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#436 Blocking wax
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Topics:
- Blocking wax
- Measuring porosity in metal
- Nesting software
- White light interferometer
- Audio issues fixed?
Recommended
Transcript
Project Updates and Discoveries
00:00:01
John S
Good morning, Business of Machining 436, John Saunders.
00:00:05
johngrimsmo
John Grimsmo.
00:00:07
John S
We're supposed to do an intro, but this is actually not a podcast. This is a conversation between two buddies. So I want to hear about your nesting and stuff and foam stuff. And I want to share are the sit down meetings that I do, um the Brother S700 and some accessories that arrived, ah Home Assistant, spray paint. That's kind of a half personal project, but I learned some stuff about spray paint that kind of blew me away. And then um maybe the most important to Saunders is um checking metal and ah for defects when it arrives, like some hidden defects, if you will.
00:00:40
johngrimsmo
Okay, interesting. I've got nesting software. I've got a white light interferometer, little update, more hard milling stuff.
00:00:46
John S
Oh.
00:00:48
johngrimsmo
And i went on a deep dive on wax last week, and I'm quite interested in that.
00:00:54
John S
Funny you say it because I was playing with Rub and Buff, which is also waxy. you know Rub and Buff?
00:00:59
johngrimsmo
Okay. No.
00:01:01
John S
If you have a 3D printed object or wood or anything, the rub and buff looks like a little toothpaste tube. It's shiny silver and it has aluminum flake in it. And you lay it on there like a toothpaste and you're, it turns apart looking like it's made from metal or aluminum.
00:01:16
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:01:17
John S
And so it's a model maker, hobby, toy maker thing. And um the, the short version. I'm taking a short break from Johnny five. I'm building a full blown R2 which is like, it's like, so easy not easy, but like easy compared to Johnny five.
00:01:29
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:01:33
John S
And he's like half done already. Um, and the dome, you could put rub and buff on the dome. um you can also just paint it and I'll probably, once the rob and muff Once you commit to rub and buff, that's a lot of work and a lot of area. So I'm probably gonna leave it painted for now, but the rub and buff is a wax thing. So anyway, sorry, I'm off topic.
00:01:53
John S
um
00:01:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
Innovations in Surface Grinding and Milling
00:01:56
John S
Let's, well, you run, i want to hear about this nesting, but you, or take, hit it.
00:02:01
johngrimsmo
I'll finish the wax thing just to close that conversation. um They call it blocking wax or it's a fixed string wax. You ever heard of this?
00:02:09
John S
I think so, so go ahead.
00:02:11
johngrimsmo
Okay. So Mighty Byte does make a version and they have for a long time. And, uh, they sent me a stick.
00:02:15
John S
Yeah.
00:02:17
johngrimsmo
It looks like beeswax. It smells like beeswax. Um, but like 12 years ago, they sent this to me.
00:02:20
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:02:22
johngrimsmo
I never actually tried it because I found it and it's untouched. Um, but, uh, when I was at the current event two months ago, one of the guys there, Paul Doyle, I'm pretty sure, um, uh, suggested that for surface grinding, they make wax fixtures quite often.
00:02:41
johngrimsmo
they'll machine or they'll they'll grind um like a half inch fixture plate that gets magneted down that like super flat, super like grind that as good as you can. um And he says he likes using AR 500 like armor plate because it's like, he says it's cheap. It's like 50 Rockwell. So it grinds great and it doesn't dent or ding. And it's just like a great cheap fixture material. was like, interesting. Okay.
00:03:04
johngrimsmo
Cause you buy it already hard, I guess.
00:03:04
John S
Yeah. Interesting.
00:03:06
johngrimsmo
And I looked on McMaster. Sure enough, it's not that expensive. I'm like, Okay. It kind of comparable to D2 and all the A2 and all the fixturing materials. um But what he does is he just has like an induction hot plate and he'll put the six by six fixture plate or whatever on there.
00:03:23
John S
Okay.
00:03:25
johngrimsmo
And then just take the stick of special blocking wax, get it wet, lay his relatively flat parts on there. But if they're cupped or bowed or just a little bit, he's basically ah locking them in unconstrained.
00:03:38
johngrimsmo
so that when it cures and cools off minutes, he can put it back on the mag chuck.
00:03:38
John S
OK. Yep.
00:03:43
johngrimsmo
And now the mag is not sucking the part flat. And now he can kiss the top side and make it flat, flat, unconstrained flat. Then he can demold it, just heat it up again. He said the wax wipes right off, fixture it on side two, which is flat, unconstrained flat.
00:03:57
johngrimsmo
And then you can deck the other side. And he's like, he makes optical components. Like he makes flat, flat stuff.
00:04:01
John S
okay
00:04:04
johngrimsmo
um And he was telling me then, and I kind of, Forgot about it. And then I eventually, last week, I texted him on Friday and he's like, call me. So I had a half hour conversation with him and he's like, don't overthink this.
00:04:17
johngrimsmo
It's not rocket surgery. Just get some and try it. And so I looked all around and Mighty Byte makes a new version. So apparently the old version that I have, 12 years old, has 40 PSI of holding capacity. So if you have like one square inch, it takes relatively 40 pounds to knock it off.
00:04:37
John S
In compression or so Sorry, sure, okay.
00:04:39
johngrimsmo
In, in, um, side load, shear load.
00:04:42
John S
Oh.
00:04:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Not so much in pull, but doesn't really matter.
00:04:43
John S
oh But like in the grinding example, you're trying to absorb Z for so forth. So that's, you're fine on the,
Nesting and Fixturing Solutions
00:04:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:04:51
John S
whatever.
00:04:52
John S
Okay.
00:04:52
johngrimsmo
But you're trying not to throw the part.
00:04:52
John S
Well, you saw the magnet there, right?
00:04:56
johngrimsmo
Well, theoretically the part is not magnetized. Now the plate is doing most the magnetizing. I don't know how much transfers to your further part. Right.
00:05:04
John S
I misunderstood. I thought he was doing a super thin layer of this stuff just to soak up curves, if you will. But you're saying he actually like pots the whole part in this stuff.
00:05:13
johngrimsmo
Yes and no. So you've got your mag chuck, you have a six by six fixture plate, half inch thick, that magnets down, and then your part gets waxed onto there with just a super thin, like my microns thick or whatever, just enough to absorb a thou of warp or whatever like that, right?
00:05:21
John S
Yes.
00:05:25
John S
Okay, I'm with you.
00:05:30
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:05:30
John S
But for the sake of this example, this workflow would also work with an aluminum or brass part because you just you're not using the magnet at all.
00:05:35
johngrimsmo
yep Exactly. Yeah, you could hold all kinds of stuff.
00:05:38
John S
Gotcha.
00:05:39
johngrimsmo
And he said he's done like 40-inch shims that are 5 thou thick and like like crazy stuff.
00:05:43
John S
Okay.
00:05:45
johngrimsmo
um And ah Color Me Intrigued. So Mighty Byte's new version, they discontinued the old one, is 10 times the holding power, 400
00:05:57
johngrimsmo
Like if you have a one square inch apart, a cube, now it has 400 pounds of load to dislodge it.
