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00:00:01
#382 Morning Chats, Machining Hacks, and Fatherhood Facts
3.8k Plays3 months ago
TOPICS:
- Family vs business
- Aluminum fixtures
- Autodesk CAM Challenge
- IMTS 2024 planning
- Rego-Fix PG hydraulic pressing unit
- Wire EDM Machines
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:01
John S
Good morning or afternoon. Welcome to the Business of Machining, episode number 382. My name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And my name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:10
John S
And John and I talk each week as as friends and fellow manufacturing
Entrepreneurship and Family Balance
00:00:14
John S
entrepreneurs. Normally we talk in the morning, but both of us are proud husbands and fathers and with school coming back, sometimes you just gotta to roll with the punches and I will say there's a,
00:00:25
johngrimsmo
Exactly.
00:00:28
John S
parallel to being an entrepreneur as there is to being a parent, which is that too often people don't tell you you're doing a good job. And sometimes you just need to know, like you put in a lot of effort for the kids. And um I'm sure if they don't appreciate it and now, they will at some point.
00:00:43
johngrimsmo
Exactly. and And the flip side of that, um in a way, my family has, let's call it, been very flexible with me, my
Prioritizing Family Over Work
00:00:51
johngrimsmo
work schedule for the past 15 years.
00:00:51
John S
Yeah.
00:00:53
johngrimsmo
and And every now and then it has to flip the other way and family has to come first.
00:00:58
John S
yeah
00:00:58
johngrimsmo
you know and That's where I'm at right now.
00:01:02
John S
Yeah, no that's crazy.
00:01:03
johngrimsmo
Family is first. Business is taking care of itself, which is great. It's the whole way we talk about all the time. um I haven't, I don't think I've, I came to work on Saturday on my own, but I haven't like worked in six days.
00:01:16
johngrimsmo
um And I'm here, you know, and it's like, right.
00:01:19
John S
Yeah, not yet. Not like on vacation. Yeah.
00:01:21
johngrimsmo
And I'm even working at home. Like I, my brain isn't there cause I'm in family mode. um So I kind of feel guilty, but also kind of like, Nobody's texting or work group group chat with big explosions and ah no news is good news.
00:01:35
johngrimsmo
When I come in today and Angela's like, yeah, things are fine.
00:01:35
John S
Yeah.
00:01:37
johngrimsmo
Everything's good. I got it.
00:01:40
John S
Well, but that's what you just said. I don't feel guilty. I think that's something you and I need to keep reminding ourselves of. Whether you're predisposed to feeling guilty, cut that stuff out. i stuff Stuff is not the wire word I wanted to use there.
00:01:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:52
John S
But because it doesn't, it is what it is. Full stop. like stop You know, but there's nothing who we can do to change the situation. I'm, you know, out of pocket or doing this.
00:02:01
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:02:03
John S
So here we go.
Leadership and Company Growth
00:02:05
johngrimsmo
And it slowly becomes kind of the new normal.
00:02:05
John S
All good.
00:02:08
johngrimsmo
it's it's As the company relies on me less day to day, I can be more flexible with my time. And I can still provide massive value to the company, but in different time periods and in different capacities.
00:02:21
johngrimsmo
And, ah you know, everything's running. right It's It feels weird though.
00:02:23
John S
Yeah.
00:02:25
johngrimsmo
I'm like, I don't know what's going on. Like, I hope everything's good.
00:02:28
John S
Yeah, that is weird.
00:02:29
johngrimsmo
And it is.
00:02:32
John S
It makes me, certainly we've seen some out here ah in the past three, six months. It also makes me start to appreciate firsthand, which is different than reading about it in case studies, blah, blah, blah.
00:02:43
John S
Like, okay, well now you need reports and metrics and hurdles and and and stuff that feels very, very businessy.
00:02:48
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:02:53
John S
And I don't mean that in a good way, but it also is appropriate.
00:02:55
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:02:57
John S
um and yeah i'm not sure like i had's really like deeper thinking than maybe you appreciate realize about like, I don't know if I want that or I don't know if I'm the right person to lead.
00:03:10
John S
And it starts to make you realize like, Hey, maybe I'm not the right person to lead this company in a good way because the
Fixture Materials and Solutions
00:03:16
John S
company is at the point where, Hey, there's some good opportunity and some good fundamentals.
00:03:16
johngrimsmo
he
00:03:20
John S
But, um, you know, I spent most of my day happily, uh, proving out VF two programs and guess what? Freaking love it. Like life, like I'm good.
00:03:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's that whole entrepreneur cliche. It's like, you know, the CEO who founds the business may not necessarily be the CEO who takes it to past a certain level. And I'm still refusing to believe that. Like I can take this pretty far. Um, but it is kind of that my ability to, to lead, to direct, to visionary, like has a limit, like there's things I don't want to do or not good at doing or whatever.
00:03:59
johngrimsmo
And maybe some other businessy guy could possibly, I don't know, I'm not thinking about this too much, but um for the moment, do the best we can in every situation.
00:04:05
John S
Yeah. Doing the best she can.
00:04:11
johngrimsmo
And as I was telling my son this morning, I was like,
00:04:15
johngrimsmo
If you can control a situation, you're in control. If you have no control of a situation, don't worry about it. like You can't do anything about that.
00:04:22
John S
Yeah.
00:04:23
johngrimsmo
Don't don't freak out about it if if you have zero way to affect that situation. Don't worry about it.
00:04:30
John S
Yeah. That's the quote. Like the guy told me that my grandfather told him, it's like, if you, if you can, if something is, if there's a problem and you can fix it, fix it. And if you can't have any control over it, don't waste an ounce of your energy worrying about it.
00:04:46
johngrimsmo
Yep, it is.
00:04:46
John S
That's harder to do than you think.
00:04:48
johngrimsmo
But even a single second of time.
00:04:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so we all try to aspire to that.
00:04:55
John S
Yeah. Hmm.
00:04:58
johngrimsmo
So what is new in your life?
00:05:01
John S
We've got a bunch of fun stuff. I'm just going to throw it out there.
00:05:02
johngrimsmo
Cool. Go for it. Yeah.
00:05:04
John S
so We use a lot of aluminum for fixtures because there's nothing wrong with aluminum. It's not as good as steel in some respects, but so much easier to cut and um work with and it's lightweight for if fixtures are removed and so forth.
00:05:18
John S
So punchline, we use a lot of aluminum. Aluminum is not great for threads going in and out, you know, 30 times a day.
00:05:24
johngrimsmo
here longterm
00:05:26
John S
Yeah, like a lot, especially if they're being used with power tools.
00:05:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:05:29
John S
So we use a lot of, I call them HelaCoils. We don't actually use the HelaCoil brand, but I think thread inserts, whatever you want to call them.
00:05:39
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:05:39
John S
And we we tend to buy the ones from McMaster that are
00:05:44
johngrimsmo
Like threaded with the slot in the top.
