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#276 Business Therapy + Speeds & Feeds
226 Plays3 years ago
Topics:
Tool Life & Part Finish Issues Grimsmo & Saunders brainstorm solutions for less than ideal tool life and part finishes. - Speeds & Feeds - Brand Loyalty & Tools That Don't Cut It (pun intended) - Tool Coating - 2D Contour Wall Finish - NYC CNC Chip Thinning Calculator - Coolant VS. Dry Cutting with Through-Spindle Air blast - Reaching Occluded Precision Features
CNC Machines - Kern makes a move on skates - Minor Tweaks to the Erowa Pallet System - Brother Speedio headed to Grimsmo Knives - ZEISS CMM, where are you? Also, who is going to learn Calypso!? - Converting the Willemin from Metric to Imperial
Lives of Entrepreneurs - The Second Half of Your Life - Hobbies - Accepting Changes Gracefully - The Importance of Developing Meaningful Friendships
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the Business of Machining Episode number 276. My name is John Saunders. My name is John Grimsmo. John and I talk each week as our own form of therapy about the leadership of our businesses and speeds and feeds. Yeah.
00:00:16
Speaker
is the technical, there's the business, there's the everything side. Yeah. And I want to make sure I can always gracefully accept help in both departments, but also balance that conviction of, you know, we're not starting from scratch at this point in our lives, you know? Which is difficult sometimes because we're
00:00:37
Speaker
On one hand, we're supposed to know what we're doing by now, but the reality is we don't sometimes. Like some things we got nailed down and sometimes we're still struggling with things on both technical and big picture side.
Challenges in Machining Finishes
00:00:50
Speaker
And speaking of speeds and feeds, I'm currently struggling with wall finish on a profile cut. And I've gently struggled with this for a long time. It's just never good enough.
00:01:05
Speaker
When you say profile cut, do you mean surfacing or just like a 2D contour? 2D contour. It's sides of the end mill. Imagine our knife blades. It is our knife blades. They're laid flat on the fixture. And a 3 16ths end mill plunges around it and profiles the outside.
00:01:20
Speaker
Which model, which model Frasier tool are you using? I'm not actually, they sent me some really big ones, but I'm not using any small ones. Um, currently using DeBoer end mills. They're, they're fancy ones. Previously I was using Zadaro. I've tried, I haven't tried them all, but I've tried other brands as well. Many other brands. Um, and you know, if the end mill chips out, even just a little bit, if it wears unevenly, it's going to leave a streak in the part, a strike.
00:01:48
Speaker
And that's the problem that our finishing guys are seeing is a stripe that comes around and it's, it's not as easy as it sounds to buff that out. Oh, I believe that for sure. You know, everybody's like, Oh, you just sanded off. Well, our standards are so high that
00:02:05
Speaker
It's the root of the problem is the end mill wearing out. And I'm actually using one end mill to rough another semi-finish and a third end mill to finish finish, leaving like five thou on the fast last few passes. What's the material? Stainless steel. Hardness? Soft. It's like 20. OK, 17.4 or something? It's like a high carbon.
00:02:29
Speaker
Okay, I don't know anything about that, but okay. And is it has to be that small of a two or three sixteenths? Have to be, no. Could do quarter. You can't go much over quarter actually.
00:02:39
Speaker
A quarter-inch tool is significantly stronger than a 316 for what it's worth. More expensive, but nevertheless. I don't have any first-hand tool experience that I can recall with Frasier tools, but Dennis isn't the only one that I've heard this from where they're very expensive, but they for whatever reason seem to be in a league of their own, I would at least
00:03:01
Speaker
reach out to them and get one to try. It may not make sense for you for a variety of reasons, including costs, but at least see if that well, you're not having an issue with speeds and feeds, you're having an issue with speeds and feeds across to life. Basically, like the first X number of passes or parts are good, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then it just progressively gets worse and we replace them on a time schedule right now. But it's variable if that schedule is good enough.
00:03:29
Speaker
And is the chip happening in the finished end mill or is it happening in the semi or in the roughing end mill? And in the past we used to move because
00:03:38
Speaker
a tool that's only used for finishing, it goes in brand new and it gets barely ever used. And we used to move it to semi finishing and then move it to roughing, um, and like get more life out of it. But that got confusing for me and for Angela to do. So at this point we just scrap the finished tool after it's been done. It's finishing, even though it still looks brand new, but it's, it's worn. It's cheaper to do that than to make mistakes. Otherwise
Optimizing Speeds and Feeds
00:04:01
Speaker
dry or coolant.
00:04:04
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. Flood. OK. Flood. So one thought that comes to mind is, do you know service speed? Not off the top of my head. OK. 300, 400 maybe. Well, and I don't know, stainless world. For the steel world, like 4140s, that wouldn't be crazy. But it might be a smidge high for a stainless.
00:04:28
Speaker
Full disclosure that a true tooling expert is going to know more than me here, meaning higher surface footage actually could matter when it comes to allowing the coating to do its job, but generally speaking, notwithstanding specifics around the coating and needing enough heat to activate the coating, lower surface footage is going to help you here. That's something I can't say I've actually tried.
