Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Business of Machining - Episode 45
212 Plays7 years ago
Is this real life? Entrepreneurship is filled with surreal moments that leave your head spinning in a good way--and sometimes they come full circle. Grimsmo's secured downtime for projects pushed to the wayside during Norseman production. Stay tuned for a new video detailing Erik's tumbler tweaks. "It's on like Donkey Kong!" Grimsmo addresses rumors about his absence from YouTube. The drought is over! University Study on GK Speaking of YouTube: DON'T FEED THE TROLLS. The guys discuss riding the social media roller coaster, the conscious decision to avoid negativity, and the fine line between pandering vs. creating genuine content. Having a community that has your back makes all the difference. Imperializer Video Shop Update Video iPad Time Machine Video Clarifying the SCOPE of your business is an on-going process. So, what's your tagline? Saunders has one but he doesn't love it just yet. Takeaway = You've got to start somewhere. Has Saunders finally discovered lathe love? HAH. Love of 5th axis? Definitely. There might be a new goal for IMTS 2018. One thing is certain: A recent visit from HAAS brings MACRO gains. First 5th Axis Part Video If your machines have tool changers but haven't heard of OPTIONAL STOP, get in on this pro-tip! ON TAP TODAY: Rasks, a refurbish, and improving processes. The dino-digging knife is getting some TLC. Pre-historic Post Saunders works with new intern (Alex) to demystify thread milling with information straight from The Machinery's Handbook.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Last 'Lag Bomb' Episode
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning, folks. It is Friday, December 8th. Welcome to the Business of Machining, episode number 45. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmough. Good morning, buddy.
Considering a Schedule Change for Efficiency
00:00:12
Speaker
Good morning. So I'm super excited. I set the date because I hope maybe this is like the last lag bomb that we do. So hopefully we can bring them closer to because it's I love everything we've done about this. I do. But it's it has stunk to be like two or three weeks.
00:00:29
Speaker
It's been great to have that from a workflow standpoint internally. But we've solved the problems. We've gone through that. Let's do a better job. Let's make it better. Yeah. So are we moving to Thursday morning, Stan?
Delegation Success in Team Management
00:00:40
Speaker
And then we'll continue posting Friday like normal? Yeah. With Zencaster, even if Julie and Aaron were both out of the office, I think with Zencaster, we could handle it at the risk of a less well-written description. Exactly. We talked about stuff. Post.
00:00:58
Speaker
Yeah, so at the risk of speaking for John, this was one of those moments you have in life that just hits you. And luckily, this was in the best way possible. And that was when, I don't know, a week ago, Julie, who is our full-time media digital video photographer, film editor, who is just so good at what she does, was emailing with John Grimsmo's Aaron, who I
00:01:23
Speaker
at the risk of summarizing is the same role for John. And here there's this like communication happening between two people that John and I have almost nothing to do with anymore. Yeah. It was surreal. It was, as you said, mind blowing at the time. And to them, it's just they're emailing coworkers kind
Week of Experimentation and New Projects
00:01:40
Speaker
of basically. Right. It was great. Yeah.
00:01:43
Speaker
Well, it's like we pass off, we're delegating this whole aspect of what we do to these wonderful people that can now team up and make it happen. So it's great. Yeah, it's awesome. How was your week?
00:01:57
Speaker
Week was good, different than the past six weeks, for sure, but good, really good.
Tumbler Media Experimentation and Its Effects
00:02:06
Speaker
So I mentioned last week, we kind of ran out of material, and it's coming in like four days. So early next week, it'll be in. So this week, we have some stuff to make rasks, but there's some things that are super slow on them still.
00:02:21
Speaker
We're using this opportunity this week to work on projects that we couldn't work on when we're slammed busy, which has been super nice. Eric's been experimenting with the new Tumblr, trying to figure out the best way to use the media and all that. And we actually ordered a bunch more media yesterday from Kramer Industries. Super easy to order online.
00:02:41
Speaker
They have everything. And yeah, they're like, they're like, yeah, we might be able to ship it out today, but if not tomorrow. And I'm like, yes, that is the kind of business I like to work with. Just here's my credit card. I don't care how much shipping is really. And I want it now. And done.
Understanding the Tumbling Process for Knife Parts
00:02:57
Speaker
Done. Like no problem.
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah, he actually figured out the media that we got. It's like they're like triangles, but they're flat and they're kind of skinny. So they have all this surface area and they're all sticking together because they're just so good. Yeah, it's not good. And they're sticking to the walls and they're sticking a little bit to the parts.
00:03:16
Speaker
And apparently a thicker, more square shaped media, like more of a three dimensional object, not just a flat piece of paper kind of thing, rolls a lot better and doesn't stick to itself and to the part. So we ordered some thicker stuff of the same thing, which should be pretty awesome.
00:03:34
Speaker
Can your soap or detergent liquid help with that stickiness? I think so. And Eric just switched that out yesterday to new stuff. And it was actually like a good quarter inch of clay at the bottom of the cool intake, or whatever you call it. Yeah. Just from breaking in the new media.
00:03:51
Speaker
Oh, I should say, yeah, right. Because new media generates a lot of an initial stuff like that. Right, right. Yeah. It was funny when we took the tank out and like it's clay. Like you push a screwdriver through it and it's dry at the bottom, wet at the top. It was pretty crazy. Jared here was asking, he was like, oh, why does Grimsville have a tumbler? And I was kind of like, oh, well, he tumbles a lot of his parts. But the truth is, I don't really know why you have a tumbler.
