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#287 - Bite Off More Than You Can Chew, then chew
239 Plays3 years ago
Topics:
- IMTS trade show
- Willemin machines
- classic growing problems. Chip management and recycling
- Machine prices at trade shows
- Grimsmo working on the speedio
- How to teach and train your team high level skills to scale your company
- bite off more than you can chew, then chew
- book reference/resources
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 287. My name is John Grimsmough. My name is John Saunders. This is the fantastical podcast where John and John talk every week about manufacturing struggles and exciting things and new tools and IMTS trade shows coming up.
00:00:19
Speaker
and whatever else is on our plate. Did you decide? I have decided. I will see you at IMTS. Oh, that's great.
Excitement and Plans for IMTS
00:00:27
Speaker
Good. Yeah. I'm super excited. I don't know why I was on the fence because I'm like, obviously I'm going. But yeah, I haven't tripped much in a while. Yeah. So there's that. But yeah, Amish and I are bunking in Airbnb together. And that's great.
00:00:46
Speaker
Yes, I'm there. Tuesday, land Tuesday afternoon, leave Friday night. Perfect. Oh, that's great. I started making a list because I remember well how overwhelming these things are. You just turn into a ... I can't think when I'm there. You're reacting to what you see and all that, so having a plan ahead of time. Who do you want to talk to or what kind of stuff you want to see? Nice.
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's been on my mind because you start getting the emails from IMTS with all the ads and stuff. And there was one vendor that I've been looking at for a couple months ago, I was looking into dry ice blasting or CO2 blasting. Kind of for fun, kind of for work, kind of just for interesting technology stuff. And one of the companies I was looking at is going to
Strategizing IMTS Visits
00:01:36
Speaker
be at IMTS. I'm like, I should stop by just to see, right? But if I don't write it down, if I don't come up with a plan,
00:01:44
Speaker
like show notes kind of thing, then I might forget about it because there's hundreds of vendors there and miles of rooms and sub floors and levels and like you go down a level and you're like, holy cow, this is where all the small vendors are. You could just roam around here all day. Yeah. The dark basement is crazy. Yeah. And that's like, that's what some of the good stuff is too.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, but it's mixed in with like random like, hey, we make a three-fold ladder for comb construction. You're like, what? Does your ladder hold tents all day? Yeah.
00:02:25
Speaker
So is there anything, like what's on your list that
Swiss Machine vs. Wilhelmin
00:02:28
Speaker
you can share? Anything specific? So again, I've been chewing on, I actually need to honestly ask the Wilhelmin folks if their, that conversation just stalled out for probably for no good reason on that sort of sister machine to yours. And I don't know if they've got their own. As far as I know, it's still there.
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And I've gone back and forth. But now that I realized that we want a Swiss action, I need to talk to Lockwood about because he clarified that his 12 millimeter, he clarified on WhatsApp that his 12 millimeter should be able to handle a half inch. And look, by all means, that could be something that's a win-win. On the flip side, I think about programming a
00:03:07
Speaker
Wilhelmin, the tool library, and the capabilities, and the fact that we do more milling than turning on this sort of a machine. I get really excited about that thought of a Wilhelmin. Downsides, tool changes on a Swiss are like a blink of an eye, it just moves the axis. There is no tool change, right? It just moves, which is great.
00:03:31
Speaker
I almost want to say medium volume. The reality is it's still small volumes for sure, but a wheel limit has to do a tool change every time for every feature that needs a different tool, whereas a Swiss isn't going to have that wear. It's not at the speed. It's about kind of the wear and tear. And I still have some concerns about a 18, 20-year-old machine
00:03:51
Speaker
being relying on it and knowing that if it broke or was down, do you want to spend five figures on it or our business doesn't support a new one?
Machine Reliability and Scrap Management
00:04:05
Speaker
I don't know. Would you be looking at a used Swiss to compare with or like a new
00:04:12
Speaker
sort of basic options with. So thinking reliability wise and stuff. Yeah, I got to talk to Rob about I don't mean to be like publicly saying this, but I don't even know that much about his machine. If and when it's for sale, what say that's in, but I'm not against to use one. I don't know a ton about what a new one would cost, partly because when we briefly looked, we were trying to look at a more, we talked about this, I think like the sort of
00:04:40
Speaker
everything in the kitchen sink, large shampoo, complicated. I think what we'd better off is look at a really simple one. Yeah, I mean, new price would be 100,000 to 200,000 US, maybe more for fully decked out, a little bit bigger bar kind of thing. Yeah. Okay. It's good. Yeah. I mean, I kind of think, I mean, big difference between one and two, but yeah, I hear you. Sure. But the other thing is this is like classic growing problems.
