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#272 - Teaching The Teachers, The Value In Learning
204 Plays3 years ago
TOPCIS:
- Saunders is visiting Wichita State University for Project MFG.
- Grimsmo has a ton of updates, open house, tornos problems & willemin progress.
- Saunders dives into the horizontal process control.
- Mobile machine shops?!?
- Teaching the teachers.
- Grimsmo is starting to use their ERP system to track procedures throughout the company.
- Saunders learns the hard way not to rush a project before a trip.
- Grimsmo updates on the CMM and Speedio machines.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and CNC Machining Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode number 272. My name is John Saunders. And I'm John Rimsmo. This is the five year plus journey of us following our passion for really all things manufacturing, but really especially CNC machining. Yep. That period, hard spot. Exactly. All of it. So I am, I wouldn't want to say distracted right now, but
Judging Project MFG - A Manufacturing Competition
00:00:29
Speaker
overwhelmed in a good way. I know I mentioned this the past few weeks, but I got this call out of nowhere a month ago to come judge Project MFG. I had never heard of it. So I wasn't sure what is this thing. And we're now in day two. John, this is absolutely incredible. Yeah. I've seen a couple of the posts you put on Instagram. I mean, it's incredible on all sorts of different levels.
Advanced Facilities at Wichita State University
00:00:55
Speaker
The facility here at Wichita State is
00:00:59
Speaker
You know, part of it's incredible as a role model or as a model example of how awesome the trades can be. I also understand why I could see other parts of the country being like, we don't have the money or infrastructure to get there, but that doesn't mean these still can't be shining. So our examples of what you can do. Um, I mean, they have 10 Haas VF2s, 10 ST20s, two UMC 750s,
00:01:26
Speaker
a beautiful shot full of also manual equipment. They have a DMG monoblock laser tech centering five axis full of industrial robots. And it's not what's here's what's amazing. It's not just the case where somebody wrote a check and it's equipment just sitting here. It's like actively being used. Yeah. I walked past a robotics lab
00:01:50
Speaker
and spent a half an hour talking to this teacher who's only been doing it for six months. He got pulled in from industrial automation. He used to be an electrician and they built a Wally. They built, they have one of the Boston dynamics dogs and they're using Microsoft HoloLens to build a, the students coded an interface to where anybody who's walking by can scan a QR code and activate and control the robots from the hallway to make them laser like sword fight. It's just incredible.
00:02:22
Speaker
That's like a dream university right there for manufacturing like holy cow. Yeah, it is really cool The other so there's four teams competing.
Creative Designs in Manufacturing Competition
00:02:31
Speaker
They're trying to build It's kind of a widget. It's what's a Pressurized tank that they have to well to there's somebody on the team has to have legit welding skills That's out of steel and they have to have an aluminum welding it that also has to be pressurized It's kind of the second part and then the top two or three parts are machined
00:02:51
Speaker
There's kind of a base plate and then a riser and then a turbine wheel basically that spins on a bearing. And so the idea around the competitive side of one of the criteria of who wins is they pressurize this tank to like 30 PSI and then open the valve and whoever's spins the longest wins.
00:03:14
Speaker
And so there's all different designs around the actual fan blade part itself for the turbine. They had pretty much free design around. And so all four teams have come up with fairly different designs, which will be pretty cool to see. I got to give a shout out to one team simply for creativity. So they
00:03:36
Speaker
It's just an air stream blowing on a fan. All the teams realized they want to try to capture that air, so they didn't want it open. Like a turbine on a jet engine has the benefit of having a case around it that stops the air from just deflecting outside. Well, it's a lot harder to machine something that is a closed pocket, if you will. So what this one team figured out, because you only have one piece of stock, is they machined a pretty
00:04:05
Speaker
awesome design, but it's an open face. So there's nothing to trap the air like you need, except they have a 0.4 inch thick hat top of extra amount of material that, you know, anybody else would just machine away and scrap. They figured out that they can take their, after they're done up to, and they can do a rotary tool path and machine away
00:04:34
Speaker
that 0.4 inch piece of material with a quarter inch end mill, because they only have a few tools to use from it. And they can turn that piece of scrap hat top into a 30 thou thick washer. And it's clocked and has locating features on the fan blade and on this washer. And they can made it together and have it work. If they pull this off, it's just super cool. Oh my goodness. Yeah.
00:05:02
Speaker
So, sorry, that's, that's what I'm doing. That's fantastic. I mean, it must be like inspiring for you to see kids doing like university students kind of free reign, all the equipment you need run free, you know, like play.
National Level Competition and Prizes
00:05:18
Speaker
Um, and this is a competition. So not just local students, but from far away. Yeah. So this is the nationals. They all competed in the regionals. The teams are from, if I can remember this from memory here, Yuba.
00:05:32
Speaker
California, Suncoast in Sarasota, Florida, SWCC, which is Southwest Illinois college. And then, oh shoot, the fourth team, it'll come to me here. Oh, Huntsville, Alabama. And so none of them are local and none of them, from what I can tell, none of them have facilities that are quite like this. So they're all coming from different skill sets and backgrounds.
