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#386 Leading and coaching strategies
3.3k Plays29 days ago
TOPICS:
- Safe start all operations
- Listening to the "Aquired" podcast
- Leading and coaching strategies
- Hardmilling blades and Puckchucks
- Laser probing grinding wheel accuracy
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 386
00:00:01
John S
Good morning, welcome to the business of machining episode number 386. Kind of feels weird to say that every once in a while. My name is John Saunders.
00:00:10
johngrimsmo
And my name is John Grimsmo.
Admitting Knowledge Gaps and Seeking Expertise
00:00:12
John S
Well, one of the things John and I kind of promise each other is we'd make sure to never reach that point where we're too scared to sort of say, I don't know, or I want to know why. And there's a couple of things today I'd like to talk about or ask about that are very much back in that it was easier to say these things back when I, I guess, wouldn't be worried that somebody would think, how does he not know that?
00:00:30
John S
But the truth is ah there's so much I don't know.
00:00:30
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:00:33
John S
And there's so much i questions about, and I got some questions. So, um, yeah.
00:00:37
johngrimsmo
Nice. And I find there's things there's things I know, but I I say I don't know because I want to know more. You know what I mean? Like there's things I'm kind of confident on, but I'm like, really, I'm not the expert at this.
00:00:44
John S
yeah
00:00:48
johngrimsmo
I want to reach out to somebody or hear from somebody who really knows and has more confidence than I do because my conviction is like medium, you know.
00:00:52
John S
yeah
Teaching and Learning Methods
00:00:57
John S
No, that's a good point too that I don't, I don't do a great job of it. And frankly, it's sort of a personal overshare. We're dealing with that with my son, 10 year old, who's it's like, know sometimes it's like you, you'll get so much better of a, of an educational and a social experience.
00:01:11
John S
If you, if you just ask a question and let them answer instead of being like, I need to make sure you know what I know about this topic.
00:01:15
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:01:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah, let them kind of fail and try and and come up with their own answers for it.
00:01:24
John S
Well, no, not even as like as a as a trick, but like if you ask, I don't know, I can't think of a topic, but like if I've asked you about post-processor editing, it's like, I don't need to try to tell you the little bits I could flub around about post-editing. It's more like, just shut up and listen to what the expert or the person that you're asking has to say, because it's not about how much I know. It's about just hearing their answer.
00:01:45
John S
period like it's not about you is the kind of simple answer and look it's it's and quite normal behavior for a 10 year old I know but I'm like trying to get him to be like to recognize sometimes you can just you know sit down shut up listen it's okay like see what they say like you're good like you know a lot about like airplanes for example he loves airplanes it's like you don't need to always tell somebody else what the airplane is see if they know or let just sit down and you know you know that that's a max eight so you don't need to
00:01:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:02
johngrimsmo
Okay. Okay.
00:02:12
John S
to pound the football or spike the football. If somebody gets it wrong, just, just chill.
00:02:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah. ye And in a leadership sense, this is something I've been thinking about too, is when you're explaining a process to somebody, they may already know most of it, but I'm trying to become better at it.
00:02:18
John S
Anyway, sorry, overshare.
00:02:30
johngrimsmo
from the ground up. I'm going to explain from the start, like every step of the way, even though you know half of them, I got to give them all to you so that you know.
00:02:38
John S
Got it.
00:02:39
johngrimsmo
like um Even something like how to install plumbing tape on NPT threads or something, because I want to teach one of the guys to do that.
00:02:39
John S
Yeah.
00:02:48
johngrimsmo
I don't know if he knows how to do it. I've never seen him do it. I don't know. I was thinking about this. I'm going to just, from the ground up, you may already know this, but i'm just gonna this is how I do it.
00:02:56
John S
wait Wait, will you teach me right now? I'm not sure i'm not sure what I'm missing here.
00:03:01
johngrimsmo
It's just, you know, you you've got to run it the right the right way. And there's, I actually asked my plumber, what's the best way to hold the roll of tape in your hand?
00:03:08
John S
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:08
johngrimsmo
And he's got like his finger out in a certain way and he rolls around. and If you've never done it, like you're going to do it wrong.
00:03:16
John S
Okay, so what little I know, which is what I said I wouldn't do here, is you wanna thread it, you wanna run it, such that when you thread the fitting on, you're not potentially unrolling the thing.
00:03:27
johngrimsmo
Exactly.
00:03:28
John S
But I gave up on that because it doesn't really seem to matter.
00:03:32
John S
But maybe that's a bad answer. Okay.
00:03:32
johngrimsmo
That could be, but I, you know, best practice kind of thing.
00:03:35
John S
Yeah.
00:03:35
johngrimsmo
Um, so I want to be not nervous about dumbing it down and saying every step of the of the step.
00:03:43
John S
Yeah.
00:03:43
johngrimsmo
Cause I don't want to assume that people know, even our audience right now, I don't want to assume they actually know what we're talking about.
00:03:48
johngrimsmo
So, and then maybe that was a good opportunity.
00:03:49
John S
Yeah.
00:03:50
johngrimsmo
Like you said, roll it with the, in the direction of the thread, with the thread around. two times, three times, um, two is probably sufficient.
00:03:56
John S
Mm hmm.
00:03:59
johngrimsmo
And there's probably some technical plumber, like written down rule if it's two or three, but, um, I don't really care. I think you can either cut it or just rip it and then, et cetera.
00:04:08
John S
Yeah.
00:04:10
johngrimsmo
But, um, we had one of our guys install an NTP fitting and not tighten it. You just, it went snug and thought it was good cause it's a taper fit. And we're like, Oh no, you gotta, you gotta reef on that thing.
00:04:18
John S
That's a good point. Yeah.
00:04:21
johngrimsmo
And if you don't know, you don't know. So as leaders, we we cannot afford to assume that our trainees know things.
00:04:29
John S
For sure.
00:04:30
johngrimsmo
And and id there's this like confirmation bias too. you know Somebody who's an expert talking to somebody who's an expert and they repeat things, you listening, you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with you, you're right.
00:04:42
John S
I
00:04:44
johngrimsmo
It's that confirmation. um Whereas it feels like you're repeating unnecessarily but you're actually just confirming with each other that you're on the same page. Does that make sense?
00:04:55
John S
think so.
00:04:56
johngrimsmo
And I don't know, it's something I'm working on so that we can share information and skills more throughout the company and make sure that everybody's on the same page and not assuming, oh yeah, he knows how to do that.
00:05:02
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:05:09
johngrimsmo
Go do the thing. And and they do it, you know, poorly or...
00:05:10
John S
Yes.
00:05:14
John S
Inadvertently, right, of course.
00:05:14
johngrimsmo
Sure, sure.
00:05:15
John S
Like, yeah, no, that's ah that's a fair point.
00:05:16
johngrimsmo
Yep. Like if I went to Angelo and I,
00:05:17
John S
um Right.
00:05:19
johngrimsmo
Dumped it down too much. He'd be like, yeah, I know I got this but maybe there's a point like we did this way, right? Yeah. Okay. Make sure everybody's on the same page um Yeah, I think there's something there I'm i'm working on it.
00:05:29
John S
Yeah.
00:05:33
John S
ah
Public Service Announcements
00:05:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah
00:05:35
John S
um I want to run with that because I listened to something that was very relevant to that, but i want to before I get too deep in this podcast, I feel like I owe a PSA to everybody because about two hours ago, I started running a new ah timing chain cover on the VF2, and it's that classic example of I have four back to back operations that use the same tool. And this is the first time I'm running that part. And so I clicked um safe start all all operations um with the expectation that it would that combined with option stop, I think, and it ends up and block delete. But we'll get to that later.
00:06:16
John S
when I solve this, would cause the machine to wait for a cycle start button upon each CAM operation, even though the CAM operations are the same tool, it did not do that.
00:06:23
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:06:27
John S
um Again, the behavior I'm looking for would be the same as manually putting in a manual NC option stop between each operation. That's pain in the butt. I don't want to do that um each time.
