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#330 The balance of leadership
224 Plays1 year ago
TOPICS
- The balance of leadership
- SMW Puck Chuck pallet system!
- Erowa update with Grimsmo
- Selling older machines and fully utilizing what you have
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the business of machining episode number 330. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo.
Challenges in Leadership
00:00:08
Speaker
And this is the zero sympathy requested therapy session between me and John. We're proud of what we've done. You got it. Hold your head high, stay strong, be a leader, grow these companies. But we're people too. And John and I for about 10 seconds before we hit record, we're commiserating on like sometimes there's some
00:00:28
Speaker
unfun things that occur in the worlds around
Mindset and Achievements
00:00:30
Speaker
us. But there's a lot to be said for remembering that, you know, one things that in life is true for everybody listening to this podcast who has built a company for our product to market, started a machine shop, delivered a product, is that no one can take that away from you. And that's a really, really proud thing and something you should never forget.
00:00:48
Speaker
Yep. It's so easy to fall into the trap of only seeing the loudest voice or the most emotional thing in front of you and it can ruin you short term or long term. Um, and I certainly go through waves short term, but yeah, as Sandra said, nothing can take that away from you. Make sure to always, you know, step back, look around, be proud of what you've done, be proud of where you've come, what you've learned in, in whatever this applies to literally everybody listening. Um,
00:01:16
Speaker
where you are in your life. You've done stuff. Everybody's done stuff. Be proud of that. It's very Ted Lasso-ish to me.
Owning Responsibilities
00:01:25
Speaker
Accept the world for what it is, but stay hungry, go get after it. For example, this is as silly as it comes, but somebody told me I had to do something this morning outside of work personally. I was pretty annoyed that it wasn't flipped around and they could do it for me. Then I just realized, own it, be smile, do it with pride. I don't always default to that way.
00:01:44
Speaker
And I don't think most people do, but I'm happier when I do it and make it work.
Vulnerability vs. Strength in Leadership
00:01:50
Speaker
And ultimately, if I'm being honest, there's some element of like, of just like, man, it feels sometimes like you carry the weight of your world on your shoulders. But I started this off by saying no sympathy needed. So I'm gonna keep going on that because just let's just go get after it, you know? Yeah, yeah. But on that note, I do the same thing. When there's something I have to do that I don't want to do, or it's on schedule, or, you know, I'd rather be doing something else.
00:02:12
Speaker
own it, put a smile on your face, get it done, do it the best of your ability and move on and then you'll feel better afterwards. There's also, and this is like out of left field, there's also a point at which things get taken too far and you've got to stand up for yourself. That's probably- Yeah, absolutely. You just got to say no. Right.
Leadership Insights from Navy SEALs
00:02:31
Speaker
Did I talk about that operator podcast last week mentioned to you? No, I don't think so.
00:02:37
Speaker
Buddy recommended it. It is a guy named Rob O'Neill who had the wonderful pleasure of dumping three rounds of lead into Osama bin Laden's face on Operation, was it Neptune Spear, I think. So he has a podcast now.
00:02:54
Speaker
look, I'm not here to recommend it
Critiquing Leadership Advice
00:02:56
Speaker
or endorse it. I just enjoy it because he does a really in depth job talking through some of what it's like to go through the buds program and some of the like pool qual and the other more detailed grainy stuff of buds, which is also like, look, you know, once you're a Navy SEAL, which I have in no way been in any way affiliated with or can speak to firsthand, but never like once you've been in that you also realize that there are Navy SEALs that suck and there's people that don't get along and there's like,
00:03:21
Speaker
you know, politics to deal with there, like from the outside, it's like, you know, you want to kind of recognize these people for being some of the best war fighters and skilled people in the world, but it's like, they're all just people. I enjoy Rob talking though, about the balance of leadership and attitude and mentality, but not under what I think some people do, which is they try to be like, if I were a corporate CEO, this is how I would lead, like, you're not so stop talking like,
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, the Michael Jordan book, his trainer, I like the book, I would recommend it, I liked it, but he does, he makes too big of a jump from being a sports trainer into being a business leader that's just gonna like, stop, like you're not Tim Grover, relentless, you mean? Yes, yes, great book, though, I think. Yeah, totally great book, but I agree with what you're saying.
00:04:03
Speaker
But I also like Rob, you're talking about like kind of the epitome of an alpha male, like apex predator guy who's proven his capabilities in so many different physical and mental ways.
