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Business of Machining - Episode 76
192 Plays7 years ago
What today's episode lacks in pep, it makes up for in realism: Entrepreneurship can be exhausting--and it isn't necessarily a bad thing.
After the Johns team up in Canada, the overwhelming excitement settles, leaving the need for recuperation behind. Stay tuned for the video and video podcast!
GET OUT OF MY SHOP...AND INTO MY KITCHEN? A change in surroundings brings new thoughts and ideas to the table--literally.
Saunders and Grimsmo discuss their trip to CAMplete Solutions, Inc.--a company that designed specific software to bridge the communication gap between CADCAM & machines. To learn more about CAMplete Truepath or CAMplete Turnmill, click HERE!
Entrepreneurship & Open Minds As Saunders's confidence in 5th-Axis machining increases, he admits, "It's time for a lathe"--with a Y-Axis, of course! The guys discuss Y-Axis benefits and 3-Axis toolpath milling differences & preferences. "It's a whole new world!" - Grimsmo
Finicky-FANUC While on their CAMplete adventure, Grimsmo can't help but feel responsible for alarming out the MAM72-35V. Check out Grimsmo's Hanbei Error Alarm Remedy!
Torque Wrench Myth Laid to Rest? While the data isn't scientific, Saunders gets confirmation about stored torque wrench values from a reputable defense company!
D'jever See This Before? Grimsmos ER11 Lindex Collet Nut Cracked! Click the photo for full IG Post:
BIG ASS Fan Arrives at SMW (video coming soon) The nomenclature is fitting and it feels amazing!
Grimsmo Knives blows the door WIDE open on new shop developments--Tune in to check it out!
It's still a shock when people say they binge on Business of Machining podcast episodes and we want to give a sincere thank you to those who listen and show their continued support!
Recommended
Transcript
Introductions and Reflections
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining, episode number 76. My name is John Grimsmill. My name is John Saunders. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm tired, but pretty good. Yeah, it's funny. I am exhausted, which hasn't happened to me in a long time. Yeah? I don't know. Yeah, it's been a good, I actually was sort of sharing with someone. I'm actually
00:00:28
Speaker
very proud of what we've done this year. Normally, I like to make sure I really stay humble. I think it's just a good thing in life. You can share your accomplishments, but be humble. And I set out at the beginning of the year to make sure I didn't have to be here each day. And I probably have talked about that too much. But darn it, we did it.
Brainstorming and Family Time
00:00:48
Speaker
The things I have to do to not
00:00:52
Speaker
come in or, you know, get ahead of it or notify people or do anything are basically nil. And that's awesome. So yes, what I don't get is why I went to bed or good times, like, well, I'm exhausted. Weird. Yeah. You were here, uh, what Thursday, Friday, Saturday, this past week, which was amazing. Um, the rest of my Saturday and Sunday, I was just exhausted. Oh,
00:01:20
Speaker
Really? Oh, sorry. It's okay. You and I got a lot done, which is good, but it gave me some good time to spend a lot of time with the family and actually do no work on Saturday and Sunday, which was kind of rare, but it was good.
00:01:36
Speaker
thought was really fun it in this like awkward you're not supposed to actually talk about things like this but when you and I sat at your kitchen table for 40 minutes on Saturday morning and we just dissected the pen
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, and it was super fun to me to like start thinking about what if you change this or what should this be one piece or two piece and Would you make it on a different machine or like it was just I don't know I thought it was I really enjoyed that conversation Exactly. It was such a good experience that you rarely get in person You know one-on-one
00:02:11
Speaker
which is good, yeah, just using literally kitchen hand tools. We got the C-clip off, we got the whole thing apart, and it was really fun. And you came up with a really sweet idea for one of our parts that I haven't had a chance to model up or think about much yet, but it's in there.
00:02:28
Speaker
Yeah. Well, even if it doesn't, maybe that doesn't even make sense, but there's, there was something, uh, it was kind of, I actually was thinking about it. It was kind of like, okay, that doesn't work if you had, didn't have the pen with you. Like you can't do that from a CAD model or from a paper sketch. You kind of have to have it. And it frankly wouldn't even have worked if we were at the shop because there probably would have been other distractions or maybe we would have even tried to do too much. Like you almost needed the rawness of just the kitchen table in the, in the two of us.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yep. Yep. It allows you kind of removes all other distraction and lets you focus, you know? Yeah. Awesome. So what'd you do the weekend? Just hang out with the fam.
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah, hang out with the fam. There was a huge event in town that kids and I went to and lots of markets and family or bouncy castles and things like that. It's just really good. They're good family time. Yeah, awesome. My migraine did not come back. Good. Oh my God. It made me want to just like, you want to literally hug the world when they don't come back because you're so freaking happy.
00:03:33
Speaker
And otherwise quiet drive back home and Yvonne and the kids actually just got back last night They were visiting her folks.
