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Business of Machining - Episode 30
237 Plays8 years ago
Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger. Out of nowhere, Grimsmo has an astonishing spike in productivity but Saunders is perplexed. Did he wake up with superpowers or clone himself? Bureaucracy? More like bureauCRAZY! Saunders finds himself peevish and bogged down with what should have been a simple task. With the right tools in the right places, machining the steel fixture plates should, in theory, be a cinch; however, with 471 holes, tool deflection and wear are proving to be a challenge. Both Johns are looking forward to next month's trade shows but for Grimsmo, September is a new beginning. Whodunnit? Here's a clue: it wasn't Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick. Find out which one of the guys had to hit the E-Stop and why. If you haven't left a review on iTunes, it's not too late! Leave a few words for the co-hosts for your chance to have a chat with them.
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Transcript
Celebrating Episode 30
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning, folks. Welcome to the business of machining, episode 30. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsma. Holy cow man, 30. 30, right? I don't really know what 30 signifies other than a lot more than... A lot. Doesn't this still feel like when I talk to Yvonne or something? This still feels like the new thing I'm working on, you know?
00:00:21
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But 30 is more than half a year. Right. And remember, I think we did these for six or nine months before we thought about lockwooding them into a podcast.
Ambitious Knife Production Goals
00:00:36
Speaker
How you been? How's your week?
00:00:38
Speaker
Ups and downs but generally fantastic. The end is near. It is the 18th today and I know I've been talking about this pre-order and it is within tasting distance. I can smell it.
00:00:54
Speaker
so it's august 18th right now when we're recording this and you sent me a text a couple days ago that blew my mind because i not i'm a i tend to be more of a i don't think i'm a pessimist i tend to be what i would consider a realist like i tend to look at people
00:01:09
Speaker
the opportunity to fall short of expectations just because it's tough, you know? And when you said you wanted, you know, basically you wanted to do something like one and a half or two times more knives in a month than you've ever done before. I'm like, John, that's not realistic. And that text made it sound like you're maybe there? Yeah, I mean, there's no point hiding
Achieving Increased Production Efficiency
00:01:32
Speaker
it. We've probably never made more than 30 knives in a month.
00:01:37
Speaker
and we're shooting for 60 this month. 60 of the hardest knives we've ever made. They take one and a half to two times longer per knife. It's insane. To accomplish. And we are, there's what, 19 left out of 60, and it's the 18th today. So we're way more than halfway. You've actually done 41 knives in the last ballpark 18 days? Yes. Dude. Yeah, finished, ready to ship out the door. Yeah, it's awesome. It's fantastic.
00:02:06
Speaker
What happened? Is it everything coming together? I think for me, and I think we talked about this a couple weeks ago, for me, honestly, it was the actual fear of failing the business. I'm such an optimist. I'm so hopeful. I'm like, oh, yeah, we got this. And I'm like that for years. But I actually tasted it a few weeks ago.
00:02:35
Speaker
It hurt me to my soul the thought that I could actually lose this and whether or not it was true But I allowed myself to believe the possibility. Yeah, and that changed it for me. But what did it that that's Yeah, look if you've never been That's moving like that's like I can't emphasize enough how
00:02:57
Speaker
I effectively lost a company, not due to cash flow or bankruptcy, but due to a partnership. And that company was my identity. It's your figurative baby. Not to take anything away from parenthood, but holy cow. But it's not like you were lazy, John. What did it actually change? Did it just change your focus? I guess I don't get it. Yeah, focus, determination.
The Importance of Tracking Productivity
00:03:24
Speaker
Barry comes in seven months ago with an analytical accounting mind, and he wants to track everything, and he wants to count everything, and he wants to measure everything. And that's an area that Eric and I have struggled with forever, is actually tracking the daily amount of knowledge that we can finish. So we think we're doing good, but we've never tracked it to actually tell ourselves, like, dude, you're averaging a poor amount, even though we feel like we're busy, and we're doing stuff, and all this. Yeah. Busy is not productive.
00:03:54
Speaker
No, exactly. And so we finally embraced some of that. And we're tracking daily now, like Eric's got a calendar on his wall that every day at the end of the day, he has to write down how many knives he finished. Because at the end of the day, knives out the door is what makes us money.
Battling Bureaucratic Inefficiencies
00:04:08
Speaker
And on a consistent basis is what gives us a business.
