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Business of Machining - Episode 123
231 Plays6 years ago
Easy as 1-2-3!
It's easy to commit to recording this podcast every week when you love it!
“This is one of my favorite things to do each week” - Saunders
“This podcast is a safe space for us to brag OR complain” - Grimsmo
Even after so many episodes, the podcast’s format remains the same: two buddies gush over machining, the challenges that come along with it, and running a business.
The Swiss Lathe TURNS into a conventional lathe (for now)
A fluke in the order for guide bushing delays the Swiss Lathe from being used to its full potential for almost a month.
Not to fear, it will still be making chips! Grimsmo explains how.
Keep it clean.
With such a small space, Grimsmo is finding it hard to keep the shop clean and organized. Saunders and Grimsmo talk shop organization and maintenance.
Should YOU be worried about someone copying your idea for a product?
Saunders and Grimsmo discuss this, how they’ve handled this question in the past, and how making the right call on this issue can help your business thrive.
“I’ve never been worried about a copy because people are buying a brand from us” - Grimsmo
Check out the book Blue Ocean Shift for further discussion of this topic.
FEEDBACK
“Don’t ask your friends and family for feedback!” - Saunders
You want feedback from the context of the market in which your product will be sold.
Speeds and Feeds
Saunders and his team gear up to launch their biggest project yet: redefining how the machining world consumes and learns speeds and feeds!
Sign up to be notified about the beta launch HERE
How to create a system that is beyond yourself and your personal calendar
Having a business means involving your team in process changes, and system implementation. Saunders and Grimsmo brainstorm ideas on how to do this.
That’s SO metal, man.
Discussion of different types of metal. Which metal works for your project?
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Significance
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 123. My name is John Saunders. My name is John Grimsmough and that's insane. That's 123 times, but it's like one of my favorite things in life, which is the power of things in usually small doses over periods of time. I would be hard for me to put a specific
00:00:28
Speaker
You know, it's not like we've taught each other a language or a new skill set or camping or how to play soccer. But so I can't tell you why I'm better off, but like it's having that stability, that framework, that ability to talk is good.
00:00:45
Speaker
Yep. And that accountability too. I mean, you are really good about keeping me on point over months and months and months in a way that my local people, family, et cetera don't necessarily do because they see
Balancing Productivity and Humility
00:01:00
Speaker
me every day. Right.
00:01:01
Speaker
Well, I don't think, uh, I don't think it's been as much of a thing. I mean, I remember when I used to feel like I wanted to influence you to boost productivity, like don't spend all that time. Like, you know, again, who am I to say this? It's your business. It's backseat driver. There's all sorts of caveats, but the flip side, darn it. You got to put, you got to move product. Yes. Um, yeah, that's good.
00:01:30
Speaker
It's also funny because there's like a contradiction to this, which is if you think back to all the, many, all of us over as too much, but many of the people that you think about that you look up to or that are quote unquote socially popular, not that that's an important metric per se, but nevertheless likable, like people that you want to hang out with or people that you want to have dinner with or be at an event with, usually people don't talk about themselves.
00:01:58
Speaker
They don't tommy top. They don't try to outdo you with stories. They don't try to just bring it back to them. I'm guilty. I will readily admit of sometimes doing that and I wish I didn't, but it's not for any other reason that I just do. I don't like it, but I'd like to think I'm not narcissistic and that way you just do it. This podcast with you is a chance to talk about us. This is selfish. I struggle with this. I need help with this. It's good to have those outlets where you know it's okay that way.
00:02:29
Speaker
Yeah, it just is. Yeah. And this is our little section outside of daily life where we are allowed to open up and not feel bad about boasting or complaining, depending on the situation. And it is really fun. And like you said, what was it? The people you want to hang out with and or socially popular people usually are not the same people for me. Like the people I want to hang out are not socially popular, which is funny.
00:02:57
Speaker
I don't mean that in the quarterback of the football, but I was hanging out with some folks on that NTMA trip to Europe a couple months ago. There's a guy who ran a shop who totally not like me. He was the kind of guy who was super boisterous and could probably sell ice to an Eskimo, but new machines, but kind of the center of attention in the sense that he was funny and a little bit loud and all that.
00:03:26
Speaker
But even as much as he had all those characteristics, he never used the word I. He never tried to ... I remember he's very successful and I remember looking him up and he has his own Porsche racing team. He literally travels all over the world, probably travels internationally once a month. He's got a shop with Hermlas and insane French bridge mill machines.
00:03:52
Speaker
and you never heard him pound his chest. You never heard him say, and the portion thing is funny because those cars came
Lathe Setup Challenges and Solutions
00:04:00
Speaker
up at dinner one night and he didn't even say anything. Obviously, he's very comfortable. He's very comfortable with himself. He doesn't need to
00:04:10
Speaker
He doesn't need to be the alpha male at the table to say, well, I've got more portions than you do. Or, you know, I'm a, you know, custom built one and shoot guard for this that, no, he's just a good dude. Like he's just like, right. Anyway. That's beautiful. That's, yeah, that's, uh, aspirational, you know? Right. Just good to think about, cause it's not, it's not that you need to be popular, but you do, I do believe you're always kind of selling in life, right? Like you're always, yeah.