00:06:00
John S
Dang.
00:06:05
johngrimsmo
um So I got myself some of that and it's coming in and we'll play. um Not only for surface grinding, but for milling, for... various other things, even for our lapping, maybe.
00:06:17
johngrimsmo
um so it's just something I've become interested in because we often have parts that are bowed by like a thou or less. And if you mag them down, they flatten out, but then they coil right back.
00:06:27
John S
Yeah.
00:06:27
johngrimsmo
And that really causes a problem with lapping.
00:06:28
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:06:31
johngrimsmo
And even for milling, like sometimes we make small little parts that are hard to hold. So if I could use this blocking wax, Maybe even for our sheets of carbon fiber, maybe, um as a way to hold them down. that's Like with the the tape glue tape method, I've thrown a lot of parts milling that.
00:06:49
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:06:52
John S
Sure.
00:06:52
johngrimsmo
And it's usually the tape that fails, not so much the glue.
00:06:57
johngrimsmo
Conversely, to add numbers to the argument, so Mighty Byte's original is 40 PSI, their new one is 400 PSI. Loctite 480, which is a black toughened CA glue, is like 3,500 pounds PSI of ah of sheer and tension holding load.
00:07:13
John S
That's crazy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:07:17
johngrimsmo
So like, okay, a whole different world, which I do use somewhat. um And then use acetone to get rid of that. But so there's plus and minuses and I'm just trying to like collect data and then play really. Cause it, if it works, it might work really well for a bunch of our stuff.
00:07:34
John S
It is semi infinitely reusable. Like it's not one time use.
00:07:39
johngrimsmo
I think so. Yeah. No, as long as it doesn't get so dirty that you now have junk between your surfaces, but.
00:07:40
John S
Yeah. Okay.
00:07:44
John S
okay okay Okay, so let's say you have a blade, and let's say you know it's got about 3,000 to 5,000 warp in it. Like, you just know that.
00:07:52
johngrimsmo
True.
00:07:52
John S
But you don't want to just lay that blade down onto a hot wax surface. You want to somehow maintain a You want the...
00:08:05
John S
Okay, how would I say this I'm not even sure. The normal point to that curve, you would want it to be pointed straight up. You want the blade to basically be correctly positioned on the wax. You don't want to put the blade at a three d re-angle because you don't grind the wrong true data.
00:08:16
johngrimsmo
true
00:08:17
John S
How do you...
00:08:18
johngrimsmo
So a lot of people suggest putting a heavy weight on top um just to make sure that at least your points of contact are touching the table.
00:08:27
John S
Okay, got it.
00:08:27
johngrimsmo
And then the wax is filling in the the curve basically.
00:08:30
John S
Yes, okay.
00:08:31
johngrimsmo
um Because if you have a an arc, you want the end points of the arc touching the table and the center of the arc up. You don't want it upside down with rock and all that stuff.
00:08:42
John S
Got it.
00:08:42
johngrimsmo
So you figure that out going in. And then they say you want to put weight on it, but I'm hesitant to how much you want to distort the part before it cures. like
00:08:50
John S
Sure.
00:08:51
johngrimsmo
You want it touching the the fixture but not bent. And that's just trial and error. And then, yeah, then you just heat it up again. And apparently it just wipes right off. And you can also ultrasonic and use different ways to get everything off.
00:09:05
John S
Yeah.
00:09:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's super cool.
00:09:07
John S
That's cool. How much is a stick? Or but what's it?
00:09:09
johngrimsmo
um Mighty Byte sells a kit. It's not cheap. It's like $250 for probably a lot, like three sticks or something. But since you're just wiping it on like chapstick, like you're not using a lot or like a glue stick, I guess.
00:09:22
johngrimsmo
You're not using very much at all.
00:09:24
John S
Oh,
Quality Control and Testing Methods
00:09:25
John S
but then you also probably won't reuse that.
00:09:27
johngrimsmo
not really no you'd probably ah warm warm up the fixture wipe it off make sure it's clean and then re-stick again so yeah everything's got its downsides but yeah
00:09:32
John S
Okay. okay
00:09:38
John S
part of me was incorrectly thinking. Um, I can't think of a good analogy other than like a baking, uh, uh, plate of brownies where you have like a one inch thick of wax and you just set the part in the swimming pool of brownie bladder and then it seizes up or locks up, which is like, we bought the plastic fixture and stuff.
00:09:44
johngrimsmo
you'd like cavity fill the whole thing yeah
00:09:56
John S
Tormach sold years ago, but, uh, where you like melt it in a microwave or boiling water and then you can kind of shape it, um, infinitely reusable, but that's more of like uh,
00:09:57
johngrimsmo
Yep. Mm-hmm.
00:10:06
John S
you're potting the whole part in this, in this giant blob.
00:10:07
johngrimsmo
And that that was why that was my original impression too when Paul was telling me about this. um And it just sounded like messy and gross. And he's like, no, no, it's just like a thin, thin layer, like like a glue stick.
00:10:19
John S
Got it.
00:10:20
johngrimsmo
And then the documents I've read said, if you really want a bit more holding power, you can add wax blobs around the perimeter of the part just to kind of like put a fillet in there pretty much, which kind of makes sense.
00:10:31
johngrimsmo
But he also said, he said, we've never really thrown a part using this wax on the grinder. Like,
00:10:37
John S
been
00:10:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and famous last words, for sure.
00:10:38
John S
Famous last word. Yeah, sure, sure.
00:10:40
johngrimsmo
but um But he's like, you know, we'll try to block in parts with extra bits of metal or whatever. And we've sometimes had more problems doing that than than actually just using the wax. I'm like, I'm intrigued.
00:10:53
johngrimsmo
So if anybody out there has has done this or, you know, always looking for more information, let us know.
00:10:53
John S
verman
00:10:58
John S
I would love to, there's this like, ah there's this whole world of fixturing which we all know about, and I don't think there's ever been an elegant solution. So there's adjustable, individually adjustable hydraulics. There's closed loop hydraulics that balance themselves out.
00:11:16
John S
There is the idea of like, I've, I've thrown out on this podcast of using the airbag, like the, um, canvas air la bag that can lift thousands of pounds and so forth, which can again, stabilize, or I guess that's not work holding so much as it is stopping, um,
00:11:32
John S
stopping like a collapsing center part. Um, I've heard people on grinders using paper just to like soak up minor. and
00:11:40
johngrimsmo
Paper or um um paper towel.
00:11:41
John S
Um, yeah, yes, yes.
00:11:43
johngrimsmo
That seems to be a big one. Yeah.
00:11:45
John S
And then there's also like on the far extreme, uh, was it blue photon where you're buying like this blue chemical stuff with a ultra yeah.
00:11:50
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:11:52
johngrimsmo
UV wax or yeah, like a resin.
00:11:55
John S
Where isn't it a UV light curing?
00:11:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:11:57
John S
um which I believe you're now in the the thousands of dollars, but um I think.
00:12:02
johngrimsmo
Well, I think what's interesting with those is the, the LED beam or the UV beam goes to the point source, like through the fixture. That's why it's so expensive and fancy.