00:04:16
Speaker
We tumble all of our handles and blades and pocket clips to do light deburring, but mostly to put a super even surface finish over the whole part. Because otherwise, you're left buffing it, polishing it, hand sanding it. And it's difficult to get a super smooth, even finish across the whole thing. Right.
Balancing Aesthetic and Practicality in Surface Finishing
00:04:35
Speaker
Yes. So where does tumbling happen in the workflow of processes? Right at the end, before the knife gets assembled, anodized, or anodized, assembled, sharpened kind of thing.
00:04:46
Speaker
OK. Oh, so it is almost the last thing that affects the finish? Yeah. So once the parts are in the tumbler, Eric's like, yeah, they're almost done. No kidding. So he'll still go through all the parts, the blades, and the handles, and the clip. And he'll polish them first. He'll scotchbrite them first. Do all the deburring he needs to do. Get all the rest of the tool marks out. And then they go in the tumbler last. And it just evens it all out, makes it smooth, and beautiful, and consistent.
00:05:15
Speaker
We have, it's funny, we've got our little Mr. Deber, and we're doing a higher quantity than normal, dare I say, lathe job. It's part of a bigger job that we're running. And just a boatload of these like one to three inch extension type tubes.
Improving Finish on Cylindrical Parts
00:05:31
Speaker
They get a three-eighth inch round bar that has some drill and hold and light features turned on them.
00:05:36
Speaker
the customer was fine using three eighth inch extrusion round bar. So no need to turn the whole OD, but of course it's extrusion round bar. So it usually has some pretty gnarly surface markings. And then
00:05:52
Speaker
putting it through a 5C clamping system doesn't improve the finish. So it's so easy. You just throw them in the tumbler and for us, it's a little bit of an aggressive media. So it doesn't make it look like anything polished. It's almost just like, it's almost making the whole thing homogenous, even though it's a little bit rough, but then it looks great. Exactly. And that's the thing is you're making the whole thing homogenous. Just like you said, like you're evening out any
00:06:15
Speaker
kind of scratches. I like to say it pre-scratches the whole part so that
Optimizing YouTube and Website Content
00:06:21
Speaker
one future little scratch, especially on a knife handle, doesn't show up as much.
00:06:27
Speaker
We've been thinking about our surface plates, the steel versions, our surface ground to a pretty decent RA spec and they look beautiful. And I've kind of realized that the machinist in me and the engineer in me and the entrepreneur in me loves that glistening pride. And it's probably, it actually is, not even probably, it is a mistake. We should just have them
00:06:47
Speaker
either scotch brided back to a rougher look, even though it's still phenomenal, or we could leave them as the planter swirls. But I feel like I want something a little bit nicer than that. But the problem is that then customers have this psychological disappointment when they all of a sudden just kiss any little thing on it and all of a sudden it becomes slightly less than perfect.
00:07:09
Speaker
Well, and especially for a bigger part like that, it's very hard to hand apply an even finish. If you're going to Scotch braid it, it's super difficult. So that's why we love the tumblers. It just makes it even. I've never put a Scotch braid pad on an orbital sander and tried to see how that works. I've never done that. Never, ever. A friend did that once. Yeah. Asking for a friend here. Right.
00:07:36
Speaker
Well, that's cool. It is fun to have downtime and be forced to do other stuff. Yeah. And Aaron and I have been able to focus on YouTube quite a bit. Do tell. So do you have a new video up? I didn't even look. No, but she's working on several right now. Sweet. So last week, she was working on the website a lot. No huge changes, but we added some text and FAQ, updated testimonials that are not four years old, things like that, like little important things.
00:08:07
Speaker
Which has been really good. And this week she's working on the YouTube. She organized all of my old videos into a playlist. So there is knife making Tuesday playlist, you know, knife shows, factory tours, things like that. So that was really good. And then she's editing our video where we went to McMaster and talked to the students or they talked to us. So we'll get that up. She said, it's done. It's just about done. I just need to approve it.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah, we've got some other videos we're uploading soon. So I'm super excited. Sweet. Good for getting these comments on Instagram. Like, man, you haven't posted a video in months. Are you done? Are you done on YouTube? And I'm like, oh, no, guys, just wait. Just you wait. Just the opposite. Right, right. It's on like Donkey Kong. It is about to take off. So it's super exciting. And Erin is totally on board. And she's excited. And she's like, yes, let's grow this YouTube channel.
Creating Educational and Entertaining Videos
00:09:00
Speaker
Let's get it back to where it should be.
00:09:03
Speaker
Are you using Trello with her? Yes. OK. That works great. Good. Awesome. I think the people in the know have pointed out that Trello and Asana have some significant differences. I can't speak to those. But I think for all intents and purposes of general team project tracking work, they're similar. And I don't know what we would do without Asana at this point.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah, and she was telling me that she had used, she heard us talking about it on one of the previous episodes. She has used Asana before on previous projects at other places. And she kind of introduced me to it and added me to a demo project and we looked through it and I'm like, wow, this could be really good once you move into it and truly understand it. Trello is basically just a huge notepad that you can sort and organize and share.
00:09:54
Speaker
It's less to do with keeping you updated, with messaging you when there's a thing to do, and all these things that Asana are probably great at. Yeah, so I just use it. So is she kind of looking at your notepad then?