00:05:08
Speaker
So we create scrap metal. Our scrap metal goes into, they call them Gaylord boxes, but they're approximately the size of a pallet and about three or four feet tall. So they're, I don't know if that's one cubic yard. Kind of like an IBC tote. Yes, but a cardboard version of one. Got it. Open top. And. Final plastic or do you just fill them with cardboard? Fill them with cardboard and the one that
00:05:36
Speaker
The horizontal dumps directly into one and it is on top of a U-line pallet drain tub so that when it leaks, it leaks into that.
00:05:45
Speaker
We threw the cardboard and then into the tub kind of thing. Yeah, it's fine. The other machines, the chips go into trash, like 33 gallon bins, most of which have drain holes to drain into the lower bin. So when we dump those by hand, they're not as wet a chip.
00:06:08
Speaker
And the ones that we hand dump we can sort because by and large we're running specific material and we can control when we dump them and it's pretty easy. The horizontal now runs a mix of aluminum and steel and it's making a ton of chips for overall. So what happened was our scrap pickup that should have been a ballpark $1,000 was $300.
00:06:31
Speaker
because they took our scrap price from 28 cents per whatever pound, I don't know, down to one penny a pound for mixed metal. They don't pay you for mixed. Yeah.
00:06:45
Speaker
So for now, I'm not going to worry about it because we're going to keep making parts. Our business is not making money on scrap, if you will. On the flip side, you're starting to get to the point where those numbers add up. If you're losing $700 a month, that's eight grand a year, you're starting to look at a real ROI on a better way of handling that. I don't know what that is other than
00:07:10
Speaker
a briquette machine. Or I do have this idea quickly going down the DIY rabbit hole of a M code that could be CAM file specific with a thrust bearing and a lazy Susan that could just rotate to 33 gallon drums. Honestly, I know I'm well aware of the hat caveats and hazards of designing systems like that. But on the flip side, it's actually pretty simple.
Coolant Management and Maintenance Strategies
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds pretty awesome.
00:07:34
Speaker
And then we just hand dump them and they're sorted. So you don't know. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, I've actually been thinking about we just have a garbage can was a 30 something gallon like brute garbage can under the current that fills up quite a bit of like a couple of inches of coolant. And then usually it gets to fold like lift comfortably. So I've been thinking about going to a 20 gallon like a little bit smaller
00:08:04
Speaker
root bin as well so that as it gets almost full, it's much easier to lift and just forces the guys to empty a little bit sooner. Still trying to figure out a good drain solution. I haven't put a lot of effort into it. It just fills with coolant in the bottom.
00:08:20
Speaker
The solution that we did that really works well is you just buy the identical bin, 20 gallon, 33 gallon, and then some way or another, prop the top one up four inches, a couple of wood blocks, the top are making it easy, and then you just drill five holes in the top one, it drains into the lower one. That gets some decent percentage of the liquid out. Into the second bin, and then you just manage it from there.
00:08:46
Speaker
Okay. I think my thinking with the smaller bins is you could raise it up like on a chair or something and then gravity could actually drain back into the cooling tank or wherever you want to put it into a bucket or something, you know. Say that again? If you raise up the smaller garbage cans like onto a chair, then you could drill a hole in the side of it and drain it either back into the cooling tank or into a waste bucket or something. So it's kind of just automatic like
00:09:15
Speaker
That's what we do except it's not automatic. I don't know if I'd want it automatically going back in. It's not a terrible idea, but I put it through a filter or something. I mean, Michael, it's filtered after the fact anyway.
00:09:31
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So yeah, it's worth thinking about because you certainly don't want like old stale coolant going back in, but if it kind of self drains pretty quickly.
Machinery Warm-up and Operational Collaboration
00:09:41
Speaker
And then I saw one guy had a coolant wash down hose at his chip bin. So he just washes the chip in the chips and then it flashes right back to the tank and you're cleaning the chips, you're getting your coolant back, you're topping up your machine at the same time. And that could be a solution worth looking at.
00:10:00
Speaker
I think the Okuma vertical has a smaller tote on it and Ed doesn't mind it. It's the downside of it's less weight, but it requires more tending period. Which machine would this be for you? The current is what I was thinking of. You don't make that many chips, right? Yeah. I mean, we probably fill a garbage can every, I don't know how often they do it every week.
00:10:26
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I would just try to empty it every other day or something then before it gets heavy on. I still want to figure out a solution for the coolant though, because I know it just pulls up. Well, look, that's the first thing. Just drill your holes or whatever, drain it, because that's a good part of the weight is the liquid. True. True. Cool.
00:10:49
Speaker
We had what almost was a pretty bad day yesterday. I think I'm out of the woods, knock on wood, but I went to run the horizontal yesterday morning.
