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Business of Machining - Episode 70
185 Plays7 years ago
First thing’s first: Grimsmo’s back from BLADE SHOW, BABY!
To sum up:
- Awesome team bonding experience. The Grimsmo crew and Brad Southard shared everything (including the booth and the AirBnB)
- Met SO MANY people during the event, and down in the pit!
“A great way for makers to connect with their customers.” - Grimsmo
“Meeting people is what it’s all about!” - Saunders
The REVEAL of the SAGA!
Grimsmo did it! He crunched and turned the pen project into a pen PRODUCT!
And, just like Grimsmo, the pen is complicated and unique (especially the mechanism, which could stump an engineer)
Keep an eye on the Grimsmo YouTube channel! There’s gonna be a few videos on Blade Show coming out soon.
That’s a lap!
Grimsmo not only decided to get a lapping machine, it was delivered on Wednesday! But it’s just a loaner...the new one is bigger, better, and coming in a couple months.
The Negotiator
Saunders raves about the book he’s been reading lately called Never Split the Difference by Christopher Voss and Tahl Raz, which is all about the art of negotiation. It’s an art form, and the masters of it find win-win solutions.
Sometimes it’s okay to be blown away by the traction this podcast has, and Saunders takes a quick tangent to thank all our great listeners! (like Alec Steele!)
Our only regret is that maybe we should’ve called it “accountabilibuddies”.
What does Kate Spade have to do with the growth of a manufacturing business? A NPR podcast episode helps Saunders reflect on staying on track to happiness in your business.
“Growth can be addictive.” - Saunders
“You won’t realize how much energy you lost until you get it back.” - Saunders
OKAY let’s get down to nerding out about the new TORMACH SERIES
Better spindle, better horsepower, much better enclosure, and so much more that it won't fit in this description!
Thinking 5 Axis? So is Saunders; research keeps him focused.
Check out the book The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu Goldratt. It’s an oldie but goodie.
Thinking about IMTS already? So are Saunders and Grimsmo. They’ll be heading to MHub in Chicago the Sunday before IMTS to do a talk at the manufacturing and entrepreneurship event.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Blade Show Experience
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining, episode number 70. 70, holy cow. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is still John Saunders. How's it going, buddy? Good. Well, good. Blade Show.
00:00:15
Speaker
Yeah, it is now, what is it, Wednesday morning? Yeah. Blade Show was intense. Got home Sunday night. I'm still a little erect from the four days of excitement and talking and people like a solid 18 hours a day, maybe 19 hours. Oh my God. You look, and I say this because I love you, you look tired.
00:00:41
Speaker
And the past two days, I took Monday and Tuesday off completely. I hardly did anything work-wise, except for Instagram, which is really nice. I got to spend time with my wife and kids and recover a little bit. This is actually the first work thing I've done in the past 72 hours. OK, well, we'll see if the audio is good. Sorry, guys. I'm getting a lost connection to server error on
00:01:08
Speaker
I think it's a Zencaster pop-up, which is quite alarming. Sorry, we've got backup, so I won't interrupt anymore. No, it looks
Airbnb & 'The Pit' Social Event
00:01:18
Speaker
fine on my end. I see your audio coming through and everything. OK. Sorry about that.
00:01:24
Speaker
Okay, so you and the whole team, tell us the story, you flew down? Yeah, so Barry had to stay back for some doctor's appointments, unfortunately, but the five of the rest of us all flew down, drove across the border to Buffalo, flew down.
00:01:41
Speaker
I got an Airbnb together, which was amazing and like 700 bucks for four days instead of four or five hotel rooms for four days, like so much cheaper. And it was a beautiful place. And the whole weekend was like a really good bonding experience for the team. And we rented a big Chevy Tahoe, met up with my good friend, Brad Southerd, and we all stayed together and carpooled together and everything. So the six of us were bombing around all weekend.
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, really good bonding and just really good friendships formed. And not only that, but we met up with tons of fans and tons of other knifemakers and other craftsmen that are just amazing, incredible people. So the show goes throughout the day, but then in the evening, they have this event called The Pit, which is like in the big
00:02:36
Speaker
central lobby of the hotel, basically, where the show is at. Everybody just hangs out and mobs around until everybody passes out and falls asleep. So it's not uncommon to see people still there at 5am.
00:02:50
Speaker
I remember you mentioning that I think last year and this year I saw some other folks on Instagram posting from the like it's like that big atrium or whatever the pit like just like people are like hanging out with like bars of raw material and hardware and tools and just like talking shop like this looks really cool.
00:03:06
Speaker
Yeah,
Booth Challenges & Success
00:03:07
Speaker
it's really cool. And the collectors will bring their knife collection in a huge Pelican case. They'll just take a barstool table kind of thing, lay out their whole collection, and they'll be like $20,000 worth of knives right there. And then people can just walk around and look and buy, sell, trade, of course. It's a really good informal way for the makers to connect with the customers.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yeah. And hopefully nobody gets too drunk and makes a fool of themselves. Right, right, right. Which, of course, we were fine, but. So, okay, so you flew down Saturday or Thursday. Yes. It starts Friday. This is, I mean, effectively a trade show. Do you have like the whole trade show circuit booth, tablecloths, like backdrop banners, whatever?
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, so in classic Grimsman Southern fashion, we had plans in place, but they all fell through. So last minute, we met a guy at the show Thursday night that prints banners. And he's like, yeah, I'm printing a bunch of banners tonight. You want one? 50 bucks each. We're like, done. I'll email you the files right now. Because we were going to get banners made, but the supplier fell through.
