Transcript
John S: Good morning. Welcome to the Business of Machining episode 404. My name is John Saunders.
johngrimsmo: And my name is John Grimsmo.
John S: I believe there's some funny story that Facebook or Meta named their shop 404 because something about like Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg won't find it. Cause that means you're lost or you're in the wrong place.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: This was like on a social bed, like the TV show or something that wasn't like anything insider, but ah I am just chuckling about that idea that like these weird meta manifestations of like,
John S: you know, whatever. Like the guy that did control delete, he died like two years ago and it was like, yeah, I just ran him. Like it's just what made sense to me. And then it's like, becomes this like major part of many of our upbringings.
johngrimsmo: he
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So how are you?
John S: Yeah. Uh, good. I was definitely, um, I w we were, I definitely was more under the gun Monday, but, um,
John S: Good now, for sure. Which I think is probably ah too much of a common theme, I guess, now that we kind of listen to ourselves talk.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John S: But whatever, whatever yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah. Like like the highs and lows kind of thing of like stress or calm.
John S: I, again, underestimated the burden of like all the little stuff that was going on. And then look, the the candid answer is as a job ah shop owner, you you end up, lots of stuff comes your way. And um the Some of it you just can't control.
John S: And that's just, you you know, you roll with the punches. oh So here's what you can control. When that's happening, the the John that wants to go spend two hours on the Tormach robot or two hours um being a surgeon, like the the whatever, you just have to totally nuke that.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: And then all you do is you become like like Santa Claus at the mall.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: All I'm going to do is just... sit here and then in it in a good way, i don't mean it in like a cheeky way.
johngrimsmo: Not totally.
John S: um I think the stress comes from the denial of like, no, I'm going to sit here and think. It's like, no, you're not.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, sometimes you have that luxury and sometimes you don't know. Sometimes you have to just, you know, look at your list and be like, it's go time right now. These important things have to get done. I wish I could do all these other things.
John S: Right.
johngrimsmo: Sometimes you can't. um I, on Monday, had a, on Sunday Monday, I can't remember, um stressful day. Things were going on that just kind of had my mind all twisted up. And I went to work late and i was like,
johngrimsmo: I just ah just want to like have fun on something productive. I need to shove my brain off and I need to be that technician and make a really cool thing that I need to make. I think we talked about it last week, the flat washers with a thread in the middle.
John S: No.
johngrimsmo: I think we did, to inspect the bearing pocket on the fjell handle, right?
John S: Oh, sorry. you Sorry. you You were going to take the parallel. I didn't realize I a thread in I'm sorry.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it has a thread so that they can be installed and and held in place in the handle, and then we can CMM that surface.
John S: Okay. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So it's basically like a half-inch diameter washer with, instead of a hole through the middle, it's got a thread, and it's about a sixteenth of an inch.
John S: Yes. The... the See, it's 60,000 thickness, but it's the thread is what? An 80-pitch thread? le There's no...
johngrimsmo: It's a, yeah, 64-pitch thread.
John S: Yeah, that's crazy.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, so it's ah with a chamfer on both sides, so there's a few threads in there, plenty to... plenty to grab and it's not like a load holding thing. It just needs to hold itself in place. um So I came in, I made those.
johngrimsmo: it was super wonderful. it was just like, be the surgeon, just have fun, de-stress, um made them on the Willowman.
John S: Yeah, right, right.
johngrimsmo: You know, I didn't bother grabbing the part and parting it off. So I just kind of, I kissed it on all four sides with the high feet end mill.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So I left and there's a hole through it. So it basically left these four little tabs,
John S: That's funny. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then I could literally just go in there and crack it off, like, and just pry it off the end. And then, so I was left with a beautiful part that's literally finished on both sides, but with a little nub on top two.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I was going to have the guy surface grind it, but then I'm like, I think I can grind it down to almost nothing just with, like, by hand against a sandpaper, um a disc sander.
John S: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: And then I think I can lap it into spec on my cast iron lapping plates. And i was I was in that mode. I was like, I don't want to worry about or think about anything. I'm just going lap this part as flat as possible.
johngrimsmo: And boy, did I ever. And I made two of them. And, you know, maybe not as perfect as I would have wanted. One came in at 0625. One is 0624.
johngrimsmo: um I could bring the second one that tenth down to match.
John S: Okay. Yes.
johngrimsmo: don't really care right now. They are each plane, each side is flat to within 11 millionths of an inch, like half a light band. um And then parallelism is ah about a tenth of sweeping it under the indicator.
John S: This is an ask. I mean, it probably probably.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, like, and and I was actually playing with the hand lapping. I can lap out that out of parallelism just by putting more pressure on one side and lap it into place.
John S: Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool.
johngrimsmo: so that was really cool. And i it was like one o'clock by the time I like wrapped up. And I was like, I could keep doing this for another two hours, but I'm going to go to bed. um And at the end of the day, like the application is looking for thousands of an inch, not tenths.
John S: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: So like if these are out by a tenth, not an issue whatsoever. Basically, I want to know, these are now fake bearings that can be CMM scanned um with an ultra smooth la lap surface and telling what the two walls of this integral handle are doing after machining. If they're twisting, if they're expanding, if they're tilting.
johngrimsmo: So that ideally, if we see a trend, we can then put it, like when we're making them, instead of tilting it to 90 degrees, we can tilt it to 90.021 degrees.
John S: Yeah. Right.
johngrimsmo: Right and like preempt this and then do some before and afters and be like, oh yeah, we we got this. So I've now made the parts and we haven't see them numbed yet, but that's the next step.
John S: What reminds me of, um, when years ago when we were touring the, oh my God, the shop that makes the bearings and complete, um, thank you.
johngrimsmo: Miltera.
John S: And how there's some eccentric turning nature to preload a shaft of a, of a, uh, turbo or here, like in your handle like situation, it's a, it's a slotted sandwich or whatever.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John S: So the idea that maybe you put a spacer in there, that's three thou under, and then you actually clamp it together to preload it in, then do that machining work and then let it out.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Hmm. That's a good point.
