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Business of Machining - Episode 16
266 Plays8 years ago
It's tradeshow time! On the same day, Grimsmo attends Elliot-Matsura Joint Open House while Saunders attends the Precision Machining Technology Show. As business owners, they always have to be on the look out for better products. Sometimes it's difficult to avoid getting sucked into the almighty sales pitch. Saunders contemplates a new addition to the shop while taking care of some much needed decluttering before the Open House. Grimsmo finds a new use for Kaizen Foam, goes against strict orders against making spindle liners for his lathe and can finally see light at the end of the tunnel for Rask knife production.
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Transcript
Introduction and Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome, everybody, to the Business of Machining, Episode 16. My name is John Grimsmo. My name is John Saunders. And how you doing, buddy? Great. Great. It's Friday. Yeah, I can't believe it's been a very fast week.
00:00:17
Speaker
That is the way to pace the week. It is crazy in a great way. What'd you get into?
Machine Tool Show Experience
00:00:24
Speaker
A lot of stuff. Big event was on Tuesday. I went to a big machine tool show. One that I've been going to for six or seven years now. This is like my benchmark every year because I've been going since I had my mini mill.
00:00:42
Speaker
since I was, you know, just getting into CNC machining. And I'd go to these shows and see all these million dollar machines and I'd feel like both a kid in a candy store and like a kid who doesn't belong in this candy store. Right, very much an outsider. Exactly. You know, so I'd ask people questions and they're like, oh, where do you work or what kind of stuff do you have? And I'm like, well, I've got this little tiny, you know, toy machine basically, which I was proud of, but I didn't want to like,
00:01:07
Speaker
You know, it's funny. But now I go to these events and people know me there, both through YouTube. I had several people come up to me and say they listen to the podcast and love it. You're serious? Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. And I met a guy from Vancouver who was out just there to look at the Brother Machine, the Speedio. And he's like, yeah, I've been watching you on YouTube for years. Such a big inspiration. He knows Amish.
00:01:31
Speaker
That's crazy, he flew out from British Columbia to Toronto for a show? Yep, just to be able to see a brother machine because he's thinking about buying one and putting it in his garage at home.
00:01:40
Speaker
It's funny, I think not to change the subject, but I take that for granted that you and I live in the Western, Northern America, where we have so many opportunities here. It's such a great place to be, in my opinion. We take for granted that we have these tooling shows and distributors and access to equipment. And heck, people that email us from Denmark are like, I just wish we had a McMaster car. Oh my god. It's things that we take for granted, exactly. Man.
00:02:08
Speaker
Sorry, you were saying?
Strategic Growth Decisions
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, so the show was phenomenal. My wife said I'm not allowed to buy a machine this year, which is totally fine. Yep. Because literally the past two years, this show has sold me on two new machines. Was it really a year ago that you were looking at the lathe? Yep. Oh my gosh. Yeah, they've got the baby version of the same lathe, the non-subspindle lathe in the showroom. So I saw that and I opened my eyes to Nakamura. And then a few months later, I got this one.
00:02:38
Speaker
that's bananas yeah yeah so this year i went you know open mind um
00:02:45
Speaker
And honestly, I can say there's nothing I needed at this show. You know, you see something, you're like, I need that in my life. I went there to talk to tooling reps, to talk to smart people, applications engineers, and learn as much information about what I need to do as I possibly can. So it was really good. I talked a lot with the Renishaw guys, got a lot more friendly with them, which was great.
00:03:09
Speaker
and talked to a bunch of the application guys from DMG Morrie and Elliot and just asking like super technical questions like how do I do this? How do I set up multiple fixtures and have the code like figure itself out? And how do I optimize machine time? Not reduce cycle time but like keep up time, you know?
Trade Show Insights
00:03:30
Speaker
It's funny because, so this is the weirdest coincidence ever because I also went to a trade show on Tuesday and I also was actually talking to the Renishaw guys and it's fun because to call it a spade a spade, a lot of these guys are bored of their minds at these trade shows because it's just a dog and pony show and sometimes it's boring and it's a weird mix of people. You know, there were so many people there that for a little bit surprising just seemed to say, hey, boss told us to come today. We're just here kind of having fun. And I'm like, I'm trying to get as much as I can out of it.
