Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Business of Machining - Episode 107
231 Plays7 years ago
Maximizing use of the Mill
Grimsmo’s mill was STILL running when he came in this morning! That is one. Great. First.
On top of that, last week was the highest week ever for production at the Grimsmo shop.
“You keep saying that!” - Saunders
Apparently record breaking is the new norm, and Grimsmo is still trying to produce even more.
Saunders’ reminder
- Reminders can increase production! Sometimes it’s just a small forgotten step in a process that got in the way of producing more. Pro Tip: Set a reminder for that step
- While you’re at it, set reminders for yourself so you stay on track with who you’re trying to become
#MachinistGoals
“Your spindle is only ever down for a pallet change” - Grimsmo
Book Recommendation!
Do you love history and machining? Freedom’s Forge could be a great pick for you! It dives deep into the history of WWII, while also taking technology and available machines into the equation. Plus, Saunders highly recommends it.
The ULTIMATE machine buying guide
Check out the NYC CNC website for important information and tips on financing your machine, and how to find the right one for your needs.
“Most people don’t mind paying for something, they just don’t want to pay for it if someone else didn’t pay for it or got a better deal” - Saunders
Pro tip:
“It only matters what goes into the loan documents in the end” - Saunders
Tidying Up, Saunders Style
Saunders doesn’t regret purging the workshop of unnecessary stuff for one second.
Are YOU ready to binge shop tours?
- Superb Industries Shop Tour Coming Soon! While you’re waiting, check out @adam_the_machinist on Instagram.
- Also check out the Fabrisonic video tour on Saunders’ Youtube channel
- And look out for shop tour videos based on the 2 week binge of tours Saunders will be doing in the next couple weeks.
SIGN UP FOR A SAGA PEN
The time has come for the Saga Sign-Up List to go LIVE! Grimsmo launched it this past weekend as a link on his Instagram bio. More information about the pen will go up on the website soon. For now, you can learn more about the Grimsmo custom pen by checking out the Saga Saturday videos
So, real talk. When is the swiss lathe coming?
Grimsmo and Saunders discuss the need for a swiss lathe in the Grimsmo shop now that producing pens consistently is becoming more imminent.
“I just don’t want to spend a ton of money on bells and whistles I don’t need” - Grimsmo
And it’s also a matter of the machine fitting in the shop. But that's a question for another time.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and CNC Machine Excitement
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning, and welcome to the business of machining episode 107. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is Sean Saunders. Good morning, buddy. How are you? Fantastic. I came into the shop for the podcast. The machine was still running from the night before. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. The Maury? The Maury, yeah. And it ran for like five minutes while we were chit chatting, and then shut off.
00:00:24
Speaker
Wait, that is two pallets and knives? That is two pallets. Now, granted, I did come in super late last night, around 10, 11 o'clock, and put on the next round. But still, I've always wanted to come back in and have the mill still running. Oh, is this the first time ever? I think so. Interesting. Because even two pallets is only seven hours. So say you put it on at 6 PM, done at 1 AM. Right. But yeah, I've come in and the lathe was still running. Awesome. But yeah, it's super awesome.
00:00:54
Speaker
Isn't that, there's just something about that, that is amazing to think that, that the machines are working. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's all process control and reliability. And you just, I know that it can go for seven plus hours without breaking a tool every time, you know, it happens sometimes without getting hung up or stuck or confused or anything. And it's working.
00:01:18
Speaker
It reminds me of when we had the trunnion and we made our first five-axis part. I think it was just positional, but I've held a bajillion five-axis parts at trade shows and other shops. And it's cool, but you just hold a part and you're like, okay, you do the usual thing, which is you look at the chamfers, you look to see how the toolpaths came in, you think about how you'd hold it. But when I held that first part in my hand, as simple as it was, it kind of changed my life because it made me realize
Advantages of Advanced Machinery
00:01:47
Speaker
why, and I'm like 10 years behind on this, but I'm not because I think a lot of shops are still maybe on the fence about five axis or aren't, certainly you walk into a lot of shops where there's still more vertical spindles than five axis. Anyway, it was that part that I held, that I made, that I fixured, that I programmed, that I opened up the future of that opportunity to me.
00:02:08
Speaker
as simple as it was. And I got to think it's the same way to think the walk back in and the machines still, I'll do it when I go to dinner sometimes. I don't have a way to run overnight. And you come back and you're like, that thing was, that thing was working that whole time. Yep. Yep. I love it. Oh, that's awesome. So amazing. And on a similar note, you know, five axis has always been cool and sexy and like amazing and you know, dream one day kind of thing. But it wasn't until Rob Lockwood
00:02:35
Speaker
explain to me how a palletized five axis machine can basically run continuously, you know, and many small pallets, you got to make a fixture, you just schedule it in. And then so you you make the fixture and then you make a different part and then you load the fixture and then you roll it back into production and then you make the part on the fixture and then you cut your soft jaws and it's just this constant revolution of 100% spindle uptime becomes possible at that point.
00:03:03
Speaker
So especially sprinkling in daily production with R&D stuff, with playing around with clamps, with soft jaws and whatever you need to make. I finally understand, and this was many, many months ago, but I finally understand how shops are getting like 95% spindle utilization and all that.