00:04:52
Speaker
Interesting that and we have a our speeds and feeds download file which I just whatsapp to you But you download it has a chip thinning calculator, but if you're taking a five thou pass on a three sixteenth inch tool That's a incredibly small percentage step over so there's a significant chip thinning effect So that you're like if you're programming that at one or two thou feed per tooth by one or less so that's rubbing
00:05:18
Speaker
because the chip thinning effect is such that the effective chip is like probably two or three tenths. I could pull it up here. Well, if you talk for a second, pull it up without distracting the podcast. But that's potentially having a burnishing effect, which the junglers who I know with love for a while and then it compromises the edge.
00:05:37
Speaker
Maybe that's exactly what's happening. So leave more radio, lead go to 10 thou radio on the roughing. I feel like I have played with this before. I don't know what the current settings are, but that's a good idea because I want to feed slow enough that my feed forward lines are like nothing. They're gone basically. So I'm a big fan of feeding at one thou or less even, but at the expense of rubbing or surface feet.
00:06:02
Speaker
There's your stock to leave, which is critical for what you're saying for the tip thinning effect. And then there's your surface footage, which is basically how fast it's all happening, right?
00:06:12
Speaker
The rotation of the tool. I always think about the carpet burn as a kid, going down the carpeted stairs fast, then you get burned up big time. That's a good analogy. You may always think about it, but I've never heard you say that. Oh, really? That's a great analogy. We used a shameless plug for our training classes. You probably said it 300 times in your training classes.
00:06:34
Speaker
So a three sixteenths end mill point one eight seven five what is that four five millimeters with a radial step over five foul and a one foul per tooth program feed rate is an actual feed rate of three tenths.
00:06:47
Speaker
Okay. Depending on the edge prep of the tool, that's more than likely three days burnishing. You're not cutting fast enough. And conversely, you should be able to increase to say a should be linear. Yeah. Three foul program feed rate per tooth goes to one per tooth, which should allow a better chip to be cut and formed, save your edge a bit and not actually change the feed forward lines
00:07:17
Speaker
unless you're truly burnishing, which is not a feed forward line, it's just rubbing. That's not a fair. Or keep your 10-thou step over at one-thou is still four and a half-tenths, which is pretty small. It's not a huge difference to leave more stock. Well, you can go faster. That's the thing, which is going to help you a lot. Speed matters here. Cycle time will matter at some point. Yeah, to an extent. But it's five linear inches, something like that.
00:07:46
Speaker
Okay, it's not a big cut per blade. I hear you. But I like what you're doing about prep prepping it with the so we do this now on our horizontal and our finishing tool in 4140. It doesn't need replaced. It's cut. I mean, we've cut 1000 top jaws in the last couple months, which is a four inch.
00:08:10
Speaker
four inch part, so there's 12 inches of linear travel around that part. So 12000 inches, you know, what's your depth of cut? Like vertically programmed. Oh, how parts of just a little over a half inch. OK, so you've got a half inch length and you don't get any any streaking or anything. It looks phenomenal. Have you taken like take a stone to it and see what happens. Fair point. That's where we're at, you know.
00:08:39
Speaker
Because they look amazing off the machine. And then you take a flat stone or even just a regular machine stone to it. And it's like, oh, man, there's dips and valleys and streaks. And yeah, I'll give you that. We don't have to do that because this is effectively a cosmetic. It's a bragging rights on quality of our parts. But we know it for sure. You know it when when you see. Any streaky and then all of a sudden you get a line, which frankly is could be considered acceptable, but just like you see it and you're like, it's not for us, you know.
00:09:08
Speaker
What kind of holder? Regal fix the P.G. holders. Yeah. Everything's we go and you don't even check right now because I don't know. OK, so what you're saying is possibly leave a bit more stock, but the effective result is not gigantic. I'm saying be conscious of ship the name, whether. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:09:28
Speaker
But lower SFM is an option, or even increased feed rate is an option. Both. Both. Lower SFM and increased feed rate. Yeah. There's also the whole like, it just could be a quirky harmonic range in the machine or the fixture, the holder. So bumping it's 3%. Really?
00:09:48
Speaker
This is hilarious. Literally, I paused what I was doing to come talk to you today doing exactly this. I'll go into it because I kind of want your help. But I was I was using cutting along a four inch section. I'm using the feed rate override and spindle override to try to break it into like four sections just to like have sections to compare as I'm cutting through the same part without having to repost like four little different sections and
00:10:18
Speaker
Pass me a hammer so I can beat myself with it. I can't figure it out. Yeah, yeah. Huh? Yeah, we certainly have those cuts where it's like squealing and then you take the spindle over right down like a crack just like 2% and it goes away. You're like, what? Yeah. And then it comes back later and it comes to the dullness of the tool specifically, or,
Choosing the Right Tools
00:10:38
Speaker
you know, if that part's clamp tight enough or whatever.
00:10:41
Speaker
I would go to a, something like a Frasier, seven flute, if they make one quarter inch tool, quarter inch tool is going to have a thicker gullet and be stiffer period. And then a seven flute is going to have yet again, even a thicker gullet, then the center core, that should not call it core, then a five flute. And whatever. Evacuation is not an issue because we're cutting so lightly.
