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#231 How To Be Eternally Optimistic
167 Plays4 years ago
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Transcript
Introduction and Business Approaches
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 231. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo.
Finding Inspiration and Positivity in Business
00:00:08
Speaker
And John and I talk each week candidly about what we're looking to externally for inspiration and sources of kind of how we want to run our companies and make manufacturing decisions, but then also trying to be introspective about the things we think we're doing well and maybe what we need to be focused on or do better.
00:00:29
Speaker
It's one of those things, when things are good, it's easy to be happy and positive and like, wow, things are good. And when things are bad, it's easy to just cloud your vision and not think straight. And I think these chats really help straighten that out.
00:00:45
Speaker
I feel a burden to be honest with you and I guess the audience, which we kind of sort of acknowledge that folks listen to this, but also positive because generally speaking, I love what I do and oh my God, when I can take a step back, I am so grateful I get to do this. But a couple, not this week or even last week, but sometime in the recent past on a podcast, I was pretty
00:01:10
Speaker
as close to being in a dark place as you can be without being in a dark place, just about like, you know, just I just think everybody faces as a business owner. It's heavy. Yeah. All right.
00:01:23
Speaker
And I don't look I'm not looking for sympathy. I just say it because of all the stuff you see these days with social media and other people. It's kind of like everything's great. We're crushing it. The world's great. I am amazing. And it's like, I love what I do. I'm pretty confident in a lot of the things that we've done and how where we've gotten but I ain't that guy. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you.
Balancing Optimism with Reality
00:01:44
Speaker
Every day I walk in with a swagger. You know what I mean? Exactly. No, because there's too much to do. Yeah, that too. But conversely, I never want to be the guy that's like, oh, the world is on fire and oh, this is so bad and Mr. Complainy pants. Yes. So because of that, I'd never open up about truths and things.
00:02:08
Speaker
But I don't think you're wrong. You are eternally optimistic. It reminds me of that Steve Jobs, almost a visionary to a fault. You don't really care about reality sometimes, and it's worked pretty well for you. I'll take that.
00:02:29
Speaker
It's why I really loved Ted Lasso. I brought it up last week. I haven't seen it yet. Dude, go watch one episode. They're like 30 minutes. It's because it kind of made me realize you can be an eternal optimist without portraying weakness. And you can actually intentionally detach yourself from reality. And sometimes it's just like, just quit thinking. Like an overthinking. Just go do. Yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Sometimes we are too smart for our own goods in that we stay stuck in our heads and we don't execute. Yeah, right. Yeah. I fall into that sometimes for sure. And then I realized that the times that I've just gotten up and done something, I feel way better. Yes. Or even if you don't feel better, you
00:03:20
Speaker
you purge the uncertainty and to reflect. Sometimes I'll just tell myself, hey, let's get back to work. And then we can think about this tonight or tomorrow. And there's a big difference between burying something and then just not letting it fester because it didn't deserve to. And there's also huge value in letting things percolate, letting things think and then stew in your head in a good way or a bad way.
Role Diversification and Famous Quotes
00:03:44
Speaker
I find huge value in that spending days or weeks crunching on a theory, a problem, a plan, a vision. Sometimes they just take time. I put my head down, I work, I keep my mouth shut, and I just think about those things. Then they come. I've tried to – I didn't even realize I was doing this.
00:04:07
Speaker
be more of a, I call it technician and a manager during the days I'm here at the shop. And then in the mornings and at night, be more of the entrepreneur thinking more interesting. It's a little bit more of a clear head. I have to be in a different mindset for it. And it's, it lets me also do what I love to do. I love being a technician. I don't love being a manager, but I'm agreed different enough to recognize
00:04:37
Speaker
This is what has to happen, and this is how we allocate resources or get stuff done. I don't have a problem with that at all. Yeah. Cool. No, it's nice to hear that you're blocking time generally for those things. You come in, you play in the morning, and you business in the afternoon. Well, no, it's more business at night, I would say. Or kids are in bed, and then you spend a few minutes. It just helps.
00:05:06
Speaker
And look, I'm not, this isn't, we're not professing this is the right way. It's just, I can't, what I know I can't do is I can't wear all three hats simultaneously or even bouncing around throughout the day. Yep. Yep. Totally. Because when I'm being a technician, when I'm on infusion or on the current or on anything else, I basically want people to leave me alone. And, uh, yet when I want to be the entrepreneur and I want to think and plan and see how everybody's doing and you know, uh,
00:05:35
Speaker
That's different time, different mindset. Speaking of mindset, I keep a folder with a couple of different things that I really like and have resonated over the years and gives me the chance to revisit it when I choose to. It's got things like that top 10 entrepreneurial thing that I mentioned before. Another quote from a great newsletter that talks about the companies that I look up to are companies that
00:06:01
Speaker
know deeply why they exist and what they do, that sort of thing. I found another one, and again, it actually came from Ted Lasso. I believe attributed to Walt Whitman, and it's a simple one, but God, I love it. Be curious, not judgmental. Yeah, I love that. Right? It's so easy to
00:06:24
Speaker
Well, I think I'll always be curious, but it's also easy to let you simply too much of a ladder and just, yeah, that's, yeah, I could, man, that's applicable to so many different topics and areas, even in people, you know, you could easily judge somebody, but if you can be curious why they're in a bad mood as opposed to judging why they're in a bad mood, um, huge, different perspective shift. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I like that. I'm going to have to think about that. Yeah.
