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#226 DIY Coolant Washdown, Shipping & Customer Service, KERN Mid Routine Program Restart & More!
218 Plays4 years ago
TOPICS:
- Business Problem Solving & Developing Systems
- DIY Coolant Washdown System
- Shipping, Customer Service
- Air Compressor/Drain System IoT Failure
- Google Sheet To Do List
- Thingyverse RC F1 Car: 3D Printed Parts & Inspiration
- Pro-Active Machine Shop Maintenance
- Learning the KERN - Mid Routine Program Restart: Heidenhain Block Scan, Haas Setting 36
- Programming G-Code using Visual Studio Code Detecting Syntax Errors
- Grimsmo Knives Shop Tour Video
- Fluke Power Meter Determines Power Availability for Willemin
- Growth Vs. Scaling: Approaching with Caution
- Sister Tools & Multiple CNC Mills
- Lathe Tooling & Tool Life
- Seco Quick Change Toolholder on the Swiss
- Capto Toolholders for the Nakamura
- SMW Fixture Plate Packing & Shipping Process
Check out Spencer Webb's IG @spencer_webb_nh for Kinetic Precision PFG Stones
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business and Machining episode 226. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. John and I talk every Friday about business and life and plans and future and machines and toolpaths and all of the fun stuff that we... Your Kinetic Precision T-shirt. That looks pretty cool. Yeah.
Shoutouts and Product Endorsements
00:00:19
Speaker
Shout out to Spencer. He makes a good product and I now have a t-shirt and I think I got a pair of flip flops as well. Nice. Yeah, he makes those precision flat stones. Yeah, we've got two or three sets here. Great. Yeah.
00:00:34
Speaker
Yes. How are you doing?
Mindset: Problem Solving vs. Success Dwelling
00:00:36
Speaker
Good. It's funny, you have this positive vibe of which I appreciate. It's interesting because I've been thinking a lot this week about some different things, including the fact that I don't honestly think of myself as a negative person, but I do think about how I focus on solving
00:00:55
Speaker
improving myself and solving all of the things that need fix, which inevitably means you focus on, like basically when all the good stuff is working, which it is, I don't dwell on it. And so you end up spending a lot of your day, the proverbial phrase putting out fires or solving problems or fixing stuff, which does actually feel over,
00:01:16
Speaker
It does imply this negative approach, but it's not. Does that make sense? Yeah, 100%. It's like when everything's flowing good and your responsibility is lessened on all the normal flowing stuff because you have a team of people that do it.
00:01:33
Speaker
You're left to your own devices to work on problems, things that still need to be improved. You get to look back and you get to look and think, how do I make this better? I think a lot of people really crumble to that. I do in small doses as well, but I also thrive on it most of the time because I want betterness. What do you mean crumble by it?
00:01:54
Speaker
A lot of people, when things are going great and then they let themselves worry about all the stuff, all the bad things that are still happening, they can't handle it. I don't know. Whereas I think you and I have a similar mindset where we want things to be better consistently and continually and always, always better.
00:02:17
Speaker
On one hand, things are never good enough. It's like we're always striving for better, better, better. And a lot of people don't like that. They just want to relish in their wins. Whereas a win is temporary. A win is a split second in time. And then what's next?
00:02:33
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and look, this reminds me of that really silly, ridiculous interview answer to like, what's your greatest
Creating Efficient Systems and Leadership
00:02:40
Speaker
weakness? Well, I worked too hard. Like, OK, bud. Hashtag not hired. But on a serious note, that's partly, it goes back to maybe a month or two ago, you and I were talking about, it's not only our job as business owners and leaders to build systems, it's actually our job
00:03:01
Speaker
to build systems that build systems. Yesterday, two years ago, I walked in on Julie talking to, I think, Alex and Scott, I don't even remember. She had new
Managing Inventory and Predictive Systems
00:03:14
Speaker
color code things with a new Excel sheet and it tied into Lex. It was basically like how we're going to, we're having this growth pain
00:03:23
Speaker
predictive thing of like, if we sell stuff, we may need to allocate things like pre-built crates to those orders, but the crates are still kind of in their inventory spot because they're kind of large and you don't want to necessarily pull it out. And so you don't have a way of looking at physical inventory and knowing, well, do we have 10 crates available? Or are four of those actually for orders that are sold? We're just, we haven't assembled the crate into the product yet. That makes sense.
00:03:52
Speaker
I don't even know what that system was. And that's good. Yeah. That's a neat way to look at it, build systems that build systems. Well, enable people to build. No, for sure. And you're enabling a culture to do that with people have enough power and responsibility and capability to pull that off.
Efficiency Philosophies: Broken vs. New
00:04:15
Speaker
I really like what Pearson said a while ago. I can't remember where or when, but he said, my job is to only work on things that are broken or things that are new. And I'm like, yes. Well, that's, that's a different way of actually better way of sort of saying what I was trying to dwell on of like, yeah.
