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#362 Prototyping new products
562 Plays10 months ago
TOPICS:
- hardmilling
- Prototyping new products
- Reaming holes
- Viewer mail
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Transcript
Introduction and Passion for CNC
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode number 362. My name is John Saunders. My name is John Grimsmode. John and I absolutely love the idea of CNC machines and making mostly metal parts and talk each week to help each other out.
Fixture Machining Challenges
00:00:20
Speaker
Thank you for the help this week on the hard peeling. I appreciate that. How's it going?
00:00:25
Speaker
Punchline, great, good, all that. Backstory, the first set of actual A2 fixtures that we machine for use to replace the aluminum ones on the horizontal. Internal use. Yeah, yeah. I would have told you they went great, but what I learned after we actually started to load them up the first time was a pretty classic example of an innocent mistake.
00:00:55
Speaker
The fixtures have an integral side rail. Basically, one half is, the left side of the fixture is part of the A2 and the right side that clamps it is a Uniforce. And when Caleb made them, I think, I'm assuming this is what happened, I probably should go do a post-mortem, but I believe he used an end mill that has probably like a 4,000 corner radius on it, which we're big fans of for normal reason, normal machine that's great.
00:01:22
Speaker
I didn't think to check it or catch it in a fourth out corner radius on an inside corner. You don't see that. There's nothing to feel because it's an inside corner. And so we heat treated the part of them. And this is actually one of the rare examples of a part that we opt to that doesn't have a chamfer.
Fixture Design Issues
00:01:40
Speaker
If the part had a chamfer, the fourth out corner radius wouldn't
00:01:43
Speaker
Totally normally wouldn't matter so long as the chamfer on the part is bigger it's not it means that when you put the part in there you can actually rock the part.
00:01:53
Speaker
because it's not sitting fully on the floor because it's sitting on that chamfer or the radius. Yeah, exactly. And it's funny. It makes me want to put on my Adam Demuth hat, which I don't even own one of those. But the slot is too small for me to grind with the current wheel that we have. We have an inch and a half wheel. I'd have to buy a one inch or smaller wheel, which you totally could do. But that felt way too yucky.
00:02:22
Speaker
and all I needed to do was poke away this four thou or so corner. I didn't even have to do that perfectly, meaning I was talking to you about this. All I had to do in the end, all I did was I actually found a Lakeshore carbide one-sixteenth inch end mill. Nice.
00:02:41
Speaker
I stayed two tenths, if that even is like real number, frankly, off of the sidewalk because they didn't want that one sixteenths end mill to be touching the left side. And I just wanted it to cut a slot like a thou deeper, which would would blow through it like forming a small motor trough. And as best I can tell that works. I don't want to remove the fixtures from the horizontal tombstone. I could. I don't want to. And so it's actually
Tool Inspection and Resolution
00:03:09
Speaker
pretty awkwardly difficult to even figure out if, well, the way I think we got it done is the part now doesn't rock and I took a set of angle gauges that have a sharp corner and those will, if you have a little bit of coolant on them, they will stiction in.
00:03:28
Speaker
Okay. And they wouldn't before. And they stick to me like the coolant is forming that like layer on both the floor and the sidewall. So I think we got it. But I think you got it. Yeah. And on the sidewall, you could see if your heat treat color got machined away or not, right? Yes. Well, so rewind, I actually used a quarter inch and built first and went ahead and did clean up. I thought maybe there was some taper in the sidewall. And so I did that. And that's when I kind of realized, Oh, no, no, no, wait me here. I've got
00:03:57
Speaker
Actually, hold on. I think I may have been made this worse myself is my corners and they'll did great and looks great looks beautiful john like that finish that just like intoxicatingly sexy, except the very very very tip of my clever talk about this the very tip of my corner of the end mill only visible with a microscope chipped away.
00:04:20
Speaker
So I may have actually, I may need to take back what I just said. We may not have used a corner radius and mill. No, we did because it started that way. And then some of them were fixed, but then the quarter inch end up broke partway through the 12 different faces it had to machine. So some of those had a new quarter radius. Interesting. So you actually broke the quarter inch tool hard milling this stuff?
00:04:43
Speaker
I would say broke it if you just looked under a microscope, the very, very... Oh, chipped it or something. Yeah. Wore it out or something like that. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. We look at everything under the microscope, so it's like good, bad, or otherwise we see more than we should. It doesn't always make you feel productive because you're like, man, it could still be better.
00:05:05
Speaker
Well, that corner by the naked eye looks fine. And even with one of the little handheld 10X loops, you really have to be looking for it to see the corner chip microscope. It jumps out right at you. And you have those like digital screen microscopes.
00:05:21
Speaker
I've got that cheapo Koopda Amazon thing for 60 bucks. Like best 60 bucks I ever spent. Totally. It's super
The Role of Microscopes in Manufacturing
00:05:27
Speaker
helpful. But even on our Zeiss microscope, so it's got optical. You can look through the two eyepieces stereoscopically and have like a super crisp optical view. And then it's also got a 4K camera on it, go to a screen. And I vastly prefer the optical because the quality is perfect. And the 4K screen is just not as perfect.
