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Business of Machining - Episode 55
200 Plays7 years ago
Grimsmo returns from L.A. beaming with excitement after meeting with producers in Hollywood and touring Pierson Workholding.
Good friends tell you what you want to hear...best friends tell you what you NEED to hear.
Like a best friend should, Saunders offers Grimsmo his full support and genuine concern. Hollywood can make AND break you, especially if you're not privy to its cut-throat nature. Let's make sure Grimsmo TV is an all-around success!
There's a first for everything! The Johns experience their first awkward moment --paying the price for making the podcast public.
Pierson Workholding plans to move soon - Doubling in size! Saunders wants to hear Jay's thought process on replacing his Haas TM-3 with a VF-4SS.
100 perfect Norseman Pivots out of titanium instead of stainless steel? The Lesson: Better material organization!
ORIGINS Pinpointing where inspiration, desire, and hunger come from proves to be difficult.
Recommended Reading: The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
Engraving fixture post coming soon...make another circle in the parking lot if you must!
We want to thank our patrons...you guys rock!
If you'd like to get more insider access, click here to become a Business of Machining Patron!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode number 55. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. Good morning. Good morning. I'm excited.
00:00:15
Speaker
The stage is yours. Tell me about it.
Trip to LA & Potential Show
00:00:17
Speaker
Yeah, so Eric and I spent the weekend in LA and Hollywood, and we went up and saw Jay Pearson, or I did. Eric didn't come. So I got to tour his shop for an hour and a half, film the whole thing.
00:00:30
Speaker
Yeah, as I mentioned last week, we're investigating this potential show idea with these producers in Hollywood who are gigantic fans of our brand and have been for many years and own our knives. And the one guy said, I'll give you $5,000 for a rask right now. And I said, no, because that's not how we do it. And he's like, that's what I love about you guys. You're not for sale. Your integrity is without fault and all that.
00:00:57
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it was a really eye opening, excellent trip and meeting. And, you know, we're in basically meetings and conversations for 12 hours on Saturday, which is perfect. Um, cause I'm like, I'm going all this way. I want to, I want to hang out with you guys with, with the, what do you want to call them? The TV folks. Yep.
00:01:17
Speaker
Holy cow. Wow. Okay. Just, um, yeah, I mean, they're the, um, producers, directors, and CEO of this production company. Got it. So yeah, not just some lackey, but it was, uh, it was really, really good, really insightful and, uh, asked a lot of hard questions. You got to tell them my story. They told me their story. You know, I wanted to be sure that it's not what, you know, we're all afraid that it could be kind of thing. Right.
00:01:47
Speaker
And I get the impression with as much, what do you call it, nervousness going into it as possible that it's exactly what I think it's going to be. They want to share our story in our way. And I was thinking about like,
00:02:09
Speaker
the character development kind of thing. Like we can't be someone we're not. Like we can't all of a sudden turn around and be different people because we've been documenting for 10 years now, like exactly who we
Authenticity in Media
00:02:19
Speaker
are. Right. It's not possible. It's not possible. Right. And I can't, you know, I physically, I'm not an actor. I can't like be someone I'm not. So I told him straight up. I'm like, this is what's available. Here's my story. Um, you know, everything that's going on and uh, you know, we're growing, we're expanding, we're, you know,
00:02:37
Speaker
hiring some people now. And this kind of business is possible. And that's what we want to share. And it's not easy. And we're going to, you know, it's a reality documentary, basically like documenting reality. And it's not exciting. It wouldn't be one one hour episode. This is some sort of an ongoing series. Yes. OK. Yeah. Unclear yet, you know, how many episodes, how long if they'll be half hour or an hour?
00:03:06
Speaker
Right. But yeah, it's going to be an ongoing series, possibly seasons. I don't know. We'll see what, yeah.
00:03:15
Speaker
Well, I will I will say this. You caught me off guard last week. So I think and I've certainly done some reflecting on it. And I don't even think I should have to say that that I you have my full support. I hope you are successful beyond your wildest dreams. I would love to. I would love to have to fight with your administrative assistant to get five minutes of your time 10 years from now. No, seriously, John, you should be proud of what you built. I think
00:03:44
Speaker
where I feel different comes back to honestly spending 10 years in New York City and
Concerns with Media Contracts
00:03:53
Speaker
seeing multiple people and multiple companies get royally
00:03:59
Speaker
effed over because it's a big boy world and it's a cutthroat world. You have a content delivery platform with a captive audience. YouTube with a huge channel with folks that are demanding more content. I laughed. I was sort of chuckling to myself when I was thinking about all this because I was like, what's ironic is that I would watch every single episode of this, but you and I both don't watch TV. You're admiring the platform of yesterday.
