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#299 Custom Fusion 360 Tool Management script!
276 Plays2 years ago
Topics:
- Grimsmo's CNC router is coming together
- Design review meetings
- Custom Fusion 360 tool management script!
- Willemin coolant or oil.
- IMTS tooling claim
- PNMU insert for 4140
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 299. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. This is the podcast where for five plus years, the two good friends have been talking about their manufacturing journey and the decisions they make and all the things we worry about and just what it's like. Agreed. How are you doing? Good, quite good. Yeah, what's going on?
Project Updates and Challenges
00:00:27
Speaker
Wrapping up tons of little projects. We've got a lot on the go right now. It's fun. I like that. A lot of steady work, but also a lot of random one-offs that once they're done, everything gets better and then we get to move on to other projects. Good. Is that good? Yeah. What do you think? Dare I ask? Lots of things. Router?
00:00:51
Speaker
making huge progress. Pierre and I were in on the weekend and the problem we were having was due to the home switches. The machine wasn't homing and now that he rewired the switches properly and mounted them better and everything, now the machine homes and everything seems to work. He had it jogging at 150 inches per minute and I'm like,
00:01:12
Speaker
This thing's got servos on it. Let's see what it can do." And he's like, no, no, slow in state. I'm like, let's, okay, 300, yep, no problem. 500, no problem. 800, okay, yeah, 800 is good. That's fast.
00:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, although it is funny on big routers and big machines how slow Feed rates look sometimes. Yeah, sometimes and you can play in math So the control software they make it easy to play with the acceleration settings so you can be like me And I'm like you don't want it to be jerky and it's not the most rigid machines You don't want it to shake all over the place. But yeah, we'll have some fun with that
00:01:49
Speaker
Are you using the ClearPath hard stop homing? We are not, because I think that takes an extra wire to the controls for something to tell the control that it's honed. So we're not at this time. But I know one guy who built the exact same router with the same ClearPath that does use the hard stop homing and loves it and says it's easy the best. But no, we're just using proximity sensors that measure a piece of metal coming up. Got it.
Machine Homing and Sensor Use
00:02:18
Speaker
Well, you does homie mad, like it's not a stepper machine. So not gonna like lose steps. So homie, as far as I know, like you turn the machine on in the morning and you home it and that establishes a reference zero. And I think that resets the zero to the home position, like from nothing to standard, I think.
00:02:44
Speaker
Yes, but if you don't have crashes or mechanical changes in the frame, that position shouldn't, I mean, of course, all theoretical, but you're also cutting foam, like it shouldn't change. And then are you going to put fixtures down and probe the fixtures or just cut the foam? Like when you're cutting,
00:03:03
Speaker
All the material, what do you call it? All the foam is net material around it. So you're making the whole part out of the foam. It doesn't really matter. Your officer's off by $20,000. $20,000, no. But you definitely need a reference. No, I see what you mean, though. Yes, if you put the foam down $20,000 over, it would still make a good part. But yeah, you still need a reference. You still need a G54 home. Yeah.
00:03:27
Speaker
So yeah, the goal is to have a big vacuum table, but there will still be probably threaded holes in the table that we can locate off of and also like clamp things down. And that way the whole machine's modeled up in fusion. So you can be like, oh yeah, in quadrant seven, I'm going to machine this thing, right? Yep. So yeah. Yeah. So that's good. That's really good. And the guys at CPI Automation, they're making the
00:03:52
Speaker
Enclosure table and everything so they're working on it this week we finalized a couple little things and then they should be banging that out and they keep 80 20 in stock and all this stuff so it's gonna be good what that looks like like.
00:04:05
Speaker
What about?
Material Logistics and Supplier Relations
00:04:06
Speaker
I could see stocking 8020 as being a organized nightmare, like a whole lot of parts. So many offcuts. Yeah, right. Maybe it's not that bad. Maybe it's just sticks and then like accessory boom. I don't know. Yeah. They probably buy it in like, I don't know, 20 foot lengths or something, like fairly long truckloads full. And then they have their own chop saw and they make it themselves.
00:04:31
Speaker
We were driving from Zanesville, Ohio to Chicago, Illinois last summer for a vacation. We're in the middle of nowhere, Indiana on the highway. I almost pulled the truck off the highway out of jaw-dropping, screeching brakes because we went past the 8020 factory.
00:04:52
Speaker
And if I remember, it's like a brown, you know, metal sheet metal style building. It's pretty big. Like I almost maybe a campus, maybe there are a few buildings, but they have a giant 80 20 logo on the front of it. And you're, I'm just like, I don't know. I feel like such as like a warm affiliation, like, like I don't really use 80 20 that much, but it's still like, that's so cool.
00:05:10
Speaker
I love driving in big cities and you see a company, a brand that you know of. Even in driving through Toronto, I don't go very often, but you drive in back roads, little industrial sections, whatever, you'll see a small building with a brand name that you've heard of before in manufacturing. I'm like, that's their only location. I just stumbled upon this place. Holy cow, that's so cool. Okay, keep driving. That's cool. What else?
00:05:38
Speaker
Speaking of which, the foam, we've been currently getting our foam, the green foam itself from this supplier in the States who gets it from the manufacturer. We had a Canadian manufacturer of a similar foam reach out to us.
