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RASK PROGRESS, THREADMILLING, WORKHOLDING FIXTURES, 5-AXIS ROTARY TOOLPATHS, DIAMOND BURNISHING, GRINDING, SURFACE FINISHES, PROBING, & TOOL BREAKAGE DETECTION.
228 Plays5 years ago
RASK PROGRESS, THREADMILLING, WORKHOLDING FIXTURES, 5-AXIS ROTARY TOOLPATHS, DIAMOND BURNISHING, GRINDING, SURFACE FINISHES, PROBING, & TOOL BREAKAGE DETECTION.
KERN IT UP. Grimsmo machines his own ER 16 collet for the KERN! Wait until you hear about how he made this monolithic-integral ER. All this talk about holding parts on center brings back a good ol' Memory with Marv. Saunders recounts an accuracy test for cylindricity on the KERN--Swarf VS. Polar Interpolation in Garmisch- Partenkirchen.
Threadmilling. Single Point or Proper Threadmills? Tool Standardization? The guys dive into threadmilling and tooling up machines; including single point versus proper threadmills, tool deflection, and whether or not to buy or DIY Collets. Regardless, the process needs to be reliable AND no matter how magical the brand of machine, it's still subject to the laws of physics.
Click here for the Ultimate Guide to Threadmilling on NYCCNC (video and threadmilling calculator).
HEAR ME OUT: The Synergistic Effect of CNC Theory. Saunders asks an interesting question, "Could the collets be made on the Nak?" At first it seems like an impossibility but with an open mind, new ways of thinking can lead to solutions you never could have imagined.
Cogsdill Diamond Burnishing Tool on the Tornos: YAY or NAY? Grimsmo shares an update on the SAGA pen clips.
Inconceivable---really! Saunders teases Grimsmo with the mind blowing video that's in the works. This Covid-friendly collaborative video about MetalQuest's INDEX MS40-8 will be about the harmony between machine capabilities and maximizing workflows. It's hard to imagine the back-work, which is all the more reason it MUST BE SHOWN! Get ready to reduce cycle time, increase output, balance cycle time between spindles, and more!
Covid and Manufacturing: BIG GIANTS FALL HARDER. No one wants to speak too soon but there's been a sigh of relief that smaller manufacturing businesses haven't felt the same pain as the larger, often over-leveraged, companies. Seeing a "company consolidation" flyer in the mail for an aerospace company feels....weird.
BUYER'S REMORSE? Does Grimsmo regret the large financial risk he took with the KERN given how 2020 has panned out thus far?
TOTALLY REDEEMED AFTER BEING REAMED. A few episodes ago, Saunders called Grimsmo out for committing two cardinal sins of grinding. In order to make progress on the Rask, he decided to forego dressing and balancing the wheel before grinding the knife blade. Maybe Grimsmo's method of madness was intentional all along or maybe it was pure luck that resulted in the perfect recipe. EITHER WAY, IT'S FANTASTIC!
Surface Finish Factors You hear about tool deflection, speeds & feeds, material type, and machine kinematics but what about presenting an even chipload/tool pressure to the cutting tool? Devon Dupuis from Autodesk and Saunders are collaborating on an OUT OF THIS WORLD part that relies on getting that chef's kiss finish.
Random Ceratizit Clickbait Sometimes the algorithm provides.... Check out this video showing a new facemill with a vacuum/suction feature.
ERP: Permanent Product and Material Location A big part of implementing ERP is deciding where things will be stored. It might sound easy to have a permanent location for parts and material but Amazon outright rejects that logic. The key is to make sure the item can be located anywhere at anytime.
The Johns wrap up this 190th episode with probing, tool break detection, and what's on tap for the day!
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Transcript
Introduction & Weekly Updates
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 190. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. And this is the weekly podcast where the two entrepreneur buddies get to check in and kind of vent, help each other out, talk about machining. Talk about machining. Love it.
00:00:18
Speaker
Have you been machining this week?
ER16 Palette Project & Machining Innovations
00:00:20
Speaker
I've been machining so much this week. I've actually had a lot of fun and a lot of progress, which both feel really, really good. Yeah. Rasks? Rasks, yeah. Yeah, I've been on the current a lot this week. Just last night, I finished a sweet ER16 palette. Okay. So now I can hold little round stuff on center accurately in collets.
00:00:46
Speaker
So I saw this, I think on Insta real quick. You machined like a monolithic integral ER? Yeah.
00:00:56
Speaker
Because I've got all these tiny little pallets and little 3-inch pallets. And there's 55 of them in the Aroa. And I've come up with a dovetail clamping system that I want to standardize. So every single pallet base will have that clamping system. So instead of buying an off-the-shelf thing and having to make an adapter and things like that, I just want to use one of my new top plate dovetail fixtures.
00:01:23
Speaker
and machine an ER into it. And I've had this idea for a long time. And I was like, yeah, it's time. I need it now. Let's do it. So you took a cylinder, a three inch piece of solid round bar, dovetail at the bottom. And in the top, you literally thread milled the OD of this ER16 boss. And then you machined the taper. Yeah, I three did machine the taper. You're nuts. It was cool. Yeah, it turned out pretty great. What material?
00:01:52
Speaker
It's 41, 40. Okay, steel. Yeah. Yep. So I've got these three inch rounds that I'm dovetailing as my base with a key. And I've just, I've got it, I had like
Testing Machining Methods on Kern
00:02:03
Speaker
four on the shelf and eventually I want to have lots on the shelf and that's my like, pallet plank. And yeah, turned out great. Here's what I think is hilarious. Do you remember the test we did with Marv?
