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#383 Saunders is at IMTS in Chicago
3.7k Plays2 months ago
TOPICS:
- IMTS tools and technologies
- Hard gaging
- CMM Machines
- Grimsmo played with a Wire EDM
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and IMTS Excitement
00:00:00
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining, Episode 383. My name is John Grimsmough.
00:00:06
John
My name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
Reporting from...
00:00:10
John
I am i am TS. Yes.
00:00:13
johngrimsmo
Saunders is at IMDS. I am FOMO-ing at home in the Ontario right now. But I want to hear all about, you can be my boots on the ground, like what's... ah
00:00:22
John
Absolutely. Well, and let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. We wish you were here. We also understand it. I miss you. I wish you were here. um So many people asked about you. I reassured them you're fine.
00:00:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:00:34
John
It's just, We've got to make things work in life, but it's, uh, everyone's asking about you.
00:00:37
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:00:40
John
And so I'm like, no, no, Chris is cool. He's good. and But, uh, yeah, awesome.
00:00:45
johngrimsmo
Next time.
00:00:46
John
Um, yes. So I don't want to like it. The energy here is awesome. And I don't. I don't know why because I mean, binda so I think our first scientists together or but was 2016, right? We were both. Yeah. And obviously there was a COVID off here, but like this just feels, and I don't know if it's the show. I don't know if it's like how much more formidable our world is but with the instant machines and all that. like Maybe some of it's that because when we first came to IMTS eight years ago, like there were no cameras. there Social media was was not... Now it's so almost the opposite. and you know Everyone's got a camera and
IMTS Highlights and Grimsmo's Presence
00:01:25
John
blah, blah, blah. But it's super fun to be here. um I have to say thank you to Toolpath. They are providing us a podcast booth that has our podcast, Jay Pearson's podcast with Andrew.
00:01:39
John
Henry from Henry Holsters and with intolerance with Dylan. I think there's more taps and patience. So that's super cool. And Johnny five is in the current booth. Like, John, can we talk off the record?
00:01:49
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:01:52
John
What the heck? How we have a robot in the current booth? Like, yeah, it is crazy.
00:01:58
johngrimsmo
Like it's it's so cool that Johnny Five has finally left your shop and is like now entering the world and people get to see him. Like this is why you built it. This is the whole thing, right? It's to like bring that inspiration and that memory, that that history back, right?
00:02:12
John
Yeah. Um, it's a, I don't want to get emotional. It's a, um, it's 9 11. So moment of silence on that front.
00:02:21
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:02:22
John
Um, and the number of people I've met, um, um juliaa for giving lots of people and say, hi, take a picture. I love it. I thank you. It's, it's, it's, it reminds me what a great journey it's been.
00:02:36
John
The highlights are.
Listener Impact and Social Media Praise
00:02:38
John
people, one yesterday was a military vet who they're like, Hey, I'm in this job. I'm in this career. Um, because of you or because of, you know, creamsaw or the podcast and making better life decisions, career decisions.
00:02:51
John
One guy was just like, yeah, I just basically was following you along. And when you bought a machine, I bought the same machine. I'm not, I'm not actually sure that's a good, like that.
00:03:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:03:00
John
I'm not sure that's great, but no, um, super awesome.
00:03:03
johngrimsmo
That's fantastic. Yeah. I remember we were there last year, 2022 and, uh, the current had the meetup at their booth and the, the energy and the vibes and all the in instant machine has showed up and the stories. And I got to meet, um, Uriel from austere manufacturing and all these other people. Um, I got to meet people I've never heard of before and they've heard of us and I get to hear their story and it's, I miss that.
00:03:30
John
How are you?
00:03:32
johngrimsmo
I'm doing great, actually. We've had a great week. I'm definitely FOMO-ing, watching the Instagram. um Shout out to Autodesk, whoever can charge with their social media is crushing IMTS. They are walking around, giving tours, interviews. like It's boots on the ground. It's really cool.
00:03:52
John
It's almost become like a full circle, like the matrix. Cause it's like, I'm using Instagram at the show to see what other people are talking about and posting to go then check that out.
00:04:01
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:04:02
John
You know?
00:04:03
johngrimsmo
How cool is it that the speed is so fast you can actually just do that?
00:04:03
John
um
00:04:07
John
Yes.
