Transcript
Speaker: Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 132. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. Morning. Good morning. How are you? I feel like my voice is a little hoarse. No, you sound good. Okay. Because I just woke up and then came to the podcast and normally I have a little bit more time to wake up. You sleep through your alarm.
Speaker: I guess I have no memory of my alarm so I woke up to Meg's alarm and here I am. You don't even remember turning it off? Nope.
Speaker: That's funny. I actually was thinking about how I used to have one of those old led, like panasonic alarm clocks as a kid. And you can still remember the sound of it in the feel of that snooze button. Um, but yeah, we all just use our phones nowadays, huh? I know. Right. Well, then I'm wondering, like my phone did one of those updates in the middle of the night. And I'm like, did that mess up my alarm? I don't, I don't know. Interesting food for thought. Like I'd hate to miss a flight or something because of that, you know? Yeah.
Speaker: I feel like mine's been pretty consistent, or I certainly trust it, but that's a good question. But it's very likely that I just either slept through it or hit it and didn't even remember.
Speaker: You must be settling into your new house pretty well then if you're sleeping through alarms already. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we've been in for a week, a week and a little bit, and it's been just amazing. Just so nice. Awesome. Yeah, we love it. It's so good. Making it feel like a home. Yeah, it feels like home on day one, even though there's boxes everywhere and everything. I remember day one in our previous house, which was a rental.
Speaker: We had just like mattress on the ground, nothing else in the room. We're laying there trying to go to sleep. There's dogs barking all around us at neighbor houses. And we're just like, what did we just do? Yeah, that's funny. And we were there for four years. Yeah, but this house is perfect.
Speaker: Awesome. It's funny because I only got to know you not that long ago. I think the first time we met was only still after I had moved to Ohio. So right when you had been moving from the house that was at the Tormach in the garage, because you couldn't have, that Tormach went from that garage to the current shop, right? Right. Got it. So that was all went down right around then.
Speaker: Yeah, that was right around the time we met at the Tormach event. Yeah, so it's just about to get the mori at that point. So yeah. Right. It's crazy. It's funny that it's not that much time. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's been four years, which on one hand feels like an eternity, but on the other hand, I'm like, I remember five years ago, clearly, like it was not that far ago.
Speaker: Well, it's like I was watching the video footage of the fifth axis tour that Julia is starting to edit and it kind of hit me watching it again that they were like, yeah, in 2004 we bought a Haas VF2, what is it, TR or something? It's the VF2 that has a built -in trunnion into the table, which is like a unicorn. I don't think they're very common.
Speaker: And that's when they kind of realized we need different or better types of work holding. And so they started fifth axis, like not, not that long ago. Yeah. And they're, you know, huge now. Yeah. I'm very much looking forward to that, that video. It's, uh, they've got some nice machines. Yeah. Um, yeah. What's been going on?
Speaker: Angelo's on vacation this week, so I'm kind of on double time keeping everything busy, which is great. That is the opposite of what I wanted to hear. It is reality. Got it. We left it last week. You were setting up the Swiss for different part, right? Does that sound right? How'd that go?
Speaker: Uh, it went good. I got mostly most of the way through the setup and then I realized I need to be setting up for a different part. Um, cause we've been further nailing down our inventory of parts. Um, which is sweet. So I set up this Epic spreadsheet that automatically sorts the, um, inventory by the lowest amount, by the smallest unit of, you know, bearings or spacers or screws. Sure. So it's sweet. So I've created this like dashboard spreadsheet that references other ones that, um,
Speaker: will automatically show me the lowest one so that I can be like, what am I making next? And it's super clear and like so easy now to know. Before it was always kind of like sometimes just up to Eric looking at his bin and going, I think we're out of this by next week. So. Is that something that others can use as well? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Why isn't, why is that done in your ERP? Cause I'm not there yet.
Speaker: But that's been how long you've been using that? A while. Yeah. I don't like that. Yeah. This works great now.
Speaker: Yeah, but you can't let yourself invest in these divergent systems. I mean, that's what I've heard from folks that have done ERPs well. There's always struggles and there's always complaints, but you've got to let it own your data in the systems, period. Yeah, I understand. But it's got to be a sacred sign.