Journey to Camplete
00:03:40
Speaker
So it was I was batching it after your visit Which was awesome because I did a little bit of work for fun Like it was actually nice to come to the shop Totally relaxed like nothing to do just kind of like just just kind of like poke around made some parts all that Yes, good
00:03:57
Speaker
Good. Super good. Yes. What are we going to do with that video bomb? How does that work? I don't know. I was just thinking about that. Let's just put it up. OK. I'll get with, we'll have Aaron and Julie get together and figure out, because I think whoever edits it would need, like if Julie edits it, I think she'll need your audio, right? Yeah. OK. And I'll send it over.
00:04:18
Speaker
Okay, so John and I drove about an hour to a company in the Toronto area called Camplete, which also has a pretty, they make software for sort of five axis, complicated five axis machining stuff, collision detection, toolpath management, whatever you wanna call it, validation and cool stuff. They also have a world-class machine shop, like world-class with amazing machines. So we had a good time spending Thursday there touring, but also on the drive up,
00:04:48
Speaker
John had the good idea of throwing up the GoPro camera and we recorded about an hour, I think. Yeah. Like an hour, 10 almost of a, of a business of machining, which is good. Yeah. So we'll end up putting that up on our, somehow on our respective YouTube channels. Um, but yeah, I'm excited. That one, maybe I'll kind of rewatch some of that could be fun. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm looking forward to that. Um, yeah. Milterra was bonkers. Mm-hmm.
00:05:16
Speaker
I think, you know, that was a big part of my exhaustion was just kind of decompressing and thinking about that all again and like, yeah. Yeah.
00:05:28
Speaker
We would throw up a photo on Instagram because the problem with five axis verification or collision avoidance, for me, it is that. The Campley guys were right. It really is linking moves. In fact, for the first time ever, we had a really bogus linking move. And the guy was showing it to us. And I was kind of like, OK, are you making this up? I don't know if I see the problem. And sure enough, I couldn't believe how the machine was interpreting
00:05:57
Speaker
interpreting how to, to move between the two cuts in this five axis orientation. Um, but then the other problem is, and I don't know if this is that way on, um, your Fannock driven Maury mill or lathe, but when my machine, um, starts a rigid tapping cycle, feed hole does not work.
00:06:19
Speaker
I think that's right on my machine too, which is scary. Right. So I can E stop it, but we don't use E stop. I've always found that feed hold was, was plenty responsive and is less. Usually I want to just pause. I don't want to stop. Yep. Anyway, we had a good.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah. I'm the same 90 plus percent of the time. Like I'll use the feed hold or just turn the rapids down to zero, which stops everything as well. Um, but I'm not afraid to use the stop. I know it's there. I've used it several times. So rapid turns the linking moves to zero, but not your cutting. It turns everything to zero. Yeah. If you turn the rapid knob to zero, everything just pauses. The spindle stays on coolant stays on, but so I'll use that most of the time just kind of hover on the rapid move.
00:07:08
Speaker
Tormach or the path pilot has max velocity, which is the same thing, which is actually super useful. I don't believe, in fact, I know one of the reasons I'm skittish on the Haas is that if we set our rapid at 5%, which is massively slow, sometimes you'll have linking moves programmed as G1s or cutting sort of moves. So those will all of a sudden go at 500 inches a minute and it'll scare the bejesus out of you.
00:07:37
Speaker
Anyway, I couldn't see if an ER nut was going to clear. We'd already started to tap the hole. Peck tapping it.
00:07:49
Speaker
Or no, you know what it was, I was going to just, I was going to make it go deeper on the next part. That one I just chased by hand, but I took the tool out of the cat 40 and I threaded it into the hole very carefully and looked at how much I could have. And, uh, I was kind of chuckling because it seems very, uh, archaic and definitely risk breaking the tap because you've got, it was a six 32 tap and you've got a heavy holder on top. But.
00:08:12
Speaker
A bunch of people were like, use the software, use the software. Yes. As I get more comfortable, we will trust the software more, but there's nothing like, uh, the physical love of, of actually making sure it's there. Exactly. Hmm. So you're having a lot of fun with the five axis, right?
Machinery and Precision Tools
00:08:30
Speaker
It's amazing, yes. Absolutely amazing. So I mean, you rely on your Haas VM3 space-wise without the five axis. So are you guys limited to making stuff now that you don't have that extra space? Yeah, the VM3 in the last three weeks has only been kind of learn, play, fun mode, which is in and of itself is that's one of the things, again, that no one tells you about being an entrepreneur is it's like all of a sudden you have
00:08:58
Speaker
you can allocate kind of fun free time. And then it's stressful because you have a known finite limited amount of fun free time. Like only get to have that five axis on. Like we probably next week need to get back to using that machine for plates and other stuff. And I've got like four more parts that I really want to run on it, but that's okay. That's, you know, I'm super, I was somewhat ambivalent about mounting it again and putting it back on.