00:10:58
Speaker
I think actually Garrett ran it but I saw the alarm and we had a through spindle coolant motor alarm and I went over to the MP systems and the screen on that machine said drive alarm or dry fault or which one so I kind of thought okay here we go buckle up and luckily I checked the two sock filters they were
00:11:21
Speaker
It was totally logical to replace them, but they didn't seem that bad. Anyway, I power cycled everything, swapped the filters out, and it seems to be totally running fine. You literally turned it off and on again.
00:11:35
Speaker
Well, yeah, but I tried to clear the alarm first and then I tried just turning the MP systems unit on and off and it didn't work. So I had to power cycle a whole, and I don't know if that part of me is like, yeah, don't overthink it. And then part of me is like, no, you're, are you like masking a bigger issue? I hope not really. For sure. Yeah, all those little alarms. I mean, the machines are getting so complicated right now that they try to yell at you when there's a problem.
00:11:58
Speaker
but it doesn't always like lead to the exact issue because like you said, power cycling, it might just fix it, replace the filters, might solve this other issue that it's warning me about kind of thing. Yeah. Good. No, sounds good. Do you have, are you reactive or proactive on stuff like filters? On the Kern, we are proactive. We replace them. Well, kind of both. We have pressure gauges, pressure differential gauges on the output. So we have,
00:12:24
Speaker
gauges between all the filters, like before, during, and after the filters. And we see the pressure drop between the filters. So every time we walk by, which is a hundred times a day, we can kind of glance at it and be like, oh yeah, it's time to do the filters. And we have a chart next to the filters that we track like, okay, last, you know, on
00:12:44
Speaker
August 10th, we replaced these two filters on August 30th, we replaced these two filters. Um, and we track it there so that we know how long it's been and how long until the next one. Um, so it's kind of a bit of reactive, proactive mix. Okay. I just don't like on the other machines, the Maury and the knack, we kind of forget about the filters and change them like every year or something. I don't know. Yeah.
00:13:08
Speaker
I'm just, I'm realizing it's futile to rely on the like casual, like, Oh, I looked at a gauge. It happened to be, cause I don't know. Just like, what if somebody, I just, I don't like it anymore. So, and then the sock filters are 10 bucks or something. So like, okay, these are just getting replaced every quarter or six months or something period. There are a lot cheaper if you buy them by the a hundred. Good grief. Yeah, we don't yet. But I looked at the pricing. It's like, holy cow. Yeah.
00:13:34
Speaker
Got it. Yeah. So I got to figure out
Team Training and Knowledge Sharing
00:13:37
Speaker
the scrap. If anybody has any suggestions on, I mean, I can't think of any, it's a simple problem. You need to sort your scrap. I mean, I guess we could try running, only running one metal lights out. The part of the problem is also that the chip bin is a little tight. The Gaylord is a little bit tight under the horizontal. So it's really difficult to switch out that simply to swap it between two. So that's what I'm not sure how to handle. Hmm.
00:14:03
Speaker
Yeah, we gave up on sorting chips back in the tormac garage days. Ever since, I just don't care. We just mix everything. It makes it so much easier for machining because you're just like, yeah, send all of it. So we do probably 90% of our work is stainless or titanium. And our chip guys know this too, like the recyclers. And I think they give us kind of a decent
00:14:28
Speaker
you know, specialty metal rate or something but it is still mixed. And it's, you know, we certainly get paid for the, I don't care what it is, I don't know what it is, I don't think about it, you know.
00:14:39
Speaker
No, I hear you. Part of me for now is just ignoring it, but then it's like, no, no, look, this could be, with our current production rate, this is probably $10,000 a year different. That's great. If a briquette machine is 40 grand, and I don't know that they are, I thought they were, they seem to be more expensive. Anyway, it's like, okay, let's be smart about
00:15:01
Speaker
about actually the argument for briquette machine could be pretty strong because not only does it solve the scrap mixed metal issue, but you absolutely should be getting more money and better
00:15:14
Speaker
efficiency of space of storing the chips. Interesting. Yeah, I thought the Italian one was like under 20,000 or something. No, it was like almost 50 after options and shipping and all that. It just didn't seem to make sense. That's a lot. I want to look at IMTS if there's any. Yeah. Good options there. Yeah. Do you think, okay, so it's been four years since we've been to IMTS and you've been to some other shows so far.
00:15:43
Speaker
Do you think the market is starting to open up as far as like sharing pricing and information and stuff? Cause I remember it used to go and it's like, oh, how much is this? And they're like, let me talk to my sales manager or like, let me, uh, let me look into it for you. I'm like, no, just like throw a number at me. I don't care if it's accurate. Like, is it a hundred thousand or is it 500,000? Like I get it, but.
