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Business of Machining - Episode 118
234 Plays7 years ago
IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN....
BLADESHOW 2019 is just shy of 3 weeks away and GK is ready. On their 8th year of attendance, something is different.
The usual 2-week, frantic crunch to stock up on product IS NOWHERE IN SIGHT. Not only do they have knives and SAGA pens ready, the 1776 American Independence knife is nearly finished aside from some final engraving!
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**You know you're a machinist when you measure time by trade show events.**
A New Business Diagnostic If your company is growing, there's an important question to ask yourself: How does our business appear to a new hire? Are the roles, departments, and protocols clearly defined? Not only can this question give an outside perspective, it can also help you assess and diagnose problem areas.
Suffering for Success? Hollywood has left no industry unscathed when it comes to dramatic portrayals. The question is, how much has it impacted your expectations? Just because you're not endlessly toiling away in a dank, dark shop fraught with impossible odds doesn't mean you're not hustling. Let's call it "grinding smarter, not harder."
The Million Dollar Question: HOW DO I GET MY BUSINESS STARTED? Data Tracking & Mentorship Shortly after Barry was hired as the GK accountant, production significantly improved--and that's not a coincidence! Grimsmo stresses the importance of tracking data. More specifically, how much product you need to produce to stay consistent.
Saunders recommends checking out SCORE, the nation's largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors.
Technically, there isn't a right or wrong way to get started; however, there are ways to increase chances of success. Avoiding debt as much as possible continues to be at the top of the list. Plus, Saunders announces that CHIP BREAKS will be making a come back in the near future!
TOMORROW, TOMORROW, The SWISS WILL COME TOMORROW...It's ONLY a DAAAAAY AAAAA-WAAAAY. We just want to know...does the 6000lbs INCLUDE the Fanuc manuals or is that an additional 6000lbs? Since it's Friday, enjoy this IG post of Grimsmo's new Tornos!
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Don't forget to use this promo code to get your Fusion 360 Academy pass for $99 (HALF OFF!).
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If you enjoy this podcast or it has helped you, please share it with others!
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Transcript
Anticipation for Blade Show
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode number 118. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. Good morning. Good morning, buddy. How are you? Fantastic. Good. Pumped and energized.
00:00:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Every year, Blade Show, which means nothing to me outside of my relationship with you, is becoming this marker for me of like, seriously? That's happening again? Yep. Yeah. Super pumped for Blade Show. We leave in three weeks from tomorrow, I think.
00:00:40
Speaker
We were super smart this year because every year up until now, this will be like our eighth show. You know, we spend the two weeks prior to Braid Show crunching and like trying to make product and making zero product for home. And then you bring, you know, you work too hard and you bring that stuff and then you crash after the show. And we have like weeks of downtime where we're just not like we're lazy and we're unproductive and it's stupid. But anyway, this year we finally did something we've been meaning to do for years is like,
00:01:10
Speaker
Every day we'll just put aside one of the knives for Blade Show. For like two months we've been doing that. So now we have just about everything we need for Blade Show already set aside with zero hassle, zero headache whatsoever. And it's just like there's no stress. That's it.
Sustainable Workflow Strategies
00:01:25
Speaker
What made you have the foresight to do that?
00:01:29
Speaker
Well, our production is super consistent now, which is super helpful. And we've been thinking about it for years. And it's like, now's the time to do it. I don't want to crunch two weeks before the show. I want to be just clear headed and go. OK, so you knew you were going to try to do this based on past experience. It wasn't a book or conversation that made you realize, OK, I got to change. No, no, exactly. Got it.
00:01:52
Speaker
I think that's a much more significant point than maybe you're alluding to. Maybe it doesn't need to be belabored, but it's something I've been debating a lot, which is, and I don't have the answer because I think it's a classic example of when both sides can be right or both sides can be right at different times. But what I will say, it's the
00:02:16
Speaker
question of do you work in a very smart, calm, sustainable, balanced manner that is a marathon runner? You just keep going. You're really consistent. You know, certain times you work a little harder, a little less, but it's never
00:02:34
Speaker
frantic or is it to me kind of the bust your butt American dream hustle nights and weekends grind grind make it happen you know because I'm certainly I certainly got into the trades and to be honest I think it's worth saying the trades have been good to me because I enjoy it but I also thought there was an opportunity that was that overlap of something you're passionate for but then also the chance to
00:02:59
Speaker
to do something that's productive and profitable and so forth. And for me, I spent a lot of my time, I think a lot more on the second half of that, which is the grind, the work, work, work, work, like I will work harder than you. And for that reason, I will be more successful. Right, right. What I've learned, especially over the past year or two, is the day to day is so much nicer when it's consistent, it's methodical, it's like,
00:03:25
Speaker
You just know what to expect and everybody comes in and everybody's busy and hustling. And then the project work or the future planning or the new thing or the prototype or something, I will grind hard for that. That's a good point. But I don't want to grind for day to day and kill myself 365. It's just not sustainable. But you develop this kind of sustainable, smooth workflow.
00:03:51
Speaker
you know, slow and smooth and smooth as fast or however that goes.
