Transcript
jamie peacock: ah ah john How are you doing this morning?
2SM Performance: Well, this evening I'm doing quite great. Been pretty busy.
jamie peacock: Yeah, good point. Yeah, flip sorry forgot about the time zones again.
2SM Performance: Morning for you? Yeah, I'll pretend it's morning.
jamie peacock: Yeah, 6am for me.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah, you're just getting started with your day now at 10 o 'clock at night.
2SM Performance: Pretty much.
jamie peacock: Ah, sweet. So today's episode, we are going to dive into our posts in the industry and where we come from, the jobs we've had, and why we've decided to go out on our own in our small shops.
jamie peacock: So I don't know if you want to start start us off there.
2SM Performance: All right. Yeah, well, my background in this industry, ah it goes back a long time. um Going out of high school, I wanted to be a welder originally. And I launched watched a lot of TV with American Chopper and Monster Garage on Discovery Channel. And I loved metal fabrication and motorcycles and stuff like that. And I remember the first time I ever saw a CNC machine, like a CNC mill. I believe American Chopper, they were having a custom billet wheel for like a Harley made inside of a big, like it was like a Haas BF4. And it it was just so amazing to me. They took this big block of billet aluminum, they put it inside the machine. And you hear it make a bunch and bunch of noise. And I'm like, what is that shit spraying around in there? Like milk or whatever. And a beautiful wheel came out and I couldn't believe it. I was shocked.
2SM Performance: And i that made me want to dive more into machining and learn what it was. I got my first job while I was in high school.
2SM Performance: I had a shop called R and &M Precision. And there I was just putting jigs on square tubing and drilling and milling slots and tapping holes on a bridge port. And oddly enough, that shop did a lot of contract work for Haas Automation because where I grew up in Ventura County was right up the hill from the Haas factory.
2SM Performance: Those tubes that I was machining at my first shop ended up being like servo mounts and motor mounts for milk. Oddly enough.
jamie peacock: okay so back when there was still a yes when the ringing horses were being made okay because i know there was a section where they really had a reputation of like the frame used to ring like they weren't super rigid
2SM Performance: Yeah. Yes. Yes. This would have been about 2004, 2005.
2SM Performance: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, those are actually I hear from people that era of houses are still the best quality from what I've heard.
2SM Performance: Oh, is that what you're talking about? Oh, I've never heard that.
jamie peacock: Yeah, the frame actually, yeah, they they renowned, especially young South Africa, like they had got a really bad reputation for being a really resonant prone machine.
2SM Performance: You know what, that is probably a lot of truth to that because I was machining like mild steel square tubing with lots of holes and slots in them for the mouse and I could see how that would resonate when under load.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
jamie peacock: yeah it was back it was before they were i think initially they were castings then they went to steel weldments and then they went to castings again and the steel weldments were they used they were renowned for resonating but yeah interesting that uh yeah that you were making passports yeah we can blame you for it
2SM Performance: Okay. Wow. that's That's my fault. i'm I did that. So yeah, I worked there for a long time. um Then I decided that I wanted to go to college when I got out of high school. um So i went I actually went to an adult school like a like a vocational school, my last year of high school actually, and they had
2SM Performance: I was just trying to get my GED and graduate high school early. And I remember I was walking down the halls with my mother, and then there was a machine shop there. I couldn't believe it. And they had, a I believe, six or seven Haas vertical mills.
jamie peacock: and Okay.
2SM Performance: and They had some lanes. They had bridge ports. They had a whole machining curriculum, manual any and CNC. And I was just so excited. I'm like, Mom, you got to sign me up for that.
2SM Performance: I want to do that. So I think it was like $300 or $400 for a six -month course or whatever. And I took the manual course first. you know It was every day after my classes I would drive there and take the machining course. And I learned how to run a surface grinder, um use the bridge port. I made some V -blocks with the little clampy thing that goes on top.
jamie peacock: Oh, nice.
2SM Performance: I made a bunch of different projects. I made the hammer. Everyone makes the hammer.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Um, that was cool. And then I started doing the the CNC class and it was really no cat or camera or anything.
2SM Performance: It was just like manual programming G code by hand, with you know,
jamie peacock: Oh, yeah. All handwritten. Yep. Be made done nuts.
2SM Performance: graph paper, handwritten, yeah, G02, G03. I made like a name plate. I made my name on some acrylic, but that was about it.
2SM Performance: um At the time I was really into extreme sports, freestyle motocross and skateboarding.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: And that's what I wanted to get into and do for a living.
jamie peacock: and Okay.
2SM Performance: I was into filming and digital media a lot. which also coincides with my machining. But yeah, I went to college at Utah Valley University.
2SM Performance: I majored in digital media and small business management as my minor.
jamie peacock: Okay.
2SM Performance: And I just kind of I dropped out of college. I was partying too much.
jamie peacock: So in theory, you know what you're doing in business.
2SM Performance: Yeah, it wasn't for me. It wasn't for me.
jamie peacock: ah Yeah.
2SM Performance: Yeah, caused the college thing, it just wasn't for me. I was too into writing. I was too into doing my own thing as an like an idiot. And you know what, though, it just wasn't for me.
2SM Performance: And things worked out the way they worked out.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: put on Eventually, I moved back to Texas with my my father to help him with his business. He doesn't have a machine related business.
2SM Performance: But that's where I got my other machining jobs. I then started working at a small shop called Seabrook Machine.
2SM Performance: And that was just like a basic manual shop.
jamie peacock: Okay.
2SM Performance: I was owned by this like 85 year old Hungarian guy and his wife. His name was Laszlo and he was really cool. But sadly enough, as I was working there, he ended up dying.
2SM Performance: And I had to go find another job somewhere else because his wife sold the shop.
jamie peacock: Yeah, that normally happens.
2SM Performance: Then I went to yeah my coworker that worked there. He told me about a previous shop that he had worked at in Deer Park called A and &K Industrial Repair.
2SM Performance: And this place, who it was, it was, this is, you know, the first couple of years I lived in Texas and it was just like so redneck.
jamie peacock: Okay.
2SM Performance: Like I made the mistake that of telling one of the guys working there that I that was from California. And that did not go over well.
2SM Performance: They did not like me. But um I learned a lot there. I had a mentor there. He taught me a lot about running a lathe. And he taught me how to set up and run a VTL, which was really scary, but really cool.
jamie peacock: Okay. Yeah. Those things are terrifying.
2SM Performance: Yeah. Yeah. Especially indicating a part on one of those. With there all the clamps swinging around at your belly, it gets interesting fast.
jamie peacock: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's... Yeah, no, that's... ah Yeah, that can get terrifying.
2SM Performance: Yeah, that shop did a lot of industrial repair for like pump shafts and chemical refineries and the power plants around Houston, Texas.
jamie peacock: Okay.
2SM Performance: So a lot of it was like pump shaft repair and like gearbox stuff. a very industrial, I mean, yeah, industrial pair.
jamie peacock: Okay.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: I learned quite a bit there. um You know, making threads, cutting keyways, doing pump shafts, like basic manual stuff. And then um I went and worked at a motorcycle shop after that for a while.
2SM Performance: and I kind of got out of the trade. I kind of got burned out on it.
jamie peacock: Okay.
2SM Performance: um Years down the road, I moved to Austin, Texas with my girlfriend at the time. And there was a I was still working in San Antonio cleaning pools for a pool cleaning company. And I was like, I remember the day when I was cleaning a pool and I was like, I'm going to start my own business.
2SM Performance: I want to get back into machining. And that was the day like I made the decision to order my Precision Matthews 728BT mill, my bench mill.
jamie peacock: Okay. Yeah.
2SM Performance: And that kind of got me back down the rabbit hole in the machining. And then after that, like I said, I moved to Austin, got a job at a place called, what was it?
2SM Performance: Oh, Cypress Industries. I worked at Cypress Industries, and this was a really interesting shop because it was a production shop, but it was all DMG Morey equipment.
jamie peacock: god
jamie peacock: oh okay yeah the big issue yeah okay
2SM Performance: It was like six different Yeah, they were really nice machines.
2SM Performance: And then they had two DMG Morey mills. And they also had a couple, I think two Haas VF2s in the back and some bridge ports.
2SM Performance: But what they did was they ran three shifts, 24 -7 around the clock.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: and they were And they were making fracking tubes for gas extraction.
jamie peacock: Ah. Yeah, for for your mining industry or your gas.
2SM Performance: Yes, absolutely.
jamie peacock: and
2SM Performance: They're like these explosive tubes that explode and they were just making them around the clock and it was basically a male thread on one end and a female thread on the other with the keyway and some scallops around the tube and they had this program down like
jamie peacock: Okay.
jamie peacock: yeah know If you're running that many I would hope so.
2SM Performance: Yeah, yeah, it was very optimized and I had never really been around that type of production machining before. But, you know, I took a lot from it and I learned a lot, especially about, you know, QC metrology and inspection and stuff like that.
jamie peacock: yeah
2SM Performance: And I remember that was the first shift that had got me on at that job was the third shift, which was like all night.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Oof.
2SM Performance: It was like 11 at night to six in the morning or something like that.
jamie peacock: yeah the graveyard shift yeah hmm
2SM Performance: And yeah, that was like the only way they were going to get me on. But the money was really good. And I was wanting to get back into machining and they were like willing to take me even though there was like a gap in my machining employment history.
jamie peacock: yeah
2SM Performance: They were like, oh yeah, we'll get you making chips again. So that was that was a pretty cool experience. and then um i I left there, they actually moved their operation to Mexico and I ended up quitting.
jamie peacock: Ah.
2SM Performance: And then like a week after I quit, they shut down her. So I just, just lot pure luck and missed out on getting laid off. So that was pretty cool.
2SM Performance: And I went to a shop in Austin, Texas called Command Manufacturing.
jamie peacock: Okay.
2SM Performance: And this is the shop that I probably learned the most at. um It was a job shop. that made a lot of parts for the semiconductor industries, aerospace, oil field, you name it.
jamie peacock: yeah
2SM Performance: um They had like 20 machines there. They had about 10 lays and 10 mills. It was like a very, I guess like a 1990s style CNC machine shop.
jamie peacock: like god yep the vara yeah
2SM Performance: But they did have tab cam, but none of the machines had any probes. There was no live, not one lead with live tooling in there. um It was pretty interesting.
jamie peacock: one of the slightly older fuck yeah yeah
2SM Performance: Yeah, yeah, it was like, you know, they were kind of setting their ways. The owner was a cool guy, but he was kind of like, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Just keep him running. Never change the cool one at all.
2SM Performance: Only clean the shop when the the VIPs and the customers are walking through. He was like, yeah, he was just like, keep the spindles turning, man. He was all business.
2SM Performance: Yeah, but um,
jamie peacock: I had a boss like that.
2SM Performance: Yeah, I think we all have, right? So that we ran a lot of Inconel 718 and even heat treated Inconel 718 there.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Okay.
2SM Performance: and And a lot of our jobs there required positional accuracy, of true position, and, you know, a maximum material condition, which was cool.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: That meant that engineers there that provided our jobs knew what they were doing and gave us kind of like an allowance for tolerance with the maximum material condition.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Some places aren't like that. Some customers don't have good engineers.
jamie peacock: No.
