Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#249 - Growing From Nothing
243 Plays4 years ago
TOPCIS:
- Small Giants: Great book about growing a company.
- Sourcing a new chain hoist.
- Cogsdill burnishing tool.
- Business Vs. Personal life.
- Measuring the pressure on the arbor press.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Goals
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to December and welcome to the business of machining episode 249. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmough. John and I talk each Friday to make ourselves better and make our businesses better.
Reflections on 'Small Giants' and Business Growth
00:00:15
Speaker
which is not always growth. I'm still loving small giants. It's actually funny to read it. I think that book is 15 to 20 years old, which really feels like an eternity to think about. In that era, you're probably pre-smartphone, pre-iPhone, pre-apps, pre-social media.
00:00:37
Speaker
I have the updated version. Do you not? I don't know. It's at home. I can't look. Because he talks about it a couple times and there's a couple extra like little chapters and notes and stuff that's 10 years later after the original writing.
00:00:50
Speaker
If so, he just sold another book. Well, so I haven't looked yet, but I want to look up certain companies to see, uh, you know, I know anchor brewing, I know, uh, Cliff bar and Cliff bar does still look like it's private. I Wikipedia it, but I'm curious about companies like echo and Andy DeFranco's recording studio. And it's not to, it's tempting to sort of be like, uh, told you so like, Ooh, these didn't work out long-term, but it's not about that. It's more just, it's the wonderful.
00:01:20
Speaker
It's the journey of a story, like what did end up happening. But really enjoying the idea that while we want to grow certain things, it's really about growing in place.
Internal Growth and Efficiency Strategies
00:01:32
Speaker
We're doing more with the same shop, the same team, being efficient. I'm happy to talk a little bit about that. I feel like really killing it on some quality life improvements in the shop and just it's good. That's fantastic. Yeah.
00:01:50
Speaker
It's weird to think of growth while staying still. I guess that's what you're talking about. Growth could be new machines, bigger shop, more people, things like that. A lot of internal growth can happen. As you said, it processes improvements. We spent a lot of time focusing on that, just trying to make everything smoother and easier.
00:02:09
Speaker
The end result will be a higher production for the same overhead kind of thing. Exactly. And higher quality and more consistency. That's some of the biggest traits that we try to shoot for. Yeah. And then once I nail those or as I improve them, as we as a team improve them,
Impact of Supply Chain Disruptions
00:02:30
Speaker
then we can look at more growth. Growth becomes, it makes more sense to invest in more equipment, people, space, things like that. I'm still fascinated with this topic of the world that we're in. The last 10 years will probably define your and my working lives. I don't know what the future holds, but certainly you and I have come from nothing to something. However you want a size of that, something is up to you. But I'm certainly very
00:02:59
Speaker
I'm proud of what we've done and proud of myself. But nevertheless, the point is,
00:03:04
Speaker
it will maybe not always be this way. And I guess I feel like the last 10 years, the best defense has been a good offense, you know, growth, bringing products to market, executing, and that's awesome. But I still love this idea of also protecting the long-term viability by making sure you've got systems to place processes in place, you're well capitalized, you've got the right team, you've got the recognition, you know, we're starting to see,
00:03:31
Speaker
Really weird stuff again with supply chain. Um, obviously what like 48 hours ago, this new silly variant hit, which is mucking up things again seemingly, although really unclear if that's more media and buzz, because how could it really affect supply chain within minutes?
Supply Chain Challenges with Specific Products
00:03:50
Speaker
But no, we are seeing, um, we're now seeing long lead times, no quotes again. Um, it causes people to panic, you know, that spreads.
00:04:02
Speaker
So everybody's going to quote a little bit differently. Everybody's going to guess their lead times a little bit differently, and it can snowball, I think.
00:04:11
Speaker
Yes, I think what's interesting is the true sense of unwinding the supply chain. Did I mention buying the jib crane or the chain hoist last week? Yeah, you talked a little bit about installing it. Sorry, so the jib crane's done, but now we need a chain hoist. So I found the one I want. It's really nice, variable speed, the right weight specs. I want that variable speed because sometimes we're lifting a plate quite a ways and sometimes we're just finessing it somewhere.
00:04:37
Speaker
And McMaster sells them, not quite the cheapest option to buy this exact product, but it's kind of one of those like, actually, so I called McMaster, I was laughing. I'm like, look, will you guys figure out how you can source this? Like other people are claiming they can get them, but I don't want to buy them from Joe Blow Crane Company and
00:04:54
Speaker
You know Indianapolis like I want them from McMaster because I trust you guys I know you guys I don't care if it's $100 difference or something and He ends up those other companies can't get it either. But this is a product they used to stock. It's like a $3,000
00:05:08
Speaker
chain hoist. They used to stock it, which is just mind-blowing when you think about how much inventory McMaster-Carr normally has outside one of those buildings.
