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#377 Tour of Willemin and Kern in Europe
3.9k Plays5 months ago
TOPICS:
- 10 year anniversary of being in Ohio
- factory tour of willemin in switzerland and Kern in germany
- Grimsmo Blum update and blade grinding
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 377
00:00:01
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining, episode 377. My name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:07
John S
And my name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And this is our weekly weekly chat about manufacturing and our businesses and the state of things and the ups and downs and problems and solutions of of running your own manufacturing company and growing it from nothing to something. And all of the emotions of feeling very proud and sometimes very not so proud of of what we're doing, but yeah, all in all, keep it
00:00:33
John S
Yeah, keep it real, right?
John's 10-Year Journey to Ohio and Business Growth
00:00:35
johngrimsmo
real.
00:00:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah, we try to.
00:00:37
John S
Actually, on that note, I'd like to give a shout out to my wife, because in our, I know we were off a couple of episodes over the past few weeks, but last week was the 10 year anniversary of packing up and leaving New York and coming to Ohio and kind of taking a, yeah, it's funny, like, a yeah
00:00:58
johngrimsmo
Oh.
00:01:06
John S
When I look back on it, you know, oh my, I could have never envisioned it working. Yeah, it's been, it's been great run. I've worked my butt off, but it's been great. But I mean, look, I was doing one-off job shop. We work with a very, ah very small limited number of machines and and stuff. And like, holy cow, don't think back on it, you know. It's just a lot. It's been a lot of the 10 years in a great way. And we, uh, I grew up here.
00:01:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:37
John S
She did not, she's from the Northeast. I didn't think I would move back here. So she kind of took a, um, you know, took a chance on it. And it's, and that part of it's worked out great too. We really do like living here. Um, but, uh, pretty crazy to think it's been 10 years.
00:01:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Starting in your grandpa's barn.
00:01:55
John S
Bing. Yep.
00:01:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I remember the YouTube videos back there and I've seen it a couple of times and it's like,
00:01:56
John S
Bingo.
00:01:59
John S
Yeah.
00:02:01
johngrimsmo
and then your apartment. Before that, like people I meet out in the world that that know you and bring you up, they're like, yeah, I've been watching since the apartment, since when he had his tag next to his pillow.
00:02:07
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:11
johngrimsmo
like
00:02:12
John S
Isn't that funny? Yeah. Oh, man, like it'd be it'd be surreal this will never happen but like if there was like, you know augmented reality headsets and you could try try like fly around to just like do those time traveling trips because there was one apartment on 59th Street and there was a 72nd Street apartment then you know, we didn't have a kid and I moved out to the suburbs which nobody does in New York City only only to have a walkout basement like the realtor was laughing at us. She's like, what do you mean you want to put machines in this like facility and
00:02:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:44
John S
that's how I got a Tormach and yeah it's just been it's been it's been great it really has but hey good yeah ah yeah we I mean i'm I'm not even sure is there a point to it there is for me because it's kind of a chance to
00:02:48
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah. And rarely do we step back and think about that, you know?
00:03:05
John S
um to you know I think it's been time you and I talked a lot about both on the podcast and a little bit maybe off offline about just the the roles and you what you want out of it and where you're at. It's been good though. It's been good. Really
From Garage to Shop: Business Growth Reflections
00:03:20
John S
has.
00:03:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and for us, 10 years ago, like ah we were in the garage.
00:03:23
John S
Yeah.
00:03:25
John S
yeah
00:03:25
johngrimsmo
um We got our first shop nine years ago, 2015. And I have been thinking about that a little bit, because that 10 years is coming up next year. And you know I still drive by that garage. like It's not far away.
00:03:38
John S
ah It's funny.
00:03:39
johngrimsmo
I drive by it often enough. And you know, also the kids like, like you were born in that house, like, and that's where the business was, you know, started and they don't care, but yeah.
00:03:49
John S
Yeah, yeah. Isn't that funny? They don't. it's It's fine. It's fine. I remember meeting you at Tormach for the first time and we shared a hotel room and you were like, we were like decompressing, just shooting the breeze for at the end of the night and you were like, so I bought a DMG Dura vertical, I ordered it and I don't even have a shop to put it in yet.
00:04:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:04:17
johngrimsmo
Yup, yup. So that would have been summer of 2015.
00:04:21
John S
There you go, nine years.
00:04:21
johngrimsmo
So we've we've been like in-person friends then for nine years.
00:04:25
John S
There you go. Yeah, Ray.
00:04:25
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:04:26
John S
Holy cow. um Yeah, that's good. And on that note, what's able to spend, um we took a mixture of a holiday and a vacation slash
Trip to Switzerland: Visiting Manufacturing Giants
00:04:40
John S
work trip last week um to visit Wilhelmin in Switzerland to see, we actually didn't see our new machine. The trip had kind of already been set in, it was set in progress. Our machine was done a little bit sooner and we didn't need to see our exact serial number of machine, but Grant went over as well.
00:04:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, no.
00:05:01
John S
Grant spent time with the factory, sort of our factory rep as well as with their apps team in their show, their beautiful showroom.
00:05:02
johngrimsmo
That's cool.
00:05:09
John S
um And so he spent more time there. I swam by with the with my wife and kids. We got to do a factory tour, which is really awesome. show shout Shout out to them and thank you And I'm happy to talk more about that today. And then um also we were driving, the way we were driving through, we were going to be right by Kern.
00:05:22
johngrimsmo
Please.
00:05:27
John S
So I'd reached out to Marv and said, hey, um we're going to be right in the area. Do you mind if we swing by and say hello and just sort of see what's new? And Marv, as usual, wonderful hospitality, gave us a tour grant, got to see that as well, which was really exciting for him to see that. um And also would love to talk more about that because it really, I always, I mean, I know, I would say I know Kern well in the sense that like, you and I have been there together. You own one, lots of our friends know when we talked about them a lot, but like, it really reinvigorated my, my passion for their passion.
00:05:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:05:59
John S
Like how they make those machines hydro set. Like I would love to talk more about that. It's insane.
00:06:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:04
John S
it's insane
00:06:04
johngrimsmo
I could see myself going back there at some point and you know steeping myself in the culture of current Germany.
00:06:06
John S
It's insane. Yeah.
00:06:12
johngrimsmo
um Yeah, I'd like to do that. um What was I going to say? And having done the drive between basically where Willimon is, because that's where Tornos is, they're close enough ah to to Germany, um it's not a short drive.
00:06:20
John S
Yeah. Oh, I didn't even think about that.
00:06:26
John S
No. it's It's funny. I like quote unquote almost wrecked the, wrecked the rental car because we're getting off and we're getting off an off ramp and I look over and I see this giant facility in its GF.