Cost Efficiency in Production Tools
00:03:24
Speaker
it just makes sense. So what you're saying is if you have a five axis machining center, and let's say it has a built in 30 palette, you know, a row or whatever system, what you're saying is that pallets one through 10 could be, uh, fixtured up and material ready to go to make a knife. But let's say at two o'clock in the afternoon, you want to run a test part where you could fixture that up on the palette and then just say, Hey, next time you're done, grab fixture 11, make my part. And then when I'm done playing with it, it's just going right back to its normal work.
00:03:54
Speaker
Exactly. Your spindle is only ever down for a pallet change. You're right. You're going to need a lot of tool holders. I know. I know. So you think about that. You're like, how many tool holders is enough? How many pallets is enough? I don't know. All different machines have different capacities and some even have bigger expansions of various capacities. And I'm like, I don't know. But the cost difference between
00:04:23
Speaker
you know, X amount and XX amount of tool holders or pallets is not a lot really. The Matt Sur guys were showing, and I may get the numbers wrong, but like the 300 and some option on a ma'am is the same casting as the 500 option. And when you move to that style, it's the one that looks like a side, like a wall of tools. It's just a robot that moves along sort of a wall to pick tools like it was a book shelf.
00:04:53
Speaker
Exactly. Or mailbox, like it's picking out of a cubby hole. So it's not like a umbrella tool changer or a side mount tool changer or a carousel where it's got to have all the tools rotating and moving and linked in. They're just individual racks that are static and the robot just moves over and picks it. So the cost to go up there is relatively small compared to the overall. You've spent far more money
Negotiating Machine Financing
00:05:16
Speaker
putting another 150 HSK holders in there than you will on the
00:05:22
Speaker
I would be worried about the tooling costs. But yeah, the Mathsware is specifically like the MAM, the LX, and some of the other ones that have this, I think they call it a magazine style rack.
00:05:37
Speaker
where like you said it's it's like a bookshelf and it comes base with I think 128 tools and you buy these um it's just a flat aluminum plate with a bunch of cutouts in it where your tool locks in place and I think those pieces are like
00:05:52
Speaker
five grand per piece, and that gets you another dozen tools or something. But apparently, you can just make your own of that piece as well. And then you can expand the tool rack as much as you want. Oh, really? Yeah, they look like a really simple part. I suspect there's probably a software unlock that they sort of rightfully charge you for. There's actually a pretty decent tolerance to those. I think they've got to be aligned within a thousandths of an inch across whatever. They're probably 70. Yeah.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, but you're probably right about the software unlock too. Right, which people get upset about. I have no, it doesn't bother me one bit, but it's also a, there's a difference between negotiating and haggling, right? Like if you're offering value, that's capital and business 101. And I've been loving that freedom's forge book. And it kind of talks about this idea of like nickel and diming,
00:06:50
Speaker
and getting upset and looking backward and looking to other people to fix your problems like you shouldn't charge me, it's just a software unlock. When that book to me is all about like the future, like we're successful, we're growing, we're making parts, we are executing on our strategy, of course I'm happy to pay. I'm actually excited to pay you as a machine tool builder to support what we're doing to get us the service, to get us the quality, get us the capabilities that we want to let us unlock and run and execute and crush it.
00:07:18
Speaker
Absolutely. 100%. That being said, there's still an element of negotiating. I have no problem with that. But it irks me when people say, it's just like a car. If you buy a car and there's a feature in it, XM radio, well, it doesn't actually cost them anything to unlock it. But yes, you have to pay for that. Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Otherwise, you're just whining and complaining and haggling, like you said. Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:45
Speaker
I think a lot of it ties back to that behavioral economics thing of most people don't mind paying for something. They just don't want to pay for it if somebody else didn't pay for it. No, seriously, that's the worst. If I pay for an unlock feature in Grimsmo or Lockwood or somebody's like, oh, we got to throw it in, pretty emotionally brutal to hear that. Yeah, I can see that.
00:08:10
Speaker
Because you have to know to ask sometimes. You've got to be in the secret circle kind of thing to know that secret trick. But you feel left out when you didn't know to ask. Or I've definitely heard of people negotiating some pretty aggressive machine financing deals, or purchasing details, or no payments for nine months, or whatever detail you want. And I'm like, I didn't even think to ask for half of those things. And I did mine. I was just happy enough that they
00:08:39
Speaker
that they would approve me for a machine years ago. Yeah. No, that's okay. I always got to be, I think it ties back a little bit to the kind of New York attitude of everyone's out to meet you, like you watch your back, protect yourself. And if anyone is financing a machine, please go look at our NYC CNC page. We've got a video and a bunch of tips and even a quiz on all these things you should be aware of and ask for and look for. And
00:09:08
Speaker
I cannot say this enough. It doesn't matter what people say on the phone, in person or in emails. It only matters what goes into the loan documents in the end. And I can't tell you how awkward that is and annoying and people will give you a hard time. But if you say to the lender or the machine tool company, you told me,
00:09:30
Speaker
XYZ, you told me there was not going to be a prepaid penalty or this was going to be the case and it's in an email, but it's not in the loan docs and they may say, well, don't worry about it. Or, you know, we can't change those docs. No, make like it's stick up for yourself here. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. I just pulled up your document there and I will definitely a piece through this. I think I, I think I glanced at the video when it first came out, but, um, yeah, the document, the page on the website looks amazing. I like the quiz.