00:03:59
Speaker
So when you walk up to a Renishaw guy and you're like, hey, could you help me understand, you know, why this probing routine, blah, blah, blah, they are, this is their language. This is what makes them tick. Right. It's great. Yep. That's awesome. Yeah. It's funny. So what show was yours? It was called the Elliott Matsura Joint Open House.
00:04:19
Speaker
Okay, so it's the dealer that you bought your Metnakomura through. Yes. And they've organized this event for 12 years now. And they get a bunch of the local reps, DMG Mori, the Doosan dealer and the Okuma dealer to open the doors as well. So there's Limbo Shuttle goes around to everybody and it's a pretty sweet event.
00:04:40
Speaker
Because I saw your photo with the DMG, but I thought, Elliot doesn't sell DMGs. That's what threw me. Yeah, so I got to go to all the events, which was awesome. And if I go to all four events, then I get entered to win a $10,000 Sandvik tooling certificate. Holy cow. If I win. Wow. And also, I get eight hours of free service on one of my machines.
00:04:58
Speaker
That's incredible. So I got that last year. And I had the guy come in and just tune up my Maury. And he's like, there's nothing wrong with it. Have you even turned this thing on? Have you used it? Yeah, that's funny. That's awesome. That's really funny. Yeah, how was your show?
00:05:11
Speaker
You know, I sort of regret not being a little bit more focused before the show. We're just super busy getting ready for the open house and rolling out some products, and that's fine. I had a little bit of an idea of what I wanted to get out of it, but I've got to say,
00:05:34
Speaker
You know, even IMTS I went to with more of a let's learn but have fun attitude and that's kind of now changed to this is a resource. It's a very finite amount of time. It's very valuable for me to have all these people in the facilities and machines in one place. Yeah. And I actually now have such a different amount of respect and attitude toward, hey, I'm going to go here and I'm going to get this kind of these two different types. There's the.
00:06:01
Speaker
I want to digest this specific things from these people, which I want to do, but then, and you know, I'm kind of, I hate to say it, but I'm kind of a closed-minded person in a bad way sometimes where I'm like, I don't want to say I have this know-it-all attitude, but I'm not open enough to just walking up to a booth and saying, hey, you know,
00:06:19
Speaker
What do you guys do and help me understand it? Partly because we all, I hate getting sucked in in that awkward feeling when you're basically like, okay, that actually isn't interesting. My time is valuable in this four hours I've got left at the show. So thank you, I'm moving on. But like,
00:06:35
Speaker
At the end of the show at 4.40, I saw this booth, like, measure hall or something. And I was like, oh, I had a couple metrology questions that I couldn't get figured out that I'd really wanted to. And so I just walked up to this guy and I introduced him. And I think he kind of sized me up. I was wearing a t-shirt. And I'm young. And I think he kind of sized me up, not sure. And then I asked my question. And he was like, OK, we're going to talk. And we had this great conversation.
00:07:03
Speaker
stayed till the point where I was helping him put the tarps over his equipment to walking out of the show together. Awesome. So it's good. Yeah. That's awesome. So I actually,
Machine Acquisition Strategy
00:07:16
Speaker
um, I actually am looking at a machine. Oh.
00:07:20
Speaker
So this is the debate. There's three easy options for me to go here. I'm just going to lay it out. A VF2, so that's a 16-inch Y by 30-inch X machine, Hazza's number one selling machine, I think.
00:07:40
Speaker
a larger version of that, like a VF4, maybe $15,000, $18,000 more, significant more X and a little bit more Y travel, or switch it up and get the Akuma
00:07:58
Speaker
that I actually was debating between with the VM3 and I absolutely love the VM3. The short answer of the pitch on going with something like an Okuma or heck an OKK or a DMG would be as we start to do more videos where we show people how to use different machines, compare different machines, that's really interesting and fun. But I guess, and there's this idea of are you going to be even further impressed with that?
00:08:23
Speaker
build quality and I'm starting to appreciate the controllers and as much as it would be a huge problem and really a break in my philosophy to move to a different controller, I'm starting to realize how important they are. Well, so I actually kind of sort of think I've made up my mind. Have I given you enough information for you to tell me your thoughts? I actually saw the Okuma 560.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yes. The Genos. I saw one of those the other day at the show and the guy was running it cutting these steel parts and that machine rips. It reads code faster than my Mori does. Wow. My Mori will slow down. That's because your Mori is a fan.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Well, it's true. No, because I don't have the high speed accuracy option, which costs thousands of dollars, where it has more look ahead in the code. So if I tried a machine like, I don't know, something where the end mill has to move fast, but in a tight corner and move around a lot, the machine slows down.
