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#306 Drilling An Angled Hole image

#306 Drilling An Angled Hole

Business of Machining
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207 Plays2 years ago

Topics:

  • oil failure on Okuma horizontal
  • Grimsmo's Kern got a new tool changer dampener
  • vacuum pump for CNC Router
  • all about returning products
  • process bins!
  • drilling an angled hole
  • logging information, standardizing
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Transcript

Introduction and Business Reflections

00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode number 306. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. And John and I talk about, I hope it says candid about the intimate highs and lows and struggles and successes of running small manufacturing businesses.
00:00:20
Speaker
I really want to rewatch Ted Lasso and I don't ... Yes. But I don't have the time. I actually sort of dislike that phrase because we're all blessed with a huge amount of options in our lives. To the single parents that are raising a family, working two jobs, you don't have time. I have time. I just ... I actually did rewatch it a couple months ago. Yeah? Because I'm like, season three is coming out. I want to rewatch. Yeah.
00:00:47
Speaker
Well, so triggered, I don't think season three is coming out. Shut up. It's like MIA. Yeah, it was supposed to come out months ago, but it must come eventually.

Positive Energy and Team Dynamics

00:00:58
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah, but John, I need it now. Yeah.
00:01:02
Speaker
No, I just think like, so I'll tell you about the highs and lows of my day yesterday and the second, but I'm randomly listening to Anthony Kiedis, the Huchley cover singer on Rogan. And he talked about how you met this girl, which that feels like a loaded statement, but, and she like randomly passed away as a young age of like sepsis or something. And like how he's, he keeps that in the back of his head of like, look, I am,
00:01:32
Speaker
like blessed grateful like even when a bad days you got to remember like I get to fight another day she doesn't and then I am okay sorry bunch of tangents here my tendonitis got fixed by a guy who's like a half personal trainer half massage therapist and I'm not gonna say any more other than I spent 10 years dealing with this including ultimately the surgery cortisone shots therapy stretching strength training and after three sessions of stretching a different way with him it is gone John what
00:02:02
Speaker
This was about three months ago, so I've got some time under my belt to confirm it's been good, and then it ever so slightly came back, and it wasn't even a big deal, but I saw him yesterday for a quick second, and he also has that kind of outlook on life of like, hey, this is great, and I love being around people that have that happy contagious energy, but they're also, they're not living in like some- Cloud zone, yeah, they're grounded in practicality, yeah.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, like they're not some trust fund guy that just, you know, lives on the beach. Like they're working, they're grinding, they have families, they have responsibilities, but they still don't, they have that optimism and that contagious energy. And that to me is kind of Ted Lasso, like, you know, be the guy that brings in biscuits every day, even if your boss is a sour puss about it. You just smile. He is awesome.

Managing Business Operations and Absences

00:02:50
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That's all I got for my intro. That's perfect. Yeah.
00:02:59
Speaker
How are you doing? Doing good. Things are good. Our guy Pierre just came back from Corsica. Today's his first day back. That felt like 10 seconds.
00:03:15
Speaker
There's a whole month with Christmas and everything. But yes, we brought biscuits and treats and stories and everything. So he was just regaling us with nothing too exciting. But that's cool. Great, great time. Good to have him back. That's great. So I got to go away because everybody's like, you know, doting on him now. He's the special guy. Yeah. Well, so like seriously, any good successes or stress points around now that you can look at it with the benefit of hindsight?
00:03:41
Speaker
From a business perspective, we missed him in the beginning and it's a little bit quieter without him but we were fine. I actually didn't get a chance to turn on the Swiss at all. That's fine. We didn't run out of anything. We didn't need anything. We're good. They actually planned that quite well and now he's got a good amount of workload ahead of him.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah. And it was, you know, it's nice to have the extra set of hands when you were, you know, moving stuff or lifting stuff or whatever, but we were fine last month and it'll be, it'll be great. Uh, actually perfect timing. Cause while we're doing the podcast, they've got a heavy lifting job to do together. So I'm like, Pierre is going to be there. It's great. He can do it. I don't have to do it.
00:04:20
Speaker
physically lifting something or just like lifting a motor into place. Got it. He can do that. It'd be great. Got it. Well, good. That's awesome, John. That didn't happen though without some foresight and planning. Yeah. Months of foresight and planning and making sure, okay, if you're going to go away and let's
00:04:38
Speaker
let's plan to not have to run the Swiss.

