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Business of Machining - Episode 3
551 Plays9 years ago
Welcome to the John Grimsmo & John Saunders Business of Machining Podcast! We (John and John) have talked every Friday morning for the past year and we realized how helpful it has been to share our successes, struggles and stories with each other! So helpful that we have decided to record our conversations and share as this podcast!
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Transcript
Introduction & Naming the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. How's it going? Good morning. It's wicked. End of the week already. I can't believe it. I can't remember. Did we explain why we chose, if we've even formally chosen, the business of the machinery as the name of this podcast? No, I don't think we have explained it. So go ahead. I like that name. I like that name a lot. Yeah, I like it. Let's do it.
00:00:23
Speaker
That's funny because there's like little subtle backgrounds of the complications of a quote unquote partnership that are lingering in my head which is funny because that's something I'm passionate about as well and that's kind of exactly why we call this the business of machining.
Hosts' Backgrounds & Business Focus
00:00:38
Speaker
If you guys are listening and you don't know, John and I are both self-taught machinists and we both run, you know, machine shops. John's more product based, I'm kind of all over the place.
00:00:48
Speaker
We care not only about that working machine, but also how do we make this work as relatively young guys that are trying to put food on the table, running CNC machines. So I care about the business of it when it comes to operating our own businesses, but also partnerships and vendors and insurance and employees and growth and all that fun stuff. Is that fair?
00:01:06
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah, just the entrepreneur side of it. I mean, we're both super nerds when it comes to machining and due to that, we're trying to run big businesses and we're, we have to learn to be excellent entrepreneurs to be successful. Like they go hand in hand. It's funny because so many people that when I meet them or talk to them to talk about, they use the G word with meat, which is growth.
00:01:26
Speaker
I think when I try to take a step back and I look at the shop and the new machines, I guess I see that, but I'm curious. I feel very much like every day is just the same and in a good way, but you get so caught up sometimes as a doer of things on a daily task basis that you don't
Defining Success in Machining
00:01:44
Speaker
see this.
00:01:44
Speaker
And I guess, externally, look at you, John. You've now got a mori. You've got this Nakamura. You've got systems in place, right? If somebody said that you've got crazy growth, do you smile and agree? Or do you think, no, we've still got a lot more to go? Growth, I would agree with, because I think of you back to your New York City apartment days when your tag was next to your pillow. You've grown, my friend. 5,000 square foot shop now.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah. Like, like, yeah, we've both grown for sure. We're not done growing. But the other side of that coin is, you know, the word successful. And if, if somebody looks at me and says that I'm successful, I don't necessarily feel like it because I have so far I want to go still. And I kind of realized lately that success is not a destination, really. It's like a lifelong journey. It's like you will never be the definition of successful. And if so, there's no, no point continuing. Like,
00:02:35
Speaker
But you are successful in some people's eyes. Of course. You know what I mean? Yeah, like I get the Catch-22 involved, but like from my personal perspective. Right. Just keep growing, keep growing, keep going. But you know, I was making a list last night of some of the best lessons I've learned in life. I thought it would be a great chip break video for us and just the best advice I've received and one of the things I've really been focusing on lately is
00:02:57
Speaker
It'll come back a little bit if we end up talking about my current and last week. But you make your own happiness. Happiness is just like success. It's all relative. You can be happy or you can choose not to be happy. But I think as a type A kind of entrepreneur or a driven person, I'm looking to prove myself to keep doing more, to keep doing better. And what I hope is a healthy way. But I think sometimes for me, it's easy to let that kind of drag you down.
00:03:24
Speaker
not meet your own expectations as an entrepreneur. Nobody's there to give you a report card or a kudos or pat on the back.
Passion & Daily Struggles of Machining Entrepreneurs
00:03:31
Speaker
You are leading the ship. And that's tough. Absolutely, yeah. I've heard the quote Gary Vaynerchuk says, being an entrepreneur is getting punched in the face every day of your life forever.
00:03:44
Speaker
That seems a little harsh. You just have to smile and like it. Whether you get bad comments or emails or dissatisfied customers or you lose money, break end mills, there's always something. It's not sunshine or rainbows. But that's what you've got to love what you do. Exactly.
00:04:01
Speaker
You just have to. You can't put out videos or you can't put out hundreds of thousands of a product. You can't spend hours tweaking CAM unless you truly love it. And I think both of us are in a fantastic position where
00:04:17
Speaker
Man, do we ever love what we do. Right. But be honest, that's something else I'd say. Be honest with yourself. If you fall out of love with it, don't feel like you've got to put on a facade for yourself or your wife or your family or your friends to keep it up because you're worried. People change, things change. We've all been bounced around through different hobbies. You and I used to be super into computers. And we still do use computers, but they're not. Obviously, the machine is where I think we've both been lucky enough to find our true passion. Yeah.
