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#241 - Cross Training, Record Kern Run & Okuma Is On The Way!
156 Plays3 years ago
TOPICS:
- "Clouds & dirt"
- Saunders is improving Lex work orders.
- Email screenshots to businessofmachining@gmail.com
- Saunders is jumping into different roles.
- Grimsmo had the kern running for 39 hours!
- Saunders new Okuma is 2 weeks away.
- Shop updates, more space?
- Grimsmo has a potential collaboration in the work.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining, episode 241. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. John and I talk each Friday to help each other as manufacturing entrepreneurs, and hopefully this podcast gives you some insights into where we're succeeding, where we're struggling, and what's on our mind. Absolutely. On that note, what have you been up to?
Balancing Vision with Technical Work
00:00:29
Speaker
What do you call it? Like there's an entrepreneur, Gary V that likes to call it clouds and dirt. Yeah. And I love that phrase cause it's like my head in the clouds. I'm seeing big picture. I've got the 10,000 foot view. Like I see everything and then in the dirt as well. Like I'm super technical getting, getting it done, you know, working nonstop on very specific little things.
00:00:54
Speaker
And that's kind of where I spend most of my time is either big picture or very technical. And I love it. Yeah. So you're basically absconding management. You're the entrepreneur and you're the technician. Yeah, I am. I'm doing better and better consistently about, um, delegating management and giving responsibility to more people and, uh, letting me focus on what I'm best at. Yeah. Which is not day to day.
00:01:22
Speaker
day-to-day operations, making the same parts every day. I have people for that, and it's fantastic. Yeah, good for you. It's interesting. We had that thought with Lex and the work we're doing on that. It's going great, but it hit me this weekend that if we wanted to build out additional team members of Lex, the amount of work that would go into
00:01:47
Speaker
multiple people, whether they're in remote or not or here or skill sets. Basically, you have to bring in this whole layer of management, project management, people management, time management, priorities. Frankly, it's so much easier when it's just one person. What are you talking about right
Expanding and Managing Teams
00:02:07
Speaker
now? Like tweaking Lex? Yeah.
00:02:12
Speaker
Like we knocked it out of the park, 10 out of 10, 11 out of 10 on most of Lex and then work orders was a zero out of 10. Yeah. And that's okay. It's funny to be like, man, we really missed the mark on that. And so we're fixing it. So I had a call last night with Alex and we kind of went back to the drawing board, like literally paper and pencil, like, okay, what should it look like? So if you buy- Alex is still an active employee.
00:02:40
Speaker
So he's back at school. And, you know, my philosophy is we've had folks that are interns or, or similar roles is that, you know, a couple things. Number one, we always pay our interns. Number two, we tend to give them a fair amount of work and responsibility. And number three, school still comes first. Like I want you to work and I want you to communicate well about that. But like, you can't let your grades slip or anything of the sort. So that's something that's
00:03:06
Speaker
I think is important. So I gotta be respectful of Alex's time.
00:03:11
Speaker
And so what we went, what the issue that we were having is we had this sea of information on the work order page, all the different people, parts, products, stages. And anytime a, like if Grant made 10 Tormach fixture plates, when he was done with them, you would technically assign them to QC and then QC would assign them to shipping. And we were trying to avoid, um,
00:03:39
Speaker
situations where, for example, you don't want our website to say we have tenant stock if for some reason between machining them and getting them on the shelf, we decide, you know what, we want to rework these or they don't like them or there's a blam. So you have to have these sub stages, which is appropriate and natural, I think. But it was just messy. So what we
00:04:03
Speaker
I realize the workflow should look like is we're simplifying it kind of in two different main ways. Number one, we're building multi-user accounts. Right now, everyone in Lex has the same account, which is more of an architectural issue at WordPress from the beginning, fixing that. And then we're creating departments.
00:04:21
Speaker
machines and users. So you've got these three different kind of criteria tags. Yeah. So that way Grant only by default sees the stuff that he's assigned to. And then the person above that might be a manager that sees the department level stuff and can make sure the stuff that Grant doesn't see is also not getting ignored because somebody else is out or has too much work.
00:04:46
Speaker
And then we're creating default workflows by product category, which is basically fixture plates are separate category because we treat them kind of differently. Everything else that we machine mod by stuff, palettes is a typical machine component and then stuff that we sort of buy source. And then Lex will give you the default behavior. So when you're done with something in a workflow, it's going to suggest or say the path of laser resistance is the next step here.
00:05:13
Speaker
You can override that or fork it off, but that's a much more intentionally cumbersome thing because normally you don't have to do that.
