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Business of Machining - Episode 54
199 Plays7 years ago
The John’s celebrate Valentine's Day with episode 54 of the podcast, but Saunders doesn’t have much love for the accounting frustrations he experienced in the past week.
What is the AUTOSWEEP function on Paypal? Stay tuned for a video from Saunders.
Grimsmo’s Lean Machining Lifestyle
Angelo frees up time for Grimsmo to make improvements to the shop. How can you minimize wasted time and effort by getting LEAN?
Entrepreneur. Manager. Technician. Which are you?
The E-Myth Revisited contains valuable insights.
Saunders plays with CMMs at the Mitutoyo Workshop.
FIXTURE FUN
- GK Shop Life 011
- Grimsmo wants to get SERIAL!
Ever want to learn more about fonts? There’s a documentary for that: Helvetica.
“Why did that tool break?” - Angelo
The Process of Measuring Tool Life
Saunders encourages Grimsmo to go to DMG Mori and play with a Matsura machine with a pallet pool.
Grimsmo’s going to Hollywood! He’ll be speaking with producers this weekend about a potential documentary series.
Saunders was a guest star on the amp hour podcast.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Valentine's Day Greeting
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode number 54. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. Good morning, my friend. Good morning. Valentine's Day today. Happy Valentine's Day. I don't know. Yeah.
00:00:16
Speaker
Yeah, how are you doing? Great, really good.
Accounting Challenges and Solutions
00:00:19
Speaker
Actually, when we hung up last week, I realized, and it's actually funny, it's almost emblematic of what it felt like to be in that state, but the biggest problem I was having last week, I even forgot. I wanted to just rant or share with you.
00:00:36
Speaker
I guess we can go into it more if you would like but basically we had made some pretty major accounting mistakes on migrating over to zero and short version is they were my fault.
00:00:51
Speaker
I should have, and it wasn't even that I was trying to be frugal. I just thought I could do it. I should have hired an upward person to help with that migration, to do it correctly, because that's the whole point is like a clean start. And that's the downfall that I hadn't anticipated with the site like Xero is because it's kind of all automated, like it's pulling in Shopify and it's pulling in payroll from Gusto and it's pulling in PayPal and it's pulling in my bank statements and they all talk to each other. That's great. But when you do it incorrectly,
00:01:19
Speaker
It's not good and zero is pretty, actually it's oddly restrictive. They won't let you do what are called journal entries to bank accounts because their idea is kind of, hey, we're only getting the bank information from the bank. So we're not going to let you delete a transaction or add a transaction, which I get, but basically I double counted all of my January revenue.
00:01:40
Speaker
Okay. Because what happens is when somebody buys something off of our website, they can pay via Shopify payments, which is a merchant account processor, they could pay via PayPal or they could pay via Amazon. Everybody that paid via Shopify payments
00:01:56
Speaker
When somebody buys the product and pays Shopify, that should be the accounting event. That should be when you recognize the revenue. But what was happening was it was structured to go into zero such that that was a revenue event. But then when Shopify payments transferred the funds every day to my bank account, that was also a revenue event. So long story short, got it all structured, got my January books reconciled, which feels great. But I was good.
00:02:27
Speaker
Yeah. That's interesting. Um, Barry's going through a very similar thing with, with QuickBooks online right now, where there are like, we've got a few different bank accounts, but things are doubling up and it's like, there's two versions of the same bank account that have almost the same transactions, but not, and it's, it's not reconciling. And he's like pulling his hair out, trying to talk to QuickBooks and try to understand this and figure it out. And,
00:02:51
Speaker
We're trying to catch up from last year, basically. So once we're caught up, clean slate, hopefully we can go forward and it'll be straightforward. But yeah, it's interesting and fun. I mean, yeah, it's so important. And I don't say that because I'm a numbers guy. I say that because it's the key to your understanding your business. And this is countered with a pretty low note of the frustration of bad books.
00:03:18
Speaker
started accepting Amazon Pay, this is hilarious, on SaundersMachineWorks.com like last June. Somebody was like, hey, can you add it? And in Shopify, it was literally like a checkbox, like add Amazon Pay as a payment checkout. I checked it. I didn't do anything else because it didn't occur to me I'd have to do anything else. So I'm dealing with these zero issues last week. And I'm like, okay, well, let's compare a Shopify transaction to how a PayPal or an Amazon Pay transaction occurred. And I started looking at the Amazon Pay and I'm like, wait,
00:03:49
Speaker
What? Where are they? And so I dug through and found my Amazon Pay login.
00:03:56
Speaker
like five figures worth of revenue sitting there. Nice. Yeah, you just forgot all about it. I literally hadn't put in my Amazon pay bank account distribution thing. That's what's sitting there. That creates its own frustration. Now I've got to go fix books. That is a great problem. That's a positive problem. In your mental daily reconciling, did you not account for that?
00:04:21
Speaker
Well, so that's why we are moving to zero, is that last year, the only way we effectively ran, we actually, I filmed, but we haven't released a video on two different accounting videos. One is kind of an intro to accounting for machining folks and manufacturing entrepreneurs. So it's not a substitute for a proper college accounting class, but it's like accounting for what you need to know.
00:04:45
Speaker
So I'm actually super excited to get that up on it will not be on YouTube. It'll be on NYC CNC, but but free and open to everybody and then we're also filming I have not yet done it kind of an accounting on the daily life Like how do I organize and I think we've got a pretty good system, you know
00:04:59
Speaker
How do I put receipts in? What do I do every month? How do I handle some of the nitty gritty of the daily transaction? So much more of like an operational stuff accounting, lots of little tips and tricks there, but we've effectively did cash accounting. So I didn't recognize revenue until a sale was transferred into my bank account.
00:05:18
Speaker
Right. So like PayPal, we have set up for auto sweep every night. That makes it easy. But this is that's why I would. What do you mean? What's auto sweep? Oh, I'll I'll bait you into watching our video. OK. If you're really nice, PayPal is a terror. It's funny. I love what Elon Musk is doing, but what he's doing barely makes up for the creature of that is PayPal that he helps create.