Balancing Vulnerabilities in Leadership
00:04:13
Speaker
He admits kind of his own insecurities, his own, you know, this is what I know, this is what I don't know. He's not for everybody. He's still got a little bit of that, like what you'd expect out of a Navy SEAL, you know, talking. But I've enjoyed some of the episodes and just kind of made me think about that balance of like,
00:04:31
Speaker
I don't think I'm necessarily unique, but the point is that I'm unique, but I've always been much more willing to just be like, yeah, I'm having a tough time with this right now, or struggling with this right now, especially with you on this alleged private conversation versus so often I see the mental attitude of like, I could never show an ounce of weakness for fear of like,
Technical Solutions vs. Emotional Responses
00:04:51
Speaker
show you weakness. What do you want? Okay. We all have like insecurities, weaknesses. I think we both had people in our family that are like that, you know, we'll not share an ounce of weakness in any situation and it's just not fun. But yeah, what's the balance between being a strong leader and being vulnerable and you know, opening up to people? Yeah.
00:05:18
Speaker
I come back to thinking about the cliched and overused phrase that is still great of we're all in the same boat. Think about that. Literally, this is a, I hate boats, but this is a small boat. We are all in it together, whether we're rowing or whether we're working on the outboard motor to keep it running. We're all in this together and I try to make sure that we
00:05:41
Speaker
work as a team and we share in our successes and we can like, Rob, it's nothing I like about the podcast. We're going to unemotionally debrief and talk about what happened wrong. It's not calling anybody out for the sake of calling anybody out, but I'm not going to apologize about saying like, hey, I don't really want to get into this right now, honestly, but we had a pretty
00:05:59
Speaker
frustrating goof on Friday. Let's talk about it. Let's figure out why it went wrong and if some key people made some mistakes, I'm not going to sit here and stay upset about it, but we're going to talk candidly about how that's not going to happen again. It's very easy, especially for me to avoid those conversations and to not talk about it for fear of
00:06:22
Speaker
hurting my feelings, hurting their feelings, you know, bringing up the negativity, things like that, knowing that a conversation can
Effective Listening in Teams
00:06:29
Speaker
go emotional. But I was just talking to Eric yesterday, my brother, and he said, or I said to him, in a perfect world, technical problems have technical solutions, not emotional solutions. Something in the shop, this is all technical business, right? If something's wrong, I'm not
00:06:47
Speaker
Being emotionally attacking to you, I'm just telling you there's a technical problem. This is Eric saying this. I was saying that to him, but about everybody on the team. Because you did it wrong. And they're like, no, I didn't. I'm perfect. I feel hurt that you called me out kind of thing. So I want to get to the point where a technical problem has a technical solution. And everybody's kind of on board with the, let's talk about it.
00:07:15
Speaker
So that's a great point to break down there. And it actually ties back into some of the things we already talked about, about this on this unplanned episode right now, which is if somebody is telling you something is wrong,
00:07:27
Speaker
instead of saying, no, you're wrong, shut up and listen. Yeah. With the caveat that at some point, they are wrong, or they're abusing you. That's abusing isn't like the right word. They're beating you. But like, shut up, listen, and then break it down and have that conversation.
00:07:46
Speaker
But it's also what I try to ask of other people and I'm not always the smoothest in how I ask for this, I get that. You and I would be, if you and I could like find the middle ground between each other, I think
Team Dynamics
00:07:55
Speaker
it would be great. I'm too confrontational and you're not enough or whatever. But you know, I just dislike it if, you know,
00:08:07
Speaker
And if I'm saying something, I want people to listen because I'm the guy that's got this company in this place. But likewise, if an intern or a new person or a two year old employee comes to me and says something, I really
00:08:22
Speaker
I have this mentality of like always assuming they're right and I'm wrong at first. Even if in the back of my head, I'm like kind of, I maybe already know they're wrong, but I don't know. I just, I don't, if you, if you're listening and you want to be better, think about if it makes more sense to just, you know, feels very much to me, like what's one of my, one of my mentors would say a Tom Lipton kind of person or, you know, Robert, just think where, because they're probably coming at it for a valid reason. Um, and then you can
00:08:47
Speaker
A lot of times when somebody is at the point of bringing up a problem, it's already been a problem for a while. They've already rolled it around their head a little bit. They've already thought through it. They want to bring it up, especially higher up the chain to the owners of the company. I've noticed that that takes some time in my company before one of the newer guys will bring something to me, for better or worse. Some guys will bring things right away and it's great.