00:09:26
Speaker
Couldn't have been a better decision super happy. I've learned so much gain so much confidence. I know what questions to ask I understand we've had situations where I want the spindle dropping way below center line when Lockwood made that comment I didn't really get it and now I totally now I would when I go to IMTS I will be looking at that like we found that limitation on the Haas probing which I'm going to follow up with them on to push them because that's a big deal I think and it's should be it should be a
00:09:55
Speaker
It should be doable. I'm not a software engineer, but really good. That's awesome. I think we're going to have a lot of very specific questions to be asking.
00:10:11
Speaker
You know, last time we went to is just kind of like big eyed, you know, walking around looking at everything, but now it'll be like, okay, I need to know about this and tell me why this is better than this or not. Yeah. Can't wait. Believe it or not. I think I'm going to focus subject to change focus on two things. One, the sort of entry level, smaller five axis with automation, which is kind of what I started to look at at emo, but more serious. Number two, a lathe. Oh.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's time. Yeah. Um, yeah, I would assume for the Johnny five build to be a lot of late stuff, but also like work. Actually, no, I, well, I shouldn't say that. I mean, look, you, you, you've been an inspiration. You, you, you're late. It's not a late, you're late as a middle that happens to have a really fast forward access. It seems sometimes, um, exactly. No, we need one. We just do. Yep. So time to get smart.
00:11:08
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. And there's tons of options out there, you know. Yeah, exactly. Have you followed what Doosan did replacing the Lynx 220 with like the 2200 maybe? Something like that? No, I haven't been following. Got it. It seems like that's, I'm not sure, especially for the lay, I'm not sure I can justify the bump to like the Akuma or the, oh, shoot.
00:11:32
Speaker
Nothing. NLX, the D'Amori. Yeah, the D'Amori. Right. Which seems like an uncontroversial decision, like solid machines and so forth. But I think we'll probably continue to look at more the step maybe below that of entry level, which I mean, I say that entry level, it should be wonderfully adequate. I think we would do a BMT live tooling y-axis, but I don't think we would do a sub spindle. It's a whole different world.
00:12:02
Speaker
I know, but so it's a capital allocation issue. It's a programming issue. It's a who's running the machine issue. It's not necessarily production. Yeah. Yeah. Y-axis certainly makes life easier. Setting up tools, also doing live tool milling, things like that. The sub spindle just gives you that added flexibility of having finished parts come off.
00:12:30
Speaker
Yeah. Well, look, I need to keep an open mind. I think one of the things that concerns me, it's not just the collisions and crash risk, but it's also the fact that your subspindle setting up for a subspindle is not necessarily easy, meaning if you're going to run a few of them, it's not necessarily practical from a work-learning size standpoint.
00:12:50
Speaker
And again, I'm not thinking about that's the machine I should buy with a sub and then backing off. I'm really thinking, hey, a two axis lathe really would do 80% of what we want. But there's a huge component of live tooling that we should absolutely have. And some
00:13:08
Speaker
I think we want to start trying to track this knowledge because a buddy, Justin from Tolster, who's an awesome entrepreneur that I've sort of stayed in touch with, he came and took a class, is asking about lathes. And we were talking and he was funny because he was like, I just don't know anything. He's like, I don't know anything about how to buy a lathe, but I know we need one. And I was like, oh, this is awesome to be back in this kind of green world.
00:13:31
Speaker
And you learn information as an entrepreneur, but then you've got to decide how to act on it. And one of the pieces of information that is indisputable about lathes is if you buy a lathe with live tooling, you must have a y-axis. I almost agree with that. I mean, I would certainly say y-axis is awesome. You can certainly get away without it, but it really makes everything a lot better. Yeah, the point was, I think, not so much functionality as it was tool alignment.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah. Tool alignment makes it just silly easy. Yeah. Yeah. Because almost all of my, like none of my tools are on center line, even a drill or anything like that. Like I'm always tweaking it off a little bit. I couldn't imagine not being able to do that. Yeah. So that's kind of the thought build up of a two axis, go from there, keep it simple. Um, yeah.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yeah, and then it's really neat being able to do actual three-axis toolpath milling in X, Y, and Z. You can do it with C-axis interpolation where the spindle rotates, and you're just using X and Z. But it's not as accurate, and it's a little weird. I do both, and I tend to like the typical three-axis better.
00:14:42
Speaker
So is that in your, like when you, in fusion, when you click the post thing, is there an option to like favor polar? Cause obviously the machine could get the part done in two different ways. Yeah, exactly. Uh, it's, I think it's the same tool path, but it's the way you post. I have three different posts for my. Oh, okay.
00:15:02
Speaker
you know, a scrounge from all my buddies out there who have lads. Right, right. Yeah. So my C axis one is a Doosan post that I call C axis post. And yeah, the rotate that struck while you, okay. Yeah. So then the X just basically goes in and out timed with the C to make a circle. Yeah. Okay. I got you.
00:15:30
Speaker
Yeah. And it works pretty well, except there's, I don't know, some weird, I don't know if you call them backlash marks or whatever, some little lines that I don't love when it refers to the C direction. Sure. Yeah. Okay. You don't get that with the XYZ movement, but.