00:04:09
johngrimsmo
I so i saw Danny Rudolph is not at IMTS and he took a picture next to his FANUC machine and he's like, I'm about to FANUC boots, come say hi.
00:04:09
John
I still get mice.
00:04:18
johngrimsmo
I kind of want to do that too.
00:04:20
John
And then he was like, I'm at the U.R. booth now and he had two U.R.
00:04:22
johngrimsmo
yeah I didn't see that one yet.
00:04:22
John
boxes behind him. Well played. Yeah.
00:04:26
johngrimsmo
Nice. I should continue that.
00:04:30
John
You can put it at the Kern booth, I'm at the Tornos booth, I'm at the Nakamura booth.
00:04:31
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:04:34
johngrimsmo
I like it Really
00:04:35
John
oh Um, I give myself a C minus on IMTS prep. I think there's a thing I keep talking about and i and I suck at it. Yeah. Um, you know, just everything goes out the window. It's like Mike Tyson, man. Everyone's got a plan. Um, then you get punched in the face. Um,
Challenges in Machining and Design
00:04:53
John
I mean, it's a little harder to walk in a good way. It's a little bit harder to walk around because you're meeting lots of people, which is awesome. I wouldn't trade that for the world. But what happened is, I don't know how much I want to share about this, not because it's secret, but because it's such an active live process. But maybe it's something other people can relate to is,
00:05:11
John
we're kind of rethinking how we want to make the automatic and now the manual pub chuck. And the pub chuck manual was never released because we were waiting on the new Lilliman. We have the new Lilliman. And so I had all these ideas on pub chuck questions. And the first two meetings I had basically completely threw those ideas out the window. And so I wasn't anticipating having to stop and like critically think about yeah different ways. um
00:05:40
johngrimsmo
And it's hard to do that in the busyness of the show.
00:05:44
John
It's not hard to do that. It's impossible to do that.
00:05:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:05:47
John
Like I actually can't.
00:05:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I get it.
00:05:50
John
And yeah, I'm gonna have no sympathy, need it.
00:05:53
johngrimsmo
You just, yeah, I mean, you're consuming right now and then you go home and digest and you think, and you plan, you know, you're not signing a PO today this week.
00:05:54
John
And it's just more like, ugh.
00:06:03
johngrimsmo
I assume maybe you want to know, but yeah.
00:06:04
John
No. No, definitely not. But like you it's I feel like I'm not doing a great job as a business leader because I wish I was coming in to the show with the knowledge I have today and to have the knowledge I had three days ago.
00:06:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:17
John
and then Maybe that's part of the process, but it's like, do I need to go talk to a grinder company?
00:06:17
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:06:22
John
Or do I need to go look at something I wasn't thinking about? um i have to I have to do a tip of the hat to Hermla because the TS, the apps guy, really spent some time looking at a print and really gave me So it's like ah just basically, the part's easy, and then there's one crazy hard feature.
00:06:37
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:06:38
John
like You know this all too well. he gave me He gave me four ideas of how to make that feature. I hadn't even
Cutting-Edge Technology at IMTS
00:06:47
John
thought of.
00:06:49
johngrimsmo
that's fantastic
00:06:50
John
Yeah, it's like, okay, you can jig bore it, you could, you drill it, you you can swerve it, you can interpolate it, form tool it, and I was just kind of like, this is what it's all about.
00:06:51
johngrimsmo
That's fantastic.
00:07:02
John
So really appreciate that.
00:07:05
johngrimsmo
So current HD then, you just jig bore it, no problem.
00:07:09
John
Well, look, so that's what's weird. I mean, I would have told you with a pretty high degree of confidence two days ago that I will never go to the current, just we don't make current parks. And then I actually sat down with Dan and Chris, I think the app's got Chris.
00:07:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, Chris Morris.
00:07:23
John
um Yeah, super awesome. And just sort of saying, hey, like I'm just, I almost feel bad. Like I'm sorry for asking you this, but i'm now I'm like just trying to keep an open mind on um the way we're trying to hold this tolerance is may not, you know, swarping it may be not the right way to go.
00:07:44
John
And it honestly makes me think back to when you and I were, sorry, I'm all like fired up right now.
00:07:49
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
00:07:49
John
When you and I were playing around with Marv on the Kern, I think that was a, right. Remember that H was an HSK, a taper we cut.
