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Optimize Your Happiness & Machining
243 Plays6 years ago
Can you really optimize machining and happiness at the same time? This week John & John dive in to optimizing machining while staying happy and true to yourself. They also talk about hand editing lathe code and threading tips on the lathe. Saunders fuses ABS plastic together with acetone like a mad scientist and Grimsmo finally gets his swiss running after some issues.
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 159
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining, Episode 159. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. And this is the podcast for two entrepreneurs. Talk about the business that they love to do. How are you doing this morning? Great. Good. How are you? I'm pretty good.
Capturing Ideas with Voice Recorders
00:00:21
Speaker
You right before we hit record, John mentioned that he had a blurb for the intro that he really liked and he couldn't remember it the other day. And I want to share a PSA of a tool that I've continued to use more and more, which is the voice recorder on your phone.
00:00:39
Speaker
So you're just, you're out and about and then you have an idea and you've just hit the voice recorder, a quick button, whatever. Yeah. And just say it. So on iPhone, when I'm driving, I can say, Hey Siri, open voice recorder. And then I still have to use my thumb to hit the record button. But I'll tell you, I have no ability to remember stuff like that. And I mean, you could pull over and like type an email, but voice recorder captures your inflection, you can kind of ramble to yourself or flush the idea out if you want.
00:01:08
Speaker
Like my wife and I were talking about something on the way to dinner the other night or somewhere we're going in. And I mentioned it and she's like, that's really good. Can you email that to me? And I'm like, no, that'll never work. I'll never remember it in that same vein and conversation and emotion. So I voice recorded it and then I realized there I could actually on the iPhone, you can hit
00:01:28
Speaker
like forward and you could just forward it as an attachment to somebody, which is almost full circle back to like two years ago when I was wanting a way to quickly email the responses back to folks as voice responses on in grades.
Organizing with Trello
00:01:43
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah, I keep forgetting about that. I mean, I don't have an iPhone, I have a Samsung, but I'm sure there's a similar thing.
00:01:52
Speaker
But I use Trello a lot for note taking and I sort and organize into many different categories, whether it's a hardware store buy list or all kinds of stuff. So next time I'm in the hardware store, I just pull up that list and I keep adding to it and adding to it. I'm like, yeah, I need blue tape. Oh, I forgot about that. But the voice recorders are certainly for
00:02:13
Speaker
bigger like thoughts. I want to try that. I just feel like it requires a second step because then you have to go through your voice recordings when you have a minute and like do the thing or sort it or whatever.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, to each their own. And these, I just get, you know, you get, you know, you just had that emotion that like, Oh, man, I had something and I lost it. And yeah, I was, I was out for a walk the other night and I had a great intro, like welcome business, business, I'm cheating. And I was so happy with it. And then I cannot remember it for the life of me right now. And I'll probably remember it in like an hour.
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah, so that's that's my PSA. It's been it's been one of the you know, we talked about a lot of different tools that we've thought are used and some you keep some you don't. It's interesting to see that you guys are still using Trello. Yeah, mostly me, although I've been getting more of the team to use it as well. And it's I love it. It's it's my kind of go to note taking organization thought storage device.
Digital Job Runner System Development
00:03:22
Speaker
Speaking of that, do you guys have any form of a job runner or paper document that accompanies your products as they move through the shop? Not at this time. Okay. Any plans? I would like to have a digital version of that. Okay. I'm working on it. Oh yeah? Yeah. Okay. So you want it, you just don't have it.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, if anything, just for the setup process and all that stuff and all the tolerances and that, but also a way to track the product through the shop and see where it is and where it's next and all the benefits of a solid ERP system. Right. So this is part of, you'll roll that out through the customer. You guys are building it from scratch or you're modifying something? No, we're building it from scratch. Okay. Got it.
00:04:11
Speaker
And it's that dormant for the past two months, probably during the move and all that. Yeah. But we just talked about it yesterday and we're like, yeah, we should really get going on that because we put a ton of work into it already. And it's probably like 80 percent, you know, so it's close. It's funny how these are all like pretty pedestrian and basic things for, quote unquote, real shops. You know, but it's not easy to it's it's a difficult transition, I'll say.
