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Business of Machining - Episode 77
186 Plays7 years ago
Both Saunders and Grimsmo have been working towards the success of their business for about a decade, and an article written about NYC CNC helps them both reflect.
Just as a new lifestyle starts to creep up on the Johns, things start to speed up at the Grimsmo shop. Erik beat his knife making record! Now it’s up to the others to keep up!
Wake up, John!
How you wake up can determine the rest of your day. What’s your morning routine? Grimsmo has tried out a ton, but both Saunders and Grimsmo have found that getting that extra time with their families in the morning makes them more productive.
“Having a focus list helps you say no to a lot” - Saunders
Get ‘er done!
Saunders decided it was time to revamp their fixture project, but that’s all he had to do with it. Alex the intern did some awesome problem solving and met the challenge head on! It comes down to delegation and trusting your team.
Fancy New (Shop) Toys
Speaking of delegation, Saunders literally just bought into one of his employees ideas, and now Ed at NYC CNC has a new Mark II 3D Printer because of it! Basically, this machine gives you the ability to run stronger material than a run-of-the-mill $400 3D printer. You can learn a lot more about its special abilities to make an Auger for your Haas in Saunders’ upcoming video!
Oh no! Grimsmo’s toaster broke! I guess it’s time for a new tempering oven...
When you have a brand new lapping machine, but you’re still using a toaster oven to temper your blades, you know it’s time for an upgrade.
Running a machine shop? Get a microscope. ‘Nuff said.
Complicated coding makes for more efficient machining; keep an eye out for Grimsmo’s video on engraving!
Interested in making knives? Grimsmo’s got some advice for you.
Grimsmo and Saunders have a similar story, but the real reason it's inspiring is because it's replicable. Being an entrepreneur is difficult, but anyone can take small steps to achieve their bigger goals.
For example, take a look at Grimsmo’s first knife. The blade was 304 stainless steel!
“Businesses like CAMplete look overwhelming when you see them today, but the reality is that that’s not how anything is built. It’s grown over time” - Saunders
Saunders and Grimsmo went to visit CAMplete when Saunders was in Canada, check out the video! Coming soon on Grimsmo's YouTube channel.
Saunders’ Pro tip: lean machining can be done at any level
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Transcript
Introduction and Record Production Day
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode 77. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. Morning. Good morning, buddy. How are you? I'm pretty good. Yeah.
00:00:14
Speaker
It's been a busy week. Has it? Yeah, insanely so. Good. Tell me. Yeah, just Eric finished more knives in a day on Monday than ever, ever before, which was amazing. And the Friday and Thursday before that were also, were the record before that. And things are just really flowing. Is that because of the new space? No, I wouldn't say so at all.
00:00:43
Speaker
What's changed?
Sustainability of High Production Pace
00:00:45
Speaker
Just workflow and... I don't know. Making sure everybody has everything. Is it sustainable? It's not like a fluke.
00:00:57
Speaker
it's almost sustainable. Like he does that and then he runs out of parts. And then we're like, crap. Yeah, it wasn't like it wasn't like he got a bunch of knives. It just happened to be dumb luck perfect in a row. Some of them. Yeah. Some of them because sometimes, you know, a certain knife will take will be annoying and take a lot longer to finish than others. So he had a lot of good ones in a row, but even still just the process and the flow and the time that he's spending towards it without, you know, being here for 14 hours a day.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's coming together really good, but it's really showing. It's good because it's showing inefficiencies in other areas.
Energy Levels and Productivity Routines
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah. That's great. That is awesome. That's awesome. Again, that's awesome. If it's downstream or what do you call it? I can't. Yeah, exactly. I will readily admit I can't think this morning. So I'm going to stay away from the machines.
00:01:51
Speaker
I was literally rushing last night. Um, if anyone out there has kids, I'm sure I would suspect somebody else has done this. Like we're into a meeting. I'd like 44 minutes between the meeting and having to pick my kids up at school. So I had already shut the VM three down. So 44 minutes. Good grief. Yeah. Flew back to the shop, hit the power on button, warmed up the machine or, you know, powered up the machine. And I'm like, I can get, I can get a finishing dual pass and a chamfer done.
00:02:18
Speaker
And I didn't crash, but that's when you make dumb decisions. Yes. Yeah. I've been there for sure. So I've actually found, um, a couple of times this week, I woke up super early at home, like four or five o'clock. Normally I wake up at five to six, but one time I woke up at four and I was like, let me just go to the shop, load up a pallet and run it. And then I can come home and.
00:02:39
Speaker
do breakfast with the kids and all that. But I've found, and I've done this for months or even a year or two now, I've noticed that if I come in first thing, like get out of bed, put my shoes on, go to work, I'm like worn for the whole day. It just wipes the crap out of me.
00:02:59
Speaker
Whereas I can stay at home, I can work out, I can work on my computer, I can play with the kids at the same like wake up at 4am and I'm fine. So it's this act of like, I don't know if it's driving or going to work or something, but it just wipes me. So I'd rather come to work at 10pm and like load a pallet and I'm fine with that. You know what I mean?
