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#397 Team oriented wishlish
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TOPICS:
- 2025 changes
- DOITS
- Leadership roles
- Measuring runout in toolholders
- 5 axis automation at Saunders?
- Team oriented wishlish
- Fjell production update
Recommended
Transcript
Optimism for 2025 and Business Changes
00:00:00
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining 2025 edition. My name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:07
John S
My name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And here we are in a new year and looking forward to a wonderful year of manufacturing excellence.
00:00:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I've been starting like I didn't come into the year thinking a lot about what to do in 2025 like big planning wise I've got a lot of ideas but it's kind of starting to hit me now like Okay.
00:00:28
johngrimsmo
We can, we can make an impact this year. We can change, change things around a bit.
00:00:31
John S
Good.
00:00:33
johngrimsmo
Um, which is good to have the mental
Hiring Plans and the Energy for Change
00:00:36
johngrimsmo
power to know you can change things or improve or make things better or do things different or whatever.
00:00:36
John S
Yeah.
00:00:41
John S
So is that more about improving what you already have or new stuff?
00:00:45
johngrimsmo
Both. Yep. Yeah, whether it's what hiring looks like in the next one to two years, um really starting to wrap my head around that. It's it's all been ideas, but now it's I'm starting to formulate a plan, which gave me an idea.
00:00:56
John S
Okay. Good. Yeah, right I mean. good while you're typing, and I'll say like it kind of goes back to some of my fresh energy.
00:01:07
John S
of And look, you can kind of, I kind of always laugh about like New Year's resolutions and all that. It's like, but no, look, take it for what it is.
00:01:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:13
John S
Like, it's a good excuse to, to be grateful for what we've got, but also think about, okay, what is, what's going to be different? um And we did Henry Holsters and the tour, and then we've been off on and off.
00:01:25
John S
I mean, it's like the holidays. The last two, three weeks have been kind of just all over the place in a good way.
00:01:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:01:30
John S
Definitely took some time off, all that.
Holiday Productivity and Work Process
00:01:32
John S
And then now it's like, OK, we've got some changes too, which I want to talk about. um But you were saying hiring, products, machines.
00:01:37
johngrimsmo
Um, I think I lost my train of thought, but yeah, I'm pumped up.
00:01:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah. I mean, the field is launching this month.
00:01:49
johngrimsmo
Um, I'm hoping to make, i'm I'm telling myself, I want to make a hundred this month and I'm sure we can machine a hundred. Fails this month, which is awesome. We've already made over 25 of them.
00:01:49
John S
Yep.
00:02:01
John S
Oh, really?
Small Changes in the Shop
00:02:02
johngrimsmo
Oh Yeah, they're not finished yet, but like handles and blades.
00:02:03
John S
Wait, so last. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:05
johngrimsmo
Yep or ah the the rest of the APs um because we haven't talked in three weeks and I guess it's been a busy three weeks and
00:02:05
John S
Okay. Cause last time I, the data point I knew was like the quote unquote eight for blade show or whatever, you know, the longest, I think we we if we've gone in the five or six years of doing this, right.
00:02:23
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep. And that's, that's okay. I honestly enjoyed the break from the podcast and from the the commitment.
00:02:26
John S
Yeah.
00:02:31
johngrimsmo
um And every Wednesday, like Wednesday was New Year's.
00:02:35
John S
Exactly.
00:02:35
johngrimsmo
The next Wednesday was um Christmas.
00:02:37
John S
Or Christmas. Yeah.
00:02:38
johngrimsmo
So it's fine. Totally makes sense.
00:02:40
John S
I will say, I think two people explicitly wrote in and said, Hey, like totally get it, but like, please don't do that again. I miss it. Which is nice.
00:02:49
johngrimsmo
I appreciate that.
00:02:51
John S
Yeah.
00:02:53
johngrimsmo
Good. Well how about you jump into something juicy?
00:02:56
John S
Yeah, so let me start small. um You know, like I'm gonna keep harping on publicly ah on days off in the shop, do its, because it kind of speaks to the ethos of, um you know, continual improvement, small doses of things, making for things better, you know what to do. So it's not the idea, it's the execution. um I kind of failed on it in 2024. I can, again, list those excuses, but instead, remember, all you gotta do is start small. So um tonight, actually, as I was preparing for,
00:03:26
John S
My notes for this call, and this is kind of our my third day back since being off for last week. So um I'm kind of quote unquote, just getting back into the swing of things here. But, um you know, okay, tomorrow morning, I'm going to spend 15 minutes just cleaning stuff out of my office that needs to be cleaned out.
00:03:40
johngrimsmo
and
00:03:40
John S
like old super old computer boxes and just selling it and that's like okay remind yourself do it
Deciding What to Keep or Discard
00:03:46
John S
doesn't have to be four hours of major projects it can be it can be 20 minute timer um turn your phone off or whatever just just spend 20 minutes on it and you'll be happy with the result and then do that you know three times a week.
00:03:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:03:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:58
johngrimsmo
and I'm starting to notice walking around our shop, the amount of,
00:03:58
John S
um
00:04:02
johngrimsmo
Not clutter is the wrong word, but just junk that doesn't need to be there. It's irrelevant. It's tool holder tools and mills we don't use anymore. It's like old fixtures that are like, you know, maybe we want to keep it for posterity's sake, but realistically, it needs to go in the dumpster. And kind of the whole mentality of if it doesn't make a knife, it doesn't belong in this building.
00:04:24
John S
John, it's it's that's going to be harder than you think as a guy, myself, who's, because not that the rest of the team doesn't always know like, okay, we have a glue drawer.
00:04:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I totally agree.
00:04:33
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:04:34
John S
Do we want to keep the super glue and the JV weld? Sure. But do we want to keep the seven year old, like super high end lock tight that is expired and like, no, you know,
00:04:46
johngrimsmo
and And who's making that call is the, you know, your, your cheapest employee.
00:04:49
John S
right
00:04:50
johngrimsmo
Is he allowed to make that call?
00:04:52
John S
Yeah, so it's not easy. um In fact, i I'm gonna make it my note. Group, group, huddle in areas of shop.
00:05:02
johngrimsmo
and And there is, I mean, maybe it's just as owners, I'm sure you feel the exact same way. There's a whole bunch of stuff that we don't use that I do not want to get rid of.
00:05:11
John S
Sure.
00:05:11
johngrimsmo
um Whether it's actually good like equipment or you whatever it's called, the gut feel of like, yeah, but that's the that's the thing,
Improving Quality Control Systems
00:05:22
johngrimsmo
you know?
00:05:22
John S
sure
00:05:23
johngrimsmo
um And then there's like tools that you may use once a year or once in a few years, but you don't get rid of it because it's, You know you have it and you need it available sometimes.
00:05:32
John S
Yeah.
00:05:35
John S
As long as you know where it is, that's saying the other kind of question.
00:05:37
johngrimsmo
Yeah, that's a good point too.
00:05:39
John S
So like we've done the bins, we haven't done a good job of this, like all of our angle grinder stuff is in a big ah homemade Tupperware, Home Depot Tupperware bin.
00:05:39
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:05:48
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:05:48
John S
So I don't really care about angle grinders, I don't use them that often.
