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CNC LATHE BURRS, WILD WORKHOLDING TECHNIQUES, KERN & RASK BLADES ON THE TOMBSTONE
262 Plays6 years ago
CNC Lathes, Mills, Manufacturing & Small Business
TOPICS
- CNC Lathe & Mill Trials and Errors
- Subspindle Stabilization Solutions
- 5-Axis Window Machining, Tabs, and Hot Glue
- A Different Workholding Solution You Might Not Have Tried
- Will the KERN make the Linda Wheel obsolete?
- Dovetail Workholding Instills Confidence
- Technician Time
- Shedding The Bootstrap Mindset
RAISING A BURR? DISH. Saunders aims to avoid a post-machining deburr process for the square, tapered mod vise washers. He discusses the results of chamfering with the Harvey double-sided, double-angle cutter, using the subspindle and a 3D printed mandrel to stabilize the washer during part off, and a new idea that involves a 1" square collet.
Solutions Should Not Cause More Problems When trying to improve machining strategies and workflow processes, make sure you're considering reliability, scalability, and poka-yoke. If the solution is clunky and prone to error, don't settle!
5-Axis Window Machining, Tabs, and Hot Glue While touring Stewart-Haas Racing (video coming soon), the decal crew asked the V.P. of Operations, Tony Frazier, if their machine shop could fashion an aluminum decal squeegee and Saunders offered to help! He gears up to record voice over for the entire process. Although it's not a technique that lends itself to automation, Grimsmo still wants to have that trick in his back pocket!
A Workholding Solution You Might Have Never Tried Saunders shares an awesome workholding technique when it comes to machining parts that are difficult to hold AND it can also provide reliable machining datum for Op 2.
Technician Time Covid-19 lockdown might have some silver lining after all. Without distractions, Grimsmo finds himself getting very comfortable with the KERN in terms of probing, measuring, pallet changing, mounting vises to pallets, and making incredible progress on the rask knife tombstone fixture. Perhaps when the lockdown is lifted, there will be a new rask in the offering!
LINDA WHEEL OR SWARF!? If you're a veteran of this podcast, you already know about the "Linda Wheel." The Linda Wheel Arrives in all the way back in Episode 12. The question is, will the KERN render the Linda Wheel obsolete?
Dovetail Workholding FTW Remember that scary block of 4140? Grimsmo's now sold on dovetail workholding!
Bootstrapper Mindset Holding You Back? When you're a bootstrapper by nature, the problem is you're using limits to plan while your business is growing! While this mindset does serve a great purpose, the trick is to know when to use it and when to abandon it.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Business of Machining Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining, Episode 168. My name is John Grimsmo. And my name is John Saunders. This is the podcast that talks about CNC machining, mills, lathes, and the businesses that we built and run around those machines. And it's
Challenges with CNC Lathe and Mill
00:00:16
Speaker
been a lathe and mill week for us.
00:00:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I have failed on both. That happens. Dish. No, not failed. Bad outcomes fail as in pushing the envelope, which I love. So we're trying to figure out a way to use the tail stock. Excuse me, it's technically a sub spindle. So it's a B axis moves in and out. I'm trying to use it to stabilize
00:00:46
Speaker
that tapered mod vice washer, so a quote unquote complicated part, just simply because it has an irregular outside profile as well as a tapered face. So it's not something that really lends itself to any sort of secondary work holding. So how do you simply stabilize that part and not necessarily hold it, just stabilize it?
00:01:07
Speaker
to improve the part off finish so that we don't have to do a post machine deeper. And I mentioned it, I think last week, and I regretfully didn't explain a really important part of it, which is we have already tried. We have a Harvey double sided kind of like just a
00:01:30
Speaker
Picatinny cutter or double angle cutter, which we use to both chamfer the front side of the part, which is a really cool fusion hack because fusion doesn't really have a good three dimensional chamfer operation. So you just hack it with some CAD sketching and then trace it along the 3D path.
00:01:50
Speaker
So we can chamfer the front side of the part, and then we can chamfer the outside back edge with the same tool. And
Issues with Chamfering and Burrs
00:01:57
Speaker
we can also chamfer the back side of the hole that we're later deburring. The problem with that is when you part it off, it still leaves a burr because as the parting blade starts to finish its cut or rather meet the drilled hole or the drilled and chamfered hole,
00:02:17
Speaker
you lose the work holding rigidity or the innate strength of the part, it starts to fall away as that parting tool is cutting.
00:02:24
Speaker
So adding the backside chamfer still leaves a burr, and that burr is significantly harder to hand remove than if you just never backside chamfered it, part to the drill hold line, and then, yeah. That's interesting. Because you think about it, it's almost like you have a chamfer, and then the burr is now inside that chamfer, so the chamfer tool isn't really designed.
