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Grow and Improve During Change
178 Plays5 years ago
What would Scott Harms do?
We all have people we look up to, and take cues from in our lives. For Saunders, of course, that person is a machinist. Saunders got to TOUR of MetalQuest in Hebron, Nebraska, so keep an eye out for that on his youtube channel
Teaser: This guy is positive AND realistic! It’s a story of slow growth, but it’s very relatable as an entrepreneur.
GOOD VIBES
Even though Saunders was only at MetalQuest for the day, he got some real mellow vibes from Scott and the employees. Saunders and John talk about what makes a good work environment.
PLUS the company has their own ERP system! So processes are smmmooootthhh
ERP = Enterprise Resource Planning. An ERP system is “a modular software system designed to integrate the main functional areas of an organization's business processes into a unified system” - Reference
Aka. Lots of things are AUTOMATIC
GOOD PROCESSES
So, basically all you need is robots.
Grimsmo and Saunders talk about how they’re improving their own processes lately (hint: drilling concrete is involved). But remember, money spent one place, can’t be spent somewhere else.
GOOD INVESTMENTS
Real-estate and machines are top of mind for Grimsmo and Saunders, and the Grimsmo Team has FINALLY found a new shop and is SCALING-UP!
The two Johns talk real-estate advice, and how to negotiate when leasing a new building. You can often talk to the landlord to improve a space in general if the improvement adds value to the property.
“You can often negotiate a tenant allowance” - Saunders
“If your broker isn’t totally comfortable talking about this, you need to find a new broker” - Saunders
Goodbye Erin, it was nice! Hope you find your paradiiseee
Erin leaves the Grimsmo shop to go to Africa and throw herself into freelancing. Fraser is the latest addition to the Grimsmo team!
Keep an eye out for the RJ Cylinder Shop Tour on Saunders’ Channel
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the Business of Machining, Episode 141. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. And this is the podcast where two buddies just get together and talk about manufacturing, entrepreneurship, business, machining, future planning decisions, the current state of things, and just like, what's up? So good morning.
Visit to Metal Quest Unlimited
00:00:21
Speaker
The future is a good topic, but can we talk about the past for a second? Absolutely. Learned a lot from the past.
00:00:29
Speaker
I just got back from spending Monday at a shop called Metal Quest Unlimited in Hebron, Nebraska. And it was just, there are so many, hitting on so many highs right now. From machining to shop operations to just entrepreneurship to the energy. Some folks have, I've mentioned a number of times, I have a short list of folks, people that I,
00:00:58
Speaker
keep, and I think about looking up to them or contemplating how they would handle a situation, especially when I'm stressed or feeling down or just not sure about something. I've never shared any names on that list, mostly because the people on that list have no idea they're on that list, if I even know them.
00:01:15
Speaker
Scott Harms, who runs Metal Quest, is absolutely one of those people. He's got that positive realism, meaning he's positive, he's energetic, he figures out how to get things done, but he's not delusional. He's not one of those people that just detached from reality. And being able to spend the day with them and see their shop was amazing. That's incredible. Yeah, I saw a few of your pictures as you're there, which led me to their Instagram, which led me to quick catch up on what they're doing.
00:01:45
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure it must have been.
Entrepreneurial Insights with Scott Harms
00:01:47
Speaker
Is it one of the coolest shops you've ever seen?
00:01:49
Speaker
Yeah, and I know I say that a lot, so I hesitate because I don't want to become that person. But darn it, what I love is the genuineness. Scott went to a two-year trade program. It's his business. It's not like he didn't inherit this from his father. And there's nothing wrong with that. But Scott built this. And he started in the late 90s. He bought, drumroll, a multi-axis, multi-spindle,
00:02:17
Speaker
multi-turret lathe, and those were unicorns in 1996. And it's a theme I've announced. It was his first machine tool. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Talking about jumping in low speed first.
00:02:31
Speaker
But it was deliberate, and I've heard this now from lots of people. Amish Solanke talking about he had that VF7 because no one had the big machine. He's got the DMU50 because it's what lets him, just kidding Amish, DMU65 monoblock.
00:02:49
Speaker
because it's a unique machine to that area. Lawrence has this mill turn machine and a unique ability to use it because it's a bit unique to that area. Darn it, there's something to that. They've continued to lead the way in their willingness to take on and embrace technology and innovation.
00:03:13
Speaker
It ends up that costs a lot of money, but you can actually build successful businesses that can make money that allow you to have fun like that. That's the big contrast, I think, between Metal Quest and your story, my story, and I think the story that we, like it or not, that we talk to people about bootstrapping and slow growth and being deliberate.
00:03:36
Speaker
When you have, I guess the analogy would be, let's say from month three of the Grimsmo story, you immediately saw thousands of people demanding Norseman. Like without question, you had this conviction and belief, and then all of a sudden you went from nothing to month four purchasing machines like your Maury and your Nock and your Tornos, et cetera.