00:04:12
Speaker
So yeah, he's been tracking that, and I've been tracking everything that I'm making. I'm not tracking everything I'm doing. I'm tracking every physical part that I have finished in a day. I made seven blades today. I made 42 pivots on the lathe or something like that. I'm tracking the actual thing so that at the end of the month, we can hand it to Barry and say, analyze. And he can be like, wow, especially with my stuff, because it's so sporadic. A bit of this, bit of that. He can kind of add it up at the end and go, well, you're
00:04:40
Speaker
You're averaging the makings of so many a week and Eric is physically finishing so many a week and it's just all coming together, I don't know. It's funny and interesting and sad because I think as you and I both have gone through this journey, when I see big companies or big shops or production shops, it's like, oh, I don't ever want to be one of those companies that makes you track numbers or makes you track this or makes you submit expense reports and all that. Then you start to realize,
00:05:07
Speaker
It's just how it works. It's not, it's just, yeah. But what I also like, and I just can't stand inefficiencies, and I guess I probably need to learn to respect systems and paperwork a little more, but we've been trying to buy, this is amazing, we're trying to buy a laptop for the local high school machining program's teacher. His laptop is super old, it won't run Fusion, he wants to do some more stuff, and we're just like, look, we'll buy it for you.
00:05:34
Speaker
using some of the funds that we raised from the open house. And it's been three months, I kid you not, of back and forths in emails and IT departments, committees, approvals, forms, reimbursements. And I'm like, guys, it's a $1,400 laptop. The way this works in the real world when you're hungry is I log on to like Amazon, I find it, I click buy, and I move on with my day. Unbelievable.
00:06:03
Speaker
What is it about it that's taken so long?
00:06:06
Speaker
Everything, I mean, just literally. Like who, the person you're buying it from, or what? Well, it's not, I'm not gonna waste podcast time with the whole story, but it's, you know, it's not an approved laptop within the school's infrastructure, so they tried to push back to get him to get it surfaced. I'm like, a surface is not what you want for this. And then, and then he had to get the IT department on board. The IT department had to get somebody else approved. Then they had to get it checked for this. Then it's like, how do they do this? And then how do you get it re-inter? So it's all within the school? Oh yeah, it's nothing on our end. Good grief. Yeah, yeah.
00:06:36
Speaker
Well, not your end, but like your purchaser, like your store or whatever. Okay, that's all on the school's end. That's horrible. But it just frustrates me when you see things that are so massively inefficient that they're completely detached from reality. And when you think back to how the core of things works, you know, whether it's just when you get hungry, when you need to make ends meet and all that stuff goes away because it's beneficial, but it's not necessary.
00:07:02
Speaker
I understand it helps an IT department to run efficiently to make sure there's some uniformity across the platform, and I get that. Heck, even in our training classrooms here, it's frustrating because we've got two or now three different series of computers, so it's tough when you go to update them. You've got some inconsistencies. I get it, but my gosh.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah.
Technical Challenges with Fixture Plates
00:07:24
Speaker
OK, I need your help. I am more frustrated than I've ever been on a machine project.
00:07:36
Speaker
and it's what we've talked, we've talked about it before, I don't know the same super new, but basically, and there's no point in talking around the bushes about it, it's the steel tormach fixture plates, and we're able, it's funny, we're able to make them, and we're able to make them to what I think is a phenomenal spec and something I'm proud to put out, I really am, but I don't like it, and I don't like the process, I don't like the process control.
00:08:03
Speaker
It's 4140, it's 30 Rockwell, so it's tougher stuff. The machine's pretty well. It's just, hey, we're not in aluminum land anymore where tools last months instead of hours. And there's 471 board holes on it.
00:08:21
Speaker
I have the a lot in a lot. I hear you. But you know, it's something like I had to look, but it's something like 30 minutes in the cut, which is not insane either. And we can do all the holes get drilled first. So drilling, no problem. So it's kind of like, hey, we're going for a half inch hole plus a few tenths, actually plus more than a few tenths, but around half inch. They're drilled to about 425. So what we have an option of interpolating.