00:02:51
Speaker
So what we did was we 3D printed a mandrel that we, this is just awesome. Like, I think this is fun and cool. I literally just designed it in Fusion, printed it on our Prusa, came back in a couple hours, threw it in the sub spindle and then programmed a B-axis move without crashing the late this time that came in. And so it's a five, I think it's like a five,
00:03:16
Speaker
point five point five one five inch hole that we've we've drilled and machine to size. So I made it like a five thirteen printed fit.
00:03:26
Speaker
And so it pushes into that hole and would effectively act as a stabilizer, but it's never clamping onto it.
Stabilizing Parts: Techniques and Tools
00:03:34
Speaker
It's just literally fitting inside that ID. And then I came in with the parting tool and long story short, it's not going to make sense. But that's OK. No, I didn't have that much.
00:03:47
Speaker
By printing it, it was super easy to prove it out. It still didn't work great. It would complicate things because we do them in batches of four before we do a bar pool or an index. So you'd have to be programming the B to go deeper on four of them. In hand programming, multiple B, deeper moves where you could risk a crash like that is not something I love long term.
00:04:13
Speaker
Second reason is just didn't give the finishes I was wanting. Now the machine aluminum one may be slightly better, but it's also just not ideal because you're looking at a effectively the tighter the fit of that bushing to the part, the better the product. But also the more risk there is for something to go wrong or where or just not a sustainable good process. And then the thing that really clinched it is that that doesn't really help us
00:04:41
Speaker
with the automation side of indexing the material forward. I would much rather just open the collet and use the sub spindle to pull the material. What I'd have to do this way is open the collet and use the bar feeder to push the material up to a hard stop. Does that work? Yes. Is it as nice as doing a pull? Nope, not even close. So I'm happy. Like we tried it out. It didn't work. No big deal. Don't get over invested in it. And so what I'm going to try is
00:05:10
Speaker
That's an outside shape of that square washer still has two edges that are one inch apart. The other two are slightly different, smaller. But I think we can use a one inch square collet and grab on to actually see what you think. Do you think this will work? But if we use Oh, the last problem with the bushing is that if it did work, we would still have to make it a much more complicated device with some built in either plunge
00:05:35
Speaker
spring plungers or a wave washer to stabilize the part, but then when it retracts to kick it off of the bushing. Makes sense. Yeah. Anyways, if we can do it with a one inch square collet, it solves all of those problems. It bar feeds. It will let us use the auto ejector. It will hold the part much more stable and so forth. But I'm only going to be clamping a square part with two of the four square edges. What do you think? I'd try that for sure.
00:06:03
Speaker
What does your ejector system look like? Exactly what I would... I can't imagine an ejector that's any different. It's just a spring in the center that has a threaded end to it so you could machine or print your own custom size ejectors. Okay, so it's just a spring and as you grip onto the part, it's sprung and then when you clamp and then let go, it kicks it out.
00:06:29
Speaker
Bingo. Yeah. Yeah. In the Swiss, there's an actual air cylinder that goes. Oh, interesting. It's pretty sweet. No, I think I think what I'm doing is machining or printing a custom sort of ejector that's like ten thou under the one inch. That'll help keep chips from getting in there. We'll see.
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think the one inch square collet would be awesome. You ever used a square collet? You've used emergencies? Yeah, I've machined emergency collets, mostly just around sizes that I need. Okay.
00:07:11
Speaker
The right like the Delrin bushings are a very shallow emergency, right? Right. Someone at what person was like, we could call these just soft bushings or custom, but let's call them emergency to invoke and panic fear and impending doom. Right. Like why is it called an emergency? I guess so that you always have it on hand like like for an emergency. But yeah, I get that.
00:07:39
Speaker
I don't call them emergency jaws. I just call them soft jaws and we use them all the time in a very controlled manner. Calmly and not an emergency. I'm going to engrave that if I ever use, we have one emergency for the GQ 65 and I'm going to say this was not an emergency anyway. Right. I thought you had done an emergency that was a peculiar shape. Maybe for the pen tips or something else. Can't remember now.
00:08:09
Speaker
Do you have a lathe part that's like the Norseman shield shape? No? I feel like I did once, but I'm trying to remember what it was. Yeah, I was making a lock bar insert. That's like a little weird off-center rectangle, and I mailed an emergency call it off-center, and it worked okay, but I didn't continue with it.