00:10:09
Speaker
Yes, we have a shared board on Trello called Erin's to-do list or whatever. And if I have a new video idea I want to add, we add it there so that we're both aware of it. She's got her to-do list and all these things, like as we're having a conversation or a meeting or something, we're like, yeah, we should do that. OK, write it down in the board so that it's there. So don't forget about it. It's sort of like the dump that bags. Exactly.
00:10:32
Speaker
at the risk of, gosh, I've had so much. I wanted to talk about that, but also to-do lists again. What was I going to say? Oh, this is something I'm super, super excited about. It gets me so fired up, which is little videos that would not do well on YouTube because they're
Balancing YouTube and Website Content Strategies
00:10:52
Speaker
not funny and entertaining and super cool. They're more for a niche entrepreneur or business owner
00:10:57
Speaker
or somebody who wants to understand, but doing like a three minute video of how we do a sauna. So I will film that today. And I'm going to put it up on the NYC CNC website so that people that want to see it can absolutely get to it. But for lack of a better description, you know, our YouTube as our YouTube grow, it's actually really stinks. But it's there's no point in complaining about it because it's how the world works. And I know that which is that for YouTube to do well, you've got to put out content that YouTube wants to see. And again, that's stuff that's generally more exciting or we all know that.
00:11:27
Speaker
follows a story and doesn't do so hot. Even our Fusion Fridays, they do very poorly compared to other stuff. I like it. I'm not going to change that, but I'm not going to double down and do even more nitty or grittier, hyper specific. I'm not going to do a entrepreneur's guide to getting started with accounting. I'm not going to put that on YouTube. Maybe I'll put something like, maybe here's what I'll do. Maybe I'll do a bunch of those videos on the NYC website. And then every month, I'll put a summary video up saying, hey,
00:11:56
Speaker
We're not shoving this in your face, but for folks that want to see here is five of the new videos we've got over at the site. They're free, they're open, go look at them, but I'm not trying to force you to watch them here.
00:12:05
Speaker
I love that idea. It's like a trailer. Yeah, that's good. I can even put it in the Wednesday widget at the end or so that way it doesn't have to be like a discrete video. True. But I mean, the other thing is viewers don't have to watch every video you post on YouTube. It's up to their discretion, right? So you post what you feel is right, what you want to post. I mean, I've got a lot of crazy things I want to post too.
00:12:30
Speaker
There's a bit of discretion, trying to figure out where and how. And we want
Future Content Plans and Audience Engagement
00:12:35
Speaker
to post some private stuff on the website just to drive people to the website video-wise, exactly as you're doing, basically.
00:12:43
Speaker
But yeah, yeah, definitely. I understand what you mean, like catering to the YouTube demographic, your own demographic on YouTube helps you grow. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So go ahead. What is your, just curious, what is your intention with YouTube? Are you going to like double down? You want to make it bigger or you want to focus more on NYC side or?
00:13:06
Speaker
As much as I just said they're different, they're also super interrelated. Of course. What is the best recipe? I think the best recipe is to do projects that are a combination of entertaining and inspirational that show
00:13:22
Speaker
good use of machines or making a good product and that are well produced, lighthearted. I try to keep things relatively short, which also is probably to my detriment from a pure financial standpoint, the longer you get people to watch, the better YouTube likes you and so forth. So doing 34 minute videos is, I just don't like that. That's not my style.
00:13:43
Speaker
You do do them though, like your your tours and things. They're like, oh, absolutely, absolutely. But I don't I don't do the regular every every Wednesday is a 30. We could make our Wednesday, which is 30 or 40 minutes. So we grow. We don't then let's take the Imperializer, which we just released, which was awesome, by the way.
00:14:05
Speaker
Such a great example of our world. So many haters, so many people that are like, don't you own a calculator? Don't you own a smartphone? I'm like, you don't get it. I don't want my $1,000 smartphone, which is absurd, by the way, subject to coolant and machining. And it doesn't stick on the machine enclosure. And it's not always on my desk, or it's in my pocket, or my hands are dirty. And I want something as a dedicated hardware device that does something incredibly well. And it's also fun.
00:14:30
Speaker
Anyway, so we do a fun
Focus on R&D and Business Operations Management
00:14:32
Speaker
build video showing that, and then go to the NYC website. We've got the Fusion CAD video. We've got the Fusion CAM video. We've got a video on how we get them anodized, how we built the circuit boards, walk into the Arduino code. So for the 5% or 30% of people that want that really rich backstory, they can go consume it at choice. Otherwise, it's the entertaining video that somebody who's not a machinist will still maybe enjoy.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah, maybe make a point of driving people to the NYC website to see a lot more of this project. Yeah, right. I forget if you mentioned that at the end, but it's certainly something to keep in mind. We've got six more videos that are more in-depth on all the processes at the end of the season.
00:15:14
Speaker
That's great. That's where it goes to show it takes a lot of front loaded effort. Because then I've got to build out that web page before the video is even done. Because I've got to put that in the video. And we have started doing it. But it's going to force me to be all the more delirious. So one of the thoughts I've had is trying to get two months ahead. We've run three or four weeks ahead before on Wednesday widgets, but never two months. And then totally revamp our
00:15:41
Speaker
video built. It does stink because just like this podcast, I don't always like making the widgets that far in advance because when the energy of the widget comes out, I've kind of moved on. I get that. But I think that is the goal. That's what we have people wanting to see. Hey, here's how we did the probing routines or here's how we do the setup anyways. Yeah.