00:09:59
Speaker
It's only interesting if you're financing a machine. Otherwise, it's the most boring topic in the world. But let me tell you, for a lot of places, buying a car, buying a shop, or leasing a shop, or buying a machine tool is going to be some of the biggest financial decisions you ever make. So good grief. Yeah. Do it right. Don't get fleas. Don't be silly.
Revolutionizing Production with Five-Axis Machines
00:10:20
Speaker
Put the thought and care and effort into it that you would. I mean, it's most likely, aside from maybe a house, going to be the most expensive thing anybody buys. Right.
00:10:29
Speaker
So it definitely is serious. I was talking to a machine to a machine to a builder who sent out a pretty aggressive financing spec sheet. And I was just, it was, I caught my eye and I kind of said, Hey, that what are you, how are you doing this? Um, and long based on what, like interest rate or something else? Yeah. So it was basically like five years, 10% down 2% interest rate. Yeah. So two things like that. Right. So that's way below market. And how's that even possible?
00:10:59
Speaker
Well, here's how it's possible. Okay, let's do it. At least in the US, there are certain regulations about how you can structure loans. They have to be at a competitive market interest rate. It's a regulated industry. I'll leave it at that.
00:11:16
Speaker
what they're doing here is actually a true financial instrument where they're purchasing a buydown of the rate. So there's an actual cash transaction between the tool building company and the financing company, where they're saying the rate for this, the market rate on this sort of collateral, on this loan term, on this credit risk of the borrower, et cetera, would actually put that at probably something like 7% or 6% right now. These fluctuate, but something like that.
00:11:43
Speaker
We want that loan to be 2%, so we're going to pay you today $6,000 to quote unquote buy that rate down. And so the guy sort of explains, so basically what we do is we don't give you a discount, we just give you a lower rate. But that goes back to
00:12:01
Speaker
What I say in that paper, which is that nothing is free. If they offer to give you nine months, no payments, you're still paying for that. Trust me. That's not a concession. That's not a you win, they lose deal. It's just shifting numbers around that you ultimately still pay for. Interesting. Okay. I guess I understood a
Historical Production Techniques
00:12:21
Speaker
similar but not quite as deep version of that low interest rate because I figured it somehow came out of the builder or the reseller's pocket.
00:12:31
Speaker
But yeah, I didn't really understand the, uh, there's no free lunch kind of thing. Like you get 2% interest, but you're not going to get a discount on the machine or you're not going to get yada, yada, yada. Um, like when I got the Maury, they air quote threw in the Renishaw probes for a ridiculous value. Um, but that was part of the negotiating price. Like.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Sure. Sure. At the time for my first machine, you know, three and a half years ago, it was like, Oh my gosh, what a great deal. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Oh, you did fine. John, I wouldn't. Don't beat yourself up. Nope, I'm not. I just, I realized now, not that I was naive, but for the first deal, it was very, very green, very fresh. Yeah. Very like, very exciting for sure. Yeah.
00:13:16
Speaker
I think the best thing you can do is try to talk to, it's a good time to have some folks tend, they tend to be older because they've been through more in life. They bought more things that may be a little bit wiser, but it's a good time to bounce stuff off of them or simply get two quotes. You'd be amazed at what happens when you get another builder in to say, hey, just want to take a look. Are you guys a good fit? This is what we're trying to do. You can even be honest. You can say, look,
00:13:41
Speaker
Akuma has put out a really good proposal. I really like the machine. The service sounds great, but I definitely want to have you guys take a look. Are you interested? Always get them to... It's almost better to say, if you're interested, let me know and I'd love to let them say, yes, we'd like to quote it. Yeah, that's a really good idea. I should do that. I guess it gives you a little bit of leverage just by
00:14:05
Speaker
by not putting all your eggs in their baskets so that they don't think they have you 100% already. Yeah, you'll be amazed at what you learned. It's just like going to a trade show. You'd be polite about it, but you can say, hey.
00:14:16
Speaker
I'm really interested in learning about your tool pre-setter. The folks at Spironi have said some really cool things. I think I really like that system. What's your pitch? What's your pitch for the value on your system? Is there something I should be aware of? It would be nice about it, but hey, look, this is business. Most people are excited to talk to an informed consumer.
00:14:42
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. So the, so the Norseman's are running well, huh? You got all your probing pallets fixed. Yeah. Um, last week was my biggest week as far as production. Super excited for that. You keep saying, you keep saying that dude. Raising the bar.
00:15:01
Speaker
And it would have been higher by two knives last week, except I forgot to reset the tool counter macro again, so that it finished the first palette, got to the second palette, and says, tool 8's worn out. Yet it isn't, because I replaced it. I just forgot to reset that thing to zero. This is the thing we talked about, where you could put in a trigger.
00:15:23
Speaker
I looked into it. I could absolutely reset the calendar automatically on a tool setting operation, but I also set the name value as the date, like February 19th, and I don't think I can write to that. Everything I've looked at says I can't write to that name value.
00:15:43
Speaker
There's this thing called set VN, set variable name, which doesn't write to that. And maybe I just need to ask my DMG guy what the heck's going on. But I was saying just to keep it simple and just have a
00:15:57
Speaker
yes, no, like, I don't know. Can you send you an email? Can it force you to, can you have it pull up to like a G4 pause and then say you need to, can't proceed until an option stop until you, just something that interrupts you that tells you you need to do this. Oh, that's different. That you can't skip. So you still do the work, but it's just a trigger. Okay. That could do that. Yeah. Just a G zero pause with a note.