00:04:03
Speaker
It's a different growth trajectory. Yeah, it was the year five, six, and seven for me. Right, exactly.
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah. So it's an interesting change and it's one that makes you rethink things and I think that's what's
Entrepreneurial Challenges and Decisions
00:04:19
Speaker
good. That's what I enjoy about traveling and seeing different companies and different, I hate the word cultures, but all of that stuff because it makes you think about what do you like that you're doing? Because ultimately that's what's tough about being an entrepreneur. You still have to make the decision. I still like my risk reward balance. I still like
00:04:38
Speaker
equipment that we have and how we run our shop. But you want to keep an open eye to seeing how other folks do it. So let me ask you this, give or take, how many employees do they have? And what was the culture? Like, what was the vibe like? There's only seven people there? 7D. Oh, 7D. That makes a lot more sense. What was the vibe like?
00:05:03
Speaker
So what was the vibe like? For sure, every single person seemed to have access to the right tools without hesitation. So digital torque wrenches that count the number of fixtures, bolts that are clamped to know that it was done. Oh, yeah.
00:05:21
Speaker
But then when I love this all this is all on the video tour which will take us You know over a month to get it approved at so forth so but stick around folks because that video is gonna be awesome And then I look at Scott and I'm like Scott. This is amazing He's like, oh, yeah, we bought it off eBay and that's what I love is Is and he's like sometimes we can buy all of them off eBay Sometimes we just buy a cheap one to prove it out and if it works We'll figure out, you know the implementation solution. I just you know, it's like yes, this is the real world and
00:05:49
Speaker
So for sure, and I'm saying this humbly and from an outside perspective, having the tools there to do what they need to do, but also they've reached a point, and I've seen this in a few other shops that you hit with that. I don't know what the employee count number is, but certainly north of 50 or 30 or 50 or something where
00:06:10
Speaker
where there's lots of different, there's lots of roles there. There's lots of hats to wear. So that brings up a much bigger environment. Scott and the team seems to, seem to know about every employee, which is actually pretty impressive, but it's different than, than Saunders or Grown So Nice, where it's six or seven or eight people or even 20 people. And so they've got,
00:06:36
Speaker
places they've got, they've been amazing. They've custom, no, I shouldn't tell you this because this is going to further convince you you're doing the right thing. And I'm not sure you are, but they've completely built their own internal ERP and management software and system. So any operator at any point in time can tag a machine as needing maintenance. That's normal. That's downtime. If it's downtime, it automatically triggers a schedule update on reordering schedule.
Culture and Innovations at Metal Quest
00:07:02
Speaker
All the material is tracked. The second hits the door with QR codes as it flows through. They built a PLC, kind of like an Arduino, but on steroids, water delivery system. So all of the machines can be immediately topped up with water anywhere in the shop at a control panel, which gets logged into. So if you have a job from them a year later, if you send them that PO number or whatever invoice number, they can tell you the bricks and the operator of the machine that afternoon.
00:07:33
Speaker
That's amazing. Yes, it was great. Like that's the culture. Well, yes. But it was nice too. They had, you know, it's not perfect. I think that was what I enjoyed seeing about Scott and the tour around. They, like everybody, have quirks, mistakes, stress points, struggles. And again, I think that ties back to what I want to make sure we always get out of this podcast is not just the
00:07:58
Speaker
rah, rah, rah, BS of everything is perfect in the world, but like, hey, why are we getting chatter on the part that we haven't before? What changed? Are we using the right inserts? Are our vendors the right fit for us? All this kind of stuff. It's the real world. Yeah, and you realize all that stuff happens to them too, just on a much bigger scale.
00:08:23
Speaker
I think the thing I wish I want to emulate is, number one, the ability to grow a product line or work such that you can make more capital investments, period. Basically make more money so you can buy more tools. And number two is they have done an incredible job of building an incredible team.
00:08:45
Speaker
And you and I have talked a lot about that, but it's kind of a think if you had multiple, more people, especially other people that you think are the best fit to do stuff in your shop. And for sure, it almost goes without saying that they don't micromanage. They find great people and let them do great things. Yeah. That's a good perspective. Were you there for just a day? Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, it was great.
00:09:14
Speaker
So that was the past, really cool. I'm not even sure I've processed at all, but...
00:09:19
Speaker
Sure. Ironically, the biggest theme, I think, of metal quests that's different is robots. They have, I don't know how many robots they have, maybe only 10 or 15. They have 32 spindles, almost all Okumas. They just bought an index MS40 rotary transfer machine that is bananas. The thing's amazing. It's in Indiana getting qualified right now.
00:09:45
Speaker
But their implementation of robots is mind blowing and inspirational. And it makes me super excited that we have ours literally got powered up like Monday. And it makes me think that we're going to be buying our second robot a lot sooner based on C.
