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Business of Machining - Episode 96
233 Plays7 years ago
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE...where you might get a little misty-eyed. The cycle has ended; the coolant is off so WHY is the foam still growing!? With no through-spindle coolant and small ER collets, Grimsmo's got no explanation for the extreme coolant atomization--annoying problem but fun to say!
Saunders notices an off-white tinge occurs sooner than it should but instead of replacing it and shrugging it off, he examines potential root causes. Will sending samples reveal what's really going on?
Improving Shop Environment Quality for $200? Yes, please. Saunders has been working to improve shop air quality. Between the Big Ass Fan, the ERV, and the new Fan/Filter Modification from Grimsmo's new lapping machine video, it's like a breath of fresh air.
So far, it's working great but whether or not the charcoal filter will clog remains to be seen.
Want to get an upgrade? Check out this NYCCNC page for a bill of materials.
Double Dose
AU Toronto pays Grimsmo a visit to talk Fusion 360. PLUS, the Elliot Matsuura APS Engineer stops by to talk machine tools and custom codes!
What makes it Swissish?
There's some fuss on WhatsApp about the Tsugami SS327-5AX Swiss Lathe with B-Axis
Pallets? Check. Code? Please wait. Grimsmo wants the code to complete for one pallet, rewind, move over, and start from the stop but there's one BIG problem: Fanuc and it's dinky memory size... Come on, MAN. It's 2018! You can't even BUY memory that small anymore!
To make matters worse, logic can't be used in the DNC side of memory which holds 2G (plenty of room). So, that means 2-3 hours of alone time (hand coding) and the pallets should be good to go.
Tune in to hear about Grimsmo's end of 2018 thoughts AND outlook for 2019!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Positive Mindset
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning welcome to the business of machining episode ninety six my name is john saunters and my name is john grimsmo. How are you doing fantastic this morning good yeah awesome do tell why half of it is just.
00:00:20
Speaker
You make your destiny. OK. So I am intending to feel amazing, very consciously, very on purpose. And the other thing is, things are going pretty darn well. Good. Oh, good.
Machine Projects and Coolant Issues
00:00:35
Speaker
Yeah, so what's happened? I feel like you had a lot going on between last week with just the new machines, with the new palettes, the macros finally dialing on. Is all that coming together?
00:00:48
Speaker
All of that continues to need more work. I've been so busy with other stuff that I haven't actually finished those pallet projects. Stuff at the shop or outside the shop? Both. I had a great weekend with the family, so it's not like I spent 100 hours on my computer this weekend.
00:01:10
Speaker
But yeah, no, things are really good. We've got foaming issues with our quality cam right now. Oh, really? So I came into puddles on the ground of foam that overflowed from the coolant tank and is now all over the floor.
00:01:26
Speaker
during the night run. Yep, it started yesterday morning, like we're machining during the day, and it's just foaming over onto the ground. And we've had this in the past, but not quite a while. So I don't know if it's a new batch of top up that they put in, like if they opened a new barrel or something, I don't know.
00:01:42
Speaker
That's interesting. Did you and they have those anti foaming additives, right? Yeah, which I've heard of and I asked my coolant rep about it and she said it shouldn't be necessary. But apparently we need something. So I emailed her last yesterday morning with a picture of the foam and I said we got to fix this. Yeah, right. Waiting to hear back.
00:02:06
Speaker
Is she good? Yeah, she's usually really good and she's tight with quality cam. I mean, they're a distributor, so they do a lot of stuff, but yeah, she's often sent back samples of our Coolant 2 quality cam for analysis and they can trace it back to the batch number that it was actually made and etc.
00:02:25
Speaker
It's funny, I feel stressed about my coolant. We've usually had pretty good luck and experience with it, but now I've noticed it's turning off white quicker.
00:02:42
Speaker
And I just don't know, is that because our water source has changed? Is it because our filter system is not, are we doing, I don't think, I'm not trying to, we're following the rules, right? I'm not trying to do something differently, but have we accidentally let a filter get too far? Did we accidentally machine some material? I don't think we've put anything strange in the machine. In fact, I'm pretty certain we have not, but it's, I don't know what to do other than I guess
00:03:12
Speaker
I don't know. I don't want to just swap it out because that doesn't necessarily, it's not that bad, but I also, I want to notice that we do have a better recipe going forward.