00:16:04
Speaker
Excellent. It's exact. That's my that is my less job shop work. Products are doing very well. And that's something that I need to be involved in R&D on. I need to be involved in like quarterbacking at a higher level. But I really need to make sure that those get run generally on a daily basis on my on their own. I need to do a shop tour update, which I'm going to film today as well. And then my time is on both YouTube and NYC dot com. That's what's exciting. Love it.
00:16:36
Speaker
For us, after this long drought of YouTube videos, it's like I've got all these crazy ideas and we have a person now that can help me do them. What do you do first and what's most important that I want to focus on? Do we film new stuff or do we get rid of the backlog, the 10 to 15 videos that I've filmed over the past year that I haven't put up yet? Yes. Will you please have her edit IMTS?
00:17:02
Speaker
No, I'm serious. I know it sounds almost awkward, but no, do it. I know. It's like part of me is like, it's a year ago. It's a year old, but it doesn't change anything. I will absolutely watch that video. Absolutely. Good. Good. Awesome. So how, when you get media and machines and all that, like not big machines, but like your tumbler or that media, wait, how do you unload it off the truck?
00:17:31
Speaker
I don't know. I was not here when the tumbler was delivered. Oh, OK. Got it. But a delivery truck with a lift gate, so it comes down a little, just like the tormax come delivered, right? And then a pallet jack brings around. Got it. OK. Yeah. But two weeks later, I'm still blown away at the quietness of this tumbler. Yeah, that's really nice.
00:17:54
Speaker
Eric and I were standing next to it yesterday on having a 20 minute conversation. And I'm like, I have to stop him. I'm like, can I just point out that we're standing next to the tumbler that's on? And we're at like conversational tones. This is nuts. We laugh and everything here.
00:18:09
Speaker
Sorry, that just triggered a thought of you buying equipment, which reminded me of a guy who bought an Imperializer. I don't know if he wants to be named, so I'm not going to name him, but he sent me a picture of the Imperializer that had arrived in front of his Nakamura AS200L in California, and he's like, I'm the guy that bought the last-minute red-eye ticket to your open house just to come out to meet you in Crystal. I remember that guy.
00:18:35
Speaker
Yes. And I'm just like, this is so cool. This is insane. Yeah, I remember him asking me, should I get this lathe? And I'm like, it's working pretty good for us. And I didn't know that he actually went through with it and got it. That's fantastic. Yeah, right? I'll forward you the picture. I'm sure you wouldn't mind that. But that's one of those other surreal moments where it's like, this thing is bigger than I ever realized. And it's all tied together and interdependent. So cool.
00:19:05
Speaker
Are you going to do any video of any sort on your Tumblr? I would love to see it. We're filming it for sure. Yesterday, two days ago, Aaron took Eric aside and they filmed like a two week later update. Okay.
00:19:19
Speaker
which was really good. And Eric got to go through it and be like, OK, I'm kind of not happy about this, but I'm thrilled about this. And so I think that's done filming-wise anyway. And then we'll do updates. There's no use hanging on to it to make it perfect, but we'll do updates later. Yeah, so that'll be one of her projects soon.
00:19:39
Speaker
That's what I have to remind myself. I feel pressure. Maybe it's not wise of me to let myself feel pressure about making things a little bit more perfect, a little bit more refined. And it's like, hey, we're going to do a little video on what I wanted to talk about today, which is we have our fifth axis running. I saw on Instagram.
00:20:01
Speaker
I'm going to put a video out and for all these people that have run fifth axis for years, they're going to look at me and be like, bro, you're super amateur. But there's so many, but there's 10 times more people that are maybe going to have access to a fifth axis machine or think about one over the next five years. And I want to show them like, it's like, I don't
00:20:18
Speaker
I've never cared about exposing myself like that. I also just want to make sure we're good stewards of knowledge and we're not putting out. So it's like for your Tumblr thing, it's like rather than wait till you become experts on it, which I know you will, it's like, hey, here's where we are. Here's what it is. Like kind of bring you along. So.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny. That's something I think about a lot is because when you and I started out five to 10 years ago making our YouTube videos, we shared everything. We didn't care about the fact that we didn't know what was going on. I'm sure there was some, what do you call it, fear of being teased or whatever. And that happened, of course. But I think we shared a lot of early mistakes. And it helped a lot of people. And it was just good for us to share.
00:21:04
Speaker
I feel like I'm wanting to be more picky, more professional, want to be more of an expert so that I don't get flamed by the 2% of people that are smarter by those experts, the five axis guys that are like, oh, you're doing it wrong. That's not the point. You're sharing this technology with the 98% that have never touched it before. And that's what's important, right? I think we both have to kind of tell ourselves that it's okay.
00:21:27
Speaker
No, and I'll put out I'll put out a just a direct request to the folks that enjoy this podcast or watch either of our YouTube channels and so forth. I'm going to ask you when folks chime in with comments that are just just trollish. I would ask for you guys to there's a fine line. Don't feed the trolls. But for me as the content creator, sometimes I don't like to engage them. But it is really nice. It is one of the best feelings in the world when
00:21:52
Speaker
Another viewer is like, dude, what are you doing? This is great content. Or this is super helpful for most of us. Or I enjoyed this or whatever. And it's kind of just like if you were, hey, I'm going to just say it. When you were in grade school and you got picked on and somebody else stood up for you because you just didn't feel like standing up for yourself, that is the best feeling in the world. And hey, I'm a full grown adult. I know I should be able to stand up for myself. I'd like to say that I'm super thick skinned, but sometimes I read comments and I'm just like, that stinks. Like I just wish I hadn't read that.