00:11:04
Speaker
I wouldn't say it's not, it could matter because one chip gets recut and you've probably started to compromise that edge. Maybe that could be what happens is a chip gets recut and then it tears out the tool and then it keeps going, but now there's a little microchip in the tool. Currently, we're using what? Sorry, the immature part of me, you just said there's a microchip in the tool.
00:11:29
Speaker
That's awesome. Secretly deep in there. We're using a six flute, three sixteenths tool right now. Okay, that's fair. Which is cool. You get a thicker core, but it is quite long, the flute length, which is not ideal. Yeah.
00:11:45
Speaker
And you need the length for... We don't actually. Oh, John. It happens to be a good tool. Yeah. But this, the same problem used to happen with a very stubby Zadaro and Mel. So this was me playing with different options and it's still happening. But yeah, so first step is get rid of the long tool to try something different, but I'm definitely going to play with your speeds and feeds because I don't think I've, I've given that enough effort. Yeah.
00:12:10
Speaker
I usually resign to my fate of just taking a part, knowing, hey, this is going to be a scrap part. I'd rather machine it down to nothing and just keep playing with it, then try to like, oh, get one that's good enough for finishing department. And then I'll experiment when the next one comes around, like scrap a blade or whatever, and just figure it out. Yeah. Well, it's longevity. It's not just like first finish is good to go. It's like, what's it going to do after 40 blades or whatever the time limit is? I think 80 minutes or something like that in the cut.
00:12:38
Speaker
First off, I would totally take off brand loyalty hat at this point. Like yeah, you had I know you'd love Zadaro and Dabor. They sound like they're also companies, but I would just like I would recognize what I've heard in the industry, which is that phrase is this is what they do. Yeah. I've talked to them before. And I also wonder if this might be an application where dry with an air blast is better. Coolant can almost
00:13:05
Speaker
sometimes not allow chips to evacuate as well as you might think. And you might want the dry heat to activate the coating to do what it needs to do. Interesting. Yeah, the current, it does have an air blast, but you need to add the, I removed the lock line that does the air blast.
00:13:25
Speaker
Oh, you can't do it through your spindle? You can actually. Yeah, just do through spindle. We do this a lot. Never thought about that. If you talk to a Sandvik guy, they'll tell you, and this is true when we toured Sweden a couple of years ago, that a lot of Sandvik steel cutting is occurring dry now. I can't speak to stainless, so forgive me on that, but don't be scared of dry. Interesting. That's helpful. I've got some good stuff to try.
00:13:52
Speaker
What's the tool look like under the microscope after you retire it? The finishing tool, the coating is gently worn off. And oftentimes you can't even see the chip. Sometimes you can. Yeah. It's not always a one for one. Like when they get the blades, it might be days after we've replaced that tool. By the time this problem is actually found, sometimes we'll take them off the machine and we'll stone the edge and be like, oh, wow, that does need to be replaced. But it's not something we do consistently.
00:14:22
Speaker
My gut says you're burnishing. Interesting. To the fact where it's still working, but it's maybe killing the tool life and making it do this problem. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So here's my dilemma. Yeah.
00:14:38
Speaker
We don't have to figure this out because the alternate way is just to add a setup which stinks, which has to do with making our dual station jaws where we have a precision feature. It's a half inch rail that's a tight tolerance. And it's no big deal on our standard mod vice top jaws because we have access to that feature. It's not occluded, but it is occluded.
00:15:05
Speaker
on the dual stations and I don't want to have to take the part out rotate it and then remachine them. So we have a Harvey one inch woodruff cutter larger diameter meets more tool pressure it's got quite a few flutes I forget how many but I'm gonna guess 10 carbide half inch shank tool that's sticky now I don't know the exact numbers but
00:15:28
Speaker
uh, two inches. So, so four times. So it's, it's, and it's in a long holder and this all has to happen. It all has to be this case or else the tool doesn't reach and work. So kind of like, I don't have any choice if I get this, it's a compromise set up, um, where this is the only way to make it work and I can't figure it out. I've tried.
00:15:49
Speaker
Um, a hundred surface feet at five tenths feet per tooth and at five thou feet per tooth. I've tried 400 surface feet at the similar ranges. I've tried two thou radio cut. I've tried 10 thou radio cut. And what's funny is it, some of the recipes, the best one, which I don't remember what the best one is off the top of my head. Um, they actually feel really good, but it looks like.
00:16:15
Speaker
It looks like a dog. It went in a blender. It just looks like no one cared. Even if the tolerances are good on it, I won't do that. I don't know where to go. Interesting. This is where you're playing with the speeds and the feeds to get it to not vibrate.
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to just take extremes to see which directionality gets better. And I want to say the higher surface feet, like the 400 surface feet at 5 or 10 tenths per tooth. So 1 thou per tooth would be kind of a normal-ish finishing feed rate was the best. And then the radial depth, I don't remember where I was best off with. But it's kind of the same thing you're having to deal with. I don't want tool pressure.
