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#385 How to hold incredible tolerances reliably?
3.7k Plays1 month ago
TOPICS:
- Checking in with your team after being on vacation
- Veritasium video on QR codes
- Grimsmo Fjell updates!
- How to hold incredible tolerances reliably
- Forcing a pause between each operation in Fusion
- Hardmilling
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Manufacturing and Business
00:00:01
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 385. My name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:06
John S
And my name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And this is your weekly dose of manufacturing where we talk about our businesses and our issues and opportunities and projects and, and, uh, trips. I want to hear all about your trip and, uh, yeah, what's going on in our our business lives.
Saunders' Productive Return and Team Catch-up
00:00:22
John S
Bingo. How you doing?
00:00:24
johngrimsmo
I'm doing good. Feeling very productive, feeling very fired up. We'll get into that later.
00:00:28
John S
Okay.
00:00:29
johngrimsmo
And, uh, Yeah, things are really good. How are you doing?
00:00:33
John S
Good, it's my first morning back was like you said, it was off last week. And yeah, so I always kind of go into those first days back with like, okay, you know, see what, see what's a bunch of paperwork, bunch of bills.
00:00:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:00:48
John S
And with that reminder to just be unapologetically honest with yourself then't that you you know doesn't have to be with anybody else so I can I wish this wasn't recorded but like um okay you know should I be still depositing checks I'm not always this was actually an unusual one because my wife does some of the accounting stuff as well and she was with me for part of this trip so um
00:00:57
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:01:02
johngrimsmo
Mmm.
00:01:11
John S
Should that stuff be off my plate?
Insights from Hymer Visit and Tool Management
00:01:13
John S
I don't know. I mean, I got through basically everything in 45 minutes, which being gone for technically Thursday through Tuesday, so it was like nine eight or nine working days.
00:01:23
John S
And to get everything caught back up on that front, at least like paperwork was important, it's hard to complain about that.
00:01:29
John S
But ah yeah. Yeah.
00:01:29
johngrimsmo
Totally, totally.
00:01:33
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:01:33
John S
Yeah.
00:01:34
johngrimsmo
um Okay, so when you when you come back from a trip, you're gone for a little while, how do you check in? Like, what's your process for like, do you do you go and check in with each person? What's the update? What's the status? Or how does that go for you?
00:01:47
John S
That's a good question. It's not super structured. Most of the people will, most of the time, they'll reach out while I'm gone if there's something that's really like okay for a problem, because and nobody wants to like walk into a, oh boy.
00:02:00
John S
um so Sometimes I'll come in early. This morning I didn't, because William is off school today, because they had a fifth grade camp thing. and so and i wanted He slept in, I wanted to see him.
00:02:12
John S
I hadn't seen him last night, because I was sleeping. a Anyway, sorry, rambling.
00:02:16
johngrimsmo
You like just got back then.
00:02:18
John S
Yeah, literally.
00:02:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:20
John S
So I came in at eight, it's our normal time, and then I'll usually take the first half an hour to myself to go through stuff unless somebody comes and grabs me and then talk, just, I did that, yeah, I guess you're right, it's kind of a one-on-one, I caught up with Grant, updated me on a few things.
00:02:38
John S
I guess what's tough is that you you almost wanna hear the, like, what's the stuff that's, pressing urgent problematic, get through that and then like, hey, let's come back later in the day or later in the week.
00:02:49
John S
I'm like all the smaller stuff that I certainly care about, but you're trying to block through.
00:02:52
johngrimsmo
True.
00:02:53
John S
We don't, this is, it's not, it's not that formal, right?
00:02:54
johngrimsmo
No, it's interesting though. Yeah.
00:02:58
John S
I don't have to catch up with wish Serena in shipping because she's autonomous, does a great job. Yvonne handles stuff with her. um So that's really Grant Garrett who's running parts and we have a couple things we're trying to fix her tweak on that front.
00:03:12
John S
And then Alex, which is a much more like, okay, engineering design process. That's like a bigger conversation.
00:03:18
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah, maybe a quick you know touch base on back, you know everything good. And then throughout the week, touch base with status of projects.
00:03:22
John S
Yeah.
00:03:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. I like that.
00:03:29
John S
Well, so on that note, that was one of my trying to distill the takeaways from spending basically a day at Heimer. So background story was already going to be in Germany for vacation and that Heimer invited me and some other guys, ah basically as a bolt on to their VIP customer slash like the distributors who have sold enough to get kind of a perk perc trip to visit, see the facility.
00:03:54
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:03:56
John S
and but okay, I'll join that. like it's you Part of it's super cool in that like, hey, I love German precision engineering manufacturing, high-end stuff. um Have you know used the Hymer 3D, what do they call it, 3D Taster, sense literally since day one with the Tormach back in 2010.
00:04:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:04:15
John S
On the flip side, you know I'm not a shrink fit guy. I don't do the Hymer tool holders. um At least don't we don't have any now, that type of sort of thing.
00:04:23
johngrimsmo
Like when you say Heimer, I think of those 3D tasters, which is a quality piece of equipment, but it's not very expensive and it's not like super precision. I mean, it probably is manufacturing wise, but, and then I forget that they make a lot of other stuff.
00:04:39
John S
They really do. I mean, they make shrink systems, balancing systems. They bought Microset from DMG that is the tool presetters. um So they're into that world.
Grimsmo's Watchmaking Interests and Delegation
00:04:48
John S
They're starting with the tool. They did a really cool demonstration of a full blown, fullblown ah completely comprehensive tool management system in your shop. Every holder from Hymer has a QR code. And so you can now be pre-setting offline. you can You can scan it, balance it, it will,
00:05:06
John S
track tool life. So like even if you take a tool out and it knows that it's at 80% tool life, or or like the example that they give was if you took a tool out and it was at 97% tool life, or excuse me, 3% tool life, you don't necessarily want to put that tool back in the machine just to find out an hour later it's out. So they had this system that's incredible that showed how that can work across a whole factory.
00:05:29
John S
ah I think for shops like your mind, the problem is that not only is that just a huge overall capital costs, training costs, infrastructure costs, but unless you're completely invested in the whole system, so so like literally for us, not only would it be, I'm sure, well into the five figures for the software and their physical like preset or devices, but you have to replace every single holder we have.
00:05:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:05:58
John S
um for it to really work well. It's still exciting because that it's yeah anyone who's listening to her has been around understands like why is it such a clunky system. folks So for example, the thing that's great about the Heimer system, they have figured out how to write via QR codes to the machine tools.
00:06:16
John S
So when the operator goes to load a pre-set drill into a new, the horizontal, they just scan at the horizontal and the offset is pushed from the Heimer database system when to into the control.
00:06:31
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:06:32
John S
And that's that's really cool.
00:06:33
johngrimsmo
I've seen people do that with the RFID chips in the tool holder in the little balancing hole.
00:06:35
John S
Yeah. who
00:06:38
johngrimsmo
um So nothing new there. But what is interesting is that If each, um, if each tool holder is QR coded from the Heimer factory with a unique barcode, everyone in the world is different, right?
00:06:51
johngrimsmo
And that's what they're talking about.