00:16:26
Speaker
Well, that would, that would just go, that would let you just walk away and it would disappear. I want something that requires a user action. No, no. If you do a G zero, then it's not going to continue until you, uh, Oh, sorry. I've taken G four. Sorry. Yeah. Um, yeah, I might try that because that's easy to try. I like that. Uh, it might get annoying for setting up various tools where we're not resetting the counter, but I don't know if we do that actually.
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, I'll try it. Well, you could, you could do a conditional GZ or based on the tool number. Ooh, you're probably right. Sure. Now the questions are all your two numbers say the same for what you manage and what you don't manage. They do. Yeah. But if it's in a pool, I don't know if I need to, I don't know if I need the conditional. I'll just, I'll just throw an M zero in there right now and say, Hey, do you have to reset the counter?
00:17:19
Speaker
continue. Yeah. And then do it. I would just, I would do anything to stop making bad parts. And even if it disrupts you, because then you'll smooth that system out. Exactly. And either bad parts or no parts in this scenario, because second palette is literally sitting there for, you know, three and a half hours of supposed to be machined time. Yeah. And then you come in in the morning disappointed and confused. And you're like, what happened? I don't know. Yep.
00:17:48
Speaker
So remove all methods of
00:17:51
Speaker
failure, I guess, little mistakes and things like that, human error. I got so excited. I can't believe how much I'm enjoying this Freedom's Forge, partly because it's the first time I've ever read a history book where every fourth paragraph, they're talking about a machine shop or a machine tool, which is just so cool. It's like the author was a secret lover of machine shops, but it really explained the context of World War II in a different light, talking about how
00:18:19
Speaker
At the risk of simplifying it, you can win battles or wars by just having so much production. You keep shooting the planes down, we're building them faster. The boats, you sink them, we build them faster, which is very sad and very tragic in the absolute definition of the word. Nevertheless, it's history that happened. You learn from it instead of ignoring it or being upset by it.
00:18:44
Speaker
there was this story of how they built Liberty ships, which were these large transport ships, cargo ships that were basically meant to try to get stuff to Britain or to Europe, knowing that a significant number of them were going to be shot down by, or excuse me, torpedoed by U-boats. It's very sad to think you're building this. These are huge ships. They look like hundreds of feet long.
00:19:11
Speaker
When they first started planning them and building them, and they were built off of existing British design, it was something like 190 days to build this boat that, again, it looks like a cruise ship, but it's military. And so you think, okay, six months? Yeah, jeez. I mean, that's like plate steel and hatches and lots of stuff in them. You want to know what the record ended up being once they got these industrious guys in,
00:19:36
Speaker
I want to take a guess at how long it took them to build the record quickest Liberty ship. From six months, I'll guess three months. Four days.
00:19:47
Speaker
Shut up. Now, it's a little bit cheating, but they basically figured out sub-assemblies. They brought in folks that didn't build boats. They brought in folks that had built tractors or automobiles or other things, and they tied them up with boat builders. It's an interesting dichotomy because they also talk about building airplanes, and I'll talk about that because it's very different. But relatively speaking, boats either are simple or can be simple.
00:20:14
Speaker
And so they completely rewrote the way they handled sub assemblies, how they put in the motor, how they built in sections that could then be prefabbed and then kind of stuck together. They moved well to welding from riveting. And so the four day boat was a little bit of an anomaly because they had kind of stacked the deck in their favor to get everything into place. And then they laid the keel down and then built it up, but they were actually building them sustainably on a system in 10 days.
00:20:42
Speaker
Oh my God, like repeatedly and it worked. I mean, they had, so it's this like wonderful culmination of delegation of making just like you and Angelo making prints for the saga pen, like making a prince that a sub assembly guy in Detroit can make correctly a thing for this boat that's getting assembled in Pasadena or Long Beach or whatever.
00:21:04
Speaker
And it's just like wonderfully ingenious and humbling because here it is, you know, that's now what 70 years ago. And those guys were, I mean, literally crushing it on production. And now here you and I are kind of, I don't want to say that we're reinventing the wheel, but sometimes it feels like we're so naive that we're, we're discovering things that are relatively basic, but that's okay. Absolutely.
00:21:29
Speaker
Well, this ties back to when we were at IMTS and we went to that Smithsonian. Was it Smithsonian? I forget. Natural. I was sick, very lame. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We didn't go. You didn't go. I didn't go. Anyway, so they had a U-boat, like an actual U-boat in the basement of this place. And on the wall, they had
00:21:51
Speaker
pictures and like tally marks of all of the giant battleships that have gone down, hundreds of them and you just see all these red ships and these are all the ones that were sunk and I'm like how on earth did all these ships get built only to be destroyed and sunk to the bottom of the ocean and this makes more sense you know if they're building them every 10 days that
00:22:12
Speaker
at least mathematically makes sense. But geez, it's like the waste of war is insane. And this was 70 years ago. Yeah. And look, I have always been a believer in things like the saying, you know, peace through superior firepower. I don't believe in, I don't believe in
00:22:30
Speaker
I believe there's an element of that that is true, but boy, when you see this, you do realize just you watch shows like Band of Brothers and you just realize, man, there's a side of war, but there's just nothing cool about it. My God. Yeah. But apparently Hitler even came to know this guy, Knudsen's name, who was this auto guy who was a key role in this transformation of our industry.