Speaker: And I'm thinking about it now because we don't have an ERP and I still think about Odo seriously think about it. But what I'm realizing is I think zero, we don't need an ERP really. We just need right now.
Speaker: I need to consolidate purchase orders, invoicing, inventory of raw material, at least on the fixture plates, because that's a true work in progress, valued raw material. It's not just sticks of aluminum, and then finished raw material, finished goods ready to ship. Shopify will integrate inventory levels with zero, I believe. I saw that checkbox. I haven't played with it.
Speaker: It is not a fun process or an easy process, but that's not, I'm not here to have fun. I'm not here to look for it to be easy. I need to do it. Darn it. So that will be huge. Like right now, sometimes I issue POs out of zero. Sometimes I just, like you, I'm like, I'm lazy or it doesn't seem to do what I want. So I literally hop into Excel or Word where I've got like old templates and I just update numbers.
Speaker: I'm at that point now. I've got three POs out to the same vendor, which is not common. Normally, it's like one PO is done, it comes back, and then you do the next one when you need it. You can't keep track of this stuff. You shouldn't keep track of this stuff. Yeah, for sure. I am keeping track of all my POs through Pro Shop.
Speaker: Yeah, it clearly shows me what I'm waiting for. Yeah, whether it's a, you know, the odd customer part coming back, the knife coming back for whatever little bit of work or material coming in. And sometimes I've got 10 things in the right in the go, like, like, I've forgotten about eight of them by that point. But it's nice to be able to see it in Pro Shop and be like, Oh, yeah, that is, you know, that's kind of a long term thing I'm waiting on might take six weeks to get here. But
Speaker: And then when it comes in, do you, is there a natural trigger to update that in Pro Shop? You go in, you have to go in when it comes in the door and you have to say, yes, this has been received, everything's here.
Speaker: Okay. So that's part of our problem is that right now we don't have a good system because let's say we have a 20 by 38 inch plate raw material and somebody, Jared grabs it to use it to make a plate for somebody. We don't have a natural trigger or process to force that to update the raw material.
Speaker: So we just need to, I have a little note here on my to -do list of, okay, start creating a process. What happens when a plate is ordered? How does that flow through? And then we create the rules and then we have to follow them, period, right? So it could be as simple as laminate it. I'm not gonna get fancy with QR codes and USB guns that require computers at news places, like just simple, just somebody has to see that and follow up process.
Speaker: What about the way Pearson does it with Kanban cards or it's just like minimum, you know, there's only two left time to order more. Well, that's, that's a different sort of problem.
Speaker: Um, and common cards are tricky with, I have found at least are tricky. We, we still have them actually at the plates, but you can't really like stick them in between. These plates are 200 pounds. They're on pallets. They're at different height levels. You can't like just shove a common card in between two of them. If they get screwed it around. Um, I should think about that. The, the, honestly, the best thing that I've seen lately is from you. It was the.
Speaker: 3D printed orange nugget when you're, and I'm paraphrasing at my own luxury here, when you're too lazy to update the computer, you just drop the minus one nugget into the bin and then deal with it later. So that sounds like it's a lazy and has its own perils, but it's actually pretty genius. And so something like that where
Speaker: every time you go pull a piece of material, maybe that's what you do. Maybe there's just a whole box of 3D printed sticks of something and you just shove one in your pocket. Well, now you're walking around with this thing in your pocket and you can't take it out of your pocket until you walk over to a computer and update it what you did. Yeah, yeah, that would work. Something like that. And we will get there. Just got to work on it.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. There's an infinite amount of little tiny projects like that that would always be helpful. But some are much more important than the others. And one of the real tricks that I've learned is seeing the forest for the trees and knowing which ones are worth pursuing and which ones are not. Right. Right. Because I'm classic about shiny objects and be like, that would be cool. And then you spend a day on it and you get to the end and you're like, OK, that was cool. Was it really worth it? I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah. And I think you're smart enough. I know you're smart enough to know how to make those calls. And I just, you got to constantly ask yourself, is this key? Like what is Grimsman I's really good at? You're, you're in the knife making business, but you're really in the manufacturing business. And so to be good at a manufacturer, uh, I think anyone we look up to would tell us things like tracking inventory, tracking predictive inventory levels is absolutely key. Yeah. That's worth a lot of time. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, because we've had it more times than I want to admit problems with inventory, whether it's raw materials, finished parts, anything. And it grinds things to a halt. I thought that with the Swiss, you were going to be able to leave it set up for almost everything.