00:08:33
Speaker
Off-center meaning you've got to have really good C-axis clocking, repeatability, et cetera. Yes, for sure. Yeah. That lock bar insert is now going to be window machined from a square chunk on the Kern, making it like a little fixture that I can get from both sides. So that's going to be sweet. That's awesome. We're doing actually, as soon as we hang up, I'm going to overdub the
00:09:00
Speaker
We made a squeegee tool for the Haas NASCAR team. I think I told it that said this story on the podcast. So we're finally getting around to editing it. And that was window machined with tabs and then using that hot glue trick where you suspend the part in hot glue while it's still tabbed and then you can machine away the tabs. Yeah.
00:09:25
Speaker
That's brilliant. I guess it's not really helpful for you for you, though, because you're trying to look for a lights out or, you know, a non-attended solution. Sure. But I need that solution like in my back pocket. I need to know about it, you know. Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
That's actually a really good segue into our mill fail, which is we're doing the trick where you bolt on a piece of material. This is so hard to explain. And when you see it, the light bulb goes off with the simplicity of it. I think I mentioned it last week as well, but totally depends on the part. If you don't have
Updates on Kern Machine Projects
00:09:59
Speaker
a feature to secure it to, it becomes a lot more complicated. But let's say you wanted to do sort of like a piece of plastic lens-shaped thing. So it was like tapered, curved like an eyeball on both sides a bit. Well, OP-1, and let's just start making it out of a piece of square stock plastic. OP-1 is simple. You just machine the curve on the top. No big deal at all. You can do it three-axis, five-axis, whatever you want to turn it for all I care.
00:10:28
Speaker
Then for OP-1B, the fixturing, what you'd want to have done is pre-machined a part that is the negative of your OP-1 surface. If you milled a mountain, you'd want to machine a little lake part.
00:10:44
Speaker
that has a bunch of extra stock on the backside of the lake. And then you can superglue hot glue, mechanically secure onto that part while it's still on off one. And then you'd come in and you'd machine the edges in a square perpendicular. Maybe you put a little pocket in there for your coordinate system. And then if you know the fusion knows where those features were, then when you drop it into an up to dovetail, single point system, vice, et cetera, you're good to go. And then you just have to release or remove that.
00:11:15
Speaker
Blob later. That's cool. How is the current doing? Current's been going good. I've been I've been only on the current for the past week or so, and it's been just wonderful getting real comfortable with it. Probing routines, measuring, pallet changing, properly getting the vices mounted to the pallets. Been working on my rask knife, tombstone fixture and going in today to make make more progress on that.
00:11:44
Speaker
And yeah, I'll have a Rask blade coming off of there fairly soon, like if not today, then probably tomorrow so that we can send it through Heat Treat and then make progress on that. So that's exciting. So instead of like,
00:12:04
Speaker
trying to put all the knife parts on the tombstone at once. I'm like, well, what I really need is blades, because then they go to Skye for heat treat, and that'll take a couple days. And then they should probably get lapped to make it the right process. So that'll be a day with Steven or whatever, whenever he comes in. And then during that time, I can play with mounting the handles and the clips and the rest of the features on the tombstone. So I'm like, yeah, let's just do blades first.
00:12:33
Speaker
That sounds incredibly smart. Like break it down. Don't feel like you've got to tackle us. All four sides of a complicated tombstone fixture are brand new workflow and brand new machine. And like the blade section is the easiest of the two. It's like drill and thread mill a couple of holes, put some pin locations in and make a top clamp and then program the blade from code that I already have another program. So it's like not a ton of work. And the Kern means you won't need the Linda wheel.
00:13:03
Speaker
I won't be using the Linda wheel, but I'll be using, um, I'm going to experiment with a different kind called a Diacut wheel.
00:13:11
Speaker
It's also a diamond grinding wheel, but it's much different shape, very thin and by one inch diameter, kind of like a slitting saw, but grinding. And I'm just going to do multiple, multiple vertical passes and hopefully it'll all blend and look good. So I'll play with that and we'll see. Can you remind me you can't swarf it because it's a compound angle or shape? I could swarf it on five axis for sure.
00:13:42
Speaker
And I will for roughing. Why not? It's just the finish is not going to be nearly what we need, even if I 3D machined it with a CBN insert or whatever. I don't think the finish would still be as good as we need it to be. Without taking like an hour per bubble. OK, got it. Maybe that's what it is a time constraint, because I thought the current was going to be able to hard mill a part like that. For sure. Like a couple of passes.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah, but swerving it with a long end mill, you're still going to leave some like bad grind lines from the end mill itself. It's going to transfer to the part. OK, so grinding is the is hopefully going to work. I think so. Yeah. So it's it's all an experiment until we try a couple of things and find out what what meets our requirements. So I'm still fairly open minded, but I've got my trajectory, the path that I want to take now, and we'll try that.