00:07:57
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah, he machined an HSK taper and took it to the Sea of Mammon. It was just perfect. It was like perfectly cylindrical round everything. um But exactly what they were saying at current Germany when we were there in 2019. And they're like, it just works. It just makes parts exactly how you expect them to in thermal comp keeps or or not even thermal comp, just thermal stability. It just does what you tell it to do.
00:08:23
John
I'll see you that and I'll raise you what they told us when we toured the current job shop, which is that it's not so much that you need crazy accuracy on the first part. It's that I want to walk away and come back to the 400th part and the 400th part is also within tolerance.
00:08:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And the only, ah you know, we have a machine, we use the machine. The only variances are the tools themselves, not the machine.
00:08:47
John
yeah
00:08:48
johngrimsmo
um Whether the laser touches off a tool weird, which has happened, or, you know, tools wear, tools break, things like that. That's up to the operator machinist programmer to, you know, work around.
00:08:58
johngrimsmo
But when the machine itself is stable, that's like 10 variables off the table that now you just don't worry about.
00:09:06
John
yeah Yeah.
00:09:06
johngrimsmo
And then they had to come out with the HD plus with the hydrostatic all five axis. And I'm like, well, that's so sick.
00:09:13
John
I actually wish I had known this before I put up our little Instagram story. so The hydrant knuckle, for lack of a better word, is now has an option of being hydrostatic.
00:09:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:23
John
and so They have a demo where you can just walk up to a knuckle. It's attached to a display stand. It's not on the machine. and You can spin it by hand. It spins freely and it's super awesome. What I didn't know that is the name of the school is you can apparently put the weight of a current micro on top of that and you can still spin it by hand.
00:09:48
John
Yeah, yeah, right.
00:09:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah, the hydrostatic technology is fantastic. um Yeah, Tony was telling me that, but because we talked on the phone a few months ago, and he kind of let it slip that this full five axis hydrostatic is coming out. And and I was like, I sound super expensive and super awesome. I don't really need that. Who's going to need that? And he goes, well, imagine people in the optics industry that are machining glass or ceramic or whatever, and they need absolute perfect surface finish with no deviation from bearings in any way. And he's like, that's a perfect example. And you just extrapolate from there.
00:10:26
John
Yes. no I have so much respect for the technology and when we had the chance to say hi Marv a few months ago in the summer, Marv was talking about um applications where it's pretty clear that a machine, you know a current hydrostatic is going to be able to outperform what we're ah otherwise sometimes grinding like applications. gave us He gave a story that I don't want to share, but I want to make sure it's I don't want to badmouth who they had asked, but basically it's like, we're going to do better than the grinding potential could have been.
00:10:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:59
John
And that's, I love that. It reminds me of a big journey we went through two or three years ago. And buying the equipment was like, hey, we can't, we can't, Saunders Machine Works isn't going to exist.
00:11:10
John
We are still relying on grinding our fixture plates, whether we're doing it even in house or outsourcing it or rough grinding. It just doesn't move now.
00:11:20
John
We didn't think about that anymore. the way we're milling them like people used to drive them.
00:11:25
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep.
00:11:29
John
Yeah.
00:11:29
johngrimsmo
I saw you, you played with the Regal fix system.
00:11:32
John
Mm-hmm.
00:11:32
johngrimsmo
What are your current thoughts on that?
00:11:35
John
I never used it. I i don't know. I i basically asked Fran, if you want this, let's do it. And if you don't, we can skip it.
00:11:45
John
like it's it's It's just a tool. It's pun intended.
00:11:49
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:11:50
John
um but If you're going to do it, let's do it now because it's going to change how we tool up more tooling and has some other advantages.
00:11:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:11:58
John
And so I went over with the press of the machine. I had bought some people whose opinion I look up to had really said, don't get the hand crank, get the hydraulic unit.
00:12:11
John
I can't remember more about that. I just remember being stored as a nugget of information in my head. But some people are reaching out and saying, no, the hand pump is fine. um You have the odd magic.
00:12:23
johngrimsmo
We have the automatic and I would not want the hand pump just that that's a waste of effort. Um, it's probably a few thousand dollars more for the hydraulic unit.
00:12:28
John
Yeah.
