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#310 CNC training classes
142 Plays1 year ago
Topics:
- Machining cast iron is dumb
- Grimsmo making hand-lapping plates
- Saunders giving a keynote speech on Okuma 2023 Technology Showcase Link: https://www.okuma.com/events/okuma-2023-technology-showcase
- CNC training classes
- Bambu 3d printer
- Willemin
- Lasers!
- Packaging!
- Inventory of products
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sleep Patterns
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode number 310. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. This is John and my weekly private conversation about what we're doing running our shop and that we've chosen to turn into a podcast for quite a few years now.
00:00:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's a therapy session. Yeah. How are you doing? I'm doing really good. Things are things are flowing. Things are flying. Good. Yeah, it's good. I spent the past couple of nights at the shop just timed to myself here, which has been really nice, actually, like staying too late. It's until 2 a.m. the one night, 1230 last night. I'm like,
00:00:36
Speaker
I need more sleep than this. You used to be fine on that though. I do. Yeah, sometimes. Five to six hours is usually pretty good for me and then the weekends I might sleep in, get seven or something. But if I get seven too much, I'm like zombie. I'm not good if I have too much sleep too often. Oh, that's interesting. It's weird.
00:01:01
Speaker
Yeah, I'm like groggy and I'm just less energetic, but if I get like five to six, I'm hopping. I remember reading something about sleep cycles and apparently we don't know that much about sleep, but there's something about doing it in three hour increments. I mean, I have to think this is
00:01:19
Speaker
Maybe this is bogus science or maybe it just depends on each person, but I feel like I've noticed that if I sleep for about six, I mean, I don't sleep for nine hours, but you know what I mean? Like sometimes if you wake up right exactly and maybe kind of off increment for you, it does stink.
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. And I haven't done a lot of sleep research, but there's obviously tons out there too, if you do want a deep dive, but I'm just going through my own personal experience, like kind of keeping an eye on how much sleep I got when I got to sleep and just how I feel the next day. And my life is relatively consistent. Otherwise. So when I have a variable like that,
Challenges of Machining Cast Iron
00:01:53
Speaker
I can, I can apply it and I can be like, yeah, when I get too much sleep, I actually feel worse. Sometimes you need it, but
00:02:00
Speaker
And you're, you're less of a rigid routine guy, right? Like your old sampling one night, you'll go into work. Like you just kind of. Yeah. I, I like routine, but I struggle to stick with it. Um, but yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. What do you have to do this week? Um, bop, bop, bop.
00:02:28
Speaker
Same style, I don't know, router, speedio stuff, current stuff. Making those cast iron lapping plates has been sort of my side obsession. So there's all my normal work responsibilities. And I'm like, this is a project I got to sink my teeth into. Cutting cast iron is dumb. Gross. The machine starts rusting the next morning.
00:02:54
Speaker
Really? Like the cast iron chips themselves will start to rust on your table, and then that rust will apply to your table. So it's not the table that's rusting, it's the chips. And I'm not sure what the bricks of the cooling is right now, probably seven to eight or something like that. Maybe we should just crank it up to 12 or something.
00:03:11
Speaker
It might help. Um, but yeah, let it dry. You can, but all that dust is still going to go everywhere. Yeah. Like I'm filtering the dust anyway from the coolant with the paper band filter on the speed deal that I built. Um, and that's working real good, but still the chips that don't get flushed away. And I'm like, hosing the machine off every night. Um, it's been two nights now. And, uh,
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah, so basically, I'm running this cast iron this week, and then we'll do a full cleanup, full coolant swap, and just start fresh. Maybe do
Machining Techniques and Investments
00:03:48
Speaker
a wash down with that coolant cleaning stuff you flew through the machine. And even the cast iron dust is sticking to the table and the walls and stuff, so that kind of has to be scrubbed off. It's not just going to wash off. No, it's disgusting. It's weird. Why do people machine this stuff?
00:04:09
Speaker
Oh, that metal quest guys that I met in Nebraska, they do a ton of castings and forgings. So I mean, I mean, for sure they do other materials in cast iron, but they are a production cast iron machine shop. And I mean, I guess if you're when, when it's that approach, you just learn to deal with it for sure, which is actually probably better, but cutting it intermittently for the birds, man.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Well, like Orange Vice, they're all cast door bar, I guess. And Pearson makes cast iron stuff and they just, they learn to deal with it. They are okay with it once you have, say, a machine that's dedicated for it and you just kind of mentally, like, you know, get used to it. But yeah, for the birds, like you said, if you can avoid it, avoid it.
00:04:55
Speaker
When we had to drill and tap our cast iron tombstones, I got into a pretty good routine of I did a carbide spot drill because I then used a regular old high speed steel end mill. Then they had an option stop and I actually- You have a high speed steel end mill? Drill, drill. Okay. Sorry, did I say end mill? You did say end mill. I'm like, hold on, stop.
00:05:19
Speaker
I actually still have this little gray plastic bin box from the Manhattan apartment that has some old $2 Enco high-speed sealed Chinese end mills. It's not the block of wood. Yeah. I had one of those. Yeah, right. Six cheap end mills. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. Now, these were the MHC brand. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. Going back here. I should pull one of those. That would be funny.