Excitement About Robotics
00:10:01
Speaker
Oh yeah. I mean, one step at a time here, but oh yeah, it's really cool. So you got the robot powered up. Have you moved it around?
00:10:09
Speaker
Uh, we haven't, we have an alarm that we haven't cleared yet. Um, so I haven't jogged it here. I jogged it back at the school though, before we moved it. Right. That's awesome. So it has like its own little control panel that you can, you know, hand with it around or how does that work? Has a pendant that kind of looks like an iPad that has a physical, uh, what are they called the buttons that are, have the little bubble buttons that are hard plastic.
00:10:37
Speaker
And the, I don't know what it's called, but dead man switch that you can grab on the back. Uh, if you've seen Jay Pearson's videos, uh, using his remote, it's a similar type pendant. Cool. Yep. Um, so that's, that's going well for sure. Um, well, I say going well, we haven't, I don't know what next steps are clear that alarm. And then, uh, we just ordered some holders. It is big plus, which is super exciting. Thank you to everybody again for confirming that.
00:11:06
Speaker
So.
00:11:07
Speaker
Ironically, we had some new BT30 that came with our Torvok MX machine. Like is that as the like tooling kit? I'm not sure we're going to mix those tools with the Robo drill. I'm not sure there's a problem doing that, but those are regular. This came with three or four Sandvik Chucks that the school had that are also not big plus. So somebody just when they bought that machine didn't realize it. And then we just bought some of the Mari tool BT dual contact stuff to see how that works. Nice.
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah. What's going on with you? Do you have good? Last last question. Do you have plans for that machine? Like we're gonna make blah, blah, blah. Or is it more like
00:11:52
Speaker
a giant experiment. No, absolutely. Hyper-specific plans. We already have the specific part. We want to make on it and focus on that part. I am not worried. Like from an execution standpoint, it shouldn't be that difficult because it's quite similar to the demo part that the machine used to run. We got to tool it up, program it up, get the robot and automation part working. The trick is that part we want to flip and
00:12:19
Speaker
there's no probe in that machine and robots are not, quote unquote, that accurate. So I think what we have to do is we've got a fixture in mind that you can have the robot take the part out, rotate it or drop it in the thing in this fixture, and then it'll grab it from the other side so we can handle the physical flipping the robot. And then the question is, how do we put it back in the vice
00:12:43
Speaker
and have it push up against a stop. Is it something where you drop it in the vice and then have the robot come over and gently push up against it? Do you put a spring on the end of the end effector that can use the spring to push up against it? I don't think it's going to be a problem, but I'm also cognizant of how many little things can go wrong. If you start pushing against it, is it going to lift the part up? Are you going to blow tolerances? Is it not going to repeat? What if the chip's in there?
00:13:10
Speaker
And that was really good to talk with the metal quest guys about was they built these flow charts when they do these robotic lines and assemblies and they start to kind of contemplate every single thing that you need to account for before you start buying stuff and building stuff.
00:13:29
Speaker
It's just getting my brain going like so many ideas, so many potential possibilities. Yeah, but you already have a robot in the form of that aroa. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love what we're doing and it works quite well for a high volume, low cost part, which is effectively the soft jaw for our mod vice because I don't want to buy work holding for each individual one, but having that aroa system is going to be amazing.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah. I hadn't even thought about it from my business perspective. I was just more thinking through the workflow of like, okay, if I had a chunk of aluminum that had to be flipped and that had to be, you know, how many ways to skin that cat. Um, but yeah, kind of useless for me for what I'm doing, but yeah, it's going to be fun. And just seeing the move is so, um, Oh man, it is cool. What's going on here? Good.
Grimsmo's New Shop Progress
00:14:30
Speaker
Lots, lots and lots, which is great.
00:14:33
Speaker
Good or bad? The shop across the street is going very good. All good. Yeah, the new shop is going great. Just finalizing the details of the agreement and the lease terms and all that stuff. But it's essentially ours. It just hasn't been signed for yet. And final agreement. So I'm excited, which is good. And it's like one thing done. Yeah, that's a huge relief. We can then move forward.
00:15:03
Speaker
Huge relief like like sometimes I don't even realize how big it is because that just lets all the other dominoes fall into place Should be able to get it December 1st to which timeline wise works perfect They're still operating out of it. So we got to be respectful of You know, it's up to them. What's the business operating out of it again? What's the nature of the business? What is it? They
00:15:32
Speaker
In a short term, they clean up toxic spills. Well, I guess the question is do they have, I'm thinking of somebody else I know who was in your situation and ended up getting delayed by like seven or eight months because equipment didn't get moved out. So just trying to think about the risk. Yeah, there's no equipment there. It's all basically storage. So I don't think the move will be that critical for them, but I'll keep in communication with them. I mean, literally across the street. Angelo and I walked over there the other day and with a hammered
00:16:02
Speaker
and we drilled a three-eighths hole in the floor. I've never drilled concrete before, so that was kind of fun, actually. Have you ever drilled a hole in concrete? Yeah, many.