00:16:06
Speaker
I don't – so I think you and I came at it from the whole like, you know, look, we started with hobby machines and Torak machines and Little Machine Shop.com and it's just like – just tell me what the CX2 costs. I do – the more I learn, realize how absolutely crazy – like I saw somebody's
00:16:25
Speaker
I don't remember if it was Hermelet or Grove, their actual like PO sheet for the machine. And it was like 17 pages. And these differences between the probing systems and the laser systems in the kinematic options are individually tens of thousands of dollars. So I do kind of see why sales guys look like I can't, I could sell you this machine for 325,000 and I could say the same machine.
00:16:51
Speaker
for $725,000. I would be satisfied with that answer. You know what I mean? That's a fair point.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah. Well, look, a good salesman is going to not tell you what you want to know because then you're done. They're going to pull you in. Yeah, they don't want to turn you off immediately. Fully decked out, this is $700,000. All right, see you. Bye. Right. Interesting. Yeah, it's tricky. I get it. But I don't like the stone wall that I used to get sometimes. I'm like, oh, how much is this palletized horizontal?
00:17:31
Speaker
We'd love to tell you more about it. Exactly. You don't just want to appease the tire kickers all the time. I get that too, but I don't know. That's how I quickly amass information and get a feel of the whole industry and all the options and all the markets and lets me mentally price, compare, grow up in GF and current and all that stuff. You have to as a purchasing agent,
00:17:57
Speaker
Agree and look, I think a lot of people do what I do sometimes which is you Google like how much is a DVF 5000 and you find some forum posts where guys are like I'm comparing this with a Makino and like that's not in the always in the best interest for the distributors and sales teams so forth to have that be the first line of information that for folks that are poking around or you find used auction day away. Yeah, but it's
00:18:23
Speaker
the world is getting more freer and more open with the sharing information and when you can find a practical machinist post that says, yeah, I paid this much for my speedio and I paid this much for my speedio and I paid this much for my speedio and it's like I got these options and you can absolutely know your pricing without talking to a vendor for stuff like that from the market, you know? Yeah, right, right. It's just how it is nowadays like.
00:18:52
Speaker
I mean, I just had a guy DM me last night. It's like, who's our speedo rep in Ontario? Like, where'd you buy it from? Okay, this guy's obviously in Ontario. And so I told him it's Pharaoh. And he goes, Okay, I know that mail. I'll email them. How much pay for it? And I was like, I paid this, you can get it for as cheap as this. Yeah, that's right.
Investing in Equipment and Tool Holders
00:19:09
Speaker
Like, hugely valuable. Exactly. Yeah. How is video?
00:19:17
Speaker
Amazing. Yeah? Amazing. I've been making this riser plate out of aluminum, two inches thick. And just kind of taking my time on it. I've got an orange vise bolted to the table, you know, face one side, flip the block, face the next side, flip the block. I set my zero at the top of the orange vise and the side of the orange vise. So I literally just have to flip the block a couple of times and then I can know, okay, six inches tall, you know, two inches tall and just do a facing pass.
00:19:46
Speaker
And it's fast, and it's cool, and it's fun, and I'm getting the hang of the control. It is different, but getting the hang of it.
00:19:57
Speaker
Got the probing working, got all the laser stuff working, everything just functions properly now. And once I have this riser plate made, then I'll be mounting the Iroa chuck in one corner of the machine, like in front of the laser. And then once that's up today, I'm going to get one of our guys to help me, help me mount that and tram it in and everything would be a good experience for him. And then we can manually load Iroa pallets onto it.
00:20:24
Speaker
Okay, yeah, great. Which will be fantastic. Because then pretty much anything from the current Aroa pallet changer can be picked up and put into this video. It doesn't tip over, obviously. So a lot of the pallets, tombstones and stuff don't work. But the vices and some of the smaller pallets and stuff totally fits. Okay, so you're gonna run it like that until the Aroa integration goes. Yeah, exactly. Got it. That's great. It's huge. Yeah, it's great.
00:20:51
Speaker
Did you have to do training or are you just figuring out the control? They did have a guy come by for a day and kind of show us the menus, how to load a program, how to do this, how to tweak a couple of settings and that was really helpful. But there was also a lot of just poking around figuring it out like I have enough machines, I've been doing this for like 15 years that I know what I want and I just have to find the menu that does that.
00:21:17
Speaker
Yeah, but man, as much as we're good at machining, I would not want to be sat in front of a room attack or a brother or I even hide in Hein and be forced to get to work out. It's intimidating. When you come visit, I'll put you in front of both Hein and just say, figure it out. Yeah, right?