00:17:05
Speaker
But I also know burnishing will be, it doesn't even work here. That's the thing that's saying sometimes burnishing, you get away with it for a while. Actually, I do know where I'm going to go next. When we are done talking, I'm going to go choke up on that tool to have no stick out and cut a test part. It won't work for me in production, but at least that can tell me, hold on, John, stop dealing with the stick out factor and see if this tool could even cut in a rigid setup. Right.
00:17:32
Speaker
Yeah, just eliminating one variable at a time, right? Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I could do that for our purpose. I could put a block of some sort of high carbon stainless in the machine and just machine it away to fake that tool life. Yeah. Maybe. For the 30 bucks in material, you could do some A-B testing pretty quick to see what the tool looked like after 20 minutes of cutting.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah, I'm totally seeing now that titanium affects end mills different than stainless affects end mills. Oh, really? After so many minutes of cutting, even similar cutting parameters, tools last way longer in titanium than they do in our stainless. And the stainless kind of tears them up more.
00:18:18
Speaker
Man, you
Relocating CNC Machines
00:18:19
Speaker
cut way more tie than I do, but Helical guys came here pre-COVID and did some tool testing in one of our machines and they were just talking about how like titanium just kind of has this, I don't know what it was, one hour, two hour limit. You just don't get more than that because of how gummy it is and you have to shear it and that just wears out tools almost like it's abrasive. Depends on how you're using the tool. We've got surfacing tools that get
00:18:42
Speaker
1400 minutes, something like that. Yeah, it's crazy that hours, whatever that is, a bunch of hours. And the other tools that last for 60 minutes and then have to be replaced. Wasn't Dennis saying that, too, though? He does the similar rough semi rough finish and his finishers last in. In things like Ty, don't they last forever for him? Sometimes, yeah. Are you doing a spring pass?
00:19:10
Speaker
I don't know. I often do. I know you do that. Yeah. But don't don't. Yeah. It's Robin. Maybe for this. I'll look at it. Make a note. Spring pass. Don't. OK, that's good. Some really good tips. I can I can work with this. So on that note, the the current has been moved. Yeah. And it's powered up last night. It works. Everything works pretty much.
00:19:39
Speaker
The move went very well, better than everybody expected. Putting it on the skates and pushing it, it takes some shoulder to push into it, for sure. And because we've had some cooling spills, it's oily under the machine. So as we move it, it's oily. You can't just step in it and expect to get any traction and not kill yourself. But yeah, I mean, ideal scenario, flat floor, painted everything. It rolled pretty nicely. And we got it exactly in place.
00:20:08
Speaker
Leveling a three-point machine is basically the easiest thing in the world. That's awesome. And what else, what else, what else? It was great. Our electrician happened to be a rigger in his past life. So he was like, he's done this stuff before a lot. Yeah, that's awesome. And he was around because we needed him after to hook it up and stuff. And he's a good buddy of ours. And yeah, so he was just like, yeah, I got this. Don't worry. We did like this. It's easy.
00:20:36
Speaker
The problem I'm struggling with right now is everything's plugged in. Everything's pretty much aligned. Getting the aroa to teach where the new position is, because everything's a little bit different between the aroa and the kern. So when it delivers a pallet to the kern, it needs to be in a different place by however many millimeters. And I can't find in the aroa settings where on Earth those numbers are. I've looked through every menu, and I kind of get it, but I don't fully get it.
00:21:07
Speaker
The Aroa is effectively like a filing cabinet. You just park it next to the current, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So there's some space between the two? Yep. Dude, just take... Use... No, I know what the position is and I know what it needs to be. I don't know where to type it into the control.
00:21:27
Speaker
I'm saying tackle in a different way. Use accommodation of wood blocks with screws and nuts as turnbuckles or spacers and literally... Like push it into place? Yeah. Heck yeah. John, if you're... It needs to be pretty accurate.
00:21:44
Speaker
Dude, half thirteen screws a wedge. You can measure, easily measure where you're at and then measure how far you went. Yeah. First thing, I know it needs to come down between a quarter and a half an inch, which we could do with the feet. We could just lower it. There you go. Yeah, I mean, that is an option.
00:22:06
Speaker
I don't know. It sounds like it should be easy, because it's a coordinate system. X, Z, and C are your three axes. And there's a section where you can put in adjustment values, where you can fake it. But still, the number right now is zero. So you can add 10 millimeter and make it move 10, which I can do. It feels kind of hacky, because I'm like, I know the position needs to be, what is it, 158 millimeters, whatever. Because I jogged it into place, and I'm like, here's the position. Where do I type that in?
00:22:35
Speaker
So I'm trying to get a hold of some of our guys to, uh, if I had a five minute phone call with somebody who knows the control, this would be done. So I'm trying to set that up right now. I hear you like understanding the how to sounds cool, but my attitude is in a perfect world, you could have just, um, you could have basically quote unquote bolted the two machines together and moved them as a monolithic unit. And that's obviously not possible in this past sense, but now like,
00:23:03
Speaker
that a row, it doesn't weigh that much, a couple thousand pounds. And so it'll, it'll scoot around. Yeah. With, with pallet jacks is what we did. You could do one from the side or one or two from the long sides. No, I'm just saying it'll scoot around with a wedge or a screw uses this as a jack between the current and it to bump it out. If you'd had to, if you told me you had to move that machine out two millimeters, I would say, okay, no big deal. Yeah. Yeah. It's really not that big of a deal.
