Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#288 - Philosophy of Business
259 Plays3 years ago
Topics:
- Richlite
- purchasing high dollar items and utilizing cash to your benefit
- Joe Rogan and Zuck Podcast
- "I've won"
- philosophy of business
- Grimsmo is in love with his Speedio machine!
- Zero point workholding
- Miyano lathe
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Honest Conversations
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode number 288. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmough. John and I keep each other honest on the technical side and the leadership side of running our small businesses.
00:00:14
Speaker
that we do. Yes. So I have a great anecdote that I would share.
Approval Processes in Business
00:00:20
Speaker
And I always keep in mind that I try to treat this podcast like it's just our conversation. So if I would say it privately to you, I try not to
00:00:30
Speaker
change that because we are hitting that record switch. But Ed laughed because in our bi-weekly, every Tuesday and Thursday now, we have our manager meeting. And he had issued a PO to one of our suppliers for
00:00:49
Speaker
five figures and not just like, not just like a dollar over five figures, like five figures. And I was like, I mean, I was totally fine with that, but I was like, ah, we should actually probably have a approval process at that meeting or some other point in time because just like making sure for whatever reason, the one that comes to mind, it's just like cash management.
00:01:14
Speaker
But I was also really hesitant because for sure no one did anything wrong and I was totally fine with it. But there should just be a threshold at which we sort of say, hey, we good with this?
Payment Terms and Cash Flow Management
00:01:24
Speaker
And that was totally fine. Everyone was on board with that. But then it was funny because later it was mentioned that an acquaintance at a different position was being given a hard time by their manager because they were trying to get some trivial $40 thing purchased and they didn't want to do it.
00:01:43
Speaker
And it was kind of one of those super weird indirect reassurances where it was funny because I'm like, yeah, if we're going to spend more than 10 grand, we should probably huddle. Just making sure. Yeah, make sure the money is there. The card's going to clear so many reasons. Yeah, we go through that too, back and forth with either accounting or purchasing or whoever's in charge and stuff. It's like, maybe if it's over $1,000, just give me a heads up. You do whatever you need to do.
00:02:12
Speaker
Maybe I got to shuffle money around to be able to like, you know, depends on what cards are going on. Is it auto debit, like all this stuff? That's interesting. You don't do typical net 30 type terms on most of your – Yeah. Is that a Canada thing or is it just – I mean, no, with some of our suppliers we do, especially the bigger stuff. We build invoice and we have 30 days, but not
Cash Management Strategies and Supplier Relations
00:02:33
Speaker
always. Some of them just go right on our credit card.
00:02:35
Speaker
you know, 5, 10, $20,000 sometimes. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would rather listen than preach here because I'm very impressionable on how we could be doing this better. But I mean, we're basically on net 30 with everybody. Many of them, that's part of our negotiated pricing terms. And there's also potentially
00:02:56
Speaker
the chance to do half a percent or a full percent for net 10, which we generally take advantage of. And I'll say that I've said this before, and it came to help us a week ago, two weeks ago, we've had an issue with a tolerance from a supplier. It was one that we can work around, but it was kind of the second
00:03:13
Speaker
strike and I said, hey, this has got to get fixed. And that supplier got on their supplier big time. And they basically were like, this is one of our best customers to do a relationship within a year, but they pay us and it was simply this, would they pay us quicker than everybody now? Yeah. Running out your
Challenges in Growing a Business
00:03:29
Speaker
cash.
00:03:29
Speaker
for working capital, we have a whole video on that is also incredibly important. I understand both sides of it, but we use our accounts payable, like how we pay our vendors as a service and tool to make us stand out and it works.
00:03:45
Speaker
A couple of suppliers won't give us terms. They were very, not for credit reasons, but they wouldn't give us any discount or any net, whatever. Some of them, I've sold them. We're leaving you on a credit card, which costs them probably 3% in a two and a half. Honestly, on some of those, I just use the credit card points to then buy stuff, whatever. That strikes me as odd, John. I'm not trying to tell you what to do.
00:04:09
Speaker
Well, I'm trying to think. Yeah, some of our bigger stuff, but smaller stuff, like all the little, I think one of our end mill suppliers, one of our bigger suppliers, we are on, it's like net 30, but they still charge the credit card. Yeah, that's fine. So it's fine, but they're still paying the 3%. And there's quite a few like that, I guess. For stuff that's under in the hundreds of dollars, I wouldn't hassle with the paperwork for sure. For sure. Yeah. No, but for the bigger material orders,
00:04:40
Speaker
Trying to think. Yeah, some of them, we send them a check, like automatically from our bank account. It's not like we're printing and writing a check. It just gets mailed to them from somewhere. That's pretty cool. Like a bill pay or do they auto debit? They physically get a check in the mail. But they don't have the ability to write themselves a check.
00:05:02
Speaker
No, no, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No, we do. We go to our website, you know, the bank website and we send and then it just gets mailed. Yeah. It's great. Um, so that kind of stuff. And then they're not paying the fee. And then we usually get net 30 with that kind of arrangement, um, with the bigger material supplies. So we do just, I'm not as hands on involved in that. I'm just aware of it.