00:04:40
Speaker
Why should you work with us? Why should you be a customer? Why should we be a vendor, et cetera? Yep. And you always want to be, I mean, happy and comfortable in basically any situation, good, bad, or otherwise. Yeah, goals. How's the lathe going? Excellent. Turns out we ordered the wrong guide bushing call-its.
00:05:06
Speaker
The hard insurance? Yeah, the hard insurance. I was told to order what's called SD 125. So I ordered SD 125. And then they came in and they are 18 millimeter threads, but the lathe requires 16 millimeter threads. So it's like, well, crap. Yeah, it'll work. Not a huge deal, except for the lead time of getting more is 26 days.
00:05:32
Speaker
What? Yeah, because they have to be custom made. Nobody stocks them. That I can find anyway. I've tried two vendors. How does Tournos not know this?
00:05:41
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. We just found out yesterday, so we're complaining a little bit, trying to figure out what's going on. However, we're not dead in the water because you can remove the guide bushing completely and move the Z-axis forward and make it into a conventional lathe. That doesn't slide the stock, it just grips it once and you make your part. Yep. Right, right. So we're doing that and we have collets for that. All those.
00:06:09
Speaker
Boy, that's weird to think about a Swiss lathe because you've got such limited Z range. Yes, especially with this. You can make a one inch long part, which is fine for me. Hilarious.
00:06:23
Speaker
But yeah, so we're able to, we should be cutting chips today. We cut a chip yesterday. He said he parted off the training guy. He parted off a bar material and I missed that, but today we'll be able to make some very simple dowel pins that we have to make. So that'll be cool.
00:06:45
Speaker
Either them, them as a company or the reseller distributor or another shop, can't you find somebody to be like, Hey, can I buy or borrow a once one half inch call at our off of you or something? Yeah, probably, probably. Or I mean, Tornos, um, Switzerland should have these in stock for whatever reason. Can't they just like ever ate them to me? Oh, so it's not going to be a hard hinge now.
00:07:08
Speaker
Well, funny thing with Hardinge, so I bought all my call-its from Hardinge and I bought like, I don't know, 10 or 15 of them, but a very reasonable price, like $41 for a regular call-it and then $104 for the guide bushing, which I'm totally happy with. But then this new one that we wanted, because it's a non-standard size, it's a custom order, so it's a $500 call-it. What? Not a $100 call-it.
00:07:35
Speaker
So then I called this other company Southwick and Meisser, which is the other tornos recommendation. And, uh, they have reasonable pricing, a hundred dollars for this size call it, but, um, also a three week lead time. Right. And six 18 down to 16 is only one millimeter radially. So you can't adapt it, huh? Uh, the call that I have is too big.
00:08:02
Speaker
Yeah. Well, the threads are airy, so you can't turn a sleeve. No, because it's hollow on the inside and it don't work.
00:08:12
Speaker
Oh, it's not the right pitch. It's the actual diameter of the column. It's an 18 millimeter male trying to fit into a 16 millimeter hole. Got it. It no go. It does not go. Yeah, so we were confused. But that's it. The training guy from Eliam Metsura has been here for two days now. Today will be day three. A lot of fiddling, a lot of final setup, a lot of getting the bar feeder lined up.
00:08:38
Speaker
we've been missing this bar feeder adapter. So another one came in from LNS and we installed it and the guy's like, Hey, it still doesn't fit. Something's wrong. So we're going to have to either wait many weeks to get a proper one in, or maybe we'll machine some adapter plate, something.
00:08:54
Speaker
So then I was like, why don't you just take them apart, line them up? Oh look, they clocked together. They just don't have the right bolt pattern. We could just transfer punch three holes and tap them and done. And he's like, huh? Yeah, let's do that. That's a good idea. Oh my God. So it took us like four minutes to do that. Um, smile. Yeah, that worked. Uh, well it's, it's one thing here where it's like optimistic, you're installing a new machine, you're problem solving. It's another thing when it's like,
00:09:21
Speaker
two years down the road, it's a service thing. You're on the clock at the tune of potentially hundreds of dollars an hour and the bootstrapper or the business owner is like,
00:09:32
Speaker
We had a service person here at one point in time, no names named, who was downloading a three gigabyte software update on his work cellular hotspot. And I'm like, can I please download this for you on our 150 gigabit internet or whatever? And he's like, no, I'm all set. I'm like, oh my god, come on. We've got stuff to do. What was up with the boring bar you posted?
00:09:59
Speaker
Also,
New Lathe Capabilities and Workflow
00:10:01
Speaker
so on the sub spindle side or the counter spindle side as all the Swiss guys are calling it, there are four fixed drill positions and I was completely under the impression that they're ER20. So I bought ER20 collets, I bought ER20 tools, 12 millimeter shank. It turns out they're ER16.
00:10:22
Speaker
Oh, so the tools and the collets that I bought were too big. So I'm like, well, I've already bought like these two tools. Can I just turn them down? So I did. And it worked great. So turning a boring bar down was piece of cake. Yeah. Did you have to dial it in for diameter? I guess it doesn't matter because it's not, it's not like a cut. It's not a rotating tool.
00:10:47
Speaker
True. Yeah. And, uh, oh, you mean for like run out or whatever? Yeah. Um, no, I just chucked it up. And then because, because you're right, it's not a rotating tool and I can dial in the offset XYZ. Um, I don't really care if it's concentrically off or not. Yeah. Right. Um, but yeah, I measured the Kyocera tool as 44 Rockwell and the micro 100 tool as 32 Rockwell. So that was kind of cool.