00:04:19
Speaker
So that worked out. And then Friday morning they were delivered and waiting there for us. That was awesome. As far as tables,
Saga Pen Launch & Fan Connections
00:04:28
Speaker
I had this idea for months and months beforehand to find a local woodworker in Atlanta that
00:04:36
Speaker
He builds beautiful tables and basically borrow one for the weekend and put his name on it and promote his business and stuff. I could rent it, whatever. As long as he delivers and picks up, then we have the beautiful table for the whole weekend. I thought it was a great idea. So I found a guy and he was all excited, except the only table he had in stock was too big for the booth. And he could deliver, so that was kind of double bummer.
00:05:00
Speaker
And I only found this out like two days before the show that it wasn't going to work out. So we did our classic go to Home Depot by two folding tables and some painters drop cloths, the canvas color ones, and made our display like that. And it worked awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Yeah. We had a 10 foot by 10 foot booth, which Brad and I shared as the two. It's really nice. It works awesome.
00:05:30
Speaker
Did you get a chance to walk around as much? No. Oh, really? It's normal. I mean, there was the six of us in the booth. So yes, we did get a chance to kind of peek away and look at things, but people are coming to our booth to talk to us. Right.
00:05:51
Speaker
you know, a lot of times me particularly. So it's, it's nice to hang out there or just, it's like a steady stream of, of interesting people coming by to talk shop or talk knives or business or podcast or anything like that. Cool. Yeah. What are, what are the other good fun, you know, for folks that don't get to go to blade or, or don't live close enough to ever travel there, what's the, what's, what's some of the fun takeaways? It,
00:06:19
Speaker
Whether you're a maker or a customer or just someone who likes interesting things, it's a show filled with I think a thousand vendors and well over 10 or 20,000 attendees of just interesting stuff. Even the CNC stuff, there's a lot of handmade nature to it. There's a lot of love and care and dedication.
00:06:45
Speaker
People really, you know, put their heart on their sleeves when they make this kind of stuff and it shows. And it's really nice to be able to talk to people and see their face light up when they talk about what they made. And, you know, guys would come by our booth and show us their first knife. I probably had a dozen first knife showings at our table. And I was like the first person they ever showed.
00:07:07
Speaker
Right. You're right. That's a big moment. Yeah, it is. So not only did I make sure to give them justice and, and kudos where, where needed, but I would also try my hardest to give them
Personal Growth & Negotiation
00:07:18
Speaker
honest feedback and, uh, you know, room for improvement kind of things, but wasn't, weren't we talking about that? Yeah, exactly. We were talking about, I actually had people mentioned that I was talking about that. They're like, no, no, you used to rip into it. Go ahead and rip into it. Right.
00:07:35
Speaker
Did that all go well? Super well, like, yeah, I mean, everybody who's asking for it wants honest feedback. And obviously, I'm never gonna be mean about it. Even though it feels like critical, not negativity, but you know, criticism feels mean, but I gotta be better about, you know, being honest and helpful at the same time. Yeah.
00:07:57
Speaker
I was able to point out it was actually interesting. I noticed several features of knives in general that I like to do in our knives that new makers aren't doing and that a lot of established makers aren't doing either. Just little ergonomic details like how you use your thumb to move over the lock bar and things like that. So I was telling these new makers that and they're like, I didn't even think about that.
00:08:20
Speaker
I was like, Oh, yeah, I've got a little dimple or a little like scalloped cutaway. And it's interesting because I have a couple of lock bar knives and the Norseman really is easy to get the lock bar pushed over. Yeah. You notice how the two handles are not symmetrical right there. The lock bar side is higher. Yep. And it has that. Yep. Yeah. It has that little little grip. I don't know. I'm showing it to you as if you need as if you need to see it. Yeah.
00:08:45
Speaker
But yeah, so not only does it have the little grippy thing, but it's the lock bar handle is higher. So that when you move your thumb over, you can apply load straight sideways. Yes. I saw a lot of knives that were flush. So the left and right handles are the same. So to dig your thumb in there, you're pushing down and over your wasting energy pushing downwards.
00:09:06
Speaker
And it makes it harder. And I noticed this in other people's knives. And I'd point it out to them. And they'd be like, oh, I never even thought about that. That's the greatest idea. And I'm like, well, yeah, go ahead. There's nothing proprietary about that that just makes a better knife. Right. Interesting.
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah, so it was just fantastic. Like one guy showed me, he's just been making knives for a year and a half. And it was this incredible combination of like an art knife combined with the kind of titanium tactical style that we all do. And
00:09:40
Speaker
I asked him, how long have you been making this? Stuff like this. And he goes, a month and a half. I'm like, what? Yeah. Whoa. Holy cow, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And this was the big launch and the unveil of the pen, the saga. Yes. Apparently, people watch our YouTube videos because everybody was coming up and asked, I got to see the pen. I got to see the pen.
00:10:04
Speaker
And so we were able to finish about 30 of them and we brought them for sale. We did a drawing raffle style purchasing arrangement so that people would enter their name and we randomly picked names and text people to purchase the pen. Otherwise they'd all be gone Friday morning. And I like to have a product throughout the whole weekend.