00:04:49
Speaker
My week was very productive. That's great.
Technical Challenges in Machining: Grinding Process
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah. I've been trying out a new experimental technology. I forget if I told you about it a couple of weeks ago, but for doing our rask blades, we've been milling the blade bevels with an end mill and getting not the best surface finish I would want. This is with the fixture with the smooth on? Yes. Okay. I thought you were happy with that finish.
00:05:11
Speaker
It's okay, but Eric is still sanding them out and making them pretty, and it's taking him forever. So I've been trying, I mounted a small grinding wheel to the spindle of the Maury. Oh, you did? I did. You told me you had ordered it, so I came in. Yeah, I came in, I've been working on it for several weeks now, on and off, and burning every single blade that I put on there. Oh, too much heat? Yeah.
00:05:39
Speaker
So lots of experimenting, lots of phone calls with people, had some Tool and Die guys come by trying to answer me. My salesman has been kind of useless. It's been a headache, but the few odd times I get a halfway good result, the finish is amazing, except there's like four large burn spots here and there. I assume you're just loading up the wheel? Yeah, there's a lot going on. But you know Alfred at AB Tool? Yeah.
00:06:05
Speaker
Yeah, so I called him coincidentally like right after he got spinal decompression surgery. Yeah, I think I must have sent him a message on Instagram like within hours of when he was going into surgery and I didn't realize at the time.
00:06:19
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that's funny. I think he's over the table. He's totally fine, yeah. Like he's just recovering for the next few weeks, but he's good spirits and all that. Anyway, he put me in touch with this lady, Linda, who knows everything about everything surface grinding. She's the expert. She teaches classes. She's a genius. Awesome. And I talked with her for a long time and she said, well, first of all, you ordered the wrong wheel because my salesman told me to, but we can make it work. So she gave me suggestions and.
00:06:46
Speaker
We're getting really, really close. So if you guys don't know, the fellow that John's talking about is Alfred at AB Tool. We did a video tour of their facility, but they use these diamond wheels in VMCs to grind a lot of the carbide, the custom ground solid carbide and inserts that they make, which is mind-blowingly awesome.
00:07:08
Speaker
Yeah, they have dedicated grinding machines too. But I mean, the fact that they can use a Haas from 1999 to grind, like with five axis table to grind quality inserts and tooling is amazing. Right. I suppose I just broke our rule, which is, isn't this supposed to just be be talking to you and not acknowledge the fact that this is turned into a podcast? And we're gonna have to jump back and forth. Sorry.
00:07:31
Speaker
No, but if you guys are hopping into this podcast, John and I talk every Friday morning, and I think John called it a form of therapy, and it's totally true. It's a chance for us to share the highs and the lows of what we're stressed about. Being an entrepreneur is tough. You need that team of people, whether it's the team of people like Alfred that helps you out the tool, or whether it's a friend who's going through similar struggles that ain't all peaches and cream.
00:07:54
Speaker
And it's almost funny when we finally break down and tell each other something that's going on. The other person's always like, oh yeah, I've been there. And it's like you're afraid to share it the whole time, but then it's this camaraderie of like, oh, I'm not alone. That's not a unique problem.
00:08:12
Speaker
Everyone's been there. Everyone's been stressed about time, been stressed about money, been stressed about getting things to work. Okay, so sorry, I'll stop rambling. How is your voice or did her advice get better results? Hugely better results. One of the biggest things was I'm using a CBN grinding wheel, cubic boron nitride. And my guy, my salesman said, if you had a different kind of wheel, you would need a dressing stick. It's like this aluminum oxide stick that you literally shove into a spinning wheel to clean it out. But he's like, with this wheel, you won't need it. And then she said, it won't work unless you do this.
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah, I've never once heard of a wheel that didn't either be dressed or like with the diamond stuff you have to re-impregnate with a, it's like a lap, you have to recharge the media. Well it's, with this kind of thing, there's two different things. There's truing, which is with the diamond thing where you make it concentric, and then there's dressing, which is cleaning all the crap out of the wheel. Right, re-exposing fresh. Right. And they're two totally different things. Like I have a diamond
00:09:11
Speaker
you know, a diamond addressing point that I true the wheel with, but then she said, no, you have to have this aluminum oxide stick. So she's like, do you have any surface grinder wheels? And I'm like, maybe we do. You want a white one. So I found in my box of Tormach surface grinder stuff. I'm like, okay, I found this surface grinder wheel. She goes, okay, spin your CBN wheel at 3000 RPM and shove this thing into it.
