Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep. 52: Everything Is a Packaging Problem (So We Bought Lasers)
262 Plays16 days ago
In this canned episode of The Lone Machinist, Jamie and Curt go full laser-brain and unapologetically geek out over CO₂ lasers as shop support tools — specifically for packaging.
From hacked-up K40s and DIY laser builds to cutting foam, cardboard, MDF, acrylic, sandpaper, and occasionally setting things on fire, they break down why lasers quietly become one of the most valuable machines in a modern shop. The conversation drifts through parametric packaging, origami-grade box design, why cardboard is terrifying, why bubble wrap is the devil, and why making your own packaging still beats outsourcing — even when it absolutely shouldn’t.
They also cover diode vs CO₂ vs fiber lasers, bed-of-nails workholding, extraction mistakes, dying laser tubes, LightBurn evangelism, and the harsh reality of competing with retirees charging five cents a minute.
If you’ve ever thought “maybe I should get a laser,” this episode will convince you — and then warn you why you probably shouldn’t.
Links Discussed:
- LightBurn: https://lightburnsoftware.com/
- OpenBuilds: https://builds.openbuilds.com/
The Lone Machinist:
- Website: https://thelonemachinists.com/
- Bonus Content: https://thelonemachinists.com/#bonus-content
- Merch: https://www.jspeceng.com/online-store
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/TheLoneMachinists
Need Work Done? Check out Subtract Manufacturing at: https://subtractmanufacturing.com/
Want to try out Toolpath? Give it a go and get 10% off by using the code TLM10 at checkout: https://toolpath.com/
Jamie:
Curt:
Recommended
Transcript
Intro to CO2 Lasers
00:00:00
Curt
my audio echo.
00:00:01
jamie peacock
Wait, did I break it?
00:00:02
Curt
Oh, oh, we're ripping already.
00:00:03
jamie peacock
Welcome to the canned episode of The Lone machinist Machinist.
00:00:05
Curt
ah
00:00:08
jamie peacock
This episode is recorded the day before the Dylan episode comes out. um But it's quite an interesting topic. So Kurtz and I both use our CO2 lasers for making packaging.
00:00:20
jamie peacock
And we've both received a few questions. So we thought, why not dive deep on it? And I think it'll be a somewhat interesting topic for us to cover.
00:00:28
Curt
Yeah, I mean, hopefully you're into this stuff because we're both into it and I know we can geek out it on it for at least an hour.
00:00:28
jamie peacock
What are your thoughts?
00:00:33
Curt
um Maybe not. We'll see. but so
00:00:36
jamie peacock
So I remember when you got your laser, but for the audience, can you recap your laser purchasing endeavors?
00:00:44
Curt
Oh, very much so. So i was I wanted a laser just for packaging, which I think is like the huge use for them. And I i actually want to buy a bigger, better, faster laser just for that reason now.
00:00:55
Curt
but I looked at like cheap diode lasers. I can't remember what company I was looking at initially. Um, cause they were cheap and I had a CNC machine, like a big gantry router or not big, but a gantry router. And I was just going to plug a little diode laser onto it to do my cutting.
00:01:06
Curt
And like, it just, it wasn't there. Like this was, i don't know, eight years ago.
00:01:09
jamie peacock
yeah
00:01:11
Curt
Um, and
Laser Modifications and Upgrades
00:01:12
Curt
diodes were just, they just didn't have enough power. Yeah. And like there was the one I was looking at, had like, he coupled like three five watts together with like a beam combiner to get more power out of it it was really fancy but like it was still like it's a cheap co2 is just gonna walk all over it so that's what it did i did bought a cheap k40 and then spent copious amount of time i gutted it completely cut the case apart entirely so it's a two foot by one foot cutting area as opposed to like it's little eight by ten or whatever it is then yeah works
00:01:14
jamie peacock
diodes were five watts
00:01:23
jamie peacock
oh okay yeah a janky yep
Creative Uses for Lasers
00:01:43
Curt
it's worked up till now i keep using it um but yeah it's it needs it's new nude life
00:01:47
jamie peacock
what What controller are you running on yours? Oh,
00:01:51
Curt
I'm using just a Gerbil board, like an Arduino running Gerbil.
00:01:54
jamie peacock
okay. With an Arduino on it.
00:01:56
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:01:57
jamie peacock
Oh, wow, okay.
00:01:59
Curt
Why?
00:02:00
jamie peacock
So, okay, so unlike you, I didn't buy a laser. I was enlightened to the power of laser just for my wedding um at my friend's place. He had a little, what was the, think it was a 400 by 400 millimeter laser, little like or 50 watts laser.
00:02:16
jamie peacock
forty or fifty wat c o two laser And I was like, this is magic, I need one. And then I built a fishing braid testing machine and used the proceeds of that to buy the bits and pieces to build my CO2 laser.
00:02:28
jamie peacock
So I built a 400 by 600 laser. And when I started, I was running it on a Arduino GRBL board. And then was like, no, i'm not getting the performance I want. So I podged together ESP32 running the LPC fork of GRBL.
00:02:46
jamie peacock
And that worked right up until a about six months ago when it decided all of a sudden to ship the bed.
00:02:46
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:02:52
jamie peacock
And then I bought a little ESP GRBL board and ported it over to that. And yeah, that thing has cut so much stuff. But I also went the diode
Challenges and Solutions
00:03:00
jamie peacock
route before that. So I built a ah bolt a little laser cutter using a CD-ROM diode.
00:03:08
jamie peacock
Then I bought a diode and built a bigger machine using a 5-watt diode, which I still have lurking around somewhere. But yeah, that thing was a fire hazard. I think all my wedding, all the names for my tables at my wedding were done on the diode laser.
00:03:21
jamie peacock
Like...
00:03:21
Curt
Okay.
00:03:23
jamie peacock
super frickin glacial.
00:03:23
Curt
Yeah.
00:03:24
jamie peacock
I had my friend with a CO2 laser just cut out the perimeters for me and then we just put on what we wanted on them.
00:03:25
Curt
Yeah.
00:03:30
jamie peacock
ah And all the coasters we gave away at our wedding, we gave away like 70 odd coasters that we had cut out of a tree, then decoupaged on the one side and then we engraved the dates and whatnot on the back.
00:03:41
jamie peacock
And her friend ran my laser for like two days, just putting part of it going glacial, like absolutely glacial.
00:03:44
Curt
Nice.
00:03:47
Curt
Yeah.
00:03:48
jamie peacock
But But yeah, then I built the CO2 laser and I designed some parametric packaging for random parts. Like you could literally go into the parameter, set the overall dimensions of the part, and then you'd pull the parts and subtract it, and then you could export all the layers.
00:04:02
jamie peacock
And that would all just like slot together to protect parts, which is kind of cool.
