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Business of Machining - Episode 122
239 Plays6 years ago
YOU BETA NOT MISS THIS! Saunders and his team gear up to launch their biggest project yet: redefining how the machining world consumes and learns speeds and feeds! Sign up to be notified about the beta launch HERE!
BladeShow Brain Blur Erik & Jo (pronounced Yo) drive the tail of the dragon on the way to the most important show of the year. Although booth decor might not be their forte, who needs a fancy booth when you go #fullgrimsmo? Still reeling from the deep conversations in the pit, the fun, the excitement, and the "in-person refreshers," Grimsmo returns with the warm fuzzies and deep gratitude. A few days later, he's clear, motivated, and ready to hit the ground running with ideas inspired by the show's synergistic effect.
EMPTY YOUR POCKETS! What EDC items are in your pockets? Is it a knife, pen, flashlight, a tape measure--maybe that's only a Jimmy Diresta thing.... No matter what you carry, those items need to be tough!
"I've been really wanting to take a SAGA and just kinda throw it down the road and see what happens."- Grimsmo in reference to testing the durability of his pens.
Don't worry, if you ever suddenly get the urge to chuck your SAGA down the street, don't worry! Replacement parts will be available.
TAKE A DUMP Grimsmo was asked to do a full-on pocket dump at BladeShow! Find the video HERE on BEST DAMN EDC's Channel!
Not only are we talking about pants pockets, we're also talking about tool changer pockets. Although Grimsmo got a steal of a deal on used Eumach machines from Miltera, time will tell if it's going to be more money and hassle than it's worth.
Sometimes you have to take a gamble! Despite knowing there's a chance that the Eumachs might might blow up in his face literally and financially, there'a also a chance that it could be AMAZING!
GrimsGROW Knives It's definitely time to get a new shop but how can you get a jump on planning the layout if you haven't locked down a building yet?
RASK ME ANYTHING YOU WANT! With the eventual return of the Rask, you know the Linda Wheel Saga must also return! The team is ahead on Norseman production thanks to Angelo and now they're using downtime to improve the process and sift through the nitty gritty details to get a proper GK blade finish.
Recommended
Transcript
Introductions & Blade Show Recap
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining, Episode 122. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. Good morning. How are you? Excellent. I feel like my brain has turned on again after the show. Tell me about the last week. Since Thursday, basically last week, so right after we recorded the podcast on Wednesday, it's been blade show weekend. It's been nuts.
00:00:29
Speaker
super epic, amazing nonstop trip. Um, hardly enough time to like sit down and think much, but love it. So much fun. Um, Eric and you drove down and had a blast. Oh yeah. That's a good drive. It's a great drive. And there's this epic drive called the tail of the dragon. That's like more turns per square mile than anywhere or something like that. It's in, I don't know, Kentucky or something like that. Um,
00:00:58
Speaker
very much enjoyed it. Eric's a fan of driving, so they had a great time. But yeah, best blade show ever by far, just keeps getting better and better every year.
00:01:14
Speaker
both the reaction from the customers and fans. I had people come up to the booth that are like, hey, I listened to the business of machining and I know nothing about the knife industry, but I thought I would come just because you've been talking about it so much. Serious? Yeah. That's cool. That's awesome. More than one person said that. That's hilarious. That's awesome. Yeah. It was so cool.
00:01:36
Speaker
Yeah. Saw a guy wearing a Sonder shirt. That's super cool. Yeah. And yeah, just a lot of people super appreciative of everything we do. It's like getting to meet them face to face is such a great boost. Not only for, it sounds stupid, but not only for my ego, but for the whole team to like see and feel. And you know, otherwise we're just here in the shop working and everybody's online and it's not that quite connection.
00:02:06
Speaker
Look, I think there's a wise piece of advice to keep egos and whatever you want to call it, those sorts of things in check. I also think most people want to be part of a community and feel that there's some sort of a two-way relationship.
00:02:25
Speaker
I think there's that fine line of balancing what you want out of life, which is to both be productive in the creation sense and in the profitability sense, but then also a contributor.
Balancing Work and Community
00:02:37
Speaker
I think helping and giving back and sharing. Frankly, I think one of the ways I try to think that we do things differently than others is not just sharing the successes, but sharing the mistakes or the struggles, which it's not like we
00:02:53
Speaker
I know we don't script this podcast, but I do think the original, when you and I started talking, geez, two, three years ago, the businesses were in a very different place. We both had some pretty big struggles and I think that's changed, well, it has changed somewhat deliberately in that I don't want, I could do things that would bring on more stress and struggle. And I see that with friends and sometimes your peers and you're like,
00:03:20
Speaker
Well, just don't. If you want more than the fundamental, at the end of the day, it's one of the favorite quotes from Warren Buffett, which is, I want to give my kids enough that they can do anything in life, but not so much that they can do nothing.
00:03:40
Speaker
I've never heard that one. That's awesome. It's like, how do you think about parenting your kid when you're Warren Buffett? In that sense of motivation, most of the people that I think have done some interesting things in their lives, many of them came from an element of strife or struggle or they weren't necessarily
00:04:02
Speaker
handed lots of comfortable lavish things, et cetera. So that ties directly into this idea of why it's so rare to see third generation family owned businesses because success breeds changes in behavior and work ethic and struggle.