John S: And it's like, you built it. it Like that's, it's really cool.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yep. And then actually material stresses is another thing I was thinking, like, do we stress relief the material beforehand, which we're not currently doing?
John S: This is Thai.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: I don't know much about Is it stress-y material?
johngrimsmo: it It's not bad, but it is possible to de-stress it, which could take some warp or some movement out of it. um So it's it's a consideration for sure. um
John S: You'd be able to do that in-house on your...
johngrimsmo: but we We could, but it takes hours and hours and hours and hours. So it's probably something we'd send out. I don't know.
John S: Got it.
johngrimsmo: ah I haven't gotten that far yet. We could certainly do it to test, but yeah, I mean, with this procedure of CMMing, we could validate any results, really.
John S: Yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: which is super cool. um And one of the coolest things is, so I made these two flat flat parts, slapped them to three micron, really shiny. um Do they ring together?
johngrimsmo: They ring together.
John S: either That's cool.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
John S: the Why couldn't you just CMM the surface that the barrier is up against? Or is it?
johngrimsmo: I can't reach it.
John S: You can't. Okay.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, even with ah even if you made a custom probe tip with a you know big ball and a very skinny shaft, it would be awkward. um But nothing off the shelf reaches that particular geometry. So that's kind of where I'm at.
John S: And you don't want to hard gauge it where you feel with like a Deltronics style.
johngrimsmo: That's what we're doing right now.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: We're were're using gauge blocks in 1,000 increments.
John S: Yeah,
johngrimsmo: um But that doesn't tell you taper, warp, positional direction of change, things like that.
John S: yeah, yeah. No, just talking that loud. I would think though, if you took a Deltronics pin, which are cheap, you know, 10 bucks each or something, those are round pins, but you could relieve it.
johngrimsmo: Yep,
John S: um with a grinder or even a hard turning lathe. So you could turn it into a lollipop. Now the services you turn will be, are just relief services. They're no longer qualified, but now you have this um thing that lets lollipop that you could intense increments for cheap that you could start to feel where, where different parts are are tight.
johngrimsmo: yeah.
johngrimsmo: True.
John S: Right?
johngrimsmo: You'd need kind of the whole range of multiple tenths to get, yeah.
John S: Yeah. Right. Pain in butt. Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Whereas we have the CMM and it works anyway. And the way we've been doing with the gauge blocks is we install the actual ball bearings, bearing cages, which have these 10 points of contact, like 10 balls.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So they a flat gauge block slides in between, but you don't have this point contact, you know, this ah this fine feel.
John S: Right.
johngrimsmo: And we only have one-hour increments of gauge blocks, so...
John S: Oh.
John S: Sorry, the way easier to way to do it that I'd be a doofus on would be just to take McMaster ball bearings, which are probably sold in 10th increments, and then just, really?
johngrimsmo: They're not. Yeah.
John S: okay. So you get super, super gloomed piece of plastic.
johngrimsmo: Because that was my.
John S: and then use that as your, yeah exactly.
johngrimsmo: Sure. A toothpick or something. And and yeah, exactly. um No, because one of the fears was the first some of the first handles we made this gap where the bearings go was too wide by a thou or two causing some problems.
John S: who Right.
johngrimsmo: I'm like, OK, let's just find some ceramic bearings that are. you know, tenths or a thou bigger. And I can't. Maybe in steel bearings it's more common, but in ceramic I can't.
John S: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: And our supplier will sell bearings in plus one micron range, plus one micron, two micron, three micron, four micron, but that's not enough to catch the difference.
John S: Yeah,
johngrimsmo: Which is basically them just making a big batch and sorting them by like, these are nominal and these ones are out, tell me what you want.
John S: yeah. Yeah, right.
John S: Right, right, right.
johngrimsmo: So. But yeah, always fun making ultra-flat, ultra-precision parts. that's That's my zen.
John S: So you have done all that, but you haven't seen him end it? We don't know the punchline yet?
johngrimsmo: Correct. Correct, yeah.
John S: Okay, got it. God, well, hopefully before 45 minutes is up today, we'll know more or else or or else Justin from PDX is gonna have to talk about Phil from DSI driving around the parking lot, which Justin, tip of the hat, we were all having a good laugh about that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: yeah
johngrimsmo: So what are you up to?
John S: Uh, so going back to that kind of, and I bring this stuff up, not cause I want to make excuses, complain, or certainly not sympathy, but I think it's kind of like life as a small business owner, what I've, what I need to do a better job of in this, like this conversation with you in these conversations are what help this kind of stuff for sure. Like, thank you.
John S: Um, it's just kind of like, okay, then go just do a tasky project where it doesn't matter if you get interrupted because you're just doing like whatever. And so, um, we got a humidifier cause we've realized that humidity levels go up when multiple machines are doing through spittle points.
johngrimsmo: You got a dehumidifier.
John S: Did I say humidifier?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Sorry. Thank you. Um, humidity in the shops, great. 30% when we're normal stuff. But then when those plate machines start running, it will jump up to 50, 55%.
johngrimsmo: OK.
John S: And you've, that's a big difference.
johngrimsmo: Like you feel the environment.
John S: Oh yeah. Yeah. So bought dehumidifier, put it, um, right.
johngrimsmo: Big?
John S: No, I just, well, so I did that kind of like for three grand on global industrial, I could go crazy. and I was like, you know what? The Amazon one for, they're not cheap, uh, three, 400 bucks claims.
John S: It does a, I don't know what it was for 5,000 square foot house, which is probably total BS, but
johngrimsmo: Mm-hmm.
John S: Um, our machine shop bay itself is 4,000 square feet. And really i only, the humidity goes up, um, really in the front half, which is quote unquote 2000 square feet. And I just want to see how much does this pull it down by, um,
John S: And so I actually say all that. i don't really have a good answer for you yet. We just put it on the ground where we had a sink drain, but it seems to be working well enough that I'm going to move it.
John S: um You're going to laugh. I'm actually going to put it on top of the VF6 because that kind of gets it to where I think it's, there's more airflow in the, in the middle of think of things.
