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#417 Normal days vs rework days
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TOPICS:
- Kern runs great now!
- Normal days vs rework days
- High, Low, Buffalo
- Blade Show 2025
- 465 custom material
- Helicoil stories
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Theme
00:00:01
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 417. My name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:06
John Saunders
My name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And this is your weekly dose manufacturing where two buds just talk about what's going on in their businesses and lives and heads and try to keep everything on straight.
00:00:18
John Saunders
Which on that note, I don't know if this is because John and I have now crossed the 40 year hurdle, actually a couple of years ago for
Challenges of Content Recall
00:00:24
John Saunders
me.
00:00:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I'll be 42 this summer.
00:00:24
John Saunders
You're, are you the same? You're old. Okay.
00:00:27
johngrimsmo
So I'm just behind you, I think.
00:00:27
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah, a couple months. But we were laughing because we don't really always remember what we talked about like publicly.
00:00:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:00:35
John Saunders
We don't actually, we really do share almost everything. But like where do we leave stuff off? Do we cover this? We don't want to bore the audience and repeat stuff. But on the flip side, a week, like sometimes a week, so the week that goes by between this sometimes seems like an eternity.
00:00:48
johngrimsmo
Yes, because a lot can happen and things are out of my brain and they just are not to come back until you remind me.
00:00:53
John Saunders
We got question.
00:00:55
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, oh, yeah, where what? I don't remember.
00:00:59
John Saunders
No, sometimes it's better to what's that about? Like you ignore it and move on, especially whatever versus like, no, it's like, you know, whatever.
00:01:07
johngrimsmo
like there are things that consume every ounce of your focus for a period of time.
00:01:12
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:01:12
johngrimsmo
And then a week later, you hardly remember it.
00:01:15
John Saunders
Not funny.
00:01:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
CNC Machine Update and Training
00:01:17
johngrimsmo
And yeah, I think one of those topics you were trying to allude to before is the current, like how's the current doing, right?
00:01:24
John Saunders
No, because that I specifically, I exactly remember where that was because we were, we were talking and you were paraphrasing.
00:01:25
johngrimsmo
No.
00:01:28
johngrimsmo
go Okay, okay.
00:01:31
John Saunders
You're like, she's good. She's back. Indicator shows she's good, but we need to go make a part. And I remember thinking like, Ooh, that's quite the cliffhanger.
00:01:36
johngrimsmo
I got it. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah. Everything's good. I don't know. I, I barely remember that point in time now.
00:01:43
John Saunders
That's
00:01:46
johngrimsmo
It's like, it just runs. It just works great. Make great parts. Um, it's run every day since then.
00:01:49
John Saunders
that's great.
00:01:52
johngrimsmo
And, uh, yeah, the guys just hit cycle start. Um, we're training our other machinist, Jeff, to run that machine while we're gone this weekend.
00:01:59
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:02:00
johngrimsmo
Um, which I'll get to in a minute. Um, and they just hit cycle start on a 35 hour unattended run
00:02:07
John Saunders
Dawson.
00:02:07
johngrimsmo
I'm like, oh my God, that's pretty good. That's bigger than, it's a bit bigger than normal. That's like everything now.
00:02:12
John Saunders
Sure.
00:02:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:13
John Saunders
Do you ever think about that? Like don't schedule that much because it's, you might want to change the decision 24 hours. Like basically there's no reason to schedule past the full day.
00:02:22
johngrimsmo
True. um But we often like get busy the next day. And it's so nice just to not care and just let it run.
00:02:28
John Saunders
Okay. Yeah, that's fair.
00:02:29
johngrimsmo
um And it's super easy for us to reschedule anything anytime, even remotely. um
00:02:34
John Saunders
Oh, that's nice.
00:02:35
johngrimsmo
So that's super cool. So it's it's like, everything's loaded.
00:02:36
John Saunders
Yeah, sure.
00:02:38
johngrimsmo
Let's just run it all it barring any weird broken tools, which we're pretty good at avoiding.
00:02:39
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah.
00:02:43
johngrimsmo
It should just run for 35 hours, which is sick.
00:02:47
John Saunders
Yeah, that's it.
00:02:49
johngrimsmo
Gotta go for that 168 baby.
00:02:52
John Saunders
Yes. You've gotten close, right?
00:02:53
johngrimsmo
But there's there is a difference, like ah completely unattended. We loaded so much material that it runs for over 100 hours. Nobody's here. Versus ah we kept it running for 100 hours or whatever by loading tools and loading new material.
00:03:10
John Saunders
Oh yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure.
00:03:11
johngrimsmo
And that that is a realistic difference. Like it doesn't need to run for a week with nobody here. That's kind of silly. um However, it's kind of cool. but
00:03:21
John Saunders
Yeah, that's a good point. I don't know that I know of many scenarios where it's truly, I don't know, maybe I'm sure there are now that you think about it.
00:03:28
johngrimsmo
there Yeah, I'm sure. But in a realistic shop like ours, um where we're making fairly tight tolerance, high accuracy, like high finish, surface finish stuff, we like to inspect the parts as they're coming off, make sure the tools are sharp and good and stuff.
00:03:29
John Saunders
Yep.
00:03:37
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:03:42
johngrimsmo
um Friday to Monday is is one of my goals one day, which we haven't had a still running on Monday when do we come in.
00:03:49
John Saunders
You haven't?
00:03:50
johngrimsmo
No, we haven't had that yet. It runs until Sunday morning, early, early, like 2 a.m.
00:03:54
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:03:55
johngrimsmo
kind of thing. That's kind of our typical...
CNC Alignment and Error-Proofing
00:03:58
John Saunders
Right.
00:03:58
johngrimsmo
And we could, we just don't like,
00:04:01
John Saunders
It's stupid to have that as a goal, but I'm also like happy to be stupid with you there.
00:04:03
johngrimsmo
I don't, but it's like kind of exactly would be feel sick.
00:04:07
John Saunders
Well, look, we still haven't gotten there on Williman, which is no, we've tried a couple of times and very coincidentally, Williman is here today as a sort of courtesy.
00:04:18
John Saunders
Well, it is a courtesy, but I think they're installing some sort of updates about the interface of the robot. But the few times that we've gotten bit has been something silly, like the air door just didn't close sufficiently at three in the morning.
00:04:31
johngrimsmo
um Okay.
00:04:32
John Saunders
and We don't have, the problem with the Williman is that it doesn't really make sense to run it's not really set up to run different parts throughout the night right it's really one part um we generally don't i'm not going to do that just to say we did it um but there are a couple parts that are slower and we could use the higher quantities and so forth so i think we're there but there's a difference between saying we think we're there and we've actually come in one morning and it's still running we'll get there
00:04:42
johngrimsmo
a And you don't need a thousand of the one part.
00:04:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah,
00:05:01
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep. Yeah. That is a, it's a cool barrier to cross. And then over time you get used to that. And it's amazing how fast a couple of years can pass. of Cause it's been, i don't know, four years since we had the current running when we came in in the morning and now it's like old hat.
00:05:18
John Saunders
Oh, yeah.
00:05:19
johngrimsmo
It's like, yeah, it always runs in the morning.
00:05:19
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:05:20
johngrimsmo
Like unless we didn't load enough or a tool breaks that can happen for sure.
00:05:21
John Saunders
All right.