00:04:03
Curt
Nice.
00:04:06
Curt
Nice.
00:04:07
jamie peacock
But yeah, and then yeah, obviously, you know how it goes when you've got a tool, you find many uses for it.
00:04:13
Curt
Oh yeah, totally. And like when I started, like I built the the little K40 that I modified, like I was doing this as a hobby at that point. It wasn't. And so I didn't mind sinking like many, many, many hours into completely redesigning what is a very cheap laser into still a very cheap laser with a lot of
00:04:26
jamie peacock
Yeah.
Innovative Packaging Techniques
00:04:30
Curt
labor into it.
00:04:30
Curt
um But there was no way, like I was cutting half inch open cell foam that I was packaging my orders in. And like, there's no easy way to cut. Like you can cut that. I'd cut that with a knife and jigs for like, i don't know, maybe,
00:04:42
jamie peacock
Yeah, but it wants to move.
00:04:44
Curt
50 pens yeah before i decided like this is so tedious and getting consistent results is and then like radiuses with a knife it's like not going to happen um
00:04:51
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:04:52
Curt
And then the laser just made that so easy. I'm sure the, yeah, I had to be careful with the foam because some of those foams are like ah PVC foams and like that releases not good yeah yeah chlorine gas.
00:04:59
jamie peacock
You only die once.
00:05:02
Curt
So that was the one thing had to be careful of.
00:05:02
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:05:04
Curt
But yeah, it it cuts foam beautifully and I don't use foam anymore, but it's, i sorry, I do use a little bit of foam and it is still amazing to ah use it for that because it's just like, sample is couple apple samples out I'm like, how else can you do that?
00:05:08
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:05:16
Curt
Yeah.
00:05:16
jamie peacock
No, it does foam really well. When I did the bolt belt Kickstarter, I did all the inserts out of foam. The remaining foam is actually under on my three d printer um as a of vibration damper.
00:05:24
Curt
Nice.
00:05:27
jamie peacock
But yeah, I was cutting 20 millimeter thick foam. I can no problem.
00:05:31
Curt
Yep.
00:05:32
jamie peacock
And then I was stacking it in the boxes for all the stuff to drop into it really makes life so so easy with that kind of very specialized stuff.
00:05:41
Curt
Yeah, when i I will say like the limit of like my little 40 watt um with kind of stock mirrors and stock lenses and everything on it.
00:05:42
jamie peacock
know,
00:05:49
Curt
I'd say like quarter inch cardboard. um maybe like eighth inch plywood, that's about your limit.
00:05:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:05:56
Curt
Like, unless you want to go crazy slow with multiple passes, that's kind of a quarter inch acrylic.
00:06:00
jamie peacock
So, oh yeah, but acrylic absorbs the that wavelength super well.
00:06:01
Curt
It can do quarter inch acrylic pretty easily, but
00:06:06
jamie peacock
um My tube is on the way out. I when I built the laser, I could do perimeters at I want to say 720 mils a minute at like 30% power.
00:06:06
Curt
yeah.
00:06:17
jamie peacock
I'm now going 900 mils a minute at 75% power twice to get consistent results. Like my tube is busy dying, but until it dies, I'm not replacing it.
00:06:25
Curt
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:06:29
jamie peacock
It does what I need it to do.
00:06:29
Curt
Fair.
00:06:30
jamie peacock
Like ah the most I cut on that thing, I do trays for racking finished parts for when I deliver. 25 parts per tray. Easy to count. If the tray is full, there's 25 parts. That's out of three millimeter MDF.
00:06:42
jamie peacock
And that's that's where I know those settings. And then for cutting the anchor point inserts, I run that in cardboard. And yeah, I will not run cardboard without standing at the machine.
00:06:53
Curt
Yeah, yeah, I can...
00:06:54
jamie peacock
I may have had a small fire at one point. just a little one yeah cardboard's terrifying because it catches fire before you know what's happened yeah
00:07:00
Curt
yeah
00:07:05
Curt
Yeah, well, I think that's the advantage of going to like a much higher power tube with like a hard air assist is then you're you're spending so much less time with it in one spot that it just you get less carbon buildup and it cuts faster and it's less likely to catch on fire.
00:07:17
jamie peacock
yeah
00:07:18
jamie peacock
So my friends got 130 watt 150 watts that he bought big laser 1.3 by 1.3 meters and he cut the hole in our combat arena box. So I had 12 millimeter commercial
00:07:19
Curt
Yeah.
Cost-Effective Laser Purchasing
00:07:30
jamie peacock
plans. No, they've always battled to cut it.
00:07:32
jamie peacock
So dude, don't stress. I'm on my way. And he was trying to go slow through. i'm like, no, because the glue in the plywood is not, it doesn't like the laser. So you go lots of fast passes that way you blast through the glue and it's not sitting there melting and bubbling.
00:07:47
jamie peacock
And you just zoom around the thing like 20 passes and you'll blast through it really cleanly. And since then, he's been doing a whole lot of plywood work for one of my other friends.
00:07:56
Curt
Nice.
00:07:56
jamie peacock
But yeah, his laser, he bought that laser and he paid it off in, I think, four months, just doing everything he could.
00:07:57
Curt
Yeah, I know there's...
00:08:04
jamie peacock
And then now he's got it so that if any of us, any of the friends need like big laser cutting, we go to him. Or there's one job he does. He does his own model train ship and he does one job on it.
00:08:14
jamie peacock
And that's it.
00:08:15
jamie peacock
He's not trying to be competitive with it because unfortunately, if you buy it to compete with everyone else, you are in for a bad day.
00:08:15
Curt
Yeah.
00:08:23
Curt
Yeah, and like the same thing, like the little like craft shows here. like When I got into it a while back with the little lasers were expensive enough that not a lot of people were buying like epilogues and like boss lasers and some of the more...
00:08:34
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah. yeah.
00:08:36
Curt
It's more expensive, but still cheap brands. um If you wanted to do in like a commercial setting. So like craft shows didn't have a ton of laser products, but now it's just like you can get a pretty good like commercial unit. not i shouldn't say commercial, but something that would handle like a commercial volume of orders for a few thousand bucks.
00:08:52
Curt
um If you're willing to, you know, ship it overseas and a ton of people do that. and then they make trinkets and sell them at craft shows and you can't compete.
00:08:58
jamie peacock
The issue this year we've got here is every retired dickhead's got a laser in his garage and is literally charging one rand a minute. So i would thought why is my paralyzer unplugged?
Software for Laser Projects
00:09:11
jamie peacock
Basically, like next to bugger all, put it into dollar reduce, one rand. Five US cents per minute to run the laser. And it's like, sorry, you want me to look at the laser? I've got C&Cs to run. Like, that number needs to change significantly before i'm even going to look at your stupid work.