00:05:52
Speaker
and their brand is called Norseman, like the company is called Norseman. Stop. And it's been around for like 80 years or something and they make foam and they can laminate it and they can, I don't know how you make foam cast it. I don't know. That's a great question. Right? You probably pour this epoxy liquid that bubbles up. I don't even know. Anyway, they make it and they can make the exact thickness we want and colors and layers and things like that. So I'm in talks with them to,
00:06:20
Speaker
see what's going on, get some pricing, see if it makes sense. But they're like half an hour away, an hour away. That's crazy. How did you stumble upon it? They emailed. They were like, yeah, I was watching your phone video on YouTube from like six years ago. And you clearly have the process nailed down, but if you ever need a phone supplier, hit us up. And I was like,
00:06:40
Speaker
Hilarious. Interesting. Let's have a chat here. I haven't gotten pricing
Manufacturing Efficiency and Waste Reduction
00:06:44
Speaker
yet. I'm assuming it's going to be as good or better than what we were getting, but it might be ridiculous. You never know sometimes, right? Sure. But yeah, I'm quite excited about that. Because right now, we can only buy it in three-quarters inch, like $750, and we face it down to $600.
00:07:00
Speaker
And I'm like, if I can buy it at 600, I'm not wasting that whatever amount and I'm taking out the time to do it. And now you get like perfect on both sides, not milled on one side. So little things like that.
00:07:12
Speaker
That's funny you bring that up. We've been starting to have, I wouldn't call them design review meetings because that makes it sound like it's a lot more formal than it is, but we're looking at new parts or processes and moving parts to different machines and so forth. It's like, wait a minute. Every extra cubic inch of material that I have to buy
00:07:31
Speaker
is or we have to buy as more material that's purchased and it's more weight that has to be handled and it's more carbide that has to get used to cut it and it's more chips that we have to then move out of the shop. So it's like shun every little bit. We've made a couple of really good fixture improvements lately that help us
00:07:49
Speaker
you know, because it's so easy. And so there's such a cheap way, cheapening like the not sophisticated way of like holding parts where you use even low profile clamps that give you a hat top on op two. And like I'll admit, we still do that a ton and it just makes more sense sometimes. But man, if you can get a way to buy like you said, like, you know, let's say 750 material and your final part is 730. And all you're doing is decking 10 pal off each side. And you're you're never having to
00:08:17
Speaker
hold it in a way that precludes you from getting full access as needed and all that. It's freaking great. Yup. Yup. And it's that balance between like, well, we've always done it like this or like, you know, quick and dirty. Let's throw it on the machine. Okay. Yeah. Half top. No big deal. Yeah. Well, we've got a bigger piece of stock. No big deal. Just cut it away. You know? Yeah. And then, and then you get stuck into that method. Yeah. And, uh, yeah. So designer meetings are quite good. We do it sometimes. Um,
00:08:47
Speaker
a lot of our processes are dialed so we just run them and we don't think too much about it until there's a problem and then we re-investigate. Well, that's what I try to remember too because you can get so focused. I'm holding a part right now. You can get so focused on looking at one part. I actually brought this up in the video last week on
00:09:06
Speaker
like how we think about quoting jobs with custom tools, which we're not a job shop anymore. But we did that for years. And we still deal with custom stuff for custom fixture plates where we might need a different style tool or review process or fixture or a lot of programming. So it still comes up. But the thing I always try to remember is like,
00:09:26
Speaker
go to the extremes with this example. If this was the only time you ever did it, if it was one part, no one cares. Don't just self fixture by volume or material. On the flip side, if this is something you're going to do a hundred times or a thousand times, or like for now with Lex and Mod Vice material, I'm trying to shave off
00:09:46
Speaker
how I'm buying one of my parts, I can tell you, we purchase $37,000 worth of this material. And shaving that material down, metal prices are fairly linear per volume. So like, hey, if I can shave 15% off that part thickness and buy a different size material that's, of course, still available, you need to make sure it's a common size. It's a big deal. But without that data to know or the thought process to think about it, you just kind of keep doing it the same way.
00:10:15
Speaker
Yeah.
Tool Management in Fusion 360
00:10:16
Speaker
Or like I've made this mistake before of like going down a rabbit hole on some random 5.16 screw that we're buying from McMaster and I could get it from some Albany County fasteners. I could get it for seven cents cheaper per screw, but like we buy $400 worth per year. Like I don't really care. It's just easier to get it from a regular supplier anyway.
00:10:42
Speaker
Cool. Cool. We need to do the phone thing too. I think I mentioned this, but our mod vice boxes are, are they're fine, except like I'm going to be super privately critical. They suck. Yeah. And what we're going to try to do is move away from a custom box by a Uline box. It's the right outside footprint size. We got to customize maybe like with logo or ink or probably just do stickers and then a phone insert. Do you guys still have that laser?
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah. We sell a lot of my devices. I don't want to... What are you thinking then? Finding a Midwest phone supplier that can also... This is something that happens a lot. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to find a packaging supplier. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't even want to...
00:11:37
Speaker
I just don't want to, like I love insourcing a lot. This is something I'm going to outsource. Full stop. Yeah. Well, there's like, you know, like the light or dark gray, egg-grade foam that like most things come in. There's that kind of material that's usually laser cut, but then the foam that we use for our knife cases is a denser, heavier duty that you can also laser cut, but most people just mill them. Yeah.