00:04:42
Speaker
to go from where we are at Saunders at least. There's a lot of stuff like that that I think we should or could embrace and some of it's just decision paralysis and not having been willing to
00:04:56
Speaker
to move into an ERP yet. We haven't necessarily needed it, but, um, and I'm not against paper. I mean, digital sounds great, but, um, I'd rather do it right. If that means starting with paper and later, maybe we upgrade it to digital form because having a piece of paper on a physical product is, it can actually be pretty nice. It's isn't it weird how.
00:05:17
Speaker
You kind of resist and resist, and like, oh, that's the old school way to do it, and oh, paperless, and oh, shops are different now than they were 30 years ago. But then you kind of realize the simplicity and the beautifulness and why they did it and all these simple, basic things that shops have been doing for 100 years. And you're like, it actually makes a lot of sense. But you have to get your mind to that point where you realize that.
00:05:42
Speaker
Well, it's funny if you if you just stop and you say, well, you know, why digital versus paper? There's benefits to digital in terms of searching and long term storage and accessibility, et cetera. But don't just do digital because everyone thinks everything in a computer is empirically better across all reasons.
00:06:02
Speaker
It's certainly not for the eco green element. We'll probably print off a few hundred sheets of paper a year for what we'll need relative to the cost or even energy consumption.
Operational Costs of CNC Machines
00:06:15
Speaker
Speaking of which, holy cow, did you see Dennis's power bill for his compressor? Yeah. Was that compressor or was that for all the shops? That was just for compressor, wasn't it? I think that's just his compressor. Yeah.
00:06:28
Speaker
Should we say it? Apparently, if you run a 20 or 30 horsepower compressor 24 seven, so the compressor literally never stops because they're constantly consuming the air that they generate. He's got 14 CNC machines and not all of them are running, but most of them, many of them run 24 seven.
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah. It was, let's just say tens of thousands of dollars a year, just in electricity. Yes. To run. Yes. Crazy. Right. To run the air compressor alone. Yeah. It's, it's, it's big boy leaks. I mean, when you, when you make, you know, more than a hundred thousand dollars a year, everything starts sounding really expensive and you get up into the millions a year and then it's just a scale thing, you know?
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's different. That's for sure.
Life Choices and Business Ambitions
00:07:16
Speaker
I've been rereading the Brazilian fisherman story that we mentioned. Have you read the actual one that Julie linked to in the podcast description? No, I didn't get to look at that, but I've read Tim Ferriss' version.
00:07:35
Speaker
Ah, okay. Go read the one. It's two or three paragraphs long. It'll take you under two minutes to read it. And I think the way it tells the story and builds it up, and then it's the punchline, I think it's impactful. And it's interesting because for the first time, I've reread it with a little bit more of a critical eye of, okay, well, what's this story not telling? What's it not
00:07:59
Speaker
you know, where is it wrong? And there is some, I've had some more pushback within my own thinking about, hey, you know, but it's, and for folks that may not have heard the idea is basically if you are able to go fish, provide for your family and then hang out and then do what you want to do and then go fish again as you need to, that's kind of enough in life versus building up a conglomerate of fishing, because you're good at fishing, just so you can have a bunch of money. And so you can have a bunch of money that way you can
00:08:26
Speaker
Be able to relax and go back and spend time with your family, which you were doing in the first place. Obviously, it's a story. It's not black and white and as simple as that in life.
00:08:38
Speaker
I think what I thought of, it's a little bit of the grass is greener. When you're in the midst of growing a business, sometimes the serenity of a relaxing world where all you have to do is one hour work in the morning may sound like a reprieve, but the reality is you and I do what you do because we like building stuff and that's okay. It's not a bad thing.
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, I don't actually, you know, a lot of people talk about living for the weekend and like waiting for that vacation. I mean, I don't take vacations. I should take my family on more vacations. We just don't at this time and everybody's okay with that. And I do what I do because I love it. And I put in the time and I put in the work and it's as stressful and painful and, you know, aggressive as it can be. It's still often,
00:09:25
Speaker
tied with the fun and the excitement and the challenge of doing it. I find a lot of enjoyment in most of that.
Overwhelmed but Passionate
00:09:38
Speaker
Have you felt burned out much? I know everyone likes to put on a proud face or posterity's sake, but from the garage days through today, has there ever been
00:09:52
Speaker
There's probably been times in the past, uh, you know, six, seven years. Um, I feel more overwhelmed than actually burned out. Like, I guess burnouts, like I'm done with this. Like I need a solid break. Um, but overwhelmed is more just like, holy crap. I don't know what to do right now. I have too much. Yes. You know, I'm stressed. I'm there's too many things flying at me right now. And most of it's Brown, you know, most of it's Brown.