00:04:28
Speaker
this work. I'm not saying that that in and of itself, it's just an irony that when people tend to make bad decisions, it's because they get caught up in things and they don't, that's what I want to understand. And you don't owe it to me, you owe it to yourself. But what is the upside? What does this do for you that you can't like all the same things. But just also please recognize that partnerships
00:04:47
Speaker
are really tough and this is one of the more toughest elements of a type of partnership. I think I kind of told you this privately and it's not something I'm comfortable going into more, but I got pretty royally screwed by a media company last year. That upset me a lot and it was something I felt like. Again, I worked in New York City with big attorneys and
00:05:09
Speaker
contracts that were 100 pages long, where you're looking for every single different way. Not only how do you screw the person, but when they get screwed and it becomes litigious or people get upset or frustrated,
Legal & Partnership Strategies
00:05:22
Speaker
what's the cure? What's the recourse? The tough thing is that
00:05:26
Speaker
I don't know anything about the media industry, John, but I don't think you can walk away from something like this. If four episodes in, it's not right. I mean, I don't know, but I would assume that they're going to obligate you. And that's what happened with strike mark where all of a sudden when the partnership went south and you couldn't get away from it because it was your livelihood, that's the worst feeling in the world.
00:05:52
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And there were some tough comments to read on various social media platforms about the last bomb. My interest is nothing but the best for you. Of course. I tend to be more analytical. Probably that comes out sometimes as more pessimistic. To be able to know that you roll this platform, even if that meant we lost business of machining, to know that you were able to do that and if that's what you want would be awesome, John.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, my ambition for life and career in business is large. And something like this comes along and it's tasty. And if it ticks all the boxes, and obviously we have to watch our backs, of course. And once the contract comes into play, which is the next step, we met with a lawyer down there that will help us go through that. And that's going to be super helpful. And he represents only you.
00:06:49
Speaker
He represents the CEO of this company personally, but not as a corporation. You can't have that. Yeah, I was wondering. Sorry. Yeah, no. Yeah, and I've been curious about this. I don't know. Otherwise, I'm looking in the yellow pages for somebody else. I've got a couple. I do have a couple. Yeah, we can talk about that further later.
00:07:16
Speaker
But yeah, so that's an interesting next step. Right. And then we go from there. Crazy. Yeah. It is crazy. Don't catch me off guard like this. This is crazy. But I think that's also emblematic of my concern is it's like I kind of felt like I didn't know you for an hour or two last week. I was like, wait a minute here.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah. Look, I guess we've had our first awkward moment where there's a price to pay for making this public. I think I can look at John honestly and say we've really not filtered anything. We did these conversations for six months or a year before we started hitting record. Right.
00:08:02
Speaker
Well, I want to be a resource to you. I want to help you. I want to encourage you, but I also want to make sure you've got people around you that keep you making the right decisions. The more I think about it, it was very helpful, like a sober second thought. Your voice was in the back of my head the whole trip, which was good because it made me ask questions that I might not have asked myself.
00:08:22
Speaker
Remember, they are really good salespeople. I love when people stroke my ego, John. I'll just admit it. It makes it really hard to maintain critical thinking analysis and the outcomes when you feel like the pretty girl in the room.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yep. And that's what Hollywood is. It was a weird, weird place. Tell me, tell me about the trip. Like you guys flew out there.
Exploring Hollywood
00:08:52
Speaker
We flew out there. Um, you know, we were, you know, we get there and it's like midnight LA time and I text the assistant guy and I'm like, wait, what time are we meeting in the morning? I just kind of blocked the whole day for you guys. And he's like, Oh, we gotta, we can't wait until 11. And then it's like nine o'clock in the morning and then
00:09:10
Speaker
I'm like, are we there at 11? He's like, actually, we got to push it to 12. And I'm like, dude, like we came all this way. I need to spend time with you guys. Welcome to Cal. It's like, no, no, don't worry. Don't worry. Don't worry. After 12, we got the whole day together. Um, so yeah, that was good. We showed up at 12, but you know, Eric and I drove all up through the Hollywood Hills up to mile hall and drive and all around and got lost. And it's just like,
00:09:29
Speaker
weird, crazy place. Like, I've never seen so many fancy cars in one place. And cool cars, too. And didn't see a lot of interesting people. Just certainly, OK, a lot of interesting people, but not a lot of like, whatever you think you'd see. But I'm not sure that crowd is really awake at 9 AM on a Saturday yet in Hollywood. Oh, sorry, Friday. Yeah.
00:09:54
Speaker
It's a weird place because block by block, it almost changes vibe in the city because it's run down in some places and then the next block is all beautiful and Prada stores and crazy. Then it's run down again. It's actually super funny. I had three hours to kill between a meeting and going to see
00:10:16
Speaker
No, no, I was done seeing Jay Pearson. I didn't have something else for three more hours. I couldn't show up early. So this is kind of weird, but I really like contemporary art, minimalist art. There's a couple artists I've always really enjoyed and a whole other story. So
00:10:31
Speaker
There's a really good, a couple of really good contemporary art museums in LA. And so I put it into Waze and I'm driving there and I'm like, I am in like a suburban community development master plan community. And then all of a sudden I turn the street and it's like, you just said all of a sudden I turn the street and I'm like, I'm going to lock my car doors. And then all of a sudden I turn my street and I'm in like retail in an art museum. So weird. Yeah, it was awesome.
