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#392 Hardmilling puckchucks on Okuma
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TOPICS:
- Hardmilling puckchucks on Okuma
- Heat treating ovens
- Fjell pocket clip success!
- Prusa new printers
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Transcript
Introduction: Meet the Hosts
00:00:01
John S
Good afternoon. Welcome to the business of ma machine episode number 392. My name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And my name is John Grimsmo.
The Resurgence of Podcasts
00:00:10
John S
My wife laugh laughed at me last night and said, that person has a podcast. And I'm like, we are the OG podcast before podcasts were cool.
00:00:18
johngrimsmo
e Do you remember when podcasts were a thing like in 2005 or something?
00:00:18
John S
Um, but John and I talked
00:00:22
johngrimsmo
And then they died.
00:00:25
John S
So I listened big time to a one called Formula Pod. There were these two guys talking about Formula One. I bought the t-shirt and everything, and you're
Nostalgia and Personal Reflections
00:00:33
John S
just ex exactly right. It was literally like 06, I think, was when they were on.
00:00:35
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:00:37
John S
Yeah. The old iTunes.
00:00:38
johngrimsmo
And now they're now past, you know, five, eight years or so they've been big again.
00:00:43
John S
Yeah.
00:00:43
johngrimsmo
It's cool.
00:00:44
John S
How are you doing?
00:00:45
johngrimsmo
I'm doing awesome.
00:00:47
John S
good
00:00:48
johngrimsmo
I feel like we're making progress. Like we're getting things done. Like, uh, the, the things that do pop up that are annoying are less annoying. And, uh, there's just fun flowing pretty good.
00:00:57
John S
Okay, yep. That's great.
00:01:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:03
John S
Yes, honestly, what did I have? Something something caught me off by surprise Monday. I'll see if I can think of it, because that was a good like, oh, this is this is a ping point.
00:01:13
John S
But um um and we're in a
Innovating with Mechanical Puck Chuck
00:01:17
John S
great mood. We are, I believe, shipping the first um mechanical puck chuck.
00:01:25
John S
Well, yes, it's the first one. It's like what will this you know when you just know it like you just click like I'm sure when you develop Okay, the field of the saga like so we're now um The base is now I'm gonna say 60 Rockwell It might end up being 56 because we might temper it a little more to pull it down the hardest a few points but like it is a hardened a to base that's been surface ground the
00:01:33
johngrimsmo
I had that today. Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:53
johngrimsmo
Because before they were soft.
00:01:55
John S
They were, because and if I'm just being totally honest, the base doesn't have to be hard. um And frankly, the puck doesn't have to be hard, but it's just like, yes, this is how we're doing it. It's so much better.
00:02:08
johngrimsmo
Cause the benefit or the downside of a soft base is if you fat finger your fixture in and you knock it all around down the taper, right? You're going to mess it up.
00:02:17
John S
No, this is the base right here. in the
00:02:21
johngrimsmo
Oh, like the mount mounting base.
00:02:21
John S
and in a pocket is sorry
00:02:23
johngrimsmo
I got you gotcha.
00:02:24
John S
the puck is what goes in it so
00:02:24
johngrimsmo
Gotcha. The base is just a locating fixture.
00:02:26
John S
um the
00:02:27
johngrimsmo
Like, okay.
00:02:28
John S
Yeah. So, but it's just, it's just like, yes, like it's just such a good look, because to be fair, like, like, you know, any idiot could make a $6,000 zero point system, you know, like, that's not our goal here. Our goal is to be very in value the puck oriented is, on a phenomenal product. sorry, the puck is what goes in it. I want to have
00:02:50
johngrimsmo
Mmhmm.
00:02:51
John S
um I want the, it has to have the accuracy and the repeatability, but also not have it be over-engineered for no
Machining Techniques and Tools
00:02:58
John S
reason. So it just all came together. the Wilhelmin, there's one part, I don't have it here at show to you, but it's one larger complicated jaw part, comes off the Wilhelmin. It's A2, it's hardened now. 17.4 pre-hard for this custom screw that actuates that jaw. The bases are A2 and ground, the pucks are
00:03:23
John S
A2, and then hard milled, and that NS tool, ah it is, so we do the outer ring, I call it the donut, so that's the Z datum that your fixture or part will mate to, and then the center part is a um is a taper, a pull-set taper, so it's a dual contact.
00:03:35
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:03:43
John S
application where it's very, it's just very tight tolerance.
00:03:46
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:03:47
John S
It's very difficult. It's not the word I want to use, but you know, to get that and within the correct tolerance, et cetera. And the NS tool that we're using when we machine the donut, which is a flat surface, um we're getting rainbows off of it.
00:04:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I mean, hard milling kind of is just nice, but with the right tool and hard milling.
00:04:07
John S
Oh my God. You've seen this before?
00:04:11
johngrimsmo
Um, I have, but I wouldn't mind a refresher if you want to post a picture or something.
00:04:18
John S
Oh no, I just, what came up, I think because of a Silo's garage video I was watching where he was talking about, I mean, he's the next level, like the diamond turning lathe, but like, apparently when you get to certain levels of flatness, the way the light the light reflects, you start to see mirrors.
00:04:28
johngrimsmo
Oh yeah.
00:04:31
John S
Now, to be clear, these are the faintest of rainbows, not mirrors, rainbows. These are the faintest of rainbows that you could, but you start to realize, oh, wow.
00:04:36
johngrimsmo
Sure, sure. I mean, you created a diffraction grating is what it is.
00:04:42
John S
Okay, thank you.
00:04:43
johngrimsmo
Like a CD is, yeah.
00:04:44
John S
You know better.
00:04:45
johngrimsmo
And I've done a lot of research on this. That's exactly what it is. And the the finish is so fine. your're Your cusp height of this flat surface is literally bending light into colors of rainbows.
00:04:58
John S
Okay, yeah. cause you would We use a
Heat Treatment Exploration
00:05:01
John S
spiral um toolpath because I don't want scallop or...
00:05:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah. You don't want to step over and then move, like 2D Pocket wouldn't do it kind of thing.
00:05:08
John S
There's something I didn't like. Yeah, exactly. I want a continuous toolpath, and and it's it's a patch surface that starts outside, moves inside, so you're you're moving completely in and off this way.
00:05:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah, totally.
00:05:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:05:19
John S
like I love, I'm super happy with the toolpath. um It's fun.
00:05:22
johngrimsmo
And is this a feature you could grind, don't want to, or is it inside? You can't grind it.
00:05:28
John S
The donut would be super simple to grind on our Okamoto, but we would need to purchase a new style grinder, like an ID grinder to do the taper.
00:05:37
johngrimsmo
And you want to do them by the same setup kind of thing and totally yeah, totally fine.
00:05:39
John S
Same setup, same machine. And the from what we're seeing right now, um the the NS tool doing this on the Okuma horizontal is phenomenal. It's awesome.
00:05:52
johngrimsmo
That's awesome. So last week when I talked to you, you hadn't yet tried the hard milling tools. So it's awesome to hear the feedback.
00:05:58
John S
It might not.
00:05:59
johngrimsmo
Um, I still haven't tried mine, but I'm hoping later today I will do that, load them up and hit them.
00:06:04
John S
Yeah.
00:06:06
John S
It was great. i didn't I didn't overthink it. I put it in the four millimeter Rego fix. Didn't measure right now. I probably should have just to see. And then there's speeds and feeds on a two millimeter tool, which is, is that 40 thou?
00:06:20
johngrimsmo
No, it's in 98.
00:06:22
John S
Excuse me.