00:06:02
Speaker
John dude, the winning team gets a hundred grand. That's insane. Yeah. Uh, half of it goes to the program and half of it literally is checks to the competitors. What? Yeah. So it's kind of like, Hey, this is a, especially for, this is a life changing event.
Experience as a Judge at Project MFG
00:06:20
Speaker
Everyone has a good attitude. You know, we were at the hotel last night. Everyone feels like they're a winner for getting here and even fourth place gets some money. Um, but this is, this is awesome. Oh my goodness.
00:06:31
Speaker
So I'm glad you went. Yeah. Yeah. And it's kind of, I mean, it doesn't feel judgy, but like it is fun to be on the other side. Like I don't have to make any parts in, you know, they want us to kind of, they want us to see what our strengths and weaknesses, but it's also just, you know, here to help and, and, and talk shop and the other judges, um, two are from a welding background. One is another kind of machinist guy and just been fun to beat them. Um, you know,
00:07:00
Speaker
It was kind of one of those, like, I'm really glad I said yes. I wasn't totally sure first. For sure. Good for you, man. Thank you. How are you? Wonderful. Oh, yeah? Yeah, just pretty much regular stuff going on here. Last Thursday, just after we filmed the podcast, I went to the local open house tool show.
Exploring a Local Tool Show
00:07:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And it's amazing. I got to bring a bunch of the guys from the shop here that have never been to a tool show before.
00:07:31
Speaker
It was just like they were blown away because the Elliott Matsura building specifically is a long stretch of lots of machines, big matsura, small matsures, robot drills, EDM machines, tons of blades, everything. So there was a Swiss lathe, the GT26, the bigger version of ours. So it was really cool to see that, especially for Pierre who runs ours to see the bigger version.
00:07:52
Speaker
Yeah. And talk to the guy and stuff. And man, all of us struck up such amazing conversations with a lot of the vendors and staff there and really got to pick their brain on a bunch of things. And one conversation we really liked was, I think you have MP systems. What coolant like high pressure coolant that and we have the MP systems missed you.
00:08:15
Speaker
Okay, on the on the Okumas. And so I got to talk to Cole, one of the guys there, about, you know, chilling, cooling, chilling oil, high pressure cooling, high pressure oil, and all that in depth conversation. And it was really fantastic. Just yeah, it's such a resource, you know, yeah, that was this
00:08:35
Speaker
in relation to the pump issue or just because yes, and everything else normal day to day stuff too. But yeah, he had some great ideas. And he said, let's set up a phone call for next week, which I had yesterday with one of the other, you know, more senior guys in the shop that really knows everything about everything. And
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, so that was good. So that leads into the Tornos Swiss oil foaming problem. You know, I get random DMs from guys every now and then like, how's that going? I'm really curious. What's going on? It's still a problem and we're still debugging. You know, we've taken all the fittings apart, all the pumps apart. We bought a new pump, didn't fix
Troubleshooting Tornos Swiss Machine Issues
00:09:17
Speaker
it. Same problem. Um,
00:09:20
Speaker
still going through. We found a pressure switch yesterday that is not measuring properly, so it's probably like a $30. It triggers at 5 PSI and it measures the differential before and after the filters to tell if your filters are clogged or if you're sucking an air or something like that. That switch doesn't seem to be working properly, so this morning the guys are looking for a replacement locally that we can go get.
00:09:43
Speaker
which might solve the problem. Anyway, the guys on the phone last night from MP Systems had a lot of really great suggestions and ideas for things to check once the machine's all back together. Check this, look at the oil like this, check the pressure differential, tell me what happens, call me, et cetera. It said it was great. Is it an MP Systems unit? No, it's an LNS unit.
00:10:04
Speaker
Interesting. And they were super happy to just solve the problem. Yeah. And they're like, look, I'm not trying to sell you an empty systems, but like, you know, it keeps the mind the future. That's all I'm saying. I just want to help you out, you know? And this guy's got so much experience, like decades of experience on all kinds of machines, including a lot of Swiss layouts and oil and stuff. So he, it was really helpful. Um, cause otherwise we're just kind of throwing the parts cannon at it and going like, let's replace this. Let's try that.
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. So anyway, um, still dealing with that. Other than that, uh, played with the UMAQ a little bit late last week. Got everything more together. Um, post the code. Sorry, not UMAQ, uh, Wilhelmin. That's what I meant to say. Did we sell the UMAX? I still have them. I will be selling them. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Updates on Wilhelmin Machine
00:10:58
Speaker
They were for sale, but you just haven't. Yeah, I just sort of installing. So they're still for sale if anybody wants to email me about that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm building the CNC router, which should be done in a month or two. It's going to be sick. And at that point, the UMAX are like not needed for us anymore. So I can move them on. Yes.
00:11:20
Speaker
But yeah, Wilhelmin, I haven't played on it as much as I want, but I did play a little bit last week and just dial things up, calibrate things a little bit better. And now it's like, it's ready to go. I just need to put some time away and be like, okay, today's another Wilhelmin day. Like I'm going to, I'm going to program part. I'm going to program the jaws. I'm going to machine the jaws and like get going on this. On the pen clip. Yeah. Yeah. So it's super fun. Awesome. Yeah. To be a surgeon, right? Yeah, exactly. Awesome.