00:06:51
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:06:52
johngrimsmo
So their software system is scans that QR code once. And now you apply data to match with that QR code instead of writing the physical tool offset to the RFID chip that's on the thing.
00:06:57
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:07:03
John S
Yeah.
00:07:04
johngrimsmo
And which is a different way to do it.
00:07:05
johngrimsmo
Um, it's interesting.
00:07:06
John S
It's total tangent, but phenomenal video for from Veritasium on QR codes.
00:07:13
johngrimsmo
Really?
00:07:13
John S
I had no idea, like it is phenomenal.
00:07:18
johngrimsmo
I will check that out.
00:07:19
John S
You've seen him stuff, right?
00:07:20
johngrimsmo
I've seen his videos, but I don't follow it closely, but they're always enjoyable.
00:07:24
John S
Yeah, it was it was really cool. So I brought all that up um because I think there's an interesting takeaway about what Hymer represents as a manufacturing company. They're only 40 years old. Now they are 800 employees. They have facilities all over the world. um They had 110 machines. like they are
00:07:45
johngrimsmo
Serious.
00:07:45
John S
like Yes, on the flip side, it's, I believe, only second generation. um So Andreas is the current guy, president, chairman, but he's, I don't know his exact age. I believe he's younger than us though.
00:07:59
John S
um and he has he has really taken over the face of it from his father or his parents. ah So I think it's a really good tie back to that kind of concept you and I have talked about of like if you and I decide one day to go buy ah a road paving company together, we're not going to be like ever operating the actual steamroller, like we're just not.
00:08:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:08:21
John S
And and he has that way. Like I'm guessing his dad was actually running machines, prototyping, making the original products, like the 3D tasters.
00:08:26
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:08:30
John S
Andreas isn't. So to see his perspective on the business and the push and the teams, and and he didn't go into that, but you can infer a lot of that from seeing the facility, seeing how he interacted, seeing what his jobs are.
00:08:43
johngrimsmo
who
00:08:44
John S
um
00:08:45
johngrimsmo
Well, cause that is his job is to run the company.
00:08:47
John S
Yes.
00:08:49
johngrimsmo
Whereas our job is to run the company and be manufacturing engineers.
00:08:55
John S
Yeah. I don't like, I don't have the answers here, but I think, um, and I don't think you and I think about, you know, Laith, Clara, Jane and William taking over our respective businesses. I don't think about it up to that way, but like it would be different.
00:09:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:09
John S
Um, it just would.
00:09:10
John S
So period.
00:09:11
johngrimsmo
It would, yeah, 100%.
00:09:12
johngrimsmo
Or anybody else for that matter, a coworker up here, somebody come in, you hire a CEO kind of thing, it would change things for sure.
00:09:16
John S
Yeah.
00:09:20
johngrimsmo
For better or worse, I don't know.
00:09:20
John S
yeah
00:09:22
johngrimsmo
It's not something I think about. um But I have been thinking about on that note, kind of not just delegating tasks, but literally instilling 100% trust in somebody else to run with
00:09:32
John S
Yeah.
00:09:35
johngrimsmo
ah Division a part of it. I don't have to think about anymore like right now.
00:09:37
John S
Mm hmm.
00:09:38
johngrimsmo
I have so many parts of the business on my plate and If we want to grow I have to Cut pieces of the pie and give them away, you know, like like responsibility chunks um so that eventually there is very little of Direct work actionable items on my plate and the team handles everything and we're absolutely getting there like
00:09:44
John S
Oh.
00:10:03
johngrimsmo
but there's always more to do.
00:10:05
John S
Yeah, right. Agreed. So how you been? What have you been into up to all that?
00:10:12
johngrimsmo
um Quite a few things. Side side note on Friday, no it's Sunday, this past Sunday, I went to the Toronto Timepiece Show.
00:10:23
johngrimsmo
So it's a, it's a watch show that they put out in Toronto, the first one ever. And, uh, they started advertising for it for like a year ago. So I signed up free tickets, whatever. And all of a sudden here it is.
00:10:35
John S
Cool.
00:10:35
johngrimsmo
And it was amazing. It was really, really cool. Um, you know, I've become mildly obsessed with wristwatches and, uh, mechanical timekeeping and stuff. And I know there's some Canadian makers that are going to show up there.
00:10:48
johngrimsmo
So I want to go see, and you know, suss it out really it's it's like on a mini blade show but for watches um so i had some incredible conversations some american watch makers some british all over the place these guys from austria um really cool stuff it's it's neat to see
00:10:52
John S
Yeah.
00:10:55
John S
Yeah, sure.
00:11:08
johngrimsmo
how like where people ah choose to put their energy and their skill if they're just watch designers and they get it completely made in source
00:11:16
John S
Mm
Precision Challenges in Hard Milling and Production
00:11:17
johngrimsmo
somewhere else.
00:11:17
John S
hmm.
00:11:17
johngrimsmo
Or obviously I like the people that make the parts themselves. A lot of watchmaking is literally buying the parts and you putting it together and you are the watchmaker, but you don't make, make anything.
00:11:26
John S
Uh huh.
00:11:28
johngrimsmo
You're just the assembler and and that's kind of normal. So my distaste for that is kind of from the manufacturing side of things where it's like, ah, if I don't make it, it's not worth anything.
00:11:39
John S
Are those, when you say that, do you mean like you can but go get a watchmaking catalog for watchmaking professionals and just buy this gear that already has a skew number on the shelf or are you talking about custom sourcing like you do with sprays?
00:11:51
johngrimsmo
Both.
00:11:51
John S
Like, okay.
00:11:53
johngrimsmo
Um, yeah, I mean, and there are specialized, this is kind of how the whole Swiss at watch industry has been built for the past 200 years is there are companies that specialize in cases and specialize in movements and specialize in glass and rubies and everything.
00:12:04
John S
Oh yeah.
00:12:05
johngrimsmo
And if you wanted to design your own watch, then you start to pick and choose through all these catalogs. You're like, Oh, I like that case. And you go to a different company. I like that movement. And I want these hands from that company. And you can buy all those parts and you as the watchmaker can put it together and make your own watch.
00:12:21
johngrimsmo
um and have it put your own name on it, put it branded, whatever, charge whatever you want for it. And that is common. Obviously, I like the guys that are machining the parts themselves. so And so I met a couple of those guys. It was really cool. And it's certainly been on my mind for the past year or so if we want to make a watch. um And this helped answer some of those questions. you know Do I want to tackle that? it's is it Is it going to be worth it? Is there enough market? and This little show in Toronto, I waited in line for an hour and a half to get in.
00:12:52
John S
What? Holy cow.
00:12:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it was it was worth it. But that was that was funny. It was a small venue, too, so they could only have so many people inside before, and you know, they have to limit it.
00:13:01
John S
Oh, okay.
00:13:04
John S
Got it.
00:13:04
johngrimsmo
As people left, they could bring in more people.
00:13:06
johngrimsmo
So that's part of it. But still, it was a healthy amount of traffic. And it shows me that the watch industry is is a lot bigger than anybody can possibly realize.
00:13:14
John S
Mm hmm.
00:13:16
johngrimsmo
because it's not as talked about as like other stuff, hobbies and things like that, but it's pretty cool. So anyway, I really enjoyed myself there. It was cool.