00:12:13
johngrimsmo
You can probably buy UV resin glue. That's like for like cheap, but how much can you cure it? You know, the light rays are not going to get very deep into your part.
00:12:19
John S
Yeah.
00:12:23
John S
But like that idea of making this up like aerospacey where you like, let's say somebody pulls off like a boat, what do you call it on a an outboard engine? The prop, the propeller, the prop.
00:12:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:32
John S
Like let's say you had an aerospace prop and you needed to rework something out. Like you could set it up use this blue photon stuff with like extension rods and stabilization and you don't exactly know where it's going to end up in space. but Then you probe it in.
00:12:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:43
John S
Fusion even has the like alignment stuff and now you've got to, that part of it is very intriguing.
00:12:48
johngrimsmo
It's kind of cool. Yeah.
00:12:49
John S
Oh, for sure.
00:12:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:51
John S
Huh.
00:12:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and then ah on a surface grinder using the wax, kind of no big deal because there's no real X, Y, xta Z, whatever you call it, like requirement.
00:12:52
John S
Well, yeah, I mean,
00:13:00
johngrimsmo
If you were to wax parts on a mill and you kind of like squish it onto the wax and it moves around, you you have to be able to like probe it in or eyeball it or, you know, cam needs to know where it is.
00:13:11
johngrimsmo
And if it's rotated or crooked or something like that.
00:13:11
John S
yeah know
00:13:13
johngrimsmo
So that's a variable to to consider.
00:13:17
John S
Is this still on your radar? I believe it was the Norseman blade, but it may be all the blades where when you grind one side, the other side is still fully supported. But when you flip it and you grind the second side, the first side is now been machined or ground away. And so it's not as supported.
00:13:35
johngrimsmo
When we're milling the but bevels, right?
00:13:35
John S
ever Bingo. Yeah.
00:13:38
johngrimsmo
Right. um This would not be an application for that. However, in the like 10 years ago, I did use some smooth on resin stuff to try to support the backside, but there's always so much variation from side one that to perfectly support it on side two is tricky.
00:13:57
John S
Yeah. You don't you don't need to, you figure out a way to do it without support basically.
00:14:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah,
00:14:02
John S
Yeah. Fair enough.
00:14:04
johngrimsmo
But I did actually, a few months ago, I went down a magnet deep dive, making a switchable magnet where you can like turn it on and off like a Noga bass in the fixture.
00:14:04
John S
Cool.
00:14:12
John S
ah hurry
00:14:14
johngrimsmo
So you could you could support the finished op 1 by turning on the magnet.
00:14:15
John S
Yeah.
00:14:18
johngrimsmo
It'll suck flat. And then i still want to do that. But yeah, it's just one of many projects I want to do.
00:14:26
John S
Well, that's kind of like, okay, so like on the fixture plate world or anything like our service grinder world, let's say you have a really gnarly piece of material, we call it potato chip, where it's just got lots of undulating waves throughout it.
00:14:37
John S
um And then, There are systems like this. I can't name them. But um if you think about having like 40 magnets, each individual magnet on a sliding post, like a bed of nails, if you will, but they can all adjust up and down.
00:14:48
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:14:51
John S
You really want to lay that plate on there, let them all adjust. And then you hit a button it locks all of them in their axial position. And now you have this custom undulating bed that's supporting your part with no preload.
00:15:04
johngrimsmo
That's what this wax does.
00:15:05
John S
Yeah, that's awesome. That's cool.
00:15:06
johngrimsmo
But probably to a maximum of like 5,000 or something like that. Like, you know, it's not going to support an actual potato chip.
00:15:10
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:15:15
John S
Ah, sounds like an opportunity.
00:15:16
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Well, if you make a pool of it.
00:15:19
John S
That's cool.
00:15:20
johngrimsmo
But yeah, so we'll see. We'll see.
00:15:22
John S
What brought this on?
00:15:24
johngrimsmo
Um...
00:15:28
johngrimsmo
various flatness problems throughout everything um because we grind our blades twice soft and then after heat treat after like surface grind them um and then they go into lapping and there's always just little inconsistencies and then some other parts that were milling um i wish they were flatter so
00:15:50
John S
When they lap, they're in a carrier. They're not magnetically...
00:15:53
johngrimsmo
not magnetically, but they are compressed downward. So there is vertical pressure and it it can sometimes follow ah warp, not so much get rid of it unless you do super light, but then you're not cutting.
00:15:58
John S
God, it's... Sure.
00:16:05
johngrimsmo
um Yeah, no, it's interesting.
00:16:06
John S
I'm sorry.
00:16:08
johngrimsmo
So it's kind of something that comes and goes from my mind of like this unconstrained flatness theory.
00:16:14
John S
Yeah.
00:16:14
johngrimsmo
And it's wax sounds like a pretty baller way to do it if if it does do what I want.
00:16:22
John S
yeah
00:16:23
johngrimsmo
So yeah, it sounds maybe a little messy, but we'll see.
00:16:27
John S
cool
00:16:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:16:34
johngrimsmo
What you got?
00:16:36
John S
Well, I'll go in backward order from the one that's probably the most important, which is um every once in a while, I don't have a number, but if I had to guess it's one in 20 or one in 40 pieces of steel for our fixture plates, we end up machining it. And when we machine it, we see a little bit of porosity.
00:16:52
John S
And on a 20 inch by 40 inch fixture plate, which is fairly large, it might be and a little spot the size of a quarter. But sometimes the speckles will be enough to where we we don't love it. Like we'll usually try to fix it.
00:17:07
John S
um That becomes a bigger issue if we're making a multi-plate set where they're matched thicknesses and it's like we're not regrinding three plates to fix what is under one, like it's a complete non-functional issue. It looks, I don't like it, but like, um, and it sinks to discover it after you've, you know, bought the material, you've had it in inventory for days, weeks, maybe a few months, then you spend time setting up, you machine it, drill holes. Like we've incurred a lot of the time and cost in the production. And then we see this.
00:17:36
John S
So, um, Um, I'm guessing to be very practical, I'm guessing there's not going to be a solution for us or, and when I say that, I mean, we are not going to spend 30 to $50,000 on one of the tools that can do crazy inspection and do that on every square inch of every piece of material we buy.
00:17:56
John S
That's just not going to happen.
00:17:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah
00:17:58
John S
Um, And so the outcome may just be, Hey, it happens. You got to deal with it. And you know, we've got better ways of dealing with that now okay, like, do we redeck it or do we, so do we figure out how to either work with the customer or scrap, whatever we can figure that out.
00:18:12
John S
But then I started researching all a chat GBT about, you know, various forms of non-destructive testing and devices. So I sent some emails out, um, I kind of like this idea of like, I do enough homework to get smart for a couple of different vendors and technologies.
00:18:28
John S
And then I just pass it off to them because they're the experts. And i I don't want to go down multi-hour rabbit holes, especially when they're dumb. And actually, I got to give a huge credit. One company had this technology.
00:18:38
John S
And of course, it's, you know, of course, it's a kind of thing where you have to have... discussions because these are systems that you're buying. It's not like an Amazon buy here. And I love it under the contact us here. They're like, our systems start at $25,000.