00:05:50
Speaker
Oh, really? Yeah, I've really noticed a difference. I find most of the guys tend to use the screen, but like, when I'm in there, I just like the pure Christmas of my eyeballs, optically looking at the part. This is better. But yeah, having microscopes with screens has changed the way we work because now two people can show each other under the microscope, like what's going on this one and then the looks like this is the chip I'm looking at surface finish problem, things like that. Do you get true binocular
00:06:21
Speaker
microscope vision and the TV or does the TV cut out one of your binders? Great question. The TV cuts out the right eyeball. Okay. So if you want to have the TV on and look through it, you'll only have left eyeball look, which don't normally do, but there's a flip lever in the back that cuts off the TV and allows both eyeballs to look through. And then I was at a trade show and the same place we bought our microscope from Elliott Matsura had one that did both.
00:06:49
Speaker
And I'm like, why doesn't mine do both? Like what the heck? And he goes, well, this is the upgrade one. Next time you order, we'll do this. And it's like, well, next time. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of those little things. I know it's only a switch, but let me tell you quality of life. Like just, nope, I don't want to be flipping stuff around. Yep. Yep. But yeah, I mean, I definitely see more microscopes in our future, like, like big expensive ones because we just use it so much. Yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah. What's wrong with my $40 AM at $6 Amazon one? I don't know. Good glass is also intoxicating. I respect that. Whether it's a scope or binoculars or glasses or whatever, good glass, camera lenses, good glasses. Amazing. Yeah.
Back Problems and Health Discussion
00:07:40
Speaker
But yeah, inversely, I was watching this 1990s Buffalo Bill Super Bowl show on Netflix. It's actually pretty good. Yeah. And first off, it's actually really disheartening to realize how 1990s, like 1989, 1990 is. When we grew up our childhood, basically. Correct. But then also, I don't know if anybody else feels this way. It's really hard for me to remember if you see something from 1990 or 1950.
00:08:10
Speaker
to remember that even though the video quality of what I'm watching stinks, life was still in the normal, same resolution we live today. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, telling the kids the world was in black and white before 1950, you know, see if they believe me. Like, wait, wait, no, no. Yeah.
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah. How you been? What's going on? I've been pretty good. Um, tweak my back a couple of days ago. So I've been kind of laying low a little bit, just really sucks. It slows me down. Um, trying not to let it affect my mood or obviously it affects productivity. Cause I can't, you know, run around like I normally do, but, um, that's okay. It's giving me time to focus and hmm. Pause your disc. I don't know. Actually. Um,
00:09:01
Speaker
It's just, it's like right at the lowest part of the spine in the hip, like low back. And I'm just like, it's like I have to, you know, squat instead of bend over or else it's hurts kind of thing. So I'm more sure I'm doing some stretches to help with it, but yeah, go for it.
00:09:17
Speaker
I'll keep it short, my nickel sore in my back. So I've not had back issues except when I have. I don't have chronic back issues, but two or three times in the last decade, I've kind of quote, unquote thrown it out. And I did it again about two months ago and we were skiing and I like doing this trick where you jump into your skis, like your skis all the way out in the snow, but you got like really rigid, hard ski boots and you jump into these skis that are also really rigid.
00:09:43
Speaker
That didn't do it, but about 10 minutes later, I was just stopping on a gentle run and I stopped and my back went from 100% fine to I couldn't.
00:09:54
Speaker
like I couldn't get up out of a chair on my own, which is of course like I'm young, healthy. I think I'm young, healthy, like no issues. I'm in shape. And so I quickly learned the basics that I didn't know about back and be like, okay, you have a bulge disc, but not a ruptured disc, but every time you bulge your disc out, it gets a little worse. So you really don't want to do it. Um, ruptured disc generally means surgery, but then
00:10:18
Speaker
What's really cool is I didn't understand why if I just had a slight bulge, why does your back stay seized up for like 48 hours or longer? And it's because your muscles go into like an immediate contraction to support, like to step in as a surrogate for your exoskeleton, whatever. Interesting. Yeah. Because like I'm out of pain really quickly, except you're so, so, so tight.
00:10:42
Speaker
Um, and like they're getting kind of helps, but not really. And muscle relaxers are, uh, I would wear a heat belt, but like, that's what, that's what your body's saving yourself, which is pretty interesting. Yeah. That's a good point. I haven't looked into too much of that. So I don't know. It feels like a pinched nerve, which I've had many times before, but maybe the feeling is the same as a bulge disc. I don't know. Um, I don't pinch nerve is my understanding is excruciating.
00:11:10
Speaker
This hurts for like two seconds. And then you're just, it's like your back is locked up, but it doesn't actually hurt. It's just uncomfortable. Okay. Yeah. Mine hurts. Like, okay. If I moved, if I moved the wrong way, then it's like, Oh boy. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Yeah. I've had many times in the past and not in probably a year plus. So like I've been good, but then whatever I did. So, and you don't know what you did. Um, I am a man of routine and the past week or so I've been kind of.
00:11:40
Speaker
flexible on my routine. I've been sleeping differently. I haven't been working out as much just the past week and things like that and some other things like, oh yeah, I'm off my normal. So it allowed my back to be lazier than it should. So it further proves that my routine usually works. If I'm off the routine.
00:12:04
Speaker
So yeah, it's good otherwise, but I'm sorry. It's value. Yeah. But, but yeah, it makes you realize, um, you know, we're both 40 now. And as we continue into the next phase of our life, like, well, let's continue to take care of ourselves. Cause the bodies that aren't getting any younger and we can, you know, we can feel as young as we want, but, uh, the reality of the old mechanical device that houses us.