00:02:19
Speaker
Which test? What is it? Garmisch-Partenkirchen at Kern headquarters. He wanted to test what would have a higher degree of accuracy and I think we were looking at cylindricity on a Kern and he had a HSK taper
00:02:42
Speaker
which is not massively dissimilar from an ER ID taper. And just in the sense that you got this kind of circular angle. And we did it with a swarf. So swarf meaning you're moving both the X and the Y for an interpolated circle. And then we did it with a polar interpolation where you just kind of tip the B. Do you have an A or B? B. It's a B.
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah. Tip the B over and rotated C with the tool staying in place in XY. And I think we have this on video. I think somehow the so we moved and then we took it over to the West German Zeiss CMM. And I think the interpolated one was somehow better.
00:03:28
Speaker
It was an XY interpolated, like the parts stay still, not spinning. That's correct. Yeah, because that's how I did mine. Which is crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. I briefly looked at the surface finish. I didn't like microscope it, but it was okay in that I could have done a tighter step over or used a sharper tool or something. Could have, you know, next one will be better kind of thing, but I'm happy with it. It took me a long time to dial in the thread
00:03:56
Speaker
the thread mill. I'm not great at hitting thread mills bang on. I've got your Excel sheet calculator. I've kind of made my own as well, and I still can't get it right. I'm missing something. Are they close? They're
Precision Challenges in Thread Milling
00:04:12
Speaker
close, but I just have to walk it in. Another 2,000, another 2,000, another 2,000. Oh, there it is. And it's not
00:04:20
Speaker
That method is not production ready, you know what I mean? But I don't do a ton of daily threadmilling. If I did, I'd put time into it.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah, so the crest flat tip is for sure a major factor. The other thing is so often folks are using the single point thread mills, which have a massively reduced shank to allow for the bottom portion of the cutting tool to actually come out kind of like a woodruff cutter. So we've never tried measuring it, but there's got to be huge amounts of tool deflection, which you can hear it. That's the problem with a current. Even having a current doesn't do anything to stop carbide from flexing.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yep, and a lot of times the tools are longer and have stick out to reach, and you know, you still have to play within the nature of the flexure of the tools or whatever word that is. What is the thread pitch on an ER? No, you're using it, hold on, you're not making the nut. Can we agree on that? No, I'm not making the nut, I'm just using a merry tool nut. That's fine. M20 by 1.5, I think it was?
00:05:16
Speaker
Oh, it is metric. Interesting. So what I did is go to the MeriTool website, download the solid model, or I think I used the RegoFix website, whatever, and then kind of played with it from there. Go buy an M20 proper dedicated treadmill. The ones that look like horn cob ruffers. Like a multi-flute? Yes, because they're way stiffer.
00:05:39
Speaker
Okay, and you're gonna make more of these well like in the current right now I have basically one of each size of thread mill from tiny to big Yeah, and it's it's kind of nice single point
Tool Standardization for Machining
00:05:48
Speaker
thread mode. I don't care if it takes longer You're right. I am gonna make more of these but probably not more than like five ten. I don't know different sizes I probably want an ER 40 to let me hold like a one-inch chunk Centered well if that's the same thread pitch then I would definitely even if you don't leave it Yeah, TC buy a holder for it leave it set up. It's
00:06:07
Speaker
Because otherwise, again, this goes back to my one of my life goals, which is now to get you off the machine. And so, you know, when when Grimsmo employee, you know, 2.0 next person comes along, you're going to tell them, hey, use tool 272. It's in the cart. We don't leave it in the machine. That's the treadmill. Here's the cam and it will just work versus. Oh, there's a treadmill in there, but you're going to have to do a bunch of stock to leave and walk it in and test it. Yeah, I get it.
00:06:38
Speaker
Although I would think that the deflection would stay consistent for that tool anyway, like up and down the thread. You're not wrong. You could take a bunch of spring passes, and I hear you, but the tool cost is negligible. The holder cost is for sure something, I guess, right? That's a 400 bucks or something for a total rotating tool.
00:06:59
Speaker
There is benefit to having standardized tools in the machine. And that's the beauty of the single points is, yes, they take longer. I think it was like four or five minutes for the thread milling cycle. And I ran it eight times or something. But standardized in that it can run a few different thread pitches with the one. So there's plus and minus to both ways for sure. Well, then maybe just leave it as a
00:07:23
Speaker
Maybe try it on the next one. More passes with smaller step overs and then do like four spring passes. See if you can get a recipe that works and then you can just save that and then you can like template that. Yeah, exactly. Yep. How
00:07:39
Speaker
Nervous are you about that? I guess it's funny because ER tapers aren't that big of a deal, but it just seems like something that's kind of moving into the toolmaker world, fixturey world. For sure. Yeah, one where it was, I'm sure the angle is fine, the surface finish, because like a ground finish is really nice. I was wondering if a bad surface finish is going to cause the collet to stick or like ruin the collet or something, but I'm like,
00:08:03
Speaker
So, a collet's like 20 bucks and they'll probably be dedicated, they'll probably be a quarter inch collet in this thing for life. And, I don't know. You might compromise the, so if you're, if you're adding friction to the sliding surfaces of the tape or the collet, then you might, what it should mean is that the same amount of torque on the nut will reduce in less.