00:14:37
Speaker
Is
Business Strategies and Growth Discussion
00:14:38
Speaker
it an off the shelf grinding? It is actually item. Yeah. So that's nice. Yeah. Yeah. And no more of this like six week custom eight times. Yeah, it's it's tough. Yes. So I bought a three pack of those wheels and I was like some like a 220 grit, a 400 grit and then a
00:15:05
Speaker
20 to 40 micron grits of finer. So three different wheels, each with smaller diamonds. And I've been using them on the Swiss lathe as a face mill kind of thing to grind the face of our Norseman pivots. And that turned out awesome because they look so good now. But I blew one up because I did a wrong stupid move and something else was in the way.
00:15:34
Speaker
So I'm down to two wheels, but I'll have to get some more soon. That's awesome, though. It's it's it's just like a Dremel, but really accurate and exactly more high quality. Yeah. Huh. And it works cool. So you have to put it in a Swiss live. No, you don't have to. It is. Can it be a static wheel? You could. But it. Yeah, I've got an alive tool. So it's it's spinning and the part is spinning and they spin opposite each other. OK. And
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah, so imagine if it's like a Dremel just thicker, but imagine if the part, a small round part, we're just going on the, not on the cutting edge, but the face, the flat face of the circular disc, you know, on the front of it on the Dremel style tool. And it's just slowly rubbing up against that very slowly. My feed rate is like 0.000.
00:16:28
Speaker
Oh, six inch per tooth or something inch per rev, like a lot of zeros. Awesome. And it works. It works well and hardly anywhere on the wheel whatsoever. So it's going good. Do they have to be dressed? They should be. But I didn't for this test. And I was like, hey, it works.
00:16:52
Speaker
And I can clearly take off like a few tenths measurable. And it's fine. The amount of carbide that a like a Walter machine and with a wheel pack, the amount of carbon that they can grind before they need dressed is mind blowing compared to a surface grinder wheel that you're dressing like every every few passes seems like.
00:17:16
Speaker
That's what's funny. You could almost take it to the crazy extreme. If you put a Norseman blade in a tool grinder, like a modern CNC end mill grinder, you are certain that that would work, right? Yes. I've thought all kinds of different ways to do grinding for the Norseman blades.
00:17:37
Speaker
Could it even be done in an end mill grinder? Or they certainly have blade grinding machines that high production places use, where it can bust out a blade in, I don't know, a minute or something, compound angles and everything. But I don't think that's for us, at least anytime soon. Yeah, I just meant more of like, find a process that works
00:18:02
Speaker
and start move it back from there. He's like, I don't remember the details of the Linda wheel, but I remember feeling like you were blazing new territory and it went well sometimes and then didn't go other times and was slow and just lots of wasn't like a fun, exciting thing from my memory. Yeah, basically true. That's why I hardly shared any of it except for on the podcast. But it's yeah, so I'm using that experience to kind of redo it in a different way, but still getting similar, but hopefully much better results. And
00:18:33
Speaker
not just because the machine is better, the current, but the strategy that I'm using and the way that I'm holding the part and the type of wheel that I'm using and stuff.
00:18:43
Speaker
Hopefully, that'll all come together, including the better machine to just give me the result that I'm looking for. Yeah, that'll be awesome. Cool. Did you make the, when we were talking about doing that block of steel, 4140 withholding it in the current, did that go okay? It went awesome. ID clamping it from the dovetails was stressful up until I did it, and then it was like, I didn't even think about it after that. Just go.
00:19:10
Speaker
And I literally wasn't concerned with it whatsoever once it was on there and going. So yeah, you reach that kind of turning point of like, oh, this is not as bad as I thought it would be, not as scary or whatever. So yeah, now I've got it properly mounted, bolted to an aroa palette.
00:19:28
Speaker
And I haven't palette changed it yet as that assembly, but I'll be doing that today. And then I can start face milling. I've got a three quarter inch face mill that I can start face milling the four sides and get it dialed into tolerance and then start drilling and thread milling my holes. Sweet. Seeing the the aroa on Instagram, I'm like, oh, my God, that thing is just absolutely amazing. Yeah, it makes you want a robot loader, doesn't it? Like,
00:19:58
Speaker
It does. It does. Yeah. So what's been going up to this week? What else? I mean, that's been my main focus. It's just, uh, the shop's still fairly quiet. Um, just kind of waiting out this whole situation. And, uh, but I get to go in and I get to have a lot of fun and make a lot of progress on the current, uh,
00:20:19
Speaker
It's like this is the period of time as unfortunate as it is that I've been waiting for to be able to focus on the current. So I can come in and I can actually like no distractions, you know, nobody else. I can just come in and I can focus and I can make good progress so that as we come out of this, then hopefully we're that much closer or
00:20:41
Speaker
almost into Rask production and we get to come out of this with a new knife in the offering, something we've been meaning to get back to for the past three to four years. So yeah,
Economic Impacts and Global Events
00:20:53
Speaker
things are going to go really well for the next few months for us.