00:03:58
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. I like that too, because as much as I thought about it, I'd never really thought about separating what's what. I think what's important for me, and I don't know if it's my just simple age or whether it's because I've been doing this for about 10, a little more, 10 years now, not full time, but nevertheless, pouring myself into the manufacturing world. I very much enjoy, don't get me wrong, still working hard, but I very much enjoy what you said, which is,
00:04:28
Speaker
We don't have to have outsized Herculean results today. We have to go in and go be good at what we do and be proud of what we do, but it doesn't have to be crazy. It doesn't have to be over the top. You don't have to work, work, work, work, work, work, work. It'll be okay. Make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it is sort of... It's the word I'm trying to say.
00:04:56
Speaker
We do have big visions and big goals and that takes hard work, but it also takes like a million micro steps to be able to get there. You know, so it's this kind of smooth, consistent nature. If I have this vision to bring the company to, you know, X revenue or this many products, this many sales or whatever, I know that day to day it has to be smooth and it has to be consistent and, um, it all has to get done. Whereas if we're running around frantically, like so much normal stuff doesn't get done. Yeah.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah. I ended up meeting with a fan who was in town.
00:05:32
Speaker
He was talking about a really good, very intelligent observation, which was talking to another shop and this idea of, is that shop? When they go to look at hiring people and talking about what they do, is it a shop that kind of has their stuff together? They say, hey, here's our workflow, here are our systems, here's the machines, here's how we, you just, here's how we quote jobs. And this is what it's like here. He teased the word culture because I don't know about you, but I kind of like,
00:05:59
Speaker
I think culture is incredibly important. I'm not afraid to talk about it, but I think as soon as you heard the word culture, you start thinking soft stuff, not like, I don't know, it just changes your, to me, it's like finance. It's one of those buzzwords that instantly polarizes people in my experience. But what's it like there? Depending on whose point of view, like you're interpreting those words as trigger words for whatever you think. They trigger me. That's why. Yeah, exactly. Trigger. Anyway, was the shop
00:06:29
Speaker
You know, hard working but organized or was it a, every day is a fire drill. Every day is hectic. Every day is working like your head's cut off, blah, blah, blah. And again, also a really, really good point because when you tour shops or when you talk to shops, you know, there's those folks that are just always, oh my gosh, it's feast or famine, it's high or low. Everything's a problem. Yeah.
00:06:54
Speaker
That's not fun. You don't want to be around that, even just for a shop tour. Yet imagine if you structured it as, well, this division over here is doing smooth production, and these guys are the prototypers. They're like, head down, don't bother them because they're so into it right now. But I don't know. It is different.
00:07:17
Speaker
I think it's a- But when we were at Kern, it was very smooth and it was pleasant to be there and yet they're producing what they're happy with. I think it's one of the biggest misconceptions that's pushed down from
00:07:33
Speaker
either myths about the business world or frankly Hollywood, you see movies where executives or important people or the president, they're put into these grind situations where it's
00:07:48
Speaker
where it has that fire drill sense to it. And then when you actually... I'll never forget some of the more impactful shop tours. Certainly Kern was great, but being at Hermlove, but a while back being at SNH and all these shops that are incredibly productive and probably, if not at the very forefront, very close to the forefront of what's going on in a lot of different
00:08:10
Speaker
aspects of
Evolution of Business Practices
00:08:11
Speaker
manufacturing or machine tool building or job shopping. And I think it's a shame that those sides of success don't get the same kind of attention because it doesn't have the drama to it. It's just organized and there's a sense of pride and it's not this fire drill.
00:08:32
Speaker
Well, because it takes like a decade of planning and methodical thinking to make it look easy at this time. But again, maybe that's a luxury you can take when you've had success. To me, I would tell anybody,
00:08:55
Speaker
when if you can have the ability to be intelligent and you have the ability to work hard, both are important, but working hard is frankly more important. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, especially, I mean, up until we started to hire people, it was a fire drill every day. You know, it had to be. It was just always busy and hustle. Well, I think so.
00:09:20
Speaker
Cause we were never doing what I needed to do. It's just like, Oh, I got to do this. And we were down that the, my wife and I were with the kids were down at the farm this past Sunday. And I was looking at the, my grandfather's shop building and I, I have a hard time remembering a single day there or a single hour there. And it's funny cause I mean, there's plenty of videos I could go watch of me in that shop, but I, that was only three years ago. And I really, um, I had,
00:09:47
Speaker
Oh, Jared was working part time then, but never full time there. So it was really just me. And I don't remember the stress. I don't remember being... There was a period of time when we moved here where I think I did things not as well as I do them now. And again, it was that moment of hanging out with Jay Pearson when he was like, I really try to make sure I'm not absolutely stressed out, like anxiety, not good, maybe three, four times a year.