00:06:51
Speaker
Watch an episode of Lasso. I will. I think I loved that Michael Jordan won. Did you ever watch that? Yeah, I've got like one episode left. I've been picking a way through it, and it is fantastic. I have zero interest in basketball, but the show itself is wonderful. Yeah. Which is, it's like advice is contextual, and look, different things click with different folks. I thought you were not into, what's it called, last dance?
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, the Michael Jordan one. Yeah. The Last Dance. You thought I was not into? I thought maybe it was like, you were like, Oh, I watched it, but it's just not not click with me. Not my style, which is like, back when last time we talked about it, I'd seen like half of the first episode or something. And I didn't get into it yet. You know, but now I'm almost at the end. And I'm like, Holy cow. Like I get it now. That's
00:07:41
Speaker
It's leadership. It's such a world that we are not a part of. At that top top level, Michael Jordan can't go anywhere without being accosted by fans. That's miserable. It's crazy. The kind of guy who would still practice more and harder and push himself. I love, I got a lot of respect for that. Absolutely.
00:08:06
Speaker
Hey on that note, I want to ask are you or reading or have you read any good books lately anything you'd recommend?
00:08:13
Speaker
Tons.
Reading Habits and Book Recommendations
00:08:16
Speaker
Just started picking up Atomic Habits. I'm like two days into that. That was excellent. It is so far excellent. Yeah, my wife read it and I've heard about it from a lot of different people. Even you were mentioning it a while ago. What else did I read before that? Speaking of Michael Jordan, his personal trainer Tim Grover has two excellent, excellent books. One is called Relentless and the other one is called Winning that just came out.
00:08:43
Speaker
read both of those. It talks a lot about Michael Jordan and Kobe and all the other greats, but mindset, leadership, winning in so many aspects of life. I view winning differently now. Winning is merging onto the highway perfectly. Micro wins, including the big ones too. It was good.
00:09:13
Speaker
Yeah. That's another lasso thing is like winning does not necessarily mean the same thing as success. Yeah. Okay. Did you pick up good to great again? I haven't touched it in the year two or three. It was still on the book pile. I was like, ah, maybe I'll, I've remember liking that one, but gosh, it's been years. Yeah. Okay.
00:09:39
Speaker
I listened to a podcast with the author, Jim Collins. It was a Tim Ferriss podcast when I was driving all around Germany and Switzerland. I remember that was one of the podcasts I put on because it was like three hours long. Yeah, that was really good.
00:09:54
Speaker
But Tim Grover one sounds interesting because nothing wrong with good business books, but sometimes it's nicer to read stuff that's applicable but not about business. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Because there's business theory that's dry and applicable and interesting. But yeah, the Grover book, you're going to pause a couple of times. You're going to go, holy crap. Yeah. Yes, this is speaking to my soul. Interesting. Yeah, it's really good.
00:10:21
Speaker
Which one would I, relentless or a winner? Relentless, read them sequentially. Okay. Yeah, relentless is like eight years old. Totally doesn't matter, but yeah, they're both so good. Okay, thank you. That was exactly what I was looking for. There you go. One book. Yeah, I've been doing 10 pages every night, no matter what, for almost three years. Is that right? Yeah. It doesn't follow you to break it up.
00:10:49
Speaker
Don't tell me your secret. Edit that out. It does bother you, huh? In what sense? Like stopping?
00:10:59
Speaker
Well, I mean, to take it to extreme, if you read one sentence every day, it wouldn't work, right? Because you don't have enough, like, into it. Enough in, yeah. No, I find it perfect. Okay. I have a, I have a, came up with a two bookmark system, current place and 10 pages ahead, like an ending spot. So I've got a little arrow on my second little bookmark. It's just a strip of paper, construction paper with an arrow. Yeah.
00:11:26
Speaker
So, I count ahead 10 pages and I find a paragraph, end of chapter, whatever and I stick the arrow right there and I just read to that. If it's really good, I'll keep going but nine times out of 10, I'll be good there. I'll be like, I'm coming back tomorrow. I don't have to finish the story that he's talking about because I'll be back.