00:09:29
Speaker
Don't you have a, it's a G187 on a Hodge, but you have those sort of smoothing accuracy parameters where you can allow it to round? And I've played with it, and it's possible to get it faster, but not to the point that I saw the Okuma do, and I've heard people, they're like machining at a thousand inches per minute, and it doesn't slow down. My machine has to ramp up and accelerate and decelerate to do that. It's pretty impressive.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it's got 32 tools on the... Yep, yep. It's like a side carousel. So, I mean, it comes down to a cost slash usability scenario. Like, I don't think that will be your last machine. You're probably going to get another one at some point. Right. Which is why I'm not going to get it, to be honest. Yeah.
00:10:24
Speaker
I think it's smarter to I've learned so much. I've learned so much. And to me, the simple answer is buy a machine to do a task. I bought the VM3 and I absolutely love it because I thought I was going to have to have that machine for two years as my only machine. And we've now banked enough money to almost buy a VF2 after six months off of just the work on that machine, which makes me so excited. Wow.
00:10:51
Speaker
So, but that's also my pitch to people is like, if you front load it and you stay out of debt, then that's what makes this snowball effect. So.
00:11:03
Speaker
I have specific stuff that I need to do that isn't as big. It's not as universal. I don't need this monstrous machine. It's more expensive to tool up and so forth. The only reason I was thinking, oh, VF4 or even the bigger format would be this attractive idea of being able to load more on it, say, before the end of the day and have it run somewhat overnight.
00:11:27
Speaker
What I've learned, and a lot of this goes back to Pearson, and I actually talked to Jay yesterday, it was a great conversation, is spend less money on a machine that does what it needs to do very well. It has to do absolutely well, and you're better off having more machines that are able to be focused. For instance, while I don't regret what I did, I do think every once in a while about,
00:11:49
Speaker
Instead of the VM3 loaded up, would I rather have had a VF2 and a drill tap one or something like that? Like the two machines, yeah. Right. And so I think what I'd rather do is buy a VF2, crush it over the next two years, and then be able to afford it. Because the funny thing is about the Genos is that's still there.
00:12:11
Speaker
like lower end competition with Haas line that was, and I think it is a better machine, I don't really have a problem saying that, it's more money. But it's also their Taiwanese line that has less options and it's weird because I'm not trying to degrade the machine, but if you're gonna, if money's no object, that's not the machine you buy. It was funny, I asked the applications guy running the Genos machine and I said, so air through the spindle is an option, right? And he goes, no.
00:12:39
Speaker
It's standard. And then we laughed. It's funny. I was like, yeah, that was awesome. It's all fun, but it's like...
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think getting a small machine that does specific stuff, and I'm feeling it right now. It's all about productivity, and I can have two people running, or I can have one person, whether it's me or Jared or Noah, running both those machines easily. It would be
Software and Tooling Efficiency
00:13:07
Speaker
great. Yeah, the continuity between the two machines would be excellent for all three of you guys and whoever else comes on. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
00:13:18
Speaker
Fusion needs to build machine profiles into CAM because even us now, we're switching between machines that have different travel, different rapid rates, different tool libraries, different materials. When I open up a CAM and I hit post,
00:13:36
Speaker
It doesn't remember, I don't think, which post. It uses whatever post you last used in Fusion, regardless of what machine you're on. And that's unacceptable. And if you think about, I've noticed, too, that our simulation times are wrong, because the rapids are different for different machines, and there's no way to save that. Yeah, you could have a machine. Like on G-Wizard, they have machine profiles. Sure. Yeah, there could be a little dropdown for that.
00:14:04
Speaker
That could work because I only have one mill and one lathe and yes each one has a different post but they're different enough that I like if I'm making the lathe part and I accidentally post with the mill post it won't even sure it won't even make code yeah so as opposed to you who already has like 17 spindles in your shop
00:14:24
Speaker
Even on our Haas, I have three different posts. The base factory one, I have one that does G68 a little bit differently that lets me use manual NC to control where I put it in and out, which is when we modified.