00:05:42
Speaker
If you call PayPal, which is in and of itself a Pandora's box of finding their phone number, and you're really, really, really nice, they will let you turn on auto nightly cash sweeps. Interesting. It'll pull the money from PayPal straight to your bank account every night. Which is the luxurious because now I don't have to log in to PayPal, which pardon my cynicism, but screw you PayPal for every time I log in making me look at your credit lending advertisement and click proceed to account.
Improving Shop Operations and Efficiency
00:06:12
Speaker
Oh my gosh, if you don't, then I'm jealous. Anyway, I forget what I was saying. But that's embarrassing. I mean, it's kind of cool that we're big enough now that you can miss some money like that and not recognize it. But that's not very cool. Right, right. Oh, there's so many facets too.
00:06:30
Speaker
everything that we do now. You probably have three plus revenue streams coming in. Each one has its own login, has its own management, has its own thing. Yeah, I get it. It's building. It's like the Mari tool tour. It's like Frank and Tom were talking about how lucky they got that early on. I think it was Tom convinced them. Tom actually came from a
00:06:50
Speaker
What was it, like a retail IT background or like an infrastructure logistics background, I think? He was like, no, no, no. We have to build the framework now. Because it's like when you're shipping hundreds of order days, you get 6,000 excuse. You can't just like play.
00:07:08
Speaker
keep it in my head game. Yeah, that's something Angelo said to me just yesterday. He's like, a lot of this business is in your head, isn't it? He's like, we're going to have to change that. Yes. Yes, we are. So do tell. So our machinist has been on for two weeks tomorrow, I believe, and 100% positive. I have basically nothing bad to say about the experience. Honeymoon positive or really grinding positive?
00:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, like really grinding, it's going to be a long-lasting positive relationship. And part of it is, as you mentioned, honeymoon, just having somebody with a machine experience to be able to ask them to do stuff and to teach them once, and he gets it.
00:07:53
Speaker
And you think that I see as very complicated things, like just intricate ways to dial in tools. And especially on the lathe, the tool offsets are really complicated and convoluted. Because if I have multiple tools stacked up on top of each other, they're sharing the same offset, but they're not. And all these sub rules.
00:08:12
Speaker
And he's already good with it. He's, he's done. He's figuring it out. He's understanding it as I'm explaining it because, you know, he's worked on cars as much as I have. So he's got that kind of wrenching, you know, experience where he just likes to do what he gets to do it. Yeah. It's really nice to be able to share my difficult tasks with somebody else because I haven't been able to do that with Eric or Barry or anybody else, you know, even just installing a tool, tool holder in the Maury and, you know, touching it off and all that stuff like,
00:08:40
Speaker
relatively simple, but it's got its own complicated merits. Anyway, it's awesome. It's a force multiplier, that feeling of just being able to... And it's funny because sometimes, I'll admit, sometimes as an entrepreneur, I kind of thinking, well, I'll give it to XYZ person, but it might take them longer. Are they going to do as good a job? Are they going to care? And the reality is yes, yes, and yes. And even if they take a little bit longer, sometimes it's complete BS because I would have actually taken
00:09:09
Speaker
a long time too. You just think from the outset, oh, if this went swimmingly, it would be quick. And it's phenomenal to let somebody, they learn, they grow. It makes you smile. Yep. And it's the force multiplier. You get to do something else while they're doing that. I can spend time with Aaron going over videos or ideas or planning or things like that while I'm comfortably happy that Angelo has the machines under control.
00:09:37
Speaker
Has it been the problem that, um, well, so you've been busy. I guess that's what folks were sort of asking. And I'm curious to this idea that Angelo is running one or both machines is grim smoke. Is grim smoke feel left out in the corner? Yes and no. So today's Wednesday. So Monday and Tuesday this week, I have felt a lot of things. So I know I'll go into it, but, um, very much like the conductor, you know, like the captain of the ship.
00:10:06
Speaker
Um, which is exactly what I've wanted forever. Um, so that work is happening. Everybody's got their jobs. Everybody's got their positions. And as you said to me a few months ago, like, what would I do if people did everything else? I would clean, you know what I've done. I've cleaned. Oh my gosh. I've done, I've done lean improvements. We, I feel stupid, but for two and a half years we've been in the shop. We've had the toilet paper on the back of the toilet. No, totally.
00:10:33
Speaker
Just two days ago, I installed a toilet paper rack. And I'm like, this makes me so happy. This thing was $6. And it took me, I used an existing screw hole in the wall. And it was like, oh my goodness, so good. And so we cleaned everything. We rearranged the office slash lunch room that Aaron's in, mopped. I installed all kinds of towel holders and things like that. And actually installed, just last night, a light. It's currently a green light, but it should be a red light. That turns on whenever somebody's in the bathroom. Oh, OK.
00:11:03
Speaker
Because with five people and just one bathroom, everybody walks through the door and goes, oh, somebody's in here. And now we can look at this light because it's tied to the light switch in the bathroom. So it turns on. Everybody can see it from anywhere. I actually got that tip from Paul Acres. He did that in his first shop, too. Hilarious. It was like little thing, but it makes me so happy. Oh, that's great.
00:11:24
Speaker
The, uh, that's awesome. Yep. So it's this higher level, um, running the business planning. I mean, there's a lot of really big deals that I'm working on right now that a lot of phone calls, a lot of, um, customer interaction, supplier vendor interaction too. I just, I get to do that now. I'm not so bogged down. Like I'm still working on the machines a lot with Angelo, but not all the time. The, and work is getting done. The, um,
00:11:51
Speaker
My humble advice would be the cleaning stuff, the lean stuff, the true internal improvement stuff. I wholeheartedly agree. And it's so funny because we've had the same thing where like when we had this office space built out, they put in frankly, a crummy paper towel dispenser. And for like three different times, I was trying to figure out the right U lines and then how to feed it. And then I didn't like it. And I'm like, what am I doing?