Speaker: Well, a lot of that is programming new parts and adding tools as we go. And, uh, yeah, so we can, but only in so much as we keep adding parts, adding tools. So, okay. So it's not like you had to strip out the tools that you already been putting in. Okay.
Speaker: No, and a lot of it is just, yeah, new program, figuring it out. I've got kind of an interesting one now where I'm making our bearing cages, the Delrin, you know, half inch diameter that we push all the 10 balls into. So I'm going to make that on the Swiss because I think it'll be twice as fast. And they've always been a real pain in the butt on the Nakamura because the way they're held in the sub spindle, it grabs it, but there's always slight pressure from a plunger.
Speaker: to eject it later. So they bow because of that. And then because now you're pushing it from the center and it's clamping from the OD, they just like to pop out. So the amount of clamping pressure, the range is like minuscule. This is that 5C call it you've machined super, super shallow. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: The Swiss has a really sweet ejector pin that like retracts all the way back and then can shove forward and push the part out. So there's not that constant pressure on the inside. So I'm thinking it should just clamp the part like directly towards center and not bow it, not have problems. And it'll just be way faster because Swiss. Yeah, that's just a little tricky part. That's turned. Oh, has to be turned on both sides.
Speaker: I can probably just turn it on the main and face it off, part it off. And that should be good. And then put the balls in on the other side. Put the balls in. What do you mean? The holes, the 10 holes for all the balls. Yeah. You can't do it all on the main spindle. And that's what I do. That's what I do on the Nakamura. But you can't just part it off without doing something on the other side, because there'll always be a burr or something. Ah, got it.
Speaker: And totally the left field here, but it wouldn't make sense to set those up on a sheet stock on a mill. That's what I used to do. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Back in the day, I live for hundreds and hundreds of knives. I did that on the Tormach. And it works OK. But you're limited to sheet size. You're putting in a screw on every single bearing. It usually takes two ops and then a whole bunch of hand sanding.
Speaker: You couldn't tab them, like you couldn't do them super glue or vacuum a sheet down somehow. That I, well, you couldn't vacuum or I was vacuuming before, like I had a grid and then I would cut out the holes and then I would put a screw in the hole and then I would cut out the outside. Yeah.
Speaker: Super gluing would be a much better solution. And I didn't know about this back in the day. That would actually work very well. But also the sheet sock is never exactly, you know, nice. And the parts get berry and stuff. I don't know. On the lid, they're really, really nice. They come off perfect. Yeah, fair enough. And then you're tying up my only mill spindle, which is not the best idea.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, that won't be that way for that long. No, exactly. But it's funny too. There are different ways to make the same part, you know? And sometimes you have to step back and realize that.
Speaker: I'm just thinking back to, and it's funny because I'm actually working on a lathe part right now and how, you know, there's just no easy way around the fact that you're trying to squeeze onto a thin plastic part with very little clamping force. So any clamping force is going to immediately manifest itself in flex period, which you don't like and reduces your clamping pressure. So that's a tricky one.
Speaker: Yeah, so yesterday I spent a while machining an emergency collet on the Swiss, which was really interesting.
Speaker: Because not only learning how to apply milling codes to a Swiss, I don't really have a boring bar set up right now to go in there and do it. So I put a quarter inch end mill in there and just interpolated the pocket that I need. And then I interpolated a hole going all the way through it. And it worked out really well. It just took a while to carefully, slowly be a surgeon and just do it right, do it well.
Speaker: And, uh, and it worked out great. This is, you did it in the Swiss for the Swiss. Yep. Okay. Is this the thing on instant? You were showing that the guy was honing on the sun. That's part of the job. Um, that's the other side. I needed that on the main spindle. Oh, okay. So that's a regular happens call it that the bar material wouldn't fit through. So I'm like, how do I open this up to two or three thou? Um,
Speaker: And then I reached out to my buddy and his shop is eight minutes away and I haven't had a chance to see it yet. So it was like perfect excuse to go out there and tour the shop. He rebuilds old engines, like old car engines from the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties. And that's all he does. And it's really, really cool. He had a 1930 Bugatti engine. Holy cow. And he said it's for like a $10 million car.