00:10:20
Speaker
You know, poop. Oh, sorry, took me a second. So there's that.
00:10:30
Speaker
I don't know. Luckily, I don't always believe in luck, but I think you and I have lucked into an industry that we actually truly enjoy. We have that entrepreneurial spirit where we can put up with the crap in order to enjoy the fun.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, and sometimes there's a price to pay with that. There can be a big price to pay for what we're achieving. And I'm realizing that, you know, now all the little things going on that I just have to remind myself, that is the price to pay to do what I'm doing and to go where we're going. And yeah, and have the fun. Yeah.
00:11:18
Speaker
It's been fun. There's been a few moments, some recently, where I'm like, I don't really have a desire to make a part right now. But I think that's probably pushing on the edge of the word burnout, which of course you hate to say because it's like a form of admitting weakness. But I think if I had a little bit of a break,
00:11:40
Speaker
Like it's certainly like John Saunders still loves a freaking loves making parts and like programming parts and figuring stuff out. Like, yes, I, and somebody was just asking about like cycle times. They're like, is this a reasonable cycle time? I'm trying to figure it out. I got an order for a thousand. So it's, you know, it's enough to where you care about it. And we started talking about it and it's like, well, look, you know,
00:12:01
Speaker
you can look at it at two different ends of the spectrum of making this part your roughing times, because that's where you got to remove all this material. And then those finishing times, are you surfacing in scalloped fillets that could be used with a corner rounding tool? And then go look through the other little stuff like are you doing linking moves or retract planes and rapids and minimizing tool change? And I get fired up about that stuff. I think that's super fun and that kind of challenge of
00:12:30
Speaker
are using the right roughing tool, using the right mix of feeds and speeds to maximize it, but it's not in the most rigid fixture. So you got to make sure you're not obviously compromising the work holding and the process reliability. I just love it.
00:12:46
Speaker
you get to tie in your actual experience and research and what you've heard other people do. You get to pull all of these different resources and help this person. And that's amazing. That's really rewarding. Yeah, absolutely. Do you like that stuff or am I... I never know. I'm more like... Yeah, I like the optimizing the process.
00:13:08
Speaker
especially on the lathes because you're watching every part so closely and the parts are like a minute or too long and you really get to like dial down seconds and seconds make a difference and they add up over time. On the mill, I'm less concerned with cycle time and optimizing. On the current, hopefully I'll just play with it more. But like the mill has kind of said it and forget it because the cycles are so long that I just... But isn't that make the argument? Maybe. Right there.
00:13:36
Speaker
Do you still mess with any Norseman fees and speeds or process camps? Not unless there's a problem. We've got some squeal coming from one tool right now and I'm like, what the heck? What do we change? It might be a dirty collet or a tool not clamped tight enough or something, something.
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah. So I played with speeds and feeds last night, but for the most part, it just works. So we're just like, Hey, don't touch it. Cycles three and a half hours per pallet. Call it good. We could probably get it down to three hours if we really started pushing some stuff, but it's that process reliability thing. Like, man, it just works. Yeah. Well, do the, uh,
00:14:16
Speaker
Get outside your comfort zone and think about, OK, well, how much could I gain? 30 minutes, what does that mean? Does it jive with getting a whole other cycle in per day or per night? Because that's a big change. That's a big, big change.
00:14:30
Speaker
Right. And if you do that, well, that's four or five days a week times 50 days a year. So wait, can I make 200 more knives a
Optimizing Cycle Times in Machining
00:14:35
Speaker
year? That's an investment I'll make. But if it's kind of like, no, it doesn't really matter because it's lights out anyways, or we're only going to get four cycles through during the day shift. So I'm not going to worry about it.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yes, it's a balance. Honestly, I don't think about it enough or much, especially with the mill stuff, with the lathe stuff I do because it's just kind of fun. Taking a three-minute part on the Nakamura and getting it down to 58 seconds on the Swiss is like, oh, yes. Oh, my gosh. We're just making three times as many parts per hour.