00:12:14
Speaker
This is like $40 to buy the brand new nice one that I actually like. And it feels wasteful and it feels like backward progress. No, gone. Put the new one in. And that's not even something that ever goes on your to-do list. Just do it. Right. So that's stuff I love. I would say it's interesting as your time frees up from the day to day. What is it, the term from the eMyth Revisit? It's kind of the task. What is it? Three levels. It's like the entrepreneur, the manager,
00:12:43
Speaker
technician. Thank you. As you become less of a technician, just be careful of not letting yourself look at the shiniest light bulb, you know, don't all of a sudden just
00:12:54
Speaker
waste time with suppliers or you know what I mean? Like your time is still super precious. It's just kind of funny that you've now won the lottery. You've now got time and you didn't before. It's amazing how much that time gets eaten up. Like we've had suppliers come in two, three days a week now, like always, and some of them linger and some of them chit chat. And I'm just like, guys, like we got, we got a lot of stuff to do, you know, time to go. Yeah.
00:13:19
Speaker
And I'm just to be a little bit more nicely ruthless about kicking them out. Right. Yeah, I'm like, I mean, look, these guys, unless you get somebody really green, they get it. They probably are told to go away more times than not. Or like most shops, you can't even get to the person. You've got to sign a book. You've got to wait in the lobby. I'm usually polite, but probably a little bit curt in a borderline rude way where I'm like, nice to meet you. Like, what are you offering me? What do you got? Like, give me your pitch. You got 30 seconds. And if not, like, I was trying to sell me
00:13:47
Speaker
you know, cobalt drills. I'm like, dude, we don't use them. Like, you know, right. You saw me at a problem. I don't have like, appreciate it. You know, you're probably a good dude. You're hustling. I love it. But, but no, thanks. Yeah. Yeah. I've thought about, I've got a stopwatch here in my little Kaizen foam on my desk next to my calipers and everything. When suppliers come in, I, one day I will just turn on the stopwatch and set it down. That would be so awkward if they see you do that.
00:14:11
Speaker
Like, I want them to see me do that. Because it proves that time is precious. Right. And that everybody, right front and center, everybody's looking at it. Right. And, you know, 45 minutes goes by pretty quickly without you even realizing it. And it's like, Oh, my gosh, I could have gotten so much stuff done. Okay, that 45 minutes is absurd, for sure. Yeah. Oh, it happens for sure. Wow. On the flip side, boy, there's some in some great, you know, when you can build relationships with somebody's, and that just goes back to
00:14:39
Speaker
We've gotten, I don't know why, but more emails recently about how to get started, how to get started as a job shop, how to find a job in manufacturing. It's no different than if you're the sales guy trying to bring in a new lathe turret block to the Grimsmo shop. It's not about anything else other than helping Grimsmo understand what this can do for him. When you're trying to get started, when you're trying to do a job, it's not about what you can offer, it's about what you can do for that customer. How can you help them?
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, even if what you're offering is not the right solution, you need to be upfront and help them solve the problem. Right. So which is great. And it actually turns into a two way street then because I value some of the relationships we have with folks where you can call on them to get their advice and to rely
Exploring Quality Control and Measurement Tools
00:15:25
Speaker
on it. And it's that it's that kind of confluence where folks have a really good product offering. And I have the knowledge to back it up versus boy, I've still got a couple of folks that call on us that are
00:15:35
Speaker
you know, kind of one man bands, they sell one brand of machine tool. And it's like the only reason you want to sell me this dude is because it happens to be the line that you carry. Like if you, if that company, if that company dropped you and you picked up another one, you would just be shilling them six ways till Sunday too. It's salesman. That's, that's their job, right? Yeah.
00:15:55
Speaker
So we, speaking of free time, we took a detour on Monday and went down to Mason, Ohio, which is just outside of Cincinnati, where MITU Toyu has, I think they've got like six or seven of these across the country, but they have these sort of like technical showrooms. Excuse me. So our rep had came by on last Thursday, super good dude, somebody I would put in that bucket of, you know, hey, helps us. And that's what I value. And
00:16:26
Speaker
We were talking about getting the most out of that hype gauge that we've got, doing QC processes, like how do you help export data? How do you build a workflow? Am I using the right metrology tools and so forth? Really trying to approach it with an open mind. And the question came up of, you know, what's the difference between this and a CMM? And I have never used a CMM.
00:16:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Me neither. I've been in shops where they're being used. I've seen them at trade shows. But no, I have never, in the case of a manual CMM, I've never actually moved the thing around myself. And for CNC, I've never seen or understood what it's like to program it. And it reminded me back when I was in my New York City apartment, and I was trying to understand what a bridge port or a manual machine was. And I basically thought, I thought that they had power feed that could kick out based on a DRO value. Does that make sense?
00:17:16
Speaker
So like you could start, you could zero out a digital readout and say, okay, no, I want to go to 18 inches, turn the power feed on and it would travel 18 inches and then stop. So I rented these smart flicks DVDs. Uh, most of them were the Daryl Holland gunsmithing series and he had a bridge port and I remember loading the DVD up and I remember watching it and I remember seeing him turn the actual handles and thinking, you got to be kidding me.
00:17:43
Speaker
So I had the same thing about a manual CMM. I'm like, is it like they move it close to the part and then it like automatically approaches the last bit? No. Manual CMMs are not.
00:17:54
Speaker
they are not something that should be purchased any longer. It's like a bridge port that measures. They're like half the price of a CNC, so obviously that's attractive, but they're slow as molasses and they're subject to operator feel. You can get different measurements based on how you... And that's a significant part of what we're trying to solve is not only just the automation, but the consistency.
00:18:18
Speaker
So, I'm sure somebody can tell me there's a good example of where a manual would be okay, but I'll tell you, no. No one would ever buy a manual if it was the same price as a CNC. And the CNC ones were cool. They were really cool. But luckily, we don't need one. We can, for at least for now, we can get by with the measurements that we need absolutely with our height gauge, which is awesome.