00:05:26
Speaker
It's something I'd
Success, Introspection, and Motivation
00:05:27
Speaker
love to have somebody over the proverbial cup of coffee or lunch explain to me. I think some banks call it cash management services or treasury and something services, but you think about, quote unquote, big companies. Companies that are going to exist within walking distance over both of our shops that have 40, 50, 100 employees. I mean, you're talking about tens of thousands of dollars or maybe even hundreds of thousands going in the door and out the door each day.
00:05:54
Speaker
for services, people, payroll, overhead, maintenance. And I know nothing about and it's just a pure fascination. I don't think it's necessarily necessary or not something we need to saunters, but like, you know, do you work on how you don't just keep like a million dollars in the checking account? Like how does that work with with cash management and cables and lines of credit and so forth? Yeah, it's a whole game. And
00:06:21
Speaker
We had Barry managing that for the past four or five years for us. And then now we've got Spencer, a new guy, doing the same thing. He's a CPA, certified accountant, full time here. And he's got his finger on the pulse for that, for sure. That's great. So it's really cool. So chatting with the banks, whether it's we have a small line of credit, we don't really use it. But we've got a few credit cards. Each employee, some of the employees have their own credit card in their name. And then
00:06:51
Speaker
manage that, balance that. A Grimsman Nives credit card. Yep. Our managers like me, Eric, Angelo and Spencer. Yeah, I've thought about that. And I've no, it probably should be done from a trust and practicality standpoint. But from a like paperwork standpoint, like expense reports and all that, I've just avoided it for now. Well, and Spencer comes from a world where expense reports are the norm.
00:07:17
Speaker
And we're like, do we really have to do that? But for the most part, it's either buying lunch for the guys or placing a small order with Home Depot or something. It's a card that you can just use and you hand in the receipts and explain it. It's easy, but yeah. I mean, we haven't traveled a lot or
00:07:38
Speaker
employees have it probably because of COVID, but just in general. And then most of the online stuff, we can just have accounts where the main credit card is saved in the account. But you're right. And then when people run to Home Depot, we just reimburse them on payroll, which is super easy. But yeah, we do that too. I guess at some point, we've got to figure out that next step. It's been really nice for Angelo to have it. Because then he can hand the card to the guy, okay, go to the plumbing store and get this. Yeah, right.
00:08:03
Speaker
It's on the company card. There's no fear of any abuse or anything like that. We just did a package deal when I got my company credit card. We're like, let's get a couple more. Eric needs one. Angela needs one. That worked out really well. Spencer's name? Yep. I know you said he was working out really well. Are you guys doing any forecasting on cash or budget? We are working on it.
00:08:28
Speaker
We just did a pretty thorough one for the next three months kind of thing. There's so many factors involved with expenses. And he's like, until I really know how much we're spending, how much we have on hand material, it's hard to accurately do it. So we've been digging in like, well, how much material do we have on hand? And when's it going to run out? And when are we expected to buy more? And how's this? And it's a map. Well, you can see why
00:08:58
Speaker
Your ERP either needs to be your accounting system or it needs to have reporting that allows you to tie it in really well because we are in a capital intensive business both with regards to fixed assets like machines, but also consistency. Yeah. And staff and like operating expenses. Yep. It's man, if 10 years ago, if you told me my operating expenses today, I feel like you're nuts.
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's part of what gives credence to why it can be difficult for founders to
00:09:35
Speaker
be great managers and leaders as companies grow. And I'm conscious of it myself and I'm not resigning
Personal Growth and Work-Life Balance
00:09:44
Speaker
in the sense that I can't handle it. But boy, my attitude would be very different if I were stepping in. If you create a totally fictional scenario, if you were incapacitated but we knew you'd be fine in nine months and your Meg called me up and hired me to come up and run Grits and Eyes for nine months.
00:10:01
Speaker
My perspective on running your business would be so different, not just because we're different people, but I just am stepping into this business where I'm looking, okay, what do you have? What do you need? How do you guys need to do your job? It's not my money. You know what I mean? Yep. Very, very cut and dry. Whereas I have this emotional attachment. This is how we've always done it. Let's try new things, this whole experience-based thing.
00:10:27
Speaker
It's different. Yeah. It's sort of that perspective you've, um, toyed on for years now. It's like, if somebody came into your business with $10 million and just said, what do you need? Yeah. You know, it's that outside perspective, like, okay, well, clearly this is an issue that let's invest in this. Let's change that flip that upside down, move this over here, hire these people. Like, obviously, why aren't you guys seeing this? Yes. But when you're in the business, you don't,
00:10:54
Speaker
I mean, it comes and goes, you know, the thoughts fleet in and out of your brain, but you probably don't put as much effort into it as an outsider would view in and be like, clearly. Well, it's the Enith because it's like you're balancing technician manager and visionary.
00:11:11
Speaker
the I listened to the Rogan Zuckerberg podcast, two and a half hours. Honestly, it was I wouldn't like say everyone needs to listen to it without doubt. But the first part, they talked to someone about AR and VR, which I really am fascinated by. I enjoy our Oculus. I really hope in our lifetime, those become more integral parts of our lives for gaming and entertainment and communication and social and also practical work like we could be doing training with AR, VR. Yeah.