2SM Performance: But we did there. We had a, um they had a Midetoyo CMM. That was the first shop I ever worked at with a CMM in a full QC department.
jamie peacock: Oh, nice.
2SM Performance: Yeah, yeah, and I learned a lot there like about inspection first article inspection Yeah, all that stuff and I worked the important stuff.
jamie peacock: Yeah, all the all the fun stuff.
2SM Performance: Yeah, right like I
jamie peacock: No.
2SM Performance: I learned about the quality manual, the the spreadsheets for each printer, all of the important tolerances and features on the part and how they need to be signed off, and how the part of these parts needed documentation.
2SM Performance: And I don't think they were an ISO shop, but it was very like ISO -esque kind of operation.
jamie peacock: yeah that kind of Yeah, that kind of stuff it's worth having for when there's a problem. It's invaluable when there's an issue. It seems dumb until you need it. It's like, yeah.
jamie peacock: I now serialize one of my parts because of that. Just in case there's ever an issue, I can then say, I can know, hang on, that part was made in this this month of this year, just that I've got a little bit of traceability and also I can flag any issues I have on my side.
jamie peacock: Like that, the documentation goes a long way.
2SM Performance: Absolutely.
2SM Performance: Yeah, yeah, you get to end down to things like root cause and stuff like that.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: If there's any errors in the parts, you can figure out what you did wrong and how you can correct it.
jamie peacock: Exactly.
2SM Performance: And it's when the customer knows that you document stuff like that, it gives them more faith in what you're doing.
jamie peacock: Yeah, but no that's exactly it.
2SM Performance: So.
jamie peacock: We serialize in one of our parts so that they also know that they're moving the old stock out first, because now the batches have serial numbers, or batch numbers, and they can say, oh, these ones came in three months ago.
jamie peacock: Let's get them out before we get the new ones installed. Because they had a few issues, but yeah, I went there.
2SM Performance: hey
jamie peacock: they We delivered about 1 ,000 parts, and they had two or three parts that didn't, yeah, the the failure mode that failed, We had like four fail out of a thousand.
jamie peacock: Their previous failure rate within three months was like, I think it was 20 or 30 % on the previous supplier.
2SM Performance: Oh,
jamie peacock: So I'm like, guys, let's just take a breath here.
2SM Performance: ah wow.
jamie peacock: I'm not going to change what I'm doing. Your failure rate has gone from like 20 % down to like one or two percents. Let's just take a deep breath and let it run for a bit longer. And now their failure rate is basically zero with the changes I made to their system.
2SM Performance: Wow, that's awesome.
jamie peacock: Yeah, because well, I mean, yeah, it's a crimped together tube going in a vibrating environment. It's not exactly ideal. But yeah, anyway, back to your back to your backstory.
2SM Performance: Yeah, yeah. um So yeah, command manufacturing. i I did a program there, but I learned like everything about setup. I ran a couple of different machines. I was started out running a lathe in the lathe department. um I was trying to learn lathe setup, but I just wasn't really that good at it. And I could operate a lathe, no problem. So the owner moved me into the milling department after like three months. And I just took off from there. I did great in the milling department.
2SM Performance: I enjoyed the mill much more. I don't know why the lays are kind of boring to me.
jamie peacock: Laved. Laved are in a quiet taste.
2SM Performance: Ah, yes they are. Lays guys.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: You guys are special.
jamie peacock: Yep.
2SM Performance: Um, yeah, so I got into the milling there and and definitely just learning how to machine accurately. You know, i I was learning how to, you know, putting drills and er 16 holders and like indicating the drill and the call it.
2SM Performance: with like a mag base and an indicator on the table and like checking right out on your drills and then like tapping the tool holder to adjust it and all kinds of like very precise stuff that I hadn't learned before.
jamie peacock: yeah
2SM Performance: Like I learned a lot at that shop.
jamie peacock: yeah
jamie peacock: It's the stuff you only learn when when you're needing to hold those kinds of tolerances.
2SM Performance: Absolutely.
jamie peacock: and when ya and when you're taught that that is that is the way you need to do it to be able to to hit the tolerance that they're trying to hit.
2SM Performance: Absolutely. like um just I didn't know setup was so important. I thought it was just you you put the tools in the machine, you clamp the part down and all that.
2SM Performance: But there is just there is such a wide variety of jobs.
jamie peacock: Yeah, i didnt didn't you know instead CNC, you just throw the block in, push the go button and your finished part comes out. so
2SM Performance: Duh. Of course.
jamie peacock: yeah how it works
2SM Performance: Anyone can do it.
jamie peacock: yeah
2SM Performance: Yeah. Yeah, well that that job really woke me up to precision machining and then how there's a lot that goes into it. In the two and a half years I worked there, I really learned a lot.
2SM Performance: I think the last six months I worked there, it was pretty much almost all repeat jobs and I was getting bored because I was literally just, you know, they would give us the traveler a folder.
jamie peacock: Yeah, that's how it works.
2SM Performance: You look at the print.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: They had a data server rack where they could shoot the programs from the computer directly to the machine. You didn't have to use a thumb drive or anything like that.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: But you would get it would you would get your traveler and then you would look at the program and then you would know know what tools once you get and that each part had like a part number and a job number.
2SM Performance: I guess job would be like the batch number and you would go to like there was like a wall with lots of different tubs that pulled out with tooling.
jamie peacock: Yeah
2SM Performance: And this is one of the things I think about that shop that was like very inefficient looking back. Because like every time you wanted to set up a new job and do a part, you had to load each tool into the tool holders and you know build all the tool holders each time.
jamie peacock: Oh, no.
jamie peacock: Yeah, that's.
2SM Performance: No probe. Yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah, that's a bit tedious, especially if it's repeat jobs.
2SM Performance: Exactly.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Yeah. um But there were so many different, there were so many different, they were repeat jobs, but some would come around only once a year.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: And there there was like ah ah a massive variety of part numbers.
jamie peacock: yeah
2SM Performance: um And a lot of the parts are really similar, but that the whole sizes might be different, the engraving might be different. and I think they were semiconductor parts, if I'm not mistaken.
jamie peacock: yeah yeah yeah
2SM Performance: They're like these little round pucks that look like coins with a lot of little holes in them. but um Yeah, so I it was kind of boring because you would just set up your tool holders, build your tools, put them in the machine, load them, touch them off. You have to touch every tool off manually because there's no probe and then you would like.
2SM Performance: put everything put it off stop and like 25 % rapid it on each tool. The first time you go through the program and then you just go from there. We would submit the first article before we ran any more parts. Joe, the guy on the CMM would check the parts. And then once he gave us the go ahead, he would check the overall thickness and the. The position on all the holes and everything and once that was good, then we could run.
2SM Performance: But I kind of, you know, I got bored after that. I got bored doing that after a long time. Because, you know, at home while I was working there, I was just, I think, I was just really getting into my own thing where I was programming a fusion a lot.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: I had already had my own home garage shop going. ah I would just work so much at night and on weekends that it was like affecting my work there, because I'd get like four hours of sleep working in my home shop and then go there the next day.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: And you know at home, i'm I'm programming and machining these crazy prototypes and motorcycle parts, having a blast. And then I would show up there.
2SM Performance: And it's like the same thing every day, just setting up. And I just kind of got bored of it and I got so confident with my programming I wanted to I decided I want to go to another shop as a programmer and Try and learn something else, you know Exactly You Okay, well
jamie peacock: Yeah, it gets...
jamie peacock: Yeah. Try and grow. Yeah. Okay. And then what shop did you end up at?
2SM Performance: I won't name the shop because I'm not very fond of them, but it's a pretty prominent shop in my area.
jamie peacock: Okay. That's fun. Ah.
2SM Performance: They're mostly a sheet metal fabrication and welding shop.
jamie peacock: okay
2SM Performance: originally, and the owner decided that he wanted to get into CNC machining. So he had bought like four brand new Haas mills.
jamie peacock: huh
2SM Performance: And he had them set up and he had a guy that had been working there for like a year, helping him get his CNC operation going. And he gave me a chance, you know, he was cool.
jamie peacock: Okay. Yeah.
2SM Performance: I told him I knew how to program. I was programming in Fusion at the time. ah But they were going to use Mastercam. They were using Mastercam.
jamie peacock: okay yeah you
2SM Performance: And I remember I didn't really like that. There was kind of a learning curve there. and I got really good with Mastercam working there.
jamie peacock: know everything has its pros and cons yeah nothing is perfect
2SM Performance: I think I i got fairly good with Mastercam working there. There's things about Mastercam that I like. There's a lot of things that I don't like.
2SM Performance: Same with Fusion. There's things I don't like and things that I like.
jamie peacock: your everything has its pros and cons
2SM Performance: Yeah. Yeah. So working at this shop was like, um it there was no QC department.
jamie peacock: nothing
2SM Performance: There was absolutely no QC. I was trying to argue with the owner is saying, man, we need some kind of quality control.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: He's like, man, and it's up to you. If you can't QC your own parts, then what are we doing here? And this guy of does not know anything about machining.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: And it was just so frustrating working with somebody that you know is telling you what to do, but they don't have any machining experience or an engineer.
jamie peacock: Yeah that's...
2SM Performance: And I think any machine shop that's owned or managed by people that are not machinists, I think it it'll fail every time.
jamie peacock: well yeah we ran into similar things we're at one of my well my main my main job before i went on my own but yeah we'll get into that in a little while about the clown show that that was yeah ah okay yeah
2SM Performance: you know
2SM Performance: Yeah, yes. A clown show. Yeah, this was a serious clown show. And like this guy was trying to run it as like a tech startup kind of thing.
2SM Performance: Like a bunch of bros. And, you know, there he was trying to like really press us with 5S and stuff like that.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: And like he he was trying to create this like intense work culture. and Just wasn't jiving with the employees Bottom line is if you're gonna press stuff on people you got to make your people like you He was not very good at making his people like him.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: He was kind of a dick Sorry for my ah French You know you you want people?
jamie peacock: na That's probably not the worst thing that's going to be said on this, this podcast today.
2SM Performance: That's okay, I think I already said the s -word on accident
jamie peacock: that's fun Yeah, Yeah.
2SM Performance: OK, well, yeah, this guy, you know, he who was demanding all this stuff. He we were doing parts for Tesla where I was doing parts for Apex, a satellite company.
2SM Performance: I made like a satellite avionics panel, which is really cool.
jamie peacock: That is
2SM Performance: We were doing parts for Caterpillar Caterpillar.
jamie peacock: quite sweet.
2SM Performance: The ah you know, they make bulldozers and industrial equipment.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Yeah, I made a lot of prototypes.
jamie peacock: Yeah, I know.
2SM Performance: He was He wanted to run it strictly prototypes in onesie twosies.
jamie peacock: Okay.
2SM Performance: And he the the most he had on his machines was just probes. He had no system, no palantization. ah you know I've never been an expert at like running prototypes in a fat rapid prototyping.
jamie peacock: Yeah, that's...