00:09:14
Speaker
But I'm a very good listener whether or not my emotions get the better of me during that listening process. But I want solutions. I want solutions over everything else. And I try to stay positive in everything. And I want to get better. If there's an issue, if somebody is struggling with something, I want to improve it. That's my nature.
00:09:34
Speaker
I am realizing that I think I'm a great listener and I am a great listener when I'm choosing to listen and want to be in it. But I'm finding that I subconsciously
Product Developments and Challenges
00:09:44
Speaker
sometimes start to tune. I don't know. It sounds terrible. It's just the truth. So it's hard. It's hard to truly be a good listener. It really is. And it's important.
00:09:57
Speaker
I think I've taken it too far where I let the other people, you know, on the conversation or lead the show or walk all over me in my past, you know, in certain ways. I'm just listening, right? Right. And that's where I need more Saunders confrontationalism to be like, no, no. Right.
00:10:17
Speaker
Yeah. But like at the end of it, it kind of goes back to like, look, we're all in the same boat. Like if I'm arguing to somebody about how we adjust an offset or a tool, I always kind of remind is like, this is fun. Like I'm glad that we're like, I appreciate that you're coming out with conviction. I'd rather you communicate than not. The over resounding comment that I actually had on my list anyways, to mention is that like all of this stuff
00:10:41
Speaker
is necessary and it unfortunately has nothing to do with toolpaths and CNC machines and making parts and engineering and delivering a product and marketing a product, which is the, what's it called? Like the realization of like the difference between running a shop and being a machinist. Again, no simply needed, but like I have found in those ebbs and flows and swings, I've spent a lot more time lately
00:11:08
Speaker
struggling to balance both than I have enjoying feeling like I'm doing either one of them as well as you should. That said, I can see it in your face and in the pictures you send us. You're having a lot of fun on this zero point system.
00:11:24
Speaker
Dude, the pock chuck is good. Every time you send a little picture to our private WhatsApp chat, I'm like, God, I want those. I want like a lot of fun. Yeah. I'll buy them too. I just, I don't have the purpose for them yet. Okay. I'm going to wrap my head around how.
00:11:44
Speaker
He's got SMW plates on both of his mills and he's just swapping parts all around. He's got the mod vices. He's like in the family at this point and I would have to change a lot of things in my system to be in the family but I have thought about it. It's called a preparatory purchase, John. Yeah.
Hobby Product Versions
00:12:02
Speaker
Eric told me I can't do more preparatory purchases. Okay.
00:12:08
Speaker
It's going well. I wouldn't even say it's going slower than I want, but last week was the fourth and I was out some and blah, blah, blah, but we have more prototype units or beta units writing going out quite soon. If there's two things that will add to the development time, number one is we're realizing how important the, we're calling it the hobby version. That's not really the right term because there's nothing hobbyish about it, but
00:12:38
Speaker
The main puck chuck is pneumatically actuated, so you can have its automation capable or friendly, and one valve can open and close multiple at the same time. As you mentioned, the beta customer is doing right now.
00:12:52
Speaker
We also want to come out with a simpler design that will be hand actuated with a tool, probably a hex driver of some sort. So obviously not automation friendly, not as easy or fast to open and close multiple at the same time, but we are now hearing from enough customers that a lot of the use case will be for fourth axis type work where you'll only have a single one. So in that case, if you wanted to automate it, great. But like the reality is it's probably fine to have
00:13:19
Speaker
the
Design Challenges and Solutions
00:13:20
Speaker
non-automation version. So we want to be able to at least
00:13:26
Speaker
I don't know what the exact answer is, whether we're going to have them ready to ship or we're going to have them made aware of. I don't want customers to feel like they have to buy the $900 to $1,000 automation one, only to find out later that there's a simpler one that works weight for them that's guessing under half the price. We haven't gotten to that point yet on the hobby version. So that's all going great. The functionality, the testing that Alex has been doing on repeatability and assembly techniques and is just putting smiles on our face. That's so awesome.
00:13:56
Speaker
The other problem that we're having that I mentioned on the group chat the other day is when you use the puck chuck on a horizontal face on like for example tombstone or fourth axis frankly, our systems design with the pull stud and the way interfaces is such that when you open up the air, assuming this is the automatic version, when you open it up, it falls out. There's no hesitation or pause.
