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Ep. 71: The World’s Cutest Vice (and Other Lies)
309 Plays8 days ago
Ever wondered what happens when two machinists get slightly too much caffeine and absolutely no supervision?
This week on the Lone Machinist Podcast:
- One of us falls headfirst into an ERP system that started as “just a quick tool”… and is now basically a full-blown operating system
- The other accidentally becomes a sticker manufacturer and nearly buys a $2000 mistake off Marketplace
- There’s a tiny dovetail vice so cute it should come with a warning label
- We talk shop spaces, power problems, and why 63 amps feels like a personality trait
- And yes… someone designed a magnetic spinning window thing after being peer pressured on Discord (as one does)
Also featuring:
✔ Chip welding rage
✔ Packaging glow-ups nobody asked for
✔ Questionable naming decisions
✔ And the phrase “spinning disk of justice,” which is now legally binding
If you like machining, making things, or slowly turning simple ideas into wildly overengineered projects… welcome home.
Links Discussed:
- Template Maker: https://www.templatemaker.nl/en/
The Lone Machinist:
- Website: https://thelonemachinists.com/
- Bonus Content: https://thelonemachinists.com/#bonus-content
- Merch: https://www.jspeceng.com/online-store
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/TheLoneMachinists
Need Work Done? Check out Subtract Manufacturing at: https://subtractmanufacturing.com/
Want to try out Toolpath? Give it a go and get 10% off by using the code TLM10 at checkout: https://toolpath.com/
Jamie:
Curt:
Trevor:
Recommended
Transcript
Weekly Plans and Weather Chat
00:00:00
jamie peacock
Welcome to the Loan Machines Podcast, where it's just you, the work, and the machine. What have you got going on today, Kurt?
00:00:07
Curt
ah This week, I'm going to talk about stickers upon stickers upon stickers, updated packaging, and raising my prices. Ooh. How about you, Jamie? what are we go to talk about?
00:00:17
jamie peacock
We're going to talk a bit about vibe coding things, the dovetail vice busy working on, and the stupid name I've come up for that, and how I fought chip welding all week.
00:00:28
Curt
Ooh.
00:00:28
jamie peacock
Yeah,
00:00:28
Curt
All
Exploring New Shop Locations
00:00:29
jamie peacock
it's gonna be great.
00:00:29
Curt
exciting topics.
00:00:30
jamie peacock
Yeah. What are you, yeah. How are you doing this fine day?
00:00:36
Curt
I'm doing good, man. I'm doing fantastic. It's a lovely temperature here. It was five centimeters of snow like last time we talked. And like today I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt and like, I think I might get a sunburn working outside.
00:00:43
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:00:47
Curt
So it's like yeah wild weather. But how about you?
00:00:49
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:00:50
Curt
how about How's your early morning?
00:00:51
jamie peacock
It's starting to get cold, yeah. Winter's years are coming. So I'm fucking wearing a jumper because it's fucking chilly this morning.
00:00:56
Curt
Right. Yeah.
00:01:01
jamie peacock
But yeah, as the sun comes up, I'll be back in shorts and a t-shirt.
00:01:08
jamie peacock
is
00:01:08
Curt
Nice.
00:01:09
Curt
You've, you've, I said you've forever ruined shorts for me.
00:01:09
jamie peacock
Sunny South Africa. Yeah.
00:01:13
Curt
Um, sorry, I saw, I thought I saw something in my background freaked me out. Um, like anytime I put shorts on, I'm just like short pants, long pants, short pants, long pants. It's just like, yeah.
00:01:25
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, I wear, it's against the company dress code to wear long pants.
00:01:29
Curt
Fair.
00:01:30
jamie peacock
Yeah, although, yeah, having said that, the shop we looked at this week, ah I may wear long pants there because it was nice and cool and it was fucking hot. So think that shop's going to be a little bit chilly in winter.
00:01:39
Curt
Ooh.
00:01:41
Curt
Okay, so this is the the commercial space you're looking for?
00:01:44
jamie peacock
Yeah. So we
Onboarding Carl as Business Partner
00:01:45
jamie peacock
went this week and looked at commercial spaces. So got all to the real, the first real to actually responded all in the same park. I messaged all the different agencies and they were the first ones to respond. So i was like, okay, cool. Let's go see what's available in the park.
00:01:59
jamie peacock
Like, show me what is there. So we went and looked at a unit, very echoey, kind of in the middle of the park. Then we went and looked at one in the back of the park that was dingy as fuck and low ceilings.
00:02:11
jamie peacock
um and then it's like none these other units uh the blocks the block is kind of u-shaped and in the middle has got a roof over it so like you can park there your car doesn't get wet which is kind of cool uh but it's right next to the solar system so it sounds like a fucking jet is taking off all day although once i have a set of headphones on and a machine turned on you're not going to hear it anymore
00:02:23
Curt
Oh cool.
00:02:31
Curt
Oh, OK.
00:02:36
jamie peacock
So we looking we're looking at that unit.
00:02:37
Curt
Sure, yeah.
00:02:39
jamie peacock
They've just redone the floors. It's got like a little boardroom, little office upstairs, and then and nice big open area downstairs. So I'm waiting to find out if they can upgrade the breaker.
00:02:50
jamie peacock
Because all the other units... sir Oh, sorry. All 63-amp breakers, this unit's a 50-amp breaker. So...
00:02:59
Curt
Okay yeah.
00:03:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, I'm like, can we put an idiot breaker? Like, try my luck 63 is enough for now for everything we have planned for that shop. Worst case, we get the unit next to it. And then we have more, more power, more space as we go along, or move to a different units in the business park. Like once you're leasing to move to different units, not the end of the world.
00:03:22
jamie peacock
They just move you in their portfolio, because it's owned by like a dust, like a property firm or whatever. So
00:03:29
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:03:29
jamie peacock
Yeah, looks promising waiting to hear back from them. But I think we have picked the unit that we want to move into.
00:03:36
Curt
About how big
Developing a Custom ERP System
00:03:37
Curt
is it? Square meters or whatever works.
00:03:40
jamie peacock
meters it's a hundred and thirty five I think it's like square
00:03:44
Curt
Okay. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:03:47
jamie peacock
so decent sauce um
00:03:48
Curt
Nice.
00:03:49
jamie peacock
will easily fits the music five machines six machines I need to once once you got to confirm that I'll take measurements update my CAD model and then ah position all the machines how we think we're going to want them and then go from there.
00:03:57
Curt
Yeah.
00:04:08
jamie peacock
So belt should be should be fun.
00:04:08
Curt
Cool.
00:04:11
jamie peacock
um Also not excessively expensive.
00:04:15
Curt
That's good. And hopefully not a heinous drive for you or anything.
00:04:18
jamie peacock
ah Yeah. Yeah, 15 minutes from me and about 25 minutes for call.
00:04:22
Curt
Okay, that's reasonable.
00:04:23
jamie peacock
i'm not yeah So it's in it's in between us.
00:04:23
Curt
Yeah.
00:04:25
jamie peacock
It's one of the like two industrial parks between us. There is one right by his house, but I'm not willing to drive 35 minutes every day to like to the shop.
00:04:33
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:34
jamie peacock
35 back, I won't fuck that noise. um So this this looks like it's the best best of both worlds. And then yeah I've been chatting with him about bringing him on full time and how we will...
00:04:47
jamie peacock
This is very boring. How are we going to structure all of that?
00:04:49
Curt
Right. Yeah.
00:04:51
jamie peacock
So as as it is, I don't want it to just be an employee, he needs to have some skin in the game so that he's working towards something as well.
00:04:52
Curt
right
00:04:59
jamie peacock
So the the current plan is we look at what each of us are bringing to the to the unit. And that will determine a profit share for him. And then as we go and buy more equipment and scale, he can have the option to buy in more equity on the profit share, basically.
00:05:17
Curt
That
00:05:17
jamie peacock
So
Sticker and Packaging Ventures
00:05:18
Curt
sounds like a fair way to go, Beau.
00:05:19
Curt
Yeah.
00:05:19
jamie peacock
Yeah, like a couple years down the line, he can end up with the fucking like 5050 splits on profits. If he's put it in the extra capital, go for it. Like, I don't mind.
00:05:30
jamie peacock
So yeah, the idea is he can be at the shop keeping stuff running while I go galavant and do all the shit I like to do and all the admin crap that I have to do. Because I hate admin.
00:05:38
Curt
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:39
jamie peacock
And when I'm doing admin, we're not making money. look Because then parts aren't running usually.
00:05:43
Curt
Yeah.
00:05:45
jamie peacock
So yeah, I've been, yeah, building out ERPs.
00:05:50
Curt
Ooh.
00:05:51
jamie peacock
Yes, I got you to stop drinking the drink there with that one. um
00:05:55
Curt
I, yeah.
00:05:56
jamie peacock
Yeah, so I've been vibe coding the fuck out of it. ah But I very much have the opinion with these vibe coding things like I wanted to build me a standalone piece of software that I can host locally, that I'm not tied to any any services or anything like um my plan is hosted on a path five on my network.
00:06:16
jamie peacock
It handles so it started off, it was just going to be job planning. So scheduling what goes on which machine next. And then I was like, Oh, let me add Kanban cards to it.
00:06:28
jamie peacock
So it now generates Kanban cards and bulk prints Kanban cards. Then i was like, oh, let me implement material price tracking because you need to quote something you want to go your a phone. Hey, what's the material price?
00:06:40
jamie peacock
Let's do that. And then we every time we get updated price, we add it in, logs the dates and we'll make a graph of material price. And if the price on the system is within two weeks old, it's green. If it's older than two weeks, it goes red. So then you know, hey, I should probably phone and get updates of price on this material.
00:06:56
jamie peacock
So if you want to quickly quote like a late job, you just gonna search the material will be in the database. And then I was like, well, since I'm here, let me just add a quick quoting feature. So price generator. So open the job, it's got admin fee, setup fees, all the machines have predetermined hourly rates and setup costs.
00:07:17
jamie peacock
And you can select okay, it uses the lathe and the mill and this machine like you can go through the list of things and assign. So the only thing it doesn't is you've got to say okay, cool, I gotta make 500 parts, I need six lengths of material, the materials x amount per length times plus six add that in it then you say how many parts you're making it divides that gives you a per part and per run cost.
00:07:37
jamie peacock
But the idea being that call can very quickly quotes, little pins and like simple laid stuff without me being involved.
00:07:38
Curt
OK, cool.
00:07:45
jamie peacock
Once we get the go ahead, we then put it through the through QuickBooks.
00:07:51
Curt
Right, right, OK.
00:07:51
jamie peacock
Yeah, so you can give a price, like within 10 minutes to the customer. um So we get that quick turnaround side of things. And then if we need an official quote, then I do the official quote. ah But I also want to make sure we're not under quoting on jobs.
00:08:06
Curt
Sure. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. Just make it like a little bit, uh, either aggressive or whatever. So you're, you're always quoting a little high.
00:08:11
jamie peacock
So it's also like if a customer says, hey, I want this thing over here for $10, we can run it through the thing and say, hey, our cost comes out at 45 Rand, no way in fuck. Or hey, our price comes out at 11 Rand, we'll do it for 10.
00:08:25
Curt
Sure. Right, right, right.
00:08:26
jamie peacock
So it just gives us a ah quick way to see if the job's even worth looking at.
00:08:26
Curt
Yeah. yeah
00:08:32
jamie peacock
Because he's done a couple of things where it's like, dude, you are running, you're paying the guy to run these parts for you.
00:08:32
Curt
Yeah, totally.
00:08:39
Curt
Yeah.
00:08:39
jamie peacock
Like, but that that comes with being new to running your business. So I feel a little bit bad because I'm kind of stealing his dream. But as Danica put it, it's like, no, you are.