00:05:51
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:05:51
John S
Frankly, when I do use them, they're not even really for stuff related to our business, but we're gonna keep angle grinders.
00:05:51
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:05:55
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:05:55
John S
So all those flap disks and blades and in the spanner wrenches are in that bin.
00:06:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah, but i love I love that they're all together in one kind of junk drawer of angle grinders.
00:06:04
John S
Yeah.
00:06:05
johngrimsmo
And then you can riff rifle through it and find exactly what you need. You don't need to look in the bottom of your old Kennedy to find the spanner wrench for it.
00:06:11
John S
Right.
00:06:12
johngrimsmo
like yeah Who cares?
00:06:12
John S
And it's not Kaizen foam, the box, the bin is kind of a mess, I don't care, exactly.
00:06:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Because they're not daily tools. They're not yearly tools. like They're available.
00:06:20
John S
Yeah, actually a friend ah friend called me over the holidays and was like, hey, my kid put a Dixie cup down the toilet, I need a, like one of the powered powered plungers that you can hook up, the powered snakes that you hook up to a drill.
00:06:32
John S
And I'm like, yep, I've got a plumbing Tupperware bin and it's got like four different plumbing tools, two different snakes, expanding thing and all that.
00:06:33
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:06:39
John S
And I just gave them the whole bin, which is also nice. I hadn't really thought of this because those tools are all kind of disgusting, but giving him the bin, the bins clean and he can put it in his truck and go drive home and tackle the Dixie cup.
00:06:45
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yeah.
00:06:50
johngrimsmo
I like it.
00:06:50
John S
And yeah, if you don't have kids yet, you, yeah.
00:06:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. I don't think our kids ever flushed anything.
00:06:57
John S
Okay, so, yeah, knock on wood, we did okay there too.
00:07:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah, we did anyway, but yeah, certainly things
Enhancing QC with Technology
00:07:05
johngrimsmo
happen with kids.
00:07:06
John S
um So Dewis is the lowest hanging fruit, it's just on me, um done, check box. What also is I'm pretty psyched about is um in a sort of, ah sort in what not informal, in a unspoken way, both Yvonne and Alex have really stepped up in leadership roles here.
00:07:25
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:07:26
John S
um Yvonne taking some cues from what Henry Holsters had, we did and we just started yesterday, where after our Tuesday lunch, we have a rotating list of shop tasks of around cleaning that we do. The team came together and made up the list. We all have it. We all rotate through it. you It's everything from wiping out a machine to the bathroom to the kitchen sink. Excuse me, that type of stuff.
00:07:49
John S
and um Alex and I, we actually have a meeting tomorrow that'll be the next step of this, but um kind of deciding like, hey, we really want to bring home um the QC side of our shop, not involving the serialized product.
00:08:03
johngrimsmo
Ahem.
00:08:05
John S
So without getting too far into the weeds, I would say our QC system around fixture plates has been quite robust, but where we've gotten bit every once in a while would be an example of, actually, this is the perfect storm of a terrible example.
00:08:19
John S
We kept some Gen 2 plug jacks. oh in inventory in case somebody said, hey, I know you only sell gen three now. I have a bunch of gen twos.
00:08:29
John S
I want two more. Like literally that's why we kept like 10 of them on a shelf for that reason.
00:08:31
johngrimsmo
sure yep
00:08:34
John S
Sure enough, last week a guy was like, Hey, I really want those. We shipped them out to him. He got them and was, was upset. Frankly a little, but I was kind of like irrational.
00:08:45
John S
It felt like he was, I would involve, but, um to but there was a QC issue on him. It was an, and it was a thread burr that, Wasn't caught by the thread gauge because we didn't run the thread gauge all the way up it Now it's also a two-year-old product like I don't think we're doing this today, but that's not the point the point is we will make mistakes and so um where we need to revamp some of our QC stuff is around a
00:08:56
johngrimsmo
Okay. Sure.
00:09:11
John S
how we spot check non-serialized items in batches. And this is, been I know a normal thing when it comes to some of the standards like the ISO or ANC or whatever, but like.
00:09:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:09:23
John S
um And so Alex had already come up with some ideas and ways and I'm gonna let him run with it I'm just gonna support him how I need be but okay, whether it's 3d printed trays where when you put 15 or 50 in a tray There's one spot. That's like this one gets QC'd Grant asked for a video this actually I'm interested this idea. I Have our Raspberry Pi touchscreen working
00:09:47
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:09:47
John S
I took it apart, because I'm printing a case. I'm going to take
Better Inspection in Machining
00:09:50
John S
this home to to see if the case fits. But ah it it the pie boots up, and it's a screen of videos. This happens to be for the Okamoto grinder on how to use it. But the exact same software we had written well could work for products we make on the Willeman, where when Grant's running one of the 10 products, he hit just pushes that button, and it brings up the like things to check for that product. There's just something I like about
00:10:15
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:10:16
John S
doing it this way. um and more than a I'm not trying to get fancy with it, but more than just a sheet of paper. and I don't know.
00:10:21
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:10:22
John S
We're going to play with it.
00:10:23
johngrimsmo
So will he have like, uh, like setup sheet tooling list inspection things or how far you want to go with that?
00:10:30
John S
so i mean he already In this specific instance, we already have things like thread gauges and mics and so forth. so It's more And frankly, it should probably be somebody else, not the person making it um that's doing this sort of a check, but it's things like, okay, if you have a one inch section of thread and the thread gauge starts fine, you don't run it all the way through it.
00:10:53
John S
Somebody else that just taking in one out of a hundred parts and doing this sort of a different approach of like, hey, is there there's some chatter here?
00:10:58
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:11:00
John S
Or is there a burr there? Or that kind of an approach.
00:11:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:11:04
John S
Basically, If the customer sees it within 10 minutes of opening the box, um we should have caught it. Now, I will seriously tell you that this is not and a systemic issue here.
00:11:12
johngrimsmo
Yep,
00:11:15
John S
like It's really not.
00:11:16
johngrimsmo
yep.
00:11:16
John S
But um it also stinks to get a customer that says, hey, this wasn't this didn't work out for me.
00:11:19
johngrimsmo
Mhm.
00:11:24
John S
um In the US, it's not a huge deal to remedy it with quick shipping and so forth. But it is quite expensive to remedy that when things go overseas. And it's just all more reason of like, let's make sure we're we've got this.
00:11:37
John S
Let's go make sure we have some process around this so that we don't make say a thousand plug jacks and nobody ever looked at them beside the thread gauge that came off the machine.
00:11:40
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:11:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. You know, sometimes the machine is just so busy that they're they're checking the two critical dimensions and everything else gets kind of ignored. And then they get cleaned, assembled,
Machining Challenges and Solutions
00:11:55
johngrimsmo
put away. And we used to have that more years ago where you know, a couple times a year maybe a customer would get something and send a picture and ask a question and that all gets shared around the team and we're like, how did how did nobody see that kind of thing?
00:12:07
John S
Yeah.
00:12:08
johngrimsmo
So we're trying to put checks in place to make sure that people are seeing kind of the whole thing, not just the two critical dimensions that, you know, you care about as a maker, as a machinist, but surface finish, but flappy burrs that go somewhere, um threads that don't terminate, that are sharp or whatever.