00:11:13
Speaker
But micro 100 would be carbide, right? No. The holder itself is steel. Got it. Oh, I always think of micro 100 as being solid carbide stuff. It's like a soft body that takes a little solid carbide boring bar insert.
00:11:30
Speaker
Got it. Cool. Yeah. But yeah, it was pretty sweet last night. Like last thing after 5.30 PM, I was like, let me just bang these out on the Nakamura. So I turned down the diameters and got them a little bit of taper, but I got them basically within a few tenths of a three seven five. Oh, which is pretty sweet. Sweet. That's awesome. Yeah.
00:11:51
Speaker
Oh, cool. So that's come along well. Yeah. And then I still haven't gotten in all my tooling, um, from Jen Swiss for the Swiss
Product Launch and Market Strategies
00:12:00
Speaker
laid. So I have to steal one of the turning tools from the Nakamura today, put it on the Swiss and then we should be able to make parts. Do you have extras? Not really. Not of this one. Yeah.
00:12:12
Speaker
I guess you don't really need, they don't wear out per se, nor do you have a real risk of crashing. Oh, I've got one crashed for sure. But yeah, the other gen Swiss stuff should be coming in this week, but I want it today. So I'm going to nab it from the neck of my rent.
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah, right. Get it going. That's awesome. That's exciting. Yeah. So today it's going to be sweet because the, the part we're making takes, what are we spending like 50 seconds on the Nakamura? And I feel like the Swiss should be able to bang it out in less than 30. Nice. Holy cow. Apparently every, every part should be twice as fast, more or less. Where would it, why the time savings?
00:12:56
Speaker
Most of it is because you can cut on the main spindle and the sub spindle at the same time. Oh, so it's just doing op one, op two at the same time. Yep. Okay. That's not necessarily. Hop on first and then op two. Because you didn't get the twin tour late. Correct. So it's not really RPM driven or speeds or real estate or like travel areas. It's more just
00:13:23
Speaker
dual cutting, which is so great. Okay. Awesome. That's freaking cool. Is it working out? Maybe not ideal, but nevertheless working out with regard to the shop layout and the space and where the machine is and walking around and all that. Yep. It's perfect. It's tight. I mean, it's, everybody's bumping into each other and there's nowhere really to sit or work or whatever. So that's super annoying.
00:13:48
Speaker
I no longer have a home for my laptop, which also kind of sucks. So it's like floating around from here to here to here. But the good thing is it's forcing me to use the shop desktop computer more, which is good because we hadn't been utilizing that very much. So that's cool. Yeah. I tell you, it was like spending some time in that hospital, seeing the
00:14:12
Speaker
nurse carts that were the walking, where they could lower and raise them, had a huge car battery in them to lead them charge. I mean, they could leave them uncharged for hours at a time. I have a form of that in my desk, which I freaking love. Moving it around is great. I was working on some five-axis parts
00:14:32
Speaker
Um, that I knew I was going to be posting a lot from changing tool numbers, checking stuff. And I just wheeled my desk right over to the machine. Cause it's just your right. Like literally you're like leaning up to hit like P 23 MDI, ATC forward, like move the ATC forward while you're still sit at your seat at your desk. And you've got these fusion right in front of you. Um, it is awesome.
00:14:54
Speaker
Okay, so that's a good tip for shop layout as far as like room around the machines and room enough to kind of wheel your mobile desk around. It's nice to have that space, eh?
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's super nice. And we've also started we've mostly standardized this. It's not perfect on every machine, but we have a extra airline and an extra like for outlet 110 on every machine. Because you just you just never know like I was using a hot glue gun on the UMC or you want to plug in a camera or a GoPro or a laptop.
00:15:29
Speaker
And the airlines, we used to just have an extra quick disconnect, but now I'm realizing we want to do an extra quick disconnect and an extra quarter inch. What are those quarter inch push to fit tubing lines? Okay. It's just so easy. It's so nice to have that.
00:15:48
Speaker
That's smart. Yeah. Have that at every machine. I like it. Yeah. Cause there's always some extra little, whether you want to do the, that GoPro, camera mount, you know, put an airline to that or whatever. Yeah. So many things we've been using. We bought the craze thing as well that you have. I think we technically have a newer rev of it, if that matters or is true. And it's been great. Cool. Yeah.
00:16:13
Speaker
So that's actually a good segue because I'm talking about craze and that GoPro product and bringing a product to market. We had a guy asking on the NYC CNC forums about, it's a quintessential entrepreneur question and I would never
00:16:30
Speaker
poke fun of anybody because I have been there and I find I still go there, which is that you have a product idea. You want to bring it to market and you're concerned that someone's going to steal it.