00:05:48
Speaker
And then we program an option stop and then I actually put in cutting like old-school tapping fluid like from a can in each of the drilled holes. And then they get tapped with no coolant on, just the oil that I put in there. And then we do run an interpolated chamfer. And then all those chips are pretty easy to use one of those portable DeWalt 20 volt vacuums, which I love. We actually got some of those. They're amazing. Right, John? Oh my gosh. Yeah.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's just easier to dump them easier to get them where you need them cordless tools are I feel like I'm a little bit of a boomer here but like, I don't know we didn't grow up with them like they were they stunk and now they're just amazing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so we don't have to do any cool mixing and then it's what's disgusting though is even when you wipe the tombstone down every time you get a paper towel it still has residue like you can't get the residue. Yeah.
00:06:42
Speaker
Drilling and tapping a few holes. It doesn't make a lot of chips and you just run it dry and you clean up and it's a big deal. I'm machining quite a bit of these six inch discs. They come 6.25, so I'm taking them down to six. They come to six. I'm taking them thinner. I don't have to. I could just barely skim them, but still. If I'm in for a penny, I'm in for a pound.
00:07:03
Speaker
And I'm making quite a few of them, a dozen or so, just to have a set of plates in each grit. Yeah. Because I'm like, I'm looking at it as an investment in my future. Like, I'm going to have these plates forever. You know what I mean? I want to make them once and never have to make them again. You got to date them, but they engrave the date. I did. Yeah, I did. Cool. I think I did February 2023 or at least 2023. Yeah.
00:07:30
Speaker
And yeah, I put a story up on Instagram last night asking about paint fill for engravings. Um, I haven't seen the responses yet, but I know I got a bunch of DMS. Um, so I'm really curious if anybody has like a really solid suggestion for the, for that. We've done the hobby lobby epoxy. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I thought it was a two part might really, I don't know what those were like the little testers paint things that model makers use.
00:08:00
Speaker
No, that's just paint. This is a two-part thing that you can mix to turn it into the epoxy, but you can also mix in the dyes, and it turns rock hard. Okay. Yeah, it looks really good. We didn't have a craftwork sign. There's a video out on it. Cool. You're just doing it for aesthetics, right? Yeah, just for kicks. Yep.
00:08:25
Speaker
Once they come off this video, they will get surface ground on the Okamoto, which is going to screw the coolant on the Okamoto, which we need to switch out anyway. It's a good excuse for us to clean out that machine fully and then start lapping. Sweet. Are these for a new process or a new product?
00:08:46
Speaker
Not necessarily. For some of the tools we use in the shop, through heat treat, we have these water-cooled quench plates. So when the red hot blade comes out, it goes between these aluminum water-cooled plates. I want to see if I can lap those flat with one set of plates. It's tough because aluminum is so soft, and you actually want the lap to be softer than your cutting material. But there's a couple ways around that.
00:09:11
Speaker
So I want to make sure those are unconstrained flat, flat, flat. And then also after that, they go in the temper oven. And in the temper oven, we put them between these two A2 plates that are bolted together and squished them into a sandwich. So the plates are the bread and the blades are the ham inside. That is the theory being if those plates are super flat and you're constraining them in the temper oven at 400 degrees when all the molecules get all loosey-goosey and settle,
00:09:42
Speaker
constraining that flat is going to help flatness beyond, you know, for the next stage. So currently we're using temper plates, but they're a little thin and they do cup when you tighten them down. So I'm making thicker ones and I want to hand-lack them to be like optically light band flat.
00:10:01
Speaker
And I think that'll help our lapping process throughout the whole thing. Because currently the heat treat goes really good. We have flat two within a thou, maybe a bit more. And then when they go on our lapping machine,
00:10:15
Speaker
every bowed blade, which is all of them, and they all bow different directions. But it has to be put on the machine like a hill, like two ends down, not the middle down. Yes. So they're always hand bending every blade or no testing which one. And I'm like, if I can just make them flatter through the whole process naturally, then the more better. Yes. Yeah.
00:10:40
Speaker
That's awesome. So that's kind of the excuse I'm justifying making these lapping plates and spending a lot of time and money on them. But also like I honestly think we're going to use them all of the time. I think we're going to have a lot of fun because flatness is like we have lapping here. This plates will allow us
Automation and Custom Software in Shops
00:10:56
Speaker
to hand fix things, to polish things to one micron finish, like do some cool surface finishes stuff. So much of what we do is aesthetic and like
00:11:06
Speaker
It's going to be fun. Taking the knife pivots and making them to a ... Do you know what black polish is? It's like a watchmaking term where it is so flat and so shiny that it's reflecting the light either black or white. Either it's in shadow or it's reflective. Watches tend to do that on their little screws and stuff. They look black in one light and you rotate it and now they're silver, shiny kind of thing.
