's glue. So you, you supports, then you just stick it in water with agitator and some time and some warmth or heat. And you know, hours later or maybe minutes later.
00:13:25
Speaker
your supports have dissolved away. That's super, super cool. I'm looking, I can't, I just can't get over the hurdle yet to pick up like a lull spot or an Ultimaker. They're like three to six grand for an FDM that is great works, dual nozzle, like all that stuff makes sense, but I'm not there yet. And then the other, the third rabbit hole is selective laser sintering.
00:13:53
Speaker
form one that has that pretty well-known SLA printer that has the orange. The goo. Yeah, exactly. It has that orange cover and it uses the goo to print upside down, the Eiffel Towers and so forth. Awesome stuff. They just came out with their Fuse nylon SLS printer. So this prints nylon powder. It's a cube. I think I basically would buy one except
00:14:22
Speaker
The hurdle is that SLS printing doesn't require any support structures because the powder that's not centered is
00:14:30
Speaker
performs the support role and then it's, so you basically come, it comes out as a, of the cube as either centered parts or the powder. So you put it into basically a sandblaster, knock all the loose powder away and get your, get your part out. So that's great because you don't need support structures. It also means that you can nest in three dimensions. So you can put parts all over the place. The major caveat aside from the powder being very expensive is that it's not conducive to printing one part at a time.
00:14:57
Speaker
because the unsintered powder, they say can be recycled up to 70%. But from what I'm hearing reading, it's really more like 30%, maybe 50%. And if you want a great print, you're not going to use much recycled powder at all. Yeah. And it's something like $200 a
00:15:13
Speaker
kilogram or a pound. So it's not something where you're going to say, Hey, I want to print a golf ball size thing. I'll just run one of them. Yeah. Interesting. I've not looked into that kind of printer. I did look into Shapeways, the website that'll print anything for you. And they do a lot of those laser sintering nylon parts. I was like, Oh, that's, that's interesting. And then I moved on. Yeah. But yeah, when you said laser, I thought you meant metal, like right away. So
00:15:40
Speaker
No, we don't need DML to like metal lasers. We don't need that. OK. We have enough parts to print where it would justify buying a printer like a potentially buying a fuse. Man, I'd love to rent one. Yeah. But you should send a part to Shapeways just for fun. Like it's pretty cool what the SLS does.
00:16:00
Speaker
Yeah, like we've got the carousel on our Swiss lathe that captures all the parts. The tray was printed, my buddy printed it in two pieces and glued them together. And it's too big as one piece to print on my Prusa, but Shapeways quoted like eight bucks to print it. Oh my gosh. And like $10 to ship. So like $18 and it's here. Like, yeah, in one piece in probably SLA, whatever.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm just going to do that. Yeah. The, uh, one that I opened for was I opening for me was watching a Tom Lipton video probably two years ago when he was making a fine attachment, uh, drill press feed lever. Okay. Um, so it was like a little mini Chuck that went inside your drill press that allowed you to use a lever to find feed drills down. And it was the stainless steel or brass part. And he had it metal printed for under a hundred bucks. Really? And you know, Tom would have taken forever to file that part. Yeah.
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool. Anyway, I think the Fuses are pretty new. They've been announced for a couple of years, but I think they just started shipping. If anybody has one, I'd love to hear from you. I know Formlabs will do customer prints as demos, but I always value the real world opinion of that. What's the price range on this kind of machine?
00:17:25
Speaker
It looks like a full blown setup delivered with the stuff you need, including the post-process cabinet, which is kind of like a sandblast cabinet that can keep the safe. It's like 30K. Yeah, it's up there. Yeah. The printer itself might be under 20.
00:17:41
Speaker
But, you know, we've got a lot of prints that I uploaded them to Shapeways are three to seven hundred dollars per print because they're larger parts. Really? Yeah. So that's one reason why I'm like, well, maybe if we're going to vacuum form the stuff, then a larger FTM printer that can print reliably and really well with dissolvables absolutely should be sufficient.
00:18:01
Speaker
But in a funny way, it reminds me of our conversation last week about computers in the 90s. That's where 3D printing still is. I spent an hour calibrating our Prusa first layer, tweaking, dialing, and there's still an element of the Wild West. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And there's some really cool, I mean, there's so many printers on the market now. Have you heard of Voron?