00:12:05
Speaker
And for your mod vice, depending on how you do it, I mean a laser cut, that fluffier foam, the gray stuff would be great, I think. Yeah. I want to make sure it's not a type of foam. I know there's open cell, closed cell, but I don't really know much about foam. I want to make sure it doesn't attract rust or moisture. She's a moisture really. And or are there like a VCI style or what do we need to do on that front? And then I don't want to
00:12:32
Speaker
We're trying to minimize the number of like skews or discrete things we have to do. So I don't really want to have to have separate foams that we have to assemble or God forbid even glue together. Like I'd really rather have somebody else. If they're going to make it as to and glue it, that's fine or machine it. I don't know. I like it. Yeah. Have a solution just come to your door. There's other shops absolutely that can laser and glue and like ship you a thousand pieces or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Very reasonable price.
00:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's the goal. Yeah. Yeah. All right, we figured out our, I think knock on wood, I figured out our horizontal tooling issue. The mistake that happened the other day? No, the issue of if there is a tool 35 is a 228 through spindle coolant drill
00:13:26
Speaker
of making that up. That might be true. And I broke that tool and I want to switch it to a nod through Spindle Coolant because that's the one I have on stock and we don't really need through Spindle Coolant on the part anymore. What programs or what other programs in Fusion rely on that tool? This is like a huge fundamental issue and flaw that I think is
00:13:48
Speaker
It's a huge issue. It's systemic against everything that modern manufacturing stands for with automation and team collaboration and large tool cell machines. It's an issue on our MB4000. It's going to be an issue on our new UMC where we're going to run automation and a larger tool crib. It's unacceptable. Fusion has no way of telling me what other programs use that tool and how you need to make a change
00:14:13
Speaker
like through spindle cold to not through spindle cold, or let's say I change the holder, and I want all of my fusion programs to have the newest holder. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go manually update each one of them, which is not ideal. It's still a fair amount of work, but I at least wish I at least need to know what programs do I need to open to do this? Absolutely. Yeah, I run the same thing. Yeah. And
00:14:35
Speaker
I've tried to bark up the tree a little bit and it's something they seem to be aware of and it might get fixed in the future, but my guess is that's a, you know, it'd be shocking if it's a month. It's probably a multi-year type of thing. So figured it out. This is awesome. Does this involve spreadsheets?
00:14:56
Speaker
Sure does. Yes. All right. So what you got? We will do a video on it, share it, all that good stuff. Alex just installed it on my computer this morning. It is a Python script. So I sent the task over to Alex. And I was like, Alex, if you can do this, great. If not, all I need your help with is wording the upward
00:15:18
Speaker
description. Like I almost don't want you spending time on this because easy thing to rifle shot over to up work have somebody do it. Alex was like, I got this. No big deal. So the key now is as we're using
00:15:34
Speaker
Fusion 360 programs on our horizontal, all of those of course have NC programs. I couldn't imagine a life without NC programs now where you're storing the post processor in the settings there, right? You with me? Can I make a confession? I haven't used NC programs yet. I literally might defriend you. No, seriously, John, what? I just haven't tried. I haven't dug into it.
00:16:02
Speaker
I mean, it's as simple as all it does, like you just go to post individual operations, individual setups. I guess, yeah. Oh, man. Okay. I need to see the light. Anyway, go on, go on, tell me. Okay, so the key is we now create setup sheets. And this create setup sheet is nothing more than right-clicking and choosing the setup sheet options. I don't take any work other than that. Is that part of the NC program? So like you said it once and it always does it now?
00:16:32
Speaker
No, it's actually – setup sheets exist within any setup as well. There's nothing special there about that. So are you posting a setup sheet every time you hit post and then the script is stripping that and storing it? Winner, winner. Interesting.
00:16:50
Speaker
Any like real shop uses setup sheets. I get that. We don't. Yeah, we probably should. I see your value, but like I'm just going to lay it out there. We don't use setup sheets. Now we're going to because creating a setup sheet for every program we run on the horizontal, that's no big deal. You know, we probably run 30 different parts in terms of the variations and so forth. So spending an hour
00:17:11
Speaker
it one morning and going through and making sure we have set up sheets there is great. And it's also great because it's easy to kind of like train that behavior. It's really me and Jared running that machine and we can update them as needed. And you can see if they're out of date because set up sheets has so much information. I can see, oh man, this is six months old. Like I should get a new one, all that. Anyway, so
00:17:32
Speaker
Setup sheets are HTML files. We store those HTML files in a folder. And so if you look at the setup sheet, they're very consistent on the nomenclature and the verbiage. So we have a Python script that now goes through and it scrapes the tool values out of that HTML file
00:17:48
Speaker
and it moves them into a Google Sheet and it looks for the commonality. So like a tool 35 is used in three different files in three different setup sheets. The Google Sheet that gets created when you run this script will have tool 35 in a row and then each column to the right will list each program that uses tool 35.
00:18:09
Speaker
What I love about this is that I don't have to open Fusion programs to update this. If I have, let's say we just added a new 911 valve cover, which is something we're doing this morning. All I need to do is either update that setup sheet or create a new setup sheet, save that into the folder, and then I can rerun the script, and it rescrapes all those HTML files that are already there, and I can go see, okay, here's what I need to know about Tool 35. Here's what's using it. I love that. Oh, I think I got to do something like that.