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's crazy. And it's kind of just a watchmaking term for something that's quite shiny and flat. So I want to do stuff like that. On your surface grinder, if you sparked out, took your time, light passes, I would think that that's a few tenths at most. Of what? Well, I guess the issue is the magnet, right? Exactly. And our blades are kind of long noodles. So you take it off the magnet and they will un-
00:12:02
Speaker
No, no, I mean, I mean, um, prepping the lapping plates or even like A2 steel sandwiches for you. I would think hardened A2 on an Okamoto grinder. You could get it. Of course not as flat as lapping, but are. Exactly. And the ones we're currently using are surface ground flat and we get them. Good. They're flat to like a few tents for sure. Um, but lapping just makes them better. Yeah. I hear you. Yep. Cool.
00:12:32
Speaker
Before I forget, I wanted to mention that I got a call from my buddy that works out at Okuma in Charlotte like 10 days ago, not that long ago. And they asked if I'd come speak at their technology showcase. It's kind of like an open house event at the Okuma Charlotte headquarters. So it's on March 7th and 8th. And I think I'm doing the
00:12:55
Speaker
like keynote opening speech right in the first morning on Tuesday, March 7th. Yeah, which if I don't, no big deal, but I thought that was kind of flattering, but they told me I could kind of talk about anything. And so I said, Hey, a topic that's been kind of on my mind over the last six, nine months, which I know you and I talk extensively about is, is the word automation, both like, you know, power tools and a row of cells, but also just how we automate our lives as small shop owners. So I've got a little presentation put together
00:13:25
Speaker
where I kind of want to talk about automation in a small machine shop at a more practical level. Because I'm not a salesman, like a machine-tool salesman could go tell you on why a six-figure robot or cell might work. I want to talk more about automation as it relates to the process bins, the ER pieces. I'm going to talk a lot about that and how we built that and how we help. I've been kind of distilling it down to this idea that there's a fourth version of automation that is just helping our team make decisions.
00:13:51
Speaker
that is a form of automation. Absolutely. Keeping tools set up where we use 3D printed stuff to combine pokey. Again, look, some of this, it's kind of weird. I'm self-conscious. Some of this people are going to know, but overall, I think there's some really good stuff that I'm sharing of things that we've succeeded at, things we failed at, and things we've seen others do really well. And that's something I hesitate with is like,
00:14:15
Speaker
sharing stuff that people already know. Why regurgitate this if my audience already knows it? But coming from you, from your voice, from your experience, even resaying something that the listener knows, you get this connection where the listener goes, they're agreeing with you because they know it, right? So that validates you, it validates them in their own head and everybody's happy from it. And meanwhile, you're trying to provide new value all the time, but
00:14:40
Speaker
That's unnecessary. It's weird. I mean, I'm just being candid. I struggle with it, John. Yep. I do too, absolutely. On that note, this is absolutely awesome. I got to sing the praises of Vince and the team in the training classes. We had somebody email that took the class last week, and they wrote in, and they're like, I knew a little fusion. But the tips alone of just hanging out for three days
00:15:05
Speaker
in the class with the team and what we do, that alone was worth it. And I forwarded that to Vincent. He wrote back and said, two other people said the same thing. And that just makes me so proud because that's literally what you want it to be about. It's just like, hey, what are those little things that you didn't know about training advice or what you put in soft jaws or fusion tips, things like that. Yep. Where do you store your hand tools like next to the machine and what tool? All this little practical stuff that it doesn't come across when you're making a tutorial video.
00:15:35
Speaker
Because there's tons of information on how to learn facts online, like how to set up a vice or how to program a part or how to post a code or something like that. These little things, you got to get your hands dirty to see. That's what's so beautiful about your classes is you offer that and that's half the value right there.
00:15:54
Speaker
Yes. So on the Okuma thing, I'll see when you throw a description or a link in. It's open to anybody, but you do have to register. But we'd love to see folks there. And again, I'm kind of excited because I think I know Lex in particular is something we've had a ton of questions about. And I've always kind of said, OK, we're not software developers. I don't want to speak for you, but I don't think you're going to start licensing GURP, right? No. It's briefly occurred to me for like three seconds. And I'm like, no, no, just never. Yeah.
00:16:24
Speaker
Um, but I do want to share a lot of the, you know, so what give folks the point. I mean, I think you're backing up here. Like if you want to develop your own app suite, Google suite, or, you know, whatever, like the resources out there make it so much easier and not that expensive to do. That said, you on your end of me on my end, I've still put countless hours into
00:16:50
Speaker
practically applying that thing. There's tons of tutorial videos on how to make a Google app sheet program. I still spent insane amounts of time actually learning how to do it. You follow the tutorials and it still takes a lot of work. If I were to make a video and share my tips and tricks on what happened, it would be super valuable for the next person making that thing. I hear you.
00:17:18
Speaker
It's funny though, of all the emails we've gotten, almost every single person has been commented around either the success that they've had with their own custom built software or the struggles, frustrations and long-term, not failures, but long-term just disappointment they've had with trying to force the commercial off the shelf. It's sad.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, I guess if you're just a pure play job shop, don't roll your own for sure. Go look at the versions of the software that's out there. And then we have CJ and Dennis who are excellent job shops that are very happy with Pro Shop. Yeah, exactly. Like Thrilled. And tons of owners are like that too. So I don't know. Everything makes sense to different people. Exactly.