00:08:50
jamie peacock
He wants to work for himself. In this case, he's still going to be he's going to be independent contractor. He's working for himself just for J spec. um But it's giving him a force multiplier of like fucking insane this because he's basically going to just run all the lates, keep all the lates running.
00:09:06
Curt
Okay. Yeah.
00:09:07
jamie peacock
Yeah, so the next thing's going to be setup sheets. Yay. No, there's a lot of stuff that I do that I do from my head because I've run the parts 20 times. The code's on the machine. I go, I know what everything needs to be. Now I have to document all because, hey, Carl, run this part for me.
00:09:24
jamie peacock
He doesn't know what the fuck, so yeah, need to, you know, it's interesting.
00:09:29
Curt
Yeah.
00:09:29
jamie peacock
him Implementing all these systems to scale as I didn't intend to scale.
00:09:35
Curt
Yeah. Well, like you said, even if you don't intend, like it's it's just nice to have to take load off of your brain. So, yeah.
00:09:42
jamie peacock
No, exactly. So yeah, that's ah that's been Jerp V2.
Designing a Dovetail Vice
00:09:46
jamie peacock
So I built ERP. couple years ago in Google app sheets which did the price tracking and the calculations and has's it's got a bunch of notes for setup sheets and stuff for anodizing and I've built one I stopped using it because the app wouldn't load properly so now this is just a web page that currently is hosted on my on my PC using I think it's using node
00:09:52
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:10:11
Curt
Oh,
00:10:12
jamie peacock
um and I'm building it out, then we'll deploy it to a pie and put it on the network that we can both access. And then each machine can access it with a tablet. And it has a display of what is currently in the machine, what the expected runtime is, and then what the next things are.
00:10:28
jamie peacock
And when you say starts, it starts counting down when you say done, it saves it to the to the reports page and says whether you were under or over the projected time.
00:10:40
Curt
cool. Yeah, that's nice.
00:10:40
jamie peacock
Yes, I added a bunch of crap because I could.
00:10:44
Curt
Well, ah that's the problem, right? That's a problem with vibe coding is you can just make it exactly how you want.
00:10:45
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:10:47
Curt
And yeah, you have this monster endeavor that you never finish.
00:10:48
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:10:52
jamie peacock
Well, yeah, it'll get to a point where it's functional and then I'll probably leave it alone for a bit. um But yeah, it's been a fun thing. What are you looking at ERPing?
00:11:02
Curt
um I basically just want it for tax time. and just I mean, we went through tax time. this is I line my financial year up with a regular taxes so it all works out. But whenever I do it, I'm like, oh, I wish it would do this, this, and this. So this time, I was actually talking with Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, about...
00:11:18
Curt
Because he he chimed in and he's like, dude, he's like, you know, I'll help you with whatever you need um you know to get something up. And I was like, I appreciate it. um And then I was like, you know what? Before i start this, because i was i'm like I'm so excited to like build like my own yeah ERP just because reasons like why not it's fun um so i i timed the things that are annoying for me at year end it's just it's mainly like bringing my financials in because it's not tied in nicely with my financials i come through my my web store um they don't mesh white nicely so i timed how long it takes me to manually do it and it's like minutes like i think it took me 10 15 minutes to like bring all the data in and i was like
00:11:44
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:57
Curt
okay, automating this doesn't make any sense because like I only really have to do it once a year. like i It'd be nice to do it every month, but even every month, I could do it in probably like maybe two minutes. I could bring the data through, so i'm like,
00:12:12
Curt
Okay, like going even going through the ah effort of just plugging in an API to bring that in, I'm like, I i'll ah just wasted effort. Like I'm like, I'll never i'll never make use of that. So i was just like, and like I said, I'm using Airtable. It does what I need to do right now. So I was like, eh, maybe I'll just back burner this for a little bit until next year, until I'm frustrated again. And I'll think about this whole process again. And I'll basically come to the same conclusion.
00:12:34
jamie peacock
Yeah, like the only reason I went down this whole ERP route was because I'm bringing Carl on and I need to know that if I'm not in the shop, he knows what needs to run next. What the order of priorities of jobs is.
00:12:34
Curt
So...
00:12:45
jamie peacock
Like, that's the only reason I went down this this rabbit hole.
00:12:46
Curt
Totally.
00:12:48
jamie peacock
And Kanban cards are cool.
00:12:50
Curt
Well, and like you, like my world, I go, this month I want to make a hundred pens and I know everything.
00:12:57
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:12:58
Curt
Like I don't, my work never changes. like, and if I put a new product in, like I know every, like I have material tracking, like I've stripped some things out of it over the years. Cause just, I'm like, I never use this, um, like some vendor price tracking stuff.
00:13:11
Curt
I'm just like, I can track that different ways, but it's just like, I know what my month is every single month. I know exactly how much material usage I'm going to use.
00:13:16
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:18
Curt
So it's not like, it's not all that complicated when you have a ah pretty strict product big based business. So I understand it in your application way more when you're doing like quoting and stuff.
00:13:24
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:13:27
Curt
But yeah.
00:13:28
jamie peacock
Yeah, we're going to be doing a lot more job shoppy stuff, especially would the with the, with other customer who wants to put their machine down in our shop. Like their stuff is, everything is different. But there it's also a case of they drop material, we machine part, they pick up material finish part.
00:13:44
jamie peacock
there's we not handling material ordering there we are literally making sure we have tools to run their parts and that's it yeah so but then we also did a whole bunch of job shoppy stuff with the stuff currently do so it's like yeah so it's a very like weird mix like i'd love to just be doing my own product stuff but we still do a lot of jobbing i actually got a i quoted on 4 000 brass dowel pins this week
00:13:52
Curt
Okay. Well, that's nice. Yeah.
00:13:57
Curt
Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:06
Curt
Yeah.
00:14:12
Curt
That's a lot.
00:14:12
jamie peacock
Yeah, Emco. I'm going to set the Emco up.
00:14:14
Curt
that's
00:14:15
jamie peacock
It's two-part numbers and just let it ship parts out.
00:14:18
Curt
Yeah, fair. Yeah.
00:14:20
jamie peacock
It's a beast. Once I dial it in, it'll just run for days and days. It should be about eight days of production to make 4,000 dial pins.
00:14:27
Curt
Cool. That's lot breath. That's lot breath. That's lot of doubt. How tight are they? Tolerance-wise.
00:14:32
jamie peacock
I don't know. I'm going to make a drawing and I'm gonna send them a drawing and say sign off before i start. So I'm probably going to set a decent tolerance on it.
00:14:38
Curt
Okay. Okay.
00:14:40
jamie peacock
I believe they're for knife making. So I don't think the tolerances are super, super tight. But I'm not entirely sure what the use case is.
00:14:45
Curt
Oh, okay. Okay.
00:14:48
jamie peacock
So I need to have a chat with them on Monday and just be like, hey, I saw you gave me a thumbs up on the pricing here a set of drawings. I'm not drilling these holes with a square bottom drill. I'm drilling them with a fucking drill bits.
00:14:59
jamie peacock
So you need to expect that there's going to be a taper at the bottom of the hole. Do you want me to drill so that the tip breaks through the bottom of the hole? you want the tip at the bottom of the hole? Also, I'm breaking all the corners.
00:15:08
Curt
Right.
00:15:09
jamie peacock
He has a drawing, an accurate drawing with how the chamfers will be so that you understand what you're getting and you don't get it and then be sad.
00:15:17
Curt
Totally. Yeah, that makes sense.
00:15:18
jamie peacock
But yeah, i've got to add I've got to add another grooving tool to the EMCO. because I've got to put the grooved dial pins. So what I'm going to do is I'm going turn the OD and chamfer the edges of the grooves with the OD tool, do a skim pass to make sure the size, change to tool four, do the grooves, change to tool seven, do the part off, and then really slowly at the end so I don't get a nubbin.
00:15:41
jamie peacock
ah There's also a drilling open there somewhere.
00:15:42
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:43
jamie peacock
But yeah, I'll get it dialed in and then just the Emco can shit them out. Like that is what the Emco is good at doing.
00:15:49
Curt
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:50
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:15:51
Curt
Nice. Yeah.
00:15:51
jamie peacock
And a little four millimeter diameter freaking pins.
00:15:56
Curt
Yeah.
00:15:56
jamie peacock
Tiny, tiny things.
00:15:56
Curt
Yeah. Works out.
00:15:58
jamie peacock
So, I see you've been making stickers.
00:16:03
Curt
Dude. Yeah. So it's like a labor of love now. I'm going to do a video on it, um which I think is going to do decently. Well, the amount of like messages I've got just for these so stupid, like how, like how I'm doing it is kind of shocking.
00:16:15
Curt
Um, so it'd be, it'd be fun to make the video on it. Um, but it all led me down the road of basically, uh, like I've already ordered all the stickers I'm making. I've already ordered them all to get professionally printed. Cause like it's, it's the way to go folks.
00:16:25
jamie peacock
yeah
00:16:27
Curt
Um, Yeah, like last week we talked about ah i came across like an actual, ah like a proper eco-solvent machine um to like make my own in-house stickers. And i was like, I was so tempted because it was on Marketplace for like a quarter of the cost. And there are like many thousands of dollars to buy. um And it was it was on Marketplace for cheap. And I'm like,
00:16:49
Curt
h And the guy's like, oh, just needs a flush. So when I looked online and like the heads on those, like the print heads are like $1,400 if they're, you know, totally clogged.
00:16:55
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah. you're a stick-a stick-a-vander.
00:16:59
Curt
And like, that's a huge, and then the the ink is another 600 on top of that. So I'm like, okay, that's a $2,000. I basically would, it's like a $2,000 gamble. um And I'm like, well, and then when you factor in what they were selling the used machine for, I'm like, I could buy new pretty close.
00:17:13
Curt
And I'm like, this is, this makes no sense at all. Um,
00:17:16
jamie peacock
yeah not a sticker stick a venor
00:17:18
Curt
ah No, not at all. Like I haven't even sold a single one. So I'm like, what am I doing? And then i was like, well, could sell stickers. i'm like, why would I want to compete in that market? That's the most dumbest thing to possibly do. It just, I get, it just, it is so cool.
00:17:27
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:29
Curt
Like the the tech is cool. That's why I kind of fall into it. um But yeah, anyways, had ton of fun. Just the really nice thing is be able to like, just make something like before I sent out all those stickers, I printed them all off.
00:17:39
Curt
I got them exactly how i want them to look. They're in my hand and I'm like, yep, that's what I want. And then I sent them out. And when they came, like when they came in, I'm like, that's exactly what I produced. So I'm like, I'm, it's It's nice for that, just for iterating. And then for making my own dumb stuff that I can just stick on light poles or stuff around the city and yeah make heinous stickers for just whatever the whatever the hell reason I want.
00:17:58
Curt
And obviously my little people, they they think it's pretty slick that I can just do that. So yeah, I don't know, fun.
00:18:02
jamie peacock
Yes, the midgets do not buy the stickers generally.
00:18:07
Curt
Dude, yeah, who doesn't like stickers?
00:18:07
jamie peacock
Yeah, those stickers are fucking cool.
00:18:08
Curt
They're fun. so Yeah.
00:18:11
jamie peacock
Yeah, 100%.
00:18:11
Curt
So I think I'll make ah I'll make a big gang of them just for our Patreons and send them out. Cause you know what? They're free. So I mean, technically those guys are paying me, so I will throw in some like proper stickers as well, but that way I can make a bunch of dumb ones and send them to people.
00:18:25
Curt
So yeah. So geeking out.
00:18:30
jamie peacock
sure Which topic would you like to to cover?
00:18:34
Curt
Dude, selfishly, I want to hear about your dovetail vice because I've been i've been trying to catch all your stories on that. It the cutest little vice that I've ever seen.
00:18:43
jamie peacock
It's 22 millimeters cubed. I literally changed one of the dimensions to make it a cube.
00:18:46
Curt
It's so small.