Speaker: Oh my God. That's crazy. Yeah, it was really cool. The guy knows this stuff. So he's built out this niche on just doing this restoration site work. Yep. His dad started the company and just about closed the doors a couple of years ago. And then Theo was like, I think it's time I step in and take over this for you. Huh. That's cool. So you took a regular hardened 5C call it? Yes.
Speaker: And it was no problem to hone it out. Yeah, no. Well, he said, I'm used to honing bronze or cast iron or something. So honing hardened steel took more effort than he's used to. But it was fine. It was great. Worked out really good, left an amazing finish. And I've heard of those hunted honing machines, but I've never seen or used one up close. And they're actually really sweet. I saw that. I was like, no, you can't buy one of these, but I don't think you need one.
Speaker: No, I would use it to open up collets. And a lot of knife makers will use it for the pivots on their knives. But we have our Cogstill burnishing solution for that. So we don't need it. Did he say, I'm curious, is opening is, so 3 ,000, you need a 3 ,000 on the diameter. So really only a 1 ,500 on the material removed. How much time did that take on the sun and actually stroking it back and forth? I would say.
Speaker: I mean, 20 minutes back and forth with like measuring. Yeah. Wow. 20 minutes of work, but you know. But it wasn't like if you just had the five C call it on the hone for 45 seconds back and forth, which is actually quite a long time. If you're moving it, it wasn't like that would have taken the material off. Not 3000. No.
Speaker: Wow. That's crazy. That's cool how much, how slow that is in a controllable manner then. Yep. And he was, you know, petrified of overdoing it and going too far. Right. Um, so he took it easy at first until we kind of got the feel for, um, and the only half inch board gauge we had was the material itself. So we're like test fit, still tight, test fit, still tight, test fit, a little bit less tight, a little bit less tight.
Speaker: But yeah, we got it from the material wouldn't go through to then the collet would drop along the material. Yeah. Sweet. Yeah. Is it ground material that's actually two or three thousand over? No, it's just extruded plastic material.
Speaker: Oh, got it. This is for the Delrin business. Yeah, exactly. Got it. So I'm sure there's a way that like a lot of Swiss companies run Delrin. So I'm sure there's a place to buy really, really good Delrin from. I just haven't looked into it yet. Oh, interesting. I was just gonna say, I mean,
Speaker: Looking at collets, I'm always surprised at what I don't know. There are collets that are oversized. There's collets that have the teeth gripper. They look like serrated collets for round bars that grip with more force, and I think have a different range. Certain collet styles.
Speaker: I don't want to misspeak here. Certain call outs styles can go plus a little and minus a lot more, but like ERs are only minus. You can't give a three eight that's ER call it. You are never supposed to put something that's 0 .376 in it through it, even if it would fit. Yeah, exactly. Interesting. When we were driving back from Chicago last week, we had, uh, I had threw on a couple of episodes of the how I built this podcast. Have you listened to that? I haven't yet. I don't think.
Speaker: It's, it's pretty good. Um, some of them are better than others. I think just depending on personal interests and how, how meaty it gets or how juicy it gets into the, you know, the kind of a backstory, but, um, my wife picked the one on all birds. Have you heard of the shoes? No, I don't think so.
Speaker: I only heard about them because they're apparently like the kind of fad joke in Silicon Valley, like everyone has to wear all birds. I only knew them as a super comfortable, trendy, sneaker type shoe or whatever. It was a really cool story. First off, just to learn what they really are, which is this New Zealand guy who
Speaker: was a professional soccer player and partnered up with this other guy and they recognize the value and comfort of wool. So it's a wool shoe, which sounds crazy. So they had to figure out how to make wool into a material or type of wool that can be used for a shoe frame and all that. But
Speaker: It's a cool story, but the takeaway, which I thought was understated on the podcast, was they were originally trying to push their product based on sustainability. Instead of going cradle to grave, what do they call it? Cradle to cradle? Have you heard this? No.
Speaker: So like making sure a product's lifestyle is, product's life cycle is completely renewable. So it's not just use it and then landfill it, but like even when it's done, it can go back into a recycled product and use and not just being thrown away.