00:05:26
johngrimsmo
But that's awesome.
00:05:27
John Saunders
What's going back to the current? Parts are good.
00:05:28
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:05:29
John Saunders
Spindle temps good. Like.
00:05:31
johngrimsmo
Actually, i haven't I haven't monitored the spindle temp. I did at one point last week. It just runs. i don't know.
00:05:37
John Saunders
Yeah, no more about it.
00:05:38
johngrimsmo
It's good. Yeah, i've I've definitely moved on to other things and other projects, and it just runs.
00:05:39
John Saunders
Good.
00:05:43
John Saunders
Good. That's great.
00:05:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:05:45
John Saunders
We'll scratch that off my list.
00:05:47
johngrimsmo
There you go.
00:05:50
johngrimsmo
And it was pretty rewarding to realign it ourselves. I'm i'm pretty proud of that. That was... was a nice skill to learn and be able to do and feel confident in my results.
00:05:56
John Saunders
oh yeah, yeah.
00:06:00
johngrimsmo
i'm like, nah, this is this is good. This is 98% as good as Kern could do it, I'm guessing. But and um you know they just have other stuff that they bring to do it better.
00:06:06
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:06:11
johngrimsmo
um But yeah, I'm happy.
00:06:11
John Saunders
Well, look, i I was contemplating it myself because it's like we have friends where some of our friends work at companies where it's like, hey, you know, just call the tech. Like budget doesn't matter type thing or not my money type thing. But then there's some that are like, no, I did the spin on myself. And I don't always know where where the line should be drawn. But... ah Even in your situation, I give you so many props because frankly, the fact that you did this means maybe at some point you could have Kern come in and just do some minor alignment type of stuff versus the whole like, hey, you know, two, three days just to get done what you did, which, you know, service is a profit business um and they're not cheap.
00:06:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. that Yeah, which I don't... As a business, well, I don't have a problem with that, really.
00:06:53
johngrimsmo
i have a problem paying the high bill, but I get that they want to charge. They need to charge for travel time for hotels, right?
00:06:59
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:06:59
johngrimsmo
like That it's expensive and that they're charging their tax, you know, a lot per hour. Like, I respect that on one level. I just don't like paying the bill $10,000 here and there.
00:07:08
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:12
John Saunders
Well, good. I mean, Gladys, it's funny how that's kind of like, that was my like impetus for this. Like, how's the current doing? And you're like, uh, moved on next topic, please.
00:07:20
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah, exactly. yeah Which is funny. um Since then we ah we were making our fjell blades, soft blades on the kern, and um what was it The engraving tool last week, the engraving tool broke halfway through.
00:07:39
johngrimsmo
So then the way I've got all my sub programs set up and the palette management and everything, um Angela jumped in and put a new tool in, touched it off, and then tried to just run the single engraving program which kind of air quotes should work, but it engraved the wrong steel type on the on the blades, on these four blades.
00:08:00
johngrimsmo
um
00:08:00
John Saunders
Ooh.
00:08:00
johngrimsmo
Because we've used we use RWL34 for all of our stuff. We've used CPM154 in the past. We've used damsteel, we've used et cetera. And I've set up the macros to, you um change one variable in the palette management table and it tells the program what um what's steel to engrave.
00:08:18
John Saunders
Sure.
00:08:19
johngrimsmo
And because he ran it locally, it didn't choose the right thing.
00:08:22
John Saunders
ah Interesting.
00:08:24
johngrimsmo
And it's just kind of a weird freak scenario. He had the different palette in the machine than what the palette management program thought was in there. So it just it read the wrong variable. um That's fine, but I definitely spent a solid afternoon kind of error proofing that type of code.
00:08:38
johngrimsmo
So if you do do this, it at least does the right thing or defaults to something safe or something like that. So that is kind of one of the downsides of going super niche with a hyper um macroing everything is that there are a lot of rules and sub rules and things that you don't expect.
00:08:44
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:08:52
John Saunders
Right.
00:08:57
John Saunders
What was the... I can't think of the... Now I'm blanking on both. Maybe this is also Life After
Leadership and Quality Assurance
00:09:04
John Saunders
40. Blanking on both the individual's name and the company's that he created.
00:09:09
John Saunders
The younger gentleman that we knew through kind of through Autodesk, Xander maybe?
00:09:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:12
John Saunders
Xander. What was the simulation? um
00:09:15
johngrimsmo
And see viewer.
00:09:17
John Saunders
No.
00:09:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:20
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah, because Toolpath bought it. um
00:09:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:25
John Saunders
Okay. and Sorry, long-winded. Could Angelo take that code and move it into NC Viewer?
00:09:34
johngrimsmo
And see viewer doesn't really like, as far as I'm aware, it doesn't like Heidenheim code and it doesn't love macro logic either as far as I've seen.
00:09:42
John Saunders
Right, because you're still, you're not outputting a file, like a G-code file that's run from that, even at Orphanic. It's literally parsing the macro code as it runs the the program.
00:09:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:54
John Saunders
Yeah, fair enough. okay
00:09:55
johngrimsmo
So.
00:09:57
John Saunders
Okay. What you said brings up a really good point that I'll come back to on job normal days versus anytime something has changed, like rework or problems and so forth, because we've got, we've had some
00:10:09
johngrimsmo
You can dive into that now.
00:10:11
John Saunders
Well, um I want to take a step back from a kind of leadership standpoint. You know, the buck stops with me and um it's my job to train.
00:10:22
John Saunders
There's also still an obligation of people to embrace the things we've sort of tried to espouse when one of those things is for
00:10:27
johngrimsmo
We would hope yes.
00:10:29
John Saunders
Right. um But again, it kind of reminded myself back to like when you get bad parts back to the anodizer, it's not like the anodizer is like, Ooh, let's drop these on the ground. It'll be funny. But it's also how do you ensure stuff happens right.
00:10:43
John Saunders
We're pretty good at that. um We're actually really good at that now as a production.
00:10:46
johngrimsmo
With outside vendors.
00:10:48
John Saunders
Well, I was referring to our internal production. We're really good at making our stuff and
00:10:50
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:10:54
John Saunders
doing what we do. We still sometimes get bit in odd scenarios. And one of those was, we had ah somebody else take over a task, um, recently just temporarily.
00:11:07
John Saunders
And they, um, they assembled something wrong and luckily it got caught quickly just by somebody walking by and, In this specific instance, sure, we could create some jigs and guides to help steer the ship there. And that's um ah probably appropriate here, but it also isn't an excuse for the whole like cultural and just idea of recognizing. then applies to me and everybody. when When you're in a scenario where you're not making the part, you're fixing a part. You're fixing a broken thing. You're tweaking code. You're rerunning code.
00:11:41
John Saunders
you really have to go out of your way to force yourself to stop. In this case, what should have happened would somebody should have, because you don't know what you don't know. That's what's really scary about this. It's so easy to reverse, analyze it with with perfect vision, but at the time to say, okay, I did one or I did two, let me have somebody else just give you a second set of eyes, you know kind of the first article inspection, or let me run the code through NC viewer or whatever, let me air cut it.