00:03:21
Speaker
I'd say call QualiCam and just pick their ear for 20 minutes. Yeah, I should send a sample. I'd like to do that too actually.
Coolant Maintenance and Solutions
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah, the thing with QualiCam is it tends to stay super white and like beautiful for a long time. And then you go to these other shops and they have this like yellow, green, you know, old, nasty smelling coolant and you're like, ugh, you guys are missing out.
00:03:48
Speaker
numerous people, like it's the norm, not the exception, numerous people who if they maintain their coolant will have a batch of quality chem with top ups last two years. But that's the key, you got to maintain it. So what's that mean? Okay, so keeping a huge amount of sludge out of your oil tank, out of your coolant tank, keeping the skimmer running, filtration, bricks, and I'm worried we have that homemade
00:04:16
Speaker
RO system, which in theory works great. It has worked great with the well pump that supplies the machine. My concern is if the RO filters are not working like they should, then we could be supplying it with ongoing hard water top offs, which is as you top it off with more hard water, that coolant will have too much mineral content and that could be a problem.
00:04:40
Speaker
Could, yeah, yeah. The other thing I've heard of is pH of the coolant. Oh, really? I'm not sure what it should be, but... With how is pH of the coolant would just be driven by the pH of your base water? Could be, yeah. Right, because the quality chem isn't going to change. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure. Okay. I should send a sample. You said you've done that? I've done it through my rep, so she's done it for me.
00:05:06
Speaker
So she comes by with a little file and just takes a sample. That's the way to go. Yeah. Yeah. I should, I have a, we use Petro choice here in the States. And to be honest, there's been some turnover of our account rep, but they've always been like eager to help. So I should take them up on that. Right. Exactly. Right. And you use obviously the same coolant for every machine.
00:05:27
Speaker
We do. I'll be honest though, part of me, I started using quality chem frankly because you did or it was just such an easy choice and I have no complaints. I also have now been running, well it actually hasn't been that long since we bought the Haas, which is really only two years ago. But part of me is thinking, why not try something else? Why not try?
00:05:50
Speaker
Um, yeah, there's I think there's the swiss the blossom stuff that's clear that i've heard good things about and curious about that for sure Yeah, I don't know. I may I may think about that. Um, yeah, but that's all Foaming it's interesting you don't run through spindle either
00:06:14
Speaker
No, we don't. So it's not super high pressure, and it's all hitting the outside. Some of the bigger tools, if the coolant is hitting the tool holder, it'll atomize more and aerate it, I guess. But I mean, this is happening on like ER16 collets. Yeah, right.
00:06:30
Speaker
It's not, you know, a fan kind of thing. And our coolant lady was saying that it should, the bubbles should pop within like a second or two. They have this kind of timed method. Like when a coolant foams up, you know, a little bit's normal, but every bubble should be popping within a second or two and not accumulating.
00:06:53
Speaker
And something's happening, like I watched it yesterday, the cycle ended, the coolant stopped, and yet the foam in the tank was still growing. And I'm like, where's this coming from? Right, right, right. That's scary. This
Mental Breaks and Downtime Activities
00:07:08
Speaker
is not bubbles being passed down from above. I don't know, something's happening. I just finished washing the wire, which is a 10-year-old. And it's funny, because there's a guy named Bubbles, and it's just like, yeah.
00:07:22
Speaker
Is that the one where it's like Omar is coming? Yes. I've heard of that quote, but I've never seen the show. It was a good show. Nice. Yeah. It's funny because I.
00:07:33
Speaker
feel self-conscious, sharing it, being honest. I feel self-conscious that I haven't really been reading books lately, but I very much enjoy working and then hanging out with the family and kids and then vegging out. We don't have a TV, but I watch a fair amount of shows now on my laptop and you know what? I'm okay with that.
00:07:53
Speaker
And I do the same. I tend to watch it all on my phone, just with my earbuds. Really? Yeah. Just because I get, unless I'm sitting at the table or on the sofa or something, then I'll use my laptop. But for most of the time, it's just like laying in bed, watched on my phone. And yeah, but the thing I love about watching, you know, the good shows or movies is it's one of the only things I can do that my brain actually turns off.
