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Talking Future Shops & Saunders Gets a Lathe!
230 Plays6 years ago
This week we talk about new shops and the sometimes ugly process behind it. Also John Saunders finally gets a lathe!
Other topics discussed this week are the beginning of their careers in the early YouTube days. Finally getting a part made right just feels so good! John Grimsmo talks about the Saga pen being in full effect. Saunders' Fanuc Robodrill is rocking hard, it is making him re-think the robot arm.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Philosophy
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode 143. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. And this is the podcast where two buddies talk about machining and business and life and whatever's going on in our lives right now. And hopefully keeping it real. I hate saying keep it real, but yeah.
00:00:24
Speaker
I was telling somebody yesterday, they were commenting to me about the podcast. To me, it's that unique element of realism. Actually, I think we have some competition creeping up in the space, which is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Exactly. It's genuine, is what I'd like to think. We're not trying to hide anything or fluff anything up or whatever. But I think that's important. It is what it is.
00:00:53
Speaker
It is because business is hard.
Material Challenges in Machining
00:00:57
Speaker
It's not always fun and it's not always easy or nice or whatever, but I do love it. When we look back on decisions that were
00:01:10
Speaker
It's a personality quirk, and I don't know if it's unique to me or if it's a common thing within the human race. I suspect the latter, but it's hard to make decisions sometimes at the present time, and looking back, you're telling yourself, oh, that should have been easy. Why did I even struggle thinking about it? But like a silly example, we're running
00:01:32
Speaker
we ran about 50 or 60 parts, luckily small parts. And the short version is we bought sample piece out of cold rolled steel. And then when the bulk order arrived, it was hot rolled, which is not a big, well, normally not necessarily a big deal, and certainly okay for what the scope was, but the hot roll totally
00:01:54
Speaker
I just wasn't happy with it. It was like we kept fighting it on these little tolerances and some of them were still acceptable, but I just didn't like it. And I just it was I can't I can't convey this severely enough or or or or boldly enough at the time. It was really hard to think about what to do. You know, we'd bought the rest of this material wasn't that much money.
00:02:19
Speaker
Luckily, again, that makes that makes this decision easier, but it shouldn't actually change the decision. And ultimately, I was like, well, do we just we just stop and make the rest out of different material or and then I just and then I just took a break like, you know, literally 20, 30 minute break. Yeah. And I was like, no, John, what do you want to do? Scrap all of them, even the ones that may have been with intolerance, because what I want to do is ship or have all of these done and be
00:02:48
Speaker
And I know it's, look, you can't, that's not a good way to run a business. I'll be totally honest. It's a mistake. I'm not condoning that or endorsing that. No, but it's you owning your mistake. It's fixing and making it right. Even if it's in your own head, the customer wouldn't know if you've got half hot rolled and half cold rolled, but you would know. Right.
00:03:05
Speaker
And it just was like, oh, you know, what do you do if you, um, 200 parts, let's say 30 or 40 or hot rolled in 170 of the others. Well, do you separate them so that the customer gets them in several piles? Well, why would you do that? Or if the customer happens to pull a bunch and look at them and maybe they're pushing the edge of tolerance and then they're like, well, that's weird. You know, I thought these would be way what, you know, it's like, it's a good question of what is a tolerance, right? Can you even tell?
00:03:30
Speaker
after the fact if it's hot rolled or cold rolled, like a metal scan, the x-ray machine thing. Can you even tell or no? If it's the same steel? I'm not qualified to answer that question. I'm pretty certain you and I can't tell. I would suspect a person that has high-end equipment could because there's a lot more stresses in the cold rolled, right? So if you had some ability to scan, good.
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah, we've for the past couple years now we've been ordering hot rolled titanium sheet as opposed to cold rolled because we're finding it's less Bowie and much more consistent. Yeah, that's not surprising at all.
Sourcing Materials and Early Challenges
00:04:12
Speaker
I learned that lesson a long time ago on fighting steel parts, especially thinner parts or longer parts or knowing which way the grain was rolled in it. It can be hot cold rolled can really
00:04:24
Speaker
potato chip on you, or you can try to fight that by taking off even side so I look on a way that I wouldn't think it's as bad to be honest, but for milled handles. Oh, sure. Yeah, no, I'm not. I don't even know if you have hot rolled round. Not tiny stuff anyway. Yeah. But yeah, for our sheet stock.