00:03:19
Speaker
But is it part of it also just the... I just wish I could wake up and immediately be in the most thinking, productivity, energized, go-get-em, critical decision champion mode. Sometimes I do wake up and feel pretty darn good. Sometimes, like this morning, I'll admit,
00:03:39
Speaker
I was thinking, you know what? I just woke up, not on the wrong side of the bed, but I was like, you know what? I'll just go to Starbucks and I'll actually just sit there and I'll do some, I got to write a letter on something else and all that. And I was like, crud, I can't do that because I got to come to DuPont. It's not a bad thing. But I remember thinking
Team Involvement and Delegation
00:03:54
Speaker
like, that wasn't the flow I was hoping to have this morning. Right, right. Maybe that's an age thing? I don't know. Does it get harder with
00:04:02
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know. I think routines can be important. You obviously can't hit them every single day, but I've noticed that they help me a lot.
00:04:12
Speaker
Are you still doing your, um, you had a routine, you had an app or you had yoga or meditation and that stuff. Yeah. I've kind of been going through all that. Um, I don't, if I can wake up early, go do my workout, listen to some good YouTube while I'm doing it. Um, I'm doing pretty good. So I don't, I don't, uh,
00:04:34
Speaker
What did I used to do? I used to have the Headspace app. Yeah. I don't use that. I used to listen to this awesome Tony Robbins morning routine, like 15, 20 minutes long. I haven't done that in many months. I should probably pick that up again because it was awesome. But yeah, if I can wake up and do my workout and then get some work done or make breakfast or play with the kids or something, then that's, that's a good morning for me.
00:04:58
Speaker
No, yeah. And I've done the same with now. I don't really come to work first because there's nothing
3D Printing and Equipment Innovations
00:05:04
Speaker
we don't have the type of work, like a palette to get his cycle start on, but, um, I'll, um, spend the first hour at home with the kids, which I never used to do. Right. But you know, what's interesting is the morning stuff.
00:05:19
Speaker
or any of that stuff tends to be reactive. Like I would start doing that or maybe you would start doing that when things got stressed or you were having a hard time or. Yes. And maybe it would behoove us to be proactive with that so we don't get there. Because like I've been, other than my credit card, which I'd love to tell you about getting frauded again yesterday afternoon, I've had pretty low stress
00:05:48
Speaker
in the fast few months, which is great. Like really, it was great. But maybe that means you should still be taking care of yourself in terms of like, hey, what's the rhythm or what's the routine?
00:05:57
Speaker
That's a really good, good way to put it because I have been reactive in that sense. The stress has been coming back from work. You know, I want to go, I want to push. I want to essentially make as much money as possible. So, and that's been on my mind a lot lately. Um, so that's, that's definitely why I've been coming in, you know, early to get that pallet on, get another run for the day kind of thing. Um, and that reactive mode first thing in the morning, putting out fires kind of thing is, uh,
00:06:25
Speaker
probably not the healthiest, you know? No, definitely not. Totally agree with that. Right. Yeah. Pay yourself first in that sense. Right. Right. And that's typically what I've been doing for the past few years. You know, you wake up, you have your morning. Luckily, you know, if I wake up before the kids that I'm, I'm doing good cause I'm on my own time. Right. Right. Yeah. The real, yeah. The real life entrepreneurial stuff. You got to deal with everything else.
00:06:51
Speaker
Yep. I really am. I don't know if it would be as relevant for you because you're so laser focused, but.
00:06:58
Speaker
I really continue to like that, I call it just the daily focus sheet. And I've actually already revised it a bit. I used to just have like, the left-hand side was kind of what's going on, not in a to-do list, but just in like a strategy, like what's kind of present projects. And then the right side at the top was just like, hey, where I'd like to be. And I basically changed the right side to be sort of like matching up with the left side. So like,
00:07:23
Speaker
bucketing out like,
Financial Considerations and Equipment
00:07:25
Speaker
hey, the YouTube stuff or training stuff or product stuff. And on the right hand side is kind of where I want this to be. So instead of drawing
00:07:35
Speaker
to from the left all the way to the top right, you're just drawing straight across and like, it's great. Cause like if I sat down with, it's like an elevator or rocket pitch with an entrepreneur. Like if you have 30 seconds with somebody, pitch them on your idea. If I have 30 seconds with my wife or 30 seconds with somebody I look up to her as an advisor, I can sort of say, Hey, here's what we're working on today. And that's how it's going to get me to this vision, this dream, this sustainable model, this thing. Um,
00:08:03
Speaker
And if anything, it has helped me say no to so much stuff. Right.
Enhancing Manufacturing Quality
00:08:12
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I like that. I like that a lot because so many days, you know, Michael asked me, what are you up to today? Are you asking me on the podcast? What are you up to today? And I kind of have to pause and go.
00:08:21
Speaker
well i think i guess i'm working on this and we gotta work on that but it's not this laser focus like in order to reach xyz goal today i have to do this and i think i'd like to get to that kind of focus but it's not just you i mean for me it's like hey we needed a new
00:08:38
Speaker
we revamped our fixturing project or one of the projects for our fixturing class. So how did that work? I could have done the whole thing, but no, I had Kevin do the model and then I had him do a test fixture. And then I sent it to Jared for him to like kind of eyeball it on feedback. And then he said, good. And then I gave it to Alex, who's an awesome, good, like high school intern.