00:18:24
Speaker
How do you spell it? V-O-R-O-N, Voron. So it's like a DIY community that a bunch of engineers just got together and Cloud designed their Grail printer. And then it's all sourced with Chinese off-the-shelf components, linear rails everywhere. You just buy everything from AliExpress in various different places, and you put it all together. But the package is pretty epic.
00:18:54
Speaker
You know everybody that I know who has one like my buddy Brad Southern has built two of them already. They have different sizes Mm-hmm. It's it's definitely a DIY project that takes many many many many many hours to assemble So that's why I'm kind of on the fence. I'm like do I want to devote my evenings and weekends to that at home like Maybe because it'd be really neat, but I don't know if I'm there yet Or do you just spend five grand and buy it like a similar off-the-shelf raise one or whatever?
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, I'm more, I mean, I don't say this casually, but I'm more in the boat of, let's look for, you know, from an outside perspective, somebody telling Saunders or Grimson what to do. If you want to have it at home and play with your kids, by all means, get the DIY, but from it comes to a tool at your shop, you're beyond that.
00:19:42
Speaker
Oh, for sure. But that's that's the balance is I do do all my printing at home and at night and it is fun to tweak and tinker and, you know, show the kids that I'm working on some I don't know, I'm still on the fence. Well, that's what I have you heard of e3d? Yeah, they make the nozzles for like everybody. Okay, have you seen their tool changer? Yeah, yeah. So that is the ability to swap out they call it. Well, yeah, but including subtractive.
00:20:10
Speaker
And they have a post, so they call it a, I want to get the term up, um, a MBLS ABMLS, um,
00:20:22
Speaker
AS, additive subtractive MBL. So basically it's the idea that you can have multiple heads so you could print with different, this is like where it gets so excited. You could have a small nozzle for detail. You could have a big nozzle for roughing and saving time and material costs. Then you can have the soluble nozzle and then the fourth can be a subtractive, like a little router head. Whatever, that I haven't heard about.
00:20:48
Speaker
So if you Google ASMBL, I'm trying to find the acronym, but I'm not popping up while I see it. That is mind-blowingly phenomenal and cool. Yeah, I know they've been working on this tool changing head for a couple of years now. I think it's out on the market. And I've seen, I went down the rabbit hole of finding like lovely nerds on YouTube that are building their own version of this kind of stuff. And I'm like, oh, just,
00:21:15
Speaker
being able to change the whole head, quick change with magnets and some of the mechanisms these guys are coming up with and the code, the programming they're doing it to make, it's like, man, these guys are smart. These are like electrical engineers that are just playing around in their basement, having a ball and posting it on YouTube. And I'm like, I need to stop looking at this because this is going to be a very time consuming rabbit hole for me. But I like, I, it is so invigorating to see. It's such a passionate, like it's new, right? And it's like you said, it's the Wild West.
00:21:45
Speaker
Yeah. Additive, subtractive, manufacturing, bilayer. That's what it stands for. And it's like a man. I'm trying to think of all the major machine tool companies that now have active 3D printing divisions. Matsura has a commercial machine that exists. Hermla has a quiet machine that exists, but they're quiet about it. DMG has their laser tech. That's out there. I am sure there are more. And a lot of these machines,
00:22:15
Speaker
have the same thing where they will center a layer and then they'll bring their machine tool in and they'll machine it down and they'll fix it or correct it or do whatever. Like the fact that E3D is already starting to have fusion integration to do ASNBL. Oh, John. That's incredible. I'm trying to think of the practical applications of wanting to 3D print half a layer and then mill it. And then in the detail resolution. Maybe, yeah, I guess. Machining channels or features that later become occluded.
00:22:45
Speaker
Okay, but with with the soluble stuff, I mean, yeah, you'd have higher resolution if you want to like fit a bearing pocket in there or something, maybe you'd be able to thread mill something. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah, it's cool.