00:11:49
Speaker
100% the power of small things in repeated doses, John. That's awesome. Yeah, it's incredible. I do it every night in the evening, usually around the same time. Usually I can do it at a time when I'm not falling asleep already. Although sometimes it's hard. Some books are drier than others. Some books have smaller print than others, so the 10 pages takes twice as long.
00:12:13
Speaker
It's a very noticeable thing. It's funny. A better word. I've read dozens of books in the past few years. You just plow through them. In a month or so, you've gotten through 300 pages. Yeah, that's phenomenal. Good for you.
ERP Systems and Inventory Management
00:12:37
Speaker
Say, Gwayne, I know I've brought up Lex countless times over the past year and we had a kind of huddle last Friday during our shop lunch and then continuing through today. There was a subtle transition to where Lex as its own independent system now knows more than any of us individually.
00:13:00
Speaker
That is the goal. Hashtag Skynet. No, it's phenomenal. I mean, it's scary, but it's exactly what it needs to be in a way I never envisioned from the exact beginning. I mean, it was a deliberate, very deliberate decision to pursue this and it really validates how ERP and technology just helps you grow and scale.
00:13:22
Speaker
It was just so interesting as Julie, Ed, Alex, me, Grant, the shipping folks who are some of whom are interns were just weighing in and involved and you're leveraging the info and the data from that to be where you are. And you realize the only commonality across all that is information that's only in Lex. And I was even wrong. I was making decisions about
00:13:47
Speaker
So we sell these DeWalt chop saw fixture plates. It's like the one product that we still have that's not truly focused, but I don't want to stop it. That's what you always say. Anyway, we ordered the plates in larger quantities than we do the accessories, like the channel and stuff. And I said we didn't need to have as much channel and inventory because we could get that made every quarter. We won't even make a year's worth at one time.
00:14:12
Speaker
Well, I was wrong on my sales numbers. I thought just was just you using intuition what you think of sales and you know classic example of how critical real data is to make the right decisions. That's so cool. Yeah. But man, that's I mean, that's why you build an ERP system is to have it be smarter than everybody. Yeah, it's just it's a knowledge bank. Well, so we also are
00:14:41
Speaker
sort of tweaking a workflow that touches a lot of faces of the business which is
00:14:47
Speaker
We want our website to say we have stuff in stock and ready to ship. I think it's important for modern day e-commerce. And we also want that, of course, to be true. But there are a bunch of these hobby or import size machines that either that a lot of them have the same table size. And so we want to be able to offer products that are specific to that name and brand and have the right photo. Because if you're looking for a grizzly plate, you don't want to see a seed machine or whatever. But they're ultimately all the same product.
00:15:17
Speaker
And we were thinking we needed individual barcodes for each one of those products, even though they're identical products, because it was the way to ensure you didn't need to have intelligence in the form of somebody who's intimately familiar with a product line, who realizes that they're the two the same. It gets complicated about how you have skews that handle multiple things and so forth. So we were saying, well, it's not a big deal. We'll just have
00:15:42
Speaker
duplicates, unique barcodes will have extra inventory because we'll effectively have one of every one. No big deal. Well, that created a unintended consequence of when we did a Lex issue to work order to make a bunch of plates that we don't really need. I mean, we don't sell that many of them. And it wasn't, it was like, why do we all of a sudden need to make a bunch of these? Now that's a short term problem because if you make them, you're good for a long time, but ultimately it forced us to realize we are better off.
00:16:13
Speaker
treating that as a different process than the plates that we do turn over quickly. To the tune of, we may even say, I think what we're gonna do is have a physical inventory pile
00:16:24
Speaker
with a Kanban card. So if you hit the reorder Kanban card, that's an abnormal way, but a manual way of forcing the reorder. And then we might also as a backup pallet strap or band together like 10 more, five more as like an absolute, you cannot cut this open without double checking that we've reissued it. And then we'll actually just
00:16:45
Speaker
effectively lie on the website. We'll say it's always in stock, even though there isn't actual real-time inventory data. But with the thought that, number one, we should never run out of inventory, and number two, we have our just-in-time capabilities down to where we shouldn't be an issue. That make sense? I think so. If the Sieg and the Grizzly use the exact same plate, and you have two on the shelf, you would say,
00:17:09
Speaker
to inventory for both items. We'd say infinite inventory. There is no quantities anymore. Yeah. And as long as you have your backup stash, your breadcrumbs, your last chance pile, then you'll be fine. Right.
00:17:25
Speaker
I just want to avoid headaches where all of a sudden a relatively low dollar value, low margin plate is out of stock and creating a situation where we've misrepresented and we have inventory, but I don't think we will. Yeah. If they are the same, you don't need to keep individual inventory of each one. You made five plates and you don't need to put two on the grizzly shelf and three on the seag shelf.