00:18:48
jamie peacock
It's freaking tiny.
00:18:48
Curt
It's so tiny. That's not even... let's Yeah,
Community Projects and Engagement
00:18:52
Curt
that's...
00:18:52
jamie peacock
So that the standard version holds a 10 millimeter wide dovetail.
00:18:57
Curt
yeah Okay, yep.
00:18:57
jamie peacock
But there'll be there'll be a Kurt special version that holds four millimeter wide dovetail.
00:19:03
Curt
Ooh, thank you.
00:19:03
jamie peacock
Yes. But the dovetail the dovetails get interesting when it's that narrow. So generally speaking, i don't know what I've done with my dovetail boss. Anyway, ah generally speaking, you cut the dovetail and you rest on the shoulder you cut.
00:19:19
jamie peacock
for like bigger dovetails.
00:19:20
Curt
Right. Yeah.
00:19:21
jamie peacock
In your case, you're going to do the opposite. So the dovetail vise only going to be the dovetails only going to be like a mill, a mill and a half deep. And you're going to face the bottom, do your dovetail cut, but you're going to rest on the bottom and grip not on the top.
00:19:35
Curt
I see what you mean. Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:36
jamie peacock
Yeah, because you've got more surface area there than you do on the side on the where you do your relief, because your parts so narrow.
00:19:41
Curt
Right. Right. Yeah.
00:19:44
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:19:44
Curt
right yeah
00:19:45
jamie peacock
So I need dovetail vises to make dovetail vises. So I've designed the the little grippers to be made. So and um it's out of 25 diameter 303 stainless.
00:19:57
jamie peacock
So I'm going to blank a whole lot of blanks off. Well, when when I decide to produce these in like volume, have Carl blank them in the good way for me. Then they get loaded with the spindle gripper, dovetailed, and then they go into dovetail vices for op one.
00:20:12
jamie peacock
And then they go into a pallet with knife maker method for op two. Like I've planned out my whole production run.
00:20:17
Curt
Gotcha.
00:20:18
jamie peacock
So I'm going to put like eight of these little dovetail vases on a pallet that I can do a whole bunch of these at once.
00:20:22
Curt
Oh,
00:20:23
jamie peacock
But yeah, they're super, super cute. I want to try get them.
00:20:26
Curt
all they're like, yeah.
00:20:27
jamie peacock
Yeah, going to try get them done today. Or at least the prototype ones.
00:20:30
Curt
There's, that is, you work at a very quick rate. Like, i well like we chatted about this a couple weeks ago and yeah, like, that's wild.
00:20:34
jamie peacock
Well, yeah. Those little bodies were kicking my ass last night. um Deflection on the tools in the 7075 like...
00:20:46
jamie peacock
fucking unreasonable. I had to do four but finish passes to be able to rely reliably hit the tolerance I wanted on those bodies.
00:20:55
Curt
Really?
00:20:56
jamie peacock
Yeah, I want the bodies within half a thou on the squareness or the the size. And I had like, I literally was comma two of a millimeter over, run the finish pass twice more and it's on size.
00:21:02
Curt
tight, yeah.
00:21:08
Curt
Wow, yeah, that's...
00:21:09
jamie peacock
Yeah, a lot of pushback on that. so But fine. I've got a process that somewhat works. Those will also end up in the pneumatic vise with the spindle gripper down the line that I can just blank off op 1s
00:21:19
Curt
What? Why do you want them so tight? I mean,
00:21:23
jamie peacock
so that you can use the body as a locating feature.
00:21:26
Curt
Okay, okay. That makes sense then. All right.
00:21:27
jamie peacock
It's got two dial pins in the bottom as well, but use the but I want the body to also be accurate. um
00:21:33
Curt
Okay.
00:21:34
jamie peacock
that you can use it as a locating feature to be pretty freaking close. um So it's got four M4 holes in the bottom on a 16 pitch that you can bolt from the bottom.
00:21:41
Curt
o
00:21:44
jamie peacock
So you can make a pallet and then just bolt them in from the bottom. And that's actually how I plan on doing the second, third, and fourth up is on the rotary and bolting two of them to a bar.
00:21:52
Curt
Okay.
00:21:55
jamie peacock
And then I can hit all the sides relatively easily.
00:21:59
Curt
Yeah, soon as soon as i saw you but i as soon as I saw your story, I was immediately like, oh, Tombstone on the 4th.
00:21:59
jamie peacock
And then i'm going to change. Yeah.
00:22:07
Curt
That would be so cool to have like there's racks of them.
00:22:08
jamie peacock
So if the issue is screwing into them, so the problem is you can only put two because then the bolts start occluding each other.
00:22:11
Curt
Sure, yeah.
00:22:15
jamie peacock
um So on the top of the dovetail vice in the center, I'm going to put a, it was going to be a dial pin, I'm going to put a threaded hole So you put a grub screw in and then when you're blanking your material, you mill a slot and you drop it in and it's located in your other axis.
00:22:33
Curt
Okay.
00:22:34
jamie peacock
So yeah, adding adding features like I wanted to put a threaded hole on the side that you could work stop and then I was like, yeah. that's another operation. Screw that shit. Like that's another have to now hold it in a different orientation.
00:22:44
Curt
Yeah.
00:22:45
jamie peacock
I'm not interested in adding complexity where don't need it. So yeah, those those are going through the machine today is the intended plan.
00:22:49
Curt
Totally. Yeah.
00:22:54
Curt
Oh, they're so cute. They're so cute.
00:22:55
jamie peacock
They're adorable.
00:22:56
jamie peacock
And yeah, so then those are going to go out. Well, these ones will be for testing. And then I'll send them the production ones out for anodizing. I'm not anodizing them in the house.
00:22:57
Curt
Yeah.
00:23:06
Curt
Oh, okay. Yeah, fair.
00:23:07
jamie peacock
Yeah, I want to be able to make decent quantities of them. So I don't want to be struggling with anodiles although like I can probably put 10 of them on a rack and not run out of amperage.
00:23:17
Curt
I was going to say they are pretty small.
00:23:18
jamie peacock
So they're tiny. But like now that I've got the grippers dealt with, there's nothing stopping me from making bigger ones with the same gripper.
00:23:28
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:23:29
jamie peacock
Because the grip is the the complicated but they're like, it's a a little complicated little stainless pot.
00:23:36
Curt
Yeah, no fair.
00:23:36
jamie peacock
I think I've got that dialed then we we're pretty much off to the races there. But yeah, i was thinking of ah names for it.
00:23:44
Curt
yeah That was my next question, is if you haven't any have any good names yet.
00:23:48
jamie peacock
I was thinking of calling it the swallow vase.
00:23:52
Curt
ah Swallow?
00:23:52
jamie peacock
It's a bird.
00:23:53
Curt
yeah Yeah, I suppose.
00:23:56
jamie peacock
Oh, swallowtail, it's like the back of a surfboard.
00:23:59
Curt
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah.
00:24:00
jamie peacock
Yeah, I don't know. I'll come up with something, something Nordically themed. as one does, yeah, like, yeah, nautical, nautical work-holding-themed.
00:24:05
Curt
Fair, yeah. Yeah.
00:24:11
jamie peacock
But yeah, those I'm making, I think I've got six of them that came off, uh, of one that worked out, dropped one of them as I took it out the vase and dinged it.
00:24:12
Curt
Yeah.
00:24:18
jamie peacock
was like, yeah, i was a little bit annoyed, so I'll use it as a victim for setting up.
00:24:19
Curt
Aw.
00:24:24
jamie peacock
And then, uh, yeah, order, order material, cut to size, the appropriate size.
00:24:25
Curt
Sure, yeah.
00:24:29
jamie peacock
Because, I mean, I had to take, like, 10 mils off the top of these blocks because that was the material I had on hand.
00:24:36
Curt
Gotcha. Yeah.
00:24:36
jamie peacock
so i will see might just order a strip of 7075 so have them cut me a piece of 25 mil 25 wide 1.25 long like off the end of a plate and then i just throw it in the bandsaw and have it cut to length for me um in my shop instead of having them cut me tiny blocks because i know that their cutting is a little bit inconsistent and i can't get maybe can get one inch bar but i doubt it i doubt i would be able to get that in 7075 locally
00:24:57
Curt
Oh yeah. No fair. Yeah.
00:25:05
Curt
Ah, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:07
jamie peacock
the whole local story. But yeah, anyway.
00:25:10
Curt
Yeah.
00:25:11
jamie peacock
So, what are you doing to your packaging?
00:25:12
Curt
They're awesome.
00:25:15
Curt
um This is like a So many, so many levels to this one. Um, so yeah, with the, with the printer, it let me do a bunch of like, which is just a nice dependable printer. Like I go out and buy a good printer folks. If you have a printer that's like me, that was like, don't know, five, 10 years, actually it's probably older that. It's probably 10 years old. And it just like, doesn't work well. was just like doing stupid things. So anyways, I was able to update all my packaging to like nice printed things.
00:25:42
Curt
Um, Got all my labels set up nicely. Like just everything better so that I can ship. I actually shipped the last, i was doing a bunch of that corporate work. The half, the back half of that corporate work, I was able to ship with all my new packaging. So like,
00:25:56
Curt
like labels that are all die cut and everything or kiss cut, whatever, like on a big sheet.
00:25:59
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:26:00
Curt
So just like, just dumb things where like, I'm not fighting fighting to find the the edge of a label when I'm putting like art labeling on all the boxes and just like the dumbest things you wouldn't think about. And that I realized just take hours of my time.
00:26:14
Curt
um Yeah. I just, ah nothing, nothing, visually, I mean, all every all the artwork is now color, but just so much easier, so much easier to pack up. And like, I can, all the labels are printed flat.
00:26:26
Curt
So like, I do a lot of like, ah like I sign a lot of the packaging or I like, I write a message to the customer. I just been able to do that when it's like, everything is flat on a table. Cause now they're printed on like a paper that actually takes ink instead of, cause I've always been printing on thermal paper, which is fine, but it doesn't take ink well so that I don't want to stick it on the packaging and then write on it.
00:26:40
jamie peacock
Ah.
00:26:44
Curt
Cause like, or sorry, I want to stick it on the packaging then write so I don't have to handle it.
00:26:45
jamie peacock
It'll smear
00:26:48
Curt
Um, anyways, just the dumbest things you wouldn't think about when you do this like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and thousands of times is like, it adds up really quick. So yeah, it's just been so much nicer, so much nicer.
00:26:56
jamie peacock
you. Yeah.
00:27:02
Curt
And, uh,
00:27:02
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, making packaging upgrades is always nice.
00:27:05
Curt
Dude, and then like I ah like for all these, so I'm going obviously sell all the little stickers on my site and then there's going to be a pack where I'll have like all the weird flavors of stickers, all the dumb little sayings I have and there'll be a pack.
00:27:16
Curt
um So I worked on some packaging for a pack of stickers so I can just, once again, they're not horribly expensive so I can't put a crap ton of effort and time into this but I still want it to look cool so...
00:27:24
jamie peacock
Yes, I've used them in the past.
00:27:26
Curt
um basically little card stock carriers. So they, they're somewhat protected and they go in little bubble mailer and out they go. Um, but I've just been, it's so much fun to geek out on that. and there's a cool site. Uh, actually it's in the Google box. Um, and it'll be linked in the show notes.
00:27:39
Curt
Um, but it's yeah template maker dot NL, I think.
00:27:42
jamie peacock
yes i've used him in the past
00:27:43
Curt
If you... Yeah, like if you're trying to... pro Even if you want to... Like I used it for prototyping out like box sizes to figure out what I wanted before I ordered a bunch of them. And it's fantastic because it gives you like a PDF printout of whatever kind of shape you want to make.
00:27:57
Curt
You want a triangle like Toblerone box or ah you want like a box that like the little um apple fritters come or the ah little apple pies come from in McDonald's like the pop.