00:23:00
Speaker
But it's got to be, there's got to be, we're, we're still in the second ending or third ending, I think on just like, quote unquote solutions, right? There's cool machines and there's cool snippets, but even the E3D stuff was like a lot of Cura customization. And I'm like, I don't feel confident that I'm going to have that much time. Right. But it's, it's really fun to observe as a very much outsider, um, like watching everybody do it. Yeah.
00:23:24
Speaker
Yeah, it reminds me, uh, it reminds me why we do what we do. Yeah. I felt this way about, I just, seeing a, seeing a thadaw do a tool change. Yep. It's 15 years ago.
Lathe Tools & Machining Errors
00:23:36
Speaker
Well, and that's when you had your tag next to your bedside pillow, you know, in your apartment and I converted my grizzly to CNC. So I was like wiring up the stepper motors. That's same thing. It's so cool.
00:23:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. Um, today we're setting up. Oh, it's great. We set up the SC 20 wider run a different part. Like that workflow is nailed down. Yes. And then, uh, we had a Sandvik insert, uh, like PSA, it's a two millimeter radius grove tool. And it is as close a thing as you can find to the holy grail for lathe tools. We've had great luck with this particular tool in multiple materials and.
00:24:19
Speaker
On the little tormach et al, it's not the easiest machine to set up multiple tools and have them blend perfectly, especially left-hand tools. So we use this tool for one-offs where I probably not supposed to, but you can face with it. You can OD turn with it on both right and left strategies and obviously grooving part. So it's kind of like just one and done for a lot of things. It's like the everything tool.
00:24:43
Speaker
That's awesome. I remember back when I was looking at buying big layouts or nice layouts, there were all these machining demo videos of somebody using a part off tool, basically, or with a little round end on it, doing everything, face, rough, left, right strategy. And I'm like, whoa, that one tool is awesome. It can do everything. And then in the real world, I've never done that. I've never made a part like that.
00:25:08
Speaker
It's like mill drills. Um, no, like hard pass. Yeah. Like, like they're not actually good at anything. They're not good at spotting. They're not good at chamfering. They're not good at milling. I use mill drills to chamfer a lot as a kind of medium rough chamfer. And then I use those spiral helical ones to do all my finished chamfers. The helicals are the bees knees. Yeah, they are. They are great. Way better tool life in our experience. Yep. Yeah.
00:25:35
Speaker
What uh, you use a Prusa you said? Yeah. And what's, do you use the Prusa slicer? Yes. Okay. And generally I love it. It's easy. It's just like a couple of clicks and you're printing and it, yeah, I used to use Cura before that and it just seemed more, you got to know what you're doing.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah. Ed uses, um, simplify 3d, which is not free, but it lets you control. It's really cool. Control your layer height. So like actually here is a Johnny five part. This is actually at half scale. So it's a pretty big part. And when we're going vertical, it's like the classic surfacing issue with tool pass. When I'm going vertical, I can have relatively big stepovers, but when I start going along angles, I want to change the layer height to get better detail and simplify 3d. I believe we'll let you do that. Cool.
00:26:22
Speaker
So yeah, what are you up to? Um, been making more tombstones on the Kern, which is fantastic. And just this morning I wrote, uh, three and a half thou instead of three and a half tenths infusion. And my locating pin is now like seven thou too small. Oh, not fixable. Yeah, no. But I was like, okay, this is, I guess this is a prototype part.
00:26:53
Speaker
locating pin can you press in not maybe it's not worth it press in a thing and then re machine it out you actually could yeah it's not not a horrible idea um maybe i'll have to consider that
00:27:06
Speaker
But but yeah, that's not the worst. That's not the worst mistake. Whatever. Whatever. And it will still function. It just these are for the big tombstones that bolt onto the aroa palette. It'll just be the case where if I put it on, don't ever take it off again. Because it won't locate again. Oh,
00:27:29
Speaker
Got it. So a row of base too expensive to like secure it together permanently forever. I mean, you might want to. I probably won't ever take these things apart, but it'll be weird to have the one palette that's like, Oh yeah, that's the one don't ever take it apart. I mean, I'll probably engrave that on the side or something, which is, I mean, then I'd save it. Fix it. Just, just either fix or throw it away.