00:17:52
Speaker
Yeah. The other thing I took a step back, taking off the technician and manager hat and putting on the sort of seeing the forest at the higher level, it occurred to me, let's say you had 50 or 100 of these types of plates, like low quantity, some may be shared, some may not. Well, for us to manufacture and store high quantities of low volume product, that in and of itself,
00:18:21
Speaker
is not without hazard. You've got to check the condition of the inventory over time. You've got to make sure you don't grab the wrong one. You've got to have it somehow findable and searchable. What if you do have a rev change down the road or something? Yeah, for sure. It's not like that's actually a great solution. Yep. Yeah, that's a classic lean overproduction.
00:18:41
Speaker
Yeah, right? It's easy to think, oh, let's just make a year's worth, or two years' worth, and then we'll keep them on the shelf. And we balance that here too. We try to sometimes, and we try not to other times. And we've been bitten, and it's worked for us. There's no perfect solution. What's the part that causes you the most stress? Right now, it's Norseman blade. The blade itself, because of the- Who are you actually asking?
00:19:10
Speaker
Well, I don't know. Is it one of the things where it's like, oh, man, when I've got to make pivot screws or bearing keys, it's just like, ugh, that's the one that's just, man, it's a bear. Everything's getting pretty, aside from weird anomalies that should be fixed, some of the parts are complicated to set up on the Swiss, like one of the pen parts that holds the three ball bearings and it's going to be dialed in pretty annoyingly. But once it runs, it just runs.
00:19:41
Speaker
But everything else is pretty solid. We've got setup instructions for every part in GURP. Oh, awesome. So when Pierre is setting up the Swiss, he's like, I don't need to remember how to do this because it's in GURP. And there's too many products and too many different setups and too many different collets to actually pretend like you're going to remember it all. Yes.
00:20:01
Speaker
So yeah, I guess we're getting there too. GURP is becoming smarter than our memories. I mean, that's what computers are for. It's to remember stuff so you don't have to. We can use our brains for thinking and critical tasks and adding value, not just remembering which call it size you're supposed to use. Did I mention the post office pickup thing last week? I don't think so. You mentioned the post office generally.
00:20:26
Speaker
We every year have to schedule a year's worth of pickups. It's like a form, something you do on the website basically tells them we want you to come pick it up explicitly. And we honestly forgot to do it because in the post office person was like, Hey, you got to do this form. I'm like, Oh, that's right. So this year I went and I added it as a Lex maintenance task for a year from now. I included the credentials, the link, and then I did a screencast video with a quick walkthrough because it's quirky about how you do a couple of things about
00:20:56
Speaker
You're supposed to technically tell them how many packages you're picking up, but of course that changes and they don't seem to really care as long as it's in the ballpark. That is now done. There's a process. Yes, yes. Every year we have to do that for hazardous waste pickup. We have to register. It's a little quirky process, cost $54 from our debit account.
00:21:15
Speaker
It's not hard, but it's annoying. And up until this February, um, I was the only one that did it, but Fraser saw it come up on my email and he's like, can I handle that? And I'm like, yes, instructions are in GURP go. Awesome. And he like 10 minutes later, I get a text it's done. And I was like, yes, I put the instructions in there for me because I don't, I forget. And he could follow that. And it was like, holy cow, it's working. But that is like a build an org chart out. Even if you're the role.
00:21:43
Speaker
in the orchard because then later it's just a substitution. It's already there. Yeah, nice job. So that's cool. I'm going to finish up on GURP here. So we found our programmer. Yeah.
00:21:59
Speaker
So after we fired my dad's guy a while ago, a couple months ago, we've been looking, looking, looking and I found a girl on Upwork who has been fantastic.
Hiring and Implementing New Technology
00:22:09
Speaker
Awesome. And I had her do a small project, a Google spreadsheet project for a current tool life management. Okay. And I was like 150 bucks, you know, who wants it? And she replied back with this amazing, like,
00:22:23
Speaker
full sentences, clever concepts, and we've been working together for a couple months on it, and she's awesome. So I'm like, do you want more work? And she's like, yes. I'm like, OK, we have a lot more work for you. So as of yesterday, she started working on GURP and diving into the website backend and the .NET and C+, Sharp, all that stuff. And she's getting her feet wet, and she
00:22:48
Speaker
it's gonna be good. So we're gonna start seeing actual traction here almost every couple days. Great. Yep.
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah, John, it's what I realized earlier this year I want, which is when next time you come to our shop or that we have a visitor, it's just like, hey, I'm going to walk you through how Saunders Machine Works does what it does from the view of this orchestra. That's exactly what they say in the E-Myth. It's like you could hand somebody the operating manual. This is our business. This is how our business works. And let me walk you through it.
00:23:24
Speaker
and to naturally set up your business in a way that that conversation would blow anybody's mind. But that's the natural way your business works now, after a lot of thinking and effort and work and stuff. Yeah.