00:12:30
johngrimsmo
So it's definitely a concern, but I mean, our guys Angelo spends maximum 10 minutes in a single day, 10 minutes in a row, changing tools on the Kern and it's just boop, boop, boop, boop.
00:12:42
John
Yeah.
00:12:43
johngrimsmo
He's got them all loaded up. He'll do, you know, two to 10 tools on the current a day and just does them all at once, puts them back and he's done. And he does that at the end of the day. And that's it.
00:12:52
John
Yeah, that's a great point. The thought of having a stack of five tools for more to replace and hand doing that is, is count.
00:12:59
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:13:01
John
So I actually ended up explaining this to somebody and I'm not sure it had totally quit with me before. it's Sorry, this is kind of like introspective, but I'm still you know value conscious, budget conscious, bootstrapper, all that stuff. um ROI, if you want to use a buzzword, but like, except when I want to go for something.
00:13:26
John
Like, it's like, I'm still going to defend why we're doing great stuff on the VF2. Oh, and next to the VF2 is a brand new world event. Like, because when you go, when you go that route, it's almost like I don't like the middle mark.
00:13:33
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah.
00:13:37
John
I'm making subs. I go like, like go big. And so the rego fix kind of feels like that. It's definitely expensive on both the machine as well as each holder is frankly, fairly expensive.
00:13:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Very expensive.
00:13:47
John
Um, you call it but. For the gauge-like stuff in the world, it makes sense. And then I think we'll end up adding some Cat40 tools just for some of the higher, the stuff where I want REST, TIR on the verticals, and we may buy like five in there or something.
00:13:57
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:14:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I bought some BT 30 holders. I traded some pens actually for a shop that had a bunch of BT 30 rego fix holders, um, that they weren't using anymore.
00:14:15
johngrimsmo
So they're like, I've got five holders. If you want them, I was like, yes, I'll send some pens your way.
00:14:19
John
dump
00:14:19
johngrimsmo
Like it was great.
00:14:21
John
Oh, yeah. Interesting.
00:14:21
johngrimsmo
So we've got some stuff on the speedio and, uh, tons of rego on the current, obviously. And on the Willowman.
00:14:28
John
Okay.
Innovations in Tool Holders
00:14:30
John
Yeah, I went over use it.
00:14:30
johngrimsmo
And they.
00:14:32
John
Yeah.
00:14:32
johngrimsmo
ah I think I was listening to the um ah Lean Build podcast, the Pearson and Andrew Henry one, a couple of weeks ago. I don't normally listen to podcasts, but I had some time. And he said he toured the area of 419 tour, like he toured their shop and he's like, I've never used their zero reloading press before.
00:14:47
John
yeah
00:14:51
John
evening
00:14:52
johngrimsmo
And it's like, was it two or three times more expensive than the nearest competitor? And I see why now.
00:14:59
John
Oh, yeah.
00:15:00
johngrimsmo
And it's neat to hear of a company who's thriving, success, you know, it's kind of like us, our our product's very expensive and it's very great.
00:15:01
John
Oh, wait.
00:15:06
johngrimsmo
and And you see why once you use it and feel it. And I think the Rego Fix is kind of the same way. It's far more expensive than the next best competitor.
00:15:15
John
Yeah.
00:15:15
johngrimsmo
But if you need it, like...
00:15:18
John
Which is funny too, because it's like, I'm still going to buy Maritool, I buy Hostility, I buy YG1 holders, and they're all, I mean, they are great for a lot of what we do.
00:15:21
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:15:31
John
One of the things to
00:15:32
johngrimsmo
What else have you seen? What else, what else did I miss? Like that, uh, I would have liked, let's say.
00:15:39
John
um Well, sorry, I'm, I'm ignoring your question for a second. Cause I think the top of my thing for me is it's the first year we've sent, uh, anybody else by NTS.
00:15:49
johngrimsmo
You brought Ed once.
00:15:49
John
So.
00:15:53
John
No.
00:15:53
johngrimsmo
I met Ed.
00:15:55
John
Yeah. Uh, Portland Academy, I think, or an AU.
00:15:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Um, yes.
00:16:01
John
Really? Oh, now I feel terrible for that.
00:16:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah, him and I went to the um to the museum and you were sick.
00:16:03
John
I mean, remember that. No, you are right. You are right now and now.
00:16:09
johngrimsmo
I know them a while, yeah.
00:16:10
John
Well, okay.