00:27:52
Speaker
Yeah, right. It was at 200 bucks or something. I don't know. Make this up, but like, probably don't, um, I was talking to a friend who's getting a horizontal up and running these days. And like, it's kind of like, look, I don't know anything about horizontals, but I do know about building mythologies to, to prove stuff out and like, don't, don't think you're going to have six sides of the tombstones or four sides of the tombstone and everyone's going to be exactly perfect. So you can only do like, you're going to want to be able to probe individually if needed, at least give yourself that ability.
00:28:25
Speaker
Yep. Fix it. Otherwise, you're going to look at that thing for the rest of your life. I know, and be like, oh, yeah, which one was it? No. Right. Yeah, like you said, fix it or throw it away. Yeah, I hadn't thought about fixing it. That would totally work. I've always wondered, I should just do this. When you said locating pin, I thought probing locating, not alignment. But if something like the real JB Weld that's pretty darn hard
00:28:50
Speaker
Now it would have a total different thermal, what they call a coefficient of expansion. So that's maybe a huge issue. But on something like that, I'm wondering if you couldn't fill it in and then just re-machine it. You should have great surface finish and it should be, because it's question is how dimensionally stable is it. Yeah.
00:29:11
Speaker
No, I think it'd be easier just to press in a pin, an oversized pin and then machine it down. Yeah. That would work fine. Right. You can weld it. You guys don't weld. I don't think, but you could weld it in too, but then it's heat and stress. Yeah. The pain press will work for sure. Yeah.
00:29:31
Speaker
I might just try that. Kern otherwise going well. Going really well. I had a tool changer position not reached error this morning. So it only ran for like half an hour last night after I left instead of the four hours it's supposed to. The other tool changer just didn't home itself or something. So I don't know if I have to adjust those sensors. I sent a picture to Kern and it happens like once a week, once every two weeks. So it's something.
00:29:58
Speaker
tool chain and is the machine visibly out of place? Like the tool changer stuck? The arm is trying to grab a pocket tool or whatever you call it at the like tool changer station. Yeah, I don't know. It just didn't reach its position.
00:30:19
Speaker
But you talked about this before, because I keep thinking you mean the spindle tool changer. You're talking about the rack. Yeah. The side rack. The magazine rack thingy. I don't know. I'm sure it's something super simple. But yeah, it keeps coming back. And it's not going away, I guess. So I got to see what current says today. Do you have the option of easily getting like an email or text message?
00:30:44
Speaker
from the machine. I don't know. I can log into the machine with VNC and I can see it from my computer and my phone or whatever to see what the error message is anyway, which is pretty neat. And yeah, I don't know if I can set up messaging probably. There's no, it's just hide and hide. The current doesn't have their own skin like Celos or whatever. Yeah, correct. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Hide and hide running on a Linux background.
00:31:15
Speaker
Is Haydn, is Haydn hiding the Linux-based? This one is. And then on the old UMAX, it's Windows-based. That's funny. Yeah. So when you put up the machine, you're like, oh, Windows, Windows 2000, whatever.
00:31:28
Speaker
Well, how are my UMAX? We're running right now. Both? One of them. OK. Yeah, the other one we just got to get the service guys in for another day to finish up the spindle switch tool change, unclamp switch. But we don't need that machine yet, so whatever. It's just sitting there. But the one machine that's been running, just banging out foam like crazy, letting the mill make money on parts.
Project Progress & Toolpath Improvements
00:31:50
Speaker
So considering the downtime we used to spend every month not making knives on the Maury, the UMAX already paid for itself, both of them.
00:31:58
Speaker
Well, well done. That is awesome. Yeah. And today we're running Delrin fixtures for a Shapeoko project we're working on. Actually, yeah. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago, the blade burnishing the detent track. So project is almost complete. So I just got to make these fixtures. And then my buddy Martin is making, I gave him the Shapeoko and I was like, go nuts. Yeah. Here's all the parts.
00:32:28
Speaker
So yeah, once I give them the fixtures, then it should be done. Cool. It's going to remind what it does. It's going to slowly spin a very small brass rod that's spring loaded vertically. And then we're going to spew diamond paste on the blade. And this we got a planetary gear motor that spins at like 720 RPM.
00:32:51
Speaker
tiny little thing as a spindle. So we're not using the router spindle. We put a new one on and it's tiny. It looks like an RC car motor.