00:05:47
John S
Bingo, so they're super thick wall, and there's no, um they the thing I like about them is that they, so the the like for a quarter 20 one, it would use a three eight 16 tap.
00:05:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, we use this too. Yeah.
00:06:00
John S
It doesn't require, like I think the actual Heelco brand has these really funky taps. They won't even tell you the pitch of them, and they're like proprietary. And some of them have little tangs
Experiments with Loctite
00:06:08
John S
you have to break off, and some of them have really weird installation tools.
00:06:11
John S
Some of them that aren't, actually I like these but we don't use them are have the four posts that you hammer in and you end up deforming the OD thread to keep it locked in place.
00:06:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:06:21
John S
We use these steel ones that you just screw in with an insulation tool or you can even use a screwdriver if you're careful. um Except Sometimes some of them have backed out and it bothered me because the ones that we buy come with a thread locking compound on the outside and I just felt like they weren't working great. So I was like, well, let's stop.
00:06:46
John S
complaining about this and let's start thinking about it, looking into it. So um I did two things. Number one, I emailed McMaster. I was like, hey, we buy these. Could you tell me? I was thinking about this. McMaster's wonderful, but they don't always want to tell you everything you want to know, like they would let you say go around them or something. So I thought rather than me asking,
00:07:05
John S
what Loctite is on them I said hey could you find out if there's a accelerant that I can use with those this product number that way we don't need to wait because they even the part number says it takes 72 hours to whatever.
00:07:18
johngrimsmo
Nowhere.
00:07:20
John S
um
00:07:21
johngrimsmo
to
00:07:21
John S
within an hour they had written back, they had talked to Henkel who makes Loctite, and they're like, it's this product of dry Loctite, and yes, says 72 hours, but the reality is it should be good in like one hour or something like that. I was like, oh, okay, well, so number one, it's nice to know that it's actually a Loctite product on those things. That gives me some confidence, and it should be good pretty quickly. So I took,
00:07:43
John S
a scrap piece of steel, scrap piece of aluminum, drilled and tapped it for the thread insert. And then one of, on each of the ones I installed the factory thread insert with the dry-lock tie on it. The other one I did what we've often done, which is we've actually scraped the dry-lock tie off and we used Loctite 277, I think is the one that we tend to use around here, the red stuff.
Fixture Durability Improvements
00:08:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:08
John S
because I wanted to compare the dry Loctite that was applied on the screw and we bought it versus me applying the liquid Loctite. Well, I for sure thought this was gonna be insightful. And I came back a day later and tried to just back the screws out by hand, all for an aluminum seal. Oh, sorry, quick side note, Loctite is great, but it not as,
00:08:32
John S
It can be fussier than I think people realize. like Some materials it doesn't work with, and you need you need to have a primer.
00:08:36
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:08:37
John S
um can you You can use accelerants, but accelerants can compromise the long-term strength of it.
00:08:38
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:08:42
John S
And I also was concerned about the cleanliness. It's actually pretty hard to clean threads. like You know what I mean? like If you can't put it in ultrasonic, all that.
00:08:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:50
John S
So I thought, well, Um, maybe it's because there's residual cooling in there, whatever. lost your short No, all four of those screws were so fricking stuck in there that even after I put it on a heat gun for 10 minutes and got the whole part. So stinking hot that the screwdriver.
00:09:09
John S
ripped the head off of the insert, that little slot, which is frankly a weak point anyways, like those things weren't coming out.
00:09:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:15
John S
So I was kind of like, okay, great. I don't know why some of them backed out. Frankly, maybe it was coolant, but um gave me full confidence to know that even the dry lock type, good product.
00:09:21
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:09:25
johngrimsmo
Perfect. Yeah. We've used those on our old, uh, aluminum fixtures on the Maury that we use to make our Norseman. Um, and I know the guys tend to replace some of those. I don't know if they strip out or I don't think they back out, but there's definitely a reason why they get replaced every now and then. Um, I think they do get stripped. And, uh, the Tang, like you said, is, is definitely a weak point. Um, I was gonna say though,
00:09:52
johngrimsmo
What we see is because some of our water jet parts have a, like the part itself, um, has a fairly small head diameter, like maybe even smaller than the screw, then a quarter 20 screw head.
00:10:02
John S
Okay.
00:10:03
johngrimsmo
So as that's tightening into the aluminum fixture and bottoming out, it's deforming the aluminum, uh, between the thread locker and the screw head, you know, it's like pinching it and denting the aluminum where the part goes, um, causing Z height issues if we're not careful.
00:10:16
John S
Hmm. Sure, sure. Oh yeah.
00:10:21
johngrimsmo
And we torque
Fixture Design Innovations
00:10:22
johngrimsmo
everything still, but think about that too, you know.
00:10:26
John S
No, I, it's funny you say that now we've gotten in the habit of doing a little small counterbore around a lot of these fixtures anyways, partly because a lot of these fixtures, like we just took three that were aluminum and we finally machine them out of a two and then he treated them and they're ready to get installed. And there we do. This is a.
00:10:45
John S
I learned about this from Robert and his friend Teddy, but I'm guessing Robin would tell you that he's just passing it along.
00:10:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:50
John S
um But we do a counter board to avoid a stress riser where the thread meets the top plane, which has been great.
00:10:54
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Cool.
00:10:58
John S
Yeah.
00:11:01
John S
ah
00:11:01
johngrimsmo
But yeah, if I could, I would steal fixture everything.
00:11:04
John S
Except wait.
00:11:04
johngrimsmo
Especially for more permanent fixtures. Weight, yeah, for sure.
00:11:06
John S
Yeah.
00:11:07
johngrimsmo
I mean, our fixtures are small. It's small enough to lift.
00:11:09
John S
yeah
00:11:10
johngrimsmo
But yeah, weight is a concern above the 20 pound mark or whatever.
00:11:13
John S
Yeah, we're doing one right now. It's hybrid. So it's aluminum, but then it has steel inserts that can be replaced, which is nice because frankly, the heel clothes are a lot of like the last one I did, there were 20 heel coils on it.
00:11:17
johngrimsmo
Mm.
00:11:23
John S
Like that's ah it's like, okay, I got to stop for half an hour and do heel coils.
00:11:24
johngrimsmo
It's a lot. Yeah. But like the steel fixtures, I think they're. I would say P-13 or something, some old steel um for the Kern, the tombstones we made are completely impervious to where like they are just great.
00:11:41
John S
Yeah, that's, that's awesome.
00:11:44
johngrimsmo
The screws, we've never stripped out a screw, knock on wood, never dented the fixture like they just work. So it's another plus one for the steel fixtures.
00:11:51
John S
Uh, you know, ah I'll double down on that vote of confidence. The, some products that we had either at aluminum or even regular steel fixtures.