New Equipment and Setup Strategies
00:18:09
Speaker
What is this bamboo printer?
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah, it is bamboo, isn't it? With you at the end? I assume so. It's like the hot new 3D printer. They did a big Kickstarter, made millions of dollars or whatever. A lot of people are getting them, like a lot of people we know, and they look really, really cool. It's like a $1,500 printer, multi-material printer.
00:18:35
Speaker
That's fast. It's like my voron, like CoreXY, really good hot end. It can do carbon fiber filaments. They just looked at the whole industry and they said, well, all these voron nerds are building their own in a really cool way.
00:18:51
Speaker
How do we commercialize that? How do we add all this new technology, all these new features? There's a camera built into it. It's got the spaghetti detector. Oh, really? Yeah. It's got it built in like all this stuff. So if your print fails, it stops it automatically. They just kind of, they took everything and they threw it into one printer and now it's commercially available with like not a long lead time, like weeks. And it's ships assembled.
00:19:15
Speaker
I don't know. I think so. OK. I think so. Yeah. The picture shows four colors. I mean, does it have a multi-head thing, or is that? It changes the filament automatically. And I don't even think it needs to print that block, like the fake block that wastes all the filament. Yeah. I don't think. I'm not sure. But yeah, I can't deny that I was looking at their website this morning as we were texting about it with Dennis. And I'm like, God, I kind of want to get one of these.
00:19:45
Speaker
I mean, we need a faster printer and we need another printer and I've got the big Prusa reorder, but they're delayed. Get this one. It's half the price. The Prusa XL is still valuable. If you want a big printer, still get it. This is 10 by 10. 10 by 10 by 10. Yeah, we don't just need the huge size, really. I just liked the
00:20:10
Speaker
I mean, the Prusa makes solid printer for sure. Okay, good to know. Willam and should be ish, ready, ready ish. Power is hooked up, air is hooked up. That's all we do. They'll be here Monday to start the... Happy dance. Insole. Bar feeder arrives Monday as well. And I ordered soft jaw material. Have you made soft jaws yet?
00:20:38
Speaker
I made one set of steel jaws. I made them on a kern because I'm silly. Yes. Not necessary, but I was able to do it in one op and it was kind of fun. Yeah. Right, right. Okay. But yeah, most people will make, like CJ was telling me, blank soft jaws on a mill, any mill, tormac, whatever you want, and then bolt them to the Wilhelmin and let the Wilhelmin machine its own feature.
00:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, sure, sure. That pretty much makes the most sense. I haven't done that yet, but I really should make like a dozen soft jaws and just have them ready and then the Willimon can make its own thing. Jim from Willimon was suggesting that a lot of companies will have their machining program at the top and then below the M30, they'll have the soft jaw making program.
00:21:29
Speaker
So in your same program, you just do go to line N999 or whatever. So you're skipping past the M30 and you're running the soft job program manually. But you normally do that once when you make a new pair. Sure, unless you screw them up and you got to make a new set of soft jaws. But it keeps the soft job program with the master program in one file and it's a neat way to do it. I never really thought about that. Yeah.
00:21:53
Speaker
Kind of like how they, they had built the probing program. I was playing with that the other night, you know, in the sub spindle, the, the vice G 55, I wanted to probe a hole to get my G 55 XY origin. Um, so call the probe up, call this one program. I think they call it 50 50.
00:22:12
Speaker
And it's just got, you know, line N100 is probe a circle G54. Line N150 is probe a single point and all these N numbers, like 20 of them. And at the top, there's a little legend and it just says skip to line, you know, 250 if you want to probe a G55 XY hole. And it worked really well.
00:22:34
Speaker
It's like the DOS version of the HaaS VPS Pro. You probably don't even know what these look like. They make a really nice Windows version. This is the old school DOS. We talked about this, I don't know why we're doing this now. That's FANUC for you. Yeah, right, right. Okay. But yeah, you guys are going to have fun. Oh, I'm super excited. I've already started looking at, like, we want to make a couple smaller parts. I actually think
00:23:01
Speaker
It would be simple to make two of them at once. So you actually end up having two clamped on by the vice and then you could part them off later to start off. I'll keep it simple. We'll do all the time, but that's the thing I'd know is.
00:23:12
Speaker
Tool changes take time and if we have a part with 12 tool changes, I'd rather split that across two parts or more. Yeah, I'm excited. Yes. Good. Yeah, I've been teaching Pierre a couple of times this past week and we'll spend an hour or two today on how to run the Wilman and how to do the basic stuff utilizing the cheat sheet we have on the side quite a bit.
00:23:37
Speaker
And he's like, I'm going to retype this up for you one day. That's OK. But yeah, I think ours, we had an issue where we, when the vice comes up and the U-axis goes in to clamp on the part, it was coming in at the wrong distance. And I was trying to follow everybody's advice, Jim from Willyman and everything. And I just, I wasn't doing it right. And I'm not exactly sure how we fixed it, but it works now.