Workflow and Inventory Management
00:05:24
Speaker
It's really fun. I've been doing that too, trying to plan out what the actual workflow looks like and how you want your ERP to track that. And I mean, at first I pulled out a piece of paper and I just started writing like Norseman blade step by step by step by step. What do we want to track? Where does it go in the shop? Where does it flow? What's important? Inventory at every stage. What does it look like? And then I put that into a Google spreadsheet.
00:05:48
Speaker
Because I mean, I love spreadsheets because I can manipulate them fully Mm-hmm, but I don't think they're scalable like business solution you can but It's nice when it gets put into a proper like fully, you know wrapped up program But it lets me Architect it, you know the way that I want it to look like and then I give that to my programmer and I said make this in dotnet or whatever you're doing
00:06:16
Speaker
So we're working on almost the exact same thing right now, trying to plan what we want to track, what we don't want to track, make sure we're not overtracking or undertracking. And the more I think about that and the more I see the guys in the shop asking like, hey, how many of those do you have? I'm out of this. I'm out of that. I'm like, man, we got to track everything because then it would just be there. The information would be available. And one of the most important things I've realized is
00:06:44
Speaker
access to information in the shop needs to be paramount. Information needs to flow freely. It needs to be accessible. Everything you need to know from what supplier we buy our screws from to how many water jet blades we have in stock, it just needs to be there.
00:07:03
Speaker
And it's got to be easy. That's the pitfall we fell into with Lex, what the work orders was. Somebody had to walk over to a computer, which wasn't nearby. Then we were stealing. We finished 10 plates. I have two that I want to ship out right now before they've been through QC. So I manually QC them, shortcut the order. Then inventory is wrong. So it's that data. It's fun to have all the information, but then how do you handle the fact that you are going to cheat? Somebody is going to intentionally forget it.
00:07:33
Speaker
want to manipulate it because sometimes for good reason at the expense of messing up all that. That's the balance with having a tight system is the slightest slip up is going to screw up the whole thing. Yeah. We had to laugh. If you remember from months ago,
00:07:50
Speaker
One of the reasons we switched on inventory for Lex, so rewinding, Lex used to be totally inventory blind. Like we had no quantities in Lex. We just basically used combine cards and then Lex handled ordering so forth. So then we realized, well, let's say we have 10 pieces of ground steel. If we have seven plates to make, but we haven't made those plates yet,
00:08:16
Speaker
It looks like we have 10 in inventory, but we really only have three. That's a problem. One of the main reasons we switched on Lex being the Skynet of knowing everything at all times. Then we laughed this week because we realized, oh my gosh, we're actually back to the same problem because we know Lex is going to be wrong sometimes. That's okay. There's just times where we're intentionally borrowing, stealing. We'll do periodic inventory updates or checks, especially on stuff that really matters.
00:08:45
Speaker
Well, we realize that's the same problem because if Lex has debited three plates because we have orders for those plates that haven't been pulled made yet, and we go look and we see that there's 10 plates there in the inventory, which is right. Yeah. We'll get it figured out.
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah, we've been tracking various inventory in Google sheets. And then every now and then we'll have like, like we were looking for Norseman clip blanks, water jet blanks. And the inventory, the spreadsheet says we have 400 in stock and there's like 50.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah. And we're like, okay, look around the entire shops. Two of the guys looked everywhere in every corner in every box, couldn't find them anywhere. We're going through our records, our emails, order history and all that. They should be there trying to figure out our scrap rate and all that stuff.
00:09:38
Speaker
We never really came up with a good solution, like where they went, what happened, like where the mistake was. Either we burned through them or they were tracked wrong or I don't know, but it makes you feel uncomfortable because you're like, something's wrong and I don't like it. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's the, we're in the same boat, but we'll get there. It's still way better off.
Engaging with Audience and Entrepreneurship Reflections
00:10:06
Speaker
Before I forget, I wanted to have a Bob listener request, which is, again, John and I, we love doing this. We love the feedback that we've gotten over the years. It started as the most organic, wholesome, candid conversation of, look, man, I don't have all the answers. I got a lot of questions. I got a lot of passion.
00:10:24
Speaker
You know, we're better in this if we share some ideas. And so if you're listening and you enjoy this we very much appreciate you guys Sharing the podcast promoting it leaving a comment the typical things that can help podcasts succeed And so what we'd like to do is an offer where?
00:10:42
Speaker
we do what you want to do to promote this podcast. We don't care how and what that is. You can share it to friends. You can put it on your Instagram. You can leave a comment review. Whatever you want to do, just send us a screenshot or description of that to businessofmachiningatgmail.com. Do that. What did I say, John? I think it's pretty soon because we're going to draw the winner
00:11:04
Speaker
I think by Wednesday the 13th, right? Okay. That's what I said. Whoever we draw out of the submission winner, we will spend a half an hour or so just me, you, and John talking about whatever you want on a private video call. Yeah, it was so fun last time we did it. I love it. I'm happy to. Awesome. Again, thank you everybody.