00:09:01
Speaker
And I did not I didn't get involved. I didn't help him. He's been working here for a while now. And he took the bra material off the shelf for a bottle opener and the fixture. He machined the mighty bite talent and pitbull fixture, put the part in, canned up, machined the test part, flipped it over, found a mistake, fixed them like.
00:09:22
Speaker
And this is like, first of all, this is like my dream. Like I love that we're able to do this and get people making stuff and enabling them like it's awesome. But I also that project was done. I just said, hey, Alex, can you go get Jared up to speed on the amount of material we need for Thursday and get Kevin up to speed on any tooling comments or feeds and stuff like that? And I'm not involved.
00:09:47
Speaker
Mr. Delegator, that's awesome that you can do that. Right. Good thing. Sweet. Yeah, I want to get, I want to get both Skye and Angelo more involved with Fusion. Yeah. Because they both kind of dabbled with it. And Angelo's had experience in like solid works and all this other stuff. But
00:10:05
Speaker
in the shop on Fusion make this thing so that, you know, I don't have to kind of thing totally. Yeah.
Coding and Efficiency in Manufacturing
00:10:13
Speaker
Like we're starting to use our Pearson mini pallet now. And you know how it's got their ball lock system kind of thing. Most of the time it's just sitting there unused. So I want to machine an aluminum cap with one of their threaded retainer thingies so that you put the cap on.
00:10:30
Speaker
with an O-ring, hit the pressure switch, and the cap kind of seals those three balls, or the 10 balls, whatever. We had this piece of plastic with a zip tie around it. Yeah, we thought about printing, but as a clamped force, I don't know if it'll be strong enough. You're just trying to keep chips out, right? Yeah, I would just print one.
00:10:51
Speaker
Not a good use of your time. And then magnet it down, but then magnets would stick to it. Print it with a little bevel in the inside that the balls push into, but just don't have that much engagement between the part and the balls. OK. Yeah, I could probably do that. Sky could do that. Yeah. And you could still actually have an o-ring groove below the ball level if there's room in the, I wouldn't worry about it. There is. Yeah. Interesting. I could do that. I like it.
In-house Production vs Outsourcing
00:11:17
Speaker
Simple, fast, you know? So I tell us on the podcast that we bought a Martik Forge
00:11:22
Speaker
I told me briefly, I don't know. OK, so you got a new 3D printer. Yeah, I'm only laughing because it's like by far the most awkward thing ever because everything that we bought from a machine standpoint, you know, the Tormachs, the Haas, the JD square plasma, the boss laser has all been stuff that like I knew about. I researched. I understood why we wanted it. I understand why we needed it. Like it was kind of a I owned that purchase, right? This was literally.
00:11:51
Speaker
awkward because you now are subscribing to that belief of kind of get people in your shop who can do awesome things and let them do awesome things. It's not inexpensive, but there are basically two things I like about it so far, or Ed likes about it. It's Ed's machine. One, it just works. I don't think Ed has ever had a print fail on it in the last month. Number two, it's two heads and you can print with
00:12:18
Speaker
a combination of, I don't want to misspeak on the details because I'm not even that familiar with it because I think you can use lower grade stuff as well, but we basically have the
Advice on Knife Making and Inventory Management
00:12:28
Speaker
go-to recipe. It's the Mark II printer where you can print. The normal is chopped carbon fiber, so it looks like the same filament roll you have or everyone else has, but it's just more expensive, cooler, stronger stuff.
00:12:43
Speaker
And what's really cool is you can mix in through the second extruder nozzle, continuous strands of carbon fiber through the second spool. And that makes it incredibly strong. So the demo piece that they have is something that kind of looks like a combination between a pencil and a small hex wrench, but it's, you know, thin, long, and you can't break it. Like you cannot even, it's amazing. So really,
00:13:07
Speaker
In a web app, Ed was showing me whatever they call it, their cam has a little thing where you bring it in and it tells you how much the part will estimated cost with various amounts of the two. And so we've used it for the DIY lathe, we've used it for Johnny Five, we've built fixtures, we're testing soft jaws.
00:13:27
Speaker
Our Haas augers are missing. Anyone who has a Haas listening to this, you are going to smile right now. If you have an auger on your Haas, the first probably four inches of auger is where the auger attaches to the motor and there's no auger. And so it's just a wonderful little spot for the chips to like pull up an umbrella and a beach chair and just hang out for
00:13:46
Speaker
in perpetuity. So we just printed augers that extend on beyond it. So that's going to be our first video showing up, but we've had one in the VM three for, I don't know, a month and a half. And look, maybe, uh, our, our $400 printer could have printed them as well. And maybe they would have lasted, but we have found that the ability to run stronger material, um, is phenomenal. Wow. So how much is a Mark for it? 13 K.
00:14:12
Speaker
13K? OK, that's serious. Oh, come on, Mr. Lapping machine. No, no, I'm just thinking about it. Like, I have a $300 printer that's small, and I need a bigger one. So the step below it, I think, is an Onyx, which is like $6K, $7K. But it won't do the continuous, which meant, really, you're just buying a really nice or reliable printer that we already have. It's kind of like it doesn't really solve the problem. Yeah.