Coolant Flush System Challenges
00:04:33
Speaker
So I thought, totally random, but I thought I'd walk through, it's 10 o'clock on a Wednesday morning when we record this every week. I thought I'd walk through what I've been through today, just because sometimes that's what I want. I would love to be, it's not possible to measure something without imparting influence on it. It's a scientific problem at that super crazy world level. But it's not possible for me to observe you, John, for a day at your shop because it would change you.
00:05:03
Speaker
but I would love to. I don't come in early, really ever with kids these days, but I did come in about an hour early this morning because we're installing the coolant flush washout system. I know I've talked about it a few weeks, but took about a week to get the bulk order of lock line components in from the West Coast.
00:05:24
Speaker
And so I had this like balance of anxiety, not anxiety, but like I found that buying too much stuff doesn't really help in terms of fittings, especially something I can get from McMaster or Home Depot. So I actually just basically plan on additional trips or delays like a day or two to get more stuff in rather than
00:05:44
Speaker
over buying and just being inundated so there's a mix of going from pvc to pecs to garden hose to lock line to check valves and i actually think i've got a pretty good version of that system with minimal number of interfaces and connections and flexibility.
00:06:02
Speaker
I'm going to 3D print little discs that we can then use 3M Ultra High Bond tape inside the machine, and then we can screw into those on support braces. That way, I don't have to add any additional holes in the sheet metal that aren't necessary, and it'll be a little bit more. That Ultra High Bond stuff is the real deal, but it could be removed, and it's just better than drilling. Do you think it'll last in the coolant environment?
00:06:28
Speaker
We'll find out. Good test. Yeah, it's not catastrophic if it doesn't. I think it will. You could put a bead of silicone around it. That's actually a really good pro tip of like, anytime you're doing something like that, you can seal the perimeter. Interesting, yeah. But that starts to get to the, okay, now you're talking about something that's kind of a pain in the butt.
00:06:48
Speaker
You can also do a hybrid thing where you put in one really small 632 screw with the ultra high bond, and those two together are like a force multiplier that won't go anywhere. Exactly. And plugging a 632 screw is not a big deal. I don't want to have a machine that has been Swiss cheesed for no reason, though.
00:07:09
Speaker
So I did that and then knew I needed some components. So went out to Home Depot. Before that though, Julia got in and we had, honestly, it has never happened. We have an order that went to, I think the West Coast, where the whole box of accessories on top of the crate appears to have been stripped off. So it's blocked in with wood and then
00:07:34
Speaker
banded on. Again, never happened. So Julie already talked to the freight company. They put out their internal thing to track that down if they can. We've been through smaller versions of this where we know that we have identification on all discrete units, both inside and outside the box. So there's Saunders MachineWorks tapes on it. There's probably something like a packing slip on the outside. There's definitely a packing slip on the inside. So if anybody wants to find out who that box belongs to, they certainly can.
Valuing Time and Delegation Choices
00:08:05
Speaker
And we also already got a replacement version of that sent out to the customer this morning, along with tracking and update, just kind of like going back to the, look, my job is to deal with problems and new stuff.
00:08:18
Speaker
you brought up a really interesting point right before we hung up after we end of the recording, but after we hung up our call last week about this idea of somebody who we know who is, I would say, a bit more successful. I certainly don't think of myself as anywhere near this level, but
00:08:41
Speaker
choosing to think about stuff that they do in terms of if this isn't worth $200 an hour, $300 an hour, $400 an hour, pick the number, but it's a number that I couldn't look at anybody with a straight face and say, I need $300 an hour. I'm not there yet. There are people who are and good for them.
00:09:00
Speaker
But it's nevertheless a really good way, I think, of pushing you outside your comfort zone to be like, should I hire a third party vendor to do this? Should I have an employee do this? That make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it's a concept I've known about for years. And I'm sure you've known about it for years. Value your time as you're worth $300 an hour. And it never hit me until he said he actually pays himself $300 an hour. Oh, is that right? His salary.
00:09:26
Speaker
Oh, I thought it was a metaphor. No. Right? So that changes things. Holy nuts.
Hands-on Work vs. Branding Value
00:09:32
Speaker
And I was like, holy crap. And he told me straight up, he's like, you are worth that much too in your company. And as soon as you can, you should be paying yourself that much money. And then it also flips your viewpoint of
00:09:47
Speaker
your time of, you know, we love to fiddle with small projects and hopefully they have big impact, but there's a lot of small projects that can be done by anybody in the shop who you're paying $15, $20, $30 an hour, you know? Yeah. Yes. I mean, number one advice or thing is you as an entrepreneur be honest with yourself and I'm honest about
00:10:13
Speaker
the idea of how attractive it would be to have a company that is that successful. I'm also very much still in the Brazilian fisherman camp. Yeah. Why are we doing all this? I enjoy the team. I enjoy what I do. I'm putting together pipe dope and brass fittings this morning because I enjoy making stuff and using my hands. And I want to have this system have my brand and mark on it.