00:24:08
Speaker
What I remember Jim saying was G54, I mean, you could do whatever you want, I guess, but G54 is your, say, turning spindle face, like the kind of main material spindle. And then G55 is the vise holding onto the part, but shifted like one or two inches to the right. And then G56 is the same vise, but after it tipped down 90 degrees to expose the uncut side. That would make a lot more sense.
00:24:37
Speaker
I've been treating G55 as the vice laid down, but that's supposed to be 56. You're probably right. Because you would want the ability to take the part in G54, cut it off or part it off, but then just shift it and it's to the right. You could still do certain work before you bend it over. Yeah, you're probably right. I got to keep that in mind.
00:25:01
Speaker
Okay, I've got to figure it out. Thanks for reminding me. I've got to figure out how to touch, find work coordinate systems without a, it'll be a, it's our first use machine, our first machine without a probe. We're doing all sorts of really backward on the Wilhelmin. Okay. Yeah. You'll get to get out the, uh,
00:25:15
Speaker
indicator and figure it out. Yeah, between gauge block and just shims and stuff like that. I'm using the turning spindle, call it nut. The face of that is a very repeatable ground surface. I took it off, I put it back on, I measured it with the tenth indicator and it's repeatable to a tenth. That's my G54X. Was you able to just probe that in?
00:25:44
Speaker
I did try probing. I tried setting it with a gauge block. I tried all kinds of things, and it's repeatable, and it's good. Okay. Do you mind if yours came with the probe, or you had to buy the body? It did. Yeah, I got a body from Alan at Williman. Okay. He kind of had one kick it around in a box, and made me a offer I couldn't refuse on it. But the machine tool had the receiver, and formally- It did, yes. Does yours?
00:26:10
Speaker
No. And I don't, based on what I've learned so far, it's not, we don't plan on putting one on it right now. It's not critical. Yeah. Cool. And you can always add it later, but at a expense of five grand or whatever it's going to cost you to do, but it might be necessary. I don't know.
00:26:26
Speaker
Focus right now is to make some parts on it. Totally. That'll be good. Well, and it's kind of like our Swiss. Our Swiss doesn't have any probes. Everything's manually touched off. You make a part, you measure it, then you make your offset. And it just is. It's fine. These lathes make parts so fast, your Haas doesn't have a probe. It has a tool setter, but it doesn't have a probe. Oh, sorry. You just make a part. That's really true. That's a good point. You're late, right? Yeah.
00:26:53
Speaker
So yeah, it's like it's such a weird machine because it's, it's a mill, but it's a lathe, but it's both. But it's also five axis, but it's, it's also a mill turn. Have you done any five axis moves yet?
00:27:07
Speaker
No, no, I don't think so. Okay, but it's it's very tight and it's very smooth. Yeah, yeah, it runs really good. So I want to like, you know, 3d surface a contour, and it should be really good. So yes, have you seen anybody ever 3d printing soft jaws for the Wilhelmin? I've 3d printed soft jaws for the mills. Yep. But yeah, there's no reason you couldn't for the Wilhelmin.
00:27:34
Speaker
Totally. It's a hydraulic vice. I don't know how, I don't think it's a ton of pressure, but it's some pressure for sure. Oh no, for sure. And the limited experience we had with 3D printing PLA is it just doesn't hold up to coolant or pressure over time. And, you know, infill adjustments, the support structure, error volumetric fill adjustment. Get the bamboo printer and print them out of carbon. Yeah, right. That's not a bad idea. I'm enabling.
00:28:04
Speaker
Yeah. How's your fiber laser coming, Mr. Other People's Money? Yeah, exactly. So I ordered the router laser for about 1300 bucks. Okay, awesome. From OSP laser or OPS laser, OPT laser. So I'm not sure when that's coming. Hopefully it's not like a backorder thing or anything, but I haven't gotten any shipping confirmation or anything.
00:28:30
Speaker
So that's going to be cool. I think that'll laser our foam. I had local guy laser a whole bunch of foams, like a couple hundred foams, and they look amazing. That's awesome. And it adds such a level of class and professionalism. It completely transforms it, just putting our logo and our text. And it's not a big deal, but it's a big deal. Yeah.
00:28:52
Speaker
You know, that's awesome. So that's really cool. So yeah, I'm looking forward to the router. I still think about the fiber laser, but I'm kind of pumping the brakes on that, um, for the. Correct second. Um, that's right. The, I'm sorry. I, when I was joking with you, I met the laser for your router, which is just, you know, it's the diode laser. It's a diode laser. Yeah, exactly. Um,
00:29:12
Speaker
But yeah, I don't need a CO2 laser if the router one works and I still want a fiber laser for many other reasons. I was looking into other brands of fiber lasers because the boss one is about 10 grand or so.
