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#380 Rask blade issues
3.9k Plays3 months ago
TOPICS:
- Accounts receivable issues
- Okamoto surface grinder
- Rask blade issues
- New Willemin at SMW
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 380
00:00:01
John S
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode 380. My name is John Saunders.
00:00:06
johngrimsmo
And my name is John Grimsmo.
Weekly Business Therapy
00:00:08
John S
And John and I talk each week as our friend therapy business session about tooling and fixtures and business tech services and grinders that are doing things that you want to understand.
00:00:20
John S
And and my last issue is it accounts receivable. Those are my hot topics.
00:00:25
johngrimsmo
Okay. Okay.
00:00:26
John S
Yeah.
00:00:27
johngrimsmo
I'll let you jump right in.
Accounts Receivable Challenges
00:00:28
John S
um Well, I'll start with the one that's that's the most top of mind because it weighs on me the most about what's the elegant way to handle it. you know do you um What's the analogy? or do you yeah are you for Are you kind or rather um wholesome and in and interactions or do you sort of bring the hammer? but
00:00:52
johngrimsmo
This is for outstanding accounts receivable kind of thing.
00:00:52
John S
we Yeah. um and it And it speaks to kind of the bigger relationship. And look, I ah recognize not everybody's going to do business as you want them to.
00:01:08
John S
i'm a I enjoy that folksy Midwestern, and it's true.
00:01:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:12
John S
Hey, if I agree to pay a bill on net 30, Fun fact, we pay the bill on net 30. It's just that simple. And it's how I'm going to live my life, period. There's lots of vendors.
00:01:24
John S
And yeah, they happen to skew toward the bigger companies or companies that have teams where they want to show their SAP performance of how much they've been able to stretch their payables. Because it it matters. I get it.
00:01:35
John S
Or you have to hound on them. And that's not nobody's out to get me on that front.
00:01:37
johngrimsmo
Thanks.
00:01:40
John S
But it it irks me. But this is different. this is a no know name withheld, but a lot a vendor with whom we've had a long-term relationship and they're late on a you know five-figure invoice and they have another five-figure invoice due and they're like, yeah, they actually told me they're like, we're probably not gonna pay that one on time either. And it's kind of that like poor communication, cavalier attitude and just outright recognition of you know, yes, we agreed to terms and and that's how I view it.
00:02:12
John S
It's like, hey, this is a whole relationship, this is a term. What kind of a wholesaler relationship do you have from a pricing standpoint? And then what are your payment terms? And I am not exactly sure how I'm gonna handle that yet in terms of, hey, like, you know, what do you what do you want?
00:02:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:35
John S
So it's on top of mind.
00:02:37
johngrimsmo
Interesting. So maybe you can shed some light.
Buyer's Choice Sales Management
00:02:40
johngrimsmo
I'm having a similar issue. Well, different, but um we've almost never had a accounts receivable. Like in in the past, we we make a knife, we put it up on the inventory or whatever through our system. And then basically it's like, the knife's done. Do you want it? Pay.
00:02:54
John S
Yeah.
00:02:54
johngrimsmo
um Now that we're doing a huge percentage of our sales as buyer's choice, so you would get an email, fill out your your options, we get a printout, we make the knife.
00:03:06
John S
hu
00:03:06
johngrimsmo
When it's done, we email you and say, hey, we finished the knife that you ordered, um time to pay. And we're tracking the, we call it the ghost rate, the amount of people that just don't reply.
00:03:18
johngrimsmo
don't pay, don't purchase it, don't want it. And then we're trying to figure out how long do we hound them, sit on it, let them wait before we just cut it off and like sell it normally.
00:03:29
John S
Yeah.
00:03:29
johngrimsmo
And that's kind of a new challenge for us. And we're trying to be, but were we are treating every order as a contract, even though it's it's not hard for you to just fill out the form and be like, oh, that was fun.
00:03:42
johngrimsmo
And then two weeks later, or whenever you get an email saying you owe us over $1,000, Um, in our mind, we're like, yeah, you owe us a thousand dollars, but I don't know, we're having some people ghost and just not reply.
00:03:53
John S
Sure.
00:03:55
johngrimsmo
And I get how easy that is. Um, we could take a deposit, which has complexities to it. Um, could pay upfront, which has complexities or, uh, or we just find a firm cutoff date of like after so many days or whatever we, uh, move on.
00:04:15
John S
What do you want from me here?
00:04:16
johngrimsmo
Oh, I'm just venting.
00:04:17
John S
Yeah, okay. Can I flip it around?
00:04:20
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:04:21
John S
I think it's crazy that you allow a customer with no skin in the game to dictate how you spend time making something.
00:04:32
John S
Full stop, full stop.
00:04:32
johngrimsmo
and Okay.
00:04:33
John S
Like think of it that way.
00:04:33
johngrimsmo
Because these are, I mean, some of these are repeat customers for sure, but essentially we can look at each sale as a new customer because it's, it could be.
00:04:34
John S
Like that's...
00:04:42
johngrimsmo
Um, so it's not like an established relationship necessarily.
00:04:42
John S
Well,
00:04:45
John S
Totally. And you've got the benefit of being able to sell that knife, but that's that's a wonderful backup option. It's supposed to be the exception, not part of the plan.
00:04:53
johngrimsmo
sir Sure.
00:04:54
John S
And whether it's fixture plates, whether it would be custom firearms or custom clothing, I can't think of any industry where the market has forced it to be such that somebody gets to embark on custom truly customized specialization.
00:05:11
John S
Obviously, I mean, you're not engraving their initials or something, but um basically, and you were you mentioned there's complications behind either a deposit or a payment in full.
Managing Payment Terms
00:05:21
John S
Are those just accounting, or are you talking about like paper?
00:05:24
johngrimsmo
Partially and PayPal, the way we have the buyer's choice system has no, nothing to do with PayPal. Um, accounting wise there are, you know, it's maybe it's just red tape.
00:05:34
johngrimsmo
We have to figure out, um, how to track all these sales, et cetera. But yeah, I mean, we've certainly talked about say a 10% non-refundable deposit, uh, or 50 or a hundred or whatever.
00:05:50
John S
yeah Yeah, any amount of money will change somebody's behavior.
00:05:50
johngrimsmo
Um, I don't know yet. What's your gut tell you?
00:05:55
John S
But I mean, on ah on a thousand dollar item, I wouldn't do 50 bucks either.
00:05:56
johngrimsmo
Right. Yeah.
00:06:00
John S
And we, um Alex handles all this stuff, so I'm not super in the weeds on how we handle terms of custom payments, ah excuse me, custom fixture plates, where there is no,
00:06:14
John S
there is no option B if the customer doesn't come good cop complete the purchase um because we can't sell a custom Mayzac plate ah on the open market.