Machine Maintenance Challenges

00:04:41
Speaker
Angelo still ran the Nakamura and he got probably I'd say 60% of production that Pierre normally does being on it. And Angelo has other responsibilities. I think that was great. It's more like gravy train at that point, just keeping it running. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Good for you. Um, we, yeah, so we had a, um,
00:05:07
Speaker
oil failure issue on the Okuma horizontal. And I would be a lot more frustrated, except we got it fixed. And I also went into that yesterday being like, hey, be like Anthony Kiedis, be like Ted Lasso. It'll get fixed. It's just money. Where I was frustrated was that a drain plug extension got cross-threaded. And it's kind of like hashtag not by us.
00:05:33
Speaker
So it over the course of months leaked out its oil, but it's not a, it's called a hydrosil, which I did a quick Google. I don't really know what I'm talking about. It's not a piston engine where oil, lack of oil means, you know, almost instant failure. I believe it uses the oil as part of the hydraulic oscillation to like push bladders and create pressure. What does this do? It's what creates the high pressure cooling pressure on the Okuma.
00:06:03
Speaker
Oh, so it's from your coolant pump. Yes. Okay. Yeah. That brand, I can't remember. MP Systems. MP, yeah. The same as your chip conveyor and everything. No, I'm not. Chip conveyors, it's funny. I think it's coolant and Mr. MP Systems. MP Systems, right. Yeah. I've talked a lot with the MP Systems guys. They seem like they're on top of it.
00:06:26
Speaker
Yeah, tip of the hat. They helped us troubleshoot. I wish this issue had been going on right around the beginning of the holidays. I'm embarrassed. Had I known it was an oil issue,
00:06:41
Speaker
Like good grief I would have tackled it within seconds of it knowing that yeah It's kind of one of the like I was telling my wife like I'm really happy that about ten years ago I started changing my own car oil at the time that was intimidating and now you'll kind of laugh at how simple that is But hey, it's a lot of people that don't haven't done that and if you don't want to no issue But man, I really enjoy that and so um
00:07:03
Speaker
And this is weird, because it's it only takes a quart of oil, there's no filter, it's kind of a unusual oil setup, if you will. Anyway, I just ran out of oil didn't run out, it actually still had about a third of the court in there. But the it was making a pulsating vibrating sound that was getting worse. And so I
00:07:24
Speaker
I did what I shouldn't do, which is I just assumed, Oh, that's a black box. I have no idea how it works. I should just reach out to them, which is what I did. It's not a, maybe not the worst thing in the world, but I enjoy knowing how things work because again, it took me four seconds to pop the oil cap off and think.
00:07:43
Speaker
Is there oil draining out of it and look it's in a closed Cabinet so you don't it's not like that the thing like a dipstick or oil level gauges Like it's just it's like kind of not the kind of thing where you check for oil leaky. Yeah. Yeah
00:07:58
Speaker
But I was super happy that I was able to convert it into a dead head mode and fill it up with oil, re-prime the pumps, and it appears to be good.

Tool Holder and Equipment Upgrades

00:08:07
Speaker
Perfect. So I brought that up mostly because it was, I think, even though that wasn't like a particularly fun few hours,
00:08:19
Speaker
It also is, I think, a great way to try to run the shop, which is that, yeah, it stinks to have a machine down. It stinks to have that be what I have to take care of right now. But being free of other obligations throughout the day and allowing myself to do days off in the shop, even on not my own schedule or terms,
00:08:43
Speaker
and not interfering with everything else is actually the answer. That's huge. Yes, absolutely. And whether that happens, you can plan for that kind of freedom, or you can just take it as necessary. But yeah, that's good. Similar-ish thing happened to us yesterday.
00:09:13
Speaker
Some of the tool holders that we use on the Kern are on the bigger end. They're the Rigofix PG25. And they're like, I don't know, like two inch diameter kind of thing, pretty solid holder. And for an HSK40, that's a pretty heavy tool. And Kern actually has a spec for weight limits of the tool. And this is pushing the upper end of it. And we change it many, many times a day. And with the way their Tomahawk tool changer kind of flies out,
00:09:40
Speaker
It hits this dampener at the end that slows it down right at the end. Yeah, we've talked about this before. I've had them fail because all that weight just smacks into the shock absorber.
00:09:52
Speaker
We've had them fail and tool change fail over time because they can't compress enough. That shock absorber is broken inside and it can't compress all the way. So the tool changer open sensor isn't happy. And then the machine just gets stuck. It's not a big deal. So we've replaced a few of those dampeners already. And then Kern sold us an upgrade, which is a bigger diameter with a boot on it.
00:10:16
Speaker
and better quality, well, different quality, I guess, looks nicer. And the boot looks really nice too, so it helps it with that. But to install it, we had to drill and tap the tool changer arm by hand in place in the machine. So that's what Angelo and I were doing yesterday because we had the failure again. I had no more stock of these many hundred dollar
00:10:40
Speaker
little shock absorbers, but I had a new one and I'm like, okay, I guess that's what we're doing today. So him and I pretty much spent the morning.
00:10:50
Speaker
doing that, but we had everything we need. We had the document from Kern explaining how to do it. They're like, we could come up and install it, but you're drilling and tapping a hole. We got this. Pretty much Angelo ran the whole thing, which is good. I just assisted him. That was really nice that I could do other things while just holding the vacuum while he's drilling a hole.
00:11:13
Speaker
Yeah, it worked out really good. And then quick adjustment later, and now a tool change is smoother than before, and it just looks good. And I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure all new currents come with this new style dampener. They just changed a while ago. But yeah. Is there not a way to slow down the speed of that arm? There's air cylinders and little valves and stuff, and I tried playing with them, but they didn't really
00:11:39
Speaker
Oh, because it's pneumatic. It's not servo. Correct. The Akuma guy, God bless. I think I mentioned this on the podcast. He was like, dude, turn your matrix spider down to 70%. You'll never notice the difference on a pre-called tool. And it's not a big deal on manual stuff. And you'll really save the life of that spider stuff, which is like, thank you for telling me that. Sure. I would have never thought to do that. Yeah.
00:12:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, on one hand, when we buy these fancy fast machines, we don't want to slow them down. But on the other hand, if you're not going to notice it, then whatever. But John and John in 2028 are going to look back at John and John in 2023 and remind us that we're still, quote unquote, young and green and living with very new equipment. And if anything, the last three months has told me between operator mistakes and just life, you need maintenance and tweaking.
00:12:31
Speaker
I'd go out of my way to really give a tip of the hat to Haas and it's no bias or alter your motive here other than
00:12:42
Speaker
the extent people want to rag on Haas for whatever reason of quality or price point, etc. I'll tell you, man, the pure play offering that they make and the simplicity of swapping parts out and pumps is markedly different than the perhaps better performance, albeit more complexity and cost around more complicated systems. It's more just a
00:13:05
Speaker
Hey, a lot of us want to make parts and if the Honda Accord can do it, run with the Honda Accord, man. Life will be kind to you. I'm not loving some of these quirky situations.
00:13:22
Speaker
Yeah, I guess the beauty of a Haas ecosystem, you have many Haas machines, is that they're probably a lot of interchangeable parts, certainly interchangeable design theories and philosophies and programming and software and backend stuff like that. Whereas you get a wildcard in there like the Okuma horizontal that's just different in every way.