00:18:41
Speaker
I don't know how you don't have this problem with the current because it's like, hey, we use this 1 16th end mill for the Rask fixture or the Norseman blade or this. I don't change it. I try not to. I do actually, the way we are tracking every program and every tool life and every change, how does this work? It's not from Fusion, but it's from the current. So the current spits out data to a Google sheet that documents every single
00:19:07
Speaker
Tool life change so if it was if the tool life was three minutes today and it's four minutes tomorrow it late logs that one minute difference with the program that it ran so i do have a record of which tools which programs are running which tools.
00:19:23
Speaker
by looking at that spreadsheet. I go to that spreadsheet and I open up page tab for tool 200 and I can see in my list which programs on the Kern are using that tool. It's like a reverse way of doing what you're doing. When I do have to change a tool length or an offset or an end mill or something, I just changed an end mill yesterday from a
00:19:48
Speaker
It's the same three sixteenths cutter but one has a quarter inch shank and the other has the new one has a three sixteenths shank. Same stick out, same everything. Ideally, I go into fusion and I change that. I just didn't because I'm like, I know this one, it's fine. When the new tools come in, we'll go back to it, whatever. But little things like that, they do mess you up.
00:20:10
Speaker
So do you, I guess, so here's my question. Let's say I went to work at your shop for a week and you trusted me on the Kern and I set up a new, I want to make a new handle fixture. And so I put a three eighth inch face mill in your Kern. And let's say I call it a tool 212.
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah. But if I don't add that into your very John Grimsmoe tribal tool wizard, then nobody knows tool 12, why it's being used, why it's in there, et cetera. Is that fair? Probably. You'd have to know our method, basically. I added to the Fusion tool library, so the current library, the main one. But that's a fallacy right there. We can come back to that.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah. So anyway, that's what I would do. I'd put in the main library so that any tool in any future program can call it. It's basically saying this tool is in the current. And then we also have a Google sheet.
00:21:07
Speaker
with every tool pocket in the current, the 212 of them. And so I know that tool 64 is this tool, whatever. All it tells us is the tool, the number, the name of the tool, and maybe like the description, the board tool, three eights, whatever, the stick out, which is the most important. So we actually look at that spreadsheet every time we're replacing tools if we don't automatically know what the stick out is supposed to be.
00:21:34
Speaker
things like that. So we have the tool library, we have this spreadsheet, and then we also have the automatically generated current tool life spreadsheets. Yes. Okay. Got it.
00:21:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's the rant on, you know, they should not be allowed to use the word library because when you go to a library and you check out the Hardy Boys book, my son's reading Hardy Boys right now, you know, there may exist a perpetual relationship as between the Muskingum County Library and that book, it might be at our house right now, but the library still owns that book, it will be returned to the book. Whereas fusion, it's not a library, it's a store, you purchase the tool,
00:22:12
Speaker
from the store and there's no more relationship. There's no more master library. Now it lives at your house. It doesn't even say that it came from the store. Yeah, the store sold you the tool and then burned all the records of it's ever happening in inventory. It's no relationship. That's the issue. I need a master library where tools don't live in part files or whatever you want to call them, fusion files. They live only in a master library, which would be the greatest because now
00:22:38
Speaker
You have that data and you're not having to redundantly update holder or like you said, stick us huge on multi-axis machines. I care about that massively. So when you have... Do you ever see our holders between machines? No, we don't. Okay. Partly just to make things easy. So in your tool library, you have machine files basically like you have an Okuma horizontal section folder.
00:23:08
Speaker
Sure. I mean, yeah, I keep a, so to save for my own sort of sanity and quality of life in our fusion.
00:23:18
Speaker
Well, it's kind of the classic, it's a mess. So in Fusion, we have a Saunders Machine Works folder that has most of our Saunders Machine Works production files in it. When we got the horizontal, we created a new folder called Okuma Awesome. And that has most of the horizontal stuff in it, which is kind of a illogical separation because all the stuff is on the horizontal. But I actually like that because it's kind of a better way to think about it.
00:23:43
Speaker
And within that project, I guess is what's called the Okemahasa, I keep a dummy fusion file called Oddball Tooling. It's actually almost all of the tooling. And anytime I'm creating new tools or toolpaths, I try to copy the tool and toolpath into that file with not any geometry selection, but that way like, hey, I've got a steel
00:24:07
Speaker
3 1�8 inch, 90 thou rad bullnose that I use for surfacing with a bore operation. I just copy that operation into the oddball tooling file. And it makes it really quick when I'm trying to program it. OK. It gives me slightly better data than just having a tool library with just the tool to each. Now I know, hey, no, I like running this thing with a 3 and 1 half thou feed rate. Yeah. It's sort of like a template, but without the template. You're just copying it into a file.
00:24:35
Speaker
I do the same thing except tribal knowledge here. Like if I'm setting up a new thing, a new handle pattern or something and I'm like, you know, I remember that I used the same engraving tool on that code. I'll go and open that code and I'll break the one and I'll copy it and I'll paste it. But that takes the tribal knowledge to be like, I know it all. Totally. I guess templates gets away from that but still.
00:24:59
Speaker
Yeah, I'm right there with you. Like it's the whatever. So I'm very, I will keep you posted. We'll do that. That's cool. Yeah, right. That is really cool. Yeah, there's some good data there.