00:12:27
johngrimsmo
the Even what are they called? Like leftover chips. Sometimes some of our threading operations will leave a ring of chip at the at the root of a thread or something.
00:12:37
John S
Yeah, yes.
00:12:41
johngrimsmo
And unless you're like microscoping every one of our custom made 440 screws, um it's it's hard to see.
00:12:49
John S
Yeah, but the little hula hoop that's like on the thread release section, sure.
00:12:51
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes it doesn't matter, but sometimes sometimes they stay and get anodized and get assembled and you have this blue hula hoop that's in there. Maybe it's not an issue, but you know, we have quite a few machinist customers buying our knives and pens and you obviously have a lot of machinist customers and it's probably 99.9% of your customers are machinist customers.
00:13:07
John S
Right.
00:13:15
John S
Right.
00:13:17
johngrimsmo
But a lot a big percentage, you know more than 10% of our customers are machinists probably.
00:13:17
John S
Right.
00:13:23
johngrimsmo
And you know they have they have the eye.
00:13:27
John S
right
00:13:27
johngrimsmo
and And we got to be on our game, you know which I like that pressure, social pressure.
00:13:33
John S
But I think that what you said is is spot on, which is that we don't have a system around the whole like, hey, let's take this part and kind of pass, proverbially pass it around and see if anybody sees anything on it.
00:13:45
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:13:46
John S
That's what we, what I think Alex is going to work on is what's that look like from a periodicity? Like how often do you do that with what parts and when does it happen? um And so forth.
00:13:56
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Mm hmm. And I'm really leaning into the step away for a second and look at it from like not with blinders on kind of take a step back and like try to look at the whole picture or ask somebody else for their opinion.
00:14:11
johngrimsmo
Or I did that this morning with Jeff, I have this three inch diameter slug of 4140 that I basically need, you know, a one inch hole through it. And some features on the top.
00:14:22
johngrimsmo
And I'm like,
00:14:23
John S
Okay.
00:14:24
johngrimsmo
I know this is the perfect lathe job. Like if we had a manual laid that could do it, myself, Jeff, Angelo could just
Creative Machining Solutions
00:14:32
johngrimsmo
bore that whole machine, the taper, no problem. Even on a manual lathe.
00:14:35
John S
Yeah.
00:14:36
johngrimsmo
Our Nakamura would be great for it. We we only have five C collets on it. So we can only hold one inch material. This is three inch material. like We don't have, we have three lathes. We don't have a lathe that can hold this stupid three inch piece. Um, so I can put it in the Kern, I can put it in this video and I can do some stuff. So I walked Jeff over for a minute and he's an excellent machinist and I was like, am I not seeing something here? Like, is there an easy way? I over complicate everything. Is there some dumb, simple way that I'm missing here? That like, maybe you could put on the neck and have it work. And he goes, no, it's it's pretty much got to go in the current to do what you want. Like, okay, I'm just.
00:15:12
johngrimsmo
Try not to over-complicate everything, right?
00:15:14
John S
I will take that as a win for mills are better than lays.
00:15:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah exactly.
00:15:19
John S
What, what are you doing? You three inches diet or material, dude, you're getting, it's going to get crazy here with a fixed fixture.
00:15:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it's ah it's a weird one. Yeah, it's ah it's gonna be fun. You'll like it.
00:15:29
John S
Oh, the calf, the whole whole, okay.
00:15:30
johngrimsmo
Sort of. It's ah it's a thing. It's a thing, yeah.
00:15:32
John S
Okay. Okay. What's funny, and I didn't even chime in on the WhatsApp group because I didn't want to sound like I was playing FOMO ketchup, but, uh, we, we saw a radial bearing. Actually, I don't think that's going to take you to pull a picture up. Um, when we were touring rego fix, they had a radial bearing, um,
00:15:53
John S
sort of tool, actually I did get it right here. um If you can see that thing right there.
00:15:57
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:15:57
John S
So it had the ball bearing cage with a taper and an indicator on it.
00:15:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah. No way.
00:16:01
John S
And I saw that and I was like, oh, I'm gonna make one of those. So we 3D printed a cat 40 taper with the ball, press the ball bearings into it. And that's now out by our microscope. um
00:16:10
johngrimsmo
No way to to measure run out of a tool holder.
00:16:14
John S
It's not good enough as we printed it to do run out.
00:16:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:17
John S
um
00:16:17
johngrimsmo
What are you using it for then inspection?
00:16:19
John S
to smoothly rotate. a So when we want to inspect a cutting tool and we don't want to take it out of a holder, I don't want to sit there and hold the Cat40 tool or whatever taper it is on.
00:16:22
johngrimsmo
Yes.
00:16:27
johngrimsmo
o Yep.
00:16:32
John S
So I thought, hey, if I can drop this into a rotating spindle, basically, and rotate the tool around the microscope, that would be really helpful.
00:16:36
johngrimsmo
Mhm.
00:16:40
John S
And that's what it um that's purpose one. The second idea was, can it be good enough to do run out? And I think if we, um I think if we milled, machined the taper, like the and then just put the 3D printed cage, the cage is just to hold the ball bearings, exactly.
00:16:56
johngrimsmo
It's just holding the balls. Yeah, exactly.
00:16:58
John S
I think that would be fine, but it's also like, ah, it's just not,
00:16:58
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
Benefits of Automation in Machining
00:17:01
John S
you know, I got, John Saunders needs to focus on his days off in the shop more than I need to be trying to do, you know, unless we're really thinking we're gonna come to market with this device, yeah.
00:17:01
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:17:11
johngrimsmo
Exactly. And that's, that's where I've been at with, with things like that. It's like. I want one, but how deep do I want to go down the rabbit hole to give myself one, as opposed to making this a product that's like, that we're not gonna make kind of thing.
00:17:22
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:27
John S
What CJ put at that Haas one out for 200 bucks that looked, I almost wish it didn't have the janky tool changing sections of it and it just had the bearing section for the TIR inspection.
00:17:37
johngrimsmo
Right. Yep, yep.
00:17:39
John S
So anyway.
00:17:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah, run out's a critical thing, especially with tiny tools.
00:17:41
John S
um
00:17:44
johngrimsmo
um We find that more and more. Although with Regal Fix, we kind of don't worry about it anymore. but
00:17:50
John S
Yeah. And we use the Spironi for checking it, which is probably going to be better accuracy than any of our homemade solutions. So I was actually really, it does exactly.
00:17:59
johngrimsmo
That rotates, right? Yeah.
00:18:03
John S
So the 3d printed thing we made, which I probably should just share those files because, um Frankly, what I think, something I'd like to do that I haven't is to put some of um the files that we have, actually we put made a bunch of ReoFix stuff, um and then things like this up on, like I think Alex said we have a Saunders MachineWorks page on Thingiverse and Makerworld, but let people remix them because people are gonna do a better job than I'm gonna do of creating the next level of this.
00:18:26
johngrimsmo
Okay. Okay. Sure.
00:18:33
John S
um yeah Happy yeah.
00:18:34
johngrimsmo
Are you uploading the actual fusion file? Yeah. it' I think that would be nice because you can't mess with an STL, like not easily.