00:16:16
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. I don't know why I haven't yet. So like I had the drill on drill setting and I'm like, Oh, this is working. And then we switch to the hammer and it like goes through like butter. Like you can feel it going down. Yeah. Yeah. It was cool. Uh, the drill I brought was only five and a half inch stick out. So I bottomed it out and realized that, Oh, I'm not even at the bottom yet. Okay. So it's at least five and a half inches thick. Um, so that's perfect. You know, five plus is fine for most any machine. That's not 50,000 pounds. Um,
00:16:46
Speaker
So I'm satisfied with that. It's, it's good. Great. It's good. So yeah. So now we're just planning the timeline of that and the schedule. And what'd you decide on the floors? It's a bunch of plumbing. We need to do to put sinks everywhere. Um, floors. I'm 90% sure I want to go interesting drops. Okay. Yeah. Definitely. Uh, building one where Eric and you're going to live for all the finishing. Um, cause it's not as nice of a floor.
00:17:17
Speaker
And yeah, and I'm 80 to 90% sure that I want to paint, I want to epoxy the polished concrete because it's nice, but it's not like really nice. Anyway, I got a lot of ideas. caveat.
00:17:35
Speaker
Empter here about backseat driving and not being aware of all the factors at hand, but just remember money you spend on stuff like epoxy and florid is money you can't spend on stuff that makes you money fixtures and tools and so forth. So, um, uh, I'm not against it. I'm just saying that's like when seeing metal quest and seeing like, Oh, they, they needed the Heimer shrink fit. They bought the Heimer shrink fit. They needed a balancer. They have a balancer. They needed
00:17:59
Speaker
and having the money to do that is you get there by both making money and not spending it. I'm not saying the fours are willy nilly or silly, but just keep in mind. Of course. It's something to keep in mind. It's been good because when you or Barry or other people got a lot of DMs and emails about this too,
00:18:21
Speaker
When people bring up other perspectives that I might not have looked at it from that side in many different ways, it causes me to pause and think back and analyze it and be like, is it worth that? Or is it worth the money? Or is it worth not buying this extra thing because we're spending thousands on the floor? And it just lets me process it in a new and different way. And if I can come out of it after all that thinking and still be confident that this is what I want to do, then I feel better about the decision too.
00:18:47
Speaker
And then I don't feel like I'm jumping into it. I feel like, you know, I've thought this out. I've got a lot of perspectives and I still want to do it. Did you get any landlord improvement allowance to improvement? We're still discussing that. So we haven't. Okay. Well, that's something that I would lean hard on.
00:19:08
Speaker
Can you explain that? I know we've talked about it before, but just give me the one minute primary.
Negotiating a New Shop Lease
00:19:13
Speaker
Sure. It's a simple thing that's solely driven by market dynamics, meaning what is the marketplace, what's normal for that market. But I've signed leases on industrial real estate in probably, I don't know, 20 or 30 cities or states in the US. And with rare exception,
00:19:33
Speaker
I mean, incredibly rare exception. In most cases, landlords are willing to extend to tenants a tenant improvement allowance. Exceptions would mean really low quality tenant, really short-term lease, but if you sign a three-year lease for an industrial space, the landlord's expecting to spend some money on that in the form of both paying the broker's commission, but then also improving the space. The cold negotiation behind tenant improvement allowance is usually, what are we improving? We were usually the landlord,
00:20:03
Speaker
So, we would do stuff that we wanted to kind of control to make sure, excuse me, it would be improvements that would work in the future beyond this tenant. Whether that tenant stayed their full lease term and then just moved on or whether that tenant went bankrupt or didn't perform. So, standard office layout or industrial layout, standard features were great. Really, really weird, quirky stuff you try to fight or say no to.
00:20:29
Speaker
If a tenant came to me with a three-year or five-year lease term and they wanted to do something like epoxy the floors, that's a no-brainer because that improves it for almost ... There's some tenants that wouldn't want that for sure because there actually are drawbacks to epoxy floors, but that's a lot more normal versus somebody, a tenant who wants special power conduit run or special HVAC.D, or
00:20:54
Speaker
or something specific to machine tools, or I'm not going to dig out trenches for you to run coolant through the floor. That kind of stuff is a no. Right, right. Yeah, but things like air conditioning would qualify. Not necessarily. It depends on how often if tenants are going to air condition. Most by percentages, most industrial spaces are not air conditioned or climate controlled.
00:21:21
Speaker
So I wouldn't, as a landlord, wouldn't want to buy that because my next tenant's like, I don't care if it's air conditioned. Yeah.
00:21:30
Speaker
But you probably wouldn't mind if it were. Well, sure I would. Because if you don't run it, it's not a good thing to... Those sorts of things aren't really great to have and not use. That's true. Now, if the landlord can put it in there and charge more rent because it sort of improves the quote unquote class of the space, like if it's class B that moves to class A because it's better condition and it has HVC or so forth, totally, because then they can potentially charge more rent. Right.