00:10:58
Speaker
Yeah, so then I went up and I saw Jay Pearson on a Saturday. Yeah. And he had a kid's birthday party to go to afterwards. So we had kind of a limited time together. But it was wonderful. I filmed the whole thing. We'll be putting it together this week. What a cool shop. What a cool guy. He absolutely embodies who you and I are and how we think about business and products and customers. And I just love what he's done with his company. And it's nice to be able to
00:11:26
Speaker
film it and share it a little bit with other people too. I'm super excited to see a different perspective too. He's moving soon. Yeah, he mentioned that. Okay. So he's basically doubling his size in the next few months. Did he talk about his new machine, the VF4?
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, we saw it and talked about it a little bit. I just I wanted to get his and I'm not trying to call him out because I he's always said like, oh, I just buy the VF2 or I you don't need a super speed machine unless you have a super speed process. And he replaced that TM has TM three with the VF4 SS and look financially, the SS gets you a lot of stuff. So it just kind of sort of makes sense. But I was like, I really want to hear what Jay Jay's thought process. Why didn't he go with the regular VF4, which would have been more
00:12:15
Speaker
consistent with his, hey, let's really treat capital as precious and not buy options that make the machine really fast, when honestly, we're not doing that kind of stuff. Right. No, he didn't talk about the SS aspect, but he talked about getting the four versus the three because some of his customers wanted bigger plants, basically. But yeah, he was very happy. Looking around the shop, he's got four house mills, I think, and two doosan lathes.
00:12:43
Speaker
And it's like, I'm looking around like all the Haas controls are exactly the same. I bet you every tool holder is the same. Like every guy can go on every machine and just, you know, I get that. That is very cool. If you can commit to that. Right. Personally, I don't know if I can commit to that because I just want so much different stuff, but
00:13:01
Speaker
But he makes it tremendously. I mean, I think his products are very, very well, not only machined, but engineered. And they cost me. Yeah, they really are. Aesthetic finishes the content. But he's not trying to do what you are trying to do where you want. Like, I feel like when you buy the next machine, you'll have researched and figured out, like, this lay that this mill has this unique capability or this strength. Whereas Jay's like, I really need a really, really good bread and butter mill, you know? Yep, or four of them.
00:13:31
Speaker
Cool. Yep. Exactly. Well, that's fun. So that's a great, so you, you flew out Thursday night, Friday was. Yeah. Friday was the meeting day. And then we went out for fancy dinner and then I went to comedy club afterwards, which shows I was crying, laughing so hard. And was it fun? Good.
00:13:55
Speaker
Saturday was Pearson, then Eric and I went down to Venice Beach where he had hung out all day and then got some dinner and then left Sunday morning. Nice. Was it fun to get away? It was really fun. And on a different kind of, like when we go to Blade
Relaxing at Venice Beach
00:14:11
Speaker
Show, we're gone for four days, five days, and like three and a half days are full of show. Like we're just doing show people.
00:14:19
Speaker
gatherings at night, nothing else. We don't get to see anything. So having the Saturday, especially for Eric, because he was like on his longboard for 12 hours in Venice Beach. Oh, wow. And he's like, this is the greatest ever. Like he was willing to come back to Toronto. Yeah, exactly. He's like, I could live here. Right. I feel like he would blend it. I don't really know Eric, but I feel like he would blend in or fit in well. Yeah.
00:14:42
Speaker
Yeah. He loved it. Yeah. We watched the sunset over the ocean and it was, it was really nice. It's cool. Make super jealous. She couldn't come with. I was just going to say, uh, kids, uh, kids, wife, all that, that adds up, huh? Yeah, exactly. So, so yeah, that's what I'm going to do. Um, well, I will, uh, I would love to hear more, but I'll leave that in your, obviously there's, there's some,
00:15:05
Speaker
I'll let you share if, when, and how, and so forth on this. Yeah. There's hours of footage to go through. Oh, no. I mean more of the TV show. I'm certainly interested, but I also do that on your own. I don't want to pry on that. Cool. What's going on in the shop?
00:15:27
Speaker
Good, good thing. So we made, um, we were making Norseman pivots last Thursday, Friday, even while I was gone, Angelo kept making them. And then he says, uh, he comes to me yesterday morning and he's like, so we made like a hundred excellent pivots in titanium, not in stainless steel. And I'm just laughing like, yeah, we just picked the wrong bar to put in the lathe.
00:15:53
Speaker
and didn't realize it for quite a while.
Shop Organization Insights
00:15:57
Speaker
Sorry, remind me what is a pivot is the, the, the thing in the middle with the Norseman. Okay. On the other side. Got it. Got it. Um, yeah. And just one of those foolish oversights. We didn't even think about it. We're kind of running too fast for own good. And, uh, yep, that's okay. So what's the lesson learned?