00:06:38
johngrimsmo
wow
00:06:38
John S
um And I like snapped a blurry picture, like while I'm holding up my phone, you're not supposed to do, blah, blah.
00:06:43
johngrimsmo
yeah Okay.
00:06:44
John S
And so I thought that was, it's always funny, like when you find these little niches of machine to a world stuff, but that was my first time to the French speaking part of Western Switzerland, And it is more, it is more different than I expected. Like all of a sudden, all of this road signs are in French.
00:07:03
johngrimsmo
Mmm.
00:07:06
John S
I naively thought that it was culturally French, but still a Swiss German, you know, sign road signs, et cetera. Like the people there don't speak German. They don't, the road signs are in French. Like the restaurants are in French, um which you know Now I know, it doesn't matter. It's just more like what i I've been to other parts of Switzerland quite often and very much of use to that. So it was very it was very different.
00:07:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah. So it's Zurich and ah West, I guess, ish is the French's side.
00:07:34
John S
but Yeah, I mean, we were actually like five miles from the French border, but I believe the Swiss, the French speaking portion pushes further into Switzerland as well, not just right there on the border.
00:07:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:47
John S
But yeah, it's only an hour and a half west of
Inside Wilhelmin: Production and Quality Processes
00:07:50
John S
Zurich, not that far. But yeah, you're right, Kern, Whitlam into Kern is probably, we broke it up because we're doing some other stuff, but it's probably a five, six hour drive.
00:07:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:08:01
John S
You've been to, you've been to Tornos or no?
00:08:01
johngrimsmo
And I've been to Tornos. Yeah.
00:08:04
John S
Yeah, okay, you've been there.
00:08:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah. When I when i went, you you and I went to Kern, I landed in Zurich, hopped in a rental car and got the full tour of Tornos and then drove to to Kern, Germany.
00:08:11
John S
Okay.
00:08:15
johngrimsmo
And I want to give a quick update on Pierre, our machinist that moved back to Europe and now works at Tornos.
00:08:19
John S
Oh yeah.
00:08:23
John S
That's hilarious.
00:08:23
johngrimsmo
And I had texted him on Friday and I was like, what's up? I haven't heard like in a while. Like I know you got the job and I know how, how are things going? And he's like, I'm i'm a level two service technician. I'm trained on all of these Swiss made tornos machines, flying to Poland next week to do an install or whatever. And then it's just, he's loving it, loving life, loving life.
00:08:41
John S
That's great. That's great.
00:08:43
johngrimsmo
He's getting all the inside hot gossip on, uh, you know, the tornos machines and their, their role in the watch industry, which he loves.
00:08:50
John S
hundred
00:08:51
johngrimsmo
And, uh, All that cool stuff. So it's it's been really good for him. I'm happy.
00:08:55
John S
That's awesome.
00:08:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:55
John S
That's good.
00:08:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And we'll have to make our way out to Switzerland and and see him and get the tour from him kind of thing. And, you know, looking forward to that.
00:09:03
John S
Well, if you did a, if you did a tour there, would you be p fluent enough in French to do the tour in French?
00:09:08
johngrimsmo
Oh, not at all.
00:09:10
John S
Okay.
00:09:10
johngrimsmo
No, I'm conversational at best.
00:09:13
John S
Okay, got it. I'll tell you, that was more of a language barrier than I appreciated partly.
00:09:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:18
johngrimsmo
The French.
00:09:19
John S
Yes. um I think I'm just spoiled because, you know, Marv speaks like perfectly fluent English. And if you tour DMG or Hermelet, like everyone just speaks wonderfully perfect English. and um this is not a critique, it was just an observation. I mean, it's a French like this, not as much, they actually had any translator for our tour there.
00:09:40
johngrimsmo
Wow.
00:09:41
John S
um So obviously that changes the pace of the dialogue and makes me appreciate again, Marv, where you know he can talk about detailed kinematic terms in and materials and structures and hydraulics in English. And that's a lot different when you're translating stuff.
00:09:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:00
johngrimsmo
But I remember a lot of the technicians at Kern would speak either German or as Marv said, they they only speak Bavarian, like that's different.
00:10:11
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:10:11
John S
Yeah, so it's cool. Willamette builds more machines than I guess I thought.
00:10:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:17
John S
um I was kind of thinking it would be a very, very small boutique builder. And no, I mean, they had a lot.
00:10:25
John S
So they they do. They, like Kern, they don't really, I'm giving the broadro broad approach broad and brush explanation.
00:10:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:10:37
John S
They don't really make anything themselves, so they order everything to part, but they do assemble stuff themselves. So they assemble their spindles, I believe, at least the ones we saw. They don't, for example, they don't buy a cartridge spindle from Kessler or whomever. um They order the castings and mineral granite stuff and so forth, but then they do, They do assembly, and they do fit in an assembly to where they're actually doing some pretty preci precise scraping in and of certain surfaces or lapping in. But it wasn't like, say, Hermola, where when you go to Hermola, you see they actually have a foundry.
00:11:11
John S
And they have giant bridge mills that are machining it, or like Haas, where you're casting iron tables. And there there's lots and lots of tools being consumed and noise being made and work in progress, yeah.
00:11:21
johngrimsmo
It's manufacturing zone. Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:24
John S
And so yeah know it's like a typical factory they had a receiving area that four or five of those 20 or 30 foot high um carousel storage rack machines, which are, you know, buku bucks, but really cool.
00:11:35
johngrimsmo
Okay. Really? Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:39
John S
um The other thing they had that they that I really liked, I don't think it's going to be attainable for us, but they had um thousands of kind of like mini U-line bins or process bins or inventory bins and they all had E-ink tags on them.
00:11:55
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:11:56
John S
So I am sure, I didn't confirm this, but I'm sure that those E-ink tags have batteries that last for years and
00:12:04
johngrimsmo
You know, they have those in grocery stores around here now, and I've actually asked the grocery store people about them.
00:12:10
johngrimsmo
And yeah, it's becoming more affordable, it must be, right?
00:12:10
John S
calls me.
00:12:14
John S
Yeah.
00:12:15
johngrimsmo
If a local grocery store has it.
00:12:17
John S
so Totally agree. i say I say, when I say it's not affordable, I'm suspecting that those go along with a five or six figure system and install.
00:12:24
johngrimsmo
Maybe, yeah.
00:12:25
John S
The tags themselves are, even if they were 20 bucks a piece, which are probably cheaper, um that is
Innovative Inventory Management Ideas: E-ink Tags
00:12:30
John S
affordable, but they have to, it's just amazing because that could tie into an ERP system, a naming system, a location system, tagging, um updating the price, updating the quantity.