00:21:45
Speaker
Well, I'm glad it's running well. Doesn't there like a probe issue you got to figure it out? Yeah, the wiring for the laser was unclear even to bloom, but then eventually they got it all figured out and now it works perfectly. Yeah, everything functions, everything's good and it just runs.
00:22:08
Speaker
Is this your first 30 taper machine? Yes. Any, any comments? They're tiny. Yeah, they are tiny. Torquing the pulse stud. Um, Mary tool says the spec is 30 foot pounds. I'm talking about their torque wrench and I'm like, that's it click. Yeah. Yeah. It's like one finger click. And I'm like, no way. This is not for real. Yeah. Um, other than that, it's great. Yeah.
00:22:37
Speaker
Good. Actually, I bought hydraulic holders from Mary Tool for the machine. I've never used hydraulic holders before. And I mean 99.9% of the work I do is not roughing. So I don't care about like the tool pullout and the blah, blah, blah that some people complain, you know, like hydraulic might not be the best.
00:22:57
Speaker
Man, it's so easy and so fast and so wonderful. You put a set screw in the back if you can adjust it, right? Yeah. It's just great. I want all of them like that. This is how it should be, you know?
00:23:08
Speaker
So I love them as well. Here's the two things I don't love. Number one is they often require sleeves to get smaller diameters or machines, which are expensive. It's another thing to deal with and so forth. In fact, frankly, quite expensive compared to like what a new holder would cost and so forth. But the other thing that we really don't like is oftentimes when we've had a tool break
00:23:36
Speaker
in a hydraulic and that could be our own fault or whatever, it can ruin the holder. Oh, okay. I suppose to just call it, like an ER call it or something. Or not even, like if we crash, it's one thing, but like if the tool just snaps back, speeds and speeds or got really dull or something, ERs, I mean, usually come through fine. That's not to say you shouldn't check it and so forth, but like it's clearly where the horizontal, sometimes they just don't work anymore.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, like an ER call it is what, 20 bucks, 30 bucks, something like that. And I've definitely replaced them due to a crash. That's true. I did not think about that. And I will keep that in mind for sure. And so I bought a bunch of ER holders and a bunch of hydraulic holders and some SK as well. And yeah, I've only put a couple of each in so far. And I mean,
00:24:26
Speaker
Yeah, I'll work. Hydraulic for fit. I still like them. It's just so easy. They do seem to have more dampening and rigidity, but it depends on the gauge profile and all that, but yeah, for sure. Then on one of the holders, I had a solid pull stud in it, like Nautic through coolant hole.
Hiring Strategies and Challenges
00:24:43
Speaker
Then you try to put the end mill in the end and it bounces because you're creating an airlock and you push it in and then it bounces right back out again.
00:24:52
Speaker
Do I push it down and lock it down and just leave the one PSI of air pressure in there? How do I do this? Oh, yeah. Crack the seal on the backside. Yeah. Crack the pulse down off or something. I don't know. Positive pressure to keep debris out. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's funny. So that's cool.
00:25:11
Speaker
I was going to say I made a warm up program for this video based on the manual. They have like a quick warm up and then like a one hour long warm up. And I'm like, well, it's the first time I've really used it. I haven't cranked it up to 16,000. Let me program the one hour warm up. And it's like, Ron, step your way up at 10,000 RPM for 10 seconds and then 500 RPM for 30 seconds and cycle that eight times. So I wrote a wow loop.
00:25:39
Speaker
Like while this do that kind of loop in macro programming on this video. And so I did that for each RPM step. And I think there's a limit where you can only do four while loops, but, and it won't let you do the fifth one six total. And I'm like, why is five? It always alarming at five. And then eventually I tried in making five and six, not while loops, but if go to loops, um, and they work great.
00:26:08
Speaker
Interesting. I can't believe that. That was surprising. Is the Brother Control known for good macro programming? As far as I know, it's exactly like FANUC. Ah, OK. So comfortable for you. Yeah, very comfortable. Yeah. Got it. But yes, that was cool. And then I didn't exactly tell everybody in the shop that I'm doing a spindle warm-up. It's going to sound weird for a while. Yeah. What's going on over here? Everybody's looking at it.
00:26:35
Speaker
And it did this for like an hour. So it's good though. Yeah. What, uh, would you sell the U, U mocks? What's going on with those? Uh, still waiting to hear back from the guy, but he's paid his deposit and just waiting. So yeah, we have a guy. Um,
00:26:52
Speaker
I just got to call them. But the router is almost done. I think the electronics, the guy that's working on them, Versa, is probably days or short weeks away from shipping me everything I need. Sweet. And then we'll put it right together. And then I have quite a bit of work for that router once it's working. So I'm super excited. That's awesome. Yeah, it's great.