00:14:43
Speaker
that does a reduced rapid plane when you're doing multiple offsets. Because right now, if you do a component pattern in cam to do multiple offsets, G54, 55, the spindle moves all the way to the home position, the Z, before it goes over. So I have a post that only comes up like five or six inches, which is actually really scary because if you ever loaded a tool in that's too long, it would crash it. So it's a little bit risky, but it's good when you've got a job proven out. And then I have a fifth Ask Us post. Hmm. Yeah, I guess so.
00:15:14
Speaker
Have you ever played with your fifth axis yet? Had it on once and it was awesome and humbling. And I realized that fifth axis can is unfortunately not an extension of three axis cam. It's like a whole new thing. And then I had to take it off because we had parts to run, which is a bummer, which is one reason why I kind of want to also get, well, it's not, that does not justify the other machine, but I did buy that. I didn't buy it to sit there. You know, you could put that fifth axis on a VF two.
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think I would be able to justify buying the hardware stuff. Yeah, I can't. There's too much money. I have to be focused on this. Yeah, that makes sense. So what else did you get up to this week?
00:15:56
Speaker
We did a lot of cleaning and prepping for the open house, which is exciting. It's going well. I got to say purging and kind of letting go is such a good feeling. It's hard, but we've accumulated little things and tools and scrap and all that. And, you know,
00:16:16
Speaker
I just, I can't emphasize it enough, that stuff doesn't make you happy and being a, even a light hoarder is not a good thing. So whether you sell it, whether you give it away, whether you recycle it, it's actually been really refreshing to clean up the shop like that. Yeah, you've got a big shop and a lot of corners to hide stuff.
00:16:33
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Right. It's so easy to think, um, like we turned some custom screws for a, for a job shop job. And they were pretty tricky to make because they had some funky threads and on them and they had heck broached hex heads and all that. And then, uh, we're done. We're not going to rerun the job. Uh, and I was like, we should just recycle these. Like it's so weird because you put time and everything you'd like to think, Oh, I could repurpose those later. Nope. Gone. Yep. Makes sense. Hmm.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yesterday, I brought a piece of Kaizen foam home. Yeah. Because I was noticing that the kids always lose their scissors, and they always want their scissors to do craft projects and all kinds of stuff. So I'm like, let's make some foam for your scissors. And my wife thought it was hilarious. And the kids were totally into it. So now Claire has got her own Kaizen foam. That's great. I had her gather up all the tools that she needs often.
00:17:32
Speaker
So she got her scissors, her scrunchie, her ninja notepad, a pencil, and some other stuff, and we laid it all out and it was awesome. Kids are probably better at that than we are because they're less prejudiced with what they think they need. They know what they, you know what I mean? Yep. And that's why we gotta teach them young. How often? Where do you, would they put it like a drawer or just out? It's just kind of roaming right now. That's awesome. So I'm not sure where it's gonna sit, but we started. That's good.
00:18:01
Speaker
Do you ever use those Kaizen Edge things? No. The little corners. I mean, you could do it with tape just to start.
00:18:11
Speaker
Well, it looked like the ones that Jay Pearson had were a little bit, they were like a plastic binder thing that pushed over the two sides. And what looked nice about it is that meant you could pick up a say 24 inch square sheet of Kaizen foam that has a bunch of tools on it. You could pick it up and it's not going to sag. Oh, that's what you mean. Um, no, I've never tried those. That looks pretty awesome. And then you can also attach that to the wall or to be supply ward or something. I guess I hadn't thought about that. I think I saw a fast cap video about that.
00:18:41
Speaker
I got to watch some of those because I like that idea of as we were now moving into, we're doing a better job now of, again, kind of in tandem with getting ready for the open house of labeling our inventory and our parts and our tools, our materials. So it's like, if we're going to do this product, I want to pull out a sheet of Kaizen foam that has the micrometer, the QC sheets, you know, all that stuff on it. And then we're good to, we can sit down on a bench and then when we're done, we just slide that back into the rack.