Networking Insights
00:04:17
Speaker
Anyway, long-winded way of saying, if you live within your means, then you can reach this sustainable point. It's not a compromise. It's not giving up. It's just saying, hey, we're now at this level and I like it.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. That's perfect. And exactly being at the show and talking to tons of other small business owners and big business owners too. Companies much smaller and much bigger than us.
00:04:46
Speaker
It was an excellent kind of refresher, like an in-person refresher of both where we were a couple of years ago. Cause I talked to a lot of people who are in the same place and where we could be in the next couple of years. And surprisingly giving advice to both, you know, like, or just feedback, just having an open conversation with both aspects of that was, it's just so, makes me happy.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah. It's awesome.
Mentoring and Machine Ownership
00:05:16
Speaker
It's funny. You talk about mentorship, a guy who
00:05:20
Speaker
He was very nice and sent me a message that showed that he put some thought into it, which goes a long way. I wanted some advice and we ended up talking on the phone. It was a very similar sort of story. I think it's a common story, which is in the industry experienced debating where to go next, thinks he wants to make parts, products, get a machine, blah, blah, blah. I'm just like, dude, you're there. If this is what you want to do, you need to get a machine, your own machine. It's so different than if you're
00:05:50
Speaker
You're doing a rented machine to make your space or work after hours. It gets complicated because if the machine isn't at your house, if it's at a shop, that means you're potentially away from family or your life. It's like a different thing. It's a second job and not just this chance to hop in and out as you need to. If you're at a shop, you've got to deal with the lease and probably insurance. It gets a little bit more complicated.
00:06:14
Speaker
You know, a Torbok isn't the right fit for everybody, but you can, I think a lot of garages, isn't this true? A lot of garages would fit a Minnie Mill or Brother Robo drill, et cetera, in terms of the door height.
00:06:27
Speaker
But get a machine, make parts, you have to do that. My preference is to avoid debt, save money, get that machine so you can just enjoy it as long as you want with no pressure. If anything, if you disagree with the no debt thing, borrow money later. But don't buy the first one when you're just learning, pay for cash. That's why the tormach fits so well. Right, right. Totally agree.
00:06:53
Speaker
10 or 20 grand and you're started. It's tough to recommend a tormach to somebody though if they've been working say at an aerospace shop for 10 years. I'm sure you had this too but when I had my tormach I would have emails and messages and comments from guys who are in aerospace shops doing this kind of work on Makinos all day long and they're like, man, I wish I had a tormach in my garage.
00:07:17
Speaker
That's true. That's actually one of the reasons I got me excited back in 2009 was seeing on practical machinists some mature older or seasoned machinists saying, no, I run XYZ machines at my shop and I have a tormach at home and I'm doing this work with it. Then they'd get trolled or flamed and you're like, well, but
00:07:40
Speaker
Okay, there's lots of trolls and flames. The guy who actually is calm and calculated and doing a lot of posts on PM and making good parts, he's perfectly happy with the Tormach at home. He knows it's not a Makino. But he also knows he's not going to spend $300,000 of his own money to put a Makino in his garage. Yeah. But if you're also going to try to do a batch of 200 Picatinny rail adapters, you could do it on Tormach, but it's going to be a lot nicer on a Robo drill.
00:08:09
Speaker
This is what you're trying to tackle. But anyway, my point there was there's no substitute for doing it.
Blade Show Booth Strategy
00:08:17
Speaker
So tell me, walk me through blade show. You get there Thursday night. It starts Friday.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You get there Thursday night, go in, set up. Booth prep is not our specialty. It's one of our weaknesses. So we kind of get there knowing we're going to go to Home Depot and buy some tables and keep our mic. We did the same thing last year. We just gave him the tables at the end of the show because he drives. So he brought those tables. And we bought two more. And then at the end of the show, we just gave him four tables and said, here you go. Bring him back next year.
00:08:51
Speaker
So it's like some people spend lots and lots of money on their boots and a I don't really care at this point and two it's just more work and hassle that I don't want to think about what you know we go there to represent ourselves and to represent the product.
00:09:07
Speaker
So as long as we have table surfaces to put our stuff on and places to hang our t-shirts, we're pretty good. So I was pretty happy with that. So yeah, it's just kind of get the booth set up, get some food. Every night they have this thing called the pit, which is basically just a knife nerd gathering in a big open area of the hotel.
00:09:29
Speaker
that might last until four o'clock in the morning. I think we cut out 12.30 most nights, except Eric and I stayed till about 2.30 on the last night, Saturday. Hilarious. And it's awesome. It's just so cool. And you just walk around and you fall into another conversation. Yeah. And then, you know, we know people and people know us. So it's
00:09:52
Speaker
literally five feet of walking and somebody else is bumping into you going, oh, hey, John, I just wanted to say. Yeah, so that's that's super cool. And that's where you that's where you get the good, deep conversation. Sometimes it's like, you know, you start chit chatting with somebody and then you kind of get pulled aside and go deep into a, you know, well, I really want to do this or I've done this or how do I do this? Or so that's great. And then, yeah, show starts on Friday.
00:10:21
Speaker
Um, bit of an early access pass for some of the people. So we got to be there, be there ready. And, uh, the way we sold our knives was through a kind of a drawing system. So people would write down their name and phone number and then basically put it into a hat and we'd pull names randomly. And then text the person, they got 30 minutes to come buy their knife. Um, the problem with that system is some people think it's free. Like, like a lottery, they don't have to pay for the knife. Right.