Managing Eric's Absence with Plantar Fasciitis
00:12:31
Speaker
Yes. Right. You got to do maintenance. Maintenance, maintenance. Preventative, hopefully not reactive. Yes. Well, other than your back, how you been? Other than that, things are flying pretty good. Shop's running good. It's nice to not be super relied upon for day-to-day activities. I can take half a day off. I can take a day off and rest. Literally, everything still happens in the company.
00:12:59
Speaker
Which is just how it should be, but not too many years ago that was not the case at all. So it's nice to be able to see. Eric too, he got married recently, had a honeymoon down south somewhere.
00:13:17
Speaker
messed up both of his feet from too much walking in sandals. And he has plank, um, plantar fasciitis. Plantar, yeah, that one. And he's got that bad. And he went to his doctor and they're like, this is the worst case of plantar fasciitis that I've seen in 35 years.
00:13:35
Speaker
Hashtag we're falling apart, John. Yeah, I know, right? And he's only 37. But yeah, so he's like, almost literally off his feet for the next. No, I'm sorry. Did you need a wheelchair and then? Yeah, right. Yeah. So it's, you know, stuff going on, but things are going fine. That's that's brutal. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah.
00:14:00
Speaker
But conversely, his team in the finishing department are finishing rasks and other products, like nobody's business. They're crafting. Good. That's awesome. I feel like Eric, who? We don't even miss him. I'm like joking. I like seeing the, you're saying the rasps may be bigger. I like seeing the integral next to your Norseman. That's an awesome size. Yeah. So it's quite a bit smaller than the Norseman. Yeah.
00:14:30
Speaker
I didn't know. Can you talk about how you found the center of gravity?
Knife Making and Design Techniques
00:14:35
Speaker
There's a center of gravity inspection. Yes. Like you know, selection view and then so you click the center of gravity button and you click on the one or multiple bodies that you want. And it just puts a little black origin spot at the physical center of gravity of those one or multiple objects.
00:14:56
Speaker
I followed that. But then how did you how did you take a solid metal new blade and add a array of holes in various locations and sizes to mimic the same. So I had two bodies or two components, whatever it is. One is a finished blade with bevels, no cutting edge or anything. But but looks pretty much like a blade. And then the other one was a solid blade that was the same profile shape but still had solid like like straight bevels.
00:15:26
Speaker
which is obviously a lot heavier. And I have a sketch with a bunch of holes in it, a bunch of circles in this sketch. And I did the center of gravity on two items. So I had two little black dots. And I would literally just drag the holes big or smaller or sideways until the little little dot lines up close enough. You brute forced it. I brute forced it. And it took like, you know, half an hour an hour or something like that.
00:15:52
Speaker
And at the end of the day, I'm like, they're really close. And then you make one change, and it goes way off. And you're like, no, no, no, undo. And I think I got them within a few thou of each other, the two dots. And you can actually click on it and see the position in space. So I can actually compare the two numbers and be like, oh, that's 2 and 1,500 x. That's 1,000 z. That's good enough. That's fine.
00:16:15
Speaker
That's cool. But yeah, so now I have a blade in the knife that is close enough to the same weight of what a finished blade will be, which allows me to kind of feel it and flip it and feel the whole center of gravity of the knife as it's in my hand. And that kind of really helped to change the perspective of some things and allows me to just feel like I'm one step further. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because
00:16:39
Speaker
Machining and grinding the bevels is a whole other step that I just haven't started yet. And when I'm ready to tackle that, that'll be done in however many hours it'll take to do that. But if I can answer a whole bunch of questions before that point, then I feel like I'm winning. 100%. 100%. And that's the thing. I was talking with some of my guys yesterday, and they're like, so would you ever sell a prototype?
00:17:03
Speaker
because in the collector world, it's like a US mint that has a misprint. It's like, oh, people go nuts over these, these coins that are double stamped or something. But as first prototypes, would you ever sell a prototype? And I feel like I have a kind of weird view on it because the way, especially the way I'm designing this, it's like, I'll make a part like the handle and I'll be like, okay, it's wrong because
00:17:30
Speaker
The reamers shove chips into the bottom of the holes and now the holes aren't as deep as they should be. This is wrong. That's wrong. That's wrong. I would never sell that part because it's literally bad. It's like non-functioning perfect. It's not perfect. But I can put it together and start to assemble things and answer a lot of questions in the prototype process.
00:17:49
Speaker
And even though I'm holding a semi-finished knife right now, that's not a prototype, that's just a bunch of bad parts that kind of go together and answer a bunch of questions. And then I fix those problems, and then the next part's like actually a good part, sellable part. So like, in that case, the first sellable knife is like, it could either be called a prototype, we're making five prototypes, we're gonna send them to customers, whatever. And they're gonna be labeled prototypes, or I just call them finished knives and start selling them.
00:18:17
Speaker
I think you're missing something. I totally agree, but I don't know what it is. I don't have a collector mindset. You don't make collector products, I don't collect stuff.