00:10:17
Speaker
Right. Start contrast, I clearly remember the stress from my garage days. Interesting. Oh, yeah. But was it self-induced? Or did you sell a knife and then have to figure out how to finish it? Or why was there this
00:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, there was a lot of that. We used to do more pre-orders back then, so we would pre-sale the knives and then owe people and then take way too long to finish them. Cashflow was super problem. Meg was working part-time supporting her, me, Eric, and one or two kids depending on the time. And yeah, there was just a lot of stress, a lot of problems, a lot of
00:10:57
Speaker
whether organizational problems or like physical, like making the product problems, not good enough issues, machining, things like that, learning. Yeah, it was definitely a grind. And there was a lot of stress built up with that around money and around time spent where. And yeah, fire drill is a neat way to put it. Not every day, of course. I mean, I certainly loved what I did, but it
00:11:26
Speaker
Certainly wasn't moving fast enough. Yeah, this was only when you were in your old place with the garage shop. I'd say even here for the first year plus. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, because it was never smooth until we hired Barry and then even that first year, like I'd say a year after we hired Barry, things really started to come together.
00:11:49
Speaker
And that's, you know, seven years of business culminating to a certain point where it's like, wow, things are getting smooth now and we're doing daily production and we can think about hiring people and it starts to make sense. And it's not like, you know, it's still busy, but it's not like stressful.
00:12:08
Speaker
Yeah, because of something very brought to the table? Or are you just saying that's a coincidental time marker of when things change? Both? Okay, both. I'll give it a solid both on that one. Yeah, he did bring a lot of a lot of
00:12:22
Speaker
accountability to the table, both on his end, but also on our end. And he held us accountable for what we were and we're not doing. And it's hard to hold yourself accountable when there's nobody else to kind of like yell at you. So as hard as that was to hear not only from anybody, but from your father in law and from somebody who, you know, is great, but sometimes grinds your gears because you need it. Um,
00:12:47
Speaker
It was super valuable. Yes. I think this is worth breaking the private nature of our podcast. How do folks that are trying to get started running a small business, entrepreneurs, how do folks get a quote unquote Barry if they can't afford to hire one or they don't have one? What questions do they need to ask or systems they need to put in place or mentors do they need to find? Give some advice on that.
00:13:18
Speaker
Well, mentors, I mean, whether it's in person or just there's a million, you know, um, pieces of content on the internet that can be valuable if interpreted the right way. Um, but break it down to a couple of simple things like tracking.
00:13:33
Speaker
our daily production and actually looking at it and being sick to the stomach when there's like a week of no knives or two weeks or three weeks. Whereas if you don't track anything, you just think you're doing all right. You come into work, you do your stuff. There's no data. And being an analytical accountant, data is everything. Numbers are everything. Money is everything to him. So it was a stark contrast of me kind of like,
00:14:02
Speaker
freewheeling my way through the business, which doesn't last forever. So he'd print out wall charts that say, cross off every knife that you made today, tomorrow, this month. And we'd tally them up every month, every month, every month, and shoot for higher numbers. And we weren't really doing that before. We were just coming in and doing our work and trying to hustle and put off fires, but not culminating to anything important.
00:14:31
Speaker
And he held us accountable for it. If we didn't make X many knives in a week, then why? What happened? What's the problem? These are questions I didn't ask myself nearly often enough. So that was super important. And then his knowledge of financial systems and cash flow tracking and all that was pretty foreign to me at the time. That has been hugely helpful for us. And as you know, because you've got a really good handle on that too.
00:14:58
Speaker
So for other people, I would definitely suggest hold yourself accountable. I mean, if you're not accountable, then nobody else is. You have to be.
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah, I would argue that I think a passive thing like a website or a one-way reading a book, anything that's one-directional is not only not enough, but it's a false sense of you think because you're digesting this material that you're checking the box and in reality, you're going to read it through your own eyes or you're going to see what you want to see.
00:15:33
Speaker
I love you, like as a friend and business partner, but like there've been times where I've said stuff to you or felt like I've wanted to impart an outside view and you are, I mean, it's why you are successful who you are because you sort of said, no, I'm not going to ship something unless I'm so unhappy with it. Well, but that at some point there's an ultimatum to that, right? Like there's a, there's a, we, at some point you go out of business, right? So I think, um, the only thing I could think of is,
00:15:58
Speaker
at least in the u.s there's score s c o r e dot org which is my limited experience of talking with folks from score as well as other folks that have been involved with score is that they're going to be willing to
00:16:13
Speaker
Like there's no hurdle to getting that meeting. Now basically meet with anybody and get you involved or put you in the right direction, which is obviously much better than stay trying to find a local business guru or magnet who may be busy or not necessarily looking for mentorship. But I think it's important to have it be with somebody who can hold you accountable, give you some guidance. And the problem with family, you're very fortunate with Barry, but the problem with family is it's almost always
00:16:40
Speaker
the wrong answer because their love blinds their advice. Yeah. And I think that benefited us in some ways because he was willing to be hard and firm and make sure that we knew how good or bad we were doing. But his love for us and for the growth of business and our future and our kids and all that, his grandkids,
00:17:05
Speaker
kept him driven forward the whole time. He was also in the business every day, which is not a normal situation of a mentor who's just going to be new. Exactly. Your mentor is going to be basically reacting to the information that you provide and then looking for holes or what are you not telling me? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, very, very creates the data.