00:06:22
johngrimsmo
98, though.
00:06:24
John S
Is that right? I i really should be better at it.
00:06:27
johngrimsmo
I'm Canadian, so I have to know both.
00:06:29
John S
You're right, it's 80,000. I apologize.
00:06:31
johngrimsmo
But... 80? So it's 787?
00:06:33
John S
77, yeah.
00:06:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah, okay.
00:06:35
John S
I'm going the other way. um Gosh, it seems like it's bigger than that. It's small, but yeah, no, it's that's it. It's 80,000. With a, I don't know what the taper is on it, bullnose.
00:06:48
John S
We need the same tool to do both for sure, because that makes it far easier to isolate variance risk or tolerance risk.
00:06:52
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:06:56
John S
Um, but it's 15,000. It's all the RPMs and we're, I mean, these are machined. Then he treated with only a net, a few thou extra. So it's not doing that much cutting air blast.
00:07:08
John S
But my point was first, first go was rainbows. Like it wasn't like I had to spend time walking this in so far.
00:07:14
johngrimsmo
So you are air blasting, not coolant?
00:07:16
John S
Airblasting.
00:07:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:17
John S
Correct.
00:07:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I think I will probably end up using coolant against recommendations, because I don't <unk> even know if this video has an air blast.
00:07:19
John S
Yeah.
00:07:28
johngrimsmo
I don't know.
00:07:28
John S
I would just do it dry.
00:07:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I just don't want the chips to get in the way and recut, and that's bad.
00:07:34
John S
Put a tape and air gun to it like a hair.
00:07:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:37
John S
I mean, I don't know. I hate to perpetuate what could be an urban wive tale about like cool of shocking, but.
00:07:45
johngrimsmo
Sure. But maybe it's a real, like it's clearly a real thing because it's been talked about so much.
00:07:51
John S
Yeah.
00:07:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:07:55
John S
It's it's freaking it's awesome, though.
00:07:57
johngrimsmo
I could rig up air through spindle and have a through spindle, like the collet with the slits in it and, you know, come down the side of the collet, but I don't currently have that.
00:08:01
John S
Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, they work great.
00:08:07
johngrimsmo
So I need to add some solenoids and stuff to this video, make it happen.
00:08:10
John S
Okay.
00:08:12
johngrimsmo
But it would be a nice thing to have.
00:08:14
John S
The other kind of fun thing on that topic is I have not done nearly as much hard grinding. Most of the stuff that we've been grinding is 30 Rockwell.
00:08:24
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:08:24
John S
you minimal grinding experience. Like I don't run the grinder that often, but I never run it enough to now know that when you grind 60 Rockwell, you absolutely hear the difference in the wheel and how it cuts and sounds and performs.
00:08:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Does it sing more than like?
00:08:39
John S
I don't know how to say it. It's just like, Oh yeah, that's a lot harder.
00:08:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:42
John S
Like you just hear it. It's like a sharper, crisper cut sound.
00:08:45
johngrimsmo
It's cool.
00:08:46
John S
It's cool though. And it looks beautiful.
00:08:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, we also don't hard mill. oh Maybe the guys are hard milling the blades now after we treat, help get that last few thou of warp out. But yeah, for the most part, we grind soft, all the blades soft.
00:09:04
John S
Okay, just to get to size.
00:09:06
johngrimsmo
yeah From raw stock down to 2.7, whatever, and then we do all the machining there, and then we used to lap them down to 1.25.
00:09:08
John S
That's right. Yeah.
00:09:13
johngrimsmo
Now I think we grind them down to 1.255 and then lap the last time.
00:09:18
John S
Sure. So that's my next, I don't want to ha hog the conversation, but the um our plan right now is to get about 120
00:09:25
johngrimsmo
Now, please.
00:09:33
John S
ah Half automatics or pneumatics half manuals machine here and off to a proper heat reader. The one in Pennsylvania, but we, this will probably be solar.
00:09:44
johngrimsmo
Peters?
00:09:46
johngrimsmo
Solar, yeah.
00:09:47
John S
But yeah. um and those will be ah vacuum heat treated but air tempered and so they won't be bright they will but they will probably have a gold or it'll be a homogenous and beautiful patina but it it will not be the benefit of a vacuum temper is you get it doesn't even you can't even tell it's been heat treated but it's very expensive because for six for four to seven hours it has to be in a recirculating gas purge system which I did it's
00:09:57
johngrimsmo
purple or something. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:14
johngrimsmo
Did you price it out? Yeah. Could you share like all parks?
00:10:18
John S
Yeah. Well, I'm getting like frustratingly wild variances on quotes, but for a 150 to 250 pound, you know, milk carton creative parts or whatever you want to put have them so you can fit in that. Um, so you call the size of two basketballs, I think, or something like that. Um, 1200 to $1,500.
00:10:40
johngrimsmo
Compared to...
00:10:41
John S
just doing a vacuum heat treat and air temper is like 10% of that, like 200 bucks.
00:10:48
johngrimsmo
Whoa, yeah.
00:10:50
John S
um
00:10:50
johngrimsmo
So like, it's one of those things that if you need it, you're paying for it. It's available, but...
00:10:55
John S
Yeah, I also was like, why don't I just get a quote on the oven?
00:10:58
johngrimsmo
Mm
00:11:00
John S
The solar also makes ovens. I and actually don't know chicken or the egg there.
00:11:03
johngrimsmo
-hmm.
00:11:05
John S
Like it's very Kern-esque, like,
00:11:07
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah, I have researched vacuum ovens quite a bit.
00:11:07
John S
um
00:11:10
johngrimsmo
um do you Do you have a ballpark price of what do you think they cost?
00:11:13
John S
Sure do, sure do.
00:11:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:11:16
John S
um It was started with a three and was closer to a four.
00:11:24
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah
00:11:25
John S
Holy, like with automation, bro, like, yeah.
00:11:25
johngrimsmo
it's It's like ah five-axis pricing here. Yeah, exactly. um Yeah. great and And I mean, we heat treat every day at the guys run the ovens all day.
00:11:37
johngrimsmo
We just have the, you know, $2,000, even heat ovens. I think we have three of them. And I've definitely priced out, um, you know, big vacuum ovens, even the smallest ones they make.
00:11:37
John S
Yeah.
00:11:47
johngrimsmo
I'm like, I don't need a big one.
00:11:48
John S
Yeah.
00:11:48
johngrimsmo
Give me a 18 by 18 work zone. And there's still hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I'm like, I just can't plus the cost of nitrogen or consumables or whatever.
00:11:59
johngrimsmo
And you need.
00:12:01
John S
So that's nothing though.
00:12:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:02
John S
I don't know the the power to run it would not be free. And Spencer, I was brainstorming this with Spencer Webb and he was sort of aptly pointed out like you need to be conscious of the load, the power requirements for something like that.
00:12:13
John S
Cause it truly is like it would be the the heaviest power consumer.
00:12:13
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:12:17
John S
I assume even more than an air compressor cause it's converting electricity into heat period.
00:12:21
johngrimsmo
However, the cool thing with a vacuum oven is you're removing all the oxygen inside. So the energy required to heat the space of nothingness is a lot less.
00:12:29
John S
Is that right?
00:12:30
johngrimsmo
I think my um science teacher friend was explaining to me, he's like, yeah, there's no molecules inside anymore.
00:12:31
John S
Hmm.
00:12:36
johngrimsmo
So all the heat just hits the part and that's it.
00:12:36
John S
Huh.
00:12:38
johngrimsmo
You're not trying to heat up the air and the part. um
Production Scalability Challenges
00:12:43
johngrimsmo
But yeah.