00:04:50
Speaker
Because having a warped handle sucks. It does not lead to a good knife. Yeah, this was before the laughing machine. But yeah. No, even with it, you don't want to laugh out. Exactly. No, you don't.
00:05:03
Speaker
No, so interesting. So I didn't realize is that quote unquote grade five or the six L six four BL whatever comes in for V. Yep. I think the stand I don't know if the standard whatever but a lot of the times that you just buy it cold rolled. So I had to especially request it hot rolled.
00:05:22
Speaker
on a suggestion from a water jet guy market leading edge that he'd found through experience because he deals with a lot of knife makers. He's like, Oh, some guys are really liking the hot rolled stuff. And at first it was like, well, I only have this in stock or only have this in stock. So let me try that one. And then we kind of found that Wow, they're, they don't potato chip nearly as bad. Right.
00:05:45
Speaker
I'd heard a rumor, which is just that the problem with sourcing titanium is that all of us are subject to the whims of basically remnants or drops or whatever wasn't used by the big aerospace, the bowings of the world.
00:06:01
Speaker
I don't know if that's true or not, though, or how true that is. I don't know if it's true, too. Like, I've heard that for sure. But I know that I can buy titanium direct from the manufacturer, whether it's Carpenter or Niagara or something, I forget. I've got a bunch of suppliers. There's Perriman, too, and PA, I think. I buy round stock from them. Okay. I don't know if they sell flat stock.
00:06:26
Speaker
But yeah, I know that a lot of the resellers of titanium certainly deal with that drop scenario. But if you're buying direct from the factory, then you just buy it from the factory.
Evolution of Resources in Machining
00:06:41
Speaker
I don't know. Got it.
00:06:43
Speaker
This this conversation actually is one of those rare, you know, like if you go smell like an old sweater or something and it can snap you back to your old house or your trip or something. This is to me the memory that let's be snapped back because when I was first trying to get strike mark going, I was trying to figure out how to buy AR 500 steel. And literally now it's as easy as calling up like one of our metal suppliers and be like, hey, I want a four by eight by quarter or three. That's what does your bulletproof.
00:07:13
Speaker
I can hear you. Oh, sorry. Yeah, that's the abrasion resistant steel that's commonly used for targets as well as for military stuff like tanks. But then I think frankly, its biggest use is in things like excavator buckets because they it grades away less. And it's frankly pretty cheap, certainly compared to something like a tool steel.
00:07:35
Speaker
And this is back in like 2007, 2008. And we were, quote unquote, at war. So we were using a bunch of it. And I'm also a guy who's like trying to call 1 800 numbers and ask about buying AR. And it was the heart. It was like, I can vividly remember how intimidating and difficult that was. Yeah, he has funny. But you found it that led to a great product that led to the beginnings of a great business career.
00:08:05
Speaker
you just got to hustle and learn and the world is I was thinking of that in the shower this morning how even I was thinking about our lathe which arrived and buying a Haas and how 10 years ago it was really hard to understand what a Haas was like you couldn't there was no YouTube
00:08:23
Speaker
Exist and I think but not like it is today to go like see who's using many mills or what is a UMC or you know, what's work like it's just you you had to like know a shop or figure out some way to Talk to somebody and that's not always easy to do
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's so funny to think back like where we started back in 2006, seven, eight, YouTube was just kind of starting just taking off, especially around 2008 that I remember, and there were machining videos going up. And it was so green, it was so early. And now it's like, you want to learn about almost any machine out there, you just look it up on YouTube, and there's, there's at least one video, you know, or not, in which case, I judge you as a machine tool builder. Like at this point, that's not
00:09:12
Speaker
I mean, you don't have a YouTube channel. How dare you? Well, we're just like, yeah, I don't I get some of the, you know, YouTube is, you know, there's a little bit of an element that's music videos and silly stuff or whatever. I'm not saying you've got a poor resource. But, you know, when I can't find anything, it's kind of weird.