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You know, I've certainly been out to lunches and meetings and get togethers with various successful local entrepreneurs or at, you know, I'll go to a show and we'll go out to dinner with, you know,
00:17:40
Speaker
super millionaire guy that's done it all and blah, blah, blah. And that's great too, but it gives you a little data point, some context. But again, like how much are you actually sharing with that person? How much are you, you know, are you telling them what your profit is, what your cash flow, are you telling them what your real problems are? You know, how much are you holding back? Whereas somebody who's in the know, and especially watching the numbers like Barry was, it is a much more tactile experience.
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah, agreed. Yeah, I don't care. My threshold for putting it out there with real questions and problems is very low. I'll basically share something specific that's real pretty quickly because I know how much more rewarding it is when somebody wants our advice or my advice or question or something. You can just tell when they're manipulating the
00:18:31
Speaker
story or they're trying to get you to give them the answer they want to hear so they set the cover. It's just like, okay, I'll keep the conversation going because it's polite, but I'm not invested in this. At that point, you almost want to give them the answer they don't want to hear.
00:18:49
Speaker
But that's something I've only learned over the past year or two, is to be more open, more forthright, more truthful with the state of things. Because I know now that it helps drive me forward. Whereas three, four, five years ago, I would hide a lot. Things are great. Oh, business is good.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yes. Yes. In my head, it's not. I'd like to think that that's why we still do this podcast too though, which is not just a ra-ra for each other, but really to cut into the sort of like, what are you struggling with? I think leadership is indirectly what you and I have been talking about here a lot in this today. Leadership has that sexiness because it's the pinnacle, it's the type A, it's attributed to the success, but the reality is
00:19:36
Speaker
Leadership means you are not having someone tell you what to do, which can frankly be quite nice. Somebody else who says, this is what you need to do, this is how you need to do it, this is when you need to do it by, this is the metrics by which you'll be judged, and now you have a framework within to work. As a leader, you don't necessarily have that.
00:19:56
Speaker
And we aren't the type of companies that have public shareholders or board of directors or people that own us in that sense, so they don't get to tell us what to do either. So it's actually very...
Financial Planning Debate
00:20:07
Speaker
I miss... It would be quite helpful for somebody to actually tell me, John, cancel the meeting with XYZ tooling rep. The tools they sell aren't even stuff that you use. I know you like to be nice. I know you're fascinated by it. That is not the right use of your time right now.
00:20:24
Speaker
That's a good thing to curb. I'm not always good at that decision. Totally, 100%. For better or worse being the top of the food chain decision maker because like you said, you have very little help, very little framework data to guide these decisions on. You're in a sense making it up as you go and learning over time with experience.
00:20:49
Speaker
maybe referencing from other people who've done it before, but for the most part, it's a minute by minute decision basis where it's like, oh, tooling rep walked in. I guess I'll talk to him for a while, try to get him out of here. Right. Yeah. You could be nice, but I think that's very difficult for most people.
00:21:09
Speaker
you want to be liked, especially in your industry. You and I have joked before about how we don't care about sports. If I walk into a sports bar for some reason, I don't care if all people like me or if we're social, it's not important. But yeah, when you're in the manufacturing space, you want to be someone that's viewed as a person.
00:21:30
Speaker
Yeah, so it's quite difficult to be like, I don't want to spend my time on your stuff right now. Sorry, please leave like that. Yeah, you can't say that. But right. Exactly. So yeah. Yeah. Because that's ultimately the limits. It's it's I joke, but it's not. It's true. The limits in life are time and money period. And both both have played different roles depending on your journey.
00:22:01
Speaker
I'm working on bringing back the chip break videos because I think I under appreciated how much the people that I care about like those videos. I do put a little bit more forethought into planning that out, the videos versus the
00:22:17
Speaker
experimentation will do in like a Wednesday widget where it's just kind of, hey, let's figure this out. Anyway, one of the most popular questions I get is kind of this proverbial, how do I get started? Whether it's getting started with job shop work or finding work or buying the first machine or
00:22:33
Speaker
starting a product, starting a company. And I've been thinking about the kind of different things you can do and roles you can play and hats you can wear that change because I think that's one of the key things is just because you do something today, doesn't mean you're locked into doing it in perpetuity. So for sure. So my thing is, and again, tying back into my advice, which is please don't borrow money for a machine.