00:16:44
Speaker
For sure, I hear this all the time. Right. And so the thought is it's not something I can patent, whether I can't afford to or it's not patentable. So how do I basically keep my idea a secret, but make sure I also get feedback on it, iterate it, get it to the best it can be. And then as soon as I turn the light switch on,
00:17:09
Speaker
allow it to be sold and allow me to be recognized or us to be recognized as the best company, all that. There's different advice for different people, personalities, different goals, different types of products, but I have generally found
00:17:25
Speaker
you've got to get yourself out of that mindset because the day it's released, it could be copied. Frankly, the more legitimate your idea is, the more successful it is, the more useful it is, the more innovative it is, the more likely it is going to be copied. You're better off
00:17:44
Speaker
executing. What that means is you're better off showing it to people, getting some feedback, making sure you've got your ducks in a row so that you can produce them, so that you can sell them, so you can market them. Own social media. Do your homework on SEO. Get your website down. Make it so that
Business Milestones and Machining Advancements
00:18:00
Speaker
you offer a
00:18:01
Speaker
exceptional product at a fair price, you're able to deliver it, you're able to handle the customer service side versus things like not knowing, not having shipment delays, having product delays, not knowing how to do your packaging, not knowing how to get orders shipped, all that sort of thing. And know that you will have competition, especially if your idea is good. Yeah, especially if it's a broader idea. Yeah, I agree fully.
00:18:32
Speaker
depends on the market and the product and things like that. Like with our knives, I mean, which coincidentally were just copied a few weeks ago, which was hilarious.
00:18:40
Speaker
The Chinese like blade ones? Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, like blade and grip off. But after seven, eight years in business, it finally happened, whatever. That said, for the knives and stuff, people always ask me, but I've never been worried about a copy because we're building a brand, a reputation. People want to buy directly from us. So I've never been worried about that. However, there are definitely products both that I have in my mind for the future or that other customers have.
00:19:09
Speaker
suggested to me that they're trying to build that it would be much easier to rip off or much more broad market, big spectrum kind of easy to sell a lot of. And the trick with that is
00:19:28
Speaker
Like you said, just bring it to market hard. If you take years and years to develop something and you're sharing the whole process, there's a lot of value to that, but somebody else could scoop it and bring it harder to market because they have more money than you faster. That's the fear that everybody has, I think, is that somebody's going to take your idea and execute it faster than you are.
00:19:49
Speaker
Well, there is the idea of copying in a true blatant IP violation. So for example, somebody actually copying a Norseman part for part and then representing it as a jungler's knife. I think, if I'm not a lawyer, I suspect there's things you could do to stop that or slow that down. But otherwise, I think back to that book, I remember what the book was called, but Red Ocean, Blue Ocean. So- Blue Ocean shift. Okay.
00:20:18
Speaker
So red ocean means you're bringing a product to market in a existing marketplace that has reasonable competition. So cutting tools or fixtures or an existing product.
00:20:30
Speaker
of area, making aftermarket parts for your engine or car, lots of different players versus Blue Ocean, which is a truly innovative brand new thing. So you're actually creating a new habit, a new demand. So think iPads 10 years ago where the self-help industry 30 years ago did not exist. And for most people, I think there's
00:20:55
Speaker
something to be said for the benefit of actually playing in a red ocean. Yes, it's competition. Yes, you may have different limits on your ability to charge a certain price point because there's competition, but you're also jumping into an existing marketplace, right? Right. Where you know there are customers and you can quantify it and
00:21:16
Speaker
what's like our new speeds and feeds company, which is so awesome. We know people want that information and we actually know there's other solutions out there. I happen to think our solution will be significantly better, but nevertheless, there's proven demand for it. There's proven instances of people that are willing to pay for that information. They're recognized how it solves them, how it helps them.
00:21:39
Speaker
and a little bit of its blue ocean because we are kind of tackling it from a different perspective, but arguably it's not. I would say arguably it's more maybe what we could say is we're combining a couple of different red oceans because we're taking a different spin on it.
00:21:53
Speaker
But exactly as you said, you kept that project quiet for a year and a half. You know, you teased it, but nobody knew what it was. You worked on it, you worked on it hard. You were ready to launch basically before you really said enough information that somebody could copy it. You know what I mean?
00:22:10
Speaker
Yes. That's a fair point. I think one difference is it's not our first rodeo. For sure. That's actually the great point. As an entrepreneur, you've got to balance this need to understand and listen to what others say and do in terms of your feedback of your product, but you also have to have some amount of
00:22:37
Speaker
conviction, naivety, I don't care. This is what it's going to be. I'm not interested in what ... The customers will like it because I'm going ... It kind of sounds funny when you say these things out loud, but darn it, this is how it's going to be. That ties back into one of the things on getting feedback, which is you should never
00:22:58
Speaker
ask for feedback from people
Shop Maintenance and Efficiency Systems
00:23:00
Speaker
that love you or know you or care about you, family and friends, et cetera, because it's just not possible to give the right kind of feedback. In fact, asking for feedback period changes the way people's brains work because they either want to be often complimentary because it's the socially kind thing to do and it's positive and it's helping you
00:23:19
Speaker
or certainly some people think, well, if someone's asking for my feedback, this is my chance to show them I'm smart, I'm intelligent, and I can think, so I'm going to do everything I can to offer genuine feedback, but happens to be perhaps more critical. None of that's what you're looking for. What you're looking for is
00:23:37
Speaker
And if someone is walking down the aisle and they see your aftermarket muffler part at the car store, they think, that is freaking awesome. That's what I want. Usually, you're not going to get that reaction. But you want it in the context of how it's really going to be sold or transacted. Exactly. And there's definitely benefit to sometimes just if you're designing something or coming up with a product or trying to bring it to market or whatever.