00:18:45
Speaker
And here I was thinking you were going to say you bought one. Well, I mean, sure, it's fun to think about that. And it would be here's where it would be cool is it would free up labor because manual QC takes time and it's still subject to air. And the nice thing is we have low enough volume where.
00:19:02
Speaker
We could basically QC every part. Actually, I know we could because it's not that doesn't take that long. So let's say I'm going to Australia here in a few weeks. If we made 30 or 40 fixture plates when I'm gone, I would with cues. I mean, you just you know, they're good. You just do. And that's worth a lot. We are doing more.
00:19:25
Speaker
in-probe, in-machine testing with a Renishaw. And that's good on a new machine, because it's unlikely that we would have things like lead screw wear or machine tramp issues. So that helps. But nevertheless, I get a CMM. But then it's like, OK, well, think about it, Saunders. Do you want to finish paying off the mortgage on the building? Do you want to buy? Think about a five-axis multipallet machine, or do you want to? Then all of a sudden, the CMM sounds awesome. But let's sit tight for a while. Yeah, exactly.
00:19:54
Speaker
Well, yeah, what do you want to do? You want to make more parts or you want to measure the parts you're currently making and make them perfect? Right. Right. But that was still fun. It was fun to go down there and nerd out on, like, you know, the mittu toyu calipers that everybody has. I'm sure you've got the same ones. They have a set of these six inch calipers, the Diginomatics, where on the fixed blade side,
00:20:17
Speaker
It's got this pressure gauge. As you close the calipers on something, you close it and you're moving a dial indicator needle to zero. That way, if you are measuring soft parts or compressible parts, you apply consistent pressure each time. Right? Freaking brilliant. Makes sense. That's cool. What have you been up to?
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, so cleaning, organizing. The workflow of our Norseman process, like we put up that fixture video last week sometime. The fixture is great. And now I'm working on an engraving fixture, which is the last step. So I finally got the Pearson Mini Palette mounted on the Maury, which is good. We're filming that process too. And got airlines routed into the machine and like all proper. Cool.
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah, so now the VAC magic and the Pearson palette are wired to the same kind of Pearson up and down switch. Oh, interesting. Yeah, which is really good. And are you doing the angle? Yeah, I'm angling the blades at a 20 degree angle, which should give you better SFM on the tool instead of cutting in the center and all this stuff. But the code that I'm trying to create in order to sequentially engrave the blades and count up by itself using macros is tearing my brain apart. Oh, really?
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's good. I love it. But it's complicated. Do you use a built-in Maury stick font, like an engraving thing in FANUC? No. No, and it's a SolidWorks font, actually, that doesn't exist in Fusion. So I have the sketch files from SolidWorks for each number. And I'm trying to sequentially make the code as simple as possible, but also as powerful as possible. What are you trying to do?
00:22:07
Speaker
I'm trying to engrave serial numbers and have the machine count up by itself. Serial number one, or like zero, zero, zero, one, that's a fusion derived, it's not a number, it's a sketch. Is that right? Yes, it's a sketch of zero, zero, zero, one, and then fusion or the macro will offset it, each digit.
00:22:33
Speaker
And then there's also six positions on the fixture, so it has to offset the whole thing six times. But when you go to post 0002, you're actually asking Fusion to repost a new... I'm lost. Yeah.
00:22:50
Speaker
What I want to do is I want to have only 10 digits in the code. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. It's almost like subroutines or something. Exactly, exactly. And the macro, the subroutine, and the offsets will tell it to move over and count up.
00:23:06
Speaker
and then move over, and then it's got to move over to the second position and the third position. Sure, sure, sure, sure. And it's got to count up each time. And I'm also going to have the probe come in and check how many blades are on this out of six. So if you only put two blades on there, it'll know. Right, right, right,
Automation and Machining Efficiency
00:23:23
Speaker
right. And all this crazy stuff that I know I can do, and it's just, it's, it's funly complicated. And I like it. How many digits? Is it four digits serial numbers? Five?
00:23:33
Speaker
Well, it's three digits now, because we're at 9.25. So when we hit the four digits, I'm not adding one in front. I'm adding one behind, because I'm making it longer. So it changes everything. So once I hit 1,000, I'm going to have to change something. So I'm trying to think about it. It would really be x, x, x, x, where x represents a variable. And then it's basically the code will look to say,
00:23:56
Speaker
What's the current integer value for that? And then when I have the integer value, what subroutine do I pull for each character position to correctly engrave to satisfy that integer value? Yes, basically. Easy peasy.
00:24:13
Speaker
Except in the macro, I can't say 925. I have to have three different macros. They go 9, 2, and 5. And so I have to count up the 5 by 1. I have to count up the 2 by a factor of 10. And then the 100 digit by a factor of, so there's some math involved. But I'm really having fun with it. I used to do this in Visual Basic for Excel, but there are ways to strip out
00:24:37
Speaker
You can strip out a three or four digit character to basically deal with each each data set for each row so you can basically count. You're trying to count up in like a very weird way.
00:24:49
Speaker
Yes, and I know what you're getting at, I think, and that is possible, meaning if you had a variable that said 925, you can strip that down into three digits and know which switch. Yeah, not only three digits, but you can also then do math with it, add up, have it roll over, Kerry. We did the same thing. I wrote a, this was brutal, but you laugh, but I had to go process this dataset of
00:25:10
Speaker
names, and all these people had, instead of John Saunders, it was John W. Saunders, or John W. Period Saunders, or John William Saunders, or John Saunders III. And all I needed was the first and last name. So I wrote this Excel code that went through and actually shockingly accurately across tens of thousands of names would strip out all that superfluous stuff I didn't want.