00:10:27
Speaker
So, man, people loved the pen. Holy cow. I don't know why I'm surprised, but it's like, whoa. I don't know if I expected that kind of response.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yes, you did. I mean, I know you like to be. Yeah. You know, but I was so in it before the show that I didn't really think through the public response. I was just like, I got to make it the best that I got to make it. It's got to be perfect. I'm going to put my heart and soul into it. And I worked really hard the month before the show and it was worth it. Yeah. But that's what that's the not so subtle drive element that I like about you and respect about you is
00:11:11
Speaker
It's this theme of how you run entrepreneurial businesses or endeavors, which is this is a confluence. It's that Venn diagram of this circle that is who John Grimsmough truly is. You're this obsessive person about detail and fascination. You found this way of doing this cool mechanism that has a really cool application here. I think I'm a little frustrated. I haven't gotten a saga yet. I'd like to find out how to get on one of these raffle lists.
00:11:38
Speaker
No, but seriously, and then there's this other Venn diagram or this other circle that is the
Meeting Influencers & New Technologies
00:11:42
Speaker
kind of what's in demand, what's people want, what people desire. And when those two overlap, I think and then there's that little intersection area. That's where that's that's a really, really powerful thing. Yeah. And there's probably like Venn's are usually three, right? There's probably some third one in there that we could psychoanalyze out. Yeah.
00:12:07
Speaker
Um, one of my favorite things of the whole weekend was showing people the pen and having them be completely clueless about how to disengage it. Oh, really? Yeah. Cause it is a unique mechanism. You push down on it, but then in order to release it, there's another trick you have to, I'm not going to release it on the button. Oh, you don't just push down on the outside tube. No. Oh, the outside tube. Yeah.
00:12:36
Speaker
But people try to like, you push the plunger down and it just stops. Yeah, sure. Okay. And people are like twisting things and they're trying to like rotate the clip around and find little buttons here and there. And, uh, yeah.
00:12:49
Speaker
even showing it to like fancy knife makers and designers and things like that. Yeah, I think you get it because I've shown you enough pictures of it. Right. Right. Right. Because I was one of my sort of concerns, which I figured was unfounded and sounds like it is, was that you could accidentally kind of push the outside tube in isolation and have it just accidentally retract. But now I think I understand how it works. And there's two different things. Yeah. OK.
00:13:15
Speaker
Two different mechanisms. You push the button at the back to engage it, and then slide the slider down to release it. And there were so many. I told Erin, I'm like, you've got to film all these aha moments, because they're beautiful. Oh, awesome. So Erin was rolling footage? Absolutely. She filled up three SD cards. And I'm like, do we have to go to Walgreens and buy more SD cards? Because we can. Let's not hesitate for that. I'd rather you get the shot. Film everything.
00:13:45
Speaker
Um, yeah. Yeah. So I got to stump a lot of really, really smart people with the pen, which was awesome. That's cool. Yup. So sold in use. Did you bring any knives? Northman who did. Yeah. We brought 30 Norseman and roughly 30, 30 pens. I didn't even count them properly. Um, yeah. And we sold everything, which was awesome. Dude.
00:14:12
Speaker
Doing a raffle style drawing for 60 items is a lot of work, right?
Business Investments & Financial Insights
00:14:20
Speaker
Because you still have to follow people and track them through and all that. Yeah, set up a text, wait 30 minutes, and et cetera. So we actually started running out of time throughout the day. Like, well, we didn't sell half of today's stuff. But it worked out awesome. Yeah. Super awesome. Dude, that's cool. What else? What else?
00:14:41
Speaker
Certainly Aaron's highlight of the trip. It was so cool bringing Aaron and Sky and Angelo. This was their first time ever to Blade Show or possibly to any big convention. I'm not exactly sure. I know they've been to some other ones, but Blade Show is its own unique mechanism.
00:14:59
Speaker
And Erin was joking. She's like, I got to meet all these people that I didn't even know, or I didn't know were famous. And then I find out they're famous. And then it's like, oh, but you're just a guy in his garage working on stuff. But you're super famous. That's interesting. That's cool. Yeah. Traveling is fun and getting outside. It just sounds silly and cliched, but meeting people is what it's all about. Yes. Yeah.
00:15:26
Speaker
I like that we're a more public company and that people, you know, especially at this event, people recognize us all, you know, people are coming up to Skype and like, Oh, you're Scott, you're the new guy. That's, that's gotta be a lot. Yeah. That's a, yeah.
00:15:40
Speaker
It was so easy to make friendships and meet other vendors and makers and dealers and customers and everything. I think all of us made new really good connections that we would never have made otherwise.
00:16:01
Speaker
It is, you're just getting warmed up like you've now got the equipment, you've got the ability to execute, you've got the team, you've got the connections on raw materials and vendors. I keep meaning to ask you too, did you ever buy the lapping machine?
00:16:32
Speaker
And then finally, one day, I was like, all right, Todd, let's do it. Let's do it. I'm ready. Let's go. OK, it'll be three to four months while we make the machine to deliver. I'm like, no, I'm excited now. I want this thing today. This is a big deal for us. And I was like, well, you've got a tech center, right, with a bunch of machines that you're probably not using all the time? Can I borrow a small one while you build me my big one? Yeah.
00:16:40
Speaker
It's getting delivered today.