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And then I'm just going to run the PEX drain down to a drain that we have of
johngrimsmo: Just drain it back into the VF-6 top up any lost coolant.
John S: So I thought ah i actually, i really might do that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, maybe.
John S: I don't think it's a bad idea.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: um
johngrimsmo: It's probably not the cleanest water quality, but it's, I don't know.
John S: i don't know if it's not, but it's, How is it any different than like the coolant that hits the ceiling of the enclosure and then condensates back?
johngrimsmo: Sorry, it drops back and yeah.
John S: Yeah. Like, I don't think it's like when you pour the, um, before I hook up the hose, I wanted to see how long it took to fill up the hopper in it.
johngrimsmo: who
John S: Um, and that water is totally clean. Like you did. Well, I should test it, but, um, it's a really good point.
johngrimsmo: yeah test Yeah. Test the hardness, test everything. it Just curiosity. um um Like I know the dehumidifier in our basement, just a little tiny household one.
johngrimsmo: It'll fill whatever it is, a gallon or two gallons in hours sometimes.
John S: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: So you don't want to...
John S: But it's also not going to flood the tank-ish.
johngrimsmo: Well, it could flood as VF6 if you just said and forget it, right?
John S: Those are, I got to look if those are 95 gallons. I don't know. That's a good question.
John S: Be like the slowest flood ever. um It's not a big deal to run it dough out to a drain either, but I like what you're thinking.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John S: um And then adding a little, you know, those bottle LK that you see like airports over the bottle filling stations. Got one of those because ah right, like just, yes, that's what we want.
johngrimsmo: Yes. Oh, cool.
John S: um
johngrimsmo: So it's like a Brita, but bit automatic.
John S: Yeah, think filtered.
johngrimsmo: Like, like what you put your bottle in front of it, and it just knows you're there, and it knows when it's full. and
John S: Tells you how many plastic bottles you've saved.
johngrimsmo: How much is one of those?
John S: Thousand bucks.
johngrimsmo: It's good money.
John S: Yeah, it's a lot, but yes.
johngrimsmo: But, you know, quality of life, spoil yourself kind of thing.
John S: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Put a shot.
johngrimsmo: And it's filtered, i assume.
John S: Excuse me?
johngrimsmo: Filtered water?
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Okay.
John S: And then put some... Actually, I think I'm going to do a video on this, although it feels... Kind of, well, no, I am proud of it is that the honest answer. It feels like off topic to our channel, but um we were finally finishing up the front half of the shop overhaul. So we put, we bought two, actually my wife took care of this, Yvonne, two glass display cases. So we took down these old shelves that we had that's like swag wall.
John S: And we had these nice glass display cases um that show off, all these different parts and the parts themselves I've kind of arranged as a way of telling our story, which I really like.
johngrimsmo: Cool.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Um, and then we had a, like a Porsche of working plastic Porsche engine model that we, my son and I built and then a Saturn five Lego that I love both these things.
John S: And so they were in our conference room, but kind of just bouncing around and I know Porsche engine is, um, bigger than a shoe box, but barely in the Saturn five Legos three feet tall or something.
johngrimsmo: Like big.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: Um,
johngrimsmo: Decently big, yeah.
John S: Yeah. So I went Send Cut Send Infusion sheet metal, custom made two brackets, Send Cut Send powder coated. um Full disclosure, a hundred bucks for both of them. Probably way cheaper if you order multiple multiple of them or didn't powder coat them, but like they look great. I don't have to sit there rattle can. I'm to mess with them. they look super nice. They're exactly sized for what I want.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John S: um And then, good.
johngrimsmo: You can't send parts out of fusion to SendCutsend, can you?
John S: You know, I don't know if there is a plugin. Um, I, but well, it actually is not into, it was not intuitive to me at first for sheet metal because you flat pack it and then you export a DXF that has the bend line in it.
johngrimsmo: It's not hard, but...
johngrimsmo: Interesting.
John S: And then send cut send makes it great. they They are very, make it very easy to do what you need to do.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Like where to put bends, where to, uh, Powder coat, like, deeper options. Yeah, it's – I like how they work.
johngrimsmo: Sweet.
John S: And then got a wireless HDMI for the TV in the conference room because there's times where we've wanted to present in a meeting and just put something up on the screen. And we have a cord at HDMI, but it looked janky. And there's just something about, like, I want to put the plug the cord in. So now, we're wireless HDMI, remounted the TV, hit all the cords, so it's so the TV's floating on the wall.
John S: And anybody just plugs the wireless HDMI into their laptop, and they're up on the screen, which is –
johngrimsmo: So it's like a little module you plug into your laptop and I've never seen one.
John S: to Just a dongle.
johngrimsmo: i' Interesting.
John S: Uh-huh. So that's starting to wrap up kind of like what I want that shop to look like, you know?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
John S: Um, it's, there's a, I think this is well-intentioned idea that like, if you came to the shop or when you come next time, it's like, oh man, like that's, I want to shut all these things down and that's what I like, you know, it's like, Hey, love you.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly. Yep, yep. Yeah, makes you feel proud of what you're doing and and like you're, you know, one of those shops that you go and see or see YouTube videos of and you're like, that's cool.
John S: This, the,
John S: right
John S: you
johngrimsmo: they gotta They got to figure it out, you know.
John S: Yeah. And if somebody's listening to this, but didn't listen to prior episodes, a lot of the backstory here was two, three months ago, we sat down with everybody in the shop. Everyone's basically like, come up with your wishlist. Don't worry about what costs. We'll, we'll triage it or discuss it later, but let's just, what do we all want? And then you kind of put together an informal budget and then you look at, um,
John S: Like, yeah, the water fountain was $1,000, but we didn't go spend 16 grand painting the ceilings of the shop because, wait a minute, I can have a water fountain plus 15,000 left over to do for other stuff.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John S: Like that's the way to go.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: um Still need to get new rolling wood cabinets. We know which ones we'd like, but frankly, I was hoping to have some more help here to put them together. So there's like more work to do, but it's coming coming along for sure.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: So was it really nice to kind of amass that list of 5 to 20 things and then start picking away, like, important, not important? Yes, no, yes. Was that helpful?