00:25:14
Speaker
Yeah, and when we were brainstorming about it, Alex had the idea of using the Fusion API, which is a good idea. And there is an API and there's some things you could do that could be cool. The downfall is I don't want to have to access Fusion files to update this whole script.
00:25:31
Speaker
because that's slow, clunky. Open 30 Fusion files could take a long time if the files are large. It's a licensing issue. I just want these HTML files that serve as a quasi-offline repository that have the data I need, which is great.
00:25:51
Speaker
setup files become the master basically, not the fusion file necessarily, but the posted thing. So you guys get into the habit of every time you post code, you're also posting a setup file, even if you don't look at it like it's required for the script.
00:26:05
Speaker
And where I think this will lead is some housekeeping around us growing up a little where like, okay, that's going to force us to do a little bit better job naming our setups, naming our files. And we could have these setup sheets truly serve as a reference for like, okay, let's think about what parts we make and what are the tips around normal job manufacturing stuff.
00:26:26
Speaker
Well, because on the current, we have so many jobs running the same tool. One of our tools might be used across seven different programs. I wouldn't want to look at the setup sheet to know the tool stick out. When I'm replacing tool 37, I don't want to open up seven different setup sheets. I want a single repository like we have in our sheet that I just open up that spreadsheet, tool 37. Oh, my stick out is half inch. Perfect. No problem.
00:26:55
Speaker
Yeah, stick out's a big deal. We care a lot about it. And we do rely on the Fusion stick out data to be, you know, sacred. So now we really do update it so that we're consistent because we don't want to create a unlinked offline master that needs to be updated, but could be out of date. And then it's a question of which one is which. And the worst is that when you break a tool and you can't measure the stick out because it broke. So you're like, what do I replace it?
00:27:23
Speaker
100% and on this video because I've been playing and making new jobs and running new things and trying new tools and cutting this rich light material that I've never really cut before. I'll try this quarter inch end mill and then I'll try this quarter inch end mill. The cutting length is 1.25 on this one. It's 1.1 on this one. Now I got to go back into fusion. I got to change that. I got to
00:27:43
Speaker
It's not a good standard. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. So like sometimes I'm getting a little sloppy and I'm like, yeah, this one's fine. But now it's wrong.
00:27:56
Speaker
Worse, not only is it wrong, you don't know if it's wrong. Once some of the data has become lazily invalidated, all of it's invalidated. Exactly. We're all human. That's going to happen. Yeah, because I had a quarter inch end mill with 1.25 cutting length that I used on some aluminum fixtures. Then I ran out, so the replacement I had had a 0.9 inch cutting length.
00:28:17
Speaker
put it in, I know that for this rich light, it's fine. The parts are going to make it. But Fusion still thinks I have a 1.25 cutting length. So if I go to cut an aluminum fixture, I'm going to gouge something. I'm going to like bad day. How is this video?
Equipment Setup and Vendor Challenges
00:28:31
Speaker
It's freaking amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really, really cool machine. Sweet. And the auto door, I think, is finally coming in in the next week or so.
00:28:42
Speaker
and then still turn a hound down a row to come in and connect to everything. Yeah, that's frustrating. It is frustrating. But yeah, we're running it every day.
00:28:54
Speaker
I think that's interesting. It was a conversation that we were having on WhatsApp. And this is 1000% not a knock at you, for sure. But like all of us, you, me, smaller companies, smaller job shops, we just kind of run our business as a business where you assume you treat people well, and you assume things are going to happen, work out. But hearing about how some of the bigger companies that like, let's say companies have in house counsel, or actually like law firms on retainer, negotiate purchase contracts and terms and so forth, and delivery dates.
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah. I'm not even sure I aspire for that. I mean, it's cool because it's like, oh, that must be bad. Those guys, they know what they're doing. They're smart, sophisticated. Look, I like making parts. But man, it's an interesting nugget of
00:29:44
Speaker
you probably would have had more leverage from people like Elliott Matsura or for us Yamazin. If it's like, no, you're not sending me the machine and I'm not paying for it until the door is installed on your side, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? And then they would have rushed for it because they want the sale kind of thing. Well, not even, either rushed for it or it's just like, it's their problem. They're going to spend their time and team and energy and relationships. Whereas now it's like, I don't know, just waiting. Yeah, right.
00:30:13
Speaker
Yeah, and part of me is like, well, what am I going to do? I got other stuff to do. So I'm going to focus on my other stuff, let that happen as it happens. But I do make sure to check in every week or so. Just be like, how's it coming? How's it going? I'm still waiting. Yeah. Yeah. But it's good. Are you just getting, I don't know if you want to share any of this on public. Are you getting just ghosted by them? By Aroa? Yes. Aroa Canada specifically.
00:30:40
Speaker
Anyway, so I tasked the machine distributor that I got this video from, Pharoah. I was like, can you guys handle a ROA, please? It's your sale. This is what I bought it for. You're making the auto door. If you can just get them into my shop and connect this, you handle it. I got other stuff to do. They've been very accommodating for that. That's been great.
00:31:02
Speaker
It's interesting. I'm not sure this will work in this situation, but sometimes going to the extreme can help of an email. If you have an actual person in a row, you're not just sending it to a general support desk. But if you're like, I'm assuming that you guys are either unwilling or unable to do this, so I'm going to pursue
00:31:21
Speaker
private whatever person to do it, which is really disappointing. If that's not the case, if it's just a scheduling issue, let me know. Otherwise, I'm giving up on you. I don't know if that'll work here, but sometimes that's like, no, look, it's holidays. We have this project. We'll get to you. It can help clarify where you're at. Yeah, that could really help here, I think. Yep.