00:09:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's fun. It's like you don't exist. Yeah. Speaking of speaking of friends in our audience and so forth, I got to give a shout out to Tom Lipton who sending an email saying, and this I'll leave it in his words, rather than his words, which were, don't proxy your floors, don't even polish them by these armor proxy square tiles. If you just Google armor proxy,
00:09:58
Speaker
I think it's one word here, but they are these, I think they're like 20 inches or so, or just under two feet, which would be what? Two, 300 millimeters, square tiles that are six millimeters thick and they don't, they seem relatively inexpensive. They're good for your ergonomics and standing.
00:10:15
Speaker
And they would help if you say drop a part on them that's probably going to, less likely it's going to ding or damage it.
Ergonomic Solutions for Workshops
00:10:22
Speaker
I've seen these sorts of things before, but what blew me away was Tom was saying that they drive their forklifts all over them. And I was like, holy cow. I'm thinking like gym mats, like that doesn't really work in a machine shop. Yeah, I know.
00:10:36
Speaker
He was saying, yeah, and if you're leasing the space, then you can take them with you. You can reconfigure them if you need to. And it kind of hit me as a holy cow. These seem, I actually requested a sample myself because it could be a good solution for our other fab side. What if you have a big coolant spill? Does it get underneath? So pull them up, I guess. I guess, yeah.
00:11:07
Speaker
I will look at it. I'm sure not ideal, I guess. Right. But. I think that's. Yeah, it's kind of the beauty of epoxy is.
Current Machining Challenges
00:11:16
Speaker
Good. Hmm. It's it's the beauty of epoxy is like if you have giant coolant spilled and just kind of mop it up and freshers daisies. Yeah. Well, that's not epoxy. That's just having a bare floor, right? True. Yeah.
00:11:34
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. Look into that. Cool. What else has been going on? Currently struggling with the Swiss laid, uh, making short parts and it's driving me crazy. Guide bushing or due to this whole guide bushing change. Really? So I'm still in guide bushing and it's like either.
00:12:02
Speaker
Cause with the trucker mode, the bar feeder was advancing the material. Whereas now the main spindle has to advance the material and it's just missing. Sometimes sometimes it makes a perfect part. Sometimes it makes it short and it's always like 20 or 30 thou short. And it's just driving me crazy. And I can't figure it out. There's got to be some setting somewhere that's like, or some drag in the bar feeder or something. So I'm going to have a call today with my apps guy and he's got some ideas for me already. Um, I know I'll figure it out, but it's just annoying.
00:12:32
Speaker
I don't know I Don't know. It's it's weird. Okay, you're early on in the phone a friend stage. I'm
00:12:43
Speaker
I'm late in the try to figure it out yourself stage and I'm into the phone a friend stage. It's funny. We had a we had a problem getting our lathe off the truck. Yes. Not yesterday, two days ago. Oh, yeah. And I'm just sitting there and you get a little frustrated. And and then you just think there is 100 percent chance that we're going to solve this problem. Like there's it's not like the lathe is going to live on this truck bed for right. Right. Even probably even overnight, let alone for a day.
00:13:13
Speaker
And it's just like, why am I like, so let's just, let's just, you know, just give me the answer now. Like I don't, you know, even if we had to drive somewhere else and you get a different forklift to unload it or something. Um, and it's like your chucker thing. It's like, or you're, you're going to figure this out. So it's just frustrating that what's standing between you and figuring it out. So you have a lead now, like a nice one.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It is. That's exciting. It is pretty cool. It's kind of surreal to see it in the shop. Yeah. They're not as big. It's a good size, I think, for us. I really do. The debate was, you know, if you'd stepped up to the DS30Y and knock on wood, I like this. But yeah, got unloaded. The problem was
Strategic Investments in Tooling
00:14:08
Speaker
Yes, we got the eight inch chuck SC 20Y and we're going to put the pull the chucks off, I think, and use the royal thing. But just to clarify, the rigging, I got to talk to Haas about this because I am a little frustrated, but we had we tried to unload it with a crane, which had some benefits that didn't work out because the rigging, the lifting diagram with the spreader bars was was wrong.
00:14:34
Speaker
Um, it was wrong as I read it, but more importantly, it was wrong as the rigors who do this every day read it. So, um, we ended up having to use, uh, improvised forklift scenario to get it off, which worked, but, um, it's nice when those things go well, but yeah, it's in the shop and we'll run power today, probably, and then get the Haas in, I don't know, next week and get it run. Yeah. What's the first part you're going to make on it?