00:22:59
Speaker
if you don't, like just don't. So when you're getting started, so if your goal is to buy a tormach and you're going to get a used one for seven grand, anybody who's of legal age to work in any developed country over the course of a year, year and a half should be able to save an extra $7,000. You're able to work your butt off. It's going to be harder if you've got lots of kids or other social obligations that you're not willing to compromise on, but to work an extra shift at a second job, et cetera. You can set that money aside and
00:23:29
Speaker
I think it's a great way to start because the rebuttal or the other version is people say, well, no, buy the machine, make money with it and then use it to pay off the machine quickly. You could do it quickly. Well, if you could do it quickly, let's just avoid that whole thing and let's
00:23:46
Speaker
do earn that money another way, and then all that money that you could, quote unquote, earn quickly with that machine once it's in has become money and profit that you can roll into and snowball into building this business into something even bigger. You look at me like you're doubting me.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, well, I totally understand that point of view. And I know that's your point of view. I have a different experience and a different point of view. And I'm not super, not super used to arguing two points of view back and forth. No, tell me to do it. But yeah, no. So when I started
00:24:20
Speaker
in manufacturing 2008 was when I first got my mini mill and my lathe. I did borrow $5,000 from family and that helped me get kind of everything I need and have a little bit of cash flow for tooling. And I mean, it took probably
00:24:37
Speaker
for years to pay that back, you know, this is not an overnight success. Um, even five grand, like it's nothing now, but, um, but it was, it was, it was more than, than yes, at the time it was gargantuan. I've never felt that much money in my life. Um, so, you know, I felt like a, like a baller driving down to grizzly tools and like buying, you know, $2,500 worth of tools, um, with cash or card or whatever I used. And, uh,
00:25:07
Speaker
But yeah, to your point, it took me far too long to pay that back, far too long to generate revenue. But I was such a bullheaded, never going to work for anybody else entrepreneur that
00:25:20
Speaker
Of course, I could have gone out and gotten a job and I was very close at many points in my life. Something in me said I can't. I can't really explain it, but something inside me said I know there's something here to be done on my own. I just didn't realize it was going to take 10 years to turn it around.
00:25:45
Speaker
But yeah, I was super close to like, Oh, I can go out and be a welder. I could be an auto mechanic or, um, all these skills that I'd learned over the time of working on cars for many years. And I'm like, I can do, I can do any of that, but there's something else here. Why did you buy the lathe and mill? Like, was it, was it to make a Nordman or a knife? No, to make car parts. Well, it's car parts. Okay.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yep, yep. And I'd already had I was in the scene already had made some parts. You know, I was borrowing my neighbor's 1940 war era lathe to make some of the car parts and I was like, I can do this I can I can make some
00:26:25
Speaker
you know, the car parts that I want to design that I've already designed and make and sell them and I'll make tons of money. And here's my business plan and all that. That business failed within a couple of years. But the skills I learned transferred forward into the knife industry. And it just
00:26:42
Speaker
I mean, I don't think most people have the bullheadedness or grit or blind determination to spend five years bleeding money and learning and somewhat enjoying it, making basically zero money while wife's works part time and we start having kids and things are really tough to pull it off. So I'm
Advancements in Manufacturing Technology
00:27:04
Speaker
not saying I recommend that, but that was my path. Sure. I think, uh, I think,
00:27:11
Speaker
It's funny because you, Jay Pearson, and I have all had things that are quote unquote failures, not failures in the sense that they made us better, but business wise, things that we put out, have moved on from, have not been part of our quote unquote success in that sense. I think that's important for folks to realize. I just don't agree with it, but if you're going to borrow money from a machine, I think you've got to have
00:27:33
Speaker
a direct path to hustling, whether it's a mix of job shop and a product that may or may not work. Yeah. Because for many people, that's just not, I just don't think it's the way to go with a, I mean, obviously borrowing, they joke, you know, friends, family and fools, right? Like if you're borrowing, that's different than borrowing from a bank where they're not going to be sympathetic to the tenure, but it's also a different era, John. I mean, there's now
00:27:58
Speaker
the chance to go on and do work like driving for Uber or Upwork consulting on CAD or CAM if you have those skillsets. Some of the labor rates on Upwork are pretty good, 50 bucks, 80 bucks, 100 bucks an hour. So if you could do four hours, five hours a month, that's 500 bucks. That's six grand a year, boom, right there. And frankly, you could do a lot more than that much
00:28:29
Speaker
Right? While progressing your craft and your knowledge and your skill set, it's like they're paying you to learn how to be better in a way, you know? Yeah, it is a different time. And I mean, at the time, my, you remember this, my knowledge of learning CNC 2008 was either Practical Machinist Forum, or you remember Haas CNC, like HOSS. The guy that had the 0704, the Crazy Tool Changer.
00:28:57
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Gynos basement, that's where I learned him, this guy in his basement, modding these $500 grizzly mini mills. It's like 26 inches of Y travel at one point. Remember that? Yeah, yeah. Remember, he put two Y bases together. Yes. The whole articulated wine rack that came in and out.
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But like, that's where I learned CNC machining was from his channel. And I wanted that machine. I was like, man, if I only had this, I'd be able to make all the car parts that I want. So can I slightly change the subject? Yeah, that energy that moment of of just on
00:29:41
Speaker
unabated passion, like you just couldn't believe how excited you were for this idea of having a machine to make those parts that you're seeing these guys make. That happened to me last week and still to this day with having a 5-axis.