00:13:25
John S
That's awesome.
00:13:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:13:28
John S
OK, but I love you. How are you how are you justifying that um as a roadmap item? Rewind back to like, feel.
00:13:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Oh, I mean, long-term, obviously, um, half passion project, half, you know, is this something we want to add to our lineup kind of thing?
00:13:42
John S
Got it.
00:13:46
johngrimsmo
Um, So it will remain a passion project, personal time kind of thing, up until everything else is dialed and we're making good money. you know However, that said, about late last week, I don't know exactly what tipped me, but a bunch of things came together and I was like,
00:13:54
John S
Yeah.
00:14:07
johngrimsmo
Okay, nothing else in the world matters. We're finishing the field like now.
00:14:10
John S
good good good good
00:14:12
johngrimsmo
And, uh, one guy DM me on Instagram and a lot of guys did, but something about the way he worded it. And my simple reply to him was the fire has been lit. And that has that has fueled me for the past week. And it's it's true. And you know the past few months of effort, um side projects, thingies, many of which were critical, some were probably not. But I've kind of been ignoring finishing the fiel so that I can do all these other important things, um some of which needed to happen. But now I'm basically like, everything else can wait.
00:14:52
John S
Yeah, let's do it. Yeah.
00:14:52
johngrimsmo
This, this is happening right now.
00:14:54
johngrimsmo
Let's do it. So, um, spend a lot of time, you know, working on it, planning, thinking, just writing down lists and subtasks of what is actually required left. What what am I not happy with?
00:15:05
johngrimsmo
What am I, ah one of the things was Angelo kind of asked me, you know, he's my right hand guy in the shop and, and he's like, you don't seem to have the, the excitement for this product.
00:15:17
johngrimsmo
Like, is there something you're not happy with? And I kind of sat with me sour in a good way like you I'm glad he said it, um because he knows me he's worked here for almost seven years like he, he's like, you're usually really excited and you're kind of quiet about this one and I'm just worried that if there's something you don't like somebody thinks not going to work like
00:15:23
John S
Yeah. Yes.
00:15:40
johngrimsmo
um What's the story there? So I basically said, no, I'm quite excited. I'm just in a lull right now, where everything else has been more important. And I'm kind of worried about the clip and hard milling the blade, a couple of the features, like there's some minor technical challenges that I'm, you know, low key worried about. But If I can solve those, then I will be absolutely thrilled with this, this knife and and releasing it and selling it and things like that.
00:16:08
johngrimsmo
And, uh, I know personally, it doesn't have to be a million percent perfect when we launch because perfect doesn't exist, but it certainly has to reach a level of John acceptability before we, uh, and, and that probably has to be flexible that level, but, um,
00:16:20
John S
yes
00:16:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, with the tweaks I made in the past week, I've been working on the clip a lot. I was in the shop till 1.30 last night, just, which isn't common, but I did last night, to working on the clip.
00:16:38
johngrimsmo
And it's like, there's like one thing I'm not happy with yet and needs to be fixed. The way the, in the Wilhelmin, the way the vice is holding the clip, um somehow for up to the clip is slipping downwards in the vice.
00:16:49
John S
okay
00:16:54
johngrimsmo
And no, actually it's slipping upwards because it's over cutting.
00:16:57
John S
I'm just getting centered.
00:16:58
johngrimsmo
It's cutting deeper than it should.
00:16:59
John S
Yeah, right.
00:17:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah. So, I mean, that's a critical, I can't have that. Um, so whether it's vice pressure or evenness of the vice clamping it or something at one 30 last night, I was like, that's a tomorrow problem.
00:17:12
johngrimsmo
I'm going home.
00:17:12
John S
Yeah.
00:17:14
johngrimsmo
But otherwise, I mean, all the features on the clip are good. I'm getting the T-slot sliding clippy feature.
00:17:19
John S
Good.
00:17:21
johngrimsmo
um If you go too tight, then it doesn't really go together. If you go too loose, then it wiggles. It's pretty annoyingly fine-tuned to be good. But I think I can hold it.
00:17:31
johngrimsmo
I think I can. If we do 100% inspection on them, which is literally calipering two features, um we should be able to, yeah.
00:17:39
John S
Oh, it can be measured with calipers or mics.
00:17:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah one one mic and one blade mic to get into into the slot.
00:17:42
John S
Okay.
00:17:44
John S
Yeah. Okay.
00:17:46
johngrimsmo
it's It's not hard. It's just, if that's the routine, okay, every clip gets 100% inspection on these two features, otherwise we toss them, then they'll all work, you know?
00:17:56
johngrimsmo
So yeah, that is exciting. Fire's been lit. I'm getting quite excited. And once I wrote down the list of like all the things that are left, I got to make this fixture. I got to do the hard milling cam. I got to do this.
00:18:07
johngrimsmo
I got to load those tools. And I'm like, this could probably be done by the end of next week.
00:18:12
John S
One thing at a time.
00:18:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:18:14
John S
Just one thing, just.
00:18:15
johngrimsmo
But even still looking at, OK, that's a Monday project. I can do that in a day probably. you know and And within the course of two weeks, this list could be empty. Um, and then that's when you kind of go into serial production where you make five or 10 and you're like, how does it really play out?
00:18:31
johngrimsmo
You know, how does tool life work? How does tolerances hold over a batch? Like making one part, tweaking a bunch of stuff, making another part, tweaking a bunch of stuff. It is not the long-term picture of, of how they come off the machine, you know?
00:18:45
johngrimsmo
But that's what you learn at that point. Don't just stress about it now, but yeah.
00:18:49
John S
Yeah.
00:18:52
John S
There's a lot to be said though is for the level of the products, like the quality of the focus and where, how early does it still like the next 50 are going to be handmade, if you will. you Like just everyone's going to be like, we're, we're a long way away from, we're literally, I also had the exact same conversation on Puck Chucks this morning.
00:19:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:19:10
John S
It's like hard milling.
00:19:10
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:19:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:19:11
John S
How do we talk? How do we gauge? When do we check? And then also like, how do you fail cheaply? Like making sure, you can, I mean, rework stinks, but it's, well, is it better than scrapping?
00:19:22
John S
I don't know.
00:19:22
John S
Not
00:19:22
johngrimsmo
Right.
Tool Holder Precision and Milling Strategies
00:19:23
John S
not always, but um worse is to not know it was going to become scrapped and continue to improve the product only to later find out it's it's failed.
00:19:33
John S
That's not fun at all.
00:19:36
John S
Yeah. Well, good. I'm glad to see, i know i know I know we kind of had a banter on these back to bleed show and I want to make sure they're,
00:19:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah. isn
00:19:46
John S
I'd love to see him come to fruition.
00:19:47
johngrimsmo
For sure. Well, it's been what, three or four months since blade show.
00:19:50
John S
Yeah.
00:19:50
johngrimsmo
And I've done some work on it since then, but not not top of mind kind of thing. And now it is practically only mind.
00:19:55
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:00
johngrimsmo
So it's exciting.