00:10:51
Speaker
So we've had a few. You don't pay to put your name in the hat though. Correct. It says on the slip, but nobody reads it properly. It's kind of disappointing for us to have a customer get picked and then come up and then, oh, you got to pay for it.
00:11:14
Speaker
It's just, it's weird. Whatever. Yeah. Well, I could see that for the most part, 20 or 50 bucks for a quote unquote lottery ticket, but no, it's just like, which is illegal, I believe. Interesting.
00:11:27
Speaker
Um, huh. Anyway, that's cool. So the, for the most part, the drawing system works great, except it's a little slow just because you got to text people and wait to hear back. And if you don't then, and then it gets near the end of the day and you're like, well, do I pull more names or do I keep going? I don't know. So I'm trying to come up with a better system for next year. Um, just an evolution of it. Why don't you put other, because people, I mean,
00:11:51
Speaker
I can understand if you physically are far away from the booth or if you've had to leave, but why couldn't you, if their name gets pulled, why couldn't it be the case that they have 30 minutes to complete the purchase online?
00:12:10
Speaker
That's true. Because then they can't enter unless they're physically there. So that kind of prevents the whole world, you know, it keeps it intimate to place. And it prevents an awkward conversation about people being like, I thought this was a free knife, which is ridiculous. True. Yeah. That's funny. But yeah.
Industry Encounters
00:12:31
Speaker
benefit to doing basically cash sales versus PayPal, like online sales is the whatever few percent that PayPal takes. It's nice to not do that. But yeah, so it was three days for that, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Wow. So you're sitting in a booth for 10 hours a day? Standing. Yes. Wow.
00:12:55
Speaker
I think in the entire three days of show, I spent maybe an hour away from our booth being able to walk the show and see other things. And we had seven people in our booth and the whole plan was like, oh, everybody else can man the booth and Eric and I can actually go see the show. Never happened. It didn't work out. But yeah, it's exhausting, but it's amazing.
00:13:20
Speaker
And it was Barry's first time there. Um, such an eye opener to, you know, he's heard about it, but to be able to actually see it and talk to people and have his own two hour conversations with many people. Um, it was just perfect. Just amazing. And do you, Oh, I wouldn't ask the pit. It seems like it's a very like maker crowd. Like are there executives from Spyderco in the pit too, or is it more really for sure?
00:13:49
Speaker
Interesting. So it really is everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Eric is Eric. Um, um, what's this last name? I know it. I just forgot. But anyway, he's, um, he's the CEO of Spyderco now. His dad started it and has kind of retired, moved out. Um, but yeah, so he was around for sure. Um, have you heard of Chris Reeve knives? Maybe. Sorry.
00:14:15
Speaker
They're a large 45 person company. Um, it's like, if you're, if you're into collecting custom knives, it's one of those air quotes, everybody needs a Chris Reeve Sabenta. You know, it's vanilla, like awesome knife, um, cheaper than ours, but very, very popular. Chris Reeve. So I got to talk to him for a long time, which was very eye-opening and very amazing. Um,
00:14:41
Speaker
And yeah, other companies, Microtech, definitely there. My buddy carries a Microtech OTF. I actually really like it. I know. I'd really like it to buy one because they're expensive. Yeah. Yeah. And I can't have them in Canada. Really?
00:15:00
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's out the front switchblade. Not going to happen in Canada. If I could, I would probably carry it. I've held them. I've felt them. They're super cool. Practical. Practical. I actually don't remember. I can always get confused on the law in the US or Ohio. It's something weird where
00:15:20
Speaker
It's something when I'm not a lawyer, but there's something weird. Like you're not supposed to be able to transact one or buy one, but it's allowed to possess one. But then there's always the catch-all of like deadly weapon. I don't know. But where we are, I don't think it would be an issue to, and I know other people that do carry one regularly.
00:15:37
Speaker
I actually don't know if I ever showed you this. My brother-in-law got me a Benchmade with a Mel Pardew blade. I don't know what that means with the Sonder's B-Works logo on it. How about with the logo on it? Did you put the logo on it? No, no, it came that way from Benchmade. Yeah, that's 710. No. The steel? I've seen that before. No, the name of the base. Oh, it's S30V steel. I just realized, never paid attention to that. Anyway, it's been nice. Yeah, it's cool with the axis lock.
00:16:08
Speaker
And I actually, I used to carry or carried the urban survival pen. I carried the tactile turn for a while.
00:16:17
Speaker
Um, and then I got my saga and I left the saga in the box for like the first week because it's the saga and I'm like, I can't carry this. I'm like, no, I did this with a knife. What are you doing? Um, and so I don't know for now, probably only a week I've been carrying the saga and, uh, it's a larger, um, diameter tube that I'm used to like holding onto it. Oh yeah. The regular.
00:16:40
Speaker
It's bigger than like a plastic pen, but I don't think it's bigger than any of the other customers. I don't have my urban survival one on me, but I'm pretty sure I know it's bigger. It's funny how much a half millimeter millimeter feels in diameter. Not a problem. I'm surprised.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway, I like the feel of titanium. Actually, the one thing I don't like about my urban pen is it's copper and I don't like the smell or touch or feel of copper or brass or whatever it is, but saga has been great. Dropped it once, don't really care. It's been great. Yeah, I've been really wanting to take a saga and just kind of throw it down the road and see what happens.