00:06:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:06:24
johngrimsmo
So do they pay up front or do they have net 30 or?
00:06:27
John S
Most of the time we do require a deposit. ah Usually that deposit's 25% and usually these custom jobs are you know two threat two to $5,000.
00:06:39
johngrimsmo
All right.
00:06:39
John S
So you're talking about ah an actual real amount of money. um We also require a signed drawing with you know a wet signature on a drawing just so that there's no questions about the final version of what was discussed.
00:06:48
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:06:54
John S
you
00:06:55
johngrimsmo
a wet signature. I've never heard that term.
00:06:57
John S
Oh, yeah. Well, I want mean, that it can be digitally signed, but like we don't, we won't accept a drawing where the, as attachment and the guy's like, Hey, the one that's attached is good to go.
00:06:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:05
John S
Like, no, you need to sign the drawing. Um, because we've had situations in the past where there was confusion or their fault or our fault about, well, there was one thing changed in the last email discussion.
00:07:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:15
John S
a Um, and then they'll do the balance on, on either on delivery or on terms.
00:07:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:21
John S
That's that I don't worry too much about. I think the exception has been, um,
00:07:23
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:07:27
John S
has been repeat customers, where again, if we have a PO from a company that which we are comfortable with the credit worthiness of it, it's not, if you're gonna get paid, it's just when.
00:07:37
johngrimsmo
cd Yeah.
00:07:39
John S
um and And it goes back to full circle of like, if you're selling to a Fortune 100 tech company and they pay you on 38 days on net 30, at the end of the day, you know, whatever.
00:07:51
John S
I mean, is maybe it's not cool, but yeah that's stuff you gotta get over.
00:07:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah, don't lose sleep over it. Yep, yep. Hmm.
00:07:59
John S
But yeah, I would humbly say you got to change. I mean, I don't have, you don't have to take how much ghosting you get, but one, let's just, whew, that's, ah yeah.
00:08:03
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:08:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah, well, we are tracking it very closely. Both not only the amount of people that are ghosting, but how long the average payment time is, like from when we send them email to how long average people are paying, which includes the outliers. I think it includes the ghost ones too.
00:08:26
johngrimsmo
But we're tracking all that data and it just needs to be kind of analyzed and make some decisions from it, which is, it's good and very helpful. Um, gives us enough ammo internally to, you know, be like, well, this is what's happening.
00:08:37
johngrimsmo
And if we did this, it would eliminate that because it's, it's wasting time, you know?
00:08:40
John S
Yeah, right. Well, and you're forfeiting a powerful tool, which, I mean, working capital is huge. I know we've talked about that months or years ago in the podcast, but companies, there are companies who have financed huge amounts of growth through working capital alone.
00:08:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:58
John S
ah You gotta know what you're doing to to know how to do it, but you can. I would almost argue you're, you're not only not taking advantage of that, but you're actually also expending time, money and resources in that too.
00:09:11
John S
Let's say it takes two to three weeks to get a custom knife built. I mean, it's, it's completely appropriate for somebody to pay for that because the money's been bought.
00:09:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:20
John S
The payroll has been paid while that product is being made as a custom. It's not an inventory product, you know?
00:09:27
johngrimsmo
That's interesting.
00:09:30
johngrimsmo
Hmm. I mean, the, the easiest accounting wise and everything would just be to take 100% upfront.
00:09:40
John S
Well, yeah, I mean, that's what aggressive companies, which I don't necessarily like, do is they're going to take a hundred percent upfront and they're going to try to pay their suppliers net 60 net 90.
00:09:42
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:09:50
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:09:51
John S
And again, all of a sudden now you can create six, seven figures of free money.
00:09:58
johngrimsmo
and And guaranteed money. like Like you have the money for every sale, every custom that you're making.
00:10:02
John S
Bingo.
00:10:03
johngrimsmo
It is a non-starter and then you just ship it when it's done. You don't have to wait for the customer to get back to you. You don't have to, whatever.
Inventory and Customer Expectations
00:10:09
John S
Well, that's huge too. Like we, look we look at that on, um, Oh, we have this, what's going to be a huge problem of mod vices are gen three now.
00:10:10
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:10:21
John S
There's not huge changes to the customer except the whole spacing is different. So the jaws are different. So softjaws, we're going to continue to to make Gen 2 softjaws because there are thousands of Gen 2 mod vices out there.
00:10:31
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:10:34
John S
And so softjaws, we'll continue to make them. But we're already seeing a problem where, let's say you know let's say Sky, at your shop, has mod vices. and And somebody's like, Angela's like, hey, Sky, order more mod vices from Saunders.
00:10:46
John S
We need more. Well, Sky's just going to hop on the website. search for like the mod vices, its offhaw and just order them.
00:10:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:52
John S
sky Sky doesn't care about Gen 2 or Gen 3, has no idea what Gen 2 or Gen 3 is.
00:10:55
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:10:57
John S
And it's a lose-lose all around because we don't want to deal with the um RMA, we don't want to ship out of the wrong product, we also don't want to paralyze their decision making by Sky being like, I don't know what this is, or pop-up warnings. um So we've got to think about we want to think about how to handle that on Shopify.
00:11:13
John S
And there's technology limitations of what do you is it the separate is a separate Shopify product, or is it one product that has two variants?
00:11:15
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:11:20
John S
I think the current thought, we just huddled up on this Tuesday, the current thought is we're going to have um two things. For the next six months or even year, um the when you go to buy soft jaws, the default variant will be like a null value.
00:11:36
John S
So you're forced to pick.
00:11:37
johngrimsmo
Got it. I like that.
00:11:39
John S
Yeah, that helps. And then anything where it's an order that has only soft jaws or only soft jaws and like other random accessories, we're actually probably going to spend the time to reach out to the customer just to try to front load that issue.
00:11:49
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:11:52
John S
Um, but I'm just, I'm conscious of this, what made me think of it was you talking about ghosts, you know, chasing out ghost people.
00:11:56
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:11:58
John S
Look, that's a lot of time to email people to wait for people to respond, to not be certain what's going to happen. Like, nope.
00:12:07
johngrimsmo
Well, changing the way it sells it, like the way we've always sold now is we finish the knife, we have pictures, it's on the site, and you check out through Shopify that way.
00:12:17
johngrimsmo
Whereas this preload method, there's there's no product yet. You can't check out through Shopify with a product that hasn't been uploaded and made yet.
Pre-orders and Custom Products
00:12:27
John S
You can.
00:12:27
johngrimsmo
um Well, we don't have Norseman as a product. We have Norseman 5555 as a product, which at this point hasn't been made yet.