Precision Work with Cog's Dill Burnishing Tool
00:05:16
Speaker
Not only are they not able to source it, they're not even accepting orders from customers because the manufacturer is telling them, we have no visibility of when we could ever get a product to you right now. And I got to think McMaster-Carr is
00:05:35
Speaker
pretty good slash aggressive on first priority as a distributor. I could be wrong, but, or maybe it depends on which sort of specific or genre of product. But, you know, McMaster-Carr, you ever talked to somebody who does buying for an Amazon or a Walmart? Those companies are very aggressive about being like, hey, when you have product back, we want it first. And, you know, why can't they get a chain always built? Is it a chip? Is it a sheet metal part? Is it paint? I don't know.
00:06:05
Speaker
And not knowing is always the worst. Oh, I don't really care. We bought it. We bought a cheap one as a band-aid and we'll buy the real one when we can. But that's not good.
00:06:22
Speaker
I have a question on our Cog's Dill. For those that aren't familiar with what a Cog's Dill burnishing tool is, John and I have both used them. We actually stopped using it. Yeah, we did too actually. Ironic. But it looks like a end mill, but instead of having cutting flutes, it has vertical...
00:06:42
Speaker
dowel pins or roller pins around the circumference and there's a taper inside of it that allows you to make one ten thousandth of an inch or like whatever multi mic like number of micron adjustments that adjust the taper in that pin which adjusts the diameter that those ball balls are rolling at or pins are rolling at which can cold-swage so it's not cutting material it's moving material it's basically pushing down little minute peaks of material so you can move
00:07:10
Speaker
you can smooth out, if you think about it, if you rough board, so you actually want to bore a hole such that it had very micro threads like 400 TPI threads or 100 TPI threads, and then this tool can come in and push that material out ever so slightly to get either more consistent fit or service
Precision in Fixture Plate Manufacturing
00:07:30
Speaker
finish. Is that a... Absolutely. Okay. Yep.
00:07:34
Speaker
a very good way, maybe not the best way to make an accurately sized hole with an amazing surface finish. So we were using it for our blades, our Norseman blades in the soft state. So we'd interpolate a hole to whatever size, one, eight, seven, two, maybe, and then shove the Cog's Dill in there. It spins very slowly, a couple of hundred RPM.
00:07:58
Speaker
it goes in and it's spring-loaded on the retract, I think. Okay. But those rollers just come in and they burnish the hole a couple tenths bigger and we were holding very quite consistent size, although it's very, like your final size is very dependent on your pre-size. Pre-size, yeah. It's harder to hold than you think it is if you're really shooting for like a tenth.
00:08:22
Speaker
Right. That's ultimately kind of why we stopped using it. It's kind of a backward way of making a hole because you effectively want to make a rough finish. The rougher the finish, the more the cog still can do. Yeah, to an extent. Yeah, the accuracy. Well, the reason we stopped using it is because all the blades are on the current now and that tool is literally too long to fit in the current. No, really? Yeah.
00:08:47
Speaker
Oh man. So you would still use it if it... I think so. I don't need it right now because we're doing a, what's it called, a 2D bore operation infusion. The anvil goes down, interpolates down, and we're holding a 10th on that. Pretty nice. All day. Yeah.
00:09:03
Speaker
No, yeah. So here's my question for you. We grabbed it out of the tool drawer. I haven't used it in a while. The tool has a shank that you put into the chuck or cool holder and then it has a body that kind of looks like a small boring head where you can make an adjustment and then it has the part of the tool that protrudes into the hole.
00:09:20
Speaker
If you hold the shank with your hand so it shouldn't rotate like a tool or wood, right now we can rotate the whole roller bearing end, which I'm like, is this broken? It's like it has no ability to have rotational
00:09:40
Speaker
rotating when it's in the hole. Do you remember that? I think that's totally normal. Is it? Yeah. I went and looked at ours, and it's actually in the machine, so I couldn't look at it. But I talked to Angelo, and we were like, it does rotate freely. Yeah, yeah, it totally rotates freely. Because I think you want the rollers to follow the hole.
00:09:59
Speaker
and that kind of shanky thing just follows the rollers. It becomes a slave to what the rollers want to do because when they hit the hold, they're going to start rotating and it's like a bearing assembly. The outside race is your part and the inside race is that free spinning thingy.
00:10:19
Speaker
Interesting. The simple way to explain it was if you've programmed the Cogzilla at 500 RPMs in your spindle, the roller bearing end, it might be at 30 RPMs or 50 RPMs or 100 RPMs. You don't know. Yeah. It's weird to watch because it looks slower. It doesn't compute in your head. I stopped worrying about it, but now that I think about it, I'm like, yeah, whenever I watched it, it looks weird.