00:11:50
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:12:03
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:12:05
John Saunders
And the, there's some I wasn't a Boy Scout, but there's something from Boy Scouts called EDGE. Explain, demonstrate, guide, enable. yeah Honestly, the acronym doesn't even really encapsulate what I wanted to say, which is explain, demonstrate it, maybe guide them. But what you also have to do in the case of assembly is you have to like remove yourself. And um'm this does not come naturally to me I have to force myself to remind myself.
00:12:28
John Saunders
Let the person do one and then check on it in five minutes. Like don't sit there and do it for them or or watch them because you've got to see them
00:12:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. yeah
00:12:36
John Saunders
figure out what mistakes could be made. Luckily, it's not a big deal to fix it, but it's still, you know, it's kind of like, no, it's how do you better at this?
00:12:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah, i I battle with that too. It's like when teaching something to somebody new, you as the ah call it owner of that process or the expert at that process, like my default is like, here's how I do it. Let me show you. Let me get my hands in first and then do it.
00:13:00
johngrimsmo
Every now and then I'll try. like You try to figure it out and I'll tell you what you're doing wrong. And there's no there's no right or wrong way to do it because id I value a little bit of...
00:13:06
John Saunders
That's a good idea.
00:13:12
johngrimsmo
um perspective that somebody why you do it like that however we've been doing this for so long that like there's a hundred reasons why i do it like that and i don't always feel the need to explain all of those reasons um but yeah
00:13:16
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:13:29
John Saunders
The, cause like in this situation, I'm not trying to pick on you or Angela here, but like, It would have a nicer doing grave one incorrectly instead of you know, like,
00:13:37
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah yeah it's two per palette and he just ran two in a row and didn't catch it till later
00:13:38
John Saunders
um
00:13:42
John Saunders
yeah, right.
00:13:44
johngrimsmo
But yeah, yeah, kind of weird scenario.
00:13:45
John Saunders
Sorry.
00:13:46
johngrimsmo
And sometimes, like, especially in more advanced manufacturing, you you have to find these things, unfortunately, sometimes the hard way.
00:13:52
John Saunders
Right.
00:13:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah,
00:13:57
johngrimsmo
yeah especially how complicated I make certain things like this, like, engraving logic. It's like, it's it does what I want it to do, but it is pretty complex in order to get there. Could it be simpler?
00:14:08
johngrimsmo
It would have less features, you know?
00:14:10
John Saunders
Yeah, sure, for sure, sure. We actually, kind of a random aside, we are working with a vendor on something recently and they, um frankly, they screwed something up. We caught it. We caught it pretty quickly after we but we had the the the stuff here.
00:14:25
John Saunders
And this is a larger company and a good company. And it's kind of interesting. They're like, yeah, we're doing formal internal disciplinary actions for three members of the team.
00:14:36
johngrimsmo
Because of your job?
00:14:36
John Saunders
And i'm like, Yeah. And you're like, ah it doesn't feel fun.
00:14:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:41
John Saunders
But I'm like, no, actually, honestly, like I get it because this should not have happened.
00:14:43
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:14:45
John Saunders
And it was actually my we do um our Tuesday lunch. We do high lows. um It's not like mandatory, but usually like we wanted to be candid and fun or sharing. um My high was that because.
00:14:58
John Saunders
we have not had that here like we make a lot of parts we ship a lot of parts these days and um we have i'm not saying we're perfect but like we have operator qc we have the assembly qc we have customer qc and they'll write back and we started tracking this now we actually did a one-year summary of um we have three tags actually we just had a four three tags though for
00:15:03
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:15:14
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:15:22
John Saunders
situations that require financial customer service. So it's shipping damage, shipping error or QC issue.
00:15:30
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:15:30
John Saunders
um QC issue being we actually screwed up a tolerance or a feature of a part. And these are inevitable. We get that. But wanted to start to track how much money is this costing us in time and reshipping. And fortunately, don't know if it's fortunate or not, shipping damage, I believe, was the most, was the highest amount, a dollar amount. Shipping mistakes was the second, which I'm not super happy about. But again, things are going to happen, especially on orders that...
00:16:00
John Saunders
where we sometimes we're packing 40 skews in an order, um not justifying, saying I get it, but I'm actually quite happy to see that QC was relatively low.
00:16:08
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:16:10
John Saunders
The fourth category we are adding is um we we continue and will continue to have number of situations with, especially with the hobby plates, these, um you know, Haas Mini Mill, Tormox Essek Deck, Other Mill, Bantam Mill, Penta Mill, like all these little hobby machines.
00:16:27
John Saunders
The manufacturer or whoever makes the machines will often make minor changes to castings and stuff that affects the fixture plate.
00:16:32
johngrimsmo
go
00:16:34
John Saunders
And we always look, we are used to it now. we probably get four of these that happen a year. We have a system where we then old stock the inventory, we create flags on the product facing customer page, or we scrap it or we make the new version compatible with both. but In situations like that, where we have to send out replacements to a customer, I don't think it's fair to ding.
00:16:53
John Saunders
That's not our fault. you know i mean? We have cost us money, but it's not something that we could have frankly in any way avoided. So, um, yeah.
00:17:04
johngrimsmo
I like the high-low in the meeting kind of thing. Is that something like kind of everybody goes around and does or just who's got one?
00:17:12
John Saunders
No, i everyone's supposed to do it. Again, it's not like if somebody doesn't, somebody says I'll have one or just I'll do it.
00:17:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:17
John Saunders
It's not like, a you but no, I need your, Steve, I need your high-low.
00:17:21
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:17:21
John Saunders
But it is spot like, I'm a very, I think you know this and we've talked about it, but like one of the reasons I'm anti, frankly, guys like Titan is that their world is perfect. It's always boom. It's always I'm killing it and I'm doing great.
00:17:33
John Saunders
blah blah and like no like there are things that aren't great there are struggles and let's let's be more real about building something that's wholesome and that doesn't mean you can't be confident but a little dose of humility and like oh man this stuck like was bummed that this had to happen or whatever
00:17:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:45
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm. Yeah, which I think we try to share some of those things in the meeting, but to put ah to put a name to it, what's your high-low kind of thing. um There's a speaker I follow on Instagram, Vin, that calls it high-low buffalo.
00:18:00
johngrimsmo
And buffalo is like the wild card.
00:18:00
John Saunders
come on
00:18:02
johngrimsmo
It's like, ah, this crazy thing happened. them I'm I like that.
00:18:04
John Saunders
It's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, but it's good. Like we, um i think Yvonne's a week or two ago was We got bit on a international freight order because we sent the quote in like February and then they just placed the order two weeks ago.
00:18:26
John Saunders
And usually there's not that big of a lag time in between then and now freight shipments and all the shenanigans with tariffs and freight and all that, like the freight costs went from 220 to 550, but our quote obviously was still 220. And so we lost 300 bucks on a freight shipment, which,
00:18:44
John Saunders
again not the end of the world, a super buffalo-y edge case.
00:18:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:18:48
John Saunders
But like, don't maybe, you know, it does, know, I think we say our quotes only valid for 30 days, but again, we aren't normally in the process of formally revoking a quote and forcing a reissue.
00:18:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you just gotta eat that and move on, right? Like try to avoid it going forward, but, uh,
00:19:03
John Saunders
Yeah. Yeah.
Preparing for the Blade Show
00:19:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:19:07
John Saunders
yeah
00:19:13
johngrimsmo
Well, tomorrow I'm off to Atlanta, Georgia. It is the annual annual blade show.