00:25:33
Speaker
and give you the first and last, which is actually very similar, I think, to what you're trying to do. You're you're obviously dealing with a more consistent data set, which is nice. But yeah, super cool. Yeah, yeah, super cool. So it's it's complicated upfront, just like everything that I do. But the goal is to have a simple end product so that running it is simple and obvious. And then with this Pearson fixture with the six blades on it, it can be loaded carefully set while the machine is running the big pallet. And then
00:26:03
Speaker
you can quick swap, and then the machine's never down, basically. That's awesome. Right now, we're engraving one by one. I have to manually generate the code infusion for every single number, and it's a working system, but it's a very inefficient system. A FANUC must have a serial engraving function, though. It's not probably the font you want, though. Exactly. It's the font I want. My font is on a bit of an arc.
00:26:28
Speaker
It follows certain parameters and stuff. There's probably several ways to do this. Probably simpler than what I'm trying to come up with, but this is the way that I can figure it out. What is, I'm trying to look this up. I can't remember now. I learned a lot about fonts and I've already forgot it. Actually, there's a really good Netflix, I think it's available on Netflix, movie called Helvetica. Have you ever seen that?
00:26:56
Speaker
I highly recommend it. Awesome. You will love it. In fact, maybe you shouldn't watch it. I'm now forgetting because I was looking up serif versus sans serif. That has to do with having a serif, which is like a note or accent, squiggly line serifs at the end of the strokes. There's another font term. I can't remember it, but it has to do with whether a font takes up a consistent space left to right. Do you know what I'm talking about?
00:27:27
Speaker
Well, so if you wrote an H or a K, those have a significant X axis or left to right width, right? Whereas I is a very narrow letter. So it's a question of whether if you wrote four I's or four H's, do they take up the same space? And there's a term, I can't remember what it is, there's a term for that.
00:27:47
Speaker
Is it curding, or is that the space between letters? I think that's the space between. Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter, but it's a cool thing where it's relevant here because you're obviously trying to be consistent with a one versus a zero on what the width is, right? Yes. It'll be a spacing issue because if I just have 10 digits, zero through nine, they each get spaced the same amount, like 1 16th of an inch or whatever it is.
00:28:12
Speaker
Right, so 111 will take up the same space as 999. Okay, that's great. Right, theoretically. That's nice. Good, so yeah. But people do still mention that all the numbers are too close together and I should space them apart more. Really? But I'm like, yeah, it is what it is. Where's the serial number on my Norseman? Oh, that's right, of course. Five, six, eight. Nice.
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. What did I see that was on the... Oh, I love the little improvement to the ID of the pocket clip. Was that in the new fixture? That was awesome. Yeah. And it's been working super consistently. It saved so much tooling and it's been great. Never stop improving. Has Angelo been doing any thing in terms of like tool management and tool life or... I mean, he's a process engineer, right?
00:29:09
Speaker
Exactly, yeah. Every time a tool breaks, he asks why. Okay. The answer was, if I give him, I don't know, it doesn't work. If I give him, oh, it's worn out. I'm measuring tool life now. I'm measuring how many pallets are made with this tool because after every pallet, a macro counts up.
00:29:28
Speaker
And I have a written down date like February 4 is when I last changed this tool. So when Eric asks me, when's the last time you changed that tool? Because the finish is getting kind of rough. I can say, oh, it's just last week. And it's made 14 pallets. Now we have actual data to tell how long these tools are lasting, which is good. And we're tracking that data more and more. So see the consistency range. And then we can set, like Orange Vice was telling you,
00:29:56
Speaker
conservative, you know, conservatively replacing tools early. Oh, yeah, I don't know either. Yeah. OK, that's the one. So how does that work? Because, you know, today's February 14th, if you replaced a tool on February 10th. Well, how do you every time you run a pallet, the machine indexes up, but you don't know how many you actually have to store, you have to write down how many pallets are made each day.
00:30:27
Speaker
In the code Infusion, I have a manual NC that says variable 830 plus one. Right, but if you replace a tool on February 10th and it just broke, you need to know how many pallets you had run at that point and how many pallets you've run today to see how many incremental pallets that tool was on, don't you? Yes. The variable counts up and then the date is just a text field that I type in when I replace the tool. I see.
00:30:56
Speaker
Right. So I'm counting the date. That's just a note to myself, but it's super helpful. Yeah. That is awesome. So I'm Maury. I can, I can label macros, but on the, on the Nakamura, I can't label macros. I don't think it's kind of silly, which I love being able to like write text and be like, this tool is long or whatever, whatever I want.
00:31:16
Speaker
Are there – I don't know anything about fan it controllers when it comes to the actual details and model numbers. Is it never the case? Could you ever have the exact same fan it controller on a mill and a lathe? Are they always different because they're different?
00:31:28
Speaker
Yes. If I bought the lathe version of my DIR vertical, it'd be the exact same controller. And part of me from a convenience standpoint, wishes I had done that, because then I'd have two identical machines. And even though both machines are FANUC and they're both Japanese, the controllers are almost completely different. Not just button layout, but like menu layout and the way they're structured and the way everything works and
00:31:53
Speaker
It would have been a lot easier if I got the DMG Morey and LX2500, whatever, the vertical version. I remember that guy, Paul Diebolt, telling me that, boy, there's a lot to be said for, well, lots of people have said for consistency of controllers in a shop, but then he's got a Heidenhain next to a Fanuc, and those are like the polar opposites of high-end German, and I mean Fanuc, I don't think it was high-end, even though it probably could be, or it is.
00:32:23
Speaker
Heidenheit is a little bit more unique, at least in the States, and he's like, God, they are completely different cultural influences in how those controllers are structured, which is so funny. Yep.
00:32:33
Speaker
Well, it's funny too, like if I got another machine, it would not be a clone of either of the two that I have. What do you mean? You know, if I ever get a five axles. Oh, yeah. You know, if I ever get that matzura, it's a panic, but it's different fanics still. And even though it's Japanese, it's different. You know, and there's all different other machines, even a brother would have their own brother controller and
00:32:55
Speaker
Like, I don't think this this notion of having consistent controllers will work for me going forward because I just want so many different. And that's no into your point, this idea that like.