00:11:51
Speaker
That's about it for me. Oh, cool. We are, oh man, the guys, so I'm obviously in Kansas and we just finished up before I, well, not quite finished before I left the six pieces of aluminum.
DIY Epoxy Tombstones and Manufacturing Challenges
00:12:08
Speaker
So four sides, a top and a bottom for these DIY epoxy tombstones. John, they look
00:12:14
Speaker
amazing. So cool. I don't know why I'm so excited about this. It's not like there's nothing because it's an idea that you want to see come reality and as it becomes a reality, it's looking real like it's going to work. So it's exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It just, I don't know. There's something that's really cool about, um, cat casting and like making this, it's a little bit different. It feels a little hacky. Um, so Alex is doing a test for Alex has done his own, um,
00:12:44
Speaker
machine base out of this before she's got a little bit of experience. Um, but I feel good about it. Um, we had a couple of hiccups, like silly things. Like we changed some whole locations. And then we realized that the, who we were trying to use, we have like a bunch of one, two, three blocks around the shop that are, you know, they are probably all from the far East to begin with. So they're not like, it's not like their suburban tool precision, you know, keep these two of your grandkids one, two, three blocks.
00:13:11
Speaker
Right. And I thought that they would make for a cheap and easy internal cleat versus having the machine something, especially since we don't have a true five access right now and ends up that the way we move the holes meant that the one, two, three blocks had to be trimmed down, which I think granted it's not a huge deal, but it's kind of like in the end that didn't really save us any time whatsoever. Um, but yeah, I mean, we, uh, we are cranking on.
00:13:37
Speaker
the Okuma, but the next step is to get that done because then I can add, um, more products, like we're at a tombstone space right now. So that's the next hurdle there. Um, yes. So what's the Okuma doing right now with you being gone for the week? Making parts right. Oh yeah. Who's running it? Garrett. Okay. Um, yeah. It runs top jobs and reservoirs and doing that, you know, I would say quite well, um,
00:14:07
Speaker
everything that people told me, whether I wanted to listen or not is true about, you know, how much time it takes during the day to check tooling and to, um, you know, take care of your fixtures, if you will, is, is, is for sure true. And so I've started thinking about, we're building a new fixture that'll go on these epoxy tombstones and
Transition to Steel Fixtures
00:14:30
Speaker
I'm going to machine it out of a single piece of aluminum to start and that will be fine, but we're doing it in a way
00:14:37
Speaker
when the picture is mounted in the machine, eventually we can machine out pockets and replace that area with either steel inserts. Or honestly, I might even think about going like hardened steel inserts. Yeah. We've never, we have not done much of that because we just haven't needed to. And part of me likes the thought of like, look, a hardened steel insert doesn't do you any good if you're trying to hammer apart flat and there's a chip stuck behind it. Yeah.
00:15:06
Speaker
So part of it has to do with the process and care around unloading and loading, but it's also, it's still.
00:15:13
Speaker
a hardness seal fixture at this level of production and this quality of a machine tool, it seems more appropriate than aluminum fixtures. Yeah, absolutely. We've used aluminum fixtures for our 3-axis machine for years, and they're great for a certain period of time. But as you're repeatedly putting parts on every day, clamp in the same location, same location, same location, they deform and they flex and they dent and the threads tear out. Yeah.
00:15:41
Speaker
There's long-term issues with doing it for more than a year, basically. So that's why I'm moving everything to steel fixtures. On the current, everything is steel fixtures. I'm making steel ones for the Maury. And just regular 4140 is probably great. It's going to last forever.
00:15:59
Speaker
for that kind of like for part loading where I'm bolting a handle to the top of the fixture. I don't think I feel the need for a hardened steel base fixture. But anything like palletizing, you know, where it's bigger location is more critical. Like an aroa base or something like that needs to be hardened, I think. Do you do any heat treating other than your
00:16:27
Speaker
knife blades and products that are sold? If we need some sort of clamp or plate heat treated, we'll usually do it here. There is a heat treater just like two blocks away that we've used before, sometimes two for bigger things or weird things we don't want to do, but at like $100 minimum loss charge or something.
00:16:50
Speaker
Oh, but that's not me. If you got it, yeah, good grief.
In-house vs. Outsourced Heat Treating
00:16:54
Speaker
Exactly. So it's like one thing, like we'll just do it here, but it takes our guys time to, you know, yeah, I think Vince, I know Vince has done some testing on stuff and I would, we've got that really small, uh, then that you could fit, you know, a part maybe bigger than a baseball, but not much bigger. Okay. Big, big softball in, um, but like same thing. It's just like, man, I, for,
00:17:16
Speaker
for the 80 buck minimum lot, I will just mail it off to Peter's heat treat. Exactly. And know that like it's done incredibly well. Yup. Yup. Vacuum heat treat, you get certified, you get hardness test back. Like, yeah. Yeah. Oh, so this morning we all, you know, we wake up, we come leave the hotel, come over here. And one of the instructors comes up to me. It's been fun. Everyone has said very, very kind and flattering things. I don't
00:17:46
Speaker
I find it quite awkward to talk about because it's just awkward, but like, it's, it's wonderfully, it's wonderful to see the impact, uh, over the years it's, it's, we've had, and that's, that's absolutely great for the good, right reasons.