John S: It was, yes.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I could see that.
John S: It feels great to um feel great to get the team involved and what do they want. i like I want to make them feel like they get what they ask for. We've been talking a lot about, I think I mentioned this last week, but that whole,
John S: ah make decisions as long as you're aware of the consequence. And like, even we were even laughing about it yesterday because we have a, like a cloth zipper enclosure for our fi fiber laser.
johngrimsmo: ah
John S: And Alex, well, he sort of asked, but was also just like, I'm buying the better one because it's better for $400. I'm like, yeah, like the consequence there is you do it without asking me and I get mad at you.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John S: Like that's not happening. Like do, do what you need to do, you know?
johngrimsmo: yeah As long as you can justify it, you know, and and and be willing to defend your position.
John S: Right. Right.
John S: Exactly. So yeah, it feels good.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Awesome. And the last question was, of all the list of things that you actually did, how many were your idea and how many were the team's idea?
John S: Oh, that's a great question. I probably, I think, I was just say i could pull it up real quick, but I think we, as we did stuff, we started, yeah we started striking it off because I'm very picky now about,
John S: If you, the only reason to keep things on the todo to do list there like that had that had been done is to like pat yourself on the back. And it's just like, no, if it's done, delete it.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yeah.
John S: So, um, see here, Grant was the sink. Yvonne was the paint. Oh, she did that. That needs to be deleted. Painting and cleaning the three print room. Um,
John S: Alex was the enclosure. i had the idea to replace all of our homemade and sort of janky carts with wood, new wood tables from that Amazon brand or whatever.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John S: That's, that looks great. Yeah. yeah And I think the only thing that we like really deep six was, you know, five figures to paint the ceiling. um
johngrimsmo: in that expensive roll-up door.
John S: And then,
John S: Yes.
johngrimsmo: Maybe that wasn't on the list, but...
John S: Sorry. That was for sure. Although I actually do. ah So I'm slowing down some of the outstanding items because I need to like, I need to, I should have done one thing at a time because what happened was then all of a sudden you've got a plumber, electrician, a gutter person, um other things happening and you're getting too many phone calls and juggling stuff.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Totally.
John S: So it's, I need to get a few things done. Then I'm going to call the, then just get a regular garage door put in. oh We were going to do a sign on our building. We have a sign out front, but I wanted to one up on the building facade or whatever the front, but then the way you drive down the street, you won't really see it.
John S: So i was like, eh, skip that. And then we probably should replace some of our asphalt with concrete for both forklift.
johngrimsmo: Yep,
John S: And, um, we got to figure out how we're goingnna deal with chip storage. We need to get roll offs. And that's just, I'm kind of just like delaying dealing with that.
johngrimsmo: yep that's allowed. That
John S: Yeah. Yeah, sorry, that's a lot I know, but that's my we're last thing.
johngrimsmo: was good.
John S: Durham steel storage boxes. Do you know these things?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I've got some.
John S: Love them
johngrimsmo: Yeah, like them?
John S: I bought those cheapo plastic boxes from Amazon for Johnny five screws, but we have holistic cabinet of screws.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: It needs to overhaul. This is how we're doing it. I bought two of them. These are great. Then I just sucked it up, bought 10 more Durham boxes.
johngrimsmo: Whoa.
John S: And then I found, downloaded their catalog, found that they make the drawer slides that you put the box in.
johngrimsmo: Mm-hmm.
John S: So I bought that whole system and now I'll put that on wheels and then you'll have this super dialed labeled box. Um, you know, each, most of them have 30 bins in them. So it's like 632 screws are all now organized.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Um,
johngrimsmo: And they're all like, um what's it called? The round bottom ones where you can like pull parts up scoop bins.
John S: yes. Scoop them, scoop bins.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. um The rigid, like the the whole tray of 30 pack comes out, but individual bins don't come out.
John S: Correct.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John S: I don't want the bins to come out because then the screws will cross contaminate.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. That's good point. Yeah, we use it for our small parts hardware. Like we'll make, um we we make a lot of small parts on the lathe and we'll put them in little Ziploc baggies of 50 parts, Sharpie a big 50 on the front, and then store the baggies in these bins.
John S: Hmm.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Because we used to just stack them up, but then you're picking and pulling and and the guy who's cleaning and inspecting them can easily sort them into a bag of 50. And now we just, you know, the finishing guys just need another bag of 50. And then, so we're basically holding the majority of the inventory in the machine shop where they're made.
johngrimsmo: And then the finishing guys only have like a as needed basis.
John S: Yeah, right, right. That's nice.
johngrimsmo: That way we don't have two big inventories sitting around. And that way machine shop guys control the bulk of the inventory so they they know when to make more.
John S: Yes.
John S: What I think is funny is the 10 or 12 bins was probably 300 The stand,
johngrimsmo: It's cheaper than i thought.
John S: Yeah, the one crazy, the stand, so a six six plus four stand plus a base, that was probably 350 bucks. And then there's probably $500 or more screws already that we've just bought recently for J5.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: So if you had told me for $1,300, you can have that whole setup delivered, would have like, I'm not paying $1,300 for some bins and screws.
johngrimsmo: Wow.
John S: And like, here I am death by a thousand cuts, but it's great.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: I love it. It makes me happy. um
johngrimsmo: Death by a thousand threads.
John S: Yeah, right, right. um That's good.
johngrimsmo: Fantastic.
johngrimsmo: Let's see what's going on here. So my Gorilla indicator stand came in ki in yesterday.
John S: Yay!
johngrimsmo: I haven't opened it yet.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: I kind of want to turn a camera on and do a little unboxing. And I haven't had time so I haven't opened it yet. But it's here.
John S: it' sorry
johngrimsmo: It's finally here.
John S: That's fine. Good.
johngrimsmo: The boat has finally arrived.
John S: Good. That's great.
johngrimsmo: um So yeah, I'm really looking forward to that. um
John S: I'm going to make a note to ask you about that next week.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, please. If I haven't opened it by next week, I'll open it on the bomb.