00:11:42
Speaker
And so they talked a little about that. On the drive to school this morning, life's like, hey, dad, can I have $300? No. I want to get the Oculus Quest 2. We have the one, but new games are coming out on the two. I'm like, I know. Christmas is coming up, buddy. Don't worry about it. Well, they publicly said there's something coming out soon. Yeah. So probably October for the holidays or something, which is pretty sweet.
00:12:09
Speaker
And separate side note, I think Zuckerberg did a great job, whether it was a very calculated PR effort or whether he was just being himself of sounding like a human being. He's a guy who's had a rough run in the media, in my humble opinion. Some of it deservedly. Anyway, I mean, the guys, what a crazy story. Yeah.
00:12:28
Speaker
But at the end, they talked about what Zuckerberg is doing with philanthropy and what their goals are. And he said the same thing. He said the $10 million question. Of course, it's different for him because he has billions of dollars. But in some respects, he's still plagued by the same limitations of time and not money.
00:12:50
Speaker
what do I want to do? He doesn't have to go to work tomorrow. Ends up he does because it's a publicly traded company and he has huge obligations and people leaning on him. It is in some respects the same constraint to you and I face of what do you want to do? How does life really change this afternoon if there's 10 million in the account?
Growth vs. Greed in Business
00:13:09
Speaker
Without hesitation, I would come to work and continue to come to work. That's a wonderful answer to that. What do you
00:13:17
Speaker
Um, the way they sort of said it, which I thought was a really wholesome way of looking at life. Um, and this is, I'm speaking paraphrase of what Zuck said. Like I want, like you've already won everything. Like you've got everything you could need. And that's a really something to be, I think grateful for in, in, in your personal life, your family life, and frankly, humanity. Like, um, notwithstanding you being Canadian, you know, I was born in the best country of the United States at the best point in civilization and had
00:13:47
Speaker
opportunities afforded to me and then ran with that and worked my butt like blah, blah, blah, blah. But okay, so what do you want to do that? How do you want to change the world? How do you want to make the world a better place? How do you want to what do you want to do with the next 15 years of your time? And it's it's actually super motivating to me to think that way. I love it. Yep, I do try to think that way to try to try to spend some time trying to figure out okay, like
00:14:14
Speaker
I can, every now and then, look at my life and go, holy cow, I've won. I have an amazing business that I love to come to work. Everybody loves to come to work. We crush, we have so much fun, we built a huge brand and well-respected in our industry. People love our stuff. We ship our products all around the world. I've got an amazing family and I'm winning. Why do I still feel like garbage sometimes? Totally agree. I'll echo that just in the spirit of being very upfront about mental health. There's days where you think about,
00:14:44
Speaker
what you just said, like self doubt, self confidence, like, is this all this stuff? Is it right? And you realize, this is freakin great. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's like you've reached a current normal that you would have killed for, you know, 10 years ago. Yeah. Now that the dream is for more. It's
00:15:04
Speaker
more machines, more staff, more revenue, more challenges, more skills, more, and this is a dangerous conversation for us to have like the week before going to IMPS. That's called OPM, John. Yeah, yeah. Other people's money. Oh, yeah, we could spend millions of dollars easily next week with other people's money. But no, it's what do you want to do with your time? You know,
00:15:33
Speaker
Where do you want to take Saunders? Where do I want to take Grimsmo? How do you want to make an impact and do what needs to get done in the world in our little niche, in our opinion, you know?
00:15:44
Speaker
We had a, I continue to come back to that Arthur Brooks article in Vanity Fair and book called Strength to Strength and it's caught me, I know I've mentioned it a month or two back on the podcast as a very surprising book to resonate with me, partly because he draws explicitly on his own spirituality as a Catholic and I am not Catholic and I went to Catholic grade school and didn't necessarily have the best experience with that. But he talks about
00:16:12
Speaker
how a lot of our need for more, what you just said, John, like more machines, more growth, more this, not because we're, you know, greedy people, you and I, like, I can tell you, you know, off the record, we're just not like that. But, um, well, hungry's fine. But what he talks about is like, we're wired, basically back to our caveman days of like, the most
00:16:33
Speaker
The best odds of surviving a winter was the person that gathered the most nuts and literally your partner may
Leadership and Employee Development
00:16:40
Speaker
be more attracted to the person that's most well-provisioned and I'm not a whatever.
00:16:45
Speaker
are anthropologists or whatever those terms are for people that really say that. But just piggybacking off of his thesis, it totally makes sense because there's this kind of innate desire for all of us to have, you know, like the WhatsApp guys were talking about the better biggest display monitors and, you know, machines and and it's all fun. I mean, I fall prey to that as well. But it's ultimately not really what drives meaning in life. Right. Yep. But it's still the
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's just hunger. There's the difference between greed and hunger. Greed is like, I want all the things so that I can be happy and I don't know, whatever. But hunger is like...