00:16:17
Speaker
lesson learned, um, organize the material better, like seeing Jay's shop and he's got labels everywhere and it's clear as day and anybody could come up and get what you need. Um, whereas my lathe material rack is just bars and bars and bars. And I know what they are because I can look at them and I put them there, right? But it's, it's growing past that. So the lesson is just these simple little tags, like even a piece of tape with label on it, like with Sharpie on it. Right. So,
00:16:44
Speaker
Um, yeah, little things like that. Like you really, um, and the call is a lot to improve. So it's the culture. That's what I'm so realizing. It's the culture behind it when you don't label it or you have the, uh, I'm going to use the word arrogance. I don't mean it in a bad way, but like when you have the arrogance to think I can track all this in my head or I know, or I won't make that mistake or all, I'll test the material with a magnet or, or whatever. Um, then that.
00:17:08
Speaker
uh, flows through to the fact that there are other people now and other people make any decisions. And I, that's what I always was cynical about company culture. Cause I thought company culture was more about how, how do we embrace community service or something like externally? But no, it's like literally, uh, how do you do that kind of stuff internally? Yep. Yep. Well, how do you, how do you organize and place everything? But also how do you deal with, you know, stress and problems? Like when he told me that I,
00:17:35
Speaker
I had no negative feelings. I just laughed. And I'm like, that's hilarious. You know, yes, we're down for like two days of late production. And that kind of sucks. But I didn't even dwell on it. I'm just like, all right. Well, he's already fixed it. I come in, and it's running the right ones already. So all good. So apparently, feeds and speeds between the two materials are quite similar.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yep. Worked well enough. It's funny. No, that was something I got from Jay Pearson was when I was kind of like, where's your, where's your material? And he was like, why would I, why would I pay to build up material, just pay to store it, to have the working capital there, blah, blah, blah. And, uh, and,
00:18:13
Speaker
when he can get it in two days lead time. Right. So there's a good lesson there that building a company in Southern California is has easier elements because he's got anodizers and grinding shops and material shops. And McMaster does courier service. McMaster will literally drive over like a Toyota pickup truck to a shop twice a day. Wow. We don't have that here in Gainesville, Ohio. And I doubt you. Yeah.
00:18:34
Speaker
We don't have that here in Canada either, some stuff. On the flip side, cost of labor and rent is massively different.
Material Sourcing & Inventory
00:18:41
Speaker
But what it has me thinking is more about, hey, maybe I'm OK. I look at, as an entrepreneur, and particularly that bootstrapper remnants at least, you think about what are your bill of materials? What are your cost of materials? What are the cash?
00:18:56
Speaker
outflows that I've got to put into a product or process. And then you realize, well, wait a minute here. Let's say a piece of material that costs me $33. Let's say it costs me $41. So that's a lot more. It's a 25% increase. But what if that means I get it within one day or two days?
00:19:15
Speaker
and likewise on those services, what if I pay more but all of a sudden it tightens up my work in progress time or materials time? Those thoughts should be part of the process.
00:19:29
Speaker
Yep. And, and that's what I do for Lakeshore carbide and mills. Like I just keep adding stuff to my shopping cart, adding stuff until all of a sudden I'm too low on something or I break, you know, too many in a day. And then I'm like, I need this tomorrow. And then I'll do next day air and I'll get everything in my shopping carts, everything I need, including those critical ones. They'll come next day, next day air for somebody that's like 30 miles from you. Yeah. Works better for it. Right.
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, for me to take two hours to drive down there is, you know. Totally. Yeah. Do you? Okay, so you, when you have end mill storage, I know you've got your shallower bins.
00:20:09
Speaker
you don't do job shop work. So really, you don't have tools that aren't. Well, so if you have extra tools that aren't used for knife making, but say for making the fixtures and aluminum or other general stuff, those are mixed in kind of with the same in the same toolbox.
Efficient Storage Systems
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah, they're in the same same drawer. Yep. It would be nice to separate them a little bit because I definitely have my production tools that we're always picking from. They're just sort of in this corner of the bin, whereas all the basically aluminum and weird stuff is in that corner of the bin. But
00:20:37
Speaker
But yeah, like watching Angelo try to sort through that and not knowing my system is interesting because I'm trying to understand how to make this easier for everybody.
00:20:50
Speaker
I'm trying to, we're thinking about doing kind of a move, especially as we slow down or really stop a lot of job shop work. So we don't necessarily need that wide range of scope of inventory tools. Likewise, I'm realizing now there's more companies, not just Lakeshore, but other tooling companies where we can get end mills within a day or two. So, okay, great. We have a lot of inventory of good tooling and I like that versatility, so we'll keep that. But I think we're going to go buy another,
00:21:18
Speaker
Honestly, Harbor Freight toolboxes have been totally fine and have that have drawers for products, which is nice because then you can have kind of product specific tooling, which makes a lot of sense when you set up or tear down for a job. What I separate from that same same goal, but it wouldn't be able to be done with the toolbox. We have this laser now and it has been I mean, I can't even begin to tell you. It's actually hilarious. My wife
00:21:44
Speaker
I've been doing this for 10 years. My wife has never, ever once said, hey, you have this machine. Could you help me do this? Like never, ever, ever, ever once. We had this laser for like six days and she's like, so our our gift vendor stinks and isn't getting back to us. And I have six like these like giant glass trophies that need engraved for an awards thing today. Can you laser this for me?