00:19:10
Speaker
Yep. This whole concept of making work easy, making all these jobs easy and straightforward and laid out so you don't have to use all this mental energy. Like, how did I do it last time? And what are the tricks that I learned? Right. Yeah, we're really trying to apply that a lot here. Kind of not to dumb everything down, like that's one way to say it, but it's just simplify, streamline, error proof, everything. Because
00:19:36
Speaker
It's like making knives. We've got five, six years invested into the process of making knives. And I want it to be easy at this point. Like, we've learned all the mistakes. We just keep forgetting them.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's unacceptable. That's what you got to do. How are the machines running this week? Pretty great. Yeah, I had the lathe busting out. Wait, wait. No, I saw a picture of an end mill that did not run so well. Oh, yes. That is very true. Do tell.
Personal Projects and Mishaps
00:20:07
Speaker
That brings up a story. Actually, in that post, a couple of people commented. They're like, I can't wait to hear the podcast about this.
00:20:13
Speaker
Oh, that's funny. Isn't that weird? People come up to me at the trade show, a couple of people have mentioned that they're like, oh yeah, it's like a casual, like, of course we listen to the podcast. And I'm like, really? You and I are still surprised by this fact. So I did something that you told me not to do, but I did it anyway. What? I made spindle liners for my lathe myself.
00:20:42
Speaker
Stop! I did, I had the material already, and I didn't want to spend the money. And at the end, I...
00:20:50
Speaker
I don't regret it, but I should have bought the spindle liners even before buying the material for these ones. So it's like the same lesson learned again. It's one of my habits is thinking it'll be easier to do it myself. And anyway, they turned out awesome, but they of course took more time than was worth.
00:21:13
Speaker
the savings of having bought them. But yeah, so I had this chunk of 3-inch diameter aluminum in the mill, and I faced it with that end mill, and then I profiled around it to remove a bunch of material. And I knew that there were just enough flutes to profile around it, except the facing pass didn't clear off everything from the top. So there were these little islands at the top corners that were 50 thou high or something like that, which did not clear the flutes.
00:21:42
Speaker
So the end mill makes it halfway around the part and then hits those islands and starts burning and rubbing this aluminum. 50,000 of material did that. That end mill was pretty gnarly. Yeah, because there was no more flute left.
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah, still, I would be surprised it didn't just push it away. No, what happened was as it hit that first island and it started rubbing, you can see as you look around the part that basically the aluminum is melting its way down the end mill. And it just keeps going down and down. That's hilarious. It's like drawing itself down. It's what we call flow machining. Yeah, exactly. I had a lot of friction welding comments. That's funny. Not funny.
00:22:23
Speaker
But surprisingly, I was able to save the part, and I just machined it again with the new end mill, and it was fine. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. And the machine's obviously fine. The machine's totally fine. End mill, if I'm able to unclog the flutes, some people said drain cleaner can eat out the aluminum without hitting the carbide. Oh, god. So a quarter of a 10 mil? Three-eighths of a 10 mil. But it's already in my carbide bucket. Right.
00:22:49
Speaker
The build up edge is, we have a little, it's actually a wire cutter for electronics that I find works really well. You can actually kind of grab the aluminum that's been chip welded and kind of pull it out. And we'll keep them as scrap end mills, but they're never going to cut quite the same because my understanding is once you've got micro build up on those edges, it's a downward spiral.
00:23:12
Speaker
We post on Instagram our Sandvik through spindle drill that's like our baby is approaching the end of its useful life in the best way possible. So I'm debating on do I proactively change it out or do I let it blow up because I don't know. What do you think? I personally would keep an eye on it. I'd take my loop and I'd look at the edge and I'd
00:23:40
Speaker
keep an eye on how it's wearing. Right. Do you use a loop at all? Yes. I've got the same 45X loop that you have. Okay. Yeah. I use mine daily. Yeah. Yep. They are the must have.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a $4 thing on Amazon. I'm like, it's not because it's not, I mean, if the drill blows up, it very well could damage the part, but it's not a sure bet. It's not like a tap where it's almost certainly going to get stuck in the part and the workpiece material isn't that expensive. Um, but I don't know if it's going to make sense to, it's the bootstrapper of me. It's the John Grimshaw who wants to make the spindle liners, you know, like, uh,
00:24:25
Speaker
The drills are about $200. I buy them with my 50% tooling credit that I still have a few bucks left on from buying the machine. So it's a $100 drill that's probably just crossed 20,000 holes, which is normal. So actually, maybe more than that. Wow. So I mean, you could say at this point, it doesn't owe you anything. Correct. The drill has met all expectations. Right.