00:12:35
John S
God. Oh, you sure?
00:12:39
johngrimsmo
But could we have one product that says Rask pre-order with the options you check out with that price and that solidifies the pre-order maybe.
00:12:53
John S
But if but if you're George Smith gets a ah Maker's Choice um and he agrees to it, and you now have Rask, it could be GS111 initials or whatever, and like that's now a product, it may not exist in a shippable form yet, but that's a product that's ah it's a unique product now.
00:13:12
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:13:18
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:13:19
John S
It's how we do customs in Shopify as well.
00:13:22
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:13:23
John S
We just add the custom item. we push Even if it's a PO, we still push everything to Shopify because it's how it interfaces with Lex.
00:13:26
johngrimsmo
It's easier.
00:13:30
John S
Yeah, it just tracks everything.
00:13:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, there's gotta be a solution here that ticks all the boxes. And we're basically collecting boxes right now so to know what to tick.
00:13:41
John S
Yeah.
00:13:41
johngrimsmo
you know Yeah, that's good, that's good. Spend some time thinking about that.
Upcoming Family Vacation
00:13:48
John S
Go.
00:13:49
johngrimsmo
um Speaking of which, I'm off next week, no podcasts.
00:13:54
John S
Got it. and Enjoy.
00:13:55
johngrimsmo
Family and I are driving down to the Northeast, I guess you'd call it. um
00:14:00
John S
That's funny driving down to the Northeast.
00:14:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I guess East straight East, but, um, yeah, Meg's got a figure skating camp in Lake Placid at the Olympic rink, which would be really cool.
00:14:10
John S
Awesome.
00:14:11
johngrimsmo
And then the kids and I are just driving East. We're, we're going, I want to go see Boston museum of science with the kids and we go to six flags, ride some roller coasters and, uh, just grab a couple hotels and have some fun.
00:14:23
John S
good
00:14:24
johngrimsmo
And then if all goes to plan, we're going to pop by Spencer webs and we're going to say hi for an hour and just say hi.
00:14:27
John S
Nice. Yeah.
00:14:32
johngrimsmo
And, uh, I'll have the kids, so we won't get to hang out that much, but, but that'll be fun.
00:14:35
John S
Yeah. No, that's great.
00:14:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:37
John S
Oh, good. Great.
00:14:39
johngrimsmo
And that'll be coolop super cool. So, uh, I saw you were on the podcast on on his podcast on Sunday.
00:14:42
John S
yeah
00:14:44
johngrimsmo
I haven't watched it yet, but I will.
00:14:45
John S
Yes.
Okamoto Grinder Experience
00:14:47
John S
Yeah. He was asking ah about the Willy.
00:14:47
johngrimsmo
How was it?
00:14:49
John S
Great. It was a good talk good conversation.
00:14:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:50
John S
Yeah.
00:14:51
johngrimsmo
Good. Yeah. He's a good guy.
00:14:53
John S
Yeah. Well, so just on on that note, because Spencer is Mr. Grinder, I have no takeaway other than just sharing something that was surprising. um Love the locomotive grinder. It's been, it's been great. It does what you want it to. It's, I think the best way to say it is like, it makes it easy to hold.
00:15:16
John S
You know, I hate the word tense, but like, you know, that machine is very good at doing.
00:15:20
johngrimsmo
Tense all day.
00:15:21
John S
Yeah, no, right. Like, well, and that's exactly what didn't happen. So I didn't use it in two, three months, which is pretty normal at this point. Like we usually use it for grinding. rework So it's sort of a separate conversation.
00:15:33
John S
We've learned a lot with mod vices where when we where we fail, we try to fail high because then we can go put on the grinder and do a rework, or we can throw it away.
00:15:40
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:15:42
John S
um But it's better than failing low where it you know it's scrap. And it ends up, I was really against the rework at first, and I still don't love it, but I realized, boy, you can grind once it's once the grinder's warmed up. I mean, so we'll take some time, but once it's warmed up, and I've got some 3D printed fixtures, I can re-grind, let's see here, 10 jaws.
00:16:06
John S
in two minutes, like as you put them all on there. So you could, we batch it up. So like if I've got 40 jaws to rework, which is a bad scenario, it takes us two, three months to get that, you can fix them all on it.
00:16:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:16:18
John S
And the whole process of I did nothing else would be two hours. It's probably two hours, but I can be multitasking with a bunch of other things in the shop at that point. So it's a win. Haven't done it in a while. Warm up the grinder for half an hour.
00:16:30
John S
Shops kind of controlled. The weather's pretty normal these days. Warm it up, put one part on there, And we have the chuck datum option which treats the grinder like a CNC mill where it always knows where Z is, which I love.
00:16:43
johngrimsmo
Sounds really cool. Yeah. We don't have that. And I, I mean, Angelo is fine. He's like, I don't need it, but I think it's really cool.
00:16:47
John S
yeah Yeah, it's one of those like every grinder should work this way, sorry, just should.
00:16:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I agree.
00:16:54
John S
And punched in half an inch, I think I'm probably skewed at three tenths high and ah ran the one part, came back and drum roll. What's that part measure?
00:17:05
John S
Exactly what it should because it's an Okamoto grinder and it's and it's and it's awesome.
00:17:09
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:17:10
John S
And that's all I need. Like I don't overthink it. Like but the problem is I then loaded up a whole magnet full of rework products, ground them all and they're 1.3 thou under.
00:17:13
johngrimsmo
I'm waiting for the problem here.
00:17:23
johngrimsmo
One point, one thou under. This is a lot, but okay, under.
00:17:28
John S
I mean, they're all scrapped, it's complete scrap now.
00:17:28
johngrimsmo
Interesting. Yeah, yeah.
00:17:30
John S
um And so sure and enough, again, I'm not really asking for help feedback.
00:17:31
johngrimsmo
Oh, that sucks.
00:17:39
John S
Every once in a while, you do have to adjust the chuck height datum, which I don't even have a problem with that. I'm bummed or frustrated that I didn't get caught on my sort of first article test.
00:17:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, you validated your theory and you're like, okay, I haven't run the machine in a while, I warmed it up, test cut, perfect, send it.
00:17:54
John S
Yeah, yeah.
00:17:56
johngrimsmo
So what's what's what would you do next time? Would you just not say we do a small batch to for?
00:18:02
John S
Yeah, I could. I think that's what I used to do in the past. And I think I'm predisposed to that. And so I'm trying to fight fight my own you know overthink it, over worry about it.
00:18:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:18:11
John S
Like, no, John, you bought the best grinder. It worked. You've just checked it.
00:18:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:18:14
John S
It's warmed up. Nothing else is weird. Go send it. So whatever. I have been grinding more this morning to get through that rework patch. And it's it's fine.