00:22:10
Speaker
So I thought it was funny because I was like, wow, for the first time ever, I'm actually doing a legitimate job for my wife. Yes, that's awesome. And you can cut laser like glass really nicely. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
00:22:23
Speaker
How do you think it would just go right through? Oh, that's a great question. I don't know. Yeah. I was watching the engineer guy's videos on, if you've not seen it, like three minute. He's like a University of Illinois professor, super good dude, engineer guy on YouTube. And he put out some bunch of videos on stuff like how microwaves work.
00:22:42
Speaker
He has one on how a laser works, which is still a light beam that is cutting through either acrylic or MDS and so forth. So the laser has been great. We've been cutting a lot of acrylic with it.
Tracking & Reusing End Mills
00:22:55
Speaker
And so one of my thoughts is, which I think has legs, I really do, end mill storage out of acrylic, super cheap, super easy to configure, transparent so you can see inside of it. So think about a quarter inch end mill with a 15,000 corner rat. I want to keep like four of those in stock. We're starting to get regrinds done because our regrinds and recoats are like $5, which is great.
00:23:23
Speaker
Only for bigger end mills? Like over quarter? Do you have a limit? I don't send quarters in, but I did send three-eighths up in, yeah. Well, because the bigger they are, the more expensive the carbide is, basically. Exactly. I figured quarter and under is not really worth it, but quarter and over, maybe. We use so much quarter that I might try to get those done.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, but you're at three sixteenths for us and under for sure. No, no, no, no point. So here's my thought. If you had a and I have a visualization in my head that's kind of like a candy store with the clear bins and so forth, but every tool could have three vertical columns inside of it and it could have brand new, it could have used and then it can have regrinds because I.
00:24:08
Speaker
Okay, yeah. I do think we need to have a way of identifying if a tool has been reground. I actually would love to hear from folks on this, but we don't have enough experience using them to know. But I feel like if we had a problem with a cut or feeds and speeds or something, I would want to know, was that tool new or was it a regrind?
00:24:27
Speaker
So and then what we could also do is in front of that with the in the acrylic is we would have a sort of a fire extinguisher encapsulated version of the tool, you know, like break here in our case of emergency. But you can actually have the tool inside of it in protected, but laying horizontally so I can compare the tool, which makes it easier for me to put it back correctly. But keeps it keeps it away from just being the one you grab and use. We can have the box as well.
00:24:57
Speaker
And so now we've got this system where I can quickly see how much I've got, and we can put them back. Because that's my other question for you, is you don't really have to put end mills back very often, right?
00:25:09
Speaker
Not very often, because they just stay in their holders. When I'm making fixtures and stuff, I do have used end mills. But aluminum end mills don't wear out like fast anyway, not unless you're doing production. So yeah, I've kind of got bins. I wish I had different color shallower bins. And actually, I did start 3D printing my own, just for fun. But maybe I'll 3D print some green ones or some other color ones, just so we can differentiate a little bit.
00:25:38
Speaker
The color code for used tools? Yeah, sure. Right. It's kind of weird that inside of it, like a trot, that's easy. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of weird that all the shallow bins are red, which is like a bad color, you know? So when we use it to sort the lathe parts that we make, which are all tiny, you could fit like 500 screws in a shallow bin, a small one.
00:26:04
Speaker
And then we have label maker labels that say good or scrap or whatever. But all the bins are red. I believe, I don't want to use my computer now because of the keyboard. Julie and Aaron will yell at me for the keyboard sound. But I think Schaller started making one other color.
00:26:23
Speaker
I think. No way. I think so. It's either like green or black or something. Don't quote me on that. Cool. But you can also just spray paint them or tape them. We put our rack system right now is we'll have a work in progress or inventory, but then anything that's either any shelf that has green tape on the sides or green tape on an individual shallower bin, that means that product is okay to send to a customer, meaning we may have a
00:26:49
Speaker
Kaizen foam cutout that has a bunch of shallow bins, but only one of the shallow bins has green tape on it, which means that is the assembled sub assembly. So like a pack of screws that's put together for a vise kit and then all the stories around it. But that if you walk over to it, the only thing that's going to go into a box is something that's in the green tape. That makes sense. Yep. Visual cues.
00:27:15
Speaker
So what have you been up to? Actually, I took the weekend off pretty much completely, and it kind of reminded me of one of those maturity things where
00:27:28
Speaker
When people, when you hear something and you listen to it and you accept it but it's not until you really do it that you recognize it like you so like just really like when people say like the whole thing about whether it's getting burned out or taking a like, I get more re energize from slowing down or from taking a step away and
00:27:49
Speaker
I was actually going to ask you in a potentially tangential question or conversation, but more about like, where did you get your fire and inspiration from? And then does that tie into your mom and dad or your upbringing? Or like, how does that how does that influence you? That's a really good question.