00:17:19
Speaker
You know, like super
Product Durability and Use Cases
00:17:20
Speaker
abuse it. I dropped it and it looked like it fell on the, on the tip face. And I thought, Oh crap, I'm going to have to ring out the hole because it dented and the pen won't come through, but it was fine. Good. Yeah. But those are the things like, I want to know at what point the tip is going to dent, um, you know, like a three foot drop. I don't know. So we should read some destructive testing. Cause you don't sell or won't, will you sell replacement? Like just the tip part, just the tip. Yeah. Okay.
00:17:48
Speaker
for sure, anything we need. Funny story, slightly changing topic, but we can come back. Down at Blade Show, one of our customers down there, he's had his Norseman for a couple of years, and he's a welder, and he actually has welding slags stuck to the handle of this. It looks so cool, because it's like, that is a user. Yes, good for you. That's awesome. That's funny.
00:18:15
Speaker
I have been wearing shorts lately. I kind of go back and forth, but I just don't mind it. My shorts have a much thinner pocket, cotton or material. I've been carrying a Sharpie lately too. No one cares about this stuff, but I've been carrying a Sharpie lately. It really annoys me because the Sharpie doesn't say clip to the pant clip like it does a pair of jeans.
00:18:38
Speaker
And that's the one thing I do really like about the saga is more so than even my sure fire flashlight or even the actually the Benchmade retention clip is pretty good. But the clip on the I like how engaged the clip on the saga is like it's not it doesn't just fall out. It's a good thing. Nice. Excellent. So
00:18:59
Speaker
Speaking of pockets, when I was down there, I did a pocket dump review video for this guy. I think his channel is called Best Damn EDC YouTube channel. He's got like 80,000 subscribers. And he basically just does or reviews pocket dumps of like, this is all the stuff I got in my pocket. And this was his first in-person
00:19:22
Speaker
version of that. Okay. So like he normally just does it at home in his, you know, garage. But being a blade show, he's like, Oh, everybody's got cool stuff in their pockets. Let me start interviewing people. So we filmed it. And he's like, john, I got to know what's in your pockets. So that we started filming and started dumping out all my pen and my AirPods and my hanky and my wallet, my car keys, my key bar and the saga and the knife and all that. And I'm like, Whoa, I carry a lot of stuff.
00:19:47
Speaker
And it was fun, exactly like you were saying about the saga clip. It was fun going through each piece, like why am I carrying this, and what do I like about it, and what flashlight do I carry, and all that. So it was really cool.
00:20:01
Speaker
I don't think anyone can top, I saw Jimmy DiResta do one of those, not for camera, but it was shocking. He only had on a pair of carpenter pants. I'm like, what? This is like out of a Looney Tunes movie. How are you pulling out your fourth knife right now?
00:20:21
Speaker
He had a stabbing ice pick on him and it was a tape measure. I'm like, where the hell do you have a tape measure? I've been hanging out with you for like three hours. How did you have a tape measure below your waist? I didn't notice. Yeah, it's funny. Speaking of pockets, let's talk about tool changer pockets. This is the most worst transition ever, which tool changer pockets would mean those military machines.
Purchasing and Investing in Machines
00:20:46
Speaker
You bought this spill. I did.
00:20:50
Speaker
I don't know where I'm going to put them. So I called the rigging company, transportation company, and they do machine storage as well. So I'm waiting to hear back for like a quote of what would cost to store it per month. But yeah, as far as tool change pockets, I don't actually know how many there are, but there's 20-ish. Isn't that the problem with the one though? Oh, it doesn't release the spindle. That's what it is.
00:21:14
Speaker
Got it. Yeah. Yeah. So they both sort of need work, but the price was still excellent. And if I can get them both fixed up, even for put 10 grand into both of them, um, still a good money, good price. And, uh, I think they're going to be great.
00:21:30
Speaker
I don't think they're going to make knives per se, but I think they're going to make all the other little stuff that we need that the mill is down for hours at a time just to fiddle with. You don't even have to answer this. I'm assuming that you paid almost nothing for them, which is, yeah, right. But you're still rigging a machine. You're storing a machine. You don't know when you're going to be able to use it. You don't know if they're going to work. You don't know how much money it's going to take to get them to work.
00:22:00
Speaker
I guess what I would say is, do you have a limit? You should sort of think about, it's like when you go to an auction a bit on something, you should say, if it goes over $7,500, I'm just walking away. I don't even care. Don't worry about it. If it goes for $7,600, I'm okay. I didn't buy it.
00:22:23
Speaker
And I don't know, like it's a heightened height. It looks like it may be an old, um, five 40 D or like, yeah. So you should be able to get parts for those, which is great. Um, for sure. Yeah. They use that five 40 up until like recent. Um, if you, you said, you know, a service tech. Uh, yes. That was not a confident. Yes.