00:10:44
Speaker
I don't know. It slows down when it hits the hole and then it kind of makes its own RPM. Okay. Just follows. I don't know. Kind of freaked me out. I was like, Oh, I'll ask him if we broke it. Yeah, we crashed one or two of them over the years. Um, luckily they stock replacement parts and they're pretty easy to rebuild. Yeah. And then now we have replacement parts on the shelf, but we don't use it anymore. Oh yeah. That's funny. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's a great tool, but I'm glad that we have built a process where we don't need it period.
Focusing on Business Goals and Financial Strategy
00:11:14
Speaker
What is your current precision hole making process? On our fixture plates? Yep. So we drill, our typical profile of that hole is round numbers, one inch plate, slightly smaller. We drill down about 250 thou, quarter inch, six millimeters with a large drill, like 492 is a metric, like 12 millimeters maybe.
00:11:40
Speaker
And then we come in with a different drill afterward and drill through the rest of the way, all the way through the plate. So then we, I don't know the order operations off the top of my head, but then we formed, in aluminum we form tap and steel we cut tap the thread, which is the bottom round number 700 thou. Then the top 250 thou is the counterbore. That's the precise
00:12:01
Speaker
area for a half inch plate, it's a few tenths over intentionally to give a clearance fit for our Mod Vise or any half inch sort of pin. DOW pins are even on size. Sometimes they're a minus tolerance, but they tend to be very slightly trilobal. So it's a question of
00:12:20
Speaker
It's a question of tight fit versus ease of use and really you want a few tenths clearance. But it's insane, I mean, I can feel the difference between 5002 and 5005, like three tenths, all, I mean, it's just like, it's a huge difference, but it's very minor amounts. And that is done usually with a big Kaiser boring head. And we're able to, the key is we're able to do that
00:12:45
Speaker
boring straight from the pre-drilled diameter, which has been great because boring is also prone to changes based on pre-bore size. Everything is even finished end mills. I've noticed are prone to semi-finished end mill size. It stacks up. It's crazy.
00:13:07
Speaker
The more I watch it, the more I notice it, and the more I struggle with holding a tenth on diameter, I'm like, what the heck? But it all stacks up. It's all surprisingly critical. Yeah, agreed.
00:13:19
Speaker
I think that one of the biggest changes we made from when we started making fixture plates was how we measure the holes. We started, I don't know how we started, started, but for a while we were focused on high-end metrology hand tools. So the mid-to-toy board gauges, we bought the dia tests, I think, that had these sort of bulbous things go in.
00:13:41
Speaker
effectively using a hand tool that has two or three point contact and is subject to how you enter the hole, how you twist and rotate, blah, blah, blah. We now use Deltronix gauge pins in 10th sets and they are phenomenal.
00:13:59
Speaker
They're good empirically, but they're also telling you what you need to know on the one-tenth increments because I know all day long that a 5003 pin goes, a 5004 starts to go if I really push on it, and a 5005 is a no-go. You can argue about what size the hole actually is. It's kind of a fun conversation. But what I do know is relative across a plate or across a batch of plates or whatever, I know with confidence how the tool's working.
00:14:24
Speaker
Yep. That's fantastic. Do you buy the whole set of gauge bins or just the range that you need, the plus or minus 2,000? For like two years, we bought individual pins. They're like 12 bucks each. And then some point, it wasn't the distributor. Somebody was like, dude, you can just buy. They sell nominal sets where they give you plus and minus
00:14:48
Speaker
12 sizes and 10 increments above the nominal you're looking for. I'm like, and they come in this nice little case. I'm like, are you, are you, I didn't say kidding me. So yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. I've been buying individual, you know, pins from McMaster and we 3d print our own little gauged holders.
00:15:06
Speaker
Look at this. There you go. Anodize Go Gage. I love it. Yeah. So we're sending this out to give us another one. Oh, that's beautiful. It's got our name on it. It's got the purpose of the tool on it. It's a 3D printed thing that helps protect it in case you drop it and you hit the pin and it'll be ruined. But at least there's a chance it lands on the plastic or it's easier to use. And you can also argue to put on your Renzetti hat that your hand temperature is now insulated from touching the pin itself. Sweet.
00:15:36
Speaker
Well, on that note, one of the things I've had on my long-term list to mention to you, for no reason other than it was one of the things I've realized this year myself is kind of reflecting on where we are in this journey, is two major changes in the mix of business and personal life philosophy. And to be just cut to the chase, they have to do with borrowing money and focusing on what you're trying to do.
00:16:07
Speaker
book. Good to Great, I think, is the one that talks about hedgehog analogy. Yeah, the hedgehog concept. Yeah, so this idea that, would you rather be a fox or a hedgehog? And a fox is a really sharp, smart animal that's able to think and be cunning and strategic and do so forth. Whereas a hedgehog is kind of this dumb thing that's just like, I got one thing to do, eat grass or whatever, just focus on one thing.