00:24:01
Speaker
To some extent, there's some value in just plugging your ears and doing what you feel is right, especially if it's not your first rodeo, if you have experience doing this before.
00:24:12
Speaker
Because it depends on who you're asking the feedback from, but it might be the wrong type of feedback. If you have some weird wacky idea that a lot of people don't agree with, but you know there's a market for it, then the people you're asking might not be your market. So it's like if you ask your mom, what do you think of this? Then she'll say, oh, it's great, honey. You're awesome. Good for you. But it might suck or opposite.
00:24:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's fun though, but you got to do it. And you got to look, you got to pivot. I mean, strike mark pivoted from targets to camera mounts and our business here has pivoted. And even the new speeds and feeds company frankly has done a lot of internal kind of pivots when we've realized as it's come to kind of come to life what it is. And we just yesterday finished the last database architecture change. And I was, you know, it's always hard to
00:25:05
Speaker
I actually let this sink in. But perhaps one of the biggest moments of my life, because I'm loading this web page. I'm like, is this going to be what I want? And they push the changes over to the front end. And I hit refresh. I started looking through it. And I just smile.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yes. Just that deep internal happiness. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got to make a couple more changes to the homepage, just like little UX things, pretty minor. I have a call this afternoon, but then hopefully the folks that have asked to be on the beta list and so forth, hopefully we'll be reaching out like next week. I mean, really it's just, it's just minor housekeeping stuff at this point.
00:25:44
Speaker
Well, yesterday I was cutting 304 stainless steel for the first time in my life, I believe, and I had to drill it and ream it. And I wish that there was some system out there that just somebody else who had drilled it and reamed it before. Yep, that's it.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yep. So that's the other thing we're now, actually a good example of a pivot is because we're not theoretical, we're giving you things that have been tested. The limitation or the change is the fact that we don't have every cut. The database is growing a lot, but we don't have everything. So we're now making sure we were making it obvious at least to the newer members
00:26:25
Speaker
that people who are paid members will have the ability to say, hey, this is what I'm interested in because that's what we're staffing up to do. That's what we've got the in-house and partners to help us bang that out.
00:26:39
Speaker
Um, we've got a pretty good base started, but nevertheless, that's something we're going to do now, but a long-term, I don't know what that's going to look like because it's not, we're not a, um, it's not a, Hey, I've got this kind of metal face mill. It's a five inch face mill and I'm cutting this really weird material.
00:26:57
Speaker
Can you do a rest? Well, that's not necessarily what this site
Entrepreneurial Challenges and Growth
00:27:00
Speaker
is, right? But it is more of, hey, let's make sure we've got stuff like what you just said, three or four stainless. How do you drill it? How do you remit? How do you tap it? How do you adaptive it? How do you finish it? That kind of stuff. That's it. It finished gorgeous. It is so shiny and beautiful. I drilled some holes, rim some holes and did a whole bunch of adaptive toolpaths and it's very shiny and very nice. What were you working on three or four for?
00:27:25
Speaker
I'm making a fixture to check the blades as they come off the machine to make sure that they didn't shift or move. Because we've had far too many scrap blades where the knife has already gone through, heat treat, lapping, polishing, tumbling. Eric's putting it together to sharpen it and the blade is sitting in the knife too low. Like bad, like it's shifted by 10 degrees or something of the arc rotation.
00:27:54
Speaker
And it just sucks. It's painful, especially for him, because he knows how much work has gone into the blade for him to then get it and see that it's not good or scrap or something. So he's definitely been hounding us in a good way about
00:28:10
Speaker
as they come off the machine, there needs to be a way to check the blades to make sure that they fit up properly. Yeah, right. So it's a fixture that kind of looks like a knife opened up. But there's a pin pressed into it and stop pins fixed in place. So you set the blade on this fixture and you can rotate it open or closed. And then at the open position, there's all these hash marks that says here's nominal. And then here's you know, plus one plus two plus three plus four, and then minus minus minus and then in the closed position too.
00:28:37
Speaker
So we just made it yesterday. Um, I had designed it 10 months ago and I finally got around to making it now. Why did it, why did it have to be three or four? It didn't. Oh my God. But I bought this piece and it was cheap enough and it was fine. Um, I didn't want to make it out of aluminum, but I wanted something steelier and I knew it was going to sit around the shops. I didn't want to use regular steel. Got it. Boy. Um, the thought that popped into my head was, was as an entrepreneur,
00:29:07
Speaker
The steel version or the stainless version is the right version, but you should have 3D printed one that could have at least been a consumable quickie. I don't think it would show the tolerances of accuracy we're looking for. I mean, fair point, but the hash marks that I have to denote size can't be 3D printed like they're too fine.
00:29:31
Speaker
print a square recess in a 3D printed part and then just print out a printer paper tack mark and put it in later. Yeah, that would work. Yep. Didn't think of that. It was easy enough to machine. I wasn't going to say. Why are the blades are moving on the orange pallet fixtures? I think they're shifting during some operations. I'm trying to think the knife, they have the T clamp, right? One clamp goes over two.