00:18:52
John S
God bless you. Thank you for being upfront, not wasting my time or your time. um But um yeah, if anybody knows, I mean, so again, the idea is we buy a piece of one inch thick 4140 pre-hard or hardened material. And I want to just be able to, um especially when it gets off the truck, it would be worth our time to take a tool.
00:19:11
John S
For sure, $5,000 or less would make sense. More than that, I'd have to think about it um and take some of the material and just spot check a few spots. Because if it is, if we do see problems there, then it gives us the chance to have a much tighter feedback loop with our vendor on, hey, we're seeing some issues here um rather than wait.
00:19:30
johngrimsmo
who
00:19:31
John S
And it's actually quite difficult to track the lots of the material when they're already moved into production. um Yeah, that's where I'm at.
00:19:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I guess proper aerospace shops like have to track the lot material through through to the customer pretty much, but we don't.
00:19:44
John S
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:49
johngrimsmo
No.
00:19:50
John S
Do you?
00:19:50
johngrimsmo
No.
00:19:51
John S
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. we We could with steel fixture plates. I mean, they're relatively low volume compared to your stuff, even I'm sure, but like it just would be a lot of work.
00:20:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:00
John S
Um, and that's exactly, and let's solve the problem and not like, I still don't want to end up at the situation where it's November.
00:20:01
johngrimsmo
It's the juice worth the squeeze, you know?
00:20:10
John S
I bought steel at the end of September and now we're running it and the steel has porosity. It's like, let's fix it the day it comes off the truck.
00:20:18
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep. Any chance the vendor can do that for you? Just thinking.
00:20:22
John S
Yes, maybe. And I thought about that, except it ends up being, wouldn't say contentious, but like, it would be better for me to come back and say, hey, we either need to buy this tool, which is gonna, or you need to do, like, I wanna be a little smarter before I go back to them with the specific ask.
00:20:39
John S
Also to kind of show, hey, you know, for a long time, and I still am just a guy who buys steel versus saying, hey, we we are aware of this this possibility and you need to start doing that with this technology or whatever.
00:20:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah, there's just a chance that vendor might already have this kind of technology, you know, just not applied to you yet.
00:21:00
johngrimsmo
That saves you a whole lot of time and money if, you know, the problem can be solved before it gets shipped to you.
00:21:06
John S
hundred Yeah. hundred actually, not only are you right, it's it's just a better overall, I don't want to own the tool. I don't want to do it. It's actually really hard for us to do it when the plates come stacked. Like I don't want unstack them just to check them.
00:21:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:21:17
John S
um On the flip side, I need to know what to ask of them, how they're documented it, because if it still happens, then we get into this pissing contest of like, well, you're supposed to do this.
00:21:22
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:21:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:21:29
johngrimsmo
And in that scenario, you haven't even you don't pay for the material until it's qualified. like you know It's not even shipped to you, if it works like that. I don't know. Maybe a steel supplier is just like, we don't do that here.
00:21:44
John S
No, they'll be there'll be a better conversation. um When toured Heimer last year in Germany, they had a, I think it was a $30,000 or $40,000 handheld tool that they would hit their round bars that became holders.
00:21:57
John S
I think it's the same thing. They don't want to set up a three inch piece of material in a million dollar turning center or or automation cell, have it make 70 holders, grind them, hone them and then when they hone them, find out there's issues with the material.
00:22:09
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:22:10
John S
um but that But now that we we're having this conversation, I'm curious, why doesn't Hymer just tell their upstream suppliers to do that? I don't know.
00:22:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Is the issue you're seeing, you think within the material, or is it like a dent from the outside, from the rolling process or whatever?
00:22:28
John S
a hundred percent in the material from, and it's, you know we're taking off enough to where it's not, uh, it's not porosity or contaminations that would continue to the surface.
00:22:30
johngrimsmo
Internal. Okay.
00:22:42
John S
We're in the material enough to where you're like, okay, this is hidden.
00:22:45
johngrimsmo
got it
00:22:46
John S
If you want, now it's near the, near the top. I don't need to check the center of a one inch plate by any means.
00:22:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I guess for your application, the strength of it or the weakness of some sort of porosity inside is not really the end of the world, unless a screw a screw rips out.
00:22:51
John S
Um,
00:23:01
John S
No, these are, so they're they're speckles. They wouldn't compromise the plate.
00:23:04
johngrimsmo
Got it. But yeah, speckles, got it.
00:23:06
John S
And, but one of the emails I just sent was to a company that had some sort of a magnetic testing thing where it's like, Ooh, interesting. Like, could you have some sort of a electronic digital magnet that could sense the flow of that through it?
00:23:20
John S
Um, I need to learn more. um
00:23:22
johngrimsmo
No.
00:23:23
John S
Also super random off topic. I just saw on a Reddit post that apparently that's how in a somewhat secretive way, a lot of the U S subs navigate or nuclear subs of any country. Have you heard of this?
00:23:35
johngrimsmo
no
00:23:35
John S
So you can't, like there's no good underwater technology for like anything. Communication, um ah directionality, GPS doesn't work, of course. um And they need to be radio quiet, especially they can't do certain things. They can't send out ping signals to the ocean floor.
00:23:51
John S
um And and then so they basically... use the same technology we've used a long time, inertial ah gyros to basically detect where they should be like dead reckoning, but like that gets worse over time and other things that affect it.
00:24:06
John S
And apparently there's some gravity mapping of like unbelievably minute deviations throughout the earth's oceans about gravity that we can then correlate instruments to know where you are that way.
00:24:19
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:24:19
John S
Which a weird way now got me thinking about like how do you measure this plate and just see where are their inconsistencies in that?
00:24:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah. okay
00:24:27
John S
That should be possible.
00:24:29
johngrimsmo
but hello um I bought a um kind of opposite, but I bought a gauss meter a few months ago to measure magnetism. um
00:24:38
John S
They're great.
00:24:39
johngrimsmo
yeah So you can look at a magnet and be like, oh, these two magnets have different powers. Or what I want it for is residual magnetism. Like how much magnetism is left either before or after I demagnetized this part. um And it's pretty sweet for like a hundred dollars or whatever it costs. I was like, this is really cool.
00:24:55
johngrimsmo
But yeah, I wonder if you could
00:24:59
johngrimsmo
measure the magnetic flux through the thickness of the material or something like that um as it varies throughout the part.
00:25:06
John S
Bingo, right?
00:25:07
johngrimsmo
Like super strong magnet under the part, gauss meter on top, and you're shoving the plate across and through this beam. That might tell you something.
00:25:17
John S
there'ss there's but yeah I should probably move on because I think I'll learn a lot and I'll fill everybody in, but it's just like paint, me like you can get paint meter for 40 bucks, which like figures out thickness paint.
00:25:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:27
John S
And like, there's all these different ways of now detecting, like if you have a big steel plate and let's say that there's a giant quarter inch hole
00:25:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:36
John S
two millimeters below the surface, some device could easily tell you that that exists. Now I want something more sensitive, but it's that kind of idea.
00:25:42
johngrimsmo
Because you want to see the the the micro bubbles and porosity or like small features, really.