2SM Performance: But he was trying to do it. And he like we were getting parts out pretty damn quick. But I believe it was just such a high mix. um He was taking on weight too much.
2SM Performance: Me and the other guy that worked there, Gus, were trying to tell him, like man, you need some ah some jobs that are like recurring, jobs that we can already have tool holders set up for, where you've ran them before.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: You need some bread and butter jobs. And he really thought he knew better. He didn't like that. you know
jamie peacock: Yeah, you wanna, do you wanna?
2SM Performance: Whatever.
jamie peacock: Well, yeah, that was my my whole thing when I started out. I wanted to do just prototype work, but turns out people don't wanna pay for the set of time.
2SM Performance: Yeah, exactly.
jamie peacock: So we now, yeah, we now run production. Like the set of time you want me to make one of, It's going to take me a while to dial it in, so I'm going to end up making two or three of, and I'm not doing that for free.
jamie peacock: So yeah, like on small stuff, it just wasn't worth it to do prototype stuff.
2SM Performance: and
2SM Performance: Yeah, I mean, it is extremely difficult to get a system down where you can rapid prototype stuff fast and make a profit.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: This guy was living in a fantasy land, you know, quoting jobs super low for prototype work, loading them on us.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: And he was wondering why we weren't making money, even though we we're working our asses off, you know,
jamie peacock: We'll pray. Yeah, ProtoLab do it, but they run standard material stock sizes. They've got like 10 or 15 different sizes of material. And if your part fits in it, they use that block and they machine everything else away with their standard set of tools.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Like there's not everything is pre -configured basically that they can program the part, push it to the machine, load that size block into it and just go. There's no no faffing around with ordering material that they've got a bunch of blocks.
jamie peacock: And those are the different sizes. it's a yeah very interesting workflow that they've got there yeah it's all yeah yeah that's exactly what they mean yeah rather take off a bunch of extra material than have to order a special size of material like it's it's a very interesting model that they run there
2SM Performance: Yeah, absolutely. And they probably have zero point programming where each machine has a one work coordinate offset. And they have it modeled in their cam system, and everything is based off that.
2SM Performance: So they never have to change their WCS. They never have to change their stock size. It's just put it in and boom. You know what I mean?
2SM Performance: Yeah. Yeah, very wasteful. You know, I wonder how, you know.
jamie peacock: Well, not really. If you're making one of, by the time you get material there, you can have the part machined already.
2SM Performance: yeah Yeah, you're right.
jamie peacock: So yeah, it's ah interesting.
2SM Performance: You're right. yeah
jamie peacock: It's a very, it's a different type of business.
2SM Performance: Yeah, I'm just thinking of the the price of the material. But I mean, time is money. So you're making a good point.
jamie peacock: Yeah, Thomas. Yeah, so this is always a trade off.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Yeah, so so working at the shop, i we're working our butts off. I think we're kicking kicking ass getting jobs out left and right. But this guy is just like undercoating everything so badly that we're losing our asses on these jobs.
2SM Performance: We don't have the machine set up for it. Like you're saying, we don't have a system. you know we're We're machining good parts, we're getting them out as fast as we can, but I think it was mainly a management issue with what he was quoting and what he was expecting.
2SM Performance: um And i just didn't want to I just didn't wanna live under that kind of pressure and be treated like that as an employee.
jamie peacock: yeah yeah no it's okay and then you've been doing you that that was recently that was earlier this year that you meant full -time okay yeah because when we met up at IMTS you had just uh you were still you were looking for another machine
2SM Performance: So eventually I left and went out on my own with my own business. Yeah.
2SM Performance: Yes, yes, that was I think my last day there was June 10th. Yeah.
2SM Performance: Absolutely.
jamie peacock: yeah
2SM Performance: Yep.
jamie peacock: like ah sweet ah Cool, so let's dive into my history. um i went to yeah I went to what's known affectionately as a roommate school, like an ice cream school for slow kids.
2SM Performance: Jamie.
jamie peacock: So i come 9th grade I was basically i as was an academic school and I was not not doing so well. Um, so from, from 10th grade, my dad was always like, no, no, you're going to go to a technical high school. He always knew that that was the plan. And from 10th grade, I went to, uh, George Campbell technical high in Durban.
jamie peacock: And that, unfortunately, in 94, we got a new government here. And I was in the year that they changed the educational system. So through my entire school career, we were the guinea pigs, basically.
jamie peacock: And when I went to high school, we could choose, it used to be you could choose MotoMac, fitting and turning.
2SM Performance: Hmm.
jamie peacock: What's a technical mechanical, which is all maths and bullshits. Or you could choose electrical, electronics, in the years before me and then when I got there you could choose mechanical electrical or bricklaying so you could do civils and I chose mechanical so we would do we did four terms through the year we would do a term covering nuts and bolts and bullshits we'd do one at Technica Mechanica which was all the maths and shit involved with mechanical type stuff.
jamie peacock: Then we would do a term in fitting and turning and a term in MotoMac. So MotoMac, we had a full -on workshop, a bunch of car engines, a bunch of lawnmower engines, and we would go through and work on these and learn about engines.
jamie peacock: And then fitting and turning, we would do a project every year. So I did a G -clamp one year. I can't remember what I did the other years, but I used to finish my project in about two weeks, and then I'll do private jobs for my teacher.
2SM Performance: Uh -huh. Uh -huh.
jamie peacock: So I'd come into class, everyone would be working on their projects, and I'd go to my teacher and be like, cool, make these things for me and give me a drawing. And I'd go off into the lathe department or the mill department and go and make the stuff. But it was all, when I was there, it was all manual machines.
jamie peacock: I mean, we must have had like 30 lathes, like a whole row of lathes.
2SM Performance: Uh huh.
jamie peacock: We had a couple surface grinders. They are responsible for my fear of surface grinders, because I managed to jam a part in there and hop a belt off. It was, yeah, it was quite impressive.
jamie peacock: And joe that's yeah, Yeah, can be nice and dangerous.
2SM Performance: Yeah, I've shot ah I've shot apart across the shop with the surface grinder thing.
jamie peacock: And that's actually where I learned what a shaper was, because that's not something you see very much anymore, is shapers.
2SM Performance: Oh yeah.
jamie peacock: um Chatting to my teacher, I'm like, why aren't we using this? What is it? And he explained it all to me. And then ah in 11th grade, i did a we had work experience. So for the last, I think, two weeks of school, if your parents could organize somewhere for you to work,
jamie peacock: then you could take those two weeks of school and go do work experience. And at the time, I wanted to be a CNC programmer. And I went and basically did a two week apprenticeship that turned into a six week apprenticeship. And in that time I discovered I don't want to be a CNC programmer because it's fucking boring. um The place that I was at were doing, they did work for Toyota and they were making some o -ring mold. But the oak took like four days to machine two, four little cavities. It was ridiculous.
jamie peacock: um I ended up bending a whole lot of brackets on a fly press and going and installing like a plastic sheet in the Toyota factory above the assembly line so that dust wouldn't fall onto the parts of the assembly line. Your doggo is taking great offense there.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: um Yeah, so we we did that. That was my 11th grade. I made some good money doing that, or at least from the time I thought it was good money. um And then after, so in 12th grade, ah or in 11th grade, I dropped science because through the whole of 10th grade, I played on my phone in science. So I was failing it. I dropped it for computers in 11th grade, which meant I couldn't go and study any of the engineering fields.
jamie peacock: So I was like, oh, I'll just study drafting. and It's easy. I was getting straight A's in TD, so on technical drawing. So my friend, one of my friends from school, and I went and studied at, yeah, it was a bit of a scammy spot.
jamie peacock: Basically, they claim that you're paying a shitload for tuition. um And they subsidizing two thirds of it. And then once you qualify, they find you a job and you pay them back for like two years or something.
jamie peacock: So they basically take a study
2SM Performance: Oh, yeah, yeah, they always say they're going to get you a job. they all All of them say that.
jamie peacock: holiday So I dropped out of that in the second year because I realized they were just teaching me the same stuff again.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: um And my friend was about to drop out and they found him a job. So he ended up working for them for two years to pay them back. He's still a draftsman. I couldn't get a job as draftsman. So I got a job as a salesman.
jamie peacock: And while I was, while I was there, so I'm just trying to think the time, oh no, sorry, while I was studying, I got a job at our local psycho harbor freight top store. I got a job as a technician repairing stuff that was broken. So I actually bring things that they've, that they've damaged. And I would go in on a Friday afternoon after college and I would go and repair these things. And that.
jamie peacock: got me enough pocket money that I could build a CNC machine. So I built my first CNC machine in the end of 2009.
2SM Performance: Oh.
jamie peacock: It was following instructions off of Instructables. I had to take my mother's PC, boot it into DOS with a floppy disk, and then run Turbo CNC, I think it was.
jamie peacock: um so i Then run Turbo CNC, and then I could use my CNC machine. And then in twenty yeah twenty ten i had a job as a salesman and i was for the same company i was moonlighting doing drawings for them of cranes so they needed and i was a lifting company they needed drawings of cranes so they could sign off inspections.
2SM Performance: Oh, my gosh.
jamie peacock: So I ended up coming up to Janisburg to then drive three hours to SART to go and make drawings for them.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: And while I was up here, I met up with one of my dad's friends who helped me make some step -in -direction drivers. Because at that time, you could buy them, but you could buy gecko drives, and that was it.
jamie peacock: They were ridiculously expensive, and that's all you could buy. So we made over two weekends, we made up a set of step -in -direction drivers, and I moved over to Mach 3. And yeah, that that machine I used like maybe five or six times in the the year that I was still in Durban.
2SM Performance: okay
jamie peacock: And then I got a got a phone call one day, I was at work, got a phone call from my family friends, okay, you need to fly to Joburg this weekend. The guy will pay for your flights, you need to come up for a job interview. So I got on a plane, flew up to Joburg, and he had seen my CV and had seen I built a CNC machine.
jamie peacock: So he was like, no, cool, we're looking for a draftsman. he wants ah a five -year commitment from me if he offers me the job because he had had a few guys before that after like a year and a half they would just up and leave and go start their own business or go work somewhere else and he was feeling like the guys were just getting a bunch of knowledge and then leaving.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: So I was like, no, that's that's ah that's a sweet deal. It means I've got a pretty much guaranteed job for the next five years. So I started there as the draftsman and then I noticed that there was a CNC machine on the floor that wasn't being used. So I asked about it and I started programming. It was an old Italian Sigma 3 -axis mill.
jamie peacock: learn to program on that just again hand handwriting everything like I'd make a print and then we'd go and drill all the holes and you'll type in each each hole each holes coordinates and the machine would go and drill it and a bit like basic it was a fun no
2SM Performance: Was it like a, was it like a conversational system or was it like just MDI, you hand type everything in MDI kind of thing?
jamie peacock: Yeah, we would basically write a program on a FANUC OM. So you would type in each coordinate, then you'd do a tool change and you would type in your coordinates for your perimeters.