00:33:02
Speaker
But the gears inside are so magnified, you can't even rotate the shaft yourself. Sure, sure, sure. It's crazy. So it should have like, insane amount of torque. And yeah, spin at 720. And then I still got to make the brass rod or Pierre has to make the brass rod. But that'll be super simple. And then
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of cool to be able to just to look at the tools that are in the UMAC right now, the four tools we have in there and be like, can I make this entire fixture plate out of Delrin with these tools and not changing the offset using the vacuum plate, not changing literally anything like, yeah, I can do that. Yeah.
00:33:39
Speaker
That's what's so romantic and invigorating about watching the slicers work in Prusa is like, it's shockingly intelligent about your ability to control where it leaves support material and how it can handle bridges. And that whole world is missing in cam in the sense of like intelligent. Fixturing or window fixturing or FEA based fixturing or leave this area and come back and do it later.
00:34:03
Speaker
Yeah, you have to get super creative yourself to be able to do those things, which is nice to have that control, but I don't know, it's a balance. With the slicer, it's great to just, you do whatever you want and I'll just print, you know? But I'm sure the super printing nerds are like, man, I really wish I could control, you know,
00:34:24
Speaker
But I think fusion, I'm no idea if they'd ever do this, but the ability to like say, no, I want to leave a little bit of material here because I want it to fixture. But remind, remember what that is and come back later and just do 2D contour zips to take that zip that tab, like even tabbing and tabbing should be, do you use tabbing and 2D contour?
00:34:45
Speaker
Yes. So please, please, please audit us. Give us tabbing in 2d contour where whatever tabs you created become like rest machining selections later so that you can take that quarter inch tab or however long it is for operations later and just come back on a new 2d contour. So you can control the own speeds and fees and sock to leave and just have it walk around this, wherever the tabs were from the prior operation.
00:35:10
Speaker
Because Fusion places those tabs itself. It's not based on a sketch, or it doesn't have to be. You tell it, I want five tabs around the perimeter, and it'll put them wherever it wants. You can control it. You can do that. You can control it, but my point is to come in and re-machine them, you have to specifically choose arcs and lines and stuff. Bingo. I see what you mean. Yeah, that'd be pretty cool.
00:35:33
Speaker
I would use that a ton. Yeah. We also just upgraded our hot glue gun to ready for this. Yeah. Cordless. It's actually super nice. Yeah. Just because I always want to use a hot glue gun and then you got to go find it. You got to plug it in. Usually you need an extension cord. It's like dragging the extension cord and the hot glue with the little runners. It's just boom. It's like ready to go. How much and what do you use your hot glue gun for?
00:36:00
Speaker
So right now I'm using it to hot glue ABS, or no, excuse me, PLA printed, uh, inserts into a piece of onto a piece of stainless steel. It works hot glue works. So we buy the Sherbonder stuff, which is, I guess probably more expensive than hobby lobby. It's not expensive though. Um, and it works great. And we just bought the Sherbonder gun. It takes Ryobi batteries, I think. So it's nice cause you don't have to necessarily buy new. Lithiums and, uh,
00:36:28
Speaker
We also use it for all the window machining and second up pot. Right. Yeah, because I don't, I mean, I do have a hot glue gun in the shop with wax sticks in it, but I don't have a hot glue gun in the shop that I don't use it here. And maybe it's just because I never have, you know what I mean?
00:36:46
Speaker
It's, uh, again, Tom Lipton and folks like him, the Ranzetti's use hot glue to hold like granite parallels on surface plates. Hot glue is not considered bad to put on a surface plate or other metrology tools, and then you can easily get it off. Hmm. Um, yeah, I just love it when I want it, I want it and yeah, and maybe I don't use it for two months, but then I'll use it three times a week. Yeah.