00:12:43
John S
The sales rep was like, look, to the gas cost to run a cycle. These are very like broad scope numbers. But I want to share them because I went i went through the process because I was like, I'm not going to feel bad about asking because honestly, if it was if you took instead of you know if you took a digit off that, if it was $70,000, I probably would have
00:12:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Sure. Please. it I haven't actually talked to them. I just. Yeah.
00:13:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah. You'd think about it like agreed.
00:13:07
John S
Because I'm in the stage now where where I care about margin on the product. What do I need to price that at to scale this up? What if we need to make a thousand of these things a year? What if we need to make a thousand a month? What does the margin look like?
00:13:18
John S
What is the batching up of making hundreds of them, putting them in freight boxes, LTL freighting them to somewhere two days, waiting 10 days, coming back very different than you just walk them to the oven and that's next to the machine and they're done in 12 hours.
00:13:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:13:36
John S
um But I'm also, even for our R and&D, I'm really trying to get away from the foil because it's expensive, it's pain in the butt, it just is.
00:13:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:13:47
John S
And so I have an argon kit coming for the one we have, which will totally solve the heat treat ah problem because it will purge the atmosphere from there.
00:13:58
John S
But for air quenching steels, you're still gonna air quench it in atmosphere, which means there so will be some scale. I talked to a guy who has one.
00:14:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I'm curious.
00:14:06
John S
He's like, the scale is there, but it's so much easier to just flake off or fall off.
00:14:10
johngrimsmo
In a way.
00:14:11
John S
So I'll keep you posted because the heat the Argon kit was cheap now.
00:14:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:14:18
John S
Argon is not inexpensive, but um again, this guy was sort of saying that he spends 90 bucks every 45 days and he's running his oven six days a week.
00:14:24
johngrimsmo
In a
00:14:27
John S
So it's like, oh, that's that's nothing, yeah.
00:14:27
johngrimsmo
way, yes, nothing. Yeah. Interesting. You guys don't cryo treat them. You don't need to do that.
00:14:36
John S
I don't know.
00:14:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:39
John S
But like, i the thing is I also feel like the solar oven is a current and I need a, I'm okay with a clapped out BF2.
00:14:39
johngrimsmo
For your your purpose.
00:14:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Right. Right.
00:14:47
John S
Like I don't need, I don't need a current for the heat treat.
00:14:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I found. I think I found some Italian company that was quite a bit cheaper than the solar, but still not under a hundred thousand.
00:14:56
John S
Okay.
00:14:57
johngrimsmo
And, uh, it's hard to find. There's, um, at least one company in Toronto that manufacturers these two, but they were again, three, $400,000 and I'm like, Ah, it's just.
00:15:05
John S
Yeah, better work. But like the the way I envision this going, it will be high four figures, if not five figures per year in freight costs alone for heat treat.
00:15:15
johngrimsmo
Freight alone.
00:15:16
John S
Sure, it's 400 bucks round trip um for two to 500 pound pallet.
00:15:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:15:22
John S
So I will happily take the trade off of a capital investment to to better improve process, control it, blah, blah, blah.
00:15:23
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:15:33
John S
But um yeah, that doesn't work.
00:15:33
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yeah, and we are using the laser welded bags we get from what it's called back back 95 or something like that backpack.
00:15:41
John S
Oh, yeah.
00:15:43
johngrimsmo
But they're like $4 each. And we go through them every single day one time use.
00:15:49
John S
Yeah.
00:15:49
johngrimsmo
um We spent 1000 dollars i don't know a month or a year or something, many um on them, but that's what we need. That does the job.
00:15:58
John S
Yeah, i'm I'm not okay with that. like are The puck chuck is so significantly larger than a knife blade, and so the bags that I priced out were $11 per puck chuck.
00:16:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:16:09
John S
That's, I mean, oh yeah, i mean that's significant relative to the cost of the actual material.
00:16:10
johngrimsmo
It's a lot of money.
00:16:13
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:16:17
John S
so
00:16:18
johngrimsmo
I mean, it sounds like to do what you want. If if you want any of it hard, you're either investing in an oven or you're outsourcing the heat treat and spending lots of money either way.
00:16:27
John S
Yeah, and the obvious answer is you outsource now and that's fine. um And you sacrifice some margin, but know that long-term you may have other options.
00:16:38
johngrimsmo
Okay. I get get this group by on an oven. and anyway
00:16:42
John S
Well, that was Spencer's point was like, would you want to start doing heat treat job shop work for others? And no, I don't.
00:16:50
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I've got a hard no on that too.
00:16:52
John S
Yeah, so yeah.
00:16:55
johngrimsmo
Because I mean, what is $150 for like a ah hundred pounds of material is kind of a the cost that they charge. Like, how do you make money doing that? How do you buy a $400,000 oven doing that?
00:17:08
John S
That's actually a great point.
00:17:09
johngrimsmo
Right?
00:17:10
John S
Right, right. I mean, you just look at the, so 400,000, so let's do the math live here. $400,000, let's say you want a 15% ROI on that machine, which is I think too low, but nevertheless, $60,000 divided by 250 working days, you need to, oh, that means you only need to profit $240 a day of working day to get A $60,000 ROI, but that's not enough.
00:17:35
John S
Cause that doesn't, that ROI doesn't, I would argue needs to go above and beyond the depreciation of it. Plus the operating costs.
00:17:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:17:41
John S
Plus that's what you need to make profit wise, not just revenue.
00:17:45
johngrimsmo
who
00:17:45
John S
Um, but yeah.
00:17:49
John S
Yeah.
00:17:49
johngrimsmo
Cool. And the thing with heat treat, especially as a job shop is every material needs a different temperature cycle. So you can't mix everything. You can make similar materials, but I don't know.
00:17:59
John S
yeah What I was trying to figure out is how, is there not a way that I can do it a air safely, do an air quench without exposing the part to to atmosphere or oxygen?
00:18:14
johngrimsmo
Oxygen. Yeah, yeah.
00:18:15
John S
and too um I had to brush up a lot on this, which I'd known this, well, doesn't matter. I'd brush up a lot, so for the sake of anyone who's not sure, I'm gonna explain it like I'm five.
00:18:25
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:18:26
John S
You take a piece of A2, you machine it, now you put it in the heat treat oven, That oven has um oxygen. In your case, we put it in foil bags. The stainless steel itself will actually absorb the oxygen or eat the oxygen as soon as it starts to heat up. So that, for all intents and purposes, removes the oxygen from that environment.
00:18:46
johngrimsmo
inside the bag.
00:18:47
John S
inside the bag, heat it up to, for us, 700 degrees, approximately two hours, your parts, 700 degrees, and then you take it out and you now need to air quench it, which means you need to cool it back down to about 100 degrees, round numbers, quickly. Now, quickly for us is like 20 or 30 minutes. We're an oil hardening material, you're dunking it in oil and it's quenched in seconds.
00:19:09
John S
um and then you have to temper it and it's the temper where you actually determine the sort of final hardness and so we're tempering slightly higher temperature and maybe longer to bring it down to say 56 because 56 has a lot more toughness less brittle than say 60 and it's still does what we needed to do from a hardness standpoint.
00:19:36
John S
This is all subject to like tweaking or refinement.
00:19:37
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:19:38
John S
um But the point there on the temper is that if you just temper it at 400 degrees, it'll be 60 Rockwell. If you temper it at 800 degrees, it'll be 56 Rockwell. But as you start to move above 600, 700, 800 degrees, you so run into the atmosphere scale issue again.