00:16:27
Speaker
And there's a lot to be said for being
Risks and Benefits of Business Borrowing
00:16:29
Speaker
a hedgehog. Be solely focused on one thing. Don't try to be too cute, too smart. And for me, on a personal level, when I got started, it's hard to put that hat back on. But when I quit my day job, I was trying to make it as a machinist, a manufacturing entrepreneur, whatever you want to call it.
00:16:44
Speaker
I was hungry and I wanted to do anything and everything I could do to stack the deck in my favor, to build my skill sets, to earn cash, to build a reputation, to get more equipment. And I don't regret that. And it's certainly a reflection of my grandfather who I think was emblematic of a generation, someone who served in Okinawa and came back and
00:17:04
Speaker
had a new lease on life alive and would do anything and everything as a seal fabricator. There was no job too good or too not like just would work, work, work, work. And I like that. I mean, I would and I espoused it. I sort of said, Hey, we have a new rimfire steel these targets, we could sell them.
00:17:20
Speaker
maybe we'd make a few hundred bucks a month, but you're building out additional cashflow, additional revenue stream confidence in putting all these different irons in the fire, your job shop work, try to develop products, YouTube. I don't know how to say this. I don't necessarily regret it. It got us to where we are, but there's a huge cost and consequence to not focusing on one thing. I give you a lot of credit, John. In the beginning, you don't know what to focus on. Yeah, that's fair. Before I found the knife industry to focus on, which gives me a profitable market,
00:17:48
Speaker
very hungry fan base and something I get to make that is super quality and I get to really pour my heart and soul into it. I floundered as well. I tried all kinds of stuff. I was anodizing paintball guns for fun and doing all kinds of stuff, working on cars and everything. I thought about going to be a car mechanic, but I was like, I don't want to do that. I don't want a job.
00:18:11
Speaker
In the beginning, you have to try, you have to taste, you have to try all kinds of different things. I remember watching you through that time period and hustle for jobs and everybody just saw you as a job shop and a YouTuber. And then that faded away and you're like, no, we don't do job shop work at all. We haven't for like five years. Right. But yeah, I think about other guys new getting started and stuff.
00:18:36
Speaker
They're in that same boat. They're struggling and tasting and buying equipment, but not really having the need for it yet. I don't know. I don't know the answer, but you can't always just focus from day one because you don't know what that is. Yeah, I guess I'm inclined to ... There's no point in living in the past for sure. The windshield's bigger than the rear view. But on that point, once I did find the knife market, I focused.
00:19:04
Speaker
You're darn right you did. But seriously, that's a hard, easy thing to say and my experience harder to do to actually, especially like job shop work, you have relationships. Let's say you actually had us, I don't know how deep you got with Volvo and paintball guns, but if you were letting down customers and distributors and other people, or you had even hired people to help with that stuff, to switch gears then is very difficult. Just this.
00:19:33
Speaker
The other thing is borrowing money. And again, we all live life through our own personal lenses and I don't regret it, but it's inevitable at some point that manufacturing businesses need capital to grow. And I was pretty adverse to it. And I do love how adverse we are, but I've now
00:19:54
Speaker
kind of just completely changed our thought on it. And the caveat is we have a, I guess what I would say is there's something to be said for being appropriately levered. And you can get cute and you get fancy with it. But for us, it's not an excuse of buying something we can't afford because the debt service payments would be or are relatively small compared to what we have. And the thing I don't think is often discussed enough is kind of want to match the loan term with
00:20:25
Speaker
Your ability to make money with it. So be careful with balloon payments or The opportunity because this is the thing. This is the thing that anyone who went through issues in past crises Which are now pretty far in the past will tell you as banks or lenders will tell you one thing but then when
00:20:42
Speaker
push comes to shove, if they have the ability to call the loan or not refinance it, you may have a six figure payment searing at you. And if you're doing that when in the housing crisis or a recession where now all of a sudden a machine tour or an asset is not worth what it was a month ago because of that. That's when the that's when it gets really unfund.
00:21:03
Speaker
Yeah, the balloon payments are tempting in the moment because you're like, oh, my monthly is going to be so much less. And yeah, in five years, I'll have no problem paying that $60,000 balloon payment, which we have on the Nakamura and it's due now, basically. We've known, we've been planning for it the whole time, but it's still a huge chunk of cash even now to put aside, to have already put aside.
00:21:30
Speaker
now looking back, it's like, man, it would have been nice if it wasn't there and we just paid an extra $200 a month for the past five years. Isn't that funny? But five years ago, we probably couldn't have done that. Yeah, but then there's a wonderful discipline behind that of like, well, you didn't really miss it because you never had it. Yeah.
00:21:48
Speaker
Well, it's great because I had had these thoughts for a while and haven't gotten around to kind of formalizing them. And it all came up when you and I were talking to somebody together and this person thinks that they have a pretty legitimate idea that they could focus on their debating job, shopy stuff. And they're trying to basically delay one, two, three years of getting started so that they can save up to buy a machine. They've already got skills. I was just kind of like the John Saunders 10 years ago would have supported this. The John Saunders today says you're an idiot.