00:08:18
Speaker
Right. That's true. I just get escaped. Yeah, totally absorbed by it. It gives my brain a little break and then move on from there.
Air Quality Improvements in the Shop
00:08:27
Speaker
Hey, I appreciate you sharing the modification that you did on your new blapping machine. Oh, yeah, the fan thing. Filter thing. Yep. So that was the going back to coolant. One of the things I don't like is we will have
00:08:48
Speaker
coolant atomize from longer runtimes or through spindle coolant or like you said a coolant outside coolant nozzle hitting a big face smell and
00:09:00
Speaker
We have mist aways on both of our big machines, but what I've noticed is basically the mist away isn't keeping up in the sense that if you open the doors right when it's done, the mist away hasn't had a chance to cycle all of the mist through that's currently in the enclosure. And so you open the doors and it's kind of like that jungle of atomized air kind of
00:09:23
Speaker
quickly comes out. Now, if you let the machine sit for three or four minutes, it may be okay, but that's not what we do. So I saw your filter system and I looked up what a six inch charcoal filter cost and then the 400 CFM fan and both of them together were
00:09:40
Speaker
I don't know, maybe 200 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. And so I bought them on Amazon Prime. They were there the next day. We rigged up a little angled mount right above the Haas door and then wide it into the lights, the lights that turn on when you open the door. Okay.
00:09:55
Speaker
So no, just power cord adapters, no modifications or wiring at all. And so now whenever you open the doors, that fan turns on and it actually does a great job of just any residual, you know, stuff inside that machine doesn't go into the operator. It goes straight up into that filter system. Love it. Right? Yep. Cheap, simple. It's quiet too, right?
00:10:19
Speaker
super quiet, looks decent enough that it doesn't look like it's a bad thing.
00:10:27
Speaker
So I wasn't sure, because I don't think charcoal filters are necessarily the right sort of filter system for atomized coolant, if that's what it is. But it seems to, after a couple of days, be working, it seems to be doing the trick. We'll see how it holds up. I wonder if, especially with cooling, because it's so oily, if the charcoal filter will get clogged, will fill up. Because like a mist away kind of drains the coolant back down. That's what it's meant to do, sort of.
00:10:55
Speaker
Well, so that got me thinking about the way those work. And when I've opened up our mist aways, what it seems like is you've got a piece of kind of expanded sheet metal foil that gives it, I think, just a huge amount of surface area so that as it's pulling dirty air through it, that whenever a particle hits that, it's going to stick to it, right? That's all it is.
00:11:18
Speaker
Yeah. And in my Misfit ones, there's like four or five, six layers of corrugated sheet metal. So it's like the air has to zigzag. And he says every time it turns, the coolant molecules want to keep going straight or something. So they just kind of, it removes 90% of the coolant from the air before even getting to the actual filter. Got it. Got it. Do you do any sort of maintenance or cleaning on your Misfit?
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, every, I don't know, three to six months or something, we take the filters out, we wash them, we clean them. OK. Yeah, that's not bad. I should make sure we're doing that or checking on them. And when you, if you run a four-hour knife run, and the second it's done, if you open the door, do you have dirty air? Like, can you smell it, though this isn't fresh air? A little bit, especially when we've got the Lang fan as the last operation. So that spits up some good cooling. But it's not so bad. It's worse on the lathe for sure.
00:12:15
Speaker
And we see kind of the haze in the air, but you can physically watch it get sucked into the intake of the miscollector. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, that's cool. We talked about the energy recovery ventilator last week. A little bit, yeah.
00:12:33
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. It's been so far working great. Nice. I don't have a good way of measuring its results, but everyone in the shop is like, Hey, it's actually a little nicer in here, which is exciting. Sweet. Yeah. Can you feel like the input output temperature? Just stick your hand in front of it kind of thing.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah, you could if you took your hand in front of it. There's no secret that the ERV we bought is way undersized for a shot of our size, but it's not going to work itself to death. It's just not going to... I think Ed's figured out it'll turn all the air over in our shop once a day, which...