00:19:17
John Saunders
Awesome.
00:19:19
johngrimsmo
um So there'll be four of us going down. Me, Angelo, Steven and Grayson. And yeah, we're psyched. We're super psyched.
00:19:26
John Saunders
Awesome.
00:19:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:19:27
John Saunders
Good.
00:19:28
johngrimsmo
We've got we've last year we brought 40 products. This year we're bringing 65.
00:19:34
John Saunders
Dude.
00:19:34
johngrimsmo
And we've got we've got a lot of feels coming. We've got, yeah, it's going to be really good.
00:19:39
John Saunders
When does this blade show open?
00:19:41
johngrimsmo
Friday morning. So it's Friday, Saturday, Sunday this weekend.
00:19:42
John Saunders
Okay. Okay, the Friday that this episode airs.
00:19:44
johngrimsmo
um And I know, exactly, I know there are some podcast listeners. I don't know if they would happen to hear the episode before they come on Friday, but um but yeah, definitely come say hi.
00:19:56
John Saunders
Awesome.
00:19:56
johngrimsmo
I've seen people walking around with Saunders t-shirts before. That's always fun.
00:20:01
John Saunders
The, the, I'm not sure how to like phrase this up, wrap this up into a phrase, but I know blade show was on your radar or COVID or whatever for a while, then like, it has been recently, like but this is the most like Cavalier.
00:20:13
John Saunders
You're like, oh yeah, we're going to play show and we're bringing six things. Like normally it's been like, okay, we're a month out.
00:20:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:18
John Saunders
We need to do this, this, that like, that's all.
00:20:19
johngrimsmo
Oh, I've been like that in my head. I just haven't been talking about it too much.
00:20:22
John Saunders
Okay.
00:20:24
johngrimsmo
I did leave it last minute. Honestly, I was kind of on the fence about going at all um due to a lot of reasons. Part of it, I just didn't want to go And then other stuff and all the hassle and headache and shipping product, bringing product.
00:20:31
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:20:36
johngrimsmo
It's just, it's pretty easy to not go.
00:20:39
John Saunders
Oh yeah. Dear God, don't ship at UPS again, John to a
00:20:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. yeah. There's no easy solution, um but I'm bringing the product on the plane, not like on the plane, but I'm checking a bag, um which I've never done really with a lot of merchandise.
00:20:53
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:20:56
johngrimsmo
This is this is a lot of merchandise. so um So I've got these two big Nana cases, that we'll be packing full of our stuff and checking it.
00:21:02
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:21:04
johngrimsmo
And there's quite a lot of paperwork to declare commercial goods flying across a border. um so that's what I'm going through right now.
00:21:09
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:21:11
johngrimsmo
Commercial invoice manifest packing list, as well as i had to apply for an online portal with the Customs of Border Patrol, the US version.
00:21:19
John Saunders
Got him.
00:21:20
johngrimsmo
And because the value of the goods is over $2,500, to electronically e-file have to electronically e filele my whatever it's called manifesting um ah ahead of time so when i show up at the border which happens to be at the leaving airport in toronto um i have a stack of paperwork and i'm like this is what i'm gonna do i think i got everything please be nice on me like should be fine yeah i feel actually quite prepared for it um
00:21:28
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:21:41
John Saunders
Yeah. Okay. but hope that goes well.
00:21:49
johngrimsmo
ton of research um on everything, talked to a couple customs brokers. Some of them were like, oh, you don't really need our help for this. I'm like, yeah, but there's a lot of paperwork to...
00:21:58
John Saunders
Yeah. Says the guy who like speaks this language every day.
00:22:01
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Yeah.
00:22:02
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:22:03
johngrimsmo
um But I think I got figured out and I'm not nervous, surprisingly, but I'm cautious that like, boy, I hope I got all my all my eyes crossed and teased on it.
00:22:13
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:22:17
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:22:19
johngrimsmo
But other that, once I'm through the airport, then it'll be awesome. And, you know, typical rental car down there, go set up the booth, show opens early Friday morning. And then it's just three days of busyness, hustle.
00:22:31
John Saunders
yeah Yeah. Right.
00:22:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah, which is great.
00:22:34
John Saunders
No. Good for you. That's awesome.
00:22:35
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah, super fun. So I know last year, because as you mentioned, you know, we UPS the products, and we didn't have them. And then the show started and half the team was at the show and half the team was looking for the products driving to the UPS hub.
00:22:48
johngrimsmo
And so we didn't have products for the first like three, four hours of the show. And there were a lot of people that would bought something.
00:22:53
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:22:54
johngrimsmo
And then they moved on and took their money elsewhere, basically. And so we are really trying to make sure that doesn't happen this year.
00:23:01
John Saunders
Yeah, the goal is to go 65, come back with zero.
00:23:04
johngrimsmo
and zero yeah and and you know the goal is to sell out as fast as we can um because then it's just guaranteed but
00:23:05
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:23:11
John Saunders
Yeah. I have a very...
Moduleworks CEO Visit
00:23:16
John Saunders
so That's awesome. Have a great time. it's
00:23:19
johngrimsmo
thank very much yeah
00:23:19
John Saunders
yeah Enjoy the moment. There'll probably be a point in time where you look back and you were like, Hey, these were the days, right?
00:23:27
John Saunders
um I have a very quiet weekend, which in a, I'm not a hundred percent sure what to expect from this, but the CEO, I think founder, Yavuz of Moduleworks is doing a U.S.
00:23:40
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:23:42
John Saunders
tour and they're, they asked to come by our shop. And I've, I don't know him well. I got to know a little bit through, they are also an investor Toolpath.
00:23:54
John Saunders
And, there's another gentleman, I believe he's from England, um, that's coming and they're also wanting to film. It's like, what's weird is I don't exactly know the vibe of this is going to be because part of it is they're filming these like heroes in manufacturing where they want really focus on highlighting the cam programmer video series that they're doing.
00:24:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:24:11
John Saunders
Um, and I'm happy to talk about cam. I mean, good grief. That's like, you love that. Um, but then it's like, are we doing a shop tour? or Is it like very technical? Is it more, we'll see.
00:24:21
johngrimsmo
Is it high level business?
00:24:22
John Saunders
Um, yeah.
00:24:22
johngrimsmo
Is it, what is it, you know?
00:24:24
John Saunders
But it does, it's been fun. Like I was kind of bringing in Grant and somebody else up to speed, like module works. I remember going to their website years ago when I first heard about that name and then looking at the list of of software that they provide some or all of the CAM functionality to, it's, I'm gonna be exaggerating, it's a whole industry.
00:24:45
John Saunders
Like Mastercam, Gibbscam, Espritcam, making some these out, like Bobcatcam, all of these, many of these run on module works.
00:24:45
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:24:51
John Saunders
So it's just their own their own licensing and front end and flavor and twists of these different tool paths.
00:24:51
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:24:57
John Saunders
um And most of the Fusion stuff over the last few years, all the fourth and fifth access stuff, Steep and Shallow, oh no, excuse me, Steep and Shallow's Dell CAM. um But much of it is is module works. um They are the kind of the behind the scenes masters at software in controlling CNC machines.
00:25:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:14
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:25:15
John Saunders
And it's a big company. if it's If it's not thousands, it's certainly high number of hundreds of people. like It's a big company.