00:12:37
johngrimsmo
evening
00:12:39
John S
I mean, that is, you're speaking my love language now on that stuff.
00:12:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
00:12:43
John S
Mm-hmm.
00:12:44
johngrimsmo
Inventory levels and yeah. I mean, I've i always wanted to integrate something like that with a few buttons, like at each cell, like order more or something like flag.
00:12:47
John S
But,
00:12:52
John S
who oh, good call, yeah.
00:12:54
johngrimsmo
I don't know. You know?
00:12:58
John S
the So when they do a Willamond build, first off to be, I guess, to answer of the question that I'm anticipating folks may ask, we did not film a tour, didn't even bring it up with them. And if we go back again, maybe we we would ask, but this was just enjoyed enjoy the tour and and build some relationships.
00:13:13
johngrimsmo
good
00:13:14
John S
um it They get a machine build spec, and then they sort of start by assembling carts and dollies with all the stuff that they need for that machine.
00:13:23
johngrimsmo
Mmm.
00:13:23
John S
And then it moves along, um so like they do all the tool changer stuff separately, the wiring harness stuff separately, then is but it all kind of stays together. um And then it goes out to the main assembly line where they have a line for 400 series machines, 408s, and then at 508s they have a 300 series machine, they have another different machine. and takes about, depending on the complexity or size, you know, three to six weeks to do that part of it, then it moves to the building, the same building, but like next room, if you will, um and about the same amount of time for quality, verification, runoff, testing, all that stuff.
00:14:02
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:14:03
John S
um So, you know, it's about two to three months start to finish once you're, you know,
00:14:09
johngrimsmo
And is it actually like like you place the order and then they start building the machine or do they kind of have a rolling flow of inventory?
00:14:09
John S
and
00:14:16
John S
My understanding was everything is built for a customer to expect.
00:14:25
John S
They don't build inventory machines and they do far more one-off, not one-off, but different stuff than I even realized. and
00:14:33
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:14:34
John S
four eight still has options of turning and no turning and sub-spindle. They have a three-axis machine. The 508 is even more so because in the 508 you can have turrets, you can have different multi-axis, multi-tail socks, sub-spindle. sometimes like There's just a lot more variance of it.
00:14:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:51
John S
um We bought what I think is ah probably This is probably a false statement, but what feels like the normal bread and butter machine, which is the same one that our used one is, your used one is, CJ has, Chris Welch has, I think Dave has, like it's a 408, it turns, with like it's just like the normal, it's what you'd want. like
00:15:11
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:15:14
John S
What else did we learn there? Really like their little, I think it was the 300 machine that is a three, it has three, you wanna talk about?
00:15:23
johngrimsmo
I've seen videos.
00:15:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah. It's like those weird 3D printers, the Delta printers with the three arms.
00:15:25
John S
Okay, yeah.
00:15:29
John S
Yes, but upside down.
00:15:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:15:32
John S
And so they said that, So yeah if I can try to describe this best, it has a probably four inch or Petri dish size work table, so tiny. um And it's connected on three points to three linear motors or something similar. And so that's how you get your delta motion profile. And what they sort of said, again, some of this was not Sometimes this is probably lost in translation, but the difference between that kinematic design, especially for these hyper-accurate small parts, is you don't have the polar coordinate lobing issues of an axis that completely stops and reverses on quadrants like a ballbar test would show on an XY machine.
00:16:13
johngrimsmo
Sure. Interesting.
00:16:16
John S
Yeah. Now you still have motors starting, stopping and reversing and obviously there's a, a, a, a, a cell.
00:16:23
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:16:25
John S
So I don't know enough to explain if that's cool.
00:16:29
johngrimsmo
like If it were linear motors, that problem pretty much goes away, I think.
00:16:34
John S
I don't think they're linear because I believe they're, it looked like they were, uh, sorry. When I say a linear motor, I don't mean a magnetic one. I mean, they're like, you know, the ones we're using on Johnny five, where you just take a motor and you convert it to linear motion, which could have backlash.
00:16:49
johngrimsmo
Mm.
00:16:51
John S
I guess these are probably higher end and then they look like it had a fanic ah encoder on the end.
00:16:52
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:16:56
John S
So I'm pretty sure they were mechanical, not magnetic.
00:16:59
johngrimsmo
yeahp Yeah, yeah.
00:17:02
John S
Uh, yeah, but it was a really, I mean, you really beautiful facility and and it got me fired up because our machine should actually hit the
Excitement for New Machine Arrival
00:17:10
John S
East coast port in like three days.
00:17:13
johngrimsmo
Dude.
00:17:14
John S
Yeah.
00:17:14
johngrimsmo
When's the estimated time of delivery?
00:17:18
John S
Uh, awkwardly. We don't really know. We're supposed to know more once they, I guess.
00:17:25
johngrimsmo
clear it and import it and yeah.
00:17:26
John S
Yeah. Bingo. But I mean, it should be here.
00:17:28
johngrimsmo
is go It's going straight straight to your facility, not to Wilhelmin headquarters.
00:17:32
John S
Correct. It comes right here.
00:17:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:33
John S
I mean, it might be here. In fact, it should be here next week. So, yeah.
00:17:37
johngrimsmo
yeah And then are there still accessories that will ship separately or um is it all kind of self-contained?
00:17:47
John S
it The machine should be self contained the, we've got the bar feeder folks the fire trace folks will them and install all those sort of things rigging, and then the only thing that was changed is we are not doing the. This was planned but from back in January, but Willimand will come back at the end of the year to do the robot add-on. That was going to otherwise delay the machine by three or four months, and we didn't need to have that.
00:18:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:18:15
John S
So um the UMC 500 was sold, and they got moved out last week while I was gone. And then the ST20Y, which is the last machine, it's the last thing in the training building, actually gets rigged out in about an hour. So that process has come into a close, which is perfect.
00:18:30
johngrimsmo
Oh.
00:18:34
johngrimsmo
Good. So somebody finally got the lathe? You moved it?
00:18:38
John S
Yep, sold both of them.
00:18:38
johngrimsmo
Good. Good for you.
00:18:40
John S
Yeah, they're all gone.
00:18:41
johngrimsmo
And you're keeping the 350 for now.
00:18:43
John S
Keeping 350 and actually enthusiastically so, yeah.
00:18:44
johngrimsmo
Loving it it. Yeah, yeah, good.
00:18:47
John S
yeah um I'm kind kind of curious to see what Haas will come out with IMTS, but now I'm glad we have that to be honest.
00:18:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:18:56
John S
Yeah.
00:18:57
johngrimsmo
That's awesome. And then move on to current.