00:22:21
Speaker
Yep, yep. And as you said, we can't feed those trolls right now for us to reply negatively or positively. It's it's acknowledging, you know, yeah. Oh, and I'll jump in sometimes. I just I, my, my iPhone did something weird. And I went into general settings and reset the home screen, I thought would fix the icons along the bottom, but it ended up re shuffling every icon on my iPhone. And
00:22:51
Speaker
I like everybody I had moved like Facebook and Instagram and messenger and Twitter and all that to the front page and they're now all gone and I just left it that way.
00:23:01
Speaker
I very much willingly choose to be part of this community and I do like it. On the flip side, I think about ending 2018, would I rather be more affected by the highs and lows of social media? I just want to hang out with people. I'm not trying to impress people. I just don't have any desire for the negativity. Sorry, I don't even want to talk about it.
00:23:26
Speaker
But this is reality. You and I are two very friendly, happy-go-lucky kind of guys that want to surround ourselves with good, happy people, not negative people. And now that we're older and smarter and in our 30s, we're conscious of avoiding negativity, right? Yeah, just go away. Exactly.
00:23:48
Speaker
But there'll be trolls, there'll be people. At first it was people that trolled us or didn't like our lack of knowledge. And now I find it's more and more people that are, I'll just say jealous of success. And so it's kind of like, okay, so you kind of got to realize the only thing that's constant here is change.
00:24:04
Speaker
They're always going to be people that have their opinions and so forth. Just do it. Actually, this is a great point to say, I did some thinking the other day of Trump trying to like, Hey, what do I do? You know, John Grimson makes knives. What do I do? And I don't love this phrase yet, but you got to start somewhere. And I sort of my sort of new
00:24:26
Speaker
punchline for what is Saunders Machine Works is tools for manufacturing entrepreneurs. And that is obviously both physical tools, we're making our fixture plates, we're making some new plant products that we're coming out with, but also the tools for manufacturing entrepreneurs to succeed. So it's the website, it's the resources, it's the YouTube, it's the inspiration. What do you think? Yeah, sharing the knowledge, absolutely. I love it. Yeah, I think it summarizes Saunders Machine Works very well.
00:24:54
Speaker
And it's what you've always loved. You're a super tool nerd. But I love how you're applying it to mental tools as well as physical tools. Yeah. I feel like the phrase is missing something because I could agree with that. But now that it's out there, maybe we'll get some replies from people. So folks have asked, I've gotten some emails about how do we
00:25:18
Speaker
when we ask people to chime in, how do they get ahold of us? And I don't have a great answer. We both have websites with, do you have a con? You might not have a contract. Everybody's bugging me to have one, but I kind of like the anonymity. I don't blame you. We get, you know, I get emails. I got emails this morning from somebody asking for help buying Christmas gifts for other machinists. And it's like the good, like the John Saunders person would like love to help, but the,
00:25:43
Speaker
business owner, John Saunders, is like, dude, I can't spend eight minutes helping you shop for Christmas gifts, which makes me sound cold-hearted. Yeah, it's true, though. That's the love of growing. Anyways, there's ways to get a hold of us, social media and so forth. Yep.
00:26:02
Speaker
I've started screen capturing Instagram comments when people post of the business of machining. I'll do a screen tap of the thing and then save it to my Trello or to my Google Drive actually. And then Aaron's going to put together a business of machining section of our website and she can post these testimonials.
00:26:20
Speaker
Awesome. I mean, obviously, testimonials for both of us. So right share them too. That's a really good idea. Because people are posting them now and not everybody's tagging with something recognizable. So like, if you see it, you'll never see it again kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. You a screenshot of my phone and save it, right? Should should we do is there a tag people? Is it worth typing out business of machining is the tag is missing meaning is fine.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah, because you can't tagging BOM is not good because of probably mean something else. Yeah. Bill of materials or a billion other things. Yeah. Got it. Well, so I got to share the fifth axis is amazing.
00:27:05
Speaker
Amazing. I completely take for granted that Fusion runs it pretty darn well. At least simply from a three plus two standpoint, it's cake. It's like just not even, it takes under five minutes to teach somebody three plus two. You've got to obviously be conscious of where your part's located relative to your work holding and tools, because when you rotate parts over,
00:27:31
Speaker
just making sure there's enough clearance, but not like, I don't like the situation I'm in right now because I have to take the training back off to get work back on the big haas. And I want to use it now for everything. I just do.
00:27:49
Speaker
No, so I'm already thinking, just to be honest, I'm already thinking about, can I sell that trunnion and have that money go towards a dedicated machine? I'm not there yet. Yeah. Yeah. And then that tough thing about 5-axis is it's the type of machine, I guess, kind of like a lathe, where you really need to know, what are you going to do with it? Big or small materials, pallet systems, like, so I'm not there yet. Maybe it's a good goal to think about for IMTS this year. Right. To at least learn more. A year away.
00:28:19
Speaker
Yeah, because like talking to our friends, you know, Amish and Lockwood that have all been part of buying five axis machines, and they talk about, you know, the size of the table. And it's not just the part that you're making, it's, you know, the height of it and the reach and the clamping system and all this stuff. So if you buy like, I think Lockwood said they bought like the biggest five axis that company made, just so that they, I don't know, they made it more difficult to do something else. I forget. Yeah.