00:11:33
Speaker
for the support along the years. It's always reinvigorating to know. I think that's my one biggest thing that they don't always talk about is I can speak for John here. We love what we do. There are times where entrepreneurship can be lonely and there's times where you can have a lot of conviction and confidence and there's times where you can wonder, hey, am I doing the right thing? I just heard somebody say on Instagram, they're like,
00:11:57
Speaker
You know business is difficult it's fun if you're doing what you love you know almost every day you come into work you're pretty pretty happy pretty on top of it just like two three days a month when you're just like bleep this yeah sometimes. Wonderfully weird week.
00:12:17
Speaker
Julie is out on vacation and it's honestly perfect because at our stage of the business, I love choosing or being forced to step into different roles because I am passionate about this. I have ideas. I can think about, hey, how can we do this better and different? And so I've been basically shipping orders for the past week, which is not something I've done on a regular basis or at volume,
00:12:44
Speaker
for a while. And I'll tell you if there's one other thing I've learned, it's that getting good at shipping orders is going to be the key for a business like ours.
00:12:54
Speaker
You know, we tend to do well when stuff is preassembled, ready to pick, if you will. It's tough when we're out of something. We've got to go assemble the mod vice. We've got to put together a dowel pin and stud kit. And then putting that together, being efficient at that, having all the parts there, having the poly bag there, having the poly sealer work. All these little things. None of this is rocket science, but boy, there's a big difference between a well-oiled machine and one where you're running around.
Optimizing Processes and Systems
00:13:23
Speaker
I've already started thinking about, hey, we need to get a second tape dispenser over here. We need to change the way this table layout is. And the other thing is...
00:13:34
Speaker
You know, packaging is so key, and we've done some custom laser cut cardboard before, but to date, the workflow is a pain in the butt. Of course, too much, you know, users got to go into like Fusion, Xporta, DFX, Brain, the laser software. So I have not started this project, but I'm already confident that we can make it happen. I'm going to build or have Upwork build a user interface for our laser where you just put in
00:14:01
Speaker
either just a regular box or like what they call it, like a quad fold box. Basically like it folds over the left flaps and the right flaps. So there's just two squares are cut out of the four corners of the box. So you're just going to open up a screen and you have a couple of different shape check boxes and then you're going to type in the dimension or we're going to have like seven or eight preset boxes because most of the time we're doing preset stuff.
00:14:26
Speaker
And then you just drop a, we buy these 48 by 48 sheets of cardboard from our cardboard supplier. They're cheap and works great. We can use the scraps usually as well. Drop one of those on there, hit go. And then with no intervention, no setup, no knowledge you have,
00:14:42
Speaker
custom cut boxes, including what I'm hoping to do is perforate with the laser so that you more easily create bend lines. So not only has it been easier, but it looks nicer. That's super cool. Right? Can you go light enough that you're just engraving the paper? Oh, yeah. We used to do that. We used to put SMW logo on it. I loved it. But we had the tool to do it. We didn't have the workflow. We're going to get the workflow.
00:15:11
Speaker
That's super cool. I haven't looked at the laser G code, but if you think about it, you're just building your own post. It's just Cartesian coordinate movements with a couple of M or G codes done. We can make that. Yeah, exactly. I guess I never really thought about it. We have two products that we ship, pens and knives. We have two boxes in inventory and we just buy them by the hundreds from Uline.
00:15:36
Speaker
We've played with other custom options, but it's just so easy just to get the classic white on the outside, brown on the inside. But for you, I guess you have many different size-shaped fixture plates and products. Yeah, I totally see the value in that, and I love the geekery of it. That sounds super cool, like on-demand boxes.
00:15:58
Speaker
Well, we could do it with the foam too. I just realized we buy foam and numerous times I've seen Julie or others, you know, setting up a ruler and cutting foam and like just no, unacceptable. We are going to do better.
00:16:15
Speaker
That's awesome. That's cool. You mentioned that because we, um, we've been talking in our meetings more lately about cross-training people on various tasks and further establishing the process of, of each role, basically. Um, cause yeah, if somebody is sick, if somebody is on vacation, uh, we've got a situation now we've developed where we pretty much have an expert in every role and very little crossover. Um,
00:16:44
Speaker
sometimes people will evolve like different people into shipping and things like that. But pretty much the same guy sharpens every knife, the same guy runs this machine, the same guy ships this package, same guy runs Shopify, like one person per role sort of thing. And yeah, we've been bitten a couple of times with sake or vacation or something. So we definitely need to get more people trained up.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, that idea of creating simple processes and having folks be able to, you know, backstop as needed is great because we, it's funny, it's that thing of when things go well, they're great. Like when we make products well, they go great. When we ship them well, they go great. But when you have a break in that process, you've got to undo it and create off one-off workflows. Oh man, it's brutal. Yep, yep. Yeah, I was thinking about for your,
00:17:38
Speaker
kind of work order inventory system when you say people will inevitably cheat the system because of a need or something like that. Is there a way to build that into it?
