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#411 Cycle time evaluations
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TOPICS:
- Superglue fixtures
- Toolpath.com
- Passion for machines and projects
- Cycle time evaluations
- Grindmilling
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Business of Machining Podcast
00:00:01
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 411. My name is John Grimsmo and this is your weekly dose of manufacturing where John and John talk about what's going good, what's going bad, what bugs us and what we're doing well in our manufacturing business.
00:00:05
John S
My name is John Saunders.
00:00:17
John S
I like that.
00:00:20
johngrimsmo
um
00:00:23
johngrimsmo
How are you?
00:00:24
John S
Good, actually.
00:00:25
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:00:26
John S
Yes, I can.
00:00:26
johngrimsmo
Good, looks amazing.
00:00:26
John S
I can. um We were.
Post-Spring Break Work Flow and Sales Record
00:00:29
John S
um Off for the kids spring break, got some fresh air. And then, um, it was happy to say, you know, I came back and walked through the shop that night. I got back and didn't see anything on my office desk, went out to my shop desk. There was nothing on my shop desk.
00:00:47
John S
And then I was like, okay, we'll see if anything happens tomorrow. Nope. Just it's great.
00:00:51
johngrimsmo
As in like to do's or problems or things like that? Is that one of your communication styles of?
00:00:55
John S
Exactly.
00:00:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:00:56
John S
Cause it's kind of, you know, you never know.
00:00:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yep.
00:00:57
John S
Um, so really just kind of ah ah that
00:00:57
johngrimsmo
For sure.
Haas UMC-1500 in R&D and Fixture Machining
00:01:01
John S
feels good.
00:01:01
John S
Um, we also were laughing cause like we left and then we had ah like 18 hour period of record sales. i'm like, I should leave more often. Um,
00:01:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:11
johngrimsmo
It's
00:01:12
John S
And now, um, makes me really validated about having the 1500 because I wanted to have it as an R and D machine fix. What do you want to call that? Like a for fixtures and stuff like tool room. don't know.
00:01:26
John S
It feels like I'm trying too hard by saying that, but, and it's great.
00:01:28
johngrimsmo
it's your play machine
00:01:30
John S
We switched from. making a two steel fixtures for puck chucks. We needed a new Stimtworks timing chain fixture because we're the way we were doing it wasn't great. So I switched it. We want to switch it to a vacuum. And Alex designed these four.
Innovations in Fixture Design
00:01:45
John S
We're kind of doing a, I should put a little Instagram up if it'll work. It'll work. It's a little bit sounds Frankenstein, but it's actually quite simple, but it's puck chucks that we can pull on and off the VF2. And then it's, but instead of turning a full big piece of aluminum, you know the almost the size of VF2, like 20, 20 or 15 inches by 30 inches.
00:02:04
John S
twenty year fifteen inches by thirty inches
00:02:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah. OK.
00:02:06
John S
um We're doing a puck chuck, and we have many of these puck chuck fixtures. They work great, but it's regardless, it's a big piece of aluminum and um anyone who's made fixtures knows sometimes you want to tweak stuff or you damage one or whatnot.
00:02:18
John S
So there are four inserts on top of that, which are what are the actual op one, op two fixtures for the um left and right timing chain covers.
00:02:27
johngrimsmo
okay
00:02:28
John S
And that's nice because there those are cheap, inexpensive piece of material. We make it out of a actually coincidentally a carbide three d ah Nomad fixture plate. Works great for the fixture of those.
00:02:37
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:02:38
John S
And then those will go on a host puck chuck base that can get general purpose for other things in the future if need be. So making those on the 1500 and um it's just, it's just great to like, just like I'm super gluing them.
00:02:53
John S
It's exactly talked about. Like a month ago, i was like, oh, we want to super glue up zeros them. So we have that puck chuck pallet that has just a deck top and we just put some super glue down there
00:03:02
johngrimsmo
but okay
00:03:04
John S
and I'm still probing stuff. So the next level would be to actually have your stuff dialed enough to where, you know, offsets and locations without even probing.
00:03:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:13
John S
Um, but no big deal to do that. And then the same fixture that has the super glue, I pull it off. I had drilled and tapped four holes and that's how the op two fix fits in there that way. And, um,
00:03:25
John S
Went through the first one completely worked great. so now I'm going to do all the op, all the superglues, the three more superglue op zeros, and then bolt them down and do the op. Well, it's really op one, but um for the superglue.
Creative Fixture Securing Techniques
00:03:37
johngrimsmo
So let's talk more about the superglue technique because I've been using painters tape, superglue painters tape on the other side on the part fixture.
00:03:40
John S
Sure.
00:03:46
John S
Yep.
00:03:47
johngrimsmo
That's not what you're talking about.
00:03:49
John S
It is.
00:03:49
johngrimsmo
Oh, it is. Oh, you just said superglue. So I'm picturing only superglue, not tape as well.
00:03:54
John S
Oh, to me, sorry. ah I rudely assume that when you say superglue technique, you mean with the tape.
00:03:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Sure. Okay. Yeah.
00:04:00
John S
Yeah.
00:04:00
johngrimsmo
yeah I was just trying to visualize like really only superglue like.
00:04:04
John S
No, no, You want to do the tape for sure.
00:04:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. No, I find with superglue by itself, you don't get a lot of coverage. You know, you squiggle a zigzag onto the part and you push it down, hope it spreads everywhere. It doesn't, it dries quickly, it's all that.
00:04:17
johngrimsmo
um With the tape, yeah, I've had pretty good success. And these parts that you're gluing down are how big, give or take.
00:04:24
John S
almost exactly the same as a sheet of printer paper, eight and a half by 11.
00:04:27
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:04:28
John S
It's eight 10.6.
00:04:28
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:04:29
John S
ten boys so
00:04:30
johngrimsmo
good amount of surface area Are they flat enough to not worry about that rock? or anything
00:04:35
John S
It's extrusion. um And so there's no, you but you do, I do make sure that the edges are deburred because you'll have um usually saw cut burrs on the extrusion.
00:04:41
johngrimsmo
yep
00:04:45
John S
And then I have not been stoning these. I just feel them with my hand or I'll do a rock test, room almost almost subconsciously do a rock test um to make sure, like a tip rocking test to make sure there isn't a ah problem there otherwise.
00:04:54
johngrimsmo
thank you
00:04:57
John S
um rock And it's actually one of the things I don't hear as often mentioned that's really nice about super glue is, To some extent you're holding it in a unconstrained state, meaning you're not you're not flattening it down or bulging it up.
00:05:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:05:10
John S
so um So long as it's flat enough that the super glue obviously can maintain contact, it ends up like, no joke, the so so obviously the super glue side, the top becomes the bottom when you flip it over and screw it down.
00:05:13
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:05:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah, almost your datum.
00:05:24
John S
what When I was done with that, I took the screws out and I couldn't pull the fixture off of the super the off to the decked pallet base. It was completely loose, but had such a tight vacuum.
00:05:38
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:05:38
John S
like just note Not from a piercing vacuum, just like literally couldn't pull it up.
00:05:38
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:05:41
johngrimsmo
It's like rung on there. Yeah.
00:05:42
John S
Yeah, exactly. Now, some of that's from the...
00:05:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah. It's a lot lot of surface area.
00:05:44
John S
Right.
00:05:45
johngrimsmo
and Coolant and everything for sure.
00:05:45
John S
but Yeah, exactly.
00:05:47
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yeah. I'm, I don't work with a lot with aluminum extrusions, but I used to make, um, orange vice top pallets are like, you know, two inch thick, six inch wide, 20 inches long.
00:05:55
John S
Yes, exactly.
00:05:58
johngrimsmo
And I feel like I remember this was many years ago, but there was a dip in the middle of that extrusion, um, of like, several thousands of an inch. um If the two inch thickness, if you, you know, Mike did a cross, it'd be like two inch one nine, six, one nine, nine, whatever.
00:06:09
John S
Yep.
00:06:15
johngrimsmo
um I don't know. I'd be curious how much forgiveness the tape super glue method has, like how many thou before it's like really not
00:06:23
John S
Yeah.