00:15:47
Speaker
Well, so, and that's a fun segue to the day it can't complete, which I don't think we had this on camera either. We weren't filming then, but I had a problem when I first installed my Haas trunnion with tool path.
00:16:03
Speaker
or part quality on a Swarf demo toolpath. It was about a year ago. And I mean, I literally couldn't have been newer to 5-axis. It was the first part I ever made. And the part felt smooth, but you could see these lines or sort of striations on the part. And I was pretty bummed. I thought maybe this speaks to either Fusion or the Haas trunnion quality, both of which I was going to be really bummed if they weren't. Like this to me wasn't a part I would want to send to a customer, even though, again, it was smooth. It wasn't like it was chattered or bad.
00:16:33
Speaker
And what was really ironic, you'll hear the rest of the story momentarily, is that my Haas AE had Mastercam on his laptop, grabbed the solid model through the same sort of sort of toolpath and Mastercam posted it, same problem. Now, any reasonable person would then deduce that it's not the CAM software because you've used two different very industry accepted packages and you've got a problem with your trunnion or controller or something,
00:17:01
Speaker
And so we happened to, because it was the fusion sample file, the guy at Camplete had fusion on his computer. He pulls that code up, moves the code into Camplete, pulls it and immediately goes, no, this is a bad tool path. And he shows us that the C axis was making micro jitter, basically it was like moving forward 10 degrees and back 0.01 degrees.
00:17:29
Speaker
And you couldn't, I'd love to rerun that toolpath actually and see if we can really see it if we pay attention. I don't think so. But he was with no lack of conviction and frankly, not even any excitement. He's like, yeah, that's about toolpath. Like, okay, next. He was like, oh my God, blew me away. And the first. It was crazy seeing the visual representation of the, what do you call that? It's like the axis drive.
00:17:56
Speaker
effort. It was like a load almost. Yeah, right. But it should have just been going in a nice... It should have been going one direction than the other and it said it was jittering. The huge irony, which to me is just hilarious, is that he looks at us and he goes, yeah, Mastercam has a known swarf
00:18:19
Speaker
I don't know if it's a bug, but he's like Mastercam Swarf has a tendency to do this. There's a way to fix it, but it's a common thing to have happen. I thought, oh my gosh, what are the odds? Or maybe it's a big thing within Swarf paths overall.
00:18:35
Speaker
I don't know if it's you, John, but I didn't understand Canplete or software like it when it comes to 5-axis until as we get more into it, you start to realize how much more there is to controlling the machine's motion and seeing what it's doing. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, we were there all day from like 8.30 to 5, basically. And I didn't understand Canplete until about 4 PM. Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:04
Speaker
They had John's lathe in their software and you guys can just imagine it's like, wait a minute here. Let's put this tool in here. Let's look at this. Let's look at this. So like maybe your C axis, maybe it is doing little micro adjustments. Maybe it is. I guess if you were really savvy, you could look at the code and like kind of eyeball it, but
00:19:27
Speaker
Maybe, I don't know. Maybe the weird thing about G code is G code isn't time weighted. Like one line of code may take six seconds to effectuate and the other line of code may be 0.006 seconds. So it's hard to, it's hard to understand what's driving what.
00:19:43
Speaker
Especially with rotational values, because check this out. When I do a, like the speed of the C axis and the speed of an XYZ are completely different. Right. So if I program a C axis at a hundred inches per minute, I have to program XYZ at like 2000 inches per minute, even though it's not moving that fast, it's moving at the pace of the C axis. So that's why you need a fancy post.
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's okay. So that's what I think I'm tackling that problem here by a dumber way, which is running, generally running at slower feed rates while I learned the Haas simultaneous five. Like, so I'm doing full five axis at like 30 to 50 inches a minute, because if you go 200 and one axis can't keep up, um, it seems to just get jittery or like it almost feed holds while another axis keeps up or catches up anyway.
00:20:41
Speaker
And then you get yourself an LX 160 and do everything at a thousand inches per minute. Like we still had military. Yeah. I can't wait to go look at that footage again. That was the, we were, they were behind on some more, a fully automated, full like production scheduling system. They have very few people in the shop and we weren't to go into a different area of the shop and they were like, Oh man, we're behind on 27 orders that were, that are pieces.
00:21:09
Speaker
And there's like no one in the shop and we came back three hours later And that was all caught up like the robot picked it all fed it all Like I mean and you just saw it right immediately on a screen Yeah, all green lights, right? Very cool one day job. You'll get there
00:21:27
Speaker
I don't think this made its way into any footage. Erin got all her footage edited yesterday, just got to put some music on it, so that should go up pretty soon. Yeah, I don't think it made it into footage, but I, what would you call it? I alarmed out the MAM 7235, the Matsura that they had. Yeah, the door. So it was just, I was around filming and I talked to one of the operators and I was like, oh, could you do a palette change for me? That'd be awesome. I want to film it in slow mo or something.