00:27:13
Speaker
The stuff you've re-shared, I think I do follow him too. It looks like just absolutely first class. Yeah, it's like part of me is like, oh, I could totally wire that up. And then I see how he does it. And I'm like, not like this. He's putting effort and time and skill and money into this kind of build style. And it looks nearly as good as all my Japanese and German and nice machines. Yeah, absolutely wonderful. That's cool.
00:27:45
Speaker
Have you played with a wellman?
00:27:49
Speaker
today. I haven't for a while. I haven't for a while. I've got this one bushing alignment pin that I've been ready to run for like three weeks. And then we had the power issues, and then we lost our air compressor, and everything else got busy. So I just haven't yet. But I told myself yesterday, I was like, tomorrow, you need to grab Pierre, and you need to be like, we are figuring this out together, and I'm going to teach you everything I know. And we're going to work on this, and it's going to be great.
00:28:19
Speaker
And I'm going to take an active role in teaching more, especially my team here of like how to do things and the skills I know. And, uh, you know, share that knowledge that I'm not the only one that can do it. I want to do that. I really do. Um, so yeah, he's primarily been running the Swiss late. Is that right? The Swiss and the Nakamura and, and the UMass for that matter. Okay.
00:28:45
Speaker
But does he know fusion? Enough but not extremely well. I'm like, if I don't drive this, it's not going to happen. I want it to happen. He wants it to happen. I talked to him yesterday and we're like, yeah, I'd love to learn everything. Okay, let's figure this out. I think you have a much better handle on
00:29:09
Speaker
teaching and training and sharing and not hoarding information. And I think my nature kind of makes me want to know everything and do it all myself. But that is definitely not sustainable. And I'm feeling that hard now. And so I'm like, you know what? I want everybody to be as smart as they can be and as capable and grow and thrive that culture. Let's do this, you know? Yep.
00:29:35
Speaker
No, it's not idle. We made an effort to focus on it. This doesn't, you know, I even yesterday, oh, like checking the oil on the compressors. And I'm still doing that because it's so infrequent. But now, well, it's infrequent. But we have three compressors and, you know, quarterly or whatever. It's like all of a sudden now you're something that you used to think of as like, oh, once a year or something is now 12 times per year.
Reflecting on Life Balance and Growth
00:30:01
Speaker
But I whatever I haven't done that yet.
00:30:05
Speaker
We honestly need, now that we've gotten, spent more time thinking about bringing another person on and kind of the machining R&D machining world, it makes me realize we really want to find the right person, the right fit for that. So again, if anyone's looking for a chance to join the team here in Zanesville, Ohio,
00:30:27
Speaker
you know, would love to have someone who wants to, you know, honestly, we don't need the right attitude experience. We'd welcome it. But I also, if you're green, we, we can and will train you. It's more about the attitude and the desire to be curious about this stuff. That's amazing. Do you find some, some roles in your company are kind of quicker to hire for and others you want to take your time. You want to make sure it's good fit. You want to like,
00:30:54
Speaker
you're not as in a rush to get it done, even if the work is there and needs to be done.
00:30:58
Speaker
I would say I'm more on the learning side than I am preaching side here. I respect what some of our friends said about, look, you know, no, when we have a role to hire, we know exactly what that role is. And if it's the first person that happens to walk through the door and they fit that role, then we're done. I'm more on the line of like, let me see who, who we find. And you know, this role, I could see being a support role in the sense of learning and helping, uh, add Grant and Garrett.
00:31:28
Speaker
do what they do out there so it could be a younger person or greener. I could also see somebody oh man we had a really good conversation with somebody just not going to work out but it was that right like been making parts knows what they're doing would would step in more as a
00:31:46
Speaker
you know, mix of you got to help keep the machines running, but spending a lot of time, you know, like I need to make more fixtures and stuff for the Akuma and Grant can do that. I can do that. Garris for sure learning how to do that. But, but there, I'm still for no good reason. So like steering that and they would be something I could probably hand off more or just it would be a good fit to have somebody with that kind of energy come in. Yes. Yes.
00:32:16
Speaker
Yeah. But that's definitely the role in the place. We had a conversation with somebody else that was more focused on coding and robotics and that stuff. Same thing. Like if somebody has that, we don't mess. We could figure out a way to have that be kind of the like 10 percent. Like you're able to spend some of your time making use of those skill sets, but it's not the job right. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. How about how about you, though? Yeah. I mean, we've we're currently looking for a guy for our finishing department.
00:32:44
Speaker
or girl. We've been having a lot of conversations about this, about the hiring process, about what we need, how quickly we look, how deeply and how long we wait, how many people we look at before we make a decision.