00:31:44
Speaker
What I want to do is I want to start grinding blades on the speedio. That's the next big thing. Take that time off the current, put it on the speedio, which we can do without having it integrated with the Aroa. We can just manually load one at a time, which we're going to start doing just to prove out the program and get everything set up and be prepared for it because all that work has to happen anyway.
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah. But that's not a long-term solution, hand-loading every part. I parked it next to the aroa so that I can do that. But it's step-by-step, right? So you figure out which steps can happen without your involvement and which steps have to happen yourself.
00:32:22
Speaker
I mean, I wouldn't hesitate at all to start grinding though, because boy, you're gonna learn a lot like that's going to totally, I've known you for long enough to know that that's going to be a process that you full Grimsmo. That means you make tweaks and like, we're gonna call Linda again, we're gonna get Linda. No, the cool thing is I'm just copying what's already proven on the Kern and moving it over to this video. But the programming is different.
00:32:43
Speaker
The probing routines are different. All the measurements are the same. So that's cool. I can reference all the tolerances and everything like that. I'm going to use the same grinding wheel. The difference is the current I'm grinding at 30,500 RPM. And this video can only go to 16,000 RPM. So your SFM is going to be quite a bit different. So is that going to change? I got to slow everything down. Get a bigger wheel. Get a bigger wheel, but it doesn't fit in one of the radiuses. Got it. So that would be cool. And that would solve that.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah. Change the plate. Yeah, maybe. I'll consider that if I have to. I did not expect to get any concession there. But unless the wheel runs great at a lower SFM, then I don't care. Yeah. Right. So I'll start there. Randomly maybe ask you a question. Do you run oil in your Willy? I do. Your Willy's oiled? Yeah. Very oiled.
00:33:38
Speaker
Okay.
Machine Fluid Choices and Safety Concerns
00:33:40
Speaker
And that wasn't a discussion or conversation. It was like, it was absolutely a conversation that I had with Wilhelmin a bunch of times. I'm like, I want to run coolant. And they're like, please don't. Okay. Especially on an older machine that has always run oil.
00:33:53
Speaker
They said basically all of your seals will crack and die and you will get coolant, water into places you don't want it. Whereas a machine that's always run oil is caked in oil. It's slippery. It's like all the seals are bathed in this beautiful oil, yada, yada, yada, whatever. They were like for a new machine, maker's choice. Do what you want. CJ has an oil machine and he has now a coolant machine that he's using for titanium. But they said for an old machine, don't.
00:34:23
Speaker
Yeah, okay. And you're using blazer oil? Honestly, I can't remember what is in this video right now because we're using leftover tornos oil.
00:34:34
Speaker
Sorry. Yeah, I meant Wilhelmin. Okay. We're using leftover tornos oil and putting it into the Wilhelmin. And I don't remember if it's quality chem or if it's bloser. I think it's bloser, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. What are you running in the tornos these days? Bloser. Okay. Do you use any quality chem oil? We did buy a drum of quality chem oil, but it stunk to high heaven and we stopped using it real quick.
00:34:57
Speaker
Just because of the smell. Just because of the smell. And I talked to other people who use it and they're like, oh, that goes away in about a week. And I was like, well, we didn't last that long.
00:35:07
Speaker
We thought the shop was on fire. I'm not even kidding. It smelled a lot different than before. Interesting. Okay. Do you have a fire trace on your Wilhelmin? Yes. Okay. Because you're going to be doing titanium or you would have had it regardless? I mean, I would have had it regardless with the coolant, but I guess if you're cutting brass and aluminum, you're never going to make sparks theoretically.
00:35:31
Speaker
the theory between not putting a fire trace on an oil machine, but anything that's going to like high stainless steel, titanium, even steel, the things that are going to spark or could spark with a
00:35:45
Speaker
Worst case scenario, right? Like, your tool breaks off. You've got a nub rubbing into your steel. It's still cutting. You got one flute instead of four. It's getting hot. Like, throws farts. Friction welds real quick. Totally, right? Coolant doesn't care, but oil cares a lot. Now, that said, I haven't had a single problem with the tornos or the Wilhelmin yet. But, you know, I've seen it. Like, say I'm cutting. What was I doing?
00:36:14
Speaker
I think I was watching the Willamond drill a small hole and I turned off the coolant to watch it and you see a little bit of smoke. Sure. And you're like, yeah, it's the coolant that's on there, the oil that's on there is burning off, whatever. And I'm like, okay, that proves that this could be a bad day, you know?
00:36:32
Speaker
Got it. Are those 10 grand? Yeah, under five to 10 for a fire trace. It's good to know. They come in, they install it. I guess we had a local fire extinguisher company. Some fire trace authorized people. They installed it on the Swiss and they also installed it on the Willemite. They charge hundreds of dollars, whatever, to come and install it.
00:36:59
Speaker
I want to come back to a little bit of a random PSA shout out to Amish. He was posting about how he found, he had the material from a prior job, I guess, but like new windows for his older vertical machine, his Haas. And he had a like a mobile car window guy come in who was like, whiz bang tools, you know, seals, like gasket, like boom, boom, boom, boom, done. I'm like, Oh my God, I love that.