00:22:19
Speaker
Focus on your thing, buy a machine, finance it, let's go. Yeah, you will make money in the first week. Yeah, so borrowing money can work if you're smart and structured and have a profit plan in place, you have products in place. I see people buy a machine, they're like, okay, I'm going to be a machinist, just bought a Haas VF3 and okay, now what?
00:22:46
Speaker
And if you can afford it, great. If that's every penny you've ever had just went into that down payment, then it's going to be tough for a little while. Yeah. But as far as borrowing money, I mean, your business is now very established, very at the scale where you can strategically look at borrowing money. You can probably see five, 10 years in the future. You know, it may be tough, but it's there.
Shop Improvements and Standardization
00:23:14
Speaker
What's that? I don't look that far now if you're sure. I don't either. But you could if you step back and you're like, okay, I'm going to commit to five years of payments for this thing. I'll still be around in five years. Whereas on day one, you're like, I think I will. I hope I will. Yeah. So what I'm thinking is first off, making sure your equity as day one and your equity is in the money. So I'm going to avoid, I would recommend avoiding
00:23:40
Speaker
100% loans. Some banks will, lenders will, some won't. No down payment, you mean? Yeah, that type of thing. Because ultimately, if you have equity, you have flexibility. Or if you don't have equity, good grief, build up cash cushion. But then also, longer term,
00:23:57
Speaker
is always, in my opinion, a good thing. You may pay a little bit of higher interest rate, but it's the ability to keep payments down. But then also, I like the ability to prepay because it basically lets me have more control. Yeah. Every time I get a loan or a lease from a bank, I always ask about the prepayment policy and they're always a little bit different. Most of them will do it if you twist their arm.
00:24:20
Speaker
You can do one lump sum payment per year or only at the end or something like that. And most of the banks tell me, I don't know if this is just salesman speaker or whatever. They're like, everybody asks about it. Nobody ever calls us on it. Nobody ever prepays. Everybody just rides out the loan. Really? Yeah.
00:24:37
Speaker
Oh man. I could see it being rare that people would actually like, yeah, I've got an extra 50 grand. I'm just going to put it on my loans. I'd rather keep that cash in my business as the general mentality of business owners. What do you think? What I think doesn't matter. It's everybody's own thing.
00:24:59
Speaker
I have financed at least three of our Haas machines, but they have since all been paid off. And I've generally done so where I immediately start with an automatic payment setup that's double the structured payment. And this is a pretty well-known trick in the household mortgage. Well-known and well-used are two different things.
00:25:25
Speaker
I hear about it. Again, I love talking about this stuff because what are the different perspectives out there? The household mortgage trick was get a 30-year mortgage, double your payment, and you'll pay it off in 15 years with a fraction of the interest. If things get tight, holidays, whatever, back it off the payment. That's okay.
00:25:45
Speaker
Um, so that's a lot easier than the discipline or scenario of like, Hey, let's build up these big five figure lump amounts and then cut big checks in the back. That is kind of kind of weird, but, uh, um, slow and steady, man. That's what I love. That's interesting. Even on your loans, uh, machines add 500 bucks to a couple payments each month. If you're allowed to, um, you won't miss it. Right.
00:26:15
Speaker
Yeah, I'll think about that. I like it. Yeah. That's my two cents. What have you been up to? Yesterday, I spent a lot of time. When the blades come out of the heat treat oven, they get quenched between these water-cooled aluminum plates. Oh, yeah. I've seen the video. Yeah. Yeah. And it's in an arbor press. And we're noticing a difference between who is doing the pressing and how much force is being applied.
00:26:44
Speaker
and we have no way of measuring or gauging, like, yeah, push hard, lean into it. Like, okay, well, what is that? One guy's got another 30 pounds on the other guy and that's nothing wrong with that, but how do we standardize? It's like, okay, what? Yeah, go for it. Torque range. Interesting. Well, but you want to hold it. I think they hold it for about 30 seconds, so you'd be constantly clicking and clicking. No.
00:27:10
Speaker
It's not a bad idea. Never thought about that. Just put a hex on the end of your arbor press pivot, and then set it to wherever you want. And then as soon as they click it, just hold it. I mean, I guess the question is getting pretty good. Hold it clicked. Yeah, and you could push harder, I guess. Right, right. That seems a much better. Yeah, that's an interesting idea. The way I was thinking was, OK, let's put a load cell, a strain gauge, or something either under the plate or over the plate or under the arbor press arm thing.