00:22:44
Speaker
It's not a confident, yes, yet. You don't want to let them sit. That's not really good. If it takes you six months to get a shop, that doesn't do any good. Well, they've been sitting. Yeah. How long? When do they need to be removed from Milterra? Okay, so you can't have a service tech go there to work on them. Got it.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll get them stored. And then we'll find a shop and then we'll put them in. And then we'll start picking away at them or have a service tech come in and start picking away at them. And then yeah, I don't think there's they'll need work, but they're not going to need like
00:23:27
Speaker
complete total overhaul and our expectations of the results are not matching my Maury expectations. That's why I worry that we disagree and you don't owe it to me either. A $600 controller card could take that machine down and you'll spend $5,000 figuring out it was a $6,000 card or something else. It's not
00:23:56
Speaker
it's not the same situation. Yes, you want them to do low tolerance, low, less important work, but that doesn't still mean you have the hassle factor of maintaining, whether you're going to have coolant in them or not, or tools in them or not, or a spindle bearing. There's all sorts of things that will result in frustration and headache, and I would argue
00:24:18
Speaker
By the time you're going to rig them and store them and then service them and get them up and then tooled up and all that, for your business at this point, you would have been potentially smarter off buying a $20,000, 2008 Robo drill. I don't think it'd be any worse than that though. What year are these? 2002, I believe.
00:24:44
Speaker
A newer machine that's in, I guess that implied chain difference there was in working condition. Right.
00:24:53
Speaker
But just as likely to have a failure of some sort. I don't know about that. Any used machines is a gamble. And I think for the purpose that we need them for, a new machine is not the right answer. Just cost-benefit ratio of I'd rather spend new machine money on really good machines. Exactly, right?
00:25:18
Speaker
But even things like a Haas VF2, if I were to get one of those brand new to do what these are doing, it would still be many, many, many times more expensive than what I'm putting in. Which is what I'm, I'm not advocating new in any way, but the difference is you, there is still a statistically reasonable probability that you will spend five figures on these two machines. And there's a very good probability that within 12 months, neither are still working or ever worked.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's, I did think a lot about it. And at the end of the day, I was just like, eh, it's a gamble. Let's take it. You know? Yeah. Let's roll the dice. So we'll see. It might blow up in my face. It might be amazing.
00:26:07
Speaker
Let's hope for the latter. Do be clear, yes. I wholeheartedly hope that I am seething with jealousy because you have two 32K spindles that are humming along. I am on your team. You're sorry. That's the goal. I'm excited. When I see, and I don't know all the details about your business, but when I see what I see from the outside perspective, it seems like a wise person would advise you to invest in machine tools and other tools that help
00:26:37
Speaker
act as force multipliers and push you along the path. And what you did was an extreme bootstrap move, which you're not in that mode anymore. Yeah, I guess I'm trying to balance the force multiplier like the tornos Swiss lathe, a lot of money, a lot of machine, you're going to be definitely a force multiplier for us trying to balance like the super high end aggressive moves like that with also, I guess a bit of bootstrapper like like these two UMAX.
00:27:09
Speaker
Cause I just think about, well, we could either build a CNC router, which to make foam, or we could buy these machines for like similar money, you know? And, uh, and then we'd have two of them and they're better and they can cut metal and they can do all kinds of stuff that a router could never do. Oh yeah. Don't you have a Carbsmart now? Not that that's the same.
00:27:29
Speaker
Okay, sorry. It's not going to do everything we need it to do, obviously. I remember a while back, I showed up at a shop and the person had said, and this actually wasn't the only time this has happened. And they said, hey, I've gotten this CNC machine.
00:27:48
Speaker
And then they said, it's great machine. It's iron, blah, blah, blah, this, this is, it's not working right now. Would you like it? And I tell you, I had the drunk blinders. Oh my God, this is amazing. Like holy cow. Um, and then you start to realize, wait a minute here, this is not actually a win for me. This is a win for them. Just keep that in mind going forward. I'm on your side. I'm on your side. I want this to work. Good grief. I want this to work, but, um,
00:28:18
Speaker
Clearly military needed to get rid of them. And I was right time, right place for them. So win for them. And it could be a win for me. And that's the gamble that I'm taking. And I have confidence we'll make it work. And it'll be totally worthwhile. Hey, maybe you can maybe someone maybe the
00:28:37
Speaker
person who wants to be John Grimsmo in five years or 10 years, maybe they buy the other one and do a retrofit on it with the control. That would be cool. You should not do that. Please, dear God, do not. No, I agree. Get them up and running. Awesome.
00:28:52
Speaker
But in the process of buying these, you know, I put up a couple of little Instagram stories with the odd question and I had so many responses from guys going, oh, I'm running high nine machines that are 10 years older than that. And they're awesome. They're like the best.
00:29:09
Speaker
No, and you nailed it. I mean, the military is the type of company it seems that's doing well enough and is focused enough on the future to where they literally may not care about having a service tech come in and fix a $100 part because they're just like, it's just not like, we'll just get rid of them. You know what I mean? It's a great example when it is a potentially good opportunity to buy a used machine is when the company has just kind of quote unquote outgrown it. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's just not worked their time anymore to deal with.
00:29:39
Speaker
Exactly. Yep. Yeah, it sounds like one of the machines just needs to be fiddled with. It's like a wiring issue between the VFD and the something in the spindle and that the one on the right, that's it.
00:29:53
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like that's it. You get somebody who knows what they're looking at to come in and just rearrange some wires and it might be done. It might be simple. That's interesting because I felt like in the video, the one on the left, which is the one that doesn't release the tool when it comes in, that seemed like the one that was a better candidate. You could need a spindle rebuild to pull that off. I take my comment back.