00:14:59
Speaker
Oh, I'm sure we'll do it just a test part. Sure. I haven't bought much tooling for it or holders came with a few because I still want to do some of the cap toe, but I'm kind of going into.
00:15:18
Speaker
I'm consciously avoiding lifestyle creep. And the truth is that buying some of those captive stuff isn't really a lifestyle creep. It's a tool. It's in the budget. It's in the plan. It's not a react. It's not an emotional or or or surprise purchase. But I'm like, hey, let's let's get this laid unpacked. You know, the captive stuff that we want should be should be able to come like next day. So why buy it right ahead of time and
00:15:44
Speaker
We've had a good year, but I also like keeping things slow in that sense. But we wanna make a part for our Mod Vyse on it, kind of a new part, a new style part for it. So that's the first kind of focus project. And actually ironically, those mill parts I was saying earlier that we scrapped the hot rolled and switched to cold rolled, totally, it's a mill part, totally would have done it on the lathe.
00:16:16
Speaker
Absolutely. Oh, yeah, that's awesome. So that's that I'm excited to try. Absolutely. Milano late. I love it. Yeah. And then it's really go good. It's like what you were saying to me a few months ago about when you're buying a new machine.
00:16:36
Speaker
It's so easy to want to deck it out and to buy everything you think you're ever possibly going to need. But I've got a couple boxes of stuff for the Swiss layout that I haven't touched yet that I bought that I thought I would need. And I will eventually maybe one day need two. But it's just money sitting there that's not useful. So it's tough to know what you're going to use and what you're not going to use and what's a maybe and what's a definite. But it's worth some thought for sure.
00:17:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think I gave this spiel a while back on bomb and I we did a members update on NYC to talking about it but really quick crude example $20,000 machine ought to earn at minimum a 10% return on investment. Honestly, it should earn multiples of that but even 10% would be two grand a year, which is 150 some bucks a month. And when I think about signing up for a new service like a new
00:17:31
Speaker
internet service or machine service or something, you know, water service that was $150 a month. That to me is where my bootstrapper hats come on. No way am I obligating myself to another $150 bill unless it's something we absolutely need. But I casually let a machine sit there that isn't used or a tool that's not used.
Automation and Team Dynamics
00:17:51
Speaker
No, absolutely not. Yep.
00:17:59
Speaker
Um, what I was going to say is, uh, I know we joke about lays and other topics, but, um, on that note of, of a coming of age, um, Ed's actually, how do I say this? Seeing the capabilities and benefits of the FANUC control. Oh.
00:18:22
Speaker
on the Robo drill. Now, I think I think Haas still does some stuff really well. I still think, frankly, Tormach and PathPilot does some things really well. But there's also some things that are really nice on the FANUC, even just like the machine layouts, the button layouts, the speed with which it rapids or jogs.
00:18:42
Speaker
And it's actually proving to be a very solid machine. I thought I was going to be impressed by what a dual contact 30 taper machine could do and I am it's pretty cool. Nice. Yeah, the robos are they're solid, like, almost nothing to complain about. They're great workhorse machines. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we've been busy on all that. Nice. So it's making parts a
00:19:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah, for sure. We're not using the robot and doing some thinking about that. I will readily admit that I like to say the robot, the robot a lot. They're freaking cool. But it was a hurdle in many forms of software and process and flow. And you want to get it right. And Ed actually pulled the shunk vice off. We put on a couple of orange dual stations.
00:19:43
Speaker
And we are getting, I think it's four parts, maybe even more per kind of quick setup right now. And that's phenomenal. That's great. Like we can improve on that in the long term, but that's great. And I think we're going to try. Frankly, it was seen on Phil, do it some of the fifth axis stuff on just three axis verticals with the rock lock and being able to change out that.
00:20:09
Speaker
I'm gonna see about if that makes sense. It has what the workflow is on that machine. I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't want to just do automation from a
00:20:23
Speaker
We, you know, you have a hammer, so everything's a nail. Like, everything needs to be robot. Like, what's your goal? And this is actually something that Tom Blipton had mentioned in that same email on his square tiles. Think. Don't just look at shiny objects and say, we need to use those. Think. Like, where are you slow? Where do you have room to speed up? What are you trying to accomplish? Hmm.