00:06:39
John S
And so I was looking for something. I thought Safe Start would work. I kind of took it at face value, and somebody mentioned it would work. It doesn't. So it literally just happened, but I felt like I needed to kind of offer it.
00:06:48
johngrimsmo
What does happen?
00:06:50
John S
So first off, it puts everything in block delete, which is not something that we normally use. I don't know if you ever use block delete.
00:06:57
johngrimsmo
I have somewhat, but I don't use it.
00:07:00
John S
Yeah, so what in the vein of what you just said about, let's just dump stuff down, like block delete is a cool functionality where the code is in front of a forward slash and the code is ignored on a control unless you turn, it's a little bit counterintuitive, unless you turn block delete on, and if you turn it on, then it will also run the code in front of the forward slashes.
00:07:23
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:07:23
John S
So it's kind of a way of of chunking out sections of code, which is quite powerful.
00:07:27
johngrimsmo
like ah like an M0 or a coolant on-off or something that you may or may not want to run.
00:07:31
John S
Yeah, yes.
00:07:34
John S
So the safe start operations quote unquote worked in the sense that it did add header information about like the tool and the spindle above each cam operation, um you had to have, it again, you had to have block delete on to to allow, to activate that code, but the Haas control, this was tool 20, never stopped. So it sees it sees the T20 M6, but it recognizes that that's a tool in the spindle, and so it doesn't prompt you for a cycle start to continue. It just goes right through the whole code.
00:07:34
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:08:07
johngrimsmo
No way. So it doesn't pause.
00:08:10
John S
It doesn't pause, but I didn't, I can't blame the host control right now because it's, it's with option all and with the the mechanism I'm looking here is for, is an option stop and option stop always happens.
00:08:25
John S
I guess I can't technically tell you why, but between say, ah if you're changing from tool 20 to tool five options, stop will stop.
00:08:33
John S
But if it's.
00:08:33
johngrimsmo
Only if there's an M1.
00:08:38
johngrimsmo
I'm pretty sure.
00:08:39
John S
I don't, well, let me go do my homework because I don't want to talk out of turn here.
00:08:41
johngrimsmo
Okay. Cause at least in the, in the FANUC world, I'm 92% sure that M one is optional stop and you have it in your code. It acts just like an M zero where it'll pause, but you have to hit the optional stop button for the M one to be active.
00:08:55
johngrimsmo
So a lot of our posts will post an M one at the end of each operations, I think maybe not. So that if you do hit the op stop button, it'll pause there.
00:09:04
John S
Okay, let me go look.
00:09:05
John S
i' i'll
00:09:05
johngrimsmo
So maybe your code doesn't have an M1 or I don't know.
00:09:09
John S
Yeah, I'll go re, well, because that would be an easy, so to your point, very easy fix. Well, what I plan to do is to stop talking about this and go fix it and then tell everybody what what works.
00:09:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:21
John S
Obviously an easy thing to do would be in that snippet of code that's block deleted, just add an M1.
00:09:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:26
John S
it gets skipped when block deletes not turned on. When it is turned on, it will force the M1.
00:09:30
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:09:30
John S
That's no problem. um So I know there is a solution. I just was expecting it to work out of the box with the stock fusion post.
00:09:35
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:09:37
John S
It doesn't. So this kind of came up also coincidentally about an hour ago um where Amish was asking on WhatsApp about um in the group chat here about patterning and option stopping.
00:09:51
John S
I don't exactly remember what he said, but it's another good can under misses, I don't have a punchline to the story. But we've had this problem with patterns in fusion where, um for example, break control, if I'm patterning something eight times, it's for all practical purposes, it's impossible to just have the break control happen at the end of the pattern.
00:10:13
John S
It has to happen. It happens eight times, which is annoying, because I don't want the tool
00:10:17
johngrimsmo
if there are multiple tools.
00:10:20
John S
So if i drill if I drill a hole once and I have eight parts and that's done as a pattern, the only practical way, and I'm not, there might be quirks or exceptions, but they're quite cumbersome to to effectuate. um The easy way to do it would be to do drill a hole and then break detect and then you have to pattern that eight times, which means it's gonna do break detect eight times, which you don't want it to really do. You want it to do all eight holes as a pattern and then go check if the tool's still there.
00:10:49
johngrimsmo
I feel like that's how it works for me.
00:10:52
John S
Okay, we'll swap notes off. I don't wanna bore the audience.
00:10:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Well, people love an ongoing saga, so it's good to touch base over time.
00:10:55
John S
ah
00:10:59
John S
Everybody loves a saga, John.
00:11:01
johngrimsmo
And right now, you should.
00:11:01
John S
It's what I write with every day.
00:11:03
johngrimsmo
And by the way, Grimms1Lives.com, we have sagas in stock, if anybody wants to.
00:11:05
John S
There you go. Well, okay, I still wanna get back to that topic, but I'll also broach another topic, which is that Grimstone and I sort of think this podcast has probably an industry leading following.
00:11:19
John S
And look, we don't,
00:11:21
johngrimsmo
care.
00:11:21
John S
Frankly care.
00:11:21
John S
I hope it's evident that we don't care because we're 386 episodes and I don't think we've ever mentioned that, but I've heard some other podcast numbers. I kind of know our friend don't even load look at like, wow, that's pretty real. And so we kind of had this, like, you and I had this like 10 second offline conversation of like, should we like, I don't know if somebody wants to advertise on here.
00:11:21
johngrimsmo
yeah
Podcast Sponsorship and Self-Sponsorship
00:11:39
John S
Should we consider that? Is that almost every other podcast I listened to, which isn't necessarily in this space or industry does. Um, but, um,
00:11:50
johngrimsmo
yeah And we're kind of both shrugging our shoulders going, I don't know. That's not why we're here. That's not why we do this.
00:11:56
John S
Yeah, right.
00:11:56
johngrimsmo
Um, I don't, I don't want it to feel like, uh, like we're a shill for whoever, whoever, you know, pays our bills kind of thing. Um, it's the same with our YouTube channel.
00:12:04
John S
yeah
00:12:05
johngrimsmo
It's we have a profitable business and not just just a YouTube channel.
00:12:09
John S
yeah
00:12:11
johngrimsmo
And there are a lot of, uh, just a YouTube channels out there that are fantastic and super enjoyable, but we, we like make things sell things.
00:12:19
John S
yeah
00:12:19
johngrimsmo
And a revenue stream is not from, you know, sponsors.
00:12:23
John S
It's not, I also will go back to a court.
00:12:25
johngrimsmo
That's that.
00:12:26
John S
Yeah, exactly. A core tenant belief, which is that not all dollars are equal. And if, um, you know, to be a little bit crash, like obviously we're not going to take a podcast sponsor on for $200 a month.
00:12:36
John S
You know, that's not like what we're here for, but like.
00:12:38
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:12:39
John S
if it were more than that you start to think about like hey that's kind of guaranteed free easy money that for me you just pour that right back into the business and that's a force multiplier that is frankly when people kind of ask what got me here yeah like we did used to do youtube where we focus a little bit more on trying to get some money out of youtube with with the google adsense it's
00:12:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:58
John S
that That ship has sailed for us. There's so much good content out there. We're nobody, frankly, these days in that space. But those early days, and we had some nice months where that was money you could just pour right back into the business.
00:13:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah
00:13:10
John S
And again, to your point, it's nice to not be in that position. And to some extent, yeah, this podcast is sponsored by Grazone Eyes, who makes phenomenal saga pens, the Rask, the, oh my God, I'm playing here right now, the Norseman, sorry, ah Knife, and and I proudly own
00:13:19
johngrimsmo
Norseman. Yeah.
00:13:27
John S
Well, I've owned many. I currently have a Norseman and a Saga and love it. um And Saunders Machine Works, where we're proud to make our fixture plate products, Modvice, Puckchuck, et cetera.
00:13:38
johngrimsmo
Absolutely. And I mean, you and I are, this, this podcast does cost some money. Um, and it's, you know, we're funding that.