Feedback and Recording Challenges

00:13:41
Speaker
Yes. It's just weird. Different is on us. I think where it gets more complicated is when you have so many third-party systems. Where I was having some anxiety was it's a warranty machine that's sold by
00:13:57
Speaker
Company X, manufacturer by, machine tools by Company Y, this particular pump is sold and made by Company Z, but the hydrocell in it is Company V. There's gonna probably some argument about if we cross-threaded this, I mean, I was gonna get pretty upset about it, but like, how did this happen? How does it get fixed? Whereas, you know, hey, stuff breaks. Haas isn't perfect, I hear you on that, but like, it's also,
00:14:26
Speaker
Just cleaner, like the DT spindle would crash. Just like order new one, install, move on. Yeah. Like Dennis, Dennis talks about that with the, uh, wrote the brother spindles too. Like that's awesome. Yeah. He's got it down to like a four hour swap does it himself kind of thing. It's crazy. Yeah.
00:14:42
Speaker
Before we go on, I shout out and I thank you. We've had some folks mention that they would appreciate John and I being more conscious of background noise. So we noted may not be changes made this week, but we'll get on it. Yeah, namely this, if you can hear this.
00:15:02
Speaker
me clacking my keyboard. I swear it's not a mechanical keyboard. It's just like a regular Logitech whatever, but I'm going to invest in a quiet keyboard or whatever because I like to take notes for the notes. I kind of chuckle because I actually think those mechanical keyboards are super cool. I just assume that's what you had and then you're like, no, it's just some whatever thing. I'm like, oh, it's not even like a point.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah. It's not allowed to be cool. It's just, it just is. Um, but yeah, but I mean, person like this is my desktop, but I, I work from laptops 99% of the time, you know, here in my office at the shop, I do the podcast and that's about it. And then maybe I'll get an hour of work done afterwards, but otherwise I'm on my shop floor laptop or my home laptop all the time. And laptops typically have quiet keys anyway. Um,
00:15:53
Speaker
So, yeah. Yeah. What have you been up to? A router. Yeah. A router's been sick. Been working super, super good. And yeah, I made a whole bunch of foams yesterday, dialed in the finish and the burners and the cuts and everything. The particular foam that we got is a
00:16:15
Speaker
pretty soft density. So it feels like really nice and soft, but it engraves for crap. Like it will not engrave a logo because the foam is so soft. It just moves out of the way. And then it loads up the tool with fluff. And then you're just dragging a molten pile of fluff through the rest of the foam. And it just looks absolutely