00:20:50
Speaker
The thing I like about the robot is like for modified soft jaws, high volume, low margin part that you just want to crank out, especially when you have capacity. So the idea of just being able to crank out soft jaws for folks and keep that price very competitive is attractive. But that's not the volumes are still low for now for us on that. So so I don't think we'll figure it out. It's a journey.
00:21:19
Speaker
Absolutely. Cool. What's going on with you? The shop's going really well. We've got our two new guys. It's funny, when we hired Fraser on a Wednesday, then on the next Monday, we hired the next guy, Steven. And Fraser's already like, sweet, I'm already not the new guy after just four days. That's hilarious.
00:21:45
Speaker
But yeah, they're both they're both doing really, really well. We're having a lot of fun with the videos and photography. And Fraser's doing a fun job at that. And then Steven's picking up the lapping machine and a lot of the deburring tasks and a lot of stuff, bending blades and handles flat before the lapping machine. So Sky's been teaching them all kinds of stuff. Awesome. And yeah, and the team is spreading out quite nicely. That's great.
00:22:17
Speaker
low stress, so things for. What's going on with the shop, the the new shop, the new shop.
Logistics of Expanding Shop Space
00:22:28
Speaker
are realtors in Mexico. So it's still in communication though. I'm trying to get a firm answer like like deal done by Friday, Monday, something like that. And but yeah, things are going good on it. Meaning they're like a signed term cheat or an actual signed lease?
00:22:53
Speaker
I don't know something. I just need, I need a deadline. I need to know exactly when we're going to have it because the current could ship in 12 days from Germany. And if I'm not going to have the shop soon enough, I need to delay that shipment for another few weeks. Got it. Because then just send it on the next boat instead. So I need to know very sooner rather than later.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, sure. When that's gonna happen. So yeah, so it's a bit of a jungle, a jumble. Just trying to coordinate everything. Okay. But, but yeah, so your, your broker's talking to their, their owner or their broker. Yes. Okay. And you have you kind of verbally agreed to terms? We're going back and forth trying to negotiate right now. Okay. Got it.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, that process does take time and you don't want to sign a lease. I mean, signing a lease is the only thing that's going to give you any certainty. Everything else before that is complete and utter uselessness, like it's averse, toothless. But I wouldn't, I mean, leases generally need to get negotiated at least a few times back and forth. And so as much as you don't, I would just say delay the current period, like without a question.
00:24:14
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm almost there. Just like, it'd be great to have it before the end of the year, um, for lots of reasons. And then, oh, tax reasons, tax reasons. Uh, and just cause I'm excited. But, but yeah, I mean, if we have it before the end of the year and can make a something, then, uh, then we can write off half the machine this year.
00:24:36
Speaker
Oh, do you have to have it plugged in and making something? Is that what it is? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've never gotten that down to the wire here. At least that's what our accountant said. For sure it has to be in your shop and I think it does have to be powered up. I don't know how hard they look at what you've made on it, you know? Yeah, well, our accountant was saying just as long as it's cut a chip and you can hold something in your hand and say it works. Yeah.
00:25:02
Speaker
So yeah, it'll be like, if we can't rush it for this year, it'll be ready like January 15th or something like that. Like so close to the end of year. But I mean, if we can't then whatever, we'll just push them into next year. That's fine. But yeah, it's funny how quickly or how close to the edge the timeline is, but it's making me rush and maybe I should not be rushing. You know what I mean?
00:25:27
Speaker
Well, and look, forgive me for, I'm going to sound like a backseat driver, but you're not going to make it, John. You're going to want to delay the current to do the lease right, and then it's going to show up. You're going to have to have electricians come. You're going to get an air compressor in the new shop. Then you're going to have to have a scheduled current to do the install. They're not going to do that over Christmas. They said they could, but yeah. I know. And then there's Christmas, which is almost a write-off.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah. So it's, it's these things that sort of slowly add up in your head before you start to realize like, Oh yeah, this isn't going to work at all. Um, right. I'm tipping that point right now of, of actually agreeing to myself and other people yourself, um, that it needs to be delayed just by a little bit, you know, you've made like 40 hot rolled parts that are technically within tolerance, but really you should just recognize this better now to say, let's aim for like a, a fed one cycle start button.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And yeah, it's hard to know where that point is, you know, especially like for you, is it part 40? Or is it part 10? Or is it part 190? And he realized that these are all crap. Let me just redo the whole batch.
