Transcript
John Saunders: Good morning. Welcome to the Business of Machining episode 466. My name is John Saunders.
johngrimsmo: My name is John Grimsmo.
John Saunders: John and I freaking love making parts, running machines. um i'm Legitimately both. incredibly proud of what we've been done over the last week but also feeling very much in the thick of it. um rarely do i feel like i have to kind of stop my momentum and stop my day to come sit down and talk with you and today's one of those days where I'm like, no, I got so much stuff I want to go do.
johngrimsmo: Mm.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah
John Saunders: But I want to share that too, because it's all. Great stuff.
johngrimsmo: I am at the edge of my seat. I can't wait to hear it all. That's awesome.
John Saunders: How about you?
johngrimsmo: um Things are good. I've been spent another week basically diving into GURP and Buyer's Choice, at adding our Buyer's Choice system to GURP and fine -tuning it and making it better, better, better, better, better.
John Saunders: mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: and it's It's live now. We've pulled a a bunch of names, a bunch of people, had a bunch of feedback, starting to get orders.
John Saunders: Good.
John Saunders: Good.
johngrimsmo: It's awesome.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: and then continually fine tuning. um the data side of it. like bringing all that data into GURP. how many people open the email, how many people open the form, how many people actually convert to a sale, what those percentages look like and what to do with that data.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and uh I just learned there's kind of a large. percentage of our list that have never engaged with any of our emails they've never clicked on the link they've never whatever and they're still in the pool.
johngrimsmo: Getting pegged.
John Saunders: oh
johngrimsmo: and have been picked a bunch of times i'm like that's kind of dead weight like it's they're not going to convert because they've never even opened the form either they're not getting the email their inboxes has 10 000 emails in it and they don't care about it or they don't care about us anymore so it's like interesting how to like at a weighted value to people on our list.
John Saunders: or genuine question, I don't mean to imply you should do this, but could you just email them and be like, hey, if you click here in the next... Two weeks.
johngrimsmo: Like reactivate your cat.
John Saunders: We'll keep.
johngrimsmo: Yeah
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Very fair.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm
John Saunders: That's I was about to ask you. at what point Does this still make the beer taste better?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: but I hear you. That's it really valuable to know.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, absolutely. Because otherwise, we're just pulling dead weight every time we pick names, picking ah an exaggeratedly high number, getting a low conversion rate, because literally 33 % of them have been picked a bunch and have never engaged.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And... Yeah, so there's there's a bunch of tricks there.
John Saunders: There you go.
johngrimsmo: Um,
John Saunders: Good.
johngrimsmo: Because I definitely want to get our conversion rates higher. I want to get in front of the right people at the right time. Um, find ways to do this and building customer experience through all these new interfaces is what i've been having a lot of fun with um it kind of reminds me of our buddy phil who sort of left machining into software for machining And he told me once, he's like, I just love making stuff. And now I'm making software. Like this is a solving problem. So I'm having fun. And yeah, I'd like i'd like to machine again, but.
johngrimsmo: i'm I'm getting my kicks out of. solving these problems. And I feel that in a way. It's fun.
John Saunders: Thought he was a sailboat captain, but maybe I'm
johngrimsmo: Yeah, he is. He's sailing his boat around there.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: the harbor right now.
John Saunders: Sorry about that. Yeah. I wonder if Phil misses Machida. He was so... I... It's funny. I don't know why. specifically, but MJK, was that the company?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: they're The parts that they made on that Matsura, it was just like...
johngrimsmo: Which is art.
John Saunders: anchored point in my life like when social media was
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: frankly more fun it was not like
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Every time you opened up, it was another. show just like people showing off their passion for what they did so
johngrimsmo: And that was Phil.
John Saunders: We miss you. We miss you. Yeah. yeah Maybe one day I'll get back there then.
johngrimsmo: Well, I mean, isn't he building some awesome tiny little machine in his shed?
John Saunders: Get very little information
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Because he's sailing too much.
John Saunders: Exactly. I'll put Starlink and a mini mill on that thing.
johngrimsmo: There you go. Love you Phil. See you in two weeks.
John Saunders: Oh, yeah. i am Oh, my God. Talk about creeping up. Holy cow.
johngrimsmo: I know. I know. i I haven't gotten my flight yet, but I can do that very quickly.
John Saunders: We actually, not that anybody cares, we're actually gonna drive. the three of us go on it's six hours six hours
johngrimsmo: Nice. How far? a It's decent.
John Saunders: um
johngrimsmo: It's about 12 hours for me to drive there. so
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I don't want to but...
John Saunders: Yeah, I don't believe you there I just am falling in love. We've done, my wife and I have done two road trips. recently with the tesla and um the supercharging, I didn't realize how good it is.
johngrimsmo: It's fantastic.
John Saunders: Like I charge in my garage with a 240 48 amp circuit and it charges 50 miles an hour so overnight
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: always could charge it fully.
johngrimsmo: Always fall. Yeah, totally.
John Saunders: like no issue whatsoever we were at a random sheet in West Virginia. And I plugged in and it was at 550 miles an hour. It's literally 10 times more.
johngrimsmo: Than your garage.
John Saunders: Cheers.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah for sure
John Saunders: than a 240 volt garage. Like it's unbelievable how fast it charges.
johngrimsmo: Yep. Yeah, it's so much power. Absolutely. Yep.
John Saunders: Ciao.
johngrimsmo: And you can just pull over and, you know, even, even 20 minutes gets you the majority of a tank um of of electricity.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, 30 minutes, you're full kind of thing.
John Saunders: Yeah, well, or conversely, the like quintessential use the restroom and maybe order a pop. Like six or seven minutes gets us. 30%, which is...
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: over 100 miles, like two hours of driving.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. It's awesome.
John Saunders: Anyways.
johngrimsmo: Good.
John Saunders: Between that and the FSD, it's just like, yeah, this is great.
johngrimsmo: Mhm.
John Saunders: Anyway. anyways Back to real life. What's on your list today?
johngrimsmo: Um, I already mentioned buyer's choice. I'll talk about a little bit more. um New hire started on Monday.
John Saunders: Oh yeah. Yep.
johngrimsmo: Um, a really cool feature that I added to GURP. and then um tie up the Mori probe issues that I mentioned. last week.
John Saunders: Mmm. Okay. Yeah, I do wanna hear about that. um We... Huge win. are Bar, uh, no, come back to that. Our 700A machine, we now have 700A VC.
johngrimsmo: You mean the Maverick?