00:10:42
Speaker
When somebody tours my shop or you come down again, I'll show it to you. We have six, seven more machines that somebody else will replicate that system on. Does that make sense? No, absolutely. That is part of your unique value in the company because you have, and I do too, you have this broad experience of
00:11:03
Speaker
You know how to build a plumbing system. You just know, because you've done it for 10 years. Not everybody in the company knows that. And you can visualize and build this system. You're like, you know, we're having this problem with chip wash down, so I know how to do it. So you just do it. And whether or not it's worth $300 an hour is kind of a moot point. It needs to get done, and you want to do it, and it's fun. Just don't waste all your time doing it.
00:11:31
Speaker
While you're doing it you go okay as long as i still get my important work done today that i can fiddle with this and this is important to.
00:11:39
Speaker
And what we're building is truly an investment in our long-term efficiency. Again, we are spending way too much time at the end of the day, washing out every machine, which I care about because of the cleanliness. I care about because of chip contamination and coolant trap getting trapped. I care about because frankly, you can build up so many chips that you can trigger a y-axis alarm.
Investing in Long-term Efficiency
00:12:01
Speaker
Now that's, I think almost never happened to us, but nevertheless, this is- Yeah, exactly.
00:12:05
Speaker
And that is super valuable. That takes your vision for the company. You're like, this is a long-term investment. This is going to take us where we want to go. If we don't do this, we're just going to keep struggling all day long. I'm making everybody's life easier by implementing this. That is valuable.
00:12:24
Speaker
Otherwise, this morning, we have a gcode mcode error on the lathe. It's actually a Hoz bug that when you tap with a driven holder and then you move to tap on the main spindle, if the post doesn't push through a different M3, it thinks it's tapping on the other thing. And we got that figured out months ago.
00:12:43
Speaker
But Grant didn't know about it. So he's like, Hey, John, I have this random 993 alarm. I was like, I remember that. Let me go pull my notes up.
Mechanical vs. IoT System Preferences
00:12:50
Speaker
Gave him the fix to it real quick. So that's, you know, it's a fail in the sense that we saw the machine that can generate that code, but it's a win in the sense that it took almost no time and stress to get him the answer we need.
00:13:01
Speaker
I finished our air compressor drain system. It's great, ironically, in the process of all that, I realized that our Internet of Things drain doesn't work anymore. Part of the problem that led to all this, which is because if this, then that has basically moved to a pay model.
00:13:24
Speaker
It's interesting. I really have this sour-ish feeling on a lot of these intelligent devices. We've done the smart things, flood sensors, and we've done IoT things. And the one thing that they're really good at is failing.
Creative Technology Use at Saunders MachineWorks
00:13:37
Speaker
I really just value dumb, mechanical, or reliable devices. So easy fix, we just ditch the if-this-and-that part, which isn't necessary, convenient, but not necessary. You just go back to a schedule. Isn't that the worst of it? It's like you don't know when it's failed?
00:13:54
Speaker
It's unacceptable. It's just not going to happen anymore. I know, right? Yeah. I'll complement things with technology where I can. And that's kind of a big theme I've been thinking about, about what makes Saunders MachineWorks different is how are we able to think about creative uses of technology. And I'm not at the cutting edge, but
00:14:10
Speaker
You're creative. Yeah. You want to do more of that and you pride yourself on it because that's that kind of differentiator beyond just, hey, we make quality parts or we make products. I see that in the big companies that I look up to. Several example comes to mind immediately. They built their own software or they built their own coolant fill stations or they implemented technology. They saw what was out there. They said, I don't want to do it this way and they just go and do it.
00:14:39
Speaker
and that's what I'm trying to do and that's what you're trying to do and it's fun and all of us nerd out on all these little, yeah, I did this and I did this and it was so cool. Our core group of people are like, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, that's why I want to share this because we benefited from so many stories and examples, but we also want to put that back out there. Yeah.
00:15:02
Speaker
Wednesday morning, I have a counter reminder to check the Lex both outbound and inbound. It's more of just a, I shouldn't be catching things because the systems and people should be doing already, but it's still that kind of backstop check did that. Our scissor lift takes four six volt golf cart batteries, like a car battery. Those batteries are, I bought them new probably three years ago. I forgot to ever think about checking
00:15:26
Speaker
their water level and sure enough, they weren't holding a charge. I was like, I bet you that's water level. Sure enough, they were way too low. I hope that doesn't affect long-term life if you fill them back up with water. I can't help it. Can? I don't know.
00:15:42
Speaker
Anyways, I got distilled water, filled them back up, put them back on the trickle charger. It's working great this morning. And then I added an annual maintenance check in Lex to just, hey, check your golf cart batteries for water, which is in that I mentioned distilled water. So I don't even have to go think, aren't you supposed to use a special type of water? And it's 10 o'clock. That's my morning so far. That is fantastic.