00:08:25
Speaker
collapsing of the collet and less work holding power, but I don't think you're ripping parts out of your collets on the kern, you know. No, exactly. Exactly. And it was neat roughing that big three inch piece of steel on the kern, and it's a balance between horsepower and rigidity. You know, it's got a 20 horsepower spindle. It's got some oomph, but this setup with my dovetail base,
00:08:50
Speaker
is probably not the most rigid thing in the world with the small pallets. And there was some vibration, for sure. So I had to play with the RPM and the feed rate. And I found that little sweet spot. And I changed my speeds and feeds. And then how hard can I push that? I could actually see that a higher SFM, like more RPM, lowered the horsepower directly. Really?
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah, because it was like 50% spindle load and then I increased the RPM and got rid of the vibration and the spindle load went down to like 30. I was like, whoa, interesting. When you increase the RPM though, does it maintain the same chip load or does it maintain the same inches per minute, which means it's a thinner, smaller chip load? Depends on, I'm pretty sure it's a fixed feed rate.
00:09:33
Speaker
Yeah, which would make sense. There's a mode in the Haas, which we never use, where you can slave them together so that if you increase or adjust the RPM, that will keep your chip load the same, which is kind of cool. It saves the knob to do two knobs.
00:09:49
Speaker
increase feed rate and RPM at the same time, maybe? Well, but they're not necessarily linear. So basically, if you program a tooth after tooth feed rate, you can then adjust the RPM, which is nice if you want to isolate variables.
Machining Limitations & Dovetail Adapter
00:10:01
Speaker
Because I guess, thinking about that here, if you increase the RPM, you may be in a different torque band on the spindle. But more importantly, you're actually asking less of the tool. True.
00:10:11
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, it's got spindle override and feed rate overrides separately, which is nice because you get to tweak them separately, but you're right, they are related. If you change one, it actually does affect the other. Because it would be, I mean, occurrence are amazing, but they don't defy the laws of physics where- Exactly, yeah.
00:10:28
Speaker
Cut more with less. Yeah, it's a funny perspective to actually run into on a daily basis, or not daily, but every now and then you're like, okay, as amazing as it is, it can still chatter, and it can still make a bad finish, and it can still make parts out of tolerance, and okay, there's still a lot of skill, even more required to do a great job, but yeah, once you get over those, then it's amazing. Is it not at all possible to run these on a knock?
00:10:58
Speaker
The e-arc thingies yeah, you could but you'd have to make a holder for it or I Don't know now. It's not possible Come on. That camera is limited to one inch because I don't even have a three jaw chuck for it. Okay, you bear with me here. Oh
00:11:15
Speaker
Can I open your mind? Ooh, the eye roll, not interested. Make a dovetail adapter that goes into a 5C. Yeah, I thought about that. Because now you have the ability to, with no hassle and no stress, convert the Nakamura to the dovetail system on the current. And then, oh my gosh, when I think about that part, you may, roughing it with a lathe makes sense. Threading it with a lathe makes sense. True. And then hard milling, or just milling the taper, screams turning. Even turning it, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Agreed.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, I'd have to make that adapter for sure, and I don't really have the NAC set up for boring bars, big boring bars, and bigger threading and things like that. That's fair. There's plus and minuses. And making it on the current also keeps it concentric to the... Totally. So there's that balance too. And I'm even thinking to myself, while I did make a removable dovetail base, I should probably just never remove it from this palette to keep constricity.
00:12:14
Speaker
Is it reasonable to ever make the palette or is there complicated ground pads or some other mechanical functionality to them? The ground pads are threaded in. Oh. But I assume they're tweaked to the exact same height on all four pieces or something. What is, I guess, have you thought about making the, because you could make a monolithic thing there. That's true.
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah, I've thought about it because you can buy the ground pads and the little pull stud and all that stuff. It's not that expensive.
00:12:45
Speaker
Also, just having the base and just machining my dovetails into it also helps. It's not that hard. I was more curious than I was saying that you should. Sure, but of course it's possible, and some people do, but it's that make-buy relationship. It's like, I could buy it for $800 or I could make it, and it would only cost me 100 materials, but I'm reverse engineering something that already exists. I'm taking my time away from something, and I go through this all the time. So why didn't...
00:13:13
Speaker
I'm pretty sure, well, maybe it's only ER40. Fifth axis makes a adapter, or you could just take one of the slugs of aluminum even, put a hole in it, and then slide one of those straight shanked, which Maritool sells for cheap, straight shanked ER adapters in it. Yeah, also true.
00:13:32
Speaker
Are you at all worried about it being on center? Because doesn't probing take care of? If you probe everything, like if you, you know, hopefully you don't have to. Because for the most part, I use fixed drops at 10 for everything, which is on center and at the bottom of the pads.
00:13:49
Speaker
And then everything runs off of that. Got it. So once I start mounting material, I mean, it's like run out on an ER collet, right? It's a rampant problem. As I clamp something in an ER collet, the collet itself, the nut, everything, the stack up might put it off center, even if the taper's bang on. So I will find that out probably today as I get to the next phase. What parts are you making?
00:14:15
Speaker
The first goal will be putting that dressing stick for dressing the grinding wheel. And that'll let me make kind of the automated routine. So that'll probably just live there. So you're right, I will want more of these ER16 holders and a bigger size, but now I have the code. It works great. And typical three axis like interpolating on the outside to remove all the material.