Mobile Machine Shop and Educational Outreach
00:18:00
Speaker
Um, and one of us is like, I got to show you something. If you got a minute, I'm like, yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Like awesome. What do you got? And like, I don't know what to expect, like not expecting anything that's going to like, I'm not expecting what they about to show me. They took me outside to a fifth
00:18:15
Speaker
50-foot, 40-foot gooseneck modern state-of-the-art machine shop on a trailer that had four Tormach mills, two Tormach lays, a UR robot, they're hoping to add some pocket MC5 access to soon, where they visited 55 schools in the last year, bringing out grade school students and high school students to come out and have the chance to program a nameplate with their name and hit cycle start and watch
00:18:44
Speaker
their name get engraved into a plaque. And these are, you know, you and I are obviously at the point where like, that's not incredibly exciting to us. But like, you can remember what that's like, you don't have no idea. You know, back in your days, when you were messing with your ex too, or whatever, and like, that is like, I just posted on Insta, because I'm like, this is what the world needs more of.
00:19:05
Speaker
totally blown away at how cool this thing was. Oh yeah. Watching your CNC machine engrave your name for the first time is like such an eye opener. And I can only imagine a man. It's like an RV, right? Like it's like a world class trailer. Yeah. Um, it's beautiful inside. That's incredible. Yeah. Uh, so I was like, I was really, I gave them a lot of props for what they do. And it's funny. We, this competition is focused on,
00:19:32
Speaker
judging and rewarding the students, but part of me is like, you know what we need in this country? We need a train to trainers. We need a competition, like a competition that's making awareness and frankly, funding and compensation for the people that are educationists.
00:19:50
Speaker
You know? Yeah, absolutely. And like we follow a couple of the really good educators like Laney Machine Tech, Adam. Fantastic educator. And you know, part of that is because he's open and just like sharing everything. He's such a great guy and he's such a nerd for everything he does. I love it. And there's probably plenty of examples like him that are not on Instagram, you know, that are just like silently doing their thing that we don't know about. But
00:20:17
Speaker
We do absolutely need more of that because you hear like he posts about, you know, stories about other teachers and trainers that are like trash, like, like being bad to the students and like just not helping the solution. Um, and not everybody can be a total rock star, but it's, we need more, we need more. I'll double down on everything you just said, uh, the world is a better place for guys like Adam.
Impact of Educators in Manufacturing
00:20:40
Speaker
And, and look, he's doing a great thing with Instagram. Um,
00:20:44
Speaker
I don't know if he is, I've never bothered to look on YouTube if they have a YouTube platform. He personally has, oh, what's it called? It's really good. If you search air bearing, his face will show up. Okay. It was a pretty big channel. He just kind of got busy and stopped doing it.
00:21:00
Speaker
It's like machinists tips from his garage, like really cool videos that I watched before he got big on Instagram and I learned of him there. And then I put the two and two together and I was like, Oh, that's that guy. Oh yeah. Watching your videos for you. Like such a good guy. Yeah. No, that's awesome. So yeah, it's cool. I mean, that's what, um, there's a wonderful satisfaction to a fulfilling and rewarding and career and look, part of that for sure involves, um, compensation, but there's,
00:21:30
Speaker
far more to it in the sense of an identity. And the team that's competing from Huntsville, Alabama are three young gentlemen that just talked about how for them, you know, it's a part of their soul that goes into every one of their parts. And they weren't saying that to sound cheesy or like they'd meant it was wonderfully rewarding to know that their parts go into airplanes or spaceships or infrastructure or defense. And that means a lot to them. And it's why they're inspired from everything from agriculture to aerospace.
00:22:00
Speaker
And that's what it's all about. One of the fellow judges, Andrew Crow, he's got a bit of an online persona and publicity about it. I come at this from a totally different angle. He was a teenage father and a two-time felon who I don't want to put words in his mouth. We've got it on camera, so we'll turn this into our own video of this recap. But I think he somehow found a job through a friend where he was assembling a bearing or something.