00:16:09
Speaker
It's amazing how much you can get done when you're on it, and they're just tasks. You check them off. Had you thought about these? Yeah, I mean, they're all projects you've been working on for a while, most of them. So you came and you kind of knew what you had to do.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah, the sister lift was a surprise yesterday. But otherwise, I was going to kind of mention this. I've been using my Google Sheet to-do list now for months. It's now sustainable, more so than anything else that I've found in my kind of professional life. And it's only stuff that needs done immediately. It's not like project long-term type stuff.
00:16:50
Speaker
And the one thing I added recently, which we'll see if this works, is I make a note to kind of think about planning my day instead of just whack a mole through it. Sometimes I like checking three things off because they're quick. Sometimes it's like, no, you're fresh and in the morning and you're going to be better off if you spend 45 minutes
00:17:07
Speaker
working on something because everyone's different. I definitely am. I'm a better thinker and doer in the morning, but throughout the end of the day, I get a little bit more spread thin. Yeah. Yeah. Throughout the end of the day, I can plot along and I can like do the grunt work, the time consuming things typically. But yeah, I do my best thinking earlier in the day for sure.
00:17:29
Speaker
But you say late, too. I can't do that. I don't do that anymore. No, I changed a couple weeks ago. What do you mean? I flipped completely up at 5 AM now. Oh. Yeah. Interesting. I still haven't been the first guy in the shop, but I've certainly been the close second. What time are you getting into the shop? Not every day, but seven. Oh, OK. I guess I'm trending later, but it's good. So I can be home at a reasonable hour now, five, six, seven, instead of late.
00:18:00
Speaker
That's what it's all about. That was interesting for you and others maybe just us. Good perspective. The daily... Yeah, it's like the deeper you get into business and into managing your own tasks and schedules, the more you realize how much you can actually get done and how much five years ago you thought you were hustling and you just weren't. It's a joke, right? But then that same logic applies today, right? I know, I know.
00:18:26
Speaker
A total change of topic. William and I came across a Formula One Open RC F1 car on Thingiverse. This guy from the Netherlands has done an awesome job. All of the files are out there. All the instructions
3D Printing Projects and Family Involvement
00:18:42
Speaker
are out there. We 3D printed all the parts for it. It's a pretty decent design with M3 nuts that get pushed into these little captive slots. So you can take the thing apart, put it together.
00:18:53
Speaker
And then I've never built an RC from scratch. So we bought the controller and the receiver and the motor. And I'll tell you, he is, William is seven. I mean, just, this is the coolest thing we've ever built. So PSA, anybody out there looking for a good 3D printer project or kid project or whatever, heck you don't have to be a kid at all. I mean, I love the thing. It's super fun.
00:19:16
Speaker
That is amazing. I used to build RC cars and airplanes when I was in early high school, middle school. Super duper into it, especially the airplanes. Because I had a buddy whose dad was a pilot, so he got me into the whole flying thing. We built all kinds of airplanes, gliders. We had these ones called U-Control. And it's this little balsa plane with a hobby motor on the end, like a gas motor.
00:19:41
Speaker
that's tied to two strings with a handle on it. So like two strings parallel to the airplane. So you tilt back and the plane goes up and you tilt forward and the plane goes down and you just spin in a circle and the plane just goes around you. And that's called the U-Control plane. And we would dogfight. We would stand back to back and be in the circle and like go up and down and like ram into each other. That's great. That's awesome.
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah, so that was super fun. I never even thought about building RC stuff with the kids yet. They might get into that.
00:20:17
Speaker
Check out that thingy verse. I will. It also planted a horrible seed in my mind, which is if and not if, when we finish Johnny Five, it's like, oh my god, I want to build a formula one car. To be clear, this is me just living in fantasy land. It's like, holy cow, wait. We could build a billet. We can't actually. I'm sure there's technical things I'm not appreciating.
00:20:40
Speaker
turn the pistons and get piston rings and machine a block and you can buy the ECU and build the front suspension system. Is it crazy to think how capable you are now?
00:20:52
Speaker
Yeah, right. Your shop and your skill set, your team and everything. And it's like, where do you like I think about that with our shop, we have so many tools and so many great things. That's all running production. And for us to run a job shop is a giant pain in the butt because we're not really set up for it. We don't do it. So whenever we have to make a thing, it's it's a distraction. And it's weird because we have all this crazy equipment, we could make anything. But we're not set up to do quick turnaround kind of stuff, which sucks. Yeah, yeah. I'm totally fine with it. But it's it's funny.
00:21:22
Speaker
Especially when I need something made, I'm now seriously like, I just need to send that out to a friend who has the same type of equipment but is actually capable of busting it out quickly.
00:21:34
Speaker
It's like when you tour big factories, not machine shops, but big factories that have subtractive manufacturing. They have machining centers, if you will, there. There's no just three-axis vertical doing work. It's all custom or integrated type stuff. If you watch the grope tour, we showed the grope systems line in it. They have these assembly lines that do
00:22:00
Speaker
Like, one station will put a nut on. The next station is a five-axis spindle that happens to do one thing and then it switches on to the next one. It's like part of your brain just goes, what a waste. And then the other part of your brain goes, that's brilliant.