00:25:21
johngrimsmo
wow Yeah, it's it's one of those names I've heard kicking around. I kind of get some of what your synopsis was, but it's not a part of my life in any way, shape or form. Like I don't know or care about them.
00:25:33
johngrimsmo
You know i mean?
00:25:34
John Saunders
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:25:34
johngrimsmo
It's just, yeah, I just know they exist.
00:25:35
John Saunders
Totally fair. Right, right.
00:25:39
johngrimsmo
And I guess I appreciate them.
00:25:39
John Saunders
um Yeah, well, and that's part of what I'm, like, ah hopingly kind of excited for is this whole, like, there's some version of a story that I probably will get clarified where...
00:25:51
John Saunders
Yavuz was a master cam reseller and somebody had a five axis and he just like went home one weekend and wrote a five axis plugin to do something that master, I gotta paraphrase it.
00:26:00
johngrimsmo
my gosh
00:26:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:26:06
John Saunders
And then that,
00:26:06
johngrimsmo
Probably like in the nineties or something.
00:26:08
John Saunders
You know, exactly, right. So in that level that I can't, I can admire, I certainly can't speak to it, but like when you actually look at how tool paths process parasolids in the forward and out, like looking forward in point distribution and tool point control, some this is on the CNC side more than the cam side, but like, it's very, it's very cool to me.
00:26:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:31
John Saunders
Yeah. So we'll see.
00:26:33
johngrimsmo
Sweet. Sweet.
00:26:36
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:26:40
John Saunders
Oh, I got to check.
00:26:40
johngrimsmo
i
00:26:41
John Saunders
Good.
00:26:42
johngrimsmo
OK, I'll do quick one. I saw what's his name? Audacity Micro on YouTube did a shop tour of Henry Holsters and I watched that over a couple of sessions.
00:26:52
johngrimsmo
And my favorite line like.
Organizational Tips and Creative Solutions
00:26:55
johngrimsmo
I really admire Andrew and and he certainly likes to talk a lot. And like i I like that um for him. And my favorite quote that he said is, your head is not a to-do list.
00:27:07
johngrimsmo
And I actually, I quite like that a lot because I'm a huge fan of my notebook.
00:27:07
John Saunders
Interesting.
00:27:11
johngrimsmo
Like we make notebooks and we sell them with every pen and I i have Post-it notes everywhere.
00:27:12
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:27:15
johngrimsmo
And I and don't trust my head to to manage a to-do list. um I like to get it out on paper or have digital systems for more long-term stuff.
00:27:19
John Saunders
Yep.
00:27:23
johngrimsmo
When he said that, I was like, that sums up how I feel in, you know, eight words or whatever. Your head is not a to-do list. That was really cool.
00:27:29
John Saunders
Yep. No, I like i will belabor this point for probably for a number of years at this point for me. even like I'll get up in the morning, and I'll work on Johnny five before work and I'll look at it and i be like, Oh, so, it feels so daunting.
00:27:43
John Saunders
Like that's the, in your head to do list. Like, Oh, this, like, no, John, the only thing on my to do list right now is to look at that neck hydraulic joint and realize I need to figure out how that faster gets through that port or like, and then where does it connect to the other side?
00:27:45
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah
00:27:56
John Saunders
That's all it's like, it's like, it's the cliche, you you know, you know, you have an elephant one bite at a time or one step.
00:28:02
johngrimsmo
yep yep yep you did it yourself a few months ago
00:28:03
John Saunders
Um, I saw, I haven't watched the tour video because I, I don't know. But I did see Audacity. Did you see his repost on Insta that um Paul Akers himself commented and was like, that's, that's really flicking, freaking lean.
00:28:15
johngrimsmo
no
00:28:22
John Saunders
which Like, I'm not even like a huge Paul Akers fan, but I felt like that's like pretty royalty.
00:28:26
johngrimsmo
That's a lot of respect. like
00:28:28
John Saunders
Like that's what I'd frame.
00:28:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:30
John Saunders
I'd frame that.
00:28:30
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Well, that's really cool. I didn't know yeah
00:28:33
John Saunders
yeah Yeah. So tip of the hat to AJ for ah being able to, yeah I mean, just the fact that, I mean, I'm guessing somebody sent it to Paul. or Maybe he'd watch it. But either way.
00:28:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:44
John Saunders
Awesome.
00:28:45
johngrimsmo
That's cool.
00:28:46
John Saunders
Right.
00:28:48
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:28:51
John Saunders
I got to share a hilarious response. So last week I was talking about putting in viewing port windows into the coolant tanks.
00:28:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:28:59
John Saunders
And I was kind of lamenting like, ah, the sheet metal, I don't know how to do it and drill it. And I don't like big hole saws. Like I want a six or eight inch window. And I don't, we don't actually be doing a six inch, but no, I'm not using it.
00:29:11
John Saunders
Sheet metal is pretty thick, like a hundred thousand
00:29:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah, like surprisingly thick, yeah.
00:29:15
John Saunders
Yeah. So it's not like you're just going to nibble through it. And I was like, well, I can trace it and just jigsaw it, which I really could have done. Would not have been a big deal, but I have to do a tip of the hat to Ben builds on Instagram.
00:29:26
John Saunders
He DM to me and he wasn't trolling me, but it was kind of in a funny trolling way. He's like, man, just think one day, if you ever were able to own a machine that could computerize control, move a cutting tool through material, you could even, you could even interpolate those out. And I'm like, oh my God,
00:29:42
John Saunders
thought Wow. I, I, you know, the, what is it like the cobbler's kids wearing no shoes? Like, how did I not think of this?
00:29:50
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep.
00:29:51
John Saunders
And so ah Caleb.
00:29:52
johngrimsmo
Does the, does the panel remove like, and and you can fit it in one of your machines. You've got some bigger machines.
00:29:56
John Saunders
Yeah. Yes, yes, yes.
00:29:58
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:29:58
John Saunders
They're, they are a little weird. Cause they have those ribbons and flanges, but Caleb put it up on some two or six blocks, strap clamped over it with a two by four.
00:30:02
johngrimsmo
Still.
00:30:06
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:30:07
John Saunders
This is not accurate. Two by four to bridge it. And then interpolated them out. Like done. fine Totally good.
00:30:13
johngrimsmo
That's like like you as the owner overthinking it and you just give it to one your employees. Like, I need a six inch hole here with a Sharpie. Like, make it work.
00:30:22
John Saunders
Exactly.
00:30:22
johngrimsmo
And that's kind of how somebody else would solve that problem. That's beautiful.
00:30:26
John Saunders
Yeah. So I thank you for bringing me back down to earth on that.
Aquarium Wave Pumps and Coolant Maintenance
00:30:30
John Saunders
Um, the other thing I learned was, is also from a viewer is, um, we had purchased a couple of liquid pumps, like pump, basically like a pump you put in an aquarium, but the same a pump that you could use to pump water through a hose out to a bucket, that type of a
00:30:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:45
johngrimsmo
okay not just a submersible pump
00:30:45
John Saunders
oh Well, basically, yes, but I'm being pedantic because um there's air pumps, there's these liquid push pumps, and then what I found, what I didn't find, was told about, are these wave pumps.