00:22:31
Speaker
you know, nothing that was particularly, it was an entry level job, but he started to realize what that bearing was for and how it could give him a sense of identity and purpose. And ultimately worked his way up to becoming an instructor of a whole machining lab at a college, and is now also really passionate about it. So it's kind of like, okay, like it's sometimes when we live in our own little basements or shops, you forget
00:22:51
Speaker
that there are some other good people out there who really help you pay it forward and share their passion for this. And learning from each other as we've done for the past decade from each other and from our friends and people have learned from us and we just need to promote more and more
Business Growth and Personal Reflection
00:23:06
Speaker
of that. You've been doing it and I feel like you coming home from this event will kind of
00:23:11
Speaker
turn up the dial a little bit for your education, you know, mindset, both with the videos you publish, but also your training classes kind of coming back into the swing. Like, man, I can imagine your brain is just on fire right now. Yeah, yeah, strong. But it also makes me feel like, how do I say this? I'm starting to feel I'm starting to be okay with with turning a different page in the chapter. Sure. I
00:23:40
Speaker
it's not that I have less hustle. I'm starting to realize I'm really proud and comfortable with where we are. And I want to make sure I focus on, on enriching our own organization and, um, giving back. And you can do that all in the guise of running a profitable company, but, um, I don't, I want to think a lot about, this is like super personal stuff, but like, I want to think more about what's the balance of me wanting more versus me wanting to
00:24:10
Speaker
enjoy it more. And like, look, honestly, this ended up becoming really stressful for me coming here because we had a person last minute out sick. And that stinks because you genuinely don't want people to be sick. Like that's not good. Um, and it was just this worst, um, again, super personal, but like, I didn't do a single thing work related on Sunday, which joy mother's day. And that was awesome. But then, um, and I was actually at the shop Monday before I, um, flew to Kansas, but, um, we had,
00:24:40
Speaker
effectively two people out and then I haven't done orders in a while and it was kind of like, okay, this is, we will be fine, but this isn't how I want this company to run period. Yeah, exactly. And so I already actually have somebody coming in to interview to be a kind of help out with that role. And that's fine. It looks, some of it says false pressure. Like I'm, it's a weakness of mine where you, and I think it's probably kind of where you panic. You're like, okay, how are we going to make this happen? Um, but, um,
Future Business Strategies and Delegation
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah, we'll get through it. I don't want to be, I don't want to be stressed about traveling, but ultimately I don't want to allow, you know, I want to be at the shop for this epoxy casting too, you know? Well, both of us are at the point now when we get to design what the next, you know, five years of our business is going to look like. And it's something I'm thinking a lot about as we're slowly growing, we're doing new things, we're hiring a couple of roles, making little plans for the future. And I'm like,
00:25:37
Speaker
you know, what, what do I want to do to have responsibility for in the company on an ongoing basis and how much of that responsibility can be put on the rest of the staff. And if somebody's out, make sure it still gets done. And how do you document all the processes so that things, you know, if somebody fills in the updated process is there. And it's this whole like,
00:25:56
Speaker
what do I want the business to look like? And how involved do I want to be day to day versus big picture planning and playing and research development and just running the show. I'm thinking a lot about all those kinds of things. And yeah, it's just building a sustainable culture. You know, if you want to travel, you need a business that allows you to travel. Right. Were you the one or was it Phil, but you responded to asking about
00:26:26
Speaker
like detailed, what was it, setups or products? Setups and process control. Yeah, Phil was asking about it. Just how to document the work, you know? And it's something I've been doing more of. What specifically did he mean or you mean there? Well, specifically he meant like how to
00:26:50
Speaker
Set up the vice for making a thing you know specific thing like specific process. Whereas now that i've got new girl going i've got a procedure section there i'm dumping everything in there like how to pay our taxes or taxes every month that we have to do how the steps required to hire a new employee.
00:27:10
Speaker
you know, add them to the WhatsApp chat, like, do this, get this information from them, you know, birthday address, things like that. Like, stuff that you only access every now and then, that I'm putting it somewhere, so that I don't have to guess or think about it the next time it happens. And I can give that process to somebody else, because all the information is there. And something I'm going to do with the whole team, maybe I should do it today. But I want, I want everybody to throw a procedure into GURP.
00:27:38
Speaker
anything something you do all the time just Open up a new procedure word vomit a paragraph or two about how to do heat treat or how to do a thing or how to do this how to upload a product to Shopify like what's the current procedure? And I want to start tracking all that stuff interesting Yeah, I found myself getting too far down the road
00:28:05
Speaker
rabbit hole with these kind of like horizontal, like the plan was learn the machine, be able to train everybody else, get these fixtures designed. It was the right fit for me to do that because everybody else was kind of busy and I'm okay. Like Ed took over learning the Akuma Genos and I wasn't not involved whatsoever. I chose to be involved in the horizontal, but I also knew, okay, you need to start handing it off.
00:28:33
Speaker
Don't don't share this but handing it off as hard as you think like yes hundred percent In a good way because you learn all these tribal knowledge nuggets and sometimes In a weird way you don't you want to just tell Like I just want to tell the other people this is how it is for now but then you also gotta just like they got to learn in this case like we have a fixture that I just I Don't love how it's behaving
00:29:03
Speaker
But to build it from scratch, which I think could fix it is going to be a pretty good amount of work.
00:29:10
Speaker
Kind of like right on the fence. Yeah. You know what I mean? I do. I know exactly what you mean. And now what I would do in that scenario and what I do do is I'll write down my thoughts and be like, here's how it's working right now. Here's how I kind of want it to learn, to be like, I wish it was made out of steel or I wish the threads were tighter. I wish the thing, you know, just kind of like get it out of your head. And then that really helps me to see it and visualize it and hand it off if I need to.