00:19:50
johngrimsmo
Oh.
00:19:55
John S
And so a vacuum oven will use argon or actually use nitrogen I think to purge out the oxygen so then it can do the it can do the heat.
00:20:06
John S
treat And then when it switches to the quench, it can start in the same oven body. It can start circulating nitrogen through the oven that gets recirculated through a closed-loop system that also cools the nitrogen back down. So it's quenching in the same spot. And then again, it can start doing the temper and temper it without, again, ever exposing it to atmosphere, which is really cool.
00:20:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, so the all cycles are done by the time you pull the part out.
00:20:32
John S
Yeah, without touching without touching it, which is like a huge part of the kind of automation side of that.
00:20:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:20:35
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
Designing for Functionality and Aesthetics
00:20:43
johngrimsmo
One theory I had, or I forget if I read it somewhere or something, but imagine putting your entire oven in a bathtub and filling it with a heavier ah gas, like argon or whatever's heavier than air.
00:20:54
johngrimsmo
And then now you have this, you know, inert chamber, ah not just purging in the tank, but once you pull the blade out or the thing out, I don't know if that would even realistically work.
00:21:01
John S
Yeah.
00:21:04
John S
So the answer is no, it doesn't because of like legitimate safety and practical issues, safety, even if I'm doing it alone in my like private shop, but let alone in like a actual place of work, because that's what I was thinking about.
00:21:11
johngrimsmo
For sure.
00:21:18
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:21:21
John S
Can you not build a big Argon like that or chamber, but you've got to take a part, pull it out of an oven that's 700 degrees. You've got to then recirculate this gas.
00:21:31
John S
This is just like hard no on the DIY idea. But what made me think of it was hearing TIG welders who will build little argon. What do they call it? Little bubbles of argon and they can TIG weld without purge gas because the part is in a argon.
00:21:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, in the inner atmosphere, yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:21:48
John S
um Yeah, it's super cool.
00:21:54
John S
Yeah, it's fun.
00:21:54
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:21:55
John S
I'm enjoying it.
00:21:55
johngrimsmo
It is fun. Yep.
00:22:00
John S
Yeah. What do you want to do? You had said you had a good moment. It's coming together.
00:22:06
johngrimsmo
um Yeah, so I've been working the past week on our Fjell clip. I'm trying to make a screwless clip that just clips onto the knife and The big thing I've been trying to avoid is the wiggle because machine tolerances need gap to go together.
00:22:19
John S
Yeah.
00:22:24
johngrimsmo
um And when I have two straight sliding joints, like everything's perfectly square to each other, then your sliding clearance is a tolerance.
00:22:36
johngrimsmo
And since the length of the clip, call it two inches to the width of the attachment joint, call it a quarter of an inch. That length diameter ratio is such a big leverage.
00:22:47
John S
Yes, sure.
00:22:48
johngrimsmo
So like two tenths of sliding clearance equals many thou of wiggle at the tip. And you just feel it. It just bugs me. It drives me crazy. And so I had a revelation and I filmed this all in The Knife Making Tuesday that I'm almost done with.
00:23:04
johngrimsmo
um You and a bunch of people online have kept mentioning a taper fit in a way.
00:23:05
John S
Yeah.
00:23:12
johngrimsmo
And I got to say, I heard it wrong every single time. I misunderstood. And maybe not every person, you know, implied it the same way.
00:23:17
John S
Colors.
00:23:20
johngrimsmo
I was thinking dovetail, right? But with a straight dovetail, it, there's still the sliding clearances.
00:23:22
John S
No.
00:23:26
johngrimsmo
There's still the gap and all that.
00:23:27
John S
Right.
00:23:28
johngrimsmo
But when you have two tapers that mate, they just get tighter and tighter until they touch.
00:23:32
John S
That's not, yeah, it's just Cat Forest middle.
00:23:33
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:23:35
johngrimsmo
And I heard it wrong. Every time somebody says it, I saw dovetail in my head and I'm like, no, that's not going to work.
00:23:36
John S
That's fine.
00:23:40
johngrimsmo
So.
00:23:40
John S
sorry To your credit, one of the ideas I threw out was a gun sight analogy, which is effectively an interference-fit dovetail where you're just like deforming and and screwing it up.
00:23:50
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:23:53
johngrimsmo
Okay, yeah but they are straight sliding surfaces, right?
00:23:53
John S
but
00:23:59
John S
Yeah, it's not a good, it's the only way it works is if it's one thou too small, it's just gonna fall out. And if it's two thou too big, you'll never get it in. So it's a it's not, you're actually hammering it in there and deforming it, not great.
00:24:06
johngrimsmo
Got it.
00:24:09
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, because a bunch of people suggested that too, but I want to make a wedge pretty much.
00:24:10
John S
But you, sorry, you wanna just taper it in. Yeah.
00:24:15
johngrimsmo
um So I was able to tweak the designs to instead of having everything be, you know, the the walls be parallel to each other, they're tilted out. I started with 1.5 degrees.
00:24:26
johngrimsmo
And then, so I had to make a full handle. I had to make a full clip, change all these tolerances, which broke all my cam and had to redo everything.
00:24:32
John S
Oh.
00:24:33
johngrimsmo
Um, so I spent a lot of hours the past week doing this. So I tried this 1.5 degree and then I did some math and go, okay, two thou operating or two tenths operating tolerances, like plus or minus whatever, what is that equal to an in and out distance on this one and a half degree wedge?
00:24:51
johngrimsmo
And it's like two tenths is seven thou.
00:24:54
John S
You have to smile.
00:24:55
johngrimsmo
ah it's so It's so much. So I made a couple of those. It got them to work pretty good. And then I was like, but that operating tolerance is way too tight.
00:25:05
johngrimsmo
So what if I do a five degree, um, included angle, you know, wedge. And then the whole reason I was avoiding doing a wedge is because how on earth do you measure a taper that's sizes of a quarter of an inch, um, without a CMM or fancy, fancy stuff.
00:25:22
John S
Just pins.
00:25:23
johngrimsmo
Like you can't just make it.
00:25:25
John S
Here you go.
00:25:26
johngrimsmo
And it's too small.
00:25:28
John S
Bunka.
00:25:29
johngrimsmo
um So that's one of the reasons I was avoiding it. And then so I made it anyway, I made the 1.5, made the five degree, liked it, but couldn't have a good way to measure it easily, like with gauge pins or with mics or something like that.
00:25:42
johngrimsmo
And then I realized I could actually turn one of those features into a straight lines and the locating slot be a five to degree taper. So now I can actually have something to measure that's two parallel lines.
00:25:51
John S
Okay.
00:25:53
johngrimsmo
So I can just mic it. And same finishing tool does that as does the taper and everything's starting to click together and everything's starting to work. And, uh, I still have to hold about two or three tenths tolerance to to get it to work every time, but I think I can do it.
00:26:07
johngrimsmo
And then just today, finally made another clip and I put it together and I'm like, oh yes, oh baby, it works so well.
00:26:15
John S
Oh, does it work? Okay.
00:26:19
johngrimsmo
And then I had a couple of guys around the shop do it and there is absolutely no wiggle and absolutely positive engagement. And it lines up perfectly with the outside and everything's really clicking together.
00:26:30
johngrimsmo
It's like, it comes, it comes apart somewhat easily.
00:26:30
John S
And it comes apart though, too. Sweet. Okay.
00:26:34
johngrimsmo
Um, it's, it's just past, like you can use your thumb to pop it out. So I've got a little Delrin rod that I'm kind of hammering it out with, which I'm kind of fine with for now.