Pros and Cons of Toolpath Automation
00:06:25
johngrimsmo
touching.
00:06:26
johngrimsmo
don't know.
00:06:26
John S
yeah I don't have definitive answers.
00:06:28
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:06:28
John S
Um, other than, yeah, exactly.
00:06:30
johngrimsmo
Use thicker super glue. I don't know.
00:06:31
John S
No, really you could.
00:06:32
johngrimsmo
but really Yeah, no, and I do do love that unconstrained because sometimes we make thin parts, little parts, and any amount of clamping in the vice or top clamp or whatever it will definitely bow apart.
00:06:41
John S
Yeah.
00:06:44
johngrimsmo
um I was just dealing with that on our, ah one of our surface plates is an old CMM. base. So it's got a bunch of threaded holes in it, bunch of M8 holes, um like 12 maybe in a grid pattern.
00:06:51
John S
Yeah.
00:06:56
johngrimsmo
And so I grabbed an M8 bolt and I threaded it in with a big washer and I was able to, I had a Norseman blade I was trying to measure on the surface plate and it had like almost a thou of bow to it.
00:07:07
johngrimsmo
So using this screw, i was able to just flatten it
00:07:07
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:07:11
johngrimsmo
And then on the other side, it's rock, but to to flatten it so I can do what I needed to do on it. um And that was kind of cool. I liked having the threaded holes.
00:07:17
John S
Yeah.
00:07:18
johngrimsmo
And i was like, it kind of sucked to have a big surface blade without threaded holes, now that I think about it.
00:07:23
John S
No, seriously, right?
00:07:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:25
John S
Yeah, agree.
00:07:25
johngrimsmo
I wonder how you would, how how would you solve that on a new sand ridge surface blade like yours? Like, how would you clamp apart? if I don't know, if you need it to not move or something.
00:07:35
John S
You...
00:07:37
John S
Um, so that's one reason why some of those fixture plates, the surface plates have the lip, the lip ledge.
00:07:43
johngrimsmo
The ledge? Yeah, okay.
00:07:44
John S
So you can kind of clamp with a F clamp or strap clamp. Um, otherwise, yeah, it would be, um, just gravity based.
00:07:47
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:07:51
John S
Like you would put a two, two, four, six or something heavy up there, or, but it's not, you're not constraining it like you're talking about for sure.
00:07:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:58
johngrimsmo
who I guess if you really became a toolmaker, you could like make your own steel mini-pallet that has screws in it, screw holes in it, or use a 1-2-3 block for that matter.
00:08:05
John S
Yes. Right.
00:08:08
John S
Yeah.
00:08:08
johngrimsmo
um That's a good point.
00:08:10
John S
And I think, i don't know whether there's Tom or Robin, but they have used hot glue before. And I guess hot glue tends to not, what is it like?
00:08:17
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:08:20
John S
It doesn't leave a residual, I guess.
00:08:21
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:08:22
John S
Don't quote me on that. and There's a bajillion hot glues out there as well, but to kind of lock things in place.
00:08:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:08:27
johngrimsmo
That's a good idea.
00:08:28
John S
not Not clamp down so much as like you want, mm-hmm.
00:08:30
johngrimsmo
Keep them from moving. That's a really good idea. i mean i remember years ago you told me that you got like a Dewalt cordless hot glue gun.
00:08:38
John S
Yes.
00:08:38
johngrimsmo
i still haven't gotten one, but it sounds like the greatest thing ever.
00:08:42
John S
Yes. they They're great. Although like I go six months without using it. Uh, so I don't want to sit here and, you know, BS on it.
00:08:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I get that. i got stuff like that. Yep.
00:08:52
John S
I do want to ask your kind of opinion on, um, what I want to see tool path, the company kind of become, so
00:09:01
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:09:04
John S
so And this is all like, it's, you know early stage company, the software's out there. It's working pretty well for many people's quoting engine. It's really though cam automation. So it will take your part out of fusion program it, put it back in fusion.
00:09:19
John S
Pretty like, to me, there's kind of like a whole, wow. Okay.
00:09:24
johngrimsmo
It actually takes the part out of Fusion Cam's and puts it back, eh?
00:09:27
John S
Yes.
00:09:28
johngrimsmo
I've never seen a hands-on demo. I've only seen a couple of videos and they talked about it.
00:09:30
John S
Yeah.
00:09:32
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:09:33
John S
I wanted to, in disclosure, I'm involved in the, I'm an investor and and board member, but I'm saying this wholeheartedly as a want to be user and want to be somebody along for the ride is what will change this industry.
00:09:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:44
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:09:46
John S
um And I haven't, frankly, I want to tout it more. I'm hesitant to tout it yet because I think there's a lot of opportunity for them to continue to improve it over the coming quarter two or six months.
00:09:57
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep.
00:09:57
John S
um And one of the biggest, this is all the more background information. One of the biggest problems right now is, um Take your current, and first it's also not, it's right now it's only three axis. It's not three plus two or five, but let's, or take your Mori.
00:10:11
John S
You've got 30 tools in your Mori and I'm in your shop now.
00:10:12
johngrimsmo
yep
00:10:15
John S
And I have a relatively simple two, what we call it, two plus one, like a three axis fixture. Like one of those orange vise tops. These are ah bunch of pockets and chamfers and drilled holes and counterbores, like nothing complicated, but a boatload of clicks.
00:10:29
John S
Like it's a lot of work to program it.
00:10:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:10:31
John S
And Toolpath can take that part, and in 30 seconds, 90 seconds, programs it, just done.
00:10:37
johngrimsmo
Really?
00:10:39
John S
Now, there's a stylistic aspect of, of um hey, it may not be done in exactly how you wanted it done. um My rebuttal to that was is what I realized is, well, okay, we have a shot full of programmers here at Saunders and everyone does something a little differently.
00:10:53
John S
Like that's something you have to be okay with, as long as it's not, you know, obviously crashing tools and and gouging.
00:10:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:10:59
John S
So the problem though, is you have to tell toolpath what's, what tools are in the mori. And that gets pretty complicated around, okay, well I have a three eighth inch lakeshore or a half inch freesia.
00:11:04
johngrimsmo
yep
00:11:10
John S
Well, is that a rougher? Is it finisher? Is it steel? Is it, can it ramp? Um, so that's part of the sort of problem they're dealing with now. Um, the,
00:11:20
johngrimsmo
does it um Does it suggest feeds and feeds or does it rely on your tool table to be your tool library to be dialed?
00:11:27
John S
So what they've done, which is pretty awesome, is they've created a ah ah free software that anybody can use. I guess other people are using it that aren't even using Toolpath called Pre-Tool. And it takes your Fusion library, it creates all the cut configs.
00:11:42
John S
So one of the problems is also they rely on, in your tool library in your Fusion, you can have the default preset and then you can have other presets, roughing, ramping, slow slotting, where you basically are adjusting your RPM and your feed per tooth.
00:11:54
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep, I've got a lot of those here.
00:11:57
John S
Okay, I have some of them. I don't use them a lot though.
00:12:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:00
John S
I just don't. And they need those because it's using um a I say AI in air quotes here. But it's you it's it will look at those. If you have one called ALU rougher, it's smart enough to realize, okay, Grimstone wants that to be an aluminum rougher.
00:12:11
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:12:14
John S
Great. If you don't have that, it can, Pre-Tool can take all of those and it can create them for you. And then it can either use your speeds and fees or it can suggest its own.
00:12:24
johngrimsmo
Don't worry.
00:12:24
John S
Now, these aren't necessarily going to be balls to the walls, but they they are, ah the things the people that are using have heard good things.
00:12:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:31
John S
It's still, it's too much onboarding though, right now, in my opinion, for you to have somebody just say, oh, this is a great tool.
00:12:31
johngrimsmo
Interesting. Yeah.
00:12:38
John S
Like it just works. Like ChatGPT would be a lot less fun if you had to spend an hour
00:12:44
johngrimsmo
Teaching it.
00:12:45
John S
teaching it once, let alone maybe every time you want to switch machines or Twitch topics being like, okay, here's what I'd like you to think to learn about.