00:30:20
Speaker
Exactly. Because the center is deep inside. I need to talk to somebody who actually knows what's going on. Keep me posted. Fun little gamble, a little side note. How's the shop hunt going? I have on my critical list for today to hound my realtor and be like, look, it's time to call everybody you know and find
Moving and Setting Up a New Shop
00:30:45
Speaker
me a shop. Stay calm. No, don't say that.
00:30:51
Speaker
Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Good. That's exciting. I'm looking. September would, September, October would be perfect for us to move in. That's three, four minutes away. You want it sooner? Yeah. I might. How is a military doing the move? Are they going to phase it? Like move, keep production going to kind of at both shops as they start moving or is it like a shutdown move?
00:31:22
Speaker
I'm not exactly sure because they're making me some ends and I'm wondering if I'm going to have them before they move. Oh, they're moving that soon, huh? Yeah, like next week or two. Well, they've got two separate shops so they can probably do one or the other. Right.
00:31:42
Speaker
But yeah, I haven't actually heard what day the moving day is because that's the day I need the rigors to be there, um, to pick up the two machines. So I'm kind of waiting to hear back, but I think within the next week or two is when they're moving everything. Just trying to think, would you do a kind of clean slate move? I guess you'd kind of have to cause your shops, it's not really big enough to like, just pull the Swiss, go set it up and then come back, pull the like, you would just stop, shut down everything and move everything.
00:32:11
Speaker
We would do it in stages. Basically we'd get the rigors here. We do all the machines on one day. Ideally have the electrician like a day or two behind, you know, so that they can get placed, they can get leveled and then wired up so that hopefully the machines aren't down for that long. Some will be easier than others for sure. And then
00:32:33
Speaker
But at that point, we can have all the other stuff, all the light stuff, still here, still working. Eric and Yoke can still work, Sky can still work. That makes sense. And then we can stage that. And then we're making parts at the other shop, and then we can move all the hand stuff ourselves. Everything that doesn't require a rigger can be moved sections. That shouldn't be that bad, John.
00:32:57
Speaker
It's not going to be that bad to move. I don't think so. I mean, it's going to be work for several days, but yeah, you'll be able to handle that. Yeah, there's a lot of us. So I think the bigger issue will be just how do we set up the new shop? Where do we put everything? How do we lay it out? How do we flow parts? And that, as I've found through planning the previous few shops that didn't go through, I was like, it depends on the layout of the shop.
00:33:24
Speaker
It completely depends on how it's roomed out and how long it is, how wide it is, where you're going to put stuff, how you're going to put the machines, how you're going to segregate things like noisy, loud, vibrating things to precision, accurate. Would you ever, in a realistic kind of dream or home run scenario, would you ever envision having a line, physically and figuratively, a line that was rasp and a line that was Norseman, where you actually have a dedicated vertical
00:33:54
Speaker
maybe your own, like separating out the products by line. I've thought about it for sure. I don't know. The beauty of having a bigger machine with more tools is that you can integrate
00:34:13
Speaker
You can mix a match as necessary. And I think that's my short term goal, is get a palletized five axis and make everything on it. Just to get it in. But then over time, as we grow and grow and grow, then
00:34:29
Speaker
So we have multiple five axis, maybe this one's devoted to this type of product and this one's devoted to this type of product. And yeah, you probably would want to segregate it a little bit. Like I was talking to one company that they have one machine horizontal that just makes handles and clips, and then another machine that just makes blades. Got it. It's interesting. I wonder if there's an argument because the five axis won't, will it make up, you're going to say it's going to be a better product, but you could still make the Rask endorsement on a three axis, right?
00:35:02
Speaker
It's going to be a better product. We live in a world with constraints and limitations. I'm just wondering, it could be what a solid business plan if you had a durable vertical that made rasks, you had a durable vertical that made Norseman, you had your Swiss lathe that made the pen parts, you saw the NOC, and then you also still have a five-axis that was maybe certain specific parts or more R&D or mixing in R&D with production via palletization, but nothing wrong with
00:35:29
Speaker
There's a chance that a Dura vertical could cost 20% of what a high N5 axis costs. So it's like, well, wait a minute. This thing can crank a lot. I watched Jay Pearson's pretty darn well edited videos on his new UR robot. And I'm like, wait a minute here. You could automate palette changing pretty simply. Based on everything you've already done, you could have Dura verticals running 140 hours a week, John.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yeah, if I didn't have so much five axis on the brand, and I had more room, like if I had more room in the shop, I probably would have highly considered having a second or a vertical by now. Right. But now I have five axis on the brain. So it's like,
00:36:19
Speaker
It's like having the Swiss. It's like everything's going to go on the Swiss because it can and because it'll be better. And it's like, you know, this is just the way that I think whether it'll happen or not. If I get a five axis, everything's going on the five axis because it's better and it's better. And then what's the more you're going to do? Well, wait a minute now. Now I've got to sit back and think like,
00:36:37
Speaker
Let's make both be productive. We were intending, I should say, to move mod devices to the UMC, and yeah, that's not happening. I wanted to, and we probably still will at some point, but it's still new, and it's still much too much fun and interesting. It's different with automation for sure, and I'll tell you again, the tool
00:37:03
Speaker
Good grief, a hundred tools isn't enough. I mean, especially if you're going to do mixed materials and like lights out automation where you need redundancy. Holy cow. But I think I mentioned it last week, I've started to now plan and actually set up for having outside, what's the term for this? Like outside ATC tools, but where I leave, I have a 440 drill and a 440 tap and I have the,
00:37:32
Speaker
three eighth inch bullnose that actually probably will stay in the machine. But I have the tools on a cart next to the UMC with one of the magnetic cat 40 tags with listed what it is. So you could even write the gauge length down and not have to touch it off again. I don't love that from a reliability or risk standpoint. So I'll probably continue to touch off the tool when I put it back in.