00:22:00
Speaker
Well, it's like our current place now. It was not really nice when we moved in. And I mean, we didn't negotiate tenant improvement allowance. Eric and I put our own money into it in time. And it's quite nicer now than it was then. So Landlord of Care gets the benefit from us and probably rent it again to the next people for a little bit more money. Well, that's a smaller space. And at the time, I would have said no to you as a tenant at the time anyways, because you were
00:22:30
Speaker
incredibly small and so forth, but now you're leasing thousands over a square feet, I assume, for multiple years. This is obviously awkward at this point, but if your broker isn't totally comfortable talking about this, you need to find a new broker.
00:22:48
Speaker
Like he needs to know market comps. Like this is the negotiation. You go, your broker's like, Hey, the last four leases that were signed in this two mile square radius had these tenant improvement allowances at this rate, this term, this amount of free rent, all these things. And that's, that's just how that works. Ask your broker, ask your broker for something called costar report. C O S T A R.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have a way of getting them any. Would they have that in Canada? 90% sure they do. If they don't ask somebody like the folks at the military would have gone through this for sure with all the work they did on buying and selling and leasing and all that stuff. I'm sure co-stars in Canada.
00:23:42
Speaker
And that's what'll give you, it's expensive service, but most brokers have access to it. And that'll give you access to all these quote unquote comps or lease comparables and show you what our market rate deals and terms and so forth. Nice. Awesome. Yeah. I think this later this week is, is that is focusing on details, which is good. December 1st is not even, doesn't blink away.
00:24:13
Speaker
It's a month and a month and a week away. Yep. So we'll see. I haven't, I guess, I mean, the current hasn't shipped yet. So we don't know exactly when it's coming. But I think early December. Oh, it's still in Germany. So there's... Oh, I didn't realize that. I thought it was in route for some reason.
00:24:33
Speaker
No, November is when they start up ship, but I need to touch base with them and see exactly when things are happening. I think I told them that I found a shop. I'm not positive yet. Well, that seems to feel good because like I saw your Instagram on this guide bushing on the tortoise and it looks like the tortoise is going to be comfortably enough underway, making parts that you will be able to focus on the current rate. Exactly. And that is the goal.
00:25:00
Speaker
But yes, the switching to the guide bushing has been a bit of an adventure past few days.
00:25:07
Speaker
It's just different. Like everything's different and I'm, it's good cause I'm learning new things and it's, you know, trying to figure things out, but it's good to have a team of people. Uh, you know, Danny Rudolph, um, on Instagram and other people that can just bounce ideas off of and help me figure this out. Cause I'm getting this wicked chatter on this part and I can't get rid of it yet. Um, some, I don't know if it's a speeds and feeds thing in the morning. I'm going to try a slower SFM. I was doing 300. Um,
00:25:39
Speaker
Oh, okay. 17 for pH, uh, H 900 hardness. Yeah. It's like 45 fast, soft. I'm guessing you've cut this up before at that speed.
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, 300 but with a chucker. And so long part so it's I mean, guide brush tightness is a big thing. So I've been playing with that. And I think I might have to re reconfigure the way the bar feeder pushes the material, because right now it like uses air pressure to once the call it opens, it pushes the bar forward against the part off tool. And that's how you advance the car forward.
00:26:19
Speaker
Whereas one of my buddies was saying on its citizen, the spindle actually moves the next part forward and then reclamps itself. So it pulls versus pushes. No, I don't know. Well, the other thing that just hit me is keep an open mind because what if it's not the spindle tension, but what if it's your, like your, um,
00:26:45
Speaker
bar feeder sleeve or something in the bar feeder that's letting the end whipper or create harmonics. Interesting. This happens to be a very short part. Yeah, okay. Very short bar. Yes, it's like, I don't know, 15 inches or something. So it's not a six footer. Yeah. Just because I had it. And the diameters are good on the material. It's like the ground stuff you have to use.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yeah, this is the ground stuff, which is good. I was using brass, just like regular round brass from the metal store down the street, not ground or anything. And the parts came out. And I was like, how on earth does a lathe make an oval part? And that's like Swiss lathes can do that with really crappy bar like a dowel. And it's like, yeah,
Machining Challenges with Materials
00:27:33
Speaker
okay. Like four tenths. But you know,
00:27:36
Speaker
you notice it. Everything else I've ever made that's round is like under a tenth of roundness. Like you don't even tell. You rotate the part and it's the same reading. But this, you rotate the part and it's a different reading every time. I'm like, what the heck is going on? And for anybody who, like the four people out there who are curious about this, bostoncenterless, I think dot com.