00:14:38
Speaker
Cool. That's awesome. Yeah, we'll see. My biggest concern is
00:14:45
Speaker
does that technology, um, atrophy, or does it get replaced too quickly to where we're like, man, we spent 13 grand on a thing that is now out of date. Um, but we're using, I mean, it has been printing a ton lately. So, okay. Well, and especially with, with Ed controlling it, like his, he probably prints every single day. Like his job is to make, make cool stuff as quickly as possible. Um, he will,
00:15:13
Speaker
probably get the most use out of that out of almost anybody. That came in this morning and it was writing something overnight. So we are doing lights out manufacturing, just not what I had thought.
00:15:22
Speaker
would be yet. No. And then the last like ringer was speaking to somebody who we know, who I look up to, who has a boatload of 3D printers through work and including some that are like six figures or higher FDM printers. And they were like, we actually love this, the Mark two, like it just works. Like it's the quality is great for, so it's all of a sudden like, well, hold on. It now seems a little bit better, cheaper if guys who have access every day to 80 or a hundred K.
00:15:48
Speaker
uh, FDM printers are sort of saying, no, we just go use the Mark forage. Now all of a sudden you're like, okay, this is kind of fits the John value model. Uh, we'll see. Yeah. Money well spent. Yeah. That's awesome. Um, so we, you must have seen our, our, uh, modified toaster oven. Oh dude. Absolutely. The heat treater.
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, so we have a traditional heat treating oven that gets up to 2,000 degrees. And then you have to temper the blades at about 400 degrees Fahrenheit for a couple hours. And just through the past six years of hacking things together, it's literally a toaster oven from the grocery store. But it's been completely hacked. We installed a PID in it to control the temperature, solid state relay. We wrapped the whole thing in insulating fiberglass.
00:16:38
Speaker
Right? And you know, it's been working pretty good. But Eric changed the temperature by like two degrees. And now it's skitzy. It's all over the place. Probably just after you visited. So, you know, we heat treat almost every single day. And that's an important thing. And, you know, here's an item that we need and haven't spent any money on. So, you know, today, I'll be calling even heat to see what they can do about
00:17:03
Speaker
a proper, they have this kind of small 120 volts artisan oven, they call it. See if I can get that for tempering with their newest best controller, which apparently adjusts the temperature 90 times per second on a solid state relay, as opposed to once every 15 seconds.
00:17:22
Speaker
I can only imagine the loop that is how slow temperatures actually change. That'd be fascinating to hear a conversation of how you design something like that. Yeah, exactly. That's a good point. Within the up. Because it's sort of.
00:17:36
Speaker
Like there is a thermocouple inside the oven that measures the temperature. And you're sort of chasing your tail. You energize the coils and they slowly get red hot and then they cool off. And I'm curious how, anyway, I just know that it's been running away from us. And even on our big oven, we got it in 2012 and they've since come out with that new controller. And I'm like, let's just get that controller for this oven as well. And then we'll have two epic ovens, the hot and the warm.
00:18:05
Speaker
And then we should be great. It's funny, I'm thinking about when we were using our old 3D printer, it's all about maintaining consistent temperatures throughout the build so you don't have delamination and stuff. So people will put enclosures around the enclosures. And part of me is thinking, hey, your shop is climate controlled, which I'm very envious of. But your new shop, the addition bay is not. And airflow or fans would affect that. I'm almost like, should you put a little fire brick
00:18:34
Speaker
case around the tempering oven to keep it more inert to the environment it's around. That's a good idea because yeah the new shop is not air conditioned. It is heated so in the winter it'll be pretty even I guess.
00:18:49
Speaker
And we, we moved the heat treat over there. So, right. Right. Do you got to post a picture of that toaster oven today, even if it's in the morning on Instagram? That's a good idea. Yeah. We can do that. That'd be hilarious. Maybe when the new one comes in, I'll do a side by side. Yeah. Before. Yeah. It's funny. Yeah. It's like, that's a good window. Yeah, exactly. It feels weird. It's like, Oh, it's going to be, you know, 1500 bucks to get a new oven and two new controllers or one, one extra controller. And I'm like, yeah, but.
00:19:19
Speaker
We rely on it every single day. I don't know why I'm hesitant to spend money here. But that is a lifestyle creep. I am really focused on this could be a longer conversation, which we get into now or maybe not. But I wanted your opinion, which is I can make an absolute good case that we should buy either a lathe, a horizontal, or a five-axis machine next.
00:19:47
Speaker
The ringer is, I was looking at our financials in the year, it's like we're already halfway through the year, and for the folks, at least in the US, they really got more aggressive with the Section 179 tax, accelerated tax break stuff. So it is, I mean, the incentive is real. Like it's not a fake long-term teaser. It's like instant reasons to invest in a machine tool
00:20:13
Speaker
this year significantly reduces the cost. Now, that's not a reason to buy a machine you don't need, but what it means is it would be quite silly or stupid to buy a machine in January or February or even March by this year.
00:20:30
Speaker
Do you feel some pressure from that? Well, I'm not going to allow myself pressure, which tells you I am feeling pressured. But what I'm trying to do, for the microscope, this is really tough. I think we need a microscope, not one. I think we need the better microscope.
00:20:48
Speaker
But the reality is to do it right, it's going to be $3,500, and we have that microscope now, and it will help us, but it won't make us money in the present, and it's just something that I can put off. I'd rather buy that machine tool, and it's all those little purchases that add up that get you in the way.