00:14:36
Speaker
vibrated and sounded grosser than a tilted rotary, like the video I showed on Instagram, where it's to the side and the sea is spinning and the tool is turning materially. That sounded amazing. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to change it up and just do that for everything. Did you use a ball end mill or a flat end mill? A bull end mill. Bull? Okay. Yeah.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, we found some, I think Sandvik was the one that we bought. They actually make a tool where the face grind is meant for, and there's a name for it, like turn milling or something, where you're doing just that. Like you have the tool.
00:15:17
Speaker
the face of the tool pointed at the material as you're rotating the material. Because otherwise you get, I think they call it a healing effect because it's a flat tool, even with a bull nose, it's a flat tool and a round part, so you're kind of moving in and out of the cut in this weird way. I don't know what they do to the grind to better have it kind of interface with the cutting flutes in the part, but we bought one and tried it and we were like,
00:15:42
Speaker
We were hoping it was going to be like the holy grail of making it better. And we tried it and admittedly we gave up after a few hours of tweaking, but partly because the whole point was like, if this just immediately works wonders, we're on board and we'll do a video and share it. And it didn't. So we're like, Oh, yes. Next. Yeah. We got a better floor finish out of the lake shore, like, you know, quarter inch regular tool. I'm like, well, okay. That's, that's nothing to be gained there right now. That's okay.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, that rotary tool had looked great. Yeah, and it was like fully shapely. You know, it wasn't just straight across, like the part had tapers and radiuses and stuff from small to big diameter. Got it. Yeah, just hands it off. And it worked, worked awesome. Yeah. Cool. Are you going to actually use that workflow to make parts? That rotary kind of. No, the ER.
00:16:36
Speaker
Is that part of the Grimsmo product line, uh, part production? I don't think so.
00:16:43
Speaker
No, but I need it for stuff. Got it. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the grinding wheel, for sure. That'll be part of the production workflow, dressing the grinding wheel.
Uses for ER16 Adapter & Mirror Finish
00:16:51
Speaker
And I mean, I don't need an ER. I could hold it in anything and probe it on center, and it could live there. But whatever, I want this anyway. But no, I don't think I'm going to make production parts on the current in an ER, at least at this time. But I could, you know, as the need arises. Just curious. Yeah.
00:17:11
Speaker
We did a probably a year ago, like a 200 part run where we were using like three quarter inch round bar, totally a great example of a part that benefited from having five axis because it was like a little like half the stick of gum, kind of a flat part, but benefited from being made at a round bar. Again, that crazy factoid that round bar is cheaper than the equivalent steel because we just make so much more round bar in the world, generally speaking.
00:17:40
Speaker
But the round bar let us easily work hold it. And what we did was we machined, we tipped it over machine one side, rolled it machine the other side, tipped it back up, faced the top. And then this is actually totally coincidentally that video we threw up this morning where we use the dovetail tool to also put a back chamfer on the part.
00:18:02
Speaker
And then we use a carbide slitting saw with some tiny amount of material in the middle. And these were steel as well. And when it was done, you could literally twist it off yourself and just run it across a stone. And the finish was totally acceptable.
00:18:18
Speaker
And we had tried it in an ER at first. And then we switched to we have a little bison five seat chuck left over from when we had a micro mark seven by 14 lathe. And that five seat chuck was sweet. That was probably as much as the lathe. And I kept it because it was a good little chuck. And we mounted it to a rock lock. And that was easier to just twist the
00:18:47
Speaker
use a chuck key to open it up a couple of turns, index it up, and so we can hold like four or five parts per cut stick of material. Anyway, that was what I was thinking was I found it easier to deal with a chuck there than I did a ER call it.
00:19:05
Speaker
Right, okay, I see what you mean. Yeah, and a lot of things, I mean, that's basically a bar pull lathe is what you've created there, unless you need five axis. And a lot of that stuff would go on the Swiss or even the Nakamura as it can. Speaking of the Swiss, last night I tried a diamond burnishing tool from Cog's Dill.
00:19:28
Speaker
And I bought it like months ago. And because on our saga pens, when you're clicking the first part of the mechanism and the three little balls are kind of, you actually feel the turn surface. And I'm exaggerating, but you could probably feel it on yours. I mean, record player level. It's fine.
00:19:49
Speaker
but it could be better. So last night I mounted the burnishing tool and I tried it out and the first one was mirror. I put it together in my pen right here and it's like silent and smooth and I'm like, oh, this is what I've always wanted. That's amazing. That's the teaser post you put up then? Yeah, yeah. Okay.
00:20:11
Speaker
Oh, man. So how much stock do you leave? And how is it running the burnish? I turned it on diameter. Let's call it two, four, seven, I think it was. And I burnished half a thou under, like five tenths. And the final dimensions are about the same. It's not like it made it smaller, but it certainly wiped the surface. And it's noticeably shinier. And I look under the microscope. It's not perfect. There are still some lines that either it didn't get through, or it's got its own inherent
00:20:40
Speaker
you know, cusp height, but it's perfect for the application, you know, so happy. Does that diamond, is it fixed or is it roti? So I thought I was buying a square shank spring-loaded tool, but what I actually ended up buying was a round shank fixed tool, so diamond does not spring, and it's a round. So I ended up putting it in an ER live tool,
00:21:05
Speaker
because that's just what I had available and I'm spinning it at 50 rpm and I'm like okay let's just try something to make it work and it seems to work fine. So I'm spinning the material at 300 sfm and the tool at 50 rpm and I'm feeding it six tenths per tooth or something or per rev.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, super light, because I want it to go slow and light. And playing with those feed rates, I was able to balance the cycle time of the main spindle and of the sub spindle so that they go in to transfer the part at almost the exact same second. One's not waiting for the other. Oh, that's cool. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of times, I just have more work on the main side or more work on the sub side that's been graving or something. But I was able to dial this in, and I actually jumped up and down when I saw it. And I was like, oh, it's perfect.