00:17:48
Speaker
We actually had that, but it was so cumbersome that I was the first one to frankly want to cheat and I didn't even want to do it. Because it was like, hey, if you have the work order for 10, they should all go to QC. It's like, well, I'm only going to QC two right now because I want to get those two shipped and you can fork off the work order.
00:18:12
Speaker
I'm not going to bore everybody with these details, but does it create a separate work order? Does it create an A and a B work order? Do you bring those back together later for some reason? If you're tying those into batches, it reminds me of why we didn't like some of the other off-the-shelf art ERPs is they've all been built to contemplate all of these scenarios, which means you're forced to think about stuff that I don't want to think about.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, something I've noticed is that I'm not our ideal employee, especially as a production standpoint kind of person. So the system that maybe works best for me doesn't necessarily work best for the rest of the shop, the guys, right? They might be able to follow a rigid process. If it's clearly laid out and straightforward was I'm the one trying to cut corners because I got other stuff to do or something, right? But like my team likes to follow the process.
00:19:08
Speaker
And I like to develop the process. So it's kind of a cool feedback mix. But it's like entrepreneurship 101. It's almost not possible to be as honest with yourself as you need to be, which is that
00:19:23
Speaker
you may think like you're busy and so you're going to cheat the system because you're the owner of the company. But the reality is any employee who's good wants good systems that let them do things well that aren't beholding them to cumbersome, clunky systems. So it's kind of like, if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for anybody. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, um,
00:19:47
Speaker
Let's talk machining. What are you up to? So Angelo's been running the Kern and Steven has been loading the Kern pretty much without me. Last week we had a 39 hour unattended run. Oh my God. Well, unattended is the wrong word, but uninterrupted because we're still replacing tools. We're still loading pallets, but 39 hours, the spindle did not turn off except for tool changes and ballot changes. And the only reason it stopped was because we goofed on a tool life.
00:20:16
Speaker
Because I used, there's a specific tool that only lasts for hard milling for a little bit of time, but I used that to do a special engraving, which ate up the entire tool life just on that one engraving. And I was like, oh, that's why it stopped. But like a one-off engraving. But otherwise it would have run without us for another few hours and then we would have been there to keep loading it. Like we could hit 70 hours.
00:20:41
Speaker
That's incredible. It is so possible. At that point, why not? 370 hours. I know. I know. I love the current period. I love the tool changer for sure. If we had work that was easy, like aluminum or brass or plastic, butter materials, it would never turn off.
00:21:02
Speaker
You know what I mean? We have tool breakage because we're cutting stainless and titanium all day long. We're cutting difficult materials. Tools wear out almost every day.
Challenges and Innovations in Machining
00:21:12
Speaker
We have challenges. I'm jealous of the guys that are just- Why are you doing four sister tools then at this point? I mean, you know- For what? Say good. Why are you doing four sister tools?
00:21:23
Speaker
A breakage is a problem. I don't have a system yet where you put the pallet away and move to the next pallet and call the sister tool. I'd have to program that in and I know how to do it. I just haven't done it yet. Why are you breaking tools with any normal regulator? Obviously trying not to.
00:21:45
Speaker
Consistently, we're good. I have one tool that's still causing me problems, cutting our lock bar inserts. And I've thrown everything I can think of so far at it, and it's still chipping the corners of this flat end mill. So I've got a couple other ideas.
00:22:01
Speaker
This is that 116th? This is, yes, 116th, yeah. Okay. Cutting soft stainless. I've got through the collet coolant. I've got grooves underneath the pallet so that chips will flow away. This is the one you're high feeding now? Not that feature. It's like a little screw head hole. Oh, okay. The hole itself. Okay.
00:22:32
Speaker
I just got to look at it closely again and see where I'm at. That's pretty much the only tool. Everything else is relatively consistent. Every now and then there's little freak weird, like why'd that break? I don't know. Sure. Or I make a tweak and I didn't retract high enough so that like I had a drill that yesterday break because it buzzed a screw. I'm like, oh, I guess my retract needs to be like 0.1 inch higher.
00:23:02
Speaker
What was I going to ask? Do you... I can't remember now. Go ahead. Sorry. You're probably going to ask about Camplete. I actually was not, but go ahead. Do tell. Yeah, I do simulate everything, but as we talked about before, cheating the system, sometimes I'll cheat Camplete and just not watch the simulation and look at all the errors. I mean, you develop a knowingness. Yeah, that's going to work. It's not going to turn upside down and crash itself.