00:22:55
Speaker
And there's something cool to know that it ticked off Hitler that this guy was so good about figuring out how to build in such quantities. That's epic. Yeah. What about airplanes you were going to say? Yeah. So the difference with airplanes, to summarize, was Knudsen had also realized we can't make airplanes, meaning we meaning when he would go to a sewing machine company or a flag making company, some company that was in within industry but not in that specialty.
00:23:25
Speaker
With the boat making, it was kind of jump ball. Anybody can make them tanks. Anybody can make them. We'll figure this out. But airplanes, he got into a fight with a guy, a verbal fight saying, no, no, no, no, no, no. I will let people, certain people make certain sub assemblies, but the planes are still going to be assembled by Pratt and Whitney's or GEs or whomever, because planes, I think the example that they gave was a tanker, a Jeep may have 27,000 parts, but a plane has 180,000 parts.
00:23:55
Speaker
There was this fight in arrogance and hubris that some people thought, well, we can still make them, we can do it. He ultimately prevailed, but it's still tied to the need to blueprint, to document, to build parts, to standards that could be held across, again, distributed manufacturing and
00:24:16
Speaker
sort of then you just ship all the parts to Pratt and Whitney and they put them together. It's very much more efficient, but a key difference of who's doing that final. You know, lots of people can make Norseman parts maybe, but, you know, Grimsbo has to approve them. You have to go through them, QC them, assemble them, and confirm that this is what we want. Yeah. That's funny because that's exactly how like Boeing builds planes now, right? They outsource all the parts to shops all around the country, world, and then assemble it themselves. I think they still make some though too, or make parts
00:24:47
Speaker
I've always been curious. I'd love to tour that Seattle factory, and I think they have other major factories in the area. I know one of our friends mentioned his, I think, father worked at one north of there, but I know Boeing still has, like I know they have a couple, at least one big Hermla, and they're still machining a lot of, actually Helical does a lot of business with a major aerospace company that may or may not start with B, and they're doing a lot of machining of major parts. Right.
00:25:11
Speaker
I love, yeah.
00:25:16
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Cool. Cool. So what else do you have?
Business Efficiency and Mindset
00:25:23
Speaker
I don't know. We have training going on this week, but it's actually one of the first ever classes that was relatively low attendance. I think it was my fault for not realizing that Monday was a holiday, but no big deal. I'm excited because in 14 days or something, we'll have the two new Haas machines and that's going to really
00:25:43
Speaker
really be awesome for our own internal workflow. We're starting to hit those hiccups, like we put our mini palettes on the VM3. I normally like to run those on the VF2, but the VF2 is being used for something else. And so it all works, like I'm proud of that, but it's not what I want. So there's that struggle of,
00:26:06
Speaker
You just got to make it happen, but getting those extra spindles will really help with that. I'm doing a lot of organization. I've got to get back into setting aside
00:26:21
Speaker
time, two hours a week, three hours a week to just turn off my computer monitor, turn off my phone or something and go. You are what you want to be. So if you want to get rid of junk, which we have done a great job of doing, then go spend two hours doing it. Don't just think about it. Don't put it on a to-do list. Go do it. Love it.
00:26:43
Speaker
That purge, I meant to mention that a while back, that purge has been phenomenal, John. Oh my gosh. We've got like one last hurrah of stuff to kind of get rid of, but don't regret it for one second. Yeah.
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah, I've certainly got boxes and shelves with the stuff from the garage days that I've never touched, but it's like, I don't know, I'll just put it aside for now, whatever. Yeah, everybody's got that. But until you look at it critically and go, does this provide value to my life at all, then if not, then move on. Right, right. What else? Oh, I figured out something that's been really helpful, which is a similar thing about
00:27:27
Speaker
you know, who you want to be and whether it's cleaning or lean or task stuff.
00:27:34
Speaker
I have put a thing in my calendar every day in the morning as just kind of a, it's not private, but it doesn't matter what it is, but it works. And so over the past sort of month, every morning that kind of pops up and it's a reminder for me to think through a couple of things. And over the years, I've always, struggle's not the right word, but kind of bounced between what are good ways to remind yourself of certain things when it comes to
00:28:03
Speaker
how you run a company or who you are and all that kind of stuff. And I've actually really enjoyed this. It's been a really good way to see that and embrace it. And it kind of ties back into the power of how you accomplish big things in life is through small doses, doing a little bit every day.
00:28:23
Speaker
So is it a little quote or reminder that just kind of twigs your brain? Yeah. The message actually doesn't even mean anything. It's in my head, but I don't know, it comes in at six or seven in the morning. That's all I need to know. And boy, I can draw back on that. And it's so subtle, but it works.
00:28:45
Speaker
love it. Yeah. I think I mean, mindset is is bigger than most people understand, you know, and it's so easy to just kind of devolve your mindset into day to day and you know, getting sometimes it's great to be lost in the moment, but sometimes it's bad to lose the big picture, right? You know, why you're doing this and you know, how you how you are perceived by everyone around you kind of thing. Yeah, sure.