00:26:40
John S
Yeah.
00:26:44
johngrimsmo
um One of the guys was able to push it out with his thumbs, just the way he was holding it. But that's kind of where I want. I don't really want it to come out easily, but it needs to be able to come out.
00:26:51
John S
Yeah. Right.
00:26:53
johngrimsmo
um So I think I got it. I think it's perfect.
00:26:56
John S
Well, that was going to be my, like, again, kind of going back to the crux of why you and I have these conversations. It's not to high five each other. It's like the, what do you need to hear? And I think what you need to hear right now is you need to put a damp screw in the thing and start selling feels, knowing that you can parallel process whatever you want to make it better later, because you will always be making stuff better and you'll always be improving it, but make it better after you've sold six figures worth of fields that
Balancing Product Launch and Perfectionism
00:27:24
John S
people are going to love. And I do not care one second if it has a screw versus a taper fit. Because I got one of the early ones like it's okay. um Because you just got to you just gotta got to you got to move on and then but you can keep you can keep experimenting.
00:27:41
johngrimsmo
ah Too late.
00:27:42
John S
Great. No, that you it's your call.
00:27:43
johngrimsmo
You're right.
00:27:43
John S
ah Great.
00:27:45
johngrimsmo
um Yeah. And what's funny is I just today I was showing one of the guys when we were finishing guys, like a field clip made on the Willyman and a rasp clip made on the current.
00:27:56
johngrimsmo
And i I haven't put them side by side since I started making them. And we've dialed in the rasp clips, they just work. um Same smooth surface on the outside, so it's a contour that's fully 3D machined.
00:28:08
johngrimsmo
And it looks amazing. And then I hold the fail clip next to it, side by side. And the fail doesn't, like machining wise, it doesn't look as good. Made on the Wilhelmin from bar stock. It's like hanging out in air, it vibrates a little bit more, things like that.
00:28:20
John S
yeah
00:28:22
johngrimsmo
And I held them side by side and they look almost identical. And I'm like, why didn't I just make this on the current?
00:28:28
John S
Oh.
00:28:29
johngrimsmo
Cause I, my brain says, I want to do this on the Wilhelmin. I can do it on the Wilhelmin.
00:28:32
John S
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:33
johngrimsmo
I want to make it from bar. It's kind of why I bought the Wilhelmin is to make these clips. Um, exactly.
00:28:38
John S
And you're trying to free up current spindle time. So yeah, wouldn't beat yourself up.
00:28:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah, absolutely. So like no complaints, but this morning I had that revelation.
00:28:44
John S
Yeah.
00:28:45
johngrimsmo
I'm like, these are the same size. They look the same. They have different attachments. Not that the current can't do it, but, um, but yeah.
00:28:52
John S
There's literally no turning on it.
00:28:54
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:28:54
John S
That's funny.
00:28:55
johngrimsmo
A hundred percent milling.
00:28:55
John S
That's hilarious.
00:28:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:28:56
John S
Yeah, it's really funny.
00:28:57
johngrimsmo
And it works great now.
00:29:00
John S
That's great.
00:29:00
johngrimsmo
So it's really, really good.
00:29:03
John S
Good. What if your taper gives you fits? Cause holding two tents on every part all day long is no small joke.
00:29:10
johngrimsmo
Yeah. No.
00:29:11
John S
Put a screw in the thing and sell these things. People want them. And then I can tell you right now, you look at him me, you hate what I'm saying.
00:29:18
johngrimsmo
I do, because i I couldn't think of a good, clean way to even add a screw. um Because with the RASK and the Norseman, we always had the screws come from the inside of the handle, from the backside.
00:29:23
John S
That's fair.
00:29:28
John S
Yeah, right.
00:29:29
johngrimsmo
And the feel is an integral. you do it There is no inside. You can't access it without creating a sight hole on the other side. Which you could do.
00:29:38
John S
Yeah. Even I'm like, Oh, that's, that's kind of, yeah.
00:29:39
johngrimsmo
Right? like So there's always like all these plus and minuses to doing everything.
00:29:40
John S
Yeah. I hear you.
00:29:44
johngrimsmo
and I've even gone down deep rabbit holes of like, Oh, that'll work great. And then I don't get to the end of the thinking process. And I'm like, Oh, obviously that's why I dismissed this early on. And it's just not gonna work.
00:29:56
John S
Mm-hmm. Yes, sir.
00:29:58
johngrimsmo
But Anyway, this knife is going to be more expensive for us. And, uh, like we're going to sell it for more money and, uh, it's, it's leveled up. It's pretty cool to be able to, uh, flex a little bit and see what we can do, but it obviously has to be manufacturable and it has to be, I need to be able to hand this off to the team and be like, all right, good luck.
00:30:17
John S
Yeah.
00:30:17
johngrimsmo
Um, and that's, I'm trying to plan everything for that.
00:30:21
John S
Yeah. No greed.
00:30:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:30:24
John S
That's why the same thing we've been focusing on with the puck. Chuck was, you know, we've sold, I mean, frankly, very few relative to the rest of our product line to date, but I have.
00:30:36
John S
I'm willing to bet on it. Like I have a huge degree of confidence and it's also a pretty inexpensive bet because we we don't have to bet the farm to to do more with it. But I will probably, it's kind of this weird workflow where, sorry, I'm trying to turn my lights back on. um I will probably, we will make the next hundred here. Then I'll probably actually outsource the,
00:30:57
John S
pre-heat treat rough machining on the parts that aren't great fits for us right now. But what the nice thing is that we're outsourcing some machining, but we're still going to then do the heat treating. We'll still do the final machining, final grind, et cetera.
00:31:11
John S
And then if it if it works out, like I think it will, no question, we'll bring that back in-house. But it's kind of this weird process of like in, out, in, out, whatever.
00:31:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. I mean, right now you're in, you're just past prototype phase, I'd say. You're in nearing production phase, but you to do that, you want to be able to make it all yourself because you're iterating so fast and you're making tweaks.
00:31:30
John S
Yeah.
00:31:31
johngrimsmo
And I'm like, I want to be able to make that, even if it's not efficient, even if it's not the best way to do it, the best machine, whatever, whatever.
00:31:39
John S
But at some point, you also have to just stop and say, am I ever gonna make this product, release it, and is it okay? you know we Look, even the automatic ones, we've we've we've improved it already.
00:31:50
John S
I have no qualms about the folks that are already using the and what is now prior Rev, and we've had no complaints either, like so no news is good news.
00:32:00
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:32:00
John S
um So do I wish they all had the new version? Yeah, sure, like but but that's part of life.
00:32:06
johngrimsmo
But. Yeah, exactly. Are they cross compatible?
00:32:09
John S
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally.
00:32:12
johngrimsmo
Perfect.
00:32:12
John S
Yeah.
00:32:14
johngrimsmo
And that's that's where it gets tricky is to create a baseline where you're like, um here's the design language of this part to make them all cross compatible. No matter what we tweak, we're going to make it better and better, but we still, not that it needs to be cross compatible, but you know, all your post dots are the same.
00:32:25
John S
Yeah.
00:32:31
John S
Yeah.
00:32:32
johngrimsmo
You know, the the base changes kind of thing, even the the material or the tolerances or chamfers or whatever, the post that might change over time, but for the most part, it's like the same part.
00:32:40
John S
Yeah.
00:32:41
johngrimsmo
And are you rev numbering each iteration?
00:32:44
John S
They're red numbered. the That is not laser onto the part, but we know, we know for other reasons, I think, but who has what, if you will.