00:21:53
Speaker
I actually was talking to Scott who runs Metal Quest, that Nebraska robot shop as a month ago or so. He has just this level of passion and energy that gets me fired up.
00:22:09
Speaker
They were like in a Kuma shop from the day they got started in, I don't know, 20 years ago, and then they bought an Index MS-20, I think, one of the eight spindle rotary transfer, not rotary transfer machines, but eight spindle lathes that look like tunnel boring machines.
00:22:28
Speaker
And, uh, he was just telling me about, I think we talked about this and just, I was like, we got to do a video on this, but with COVID, I was like, Hey, can we do like a remote video? Like all, all worked out on talking points. I'll give you some audio. You guys can film some stuff. And so we're kind of in the middle of doing that. And he was talking about all the different ways that you can load balance those machines. Like you can,
00:22:49
Speaker
So if it's eight spindles, if it's a simple quick part, you can actually do four and four. So one side the identical part and the other at the same time, you can change where the flipping stations are so you can flip it at different points or at different times. And then you could just move holders and blocks around to basically make sure every spindle has about the same cycle time. It's amazing. That's awesome. See, I still don't, I don't have a mental picture of
00:23:14
Speaker
back working on those machines of sub spindle which is I need to see which is why I'm like we gotta do this video yeah you'll you'll fall out of your chair when you see it flip apart because as far as I'm thinking back to my memory from IMTS and stuff I see eight spindles main working spindles and then what it parts off the park and falls no that can't be true yeah so I can't wait to see yeah it'll be fun it'll be cool
Business During Pandemic & Economic Update
00:23:39
Speaker
How was a totally random change of conversation? How's the economy and world feel up in Toronto, Ontario? I don't want to say normal, but busy. Yeah. Okay. That's good.
00:23:54
Speaker
Everything's pretty much open and there's regulations and masks and stuff like that, but like business is still on track for a lot of people. I don't know, the world is still busy. Yeah. Everybody's got their issues, but I don't know. There's traffic on the roads and there's people everywhere and schools are weird. Some businesses are still shut down for sure, but I don't know, us personally,
00:24:21
Speaker
We're busy, we're safe, but we're doing good, and all of our suppliers are still open. We haven't really had a problem getting material and things like that. Have you heard us find? Either machine shops, manufacturing, or other industries where folks are like, hey, we can't make it, or we're shutting down, we're losing the business, anything like that? Honestly, I don't know if I have. Have you?
00:24:45
Speaker
The quick, short, direct answer is no, and that doesn't mean it's not coming. I expected it, like day one. I was like, oh man, everybody's going to lose here, but I don't know if I've heard of anybody. I've heard of other shops like little service industries or barber shops or restaurants or things like that. I've heard stories of those closing down for sure.
00:25:09
Speaker
But nothing kind of in our industry or friends of mine or anything. Everybody's getting by. We got a flyer for a huge aerospace company, two locations. I don't remember the name of it, but it is a public auction flyer. And it seems to reek of this. So obviously, aerospace has been decimated because my understanding is that a lot of the airlines are just using their inventory or idle planes to
00:25:39
Speaker
to feed into their maintenance and parts system and airline travels down, et cetera.
00:25:47
Speaker
What was weird is that they called it a plant consolidation. They're trying to optically avoid what it is, but what was squirrely about it was that there were like, I don't know, three hermlas that were two or three years old. This is not what happens in normal operating times with normal operating companies. Either they were over levered or lost major aerospace contracts.
00:26:13
Speaker
what eight figure auction, you know, 10 million plus for all the stuff that they had. And so I mean, obviously that kind of thing is sad, but it's also weird because we thought we'd see more of it sooner. Mm hmm.
00:26:25
Speaker
Yeah, I have heard of some of the bigger companies that have slowed down production, but it's mostly like automotive aerospace. I mean, huge impact, obviously. I'm not trying to downplay anything, but in our world, it's more of the small guys, like the zero to $10 million businesses that are most of our friendships, and everybody's busy. Hey, awesome, awesome.
00:26:54
Speaker
But like you said, maybe the big guys are too over leveraged and too invested and rely on every dollar of every contract. And when those big airplane contracts kind of slow down, you're immediately over leveraged. Oh, yeah. Can you imagine that? Like buying a five-axis automation center for multi-million dollars because it's tied to
00:27:17
Speaker
You know, we don't play in this world. My understanding is you usually have contracts. So you're such a weird thing to think about because it's like you and I are this like organic growth like thinking about how to build our businesses and that's like You know pick a company Lockheed Martin comes to XYZ company in Wichita and is like hey
00:27:34
Speaker
We'll give you or you know, you won the bid on the seven-year contract to make landing gear It's worth this much, you know, we're not gonna tell you how to tool it up But everyone is make you know, usually you use these sorts of machining centers and so forth and so you're like, okay I'm gonna go out and take that contract and go buy these centers for this job and that's all those, you know machines ever It's such a we different
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Well, Angelo comes from that industry because they did landing gear for Boeing and lots of big companies. And it's neat hearing his stories every now and then about Boeing's requirements. And they're like, we require this coolant because we've learned that it's cross compatible with all this stuff. And it has to be made this way and all this stuff and use these tools.