00:18:29
Speaker
I love this because you're normally so much better at this stuff than I am. But I think I'm drawing on the art world. The art world will do like for a print or like a work in addition. They'll do addition one through 50. It's actually kind of a bunch of BS because they'll be artists proofs and they'll be printers proofs and they'll be
00:18:48
Speaker
Yeah, other stuff. So what if like totally agree like your actual true prototype that's janky and doesn't work and has mistakes on it. No, those don't leave the shop. Yeah, they can't. What if what if you do the first 10 knives, the first 50 knives are proof editions. Okay. And it's a cool word. Yeah, it's not prototype. But it's also not like, look, we're not in
00:19:12
Speaker
normal production that John Grinzo personally is no longer needing to be involved because we've got this dial. It'll take us 10 or 50 knives or whatever. Interesting. They're good. They're saleable, but they're also, it's got that mystique, that limited nature to it. I would love that, John. Interesting. That's such a cool perspective.
00:19:33
Speaker
Because up until this moment, I would think of, you know, a sellable prototype as like one piece, maybe two. But you're saying it's a run where we're still working out the kinks. Like they're fine. They're just going to get better in the next 50. And then we call it production. Which is reality. That's going to happen as we make more. We're like, actually, you know, like be nice if this was over here. And if this was, you know, five tenths bigger or something like that, even though the knives are fine.
00:20:02
Speaker
right up a half a page letter, have it printed on nice. So good. Yeah. It finished your thought.
00:20:08
Speaker
half a page letter, talk about three or four sentences of the development of the knife. And then you would sign them. I know somebody signs each card. This is something that's a level above. Yeah. And they become that collector, like the first proof run, artist proof kind of thing. I know Angelo was in the art world for a while too, so he talks about AP, artist proof.
00:20:34
Speaker
Oh, he's going to love this idea. We would do this with fixture plates, but it ends up nobody cares. No, that's helpful. That's helpful. I like that a lot because I mean, this is a highly anticipated knife. I've been designing it for 12 years now. It's time. Every time I post something, I get DMs from people that are like, I've been watching this since 2012.
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I am ready, caption hand, tell me when kind of thing. You could do phase. I mean, the design proof edition, 10 of those, 10 and then machine proof edition, 10 of those, it could be like even. True. Yeah. I don't want to milk it too much because then it becomes obvious. And I know some of our customers may listen to this podcast, but still it's interesting to suss out these ideas, especially with another colleague to like, you know,
00:21:30
Speaker
play it through. What would it be like if we did this? That's what I appreciate about you is it's like, am I doing this because it's a real aspect of our journey and there's demand for it versus hashtag cash grab. It's totally. Yep. Obviously, I want to make a lot of money on this product, but the reality is I want to release quality under the world and value, whether that's subjective value or objective value or
00:21:57
Speaker
you know, one man's treasure is another man's waste of money kind of thing. And that's all fine. But yeah, I want to provide as much value as possible. And the funny thing is, so me as the perfectionist designer of this, I go, the only value is when it's perfect. Whereas collectors are like, no, no, like those artists proof ones have more value because they're not perfect yet.
00:22:22
Speaker
And my subconscious brain does not understand that at a deep level. Like I'm like, no, I don't believe that. That's, you guys are wrong, but yeah, you're onto something here. Yeah. You're onto something here. I like that. Okay. I'm going to play with that idea and.
00:22:44
Speaker
I know people love limited things, whether it's a limited pattern or design or feature or extra little bit that comes with the first 50 like a little coin or something that just continues to add value. You can do that on the production run, but keep the proofs.
00:23:00
Speaker
wholesome to the process. We are focused on this. I like what you said about having additional little card for that first 50 or whatever it is. That explains a bit of the process and it's a bit of the history and the lore as my kids would say involved in the process. Cool. Good. Sweet. Bring that prototype with you in April if you don't mind. I want to play with it. I'll have a finished knife with you by April.
00:23:29
Speaker
Oh, it's only five weeks. Five weeks, yeah. Yeah, I was just telling Leif, I was like, remember, in a month, we're going down to Ohio, and a big smile comes out his face, and he's like, yeah. You are doing good on the...
00:23:44
Speaker
Get that thing going. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And yesterday I was sitting at the at my office at home, the kitchen table, and I wrote down, OK, what's what's left? Just I grabbed a scrap piece of paper. There's a whole bunch of math on it from the kids. And I carved out this little blank section.
Finalizing Knife Project
00:24:00
Speaker
I was like, list out everything that's left on this knife. I got to make the stop pins. I got to finalize this, that, that, that, that. And then it just let me look at the whole picture.
00:24:10
Speaker
I have notes and lists other where but I just needed to write it in a new place wrap my head around the whole thing and I'm like dude there's not that much left to like get this to that proof stage where we can actually make make several so it's good to make good progress I didn't want to ask you about
00:24:29
Speaker
Like I said, Reamer, I'm reaming a 1,255 hole, two of them, and then a 1,36 hole. And looking under that microscope, there is a wad of chips flattened at the bottom of this hole.
Reaming Challenges and Solutions
00:24:43
Speaker
And it's causing the hole to not be the right depth because there's junk down there. And like infusion, everything looks perfect. Like, ah, 5,000 clearance? Easy peasy. But in real life, like I didn't think chips would, so I'm trying to figure out a way to
00:24:59
Speaker
ream a hole that's as close to the bottom of the pre-hole as possible and not shove chips down. The chips are coming from the reamer or from a prior operation? So in this one I'm drilling and then I'm reaming. That's it. But the chips are coming from which? I think they're coming from the reamer.
00:25:21
Speaker
Okay. Is the drill through spindle coat drill? Yep. Okay. Yeah, probably shouldn't be. So, I mean, look, I hate reamers. They haven't been great for us. We will use them in aluminum, but
00:25:38
Speaker
We can talk for a long time about this, but the idea, broadly speaking, of a reamer, I'm an expert over a boring bar, is a reamer will more closely follow or float.