00:19:00
John S
Oh, man.
00:19:03
John S
Kern is awesome. ah I, you know, Marv is just so, so so passionate and, and, and, and frankly, smart and, but also very comfortable explaining things at my level because mar Marv, Marv's a smart dude. He can talk.
00:19:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah, totally. Well, and and now he's six years smarter than when we last met him.
00:19:24
John S
Isn't that crazy? And that's the other sort of thing is like, he yeah.
00:19:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:19:29
John S
And so looking
The Precision of Kern's Technology
00:19:30
John S
at the materials and the work they're doing with um ceramics and glasses and sapphires and different materials that are just um You know, it's just a whole other level of tooling. The research that Marv has done and and how that's helping and affecting their customers was really interesting to learn. But what we did this time, and and frankly, I wish we could have spent more time. My kids were great, but taking a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old on a machine tour is, you've got about an hour and a half and then they're done.
00:19:56
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:20:00
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:20:01
John S
theyre john um but I also don't know, I don't want to overshare something else was to share because that Martha was Marvel was very open when we were there.
00:20:10
johngrimsmo
True.
00:20:14
John S
Um, but I mean, it really made me love hydrostatic kinematics.
00:20:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah, i've I've been falling deeper and deeper in love with it too.
00:20:21
John S
Oh, John.
00:20:24
John S
And what Marv was talking about, again, I hope I don't get this wrong, but you know, 10 years ago, but we're pre-Kern or even on the pyramid, it was like a 50 micron gap, which is actually quote unquote fairly large.
00:20:34
johngrimsmo
Mmhmm
00:20:38
John S
And so you could have some displacement and shift and and issues, especially if. like, I don't know, crashes or power down or or so forth, they figured out um how to reduce that significantly with an even with an analog balancing system that's patented and thus, you know, it's a simple part, but it's not a part that most people are going to be able to make. That came up because I asked, does K1, their own job shop, make parts for Kern, the machine tool builder? And he was kind of like, only a few, but there are some of these ones that are really, really, really difficult to make.
00:21:11
johngrimsmo
Interesting. Okay.
00:21:13
John S
and And talking about this valve that kind of self-balances this system that allows them to have such a small hydrostatic layer gives you the stiffness and rigidity you need that is just unique. And and they showed these aluminum, ah like this was the column structure, and how they they rough machine or they machine it, a rough
00:21:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:21:37
John S
ah he said lap but it looked like they were using stones not like scraping like hand scraping but they were doing oh and it's awesome they don't even blue because they're doing such such small numbers that they have they're able to do the work while it's on a like laser interferometer.
00:21:57
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:21:57
John S
It's almost like you could be holding a stone while you watch a microscope or metrology tool, and it shows you the deviation you're doing real time.
00:22:04
johngrimsmo
Oh
00:22:06
John S
um But they're holding certain dimensions of parallelism or or nominal thickness across 20, 30 inch spans of like one, two, three microns, John.
00:22:12
johngrimsmo
my gosh.
00:22:16
John S
It's just unreal.
00:22:19
johngrimsmo
That's crazy. I mean, I remember when they came out with the micro and I heard heard a whole podcast of the guy that kind of developed it. And they were trying to do new new things and aluminum weldments and things like that. And um they answered all these questions and then they must have been like, okay, we did that. How do we make it better?
00:22:37
John S
Yeah.
00:22:38
johngrimsmo
And then the whole process of, okay, hydrostatic's not a brand new technology, but how do we make it better? How do we how do we make it manufacturable? How do we scrape these in-house, ourselves, live feedback? like That must have been a fun process, challenging, but you know a fun process to figure out for them, for their team.
00:22:54
John S
Oh, yeah. um And it kind of reminds me of the conversation that you and I had when we first met them about, well, I don't necessarily need a current for the parts that I make because my parts aren't that accurate, but the rebuttal or a rebuttal would be. But if you want part number two and part number 200 to be the same, maybe you do want a current. um And obviously, everybody would love a machine that that's accurate. But yeah there's a point that
Exploring Different Kern Machine Models
00:23:20
John S
the accuracy is not always just about a one-off that's insanely good, but consistency and and you thermal is everything.
00:23:27
John S
um what I felt the same way about linear motors. that now Now we're talking about the magnetic ones with hydrostatics.
00:23:32
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah, the two of those together.
00:23:33
John S
like Those are for the other guy. Those are crazy. But now you start to see like they don't wear. They have better different thermal. Oh, John.
00:23:42
johngrimsmo
I mean, they they produce a lot of heat, linear motors, I've heard.
00:23:44
John S
Yes.
00:23:45
johngrimsmo
um So on some machines, like apparently the Ametra LX 160 is a linear motor small five-axis machine.
00:23:50
John S
Mm hmm.
00:23:53
johngrimsmo
um Apparently that heats up like a lot, because the linear motors, they're magnets.
00:23:54
John S
Mm hmm.
00:23:57
johngrimsmo
they They stay locked. they They generate a lot of heat. So Kern's obviously figured out the chilling aspect of that. And it's just more to manage. I assume they're chilling the hydrostatic fluid as well. um because the chiller on the HD is massive.
00:24:12
John S
Yeah, so that's actually a good reminder. I had to, myself, remind it. For all intents and purposes, Kern only makes the micro these days, which is what you have.
00:24:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:24:24
John S
They they ah they were making a one oh pyramid, a one-off for somebody, but they don't really do that anymore. Like there was one in the factory. So they make the micro, they make the varia, which is what you have, right?
00:24:32
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:24:32
John S
Which is the ball screw linear way guide made machine. Then they make the, is it HD, right?
00:24:39
johngrimsmo
HD is the heterostatic one.
00:24:41
John S
Yes, bingo, okay, yeah.
00:24:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and they just made their last Evo like last year or something. It's a smaller round kind of watchmaking machine.
00:24:46
John S
Okay.
00:24:48
johngrimsmo
On the Pier Medano, they also stopped and they were making...
00:24:51
John S
Well, so they didn't, they didn't stop the nano, pure nano technically.
00:24:54
johngrimsmo
Oh, are they still doing it?
00:24:56
John S
They had one, but it was for a customer where they were just going to make it.
00:24:58
johngrimsmo
listen
00:25:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's fine.
00:25:01
John S
I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if you or I could order one to say, I'll put it this way.
00:25:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. And then they were making a... Micro Pro, which is like a little bit cheaper than my Vario.
00:25:13
John S
Okay.
00:25:14
johngrimsmo
I forget what the cutoffs were, but I don't think they made very many of them.
00:25:18
John S
How was it? Did they just de-feature it a bit?