00:23:30
Speaker
I will keep that in mind because I'm, I'm solutioning in a saluting it today. I'm finding the solution. So, but otherwise it wasn't a big deal, huh? Not so bad. We were ready for it. We were prepared through time. Um,
00:23:47
Speaker
nerve wracking for sure. Yeah. And it actually it slipped on one of the skates like an inch or two. Yeah. Like we put the skates centered and by the time it was all done, we go to take the skate off. We're like, oh, wow, that's that's like borderline right now. Did you put the machine directly on a skate or did you put a rubber pad between? I did not put a rubber pad.
00:24:10
Speaker
Sorry. Well, now that you're saying this, it makes me realize how good we've gotten at this. We've got our bottle jacks. We've got our tow jacks. We've got our skates. We've got a whole crate that's filled with rubber and wood pads. And you want to use, whether it's one eighth inch rubber or half inch rubber, we've got both. But you never want to put, really don't want to put metal on metal.
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah, they're actually Delrin feet on the bottom of the current, like four by four squares of Delrin feet, but that's slippery like that on a skate, um, rubber pad. We have them actually would have been okay. I'll tell the guys so they know for next time, but that makes perfect sense.
00:24:47
Speaker
And then we use a system where usually we often times have plenty of people and we're doing this. So it's kind of a one person is assigned to watch each skate. It's a very task specific roles. Interesting. Because they have to be pointing in the right direction. Otherwise the skate is fighting itself. They do. Do you have the handlebars where you can pull on it?
00:25:09
Speaker
We have one handlebar, so we will once you get it going, they usually don't go rogue. But turning when you're trying to turn around a radius or corner can be tough. We also will often use we have come alongs or winches and you I don't like hooking those up to the building, which is not not smart to meet my opinion. But what we will do is hook those up to our forklift or scissor lift.
00:25:35
Speaker
And that's enough to where you can nudge the machine two inches in the right direction and you can go back to pushing. Yeah. We rented a forklift and a scissor lift. So we had the forklift and we kind of use that as well to give a little, a little nudge. Um, and that worked well. Huh? Well, great. I'm glad you got out of the place. Yeah. Part of me is like, it's weird. The shop is different. I don't like different, but part of me loves different.
00:26:00
Speaker
I didn't know it was moving that far. It's five feet, but from the wall to now the center of the shop. So our middle lane way that we have been used to for two and a half years is now like a lot smaller. Got it. So like views and access and somebody's at the door, you can't just like peek around the current anymore. Now you got to like move. Yeah. So we're rearranging tables and stuff like that. But
00:26:22
Speaker
But we were able to route the electrical and the plumbing and everything way cleaner than it was before. And it looks like so crispy now. That's nice. Yeah, I'm really happy with that.
00:26:32
Speaker
And the speedio should be coming in. I don't know what we could do. Sweet. Very excited. It's also I thought we'd have to create it like from the door around the current around all the way around the outside and put it in place. I think there's enough room just behind the current like in the. So sneak it through. Yeah. So I didn't expect that. But I'm like, yeah, there's a lot of room here. This is great. The jigsaw puzzle is real. We're thinking about moving to machines. I'm like, oh, man. Yeah.
00:27:01
Speaker
We'll figure it out. And your bigger machines are heavier, like 20, 25,000 pounds maybe? 20, yeah, the VF6s and the Akuma M660 are both 24,000 pound machines. Yikes. The horizontal is probably more, but I assure you that thing will, I will be six feet under before that thing moves.
00:27:20
Speaker
So you've got a current is down until you get the aroa aligned, but then it's done. It's good. We'll do a bunch of pallet changes just to test and confirm everything's still good. We'll do a fine level of the current and of the aroa, make sure everything's good, and then send it. I'll be making parts today. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Where's the Zeiss?
00:27:42
Speaker
Uh, I don't know where it is. Apparently it was picked up in Minnesota on like Thursday and coming directly here. Great. Okay. So, but I, they haven't communicated with me very clearly as to like when to expect it. Yeah.
Balancing Business and Personal Life
00:27:57
Speaker
And I wish that was a bit clear. So that's one of my tasks today is to call, um, them and be like, so what, what, when is this happening? I need to be ready for it. So who's going to do learn Calypso?
00:28:10
Speaker
It'll be me or Angelo or both. Angelo has more experience with CMMs and quality in general and I'm kind of playing that line of the nerd in me wants to know everything but the production reality, I'm not going to be the one running it.