00:12:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:53
John S
The brought all this up was right now, tool path is it'll take your part in fusion. And then when you click export with the plugin, it'll move it into the tool path website and it will program your part.
00:13:06
John S
And then when it moves it back into fusion right now, it is a new file.
00:13:12
johngrimsmo
I was wondering about that. Because that would lead to a lot of new files.
00:13:14
John S
And I don't like that because, well, it leaves a lot of new files and like right now I'm working on
00:13:19
johngrimsmo
But depending on, yeah.
00:13:23
John S
this timing chain fixture where there's four top plate fixtures on top of another fixture. So there's kind of five discrete parts i'm going to be machining this week. I don't want those forked into five separate files.
00:13:35
John S
um And you could start to argue about, well, you could create distributed cam, but it's still, it's putting, when you put it back, it's always a new instance. And that's to me is no bueno.
00:13:45
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I get the wanting to do that because it's probably simpler than updating the current fixture or the current thing.
00:13:45
John S
um
00:13:51
John S
Yeah.
00:13:55
johngrimsmo
Huh.
00:13:56
John S
But what I want, i guess I've i've lost, i well, I'm telling you instead of asking you. If you had, so here's what Toolpath can do. Forget about the tool library and tool speeds and feeds. Assume that's fixed.
00:14:10
John S
Toolpath can take a simple fixture, like the ones I've seen that you have for your relatively simple, for your Norseman or your RASC.
00:14:16
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:14:18
John S
If you need to make a new one or to change something and program it, it just does it.
00:14:24
John S
I would you use that and would you, would you be, ah would you be focused on having that part always stay like infusion or would it it be okay but is it worth that to you if it opened a new file, if you will?
00:14:39
johngrimsmo
see For my uses, we do so little new weird stuff. um Like we're not a job shop.
00:14:47
John S
Yeah.
00:14:47
johngrimsmo
We'll make fixtures every now and then, but it's every few months kind of thing.
00:14:50
John S
Yeah.
00:14:50
johngrimsmo
um For the most part, we have dialed programs that get tweaked and modified. And I think I'm on version 700 of one of my files. And I've seen over 900 on my Norseman file.
00:15:00
John S
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:15:01
johngrimsmo
Fusion doesn't like getting over 900 versions.
00:15:03
John S
It's funny. Yeah,
00:15:04
johngrimsmo
It slows down hard. um So I iterate on the things we're doing. But I can see this being super beneficial. If you have a new thing, you're like, here's the design, the CAD the cad is perfect, spit it out, bring in tool paths into a new file, and that is your starting point.
00:15:21
johngrimsmo
I would, through experience, maybe I would just run it, but realistically, like me, I'd be like, great, starting point.
00:15:21
John S
yeah. Yeah.
00:15:28
johngrimsmo
Okay, let me go in there, massage a couple things, I want this to look like that. But I've got my starting point, even if it's in a new file. And then, unless it's long term recurring job that I'm going to want to edit a million times.
00:15:40
johngrimsmo
um I might be okay with that. You know, if you structure your folders, right, so that you don't have too much bloat in your in your library.
00:15:44
John S
I think, yeah.
00:15:50
John S
Actually, the software does a really nice job of labeling stuff too. So when you want to go ah parse through it, you're like, okay, great. I see what it's doing. Love it.
00:15:59
johngrimsmo
like toolpath names and stuff.
00:16:00
John S
Yes. the Yes.
00:16:00
johngrimsmo
Nice. Yeah, I try to do that. And as I'm getting my guys to do more programming, you know, it's like two d Contour, 2D Pocket. And I'm like, no, you gotta like, you gotta to name it.
00:16:10
John S
Right.
00:16:12
johngrimsmo
You gotta like, what am I doing here? Cut bearing pocket.
00:16:13
John S
Yes, yes, yes. Chamfering the counter boards versus chamfering the profile.
00:16:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah, rough mill, finish mill, things like that. Because as you know, when we make the fjell clip, there's almost 100 operations. The fjell handle is over 100 operations.
00:16:28
johngrimsmo
It's like, that's a lot to look through.
00:16:28
John S
Right.
00:16:32
John S
What I, cause I, would like it to be a a true force multiplier, time saver, click saver. Like I don't need to like the kind of joke, like I don't need to be clicking 2D contours anymore.
00:16:46
John S
Like I'm good, like do that for me.
00:16:47
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep. Hmm.
00:16:48
John S
My perfect world, I had this idea of like, hey, I stay in Fusion, I right click, I say auto cam this part.
Future of Automated CAM Processes
00:16:55
John S
And then it could even say, just go, or it could say, okay, what do you want it to do? And I could say,
00:16:59
John S
do all, do the facing, the the roughing, the 2D contours, but skip the drill hold, skip the chamfers. And then later I could go back in, do that click again and say, okay, now go ahead and do the chamfers.
00:17:06
johngrimsmo
ye
00:17:11
johngrimsmo
and
00:17:11
John S
That way you'll kind of have more control and I can even pick what tool I want. I don't care about picking the tool, that's easy for me. um Versus, um Cloud NC, separate company, I haven't followed up lately on it. Their m MO is more, hey, we have a graduate student who doesn't know an end mill from ah in a lathe insert.
00:17:30
John S
They have access to a DMU50. this Our software lets them run their parts within 10 minutes. like That's crazy to me.
00:17:36
johngrimsmo
that's That's crazy.
00:17:37
John S
like Never going to happen. So much risk.
00:17:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:40
John S
So much no, no. like Sounds altruistic. Um, but just the, the number, the risk of damaging parts, crashing machines, just we're not there.
00:17:51
John S
Um, but the idea that software like toolpath can get you 80, 90% of the way there.
00:17:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:58
John S
And then you go through and you're like, ah, you know, I'd rather surface this than have the whatever.
00:18:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah. That's where experience comes in though.
00:18:03
John S
Um, yeah.
00:18:04
johngrimsmo
You, you have to know what you're doing to take that further.
00:18:08
John S
Right, right. Sorry, this this I guess I didn't really have a question. when you You already said, you really don't use Fusion enough for fixtures and stuff. Even though we're not a job shop, we still are making fixtures for parts and stuff regularly.
00:18:22
John S
So um I do, and I just, you know from the years of doing the training classes and the YouTube stuff, like
00:18:23
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:18:31
John S
I hope toolpath kind of prevails, but somebody is going to crack this nut around.
00:18:35
johngrimsmo
For sure.
00:18:35
John S
Hey, holy cow. There's just, you know, just like cam meant there's no reason to handwrite G-code anymore.
00:18:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:18:44
John S
That's going to be what happens to manual cam operation creation. Yeah.
00:18:49
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yep.
00:18:51
johngrimsmo
On that note, side but sidebar, um there's this show that came out recently called the day of the jackal.
00:18:57
John S
Okay.
00:18:58
johngrimsmo
Have you heard of it?
00:18:59
John S
Huh?
00:18:59
johngrimsmo
It's got um Eddie Redmayne as the main character, and he's an assassin. And he goes around Europe assassinating people, and he's like super, you know, he's got the wigs and the mask and the accents, and he can blend it anywhere. It's really fantastically good.
00:19:12
johngrimsmo
Except for this one scene where he goes to the gun makers shop and they're making this super secret gun. And he's got a bunch of 3D printers and the this old Irish gun maker. And he's like, okay, it's going to take us a couple hours to write the code to 3D print this part.
00:19:28
johngrimsmo
And he starts dictating it. And he's like, okay, M168, G28.
00:19:33
John S
Hilarious.
00:19:33
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, oh my God, that's not how this works anymore. Yeah.
00:19:37
John S
That's actually a funny way to think about it. I bet you not withstanding some engineer at MIT in like 1993, like the in the consumer 3D printer world that kind of started with like MakerBots 15 years ago or whatever, i get I bet you nobody has ever written a program from G-code.
00:19:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:19:55
John S
Like you could, yeah, he' just he's just never, the slicers, he just wouldn't.
00:19:55
johngrimsmo
For a 3D printer? Yeah. Yeah, people have tweaked them, but like you just wouldn't. You just wouldn't.