00:32:51
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:32:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's something every, every part I'm making on the field is rev number, then it's been absolutely wonderful.
00:33:00
John S
Yeah, all right.
00:33:01
johngrimsmo
Not not necessarily serialized, but rev numbered, like V 3.01, 3.02.
00:33:03
John S
Yeah.
00:33:06
johngrimsmo
I make a change, tab it in my spreadsheet. And, uh, it's awesome. Cause now I have like 10 clips on my desk and I'm like, Oh, which one's switch go to my spreadsheet and be like, Oh, that's what I changed. That's what I changed. Yep.
00:33:17
John S
Well, that's what Alex and I were talking about this morning. I was like, hey, we need to actually go out of our way to either throw away or like box up all of the stuff that we've been doing over the past two, three months.
00:33:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:33:27
John S
Cause at this point it's just noise and it's just going to cause a problem. Like get it out of here. Um, period.
00:33:33
johngrimsmo
Yeah, kind of the deep and inside your brain goes, yeah, but it could still be put together as like a, you know, shop use or like for me, like personal knife or something like that, which is totally true.
00:33:39
John S
Yeah.
00:33:42
johngrimsmo
um But I have, I have handles and clips that don't intermatch because I keep changing the taper of this interference fit and all this stuff.
00:33:50
John S
Yeah.
00:33:51
johngrimsmo
So I have some that work and some that don't and new and old and changing. And I'm trying to create this stable standard that just works every time.
00:33:54
John S
Yep.
00:33:59
John S
You were talking about um cross compatibility
Market Evolution and Innovation
00:34:02
John S
randomly. Did you see the new Prusa printer?
00:34:05
johngrimsmo
No.
00:34:06
John S
I did the YouTube algo got me I saw it and I was like, okay I'll click on this like I'm reading not even reading between the lines is clearly their response to bamboo Which you know, I would sort of say as a consumer of 3d printers like as a buyer of them But not as an expert, you know, they move blindsided everybody including Prusa and um you know, we were ah I think like many we were on the list We'd put a $200 deposit down to buy that new Prusa that just became irrelevant.
00:34:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:34:30
johngrimsmo
The big one.
00:34:31
John S
Yeah whatever um and
00:34:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah, like right before the bamboo even came out.
00:34:36
John S
Frankly, no regrets. I mean, we love our bamboos, but this is the direct rebuttal to the bamboo, but they...
00:34:40
johngrimsmo
It's, it's not the Delta, is it?
00:34:41
John S
Hold on, let me...
00:34:43
johngrimsmo
I saw they posted something about the Delta printer.
00:34:44
John S
Yeah, I think that's what it is. A Corex, wait, Prusa...
00:34:46
johngrimsmo
Okay. Would like the three arms that come down and.
00:34:49
John S
No, no, no, no, it's not that. It's a Corex Y.
00:34:51
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:34:53
John S
um the The video literally came out on Tuesday of this week.
00:34:53
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:34:59
johngrimsmo
I don't even think I've been on YouTube since then.
00:35:01
John S
Wow, good for you, but it's...
00:35:03
johngrimsmo
I know, yeah, I've been other stuff.
00:35:05
John S
and Look, it's similar. There were some interesting tidbits. I don't know what it costs, but it looks about the same size as a bamboo. It holds the filament in a different location.
00:35:14
johngrimsmo
Okay, okay.
00:35:14
John S
It has some more um hackable, like openly hackable IO connectivity. It's open source to some extent. It's got different maintenance perspective, security stuff. So there's some like real bull points on the flip side.
00:35:26
John S
It feels like it's kind of a you know, the cynical side of me is like, oh, we, ah we got, you know, we got out innovated. So now we need to come up with something and then we need to find reasons to make it different or better, which, you know, again, there's some legitimate points to, you know, people.
00:35:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. It's fair. And honestly, this is how industry progresses.
00:35:44
johngrimsmo
If somebody comes out and just blindsides everybody, and then everybody else has to level up and step up um because the Prusa, Mark, whatever had kind of been the same minor tweaks for the longest time.
00:35:44
John S
Yeah, sure.
00:35:52
John S
Right.
00:35:53
johngrimsmo
And it was the standard, the gold standard. And then the bamboo comes out and it's like five times better or whatever.
00:35:56
John S
Yeah.
00:35:59
johngrimsmo
And it's, you know, it's good that they leveled up the entire printing industry, which is impressive as Prusa did in the beginning.
00:36:00
John S
Yeah. Right. we We are all better off for it. Yes.
00:36:07
johngrimsmo
And you can't always be on top, you know, get assume you're always going to be on top.
00:36:10
John S
yeah Yeah. But like, because I'm not, you know, quote unquote don't care about, you know, it's always tough as an entrepreneur to see another entrepreneur get sides, you know, shellacked.
00:36:19
johngrimsmo
Totally.
00:36:22
John S
you know, whatever, but that's kind of my rebuttal to you and me, myself at the puck chuck. Like we have not, we have not, I would not get ourselves an A on execution at the puck chuck. Like it's been a while and the Fiel, you know, I called you out on getting them done for blade show and you, you proved me wrong except how many, bla how many fields have shipped since blade show.
00:36:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:36:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. Big fat zero.
00:36:43
John S
Right, so the point being, um yeah we're in different industries, like there's plenty of zero point competitors and there's plenty of other folders, so it's not like we're gonna be, we aren't in a situation where we could get bamboo'd, but like, um you you sit here and spend the next three months digging around with a clip, you gotta sell these things, you gotta go to market.
00:36:56
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:37:03
johngrimsmo
100% agree with you as, as does everyone else around me.
00:37:06
John S
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, maybe you're hearing a lot of that. I don't i only see this side of you of,
00:37:10
johngrimsmo
I i am. And yeah I am hearing a lot of that both from customers and my wife and my kids like and and the staff around here.
00:37:18
John S
Okay, yeah.
00:37:20
johngrimsmo
And it's totally fine, um which is pushing me to make faster decisions um and then wrap things up sooner.
00:37:25
John S
Yeah.
00:37:28
johngrimsmo
But I still have a level of like, this is my this is this is my my thing, my expression, like my new product. It it needs to be a certain level of awesomeness to i don't prove myself or like have fun with it.
00:37:46
johngrimsmo
um This is not the model that's just like turned out and sent, but i have I have been thinking about doing one of those because honestly, that would be a lot easier than reinventing the entire knife and inventing new ways to mount things and all that stuff.
00:37:51
John S
Yeah, I know. Right.
00:38:02
johngrimsmo
So yeah, maybe maybe the next knife we make will just be like, total variation on the Rask or something like that. We're all the same technology is all the same type of fixtures. I don't have to invent anything.
00:38:10
John S
Right.
00:38:11
johngrimsmo
You're just doing the work. And that would turn around so much faster.
00:38:16
John S
Right. It's hard, right?
00:38:17
johngrimsmo
It is hard.
00:38:18
John S
It's really hard.
00:38:19
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:38:20
John S
I mean, even like to your point, even the few puck chucks, sorry, well, we have, you know, this week we have made two mechanical puck chucks that are absolutely phenomenal, could be used by customer.
00:38:30
John S
I would say I'm behind them all day long. They are just like, I'm so proud of them, but they were like hand assembled. I mean, sorry, done so with automated processes that now will scale, but like I'm doing most of the work or Alex is checking a lot of it or it's not the same as like, hey, there's a work order for 50 of these and they get done and shipped without, me or Alex or who anybody else realizing or knowing.
00:38:42
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah. Totally.