00:13:09
Speaker
I don't know. If you wanted it properly sized, you'd probably have one that's 10 times bigger volume or something every hour or two. But again, under the idea that our shop is a sealed box, this is still providing constant exchange of at least some amount. And we took the
00:13:31
Speaker
We're sucking air out right above the cell that we work, which is a pretty small area. The idea is hopefully we're at least pulling the worst air out and pushing the best air back in. I would assume that's where the majority of the heat generation comes from, both from the machines and the people and the breathing and all that. Exactly.
00:13:52
Speaker
It actually expels air outside and sucks in clean air from the inside, but exchanges the temperatures so that you're not sucking in freezing cold air. Exactly. Likewise, in the summer, if you've air conditioned your air, it'll recycle some of that energy. Even recycling your shop air once a day is better than never.
00:14:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah, exactly. So much better because we don't. I don't know. I guess the heater pulls there from outside, I think. Well, right. That's the kind of question, too. Even on the mist away on your lathe, you said you can see it pulling it out. But where's the new air coming from? Just from effectively cracks in the closure or unseal. From the chip converter. Oh, is that right? Right. Because that's the biggest opening, right? Right. Exactly. Yeah. At the least resistance. That's funny.
Tech Visits and Workflow Enhancements
00:14:44
Speaker
Anyways, I feel good about the filter, the ERV, like thinking about more of making sure it's a nice quality of life, the shop air is good, all that stuff. The fan helps keep air exchanged or moved around. What else? Yeah, it's good. It's good. Yesterday, I feel like I got no work done. In a good way, it's sort of annoying.
00:15:10
Speaker
So when we were coming back from AU, what was that, two weeks ago? Three weeks ago? Yeah. After the epic go-karting session, I got to meet one of the guys from Autodesk Toronto. And we actually have the same flight back. So Al gave us a ride to the airport. And I was hanging out with this guy, Severin, all through customs and checkout and waiting in line for the airplane and all that.
00:15:40
Speaker
So really cool guy. It sounds like the Autodesk Toronto group. It's a really cool group of people. I definitely got to go check them out. But so yesterday him and three other people from the Toronto office came down to the shop, check it out, get a tour, um, show them around. They had a ton of fusion questions, like how I use it. Um, so it was really fun to be able to kind of show them through my workflows and tell them that my, um, one of my fusion files has like 912 versions and she was like, what?
00:16:11
Speaker
One of the ladies is into data management on the Fusion side. So versioning is one of her tasks. So she's like, well, how would you want this better? How would you want us to change that? She's also part of the Fusion Team Hub. And just a lot of really great questions. It was awesome to be able to talk with them and get feedback.
00:16:37
Speaker
We took them to that same chicken place that I took you to for lunch. Oh, yeah. Yeah, really cool. And what else? Yeah, and then shortly after that, like a great chat with them and then my
00:16:50
Speaker
My lead technical lathe guy from Elliott Matsura, apps engineer, randomly came by. I haven't seen him in quite a long time. And it was nice to be able to poke through the lathe in the middle and all kinds of things with somebody who really, really, really knows what they're doing. I learned how to create a custom M code and a custom G code.
00:17:11
Speaker
So what's that do? It's sort of like a subroutine, but it's like, you know, on a milli-type M6 and that's the tool change macro. Okay. So if you wanted to create a simple M code like M800 that does whatever the heck you want. So it could move the table to a certain position and turn on an auxiliary pump. Exactly.
00:17:32
Speaker
turn a controllable light on or something, whatever you want. Exactly. Some people use it to move to a corner of the table where an air blast is set up and then air blast the tool off to clean it or clean chips off.
00:17:44
Speaker
All kinds of crazy stuff. You can use it for a homing routine or whatever. It's literally no different than a subroutine where you go G65, P95, 7. You just type M800 instead. So it's a little bit simpler. That's just kind of cool. Are you going to use it? Like, is it helpful right now?
00:18:04
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, it makes code a little bit cleaner. But as he said, the more complex you make something, the more documentation you need to support it so that Angelo knows what the heck this means. Right. Whereas the more traditional route of G65P, whatever, is kind of easier to follow because it's more standard. So when you do the G65, all of the instructions for that are in the G code. Nothing's in the control. Is that correct?