00:33:05
Speaker
Should you compromise on the iron or should you compromise on the actual tangibles capabilities of the machine just to keep the software the same? That doesn't feel great, especially when we're more creative. It's one thing if you're just buying a machine to crank out widgets and you don't care about it. It just needs to get set up and run. But boy, I want to buy the best machine I can. Exactly. Have you played with a matzur ever in person?
00:33:35
Speaker
No, I've seen them, but I would love to just sit down with them for four hours and make something. Forgive me for asking this, but couldn't you just go to Elliott for afternoon and play with one? I'm sure they've got them, right? Yeah, I sent them an email a few weeks ago when we were talking about the weekend.
00:33:55
Speaker
to him an email and I'm like, do you have an MX330 PC10 or whatever it was with the 10 pallet? And he goes, we have one, but without the pallet pool. And I'm like, that's OK. It's the same machine. If I went and saw it, it's the same. I don't need to see the pallet pool to know that it's awesome. He's like, yeah, we've got one under power. You don't come on by any time. And I'm like, oh, that's a bit too real for me. I don't know. Some of our specs are not any different than going to Mitsutoyo to get smart. Let me understand what this is like. Let me get smart.
00:34:24
Speaker
I totally agree. Heck, our friend that's buying one had the chance to spend some time at Pier 9. Ironically, on the exact machine, he was saying how just insanely helpful. I mean, so many things they're like, you're talking to guys who have already used the machine, they've got it dialed in, he's now able to like get a little bit of a head start on.
00:34:43
Speaker
Exactly. In the positions we're all in now, all of our buddies, I feel like we're on not similar paths, but you know what I mean? We're all busy and we're all crushing it and cranking out parts. We can't afford downtime. If we get a new machine and it takes two months to get the first part out, that's a ridiculous waste of time right now. Yeah, there'll be some. Well.
00:35:04
Speaker
And it was it was making parts on our laser within like literally within 19 hours of the freight truck arriving. And that includes, you know, sleeping overnight. It was I was like, wow. Right. That's that's cool. And we. Nice. It's fun. Look, I love what I do. I think it's always nice to keep a sense of overall humility to it. And you and I are kind of like you just said, you know, we're young, we're crushing it. We love what we do.
00:35:30
Speaker
One day, we're going to be the guys with the machines that might be outdated or are behind the trends or there's going to be some young hungry guys that are running a podcast or whatever the equivalent of podcasts are in 10 or 15 years that are the shinier objects. Well, first of all, that doesn't mean we can't enjoy it now. Yeah, I don't know what my point was there, but yeah. Well, yeah, enjoy what we have now.
00:35:54
Speaker
I hate to sound terse, but ride the wave. Yeah, try to stay humble about it. The future would be so boring if you knew what it was going to be, right? If you knew with 100% certainty that you were going to have a Mettura in nine months, all of a sudden it would be kind of boring. You'd have
Productivity and Mindset Tips
00:36:12
Speaker
it already. Right, exactly. You know what I mean? Well, I could get over it, but that's not any fun.
00:36:18
Speaker
No, so I had a good entrepreneurial coming of ages here this week, which is got through the accounting. That really frustrated me and got through that. But I was creeping back into the kind of anxiety, stress stuff that I was working so hard to just put behind me. And I know I'm a better person. I'm more passionate about what I do and when I don't have that. So it was top of the priority list.
00:36:46
Speaker
One of the things I kind of realized, and it's cliche, but you are what you want to be. If you want to be stressed, you're going to be stressed. If you want to be calm, cool, and collected, you will be calm, cool, and collected.
00:36:58
Speaker
And for me, part of the things I realized was quit opening your phone up in the morning or quit even reading those 14 unread emails. Don't even open up because as soon as I open up my inbox, I've got to click on the email to see what did somebody buy or what's this question about fusion or something. Just ignore it. Go to the coffee shop and do what you need to do to the tune of where I can even close my inbox out of my browser the night before. So when I open my laptop, it's not even there.
00:37:27
Speaker
I've heard some people, Tim Ferriss and others say that they put their phone on airplane mode at like 9 PM or whatever time. And then all night and when they wake up, they're offline. Like they do not get the dings and the emails. They don't wake up to those emails. So you wake up clear, fresh. You're not distracted. You can do whatever morning routine you need to. You can go to the coffee shop.
00:37:47
Speaker
and then open the floodgate at your own schedule as opposed to being driven by the schedule that the phone gives. And it's funny because I hear you say that and I just think, well, John, that sounds great, but there's just no way I could do that because what if
00:38:03
Speaker
What if there's a fire at the shop? Or what if my family member has a health issue? And those are all legitimate. But the reality is, as a 34-year-old person that's had a cell phone for whatever, 12, 15 years, the number of times that that sort of a thing has happened is like once or twice. And the price that you pay is daily bombardment of this stuff that's... And I'm picking on the phone. I really mean it more just everywhere.
00:38:33
Speaker
I've heard people say these things before that at the time sound kind of off putting like, if you want to be successful, you'll be successful. If you want to have money, you'll have money. Or if you want to be influencer to people, you'll be that. And I was kind of like, you know, what are you like, it's just stupid pep talks up. But I'm kind of realizing that now, like, if you, if you make it a priority, and you understand how to focus on it. You know, again, if you want to be stressed, you will be stressed.
00:39:01
Speaker
It's also what you feed yourself with, too. If you watch depressing news all the time, you're going to be depressed all the time. And you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So if you spend your time with awesome, successful people, then you are more likely to be awesome and successful, too, otherwise being dragged down by people that make it. Yeah, that's a good point. I've gotten a little bit better about not looking at Facebook so much.
00:39:27
Speaker
But even on Facebook, I've unfollowed countless numbers of people. Because it's like, dude, I don't care about your politics anymore. I don't care about this stuff. I don't live in a bubble world. But part of me is OK living in a bubble that doesn't include your drama or your getaway from it.