00:09:27
Curt
Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
00:09:27
jamie peacock
Like, yeah, so we we actually shy away from laser work now. It's like, Oh, want to shoot laser? That's nice, go somewhere else. else Like, I'm not interested. It's just I could not be bothered. For me, it supports equipment.
00:09:39
jamie peacock
It's like my 3d printer, support equipment for the workshop.
00:09:43
Curt
Well, and like about, i think it was three years ago um when I was starting to do like confounder machine full time. I was like, I need a better laser. So I went on eBay or maybe it was before. I can't remember when it was, honestly. um I went on eBay and bought same thing, like ah a one and a half meter by one and a half meter.
00:09:59
Curt
um And I don't think I actually, or maybe I did pay for it. I think it was 3000 And it was 120 watt with like an adjustable bed and like a decent one, a big floor standing unit.
00:10:09
jamie peacock
Yeah. Ah, yes.
00:10:11
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:11
Curt
And so I was going to ship it to myself.
00:10:13
Curt
And then I realized that their shipping just went to the nearest port. which for me is about like 2,000, 2,500 kilometers away. um So then I'd have to truck it from the port to me.
00:10:25
Curt
And I was just like, oh, that adds so much more costs and complications. So I just, I told the seller, I'm like, hey, you're not even getting it close to me. And it said like ships to like whatever. And and they were kind enough. They're like, yeah, no sweat. We'll just refund you.
00:10:35
Curt
So, and that's, yeah, that's where it ended.
00:10:37
jamie peacock
Yeah, speaking of buying lasers, if you had to do it all again, how would you go about acquiring a laser?
00:10:45
Curt
If I was still playing um and I didn't have to do it as like a business, I would i would
00:10:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
Customization and Safety
00:10:50
Curt
buy ah like a big tube.
00:10:51
Curt
I'd buy like 120 watt tube. I'd buy a power supply. I'd buy controllers. I'd buy servos. And I would build mine out of like 80-20 and i would I would have fun doing it. But I like doing that.
00:10:58
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:10:59
Curt
If I had to, tomorrow, if this thing blows up, I'm just going to go buy either a like eBay special and ship it to myself. Or I actually had contacted a like Epilogue and Boss and a few of these companies with kind of annoying to deal with.
00:11:13
Curt
I've dealt with them a few at a few like ah trade shows, and they're just they just like, eh.
00:11:16
jamie peacock
I feel like the price there is not worth it.
00:11:20
Curt
kind of like that's so I was kind of like, what do you offer? like What can you give me other than this?
00:11:22
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:11:24
Curt
It's like, well, we have support. I'm like, okay, well, I've had my other laser for 10 years, and like the tube goes out, I'll buy a new tube.
00:11:27
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:11:29
Curt
like What else can you do? like Give me something.
00:11:30
jamie peacock
So... somnna
00:11:31
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:11:31
jamie peacock
our local 3D printing store, the 3D printing store, and they now do lasers. But my one customer, the guy does the Dutchman squeeze boxes. He has one of theirs. And he was saying, no, they wanted like 16,000 Rand for a new tube for his.
00:11:45
jamie peacock
And I'm like, no, that that seems wrong. Like that price is wrong. And so they wanted 600 and, oh no, that's millimeters. They wanted $860 for a
00:11:58
jamie peacock
I'm like hang hang the fuck on. It's less than half of that if you know where to buy in stock locally.
00:11:58
Curt
Ooh.
00:12:06
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:12:06
jamie peacock
I bought my tube I paid cash so I didn't pay any sales tax on it and I got discount for paying cash. um Their price has gone up like probably 30% from when I bought my tube but I did buy my tube six years ago so But yeah, I would I would probably go the route of trying to buy a second hand laser on marketplace that's tubes blown or something's blown, and then just putting repairing it once it arrives.
00:12:32
Curt
Sure. Yeah.
00:12:32
jamie peacock
Because also shipping shit around here is a bit of a shit show.
00:12:38
Curt
Yeah. Like, yeah.
00:12:39
jamie peacock
Because a lot of people like my mate with the big laser his power supply went And he got a quote. And like, hang on. Nope. They wanted about 10,000 Rand for a new power supply. I went on to cloud ray laser.
00:12:52
jamie peacock
And it was two and grand. I'm like, cool. I'll buy it for He's like, I'll cash for sale. I'm like, dude, I'll buy it sorting out when you're ready. Like, let's get your laser running. I need access to a big laser. So I bought it in for him.
00:13:01
Curt
Right.
00:13:02
jamie peacock
It was literally a quarter of the price to bring it direct from China.
00:13:06
Curt
Yeah.
00:13:06
jamie peacock
So and it's the same fucking thing. It's literally the same. It has the same Chinese sticker on it.
00:13:12
Curt
Yeah.
00:13:12
jamie peacock
They don't even bother taking that shit off.
00:13:13
Curt
Well...
00:13:15
Curt
Well, and it's funny now, like, I've had, like, a decent amount of production increase, and oddly enough, my little... Like, my little laser runs so infrequently that I just, like, I load... I cut cardstock. That's what I use for a lot of the internal packaging.
00:13:24
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:25
Curt
And cardstock cuts crazy fast. I fill the bed with sheets, hit go, and walk away, and it's pretty... Like, I'm so i mean in here in the shop, but they don't typically light on fire. It's not as bad as cardboard.
00:13:33
jamie peacock
Typically. Yeah, cardboard is horrible.
00:13:35
Curt
Like, it's chip...
00:13:36
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:36
Curt
Yeah, yeah. Chip board. So it's like thick construction paper if you want think it that way.
00:13:39
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:41
Curt
um But I actually contacted a company here that does like die cutting and stamping because I'm like, oh, like I'm doing this in volume now. so I'm like, how about you just die cut me on my packaging? And I'm like, So they like, they quoted me the die cutting costs and it was just like astronomical for just like small, like, cause I'm I'll do ah whatever, whatever your minimum quantity is, thousand, 5,000, whatever it is.
00:13:58
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:01
Curt
And, uh, their die charges were just through the roof and then they couldn't do anything. I'm like, okay, well, can you do like embossing or like debossing or like creasing so I
Business Applications of Lasers
00:14:10
Curt
can do folding? And they're like, well, not really. I'm like,
00:14:12
Curt
can you do printing color? Like, what can you do? What can, like, what makes it worth it? Like, well, this is typically for like companies that want to do like a hundred thousand. I'm like, yeah, but still it's like, that's not cost effective. Like I'm more cost effective to buy a like $10,000 laser and then just run it.
00:14:28
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:14:28
Curt
Like I could hire somebody and run it cheaper than I could buy these things off you.
00:14:32
jamie peacock
Well, you used to do very fancy lasering on your boxes when you used to make your own boxes.