00:23:32
Speaker
I don't always look at it that closely. I use it as a post 90% of the time, but yesterday I did simulate and I went through this whole program and I was like, okay, it's a clean run. It's going to be good. Yeah. We're having problems with, I would say problems, but we wish fusion was different. Better is the right word, but different is probably a more fair word because this is a kind of a quirky thing of we have multiple parts, multiple setups,
00:24:01
Speaker
that we want to run simultaneously. So three different parts, two of each one of them. And we're very particular now about, hey, we want the phasing tool to do this. We want probing to do this. We want the order of it to happen in the way we want it to. And it's basically not possible because Fusion just is not possible. We talk about not possible. I don't accept that.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah. Well, so here's the idea that we almost thought about. So let's say you have, it's all about one piece flow. So we have our VF2 making not just fixed side basis for the mod vice, but every time you hit cycle start, it makes two fixed sides, two adjustable sides, two jaws. Awesome. Every time, basically, most of the mod vice comes off. And we're doing that now, but not in the tool ordering that we want.
00:24:52
Speaker
And the thought that I had was using Fusion as kind of a cam of cams. So you have all of these. And ironically, I think this is actually kind of what Camplete was originally built for. So we have, let's just say there's every part has a facing drilling, contouring, adaptive, whatever. You post all of those out and those generally don't change.
00:25:18
Speaker
you post all those out and each one becomes a subroutine or a sub program, whatever you want to call it, then you use fusion to just post the G code and the G code is going to be like 20 lines long. It's going to be like, start the program and then call this program, then call this program, then call this program. And if you need to change that, you change that. If you need to change the adaptive, you just repost the sub program.
00:25:42
Speaker
Yeah, I basically do that for a lot of things. Like on the current, not each operation necessarily, but like a group of operations or a face of the pallet, the tombstone or something like that, I'll post it as a thing. And then I've handwritten a master file that says, home the machine, call the probe and probing operation, touch this feature as a subroutine. And then the next subroutine will like one line of code that says call this program.
00:26:10
Speaker
we'll do the inside of the handles and then probing afterwards as another operation. And then all these subroutines. So the master file is like 30 lines long and super easy to read and super easy to pick up from the middle of a program, which is probably the biggest reason I did it. And it lets me separate features and sides of the palette and different operations into a much more logical thing. Whereas on the Maury,
00:26:36
Speaker
an entire four hour knife, two knife run per pallet is one code. And it's like, it's got everything in it, every option. If you probe this screw, run Starburst pattern, if you probe this screw, you know, plane, but all of those are in the one program.
00:26:54
Speaker
And it just jumps with go tos and it's messy and I don't like it. And I actually want to reprogram the Maury to be subroutines and master file. This is so much easier to make sense of. So what you could do is you could write a master subroutine and then post everything. I use naming convention for everything like
00:27:14
Speaker
rasp, handle, backside, facing, milling, times two, whatever. Then I call that program. Then when I repost it, instead of typing in a new name, I select the last one, I just overwrite it. I love it. Are you still doing the probe screws for the different handle patterns? Yeah, on both machines. I love you. That's amazing.
00:27:37
Speaker
It's so cool. That screams subroutine because then it's like, hey, one program is the selector switch and then all the different patterns are sub-super. I mean, I don't say that's easy, but that's easy. If there's 10 patterns, it literally just says, if
00:27:53
Speaker
probed value is greater than fixture surface. That means it's position number one. That means jump to line number one or line number 100 or whatever. Then each subroutine just has a different line number.
00:28:09
Speaker
depending on which pattern. I love the logic behind it. It's simple when you really wrap your head around it, but it's not simple to put into place to wrap your head and get it working. Even yesterday, I was working on
00:28:24
Speaker
a modular probing routine on the current. So I can just change a couple of variables at the top and probe the center of a hole and reset the, it's called a datum shift. So it can, you know, it's supposed to be zero zero, but the workpiece is actually two thousand this way and two thousand this way.
00:28:40
Speaker
So it writes the info to a datum table and then further programs like shift based on that. But yeah, I wrote this program to do the whole and then also to do a Z surface. And all the logic is there. You just type in four variables at the top, what you need, information you need, and testing back and forth. Wow. It turns out you can't have more than four digits behind the zero in a probing operation.
00:29:06
Speaker
in like defining it, like your XY location and stuff, because otherwise it just errors out and complaints and it took me like an hour to figure out why. You mean like four digits of locational resolution accuracy? Yeah. Oh, weird. Yeah, it is weird, but whatever. Yeah. And then the other thing I did yesterday, which was really cool, I've got two grinding wheels in the Kern, one to do the blade bevels on the Rask.