00:28:28
Speaker
Um, on a daily basis. So I, I, do I need to distance myself from that process and let Angelo or Pierre or even our new guy, Grayson, like digging, I don't know yet. Um, Angelo is going to be a huge part of it regardless. But again, I don't think he's going to be the quality master long-term, right? Oh yeah. But he's,
00:28:47
Speaker
It seems like that makes a lot of sense because he could both get it up and running, build some workflows. I mean, he was literally a manufacturing engineer and then also teach you or others. Realistically, that's what's going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. They have training courses at Elliott Metzora, not too far, like 40 minutes away. Every month, I think they hold them. Like several days you go in, you go fully learn Calypso. But in DIY fashion, we're absolutely going to plug it in and see if we can make it work.
00:29:17
Speaker
Yeah, totally. The Zeiss guy was talking with me and he's like, oh, you wouldn't just get him to CNC machine and like start making parts. I'm like, yeah, I would. Have you met me? Yeah, exactly. I would figure out anything. I bought a Willem in Site Unseen and I'm still learning how it works. That's awesome that it's running by the way. Yes. That is awesome.
00:29:37
Speaker
Yeah, I've been busy, you know, complaints, but busy with other stuff, moving the current and things like that. All I really need to do on the Willamint is do some calibrations and align the tools properly, rotation and XY and all that. And then I can postcode and make parts. I'm like two hours away from like doing that. So that's awesome. And then also, I think we've talked about before, it's a metric machine and I'm going to convert it to inch. I'm doing it.
00:30:07
Speaker
Oh, it's a it's a legit conversion. Like there's a cost to it and there's a software update. And so I'll be talking with Wilhelmin a lot to do that. But then it's done. And then it's it's right. I cannot believe I'm on the other side of the argument on freedom units here. Yeah. Yeah. My vote is keep a metric. For what reason? What's your argument there? It ain't broke. That's a fair argument. Absolutely. Because I know it's going to mess with like
00:30:36
Speaker
the tool changer position and the, you know, I might have to manually convert all machine specific values, like where the blue laser is. Yes. If it bites you.
00:30:50
Speaker
In the extreme scenario, which might be an unreasonable scenario or like not practically going to occur, but it seems possible. There's something that you don't realize and Wilhelmin doesn't realize, and it completely catastrophically crashes the machine, which is now totally... It's the same philosophy that is why I'm arguing that you should just physically move the aroa back into place because that is
00:31:16
Speaker
the least risky thing in terms of just replicating the exact original physical setup instead of worrying about, well, I changed these two X, Y, C values, but I didn't realize this happened or whatever. Yeah. I'm still converting a tinge. That's the beauty of it being your machine.
00:31:36
Speaker
Yeah. What makes it a pain? Can you not still post? You can still program everything in Fusion like you want to. And then when you post it, it just goes towards the G20 and to the G21? Yeah, it just makes it metric code in the post. The machine values on the screen are in metric, and all the tool offsets are in metric. So when you make a tweak, a wear offset, a change, you're now thinking in microns, not in tenths.
00:32:04
Speaker
And, uh, somebody made a, this is like totally possible based on like Google, Google translate as the phone visible thing. Just make something that like has a current live screen camera on the Wilhelmin control that has a screen to the right. That's showing the inch junk. You could make that in a weekend. That's hilarious. I need your, um,
00:32:27
Speaker
What do you call it? That calculator you mean? Imperializer. Imperializer. I wanted one of those things back in the day. Yeah. That was fun while it lasted. Yeah. Do people still use it? Have you ever? There are a few diehard users and we've had a few people that were frankly pretty upset that we don't do them anymore. Do you still have one?
00:32:47
Speaker
I have the shell of, oh yeah, that one that might be functional. It has a couple of shells of them left around, but now we don't. There's like, it's not physically possible to make a new one right now. Well, without starting from scratch. Yeah, exactly. So I've been enjoying coming in some on the weekends the last few months, I guess mostly because of the horizontal. And it's wonderful because it's very much
00:33:14
Speaker
that kind of chance to have the shop to yourself and think and do stuff. It's not the, I need to come in this weekend because we're overworked and we can't keep up and stress and my business owns me. So it's really wonderful. It just makes me happy and love what I do. But on Sunday, I found myself, I got in early. It's great getting early, get a few things done, get home and then nobody misses you. You're so around the rest of the day. Right, right. Family. I did the same on Sunday.
00:33:44
Speaker
And I found myself quickly getting like rushed like, oh, one, two, three, one, two, three, four, five things. I got to do all these things, which I do first. I do the most efficient. And I just sort of realized, John, calm down. And look, this may be something that doesn't help or matter to anybody else out there, but I hope it does. And it's worth sharing if it does help anybody, which is.
00:34:05
Speaker
As I was literally, I think I was swapping out parts, waiting for fusion to simulate through a part, trying to multitask, trying to do everything. And I just realized, stop, slow down. I've said this phrase a lot, be a surgeon, which I still like, but I think it's easy to forget what it means. And so it kind of occurred to me, what if I had nothing else to do for the rest of the day, except change out these eight parts?
00:34:33
Speaker
Obviously, it's not going to take me all day, but if you had no pressure, this feels very empathy-like. How do you transition between being the technician, the manager, and the entrepreneur? It's really hard to move, I think, between those different mindsets and skill sets, especially within short periods of time.