John Saunders: Oh, my God. Stop. Yes. What would it be? Maverick Goose Iceman?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, which one's which I don't even know ABC sounds pretty awesome to me
John Saunders: Exactly. Exactly. No, just kidding.
johngrimsmo: Executive decision. Duh.
John Saunders: It had its first legit overnight run. I logged into Home Assistant at 5 .30 a .m. to look and see.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And I had started to track what caused it to fail.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm
John Saunders: not Not for any other reason than like, let's just kind of like... casually start to track this? Like what stops us? and you know little things that happened um chips build up to stop the door opening or we had a one time we had a part misload the two nights prior were two load limits which that's kind of a self -imposed like okay um i'm glad it stopped because we chose to say There was a tool load limit that would stop it from continuing.
johngrimsmo: What do you put, like 30 % or something? or
John Saunders: Say again.
johngrimsmo: Your tool load, is it something? reasonable, even 30 % spindle loads. have decent cut.
John Saunders: I don't know what the load limit was, but Garrett has started to apply them just so that we don't.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John Saunders: blow parts up and blow bodies up. Um, And this one night I woke up at 5 .30 and there was one part left. in the empty station.
johngrimsmo: You caught it, yeah.
John Saunders: And I was like, oh man, it stopped with one part left. And then I scrubbed backward to look at the history. I'm like. Oh. No. That's the last part to load. And. and then sure enough right then it happened to be about ready to load it and i'll tell you we've talked about this on this podcast before you know here to automation owning automation and implementing automation when it actually runs.
johngrimsmo: Yep. yep
John Saunders: overnight, especially The... payoff of our It's our vision. It's not like our unique idea to feed raw material, but. um to actually have it work with such a low effort system where to re -load this whole infeed station can take.
John Saunders: 45 seconds like just to drop the material in and that
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: two minutes call it two minutes gets you another 18 hours of run time is
johngrimsmo: You need another robot to load the robot.
John Saunders: Yeah, yeah while the other robots are getting installed right now.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: It's it's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's... That's exciting. 18 hours of run is what you can get.
John Saunders: Yeah. No. but was um
johngrimsmo: Give or take.
John Saunders: the infeed with 25 parts is probably only Um, No, it's probably half that. It's probably 10 hours. What we've been doing. because the kids have activities every night is um i've been trying to see how hard we can push the automation to stress it to see
johngrimsmo: Yep. yep
John Saunders: you know um and we're already at the point where we're producing sufficient numbers. So that's great.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And so I usually come back at eight o 'clock. and just drop a few more parts in the end feed. Um... Sorry.
johngrimsmo: Do you have to... tell it that you added more parts?
John Saunders: Sure don't.
johngrimsmo: Really?
John Saunders: Nope. It interrogates the first and last one.
johngrimsmo: As now.
John Saunders: And if it finds neither.
johngrimsmo: There you go
John Saunders: then... It stops, but like, otherwise. so let's say there's 25 stations let's say there's got it's got seven left so there's 18 empties if i fin this if i put material on the first six it's fine it'll do them all gets the seventh one it sees that there's no part there in it stops.
johngrimsmo: Awesome. So basically it goes A to Z down the rack. And when it gets to the last one, it starts over at A.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: and if there's anything there it keeps going if there's nothing there it stops
John Saunders: Big O.
johngrimsmo: Brilliant. So simple.
John Saunders: And I'm really proud of. Everything we've done the little stuff around that chip control the gardening around the vices we have three Reolink home assistant cameras that have Frigate behind them that have good scrubbing data.
John Saunders: I already wrote the script. It's actually not even implemented right now where if it does stop, it can email me the clip of the 30 seconds of footage prior to it.
johngrimsmo: Yes. Remember you told me about that.
John Saunders: Yeah, it's just like all this stuff is. And that's, I guess that's the. momentum I'm feeling is That and some of the other stuff I haven't mentioned. yet is really just the convergence of. a bunch of work that we've been doing over the past six months.
johngrimsmo: <unk> awesome Yeah, it's a different kind of special when... You get everything solid enough that you're like, okay, that runs 25 parts. If I ran 75 parts, it would give me the same result.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: and it just you you build trust in the tooling and the process and the tool life in the chip management in the loading station and then you just know that it works it's like when we got our swiss laid to that point and we're like yep we know You know, titanium wears tools. We get a thousand parts out of this tool. But until then, it's just going to run.
johngrimsmo: Um, because we've already debugged all of the automation issues of you know. ejecting the part from the collet and collecting the parts at the end and tool life and coolant aim and all that stuff.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Do you still use the lazy Susan?
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: It's like...
John Saunders: That's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Eight years old.
John Saunders: Yeah, I was just going to ask you.
johngrimsmo: I can't believe it actually still like functions. um What I should do is actually, I think I have the code backed up, but I should really... um It's an Arduino, and I don't really know anything about Arduinos, but I should like copy that code and just save it somewhere so that if I do need to recreate it, I have the structure of the code, but it's not hard to make.
John Saunders: oh Sure. sure Yeah. i'm long overdue to come up and say hi because i feel like sometimes that's what gets lost in The folks that have enjoyed following are.
John Saunders: journeys It's like, there's lots of things that we. Took out of service or didn't work or were just big fails, but it was also
johngrimsmo: that everybody thinks we still do.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure. But then it's also like, no, there's the little things where it's like, no, this actually worked out great. We use it every day.
johngrimsmo: And it might have been just a passing. you know, point that i mentioned to you five years ago and're like no no like every day we use this
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: Awesome.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Alright, what's next on your list?
johngrimsmo: Mom, mom, mom, mom. Yeah, our new hiring customer support has been awesome. Today's day three. Everything's great. Just super great. Yep.
John Saunders: Can't argue with that.
johngrimsmo: And then... And soon Ryan's going to start to have more time to work on our media and marketing. get through I've got a whole backlog of videos, my whole California trip. that I filmed. like like nine shop tours.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yep.
johngrimsmo: um i have all that footage and we need to get to it and it's gonna There's a lot of clippable content from that that I really want to have a lot of fun with.
John Saunders: Good.
johngrimsmo: I toured Pearson's shop. um both his, you know, Pearson Workholding and Picola Tiny Homes.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And. So much cool stuff.
John Saunders: Good, I think I speak for everybody that we're all
johngrimsmo: okay Yeah.