00:18:34
Speaker
That is calling a subroutine, so P9857 calls the O9857 files. Okay. I guess what I'm thinking about is if you have multiple machines, the subroutine method is better because you could just post out the files, whereas the M800, you have to make sure each machine is actually configured the same way. Very much, yep. What
Machine Challenges and Solutions
00:18:57
Speaker
was that? I'm behind on the WhatsApp thing. What was that little mil turn that you guys were post talking about? It looked like a Sugami.
00:19:04
Speaker
that they've created a tiny little Swiss style mill turn with a B-axis head that rotates and has lots of RPM, 40 tool changer, plus various Swiss capabilities and a sub spindle. It looked pretty cute and neat. Interesting. So it wasn't like those, we were talking about this a bunch, like the Charones or who else makes those stairags, like the little tiny mill turns, because those are generally turret.
00:19:34
Speaker
or just B-axis mill turns. There's nothing Swiss about those. Well, what makes this a Swishish? Does it have a bushing in the actual headstock? I didn't look too closely at it. It was Lawrence and Dennis that were all over it and going back and forth a lot. Interesting. It looks pretty cool. Yeah, cool.
00:20:04
Speaker
So, no pallets aren't running yet? No. Dropping the ball on that one. I got to get it going. It's just you need clamps or what? No, we made all the clamps. Enough for two pallets anyway, which is, you know, if I can get running two pallets, I'll be pretty happy. I just need like two or three hours of alone time to just crank through their last of this code and get it going.
00:20:29
Speaker
Oh, it's on the camp side. Yeah, or hand coding side pretty much. And it probably won't including hand coding everything man. No, it's it's the structure of the subroutine in order to run the same code for each of the four pallets. The structure of the subroutine or the main program. So like right now I'm running one palette, I want to run that entire code four times, like rewind move over run the same code again.
00:20:59
Speaker
Right. I remember you saying you don't want to do a little bit of one, a little bit of two. Like you want to actually... I want to finish. You want it. Exactly. Which I get it. So isn't it as simple? Oh, because you have memory issues. Yes. Ah, that is so... So when Kevin came in yesterday from Elliott Matsura, I was telling him about this. I'm like, I can't do logic, you know, if, then, go to, while,
00:21:26
Speaker
you know, macro calls in the DNC side of my memory. And on a, on a FANUC machine like mine, the memory side is tiny and the DNC side has two gigs. So I run everything from the DNC side. Um, but you can't do logic from the DNC. And he's like looking at me all cross-eyed. He's like, this doesn't make sense. So immediately he calls FANUC America and, uh, goes on hold for a few minutes and then talks to the guy and they go, yeah, you just can't. It's a, it's a FANUC problem. We're like, what the heck is this?
00:21:57
Speaker
But anyway, so I've got a little bit of a workaround. He helped me figure out how we're going to structure this. Basically, a main program on the memory side that just calls the big, huge program on the DNC side. Yeah, sure. And then it'll rewind and go back and then call it again.
00:22:18
Speaker
So it should work. I mean, I say it'll take two to three hours. It probably really will take half an hour. But I do need to focus. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Gosh.
00:22:29
Speaker
I mean, I give you a lot of credit and look, there's nothing's perfect. You're always gonna have to find quirks and we can hack workarounds, but I'll tell you, um, and it's not a DMG thing. It's a fan of thing, but it's, it's unacceptable. I mean, this happened to me at INTS, but we were looking at a vertical and it happened to be the DMG and nice people trying to be helpful, but the sales guy and then the product guy and then the apps guy all legitimately did not know
00:22:57
Speaker
how to answer these questions about where do you run the program from? Or what is the maximum memory size? Or how does that work? And I got to say, running the Haas, we just don't have these issues. And it's a shame that it's that issue on that Robo drill that we've worked with before. It's just, gosh, this whole, and I don't know,
00:23:19
Speaker
I suspect there must be a more legitimate reason behind this small memory size, but certainly is from the sort of like consumer electronic side, you can't purchase memory this small anymore, right? I mean, you have like two megabytes or something on the main side. Yeah. It's funny, right? I have two gigs, which feels like an infinite amount, but you probably can't even buy a two gig USB stick anymore.