00:28:45
Speaker
No, it's you don't really want a big machine for a lot of the stuff. But it's exciting, for sure. And the simultaneous stuff is the cam is not easy. We're going to do a little Fusion Friday, walking through some of what we learned. I want to give a shout out to both Lockwood, Lock Tool, Amish, which is sscatcam on Instagram, and then the Dr. Phil experience, who's a fellow can actually two of those three of those people are Canadian. They were taking over. Yeah, right. Oh my gosh.
00:29:15
Speaker
A big shout out to them. They were all helpful this week over on WhatsApp and Instagram with some little tips and tricks on the fifth axis toolpath type stuff, which I'm going to share and absolutely pay it forward. It is really cool though. It just is. So you said you want to use it for everything, but do you have actual uses in mind? Like if I had a dedicated five-axis machine, I could make so-and-so.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah, so we just ran, we could, we would probably look at making the Imperializers on them. So that's taking four ops and moving it down to a lot of times it's going to be four down to two, but it's really kind of like four plus half a knot because that last stop is so low risk because all of the tolerance team was handled in the three plus two work.
00:30:03
Speaker
So it's sort of like you're machining this whole part and then you're just the last op is just kind of decking or removing something off. So it's very low risk. We're making a new clamp that we're going to sell as a product that has a taper section on it. So right now we move it into a set of soft jaws and machine that and it works, but having it come off one and done in a five axis, I'm already thinking about
00:30:27
Speaker
something like like Jay Pearson has a product that I'm not that familiar with is his rotary vice. So it's just an idea of kind of like a quick multifunction tombstone, or you could even build your own sort of tombstone with mighty bites. Actually, that's not hard at all, where you can have multiple parts, multiple setups, multiple things happening. And then you could just hot swap them and come off.
00:30:50
Speaker
The three plus two stuff is not hard to program. A little bit tricky to make sure you check your work on all that to make sure you're not gonna have a collision, but we would use it, period. I was working on a prototype last night and I was like, I really wanna make this. And I'm just thinking about the setups and the hassle and the risk. And I was like, wait, just do it on the fifth, good grief. It's like fail, fast fail, cheap. I just did program it and pull it off and you're done. Nice.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah, I've actually thought about using my lathe because it's basically a fourth. I could make milled parts on my lathe if I wanted to, but it's not exactly set up for any of that stuff, but it is possible.
00:31:35
Speaker
And I'll see you that and I'll raise you my love of lathes, which is we're using our fifth axis to avoid lathe work. With a sort of toolpath, you can turn features that are similar to like a lathe. What was I going to do? I wanted to make, oh, we're going to try, we'll probably fail at this one, to be honest. We're going to try to make a miniature crankshaft on the Tormach fourth axis.
00:31:57
Speaker
Tormach fourth axis on a Tormach mill. I think so, yeah. OK. You don't need the five. I want to figure out. Yes. So it's kind of cheating with the wrapping. This is going to be super hacky, but it's just something I want to try to do. And they just need two offsets or something. That would be cool. Right? Tailstock. We'll see. What's that? We'll use the tailstock to support the other side of the.
00:32:26
Speaker
Probably, I might cheat and just do a short stubby thick cam, because the point is not sitting at the tail so it isn't that hard to set up, but it's more proving out the tool pass, the workflow, the capability. Again, it's because somebody really wants to do this, they can understand. I mean, most, obviously most cranks like that you'd have ground or are done more precise than I'm going to probably go through that to do it or balanced or whatever. Proof of concept.
00:32:55
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah, that's awesome. It was cool to the Haas guys when they were here doing our training. Great, great tip, folks, if you're buying a new machine, again, I can't emphasize it enough.
00:33:08
Speaker
How is the relationship with the dealer, assuming that the dealer does the service, which I would think mostly is the case, trying to get to know them, talk to people who buy those machines. Our experience has been great so far, but just this is what's important. When you buy the machine, one of the easiest ways to negotiate in something that you'll probably be able to get is training. I think you have a pretty unique and awesome thing with Elliott and that's where they will basically
00:33:37
Speaker
There's no cap, is that right? Right, yeah, basically anything that I want. With DMG More, it was three days, that's it. And then you pay for more. With LA Metzure, it's like you have training for life, as long as your customer of ours will make time for you. And they hire more apps guys than anybody in the area.
00:33:53
Speaker
It's all location specific. If you live in the middle of nowhere, it's going to be difficult to get easy, quick service. And all over the country, the dealers are going to be different, right? Right. I would say, too, that Elliott Metzer thing sounds like it's working for you. I would be very cautious of anybody that tells me that, because ultimately, free is not good. Because some people abuse it, or they're going to say,
00:34:19
Speaker
you know, we'll get to you when you can. And sometimes you're going to say, no, no, I don't care about paying you in this case. I need help in this week or something. But it was cool because they were here. We talked about machine maintenance because we're at one year with the VM three. So I want to do a little video on sort of Haas maintenance and PM. And then we talked macros and it was awesome. I learned some really good things that are going to save us some time on that. Nice. Like what?