00:16:11
johngrimsmo
Anyway, however, you're bringing multiple people.
00:16:12
John
Great. Now I feel like a turd and I'm wrong. Um, yeah. So, well, I guess it's different. Like Alex and Grant, you know, flew in and they have this kind of stuff that are looking at stuff to do word word.
00:16:23
John
to I think when ed came, it was, well, there now we have like reason to be here. It's up to look at like all that.
00:16:29
johngrimsmo
Sure. But you guys are divide and conquer. You're not like, hobbled together the whole time.
00:16:34
John
Uh, we hung out a big idea this morning. We we met up, uh, looked at a few, had a few meetings together. They're out exploring now. I'm, I'm doing the auditus cam challenge, um, in 30 minutes.
00:16:41
johngrimsmo
Good.
00:16:45
johngrimsmo
Good luck.
00:16:46
John
yeah they Thank you. Um, but it's, I mean, look, I'm just to be blunt. It's like, I am just, it's not inexpensive. Um, and, um, but I, I didn't have any doubt once, once we got into it and now it's like absolutely great for them to, uh, all that stuff.
00:16:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:03
John
Um,
00:17:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:06
John
yeah
00:17:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Last year, we, last year we took the whole company to the Toronto CMTS.
00:17:06
John
ah
00:17:12
johngrimsmo
We just kind of took the day off work. Everybody caravan to CMTS and that was great. That was like, obviously it's it's a lot cheaper to drive an hour and take a day off, but still it's an expense to like not work for the day and still pay everybody.
00:17:21
John
Yeah. Right.
00:17:25
johngrimsmo
um Totally worth it though. The perspective, the things, the guys saw things they'd never even Considered before so it's really good. You're bringing some of you guys
00:17:37
John
We, okay, I'll read through my list. We
Post-IMTS Reflections and Plans
00:17:42
John
met with Zeiss looking at CNNs, also looking at hard gauges because we have hard gauges and stuff that I think we can do better or differently. um And I actually look for new material vendors because, um and there's not a ton of them here, but I do want to have some other supplier options for some stuff we buy.
00:17:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah
00:17:59
John
um I hadn't been on my list, but we press in pins on the mod bices and we still do that manually effectively. And so I did walk by and shot a booth that had presses and I had a good conversation with the guy, which was great.
00:18:13
johngrimsmo
Hmm, good.
00:18:15
John
And then saw some magnetic fixturing stuff, which I need to just like, so what I ended up doing is making a list of post-IMTS stuff and then I can just go and go, by I should honestly like go down to the farm and like,
00:18:30
John
just chill and think, you know, on my own and think about like, okay, what, what there is something there for us to make use of that.
00:18:30
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yeah.
00:18:37
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:18:37
John
I'm not sure exactly what it is. Yeah.
00:18:40
johngrimsmo
I love that feeling. It's annoying, but I'm like, there's something here. Like I don't know enough to answer if this is good or not, but there's something there.
00:18:48
John
Right.
00:18:49
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I've got a few of those.
00:18:49
John
Yeah.
00:18:50
johngrimsmo
So talk more about hard gauging. You said you saw, is there, a were there vendors there? Like explain that.
00:18:58
John
So. There were, i I was out of time, and so I made a note to go back, but I actually then saw Alex. I'm like, Alex, you should go check out some of these options for ideas or people that could make them for us. um We use hard gauges right now for how we qualify and you see some of the puck chuck stuff.
00:19:18
johngrimsmo
And to explain that it's like a gauge pin, but made custom to your shape, tolerance, tape, or whatever, right?
00:19:18
John
and
00:19:24
John
Yes. well i And or what we also do is use um like Deltronic spins or similar pins in fixtures that hold them. So like example on tapers, they effectively are acting like thread wires and then you can measure across gatoms.
00:19:39
johngrimsmo
Oh, okay.
00:19:41
John
And so some of its hard gauges are held it within 3D printed things because that's that's acceptable.
00:19:47
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:19:47
John
But there's I think we probably need to buy a CMM, but I think it would be horrible to buy one only to realize the actual better way to measure.
00:19:58
John
The main thing is is not with a CMM.
00:20:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:20:02
John
um So that's where I'm at on that.
00:20:04
johngrimsmo
okay And with with CMM, as I've learned with our Zeiss, which we've had for like two years now, kind of surprises me. um Make sure somebody has enough time to do it justice.