00:25:46
John S
Yeah.
00:25:49
John S
I mean, look, if it's under one millimeter, the customer's not going to care as much. But it's like, look, we care. It's an awkward situation to be in, if I'm being very candid.
00:25:58
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:25:58
John S
Because if somebody's spending $2,000, $3,000 on a fixture plate and they unbox it and they look and say, what the heck is this?
00:25:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah, for sure.
00:26:04
John S
They have a fair point. On the flip side... it's not the right outcome to always feel like you need to put a ton of more. I think most customers are like, Hey, it's probably going to cost us $200, $300 worth of work and time and labor to, to take that tiny spec out.
00:26:19
John S
Would you rather just have a store credit? They'd be like, I'll take the credit. You know what mean?
00:26:22
johngrimsmo
yep
00:26:27
johngrimsmo
cool
00:26:28
John S
What do you, you want to talk about nesting?
00:26:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah, a quick thing
Challenges in Laser Cutting and Production
00:26:32
johngrimsmo
on nesting. so we We're getting our blades water jet cut at a vendor. um That has its own downsides. They come back rusty, or if um if they take them off the machine quick enough, they can dump them in they call it slushing oil that prevents them from rusting.
00:26:48
johngrimsmo
But still, If you use regular tap water on a water jet, your parts are going rust within minutes. That's just how it works, unfortunately. um And so then we have to clean them off, and we have to clean the slushing oil off, and we have to use Varsol and all these chemicals, and we have to dry them, and then we still have to grind them after that. It's a lot of work.
00:27:07
johngrimsmo
Some of our blades from a different vendor come laser cut. And I found a local vendor in Toronto that does this kind of laser cutting. So we sent them a couple sheets and new vendor, new nesting routine.
00:27:22
johngrimsmo
um Like how many blades can fit in this sheet. And so I told them, you know, previous vendor, or I told them 168 blades is the order. Here's one sheet should be 168 blades in this. That's what the previous vendor was getting us.
00:27:34
johngrimsmo
They came back they're like, we can only fit 158 or something like that. Like we're nine blades short. And I'm like, Okay, hold on. let me Let me open up deepnest.io here and see what I can do.
00:27:45
John S
Let me do your job for you because that's, yeah.
00:27:46
johngrimsmo
Kind of. And i I put like a couple hours into it, which I kind of felt bad about, but I'm also like, no, I'm kind of curious about this. Let's, I need to know what I'm talking about here. um And they sent me their nest.
00:27:57
johngrimsmo
Like they showed me the the map, which is nice.
00:27:58
John S
Yeah, that's nice.
00:27:59
johngrimsmo
um They're like, do you do you approve this? I'm like, I think we can get another five or 10 more blades in there because whatever, but maybe you have laser requirements, like the gap between parts needs to be more or something like that, you know?
00:28:11
John S
Yeah, that's a fair point. Sure.
00:28:13
johngrimsmo
Fair. However, using the stated settings on their email, 0.2 inch part separation or something like that, I put that into deepnest.io, which is a nesting software. You give it one CAD file and a um like one DXF and a boundary, and you just hit crunch.
00:28:31
johngrimsmo
And you say, how many parts can I fit in here?
00:28:31
John S
Cool.
00:28:33
johngrimsmo
And it just goes, bop, bop, bop, bop. And it literally uses your computing power. It's a local program to reorient and twist and turn and fit and flip and all that. and you give it some parameters, not as many as I would have liked, actually.
00:28:45
johngrimsmo
But and you just let it crunch for <unk> I've heard of it for years.
00:28:47
John S
Did you just Google?
00:28:50
johngrimsmo
I know Rob's been talking about it for a long time. um
00:28:52
John S
Okay, it's not in your daily repertoire. You just found it or bought it.
00:28:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah, i've I've just heard of it and it's a free software.
00:28:55
John S
Okay.
00:28:57
johngrimsmo
um People with routers or laser cutters or things like that, like, like tend to use it like it. Apparently that's a dead project. And now it's deep nest dash next, I think is the current kind of iteration. Same thing, but better.
00:29:13
johngrimsmo
I tried both. I got different results. I still wasn't getting anywhere close to 168. even with this nesting software, I was only getting 154 or something like that. I'm like, hold on.
00:29:26
johngrimsmo
And I have a nesting image from my previous supplier, which just,
00:29:30
John S
With the 168. sixty eight
00:29:32
johngrimsmo
with a 168, which is just a linear, like two, two components are nested together, like rotationally or whatever. And then that two pattern is pattern of a whole bunch. So i just went into fusion and did like an arrange function.
00:29:46
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, yeah, there it is with the same gap spacing and everything. So I exported the DXF. I send it to the vendor and was like, this is what I got. This is how they did 168. Use this file if you can.
00:29:58
johngrimsmo
Um, and then we received the material last week. Uh, normally we just receive a box of finished blades and they keep the, um, the remnant, the, the, what's it called?
00:30:10
johngrimsmo
The, yeah, there's another word I'm thinking of for it, but yeah, drops good.
00:30:10
John S
The drop.
00:30:14
John S
Scrap.
00:30:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:16
John S
Whatever.
00:30:16
johngrimsmo
the The nest, the grid, whatever the leftover, um We never had that conversation with the new vendor. So they put this on a pallet and they sent an 18 wheeler and they delivered this pallet.
00:30:29
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, oh my gosh, the shipping is going to cost more than the laser cutting because laser cutting is a lot cheaper than water jet.
00:30:32
John S
Yeah, right?
00:30:37
johngrimsmo
They quoted like 13 minutes to cut these 168 blades. I'm like, whoa.
00:30:42
John S
Per blade.
00:30:42
johngrimsmo
No, for all of them.
00:30:43
John S
total
00:30:45
johngrimsmo
That's like crazy fast. And so way cheap. And I do think I'll pay more in shipping than I did for the cut 168 points.
00:30:53
John S
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:55
johngrimsmo
Whatever. So it's interesting. We didn't have that conversation of like, no, no, keep the drop. I don't need it. um But point is they didn't do 168. They did seven short of that. So 161 or something like that.
00:31:08
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, what the heck guys? Like with no further communication, like I sent them,
00:31:12
John S
but pal The pattern showed 168.
00:31:16
johngrimsmo
My pattern did. Yeah. Like shows possible. Maybe they need more between the material part to part, something like that. I don't know. So basically I sent them my one 68 nest, the XF, and then I never heard back.
00:31:27
johngrimsmo
And then a week later, an 18 wheeler shows up I'm like, okay, clearly new vendor.
00:31:33
John S
you know
00:31:33
johngrimsmo
We got to communicate a little bit tighter. I like the cost. I like the, I like the speed of machining, but the turnaround time could have been a lot faster. It was like weeks and weeks and weeks.
00:31:43
John S
Oh, interesting. Oh.
00:31:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah. So like pluses and minuses.
00:31:45
John S
Okay. Hmm.
00:31:46
johngrimsmo
If we plan for it, we're fine. But the cost savings is significant. And the quality is great.