Speaker: So they really wanted to push sustainability, and that's a really big thing and trendy these days. I certainly don't think anybody would disagree that that could be a good thing, but I think there's an interesting question when it meets up with the need to create an actual, sustainable, profitable business that's built on real merits and not just lofty ideals that aren't necessarily
Speaker: Again, sustainable. And so what they realized is sustainability alone, like it or not, doesn't sell anything because it's just like the whole like buy American thing. Lots of people would like to say it, but the reality is we all
Speaker: you know, go on Amazon or walk into Walmart and don't think about that decision. And so what they learned was the phrase comfort through sustainability. So they recognize that the comfort is what sells the shoe and apparently they are incredibly comfortable and lightweight or whatever, apparently very comfortable. So comfort through sustainability. And it's a subtle nuance, but it really speaks to the fact that you need to sell somebody a shoe based on comfort, but you can still find a way to tie in
Speaker: what is important to you as a company and who you stand for. I like it. It's kind of like groomsmen knives. I mean, I think a big part of the parallel for you from sustainability just may be the full groomsmen nature, right? Like that's a huge part of your story. It's a huge part of your knife, but it also is still an amazing knife.
Speaker: Yeah. It's like, uh, if I had to make a similar quote, it'd be, I don't know, usefulness through quality or something like that. Yeah. Our artwork through insanity, right? Like your knives are a piece of artwork. They're amazing. They're, they're a tool as well, but like, you know, your brother -in -law digs dinosaurs up with them and people use them for practical knife purposes, but it's also this whole backstory. That's amazing. And it's who you are. Yeah.
Speaker: Anyways, I just liked it. I'm not sure I did a justice rephrasing it right there, but I enjoy seeing moments when entrepreneurs realize they
Speaker: might have to compromise on what they want because what they want doesn't work like this idea that we're just going to sell a shoe based on sustainability. And then somebody, whether it's the market in lack of sales or a consultant or a marketing person or a partner or a vendor tells them, that ain't going to work. And you realize, oh, okay, we got to change. What was that change? Well, actually it wasn't that bad. They just had to just switch a word, basically say, we're selling you a comfortable shoe, also sustainable.
Speaker: Yeah, which makes everybody happier, too, like customers and everything. That's what they want. Yeah. I just looked up a picture, and I wonder if that's what Eric has, because he has a pair of shoes that look just like that. And he said, I just googled, like, most comfortable shoe ever, and I bought them. Hilarious. I don't know what that type of shoe totally is. Well, here, we can answer that question right now. Most comfortable, most comfortable shoe ever. And the first result is Allbirds.
Speaker: In fairness, it's a paid ad though. Allbirds is like the fourth organic result, but it's definitely the first paid result. Interesting. I'll ask them today. Ask them. Throw up something on Instagram if they are Allbirds today. Yeah. It's funny. The other book I started, or the other thing I started doing, which I'm very excited for, is I finally started reading a book that's been on my list called The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.
Speaker: I've heard many things about it, but I haven't read it yet. Yeah, I was in the same boat. And a couple of people that had recommended it, the one that comes to mind is Ryan Wenner of Seneca working who's a friend and definitely a solid entrepreneur. And sometimes you think I put things off because I think they're daunting or you just put them off and I got the book and it's an easy book. It's 22 chapters and each chapter is like four pages.
Speaker: And so there's some really good takeaways in it. And so I've gotten, I've been doing a better job recently of actually taking down notes that I can again kind of have my own personal cliff notes of what I took away from that book so that I can revisit it later, you know, single word file or resource and not have to go find the book. We'll throw those up on the, we're throwing them up on the NYC CNC website as well, kind of that sort of stuff.