00:23:44
Speaker
That would be, no, right? We buy 16 gigs for our training classes because that's the smallest that you could find and they're like $6 a piece or something. Right. Now, I mean, maybe the machines are built with like super unobtainium components that are more robust than a typical USB stick. But come on, we live in 2018 now. Yeah, the technology hasn't changed in 20 years on the FANUC side anyway.
00:24:10
Speaker
It's a great, no, it's important. I know we're just kind of joking about complaining about this, but it's not an insignificant thing, which I think is important behind why you and I have gotten to where we are, which is we weren't insiders. We didn't grow up with this. So we challenged the aspect. Exactly.
00:24:27
Speaker
And when I hear people say, well, that's just the way it is, I'm kind of like, well, you're like, that's not, it's not okay. Yeah, right. I mean, the fact is, all of these are workable, like there are workarounds, I'm making it work, everybody with a FANUC machine makes it work. But it's not as intuitive as a Haas machine, or as something that's just like plug and play. Like, I don't even think about memory issues, whereas, you know, people are drip feeding and doing subroutines from this side to that side and all that. And it's,
00:24:57
Speaker
It just makes it more complicated than it has to be. Even if you can make it work, it's just like, come on, can't you fix this?
00:25:03
Speaker
Well, in the counter you hear from people that love FANUC, which is fine, is that once you learn it, it's great. And it's the longest mean runtime between failure. And those are interesting selling points. That's great. But there's a flip side to you have the time constraint right now of money and time, what most entrepreneurs do. And this is now taking up a lot of time. Yeah. No, it's very true. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:29
Speaker
What is cool is explaining all the stuff to the other guys and they like would you ever want this in the software and i'm like i don't know i don't know if anybody else would want this or i'm just a crazy guy like like hacking my own method together. It's like i don't know but it's an interesting question.
00:25:46
Speaker
Well, it seems quite similar to what Phil was asking yesterday about how he's disappointed in how the Matsura handles pallet control. And he needs to be able to basically run different work coordinate systems on each pallet with the same, I think he wanted the same program, but just updated.
00:26:04
Speaker
one pallet was G54 and the next was G55 and apparently it wasn't doable. Right. And the fact is there's probably 10 decent ways to do almost any task. And once you get, especially me, once I get kind of bullheaded towards doing it a certain way, darn it, I just want to make it happen that way. It's almost like just a challenge to myself. Like I think this will work, so I'm going to make it work.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah,
Team Meetings and Business Goals
00:26:29
Speaker
yeah. Hey, last week you were mentioning goals. I might got to run it a few minutes early, sorry, but we should talk about, what are you thinking about wrapping up this year, but then also next year? This year, I mean, we've only got three weeks left. I want to end this year as strong as possible. Last month was our biggest month of the year, and it's certainly been our biggest year by far. So biggest month ever appeared? Biggest month ever, for sure. Yeah, awesome.
00:26:58
Speaker
December is unfortunately probably not going to match that just due to Christmas vacation and things like that. But we're still going to do our best to smash it. You mentioned that in terms of your output or revenue? Both. And we measure them separately. They're almost always matched, but you don't always sell at the same time that you make. It might be delay or whatever.
00:27:20
Speaker
But yeah, I think the ones we made and the ones we sold were only different by one, just kind of randomly. But yeah, great. So huge output. Very, very happy with that. We had a really, really good team meeting last Thursday.
00:27:35
Speaker
where we just kind of, you know, explain the growth and the success of the year and kind of where we want to take this and how grateful we are for having everybody here making this happen for us. And it was nice. We actually something to do forever. We went around the room and I said, you know, I got really excited about a couple things. And I was like, go around the room and tell me something you're excited about here, like doing here. It was awesome hearing like some of the replies, you know, whether it's like,
00:28:04
Speaker
When Erin's making videos, she's excited to see the reaction from people or knowing that she's making out good content and people are enjoying it. Or just working with a great team of people or nailing that challenge, that problem that you've been working on all day and you're like, fist in the air, yeah. It was great. It was really good to hear from everybody in a sort of vulnerable state where you're just like, this excites me. I like it. Yeah.