00:21:55
Speaker
And then I literally don't know how it happened, but there was this weird door alarm error that plagued them for probably about an hour. I felt super bad. Yeah, we were looking at the manual. We had like five people. No, it's not my fault, but I certainly instigated it. If I wasn't there, they would have been running production for that whole time.
00:22:15
Speaker
It's funny because when I filmed the LX 160 out in California, the Matsura Tyler, who was like a long-term Matsura AE, like knows his stuff, had a sensor alarm on the FANUC that he couldn't get the machine ready, he couldn't get it up and he's like super flustered and it was at the end of the day and I'm sure that contributed.
Troubleshooting and Tool Insights
00:22:39
Speaker
But nevertheless, it was some like,
00:22:41
Speaker
See the thing like palette changer, auxiliary door, air alarm, override sensor, log switch. He's like, oh my, are you serious?
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah, Fannock is kind of known for doing some weird stuff like that. Like the probe on my lathe, the turret probe, if it accidentally stays on for more than like a few minutes, it hard alarms. Like, it switches a binary switch in the parameters from zero to one. But you have to very difficultly go in and change. That's annoying.
00:23:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's called a Hanbei error alarm, something like that. So I have to create like a full one page document with pictures, push this, push this, go here, go to this menu over next page.
00:23:30
Speaker
change this parameter from a one to a zero and then undo everything that you just did. Cool. And so now like that happened to Skye, so I gave him the piece of paper and he figured it up pretty quickly. But still, man, there's like something out of law. It's like something out of Austin Powers. It's like, are you serious? Right. If it's just a fan, one of those crazy fanic variables, can you not write a custom program that
00:23:54
Speaker
No, it's a parameter, not a variable. I don't know if you can write to a parameter automatically. Maybe. I have to think you could. I'm not saying it's easier. Maybe we can't. I don't know. Okay. I think last update on the torque wrenches.
00:24:15
Speaker
Yes, go i'm calling it bunked Um, yeah, we had one more guy email in from very very reputable defense company and he's like, yeah it yeah, we don't we have them calibrated on a schedule but um There's we we and again, this was not scientific. I want to emphasize that nevertheless. It's practical from a real world standpoint Sure that they don't have problems. Um, then we had another individual who sent a pretty good email. Uh, i'll i'll i'm gonna read it almost verbatim
00:24:45
Speaker
Good quality modern torque wrenches use chrome silicone springs for consistency which like high-end watches and firearm springs have a resistance They resist taking a new set like that much They're much more resistant to that than say older spring steel. So perhaps that's the genesis of this, you know rumor and Here's them to me the more interesting thing is let's keep in mind the big picture if you're not specking out the lubrication of the thread and
00:25:14
Speaker
Variances in your torque wrench accuracy will likely be far less than the variances in if the thread is wet or dry or lubricated, which if you look up the machinery's handbook, that is a massive difference in torque when the thread is lubricated. Really? Yeah. So again, I would still keep an open mind if somebody can offer empirical data, but I think
00:25:40
Speaker
I'll put it this way, I'm pretty comfortable with us leaving them torqued. And then I think what we do need to do is once a year, if we're not having them, I don't need to pay to have the, we're not doing anything that would require them to be paid to be calibrated, but we've got a digital torque adapter thing, which we can, yeah, it's not expensive, 50 bucks. So we should be able to just use that to make sure we're within say 10% or something of the right range.
00:26:05
Speaker
Sure. Although I just thought of one example, like the one torque wrench that I have and don't use for anything, um, is my car torque wrench. I've had it for 15 years or yeah, probably 15 years. If I'm only using that to tighten lugs on a car wheel.
00:26:21
Speaker
I'm probably still going to unwind it because it's going to store all year long. I wouldn't want to leave that torqued for 15 years solid and assume it's still going to be good. But in a daily use environment, I totally understand the desire to keep them torqued and have one for each job. Right. That's the point. It's not just daily use. We have a 35 foot pound, 65 foot pound. Ironically, you posted something I'd never seen before last night on Instagram.
00:26:47
Speaker
A cracked? The cracked collet nut, yeah, on an ER11 collet, which is really small. Okay. But it's smaller. I guess it doesn't have thinner walls, even though it's a smaller nut. Oh, there it is. Yeah, everything is. Well, the walls are pretty thick now that I look at it. Pretty crazy. Yeah.
00:27:11
Speaker
Oh, well, use a torque wrench. It's a, it's a Lindex Nick in one too. Um, yeah, a torque wrench with a specified value because tightening these smaller ones, you're like, how tight do I go? And normally I go way tighter than this. Well, and remember Angelo, sky, John, like that's the problem too. Yep.
00:27:33
Speaker
I was looking at those sloky little torque wrenches that you were talking about. I looked them up last night on the website. I didn't realize there is an international standard for a Torx T8. The standard is whatever, inch pounds. T9 is the standard because it seems like they come as a kit. Like a T8 is a 1.2 Newton meter. I don't know exactly what it is. You know what I mean?