John S: Well, perfect.
johngrimsmo: like Yeah, that's cool.
John S: Okay. I like that. um
johngrimsmo: ah Yeah.
John S: Good. No good.
johngrimsmo: and Fjells are selling.
John S: Good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, just just starting now. A couple of the APs have sold. And then the first hundred, we've got several videos we're going to be releasing later this week and into next week that we're trying to come up with a staged plan of like,
johngrimsmo: you know, when to release what and what expectations to set and things like that. So it's really good. Yeah, we've we've got dozens of fields finished, ready to go.
John S: Good.
johngrimsmo: We're just doing the final clean final inspection. And it's great.
John S: That's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
John S: Are you, haven't asked for so long, are you still making rasks, Norsemen, sagas?
johngrimsmo: Yes, 100%. Yep.
John S: Okay. Got
johngrimsmo: Yeah, so going forward, like we made the first 100 fjälls plus the APs, we stopped making parts um while we kind of catch up and catch our breath and tweak any final tolerances.
johngrimsmo: Like the beauty is we use the first 100 to finalize the tolerances and like measuring the handle gap with these little flat washers.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um so that once we make one-on-one, I want them to be even better, like just tighter, less less finicky.
John S: Yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: Assembly's kind of weird in some ways. And we've learned a lot. Even, so the the button that we're using, I posted a picture on Instagram and got tons and tons of comments on the porosity or inclusions or carbide grains getting ripped out and polishing, so many options for for why this surface looks gross.
johngrimsmo: um It's probably inclusions in the material, like a lower grade of 440C stainless. So I got a lot of great suggestions there. I'm gonna try buying from a different supplier. We're gonna try,
johngrimsmo: to get the bars heat treated so we can machine not 18 Rockwell or whatever it is, which machines like disgusting bubble gum.
John S: Got it. Right, we're ready.
johngrimsmo: We're going to make them like 35 or 40 or something and machine them semi hard and then heat treat the parts ourselves to full 5860.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Because turning 30 to 45 Rockwell stainless, it just turns like absolute butter.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It just leaves amazing surface finishes and amazing features and everything. So That's kind of the plan there. um Even one of our guys was polishing the heads of these buttons and I asked him yesterday, I was like, so how many have these holes or spots?
johngrimsmo: And he's like, most.
John S: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. And sometimes he can polish it out until, and get it to a point where it like looks fine. And sometimes he just keeps going deeper and deeper and deeper and the hole just keeps, keeps going. And what is the cutoff point where I've wasted my time and I just need to throw it away.
John S: That crazy.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it is kind of crazy.
John S: Although the, were the, was it on WhatsApp? I've been kind of like MIA on that chat, but a couple of things, but ah the, were they suggesting other grades of stainless? I'd never heard of those.
John S: My,
johngrimsmo: I don't think the WhatsApp was suggesting that.
John S: maybe I was dream dreaming, dreaming it.
johngrimsmo: It's mostly ah Dennis talking about machines that I don't understand yet.
John S: Yeah, right. The guy who's, the guy who disowns Quasars and then buys another one.
johngrimsmo: Yep, exactly. um
John S: don't know.
johngrimsmo: But yeah.
John S: When you mentioned the Gorilla Fab, I wanted to say a very public thank you again to Robin Renzetti, who a number of times has messaged me. First off, I think it's humbling that he listens to the bomb.
John S: like
johngrimsmo: Totally.
John S: yeah And then he was like, hey, call me. i have two things for you. And I was like, great. Called him. And such an obvious, logical answer to the... um Problem I was mentioning with my China Shars test indicator or surface gauge overhaul.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: um I did the Thor Labs stuff that works great, but there was still a little bit of tip over slop where the pivot meant mounts to the larger base.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John S: And I had been thinking about shimming it to get just a shimmed, like full full friction shim fit, which is of course a great example of why I'm John and he's Robin.
John S: He was like, dude, what you, he basically kindly was like, no, if anything, open the gap up more and and stick a Belleville washer in there or a disc.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: i think he He called it a disc washer, which I asked, do you mean wave washer? And a wave washer has up and down undulations, like a sine wave.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Those are, significantly less force than a Belleville or disk washer, which is like huge amounts of force, but it's fine.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John S: You shove that washer in there, preload it against one side.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: um actually might still put a piece of, don't know, like Teflon or even powder coat tape, but just kind of be a, a lubricant on the, a low coefficient friction material on the far side. Um, but that'll solve that.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: And then he also, Gave me everything I needed to know, but I haven't acted on it yet to cut carbide with our D-bit grinder, um a four inch or hundred millimeter Shars wheel.
johngrimsmo: you
John S: And then he talked, the most interesting thing was he talked about There is some tribal skill to how you feed in the carbide. You want to have it be, oh, hear his notes.
johngrimsmo: okay
John S: You want to push it in. um You want to fast and feed straight about 30 thou. So you're piercing, you're pushing the end mill into the rotating cutoff wheel, if you will, diamond wheel.
John S: Then once you're about 30 thou and you start to rotate the end mill in a, it's in the top five C, you know, a jg rotational jig thing.
johngrimsmo: Okay, so it's a controlled manner.
John S: Yeah, and that's when you start rotating around. And he said he cuts through ah completely through a half-inch end mill in two to three minutes, which is actually still, if you actually think about counting to 200, it's long time, but um it's not something we have to a ton.
johngrimsmo: Yeah,
johngrimsmo: yeah it's time. Yep.
John S: And actually the drills that we need to connect down our are a quarter inch, so so a third of the volume or something to cut through.
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep.
John S: so I need to order that stuff and get that good.
johngrimsmo: Are they through ghoul entrails?
John S: Yeah. The drills we would need to cut through, i don't think so because they're the Willemann. We don't have TSC on the Willemann.
johngrimsmo: Oh, gotcha.
John S: But he also sort of said, no um don't gird it and snap it off. It could work, but it can also cause microfracturing that you don't even notice or see.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John S: so
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Oh, and also somebody else, I'll keep them anonymous to not, in case they didn't want me to say this, did mention that the the device that I mentioned last week, they own one and they were kind of like, yeah, it's not like a no-brainer.