00:27:39
Speaker
I looked into that. There's no off-the-shelf small form factor load cell with a display screen that's not $2,000 that I could find. A lot of the digital scales use strain gauges. There's also Adafruit, SparkFuncell. Yeah, I looked into those too. With Arduino libraries. They're a little bit fussy to use, but I think you've done a good job of outsourcing these projects. That shouldn't be a hard one.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of shied away from anything too involved. Like I was just kind of hoping for some off the shelf thing. So I kind of lost interest in the electronic version. You're right. The strain gauges themselves are very cheap, $20 to $100 depending on what size.
00:28:26
Speaker
And then, but once it came to like, oh, but you'd have to do your own Arduino. And I guess I lost interest yesterday. Maybe I should revisit that and have somebody else, you know, integrated for me. Yeah, exactly. But, um,
00:28:39
Speaker
Then I found there's actually an attachment you can buy for rubber presses that have a hydraulic piston inside with a pressure gauge on it. If your piston surface area is one square inch, which is roughly one and one eighth diameter circle, gives you one square inch, then a thousand PSI pressure gauge will measure one to one. Force will equal one PSI. You'd have a totally accurate way of testing.
00:29:09
Speaker
You don't even need a specific nominal amount of pressure. You just want consistency. Exactly. We have no idea what it is because there's mechanical advantage in the arbor press, there's leverage, there's force. I don't know if it's 300 pounds or 1,000 pounds or I don't know. Yeah.
00:29:25
Speaker
The, um, why don't you ditch the armor press and just put it in pneumatic cylinder? I did think about that. And I actually have one built, but I don't know if it's strong enough to match the force of the thing that we're using right now. And the other question is, we know, well, I think we're at the borderline of like, sometimes it's not enough and sometimes it's just enough. So whatever force we're typically putting in is borderline. I'd rather have another 20% and just consistent, but I don't know what that number is.
00:29:54
Speaker
So I could build a system but you have like a little date number two are repressed or something. Yeah, they should give you good look up. They should tell you approximate like tonnage that I don't know what that means. It is but like based on how much levers is on the arm and how much force you're putting into it and how much angle you're I don't know it. I'm sure there's math behind it but it gets complicated. The tormach power drawbar
00:30:21
Speaker
is a really interesting idea because it has a series, I think of three in series, I believe. Aren't there multiple stages somehow of these pancake so they're low travel high volume or high pressure
00:30:39
Speaker
pneumatic versus your normal pneumatic that moves 12 inches super fast. You want one that moves a quarter inch or half one inch with a lot of force. I don't know if you want to spend the money on those because they're like a thousand bucks, but that sort of a thing should be perfect. Yeah, we actually need six inches of travel or so. Really? Yeah, because you got to have the opening big enough to get the blades inside cleanly and then squishing down.
00:31:06
Speaker
So there's a couple different ways, if we were going to completely redesign this, that we could do it. We could tilt the whole thing on its side, which might have benefits. Yeah, just drop it in there and then open it. Yeah. So we've played with that idea over the years. Haven't tried anything yet, but it might be time for a
00:31:27
Speaker
I don't know. I'm in the thinking phase right now. Pretty tempting to either buy or build that hydraulic gauge measuring device because then we could see what's happening exactly. You could have a liquid filled gauge to smooth it all out and just watch what your force is live and relatively cheap for all this stuff. I might just do that. They have those dog bones that you can give dogs to show their bite force.
00:31:57
Speaker
like maybe stupid. It'd be funny if there's like a $30. You basically need a scale. I mean, you can also just put a scale in there, John. Yeah, I don't have the room. I wanted to, yeah. But the stack height is already maxing out. You think it's hundreds of pounds, I would guess. Yeah, yeah. I'm just thinking, you could buy a little 300 pound digital scale for $25.
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think it'll be more because it's a one or a two ton arbor press and we're pushing, you know, full body force into it kind of thing. So it's going to be a bit. Okay. Interesting. But yeah, there's, there's lots of ways to do it. Um, just trying to figure out what's the most, you know, bestest way for us. All we want is consistency, know what the answer is and how to do it every day. The other thing is, um, cause you need speed too. Like you want to get it quenched quick. Yeah. Um,
00:32:55
Speaker
you could, if you, I'm thinking you want to separate the downward force should also not be a locating force. So if you put, you bought a little,
00:33:05
Speaker
clamp that had three or four guideposts that are sort of like you see in dye molds where they get to be bearings or just static bronze bushing oil light. That means you have a smooth up and down motion. And then you could put a, like an Acme lead screw on a clear path. And that's not hard at all to build a motion profile that opens up real quick and then it closes and then the last hundred thou it closes. It's still fast, but slower. And then you can actually just adjust the clamping pressure with the clear path.
00:33:35
Speaker
Yeah do it some way where you have the mechanical advantage of hundreds and hundreds of pounds of pressing force.