00:08:50
Speaker
the whole, whole interpolating to interpolate out to a pre bore or pre ream diameter. And then we have the option of fin, you know, we can do it with a roughing tool and then come in with a finishing tool for the interpolation. We can do it and then come in with the boring head or we can, well, those are really the two options and it, you know, there's all the iterations of how much do you leave for spring pass. And what I'm concerned about is
00:09:20
Speaker
When you start doing spring passes you're effectively cutting a thinner chip than the sharp edge of the tool especially as that tool works its way across the holes in the plate. So I have to think you're rubbing and you're
00:09:35
Speaker
Effectively burnishing which actually isn't necessarily a bad thing except that it's not it's not giving me I'm getting I'm fighting the tolerances now. We're talking You know within four or five tenths across the plate, but I'll tell you there's a big difference in the feel when you put a pin in a Hole that's on the size that we want and the and then when you add when you put a pin in this It's the size that we want plus three or four tenths
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, no, I get it. It's funny because I interpolate I rough and then I finish while I drill rough finish some of the pinholes on my titanium handles. And you know, I feel like I'm getting good tool life and I'm holding really good tolerance. But I have two holes per handle, right? Not 400 holes per place. So it would take me hundreds of knives to get to the level that you're at with one plate.
00:10:24
Speaker
I care about the money for sure, like the cost of consumables and the cost of capital investment and tooling. But my sort of belief when you get frustrated is like, OK, I still believe in the product. I still believe we have a viable option
Exploring Tooling and Machining Strategies
00:10:37
Speaker
here to make a product that's profitable. So sort of forget about.
00:10:41
Speaker
Money at first, you know, let's yeah, and that's not to say we're gonna buy stuff Let's just forget about that and let's think so, you know go buy an expensive boring header go buy I actually caught talked to the cogs doe people last night for the roller burnishing tool Good. I'm not let's talk about I'd love to talk about that. I'm not convinced. It's gonna be a good option It's Sandvik spent a day here and I'm pretty disappointed that I can't
00:11:07
Speaker
I was disappointed in the performance of the tool and it may not be a Sandvik problem, but we have a, we even moved up to a Cermet insert and we did the cam operation to three-sided type T insert and we did it. Excuse me. So we rotated the insert three times across the plate. So we do 170 holes or so, rotate the insert, another 170, et cetera. Still in the first 170, it was wearing three-tenths.
00:11:37
Speaker
Well, I have one more thing to say, but before I say it, any advice? I think it's just going to be a matter of testing and try everything. And I know that's super time consuming and kind of expensive to say, because each plate has money into it. It's a big hunk of metal that's already got processing costs in it, right? The raw material here is pretty darn expensive.
00:12:08
Speaker
When you rotate the insert, are you assuming that the second edge is the same? Are you like probing the diameter or something?
00:12:15
Speaker
So to be honest, I didn't, I know I just said that. I programmed that up. I ran the first of the three, which is about 170. And by the end of it, it had worn so much that I wasn't even interested in that workflow because it didn't give me good results across the first 170 while I ran it out. So I interpolated them all out. Interpolation is easier for me to dial it in and walk it in. But here's what bothers me.
00:12:46
Speaker
Even when I do three or four spring passes or finishing passes, or if I do, regardless, when I walk around it with an end mill, I'm still cutting material, even after that number of passes, which tells me tool deflection. And I don't know why there's tool deflection. Is it because the material's hard? Is it because the honed edge of the tool is not able to cut to the low chip load per tooth?
00:13:14
Speaker
Likewise, when I presented, when I pre-interpolated the bores to leave 10,000 per side for the boring head. So 10,000 is not too much at all for a boring head. And it's a Sandvik Korobor. This is not like a low end tool. Sandvik speeds and feeds kind of got the, should have the deck stacked in our favor here.
00:13:38
Speaker
When I set that boring head to give me on the first pass the correct final diameter, and I'll just share, we're running 400 service feet per minute, 4,000 per rev, it's obviously a single insert boring head, and we're doing a correct boring op where we bore down, stop the tool, and then retract out. When I do that,
00:14:01
Speaker
It'll work great for at least 10 or 20 holes and gives me the right diameter. That tool, when I go measure its actual diameter on the Renishaw OTS, is about 2.3 thou larger than the actual hole that it's making. Whoa.
00:14:22
Speaker
And so that speaks to tool deflection, which is corroborated or confirmed by the fact that if I run the boring head twice in one hole, that hole opens up by almost a foul, which is way beyond tolerance. Right, right. That would make sense because, wow.
Machining with a Boring Head
00:14:43
Speaker
And so the problem or concern is that if I run the boring head in and out like twice, um, kind of like a spring pass for a boring head. My concern is that you're rubbing. I don't know. Maybe that may be the next thing I try. Well, then you're still wearing it the same amount or even more. So you're still going to run out after a hundred holes.