00:09:33
Speaker
Really? Just with my hands. I'm terrified. Yeah, you'll be fine. So I'm literally taking this like six inch grinding wheel and just rubbing it up against the spinning wheel in the mooring. And I'll need a coolant filter by the way.
00:09:48
Speaker
Yes. And then that opened up all the pores. It felt different. It looks different. It cuts different, too. So I am as green as they come when it comes to grinding, but I'm learning and talking. I talked about this when I bought the Moro Okamoto a few weeks ago. I talked about it last week at the scraping class because we were doing a lot of wheel dressing and tool grinding. And for surface grinders, a diamond
00:10:13
Speaker
Insert will do both it will shape the wheel or true it up and it will re-expose fresh Material to do you don't need the aluminum oxide stick on it But that's on a surface grinder like an aluminum oxide wheel, right? I don't want to I don't want to say what I don't know. Yeah, I don't know
00:10:33
Speaker
because I believe a CBN wheel or a diamond impregnated wheel is different. That I agree with. Certainly I know diamonds are. So we used diamond wheels at the Scranton Cross this past week.
Insights from a Scraping Class
00:10:46
Speaker
Really cool. They were turning at like 300 rpms, five or six inch diameter wheels, and it was it was like so tranquil because it's such a slow rpm and it gave you so much control over really honing or just dressing
00:10:59
Speaker
the ends of these scraping tools that were carbide. And you have to use diamond, I guess, or CBN to grind carbide. There's nothing else that's hard enough. And these wheels are just lapsed. So it's just an aluminum disc, the aluminum being intentionally soft, and you buy diamond powder, and there's a process where you use something harder, like a ball bearing, to push the diamond lap material into the face of the aluminum wheel.
00:11:25
Speaker
And then that becomes your diamond, your lap or your disc, and then you sharpen so many stones or so many blades with it, and then you feel the wheel, basically it feels like it gets smoother because the material and debris fills up between the diamond. And so the only way to fix it is to just add more diamond. Fascinating. Well, you brought it up. Talk more about the scraping class.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, so I was so excited. We're going to do a YouTube video, a couple on it, because it's something that's a little bit difficult to summarize in a brief manner as well as without the benefit of video. But scraping is using a hand tool like a kind of looks like a chisel to
00:12:02
Speaker
achieve incredibly flat surfaces, potentially even flatter than surface grinding. And this is one of my big questions, how is that possible? And it's possible because surface grinder is a machine, and that machine has wear and slop, and the bed will deflect as it's at different ends of the travel, or how the saddle supports the table travel in X and in Y.
00:12:23
Speaker
The benefit of scraping, although it's a lot slower or cumbersome or more difficult to do, is that you use a master, like a surface plate that you can lap in. So many cool things. I was nerding that the whole week because we were talking about this book from Moore, Wade Moore, I think, who built these jig boring machines there, like some of those actual machines made on Earth.
00:12:46
Speaker
and the foundations of mechanical accuracy and how if you take three plates, three individual plates, regardless of their topology, you can get them dead flat. So you can create a master that's dead flat and then you use a transfer process like with blooming compound or fluid to basically mark your high spots and then you scrape away at its essence
00:13:05
Speaker
it's incredibly simple. You just scrape until you get something perfectly flat. There's additional benefits or reasons to scrape in terms of having points per inch. So instead of having a perfectly dead flat glass smooth, you actually want some topology. So I know that sounds like a contradiction because I'm telling you it's flat, but then I'm telling you that there's peaks and valleys. But the point is it's flat across a median or the top level of the whole part. Does that make sense?
00:13:30
Speaker
So those cavities do a couple of things. They allow for oil pockets, some of them are oil, and they allow for avoiding the stiction. Because if you have two perfectly flat things, they'll ring together. We've never done that with service blocks. So you actually want that. And you can also then do what's called flaking, which I originally thought was what scraping was. Flaking is a much deeper gouge that actually does serve as not only a pocket for oil to live in, but a channel for oil to slowly move through a way or a give, et cetera.