2SM Performance: oh Oh, yeah.
jamie peacock: It was really, really doffed. um yeah so i ran that for a while then they sold or they scrapped that machine i think and replaced it with a kitamora we had two kitamora uh marcenta x3s that were from the early 90s uh they were actually bought by the company my boss at the time worked at before before he started his own business um at Smith's Wheels.
jamie peacock: They bought these two machines and then we ended up with both of them at where I was working. And then I set Marwan up with, so there was another guy who used to program by hand. We left him on his machine. And then I set Marwan up with a tool library and fusion, dedicated tools in the machine, like all the standard drills for drilling and tapping, all stuck a standard set of end mills.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: And then that machine was mine. I used to run production on it. like because we used to manufacture wheel measuring machines. So we used to measure alloy rims in production.
2SM Performance: okay
jamie peacock: So we yeah, we would basically, the the alloy rims would be machined, powder coated and then they' would come down the line, we would load them onto a spindle, measure their run out and then kick them out the other end. And yeah, by the time both
2SM Performance: what What wheels would the, what application were the wheels for?
jamie peacock: ah for all your General Automotive. Well, I say General yeah general Automotive.
2SM Performance: Oh, cool.
jamie peacock: um And then we also did a couple of specialty machines for PBS Motorsports where they were doing the Varon and the R8 wheels. That was a really impressive factory to go into.
jamie peacock: Not very big, but huller production. Like, they had a bunch of MAM 72s and they were making these wheels out of forgings with Yomatsaurus. It was really, really impressive, yeah.
2SM Performance: Oh, wow.
jamie peacock: No, like, really impressive to see how they were doing this. But yeah, we built a measuring machine for them. We built wheel balances. By the time, yeah, so then in 20, I wanna say 2015,
jamie peacock: We had some chucks manufactured, tire accuracy for grabbing the balls of the wheels. And the guys who made them their nasty MG machines, we called out really tart tolerances. And he's like, no, no, we can hit it easily milling these features. And my boss and I are like, this doesn't seem like they're going to be able to mill this, but they've got CMMs, they've got everything. We'll trust that they can do the job. We ended up throwing away a few of those chucks.
jamie peacock: They just, they weren't, they didn't repeat. They was they weren't made to a tight enough tolerance. So then my boss bought a wire cutter and I designed a chuck to be manufactured on the wire cutter.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: And that wire cutter arrived and I ran it for three and a half years before I eventually got the modern and left. So yeah, EDM wire cutter.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: So we designed a chuck to be manufactured on that. And then I used to manufacture those chucks. I used to sleep at work on them for the one chuck because it was about a, or it was a seven, 28 hour job to run them. But if few if you let the coolant, so it was in a temperature controlled room, but if you let the water drain and the whole thing come to temperature, because the water was like one or two degrees below and below the room ambience. So if you if you ran one of the cuts, went home, came back in the morning, repositioned the whole job, it shifted by about a foul.
jamie peacock: So what we had to do is I would run it, it would be about five hours to rough out, take the slugs out and then another two hours to finish. Then I would pull this part of, it must have weighed like 30 or 40 kilograms.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: So like 60 to 80 pounds. so Pull it off, rotate it, put it back on the fixture with dalpins, tighten it, re -probe, run. And I'd sleep at work to be able to do that all four cuts in a row.
jamie peacock: otherwise it would shift and then the thing would bind up and assembly.
2SM Performance: but Yeah, EDMs are not known to be the fastest machine, right?
jamie peacock: But yeah, by the time, no, they are not, cost is not the word I'd use to describe them.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: And then by, yeah, by the time I left there, I was, I started as a draftsman, I was running the EDM, I was running the milling department, I was running, well, I was the main designer, and then I had two draftsman, so I'd design the thing and then just pass it off to them.
jamie peacock: as well as traveling around the world to go and commission and repair these machines.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: So like I'd get to work on a Monday morning and my boss would be like, you're going to Germany tonight. One of the machines broke. And I'd hop on a plane and fly to Germany. Or I would be, you're going to Poland. Oh, for how long?
jamie peacock: Now, till the work's done. I ended up in Poland for five weeks in one go. It was, yeah, it was a bit a bit annoying. And yeah, in 2018, in January, I spoke to them, I'm like, listen, I'm engaged, I'm getting married, I wanna have kids and whatnot. I need to start phasing out of the this random travel bullshit.
jamie peacock: And then in August, my boss was like, I need you to go to Brazil. And I was like, okay, I'll show whatever, go to Brazil next week. And then he could see I wasn't happy. And he calls me in one day, he's like, you know, if you're unhappy, you can always resign and move on following day. Here's my resignation letter.
jamie peacock: I'm done with yolks, gave them two months notice, and then went on my own. But through the whole of 2018, in the beginning of the year when I realized that these yolks aren't actually listening, I went to my boss and I'm like, listen, I want to build a CNC machine like a bit bigger because I built a CNC machine a few years before. I'm like, I want to build something a bit more stout so that I can mess around on the weekend and yeah stuff around at home like in my garage kind of story.
jamie peacock: And I built the sister Slo -Yo in 2018. And it was almost finished when I eventually resigned, but i I was actually planning on resigning the following month. My wife was being, uh, re -contracted at work.
jamie peacock: So she would be able to actually pay our bills. And I was like, I'm done with these people and this travel. I want to go out on my own. So I had planned to go out on my own already.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: And then, yeah, left in ah November. First of November, I was on my own and finished up the Slomeo and started JSpec engineering and doing it full -time.
2SM Performance: Nice.
jamie peacock: For the first year and a half, I got to to just stuff around effectively, see what ah what I enjoyed doing.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: like As long as the business didn't cost my wife money, she was happy. ah That was the only real criteria is that it didn't cost her any money. She was paying all our bills and then COVID happened and she got retrenched.
2SM Performance: yeah
jamie peacock: And I went from it being kind of like a lifestyle hobby thing to being profitable in the span of two months. And since then, we've been running. We've launched a product in the span of two months. And then from there, we've increased our product line. That was our plus two shoes for the Glock 43, because there were no Glock 43 accessories available in South Africa. So we saw a gap in the markets, made those. Then we made a Glock 19 base, a CZ -P07 base.
jamie peacock: but now we do an AL15 plus 5 mag base. So yeah, we've expanded that range.
2SM Performance: ah hu
jamie peacock: That's not really our bread and butter anymore, but it got us through the beginning and then we started doing production stuff and yeah, we've been doing production stuff ever since.
2SM Performance: Very cool.
jamie peacock: Yeah, so yeah, we grew from a milling machine and a router to yeah We've now got two CNC lathes, two CNC moles, a fiber laser, a CO2 laser, and a shitty little manual lathe that I use for cutting bolts. like But that has also taken us six years to grow to that.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: No, it was five years that I ran the slow year as my main milling machine. It was this it was basically this time last year that I decided I needed another mill. I had another mill on my floor.
jamie peacock: I bought a ah Bridgeport -style CNC machine that ah the controller had died, and I was going to retrofit.
2SM Performance: Oh my gosh, I remember that thing.
jamie peacock: Yeah, the ah Connie. That thing sat on my floor for a year. I never finished it because I didn't really need it.
2SM Performance: You did so much, I think you worked on it more than you ran it.
jamie peacock: Well, I never ran it. I literally, except for a year, I did, because it was also, I was trying to, trying to do the retrofit cash.
2SM Performance: but Yeah.
jamie peacock: So I would bar pot when I had spare spare money. And I then sold it to one of my customers at flip the beginning of November last year. Well, in 2023, they needed a mill for a job that they were doing. I'm like, hey, I got a mill for you. ah Give me two weeks and it'll be sorted out, pay the deposit. So they paid a deposit, I ordered all the things I needed, finished retrofitting it and delivered it to them on the 13th of December.
jamie peacock: And then I woke up on the 1st of January, and I'm like, I need another spindle. And that's where the rabbit hole to get the LK started. So the LK started off as, oh, I'm going to buy a samurai machine tools.
jamie peacock: It's a machine made in the UK, small. Basically, the sister slo -yo just made a little bit better. Without an enclosure, without a controller, I was going to have to do all of that.
2SM Performance: hello
jamie peacock: It was going to run me about $10 ,000.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: I was like, okay, I can probably get the bank to give me money for that because I definitely need more capacity. Then I thought about it.
2SM Performance: You're basically getting like a like a tormach style machine, right?
jamie peacock: Yeah, a little bit better timing linear guards and it's a bit of a better machine.
2SM Performance: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
jamie peacock: Yeah, a bit like a 440 on steroids.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm. Go 440. That's what I was thinking in my head when I said that.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: So the the sister slo -yo is designed to be better than a 440 in every way as in 10 millimeters more travel in every axis and like just stuck petty little things that are better just because I was designing the machines and I wanted it to be a little bit better. So it started off with that then I realized okay no that's gonna always be a hobby machine.
jamie peacock: It's never going to be a ah industrial machine.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: So then I looked around and there was a place about 30 minute drive from me.
2SM Performance: yeah
jamie peacock: They had a Leadwell Robo drill style machine. So like a Robo drill copy made by Leadwell from I think 2005. I went down, I had a look at the machine, but a bit more expensive.
jamie peacock: It was about $20 ,000. I'm like, okay, cool. That's fine. Send me a quote so that I can get financing approved, please. Went down the next day, so we switched the machine on, I checked it, everything seemed okay.
jamie peacock: Forgot to check how much memory it had. So I went down the following morning, checked how much memory, I'm like, bit on the small side, gonna have to run one of those NC boxes, but I can drip feed this machine.
2SM Performance: hey
jamie peacock: I can make it work.
2SM Performance: that That's what I use, so yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah. So I'm like, cool, please send me the quote. That afternoon I get a phone call, I'm like, oh, you're finally giving me a quote. The guy's like, yeah, I know, someone put a deposit on the machine. I'm like, what the fuck? Like seriously, guys, ah that how how is this a thing? Like no one was looking at the machine and now someone snapped it out from under me. So I phoned my one one of my high school friends who works down in Cape Town at WD Herd, and I'm like, hey, Brew, the machine tool Africa's coming up. What are you guys bringing in for the show? Do you have anything on the floor? Like what options do I have?
jamie peacock: So he's like, no, no, there's a TC -710 on the floor. I'm like, oh, interesting. I've looked at that machine in the past when I visited him, visit to them and it's a really nice machine. I'm like, what's what's the story with this machine? So he's like, no, no, give me a second. He goes to his boss. No, no, it's a 2019. And they bought it back from a guy who had gotten cancer. So I'm like, oh, okay, cool. I'll see you on, this was on like a Thursday. I'm like, I'll see you on Tuesday. Pick me up at the airport. I'm flying down to look at the machine.
jamie peacock: So I spoke to my brother -in -law.
2SM Performance: Uh -huh.
jamie peacock: My brother -in -law said to me, if I don't come right with the bank, then I must come speak to him about funding the machine. Went to the bank. I'm like, listen, he has the price of the machine. They're like, no, no, your turnover is not high enough to finance this.
jamie peacock: So I'm like, OK, cool. I will phone my brother -in -law. So I phoned my brother -in -law. He's like, oh, no, that's fine. We can make it work. So I flew down to Cape Town, had a look at the machine, tested it, put a clock on it, checked everything was OK.
jamie peacock: goes sit with the, he's the owner of W .D. Hearn, he's one of the old Torpy there, Raymond. And he's like, you know, you bought Bertha from us because I bought Bertha like two years prior to that from them.
jamie peacock: He's like, no, no.