00:34:47
Speaker
Well, so we do a lot of tool setting routines, and they're slow as molasses. So they showed me, it's so simple, but they showed me where in Haas they have pre-written FAP programs, like 9830. They're summaries of, they're like subroutines where they call a boatload of individual Renishaw codes. But to the Haas controller, it just looks like 9865A20B30, and it does something. Yeah, exactly.
00:35:16
Speaker
So they showed me where it's so easy. You have to unlock, I think setting 23, normal caveat disclaimer of folks don't do this if you're not comfortable and don't ever overwrite, just copy out your new version. They showed me how you can go into the folder where those programs live, the full long list. And then I've got the PDFs to now go through and
00:35:36
Speaker
figure out what I can, some of them I can cut out. Like I do a lot of diameter checking where the length hasn't changed. So I don't want it to check the length again. It's a waste of time. So how do you do that? That's easy. Do it faster. And then what was the other one that I wanted to do?
00:35:54
Speaker
I don't remember. But just the capability to do that is awesome. Yeah, it gives you the control to pick and choose exactly what you want, not just the defaults that kind of check everything and take forever, right? Yep. Yeah, exactly. Just moving faster. If I know the tool's length, don't move it 80 inches a minute. Move it 500 inches a minute down to a clearance plane above the probe. Right. And you can still do that in a protected positioning move, if you want. Is that right?
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah, with the probe on. So if it touches something, it'll stop. Got it. OK. I'm talking about the tool going out of the tool setter. And you could over, I don't know how quick it stops. There's a chance. You'd probably save it. Anyways. Yeah. When you're checking the length of a tool, you mean, or setting it? On my machine, it's set to eight inches above, like, the spindle face eight inches. Oh, that would sound tip. Yeah. And then I could change that to, like, two inches if I wanted. But it'd be stupid. Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:52
Speaker
But yeah, macros, subroutines are super awesome. It's something I've spent a lot of time on over the past year getting deep into this stuff. When you write G65, P9857, A, B, C, D, whatever, I know what all the A, B, C, Ds do. I know why they're there. I know how to hack them. I set up this. In my machine, if I'm running a program that takes 25 tools
00:37:20
Speaker
The 24th tool needed is not there. It doesn't know until the end of the run when it's calling that tool. And then it's like, oh, invalid tool number. So if I do that for a night run, I come back in the morning and it's beeping at me, unfinished, because it's missing this tool. And I'm like, I need to know that the second I hit cycle start. Sure. So I spent a few days figuring out this custom macro that I wrote that
00:37:44
Speaker
that pre-checks all of the tools. And I had to call my DMG Mori guys. They had to call Japan to get these kind of super complicated things to find out what tools are actually in the tool setter, the tool changer. But once I got it working, it's like you hit cycle start. It reads through a ton of macros in like three seconds. And then it says, tool 30 is missing. And I'm like, yes, that's so cool. And it's already been super helpful. It catches me all the time.
00:38:13
Speaker
Also for tool life like I did another macro that that says tool 30 is we're now now based on historical. Yes. Yeah, it's so cool
00:38:21
Speaker
I'm sorry, I get so excited. We did the same thing with Haas, where we set up groups for different types of alarms. Like with a tap, I want it to just feed hold and tell me you're outside the taps certain range. But with the tool breakage detection, I want it to e-stop. So you can set up these parameters that have to do with number of holes, inches in the cut, or time in the cut, or torque values. And it's what makes me,
00:38:47
Speaker
because I was telling John before we started this podcast that last week's podcast, the audio was no good on my end because I plugged in my webcam, which is how we look at each other and that overrode and to put the different audio. And there's no point to getting upset about that. And there's actually no point in even trying to fix it because that kind of stuff is going to continue to happen in life. You're buying a new computer, you're replacing something, you're moving, you're upgrading. You just can't cut out that change. So the only thing that's constant is change. And so it's just like,
00:39:17
Speaker
these tools and these machines and just tell me that tool 30 is not in there. Done. That is freaking awesome. Yep. And not being complacent with something that makes you unhappy. Yes. That's what we do. Hardcore here is change, update, fix. Our Wednesday widget for next week, which will be out by the time this podcast comes out, is something like that, where we have this kind of like,
00:39:45
Speaker
We're not really calling it a formal mini series, but we've come up with all these fun projects that are called shop problems. And so we're using, we're doing what we love to fix them. So we use an iPad for our time clock. So when you walk in,
00:40:00
Speaker
you punch in your pin and you sign in and you sign out. But it forces you to take a picture of you, which is not something that's important to me, but it would make sense for a place where you want to make sure that if you own a coffee shop that your friend isn't checking his friend in. If he's not there, he's late. So regardless, you have to do the picture thing. No big deal. The problem is that
00:40:22
Speaker
everyone we have a varying range of heights of people in our shop. So we built a single axis CNC machine that is now mount is done is mounted to the wall. And it has a lidar sensor. And when you walk up to it, it detects that somebody's there and then it measures you. And it automatically lifts the iPad up to your eye level so that when it takes the picture of you, your face is perfectly framed in the iPad.
00:40:46
Speaker
That is hilarious. And it's on the fleet overkill. But it's in like a previous video or Instagram or something. And I couldn't figure out what it was for. Oh my gosh, that's so funny. Right. It's like, yes. We're doing the same thing now, same sensors, same kind of linear motion equipment to we have those rubber plastic strips that separate rooms.