00:29:37
Speaker
because my thoughts are now there and i find so much of that tribal knowledge like you said if i teach somebody something. Now both of us could still forget to do it you know and like sometimes the current will have a little weird alarm that happens every few months or the aroa like crashes and has to.
00:29:57
Speaker
be recovered. And I forget the exact step by step procedure. Last week I wrote it down. And then I have a procedure in GURP. So next time it happens, and I'm not here, I'll just be like Angelo, just look it up in GURP, search current, and you'll find it. Yeah, it's like, it's like, okay, now that I'm doing it more, it's so obvious that I want to do more and more of it. I mentioned this on the same thing with the like FedEx overnight shipping two weeks ago or whatever. I think so.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, it's really weird how to, or it's easy to forget how to re-enable that. And it's like, that's a tribal knowledge thing, but it's like so uncommon. I hesitate to like spend much time trying to build procedures and framework around it. Cause it really is, you know, it's kind of one of these like two or three things have to fail for that for us to get there. And even when we get there, the consequences, we have to tell a customer we could ship at FedEx overnight tomorrow or
00:30:52
Speaker
We can ship it today. It's like, it's not like, you know, we're not running a nuclear facility where we need redundant backup throws. People die. Yeah, exactly. But I mean, maybe that's some of the mentality that needs to take over at some point. As we add more and more, I'm curious what it'll be like if, you know, when anybody on the staff encounters an issue, do they bash their head against the issue for a couple hours or do they look it up in GURP because it might be there?
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah. Like at what point do you, does everybody realize maybe it's there, you know? Well, and that's why, does your group have good search functionality? Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Really good. I love that. Because my personal cynical view is that if you have to go into GURP and pick a machine and then scroll through like the equivalent of a user guide or troubleshooting guide, that was good. Exactly. If you can search Kern Aroa, you see the results. It's kind of like, okay, I'll give that a shot. Exactly.
00:31:52
Speaker
Interesting. So yeah, playing with that. Um, I think it's going really well, just needs to spread, spread his wings a little bit more, you know, infiltrate more into the company. Is that what you've been working on a lot in this group this week? Actively this week. I haven't really worked on it at all.
Transition to Steel Fixtures on Maury
00:32:07
Speaker
Um, but I've got a couple of things nagging out here. Like I've been adding to it. I've been adding things. Um, but I haven't been working on the functionality of it and improving it. Um, but it's great. What have you been up to? Um,
00:32:25
Speaker
designing the new fixtures that I've been working on for the Maury. I've been picking away at them for months and months, and I made a lot of progress the past few days. So that'll be good, like the steel replacements to the aluminum ones.
00:32:40
Speaker
Oh, you're getting are you ditching the orange tops? I am I'm ditching the orange vices off the machine completely. Okay. Because we don't use the vices as a vice. Yeah, like ever. I still like them, you know, but I'm going to make I've got base plates made, I'm going to make adapter plates, which I started making to put shunk pulse that face pallets, like it's got a big fat, you know, inch and a half pulse that in the middle with a locating pin on the side. So they're six inch round.
00:33:11
Speaker
pallets. They look kind of like my Aroa pallets, but they're shrunk. So I'm going to have a bunch of those on the Maury, at least nine of them, if not 12, kind of fill the table with them. And then my individual knife fixtures can go on top of that and they'll be pneumatically controlled. So that's, yeah, I want that done. I've wanted that done for a very long time, but I'm making good moves on it right now. Cool. What's, are they going to be round fixtures?
00:33:40
Speaker
The shunk fixtures are round. The top fixtures will probably be a rectangle. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's how the parts fit really well. Yeah. Yeah. So I've already got those designed up. Like right now I've got two full knives on an orange pallet top, but now I'm going to kind of slim that down because they're much smaller now. They're six by six instead of six by 20.
00:34:02
Speaker
So I'll have two handles on the one and then the blades on the side and the pocket clip and that's about it. That's all we need. Are you machining the fixtures on the five axis current? At the moment, yes. But eventually, like I need to do the roughing on the Maury or on this video when it comes in. Why? It takes forever on the current. Just I have to hit it light with a long tool. And yeah, I need like,
00:34:31
Speaker
I want to do the same thing in the Maury and just destroy the steel. I want to see that happen. I can't do that on the current. It's funny. With anything over three-eighths of an inch and long, the current isn't happy with it. Especially cutting steel, 41-40 steel, not the right fit. I want to take a half inch, two-inch length, the cut end mill.
00:34:52
Speaker
on the Maury and just plow it through like go to town, see what some horsepower feels like. Yeah. Let her cut like she's never cut before. Exactly. So I'm looking forward to that. So funny, very similar thing here where the new tombstones will also end up using for our mod devices and we use these opt to fixtures on the VF2 for over a year and they work great. They hold the part correctly, gives us good
00:35:20
Speaker
repeatability because it's a probing point. And rather than move those aluminum ones over to the horizontal, I want to parallel process this. So I want to bring modified spaces online on the horizontal while we're still making them on the VF2. And Ed agreed, like, let's just make the new ones out of steel from the get-go. And so Monday, I was planning on making those, but ended up having to step in and fill orders.