00:20:00
John S
right, right.
00:20:00
johngrimsmo
but i can't believe that the even the props department allowed that into the show.
00:20:01
John S
right
00:20:04
John S
Yeah.
00:20:05
johngrimsmo
It's a very high-end show. Very, very good. And I'm like, oh my goodness.
00:20:10
John S
That's funny.
00:20:10
johngrimsmo
that That was a choice. like There's no way. Anyway, it's funny.
00:20:13
John S
Yeah. the The last thing I'll say, and then I'll shut up is that I've asked if the toolpath team would consider looking at, i don't know if they were going bite on this or not, would be, Hey, if I have a new part, or let's say you modify your RASC fixture and it's not, ah it may not be a most, may not be a crazy complicated fixture, but you know, there may be a bunch of operations to it.
00:20:35
John S
You'd be 30 or 40 operations. and i Let's say um but I move two edges and I change the angle of something and I need to remake it. It's worth remaking it. Why can't I say, toolpath, here's part take, a analyze part A and program part B, which is a minor change to it.
00:20:54
johngrimsmo
okay
00:20:54
John S
And, you know, read my intent. Look at how I did the, where I did the adapters. Look at where I did surface from my fusion cam.
00:20:58
johngrimsmo
From your your toolpaths.
00:21:02
John S
Exactly.
00:21:02
johngrimsmo
yeah You programmed the first part, it's a reference.
00:21:03
John S
Like, bingo. Yes.
00:21:06
John S
Yes.
00:21:06
johngrimsmo
Actually, is there value in that?
00:21:09
johngrimsmo
If I say I open toolpath and i I gave it a reference file, like here's my Rask fixture file, this is how I do things.
00:21:14
John S
Yes. Yes.
00:21:17
johngrimsmo
And it could then learn. That would be nuts.
00:21:19
John S
Right. Cause we do this one variance of timing change or above valve covers. We've got, i don't know, eight or 10 different skews, the pain in the butt to program. And they're all minor differences.
00:21:28
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah But you gotta retouch everything pretty much.
00:21:31
John S
Um, redo the whole thing.
00:21:33
johngrimsmo
you i can see that
00:21:33
John S
Oh yeah. Um, And there's frictions conscious or subconscious around like, oh man, it'd be really nice to, to change this, but oh man, then I got to go pick and those have a hundred operations.
00:21:43
johngrimsmo
you
00:21:46
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:21:47
John S
So.
00:21:47
johngrimsmo
Sometimes I'll do that like on the Willowman, copy the whole cam file, like the whole everything make a new file, bring my new part in.
00:21:56
John S
Yeah.
00:21:56
johngrimsmo
and just kind of hit generate and see what tool paths transfer over.
00:21:59
John S
Yeah. yeah
00:22:00
johngrimsmo
Cause some of them are model aware.
00:22:02
John S
Yeah.
00:22:03
johngrimsmo
Like, okay, half of them worked, half them didn't.
00:22:03
John S
Right.
00:22:06
John S
Yeah. um When's your, have you gone to your blade show yet? Or is that coming up?
00:22:12
johngrimsmo
um Blade Show in the US is in six weeks, but our toron Toronto Knife Show is this Saturday.
00:22:15
John S
I'm sorry. i meant Toronto.
00:22:18
John S
Got it Oh, awesome.
00:22:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:22:20
John S
Good.
00:22:20
johngrimsmo
Super excited for that.
00:22:22
John S
Cool.
00:22:22
johngrimsmo
<unk>ve Got a bunch of product to bring. Apparently there's a good list of makers that are bringing some really high-end stuff, so it should be an amazing crowd.
00:22:32
John S
Good.
00:22:32
johngrimsmo
Kind of feel last minute on it. you know We've been thinking about it for a long time, but now that it's real and it's three days away, we're like, oh, okay, yeah, that's what's our table going to look like?
00:22:38
John S
Yeah.
00:22:42
johngrimsmo
like
00:22:43
John S
you guys have a trade show set up?
00:22:43
johngrimsmo
So, eh, we got some tablecloths and...
00:22:45
John S
Like.
00:22:49
johngrimsmo
We've got trays that we 3D print and put like the show label 3D printed at an angle on the back, like Toronto Knife Show 2025.
00:22:53
John S
Okay.
00:22:54
johngrimsmo
And
00:22:55
John S
Yeah.
00:22:57
johngrimsmo
and just some stuff. I've got this huge 3D printed Grimmsmo logo that lights up. um
00:23:03
John S
Nice.
00:23:04
johngrimsmo
That's on the wall. So we're probably going to pull that off and bring it to the show as our backdrop or something. um I don't know if we have a table in the middle with no backsplash or if we have like against the wall or something, if we can hang this up.
00:23:15
johngrimsmo
But we'll bring it anyway because that'll be cool.
00:23:17
John S
Is this as big as Blade, Chell?
00:23:17
johngrimsmo
um No, not even close. No, this, this will be like, like one convention room in a hotel kind of thing.
00:23:20
John S
Okay.
00:23:23
John S
Oh, yeah, so, I mean.
00:23:25
johngrimsmo
A nice little show, but blade show 10,000 people. Like it's, it's massive.
00:23:29
John S
Crazy.
00:23:30
johngrimsmo
It's like four Walmarts size kind of thing.
00:23:31
John S
Yeah.
00:23:33
John S
It's the one that's always in Atlanta?
00:23:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And there, there's some ones now there's one in Texas, there's one in Portland or something, which haven't been to any of those, but blade in Atlanta is the big one.
00:23:35
John S
Okay. Yeah.
00:23:39
John S
Yeah,
00:23:44
johngrimsmo
So,
00:23:44
John S
don't know.
00:23:46
johngrimsmo
But yeah, so that's exciting there. We've got a bunch of Fjells we're bringing to it. Super good to see the local crowd of customers and fans too, so. Yeah.
00:23:56
johngrimsmo
Let's see, speaking of Fjells, totally in production. Things going good. I'm pretty much hands off, um advising on a couple tolerances as we make them, but it's working.
00:24:14
John S
We're still, i know last week we talked about the resolution of the minor CAD cam stuff. That's all fixed in there. Now the taper angle was really just a CAD goof and that's fixed.
00:24:24
johngrimsmo
Oh yeah, right. Yeah, it was a bit of an oversight. That is fixed. Knives are working.
00:24:31
John S
Just working. Okay.
00:24:32
johngrimsmo
The detent is perfect. The lockup is perfect. There might be like 5% button stick, but it's well within, like you, you wouldn't know. I know because I'm staring at it and I'm like, ah click, click.
00:24:40
John S
Okay. Yeah. Right.
00:24:43
johngrimsmo
I don't know. And it's like, I got to the point where it's like, nope, it's good enough. Pass it around the shop. They're like, this feels amazing. And I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm seeing things. Um, Yeah, and I forgot if I talked about it last week, but the this pocket in the blade that the detent, the button clicks into.
00:25:03
John S
The one that, yep.
00:25:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah, the the accuracy we're holding on it now, even over the past week, is millions, like tens of millions anyway. um Well under a tenth of Z-height repeatability.
00:25:16
John S
OK.
00:25:16
johngrimsmo
um Because... I forget if I explained it, stop me if i I've said it, but basically using hard milling tools, I'm hard milling the pocket, like I touch the top of the blade with the probe, but Z zero essentially.
00:25:28
johngrimsmo
um Mill a 9,000 deep pocket, probe again, later probe the blade top and probe the pocket and measure the difference between those two values.
00:25:37
John S
Mm-hmm. Ooh.
00:25:38
johngrimsmo
I don't care about G54. care about actual to actual, real life. And math me the difference. And if the difference is 20 millionths, comp the tool by 20 millionths, then cut the cut the the pocket, what's supposed to be 9,000, cut it to, I want 12 and a half or 12,400.
00:25:47
John S
oh
00:25:53
johngrimsmo
and then probate again afterwards. you know Surface down, measure the difference, de-print the result, and we're holding tens of millions um accuracy and 40 million across multiple multiple blades, and we're verifying it on the CMM and on the height indicator that we have, and it's like it's actually doing it.