00:15:05
Speaker
You think well because the first pass has taken all the meat and that's what's wearing it right well Then if I can I guess that's the question is how does the tool perform? When it's presented with much less Radial engagement or it's actually depth of cut even though it's on the side load of the tool not the floor of the tool Yeah, I'd be curious. I'd be curious. What would happen if you left?
00:15:26
Speaker
tooth out first side interpolated it and just skimmed it. It wouldn't wear out very much at all. The question is, is it going to rub or is it going to cut a chip? But I thought those CERMAT, I don't know a lot, I thought those CERMAT inserts were a little bit different. Like they didn't have, it didn't, it's not like it had an edge in the same way. I guess I would thought or hoped that you could take skim passes and have those tools still perform.
00:15:55
Speaker
I have no idea. Well that's the question. I'm over it but it does stink because you basically have to take a full piece of material and dedicate it to testing. And it's funny because actually the cost of that is not a problem, it's more just like
00:16:15
Speaker
the waste, it's a big piece of metal. Well, think about you, think about having to buy a sheet, a piece, a couple pieces of damasteel, knowing that they're never going to produce, it's an investment in R&D, period. Exactly. And I certainly have a giant pile of unusable handles and blades in R&D. Right. I guess I'm just frustrated because I don't under, and I've tested the Rockwell of the plates to confirm they're not, you know, 50 Rockwell or anything. I'm just surprised that
00:16:44
Speaker
You know, there's a carbide insert and a carbide bar in the Sandvik tool. I'm really surprised it's deflecting that much. What size end mill are you trying to finish interpolate with? Three-eighths inch and a half inch hole. Three-eighths. Yeah. I mean, I guess you could step up to what is it, seven sixteenths or something. Sure. But it's not going to deflect with 10 thou stock.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, well, and look, in fairness, I'm holding that end mill. I'm holding it in a, gosh, it makes me frustrated. I'm holding it in an ER collet, and that's not the best way, period. I mean, an SK. Go shrink fit. Yeah, right. Actually, I just talked to Mirror Tool. I don't have a way to, actually, I might have a khaki way to handle a shrink fit tooling. Yeah.
00:17:37
Speaker
And it's frustrating because it's like, oh man, if that solved it, like the machine, the Haas can interpolate and hold the tolerance.
00:17:45
Speaker
I do wonder if interpolating is your answer. That's how I would tackle it. The problem is you're also going to wear tools out, which is fine. I've gotten to the point where I realized, OK, so I have to take a $30 end mill, and it gets to run half the plate, and then it gets moved into the recycle bin, or whatever, re-sharpened bin, and I put a new one in. $60 to run a tool across a plate is a lot of money. And you've got wear on all the other tools involved in that plate, too.
00:18:13
Speaker
unless you touch it on the OTS and add a wear comp to it, and then just keep running it. I really want to find an expert in tooling. I don't want to bug Carl Lakeshore, because I know he's so busy. But as you doll that tool out, you get more of a honed or rounded cutting edge, which means taking those really light radial depths of cut is going to rub and not
00:18:39
Speaker
It still cuts though, it still cuts. Like you said, when you take four spring passes, it still cuts. It makes noise, I should say. And it does change the diameter. Yeah, it makes dust. It'll make dust, and that's what I see too, even when I do a couple spring passes. My default is to do the rough pass, finish pass, and then spring pass at least once, if not twice, and then I can hold acceptable tolerances. You spring with the same tool as the finish? Yes.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah. The other thing that's funny is that we use a little Sandvik 390 insert end mill. It's actually only a three-eighths inch insert end mill, tiny. And I think it's a rock star. And what's interesting is those inserts have held up really well, and that's what we're using to blow out the hole from the drill diameter of 425 out to the pre-bore, which is like 480.
00:19:32
Speaker
And those inserts have seriously, there's like zero sign of any wear after two or three plates. So that's 1,500 holes. The problem with the 390 is even when you use it for a boring, I've got to be careful here, not a boring head, but rather a boring cam operation that helically interpolates into the hole. It leaves slight wall streaks.
00:19:56
Speaker
But maybe that's where the, because the Cogdale guy basically said that our tool can, the rougher your finishes, the more our tool can do to improve finish, but also change tolerance. If you give them a perfectly smooth, because all it does is roll the highs and lows into one plane or circular plane. He was really nice and he was even said he might swing by and bring a tool, but I'm dubious because
00:20:25
Speaker
Well, explain to me again, you do use your Cog's Dill roller burnishing to actually expand the dimension or just make it consistent.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, so it's a roller burnishing tool. It looks like it's got, I don't know, five or 10 needle bearings around the outside of a shaft and it rotates freely. And you shove it down this hole at a thousand RPM or something and the bearings, bearing eyes, the hole, they shove themselves in and they straighten out the wall surface and, you know, even out all the highs and lows.