00:31:00
johngrimsmo
what's a wave pump
00:31:00
John Saunders
So... Yeah, so Google it. There's a three-minute aquarium video from Bulk Reef Supply. But basically, the pumps that I was buying and using just basically take water and shoot it straight out as any some pump would basic would do.
00:31:15
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:31:15
John Saunders
Wave pumps are meant for aquariums where... You don't want, you know, 10 gallons or 100 gallons a minute blasting that coral or reef or rocks or fish. So wave pumps have, I don't know what the mechanism is, but they create undulations and motion and wave flow through the water versus just a jet inside of it.
00:31:35
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:31:35
John Saunders
Um, it's 30 bucks versus 10 bucks. I mean, none of these are probably in the last five years, but, um, I put it in, I bought one and put it in the tank and i'm like, oh yeah, this is actually really nice. I want that. I want that rocking motion, that not just the blast jet.
00:31:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah
00:31:50
John Saunders
Um, so that's my PSA on that.
00:31:52
johngrimsmo
like that. That's pretty cool.
00:31:55
John Saunders
I did finish the other, I did two more tanks over the weekend, the DT2 and the UMC 350, and it was actually really nice. Way easier than the VF3 that was kind of, I don't remember, I don't think I could showed this because it was over the weekend, but basically drained them, scraped them, they weren't nearly as dirty.
00:32:08
johngrimsmo
Blocked in.
00:32:15
John Saunders
The coolant wasn't great, but it wasn't that bad. um Scraped them, power washed them cleaned the pumps, New cooling in like feels so good. Um, and like not a big deal on the, on the, on the tanks that were easy to pull away and they get access to.
00:32:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:32
John Saunders
Um, and honestly, i guess I'm sharing a, another PSA to anybody out there. Like I'm really grateful our quality cam held up for five, years like kind of bad on my part, but also through with top off, I'm sure it wasn't all five years old, but nevertheless, we had not done this.
00:32:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:32:50
John Saunders
I'm glad we did it. So go check it
00:32:51
johngrimsmo
yeah it It is a solid coolant. We quite like it except for the little foaming issues we've had.
00:32:56
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:32:56
johngrimsmo
I, I like it. I like, you know, um, I like the smell, I like the feel, i like the look, I like how it performs. um And different coolants have very different results in those categories.
00:33:09
johngrimsmo
They literally feel different on your fingers or they smell different or they you know stick to the parts or don't stick to the parts or don't wash off the parts or whatever.
00:33:11
John Saunders
yeah Right it.
00:33:17
johngrimsmo
And maybe I'm just totally used to QualiChem having run it almost exclusively for 12 years, but it's just, I like it. Everything else is wrong, you know?
00:33:25
John Saunders
Yeah. No, do i yeah I'm not here to evangelize that. I'm more just like, if you don't know, first off, you can't ignore it as I did for a while, but like take your hand and run your finger along the bottom of your coolant tank.
00:33:38
John Saunders
And if it comes up with a quarter inch or an inch of sludge, um yeah, it's time.
00:33:38
johngrimsmo
and
00:33:42
johngrimsmo
It's time. Yep, yep.
00:33:48
johngrimsmo
Good, good.
Exploring New Materials and Metallurgy
00:33:50
johngrimsmo
um i forgot if I told you past two weeks, but I ordered a new material for Fjall buttons. um a while ago we tried 17 for soft. And then we had a colsterized, we send it to a company and, um, well, they've got a couple of locations, but, um, they're based out of, i think Cincinnati or Cleveland, Ohio.
00:34:10
johngrimsmo
Um, yeah.
00:34:10
John Saunders
Solid.
00:34:12
johngrimsmo
And, uh, Holsterizing is that really cool process that basically infuses carbon atoms between the outer layers of the shell and just makes its surface hardness like 70 Rockwell.
00:34:25
johngrimsmo
The substrate is still soft, super cool technology, fairly cheap and awesome.
00:34:25
John Saunders
OK.
00:34:30
johngrimsmo
So we tried that. The buttons are still too soft. Substrate is still too soft, unfortunately, because it's a really cool process.
00:34:35
John Saunders
yeah
00:34:37
johngrimsmo
um And then we've been using four forty c for a while And with the 440C, when we ran it at like 60, 61 Rockwell, the carbides in the steel clump together and form bigger chunks. So when we polish the head, you get bigger chunks ripping out.
00:34:52
John Saunders
yes
00:34:52
johngrimsmo
That sucks. So then we lowered the hardness to 58, 59, something like that. And it cured the clumping issue. So they polish beautifully now, but now they're softer. They're 58, 59. And they're still not like ideally perfect of hardness and dent resistance and slip and all that stuff.
00:35:08
johngrimsmo
So they're working, but I'm not happy with the whole process as a whole right now. So then I learned about this material called 465 Custom. Have I told you about this one yet?
00:35:18
John Saunders
Oh, sounds like a new rifle round, though.
00:35:18
johngrimsmo
ah
00:35:20
John Saunders
I like it.
00:35:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it sounds awesome. Just the name. So it's a carpenter steel, which is one of the big steel companies. And you can buy it in bar form. You can buy it centerless ground or get it centerless ground at your local centerless grinding place.
00:35:33
johngrimsmo
Not local. um quite a bit more expensive. I think I'm paying double what I'm paying for four forty c um per per part.
00:35:41
John Saunders
Yeah, but your material cost here is pennies.
00:35:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's like $1 per part versus $2 per part or something like that.
00:35:46
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:35:46
johngrimsmo
Not significant. But apparently, from what I've researched, um it sounds absolutely amazing. It it machines like 17.4, which machines like butter.
00:35:58
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:35:58
johngrimsmo
I love machining 17.4. It won't have the carbide clumping that 440 has.
00:36:02
John Saunders
The 45 Rockwell stuff.
00:36:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:36:04
John Saunders
Okay.
00:36:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so all the 17-4 which is 45 Rockwell.
00:36:05
John Saunders
HH100, sorry.
00:36:09
johngrimsmo
machine its It's hard, like the machine's hard, but it cuts beautifully and smooth and soft and shiny and polishes and everything. It's just, we make all of our pivots, a lot of the pen parts and some of the screws from that material, and it's fantastic.
00:36:23
johngrimsmo
So 465 Custom, machines apparently like that. I think it comes to you as 30-ish Rockwell. So it's not dead soft, but it's also not hard, hard.
00:36:32
John Saunders
Oh,
00:36:32
johngrimsmo
And then the heat treat sounds super easy, something like 900 degrees for four to eight hours, and that's it.
00:36:40
John Saunders
you have to do client.
00:36:41
johngrimsmo
And then you can add a cryo step in there, you can air quench, fairly simple, straightforward kind of stuff.
00:36:48
John Saunders
Okay.
00:36:48
johngrimsmo
And that should get you high 50s Rockwell, I believe, um but the properties should be a lot better for what I need specifically than 440C. So we ordered about $2,000 worth material, should be here in a week or two, super excited.
00:37:04
John Saunders
Okay. So Rockwell and hard, I'm not, know, I'm not an engineer. um And I don't know this, like I often have to pause if I even know like tensile strength is, you know, pulling apart or shear strength.
00:37:16
johngrimsmo
Right, right, yeah. I definitely google Google these terms often.