Factory Tours and Future Plans
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah. Agreed. Do you know on Instagram, Adam the Machinist? Yes. Dude. Ed and I went up on Monday and toured a place called Superb Industries. They let us film. It was amazing. We're driving up there. It's only like an hour away. It was awesome. It's in the middle of a very rural part of Ohio.
00:29:42
Speaker
And I'm driving up there and Ed met Adam and I'd seen him on Instagram and kind of know a little bit about what they do. And I was sort of saying, yeah, I've seen their site. I talked to Adam. I'm pretty sure superb industries shipped over a million parts last year. Whoa. I was wrong. 1.2 billion.
00:30:07
Speaker
Yeah. And it's a shop that's maybe, I don't know the square footage, but I would guess 30,000 square feet, like three times our shop or something. Now, it's mostly stamped and what do they call it? Stamped and I can't think of it. Not forged. Pressed.
00:30:25
Speaker
they call it there's a difference but they're doing they're using these Beeler and Bruder German or Swiss high speed stamping machine so they have a very I would say quite vertically integrated so they'll pie these die sets or these make these tools so
00:30:43
Speaker
A good example would be something like a lot of the sheet metal-ish type components on our little Zoom audio recorders. You've got those little metal clips that bend over for a nine volt or double A battery. They do those mostly for auto industry. So all of these contactors and electrical parts and sub-assembly things that are metal in, again, your car. And so they'll have these strips of metal that are getting fed off of a spool
00:31:12
Speaker
coming into a progressive stamping die. So it'll index the strip over and do different punching, forming, shaping, tapping, spot welding, laser welding, press break, like little micro mini press breaks to do bends and stuff. And these things are, I was telling Adam on the tour, these are why I loved machine guns growing up. I could care less about the one element of what a machine gun is. What I love is the fact that it can reliably
00:31:40
Speaker
discharge 600 to a thousand rounds per minute. The intricacy of those mechanisms of how they interact, whether it's a roller cam system or a blowback or an impingement, like it's just so cool. And that's kind of what these things are because their stamping presses were running, some of them were running 800 strokes per minute. Oh my gosh. That's like 12 strokes per second or something. Yeah. Isn't it incredible?
00:32:11
Speaker
And they're forming these incredible parts that are all so the tool and die work with the first room we went into was one of the tool rooms where they had these grinding machines and comparators and how they were putting in radiuses into these carbide tools. And it's just was I just I just was smiling. It was amazing. And there's just no room for error, like how they do that stuff was so cool. Yeah, so I'm excited to get that video edited now.
00:32:39
Speaker
I can't wait. I saw that you put up like an hour and a half long tour of the, what's that other company? Oh, Fabersonic. Fabersonic, yeah. I haven't seen that video, but I'm looking forward to it. That is also really cool. Sweet. Yeah, it's been fun.
00:32:55
Speaker
No other factory tours until one month from now or so when I go over for what is going to be probably the most epic round of factory tours in my life. Yes.
Preparing for New Machinery
00:33:06
Speaker
I don't even, it's Lauren's shop, Kern, Hermla.
00:33:13
Speaker
Uh, another YouTube guy, Stefan, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to swing by. And the Deutsches museum, which is, you know, a industry and science museum in Munich, which also has things like decals and Hermlas and injection molding machines in it, which is yes. In a museum. And then I start the like formal factory tour part, which is Blaser and big Kaiser and Spironi and, uh, Grove and Heidenheim. Wow. I'm excited. That's a big, yes. You going by yourself?
00:33:43
Speaker
Yeah. The first half is kind of by myself meeting up with the people I just kind of mentioned. And then the second half is through NTMA or NMTA. So it'll be a group of folks, but I don't know. I don't know them. Yep. Yep. Oh, it's fine. Yep.
00:33:56
Speaker
Awesome. How long has the trip been total? Two weeks. It's a little awkward because I will have to cancel it if things don't go well on the home front, but knock on wood. Knock on wood. It's awkward because I would cancel on a heartbeat if I have to. Of course. Yeah. Excellent. How about you? What's on tap?
00:34:20
Speaker
Um, yesterday was the first day in months that we haven't turned on the Leidor run it. Um, everybody got sick over the weekend, Sunday, Monday, everybody on the team was just out. I, Sunday night I went to sleep at like 8.30 PM and more or less I slept for 19 hours. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh, sorry, dude.
00:34:47
Speaker
So I feel much better now a couple of days later, but the rest of the team is still kind of reeling from it. I don't know what like flu or something. I don't know what it is, but it seems like I got some of the least of it. But yeah, so we're kind of only a few of us in yesterday and that's fine.
00:35:04
Speaker
Everybody's getting better. But yeah, I put up, I sort of secretly put up the saga choice list. And the response from that has been quite pleasant. Awesome. And I just like hit it in one of my stories, which has now expired. But for anybody listening, there's a link in my Instagram bio. And eventually, we'll set up a web page on our website.
00:35:34
Speaker
to sign up for the Saga Maker's Choice. But yeah, that first hit of interest, we've always been wondering about for months and months now. And we got what we were looking for. And it just gives us a little feeler of, OK, what's the market really looking for here? And very excited to move forward with that now. So it just doubles down my thoughts of, how soon can I get a Swiss? Or when do we need a bigger shop?