00:17:28
Speaker
We're hungry to learn new skills. We're hungry to try new things. We're hungry to grow and build a business and hire people and teach them great skills and provide for their families. And like the more we can be hungry, the more we can do all of those things. Yeah. And it's this vicious cycle of wonderfulness that I think drives a lot of entrepreneurs either into the ground or into crazy town because it's,
00:17:54
Speaker
It's tough. Well, but look, it's better for you and me because we don't have investors to answer to. I'll tell you, you probably take that for granted. Sorry, I don't mean to say it like that. That came out wrong. We get to still have some autonomy over that. And you hear it every now and then.
00:18:11
Speaker
either from people with investors or people without investors. They're like, usually it's not a good idea to have outside investors. I don't know. Sometimes it works. Just changes stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But it's taken 10 years of blood, sweat and tears to grow your business and my business from nothing to something. Yeah. And the dream is that an investor comes in with $5 million and takes that 10 years away.
00:18:37
Speaker
You know, but it doesn't really work. Oh, that's not my dream. I wouldn't. No, but you know what I mean? Like the entrepreneurial dream. I could either work for 10 years or I can get a VC to come in and like kickstart me. Yeah. But then you don't have the skill and the sweat equity and the, you know, the experience. You can't just learn machining and buy five kerns and expect to make $10 million a year.
00:19:07
Speaker
You and I are also in pretty cave vanish businesses. We make flat plates, you make sharp pointy things. Sure. To start up Oculus, you need to bring on a staff of PhDs. Exactly. That's different. That is different.
00:19:21
Speaker
I mean, I ultimately do like being a machinist more than I like being a businessman, which I used to sort of joke that I'm probably a better business person, and I'm not sure how that's true anymore. Right. I mean, the good thing is you're good at both. You're very good at both, and you've created a- I'm confident at both. Let's see. Yeah, neither one of us are PhD machinists here. We're just poking at the screen until it works, but we're okay. We're pretty good.
00:19:48
Speaker
But that's what it is, John. I know this is turning out to be a philosophical-ish discussion, but the whole point of introspectively saying, I'm a good machinist or I'm a good business person, really has to do with some need to validate yourself or compare yourself to others. I'm reaching the point where I'm realizing that doesn't matter anymore. What I care about
00:20:11
Speaker
From the standpoint of like, hey, I've won. We got some more on here is the best thing I can think about that makes my day a 10 out of 10 is stopping looking back and looking. I mean, it's got to be this whole sincerely looking at our team and realizing that's happening right now. We've got everyone doing this stuff in a place that is just
00:20:34
Speaker
working. You can think about it as force multipliers or be the person you want to be so you think about if there's a wealthy person that wants to start something up in a think tank like, okay, you go hire a bunch of people and you help steer the ship but let them do what they do and act as force multipliers to pursue research and product development, all that stuff. We're coming at it from the sweat equity
00:20:57
Speaker
nothing standpoint but that's what I freaking love. So that also comes back to like what I want out of this is starting local is like hey, let's take care of the team here first. Let's take care of the facility that we have and the team and the culture and I'm not great at that but I'm working on it and even some of that comes back to policies. I was asking you kind of offline about HR handbook stuff and that's the foundation to me.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yes and you said it right there, the foundation because you and I are both building a foundation and I don't know where I'm going to take this skill of business and everything. I don't know what's going to happen the next 50 years of my life but I'm going to bust my butt and learn everything I can about how to run a successful business.
00:21:45
Speaker
So that something down the line, like, I don't know. We just keep building this or we build something else or we do. I don't know. I honestly don't have any plans other than continue forward. Keep my head down and like build this business to be a strong and healthy mentally and financially and all that as possible. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah. It's funny. This isn't even an overt solicitation, but it's an indirect one. I would actually be amenable, especially over the coming few years to find somebody to truly come in who wants to be the CEO of this company and wants to run the company. And it would be a explicitly strange dynamic because I would work for that person, but I'm also kind of the quote unquote chairman of the board. But you'd go into that sort of saying, hey, I can't
00:22:33
Speaker
I can't micromanage you, I can't second guess everything you do, but ultimately I still have some say in certain things.
Feedback and Team Dynamics
00:22:41
Speaker
It's a neat perspective to get there.
00:22:45
Speaker
I don't think I'm quite that far, but I'm definitely getting very happy with sharing the responsibility, the high-level responsibility amongst our accounting team, amongst our leadership team, marketing team and all that. I don't need to hold all that close to my chest anymore. It's great. If I went into your shop on a day that you were home or out and I asked any of your employees to tell me about the leadership team at Crimson Eyes, would they know what I'm talking about?
00:23:17
Speaker
Maybe not. That's a good question. Not to the full extent that I know it, but, um, they would probably say the right names. Okay. That's okay. I'm not trying to, yeah, no, that's a good point though. But like, is it, do you guys have, like we have our managers meeting. It's pretty obvious we do it. Okay. So that's kind of what you're talking about on those. Okay. Yeah. It's not just a thing that exists in your head. It's actually distributed responsibilities and
00:23:45
Speaker
It's probably 70-30, like 70% visible to everybody, 30% living in my head. Could be a lot stronger with everybody. Okay. That's a good way to talk about it. Yeah. I mean, you know, I really love something we talked about a month or two ago about how people get promoted to the point of failure. And so don't take a principle. Is that what it is? Yeah, that's what they call it.