John Saunders: Looking forward to watching those.
johngrimsmo: Cut. And that's kind of evergreen stuff. Like it it doesn't. go old it's not like oh we can't post it anymore because it that was six months ago
John Saunders: Oh yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like, no, it's fine. um Some of these shops will have evolved and they will watch this video and they'll be like, dude, that's not how we do it anymore. but to everybody else.
John Saunders: But... But I think one thing you and I have learned. and in the spirit of trying to keep everything we talk about here candid. It's just like the longer those videos don't get made.
John Saunders: the higher the probability that the the footage.
johngrimsmo: Correct.
John Saunders: She said the clerk's dust. And I am.
johngrimsmo: Totally.
John Saunders: 100 % guilty as this with other projects.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm.
John Saunders: I've learned it. buying the you know Raspberry Pi has no correlation to be actually implementing. the thing, which again ties back to why I'm so happy this week that I've actually... brought a bunch of things to the finish line not across it but to the finish line
johngrimsmo: Yep. yep exactly i mean i filmed a lot at imts 2022 the last one i went to
John Saunders: but
johngrimsmo: And we never made a video from it. And there's like good stuff in there.
John Saunders: Wait, there hold on, hold on. There was no 22 because that was the quote -unquote spark IMTS that nobody...
johngrimsmo: That was 20.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. We were there. You and I were there in 2022.
John Saunders: Oh my God, COVID -19. Oh my God, it was that long ago.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Oh my god. It's crazy.
johngrimsmo: Crazy.
John Saunders: Okay, yeah, thanks for the correction.
johngrimsmo: Hey.
John Saunders: Holy cow
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I did have the thought if I had more capacity or or outsourced it or something. I wanted to... um slap together the 2022 video and launch it like before mts get everybody hyped
John Saunders: Ha ha.
johngrimsmo: But I never got around to it. But you're right, exactly. That's a lot of good footage.
John Saunders: Oh my God.
johngrimsmo: That's a good video that never it just sat on a hard drive and nobody ever did anything with it. um But I do want to film again this year and make a nice little trip out of it Yeah.
John Saunders: a Keep going. That was... What's going with the probing?
johngrimsmo: With the probing, um it turns out... Um... Renishaw came in a couple years ago and installed sort of updated probing. routines and files but we never got any documentation for it so when we when the guys here wanted to like calibrate the probe they pulled out the binder like we used to do before and they're like following the routines and getting nothing but errors
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And it it turns out it's just a mismatch of like, oh, we loaded some programs and there's a new routine and we didn't give you the documentation for that new routine. and Yeah. We got to figure it out.
John Saunders: Thank you.
johngrimsmo: eventually but
John Saunders: Got it.
johngrimsmo: But in the process of that, I actually built something into GURP that I've been wanting for a long time. because If you've ever singled blocked through a probing routine, You know, there's about 7 ,000.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Subroutines and they jump back and they jump back and they jump back and then you can't follow it in your head It's just impossible And I've always wanted to. visualize the tree of all of those sub sub programs so i built that into gerb
John Saunders: Oh yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: And I just have a page for custom scripts and I get to put all my fancy little things in there. And you basically open a file and point it to a folder. And so you open the root. probing file whatever it's called 9001 call it And then.
johngrimsmo: Be hip. analyze and it just okay then it opens this file and then it opens this file then it comes back to here and then it goes to here and it trees them all out into a little chart And it tells you a list of.
johngrimsmo: If you're running the master probing file, it uses these 17 subprograms. So make sure they're all on the machine.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Because I basically got... three versions of probing over the 10 years we've had that machine. And I'm not even sure which ones needed for which purpose, all that.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So it was cool. It's cool to visualize it. and it could come in handy. mostly just for probing stuff but To visualize the subroutine tree is pretty cool.
John Saunders: kind Can I... Be rude.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John Saunders: Why? Who cares?
johngrimsmo: I've had to care, especially on Speedio. as I'm trying to do a fancy thing and I want to see where things are looping back and coming down. um
John Saunders: Okay. They help you problem -solve.
johngrimsmo: Like for probing stuff. It does help me problem solve for sure.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: For this situation, um We were in communication with Renishaw, but they weren't able to come on site like as soon as we wanted.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um And this was 20 minutes of... vibe programming to uh to do.
John Saunders: Yeah, sure, sure.
johngrimsmo: Um,
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: But yeah.
John Saunders: Interesting. I like it. the Datrons of the world, even Haas, like... We've obviously been the hottest user now for... All right. 10 years and They... just make the probing stuff Simple.
John Saunders: and
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: We've now also owned with machines like Willamons, Okumas, and Brothers, and who not a fan of RoboDrills. and every single one of these machine tool builders should be taken out back and shot for how unbelievably abhorrent and inconsistent the probing installation is the wiring the documentation the procedures the support the software We are.
John Saunders: unbelievably happy with our new brothers. I'm We've bought three of them. I can't imagine it'll be our last I can't say enough good things about where our shop is heading.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: But. right now if i want to go probe apart i open up this weird external software It doesn't call up the tool. I have to then create a program which goes into MDI. I then have to go through soft keys to delete it, repaste it in.
John Saunders: um the amount of unnecessary clicks is
johngrimsmo: i I built or I used, I modified somebody else's like kind of master programming programs that do a lot of that for you.
John Saunders: Okay. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I'm happy to send you mine. They're based off of i think black. Well, sir.
John Saunders: Black was? Okay. Thank you.
johngrimsmo: or Greg or something like that.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: um But it basically takes a lot of that. You're not writing a program. All you're doing is changing your... fixture offset and and feature diameter.
John Saunders: okay
johngrimsmo: like two 900 macro variables and then you could go. and there's like 10 programs that's like id bore od bore side to side up and down And that makes it so much easier because you're right.
John Saunders: Yeah where with
johngrimsmo: typing in you know six lines of code every single time is just the dumbest thing ever.
John Saunders: Thank you. I would happily accept that offer and we will probably implement that.
johngrimsmo: Okay. Red dough.
John Saunders: but it kind of mix makes the point moot which is that like then You know, you or I are going to get a bunch of people that are trying to go hack their way through this when it's like, no.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: This kind of leadership, it's just like when... Apple did the iPhone, Elon Musk did the... tesla i just randomly watched this turkish guitar builder that has this whole guitar that totally reinvents the way guitars are built or interchangeable necks built -in effects like pickups that can be swapped in one second like
johngrimsmo: Really?
johngrimsmo: how it should be.
John Saunders: Well... That's a little bit more edge casey weird, but like. you could look at a guitar electric guitar and be like we're done innovating like it's pretty good and this is just Holy cow, I didn't even think about any of that.
johngrimsmo: Heh heh heh.