00:20:02
John S
So that was the other question. that I didn't ah didn't even ask it at Hymer. Just wasn't a chance to, unfortunately, but open question anybody listening. I would love to know more about how heat shrink. I find it could be any tool holder, side lock, heat shrink, hydraulic. When I think about some of the tolerances that you're talking about on the clip fit or dealing with on the puck chuck, these are,
00:20:31
John S
difficult high precision, high tolerance, high repeatability requirement parts. And a shrink fit happens to be a great example because the way you're dealing with the thermal expansion of the, if anybody's listening who doesn't know, basically carbide and and steel or alloyed steel expand at different rates. So when you heat shrink,
00:20:50
John S
put an induction heater around the heat shrink holder, the bore, call it a half-inch bore, opens up meaningfully, like a thou or or some amount, but it's very consistent.
00:20:57
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:20:59
John S
It allows you to slide a tool in there, and the carbide does not heat up that quickly, so it's, even though the carbide is being heated up, um You just have to wait two, three, four seconds for the steel to cool back down, and then it has become like one material.
00:21:16
John S
But then what's crazy is that once that carbide's in there, you wanna take it out, you can heat the induction heater up, and the steel heats up so much more quickly than the carbide that you pull the tool back out. That's an name incredibly tight fit.
00:21:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:21:29
John S
Like you have no, you have like no minus, toler I don't know what the tolerances are, but very, very little tolerance range, and it's gotta be,
00:21:37
johngrimsmo
Your
00:21:38
John S
it's got to be on center, it's got to, you know, the run out, it's got to be around this circularity, no no taper.
00:21:40
johngrimsmo
round. Yep.
00:21:44
John S
And um is it as simple as just somebody who knows what they're doing with an ID grinder? Or is it also honing? Is it lapping? Is it polishing? How do they gauge it? Like, I just, I would love to learn more about that.
00:21:56
johngrimsmo
And are they making every tool holder? Like are they hand honing everyone to fit the gauge pin or do they have an automated process where they can make a hundred and 99.9 of them are always good.
00:22:07
johngrimsmo
You know, Oh my gosh.
00:22:08
John S
So they said they can make up to 4,000 a day. And they casually sort of said, like, you look, it's something like a 1% scrap rate. And I don't know if that's, if that could be on the taper, it could just be random or other defects.
00:22:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:22:23
John S
um
00:22:23
johngrimsmo
I wonder if that's due to precision like just outside tolerance or if that is a more catastrophic like a tool blew up or something like.
00:22:27
John S
Right.
00:22:32
John S
Yeah, but so suffice it suffices to say, they they have a very high degree of automation and processes around this.
00:22:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:22:38
John S
um So if anyone's listening has insights, um um again, I'm not going to be the tool holder of business, but I am curious about...
00:22:42
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:22:47
johngrimsmo
it It goes for anything. um My Shunk rep came by last week and we chatted about exactly this because I saw Shunk's been putting out some new shop videos.
00:22:54
John S
Mm
00:22:56
johngrimsmo
I think Titan visited a couple of times and they've had some like really quality shop videos that show their process.
00:22:58
John S
-hmm.
00:23:02
johngrimsmo
and I have some Shunk workholding products and the tolerance and the quality and it's all hard milled or hard turned or ground or whatever.
00:23:03
John S
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
00:23:10
johngrimsmo
And they're just dialed. They're just bang on. It's exactly like what you're doing with the puck chuck. And here they are making these by the thousands a day or a week or whatever.
00:23:17
John S
Right.
00:23:19
johngrimsmo
And according to the video, like parts are coming right off the machine, automated, hard turned, and to tolerance.
00:23:24
John S
Right.
00:23:25
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, how?
00:23:28
John S
you Yeah. So like, we're like nowhere remotely close to that.
00:23:32
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:23:32
John S
Even like, no, John, like compare.
00:23:33
johngrimsmo
But you're learning like what you need, right?
00:23:37
johngrimsmo
ah
00:23:37
John S
I mean, we have to grind 30 puck chucks this afternoon. I'm not nervous about that, but the thought of making a thousand, let alone making them an automated way, letting alone making that many per day is no, yeah, just completely different.
00:23:49
johngrimsmo
to wild.
00:23:52
johngrimsmo
ye yeah Yeah, it's like on the Wilhelmin, I'm trying to make this clip and I'm making one by one, tweaking, dialing, starting to see trends that tolerances are holding, which is really good.
00:23:53
John S
Yeah.
00:24:02
johngrimsmo
And I think, oh man, how do I get this automated? And then I look over and the current is still running. It has been for 18 hours and I'm like, okay, I've done this before. Like I know how to machine titanium. It takes a while to get comfortable with the process before you can just leave it and know The lefts are dialed and everything's good and you've shaken out all of the problems that are likely to happen.
00:24:23
John S
Yeah.
00:24:24
johngrimsmo
With the clip and the Wilhelmin, I haven't yet. So it's like nerve wracking. So I'm sitting there four feet away on my computer while it's running and I'm not looking at it. And I'm kind of nervous a little bit, but I kind of just trust it.
00:24:35
johngrimsmo
And it's like still a little weird, even though it's totally old hat on the curtain, like that it just runs.
00:24:41
John S
yeah Yeah, but I think some of this is You and I have come at this so much so with an approach of CNC machining and machines have gotten so much better that we're able to push the envelope in a really cool way. But it's also the the thing about the Okamoto grinder is you If you ask it to hold a tenth, that's just it's just like what it's meant to do, it's so and it's intrinsic to the quality of the machine, but also just the the process of grinding.
00:25:09
John S
and you know You're looking at wire EDMs, there's stuff that like IB, like there's sun and hones, we don't use them, but like that's probably part of the tool making process, I don't even know.
00:25:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:18
John S
I know that, I think I used to see them at AB tools, it's been years since I was there, but I think some of it is recognizing that you have to just use different technologies or processes.
00:25:28
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep. and And that some tools or parts or knives or whatever, they they need that hand touch to just kiss it that last little. It's like watchmaking. There are automated watch manufacturers that just robots are kind of putting it all together.
00:25:42
johngrimsmo
But then all the luxury brands go through a lot of hands to finish a precision timepiece.
00:25:47
John S
oh That's great there. That's not what I mean though, to be clear. I mean, truly like just getting the right, you know, buying a, like ah buying a wider EM or buying a Walter ID grinder that can just make, it can make 4,000 parts to plus 50 millions minus zero, because that's what that machine was built to do with the, exactly right.
00:26:09
johngrimsmo
And mill grinders for that matter.
00:26:11
John S
You know, the dressing cycles, the tool wear, the control, like it's just what they were, period.
00:26:15
johngrimsmo
But the operator programmer still has to know the limits because, you know, the traditional tolerance on an end mill is, is plus zero minus two thou.
00:26:26
John S
Yeah.
00:26:27
johngrimsmo
Which when I heard that on the grind, right, is like, that's that's not a quarter inch end mill anymore. That's a 248 end mill. That's not what I bought. But that's the loose, traditional, everyday tolerance.
00:26:38
johngrimsmo
And then you get to the higher end mills that can hold Zadaros and Microns and all these end mills that are made to hold like, they just watch them closer.
00:26:40
John S
Yeah.