John S: Yes, they're the kind of...
johngrimsmo: Device what? Oh, the end mill grinding.
John S: The, yeah, yeah. It wasn't a resounding endorsement.
johngrimsmo: I forget what you call it. Sure.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: I'll leave it at that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Which is kind of like what I wanted to hear. Cause if, if seven people were like, um, this thing's amazing, just shut up and buy it. It's like, okay, by great.
johngrimsmo: Sure. Yep.
John S: Um, I had three last, Oh, four last topics. I'll let you pick, uh, shop insurance tough stuff. First cuts on the 1500 grant, making an ID holder for, um, the Willowman and tariffs.
johngrimsmo: Let's start with tariffs. I'll take tariffs for 25%. Yeah. Steel and
John S: tariff for Yeah. Uh, I'll, I'll kindly reject that and say, see tariffs for 10% please.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John S: Um, so we're conscious of this. Um, I don't know what's going to happen. We have not seen prices change yet. March 12th is this alleged drop date for, understand.
johngrimsmo: steal aluminum products, right?
John S: Well, I think there's probably a lot of people who are talking without fact. And I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to be another one of those. Um, Yes, I do believe it would be non-domestic or foreign or certain, maybe not all form, a certain foreign aluminum.
johngrimsmo: yep yeah i saw a list today of maybe 10 15 countries argentina canada um ukraine things like that
John S: Yeah. We could solve, actually my wife told me I gotta stop joking about Canada, but we could solve this for the 53rd.
johngrimsmo: yeah you could stop yeah you should stop talking about that yeah
John S: Okay. Okay. I liked it. I kind of liked it. It hits a nerve though. It's like just close to being real enough that it's kind of funny.
johngrimsmo: But total pipe dream.
johngrimsmo: um
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So, yeah, like our suppliers are emailing us saying we don't really know what's going to happen.
John S: Yeah. Right.
johngrimsmo: But like our American suppliers who a lot of use a lot of domestic materials, but sometimes will import you know raw materials from Canada or whoever and then make their bars or their metal and then ship it.
John S: Yes.
John S: right
johngrimsmo: to us or this is weird back and forth.
John S: Yes.
johngrimsmo: um But they're basically saying, like one of our suppliers said, we have tons of inventory, so nothing's going to change yet. But once we start buying more expensive material, then it'll pass forward like
John S: Yeah. And that's why I brought it up. i i I think we'll know more and I do kind of want to start a conversation. um I'd certainly able hear from anybody who has other opinions. I was a little bit disappointed. We coincidentally had two vendor lunches, one last week and one this week, where one was our steel vendor, one was an aluminum vendor that came in and I kind of just asked them and they were they were very comfortable being like, nobody knows.
John S: and I'm like, ah, that's your job. Like your job is to look at, like there are metals markets, there's future markets, there's volatility indexes. like this the I was a little bit like, as a little BS, essay you're just saying, ah, who knows?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: um Now, on the flip side, wild speculation and overreaction, especially when the administration you know seems to vacillate. Yo, let's do this. Let's not do this.
John S: you know Let's take over Canada. Let's take over Greenland. Let's not do any of it. like it's ah It's kind of ridiculous.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: um
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: We also don't buy foreign material by and large, but my assumption is um um a little bit of a cynical person. I mean, if if if there's 25% more charge on foreign material that will drive up domestic prices either by, you know, ah oligopoly, yeah exactly.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Volume requirement or what is that? Oligopoly?
John S: Like a few players that are effectively illegally or legally colluding, like
johngrimsmo: Got it.
johngrimsmo: It's like oligarchy but monopoly put together. Is that what that means?
John S: ah ah Somebody can probably look this up and correct me. I believe an oligopoly is a monopoly with multiple players.
johngrimsmo: Just never heard of
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: Oligopoly.
johngrimsmo: Like pop.
John S: A state of limited competition in which a market is shared by a small number of producers shall or sellers. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: not a monopoly but the next one like interesting okay yeah yeah
John S: For all with practical purposes, the same thing. Yeah.
John S: So we will see. I know you were talking about tariffs as well.
johngrimsmo: yeah well the the fear for us so there's the steel aluminum tariff and then there's the uh threat of everything coming from canada is going to be charged 25 tariff into the u.s now yeah
John S: Ugh.
John S: So if I buy a saga, yeah, I get hit with ah of a customs bill or something.
johngrimsmo: yeah And I'm unclear if you are paying that bill or if I am paying that bill as the seller.
John S: Interesting. Okay.
johngrimsmo: um Either way, I'm not losing 25% on a sale because can't afford that.
John S: Yeah, of course.
johngrimsmo: like
John S: Yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: um So at the end of the day, the customer will have to pay that. And the the fear for us is our customers going to get cold feet and just not buy as many products, which is going to be really bad for us.
John S: Sure. That's not a thing. Is it anymore? I've not heard of this.
johngrimsmo: I don't know.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: but last
John S: Right.
johngrimsmo: Like you said, it's so fluctuating. um It was going to be a thing in February, and then they're like, yeah we'll give it a month, we'll see what happens.
John S: Right.
John S: I think you guys stopped driving so much fentanyl across our border and then that helps help things.
johngrimsmo: but Sure, because it was it was such a wild amount.
John S: I know it's like you put it in the maple syrup and it's like, I don't know what it's coming across the border.
johngrimsmo: You know what, that's a good idea.
John S: Right. We probably shouldn't be saying this.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John S: Um,
johngrimsmo: no but yeah, so um I don't know. and and Literally, I don't know.
John S: ah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The other business topic I want to talk about, which I also don't really have answers for yet, but also wanted to publicly broach it was um insurance.