00:27:59
Speaker
is a centerless grinding company and they have some good explainers about guide bushings and bar ground accuracy and all that stuff. And it's really, it's really neat because a guide bushing is loose, it has to be loose to work, whether it's, you know, almost a friction fit or whether it's sloppy. And the looser it is, the more the material is physically moving and like, like oscillating in the hole because it doesn't even even centerless grinding, which is I think where you're holding on to the part
00:28:29
Speaker
on the ends of it somehow, like there's nothing feeding it. No, it's like supported by bearings. And then the one then the grinding wheel shops, it kind of like a chop saw, the grinding wheel comes down, it's supported by bearings and everything spins. I think the material and the wheel spin at different RPMs or something. And then it feeds through forward.
00:28:55
Speaker
It's like the phenomenon though that exists that is why we can have stuff like centerless or ground stock or what I'm trying to think of, like even daupens I think are centerless ground. So inexpensive because it's a grinding process that can be automated. But if I recall, depending on how you're running the setup, even centerless grinding causes trilobal features. It may not be a measurable amount.
00:29:25
Speaker
Yeah, I was reading about that too on the site. Right, not mere mortals, but...
00:29:32
Speaker
It's amazing how you just take things for granted. You're like round is round. And if you make something on a lay, that's got to be around. But there's factors. If you have a three jaw chuck, the three jaws can alter the part and make your turn feature. I've never had that happen. Microscopically. Yeah, you wouldn't know. Yeah, Mr. Laid. Any update on the Laid?
00:30:00
Speaker
Things are going great here, but we're conscious about, okay, we got a lot going on because the Torlock MX game, I'm actually legit excited to see how that machine does. We also then need to sell probably our old 1100 because we don't need that many for training and the parts we use them for. No, I gave that one to- Is that the original 1100? Yeah, so my basement New York one is now no longer here. Nice.
00:30:32
Speaker
Okay. A robo drill came and is in the process of getting finished up and then the lathe should leave California Friday. Actually the day this podcast airs. Yeah. So I'm not in a rush. That'll come next week, I assume, and then we'll schedule, we'll get the air power run, then we'll schedule Haas to come in. But we, what was it? Oh, we do have a part we'd like to run on it, but we don't need it. So yeah, we'll get it up and going.
00:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting when you have a lot of exciting things going on. And some things you're totally fine not jumping on the second they're available. You know, like, like, I'm gonna let it happen. I'm gonna process it. I'm gonna, you know, take care of it. But I can't give my excitement to that yet. Because this other thing is either more critical or more exciting in the moment. I know that's going to be there in a week.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. I hadn't even thought about this the way you just said that, but yeah, the truth is what we want to do is make sure the robo drill at least works. So clear those alarms, make sure we don't need to schedule a part or a maintenance type event. And then we can kind of say, okay, that's ready for us. We'll get the lathe in, make sure, again, we don't have a problem or something that needs to be dealt with there. And same thing. We bought the Royal
00:31:54
Speaker
GQ65, CQ65, whatever it's called. It's a debate now of whether we push with the bar feeder or whether we pull with the sub spindle. John at area 419 was saying it's actually a bit better to pull with the sub spindle, but I think that that presupposes you have the ability to pull with the sub spindle, which means you need to have a tool or collar or something in there that matches the diameter. I think this is where I
00:32:22
Speaker
just need to learn and figure it out. But the Royal folks are really nice. I was like, if we don't open or use that chuck, can we swap it out? And they're like, yeah, no problem. So that means I need to figure this out before we install it. But that takes the pressure off of changing the PO ASAP or something.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. On the Nakamura, we pull because we don't have a bar feeder. Okay. But on the Swiss, I'm pushing with the air powered pusher on the bar feeder. And the thing with pushing is it's probably weaker than pulling. Because
Bar Feeding Techniques in Machining
00:33:00
Speaker
I'm like with the guide bushing, it's so tight right now that I the air powered pusher is not able to push the bar forward. So that's one of my issues.
00:33:10
Speaker
Whereas if you use the main spindle to push it through the guide bushing, you got way more power. Oh, yeah. So just kind of trying to figure that out. On the Nakamura pulling has almost never been a problem except when you have to be like super delicate on a tiny little plastic part and you can't even grip onto it. Otherwise pulling has been great.
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah. And you should be able to, no problem. Yeah. Well, I think the problem I heard with pushing is if you make a mistake on your bar length or the slug left over, what happened to somebody I heard was that they were pushing and when they pushed, they didn't hold onto enough remnants. The part drooped and then the first tool that came in, the C word, because the part was, the part that touched off or done
00:34:00
Speaker
you've done this? I've done that probably 10 times. Okay, that's not helping right now. On our parts like quarter inch material, it's like no big deal really. I think I broke a part off insert a couple times due to it actually sometimes it just pop the insert out to put it back in. It's all good.
00:34:19
Speaker
and pulling it happens with pulling too. Because imagine if you pull and there's no more bar left. So the main spindle, you know, clamps on nothing. And then right, there's a part hanging out and the part off blade either misses it or like bends it out of the way. It's not great. I've messed up a subcollet or two because of that. But that's planning in in bar length and remnant size. You know, if I can get away with a half inch remnant, sometimes I'll put it at an inch and a half just to not have that happen. Yeah, right.