00:37:17
John Saunders
so
00:37:20
John Saunders
So a Rockwell test is simple because it's literally a a hardened ball or ah a ball that assume for all practical purposes, a ball that itself cannot be dented. And it dents into the material with a specific amount of force.
00:37:31
johngrimsmo
Yep. Often diamond. Yep.
00:37:33
John Saunders
Oh yeah. Okay. So it's basically how big of a crater does it form when this ball is pushed into the material with the same amount of force across all your test subjects.
00:37:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:37:42
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:37:42
John Saunders
So if I guess, what's the difference between like, let's say for the sake of this example, you could get silly putty at 58 Rockwell. What's the difference between what you're trying to get out of this?
00:37:56
John Saunders
If it's silly putty versus 465 custom, if it's the same 58 Rockwell.
00:38:01
johngrimsmo
I don't know exactly, but I think that's where the metallurgical composition of the grain structure and all that makes a difference. So I'm ah slightly concerned about that, that I can't heat treat it to like 62 or something like that, but it's also stainless, which is good.
00:38:10
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:38:18
johngrimsmo
I don't, really want to make the parts out of A2 or D2 or something like that because they are constantly engaged with your finger and your sweaty thumb and like oils and rust and stuff, even just on the surface would not be a great thing.
00:38:27
John Saunders
Yeah, Russ.
00:38:32
johngrimsmo
Um, yet alone underneath where the business end is. So i don't know, but I'm led to believe from, um, various sources that it should possibly do what I want.
00:38:46
johngrimsmo
So it's a bit of a gamble, but I'm looking forward to it.
00:38:47
John Saunders
Yeah. There is an answer that feels, it feels like what's above full Grimsmo?
00:38:56
johngrimsmo
I don't know. There is none.
00:38:57
John Saunders
Doge Grimsmo? I don't know. We're going to find it out though.
00:39:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:39:01
John Saunders
there's There is an answer that's above full Grimsmo.
00:39:02
johngrimsmo
Ultra grim smell.
00:39:05
John Saunders
Full Grimsmo Square.
00:39:06
johngrimsmo
What do you mean by that?
00:39:08
John Saunders
Have DeBoer, Mithlid, or whoever, have them grind them out of carbide.
00:39:15
John Saunders
Don't poo-poo that.
00:39:16
johngrimsmo
No, I've thought about it.
00:39:18
John Saunders
Think about it. Super, super, super hard. Doesn't rust. a Super high tolerance or ability to be super high tolerance.
00:39:23
johngrimsmo
one I finish.
00:39:25
John Saunders
Bad, bad. um It's a family-friendly podcast, but pretty pretty killer.
00:39:31
johngrimsmo
costs $100 each. like
00:39:33
John Saunders
True. And I know you you want to do it yourself. I respect that. But i mean, hey, you got a current.
00:39:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's fair.
00:39:41
johngrimsmo
well
00:39:42
John Saunders
I believe i believe Marv has a couple of season speeds to to mill carbide on a current.
00:39:47
johngrimsmo
Absolutely. Yep. um yep But I'll report back in a couple weeks how how it's going.
00:39:53
John Saunders
Awesome.
00:39:55
johngrimsmo
um Yes, there's just a lot of things about it that I seem to like, and i very much hope that it does what I want.
00:40:03
John Saunders
Yeah, actually, I haven't asked your blessing on this, but if there's anybody who listening who is a metallurgist, would you come on as a guest episode? Because you probably have thrown many baseballs through windows listening to me and John talk, not necessarily knowing what we're talking about, but but genuinely being curious.
00:40:15
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:40:19
John Saunders
And I i hope I can say well-intentioned. um I'd love to hear opinions and comments. yeah We had the same conversation this week, John, ah literally about 17.4 and other materials because we're doing more expanding clamps.
00:40:32
John Saunders
And it's like, hey, what's the right elasticity, machine ability, hardness, you know springiness.
00:40:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:40:38
John Saunders
um Yeah.
00:40:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I've ah an emailing with one guy who I think listens the podcast or YouTube or something like that. And he has a, what does he make? He makes gears or something like that.
00:40:53
johngrimsmo
And he hired a metallurgist decades ago. And he's like, he's my right hand man. Like, we rule the world together, the two of us, because and my metallurgist, we can get anything done.
00:40:58
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:41:01
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:41:04
johngrimsmo
And we do not have the amount of work to hire a metallurgist, even even part-time.
00:41:08
John Saunders
Oh yeah, sure.
00:41:09
johngrimsmo
However, I would love to have one in my back pocket, um you know, to answer all these questions officially.
00:41:18
John Saunders
Yeah. Well, we need some, we got to find somebody that's like a Robin, Ranzetti or Tom Lipton where they're, they understand the bigger picture and they can explain it. Cause I've, I've actually had a few conversations with metallurgists on phone calls and trade shows and so no disrespect, but sometimes it's very much like,
00:41:32
John Saunders
their answer is like, please give me the chemical composition and I will give you a formula answer. Like, I don't, I don't care that you're machining it.
00:41:37
johngrimsmo
you
00:41:39
John Saunders
Like it's kind of a dense, like this is not helpful for, yeah.
00:41:41
johngrimsmo
It's the PhD answer of not the practical I've done this five times kind of answer.
00:41:47
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:41:48
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:41:51
John Saunders
Okay. i got one of those questions that I don't think there's an answer for it, but I'm going ask anyways.
00:41:59
John Saunders
You look like you're busy taking notes. I don't know.
00:42:00
johngrimsmo
I was, but I'm done.
00:42:01
John Saunders
Okay. Everyone listening, why there's an awkward pause.
00:42:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
Fixture Challenges and Solutions
00:42:06
John Saunders
We make a lot of aluminum fixtures for variety of reasons because we have aluminum and it's cheap and it's easy to machine and it works fine for many situations. But we have gotten in the habit of helicoiling almost everything, especially threads that come in and out like a pit bull style thread, um a talent thread or castle, whatever it is permanently installed.
00:42:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
00:42:26
John Saunders
It's less of an issue, but um we do a lot of helicoils and there They're not cheap and they take time to install. And there's some risk. There's risk you can install incorrectly, there's risk to back out.
00:42:37
John Saunders
So the answer that I don't think there's an answer to, but the question i don't think there's an answer to is I want to make fixtures that have the light weightedness of aluminum.
00:42:47
John Saunders
That's part of the key too. Some of these fixtures are, you know, twice the size of a keyboard. So steel is quite heavy.
00:42:52
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:42:54
John Saunders
um but I want the thread strength. And maybe it, well, now that I say that loud, maybe we do need to buy like Mic 6 or WIF 7, 875. Maybe it is a different grade.
00:43:04
John Saunders
The other thing we've done is we've done like steel inserts and steel pads, which is still assembly and you're still threading those in and blah, blah, blah.
00:43:15
John Saunders
But if there's something I'm not, again, I don't know what I don't know, I still don't know how this could be answered, but the goal is stronger threads, lighter weight fixtures.
00:43:18
johngrimsmo
do
00:43:23
johngrimsmo
yep Yeah, we just kind of standardized to 4140 for everything, but our fixtures aren't that big and that heavy. i mean, the tombstones weigh a decent amount, but you just never have a problem with threads anymore.
00:43:35
John Saunders
yeah Yeah, exactly.
00:43:36
johngrimsmo
Whereas with our aluminum fixtures on the Mori, like we're putting new thread sets in every you know a few months um when there's a problem.