00:36:03
Speaker
bar feeder for the Nakamura or little things like that. Like what is the next step? So thinking hard about stuff like that. Yeah. And then we are working on a batch of 50, 50 saga pens. And I've got, I think I'm on my last part to have 50 mechanisms complete. So that'll be cool. Does that mean 50 will be ready to assemble?
00:36:26
Speaker
50 mechanisms. So the clicky part. Okay. And then we still got to make the tube, the tip and the pocket clip too. Okay. Pocket clips are a big deal, right? They're a big deal. Yeah. The tube and the tip should be a cakewalk, but yeah, the pocket clip it's, it's pretty dialed. It just takes forever. You have to run those on the knock, right? You couldn't move that to a Swiss cause it needs, I don't, I think so. Yeah. And I think that would be my plan. I would leave the clip on the Nakamura and maybe something else like the two or something, but then everything else would just run on the Swiss much faster.
00:36:56
Speaker
much more efficiently. Got it. How hard is it for you to go set up the knock for the tooling and work order? Excuse me to run clips. Couple hours max. Okay. You run that royal system on your headstock, Collin?
00:37:16
Speaker
Yeah, on the, um, I haven't, uh, where are the hard hinge? I think it's a hard hinge ID. You just have five C nevermind. I do have five C I'm thinking of that. Like, was it like the four 19 or four 15 Royals that are like big? I think they're called C call it. No, they're called, um,
00:37:37
Speaker
It's like an ER32, but it's like the size of your head or maybe like his head. Yeah. Okay.
00:37:50
Speaker
Okay. I'm thinking about that if we, we got to pick up the lathes this year. Yeah. And the only thing I've heard about those is that radial clearance, like if you want to get a live tool in there, pointing towards the center line is very limited. Whereas my five C call, it's neck down to like half in diameter or something. Right. So I just have much more access. So I do hear guys complaining about that. Makes sense. Just depends on how big your parts are. If you're making three inch bar,
00:38:20
Speaker
Yeah, we're not. You need that. We need something. The 5C cuts out at, well, it cuts out at one inch. Yeah, so you can go a little higher, but they're not through. And I just feel like you need like a two inch version or something. Yeah. And we'll see.
00:38:37
Speaker
Um, you, you don't ever take your five C headstock, spindle thing off. You don't switch to anything. Do you even have another Chuck or college? Yeah. That's hilarious. When I, when I bought the machine, I said, I don't need the three jaw chucks. So take them off the quote and replace them with these. And it does limit me to one inch stock, but I make tiny stuff and, uh, that's fine by me. Right. Do you know, is yours like a D one six or whatever?
00:39:05
Speaker
Uh, that's a good question. I can't remember. Okay. You could relatively easily swap that out though, aside from the fact that they weigh, I'm sure they weigh a fair amount, but yeah, easy peasy. Got it. And you same thing. Your sub is just five C. Yes.
00:39:21
Speaker
Yeah, the two sides look slightly different. I forget why. But they're both 5C. They're both basically the same. They're the dead stop call it once. So the call it doesn't actually move forward or backwards when it retracts. Cool. That is very cool. And I've measured, what did I think, less than a thou of forward or backwards movement, which is great. Yeah, that's cool. Are you still researching Swiss machines?
00:39:48
Speaker
Yes. Although I think I know what I want. Oh, even better. Okay. So you, you had that conviction. Yes. I think if, if I were to make a purchase order tomorrow, save for like final tooling details and like which turning tools and inserts I'm going to get, um, I think I could place that order tomorrow. But as you suggested earlier in this podcast, I should probably get an official quote from one or two other vendors. Um,
00:40:17
Speaker
just to kind of strengthen it a little bit. Yeah. You know, you absolutely should. Um, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Have you, so have you gone far enough to get a quote from the one you like? Yes, dude. Okay. Yeah. Like, uh, it's not like, uh,
00:40:34
Speaker
good deal kind of quote. It's just like, here's the list price and here's all the options and all that, but it lets me see what is available and what every option costs. And like, do you want the fancy B-axis five-axis turning or like milling kind of option? I'm like, yeah, it's not worth 40 grand to me or whatever it is. Got it.
00:40:53
Speaker
Yeah, there's a wonderful, wonderful decision-making of, you know, do not suffer from paralysis by analysis, but nevertheless, there's the John Saunders that is like, look, Grimms, you need to get a Swiss lathe. You don't need to get the Rolls-Royce. You need to get a good base Swiss lathe that can make the parts, gives you an extra spindle capacity capability. And then there's the other side, which is you are a person who invests in technology and figures out crazy cool stuff and will make the most of it.
00:41:22
Speaker
That is a key part to your story and your future and you will earn your way out of all of those expenses. So get the bells and whistles, make it happen, crush it on that front.
00:41:35
Speaker
Yep, I totally agree. That is the full Grimsmo method. I just have to be careful not to get stuff I'm never going to use, because then that's, you know, tens of thousands of dollars that just go wasted. Right. Be realistic about that, which is good. And it's not that it's not that difficult anymore, because I'm becoming much more clear with what our future and direction is going to be, and the type parts we're going to be making. And it really helps me hone in on machine buying decisions. That's wonderful. Like, I,
00:42:04
Speaker
If I had to purchase tomorrow, I could buy a Swiss lathe and a five-axis palletized machine. I know exactly what I want. That's cool. That's awesome. A little scary, but exciting. I'm not actually scared about it.