00:28:19
Speaker
things like that so that there's a lot of rigidity to it and like they'll send people out across the country to like inspect your process and approve it, don't change your process. Yeah, what was I gonna say? Like we got, I mean the current was delivered some like January 15th.
00:28:38
Speaker
Right? Huge investment, huge risk. And then two months later, you know, this happens. And obviously there was a lot of nerves involved in that. But on one sense, like, we sort of...
00:28:54
Speaker
We didn't stop shop, but we went down to like one person per building for seven weeks, um, during April. And it was kind of nice cause I got to come in and just play and like focus. And I maximized that time completely. Um, so yeah, it's kind of, I think we talked about last year, like you make the most of it, but, um, 20, it is what it is. Like 2020 is I'll put it this way. It could be a heck of a lot worse. Yes. Holy cow.
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah, you don't think this way, so I don't even know why I'm asking you this, but you don't regret the current, right?
00:29:31
Speaker
No, not at all. I mean, financially, it needs to make money, but I will. I'm like so close. I was telling Meg this morning, my wife, that my to-do list for the Rask is actually getting shorter rather than longer. Yeah, awesome. Because I always have new ideas, put it on, things like that, things I have to do, and I'm actually taking things off, and there's only
00:29:55
Speaker
There's probably 20 items on the list right now, but a lot of them are like 10-minute tasks. Yeah, exactly. And I'm chunking them in various things like Blade, this, handles this. But yeah, so close. Awesome. Yep. So there's like phase one is like make.
00:30:14
Speaker
Have a process that makes a rask and I can make several rasks that way and then after that it's work on efficiency and improvements and like multiplets and Geared up for higher production, but at least throughout that process I can still make you know a few a day quite easily Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm so close to that. Have you been playing with a grinding wheel at all?
00:30:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I got a perfect recipe. Dude. Great. Awesome. Yep. So today, yeah, today I'll be able to grind probe, finish grind and the probe like offsets the tool perfectly. And then, uh,
00:30:53
Speaker
Oh, you probe with the laser probe, not the spindle probe. Spindle probe, probe the surface. So like grind the surface, probe it, and say it's supposed to be 4.2, but it's actually 4.2007. So take off that seven-tenths and grind it again. But you're not grinding for a nominal value, you're just grinding for finish, right? Both.
00:31:13
Speaker
You want it to be dimensionally perfect? There is no such thing. Yeah, well, as close as you can. But that doesn't have an impact on the functionality, does it? Yes and no. If, because I have an end mill and then a grinding wheel and then a finish op and I need a consistent stock to leave between operations otherwise you have a heavy cut.
00:31:30
Speaker
And I'm really focusing on that, you know, because I had one where I end milled the finish and it happened to be like two or three thousand bigger than I thought it was. And the grinder comes in and I was like, oh, that's a heavy cut. Sure. Toasted with the wheel like it needs to be dressed. But yeah, so I need like a few tenths consistency stock to leave. And I think the machine probe machine
00:31:54
Speaker
is worth the time to get that. Yeah, that's totally fair. Somebody was just asking us, and it's also a great coincidence about getting good finishes on surfacing.
Achieving Consistent Tool Pressure & Surface Finish
00:32:04
Speaker
And there's all the obvious points of deflection and speeds and feeds and material and machine kinematics. But the one that I don't always hear is talked about as much is presenting an even chip load or tool pressure to the cutting tool. And so I used to do this by doing a
00:32:25
Speaker
So, let's say you rough it with a square end mill, then I'd come back in with, let's say, a quarter-inch bullnose or something with a secondary adaptive.
00:32:38
Speaker
which will end up knocking out a lot of those stair steps and it'll certainly get into pockets that the prior larger square tool couldn't get into. I don't think that's a bad idea, but what Devin, I did like a help session with Devin Dupuis from Autodesk a month or two ago because we're working on this really cool collaboration part, which is a part that's not going to be used on this planet.
00:32:59
Speaker
And he was like, dude, what you got to do at the massive expense of cycle time is run your surfacing. Let's say you're doing a scallop and whatever. Two thousand step over five thousand step over whatever it is, basically duplicate it. But on the and on the first one, leave, say six thousand seven inch stock to leave. And it's a roughing surfacing operation. That way, your final surfacing operation is almost guaranteed to have equal to a pressure.