John Saunders: And it's just like, why? You know, you know, I've talked about this before, but like wires. probing why do the machines not have full awareness of what's on them like sort of the Okuma calls it CAS and it's a pain in the butt to build the whole solid model of your machine with the work holding but like
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: you shouldn't be able to jog a probe into a vice and and it should be able to probing should be like on a detron. drag a picture around it and hit go. and um A. $100 webcam can easily tell you the dirt screen tool pull out and a little blob of of swore for birds nests that's on the end of the tap.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: I'll stop my rant there. but
johngrimsmo: But I think... ah machine tool builders. was' I heard somebody try to defend. Oh, it was like... like The size of memory on a machine.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like how how machine has like. you know 50 megabytes of memory at most or something stupid like that
John Saunders: Or like 500 kilobytes. Yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah. And it was something about the um volatility and reliability of a machine that needs to last for like. 50 years in service kind of thing. And I think it was on one of Justin's posts. It was like this chat, this chain of Justin was complaining.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But I can hold a terabyte SD card in my hand. Why does my machine have 500 kilobytes? And somebody who was writing back fairly. educatedly it sounded like Where it's like, well... The reliability is more important than the size.
johngrimsmo: And then... still no excuse but it was interesting you know
John Saunders: Yeah, I'm alright. It sounds like I'm not as educated as the person that was giving an articulate response, but my my response to that would be... yeah if it's 1997 and you're selling uh uh press that's going to go into a gm factory for 30 years that's different but like the world has changed now you have
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Agreed.
John Saunders: this whole ecosystem of job shop users that are That are in adaptive programming and memories change below. So I don't I'm still at soul, I'll put it that way.
johngrimsmo: totally Nope.
John Saunders: Well, so you got did you get your... Mori fixed.
johngrimsmo: Yes.
John Saunders: Or what was the punchline?
johngrimsmo: I didn't even touch it, but Jeff and Angelo. And Renishaw, like chatting with Renishaw. they gotta figure it out um we had the wrong combination of files on there and the We basically didn't have documentation for what they thought we were supposed to be doing Heh.
johngrimsmo: So.
John Saunders: So there's nothing wrong with the program machine.
johngrimsmo: Correct. But that was a concern at some point.
John Saunders: That's great.
johngrimsmo: Like, oh, is something, you know, not communicating properly?
John Saunders: Mm -mm.
johngrimsmo: No, it's solid. um It was just a... subroutine like issue and and order of operations and like which master to run and what are the rules and what are the calls and all that stuff.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And so we basically told them like, yeah, all that. new stuff they call it go probe um we need We need the printed.
John Saunders: Yeah, we have
johngrimsmo: pamphlet. for that so we can keep it in our notebooks. like
John Saunders: I'll tell you that's when you say that because I've now become way more in tune with making sure I try to collect pdfs of of software or user manuals or api stuff because now you're like wait a minute all this stuff is getting dumped into our wiki and then eventually notebook lm um because that the way that LLMs can parse through.
John Saunders: those instruction sets is. is just the nectar of life.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: It's great.
johngrimsmo: mind blog -boggling.
John Saunders: Yeah. Yeah.
John Saunders: Okay. Here's a win. You put a... .5006 gauge pin. Deltronics engagement in front of a vision system.
John Saunders: and you hit calibrate you then take that pin off and you put a 4991 pin in the thing and you ask the software, what diameter do you think this is?
John Saunders: and within a few seconds it responds. I believe this is a 49925. And so your system has a flaw in that it's a tenth and a half off.
johngrimsmo: Is it repeatable?
John Saunders: It was repeatable and that was my first calibration attempt.
johngrimsmo: Oh my gosh. With a camera.
John Saunders: on. on the telecentric.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: collimated light lens system.
johngrimsmo: With a backlight.
John Saunders: Yeah, now how's it back?
johngrimsmo: So it's like a real vision system, yeah.
John Saunders: It's pretty janky if you look at my desk right now, but.
johngrimsmo: I know how that goes yeah.
John Saunders: Um, Yeah.
johngrimsmo: No, but technology -wise.
John Saunders: i
johngrimsmo: telecentric lens like good camera good pixel density ratio and a good good backlight.
John Saunders: Yep. Yep.
johngrimsmo: then that makes sense, absolutely.
John Saunders: and And for sure, a lot of vibe coding.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: and It's not for the faint of heart, but... It's also the world is your oyster.
johngrimsmo: Possible.
John Saunders: Yeah. um and not i mean an ecstatic i would like to push that tense stuff and do some more stress testing to see how well it performs and how it is but even for what grant was wanting on some much looser thread tolerances
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: of kind of a quick go no go vision system that can check. Thread pitch, crest root, minor mac major, minor, etc. We're already there. It's like going to be a huge Huge value add.
johngrimsmo: ah That's awesome.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Would you ever want to... Probably not necessary, but if you left... the calibration pin in view. while adding new parts all the time. I don't know if that's necessary.
johngrimsmo: You know what I mean? They have your reference always there.
John Saunders: It's a good question
johngrimsmo: I don't think so, because when I calibrated mine, it was just like a... pixel ratio and that's it And it doesn't change, really.
John Saunders: When I was Looking for some abnormalities, it did seem to be more consistent if I had the part in the same area of the field of view.
johngrimsmo: o
John Saunders: And the software did say that the calibration there is still some distortion in the lens. And so there was a this is literally when I had to leave last night. Actually, I stayed late last night, which I don't do anymore.
johngrimsmo: You having fun?
John Saunders: But. It was It was great.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Basically, we can build a calibration map across the whole lens versus a current static calibration distancing um
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like a series of dots or like how something like that
John Saunders: the Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm Um, And we're phasing it it in in a way that I think makes it really palatable there. um we have another system i'll talk about in a second but um both can just be hand used by the operator right now as they see fit i think that gives the developer like me and alex or whoever chances to iterate on it and and and test and it gives the users a chance to buy in and say, like hey, this is a great quality of life improvement.
John Saunders: It really works. And then.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: The step after that would be then to put it in. and with the UR robot systems.
johngrimsmo: This is for your vision system like like your guys are already using it as I was saying
John Saunders: the No, nobody's using the vision system yet, although I think Grant would use it this afternoon if I gave it to him. and i I couldn't get to it today, to be fair, but I could get it to him tomorrow if I wanted to. I won't, but I could. The other one is we now have... four of these Mitsutoyu linear gauges.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: I bought the junkie one. to test where it's somewhere else and then i finally like this works i need four brand new ones that are
johngrimsmo: okay
John Saunders: Bussing. and we have a pinch gauge thing for checking consistent half inch thicknesses on mod vice parts where Right now...