2SM Performance: Uh huh.
jamie peacock: I'm like, obviously, I want to get VAT registered so that I can claim the VAT back on this purchase because it's it's ah about $5 ,000 that I could claim back from the government. So He's like, okay, cool, no worries. ah We need the space. So we put in the machine put put down a $5 ,000 deposit and the machine will be on your floor next week. Once your VAT registration comes through, you can pay the balance. I had the machine on my floor a week later and was making money on it. And then once my registration was complete with the VAT, I then paid the balance of the machine. And yeah, I had been running it for a month at the time.
jamie peacock: So they helped me out a hell of a lot there. But that that also just goes to show you like industry relationships go a hell of a long way.
2SM Performance: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah, like they knew I wasn't gonna run away with the machine.
2SM Performance: So, you know.
jamie peacock: I can't fucking move the thing. But yeah, then to get that into the garage was a whole, whole endeavor.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Like taking my garage doors off, putting the sliding doors up, that all happened in one day.
2SM Performance: Oh, yeah.
jamie peacock: So I planned everything, had the the sliding garage doors fabricated, had the beam delivered, and then had builders pitch up in the morning, knock the doors out, knock the, we jacked the roof up, knock the brick work out, put an R beam in place and put the doors on all in one day.
jamie peacock: because you can't leave your garage open like the shit's gonna get stolen.
2SM Performance: I remember the stories.
2SM Performance: Yeah, yeah, especially where you live, right? that's That's a no -no.
jamie peacock: Yeah, it's it's not too bad in our specific area, but yeah you don't wanna give folks opportunity.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: No, don't.
2SM Performance: No, no, yeah. When you're going to do something like that, you want to get all the work done in one day so you can have your new machine in your garage and safely locked up, you know.
jamie peacock: Yeah, so you can lock it up again.
jamie peacock: Yeah, I mean, I look at the amount of money that's spent on tooling in the garage and it's like, ish it's ah yeah, it's scary. But ja our area we in is not too bad and we've got quite high security here, so it should be fine.
2SM Performance: Yeah. how
2SM Performance: What was the clearance interference for the top of your mill and your garage door originally?
jamie peacock: So.
2SM Performance: Like how many inches short was or millimeters, whatever.
jamie peacock: hit Technically speaking, technically speaking, it would have fitted, it would have fitted.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: But the problem is when you put a forklift under it, it then gets taller. So that's why I lifted the doors, that it wouldn't be an issue. Also width wise, it would have been an issue to go through the through the garage door.
2SM Performance: That's why you went with the slider design, right?
jamie peacock: Yeah, that's for the sliders.
2SM Performance: So you can get that width and you took that brick column out of the middle.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah, took the brick column out and I can stack all my doors to the one side and get about a four meter opening.
2SM Performance: That is really cool.
jamie peacock: Yeah, so like the I've got plans of foot to build a new workshop in my front yard, and that is gonna be set up as a sports car garage.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: So we'll build it. My brother -in -law's got a couple mates with sports cars. We'll get them to pull them in, take some pictures, and then put the workshop in there. That way, if we ever wanna sell the property, it's ah you've got a sports car garage on the on the property.
jamie peacock: like it It's a selling feature.
2SM Performance: Wait, wait.
jamie peacock: Yeah, it's not it's not just a workshop.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: It's ah it's a feature, yeah.
2SM Performance: It adds value to like a normal person with money, right?
jamie peacock: Yeah, exactly.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Because the yeah the area we're in is quite a, it's quite a nice area.
2SM Performance: That's a good idea.
jamie peacock: My mother -in -law built the house 40 years ago when there were only three houses in the area.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
2SM Performance: the
jamie peacock: So it's, yeah, we've got, it's a nice area. It's actually a really upmarket area that we're in. And then I just run machine shop out of the garage. It's great.
2SM Performance: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
jamie peacock: like try not
2SM Performance: You have a killer set up.
jamie peacock: Yeah, no, the setup I've got here is pretty, pretty sweet. But yeah, your setup seems to be getting tighter there. It's like you're taking notes from me on how to put as many machines as possible in the garage.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Absolutely. I'm trying to squeeze them in here, man.
jamie peacock: yeah
2SM Performance: I'm i'm up to three mils now. And I gotta tell you, I love it.
jamie peacock: Nice.
2SM Performance: It's stressful, but I love it.
jamie peacock: No, 100%. I put it this way to someone a while ago, like working for yourself is there's pros and cons to everything. And right now the pros outweigh the cons significantly.
2SM Performance: Oh, absolutely. um there Yeah, sorry.
jamie peacock: Yeah. like
jamie peacock: No, no, we used to like, I used to go fishing on a Thursday at three o 'clock every, every Thursday. Cause you know what? I work late. I work into the evening every night. My customers can wait till Friday to talk to me. I'm going fishing. Like, sorry. I'm taking this, these two hours to go fishing in the afternoon. I'm knocking off early and going fishing. Like that. Yeah. One of the perks of working for yourself is you've got flexible hours.
2SM Performance: Absolutely, yeah, I don't like being told what to do and i and I don't like pressure from like a boss type individual over my neck all the time putting pressure on me.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: The only person I want pressure from is my customers because I am all about customer service and all that matters to me is making the customer happy and I'm okay with that.
jamie peacock: Exactly. No, exactly. Yeah, no, that's fine. You know, yeah. And also, like yeah, the expectations then are reasonable. ah My wife used to work for a place that was really easy going. like She used to work in the center of Joburg. So she used to go go to work at six in the morning and then leave at three.
jamie peacock: And if if she didn't have a lot of stuff that had to be done at the office, she could work remotely. Then she changed jobs and then, no, you have to be at 7 .30 in the morning and you have to leave at four.
jamie peacock: And it's like, that is peak traffic. Why can't I start an hour earlier and leave an hour late, an hour earlier? And yeah, the guy was like, no, no, these are the hours. Like that's one thing that used to really, yeah, that used to straighten where I used to work was we had to be there at 7 .30.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: ah We had to be ready to work at 7 .30. That's fine. Then we would have a bell that would go off at about 20 past four for the guys to go and change and whatnot. And then at half past four, you could leave.
jamie peacock: I'm like, guys, I'm not going and changing. Why i must I stand here for 10 minutes? I'm not working. Me leaving at 25 past meant that I got home like 10 minutes sooner than if I left at half past because there was less traffic.
jamie peacock: But no, used to get in.
2SM Performance: Yeah, that's a serious thing too. 10 minutes makes a big difference with traffic.
jamie peacock: Yeah. i It makes a huge difference with traffic.
2SM Performance: Yeah, massive.
jamie peacock: And yeah, that used to frustrate me. And then they'd be like, your honor, you arrived late to work for a week. I'm like, yes. And I worked through tea and lunch for that entire week as well. Like I never used to stop working.
jamie peacock: If I was busy working, I would eat my lunch at my desk because I'm in the zone and I'm working. And that was most days that I would just work through my lunch and my tea. But then, your honor, but you left five minutes earlier.
jamie peacock: I'm like, guys, I gave you an extra 40 minutes today. What are you on about?
2SM Performance: Oh wow, seriously?
jamie peacock: No, y 'all.
2SM Performance: Usually when you're working through lunch, they notice that and they don't care if you leave early.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
jamie peacock: no my office was No, my office was far from theirs at that point. So when we when we got the wire cutter, I used to be upstairs in an office next door to my boss with the window between us, which was nice.
jamie peacock: And then I moved down to the wire cutter because it was a needy little machine and I had to be there the whole time.
2SM Performance: Yeah, had just sleep next to it.
jamie peacock: So then we both um yeah basically then we built the drafting office down there.
2SM Performance: ah yeah
jamie peacock: So then they didn't really know what was going on. Like they didn't know they would come down there like twice a day or three times a day. They would sit upstairs and then ask offices and I would be stuck in my air con office with a wire cutter.
jamie peacock: So that was one thing that annoyed me a bit was the disconnect from what was actually going on and what's yeah what they perceived to be going on. Like my boss's son was poised to take over and he had no clue, he was an accountant that was then basically running the business. And yeah, that's not that's not the way to do it. Also like my boss there was renowned for over promising and under delivering.
2SM Performance: Oh yeah, yeah, mine too.
jamie peacock: or out or outright lying to customers. Like that that was one of the things that really got to me.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: I'd be standing next to him and he'd be telling the customer a fucking straight up lie and I've got to stand there straight faced and be like, yes, that's the truth. ah afterar so I used to go down to Port Elizabeth every six months or so to go and service two of the balancing machines we had built because my boss was an idiot and sold them two of them.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: You never sell two measuring machines because if you've got two, they have to read the same. If you've got one, you assume it's right.
2SM Performance: There's a variation there.
jamie peacock: Yeah, you've got a target that variation up.
2SM Performance: Absolutely.
jamie peacock: It was horrible.
2SM Performance: Absolutely.
jamie peacock: But I used to go down every six months.
2SM Performance: Yeah, that's impossible. Yeah.
jamie peacock: Oh no, could I could do it. I figured out how to get it to do what I want. But I used to go down every six months, strip the chuck off for the machine, clean it in paraffin, wipe out all the grease, re -grease, reassemble, re -commission.
2SM Performance: yeah Yeah.
jamie peacock: So I go down, decommission one machine, re -commission it, then decommission the second machine so they could still run production. So they were doing 400 wheels an hour, and each machine could do 300.
jamie peacock: So for every hour we were down, they were backlogging 100 wheels. They were having to put them on pallets and then try and find time to run them. So I would go down, they would be down for about three or four days between the the machines, get everything tied together, calibrated, and then sign off. And I left, and my one colleague took over, and he was also very capable. He left a year after I left the company, and then my boss went down to do this.
jamie peacock: and I get a phone call from the guards, because I had a good working relationship with all the guards down there. Get a phone call, hi there, we just want a second opinion here. They're saying they can't calibrate it because the spindle is poked. I'm like, that doesn't seem right. Here's an invoice, pay the invoice, I'll come down, because I'm not flying down there on my own dime. Like, you guys pay the invoice, I'll come and give you a second opinion. So the next day, they're like, no, no, we're going to send the spindle up for rebuild. If we don't come right, we'll phone you. I'm like, cool, I'll chat to you in two weeks. Two weeks time, I get a phone call.
jamie peacock: ah Yeah, no, my old boss, he's just left SART. The machine's not running. He's been here for a week and he can't get it right. He's now just left SART and we are standing. We need we need assistance, please.
jamie peacock: So I sent him the invoice.
2SM Performance: Oh my gosh.
jamie peacock: They paid the invoice. I flew down. This machine had been down for like six weeks at this point. So for every hour of production, they were stacking 100 wheels.
2SM Performance: 100 wheels, yeah.
jamie peacock: They had pallets and pallets of wheels stacked that they couldn't check. So I got down there. I think that they phoned me on like a on a so on a Friday afternoon. I'm like, cool. I'll see you on Monday. I'm not flying down for the weekend.
jamie peacock: Flew down on the Monday morning. I was on site for two hours. They were up and running production again. My boss just didn't know how to calibrate the scene.