00:28:13
Speaker
Your dad was an entrepreneur, right? Absolutely. He's a programmer, website developer, super nerd in that scope, and he has been since 1983, whatever. He's been an entrepreneur since the mid-90s. Watching him always working from home and
00:28:38
Speaker
kind of always at it has certainly been a driving force for me to be an entrepreneur. I absolutely attribute to that 100%. But as far as the drive and the thirst and the hunger, I don't know where
Passion in Career
00:28:50
Speaker
that comes from. I just love what I do. I love to learn what I love to do. And the more I tell my story to people and the more I talk about all this, the more I realize all through high school, all I cared about were mountain bikes.
00:29:07
Speaker
It's like just riding mountain bikes, working on them. And then I took video class, video production class for like three semesters because it was easy, but also because I could make mountain biking videos. Right, right, right. And I think back on that, I'm like, OK, wait. I didn't. I'd like to work on the bike more than I like to ride it. OK, so there's the rencher. And then I like to make videos about it, too. So like, what am I doing now? I'm doing the exact same thing in a different industry. I'm making something that I'm fascinated by, and I get to make videos about it. Isn't that funny?
00:29:36
Speaker
So it's like, I was doing this in high school, even though at the time, I was like, Oh, what am I going to do with my life? But when I could find those aspects about myself that, you know, later in it was cars, and I would just research how to work on cars for like hours a day, just non stop, I just loved it so much. That you don't even think of it as work, actually, I thought of it as play the entire time, like, like, you don't even realize what's going on.
00:30:04
Speaker
I don't even think of it as drive. I just thought of it as goofing off in my own way. Then you realize there's a direct vocational or even very legitimate talent to what you could do with that.
00:30:20
Speaker
Exactly. And it takes years and even a little bit of success before you really realize what is possible with that. You know what I mean? It was something I always liked about there's a book called Snowball, which is the official biography on Warren Buffett.
Warren Buffett's Success
00:30:37
Speaker
I think it was by Alice Schroeder. And
00:30:40
Speaker
Warren Buffett is a pretty self-deprecating person. I mean, don't get me wrong. He'll tell you if you're wrong. He's not humble. He's not willing to. He's not quiet necessarily, but he's not an arrogant person for being who he is. And he talks about, look, you got to realize, I didn't necessarily want to be this, the wealthiest person in the world or whatever that stat is. He's just like, I legitimately loved reading
00:31:03
Speaker
financial statements, like 10Ks, 10Qs. I just legitimately wanted to do that. He was the John Grimson of cars or nicer mountain bikes, but for this stuff. What's funny is that lots of people didn't do that, so he was able to have this edge at an early age in life. He's like the byproduct of that is
00:31:23
Speaker
what it is. I hate to use the word game because it demeans it, but it's just like, we only get one shot at this. When you find something that you're really good and the byproduct happens to be something that can generate the lifestyle and let you do what you want to do, that's the win. Absolutely. Two things on that. I have heard stories about Warren Buffett. He's, I don't know what he is, 70 now or whatever. When he was a kid,
00:31:48
Speaker
he read every single financial book in his local library and then he's like, well, there's gotta be more. So he had more books shipped in and then he ended up reading every single financial book in the state by the time he's like nine years old, like nine. And then the other thing was like,
00:32:06
Speaker
a misperception of your own interests. Like I look back at my mountain bike and my car time and all that and I saw it all wrong. You know what I mean? Like I had all this passion and all this skill yet I thought I had to do X with it.
00:32:22
Speaker
You know, like when you're a kid, what are you going to be? Are you going to be a firefighter? Are you going to be a doctor? Are you going to be one of these 10 vocations that when, you know, I didn't even realize what was potentially possible with the skills and the attention and the, you know, the fire that I was developing in myself, I just didn't see it.
00:32:43
Speaker
It makes me wonder, people now who are early in their life, early in their career, and have this crazy passion that they're seeing wrong. You know what I mean? I almost had the exact opposite experience. I was super into computers. I started a little computer company in high school, and I would build computers for people and did tech support and stuff. It's kind of your quintessential.
00:33:07
Speaker
I'm sure I got some business because people were just sympathetic to a kid who's hustling, but like, you know, I was pretty good at it. This was late 90s? Exactly. Yep. Like literally like 97, 98. And when I started looking at colleges, I was like, you know, I don't want to be
00:33:24
Speaker
a computer science major. I don't want to be a programmer. I did some programming, but that's not what I want to do. And I kind of had this moment where I was like, look, I'm good with computers, lots, everyone in my little town here in Ohio at the time, which wasn't, you know, being, I was the big, I was very good there. So I was like, I want to use, I'm trying to keep this all, I wasn't like some Wunder kid, but like,
00:33:48
Speaker
I was good. I generally got things figured out and problem solved. I mean, you know what it was like back in the day. I can remember trying to modify auto-exec.bat files to do custom things on startup. And I didn't know what I was doing. You just figured it out. Exactly. And so I was like, look, I want to use my passion and interest in computers to support what I do in life, not to be what I do in life.