00:29:26
Speaker
And then there's a lot of like Chinese brands, like a lot. You can get them on Amazon kind of thing. Uh, cloud Ray is
Business Goals and Process Optimization
00:29:33
Speaker
one of them. They seem to do a lot. And I know a lot of people that have them, they seem very happy with them and they're like four to nine grand for a medium to very powerful fiber laser. Yeah. So yeah, there's, there's one on Amazon that like could deliver tomorrow and I'm like very tempted to just like order it. But
00:29:57
Speaker
But yeah, I think you guys would benefit from a fiber laser as well, eventually. Agreed. I've been keeping my list of, okay, what are my 20, 23 goals? I'm not a big
00:30:11
Speaker
a cool person like that. But as you and I talked about, it's really good to just at least have a place where you can dump stuff, dump that stuff. But then we've actually done a really good job in the past, what? I was looking through my notes. My 2019 goals were vast. They're greater than we've accomplished yet. And I was like, oh, in the next year, I will make this much money and I'll be making this much at home and all this stuff. And I'm still not there yet. Yeah. So that's funny.
00:30:41
Speaker
But look, there's something to be said for, you know, you could criticize yourself or appear maybe all you want or think about it. But the reality is, look where you are, John. Totally. No complaints whatsoever. But you know, the eyes are bigger than the pie or however that phrase goes. I like the one that I can't remember what it's from, but your mouth is right and checks that your body can't cash. There you go. Yep. But we've done a good job at pulling back in.
00:31:10
Speaker
We're focusing on some core things that we wanted to focus on, product line processes. We're continuing to do a purge, like we sold the fourth axis that we don't use. I'm going to sell our tumbler because we used to use it for the DeWalt line. We actually sold the DeWalt line over a year ago.
00:31:27
Speaker
Little things like we used to help Clickspring make all this fire pistons. That was a great multi-year partnership. I really like Chris at Clickspring. He's a really good dude, but didn't make sense for us to be doing that anymore. In a weird way, we're in a better place than we've ever been about having focused in on some of those things. There's still stuff that's causing the stress.
00:31:48
Speaker
perfecting the retail packaging for heavier steel parcel fixture plates. I now know what we want to do, but we've got some remaining stock of material that works for now, but it takes a little bit more time. But at some point, I'm actually probably going to just
00:32:05
Speaker
throw away the rest of that cardboard or recycle it and then get the new ones in which will feel like this is like oxygen to a yes. Anybody who's dealt with like packaging, you know, like what you say in box or packaging, you don't want anything to do with the now. Exactly. In fear. We are just transitioning from our old S3 plastic cases to the new Grimsville branded Nanook.
00:32:28
Speaker
plastic cases. We've been doing it for pens for about a month or so. And just like yesterday, we're starting with the knives, transitioning over because we had to sell off all the old ones. And the new ones are just yeah, it's like you want nothing to do with the old ones basically. Yeah. And it's a little bit different. So our cardboard boxes have to be you know, one inch different. So we've got some old stock of other stuff. But but yeah, it kind of breathes fresh life into the product and the process and the shipping department and everything. And it's just like,
00:32:57
Speaker
It's nice. Nice and new. Yeah. No, it's awesome. But it adds a lot of logistical things too. With the new Nanook cases comes the new foam, comes machining the new foam, comes the new router, comes the laser, comes the new bottles that we got made and we got pad printed and then there's the pad printing process and then we got to fill the bottles. I built a bottle filling station.
00:33:22
Speaker
And our supply room smells like maple syrup now because we're scenting the bottles with maple essence. Stop. Oh, that's ridiculous, Joe. It's amazing. So when you get your knife, it's going to smell like Canada. That's really funny. The top of the cage is a small hockey rink. Yes. Yeah, we figured out in each bottle four drops of this maple flavor that my buddy makes is four drops is the right answer. Oh, man.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah, the bottle thing looks dialed. It looks super cool. It looks really good. It fills 10 bottles with the push of a button and then it takes more time to put the lids back on in the little silicone strap than it does for anything else. Angelo outlined the whole process yesterday and he'd spent about an hour or two filling about 50 bottles just so he can document how the next person's going to do it. I built it and I just gave it to him and I said, you figure out the best way to do it.
00:34:21
Speaker
And he's like, this is tedious. He's like putting the lids on, putting these silicone straps back on. It's annoying and frustrating.
00:34:30
Speaker
The goal is you shouldn't have to do it. What are the silicone straps? It's a collar that goes around the bottle and then a strap and then to the cap that keeps the nozzle closed. When you're filling it or when it's shipped to the customer? When it's done, when it's shipped. When you're done filling, you put the cap on, you screw it on, and then you got to put the silicone thingy on. This is kind of floppy and tedious, but it has to be done. Yeah. They look so cool. They do look really good.
00:35:00
Speaker
When Henry Holsters was visiting a few weeks ago, I mean, he's got it really going on on the process side. And even having found these, I want to say Takasawa, that's not the name. I might have it written down.