2SM Performance: So your boss can, Your boss couldn't fix the problem.
jamie peacock: Couldn't. call it Yeah.
2SM Performance: He abandoned it and you fixed it in one hour.
jamie peacock: Yeah, pretty much. Then I ended up in a meeting with the, ah the, the managing director of Borber South Africa. And the guy's like, so yeah, we had reg. He said, we asked him, is Jamie available to assist? And reg turned around and said, no, Jamie doesn't know what he's doing on these machines. So I look at them and I'm like, let me tell you something about reg. Do you know how you know he's lying? And they all look at me seriously. And I'm like, his mouth's moving.
jamie peacock: Fucking done. don't Don't throw me under the bus when you can't do the thing yourself. So then they actually, they ended up getting rid, that I think they had four machines at one point. All those machines got scrapped over a span of like a year and a half and replaced with machines with people who could actually give them service.
jamie peacock: Because that's the thing my previous boss didn't realize.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Making a sale is easy. It's the after sales that is not. Like we had, I was the mechanical technician and we had a software guy.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: But the software guy was doing the software for new machines and maintaining old machines.
2SM Performance: Yeah, you were a maintenance tech.
jamie peacock: So we would, so we would get a call.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Oh, you need to go to Poland. Okay, cool. Off to Poland. We're there for two weeks fixing a machine because we were like yeah they were renowned for sending stuff that was half finished. Don't worry, Jamie will fix it on site when he installs it, kind of story. And then we would end up there and a customer in Czech Republic would phone and say, hey, our machine's down. When can we have a technician? No, as soon as they're done in Poland, two weeks later, we're still not on site to repair the Czech guys' machines. And then the German machine would go down. No, no, as soon as they're done in Czech Republic.
jamie peacock: the eventually Eventually, the Renault group were like, cool, when you show us, you can actually service your machines. We want to order another four, but we're not going to do that until you can prove you can actually service your machines because they didn't want to spend money on having staff ready to to go if there was a problem.
2SM Performance: Oh, yeah.
jamie peacock: Like in my mind, you've got 20 machines around the world.
2SM Performance: Yeah, yeah.
jamie peacock: You best have a couple of technicians on payroll at all times.
2SM Performance: okay
jamie peacock: And when something breaks, you could be there within a day or two, anywhere in the world.
2SM Performance: They're putting it all on you. Yeah, yeah, that's unfair.
jamie peacock: yeah like and the other it was it was really it's so yeah i learned a lot from them on what not to do like i try not to do cnc retrofits because it means that if something breaks i've got to drop what i'm doing and go and fix it which is less than ideal like i still do i still do
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
2SM Performance: Absolutely. Yeah, and that's why a lot of people, sorry, you still do what?
jamie peacock: I still do CNC technician work. Like I replace linear guard. There's a company, Hautlander, they do wooden chairs. I did a retrofit for them on a lathe. I repair their their routers.
jamie peacock: I get phoned before the agent gets phoned now to repair their routers. Because I'm their foster and the agent. But i' like I do tent CNC technician work because it's basically free money.
jamie peacock: But it also comes with the issue that their ship breaks and now you must drop what you're doing to go and repair their machine.
2SM Performance: cool Well, doesn't that take time away from your production and your operation?
jamie peacock: It does, but fortunately I can just work late. So like the the rates are actually going up now in January for call outs that if you want to call me out, let's but you're going to be paying for two of my machines to be running because most days two spindles are running.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: So you best be paying more than those two spindles if you want my attention.
2SM Performance: yeah Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
jamie peacock: So yeah, we're going to put up our, yeah, our technicianing service rates is going to go up now.
2SM Performance: Your time is valuable.
jamie peacock: And that includes driving to site.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Everything's just getting more expensive because it needs to be worth my while to stop what I'm doing.
2SM Performance: Travel.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Yeah, absolutely.
jamie peacock: Although most of the time, like I can leave, I can leave machines running and just have my wife load bar and whatnot in the lades.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: But sometimes that's not, that's not the case.
2SM Performance: Yeah. Well, I think that's a big reason why people love buying Haas machines here in America is because the support is just unmatched.
jamie peacock: no and
jamie peacock: Service.
jamie peacock: Yeah. Now, 100 % like if you look at if you look at horse machines in South Africa, that's not the case.
2SM Performance: It doesn't
jamie peacock: By the time it lands here, it's actually overpriced by the time you ship it to South Africa.
2SM Performance: Oh, really?
2SM Performance: ah then Wow.
jamie peacock: You can get a ah a better machine from like the like the likes of Kitamura or Mazak or one of those for the same price as a horse because of the shipping.
2SM Performance: Oh, yeah. Kinemura X3 is a much better machine. I mean, like Leagues better than a Haas.
jamie peacock: Yes. Yeah. um ah one So the guy from W Dern that I went to high school with, he's their metrology specialist now and he ended up in the UK at Renishaw and they had a horse, it was one of their smaller machines, I think it was a super mini mill and he ball barred the thing and he reckons it was hilarious how bad the ball bar on that was.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Mhm.
jamie peacock: All it's ever done is cut plastic.
2SM Performance: Just way off.
jamie peacock: Yeah, all it's ever done is cut plastic. He reckons the ball bar wasn't even within a thou.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Wow.
jamie peacock: Like he won't, he won't touch a horse. He won't let me touch a horse. I'm like, they can't be that bad.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Like, I mean, I saw a VF2 for the first time ever at machine tool Africa in May.
2SM Performance: Mhm.
jamie peacock: And it's hilariously small. Like if I look at at the casting, the spacing on the ways, all that kind of stuff, like kinematic.
2SM Performance: Everything's undersized. Yeah.
jamie peacock: kidda Kinematically, I feel like my LK, my drill tap sensor, is a more rigid machine.
2SM Performance: Really.
jamie peacock: If I just look at how the kinematic layout is, I feel like my LK is a more a more ah stout machine than the VF2 is.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Yeah. And you have that fast, rapid and tool change.
jamie peacock: it's interesting like
2SM Performance: It's a much more productive mill than a VFT would ever be.
jamie peacock: yeah la yeah Yeah, I went round IMTS and I was just looking at how all the machines were built. that That's what I was doing. like I could also be asking questions. I've got my head in the back of the panel, having a look how it's been wired, how it's been assembled, what the costings look like. It was quite eye opening to see the difference in all ah all the different manufacturers and how they build their machines.
2SM Performance: Yeah, they have different philosophies on how they do things and put things together and it's very interesting to see that.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah, it's interesting to see that, like, we planning to come to IMTS in 2026. Like, my wife and I are going there.
2SM Performance: How convenient.
jamie peacock: Basically, I'm going to the US on holiday and IMTS just happens to be there. Like, I'm going to spend five days there. Yeah, how convenient. So, I assume you walk around, but yeah, we walk around um the fabrication section of IMTS together.
jamie peacock: um
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: that That pool is the size that Machine 2 Africa was. Machine 2 Africa is the biggest Machine 2 show in Africa, and it was the size of the fabrication hall.
jamie peacock: It was a little underwhelming.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: And of that, I'd say about a sixth of the whole show was just W .D. Hearn. They had a really good year, so they were just swinging their dick around, showing off
2SM Performance: Is it a South African company?
jamie peacock: Yeah, so it's based in Cape Town. They had a really good job.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: They're agents for Leadwell, Kitamura, Tornos, Flowwater jets. They're like, they're one of the big agencies here.
2SM Performance: OK, so they're like Ellison Technologies. They're like a distro distributor.
jamie peacock: Yeah, they're a distributor.
2SM Performance: OK.
jamie peacock: They're agents for LK.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: They don't actually bring the LKs in anymore. The LKs, they kind of price themselves out of the market. They're a bit they' a bit expensive.
2SM Performance: Yeah, those are very high sought after machines there. It's kind of like the Robo drill design. I think there's another one called a Nomura.
jamie peacock: yes yeah i know i know the one you're talking about i can't remember what it's called it's also yeah it's a really rigid robo drill basically it looks very very similar to the lk but yeah they there they reckon yeah the lk is they now about fifty thousand dollars by the time they land them here which is apparently a little bit too expensive
2SM Performance: Is it the Nomura? Yeah. Yeah, it's the blue and white and yellow. Yeah.
2SM Performance: Yeah. Yeah, the Nomura. Yeah.
2SM Performance: That is not bad at all. That is great.
jamie peacock: Thing is you can get this Sino machine that you can get for about $35 ,000 new.
2SM Performance: That's really good.
jamie peacock: So if they've priced themselves out in our market, like South Africa's markets, we vote with our wallets. Doesn't matter if it is half the product. If it's 10 cents cheaper, we buy it.
jamie peacock: Like the South African market is, it's a very interesting market to try and compete in. My friend used to make drones.
2SM Performance: Race to the bottom.
jamie peacock: Yeah, used to make drones.
2SM Performance: Uh -huh.
jamie peacock: um His main market was the US market because locally I can buy something from China for $49. His was $52. I'm buying the one from China, even though it's not even though it's not as good.
jamie peacock: the The South Africans tend to pay vote with their wallets really badly.
2SM Performance: Cheap asses.
jamie peacock: doctor Yeah, no, no, it's really, really bad deal with that. You get the actual spend the really good man, like have like bar high quality stuff.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Uh -huh.
jamie peacock: But the majority of people, if I can get it for a few bucks cheap, I'm getting it for a few bucks cheaper. Doesn't matter if it's only half the quality.
2SM Performance: Man, that sucks. I think a lot of people are like that too here in America, unfortunately.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah, you guys tend to spend a lot more money on stuff than we do. I think there's a bit more disposable income there than there is here. Like my brother my brother works in the fishing industry selling high -end fishing equipment.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: And he reckons the South African's disposable income is always under threat.
2SM Performance: Mm -hmm.
jamie peacock: Like, oh cool, I got a couple extra bucks to buy something and then the government will add some new tax or some random thing will happen. So like it's not like the US, I think there's a lot more disposable income available.
2SM Performance: Hmm, interesting. Yeah, because that's like the whole ethos of my my business and my product line is like an emphasis on quality and choosing something quality made in America, you know, instead of, you know, some Chinese eBay piece that that's like when you want to buy my brand, that's like the statement is like this is the best.
jamie peacock: No.
jamie peacock: Yes. Not 100%. Well, that's a d— Yes.
jamie peacock: No, that's it. All my stuff that potentially gets exported has got made in RSA because I'm proud that it's made in South Africa. like There's no reason to hide that it's made in South Africa. It's not made in China. That's the big thing. It's made somewhere by a dude in a garage, not a factory shitting them out at minimum wage.
2SM Performance: a guy that cares, it's like a craftsman that loves what he's doing and and puts his heart into what he's making, you know?
jamie peacock: Yeah, that's it.
jamie peacock: That's it. like Even the pallet system, it'll have made an RSA on it because I'm proud that it's developed and made in South Africa.