00:18:39
John S
so much better than the STL. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:43
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:18:45
John S
um Okay, so first thing was days on the shop, second thing for us was kind of like the leadership initiatives around quality control, shop responsibilities, tasks, kind of the whole like, hey, what are we all doing every day or every week to make this place a little bit better? um And the third one, which is by far the biggest thing is a continuation of what we talked about in December,
00:19:09
John S
of would we want to look at a five axis with automation that could make new parts and even replace some of our current manufacturing workflows. Where I'm at right now with it, and I actually have a call right when we hang up on this podcast is can we use a robot from the machine tool builder to load
Workflow Changes with Automation
00:19:32
John S
the raw material. So the the obvious point that took me a while to really sink in about how valuable it would be is if you, let's say you have a 10 different products. Some of they're gonna be different sizes and even different shapes. it Right now we spend a huge amount of time building fixtures for those and every day loading and unloading them.
00:19:56
John S
um if Instead, you can just lay that raw material, which comes to a saw cut, so there's basically no ah work or value added work or time spent on it by us.
00:20:06
John S
We just bring it in from the vendor and you just set it by hand into a drawer. Something you know Clara or Leif could do in 10 minutes.
00:20:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:20:14
John S
Then the robot picks that material up and then puts it into a vise. Machines it, flips it over. Machines five side, flips it over, does the six side. um And you're you're one and done.
00:20:26
John S
It's a very different workflow because you're doing one part at a time versus on the horizontal where we can say do eight or 10 or 50 at a time.
00:20:34
johngrimsmo
yep yeah Yeah, and probe it in if you want to get it like more perfect.
00:20:37
John S
You would probably need some quote un sort of soft jaw things for the op twos to flip it over to do the final part. but
00:20:48
John S
Yeah, I've done I've started to look at this stuff. um It would change how we make some of our parts. But I think you could end up with the the built in work holding the kind of hat top being a non critical.
00:20:59
John S
So um to yeah, wouldn't you deck it chamfer it wouldn't be that hard.
00:20:59
johngrimsmo
Yeah, you just deck it and you're good.
00:21:04
johngrimsmo
Yeah, but even chamfers, if they're off-center by a few thou, like you can tell.
00:21:07
John S
Yeah, you No, totally. um Totally. and you this is To be clear, this is slower overall, but it also goes back to this idea of kind of a marathon on a sprint.
00:21:15
johngrimsmo
who
00:21:20
John S
like if what's the So it goes back to basic math. What I'm trying to figure out is what's the automation storage capacity? What's the cycle time? What's the the investment of the overall system? And basically, could this run It could, right now it could handle all of our capacity, how much growth does it allow for, where it becomes capped out, where it becomes now you can't fit any more on it um because it's it is so much slower, but it also is a system that requires no interview no human time.
00:21:41
johngrimsmo
Mm hmm.
00:21:49
John S
Like the the idea of loading up the horizontal is now would be gone, which I love.
00:21:55
johngrimsmo
Right. that And that probably takes a solid hour or something to.
00:21:58
John S
No, it's a full-time job, basically a full-time job.
00:22:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:22:02
John S
um And you get some benefits of 5-axis in this way of of being able to re-cut, re-chamfer, re-deeper little areas that are sometimes areas that we you want to check.
00:22:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:22:14
John S
like it just kind of like It gives you the ability to work the part better.
00:22:17
johngrimsmo
h
00:22:17
John S
um But but um material loading with a robot is is, can be challenging, I believe.
00:22:27
John S
And then in this way, switching between parts, it's actually pretty cool. The robot can change the jaws and the vice. It can change grippers, like some pretty interesting
Adaptability of Robotics in Machining
00:22:37
John S
possibilities on it.
00:22:37
johngrimsmo
okay Okay, I mean one one downside that I see like if I were looking at a system like that is
00:22:38
John S
So, that's right.
00:22:45
johngrimsmo
you're creating a cell that is kind of made to make rectangles of metal or or rounds or whatever but you're somewhat limited like now you no longer have a fixture station kind of vice or a kind of machine you know the whole machine is built around this robot loading slugs into an automated vice I guess you could I mean, I guess the vice on the table could be quick change as well.
00:23:14
johngrimsmo
You could pull the whole thing off and put your own fixture on there.
00:23:14
John S
Yeah, pull it off and do something else. Yeah.
00:23:17
johngrimsmo
um A bigger machine makes it harder to just carry a fixture and put it onto the table. But um I mean, I've built my whole workflow around the Aroa 148 millimeter pallets.
00:23:23
John S
Mm hmm.
00:23:30
johngrimsmo
And anything I want to do gets bolted to those palettes, whether it's a vise, a fixture, a tombstone, things like that.
00:23:33
John S
Yeah.
00:23:36
johngrimsmo
So in my mind, I'm i'm nimble because I have 80 palettes, big ones and small ones. But Also kind of limited because I'm spending a lot of time making fixtures and bases.
00:23:47
John S
yeah
00:23:48
johngrimsmo
And if I just want to throw another vice bigger, a little on the, the Kern, I have to machine the sub pallet. I have to flip it over machine counter stakes for the screws.
00:23:59
John S
Yeah.
00:23:59
johngrimsmo
I have to do modifications. I have to make pins. It's, it's not like easy, like a Saunders machine works fixture plate, which is available at, you know,
00:24:04
John S
Agree.
00:24:09
John S
Yeah, so I'm learning. in in The other option is in a row or something similar and I'm not against it. It's just the, it's a total, it's more different than I realized because now you're buying a hundred vices or a hundred tombstones or, or you mini tombstones and you're.
00:24:25
John S
Fixturing and you're loading and unloading each one and a light bulb kind of went off.
00:24:27
johngrimsmo
Mhmm.
00:24:29
John S
It's like, Hey, let's see what could this robot, which handles all that stuff. I don't care. That's a little bit slower because it can run forever.
00:24:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah, the unattendedness is massive. um And with a properly built system, whether it's a DIY, you are a robot or a more industrial, like somebody comes in and integrates it for you, it can be done with enough safety checks and enough, you know, pressure and zeroing techniques, chip blowing off kind of thing to be reliable.
00:24:39
John S
Yeah.
00:24:48
John S
Yeah.
00:24:58
johngrimsmo
Like this happens in shops all around the world all every day. um
00:25:04
John S
Yeah, what we're looking at now is is the RSFI from Herma. So it's a, it's a football but it's their robot system.
00:25:09
johngrimsmo
What, what is that?
00:25:12
John S
So it's not, there's nothing DIY here whatsoever.
00:25:12
johngrimsmo
Okay. Well, I think I've seen a video of it. Yeah.
00:25:16
John S
um And a friend is running it, but they're running it on one part family.
00:25:16
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:25:20
John S
So they're not changing out the grippers. They're not changing out the vice jaws a lot. um But um um I'll keep, you I mean, I'm enjoying learning.
00:25:25
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:25:28
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:25:29
John S
If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
00:25:29
johngrimsmo
Super fascinating.
00:25:30
John S
um
00:25:30
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:25:32
John S
But that's a good segue into the very last point and then I'll shut up, which is, you ever listened to the acquired podcast?