00:33:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah. A servo on an Acme screw can generate crazy force, but it's tunable. That's what's cool. Interesting. Actually, with this ClearPath, do you have force feedback? You can tell. There is something. I don't remember what it is, but yes, there definitely is. Oh, don't tease me. I've been wanting to use ... I've been looking for an excuse for a ClearPath project for six years. Yeah. I haven't bought one yet. I've had two-hour phone calls with ClearPath guys. I'm like, one day.
00:34:10
Speaker
I'm just thinking this ties into like, if there's one thing I think about with you this year, it's been data as well. And so it's like, wait a minute, the clear path could then be logging your batches and showing, I mean, I guess why you need to log it, it should be all the same, but nevertheless.
00:34:26
Speaker
And one of the concerns with a pneumatic or a servo driven system is the safety hazard because you're, I mean, we've got this long in those pliers, but it's a safety, it's a pinch point, right? So do you have like a foot pedal safety switch? Do you have a two hand operation where it's like, I'm sure there's some legal safety requirements in that? I don't know. They sell little light curtains. Yeah. Yeah. Just put it in a box where three sides are enclosed, the front's open, but they put a light curtain there.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yep. Because you're right. I mean, if it's closing six inches quickly, that's a finger chopper. Exactly.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah, can't have that. What's the consequence with inconsistent pressure? When there's not enough pressure, they come out warped, which then becomes a real problem for lapping. So you're trying to lap a taco or a little wavy form down to size. Yeah. So sometimes they're perfect and sometimes they're too wavy. So you're lapping and you have a missed spot in the middle and on the two corners and it becomes a real headache. Yeah, that makes sense. So we're just trying to add consistency to a hand process.
00:35:35
Speaker
Right. I'd be curious if the torque wrench works. Yeah, that's interesting. I like when people come up with other things. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Well, there's another way of
00:35:50
Speaker
like a torque wrench with a spring cushion or foam handle, because then you pull hard enough to torque it, but you don't... It's actually, I think, kind of the design philosophy of some of the new Sandvik Torx handles, which we just bought a bunch of because I'm tired of having...
00:36:10
Speaker
change the subject on quality of life improvements we've been doing. But these kind of squishy foam or squishy rubber handles for torques inserts. The idea is you tighten it and then as soon as you start deforming the foam, you're at the right amount. So yes, it's still up to somebody could still choose to overdo it. But there's an implicit nature how it works. So if you think about it, like if you put a really strong rubber band,
00:36:36
Speaker
on your torque wrench and you pulled it with the rubber band, you're going to get to the click and then you can keep full of rubber band, but you're not going to really, you have to do more effort to be further, uh, overdoing it. Yeah. Sweet. Fun.
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah. There's also digital torque wrenches that are not expensive. Sorry. I guess in simple use, if you put a torque wrench on it and you set it to whatever, 100 foot pounds, and you torqued it until it clicks and then it'll stay clicked until you release pressure and then it'll unclick. Yeah. The problem is though, as it clicks, you could just put on 30% more pressure and it wouldn't do anything. You will know more.
00:37:19
Speaker
They make kind of old school analog torque branches that have a, like your, what's your new height, Brown and Sharp test gauge. Yeah. That could be perfect because now you can actually watch the needle. I mean, the best solution is some sort of automatic system like a servo or a pneumatic piston will always apply the same force always.
00:37:47
Speaker
1,000% agree. I'd go spend 100 bucks on a torque wrench today because that works and doesn't have the safety issues and then go parallel process, build a freaking sweet auto crunching. We do it every day. Every single day. It's a surprisingly big part of our business that is causing ripple problems. Interesting. You could also buy another U-MOC and just use the Z-axis as the ... I have another one.
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. Did you see? Good. It has to happen immediately out of the oven, like two seconds later. So I mean, that does limit, like it has to be directly next to the oven or whatever it ends up being, but. Put the oven in the UOC. There you go. Use the tool changer to pull in. I'm not even like half joking. Oh my god. Did you see the Dan Gilbert shop tour yet? Yeah. Yeah. I watched it like soon after it came out.
00:38:42
Speaker
the DIY heat treat oven that handles air quenching steels by pulling it from the heat side of the chamber into a non-heated side that still has the nitrogen purge vacuum so that it's air cooling and ambient temp without ever exposing it to oxygen. You want to hug the guy. He built it. Right? Yep.
00:39:03
Speaker
Even just the little things
Reflections on Efficiency and Work-Life Balance
00:39:05
Speaker
like, yeah, I installed the garbage cans on the floor so that when I sweep, they just go right down. I'm like, you are brilliant. I know. I have a question for you. If you want to answer now, great. If not next week, what's keeping you up at night?
00:39:25
Speaker
work. Laying in bed thinking about stuff you mean? I think you often peer stressless and I think it's awesome, but I'm just curious like what's not going well or what do you want to change? Yeah, a lot of the headaches I call them source from like structure and people and communication channels and
00:39:52
Speaker
and just how the operations of the business, not technically, but interpersonally. Yeah, probably that. I'm reading lots of books about this and I'm taking steps to improve. Yeah, it's fair. It's not easy.