00:29:55
Speaker
Yesterday I was just, we were doing these one and done parts, six sides, really cool parts and just like easy to program infusion, doing the simulation in TruePath and posting out and setting up the tools and just the satisfaction, the thought, the potential, I just cannot, it's that you can't,
00:30:20
Speaker
You can't bottle that energy up, which is one of the saddest things in life, because you're going to lose that passion. It will be gone in a month, probably. But today, darn it, it is amazing. Enjoy it. Yes. Yeah. That. Yes, it's true. Yeah, I read one of your comments on Instagram where you said something like, it has reinvigorated my passion for manufacturing. It's amazing. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, my gosh.
00:30:46
Speaker
you to the point where today I don't think I will ever quote-unquote retire like worst case worst case I will eventually you know it when I'm quote-unquote old just it'll just be me I actually told this to the guy at lunch yesterday I was like it'll just be me a five axis probably a little like three axis and a late and he's like a late I'm like yes it'll be it's just great
00:31:12
Speaker
And here's the thing that kind of has blown me away is that switching, so just because we're using the rock lock bases.
00:31:23
Speaker
Like I didn't like a tool for one of the parts. And so we're going to run that today when that tool comes in via UPS. And so I literally just pulled off one, put the other one on and we're done. Like it's... And go. Yeah. And look, we sell fixture plates that we make for our three axis, but you're still doing a lot more work to like set up the mod devices, set up the devices, change out jaws.
00:31:46
Speaker
just probe things in. It's just different. It's so freaking amazing and somewhat ironic that the more complicated machine is easier on setup.
00:31:57
Speaker
That's awesome. So it's it's exactly the concept that I'm so in love with a five axis of having a pallet changer is instead of like yesterday, my mill was tied up the entire day doing one small project and it sat for probably 90 percent of the day waiting for me to work on this. Whereas if it was a palletized auto changer, you know, machine, it wouldn't sit. It wouldn't sit idle. It would just run another job while I'm working.
00:32:26
Speaker
And then when I'm ready for it, I just schedule my little tweak and then the palette changes and then it wakes the thing like 20 minutes cycle and then comes out and goes back to regular production. And in your scenario too, like you've got the rock box, you just pull a palette out, put it back in, hit go, and then you fiddle with the one thing you're fiddling with and you're back to regular production.
00:32:44
Speaker
Yeah, tooling will be an issue. Almost all of our base tool holders are the shortest gauge length, ER32s from Maritool. And I think the shortest gauge length, I think that is listed as the 1.85 inch. And when you have a normal tool sticking out of one of those, so let's say it's sticking out an inch, inch and a half or something from the face of the collet, that is actually too short
00:33:13
Speaker
for the UMC to reach the tool touch probe.
00:33:19
Speaker
So it would be fine, it would be fine to use it on the UMC unless your B is at a crazy angle, but you can't set the tool height. Now we could set them on the Spironi now, but I'm laughing because my years of being wise and buying short gauge like tools for our three axis is now biting me. So I am already have pretty strong convictions that with the five axis, I would
00:33:44
Speaker
I would, it's always optional because again, we live in a world of finite resources and you can't have it all. But boy, I would put a huge priority over something like a 100 to 200 tool ATC.
00:33:59
Speaker
because the way I'm going to use a five axis is going to be a pretty solid set of library of tools. So when you think about having three or four different material classes and then a lot of spot drill tap combinations and you just want to be able to pick the right tool.
00:34:17
Speaker
you want to leave it you want to have the right holder and you want to have the right stick out because all that is so critical because now on regular like not complicated not sexy parts, we're still doing tabbing where the holder nut is
00:34:32
Speaker
a hundred thou off of a mighty bite, which isn't that close in the world five axis. But boy, normally we don't pay attention to stick out that closely. So that to me is the right recipe for process reliability and just for enjoyment of using it is that high density ATC.
00:34:53
Speaker
Yeah, the 30 tools on my Maury, I've complained about this a lot. It's just not enough. For me to do even regular production takes, I think 29, maybe even 30 tools. And then for me to do anything outside of regular production, if I'm touching aluminum, I got to put different tools in. Right, right.
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's just something I didn't appreciate until I've started making parts on it. I also do now place a higher value on machines that allow you to manage your tools. You have access to the ATC while the machine is running because checking tools, inspecting them, adjusting the stick out, measuring them, adding and loading them. I didn't care about that before. I do now.
00:35:41
Speaker
On the, on the UMC, you can rock, right? It has a 40 tool ATC. So I know it's not bad for that class of machine. I mean, it's not, you normally don't see that level of sort of an entry five axis that has a 200 tool crib or hive. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. It's been fun. That's so amazing.
00:36:07
Speaker
We've been talking about 5-axis for years, forever. You're there now. You're in this moment where you're like, this is the greatest thing. This is everything I ever expected it to be and more. Here are some of the lessons I'm learning. Part of me wishes I did this, but I have no regrets.