00:25:39
johngrimsmo
You've mentioned a bunch of times, I don't think I have, no.
00:25:40
John S
Okay. Yeah, totally fine. They just had one on Mars Candy Company, which is a little bit off for them because they're usually like tech focused, but ah it was actually pretty good, enjoyable.
00:25:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah?
Business Strategies and Financial Goals
00:25:51
John S
And one of the things I really liked um is Mars was and still is a private company.
00:25:58
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:25:59
John S
So it's one of the, there's like a handful like Cargill or Louis Dreyfus and um Mars. These are all like 50 to a hundred billion dollar private companies. They're held by a, like family, like maybe two or three member family members, but it's not like they're private with 300 shareholders.
00:26:12
johngrimsmo
No way. Yeah.
00:26:16
John S
And early on, and they think to this day, although the company is very secretive, they have a financial metric term that's not used anywhere else to my knowledge.
00:26:27
John S
It's called ROTA, return on total assets. So it's similar to ROA, return on assets, or ROI, return on investment. um They mark their assets to market, which basically means OK, so if I bought a machine, um well, i'm actually, I'm not 100% certain what they do. I don't think they market to market. They market to replacement cost. So they buy a machine 32 years ago. And the book value, it's depreciated at almost zero. But it's going to cost them $100,000 to replace it. They kind of look at like, hey, what what are we producing? The M&Ms that come off that machine need to be a yield relative to what it's going to cost us at any point in time to buy the new version of that machine. so
00:27:12
John S
That's kind of how they look at their, I think, their return on um investment or something, which is similar to like, hey, you know we have a VF6 or a Okuma mill that's been great, and we bought it.
00:27:23
John S
And you know we bought it for make up a number, $100,000. And it's depreciated it down to $15,000 now. But fun fact, there's been inflation and all that. So that to replace that machine, it's actually going to be $140,000.
00:27:36
John S
You should think about how do you want to look at your return or yield and so forth.
00:27:39
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:27:41
John S
um but But the punchline ties back to something you and I talked about a little bit on the podcast and a little bit offline, which is kind of like, hey, how do we treat the business separately from our lives outside the business?
00:27:55
John S
And what I like about it was they had a, and anybody who wants to listen, go listen to the podcast episode on it.
00:27:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:28:01
John S
But ah they have a specific target number where they're like, hey, we want to earn this amount of a yield. And that can get, those chips can get taken off the table. every other penny just gets poured back in.
00:28:14
John S
And I really like that idea as the business has matured to making sure I know, okay, what's a fair amount of money that is appropriate to, frankly, divest out of the business?
00:28:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:28:27
John S
um i I think that's a very healthy thing to do, but it also gives me the green light. Every single dollar I earn back into it just gets plowed right back in to
00:28:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:28:39
John S
improvements, machines, et cetera.
00:28:41
johngrimsmo
And that's literally, I mean, a conversation between you and your wife and and me too, me and my wife, my brother.
00:28:45
John S
Yeah. yeah
00:28:47
johngrimsmo
and And and we we do talk about that and I've talked to other business owners that do that. That's what Mike at Milterra does. He's like, I'm comfortable, but I don't need to be, I don't need money in my bank account at home.
00:28:59
John S
Yeah.
00:29:00
johngrimsmo
I don't need lots and lots of money in my bank
Balancing Work and Personal Life
00:29:02
johngrimsmo
account. I'm pouring it all back into the business because I can make money in my business. ah He's like, I don't invest in anything outside. I invest in myself, in my business.
00:29:11
johngrimsmo
And and he's he's doing well.
00:29:14
John S
Yeah, yes, yes. And it was easier for me to do that when it was like, hey, we're gonna buy a VF2 that's gonna make this new product. um Where I guess I've struggled or it's gonna change is we have a meeting tomorrow with everybody in the shop of everybody here is putting together their wish list.
00:29:31
John S
So it's like, hey, let's have a plumber come in and add a sync back here.
00:29:32
johngrimsmo
i really
00:29:34
John S
Let's change the lighting. Let's add a cabinet here. um Every single thing is, is we're jotting in.
00:29:38
johngrimsmo
I love that, that you've kind of opened that up.
00:29:43
John S
Yeah, and I'm i'm not gonna promise it all happens, but let's at least look because there might be seven or eight, $500 items.
00:29:46
johngrimsmo
Oh, I like that.
00:29:51
John S
It's like, hey, for 4,000, we can do all these items versus the other $4,000 option was to buy a new XYZ.
00:29:55
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:29:57
John S
And yeah, well, maybe we'll get the second quarter, whatever, I'm making something.
00:30:01
johngrimsmo
No, I like that. And especially from a cultural standpoint of getting the team involved, because the the boots on the ground are going to know, man, if we had a sink here, or if I had, I had this $80 tool, but I'm afraid to ask for it, or, you know, like I've had this idea, you know.
00:30:09
John S
Right.
00:30:16
johngrimsmo
um and and not giving them the green light, but giving them the okay to suggest it in a central forum kind of place.
00:30:21
John S
Yep.
00:30:23
johngrimsmo
And and then management can look at the list and be like, nope, nope, yep, yep, yep.
00:30:28
John S
Right.
00:30:28
johngrimsmo
And I guarantee half the things I would never come up with, you know?
00:30:31
John S
Right.
00:30:32
johngrimsmo
And that's, I tend to be too stuck in my head going, we need this, we need that. I want this. um I'm going to write that down because that's really good.
00:30:40
John S
Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:44
John S
You want to hear some of our items? now I should pull a buzz.
00:30:45
johngrimsmo
Sure, yeah, if you can share.
00:30:47
John S
Okay. I already said this one, sink in the back of the shop near the Willem and that's mostly for Grant to be able to wash his hands. um Painting a bunch of different rooms and walls. Our shop's 10 years old and some of the areas just need, could use a freshen up.
00:31:01
John S
um That's...
00:31:01
johngrimsmo
And you kind of, you forget it, you know, you you go blind to it.
00:31:03
John S
Yeah. Well, it's the frog boiling thing and um somebody had actually genius had the idea of painting our ceiling in the shop, which is the ceiling is is painting in our office, but it's not painted out in the shop and that could help brighten it up a little more.
00:31:05
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:31:16
johngrimsmo
Sure.
00:31:18
John S
um Ditching all of our random toolboxes and carts and so forth and going to all standardized butcher block top things to have a more homogenous, clean, new look.
00:31:29
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:31:31
John S
um Serena wants some slanted racking that we saw at Henry Holsters to evaluate. um replacing the hopper sink in the front of the shop with it's like ah kind of a plastic that gets permanently stained with a nice stainless steel and it will be clean and you could scrub better. Ice maker, I don't even know what, oh, our fridge doesn't have an ice maker, so they want somebody who wants an ice maker. um Wire shelving, U-line bins, and then it's, we have a bigger item section. It's like, hey, do we wanna pour concrete outside to get away from asphalt where we did the forklift maneuvering a lot?
00:32:04
John S
um a sign for the building. We have a sign out front, but not a sign all on the building. um A CMM, another prototype machine, ah like a tormach, a fast garage door.
00:32:16
John S
So especially now that it's cold out, if you've ever seen these at cardio ships, they're not cheap, but you hit a button, the garage door opens in like two seconds.