00:23:39
Speaker
I've been talking to Ryan Wenner at Seneca on and off about Odoo and I think, I don't know where exactly he is. I think he's pretty close to, he's well along the way of implementation, I should say that. But my thought and hope is that he'll be willing to do like a shop tour of his shop and then focus around like, hey, what's an ERP done? Because I don't think if you don't know enough of what you're doing or you don't have
00:24:04
Speaker
Specific like we built we plan on buying an ERP system We only built Lex as a proof of concept to know what we liked and didn't like and then it ended up working great I don't necessarily think everybody should reinvent the wheel there. Yeah, right as you know how much work it's taken and thinking and planning a lot of people just need a plug-and-play because they have Work work to do right? Yeah, and I respect that
00:24:27
Speaker
Um, so I want to try to offer some more resources and opinions around real implementation of ERPs in a manufacturing space. Um, and I do seems like the great fit because it has some potential low cost advantages compared to like SAP business one where you're hiring, you know, an implementation person is like, wait, I'm one man in a shop. I want systems and processes, but it's just me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.
00:24:56
Speaker
Okay. So we're 25 minutes in and you haven't mentioned it. So I got a new toy yesterday. Uh, the, the Willyman came in. It's beautiful. I posted a bunch of it on Instagram. Um, it's the first time I'd ever seen one in person.
00:25:12
Speaker
Oh my God. Are you serious? I realized that yesterday. And I was like, I've never actually touched one or looked inside. I've just seen videos. And there's not a ton of videos online because they're not like massively popular, you know, Haas machines, brother's speedos that are everywhere. But I'm, I'm thrilled so far. It's, it's, it looks really cool. It's, it's grungy, but it's very fine serviceable. It's a really cool machine.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yeah. It's like a five-axis lathe with a true milling head, 30,000 RPM, HSK spindle. It came with a turning tool holder and a slitting saw holder and jaws in the vise party there. I don't know how many tool holders it has, but I stopped counting at 36.
00:26:05
Speaker
Oh, pockets in the umbrella thing. Maybe it's got 36 or 40 or 48 or something. I'm not sure. Oh, totally, totally random. It's one of those, the more you know. There are apps now where you can just take pictures of something and it tells you how many are in it.
00:26:31
Speaker
Really? Yeah, stuff like that. Same thing, you can do it and it'll tell you how big something is or you just take a picture of your tool changer and it'll be like, there's 40 of those circles. Yeah. I never knew about that. That would be helpful for like, I don't know, you drop a thousand marbles on the ground and just see if it counts at all. Screws coming off the Swiss. That would be cool.
00:26:54
Speaker
Okay, so it's delivered, installed, leveled, powered up? No, it's not leveled or powered yet. We're doing the install ourselves, which is, it'll be interesting. We've done it sort of before on all the machines. Like after we moved, we reinstalled all the machines here, we leveled them, we got them wired up. And the Willamette being a weird machine, like new to us, new version of fan of control,
00:27:21
Speaker
new axes and movements and letters that we don't know about and buttons on the control that I don't know what they do. But I've got a bunch of contacts at Wilhelmin already and they told me, you'll have no problem getting it. They actually told me it doesn't have to be level. They only care about level for oil draining. You mean earth level or like tram though? Earth level. Well, sure. Well, any machines really like that though. I guess. And it has to be lined up to the bar loader for sure.
00:27:51
Speaker
That's probably super important, right? Yeah, which is interesting to do. When we did the Swiss, we installed a laser pointer in the chuck and pointed it backwards. That's genius. And then you can see it at the back of the bar loader. And because the laser pointers are made really crap and cheapy, they're not concentric to the OD. But if you spin the chuck, you can sort of see the laser beam go around in a circle and get your your concentricity.
00:28:19
Speaker
We're going to figure out a collet system to do that on this machine. If you do that more than once a year, go buy the Boresight rifle version once. Yeah, I think I saw those ones. Probably 20 bucks or 30 bucks. That's awesome. Yep. Any issues mounting the Barfira? I mean, right now it's just placed on the ground.
00:28:43
Speaker
We're going to have to bolt it to the ground so we got to drill through and level it and raise it up like I think they said six inches, but there's a crank to raise it or not a crank, but a screw lifter thing. Yeah. But yeah, it's got to come up about six inches to align with the Wilhelmin and the Wilhelmin is only like 5,000 pounds. So if we have to jiggle it a couple inches this way or that way, we could probably just pallet jacket. Right.