00:25:53
Speaker
into a hole. I humbly would say that that's less of an issue these days with machines and so forth. But nevertheless, there's some truth to that. Whereas a boring bar, so long as you're not interrupted in the cut will be much more indifferent, meaning your hole could be 3,000 left. As long as your boring bar is engaged, it'll cut through it and create a straight and concentric hole.
00:26:20
Speaker
I would, you're doing these on the current, actually it doesn't matter what you're doing. Why aren't you interpolating this? So on our rasks and Norseman, we've spent years playing with interpolating holes or reaming holes, and I'm finding far more consistency in diameter with reaming.
00:26:40
Speaker
So fair point, because my issue with reaming is the fact that we will do thousands of holes every day in our shop. There we go. Four verticals dedicated for fixture plates, whereas you do a couple holes on a knife. So maybe reamer, carbide reamer, look into spiral flute reamer. This one is a spiral flute reamer. Not pulling the chips up. Yeah, it's not. The 1255 is a spiral flute and a Harvey. And there's chips in the bottom of the hole.
00:27:08
Speaker
You can also buy thrush medical and reamers. Really? So straight through would be fine for you. You don't necessarily need the side outlets, but then that's going to help create a flushing action. Ooh, I like that. Okay, I will look into that. Or worst case, so a lot of times we'll take reamers and chop them down because we don't need like, on Havoc's reamer, a lot of them come as like 12 inches long. Really good. So you can chop it down and then you can also have an EDM shop poke a hole through it. Interesting.
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah, just, uh, what's that EDM called? Oh, not a hole puncher, but a drill wire. Yeah. Like a drill. No sinker. No, not sinker. That's a mold is kind of thinking though, but it's, uh, you don't want to sink on your whole popper, don't they? Whole popper. Yeah. Yeah. But to be precise, like you just need a totally, um, Zadaro could do that for us. Like military. Yeah. Um, okay. Okay. Obviously you don't want to drill the whole, the pre hold deeper.
00:28:08
Speaker
I can't. It gets so close to the other side of the part that I'm seeing a bulge visually in the part. Part of that bulge could be the chips being reamed down, creating a better floor finish because the floor is only 10,000, 20,000 thick or whatever it is, but I don't want to see a bulge. I'm trying to find the best version here.
00:28:31
Speaker
The only way I push, I mean, look, proof is in a pudding. You spent time interpolating and you, it's not the right fit. So this hole is probably two and a half times D. So interpolating would need a pretty long, pretty narrow end mill to interpolate and.
00:28:49
Speaker
Okay. No, but I think through spindle reamer is probably just the answer. And then the other thing is, so you drill a hole at the bottom of the hole is whatever, 140 degrees. And now you're trying to ream, where do you stop the reamer to not smash the taper in the bottom of the hole, right? Do you want that 140 floor? Not necessarily. I think I do come in with an end mill and I interpolate that bottom taper from the drill away. Okay. So that the reamer has,
00:29:18
Speaker
you know, not to deal with. We've also used some Mitsubishi, maybe also YG1, but I believe it's Mitsubishi flat bottom, or OSG makes them as well, 180 degree flat bottom drills. Those should drill very consistent. We use those a lot, but really only to clean up the bottom of a drill hole. I haven't had... What is it?
00:29:47
Speaker
I still break them every now and then. I'm like, why is it breaking? It's just touching the bottom of a drilled hole. We use them quite a lot. Eighth-inch diameter, I think. Three-thirty seconds. Just knowing what I know about reamers and how fussy they can be on finish, and frankly on size, if
00:30:09
Speaker
I don't know what kind of tolerance you're trying to hold or finish, frankly, but a small solid carbide drill should actually be shockingly consistent.
Precision in Machining
00:30:19
Speaker
For all size? Yeah. You care about nominal and finish or just nominal? Let's finish. This is where the stock pins go. So I do want a pretty tight hole, pretty tight diameter hole. Like a couple of tenths? Yeah, yeah.
00:30:40
Speaker
Yeah, too small is bad, too big is usable but sloppy. The process though of roughing semi-finishing and finishing such that the finish end mill is potentially doing almost nothing. I have found to be very consistent. Yeah. Well, I think for us,
00:31:03
Speaker
Tool to tool changes ever so slightly, even with Cutter Comp, even how it's diameter probed on the laser, like sometimes different. Don't diameter probe it. You'll create a feedback loop. Well, there's that. You're saying come in and probe the hole and then feedback loop, which I've tried a lot. Don't do any of that. No, but I just meant laser diametering the tool itself has
00:31:33
Speaker
I don't know I don't fully believe in it.
00:31:38
Speaker
I kind of agree, but you're right. You're doing a well made tool in a short PG holder, a rego fix holder. Right, right. I mean, I'm dealing with this this week because we're trying to create a long term reliable process for this press fit. And I learned that I'm not fighting the diameter so much as I'm fighting the fact that I was initially
00:32:06
Speaker
machining the relief guide. That common trick for anything that's press fit is if you can, if you're allowed to, you should relieve a foul area that allow the part to start incorrectly. Well, that was being done in a second op. And even though it was being probed, if it was ever so slightly off, it was, it was making things worse, not better. Sure. I fixed that by back. It's actually pretty cool. I'm back boring the relief from the same op now. And
00:32:28
Speaker
point being like we're able to hold, I don't need to hold a few tenths, but I know this because I've made 25 parts this week where I'm deltronics each one, two holes and 50 holes and they're holding John. So I guess if I came to work for you, I would with your blessing want to experiment with interpolating. I feel like I could make that work for you.