00:34:50
Speaker
Actually, it's funny, we toured a shop, also a video shop tour coming out called RJ Cylinder. Amazing. They have a 60 foot hone. They have a lathe that can turn like this 40,000 pound, I don't know what diameter, 30 inch diameter, really cool, big equipment shop here in Ohio. They had just implemented a
00:35:15
Speaker
is it a Doosan blade, but kind of the same style I'm buying dual spindle live tool, that six, eighth inch chuck size range. And the guy was awesome. They were using Kapto, so we were talking to him about Kapto. And then he was telling me, he's like, want to know the best lesson I learned on the bar feeder.
00:35:32
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, absolutely. What do you got? And he takes me over to their scrap bin, the slug bin. He's like, look at the slugs. And I see half that are, or some that are like, whatever, three or four inches and then some that are shorter. And I'm like, I got nothing, but I'm not sure what you're saying here. He's like,
00:35:48
Speaker
We were, um, you have to, let's call it a three inch slug. That's the little, the shortest amount you can have left in the machine or something for, or maybe it was for their part. I forget. Anyway, he was like, we were ejecting the three inch slug and it was causing problems. I think it was literally too heavy of a part and it was falling down. And so he's like, just, just push your slug out halfway part it in half. Huh.
00:36:15
Speaker
Now this doesn't apply to the world of grim smoke when your parts are 26 grams, but it's like, Oh, that's a good call.
00:36:25
Speaker
I think I've done something like that where, I can't remember, I'm touching, my brain is trying to come up with something, but where you're altering the final liquid, the garbage, you're like making it into scrap and not having it be like a thing.
Efficient Parts Handling at Metal Quest
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. Oh my gosh, that was the other, I mean, Metal Quest was just full of these nuggets. They had one of their lays making a part that was about the size of a bottle cap. And I look at it and I'm like, are you kidding me?
00:36:52
Speaker
they had built their own, so it has an Okuma parts catcher, but then the parts catcher transfers it into a DIY conveyor. The conveyor then moves it over to a rubber line drop mat, and then the drop mat then has a pusher, like a bulldozer blade pusher, then pushes it over
00:37:12
Speaker
And they basically had this, and the beauty is the simplicity of the whole system. Very few moving parts and a very natural flow. So they always know the last part that came off the machine. If the operator takes a break or shift change or overnight run, they always take the last part and set it on a specific part on the bench so that they can do an A-B test between the last part that was made and the
00:37:33
Speaker
most recent part that was made. And then that whole conveyor bin had a trough with three dividers that could be easily removed. And so if you are making parts and you know everything is good and you've got to go take your bathroom break or go to a meeting, you push all those parts into one of the troughs, drop in the divider. Those are now all quarantined and separated from parts that are about to come off. So again, you know what's what and
00:37:59
Speaker
at the same time, it's dropping them onto a rubber match, they're not damaged, but then pushing them off. So your whole thing doesn't have to be rubber. Love it. Love it. And that's so funny. You mentioned that because I am creating the same thing. Oh, yeah. For a Swiss, because the Swiss will make hundreds of parts. And if I go for lunch, of course, I want to leave it running. And then I come back and
00:38:19
Speaker
know, I can always trust the last part that's measured. So the cycles are so fast, I can just stand around for 30 seconds and catch the last part. And if it's good, everything before that was good too. So the hundreds of parts that are in the bin are good. But if that last part is bad, then everything in the in the bin is quarantine is like I have to go through every one one by one. So
00:38:40
Speaker
I'm creating a, I call it the pie plate. So it's like a 10 inch disc or something with 10 different pie segments and they're going to be 3d printed triangular bins. And I've got a young guy in a town close by an engineer. Like I gave him the design. I said, here's my idea. Here's my plan. You come up with all the Arduino stuff. Um, and I want a rotary switch that basically goes from like one part, five part, 10 parts, 20 part, a hundred parts, 200 parts per bin. Okay.
00:39:10
Speaker
and then rotate the carousel to go to do a new bin. So during setups, I'll do one at a time. So then every bin will have one part in it. And I can tell, oh, that's one, two, three, four, five. Or I can for production, I'll put it to 200. Or I might want like, you know, just five at a time or something while I'm setting up. So I'm super excited about this, because it's, it's kind of one of the annoying things about the Swiss is
00:39:33
Speaker
If you blink, it's made 10 parts. Right. Didn't the citizens that we've seen, you and I have both seen separately, don't they have little lazy Susans that are built in? Optional, I guess.
00:39:46
Speaker
at IMTS, I saw that you probably saw it too, which sparked the idea. But their solutions like commercial and probably many tens of dollars or something. So this was great. And yeah, that got me the idea. And I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever. I have to do this. So I'm pumped should be ready in a week or two. Awesome. He's printing parts. That's cool. What's going on today?