00:29:12
Speaker
And from what I saw briefly, it looks like a welded steel construction. Oh, interesting. Like not cast iron or anything. So I'll have to look closer, but yeah. I would love to hear a machine tool engineer, design build guy talk about or girl talk about
Machine Construction and Installation Needs
00:29:31
Speaker
what goes into whether you go for full casting, whether you do a weldment or the mineral granite type stuff. Boring Co, when they were doing new builds, appeared to be using weldments. I'm going to guess that's because they aren't doing enough volume to justify casting.
00:29:54
Speaker
urban myth that it is better, quote unquote dampening, but I don't know that that's, I don't know how true that is relative to, is it per pound and the steel, you got to spend a few more dollars for more weight. I don't know the real details of that.
00:30:08
Speaker
Yeah, unless you really get into the science of it, the physics of material properties and things. I can imagine a steel weldment being more susceptible to vibration than just ringing as opposed to cast iron being more dead where it absorbs. Yeah. Polymer concrete being similar, I guess. Right. And then a weldment can move. Even cast iron can move. But apparently, polymer concrete doesn't? Doesn't, yeah. I don't know.
00:30:38
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of anecdotal evidence here that's like, I've heard these things and I kind of get it, but I'm just going to keep buying machines and not think about it. Be curious. Yeah, yeah. Oh, for sure. This morning, I put out an Upwork request for an engineer to help us spec out the floor requirements to a solid jib crane.
00:31:02
Speaker
because our florid hairs are only about five inches thick. They tend to be pretty good, but we'll need something beefier to properly do a jib crane. And I was watching a YouTube video, I think it's called Professional Engineer, really cool guy, talking about like the basics of concrete. And it's cool how concrete is really good under compression. It's like when you step on it, it's strong. When you pull it apart, it's super weak. And then when you put,
00:31:27
Speaker
not twist sheer on it. It's not very good. So that's why we use rebar rebar helps with that, but rebar still will allow cracking because rebar, unless it's pre-tension to rebar, basically the concrete will start to slightly crack before the rebar kind of comes into effect and stops it from further cracking. And you don't always want cracks because they look bad or they are in level or worse as they can allow.
00:31:50
Speaker
Uh, liquid through cracks to hit the rebar cause rust, rust causes more, more expansion, which can cause more cracking. And then he showed, it seems like it's a relatively new thing where they can pour in.
00:32:04
Speaker
addition to proper rebar, they can pour in flakes of glass or metal just all over the place. Think of it like one-inch long toothpicks. That acts as a medium rebar that helps minimize the minor cracking that would then lead to
00:32:25
Speaker
the rebar coming into play, which ties directly into this idea of the structural engineering behind a mineral granite or with steel. Do you have trusses or gussets that help soak up harmonic vibrations and the dampening? I'm pretty excited to hopefully have a good experience on Upwork figuring out what do we need to do? Are we going to rent a concrete mixer? Are we going to have a contractor come in? How big does it have to be? Do we
00:32:53
Speaker
put studs in the ground when we pour it or do you pour it, let it cure and then drill it? All that stuff. So you're looking for an engineer who's familiar with concrete theory or at least can do his own research and answer your questions? Just a basic structural engineer. I think any structural engineer would be able to give us a spec. It doesn't need to be anybody who has unique experience with concrete. That's funny because in my default brain, I only think about upwork for programmers.
00:33:24
Speaker
Oh, but that's just because that's all I've ever used it for. I've never used it for a designer. I've never used it for an engineer or a CAD designer or anything. I should though, jeez. Yeah. The way I usually do it is I'll create the job and then it up work recommends a bunch of people. I mean, the rates were as low as like 25 an hour up to 140 an hour. I invited like eight people to the project just to see if anybody sort of
00:33:53
Speaker
You know, somebody has probably done this before and it's like, okay, they can probably make a good penny repurposing their existing work, which is why, um, actually I'd like to, if I can, I'd like to pour the concrete with the female sleeves in the port concrete that I don't have to drill it. And if we take the jib crane out temporarily or permanently, we're not left with studs that we've got flush cut off. So cool.
00:34:22
Speaker
Okay, so back to the Wilhelmin. What's next? Clean it. Get it positioned in the right place, get the bar loader lined up, eventually drill and mount the bar loader. So it needs a spindle chiller. And at the factory where it came from, they have a sea of Wilhelmin's. It's kind of crazy. I guarantee they replace this with a brand new one.
00:34:51
Speaker
They had central cooling in their shop, so they had plumbed up the central cooling. Interesting. They told me in the sale it does not come with a spindle chiller, yet in the pictures there's a spindle chiller on top of the machine not plugged in.
00:35:03
Speaker
Okay. So I'm like, does it come with that? And they didn't answer that properly. So I've just for three months now, just been kind of like, well, let's see if it comes. Otherwise I got to buy one and it's 12 grand to get a floor mounted new one. Um, and it came with it and I was looking at it last night. It is brand new.