00:27:57
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:28:04
jamie peacock
Yes, I've used it for that box, actually.
00:28:06
Curt
Oh, did you? Okay, yeah.
00:28:07
jamie peacock
Yes, for those styles.
00:28:07
Curt
It's like... the Yeah, and you can alter all the...
00:28:10
jamie peacock
It's a really, really cool website.
00:28:12
Curt
It's an amazing, yeah, go check it out, folks. It's really useful. I've used it tons over the years and it just, yeah, it's free. Just use what you want.
00:28:18
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:28:18
Curt
So, yeah, i don't know.
00:28:20
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's going to be the next thing I get to deal with is packaging my vases.
00:28:26
Curt
Yeah, like, and so many people reached out on Instagram about like, like I posted some ah art box artwork and stuff like that. And i actually posted a picture of the the company that printed, they're professionally printed me the stickers, um jukebox prints. They're made out of, come out of Canada.
00:28:42
Curt
um I put an order and it wasn't like an enormous order. It was probably the biggest sticker order I've ever done. But they sent me like a friction slider, giant rainbow box, like really nice feeling. All the stickers, everything packed in there nice, like super, super nice packaging job.
00:28:58
Curt
So they won my business just from that. Cause I'm like, oh, they care enough to send me something that looks nice. And like everything showed up well. And anyways, packaging is such a big thing for like,
00:29:09
jamie peacock
yeah
00:29:10
Curt
retail customer kind of stuff. It's like, it makes a difference. Big difference.
00:29:14
jamie peacock
it makes a huge difference
Designing a Rotary Cleaning Device
00:29:15
jamie peacock
it makes a huge difference you know what else makes a huge difference our patreons the patreons on the that was a pretty good segue uh the patreons make the wheels on the train go round and round uh yeah thank you to all the patreons you guys keep going the lights on and the wheels on the train turning ah
00:29:19
Curt
Yeah. who What? It's good segue.
00:29:37
jamie peacock
Patreons get access to the after show where Kirsten and I normally ramble about random stuff. um And the top tier patrons all get a shout out every week. And that list today is Jade from Benchmark20, Luke from Fabtastic, AJ from Subtract Manufacturing,
00:29:51
jamie peacock
and 40 other companies jason s ej from nocturnal welding the aussie machinist christian olson charles watt kyle from cursed machine matt from offworld gear lxb john from tourism performance and engine tricks and matt from modern fuel thank you guys and uh yeah that's all going towards uh the imts endeavors where i'm gonna have a meet up with a cardboard cutout and you guys
00:30:15
Curt
I was literally actually just looking at cardboard cutouts to send to you. Oh, that'd
00:30:18
jamie peacock
nice um Yeah, so of the plan, that'll be on the Monday. We are currently arranging with which booth. I think it may be at the Tormach booth. I need to just send Norman a message to remind him tomorrow to chat to the appropriate people about having them hosted for us on the Monday at like 2 o'clock.
00:30:38
jamie peacock
So, yeah, more info to come.
00:30:38
Curt
um be cool. That'd be super cool. Yeah.
00:30:40
jamie peacock
Yeah, Norman, as far as he's concerned, Tormach can fall off a bridge for that week because he wants to actually explore IMTS. Cause last time he was repairing the machine the whole fricking time and couldn't leave the booth.
00:30:52
Curt
Oh, yeah.
00:30:52
jamie peacock
So yeah, it's, uh, it's going to be fun.
00:30:57
Curt
I feel that pain. I used to do like, um, like maker fairs here and like, they are so much fun to exhibit at. And like, that's part of the success of like my whole startup thing was just being able to go to those and like meet so many people. And like, anyways, um, it's so much fun exhibiting and just talking and you lose your voice like instantaneously. Cause you're talking like this all day and you're talking loud. Cause you're talking. And then anyways, you don't see anything. Like I would go to these maker fairs being so excited to see all my friends. They're like doing the craziest shit. And,
00:31:27
Curt
I'd never get to visit them because you're like, oh yeah, especially when they're popular. Like the ones I went to, thankfully were really well attended. So you're like just swamped all day. We can't even eat. Anyways, it's a thing.
00:31:37
jamie peacock
yeah no that's the problem with exhibiting at these things is you end up getting absolutely swamped
00:31:43
Curt
I bet IMTS would just be heinous because like they have enormous crowds.
00:31:46
jamie peacock
yeah no that the number of people is insane uh but yeah um i'm quite excited we'll look at the map the map's been updated it's going be exciting yeah i was thinking of reaching out to lk and seeing if we can have them host us at their at their booth
00:31:47
Curt
So yeah.
00:31:55
Curt
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:00
Curt
and be kind of cool. Yeah, be cool.
00:32:01
jamie peacock
would. But yeah, I think we'll just do Tomok we friends with Tomok people. So that helps.
00:32:07
Curt
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:32:08
jamie peacock
Like, yeah, and they're not a foreign come. Well, like they, they speak English, let's put it that way. Well, they speak American.
00:32:16
Curt
Sure, exactly.
00:32:17
jamie peacock
um
00:32:17
Curt
Yeah.
00:32:18
jamie peacock
So we're gonna do something I need to actually order stuff or do something as giveaways for people. I'm waiting for my pneumatic vise to arrive so I can make a bunch of the utility knives and then I think I might do a bunch of the rulers as well.
00:32:32
jamie peacock
Just order a whole shitload of them.
00:32:33
Curt
I have a ton of yours.
00:32:36
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:32:36
Curt
I mean, those are kind of reserved for Patreons here.
00:32:38
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:32:38
Curt
um
00:32:39
jamie peacock
But I think I'm just going to do like another 300 or so of them and just bring a boatload of them with me to IMTS.
00:32:39
Curt
Sorry, folks. I'm sitting my hands.
00:32:45
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:32:47
Curt
yeah, yeah. I should send a little care package. Maybe i could send it to somebody that's going to go there.
00:32:52
jamie peacock
Yeah, can yeah and we'll figure that out.
00:32:52
Curt
We'll figure it out. That's that's U.S.
00:32:54
jamie peacock
out
00:32:54
Curt
us s bound, not Africa bound, so I don't have to send something across the world.
00:32:56
jamie peacock
Yes. Yeah. We'll send it to Jacob, Jacob, Jacob.
00:33:00
Curt
Yeah, maybe we'll do something.
00:33:01
jamie peacock
Because I'm maybe meeting up with them like a few days before IMTS.
00:33:01
Curt
Anyways, oh we'll figure that out.
00:33:07
jamie peacock
And then making our way.
00:33:08
Curt
Cool.
00:33:08
jamie peacock
don't Plans are still all up in the air. It's still like, what, four months away?
00:33:15
Curt
Yeah, it comes quick, but yeah.
00:33:16
jamie peacock
we still have time. Yeah, fuck. Tell me about it. But yeah, that problem for another day. Um, yes.
00:33:23
Curt
So, um tell me about your glory hole.
00:33:28
jamie peacock
I got peer pressured on Friday.
00:33:30
Curt
Oh no!
00:33:31
jamie peacock
So I was on the, yeah, i was on the Taps and Patience, Taps and Patience Discord, and I got peer pressured into designing a rotary window clear thingy.
00:33:32
Curt
but
00:33:43
Curt
Oh, okay. This is way less scary peer pressure.
00:33:44
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:33:46
Curt
Carry on.
00:33:47
jamie peacock
Yes. um ah So I'm waiting for motors and speed controllers and material to prototype on quickly.
00:33:55
Curt
Nice. Nice.
00:33:56
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:33:58
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's got some interesting design features. We'll go into it more over the coming coming weeks as develop it. But yeah, the idea is that actually magnets onto a window. So the front bezel is powder coated steel.
00:33:58
Curt
Oh, boy.
00:34:09
Curt
Oh.
00:34:12
jamie peacock
and then it's got 12 neodymium magnets in it and an o-ring so you go kai chunk on your window and kai chunk and there you go it's attached don't ever let the plate touch that thing because it requires 70 kilograms of force to get it off
00:34:13
Curt
Oh, I see.
00:34:22
Curt
Cool. Okay.
00:34:28
Curt
Fair. ah
00:34:29
jamie peacock
yeah so i think it'll hold to a window we're going to find out worst case vhp tape uh but yeah it's not it's not a complicated product to make it's really not it's like four pieces um
00:34:30
Curt
exactly
00:34:38
Curt
Fair. Yeah.
00:34:40
jamie peacock
So I ordered some gimbal motors, ah like for RC gimbals, because that's all it is.
00:34:47
Curt
Oh, perfect.
00:34:48
jamie peacock
And then I found an ESC that if you put voltage, it ramps to full speed. no PWM signal required.
00:34:53
Curt
oh perfect
00:34:55
jamie peacock
So I ordered two of those to try. um And then we're going to have it with an air purge and the air purge, basically the eight millimeter airline, I'm going to shove two wires through to run power. So it's a single part that goes to a little blocky that's got your air inlet with a solenoid and your power in and when you plug the power in, it turns solenoid on to let your air in for the purge and also powers up the the spinning disk of justice.
00:35:20
Curt
Oh, perfect.
00:35:21
jamie peacock
And then you can just tie that to like an out outlet on your machine.
00:35:21
Curt
Perfect.
00:35:25
jamie peacock
When you turn your machine on the disk spins and purges.
00:35:25
Curt
Yeah.
00:35:28
Curt
Perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:35:29
jamie peacock
And then, yeah, thinking of making everything replaceable. So instead of a glass window, I'm thinking of going polycarb. I can machine it on a vacuum fixture really easily. If it gets damaged, buy a new one.
00:35:40
Curt
Mm-hmm.
00:35:42
jamie peacock
Like I'll just sell you a spare. You bolt it on yourself. um And then electronics-wise as well, just have hot spares ready to go if it fucks out by a spare. Spare is going to be like $30, $40, and you replace the motor ESC and everything.
00:35:57
Curt
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:57
jamie peacock
So, yeah, instead of trying to make it, it'll be industrial-ish, but instead of trying to make it like bulletproof, we just make it that we sell spares. It's not going to be $2,000 spinning window.
00:36:06
Curt
Yeah.
00:36:09
jamie peacock
It's going be like an $800 spinning window.
00:36:13
Curt
Nice.
00:36:15
jamie peacock
Definitely not doing this on purpose to specifically target a certain company. um
00:36:20
Curt
That's kind of what I thinking.
00:36:20
jamie peacock
But yeah, I got peer pressured. Yeah, I got peer pressured on Friday because a couple of the guys on the Taps Patients Discord were like, come on on, come on, make one, make one.
00:36:22
Curt
Yeah.
00:36:27
jamie peacock
So I was like, fine, let me quickly draw it up. And then next thing you know, i've ordered parts and costed it out. Designed the fixtures for machining it as well.
00:36:35
Curt
Well, mean,
00:36:37
jamie peacock
Like, yeah.
00:36:38
Curt
I see you were kind of running low on like new product ideas that you're currently working on. So was good that you threw another one on the fire.
00:36:43
jamie peacock
No, exactly.
00:36:44
Curt
Yeah.
00:36:45
jamie peacock
Exactly. But yeah, this starts life as chunk of aluminium, like 265 square by 20 mil thick. So it's also, the whole thing is only an inch thick.
00:36:56
jamie peacock
So it's thinner than everyone else's as well. For if you have stacking doors in your machine, so it's a little bit thinner.
00:36:59
Curt
Oh, nice. Okay.
00:37:01
jamie peacock
um But yeah, we'll see we'll see how it goes. I'm going to make myself one, and i'm going to make a second one, and then I'll probably make like a small batch of them.
00:37:11
Curt
How big is the, uh, how like what's the diameter roughly?
00:37:16
jamie peacock
0.3 of an inch bigger than the competition.
00:37:19
Curt
Of course it is.