00:13:59
Speaker
Wow. Is it a lot more in-depth and complicated than you expected going in? Richard King, who's like the godfather of scraping, at least that is alive and teaches these classes, it's a little bit of a, I don't want to say dining art, but it's certainly, you know, linear ways are the thing that makes scraping potentially opposite something, but he's amazing and his sort of motto is teaching somebody to scrape something flat, it's easy. It's knowing where to scrape, how much to scrape, and then
00:14:25
Speaker
you know, what's easier, what's harder is like I did it parallel. So it's one thing to get one side flat, then you have to get the other side flat and parallel to the first side or a 90 degree angle. The other cool thing about scraping that never occurred to me was let's say you've got a 14 foot
00:14:40
Speaker
dovetail in a big surface grinder or even have a 30 inch. Well not everybody has access to a surface grinder. You can't always move that machine and tear it apart and get it onto a surface grinder table. So scraping with a $100 hand tool, you can do it in place. Sure, it takes longer, but I want to talk more about this in the YouTube video. Just how different and when it's appropriate to scrape. Wow.
00:15:07
Speaker
That's fantastic. Do you have an applicable purpose for it in your future? Good question. Or are you just amassing knowledge for fun?
00:15:17
Speaker
Well, I definitely wanted to learn. It seemed like one of those opportunities to learn from somebody who it was the right guy to learn from. And a great group of people to hang out with. And I really wanted to go to understand why. And we nerd it out. We talked about service plates. We talked about indicators. We talked about tolerances. We talked about the machine repair. We talked about Too Funny.
00:15:37
Speaker
Richard King was visiting a company the week before our class, and he starts talking about it. He's like, yeah, it's a small machinery manufacturer. They're in Wisconsin. Their name is Tormach, and I'm like, no way. So he was actually at Tormach, helping teach them some things about their machines, including much better ways to train and adjust dovetail give to machines, which is what a Tormach is. So I learned a lot about how to properly set a give and how to properly measure a backlash. Totally different than I thought before. Wow. Nice.
00:16:07
Speaker
So, am I going to become a full-time scraper? No. But I'll tell you, it was really cool. I took my stair precision level and put it on a granite plate and was able to see how it was out. And scraping something like that is actually pretty quick, pretty easy. So I do actually think I'll use it. Fantastic. And I'm sure that your videos, once they go up, will provide a lot of value, you know, sharing this knowledge.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, super excited. You would have loved it, John, because it was all about when two or three days into the class, a thousandth of an inch was a mile. There wasn't a single thousandth indicator in the shop. It was all tenths or maybe a half thou, which is what's so cool. Yeah, I love it.
00:16:48
Speaker
So what's on
Refining Blade Production Techniques
00:16:49
Speaker
tap here today? What is the goal? Today, I am going to be making a lot more rask parts. I think I'm going to play with that grinder again, the grinding wheel. Last time I tried it after talking to Linda, I got the tiniest bit of burn. And I'm not sure exactly at what stage in the grinding process, cause I'm doing a bunch of passes. So, so I just need to basically pause between each pass and figure it out.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yeah, and then I'll be playing on the Nakamura, making stop pins out of 17.4 stainless. Yeah, I love that stuff. Yeah. Awesome. Just production, basically. That's great brass bazaar coming along, though. I can set the bleeding cup on. Yeah, that's the big thing, because they take Eric a considerable amount of time to finish. And if I can give him a better surface finish, then I reduce like 75% of his time on that part.
00:17:33
Speaker
So what are you doing though? Do you have enough blades done the old way that take air longer so that you can play with the grinding or are you like hoping that the grinding works? We're in a let's call it a lean system right now. So he was a little bit ahead until early mid this week when he ran out and then I had to make a few the old way. So I think I made him six one day because he likes to he treats six at a time. So yeah, so I made him six and then he did it the old way.
00:18:00
Speaker
and then even still he figured out a faster way to grind them he just tried something different he's like holy cow this is way better i can't believe i didn't try this it's funny because you talk about lean and like six at a time and one of the things i really took away from the scraping class was something i kind of know consciously and subconsciously but it's hard for me to acknowledge which is slow is fast just you know slow your whole saunters you know don't move so fast don't think so fast and
00:18:28
Speaker
With scraping, you have to act like a detective. You have to assume everything is wrong, or you have to make no assumptions about what's right. And that mindset is something I really think will make me a better machinist and owner of a machine products company. Just like you're doing with a grinding wheel. Is it run out? Is it wear? Is it rubbing? Is it cool? There's so many variables to think through and not get overwhelmed and deal with those.
00:18:57
Speaker
Yeah. And like, we got to be detectives and it's part of the, it's probably one of my most favorite parts of the job is, is R and D is figuring out how to do it. Once I have the method perfect, I almost want to hand it off to somebody else because I want to go on to the next challenge, but I don't have that somebody else yet. So yeah, it is so fun to be good at that is awesome. It's problem solved. I love it.