00:39:48
Speaker
Reminds me of another really good piece of advice when it comes to getting work done, which is, and it sounds bad at first, but it's follow the money. If you have the chance to do work for, you know, it could be demanding work, it could be challenging work, but for a company that is looking for quality work in their pay their bills versus the local, I hate to say it because I, well, we do a lot of work that we choose to do, but for somebody who doesn't pay their bills or doesn't have any money or doesn't,
00:40:18
Speaker
If you're running a business, you had to pick the right decision. If you're running a charity or you have personal satisfaction out of it, I think that's an important part of balancing it all. I've certainly enjoyed doing both, but don't be surprised if a year after you start, you don't have any money or you're failing because you keep doing work for people that are nice, but don't pay or don't want to pay a market weight for their work.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yep, a business is designed to make money. It has to make money to survive, to hire people, to pay its own bills. Yeah, so I mostly agree with that. That's right. That was the example I was trying to think of. There's so many products that shouldn't be brought to market. Now, there's a great exception, which is I'm fine bringing a crummy product to market if it's your chance to go through the process. Get your training wheels on. The quintessential example is that
00:41:11
Speaker
$20 to $50 vice handle or machining product or bottle opener that frankly, it's not that interesting and people will buy because they may be sympathetic, but they're not buying because they really actually want that product. Great thing to do to go through the ropes, learn how to build a product, get it anodized or packaged, but don't base your business on something that's not... People don't want that in scale.
00:41:38
Speaker
see it as a stepping stone. If you can be humble enough to look at yourself in the mirror and be like, okay, this is a stepping stone to greater things.
Evaluating Business Opportunities and Core Values
00:41:47
Speaker
I don't know what those greater things are, but I will be progressing towards them. Because yeah, if you think you're going to start a million dollar business selling bottle openers, you're nuts. Or you think you're going to end up with a shop like yours. Exactly.
00:42:02
Speaker
But it's stepping stone at me. I made glow in the dark handles for a Spyderco production knife as my first knife product. And I dove all in. It was everything. And I eventually wanted to make knives from it. You did. But I don't remember that. No overhead, no employees in your garage.
00:42:21
Speaker
DIY CNC machine. And frankly, even those are probably a better example of something that people are willing to pay, spend money on, customizing that. Awesome. Yep. All right, so I have some big news that I'm hesitant to share. And I'll explain why. So tomorrow night, Eric and I are flying to LA.
00:42:50
Speaker
Yep. And I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about this possible Hollywood deal. I'm pursuing it. Really? Okay. Yes. I'm going there to meet with the producer and yeah, so they want to make a show with us like real documentary style and give us control too, which is a big one. This means I'm going to lose business of machine.
00:43:14
Speaker
Wait, so serious? Like a reality show? Are you not supposed to talk about it? Okay. I don't know. Well, that's one of my questions is there's no contract yet, so I can do whatever I want.
00:43:30
Speaker
from a personal standpoint, like, do I share the journey as it's happening because this is real life and I kind of want to, or do I kind of hide it and be like, I don't know if it's going to happen or I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it or whatever. So part of me is kind of like hesitantly wanting to share the experience, want to share the trip out there, want to share some of the meetings if I can. Right. Because this is real life. This is what's going on with me right now. If I hide it, it never happens. Have you? Sure. Well, obviously, you're not hiding it that much because we're sharing it with you.
00:44:00
Speaker
Well, because I'm choosing to start talking about it. Which is funny too, because I was going to say sharing it with the dozens or hundreds of people, but I don't even... I think it's now thousands. I haven't really looked at the stats. Have you? Yeah. Anyway, yeah. Me neither. Have you thought about what you went out of this?
00:44:16
Speaker
I have. I've thought about this and the producer, we've been talking for two and a half years now, he's been trying to make this happen. Wow. And I've been putting him off, putting him off, putting him off, not ready. Nope, not interested. Kind of interested, sort of interested, not ready. And now this year, throughout the year, I think it's going to be a good time. Wow. Better than it was last year for sure. So if it's going to happen, I'm really excited and I've thought a lot about what I want out of it, what I want it to be like.
00:44:46
Speaker
And he said a lot of things that make it very attractive to me. And I'm wondering if I need to go there and see him and figure out if this is all real. It is. But you know what I mean? If the show will be what I actually want it to be and not just some drama yelling fest because I won't agree to that.
00:45:03
Speaker
So, but yeah, I mean, not only is he a huge fan of our company and our brand, he's got our best interest in mind, but he's also not just some kind of underling looking for a thing. He's like the CEO of this big production company. He's the top dog in his market.
00:45:20
Speaker
looking for us. So it's like it's not like I'm taking a show idea and pitching it to five different people. It's like they're coming to me already, which which is super helpful. And he's wanting to give me somewhat control in it, too, as a as an executive producer, because he's like, dude, you've been producing your own content for the past 10 years. Right. You know what it needs to be. I'm like, well, if you give me a little bit of control, then that's a much different story than if you come in and tell me what to do. You know, can I share my concern? So you have so much going for you. I don't know.
00:45:51
Speaker
And I don't know. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm saying I don't know. What is this going to get you? You're not, John, I know you're not an ego guy. You don't need Grimsmough on national TV to make me happy.
00:46:05
Speaker
I know you want to grow. I know you want to share. My concern is I've known enough people that have gone through things that are like this. I don't know anybody direct corollary to a TV show, but whether it's interacting with other media companies or publishing or the journalistic world, and I don't know anybody who has said that was transformative. It helped me to get somewhere I couldn't get on my own. You're at this point now where you're generating cash.
00:46:35
Speaker
building your company, you've got a product that people love. I mean, I've had 20 seconds to think about this on live podcasts, but like, what is what is two years later? I mean, I put it this way. I think you can get to a five or 10,000 square foot shop with two five axis machines with two more people with a YouTube channel that could be hugely more successful than mine. I think you could do all that on your own. So I'm sure I'm sitting here trying to think what is the nugget?