00:42:20
Speaker
Yeah, because we, I mean, as we detach ourselves from our businesses and look at the businesses more of their standalone thing, the businesses can make decisions. And I don't think at the risk of being presumptuous, I don't think grooms on eyes, acquiring those machine tools and putting them to work. I don't think that's risky at all at this point. I think there's an element of your personal side, which is rightfully scary, but less so each day, John, come on.
00:42:46
Speaker
I mean, yeah. And I talked to Oprah with Eric and he said, he said, I'm all for the lathe. The five axis, you know, you'll have to convince me really hard to get it anytime soon because it's like, I don't want you to get both machines. And then you're distracted for three months while you're learning these things and production suffer.
00:43:04
Speaker
and things like that, that cannot happen. And rightly so, like he's totally right. Any new addition cannot come at the suffering of current production levels. So I have to be very cautious of that. And he's right. Yeah. And they'll both be time vacuums for sure. But you also got to do, I mean, I don't know, does Yo or Sky know anything about programming and setting up stuff and all that? It's just you and...
00:43:34
Speaker
me and Angela. Skye would love to learn it, for sure. But so would Angela, love to learn more. Yeah. Well, that needs to happen, I think. I really do think that that's important. Can you fit the Swiss in your Kershaw? I was just looking at that yesterday.
00:43:54
Speaker
I was asking, I've got a buddy that has a few of these exact ones and I'm like, just wondering, can I run this without a bar feeder at all and just feed bars in the back? And I haven't got to reply yet because I could fit the lathe in this shop and I could maybe fit like a three foot or a six foot bar feeder maybe, but I think a 12 foot bar feeder is the way to go for long-term.
00:44:17
Speaker
production and there's no way a 12 foot bar feeder would fit in this shop. Well, just put, just get, if you can, just get no bar feeder or put the 12 footer in storage, you know, type of thing. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. Like for a short term, let's say we get a shop in the next, you know, three to nine months. Um, is it worth the, uh,
00:44:37
Speaker
Is it worth getting the machine here at limited capacity with no bar feeder to let me learn it, to let me establish all my programs, to let me actually make parts on it. And then when we're, when we're ready to move to the next shop, it's like plug and play 12 foot bar feeder equals profit. 100%. Yes. Even with the additional like.
00:44:57
Speaker
additional expense of rigging and power and, you
Balancing Business and Personal Life
00:45:01
Speaker
know. Sure. Well, the power is not bad. I mean, it would be different if you were talking about a ma'am maybe or something that was 15 grand to rig and move, but a Swiss, those things are, lift those things up, I think by hand.
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. If you break down the barriers to execution on a Swiss of getting it in, getting the tooling, experimenting, learning, posting, tweaking, all that stuff, what you need is that machine right now. Get it in.
00:45:32
Speaker
So I'm going to seriously look into that soon because I'm looking at a big empty spot right by the big bay door there. And I'm like, we could just dump it right there. And the Swiss itself does not have to be bolted to the ground, but a bar feeder does. I asked my guy that. So I mean, if we don't have to bolt it down and the thing weighs, I don't know, 4,000 pounds, like you can freaking pallet jacket around. Yeah.
00:45:56
Speaker
And yeah, I've been thinking through that just the past couple of days, like, is it actually worth getting it here? Maybe it is. Holy cow. Then what the heck are we waiting for? Like,
00:46:08
Speaker
It's get it, John. At this point, Barry and I were talking about it yesterday. I'm like, I have zero fears about getting the financing. I have zero fears about that this is the right choice. It's just a timing thing. And if this eliminates the timing equation, then it's like, what are you doing tomorrow?
00:46:29
Speaker
Well, you flip it around too. I don't want you to make a bad decision on your shop because you are now correlating, finding a shop with your ability to unleash the Swiss. Get the Swiss now and then keep cranking it out and do more and the shop problem can solve itself at its own pace because that's a tough thing because real estate is quirky. You could find a shop next week or it could take you nine months.
00:46:54
Speaker
Right. And, and we're waiting on, uh, set up and saga production and learning Swiss for nine months. Like, come on, it's such a waste. Yeah. And you're like, you're always going to see people that have fit more into a shop. Um, your, your shop is not full. No, it's not. Um, yeah. I don't think Swiss would take much power from an amperage. And thanks to the same point.
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah, do it. Yeah. Awesome. Sweet. What do you do today? Uh, this morning I am taking the kids on a field trip. I am a field trip chaperone. Yeah. To their circuit slash gymnastics school. Cool. Which is really cool. Run by two ex Cirque du Soleil performers. Oh, wow. Always have fun. They're tumbling on mats and like doing
00:47:50
Speaker
rings hanging from the ceiling and all this cool stuff. So yeah, I'm excited to do that this morning. But before that, get another two pallets going and then zip home and do that and then come back in the afternoon. See who else is not sick today. Yeah, I love it. I just checked out the the makers choice list. And it's so cool that that's I like how I feel like I'm talking to you when I read the little list of the stuff about this is how the process works.
00:48:16
Speaker
Nice. Cool. Sweet. I'll see you next week. Have a good one.