Hand Programming for Efficiency
00:15:11
Speaker
I totally see why you would hand program a lathe. You get it now? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I might even do God, I can't believe I'm saying this. I might even get a part. I think we want to make it more.
00:15:26
Speaker
high volume, and I think I might do what I guess you've done, which is kind of like use Fusion. I'm not going to start from a notepad scratch file. Yeah, totally. But controlling the linking moves, not doing retract. Actually, can you do that? Let's say you do a roughing groove in Fusion, then a finishing groove, separate cam operations. Between those two, the tool will move to a retract plane or a safe plane. Is there a way to not
00:15:56
Speaker
to let it stay kind of in the part, if you will. In Fusion, it's on the first tab of the operation. It's like go to home or not. I think it's in there. But I will often, like I'll post the operation from Fusion because I like my corner rounds and my like radiuses and lead ins and lead outs and all that. I don't want to hand edit all that stuff. Fusion's awesome at that.
00:16:19
Speaker
But all the junk in between the retracts, like sometimes I'll do a turning up and I'll leave the tool right there at the end and I'll cut off the rest of the code. Like the, you know, the cool it off and the retract and all that stuff. And then I'll just paste in the next piece of code and I'll delete the beginning part of that code. And you got to know what you're doing. So you got to know what the tool is going to do next. I might add like one, you know, G zero, Z zero line to bring it to the front and then just continue the next tool path.
00:16:48
Speaker
Okay. And you might save a couple seconds there on retract to home, but sometimes like that's all it needs. I'm like, if I'm confident in my hand editing abilities, then why not? You know, does NC viewer work for lathe code then? Mostly.
00:17:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah. OK. Yeah. The messier the code gets, like the more operations and stuff, the weirder it looks. But it does work. OK. Yeah. You've got to click a little toggle to make it, you know, X times 2, lay the dimensions. Oh, got it. Radius, yeah. Yeah.
Improving Thread Surface Quality
00:17:26
Speaker
Okay, so I want to I would appreciate some advice which is turning threads turn to turn to half 13 thread and steel Sandvik insert normal feeds and speeds And this frankly has probably happened to me in the past. I just haven't cared as much as I care now so how do I get the two different questions, how do I get the crest of the thread the OD of the thread to be
00:17:53
Speaker
a smoother and not as burr-free or rough of a finish? And then how do I quote unquote Higby or improve the start and stop of the thread so that it doesn't have that weak flangey part? That sharp burr.
00:18:12
Speaker
Couple things, often I will turn the diameter, thread the thing, and then turn it again and then thread it again. Oh, wow. OK. Oh, yeah. And sometimes I'll even turn it backwards the second time. Turn it from the deep part to back to the front. So you just use an OD turning, not the threading tool, the OD turning tool. You'll go from the chuck to the tailstock. Yeah.
00:18:39
Speaker
And that'll kind of push the burr the other way. Sometimes I'll do that. So I'll turn it once, thread it, and then turn it backwards, and then thread it again. And that usually kind of just micro breaks those flappies off and creates a better crest thread.
00:19:00
Speaker
I don't know what that does for tolerances and if this is aerospace certified or whatever, but that's just what I do. And it tends to leave a better thread and gets rid of those little flappy burs. At the end of the thread, like where it terminates and goes back into the bolt or whatever, the more taper you can put on there, like the shallower taper, the better. That's the lead angle? Like when you're designing the thread.
00:19:28
Speaker
because I actually draw the profile of the thing with no threads in it and then I wrap it around in the sketch. Okay, can you send me an example of that? Sure. Or like a photo even? I'm trying to think how to explain it on the podcast. Let me tell you what I do and then correct me. So we're turning the thread, so think of it just like a regular screw or bolt
00:19:57
Speaker
Except when you buy a bolt from McMaster, it's been roll threaded. So where the thread starts, so sorry, the whole bolt is not threaded. Let's say that there's an inch section that's just turned, then the thread starts. On a roll thread, you don't need any relief, but because we're turning these, we're using a grooving tool to create a little groove. That way we can start the thread. Maybe we need to get rid of that, I guess. Wait, sorry, say that again.