00:20:59
Speaker
So I interpolate the whole with multiple spring passes to like 1-8-7-0, 1-8-7-1, something like that. And then I use the Cog's Dill to bring it up another 4 or 5-10s. OK, so you do actually see expansion. Oh, noticeable. But you were saying too that it leaves a taper or a burr?
00:21:23
Speaker
it flares out the top and the bottom of the hole. Because you're expanding it, the metal's gotta go somewhere, so it goes up and down. That's my question, okay. At least on my blades, you know, they're eighth inch thick, so they're not very thick at all. So instead of the metal going just out ways, especially at the top and the bottom, it goes out. Which is ironic, because if you wanted it to be a good contact bearing surface, you would want, you know, perpendicularity, straightness of that wall, and that tool doesn't actually do that.
00:21:51
Speaker
Sorry, I guess I don't follow. What do you mean? What's it do with the? It would still leave a perpendicular hole straight up and down. When it flows them, it flares out? I guess you call it a crater. Oh, no. I guess the flare would be the wrong word. So at the top of the hole, there's a little bump now. And at the bottom of the hole, there's a little bump on the flat surface, the x-plane of the part. So like the surface ground side.
00:22:18
Speaker
So if I'm doing it for the fixture plates, I may just need to run my chamfer op after this tool.
00:22:26
Speaker
Yes. Okay, so maybe flare is the wrong word that I've been using because the hole is perfectly straight up and down. I see. Perfect straight. Flare intends that it... No, no, that may be the right word. I see what you're saying. Okay. I get it. Yeah. But yeah, it bulbs out the top and the bottom of the hole. I mean, but the shaft of the hole is perfectly straight and mirror smooth and like gorgeous. Right.
00:22:50
Speaker
Maybe that will help then. I wonder if I could even do, if I could get consistent diameters at the 390. Maybe I could just interpolate with that. And I wonder how much this tool would improve. I have to experiment. If he's willing to come up with a test tool and you have a block of steel that you want to drill a bunch of holes in. It doesn't have to be a finished fixture plate. It could just be a square of steel per se. You do this on your blades?
00:23:21
Speaker
Yeah, we do it on the pivot hole of the blade, which is the tolerance we want to keep to two tenths. But that's a needle, not hardened. Correct. You can do it hard though. You think the cocktail worked on a hardened? Oh yeah. Okay. I think so. Okay. And that's, you got to talk to them about
Precision in Knife Blade Production
00:23:39
Speaker
it, but. Right.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, my blades, I think they're around 19 soft. So your things at 30 is noticeably different. But yeah, I think it would do hard for sure. And I mean, the tool, I've had it for a year, a year and a half, and I've forgotten all about it.
00:23:58
Speaker
Because you just set and forget? It just works. I make sure to keep the finish end mill relatively fresh, and then it just works. And every couple months, Eric will say, oh, the holes are getting a little bit smaller, because I stopped checking them. Oh, that's funny. So when Eric's trying to fit a pivot, he can still barrel lap it a little bit bigger.
00:24:19
Speaker
We got that Borgage, the Mitsui one. It's become like a third hand to me. I love it. Yeah, you learn a tool. You get to, you feel how it acts and it's just comfortable to you. And that gives me,
00:24:37
Speaker
I kind of like that. It makes me happy. And what looks awesome about the Cogzilla is that collar. That collar looks very user-friendly to adjust out versus having to like... Yep, one tenth at a time. Even on the boring head, you've got to loosen a set screw on the side. I've got to deal with a really small vernier with a tool. And then I've got to re-torque the set screw down to three newton meters on the side, which isn't... It's not like a problem, but boy, that Cogzilla looks nice. Like just turn, click, done.
00:25:03
Speaker
And the only thing that confuses me, because I touch it so infrequently, is which way to turn it. There's a plus and there's a minus, but I have to think in my head, okay, which way is it going to create the result that I want?
00:25:15
Speaker
I think what I'm going to do next is I've ordered a piece of raw material that's just going to be R&D. You kind of forget about trying to salvage it into a product. That's the bootstrapper that needs to just go away. You've got a whole plate now. You can do the whole thing as R&D. We will figure it out on this plate. And I'm going to try boring. I'm going to set the boring head to the dimension I want.