00:35:49
Speaker
I was upset because I wanted, I was so excited. Like I had the code ready to go. I had programmed it, but I realized, um, it's a mistake to try to serve two masters today. Like just keep your house in order. And it felt good to get a lot of orders out the door. Um, and it'll be waiting for me when I get back. Um, but I guess that's what I'm, I'm saying this out loud to share because it's like, man, it doesn't, you know,
00:36:11
Speaker
It wasn't an easy call. And I was like, what's, what good's going to come if you make a mistake, if you crash the machine, cause you're trying to rush and, um, it'll be okay. It'll be when you get back, but I've got this chunk of steel in a mod vice on a zoom surface, like waiting to go.
00:36:28
Speaker
I can't wait to let her eat. I can't wait to cut that picture. Exactly. I've had that too many times. You know, it's like, I'm ready to go. It's already late. It's like, you know, six, seven o'clock at night and like the kids are texting me, let's go to the park. And I'm like, it's almost done. Like, I just want to do this one thing. No. Okay. I gotta, I gotta put it aside. Do something out. Like I gotta go, you know, it's always playing that balance. Yeah.
00:36:51
Speaker
Oh, so how was the rest of the trade show? Did you get your eight hours of service? Yeah, so I went to all four locations. The DMG Mori booth was, or building, like location, was kind of empty this year. They said they can't keep machines in stock. They had like three machines in stock and normally there's like 20. And it just seemed very open, very bright as it always is, but like kind of empty.
00:37:16
Speaker
Yeah, that was good. I got to see, I went to Ferro Technique, who I'm buying the speedio from, and I got to see some W1000 speedios. It's their new, big, stronger, more powerful speedio with these crazy fourth axis tables on them that had insane hydraulic fixtures with little cam locks and like movement stuffs meant for high production automotive.
00:37:44
Speaker
So the pharaoh is configuring these machines for the customer who bought eleven of them nice and so they're setting it up and basically getting a turnkey for them and it's really cool to see and they're like don't take any pictures don't talk about it don't tell it who's four but it's cool to see and it was nice to actually be able to like.
00:38:05
Speaker
now that I've purchased this video, I've seen them at chosen stuff and I've like touched one, but I've never really poked at it. Uh, it's nice to poke at the control and actually like watch it run. And, uh, like he ran the cycle just air cutting and I'm like, holy cow, this thing is so fast. Yeah, it is really impressive. Like really, really impressive. I've seen all the Instagram videos and we know so many people that have them, but it's like, whoa, I can't wait. Your current is not slow, John.
00:38:32
Speaker
I know, but I'm going to do it side by side because they're going to be side by side. This video is going to smoke it. Okay. Yeah. Especially for tool changes, the current's kind of slow for tool changes in comparison.
00:38:46
Speaker
But yeah, super excited. So I'm probably hopefully four weeks out before I'm receiving it. Very excited about that.
CMM Stand Delay and Planning Impact
00:38:56
Speaker
Awesome. And did I tell you about the CMM stand issue? No. So I ordered the CMM, paid my deposit.
00:39:04
Speaker
waiting to hear. They're like, yeah, it should be a couple weeks, no big deal. And then they're like, oh, it's three months backordered or more. And I'm like, no, I thought it'd be here next week kind of thing. It turns out the stand that I ordered, the deluxe stand that holds the computer and it's all holds the computer underneath and your accessories and things like that. And it puts it up at working height. That is backordered and they don't like to build everything and push it through without that.
00:39:33
Speaker
You can buy the CMM without a stand and put it on a table or whatever, but I ordered it with the stand so they'd want it to wait. And I was like, come on, just send me the CMM, send me the stand when it comes in. This is not a big deal. And they're like, oh, okay. And so the CMM should be here in a couple of weeks. And then we got to find a table that can hold 700 pounds safely and rigidly.
00:39:57
Speaker
And yeah, so Angela and I were talking yesterday about what sort of basic fixtures we need for it, kind of programs we need to get ready, what parts we're doing first. And just, we're basically just going to make like say the Norseman blade, CMM it before he treat and just do everyone. And we'll start there. Awesome. Yeah. So much data. So much data. And the comparative data is what's going to be awesome. Like part to part and also before he treat and after he treat. That's what I'm super excited about. It's a Duramax, right?
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, you stand on there, right? They do too funny. But they had a Duramax and it was in the crate and they were it's like it looks like it's kind of the trade show motor unit because you know, they were bringing in so I was watching them set it up looking at it and very, very cool to kind of care more about that because you know, that's gonna be your machine and it's been on our radar. Yeah. But it's funny too, because I don't remember we talked about this last week, but we were we brought our deltron escape pins to our anodizers and when they were
00:40:56
Speaker
rinsing our plates, which is rinsed in a pretty hot water, we were checking the growth of the holes and it was very significant in terms of like 10 spins of how much they grew immediately. You put an aluminum plate under hot water and it changed the bore size. Well, they submerged it in 150 degree water for two to three minutes.