00:16:58
Speaker
And he goes, let me ask. Nobody's ever asked that before. Yes. Right. And yeah, so we're getting the small one delivered today, a 15 inch. OK. Same thing, still a diamond lapping machine. And this is a 15. We're getting a 24 made, so it'll be quite a lot bigger. Yeah. But we can practice with this. We can nail down the recipe, the timing, all that stuff. And we'll have it for the next two months or so while the big one's getting finalized.
00:17:28
Speaker
Okay. Awesome. Perfect. Yeah. Super duper
Audience Engagement & Personal Fulfillment
00:17:31
Speaker
duper duper excited about that. That triggered ... I'm reading this book. Actually, a fan just sent it to us, which is actually awesome.
00:17:41
Speaker
never split the difference. And it's this guy who was, for years, an FBI or NYPD hostage negotiator. And it's like a basics on negotiations. And I have always been fascinated with negotiations. I took a class on it back in college. And I think it's something that you can never. It's an art form. You can never, for sure, never master. But this idea of the biggest thing, I think,
00:18:08
Speaker
to learn about negotiations is it's not this brow beating. I've got a bigger stick. It's how do you make this a win-win? And one of this guy's things in the book is no is the beginning of the conversation when somebody says no. And I love it because it's all about opportunity. How do you make this work? How do you make it fit? And what you just did is exactly right.
00:18:29
Speaker
No, I can't get you a machine because it's three months out or four months out. Well, what about that showroom machine or what about what if we do this or like it all of a sudden just changes the way people think about what the opportunities are to make this happen and send suit your needs to serve your needs. And it's really it's really fun. Like it's satisfying. Yeah.
00:18:51
Speaker
I will have to read that book. I've always seen myself as a very poor negotiator because I'm so easy going and I'm so like, I'll just flop over and be like, okay, this deal is probably the best negotiating I've ever done and it was kind of easy. It doesn't have to be so adversarial. I think that's the other thing is it's not like for me to win, you have to suffer. That's not what it's about.
00:19:13
Speaker
Sure. But you also have to know, for sure, you do have to know when to stand up for yourself or what's a bad deal or what doesn't work. And again, it goes back to the other book that was for me so formidable, which is the Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, because for most people, we don't act irrationally. Now, most people aren't willing or able to admit what's driving them, what actually matters. But most of us actually, at the end of the day, have a pretty core set of beliefs that drives what we care about and
00:19:40
Speaker
Usually you can actually figure those sort of things out, which makes it easy to figure out what, how is it, how is it a win-win? Most of us aren't actually crazy. Like when, if I get mad at, if I get mad at you, it's, it's usually not, there's usually an honest reason for, from both sides of it. Sounds silly, but like, you know what I mean? Yep. That's cool. So it's, so it shows up to, is it, it's not a big setup process, I assume.
00:20:05
Speaker
I, I'm not sure yet. The pamphlet said the machine weight was like 250 pounds. So I'm like, okay, that's big, but not huge. And, uh, and then the shipped weight is going to be 675. So I'm like, wait a minute. Oh, we, uh, we, uh, because you know, we have a forklift you can borrow.
00:20:24
Speaker
We do. There's forklifts around the building. We've got a pallet jack, so we can do that. Oh yeah, timing gate. Hopefully the truck has a lift gate, so we can just forklift it around, or pallet jack it around. But I won't be here today, because I'm taking my son on his year-end field trip to a big trampoline park inside with his class. So that's going to be fun. Didn't you just do that? Like maybe it was a year ago. Yeah, maybe it was. It's really bad. That's funny. Yeah.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah, so Eric and Sky will be on point for that delivery. Sweet. And then, yep, it's good. Yeah, I gave everybody a Monday, Tuesday off.
00:21:06
Speaker
yesterday because I know we're going to need it. Yeah. Bang it through the weekend. I can't believe that's really cool. Everyone, yeah, it's awesome. I'm glad it went well. I mean, obviously, again, it's June. Think back to like November of seven. Maybe it's not even worth it. Lifestyle worth living in the rear view mirror, but awesome, dude. It is crazy. Well, I had so many people come up to me a little bit.
00:21:31
Speaker
last time I looked it was just you and Eric, like holy cow. You got six people in your team now. So the other thing I got to throw out is both as a sort of fun point of pride, but also kind of as a thank you to everyone. I don't think
00:21:48
Speaker
I don't think I appreciate maybe neither one of us kind of recognize or appreciate that this this podcast actually has an audience like I get more and more people who send us send me unsolicited feedback of like sincere like awesomeness about how it's helping them or opening their eyes or just enjoyable and
00:22:06
Speaker
I think it's the example I wanted to use of that Venn diagram overlap. You and I didn't start this with the express goal of inspiring other people. We really did this to help each other in a selfish manner and we got a lot out of it.
00:22:23
Speaker
And it became part of our business and personal life. For me, I'm always conscious to keep my personal life and business life somewhat separate, but nevertheless, they do overlap. And I think this podcast became part of that. And then again, shout out to Lockwood for encouraging us to hit the record button.
00:22:42
Speaker
The output, the product of that is something that's not what we necessarily went into it with a contrived, expressed goal. You and I didn't think, hey, after a year or two, I want to make sure we've got this audience or we're helping this many people, right? Right. No, we still don't think about that. And for those who don't know the story, John and I have been friends for many years, and we've known of each other for many years before that, before we actually met at the Tormach thing and became friends.
00:23:12
Speaker
It was eventually like, you know, maybe we should just have a chat once a week and keep each other in line and be our own accountability buddies, you know, and make sure that we're saying and all that stuff. So we did that for at least six months, if not a year, like, yeah, it was like a private podcast. It was just a conversation between you and me. We never had any plans of sharing this.