00:25:40
Speaker
verifying it with the OTS, the render shop. And then I'm going to try boring that whole three times. I bought this little microscope, pretty cheap 500X USP off of Amazon. It's actually what the Sandvik guy brought, which I thought was kind of funny. It's like a, you know.
00:25:56
Speaker
$80, $90 microscope. But the thing was amazing. We put that picture on Instagram. So I want to do that and just see, you know, empirical data matters. I feel like a little CERMAT insert may be able to handle those micro cuts, whisper cuts better than a solid. And look, those CERMAT inserts have three sides and they're still only like, I don't know, 10 bucks an insert, whereas a solid carbide tool is expensive.
00:26:22
Speaker
Yeah. I would, I mean, for testing, do more than three passes. Do five passes. On the boring head? Yeah. Just to prove out the rubbing situation and let it cut until it stops deflecting. That's a good point. The other thing I really like about the boring head and the 390 over solid carbide is they're both through spindle coolant, which I just feel like is a good thing. I know you can get end mills that way, but I've never done that. Yeah.
00:26:53
Speaker
Frustrating. I just hate this idea of having a tool that is so temperamental. Like I hate this idea of having to say, and look, I get it, we've done it with wear offsets at the controller to like tweak it in and interpolate them in and so forth. But I just hate this idea that you have, it's so antithetical to machining. I'm not using the tool set to 5034 to give me a 5007 hole. What are you up to today?
00:27:24
Speaker
I'm making stop pins on my lathe, which is something I want to hold to one or two tenths, which is fun. I basically have to like this lathe likes to be hot. Like it likes to be really hot and then it'll hold a good tolerance. Interesting. Like you put your head inside and it feels like a jungle swamp. You should post a picture of you holding like two heat guns over the casting. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:50
Speaker
I've heard of some people putting heaters in the cooling tank to keep the machine warm and stuff, but that just sounds like bacteria city. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so if I run the lathe like for hours and hours making other parts and dialing it in and tweaking it, and then once it's hot, then it'll hold a really good tolerance. But still, like these parts I make, you know,
00:28:15
Speaker
When it's cold or warming up, I'll make just a few at a time and I'll tweak in the tolerance and then I'll progressively make more and more 5, 10, 15, 20 as the lathe gets hotter and holds better. But otherwise, I'm just tweaking wear offsets or work-ordinate, just tweak, tweak, tweak until I get what I want.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah, so running like a 20-minute warm-up cycle is not even close to getting it into what you want. It does help and I noticed like it's you know it's seven in the morning now and I ran it till about six last night and if I started up a 20-minute warm-up cycle gets it back to pretty warm because it's still it's the casting is still warm from last night. Oh really?
00:28:55
Speaker
Yeah, which is really cool. But if I leave it over the weekend, it takes a long time to warm up. Do you use one of the little laser trigger temp guns to give an idea? I have one, yeah. Do you use that as a check to say, hey, if it's above 83, I should be good?
00:29:14
Speaker
I don't. I did months ago when we were really learning this thermal thing. There's a coolant temp sensor on the control that I can see that shows me what the current coolant temp is and I use that kind of to ballpark. But the coolant, like on my houses, the coolant never touches the, well, doesn't really touch the casting because all the sheet metal. On the lathe it does. Interesting. Yeah. Huh. I wonder if that's a common thing. I think anyway.
00:29:44
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like you'd either want it cooled like all controlled and cooled or hot. Like you hear about the higher end machines that have I don't know if it's coolant or just a different or whether it's a different liquid that's pumped through the center of the ball screw.
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah, like Okumas have that. I think it's cool. Well, I don't know. That's a good question. I think it's coolant. Right? Seems odd though. Like, would you really want to pump, potentially pump gnarly coolant through your center of your ball screw? Yeah. Right. Um, like I seriously considered buying a chiller for my coolant on the lathe. Right. Um, but you know, new it's like 10 grand. So I got the probe instead, which I'm pretty happy with. Yeah. Hmm. It lets me do the same thing, but the machine can be whatever temperature it wants.
Lessons from Business Pre-orders and Customer Relations
00:30:30
Speaker
Right. Right. Yeah. That's 10 grand for a chiller seems like a lot. Yeah. That was from, uh, I can't remember. Cool blaster, chill blaster, whatever. Got it. Um, growth eats cash for breakfast. It's pretty good. It is insane. Oh my God. Um, yeah.