00:41:23
Speaker
And then it grew, I think like two tenths and they moved into cold water and it went right back and it's kind of like, okay, being able to like show how repeatable that is is very interesting. Yeah. Makes me think, did you listen to, uh, I don't even know if it was a new episode, but I think it's the newest episode of the micro podcast with Josh and Adam. I haven't yet. Oh my God. I love those guys. Uh, and Adam was talking about how he wants to have that last little bit of
00:41:53
Speaker
repeatability in his shop. And so he bought a aquarium fish tank water heater. And it just helps keep the chill out of his grinder coolant in the winter. Okay, yep. And part of me thought about that too, because once the machines are running, it heats up a bit. But I'm like, Oh, man, for 3040 bucks, probably not a bad idea to put a heater in our Akuma sump that keeps that water, you know, easily warmer than it will get in the winter.
00:42:20
Speaker
Yeah, I remember reading about that in the past. If you heat it, it might do bacteria and some weird stuff. I don't know. Oh, really? Keep it flowing maybe. But the MP systems guys, the coolant guys, were saying that most of the heat, like 90% of the heat in your coolant comes from the motors and the electrical heat from every horsepower of every motor in your machine, especially the coolant pumps.
00:42:49
Speaker
Especially these smaller machines like my 13 millimeter tornos doesn't make a lot of heat in the chip like at all. Oh, yeah, agreed. So like as the coolant heats up, it's from all the horsepower of all the motors kind of combined.
00:43:03
Speaker
So they said, just turn on the cooling pumps for half an hour while you drink your morning coffee kind of thing. And that will warm up the coolant a little bit at the beginning of the day. But yeah, all those little things kind of add up to consistency. You know, the current is 20 degrees Celsius plus or minus 0.1 always. Yeah. Both coolant and spindle. And it's like, it's just always the same. You know, whereas other machines kind of fluctuate once you really start to see.
00:43:32
Speaker
That's one of the things I want to start tackling the second half of this year is like, I'm not unhappy, but I'm not happy with where we are on the Akuma horizontal with like, so we got an M code for our mist, actually the MP systems kind of not cool. Originally the mist unit would only function when through spindle tools were activated, but I'm like, no, I want the mist unit on at my discretion, but probably all the time that it's machining. We got that fixed, but then it's not turning off necessarily all the time correctly. And then.
00:44:02
Speaker
We leave the machine on overnight. I think it goes into kind of a power sleep mode. But I'm fine with that. I don't really need it to turn off at 2 a.m. or whatever. But I also think I want every two hours for it to run the cool bumps for five minutes or something. Or at least I want the ability to control that process to add our discretion because I don't want to wait till we're all in to just start a warm up. There's no reason for that.
00:44:29
Speaker
You might need a dummy program kind of running all night with six hours of wait codes and then M8. That's true. You could do that. Yeah, that is true. Have you talked directly to the MP systems guys, or are you still going through Gossinger for those tweaks and information? We've emailed a couple of times. I haven't had to do too much, but yeah. Yeah, if you need them, I mean, they're great. Yeah, they sound like they're great. Yeah, it's true. I'm for sure I've seen that how the support in Gossinger has been
00:44:59
Speaker
I mean beyond expectations. I really got to give them a shout out of how happy I've been with that. Awesome. Yeah, because I remember asking one of the guys at the show about your miscollector only turning on at weird times like when the coolant was on. I forget if I asked MP Systems directly or if I asked the Okuma dealer.
00:45:16
Speaker
Um, who also, they say we only sell MP systems with all of our Google web machines, but I forget who I asked, but they said it's, it's a setting. It's just, you can figure how it turns on and off. I don't know. Oh no. Ours had to, it had to be a wiring change. Really? Yeah. So it's a good like PSA. I would, um, I would, we got to fix all even with that. Um, so yeah.
00:45:42
Speaker
It's, it's good. Awesome. So, uh, yeah, we're at time right now, but what, what does your day look like? Uh, I mean, I don't really know. We had this, I mean, it's like a legit production company like studio crew here. Um, and we have to go be judgy again and then machine their parts now. Um, and more, um, I'm a judge and I'm a mentor. So just talking to students about,
00:46:10
Speaker
answering questions how I can and so forth. So yeah, that's good. That's amazing. Yeah, I also got to say a big thank you to everybody on the internets in YouTube. I was I would say self conscious, but I was I was hoping to have a good dialogue and reception to the video we just posted about how to prepare for a recession. And you have talked about this so much. It's been on my mind. And I kind of thought there's a video that might get rolled or like,
00:46:39
Speaker
I don't know, just poo poo, and it couldn't have been a better conversation, even in the comments around. And the timing, unfortunately, is good, because I think people are starting to see whether things are getting worse or not. They're certainly different than they were six months ago. And that makes me feel great about being able to help everybody be a little bit more well versed and intelligent about thinking and being prepared for what could come. Wonderful. Yeah.
00:47:08
Speaker
What do you do to the rest of the day? My dad's coming over with some lunch for me and Eric. Um, and then I'm going to keep helping Pierre try to get the Swiss pump figured out. Hopefully you can find that replacement switch locally. Okay. Got it. That's pretty much it. Cool. I will see you next week. All right, man. Enjoy the show. Make the most of it. Hey, I appreciate it. Okay. Bye.