00:24:50
Speaker
And frankly, I think I can get more light out of it, but I wanted to push it harder, because guess what? We have a capacity problem, which is, because I'm only one machine, I'm even more focused on cycle time, and drilling happens to be a big cycle time eater for us. So we are now pushing that tool at 1,200 surface feet, and I think it's 36 thou per rev, which ends up being almost 340 inches a minute.
00:25:20
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. And steel or aluminum? No, just aluminum. Yeah. Steel way slower. Is it the only one you have?
00:25:29
Speaker
The drill? Yeah. Only different sizes, but I have a second one, an extra one coming today. Okay. I was just going to say like, like you need to order that second one and either start using the second one now and keep the first one as a backup. That's true. Um, or wait till this one destroys itself and then you have the backup. Like as you already did, you already ordered it.
00:25:50
Speaker
No, I'm starting to do that and keep certain tools like that, I just need to keep them on hand. Because if I'm gonna sit here and complain about cycle time, then you can't be so stingy just to not have, you could be down a day or you could be forced to go through a three hour setup to switch jobs because you break a tool. Yeah, because saving 12 seconds in cycle time is not worth, or it's all that different than like three days of shipping time to get the new end mill. Yeah, it's actually pretty nice. The Sandvik tools come, it's like McMaster, I can order them at 4.45 and they're here the next morning.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah, we live in a great world. Yeah, absolutely. I do that with lakeshore carbide end mills, too. Except shipping across the border, I pay a significant amount in duty. But they come next morning. So it's like so frustrating, though, because they're so close to you. I know. They're probably a 45-minute drive away each way. Ben, I was talking to Ben Benz. He made a really good point. Actually, that's not his name. Benjamin, I won't say his last name.
00:26:45
Speaker
I have never had luck with lakeshore carbide 3-flute aluminum end mills. You've mentioned that before and that's actually what I clogged with this aluminum part the other day. Really? But I've had good success with them.
00:27:00
Speaker
Oh, okay. Because Ben was like, did you tell Carl? And I was like, no, because I guess I just assumed it was me. And he's like, well, you should, because it could be a bad batch. And it kind of occurred to me, like, it's a process that is prone to error. It could be, could be a bad batch of carbide material, which I'm sure in the history of carbide tooling, somehow a batch of carbide has gotten screwed up somehow, or it could be the grinding machine error. It could be the wheel dress error.
00:27:28
Speaker
And he mentioned an example of somebody that had bought a bunch of end mills from, I think Acupro's from MSC and they all stunk and MSC replaced them and they were all fine. Same recipe, same everything. Interesting. That's never my go-to thought that the tooling from a branded, proven company would be bad or mistaken. Right. Yeah, you think there's enough safety precautions in place to not have that problem?
00:27:57
Speaker
But all machines have air, all machines have problems, all things happen, period. I think either way, Carl appreciates knowing, certainly dissatisfied products, knowing about it.
00:28:13
Speaker
I guess I feel like I wanted to really put up a test because I think when I was having problems that I was either slotting or doing something where it was adaptive in a slot wider than the tool, but it was still basically a chip evacuation problem. And those tools are, you know, that's easy to do.
00:28:31
Speaker
Mm-hmm, although they are kind of designed like they have the polished flutes and the super sharp angles The only thing I'm dissatisfied with them is I have the ones the rougher finisher with the little gashes in the side of the flutes Yeah, and I feel that they leave a terrible finish because of those gashes Huh what is called a rougher finisher, right? But it's not it's not finishing, you know, it might as well be a rougher you're saying, right?
00:28:55
Speaker
Just because I can see streaks around the outside of the part, like where the gash marks are. Right.
00:29:03
Speaker
Didn't you try, was it the Imco or Destiny that has that hybrid rougher finisher and you said it's Primo? I bought, not for aluminum, but for steel and stainless. Is that what it is? Destiny has their six flute. It's like three of the flutes are roughing and three of the flutes are finishing. And I bought several of them and I didn't like them at all.