00:35:16
Speaker
Sumaki, S-U-M-A-K-I, these little screw feeder bowls. They're not a vibratory bowl feeder, but it reminds me of that, and it is a way where you could dump in 500, 440 screws or M3 screws, and it feeds them out on a little strip. And then if you have a
00:35:35
Speaker
what do you call it, a tool balancer that has a screwdriver that hangs from the ceiling. The screwdriver, you can just go over, pick the screw up with the very partially magnetized tip, and then move it straight over to the hole, screw it in, and now you've created a really dial process around it. That's cool. I think one of the things we're going to do this year is start shipping mod devices. Right now, a mod device, you have to buy the reversible insert or the one-inch style sort of talent thing.
00:36:05
Speaker
probably gonna switch that to where the default product includes those. You could buy a different version that's opted out, but it's just a little bit easier for us. And it's kind of how we want the product to be sold and used, of course. But that means we're gonna be doing some more assembly than we even do right now. And so I want something like that to just be like, oh, yeah, zip, zip, zip in the phone box, low, low, low, lid closed, like rock and roll. Yep, yep. Yeah, the whole process of hand gestures, whether it's creating a
00:36:35
Speaker
assembling a product or shipping a package or something like that. It's something I've been thinking about. And I'm going to spend a good couple hours tomorrow with Ryan, our shipping guy. And it's been a while since I've seen the whole flow of process. Because we take a photograph of every single knife that goes through, because they're all different. And you want the serial number to be in the picture. And every product gets photographed. Everyone gets cleaned with gloves on, Windex, paper towel.
00:37:03
Speaker
and then those pictures get uploaded to Shopify, tweak the description. I need to see exactly what's happening right now and if there's room for efficiencies and tweaks because I know there is. It's a time consuming process for sure. We're actually going to hire somebody in the next few months to take over that whole packaging, shipping logistics side of things so that he can do other stuff. What is Ryan? Right now, we don't have a media
00:37:29
Speaker
department person, editor, anything. And he wants to become that. Um, so he will become that. Oh, okay. So that opens up the shipping role. Exactly. Hire somebody else to do the whole shipping, packaging, everything. And then he can become the media guy and do more filming, editing pictures, more Instagram, things like that. Cause we've got a lot we could do and a lot of good ideas that we want to tackle. So, uh,
00:37:56
Speaker
Yeah. Even thought about bringing back knife making Tuesdays. Oh my God. Yeah. That's awesome. That's funny. The, uh, the photos, are they tethered? Is that camera tethered to a PC? Like it's not. And that's something we need to look into.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah. Because it just goes on the SD card. He takes a whole bunch of pictures of a whole bunch of products, and then moves the SD card to the camera, sorts them, uploads them. And I got to figure out some way to tether it either semi-automatically or what.
Inventory Management and Team Building
00:38:28
Speaker
Full grim so did it. Oh, for sure. Not something we're going to do because we don't sell products like yours. But our products are too big. We do take a picture of every freight shipment now. It's probably a reference picture.
00:38:42
Speaker
When we were using a former carrier they were telling us sometimes that our products were wait ten times more than they do or were longer. So it was more of a you get tired of dealing with shenanigans but it's never frankly been an issue with fedex free but it's good to have it just good to know.
00:39:00
Speaker
Well, that's what Henry Holsters was showing. He's got his packaging set up dialed. So they package the product. It goes on the scale, which weighs it has a webcam on top, which takes a picture. It goes automatically into ship station. The customer gets emailed that picture, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:39:16
Speaker
So that's what I was going to say. And I don't know what that software looks like. I would hope and think it's something that's available and not have to be custom written. But yeah, you somehow have a barcode or QR code that flows with the product. And then a webcam, it takes the next three pictures or something and moves them into that database with them, which is awesome. But we also want the pictures to be nice, not just a webcam, like snapshot. You know what I mean? So we want to use the DSLR.
00:39:43
Speaker
Yeah, you can settle that. We did that for years. Yeah. Yeah. And I know like.
00:39:50
Speaker
What? We use the Canon software with a tethered camera. So you were able to control the whole camera from Windows or Mac. So you got really good photos. And then when you took the photo, it was instantly in the right folder on that computer, which was Google Drive sales. Really? Oh, yeah. It was pretty interesting. OK. What it didn't have was anything like QR code about. Yeah. It's a fine stuff. Right. Yeah, we've got to do something like that. Sweet.
00:40:21
Speaker
I laughed because one of the few things that another goal that we've had that we haven't hit for good reasons is having certain key plates in the inventory, because that's just one way that we've succeeded. We've actually done a really good job on aluminum plates and on
00:40:40
Speaker
almost all of our accessories. When we have accessories in order, the devices and so forth, there isn't really an issue anymore with us being low or out, which is really great. But we don't keep a lot of steel inventory because most of them are just in time. We don't store in steel place long-term as a pain in the butt. But there's
00:40:59
Speaker
our plates that we would like to have a few of because we just know they move. And I was happy yesterday because we have a VF2 steel plate in inventory. We'll see how long it lasts. But that was a goal. We want to have five Tormach 1100 plates. We want to have a couple of VF2 plates. There's a couple other models that are popular sellers. And it's really nice to see that point of where you're now able to balance the load and not doing catch-up. Yeah, because then you're not reactive all of the time. You're a bit
00:41:28
Speaker
preparatory. It's a preparatory, not purchased, but manufactured. Yeah. Well, sometimes if you've got to stop and say, are we missing the ball here? But no, I mean, we've had a pretty solid uphill trajectory and you just sometimes were close to the line. Sometimes we fall a little bit below it, but yeah, it's been good. Yeah. Nice. I saw your new shirt. Which one? The Tornos one? Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:57
Speaker
You want one? I mean, no. My, I love Laid shirt. I know someone that loves Laids. Yep. Somebody was suggesting in the comments, they're like, you, you, both of us need a t-shirt that says, I love my Willy or something like that with a picture of the will. I want a shirt that says I love Mills. Yes. Yeah.