00:13:49
johngrimsmo
Do we still have our Patreon?
00:13:49
John S
Yes. We do. um Okay, so let's keep this conversation going.
00:13:54
johngrimsmo
Cause we kind of forget. like
00:13:56
John S
So we have missed a few episodes, and so I was gonna ask you this offline, but I'll just ask you it on layer. Yvonne was like, hey, you and Grimso have been off more for a variety of reasons, why don't you guys do another mail call?
00:14:07
johngrimsmo
Wonderful idea.
00:14:08
John S
Right, you good with that?
00:14:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:10
John S
Okay, so again, this is, the patron, the thought is like it covers the 50, 100 bucks a month, it costs us to host this podcast or whatever, um which is just nice that it doesn't come out of pocket for us.
00:14:16
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:14:20
John S
um
00:14:20
johngrimsmo
And it is pretty much breakeven, right?
00:14:22
johngrimsmo
Like, give it like, we're close.
00:14:23
John S
i Sure, I don't pay attention to it.
00:14:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:26
John S
But um this is not a handout. We're not asking for for whatever. But if you do want to support the podcast that we do have a Patreon, and what I'd offer in consideration here is, well, let's do another mail call.
00:14:37
John S
So anybody can email us questions in businessofmachining.gmail dot.com. We'll get to our inboxes. But um we will give kind of priority to anybody that wants to send in a question over Patreon.
00:14:48
John S
And like, what I don't care if it's a dollar a month, like just join the Patreon, be a supporter of the bomb. um And then a lot of those questions in here in the next couple of weeks, we'll get some questions, and then you and I can record. And we'll record an episode in a wee odd time, and we'll just keep it in the, I'm sure over the holiday season, we'll have a week off, and we'll just bear that episode in.
00:15:08
johngrimsmo
little backup episode. Yeah. Yeah. Those are fun.
00:15:11
John S
OK.
00:15:11
johngrimsmo
I love it. Sounds good.
00:15:13
John S
Sweet. Glad we're on the same page. um Okay, going back to the original thing that I said I want to come back to, and then I need to stop talking, but um started listening to the Acquired podcast, which is about technology companies.
Insights from AWS's Strategy
00:15:26
John S
They're one to three hour deep dives, but I find they'd be quite good. um Mostly technology, I should say. um And one of them was about the history of Amazon, including Amazon Web Services, and there were
00:15:44
John S
There was a phenomenal takeaway there that I certainly didn't know, but I don't know if other people know this, but when AWS was in its infancy, which would be 2006-ish, I think, almost 20 years ago, um they were they put together a plan. They wanted to hire 57 people.
00:16:04
John S
um I'll keep this short at the risk of getting some of the facts wrong because the spirit of the argument is true. Rather than deal with the complications of having dozens, soon to be hundreds of engineers, software developers, stack what are full stack developers, et cetera, trying to work together and deal with all the issues, they made the decision to turn so much of the Amazon or AWS infrastructure into all API driven stuff. So, and it's hard for me to explain this because I'm not a software guy, but basically like, think of it like, ah so let's use, let's switch it over into machining terms. Think of it like,
00:16:41
John S
ah this The finishing department was never allowed to talk to the machine department. They just had to deal with a protocol of procedures and and tolerances of processes that always met what they did. So in the AWS analogy, it was like, hey, if you're developing the front end, you're not allowed to go Message or call or set up meetings with the back-end guys the back-end guys are gonna build their product.
00:17:06
John S
They're gonna give you an API You're gonna leverage the API and then you can do whatever you want access all the information However, you want via a robust secure API and it basically stopped the
00:17:10
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:17:20
John S
exponential amount of relationship, communication, infighting to be blunt, ah that would happen. And the factor that helped push them was that every new person increases the amount of like relationship, knowledge, communication at a square, a factor of two, like a squared factor, which that I totally get.
00:17:37
John S
Oh my gosh. When you bring somebody on, it's like the level of that you have to bring up. So this has really come to heart for us as we're looking at the puck chunk, I just toured Heimer. where you know yeah the thought of making 3,000 of something a day is, like, think about that, John.
00:17:50
John S
Think about making 3,000 knife products a day.
00:17:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:53
John S
Like, you have to be, your processes have to be at so such a different level.
00:17:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:59
John S
Does that make sense? Sorry, i' I've been talking too much.
00:18:00
johngrimsmo
It does. Yeah, exactly. And interesting.
00:18:09
johngrimsmo
How do you build that level? I wouldn't even call it communication. That's a lack of communication. That is a segregation of departments.
00:18:13
John S
but It's, exactly It's exactly what it was. It's almost counterintuitive to everything you hear these days about like cooperation and teamwork.
00:18:19
johngrimsmo
Great. And yeah.
00:18:21
John S
It's like, no, we are building permanent silos. You are not to speak to the other team. And and I love it because it forces that. scalability technology, you can't cheat the system, you can't compromise, um and look, we're guilty of it.
00:18:37
John S
You know, that's one reason why we have our prints that have target tolerances and scrap tolerances, because otherwise, if a target tolerance on something is plus or minus four tenths, and it's in it's four and a half tenths, you know, does it really matter?
00:18:50
John S
I mean, the the honest answer in most applications is it does it doesn't. I know that sounds, maybe that sounds terrible to admit, but like, it you know, yeah.
00:18:54
johngrimsmo
No, I have totally agree because sometimes you you are making up tolerance zones. um You as the designer, engineer, manufacturer, you're making up tolerances and and certain things stack up and matter and other things you just got to put a range on it so that you know the operator knows where to keep everything.
00:19:08
John S
Right.
00:19:10
johngrimsmo
And it's the same thing with finishing because we hand finish a lot of things. We blend and polish and grind. And it's much harder to say a 10th tolerance on that because it's a visual aspect.
00:19:20
John S
Yeah.
00:19:21
johngrimsmo
Um, but still the guys are really good about pass fail.
00:19:22
John S
Mm hmm.
00:19:24
johngrimsmo
Um, you know, they'll walk it around, get an opinion from somebody else if they need to, but yeah, it's those ranges. How do you, how do you scale that is something we think about a lot.
00:19:35
johngrimsmo
Um,
00:19:38
John S
I just really, really like that idea that we're not going to facility or like an encouraged lots of cohort. Like it just was like so, like do your work, do your stuff, not the word I was gonna use there, but you know, inhabit be so good.
00:19:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:19:55
John S
And then guess what? The other teams are gonna be allowed, for anybody ask for anybody who's listening, and an API is a fancy word for basically like, hey, you're through this API, you can access stuff.
00:20:06
John S
So like you if Fusion has an API and you can write, you know, Phil's done a great job at DSI, I'm like, hey, you can write, um Excel or Google Sheets scripts that interface the Fusion through its API. And the what they're doing, I don't think the Fusion API opens up all of Fusion, but there's a...
00:20:23
John S
portal of it so you can write scripts that would generate, you can write a Google script that would give you, um you could put in a bunch of different dimensions for door hinges, hit go, and it would just automatically create 75 door hinges, pursue it to the dimensions of your google Google sheet. That's that cool idea of like that API interface and the idea of Amazon scaling it, recognizing this is the only way we can do it because of how complicated it is to bring people on. um There's a lot there.
00:20:47
johngrimsmo
There's a lot there. Yep.
00:20:50
johngrimsmo
Yep. And then something else you said is, you know, each department literally make make the parts the best their abilities so that the next guy and has to like it, you know, it like has to work in the next department.
00:21:01
John S
Yeah.
00:21:03
johngrimsmo
um Take pride in your work, all that kind of stuff.
00:21:07
John S
Yeah, there was another there's another technical technically related aspect of this of like, otherwise if you don't do it through the API and you do it as like, I don't even know what it would be, but like database sync stuff.
00:21:18
John S
Then if somebody changes one thing, then it blows the whole thing up or you've got legacy, you've all seen this. You've got, we've got legacy links and we'd have broken this or that and we're doing patchwork and repair and we can't evolve and so forth.