00:33:28
Speaker
Yeah. And I try to think about that quite a lot, whether it's on the Swiss or on the milling machines, presenting an even consistent amount of material to that finished tool, even if it costs a semi-finishing op. Yeah. I don't know if I've, well, I probably have a couple of times. But like, surfaced a part, like you said, six thou up and then surfaced it again. It would take twice as long. And just a machine that taper, the ER taper, I think it was a,
00:33:58
Speaker
18 minute off. It's funny like who cares. I don't care like right. I don't care That you should easily be able to swarf and leave 3,000. That's a five-second operation Yeah, and then well you actually could be should be able to swarf the whole thing period right, but yeah
00:34:15
Speaker
within the limits of like chips in your end mill and things like that. Yeah. I saw a random YouTube video that I click baited on from Sarah Tizet that they have a new face mill that has like a vacuum suction feature to it. What? They were showing parts like an engine block where you don't want to do like a little a light face skimming pass and have all those chips just fall into the cylinder bores and various other cavities of this part because now you got to figure out a way to
00:34:43
Speaker
below them out and you know, we've all been there when you blow parts out of a pocket and all they do is decide to relocate to the pocket next door. And so it's like a face mill that has a plate on the bottom and that plate causes the through spindle coolant to go down and then do a 180 so that the coolant is blowing directly up toward the spindle, not into your bearings we hope.
New Face Mill & Challenges in Vacuum Suction
00:35:07
Speaker
That makes sense, but that was more of like a reverse flush to me. They actually called it like a vacuum or suction. So I don't know if it somehow creates enough. I can't imagine this is possible, but like enough flow away from the cutting face that it actually does pull out. I mean, it takes all I call. I think that's a no way that works. But interesting. Interesting that they're working on it, which is cool. Yeah. Hmm.
00:35:33
Speaker
Because that's something we wanted. It's not a million-dollar idea, but it's probably a six-figure idea, is someone create a blow-off air gun for a machine that doesn't blow but sucks, but really, really well and has to be usable with normal equipment or something, like a Venturi, where you could just blow off your part and have it just pull everything up out. There is one. I don't remember. It looks like a... Is it?
00:36:04
Speaker
Little luck. OK. Backs, hair, suction. We I think Ed played with one for a hot second, like the whole Pierce and Venturi idea. And I think you just need so much. You can't have any distance between what you're trying to suck. It's kind of like a shot back. If a shot back is two inches away from the world's biggest pile of flour, the flour is just like, yeah, I'm going to stay here. I'm good. But you can move it within a quarter inch and it's gone.
00:36:34
Speaker
No, I can't find the one that I'm looking for. I know my buddy Jason, that's the one. No, maybe. I don't know. It's like a little Venturi vacuum cleaner. Perfect. I will look this up as well. That seems to be the one on Amazon. Sun-X air-powered vacuum. But those are more for household stuff. I don't know. It's something. There's something out there. Ooh. You want to learn? You want to hear a random actoid? Yeah.
00:37:05
Speaker
Apparently, Amazon goes against the grain with most warehouses that store stuff in specific rack locations sorted by either size or order density or commonality. So if somebody is buying a beach ball, they're going to have sunscreen on the same area of the warehouse, even for the robot to get between the two quickly. Amazon apparently randomly puts stuff everywhere. Right. You know this?
00:37:32
Speaker
Oh, I've heard that for the fact like it just distribute stuff everywhere. It doesn't care. Yeah. So there could be sunscreen next to a vacuum. And and and if it picks up sunscreen, it may move it somewhere else. And then it just when it needs something, it just knows that there I guess more like to be one close.
00:37:48
Speaker
For a human to look at the shelf, you want to see a beach ball next to sunscreen. But for an inventory system, sunscreen is at B42X212. It's an XY coordinate system, you know? Z2 probably. Yeah, right. You think it is XYZ? I know it is. Have you not seen those?
Amazon's Inventory Strategy & Probing Efficiency
00:38:11
Speaker
Go Google. They are like 30 foot high racking systems where they racks are are only narrow enough for a tracked robot to be in there. So it's on our single rail and two rails and then it moves in. Oh, so sorry, it wouldn't be why in that case, it's just an XZ or YZ rather. But it then can move along the row and up all the way up to like 30 feet. So the amount of oh my gosh, the amount of parts you could store, there's unbelievable for sure.
00:38:41
Speaker
I thought it was interesting because it's like why it's the beauty. I'm trying to reconcile it with Lex, which that's the kind of next kind of weakness. But the thing we got to think about is everything's been barcoded. It's working. But now we're still like, hey, we do have that material, right? Well, yes, barcoded, but we're not totally sure where it is. Right. So
00:39:02
Speaker
Paul Akers had the methodology of where they scan it and then scan a location tag. And then it's like, okay, we can probably implement that from a technology standpoint, but then it's like making sure if when you go move material, if you move the whole palette,
00:39:18
Speaker
It should work. It's kind of next level. Yeah. You figure out what works best for you guys. We're assigning a bin location to each end mill. The theory being Toolbox 1, drawer 7, bin 42. But I haven't quite gotten there yet. We're not implementing the bin system yet. But it's there. It's in the functionality. Yeah. It's for sure nice when you have stuff in fixed locations.
00:39:48
Speaker
We know we're going to move stuff around. So that's our next move is we've got to, um, I need to go back to kind of days off in the shop. Um, and we're, we're literally to this week finally cut really caught up on orders. So now we're trying to get some stuff, um, especially the anodized plates, get them off to anodize and so we can have some inventory on the larger plates. Cause we've had, it's kind of one of the things I don't, I upsets me.
00:40:14
Speaker
is when somebody buys, we had two Haas plates and both people bought them and they're like, we need them as soon as possible. And we told, they knew up front that it was a lead time with the anodizing process, but you're still like, it's hard to be like, hey, we told them they need to just chill out, like I want to get them done. So getting some of it. Especially in your industry, they need it because they have a job that needs, like there's more lead times. My knife customers just want it yesterday because it's cool and they just, they're impatient.