00:12:02
John S
Now we have those hardened tool, steel fixtures that we've made. And the fixture looks like it hasn't been used.
00:12:08
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:12:09
John S
It's insane. Like how much, like, I don't think I appreciated how much better that would be.
00:12:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:14
John S
So yeah.
00:12:15
johngrimsmo
And aluminum just gets gross and old over a time and dings and dents and it corrodes and yeah, it's got its place.
00:12:21
John S
Yeah.
00:12:22
johngrimsmo
But now aluminum fixture plates, however, I know a guy that makes them and they're they're fantastic.
Fusion 360 Toolpath Management
00:12:28
John S
Yeah. Thank thank you.
00:12:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:29
John S
ah Okay. Can I ask you a fusion question?
00:12:33
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:12:34
John S
Option stop is great when you're proving out a new program, but option stop doesn't help if a tool does three or four operations back to back.
00:12:46
johngrimsmo
Right. Depending on your posts, but I assume it only option stops on a tool change. Yeah.
00:12:52
John S
That's a great question. I guess is that a post mod? Because I basically want an ability to have an option stop between every operation. I know I could do a manual and see it's a huge pain in the butt.
00:13:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:13:02
John S
So I should think about that from a post.
00:13:04
johngrimsmo
I mean, optional stop sometimes at the tool change is nice because your spindles off, your coolants off, everything's like off, but between not to pause.
00:13:14
John S
I just wanted to start again. Yeah, i do because like we're going a lot of this is now in fixture, so there'll be 10 instances of the part, so it may be 10 minutes.
00:13:22
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:13:23
John S
I don't want to wait, but I want it to wait till it does the next operation that might be risky, or I just want it to wait.
00:13:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah, for testing, I mean, I would manual and see that's that's how I would solve it. um Or just post them one at a time, depending.
00:13:36
John S
Too many, yeah, I need a better way.
00:13:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:13:38
John S
But yeah I guess you're right, i can I'm sure I can figure out how to write I could even just modify posts that puts, it's not even an option, stop, like preference.
00:13:48
johngrimsmo
Just like right above the, the header of the next op, you know, the, the text.
00:13:49
John S
It just,
00:13:52
John S
well that's what I'm saying, I'll just fork off, like this is on a host, I'll just fork off a host post and have it do an M1 at every operation and then you're good.
00:14:00
johngrimsmo
Oh, and that's not a bad idea because optional stop, you only use it when you're messing with it anyway.
00:14:04
John S
ah in
00:14:08
John S
Well, it would just be like a a debug post, like it'll be a post one using when I'm proving something out and will otherwise use it regularly.
00:14:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:14
John S
That's an easy way to just have all the M1s.
00:14:14
johngrimsmo
yeah I don't think I use, I don't think I use optional stop like ever. I think I've played with it a little bit. I use M zeros quite a lot for testing in places.
00:14:25
johngrimsmo
I want to pause, but m M one, like you got to push the optional stop button and then activate it.
00:14:26
John S
Okay.
00:14:31
johngrimsmo
I just never knew.
00:14:32
John S
Interesting. Okay, thank you, that was helpful.
00:14:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah. The, uh, at IMDS there's talk of a what fusion cam challenge or something.
00:14:44
John S
Oh, I'm in it. there's there's not It's not talk.
00:14:45
johngrimsmo
Right. And, and. No, I heard about that. I'm like, honestly, I have zero interest in in fighting you guys against cam speed. Like that is not my forte.
00:14:55
John S
Well, they asked if I wanted to be involved and I was like, well, I mean, of course I'm happy to like, whatever, but I was like, I prefer not to.
00:14:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. I commend you guys.
00:15:01
John S
And then they, they were like, do you want to be a judge or contest? I was like, well, I'd rather be a judge.
00:15:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:15:05
John S
They're like, well, we'd like you to be a contestant. I'm like, well, that's fine, but I actually don't want to win. Like I don't want the prize.
00:15:08
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:15:10
John S
I'd love to see somebody else get it. Um, so I think I'm going to, I'm going to go as a contestant and I will plan on.
00:15:16
johngrimsmo
I'm sure you'll have some ah
IMTS Event Plans
00:15:18
johngrimsmo
so run for your money kind of thing, like.
00:15:21
John S
Yes, it's a good, it's a look, I give them credit for what they've done to building the communities that have now almost seemingly started to sort of distribute away from, for better or worse, like, yeah.
00:15:25
johngrimsmo
Absolutely, it's really cool.
00:15:33
johngrimsmo
From from what?
00:15:35
John S
I think when we first went to Autodesk as cab members, what was that? 18, 16?
00:15:41
johngrimsmo
2016 and 18, I think, yeah.
00:15:42
John S
16? Holy cow. Autodesk was the only game in town that was embracing the instant machinists, the social media folks, the new folks like you and me, Al and Kurt, Chan, Tim Paul, like all those guys were going out of their way with effort, frankly, with budget dollars too,
00:15:52
johngrimsmo
Mhm.
00:15:59
John S
to um to help bring people together. And now this community is kind of bigger. Kern's joining the meetup with Dylan and um some of those guys, frankly, have gone to Toolpath, which has been interesting to see.
00:16:11
John S
like So it's kind of like it's now spread its wings a little bit. I don't know that I feel like there's as much centered around Autodesk Infusion, but I'm not sure at the point I'm trying to make is.
00:16:19
johngrimsmo
But maybe it's more spread. It used to be more laser focused when it was, and now it's like broad focus.
00:16:23
John S
Yeah.
00:16:26
johngrimsmo
And so many people are using Fusion and doing such amazing things that we we're not even really aware. it's I actually really like Autodesk's Fusion Instagram account when they post stories, like reposts of other people who do cool things with Fusion.
00:16:32
John S
Yeah.
00:16:37
John S
Yeah.
00:16:40
johngrimsmo
Cause I'm like, that's how I get to see all these things. I don't i don't follow all these people.
00:16:43
John S
Yeah.
00:16:43
johngrimsmo
like That's fun.
00:16:46
John S
But I don't want this to sound like we're shielding for fusion either.
00:16:48
johngrimsmo
No, um I did briefly think about other CAM systems, and we'll get to that later in the chat.
00:16:49
John S
That's certainly not the point.
00:16:56
John S
Oh.
00:16:57
johngrimsmo
For a very specific need, I'll tell you why later. but But on the topic of IMTS, so it is next week, I will unfortunately not be able to attend.
00:17:07
John S
I'm still not accepting that answer, but we got Amish to make the right decision.
00:17:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you text me almost daily and say, you sure you can? I can't convince you. like Even Amish, yeah, Amish was like, I can't make it.
00:17:15
John S
Yeah.
00:17:18
johngrimsmo
Screw it, I'll be there for two days.
00:17:19
John S
Yeah.