Achieving Quality in Machining
00:26:40
Speaker
they weren't honestly they weren't even crap it just it was just I wasn't happy you know it wasn't I just thought this isn't how I would do it when I started over and again the material was was like a dollar a piece or something it's super cheap so yeah not again that doesn't necessarily you'd like to think that wouldn't affect the outcome maybe perhaps if it was more expensive you would have paid more attention but honestly also I was trying to cut cycle time and
00:27:05
Speaker
Uh, we were, we, I realized that part of the problem was, I think our drill life was getting shortened and thus the drill was walking because we were spotting with a 90 to try to do the chamfer at the same time before the drilled hole. And you just, you know, everyone's tells you you're not supposed to spot with an angle that is sharper or deeper than the drill point. So if it's a hundred and.
00:27:29
Speaker
whatever, 118 degree drill, you should be a 120 or 140 spot. And we were unknowingly violating that. And I think that's also part of what led to it. And so, okay, you add a tool change, you do it the right way. And guess what? You make freaking awesome parts. Yeah. Isn't it satisfying to make awesome parts? It is.
00:27:54
Speaker
It brings me a lot of joy. Just like when you nail it, when you're like, you have this standard in your head that is only your own and you're like, it's got to look like this. The chamfer is going to be perfect. All the tolerances have to be within tight or bang on. And when you nail it, it's like, ah, that's exactly what I wanted to do. Yep. It is. It truly makes me smile. And I don't know how guys like Dennis or the guys that are running high volume ish,
00:28:24
Speaker
multi-machine complex part job shops do it because I'm not slow at programming relative. Well, I'm not slow on a computer. I guess I'll say that in like I could spend days programming a part. You know, I can get 80% of the cam done in two hours or something, but then you could spend two days tweaking stuff.
00:28:44
Speaker
Like pulling out, I'm trying to pull out spring passes on parts so that we hit the tolerance, knowing the tool deflection on the first pass. Not that hard to do, but by the time you go do all of that, and in those situations, you can't, every part has to be a fresh part to prove it out because as soon as you've done the first pass, you can't test the spring pass again. Yep.
00:29:10
Speaker
That's kind of what's fun about the Swiss lathe and all the parts that it makes, because the material is relatively cheap per part, almost always less than $1 per part. And the cycle times are like a minute or two minutes max. So it's like you just scrap the part. Don't even worry about saving it, especially on the Swiss. So just cut it off, make another one. Cut it off, make another one. And the problem I'm having now is
00:29:38
Speaker
I'm like five good parts to 20 bad parts. I'm like, ah, what's going on? So it's more frustrating than it is like actual annoying waste. And I know that I can nail it. And when I do nail it, it's perfect. But I don't care so much about the trap at this point.
00:29:59
Speaker
When you nail it, not only is it perfect, but it should be repeatable, right? That's the scary thing. Exactly. Okay. Awesome. Exactly. Yeah. We've got to get you. Very good. We've got to get you. Someone go make Grimsmoa like meme on Instagram or a t-shirt that's like Swiss Lays make scrap parts faster.
Financial Management and Growth Planning
00:30:20
Speaker
I like that. I'm writing that down. What's going on today?
00:30:33
Speaker
podcast day. Oh, wait, we're doing that now. Yeah, I got a phone call with my apps guy, we're gonna get this with figured out, I'm gonna be able to focus on that. Ran four pallets yesterday, which was awesome. Normally, we can only do three unless we really hustle and nice get it going. So that should be good. And sweet.
00:30:56
Speaker
Yeah, just a lot of thinking and planning for the new shop for the current coming in. A lot of state production pens are up. Pens are selling like crazy, which is amazing. Awesome. They're selling fast and good. And we're we've been putting up like, I don't know, an average of five a day, every day for the past week. And it's killer. It's like, oh my gosh, things are going so good like that. Yeah.