00:32:49
Speaker
Well, and consistently over time too, you know, you get 10 in a row, you're like, sweet. But then three weeks from now you change to a different end mill and it's different and nobody catches it until like three weeks later when they go to assembly or something like that.
00:33:03
Speaker
You should be QC, sorry, not QC. We should be, yeah, for sure. But like, we've had those same issues with reamers for sure, where all of a sudden, a reamer, whether it gets a permanent nick, or whether there's just a temporary chip stuck on it, the reamer will all of a sudden blow out on you. And the same thing, we use a, I don't know, $4,000 to $6,000 big die show of digital boring head. We got a couple of them. Like, that's as much money as you can spend on a boring head. And every once in a while,
00:33:31
Speaker
Really? Yeah. The nice thing about the digital is that when you tighten the screw, you see how much the diameter changes based on tightening that screw and locking it in. It can't lie to you because it has that digital scale, if you will, built into it. It's actually up.
00:33:49
Speaker
very official resistor of some kind, but nevertheless, it's kind of like, I don't care what you tell me. I care about the fact that I know it's every once in a while it goes like way three or four tens out. And so we do a test hole usually first to make sure things are settled in. And even for that operation, I've never really used a boring head seriously. I think I used one 10 years ago, but
00:34:15
Speaker
your pre-hole is probably just as critical as your finish hole, right? Or does it kind of clean a little bit more forgiving? Remeaning is far more reliant on pre-hold pre-hold diameter. Yes. I even noticed that for interpolating a hole, like your pre-hole is just as important as your, you know, the stock to leave, the actual stock to leave matters for your finished hole size.
00:34:40
Speaker
agree there? Yes. Well, yes, for sure. But I feel like that's more of just a tool pressure thing. So if you do spring passes, other than long term tool wear, you'll kind of get their high quality machine doing three spring passes. Maybe that compromises tool light, but it'll work. Reme, where it's remeaning, it's just all of a sudden like
00:34:58
Speaker
Like you can, you could spring pass a reamer. I wouldn't recommend it. And I don't, it shouldn't work because the reamer needs to engage in that material and enjoying that would cause. It's going to rub, I guess. Exactly. It's no good. Are you, are you stopping and feeding out or rotating and feeding out? Pretty sure I'm feeding and feeding out.
00:35:21
Speaker
You could stop, it's hard on the spindle. That's no big deal for you. For me to want a thousand holes on a plate, it's not good, but you could stop and retract the spindle straight out. I feel like that would scratch, wouldn't it? Yeah, it could, but you're also, you're sort of spring passing when you pull it out. There's a like textbook reason to stop the spindle and retract the reamer out. Yeah, I can see that.
00:35:48
Speaker
Don't run that, don't run them backward. That's the like one big thing you're not supposed to do. Yeah, it's the one rule. Good to know. Bricks matters too on Rimi, which I hate. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to cogs dill it, right? That's, we've all been down that journey. Not really had great. Yeah. I don't have the depth for it. Um, I mean, we did have long-term success. Um, but the cogs dill burnishing tool was too long for the Kern. So I just never put it in the Kern. Um, we were doing it on the Maury for seven years though, or something.
00:36:19
Speaker
Dude, you don't even need a cog still. You could, uh, you could, you would need to create some texture in the hole. Is that way the cog still has material to burnish and then just stick a one eighth or like a, whatever it would be two millimeter dalpin in the spindle and rotate it in a holder. Seriously, that would work a hard burnish it. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I'm liking through spindle reamer the best at the moment.
00:36:49
Speaker
I'll see what I can do there. You know what amount of material you are leaving nominally or as a percent of the hole? I'm probably just, I'm going by the book-ish, but I'm just using a drill and then reaming the hole with the reamer. So I think I'm, I forget how many percent, but I did look at that. I'm surprised there's that much chip creation, I guess. Yeah. I would guess.
00:37:17
Speaker
I'm probably drilling a 93 thou hole. No, that seems like too much. And then reaming out to 1255. Maybe I'm drilling more. I forget. I forget. I would expect you to be drilling like a one bigger one. Yeah, I might be. I might be. Yeah. Because that seems like too much. Because don't you want like five thou or something? Like 1%. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing.
00:37:42
Speaker
It's been a while since I programmed it, but I'm pretty sure I did it by the book. Yeah, I'm not trying to be on the spot, but I know it's going to do a one like you can look up drill charts and all that. But yeah, he would like if you go to have a tool dedicated in the current that's like a weird size, then it's just for this operation. No, no, because we do this on the rasks and the Norseman. Anyway, we have an eighth inch hole and we drill it with whatever this drill bit is.
00:38:10
Speaker
Maybe I am interpolating the reamed hole. I can't remember. The pre-reamed diameter is from interpolation. Maybe. Yeah, that'd be okay. A number of 31 drills, 1-2-0, at least 5,000, which would be fine, or a three millimeter drill, which is even easier. Yeah, yep. 1-2-5. I don't know. If you can, it's a carbide drill, right? Yeah.