00:26:48
johngrimsmo
I don't know.
00:26:49
John S
yeah I don't, I still feel like I have questions cause I've seen enough tool making places to where, you know, it's not like you have, you have like one operator to 20 machines.
00:27:01
John S
Like it's not, it's not something where you're, and you don't, you don't want to make a bunch of scrap carbide.
00:27:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:27:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:27:06
John S
Like that's not a great outcome. So yeah. Hmm. Anyway, I'd love to learn more if anybody has any nuggets, um, um,
00:27:17
John S
Wisdom on that. Cause it's also like hydraulics. Like that's such a cool, there's laser welding and and other stuff that I think is very fascinating about that.
00:27:21
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:27:26
johngrimsmo
Well, i you were talking about shrink before. The hydraulics is kind of a tangent conversation. Hydraulic tool holders. Heimer makes hydraulic.
00:27:34
John S
Yeah. It's the same thing.
00:27:37
John S
Heimer sells them. I don't think they make them. I don't know that though. For sure.
00:27:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah, not sure either.
00:27:44
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:48
John S
Have you used a fiber laser to mark holders at all?
00:27:53
johngrimsmo
I have not actually used a fiber laser at all.
00:27:56
John S
Okay.
00:27:56
johngrimsmo
I've had one in my shopping cart for you know essentially years now, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet.
00:28:00
John S
Yeah. Okay. we I'm getting, I'm dusting off that UMC tool project that I also now want to apply to the VF2.
00:28:10
johngrimsmo
What is that?
00:28:12
John S
Having, let's call it 200 tools for the UMC350 of which 19 live in the machine at all times and are for all intents and purposes never taken out of the ATC and the other 180 live offline in a tool cart, but are also permanent perpetual tools.
00:28:28
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:28:31
John S
So when it needs tool 66, It empties the spindle, so puts a tool back in ATC, assuming it was an ATC tool to start. Empties the spindle, it calls tells the operator load tool 63.
00:28:43
John S
You grab tool 63 off an offline rack, it runs the tool.
00:28:45
johngrimsmo
Like in a program, it's, it's pausing and asking you to put in tool 63 and then you keep going. Okay.
00:28:50
John S
Yep. And I had this all written out. Shout out to CJ. He helped me flush out some of the logic, but the posts is done. There's a quirky Haas thing. Um, and I think I fixed, but it's, I just lost some momentum on it. Um, but I now need to do it for the V of two because we're that machine. God bless has 50 a 52 ATC, which.
00:29:12
John S
You've run a tool with like a machine with a 20 or 30, your 50 sounds like high and it is high, but we're at the point now where I've got like seven or eight pockets left ever empty.
00:29:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
Saunders' Tool Management and Fusion 360 Challenges
00:29:23
John S
um And we need some tools for quirky things like, like helicoil taps. And I don't wanna let that live in the machine forever, but I also wanna have a dedicated offline
00:29:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:29:35
John S
tool that's set up for it, and I also then now want to laser it so that you don't worry about the tag not being, like I just want the information ah written on it, period.
00:29:45
John S
It shouldn't be a big deal, but.
00:29:46
johngrimsmo
Do you.
00:29:48
johngrimsmo
Do you have the rotary fourth axis for the laser? Do you need it?
00:29:53
John S
I'm 99% sure we we do own it. I doubt you need it for the radius of where you could mark the number.
00:29:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:29:59
John S
We're not even trying to do a QR code or anything where it has to be certain a certain level of detail.
00:30:04
johngrimsmo
Or you could go tall ways and just like along this cylinder, not around the wrap.
00:30:07
John S
Oh, that's a good point.
00:30:09
John S
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
00:30:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:15
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:30:16
John S
Oh. I gotta mention this one last thing, because I've had more people email in about this.
00:30:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:21
John S
So as a PSA, the topic of forcing tool changes in Fusion. So if you have 10 operations back to back that all use the same tool, if you want it to so pause between each operation, for whatever reason, safety proving out R and&D,
00:30:39
John S
um I was asking a while back on the podcast how to do that without manually creating a four stop or something options up between each one. Cause that's a lot of work just is, and there is a way to do it in fusion, uh, at least on the Haas posts and perhaps on some of the other more common posts. But if you go into your post properties and you choose the checkbox, safe start all operations.
00:31:06
johngrimsmo
Safe start all operations. That is not as intuitive as they're trying to make it sound.
00:31:12
John S
Agreed. I think it just forces your posts to put like a new, I'm not using the right term, like kind of a block call at the head. So it treats everyone as if it's.
00:31:21
johngrimsmo
So it wouldn't just put an M1 or zero between each operation. It would do tool call, tool, spin along, cool it on, things like that.
00:31:31
John S
Don't quote me on that.
00:31:31
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:31:31
John S
Cause that stuff, that stuff matters if you're asking these sorts of questions, but yes, I think, and that can be really important.
00:31:36
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:31:38
John S
Cause like, I know on some of our machines, like maybe the Okuma, if you do a four stop, it turns the cooling off and the spindle off and it does weird things like it might turn the spindle back on, but it might not turn the coolant back on.
00:31:48
johngrimsmo
Right. Or it might lose your tool offset or something like maybe real bad.
00:31:51
John S
Oh my God. Yeah.
00:31:53
johngrimsmo
So interesting. That's kind of the thing of of starting in the middle of a program, you know, some controls will read ahead and apply every offset and cool and whatever the high nines great at that um others will just jump to the middle of the line and not do anything other than start moving.
00:32:11
John S
yeah the yeah Safe start operations, great resource.
00:32:15
johngrimsmo
cool.
00:32:17
John S
Agree, not hyper-intuitive.
00:32:23
John S
What else do you have to do?
00:32:24
johngrimsmo
Um, the other day our current was giving a, um, tool changer issue.
00:32:24
John S
what time
00:32:29
johngrimsmo
the The tool changer is beautiful, but somewhat complex. Cause there's a lot of sensors that all have to be adjusted just perfectly. And if they go bad or, you know, it's like any mechanical thing will eventually start to fail.
00:32:41
johngrimsmo
If, uh, especially a machine like that or a car or whatever, there's dozens, if not hundreds of sensors that all have to work harmoniously at once. And if any one of them goes out, then something's not going to work.
00:32:52
johngrimsmo
Um, so there's. There's these two g grippers on the Kern. One brings the tool in and the other brings the tool out kind of thing.
00:33:01
John S
Yeah Mm-hmm
00:33:02
johngrimsmo
And they open and close. I don't think they're Chunk brand, but they're like those little Chunk spindle g grippers that everybody's using in there their machines now. And they have these little and't know there read sensors or something that measure when the gripper is open or when the gripper is closed.
00:33:17
johngrimsmo
There's one sensor for each open and close. And one of them was flaking out a little bit. and very glad that they have LEDs on top, so you can tell if it's working or not. um One of them was flaking out, so the guys kind of opened it up and adjusted it a little bit.
00:33:32
johngrimsmo
It got it working again for a couple of hours, and then it worked again. And then it alarmed out again, and then we adjusted it one more time, and now it seems to be working again, but, you know, probably just needs to be replaced.
00:33:42
John S
Hmm.