00:21:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:21:30
John S
Then it's like, nope, API just means it has to work. This is what you get.
00:21:33
johngrimsmo
It's cool. It's like a menu of options that this is what's on the menu.
00:21:35
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:21:38
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:38
johngrimsmo
Do everything you can within this menu, but.
00:21:44
johngrimsmo
Very cool.
00:21:49
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:21:50
John S
What's been on your mind?
00:21:53
johngrimsmo
on my
Development and Production Challenges
00:21:54
johngrimsmo
mind. So I mentioned last week that for our new Fjall knife, the fire has been lit and it's ah it's it's on a simmer right now, like it's not as as raging as it was a week ago, but I've been doing a lot and making to talk progress on it.
00:21:59
John S
Good.
00:22:08
johngrimsmo
It is my my main focus at the moment for the past week or two. and I've got like just a few more things left to wrap up. I got a fixture I need to make. I got bit a bit of coat I need to make for hard milling the blade. But I made a bunch of soft blades the other day. They've already gone through heat treat, and now they're coming through lapping and surface grinding today. And then I'll be able to hard mill them in the next two days, probably.
00:22:32
John S
Awesome.
00:22:33
johngrimsmo
And I spent quite a bit of time on the Willem in the past week um making the clips. And I've become obsessed with revision numbering um almost every component we make, um especially through the development process.
00:22:44
John S
Okay.
00:22:46
johngrimsmo
Like when I'm making these clips and you know there's chatter here, so then I go version 1.6 or version 1.7 or one point, I realized I'm going to start running out of numbers. So I'm like 1.51, 1.52 now.
00:22:57
John S
Ah, it's funny. rare it
00:23:01
johngrimsmo
um And it's been super helpful on my desk to like, I know in the beginning they were like this and I can just line them up one by one. And I have a Google sheet where I'm tracking the revision number, the change I made, more stock here, added stock to leave, change to this tool, change the strategy here, went faster, went slower.
00:23:19
johngrimsmo
And having a Google sheet with all revision changes, I've been keeping it for about two or three years now for across all of our products.
00:23:25
John S
Wow.
00:23:26
johngrimsmo
And it's awesome. It's been really helpful.
00:23:28
John S
Oh yeah.
00:23:31
johngrimsmo
especially because some of our parts take weeks, months even before assembly might use them.
00:23:36
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:23:37
johngrimsmo
And if I made a change, now it's documented so that when they start using them, they're like, yeah, I noticed this thing is weird. I can look back at my revision sheet and be like, Oh, that's cause I changed it. That's, it's fine.
00:23:48
johngrimsmo
Looks fine. Um, but yes, there is something different. Um,
00:23:51
John S
So do you put revision numbers on like a Delrin ball cage?
00:23:54
johngrimsmo
no, not that yet.
00:23:55
John S
okay
00:23:56
johngrimsmo
And I probably won't, but, um,
00:23:57
John S
okay
00:23:59
johngrimsmo
It's more of a new thing. So all of our blades have revision numbers in them now. It's actually hidden inside the detent pocket. So it's this tiny little 1 16th arc in the blade and it says V1.20 or something like that.
00:24:08
John S
ah
00:24:15
johngrimsmo
2.21, 2.22. and It's super helpful because when I make even a somewhat minor change, just kick it up a revision number, and now as blades are flowing through, possibly there might be two or three different revision numbers in flow at any one time.
00:24:19
John S
Okay. Okay.
00:24:31
John S
Mm hmm.
00:24:31
johngrimsmo
I have a spreadsheet that says what they all are and what changes were made.
00:24:36
johngrimsmo
um So with the fields, the clips are getting revision changed, the blades are getting revision changed, and
00:24:44
johngrimsmo
Based on our previous conversations about hard milling blades, and I'm all for it now, willing to take the extra work and get it done and make the extra fixtures and toolpaths and deal with the tool life and all that stuff.
00:24:50
John S
ah
00:24:56
johngrimsmo
So blades went through heat treat and I'll be hard milling them probably on Friday, which should be awesome.
00:25:06
johngrimsmo
And the Rask hard milling, which we've been talking about, the those blades hit the speedio today. Like they finally went through heat treat, finally went through some other stuff, lapping and everything.
00:25:14
John S
okay
00:25:18
johngrimsmo
And now they're finally at the speedio to hard mill. And just before the podcast, I, exactly what we talked about, I dumped it down and I sat down with Angelo and Steven who are running the machine.
00:25:30
John S
Okay.
00:25:31
johngrimsmo
And I said, from the top, here's what this program does. The clamps go like this. I know this clamp doesn't fit because I drilled the hole in the wrong spot. That's okay. Just use three bolts, not four.
00:25:42
johngrimsmo
I know it's weird.
00:25:43
John S
Yeah,
00:25:43
johngrimsmo
That's what it is, right? You got to pass this information. Oh, we got to load a tool in. Okay. Steve, if you remember how to load a tool? Okay. Yeah. Take this one out. Oh, don't forget to do that. And even the way he was holding the torque wrench, like one of the little handheld ones.
00:25:57
johngrimsmo
Um, and he was one handing it and I'm like, I typically try to like two handed just to like, but your hand on the pivot point so you get it consistent and and he's like I've talked a lot of screws I'm like I know but when you're doing it yourself you feel confident when somebody else is watching you it's much easier to say this is the book you know do it by the book I'm just pointing it out it's my job to point it out and there's a level of personal
00:26:02
John S
consistent.
00:26:11
John S
Yeah.
00:26:23
johngrimsmo
ah confidence, arrogant, I don't know what the word is, but um where I have to be okay, explaining every step like from the top, and I don't want to, you know, overstep my boundaries, I don't want to dumb it down so much that this expert, you know, feels like I'm talking down to him.
00:26:40
John S
Sure.
00:26:41
johngrimsmo
But but you kind of have to sometimes, you know, coach from the top, like just, this is the whole step.
00:26:44
John S
Yeah.
00:26:47
johngrimsmo
And I'd rather you agree with everything I say, then miss something. You know,
00:26:54
John S
Yeah, I do know. This is a tough topic because there's there's a aspect of like, so it's easier.
00:26:58
johngrimsmo
It is.
00:27:02
johngrimsmo
I don't want to condescend people, you know.
00:27:04
John S
Yes. Well, and it's like when your sports have been top of mind because some friends have gotten into coaching and my son is playing. And so it's like, hey, you look there, this isn't serious level sports. But um you know your job as an athlete, like on a competitive college team, isn't to question or challenge the coach. Your job is to recognize whatever they say, they're saying it for a reason, and my job is to go do it, period, full stop.
00:27:28
johngrimsmo
Right, right.
00:27:29
John S
um And you see this like in the um you know watch the shows on Navy SEALs, and it's like, nope, their job isn't to do foreign policy or war war planning. It's just like, they tell me to do a mission, that's my mission, full stop.
00:27:41
John S
And that can get trickling all the way down to something little like, hey, why are we using a hand tool instead of an electronic tool here? And it's like, well, And it's tough because you want to be as like the nerd in me. You want to talk about it. You want to explain it. You're like, hey, I think you'd agree with me if you recognize it. It's actually more consistent to do it this way. It's ah it's whatever. But it's there to some extent, there's a lot of effort in that and going to that conversation every time.
00:28:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Until there's a level of complete confidence and understanding and reciprocated trust, like he's got it. I don't need to keep telling him.
00:28:16
John S
Yeah, right.
00:28:16
johngrimsmo
Like obviously there's there's that point, but um yeah. It's just like you said, to any training, any coaching, you know, they're gonna tell you everything.
00:28:28
johngrimsmo
And then when it's time to perform,
00:28:28
John S
Yeah.
00:28:31
johngrimsmo
Go do it. It's all it should take.
00:28:32
John S
Yeah.
00:28:33
johngrimsmo
yeah Same with Navy SEALs.
00:28:33
John S
yeah
00:28:34
johngrimsmo
like Go on the mission. We've talked enough. You know what you need to do.
00:28:37
John S
Yeah.