00:26:14
johngrimsmo
i'm like, oh my gosh, it's amazing.
00:26:14
John S
It's cool.
00:26:16
johngrimsmo
Because that method takes tool wear out of the equation. It takes probe calibration out of the equation. It takes ah thermal compensation.
00:26:22
John S
It's just a small relative. Yeah, exactly. Right.
00:26:24
johngrimsmo
it's It's a relative change. And all I care about, this tool only does that. All I care about is do the thing and do it perfectly. And it's sick.
00:26:36
John S
What, um as much as you use your probe, do you ever look at the, not Ruby, what are these things made out of it? Is it Ruby?
00:26:45
johngrimsmo
Ruby, yeah yeah Yeah, the red ones.
00:26:45
John S
No. Yeah. Okay. you ever look, do you ever replace it or look at the tip but condition?
00:26:48
johngrimsmo
Uh, they, they get replaced due to errors periodically.
00:26:51
John S
Okay. Yeah.
00:26:52
johngrimsmo
Um, but no, after Marv posted that scanning microscope of the Ruby tip and you're like, this looks terrible at a million times a resolution.
00:26:53
John S
Yeah.
00:26:57
John S
Yeah. Right.
00:27:01
johngrimsmo
Like, um, and the more we use our CMM and our CMM rep guy comes in every now and then and talks about probe tips and he's like, Oh, they wear down. Like they absolutely wear, especially if you're scanning, like dragging across a part.
00:27:13
John S
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:27:14
johngrimsmo
Um, Apparently aluminum is very abrasive, so if you do a lot of scanning on aluminum, you want, I don't know if i'm right here, but a silicon carbide probe tip, not a ruby tip because it will wear down more.
00:27:22
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:27:26
johngrimsmo
um And yeah, if you're constantly touching the same four points on a bore, doot doot doot, it's maybe, i don't know.
00:27:32
John S
Yep.
00:27:34
johngrimsmo
But no, I don't think or care about that. I think my probe tips are one millimeter.
00:27:40
John S
Oh, that's tiny.
00:27:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's tiny. Maybe they're two.
00:27:42
John S
Oh, man.
00:27:42
johngrimsmo
Some of them, I think the Mori is two, but the Kern and the Speedio are one millimeter. Yeah, 39 thou.
00:27:46
John S
That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
00:27:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that way I can get into a little 80 thou hole and actually measure it.
00:27:48
John S
Woo.
00:27:50
John S
Eight, eight sheets of printer paper basically. Yeah. That's crazy.
00:27:57
johngrimsmo
The world we live in. And there's a hole drilled in it, and it's glued onto the shank.
00:28:01
John S
Yeah. Oh yeah. Right. Right.
00:28:02
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:28:03
John S
Yeah. Huh.
00:28:07
John S
Um, I found a new machine that, uh,
00:28:12
johngrimsmo
I love the way this is going.
00:28:13
John S
I, um, put it, so, okay. The lesson learned before I talk the machine is I think we know this about each other, or I know about myself and you have some version of it, you're for yourself as well, but like, it's very easy for me to become very passionate about a project or a machine or a task.
00:28:31
John S
And, and with the benefit of hindsight or more perspective, you realize I didn't need to spend as much time on it. Period. You just, you know, you just didn't.
00:28:39
johngrimsmo
You too? It's not just me? Our entire audience is like, I know what
00:28:42
John S
Oh yeah. And like, you know, both of us have sort of said, but sometimes that's just the joy we find in life. And there's some truth to that. But I think in the spirit of recognizing what I want to get done and this, this month, this year of this life, um I'm trying to be more, more conscious of things like this.
00:28:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:28:59
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:28:59
John S
I'm like, okay, let's come back to that in not.
00:29:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I think we self-justify a lot.
00:29:05
John S
Yeah.
00:29:06
johngrimsmo
to be like, oh, but this could do so many things for us. And then you get 14 hours into the research hole and you're like, no, that's no, I'm over this now.
00:29:13
John S
Right. right
00:29:16
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:29:16
John S
So, um the and I stumbled upon it based on an email that actually caught my eye, which is normally not something I succumb to. um But it's from, I'm gonna throw out three different brand names, which betrays how little I really understand what's going on here.
00:29:33
John S
One is UASA, Y-U-A-S-A. think they're the importer or parent company. The other one, which is not the machine, but is ah but they are part of the same portfolio, is Tama,
00:29:46
John S
Hold on. I moved my tab here. Takamaz, T-A-K-A-M-A-Z. Not Takumi that Rathi has ah plurality of, but Takamaz, which are these small, high-production, automation-friendly lathes.
00:30:00
John S
They really caught my eye, um especially because ah we are finishing up some parts on our Haas ST20Y.
00:30:02
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:30:08
John S
Actually, I will put this out there. We plan on selling our bar-fed... Y-axis live tool, Haas ST20Y, great machine, but we finally have everything on the Williman and we're not keeping that machine anymore.
00:30:18
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:30:20
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:30:21
John S
So at some point I will formally list it, but if anybody's looking for a Haas ST20Y, nope, runs great, blah, blah, blah, but um reach out.
00:30:22
johngrimsmo
Perfect.
00:30:31
John S
So, but I've also thought, what would it look like if we wanted a different lay that might only be a two-axis? It might be more automation friendly, blah, blah, blah. So that's part what caught my eye.
00:30:42
John S
Then I'm perusing this their YouTube videos and I found the machine that i do want to spend some more time looking into, which is the Mectron M-E-C-T-R-O-N.
00:30:54
John S
I'm actually gonna DM dmu the thing or the Mectron M-C-H-4-81. I'll send it to over WhatsApp.
00:31:00
johngrimsmo
I feel like I might have heard of Mektron, the brand.
00:31:04
John S
um I have no memory of it. But find a video. It probably makes more sense to watch. Oh yeah, there's a video on this page. So it's going to a little bit hard to do it justice describing it, but it is the, I think the closest thing I've ever seen to a Willimon that is not a Willimon.
00:31:25
John S
So it's, it can be bar fed. It can be very auditing.
00:31:27
johngrimsmo
Is it the thing that looks like a RoboDrill?
00:31:30
John S
No.
00:31:31
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:31:31
John S
It's a horizontal four plus one that has, again, bar feeding and the ability to transfer apart from the main kind of the main spindle to a subspindle and then out of the machine.
00:31:35
johngrimsmo
Okay, I see your picture, yeah.
00:31:44
John S
So it's like at a high level, it's a very similar Willemann workflow. Bar feed, turn, high tool count.
00:31:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:31:51
John S
There's no turret. It's all um traditional taper, you know, BT, whatever, 30 type tooling. I have no idea how much they cost. They may be unicorns or, i mean, obviously if they're more expensive than Willman, that's less interesting.
00:32:05
John S
But ah um yeah, I just, it caught my eye and I feel like from the friends we have or Instagram or CJ, like you, we've seen a lot of this type of stuff.
00:32:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Interesting.
00:32:15
John S
And um there's also been some kind of informal chatter that um brother could end up coming out with something that could be kind of barfed-ish, that could be Willimon-ish.
00:32:24
johngrimsmo
who
00:32:26
John S
Like if you think about a barfed mill that has a fourth axis, you are part of, and then you put a spindle g gripper or something on it that could go to a sub, you following me here?
00:32:36
johngrimsmo
Kind of, yeah.
00:32:37
John S
Anyway.
00:32:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I mean, to to do Willimon things for, say, half the price is is pretty high pretty taunting.
00:32:44
John S
Yeah. So that's my, if anybody knows about them or has them, because the other problem is like, what if these things don't exist in the US and there's no support and blah, blah, blah.
00:32:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. There was a um on the website, there was an Illinois address, like a Chicago-based address.
00:32:59
John S
Okay.
00:32:59
johngrimsmo
um Elk Grove, I saw.
00:33:02
John S
Yeah.
00:33:03
johngrimsmo
But, interesting.
00:33:06
John S
Yeah, like I guess I hadn't even gotten to the thought of like, okay, well you'd also would need a post. It just kind of goes back to like, I'm very unwilling to swim upstream.