00:37:24
Speaker
Yup. And he said he, so he had the material. He bought this sheet of Lexan, I guess, and had a, must've had another local company cut them out. Yeah. I didn't know about that. Right. Cause I wondered about that. I'm like, how do you replace older windows on old machines? Um, on the Wilhelmin, Wilhelmin themselves stock windows and I just bought new plastic or poly or whatever they are. Um, and they weren't that expensive. I think for, I don't know. I don't remember.
00:37:48
Speaker
For all the windows on the whole machine, it was hundreds of dollars. Oh, wow. It was like 800 bucks or something for all of them. Yeah, that's OK. And now it's clean and clear and under
Tool Setting and Machine Upgrades
00:37:59
Speaker
control. And which probe do you have? OMP40. Sorry, tool probe. Tool setter? Yes. The Bloom laser. I don't know what model, but it's the laser one.
00:38:12
Speaker
Okay, and does that, I was trying to remember here if I can put my notes while I'm talking, one of the Rancho versus Bloom, one of them does turning tools, one does not. Mine does not. So for turning tools, I'm like shimming them, I'm manually touching them off. Okay. Turning a diameter. And that's talking with Marcus last week.
00:38:32
Speaker
From william and he was saying that when people buy older machines his first recommendation is that they change their laser out for a stylus ran a shop.
00:38:43
Speaker
TC27 or whatever you called it with a little square stylus on it. Oh, it's not a laser. No, it's a touch sensor just like what's on all of our mills. Sure. With a little side arm and the cylinder but this has a square on it because he said with that you can touch off your milling tools, length and diameter but also every turning tool for length and diameter and then even do mid-process comp of a turning tool. So when he said that I was like,
00:39:10
Speaker
I wonder if I should do that eventually, like upgrade to that toolsetter. For now, I don't care, but we'll see over time. Yeah, I feel like I'm planning on using... We'll be doing threading. I might buy threading. I might buy topper inserts. You ever use those? I never have, no. I might, which that makes that... Is this happening?
00:39:36
Speaker
Oh, it's happening. I'm going to go take a look at the machine next week. Yes. That's cool. It's exciting. The part I'm holding is the one that I'm on the cusp about whether we could fit it on there and whether we want to make it on there. Interesting. What diameter bar would that be from? Potentially one inch flat bar if we were going to wire a collet or something. It looks like a cigar cutter.
00:40:02
Speaker
Yeah, actually, it's really good. It's a part for the zero point system that we're going to be bringing to market. You could do it on two ops on another machine, but you would need a third op. I can't figure out a way to do it in two ops on any other machine. It just feels like a Wilhelmin part for sure. Yeah, that is absolutely not a laid part by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a Wilhelmin part.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, if it ends up being done not on a Wilhelmin, we would end up doing it on the horizontal, and then a third op would have to be on the horizontal or another machine, which is annoying. Which you can do with fixturing and setups and do all three ops concurrently kind of thing, but it's a lot of fixturing, a lot of moving. Yeah, and a third op is just a drilled and tapped hole that's not particularly critical in any other way.
Business Trip Plans and Tool Success
00:40:52
Speaker
So anyway.
00:40:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's the other other parts. I've got a little my little baggie of parts to go look at and talk about. Yes, that'll be fun. Yeah, looks good. So yeah, going to Indy next week for that and then going to Charlotte. Is it the week after whatever the six days? I have no concept of time right now. Yeah, it's almost December that big fusion thing. Yeah, the fusion that you coming down. I honestly haven't thought about it since since it was brought up.
00:41:22
Speaker
be a good crowd. Good group. Yeah, I'm sure it will be. I'll think about it. Okay. Toronto to Charlotte, direct flight. Yeah, I'm sure it is. Cool. Yeah. The other new thing is I succumbed to an IMTS like whiz bang tooling claim, which is YG1. We already use their tooling a bunch. They had a
00:41:44
Speaker
I don't even know if it's new. It's a P-N-M-U. Paul, Nancy, Mary, Umbrella, insert that they were cutting 41.40 on and we cut a lot of 41.40. And they were talking about the ability to rough and finish and surface life and insert costs and all that stuff. And I was like, you know what? I would love to see if this is gonna help. And so we bought one and it is kicking butt.
00:42:13
Speaker
What is this for? Laid face mill? Sorry, face mill on basically all Saunders and MachineWorks products. Fixer plates, mod vise, fix sides, mod vise threshold sides, mod vise top shelves. We face a lot of 40 and 40. And folks that see our products with our fixture plates and our mod vices,
00:42:33
Speaker
are like, how are you getting like the finishes are just shared. They're absolutely spectacular. They look incredible. And most of that's to date been done with the Sandvik 390, which we continue to use and is a great tool, but limited edge number of edges, pretty high insert cost. And so far, this YG one is been excellent. So it's kind of fun. That's awesome. Yeah.
00:42:56
Speaker
They had a really big booth at IMTS. I did walk by and I asked them. I had a friend with me, a customer actually, who's a diesel mechanic. When he's drilling out broken bolts on an engine, he has to buy his own drill bits at his dealership. He's just been buying them off the snap-on truck. Yeah, exactly.