00:36:27
Speaker
It's amazing. It's fun to see. We're going to do a little video on ... We also have nailed down a workflow that I'm actually really proud of. There's a couple cool little hacks and tricks in how we're handling our setups, our posting, and whether or not we use TruePath for certain things. We don't use it for everything. Anyways, I'm going to do a little video on that, but I will say this. Good. Can we see it? If you are a shop or an owner or machinist and you're thinking,
00:36:49
Speaker
like of making that jump, I would absolutely encourage you to get more serious about it. It is,
Fusion Academy Announcement
00:36:55
Speaker
I completely underestimated how much it's going to help us, whether it's just more comfort about the decisions that we're going to make, whether it's adding a robot or an aroa or making, but I mean, those parts that we made yesterday would have been five, actually six, excuse me, six setups because they had an annoying little
00:37:15
Speaker
like just annoying. And now you're, you're, you're owning it is fun. And it was the picture I put on Instagram with that little tall aluminum part, it's only being held on. Yeah. And it's in my eye. Yeah. And they were solid and
00:37:30
Speaker
It was 2,000 tolerances on a lot of the plus or minus one on a lot of the features, which doesn't sound that crazy, but isn't necessarily as easy as you might think when you actually start measuring some of the boards and grooves and so forth and nailed it. Just freaking awesome. So cool. Really happy for you. That's awesome to see.
00:37:55
Speaker
Yeah. On that note, I meant to mention this last week, but Autodesk is doing a... I think they're calling it Fusion Academy. I'm actually excited for this because it's kind of like Autodesk University, but much, much cheaper, more accessible and focused on the Fusion audience. So it's in Portland in August. We put a thing up on our Instagram. We'll throw a thing in the description here, but
00:38:19
Speaker
It's like a two-day event. Lockwood is going to class. Seth Medor is going to class. Kevin Ellinson is going to class. Some good classes on fusion, I'm sorry, on surfacing. Everyone from the fusion team is going to be there. It's kind of like, like I'm excited because it's AU minus all the stuff I don't necessarily care about.
00:38:38
Speaker
True. Like AU is 4% fusion. Yeah. When it's expensive and it's Vegas and it's long, this is to me much more focused. Interesting. Yeah, I didn't know about this. Somebody DM me yesterday. They're like, are you going to the fusion thing? And I'm like, where is it? I didn't know. I will consider that for sure. Yeah. I mean, I'm literally probably just going to fly into... I'm trying to think if I'm going to make a bigger trip out of it and do something else.
00:39:02
Speaker
but I might just rifle shot at flying to Portland for a day or two. I'm excited because I politely declined on teaching a class because I just want to go and meet up with folks or consume the classes and watch and listen and learn. Yeah, I'd be up for that too.
00:39:22
Speaker
Interesting. All right. I'll look into that. That sounds really, really good. I think it's 200 bucks and they, um, they gave us a promo code for a hundred bucks to register. So if you register, register under my promo code so I can tell them I'm getting, I'm getting people to go. Yeah, I'm excited. And then I don't know if I'll go to AU. I mean, I think I'm, I think I, well, I don't know. At some point I'm not going to go to AU, but, um,
00:39:51
Speaker
Yeah. True, right?
Preparing for New Machinery
00:39:53
Speaker
Anything you do repeatedly every year is kind of... It loses value. Well, I love it when I'm there. I love it when I'm there, but it's like four days in Vegas. It's expensive. But then it's like, well, hold on. It's been usually a good group of folks that I very much enjoy seeing. I don't know. We'll see. True. What do you observe then? Today,
00:40:21
Speaker
I am. This will be the last video podcast from this. Oh yeah. So I'm moving my main table here and we're swapping it with a smaller table because the Swiss arrives tomorrow. You should sing that in that like, what's that song? The sun will come out tomorrow. No, we're not going to do it. Cool. Yeah. So that's, that's super exciting. Um,
00:40:48
Speaker
getting all prepped for that, electricians coming in soon. So do you have to hire riggers? Or can you just get the neighbor's forklift? When the machine gets delivered, they take care of everything. They bring their own forklift. Got it. Yeah. So it's usually like machine and forklift on the same truck. And then, yeah, they just handle it. Cool.
00:41:10
Speaker
So yeah, but this thing's like 6,000 pounds. It's not like a 15,000 pound monster. Does that include the FANF manuals? Or is that a separate 6,000 pound? No, they're an extra 6,000 pounds, yeah, for sure. And does it come with? Well, on the net, it's funny because on the Nakamura, they came on a CD. And as much as I like digital content, like sometimes you just want to rifle through a cattle, like an instruction manual, surprisingly.
00:41:39
Speaker
I don't often enough dig through the PDF manuals to find the information I need. I used to laugh when my grandfather who got a computer late in life would be like, he would go to yahoo.com and then in the search bar, he would type in like www.ford.com and that would take him to the Ford website, but then he would retype it in the URL bar at the top.
00:42:01
Speaker
One of those, how could you do it? I still see people doing that. With McMaster or a PDF sometimes, like the Sandbook book, sometimes I will flip through the book, I will find the page I'm wanting in the book, and then I will go into the PDF because then I can search or look differently. Then I will actually print out the page from the PDF.
00:42:22
Speaker
Because I think I can take notes on it or do something with it. And that's probably just kind of workflow, but I enjoy it. Sorry, did they get the speeder installed? Whatever happened with that? I literally haven't heard. Interesting. I don't know, actually. Because the whole reason was they wanted it for their open house, which is now passed. Right, which was two weeks ago.