00:20:57
Speaker
It's a funny, you know, don't never let a tragedy go to waste. Like that's an awesome outcome, but then it's like, you know, whatever parable you want to draw on, but the Brazilian fishermen or just the kind of like, if you run a business, do you work for the business or does the business work for you? And it's like, wait a minute here. How does, how does that approach?
00:21:17
Speaker
I'm guessing you love it. I mean, it sounds like you have some stuff on your mind today. I don't know. Um, or hopefully everything's okay. Yeah. I was just like, it seems like that's what's freaking awesome, right? When you get to go be grims about, you get to go push this machine, figure this machine out, build these workflows, right? Yeah, exactly. And I mean, the business has grown and grown and we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're
00:21:38
Speaker
We are a production shop now as much as I kind of didn't want to be in the beginning because I just like to tinker and have fun. But the fact that we're now a production shop, but I have basically a production staff.
00:21:50
Speaker
lets me be me still. I still run some of the production, but I'm slowly moving away from it, and it allows me to be me. It allows me to develop things for the current or for the Swiss or for the business itself or planning, strategizing, dreaming, and making those dreams a reality. That's what I like to do.
00:22:09
Speaker
I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about all this stuff with a bit more time on my hands and lets me really crunch and progress on those thoughts and where I want to take this in the next few months and years and how we grow the business to maximize everybody's potential, myself included, so that we're strong. You think it'll continue this way even when folks come back? Not necessarily. What do you mean, me getting to
00:22:39
Speaker
to play or what do you mean?
00:22:43
Speaker
No, it's not a trick question. I've struggled with it as well. I mean, I think we all do when when I come in on the weekend, which I don't actually do as much anymore. But when I do or when we were shut down in the initial coronavirus time and I was still coming in some as the only kind of person, it was great because I was no longer basically to use the E-Myth terms. I could be the technician. And guess what? I love being the technician. I love just
00:23:11
Speaker
diving into fusion and diving into code and tests and stuff. But when we're back in full swing, it's more like I've got to play the role of procurement and decision making in HR and operations and putting out fires and answering questions and answering the phones. And it really cuts into my technician time. But if you want to be the technician, like I was talking to the guy who I think he founded pocket and see that, you know, the five axis desktop five axis machines.
00:23:41
Speaker
And I forget the details of what he did, but he basically realized he wants to do that. So he hired or has hired other people to explicitly like, I'm making this up. I don't know that this isn't the exact correct terms, but like he's now head machinists and he actually legitimately has a person who is the president or is the VP of sales or is the chief operating officer. So it's kind of like if you didn't know anything about the company and you were just looking in,
00:24:07
Speaker
you would not think he is, has the history that he actually has, right? It would be like John Grimsmows, your business card would just say that you're the head of R&D at Grimsman Knives and nobody else, other than your last name would realize, oh wait, he founded it, he designed all the knives, he built the business. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a blend of
00:24:27
Speaker
of all of those things. I still haven't found my dream role because it's a bit of all of them, technician, manager, entrepreneur. I need to constantly evolve how much focus each one gets because a lot of the day-to-day production stuff
00:24:45
Speaker
I don't need slash want to handle because that can be easily with time and effort, but trained to qualified people. And then they can just run that, they can handle that. And then I can level up and I can do something else. And then eventually those people can level up and do something else. And that's how business grows.
00:25:06
Speaker
Yeah. It seems like you have a lot of that in place. It's hard to... Yeah, I don't give myself enough credit for what we have accomplished just because I'm so hungry for the next step and what's next and what's more and how to make it better and how to do it faster and smarter and how to push people and challenge them with new things.
00:25:27
Speaker
But no, we do have a lot of that in place, and I'm really proud of where we are and the team that we have. So it's just constantly reevaluating and playing with that. So use the money is no longer a limit scenario, but rather think of yourself as an entrepreneur or a business person whose sole job is to allocate resources. So let's say
00:25:54
Speaker
Whatever scenario helps you contemplate this easier, you could say, hey, Crimson Knives is earning $100,000 a day, some crazy number. Or you could just say, hey, let's say Crimson Knives has $10 million in the bank account, or XYZ Company has $10 million in the bank account.