00:21:12
Speaker
especially with a microscope, like I don't know if it will ever have an ROI that's measurable. It just makes your life better as a manufacturer. Like you get to see things closer. You get to look at tools and chips and all that, but does it actually make money? No. I'm pretty emphatic about it now though, like Cal... Oh yeah, like I agree that they're amazing and I love mine and I want more. Like I've never been in a trades, well,
00:21:38
Speaker
I'll pay more attention to this going forward, but I've never been in a trade school or an apprentice program or even a lot of machine shops that have microscopes outside of like QC. In my opinion, it is now especially the less expensive microscopes or even the little like $6 loops that you introduced us to. I have those at home. You need to be looking at your tools, man. You got to be in chamfers and burrs and inserts. Good grief. Yep. Yep.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. I use, I use my little one, not as often now that I have the big microscope. Um, but a lot of times like I'll grab the little one and lean inside the machine and look at something real close. Right. Uh, yeah, this, this whole, I mean, as we're shooting for tents, when we're machining, this whole world just becomes so much smaller, right? So you have to pay more attention to everything. Yeah. You got to be informed, uh, like talking about the feed forward moves on tooling,
00:22:35
Speaker
Uh, actually I loved, I don't remember was it Lawrence or Lockwood that made the point that, um, you should talk about it because it was kind of your story, but we, we as humans tend to just assume small numbers are all the same because they're small. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So here's the story. So, um,
00:22:54
Speaker
Our Camplete slash Milterra video is waiting for approval from Milterra right now. But once that goes up, it'll show what you and I talked about at Milterra, where I put one of my knives with an unfinished handle on it so we could see the surface profile on one of their microscopes with a TV screen. And we could see the feed forward lines on the profile of the handle and that it didn't match up with the corner rounder. And I'm like, I thought I went through a lot of math to get them the same.
00:23:23
Speaker
back in the tormac days. And the fact that they're different now confuses me. So maybe I haven't looked at it. So anyway, I went through all my math and it turns out I'm feeding the corner rounder at three tenths per tooth.
00:23:36
Speaker
And the profile at five tenths per tooth. Those are the same numbers. Come on. This is the same numbers. They're both tiny. No, they're 40% different. Right. Like 40%. Three tenths versus five tenths. And it's like, holy cow, no wonder why they look significantly different. So I pulled the profile down three tenths. It looks amazing now. Oh my God.
00:24:00
Speaker
huge difference. It matches the corner rounder. I think yesterday was the first day that Angelo was able to like clean up and scotch bright those surfaces and I haven't quite heard back yet but the other thing is I've been learning a lot more about chip thinning and chip load and things like that and you know some things you kind of understand and some things you kind of gloss over.
00:24:22
Speaker
Um, but as I got more into the online calculators and Iskar had one that we happened to find that just helped make sense of it. Um, I've been leaving a fourth thou finish pass from my finishing end mill leave more at five, five tenths per tooth. Now three tenths per tooth. And that's essentially nothing as far as chip load. So I bumped it up to, I think 25 thou finish pass, which gives me an actual chip load or something.
00:24:49
Speaker
You know, the same feed forward of three tens, which gets me the finish I want, but you want an actual chip load on top of that, leaving more stock, right? And this, I've kind of known this, but I've kind of ignored it for my whole life. Um, but it's starting to make a lot more sense now, you know? So to leave a 25 thou finish pass seems like I'm abusing the finishing end mill, but actually it's meant to do that. Right.
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah, it wants to yeah because we've been having and milk chipping and streaking and that's the bane of my existence and Either it's from maybe rubbing or recutting chips or just not loading enough, etc. But I think
00:25:27
Speaker
I think we're getting closer to really good results here. That's awesome. I love like, and that's where again, coming back in with data, being deliberate microscopes, honestly checking your work. Like I will admit I have found times where I was like, oops, that's a four flute, not a five flute. And you're like, so that, so that changes the, uh, calculated 20%. Right.
00:25:48
Speaker
But I love the, I love like, I actually enjoy the speeds and feed side of like chip thinning, like trying to explain, okay, so stand next to a wall, put your arm out. So your fingernail is just touching the drywall. So think about it. If you're, if you step into the drywall one, 10,000th of an inch, as you swing your arm around, pretending that your arm
00:26:09
Speaker
is the tool and the fingernail is the actual cutting edge of the flute. With leaving four thou and a really fast feed forward or slow feed forward, you're barely cutting into the drywall. Whereas if you leave a little bit more, you're giving a chance for that tool to actually scoop in and shear it once to shear it once to actually cut through the metal.
00:26:32
Speaker
And I've done a lot of spring passes before, and I still do it for a lot of things to get a perfect tolerance hole. So I've never been afraid of rubbing or things like that, because I'm like, it just works. The theory being that the sharp part of the end mill actually has a slight radius to it from coating or whatever. And if your radial load is less than that coating, then it's not going to do anything.
00:27:02
Speaker
Um, but because of my spring pass history, I'm like, ah, it just works. It's funny. Our video, our widget, Wednesday widget today was using a Harvey tool, hard mill end mill to machine a M 35 custom lathe form tool machine high speed steel, which was awesome. Always wanted to do this worked great. That's hard. That's like 60 plus Rockwell.