00:43:19
Speaker
And he's spending so much money. I was like, come with me. So we walked to the YG1 tool booth, and the guys hooked him up and gave him good suggestions. And I think it's been working great for incredibly cheaper than what he's buying off the truck. Yeah. Yeah. So that was cool. There's so many things to unpack there. If you love what you do, and your employer is making you buy stuff like that, give me a shout. And we'll see if there's a, what?
00:43:46
Speaker
Maybe there's more of that that I'm not aware of. Maybe it's like... Well, it blew me away too. I was like, that's insane if they're making you buy your own tooling, consumables. Like, no. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Maybe there's some limit like, hey, if you keep breaking off both of your, you know... Neanderthals, but like... Yeah, a Norseman. Sorry.
00:44:07
Speaker
What are you up to today? Today, I'm going to mount the Aroa Chuck onto the Speedio, the extra one that I have. I've got to trim that in. I tried a couple of weeks ago and it was a very painful thing to trim in because the bolts weren't all lined up properly and it was just not a big deal.
00:44:25
Speaker
And then cutting the rich light cases on the speedio. And everything was going pretty good. But it's like an abrasive material. It is dulling the tools very evenly. You look at the microscope and the edges just rounded over. So we had some chipping and things like that. So I'm like, OK, I'll replace the tools. Oh, no, I don't have that lake shore end mill anymore because I only had the one. OK, let's go to a debore tool for aluminum. Should be fine.
00:44:49
Speaker
And then we ran 20 cases, like two sets of 10 and now the lids don't fit because the tolerances are way tighter. And I'm like, oh no. So dealing with all kinds of little challenges there.
00:45:04
Speaker
And then on the Wilhelmin, I got working with Marcus last week. It's fully converted to Inch now. It's awesome. Everything works. Had to recalibrate everything. It's awesome. The last thing I have to do is set the U-axis vice pick-off position. Okay. And they have a program for that. And I thought I did it two weeks ago, but then I crashed the vice and it wasn't right. No big deal. Okay.
00:45:31
Speaker
So yeah, do that properly now that everything's good. I should be able to use the probe to do that, the spindle probe. And then make parts on the whirlwind.
00:45:41
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah. Oh, that's what's stopping you from doing like a full up one, two, yeah. I thought I was there last week to do the full up one, up two, and then because the previous part worked, it transferred, it grabbed it, it transferred, I was like, I'll send it. And then the vice comes up and it's a hydraulic vice. So if it crashes, it just makes noise and no big deal. It's not a bad thing. Okay.
00:46:05
Speaker
but you have to like go through a couple codes, like, okay, unclamp it, lay it down, move it back, restart. It's not just hitting reset and go again. Anyway, so yeah. And then after it crashed last week, I was like, okay, let's make it inch. Let's do that now. And then here we are. Awesome. Sweet. Sweet. Cool. What are you up to today?
00:46:32
Speaker
Tomorrow is American Thanksgiving. You got a turkey on the Okuma or what? No. Those were fun days. So off tomorrow, I would say quiet day because it could be the Black Friday. I don't know. We'll see if that's sale, something going on that day or not. But we'll do a big shop lunch on Friday.
Shop Events and Packaging Improvements
00:46:51
Speaker
probably heading out early, which would be nice and so forth. So just some loose ends. I'm working on finishing up. We shipped our first batch of Porsche valve covers to the customer. It's exciting. Working on the second half of that same order. Are you analyzing them? Yeah.
00:47:07
Speaker
That's cool. Isn't that sweet? You've already got all of your suppliers. You got your material vendors. You got your anodizers all set up, dialed, standard production. That's cool, man. That's great. Got boxes down for it. It's good. Yeah.
00:47:23
Speaker
So yeah, working on like little quality of life things silly like I hung a microphone from my desk that gives me good audio quality that's not doesn't require me to have a desk microphone that I don't like in my way that I've got to move in and out. And I'm working on a new way. So when we
00:47:39
Speaker
I've been talking about new fixture plate boxes. Those are samples are in, they're ordering them, different sizes. One of the things that still has been an awkward difficulty is that style of box. It has corgate that folds up on the edges that create a really good built-in padding.
00:47:57
Speaker
but it makes the box kind of hard to close or hold it closed while you're taping it. So to date, we've used Erwin speed clamps like the wood carpenter style, and they work fine. We actually cut them down so they're the right size, but there's still this big kind of clunky clamp. Do you know what a guitar capo is? I do not. Never heard of it.
00:48:14
Speaker
It's a little thing that holds the strings down if you want to do a key change on a guitar or shorten the fretboard. It's a weird way of visualizing a toggle style clamp.
00:48:28
Speaker
And then Ed found them on Amazon. I didn't want to, I did not want to make these or print them overall, but I thought I will have to. But we found just regular old toggle clamps that we can put some seatbelt material attached to that way. Like it's a 12 inch box that we want to basically hold it down with some force that pulls it together and keeps it in place when we band it or tape it. So two of these clamps that'll be actually the clamps will actually be the seatbelt material will be
00:48:54
Speaker
secured to the table itself. So the clamps are just dangling over each side. So you lay the box down, the clamps come up, you toggle it down, and it now holds the box in place to package it. Like it's gonna be cool. I want when somebody walks into our shop to look at it and be like, Oh, that's awesome. Like, yeah, got it going on there. Yeah. So sweet. Good stuff. All right. See you next week. See you next week, man.