00:24:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's freaking great because it's like you got somebody who's just crushing it at a certain role. Don't, don't, don't. I want to say, I want to say a word I'm not supposed to say on this family friendly podcast, but don't, don't, don't screw that up. Yeah. Like imagine somebody who's awesome at working with their hands and you go, okay, you're, you're a manager now. You manage three people and they don't get to work with their hands anymore. And, uh, you might crush at that or you might decline into the abyss of unhappiness.
00:24:40
Speaker
Yeah, but but to some extent, you've got to, you know, General Patton didn't win the war fighting driving tanks himself, you just have to have some ability to, and I think some of that also comes down to having a team where the people can be quite managed, like it doesn't require outsized efforts, and especially the sort of course correction action that everyone dreads, and I don't enjoy either. But yeah,
00:25:09
Speaker
But yeah, while also finding the balance of learning how to push and build and grow each individual employee to their best potential, you know, within the limits of what they're willing to do and what they're capable of. Can you elaborate on that? It's something I really want to spend the next five years really learning about and doing, not just reading books about it, but actually enacting it.
00:25:37
Speaker
but both creating the structure within the business to allow for growth, both in skill and finance and, um, responsibility for each person if they want it. Like, cause otherwise you're going to have the one guy making 20 bucks an hour forever and, and he might be happy for more, but nobody's offering it to him. You know, so I want to be the kind of company that,
00:26:03
Speaker
Oh, you're hungry? Oh, you want more? Okay, yeah. Let's make it work. Let's add more responsibility to your plate. Otherwise, you're just a robot coming in and doing the same thing every day.
00:26:15
Speaker
I mean, both of us have production factories. It's repeat work all day, every day. It just is. But that doesn't mean you can't grow within that skill set. Like do new things and learn new things and new skills and new challenges and be more valuable to the company and be more valuable to yourself. And over time, I want to expect that.
00:26:43
Speaker
within the limits and then you don't want to Peter principle somebody and you know, promote them outside their competence to the point where they're just wrong. I I'm trying to figure out myself some of this stuff and it's not that I want to say we expect we need to expect it. It's that I want to nurture and reward it. Yeah. I was thinking about what really, um,
00:27:09
Speaker
What buys, what goes, you know, what is, my wife was saying this like half joking, half serious about like the seven, oh, she's going to kill me for not remembering what this is. Like the seven symbols of love or of like interpersonal, whatever, kind of different things that people respond to and like words of affirmation or gifts or service or something. You know what I'm talking about? Is it like the love languages? Yeah. This is the book called that. Yeah. I was just hearing about that. I clearly have not read it. Yeah.
00:27:36
Speaker
But what really gets me going and makes me excited is when I see people on the team who do things that help our company, period. That is the most wonderful thing. And of course, I know that's kind of an obvious, oh, great observation, Saunders. But no, it really, really resonates with me to the point where it's kind of like the people that I see here that do that the most are also the people where it's like, yeah, you're complete. I will go to battle for you on anything and everything
00:28:04
Speaker
as well because you do the same for us and that's what I love. Yeah, yeah. And as a leader and manager, that's, it's not always obvious. Like sometimes I have to take, often I have to take a step back and appreciate not just what I have, but what the team is doing and providing and you know, showing up every day, you know, and be grateful for that to them. And I'm not naturally good at that.
00:28:31
Speaker
Well, I think we start with it by helping each other by recognizing employees want to hear feedback. It's kind of a tangent, but not really. We were talking about a new PO that came in.
00:28:46
Speaker
Um, it's, it's wonderfully awkward for me to acknowledge this, that like the parts within that PO already got distributed amongst the team and were set up in material and turn machines and allocation of work orders. And like, I don't need to be involved, but part of me and part of me is okay. Letting go with that. But then part of me is also like, ah, but I'm still steering the ship. Like I just also need to make sure
00:29:08
Speaker
And it was as simple as checking a box in the manager meeting. So I think that's probably a good balance point for it now. But it was also like, I need to stay involved also because it's like, hey, I need to make sure that's, that's a really good data point for everybody. Like everyone should be proud that that's happening. That's a good, it's like a little ninja way to look at it. It's like, I'm still gonna oversee this, but really, I'm just gonna congratulate everybody for having done it without me. But I still get to like check the box. Yeah. While also congratulating people. That's cool. Yeah.
00:29:36
Speaker
And then over enough time of doing that, you're not going to have to do it anymore. After 10 checks, you guys are crushing it every time. I'm good. And then again, you congratulate again. You'd be like, you guys don't need me anymore. Well, that's the other thing. That's the kind of, I guess, inadvertent way of having the team step into leadership is that is it, period. Got it. The more that happens, the more validating it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:06
Speaker
I don't value my own opinion or praise highly enough, like not nearly to the extent that an employee would. Say that again? Like if the weight of me telling somebody good job is like no big deal, but the weight of them hearing good job is gigantic. And so that's the disconnect inside my brain that I need to learn to focus and utilize for everybody's benefit, but my own.
00:30:36
Speaker
Not to say that I'm selfish or anything because I generally try not to be, but I'm focused and I'm busy on my own stuff.