Proactive Maintenance Systems
00:22:14
Speaker
Oh, it's brilliant. It also goes back to the Brazilian fisherman thing. I like our size and what we do. Yeah, exactly.
00:22:25
Speaker
We also bought those new sock filters for our XAir. And Garrett, he does that on Mondays now. Each machine gets a rotation. But he's like, hey, the VF2 was idle. So I went ahead and started that this morning, which I'm like, this is awesome. This is the system working well. And I don't know what the takeaway was other than it was great to have that proactive maintenance really starting to happen.
00:22:54
Speaker
Yeah, so you don't have to think about it. You know it's getting done. You check it off in Lex. It just happens. Yeah, it's system. System's planning. It's big. What are you going to do? I've been teaching Angelo how to run the current. Oh, so that's awesome. Had it scheduled to do a 15-hour run last night, and it stopped after six and a half hours because I miscalculated a tool life. And I was like, oh, it sucks.
Training on Tool Replacement and Program Restarts
00:23:22
Speaker
So this morning I came in and taught him how to replace that tool, tell the machine that it's been replaced, have it touch off automatically, and also how to start in the middle of the program deep within like three subroutines in order to continue running. And it's actually fairly straightforward once you wrap your head around it.
00:23:43
Speaker
So Heidenhein's got that dialed once you get it, once you know, you know, like the run from here. Yeah, basically. Yeah. They call it block scan. Yep. Yeah. I think from memory, don't anybody do this without checking. It's setting 36 on a Haas and it allows run from here and it parses through your whole program applying all M codes, G codes, all that stuff. I don't know how it would handle like incremental things like a serial number. Does it take it up another one or not?
00:24:09
Speaker
It does take it up another. I found out so many hard ways. And there's a setting, a parameter in hide and hide that knows if block delete is on or not, or block scan is on. So just the other day, I implemented on all my serial numbers and on all my plus one counters a block scan check. So don't count up. Skip the count up if it's running block scan. Because I lost seven serial numbers on our blades.
00:24:39
Speaker
last week I lost one and everybody's like, where's, you know, 50, 35. I don't understand. And eventually I figured out, Oh, it's cause I ran block scan on the last blade. Um, so funny. That's great. But yeah, there's all these little hurdles and headaches and like, what, why am I losing serial numbers? Okay. Now, how do I fix it? Okay. Now where else do I have to fix it? Um, it's great though. Yeah.
Interest in Learning Programming and Coding
00:25:03
Speaker
I've been going through some post work, which if it all works out, I'll kind of turn this into a pretty cool video idea, but it makes me really, I would say miss.
00:25:15
Speaker
but I was never like a programmer, but I spent a lot of time writing Arduino code and some basic C stuff and well, not really basic C, but like C-like type stuff and messing around with Raspberry Pi and now the JavaScript stuff within post work. And like, I'm as beginner as it gets, but man, I love programming. I would like definitely go away to like a three-day programming camp if there was one to like learn more.
00:25:41
Speaker
I think there are some if you're 14, like high school programming camps. I'm going to read the fine print because I'm not too proud to do that if they'll take me. Yeah, exactly.
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, I had Claire and I came to the shop one night to fix a broken tool on the Kern. And it was late. It was almost midnight. And she's still rocking awake. And so we get to the shop. And on my computer screen is one of my G-code files, like a handwritten hundreds of lines of code that does the palette management that I came up with on the Kern. And she just looks at it. And it's in Visual Studio Code. So it's like the black background with the green and the blue text and everything. And she's just looking at it. And she's going.
00:26:22
Speaker
Do you know what this means? And I said, yeah, I wrote every single line. How? What? Like her brain was just so confused. And then I was actively testing it then too. It's like, oh, it's not doing this one thing. Okay, let's delete that line. Let's test it again. Oh, good work. Okay. So it's great that she got to kind of see that.
00:26:43
Speaker
I noticed something in Visual Studio Code, a total PSA, if anyone's not using it, Google NYC CNC Visual Studio Code. We have a whole video walking through how to set up. It's a must have. I'd never noticed this before, so perhaps it's new, but when you're editing a post processor, if you don't have the correct syntax, like you forget a semicolon or an end parentheses or something,
00:27:04
Speaker
It puts the file name in red or asterisk or something that demarcates like, hey, it ain't going to work, which saves you the time of going into Fusion, picking that file, reposting only to get the post error, telling you no bueno.
00:27:20
Speaker
It actually knows you have a syntax problem, bad spot. Yeah. I know that itself isn't new. They can debug or tell you stuff, but this just seemed a lot more... I just don't remember noticing the past because I'm a hack. I just break it down line by line, figure it out. You get if statements or conditional stuff where you've got
00:27:40
Speaker
seven open parens, they all have to get closed. Exactly. You end up goofing when you delete one and don't delete the tail paren. Exactly. You got to go through and count everyone. On, on, on, close, close, close. I haven't seen that red final name error, but I haven't edited posts in a while, most of just the G codes. Okay. I don't know if it would give it to you in a G code. I don't know. Hey, I really enjoyed your shop tour video. Okay.