00:40:14
Speaker
Can you hear life? Not really. It's okay. Okay. Yeah. It shows getting louder. I've got a room right now. Yes. Hashtag life. It's getting louder. Can you turn down a little bit, please? Yeah.
00:40:31
Speaker
Bring your kid to work day. Bring your kids to the podcast. Actually, Meg is at home right now, my wife, doing her own podcast. Well, she's a guest on another history podcast. She's super nervous. Let's see. What is it? I don't even know. It's local. We're going to need to make a podcast edit to correct that statement.
00:40:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's a local Niagara area history podcast and she's kind of an expert on 1700, 1800s Canadian history. And especially when it has to do with the home, homemakers or people in that realm and how it affects everything.
00:41:14
Speaker
whether it be war or industry or whatever. Um, so she's all super nervous and she's getting all her data together and stuff. I'm like, dude, you're brilliant. You really know this stuff. No, I don't. I don't know anything. I'm like, yeah, you do. You do just, you're going to be great. It's going to be awesome. That's great. Yeah. So I'm sure she'll do well. Yeah.
00:41:35
Speaker
I say I spent last few days, certainly yesterday, couple of hours, days off in the shop, me being a surgeon. I was like, hey, I want this to be better. That's what led to buying the Sandvik Torx tools because we have a big Kaiser 6 millimeter and an ISCAR 10 millimeter and a Sandvik T7 and whatever
00:41:58
Speaker
Emugi T8 and yeah, they're all nice tools, but I want them to be standardized and that's gonna allow us to get some cutout foam. We were laughing to be honest answer just because It's fun to be honest about this. Every single thing we've ever done in Kaizen foam has been a fail.
00:42:15
Speaker
Really? I mean, maybe not counting my personal desk in my office benchtop, but it's kind of a joke because we want to love it and it just hasn't worked for us. But I do think this will because we'll have eight Torx wrenches and a dedicated tool set up area for the sizes that you need for the inserts and so forth.
00:42:33
Speaker
And then found we have these different homemade scrapers and squeegees and brooms for the machines as needed. And just found some really nice quick release things so that those aren't propped up against the machines anymore. They're all kind of in place. So just going to the shop and doing stuff like that is it's wonderfully rewarding. And yes, for some reason so easy to just not do. Yeah.
00:42:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's so oddly satisfying because it's the kind of thing that will benefit you every day for the rest of the time for as long as you continue using it. Those kind of things bring a smile to my face. You're like, yeah, I need this. It's right here. Sweet. Yeah. Whether it's buying redundant tooling or anything, just having it laid out in your area.
Daily Operations and Future Plans
00:43:15
Speaker
Yep. So nobody walks away with your drill. Yeah. But that's my weakness, which I think is very common as an entrepreneur is it's just hard to stop pushing and putting out fires or pushing the business forward or doing things that are truly growth oriented and just to stop and say, I want to look at a few things and make them better today. And I love it. Once you're in the moment, it feels phenomenal. Yep.
00:43:47
Speaker
What are you up to today? I got late for today so I get to putter as I can. I had some weird probing alarms on the Kern overnight last night. I was trying to touch off a tool mid-process automatically and it just kind of hung up. It measured a coolant drop or something, I don't know.
00:44:09
Speaker
So while the spindle timer was still counting, but the machine was doing nothing all night. Weird. So I'm like, sweet, 18 hours of run. Wait, wait. It hasn't done anything since midnight. Oh, no. So I think I might have to tweak the, in the bloom settings, you can tweak how many times it retries before it fails. And I think it's set to three right now. I might jack that up to a lot more than three.
00:44:35
Speaker
Why did it fail though? I don't know why. No, everything should be good. It should be normal, but maybe it was dirty or something. I don't know. It was actually one of our small grinding wheels. I got to find the process so that that goes away. I always feel like that's one of those moments where you're like, stop and make sure you're not missing something obviously. Catastrophic. You're like looking at the wrong tool and you override something and then it's ... Yeah, I've been there. Catastrophic. Yeah.
00:45:06
Speaker
Cool. What about you? What are you up to? We have actually a truck just pulled in. We got new packaging and they goofed on it as to get adhesive added to the boxes. And that's frustrating because we had a bunch of orders ready to go out yesterday and we were waiting to just lay plates into boxes and the boxes were not functional. So getting that fixed literally right now. I'm 3D printing more
00:45:32
Speaker
I mean, I'll talk about next week. We've been just like on 3d printing page improvements. I love it. So going through a lot of that stuff. That's fantastic. Yeah. I don't think I told you my Zeiss microscope came in last week and I got hooked up. It is ridiculous. Okay. Good. I got to go help that truck guy to figure out, make sure they take the right stuff. Let's talk to Zeiss next week. Sound good? Let's do it. Okay. Take care.