00:29:33
Speaker
make them all nice and pretty. And the other is a cup wheel, a one-inch diameter cup wheel, which we grind our ceramic detent ball with. Yes. So we grind just the top of it off, make it a flat face, flat surface. What we've noticed over the years is that as that wheel gets older, it will crack the ceramic ball. And then nobody notices until it goes through tumbling and everything, and a chunk falls out. Sure. And then Eric or Sky is assembling it, and he's like, this handle's scrap.
00:30:03
Speaker
Oh no, how many more are scrap? Yeah, garbage at that point. All the work's gone into it, all the costs, everything. So I've been wanting to for a while, but yesterday I finally implemented automatic dressing of that grinding wheel on the current. So I have one of my small pallets with a dressing stick. I love it. I think it's tantalum material.
00:30:28
Speaker
And then the probe comes in, measures the top of the dressing stick, so it knows how long it is. It measures it against the collet in the palate, so it knows how long it's sticking out. So if it wears down, it gets to the minimum, it tells you. Yeah. And then it touches off the tool, so it knows the starting diameter and length, and then it dresses it. Subsequent passes, one thou, one thou, half thou,
00:30:51
Speaker
You know, two tenths, one tenth, zero tenth, and then probes it again on the laser and then puts it away. And this is all triggered based on tracked tool life. So after 130 minutes of tool life, it'll auto dress. It'll switch out whatever palettes in there. It'll call the dressing palette. It'll finish the routine. It'll call back the palette that it needed and continue machining. I love it. Oh, I love the nerdiness of it. It's so cool.
00:31:17
Speaker
That prompted me to remember what I couldn't think of five minutes ago. When you're dealing with changing tools in the current tool changer yourself, not the machine ATC, but you changed it, sorry about tools. The tool changer is that just like French doors on the right side of the machine, right? Or sliding doors. Yeah, the one door opens up and you have a library of tools, a rack in front of you.
00:31:42
Speaker
So if you open that, you can open that door while the machine is actually in motion, cutting chips. And if it wants to do a tool change, it just waits for you. It waits, yeah.
00:31:53
Speaker
If you close the door, do you have to then cycle start or does it now know the door is closed? It knows. There's a little light, an indicator light that if it's yellow, you can open the door. If it's not, then you can't and the door is locked. If it's trying to change a tool, the door is locked and you just wait 10 seconds or whatever for the cycle to finish, for it to pre-call the next tool and put it away. Then the robot, the tool changer robot, whatever it's called, homes itself and then
00:32:20
Speaker
You hear a little click because the interlock opens up and then yeah, you can open the door and then you have the rack in front of you. So what's your question?
00:32:28
Speaker
Nothing. I mean, basically it's smart. First off, making sure you can access the windows running, which of course, I would never buy another machine, another mill that you can't access the tool while it's running. Super excited for the Akuma to have that. Yeah. When's it coming? Ooh, when is it coming? October 13th. So actually too much for today. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big boy too, isn't it?
00:32:52
Speaker
She's a big girl. Is it your biggest machine? 4,000 pounds. Very similar to the VF6. Very similar weight. Very similar work envelope. It is a smaller footprint, which I'm not going to complain about at all.
00:33:06
Speaker
We've actually been making some good progress on chip, I think I've talked about this a few times, but 3D printed and other things to help with chip evacuation.
New Machinery and Opportunities
00:33:14
Speaker
We've been working on the augers, the covers, magnetic inserts. I just got some magnets to put into 3D prints. I think that's going to be the best way to hold stuff in place because for sure. Magnets on the 3D print?
00:33:28
Speaker
3d printing stuff with pockets and then the magnets that we're buying Have a center hole so that we can thread in The magnet into the 3d print and then the 3d print can stick to the sheet metal that way I Mean magnets around chips seems weird. I
00:33:47
Speaker
I hear you, they should actually be protected because of where they're going to be in the 3D print. We literally will probably like hot glue or epoxy or RTV some of these things in, but we've been playing with either gluing or taping and magnets are going to be the way to go, I think.
00:34:09
Speaker
So we'll keep everybody posted. But I think that'll be a big improvement for the Haas machines. And look, I think people know the Haas machines are not great at chip evacuation. I would kind of further that by a lot of machines aren't perfect at chip evacuation.
00:34:27
Speaker
But I do think the Akuma will be better out the door because if you're in the VF6, you could set up a small apartment inside of there. I'm not even joking. The Akuma, almost the same footprint and you basically don't have any wasted space inside. It's great.
00:34:43
Speaker
Not like that picture of you and Amish from the emo tool show where you're in this actual apartment side. The geek who put a sofa and a TV in there, no problem. That actually is very much, that would be very comfortable. You have a party in there.
00:34:59
Speaker
How's Willman? Where are we at? I ordered spindle liners from JF Burns. I ordered spindle call it, not something like that, a new call it, five eights call it for the bars we're going to run and LNS bar feeder needed an extension. So I got that ordered as well. So I think I've ordered everything I need. Should be here in a week or two.