00:30:49
Speaker
So yeah, we're super excited for the over the hump for September. It's going to be a brand new day. It's the start of the new business. And I don't want to sound negative towards the pre-order from a customer standpoint, because all the customers have been utterly fantastic. And I'm doing my absolute best to keep in touch with everybody and keep them all happy. But from a business standpoint, it was just a gong show of terrible idea, especially the way we dragged it on so long and so long.
00:31:17
Speaker
Yeah, lesson learned. I mean, we could talk about it more, but I think we all... Yeah, I think we all... Yeah. How long have you had your lathe? 11 months. Really? Okay, I couldn't... Some reason I have a really hard time remembering when you got that. Yeah, it was just before IMTS last year. Well, that's funny because we were not new into talking on Friday mornings when you were still talking about this idea of putting linear rails on your tormach lathe.
00:31:47
Speaker
Right. That was over a year ago then. Remember that? Yeah. So we've been doing this for a year and a half. Yeah. Huh. Good. Um, so you're going, you're going to email, huh? I am. I'm really excited.
Excitement for the EMO Trade Show
00:32:04
Speaker
I'm like really excited. European machine tool show. Yeah. I actually don't even know what it stands for.
00:32:13
Speaker
But I am super excited because I didn't know what to expect going to IMTS. I didn't really have any goals other than looking at VMCs and now I've got some really specific vendors and it's not like the typical stuff like I really want to go look at some
00:32:33
Speaker
some workflow like lean manufacturing stuff like I'm still kind of trying to think about this barcode system and just to see what people are touting some more metrology stuff some more tooling stuff like I really now want to broaden my horizon
00:32:48
Speaker
Cause like this week I've been thinking about, Hey, you know, who do I talk to? Who do I give a phone call? Who's who's going to say, we've got the answer for, I don't think you call 30 Rockwell Hart Milly, but it's certainly not. No. Um, the same as, as again, mild steel. Um, so I'm excited to go just, just kind of learn and, um, yeah.
00:33:08
Speaker
And there's so much fun going to those big shows. What's that? There's so much fun going to those big shows. I've got the Canadian CMTS, which is the alternating sister show to IMTS, coming up in September as well in Toronto, and I'm super excited about that. That's nice. Super close. That's awesome.
00:33:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a mini IMTS, probably, you know, one fifth the size or something, but it's got all the same people and it's a blast. So I'm super excited. I actually met Amish there, our friend Amish from SS CAD CAM last two years ago. That was the first time I met him. Oh, that's fun. That's cool. And he was shopping for DMGs.
00:33:50
Speaker
Right, right. He's actually the guy I'm going with to emo. Right. So I guess I won't be seeing him in CMDS. If you do, that's a lot of traveling.
00:34:02
Speaker
But yeah, just like you, I've got a, like, I'm excited to go to the show to learn more because I have a wish list of things I want to learn about, of things I want to see and talk and ask real questions to these dealers about specific things. Because, you know, September is going to be a new month for us and we've got a very hungry and very hopefully profitable year ahead of us. Yeah, that's awesome. Are you in a film?
00:34:31
Speaker
Last year, I brought my camera and they're like, oh, you can't film here. No, not allowed. Not allowed at all. At CMTS? And I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Everybody has a cell phone in their pocket and everybody's going to be filming because I was holding my GoPro like it during registration. Yeah. And I was even reading the registration this year and they said there is a zero filming policy. And I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm still going to try on my cell phone.
00:34:54
Speaker
When I used to go to this thing called Shot Show when we had Strike Mark, which is this big, it's actually pretty big, firearms convention thing. It's gigantic. Yeah. And they had a super strict no camera policy. This is like 2006, 2007, whatever. But I think that part of that was to protect the media people there that wanted kind of exclusives per se.
00:35:16
Speaker
I feel like that's all gone to the wayside because of iPhones and stuff. So, yeah, I mean, you saw, we were both filming an IMTS. No one cares. I mean, a couple of people had booths that were, they were trying to pound their chest about how proprietary they're, they're- Yeah, like I went to the, I tried to film at the Sugami booth and the guy kicked me out and I'm like, well, see you later. Right, right.