00:14:33
Curt
so I was like,
00:14:39
Curt
yeah, that quickly.
00:14:39
jamie peacock
That, yeah, that blew me away when i saw the quality you were getting out of that process.
00:14:40
Curt
Yeah.
00:14:44
jamie peacock
But yeah, I assume it was not the simplest of processes to dial in.
00:14:45
Curt
Oh, thanks, man. Thanks.
00:14:51
Curt
Yeah, it was just tedious and annoying, but if I was doing four or eight a month, it was no big deal.
00:14:55
jamie peacock
Yeah, it didn't matter.
00:14:56
Curt
like I could spend a day pissing around with boxes to get them working, and now I cannot.
00:14:56
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:14:59
jamie peacock
Yeah. No, a hundred percent. You gotta look at everything. A hundred X or 10 X. Yeah.
00:15:04
Curt
100 yeah 100 100 but yeah and still to this day i haven't found like i found a few companies that'll do like complete custom packaging like soup to nuts and i've got a few samples from them and they're terrible quality i'm like these are horrible like do you have something better and i'm i'm trying to go with like local companies like canadian companies north american companies just because when you're shipping packaging supplies like
00:15:13
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:15:16
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:15:26
Curt
they're bulky. So like, I don't want to ship huge boxes around the world when I have a billion companies, you know, that are closed, that'll do it. And like, I've, I've been, I've not been impressed with any of them.
00:15:33
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:15:36
Curt
So I still do it myself.
00:15:38
jamie peacock
Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah. ah The but batch of boxes I got in last time, I'm super not impressed with. they They're just normal cardboard, stock three double walls. And half of them are fucking glued together.
00:15:47
Curt
Hmm. Yeah.
00:15:49
jamie peacock
So I've got
Materials and Creative Solutions
00:15:50
jamie peacock
to basically rip them off. I'm like, what? Yeah. Not the, even the die cutting on the boxes that I throw the anchor points and I'm not ecstatic about. But I'm not not to the point that I'm going to go remake the boxes.
00:16:01
Curt
Yeah, totally. like i can
00:16:01
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:16:02
Curt
I can get the shipping boxes. like The external boxes, I'm happy with all those.
00:16:04
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:16:05
Curt
I get all those nice, but like for like custom printing and stuff like that, or I shouldn't say custom printing.
00:16:08
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:16:10
Curt
Custom printing boxes are easy to get, but like custom cut boxes is just a different story.
00:16:13
jamie peacock
Yeah, very difficult. I actually saw really cool machine at ProPack.
00:16:15
Curt
Yeah.
00:16:18
jamie peacock
It's a big flatbed CNC-looking thing. You print your sheets of card, they throw it on, it picks up the fiducials, and then there's an ultrasonic knife that cuts all the stuff, and increases everything.
00:16:30
jamie peacock
Really cool.
00:16:31
Curt
Nice.
00:16:31
jamie peacock
Really expensive, but really cool.
00:16:32
Curt
Yeah.
00:16:33
jamie peacock
Like, I enjoy going to all the packaging expos to see what's new and how people are doing things. I mean, I've switched now. I hate bubble wrap. Bubble wrap is the freaking devil. To store. Never mind in a box. Just to fucking store the stuff is horrible. This is a giant roll.
00:16:47
jamie peacock
So I switched to paper because I can tear off a piece paper this big, scrunch it up, and it takes up a whole lot of volume, and it's recyclable.
00:16:54
Curt
Right. Yeah, totally.
00:16:54
jamie peacock
Yeah. Or burnable, because we live in Africa.
00:16:57
Curt
Yeah, well paper's a lot better than burning plastic.
00:16:58
jamie peacock
I Yeah, like my whole my whole packaging stack, you could throw on a fire and nothing will really ah poison you.
00:17:06
jamie peacock
And that's very much by design, yeah.
00:17:06
Curt
Yep, that's what I aim for too.
00:17:07
Curt
Yep.
00:17:09
jamie peacock
But one thing I did mention to Joshua asked was asking about lasering because he wants to pack his vases. So he was asking me about I'm like, put your cardboard at 45 degrees when you cut it or put your pattern at 45 degrees because then you get stiffness in all directions. Whereas it's like right now, the stuff that wraps the anchor points, it's stiff in one
Community Resources and Future Plans
00:17:30
jamie peacock
direction and floppy doodle in the other direction which doesn't matter for what it's doing but when you're putting a whole vase in a box that might make a difference yeah like
00:17:38
Curt
yeah totally or like i said start getting fancy with origami we're like well you do that with you folds increases to gain strength i would love i would love to yeah yep
00:17:43
jamie peacock
yeah would you like to know how up do that how design that you're love this Fusion 360 sheet metal, 4mm steel.
00:17:53
jamie peacock
So I designed it as 4mm steel, and then I flat pattern, and I go in into Lightburn and I just assign all the different colors to the different things. Like literally 4mm sheet metal.
00:18:01
Curt
yep
00:18:03
jamie peacock
That's how did it. I think your anchor point came with really complex origami. um
00:18:07
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:07
jamie peacock
the origami now that they just fit in a little box i actually want to make new origamis for batch 3 for the accessory pack so the toe clamp slots in the valve all the fittings that have their place that they go in in the box yeah
00:18:22
Curt
That's awesome. See, and this is this is the advantage of being able to do it yourself is like you can iterate on it. And yeah, it takes a ton of upfront work, but then it's just, it takes an extra, whatever, 10%, 15% time on the laser and you blow customers away by having a like labeled and it looks it looks good.
00:18:38
Curt
Like it's the first impression kind of dealio.
00:18:39
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:18:41
jamie peacock
Now that's it. Like, ah i don't know if you saw the unboxing that Ben from Toolpath did or from Black Fox, he's like, there's a handle.
00:18:47
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:49
jamie peacock
i'm like, yes, it has a handle.
00:18:50
jamie peacock
Like it's designed to be easy to get out of the box. Like that is the whole purpose of that packaging. um
00:18:51
Curt
Exactly.
00:18:57
Curt
Yeah.
00:18:58
jamie peacock
Yeah. Like, but don't make your own outside cardboard box. Just buy those as cheaper.
00:19:03
Curt
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. By the time you buy sheet. Yeah.
00:19:05
jamie peacock
Yeah. We can buy sheets, 1.2 by 1.2 meter pallet liners for next nothing here.
00:19:11
Curt
Yeah.
00:19:12
jamie peacock
but they don't fit in the laser so i've taken to buying stock box fives or sevens i can't remember it's the one that's 500 by 700 and then i basically split the box into the four panels and the short panels i get one of the anchor point wrappy things and the longer panels i get two per so i end up with six pieces per box and that's just the most convenient i send danica down the road to the printing store she just buys one or two boxes for me comes back and i'll throw them in the laser
00:19:20
Curt
Hmm.