00:47:05
Speaker
that this gets you that you don't already have the ability to get. Knowing that statistically, this is going to go poorly for you. Just admit that. Most people will regret doing this or hate it or recognize that they have a motive to get something out of it that you don't necessarily want to agree with.
00:47:23
Speaker
And that's something I need to figure out and understand more. You never will. Their job, sorry, that's the cynicism. You are never going to control this. Right. And that's OK. I don't know if I have the right answer. You don't have to answer to me. I'm just saying.
00:47:43
Speaker
No, exactly. It's an opportunity that I'm really excited to pursue to see what's possible, what's available to grow and scale in a way that I can't do on my own, even though I know we can get to levels that will make us happy ourselves. You could grow scale in your own job. What are you talking about? Yeah. No, I'm sorry. I don't mean to... I love you. I'm not trying to... Well, this is...
00:48:07
Speaker
I'm unwilling to see your story compromised or our relationship compromised because of a, you know, of a TV show or something that, um, no, you know, I'll put it this way. If somebody, if somebody gave you $500,000 cash,
00:48:30
Speaker
to go do this right now, but somehow it meant it was probably going to majorly risk what happens at Grimsman Knives. You know what I mean? For whatever that is, I would say you're an idiot for taking that deal. Yeah. I don't think I would take that deal. Of course. Before we make any big decisions, which we haven't yet, that's something I need to be comfortable with.
00:48:57
Speaker
that it is going to go in a way like it can't ruin what we've built, what we have here because that would be disastrous to my life, to my future. If it can further bolster what we're trying to do, if it can just
00:49:12
Speaker
scale the audience, scale the distribution in a different way that we can't, because we can do our own. But this is different. This is different platforms that we could never otherwise get on, just to bring more people in, share the story more. So the point is not necessarily to get more customers, because we're already backed up as it is. So I don't know if I have the right answer yet. You are very good at that.
00:49:38
Speaker
staying true to yourself. You're very good at thinking. I just have to implore. You have to ignore the noise. You have to ignore, you know, you have to sort of second guess or challenge all. You've got to do what you're doing. Talk to more people about this. Do me a favor. Find the success story. Find the guy. I mean, you know the guys from Edge Factor. There's other people in the manufacturing sector who have done TV shows. I don't think those actually went very well.
00:50:04
Speaker
You know, Mike Rowe is like the only guy I can think of that's actually like probably better off for for what he did. And I don't think you need that platform. You had the platform now. Yeah, this is just a variation, like a different version of what I'm currently doing, which does what I'm currently doing. It makes me very happy.
00:50:30
Speaker
The opportunity to do big things is alluring. John, totally. Does that make sense? Yep. And I think that's that's a big draw to what this is. So I feel like personally, like I make sure that's a big thing. You know what I mean?
00:50:46
Speaker
I have thought about what are the jobs or companies or people that I would actually be willing to stop what I'm doing and stop living in Zanesville and go, you know, would I go? And to be clear, I am completely unqualified for this, but would I go be
00:51:02
Speaker
the chief manufacturing officer for Autodesk or SpaceX or something, completely unqualified. I want to be clear about that. But those are the kinds of things where you're like, okay, wait a minute here. This is working with a talent pool and a scale and environment and stimulation of people. If I had
00:51:20
Speaker
you know, the sort of quintessential terminal brain cancer example, I had three years left to live, what would I do, I would want to, I would want to spend it influencing people learning absorbing, enjoy, but I also wouldn't, because I'd also want to travel and spend time with my family and all that, you know what I mean? Like, make sure this is, make sure this is what you want to blow it on.
00:51:39
Speaker
Yeah, so I still have a lot to think about. And the more I think about it, the more I talk to people about it, brings up more questions to be answered, which is excellent. That's what needs to happen. Otherwise, I'm just stuck in my own head, kind of chasing shiny objects. And hey, if you listen to everybody that told you no, like I'm sort of saying, don't do this. If you listen to all those people, you'd still be in your garage at home with a Chinese ex, right? Like, no, seriously, right? Completely agree,
Guest Appearances and Networking
00:52:06
Speaker
John. Exactly. Well,
00:52:10
Speaker
But that has to be weighed with negatively life-changing decisions as well. Well, on a much more humble note, I was the guest star on the Amp Hour podcast last week, which is not a cable TV show. But it is the podcast on electronics and double-e stuff with a guy named Chris, who I met at M Hub Tour, super awesome guy. And his co-host is Dave Jones, who
00:52:36
Speaker
started his YouTube channel around the same time I did EEV blog. I think of him as the Australian with the kind of whiny voice, but he's super awesome. We'll put a link in the podcast description, but it was a fun hour and a half conversation with those guys on CNC and making and electronics and Arduino and all that stuff. Nice. It was good.
00:53:00
Speaker
It was good being a guest on somebody else's show. Is it weird? No, it's fine. It was great. I mean, we have there's no it's easy that it's the people I want to hang out with. You know, it's the anti Super Bowl. Yeah, that was. Yeah, exactly. And that's very important. Yep. Well, speaking of which, Saturday, I'm touring Jay Pearson. Awesome. I'm going to hang out with him. Right. What can I do in L.A.? Oh, Pearson's like just an hour north. That's awesome. That's cool. Very cool.
00:53:30
Speaker
Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. So that, you know, it helps make the whole trip awesome and stuff. And I'm like, you know, let's just go do it. You know, everybody around me is telling me to do it. My wife, everything she's like, it's, it's a gigantic opportunity. Take the most of it. Yep.
Conclusion and Farewells
00:53:44
Speaker
Cool. Um, well, speaking of long podcasts, I think we're running, maybe it's the longest, uh, business of machine ever, ever. There we go. Um, anything going on today? Work. Cool. Awesome. Well, I should be posted. I'll see.
00:54:00
Speaker
All right. That's good. I'll see you next week.