00:37:55
Speaker
We're also not using our Spironi as the master. There's a slight difference in gauge length between our Spironi and our Haas machines. And it's probably just because we've calibrated them with different master gauge lengths. But if you think about it, it's no different than any other sort of tools setting, where you're just setting something as your master and everything else is relative to that master. So it's all relative accuracy. There's no real such thing as absolute accuracy here.
00:38:23
Speaker
But what we need to do is take a time out one day and recalibrate everything on the one master tool, and then we can use the Spironi for gauge length, which would be great. I actually was just filming it on that shop update video. The Spironi is really for indicating and readout and examining the tools with the new company. That's what we love it for. Excellent.
00:38:53
Speaker
Sorry, I somehow managed to go from 5-axis to Spirotis, but yeah. I love it. You're going to love your 5-axis, but you're going to want to use it too, John. Because I assume there's more in your head, right? You're not done with the three kind of products I think of.
00:39:11
Speaker
No, and as I said this morning, my brain has finally woken up from the fog of blade show like, like, you know, last part of Sunday was travel day get home. Monday was pretty chill. Hang out with the family, you know, play with the kids.
00:39:27
Speaker
and just not do a lot, which was nice. Tuesday was kind of half work and today I'm just wake up and I'm like, whoa, okay, all those ideas that I had at Blade Show, they're hitting me now. How am I going to do that? I do have a lot in my head for future products. It's that energy you always get from a trip or a tour or a thing and you'll
00:39:49
Speaker
It's like that precious moment. You're going to lose it. Like it's going to fade.
Harnessing Energy from Shows
00:39:53
Speaker
So you've got to like write it down or seize it or try to figure out how to bottle that up so that you can keep that energy going. That's what we should do. We should bottle up that show energy and show air. Somebody would actually probably may actually cause a lock of John Grimsmo's hair. Um, yeah, we are,
00:40:18
Speaker
so close. I will never forget, my old strike mark business partners kind of was a big fan of the Colin Powell, I think it was Colin Powell's quote about, you're always going to be 80% of the weight there, like if you ever wait for that last X% or something. We're so close to releasing the beta on the speeds and feeds company site, but what I
00:40:48
Speaker
do have conviction about with holding back was the filter. When you update the filters based on what you're looking for, the speed wasn't consistent and it often wasn't fast enough. Those are separate but both important things. Sometimes it would be two seconds and two seconds might be okay.
00:41:08
Speaker
Sometimes it was slower and then you're going to lose people. It just needs to be faster. So the architecture changes we're making to handle that are underway and I'm really hoping pay dividends. It's pretty cool if it does work. Did I explain this last week?
00:41:29
Speaker
I think so. Sorting it like McMaster style where you choose this. But here's what's so fascinating to me. Here's what makes it complicated. And I think the better way to explain it is with a standard analogy. So let's say you're shopping for clothing.
00:41:44
Speaker
on a website, which is something neither you nor I ever do, but imagine that you were on a website looking for clothing. So you go to clothing.com and then you click on men's and then you click on pants and then you click on polka dots. So you want men's pants that have polka dots on them, right? So there'll be other filters that will let you further limit the list results. So you'll be able to say, well, I want them pleated or
00:42:11
Speaker
length or whatever. Those are subtractive filters. The database needs to know what are the options left that are subtractively available. That makes sense? That part's not that hard. Actually, not really hard at all. What's hard is we also have additive filters because what if you want to go back up and say, you know what? I also want to see scarves and bracelets or whatever, make something up.
00:42:39
Speaker
Exactly. Still the polka dot. Don't list scarves unless there are scarves that have polka dots. So if you're on our... Okay, yeah, I get it. It has to know all of these iterations and permutations of subtractive and additive filter options, or otherwise the filters are, but it has to.
00:43:00
Speaker
So if you're on our site and you're like, Hey, I want to see aluminum and I want to see, or let's do something better. You want to see stainless three Oh four as a grade and I want to see tapping and there's only one result. Well, there's, let's say there's three 16 listed as well. Oh, actually, okay. Three 16 may be helpful too. Let's see if there's more there. Well, you only show three 16, if that will help give you new beneficial results.
00:43:27
Speaker
So we've got it, it works, it just needs to be fast.
Improving Systems and Management
00:43:31
Speaker
What would be even better is if you then you're at the 304 thing and there's only one drop down and then you click the materials drop down and you see 316 has six results. 321 has two results. Oh, it doesn't work. Yeah, yeah.
00:43:50
Speaker
already. So I know it probably doesn't work that way. But that would be sweet. Because then you could quickly look at the material list and be like, Oh, look at all these other materials that have results for all of the other specifications that I've already said. I gotta get you on it when it's ready. You'll see that's, I totally know what you mean. The reason you
00:44:07
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to get this out. It's exciting. It's exciting. So we've had a really good response on the beta list. We're actually just now sort of putting together our CRM. We're using, we are going to use Salesforce. So a simple way to... Nice. Interesting. I'm curious about that. Yeah. That's a good way I think to start to track. Part of me feels
00:44:32
Speaker
Like it's a big step towards a lack of intimacy, but it's quite the opposite actually. It really helps. Like even if I email somebody I know, you know, you or Amish or somebody, you still want to track when you emailed them, how you emailed them and kind of let that serve as your true customer relationship side of things. It'll be quite good. I'm excited for it. So yeah. That's what we're working on. Yeah, it's exciting.