00:19:33
Curt
Nice.
00:19:40
Curt
Nice. Yeah.
00:19:41
jamie peacock
Yeah, and then I'll put an MDF bottom in my box and MDF top so that you can throw it around and it's not really going to take too much damage.
00:19:42
Curt
it's
00:19:51
Curt
Yeah, i did I did like that because i it came to me flawless.
00:19:52
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:19:53
Curt
And I was like, oh, when you're shipping something heavy, it's like it gets beat up quick.
00:19:54
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:19:56
jamie peacock
And it's not even that heavy. It's like two kilos, but yeah, it it adds up. That one point something because four of them was seven and a half kilos.
00:20:06
Curt
Right, yeah.
00:20:07
jamie peacock
Yeah, so it adds up.
00:20:07
Curt
But still, yeah.
00:20:09
jamie peacock
It definitely adds up. Like now the ones I'm packing tonight, I think it's like a 16 kilo box or something stupid because it's ah two anchor points, two pallets, accessories.
00:20:15
Curt
Yeah.
00:20:19
jamie peacock
a jar It starts to get a little hefty.
00:20:23
Curt
Well, think both of us could probably say, like, even if, like, I'll ah eventually probably hit a point where laser packaging... Actually, you know what? I probably won't, because I'm deliberately trying to...
00:20:31
jamie peacock
No, you probably won't. Like even I probably won't.
00:20:34
Curt
Yeah, I'm deliberately trying to keep my scale at the point where I enjoy doing what I do and I can do the fun things. um But I would never be without a laser, just like I've never be ah without a 3D printer because like the the flexibility that you can use for everything, like just little soft jaw and lasers are accurate.
00:20:48
Curt
Like you can get accurate parts quickly.
00:20:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:20:51
Curt
So on and there's no work holding.
00:20:51
jamie peacock
Well, I was on...
00:20:53
Curt
no
00:20:53
jamie peacock
I was on the tool path, the tool path community call and we were discussing tool tags. And they were asking about how they label the tool tags. And our i I got a fiber laser. It's literally quicker to fiber laser, my PETG tool tag than it is for me to take out my light, my label printer.
00:21:11
Curt
Totally, yeah.
00:21:11
jamie peacock
Because I think John Saunders was saying he he just uses a demo label printer for theirs. I'm like, that, fuck that, laser. And then, yeah, you're saying, yeah, just laser your tool holders with the tool number as well. Like, if it was a dedicated holder.
00:21:22
jamie peacock
I'm like, I'm not that brave yet.
00:21:25
Curt
Yeah. Yeah, I want a fiber. I want a fiber with the, what is it, mopo Mopa ability?
00:21:30
jamie peacock
I'm okay, yeah.
00:21:31
Curt
Yeah, just so i can do the color anodizing on titanium.
00:21:31
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:21:34
Curt
That's the next kind of fun toy I want to play with.
00:21:37
jamie peacock
They're not that expensive anymore. They keep coming down in price.
00:21:40
Curt
Yeah, no, they're reasonable for sure. I just, I still, I mean, it's just maybe just me, but like a lasered item on like metal never feels the same as an engraved. Like it feels cheaper to me.
00:21:50
jamie peacock
Yeah, it feels, yeah, it feels cheaper.
00:21:51
Curt
It's like, oh now
00:21:53
jamie peacock
But yeah, there's also some cool things you can do with the laser. Like you can, you can definitely itch it in deeper.
00:21:57
Curt
Absolutely.
00:21:58
jamie peacock
Like I've got a coin in my workshop that's half a mil deep with a 20 watt laser and brass.
00:22:03
Curt
Right, right.
00:22:03
jamie peacock
Like it took an hour and a half, but yeah, you can do silly things like that.
00:22:06
Curt
Yeah.
00:22:07
jamie peacock
I have blown through a piece of titanium with it. It took like an hour, um but it can be done where there's a will, there's a way.
00:22:15
Curt
I can't remember if it was a pen or what I saw it on, but I think someone did like a bunch of Pokemon on, I think it might've been, but I'll say it's a pen for this.
00:22:20
jamie peacock
Oh nice.
00:22:22
Curt
i Maybe it may have been a knife. Actually might've been a knife um in titanium and they added like color anodized everything. So it was deep cut in and then like kind of like cartoon shader and then anodized colored.
00:22:27
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:22:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:22:31
Curt
And I was like, Oh, that is sick.
00:22:33
jamie peacock
Fancy.
00:22:34
Curt
Yeah, it was cool.
00:22:34
jamie peacock
So our art I might need to build a rotary for my fiber laser. It has the drive in it already.
00:22:39
Curt
Ooh.
00:22:40
jamie peacock
I just need to put a motor plug into it. I had the Dutchman squeeze box guys here and they are looking for pigeon rings. So it's an anodized ring with with a number on it to tag your pigeons or some shit.
00:22:53
jamie peacock
know.
00:22:53
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:22:53
jamie peacock
Call them pigeon rings.
00:22:54
Curt
Okay. Yeah.
00:22:55
jamie peacock
I'm like, cool, bring me samples and I'll see if I can assist you with it. They're not going to be cheap, but they're going to be custom.
00:22:58
Curt
Yeah.
00:23:01
Curt
Yeah. Well, that's, that's awesome.
00:23:01
jamie peacock
Because if I can put a length of tube into my anode setup and color it that way, and then just part them off to length, that's going to be way easier than racking a hundred little parts to anodize.
00:23:12
jamie peacock
So we'll see.
00:23:13
Curt
Absolutely. Yeah.
00:23:15
jamie peacock
yeah there There's interesting things afoot in the workshop currently.
00:23:19
Curt
Yeah. That's fun. i don't know. And if anybody if if anybody's considering a laser after listening to our shill podcast here, just buy one.
00:23:22
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:23:26
jamie peacock
Bar one.
00:23:28
Curt
And then um ditch whatever software it comes with and just buy Lightburn.
00:23:29
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:23:32
jamie peacock
100% worth every cent.
00:23:33
Curt
Like, yeah.
00:23:35
jamie peacock
Yeah, buy it.
00:23:36
Curt
I don't think I've talked to anybody.
00:23:36
jamie peacock
It's worth every cent. You can buy it and your license is updated for a year after that you don't have to buy it again.
00:23:38
Curt
Yeah.
00:23:43
jamie peacock
And you just don't get updates.
00:23:45
Curt
Yep. Yeah, exactly.
00:23:46
jamie peacock
I literally mine expired now.
00:23:46
Curt
That's what I'm at right now.
00:23:47
jamie peacock
um I've had my fiber laser for a year.
00:23:48
Curt
Yep.
00:23:49
jamie peacock
And before that we had it for like three years down the cat Lightburn. I still used laser web up until I got the fiber laser.