00:25:21
johngrimsmo
A little bit. Yeah. And you can actually buy a current as a three axis, which I'm sure two people have ever done, but.
00:25:22
John S
Okay.
00:25:28
John S
Well, the pyramid nano is a pymid nano technically a three-axis where you can put a trunnion on it.
00:25:31
johngrimsmo
Right. With a table on it. Yeah.
Brand Loyalty and ROI in Machine Shops
00:25:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:35
John S
But like Wilhelmin makes a three-axis, Hermla technically makes one.
00:25:35
johngrimsmo
It's cool.
00:25:39
John S
Like, it's kind of funny. You're like, oh, interesting.
00:25:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah, there is a need.
00:25:42
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:44
johngrimsmo
I mean, becoming brand loyal is a thing, is a real thing. um But kind of ah ROI is always a factor of machine shops, right?
Engineering Advances in Electric Vehicles and Aerospace
00:25:54
John S
Yeah, the other really awesome takeaway talking to Kern and Marv generally was that there are ways that we in the world can do things a lot better, whether it's electric vehicle, battery life, whether it's aerospace efficiency or or other efficiencies. like And again, this is a dumb, fake, and I'm not an engineer, but it's sort of like a layman's interpretation of these comments. We know how to make things way more efficient.
00:26:25
John S
Engineers know how to make them more efficient. Right now, we don't have a practical way to manufacture those
Revolutionizing Industries with Precision Engineering
00:26:29
John S
things. And if machines that are well-built like Kerns that might be sort of higher up the food chain are able to do that, like it's crazy to think that you could revolutionize an industry like electric vehicles or aerospace, you know, with better efficiencies, fuels, battery life by just making parts better.
00:26:47
johngrimsmo
but by making a better machine.
00:26:47
John S
That's really, that's... tighter tolerances, more efficient. Yeah. Like
The Importance of Accuracy in Knife Production
00:26:51
John S
that's really cool.
00:26:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, that is cool.
00:26:51
John S
Really cool to me. Yeah. That, that all came up because we saw a part that to me looked really simple. And I was like, why is that part being made here? And that what I just said was kind of the answer to it was an idea of like week, the world can do things better if this part was just a hundred times more accurate.
00:27:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah, better. Yep, yep. And I mean, I see that in our shop on a small scale, like our knives go together better than most other knives out there. The accuracy, the tolerances, the you don't have to like shimmy one to the side while you tighten the first screw and then it just works.
00:27:19
John S
yeah
Tool Wear vs. Production Consistency
00:27:24
johngrimsmo
um And I'm going crazy with tolerance stack up sometimes. It's like, well, if that's off by two tenths and that's off by three tenths and that's off by one tenth and that's off, then it doesn't work.
00:27:31
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:39
John S
Yes, but it's still, you're stacking the deck in your favor, starting that way, right?
00:27:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:27:45
John S
And that was something I wanted to ask Marvin. We didn't get into. It was like, you're doing all this, but you're still dealing with tools that wear and materials that have deflection.
00:27:52
johngrimsmo
Fair.
00:27:55
John S
I'd love to ask him that again next time we're talking.
00:27:57
johngrimsmo
But what we're seeing is ah the machine is not the problem. If you have deviation of results, it's usually not the current's fault necessarily. It could be tooling, it could be fixturing, it could be vibration, it could be sloppiness, it could be the screw wasn't tight. um the Usually, like I keep it in mind, but usually I can rule out thermal growth or you know the current doing something weird.
00:28:21
John S
Yeah, that's really nice.
00:28:23
johngrimsmo
um I keep it in mind for sure.
Solving the X-Axis Issue
00:28:25
johngrimsmo
and And it's done some weird stuff sometimes, but for the most part, it's like, oh, the tool is wearing. or you know So that's nice.
00:28:33
John S
Well, yeah, so on that note, what's new with you? Oh, how's the current? Is it is the x-axis happy?
00:28:36
johngrimsmo
X-axis is perfect. The parts no longer have chatter. It just worked. Same old ball screw. Everything just, we just took it out, put it back in, tightened it well, and yeah, it's good to go. I don't know. So I returned the old one, or that the new one that they sent.
00:28:49
John S
Great. Yeah.
00:28:53
johngrimsmo
We didn't even put in the new bearings that they sent, but we kept them. So I bought the bearings so we have them on hand. If it ever happens again, maybe we just pull them out and replace them. It's not too hard. we're We're pretty good at it now.
00:29:06
John S
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:29:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and yeah, so it's been running running super strong. um Yeah, I have no other current updates, it just works.
Advancements in Blade and Handle Production
00:29:17
John S
I saw you, I was on and off social while I was gone, but I think you had some Fjell handle progress updates.
00:29:20
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:29:26
johngrimsmo
I made another handle, at least one, maybe two. um So I'm up to version 10, P10 of different designs on the handle and I'm, 90 plus percent. like I could just send them from here.
00:29:39
John S
Yeah.
00:29:39
johngrimsmo
A couple of little chatter things, long tools, vibrations um that I'm battling, but maybe I just need to pull back and be like, it's fine. That can be you know buffed out or hand sanded or something like that. um so That's good. I've made a couple more blades, fine-tuning those tolerances. um It's tricky because i'm trying I'm basically adding a feature to this knife.
Aligning Blade and Handle Spines
00:30:06
johngrimsmo
like Not only do you want the blade to feel good, like flip out really good when it's closed, but now I'm adding the feature where the blade and the handle need to line up on the spine like perfectly.
00:30:15
John S
Oh.
00:30:17
johngrimsmo
And that doesn't happen on the Norseman of the Rask. There's no indicator to tell that, but now I have this basically flat plane right there.
00:30:23
John S
Yeah.
00:30:26
johngrimsmo
And if the blade's lower, you tell, you can tell. And we had some some variation in the 10 that we made. Some were low, some were perfect. And I'm like, what's different? I made all the blades basically on the same day. Tool life is not gonna do it. Like where are the blades moving? And then obviously I remembered we have a CMM. So should be able to answer this question. um But it's not super easy or fast to just throw parts on and program them and and do that.
00:30:54
John S
Oh God.
00:30:55
johngrimsmo
And Angela has been pretty busy. um And that led me down a very deep rabbit hole of, OK, something's moving. Something in the blade is is changing. And whether it's deviation from machining, you make 10 parts, they're all different. Or they're moving in heat treat, which heat treat does all kinds of weird stuff to metal.
Tracking and Improving Blade Manufacturing
00:31:17
johngrimsmo
Or the engraving that we do on the spine, um we do a light bead blast to clean out the heat treat color from the engraving.
00:31:24
John S
Hmm.