00:38:52
johngrimsmo
Yeah, and and that's what the blade show knives were like, you know, me and I think Skye, we're just hand-assembling, hand-fitting everyone going, okay, these two don't work.
00:38:55
John S
Yeah.
00:38:59
johngrimsmo
Try that blade. Okay, this works better.
00:39:01
John S
Right, right. Which is always, it's also funny because it's like whoever, I think there's a guy who's getting that mechanical puck check already, but like and part of it was like, you're gonna get like, you're gonna get a really, like this is not really nice.
00:39:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:39:15
John S
Yeah, it's all it's I'm excited about it.
00:39:16
johngrimsmo
but But you need to go through that process to know what a good one is. And as we did with Bleicha, we learned and we wrote down, this doesn't work, that works, this blade moved and heat treated.
00:39:27
johngrimsmo
It doesn't clear.
00:39:27
John S
Yeah.
00:39:28
johngrimsmo
it We learned all those things. And it's like, we have to get to that stage with a deadline and then make, we made, uh, almost 10, some of them didn't work.
00:39:39
johngrimsmo
Um, but that gave us enough sample size to know that some things don't work and some things do work.
00:39:42
John S
Yeah.
00:39:44
johngrimsmo
And then, uh, and then now I've had the time taken probably too long past few months to, um, turn all those ideas and many more into a scalable finished product. Yep.
00:39:55
johngrimsmo
But end of the year we're selling for sure.
00:39:59
John S
Great.
00:40:00
johngrimsmo
Yep. Hard milling is kinda, now the the clip I'd say is done, we just have to hold tolerance. um Hard milling is my last thing to try.
00:40:10
John S
Yeah, that's gonna go.
00:40:11
johngrimsmo
Which is, it's gonna take like half a day, like it's gonna be easy.
00:40:11
John S
I mean, it's awesome. Yeah. Which machine is that occurring on?
00:40:16
johngrimsmo
A speedio for now.
00:40:18
John S
Okay, fair enough.
00:40:19
johngrimsmo
I'd probably just stay on the speedio.
00:40:21
John S
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking, for some reason, I was thinking current or willing, but obviously I forget the SBDO.
00:40:25
johngrimsmo
Yep. i
00:40:27
John S
Got it.
00:40:29
John S
Um, can I read through a list of random topics, none of which are particularly meaty, but things I wanted to share with you and the audience, but I just have kind of kept carrying over from notes over time.
Enhancing Operational Efficiency
00:40:42
John S
One is on our VF2, we had a missed system. I think that one is a missed away. um It works, they all work great except we actually didn't notice that there was some ah smoke for lack of a better word or stuff coming out from even from it. And so I went on the website and realized for certain applications, um you want the additional round HEPA filter above or actually.
00:41:07
John S
That's the HEPA filter, the HEPA filter goes in it. But regardless, we bought the, and this way is effectively a box. Now on top of it, we have the um cylinder that's like 12, 18 inches high.
00:41:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:18
John S
And the only time we were getting it missed is we now have a blow off cycle on the VF2 that does a There's a through spindle coolant drill with coolant that for sure washes all the chips off.
00:41:29
John S
Then we had that same tool come through with an air blast. That gets most of the coolant off the parts and then tool changes to a fan and then the fan blows off, but it's nice because the fan is now not blowing huge quantities of sanding coolant because the drill already blew that off.
00:41:43
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:43
John S
um But during that process, there wasn't some mist in the machine, which then was getting out, dumped out into the shop. That um new mist away after filter thing was great. um
00:41:54
johngrimsmo
Do they not have filters in them to begin with? Are they just baffles to like drain the coolant or?
00:41:57
John S
no
00:41:59
John S
Both, they have they have a series of baffles and they have filters, but this is an after filter.
00:42:03
johngrimsmo
A bigger, bigger.
00:42:04
John S
Yeah, I should have pulled the website copy up.
00:42:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Okay.
00:42:06
John S
but It was when I read it, I was like, part of me was like, I didn't really want to buy another thing for them.
00:42:06
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:42:11
John S
I'm like, oh no, this is this is perfect application in this use case.
00:42:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:16
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:42:17
John S
Second thing, totally, slightly off topic, but I realized my house Wi-Fi is now like nine to 10 years old. We used airport extremes for Apple, which have been discontinued. And I bought the TP-Link Deco, actually it was the it was a Linus Tech Tips video review that kind of led me down this path. um It was not cheap, it was like 500 and some bucks for the system, but it was three,
00:42:42
John S
Different really good looking white hubs that mesh network in the house and super easy to put in and my I realized now Just doing the speed test that like I wish I hadn't waited that long We were totally robbing the bend with we pay for by having outdated Wi-Fi like holy cow um so
00:42:54
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:42:59
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:43:02
John S
yeah PSA that like just occurred to me that like, oh man, you blink and some of your so the stuff you bought is now 10 years old oh um and ends up that technology changes a lot.
00:43:10
johngrimsmo
Yup. Hmm, I could see that.
00:43:15
John S
We are starting to put either painters tape or Play-Doh around tools on machines for sure the horizontal, but even a vertical when you're not sure if a tool is no longer being used.
00:43:28
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:43:30
John S
and it's a seemingly fail-safe way to figure out, okay, I'll come back in a month or two or six, and if that Play-Doh or tape is still there, right I might still want to do a couple more checks and make sure it's not a part that we just don't run often, but um yeah, there's a curse of like, tools get left in machines for years because, yeah.
00:43:39
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:43:47
johngrimsmo
Totally. Yup. Interesting. Um, with painters tape, you could even write the data on it.
00:43:54
John S
Yeah, exactly. That's a good point, actually.
00:43:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:58
John S
um
00:43:58
johngrimsmo
On the, on the hideyd height and height and on the current, it actually, there's a column that says last use.
00:44:02
John S
God bless that, yes, I know.
00:44:03
johngrimsmo
So I know down to the second when, and you can sort the whole tool list by that. And it's, it's pretty cool.
00:44:09
John S
I know, right? And then we are two fusion things. i Actually, yeah, two fusion things that I thought were worth sharing. um yeah Jeez, almost two years ago, fusion came out with a new selection where instead of just selecting 2D Contours, there's a selection option where you can do more
00:44:29
johngrimsmo
Mhmm.
00:44:29
John S
list of contours, and it's it's for sure better. One of those that, as an old Fusion user, I kind of resisted was the ability to pick faces to drive things like champers. So, on our ShrimpWorks valve covers, picking one face will automatically chamfer what would otherwise be a lot of clicks.
00:44:50
John S
and it works great except when the tolerance was driven to a small value like two tenths or four tenths. For some reason on certain circles it was leaving about five degrees of the circle un chamfered and I relaxed that tessellated tolerance to one thou and it fixed it. I don't know if that's a bug but it's one of those things that that's really hard to catch in the simulation
00:45:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:45:13
John S
And you don't even really see it in the toolpath unless you zoom in because there's like 15 holes and you're not like looking at the toolpath leadingly out of each specific one. um So it is a win.
00:45:24
johngrimsmo
hi
00:45:26
John S
um Similarly, there's a those valve covers have slots and those slots are open-ended slots. um where we want to chamfer like just edge break the bottom of that trough that may be confusing to listen to but it um there ends up that there are like on some parts 42 sections that are only 0.2 inches wide that you want to chamfer it is like tendinitis galore on the mouse clicks for me no it's like funny but not funny because we now
00:45:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:45:56
John S
We have, I think, eight different SKUs. We're doing them two at a time, but they have to be programmed separately, not patterned because of the rotation aspect.
