Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
2020 Year In Review
188 Plays4 years ago
2020 has been a wild year, and we are sure you are tired of hearing about it by now. But here at the Business of Machining we decide to reflect on the positives. Thank you to everyone for being with us throughout this year!
Grimsmo has found a solution to lift very heavy objects within their shop without the need of a forklift. It takes them back to the old Volvo days in the garage. Saunders is playing with a Vortex cold air gun and is having a literal blast.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 203. My name is John Grimsman. And my name is John Saunders.
Podcast's Aim: Sharing Entrepreneurial Stories
00:00:07
Speaker
Listen Friday morning as two manufacturing entrepreneurs share our story of business successes and struggles. You are not alone.
Structuring the Podcast Intro
00:00:15
Speaker
Okay, so now that I say it with you, I don't like it. I'd sounded pretty smooth. It was like radio, like DJ kind of thing. Again, it's hard, right?
00:00:26
Speaker
Well, just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not rewarding. Of course. If you didn't chime in last week, what John and I are doing is changing from having a random intro that tries to encapsulate what this conversation is into something that's a little bit more
00:00:42
Speaker
of a specific call to action that tells you as the listener what this podcast is, why you should listen. It's not tough because darn it, we'll just do it. But what is tougher here is we're not selling you anything. This podcast is just the two of us having a private
Connecting with the Audience
00:00:58
Speaker
conversation.
00:01:00
Speaker
So there's no ulterior motive, but there is a sales pitch in that your time is valuable. Even if you have a commute to kill time, why should you listen to our podcast and not something else? What do you gain from it? We want to keep it real candid. So I'll briefly walk through.
00:01:16
Speaker
how I came up with my first attempt at kind of a slogan, sales pitch, call to action, intro queue. And I just started thinking about like, what is this conversation like, both between you and me, John, but then also if I could try to put myself in my customer's shoes, which is such a hard thing to do.
Role as Accountability Buddies
00:01:39
Speaker
But it's easier to do it both because you can try to synthetically think that way, but also we've certainly gotten some feedback from folks, which is almost always wonderful. And so I thought the words that came to mind were inside look, manufacturing, entrepreneur, successes and struggles. And then mentor is a word that's there. I don't think of either of us as each other's mentors, but there's that element of something like that of
00:02:06
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? I don't know. There are definitely similarities. I agree. I don't think of each other as mentors, but we're certainly, like I said a couple weeks ago, we're like accountability buddies. You know, we hold each other accountable and we...
00:02:21
Speaker
Yeah, we go over things that don't always get talked about. And to be able to do that on a quasi public forum, but still having it be a pretty private conversation is interesting.
Enjoyment of Podcasting
00:02:36
Speaker
It's fun.
00:02:37
Speaker
Well, it's funny, too, because there's such a visceral cesspool of comments on most forms of social media that are interactive that allow comments. But the beauty is no one really gets to comment here. It's a one-side thing. I kind of love it. Right? Yeah. I kind of get why people do disabled comments on other platforms. It probably ruins your algorithm and all those metrics, which is such a distasteful part that continues to kind of grow inside of me of I think about what we do. And I just do it because I love it.
00:03:07
Speaker
Yeah, there's a little bit of a business element to it, but anyway.
Crafting a Concise Intro
00:03:14
Speaker
Listen, can I walk through mine, break it down a little bit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, Friday morning is to manufacturing entrepreneurs. So that was my, I always shun every word. I try to keep it as absolutely short to make sure every word I say matters. And the obvious parallel here is that this is something that anybody should do for any product. If you're selling, you know, if your JK is bringing a straight razor to market, if your grims are bringing a new flashlight to market, whatever.
00:03:39
Speaker
And this isn't just a tagline. It'll end up manifesting itself in marketing content and PDFs and SEO and product pages and packaging. So Listen Friday Morning is to manufacturing entrepreneurs share their business struggles and successes. So I like all those words. I'm not sure the order of them is best. It doesn't convey that what is supposed to be private nature and
00:04:03
Speaker
Um, it doesn't, it's still missing something. And it's, it's also kind of a mouthful, like you don't want to, you want to explain it fully, but you don't want to over use too many big words, like to have it just sound too complicated. Um, that's fair. Angelo said something to me a couple of weeks ago and he, he said, there's a concept in writing that's like, I was going to write a short story, but I didn't have enough time.