00:33:01
Speaker
Sometimes you just get the right feel, you know, like you have the interview, everything ticks all the boxes, but sometimes that works out great. Sometimes it just doesn't over time. So it's hard to learn that skill of kind of filtering through people and skill levels and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I think our manufacturing team is really solid right now. I think we have enough staff to do everything we need to do. We just got to
00:33:30
Speaker
turn it up, you know, more machines to, to keep busy with the Willman just pretty much ready. And the speed you're now on board. Um, there's a lot of programming, testing, coding, um, new stuff that needs to get done. That's mostly on my plate. So I need to learn how to share that. Yeah. No, no, for sure. Is that on? Well, yeah. I mean, good grief. It's on the brother and the, uh, current of the woman.
00:34:00
Speaker
Yep. And I've got a bunch of stuff I want to do on the Maury to change that all up. The current's solid. NAC and Swiss are solid too, but still that's like three machines that need attention. And then the router's coming soon, which is going to be a whole new control, whole new programming. I mean, fairly simple parts that we already have the cam for, but still different changes. Oh yeah. So I definitely want to hand that off. What's going on on the Maury?
00:34:30
Speaker
I'm making all new pallets for the Norseman production that's on the Moria right now because we're still on the aluminum orange pallet tops. That's right. That the way I've designed them, they're just not ideal. They flex and they bow and they're aluminum and that we stir out threads once a week, put in heli-coil. They need to die.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, the new way I'm putting on the Chunkaviro palettes. It's like a big fat pull stuff in the middle and I've got most of the parts. There's a lot of parts to make, a lot of adapters, a lot of risers and it's just time. Yeah. Well, I felt like this yesterday maybe when you look at this big list and
00:35:16
Speaker
I can't emphasize enough how you're better having blinders. You can't be that visionary entrepreneur. What you just said is a huge undertaking with lots of risks and hassles and stress and progress and demoralizing hiccups. I do find sometimes we're as silly as mundane as real life is. I have extra river rock.
00:35:45
Speaker
at my house. We did our landscaping and it's been sitting in my driveway at my house and I want to use it at the training center. And so it's like I'm renting a front end loader and I need to move it like a mile, which is a trailer. And then, but to do that, I've got to pull the landscaping out and then pull landscaping out. I need to then like really read it and then put the netting down and you can kind of get overwhelmed. And then this morning I just pulled into the shop. I got here like five minutes early, 10 minutes early. And I just took the rake and I just
00:36:13
Speaker
Instead of thinking about all that stuff, I just went and weed it. Just shut up and go weed. If you need that to get done, actually, Chase came and helped me out.
00:36:22
Speaker
But sometimes you just got to like, just do it, you know? Yeah. And it doesn't always have to be the biggest, most important thing. It's like it all has to get done. I'm going to do this right now. I'm just going to make the decision, which I heard somewhere that decision comes from the Latin word, like to cut off from.
Balancing Business Growth and Life Satisfaction
00:36:38
Speaker
Get this beside. Yeah. Which is like, it kind of puts a different light to the word decision. Like I'm cutting off, I'm just doing it. Done. Right? Yeah, yeah.
00:36:48
Speaker
Well, it's like kind of like, you know, what's it like a piece of cheese, like you, you don't eat the block, you take like, you could you take a knife, cut a piece off, but then you put the piece of mouth and chew. That's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:03
Speaker
a old acquaintance of mine had a phrase that I didn't like, but it's kind of top of mind now, which is bite off more than you can chew, then chew. It's like no, like, that's just that you look like a fool and maybe you can joke or it's not comfortable. But there's a lot to be said for continuously eating the correct size bites.
00:37:28
Speaker
Right. But that is how you grow and stretch yourself is taking slightly more than you can handle and learning how to handle it. That's a fair point. Yeah. I don't know. If you always work within your safety zone, you're never going to grow. You're never going to achieve more.
00:37:49
Speaker
I mean like this could get super philosophical and you and I could when I come up and visit have a nice tall glass of orange juice and debate this but like someone was just telling me about a guy here in Southern Ohio who's built a company incredibly successful first-generation but been doing for 40 years and now you have 3,000 police nationwide presence like just you know the American dream on steroids and
00:38:12
Speaker
India, the words that often get used is hard work. And I have so much respect, like it's just in my core. But then I don't, I mean, this is like, philosophical. And I have a point other than like, I don't desire, like, I like
00:38:30
Speaker
Um, you know, I, if William just started fall baseball, I couldn't be more excited to be helping like assistant coach the team. And I don't, I don't, I'm not looking to like say this to me, make myself out to be some great father or like kid here. That's not the point. But like, I don't, if you could tell me Saunders machine works could make six figures more. And the next X number of days or years,
00:38:53
Speaker
By working more nights, I'd be like, eh, I'm good. That's where the difference lies, is knowing what you want in life. And as Saunders Machine Works can still grow in skill and accuracy and capacity and all that stuff without hiring another hundred people. You can still scale up without scaling out or whatever the phrase is.