Router Performance and Equipment Setup

00:16:37
Speaker
terrible. So we're like, okay, no engravings. We don't need to just clean, make it nice. Um,
00:16:44
Speaker
But yeah, for the next batch of foam, we're going to go with a harder density. They didn't stock it at the time, but they stock it now. They got it for me. But yeah, going really good. Can you burn foam? Like brand it? We tried, but we didn't heat up the brand enough. We just heated it up with a lighter, and it did something. But if you heated it up with a torch, it would do it.
00:17:10
Speaker
This guy I can't remember his Instagram, but he's out of the UK made us this he makes these what induction heater. It's plugin. It's plugin which you know that plug doesn't happen. That is a non American plug.
00:17:25
Speaker
and he machined this on his works logo, obviously backward, and you can plug it in and brand stuff. So I was thinking, could you, I'm like, I would freaking hug you if you built an induction heater tool, changed any device for the router. I'm probably encouraging something I shouldn't right now. Yeah, exactly.
00:17:43
Speaker
That's funny. Yeah. Well, good. So is it just, what's next or is it good to go? Just run it. Um, so we're currently using the Venturi vacuum table, the mighty bite one that we've had forever. Um, I think I'm going to talk about this last week about the, the Bush vacuum pump. Yeah. Cause you had to get wired. Yeah. So I bought the single phase one, but it takes way too much juice. So we're exchanging it for a three phase one. So the three phase one came in the other day. Um, the guys right now.
00:18:12
Speaker
are lifting out the old one, putting in the new one, and then we'll return the old one for a full refund. I have to fill out a non-contamination form returning the one because they use these in all kinds of chemicals and gases and oxygen environments and nitrogen and blah, blah, blah. You have to tell them what you used it for. Literally, air is one of the options.
00:18:36
Speaker
That's one of the check boxes. Did you cross out right Canadian air? Yeah, exactly. It might smell like maple syrup. We ran it for a total of two minutes through bumping it and things like that. There's some pipe thread and some tape on the threads, like whatever.
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah, so they're putting that in. Our electrician's here. He's going to wire up the three-phase. And then later today, I'll be testing that. And I got that Datron vacuum paper, the vacuum cards, which I haven't been able to try yet because I don't have a vacuum pump table working. But super excited to see how that stuff works.
00:19:17
Speaker
Yeah. Awesome. That's good. And the beauty with that setup versus the gasketed Venturi table is that now I can cut into the vacuum card and cut all the way around my profile and be able to hold a lot bigger parts. Like my new vacuum table is going to be 24 by 24 as opposed to right now it's like 11 by 15 or something.
00:19:41
Speaker
Pretty small. Is that the Mighty Bite thing that you had on the Tormach? Oh yeah, I've had that thing forever. John, that's got to go in the chromosome museum.

Return Policies and Process Management

00:19:48
Speaker
It's fun to still use it. It still works great. I mean, I've had it since 2012.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah. And so on that note, does Grimsville Knives ever have returns or issues around what your return policy is? Good question. Rare, but it does happen. Thankfully, for the most part, our customers are beyond thrilled 99 point whatever percent of the time. But every now and then we'll have
00:20:13
Speaker
Like once or twice a year I have a guy like I don't like it or it's not what I really wanted or whatever. So we're usually pretty open with their turn policy. The trick is getting knives into Canada across the border. Customs doesn't like that. We can make them here, we can sell them here, we can sell them there, we can sell them anywhere but to import a knife into Canada a one-handed knife has its own set of rules.
00:20:39
Speaker
So, it makes it tricky for warranties and even repairs and things like that. We can't just be like yes to everybody because it's difficult. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, for the most part, we're super accommodating for returns and stuff. Okay.
00:20:57
Speaker
we're small enough to where this isn't an issue. And luckily, look, at the end of the day, try to avoid returns in the sense of like communicate correctly about what you're selling and so forth. But we've had some unexpected things like corporate buyers that have bought a not insignificant amount of product within their company and then been like, Oh, actually,
00:21:18
Speaker
none of this we want like, like, like, you're talking about orders with 50 or 60 skews in it. Well, I mean, that's only happened a few times. But ultimately,
00:21:32
Speaker
My thought process here is there has to be a process around refunds that includes a restocking fee, an approval process and a clarification that makes it fair to us and the customer about like, hey, the stuff has to be unopened or in resaleable condition. Absolutely. And I know there's a lot of consumer
00:21:53
Speaker
products, stuff, you know, retail shopping, where it's like, not only are returns encouraged, but we're going to include a return label with the pair of shoes you buy. But that's not a that to me is a marketing concession, if you will. And that's just not the industrial world, if you will. Sure. Anyway,
00:22:09
Speaker
I mentioned this not because it's been a pain point or a problem, but rather because, again, with this part of this year of trying to document, formalize, create processes.