00:34:16
Speaker
I legitimately had that thought and that's why I when I applied to colleges I was really interested with Babson College, which is the number one school in the country for entrepreneurship and they have this Program the first semester your freshman year They break you into groups of 30 people and they give that group of 30 people every they give every group $3,000 and you have and you have to go start a business and
00:34:42
Speaker
And every group of 30 start to business. You run that business through the semester. You have to build accounting, CEO, reporting metrics, sales. You have to deal with teams, collaboration, the successes, the failures. And at the end, you pay the school back and any profits go to charity.
00:35:00
Speaker
And so I love that. I love that no BS like hands-on. Let's dive in. Let's learn. And of course in hindsight, you look back and it was so pedestrian. It was so basic, but you have to go through that. You have to live it. Of course. That's a huge new experience for almost anybody, right? It was insane like that.
00:35:22
Speaker
Um, it was great. I got a scholarship too, which was really helpful and, uh, um, made me feel welcome there. Like it was a good fit and, and it was, and I did exactly that. I didn't end up doing computers as my thing. I use computers to help me do that stuff.
00:35:39
Speaker
Right. Well, even now, you're not a computer programmer, but you're making Arduino programs, or you're architecting them. Even if Ed's the one doing the heavy lifting, you're the one going, why isn't there this thing that exists?
Inspiring Future Generations
00:35:52
Speaker
And let's do that. And he goes, oh, I know how to do that. That's the skill in life. You just have to. I did this interview for a book somebody's writing on American manufacturing or something. And one of his questions was, what do
00:36:09
Speaker
What do we need to do to inspire the next generation or something and you know, it's a kind of a loaded question because
00:36:18
Speaker
I think we are, I'm less interested in talking about that and I'm more interested in doing it through what you're doing with your YouTube videos and your story and me as well. But what I do care about is making sure for the people that have some interest or passion or spark that they've got the tools and resources. They're not limited in access. They're not limited financially to getting to the maker space, getting to the YouTube videos, getting to the content, getting to the ability to go through and do stuff. That's what I care about.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah. Good. What's going on today? Today, I got a lot of blades to engrave. So I made this engraving fixture. Yeah. Sorry to everybody driving around the parking lot right now who cannot see. Maybe you'll post on Instagram? Yeah, once it's going, of course. Oh, interesting. 20 degrees doesn't look as steep as I thought.
00:37:18
Speaker
No. So it's a Pearson pallet going on their mini pallet system. And it's got these six angled blocks on it. So it's going to hold the blades to 20 degrees. They're all modular. I don't. Okay, exactly. So if this one's for a Norseman, if I want to make a rasp one, I can just make new. Okay, folks, so there's a Pearson base and then on it are six removable angled pieces that hold the knife blade. That's awesome. Makes them easier to make too.
00:37:44
Speaker
Exactly. And then, well, making angled parts with holes in all directions is very confusing and difficult. I actually asked Amish, our buddy with the five axes to make them for me. And then I just went out like an idiot and bought material and I was like, I could do it myself. Like after he said yes, I don't know why that was, that was a terrible idea. And then, uh, no, I spent quite a bit of time doing them when I should have just had to do it. So sorry, you were right. You should have done it. Um, have you run them yet?
00:38:14
Speaker
No, that's the next step. So I got a little bit more code to do because it's kind of complicated macros. This is the thing we talked about last week about incrementing numbers and all that. Yeah, awesome. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I got a nice DM about that, about how to make like the number 937 in a macro, how to divide that into three different numbers. And it's like divided by a thousand percent. Yeah, that's awesome. It was helpful. Okay, cool. Yeah, very cool.
00:38:45
Speaker
So, so that, that could be helpful. Um, so I just need to dive into that. I need some time to think about that. But yeah, no, we're, we're good. Um, Eric is behind meaning, meaning we have a lot of parts made almost exactly. Yeah. Cause he's been on fire. Um, the problem with being so far ahead is when he notices a little mistake like he did yesterday, it's on 20 or 30 blades.
00:39:14
Speaker
And it's fine, it's workable, but it's not ideal and it'll be fixed on the very next one. But it's a very difficult balance between
00:39:25
Speaker
knowing when it's good and getting ahead so that nobody slows down, but also not getting too far ahead that if there's a problem, you don't have like tons of weird parts or scrap or whatever. So we're trying to define that balance. And then we're also trying to get better tool finishes on certain features. You know, we're using Lakeshore five fluid variable tools, which are good.