00:41:10
Speaker
for heating and noise reasons, but I hate walking through them, especially if I'm carrying cameras or other stuff. So we're building a similar system that is super dialed in. So it won't trip, won't be tripped based on periphery movement. And it opens those rubber things really quick. So the idea is that it triggers right when you're there and it's still, I call it like the Moses store. It parts the ways for you. Just having fun.
00:41:36
Speaker
That's so cool. And there'll be a video on that. Oh, yeah. It'll be a widget. Sweet. Can't wait. Yeah. One more thing to say about the macros or the Haas thing that I can't remember. It's super cool. Oh, that's what I was going to say. Pro tip for folks that are using machines with tool changers, Infusion 360, most post processors, I believe. I know the Haas one for sure.
00:42:00
Speaker
has a, when you go to post your code, if you're even a novice or intermediate user, you may never have paid attention to that white little mini spreadsheet box that has all of those variables and options when you're in the post tab. There's some really cool stuff in there and it's not always as intuitively labeled as some of the other CAM parts of Fusion 360. So if you look through there,
00:42:24
Speaker
In the Haas one, it's called Optionally Cycle Tools at Start. And that uses what's called the option stop. So if you check that to Yes, and you post your program, you will have a chunk of code at the beginning that has a forward slash in it. And then at your machine, if you have option stop, or I think it's MO1, toggled on or off, depending on the state of that button, it will optionally
00:42:51
Speaker
go through all the tools that are called in your program before it starts the program. So you can sit there. Let's say it's four tools. If you let that run, it's going to pull up the first tool. It's going to let you look at it. You hit cycle start again. It's going to pull up the next tool. So you can look at those four tools yourself to make sure, OK, that's not been switched or that's the right length or it's not broken. Interesting. And it's a really handy way to see what it's not going to work for you, John, with 30 tools. And production, basically, where, yeah. Right.
00:43:21
Speaker
but it's also an option stop. So you can just comment or you toggle that switch and then it doesn't run. So that's a really nice function side of it. Nice. Yeah, that's something I was trying to avoid was...
00:43:32
Speaker
actually calling up all of the 25 tools. That'd be the easy way to do it, but it's going to take like three minutes or something like that. I want to be cutting in five seconds, not three minutes. Right. Remember like 20 episodes ago when you and I were talking about having two different sets of code? Actually, Lawrence was talking about this at his AU presentation, Autodesk University presentation on
00:43:58
Speaker
interfacing robots with CNC machines, which is that a lot of times I want to run much slower code or different code when it's lights out. I want to go easier, take it easier, better tool life, check every tool, I don't care. What's on tap for today?
00:44:20
Speaker
today, I'm finishing up a refurb of a knife from my brother in law, which cool video coming up of that the archaeologist paleontologist paleontologist, the dinosaur digger. Yeah, so that'll be done today. And Aaron's helping me film the last of the video for that and she's editing it. So that'll be up within a week probably. Cool. And then make it some rasp blades. We've got
00:44:44
Speaker
We've spent the past three, four months just focused on Norseman. Now that we're out of Norseman parts, we're making Rask parts. We're realizing how much more inefficient the Rask is as a build. So we've got some upgrades coming in the next few weeks that are going to help us make Rasks faster. And then, yeah, so we're just kind of all of us are spending time on these little side projects that we don't have time to do when we're crushing it super hard with Norseman, which will be next week.
00:45:14
Speaker
But yeah, yeah, it's just little projects here and there. Awesome. Yeah, I am got to work with Alex, who's our new intern on some thread milling content. We're doing a pretty comprehensive video walking through some of the I think lack of information or misinformation published about how you calculate correct thread mills. I forget we talked about this or not. We mentioned it. Yeah.
00:45:40
Speaker
And one of the things we're doing is we're going straight from the machinery's handbook to our content. I'm not interested in all of these websites or articles or calculators that don't explain why, like just go straight back to the quote unquote Bible. Yeah, exactly. So doing that, I've got a to do list in front of me of a bunch of little stuff, but I'm really
00:46:03
Speaker
I don't know what to say about this. To-do lists aren't a bad thing. They'll continue to be part of my routine, but I am not, I'm trying to rethink how I use them, which is to basically, instead of writing, like if I write three little things on my to-do list, instead of writing them, I just stop everything and just go do them. I'm trying to do more consumption in the present rather than this feeling of build up lists and then,
00:46:27
Speaker
It's like, why am I putting this off to doing it later? If I have to carry something over to the shipping table or if I have to check something, just go do it now. I just had a thought, but I totally lost it about that.
00:46:46
Speaker
Even just the act of writing something down on the to-do list is the release that I needed. And then sometimes I don't even do it because I feel like I've done it. I've acknowledged it already, even though it never got done. I feel like I'm going to batch them together or do them later, or I want to do something else now. But it's like, no, just go do it.
00:47:05
Speaker
or something conversely, like I've been putting off Alex for a few days. I had to go to a forklift safety training class this week. And then I had to do the Haas guys were here. So I've been putting him off on the treadmill stuff. I have all this other stuff that is arguably more important, but it's not more important because I really want to do this. And that's what I want to do. So, so screw it. I'm just going to go do that. And right when we hang up this call and, and I'll go get to the rest of the stuff today.
00:47:30
Speaker
Pay yourself, you know, pay yourself first, right? Right. Do what you need to do, what you want to do. Right. Yep. Sweet. Shall we? I think we shall. We shall move on to our day. Move on to our day. Crush it, bud. We'll do. Awesome. I'll see you. Take care. Have a great day. Bye. Bye.