00:28:38
johngrimsmo
I have a million percent faith in you. Go do the mission.
00:28:41
John S
Yeah.
00:28:45
John S
I my crazy? I thought you had already hard-milled rask blades.
00:28:50
johngrimsmo
um Only the bevels and and grinding. This is the critical locking features that I'm talking about.
00:28:55
John S
Okay, got it. Because this is the good goes back to the whole conversation about what's moving in heat tree, or why, what.
00:28:59
johngrimsmo
It is. Yes.
00:29:00
John S
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, sweet.
00:29:01
johngrimsmo
Yep. And actually we, we put the blade in the fixture just before the podcast and the probe comes in, measures the pivot hole. So um I made the fixture in situ, put the blade in place. The probe knows I'm moving to 2.79, eight inches, whatever.
00:29:16
johngrimsmo
And it compares G54 with the new offset goes in G55. And so I opened it up and I showed the guys G54 to G55 and I'm mentally calculating the difference.
00:29:22
John S
Yeah.
00:29:26
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, there's six thou of difference.
00:29:29
John S
Whoo.
00:29:29
johngrimsmo
in either movement during heat treat or placed on the fixture incorrectly. And I was like, guys, that's that's a lot.
00:29:36
John S
Yeah.
00:29:38
johngrimsmo
Like, I don't have time to dig into this right now. And maybe it doesn't matter because the probe is fixing it. um However, that's a big number.
00:29:48
John S
Oh yeah, John, and like this is the rabbit hole. I love going down because it, it, it almost will matter regardless, even if it's simply do with how you're dealing with tool pressure on hard milling.
00:29:58
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:29:59
John S
as you're coming into that part.
00:30:00
johngrimsmo
Yep. Or the way you're torquing the clamps, depending on the fixture, too. Maybe it moves with the torque of the screwdriver.
00:30:05
John S
who
00:30:09
johngrimsmo
um Lots of different ways. you know Dust on the fixture, chip in the way kind of thing. And we even Q-tip the pivot hole before. like As you load the parts, you Q-tip the pivot so that the probe is coming into a clean surface.
00:30:22
johngrimsmo
There's no dust or dirt or chip or anything like that.
00:30:23
John S
with a like actual drug circuit, those leave tons of debris behind.
00:30:25
johngrimsmo
Actual Q-tip.
00:30:28
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it seems to work for us, but that's a good point.
00:30:31
John S
Get Kim wipes on a stick.
00:30:33
johngrimsmo
On a stick.
00:30:34
John S
Yeah, 3D printed yourself a little stick, then it's a dedicated tool. You can label it just like I just did this, like, you know, printing out the, actually print looks like absolute trash, so sorry.
00:30:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:40
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:30:44
johngrimsmo
Because it's thin, yeah.
00:30:45
John S
Well, I don't, yeah, they don't normally do that. um i've done this I've done this a ton and it works great. This one didn't look good, but still, it tells you what you need to know for now.
00:30:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:53
John S
um And yeah, use Kim wipes.
00:30:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:58
johngrimsmo
But yeah.
00:30:58
John S
Awesome. Oh, can you put, I'm very curious to see how the hard milling goes.
00:31:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah, me too. I did some testing a week or two ago with like four blades and slowly dialed it in and got phenomenal results.
00:31:08
John S
Yeah.
00:31:09
johngrimsmo
And now we have, we must have over 50 blades in flow, like heading this way. Did a hard shift, engraved a little HM on the blade um that will hopefully get cut off when the bevels get cut.
00:31:22
johngrimsmo
And I can report that it does get cut off.
00:31:22
John S
Okay.
00:31:25
johngrimsmo
I knew it would, but it was close. And we're like, that's, it's going to work, right? It does work. um So yeah, the goal now is to have absolute consistency and stop in stopin size and blade position in feel, you know, flipping and and locking and things like that.
00:31:37
John S
Yeah.
00:31:40
johngrimsmo
So I'm super stoked to finally have this put to bed and then apply all that same stuff to the field, which I will be doing the next two days.
00:31:48
John S
Yeah, that's great.
00:31:50
johngrimsmo
because the Fjell is even somewhat more picky about that blade movement after he treat and the seven or eight that we put together before blade show were all different they felt different they they landed in the handle in a different place um one of them that we kept here actually the blade is hitting the back of the handle when it's closed
00:32:03
John S
Yeah. Mhm.
00:32:15
johngrimsmo
So if you close the blade too hard, it bounces enough that it's chopping the back of the handle of the integral part of the handle.
00:32:19
John S
Whoa. Sure, sure, sure, sure.
00:32:21
johngrimsmo
And I have this like bumpy tool path in there that looks really cool, but it's a bunch of jagged peaks. So it put a serration in the blade because it hits so hard.
00:32:29
John S
Sure.
00:32:30
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, okay, full stop. I cannot have this happen to a customer's knife. So how much gap do I need? How much, you know, how consistent is this need to be? I think hard milling will get me there.
00:32:41
johngrimsmo
So.
00:32:43
John S
it's It goes back to like, what if you need to make a thousand feels a day? Not really ever going to do it, but like, what's the...
00:32:47
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm. Well, I'm I'm notorious for overcomplicating the procedure to get the result that I want at the expense of time or money.
00:32:58
johngrimsmo
um So that is a different perspective.
00:33:00
John S
even Even that sentence was a lot to, yeah.
00:33:02
johngrimsmo
Sure. But that that's a different perspective. OK, how do we make a thousand of day consistently, repeatably?
00:33:07
John S
Yeah.
00:33:08
johngrimsmo
um You know, my brain says, well, it's, it's more work to do it perfectly because now you have multiple fixtures, multiple offsets, multiple probing the blade clean. Um, and maybe that's a good way to do it.
00:33:20
johngrimsmo
Or maybe there's something I'm missing. I don't know. I'm just doing, I'm throwing everything at the wall until something good sticks. And then we keep that process and we have it dialed and it works for us.
00:33:28
John S
Yeah, sure, sure, sure. And yeah we've talked about this so much ah together, but like, I think when you're in this stage right now, you forget how good we can be at improving the process later, but you've got to start with that great process.
00:33:41
John S
And that's what we are literally having this exact same conversation of the past month here on the puck chuck and what order of operations, what materials happen, when it happened, you know, when do things get grounded, precision done and,
00:33:47
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:33:55
John S
um The best answer is to go with the best product first, and even if that takes extra setups, extra time,
Perfecting Processes Before Scaling
00:34:01
johngrimsmo
right
00:34:01
John S
ah new equipment, frankly, and then we can figure out ways to make that better, starting from a point of, of frankly, full grams of perfection, like just awesomeness.
00:34:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Starting from a point of a product that works and then you find the pain points and you simplify from there, you know, delete the partner process and, uh, make it faster.
00:34:22
John S
Yeah, but works without having to be ah heroes, like having ah the perfect day and as an operator, the perfect day as the condition of a CNC machine. like You need a process that will just work all the time.
00:34:22
johngrimsmo
Like, yep.
00:34:32
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep. Exactly.
00:34:36
John S
um Can I ask you some questions on that topic?
00:34:39
johngrimsmo
Please.
00:34:39
John S
Do you know how many blades you'll stuff in the oven at at a time?
00:34:43
johngrimsmo
I think we do eight.
00:34:44
John S
Okay, but so quite a few quantity, but still volumetrically that's like 5% of the oven's cubic volume or something.
00:34:45
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:34:51
johngrimsmo
Sure, but when we have them in the foil bags in the ostentizing oven at 2,000 degrees or whatever it is, and they're sitting upright on the posts, um I don't think they can fit more than eight, like in in the kind of the meat center of the oven.
00:34:51
John S
like
00:34:58
John S
Yes. Yay, we're right.
00:35:07
John S
We, so I hate, it's like the the biggest thing I never thought of when I moved back to Zanesville 10 years ago is we don't have service providers nearby.