John Saunders: Garrett gets you in the morning. they have 40 parts that came off the brother he has to hand mike two spots on 40 parts that's 80 parts he's got a Points he's got to touch.
johngrimsmo: m
John Saunders: now with this system by hand you can just slide the part in and out you get three measurement points at the same time um
johngrimsmo: And it logs it automatically. and
John Saunders: It can. Right now we have a Raspberry Pi with a touchscreen. We just have color band range.
johngrimsmo: Go, no -go.
John Saunders: in it is outputting to a database within the Pi, but that was just because chat asked me. I said, yeah, sure, call it. I was like, yeah, sure, why not?
johngrimsmo: yeah yeah
John Saunders: We will do more with it later. um It was like in the in the beer tasting better scenarios, like if I can give Garrett a system that just lets him. Just slide a part in you know meet it meat into the taco.
John Saunders: that's a huge win.
johngrimsmo: Mhm. Love it.
John Saunders: Yeah. it's really cool and alex actually i should get sorry i could ramble all day alex really cool You know how on a bamboo printer, when it slides on some of them, when it slides over the head, actuate a cut tool. So basically you get an extra.
John Saunders: piece of kinematic pinching that Doesn't cost you a new motor or something. It just basically moves over bumps or something to like cut or trim the filament.
johngrimsmo: Okay. Yeah.
John Saunders: um Not the not the most novel idea in the world and in fact a viewer or somebody even suggested it to me I don't remember who but credit to them. So when I was discussing this with Alex,
John Saunders: He was like, yep, I got it. And this is what I love having. of smart engineer on the team so now when the robot feeds the part in or even the hand operator where your thumb is or where the gripper is is a plunger when you push that plunger down it pushes the three mitsutoyo plungers back 50 thou that way when the part goes into the jig
johngrimsmo: I was wondering about that.
John Saunders: It doesn't even have to push the plungers up, which it could. They could roll up on the f friction on the horse, but you don't even have to now.
johngrimsmo: been Hmm. So you're retracting the measuring plungers.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: with a little thumb lever.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: I like that.
John Saunders: Yeah. Right?
johngrimsmo: Clever.
John Saunders: Yeah. Coming together.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. I like that you're you built the the linear measuring thingies and the vision system with a very specific use case in mind so that you can literally put it on the shop floor as soon as possible.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Whereas what I'm building is more theoretical, more like, oh, it'd be nice to measure these parts and I want it for this. And, you know, my eventual goal is to measure it for this, but. It's like... it's a different thought process because I'm in a way I'm sort of building it to have at home.
johngrimsmo: I'm not building it to put on the shop floor, even though I do want to, but it's it's different, right? Yeah.
John Saunders: your This is for your... intrare I always get yours confusing because you talk about the... white light interferometer, which is different.
johngrimsmo: Right. And vision system.
John Saunders: and then
johngrimsmo: It's currently the same machine where I change the backlight or I change the camera or something like that.
John Saunders: okay
johngrimsmo: um But it's the same structure.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: And I'm kind of trying to two -in -one it. which I realize now is not the greatest idea. um because they have totally different use cases and totally different assemblies of lenses and parts and cameras. and That's fine. But that's how you learn.
johngrimsmo: but that
John Saunders: Yeah, I i really. I think you... what you said was not a mistake like i do well when i have a focused
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Task on it. um Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yep. well And I love to hear that you're getting it. ah on the shop floor, get feedback as soon as possible. as soon as it's like even functional. And then. Yeah.
John Saunders: but to To be fair, because I also want to make myself sound like some, you know. whatever. like perfect execute. I got back, I built these when I was in New York a month ago. They've sat on my desk for a month.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And they could have sat on my desk for another month. Um, And I was like, nope, John. These are valuable tools you you've got them to within vision you know within scene distance of the finish line. And then yesterday I think we brought them to the finish line.
John Saunders: and like i said the the linear gauge one as well that could for sure be used in a shop. tomorrow.
johngrimsmo: eyes
John Saunders: I should like you said that I wanted to um I was finding a hard milling. Thing this morning, which was kind of ticking me off but I wanted to build a frame or print something.
John Saunders: for the vision system because right now the parts are just all strewn across my desk
johngrimsmo: e
John Saunders: thank
johngrimsmo: Yeah, but it's good a good reminder to... building something for the betterment of the shop and to actually get people's hands on it as soon as possible. which is what i spent the past two weeks doing with buyer's choice um We had an old buyer's choice system that was made by a developer.
johngrimsmo: And then... worked great for two and a half years and then we wanted a bunch more functionality so i dove in the past two weeks and i like launched it um first soft launch it flew within the company showed a bunch of people um Just last night, I emailed everybody on our team. like an actual purchase link.
johngrimsmo: and so that they can see the whole customer -facing like process.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: and then uh started picking a whole bunch of names so it's like Live now and we're still developing it and I could develop it till the end of time But I needed to like launch it and push it um and it was sort of a big deal to turn off the old system and to convert to this system
John Saunders: So yeah.
johngrimsmo: And it still took longer than I thought. Like we went a week without taking any orders, which is a big deal. And then.
John Saunders: without any buyers choice.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: Yeah, okay.
johngrimsmo: And then, you know, the shop's still consuming and and finishing these orders. So the amount of orders going through the shop start getting smaller and smaller. And it's like, okay. It's time to pull more people and get more orders flowing through.
johngrimsmo: um But it's working. It's working well.
John Saunders: Do you not do any, I guess, maker's choice these days?
johngrimsmo: Nope. No, we do um pretty much 100%.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: of our production is customer orders
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Yep special um you know, every Pattern color feature. blade finish. uh of what we have available like we don't always have damage steel available And. um Yeah, pretty much 100 % of the orders.
johngrimsmo: And then any...
John Saunders: Is that for... The knives or also the pen?
johngrimsmo: It depends too, yeah.
John Saunders: Interesting.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and it it works. Um, It works well. And the... um a lot of us can say.
John Saunders: Sirah, sorry I interrupted you.
johngrimsmo: any Any people... that unfortunately ghost or don't follow through with their order. um We try to minimize that as much as possible, but... Uh... Those orders end up going on the public inventory on the website, and then we sell them that way anyway.