00:38:37
Speaker
start and you have deltronics pins or a way to measure the yeah, I would start if they're intense increments, I would start checking the consistency of the pre ream. Yeah, it's good idea. It's kind of like don't fight a battle if you can like what's that like lean saying like the best thing to do this lean is just to delete the whole process. Like if a drill will work, throw the reamer away. Yeah. Okay, okay. Some good ideas here.
00:39:06
Speaker
Drill. Like Harvey makes reamers in basically every thou size ever. It's harder to find drill bits in every thou size or half thou size for that matter. Agreed. Yeah. We're trying to ream a 1255 hole so that a 125 pin has a nice little bit.
00:39:29
Speaker
Mari Tool sells, they're not theirs, they just resell them. They have carbide reamers and they have like, they call them like ultra precise carbide reamers. We continue to purchase those and have had good luck. They're not available in every increment, but I'm kind of pulling them up right now to see what kind of, I humbly said would consider a different manufacturer than the one that you're currently using.
00:39:57
Speaker
They have a 1252 and a 1256, 37 bucks. It's not through, but it's carbide. 1256 would be fine. Yes. Six fluid, 10 degrees spiral, uncoated, but if I really wanted it through spindle, I could have somebody pop a hole through it. You're doing this in titanium? Yeah. I don't know anything about titanium.
00:40:27
Speaker
Okay. Cool. Cool. Yeah, because that's one of the problems to solve yet to solve that I'm currently ignoring because I have other challenges to solve on the knife, but I'm going to need to tackle that before we're in production, right? Yeah.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah. I was thinking when you first started talking about this, that the floor that you're hitting was the fixture, but here it's obviously part of the part product.
Knife Features and Material Selection
00:40:57
Speaker
That's why you're so limited on how much room you got, huh? Exactly. Because I'm trying to leave that floor on the other side of the part to, I forget what, 10,000, 20,000, something like that. So without bulging it, without trying to stuff a lot into a little space because it's not a big knife.
00:41:17
Speaker
That's crazy. Yeah, it's cute. What's funny is it as hard as this is, that's the features you're working with would be like the biggest features on a watch, like by far. Yeah, totally. Yeah, it would be a lot finer details after that. Right. I'm practicing.
00:41:36
Speaker
All right, I got a fun viewer mail I got to share from Jason who sent this in. It's just too good. It actually came in yesterday last night. But basically he's like, loved the podcast, started listening, super helped out. My son sometimes listens too. I was at...
00:41:52
Speaker
Um, his college sports game, unclear what sport it was and something happened and he yells pineapple. And, um, and that was, I don't, unclear what happened if like something happened, but that was their signal that everyone's okay. And they need to stop and kind of listen cause something just happened, but whatever. Oh my God, that is hilarious.
00:42:17
Speaker
Man, we haven't talked about that in years, I feel. Right? We say, I mean, it probably gets better. Do you still use it? It's four times a day. OK, yeah. So it's still an active thing for you guys. I think I grabbed a Uline bin this morning, and another Uline bin fell. And so it makes a noise. You just yell at my apple. Nice. Huh.
00:42:35
Speaker
Yeah, we don't have a word in the shop for that. We're just like, oh, that's fine. We're good. Yeah, it was me. We've heard our shop launch yesterday though and machines are running and pretty sure it was the horizontal. A tool started to make a sound and I'm like, ooh, is that a, you know, inserts blow up or did a tap just go? And I listened to a little bit more. I'm like, eh, sandwich is pretty good. We'll deal with it later.
00:42:59
Speaker
I love that moment where everybody kind of tenses up and like looks to the door and just thinks for a minute. Just let it like, is it still doing a thing? No, we got to get up and go do it or it's fine. Run it. Yeah. Yeah. Because you get so used to the noises of your shop and anything outside the norm kind of makes you question like, oh yeah, right? Yep. Yeah. I like it. We're at a time.
00:43:26
Speaker
That's fine. What are you up to today? I'm finalizing the button design for the knife and making it on the willow and working really, really well. And I'm trying to figure out the material to make the button from. Did we talk about this last week?
00:43:47
Speaker
Briefly, and then actually, Rob had some good nuggets to share from, I think he sort of disclaimed it. He's quite old advice, but was it like your... Hardness. ...minor Rockwell differentiation or something? Yeah, I've heard that too, and I don't know. You want one to be softer than the other, the blade or the locking surface, so that, well, you're forcing one of them to deform and not both of them to not deform.
00:44:13
Speaker
And that's what we do for our lock inserts on the blade. The lock insert is maybe two points lower than the blade itself. It seems to help. But yeah, there's limited choices in round bar that is still stainless, that's still high carbon, that can be heat treated to 58. That's not 440C. I'm probably just going to go with 440C because it's super common, super easy, perfect use case.
00:44:41
Speaker
can't do 17 for not pretty hard and then harden it. It doesn't get that hard. Oh, okay. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. I think I can probably go a bit harder than the age 900 right now, but that's what I'm turning it as now. And it's, it's deforming and a little bit. Why does that have to be seamless? So it doesn't rust. Yeah. High quality tool steel. Tool steel can get a rust on you. It could.
00:45:06
Speaker
Yeah, because people use tool steel blades all the time and they rust. They can rust. Somebody lives by the ocean, it gets bad pretty quick. It's one of those things you just don't want it to be a problem. Someone like I could make it out of A2 and then I could PVD coat them or something, but even the PVD coats that we're having, they got to clamp the part somewhere. Yeah, hold it. There's going to be a non-coated section.