00:04:28
Speaker
I know, because it's easy to write fluff, to write more and more. But then to actually pare it down into just the essentials, it actually takes a decent amount of time. So in writing these things, you jot down all the words and the tag words, and you put it all together, and you have three sentences. And you're like, I'm not going to read three sentences as my intro.
00:04:51
Speaker
skim it down, you know. So that's, first off, thank you. I tell Angelo, high five, I love, I was going to write a short story, but I didn't have enough time. So and look, I love it's, it's a shame that the word entrepreneur has become kind of cliched, but I love I do like the what it means. Okay, so what about something like,
Meaning of 'Entrepreneur'
00:05:13
Speaker
and sorry, we should hear yours. Let me I've got an idea, but you first.
00:05:17
Speaker
Did you say you had made some notes? I did write one quickly. I didn't spend a lot of time on it, as I said. What I jotted down is however we normally intro. This is the podcast for the manufacturing entrepreneur. Whether you own your own business or want to understand what goes on behind the scenes of two growing machine shops, this is the place to be. I like that actually.
00:05:44
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's longer, but it doesn't feel, I think the problem with mine is it, it's too, it doesn't flow, right? So it's shorter, but it doesn't sound like it. You can't comprehend it. Yeah. Um, so we got to like squish them together somehow. So maybe we'll text each other the, uh, the things we'll think about it for next week. The other, so what I just wrote down after you made Angela's comment was, um, a private conversation between two entrepreneurs.
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I like it. So we'll do this. Email me yours and I'll do the same. But what I think remains different about our podcast is as much as we possibly can, we try to ignore the fact that it's a podcast. And John and I had this conversation for a year before we hit record. The last phrase I had in there is not the right phrase, but I still like this idea. I said, you're not alone.
00:06:39
Speaker
If there's, we get to choose our own destiny
Exploring Self-Doubt in Creativity
00:06:43
Speaker
in life. And if there's one thing I do continue to enjoy is shunning that fake, everything's great, boom, pow, I'm crushing it. And conversely, we're not looking for pity parties, but darn it, there's times where it's tough. And when I was actually reading some notes this morning about a great show on Netflix, David Foster, the guy who's like,
00:07:08
Speaker
He discovered Celine Dion, Michael Bublé. He produced Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You. This guy is the cream of the crop worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He has a very candid Netflix documentary that if you're in any way into music is wonderful.
00:07:23
Speaker
He shares candidly like, Hey, like, I am really good at what I do. I might be the best or one of the best ever, but that doesn't mean I don't doubt my own work. It doesn't mean that I don't challenge or think or, and I just, I, maybe it's just me, but I find that so wholesome to see people that are at the top of their game.
Shifting Towards Refinement
00:07:41
Speaker
Uh, and I'm certainly not the top of my game. I love what I do. I'm proud of what we do, but you know, I'm not the best.
00:07:45
Speaker
at anything I do. I think you are at the top of your game up until now, your personal journey game. Are you satisfied with that or do you want to keep growing? That's actually an interesting question. I don't think my answer may be what you expect. Well, I have found as we've wrapped ... This is going to get deep real quick.
00:08:10
Speaker
As we have done what we needed to do at Saunders Machine Works this year, we're not done. We've got to fill that operations role, which we're now working with a local staffing company to help. It's not a great time of the year to get candidates in around Christmas, but we will soon have some in.