00:39:48
Speaker
But they're microchipping too soon. And we're wondering about if some of the higher end brands are going to work better. So apparently, Emugi makes some, like Angelo was saying, makes some really, really high end. I think you just went to one of the best, well, there's all these great carbide companies. But I think Emugi is right there at the top. Yeah. And honestly, sometimes I have this opinion that
00:40:17
Speaker
that this hierarchy of brands in the end mill world is all BS. There's some truth to it.
00:40:24
Speaker
but I'm like 95% thrilled with the Lakeshore end mills. And it's just for these two side profiling applications that I need better tool life, less streaking, because Eric complains that there's little streaks and chips in the side of the part. So yeah, I'm willing to spend good money on good end mills, of course. It's not even a question, so I need to do that.
00:40:48
Speaker
There's no question. It's actually a little bit perplexing to me how much money there has to be in the tooling world because we had the IMCO rep stop by yesterday and we're actually going up to tour the helical grinding facility next week, which I'm really excited to go see. In Maine? Yeah. Nice.
00:41:10
Speaker
who else? We were just talking to somebody else about another mill company, but there's so many out there. I'm like, good grief. How much Agar was somebody that Amish really liked that we saw an email? Anyway, what you just said is quite ironic because we have never had an inventory problem to speak of. And we don't really have one right now,
00:41:31
Speaker
But we kind of do, which is that we have not been able to consistently keep up with my devices. Yeah, which is insane. Like it's super cool. It's one of the best feelings in the world as an entrepreneur to like be like, okay, we're really dialing in on this. Not only is the fixture plates, but it's like the support around it. Like the fixture plate covers have been a huge hit. Those are relatively easy to make.
00:41:53
Speaker
But Jared was like, why don't you just let me make 100 mod vices in one batch? And I'm like, I don't want to because I know we're going to want to tweak something or change something. And so it takes more time. But one of the things we're doing is it's their 1018 steel, which is easy to machine, but it's also hard to machine super well and get really good finishes.
00:42:13
Speaker
And cosmetic finishes are different than the feel. And so we've been playing with different speeds and feeds, different tooling, different ways of hogging, roughing, drilling. We just got a high feed mill, which has actually been insane, which will, if it works out well, we'll do a video or talk about it more.
00:42:30
Speaker
I want to get really good finishes. And I also just don't want to look at a shelf with a bunch of products and say, Oh man, I can't wait till we sell. I can't wait till we sell out of those so that we can get to the better ones. Right. That's just, it's terrible feeling. Cause then you know, you're selling subpar stuff or, you know, it's fine, but it's not as good as you know, it can be. So you keep this kind of leaner in and outflow and then you can, you can, you're much more nimble. You can change things as you go. Um, would you not make them out of 41 40 or something? Just cause it machines so much more beautiful.
00:43:00
Speaker
I'll look at pricing. I suspect it's a pretty big price increase and it's not wouldn't really materially improve the product But I shouldn't be closed-minded for sure. I should go get a get a quote
00:43:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I guess the machines, I don't know if the machines harder or whatever, but should be a smidge faster. But I don't that that I don't care about. Yeah. We we're doing a Tormach blog video next month on how you're ready for this, how we couldn't celebrate St. Patrick's Day without CNC machines.
00:43:40
Speaker
And so we went next door to the mold factory that makes molds for glass bottle industry. OK. And they have these gun drills. You ready for this? Thirty what was it? Thirty six inch long drill, quarter inch diameter. Oh, my gosh.
00:44:01
Speaker
And they drill these air cooling lines through these molds. And so they were letting us film it to talk about how when one enjoys consuming a beverage on St. Patrick's Day, that had to be delivered to you in a glass mold, so forth. And so I was like, how do you guys deal with tool life management? I'm like, right. Yeah, of course.
00:44:19
Speaker
The gun drill has four spindles on the same motion platform. So it's got four spindle load meters, which is kind of weird to look at a CNC machine with four load meters. And they were talking about how they deal with it in inches cut, which is pretty cool. Yeah, that is cool.
00:44:34
Speaker
And I guess the control takes care of that. It was a hide and hide control. And I'm just like, you think of a gun, you think of a gun drill is like a basic machine. And I think of hide and hide is a pretty high end control. Maybe I'm maybe they make entry level controls or something, too. But I just. That's awesome. Can't wait to watch it. Yeah. And then we're actually we're doing a new class tomorrow on Fixtory.
00:45:00
Speaker
Good, which I'm super excited for. We've got this pretty lengthy PowerPoint, which normally I don't like PowerPoints, but it ends up being a really good way to go through a lot of different examples and point out good things and
Fixture Design Balance
00:45:11
Speaker
bad things. And one of the big things we're talking about is kind of modularity and fixtures where like you just showed, like you would be still, it would actually be easier to make the fixture you just showed me out of one piece of billet and just surface it.
00:45:23
Speaker
But then you can't stay nimble, you can't replace it if you make a mistake, if it wears out, threads, helical, there's so much process and design philosophy that goes into it. Cool. Well, we should get on with our days. Good. Crush it, bud. Sounds good. You too. I'll see you. Okay, take care. Bye. Bye.