Enhancing Workflow with Process Bins

00:22:17
Speaker
What is the fresh desks ticket? We have an RMA ticket, making sure we get stuff back. Because it does happen and it can happen for good reasons.
00:22:28
Speaker
That's all. I'm just curious. No, that's absolutely. To that point, even if it might only happen a couple times a year, we notice it and you are or will notice it too. You don't want everything to have to flow to you. Hey, John, this guy wants to return the thing. What do I do?
00:22:50
Speaker
I'm trying to empower our team and give them enough rules and enough leeway within their responsibilities to be able to make those calls. Every now and then, we got to self-correct, course correct, and be like, maybe we shouldn't have done that. It led to bigger problems, which you didn't know, you didn't foresee, whatever, but we'll take care of it, don't worry. Empowering the individuals with processes and parameters to be able to just make those calls.
00:23:17
Speaker
I know we talked about process bins, it's evolving and being implemented so quickly here that I don't know where we left off. But John, that one of the best things I've ever done in my manufacturing career.
00:23:30
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah. Like little things like on the horizontal, there are certain tools like form taps. They're very inexpensive form taps, especially relative to how much we do with them. A 1024 form tap might tap thousands of holes a month and it's a $10 tool or something. We're just now
00:23:52
Speaker
We just, in the process bin for that machine, we have a monthly to-do list and it just has those tools in it because I don't care. We're just replacing them full stop rather than worrying about tool life management or gauging in the threads. We gauge the threads, but it just makes it so nice around M-code cheat sheets, the laminated drawings for products, inserts with QR codes on the bins that hold the inserts. Did we talk about that? No, and where does the QR code go?
00:24:22
Speaker
So I wish I had one here I'd show you. I'll try to throw it up on Instagram. We already filmed a video as well of this. So it's a regular old pack of Sandvik inserts. We 3D print bins that hold those inserts. So on that 3D printed bin, you could include some 3D print engraved information about the tool number or the insert or whatnot.
00:24:44
Speaker
I wanted more real estate to interact with the operator on those inserts. And so we just 3D printed a hinge that uses a nail as the hinge mechanism. And it's a little flap on top. And on that flap, you could 3D print the flap with permanent info. But what I did is printed a recessed area in there for either a label maker or a laser printer to print out more detailed text descriptions. And it can include instructions around
00:25:12
Speaker
how to rotate the inserts, the program to run when you do rotate them to touch the tool off, frankly, that we talked about. And the latest was we have a backside cutting tool that has inverse wear because you need to make the tool longer to make it cut shorter. Yeah, yeah. So just stuff like that. And look, it's not going to solve every trace or goof, but it's a huge step forward.
00:25:39
Speaker
It's tracking this information. On the current, we have over 100 tools. There's this one chamfer on the soft blade program. It uses a thread mill to chamfer the top and the bottom of this slot.
00:25:54
Speaker
And so you're using the top of the thread mill to do one side and the bottom of the thread mill to do the other side. And if the top chamfer is bigger than the bottom chamfer, you're like, which way do I go? Yep, the tool. So I literally try to put my hands up in the air. And I'm like, if the tool goes like this, then it's. And how do you keep notes of that kind of stuff so that the operator or anybody can just like. And even to know what tool it is, like it's tool 110. I know that because I programmed it.
00:26:23
Speaker
if the operator is like, I don't know. Yes. This is very much the Atul Gawande book checklist manifesto. You create a single piece of paper. You should probably have it live in Google Sheets and you can include Google Sheets name in the file when you print it so that somebody could go edit it.
00:26:40
Speaker
I'm a I'm a big believer in the value of tangible objects as much as I love the digital world is interesting as I saw some LinkedIn commentary around some folks in the digital space and they've actually like papers dead get rid of paper I'm like let me tell you what having physical objects to guide us
00:26:56
Speaker
in certain areas is actually wonderful. Yeah, I agree. Sure. If there's E ink, I'd love that too. We're not there yet. Sure. And just create a photo that shows the chamfer one way and the corrective action the other way the corrective action tool number done.
00:27:13
Speaker
Yep. And put it in kind of either a bin or a process binder saying common pitfalls, common things to check, tweak.