00:27:25
Speaker
And their chip load per tooth in their normally and in this case, always excellent fees and speeds PDFs was one point nine tenths. So to cut with a one point nine tenths feed per tooth, that tool has to be sharpened to something sharper than that, which is actually pretty darn crazy. Yeah. And and hold it in hard materials.
00:27:52
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Works great. Other than the two tools that I broke from operator error. Ends up you can't do linking moves inside the part. Ah. Yeah, I did that a couple weeks ago, where it turns out you have to retract a drill out of a hole before you go to home on a lathe. Ooh. Was that Rob? Was that the Lockwood crash? No, no, no. That was just me handashing. Yeah, exactly.
00:28:19
Speaker
Um, yeah, I was hand editing some code to like, to drill the hole again, just to clear out chips. And I just forgot to hand edit the retract and it goes home and I broke two through cool than drill bits. And I'm like, what's going on here? I kind of don't like that. You're doing all this hand coat. Yeah. I like the control of it because I want it to do what I want it to do in a perfect world. Yeah. I have the cam and the post specifically do everything I needed. You don't hand coat on the middle. It's just the lathe.
00:28:49
Speaker
Not much, although I am deep in a engraving macro for the mill with a six-position Pearson palette that automatically counts the serial number up and knows the difference between RWL and damaged steel and knows if there's a blade or not in each of the six positions. That's okay. That's different.
00:29:14
Speaker
But I'm almost done. Hopefully I can write it today. Sweet. And it's good. Good epic. Because engraving takes a lot of time for us right now. And I want to do it at night after the pallet's done. Just drop it on there. Six at a time. Oh, that's brilliant. Love it. Yeah. So I need to have that done. Right. That's awesome. Yep. I actually made the fixture and 90% of the code back in February. I remember that. And spent dozens of hours doing it. And then it just kind of got shelved, literally.
00:29:42
Speaker
And now we're six months later and it's like, God, I gotta get that done. Like that's gonna help us. That's kind of sort of, so like that daily focus thing, it's not a to-do list, but like, I feel like for you, it's all about like an allocation of resources. So what do you do with time and capital and the fact that you have some real estate now, but like what do you, you and I debated that ad nauseam. You know, do you get a Swiss late? Do you get a robo? Do you get nothing?
00:30:08
Speaker
What's it let you do right and help keep you help help you keep thinking, you know Don't buy another mill if you can actually squeeze out 50% more out of the out of the Dura now Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's a lot of optimization that needs to happen like I need to make more pallets that we're loading a pallet offline Yes, so the pallet swap takes no time not 20 minutes. Oh my god. Yes and Right and run two pilots at night, which I could totally do it's just so because you have the vacuum work back Do you use the back for just for foam?
00:30:38
Speaker
If you want to keep the Pierce on, great, but you could still fit a third orange base or just forego the base and just literally put a machined third version on there. You machine your own locating pin so you have three, John, and then three offline.
00:30:56
Speaker
Sometimes tools don't last that long. That's okay. That's a problem. And look, I get it. Putting value to be making six fixtures. That is very difficult for them to all be the same and function correctly. And I hear you.
00:31:11
Speaker
Yeah. Well, since we've been measuring tool life with our custom macro, um, I'm getting a very dialed tool life recipe, use the same tools, replace them when the machine tells me to, um, every now and then we'll get a broken tool or a little problem or something. But you know, we run the mill every single night. And when we come in in the morning, I don't, I can't remember the last time it's it's been alarmed all night. You know, got it.
00:31:36
Speaker
So it's been really reliable, really good. So to scale that up to have two pallets on, or maybe even three pallets on at once is possible. Yeah, maybe you don't need three again, because you're not even running two.
00:31:47
Speaker
Right now you've got so that's right. Yeah, two would make the world of difference And then if you come in in the morning and the other two pallets are already loaded and you swap them and you hit go But that's going from one to four. I would go from one to two right now if those two run then You could run them during the day and as well as overnight like that. That's a Baby step that seems appropriate. Can you make a second palette and have it be your pallets aren't that fickle? I guess trying to think about
00:32:15
Speaker
They kind of are machined on all sides with weird features on all sides. Can you make one for John? I can't, I can't hear you. No, but seriously, that's an absolute appropriate use of capital and time. It just shows up and you're running.
00:32:39
Speaker
That's not a bad idea, but I already bought the material Even the clamps like oh and then at the end Yeah, then he could make have a make one and then he could make two more if that does work. Oh my god
00:32:52
Speaker
Okay. It's an interesting conversation because, you know, I have a mill, although I don't have the time to mill stuff. I'd have to come in on the weekend or I'd have to, you know, stay late or something like that. There's an interesting conversation of spending money to make money, you know, like, but it's so weird to have the skill and have the tools and be able to do it yourself and then pay somebody else to do it. Even if it's, you know, a really good friend. I know.
00:33:19
Speaker
But it's my own tooling. I just have this mental block of like, I can do it. I've already got it coded and cammed. I've already made it before. I just don't have the time to do it. So you know what I need is a second mill. But to rent a second mill through Amish, you know what I mean? Heck, you could probably even say. The ROI is clear.