00:23:35
Speaker
But it was like, let's ask all those questions. I still love that I feel like an outsider. Even the WhatsApp chat that we're on with the other guys that are all real machinists. I'm an outsider, and that's OK. But sometimes I still have those really dumb questions, like what is GD&T or whatever.
00:23:53
Speaker
It was it was fun to be. It's it's a good reminder, I think, to just be comfortable with who you are in that sense, which for me talking to you and bouncing that around, I think we started this again. It's crazy how much our stories mirror each other without planning it. But like I think we nurtured each other at a time when it was really helpful. And now I think we're I probably don't know if you feel this way. I feel like I probably we probably nurture each other less, but I still.
00:24:23
Speaker
I still very much value the conversation and how we push each other on the growth stage of where we are.
00:24:29
Speaker
Absolutely, because I think we're at, we're probably at a similar size in both people and revenues-ish. I actually think- We haven't exactly talked about it, but I think we're kind of close. I think we are. I think you're going to smoke us in the near future and good for you. Thank you. Good for you. Yes. We're awesome.
00:24:55
Speaker
We're on the growth track, for sure. And the level that we've gotten to now feels amazing. But it's like, this is a stepping stone. The sky's the limit from here. But that being said, wait till my new thing comes out, and then I'm going to smoke you. I can't wait. So can I take a quick sobering detour? This is going to sound pretty
Networking & Investment Strategies
00:25:16
Speaker
weird. But I had just listened to the podcast from NPR called How. I think it was the one that's called How We Built This.
00:25:25
Speaker
I still haven't listened to that, but you told me. Yeah, it's like B plus. I think you'll I think you're probably a little bit more sophisticated than some of that content in it. But nevertheless, it's good stuff. And the last one that I listened to was the Kate Spade story, who is the self made. She was born in Kansas, New York City.
00:25:43
Speaker
like trying to make her break and got this handbag company started and became a like blow up success. The American dream, just crazy successful iconic brand sold the thing to I think Neiman Marcus or somebody and she committed to his side yesterday.
00:26:00
Speaker
Um, 55 years old, had a 13 year old daughter. And this is going to kind of sound weird because why would I, why would I as a young manufacturing person care about a New York City fashion designer suicide? But, um, it kind of struck me because her rise occurred when my wife, at least was working in that industry in New York, like going through all of that. And, um, she is this like wholesome New York or Midwest like person that had this dream or she did it, she made it.
00:26:27
Speaker
And it kind of shook me yesterday because I was like, why? Like why? And I think going back to why we started this podcast, I think I wanted to always feel like I had somebody I could talk to about the stuff that I didn't understand, the stuff that really did struggle me. Or if you get backed into a corner on something and you're like, I need to figure out how to make this work or happen or talk to somebody and
00:26:51
Speaker
I think it's a good example of somebody that clearly had some mental health issues that were more than the public knew, but it's sad. This is somebody who had everything, John. Literally, tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars of incredibly well-received brand and identity. Let's just make sure as you and I go through this journey,
00:27:13
Speaker
We're happy. Make sure we do what we love. Be willing to say no. Be willing to stop the growth and just make sure that we are honest to God, happy with what we get to do every day.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, and fulfilling ourselves. Yeah, let's make sure to be honest to each other about all that too, because if we can't be, then there are real problems. I know. I think we're both pretty darn happy and I'm pretty positive, but hey, I get pretty stressed. Absolutely. I think you just got to make sure
00:27:48
Speaker
growth can be addicting. And I think you're probably going through that now. I mean, good grief, John, you crushed it. You're this hero at blade show, you're the self made man, you might be one of the best, like, iconic people there. But then that, like, that becomes this goal, you have to continue to meet and you won't there'll be in in five or 10 years, there may be a younger, sexier john grims mode. That's okay. You don't mean like, just make sure we keep it all perspective, I guess.
00:28:17
Speaker
Well, speaking of which, one of the guys I got to meet at the show, have you ever heard of Alex Steele? Oh, my gosh, yes. He is. He is the. Are you kidding me? You're like this young, handsome British guy who's like charismatic and crushing it. Yeah. So he is a 20 year old British kid who's a blacksmith and who basically said, you know, two years ago, he's like,
00:28:43
Speaker
Well, Casey Neistat is really, you know, crushing it doing daily vlogs. I wonder if I could do that for blacksmithing. I wonder if anybody would watch that. And so he did. And now he's almost at a million subscribers on YouTube. And he makes fantastic videos. And yeah, so we got to hang out. He listens to the podcast. That's crazy.
00:29:03
Speaker
He actually reached out to me first about three months ago and says, man, I listen to your podcast. I love it so much. I just thank you for what you do. And I was like, whoa, that's cool. That's cool. So we're besties now. We hang out a lot. And Aaron was like totally starstruck. He was hilarious.
00:29:19
Speaker
And he and I have emailed a couple of times briefly. I now feel slightly awkward if he listens to this podcast. But when sometimes people ask, can you still do this? How do you get started? People are like, yes. And you look at, I actually would love to talk to Alex sometimes about his production value, which is insanely good. But yes, this is somebody who was born to do that. That's phenomenal.
00:29:47
Speaker
I've been watching a lot of his stuff in the past two days of downtime. I'm like, let's just catch up on Alex videos. It's incredible what he does. He's so charismatic. He's so engaging and excited with everything. And I was like, how do I translate that to my videos?