00:30:48
Speaker
completely agree. And honestly, I actually just had this conversation with somebody here about it's about them, not me, but later they said
Machining Strategies and Techniques
00:30:57
Speaker
something kind. And I just sort of said, hey, honestly, I really appreciate that because I don't mind positive feedback either. Sometimes positive feedback as a leader is the absence of feedback, kind of the, hey, we're all here, we're doing it. Somebody was telling me the other day, if you want to check out the mood of your place of work, just poke your head around the corner when
00:31:18
Speaker
you know, kind of do the little creepster spy on everybody for just a hot second. Because how people are interacting when they know you're not looking tells you everything you need to know. It's actually pretty good point. But it is just to lay all out there. It's really nice when when people compliment me or you or like say, that's, yeah, it's to the point like,
00:31:41
Speaker
We make a really cool product. We get a lot of praise from our customers and people that we show and stuff like that. I'm getting numb to it. Like, yeah, okay. Yeah, it's great. You know, thank you. Appreciate that. But so I almost wait the praise depending on context and person and things like that. Like if you tell me something, I'm doing really well, you know, it means a lot to me. But if, I don't know, you know, does that make sense? Yes.
00:32:08
Speaker
Yes. I mean, you know you're damn good at making knives. Yeah. I totally know what you mean. Yes. Should we just do a hard stop and move on to CNC machines now? Yeah, another talk. That was really good though. That was a nice deep dive. That was. I really appreciate that. I will be machining rich light. Oh, fun. We've done that fun.
00:32:37
Speaker
Yeah, I saw your video on it. I'm not concerned about it in any way. It's like paper and epoxy, but I've got a really cool, you know, the pen case, the saga case that we use. I'm going to transition from wood to rich light if it works and does everything I want it to do.
Machine Tools and Personal Experiences
00:32:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:54
Speaker
I mean, wood can be very unpredictable and grow and shrink and change and crack and all this stuff over time. I'm hoping for a much more stable product. As one of our guys, Pierre said, it's an engineered material. Correct. That's so sick. Yes. Not dead forest product. Right. I mean, it's recycled dead forest product. It's been stabilizing that epoxy. Exactly. I know I'm really excited. It's a material I've wanted to play with for years.
00:33:24
Speaker
the opportunity came up to redesign the pen case. I've been thinking about it for months and months and months. Eventually, I just bought two pieces of rich light from Tacoma, Washington. It came the next day to Canada. I'm like, oh, amazing. You feel it, you look at it, you smell it. You're like, I like this material. I actually really like it. Next step, cut into it.
00:33:45
Speaker
next day or two. And yeah, I'm excited. So didn't we do a video on like a cigar? Yeah. I want to say from memory, that went great in the surface. Well, but like, like any laminate composite, you can have chipping or delamination. I think one of those videos, it wasn't that when we were using the Harvey downcut or compress, excuse me, compression cutter. I mean, you weren't asking for advice, but I would sure not. I don't
00:34:12
Speaker
recollect any real issues with it. Bob, are you here to see how you get along? Yeah, I'm just planning on aluminum sharp end mills to start. We'll see if it de-laminates. We'll see if it frays or burrs up or something. I don't know yet. I've got a couple little intricate features that I want to put into it, but nothing too crazy.
00:34:29
Speaker
And it's more just like holding it. I'm going to do the double-sided powder coating tape and super glue. I don't think it's a good high production method because it just takes a little while to prep and tape down. Obviously, the router that we're building with a big vacuum plate is going to be ideal, but that's not ready yet. That's still a few months away. So short term, it's going to the speedio. And we're going to run it with coolant. And we're going to just filter the chips instead of let the dust get everywhere. OK, got it.
00:34:59
Speaker
And one of our guys, my buddies Brad, suggested cut it fast with a high chip load to make a chip, not dust. Oh, you're going to fly. Yeah. Yeah. But otherwise, if you just baby it, there's just going to be dust everywhere. So yeah. Well, it's funny because I, for the rest of my time on planet Earth, will not be able to look at a full depth slotting cut and not be a little bit puckered. But like wood, it's just like full sand. We get. Yeah.
00:35:28
Speaker
Yeah, so it'll be weird because I program titanium. It's like, yeah, take an easy depth of cut. Like, you know, think as if you're the tool, where's all the pressure coming from? Whereas this is just like send it full depth. Max RPM is 12th hour tooth. Yeah, exactly. 300 times DE. Yeah. Yeah. I've been doing quite a bit of aluminum work in the speedio, just making fixtures and risers and bases and stuff. And even programming that, it's like, oh, I can go a lot faster than this.
00:35:56
Speaker
Well, six down per tooth, that's kind of easy. He's not even struggling. For the record publicly, I would like to accept your second place result in the who has a faster machine tool contest. OK. Yeah. I looked up your Akuma specs. That thing is stupid fast for such a big machine. It's the metric 23, 82, or whatever. Yeah. Good.