Empowering the Team
00:08:26
Speaker
And we've got some inventory stuff to finish up with Lex and so forth. So there's definitely work to do. But I was talking to Yvonne last night, and it's like there's fewer
00:08:37
Speaker
Like, I don't, for the first time in my 10 years of doing this as a manufacturing person, I don't have that giant, holy cow, I've got this thing, like, whatever, we launched the NYC site, we launched Provencut, we did this, we bought, like, I'm kind of at a point where there's, let's continue to refine, but I'm not sure how much I'm gonna have to adjust to this idea that there isn't the new,
00:09:07
Speaker
thing. I put myself in your shoes. You're going to do a whole other product line like the flashlights or whatever. Don't mean to speak to me, but you're going to get more machines. I'm not there. I'm actually liking what we're doing. We're at right now. It's fantastic. Either you're going into a role where
00:09:24
Speaker
you're empowering your team more and more to do all the work that you used to do, which is fantastic. Or you're secretly waiting for that next big thing to hit your brain. You're closing up, you're wrapping up tying up loose ends kind of
Artistic Processes Across Forms
00:09:43
Speaker
thing. And then you're freeing up your brain so that in a month, two months, six months, whatever, you're going to be like, aha, I'm going to make a spaceship or whatever.
00:09:54
Speaker
That's not a bad Yeah, I hear you anyway, I Feel like we need to rewind because you were gonna talk about something And I don't know I lost my train of thought I don't remember okay. Oh you were just a grow and hmm
00:10:15
Speaker
best of what you do, David Foster or David Wallace. I always get his name confused. Apologies. Anyway. What I was thinking about him, I don't know him or have not seen the documentary, but I certainly have heard the concept from other super highly successful people.
00:10:33
Speaker
No matter how good you are, if you're a true creator artist, you're naturally hard on yourself. You're naturally like, I am great at what I do, but darn it, I could be better. There's that painting that I just did. Yeah, it could be a little bit tighter. The part I just made, yeah, I could have been a tense tighter on tolerances or a bit shinier next time. There's always that little bit of,
00:10:58
Speaker
pushing yourself. Like, like my daughter, she's almost 11 now and she's becoming quite the artist. I have zero artistic ability painting like drawing wise. And now she can like pick up a pencil and draw and like shade and stuff and making really nice stuff and she's so hard on herself. Meghan and I are like encouraging her but you don't get it, John.
00:11:20
Speaker
That is you. I know I do get it. No, no, no, no. But like I have, I haven't spent that much time in person with you. But like I've seen you have the knife handle fusion file open in your shop and you're doing something unbelievably artistic in the CAD in the file and the toolpath you use toolpaths as art. That is the same thing. It just happens to be with servos and not a mechanical pencil. That is you.
00:11:47
Speaker
Sorry, the reason we got onto that sidetrack was this idea of inner tagline trying to offer the classic marketing thing of making sure somebody says, oh my gosh, that is what I'm looking for. That's me. Capturing that. This isn't a conversation between you and me where we always
00:12:05
Speaker
just say, Oh, we've had some struggles, but it's kind of shallow struggles. Like I really, I really want to keep the conversation between me and you candid, but also hopefully let that become a very relatable point for the folks listening. Yeah.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, because we want to provide value and enjoyment. And I've been listening to some other excellent manufacturing podcasts. And they have different values that we don't have. They might be more people
Improving Shop Equipment
00:12:32
Speaker
on it. They might be hilarious. They might be whatever. And that's not where we're going for it. That's OK. It's perfect. Yes, agree. Good. Cool. So I have a question for you regarding Skyjax.
00:12:50
Speaker
Skyjax. Skyhooks. Oh, the Cranes. The Crane. What's the name for it? Skyhook. Skyhook.
00:12:58
Speaker
A device used to lift several hundred pounds and move it, say, onto a machine table or something like that. So here in the shop, our lapping plate, it's a big, I don't even know, 15-inch diameter, 20-inch diameter cast iron thing probably weighs 200 pounds. You put an eyelet in the middle, that has to be lifted out and replaced every six to 12 months.