00:17:21
johngrimsmo
um Yeah, so 98% chance I'm not going to be there, but 99
00:17:25
John S
You're telling me there's a chance I will take it.
00:17:28
johngrimsmo
% chance I'm not going to be there.
00:17:32
johngrimsmo
But yeah, I did consider like a two day last minute, but we'll see, I don't know, we'll see.
00:17:37
John S
You gotta come, dude. You gotta come.
00:17:40
johngrimsmo
We'll see.
00:17:41
John S
Okay.
00:17:42
johngrimsmo
um But yes, wish you all the best.
00:17:44
John S
Thank you.
00:17:44
johngrimsmo
And your plan is still to record a podcast there. Even if I'm here, you can figure that out somehow.
00:17:50
John S
My plan is to record it with you at IMTS, John.
00:17:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:56
John S
And I trust you'll make the right decision.
Bar Champ Machine Evaluation
00:18:00
John S
um Yeah, either way, if you're cool with it, let's do it, yeah.
00:18:00
johngrimsmo
Well, make it work. OK.
00:18:04
johngrimsmo
Sounds so good
00:18:04
John S
um
00:18:05
John S
can we talk about its
00:18:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah, please, yeah. So what do you have planned?
00:18:08
John S
so
00:18:08
johngrimsmo
like i Because I've convinced myself I'm not going due to many reasons, um I haven't planned. I just gave up on it, which is good. I needed to do that. What do you have planned?
00:18:21
John S
It started like whatever I started thinking about it as like, I probably should go. I don't have anything I'm trying to buy. Like, but then I'm sure I want to, and then it's just steam rolled into like, I now am, I actually moved my flight to spend more time.
00:18:33
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:18:33
John S
Um, yeah. So a bunch of people I want to check out from the bar champ thing that CJ has, they're going to be there. Of course. I want to look
00:18:41
johngrimsmo
which is the bar prepping chamfering machine.
00:18:44
John S
Correct, for a Willamette.
00:18:45
johngrimsmo
Gotcha.
00:18:45
John S
So for folks listening, think of it as if you had a 20 foot long or 10 foot long, it doesn't matter how long, piece of material that you just need to chamfer or even turn down the end for bar feeder compatibility.
00:18:59
John S
um Any traditional turning center, you would have to fully support that whole material list with tubes or liners and the liners to stop bar width. This thing, The bar doesn't rotate the the turning tool, the headstock, if you will, kind of rotates around it.
00:19:14
John S
They're called bar champ from a company called JF Burns. So I want to go check one of those out. I am fine if that's the right to go, but the sort of crazy counter to that is we just might buy a multis instead.
00:19:31
John S
A whole bunch of other reasons, or a symbol a machine like a multis.
00:19:31
johngrimsmo
But would it chamfer at 10 foot bar, six foot bar?
00:19:39
John S
It would have a bar feeder that could support the material.
00:19:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah, but there's still a lot of loading.
00:19:42
John S
Yeah.
00:19:43
johngrimsmo
Like if you just, I don't know. I've seen CJ use his bar champ and it's like every time he posts a little picture of it, I'm like, I kind of get it now. Like they're kind of dumb expensive, 10 grand or whatever more, but.
00:19:52
John S
Yeah.
00:19:56
John S
Yeah, I think it's more than that.
00:19:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, but, um and it's like a lathe, but backwards, cause because the tools spin, not the bar.
00:20:01
John S
Yes. It's just my, it's it's just what I love about it so much is it's the it's the opposite of a lathe.
00:20:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:07
johngrimsmo
But say you had a multice, say you had a bar loader that can run anything up to three inch bar or whatever, for you to spin down a quarter inch by six foot thing for the Willeman, not that you'd need to, to chamfer the end, um you got, spin the liners and bar thingies, you know?
00:20:24
John S
so So fair point, I need to get my data set. And actually Grant and Alex from here are going to IMTS as well. So that's kind of on their list to learn more, yeah.
00:20:32
johngrimsmo
Good.
00:20:34
John S
But i but the biggest reason, the chamfering I think we can just do by hand as needed, I think the bigger issue is the larger diameter bars, like the full size one and three eighths, to to not have an obnoxiously long remnant, you do have to do a bar prep.
00:20:40
johngrimsmo
That's what we do.
00:20:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:20:51
John S
That's not even a key part to what we're doing right now. and The remnant value, the remnant we're losing might be 10 bucks per
Exploring New Machines at IMTS
00:21:00
John S
stick. So means it's a real amount of money, but you're also talking about, okay, so does it cost us $500 a year in in lost remnant material versus but spending five figures for a machine?
00:21:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's a good point.
00:21:12
John S
that's I would have put some prep or math around that.
00:21:16
johngrimsmo
And sometimes it is fun to ah go down the rabbit hole and be like, sweet, look at this cool new machine. It's gonna save us, you know, five minutes a day or whatever. And then you start running the numbers in the math. You're like, well, it doesn't.
00:21:27
John S
Yup.
00:21:27
johngrimsmo
Really makes sense. Whereas in CJ's world where, you know, credit to him, he kind of wants everything to be easier and and simple and, and reduce effort.
00:21:28
John S
yeah
00:21:35
johngrimsmo
And it's, it's amazing. And he might not be able to like write it off dollar for dollar, but it's making his work faster in his life easier. And he can do other stuff.
00:21:45
John S
Yeah.
00:21:46
johngrimsmo
So I respect that.
00:21:49
John S
Uh, maybe want to look at mill turns for bigger stuff.
00:21:50
johngrimsmo
Okay. So you want to bar champ, maybe.
00:21:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah, well yeah yeah totally I get you.
00:21:55
John S
Um, No, I mean, I thought literally for a split second thought about the 508 and I'm like, it's it's it's still too small for what I wanted to do and it's it's too much money, for sure.
00:22:08
John S
And I'm not going to lie, I want to go check out what the heck is going on with Haas. ah They have the UMC 400, which everybody kind of knew was going to happen.
00:22:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah, go on.
00:22:18
John S
I want to see what the dates are on that. and then all of a sudden Haas is coming out with a surface grinder, a CMM, a knee mill, an auto band saw.
00:22:30
John S
I am fully expecting most of this to be rebadged type stuff, but the source of that rebadging, is it Far East?
00:22:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:22:38
John S
Is it European? I don't know, wanna learn. I wanna know what software they're gonna use in the CMM because, and and how accurate is it? um But yeah, I'm just curious to learn.
00:22:50
johngrimsmo
For sure. I mean, credit to them, they they have built an ecosystem and a family of parts and Shops who are Haas families will gladly continue to buy Haas family stuff, I think.
00:23:02
John S
yeah
00:23:03
johngrimsmo
That's what it seems like.
Impact of Tariffs on Manufacturing
00:23:04
johngrimsmo
And if you can tie in you know similar controls on a, I don't know if the control would be the same on a CMM as it would on a VF2, but um that's great.