00:31:53
John S
the
00:31:53
johngrimsmo
The parts are dry, clean, no rust. There's a burr on the bottom side where the laser blows through, but there's no burr on top, which is quite interesting. So the top side is like grindable almost, like fixturable.
00:32:05
John S
Is to say, yeah, should be fine, right?
00:32:07
johngrimsmo
Hit it on some sandpaper and you're like, good.
00:32:07
John S
you And you don't, ah are you concerned about the heat affected zone?
00:32:14
johngrimsmo
um That was definitely a a theoretical concern, but lasers these days are so good that it's not an issue. You can't see it. I'm sure it's there to an extent, but we're cutting off 50,000 across the whole perimeter.
00:32:23
John S
Crazy. Yeah.
00:32:27
johngrimsmo
So like, it's fine. It's fine.
00:32:29
John S
Okay.
00:32:30
johngrimsmo
I think it used to be a really big deal.
00:32:33
John S
Well, humble, humble advice. Just be conscious of whatever tool you use to first, that first touches that has. Cause even if you don't see anything, I'm guessing you're going to learn that edge will, will cut differently than a water jet edge.
00:32:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:32:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah, we've been processing one of our blade seals, MagnaCut, as laser cut parts for years now.
00:32:53
John S
Oh, okay You know what you're doing then.
00:32:54
johngrimsmo
And we didn't even think about it.
00:32:56
John S
Okay. Got it.
00:32:56
johngrimsmo
We just run it run it just like everything else, and current tool life seems to do fine.
00:32:56
John S
Got it.
00:33:01
John S
Okay. Forgive me.
00:33:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:33:04
John S
Well, cool. um Yeah. These 168 blades, I'm guessing is something that I could pick up in a shoe box size part box.
00:33:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:33:13
John S
Like it's not, doesn't need to be phrase shipped.
00:33:14
johngrimsmo
Pretty much. doesn need valid no but the two nests, the drops are like two foot by three foot, almost pallet sized.
00:33:16
John S
Yeah. Okay. Got it.
00:33:21
John S
All right.
00:33:22
johngrimsmo
And yeah. Okay. So next time teaches us for next time.
00:33:25
John S
That's funny. That's funny.
00:33:26
johngrimsmo
Communicate some notes better.
00:33:31
John S
What's your interferometer update?
Building and Experimenting with New Technologies
00:33:33
johngrimsmo
Um, I had some freedom on Sunday when all the family just kind of went into their own corners and did their own things. And I'm like, okay, I, I, I've been ignoring this project for a month and a bit. And I'm like, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna dip my toe in the water.
00:33:49
johngrimsmo
Um, and so I spent eight hours on Sunday, like dipping my toe deep in the water. just further research, further understanding of what I need to do, re-watching some of the excellent videos I've seen, and building my parts list pretty much. And actually, I ordered some of the parts that I need. so I've started the physical financial process of ah building this, which is kind of cool.
00:34:13
John S
yeah Are you doing it is it helium lamp?
00:34:15
johngrimsmo
No, it's it's called a white light interferometer, so just a regular LED, just white light.
00:34:20
John S
Oh, I'm sorry, John. I'm confusing like what you need to read. Oh my gosh, I'm blanking. What are the flat stones? Not flat stones.
00:34:27
johngrimsmo
Optical flats.
00:34:27
John S
What are the, thank you. Optical flats need a monochromatic.
00:34:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Correct. Which I do have.
00:34:32
John S
but Sorry, I'm clearly, I'm right.
00:34:32
johngrimsmo
That's okay. Yeah. So it's the same concept kind of.
00:34:36
John S
Okay.
00:34:38
johngrimsmo
So optical flats, which I have many of, and I have a sodium bulb lamp and I have a filtered LED or filtered fluorescent tube lamp. um which basically shows you the fringes on a flat part. You put the glass flat on top.
00:34:52
John S
Yep.
00:34:52
johngrimsmo
White light interferometry uses basically the interference between two different beams of white light and how they clash with each other in a very narrow band.
00:35:05
johngrimsmo
So you scan that across your part and now you get this literal wave of fringes across your part.
00:35:08
John S
Yes.
00:35:10
johngrimsmo
Video camera records that and basically measures light intensity, light to dark. um across every single pixel in the image, in the video, and then gives you an actual nanometer scale Z height for all these parts. And ever since really deep diving at the current event a couple months ago,
00:35:30
johngrimsmo
and And now being at work and going through things, literally yesterday, I was like, if I had that interferometer right now, I'd be able to answer this question. I'd be able to, you know, this part that's a problem that nobody knows what's wrong with it.
00:35:42
johngrimsmo
I would be able to tell you what's wrong with it. I want this so bad. check
00:35:48
John S
and I now recall the, this is the Cyrus diameter lathe.
00:35:51
johngrimsmo
Yes, exactly.
00:35:51
John S
Like, yes, dude, love this. I'm super glad that you're not giving up on it.
00:35:57
johngrimsmo
No, absolutely. its I'm glad I took a break, but I'm coming back at it hard and probably spending bit too much time on it lately, but I'm excited.
00:36:08
johngrimsmo
It's like very interesting to me.
00:36:10
John S
Yeah. Well, that's the whole, like, I don't I mean, like, let's hit the, like, mute button so we don't share this publicly. Not really. But like, you know what I mean? Like, you're admitting this. Like, so if you're admitting it, it's probably really true that you're spending way too much time on it.
00:36:23
John S
John, who cares? Sorry.
00:36:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's okay.
00:36:24
John S
Like, what you want do about it?
00:36:25
johngrimsmo
No, it's okay.
00:36:25
John S
Like, you, you you know what mean?
00:36:26
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:36:27
John S
Like, you know, I'm not your babysitter. You're not my babysitter, but like you're, you're acknowledging it. You're getting satisfaction out of it. This is actually for sure as a work, could have a huge work relevance.
00:36:34
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:36:36
johngrimsmo
Huge, yeah.
00:36:37
John S
I'm like, mean, some of the stuff doing is totally, mean, I could argue it makes me better at a lot of general things, like whatever.
00:36:37
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:36:41
johngrimsmo
yep Yeah, exactly.
00:36:42
John S
yeah
00:36:44
johngrimsmo
So, all good.
00:36:45
John S
Okay. Yeah.
00:36:46
johngrimsmo
So, yeah, making slow progress. So, actually i ordered my first custom circuit board from JLCPCB, which I've never done before, and seamless, amazing process.
00:36:51
John S
Yes. Good.
00:36:58
johngrimsmo
The the quote quoted price was $4, minimum order or quantity five.
00:36:58
John S
Crazy, right?
00:37:02
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, okay, so they're $4 each times five. No big deal. No, it's $4 for five of them.
00:37:06
John S
No.
00:37:08
johngrimsmo
And they're on a discount for $2 each or $2 for all five. And I got like a $20 voucher for my first thing. So I'm out the door UPS worldwide shipping for like $5.
00:37:18
johngrimsmo
I'm like, this is crazy.
00:37:20
John S
in the same insane insane
00:37:21
johngrimsmo
And it was into production less than 24 hours after I placed the order. And they their production map literally showed like a 12-step process. And it's like, at this timestamp exactly, this is finished. And now it's in this timestamp. And now it's doing the silkscreen. And now it's doing the cut-through and all that, drilling holes. And I'm like, that's a really nice system.