00:28:01
Speaker
Because I always wondered, well, we use T9 fasteners on our knives, but what should we be torquing them to? I don't know. But apparently, there's a standard for that type of screw. That's only odd to me, because we actually spend an oddly significant amount of time here debating fasteners. For instance, we just agreed to swap out the screw head size on our mod vise.
00:28:24
Speaker
because it'll now let us have one less wrench needed to use it, which is really nice. But when you go between socket head cap screws, maybe like a low profile, certainly with a flat head, you'll usually have the same thread pitch with a different socket size. So that would get a different torque value, which is interesting. That's a good point. That's a very good point.
00:28:46
Speaker
Because even a socket head to a button head is usually one size smaller in torque drive. But it should have the same rating, although maybe it doesn't. I don't know. Oh, absolutely. Should.
00:29:03
Speaker
shell mill holder or lathe insert or whatever like that. I wonder if those are more standard. Like if that's what they're that's kind of the market they're going for. Hey, I do know you should use you know, everyone's kind of gotten cheaper. You like even what we've noticed our Sandvik tools used to come with a nice plastic clicky wrench.
Investments and Shop Expansion
00:29:22
Speaker
And now it's got a soft grip
00:29:25
Speaker
tool. And the idea that I'm told is you're supposed to use that soft grip, it's almost like a foam handle around it, you're supposed to use that handle to turn the screw to seat the insert. And then as soon as you start twisting the foam, instead of the instead of the screwdriver being twisted, that means you're torqued. And I think the idea is, again, you don't have somebody who babies in and some
00:29:51
Speaker
you know, guy who just really wails down, you could crack it, or they can back out, so forth. Right. Yeah, I was at an event and I talked to one of the ISCAR guys and the little Allen or the little torque flag drivers that they come with. You know, like an Allen key is an L shaped object, right?
00:30:12
Speaker
So it's like they molded a piece of plastic around the L shape, except the short arm of the L is 20% of what it normally is on an Allen key. It's like super duper short. And as we're torquing these, it's actually deforming the plastic and sticking out. You know what I mean? It's like the plastic is not supporting it. And I complained to the guy, and I'm like, these wrenches are crap. They're just falling apart. And he goes, they're actually like that by design. They're designed to fail if you're overtighting it.
00:30:41
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, I get it, but I still hate it. I think it's really stupid. I just don't, I kind of don't like the fact that some of these tools are $200 bodies, $800 bodies. It's like, you know, it goes back to, you don't buy a Hermelet and put in really, really good cutting tools and then go buy used tool holders on eBay. Like you got to, or college, you got to pay attention to the whole stack. Like I'm okay. Um,
00:31:09
Speaker
There was a lot, you and I had a lot of conversations during the trip about like bootstrapping and where do you spend money? And like, what do you think about all that stuff? And I think about that a lot now. And that's just one of those areas. It's easy too, because it's all, you know, yes, a really good T8 Torx wrench, maybe it's $80, but that's not that much money compared to the picture. Although maybe, maybe that's lifestyle. Yep.
00:31:39
Speaker
Well, I'm noticing that too. Like, I'm having to cut back on purchases because I'm just like, I can't just keep blowing money left and right, you know? Yeah. A hundred bucks here, a thousand bucks there. It's no big deal. Yeah, we need that. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Let's just do that. Oh, no. So Barry's been good about reeling me back. He's like, well, you need that. Think hard. Let's step back a little bit. We don't really need anything else right now. We just need to buckle down and make more money.
00:32:03
Speaker
And yeah, so I got to realize that. It goes back to like having the six month or year long goal for something like a machine, even if you don't buy the machine can help you say no. So I'm having this debate right now about the microscope. To me, it's a complete no brainer. Your microscope is way better. The optical stereo field of view and depth of field and lack of focus, range, fickleness, complete yes decision. But the one that I should buy is about $3,400.
00:32:32
Speaker
And it's like you add those all up, and that's what stops you from getting to new machines. And we have a microscope now. It's just not quite as much as I'd like it to be.
00:32:46
Speaker
So you should look up mine. It's like the A60. A60. I think the S9D is the upgrade model. I think that's one of us. I was just on their website. So a buddy of mine is making me a part that waterproof GoPro case that I was talking about. And so he just sent me a video. But he sent me a video under this microscope. The S9D?
00:33:12
Speaker
Yes, that's what I want with the camera and everything and he filmed the whole thing and it's it's on YouTube privately. But I'm watching this thing. I'm like, this is a magnified view in HD. Yeah, it looks freaking amazing. Right. And he's showing me this one little toolpath.