00:20:19
John
Okay.
00:20:19
johngrimsmo
Because right now Angelo's I've played with it. I can kind of poke at it, but Angelo is the one running it and he is strapped for time. He's able to sustain some repeat probing, but he doesn't have time to play and learn and test new things. And if I say, Hey, can you see him? I'm this, you know, it's, he doesn't really have the time to do that at this point in time. So if you're planning that and you're already strapped and you have no more time employees, like that's another tool to add to the, you know,
00:20:47
John
You have a Duramax.
00:20:49
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:20:50
John
Does it have a, I'm not even sure I'm using the correct term, a scanning, or, okay.
00:20:56
johngrimsmo
Yes, it has this 3D scanning head, whatever they call it. So it can, I'm pretty sure, do the whole like follow a hand follow the contour around Mark, not just follow the program toolpath.
00:21:11
johngrimsmo
Pretty sure.
00:21:12
John
but guys Okay. Okay.
00:21:15
John
Yeah, but like we are definitely not looking at the string gauge head. We'd be looking at the much more normal, less expensive head that just tips off.
00:21:24
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:21:26
John
because i The string gauge head is nuts though.
00:21:28
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so I don't think ours is that, but it's not just a touch probe, it's a scanning head.
00:21:29
John
I met briefly. kind
00:21:36
johngrimsmo
When we scan a flat surface, it takes a million points and tells you how flat that surface is across whatever toolpath line.
00:21:42
John
Yeah.
00:21:43
johngrimsmo
And that's great. And I was just looking at the invoice the other day. It was like 65,000 US, give or take. And I was kind of shocked.
00:21:55
johngrimsmo
I was like, that's not that expensive. um
00:21:59
John
All relative.
00:22:00
johngrimsmo
oh It's all relative, but there are obviously much more expensive options from Zeiss and other companies, depending on how accurate you need to go. But for us, I think it's a great tool to have in the tool belt.
00:22:13
John
Yeah. um How, can I ask you, how was your day, he cleaned the wire?
Evaluating New Machinery
00:22:21
johngrimsmo
Yes, it was it was awesome. I spent three hours there at the end of the day on Friday. um Didn't actually get to cut anything because as one of the guys said, it's it's about as fast as watching paint dry.
00:22:35
johngrimsmo
But I got to see the machine. I got to talk with them. We sat down in the office. We talked for quite a while. They gave me the pitch. They gave me the thing. I brought a whole bunch of parts. And I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to be able to you know cut bevels, cut these critical locking features. Can I stack blades? Can I taper them? Can I use a fourth axis? Can I robot load it? like I want to know all these questions and how much is all this going to cost me.
00:22:58
johngrimsmo
you know, where are we at with that? And then we walked off the machine, I got to see it again, I got to, it's different being around a machine when you're considering buying it, as opposed to like, so you get a trade show, you're like, cool, right?
00:23:09
johngrimsmo
But when you got the, you know, the purchaser's hat on, you're like, okay, I got a lot lot of questions here, like, what does this do?
00:23:10
John
Yeah.
00:23:15
johngrimsmo
What does that do? How do you, how does the control work? um It was super helpful. And showing some of the demo parts that they had, this is the FANUC RoboCUT,
00:23:25
johngrimsmo
um super impressed. i'm I'm actually very impressed.
00:23:29
John
yeah
00:23:30
johngrimsmo
I had a sample made by a different company um and I still had the physical sample I found in my toolbox and the quality was not that great. So at the time, 2018 or whatever it was, I dismissed it.
00:23:41
johngrimsmo
I was like, ah, it's not going to work for Bevels. And then I brought that part to them and they knew exactly what vendor it was and they like knew why. And they're like, not to be a salesman, but our machine is better because of this, and this, and this, and this.
00:23:50
John
Interesting.
00:23:54
johngrimsmo
It's a little bit more expensive. And we don't do this. We have better this. dataatta ah And we'll prove it to you. you know So I left three blades there. They're going to do a test cut after IMTS. And I'm welcome to come up and and play and watch them test cut while that happens.
00:24:08
John
Yeah.
00:24:10
johngrimsmo
So it's been great feedback. Obviously, we've got a stellar relationship with Elliott Matsura, having bought several machines from them before. There's other brands out there, Makino, Mitsubishi, SODIC, and two or three more, Ashi, Sharmi.