00:20:25
Speaker
OK, so you have a cylinder that would be the hex head bolt or whatever. Yeah. So we're only going to turn or excuse me, we're only going to put a thread on the last three quarters of an inch of the one inch or three inch, three inch long part. So I could just start threading at point seven five and go to zero. But usually I think you have to start with a groove. No to
00:20:54
Speaker
as a thread relief groove. Are you starting at the face of the bolt, or are you starting in the middle and going? I'm starting in the middle. Oh. Yeah, so I'm starting, oh sorry, that's a great point. I am not, so the bolt head, because I'm using my live tooling, so the bolt head is facing the tail stock, so I'm starting in the middle and turning toward the end of the bolt, which is in the chuck, or facing the chuck.
00:21:26
Speaker
Interesting. Okay. And you're using live tooling, you said? I have a part oriented that way because I'm using live tooling to work on the head. Now I could, these will end up getting sub spindle. They're not right now. So that could change that around. Are your, is it somehow different or better to thread? Oh, I see what you're doing. You're making it backwards. Yeah. So on the main side, you're making the hex head first.
00:21:53
Speaker
And then you're turning the shaft and you're putting the threads in the back. Yeah. Okay. I actually don't even need the sub spindle except I will use the sub spindle almost certainly because I want to part it off clean with better tool life. And I may even kiss the face, which the sub spindle is there. That's going to be a much more consistent way to get a one. Can you, can you do the hex on the sub spindle? Uh, sure. I can do anything. Uh, yes.
00:22:20
Speaker
Just because I naturally think a screw happens, shaft and threads first, and then it gets transferred, and then do the hex on the other side, or the torques on the other side. That's how I do it anyway. OK. But in your example, if you're starting threads from the middle of the screw, and you're going into the rod, yeah, you need a groove first just to be able to, because you plunge the threading tool in to nothing, and then it dwells for a second, and then it starts threading, right?
00:22:48
Speaker
Right. And I mean, I put the groove in there, but then I'm kind of sitting here thinking, well, why? I mean, that the threading tool could cut into. No, because it kind of rapids into the part. It doesn't feed slowly in to start the thread and then it dwells for a second and then it starts threading. OK. So it probably wouldn't. It's probably a good thing to like put some sort of relief in there.
Creating Higbee-end Threads
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah, for your case, I think I would just
00:23:17
Speaker
I don't think you're going to be able to Higby the end of the thread in that orientation. You're right. I don't know how you would. You can't. Normally, I'd do it with the bolt flipped 180. Yeah. And then it's easy. It is? Yeah. Can you explain that? Sure. So if the bolt were flipped 180, where you got the thread sticking out, and the threads go to Z zero, basically.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm gonna thread from the tailstock toward the headstock and the bolt is sitting in there where the, basically you'll be able to thread a nut onto it right now if you can't. Exactly. Which helps you dial in your thread tolerances much faster too. Yeah. Anyway, a Higbee is simply a grooving tool that has the Z0 offset
00:24:14
Speaker
at the center line of your threading tool, ideally. What I used to do is I would offset the threading tool from the tip, not from the front of the insert. I don't do that anymore because it's annoying. Now I just use the math of half the threading tool width. The control point is the center of the
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah, so if you wrap your head around that, if the threading tool Z0 is at the tip and the grooving tool Z0 is at the corner, these two points now match. And then all you do is you do a threading op with the grooving tool. You literally cut and paste your threading code, except only thread like 100 thou in. Oh, really? Or one thread pitch in.
00:25:01
Speaker
You can just use the Heights tab to control the thread depth. Or not the thread depth, the length. No kidding. So grooving tool, center control point on the grooving tool. No, on the threading tool. On the threading tool, technically.
00:25:25
Speaker
I think I already have it as the center. Oh, no, I don't. Because I use when I touch it off. Yeah. So then I do an offset of half your threading tool width. Call it 50 thou or whatever. For the Higbee operation, I'll just offset that op by that amount forward. But you're using the actual grooving tool. It's a different tool. It's not the two tools. Yeah. OK. OK.
00:25:53
Speaker
And then if you offset it, and then the corner of the square grooving tool is now tracking the center point of the thread, the V.
00:26:03
Speaker
Offset of the corner of the square grooving tool is tracking to the V of the thread. So imagine if you turn one thread deep, you're tracking the V with the corner and you're wiping the thread off and then the retract is what creates the Higbee.