00:30:07
Speaker
I need to be more of me without being somebody else. Like I can't turn on his personality because that's not me. But, but to be more, more engaging, more excited, you know, show the actual stuff. And he was telling me like he films everything. The cameras are just rolling all the time. How do you handle that? I don't know. How do you stay in the excitement? Right?
00:30:30
Speaker
But it was really interesting. I'm like, that's how you get that moment, that aha moment, that oh crap moment. Right, right. That's how you get it all. But he's also, well, here's my answer to how you get some of that back, is take a break. I brought up the reading the book example that
00:30:52
Speaker
never split the difference, partly because I didn't want to read books for a while. I was like, I don't want to feel like I have to do homework. I don't want to like, I just, I literally want to go home and watch like some like mindless, like we're watching the, my wife and I are watching The Office from scratch again. It's been like 10 years. So that was why it was so perfectly timed to throw in a little subtle Robert California reference to Rob Lockwood yesterday on Instagram.
00:31:18
Speaker
It was great. I've earned the right to veg out a little at night, but lately I did pick up a book again and I've actually been spending a ton more time out in the shop making parts this past week after, again, I keep mentioning this Australia trip, the recovery of
00:31:34
Speaker
building the business, the infrastructure, the processes, taking a little bit of a break. I spent a ton more time at home with the family and all that. I'll tell you, you asked me when we were getting set up for the podcast today, how everything's going. I was like, everything's going freaking great. You won't realize how much of that energy you lost until you get it back, John. Okay. Yeah, that could be. Okay, another good one.
00:32:03
Speaker
I was talking to Ryan Wenner of Seneca Woodworking, who is someone I really want to get to know better. He's very, very, I think we're on a, I think you and I are on a sort of stale ERP WhatsApp thread with him and Jay Pearson. But I like Ryan because he researches, he knows what he's talking about, he's done his own, he's proven himself, he's built this company, it's really cool.
00:32:33
Speaker
And we were talking, I don't know how we got on the subject, but he had a really, really good way. When you ask for feedback from somebody, whether it's a knife or personality or skill sets, instead of saying, like, what do you think needs to be done better or could you give me some constructive criticism? Because that immediately pulls up all of these preconceived notions of, oh, well, I've got to put on my my soft gloves or make sure I'm gentle or whatever, make sure I don't upset the person. How sensitive are they?
00:33:03
Speaker
ask them this, tell me one thing that you don't think I know about this knife,
Conclusion & IMTS Invitation
00:33:10
Speaker
or about me or about my business or whatever. And it's like, thank you, right? Like, that's such a great way of phrasing this question. Wow. And from the other perspective, you know, when people would, how do I phrase this?
00:33:29
Speaker
Like for my products, I know what's wrong with them. But for somebody to point out something that they don't think I know, it's a challenge. It's fun. It's a bit of a game. You're less likely to offend them. It instantly gets those creative juices flowing. Oh, I like that. And in fairness, I haven't used this yet. OK, well, I'll ask you on the spot. This could be awkward. What's one thing you don't think I know about myself?
00:34:04
Speaker
Oh, that is hard. Yeah, it is hard, right? It is really hard. I think, I don't know, there's some things that you might realize but not know how much they weigh on you. How do I phrase that?
00:34:25
Speaker
Look, over the over years, I see you go through phases of like, you know, crushing it, replying to comments and reading everything. And then sometimes you just turn off completely because it hurts sometimes, you know, I think it affects you more than you realize. Yes, fair. You know, the outside negativity and totally it happens like me too. Right. But it's, it's hard to see that yourself.
00:34:50
Speaker
I don't want, I'm not gonna let that become part of myself is kind of the answer.
00:34:56
Speaker
I guess, like I saw this weird way of switching this conversation a little bit. Tormach came out with their new product line yesterday, which is freaking freaking. I heard about it. Yes, athletes open. Nobody told me what it was. So this is freaking awesome. So long story short, they used to have series one, two, three. That was the evolution. They're switching to calling it the M and MX. So instead of having an 1100 series four, they're calling it the 1100 M.
00:35:24
Speaker
Oh, which is, which is like out today ships in two weeks. And it's a major improvements to things like better spindle, better horsepower, bet much better enclosure, looks like a much better machine. The M itself is more of a
00:35:41
Speaker
iteration of the 1100, like some sort of necessary improvements that I'm glad are there. The MX is what it's all about. So it's not out yet. It won't be out until the fall, I think. And that's what's a little bit of a bummer or frustrating is that they don't have all the last little details nailed down on it. So that's why they aren't announcing everything like all of the actual specs and
00:36:06
Speaker
and pricing, but bottom line servos BT 30 will either be an option or standard with the compatible tool changer. And those are the two big ones. I can't think of what else has one or two more inches of Y travel. And so this is something I mean, look, the series three came out. I don't even know. Gosh, six years ago. So it's not like when we got them. Yeah, right. This has been a long conversation. And I personally
00:36:37
Speaker
Look, Torbok is Torbok. I'm glad to have a little bit of input, but this is their creation. But I was saying on every chance I had to be on a phone call or if for my input, I was like, you got to go with servos or something that offers more rapids and better resolution and motion control. Please go to a tapered spindle option and the enclosure needs to be done better.