00:28:05
Speaker
You inspired it. You probably take for granted how little any of us see and know about your new shot. Just step back level. I actually haven't seen the video yet, but I filmed it, so I was there. It was great.
00:28:23
Speaker
Wasn't a minute too long and made me get a much better feel for your shop. Did Fraser add any old footage, like garage clips? I know we talked about it. I don't remember if. It's just the new shop. Good to know. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I've had a lot of great feedback. Even my mom called and she was like, I watch a shop tour, so nice to see it.
00:28:44
Speaker
Is there a second floor in Eric's building? No, there's not. Okay, got it. Yeah, but there are a few front offices in the bathroom up front, just small reception area kind of thing. Yeah, and I forget, you have separate compressors? Yes, one in the shop. Okay, so you don't really share utilities? No.
00:29:05
Speaker
Yeah, we had an electrician come in because the Willamans coming in a week or a week and a half or so, which is super exciting. And first question is, where are we going to put it? Which side of the wall are we going to put it on? So we're like, OK, where's their power? So we had an electrician buddy come in and put a fluke power meter on our panel for a day and measure. And we're like, OK, let's get every machine running, every spindle starting at the same time.
00:29:30
Speaker
Let's do this on one wall. Yeah. Because we have 200 amps of service coming into the building and 100 goes to the current wall and 100 goes to the Maury wall. What voltage though? At 400 volts. So it's different than the states. Yeah. But it's a decent amount of power for us, like 200 amps.
00:29:52
Speaker
So he basically said, on the Maury side, you have enough for one more machine. So the Wilhelmin should be fine there. But on the current side, you are out of power. Really? Yeah. The current pulls like 63 amps, and we only have 80 or something on that wall. And you know that not from the data plate, but rather from the fluke reading? Yeah. I wonder how that handles if it's a spiked
00:30:16
Speaker
like a spike, temporary spikes, like I'm not an electrician, but the idea that the spindle turns on as all three axes immediately thrush their five in this place is that crazy scenario that's momentary. It's momentary, but would that pop a breaker maybe if you were out? So no. I mean, I'm not. Depends on how close you are. Think breakers are rated over
00:30:41
Speaker
All I know is we have found through anecdotal experience that even on our Haas machines that often seem to say like 60 or 70 amps, it seems to be 20% of that. Exactly. And that's why we have the guy come in and measure it. But there's also electrical codes where you can't overrate your system. For sure.
00:31:02
Speaker
Maybe even in your house, you shouldn't fake it like that. Totally. But still, yeah, that's why we had him come in and measure so that we could tell. And he's like, yeah, the Willeman will fit. But with all of your other machines, assuming they run at any time, you can't fit any more machinery in here without getting another 200 amps of service in, which is possible. But it's just a consideration for the future.
00:31:27
Speaker
Which means that that would have to happen for the next Swiss. Yeah, true. Yeah, any Swiss. If we ever get another, you know, three axes or five axes or something like anything. Because you if you could play, you know, snap your fingers and stuff happens, would you add the Swiss or would you swap it for the knock? Would you keep the knock? I think I'll keep the knock for now.
00:31:53
Speaker
We use it. It's got a great purpose for the things that we use it for. So I'd add another Swiss. Yeah. And then not too far away, consider adding a second current.
00:32:09
Speaker
Like in the thinking about it, right? Holy cow. Yeah. John, especially once I get this thing running the 24 hours a day that it needs to be running and I'm getting there. Yeah. Um, then it's just time. It's like, if we had another one, we double our production. Like, yeah. Holy cow. I mean, good for you. My, my typical response of, um, it's been a great 12 year run now.
00:32:38
Speaker
I mean, again, I continue to be effectively wrong on expecting there to be more pain. And it's a weird kind of funny scenario where it's like, wait, what happens when the stimulus works? And at least on the US side, there was no pain. There was no very little, there was oil and gas to soft and aerospace for sure has had some pain, but it's generally been darn good. Doesn't last forever. Yeah, exactly.
00:33:07
Speaker
But that's awesome. Yeah. But that's the kind of planning you have to think. If we want a lot more machines, we don't have the space for it. If we want more machines, we don't have the power for it. Do you have the space now? There's pockets of room. Would you add a current to share the same aroa? Because I don't know yet. You can. You can do that, right? You can.
00:33:35
Speaker
get another current without an aroa, get another current with an aroa. I haven't fully decided yet. In a perfect world, money and time is no object. I'd just get an identical setup, and then I'd have two separate machines. Yeah, two identical separate machines. That would be amazing. But there's practicality that comes into play with that decision. Sure, sure.