00:29:27
Speaker
Serious? Yep. Oh. Running the same exact job on my stainless blades to rough them out. They, what did they do?
00:29:36
Speaker
They didn't chatter but they left a significantly worse finish than the Lakeshore 5 Flute that I'm using with the same feeds and speeds and they wore out a lot quicker because I think it's a sharper tool. They wore out significantly faster so I went back to the Lakeshore 5 Flute that I love, the variable ones.
00:29:57
Speaker
It's funny, when I was talking to Ben, I thought, am I making a mistake? I like Carl and I love Lake Shore, but it's that way with everything. Whether it's measuring tools or machines or tooling, at what point should you get out and dance with somebody else and see what else is out there?
00:30:17
Speaker
But forget about brand loyalty, just from a business standpoint. What's that point in time where it makes sense to explore the new stuff and what's out there to other people versus, hey, you've got something great, you love it. What I like about Carl is the price is a good price for the performance. I think it's a phenomenal mix. We actually did get some EMCOs, IMCOs in that I'm gonna test in some 41.40 that I'm excited to see how they do. Yeah, I think it's our job.
00:30:44
Speaker
as business owners to try whatever we see that's best. Like I'm always looking for new inserts for the lathe and for I don't look too hard for new end mills except for like very specific jobs. Because if there's better technology out there we need to know about it.
00:31:02
Speaker
I guess if you told me to try something or somebody, I'm sure some of our machinist friends told me to try something, there's a 90% chance I'm going to try it. But when I'm at a trade show and somebody tries to tell me that they have an advancement or technology or something interesting, I assume with 98% and maybe this makes me a, I don't know, maybe it's a character flaw.
00:31:24
Speaker
I assume basically that they're full of it. And I will almost never try that because you're just there with one motive in mind. When John Grimso tells me to try it, he's helping me when they're trying. And they're telling me they're just trying to sell their product. Right. So how do we actually find new products to try without believing that stuff? Yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker
What are you into today? Today, I got so much shipping to do. Good for you. That's awesome. Dude, we have nearing 50 knives finished in the drawer. What? So before they go out, I'm going to do a YouTube video. Good grief, ship. Yeah. Do you only ship on Fridays? No, we were out of cases for a long time, and the cases took forever
Production Milestones
00:32:12
Speaker
to come in. Ah. Got it. Like way too long.
00:32:16
Speaker
That's frustrating. Yeah, so I don't think we'll be using that case supplier anymore. Ooh, that reminds me too. I've been going through a pretty dramatic learning and frustration experience with some custom packaging, which I'm going to save it for once we get through it all and figure out where we go. But boy, that's a lot of good lessons learned there. Interesting, yeah. That'll be good content.
00:32:42
Speaker
So sorry, so you're shipping, that's great. Yeah, shipping lots of stuff. That's the best. Do a YouTube video of it too, because it's like how often do we have 50 knives sitting there? All different colors, all different sizes and like patterns and steels and stuff, so. Are those all rasks? All rasks. Dude, cutting down that, pounding through that list. Yeah, that list, that order list, which has been weighing over our heads for way too long now, it's going to be cleared up in a month, maybe two months.
00:33:09
Speaker
Good for you. Oh, that is awesome. Yeah, I'm so excited. Dude, you are, I'm crushing. I'm gonna be able to actually breathe at the end of that. Right, right, right. Good for you. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, good. Well, how about you go ship stuff and I'm gonna go, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Balancing Business Operations
00:33:29
Speaker
Actually, I got a list of, I feel like I'm always doing, I was telling you this the other day, like, I,
00:33:37
Speaker
I would love to have another person, but gotta grow slow, gotta keep it controlled. Everyone who wants to be an entrepreneur until you realize a lot of it means on my to-do list, I'm gonna go scrub a floor because my employees are doing what they're really good at, which is things like running machines and measuring, and I pick up all the slack, whether it's trying to do something high-end or whether it's taking out the trash.
00:34:01
Speaker
Yeah. You're also setting an example and a culture for your people. Um, if they see you cleaning and like scraping tape off the floor, you know, they're more likely to do it as well as I don't even mind doing it. I just mind the lack of time to do it all. Darn it. I totally agree. I would, I would love to have another person and may I'm in good time and do time maybe. Cool. Awesome. You have an awesome day. I'll see you.