00:32:22
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:32:24
John S
um So that we can then we have a button on the forklift so you could open it, get out and come back in easy. Because we open our door a bunch and that stinks.
00:32:32
johngrimsmo
Yeah. We'd never open our garage door.
00:32:36
John S
Yeah, even better.
00:32:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Um, I love how you casually like slipped in CMM as like the one big thing in the other $5,000 items.
00:32:42
John S
Yeah,
00:32:44
johngrimsmo
Um, but no, I get it. I like that. That's a lot of, uh, observational really good ideas. Yeah.
00:32:52
John S
yeah thank you.
00:32:53
johngrimsmo
And I mean, here we're the, we're the Kings of, uh, good ideas that go nowhere. So I'm constantly trying to evaluate. Yes, that's a good idea, but it's just a good idea. Like we're not going to do it or it's impractical or whatever, but every now and then there's like super valuable idea. That's like, you know what? If we did that, it would make a big difference.
00:33:15
John S
Maybe that's the theme that we're unintentionally uncovering is like hey breaking going back to something you and I know, but don't always do a good enough job. It was like breaking down, breaking on the end goals into more baby steps.
00:33:22
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:33:25
John S
And then, you know again, do it for me just means tomorrow, 15 minutes. There's no problem to do that.
00:33:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:33:33
John S
Lots of excuses not to, but there's no problem to do that. So just do it.
00:33:36
johngrimsmo
yeah And I like how you put do it as a category at the forefront, like I'm going to spend 15 minutes on this category. And there's a hundred things I could do as long as I do any of them or even the most important ones.
00:33:48
John S
one of Yeah, exactly.
00:33:52
johngrimsmo
It's setting so a time for yourself. you know
00:33:56
John S
Yeah.
00:33:58
John S
My buddy that I was hanging out with last week, um, he has a morning routine with his kids. He has a lunch, like gym routine, and then he has pickup and kid stuff usually in the night.
Achieving Precision Through Automation
00:34:08
John S
So he takes those three events and then he rigidly time blocks his day every morning, which I could never do because I'm always getting stuff thrown at me by whatever pops up, but it was also, um,
00:34:18
johngrimsmo
Yeah. and
00:34:23
John S
He was explaining this to me, what he does. And it was like, I was laughing. I'm like, this is be a surgeon. Like he will at 10, 15, he knows he has 45 minutes to spend on this, you know, budget analysis project he has to do.
00:34:35
John S
And he will turn off his phone. throws he and He'll spend 45 minutes on that thing. And I'm like, Oh my God, that's, that's like, I love it.
00:34:41
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:34:41
John S
You come at it from different angles, but yeah.
00:34:42
johngrimsmo
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And in a way that's kind of where I'm at, especially in the winter now. Um, and the kids in school, I'm spending the majority of the morning doing family stuff for kids stuff. And then I basically have like four and a half hours at work to get done, whatever I need to get done, including this podcast. And then, um, Claire wants me home at four 30 so that we can go to the park and and spend some time together before it gets dark kind of thing. And, uh, every day, seven days a week, that's, that's the schedule. And.
00:35:14
johngrimsmo
Oftentimes because I only get, a lot of days I only get like four and a half hours at work. I'll come back to work afterwards or I'll work from home in the evening, but I'm trying to like time block these things and really put my family as a priority um as I can.
00:35:19
John S
Yeah.
00:35:26
johngrimsmo
And while still trying to be productive and feel productive and get get done what I need to get done and delegate what I can't do.
00:35:30
John S
yeah Yeah.
00:35:34
johngrimsmo
um And that's, it's challenging sometimes.
00:35:39
John S
Yes.
00:35:40
johngrimsmo
But on the other hand, I've spent a lot of years being, I don't wanna say selfish, but business focused. um So it's nice to be able to step back and and I'm gonna put my family first.
00:35:50
John S
Yeah.
00:35:51
johngrimsmo
that's That's okay. The business is great. We got a lot of employees. They can and they don't need me as much as I think they do.
00:35:54
John S
It's awesome.
00:35:57
John S
All the better if you're if it works that way, John.
00:36:00
johngrimsmo
me
00:36:05
johngrimsmo
um Okay, I got a couple points. Not too much, but as I mentioned earlier, the Fjell's are making kind of excellent progress. The, as planned, the handles and the blades are like Easy to make now.
00:36:22
johngrimsmo
This kind of one piece monolithic handle, dovetailed, mounted on a, you know, small pallet, small vice, one and done.
00:36:28
John S
awesome
00:36:30
johngrimsmo
Takes about an hour, 15, I think, maybe an hour and a half. And it just goes. And so Angelo and I are running them and we're like running one at a time, measure everything, run another one, make a tweak, measure it.
00:36:41
johngrimsmo
And we're like, how many can we run without tolerances going out?
00:36:42
John S
Awesome. Awesome.
00:36:46
johngrimsmo
I don't know. Let's run three. Okay. They're good. Let's run three again. Okay, they're still good. Maybe tweak that one by a tenth. Okay, let's run five tonight. They're they're good.
00:36:56
John S
awesome
00:36:56
johngrimsmo
Like, oh, okay. Now, I don't think we could run 10 or 20 without a comp of something, but um i don't we'll get there. so Kind of, yeah, a bit bigger, but yeah.
00:37:05
John S
How are you holding the, it's a titanium, like a stick, like a pack of bubble gum, right? so i How are you holding it in a, like a screw vise or like a dovetail, like a vise, like the raptor?
00:37:14
johngrimsmo
In ah in a small vise with a dovetail. So we prep the material, we dovetail it.
00:37:22
johngrimsmo
vise with the grippy jaws that are, um you know, like an actual screw vise, but it's a small chunk, little three inch by three inch square kind of thing.
00:37:24
John S
Yeah, okay.
00:37:27
John S
Oh, interesting. Okay, fair enough.
00:37:33
johngrimsmo
Yep. But it's got good clearance with the jaws, um kind of like a small Lang vise basically.
00:37:38
John S
Yeah, right. Right.
00:37:40
johngrimsmo
So dovetail the material and i I had the water jet material because it's half inch thick titanium. And so I get them to water jet it with this kind of mushroom shape, let's call it, and the lower, the stem of the mushroom is exactly the width of the vise, so ah align aligning it is just centred, like plus or minus 5,000, I don't care, like you can feel it with your fingers if it's centred, good enough.
00:37:57
John S
Nice. Yeah.
00:38:05
John S
Where do you dovetail a brother?
00:38:06
johngrimsmo
In the mori currently, and
00:38:08
John S
Okay.
Setting and Achieving Machining Goals
00:38:10
johngrimsmo
This is kind of a legacy thing we did nine months ago. It was like just a one by one program, takes two minutes. Somebody's got to stand there and do a bunch of pieces. Grayson was happy to do that. Here I am thinking, I want to put in the speedio.
00:38:21
johngrimsmo
I want to use these multiple vices. I want to be able to automate this process. And Angelo's like, for the first few hundred, don't even worry about it. We got this.
00:38:29
John S
like Totally.
00:38:30
johngrimsmo
It's fine.
00:38:31
John S
Yes.