00:26:23
Speaker
Yeah, right, right, right. Oh, so then awesome. All you do is you play with the depth of your Higbee thread, like the Z depth, how far you groove into the length, the length, exactly the length of the cut. And then
00:26:39
Speaker
And then what I do is under the microscope, I'll inspect the thread and you can see in the thread finish where the Higbee tapers out. And sometimes you get a tiny little mohawk of burr until the crest of the thread, like the outside of the thread starts. And I match my Z depth of the Higbee until that crest is gone. And you can actually dial that in 100% perfect to have like a dialed.
00:27:09
Speaker
I love it. Because it should be one thread width over. Okay. Yeah.
00:27:16
Speaker
Oh, I got to go play with that. That's super fun. Yeah, so it's simpler than it sounds. Wait, so I could totally do this with, I just need to use, so I'm flipping at 180. Imagine that you're just, imagine that you have a 12 inch long shaft and you're just putting a thread in the middle one inch for some reason. And I'm threading from, oh, it doesn't matter which one I'm threading to and from. I got to put a groove on each side
00:27:45
Speaker
of that one inch thread length. And then I got a Higbee each side in this example I'm making up. You can only Higbee from air into a thread. You can't Higbee from a thread into air. Yeah, but I just run my grooving tool from the direction. We'll start in the groove and move toward the thread. So it'll start at the headstock and move toward the tailstock to create the Higbee. Maybe.
00:28:16
Speaker
Wait. Maybe, I don't know. I haven't been able to Higbee the back of the thread. I haven't figured that out yet. Okay. I'm trying to think now about a rotational direction to. Yeah, exactly. So if you figured out like shoot me a text and let me know because that'd be awesome. Yeah. It's probably better to just do it the other way. Well, I'll play with it. Sweet.
Swiss Lathe Troubleshooting
00:28:44
Speaker
I spent quite a long time the past week getting the Swiss up and running because it hasn't been the super priority. We made enough parts beforehand, busy with other stuff. So we're trying to get it up and running, and I get these stupid errors on the control. That's like dual safety circuits.
00:29:05
Speaker
disabled, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I'm calling Tornos trying to figure out what on earth is going on, what this error means. Did I face the power incorrectly coming in and out?
00:29:17
Speaker
And eventually, the guy at Tornos was like, you have an e-stop pushed somewhere. So I had to go with a multimeter and follow the electrical diagram and be in the electrical cabinet and be like, OK, pin ground to pin 12. Do I get 24 volts? No, to pin 13, to pin 14. I had to figure out where in the daisy chain of e-stop circuits, which one's pushed or broken or whatever.
00:29:43
Speaker
chip conveyor that's not there has a dummy plug in place. I checked that and at first it was faulty, but then it was fine. And then the fire extinguisher and then the bar feeder and then the chip blaster, like the high pressure coolant. And then it was the main E-stop button on the control panel. And the E-stop was faulty. The actual switch itself.
00:30:05
Speaker
Like it's got two sides, so it's two E-stops and one button. And that's the dual channel safety circuit. And one of them passed continuity and the other just didn't. What the heck? So I cracked the switch open and saw the electrical contacts and it's beautiful and clean inside, whatever. I put it back together, it works fine.
00:30:29
Speaker
And that caused me days of frustration. I'm sorry. That's super frustrating. It's whatever. But it's kind of funny. And why does it work now? It wasn't corroded. It wasn't bad. It wasn't dirty or dusty. It just had a bad day. Something get bumped in the move? Or is there a spring, like a contact spring missing that's pushing, keeping it closed? It all looked fine.
00:30:53
Speaker
Weird. Maybe it got bumped in the move, but there's no damage on it or anything. Anyway, the lathe works awesome now. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. That's frustrating. Yeah. That's okay. Good. So like two days ago, I finally get the lathe running and I was trying to make the last part that we made at the old shop.
00:31:11
Speaker
And like a Swiss always leaves a half finished part in the sub. So there's still a half finished part from the old shop and I finished it at the new shop and it was perfect. It was dialed. So the sub spindle side is fine. And then I just needed to make a main spindle part and make sure it was good. And I did and they kept coming out like super short.