00:33:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah, with like new...
00:33:16
John S
Well, yeah, look and look, frankly, I got to give CJ L the credit in the world for, you know, we all are benefiting from the posts he he built for that and proved out that workflow.
00:33:17
johngrimsmo
like Yeah.
00:33:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And even just watching him run hit run his Willimans and inspire us.
00:33:29
John S
Yeah.
00:33:32
John S
Yeah.
00:33:32
johngrimsmo
He's like, yeah, I got 168 hours of runtime this week. I can do better.
00:33:36
John S
Yeah, that's crazy.
00:33:37
johngrimsmo
I'm like, no, you can't.
00:33:37
John S
It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. You have to put it in a ah Yeah. Start messing with the space time continuum to extract more cycle time out.
00:33:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Well, one very interesting thing he said, and I'm pretty sure I can share this, but he said running his Speedio, it's bar fed, right?
00:33:58
johngrimsmo
I think he had 8,000 changes thousand tool changes a day
00:34:02
John S
Crazy.
00:34:03
johngrimsmo
which is nuts.
00:34:03
John S
Yeah.
00:34:05
johngrimsmo
And he's like calculating, oh yeah, it's slower when I do it like this.
00:34:07
John S
yeah
00:34:09
johngrimsmo
I need to um order the tools in the carousel so that they're side by side because that 0.2 seconds where it rotates around to the other side, like literally adds up over 8,000 tool changes into hours a day.
00:34:16
John S
sure
00:34:21
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, the speedio has the fastest tool changer in the world and he's spending, what you say, three hours a day changing tools? i was like, what the heck?
00:34:29
John S
8,000 a day, if you do 250 working days is 2 million a year. But the way CJ runs that, that machine absolutely can be running more than 250 year.
00:34:38
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:34:39
John S
days of year
00:34:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:34:41
John S
Um, I don't know how much CJ has shown publicly on it. So I don't to, again, do the same thing overshare, but like it's, I don't think it's bar fed, but he has material hopper that pulls bars out of.
00:34:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:34:51
johngrimsmo
Fair.
00:34:52
John S
No, but not taking away from it.
00:34:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:34:53
John S
it's still like, God tip of the hat, man.
00:34:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it is a three axis milling machine that runs from bars, like 20 inch bars or whatever.
00:35:02
John S
Yeah. Yes.
00:35:03
johngrimsmo
It's crazy.
00:35:03
John S
Yes. Love it.
00:35:04
johngrimsmo
Brilliant. And I'm so impressed that not only that it works, but that it's working so well.
00:35:05
John S
Uh-huh.
00:35:14
John S
Yeah.
00:35:14
johngrimsmo
Like literally 24 hour cycle times.
00:35:17
John S
Yes.
00:35:17
johngrimsmo
Or whatever he's doing, but yeah.
00:35:17
John S
Yes.
00:35:22
John S
The last thing on my list, I've had this on our talk list for a couple of weeks. It's not particularly exciting, but it's important is, um, we are for sure at the point where on certain products it's worth reevaluating cycle time.
Optimizing Cycle Times for Efficiency
00:35:38
John S
Um, And so it's easy in my experience to get overwhelmed by like, oh my gosh, where do we start? There's so many things we could do. And it's kind of like, nope, just boil it down. And so you pick you know you pick the biggest bottleneck and for us that's steel fixture plates just simply because the cycle time is significantly longer than aluminum.
00:35:56
John S
And you look at the file, then you look at what's the longest cam, you know and know is it has roughing the edges, is it decking, is a drilling, is it tapping?
00:36:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:36:06
John S
Um, and then you just start to look at, Hey, what can we do there? And, um, I started this conversation with Caleb who runs most of those plates and he started to sell sheet tracking, you know, okay, let's pick the five longest cycle times. Let's look at what we can improve.
00:36:21
John S
Is it that we just left meat on the bone or is it worth, um, is it worth sacrificing some tool life because we want to run it little faster, a little hotter?
00:36:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:36:30
John S
Um, don't really want to compromise tool reliability, but, um you know, maybe worth, it's kind of weird to think about, but maybe worth blowing through a $20 end mill to get through has faster every time, every plate, figure out a way to get those tools swapped out quickly, sister tooling and the right kind of holder.
00:36:35
johngrimsmo
Fair.
00:36:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:36:47
John S
um But most importantly is just recognizing it, that we're addressing it. It's like, Hey, how can we shave some cycle time off this product?
00:36:55
johngrimsmo
is It's an awareness. I noticed that too, because on our RASC and now our Fjell, every handle is surfaced, like 3D contour surfaced, which but for some patterns could take over an hour just to surface two handles.
00:37:03
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:09
John S
Yeah.
00:37:10
johngrimsmo
in the past. um So then I would spend some good time re-strategizing and for running five, six knives a day and an hour each just to surface the handle. It's taking six hours a day.
00:37:21
johngrimsmo
If I can cut that down in half or something, i'm saving hours a day.
00:37:21
John S
yeah
00:37:24
johngrimsmo
I can make another knife or two. like Um, so I, did and I played with the speeds and feeds, the SFM specifically jack that up. I think I'm roughing at 600 SFM and titanium, um, which is like a lot, but I'm not cutting very deep and I'm using an eight flute Zadaro ball mill.
00:37:36
John S
Okay.
00:37:43
John S
That's crazy. It's crazy.
00:37:43
johngrimsmo
Talked about this before, quarter inch eight flute ball mill.
00:37:46
johngrimsmo
Um, and it, it just rips it and it, I get thousands of minutes of tool life out of it and it just works.
00:37:48
John S
It just looks like a burr.
00:37:53
John S
Yeah, it's crazy.
00:37:55
johngrimsmo
Um, And I saved, i think I cut my cycle times in half.
00:38:00
John S
Is that right?
00:38:00
johngrimsmo
Yep. Not only by pushing a little bit faster, but by going from four flute to eight flute, you can theoretically double your feed rate um and keep the same chip load.
00:38:01
John S
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:38:08
John S
Yes. Right.
00:38:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so things like that, definitely. And um it's been tickling my brain lately too. It's like, maybe there are some low hanging fruit that we could, you know, if I really went through every program with a fine tooth comb, and but we have the reliability now. So I kind of, I don't know.
00:38:26
John S
Well, no, it is worth, you know, that's your job and my job is to stop and think, what's the goal here? Now, the goal for sure is just to look at low-hanging fruit.
00:38:31
johngrimsmo
Yep. Mm.
00:38:34
John S
Like, there are some things we just, somebody clicked this years ago and we've just never changed it.
00:38:39
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:38:40
John S
And it's way under utilizing the capacity of a cutting tool or the machine. But... but a typical, like a VF2 steel fixture plate is kind of an awkward cycle because you're never really going to get three done in a day.
00:38:53
John S
The cycle time is enough where even if you had to walk in the perfect storm where one was already set up in the morning, you ran it through and then you got the second one on there. By time you run the cycle time is usually just, you know, there's no point in, um, is that awkwardness of like 3d print farms where it's like, if it's not, it's not worth trying to shave a six hour,
00:39:05
johngrimsmo
Really?
00:39:07
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:39:14
John S
cycle time down to four hours and 40 minutes. Cause on an eight hour shift, you're still not getting the third one in.
00:39:20
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:39:20
John S
Um, so yeah, that's where we're at
00:39:20
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:39:25
johngrimsmo
Interesting. Yeah. And that's what I'm liking less and less about long single cycle times. Like in the current, we have the tombstones that come in and it's great because it's automated. I can pallet change. But when one tombstone takes five hours, that's the majority of a shift.
00:39:41
johngrimsmo
um And you can't throw something on.
00:39:41
John S
Oh yeah.
00:39:44
johngrimsmo
I have a 10 minute part. I just need to pallet change in at the moment. Like I'm not here for that anymore. Yeah.
00:39:49
John S
And you don't have an easy way of making sure it doesn't run that five hour job during the day for no reason other than it was.
00:39:53
johngrimsmo
we sure Yeah, it's a choice to run everything, but still.
00:39:55
John S
Okay. Yeah.