Quality Control and Process Adjustments

00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah. Because it feels like there's a lot, but there's probably less than 10. Less than 10 operator interventions for making knives on the current kind of thing, and day-to-day stuff.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah. Well, look, I don't know. This is where I'm learning and growing. But as you grow, you could then the process been, you know, is it product specific? Is it tool specific? Is it machine specific? But you could have a rask troubleshooting. I hesitate because flipping through things really
00:27:51
Speaker
is not the end goal. Hiding things in a binder means it never gets pulled out. We've got some stuff magneted like pieces of paper printed with a reference photo magneted to the side of the operator zones, side of the machine kind of thing and they help but even those stop getting looked at after a while.
00:28:10
Speaker
until we implement a rigid, every single part QC process, which we've been meaning to do or trying to do. So like every rasp blade comes off, you pin the hole, you check the chamfer, you visually check this to this, you know, three, four things and it will unlock it. That would be nice, but we're not really doing that.
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah. And look, I commend you. Keep one unsolicited advice to everybody is keep yourself honest. Like if you're not doing first article inspections, don't tell yourself you are or, um, QC a hundred percent QC, blah, blah, blah. But we're starting with is.
00:28:48
Speaker
As we're making the product-specific process bins, we're then going to start. We have not done this yet, but we're going to start in our biweekly manager meeting, grabbing whoever's responsible for that product on the manufacturing side, managers and operators. I make this sound like we have a ton of employees, we don't. But still, hey, when we're doing a certain product, we're going to pull person X in, and we're going to say, hey, here's where we're at with the process bin.
00:29:12
Speaker
add the stuff you want to it. Let's look at the QC jigs, gauges, tools that we have. And I think there'll probably be some recurring nature to that where maybe the operator themselves has to once a month rotate through each product and just flip through the bin, just flip through the lanyard sheets. Pretty casual, pretty easy to do. And it can be that reminder like, oh, that's right. That bird does get raised on that tool, something like that.
00:29:36
Speaker
Or like, oh, man, I haven't seen that in a long time. It used to be an issue. Now it's not an issue. I guess it worked, the tweak. Well, that's a good point too, because I took a couple of processes out because it just got baked in there for the last year. And I'm like, that's not an issue anymore. Let's be aware of it. But I don't want to end up, a process can be added, a process can be removed. Absolutely. Yeah. And we've fallen into the bad habit of,
00:30:04
Speaker
okay, we don't have to check that anymore because it's been working. And then six months down the road, it stops working again. And it slips from us because we don't look for it anymore. And then, you know, Eric and his team and finishing, they see it and they're like, I thought you guys fixed this. We did.

Creative Problem Solving in Manufacturing

00:30:18
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:22
Speaker
or your tool change arm reminded me, we had a viewer ask us, it's actually a pretty good question. They had a pretty large, thin plate, I call it 12 inches by 12 inches by one inch. And on the end of it, the end was beveled. And the end then had on the beveled hole, beveled face had a hole that would be drilled normal to the bevel, but then angled relative to the plate. And they're like, how do I drill this hole in a three axis?
00:30:52
Speaker
Well, exactly. Like if you have a horizontal five axis or a giant fourth axis, you've got some options. But I chewed on it for a while because I really enjoy this stuff. And my suggestion back to them
00:31:07
Speaker
was to 3D print a jig. And we just did a video on it, which I think was a good one to get the creative juices flowing on. But it's super easy to 3D print a jig like this. And you could 3D print a jig that just
00:31:24
Speaker
guides the drill in. Or you can take it one step further and 3d print it with a cavity that holds a drill bushing from McMaster or you can pull that drill bushing out replace it with a tap guide bushing because a lot of times it's easy to drill the hole straight not so easy to tap it that afterward. And you could 3d print another jig that helps space it off the end of the plate like and you could machine these things for sure and they'd be better but it's kind of like look
00:31:50
Speaker
How tight a tolerance do you need to hold? And what's your goal? And I enjoyed the video. That's cool. Yeah. And if accuracy is not the utmost concern, you could hand drill and tap the hole. Is that what you're saying? Oh, yeah. With the jigs? Do you machine your tool arm? Yeah, exactly. We hand drilled it, yeah. Yeah. How do you locate it? We're opening up a previous hole.
00:32:15
Speaker
There was a 10 millimeter threaded hole and we made it a 14 millimeter thread hole. Got it.