00:33:39
Speaker
You're right. Send him all my code. It's funny. What made me think of that is I believe Amish or certainly some have actually done job shop work. That's not your traditional job shop work, but it's literally spindle renting. So like some crazy company, Northrop Grumman is like, we're going to use NX use. We're going to send you the tool library. We're going to send you the tools.
00:33:58
Speaker
We're going to, you're going to literally hit cycle start and monitor the machine. You know, we're basically renting your DMG monoblock 65 to run these parts and you as an operator kind of. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, we did this with Xometry. Uh, we were trying to figure out this lathe product.
00:34:16
Speaker
product made on a lathe, I don't really have a big lathe and I wanted a bunch of them made and we were all busy. And so boom, it was not, actually it wasn't even that expensive and the lathe parts are much more conducive to outsourcing. And literally I uploaded the part and like seven business days later or something very quick. Like I forgot about it and they showed up and now we're like done, right? Yeah, we could order the material, we could saw cut it, we could set it up, we could run the cam at QCM ourselves, but why?
00:34:48
Speaker
I'll have a good think about that. The payoff would be instant. The day we run the first palette, we'll pay for the hundreds or thousands or whatever it's going to cost to get a couple of them made. That's a funny thing. I've been on a complete five-axis high. Your palettes are not even that hard on a five-axis.
00:35:12
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. Well, that's the thing is they're complicated on a three axis because they're like four setups. But maybe, maybe, maybe two. I bet I bet you if Amish is on his A-game, he could do it in one. Send him to Amish. Yeah. OK, I'll reach out to him. Can I share? I know you already know this, but can I share my other news? It was big this week, so. Yeah.
00:35:42
Speaker
We're having a good year. I was a personal professional high this week, which was ironically through Xometry was the original connection. The New York Times reporter had reached out to them and they referred them. The original article premises was we're looking to understand
00:36:02
Speaker
urban versus rural manufacturing in America. And literally they were like, this kid started his machine shop on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and is now in the like, I'm looking out at a cornfield as we speak right now. Like I don't think you can get a better example of someone who has lived both worlds.
00:36:20
Speaker
And it actually started like the afternoon that I was driving up to visit you, not even two weeks ago. And four or five days later, we had an article that is about, it's about manufacturing and locations and stuff, but the first half of the article is basically our story. So the article is sort of about us and a bunch of pictures of our shop. They came out here, took a bunch of pictures and it was, I'm not sure I still get it and grasp it because
00:36:49
Speaker
It's just, I mean, it's, it's, it's incredibly cool because it's the New York times. That's insane. On the flip side, it's kind of like nothing changed. It's just my story. Like it's my story hasn't changed. You're just choosing to highlight it, which is yeah. Yeah.
00:37:04
Speaker
It's amazing. You just get a different platform for sharing it. Um, but yeah, it was funny. Like you and I were up at camp lead and you have to step out for a phone call and you come back and you're like, yeah, that was the New York times reporter. Just asking a few more questions. And then you and I were driving a corporate pattern shop and your phone rings and you just put it on speaker and I'm just a fly on the wall listening. And she's like interviewing you for the next 10 minutes. And I'm just like, I'm not here. Just keep my mouth shut. It's pretty awesome.
00:37:29
Speaker
This is just as applicable to you, John, to the extent that your story or our stories can be a path, a guideway, a point of inspiration with an absolute element of wholesomeness and being replicable. So the only thing I've tried to keep is making sure that people, like when you and I went into a camp fleet,
00:37:52
Speaker
I do not think I could ever do what Camplete did because it's too overwhelming. All of these micron machines, automation, metzeras, robots, software, job shop, tooling, it's just too much. It's too overwhelming. That's not how they did it though. They did it in steps, right? And they did it fast in 20 years.
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. But 10 years of software, but then they kind of started military fairly quickly. And then I think they've just been slowly growing it since, but it just looks overwhelming when you see it today. And the reality is that's not how anything is ever built. It's grown over time. And so I think that's something I like to kind of make sure is to see that progression. And because our stories have been so public, you kind of just have seen like, there's no hide in the monkey. Like it just literally been, here's how, here's how it went.
00:38:42
Speaker
That's a funny perspective because I look at it and I heard the short version of the story and I think, oh wow, you guys did it so quickly. It's that whole sort of overnight success thing, yeah, 10 years in the making. People just hear about us and then they look at our story and they're like, wow, you guys are super successful. And I'm like, yeah, but it's been a claw your eyes out struggle for the past 10 years.
00:39:11
Speaker
Somebody was actually just asking that I saw it on I think on the tormach operators Facebook page Any tips on how to get started in knife making and I thought you know what's funny is? You would be a great person for that because that's who you are on the flip side
00:39:27
Speaker
It's kind of like, wait a minute here. Do I want to help somebody get into the business? I'm like, yes, absolutely. That's who you are. And I loved it because somebody in the description was like, you got to go listen to the bomb. So I was like, Oh, awesome. Um, but, um, I know you've talked about this quite a bit on knife making Tuesdays and other videos, but what's your, what's your advice on someone who wants to get into knife making?
00:39:50
Speaker
I think first define what kind of knife making you want to get into it. You know, there's guys that literally make an entire knife just with a file to file the material away. And that's fine. There's guys that you can buy a one by 42 grinder for 100 bucks and start grinding away like that. That's fine. People make knives with a dremel. What's the progression? I wanted to do CNC. I already had my little mini mill.