00:31:25
johngrimsmo
um And maybe the bead blasting is curling the part in a weird way. So we are currently going through the testing process on a Rasp blade of make a blade, CMM it, heat treat the blade, CMM it, blast the spine, CMM it. And we are at the almost the last point there. um Probably this week, the blade will get blasted and then CMMed again, the same blade through the whole process. And then Angela will be able to conclusively tell me how much wear it's changing. And then we'll do that process on a bunch of blades and we'll see what's what's actually happening.
00:31:58
johngrimsmo
because that'll help us fine tune every process. um It's kind of like you were saying with the current machine, like make the machine better, make the process better so that your end result is always more consistent.
Precision Cleaning with Micro Blasters
00:32:10
johngrimsmo
So then I started looking at, we've just got this old barrel blaster with the traditional aluminum oxide and zirconium oxide blasting media, fairly high pressure, fairly wide spray. Have you ever heard of micro blasters?
00:32:27
John S
No.
00:32:27
johngrimsmo
It's just like a small little desktop blaster that doesn't even have gloves. You just put your hands inside. And it's got this little pencil blasting gun that shoots a very concentrated amount of media that doesn't get recycled.
00:32:43
John S
Okay.
00:32:44
johngrimsmo
It's a wasted process. And Comco makes really good ones, but they're like $10,000. And then Van... Vanaman? Vanaman. Van... I keep saying it wrong. um That company makes a much cheaper, more affordable, same thing kind of version. So for a couple thousand dollars, you can get this sweet little desktop unit with up to three guns and three different medias. You can have baking soda, you can have aluminum oxide, you can have coarse whatever's harder glass bead. And then it's
00:33:20
johngrimsmo
You can't blast like a whole big surface because the pencil gun is so small.
Impact of Blasting on Blade Alignment
00:33:24
johngrimsmo
But for this engraving, I'm wondering if we something like that would be able to just do what we need with baking soda or something that's not going to warp the blade but is still going to accomplish the results. So once Angela gives me results, then I'll know if if that needs to be on the wish list or not.
00:33:39
John S
What are you blasting?
00:33:41
johngrimsmo
What part?
00:33:42
John S
Yeah.
00:33:43
johngrimsmo
So the hardened blade, we soft engraved the serial number on the spine of the blade, the back.
00:33:48
John S
OK.
00:33:49
johngrimsmo
And then heat treat sometimes makes it colorful or brown or whatever. So we like to blast that out to clean it up um because otherwise it just doesn't look as good.
00:33:56
John S
Got it.
00:34:00
johngrimsmo
And yeah, I'm wondering if this, you know, oh, let's blast the engravings to make them look better is causing a curl, a warp, a difference. Um, which has actually seen some differences in the rasp blades going together that's caused some
Infrared Probes vs. Radio Probes: A Reliability Shift
00:34:15
johngrimsmo
headaches. So if I can solve this problem, then that will speed things up for all of our knives down the road, which is cool.
00:34:21
John S
But all you're doing is blasting a two millimeter by 10 millimeter section.
00:34:25
johngrimsmo
Something like that.
00:34:25
John S
Like nothing was my God.
00:34:25
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:34:27
John S
And that makes a a lot of sense.
00:34:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I see you've got your European measurement hat on.
00:34:31
John S
Sorry. i Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:34
johngrimsmo
But yes, so working on that, still inconclusive, but very close to the results I need to make those calls. And then it'll feel very good to have that, you know, decided.
00:34:40
John S
Sweet.
00:34:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah. ah Also update on the speedio and bloom.
00:34:53
John S
Oh, yeah.
00:34:53
johngrimsmo
So they came in and ripped out all the radio probe stuff and installed infrared probe, past two days, and it works great.
00:34:58
John S
Ha.
00:35:02
John S
Good.
00:35:03
johngrimsmo
So that's solved.
00:35:03
John S
Yeah. And yes. So the radios were still being fussy.
00:35:08
johngrimsmo
Still being fussy. Tech came in a bunch of times, couldn't figure it out but conclusively. um So it's either we replace most of the hardware. So it's probably not the hardware. So it's either the speedio itself or our environment, something in our shop.
00:35:21
John S
Yeah.
00:35:22
johngrimsmo
um Either way, it's kind of like, OK, radio probes are dead to me for now.
Probing Integration for Consistent Blade Grinding
00:35:26
John S
Yes.
00:35:26
johngrimsmo
um Infrared works fine. So that's that's fine.
00:35:30
John S
Good.
00:35:31
johngrimsmo
So I'm basically sending all my radio stuff back to Bloom and say, here you go.
00:35:31
John S
Got this solved.
00:35:36
John S
Good.
00:35:36
johngrimsmo
um But yeah, it works great.
00:35:36
John S
Well, that's great.
00:35:39
johngrimsmo
Yep. And on the speedio, I've got the laser toolsetter, but I've never fully had tool breakage detection working.
00:35:40
John S
so was ever okay
00:35:48
johngrimsmo
So it was good yesterday, the tech was in, and we worked on it together and kind of figured out the little hurdles. um There was some itch metric conversion in the in the software, in the gcode file, their backend stuff that was causing some problems. So we figured that out. And now I have tool breakage, which is awesome.
00:36:06
John S
Good. That's crazy. Yeah, that's like huge.
00:36:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's this is a huge thing. And it's just been bugging me, but I haven't needed needed it. Because for grinding blades, which is 90% of what that machine does, it uses two tools. And they don't break.
00:36:19
John S
Got it.
00:36:20
johngrimsmo
They wear out, but they don't break. um So that's fantastic. And it's super good to have the probe back. Now I can integrate probing back into our blade grinding cycles, which I did yesterday.
00:36:28
John S
Yeah.
00:36:29
johngrimsmo
And then we'll start seeing consistency results. Steven, who's running this video and grinding all the blades, has been on a piece of graph paper tracking every single blade he grinds and how it measures so that we can see consistency.
00:36:42
John S
Oh wow. Yeah.
00:36:45
johngrimsmo
um Because I want to see consistency blade to blade. you know As the tool wears, I want to see if it's possible to hit these tolerances consistently um with and without probing. So he's got all this data now without probing. And then we'll add probing in and see if it's significantly better or not. And now with probing, we can auto dress the grinding wheel. and So yeah, as it wears naturally, it can just be kissed every every blade if we want.
00:37:08
John S
Oh, that's nice.
00:37:14
johngrimsmo
And that's what we're doing right now. Every blade we're kissing the wheel, just taking off five tenths and and running it again. so Give me a couple days of of results on that. And I'm um very hopeful that it should give me nominal blades every single time.
00:37:30
John S
Yeah.