00:45:32
Speaker
It's funny you talk about this because we've been going through some vendor changes, like just who are we buying material from? Is it the right vendor for the right material? Some vendors are like,
00:45:46
Speaker
They sometimes mean well to help, but it ends up that they were sourcing something that's not normal, which means when you need to reorder it, you're creating friction that you didn't realize was there. And I don't want that. Like I want to buy, so you're just trying to like suss out like who sells this and it's great. And there are all these different terminology of hot roll, cold roll, hot finish, cold finish, ground and polish, all of all this stuff. And I'll tell you, like I probably should get on Upwork and like find a metrology, excuse me, metallurgy,
00:46:13
Speaker
person. My concern is I don't want somebody who only speaks in PhD dissertations. I don't want a practical metallurgist. Yeah, that would be a nice person to know. I'm sure some of our listeners are.
00:46:32
Speaker
Yeah, like in the shop here, I know Angelo and Sky have a decent hobby background in metallurgy, research things like that. So any questions, I don't really know what I'm talking about other than Google and my limited experience, but I usually go to them and talk about that and let them do the research, let them analyze, whether it's heat treat or material or the Vanadium content in a thing, you know, I just let them figure it out. There's a,
00:47:02
Speaker
bearing, like a ball bearing company just south of us here that I have a contact at, I think is, I think their parent is a metallurgist. I may actually just reach out and ask if they'd be willing to do some side hustle help. Absolutely. Sweets, what are you up to today? We are, I made the call
00:47:23
Speaker
Actually, it's such an easy decision after I made the decision. We are making timing chain covers for shtemptworks. This is like, quote unquote, side hustle. And we had five or six that were either done or the work in progress, and I'm just not happy with them. I'm not happy with them because the way we originally prototyped them, I wouldn't have fixtured them that way. That's
00:47:46
Speaker
And it's kind of that classic dilemma of like, do I try harder to make this work? Or did I just realize, eh, you know so much more about how this part, it's a quirky part because it's relatively large, but thin and there aren't your typical work holding features to the part. Like it's becomes a complex shape for op two and, um, so for lots of curves.
00:48:08
Speaker
But last night I just sat down and inverse pie again, like in 20 minutes I had designed in my head. It's actually really funny. I'm like at home and like everyone's like, I can just stare it apart and I will actually really like it when I get to be a surgeon about it. And so this morning came in, huddled up. I'm going to 3D print a test fixture, which honestly might even work, but
00:48:29
Speaker
just changing the way we're clamping it, changing the way we're doing which operation, and I'm just going to throw the ones away we have and remake them because it feels so much better. It's the better solution. Yeah. Yeah. I will literally bring parts home so that I can stare at them for 20 minutes. Yeah. Isn't that fun? Yeah. It's like my wife asked me just literally the other day, she's like, okay, a couple hours till bed. What are you going to do to bed? I'm going to go downstairs and I'm going to stare at the integral for half an hour. I literally said that to her.
00:48:54
Speaker
No actually we just nothing i want to mention we put it up as an instagram post i think but i'm pretty good i think humbly said a pretty good printing three print psa of we print a lot of little inserts for fixtures to help like locate a part or hold apart place and when you print.
00:49:14
Speaker
threads on a 3D printer, a lot of times the threads frankly stink compared to the rest of the print. Like players are pretty good these days. And I realized in Fusion, it's not that hard to take the whisper end of the thread and create a quick projection, extrude it down and basically blunt start the thread with a fillet. So you'd create a fake Higby that avoids that tiny whisper of a thread that will cross thread so easily on a 3D printer. Okay.
00:49:42
Speaker
We're sure I like that. Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're basically making the whole model printable instead of creating all these tiny little, uh, parts. Yep. Yep. Cool. Yep. Yep. What are you trying to rescue? What are you up to today? Um, yeah. Integral stuff. Yeah.
00:49:59
Speaker
Pretty much I'm actually calibrating the replacement bloom probe on the speedio. So everything's good. I got it dialed in for concentricity, got it paired up properly. And then I go to do a test measurement, just touches the surface and see if it stops. It doesn't stop. It touches the surface and it keeps going. Luckily I was there and I stopped it and I was like, okay, let me try it in X. It goes sideways, touches the part, keeps going. I'm like, whoa, what the?
00:50:24
Speaker
Okay, I'm glad I'm on point here, but something's wrong. So I start emailing the Bloom guys and I'm like, it paired, but it didn't pair properly? Like, please help me. That's what I'm doing today, actually. So the thing I have some good suggestions, skip signal, something, something. Maybe I ruined a setting when I tried to pair the new probe, something like that. So that's what I'm on to.
00:50:47
Speaker
Dude, we've done that with the Renishaw. It's like Morse code when you got to go through the color pattern stuff to set it to the right mode. Oh. I'm not even strong enough with colors. You're trying to red, green, blue, purple, fuchsia. Oh, what? Yeah, you got to write furiously. Isn't that funny? Oh, man. This one's a radio probe, which I hadn't had before, not the IR.
00:51:10
Speaker
Oh, cool. Okay. It's interesting, which theoretically should work like across the shop, but literally doesn't work as well outside the enclosure as it does inside the enclosure. It's because your machine's a faraday cage. Yeah, it kind of is. Yeah, so that's the fun I'm going to be having today. Good. Enjoy. I'll see you next week. All right, man. Take care. Bye.