00:34:51
Speaker
When I'm swapping out parts or setting up a job or programming something, let's say 3D contour, I don't like how it's doing. Most of the time I'm thinking in my head subconsciously the balance of how much time do I want to try to get this versus all the other things that I could do, that I want to do, that I need to do, that quote unquote make me happy, whatever you want to say there. But the reality was if I just
00:35:15
Speaker
And you might honestly be way better at this than me because of how grim you are at like going just like blinders onto this, but I'm not. I get distracted and I thought, man, it's wonderful to think about the kind of true, but nevertheless tongue in cheek phrase of there's only two limits in life. The only two limits for everybody in the world are time and money.
00:35:37
Speaker
And if you just think about like there's no time issue limit and even thinking about no money limits, kind of like that thing we've talked about of what would you do if you had 10 million bucks or 50 million bucks or whatever? How would you change who's training on the CMM or the second current? It can get you outside of your comfort zone that helps you make better decisions.
00:35:55
Speaker
I just had this sort of smile. I was like, there is no rush. It's okay. Do you take the time you need to swap these parts out? Yeah, I think in, especially in my role right now, as much as I love the EMIF and I think it's totally on point. Like you said, he talks about the technician, the manager and the entrepreneur. And at the end of the day, I still play all three roles and I will probably always continue to play all three roles at varying stages.
00:36:17
Speaker
because I love being a technician. We love inventing and creating stuff and messing with toolpaths. I might not be the sole source of that in our business, showing forward. I don't want to be, but I'm still going to play with it. Managing people is part of running a business and being the entrepreneur, planning for the future, and making sure everything's running smoothly is a bigger part of my job at this time.
00:36:37
Speaker
But like you said, it's jumping between the three of those seamlessly or taking time to transition because it's the same thing with multitasking. It's a myth. It doesn't work. It doesn't exist. You cannot actually do more than one thing at once. And that whole time to task switch between whether it's those three roles or whether it's programming this part and watching that YouTube video and
00:37:01
Speaker
Checking on the part and replacing an end mill and all that. It's task switching takes effort and energy and you're going to slip at some point. I have terrible news for you though. Multitasking, I agree, does not work. It's kind of a load of baloney period except
00:37:23
Speaker
It may only be true for us as we approach 40 years of age. I just finished that book, Strength to Strength, which I'll make a weird phrase. I'm not recommending it because it's not a business book and it's not relevant to this
00:37:41
Speaker
Podcast and I'm not telling anyone they should go read it except I found it to be a wonderful book. I'm not religious I found the spiritual elements of that book which are not the point of the book, but nevertheless relevant to the story oddly
00:37:56
Speaker
oddly satisfying, which I'm almost like waving at what's going on. It's shocked, yeah. Yeah, like that's not, hmm. And stop me if I already said this on the podcast. The book dives into a lot of things about what we're looking for in life, which does make it relevant to the fact that you and I own businesses that are very much part of our identities. But he basically talks about how a lot of people throughout history have unfortunately lived the second half of their lives with utter disappointment because they're unwilling to recognize that we all change.
00:38:23
Speaker
And we tend to change for ways that mean we're not as sharp as we once were. And certainly, most folks don't want to embrace that or acknowledge that. Athletes are faced to because the numbers and results speak for themselves. But business folks may not be in that sense of, especially our companies. We don't have important directors. We don't have people that are telling us this. So it talks about what you could do at 20 or 25
00:38:52
Speaker
mentally or maybe multitasking are things you just can't do at 40. It's been on my head a lot about gracefully accepting things as we change. Man, it's funny because part of me wants to very much be like, cool, I don't have a problem slowing down or handing off what I can hand off. Frankly, I want to
00:39:12
Speaker
be that kind of person. It's like, Oh, no, like our, I'm not as good as this is not once was, but I still, still love it. Um, but then part of that, like calming this makes me also just want to get fired back up and get back out on the machine. Yeah. Yeah. It's so weird, but it's, it's finding your place in life and your place as an owner and owner operator, basically is, is a unique position that your staff doesn't share. And.
00:39:41
Speaker
It's like you have to find what's best for you. There's a personal element of it that's, like I said, not necessarily relevant to the business, but the business is. I would work more if I could because I genuinely like it, but it's not in the sense of there's people that we all know who are workaholics. The book actually talks a lot about workaholic as an actual
00:40:07
Speaker
disease not like oh he worked too hard like literally people that have it's not good and I like to grind when I want to but like I don't know it's it's yeah I enjoy it so
00:40:21
Speaker
Well, I was talking with my wife about hobbies because I don't, I don't actively have any hobbies right now. I have work and I have family and kids and I have the little bit of personal time that I get to myself, you know, either watch a movie or all the working out and reading and going for walks that I do. But if I want to pick up a hobby that takes time, like say working on a car, it would come at the expense of work, family or tiny bit of personal time. Like I would have to fit it in.