John Saunders: got it
johngrimsmo: But we're no longer... purposely building products for that inventory. It's sort of a trickle down effect of the orders placed and that it works, but I've had a lot of time to think and plan.
John Saunders: Yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: and strategize as to what is the best version of this.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: Um, And and you know what does that look like and what can I do to... manage and control that without making it to Grimm's More Complicated which is my default Um, But it's fun.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Well, I don't know if I appreciate it. now especially when you talk about like hey we shut off the whole system and it's a major revenue part for us like now i sort of realize oh yeah that is it is a lot
johngrimsmo: Right. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. And it's been, been cool having the old system for two and a half years that tracked a lot of data and I could import all that data and like rename it or, or sync it in the database to like the new system so that the new system can report on both old data and new data.
johngrimsmo: Everything from like form open rates to conversion rates to ghost rates to.
John Saunders: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: time in shop, time time it takes to make the order from the moment it plays to the moment they pay. Um, how many people don't pay, how long people take to pay. and And to be able to present all this information in GURP in a nice dashboard that actually makes sense.
johngrimsmo: has been fun. It's been really good.
John Saunders: Yeah, cool
johngrimsmo: and then sort of nerve wracking to like share it to the team. You're like, what do you think? Like, I think it's pretty cool, but I'm too deep into it. Let me know what you think.
John Saunders: Yeah, right. right So like on a Norseman blade... you have different... materials, but... certainly not as many variants of the blade as like say the candles so like if somebody goes and places a buyer's choice is there a chance that that the the blade is already done
johngrimsmo: Correct. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um Like in the shop, like machined.
John Saunders: Yeah, like in inventory effectively.
johngrimsmo: There is a chance. I want to get to the point where that's a definite. Um, I want to get to the point where our main standard options are like, machined ready.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: it Like six available, whatever. And then we take orders and then.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: in a perfect world the orders can be finished almost that day because we have various inventory of parts and they just have to be like assembled sharpened finalized anodized to the specific color
John Saunders: Okay. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um Right.
John Saunders: Oh.
johngrimsmo: Because.
John Saunders: Color was going to be my question. Like, how could you have purple dragon skin, blah, blah, blah.
johngrimsmo: You wouldn't.
John Saunders: Okay, got it.
johngrimsmo: But you could have a honeycomb handle. you can have six so honeycomb handles already processed machined tumbled cleaned ready to be anodized which is fast and then assembled which is fairly fast and then sharpened so that final stage is like you know 10 of the work
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Of time and effort and stuff And 90 % of that work could theoretically be done. if we can sit on the inventory. of all options and all things. And I want to get to that point.
johngrimsmo: We do sometimes um in some ways.
John Saunders: first
johngrimsmo: But I want to kind of... build more of a Kanban system where we have those things and we replenish and consume them. at at demand as opposed to
John Saunders: Yeah. Yep.
johngrimsmo: say the opposite is an order goes to the machine shop we look at the order we make the handles we make the blade and then they go to heat treat and then they come back to grinding and they order like sits around for six weeks because we are making the parts.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: If we can get ahead of the game, we can turn around and order in. you know two days in a best case scenario assuming nothing goes weird or wrong Um, Yeah, so that's fascinating too.
John Saunders: We, we... different world but went through that because Tormach, the Tormach orders. um as they resell our products which we appreciate um have gotten bigger and they're lumpy and lumpy is really tough because they'll they'll place a po and it's like oh my gosh They need 30 assembled mod vices or something.
John Saunders: And. um
johngrimsmo: What does lumpy mean?
John Saunders: Lumpy mean like we don't have an order from Tormach. for a month or two and then all of a sudden they place an order that's the equivalent of like 10 normal days of our of our shop
johngrimsmo: Okay. yeah
John Saunders: And. The answer is unbelievably simple. It's just basically what you said. It's like now we have a rack dedicated to Tormach where we have pre -assembled. in anticipation of what their normal pos are and yeah if you need three more it's no big deal
johngrimsmo: Basically, that's what Pearson does.
John Saunders: Yeah, is that is that right?
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Okay. yeah
johngrimsmo: you'll see when I have my latest shop tour video edited and put together.
John Saunders: Good.
johngrimsmo: But yeah, they try to anticipate those kinds of things.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: They're happy to sit on finished inventory to a degree.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: And because they want to. basically do the work when they have time. and not stress when they normal people would be stressing. And it's it's... Fascinating. And they just want to be ready and they're ahead of the game.
John Saunders: Yeah. And it is great because now they get we get a ah nice PO and you're just like, oh, pick, pick, bam, pack it up the next morning.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: You know.
johngrimsmo: Like what a feeling.
John Saunders: the doesn't always happen because
johngrimsmo: Right.
John Saunders: But yeah, it's... it's so obvious but i would encourage you like to be now sort of on the other side of that like yeah somebody goes in places a really nice maker's choice to be able to be in that position to be like grab grab grab grab grab you know anodize assemble polish Oh, that's great.
johngrimsmo: Right.
johngrimsmo: Yep, that's my dream. And then, yeah, this is what I talked with, with Pearson and Uriel from austere and Justin, a lot of people on the California trip. even the SpaceX guy. um how they run inventory of components and stuff.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: was was how to flow that and then how do you know when to make more and how do you know how much more to make of what to make and you know say your minimum is six honeycomb handles, finished, tumbled, whatever. when that gets down to six or three or whatever the number is then it goes up the chain and they pull more and they pull more and then
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then they get machine more and then. everything's flowing and constantly Yeah. i want to get there
John Saunders: To gr - it's a I don't even say great. It's like a necessary hedge against disruptions, whether that's. a storm or a spindle down or a compressor down to have
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: something in stock that you can convert into revenue.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: is something that I think is. prudent at when as you these businesses have gotten to the size they are.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and it's it's an interesting... um conversation about inventory levels and like a work in process and like money sitting in all these different stages.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um you know in that scenario we may have literally hundreds of knives worth of parts flowing in different stages throughout the shop. in different value of completion. And you know with only 10 available to finish at the end of the line.
johngrimsmo: but Our turnaround is now a day instead of 20 days or whatever it is. um And that cut that. okay requires like a holding cost of x amount of dollars of parts and material and then you still need raw material how much
John Saunders: Sure.
johngrimsmo: and Is that lean or does it? Fly in the face of lean of having too much inventory or do I care? I don't know but I like that flow where it's just like. Nobody's ever waiting for anything. Everybody has every cell has what they need.
johngrimsmo: to accomplish the work that is required of them. because they have raw materials at every stage. And then. ah the customer also is not really waiting because when the order hits the assembly guy,
johngrimsmo: the assembly guy has all the stuff he needs to anodize assemble sharpen Finish. And like that's... Awesome. I want to get there.