00:26:09
Speaker
So you can't be wasteful. You can't blow it all. But it helps you shed those. I think it helps you shed that bootstrap, homegrown growth mentality that that we've had and realize, no, I absolutely need this machine or this role like that's justified. That's that's worthy. That will help us be better. And I guess I always hesitate because you think what if you're what if you then become
00:26:36
Speaker
wasteful or grow too fast or let yourself become foolish with the investment. And I find that my own personality, I'm never going to do that. I'm always going to be pretty calculated. But just simply thinking that through helps you think about like, hey, should we pick up another vertical? Because Jared is spending a lot of time switching between my devices and another product or part. And that's a good thing to have. It's a great problem to have.
00:27:04
Speaker
But that's a very wise use of resources at this point. You know what I mean? Yeah. You've mentioned that before over the past few years and just a couple of times. And it always hits me because I forget about it. And I forget to remember it in times of need because it's hard to put your mindset in abundance of like, wow, imagine you had $10 million in the bank. You could do whatever you wanted. What exactly would you do?
00:27:28
Speaker
and why to progress your business to where you want it to go and see things clearly for how they need to be, not like you said from the bootstrapper, do whatever you can to try to do it either quickly or cheaply or with as little effort as possible, depending on the scenario. But every now and then that does creep into my head of what would I do with no limits? And especially in a time like now, I kind of wonder if
00:27:58
Speaker
From an outside perspective, a successful business would be pretty smart to start hiring people like crazy in this time. Because a lot of people are laid off. A lot of people might be fired permanently. And there's a lot of talent out there right now, next few months looking for work. So that's kind of been tickling my mind. I don't think we will or are ready for it anytime soon. But it would be pretty sweet to be able to snatch up some amazing talent.
00:28:27
Speaker
and put them to good work and allow that to do wonderful things for our business and for those people as well in this time. You have to spend more time thinking about this, John. I say that with hesitation because overthinking things is bad, but especially given the future turmoil that may come or the way the world may change that none of us really know, what if
00:28:51
Speaker
the labor pool changes. What if machine tools go on sale? Don't act as if that's a surprise. Think, hey, John, you've mentioned wanting a mill drill machine or an extra reliable vertical. What if that opportunity presents itself?
00:29:10
Speaker
Have, just spend some time thinking about whether that would be a wise decision. Because boy, it seems like you could use some of that, but also balancing being conservative to weather the storm if there is a storm. Yes, and same for people too.
00:29:28
Speaker
Are we staffed well right now? Are there any blind spots? Are we missing anybody, any roles? Are some people overworked and some people are underworked? These are things I think about a lot. And where would I make any effort to change those things? For the better, obviously. And the goal is not to work each person, rag it to the core, but the goal is to kind of maximize their potential.
00:29:57
Speaker
I think we share that because we're business owners that made the businesses from nothing. I think we like having a small culture that has a desire to hustle. And hustle doesn't mean stress. Hustle doesn't mean overwork, like you said. It doesn't mean panic. It doesn't mean emergency violence.
00:30:17
Speaker
the fact that you've got to be hungry to be here, you've got to be passionate, you've got to want it. And that's probably a bad mentality I have forever because there's very good people where there's going to be like great example. We probably need to hire somebody to help us fill orders. I don't think that's going to necessarily be a role that has a long-term machining
00:30:39
Speaker
potential to it. In the past, what we've had is sometimes interns that spend part of their time helping with orders and part of their time getting to learn the shop. We probably just need an order person at this point. That may not be that person that has that kind of same hunger and intellectual curiosity and desire and all that. That's okay, but then how do you make that fit culturally and how do you find the right hire for that?
00:31:03
Speaker
Yeah, and I've heard from other companies, much bigger companies with tens or hundreds of employees, and they speak very clearly about there are some roles in the company that are just basic roles for relatively basic people, and that's fine. Those people are happy doing those roles.
00:31:22
Speaker
And not everybody is going to like always want to level up and, you know, do this and do that and that and that and that and that, and then eventually become the lead machinist or whatever. That's not everybody's goal. So you kind of have to understand where people are at and what they want and push them, you know, in a direction, but not necessarily where, where you want them to go, but where you think they can go, where you think they can benefit themselves in the company from that. Yep.
00:31:52
Speaker
I'm excited though. I'm scared to be honest. Yeah, we have had good sales. It ends up that April is going to be a good month for us, especially given the potential that the world could have ended. And luckily, boy, I feel I wouldn't want to be a politician or a policymaker because it's a lose-lose with
00:32:16
Speaker
You know, it was going to be tragic if more folks died. And certainly there were a lot of of injuries and deaths or injuries, but hospitalizations and so forth. But generally speaking, the headlines seem to be something like, hey, what could have been two million is 60,000. That's incredible from a avoided an outcome where two million people could have died. But boy, it's I still I'm not as confident as some people seem to be that the economy will just bounce back.