00:35:21
Speaker
dirty on top, clean on the inside, never been plugged in. The wiring pigtail is unterminated. It's brand new. I'm going to have to talk to the Willman guys being like, can we make this work? Because it's right here. It hasn't run in 17 years, but I don't know if that's a bad thing or not.
00:35:45
Speaker
I got to figure that out. What is a spindle tiller? It's an air conditioner. Exactly. It puts the liquid through it and then it radiates it through a condenser or something. Yeah. Yeah. Sweet.
00:35:58
Speaker
Yeah, so it came with two pallets of coolant, pan, chip pan, mist collector that goes on top, some stuff like that. We just have to go through it all. Yeah. Pierre is going to go through and clean the machine really good. We're switching it from oil to coolant. So that's going to be a nice clean out. I got one of those next gen cooling coalescers for it because to get that last bit of oil out.
00:36:23
Speaker
And yeah, have some conversations with the Wilhelmin service staff and be like, what am I supposed to be doing here? Yeah, electricians coming by today to start to figure out what he's got to do. Got to get a transformer for it. And just picking away. I'm not in a rush to do it. But now that it's here, I'm getting excited.
00:36:45
Speaker
So number one, I had a dream about your Wilhelmin last night. I don't remember. I had a dream about this podcast actually.
00:36:56
Speaker
You are in such an awesome place because it's exactly that.
Exploring Willemin Machines
00:37:00
Speaker
You bought this machine for 10% or whatever of new. I mean, of course you want it to work out. You're not in the business of burning money, but there's not really stress or high stakes. It will work. You will get it work. You've got CJ, the willing people. You'll figure it out. It's just like, oh my God. Frankly, because we've been flirting with this Swiss idea and I'm like, oh, well, man, it's so
00:37:23
Speaker
and more interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I used to, and then it's 80 grand and they're out there. Yeah.
00:37:32
Speaker
I'm not against it. Yeah. Well, let me play and we'll talk. Yeah. But they're great machines and they're like the hidden workhorse of the medical and aerospace industry and watches and things like that. So they are out there and it's crazy when you see a shop like where this came from. I found their YouTube channel and they have a couple of promotional videos of this shop. They've got like 50 Willemites. Yeah. It's insane and they bought them all new. Yeah.
00:38:00
Speaker
Like they're making good money and running them hard and stuff. But point is they get cycled out for new machines. And now that I'm aware of the used Wilhelmin market, I see them pop up every now and then, you know?
00:38:17
Speaker
That's potentially a great, I was talking to a Cleveland Swiss shop and same thing, they have their citizen shop and they are just like, yeah, we have a hard, we want the latest and the greatest and just have a recycling program and they build that into their numbers and I would have no hesitation buying a machine from them. Yes, it's been run a lot, but they're selling it for the right reasons.
00:38:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's a weird balance. I've always, for the most part, bought new machines, and I like that for some things. But for what we need the Wilhelmin for, I'm not spending $800,000 on it. Oh my god. It's just not worth it for what I need. But to spend 10% of that, it becomes worth it. Where's the work coordinate system? I have no idea. Spindle face. Like Chuck probably took face. Yeah. Think of it like a lathe.
00:39:11
Speaker
And then there's the vice. So I don't know if it's a G 54 55 thing. Um, that's a CJ question. Yeah. But CJ sent over his post and his, um, cam template file with the Chuck and, and the spindle and the vice and everything. So I haven't even opened it yet, but now, now that it's here, um, I will dig into that. You should actually explain the basics of the Chuck and then how it moves into the vice for folks who don't know.
00:39:39
Speaker
Think of a lathe, except it has a milling head on top to do all of your turning and your milling. The milling head is vertical like a vertical milling machine, but it can tilt down 90 degrees.
00:39:53
Speaker
and mill on the end of the part, like axially. So it runs from bar stock entirely. So it's got a chuck just like a lathe. And then the material comes out and you turn it or mill it however you need. And then it's got this vise that swings up 90 degrees and grabs onto your part. And then you can do your finished milling and cut it off. And then the vise swings down to 90 degrees. And then you can finish milling the cut off part.
00:40:20
Speaker
Then the vice opens up and there's a little shoot there that the part just slides down to the basket on the outside. It seems so simple and obvious, but it's the only machine I've seen that's pretty much like this. It's got limited uses, but as CJ has found out, he's like, I'm making some crazy stuff on here, like some thin flat parts out of a round bar.
00:40:46
Speaker
What solved some of the things I wasn't excited about on a Swiss, where we never actually needed the guide bushing, moving Z nature. We're not doing these long medical pins that are 30 times D and all that. I want the automation. I want the hybrid.
00:41:06
Speaker
hybrid turning, nailing out the thermal nature and the kinematic size and design, all else equal, Willemin is way more than a Swiss. It's not like it's a free lunch except- It's different. Yeah. I wouldn't make our screws on this machine because they're so much faster on the Swiss. Right. Because you have all your gang tools right there. You're like turn thread, part off within the time that the Willemin does the tool change. Yeah.