00:37:19
jamie peacock
8.4 inch viewing window. The overall is 260 mils, so just over 10 inches.
00:37:22
Curt
Oh, okay.
00:37:28
Curt
Okay, wow. Yeah, okay. That's a size bigger than I thought. so
00:37:32
jamie peacock
Yeah, so basically you're going to throw it on the vacuum chuck, op 1 it, turn it over knife making method into an anchor point harbor fixture, kind chunk and go to town and just evaporate all the material.
00:37:44
jamie peacock
Literally, takes eight minutes to take all the material off of it.
00:37:45
Curt
Nice.
00:37:47
jamie peacock
And then the rest is all just finishes and fucking o-ring grooves and shit.
00:37:48
Curt
Nice.
00:37:51
jamie peacock
So yeah I'm going build one and see how it works.
00:37:51
Curt
Right.
00:37:52
jamie peacock
And then we'll take it from there. I'm thinking of making a jig to pot the electronics. So I literally make like a little potted thing that just slots into a groove. And that's all electronics waterproof.
00:38:03
Curt
Sure.
00:38:04
jamie peacock
Like it's going to run on a five amp power supply. So you literally can't burn the motor out.
00:38:11
Curt
Yeah, exactly. You're not going to.
00:38:12
jamie peacock
No, no.
00:38:12
Curt
Yeah, for sure.
00:38:13
jamie peacock
Yeah, it's got a 30 amp ESC because that's the ones I could buy. I didn't want to go, I'm trying to avoid going custom electronics. I just want to buy something off the shelf. And if it means I've got to solder it together, put it all in a jig and pot it and sell them as potted assemblies, that's what I'll do.
00:38:27
Curt
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:28
jamie peacock
Yeah, and then, yeah.
00:38:28
Curt
Yeah.
00:38:29
jamie peacock
But we'll see if anything comes of it. It'll be fun to build
Solving Pen Refill Issues
00:38:33
jamie peacock
one.
00:38:34
Curt
I was, ah I was like, I have one of those like old, um like, ah it's actually a box cam, but it was like the GoPros that are like just little cubes. um So I was going to make, i was like, you know what, I should, like, it'd be nice to throw one of these in um in my machine and have like some closer footage or like clear footage. And i'm like, well, i'm like, if put in my machine, I have to put like an air knife on it because like, there's no way you're going to get clear footage otherwise.
00:38:56
Curt
um Or put it tube like we talked about last episode.
00:38:58
jamie peacock
Yeah, I was about to bring that up. Yeah.
00:39:01
Curt
And then I saw it on your thing. I saw your window. i was like, oh yeah. I'm like, I could just use a window. And then I have a nice zoom lens on the outside where i can just pipe right into what I want to want to look at.
00:39:08
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:39:10
Curt
And i was like, yeah, i never thought about windows.
00:39:10
jamie peacock
Your your side windows on the side, do they have that same mesh over them?
00:39:12
Curt
so
00:39:16
Curt
No, no, they're just big, big open glass window.
00:39:16
jamie peacock
Like, are they open?
00:39:20
Curt
And that's where I would put it. Cause then that's where I do in most of the shooting anyways.
00:39:21
jamie peacock
Yeah, that's okay.
00:39:23
Curt
Cause yeah, the front's a grid, so you're not going to see shit, but yeah.
00:39:26
jamie peacock
like Okay, so it looks like you need one for testing.
00:39:29
Curt
No, no, dude, don't, don't.
00:39:32
jamie peacock
You'll actually fucking use
00:39:34
Curt
I will buy it from you once you get it set up. Yeah, for sure.
00:39:36
jamie peacock
Yeah, I want to build one and just have it run and just see how long the motor lasts.
00:39:36
Curt
Yeah, I would.
00:39:41
jamie peacock
Because that's a concern.
00:39:41
Curt
Yeah.
00:39:41
jamie peacock
like These motors are not necessarily made to run forever.
00:39:46
Curt
Eh, that's true. Yeah, I guess. ah If you tie it to your coolant line or your coolant on-off signal and then just like, or just that, or that.
00:39:47
jamie peacock
It's a Chinese gimbal motor.
00:39:54
jamie peacock
I'll just leave it running. um It is also heat synced on a giant aluminum heat sink because the whole body is aluminum.
00:40:02
Curt
ah Totally, yeah.
00:40:02
jamie peacock
So like it's not going to get hot. I'm not worried about getting hot. i'm just I don't know how it's going to handle the the load of the disc. That's why i also want to go for polycarb disc because it's lighter than glass.
00:40:10
Curt
Yeah.
00:40:14
Curt
Sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah, fair.
00:40:15
jamie peacock
And then also make them consumable. If it gets beaten with shavings, replace it.
00:40:21
Curt
Yeah, yeah, that seems reasonable.
00:40:21
jamie peacock
Also, one of the perks of it being magnetic is you can take it off to clean.
00:40:22
Curt
That
00:40:27
jamie peacock
So if you do get coolant's ingress, ka-ching, clean everything, ka-ching, back on.
00:40:27
Curt
would be nice.
00:40:32
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:40:33
Curt
Yeah.
00:40:34
jamie peacock
There are some features that I think are really cool and worthwhile and like worthwhile investigating, if nothing else. like Just see if it's a good idea or not.
00:40:43
Curt
Totally. Yeah.
00:40:45
jamie peacock
So we we shall see. luck
00:40:47
Curt
Cool.
00:40:48
jamie peacock
whether this is worthwhile fucking doing. um
00:40:51
Curt
Probably not. but That doesn't stop anyone in the past.
00:40:53
jamie peacock
Probably not. But well, the the margins on them if it works are fucking stupid.
00:40:54
Curt
Yeah.
00:40:59
jamie peacock
um Because they are bloody expensive. Buying anyone anywhere is like just stupid expensive.
00:41:07
Curt
I think that's probably why so many people have the draw to like build something like this because you're like, ah, it's so easy and they're so spendy.
00:41:11
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:41:13
Curt
Yeah.
00:41:14
jamie peacock
They are very spandy, but yeah, I wouldn't. Yeah, they will see if what I have planned works. It's not exactly coolant proof, but we'll see if it works.
00:41:25
jamie peacock
I'm kind of curious. It's yeah, it's going to be an experiment.
00:41:31
jamie peacock
It's going to be an interesting endeavor.
00:41:31
Curt
Nice.
00:41:33
jamie peacock
So you finally solved your oh sticking refills.
00:41:33
Curt
Nice.
00:41:36
Curt
ah Dude, so like out of all the refills I buy, and I got by thousands of refills, 10% of them, 10% of them, this don't function nicely in pens. And I thought I knew for the longest time what caused it.
00:41:49
Curt
um So I'm not going to get into the weeds about it, but I thought it was just a minor deviation in the the kind of the shape of the end that comes out of the tube. imagine Imagine like the refill kind of looks like a hot dog with like a smaller hot dog sticking out of it. It kind of necks down at one point.
00:42:05
Curt
i don't know why i use hot dogs, but whatever. um Two cylinders, whatever.
00:42:07
jamie peacock
I don't
00:42:09
Curt
um So I thought it was the relation to the cylinder. So I would bend them until they were like, until I could roll them and they'd run true. And then I'd try those in the pens and they would still stick. So i'm like, whatever. So I just put them aside and I kept putting them in a bin. And now my bin is really full. um So I was like, because don't want to throw them out. They're kind of expensive refills.
00:42:27
Curt
So i was like, one day I'll figure this out. So last week, I just finally hit that point where I'm like, I am so frustrated as to like why I'll put one refill in and the pen cycles beautifully. And I put the exact same refill in from the exact same bathroom, the exact same manufacturer, from like the exact same date, like everything is the same. And then it, it like, it feels gritty and grindy. And I'm like, what the hell? And I always thought, I'm like, it must be the tolerance of the tips on my pens. That must be out. I've built jigs upon jigs to measure those. They're perfect.
00:42:56
Curt
um So anyways, end of the day, I figured out it was the refills. um So what I did is I took took them all apart. I like i inked the refill. like I covered them in ink, put it all back together, put it in the pen, cycled the living crap out of it, took it all apart again, and then under a microscope, looked at the refill wherever there was rub marks.
00:43:11
Curt
And so once that cycle perfectly, you get rub marks kind of uniformly around where the tip is going in and out of the the pen body. makes sense it should be doing that um and the ones that cycle like crap always have a rub mark a high spot on one side and a like a rub mark on one side and rub mark on the opposite side 180 degrees apart so they're imagine like imagine a like ah a cylinder going down a cylinder um if you can't it like if you twist it it's going to obviously rub on the top and rub on the bottom 180 degrees apart so when these pens are or when these refills are being manufactured this is at least what i've come to the understanding of is they have two parts two steel parts and they're pressing them together
00:43:52
Curt
And so that machine that's pressing it must have enough wear. And we're talking like maybe a thou of deviation will cause it to drag. So obviously the machine is pushing them all together and it gets it perfect, you know, 90% of the time.
00:44:05
Curt
And every, you know, one out of 10, it pushes it together and it just, eat it just kinks it ever so slightly. And then for, for most people's pens, that's not gonna be an issue.
00:44:11
jamie peacock
Yep.
00:44:14
Curt
But when you have like mine has a long body cause I want to stabilize a tip too. So it has to be straight. Anyways, that's where the problem is. So once I understood that, I just built a jig that would just constrain the the tip part I want and let me flex the back part. And then I just, I orientate it. So the this is the tedious part is I have to, for all the refills that sucked, I quickly buffed the ends just to remove any like marks so I could see clearly.
00:44:40
Curt
Pop it a pen, cycle it, see where the rub marks are, put it in my jig so the rub marks are positioned correctly. And then it tweaks it straight. it's tedious. um I mean, it takes it takes maybe 30 seconds per refill, so it's still worth it.
00:44:49
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:44:54
Curt
But yeah, I finally found a way. I finally figured it out, and out of the dead my box of deads that I couldn't get to work, I tried, well, I don't know, 20 of them, and all 20 of them I was able to get functioning perfectly.
00:45:07
Curt
So I'm like I found the problem. Now I just... Now he's got to go and talk to ah Schmidt and say, your machine is fucked. You got to fix it.
00:45:18
Curt
Because obviously I'm the only person that's running into this issue. So like, anyway.
00:45:23
jamie peacock
Yeah, but it's an interesting thing to come across. Like, you obviously are running a very tight ball on the front of your pens because you want the refill to be nice and tight.
00:45:30
Curt
Yeah.
00:45:35
Curt
Yeah, like I only have maybe five tenths of clearance um around it. So it's minimal. And then the length is long too because I i never want that tip.
00:45:44
jamie peacock
Yep.
00:45:45
Curt
There's a ah ridge on the tip. I never want that to come out of contact with a cylinder because if it does, then when you cycle it back in or out, you might feel a slight click as it's moving. And I i just want it smooth the whole way.
00:45:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:45:56
Curt
So I made the the tip. but That's why the tip is as long as it is. um but just to give that. So it's always on a perfectly smooth path, but causes issues.
00:46:04
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:05
Curt
So I found, yeah, but I finally, I'm sure other people figured it out.
00:46:05
jamie peacock
Causes other issues that no one has ever experienced.
00:46:12
Curt
And then I know some pen makers and I know their tolerances that they're using and their tips. I'm like, I know why you've increased your tolerance because you have the same fricking problem. So, yeah.
00:46:20
jamie peacock
Yeah. And checking that the high spots on those things, could you not do it with an indicator? Instead of putting it into a pin, like have it rolling on some bearings, and then you can quickly find the hard spot, go ee, bend it and be done.
00:46:29
Curt
You very well, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
00:46:35
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:35
Curt
Absolutely. Yeah, you could use two test indicators and just yeah roll it and you would see where the wobble is and then absolutely.
00:46:40
jamie peacock
Or even one test indicator and put it on a set of bearings. So like just to like a prop balancer.