00:29:59
Speaker
So
Swiss Lathe Training and Production Goals
00:30:00
Speaker
there's there's a water jet hole in the blade one hole in the back. So that gets screwed down. And then if that was the only screw, they could easily arc around the script. But then there's a kind of flat clamp that cinches them down on the flat of the blade to create downforce and a little bit of grip. But I think just one of the operations is causing them to pivot and rotate away
00:30:26
Speaker
and then maybe even move back, I'm not sure yet. They look fine, they're just dimensionally off. So we got to figure out a better way to constrain them. And I think we have a better top clamp design in mind. Got it. That's going to help a lot. I think the top clamp is actually bowing a little bit. Oh, yeah, that could totally be it. What's the most, what's the operation that would put the most kind of tool pressure or part pressure
00:30:52
Speaker
on it, probably profiling around the outside of the park, walking around it. Got it. Yep. Yep. And then we have this double corner rounder that corners around the top and the bottom creates a form that also sounds pretty angry. Um, so it's one or the other, but the corner rounds always look fine. So I think you'd see it in the, in the finish, if it moved and like, like walked away from the park. Um, so I think it's gotta be the roughing. So we slowed that down too. Um,
00:31:22
Speaker
both the SFM and the intro for tooth. So that should be happier. And then we're going to make a new top clamp, maybe even be blasted to add a little bit of grip. Right. And then instead of having it be flat on top, we're going to dome the top to create some resistance to flexing. Make it stronger. Yeah, that's cool. That's fun.
00:31:44
Speaker
Yes, it was fun. Between that and turning down those boring bars, I had three little side projects banged out throughout the day, which was fun to do. Sweet. Progress. Good. What are you up to today? Swiss training. Make pins. Yes.
00:32:03
Speaker
I went to the metal store and I bought six, six foot bars of 303 stainless, just because I figured it was pretty cheap and we just want to bang through a bunch of stuff on the Swiss. It was like 34 bucks for the six bars. I was like, that is so cheap. In titanium, that'd be like hundreds of dollars. What's funny because 303 is the expensive stainless. 304 is the easy to machine, but you pay for it. 304 is even cheaper, but yeah, it's funny.
00:32:33
Speaker
That's why my steel fixture was 304. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, make pins, um, see what kind of tolerances we can keep on this lathe, taper and all that. I'm kind of, I'm a little bit bummed that we're not doing the guide bushing route and we have to do a fixed call it like, um, chucker mode, they call it. Um,
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah, just because imagine if you had a one is long part, but it's fixed, it's going to deflect for sure. Whereas in a Swiss with the sliding guide bushing thingy, you get all the benefits of a Swiss. That said, these parts are really short. So who cares?
00:33:09
Speaker
Right. No, but that would be just frustrating. Yeah, it's just good progress to see the blade making parts and to actually load a six foot bar and make make a whole bunch of pins. And the pins that we're making today are actually the alignment pins, you know, the wooden case that your pen came in? Yes.
00:33:30
Speaker
There's little pins that align the two halves together. So I was buying those from MSC, but MSC does not like shipping to Canada because they want to charge ridiculous shipping costs. So screw them. And I'll just make them. Do you have an MSC equivalent in Canada? Not really. It's fast and all. There's got it. That's pretty. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I'm up to today.
Customer Interaction and Operational Efficiency
00:34:01
Speaker
It bothers me that Tournos has a common machine, one of their main machines. It's not an off the shelf readily. It's probably not custom in Switzerland, but in America. Yeah, I guess if they're in Switzerland, it'll be kind of expensive, but you can get them Monday from Switzerland.
00:34:26
Speaker
Yeah. Well, when I was in Switzerland, it was funny because they were telling me that every time they need a tool at the factory in Switzerland, they literally walk across the street and there's like Alps there or another company like two blocks down the street or if they need call-its or bushings or whatever, they're like, that's the town. A lot of the Swiss stuff is made like right there, which is really cool. So maybe I need a phone call to them, to my contacts there because
00:34:54
Speaker
A, this needs to be brought up.
00:34:57
Speaker
Luckily, I am a happy customer that doesn't complain too much, but imagine the next customer that will really kick up a fuss. They need to know how to go forward with this. I just always think it's a bummer because you've got a guy on site training you and the lathe will probably act differently when you've got a guy bushing in and you're sliding apart. It's just a win-win. I want to use the thing as I wanted to use it.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But yeah, maybe we can, you know, quick ship some stuff from Switzerland, which could be here in, I don't know, less than a week, because he's going to come back for more training later next week. Oh, yeah. I don't know if we can get parts. Yeah, that shouldn't be a big deal. I mean, you think about it. It's like, it's Wednesday morning when we record this. So it's Wednesday afternoon in Switzerland. If it leaves Thursday overnight, it'll get to Toronto Friday, delivery Monday, Tuesday.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah, I need to do that today. It'll be like a hundred and some bucks to ship it probably, but whatever. Yeah. Still cheaper than getting them custom made from our right. Right. And it's a one time solution. I need quarter inch, three eighths and half inch and I'm done. Boom. That's cool. I don't know if they have inch sizes in Switzerland. That's going to be a problem. I would still get a six millimeter. Can you get six millimeter bar in Toronto? No. Oh, that's okay. That's annoying.
00:36:20
Speaker
Well, we'll figure it out. Disregard everything I just said. Yeah, there's got to be a way. Have you formalized, now that you've got groomsman knives with a staff of people, have you started to formalize things like shop maintenance? No. You mean like machine maintenance or just sweeping in stuff?