Speaker: What I love about it is two. One, there's some really good rules and things to think about, and I like the fact that the book doesn't mince its words. It's sort of saying you need to be number one in your category, and if you're not number one in your category, you need to invent a new category. It gives examples of how to do that, but then it also talks about, okay, so if you are number two,
Speaker: There are ways to handle that and one of the biggest flaws that companies make is when they're number two, they try to
Speaker: do this marketing story and convince customers that they're actually number one, and you're much better off when you just embrace the fact that you're number two. One of the funny examples that resonated with me was, and the book is probably 30 years old, I think. I should look that up, but it's not new. It's talking about the rental car wars and how Hertz was number one, and Avis came along
Speaker: And I think at some point Avis tried to market themselves as comparable and equal to Hertz and it just flopped, completely flopped. They lost money, they didn't do well. And then they sort of realized, let's just embrace the fact that we're not Hertz, we're not number one. And they changed their slogan to, we try harder. And it's almost complete hogwash because it's not like they actually tried harder and it's not like Hertz wasn't trying, but you kind of
Speaker: You, quote unquote, were yourself. You were true to who you were. And maybe there's more to the story. But I like, I very much like that it's important to recognize who you are and the message that you convey. Yeah, I like that a lot. It's like I was trying to make a joke yesterday.
Speaker: I can't even remember what it was, but Yo was saying he listens to some weird podcast and he's like, uh, the guy claims to be the, the fourth best podcaster in New Zealand or something like super about this super like niche thing, you know? Right. Hilarious though, right? Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Yeah.
Speaker: But it makes me think about, especially when it comes to our product line of sort of fixture plates and the mod vices, but then also the other side of our business, which is this combination of training and education and YouTube and entertaining. Do I think we're the number one source for that? If we're not, do I want to be or what would I need to do to be?
Speaker: I think a lot of, well, it's a whole other conversation, but it's a good way I found to think about what we're doing and how I want to influence people or help people, but then also have that be a business.
Speaker: But the even better part of the book is because we have the benefit of time and the benefit of hindsight is to see some of the predictions the book makes that are just totally wrong. I like the fact that the book takes opinions. Like I said, it doesn't mince its words, the authors, I think it's two authors. I give them respect for that because too often folks just vacillate and don't really ever say anything.
Speaker: Darn it. Take an opinion. Tell me what you think. But they make these claims like Microsoft is really going to fall apart because they're trying to expand and take on WordPerfect and Lotus 1, 2, 3, and Harvard Graphics. And there's just no way they're going to upset those key players and leaders in that industry. Well, yeah. This was early 90s. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That was wrong. But OK.
Speaker: What's the takeaway there? I mean, number one, just because you're reading something that is purchased on Amazon and delivered to you in a bound copy and you are consuming it, it doesn't make them perfect or God or right or, you know. Yeah. And it's, you know, you got to use your own opinions and think about what you think and make critical decisions. Don't just absorb something as gospel. Right.
Speaker: That's cool. I just picked up and started rereading the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. Okay. Yep.
Speaker: classic business classic. Um, I've never finished it, but I looked at my last book market. It was about halfway through and I'm like, darn it. I'm going to, I'm going to skim the beginning, what I've read before. Um, but then I'm going to continue it and keep reading straight through the whole thing. Um, it's very good. There are a lot of good takeaways in there, um, with regards to either hiring people or building, you know, building a business to be like, what is the definition of a great business instead of a good business? And, uh,
Speaker: What was it? One of the takeaways was like either like some of the great businesses hired or built the best executives and the best management team according to this criteria. But like very rare of them and most of them were not was they'd have like one genius and a thousand helpers.
Speaker: So it was this concept of one guy that's just super smart and does everything and handles everything and then just everybody else's support. And then if that one guy goes away or dies or retires or whatever, then eventually these big companies totally fell to the wayside because the genius has left. And that makes it not a great company and not a sustainable company. And a bunch of examples about all this stuff. But it's really interesting to read a book that's
Speaker: written 20 years ago about the past 50 years of companies and how it analyzes them. You do see the gravity of what you just said. I do. That's why I brought it up. Okay, good. And that's not to say that there are other folks in your shop that are very smart and do phenomenal things, but we've got to get the Grimsmo out of Grimsmo knives.