00:31:35
Speaker
60 thou, 80 thou, 100 thou short. And it was variable in every part. And I was banging my head against the lathe for like a day and a half trying to figure out why I'm changing the code. I'm like, I shouldn't have to change the code. It's the same as it worked fine last time. Blah, blah. Anyway, in the end, it turns out the main spindle collet was not tight. So the bar was slipping. Slipping. Oh my gosh. And I was just like, what a noob. Oh my gosh. I don't know how to Swiss lathe anymore. That's hilarious.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah. Isn't that funny if you've had that occur to you before and you still don't have that as your go to fix? Right. Well, so on that note, what we started doing, Angelo really got us onto this is now we have a notebook next to each machine that is our maintenance book and production notes book.
Logging for Machine Efficiency
00:32:24
Speaker
So every time I make a change or have a problem,
00:32:26
Speaker
All right. Yeah. And then we've got it for the Maury now and we've got the squealing tool problem. And I'm like, when did we change that last speeds and feeds? And oh, it was, it was February 2nd and we did this tool and we did that. It's like, whoa, that was actually really handy. Okay. I'm going to keep adding to this. Yeah. That's awesome.
00:32:47
Speaker
We had what I thought was a problem in our VF2 and not totally clear that all the problem was a hose, but what we thought may have been a rotary union issue, and I think it was, I think there still was a little bit of an issue there, but the bigger leak was coming from just a small crack and a piece of
00:33:08
Speaker
quarter-inch flexible tubing that you can go buy Home Depot for 75 cents and it's the same thing where it's like and I don't really fault myself because you know, we're not machine repair experts, but Sometimes you see things that are to me complicated and intricate and cool like rotary unions and you're like that's got to be the problem because that's where it would be leaking it and you don't think to like maybe try to figure out what if the one of the hoses right next exactly is cracked and
00:33:36
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely fall into that with the problem I just had. I overcomplicated the solution when, in fact, I simply skipped a step. I changed the collet because I had the laser beam mounted in the main spindle collet to align the bar feeder. And so I pulled that collet out and put the quarter inch collet back in and I didn't adjust it properly, which I always, always do.
00:34:01
Speaker
You know, it's been a month or more since I've run the Swiss five weeks and I forgot. Right. And that that caused me more frustration because a simple like four second adjustment operation caused me problems.
00:34:17
Speaker
Well, I'm glad it's fixed. Yeah, me too. Is everything running at the shop then? The Nakamura basically just needs coolant. And the UMAX still needs some work, but they turn on. Okay, got it. I was going to ask you, how's your coolant system? Have you figured that out yet?
00:34:37
Speaker
Not, no, I haven't really made any progress, but the Mixtron is fantastic. Okay. So you're just mixing that into the buckets right now or with a hose? Straight into the machine. Okay. You just move the barrel around. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's just fine for now. Yeah.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah, okay. Totally, totally random change of conversation topic, but I had to repair a small part and it's ABS.
Fusing ABS Plastic with Acetone
00:35:06
Speaker
And did you know that you can fuse ABS together with acetone?
00:35:11
Speaker
Really? Yeah, it's amazing. You can see that. It literally, it's not glue. It's actually melting like a cold weld or it's fusing it back together. It's quite strong. So you just using an acetone or what do you call the acid brush.
00:35:27
Speaker
and you acid brush the part and then I'm actually doing a little bit of a lap weld to it where I cut a little extra ABS piece off something that was trash and then brush on it and then you got to put some pressure on it to clamp it. It works much better. But the results are unbelievable. It's way better than an epoxy or a super glue. And I assume does it only work with ABS or some other plastics too maybe?
00:35:53
Speaker
I definitely have only been using ABS and I don't think it's, I don't know if other plastics react the same way. I know on 3D printed parts with, I think it's with PLA, you can put the part in a bag with acetone or in a container with acetone fumes and they'll kind of super melt the surface and make it watertight-ish and like clean up all the print lines and it just melts it all together.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know about PLA. I'm trying to Google it. No, I think you're right. And I've heard about this with folks will use the same thing on printed parts with acetone to just brush out and it literally will like smooth out. Yeah, it just melted. Yeah, exactly. It's pretty cool. Very cool.
00:36:42
Speaker
What are you up to today? Today, make parts on the Swiss, which is awesome. Eric ran out of pivot screws yesterday, basically. So I'm a little bit behind on that. But now that the Swiss works, just change the setup over to pivot screws, and then I'm golden. And then current stuff. How is the current? Quiet. Just because you're programming? Dormant, yeah.