Importance of Documentation and Standardization

00:32:22
Speaker
It's still very possible to drill it a whole crooked and to tap it crooked. Even still, it's not concentric with the counterpore that was there before, but it's fine. Yeah. That's good. Let's find them. Cool. What do you see today?
00:32:40
Speaker
And mostly just that vacuum pump. Get that thing running, make more foam, which means I got to reprogram the layout, just the pattern of how I make all the cases because the table's going to be bigger now. So I got to mount the new tables, deck everything, dial it in. That should keep me pretty busy till I have to pick up the kids from school. Nice. Yeah. Nice. That's awesome.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yep. Same thing. I've got to do a couple more process bins. I got to replace the rooftop filters. I still do some of that stuff. But I'll tell you, man, I am not talking about
00:33:18
Speaker
processes. We are doing it. I am now adamant about making sure me or hopefully anybody can be busy, absent, sick, vacation and it's minimum amount of stress. Nice. And that's only going to grow over the next year plus like it better and better and better.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah. It helps us because we have some staggered work schedules and Yvonne has helped out, but her schedule is up to her. How can you add value but know what to do? It's got me really fired up. That's awesome. Some of the stuff we do can be so technical that even I forget the rules. The current tool changer problem, when the tool arm is stuck out and it's
00:34:09
Speaker
gripping on an extra tool, the replacement tool and the spindle probe in the spindle. And it's, it's the spindle is holding the probe, but the gripper arm is also holding the probe. And you're like, which one's in control and it's east off there. And you're like, Oh crap. And this has happened multiple times. And you got to go into the hidden service menu on the machine and you got to ungrip and all that. So
00:34:31
Speaker
Angela and I were staring at that yesterday morning for a little while until I remembered I had actually written a full process documentation on how to do this in GURP. So I pulled out the tablet and I opened it up and it's like three scenarios, easy, medium, and hard. And we were on the hard.
00:34:48
Speaker
Scenario and it listed it out every step because you know six months ago last time this happened I was on the phone with current and I wrote everything down Yeah, and it was like I didn't know this was here and I'm like, okay now we do know when this happens again or if it happens again We have a thing for it and it was perfect for both of us to kind of remember that like oh Yeah, cuz I've forgotten most of this information already. It's documented. It's easy to find. It's in GURP. We need more of this. Yes
00:35:15
Speaker
I'm glad you said that because that's what in my Okuma Word document, which is technically not a document that I have shared with everybody, just it's in my own personal drive, I've started logging errors. But now what I realized I need to do is number one, move that over to the shared
00:35:32
Speaker
sheet we have for that machine, but also standardized stuff. So I'm now realizing we have those machine tool info cards. I think I've shown those before. Every CNC machine we have has a standardized Saunders MachineWorks info card. It has the travels, mental speed. It has information on the lubricants. It has the serial number, the date purchase, the service email, the sales reps. Oh, that's so cool.
00:35:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they're great. And they don't get used a ton, luckily. So their physical item, is there a digital copy of each one? So we have a single Google Sheet that has separate tabs for each machine. Great. Yeah. I've been wanting that in my business too. Yeah. All those things you said. I will
00:36:17
Speaker
I think we did a dedicated video on them. It might've just been in a shop update video, but I shared that. I mean, not a complicated template or anything. They were great. The big value added we did last fall or winter was, especially on the Akuma is because they take different greases, oils, lubricants, all that is we labeled all that. And then we actually in the
00:36:39
Speaker
Google Sheet, we've taken an iPhone picture of the pail of oil, and we put it like Weylube Grease is a factor of three, and here's the picture of the pail. And then the pail itself is labeled to match the two. So that's been great. Then what we did was that machine has so many quirky M codes, as the Willamond probably will. It does. I'll share you my cheat sheet for the Willamond.
00:37:06
Speaker
It's literally just a piece of paper magnet inside the machine that I would add to when talking on the phone to Marcus.

3D Printing in Tool Management

00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah, right. Like we found an M, I'm making some M337 opens the ATC door manually to clear it. I needed that to clear it of chips. Right. You never need it until you need it the one time.
00:37:23
Speaker
But what I'm realizing is we can continue our standardization by on the next page after the machine info card could be number one could be common error problems. Number two could be common M codes. And the thing is you don't even have to list everything there. If somebody flips to that, they'll see a QR code that can take them to the Google sheet or the Google Doc that lists more than you want to fit on one page because I don't want
00:37:52
Speaker
pages of stuff, I want just that teaser thing. Or like in the Wilhelmin manual, it's a 400 page operator manual. And there's a whole section on M codes and G codes, but there's like a hundred of them. And like, I need 12 of them in my day to day, you know, like, so I need my own consolidated list on the side of the machine. Um, eventually I'll probably print it up and laminate it and like, you know, organize it a little bit better. But for now, my scribble cheat sheet is.
00:38:21
Speaker
working. Yes. Yeah. That's the thing with the process bins. They're not that cliche of ever evolving, but like really some of our process bins, it's something they sucked, but it was literally just a box that had a laminated drawing in it or some of the stuff we didn't want to laminate. So we just put it in the three ring binder sleeves because it's nice to not have it be paper with oil and sacredness of it.
00:38:49
Speaker
and we're now quickly realizing how easy it is to improve on them. Ooh, here's the good one. I haven't totally figured this out yet, but Garrett was asking about better ways to have continuity between the operator and a face mill about where you are on rotating inserts. Now, kind of a longer question. What are you trying to solve here? If you take a... I love that follow-up question. What are you actually trying to do? I hear your question for you actually.
00:39:19
Speaker
No, but it's a good totally. There's some potential here. So like a three sided insert that has two sides or six edges. Sure. I just use a microscope if I'm rotating to see which one's fresh. But there's an idea that I think will figure out somewhere makes sense where you 3d print the face mill don't have to be full scale.
00:39:40
Speaker
it will use green filament because green filament is our is our process bin color. And then there's a thing of verse kind of like a not potentiometer, but like a click index like 123456 that clicks as you rotate it. And now we can have a little rack on the Akuma with these five or six face smells that we use that are in their 3d printed digital twin like the 3d. Yeah, like the tool number.
00:40:04
Speaker
Bingo, John. And then you just rotate it. You rotate what number insert you're on. It seems excessive, but also amazing. Yeah. I actually love it. Yeah, I agree. And I don't know. Angela said this in our meeting the other day. He's like, simple doesn't mean easy.
00:40:27
Speaker
Simple doesn't mean easy. Because simple for the operator. For the operator to take that 3D print it and click it one time and rotate it, that's simple. That's like the easiest, fastest, most positive way to do it for the operator. But it takes some time and some effort and somebody's got to design that and print it and tune it and tweak it and keep up on the process. Having a piece of paper next to the Okuma that just tracks it is easier.
00:40:51
Speaker
But is it better that I will generally speaking, put my foot down to that because tracking things like inserts, drill rotations on either physical paper or a Google sheets is almost certainly to immediately fail to not