2SM Performance: Yeah, the first time I ever saw that was that Fluct knife you gave me. I thought it said USA for a second and I'm like, whoa, that's an R.
jamie peacock: Yes.
jamie peacock: Yeah. No, Republic of South Africa.
2SM Performance: Ah, of South Africa. Yeah, that was the first time I saw that.
jamie peacock: Yeah. So now, yeah, I'm proud to put Made in RSA on stuff. We actually, we're doing a product line for one of my, one of my customers who does the gun stuff.
2SM Performance: Yeah, that's cool.
jamie peacock: He wants to export to the US. So the branding is going to be on those instead of bullets and brass, it's going to be M .I .A. Made in Africa.
2SM Performance: hey
jamie peacock: But when it's in the US, it'll be made in America. We're not going to categorically say it's made in America, but it's going to be assumed.
2SM Performance: That's so funny. It just fits. It fits both countries. Yeah, yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah, it's going to be assumed it's made in America when it's actually made in South Africa.
2SM Performance: That's so funny.
jamie peacock: Yeah, because we've got the making on those magazines.
2SM Performance: Yeah, you can get away with that.
jamie peacock: Yeah, we're not categorically stating it.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: But if you perceive it to mean that, good for you.
2SM Performance: That's too funny. That's great marketing.
jamie peacock: Yeah. yeah No, that's it. we doing We're doing the case gauges and those things we're going to export because we're undercutting the market, something silly here. And we can probably not necessarily undercut, but we can we definitely cheaper than having it made in Australia or made in the US because as we were discussing the other day, shop rates.
jamie peacock: ah Our shop rate here, on those specific things we're doing, I think we're doing about $40 or $50 an hour to manufacture those. So we're making good money on those.
2SM Performance: Okay.
jamie peacock: But our average shop rate is like $25 an hour. If you try to charge more than that for late work, the guys are like, no, it's fine, we'll get it done somewhere else.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Whereas you got you guys are like $100, $150 an hour. um But our cost of living here and everything else is also an order of magnitude.
2SM Performance: Exactly. There's this, it scales.
jamie peacock: Yeah, it's an order of magnitude difference.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: That was something that shocked us when we went to IMTS is the cost of food in the US was something silly.
2SM Performance: Right.
jamie peacock: Like what we paid for, we went to Five Guys, my wife and I each got a burger, we shared a fries and we shared a drink. And we could have gone and got each of us a burger, fries and drinks three times, three or four times for the price we paid for that one meal.
2SM Performance: That's wild.
jamie peacock: No, we could have gone for like a really fancy dinner, had like steak and nice stuff for the price you paid for a burger and fries.
2SM Performance: So you're saying the actual value per dollar is less in America for the goods than back there?
jamie peacock: Well, you guys, well, you guys.
2SM Performance: Well, the currency converts, right?
jamie peacock: Your currency converts, so on day -to -day things like bread and milk and stuff like that, it's pretty much of a much less.
2SM Performance: oh Yeah.
jamie peacock: It's the same price, give or take. It wasn't like excessive, but on fast food, your guy's pricing is through the roof.
2SM Performance: yeah
2SM Performance: Yeah, one five guys is very, very expensive and also.
jamie peacock: Yeah, well, no, but even and McDonald's, it's like $10 or $11 for a burger. Here you can get a full meal for What's a five dollars?
jamie peacock: yeah Yeah, yeah five dollars for a full Big Mac with a drink and fries No
2SM Performance: Yeah, you got to remember, though, you're in Chicago. Chicago is a very expensive liberal city.
jamie peacock: fair enough well Amsterdam was the same Amsterdam was the same because we came to Amsterdam and I wanted to go get a Big Mac because I've had a Big Mac in every country I've ever been to except Amsterdam.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: I wasn't paying 11 euros for a Big Mac and
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: There was no way in hell that was happening. So I was like, screw that. I will just go hungry. I'm like, yeah. Like when I used to travel for work, I had a business card. So I'll just, I didn't care. I'm hungry. I'll buy food.
jamie peacock: But yeah, when I'm going on my own dime, there was no ways that was happening.
2SM Performance: the Yeah, I remember getting into IMTS in Chicago with Noel and we went out to eat. Man, everything is really expensive here.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
jamie peacock: I paid $10 for a slice of pizza at IMTS.
2SM Performance: Like we're shocked.
jamie peacock: We missed lunch at the toolpath booth for one day, EJ &R.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: And we're like, no, we'll just grab lunch. I grabbed a s slice of pizza, it was $10 .60. A coke with $5 for a coke. I'm like, no, thank you.
2SM Performance: Yeah, bottle of water it was $5. Yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah, I'll go and get a free bottle of water from one of the booths.
2SM Performance: Wild.
jamie peacock: Because if you but if you're paying for food at IMTS, you're fucking around.
2SM Performance: Oh, yeah.
jamie peacock: Like, you just go to a booth and get the pizza.
2SM Performance: Oh, thank God for toolpaths.
jamie peacock: Oh, dude, toolpath did amazing things.
2SM Performance: Yeah. that Oh, my gosh. I ate so many hot dogs and drank so much soda over there.
jamie peacock: Yeah, 100%.
2SM Performance: It was great.
jamie peacock: Yeah, that is the best.
2SM Performance: I didn't have to pay for it.
jamie peacock: But yeah i have you?
2SM Performance: That was like the Oasis. there was like ah It was like a desert Oasis. like You just like slip in there and like, oh, it was great.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Now what what they did there was build community yeah engagement like crazy. That was a really smart move on their part.
2SM Performance: Oh, for sure.
jamie peacock: Yeah, no, that was a really, really smart.
2SM Performance: Great marketing move.
jamie peacock: Yeah, really smart marketing move.
2SM Performance: yeah Yeah, I didn't even know they existed.
jamie peacock: Hopefully they do something similar. Well, exactly. Like I knew they existed because I spoke to um to Ben from Black Fox and Justin Gray, the CTO, follows me on Instagram.
jamie peacock: That's the only reason I knew Toolpath existed.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: And I think it had been mentioned on Taps and Patients once or twice.
2SM Performance: OK. Yeah.
jamie peacock: um That's the only reason I knew about them. And ah speaking of them, have you seen Pretool?
2SM Performance: Pre -school.
jamie peacock: Yes.
2SM Performance: No.
jamie peacock: you need to go check out pre -tool. So you upload your, view or you copy in your fusion library and it generates you presets for running aluminum, running steel, running stainless steel.
2SM Performance: Oh, feeds and feeds.
jamie peacock: Feeds and speeds are really good starting feeds and speeds.
2SM Performance: Oh, I have my own recipes pretty but well established, but I'd like to check it out.
jamie peacock: Yeah. and So do I. Well, so so did I. I just redid all my tool libraries. I ran it through there because I don't run a lot of steel. So my recipes weren't dialed.
jamie peacock: My alley recipes were okay. um So what I did is I left my default recipes there and I just regenerated additional um presets for roughing and floor finishing and wall finishing.
2SM Performance: So you have like a separate library for those feeds and speeds from through tool.
jamie peacock: And yeah.
jamie peacock: Well, no, you can do presets in Fusion. So you select your tool and then, so in your library, if you click on the tool at the bottom, it shows your presets and then you can say, okay, cool.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: I need the preset for roughing, roughing, click the roughing one. I need the finishing presets.
2SM Performance: Oh yeah.
jamie peacock: It's really, really well.
2SM Performance: Yeah, I never I need to start using that.
jamie peacock: yeah
2SM Performance: I never use that. I'll just if I'm doing something special all hand type in the the RPM and the and and the feed rate when I need to.
jamie peacock: Yeah. That's what, yeah.
2SM Performance: But I think yeah, preset like that would be even faster. I should start using those.
jamie peacock: So run run run your tool library through. What I did is I ran my old library through and then I just made a duplicate called LK pre -tool.
2SM Performance: Mhm.
jamie peacock: And then I actually went and separated all my tools out the other day in into my LK aluminum, LK mild steel, and LK stainless. All my milling tools, all my drills, that when I want to program something, I just grab the tool from the library and go.
jamie peacock: And it's a good starting point.
2SM Performance: Yeah, that's a great idea. I have a new machine that has 10 ,000 RPM, so I need to already create a new library for the new machine because, you know, it's higher RPM.
jamie peacock: yeah Because I do...
jamie peacock: What was your, what's your new machine?
2SM Performance: My new machine that has 10 ,000 RPM, the old one was 8 ,000.
jamie peacock: An Algon? Ah, okay, so you want to use that in an Aluminium, definitely.
2SM Performance: Yeah. Yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah, I run everything at 12.
2SM Performance: Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
jamie peacock: Everything is 12 ,000 rpm.
2SM Performance: You bastard, I'm jealous.
jamie peacock: Yep, I kind of wish I had bought a Silex III, so I had 20 ,000. But yeah, that xx fo sorry xbox that's, X5. That's hopefully in the cards for this year, like this coming year. We're gonna see if I can manage to get a new lathe and a new mill.
2SM Performance: Yeah, those are really cool little machines. Didn't a confounded get one or he has an X7?
jamie peacock: <unk>e Yeah. No, he's on X5, he's just got it running.
2SM Performance: Oh yeah, yeah.
jamie peacock: He actually posted this morning that he's got it finally running production. um I wanted basically to put my my production work on like my mag bases, some of the pallet stuff, all the stuff that repeats, I wanna put on there that I can use the LK for job shop work and still be able to run production while I'm doing job shop work.
2SM Performance: So cool.
2SM Performance: Really?
jamie peacock: But yeah, that that requires me to have a bit more production work lined up.
2SM Performance: So you're going to have your little X5 is like a production designated machine and then you do your your job shopy ones and twosy stuff on the OK.
jamie peacock: Like as it is,
jamie peacock: Yeah.
jamie peacock: On the LK.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Because the 300 mil envelope is a bit small. It's like a one foot envelope on that um the But all my production stuff is generally very small.
jamie peacock: So if I set that, my thought is to set that machine up as just a production machine. And then the LK can be used for bigger parts and prototyping and whatnot.
2SM Performance: Yeah, a lot of your stuff you do is pretty small, I've noticed.
jamie peacock: But when that happens, Yeah, then what will happen is the the slo -yo will then be disappeared It'll get sold.
2SM Performance: No.
jamie peacock: Yeah, it's sad, but it'll get so it's literally being kept to cross tool pins That's the only reason I have it this cross drilling pins Yep so Well as it as it is the machine staying because I'd rather have it as a spindle then as money in my bank accounts It's more valuable as a spindle
2SM Performance: I'm like.
2SM Performance: i've I've watched that thing just slits off so many different little parts over the years on your stories. I'm like nostalgic. I'm like a nostalgic about that machine now.
2SM Performance: Yes. Yeah.
jamie peacock: But if I put down another proper spindle, then that thing's getting heated. Because it it literally just gets used.
2SM Performance: Yeeted.
jamie peacock: It's getting used for cross drilling pins. That's it. It stands the rest of the time.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: So it doesn't really need.
2SM Performance: Yeah, my bench, my bench mill is, uh, my bench mill is getting used a lot less just for like engraving nowadays.
jamie peacock: Yeah, no, it's it's sad, but they still have a purpose.