00:36:43
Speaker
More than just sweeping so I have a list, but I have not done a good job of keeping up with it nor Implementing it with different people roles and timing, but you know right check the RO filter For PPM particles doesn't need to be replaced clean out this air filter none of it's hard ever no one I don't think anybody here would have a problem doing it, but you have to have a system in place and And we don't now we will but we don't now I
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah, I'm in the same place. It's something I would like to implement. There's so many little things that, man, it would be good for the business to have them done on schedule once a month, once a year, whatever. Replace batteries in the FANUC controller. There's dozens and dozens and dozens of things.
00:37:34
Speaker
I use my personal, but I use my calendar right now for stuff like the batteries on the Renishaw, because that to me is kind of critical, more critical than a filter, I guess. But I need to get it out. But then you think, yeah, how do you create this system that is beyond yourself, that is beyond your personal calendar? Right. That if you're away or, I mean,
Task Prioritization and Skill Development
00:38:00
Speaker
this should also involve everybody else in the shop, you know?
00:38:03
Speaker
Right. Did you have a thing where you were printing off little labels on maintenance items? Yeah, we had a thing and it just never, there was a break. It was a disconnect between how Asana would push to the printer. And I don't remember what exactly it was, but it didn't end up being the right solution. I honestly could revisit it. But the better thing will be,
00:38:28
Speaker
We could do it in a sauna. I'm not sure that's going to make sense. But the spirit of all of that was very much taking a cue from Jay Pearson, which is that we all work for the process. So what is the process telling us to do?
00:38:43
Speaker
With some people, take for example, Josh. Most of the days what Josh is doing, he could probably stop doing something like, or fulfilling an order or packing something or QCing something. He could probably stop when he gets an alert or an email and take care of the task. Other people, it wouldn't make sense. If Jared's really in the middle of dialing in something, it's not going to make sense for him to stop. It needs to be a way to snooze that or remind it.
00:39:08
Speaker
or batch them up? I don't know. I haven't thought about that. It does not need to be at a moment's notice. You get the alert, you have to stop everything doing it right now. That's silly. But it needs to be... I don't know. I like the idea of having a printer backed up with three or four little maintenance tasks. And as somebody's walking by with a few minutes to spare, they rip it off and they go do those four tasks.
00:39:37
Speaker
The problem with the printer is you need some confirmation of success and the printer doesn't give that to you because you could pull the ticket off but never do it by accident or whatever. Yeah, I guess you'd have to trade the ticket like gold.
00:39:54
Speaker
If you're holding it or if it's at the printer area, it needs to get done. It's a to-do list. Then you throw it away when it's done. There's no confirmation that it was done, but there shouldn't have to be if it got done. We're all human. You don't want to process that because we all forget. We all get distracted. Now that I'm thinking about it, the better way will be to have probably a
00:40:17
Speaker
daily stuff, maybe we treat differently because that's different. But weekly, monthly, quarterly stuff, we should probably just have a sheet or something and that sheet could be generated through a sauna. Actually, that would be pretty easy because then you can always be updating that weekly, quarterly sheet, monthly sheet. But every week or every quarter, it gets pushed out of the sauna.
00:40:38
Speaker
and then you have to sign off on it after it's done. That's a simple way of kind of confirming that it was completed and checking stuff and not, you know, that's batching it up, which shouldn't be a big deal.
00:40:51
Speaker
Yeah, actually a Google spreadsheet would work just as well. I'm sure you could set up some sort of reminders through that system as well. Right. And now that I think about it in Pro Shop, there are definitely maintenance tasks that you could schedule and assign to people and have signed off and things like that. And I just haven't gotten there. Yeah. It's like that time suck of the new things.
00:41:11
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Plenty of new things to do. It's funny because I clearly remember when Barry started working here two and a half years ago, for months, I was like, I don't have any more work for you. I don't know what to have you do. A, because he wasn't trained on a bunch of stuff, but I didn't want to share or it's complicated, whatever. And now,
00:41:36
Speaker
Everybody's slam. That's good. Like in a good lesson. Everybody's, everybody's busy and like knows what to do. And you know, they can come in and get to work. They don't have to ask anybody what to do next because it's fairly clear what needs to be done by everybody. So it's, it's sweet. Um, it makes it slightly difficult to like squeeze in little things like maintenance tasks or, um, little things.
00:42:01
Speaker
Yeah, I've been happy that I've been kind of the surgeon mentality focusing on the speeds and fees project here. But it comes at a little bit of a price, which is I've been putting off certain projects.
00:42:16
Speaker
I'd like to think in my head and I may be delusional that once this kind of gets launched and off my plate per se, that I will then be able to finish some projects like the final purge and the maintenance list and some organization stuff and cleaning stuff. But the reality is I'll probably end up getting pulled into other stuff as well for sure. So we'll see for sure. We'll see.
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah, it has to be kind of a priority list of, you know, where do you want to spend your time? It's nice to have your big projects listed out so you can kind of pick and choose and remember what's actually important to you, not just what's the new shiny object for the day.