00:40:14
Speaker
Big things. I don't think I've mentioned this anywhere
Team Transition at Grimsmo's Shop
00:40:17
Speaker
publicly. So first announcement, our media producer, Erin, is moving on. She wants to strike out on her own and do more freelance work and weddings, and she's going to travel to Africa and do all kinds of crazy stuff. So her time here is winding down, which means we've been looking hard for a replacement, and he starts today. No way. Super exciting. Wow. That was quick.
00:40:43
Speaker
A public congratulations and thank you to Erin for being part of your story and the work she's done and getting to know her at least a little bit through all these journeys for sure.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah, she's been great. And I think it just it just dawned on both of us that, you know, this is not what she wants to do with us forever. And it's fine. Totally great mutual. And we've had a lot of conversations about it. And it's it's all good. And the next guy is very excited to come in Fraser. Cool.
00:41:17
Speaker
This is ironic because you had mentioned Aaron to me privately a week or two ago, but you had not mentioned anything about this new guy, but ironically, last week's like the whole podcast was about how you find people. How did you find this guy?
00:41:33
Speaker
Are you, or is that appropriate? This was, uh, I met him a couple, a couple, yeah, I met him a couple of days before that podcast, uh, filmed. So, uh, I was referring to him in one of the conversations and he was the trampoline park friend of a friend of a friend, uh, situation where you just, I mean, it's so amazing when you actually put something out there, uh, either if it's just a conversation and then things start to happen. And then this lady that I told emailed me three days later with, what about this guy and this guy?
00:42:01
Speaker
was curious but said no. And then he said, what about this guy? And this next guy was like, amazing. Like, I could not ask for a better candidate. So I'm pumped. And he's excited. And I'm excited. And we've spent a couple hours together already. And Eric's met him. And it's all awesome.
00:42:21
Speaker
So, uh, yeah, today's the first day he's going to come in. We're going to, you know, get our feet wet and get used to everybody and bang out some ideas, probably film something. Um, there'll be some overlap of maybe a week or less between Aaron and him, and she can teach him the ways of the force and, uh, the various things that she does around the shop. And then everybody's happy. That's great. That's a, that's a awesome thing.
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it could have gone poorly in many ways, but everything's working out great. Cool. Well, I look forward to meeting him or at least seeing what comes of it. Cool. Seeing his work. Yep. Yeah, he'll be on film too. So between that, I got to figure out this guide bushing thing and make parts that don't have chatter on them. It's the wiper insert that's chattering. Oh, interesting. Only that one. Also being my first experiment using a wiper insert.
00:43:14
Speaker
Well, so go run the wiper insert on the solid bushing or on the knock or something. If you can try to isolate it. Yeah, that's a good point. I ran it in the brass that I was talking about and the regular insert made leaves a good finish. The wiper insert pitted the brass. Maybe it's the insert or the holder or something. Maybe the holder's not tight enough. Isolate it for sure. Because you don't want to chase your tail. Because it did something weird with brass.
00:43:44
Speaker
and it's on center, Y center line. And yeah, there's a lot of variables, right? When you say a wiper insert, you just mean it has a larger nose radius or contact area on the tip? Not just larger. That's how it wipes, basically? It's almost flat and square at the tip. So there is a section past the
00:44:04
Speaker
radius that actually wipes away. So it's rubbing. Sure. And they're supposed to be. A lot more tool pressure is what I'm thinking. Maybe, yeah. Well, you say that, but I've heard with a lathe, because of the continuous motion, if your nose radius is the feed per rev relative to your nose radius means, and I'm not an expert, but I've seen and heard some people who have said, you don't really need a wiper because you can feed such that you don't need a wiper.
00:44:33
Speaker
Well, I would have to feel it feed like at five tenths per tooth or per rev or slower to get the finish that I want, which is very slow. Like I usually feed everything, finish everything at nine tenths per rev, but that still leaves, you know, under microscope, it still leaves visible peaks. And I don't want no peaks, especially on this part. I want it very smooth. This is the button for the pen. So as you're clicking it, there's three ball bearings that are spring pressured shoving against that shaft.
00:45:03
Speaker
And I can feel those pig those peaks in the pen, if you click it very slowly. Yours might be kind of worn in and smoothed out a bit by now. But on a new pen, it's like, yeah, ever so slightly, like super minor, but we've polished them and they feel better polished yours might even be a polished one. I'm not sure. Got it. So yeah, if we can do it on the machine, it's easier.
00:45:31
Speaker
So yeah, totally there, right? That's what we're trying to do. So I mean, I spent hundreds of dollars on a holder and a pack of wiper inserts, but I'll figure it out, don't worry. Sweet. Sounds good. Well, I will see you next week. Sounds awesome. Have an awesome day. Take care. See you, bye. All right, take care.