00:37:09
Speaker
Yeah. The whole concept of cordless, like whether it's, um, um, what do you call it? Little, totally blank. You know, a little vacuum, the handheld vacuum. Yeah. Oh, we have a little DeWalt vacuum. It's insane. Cordless. I love this thing.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah. Cause shop backs at the court is surprisingly annoying always. And I actually like coiling the core back up. Cause it makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing. But then it's like, that's a pain in the butt. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:37:41
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, uh, one of our guys, Steven was telling us his toaster story and he's like, yeah, I've got the super old toaster at home that, that you got to like, you got to hit the bagel button. You got to lift up on the lever just a little bit and you got to wait three seconds and then it works fine. And then he's like, I've just been living with that for years. And then, you know, I said to my wife, I'm like, babe, we should just get another toaster. It's 20 bucks. We're not dirt poor. And he says life has gotten better.
00:38:10
Speaker
But then that's the toaster you bring into the shop to use for powder coating, which you still then have to break the door. Yeah. So now we're calling it the toaster paradox.
Daily Shop Challenges & Future Plans
00:38:20
Speaker
When you just keep living with the thing, it's fine. You just got to do this, this, this, this, and it works every time.
00:38:26
Speaker
Speaking of toasters, uh, the 3d printing rabbit hole led to the, um, vinyl vacuum forming rabbit hole. And there's not that much out there. There were two companies that I think they were kickstarters. If not, they very much fit the Kickstarter mold of like 2008 until now, hardware startup that brought a consumer based maker product to market, but they're only maybe 10 inch by 10 inch size. And I would want a, um, Adam Savage has a great.
00:38:53
Speaker
video of a larger, like a two by three foot sheet for vacuum forming. And the key there, well, the vacuum is the key, but you also need to heat the sheet relatively uniformly, which I think is going to be a problem because the common DIY technique is with patio heaters. And I think this winter with COVID all the restaurants bought all the patio heaters are like black gold right now. So we'll figure it out. Yeah.
00:39:23
Speaker
Powder coating oven. Oh, that's good. I don't know why people don't put it in an oven. It's a good question. Or can you take out the coils from a cheap oven and like make something? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I have to look that up. Cool.
00:39:39
Speaker
What do you do today? Making more fixtures on the Kern. Um, right now it's running leftover handle pallets from last night because it alarmed on that tool change. And then, uh, yeah, just a lot of running around today. Cool. Yep.
00:39:57
Speaker
Uh, running the ST 20 why I had a, I wasn't happy with the backside deburr and I reset the tool. I could read to touch off the tool and it still wasn't happy. This is seven minutes before we hit record. And so of course I'm thinking, Oh, I can figure this out and then it can be running while I'm on the call. Yeah. I was like, no, John, we don't, we don't run that.
00:40:21
Speaker
there's no need. So I'll go play with it'll probably be something simple. And then I'm actually heading up to visit the folks at area 419. Oh, we're gonna do a filming. We're gonna do a full blown shop tour later this year with them of everything that they've got. But I asked john if you'd be willing to film a video. I got one other person in mind I want to do this with somebody else's perspective on when to quit your day job.
00:40:50
Speaker
to get kind of just differing viewpoints and advice. And then I think we're going to do another video where we kind of talk about a little bit of the area 419 story of how they got where they are. Not as much on the product in the manufacturing side, but more on the business side. The business entrepreneur like story history. Yeah. Like when you went to Adam Booth's, not Adam, yeah. Which one? Adam the Machinist.
00:41:12
Speaker
Yes. And you guys sat down with like a beer and you just talked for 20 minutes. That was seltzer water, I'll have you know. Okay. That was cool. I really like those kind of sit downs. It's like a podcast kind of conversation. Yeah. You guys just chat about stuff.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah. And we'll see. I don't obviously want to respect John's how much he wants to share, but I mean, uh, I think there's, they've got an incredible story and, uh, it's, it's the best example I've ever seen of witnessing real time. That kind of changes in growth and execution is really cool. Yeah. Cause since the last time you were there, they've gone through a large, uh, swing in growth. Yeah.
00:41:54
Speaker
So yeah, that's all I'm up to. That's fantastic. And then Johnny, I'll let you know, I got to figure out, uh, we bought a cheap SLA printer just to test it out. That's the gooey one. Um, I'm just super excited. I want to take one home because it's like you said, I want to print at night and with my kids and all that. So it's pretty big, right? Yep. Cool. Awesome. It's good to work. Sounds good. See you next week. All right, man. Have a good day. Bye. Bye.