00:38:31
johngrimsmo
And here I am obsessing about, I gotta make a fixture to do the thing to hold the dovetail so that I can, you know, so somebody doesn't have to stand there. And they're like, we're happy to stand here and do these one by one for now.
00:38:38
John S
Yes.
00:38:42
John S
Bingo.
00:38:42
johngrimsmo
Automate later.
00:38:44
John S
Yes. Yes.
00:38:45
johngrimsmo
So it's good. My team's pushing back on me with that. They're like, we just want to see this happen. And I'm like, no, I want everything to be perfect. That's fine.
00:38:53
John S
Good.
00:38:54
johngrimsmo
So. With the handles, we've made about 25 of them. They're great. I don't think we scrapped a single handle, even though I was kind of expecting a scrap rate. um Some tolerances were loosening a little bit because we're getting away with it, which is good.
00:39:08
johngrimsmo
and finding interesting ways to measure some of the features, the internal features.
00:39:13
johngrimsmo
And they're great. And then when it's tabbed off of the dovetail part, there's the leftover chunk, the remnant, and then the tabs.
00:39:21
John S
Yeah.
00:39:22
johngrimsmo
It does leave tabs on the spine of the part. So we have an opt-to fixture that kind of, so this integral handles like a U shape, right, where the blade goes into U.
00:39:29
John S
Yeah.
00:39:30
johngrimsmo
And so we have this fixture that I machined that, the thing slots onto the fixture and the pivot hole goes the pivot goes through the pivot hole and then a um
00:39:37
John S
hundred
00:39:41
johngrimsmo
toe clamp kind of thing. I forget what they're called kind of a common lever lever toggle clamp kind of thing.
00:39:45
John S
Strap clamp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Toggle strap. Yeah.
00:39:49
johngrimsmo
So we 3d printed a TPU protector thingy, and then we toggle clamp it on and that just holds the back of it in place. And then I just machine the spine with three tools one to cut the tabs off two to to semi finish it.
00:40:03
johngrimsmo
And the third tool is a seven flute stubby really rigid finisher like to really leave a nice finish.
00:40:11
John S
When the op ones are done in the shunk vise with the tabs, the part is still for like so this part is still absolutely attached to the tabs in the vise, right?
00:40:16
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:40:24
John S
It has to be because otherwise it would fall off in the current.
00:40:24
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:40:27
johngrimsmo
Exactly, but you can break it off by hand.
00:40:28
John S
Okay. ah hand Bingo. Right.
00:40:30
johngrimsmo
Yep, yep.
00:40:30
John S
Right. Okay.
00:40:31
johngrimsmo
And so I actually separated the programs to a, all the machining is one program, and then the tab cutoff program is ah the next subroutine.
00:40:42
johngrimsmo
So if we ever want to do an inspection before chopping the tabs off, um and and like if we have to do a tweak, if we have to ream a hole or adjust a thread or whatever, we have that pause before it gets all dangly and the tabs get whittled away.
00:40:42
John S
Okay.
Efficient Production and Teamwork
00:40:59
johngrimsmo
You know what I mean?
00:40:59
John S
Yeah.
00:41:02
johngrimsmo
And so that was really helpful for the setup because we can make the part and it's still totally rigidly held in there, we can keep machining on it, because there's there's meat at the base, it's not tapped away.
00:41:10
John S
Right.
00:41:11
johngrimsmo
And so that worked really well. And we got to the point where we have 25 handles and we haven't like really assembled a finished knife yet from these.
00:41:21
John S
Okay.
00:41:21
johngrimsmo
So Angela and I are like, let's we don't need to make more handles until we start to prove that these are all actually going together the way we assume they are.
00:41:29
John S
Yeah.
00:41:29
johngrimsmo
I've done some test assembly, but You know, nothing's like proof in the pudding where you're making a finished product with these things.
00:41:35
John S
Sure.
00:41:36
johngrimsmo
And that's fine. And we can clearly make more quickly. So let's.
00:41:40
John S
So you have the what you had the handles and the blades done? that's
00:41:44
johngrimsmo
Blades have been soft machined, have been heat treated, have been hard ground, have been lapped, um almost all of them. So we have about 25 blades ready for hard milling the critical features and the bevels.
00:41:55
John S
Okay. Yeah.
00:41:57
johngrimsmo
Um, I've done some more testing with the hard milling of critical features and with the Maldino tools, it's point and shoot.
00:42:02
John S
Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:42:04
johngrimsmo
It just does.
00:42:05
John S
I'm not even sure we talked about this because I ended up, it's like so easy.
00:42:07
johngrimsmo
Not really. Cause I.
00:42:10
John S
It's phenomenal.
00:42:10
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:42:11
John S
Yeah.
00:42:11
johngrimsmo
It's always, I definitely had to dial in the, you know, oh, that tool is not actually two millimeter. It's 1.98 or whatever it is.
00:42:18
John S
Okay.
00:42:19
johngrimsmo
I have to use some cutter comp for a couple of tools or add some stock to leave in the program, just just to like get the du the nominal, but then it holds and like, they're not wearing out yet.
00:42:24
John S
Yeah.
00:42:30
John S
Agree. I've been, um, so this came up on the WhatsApp where we've been using the Kuma to track the tool life of the hard mill just to know, but yeah, it's been phenomenal.
00:42:40
johngrimsmo
yeah And then, I mean, I'll keep inspecting the tools and replace them as they need to, but I i think about three or six of each ones or something. So like, I'm good for a little bit. And then we also, we also bought bigger 10 millimeters, so just over three eighths, five or six flute, hard milling end mills from moldy or from union um for doing our Norseman blades.
00:42:50
John S
Awesome.
00:43:02
John S
Okay.
00:43:03
johngrimsmo
Cause we've for years, 10 years been blowing through three eighths ball mills, hard machining, Norseman bevels. And if we can get eight blades out of a tool, that's good.
00:43:17
johngrimsmo
So I bought these extraordinarily expensive 10 millimeter end mills, like, I think they were $150 or something.
00:43:24
John S
Oh, yeah.
00:43:25
johngrimsmo
And we'll see. I haven't tried them yet, but yeah.
00:43:29
John S
Cool.
00:43:33
John S
Awesome. So way is what other from a from a like execution side, I mean, the there's other the rest is our shared components, the pivots and screws and stuff.
00:43:35
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:43:42
johngrimsmo
pivots ah There's no screws. The pivot is similar but different enough that it's its own product. The pivot screw is the same, um but Jeff has already made over 50 of every lathe component that we need.
00:43:51
John S
Okay. Okay.
00:43:58
John S
okay
00:43:58
johngrimsmo
and he's happy to jump on and make more instantly.
00:44:00
John S
Sweet.
00:44:01
johngrimsmo
So like we're good. Clips on the Wilhelmin. I made one tiny tweak last night. I just got to start making clips. They take about 25-30 minutes and I'll just make them.
00:44:08
John S
Oh, right. Okay.
00:44:11
johngrimsmo
So over the next few days I'll just be making a ton of clips.
00:44:14
John S
Sweet.
00:44:15
johngrimsmo
And we kind of decided for the first 100 knives, there they're engraved on the front of it. First 100 on the
00:44:23
John S
Yeah.