00:23:08
John S
Right.
00:23:14
johngrimsmo
It's like cool.
00:23:14
John S
Yeah.
00:23:15
johngrimsmo
But if it is all rebadged stuff, just because they can, I don't know. I don't yet have an opinion on that, but I did have briefly wonder, and I know almost no information, but didn't they stop one of their racing teams or all of the racing teams or something?
00:23:21
John S
Sure. Yeah. Totally.
00:23:29
John S
ah they Stewart Haas Racing, which was a partnership with Tony Stewart and Gene Haas, has been around forever, is ceasing operations. I e don't follow that super closely. I believe they had four two teams with two cars, so four charters. I believe Haas is continuing at least two of them on their own.
00:23:49
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:23:50
John S
so think I think it's a little bit dramatic to sort of say like, oh my God, they're shutting down. I think it was a partnership that the partners may have just decided, I i don't even know, but no.
00:24:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. my My curiosity was if that somehow freed up a whole lot of revenue that they're not now spending on a racing team to invest in further equipment, you know?
00:24:12
John S
Well, I don't know, but what I have seen is, unfortunately, we in the US are about to go into a presidential election cycle, which is, you know, I think I'd rather run a manual lathe and talk more about this, but apparently both candidates are
00:24:30
John S
strongly in favor of significant additional or new tariffs on, it I believe, imported stuff from
Adopting RegoFix System
00:24:37
John S
that country. So, ah frankly, that has consequences that I don't think we're ready to like really accept yet because, you know, you can talk about Haas importing a DC one, but you can also talk about the fact that you walk into Walmart and everything is made in, you know, where.
00:24:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's a good point.
00:24:50
John S
So, um we'll see but what comes to that.
00:24:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:24:54
johngrimsmo
Interesting. All right. Anything else that I MTS that you want to make sure to hit?
00:25:00
John S
The other one is, and this is not a clear cut decision of um embracing the RegoFix system.
00:25:08
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:25:09
John S
um If I planted, well, I don't have any questions, it seems great.
00:25:11
johngrimsmo
have one if you have any questions.
00:25:16
John S
I just, we've gotten by without it, but the RegoFix holders would be great for the Willyman.
00:25:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:23
John S
As for folks that don't know, it is a, will you explain it? You got one.
00:25:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so the Regofix system and before I bought one for the Kern, everybody said the same thing. It's really expensive and it's really awesome.
00:25:35
John S
Yeah.
00:25:37
johngrimsmo
And with the current, I rolled it into the financing of the current and we just got it through current basically. I think it came shipped from Germany. um They accidentally shipped the European voltage one, which does not work for me. So I had to return it or something and get the other one. um Basically it's a press fit call it system. So the holder, you have the holder and then you have a call it and they're both straight boards, maybe with a 0.2 degree tape or whatever.
00:26:04
johngrimsmo
um and this hydraulic pressing unit that presses the collet down into the holder to a dead stop, which shrinks it, compresses it onto the shank of the end mill. You're supposed to use precision end mills, which almost all regular end mills nowadays are, like H7 shank.
00:26:20
johngrimsmo
and relatively ridiculous holding strength, ridiculous run out, very consistent, very repeatable. The callers are really cool because they have backstop screws in every single one, which sometimes is annoying because your end mill is like too long or too short or whatever, but 90% of our end mills fit that perfectly. So if I'm replacing a quarter inch end mill and the the backstop is set properly, I take the end mill out, I put the new end mill in, I crunch it down in the machine, and in about eight seconds, I've changed the tool.
00:26:51
John S
Yeah, it's nice.
00:26:51
johngrimsmo
It's absolutely fantastic. We don't even measure the lipstick on length like anymore on on repeat tools.
00:26:55
John S
Yeah.
00:27:00
johngrimsmo
And since most of our production on the current is literal rinse and repeat, same thing every day, we're just replacing the same tools every day. So it's, it's really sped it up. And as I texted you, that's one of the reasons I stopped using double ended end mills is because, uh,
00:27:17
johngrimsmo
I can easily repeat dead stop, dead stop as it puts into the, into the collet. Um, not have to worry about, you know, chipping a fluid as I'm putting it in. And I used to love the, um, Lakeshore carbide tapered engraving tools.
00:27:30
johngrimsmo
so They're great with the 20 thou tip.
00:27:31
John S
Yeah, they're great.
00:27:33
johngrimsmo
We use them. We go through a lot of them, buy them like 30 at a time. Um, we used to 10 thou, we used to 20 thou and used to buy double ended. Cause it's like $20 for a single ended $30 for a double ended.
00:27:42
John S
Same price, basically. Yeah.
00:27:44
johngrimsmo
You're like. yeah um But the thickness of the coating makes it hard to get into the Rigofix collet on the double-ended side.
00:27:53
John S
No.
00:27:55
johngrimsmo
It's that tight.
00:27:55
John S
Oh, wow.
00:27:57
johngrimsmo
And not only that, but the way the two flutes go for the two you know flutes of the ball, as they go up and they meet the shank, there's like a sharp point, and the coating maybe piles up a little bit on the tip there, so that makes it even harder to get into the shank.
00:28:10
johngrimsmo
So we used to have to sand down the coating on side two before it goes into the hole there. And I'm like, Angelo, this is, this is wasting our time. Like, this is ridiculous. And then every once a, you know, you got to measure the stick out length and all that. So that's an expense I was willing to spend to just buy the single-ended tools.
00:28:31
johngrimsmo
I like it.
00:28:31
John S
Yeah, that's that's where I'm at like Yeah
00:28:34
johngrimsmo
The other downside is an ER call it's about $20 and a PG call it's about $200. And we have absolutely crashed a couple of them. That's no fun.
00:28:43
John S
The rebuttal to all that is number one it's a great like everyone that uses it and it seems like lots of the the dialed shops, you know, you, CJ, Hymer, or not Hymer, that's awkward, Kern, Hermla, as I was trying to think of, they're all set up and running in this way.
00:28:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:00
John S
I think think Dylan is using them too, but you don't measure, you don't worry about your measure, but the sort of rebuttal for the Wilhelmin is you don't necessarily have good other choices because the Wilhelmin is such a small limited gauge length and
00:29:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:29:15
John S
um
00:29:15
johngrimsmo
I mean, Mary tools by making a lot more stuff, which is awesome.
00:29:18
John S
For sure.
00:29:19
johngrimsmo
You also get with the PG-10 and even the PG-6, you get a very neck down taper to the tool holder, which is great.
00:29:24
John S
Bingo.
00:29:26
johngrimsmo
Like PG-10, we use tons of those. It can go up to a quarter inch tool and we use tons of tools, a quarter inch and under.
00:29:31
John S
come
00:29:34
johngrimsmo
And they have a size for everything pretty much. So the downside to the hydraulic pressing unit is, I forget how much it costs.