00:37:44
John S
Part of me also hopes that that's completely fabricated.
00:37:47
johngrimsmo
happens
00:37:48
John S
yeah Like they're so good at this. It ships anyways. that like We're just going to tell a customer it's in stage seven, even though it's like, yeah, whatever.
00:37:54
johngrimsmo
That's a good point. I don't know. I didn't think about that. But as a customer, you just want to believe it. You just want to be like, wow, okay, they scan a barcode and my order is at this point. You could fake it, but might be more hassle than it's worth.
00:38:08
John S
When I was hanging out with my buddy doing the robot eyeballs that I talked about last week, he had a, I ended up looking up, it was about $300.
00:38:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:38:15
John S
It had some Chinese characters on it. And so I don't know if that's just because it's a brand in that space or whether it's because it's quote unquote cheap, like, you know, like China, we have such a in my opinion, we have such an unexplained dichotomy of how we view products from China. Cause like everyone would be like, oh that's your Vivor, know, piece of junk lathe. But it's also like, I don't know, my iPhone 17 is pretty dialed.
00:38:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:38:37
John S
um So this soldering, I didn't know where it fell in that spectrum, but it was, it had two different ah soldering tool devices on it. And it had like digital screens, adjustments,
00:38:48
John S
the obvious answer. One was an iron, one was a hot flow rework. Um, lots of knobs to adjust. And the, um, toy acquisition syndrome side of my brain was just like, yeah, you need one of those.
00:38:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:38:59
John S
And then I'm like, what am I doing? i have a Weller, whatever, PS51, works great. Like soldering is not, um, the only thing remotely had to do difficult was I had to move some, uh, I had to move some, uh,
00:39:14
John S
surfacef not surface yeah surface mount potentiometers on a Johnny-5 servo board, which meant you had to desolder them and and then solder pads on and hook wires into the pads, which is tricky, but and actually shout out to Spencer Webb.
00:39:25
John S
He helped me kind of walk through a good process for that to not, you know, you don't want to burn the components or fry the board.
00:39:28
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:39:31
John S
You don't want to heat up so much that all the flux goes, like there's all these, like, there's a lot of wrong ways to do it, but once somebody explains the right way, it's not a big deal. And so, I'm actually proud of myself and I'm like, okay, I can file that ah away in the bucket of maybe things I want to buy later, but don't need it.
00:39:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:39:45
johngrimsmo
Yep. Or skills that I have now that I can do, I have done. I'm not afraid of, you know, moving a resistor or something like that.
00:39:50
John S
Yeah.
00:39:53
John S
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:39:53
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:39:56
John S
Um, the other thing, so doing this R2 build, um, printing him out of PETG, um, hundreds, if not thousands of people have
Model Building and CNC Machine Setup
00:40:04
John S
built these. So unlike J5, there's this robust community.
00:40:06
John S
In fact, there's too many choices and options. Um, but PETG, just so it doesn't melt in a truck or car if I move them around. Um, and so I went to spray paint him. He clicked, they all clipped together. So it's a pretty good,
00:40:20
John S
design, but nevertheless you'll have seams. And so primer doesn't always fill those seams in and I want them to look good. um so did a little bit of Bondo, but punchline is either the Bondo or the primer alone was starting to like, I would, I would hit it with a primer, paint it, the dome, and then I would come back and it would, it would look great by the way.
00:40:42
John S
And then it would dry and it would, it would have a whole section, ah the size of your hand that would have severe cracking on it. like cracking. And I'm like, what?
00:40:53
John S
Like it's clean. It's dry. Like wiped it down. sanding it. Like I don't get it It's good paint. And, um, again, kind of blows me away. i don't know why I am still blown away by this, but took a picture, asked chat. And it's like,
00:41:07
John S
the way it speaks to you is so well designed. It's like, oh yeah, classic example of the wrong primer on a PETG. and And then I'm not going to bore everybody, but you start to read it and it's like, that primer is an enamel-based formula, not lacquer. It's designed for metal. It uses a hot solvent to bite into the surface. That's what's cracking your PETG print.
00:41:24
John S
You know, you're under your, it doesn't flash off quick enough. and It lingers. And then when it starts to dissolve, it the the flashing causes the micro cracking as the gas is escape. You're just like, what, what? And so
00:41:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:34
John S
i um Okay. I listened, I obeyed and I sanded stuff down, grabbed a different can of primer. Um, and you know, like, I don't know, maybe I'm a doofus, but like, I kind of like, I know there's different primers in different mess, but I'm a kind of like, eh, primer primer.
00:41:50
johngrimsmo
I kind of don't care. Yeah.
00:41:51
John S
Yeah. And a million times better. Just insane.
00:41:56
johngrimsmo
Good.
00:41:56
John S
Yeah.
00:41:56
johngrimsmo
Yep. Right tool for the right job.
00:41:57
John S
Yeah.
00:41:58
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:41:58
John S
Right. Right.
00:41:59
johngrimsmo
And I think both of us are in the in the area where Like, as I've been saying a lot lately, you know, my job is to know a lot of things about a lot of things.
00:42:07
John S
Yeah.
00:42:07
johngrimsmo
And, but there's some things I just need a surface level knowledge of. I don't need to know deep into primers. I need to know that there are different primers and I need to look up which one to use when I need to use it.
00:42:18
johngrimsmo
I don't need to be an expert on primers. I don't need to file that information in my brain. but I know it's a thing and I know it's out there.
00:42:24
John S
Bingo.
00:42:24
johngrimsmo
That's enough.
00:42:26
John S
Yeah.
00:42:26
johngrimsmo
And then same with a lot of different things. Some things I like to go full deep and like, I know everything about that now, but some things just like, I know it's a thing. I'll look it up when I need to.
00:42:36
John S
Yeah. Well, and the same issue I think is relevant to um the Bondo Spot Putty that I've been using, which is the toothpaste Bondo that you just squirt a little bit out and put it in your minor deflight versus the regular Bondo or body filler, which is the two part that you mix together.
00:42:47
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:42:52
johngrimsmo
Thank
00:42:53
John S
My spot filler that's so much more convenient is quote unquote way hotter and it has more ability to burn through cause cracking, et cetera. And so I was like, Oh, that's a really good lesson. Like I now realized i don't really care about mixing up the two part other than it's easier not to, but now I know it's like, Oh, this is good thing.
00:43:12
johngrimsmo
If you ever have to mix a whole lot of Bondo, three m makes a dynamic mixer. with It mixes the two parts automatically in a little stirring blade on the tip, and it exports them. It looks pretty awesome.
00:43:22
John S
I only use dynamic mixtures from Grimsmone knives.
00:43:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. Yep. I'll hook you up.
00:43:29
John S
You want to you want to tackle foam to wrap this up here?
00:43:31
johngrimsmo
nothing ah Nothing new. Nothing new.
00:43:32
John S
Nothing, update. Okay. um I owe a tip of the hat and a thank you to Skyler. um He is one of the many instant machinist owners and operators of brother CNC machines, and he has some pretty awesome accessories.