00:18:25
John S
I did adjust it back up. And it's been consistent there. so
00:18:29
johngrimsmo
It didn't happen to like dress the wheel immediately after and something's different or
00:18:35
John S
It did not do that. Yeah, I mean, I always dress the wheel because that kind of re-establishes, you know, it's like a lathe in the sense that when you dress the wheel, you're confirmed, because you're dressing it on the table, you you're re-establishing what it thinks the heights should all be.
00:18:50
John S
And so it's a really great way of just kind of, it's like tool setting, like you just, you're setting your tool, if you will.
00:18:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah, stage zero kind of.
00:18:56
John S
of So ah again, no big deal. No.
00:19:01
johngrimsmo
Frustrating.
00:19:01
John S
Yeah, just a little, I guess maybe that is a takeaway grind. Go one, then you go two.
00:19:07
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:19:07
John S
Yeah, I also thought about, um because I need to get, I do need to take, I need to teach somebody else here how to use the grinder. I think I know, I think I think i know who that's going to be.
00:19:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:19:18
John S
And so, I also.
00:19:19
johngrimsmo
It's not a simple task, is it? like
00:19:23
John S
um Once you understand how that machine works and thinks it's not that bad for sure, but yeah I hear you. And look, I would be, I recognize it would be awkward for me to see somebody else make that mistake I just made because it hasn't made it. And so um maybe the test should be, we just have a sacrificial block and you can always grind it real quick.
00:19:48
John S
And then the second test could be a single Saunders part. And then, and then that's now you've got two tests that really confirm it. We'll see.
00:19:56
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah, but with these high-end equipment you you want to just validate and then send it and trust. That's why we spend good money on great equipment.
00:20:07
John S
Yeah.
00:20:09
John S
How's your equipment going? How's the shop going?
00:20:12
johngrimsmo
Shop's going pretty good. um My mom's in town visiting, so I've been able to take a few more days off um and just spend a lot of time with her.
00:20:15
John S
Oh, yeah. know
00:20:20
johngrimsmo
So like, I didn't even come in yesterday.
00:20:24
johngrimsmo
Shop's going pretty
Rask Blades Heat Treatment Issues
00:20:25
johngrimsmo
good. We are having annoying issues with our rask blades um changing. And yeah, we've talked about this previously with CMMing them and things like that.
00:20:33
John S
Okay. Okay. Yeah.
00:20:37
johngrimsmo
Grinding the bevels is going pretty great. on the speedio, but the blade is still moving.
00:20:43
John S
Yeah.
00:20:46
johngrimsmo
And the deeper we look, but the worse everything looks because we're like looking for problems now and in a way that we were never looking before. So we have to kind of hold ourselves back with like, oh, that's wrong too.
00:20:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah, but maybe it's always been like that and it's actually fine.
00:21:01
John S
Yeah, right.
00:21:01
johngrimsmo
Like maybe the model's wrong and that this reality is that's what it needs to be.
00:21:01
John S
You don't, you don't know.
00:21:06
johngrimsmo
Um, so we're, we're wondering the discrepancy between, like my CAD file is just, it's whatever I designed it to be, but the proof is in the pudding. Like if the parts are always coming out, you know, tooth out different because of whatever, then that's the right answer, not the CAD file being the right answer. Um, with the way the knife fits up, because there's so many intersecting geometries and stuff. Um, and we're trying to figure out.
00:21:33
johngrimsmo
where variations happen. I think a lot of weird things are happening in heat treat more than we ever realized. Just steal those weird things. My problem is why isn't every blade doing the same weird thing?
00:21:44
johngrimsmo
That they're different. They vary.
00:21:46
John S
Well, but but that's to me, like he treat is that like he treats not going to be crazy consistent.
00:21:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah and I've read some things that say especially in the aerospace world where they try to machine a pre-heat treated part perfect and then expect it to be perfect after heat treat and a lot of aerospace articles basically said good luck like that's you can't rely on that um but i feel like we've had pretty good success over the years with relative consistency and now we're not to the point where we're scrapping blades um and i have to wonder are we just looking too close or are we reaching some upper threshold that we need to
00:22:08
John S
Yeah.
00:22:25
johngrimsmo
but dimensionally pull back from so that we're not reaching that fail threshold and we're still within like a loose range, that's fine.
00:22:28
John S
Mhmm.
00:22:36
johngrimsmo
I've made a few test plates with various different geometry changes, flowed them through, takes a while to flow parts through machining, heat treat, lapping, grinding, CMM, everything.
00:22:49
johngrimsmo
um So the turnaround time is not like a day. Sometimes it's days or weeks before I get the result back, which is time consuming.
00:22:56
John S
Yeah.
00:22:57
johngrimsmo
It's preventing me from just making a change and sending it for so many blades a day and they might all be bad.
00:23:05
johngrimsmo
But yeah, I think, I mean, it's it's a problem that has to be solved like right now, like almost to the point of stop production and fix this, right?
00:23:14
John S
Yeah.
00:23:16
johngrimsmo
Cause otherwise we're making a significant percentage of possible scrap and that's still fun.
00:23:21
John S
Well, so do it. I mean, let's, let's like turn the mics off here and, you know, you know, this is just between you and me and you, but like shut down everything.
00:23:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:31
John S
Do you have to do all those other processes? Just just to, if we think it's heat treat, can't you just put a part in the current, don't grind the blade.
00:23:33
johngrimsmo
Just to validate that.
00:23:38
John S
Don't do everything. Cause sure. And that may affect it, but probably not.
Production Shutdown Debate
00:23:42
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:23:42
John S
Like what we're thinking about the location of machine features, just machine it, heat treat it.
00:23:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:23:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah. But it's, it's been tough with my mom here and I'm going away all next week. So I'm like, do I solve this in the next three days?
00:23:57
John S
Oh, yeah.
00:23:59
johngrimsmo
And then hope it's great all next week when I'm not here, or do we just kind of test now, let it go next week? I don't know.
00:24:06
John S
So no, I mean, this one thing i i I need you for in this song is like, we've got to keep ourselves honest. I'm like, okay, that ain't happening.
00:24:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:24:16
John S
Right? Like, you're not gonna i've got I've got this on my plate now. We've got a couple of fixtures. that One fixture, if I'm being honest, we crashed the fixture. Soft crash. But it still works, but it's not great anymore. And it's just like, OK, stop. Remake the fixture. But that would have been hard that would not be something that would it would be a different ah endeavor to do that if I wasn't here and I think I told you right before he recorded like it was good like I took I think about 30 or 40 days off in the past two months between random things that came up and it was great you know the wheels didn't fall off on the flip side okay got some work to do and stuff like that I really wish you would consider hard milling them just because we know do it for six months while you parallel process going
00:24:42
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:24:54
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:25:00
johngrimsmo
We have thought about it. ye
00:25:05
johngrimsmo
we could and As I told you last week, we do hard mill the Norseman blades.