00:24:28
John
Yeah, right. But anyway, actually, it's not something that there are quite a few.
00:24:30
johngrimsmo
And there are quite a few. um
00:24:36
johngrimsmo
But if I was forced to make a decision today, I would just buy the Robocut. like Super happy with it. And they have a, um, an add-on power supply.
00:24:47
johngrimsmo
It's called the MF2 generator, the, the micro finish, which for an EDM, every time you take a subsequent skim pass, it gets finer and finer and finer. And to do passes six and seven, maybe even eight, um, it switches to this new power supply, this extra little thing, which is much more fine tuned and you get a better surface finish.
00:24:57
John
and
00:25:07
John
Okay.
00:25:08
johngrimsmo
Like you can pretty much see rainbows off the surface. off the machine, which is nuts.
00:25:15
John
Wait, so, okay. When you EBM something, it's like a 2D contour path, but you're saying it actually goes around more than once.
00:25:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:23
John
If you want the finishes.
00:25:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Multiple multiple times. Yep. Yep. That's normal.
00:25:27
John
Oh man.
00:25:28
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:25:28
John
Is that right? Wait, so how long does a blade, how long will a blade take?
00:25:29
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:25:32
johngrimsmo
A long time. Like the first roughing pass, imagine if you have a start hole and you're just plowing through, you're doing a 100% roughing cut.
00:25:33
John
Okay.
00:25:41
johngrimsmo
um That is the slowest and then skin passes take half that time per pass.
00:25:45
John
Okay.
00:25:46
johngrimsmo
More passes take more and more time. um So a blade bevel on one side, oh, I forget we calculated, it could be like up to an hour.
00:25:49
John
Yeah.
00:25:56
johngrimsmo
which is a lot of time.
00:25:57
John
Okay.
00:25:58
johngrimsmo
um There's ways to speed it up. You can use coded wire, which takes 30% off your time, yada, yada, yada. So i'm I'm collecting all this data, brought it back to the team. I told Angela, I told Eric, I told Spencer, and it's just crunching.
00:26:12
johngrimsmo
Will it do what we want? Can we auto load it or or some way to just keep it running nonstop, run it 24 seven? Does the price make sense? Does the result make sense?
00:26:22
John
Yeah. Right.
00:26:23
johngrimsmo
Does it save time? Does it allow us to do more? et cetera, et cetera. But i'm I'm leaning towards a hard yes soon. um
00:26:31
John
Can you do more than one but because the wires quite wrong.
00:26:33
johngrimsmo
so
00:26:36
John
Can you do more than one blade at once? Or are they're like, dude, now you're, you're nobody. No.
00:26:42
johngrimsmo
you The guy said the longer you string it, it's like a guitar string. You get more vibration the longer it is. So you don't, I mean, you can stack blades vertically and have, you know, play with it like that. but
00:26:47
John
Yeah.
00:26:55
johngrimsmo
um Yeah, there's lots ah lots of ways to skin a cat.
00:26:58
John
doesn't feel full grim smell.
00:26:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:27:01
John
I'm laughing in my head because when I was so desperately trying to make Strike Mark work in 2009 or 10, and by that I mean not not only the product and sales, but we were going to try to rent industrial space in Brooklyn.
00:27:10
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:27:16
John
and I was going to work at my day job and I was going to take take the train to Brooklyn and a work nights there and then go back home.
00:27:17
johngrimsmo
Oh.
00:27:22
John
Um, and we were gonna buy that tour block and I was thinking we had this one part and I was, it had a big hole as a aluminum bracket that whole hole through it. And I was like, this is embarrassing. just How little I knew at the time I was going to take like a piece of PVC or or precision tubing. I was going to slide a bunch of those parts along the tubing so that they would be like self-fiction line and then like drill and tap the the edge of them. Actually.
00:27:48
John
maybe it would work, but you'd end up a huge increasing, the tolerance stack would be error would increase as you move along.
00:27:54
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:27:56
John
And it's like, nobody does that. Like that's just me trying too hard to make something work. It wasn't gonna work that way.
00:28:02
johngrimsmo
Right, right. But you don't know at the time.
00:28:06
John
Yeah, yeah. vision that's a you know I think we talked about this before, that kind of foolish naivety is somehow part of our success as well.