00:36:59
Speaker
And they listened, they answered. So we have had the chance to play with a Frankenstein MX. It's not an actual MX, but it's the cobbled together version of a Series 3 plus an 1100M plus some custom-made hardware. And it's an R8 machine, unfortunately. It's not the BT30 yet, which I'm excited for. But you kind of know what that difference will look like. But we're running motion paths at 350 inches a minute as we surface parts.
00:37:29
Speaker
And the build quality in the, you know, like they got rid of the computer. The computer is now in the machine. So it's like another thing you don't have to buy. They're just like building the stack in their favor that way. It's a smaller footprint, 7,500 RPM. Like it's just, it gets me so excited that they were able to recognize and go that direction.
00:37:54
Speaker
with what's coming. So I want one, which is what's frustrating. So my point, the reason I brought all that up is there's some chatter already of people that are like, you know, complaining about stuff that, you know,
00:38:10
Speaker
There's complaining and I get frustrated because people don't appreciate what a good world we live in, what an amazing opportunity that machine is, what it can do for you. But then I'm like, I don't even care. All these people that want to complain, you're not part of my life. You don't know.
00:38:28
Speaker
I had an 1100 series two that within a year on some months was generating enough cash to pay for itself yet again. You can complain all you want about wanting to go upgrade to a different machine or complain about something like, you're not go away, bye.
00:38:47
Speaker
Yep, yep, yep. Most of the time the people that complain the loudest are not your customers anyway. That's true. Oh yeah. They're not direct. Sorry, that was a very long. No, but that was really good. Yeah. Speaking of upgrading, preparatory purchase meeting, PPM,
00:39:10
Speaker
This is actually kind of weird and crazy. And I don't even know 100% if we're still on. But you're getting a lathe. Hold on. I got to find a hang up button. We're going to find my matches. I wanted to spend the rest of this year having fun indulging myself learning about 5-axis and automation, period.
00:39:37
Speaker
And look, look, I think there's an interesting argument for a UMC 750, partly because so much work is positional work, and Haas has done a really good job on the value chain, blah, blah, blah. The Maseras are amazing, for no question about it. The other machine that's always stood out for me as a brand name, as a builder prestige, as the quality and the ethos and the controller options is Hermelet.
00:40:01
Speaker
And so I have an acquaintance there who is an applications engineer and fun little tidbit. He flew down on his own dime to our open house because he appreciated what we were doing for the manufacturing space and our
00:40:16
Speaker
are pride of this industry. So I was like, hey, that's pretty freaking cool. So I've stayed in touch with them. And so I reached out to him last week. I was like, hey, can I get a primer on what the product line is? What's the sales pitch? Walk me through your options of these two machines. And he sent us a bunch of PDFs. And I'm trying to figure out a way to get up to Wisconsin to their showroom sometime this year for fun. Because we'll see him at IMTS, but it'd be fun to go
00:40:41
Speaker
on a more intimate basis. Anyway, he's like, well, I'm actually going to be Ohio next week with the president of Hermely USA. Can we swing by your shop? And I was like, yes. So there's, yeah, I haven't talked. This was all on Friday last week. They're supposed to be here this afternoon. So we'll see. We'll see what comes of that.
00:41:02
Speaker
Oh, that's super exciting. It's all downhill from here, right? Well, that's the thing. It's like, let's not kid yourself. This is what they do for a living. But no, it is cool. It's not just that. Talk shop. Yep. Yeah, exactly. And it's a fine line, I find, for me, between allowing yourself to do the research, but also realizing you're diving deep.
00:41:26
Speaker
and convincing yourself that this is a good decision. You know what I mean? No, this one's actually easy, because a lapping machine is like, OK, we can afford that, no problem. This adds a zero in another round up a couple of digits, which means it's not happening. The lapping machine we got was $75,000. What? Wait, John. We were at 19 last time we talked about this. Yeah, a very different one. What happened?
00:41:55
Speaker
No. Well, the difference between aluminum oxide and diamond lapping is immense. Does Linda, does Linda know? Yeah, that was a different application, right? Exactly. But yeah, so it's a serious process for us. Forgive me. I didn't mean to disparage. Well, now it's convenient. Now you just have to add a zero to get to a herm plate. But exactly. Are you you go with that? You're happy with that?
00:42:20
Speaker
Yeah, it was a big decision, but yeah, it's going to be good. Gosh, that's tough. Look, I'm a numbers guy.
00:42:29
Speaker
20 grand to me is like, okay, now you're saving yourself the freight, the lead time, the quality, like just 20 grand. Look, it's that you and I are like it or not still making decisions that are based on, um, shoot, what's my own saying about, um, not living beyond your means, but like you get comfortable based on relative numbers. You know what I mean? What was,
00:42:52
Speaker
$200 is a lot for some people. $2,000 is a lot for some people. $20,000 is a lot for some people. You're now at the point where $20,000 isn't like the decision, but it's not like, yeah, not crazy. But boy, $75, when you think about, I assume outsourcing lapping isn't that expensive, meaning the actual MBA math break-even analysis is a long time to bring that in-house.
00:43:17
Speaker
That's, I'm not saying you probably, I don't disagree for one second about that decision, but it's a tougher decision when it's that much of a capital investment. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's all those things. It's lead time, quality control, finish, et cetera, puts it all in our control. Now it's just admiratized over a couple of years to make it on paper, make sense, as opposed to like, you know, a 20 grand machine would pay itself off in a year kind of thing.