00:25:09
John S
Okay.
00:25:10
johngrimsmo
for those features and similar reasons. And while it's not as perfect as I would like, it's within range, it's fine.
00:25:18
John S
Yeah.
00:25:20
johngrimsmo
So we could do it for the Rask. It would require a whole new fixture, a new way to hold it, clamp it, something we've never had to do before on the Rask.
00:25:26
John S
Yeah.
00:25:28
johngrimsmo
you know Doable, just time. So I haven't done it yet is my answer. But maybe it's a short-term solution that you know works.
00:25:40
John S
I just, I remember back nine months ago, you and I had a really good talk about, okay, these things suck. They happen. They're going to happen again. And usually it's better off to go nuclear, like take the drastic action that at least we know fixes it. Even if you don't like it, even if it takes a little bit more time, even if it's a new picture, look, John,
00:26:00
John S
put put your surgeon hat on and blinders on, you can make a new fixture on the current.
00:26:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah, a couple hours would be done. Yeah.
00:26:04
John S
Yeah, exactly. Like, come on, but but you were you, this is what I do.
00:26:06
johngrimsmo
Go nuclear. I like that. I like that.
00:26:08
John S
Like, that's you. Like, I know you can make a bad heck as good fixture on the current for these rasks to be hard milled.
00:26:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:26:17
John S
I know you don't want to hard mill them, but um great.
00:26:18
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:26:20
John S
Do that. And then, and then go go full grams on heat treat, you know, studies and stuff to to figure out what's going on.
00:26:22
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:26:27
johngrimsmo
after after doing the immediate gotcha.
00:26:29
John S
while you're while you're still keeping the business afloat.
Minimizing Waste and Scrap
00:26:34
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah, because it's becoming painfully obvious that literally any amount of scrap, um especially something that is scrapped deeper into the process where materials, time, machine time, money, human time, has has gone into it and we don't scrap until near the end. We're actually putting checks sooner in place to try to scrap things before wasting more time into it, sunk costs. But it's it's really becoming kind of gut wrenching to realize how much waste that actually is.
00:27:03
johngrimsmo
you know It's one thing to just set it aside and move on, but then you think like that's a potential knife sale that didn't get finished in time. That's all this manpower, all this machine time, all this waste, waste, waste, waste, waste, waste.
00:27:14
johngrimsmo
waste we Lean is a real thing.
00:27:15
John S
No, that's a really...
00:27:17
johngrimsmo
like
00:27:18
John S
Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way of looking at it.
00:27:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah, because I've spent a lot of years just going, ah, okay, you know, we got to make it so good. A little bit of scrap is fine. And that little bit sometimes becomes a lot of bit. Eh, it's still fine. and Like at some point you got to go nuclear and just say, nope, not fine anymore. I will not tolerate this.
00:27:42
John S
Are you, are you able to be more specific about like what value should be, what, and how, what it's going to?
00:27:46
johngrimsmo
In other words, see I'm m'ing it.
00:27:50
John S
Like, I mean, are you, you're not like talking about 50 millionths of a whole diameter.
00:27:53
johngrimsmo
No, no, um I'm talking about the the blade might curl, not not warp, but like like a samurai sword is, you know, curled.
00:27:54
John S
Okay.
00:28:03
John S
Yeah.
00:28:04
johngrimsmo
um It might curl 10th out at the tip or more. That's an example.
00:28:11
John S
It's arcing, like arcing down?
00:28:11
johngrimsmo
To the point where it, yeah, where it, I think, I'm still finalizing the validation of that. where it might sit the handles differently, it might hit the back spacer, where the sharpened edge will hit the spacer of the knife, which will chip the edge and the spacer, and we're scrapping some because of that.
00:28:19
John S
Why?
00:28:26
John S
Yeah, sure, sure.
00:28:28
johngrimsmo
I'm like, what the heck?
Analyzing Heat Treatment Problems
00:28:31
John S
Hmm.
00:28:31
johngrimsmo
So, I mean, we're we're like combing through every process with a magnifying glass, looking at how are they sitting in the oven of the heat treat? Does every blade fit the same? Are there ones on the outside that are a little bit different?
00:28:43
johngrimsmo
How do they come out? Is there anything possible? Are they all the same coming off the current? That's the first question.
00:28:50
John S
Yeah.
00:28:51
johngrimsmo
you know So we're scanning that. In my head, it's current. They should all be within tool wear of each other, none of these weird issues.
00:28:57
John S
Mhm.
00:28:59
johngrimsmo
And I and don't know the exact answer on that, but I suspect it's yes.
00:29:02
John S
Mhm.
00:29:04
johngrimsmo
And then is it directly in heat treat that they're varying from each other? They're veering off in different directions?
00:29:12
johngrimsmo
So yeah, part of it is the, some of the edge hitting the backspacer. Some of it is the detent and lockup knots lining up properly. So the stop-end features are expanding or contracting or the pivot itself is moving. And it could be like several thousandths of an inch.
00:29:30
John S
And you, did you ever meet with your heat treater about normalizing?
00:29:34
johngrimsmo
I've not yet, um but I've looked into it a ton yesterday, actually, in my day off with my mom. I was doing a lot of heat treat research.
00:29:41
John S
Yeah. yeah
00:29:43
johngrimsmo
um I did read an article that said you can't slash shouldn't normalize stainless steel or these high alloy steels for certain reasons, um but you can anneal them, which is basically pull them straight back to soft.
00:30:02
johngrimsmo
But it's like a 24 hour process.
00:30:04
John S
Hmm.
00:30:05
johngrimsmo
Um, which is maybe doable. So I don't know. I do want to sit down with the heat reader and have a list of questions. Angelo and I can really pick their brain.
00:30:15
John S
Yeah. I'm sorry. This is, I know this has been going on a long time.
00:30:19
johngrimsmo
It's frustrating. And we kind of had the same problems with the Norseman a while ago. Uh, fun fact, you know, it solved it was hard milling and we haven't thought about it since, but at the expense of a lot of extra time, it takes to hard mill. Um, but it works.
00:30:33
John S
But that's also like to take a step back and out of your business and look at it from an outside view. But that's also like, and this, trust me, this this sucks, but it's also like, but at the end of the day, that's how it, that's the only way it's sustainable to make these.
00:30:47
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm
00:30:48
John S
Then I either don't have a product or I have to accept that's how you have, if I want to do this, that's how you have to make it. Like there's no, it just doesn't work.