00:42:23
Speaker
I love CNC machining. That's the way to say it. Period. What do you weave today? I'm going to make a couple more of those lapping plates. I made them on a vacuum fixture, which probably in retrospect was not the greatest idea because the first one I made did shift around a bit.
00:42:43
Speaker
Really? Yeah. Even with a couple little stops, but it relatively can shift. I just cut it lighter, like less force on the part. It takes longer. Who cares? Then I made two more and they didn't shift and they turned out great. They just take a while. Making two more of those, Pierre and I are going to work on the Wilhelmin. We're making
00:43:07
Speaker
Fixturing alignment bushings for some Maury fixtures we've been working on forever. That'll be really good. Those are made out of A2. Then we're going to send those and the new sandwich plates off to the local heat treat company to get heat treated. We could do them here, but it's dumb because our heat treat is booked. You have to take them literally two blocks down the street for $100. It's like a no brainer.
00:43:31
Speaker
It's too funny you say that because we just got a package back from Peter's heat treat with something that I'm excited to be selling.
00:43:41
Speaker
You can heat treat that more. How much can you go? Fifty... Full? Yeah. No, not like 60, 62 or anything. I'm sorry, I'm not a metallurgist, but I've got that book that I love and it talks about it and we had to go to like 52. For what we're doing, I don't need 55 and I don't want it to be brittle. Yeah, but yeah, Peter's a solid. We used to send stuff there before we did our own heat treat.
00:44:07
Speaker
Yep. There's like, great. You just drive them in a bag and then a week later they come back with this full report, cert, like done. Vacuum, heat treat and everything. Yeah. Nice. And then tonight, uh, one of our newest staff members, he's been here about three or four months. He is like, anybody want to go bowling? Like let's do an after hours company, like bowling thing. I'll set it up. And so, so we're all going bowling. Fun, super fun. We haven't really done that. Like, you know, in some companies they're like, Hey, you want to go for drinks afterwards?
00:44:37
Speaker
We haven't really done that. Yeah. Um, so it's really cool to have a new guy come in and like initiate that. And, uh, I'm, I'm stoked. This is going to be fun. Good. Fun. Hey, what about you? Uh, I'm actually going to go drop a set of, uh, Willem and soft jaws on the 3d printer because why not? Just like half
Conclusion and Farewell
00:44:55
Speaker
a percent. Yeah. I'm going to do that. Um, and then working on tweaking or changing that we're getting rid of a high feed mill that every once in a while it's.
00:45:06
Speaker
had issues and just, I don't know. I would not ever write them off totally, but the juice ain't worth the squeeze. When they fail, that stinks how they fail. So we're going to switch it over to a 90 degree, I think it's like APKT style or something tool, which would be good. And it's also another kind of like, okay, this horizontal is getting more and more dedicated to it by project.
00:45:31
Speaker
We had a weird situation, this is just me rambling, of a three-eighth inch end mill that wasn't holding up on making our adjustables. And I still don't exactly know why. I think I found it. We relieve a small section for a chamfer before it gets finished machined. And I realized that one of those was plunging in air. The other side was plunging into the material a little bit. That could totally make sense. But even then, it was like, why is that tool failing so quick?
00:46:01
Speaker
We had a sister tool anyways for that part, so I started separating the operations to isolate. Where's it going? That's fun. Yeah. You've got enough tools to dedicate more and more to specialized uses. Yeah. I've definitely done that on the current. I've got rougher finishes, semi-finishers, rough chamfer, finish chamfer, and you just get to a point where everything is total process reliability.
00:46:24
Speaker
That high feed, was it an indexable or solid carbide enamel? Indexable. Indexable, okay. I've never used an indexable high feed, but I've used quite a lot of very small solid carbide high feed enamel, so a quarter inch and below, down to one millimeter, I think is my smallest one, and they are magic.
00:46:43
Speaker
No, for sure. And that's why I don't mean to write them off. And in fact, now that I'm recollecting this, the first time that tool failed recently, it was actually an operator mistake with a clamp. No big deal. But then it failed the other night for no reason. But the better takeaway is this is an open feature. There's no reason to be high-feed milling. It's not a slot. Just stop. Yep.
00:47:08
Speaker
Cool. Yeah, good. See you next week. Have an awesome day. Take care. Bye.