00:42:51
Speaker
I definitely have that issue. But speaking of surgeon mentality, I, I typically forget about that. And it's great to hear you remind me
Machining Innovations and Team Collaboration
00:43:00
Speaker
of it. But, um, like I was working on a project last week and it was end of the day. So I really wanted to bang it out. I really wanted to focus, you know, didn't want distractions for anything else. And I'm on the shelf grabbing a piece of material, like looking for it. And then Sky comes up and says something, man, I really, really wish we had a height gauge, yada, yada, yada. And I'm like, sorry, I'm not here right now. Yeah, it's funny.
00:43:22
Speaker
It's great. It continues to stick with me as a just trigger. And I don't know if it's just my own personality that makes it work or whether it's going to be helpful for others. But that idea that you can focus on something and do it quite well, yes, it may come at the consequence of not being able to, quote unquote, multitask other things. But the reality is I think you're better off finishing that one thing, finishing it well. And then you can still get to the other stuff. Yeah, for sure. There are definitely bigger projects that should not be multitasked.
00:43:52
Speaker
super, like most things shouldn't be multitask. Yep. Cool. I am off. So what do you have to do? Finishing one last five axis part. We had a phone call two weeks ago. And the deal is we have to keep it under wraps until I think July 16th, what the project is, but a chance to kind of collaborate on something that is
00:44:22
Speaker
pretty darn cool. We've been making some parts for that. Actually, everyone here in the shop has, and I am super excited to be part of that story. Finishing up that last bit.
00:44:41
Speaker
post like teaser, super blurred pictures with an announcement coming July 16th. I don't know what the deal is here, but. Yeah. It was a, I mean, I didn't sign like an NDA, but it was a part of the project was you need to keep the project under wraps. I don't think they have cared about showing some of the specific individual parts because they're not, it's not at all clear what they are part of. It's a part. Yeah. Um, but the, so some of my Instagram posts lately have actually been those parts. Yeah. So it's really cool.
00:45:12
Speaker
I guess it just depends on how big the announcement is or how big the thing is once it's launched and if you want to hype it beforehand or not. I wish I could and I always dislike the whole like, we're working on a conference that we can't talk about, but it's pretty cool. We have to ship those parts by the end of the month, which is 11 days away and we're doing okay. There's been a lot of parts, but we're making good progress and wrapping up
00:45:41
Speaker
some vinyl testing on like how it is to sign up as a member membership. Um, there's a thing on the functionality on the site where you can sort of save your favorite recipes as well as your tools. So if you need to find a cut recipe and you've already told the website what tools you possess or own, um, that are in the site, um, then that can obviously be a good way because if you're trying to drill three or four.
00:46:08
Speaker
And you only have told, said, hey, of these tools I found on the site, I actually own these. It could be a way of filtering down to arrest. Yeah. I like that a lot. And it'll be interesting. You talk about what it's like from a customer perspective in the feedback. Some of this will be
00:46:28
Speaker
I think some of what we are hoping the behavior will influence is long-term. People will end up thinking about tooling up based on these recipes, right?
00:46:39
Speaker
Because obviously that's beneficial both directions. It gives you direction on what to buy and some things that's great like stainless happens to be the case that cobalt drills, which are dirt cheap from McMaster are great for 304 stainless. High speed seal, no good. So if you need to buy 304 drills or drills that are actually generally general purpose, that could be great.
00:47:04
Speaker
That's interesting because we had to run to the local store to get a drill, a number 15 drill or whatever to ream this hole. And Angelo called and signed up and did it. And he's like, do we want high speed steel or cobalt? And I'm like, I always get cobalt because it's like pennies cheaper or pennies more expensive and just always better. But I didn't realize that high speed steel might suck in that application. That's good to know.
00:47:30
Speaker
So are there going to be any high speed steel end mills in your recipes or is that just a flag? No, it's not a no at all. In fact, I have some on art. I mean, I have literally like folding tables worth of more parts to cut, more parts to test. And some of them are going to be on there, but it's not right now or not yet.
00:47:52
Speaker
What we've done is we've built the whole site, the infrastructure, the database, the search functionality, the filters, and then we've got the initial set of recipes, which I think as of this morning is something like 250. Enough that it's clear
00:48:09
Speaker
enough that you get a clear taste of what this is going to be. You can see different materials, different styles, different machines, but in no way is it as comprehensive as it will be as we grow. But what we also want to do is it's ready to turn over to members and the public and it's ready to see, okay, what are we, cause that's the thing. We're not, I don't want to keep living in this bubble. What, because basically we have curated the list to date. So I need to know now what are other people looking for?
00:48:38
Speaker
you know, somebody may be saying, hey, I need HDPE, but I need to read it. And we've got HDPE, but all we've done so far is facing it, adaptive it, finishing it, that kind of stuff.
00:48:56
Speaker
And then I was just thinking a sweet video idea for you could be what is the difference between high speed steel and carbide in end mill or grill? And you could say this on the site as well of here's the cost difference. Here's the life, you know, life difference. And here's the cut quality, blah, blah, blah. Um, cause I think I remember back when we were starting out, you know, spending $3 for a high speed steel end mill was all my money.
00:49:22
Speaker
So we got that little chinesium wood block of the tester end mills. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Remember those days, the breeze carbide inserts and that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Sweet. We'll have fun training on the Swiss. Yeah, I will. Let me know what goes on with the guide bushing. I'm kind of curious. Yeah. Next week I should be able to have an update for us. I'll see you. Have a good one. Take care. All right. Bye. Have a great day. Bye.