00:30:56
johngrimsmo
Maybe I'm um'm resisting that So far and I just need to tip the boat.
Vacuum Heat Treat Furnaces Exploration
00:31:04
johngrimsmo
Okay getting in there Also looked into vacuum heat treat furnaces just
00:31:06
John S
Okay. Yeah.
00:31:15
johngrimsmo
much out of curiosity, but solar atmospheres in the States makes really good ones. And their smallest good one is about a quarter million dollars.
00:31:25
John S
Well, but send some out for a vacuum heat treat then.
00:31:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:31:28
John S
That's $500.
00:31:28
johngrimsmo
But I wonder if that would solve or affect any of these issues. And that's where like deep metallurgy starts to get into play. Like maybe it's more even heat in the oven than our cheap, you know, $2,000 ovens.
00:31:46
johngrimsmo
being in a vacuum oven with better heating elements and more even heat throughout. I don't know yet. But that's a lot of hooch.
00:31:56
John S
There's what I know is there's a lot of fun, interesting new variables that you could play with here from, from the petri person to the, I mean, there's so many variables and I humbly said, I don't think you're going to figure that out anytime quickly or soon.
00:32:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:32:12
John S
If it's in your smart guy, like you've already thought one of those things where you're like, Oh, oops, we had the, we had to recalibrate the oven and fixed it. Right. Um.
00:32:19
johngrimsmo
which is one of the variables I'm wondering about.
00:32:21
John S
hu Well, like we did this with pool studs. We were kind of had the same, I would say delusional about us. I don't mean to say that about you thought that we could machine a fairly tight dual contact tolerance on a pool stud for the puck chuck.
00:32:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:32:36
John S
Um, he treat them by solar, um, and out of tool steel and not have them
00:32:36
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:32:44
John S
need to be a post-e-treat machine, like have them. And so we turned a bunch of these. It's fairly easy to turn these parts to the, to the quote unquote, same dimension, because you're making them all at the same time, the same machine at the same thermal state.
00:32:52
johngrimsmo
Soft, yeah.
00:32:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:58
John S
You can measure them and mic them up, but they're all very, they you know, we know how, within what number of tenths or singular tenth they are as a batch.
00:33:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah,
00:33:07
John S
And we send 20 or 30 out to test and they come back. John, they're all over the place.
00:33:11
johngrimsmo
what the heck?
00:33:13
John S
but that But that's a symmetrical turned part done by but experts in in in the high-end equipment.
00:33:15
johngrimsmo
I know.
00:33:20
johngrimsmo
Professionals, yes.
00:33:22
John S
So the shape of a knife being done, like like like what I know about neutrinos, I'm gonna tell you, that thing's gonna move all over the place on you.
00:33:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's a very weird shape compared to a round pole stud.
00:33:31
johngrimsmo
I know. But my brain goes, let me say with your pole studs. Sure, if they all grow 0.2%, whatever, then the pole stud would grow linearly. And I just assumed they would all grow the same, assuming the quality for steel is the same for everyone. Why not?
00:33:52
John S
Yeah. Yeah. Look, but yeah, this is where my like high school teacher would tell me, John, you can keep asking yourself why, or you can recognize it does.
00:34:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:34:00
John S
And, and move on. youve You just gotta, you've just gotta accept that and build a process.
00:34:02
johngrimsmo
o
00:34:06
John S
It's not like I can use a better heat treater.
00:34:08
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:34:08
John S
Um, and the heat reader, by the way, told me this and, uh, it just, yeah.
00:34:12
johngrimsmo
You're like, yeah, let's try it anyway.
00:34:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
00:34:22
John S
What else is on your mind?
00:34:24
johngrimsmo
Let's see, so that, that.
New Fjell Clip Manufacture
00:34:26
johngrimsmo
I finally made a new Fjell clip on our Willemon.
00:34:30
John S
Nice.
00:34:30
johngrimsmo
Did that, I forget when, last week, Friday, something like that. Very happy with that.
00:34:37
John S
Good.
00:34:37
johngrimsmo
It's nice to turn on the Willemon. You've been posting a lot of Willemon content lately and I'm getting that itch. um It went great. It looks great. I changed the shape of it. I widened it up a bit.
00:34:48
johngrimsmo
I shifted the way it angles. I still have the same clip on attachment point.
00:34:53
John S
Okay.
00:34:53
johngrimsmo
which I really like and I think is super cool, but it does have some wiggle.
00:34:59
John S
Oh.
00:35:00
johngrimsmo
And I can tighten up the tolerances, maybe it's just that last thou, but the wiggle is frustrating.
00:35:06
John S
When it's gonna just swage its way out more.
00:35:10
johngrimsmo
I think, you know, we've been carrying them and they, I don't think they get much worse than kind of the break-in period. but and don't know I'm going to try to make another one that's like even tighter slot tolerances, but that might be hard to hold.
00:35:26
johngrimsmo
you know
00:35:26
John S
it No, we've been down this path.
00:35:32
johngrimsmo
and
00:35:35
johngrimsmo
and like I've thought about using a screw to attach this, which would be easier but less clean because now there's no screw, there's no visible like, it's hard to reach a screw in there without creating a hole in the display side or something weird.
00:35:44
John S
Yeah.
00:35:47
John S
Mm hmm.
00:35:52
johngrimsmo
There are guys, knife makers that have made very low profile screws with an actual tool that will go in the slot and let you like, that's kind of cool.
00:35:55
John S
Mm hmm.
00:35:59
John S
That's cool.
00:36:01
johngrimsmo
And I mean, we could certainly do that. But do I want to do that? I don't know. I haven't given up on this yet.
00:36:07
John S
And you're, you're not interested in one of those like loctite retaining compounds, not thread locker, but they make other stuff that's, yeah, sure.
00:36:14
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah I to be able to come apart like relatively easily for the customer. That's just what we do.
00:36:22
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:36:23
johngrimsmo
But that's the last big hurdle. Everything with everything else is going good. Although I do know that heat treating this blade is also going to do weird things from the 10 that we made so far. So we got to try to manage and control that.
00:36:36
John S
Yeah. I keep going back to, I think we talked about this, but how dovetail pistol sights are, they're just, they're an interference fit and you just hammer the things on.
00:36:47
John S
It's kind of, it's kind of junky, but.
00:36:47
johngrimsmo
yeah Well, that's what I'm wondering about going
Improving Clip Attachment
00:36:51
johngrimsmo
tighter. like I don't need it to come apart easily. I just need it to not wiggle.
00:36:55
John S
Yeah.
00:36:56
johngrimsmo
And like I don't mind if you have to push against the table to like pop it out. That's actually better than the customer taking it out every day and wearing it out.