00:46:46
Curt
Yeah, yeah, very exactly.
00:46:47
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:46:48
Curt
Yeah. so And that's probably eventually...
00:46:48
jamie peacock
And then you could very quickly
00:46:51
Curt
Yeah, that's eventually what I'll i'll build. um I had an old jig that just, it had um but like a bunch of granite plates, and I would put the refill down, and I would sandwich it between granite plates and just roll it.
00:47:02
Curt
Because I figured if I rolled it, it would roll it all straight. And it works okay, but it would, yeah, this method, like, yeah, like you said two indicators, then like a little lever, so that like I roll it to find a high spot, and then pull the lever, and just like, u and that's all it would need.
00:47:04
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:11
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:14
Curt
So, anyway.
00:47:14
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:15
jamie peacock
probably You'll probably find that either using 10 machines to assemble those, um or what's happening is when they push it on, it's rolling a burr one in 10 times and causing it to sit skew.
00:47:15
Curt
Ha ha
00:47:19
Curt
ha.
00:47:24
Curt
That's very like, and like, I've looked under this with like microscopes and I can never see it, but I know it's not right.
00:47:25
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:30
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:47:31
Curt
So anyway, yeah.
00:47:32
jamie peacock
You know it's there.
00:47:34
Curt
Yeah. So I figured,
00:47:35
jamie peacock
at least you now proved what it is and that it is there it's not just in your head
00:47:39
Curt
Dude, I was like running around here. Like I was so jazzed that I actually found like, and like, cause I was in the past, I always thought I so i fixed it. And then I'm like, yeah, fixed it. And then I'd, I'd use my fix.
00:47:49
Curt
And also I'm like, it didn't fix it. So like, well now that's not, that wasn't the issue. But whereas this one, it fixes it 100% of the time. So i'm like, okay, I figured it out.
00:47:57
jamie peacock
yeah now that's yeah that's satisfying when you figure that shit out
00:48:02
Curt
This could also be solved by just switching brands because every other brand I've ever used doesn't have this issue. Just Schmidt, EasyFlow 9000 finds or mediums.
00:48:12
jamie peacock
Have you used the same quantity of other brands?
00:48:17
Curt
ah the Some of the Parkers, yeah. I probably i probably ah i probably only use hundreds.
00:48:20
jamie peacock
Okay.
00:48:21
Curt
i haven't used thousands of them. so
00:48:24
jamie peacock
Yeah, but if it's 10%, you would have found the issue with them.
00:48:28
Curt
i would ah I would have come across it, yeah. So anyway, yeah.
00:48:30
jamie peacock
Yeah. Okay. Interesting.
00:48:33
jamie peacock
um Yeah. So for now,
00:48:33
Curt
It's solved for now.
00:48:36
Curt
yeah Exactly. um
Machining Challenges and Solutions
00:48:39
Curt
tell me Tell me about the the chip welding fun.
00:48:44
jamie peacock
So I ran a job on Thursday. No, Friday, Thursday. Job I've run before. 200-part run.
00:48:56
jamie peacock
They deliver extrusion. run the parts, and that's it. Fucking story over. I've run thousands of these things. Went to run it. I've just changed coolants.
00:49:07
jamie peacock
Went to run it, and now i'm having chip welding.
00:49:11
Curt
Okay.
00:49:11
jamie peacock
broke a six mill mill which I and fucked up a DC six collet luckily I have spares broke two one mill mills and I'm like the last time I ran this job I ran 400 parts on a single one millimeter end like this was dialed this was a non-issue to run so I changed I changed a few things on this run I used a bigger end mill for the roughing which changed the order of operations a little bit and then I was having parts coming out of the fixtures and Turns out the aluminum extrusion that they supplied is a little bit thinner than last time.
00:49:44
jamie peacock
So where I'm gripping, it isn't gripping with the same force. So I reordered my order of operations. And the last thing I was doing was plunge roughing to break the po to two pieces apart because I slot them. Then I plunge roughing the last little bit. But I had to move that plunge roughing to the last operation.
00:49:59
jamie peacock
So a thing was still being held properly right until the end. But when I did so, I was getting a little bit of aluminum sticking on the flutes of the end mill. And when I came to the next part, I came to slot, it was called chip welding.
00:50:12
jamie peacock
So I fought with this and I upped my concentration to like 7%, thinking maybe that's the issue. Eventually, I got it running reliably. I ended up adding two more tools to the mix.
00:50:25
jamie peacock
So I ended up, I was, because initially this was done on my little router, so tool changing was as few as possible. So now I rough it with an 8mm.
00:50:32
Curt
Right, right.
00:50:33
jamie peacock
I slot and do the perimeters with the six millimeter Then I was come come in with a three millimeter rough the inside, then a one mill, finish the inside, and then plunge rough with another six millimeter tool that was in the machine so that I don't end up with the ship building up on the flutes.
00:50:52
jamie peacock
And then I got it running reliably.
00:50:53
Curt
right
00:50:54
jamie peacock
But oh my word, did it like throw me for a loop for like two hours trying to figure out just what the hell was going on while I'm getting chip welding all of a sudden. So I don't know if it's the new coolant. I'm kind of curious to do some surfacing in aluminium and see if the surface as good as it was.
00:51:09
jamie peacock
um Or if it's the coolant not giving me as nice a finish and causing a bit of chip welding. So yeah, I'm going to speak to the coolant guy this week and be like, wait, dickhead, what concentration do I need to be running here to make this actually fucking reliable?
00:51:24
Curt
And is it like a general purpose coolant or is it like aluminum specific or?
00:51:28
jamie peacock
It's a general purpose. um We switched to it because I was getting staining on 7075. Now I'm getting staining on fucking 6082.
00:51:35
Curt
Right.
00:51:37
jamie peacock
If I leave coolant on it, it gets like a goldish hue, which is what my old, old, old coolant was doing, um which I don't really mind.
00:51:43
Curt
Hmm.
00:51:44
jamie peacock
Like it's a non-issue. I'm going see what it does on 7075 today because I'm going run some keel clamps this evening, I think. I've got screws on the way, so I need to restock. But yeah, it's kind of weird, the things it's doing.
00:51:57
Curt
Hmm.
00:51:58
jamie peacock
So I don't know.
00:51:58
Curt
Bizarre.
00:51:58
jamie peacock
I got the job run and then i was doing the OPT 2 and I'm like, I'm getting a burr. So on this on this part, it's got two little flags. I drop down, I machined the one side, machined the other side on all four little corners. But on two of them, there's no burr and on the other two, there's a burr.
00:52:13
jamie peacock
So like, hang on, let me change it. So obviously the way I'm feeding in, into the part, it's causing it to not be a burst. So let me change the other operation. So the one cuts left one cuts right offset.
00:52:25
jamie peacock
But because I'm now going from climb to conventional, had to slow it down a little bit so that it would run reliably.
00:52:32
Curt
Sure.
00:52:32
jamie peacock
That's fine.
00:52:32
Curt
Right.
00:52:33
jamie peacock
I added an extra five seconds to 10 seconds to the cycle. But I don't have to be both the parts by hand when they come off the machine. I can throw them in the bin and they're done. I'm like, fucking brilliant.
00:52:41
Curt
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:52:43
jamie peacock
So yeah, just small tweaks on that. But yeah, got that got that stupid job done. And it is now well, I can invoice it. I wanted to invoice it on Thursday, but it is what it is. The invoice now we get paid in fucking July.
00:52:55
Curt
girl
00:52:55
jamie peacock
Because 30 days from statement customer, but whatever is what it is.
00:53:01
Curt
Yeah, yeah.
00:53:01
jamie peacock
I don't I don't mind they pay well so and it's a case of they deliver material I machine it's it leaves.
00:53:05
Curt
Yeah.
00:53:08
jamie peacock
This is the most expensive this job has been for me to run because I broke four animals or three animals. Normally, I literally use whatever's in the machine run the job and it goes.
00:53:19
Curt
Yeah, okay, well, yeah, fair.
00:53:19
jamie peacock
No. But yeah, it was one of those Thursdays.
00:53:25
Curt
Well, hopefully we get it solved.
00:53:26
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:53:29
jamie peacock
Yeah, I think I have with the concentration going up a little bit with new coolants. I think I've got it solved, but we will we'll find out as I carry on chugging along. i've got to run tool steel and steel today after I'm done with those dovetail vases.
00:53:43
jamie peacock
Because yeah yesterday that i had to make jaws for my little vases so that I had soft jaws to do the the dovetail vases in.
00:53:52
Curt
Okay, yeah, right.
00:53:52
jamie peacock
Yeah, so I was running those little, yeah, the little jaws for the Zendai vases.
00:53:59
Curt
Yeah, those came out good. They look nice. Yeah.
00:54:00
jamie peacock
I may just throw them on the website as a product. Like, they cost next to nothing to make.
00:54:04
Curt
A ton of people have those vices now.
00:54:06
jamie peacock
Like, that was my thought.
00:54:07
Curt
yeah
00:54:08
jamie peacock
Like, just put them on there as an option. Like, if they sell, they sell. If they don't, they don't. Again, spindle grip and load. Make a batch of them and put them on the shelf. Like, I like spindle grippers.
00:54:17
Curt
Yeah.
00:54:20
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:21
jamie peacock
I'm waiting. My vice should be in the next two weeks or so.
00:54:21
Curt
I figured.
00:54:23
jamie peacock
sorry
00:54:25
Curt
I know I heard one of your stories and you're like, oh, my new vice. i'm like oh, did he get it? And then I watched it. was like, OK, it's for the other little Zendai vice or whatever. I was like, OK, I'm waiting for the.
00:54:32
jamie peacock
The little, um the pneumatic vise should ship in the next week. I followed up with them the other day.
00:54:37
Curt
Cool.
00:54:38
jamie peacock
I'm like, dude, you're killing me. yeah We're looking at like five weeks from when I paid you for the thing to fucking ship. Like, yeah, that's why everyone's favorite person ah has a business because you can order it and have it shipped tomorrow.
00:54:46
Curt
Yeah.
00:54:54
jamie peacock
Yeah, so there's a value add there. um
00:54:57
Curt
Yeah, for sure.
00:54:57
jamie peacock
But anyway, you are putting your prices up.
00:55:01
Curt
Yeah. um And of judging by the amount of emails I got from people, I probably didn't put them up enough. But so I don't know. I like I i do have some rhyme or reason to the way it price things and I know I am priced lower. And that's just kind of a problem of like when you start off, you typically underprice your worth because Well, people, if you at least in my mind, it was always like, well, if I charge more like and people get upset, like if you charge less, you like feel like you give yourself more leeway for people.
00:55:20
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:55:34
Curt
and And then then you end up geeking out like like I do, and you like try to make something really good. And like without having kind of, like working kind of in your own echo chamber and not like seeing other people's products, um like you keep comparing yourself to something that you don't even know.
00:55:49
Curt
And at least in my world, and actually in a ton people's world that I know that are into something, um you end up building something that's pretty good and like better than most. And then like the feedback I get from people, was like, yeah, these are like immaculate the machine. I'm like, oh, really? And then I finally had some like experience with other people's products. I'm like, what? They're charging this? Like, this is crap. What do you mean? There's no, not throwing shade at anybody, but like,
00:56:13
Curt
you don't know what you don't know. And then you start realizing, you're like, oh shit, I'm doing way more work than everybody else and I'm charging way less. um So anyways, I just bumped him up to something that I feel is a little bit more fair and a lot of emails were like, those are totally reasonable prices still. I'm like, shit, I should probably go higher.
00:56:30
Curt
But...
00:56:30
jamie peacock
Yeah, give it a few months and bump it higher.
00:56:33
Curt
Well, and I'm going to, I think I'm going to tier my pricing a little bit more. So like typically I've just been like, this is the price.