00:36:20
Speaker
So the outcome was 2,300 inches per minute, which is 50 meters per minute. It was 60. I think it's 60. Stupid fast. And then the speedio is 50 meters per minute. Yeah. 60 meters is 2,362. Yeah. And your 50 is easily 1868. The current HD is 60 meters per minute. Oh, your current isn't even 60? No, mine's 30.
00:36:47
Speaker
Oh, that is accurate. Yeah, 1181. That's the other one you see all the time. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. This is great. And the current is zippy, but it's not like speedio zippy or your Akuma. But I bet you the speedio has much crisper acceleration, deceleration. Yeah, I'm not going to back and deck because it weighs nothing compared to your Akuma. Probably the spindle probably weighs 10 times more than the speedio spindle. Yeah, literally. That's fair. But still, it's hilarious.
00:37:15
Speaker
Man, this video scares me at least once a day when I'm running it. Oh, really? Like first run. It's like, gosh, give me a second. It's like, hold on. Slow down. Doesn't tool change. It's already cutting before I can process, wrap it down. Yeah. So funny. But you get comfortable with it. It's so funny. I love this machine. It's so good. It's so much fun. It's not the most accurate machine I have.
00:37:45
Speaker
Oh, is it fast and just nice to set up tools and install tools and uh, it's cool. We're happy with it so far. And we've, we've had friends with them for years, you know, past five, six years, we've watched all kinds of people get them even brand new shops start up and we just buy a couple of videos and I'm like, wow, they seem really cool. Well, it's real. Yeah. They're great. Do you feel like it's a, I mean,
00:38:13
Speaker
It's a machine you could add more like sounds like. I think so. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. If you set it up properly with the right fix during and work holding and then tool selection, there's only 21 tools, which can be very limiting depending on what you're doing. The new ones eventually are going to come out with 28 tools, which is a help. And the machine door has to be open to replace a tool. That's one of my other pet peeves. It's like the current did so many things right that now it's spoiled me for all other machines. Right. Replace the tool while it's running.
00:38:42
Speaker
repeatable work holding, which is fixable on any machine, but palette changing, things like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible, right? No, I remember for the past five years, it's like everybody's talking about zero point work holding and I'm like, yeah, that sounds cool. Yeah. Yeah. And now that I have it on several of my machines, it's like everything needs to be that. Yeah. To be able to pull your work off and throw cake work on and just like hit go and leave.
00:39:07
Speaker
My mori used to be tied up with like, oh, I'm doing a setup and I'm dialing in this part for days and days and it's just taken away from regular production. Yep. This is a weird segue into my own, like what's going on in our life, but we have a lot of things on our plate right now and I'm conscious of what's suffering because of that, but we have the second internal alpha or whatever we'll call it.
00:39:36
Speaker
the second rev of our
Exploration of New Machines
00:39:38
Speaker
zero point system built. Second rev. Is there a first rev? Can I not know about this? Yeah, nobody knows about this. Nice. Super confidential. We built a first proof of concept, already modified it. I have a second one.
00:39:52
Speaker
on my desk. Oh, actually, don't publish the video. I don't really show anyways. So it's kind of the Sonder Swiss on it. So in terms of the value offering the size, the functionality integration with the fixture plates. Yes. Yeah. Or there we go. That's so cool. I'm so happy for you. Yeah. That's awesome. I can't wait to see everything about it. Um, cause for the past two years, I've learned a lot about zero point
00:40:15
Speaker
you know, repeatability and things like that. And I built my own, um, airlock fixture. That was four piece ball lock coupling ended up throwing it in the trash and just not using it at all, buying chunk stuff instead. Um, it's, it's a weird industry. I'm glad you're tackling it and I hope it does really well for you. Thank you. It's important. It's so important.
00:40:36
Speaker
We need to love the product and we need to get this one into use to confirm that we're at that point where it's good enough to send out into the wild, but it'll be a similar play. Much like, to use some extreme examples, you can spend $1,000 or $1,500 on a vice or you can use the mod vice, which is actually better for some of the things. In some things, it's equal but requires some more hassle or setup, but it's also the price point's great. So for us, it'll be a big play on what the offering is.
00:41:03
Speaker
overall and the value. Let me put this out there into the world and you're welcome to quote me or receive a better quote later on.
00:41:11
Speaker
Fixturing and work holding is expensive for a reason because it's so important and so critical and don't be afraid to spend good money on it. Yeah, yeah. No, that's true too but I also think you look at some of the often German companies of the world and you're just seeing prices that we're going to be, we are comfortable that we're going to be able to put out an incredible quality product at a price point that's just different than that.
00:41:38
Speaker
Excellent. But the whole workflow of having even the fifth axis rock clock basis, wonderful. It's such a good workflow to be able to throw pallets, tombstones, little parts, jigs, vices, everything in a repeatable way. I'm in love with the single work offset now.
00:41:59
Speaker
you know, like on the current, everything is built up from the base. And on the speedio, I'm going to have a couple because I'm going to have a couple different zones. But then you don't have to touch off parts every time. And if you want, you can have a program come in and like nudge offsets by a couple foul, but it's still based on the reference offset. So many things about that. Yep. And I'm sure you're figuring out the same thing. Yep. It's just that it's that flexibility of making the right decision
00:42:27
Speaker
much in the way that our horizontal gives us four sides per tombstone, six tombstones. I've got 24 custom fixture setups at the blink of an eye. Even some of those we want to run in every two months and I want a quick change system that lets us swap those out because I want to quick change my quick change.