00:41:36
Speaker
But you're going to get a 30,000 RPM proper milling spindle, whereas even on a switch, your driven tooling is kind of second nature. Yeah, they're like 6,000, 10,000 RPM for most of the geared things. And the quality of those live tools is not amazing. Like the bearings are tiny and close together. And this is a bit of vibration you can see in the finish of the part. So
00:41:58
Speaker
I'm excited to see what the Willimon can do with a proper spindle. Like we spun the spindle, it feels amazing. It's got a brand new spindle that's like six months old. Oh, interesting. $30,000 replacement that they put into it and then sold the machine. So almost half of what I paid for the machine is in that brand new spindle. Was it like a bad hard crash thing?
00:42:22
Speaker
Uh, no, it's just, I talked to the service guy specifically about that case and they said it just needed to be replaced. Just old. It was 17 years old. Okay. It was the original spindle. Yep. Yep. That's great. So like this new one that's six months old. I'm like, okay, I got 16 more years on this thing. Yeah, that's great. 16 years, 20, 37. Nice. Yeah. Awesome. What do you see today? Today, um, current still running. That's amazing.
00:42:53
Speaker
Um, probably gonna fiddle with the, with the Wilhelmin for a little while. Awesome. Yeah. I cannot wait to hear about it. Yeah. Good. You? What are you up to?
00:43:04
Speaker
I am sitting down on some marketing stuff. We quietly released our new Shape-O-Go plate design yesterday, two days ago, which has been great. We have a new design. It fits with the Shape-O-Go 4 and the Shape-O-Go Pro. We'll probably be more of a hard push, but we're trying to build some marketing assets around that. We have a guide to
00:43:25
Speaker
tips and tricks on getting used, using the Shapebook of period. Obviously, we want to talk about how our products can help you there, but continuing that theme of, look, we're here to help everybody. We'd love to bring you in our ecosystem if we can help you with ProvenCust fees and fees, if we can help you with fixturing, but we're here because we love it.
00:43:43
Speaker
I'm working on that and we just had a freight delivery. I got to inspect that and I finished. I've been talking about it for a long time. I basically finished cleaning out my office. I had stuff I was still just dragging my feet on and be the area 419, be the sweetwater of you're here for a reason. I've got some stuff up on eBay and Facebook to just finish that purge.
Marketing Strategies and Product Design Release
00:44:08
Speaker
Nice. You said a while ago you hired a marketing director? Yeah. How's that working out?
00:44:13
Speaker
Good, he's been here for about three months, so spent a lot of time kind of learning our industry, and we've done a lot with tweaking our website, Facebook ads, some retargeting ads, digital assets like we've got. Almost done, guides, like, fixturing guides for Tormach, Haas, and Shape.go. It's like PDFs that talk about different methods and things, and again, not just our products.
00:44:43
Speaker
And what we want to do, like we just did on this Fixturing Recap series, is the Recap series is 10 videos about different Fixturing techniques where we put together a PDF that you can use as an offline resource to just flip through when you're thinking, hey, how do I fixture that? Or what are the different ways? And we had a really good
00:45:02
Speaker
a really good engagement of folks who exchange their email address to get a copy of that PDF. That's something we'll be able to use either to send some information on our products, but I'm also thinking about curating a thing like, hey, over the next six months, once a month, we're going to be sending in an email.
00:45:20
Speaker
recapping a shop tour we did in the past. And here are some takeaways from it about the goods. Because, hey, we did SNH machine. They added an Apple-based FileMaker Pro ERP system. And here are the takeaways. That's kind of cool to look at. So if you're a manufacturing entrepreneur, you may want that. Or if you're a Haas owner, we're going to say, hey, here's some videos we've done about things you can do to make better parts on your Haas. So that's the kind of stuff we're working on.
00:45:46
Speaker
Yeah, something I realized yesterday is how much experience and minor tips and tricks we've picked up over time that it's hard to even think about to share. You know what I mean? But they'll be super valuable. But I was trying to wrap my head around how do I even remember them all, or even some of them, as I'm trying to teach my guys some of the things like, wow, there's a lot of little details that we just know now intuitively. Things with speeds and feeds, or which tooling to select,
00:46:17
Speaker
you know, how to approach a tool path. Um, and you're like, yeah, because I've done it 400 times. So I know you got to lead in this way from this corner and it just works. And it was like, how do I know that? Oh, okay. Yeah. Not everybody knows that. Yep. Your 2d adaptive is failing because of the helical ramp diameter. Exactly. I haven't even looked at your file yet. Awesome. Cool, man. Cool. Hey, I'll see you next week. Sounds good. Have an awesome week.