00:33:27
Speaker
And I'm just like, holy cow, the capability is awesome. Not just to have on a screen, but to record too. Yeah, I think you need the screen output. So consider that near cost for sure. Well, and I think the microscope just becomes something we're using every hour. I mean, literally, every time you're taking tools in and out, you're just quickly looking at them underneath them to see, it's just so important.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah. Eric just told me, you know, offhand, he's like, yeah, we need a microscope like this at every station. Right. And I'm like, well, long-term. Yeah, that could make sense. But yeah, that was fun. I'm glad that we compared them like that. And dude, I was playing with your profilometer like a lot. You know, I let you and Angelo play with it for the first, you know, half of the day. But by the end of the day, I'm like, I want to try this thing. And I'm like, Oh, I miss it already.
00:34:20
Speaker
Yeah. In fairness, you do own a lapping machine. Exactly. But to be able to see what we're measuring three RA on the lapped parts that we're doing. Yeah, I think what were you doing? It was really impressive, the process that you have of
00:34:39
Speaker
I don't even remember what it is. Like water jet, mill, heat treat, tumble, lap, re-machine, finish machine. Like it's a pretty cool process. And I like seeing the foam cut bins that store the blades up. Like it's a very, I feel like you could have somebody jump in there. It was awesome. Good. Yeah.
00:35:02
Speaker
Good heck of a different. Yeah, we still have a long, long ways to go, but heck of a different shop. And then January of 16, when I came up and it was, it was just probably just you and Eric in the, in the Dura mill. It was funny. Yeah. Times have changed significantly.
00:35:19
Speaker
Um, did they blow out the door to the, to your, you want to break the news? Yeah. So I didn't realize I hadn't told anybody about this. Cause when I told you, you were blown away when you were here. Anyway, we are getting the unit next door. We have the unit next door now, which is awesome. So our thousand square feet here is now 1500 square feet.
00:35:39
Speaker
And there's always been a door connecting the two units, but they welded a steel plate in there when we moved in. So I come inside Monday morning, Barry's here already and it smells like burning paper. Like I'm like, what is going on? Is there a fire? What is this? And it's because the neighbor guy uses basically angle grinder to chop the steel plate off the door. And there's like embedded dirt particles in the sink from all this, you know, sparking.
00:36:07
Speaker
Whatever. But it's pretty weird. Is it? Just looking in the shop keeps going. I've been there for three years and I've always seen a steel plate there. And just to have this void. The unit looks way bigger when there's nothing in it than it did with the other guy's crap in it. So now that it's empty and they're like, holy cow, this is actually a lot of space. This is really good. Yeah.
00:36:33
Speaker
So that was the, I think we probably brought that conversation up two or three different times. What do you do with that space? And then they continue to change, right? But. Exactly. I mean, honestly, we got it like we want to move to bigger shop eventually because we want to grow and have more space and more toys and more people and do more work. But this was kind of a no brainer. It's like the guy's moving out. I don't want anybody else moving in for an extra six hundred bucks a month.
00:37:01
Speaker
It's literally a no-brainer. And at worst, we just put all of our garbage over there, all this long-term storage stuff. But you said, make money with this space. You just have a gold mine next to you right now. So actually use it to increase something, increase production, and make money. Put a machine over there or something.
00:37:21
Speaker
It's not exactly a unique or super intelligent suggestion, but I do I do abhor the idea that you just take some of the stuff that you don't really need in your shop like most of the stuff on that yellow and look again, I'm
00:37:36
Speaker
hesitant to just go point fingers and say why other people should do things differently or better, but like you do have a lot more potential. So run with the, you know, you play the game with a deck of cards you got, like get some productivity in there. Don't just make it a storage room. Right. Otherwise you're paying 600 bucks a month for a storage locker. That too. Right. Like get to the, from a business standpoint, get the business to somewhere where all of a sudden
00:38:05
Speaker
you go visit a five or 10,000 square foot shop and instead of it being a reach, it's from a youth standpoint and from a cashflow standpoint, you're like done, right? Yep, no brainer.
00:38:18
Speaker
So hopefully within the next year or two, we'll get there. And the good thing with the space next door is it just buys us time. It lets us stretch out a little bit and not be so cramped and not feel like we need to move tomorrow and struggle to do it. We want to have tons of cash in the bank, all the debts paid off, things like that.
00:38:40
Speaker
moving to the next shop and being down for a couple of days or weeks or whatever it takes, and spending the cash to move all the machinery and buy the new stuff that we're getting the machine, the big shop for, just becomes a no-brainer. And you can isolate those decisions. It's one thing to say, hey, we're going to go to a five-fold or 10-fold larger shop. And once we get there, we're going to buy new machines. That's so much more risk than saying, hey,
00:39:09
Speaker
And the next two years we bought a Swiss, we bought a Robo drill and we're crushing it. And so now all we need to do is just relocate those machines to where we can be more efficient with our processes.