00:23:57
Curt
Yeah.
00:23:57
jamie peacock
And then I switched over but yeah, Lightburn is just full of magic.
00:24:01
Curt
There's very few pieces of software where I'm like, wow, this was designed by somebody that uses it. And Lightburn is one of them where you're like, holy crap, like you can do what you want to do simply. And it's like, yeah, it's crazy good software. I wish that carried over to like CAD.
00:24:11
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah. It's the opposite of Microsoft.
00:24:13
Curt
hundred percent. Yeah. and
00:24:18
jamie peacock
ah Yeah, Fusion was bugging out today hard where I was working to the point that I had to alt tab because I couldn't click off of the window. tab to different window, then come back and then the mouse would work in Fusion.
00:24:29
jamie peacock
It was really weird. um But yeah, like Lightburn worth every freaking cent.
00:24:32
Curt
Yep,
00:24:35
jamie peacock
And you can get it for free for 30 days.
00:24:38
Curt
exactly.
00:24:39
jamie peacock
Don't be like, use all 30 days and then buy it. um
00:24:42
Curt
yeah
00:24:42
jamie peacock
I got impatient and bought it.
00:24:46
jamie peacock
No, that's definitely worth buying Lightburn. And then, oh, there was another job I did packaging for. The day that I sanded my fingerprints off, or the weekend that I sanded my fingerprints off.
00:24:58
jamie peacock
So I did a job where we did some stainless steel tubes for beverage filling or some cuck. So it had a profile machine on the end, a groove in the middle, and chamfered on the other And they needed to be polished.
00:25:09
jamie peacock
And I started the job like, oh, I'll wet sand these by hand. 300 of them. I should have made an adapter for my angle grinder and I could put the Scotch-Brite on it. And I'm like, no, it'll be fine. Yeah. 16 hours later, I'm standing at the lathe polishing fricking tubes.
00:25:24
jamie peacock
And those, I took a box and I laser cut an insert for it, but they all stood vertically in the box.
00:25:31
Curt
Nice. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
00:25:31
jamie peacock
So I delivered the guys, was is this all of them? I'm like, yes, it is. Count. Like, it's simple mats.
00:25:36
Curt
yeah
00:25:37
jamie peacock
And they're not touching each other, they're not getting scratched. Like, yeah, it was spiffy.
00:25:42
jamie peacock
That was just off-track laser.
00:25:42
Curt
Well, that was a...
00:25:44
Curt
That was ah actually a neat life hack that I didn't even think about. Like, i use the same thing. I use a ton of, like, sandpaper, abrasive paper, whatever you want to call it.
00:25:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:25:51
Curt
And, like, cutting it into, like, different squares, you you kill knives, obviously, because you're cutting through. But, uh-oh, we lost me.
00:25:57
jamie peacock
Oh, what did you do?
00:25:58
Curt
I don't know. Can you still hear me, though?
00:26:00
jamie peacock
Yes, I can. Kurt pushed a button. So now we're looking at Elgato. Please run Camera Hub.
00:26:03
Curt
and Okay, we'll figure ah we'll we'll figure that out in a second.
00:26:04
jamie peacock
Yeah, anyway, that's fine. Karen's talking.
00:26:07
Curt
um But ah the...
00:26:07
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:26:09
Curt
um the like laser. I just put like all the abrasive sheets in the laser and cut it with that. Cause like it doesn't dull and it like, you can chop as many as you want.
00:26:15
jamie peacock
That's cool. Yeah.
00:26:19
Curt
Like you're never going dull the laser and it cut, makes a clean cut. So I was like, this is so smart. Why didn't I think about this forever ago?
00:26:24
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's freaking genius. I had never, that had never occurred to me.
00:26:28
Curt
Neither me. I've been through like a thousand exacto blades cutting sandpaper and be like, Oh wait, I have a way better tool for this.
00:26:28
jamie peacock
Like, yeah.
00:26:34
jamie peacock
Yeah, so um when i built my laser, I built it with a steel sheet at the bottom. So the laser wouldn't go through the steel sheets.
00:26:39
Curt
Okay.
00:26:41
jamie peacock
And I used five millimeter square magnets to space the jobs up. And then I recently went to a bed of copper nails because my dad had a box of copper nails I wasn't allowed to play with as child.
00:26:45
Curt
OK. Mm-hmm.
00:26:52
jamie peacock
And then he died. So I got them. And it turns out they're not on the same length. I sat with vernier and measured all the nails. and then laser cut a piece of MDF with all the holes in, glued all the nails in, and that's my bed that my work sits on.
00:27:05
jamie peacock
Because if you use, like the honeycomb can get a bit dangerous with acrylic because it blasts through, vaporizes, it condensates onto the... um onto the aluminium hit ah honeycomb and then catches fire so i prefer the bed of nails approach and bed of nails are small points of contact so odds of hitting one are quite low so you get a much cleaner cleaner cut yeah
00:27:19
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:30
Curt
Nice. Yeah. That's the same thing. I use the ah aluminum honeycomb and I know exactly what you mean about laser because yeah, you get weird things happening or sorry, out acrylic.
00:27:35
jamie peacock
yeah weird Yeah, weird shit um underneath it. Yeah, i like my bed of nails. It's quite quite fancy. Only problem when something drops in between you, you got grab it and you miss and you stab yourself.
00:27:48
jamie peacock
um It's a little less than ideal, especially like jabs you under the fingernail. It's really unpleasant. ah And yeah, don't skimp on extraction because I did for the longest time.
00:28:00
Curt
Yeah, yeah, I can, uh,
00:28:01
jamie peacock
When I bought the fiber laser, I bought a proper extractor for both both lasers. like a jumping castle fan that I put up outside.
00:28:08
Curt
yeah, it's,
00:28:10
jamie peacock
When the laser goes on, it turns on.
00:28:13
Curt
Yeah, it's a... I did the same thing. I underestimated how much I would need that, and then was like, oh, this is like really important.
00:28:19
jamie peacock
Yep.
00:28:22
Curt
They produce a crap ton of smoke.
00:28:24
jamie peacock
And the problem, like, we cut a lot of MDF, and the the resin sticks to fucking in everything. Like, if the smoke touches stuff, and leaves a residue.
00:28:31
Curt
Ah.
00:28:33
jamie peacock
Hey, it cuts back.
00:28:35
Curt
Yeah, sorry. I had to reboot.
00:28:37
jamie peacock
ah, did the Elgato get weird?
00:28:38
Curt
Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, I don't know what was going on there. had to had to control or delete the camera to make it happy again, but we're back.
00:28:45
jamie peacock
Oh, wow.
00:28:46
Curt
We're back.