00:13:20
Speaker
And we're just doing it by hand right now with a huge bar in the middle and two guys lifting it. It works, but we don't have a forklift. An engine crane, like a typical automotive engine crane, a low profile one might be able to roll under the
00:13:37
Speaker
the machine and reach it, but typically not. And then now that we got the surface grinder, we have to put the magnetic chuck on and it weighs like two, 300 pounds. And yes, two guys can lift it, but they can't lift it and move it over two feet. Oh my God. Three feet. Don't take it on the table. Yeah. No, of course, right? So that's not the answer. So something like a sky hook
00:13:58
Speaker
would work, but we need the forward reach and having on wheels or something needs to be, like we need a solution. Okay. Lots of good thoughts. Yeah. Number one, you might think about whether you're just going to end up with a forklift at some point period. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Inevitably. And we've only ever had used forklifts. That tends to be a pretty prolific market. So you can go find a $4,000 used. Okay. 4,000 pound forklift and that ought to be pretty darn good.
00:14:28
Speaker
Or get whatever you need. I mean, don't do what we did, which is buy a 5,000-pound one and realize you really want 6,000 because that lets you lift almost every machine. Like if you need to move the Swiss or something. Yeah. A great option would also be one of the A-frame like gantry cranes.
00:14:46
Speaker
Okay. Because those are a bit safer, like just the way they're built, they're portable. They don't take up a ton of space because you can usually find a place to tuck them where they just nested between something. You can span over lapping machines, grinders. They work out quite well. We had
00:15:04
Speaker
one and used it until we replace it again with Skyhook. We originally had the Cart Skyhook, which is great because it cantilevers out in front with counterweight so that you have
00:15:21
Speaker
I don't know, 20 or probably 30 inches of reach without any ground support in that area. True overhang. So like, for example, your lapping machine or your chuck. Downsides, it's relatively expensive. And the counterweight is a lot, I want to say, 600 pounds or something. So it's not super fun to move the cart around. OK. Again, depending on is this something you're using once a month or every day.
00:15:51
Speaker
Engine hoist, nothing wrong with those. Totally random fact. I just saw that Haas genius move is making a, and selling a modified engine hoist, like the Harbor freight one, except it has the correctly lowered feet.
00:16:08
Speaker
thickness, height, so that you can slide the darn thing underneath machines. I'm like, oh my God, why did nobody think of this before? Where can I look that up real quick? I just want to see it. Google. It's like Haas tooling engine hoist or something. Those are the options that come to mind. I mean, traditional engine hoists are great. Just oftentimes the feet are either wide enough or they're just too tall.
00:16:33
Speaker
Yeah, they won't fit under the surface grinder. They will barely fit under the lapping machine, I think. And for the moment, those are the only two reasons we have for using this thing, other than Eric's got a project car that he wants an engine hoist for as well anyway. In the past years, Eric and I have probably switched six, seven engines over the past 20 years just by borrowing friends' engine hoists.
00:16:59
Speaker
But now that we have our own, it's a good idea. But yeah, the feet are the machine thing. Engine hoists won't fit into the grinder sideways. Angelo said probably not. I haven't looked or tried yet, but he looked into it. But yeah. So the Skyhook on a cart, I'm assuming a couple thousand dollars? More. More, yeah. Yeah. I want to say, don't hold me that, more.
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, I just, it's awesome. I just, for your use, I think you'd be, um, I would definitely see if you could find a small a frame with a chain fall, like a chain hoist because, Oh man, that's so useful. Or honestly, forklift is going to be what you, cause you're going to get more and more.
00:17:46
Speaker
you know, you get, those plates are gonna be delivered on a, you don't want more, they're borrowing it's pain in the butt. Funny joke-ish point is that I no longer like any of my sky hooks because last night I got a text from Amish who got a sky hook and I had no idea, it never even occurred to me to think about this. Ours are yellow, it's fine. I'm honestly joking here, they're great. His is like this beautiful white,
00:18:14
Speaker
that matches his modern shop and floors and DMGs. And it just looks bad, you know what? And I'm like, oh man, I wish ours were like, I wish ours were white now. It's not a big deal.
00:18:29
Speaker
So that's cool. Well done, Amish. That kind of ties to the point of if you don't ask, you don't get. Right. And he had the idea to ask them, can I order it in white? And they're like, yeah, of course. You can order a kern in any color you want. And I see some black and white stormtrooper looking ones. And I'm like, that looks so cool. Yeah.