Speaker: No, it's true. The other thing it said, and it unpacks this a lot in the book, but it said,
Speaker: It's a lot of companies put their biggest problems on their best people. But it said you need to put your biggest opportunities on your best people as well, right, instead of handling them yourself. And I was like, that's really interesting. Because like, you know, biggest opportunity, you want to handle it yourself, you want to be like, I'm on this, I want to take care of it. But to actually hand off a very important biggest opportunity onto somebody else is daunting and scary, but very empowering for everybody involved. Yep.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true. I think there's some other couple things that come to mind here. Number one is also the ability to sort of say no, like sometimes when you're tackling a problem, you're trying to solve the problem. And in reality, what if you can just literally cut out the whole cancer, get rid of the whole like, you know, just
Speaker: Focusing down, calling down, and thinking outside the box about what the solution is to this. And the other thing is when it comes to your best people and allocation resources, you can still have other folks tee it up, brainstorm, and then allow others to execute on it and create a more back and forth process on that sort of a thing. For sure, yep.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm definitely doing more and more of that with not everybody in the shop, but many, many people in the shop about, you know, I'll think about it, have my idea of what I want, and then hand it off to them with some direction, because I realize everybody needs direction. You know, I don't know if you'd be surprised how little especially the good people. Yeah, maybe, maybe.
Speaker: But I'm sure you're the same way. Like you come up with an idea and you have your way of doing it and you hand to somebody else and they do it a different way, but maybe get the same or better result. But you still feel kind of weird about it because it was done not the way you expected. But then you have to look at the results and be like, well, actually, it's fine. There's no reason to not do it a different way.
Speaker: Exactly. It's just not an option. Alex was a quote unquote intern while he was here in town throughout his finishing his high school years, but he was doing so at a college as part of a pathways engineering program. He's now gone. He's in college.
Speaker: but he's continuing to work as a consultant for us because he's good at what he does. He's passionate. He's somebody I'm happy to stay involved. What I'm thinking of would be Alex or the type of person like Alex would be the person I would say, hey, I made this sheet to track inventory. In reality, it needs to be in the ERP
Speaker: go look at YouTube videos, go read articles. Can we do it on the ERP? And if you can, let's figure out how we can implement it. So breaking it down, not just saying fix this, put the whole thing in the ERP because sometimes you want to have a chance to jump back into it, but let's see if we can do it. And even if he's inefficient with his time, it's not your time. It's, you know, he can learn, he can get better at it.
Speaker: Yep, exactly. Yeah, and I am doing more and more of that. And it's liberating to handle that. It's good. Good. What's going on today? Today, I am making those bearings on the Swiss. I've got my emergency call it made. I have to make some ejector pins with an M5 thread at the end. Apparently, I don't have any M5 screws in the entire shop. I have M4, I have M6, I have
Speaker: Um, but it's fairly simple and then quick program, the bearing, um, all of it will drag over from the Nakamura. So I'm just adding little codes in between and then should be good. You have to, there's no other way. There's literally no other way to program the Swiss right now, although I am working with Autodesk to make a post that's going to be epic. Okay. So you have to just, okay. Got it.
Speaker: Can you, if you walk into a well, not like a home Depot, but like a proper industrial hardware store in, in the Toronto area, do they have more inch fasteners or more metric fasteners? Probably more inch, but a definite healthy amount of metric. Interesting. And on that note, I should probably just, no, I don't know if it'd be easier to just make a new one or modify an M five bolt. Can you just go buy an M five die?
Speaker: Uh, probably, I mean, I couldn't master it and have it tomorrow, but just hand, uh, also like no big deal to turn an M five threat, you know? Yeah. Well, I know. I know. Yeah. It's that balance, but either I'm modifying a screw or I'm making a screw. Um, and I don't know what to do. Will you have to make more of these ejector pins in the future?
Speaker: No, I'll need like two or three different sizes, and that should cover the range of parts that I'm making. Got it. Okay, that's not bad then. So turning them myself lets me turn them to a certain diameter, to a certain shape, so it fits all the way through the collet, which is necessary. Otherwise, I'm grinding the threads off a screw until it fits properly. Right, right, right. Don't laugh, but you can't 3D print them.
Speaker: It's a good question. I mean, it's an M5 thread, so it's pretty, it would be strong enough. I don't know how it would hold up to the oil over time. Right, right. And then it's an M5 thread, so it has to thread in. But it's an interesting concept, I mean. Yeah, I would have printed a part that just had a cylindrical hollow tube in one end and then just glued in a M5 stud, which I recognize you probably also don't have laying around. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I'm just thinking through like, okay, well, then you gotta find a car. Yeah. It's a neat idea to just, like I said earlier, there's many different ways to tackle the same problem. And sometimes I can only see the one way and it's often the hard way. Oh, I am working or actually in training this week. I've got a couple of projects to tackle here. And then this afternoon, uh, I am driving up only an hour or so away to allied machine, which are the folks that make those, I think of as making those crazy drills.