00:44:25
johngrimsmo
on the like front edge of the handle here, because we can five-axis tilt engrave anything.
00:44:29
John S
Yes.
00:44:30
johngrimsmo
We've got some inside engravings. So we engrave first 100 on the first 100, and then we're going to send the handles as machinist finish. So they are machined, not deburred, not tumbled, not blasted, not nothing.
00:44:43
John S
okay
00:44:44
johngrimsmo
they are It's a machined handle. Normally we tumble everything. which both blends and hides and kind of does some stuff. But I'm so proud of these and happy with how everything just looks so luxurious.
00:44:59
johngrimsmo
um The clip, however, we're going to tumble and the blades, we're going to tumble.
00:45:00
John S
Okay.
00:45:02
johngrimsmo
So it'll be a nice mixture of um surfaces.
00:45:06
John S
Sweet.
00:45:07
johngrimsmo
and So it's going to be really good. So like I got to make a bunch of clips and then I got to teach the guys in the finishing how to how I want them finished, assembled, how to assemble them.
00:45:08
John S
this
Craftsmanship and Business Identity
00:45:17
johngrimsmo
There's some tips and tricks.
00:45:17
John S
Yeah.
00:45:19
johngrimsmo
But like um it's the 8th today. There's 31 in January. I'm sticking to this 100 knives this month.
00:45:27
John S
Yeah. You're getting, I mean, who cares about the quantity? Like you're there.
00:45:30
johngrimsmo
ah ye But it's a good number in my head.
00:45:31
John S
Like, yeah, that's awesome.
00:45:33
johngrimsmo
It's like, no. like That means you have to make 100 clips. Get it done.
00:45:38
John S
Yes, that's true.
00:45:38
johngrimsmo
that That means you have to have you have to give other people jobs as early in the month as possible so that they can possibly get good at it and have the time to finish it. I can't hand them 100 finished components on the 28th and be like, make.
00:45:50
John S
Sure.
00:45:54
johngrimsmo
So it's good.
00:45:54
John S
I also don't feel like I want to nudge you to say, well, you should spend an hour, you know, like with member of Microsoft project, like you could like build out timelines. It's like, okay, there's, you know, 17 working days left in the month and let's do X number of things per day and this number per hour.
00:46:06
johngrimsmo
All right.
00:46:10
John S
Cause it's just too busy body, like a fake analysis.
00:46:11
johngrimsmo
So.
00:46:15
johngrimsmo
My accountant has been hounding me for the best year about this. I need to fail a project plan and just baseline so we all know what you're thinking.
00:46:23
johngrimsmo
And I literally cannot do that. It is not a skill that is in my bones at all. I've tried, I can throw out ideas, but I cannot commit to a timeline, to a project plan because things come up.
00:46:23
John S
OK.
00:46:38
johngrimsmo
And I don't know if something's wrong with me, but I can't do it.
00:46:40
John S
Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of knowns. It's certainly, it's kind of like any modeling it, the one thing you know, that is it will be wrong, but it's still like, it gives you some idea, right?
00:46:51
johngrimsmo
Yeah, maybe I know that too well.
00:46:54
John S
But it's not like, okay, does it take me, is it good, something that we can accomplish in ah one month or 12 months, right? Like that kind of an answer.
00:47:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:47:03
John S
um
00:47:03
johngrimsmo
But I'm always wrong. I always think it's one month, but it's 12 months.
00:47:06
John S
no Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:08
johngrimsmo
And maybe it's just I have too many varied things on my plate, whereas ah people in a company who have are more focused on certain things are more able to meet these deadlines, whereas know I've got way too many things I want to do.
00:47:22
John S
Yeah. Well, that is part of succeeding as a leader because and I've been thinking about this sort of subconsciously about both you and me.
00:47:25
johngrimsmo
and into yeah
00:47:33
John S
um we especially kind of like comparison to something like Henry Holsters, where they're basically bulk manufacturing products, both for themselves and for other holster manufacturers. um And it's absolutely no discredit to Henry Holsters, but they're not, well, I gotta to be careful with my words here, because a ton of respect for them. Their goal is to make a holster identical and perfect every single time. And so there are craftsmen in that in that aspect of it, but they're more of a high volume,
00:48:03
John S
ah high volume consistency. um Yes, where effectively I'm going to say something that I think I agree with, but don't kill me if I'm wrong.
00:48:06
johngrimsmo
mitf manufacturer.
00:48:13
John S
You and I are running true companies that are still solopreneur craftsmen-ish people. like um Again, it kind of goes back to the asphalt road example.
00:48:24
John S
like you know you're not It's not like you decided to buy Spyderco and you know that you have a factory that can print out 37,000 blades on a stamping machine in an hour and your desire job is to evaluate you know whether to upgrade the stamping capacity.
00:48:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:48:36
John S
like like you ah You're still very involved as a craftsman in the product richness of of many of the individual pieces of material that go through the shop.
00:48:46
johngrimsmo
Which sometimes I have to step back and go, that's who I am.
00:48:50
John S
Right.
00:48:50
johngrimsmo
That is what I want out of my life, you know?
00:48:52
John S
Right.
00:48:53
johngrimsmo
And, and you can, you can love that. You can hate that about yourself. You can be like, man, I wish I whatever, but sometimes you
Managing Responsibilities and Work-Life Balance
00:49:00
johngrimsmo
got to step back. Like my wife asked me, what do you really want out of this?
00:49:03
John S
Right.
00:49:03
johngrimsmo
Like, why do you want to come to work every day? It's like, well, that's a deep question.
00:49:08
John S
Yeah, but that's the view of it.
00:49:10
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:49:10
John S
Nobody, ah you don't have to do it any differently. You do have to recognize, um you know, it means, ill i'll I'll give the example for us. If some crazy scenario came to us where a distributor was like, hey, we would like to enter into a relationship with Saunders.
00:49:26
John S
We believe um your products are a good fit. We would like to start with, you know, 2000 mod vices a month.
00:49:35
johngrimsmo
That changes things.
00:49:35
John S
we actually We actually could get there, but like that's not necessarily how we've been writing this business, right?
00:49:40
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah.
00:49:40
John S
And and um totally different than knives. You know what I mean? It's like, OK, what? Yeah.
00:49:49
John S
Sweet.
00:49:49
johngrimsmo
Awesome.
00:49:50
John S
Good.
00:49:51
johngrimsmo
Good to catch up.
00:49:52
John S
Good to catch up, too. ah wait What do you do for the rest of the day?
00:49:53
johngrimsmo
yeah Probably set up the Wilhelmin to make clips and then work on blade grinding on the Fjell dial that in so that I can check it off my list and the guys can just make.
00:50:04
John S
Nice.
00:50:08
John S
Just do one thing, just focus on the moment.
00:50:10
johngrimsmo
I like it.
00:50:10
John S
Don't try to do two things. You're not gonna fit in anyways.
00:50:12
johngrimsmo
No, you're right.
00:50:14
John S
Good.
00:50:15
johngrimsmo
All right, man.
00:50:15
John S
See you next week.
00:50:16
johngrimsmo
See you next week.
00:50:17
John S
Take care.
00:50:17
johngrimsmo
Goodbye.