00:28:46
jamie peacock
ah Yeah, because even the fiber laser fucking makes... I'm trying to... like It smells like burning metal when you're burning metal. Like, it's got an interesting smell, but I've got an extractor for that.
00:28:56
Curt
Yeah, prop
00:29:00
Curt
probably don't want your lungs doing that kind of filtering. Yeah.
00:29:02
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, preferably not. Because we laser like we now batch number a bunch of the products we do lot of that recurring work just so we can track when they were delivered that if they say Oh, there's a problem with direct duty, we delivered it a year ago, why didn't you use that?
00:29:16
jamie peacock
um So we do a bit of a bit of labeling on that stuff. And then label everything like our label. I'll burn my name on all sorts of fun stuff. We also do drone tags.
00:29:16
Curt
Yeah.
00:29:25
Curt
Well, that's your...
00:29:27
jamie peacock
So if anyone wants to label steel with a CO2 laser, molybdenum disulfide, also known as anti-scuff spray, you spray that on and then you run the laser on it and actually etches into the surface.
00:29:39
jamie peacock
It like reacts to the surface.
00:29:39
Curt
Oh, nice.
00:29:39
Curt
Okay.
00:29:40
jamie peacock
Yeah, like scotch brought the shit out of the pot to get it off. um
00:29:44
Curt
Huh.
00:29:45
jamie peacock
Obviously, the fiber laser does a better job. We do drone tags.
00:29:48
Curt
Of course.
00:29:48
jamie peacock
It went from being spray there, put them in the machine, wait a minute to like seven seconds done. It's in steel plate bending because of the heat with a 20 watt fiber laser.
00:29:55
Curt
Yeah.
00:30:00
Curt
Nice.
00:30:00
jamie peacock
But yeah, we make, we probably make 100 or 200 drone tags a year.
00:30:05
Curt
OK. Yeah. Well, that's good use for yeah.
00:30:05
jamie peacock
You know, we make quite a bunch. Yeah. So, that I mean, that's perfect for a small fiber laser. And then I use it for marking all the anchor points.
00:30:12
Curt
Well, that's.
00:30:13
jamie peacock
Like, yeah.
00:30:14
Curt
I see that as your advantage because you can, it's it's so fast to set up and like for serializing, like there, and same thing with the software, it's automated. It's like you do one serial and then you can look up an Excel table and you can just keep, you don't have to.
00:30:23
jamie peacock
Yes. Yeah, you look up a CSV.
00:30:26
Curt
Yeah. Yeah. Just cycle cycle, cycle, cycle, cycle.
00:30:27
jamie peacock
It's freaking cool.
00:30:29
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:30:29
Curt
Like it's, yeah, there's some cool software you can use or cool bits.
00:30:31
jamie peacock
It's really cool. We've actually got a job potentially coming down the line where i want to get a 30 watt laser.
00:30:33
Curt
Yeah.
00:30:36
jamie peacock
And then I will make a rotary table and do a CS. Oh, I didn't do CS, just rotary table. So it'll position, laser, position, laser. I can do 12 parts a time. So I can walk away for 30 minutes and then come back because we're blasting through powder coat. And that takes a little bit of time to get a consistent result because the powder coat is, I don't know, illiterate.
00:30:56
jamie peacock
and put different thicknesses on.
00:30:56
Curt
Yeah.
00:30:58
jamie peacock
But yeah, we'll see if that ever comes around. I'm not gonna hold my breath on that one.
00:31:03
Curt
Yeah. I know.
00:31:04
jamie peacock
But yeah.
00:31:04
Curt
i it's ah That's a problem. is I have so many like little so silly business ideas that I would want to do with just like a laser machine. Because they're so simple. like The barrier for entry is nothing. And like you said, you put the machine goods in and you hit go.
00:31:15
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:31:15
Curt
like You can do a million things. and even though they Even though the market is saturated, I still think there's all kinds of little
00:31:20
jamie peacock
There's things you could do that are different.
00:31:22
Curt
niches yeah yeah like i have a friend who's big into model trains and uh so he's always like trying to get me to do buildings for him and stuff and uh i was like man you could laser up these buildings for next to nothing and people charge an arm and a leg for you know ho or hho scale or whatever it's just like this would be trivial
00:31:23
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:31:34
jamie peacock
That's what my mate Phil does. He makes train things for him for himself and for a few other people now. like The list just keeps getting shorter.
00:31:46
jamie peacock
um But yeah if anyone wants to train things, reach out to me. I'll put you in touch with Phil. sure he'd be happy to sell overseas because the local guys, they want everything for free.
00:31:54
Curt
It
00:31:58
Curt
says 95% of our audience is definitely into trains.
00:32:01
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:32:05
jamie peacock
Everyone's into trains. Trains are cool.
00:32:07
Curt
Trains are cool.
00:32:08
jamie peacock
Trains are cool. They are. um No, like ah the lasers are super, super useful. I had a customer, they bought a laser for a job where they were engraving the company name. So they were buying carbide drills from me.
00:32:21
jamie peacock
They were making it for, think it was B&B gin. the packaging was made out of solid wood with a million holes in it like they were drilling like 20 000 holes a day on the cnc um yeah no just like peppering so they were using a high speed drill was hilarious then they went to carbides um and then they were lasering the bnb gin on it and then the idea was when you open the bottle bottle of gin out of the packaging you take a scene and you can hang on on the wall and bees can come live in it
00:32:35
Curt
Cool.
00:32:41
Curt
Cool. Oh,
00:32:53
jamie peacock
Like that's, it was meant to be like a be half starter thing, but yeah, they hundreds of dollars and literally had a laser that ran 24 seven and the guy would put part hit go put part hit go.
00:32:54
Curt
OK.
00:32:56
Curt
Oh, cool.
00:33:03
jamie peacock
Cause they had to make like 5,000 of these boxes in a few months.
00:33:09
Curt
Nice.
00:33:09
jamie peacock
So yeah, they were running 24 seven, but yeah, lasers have become like a commodity thing though. I mean, I can go, but can buy one right now. Googling on the podcast.
00:33:22
jamie peacock
Um, I don't feel like clicking the button. I actually want to see how much ah laser is quickly. If only my internet was less slow.
00:33:28
Curt
Yeah.
00:33:31
jamie peacock
CO2 laser. So this is in stock in Johannesburg. um Where did it go? I saw one for 44,000 Rand.
00:33:31
Curt
Well, I'm like, yeah.
00:33:41
jamie peacock
So we'll just type that in. $2,300.
00:33:45
Curt
two grand or somewhere yeah Yeah, it's like pretty reasonable.
00:33:45
jamie peacock
two thousand three hundred dollars
00:33:48
jamie peacock
not can go pick it up tomorrow. It's a 60 watt laser. Yeah. yeah Waterchiller, rotary, everything.
00:33:57
Curt
Nice. Nice.