Speaker: Have you seen Allied machine and tool? I'm sure you've seen them at trade shows or other events, but they make the, if you saw like that one inch diameter, 16 inch long drill that we had out early this year, making parts on the UMC with it. They make spade drills and U drills and insert drills and so forth. Cool.
Speaker: And it's awesome because they're a third -generation manufacturing company that's located in central Ohio that has been pretty well -recognized internationally for being some of the best folks at making drills and this type of stuff. And they've actually bought, I don't remember all the brand names, but they bought, I think, Wollhopter, the German boring head company. They're a big player. Cool. Cool. So you're doing a shop tour up there?
Speaker: Yeah. Do you want to shop to where they're letting us film? I honestly don't really know what to expect. I don't think that they make inserts there or grind. I could be wrong, but I definitely, I believe they, I know they make their, quote unquote, soft body. So the only other time I've really had a chance to see that was in Sweden at Sandvik and that was pretty darn cool.
Speaker: because when you pick up a spade drill or an insert drill, looking at that body, the geometry, it's pretty cool to think about, okay, how would you make this? Is it on a mill drill? Is it on a five axis? Is it on a multi -tasking machine? Is it on a live tooled lathe custom machine? I'll be curious to see what we learn. That'll be sweet. Yeah. Maybe throw up an Instagram photo if you can. Yeah, I know for sure.
Speaker: And I'm also excited because normally I have to like travel to do factory tours and this is just, just like top of there this afternoon. Yeah. It's so nice when it's close by. Does it, does it kind of make you realize not only how much manufacturing there is in, in the country, but how much there can be close by and you don't even realize it.
Speaker: Well, so I actually knew, I knew about Allied both because I knew the brand name, we use their tools, but then it's right there off the highway when you were driving up north to, for whatever reason, when we were going up to Cleveland Clinic for Yvonne, we would drive by every time.
Speaker: I don't think they know this, but I had sort of tried to reach out to them a couple years back and I don't remember. It didn't go anywhere, which is totally fine. And then it was really awesome and funny because they reached out to me a couple months ago. They're like, holy cow, your YouTube is amazing. Your story is amazing. I love what you're doing. Would you ever want to come? And I'm like, I would love to come up and talk and see and all that. That's hilarious. Yeah. So they see like a good bunch of people. I'm excited to go have fun.
Speaker: Yeah. That's so funny. Cause sometimes you just either talk to a different person with a different, you know, openness or, uh, you know, bad mood for the day. Like, nope, no visitors today. Well, and it's also just kind of one of those things in life where it's often much easier when it's their idea. Yes. Like many, many, many things in life. Right. Right. When I'm asking, when I'm asking you to come film, they're like, wait a minute, what? This is weird. Who's yeah. Well, um,
Speaker: I learned yesterday, I've been emailing back and forth with the Willimon McDowell people. You know, they make that amazing mill turn machine. I'm just, you know, long term planning. I think it would be an amazing machine for us eventually. Chatting back and forth with them, I sent them my saga clip model and said, you know, just what do you think? Give me a, you know, they want to do a time cycle on it. So they're just going to program it real quick and see how long it takes. It's going to be cool.
Speaker: But I learned they are 15 kilometers from the Tornos factory in Switzerland. And I did not know that. Had I known that, I would have walked over and done a tour of their factory too. Are you going to go back to Garmisch to do training at Kern?
Speaker: Most likely. It's not planned yet, but I do think I should be doing that. Cool. I'm super jealous. Yeah. You get like three to five days with Marv and maybe some other people focused on training, like learning the ins and outs of control and the machine and yeah, different experience than what I got going there and just playing and watching Marv, you know, be an artist. Sure. Sure.
Speaker: No, that's really cool. Any news on finding a shop? No, I'm still looking hard. I've got a lead that I'm working down that hopefully will play out. But until then, I'm still looking hard. Got it. Fair enough. Yeah. Sweet. Well, I am going to go bang on a couple of parts, projects, and then I'll throw up some instances when I'm there. I'm excited.
Speaker: Awesome. Awesome. All right. Take care. I'll see you. Have a great day. Bye.