00:45:02
Speaker
I tried a 16 inch long drill last week.
00:45:12
Speaker
Yes. It's not that hard. You got to be very deliberate and conscious of how you prep the hole, so you pre-drill it and have a certain tolerance and certain depth. Fusion does have a gun drilling cycle, although it turns the coolant on before it enters the pre-drilled hole, which is not really correct. You can just edit that yourself manually. When I first ran it, it
00:45:38
Speaker
went quite well, although what was shocking was how much the whole walked on me. So at the bottom, pretty, pretty crazy. And so that's what we were experimenting with too. I am assuming
00:45:56
Speaker
We did a little bit of a deeper pre-drill and then we reduced the speeds and feeds with the thought that less tool pressure will cause less deflection. And that improved it, but still I'd love to, I will play more with it to see, figure out how do you push a drill like that through there and not have it move. I mean, I think it's just, it's a one inch hole 16 inches deep. Like that's a, or sorry, no, no, no, it was 16 inch drill. It was only 10 and a half inches deep, but still different.
00:46:27
Speaker
So do you now have a speeds and feeds recipe for a, um, what do we have on that one? We only did it in a shorter length, but yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Well, what are you up to today? Uh, today,
00:46:50
Speaker
back home, tennis with the kids again, school's almost over. So it's nice to get a last few little, um, parent chaperone trips in, um, as the weather's getting nice. Kids are so excited to have me do tennis with them at school. Yep. And, uh, come back to the shop, a couple of meetings, um, get, we are tackling rask production again, our second knife that we haven't made in six years.
Knife Production and Efficiency
00:47:20
Speaker
like we're just playing with them because like so many people have played show we're like when you bring it back rasks I want to ask how do I get a rask so I've known this I know people want them
00:47:36
Speaker
So yeah, it needs to happen. For months now, it's been in my head that by the end of the year, I want to have them back in full production. So it was nice to take a couple days. Like, Angelo stayed behind for Blade Show, so he was able to crank out almost a week's worth of production by himself.
00:47:52
Speaker
So we're very ahead on that stuff. So to take two or three days to play with rasks and figure out what we need to do to improve the process and make us happy with them again, it's been good. So him and I did that a bit yesterday. We'll do it a bit more today. And then just we'll know what we need to do to better results. I thought the rest were quick.
00:48:15
Speaker
There was a problem. Oh, that was the grind. That's right. Let's bring it back memories. Wow. Exactly. So the the Linda grinding wheel saga is coming back. Yeah, so whether we continue using the grinding wheel, which I think we will, or find a better way to dress it or how to polish the blade out afterwards, we got a bunch of new others in the plane with that wheel, which I know is a substantial issue or
00:48:42
Speaker
part of it, how disruptive or different are rasks than Norseman's? Similar tools, setups, palettes? Similar tools, save for like three or four. Similar palettes, although this is now a very old palette, two or three years old. I would completely redesign it if I could. So if I get a five axis, then it would be nice because I get the opportunity to redesign it and do it once, do it right.
00:49:11
Speaker
So I'm just sort of like trying to time everything together so that what's going to happen. When, when do we bring it back? How do we do it? How do we fixture it? Um, and how do we flow Norseman that rasks at the same time? Cause it'd be nice to make, you know, almost an even amount. You should talk to, um, like I know Matt Sura sells the cuba cubics, cubics machines, which are the mams that have additional. Additional stuff in them to do grinding. Um,
00:49:42
Speaker
I don't know. I've talked to a lot of companies that do grinding on machines. For the most part in our situation, as long as you filter the cool things, you're good to go. Because we're not doing that. But I just meant more like those people should have the recipe. Put me in touch with who you guys are telling your customers to go buy their wheel packs from or that stuff from. Or, hell, talk to military about, does an anchor work?
00:50:13
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we thought about it and talked about it for sure. I know. Yeah. Okay. Yes and no. You're like, I don't know. We did talk about it last time we were there. Or just a high end five axis could surface them well enough, John. That's right. Exactly. That's the other option.
00:50:37
Speaker
Right. So there's lots in my head. So whether we continue with the grinding wheel or surface thumb on a high and five axis, although you don't want to spend, you know, three hours per blade, um, doing some PCD like micro finish. That's not beneficial either. Um, yeah. Interesting. So yeah, a lot of options. Cool. I think I got my head wrapped around the right solution for now. Yeah. And then Swiss training starts Monday next week machine turned on. Yep.
00:51:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's on.
Swiss Lathe Training Begins
00:51:10
Speaker
The guy called me and said, installation is done. So I think everything's good. And then our tooling is starting to come in. So hopefully, it all comes in by the time. Awesome. By Monday. Cool. So that we can make some progress. Well, have fun. I'm excited to hear where we get to next week on it. Awesome.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It should be deep into training by next podcast. We're past 52 minutes. I feel like we should let people stop driving around parking lots. Yes, we are. Have a good one, bud. I'll see you. All right. You too. Take care. Bye.