00:33:51
Speaker
When they share an aroa, they still have completely separate tool libraries. Tool changers. Tool changers. Yeah. So it's great. And for that matter, the 80 pallets that I have is way too much for my work. Oh. I could be happy with a third of that. But I'm OK with that. That's fine. Whatever. So point is, two machines could share that one aroa. Fine. Like, great. Yeah, yeah.
00:34:20
Speaker
So it's balance. You only have one spindle. It's that argument. You can only cut one piece of metal at a time with one spindle, no matter how many pallets there are.
00:34:31
Speaker
It's like in that Sandvik tour, they have all those Stama machines. They're five axis machines that are dual spindle, dual platters because it's like, hey, everything's just doubled. Yeah, exactly. The machine's not twice as expensive. It's a good question. Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure there are more, but there's also the footprint considerations in tooling and
Optimizing Costs with Shared Tools
00:34:53
Speaker
That's the thing I, again, when I was getting into this, didn't appreciate and I do now is, or more so is, whether it's an expensive tool or whether it's sister tools, like Hermla has that crazy, I think it's the HSFlex system where certain tools can be stored in the automation side of it, like basically in the pallet side. So whether you need extra sister tools that can be shared across three or four machines, which I mean, the lights, like that sounds amazing now if you start thinking about multiple
00:35:22
Speaker
machines that share sister tools like RockOn or there's whether it's a $4,000 boring head or a $20,000, not the U-drill. There's a name for the Y-drill or something where it can actually do drilling with live turning on the tip of it so it can contour as it's moving down through. What? Yeah, crazy stuff, right? That's crazy. I guess your point is you'd only need one of those and you could share it across a couple of machines.
00:35:49
Speaker
Right. That's crazy. Or too big to fit in the ATC so it goes out into the rack out there. Yeah, yep, yep. It's cool. Yeah, I think that's... I don't know if at Milterra they have it sharing tools, but he's definitely got four machines on a robot cell.
00:36:06
Speaker
Well, they had a small version of that before the last time I was up there at the old place, right? They have a bigger version of that now with a robot on a gantry roller thingy. And he said he has 288 pallets or something silly like that.
00:36:22
Speaker
All four turbos and I don't know other stuff too. Okay. Yep. Interesting. That's really cool. We had a fun win of turning some of our diamond pins, the quarter 20s. So we switched the insert because the half 13, we use a topping insert. So it only cuts that thread profile. But when we switched to take the quarter 20s, we just use a standard turning insert.
00:36:48
Speaker
They looked fine, they felt fine, they gauged fine, all was well, and I grabbed the microscope to look at it, and I'm just like, oh, vomit. No. There was all this, I would call, micro tearing when you really looked up close at it, and you can't see it with a naked eye. After you've seen it with a microscope- You can't unsee it. Oh, for sure.
00:37:13
Speaker
And look, I'll be honest, I worked, I kind of had two thoughts. One is like, well, who cares? The part looks great, it functions great. And then I'm like, no, let's fix this because there's no, even if it's for the tool life's sake of long-term thread quality, consistency, and tolerance, it doesn't look right. It's not cutting the correct way. And sure enough,
00:37:36
Speaker
I actually didn't even get involved. I just, we were talking to Grant about it and I was like, well, take a look, take a stab at fixing that. And he ended up tweaking. In that case, I think he increased the surface feet. I think on, we had similar, what led to us using the microscope was looking at the finishing quality, which, you know, if you get a good enough microscope, any finishing pass is effectively small threads. And we ended up increasing the,
00:38:02
Speaker
amount of stock to leave on the roughing to let the finishing insert cut a little bit more material off and it helped a lot. Nice. Nice. We on our Swiss lathe finally got to test out that Seco head changeable tool. Yeah. Like I said, I bought the wrong hand at first had to get the new one in and then
00:38:22
Speaker
We assumed it would use the regular V-inserts, but it doesn't use a thinner V-insert. So not eighth inch thick, like normal, like all of the ones I've ever bought. But they're like a 332nd thick, special. They're really expensive, too. They're like almost $40 per insert, not $10. We didn't realize that. We're just like, buy these ones. But Pierre got it all set up. He got it all plumbed up with the 2,000 PSI through oil. And he says he really likes it. It's great. Huh.
00:38:49
Speaker
So it seems to be working great. He showed me a couple of the parts that he's made. He's made quite a lot of parts since installing it, but a couple of them did have some vibration on the face and I don't know if that's just speeds and feeds or if that's the tool itself. But I need to make sure that he keeps an eye on that because I don't want that. But the numbers side of that equation may not make sense.
00:39:13
Speaker
In what sense? $40. I mean, you wear it with tools. The turning insert lasts for quite a long time. But yeah, it's a consideration for sure. And the tool itself was almost $1,000. But you only need the one for your main turning tool.
00:39:29
Speaker
It's an investment. So yeah, it's that
Benefits of Quick Change Tools
00:39:32
Speaker
game. But now switching out an insert doesn't involve taking out the whole holder and putting it back in and indicating it again. And just the head comes off and it repeats perfectly. And you might be tweaking a few tenths on the next part. That is awesome. But yeah, so the quick changeover. It's like investing in capital. It's like a lot of money. And Angelo brought it up again yesterday. He's like, we should really get at least two capital holders for the Nakamura. And I was like, yeah, I'm in.