00:35:22
Speaker
Um, we're basically, I've said this a couple of times, but we're at the point, we just got to plug in the hydraulic fluid tank. Um, which I thought was empty, but the service guy was like, no, it's clear. It's full. It's, we never empty them. It's probably full. So I looked, I'm like, yeah, it is full. Oh wow. That's awesome. So we just plug it in. Um, and then we can power it up and we just, we've been busy. You haven't powered it. We haven't yet. Oh man.
00:35:47
Speaker
It's like hurry up and wait, right? We're excited, but we're actually not in a rush to do it. And I guess I'm letting Angelo handle that and he's swamped, but yeah. Yeah, you're totally, totally fair. What length is the LNS? It's, I think they call it a six footer. Although I think it's a little bit longer than our Swiss six footer. It's a different style. It's the, um,
00:36:19
Speaker
E something. What's it called? Express? LNS Express maybe? I forget. The nice thing with the Wilhelmin is that you do not need to use ground stock. You don't need to turn down the ends like the Swiss. Just take an E1. Might need to turn them down, I'm not sure. Can't imagine why. Not like on the Swiss, yeah. Right. You want a chamfer maybe.
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah, like on the Swiss, if there's not a chamfer on the bar, it will not go through the guide pushing. Right. Right. I wonder if people use the bar feeder as a bar feeder to push or whether you just use the bar feeder as a way to basically replace the bar and then let the machine pull it somehow. Yeah, I'm not positive of that. I've seen Willamins that have a little stopper on the spindle, so it will push the bar against the spindle head, against the stopper.
00:37:15
Speaker
The milling spindle. The milling spindle, yeah. It'll go down into a dumb low position, really low, and then it'll push the bar against it and then clamp and then everything leaves. Then it does pull away the remnant and drops it into the remnant catcher.
00:37:34
Speaker
on the bar loader. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. I didn't think about the remnant. So then I wonder because you have decent X axis travel. It's like 10 or 12 inches, right? Well, is that X left or right there? I think so. Yeah. And then, but the U axis
00:37:53
Speaker
which is how much the vice can move is nothing. It's like two inches or three inches. I'm not sure. Okay. Um, 50 millimeter, eight millimeter or something like that. Yeah. That's enough.
00:38:07
Speaker
Well, you say that, but like your pen, I don't think you're putting pen tubes on there, but flashlight body could be, could push that, you know, like, or how are you? Well, it's tricky because your, your maximum tool length, your gauge length is ridiculously short. You cannot put a long drill in there. Um, so even to make a flashlight body, I don't know if I could drill through it. You can't put on there because when you tip the head over to 90, there's no room to fit the
00:38:33
Speaker
You can't take a five inch gauge or three inch gauge length tool plus the three inch part and fit it in there, huh? I think the tool changer is limited to like a 90 millimeter total gauge length, even if you have the stubbiest little holders they make. You're talking about the ATC itself. The ATC. Even with the shortest holder, your tool might be able to stick out an inch.
00:38:56
Speaker
weird. Well, maybe a little bit more, but really ish, you could potentially do it from both sides. Maybe not. Yeah. But still like the, the through drill we use on our pen tubes on the Nakamura is sticking out like four inches. Right. There's no way that would fit on the, on the Willie. Well, and you need double that right to go through a four inch part. Obviously. Hmm. Interesting. Super fun though.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, so I've got the longer the Wilhelmin sits there, the more ideas I have for like work to put on it and the little parts to make and ideas and it's like, oh, I got that thing coming out. That'd be perfect for the Swiss, but you know what? It would be even more perfecter on the Wilhelmin and the Wilhelmin is free at this point, like available. It's not bogged down. Our Swiss is busy. That's great. That's fantastic, but I want one more. Where are you on that?
00:39:55
Speaker
I know room, I don't think, unless we really like Swiss cheese these things in here, like sandwich them. Man, did you ever buy your building? No. No, we're still leasing. We probably were lease until like, I don't know if I want to buy this building. Yeah, this point, right? Yeah, it's getting small and it's not where I want to put my money. You know what I mean? Yeah.
00:40:18
Speaker
So yeah, that's part of the three-year conversation is like, what are we going to do here? I love our shop. It's been great. I vividly remember moving into this shop, which is 10,000 square feet from having been in 1,000 square feet for nine years. All your stuff fits in 10 square feet. Yeah, this was an ocean. And we're not out of space, but I don't like our space.
00:40:48
Speaker
in the sense of the right way to do a flow. It's not that we can't use it, make it better use of it for sure, I hear you. Yeah, it's like you feel guilty complaining about space when you see other shops that are like machines every two feet and you're like, wow, they really maximize their space, but I don't know if I want that.