IMTS and Pandemic Speculations
00:32:46
Speaker
And so I don't know what that means, but for now, orders have been good. And it's kind of funny because I'm trying to figure out how much of that was our new website and clarifying our offer. Let's say the things we talked about last week versus, hey, there was some stimulus money that went out to both consumers and to businesses. And that's a great thing. If that's causing sales, that's a good thing because that's what it's meant to do because that gives me more confidence. But then is it sustainable? Is it going to last?
00:33:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's all it is is a guess and it's a week by week basis and when each week is different, you can't almost rely on it. We've had a fairly good April too as well and even with our limited production, we're still
00:33:31
Speaker
we're still able to sell some stuff. We had some very quiet weeks in March where it's almost zero sold and we're like, oh man, this is our future. This is going to last for six months of like this. But luckily that hasn't been the case. So it's increased our confidence a little bit. And just seeing the interest that we have from the customers
00:33:52
Speaker
from our fan base. I'm not too concerned for our well-being in the next few months, thank goodness, as long as hopefully we can get back to full-time work here soon, or at least closer to that.
00:34:11
Speaker
I still love trying to make a guess on IMTS because oh my gosh, John, I would love to go. I want to be there. I want to see folks. I want to learn. I want to see those machines. But Germany just canceled Oktoberfest, which is I think a week or two later than IMTS.
00:34:28
Speaker
It's only similar in the sense that there's a lot of drinking at both. You've got tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people in relatively close quarters. I cannot contemplate how it's going to happen.
00:34:42
Speaker
But then today's April 29th, I mean, 40 days ago, it wasn't clear how much water we needed a stockpile at home or whether the level of uncertainty and clarity and how things have changed then was just crazy. Yeah, I think things are a lot.
00:35:04
Speaker
What do you call it? Not clearer, but certainly toned down than they were a month ago, 40 days ago. I think people are getting restless. People are getting a little antsy, a little complacent, maybe. So I don't know what's exactly going to happen. We've got to remember to stay vigilant, not just turn around and go back the other way. But I think we all feel it. We all feel like we're fine. It's good.
00:35:34
Speaker
I don't know, it's tough. Yeah. But I think that's the unspoken thing is that in a certain way, simply the passage of time is news. The fact that things aren't getting worse, the infamous Navy ship that was sent to New York City, it actually left yesterday, having only
00:35:57
Speaker
You know, a thousand bed naval ship hospital that only ended up seeing one hundred and eighty two patients. That's a great thing. They sound like it was government waste and overkill and all that. But when that ship got sent there, it was like a beacon of hope and it ends up they didn't really need it. That's really good. And so we've got to be safe, but we also got the show must go on, you know, right? Yes, it's hard to, you know, stand up and really say anything about it because I just don't know. But what I.
00:36:25
Speaker
What I can start to know is what we're going to do and how we're going to do it. And we're still cautious. We're still basically closed. It's still mostly Eric and I just coming in playing and just trying to keep things afloat and get through this time. And it's helped tremendously that we've gotten all of our machine payments delayed for three to six months.
00:36:51
Speaker
other things like that, and that's just helped reduce our stress significantly. It's a storm that we're weathering, that's all. We're just sitting and waiting and trying to figure out what's going to happen and when.
00:37:06
Speaker
There's a hard part of that though, which is you've got to put your company first. You've got to put your business and you first, your employees first, and ultimately long-term. That's what makes, creates revenue, creates jobs, creates sustainable stuff. It's got to be healthy. It's got to be safe.
00:37:24
Speaker
I don't know that this is getting off topic, I guess, but I don't know how much people appreciate the risk that long term famine, long term disruptions or breakdowns in the way our societies work, food chains, supply chains. That's way worse. That's really bad. And yeah, we'll see. I'm nervous. Yeah.
00:37:46
Speaker
You want to be a helper by being smart and by acknowledging, hey, we need to do the social distancing and all that sort of stuff. But at some point, you've also got to say, hey, no, I've got to put my company first, balancing the safety of workers with the need to keep doing what we're doing.
00:38:08
Speaker
pseudo legalities or rulemaking of your region, you know, all non-central businesses and things like that. So that's where we're at, too. Like, you know, we could we could squint and see the rules a little bit differently and be like, well, manufacturing as a whole is still allowed in Ontario. So I don't know.