00:37:10
Speaker
I haven't made too much progress on it. But yeah, I'm programming, buying material, doing other stuff in the shop. And I miss it. I want to get my time on it, my seat time. But it's there. It's good. I have everything I need.
00:37:24
Speaker
Everything's all good. So cool. Yeah, exciting. I started programming like a one and done part and I oriented it to like tab it off. And it's the first time I'd ever really done that. I was like, Oh yeah, this is cool. Oh, I can't wait to break this part off. And just, you know, how much clearance do you leave between the vice and the bottom of the part when you're tapping it off?
00:37:46
Speaker
Usually, I have more clearance because you benefit from having, say, an extra quarter inch or three-eighths of an inch to have tool clearances. If I'm doing aluminum or even steel, the material cost is negligible. It's not production.
00:38:05
Speaker
I mean, clearance is clearance. At this point, I frankly trust Fusion and the tool heights and so forth and certainly would trust Camplete so long as you've got your stuff modeled correctly.
00:38:21
Speaker
Uh, finished off with a quarter inch tool. That's what I was thinking for tabbing. Yeah, for tapping. Yeah. We've used, um, we have some of the helical relief shanks. Uh, we haven't been, we haven't been quarter, three eighths and half inch. They're useful for, for, for a variety of things. But like we do actually just yesterday, I was running the V8 engine block.
00:38:42
Speaker
is that's the part we use in the five axis class tomorrow. And we quote, unquote tab it off with a super deep slot from each end. And it works great for keeping it rigid, but giving you the reach. Nice. And that, and that happens pretty close to the vice jaws. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I have any relief shank tools. I've never needed it. Yeah. But, uh, you have a saw too. Not really.
00:39:07
Speaker
Okay. You look at the only ones that we've used are the ones from Mari tool and they've been great. Cool. And you'll use that for tapping off a lot of times.
00:39:17
Speaker
We have, we've definitely used it. We're using some of the egress parts. I'm actually just put together yesterday kind of a list of what I'd want to show in a beginner's guide to tabbing off parts, because there's a simple way of just when you're still going to opt to it, but you just want a good datum. And then there's more complicated ways of doing. That'd be really helpful, like video. Right. Thin tabs, tabs that are along a triangular plane, so it gives you part stability, using slitting saws, all that stuff.
00:39:47
Speaker
And again, that's just experience, both your experience and like all your buddy's experience that you've accumulated. That's what you do, man. You accumulate all this information and you're one of the best at sharing it. So from all of us out in the world, I appreciate you. Thank you. Well, on that note, I've got to go help my kids get on the bus this morning. So I got to run. Sounds great. Have a good day. I'll see you. You too, bud. Thanks. Bye.
00:40:11
Speaker
Each week on the Business of Machining podcast, we ask viewers to send in an audio clip of how the Business of Machining podcast has affected or helped them. Here's this week's viewer.
Inspiration from Ken Graham
00:40:25
Speaker
Hi, my name is Ken Graham from Adelaide, South Australia. I'm the director of a company that's a mix between a contractor and a tech startup called Make Tech Proprietch Limited. Thanks, Saunders and Grimsmoe, for sharing your inspirational stories through this unique and interesting podcast.
00:40:40
Speaker
I would say the most significant takeaway for me and others with this podcast would be the effect it has on the perception of my own abilities and potential. Once you see someone else do something, your mind can accept that it is possible for you to do it too. Grimsme with his bike trials experience may recall when someone did the first backflip on a motorcycle in 1991
00:41:01
Speaker
And now it's very common, similar with running the 4-minute mile. With manufacturing we've seen the experts and mainstream media prove wrong throughout history with the success of incandescent light globes, automobiles and personal computers, all originally condemned as bad ideas.
00:41:19
Speaker
So if you ever have doubt about what you can achieve, think about that and look at how these guys have grown their companies from basically nothing. As well as being entertaining and educational with life hacks and various gems of information, this podcast delves deeply into two entrepreneurs' stories and shows how a lot of hard work over a long time can create some very tangible, real success. This has definitely been a source of inspiration for me.
00:41:44
Speaker
If you're interested in seeing some of my projects I'm working on, like my robotic camera system, you can find me on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. Just search for Make Tech Proprietch Limited. Keep up the great work, John John, and help inspire people to do metaphoric motorcycle backflips. Thanks guys.