00:33:58
jamie peacock
Yeah, they're not they're not particularly expensive anymore. Don't anywhere to put it though. Might have to get rid of some machines.
00:34:03
Curt
Yeah, that's not a problem. Just put it in your bedroom.
00:34:07
jamie peacock
ah
00:34:08
Curt
Lots of room in there.
00:34:09
jamie peacock
There is the pack the assembly and packaging room.
00:34:13
Curt
Ah, yes, yes, yes.
00:34:14
jamie peacock
The thought has occurred to me to move the lasers there.
00:34:16
Curt
susan
00:34:17
jamie peacock
But then yeah the wife may take offense to that.
00:34:22
Curt
Yeah, yeah, fair enough.
00:34:23
jamie peacock
Just a little bit.
00:34:24
jamie peacock
Because you're trying to move assembly inside and packaging and whatnot. That is a task for next year because the year is running out.
00:34:24
Curt
Yeah.
00:34:32
Curt
Ugh, I know. Time is...
00:34:33
jamie peacock
Yeah, like, yeah, anyway. Oh, well, i think ah I don't know if you want to call this one short or you want to you got more fun topics.
00:34:36
Curt
um
00:34:41
Curt
i think I think we could probably call it short because we don't need to earbeat people.
00:34:44
jamie peacock
Well, before we call it short, we have fancy Patreons who make the wheels on the bus go round and round on the The podcast is a bus today. It's not a train, guys. a bus. um
00:34:54
Curt
this
00:34:55
jamie peacock
Big thanks to all our Patreons who make the wheels on the podcast go round and round. But our top tier ones, they get a shout out as well as an after show. Thank you to Bench, Jade from Benchmark 20, Luke from Fabtastic, AJ from Subtract Manufacturing and 27 other companies. EJ from Alternal Welding, Jason S, the Aussie Machinist, Christian Olson, Charles White and Kyle from Cursed Machine.
00:35:20
jamie peacock
Thank you all. Yeah, no, the list keeps growing. At this rate, we're not going to have to sleep on the side of the street at IMTS.
00:35:20
Curt
Wow.
00:35:23
Curt
Wow.
00:35:27
jamie peacock
It's going to be great.
00:35:28
Curt
Well, we'll just retire and become full-time podcaster influencers.
00:35:31
jamie peacock
100%. Podcasting number one. But yeah, the Patreons get access to the after show, which is ah usually 10 to 15 minutes of Kurtz and I talking deranged shit about other things then other than machining.
00:35:45
jamie peacock
um And that's to all the Patreons. And then the Patreons also get exclusive voting rights when I buy machine. You get to name it. um Yeah, I'm setting a bad precedent show with that one. But yeah, thanks again to all the Patreons. And ah Oh, wait, shirts aren't all available. Some shirts are available on the website. For some illiterate, it's finally caught up with me.
00:36:04
jamie peacock
And what was mentioned in the Dylan special has now come to pass.
00:36:09
Curt
Oh, right. Yeah, because we're in the future.
00:36:10
jamie peacock
Yes, we're in the future, but the past, but tomorrow.
00:36:11
Curt
But that yeah, yeah. and
00:36:15
Curt
And this, ah the comments or whatever in this podcast, if you click the word thing, um we'll have a bunch of links of some of the weird stuff that I've talked about. I'll have a link to the build that I used to modify my little machine.
00:36:27
Curt
um And I'll have a link to open builds. If you haven't just perused open builds.com, go there. It is so cool if you're a nerd about like machine design and stuff, but there's amazing laser builds on there. If you want to just soak a ton of time into that world.
00:36:40
jamie peacock
Your one was off of Thingiverse, wasn't it?
00:36:40
Curt
Yeah.
00:36:42
Curt
It was, yeah. it's I think it's made a K...
00:36:43
jamie peacock
Yeah. I think I asked you about this in the past.
00:36:45
Curt
Yeah. Yeah, if you just go on Thingiverse and look up K40 rebuild in original enclosure, that will basically link you to mine.
00:36:52
jamie peacock
Dude, yeah.
00:36:53
jamie peacock
Your build is great. That it's in the original enclosure, yeah.
00:36:53
Curt
So...
00:36:55
Curt
It was fun. Yeah, it was it was cool. It was fun. But yeah, the open build ones, if you have a little bit more cash to spend on like 80-20, people are doing some pretty cool stuff.
00:37:02
jamie peacock
So um mine was built out of 20 by 20 aluminum extrusion and all billets aluminum parts. Like I look at those parts and I machined these on the Slowio.
00:37:09
Curt
Ooh. e
00:37:12
jamie peacock
What the shit? How do they look so good? Like as far as I'm concerned, the Slowio is a piece of shit and can't make a single part anymore.
00:37:15
Curt
Oh, nice.
00:37:19
jamie peacock
But like the stuff I used to pull off that machine was quite impressive.
00:37:19
Curt
hey
00:37:23
jamie peacock
my Yeah, it's kind of interesting how I look at it and I'm like, ew, don't want to touch that thing. And yeah, I've got spoiled with ALK.
00:37:23
Curt
Yeah.
00:37:32
Curt
I know. That's the problem is you have access to all these machines. That's all I want to do is I want to use them to build more machines and toys for myself, but it typically doesn't pay the bills all that well, but I don't know.
00:37:42
jamie peacock
No, it doesn't.
00:37:42
Curt
I'm i'm on the edge.
00:37:42
jamie peacock
It really doesn't.
00:37:43
Curt
I'm on the edge. ye and
00:37:46
jamie peacock
Okay, sweet.
00:37:47
Curt
I would do it for the fun.
00:37:47
jamie peacock
Thank you, everybody, for listening to this canned episode while I'm away on my holiday, hopefully fishing on my brother's farm. But yeah, we will see. And then i think we will be back next week um for our final episode of the year.
00:38:02
jamie peacock
And then we have another canned episode that I think we'll just throw out as a bonus episode as the year begins. because we have the canned episode we did a while ago about power and phase converters, which was also quite an interesting one.
00:38:07
Curt
Look at this.
00:38:13
Curt
Oh, yes.
00:38:14
jamie peacock
That's like 10 episodes old now. We canned it when we did our preview when we did the naughty performance episode.
00:38:20
Curt
Right. Oh, I have information to.
00:38:20
jamie peacock
So we've got that. i've Maybe we'll dump both of these. Who knows? um Yeah.
00:38:25
Curt
I have updates on that, but you'll hear it in ah in ah odd in a podcast or in a one that's current date.
00:38:26
jamie peacock
Ooh. Yeah.
00:38:30
Curt
so I'll talk to you then.
00:38:30
jamie peacock
Yes. Shredo, thank you everyone for listening and yeah we'll we'll see you next week.
00:38:37
Curt
Thanks all. Take care. Bye.