00:37:01
John S
Yeah, no, right, right.
00:37:05
johngrimsmo
like I don't want that.
00:37:07
John S
Couldn't the clip the dovetail be relieved in the center so that it's a flexures the right word, but it has some spring to it.
00:37:08
johngrimsmo
so
00:37:13
John S
And then you basically push it in and it's not sorry.
00:37:16
johngrimsmo
That's how it is.
00:37:17
John S
It has now surprised that it's
00:37:18
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah, so it's not a dovetail. It's a T-slot with two ears that are spring-loaded and pop out.
00:37:22
John S
okay.
00:37:24
johngrimsmo
um But the to slop in the T-slot itself, part two slot, has enough play that once you put you know an inch and a half of leverage on this quarter inch long T-slot, you feel it.
00:37:28
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:37:34
John S
Sure.
00:37:40
John S
It's funny, we've had some discussions with customers or vendors before about hole tolerances on fixture plates. And it's like, if you have a Delltronics 5005 pin, so five tenths over and it is the perfect fit. Like you don't need a tool to remove the pin, but you have to be pulled perfectly straight up to get the pin out. Um, let's say like the definition of a great absolute tight fit and you drop it to say two tenths. So 5003 pin, those pins are two and a half inches long at the top of that pin. Like it's.
00:38:10
John S
measurable and and for sure feelable wobble.
00:38:13
johngrimsmo
Yes, yes.
00:38:14
John S
And that's a full circumference, that's not a word, engagement.
00:38:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but it's less leverage, tolerance, yeah.
00:38:20
John S
It's crazy.
00:38:28
John S
Yeah.
00:38:30
johngrimsmo
I love tolerances, even as frustrating as they are.
00:38:31
John S
Yeah.
00:38:34
John S
But you wouldn't it be an interference, I guess what I'm thinking is, whether it's T-slot or dovetail, you you could you could relieve the front leading edge, that way it guides it in, and then it's actually a press-in fit to where it's sliding in.
00:38:44
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:38:50
John S
That makes sense?
00:38:51
johngrimsmo
Hmm. Like I have resistance going in now from the ears that are spring loaded.
00:38:56
John S
Okay.
00:38:56
johngrimsmo
So as you push it in, they have to spring load in. They have to rub against the sides of titanium on titanium, which can call, I guess.
00:39:03
John S
It's not good, either yeah.
00:39:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah, but it's whatever. So the T-slot has to slide, but I could make the I'm going to try make the T-slot tighter and just see how it goes.
00:39:13
John S
Okay. Yeah. Interesting.
00:39:19
johngrimsmo
Um, the other thing right now I'm making them one by one and I have, I, I, because I'm keep changing the design of the clip, I haven't committed to a vice yet, like a pick off vice on the Wilman.
00:39:25
John S
Awesome.
00:39:31
johngrimsmo
So I'm just making it free hanging in air and it's literally held on by the thread of tab at the end, which is super fun.
00:39:35
John S
awesome
00:39:37
johngrimsmo
Um, but I do want the vice to grab it, except the problem is the vice only opens up like less than a quarter inch.
00:39:44
John S
It's like 10, yeah, tiny.
00:39:46
johngrimsmo
um So each jaw moves less than an eighth of an inch away and Because there are steps in this clip I'm looking at the CAD and everything going the jaws don't open up to clear the big feature to grip on the smaller feature and Then it finally hit me the other morning that I could Move the u-axis into position and have the jaws be kind of Relieved super much so that as it's raising up 90 degrees.
00:40:08
John S
Okay.
00:40:15
johngrimsmo
It's missing a The one feature, like it the arc will miss the bigger feature on the end and it will clamp on the smallest feature where I need it to.
00:40:18
John S
Okay.
00:40:23
John S
Oh, okay.
00:40:23
johngrimsmo
Does that make sense?
00:40:25
John S
Oh, you're going to clamp it. You're going to clamp it.
00:40:28
johngrimsmo
It closer to the chuck and there's a feature more away from the chuck that is too large for the opening to match.
00:40:29
John S
Hmm. No, it didn't. Yeah. Okay.
00:40:38
John S
Okay.
00:40:38
johngrimsmo
So as I'm going to use the 90 degree rotation to avoid, yes, exactly.
00:40:40
John S
oh Oh, you're going to use the radial swing to like thread it through as you swing up. Ooh, that's cool.
00:40:46
johngrimsmo
I don't think I can do it.
00:40:48
John S
That's cool. Okay. I'm with you. I'm with you.
00:40:50
johngrimsmo
Because normally you you move the U up like away and then you jog it in to the part.
00:40:54
John S
Yep.
00:40:55
johngrimsmo
But I'm just going to jog it to the part when it's still down and then swing up and have it avoid what I don't want. And I think it'll work fine.
00:41:00
John S
Yeah. It's like the grove tool changer that has like a 60 inch drill and it wouldn't fit through the door, but it can actually articulate like a six-axis robot could, it can articulate the drill on a curved profile to swing it through the door.
00:41:13
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:41:14
John S
Yeah, that's really cool.
00:41:17
John S
Huh, that's cool.
00:41:20
John S
Good.
00:41:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I think it'll work.
00:41:23
John S
good Yeah, there are Jim Davis, the apps guy for Willowman, his last days today.
00:41:30
johngrimsmo
Though he's been in.
00:41:32
John S
He's been here for three days.
00:41:33
johngrimsmo
Explained.
00:41:34
John S
We're good. It's him and Grant. I mean, just what's different on the control? We have probing now. We have a tooling ball to do kinematics. the controls that they change, I guess, data server stuff.
00:41:48
John S
But they made parts, I think they made a part yesterday. They worked it in today. Jim is actually wanting to get back to finish his IMTS demo. And so we technically have two more days of training, but we'll just use them later.
00:42:02
John S
And Jim gave us a little sneak preview of the Willem and IMTS stuff.
00:42:05
johngrimsmo
I saw your post about that.
00:42:06
John S
How cool is that guy?
00:42:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah. That's awesome.
00:42:10
John S
Um, so, yeah, in fact, we were, had a meeting this morning where Yvonne was asking Grant on ETA on some products that come off the Wilhelmin and it's kind of like, okay, we will probably start running them tomorrow.
00:42:21
John S
So, um, it's great to finally be, we have three products we need to kind of get running on and then we can kind of take it not take a breath, but you know, if then reevaluate.
00:42:29
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:42:32
John S
Okay. What do we need to focus on or, or make?
00:42:34
johngrimsmo
So in a couple of weeks, I would like an update from you, I guess through Grant. How was the new machine better? Like, what is he like different?
00:42:42
John S
oh Yeah.