00:43:41
John Saunders
Yeah.
00:43:43
johngrimsmo
But yeah, aluminum doesn't like repeated threadings. um
00:43:47
John Saunders
Right.
00:43:47
johngrimsmo
i don't I don't, unless you just lightweight your fixtures, like hog them all out and honeycomb them. them the steel ones, like make make them out of steel, you know?
00:43:55
John Saunders
Right. Still. So, be yeah, I'm not trying to be a complainer, but that doesn't work because the machine we want to make them on and just the time to machine them still heavy.
00:44:07
John Saunders
Now that I say it out loud, maybe it sounds kind of hacky, but instead of helicoils, honestly, we could probably steal a page out of the 3D printing guidebook of machine the hex to leave a captive nut
00:44:16
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:44:21
John Saunders
underneath it and then you're just light like slip fitting or press fitting or even hot gluing or nut in there that's way easier and effectively free compared to of the helicos are like two bucks apiece and a and we'll have a fixture with 30 helicoils it's like man this takes me an hour to do and it's 60 bucks in helicoils not the other world but it's not fun um
00:44:21
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:44:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Huh.
00:44:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And that's not a bad idea. You could even like peen it in place, you know, take a little punch and just hammer the lip so that it's super removable, but it's, you know, not going to fall out.
00:44:46
John Saunders
sure
00:44:51
John Saunders
I'm look, there's a bunch of stuff like master captive nuts. I'm not a, was a sheet metal guy, but there's a ton of like, there's sheet metal fasteners, there's pen fasteners, there's other stuff in that world that could would translate over now that I,
00:45:03
johngrimsmo
say Yeah, you don't want to... Remember, the chips are going to get everywhere.
00:45:11
John Saunders
yeah.
00:45:11
johngrimsmo
um And you don't want them you know hiding where they shouldn't be kind of thing.
00:45:15
John Saunders
Sure. Dude, RTV.
00:45:16
johngrimsmo
But ah kind of like the captive idea.
00:45:20
John Saunders
RTV is your friend.
00:45:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's a good point.
00:45:23
John Saunders
You should, if you're not doing that, grab silicone and start putting silicone on your fixtures to, well, actually the better thing is to 3D print negative space objects and then silicone or glue those in.
00:45:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, like where you don't want coolant.
00:45:35
John Saunders
And then because I don't want any cavity where chips can live or when I do a wash down, I want to just wash off.
00:45:35
johngrimsmo
and
00:45:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:45:44
John Saunders
Definitely worth the time.
00:45:45
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:45:48
johngrimsmo
ah Fun helicole
Unexpected Discoveries and Applications
00:45:49
johngrimsmo
story. I was um hanging out with a local friend and he was just
00:45:52
John Saunders
Love the Helicoil story.
00:45:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah, no, exactly. And I do not touch helicoils. I don't think I've ever installed a helicoil in my life. um We use the like the thread circ ones, the ones that are double threaded and that are like fatter and black.
00:46:07
John Saunders
That's what we use. Sorry. i I say Kleenex, but like we actually don't buy the Helicoil brand. I hate those.
00:46:11
johngrimsmo
The helicoil brand being the, it looks like a thread, right?
00:46:15
John Saunders
We buy like but the heel closes there the, the outside thread is custom and they don't tell you after you look it up, it's pain.
00:46:16
johngrimsmo
Like a...
00:46:22
John Saunders
We use McMaster car key, they're keen certs, but they.
00:46:22
johngrimsmo
Exactly.
00:46:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's that's what i I use in the shop as well. Anyway, this is an actual helicoil story. And helicoils being the one that looked like just a thread that fell off kind of thing.
00:46:35
John Saunders
Yes.
00:46:35
johngrimsmo
So he was telling me that his road bike, which is a pretty fancy road bike, um the seat post tube ah screw that tightens the seat post down, he's like... um ah you know i was I was removing the seat post and I removed the screw and the thread came out with it, except the thread is still in the thing.
00:46:53
johngrimsmo
And I dropped it behind the the washing machine or something like that. and And I go to the bike store and I tell them like the the thread came out. No, it's not. It's right there. No, no, trust me. I saw the thread fall out. And I was like, i was explaining, I was like, that's probably a helicoil. And then he did find it and he looked and it was like, yep, that's, that's a, it's an like an M5 internal helicoil, like tiny. Yeah.
00:47:12
John Saunders
hilarious yeah
00:47:13
johngrimsmo
And it's like, I got to educate a accountant, or a layman on what a helicoil is.
00:47:21
John Saunders
um i randomly now have a less funny but nevertheless uh i found a comical helicole story as well i can't believe i'm digging this up but like a year ago rant super random but um my dad sort of weird thing my dad plays the theater Oregon and or organ pipe organ and so I have a friend who is our age who has a pipe organ building company in the northeast and he was doing a restoration of a major organ in Massachusetts and he was like we were just laughing talking about something because i give him a hard time because hate woodworking and he does mostly woodworking as in the Oregon world and uh
00:47:55
John Saunders
he was showing me this console with these something he needed to do restoration on. And he's like, I just don't know how we're going to do it. And it had to do with like refitting this existing woodwork with what needed to be retrofitted, threaded inserts.
00:48:10
John Saunders
And he didn't know any of this stuff existed. So it wasn't a helicoil yet. I think it was the, um, again, 3D printer or or injection mold inserts that you can buy on McMaster that have like world outside and a threaded inside.
00:48:20
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:48:24
John Saunders
And I sent them to him and it was like the caps lock. Oh my God, you just saved my life. Like I had no idea these existed.
00:48:27
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:48:29
John Saunders
And they're like, they're like 23 cents a piece. Like this is insanely awesome.
00:48:33
johngrimsmo
ye Yep. Yep. Helps to know stuff.
00:48:36
John Saunders
and this but Yeah. this for
00:48:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:48:38
John Saunders
Campsite rules, man. We'll try to leave the world a better place.
00:48:40
johngrimsmo
Exactly. And that's part of the fun I like about manufacturing is wrapping my head around all possibilities that can affect me. And knowing that all these things exist. Like when I first learned that those heat set inserts for 3d printing existed, I was like, Whoa, that's cool.
00:48:49
John Saunders
yeah
00:48:55
John Saunders
Sure.
00:48:56
johngrimsmo
Okay, all of a sudden 3d printing got a lot cooler. Yep.
00:48:59
John Saunders
No, right. It's a great. But similarly, I love 3D printing with the hex on the backside because we do a lot of 3D prints that need to be strong frasmer wise. And that nut on the backside, when you put a steel traditional regular machine nut through that in a hex, it's pretty darn good.
00:49:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:49:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I've had the, the heat sets like pull through or, you know, they're, they're good. They're not great. Um, I like your nut idea. Cool.
00:49:27
John Saunders
ah Dude, have a great play show.
00:49:29
johngrimsmo
I will. Yeah.
Conclusion and Future Outlook
00:49:30
johngrimsmo
I'm looking forward to it.
00:49:30
John Saunders
Have fun.
00:49:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:49:33
John Saunders
I'll look forward to the report next week.
00:49:36
johngrimsmo
Next week. All right, man.
00:49:38
John Saunders
Take care.
00:49:38
johngrimsmo
right. See you. Bye.