00:33:45
johngrimsmo
Luckily, last time this happened about a year ago, we did buy two. So we had, we had a new one on the shelf, which is amazing.
00:33:50
John S
Yeah.
00:33:52
johngrimsmo
It's a $70 sensor, like keep one in stock kind of thing. Um, and, uh, yeah, so now it's working. So the question is, do we preemptively replace it? Assuming it'll go bad or was it just out of adjustment or I don't know, but we have a spare one.
00:34:07
johngrimsmo
So it's literally a.
00:34:08
John S
does it How does it connect or splice in?
00:34:13
johngrimsmo
large grain of rice with a string attached, like a cable attached to it, and a tiny little set screw in the grain of rice that clamps down somewhere.
00:34:21
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:34:22
johngrimsmo
So I think it slots into a little groove, and then the set screw just holds it in place.
00:34:27
John S
But how does electrically, how does it?
00:34:29
johngrimsmo
There's a cable that goes through a well-zipped-tied cable chain, and then it just plugs in.
00:34:34
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:34:37
johngrimsmo
It might need to be soldered. I can't remember. Angela did it. Um, either way, I think it does need to be clip clipped in or soldered in or something.
00:34:43
John S
Okay.
00:34:46
johngrimsmo
So it's not just an unplug and plug in, but he said the most annoying thing was actually ah running the cable and clipping all the zip ties and like getting it in. That took a while last time. So he's, you know, willing to do it, but not looking forward to doing it again.
00:35:01
John S
That sounds like the exact sensor that failed on the Akuma a month or two ago that gave us a week of downtime and the I guess I'm surprised that a read sensor that is not moving and it's in a custom like almost 8020 extrusion that has the read sensor circular profile so it just slides through that with the same thing with a tiny set screw like it has to be like an oaf
00:35:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:35:19
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:35:22
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:35:23
John S
oh 060 screw or something crazy.
00:35:27
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:35:27
John S
ah And it's not, again, it's it's buried inside the tool touch tool probe tower.
00:35:31
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:35:36
John S
So it doesn't really get coolant on it. It doesn't move. i'm And that machine's only three years old. I'm really surprised a sealed read sensor would fail, but lots of folks had reached out over Instagram, et cetera, to be like, hey, those things are notoriously unreliable.
00:35:50
John S
So it's kind of like, man, yeah, right?
00:35:50
johngrimsmo
Weird. Yeah. Well, and ours still functions. If you put metal to it, it lights up and it works now in position and it shouldn't go out of adjustment.
00:35:57
John S
That's that's hard Mm
00:36:01
johngrimsmo
So last time we were in there yesterday or the day before, I think, um, Jeff was doing the work cause it was the end of the day. It was just him and me and. So I gave him a silver sharpie and he basically slid the weird sensor forward and back and found the range of like good to good.
00:36:11
John S
-hmm
00:36:17
johngrimsmo
So he silver sharpied the range and then he just put the sensor in the middle.
00:36:18
John S
Mm-hmm
00:36:21
johngrimsmo
It's perfect. And if I had to guess, there's probably 200 thou of range, which is like a lot. It's easy to judge that halfway. And it's not just going to go out of adjustment by itself, I don't think.
00:36:34
johngrimsmo
Um, so maybe, maybe the sensor is flaking.
00:36:34
John S
Yeah, that is odd.
00:36:36
johngrimsmo
I'm not sure, but current's been running for days.
Machine Sensor Issues and Solutions
00:36:39
johngrimsmo
So.
00:36:39
John S
Good. what's spot It's it was fine now then, huh?
00:36:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's fine, no. And we have the sensor, so if it happens, we'll deal with it, but but yeah.
00:36:43
John S
Yeah.
00:36:47
John S
That was that sensor that same exact same issue where you could snake it all the way through, but we can't, you literally cannot get to all of the zip ties because it goes from the spindle side of the machine all the way back through the casting to the backside of a tool changer with the door that you have to crouch through.
00:37:02
John S
like
00:37:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah, they they they build it in the factory when there's no sheet metal or whatever.
00:37:03
John S
just Yeah, so we bought those heat shrink connectors that also have self-soldering, low flow solder in them.
00:37:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I remember you mentioning about that.
00:37:16
John S
So we could just replace it kind of, I think it was like 12 or 18 inches from the location.
00:37:20
johngrimsmo
Got it.
00:37:21
John S
And so now it's, I hate, ah knock on wood, I have to do it again. It's 45 minutes, take the sheet metal off a half an hour to swap the sensor and then get the sheet metal back on.
00:37:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's not so bad. Yeah.
00:37:33
John S
Yeah.
00:37:34
johngrimsmo
Do you have a procedure for that?
00:37:36
John S
No, no, yeah.
00:37:38
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:37:39
John S
And we didn't actually buy an extra one because, oh, we did, I lied. We did buy one extra one, but I hesitate on some of this stuff because in a perfect world, if you know exactly where the extra one is, great.
00:37:51
John S
But otherwise it was a Mizumi part that I could overnight, it was $30 sensor.
00:37:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:37:56
John S
Some of that stuff I'd rather just deal with the day of downtime and buy it versus trying to store it for two to three years.
00:37:58
johngrimsmo
True. Yeah. Yeah, because we have loosely two locations for any kern parts. And they wouldn't be anywhere else. But still, it's like in one of two locations, you got to start digging. You don't really know what you're looking for. And, you know,
00:38:18
John S
yeah Hamer had the two of the elevator parts storage devices because I mean they have
00:38:24
johngrimsmo
Oh, yeah.
00:38:27
John S
they have a hundred and some CNC machines that all have, I mean, they have thousands of tools and they had the craziest, mottliest mix of turning inserts, back cutting tools, gun drills, just crazy, gnarly, weird stuff.
00:38:40
John S
And so probably the most complicated tool crib I've seen for a shop that is still, quote unquote, one room shop, you know?
00:38:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was crazy little video you posted with all that stuff in one room, all the groves.
00:38:48
John S
And, uh, mm-hmm.
00:38:54
johngrimsmo
What was it, index lathes?
00:38:56
John S
Indexed lays, yep. And it's an index bigger multi-spindle stuff.
00:39:01
John S
So that idea of like, okay, yep, I need this crazy weird carbide back chamfering cutting tool. It's like you scan it in their software, the elevator pulls the tray out and then the light, I love this part of it.
00:39:13
John S
A laser on the top, like a Galvo laser, visual laser, just points to the drawer to pull the tool from.
00:39:17
johngrimsmo
Ah, cool.
00:39:19
John S
Yeah.
00:39:21
johngrimsmo
That's clever.
00:39:22
John S
Yeah. ah What i was I going to ask you? Oh, go ahead. good you're some
00:39:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah, last thing on my list is ah hard milling our Rask blades update. um So we did some testing probably last time we talked two weeks ago.
00:39:41
johngrimsmo
And I had four blades that were soft milled with extra meat on the critical features. We put them through heat treat, lap them, surface ground them, lap them.