John S: We, it's has always been such a fascinating topic for me. And I'm going to speak very candidly and perhaps a bit unsophisticatedly so. um But one of the biggest reasons I still don't,
John S: of course I mean, you have to kind quote, quote, have to have insurance, blah, blah, blah. But like, really, one of the things I think the most about is like the shop could burn down or we're next to an airport. I mean, a plane could tragically crash nearby and cause like blah, blah, blah.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John S: I don't otherwise um value insurance. Like I've never made a claim. I don't, there's just not, whatever. I think there's probably ah folks out there listening that can relate to that. Like I've not made a claim for car, auto, home, but blah, blah, blah.
John S: So it does feel frustrating because our premiums are not insignificant. um
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And you're paying for something that you just don't use. Well, screw that. That's dumb. um
johngrimsmo: It's the what if, you know?
John S: Well, so where this came up more specifically was what do we ensure the shop contents for?
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John S: And again, I don't really have an answer, but I have, some opinions already, which is, um, I'm going to make up numbers here, but let's say, let's assume it's a million dollars.
John S: Like, do I want to ensure like Or let's say a machine shop has purchased equipment, totally million dollars.
johngrimsmo: chair
John S: Do you want to insure it for a million dollars? Do you want to insure it for less because it's appreciated? You want to insure it for more because frankly, it probably costs more to buy or replace that equipment. Um, And also, this is where cynicism dials up a notch.
John S: Insurance companies ah will always win. like yeah So there's this whole replacement value versus they call it ACV, actual cash value.
johngrimsmo: okay not specifically but I kind of know what you're talking about
John S: Have you seen this at all? or do you
John S: um I've heard about it more with buildings. um And I was not, had not thought about it with the equipment. And I genuinely, I mean, it's kind of hard to, it's kind of hard or maybe even almost inappropriate to talk about. But like if truly like our shop evaporated, like for whatever sin scenario it is, first off, God forbid everyone's like gone, like on the weekend.
John S: Let's just assume like it just evaporated.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, a meteor hits your shop and...
John S: Yeah. I don't like, don't know I, I don't know if I would start over, John. Like, I don't know what, you know what i mean? Or sorry, I don't know if I would immediately be like, great, let's get all the vendors to get us POs to buy all the equipment again and rebuild this thing.
John S: Like, don't get wrong. I'm a fighter. I care. I love it. I love what I do, but it's hard to, but that's kind of what that insurance is. So it's like, do I, um, want us?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's an interesting thought process.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: You know, what what is to you and your business, what is the value of ah fully insuring every dollar, you know, replacement value? Or do you kind of push that boundary? It's like, well, I'm legally required to have a certain amount of insurance.
John S: Right.
johngrimsmo: what What is that bare minimum? And where am I paying now? And what's the middle ground? Like, let's have that conversation.
John S: And there's ah there's a middle ground there as well that, and I don't in any way and mean to imply that any form of insurance fraud is is acceptable from my point of view, but let's say,
John S: let's say you have 10 machines and they're 100,000 each and that's a million dollars. So, but let's say, you know I'm gonna carry $700,000 of there. value there I don't think right now I have to give them a serialized list of what machines I actually have.
John S: So if any one of, if seven of them went down, you could sort of say, well, those were the seven that insured. Like I don't necessarily have to insure every single one because it's unlikely that every single one, now I guess in the catastrophic fire or the shop has evaporated.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John S: But um
johngrimsmo: Don't they want an itemized list? I can't remember.
John S: I don't think they, I did not.
johngrimsmo: I'm sure it depends locationally or...
John S: Yeah, exactly. Right.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: And again, I'm not trying to, I would be very upfront. I'm not trying to be defraud them. It's more just a question of like, look, I'm not, I tell it straight to my agent, like, I'm not going to insure every single thing.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Trying to find your value.
John S: um
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I know my guys reach out at least once a year and just be like, hey, just checking in. Is there anything new? Like you get any new equipment that you want insured?
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Obviously, they're trying to push for for more.
John S: Right.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And sometimes we're like, yeah actually, we did get this new equipment. Oh, yeah. And a lot of times loan requires proof of insurance, if I'm not mistaken, um in order to finance.
John S: Absolutely. And you, my humble advice to anybody would be to absolutely always make sure at least the principal balance is ensured.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yep.
John S: Um, that's a bad day. Otherwise be, um, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Exactly.
johngrimsmo: nice Okay, tell me about Grand Sling.
John S: Okay. We want to do post heat treat hard turning on our pull studs, which have a call it, uh, 12 millimeter, not probably 10 millimeter through bore straight wall through bore.
John S: And it's gonna be easier if we could hold them from the ID, that 10 millimeter through bore, rather than try to hold on any OD feature.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: And so Grant um came in this morning and was like, hey, you Willman spindle collets are kind of funny looking collets compared to, they're not 5C or anything else.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: They're just different. i don't know to explain it.
johngrimsmo: Yep, yep.
John S: And they're... the inside of the collet had a taper and Grant was like, Hey, when the collet closes, that taper contracts enough that I think I can actuate it against a part return inside there.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John S: And i was like, I was like, I could see it not being enough, but you also might be onto something and go print one. And so we printed one. I actually shout out to, Andrew Henry over Henry Holsters for turning us on to the bamboo PLACF.
John S: It's like 32 bucks a roll, way stronger, super nice when you want some more oomph to a printed part and seems to print really well.
johngrimsmo: OK.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: OK.
John S: And he printed one and it seems to work enough to be like, okay, yeah, I like this. let's He's going to turn one out of some metal and I'll keep you close to see if it works.
johngrimsmo: So it's an ID expanding clamp, but that is actuated by the clamping of your collet in the spindle.
John S: Bingo. So if we needed a hard turn, 300 pull studs, it's not grabbing a wrench each time to tighten and loosen anything.
johngrimsmo: it
johngrimsmo: it's using the UR robot to install.
John S: Bingo.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. does
John S: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Does it stay installed in the machine?
John S: We would, I can't answer that yet, but no, I mean, think we were goingnna run, if we were going to run 300 of these, we would take the call it out, put this device in, run 300, then take it back out for sure.
johngrimsmo: It doesn't like fall out?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: But that's,
johngrimsmo: Is he making an entire collet?
John S: and Ooh, huh. We probably could now that you say that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: ah
johngrimsmo: Maybe not on the Willimon size-wise, but...