00:39:57
johngrimsmo
um Whereas im for the Fjell and everything, I'm breaking things down into more 20-minute or an hour-long programs. And you can program or you can schedule a ton of those throughout the day and still have time to be nimble.
00:40:07
John S
Yeah.
00:40:08
johngrimsmo
And, oh, actually, we need lock inserts. We're going to run those for the afternoon. But if I just started a five-hour palette I don't want to stop it, like... kind of kind of screwed.
00:40:17
John S
yeah
00:40:18
johngrimsmo
It's fine, it is what it is, but I like the nimbleness of being able to make those decisions and not be so locked into that. But for night runs, long runs are great.
00:40:29
John S
Well, and like on the horizontal, we're not going to worry about it because right now the horizontal never runs past two in the morning or whatever.
00:40:35
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:40:35
John S
Like we just don't need to. So great. Leave it alone. Don't worry about it.
00:40:38
johngrimsmo
Yep, exactly.
00:40:38
John S
Can't, can't, you know, can't solve, can't save every, or can't fix everything. or You're not broken. Don't fix it.
00:40:45
johngrimsmo
If you needed more production out of the horizontal, do you have more tombstones or faces or sides that you could add?
00:40:52
John S
Yeah, we have a lot because we pulled off the aluminum and we just, we have, we have that machine's frankly at half capacity, which is part of what, going back to the whole idea of like, I get really hot on projects.
00:40:55
johngrimsmo
Gotcha.
00:40:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:04
John S
I still have that desire to, end up, with a Hermla or well, a five axis that can handle production, prototyping, automation.
00:41:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:16
John S
And, but the easier way to make that work was going to be to sell the horizontal. And that's a lot of friction swimming uphill, but from a power, like actual voltage into the shop or, you amps into the shop, real estate, like floor print and money, um, by keeping both is a different
00:41:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:36
John S
a different path that I'm not ready for.
00:41:38
johngrimsmo
Another conversation, yeah.
00:41:39
John S
and don't think now Hermla is actually, they got a machine in a of weeks ago that, that they want to do some tests on and I'd like to learn more and I could see it kind of coming back, but, um, yeah.
00:41:50
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:41:52
John S
yeah
00:41:57
johngrimsmo
Another thing on my ah on my list that happened last night and this morning. So when we make our Norseman blade, the bevel has toolpaths on it, right?
00:42:09
johngrimsmo
Might have talked about that last week or two weeks ago.
00:42:09
John S
Yes.
00:42:12
John S
Yeah.
00:42:12
johngrimsmo
So I've been trying these Union hard mills and they work okay, but they are still breaking down and wearing the edges way faster than I want them to.
00:42:12
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:42:15
John S
OK. Hold
00:42:22
johngrimsmo
Like after a couple blades. I'm like, these these are like... Really expensive, like really good. And I'm obsessive about the speeds and feeds and the work holding and everything. So I have this tool that I'm calling a grind mill.
00:42:35
johngrimsmo
don't if I've told you about the grind mill. So it's a three-eighths ball shank made by um Continental Diamond in the US.
00:42:37
John S
on.
00:42:42
johngrimsmo
And it's um CBN electroplated.
00:42:45
John S
Okay.
00:42:46
johngrimsmo
So it has CBN diamond particles um glued to the outside and electroplated.
00:42:48
John S
Okay.
00:42:51
johngrimsmo
So it's it's a little grinding end mill. So i'm calling it a grind mill.
00:42:56
John S
you feel it Like, does it feel like a Dremel insert?
00:42:59
johngrimsmo
It feels like the maybe the coarse side of a nail file.
00:43:03
John S
Okay, yeah, fair.
00:43:03
johngrimsmo
But like how much? Like little paper nail files. Oh, totally, totally.
00:43:06
John S
But I would know it's not a regular end bell if I touched it.
00:43:09
johngrimsmo
It's smooth, solid around the outside.
00:43:09
John S
Okay.
00:43:11
johngrimsmo
it just has all these little... diamonds, I'm calling them diamonds, but they're cbl CBN particles um glued to the outside.
00:43:15
John S
OK.
00:43:19
johngrimsmo
And I tested with this many months ago and the test went pretty great. um It creates dust, not chips, and that dust then gets into your coolant and maybe your ways and that's not great.
00:43:32
johngrimsmo
But it's been on my mind, especially as I've been deep deep diving more into hard milling and these hard milling big expensive end mills are not really doing what i hope they would. So last night I put in the grind mill and I forgot this programmed already and I just ran it.
00:43:47
johngrimsmo
Um, it's a little bit faster to grind it actually. Um, you want as much SFM as you can get.
00:43:53
John S
Yeah.
00:43:54
johngrimsmo
And I only have 12,000 RPM, which gets me 1100 SFM, but you want like 4,000 SFM.
00:43:59
John S
This is the speedio.
00:44:01
johngrimsmo
This, this is on the Mori for now.
00:44:02
John S
Okay.
00:44:03
johngrimsmo
Um,
00:44:06
johngrimsmo
So I'm underdoing the SFM from what they really want, but that's all I can do. Speedio can go little bit faster. Kern can obviously go a lot faster. but um So I did it and it was amazing. It was perfect. It just did it ground the blade.
00:44:20
johngrimsmo
Cuspite looks amazing. Accuracy is amazing. No spindle load.
00:44:27
John S
Yeah, sure, sure.
00:44:27
johngrimsmo
you know At 12K, it's chilling at 13% spindle load, and when grinding, it's at 13% spindle load.
00:44:33
John S
Yeah, right.
00:44:34
johngrimsmo
like um So that's three-eighths.
00:44:37
John S
What diameter are these?
Advancements in Blade Work Techniques
00:44:39
John S
Oh, it's big. Okay. Yeah.
00:44:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah. As big as I go, pretty much. But... but We've been using a 3-8 ball to do this feature. So the grind mill, I love this theory because it doesn't really care how hard the steel is.
00:44:52
johngrimsmo
We've got some other steels, Magna Cut, that are 63, 64 Rockwell.
00:44:53
John S
Yes.
00:44:56
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:44:56
johngrimsmo
um That's a lot harder and mills don't like that. So the grind mill is functioning great. um I still use a ball mill to rough rough out most of the material, leave a few thou, come in with the grind mill and just kind of tickle it.
00:45:10
johngrimsmo
And that works pretty you well. And with the... um With the rough mills, I've been playing with the speeds and feeds to get the chips to look like really good and have some color to them and actually, you know, get proper cutting action.
00:45:21
John S
Yeah.
00:45:25
johngrimsmo
um So I got some good colorful chips. I turned off the coolant, did the rough milling, paused it, collected the chips and they're like blue, purple. It's beautiful. Put those aside. And then for the grind mill, I wanted to turn off the coolant and just see some of the dust so that I can so I can just analyze the dust.
00:45:43
johngrimsmo
I'm like, is there color in the dust?
00:45:44
John S
yeah
00:45:44
johngrimsmo
Is it big? Is it small? Is it whatever? I blew up the tool by running it dry.
00:45:50
John S
No.
00:45:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:45:51
John S
Oh.
00:45:52
johngrimsmo
And you know, i'm just playing with the coolant and I'm like, why does it sound weird? Why is it? And then I let it run the whole thing. It trashed the blade. it basically smeared off the particles from the outside and just started rubbing high speed steel shank against my blade.
00:46:08
John S
Yeah.
00:46:09
johngrimsmo
And then, uh, oops, and the $70.
00:46:11
John S
Is this $50 or like a $300 oops? Oh, Okay. Yeah.
00:46:13
johngrimsmo
seventy but dollars So it's not bad.
00:46:14
John S
ah okay but
00:46:15
johngrimsmo
And I have one more.
00:46:15
John S
yeah
00:46:16
johngrimsmo
have two. Um, but they're about three week lead time to get more more. Um, so I should, I've been meaning to get on that for a while now. And I really wish I had, because then I would have more right now.
00:46:28
johngrimsmo
I have one. And if this works great, we're going to make a lot of parts.
00:46:29
John S
One, yeah.