Collaboration and Machine Maintenance Challenges

00:41:09
Speaker
happen. Yeah, exactly.
00:41:10
Speaker
the face mills being right next to where you take them out of the machine is a much easier visual thing to integrate within the shop. Yep, I agree. And the face of john the face mill. It's three printed you do every one with it. So the face mill could be hollow and thus in the middle of the face mill could hold the correct Torx driver for that tool. In order to get the Torx driver, you have to touch this object.
00:41:35
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You see where I'm going with this? I do. I do. I don't know what it's going to look like, but we'll figure it out. That's cool. Yeah. And therefore the end result is very simple, very obvious to anybody who sees it for the first time. You're like, Oh, of course that's a great idea. But it takes some ingenuity and some time and some thinking and some testing. Um, but totally worth it. Those little quality of life things make it like almost to the point where you could pull in a kid off the street and like, you know,
00:42:02
Speaker
this is how we do things." And they're like, okay, they don't even question it. They're like, yeah, you're the experts. Got it. No problem. I know how to do this now. It's laid out in front of me. I got my process bins. I got my, you know, who to ask if there's a problem. I know where to look if there's a problem. Yes, John, that's what it's going to be. The next time you come, that's my goal. Like next time you come visit or somebody that I look up to comes to visits, it's kind of like, oh no, that's how this works. That's how this is handled.
00:42:26
Speaker
And again, that nuclear scenario where everyone's stumped and I'm not in the office and they call me, well, we're going to grab the process bin to start having these shared resources to work through. You know what I was thinking is a couple of weeks ago when Ivan came and we, we did some, some work and some complete stuff, but then we just, we played and we problem solved for like a good three, four hours. And it was so fun to have a colleague.
00:42:52
Speaker
uh, helped me solve problems, you know, and like, like when I tour your shop, when you came here, we just hung out and we show stuff and I give you a tour and stuff. We didn't like work. We didn't solve problems. I'd like to do more of that. You know, like go to another person's shop, your shop, Pearson, whatever, and be like, I want to do something. Like, give me a chance. There's something about it that's, that's counterintuitive. Okay.
00:43:19
Speaker
No, I love this. I want to do this. But it's kind of like this podcast. Like, if I always try to remind myself would I be more like I know I can be off putting lead direct and it comes off as either arrogant or misguided, but it's always just
00:43:37
Speaker
I'm trying to think for the greater good of making everybody better. It's not good grief. I really don't help. It doesn't ever come off as me being right or better or anything of that sort. But the more this is public, the more awkward that is to do. But that's not the point. The point is like, hey, let's push each other. Yeah. Yeah, we should do that. Just like. Yeah.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah, maybe it's 23 now, maybe throughout the year, we should each come up and down. Yeah, I always agreed. It'll be fun. Good. Well, good luck on the pump and vacuum cart. Yeah, the vacuum cart's going to be awesome. Super excited about that. Is the Wilman still frozen? So one of the guys from Wilman is now back from vacation. We worked on it a little bit.
00:44:28
Speaker
yesterday, day before, whatever. We updated the FANUC software again, which we would have had to do anyway for the LNS bar feeder, this little module in the software. That didn't fix it, so he thinks it's a problem with the ladder in the machine, something like that. It's on his plate. I was like, whatever you need from me, I'll give you backups, whatever.
00:44:49
Speaker
Because when you turn the machine on and reference it, the turning spindle will reference if the A-axis will spin and home and everything, but you can't jog it with hand wheel and you can't command it with a spindle rotation. I can turn it as a turning spindle, but I can't move it to 72 degrees.
00:45:08
Speaker
And he says, because it can home, but it can't do that, then it's, the ladder is a little bit messed up for the order of events kind of thing. So he's on it, which is good. Yeah. So I'm not too worried, but, uh, very much excited and eager to have it running. And it kind of, I can't help, but notice that it, it's an older machine and it's like, oh crap, like something kind of serious happened here and it's taking weeks. Like.
00:45:34
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Of gentle back and forth. We're not rushing anything, but to fix it and stuff happens and hopefully it doesn't happen too much more in the future. No, John, that's a major point. Good. Cool. I'll see you next week. All right, man. Later. Bye.