00:37:30
johngrimsmo
um But it hasn't really been. I think it's it workable, but sometimes we have to rework blades because they're outside the scope. And that's just waste.
Challenges of Chip Management on Different Machines
00:37:38
johngrimsmo
Wasted time.
00:37:38
John S
Yeah.
00:37:38
johngrimsmo
It's gross.
00:37:38
John S
Sure. Sure.
00:37:40
johngrimsmo
um And the palette changer is hooked up properly, but we're not using it yet. um So loading blades one by one every 30 minute cycle, you know, get as many of those in as you can a day, which is fine, but sucks. um
00:37:53
John S
That's not hard. You're, you've got that ready to go, right?
00:37:56
johngrimsmo
Yes, need to make more pallets. And then I'm questioning the repeatability of a pallet change in this whole blade grinding accuracy problem, because right now we're leaving the pallet in place. um just taking the part on and off. So the palette positioning is off the table. like It's not a factor yet. And if we add it as a factor, and not only positioning, but palette to palette as we make different palettes, are they different sizes, thicknesses, tilts, whatever.
00:38:15
John S
Got it.
00:38:20
John S
Sure.
00:38:25
johngrimsmo
um So I'm really spending probably too much time thinking about making that perfect. But you know make the process perfect, and the result should be perfect, easier anyway.
00:38:37
John S
No, I'm sympathetic to that.
00:38:37
johngrimsmo
But yeah.
00:38:38
John S
Cause that's now literally today as kind of my like, okay, second half of the year starts today for me vacations over.
00:38:44
johngrimsmo
Yes. Yeah.
00:38:45
John S
And so one of the big things is.
00:38:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:38:50
John S
None of this is daunting, but at all it's it's work and there'll be successes and there'll be setbacks of what fixtures are we making out of steel? What are we making out of hardened steel? What are we making it out of steel and having it heat treated and then finish machine your grind versus just hard milling something, um but just tweaking some of the stuff on the horizontal and then some of the stuff that's over on the VF2.
00:39:06
johngrimsmo
yep
00:39:12
John S
VF2 is going great on the aluminum stuff, but I kind of forgot how much vertical stink on Um, on chip evacuation and chips building up in various areas.
00:39:21
johngrimsmo
All the stuff that was on the horizontal is now on the VF2 and you're dealing with chips, yeah.
00:39:23
John S
Oh,
00:39:26
John S
yeah. And some of that can be solved with, um, you know, changing the cam, Washington, intermediate wash downs, chip breakers. Like it's not, it's not where I stumped, but it's just stuff. You didn't have to think
Using Fusion 360's Probing and Safety Checks
00:39:37
John S
about it.
00:39:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:39:39
John S
Um, yeah.
00:39:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's the same with like running parts on the current. And it's got a great chip conveyor. It's got tons of coolant. It's got three spindle coolant. It's got a million tools and five axis and pallet changer and all this thing. And any job I want to take and put on a three axis, is like it just adds pain.
00:39:54
John S
Yeah.
00:39:55
johngrimsmo
It's like, oh man, now we have to hand load each pallet. Now we have limited tools. like Why can't I just get five more currents? like Because I can't.
00:40:03
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:04
johngrimsmo
and Because it doesn't work.
00:40:05
John S
Right. Great.
00:40:09
John S
Huh well, I'm speaking of probing one of the things that grant was asking about I think they've got it. Well, I should ask if they've got it implemented but we Still still make a couple of products where we can't Get them done in two ops. They have to have a third op But the third op is not a new setup.
00:40:26
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:40:29
John S
It's just removing a bolt Or maybe a couple bolts so
00:40:33
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:40:37
John S
You could argue it's so two ops with it op two having an A and a B, but regardless.
00:40:41
johngrimsmo
you
00:40:42
John S
um Once we had a person not remove their bolt, hit cycle start, and then it took an aluminum tool through a bolt. Not the end of the world, but you know broken tool, rolls apart, all that stuff.
00:40:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:40:57
John S
And so it's a trade-off because we've made hundreds if not thousands of those parts and not had a problem. but on the flip side, it stinks when you do do it. So we're now using, we're doing something that I know lots of people have done. I haven't, which is using, I believe under fusion, it's the inspect probe geometry, or is it inspect surface?
00:41:19
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:41:21
John S
No, it's not inspect surface, it's not aligned. I think it's just probe geometry, but basically you can have this check to see if a bolt is there. And if a bolt's there, um Well, basically, you're checking for a a hole or a cavity. And if the cavity is not there because a bolt's still in it, you can just choose a drop-down menu. What do you want to happen? In this case, you just have the program stop.
00:41:43
johngrimsmo
Really? What other options are in that?
00:41:44
John S
Yep.
00:41:46
John S
Oh, that's a good question. Let me try it right now.
00:41:47
johngrimsmo
and Just off the top of your head, but...
00:41:49
John S
Yeah. um So I know Rob does this, I believe, with things like the container method where you can have lights out machine where this feature will check your stock, because a lot of times that's a good way, a lucky way of checking your stock.
Goals for Improving Blade Production Efficiency
00:42:08
John S
especially in Z first, where if you have the wrong part pulled pulled up or the wrong piece of stock in a five-axis dovetail setup, pretty decent chance that that will figure out that you have the wrong stock without crashing anything, including your probe tip.
00:42:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:24
John S
So in this case, um I don't have a part pulled up here, but the options, shoot. I don't have a part pulled up. I don't want to waste the time, John.
00:42:35
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:42:35
John S
but Yeah, that'll be a really nice way to trade off. Cause it's another tool change and ah in a, you know, probably just going to go slow, but you know, these are 20 minute parts. So adding in 30 seconds, isn't the end of the world.
00:42:48
johngrimsmo
One thought I had, I don't know if it would work or be worthwhile, but if all you're doing is pausing to remove the bolt, what if you just machine the bolt away?
00:42:59
John S
Uh, that's a weird question. Uh, because the bolt's big and heavy and steel and it's the parts of aluminum.
00:43:06
johngrimsmo
Okay, I use little M6 bolts and they disappear pretty easily.
00:43:07
John S
Um, Oh, okay. Yeah, that's a funny, I, that's a very like brute forcey thought to that, which no, it's funny.
00:43:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I'm bolts are cheap. Like stay
00:43:19
John S
I really hadn't even thought of it. Um, yeah, weird. yeah
00:43:26
johngrimsmo
right.
00:43:26
John S
Doesn't work right.
00:43:26
johngrimsmo
It doesn't work out here.
00:43:27
John S
He's like three quarter inch bolt heads here.
00:43:29
johngrimsmo
I know for not a 10 seconds or 2 cent bolt.