00:42:46
Speaker
And the speeder they said would take six to eight weeks, which was, I don't know, five to six weeks ago. I don't know, I haven't heard. Yeah, I've been in this mode of, well, otherwise hustle, not really thinking about it, just knowing it's coming, which is good, although I've been slacking and I haven't ordered a lot of the tooling and accessories that I need.
00:43:09
Speaker
for this lead that I need to order today. Go back full circle on this podcast. Be your own self-imposed boss leader, disciplined person. Just set aside 45 minutes. Literally turn your phone off. Close your Google email. Literally, just only 45 minutes and make some progress on it. Yeah, I will. I'll do that. Be a surgeon.
00:43:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Be the surgeon's boss. It's like you need to do this. It really works for me quite well because sometimes I do struggle which things should I be doing or this idea, this myth that if you, for instance, if you're waiting for, like in the morning when I do my zero accounting, I wait for the transactions to pull in. Probably takes 20 to 60 seconds and I think, oh, I can alt tab and bang through four other things in that time. I actually think I'm better just sitting back and waiting for that to finish. It's okay.
00:44:06
Speaker
Yeah. Interesting. Cool. Cool. I had a challenge yesterday when I put it. Let me show you. Is that the 1776? Yes. It doesn't come through great on the live video. Sorry.
00:44:30
Speaker
I know, I know, but that's OK. So yeah, so we've got this Norseman number 1776 that we want to bring to Blade Show. We've got the super complicated engraving. That's going to be multicolored. It is multicolor. So like blue flags, silver stars, red stripes, silver stripes. It looks amazing. But I've been having this insane problem where like in the blue crosshatching, there's this one line that just looks stupid. It's out of place. Like one toolpath is just
00:44:58
Speaker
gross. In one light, you can't see it, and then you turn it in the other light, it's clearly visible. And this drove me nuts for most of yesterday. I couldn't figure it out. I tried to get deeper. I tried to cut it again. What's happening is the machine hiccuping, did the tool chip, all this stuff. And then eventually, I was texting with my friend Brad Southerd, and he's like, did that tool path go the other direction? Conventional? Yeah, yeah, basically.
00:45:24
Speaker
And I'm like, no, no, I selected all the toolpaths to go the same direction. And then I look at my code, and there's one toolpath that's going the opposite direction. And so if they're all going left to right, this one's going right to left. And I'm like, yep, that's the one. So the handles are done. They're anodized. They're beautiful, except for that one little thing. So I have to redo them now, which is going to take me a couple hours. The whole handle from scratch? John. Yeah.
00:45:50
Speaker
No, like the knife is fine, but the engraving all the engraving has to be redone deeper. Oh, you're gonna that's the handle will still be the one. Yeah, still fixable. But it's still gonna take a couple hours to re engrave this deeper. And then do the three stage anodizing. But anyway, I'm super glad I got to figure it out. And it was funny, because I filmed the whole process, including the mistakes and including the problems and like,
00:46:17
Speaker
you know, the headaches around them. And I can't figure this out. I'm just gonna have to, you know, bust through it or not do it or something. So it's funny, because we have that footage. And then I got a solution that makes it even better. Because part of me was like, well, if it doesn't work, I just won't use that footage. And, you know, good. But yeah, should be good. That's awesome. Should be good. Are you bringing pens to blade? Awesome. Yes. Yeah, we should be bringing about 30 pens. Nice 29.
00:46:48
Speaker
pens pens have been going stellar. Yeah, we made clips for like almost two weeks solid. And then we got a little little arrogant and ahead of ourselves and weren't measuring every feature. And there's probably like 20 or 30 clips that have one board that's too small. And we didn't catch that in time. So notes for self rate like next time. Full inspection, whatever.
00:47:17
Speaker
I think they're fixable, but they're going to be in a week. Yeah. It's funny how, well, yeah, that's another conversation, but yeah, I am going over to the UMC. It's awesome. This is a Sandvik 861 drill that is 0.173. Let's see. Do I have that millimeters handy? You have 4.37 millimeters that we're going to drill 13 times deep, no peck in stainless steel.
00:47:48
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. We're cooling through. And the Sandvik website has a really good like graphic.
00:47:54
Speaker
a system that I think is not easy to necessarily find or realize. Shout out to Lawrence for showing me that. And so it's kind of like, what's the right way to prep the hole? When do you turn the coolant on? What's the right fusion cam cycle to do it? So I'm actually not... I mean, it's a $240 drill, but I'm not that nervous that it's going to work. So we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. How are we at 49 minutes already? I can't believe that.
00:48:24
Speaker
Sweet. It's awesome. Oh, my wife told me to say that we're supposed to promote this podcast. So if you enjoy this podcast, I guess, I guess go review it or give it a thumbs up or no, seriously. I mean, I, I, part of me doesn't care because I just, I do this for my selfish reasons of enjoying the conversation with you, but, um, it does help when folks share it and promote it and talk about it because, uh, hopefully if you are helped by it, then others can be helped by it as well. Amen. Thanks. I'll see if I love it. Yep. Take care. Bye.