00:39:57
Speaker
Let's do it. Yes. That's been front and center. Gosh, I hate the word efficiency and I hate the word lean because I kind of shut down when I hear other people talk about it because it's one of those LinkedIn words that is just overused. Whether it's just tools that let us be smarter and not spend time doing
00:40:20
Speaker
And we're dealing with how we ship plates right now of custom crates, which have a longer lead time, especially with lumber prices just getting to be prohibitively expensive. And they're not adding a long-term value because they're generally not something that's going to be kept or reused by the end customer. So don't invest in that beyond what's needed. But more so than just that, what's that workflow look like of where they're stored, how the plate comes off, how it gets lifted into the crate, how the accessories get packed, boring stuff to some.
00:40:49
Speaker
It's totally fascinating to me to figure out what's a workflow that you just see it and you're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, exactly. And then you have a system that works and then you don't think about it again, you're onto other challenges.
00:41:01
Speaker
Yeah. But I'm at that point now where we've made a couple of good improvements. We don't want to... We don't have a way of easily doing shrink wrap or like the... What do you call the saran wrap around pallets? Because you got to lift the pallet up and it just... Have you ever been to a Uline store, like the factory?
00:41:21
Speaker
No, but I've seen the pallet wrapper machines. We've got a U-line close by. Years ago, I went and picked something up, and I saw one of those pallet shrink wrapper machines. It's got a built-in weigh scale on it. You put the pallet on, and it just spins it around, and this big roll of shrink wrap goes around it.
00:41:41
Speaker
part of my brain goes, what a waste of shrink craft. And the other part goes, that's awesome. Yeah, right. But just what are the right ways so that we, um, I'm actually going, I met a guy yesterday in town who has a, um, power, like a shipping company. He was, it's a great example of like, uh, off sources, like get somebody else who does this more to help you figure out solutions. Um, got to know him picking up some stuff from him. Cause then it's like later here, we've got the DeWalt, um,
00:42:07
Speaker
I think we may have talked about this, the cordless automatic feed screw gun. So you just go zip, zip, zip, zip. The screws are in a belt-fed. No, you haven't talked about that. Oh, I'll throw this up on Instagram. Yeah, yeah. Dude, win. It's like a framing. OK. It's a special machine gun. Bingo. Technically, you have to pull the trigger each time. So it's a semi-auto. OK, fine. But yeah, it holds strips of like 50 screws on a little plastic.
00:42:36
Speaker
Carrier and like a nail gun does. Sorry, exactly. Okay. Yes. Yeah, it's great. So like when we get a plate, we bring it over, we drop it down, which really we need to get an A-frame with an electric hoist to do that more efficiently. Lower it into the crate. What's the protective stuff? Is it foam? Is it VCI paper? Is it a combination of it? How does it get blocked in? Stringers go on there, zip, zip, zip, zip, screw down, build, laying on there. The printer's right there for that.
00:43:01
Speaker
We're even thinking about taking a picture of each shipment, but I'm not sure what that really accomplishes for us. I can see the desire to do that.
Securing Shipments Effectively
00:43:13
Speaker
You get the corroboration. You're like, this is what it looked like when it left. And the customer is like, well, this is what it looked like when it came. It could be beneficial, but you weigh that, right? Well, this morning with that lost shipment, we didn't not include all that stuff. That's just not a mistake that we would make these days. But can you prove that?
00:43:33
Speaker
Well, so the question is how does it matter? If the customer is not double dipping to get free stuff here. So what's going to happen is we're sending the customer out the stuff first thing right away now. So that's a good point. And then YRC is the carrier. In this case, they don't need a picture because they're not, it's not an argument over what happened. It's just question whether we get it turned up. So anyway. And at the end of the day, I mean, these are what, one in a hundred problems?
00:44:00
Speaker
Oh, yeah, not even. Right? Not even. So it's like, do you dig into it and try to figure out how to avoid that completely forever and maybe that's worth it? Or do you just go, it's a cost to do in business. Like this stuff's going to happen. Where are you going to lose packages?
00:44:16
Speaker
Yeah, and assuming that it did somehow come off, that's on us to make sure we're doing the right thing on securing stuff. Anyway, well, we're almost, I guess, out of this informal time limit. What do you have to say? Exactly. I don't know. Now is usually when I spend that time, like you said, to sit back and go, okay, what am I doing today? Plan of the day. Yeah, exactly. It is valuable. I found super value in doing that. Otherwise, you just kind of pulled in every direction, and I like to push myself in specific directions.
00:44:44
Speaker
while also letting the shop pull me around as I need to be. But if I give myself specific direction, then I make sure I get stuff done. That's a good point. I'll see you next week. Sound good? Sounds good, bud. Take care. OK, take care. Bye.