00:39:46
John S
huh
00:39:49
johngrimsmo
Then they got to the mill. And then we were able to hard mill those features and all four knives went together literally perfectly like exactly how they should. I took a good while to dial that in. um But hard milling is quite nice because you can, especially we're probing the blade in position and I can just take it off, put it back on, take it off, put it back on, you know, cut another fowl off, cut another fowl off until it's perfect to establish my zero, basically.
00:40:14
johngrimsmo
So we did those four tests. It was great. So then I said, okay, we're going to send it. So we've been making soft blades with that extra meat committing to the process of hard milling, but they're still flowing through the shop.
00:40:21
John S
yeah
00:40:24
johngrimsmo
And I i need to check with the guys when they're going to hit this video for hard milling. If they have already, I don't know. Um, so I'll check that today, but, uh, I think we're like days away from, you know, hard milling all of our blades now.
00:40:41
johngrimsmo
Um,
Scaling Production and Problem-Solving Techniques
00:40:42
John S
Yeah.
00:40:42
johngrimsmo
if we're not already, which, which would be really good to hear the update on that.
00:40:47
John S
Great. Are you going to try to parallel process a soft, a not hard milling production track as well though?
00:40:54
johngrimsmo
Nope.
00:40:55
John S
Okay.
00:40:55
John S
You're not even worried about it.
00:40:56
johngrimsmo
Full commit.
00:40:56
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:40:57
John S
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. I know that was a lot of.
00:41:01
johngrimsmo
It was a mental burden and it was a lot of work to do, but in retrospect, I'm super glad I did it and you know all the conversations we had, which helped push me over. You can try to make heat treat as perfect as you want and assume that the metal is not going to move and warp and distort and all that stuff.
00:41:16
johngrimsmo
But this is for for what we're trying to do. This is the right way to do it. And then manage to a life as we go.
00:41:20
John S
Yeah.
00:41:25
johngrimsmo
It should be fine. We should be able to make it dozens, if not hundreds of blades on a single tool to do the hard milling.
00:41:27
John S
Mm hmm.
00:41:32
johngrimsmo
And that's fine. And then most importantly, to apply the same strategies to the Fjell, which will need the accuracy. It's like a little bit pickier on if these features move through Heat Treat, the the lockup, the detent, the blade position, things like that.
00:41:42
John S
Mm hmm.
00:41:49
johngrimsmo
So that's another thing that Angela was asking me that I was unhappy with was the variation in the eight knives we first put together as they're all different, because the blades are moving in a heat treat now I know.
00:41:58
John S
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:02
johngrimsmo
So hard milling those is going to make me very happy. So that'll be once the clips done that's the next project.
00:42:08
John S
John, that's a really good, like, I think we're both a little bit too and deep in the weeds to maybe appreciate this at the moment, but to think about, okay, at some point I need to make 4,000 of these a day.
00:42:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:19
John S
No, we're never going to, but but like, if you're gonna feat treat 4,000 blades,
00:42:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:24
John S
it's you Everything I know and every person smarter than me I've talked to is like, you're an idiot if you think you're gonna control that process.
00:42:31
John S
You're just, you're an idiot, unless you're willing to deal with a 40% scrap rate or something crazy. So hard milling has its downsides, but it's also like you're gonna have a few scraps because a tool's break, like it's basically, it works, it scales, it works.
00:42:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah. It gives you the answer you want. And if you're going to make 4,000 of whatever a day, then it's almost time to think about a dedicated machine to hardmail this feature and then done.
00:42:47
John S
I can't. Yeah.
00:42:56
johngrimsmo
Right. Oh, game over.
00:42:57
John S
Yep. I came back, uh, got back last night for the trip and I hopped on my computer home and I was like, Oh, I had to laugh. I had like 17 Chrome browser tabs open between YG1 NS tool and mold, you know, with all these different hard, hard mill skews.
00:43:13
johngrimsmo
And you come back and it's still there and you're like, oh yeah, that's what I was into.
00:43:13
John S
Uh,
00:43:16
John S
Right. Well, it's like trying to figure out like how much these tools cost. And it's like, well, you're here a three 16 to work fine because I don't need to pay for a whole bunch of carbide. If we're just dusting off, uh, you know, seven 10ths.
00:43:24
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:43:26
John S
And then do I want bullnose?
00:43:27
John S
Do I want a ball, ball, ball end mill? Um, I think. I know the guys here made one, which is actually really exciting when I was gone.
00:43:28
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:43:39
John S
We ordered A2, it came, they soft turned it, they heat treated it, and then they put it in the wellment and hard milled it at 55, 60 Rockwell.
00:43:39
johngrimsmo
It won what?
00:43:50
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:43:50
John S
um And part of it looks great, part of it, the surface finish isn't where I'd like it to be, sort but we can fix that. um And I think we ordered a YG1,
00:44:01
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:44:02
John S
because we just order from them every week anyways. um They had a hard no lie, but I want to look at the the two I heard. I think you mentioned them to me, but NS2 and Maldino were the two I wanted to look, or no, do you do DeBoer here, right?
00:44:11
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:44:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah, we do debore and they have an HV line that's their high velocity line, kind of meant to go hard and fast and steel.
00:44:15
John S
Okay.
00:44:21
John S
Okay.
00:44:21
johngrimsmo
Not necessarily made for hard milling, but we use it for hard milling and it works great.
00:44:25
John S
The, who was it? Moria manufacturing reached out and mentioned a wonderful PSA that I'm happy to to reshare, which is be careful.
00:44:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:37
John S
If you're hard milling and creating effectively dust on an oil machine, it does have fire hazard.
00:44:44
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:44:44
John S
And I don't remember what exactly he said, but I think he had some sort of a thing happen with a fire trace and a fire.
00:44:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:51
John S
And I was like, crap. Cause I think, I don't know if an air blast will help because it stops the dust from accumulating in one area or maybe air blast makes it worse. Cause you're like, yeah, where you're like, exactly yeah ah yes, I didn't even think about that.
00:45:01
johngrimsmo
Fueling the fire.
00:45:06
John S
I'd be a fuel source, but also like you're causing it to blow into, yes, exactly.
00:45:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah, atomize and yeah.
00:45:11
John S
So, um, I don't know how. much of a sin it is to use the oil coolant. Um, while you're hard milling, I think people say you should do it dry, but yeah, I, right.
00:45:21
johngrimsmo
do it.
00:45:23
John S
I might just try.
00:45:23
johngrimsmo
that's That's what we're at. We're using you know water coolant for hard milling, and it it is what it is.
00:45:27
John S
Okay.
00:45:31
johngrimsmo
It's fine.
00:45:32
John S
Yeah. I got to learn more on it, but yeah.
00:45:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:45:33
John S
Okay. Cool.
00:45:39
John S
Uh, you've done anything on the five wise ever.
00:45:44
johngrimsmo
Not officially.
00:45:45
John S
Do you know what what it is though?
00:45:47
johngrimsmo
ask why five times until you get to the root of the cause or something like that. or Yeah.
00:45:52
John S
I'm literally asking, I don't even know. Somebody sent a comment about the ability to teach, kind of like topics you and I have been talking to a lot about, like, hey, build up a team, teach people problem solving, all that.
00:46:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:06
John S
So I know it on my list of like, okay, what are the five why's and how does that relate to like people problem solving on their own or just critically thinking?