00:35:19
John S
um So anodizing heat treat is freight shipments and I am very envious of folks that have
00:35:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:35:26
John S
living you know, you can walk to your heat reader so and it adds a significant cost, you know, we're like $400 around trip for anodizing stuff and it's um Requires additional packaging requirements because of the third-party providers that are doing that stuff just it's a hassle all around but it is what it is, so um We're going to be doing more a lot more heat treating and we have a good we have one of those
00:35:30
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:35:52
John S
Oh, who makes it? I think you all even know. ah We love this pretty good heat treat oven. We love it.
00:35:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:35:59
John S
And it would volumetrically fit 10 pucks. Now, I don't know if it's probably unacceptable to have the pucks even in foil bags stacked touching each other.
00:36:10
John S
I think you would want a space.
00:36:10
johngrimsmo
Probably, yeah.
00:36:11
John S
So you could build some little shelves in there. But um I don't know enough about like if you fill the oven with, let's say, weight-wise, let's say you put 80 pounds of steel in there versus only 10 pounds of steel in there.
00:36:24
John S
Does that change how long it takes to get up?
00:36:26
johngrimsmo
Sure, the the soak time, yeah.
00:36:28
John S
Yeah, right.
00:36:30
johngrimsmo
I don't know the answer, but...
00:36:31
John S
Well, according to my Bryson book, it wouldn't change the soak time, but it might take longer, it takes more energy, to I guess, to get up to the start of the soak time.
00:36:39
johngrimsmo
Right, because when you preheat the oven, I'm guessing here, but there's only so many whatever BTUs floating around.
00:36:46
John S
Yeah, right.
00:36:46
johngrimsmo
And then you put cold parts in there and they're going to suck all those BTUs out and the oven has to make up that energy.
00:36:49
John S
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:36:52
johngrimsmo
And it's only so many wattage of juice.
00:36:55
John S
Yeah.
00:36:56
johngrimsmo
But that's at our local heat treat place, so our guy Steve got whatever, 12 fixed blades made of his own design.
00:37:02
John S
Oh, yeah. You talk about this.
00:37:03
johngrimsmo
And and yeah and he got them heat treated and he was saying, ah what is it, a flat fee up to 150 pounds of whatever? And he's like, this is like five ounces of steel here.
00:37:14
John S
Right.
00:37:15
John S
Right.
00:37:15
johngrimsmo
So they they quote by poundage, which I thought was interesting.
00:37:20
John S
No, that's what stinks. I have, I will pay all day long for professional heat treating. I just don't like the fact that it's going to be $400 round trip and it's going to be four or five days alone in total transit time.
00:37:24
johngrimsmo
Yay.
00:37:31
John S
It makes it so much harder to be nimble and to build up. We can do it, but. ah
00:37:36
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah Got
00:37:37
John S
The other question, I think I know the answer to this, but the puck, one of the parts that we're gonna consider heat treating, especially for the mechanical version, which is we're quite close to sending out some beta units. Shout out or thank you to folks that have been asking about that. um It is bigger than a hockey puck, about the size of a small fast food hamburger, if you will. um Those are gonna be out of A2 that'll be 50 to 60 Rockwell. I know that's a big range, but My question is, it is a dumb idea, do you agree? It's a dumb idea to just get either buy or heat treat the whole, the blank raw material to 50 and do all of the work hard milling. I know we could, but you're removing 30% of the material. You'd be doing some hard threading, which again, you can do it. um But I assume it's a dumb idea.
00:38:34
johngrimsmo
Would you heat treat it after that?
00:38:36
John S
No, it'd be basically you'd just be starting with 50 Rockwell a two.
00:38:37
johngrimsmo
It'd be done.
00:38:39
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:38:40
John S
And the nice thing is then I can machine it here. It's going to wear take take longer, wear out more tools, but I don't have to then send it out.
00:38:49
johngrimsmo
It might be worth a test.
00:38:51
John S
I should look and see.
00:38:51
johngrimsmo
um
00:38:54
johngrimsmo
But yeah, your tool life will, 50 is different than 60 for sure.
00:38:58
John S
That's why I said that. Yeah.
00:38:58
johngrimsmo
Right? Like, and how hard does it need to be? Like the only reason it's hard for you is what, dimensional stability and ah wear resistance, like like banging it.
00:39:08
John S
Yeah, the the toughness of the wear or the as ah as a product in the way it's being used, if it's going to be the right call for sure.
00:39:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you want it to be hardened. Even like like we use a lot of 17 to four and it will dent, even though it's 45 Rockwell, like it is quite dentable. Whereas you get something up to 60 and it's it's harder to dent it.
00:39:27
John S
And it grinds nicer, it's more state-like.
00:39:28
johngrimsmo
Quite a bit harder.
00:39:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:39:29
John S
it there's just kind Okay, we've agreed on that.
00:39:36
johngrimsmo
I mean a lot of companies, aerospace specifically, will soft mill and leave 20 thou everywhere and then heat treat it and just finish mill all that every surface with 20 thou.
00:39:46
John S
That's what we're doing now.
00:39:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:39:48
John S
um Yes. And we did like we ran, it was actually phenomenal. We ran those A2 parts. He treated them. They're high 50s, if not 60 Rockwell. And then we hard milled them.
00:39:58
John S
Actually, hard milled them on the Wilhelmin went phenomenal.
00:40:00
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:40:01
John S
The parts are just exquisite. I love it. um So now we're having that conversation about, frankly, how do we measure this? It's it's it's quite tricky to think about how we want to measure it.
00:40:12
John S
um Or rather, it's easy to get B.S. measurements and what's the workflow. Very apropos. ah The precision microcast but with Hakko and Adam just came out with a two episode yesterday on um ns touring NS tool.
00:40:28
johngrimsmo
o
00:40:28
John S
And I know there's a bunch of really, really high end tool like die and mold carbide tooling manufacturers.
00:40:34
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:40:36
John S
um But hearing what Josh said about Turing and his tool and how they're looking at rep repeatable processes at the single digit micron level across you know years of making a tool is is is talking to me a big time right now.
00:40:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:40:51
John S
Yeah.
00:40:51
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:40:56
John S
Yeah, so tip of the hat to those guys.
00:40:57
johngrimsmo
Well, keep keep us informed on that.
00:41:00
John S
Yeah.
00:41:02
johngrimsmo
Because yeah, we're both learning that hard milling has its place in precision manufacturing. And I mean, we've been we've been hard milling since day one, our bevels.
00:41:07
John S
Yeah.
00:41:12
johngrimsmo
But to try to hit tight tolerance, critical features, good surface finishes, that's where it gets a little you know experience helps, good tools help, rigid machines help.
00:41:13
John S
Yeah. And I want it to be like, I'm now thinking about not having this be a process where we'll do five or 10 at a time and, you know, I'm going to be involved. Of course I'll be involved right now. I'm more like, okay, no. Um,
00:41:22
John S
yeah and i want it to be like i'm now thinking about not having this be a process where we'll do five or ten at a time and you know i'm going to be involved of course i'll be involved right now i'm more like okay no um the potential with the puck chuck is, you know I think the potential could be 500 a month. And so that's a where you, okay, so how are we doing this? How are they getting, when are we, it's actually a debate we're having, when do we add the highest value but most critical operations? You could argue you do it sooner,
00:41:55
John S
to to figure it out, but to avoid scrapping more expensive assemblies.
00:42:00
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:42:01
John S
On the flip side, um there's some value to doing the final op insti-institute as the kind of last thing that happened, because that's what um I guess as tight as the tolerances were holding on a lot of these, they're not meant to be, um, actually be curious to see what you say about this with your knives.
00:42:18
John S
The puck checks aren't meant to be interchangeable in the sense that you like, if you buy two puck chucks, you're not supposed to take them apart and start swapping all of the parts between the two of them.
00:42:26
johngrimsmo
Okay, yeah, every component, yep, yep.
00:42:26
John S
That makes sense. Yeah. Um, I mean, maybe you could, but it's going to change the outcome if you will.
00:42:32
johngrimsmo
It's the same with our knives too.
00:42:33
John S
Okay.