00:43:44
John S
um Um, he actually offered to send me to him and I just bought them cause I feel like to be in our position, it's like great to not just like, I like supporting other business.
00:43:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah, sure.
00:43:53
John S
I'm not perfect, but like, it's nice to do that. Um, and so we bought the hose mount. Um, mean, I don't know. embarrassed. I got to forget what i need to look at what we bought. Some of it we actually won't need because the first brother, I kind of got them to include the work light and hose thing from them. And I thought on the next one, now that we know what that machine is, I'll be able to DIY it and,
00:44:15
John S
It's a, I'd be much more comfortable tackling that stuff on my own later once we get the first one up and running.
00:44:18
johngrimsmo
yeah sure
00:44:20
John S
Um, but just want say thank you to him. Um, they've actually been sitting here for a couple of weeks and we've got a whole little pile of, but, uh, bought a bunch of Mari tool, dual contact holders, um, pull studs, some cutting tools already.
00:44:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:33
John S
Um, we're getting the fixture plate made for it. We've got the vices going, the robots here, Courtney's programming it. Um, it's coming along.
00:44:39
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:44:40
John S
Yeah.
00:44:40
johngrimsmo
That's awesome. Good man. So when's the machine come?
00:44:42
John S
Yeah. Uh, it is a week from this Friday is D day. So we have, um, two machines leaving that day and the brother coming.
00:44:48
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:44:53
John S
It's our first ever three machine day, which will be kind of, uh, I say hectic.
00:44:53
johngrimsmo
Nice. Nice.
00:44:58
John S
It won't be, it'll be fine.
00:44:59
johngrimsmo
You'll be fine. Yeah.
00:45:00
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:02
johngrimsmo
Sweet.
00:45:03
John S
Yes.
Podcast Audio Solutions and Personal Life Updates
00:45:04
johngrimsmo
um I'll close this out with ah some audio issues, with which couple of people reached out over the past week and let me know that they definitely heard both a radio station playing in the background and or an echo on my end.
00:45:16
johngrimsmo
um So I'll tell you what I learned with ChatGPT's help. um The cable for my USB, ah what do I have, the Blue Yeti microphone, um was picking up 94.7 Country FM.
00:45:33
johngrimsmo
And in Zencastr, if I turn on a setting called monitoring where I can hear myself, like actually I can hear my own echo kind of thing. I could hear this. If I turn the volume up, I could hear the radio station quiet, but clearly I can hear what song was playing.
00:45:44
John S
So funny.
00:45:46
johngrimsmo
I can hear what ad was playing. And i don't know if this is a new thing or something, but it's been affecting the background of my side of the audio on the podcast. And I can listen back in the past few episodes and certain points I can like hear it. And I'm like, what the heck
00:46:00
John S
Yeah.
00:46:00
johngrimsmo
So I replaced the cable just today and I put ferrite caps on both ends of the cable and the cable alone fixed the problem. Ferrite caps on the old cable did not fix the problem, which I thought was really interesting.
00:46:10
John S
Oh.
00:46:15
johngrimsmo
And plugging the old cable into a USB hub with its own ferrite cap built into it reduced the problem by a lot. So that kind of told me the ferrite's a good thing.
00:46:27
johngrimsmo
um So yeah, this today is with new cable and ferrite caps on both ends of this USB audio cable. And I think it's a lot better. I don't hear my own echo anymore, which is really good.
00:46:37
johngrimsmo
And the radio station's gone.
00:46:40
John S
We no longer have tobe Toby Keith as a guest on our the business of machining.
00:46:40
johngrimsmo
And I think Yeah, exactly. And I think we still both have various little background noises throughout the shop that just make their way into the audio, but it's what it is.
00:46:48
John S
Yeah. Good.
00:46:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so that's my update.
00:46:53
John S
Can I share an embarrassing fair right cap story?
00:46:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:57
John S
Uh, six months ago, Johnny five EMF issue. I think I talked to about it. Um, and actually Spencer Webb has also helped me troubleshoot it.
00:47:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:47:04
John S
and he's like, you need ferret caps. I've got a bunch. I'll send for you a few. So I sent him a video back and I'm like, Hey, this didn't work. And I have the ferret cap, which just looks like a donut around the cable. I just clamped it around the cable.
00:47:14
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:47:15
John S
That's not what you do.
00:47:17
johngrimsmo
ah
00:47:18
John S
you have to loop the cable and you have to put the ferrite cap around it.
00:47:19
johngrimsmo
Oh. Over both?
00:47:22
John S
I know most people are on radio, but yeah, you have to have a loop of it. I can't tell you why, John, um but you might try that or just a PSA.
00:47:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Okay, which I have not done. that I just clamped them on once. They're the the split clamp, the two sides that clip together kind of thing.
00:47:33
John S
Yeah.
00:47:36
John S
Yes.
00:47:37
johngrimsmo
um Interesting. Okay. but That's where you need someone like Spencer to come in and be like, boys, listen, this is what I do.
00:47:40
John S
Yeah.
00:47:45
John S
yeah Yeah. Um, well, I told you offline, I wasn't gonna share this. I guess I'll quietly end with this pun intended. Um, I just got hearing aids, so, um, I don't want the attention. It's whatever. It's just more like it's a huge quality life improvement for me personally. And so, um, you hear a lot of people that are just don't want, won't get them too stubborn or whatever. And I mean, to each, to each their own, but it's been life changing for me.
00:48:11
johngrimsmo
That's good to hear, man.
00:48:12
John S
Yeah.
00:48:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I know my hearing is is less than it was 10, 15 years ago. Being in a loud shop does not help um age. I mean, we're in our 40s. We're not old, but we're aging.
00:48:23
johngrimsmo
And yeah, things hit everybody different ways. So good for you.
00:48:26
John S
yeah Yeah, appreciate appreciate it.
00:48:28
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:48:29
John S
um We can talk offline here in a second about scheduling, but I think I'm off the next two weeks.
00:48:34
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:48:34
John S
So we'll see if we can find another date here, but i'll I guess I'll say goodbye on the air for now.
00:48:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Or there might be a a little gap in our schedule that is allowed after 436 episodes.
00:48:42
John S
Yes.
00:48:47
johngrimsmo
We can do what we want. But Arvin?
00:48:50
John S
Actually, I'm excited. I'm going to Idaho to meet Lights Out, um our our integrator.
00:48:52
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:48:54
John S
And then, well actually, I don't know if I'm doing any of this because of the airline shenanigans. So maybe we will be on. but ah And then we have a board meeting for Toolpath at Autodesk headquarters. I haven't been to Pier 9 in a number of years.
00:49:05
John S
So excited.
00:49:05
johngrimsmo
Nice. Nice.
00:49:06
John S
I'm excited to see some friendly faces and and and go through that stuff.
00:49:10
johngrimsmo
Good, man. Good for you.
00:49:11
John S
Yeah. And then next week is is Thanksgiving here in the good old US of All right.
00:49:15
johngrimsmo
Nice. All right. Well, I will see you in a bit.
00:49:19
John S
Sounds good.
00:49:20
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:49:21
John S
Bye.