00:46:32
johngrimsmo
Um, So right now, as of this morning, i put the second tool in, I made an entire blade, kept the coolant on, um and it's I slowed it down a little bit. And the tool still looks perfect, brand new The blade looks freaking amazing.
00:46:47
johngrimsmo
It's very free cutting. um The hard milling ball probably had some deflection. So this is actually cutting more because it's more free cutting.
00:46:53
John S
Yeah.
00:46:56
johngrimsmo
So the blade is getting thinner. It's kind of amazing.
00:47:00
John S
Is it spark? Does it create a spark chip or is it dusty?
00:47:03
johngrimsmo
I didn't see any sparks, especially when I had the coolant off, but I also blew it up right away.
00:47:05
John S
yeah
00:47:08
johngrimsmo
um It's just fast, yeah.
00:47:09
John S
Yeah. I mean, even if it was with coolant on, you'd see the sparks like a grinder.
00:47:12
johngrimsmo
Nah, it's not sparking that much.
00:47:14
John S
But I wonder though, if you ran it three times the speed, like it wants to be, or you could, if you were willing to spend money for a half inch, that's going to get you
00:47:14
johngrimsmo
I'm not speeding it that fast, I don't think. That's good point, yeah.
00:47:23
John S
double the SFM.
00:47:24
johngrimsmo
True, oh, half inch. That's a good point. It changes some of our geometry, um but I might consider that.
00:47:33
John S
Yeah. That's sweet though.
00:47:34
johngrimsmo
I mean, ah at this point, all I really care about is tool life and and finish, like accuracy of finish.
00:47:35
John S
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:47:40
johngrimsmo
um But like I'm at the point today I've made one entire blade successfully and I'm going to have a stack of 20 more. um I just want to see what tool life is.
00:47:51
John S
Do you mind sending me the link or like that link?
00:47:54
johngrimsmo
Continental Diamond. They got a great website, great YouTube videos, actually.
00:47:55
John S
Continental. Okay, great. Continental diamond, the Grindelwald.
00:48:00
johngrimsmo
Yep. um Huge professional company. Yeah, it's an electroplated, don't know what they call it, but I'm calling it a grind mill.
00:48:13
johngrimsmo
um And they make their own shanks. They can make them in steel or in carbide. the guy was saying carbide just has less deflection and can last longer because it's more rigid.
00:48:21
John S
Sure.
00:48:22
johngrimsmo
It's a little bit more expensive. So i'm I've already priced that out. So instead of 70, it might be 90, something like that for a carbide shank. Might be worth it.
00:48:32
John S
Well, again, cueing back to like, don't spend time, don't go down deep holes, especially don't fix problems that aren't problems.
00:48:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:48:39
John S
But I also have wondered on our accurate machining centers, we're hard milling, it works great, but why not hard mill accurately leaving five tenths and then come in with a true abrasive grinding tool?
00:48:52
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:48:52
John S
um One of the biggest reasons I don't do that is that you can't do that without a dressing cycle or measuring cycle. And I
00:48:58
johngrimsmo
Depending on the tool, electroplated tools don't need to be addressed.
00:49:00
John S
that was exactly what made me ask you about this.
00:49:02
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:49:03
John S
Cause then you've got a different type of possible solution.
00:49:06
johngrimsmo
Yep. And for a machine with a laser tool setter, doesn't care. For a machine with a touch tool setter, like on the Mori, you don't want to touch it off. s Spinning on the Renesau with the S.
00:49:15
John S
Sure. Sure. Yeah.
00:49:18
johngrimsmo
So I just kind of eyeballed the dimension and pushed it into the, you know, 3.59 length.
00:49:24
John S
Yeah.
00:49:24
johngrimsmo
It's close enough for what I'm doing.
00:49:25
John S
Right.
00:49:26
johngrimsmo
With a laser, it's great. Yeah. But yeah, grinding in a mill is... ah I've been doing a lot of it of Grinding all the Rask bevels for years, the Fjell bevels, the Linda Wheel saga like 10 years ago.
00:49:36
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:49:37
johngrimsmo
um
00:49:38
John S
That needs to be like two years ago. It does not feel that long ago.
00:49:40
johngrimsmo
No, it's nine years ago for sure.
00:49:42
John S
Dude.
00:49:43
johngrimsmo
um Yeah, and it's it's cool now to be able to have... I mean, electroplated end mills or burrs ah birdsrs common.
00:49:52
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:49:53
johngrimsmo
quality ones are less common. There's a lot of cheap cheap Chinese um stuff that are not high quality, but continental will make you whatever you want, anything.
00:49:56
John S
Yeah, right, right, right. Okay, I will look into that.
00:50:02
johngrimsmo
And then things like run out become very important. How do you measure run out on an abrasive tool? You use the Robin Ranzetti trick, which I tried for the first time. You take a very thin um piece of shim stock, tape it to your indicator so that the shim stock is your sacrificial, uh,
00:50:18
John S
Oh, yes, sure.
00:50:19
johngrimsmo
you know, thingy between the indicator tip and your grinding wheel. And that's how he indicates like a surface grinding wheel for a diamond.
00:50:26
John S
three
00:50:28
John S
Why not just mesh the shank?
00:50:30
johngrimsmo
You can do both.
00:50:31
John S
Okay.
00:50:32
johngrimsmo
Sometimes you want to do both. i
00:50:33
John S
Yeah, fair enough.
00:50:34
johngrimsmo
I did that this morning and measured the shank. It was less than a 10th. It was amazing. And then I used this method, very slapdash to measure the abrasive side. And it was still like two 10ths bouncing kind of wildly, but was like, okay, I'm happy with that.
00:50:44
John S
Yeah, okay.
00:50:47
johngrimsmo
That's good.
00:50:48
John S
Yeah. Huh.
00:50:50
johngrimsmo
So yeah, PSA, it's pretty cool.
00:50:50
John S
Okay. want to learn more.
00:50:52
John S
No, thank you.
00:50:52
johngrimsmo
But you got to deal with the dust.
00:50:53
johngrimsmo
The dust is going in your coolant. Hmm.
00:50:56
John S
But that's my thought. If if we're hard milling, puck chuck would be the example here. Hard milling is going great. But let's say we we're hard milling. I'm going to guess half a square inch of surface area.
00:51:08
John S
And the the let's say it's three tenths depth. So the the cubic volumetric, I would think you could grind a thousand puck chucks and fit all that dust in a thimble.
00:51:21
John S
Like it's just no amount
00:51:22
johngrimsmo
might surprise you i mean you on your surface grinder you have the um filter thingy right it's similar grids are probably smaller um huge amounts yeah so i don't know yeah and the other thing uh last thing on this i deciding the grit size the concentration the you know there's a lot of decisions to make in developing your own grinding tool
00:51:27
John S
Yeah.
00:51:30
John S
Yeah, but that's, we're growing huge amounts of material out there. Yeah.
00:51:47
johngrimsmo
you're like, I don't know what finish it's going to give and how you use it.
00:51:50
John S
Right.
00:51:51
johngrimsmo
If you do jig grinding technique, if you're just trying to like traverse across, um there's a lot of different ways to get a lot of different finishes.
00:51:54
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:51:57
johngrimsmo
And they have some, they have a lots of advice and experience, but it's like until you try it, which I'm doing now.
00:52:02
John S
You're right, right.
00:52:03
johngrimsmo
Yep. But with, I think it's a 200 grit abrasive size, I'm getting a very good finish. And the guy was like, you could step up to 400 or 800 as a finishing pass for a second tool if you wanted a mirror.
00:52:16
johngrimsmo
And that's,
00:52:16
John S
That's cool.
00:52:17
johngrimsmo
this is how end mills and things are like made.
00:52:18
John S
Sick.
00:52:21
johngrimsmo
And i was like, well, that's kind of tempting.
00:52:21
John S
Yeah. Yeah, that's cool.
00:52:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:52:29
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:52:29
John S
Sweet, right, I gotta run.
00:52:31
johngrimsmo
Okay, man.
00:52:32
John S
Have a good one. See you next week. All right.
00:52:33
johngrimsmo
See you next week.
00:52:34
John S
Take care. Bye.
00:52:35
johngrimsmo
Okay. Bye.