00:42:34
johngrimsmo
um every Every knife is fit together, tuned, the right stop pin, the right detent lock bar pressure, like we bend some things to make it work.
00:42:34
John S
Right. Right.
00:42:42
johngrimsmo
And while you can take two Norsemen and just start swapping parts, um there's no guarantee that it's going to be, they're going to stay the same.
00:42:49
John S
e b
00:42:51
John S
Bingo.
00:42:51
johngrimsmo
it will mostly work and maybe the customer itself won't even notice the difference, but our guys would notice the difference.
00:42:57
John S
Right.
00:42:57
johngrimsmo
Sometimes and some of the parts are just the same and it's great.
00:43:02
John S
And that's what I want to think about is going back to the business thesis or case of this is like, hey, you know we there's a lot of zero points out there that are four figures or well into the four figures. And I think we can have the opportunity to bring something well inside that.
00:43:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:43:14
John S
um and in a phenomenal, like I don't, I'll compromise in quality in like what I just said. Our products aren't, the sub-assemblies aren't made so such that every single one could be interchanged.
00:43:27
John S
That I'll compromise on because I don't think the 99.9% of customers don't need that, if you know what I mean?
00:43:32
johngrimsmo
They're not going to take it apart. Yeah.
00:43:33
John S
Bingo, bingo.
00:43:34
John S
Or if, right now, if you need to add a puck chuck or replace the whole thing four years down the road, yep, you'll be good.
00:43:34
johngrimsmo
So you, so you're fine.
00:43:38
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:43:39
John S
You can just buy a new one, swap it out, that works fine.
00:43:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah. As long as the, the thickness and the interchangeability of the pull stud and that kind of stuff is the same.
00:43:45
John S
Bingo.
00:43:47
johngrimsmo
So you could pull one out, put new one back in. It's not like it's too thick or something.
00:43:49
John S
Yeah.
00:43:50
johngrimsmo
Cause that would ruin somebody's day.
00:43:51
John S
Right.
00:43:52
johngrimsmo
So you hold your tolerance there. Um, and then, yeah, don't care. Like the customer shouldn't care what's going on inside. As long as everyone works, you know, they want a working system.
00:43:58
John S
Yeah.
00:44:01
johngrimsmo
They want to not think about it and they just want to buy more and they want to fall in love with it. It's the same with any tooling or workholding system. You want to commit and invest in a system and then trust it and then not worry about it anymore.
00:44:11
John S
Yeah.
00:44:15
johngrimsmo
You know, it's like your, your favorite end mill supplier or whatever.
00:44:20
John S
That's what ah Adam and Josh were talking about, about how the thing that's impressive to them with NS is like, not only is the quality of the tool itself been phenomenal, but um they don't change the relief shank dimensions and they don't, they, the way they prep their carbide blanks, you have to listen to the, I mean, everybody listening to art should listen to this one, but ah it's all about stacking the deck in your favor for extreme consistency to the tune of making sure the shank
00:44:40
johngrimsmo
ah Well, yeah.
00:44:51
John S
diameter, they're so far beyond the H6 or whatever it is. That way when you heat shrink it or whatever, the heat shrink isn't collapsing further because it's three microns narrower, which affects how the tool might perform. It's like, oh wow, this is a whole nother level.
00:45:07
johngrimsmo
Yes, speak my language. That's cool.
00:45:10
John S
Yeah.
00:45:12
John S
Which, sorry, umm I know I'm talking hogging in some of this episode.
00:45:14
johngrimsmo
No, it's fine.
00:45:15
John S
um If any, our goal right now, and I think we can do it, is to do a lot of this hard milling of the puck chuck on vertical machining centers. Either the high quality machines that we own, like Okumas and Willamans, or potentially buying a new machining center that is appropriate for this application.
00:45:30
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:45:33
John S
Which, side note, like I don't really tend to look at like the actual positional accuracy or guaranteed repeatability specs.
Evaluating Equipment Needs
00:45:43
John S
But it is something I need to start boning up on.
00:45:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:45:47
John S
um I also think I need to look at grinders. So if anybody's listening to our podcast that knows, I think the brand that comes to mind is like the United Grinding Empire.
00:46:00
John S
um of Walters and Maglies and so forth. um I actually did meet them at IMTS and the sales guys have been kinda asking, but I'd love to have that like, hey, if someone could talk to me offline, it would be wonderfully helpful.
00:46:12
John S
So if anybody's listening is willing to trade some time or whatever, happy to make it worth your while to just say, hey, here's the part we wanna do. Should we, let's say we need to make 500 a month. Should we just buy a grinder that can come in, robotically load these, grind it, and then every single one's gonna be perfect?
00:46:26
johngrimsmo
like a cylindrical grinder or in a way, like ah like a lathe buffer grinding.
00:46:28
John S
It'd be something like that, yeah.
00:46:32
John S
Kind of, yeah, I mean it's a the puck chuck is, um anybody can pull it up on the site. Basically you're gonna be grinding an ID taper and then coming out to a face datum. So it's a dual contact grind.
00:46:42
johngrimsmo
On the pulse set or on the part itself?
00:46:45
John S
On the receiver.
00:46:46
johngrimsmo
So you need a current in HD.
00:46:48
John S
So it's actually not off the it's not off the ah list.
00:46:50
johngrimsmo
Sure. Yeah.
00:46:53
John S
um But a current HD is pushing high six figures.
00:46:58
johngrimsmo
Very high six figures.
00:46:59
John S
Yes, I don't know. But that's the question, it's like, okay, a Hermla or a Kern, is that a machine that I can then integrate into a lot of other workflows? Or, you know, it's what I've done before, like, hey, can I sell three other machines and get the a third of that cost covered? And then but like like, I need to think,
00:47:19
johngrimsmo
Right, right.
00:47:20
John S
Think big, um but it's also like, hey, if there's a for 200 grand, if there's a grinder where this is this is all it does all day long, um it may just be the logical answer.
00:47:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah, because sometimes we try to get, especially in the beginning, try to get the one size fits all machine that like, I'll still do everything, but it ends up only doing two things forever.
00:47:34
John S
Yeah.
00:47:39
johngrimsmo
And you overbought, or you, you know, you got something too broad, that's kind of okay at what you need.
00:47:44
John S
Yeah.
00:47:45
johngrimsmo
um I think our Nakamura is kind of that case for us fantastic machine, it's been one of our most reliable lids, but it's too much. they It's too much machine for what we're using it for.
00:47:56
John S
Yeah.
00:47:57
johngrimsmo
um And it's not quite as precise as the Swiss in that way. So it's, you know, downsides to using it for what we use it for. But it's been going great and it runs every single day.
00:48:11
John S
Yeah, and that's the, I don't know, it's funny, I know more than I've ever known about grinding in my life and I love running our Okamoto, but I'm also putting myself in the I know so little about it camp.
00:48:20
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:48:21
John S
But and it's cool to hear about and NS tools and the precision of of modern machining center. I mean, I think an NS tool and a Kern micro HD is probably a phenomenally accurate solution.
00:48:33
John S
um But again, it's probably a multiple times more expensive than a grinder where you also can use a I'm going to guess $100 grinding wheel that can continually get redressed in situ to never.
00:48:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:48:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah. We can do that on the current too. You can get the jig grinding stuff and.
00:48:49
John S
Yeah, that's where it's really starting to. Well, no, you're right. I'm not going to close.
00:48:53
johngrimsmo
Oh, for sure. Jig grinding's sick. That's, that's how we grind our rasp blades right now on the speedio.
00:48:59
John S
Yeah, <unk>re you're crazy.
00:49:02
johngrimsmo
It's great.
00:49:03
John S
No, I know. Yeah. I asked Dan about jig grinding on IMTS and it's like, it's another package. It's more, it changes.
00:49:09
johngrimsmo
It is expensive. Yeah.
00:49:10
John S
It's kind of like, okay. Like, um, yeah. Sorry that we're going over time to the artificial time limit here.
00:49:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah, boom.