00:19:23
Speaker
So what's on top for you today?
Daily Tasks & Reflections on Safety
00:19:25
Speaker
I've got a guy coming. I'm going to fill a chip break after we hang up. And then I've got a guy coming at 10 to look at Tormach machines driving a couple hours away. We have that every month or two, probably somebody wants to swing by. Nice. And then I have got to work on, I'm really close to nailing down our new product. But before I send out a batch to anodize, I want to just make a couple more. And these are Tormach surface plates or Tormach fixture plates. Right.
00:19:51
Speaker
But super happy with the precision and everything there. Helping Jared with some talent, trouble shooting on a job shop run. I told you, we've been trying to kind of slow down the job shop work, but also keep it going with existing customers. Because it's an important part of our business, but I want to focus on products. And so that's good. That's actually going well. And the paperwork for Noah just is coming through, which is going to let him spend the rest of his senior year of high school.
00:20:19
Speaker
for the last five or six months. Instead of going to his lab for machining, he'll actually come here as a work co-op. So he'll be able to work a lot more. Nice. Really good. Yes. Really excited for that.
00:20:31
Speaker
have a call with clear path motors to troubleshoot any project we're doing with them, which is... Oh, actually, one of them is public. It's the 440 automation machine. Yeah, the disk thing that loads parts. Yeah, so that's all set up and ready to go. The other one I'm not sharing yet because it is... If we pull this off, it'll be the coolest thing I've ever made. It was the mystery part from last week's Wednesday, which... Yeah, I saw that picture. So excited. Well, I can't wait to see what you do with it. Awesome.
00:20:58
Speaker
I don't know. I actually wanted to mention, too, I am trying to take a little bit of time off this weekend, which actually isn't like me. I tend to work too much. And I know you know this, but I was in a pretty bad car accident a week ago. And amazingly walked away. A guy hit my car, merged into my lane. I was going 60. He was stopped, merged into my lane, flipped my car. I walked away from it, just fanged up a little.
00:21:26
Speaker
Kind of makes you, I mean, I certainly feel invincible, not in an arrogant sense, but I don't ever reasonably contemplate leaving my wife and kids behind, alone in my business. And I've been struggling with, how do I think about it? Do I think about that as, hey, I really almost died, life is short, blah, blah, blah? Or do I think, hey, be grateful and appreciative, but don't let yourself get paralyzed, figuratively paralyzed by something that
00:21:50
Speaker
Luckily, it wasn't worse, you know, any sort of business as normal. I certainly gave my wife a really big hug and I want to spend some time with my kids this weekend. Yeah, I'd say if anything, just appreciate life more. Be wherever you are. If you're with your kids, be with your kids. Cherish and make every moment as important as possible.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, super, super lucky, super grateful. It's a testament to modern vehicle safety standards and setting aside air bags for everybody to help save my life. I guess if there's one thing I'll say to people, the two takeaways, as silly as they may sound, were
00:22:39
Speaker
Did you have that surface plate thing? Okay, I was wondering because I'm like that's probably in his trunk and he got in a car crash.
00:22:50
Speaker
Even if it were in the trunk, well it was in a Kia rental, so there was a hatchback thing, so the stuff in the trunk actually came into the back seat. Really? The tire iron from the trunk detached and came into the back seat. Oh my goodness.
00:23:03
Speaker
My laptop, my suitcase, all got thrown around. Heck, even a laptop can really hurt you or kill you. It's hard enough. So try to keep stuff secure. I know that's a little bit of a difficult request because I have a wife and family and kids. I'm not going to secure a car each time we drive down the road. Number two, carry tourniquets. The tourniquet was not used in this accident, but if I had been cut badly, it took eight minutes for the cops to get there.
00:23:25
Speaker
keep carry tickets, please, and the number three battery pack for your iPhone. I spent the next two hours on the phone with 911, with the cops, with Hertz, rental car, with my wife, with my insurance agent, and I, most all, just wanted to talk to my wife when I was done with all that stuff, waiting for the cops to go to the paperwork and having a battery pack. And, you know, it's the end of the day. I had been traveling all day, so my phone was almost dead, and I'm really glad that I had the charger with me. Yeah. Wow. Good advice. Yeah. I love it.
00:23:53
Speaker
Awesome. We'll have a good Friday. Crush it, bud. I will. You too. All right. Take care. See you. Take care. Bye. Bye.