00:46:02
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:46:04
John S
So it's a lot of stuff. And I finally realized, no, just figure this out. And if you, instead of doing 2D Contour or 2D Chamfer, if you switch to the Deburr toolpath and you got to mess with the heights a little bit to control it, one one toolpath fully automated,
00:46:21
johngrimsmo
way.
00:46:22
John S
breaks all of those edges with no clicking. It's like, no, we never model edge break chamfers.
00:46:25
johngrimsmo
ah Are they model chamfers? Okay, so unmodeled chamfers. I do a lot of the time.
00:46:32
John S
Oh, interesting.
00:46:34
johngrimsmo
And sometimes I don't, um especially if it comes up to a shoulder, and then I don't model that, and I just let 2D chamfer do it.
00:46:38
John S
Okay. Mm-hmm.
00:46:43
johngrimsmo
But yeah, I go back and forth sometimes, but mostly I model it because I want the model to look right. And interesting, okay.
00:46:50
John S
It's bit me too many times on like trying to deal with height planes when you're clicking surfaces or like the chamfer creates weird, it just, I don't, I don't like, and we'll model chamfers when it's purposeful chamfer to the part design, but when it's a five, $10 edge break, I don't want that in there.
00:47:02
johngrimsmo
Hmm. Yeah, I think I do some and I don't some maybe I don't have a good standard.
00:47:07
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:09
johngrimsmo
Interesting. Okay.
00:47:11
John S
um And then, okay, that was my last thing are actually conversation questions. One is, I am holding up a, 3D printed part that has a small, like a quarter inch through hole, it's A25OD, has a screw side to clamp it down.
00:47:29
johngrimsmo
Looks like a marshmallow.
00:47:31
John S
It does look like a marshmallow, but it's not a marshmallow. It's going to become a lap.
00:47:36
johngrimsmo
o No way, a 3D printed lap?
00:47:39
John S
Why not?
00:47:39
johngrimsmo
Why not?
00:47:41
John S
Should work fine, now it won't last.
00:47:41
johngrimsmo
Okay, what are you lapping?
00:47:43
John S
So after we heat treat the mechanical puck chuck, I don't need to lap this large ID bore, but I'd like to try it long-term.
00:47:52
johngrimsmo
i So your boar is that big, 825 or whatever.
00:47:55
John S
Oh, actually, sorry, yeah, right there. You see it in that big hole.
00:47:58
johngrimsmo
and Okay, I thought this was a pin lap or something like that. um And I thought you were lapping with the idea of that tool, not the OV of that tool.
00:48:05
John S
No, the ID, my thought was just grab a piece of quarter inch material or even a quarter inch drill bit, hold that in a drill, and now I can run this lap in and out.
00:48:14
johngrimsmo
Got it. How are you expanding it? The screw on the side expands it.
00:48:17
John S
No, the screw in the side clamps it down so it doesn't expand. You could put it on a taper. Well, so if this works, I'll buy a lap or make one, no big deal.
00:48:26
johngrimsmo
yeah yeah
00:48:28
John S
But I just thought, hey, 3D printing.
00:48:28
johngrimsmo
Cool. That's proof of concept. Heck yeah.
00:48:31
John S
It should, I mean, the way laps work, embedding the software material, I think it will work, but I didn't, know we actually, I think my lapping, the little bit of lapping stuff I had succumbed to my purge, I can't find it, so I just bought, we're ordering some new stuff from McMaster tomorrow.
00:48:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah, McMaster has all the good stuff.
00:48:48
John S
Yeah.
00:48:48
johngrimsmo
Cool, what what great what great did you end up with?
00:48:49
John S
You agree, though? Okay.
00:48:53
John S
I haven't ordered it yet, but um I am planning to, well, so, My thought was actually to go diamond, because why not?
00:49:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:49:04
John S
Diamond, all the things. But Spencer, again, tip of the hat to Spencer Webb, which is podcast blanking.
00:49:11
johngrimsmo
Uh, PFG live or something.
00:49:12
John S
Thank you, thank you.
00:49:13
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:49:15
John S
Aptly pointed out that diamonds don't break down, and that could not be good. That could be bad for a surface where you don't want residual lapping compound. So we're going to go with, for now, aluminum oxide.
00:49:26
John S
um it'll be Probably 100 micron.
00:49:31
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that'd probably be.
00:49:32
John S
Yeah.
00:49:34
johngrimsmo
Fairly course. I mean, we go down to two micron for some stuff, which is extremely fine. But if you want it to stick in a 3d printed lap, they can't be that small.
00:49:38
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:43
John S
yeah And I just thought, OK, I'll try this. And if it's too aggressive, that's a great problem to have. Now I know it works, and I just need to to pull it back a little bit.
00:49:49
johngrimsmo
well Yeah. Yeah. It'll work, you know, you're going to dismiss it too soon.
00:49:52
John S
But if I buy 2 micron and it doesn't do anything, I haven't learned anything.
00:49:57
johngrimsmo
Um, cool.
00:49:57
John S
Yeah. Right.
00:50:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I love lapping.
00:50:02
John S
And then can you, I know we talked about this a little bit offline, but will you walk me through the water quench? Oh my gosh. We're way over time. Sorry. Holy cow.
00:50:13
johngrimsmo
Phil still, uh, sailing his boat around the parking lot.
00:50:14
John S
Yeah. Right. We'll see. for Well, I've been hogging the conversation on, I'm sorry.
00:50:18
johngrimsmo
No, that's fine.
00:50:18
John S
Next week. I want to hear more about your water quenching, your water heat dissipation system for the plates.
00:50:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah. lets I have things I want to talk about with that too.
00:50:25
John S
Okay.
00:50:25
johngrimsmo
So, um, perfect. Yeah, that'll take some time.
00:50:30
John S
Okay.
00:50:30
johngrimsmo
I like it.
00:50:32
John S
Weeps today.
00:50:33
johngrimsmo
Hard milling.
00:50:34
John S
Good.
00:50:35
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:50:36
John S
Good.
00:50:36
johngrimsmo
I broke a thread mill on a clip, um, just now on the Wilhelmin. So I'm going to replace that, make another clip and then get to hard milling.
00:50:42
John S
Why'd you break a treadmill?
00:50:45
johngrimsmo
I think it hit the bottom of the boar, even though they're supposed to be five to have clearance, but the end I saw a little witness mark of ah little gash at the bottom.
00:50:52
John S
Okay.
00:50:52
johngrimsmo
So that's that's my current.
00:50:53
John S
Okay.
00:50:54
johngrimsmo
That was 10 minutes before the podcast.
00:50:56
John S
Yeah.
00:50:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:50:58
John S
Um, well, if I can help with the hard million, let me know. I know grant really appreciated your, whatever you told him on the 17 four stuff turned out like cherry, super nice.
00:51:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it cuts like butter.
00:51:07
John S
Yeah.
00:51:07
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:51:07
John S
Look beautiful. So appreciate that.
00:51:08
johngrimsmo
Sweet.
00:51:09
John S
Good.
00:51:10
johngrimsmo
All right, man.
00:51:10
John S
Hey, are we good? And it's a Thanksgiving week. Are we good next week?
00:51:13
johngrimsmo
And not in Canada, it's not.
00:51:13
John S
I think I am America.
00:51:15
johngrimsmo
So it's up to you.
00:51:16
John S
It is. Yeah, I'm good.
00:51:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:51:17
John S
Good.
00:51:18
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:51:18
John S
I'll see it.
00:51:18
johngrimsmo
Sounds good.
00:51:19
John S
I'll see it. but
00:51:19
johngrimsmo
Goodbye.