00:46:10
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:46:15
johngrimsmo
I'm kind of 50-50 on them because I've seen things come up on the internet where, you know, consultants and gurus are like, you got to ask the five, ways the way they phrase it makes it sound so obvious and so easy.
00:46:20
John S
Yeah.
00:46:25
johngrimsmo
Just keep asking annoying questions until you get to the answer. But in practice, I think it feels a little bit different. I think it hits differently. um
00:46:35
johngrimsmo
But I don't know. I guess I haven't given it a good shot. And maybe I intuitively do something like that for myself. But how do you train that process in others that aren't as intuitive or don't have the experience?
00:46:46
John S
Yeah, that's, I think, a big part of of it is kind of like the whole, like, hey, this isn't about you or me.
00:46:51
John S
It's about the team.
00:46:52
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:46:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:52
John S
And if somebody has a chamfer that's wrong, like, why?
00:46:57
John S
Is there a burn fixture? Did a tool change?
00:46:57
johngrimsmo
That's that's true.
00:47:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah. No, maybe my, um, my ego is getting in the way there. And I need to, cause around the shop, we have lots of problems. Our air conditioner was being weird the other day. So the guys turned it off and when they turned it back on, it didn't work. And oh, so start asking why. And then I let them, you know, I was busy, so I let them do it for a couple hours and then, uh, it's time to go. And Angela was like, I got to go. I was like, okay, I'll take over.
00:47:28
John S
Mm hmm.
00:47:28
johngrimsmo
Have the multimeter start checking things?
00:47:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah, we check those fuses. Okay, but you check the fuses, but why is there weird voltage? There's supposed to be 600 volts coming in here. There's like 300 on one leg, 230 on another. Like, why is it weird?
00:47:41
johngrimsmo
And then I went upstream to the big breaker box and two of the fuses were blown and they hadn't gotten that far.
00:47:43
John S
Yeah. Oh, sure, sure.
00:47:46
johngrimsmo
They didn't ask, ask why, you know, enough times. Um, so, okay, I will, I'll spend the week thinking about the five Y's and like, see how they integrate in the shop. Maybe, uh, say them a couple of times and and see, see what happens.
Daily Task Planning and CAD Management Frustrations
00:48:00
John S
It's sometimes when you watch somebody who's so good at something like a, uh, you know, a good YouTube tutorial or a good teacher, it's like, Oh, when they break it down, it's so methodical. It's so simple.
00:48:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:48:11
John S
Don't don't psych yourself out. Just look at the obvious, but yeah, that doesn't always translate to like, what is going on right now.
00:48:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. And when you're in the moment, you're in the weeds, you're like your head, you got too much to do anyway.
00:48:20
John S
Yeah.
00:48:21
johngrimsmo
And there's this new problem that shows up and you're just like, ah, why is this chamfer not chamfering?
00:48:24
John S
Mm hmm.
00:48:26
johngrimsmo
And, uh, or why is this clip over machining a certain feature? And it took me like 10 minutes to realize, Oh, the part is moving in the vice.
00:48:34
John S
Oh yeah, that's a great example.
00:48:35
johngrimsmo
Right. Right.
00:48:36
John S
That's a for sure a a really tough one.
00:48:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah, like I'm literally writing notes to myself in a spreadsheet, like something's wrong and I don't know what it is. I literally wrote that and then 10 minutes later, I'm like, I figured it out.
00:48:49
John S
Yeah.
00:48:50
John S
Yeah. Sweet.
00:48:50
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:48:54
johngrimsmo
All right, man.
00:48:54
John S
Okay, so what what do you what's on your list today?
00:48:56
johngrimsmo
Today, I'll figure out why the part's moving and try to avoid it.
00:48:58
John S
Okay.
00:49:00
johngrimsmo
Clamping pressure. Actually, last night I did have a new toolpath strategy. I'm gonna try that today.
00:49:07
John S
But also, John, this is like that, keep it simple. If you are able to put an indicator on the part and then clamp it and unclamp it with that indicator on it, let's just watch and see what happens.
00:49:17
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm. Yeah yeahp You know, maybe there's something to that Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that and I Didn't tighten the screws like
00:49:19
John S
That could be hard to do, I know, but like like make sure to, i need to do I need to go learn more about the what the five-wise are, but sometimes it's like solve the simplest level of the problem you can. it Like just isolate the dumbest question.
00:49:36
John S
especially if it's like your your screws backed out and you're like something that you're not even thinking about. the Right.
00:49:43
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Um, but yeah, that's my big thing clip.
00:49:44
John S
yeah
00:49:46
johngrimsmo
And then we've got a um manufacturing meeting Wednesdays at two o'clock with Eric and Angelo and myself.
00:49:50
John S
to
00:49:52
johngrimsmo
So that's been really good. I do that for a couple of weeks. Those are my big things.
00:49:55
John S
Cool.
00:49:56
johngrimsmo
What about you? Now that you're back.
00:49:58
John S
I caught up on a bunch of stuff. um We have a, ah this really, man, it frustrates me on Fusion. We have a fixture with linked xref components and something needs the latest version.
00:50:14
John S
I click it and it blows up all the joints. And I'm definitely frustrated because we created all of these in the last month. Everybody knows best foot forward, like Alex has done most of that work and he does a great job.
00:50:26
John S
By no means blaming him here.
00:50:28
johngrimsmo
These aren't like three year old files. These are.
00:50:30
John S
no, created from scratch within the last two months, whatever.
00:50:32
johngrimsmo
Oh, that is kind of weird. Yeah.
00:50:34
John S
And so it's a real culture problem for me because if you open a file and the yellow flag is there and you need to get latest, you should get latest because you should not be, you should not say it's okay to just keep working on something that may be out of date, but um I also can't stand it when all of a sudden this thing just blows up.
00:50:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Hmm.
00:50:51
John S
So I do need to, that's something like to, just be candid. That's something that is absolutely not off my plate. Like I i could i could kick it back to Alex. He's got to put stuff on his plate and I also want to step in to sort of look at this because I'm the one that makes a decision on like so some of the files we have just chosen to recognize the link is permanently broken.
00:51:07
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:51:11
John S
So if we do do make a change to the master CAD file, unfortunately we just have to know to go into the CAM file and now decide are we going to use, like if it's a chamfer dimension, are we just gonna do a sock to leave?
00:51:24
John S
How do we document that? Do we document that in the file? Like why is there eight down negative sock to leave on something?
00:51:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:51:30
John S
That's a big deal if you're, you know, look at the difference between Saunders and Hymer.
00:51:32
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:51:35
John S
You know, Hymer wouldn't do that, I'm i'm sure.
00:51:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:51:37
John S
So so so what what do we need to do for for that reason?
00:51:40
johngrimsmo
It's a new phrase is what would Heimer do?
00:51:43
John S
Yeah, just as a proxy for like, okay, you know, you have 500 people and you're making 4,000 a day, you can't be doing this, so.
00:51:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:51:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:51:50
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm. It's a good thing to think about. All right.
00:51:53
John S
Sweet, I'll see you.
00:51:54
johngrimsmo
good to Have a good week.
00:51:55
John S
You too, bye.