00:41:07
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's a question of where we, you know, am I being John, the risk adverse kind of conservative like person or am I like, Hey, no, I believe what we're doing. We're doing well. Let's build the systems team resource, et cetera. We need to do this right. And so I kind of let myself have fun.
00:41:25
Speaker
past few weekends where I just say, hey, what's it going to take? Like what would I want to do to build a shop? What does that shop look like? And I just started, you know, I think I've got a little bit of a unique perspective because we've seen so many shops over the years. And I started thinking about like, hey, here's what Metal Quest did. I like, here's what every 4.9 did that I like. Here's what Cruzo has that I like. Are you actually writing these down, these ideas?
00:41:46
Speaker
beyond that. It's already in the PowerPoint with a floor layout. And everything that I haven't modeled into the floor layout is just on a bullet list. So it's like, hey, I want a cardboard baler that crushes boxes. I want a dedicated waste scale. I want it cross-stocked with loading gates with receiving on one end, shipping on the other. And shipping is fed by an inventory room and a QC room. And the machines go here and we have a break room and we have natural sunlight, which I didn't used to like.
00:42:11
Speaker
Like John, holy cow. It's almost like dangerous because the more you do it, the more you want it, the more real it becomes, but it's also fantastic because it gives you that kind of drive and vision and be like, if it was like this, wow, we would...
Future Expansions and Strategic Partnerships
00:42:24
Speaker
happier and more productive. We'd be able to grow and scale. I haven't gone nearly that far. I want to, I guess, but I've certainly conceptualized and just kicked back and thought about it deeply. I was thinking like our manufacturing space is about 4,000 square feet where the machines are right now.
00:42:46
Speaker
in the comfortable layout that we have with room and space and like elbow room and everything, I don't want it much tighter than that. But if we had, if we had say 10,000 square feet for machines, holy cow, that's two and a half times this space. That's probably all I need. I don't know. So this shop is 9,000 between both buildings. And if we had 20,000, something like that, like it'd feel like an ocean again, maybe.
00:43:12
Speaker
Yeah. I trust my gut. I'm actually very much enjoying this thought. I mean, I never happened, but I've been pretty good at getting to where, you know, 2006, I was starting a job in New York City, a desk job that I continued for almost 10 years and I wanted to be doing manufacturing. I figured out how to make that happen.
00:43:33
Speaker
figure out how to go from the Tormach to the Haas and now beyond that. So, you know what? We'll figure this out. It's got to make sense. The numbers are going to pencil, but man, the thing is I wouldn't compromise. It's going to be, you know, we're going to build this. We're not really looking to buy. I'm not against it, but it's most likely going to be a
00:43:53
Speaker
It would be a ground up build on a land that we own where you have the ability to expand or maybe you build it. I'm not against building it bigger as a multi-use property, like a tentative thing. You'd have a concrete dock area. I mean, just, yes, everything. Yeah, everything, right?
00:44:11
Speaker
Yeah. Neither one of us are quick to jump into big decisions. I certainly think and worry and stress sometimes for days, weeks, years about these big decisions, but then by the time I'm ready to make them, I've thought through it deeply. It might be the first time I'd be telling you or somebody else or a family member or something, but trust me, this has been rolling around my head for a very long time. Right.
00:44:40
Speaker
Yeah. That's the plan. Good. All right. I will not see you next week. I'm out. Okay. So we are skipping next week. Skipping next week. Sorry, everybody. Okay.
00:44:52
Speaker
Cool. Today, I've got Pelican cases. Sure. The Canadian version of Pelican cases is Nanook. They make cases here in Canada, gun cases, knife cases, whatever. Two of the guys there from Nanook are actually here right now. Angelo is giving them a full tour and working on maybe a possible collaboration custom case with our logo in it for all future products.
00:45:20
Speaker
Dude. So that is exciting. That's awesome. I can hear people talking in the background. That kind of rigid plastic case. Yeah, those are made by S3 cases in Utah, and they're great, but these are better.
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah, I respect that. I mean, I'm going to go USA while you go Canadian, but I respect that. But as a Canadian, I want to support Canadian, you know, US would be a close second. And anything international is if I can avoid it, you know. Yeah, I hear you. Good for you. Yeah, that's fun. It's pretty legit. I don't know. Yeah, good for you. That's cool. So I mean, Angelo ran this, he's got a new gun case and our guy Steven has a big knife case, which he brought in today with custom foam and all of his knife collection in it and
00:46:05
Speaker
He said the guys were really impressed by that. And, uh, yeah, so they've been running with it and I've, I'm just flying on the wall. Like, yeah, go nuts. You know, it's good for you. Keep me up to date. I will see you in two weeks. Awesome man. Take care. Take care. Bye.