2SM Performance: But, uh, they do, they do.
jamie peacock: Like that's what that's what got me to this point.
2SM Performance: I, I, I'm, Yeah, I noticed with that one too you were using like aluminum extrusions for like the frame around the the enclosure.
jamie peacock: Yeah, that that are built out of extrusions that are liberated from my job, and built that like two weeks after I left the job. No, we had we had like, we had 100 kilos, if not more of off cuts from a job.
2SM Performance: Five finger discount.
jamie peacock: So I was like, I was just making some of it disappear every and now and again.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Mhm.
jamie peacock: That place they had, they had so much shit playing around, they didn't know what they had. I like that whole machine that the whole sister, Slo -Yo, I bought one plate for.
2SM Performance: For sure.
jamie peacock: The rest was from the scrap bin at work.
2SM Performance: Wow.
jamie peacock: I bought the plate for the table. Everything else was scrap parts or off -cut tube or yeah stuff I found in the scrap bin.
2SM Performance: And now the slowio, that's the machine that you made the how to series on YouTube that I watched a long time ago.
jamie peacock: Yes. Yes, the one that inspired a bunch of people apparently. It inspired Ben from BlackFox to build his machine.
2SM Performance: Oh, that's very cool.
jamie peacock: Yeah. Now go actually chatting about it.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: He was inspired to build a machine because of that video series.
2SM Performance: Very cool. Yeah, I remember that big shop that you were we' using the mill at.
jamie peacock: Yeah. Yeah, that. Yeah, that was my previous job.
2SM Performance: What were you machining the casting for it or the base to the weldments?
jamie peacock: The Weldments. All sorts, yeah. Yeah, so basically what I did is I welded it together, sent it for shot lost and base coat, painted it, and then I machined all the linear guard ways and whatnot.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: So it was painted and then I machined where the linear guard sits, and that way also the shot peening stress relieves the steel. So it's actually really stable for being a weldment.
2SM Performance: Oh.
2SM Performance: so So it's not it's not swelling and shrinking with temperature and.
jamie peacock: Yeah, it's not twisting.
2SM Performance: There's no stress stress in the material, yeah.
jamie peacock: Because that's the thing, yeah. Yeah, if you don't, cause you're welding it, you're adding heat and stress.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: If you don't stress, leave it, it just warps. So when I built it, like when I built it, I was designing machines for a living.
2SM Performance: Mm hmm.
jamie peacock: Like that's what I did. I was the machine designer at TrueGauge and I built this thing with all the knowledge that I gained over like five years there on machine building and building stable stuff.
jamie peacock: I mean, there we had cylindrical grinders, all sorts of stuff. So my my initial spindle was manufactured there. I paid the,
2SM Performance: Oh my gosh.
jamie peacock: yeah I paid the fitter and turner.
2SM Performance: You made your own spindle? Did my hearing this correctly?
jamie peacock: Yeah. Yeah. I designed it. I mean, I was designing and manufacturing spindles anyway.
2SM Performance: Oh man.
jamie peacock: So I designed and manufactured.
2SM Performance: That's serious, serious stuff.
jamie peacock: a Yeah. I made a ah TTS style, like a Tormach tooling system style spindle, which in retrospect was a mistake, but it got me there for years.
2SM Performance: Yeah. That's what I use online. Like an R8.
jamie peacock: Yeah. Yeah, it's okay, but BT30 is way better.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: um So that I paid the fitter and turner to turn my pots after hours.
2SM Performance: Nah.
jamie peacock: I paid him his overtime rate and he made all my pots for me.
2SM Performance: Uh -huh.
jamie peacock: I sent them off to heat treats and when they heat treated at the spindle core bowed. Not enough that it was a problem. We could still grind it clean, but it was always off balance. And then I want to say in
2SM Performance: Do you get vibration when it's running max RPM?
jamie peacock: It only does 6 ,000 RPM, so not really.
2SM Performance: OK.
jamie peacock: It's just it wasn't perfect. I then had it.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: I then worked with the with that system for a few years, I think till 2021. And then I had a be ah redesigned the spindle nose clamp and the spindle core and I changed it to BT30 and then I had that manufactured.
jamie peacock: That cost me like order call you about $300 to have that spindle core manufactured. I should have just spent the extra $150 and bought a new spindle, but I had the spindle core manufactured and they couldn't grant the taper correctly. So I had this whole thing manufactured, heat treated, assembled it and my tools running out like five or six thou.
jamie peacock: So I'm like, no, take it back to them and I'm like, guys, here's the whole spindle assembled, grind it in its bearings, please.
2SM Performance: Oh!
jamie peacock: No, you can't. And I'm like, listen here, put it in a bloody V block, drive it with a fucking hose and grind this thing. No, no, they stripped it, they re -grounded, still fucked. So I ended up buying a pneumatic die grinder, putting it in my vase and grant programmed a taper move on the on the CNC and ground the taper while spinning the spindle in the machine.
2SM Performance: I'm putting my face in my hands right now.
jamie peacock: And then, yeah, eventually I got it that it would, if you put the tool holder in facing the same way, it would repeat pretty well.
2SM Performance: That's ridiculous.
jamie peacock: and If I was trying to do high accuracy work, I would then check, run out and tap it in and whatnot. so But it would repeat within about, I'd say about a thou on concentricity ah from tool change to tool change.
2SM Performance: hu
jamie peacock: So I just designed parts that can get away with that much deviation. And then it was never a problem.
2SM Performance: Yeah, as long as you're not doing plus or minus tenths aerospace work, I think you'll be all right.
jamie peacock: Yeah, and I used to do, now I used to do plus minus tenths, but it used to take me forever. Like the case gauges I was making, it was three hours per pot because I could, I could only rough it slowly. I could only drill it. I could only drill it at four inches a minute. If I went any faster, the frame of the machine would open up from the pressure and the drill would go skew.
2SM Performance: Wow.
jamie peacock: Yeah, so I figured out where the limit on that was, and then to bore it, I would put the boring head in, set it under size, bore it, mark it, adjust, adjust, adjust. Okay, it's now cutting the right size, let it run the 100 holes. Now on the LK, I push those drills through at like, I think it's about,
jamie peacock: Hang on, time for the calculator. My brain's not switched on yet. 2000 divided by, oh no, it's 16. Hang on. 1600 divided by 25 .4 at about 62 inches a minute.
jamie peacock: with a carbide drill. ah that That whole job used to take me three hours per part. It's now 36 minutes and the parts done. They're better quality and yeah, my neighbor was was here, we're chatting.
2SM Performance: Wow.
jamie peacock: And I'm like, no, we're now doing a three hour job in 30 minutes. Like how the hell did you manage that? Like, yeah, I spent $40 ,000 on a milling machine. That's how I did it.
2SM Performance: Turns out throwing money at it does help sometimes.
jamie peacock: Sometimes, yes. Like, I was actually, I was listening to the ah Pearson and Andrew podcast, Lean Built, I think.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: I wanna see what's actually, yeah.
2SM Performance: yeah
jamie peacock: I was listening to their podcast and Andrew was making fun of of Saunders for going down the rabbit hole of setting up a Raspberry Pi to show stats in the workshop.
jamie peacock: He's like, we just pay for that service. Paying for that service costs less than an afternoon of one of our guys messing around with the Raspberry Pi. And I'm like, fair enough.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: Like there is a ah point where bootstrapping is not the correct option.
2SM Performance: Absolutely.
jamie peacock: But yeah, it's a fine line between throwing money at a problem and and actually trying to solve it the old school way.
2SM Performance: Yeah, I think you struggle with that a little bit, Jamie.
jamie peacock: I do, I definitely do. Like I spent three days trying to set up a Raspberry Pi so that I could see my Trello board in my workshop.
2SM Performance: You
jamie peacock: Because if I have to walk into my office and open a Trello board, I'm not using it. If I have to take my phone out and look at the Trello board, I'm not using it.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
jamie peacock: So now I have a dedicated, it ended up just being a computer running Linux and it opens the Trello webpage. And that is how i I manage what I'm doing in the workshop. Because anything that's more effort than me just walking over and moving the mouse, it's too much effort, I'm not going to do it.
2SM Performance: Now you're a problem solver.
jamie peacock: Like I know, I know how I am. Well, yeah, I know how ah ah know how I operate. Like if it if the barrier to getting started is too high, I won't get started.
2SM Performance: Yeah, I suffer with that.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: I still do the work and I do the things I need to do, but I'm sure there's a lot of steps in my processes that I'm doing more than necessary.
jamie peacock: yeah
2SM Performance: And I'm not like taking the time to make the process better. So from then on, it'll make it easier. I just go through the motions and get it over with anyways.
jamie peacock: That's a joke. I've had a few.
2SM Performance: I'm guilty of that. I should really take the time to analyze that and be like, OK, right now I should take the time to make this process better so I can save time in the future.
2SM Performance: But I'm like, no, no, no, I'm just, you know.
jamie peacock: That's a joke. The most frustrating thing with that is when you eventually do make that change, you're going to swear at yourself because you should have done it a year ago.
2SM Performance: right
2SM Performance: Sooner.
jamie peacock: because now it's just easy, yeah.
2SM Performance: Yes, yes.
jamie peacock: yeah that's With me, that's what happens. I'll procrastinate doing something for months, and then I'll do it, I'm like, shit, I should have done this three months ago. Because now and forever, it's gonna be easy.
2SM Performance: Oh, yeah.
jamie peacock: Yeah, my tool libraries were a perfect example of that.
2SM Performance: Ooh, I'm guilty.
jamie peacock: know Yeah, like I spent half an hour the other day and I sorted out all my tool libraries. In my mind, it was this giant task, and in reality, it really wasn't.
2SM Performance: It really wasn't, and I have it in my head, it's like a big deal. Like, man, I gotta click on every tool and I need to change the RPM for this and that.
jamie peacock: Yeah.
2SM Performance: This is gonna take all day, even though,
jamie peacock: Actually, in that case, I would suggest you export and you run it through pre -tool because you can set your RPM limits in pre -tool. So you can say I've got a 10 ,000 RPM spindle and it'll regenerate all your tool libraries with feeds and speeds appropriate for your RPM.
2SM Performance: Oh, that's awesome.
jamie peacock: Yeah, seriously, have a look at pretool. It's it's really yeah yeah it's really powerful.
2SM Performance: I got to try this out.
jamie peacock: and I think we should end the podcast there because we're an hour and a half.
2SM Performance: Yeah.
2SM Performance: Okay.
jamie peacock: And then, yeah, next week we will we'll cover some interesting topics. So this this was just us covering our backstories to give the listeners a bit of insight into what what we do and where we're from.
jamie peacock: And then I think next week we yeah we'll see what topic we're going to dive into.
2SM Performance: Yeah, sounds good.
jamie peacock: And yeah, I think from next from next week, we're going to be a bit more structured. We've got some talking points that we're going to try and follow. But yeah, everyone that's listened, thank you very much for listening. And yeah, hopefully yeah hopeful you'll hear from us in the next week or so.
2SM Performance: Yeah, enjoy making chips.
jamie peacock: sweet Yeah, let's go to make some noise.