00:42:46
Speaker
Hey, before we run out of time though, we got a lead on a machine that has my intrigued, has me intrigued. It's a Miano BX26S. So it's basically a Swiss lathe, but instead of using a sliding guide bushing, the spindle itself chucks grips on at the part in the spindle, knows itself has call it two, three inches of Z.
00:43:13
Speaker
Okay. Which for us and the parts we're doing should be plenty adequate. Interesting. And so I don't see any drawback in terms of not having to fuss with the guide bushing design. So in my Tornos lathe, it can switch between chucker mode, which is like you're talking about, and guide bushing Swiss mode.
00:43:34
Speaker
So how do you get Z if you don't, if you're a chucker? Oh, because you can actually, wait, how do you get Z though? So like in my Swiss, there's a main spindle with a, call it closer. That just opens up, moves over, pinches the bar again. You can have, you can remove the guide bushing assembly completely and have that be your Z movable, your part is just fixed and it moves in Z towards the tool.
00:43:59
Speaker
But when I look at a normal Swiss, the Z never, the spindle never moves in Z. The part of the material slides inside it. But something is sliding it. There's a spindle behind the sheet metal. Agreed. It's gripping and...
00:44:13
Speaker
shoving your bar through the guide bushing. What I'm saying on the Tornos, there's an option to remove the guide bushing and have your work piece gripped once and slide towards your tool. Okay. Probably like the Miano is set up by default. And for the first three, six months of having the Swiss, I didn't have the right guide bushings in. So I had it set up in chucker mode like that. Okay. It works. It works fine. As long as you don't have this length to diameter ratio, like making chopsticks or something. Yeah, exactly. You need a guide bushing.
00:44:43
Speaker
Um, but that sounds cool. I mean, what little I know about Mianos is that they're usually insane, um, and super high quality. And I don't know if they're married to citizen or how's that works. They are now. It seems like they are. Yeah. Um, isn't it that Miano Maribou citizens? Something like that. Yeah. And so is it an older one?
00:45:06
Speaker
It is and that's one of the sort of questions is what's the price and value and risk around it. I think it's kind of like your Wilman in 2004 maybe 2006. Yeah, which I mean the quality of the Wilman is fantastic but there is stuff that needs to be replaced or that did need to get replaced. But I'm still blown away at the general quality and build and accuracy of the machine. It's like mind boggling that the thing is 18 years old.
00:45:31
Speaker
Yeah, right. Well, I mean, ironically, we're using a lot of precision ground material on these parts anyways. So the most critical is has been ground feature for us. So I just need to look at I actually would still love to start to get that conversation up with Will and then about the the twin of yours. Yeah, because I still
Future Plans and Project Reflections
00:45:50
Speaker
like that. I mean, we do so much mailing, I'd rather have a proper mailing spindle. Yeah, but I kind of want to learn more about what this beyond it looks like and what interesting services
00:45:59
Speaker
Yeah, the thing with the Wilhelmin I'll wrap on this is it's weird and different and complicated and requires like I'm relearning how to use this machine. It's not just like a three-axis mill, you just jump on and make parts.
00:46:17
Speaker
And I think that extra little bit of effort and my general lack of attention and time to it is what's dragging this whole project out and preventing me from just diving into it. And I know you're probably as busy as I am. So to be able to spend the dozens of hours required just to learn the machine and get your feet wet and stuff. I'm totally happy to do it. Don't get me wrong. But it's, uh,
00:46:43
Speaker
It's a big cake to eat. Yeah, but you haven't. Exactly. It's been a year and in a perfect world, you shut off your phone and email for two months and then you would come out a willing expert. Exactly. That's probably what's going to have to happen.
00:46:58
Speaker
Think about it. I want to build these DIY wooden fan filters. I really like the design. It's super simple. Downloaded a fusion model, or actually made one. And all I needed to do was cut eight pieces of wood, but I put it off for a couple of days. So this morning, I was just focused for 20 minutes to go cut all the wood, and you're done. And I will defend myself all day long on the DIY this way. It's basically already done. Yeah. Perfect.
00:47:29
Speaker
So next week, John and I are going to be at IMTS. We would love to do a podcast. We're going to see if we can. Yes. We don't exactly know when and where we would record and how we would get it uploaded, but my God, it would be great to be talking about what we're seeing at the show. So we're just going to keep everybody TBD.
00:47:55
Speaker
If we recorded Wednesday morning, I don't know if I will have seen the show yet. Well, that's it. Yeah. So we'll figure it out. We do Wednesday night. Yeah, maybe. Should be a tiny time. Anyway, we'll figure it out. We should do it at the Kern booth at the Wednesday night, like meet up thing they have or something. I don't know. Yeah. There's so many things like my schedule is already getting booked. You said yours is too. Yeah. It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. I'll see you next week. I'll see you. Holy cow. I haven't seen you like four years. Crazy. Oh my God. That's weird. Take care. Cool. Okay. Bye.