John S: No, we'd have to make it on a mill.
johngrimsmo: Maybe.
John S: Of course, that's the better way to make any round object.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Round, of course, yeah.
John S: um That's a good idea. No, this is an insert.
johngrimsmo: right.
John S: Actually, funny enough, i um you know the you the YouTube algorithm sometimes is such a bummer. I have not had not seen a Stefan Gottesbinter video on my in my feed a long time.
John S: I looked him up and i was like, oh yeah, he's got plenty of content. And then the one was making a six millimeter auto, like a valve grinding machine. machine um replacement collet.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: It's like a little collet the size of your thumb. And it was like a 40 minute video that was like super well done. I really enjoyed ah watching that video. And this stuff's always good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, those nerdy deep dives are right up our alley.
John S: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Love it.
johngrimsmo: Love it. um Yeah, last thing I'll talk about is continually impressed by hard milling.
John S: Mm-hmm.
johngrimsmo: With the right end mills.
John S: OK. OK.
johngrimsmo: My Moldino endmills, they just came up on 200 minutes where we had another warning set and today I just looked at them under the microscope and they are starting to show signs of wear.
John S: never
johngrimsmo: The high feed tool has one of one or two of the corners are chipped slightly. We're still going to keep running it because it's fine. um And the um the two millimeter corner radius tool that's doing the finish critical features is showing signs of wear, but it's we comped it one 10th and it's still making size.
John S: Isn't that crazy?
johngrimsmo: And now we're CMMing, we have this feedback loop of CMMing the hole to know how what the trend is. We're tracking it in a spreadsheet to make sure this hole is being made accurately and consistently at every time.
johngrimsmo: And then it tells us when to comp it. Yeah, and like I said, we've comped one 10th so far and it's still holding great.
John S: Awesome.
johngrimsmo: So it's like, the guys are like, do I replace the tools?
John S: That's really cool.
johngrimsmo: And i was like, well, we're at 200 now. Let's take them to 250 or 300. And then probably time to just try the new ones. They don't owe us anything at that point. um
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: We've made you know near to 100 blades on on these tools. So I'm like, I'm good to go. this This is fantastic. Yeah.
John S: The only, the, when we've been at the end of, toward the end of the life on our side, the only reason I even know it's not awesome is I saw what it was like when the tool was brand new and that was like unbelievable, like mirrorish type stuff, but it's still correct.
johngrimsmo: yeah
johngrimsmo: In your part. in your part
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: yeah In our part, that shininess wouldn't show.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: It's like internal features that and don't need to look pretty.
John S: Got it.
johngrimsmo: um
John S: oh
johngrimsmo: I know. but
John S: John, I have never heard you say that.
johngrimsmo: yeah
johngrimsmo: red Redact that.
John S: internal Internal parts don't need to look pretty.
johngrimsmo: Go back. go back
John S: oh man.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, there's actually one feature of the Fjall that I'm not happy with and I'm just totally allowing. Like if you looked at it, even with eye, but certainly under a microscope, you'd be like, what's going on here?
johngrimsmo: And I'm just passing it for now because it's fine. I don't care.
John S: funny. yeah
johngrimsmo: There's a line.
John S: Yeah, good.
johngrimsmo: There's always a line.
John S: What you to do today?
johngrimsmo: Today, I've got the Williman running these little titanium covers. I think talked about the last week for our DLC coding. So it covers over the D10 ball during coding.
John S: Oh. Masking.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: So I've got some mask basically, but it's titanium and cool. So I've made 31 of those. I want to take it up to 50 and then that's done like forever pretty much. And
johngrimsmo: I want to... finalize a probing operation for hard milling these field blades, just like measure the surface every time.
John S: Oh.
johngrimsmo: I tried that a week or two ago and I ended up ruining the probe calibration values somehow. I don't know what I did wrong, but the only solve was to recalibrate everything.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So I'm a little hesitant, but...
John S: Yeah, interesting.
johngrimsmo: That's pretty much it. It's already 3 o'clock.
John S: Good.
johngrimsmo: I got a meeting with Eric and Angelo in four minutes.
John S: Good.
johngrimsmo: And then, yeah, production meeting. That's my day.
John S: Cool.
johngrimsmo: Thank
John S: oh I have a part on the Tormach 1500.
johngrimsmo: you.
John S: um were i've this i thought this was like dripping with irony. We haven't really commissioned the machine yet because we don't have a fixture plate for it. That material was supposed to come. The ones we had were sold. And so customers come first. And then we... So, but I just, I needed to cut a keyway on a shaft and every one of our Haas machines was busy, including the UMC 350, which was making breather valves for Porsches.
John S: So was like, I can't, it's like, this is why we have this machine was to not deal with this. And so i Strat clamped a 5C collet block directly to the table, which is like, ugh, but it works fine. Swept it in, put a 316th end mill and, you know spindle. Oh, used, this is like so crazy. I just threw this up on Insta before we hopped on this podcast, but Tormach, the fifteen hundred s have a, what's that option? But like basically Renishaw's type wireless probe.
johngrimsmo: No way.
John S: So, you know, you and i I, don't know how much you remember your Tormach days, but it is almost, like two different worlds to be like, Oh, I'm on Tormach path pilot digitally, wireless, you're probing this part in.
johngrimsmo: No way.
John S: It's like super nice.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I remember plugging in my probe every time.
John S: Oh, I just used timers. I never even had the, Oh, I think we might've owned one, but never used the, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Oh yeah, I used it all the time, but you'd have to stop, plug it in, hit go again.
John S: Right. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: That's fantastic.
John S: So cut this QA shaft and, um, me not surprisingly did cut beautifully.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's BT30, right?
John S: Um, I need to, it is. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, big change from the TTS.
John S: Oh yeah, no, totally. The, the change is the, um, poxy granite frame and, um, linear guideways and all that.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah. It's awesome.
John S: Yeah. Finish that up. Householding stuff. Sync like some basic plumbing type stuff. Um, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Excellent. All right, man.
John S: Cool. See you next week. Take care.
johngrimsmo: Have good day.