00:29:37
John S
Yeah.
00:29:41
johngrimsmo
It's like $10,000 or so. ah So the holders are really expensive. The collets are dumb expensive. The, the single time purchase of the hydraulic unit is a lot.
Tool Management Challenges
00:29:50
johngrimsmo
Uh, it's kind of like buying a shrink fit machines, several thousand dollars, you know, it's, it's a one time purchase.
00:29:57
johngrimsmo
So if you're going to use five holders on one machine, it's not worth it.
00:30:01
John S
Yeah, right.
00:30:01
johngrimsmo
But if if you're going to like invest in it, um, it's worth considering.
00:30:05
John S
Yeah. And that's exactly like the quintessential, like that's why I'm going to IMTS. I know everybody has it, talks about I want to see him, I want to look at it, think about it. um It's... It's not something that's going to be just solvable with like a math or r ROI calc.
00:30:19
John S
It's more about, and this may sound kind of weird, like what kind of shop do we want to run? Like, as long as the numbers, as long as the numbers work at the end of the year or the end of my career, I want to look back and be like, no, like we.
00:30:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah, totally. Yeah, that was a good choice. Yeah.
00:30:32
John S
I have zero, I love Mario too. I have no problem with the holders that we bought from them. We use them all over the shop, but a big old yeah ER knotted holder that's not balanced to the 42,000 RPM of this brand new beautiful machine that we bought.
00:30:44
johngrimsmo
yeah That's the other thing.
00:30:45
John S
And we want the access. We want lights out like it's so just a little bit of a different game ah there.
00:30:50
johngrimsmo
yep yep and they have coolant tubes that go in the back i assume your new welly is through coolant spindle it's not really i thought it was an option but i don't know it's not needed because deep hole drilling is not really a thing and a
00:30:57
John S
No, nobody, nobody does it on Willys. Like nobody. It might be, but nobody does. And yeah, we don't, we don't know. no Yeah.
00:31:10
John S
You don't, can't people girl.
00:31:10
johngrimsmo
short gauge length tool. Anyway, so you don't have to worry about the coolant nuts or whatever they're called. Um, so when you're at IMTS, I know you're not afraid to talk to the vendor, but like definitely change 10 tools at the Regal fix booth.
00:31:22
John S
Yeah.
00:31:23
johngrimsmo
Like ask them to, you know, they might have one on demo, but you're like, can I, can I use this?
00:31:23
John S
Okay. Okay.
00:31:28
johngrimsmo
Can I play? Like, I want to get a feel for this dry run a bunch of times and just, just see.
00:31:34
John S
That is good advice.
00:31:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And the same goes for anybody. Don't be afraid to ask at a tool show if you can play with it. like That's why you're there.
00:31:41
John S
Yeah, no, dude that's a good point. I want to see if I see anything catching my eye on Torx screwdrivers. That project just stalled about spending $3,000 to $20,000, depending on different layers.
00:31:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:31:56
John S
Japanese brands, there was Ingersoll. None of it was clicking. um And I'm kind of hoping a trade show could be a good example. If if they had that, I also don't want to spend half a day manhunting.
00:32:08
John S
like that's it's so It's important, but it's also not core.
00:32:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:32:12
John S
um Yeah, that's ah those are of the big items.
00:32:15
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:32:16
John S
I want to ask Haas and Terry Berry. I'm struggling with some tool stuff on that UMC.
00:32:24
John S
ah sort of like That's the other thing. is like Let's ask people, and I can call Terry Berry. But while we're there, like I'm trying to figure out this way to make this Haas way more useful with an offline tool library.
00:32:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:32:35
John S
And I want to see if I can get some help on that.
Exploring Wire EDM Machines
00:32:38
John S
Yeah.
00:32:39
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:32:40
John S
yeah
00:32:42
johngrimsmo
So hopefully tomorrow, if all works out, I'm hoping to do a mini IMTS for myself, um go up to our local dealer, Elliott Matsura, who I bought my Tornos from, my Nakamura from, and my Zai CMM from.
00:32:48
John S
Oh.
00:32:57
johngrimsmo
um They are also a FANUC dealer, and I want to play with a wire EDM.
00:33:03
John S
I thought that was last Thursday.
00:33:05
johngrimsmo
I mentioned it last Thursday, or last Wednesday to you that
00:33:08
John S
Okay, it's it's tomorrow or or yesterday.
00:33:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. So I haven't gone yet. um It's something that's been a recurring thought for the past 10 years. Like, should we get a wire? Should we get a wire? Seeing them, I understand them conceptually, but I've never laid hands on one really.
00:33:25
johngrimsmo
And yeah, doing a bunch of research and some of the stuff, some of the hard milling things we want to do and the way we make the bevels and our rask and our fiel and all this stuff. Like, is it, is it a something worth pursuing? You know, so I need data, I need information. And, uh, Elliot Metzer is super happy to have me over, um, dedicate a couple hours to, uh, to tomorrow. So I'm going to bring some steel and I just, hopefully we can cut some parts.
00:33:51
johngrimsmo
I want to see what the surface finish can do, like give me your best effort here. How many skim passes does it need to?
00:33:55
John S
oh yeah sure
00:33:57
johngrimsmo
How good of a surface finish can we get? How flat is it actually? um I've had other tests from SODIC and other places where the wire actually vibrated and caused a bad finish because of chatter, whatever you call it, like wire flutter, which I'm sure is just a tuning issue, speeds and feeds and flushing and all that stuff.
00:34:16
johngrimsmo
There's ways around it. but in my toolbox drawer, I found this test piece with these test cuts in it.
00:34:21
John S
Oh yeah, sure.
00:34:24
johngrimsmo
And I took my Spencer flat stone, my PFG stone to it, which I've never done before, because I never had the two at the same time and and realized like, this is collecting dust in my drawer from 2017.
00:34:27
John S
zone Interesting.
00:34:36
johngrimsmo
So I took the flat stone to it. I'm like, Oh, that's not very flat.
00:34:42
johngrimsmo
But I'm sure that's just settings. So one theory is, could we do the cutting bevels on our Rask blade with wire instead of worrying about hard milling and grinding on the speedio and all this stuff?
00:34:52
John S
Yep.
00:34:52
johngrimsmo
Would a wire do exactly what I want? Give me a better surface finish than I'm getting now, relatively same cycle time, you know, like hands off.
00:35:01
John S
Yeah.
00:35:02
johngrimsmo
The cool thing with a wire is like, it just, I'm, I'm paraphrasing, but it always does what you think it's going to do.
00:35:07
John S
No, it's it's the surface grinder of, yeah, totally.
00:35:08
johngrimsmo
I think it's. Exactly. It just, it just does it. And yes, there's learning and things like that, but, um, it like, you should be able to hit a 10th all day on any service, you know, I don't know.