00:49:20
johngrimsmo
Speaking of grinding, I do have one more point. So because we're grinding on the speedio, and we have a laser tool setter, and we have this little one inch diameter grinding wheel that's about 60 thou thick, so it's like a little quarter, like the size of a coin.
00:49:26
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:49:33
John S
Yes, yeah.
00:49:36
johngrimsmo
And as we're jig grinding up and down, and it works amazing. And because we're going up, over, down, over, up, it's evenly wearing the wheel top and bottom.
00:49:42
John S
Yeah, I remember that.
00:49:46
John S
Oh, that's nice.
00:49:46
johngrimsmo
So we're just kind of letting it wear and it does get smaller and we have a manual comp that the guys will like comp, you know, a foul every few days or tents or whatever to get the result that they want. And every time I try to have the machine auto probe the diameter of the wheel and update it, we get the auto erratic error where it just makes a bad part.
00:50:08
johngrimsmo
when you give the machine too much diameter control on this grinding wheel.
00:50:10
John S
Uh-huh.
00:50:11
johngrimsmo
So I got dPrint to work on the Speedy-O a couple months ago, and I've been ah printing the results, like like logging the value of every diameter measurement, and it measures the diameter multiple times on every blade, but it doesn't change it, it just logs it.
00:50:27
John S
Yeah, sure.
00:50:28
johngrimsmo
So I put that all into a big spreadsheet and I have this like, like stock market graph, you know, line graph of, uh, of the wheel diameter slowly getting smaller over the course of a month.
00:50:34
John S
Yeah.
00:50:39
John S
That's cool.
00:50:39
johngrimsmo
And I can see these spikes that are weird.
00:50:44
johngrimsmo
So like normally it's tense every time.
00:50:46
John S
yeah
00:50:46
johngrimsmo
And then every now and then there's a six thou spike or a two thou spike or up or down. And I'm like, Oh, those are outliers. That is, that would cause a problem if we let it run too much. So.
00:50:58
johngrimsmo
My job now is to figure out how to make this work and eliminate outliers and where's my kind of median band of if I give it, you know, plus three tenths minus three tenths wiggle room to do what it wants to do.
00:51:07
John S
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:10
johngrimsmo
Anything outside of that don't alarm, which is the default mode, but just ignore it and move on. Um, I think if I could get that figured out, it would be amazing. And then it would just auto comp, but yeah.
00:51:21
John S
We do this on the Akuma. We wrote a custom probe to touch off our critical height face mills, and it evaluates each of the five, usually they're five pocket height of inserts, individual one at a time.
00:51:37
johngrimsmo
Through use.
00:51:39
John S
let' Say again?
00:51:40
johngrimsmo
ah Through use or first time only?
00:51:43
John S
It's called up as its own program when we want to call it up, so it's often scheduled, but we're careful.
00:51:46
johngrimsmo
Okay. ah But ah with used inserts is my point.
00:51:47
John S
to Yes, absolutely.
00:51:50
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:51:51
John S
And what it does is it has logic in it that will not allow more than a, I don't know, a threshold, but like if it's anything more than a one or two top change i'll change, it does alarm because that's a ah bogus result.
00:52:00
johngrimsmo
Okay. That would be bad. Yeah.
00:52:03
John S
So like for years, it's like if it's more than one thou, I wonder if there's a way you could have a the wheel go over to a sacrificial piece of plastic and just have it kiss the plastic to clean it and then go try it again.
00:52:13
johngrimsmo
Sure. Well, I did install a dressing stick so I could auto dress it. And I wrote all the program in Macco to have it auto dress the wheel, but having it auto dress every blade was too erratic.
00:52:25
johngrimsmo
And we got kind of on consistent results. Um, and I don't know why yet, but yeah, so there's there's something there, but it's something Angela said, as I explained to him, I showed him the graph and he goes, well, it's a grinding wheel.
00:52:27
John S
Hmm.
00:52:36
johngrimsmo
Why would it ever measure big? bigger than it was before, maybe debris, but because it's not bigger than before.
00:52:39
John S
Debris.
00:52:43
johngrimsmo
So you could almost eliminate anything bigger than what it was.
00:52:47
John S
Oh, that's an interesting point.
00:52:48
johngrimsmo
Right. And I was like, that's a great point.
00:52:49
John S
Sure.
00:52:50
johngrimsmo
Like, obviously. So, so I took all the numbers and I said, you know, most of them, 80% of them are within a two-tenth range, plus minus two-tenths.
00:52:58
John S
no
00:52:59
johngrimsmo
Great. Eliminate everything else, you know? So I'm finalizing that.
00:53:04
John S
Yeah, I'm very, we've had this conversation. I'm very careful about like tool diameters or offsets. Like yeah you can, live um, I'd rather it fail.
00:53:13
johngrimsmo
But I have a um a month's worth of data to prove a trends, you know?
00:53:21
John S
Okay. But like, take an extreme example. And you're you're going to probably have a good counter argument to this.
00:53:25
johngrimsmo
Good.
00:53:25
John S
I know that, but hear me out. The wheel catastrophically breaks, and it goes from one inch down to half an inch.
00:53:30
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:53:31
John S
So it's not like dawn, but half an inch.
00:53:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:53:34
John S
And you didn't think about that logic in your code, and it now comes over and crashes the arbor into your part.
00:53:39
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:53:40
John S
like i'm just There's limits to what I will let a machine do automatically.
00:53:41
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep. and And the process implementer has to kind of think of these worst case scenarios.
00:53:49
John S
Yeah.
00:53:49
johngrimsmo
You know, exactly. You're absolutely right.
00:53:53
johngrimsmo
Practically speaking, right now we're running one bit blade at a time. So the operator would be like, hey, that's not finished. Like the wheel broke. It'd be pretty obvious. But how do we make 3,000 a day?
00:54:04
johngrimsmo
You know, that's the logic, right?
00:54:05
John S
Bingo. Exactly. Right. Right. That's all I care about now.
00:54:08
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. and And now that we have palette changers and automated machines, like how do you make 3000 a day and have them all be perfect?
00:54:09
John S
Yeah.
00:54:15
johngrimsmo
And there is a level of this hyper, you know, macro tuning probing, letting the machine do what it's got to do, but you got to put limits on that.
00:54:16
John S
Bingo.
00:54:24
johngrimsmo
You can't let it just run wild.
00:54:24
John S
Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I'd love to see more about a place like Heimer about you know the lessons they've learned. By the way, shout out to Rob. I didn't know the term process engineer really was as much a thing as as ah it clearly is.
00:54:38
johngrimsmo
It was like a job, yeah.
00:54:40
John S
And now that he said it immediately makes sense that there's at both of our shops, frankly, we could both benefit from a full-time person whose job is to do process engineering.
00:54:48
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:54:51
John S
I can't afford that to be blunt, but like i get i now all of a sudden, it's been very top of mind for me this week, again, with what you're going through, what I'm going through, with Justine Hymer, like, oh, yeah, I get it.
00:54:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:55:02
johngrimsmo
Great.
00:55:02
John S
And some of these things are, I think you and I are both guilty of reinventing the wheel a little bit too much. Like people grind all the time and you're creating grinding solutions from scratch.
00:55:11
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:55:14
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:55:15
John S
Sorry. I, I love you for it except like, no fair enough.
00:55:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah. But I, right. I don't know. I don't have an answer for you, but I'm, I'm solving the problem in front of me right now, you know?
00:55:25
John S
Yeah.
00:55:27
johngrimsmo
But if it wasn't me, if I tasked my team or or some new guy to come in and solve this problem without any instruction, just do it. It would probably be different, you know?
00:55:36
John S
Sure. Yeah. Hmm.
00:55:40
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:55:41
John S
Good talk dude.
00:55:42
johngrimsmo
Good talk. Yeah, that was really good. Good day.
00:55:42
John S
Okay. Okay.
00:55:44
johngrimsmo
Always good talking with you.
00:55:45
John S
See you next week.
00:55:46
johngrimsmo
See you next week.
00:55:47
John S
Bye.