00:39:21
Speaker
Yep, Jay Pearson, I think finally did his move and I was asking him because he seems to be so good about Shop layout are certainly so thoughtful about shop layout and I was asking like hey, did you do it in fusion? Did you just print out stuff on paper? And I thought when he did infusion he would do it like his sketches because that's kind of the only way I've ever done it and he was he kind of just like
00:39:43
Speaker
was like, absolutely not. John, solid models are available for every machine. So he modeled a new shop in 3D, which now I need to go do that because we got a big ass fan came yesterday, which couldn't have come sooner. Oh my gosh, I'm really excited. So the guys are actually wiring that up right now. And
00:40:07
Speaker
That's oddly what's making us think about the layout, both because of the airflow, but also because we did have a couple of drops that we'll have to relocate because the fan obviously can't run a drop through a fan. Actually, ironically, you can run something through the very center of bearing, but we're not going to. So we're not going to do too much for now, but I suspect in the next year or two, we'll end up doing a big shock reconfig. Nice.
00:40:38
Speaker
What are you up to today? Today, I am switching the lathe over from running that lock insert, which I'd never quite finished, to we got to make knife parts. So pivot screws today, and then I think we're good on everything else. Got it. It was really fun to watch you run that lock bar. Yeah. And that lathe makes real, I know you've had some frustrations on getting to where you are with it, but that lathe makes really nice parts.
00:41:06
Speaker
I mean, it was really does he mean the milling that that 17 for at 45 Rockwell stainless was just beautiful.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yep, yep, shiny and good. And yeah, the part looks, this is actually in my hand, the part that you and I cut. I wasn't able to part it off from the bar. I tried, but just gave up. Oh, you couldn't get it to the main 5C? That's what you mean? Yeah, getting it into the machine emergency call. It was actually kind of rubbing and galling the call a little bit, like shoving the corners down so that wasn't good.
00:41:43
Speaker
Okay. So here's an interesting sort of philosophical debate. Yes. That's what you want. You want to have it automatically transfer it from the sub spindle into the main spindle to part it off because that would let you run batches of them. But what if you, I know this is seem sacrilegious. What if you isolate that out and instead just have it parted off in the sub spindle, put in the parts catcher and then manually put it into the machine emergency five C call it by hand. Who cares?
00:42:11
Speaker
My concern would be parallelism because when you do it automatically, the machine is square enough to keep it parallel and then it grips and then parts it off so it stays relatively a flat part. If you do it by hand, you're going to get crooked parts a lot. You've got a lot of mating surfaces on the floor of that 5C. It's possible.
00:42:34
Speaker
Don't not try it. This came up because a friend, his Haas network connection went down. He got really frustrated, I think. We didn't talk in detail. And spent like two days looking at internet servers, domain servers, and IPs and routers. And I'm just kind of like, sometimes you don't fight the battle. Sometimes you just go back to sneaker net and deal with it next month or something. It's OK, because you've got to just keep going.
00:43:05
Speaker
That's actually a good idea. Maybe I should just do that. Is the five seats still on the main?
00:43:10
Speaker
Uh, no, I took it out, but I could throw it back in. I could do it this morning before anybody comes in. See how fun it is. Yeah, you're right. Because I have these two parts that you and I parted off and it has that kind of hat at the top. And it would be a very easy manual operation to get that done. You could make 30 of them manually. It's not a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. And then see how parallel they are. And if it does work, then invest the time. And that's a pretty cool thing, clocking that to get it transferred between. Yeah.
00:43:41
Speaker
Well, I had to eyeball clock it too, which doesn't make me super happy. It was 71.2 degrees on the main spindle. Yeah, it's weird. Awesome. Yes, that's what I'm up to today. Cool. You?
Community Support and Closing Remarks
00:43:56
Speaker
I have to go. Maybe we'll talk about this next week, but a local organization is having some troubles, and so we've got a meeting this morning, and there's some good takeaways, I think, from it, which maybe we'll talk about next week.
00:44:09
Speaker
Unfortunately, I've got to go kind of help out with that for a few hours. And then we finished a batch of parts on the five axis for Johnny five. And so now I am putting in the first piece of steel, which I'm not nervous about steel. I'm nervous about how far I can stick a piece of steel out and still have sufficient rigidity for part quality, but also tool life. We're going to have to move away from larger
00:44:37
Speaker
indexable tooling, I think you go to some solid carbide, which will have less tool pressure, at least at first, but you know, kind of build up the victories here. Um, so that'll be a big game changer because I want to understand again, we're coding rigidity, the five axis tool pass there. So testing that stuff out.
00:44:55
Speaker
Um, and then, you know, I'm exhausted. I actually might kind of call it an early day. I don't know why, but I am. Hmm. I hope that has. Yeah. And you're allowed to do that. I know. Right. I hope that, I hope it, I hope this isn't like a bad podcast because we have low energy today, but yeah, I'm not going to fake it. Sorry. Exactly. Right. But no, I had a really good time with you and, uh, I know it sounds silly, but, um, I'm proud of you and I'm proud to be, you know, some part of your story and what you've done. It's really impressive, John. Awesome. Thank you very much. All right. I'll see you next week.
00:45:24
Speaker
Cool. Sounds good. Take care. Bye.