00:31:22
Speaker
And like for the longest time, we only had Norseman as a product, which is great, but like all your eggs are in one basket. And if it's slow for whatever reason, then it's slow. But having multiple products is already, we're seeing a huge benefit to it. Yeah.
00:31:41
Speaker
just you get more sales in a day, you sell more stuff. You have to be able to make it obviously. But that's the goal, especially for 2020 is to keep Norseman saga pens, and then bring the rask knife back and then have the three products kind of steady rolling on a almost daily basis. And if we can do that, we're gonna we're gonna crush next year so hard. That is awesome.
00:32:10
Speaker
Like at a level I probably can't contemplate. Like your upside scenario is awesome. I think one of the reasons we do this call and one of the reasons I want it to stay real and not just keep it friendly for the sake of being friends is also make sure you protect your downside. And I don't think you focus on that enough. And that may be a, I may be wrong for sure, but
00:32:35
Speaker
But okay, if you're crushing it, make sure you set some of that money aside. Make sure you get a little bit ahead. I wouldn't pay down the debt so much as I would set aside. The thing I like to do on that sort of thing is build up
00:32:50
Speaker
Pull it out, literally put it into a separate bank account so you don't see it and then let it build up every two or three months and then decide, okay, we built up X amount of money that was intended to pay down debt or build a cash cushion or something. So long as the world is still doing well, we're still doing well, that's the right thing to do, but cash is king and I don't want to see you get in a bind on that. Agreed. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
00:33:16
Speaker
and especially having Barry the 40-year accountant on staff and keeping a very close watch on this. And we are accumulating cash right now, which is a very comfortable feeling. We got to be careful with it. I mean, a lot of expenses coming up with the move and the shop and the current and vices and tooling and everything.
00:33:41
Speaker
But yes, I always want to have cash on hand because you never know what comes up. You never know when you need to buy a new spindle. You never know when somebody gets sick and you're down on production or the market tanks and you're not selling as much or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The safety net is extremely important and something that I probably don't think about enough, but Barry certainly does, which is helpful.
00:34:09
Speaker
And I don't know Barry that well but what I will say generally speaking is that accountants are accountants they're not necessarily business folks they're not necessarily. They're not necessarily, they tend to be better at rearward looking analysis and basic forward projections but not necessarily point into all.
00:34:27
Speaker
factors that need to be. I say this about many of those trades, use accountants for what they're good at, use lawyers for what they're good at, use real estate brokers for what they're good at, but remember, you're the one that has the bigger picture of all of that and you need to be the one that makes those decisions. It's just classic entrepreneurship. Find experts, listen to them, listen to them genuinely, but then you have to make your own decision.
Entrepreneurial Decision-Making
00:34:51
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:34:52
Speaker
And that's the beauty of being the entrepreneur is you get to be kind of the person in the middle that draws in all of this information and makes the decision. I mean, the decision lies on the entrepreneur's back and it's a big scary weight and you just take advice from everybody.
00:35:10
Speaker
and how much weight you give to that advice or not, and then just go to your own thing. It can be very difficult to go against somebody as well. I will say that. Yeah, for sure. Whether it was your father-in-law or respected attorney to say, I think that's a tactical or strategic mistake. Push back, change the terms. It could be tough. Yeah, but that's the job.
00:35:36
Speaker
Right. Yeah, I just say that's like, I like that when it's fun and good and it sounds like you're winning and making your own decisions. But I don't know. Sometimes it goes back to sometimes it's nice to be told what to do. Give me a print or a program and just tell me to cam it up and OK, I'll go do that. I'm good. And sometimes I do that. Sometimes I take advice, trusted advice from somebody and I'll be great. Let's do that. You know what I mean? Right. There's nothing to think about here.
00:36:04
Speaker
whether it's for little things or sometimes for big things. You know, somebody suggests something and I trust it and it's like, yeah, let's do that. That's great. Move on. What's the next decision to make? Because you can't overthink everything and sometimes like speed is better and sometimes speed is not as good. So it's a good challenge.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yes. And you raise an excellent point. By no means was my comment meant to imply micromanagement or doubting or challenging everybody. Exactly. But sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I actually got to run because I am on home duty this morning. But I'll talk to you next week. Sounds great, buddy. Cool. Enjoy that lathe and have a good week. Yeah, we'll do. Bye.