00:43:45
Speaker
As we grow and as we scale, this will grow with us and let us do everything we want to do and gives us that immediacy of control.
00:43:58
Speaker
Not only will we be lapping all of our rough stock before it goes in the machine, but we're also going to lap some of the parts after machining, after heat treat, which will give us a daily flow and we'll save Eric significant amount of time. Now you're on to something. Surface grinding. Yes. Exactly, right? So now we thought about this and we're like, it's going to save Eric.
00:44:18
Speaker
20 minutes a knife or something like that on a daily basis or more. And it's going to increase the quality of the product and it's going to reduce redo work from surface grinding mistakes and all that. So it's like all this stuff, we're going to be making more money because of this machine, because we'll get more knives out the door.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yes, and I commend you for that. My concern, actually, it's kind of weird. One of the reasons I'm letting myself indulge in five-axis research is that it keeps me focused. So the way you get to making investments like that is by
00:44:52
Speaker
staying hungry, seeing that like one year horizon line, and then that stops. That makes it easy for me to say no to the $2,000 purchase or the $7,000 purchase that then just sets you further back from that long-term kind of goal. You know what I mean? It's like whatever. I can't think of that word that I used to like to say so much, but it keeps you focused on it. On the flip side, we just bought. Well, it's something I read. Go ahead.
00:45:16
Speaker
And on the flip side, we just bought, I mean, literally, I think I spent about 74 seconds thinking about it. We just bought a whole another Canon 80D set up with a lens and a tripod. It was like $2,700 because Ed, me, Jared, and Julie were all kind of borrowing the same Canon for different shots. I'm like, this is the business we're in. It's like, let's just get another one in. Nice. Yeah, we just got a Canon M50.
00:45:45
Speaker
which it's our first like nice camera. Awesome. So it was 1500 bucks or something like that all in. And it was like, yeah, it's time. And now I'm realizing we're going to need to have them. Right. Um, but yeah, I was going to say,
00:46:02
Speaker
It was a tricky decision, getting that lapping machine, because on the surface, like a lot of the listeners and, you know, our friends and things like that would be like, dude, you need another, you know, another lady. But, you know, I was thinking about this. I'm like, why make more parts if one part of the process is still a bottleneck? Like, dude, if we can make, you know, 10 more knives a day, but they're still hard to make, that's stupid. So you didn't go to college. Do not ever.
00:46:31
Speaker
let that intimidate you. Please. Do you understand? No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to presuppose it has. John, people spend, people spend 30 grand or 300 grand getting an education. And one of the books we read in my business school was The Goal.
00:46:51
Speaker
And the goal is a 300 page book that can get some good stuff in it. But it can be summarized by when you're in a manufacturing workflow, you focus on solving the bottleneck first and they give it this analogy, which is actually it's kind of an out of taste analogy nowadays. But the analogy is a Boy Scout leader pack has the fat kid named Herbie and they keep Herbie keeps getting left behind. And the way to keep the group together is to put Herbie at the front of the line. Let your bottleneck drive your flow.
00:47:20
Speaker
Which you're ready for this. My first machine, the tag in New York City was named Herbie after that book. Because it's a freaking tag and it's slow as molasses. So what you just identified it was a wonderfully insightful decision that people spend a lot of money to conclude at, which is, yes, I would have even said on surface you need another mill, but you recognize something awesome.
00:47:50
Speaker
Yeah, and hopefully, this will drive further production, more profits, things like that, and then the mill will be next. For us to get a robo drill in the next six months or less, we'll be like, yeah, of course, duh. Are you guys on OK on the overall capital planning, finances, all that stuff? I don't want to be nosy about it. I think we're running out of time here, too.
00:48:18
Speaker
Just this past week, I was able to pay off a huge loan that I'm very, very happy to be off our plate.
00:48:27
Speaker
And then now all of our debt, we basically have only one, one debt left aside from the machine financing and things like that. But, but as far as all this, you know, black cloud weighing over as kind of stuff, there's, there's one big one left and we'll be tackling it the next few months and then we're, we're clean and I'm super duper happy. If you don't mind me asking, how are you handling the lapping machine?
00:48:51
Speaker
Okay. Oh, we're financing it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If it was anything under 30 grand, we probably would have paid cash, but you know, 75 was like, okay. Well, just, I want to, I feel like our, my,
00:49:05
Speaker
As your friend and business peer, I want to make sure we stay on each other about making sure as things grow, people underestimate how quickly things fall apart when things fall apart. And that can be the world economy. It could be a supplier issue, like lots of things that can go bad. I want to make sure you stay well capitalized. That's all.
00:49:32
Speaker
Yep, absolutely. I like that. Appreciate that. We should go. We're running. People are circling parking lots. Yeah, it feels definitely still driving. Real quick, if people are starting to think about IMTS, don't forget John and I are going to be there the Sunday before manufacturing entrepreneurship event at Emhub in Chicago, the Sunday before IMTS. We already have 250 people signed up.
00:49:59
Speaker
Um, the folks at M hub think we're going to have a thousand people, which I kind of hope we don't. Uh, but it's, it's going to be awesome. So as people are starting to make travel plans or work plans or talk to their bosses about schedules, um, Sunday before IMTS in Chicago. Excellent. Can't wait to meet you guys there. Do crush it today or have fun. Sorry. Have fun. Have fun. Jumping, jump home for employees today. All right. Awesome. I'll see you. Take care. Bye. Bye.