00:56:36
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:56:38
Curt
This is a pen. If it's a simple pen, this is what it costs. If it's a super complicated anodizing job, this is what it costs.
00:56:45
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:56:45
Curt
In the, and in the grand scheme that kind of works because you make more on the easy ones, you make a little less on the harder ones, but I'm like, well, why don't I scale it? So that like, if people want the more difficult ones that take me more time, then it's,
00:56:55
jamie peacock
It's equally worth your while, yeah.
00:56:58
Curt
Yeah, it's exactly. Then it's, it's, I just noticed recently I've like, I've been kind of steering more towards the higher end pens I make because they generate more money for me.
00:57:07
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:57:07
Curt
So i was like, well, let's correct this so that I can like, I can build all the styles of pens that I offer and then be um'm compensated fairly. And I can, I can do this long-term and, you know, actually put money away as opposed to just constantly like feeling like I'm, like I'm, I'm growing constantly, but like just, yeah.
00:57:25
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:57:27
Curt
price Price your work fairly.
00:57:27
jamie peacock
No, no, 100%.
00:57:29
Curt
that's That's what it boils down to.
00:57:29
jamie peacock
Yeah. Process it appropriately.
00:57:32
Curt
Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I don't need to gouge people, but at the same time, like, I'm going to charge my worth.
00:57:33
jamie peacock
Yeah.
00:57:37
Curt
I know what I'm worth now, so I better know what I'm worth. So.
00:57:40
jamie peacock
Yeah, you more accurately know what you are worth.
00:57:44
Curt
Yeah, and, like, listen, like, I just listened, was actually halfway through the With Intolerance podcast with, oh, okay, um I won't spoil anything.
00:57:49
jamie peacock
I have not started listening to it yet.
00:57:54
Curt
But same, like,
00:57:56
jamie peacock
Don't stress about spoiling it.
00:57:58
Curt
That gentleman is building, like, is ah is Blackwell Engineering. Yeah.
00:58:02
jamie peacock
Matt, you're from Blackwell.
00:58:04
Curt
Yeah. ah Like, he is building some very, like, I have no experience with his product, but looking, just physically looking at the product he's making and then looking at the the prices he's charging, you're like, oh, yeah, dude, like, you're you're very economically priced.
00:58:18
Curt
Like, he looks he's producing great work for a price that most people probably wouldn't charge. And I think we're all guilty of that.
00:58:24
jamie peacock
So having chatted to him, he's like, you you chat to a machinist about his stuff.
00:58:26
Curt
A lot of us are.
00:58:30
jamie peacock
He's like, how are you making it this cheap? You chat to the guys with the lasers it. They're like, why is it so expensive?
00:58:36
Curt
Totally.
00:58:36
jamie peacock
Like, yeah, different, different worlds.
00:58:36
Curt
the Yeah. and Yeah.
00:58:38
jamie peacock
Like, yeah, I've chatted to Matt regularly. um Yeah, it's a it's a very interesting one. Like, you look at it like, how the hell are you making it for this price? Like, this is insane. Whereas the laser guys look at it like, it's so expensive.
00:58:48
Curt
Yeah. and
00:58:52
Curt
yeah And they're comparing exactly a Chinese product that is just built in a wildly different situation.
00:58:54
jamie peacock
Yes.
00:58:56
Curt
And I i get it. I can see from that. And then you want to you want to price it fairly for your customers. So I understand it. I'm like, yeah. ah Yeah.
00:59:03
jamie peacock
Yeah, I like his little adjustable bed thing.
00:59:04
Curt
We are.
00:59:06
Curt
dude, I didn't know he was making them. I thought he was just buying like, yeah.
00:59:08
jamie peacock
Yeah, I thought he was rebranding. No, no, he makes it from scratch. i was chatting to other day about it. I'm like, dude, that is insane.
00:59:15
jamie peacock
Like, absolutely nuts.
00:59:15
Curt
Yeah.
00:59:15
Curt
Wild. Good work, dude. Good work.
00:59:17
jamie peacock
Yeah, no, dude, he awesome stuff.
00:59:18
Curt
Yeah.
00:59:20
jamie peacock
I do need to put a fixture pad on my laser at some point.
00:59:21
Curt
Yeah.
00:59:24
Curt
ah Yeah, I would put one on this if it wasn't such a whatever unit. I won't say anything. A toy unit.
00:59:31
jamie peacock
a lovely unit that was supplied to you
00:59:31
Curt
That's a good A lovely the unit. No, I think my contract is almost up, so I'm good.
00:59:38
jamie peacock
yes but yeah so yeah the last thing in the dock
00:59:40
Curt
Anyway, tell me...
First Batch of Rings Completed
00:59:45
Curt
Yes, tell me about your ring to rule all rings.
00:59:49
jamie peacock
hours of machining
00:59:52
jamie peacock
I think it's actually more, it's probably close to 60. Yeah, finished the first batch of those rings that I make, the big, large diameter ones, on all the fancy fixtures that I can't show. um Yeah, we ran off the first batch of 10 of each part number this last week sometime we finished.
01:00:09
jamie peacock
But yeah, that was a lot of machining, holy cow. I have a whole, like, big-ass tote of remnants.
01:00:14
Curt
Yeah, because those are... Yeah, what are those, like 40 centimeters or something?
01:00:21
jamie peacock
The biggest one is 499 millimeters, so 20 inches in diameter.
01:00:25
Curt
Okay. Yeah, it's big.
01:00:26
jamie peacock
The smallest one is 280, uh, 380 millimeters.
01:00:30
Curt
Okay, yeah.
01:00:31
jamie peacock
And yeah, two of them have like an hour and a half cycle time because there's a bunch of surfacing.
01:00:32
Curt
Big and... Yeah.
01:00:37
jamie peacock
And then the other one's an hour and 20 minutes because there's a whole lot of material removal. And then the last one's like 55 minutes because there's a whole bunch of fucking stuck just making flatness. So, yeah, great fun.
01:00:47
Curt
Hmm.
01:00:49
jamie peacock
First batch is out, next batch is due in like two or three months.
01:00:53
Curt
Nice. Nice.
01:00:54
jamie peacock
Yeah, so need to harass them for payment, but I'll deal with that at later stage.
01:01:00
jamie peacock
Not super. And yeah, thickness on those was like, all of those were within, well within a thou on thickness.
01:01:06
Curt
Oh, nice. Nice.
01:01:07
jamie peacock
And when I put the fixtures back into the anchor points, ran an indicator, half a thou flatness, and within half a thou of where they were last time.
01:01:14
Curt
Nice.
01:01:17
Curt
Nice. Nice.
01:01:18
jamie peacock
Yeah, was like, fucking a saw check for flatness, set my Z and then probe the balls. So I'll spun an indicator in the ball and it was within 10 microns. I was like, fucking a a good enough set the set that content the G54 and hit go.
01:01:29
Curt
Beautiful. That's awesome.
01:01:37
jamie peacock
And yeah, those just they ran beautifully like off the first part I marked the thickness comped my Z offset and just let it run. And as long as the machine was warm, they were dead nuts.
01:01:46
Curt
Oh,
Enhancing Machine Efficiency
01:01:47
Curt
that's perfect. That's awesome.
01:01:47
jamie peacock
No, like the machine I had, hang on a sec, let me look it up on my phone. Because obviously Home Assistant tracks my uptime on the LK.
01:02:00
Curt
Right.
01:02:00
jamie peacock
That's actually something we're gonna have to get into in the next, in the few coming weeks. Uh, so I had a 80 something percent uptime, 12 and a half hours on just shy of 11 hours of runtime on one day, 11 hours on eight hours, eight and a hours runtime, 13 hours on 11 hours runtime, um, 11 hours just shy of nine hours runtime.
01:02:23
Curt
Wow, that's awesome.
01:02:24
jamie peacock
Like I was getting a in the high eighties on most days for the better part of a week.
01:02:31
Curt
That's pretty good. That's pretty good.
01:02:32
jamie peacock
LK was just chooching, which is cool when it does that. luck And changeover with the anchor points is super fucking easy. It takes 10 minutes and I'm running a different part number, and that's just because was very meticulous about cleaning all the surfaces and getting all the plumbing sorted because it's got, five most of the fixtures have five vacuum lines to hold down the different sections.
01:02:40
Curt
Totally, yeah.
01:02:53
jamie peacock
like But yeah, it worked really well, the vacuum fixtures. like And then I also blew up my coolant coolant catcher.
01:03:01
jamie peacock
Last week, Sunday. Yeah, so last week, Sunday, we recorded, then I went to warm the machine up, did it up one, went to breakfast with Danica, machine stopped, ran home quickly, because like literally up the road, was busy blowing into the coolant catcher to just push all the coolants out, and was a little bit too excited, and blew the back off of that acrylic reservoir.
01:03:01
Curt
Right, yeah.
01:03:25
jamie peacock
like next to my head that was yeah couldn't hear for a little while so then i was like okay turn off the air went finished breakfast came back made up one out of a piece of clear acrylic i had made some ends for it and now have a like acrylic tube mounted to the machine that catches my coolant
01:03:25
Curt
Okay.
Upgrading Workspace Features
01:03:42
Curt
That's cool.
01:03:42
jamie peacock
yeah so it looks like and cool but that's one of the things when we move i want to put the uh vacuum pump and a bigger coolant reservoir like a scrub out pot
01:03:51
jamie peacock
um on a cart so i can wheel it up to the machine when i need it when i don't i can wheel it and stash it instead of having it just live under the machine so just trying to trying to be more professional
01:03:57
Curt
Nice.
01:04:02
Curt
<unk> Just after you say professionally, I was like, I'm going to send going to make you a little sticker that says like, like semen collection tank or something that you can stick on your little, on your, on your little separator there.
01:04:15
Curt
Awesome.
01:04:16
jamie peacock
if i can the jizz tank But yeah, that, like the vacuum stuff works so freaking well for holding plates.
01:04:20
Curt
what's yeah
01:04:24
jamie peacock
Like even when I make anchor point blank pallets, anything bigger than ah um a mooring pallet, like 270 by 270 on the vacuum chuck.
01:04:25
Curt
awesome
01:04:35
jamie peacock
Machine it and then put studs, put it all the other way around and machine the second side.
01:04:39
jamie peacock
a Yeah, even the riser I have planned for you, the vacuum chuck for op one.
01:04:39
Curt
Nice.
01:04:45
Curt
Well, actually, speaking of that, I had, I, sometimes I feel like my brain doesn't work until like I take enough things off
Improving Pallets and Fixtures
01:04:55
Curt
of it. And then it's just like, ah, thank you for unloading all that shit off me. Now I'll run properly again. Cause I was always like,
01:05:01
Curt
was like, oh, I'm like, i have good I have to get that whole fixture plate built up. So then I'm like, then I have to like, i have to plan everything out so I can remove my vices and then I can put the fixture plate on. Then I can put the two anchor points on. I'm like, then I can put the pallets on. I can start machining the pallets. and I'm like, wait, why am I an idiot?
01:05:14
Curt
I'm like, what I can do. I'm like, you machined me your anchor point so it can plop on my vices. I'm like, the only reason I don't put it on there because I can't reliably put it on in the same position. I'm like, I can make, I i have stops that I made.
01:05:23
jamie peacock
Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:26
Curt
I'm like, I'm, so I machined a stop specifically for the anchor point. So it goes into my vices. It slides up against the stop that just bolts onto my vice. So it's like, it's all repeatable.
01:05:36
Curt
So I can put it on in like two minutes. Now I have a way to hold all my pallets. The pallets are going to work with the new system that I'm going buy from you. Like they're the same fricking pallets. So now I can start building all the pallets out.
01:05:48
Curt
I was like, why didn't I think about this? Like, and just for the longest time I'm stressing. Cause like, i always have to put it in. I have to indicate, make sure it's all i'm like, no, I don't like it's, it was designed to do this. I'm like, what?