00:42:42
johngrimsmo
Does it hold better tolerance? Does it, you better surface finish like like, what's better about spending six times more on a new machine than you spent on a used machine?
00:42:52
John S
Okay. Sure.
00:42:52
johngrimsmo
I'm just curious, you know, because
00:42:53
John S
I'll ask him. Yeah. Well, that's the big question, uh, which I'll keep everybody in in the loop on is so we make these, we make a bunch of products that we make out of purchasing centerless ground material, which centerless ground material is relatively cheap, um, to get done, but it's still not nearly as cheap as just buying hot rolled and, um, the lead time and shipping it because we have to
Willamid Machine Advantages
00:43:17
John S
ship it from vendors.
00:43:17
John S
Whereas we obviously we just have to deliver quote unquote for free. So. The plan is to dual track it. We still have ground material. We can still use that ground material on the Wilhelmin to make the products we need to make it right now.
00:43:27
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:43:28
John S
But um with having a tool setting probe and knowing how to do roughing and finishing passes and so forth, that machine should be able to and absolutely should be able to hold the tolerances we need to get away from it.
00:43:42
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:43:44
John S
And that was, i people were giving me a hard time for my girl math on my Willamid YouTube video, which I think I should have done a better job articulating it because I was sort of saying, oh, I'm selling unrelated machines to help pay for this machine.
00:43:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I saw that.
00:43:55
John S
The better way, the more articulate way would have been to say, no, like we had a bunch of stuff that was either underutilized or we didn't really need. Let's make sure the stuff that we have here is the best and highest use. And if some of that stuff can be repurposed, that's totally legit.
00:44:07
johngrimsmo
Totally. hundred percent
00:44:07
John S
um But in my math for justifying the will, but I wasn't even really thinking about, okay, we can actually increase our margins or a better pricing, however we wanna go about that by taking advantage of the capabilities of the machine, period, that's huge.
00:44:15
johngrimsmo
100%. Mm.
00:44:23
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep, cheap material. Because you were using the sunless ground as ah as finished diameters.
00:44:28
John S
Phenomenal bingo, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:44:29
johngrimsmo
Right. Which is great. Smart.
00:44:32
John S
And like I said, we can keep doing that if we have to.
00:44:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:44:35
John S
so Hey, before we, quote unquote, wrap up, I got to share a win.
Company Wiki Implementation
00:44:40
John S
um i have We have one of our interns working on a variety of projects.
00:44:45
John S
And I tasked him with looking into Wikis, thinking that there's going to be some like you know modern day Wiki software, like Asana, Jira, Trello, whatever, one of these things.
00:44:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:44:53
John S
It's a Wiki. And he found some of them. But ultimately, we actually had this kind of existential question of, what's the difference between a Wiki and a website? And the obvious difference, to me at least, once you think about it for a second, is in Wiki, anybody can edit.
00:45:10
John S
Or the website's just pushed down by a web manager or whatever. So, ends up that you can use Google Sites as a Wiki-style thing. It works sort of well. We actually soft launched it internally yesterday already.
00:45:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:45:23
John S
And the nice thing is that anybody who's on our Google suite admin, so they have our Saunders email, et cetera, by default has Wiki admin permissions. The Wiki is also hidden from the public role, which is important.
00:45:34
John S
It needs to be private and it interfaces really well with Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Docs, um and some kind of like, and it has Google search and like we did some search testing and putting in.
00:45:34
johngrimsmo
no
00:45:43
johngrimsmo
Look to your Google Drive.
00:45:46
John S
I can't answer that. I haven't tried that yet. That's a great question actually. But the bigger thing would be like, so we have, actually,
00:45:54
johngrimsmo
search within the wiki is what you're saying.
00:45:56
John S
Yeah, so like, bingo, like, okay, so right now, i one we have these 3D printed parts, they get 25 millimeter magnets.
00:45:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it needs that.
00:46:02
John S
I have started a personal Word document in my Saunders folder, under our equipment and vendors folder, but I'm the only one that has access to this, um for where we buy magnets, because some we buy Amazon, some eBay, some from KJ, some from Super Magnet Man, and laugh with me if you're laughing if somebody out there listening has bought from one of those vendors before.
00:46:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah, I've heard some of them, yeah.
00:46:24
John S
And that has worked for me to get it out of my head, but number one, it's only for me. And even for me, it's like, ah, not great. So having the wiki list out, stuff like that. So I'm moving the Magnus over there this morning.
00:46:36
John S
It's great.
00:46:36
johngrimsmo
of it, you know, it's, it's all about capturing the processes of your business and making it easy, easily shareable within your business. So heaven forbid, if something happens to you, all that information exists and is shareable or if you're on vacation and somebody needs to buy more magnets, like they shouldn't have to ask you, you know, and same goes for end mill, same goes for, for anything lubrication for the surface grinder, like all this stuff.
00:46:48
John S
Yeah. Bingo.
00:47:01
John S
Yeah, just makes it easy.
00:47:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:47:03
John S
But that was the my thesis, which I need to see if it proves out, because there's been plenty of these things.
00:47:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:47:08
John S
We failed out here. I want to be clear about that.
00:47:09
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:47:10
John S
you know We have our accounting software. We have Shopify. We have Freshdesk. We have Lex. Those are the four main systems. But um the Wiki is kind of above those. So that's what I like about it is it's like the default place of when you're not sure, add it to the Wiki or check the Wiki.
00:47:24
John S
So process sheets or resources or vendor questions, all that stuff lives there, period.
00:47:32
johngrimsmo
Good. Alrighty, let's wrap up.
00:47:35
John S
What are you up to today?
Tweaks to Blade Dimensions
00:47:37
johngrimsmo
Today I'm going to make a couple of Rask test blades with some short-term tweaked germanment dime diametrical dimensional changes and then flow them through and see if they at least will short-term get us back into a range that is not scrapping blades and I think it will.
00:47:49
John S
Yeah.
00:47:58
John S
Yeah. Can you take a piece of the material as well as a piece of like just good quality steel and then just machine the outside profile machine and the machine, like six features in it circles are easier to measure. if you Especially if you have pins and then heat machine them together, heat treat them together and just start to see like, Hey, did the outside dimensions change? Did the whole diameter change? Just look at that.
00:48:25
johngrimsmo
I mean, we kind of do with our current blades and and CMM.
00:48:33
John S
OK.
00:48:35
johngrimsmo
But yeah I'll think about what you said. There's a lot of lot of good juice in this podcast. All right.
00:48:43
John S
OK, hey, i'll enjoy your trip next week.
00:48:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it'll be good. All right.
00:48:46
John S
OK, enjoy. I'll see you.
00:48:47
johngrimsmo
See you, bye.
00:48:48
John S
Bye.