00:35:20
John S
All machines at IMTS can hold a 10th all day, John, so you're not impressing me right now, yeah.
00:35:22
johngrimsmo
On carpet. Yeah, exactly. Um, so I have a lot of questions. Um, I've talked to people who own and run EDMs. Um, Angelo has spent a few years running in his past job or two jobs ago, um, 15 years ago.
00:35:40
johngrimsmo
So when I brought it up to him last week, he's like, Oh, dude, I've wanted us to get a wire for so long.
00:35:45
John S
Do you know, is it like your robo drill pricing or half a current?
00:35:49
johngrimsmo
They're like, from what I remember, from 2017 or whatever, it's like 100 to 175,000 US.
00:35:58
John S
Yeah. Okay.
00:35:59
johngrimsmo
Apparently you can get a Mitsubishi for a hundred-ish out the door. I don't know where FANUC sits. I remember SOTIC being 150 plus, some like depending on size and options and fourth axis and all this stuff.
00:36:10
johngrimsmo
So I want to wrap my head around it.
00:36:10
John S
Yeah. Right. Right.
00:36:14
johngrimsmo
Not really in a position.
00:36:14
John S
I remember.
00:36:15
johngrimsmo
Like I mentioned it to Eric and he's like, nope, not right now.
00:36:18
John S
Yeah.
00:36:18
johngrimsmo
No more no more new machines. But I'm like, I need to know. I need to answer all these questions so I can bring proper data. not only the price, but the viability and the usability and feasibility of all this.
00:36:30
johngrimsmo
Will it do what we need it to do?
00:36:30
John S
Sure.
00:36:31
johngrimsmo
So tomorrow's data gathering. It's gonna be fun.
00:36:35
John S
That's fun.
00:36:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:36:37
John S
I remember actually also probably like 2017 when I met ah Nicholas or actually was Josh Hakko who runs now and each micro had the Kern pyramid back then he had a relatively new to him.
00:36:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:36:52
John S
Makino wire and it it was like the bees knees.
00:36:53
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:36:56
John S
It was the one that could run. I want to say. 50 micron wire. Like it was stupid small wire.
00:37:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:37:04
John S
Like you would, but no good for anybody normal. Like that was masochistic level, whatever, but really cool.
00:37:07
johngrimsmo
yeahp Yeah, yeah.
00:37:11
johngrimsmo
I actually have, um, Elliott Matsura does the joint open house and Makino used to be part of that every year where you'd tour around to five different dealers and see all their machines.
00:37:21
johngrimsmo
And I used to go to the Makino place, but now they're not part of the thing anymore. So I never go there.
00:37:26
John S
It's funny.
00:37:26
johngrimsmo
Um, and they had wire EDMs and they made this like sample thing with the, you know how a turbine blade dovetails in with the multiple cone shape or pyramid shaped waves, ridges, whatever.
00:37:38
John S
OK.
00:37:39
johngrimsmo
Anyway, so they made these two mating parts that were that perfect like fit where they surface grind the tops afterwards and it just fits perfectly. And they just had them as show pieces, but they're like little one inch squares.
00:37:51
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, why aren't you giving these to everybody?
00:37:53
John S
Yeah.
00:37:53
johngrimsmo
Because I still have the one you gave me 10 years ago. Like I show my kids, this is the coolest thing ever.
00:37:58
John S
Yeah, super cool, yeah.
00:38:00
johngrimsmo
Like, why aren't you making 100 of these for every show?
00:38:04
John S
Well, that's what I mean.
00:38:04
johngrimsmo
So yeah, Makino's a great option.
00:38:07
John S
A wire seems great at spending other people's money. It's kind of like jokes.
00:38:10
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:38:11
John S
I was like, you should buy a grinder, like an actual like Anka or Walter grinder.
00:38:15
johngrimsmo
Again, a mill grinder.
00:38:17
John S
Yes. To grind stuff you need to grind and a wire, whether it's soft or hard milling, like gives you that exact perfect shape. You don't have to deal with the wear comp that you've had to deal with on two lane and the Linda wheels and bevels and the and the tolerating issues of the radiuses that you're cutting in there.
00:38:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah. exactly.
Decommissioning Old Equipment
00:38:37
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm it might do It might do really well, so we'll see Yeah, um if I get rid of those you max I Know that needs to happen I have I have an idea for that I have two ideas one is pushing them into a dumpster and the other is There's a local machine dealer literally five blocks down the road that I need to walk over to and be like Do I have a deal for you?
00:38:37
John S
Oh.
00:38:41
John S
Yeah.
00:38:45
John S
You got room for it? That needs to happen. Okay. Good.
00:39:03
John S
You should do that. Yes, right. good
CAM Software for Wire EDM
00:39:09
John S
So wait, what's this with you? You're going to use new cam?
00:39:12
johngrimsmo
Oh, so for EDM, um Fusion doesn't do it, which I've talked to a guy who works at a super collider lab, which is really cool.
00:39:16
John S
Yeah.
00:39:24
johngrimsmo
um He says, you can export a 2D contour as code and paste it where you need to in a, you know,
00:39:35
johngrimsmo
EDM specific code, but he said there's so many settings, there's flushing pressures, there's U and V-axises, and there's whatever, and there's no there's no post, and there's also no toolpath that does everything it needs to do in Fusion.
00:39:49
johngrimsmo
And some quick Googling online, even Seth Medore commented, and he's like, it's not really on the roadmap right now, like, I'd like it to be, but it's not.
00:39:55
John S
Yeah.
00:40:00
johngrimsmo
So I don't know where I'm at with that. And I'll talk to the fan of guys tomorrow, see what's possible. I don't wanna get another cam system,
00:40:06
John S
you
Fusion 360 Coordinate Issue
00:40:07
John S
sure? Yeah. Interesting.
00:40:07
johngrimsmo
but I don't know how it works, you know?
00:40:14
johngrimsmo
So yeah.
00:40:16
John S
The, um speaking of fusion, I had a, this is mostly just a commiserating, I had a file, just one, that was moving the WCS on me.
00:40:32
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:40:32
John S
And so it's kind of one of those things like, okay, John, so you're making this up. That's not true. But like, I assure you, it was repeatable. I screen grabbed it. I videoed it. I submitted it. And I was like, every time I open the file or anytime I move from manufacturing to design space, it's picking a different point as the work coordinate system.
00:40:47
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:40:49
John S
And it continues to this day to happen. And I give them credit. I've never seen this elsewhere. It happens in one file, only on one computer. um They had me look at some settings things, reinstall fusion, blah, blah, blah. They took it seriously. um And what they finally figured out was it's kind of our fault, although I take issue with characterizing it that way. The fixture,
00:41:17
John S
like every, I'm sorry, it' like and show me a person that doesn't have a single broken link or or design morning flag in Fusion and I will buy them a Nobel Peace Prize.