00:40:48
Speaker
And if I want it bad enough, then of course I'll make it work. But at the moment, I guess I don't want it bad enough. So I just, my work is my play as well. There's like the hard part of work that's, you know, the effort and the stress and the problems and stuff. And then there's the fun part of work that is my hobby. It's like, oh, I'm getting a new 3D printer or get that Wilman running or like, hmm, you know, can I put a speedio beside the current? Oh, yeah, I think that's the fun for me. That's my hobby. It's fun. So.
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah, I don't feel like you're a hobby-less person. I see what you're saying. You don't have some- I had hobbies in the past. I used to work on cars like crazy. I used to go biking all the time. I used to go hiking in the woods and climb mountains and things like that. As my kids are getting older, I'm getting more into things like that for them. Yeah. I think if you were a single male, no family, no wife, I feel like you would do stuff. I would have a hobby, yeah.
00:41:41
Speaker
But like, yeah, the family takes a portion of my life that I love that is like a like a hobby, you know, it's a
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's great. It's wonderful. Yeah, I hear you. But I think it's weird that you like the book talks about the a lot of people, including or especially males, also struggle in the second half of their lives because we are good at building meaningful friendships outside of work. And when when work is that personality thing?
00:42:16
Speaker
I don't, I mean, I have you and I have our friends that we both know. I have almost zero other friends. Yeah. Like you're not going on Tuesday and Friday nights to go play poker with a bunch of buddies. I have, I have nobody neither. I have a couple totally okay with that, but.
00:42:34
Speaker
Yeah, but I think the book is hypothesizing that that's not okay because what happens, it's different for us because we own our companies, but if you weren't involved in it,
00:42:50
Speaker
We are social creatures and having meaningful relationships, not the social media type of like, just say hi to your friends or show up at the, you know, when everyone gets together for the big game type of thing that is shallow. But like, I have tried to go to my way to have a couple of close, good friendships and for sure.
00:43:07
Speaker
I think they exist except for the fact that, look, there's a lot going on in everyone's lives, especially with most of our contemporaries having kids. So it's worth noting as to something to think about. For sure. Yeah. No, it is important. Yeah. And we have one set of family friends. My wife and I are both friends with the two parents and the kids are friends together.
00:43:28
Speaker
We're quite close. We just barely see each other. Even though we live five blocks away. I want to spend more time with them. We're going to this weekend. I like those people. They are my kind of people. Every time we get together, it's the greatest thing ever.
00:43:42
Speaker
Which is perfect. It doesn't have to be quantity. It's like you've got a John Donne. Yeah. And it's funny because it also like we had dinner with a couple recently who they're great, but I'm just like, there's nothing here. There's no, it's like, it's like, there's no depth to it. And I'm kind of at the point in my life where it's like, it's like if you're dating again and it's just like, like if this isn't going somewhere, I'm out.
00:44:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm, I'm over shallow conversations and just like, how's the weather kind of stuff. And, um, you know, tell me about you, tell me, tell me what's really going on. Like, um,
00:44:16
Speaker
I don't know, random story, but I was at the park with my kids and it was late and Claire was just swinging. I was just sitting there and there was this lady who was like crying and I was like, is everything okay? And I just chatted with her for like 45 minutes about the problem she has in her life. And I mean, that's the extent of my human interaction outside of work.
00:44:37
Speaker
It's funny. It was good though. That was, that was eyeopening. It was like, my, my life is pretty darn good. And, uh, you got some stuff going on. How do I help? I'm just going to listen. And, uh, yeah, anyway, it's good. What Phil does now that he's not driving her parking lots. I don't know.
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah. I'm going to go... Actually, the horizontal is running now, so I won't be able to play with that speeds and feeds. Actually, I can pull the tool out and choke up on it so it can be ready to test again. That's the totally obvious step of like, does this tool cut rigidly? And then if the stick out that's an issue, I feel like there should be some form of a solution.
00:45:17
Speaker
Worst case, I could get switched to a custom tool. I feel like a staggered flute or a different cutting angle. I think AB could probably help with that, but man, that's a lot of money. And then we bought a new rubber door riser strip for the building next door so that our forklift, when it goes up a ramp, the top of this concrete ramp, there's a one inch lip.
00:45:39
Speaker
up to the concrete of the floor, which is annoying because it's just going to chip and forkless going over a one inch lip. They can do it, but it just sounds like you're falling apart. So I found this one thousand or this one inch rubber strip that can handle. I think it's ten or twenty thousand pounds. Perfect. But it's a little bit too tall. So I'm like, OK, we're going to machine this down. And it might be strong enough to machine it.
00:46:04
Speaker
in its current state, but if not, we're going to order some dry ice. I was going to say, you freeze it with liquid nitrogen or something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Which would be super fun. So we'll see. Well, on that note, I read a comment from Marv at current in Germany talking about like
00:46:22
Speaker
you know, chilled air or liquid nitrogen through an air blast or something like that. And he's like, I'm out. That is thermal growth or shrinking to the extreme. I am so not interested in that at all. Oh, yeah. It's like you have a just put it like an oxy settling torch six inches away from the current spindle and just like watch it. Yeah. Well, anyway, it's funny. Cool. Oh, I'll see you next week. Have a good day. Bye. Bye.