00:43:30
John S
um
00:43:34
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:43:36
John S
Yeah. See ya.
00:43:41
John S
Oh, here we go. Okay, so if the okay so this is probe geometry feature. If it's out of position, which is what our situation would be where you have a big bolt in the way, the only option is to stop the program with a message. But if it's ah if it's the wrong size, I think you can have, I'm not getting this option right now, but I think you could have it potentially re-machine it or re-machine it with different where or um update the where offset value.
00:44:16
johngrimsmo
Okay. Interesting. like Having done quite a lot of that, but manually probed, manually programmed, there's a lot of go-to lines, a lot of jumps in the program. um some Some controllers don't let you jump uphill, like go backwards in the code.
00:44:30
John S
for
00:44:32
johngrimsmo
um So I always test for that. And then even to remachining the feature, it's like, well, you got to jump backwards, one op.
00:44:41
John S
Yeah.
00:44:41
johngrimsmo
and and to where, right before the tool change, before the fix.
00:44:44
John S
Right.
00:44:45
johngrimsmo
You don't want to get it wrong. um So those things, it sounds super easy. Probe it, check it again, re-machine it. But there's actually a decent amount of logic sometimes involved in that.
00:44:56
John S
No, totally. and i This part, for sure, for us, wouldn't be worth hand-coding it for all those risks. But with Fusion has post-support for the Haas, where it just works. Basically, it's like, probe this feature. If the feature doesn't isn't there, don't you know don't tap the hole that wasn't drilled.
00:45:12
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:45:13
John S
ah Yeah, worth it.
00:45:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah, which is totally helpful.
00:45:18
John S
Yeah.
00:45:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah. So anything, um what's near the top of your list for the second half of the of the year here? Second, third quarter.
00:45:26
John S
Um, uh, I mean, this is my first morning back and, uh, I've been out for a good part of the last month, actually. Uh, so the truck literally just pulled in for the lathe so that my immediate radar is that unloaded getting ready for the new element.
00:45:38
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:45:41
John S
And then, um, we have some, it's just looking at what fixtures do we need to remake? How do we make them and who's going to make them, um, the, for the horizontal.
00:45:52
johngrimsmo
Fixtures for sale or for use?
00:45:56
johngrimsmo
So for use.
00:45:57
John S
for our internal solders fixtures, bingo, yeah.
00:45:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:46:01
John S
Yeah, orders are cooking, doing great.
00:46:04
johngrimsmo
Good.
00:46:05
John S
We rebuild our anodizing crate. That comes back from anodizing tomorrow just to make sure, I'm not worried about it, but just to make sure.
00:46:12
johngrimsmo
That's the one you showed me when I was there.
00:46:13
John S
Yes, but we redid the plastic inside.
00:46:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Okay, cool.
00:46:16
John S
It needs to be beefier.
00:46:18
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:46:18
John S
um Yeah, so it's good. that's I got a longer list. Maybe we'll go over that next week more.
00:46:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, Blades.
00:46:25
John S
How about you?
00:46:28
John S
Yeah.
00:46:28
johngrimsmo
bla Blades take too long to make.
00:46:31
John S
Okay.
00:46:31
johngrimsmo
We we have too many handles and not enough blades.
00:46:34
John S
On all your products?
00:46:35
johngrimsmo
And hey yeah, kind of. they're just There's so many processes to make a blade.
00:46:40
johngrimsmo
It's 10 times more complicated than making a handle.
00:46:40
John S
Uh-huh.
00:46:43
John S
Yeah.
00:46:43
johngrimsmo
um And it's slowing us down. And it's bugging me. And I know what to do mostly. It's just a lot of things need to get done.
00:46:53
John S
What do you, you want to elaborate on that or?
00:46:54
johngrimsmo
So that's a big one.
00:46:57
johngrimsmo
We're about out of time here, but it's ah it's a it's a rabbit hole.
00:46:58
John S
Okay. Oh, so good grief. We are. Okay. Well, I'll put it on the notes. I'll put it on the list next week.
00:47:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah, because it's something I need to tackle and and need and I have been making progress on it, but yeah, can't can avoid it.
00:47:11
John S
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
00:47:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's a big one. That will help us
Closing Remarks and Personal Anecdotes
00:47:15
johngrimsmo
do everything. If we can make blades better, faster, more consistently, less scrap. um It's like we're making enough handles to be great, but the blades are holding us back.
00:47:26
John S
Hmm.
00:47:26
johngrimsmo
So either we make more blades or less bad blades or nothing would make a lot, but there's a lot of possibilities there, but yeah.
00:47:34
John S
Okay. What are you up to this afternoon?
00:47:35
johngrimsmo
it good's good This afternoon, um I got some appointments with the kids. So I have another, I have a phone call right after this with a friend in Norway, like a web call, programmer friend on some ideas. um And then I'm out of here pretty much.
00:47:53
John S
Sweet.
00:47:54
johngrimsmo
But yeah, clip for the integral.
00:47:55
John S
Cool.
00:47:57
johngrimsmo
And then and then that's almost done ish like that's the other thing is I gotta get that selling into production Which is so close so close Yeah, so that's fun Yeah That sounds awesome As your new one comes in in a month but Yeah, it's a
00:47:57
John S
Oh, yes.
00:48:04
John S
yeah
00:48:07
John S
Good. Good. Sweet. Oh, I'm going to go move a lathe. Love, love getting rid of lathes. Nothing makes me, nothing makes me happier than having worn one. it's That's a mill, John. It's a mill. Yeah. ah The total side note, but seeing some of the ah watch industry stuff in Switzerland, including at some of the factories we may or may not have visited, is is really cool.
00:48:37
John S
And then William, who's 10, kind of got super into watches on the trip, and he's only 10, so he he really wanted one.
00:48:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:48:46
John S
So we looked at a bunch of shops in Switzerland for fun, and he ended up finding a very, very, it's like a $200 Citizen watch, but it's his first watch, and he really likes it, and that's really cool.
00:48:48
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:48:52
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:48:55
johngrimsmo
That is absolutely fantastic.
00:48:57
John S
Yeah. So just the process of trying them on and looking at the different features and the bezel and setting the time is, it was a fun experience.
00:49:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:49:05
johngrimsmo
That's awesome.
00:49:06
johngrimsmo
Good for you, man.
00:49:06
John S
I didn't tell, I didn't tell them that it's a Japanese wash in the end, but, um, yeah, it's all good.
00:49:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:49:12
johngrimsmo
Let's go in.
00:49:13
John S
Yeah. I see next week.
00:49:14
johngrimsmo
Awesome, have a great day.
00:49:15
John S
but