John Saunders: yeah Yeah. i Always happy to to listen, but I would happily hop in a boxing ring ring with somebody who wants to tell me that. no lean means you know just in time everything like no dude like
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: one single hiccup of the repercussions of the amount of downtime and stress and call loss of quality of life. and cost like Huh.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: Um, Now, to your point, what you just said is yes. between raw material inventory and finished goods inventory you have a lot tied up the working capital
johngrimsmo: You really do, yeah.
John Saunders: Totally fair point.
johngrimsmo: Yep. And what's interesting in GURPA added a thing, all the open orders throughout the shop. i put a dollar figure next to them because we know the retail price of the product.
John Saunders: Yeah. Right.
johngrimsmo: And so there are. X. dollars of product flowing through the shop right now and now there's full visibility everybody in the company You can see that.
John Saunders: Let's go.
johngrimsmo: You can even sort it by department. In the finishing department, there's X dollars of parts. um Oh, there's most in the manufacturing department, machine shop right now. and Oh, there's so many like waiting to be invoiced or have been invoiced, haven't been paid yet.
John Saunders: here
johngrimsmo: All this like tracking stuff. it's great
John Saunders: Yeah. Good.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I'm already hearing actually Eric, my brother, gushed in our team meeting the other day and as he's been playing with the new dashboard in the system. And he's like, it's actually pretty. Pretty handy. I'm like, oh, thanks, bro. Like, that really means a lot coming from you. like I'm glad you like it. I built it for everybody, you know.
johngrimsmo: You feel validated and vindicated.
John Saunders: Good.
johngrimsmo: It's not like. I'm not building this for me. I'm building this for the company.
John Saunders: Right. right
johngrimsmo: yeah know i'm I'm having fun with it, but... I'm building it for the team. Icon. more step away and dive into the next thing. and give them the tools they need to like see all the data and process the orders and then also customer the UI side.
johngrimsmo: customer experience.
John Saunders: ah
johngrimsmo: you know make it really nice for them too.
John Saunders: Dude, that idea of tracking a knife through, like I just feel like a connection to the company and like it feels like they care and you're getting a peek inside.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: like That's pretty cool.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and I built... um Now, as the order flows through manufacturing, finishing, I forget if I told you this last week, but like. the customer gets a progress email. like a Domino's pizza tracker that's like, oh, your order is now in finishing.
John Saunders: yes Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Here's where we do sharpening and anodizing and things like that, you know.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: It's great.
John Saunders: Love it.
johngrimsmo: It's great.
John Saunders: Yeah good.
johngrimsmo: So I already have great feedback from. customers and everything so
John Saunders: We um, we had another quality of life win. of when we had the three brothers installed. We had the conduit done real nice. that ill um All the electrical work was done. They look great.
John Saunders: And then I was like, hey, I want. Um. extension or power strips at each machine. And I was like, dragging these 15 foot, like nice brand new. power strips, but like the cord going over to the wall. I'm like, dude, no, what are we doing? So I called back the electrician. I was like, hey, you just installed all that. Can you fit another 110 circuit inside that conduit? He goes, yeah, that's no problem.
John Saunders: So each of our brothers now has a dedicated 110 circuit.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: Each machine, it looks professional.
johngrimsmo: is.
John Saunders: The conduits. cables inside of there and then for the robot the skimmer the stuff we do with our coolant the computer if you're a computer there is now all nice and neat at that machine It just.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: It's... War is a heart.
johngrimsmo: Mount one of those Trond. Power Strips. It's like...
John Saunders: That's what it was. Oh, sorry. Are you the one that recommended that?
johngrimsmo: Yeah. yeah
John Saunders: Yeah
johngrimsmo: Yeah. with like four to eight outlets or whatever per machine yeah we started doing that
John Saunders: Okay.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: Not the cleanest installation, but yeah, every machine now has a little power strip next to it for. all that stuff.
John Saunders: Well, the the other thing that had happened, which I think I had mentioned, is that... just through innocent growth, we were hitting. Um. we were hitting load limits on 20 amp circuits throughout our shop because You just, you have.
John Saunders: uh maybe an angle grinder plugged in one day a shop vac plugged in ah ah a hot air gun or something and
johngrimsmo: No way.
John Saunders: um So pulling pulling some of these Subsystems off like everybody's computers are now on a separate circuit the lights are on a separate circuit We actually had the electrolysis install a separate dedicated Freddie circuit um the freddie pulls some power and now it's like great
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John Saunders: we have outlets that are only for the freddy and That was easy.
johngrimsmo: Like multiple outlets around the shop that are kind of Freddie
John Saunders: One circuit with two outlets.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: It's labeled Freddy only and with the beefy extension cord that came with the freddy one outlet or excuse me, one circuit, two outlets should work. Although we have some other outlets that we also. can use for the Freddie.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: So. Okay.
johngrimsmo: How's the Friday been for you guys?
John Saunders: Um...
John Saunders: The Freddy is great. I still struggle. So, okay. Let's say we have a cool tank that I'm like, man. this is you know We just installed the new brothers. The coolant is so fresh. It smells great. One that's not bad coolant, but it doesn't seem as great.
John Saunders: If I cycle to the Freddy. Great, that's easy. But then. Cleaning the Freddy after that.
johngrimsmo: Exactly.
John Saunders: is is a nightmare. It really is. um And.
johngrimsmo: It's like you feel like you should, that you need to. But. You don't want to, really.
John Saunders: Well, I do. Yeah, you do need to. and the The best thing I've thought...
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: wait i haven't done it because it's just you just don't is i'd like to get like a 20 gallon mini barrel with only cleaner in it.
johngrimsmo: o
John Saunders: And hopefully the cleaner can tolerate.
johngrimsmo: a few runs or something
John Saunders: The... yeah many runs like a year's worth of runs because then you go clean a machine your freddy's nasty um
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: or whatever hopefully not now but that's the point it's supposed to It's supposed to get. keep the nastiness inside of it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: And then you can give a quick like. I guess just run through the cleaner and then the cleaner every year you just gotta cycle that you know Saying that out loud makes it sound easier.
johngrimsmo: Would you want a... Would you want to water rinse after that? I don't know. After the cleaner,
John Saunders: Shouldn't have. half. to I think the issue is...
johngrimsmo: yeah
John Saunders: nothing goes out of the dream so like If you're the cleaner can get kept in the, in a little mini barrel.
johngrimsmo: mm -hmm
John Saunders: if it's then if you like you know i Don't know if you like mop it down. I'm not worried about that. But like I'm not gonna take the Freddie and just dump
johngrimsmo: totally Yeah.