00:35:37
Speaker
It's just funny, it's like publicly displayed goods, but they don't want it on camera, whatever. Yeah, totally. And in the world of social marketing, yeah, it's kind of ridiculous. Yeah. Some people, look, we've discussed at length at how some companies don't get it, and that's OK. I mean, it's not, whatever. So going back to you, you're making pivots today on the lathe? Stop pins. Stop pins. So again, how do you measure a tent? Just with a mic? Yeah, with my Mitutoyo digital mic.
00:36:07
Speaker
Okay, and that's good. Do you trust it? That's good. Yeah, that's good enough for me. Like you were saying with your bore gauge, I have a feel for it. I can, you know, I can use it without even clicking it and I know that I'm getting the right size. But you got to rotate the part and it might measure different on the other side. Right. Because of a burr or because of a chip or something like that. And I think I sent you a picture, a couple that yesterday, about how I crashed the lathe on a pretty good Wednesday night. I wasn't going to bring that up because I didn't know if you wanted to talk about it.
00:36:35
Speaker
I'm okay, but I was trying to get super stupid complicated with macros and I wanted to move from current position 50 thou less in Z and instead of going G91 which is an incremental move 50 thou I don't know why I didn't want to do that
00:36:53
Speaker
and then back to G90, which would be, like, cakewalk easy. I was like, no, let's get complicated. Let's capture current position, which is macro variable 5022, or whatever it is, and then add 50 thou, and then I'm good, except I captured machine position, which is negative 13, not part position, which is negative 0.3. So I basically, I'm into the cut, and I tell the machine to move negative 13 inches in Z, and it just...
00:37:20
Speaker
plows into the spindle and I think a rapid move destroyed my tool holder, messed up my collet, but I think no damage otherwise. Did it alarm? What stopped the motion? I stopped it. I hit the E-stop because it was rubbing. I'm very surprised it didn't alarm out because it usually does. That thing moves so darn fast. I can't believe you even E-stopped it.
00:37:43
Speaker
Yeah, it was obviously rubbing for a good half second or something before I was able to move my hand to the E-stop. I had my hand on the feed hold button like I usually do.
00:37:53
Speaker
It was kind of surprising. The strength of the servos, they don't care. They're going through whatever you want. It's going where you tell it to go. I've certainly had it alarm out before, so I don't know why it didn't. No damage otherwise. I destroyed a $200 tool holder, which sucks.
00:38:15
Speaker
Right like I was more surprised rather than mortified at the time And I got over it and I had another holder. So I'm good. It's funny you and I are Our ourselves we live in our own world. We've been through this journey what I don't think about is how the majority of our audience probably doesn't whether it's Whatever follow me Instagram YouTube the podcast doesn't realize
00:38:40
Speaker
how green and self-taught and I don't say bad because that sounds bad, but like I vividly remember when I was in New York City buying my first $6 end mill and feeling really self-conscious like this is a lot of money. This needs to last. Am I really like, am I getting caught up in just trying to buy expensive tools here? I'm not making this up. It was insane to me.
00:39:07
Speaker
And I vividly remember being, you know, gobsmacked by going into a Grizzly Tools store. And like, wow, there is a CNC machine and there's manual machines everywhere. And these, oh my gosh, this is like the industry. And that was 12 years ago. And that was the, you know, that's where you get those $6 end mills kind of thing. And now I go into stores like that and I'm like, wow.
00:39:32
Speaker
I remember Grizzly catalog, Grizzly catalog had this like $21,000. It was like a bridge port that was CNC that had sheet metal around it with the open top. And I remember, I remember being smart enough to know that that's probably not what I should buy, but still kind of drooling over that. Oh, totally. Totally. Yeah. That's hilarious. Yeah. So now like I don't buy anything from those kinds of stores, not to, not to sound snooty, but like the level of quality has risen completely. Right. Right. So.
00:39:58
Speaker
It is exciting. Awesome. Shall we get to it? Sounds good. Awesome. Yeah. Crush the chat today. Dude, I'm proud of you. Good job. Thank you. I guess I still want to maybe we'll talk more about it when you've shipped the last one. But I feel like you're an incredibly driven person. You're incredibly hungry. The thought that the tempted risk of failure drove you even harder. But you don't seem stressed. You don't seem like you're
00:40:25
Speaker
Oh, I've had my ups and downs. I'm really positive today and right now. And the closer we get, the more that comes across. But yeah, a few weeks ago, I was very low. Got it. But yeah, we made it. Awesome. Dude, proud of you. Thank you. Take care, bud. I'll see you. OK, take care. Bye. Bye.