00:38:28
Speaker
We're still playing it safe. There's been some pushback here because there's- Exactly. Yeah. And I commend you, but how long would you do that? We'll put it this way, John. Should Grimsmo Knives continue to effectively not be in business for six months more while lots of quote unquote non-essential, or excuse me, businesses that are
00:38:51
Speaker
There's not a fair rule system to it is part of what I think we're starting to see in terms of the, the quote unquote civil unrest. Why can, you know, why can Walmart be open, but the local version of Walmart that's owned by a family cannot be open. Yeah. Yeah.
Final Thoughts on Machining Techniques
00:39:05
Speaker
It's fine for a few weeks. It doesn't, that's not fair for six months. Exactly. And hopefully the rule makers, as you said, they're having a, I wouldn't want to be one right now, but they're weighing these decisions. I would hope, um, and take me into account.
00:39:19
Speaker
What's up today? What's on tap? Current man, current stuff, putting a face smell in the current and facing down some 4140. Sweet. That's awesome. Here's a quick question for you. Tech stuff. When face milling to get the absolute best finish,
00:39:36
Speaker
Do you do like a super light finish pass, like 2,000, 5,000 kind of thing? Or is that potentially going to cause rubbing on the inserts and bad? What's your thought? Are you ready for this? It depends. So in aluminum, you can effectively rub because it'll cause burnishing that generally improves finish and doesn't materially reduce tool life because it's aluminum. You're not cutting aluminum, though. You're cutting steel, I'm guessing.
00:40:06
Speaker
You'll want to still, you could burnish, it tends to reduce tool life sometimes by as much as 80% or again, 92% of stats are made up on the spot. Rubbing on steel has consequences.
00:40:20
Speaker
So, the biggest thing I would say that we've seen with surface finishes, the balance of step over, because any tram error, which most machines have tram error, you have a current, so you're not like most, but tram error will result in sometimes fingernail, feelable, or otherwise microscopic
00:40:41
Speaker
So if you could, for example, if you had a face mill large enough to deck the whole part in one pass, that's great. You don't because you got a small face mill.
00:40:51
Speaker
But I would keep the depth minimum, but still subject to enough to get it's an inserted tool or a solid carbide. Yeah, it's a it's a three insert Kyocera three quarter inch diameter tool. So geometry is going to matter. Nose radius of the insert. It's going to matter whether you have a wiper on the inserts going to matter. But no, I would not go microscopically shallow if I had to guess a first pass.
00:41:15
Speaker
I would keep it at a reasonable depth of cut and I would keep it at, to give it a guess without knowing more, I would probably run that tool at 75% step over, probably at least a 5,000 depth of cut, if not a little bit more. And is it a ground insert or just a pressed insert?
00:41:38
Speaker
I don't know. Let's assume that they're pressed inserts. They have a 15th hour radius.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah, there's three of them. So pressed inserts have a shockingly wide tolerance from the factory. They could be, I think, up to, I don't want to say a number because I don't know, but many times more than you, Grimsmough would be OK with, let alone in a current. Like you could have a foul, two foul difference when you add up the variation in the machined pockets plus the tolerance of a pressed insert. So if you want to check and you can do it with an indicator, it could be a little bit tricky.
00:42:14
Speaker
But I would check that as well. That's going to be a huge play impact on service finish.
00:42:22
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll definitely indicate each insert and just see how even they are, maybe flip them a couple of times and try to get the best one or whatever. Because my goal is not only do I want the best finish per pass, but I want the least step over fingernail feelies between each pass. So you think a 75% step over is a good choice as opposed to something super light or more for that matter?
00:42:48
Speaker
I would try it. Yes. On a current, you should be OK doing that. The larger. Yeah. I think you could try if you have problems is you can try taking out two of the three inserts, just running it as effectively a single inserted fly cutter.
00:43:04
Speaker
Interesting, yeah. Is this for a part or for a fixture? For the fixture, the tombstone. Why does it need to be so insane? Because. I think you'll be fine. Because I want I want to know, you know, like I want to know what it'll take to do this. I need to put that recipe in my pocket and like be able to do it again later, you know.
00:43:24
Speaker
We have a Sandvik 245, which is at sort of a 90 degree or close to a 90 degree face mill that we've got in the different variations. And we use them for our mod vices, which is 4140. And we get a spectacular finish on them. I think you actually are a proven cut member, right?
00:43:43
Speaker
There's a proven cut recipe on there. If you have any problems with it or questions, find me, but that'll show you the depth of cut, the finishes that we get that we're getting the surface footage. It's an absolute jaw dropping finish, in my opinion. Awesome. I will check that out, which is kind of exactly what you're looking for. Yeah. Sweet man. Cool. See you next week. I think that'll do it. See you. All right. See you next week. It's good. Okay. Take care. Bye.