00:40:42
Speaker
But, yeah, for you, there's there's a reason, right? Like more reasons, more outside reasons to a purchase. But it's kind of like what Pearson does. He's got a low inventory on the shelf and he can ship the same day for a couple of things. I believe he's still doing that. Oh, yeah. No, it's not. I mean, I don't think anything that you would order from him is like a two, three week lead time for it to then go get anodized. Yeah.
00:41:07
Speaker
And we'll get there a point we didn't sometimes we'll do minor custom tweaks to plates for folks Which is no big deal like hey I have a vf2 But I want you to add four holes for this like fine so that I obviously cannot be anodized Sure, yeah, but we're now at that point. We're okay. We need to go we know we like vf2 It's what's the one that we sell I guess a DTs or mini mills. There's a lot of mini mills out there. Yeah
00:41:31
Speaker
So get some of those inventory and then we need to figure out. I think we do need an additional row of racking. Actually, Julie just gave me like a rough cut of the kind of nuclear shop and it is exactly what I wanted because the first video clip is before we had any of the racking before we had gotten rid of some of the old stuff that we don't need to use anymore. And so this is exactly the effect that I wanted was kind of documenting that process only over like three months, four months. Yeah, yeah.
00:41:59
Speaker
which flies by. Yeah, it does. Speaking of that, it looks like we're coming up on Phil's parking lot arrival. What are we up to today? Today, grinding blades on the current, doing the probing routine. I might, I got to finalize my Rask pivot design because I'm changing it from before because it always drove me crazy. So instead of having one gash in the bottom for locating, I'm turning it into a trilobe, like triangle.
00:42:28
Speaker
ish thing. But that makes some weird toolpaths on the Swiss. It's like a rotary toolpath, but there's Y moves in there too. And it's, I did figure it out. I did figure it out on the Norseman pivot about a month ago. So I just got to kind of port over some tool operations and rascify it. Doing that. What else did I put on my list?
00:42:53
Speaker
No, just do that. Yeah, just a couple of things. Is your probing super duper like Brotherfast? On the current? Current. Yeah, single touch. No, no, but like, you know, the Brother Speedios can do a rapid tool break detect. Oh, tool break.
00:43:12
Speaker
I haven't done much tool breakage detection. I need to, but it hasn't been done yet. Got it. I think so, yeah. It's just... It's snipping. ...rapids and touches, and yeah. We got to work on... We do so much probing now, and it just... It makes a lot of sense, and I think it's the right move for us now. Eventually, we will outgrow it because it is slow, even just the way the Renishaw probes are built.
00:43:33
Speaker
So Haas VPS, well, we're using fusion probing, which I think piggybacks off of the Renishaw canned cycles, for lack of a better word. For sure. But, you know, when you probe like an ex-web, it goes to the left side and touches it twice and then comes back to center and pauses and goes to the right side. I need a, like on a known proven out part, I need a wrap it down, wrap it over one touch, over a rapid touch, like, because all we're doing is rough
00:44:00
Speaker
Location stuff here the the Renishaw guys were telling me that there is an update to all those macros single single touch What do they call it? I don't know they had some fancy name for it cool This was probably two years ago or something. I just got around to it But there are options I mean
00:44:21
Speaker
I've DM'd the US Renishaw account and they get back to you on Instagram. Really? Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. OK. Yeah. So if you want to touch base and be like, I heard about this thing. Does it exist? Who can you put me in touch with? Well, when we got our maybe the VM3 like four years ago, our HFO apps guy gave us a fast tool break code for Haas. And I just need to go pick through it and look at how they do that.
00:44:50
Speaker
It's not brother fast, but it's way faster. And I got to think there's some ways where you could still honor safe planes and retract planes. But also let's let's get cooking here. Yeah. On the Maury, we do tool breakage on most tools and have for years. It's pretty fast. It'll wrap it to, I don't know, 50 thou above the toolsetter and then, you know, a controlled touch and then leave. So it's probably in and out and under five seconds, eight seconds.
00:45:18
Speaker
Our time is not the, I didn't mean to say just tool break. We have a 16 minute cycle of time on one of our parts. Two minutes is probing in the initial stock on, it's an eight part, 16 minutes, eight parts. And so it's spending all this time probing. And you almost want to do like, hey, go probe the X of four different parts. Because you're in that kind of boop, boop, boop, boop in the left side. And then go do the Y of each side. You're building this like array of values. For sure. And that is totally possible if you want to set ed in front of the computer for eight hours.
00:45:48
Speaker
Handwrite it. It is totally possible. I've done things like that, but Shouldn't even be as it worth it. I don't know. Yeah, it would be here. You really got to wrap your head around it like You just when it probes a value it temporarily stores it to a macro variable you assign that macro variable to a temporary value and then when you're done you've got in this case eight parts two edges 16 macro variables you just write those to the correct offset as
00:46:13
Speaker
It's actually not that hard. If you want to change it to be single touch instead of double touch, you can get into the macros, the Renishaw macros and figure out those codes and stuff. But there's layers and layers and layers deep of subroutines and subroutines. It's kind of fun to flow through it and understand it, but it's all there. Yeah.
00:46:35
Speaker
But yeah, you're right. To build the array is not that difficult. Like I said, you just need to be able to focus and put your head around it and like not be distracted for a while. Be in a surgeon. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Cool. Cool. I'll see you next week. All right. Have a great day. Bye. Bye.