01:05:59
Curt
And was like, well, maybe I could hold my, I could hold the pallets in my vices. I'm like, what, are what am I thinking? I'm like, just hold the whole system. So anyways, ah long story short is just, yeah, i'm gonna start working on the pallets now because
01:06:06
jamie peacock
Yeah. Nice. Yeah.
01:06:12
Curt
even if, even if I don't have the, the whole like nice dual station set up from you yet, um, I can, I can get all the pallets made and actually prove out if it's going to work for me. And then, then I'm, going to hit the ground running.
01:06:24
Curt
Cause then I can make pallets that hold vices and like all the chicken and egg kind of problems that we were concerned about.
01:06:29
jamie peacock
run it
01:06:30
Curt
So yeah.
01:06:31
jamie peacock
Yeah, 100%.
01:06:32
Curt
Anyway.
01:06:32
jamie peacock
But yeah, I've drawn up your your whole story. It's got a funny pitch, though. I made it 128 because I could.
01:06:39
Curt
Uh, one 28. What?
01:06:40
jamie peacock
Between the centers of the anchor points.
01:06:43
Curt
Oh, hu yeah.
01:06:43
jamie peacock
Oh, and what? Yeah.
01:06:44
Curt
It looked, yeah, you sent me that Fusion file. looks fantastic.
01:06:47
jamie peacock
Yeah, so there's piece of material in my workshop for your RASA.
01:06:47
Curt
Yeah.
01:06:52
Curt
Sick. I'm going to have to, we'll get some we'll get some squared up here.
01:06:52
jamie peacock
As soon as I get bored, will machine is um And then, yeah.
01:06:57
Curt
So I got to get that going.
01:06:58
jamie peacock
Yeah, we'll have a chat after the show about that.
01:06:59
Curt
So yeah, yeah.
01:07:01
jamie peacock
But yeah, I designed it. I ended up doing it differently to how I normally do it. Normally I machine an integrated key into the bottom. um In this case, your one's going to have a pocket for a key because then I can use the piece of material I have already.
01:07:14
Curt
Yeah, exactly. Do to it make sense.
01:07:16
jamie peacock
Lazy mode.
01:07:17
Curt
Yeah, absolutely.
01:07:18
jamie peacock
Yeah, I have an off cut of material that is the appropriate-ish size.
01:07:18
Curt
Absolutely.
01:07:22
jamie peacock
I might have to just like machine a piece off the end. But I'll use that for something else. ah Anyway, what is in your Google box?
01:07:29
Curt
Yeah. Anyway.
Exploring Tech Alternatives and Connectivity
01:07:32
Curt
Ah, my Google box doesn't have a ton of stuff. I have the template maker, which we will link in the show notes. ah Seer ratings, S-E-E-R.
01:07:44
Curt
Probably going to put an AC system on our house because it doesn't really get hot here very long, but sometimes we'll have like a week of like 30, 35.
01:07:47
jamie peacock
Ah, okay.
01:07:51
Curt
thirty thirty five Like it can get pretty toasty.
01:07:55
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:07:55
Curt
And ah it just one day you're fine. Two days, yeah three days, it starts to warm the whole house up and then you're kind of just heat soaked and just can't drop the heat.
01:08:03
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:04
Curt
And i don't know, with little people just, dude, exactly right.
01:08:05
jamie peacock
That's basically my entire summer. Yeah. get grumpy.
01:08:08
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:09
Curt
Like, and it's hard to sleep when it gets too muggy, especially for like, I mean, my wife, we can deal with it.
01:08:13
Curt
When you have little people, they just kind of get frustrated and just like, I'm like, bla
01:08:15
jamie peacock
they get cru
01:08:17
Curt
Yeah, so it was like, you know what, maybe it's time to just put an AC on, suck it up. And this is from ah Jacob Jacob Jacob. He pointed me to, because I said I use Airtable, so he pointed me to nocodb, N-O-C-O-D-B. There's a nice GitHub page. It's basically like an open source ah Airtable alternative.
01:08:38
Curt
And I think i'm going to switch.
01:08:38
jamie peacock
okay, cool.
01:08:39
Curt
Yeah, going switch over to that. It's like a no-code database, basically, kind of Dalio.
01:08:42
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:08:44
Curt
So it looks looks promising. i might I might move over to that because I don't want to get rug pulled on Airtable.
01:08:46
jamie peacock
Okay.
01:08:50
jamie peacock
Well, Danicles are asking me what database I'm using for my little ERP. like don't fucking know whatever Claude decided it was going to use so it's in a DB file I'm like go okay cool whatever it's making its own fucking file it's getting stored locally I'll just have the power automatically back it up on a daily basis that we don't lose that data but yeah I don't know I'm not a fan of software as a service like
01:09:05
Curt
Yeah.
01:09:10
Curt
Yeah.
01:09:14
Curt
Yeah.
01:09:15
jamie peacock
I'm not going to tie my ERP into QuickBooks, but I'll have QuickBooks and then I'll have my ERP that does everything on the back end, but on my own server. That is not, oh shit, there's no internet. We can't see what we need to do next.
01:09:27
jamie peacock
Because that's, yeah, always an issue, the no internet thing.
01:09:29
Curt
Yeah, I'm with you.
01:09:31
jamie peacock
Like even now at the at the new factory, there's allegedly fiber to the park. You have to do the last bit. I'm like, fuck that LTE. Like LTE with a couple hundred gig cap for the month.
01:09:40
Curt
Right. Yeah, yeah.
01:09:41
jamie peacock
Don't watch porn up at work and you'll be fine.
01:09:44
Curt
me Exactly. Exactly.
01:09:46
jamie peacock
Like, it's there so we can have fusion. If I see we're burning through a lot of cap, I'd be like, hey, let's watch a bit less YouTube.
01:09:53
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
01:09:53
jamie peacock
we Yeah, I think that'll be the easiest solution.
01:09:54
Curt
That seems fair.
01:09:57
jamie peacock
But yeah, I've been, ah let me dive into
01:09:59
Curt
What's in?
Podcast Recording Setup
01:10:00
jamie peacock
mine.
01:10:00
jamie peacock
I've been looking at rolling desks. I think i'm just going to build. I was looking at Maker Pipe for doing desks, but I think i'm just going to weld together some frames and fucking call it day.
01:10:06
Curt
Yeah. Yeah.
01:10:09
jamie peacock
I was reading VFD manuals still. um
01:10:12
Curt
Yeah.
01:10:13
jamie peacock
Yeah, looking for a USB Mark mixer. which is kind of a weird thing because Danica wants to record podcasts.
01:10:17
Curt
Oh, OK.
01:10:20
Curt
Oh.
01:10:20
jamie peacock
So actually said, so we're just going to take the PC, the old PC that runs my laser cutter and run OBS on it. And she can just record straight to OBS because she's doing the podcast in person.
01:10:31
jamie peacock
So put the two marks in, there's two different audio channels into OBS and just output a single file from there.
01:10:32
Curt
OK.
01:10:36
jamie peacock
I'm looking for replacement screens for my fucking resin printer. Again, look industrial properties and trying to find out whether I won the lotto because I have a lotto ticket on my fridge and turns out I did win like a whole like $10.
01:10:41
Curt
Hm.
Lottery Wins and Verification
01:10:49
Curt
Oh, okay. Well, so we'll.
01:10:50
jamie peacock
Yeah, chat GPT told me I won. I was too lazy to look up the numbers. I took a picture and gave it to chat. Did I win the lotto on this day?
01:10:57
Curt
but
01:10:58
jamie peacock
So I need to just take it to the little lotto machine and go douch and see what I won.
01:10:58
Curt
yeah
01:11:02
Curt
Okay. So we're still doing podcast next week is what you're saying.
01:11:05
jamie peacock
Yes, I also won the lotto today. I made a whole 6 rand and 8 cents. I think I spent 20 rand on a ticket.
01:11:10
Curt
Ooh, better than a kick in the face.
01:11:11
jamie peacock
Yeah, so I only lost 13 rand 20.
01:11:12
Curt
So.
01:11:14
jamie peacock
Yeah,
01:11:17
Curt
Hey, better than 20.
01:11:17
jamie peacock
I got a lotto.
01:11:17
Curt
Yeah.
01:11:20
Curt
Sick.
01:11:20
jamie peacock
So,
Online Presence and Projects
01:11:21
jamie peacock
where can people find you and your things, Kurt?
01:11:21
Curt
Cool.
01:11:24
Curt
I'm in my things at confoundedmachine.com. and And yeah, all links point to everywhere else. Point back to here. Point to merch store.
01:11:32
jamie peacock
Easy word.
01:11:33
Curt
per Point to... Sorry, exactly. Everywhere. i don't I don't have my link tree set up yet, but I should do that. You need to do that out of anybody.
01:11:40
jamie peacock
So should I? Yeah, I need to do that.
01:11:42
Curt
but Yeah, start start listing yours.
01:11:42
jamie peacock
Yeah.
01:11:43
Curt
I'm going to go get a coffee while you go through nine things.
01:11:45
jamie peacock
Yeah, so you can find the day-to-day happenings of the Jspec shop at jspec underscore engineering on Instagram. You can find our work-holding products at nauticalwh.com. You can find the T-shirts, knives, and other fun stuff at jspeceng.com.
01:12:02
jamie peacock
And you can find the podcast at theloanemachinists.com. gotten better at that uh but yeah as we can find all the all the fun things uh there are new shirts coming they're meant to be out on friday i think they'll be out on wednesday when this comes out um yeah new design stanick is releasing so go check them out at jspng.com and then yeah what are you up to today good or tomorrow
01:12:07
Curt
Mm-hmm. Ooh.
Weekend Plans and Health Impact
01:12:24
Curt
Uh, tomorrow, Sunday, fun day. Uh, I don't Probably, uh, just do weekend stuff. Uh, yeah, I think, uh, yeah, nothing too crazy. a little bit of shop stuff, uh, sort out some packaging stuff and do some general cleanup. Nothing all that interesting to talk about.
01:12:41
jamie peacock
just generic stuff yeah I'm gonna go work on dovetail vices and then re-rotors and then a press tool so busy day today but that's because I spent Friday sleeping so need to catch up a little bit yes but anyway because I was feeling sick
01:12:42
Curt
How about you? Just generic, boring house stuff. day
01:12:52
Curt
Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
01:12:58
Curt
fair why did you spend it sleeping oh were you self-inflicted sick or just actual sick oh oh bummer yeah
01:13:07
jamie peacock
actual sick and then also sad so I was like fuck that gonna go sleep so I literally just slept the fucking day away yeah so I was like fuck this take the day off slept slept and slept on the couch and yeah fucking and then couldn't go to sleep which was a bit of a problem because I'd s slept the whole fucking day yes so I ended up on discord till 11 o'clock at night ah being peer pressured and then decided go to bed couldn't sleep till like almost 1-2 in the morning so yesterday was a little bit rough but anyway um
01:13:20
Curt
that is the hazard that is the hazard
01:13:31
Curt
Ugh, yeah.
01:13:34
Curt
Blame it on Discord.
01:13:35
jamie peacock
Yeah, blame Discord, blame the Taps and Patients community.
01:13:39
Curt
Horrible people.
01:13:39
jamie peacock
Specifically them, yeah.
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
01:13:41
jamie peacock
um yeah Thank you everybody for listening. Hope you enjoyed the podcast. If you saw our faces, you watched on YouTube or Zencaster if you're AJ. And yeah, if you heard us, you're listening on one the podcast gos players, please ah consider giving us a like, subscribe, rating, whatever it is on your specific player of choice.
01:13:57
jamie peacock
And if you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with somebody you think will enjoy it or won't. Rage listens a listen anyway. But yeah, thank you very much and we will see you next week. and but Patrons, we will see you shortly.
01:14:09
Curt
Take care. to carol