John Saunders: It has to go into a... Safety clean tote and like we're paying five dollars a gallon to get rid of of that these days so i don't
johngrimsmo: any of anything yeah
John Saunders: Yeah. So it's like, I don't really want to like.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah
John Saunders: Whatever.
johngrimsmo: Now that could work.
John Saunders: Okay.
johngrimsmo: But yeah, I haven't used the Freddie much myself, but the team.
John Saunders: I'll put that on my list too. Thanks.
johngrimsmo: definitely talks about that too. It's like, I'd love to use it more, but I really want to put it away clean because we don't want any bacteria or anything to grow in it.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: So it's it's a bit of a job. Two. do that. um Maybe some some shops use it often enough.
John Saunders: Yep.
johngrimsmo: have enough floods that the Freddy's just just used and they can put it away wet and like not feel too bad about it.
John Saunders: Huh?
johngrimsmo: but um No, I agree. The Freddy itself is amazing, but... the the usage and the maintenance of it is is a step you know.
John Saunders: Yeah. It's funny because I it's easier to clean than the old thing. We had that big blue thing but still um I can't get it clean by hand. You almost wish it was a...
John Saunders: uh rectangle your like a box that one side came off that way you could go with a squeegee In just.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John Saunders: squeeze you the four sides. And then it's like. great Now we have evacuated everything out of it.
johngrimsmo: Right. Yeah, interesting
John Saunders: We actually did, sorry to ramble, we 3D printed a... Scraper tool that is matches the radius of the Freddie because even when you empty it you're still left with a little bit at the bottom because the drain lip is above it and so like get that 3d print tool with a rag on it helps you clean that last bit out But it's still, you get.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Nice.
John Saunders: You could do the Freddie and say, so. clean like you can do the freddy if you're wearing a business suit But to clean a Freddy, you might as well jump into a sewer.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I i haven't looked at it but the The drain does not get that last little bit at the bottom, does it? It'd be nice if it was like an angled drain out the bottom that...
John Saunders: Sure does.
johngrimsmo: Gravity 1.
John Saunders: Right.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. version 7 for them. Okay.
John Saunders: Uh, i'll leave I'll leave since we're kind of at our...
johngrimsmo: week to week.
John Saunders: time limit is uh we're going to run the first barfed mill prototype part today
johngrimsmo: No way.
John Saunders: Um, it's very much a prototype like there's all not all the equipment's there but like we're going
johngrimsmo: Yeah, but
John Saunders: It's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Cool.
John Saunders: Yeah. Super happy.
johngrimsmo: And you're doing it on a... Traveling table. like you'll figure it out.
John Saunders: But it'll be fine.
johngrimsmo: Make it work.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Cirque.
John Saunders: Yeah.
John Saunders: What are you up to?
johngrimsmo: Mum mum mum mum mum.
johngrimsmo: I know.
John Saunders: Fair enough.
johngrimsmo: I'm winding down the buyer's choice system, making sure that it's solid, and a couple tweaks I want to make to that tonight. And then it's time to start diving into kind of the, if I don't want to get back on machines.
johngrimsmo: it's been a while since i've really like machined anything um next thing is
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: We want to get back into making carbon fiber and G10 inlays.
John Saunders: Mm -hmm
johngrimsmo: for a norseman and possibly for the other knives too um And what I want to do is. offload everything I know onto Angelo. and start documenting it. And then Angelo can run with it from there completely. um Cause he hasn't had much opportunity lately to actually like run fusion and postcode and design things. And I want to give him the entire inlay project and be like.
johngrimsmo: Just... Have fun with it. um We have tons of material. We need them. customers want them badly And I just need somebody to like. want to make as many as they want.
johngrimsmo: because they will all sell. And I don't have time to do that right now. So.
John Saunders: hold Hold on, hold on, hold on.
johngrimsmo: What?
John Saunders: I totally disagree. Set a 12 minute timer. Do a screen recording of Fusion. Angelo's smart. Hand it off to him.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John Saunders: Spend 12 minutes on it and then say come back to me in three days when you've looked through it you have some questions
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John Saunders: Just do it, John.
johngrimsmo: I like that And there's hands -on stuff, which I could film myself doing um with the wax fixturing.
johngrimsmo: how we do all that stuff but Okay.
John Saunders: He's smart.
johngrimsmo: needs to get done yeah that's true
John Saunders: He'll figure it out.
johngrimsmo: But no use reinventing the wheel if I've already figured it out, having him re -figure it out. There's that side of it. I dunno
John Saunders: The different argument is though Bennett never then it never happens.
johngrimsmo: I'll keep it in mind.
johngrimsmo: Which?
John Saunders: Like. Well. I've always, like as a leader, I've found that... employees, especially the great employees, are far more capable than you realize. And in fact, some of them refigured out. is a necessary part of the process.
johngrimsmo: e
John Saunders: And. helps them figure out what may be different or better ways and okay so what you end up with an employee doing two hours of work that has already been done. Who cares? That was the cost of you then.
johngrimsmo: Not doing it.
John Saunders: getting this to occur yeah exactly
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Absolutely. Yeah, that's good. Anyway. That is. um that's our next big thing and then I want to move on to Hmm.
johngrimsmo: Maybe not new product necessarily, but I want to add some spice to to our I want to have some fun with that
John Saunders: Love it. Love it.
johngrimsmo: So. And inlays are a big part of that, but I want Angelo to do that. Um, See ya.
John Saunders: Good.
John Saunders: See you next week.
johngrimsmo: See you next week and then on the 16th we'll be in Chicago. I don't know if we'll do a podcast while we're there.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: We haven't discussed. but
John Saunders: Maybe we only will
johngrimsmo: Maybe we will. Who knows?
John Saunders: Maybe we'll see some people we know though. Please say hi. we um i still appreciate it i love so meeting people
johngrimsmo: Yep, absolutely.
John Saunders: and um Yeah. Looking forward to.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I filled out my IMTS application, like like registration or whatever. And they're like, why are you coming? and I'm like. meet people and s see cool stuff. Like, that's that's why I'm going.
John Saunders: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But yeah, come in.
John Saunders: So, that's it.
johngrimsmo: All right. Talk to you next week. Bye.
John Saunders: Bye.