00:41:22
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:41:25
John S
But like we had a sketch that had an undefined thing and it was,
00:41:28
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:30
John S
It's just changing like how it solved that thing and it was picking, it was crazy because it's a puck chuck fixture.
00:41:34
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:41:38
John S
So there's six pull stud bores and it was alternating between those six.
00:41:43
johngrimsmo
Oh, no way.
00:41:44
John S
Yeah. I mean, so it caused a crash. just ah Luckily it was just a tool broke, not ah not a true crash crash.
00:41:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:50
John S
but ah um They, I mean, at least now I understand it's not truly, I mean, shouldn't do that,
Electropolishing Experiments
00:41:58
John S
but it's not like it's truly just willy-nilly picking new coordinate systems.
00:41:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:02
johngrimsmo
So random, but still within the cons constraints of those six points. Like it's not just like off in space, but it's, that's fascinating.
00:42:10
John S
But it's, I don't know which is worse because the problem is that, the big because it picked those six points, those are actually the points we do use.
00:42:12
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:42:16
John S
So you look at it and you're like, yeah, this isn't the right, I don't pay attention to which spot it's supposed to be.
00:42:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:20
John S
It's obviously on one of the boards as with what we meant.
00:42:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:23
John S
um yeah If they had gone off in space, I probably would have got an over travel alarm.
00:42:27
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:42:28
John S
So anyway, more just a fun share that that's like, that's never happened to me before.
00:42:32
johngrimsmo
That's interesting.
00:42:34
John S
Yup, yup.
00:42:34
johngrimsmo
Hmm. Um, I do have one thing. So I did get to come into the shop on Saturday night and spend some time to myself and try electro polishing.
00:42:46
johngrimsmo
Like I mentioned last week that I got all set up.
00:42:46
John S
Oh, yeah.
00:42:49
johngrimsmo
And so I have some screws and some, um, integral buttons and some other block bar insert and just some, some little tiny parts that have about 0.3 surface inches of
00:43:00
John S
Oh, wow.
00:43:01
johngrimsmo
surface area so not much and coincidentally it works out I need 0.3 amps ish to electro polish these so I was playing with it and getting it all dialed up I had my you know my um lab coat on gloves face shield because I'm dealing with sulfuric acid and I really enjoyed myself that was a that was a fun evening and I got good results on one part on the pivot screw
00:43:24
John S
good
00:43:28
johngrimsmo
um But on the other three parts that I did, I got like, they look bee-blasted. They look not polished. They did etch, like they, um it also has a surface for sure.
00:43:36
John S
Okay, etched. Yeah, right.
00:43:41
johngrimsmo
It took the heat treat color right off of it, and it did something. But I couldn't get the right voltage and amps and settings to get it to be shiny. And I'm like, I don't know what's happening here.
00:43:49
John S
We said that three pendant screws and one was good or were they were different products?
00:43:51
johngrimsmo
And by that time it was 1 a.m., so I went home. But on the pivot screw itself, I got it extremely shiny, like impressively so.
00:44:00
John S
but visit it three pivot screws and one was good or were they were different products
00:44:04
johngrimsmo
Three different um products and talking to a friend of mine, he's like, are they all the same steel? And I looked and I go, actually they're all their three different steels. One's 17, four, one's 440C and one is ABL.
00:44:19
johngrimsmo
And I was like, that's interesting. They will have different iron, chromium, whatever. Maybe that's part of it. I don't know.
00:44:26
John S
Sure.
00:44:26
johngrimsmo
But electro polishing should be able to polish everything metal conductive. um I don't know. And then I also tried to polish or electropolish a titanium part because I'd read it's possible, yada, yada, yada.
00:44:39
johngrimsmo
It can do every metal. And it turned blue right away. And I was like, wait, what why are you turning blue or browns or whatever? It's anodizing instantly.
00:44:49
John S
Is it really? Yeah, sure.
00:44:51
johngrimsmo
And I stepped back and I looked at the whole system and I looked at the way the power goes to each part. And I'm like, this is exactly how our anodizing setup is.
00:44:56
John S
Yeah.
00:44:57
johngrimsmo
Like I'm literally anodizing it in sulfuric acid. and it blew instantly and it took no more charge and it wouldn't polish at all and it just grew the oxide layer on the outside and i'm like darn it i don't know if i can do this anymore because the oxide layer grows so fast so apparently the internet says the way to electropolish titanium is to use either an acid so nasty that it will eat your bones from the inside out hydrofluoric acid
00:45:11
John S
I thought you. Yeah. Right. Huh.
00:45:25
John S
hmm yeah oh
00:45:27
johngrimsmo
Everything I've read says don't even think about touching it, like getting close to it. I don't want that anywhere near me. But that will eat the oxide layer faster than it's forming.
00:45:36
John S
my god crazy yeah yeah
00:45:36
johngrimsmo
So it can actually ah can actually polish. Not interested. Or there's some other weird ways. But it sounds like it's not easy. So, OK. Thankfully, ah more than 50% of what I wanted to electropolish is a stainless product lacile product.
00:45:52
johngrimsmo
So I can still make this work.
00:45:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so that some progress is fun.
00:45:59
John S
Are you, are you worried about having a better do these or you just want to do it yourself?
00:46:03
johngrimsmo
I think we can do it ourselves if it proves out to be good enough. Yep, there are vendors that do it. I haven't gone that far.
00:46:14
John S
We'll have fun tomorrow at the wire shop. I hope that doesn't cut into your IMTS time next week though.
00:46:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah, i'll be I'll be spent at that point.
00:46:24
John S
Yeah.
00:46:24
johngrimsmo
I won't
Episode Wrap-Up
00:46:25
johngrimsmo
need to go to IMTS. I'll get to see one EDM machine.
00:46:27
John S
ever It's so, we have to figure out, everybody who's listening, email Grimsmo and and DM him on Insta and just peer pressure him into coming. No, it's a jokey aside, as a friend, do what you need to do, but it would be awesome to see ya.
00:46:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I agree.
00:46:45
John S
Good.
00:46:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah, you got anything else?
00:46:46
John S
Now, I'm gonna go home, see the kids.
00:46:49
johngrimsmo
Sounds good.
00:46:50
John S
What else? Yeah, I don't know, yeah.
00:46:53
johngrimsmo
All right, man.
00:46:53
John S
Good, hey, take care, I'll see ya.
00:46:55
johngrimsmo
If I don't see you at IMTS, have an amazing trip, everybody there too.
00:46:56
John S
a
00:46:58
johngrimsmo
And if I do see you that 1% chance, then we'll do a podcast.
00:46:58
John S
yes
00:47:02
John S
Love it.
00:47:03
johngrimsmo
All right, man.
00:47:04
John S
Take care.
00:47:05
johngrimsmo
Take care.
00:47:05
John S
Bye.