00:28:33
Speaker
That's awesome. And so what about next year? So next year, as I always do, I, it's not that I'm wishy washy, it's just I can see a very clear path, but I don't know if it's, I don't know when it's going to happen necessarily. I can shoot for it to happen, you know, get a bigger shop, get a five axis machine, um, things like that. And I hesitate to like sit down and be like, all right, February, we're going to find a bigger shop. And in July, we're going to buy, I don't know.
00:29:00
Speaker
So it's like I, I set these lofty goals for myself and I just keep them in my mind and I work closer and closer towards them. And then when they become logical, then you get a lot more serious about it. But then you're prepared, you know, you're like, ready with the information you need. But this is this only works because it's it's your company. I mean, I know you have partners, but but you know, you don't have
00:29:25
Speaker
people challenging you necessarily and you don't have, again, investors or people that have you to explain this to. I mean, that's a great thing. Don't get me wrong.
00:29:36
Speaker
I would say you should set some time aside to think about this. And I'm saying this because I also need to remind myself to do it, which is always say why. When you say you need a bigger shop, why do you need a bigger shop? I'm not challenging you. You will benefit from having one. But make sure you're actually solving the problem at hand. Is it because you need a private area? Or is it just because you need one more machine? Does that mean you can add? Make sure you, why do you need a five axis? What is it going to do
00:30:06
Speaker
that next step, break those problems down. Yeah, it's like challenge yourself, you know, ask yourself the three why's, just keep asking why, why, why? Right.
00:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, I do need to do that. I feel like I have decent enough answers, but I could certainly spend more time thinking about it and getting stronger in my convictions to the point where things just become so clear that I don't know when this is going to happen, but once the stars align and we make ourselves in the position to get to a bigger shop or get new machines or whatever, then it just becomes ultimately clear.
00:30:40
Speaker
That's the time. Yeah, but I feel like you're thinking about it as like all of a sudden there's going to be this time when everything is different. It's not. It's just going to be the same. It's like evolution. You've got to keep reevaluating.
00:30:54
Speaker
you know, you got to keep your finger on the pulse to see where you're at all the time, because I don't know where we're going to be at. I mean, I can estimate where we're going to be at in six months. But I don't know. Like if we start busting out pens on top of knives, and we double our revenue, like holy crap, do whatever we want. But what's the thing about that?
00:31:15
Speaker
But think about that in a, okay, this is how it's... So in other words, you're not reacting to that when it occurs, but rather saying, no, I know we can do this.
Financial Planning for Growth
00:31:26
Speaker
I have a plan on how to get there. And when we have that additional revenue opportunity, this is how your marketers have ended.
00:31:33
Speaker
You want to fight lifestyle creep, earmark the money now or spend the money now, figuratively, even if that money is spent in the form of paying yourself, paying off debt, paying. It doesn't need to be spent on wishy washy stuff, but earmark it so that you're not all of a sudden. That is otherwise a great way to subject yourself to lifestyle creep. Okay, because then you're not prepared for it.
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah, and the money's just there. I'm convinced if you let money sit in a bank account and your account balance grows, your decision making ability goes down because you're like, oh, we got them. I'll just buy that because the money's there. Yeah, good point. Good point. So mentally prepare yourself beforehand when the money's not there to prepare your conscience to how it's going to react to having the money sit there.
00:32:23
Speaker
Because I know you're not... We've talked about this before. You're not a greedy person. You're not going to go blow money on something stupid. But on the flip side, most of those things that you want from a gold standpoint are things that are going to cost money. Exactly. A lot of money. And ironically, what I would argue you've already done is build out the things that are harder that aren't necessarily big money, which is the product, the marketing, the brand, the employees, the culture, the workflows, the processes. Those aren't things that you can just throw money at and solve.
00:32:53
Speaker
Fun fact, you can actually just throw money at buildings and machines and solve those problems quite quickly. Yep. That's a good thing. I got to run. I got to run. Why don't we do, I'll talk about Michael. Sounds awesome. That sounds awesome. Sorry for kind of showing support. That works, yeah. I'll see you next week. Awesome. Have an excellent day. You as well, bud. I'll take care. All right, take care. Bye.