00:28:15
johngrimsmo
yeah Yep, it's needed.
00:28:16
John
That makes sense?
00:28:17
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:28:18
John
yeah
00:28:18
johngrimsmo
And you don't want to be afraid of it too much to the point where you're petrified into inaction. And I've seen that, you know, with, um, people I've been in contact with is they're too smart to make a move.
00:28:33
johngrimsmo
You know, sometimes you gotta be dumb enough to try, you know, optimistic enough to fail.
00:28:37
John
yeah Yeah.
00:28:38
johngrimsmo
Um, you don't want to be petrified into inaction and that doesn't get you anywhere.
00:28:39
John
Yeah.
00:28:42
John
Yeah. Yeah.
New Equipment Observations
00:28:45
John
Um, I'm like five minutes and I should run, but anything you want me to look at for you on here.
00:28:48
johngrimsmo
Perfect. Oh, good question. I've, I've put it out of my mind. I'm like, Oh, I'm not going. So I don't want to think about it. Um, no, I think I'm good, but have fun.
00:28:58
John
Yeah. Okay. I need to go over the north building. There's the gimbal automation guys have their spindle gripper thing over there.
00:29:06
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:29:08
John
I said, I can come by and see that. I want to see, um, I don't know, um, zap consoling.
00:29:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah, those are cool.
00:29:14
John
You know, zap, uh, and it's okay.
00:29:15
johngrimsmo
I've heard of him and it's ah it's it's on my list at some point for us to talk about more about that, about consulting in general.
00:29:22
John
Okay. Oh, interesting. Okay.
00:29:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:29:25
John
I'll make a note. Um, he has a, I think it's, help right Chris, eti he is a he has some involvement in a machine. I think it's a UMC 500 in the north building, which is like the automation side that is apparently going to be really unique with automation.
00:29:37
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:29:40
John
I'm sorry, this is a terrible explanation. i'll Maybe I'll try to get an Instagram out of it. um Oh, okay. I got to say it. So I went to the hospital because and me and anybody else in our world, it's kind of like what the Haas is going on.
00:29:52
John
um you know They have a new grinder, they have a CMM, they have a bridge mill, they have a bandsaw, a UMC 400. So people can DM me. Look, lots of people are putting out content. So I ah certainly have more information just coming out regularly. I looked at the CMM and it was very interesting. I don't, I think for what If we want the CMM, we're going to want it for the full Grims-Vaux reason.
00:30:15
John
And so we're going to want a Zeiss, and I think even the Duramax would not be the right fit. I think we'd look at the Contura.
00:30:20
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:30:22
John
But I was still like, okay, I want to see who is the CMM. It's had Renishaw hardware on it. It was running a, I believe a Demus software. It wasn't PC Demus, but it was interesting to see.
00:30:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:34
John
UFC 400 actually looked pretty good, I got to say. um So good to them on that.
00:30:39
johngrimsmo
Good.
00:30:39
John
And yeah.
00:30:42
johngrimsmo
Fine.
00:30:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Do you have anything else? Uh, I don't know thoughts.
00:30:51
John
So, um, I think so. Do, um, don't hesitate to, uh, don't hesitate to reach out to me, uh, DM or text me if you want me to look at anything for you for sure.
00:31:02
johngrimsmo
For sure. Yeah. I'll consider that today and I'll let you know.
00:31:05
John
Awesome. Well, thanks for accommodating the quirky schedule. And I look forward to doing this in person at the 20, 2026 IMTS.
00:31:09
johngrimsmo
No worries.
00:31:15
johngrimsmo
26. Absolutely easy.
00:31:15
John
That feels weird to say.
00:31:17
John
Yeah. Good.
00:31:18
johngrimsmo
Maybe I'll, ah maybe I'll use this skip as an excuse to go to some European trade show at some point.
00:31:25
John
Ah, there you go.
00:31:26
johngrimsmo
You know, our men.
00:31:26
John
I like it. Well, I'll tell everybody you said hello. Awesome.
00:31:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I appreciate that. And enjoy the rest of your trip.
00:31:31
John
Take care.
00:31:32
johngrimsmo
All right, take care.
00:31:33
John
Sounds good.
00:31:33
johngrimsmo
Bye.
00:31:34
John
I'll see you. Bye.