00:40:16
Speaker
to convert it to CNC. So that's clearly the way that I want it to go. But even that, you can get into a small CNC machine for a couple thousand dollars.
00:40:25
Speaker
And then after that, that's the DIY route. And then there's the Tormach route. And it's sort of like, how much money do you have to play with to get started? And how much time are you looking at to make it work? And then the point is just to get started. Just try something. Just do it. Go to a maker space. Find a friend with a middle or something like that. The connection possibilities today are insane.
00:40:52
Speaker
But yeah, it certainly depends on how you want to make the knife and what sort of knife you want to make and what you want to learn from it. I really enjoyed your drawer number one in that red toolbox that's just over your shoulder here because not even Norseman number one, but Norseman number zero, which is
00:41:14
Speaker
It doesn't look that great compared to a current Norseman, but I see all of that. It gives people the path of like, okay, you got to start somewhere and iterate and evolve and improve. I don't know if you're ever willing to share a picture of that, but it was really cool to see that and be like, this is how you get me. There's washers that are holding that thing to get the two halves together.
00:41:38
Speaker
Exactly. You don't have to go back and fix it. You just make one and then it sucks and then you move on. Usually, I'll bring them to a knife show and then I'll have all my first models at the knife show to show people. This didn't just happen overnight. My first one sucked. My second one sucked. Third one was okay and then they started to get better and better. Awesome. Just do it though. Just do it. Yeah.
00:42:02
Speaker
Exactly. Just do it. Just start something. Don't be afraid to fail and lose and spend a little bit of money, even if that's 50 bucks. You got to pay to play. It's just the scale that changes. Make the whole thing. I'm not an ice maker, but make the whole thing out of aluminum. Make the blade out of aluminum. I don't care. Just get going with it. Yeah. My first blade was 304 stainless steel.
00:42:29
Speaker
It never, he treated anything. I just wanted to machine that. Oh, man. Awesome. Uh, what's going on today? Today I am transferring the lathe over. We've been making our pivot screws lately. Um, after, you know, basically being tied up for two weeks, trying to make that lock bar lock insert manually over to the main spindle.
00:42:53
Speaker
I did as you suggested. I guess that was last last Wednesday after the recording. Yeah, so I did do a manual transfer manual part off. I made a couple like that and got the process how parallel were they good. They dished a lot actually interesting.
00:43:12
Speaker
So the part is thin and kind of rectangle-shaped with pointy corners in every corner. So it's parallel, but it's got a bow to it, like a dish on the one face. So when the sub-spindle clamps it, it deforms it a little bit. And then it machines it flat. And then it releases. Oh. Exactly. So I've got a program here. Stop. An ellipse to counteract that. Oh, look at you.
00:43:36
Speaker
And then I should be able to get it. So when it clamps, it is pushing the center out toward the tail stock. You think, did you put an indicator on it as you're clamping it? Yeah. No, I haven't. I should. Because you should be able to clamp. Can you adjust the clamping pressure on your main spindle? Yeah, absolutely. But you need enough grip so it doesn't slip. 12 ounces.
00:44:06
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Basically at that point, give up, moved on. I'll get back to it later. Sorry. Awesome. So you're moving to later. Yeah. So I got to switch over.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah. And then we made pivot screws and we just kept it running almost nonstop for the past, you know, week and, uh, made like 600 pivot screws, which has been awesome. And now make some other knife parts, got a load up on knife parts. And then once we're stocked on knife parts, it depends. Um, but probably not for another few weeks, even though I want them now, I want everything. Yeah.
00:44:43
Speaker
I was telling somebody yesterday. Kanban cards, they're not new. We've talked about them a bunch, but they are really great. We're at that point now. We've had them maybe for nine months. Your lathe parts thing made me think of it.
00:44:58
Speaker
We've got new people, new products, old products, and I don't have to think. Like if somebody brings me a compound card, you just do it. You just act on it. Or somebody else could be doing that if I want to take it off my plate. And it's that stress of knowing, well, I don't need to worry about
00:45:14
Speaker
Are we tying up too much working capital and inventory? Are we buying the wrong stuff? Did we make a mistake? Are we surprised to be out of stock? And again, it's like, just do it. I always knew we were going to do compound cards because everyone else who's done them are people I look up to and has said good things about them. But it's not until you start reaping the benefits. No one has ever said, uh-oh, we can't shift this because we're out. We've had a couple little minor quirks. But
00:45:42
Speaker
It's phenomenal to just have that process and that system in place. Even if you're a garage shop solo person, have your own combine cards so that you're not having to do inventory counts and think you just react to, Oh, we're out of these. I order more. I don't feel guilty about worrying more. It's like the McMaster car fear syndrome of like frantically looking around the shop to make sure there isn't anything else you want to put in your shopping cart. Yes, exactly.
00:46:09
Speaker
Yeah, we've been doing minimum baggy, especially for our lathe parts, like screws or whatever. Once you crack into the minimum baggy of 50, it's time to make more. Yeah, perfect. You have about a week. That's awesome. Cool. Sweet. Cool. All right. I don't think so. Anything else before we wrap up? Have a good one, bud. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Yeah, you too, bud. Awesome. Crush it, bud. Next Wednesday. All right. Take it. Crush it. Later. Bye.