00:39:18
Speaker
But I mean, take a step back and look at yourself over the past 10 years like you've scaled up incredibly in skill and staff and shop and equipment and assets and the second building now and like also a life you've got two children and you know, it's you got toys and fun and travel and it's amazing. But yeah, the point is to step back and kind of realize what you want out of life. If you don't want a multi mega
00:39:46
Speaker
multi-branch company, then focus on what you do want, scale that. I agree. I also don't want to go stupid huge, but we definitely have more growth ahead of us. I like that. I want that.
00:40:01
Speaker
It's that guy Arthur Brooks that wrote that Vanity Fair article and a book on strength to strength and how we're programmed as humans to just want to want more. He calls it the hedonic treadmill about like we just had this wired desire to accumulate and it's all relative. I mean, even like we were flying to London, economy kind of crammed in, the seating kind of got botched and you're just like,
00:40:30
Speaker
Oh man, like you see those bigger seats up front of the plane. You're like, that must be nice. Then you're like, wait in here. Like I'm still flying on a triple seven. You know, I'm going to be in London in six hours compared to any other point in time in history, you know, free of disease, not having to do horseback riding. Like, like the modern, like it's all freaking relative. Um, and, and it's weird because we're in a good place and it kind of made me, um,
00:40:57
Speaker
The book kind of talks about how there is no such thing as like this kind of like, you're always in this state of desiring more. And I actually think, and it comes with some of the ties in like with those strangeness of the losing Judd this summer and how it took me a solid month to be able to move on from that a little bit. And then you're like, but are you at that point where it's just good? Like it's just good right now, you know? Right, yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker
and yet one or two negative events can shift that good to like currently be bad. You know what I mean? And it could be a dumb little thing too. It could be like, oh, I can't figure out this programming thing. It's really driving me crazy. It's like, hold on, step back. Oh my gosh, things are amazing.
00:41:42
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's like that pump yesterday. And I was like, oh, this could be a big expense in downtime and service and hassle. And then it's good. So you're back to moving on. And then a funny thing is once we get over these little hiccups, it could be a month for Judd. It could be more. It could be et cetera. But then you don't forget about it, but you're like, you're back to base normal. Whereas in the moment is like the worst thing ever. And that's OK. That's how our emotions work. It's like what you focus on expands.
00:42:12
Speaker
You know? Yeah. Yeah. What do you see today? Uh, Lilliman. Lilliman. Yeah, basically Lilliman and putting the aurochic on the speedio are my two big, uh, two big tasks for today. Which one's first? Speedio, probably. I still have a couple of machining things. I got to drill some holes. Um, I might rigid tap some MA threads on the speedio. I don't know. I hate rigid tapping period. And I never do it.
00:42:42
Speaker
Not at the table, just in the... Yeah, in the aluminum. Yeah. Oh, John. Come on. It should be fine. Come on. I've broken too many taps that I just hate it, but I should be totally fine. If you're paranoid, you could oversize. I wouldn't worry about it. Do a test piece, check your hole to make sure it's pre-tapped to the correct diameter, but yeah. Done.
00:43:11
Speaker
machine a couple of little features and then mount that and trim it to the table and then probably deck it once it's bolted to the table. Just take a couple of thou off or whatever just to skin it parallel or planer and then mount the aroa and then trim it in and then we're rocking.
00:43:32
Speaker
We'll pick which pick whichever one you want to get done because rule of pie and all that jazz. Sure. Would you rather end the day with the brother chunk on? Yeah, probably. Do it first. Yeah. Yep. Do it first. And then if there's time in the afternoon to do the, uh, we'll admit as well. Cool. Sweet. What about you? What do you do?
00:43:51
Speaker
Um, so I have been debating how to handle the, um, horizontal. I will talk about next week, but, but like the next, how we're adding new parts of the horizontal and some programming worker has, I've been doing because we're sharing tools. So kind of starting to get that stuff on, um,
00:44:10
Speaker
autopilot really. Yeah. And I mean, which is good now that you're comfortable with the machine. Now's the time to set a standard procedure that you'd like start to follow and a tool library and like standard operating procedure. And then it sounds like you want to share that more with the team, kind of the maybe the programming and you know, offloading more of the responsibility of the Akuma to more people, which means you need a rigid process.
00:44:36
Speaker
I completely agree. Let's talk about that next week. I'll make a note. Sounds good. All right. I'll see you. Sounds good, man. Take care. Bye.