00:14:19
Speaker
So we've been thinking about ways that you could sort of quasi arrest that motion. But here's the irony, I don't want it to not start to fall out a little because I don't want the situation where somebody actuates the air, loosens all the full studs and then just walks away. And then six minutes later, it falls out or they move a tombstone.
00:14:42
Speaker
And there's no perfect answer on horizontals because the reality is gravity is going to affect it, whether it's a traditional screw vice or other fixture design. But we think we have in a way with the O-ring to create some friction that lets it fall out, but not, excuse me, that lets it start to move, but not just boom, flam on the floor. So you got to like yank it just ever so slightly to get it out?
00:15:06
Speaker
Well, if you think about, so right now, again, it's a complete freefall.
Iterative Product Improvements
00:15:10
Speaker
It just easily and quickly falls right out. It's exactly what you would want if you wanted it to dislodge immediately. If we created some sort of rubber O-ring tolerance fit on at least one of the pull suds, if not many, you can start to think what it would be like to pull something out of a wall that had a little bit of a pull sud fit. You kind of got to jostle it a little bit. Right, right.
00:15:33
Speaker
Which long term might introduce more wear because you're jostling it around and you're scraping metal parts together basically, not just the O-ring. So yeah, you've got a bit of a challenge on your hands. So here's a question design wise. Is this a problem you kind of knew from day one? You said we'll deal with it later and now you're at the later point?
00:15:56
Speaker
Because I can see that. I guess you could say that. I mean, we hadn't thought about it. It came up in our design testing. We're trying to be conscious of putting our best foot forward for the first batch of these, but also recognizing there'll be iteration improvements that happen for years on a product like this. Yeah, yeah. You're rounding them? Like you're serializing them or something?
00:16:19
Speaker
Great question. The comment I had yesterday to Alex was we have to rev these because we have to. I don't know that they'll be serialized. At least rev and are you revving every component individually or like the assembly at the end kind of thing?
00:16:37
Speaker
I think we'll have to rev the assembly and then we'll keep rev documentation here if in the instance where we have odd revs that have mix-smashed individual revs within it, if that makes sense.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah, what I've been doing is on our blades, both Norseman and Rask, inside the detent hole, it's this tiny little 1 16th slot, very small, I'm engraving a rev number, like in a slot, tiny little, the whole slot's like 80 thou wide. And like the Norseman's 4.19 or something. And then I'll just 4.20, 4.21.
00:17:18
Speaker
And that's it for the rescue so that if I make a significant enough change that warrants a rev change.
00:17:26
Speaker
Once they flow through heat treatment, through lapping, and through grinding and everything, once the finished guys get them, they know that that's the new version.
Managing Production Revisions
00:17:32
Speaker
And it's helped us to sort some parts out. And then I've also got a Google spreadsheet where every significant change, I'll put a timestamp and rev number and fusion version number and notes of what happened. I was like, I switched to this kind of tool because it was chipping out. Or I changed this profile ever so slightly, things like that.
00:17:52
Speaker
So you're revving even on non-customer facing like dimension changes or feature changes. You're revving on like internal production changes. Yeah, pretty much. Interesting. Yeah. But it's a number that you can't see unless you're really looking for it. Yeah. But it's there. There's people disassembling their knives right now. Right.
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, it's been good. And then all the handles get dated automatically on the current. Yeah. At least all the RAS candles do. And so to the second, pretty much. So that combined with my Google Sheet Rev numbers lets me know when a change was made. We switched from interpolating that hole to reaming that hole on August 15th last year. And that's actually an example that came up about a week ago. And I was like, when did we start reaming those holes?
00:18:42
Speaker
because they've been great now. It turns out it was August last year and they have my notes. Yeah, that's helpful. It's great. Yeah, it is. We're not heavy on Revs yet. We haven't had a product that has really required it. This is going to be some effort because in a team environment where there's distributed work happening, I think we need to create a pretty sacred, awful... We don't have a PDM. We don't have a fancy
00:19:08
Speaker
structured file database system for stuff like that. So for now, it would just be as simple as having a folder, shared folder where we can memorialize the PDFs and probably F3D files if we need to, just so we know what somebody is working with on certain refs. F3D is in a backup.
00:19:27
Speaker
Yes. Not the live version, obviously. Exporting the file, for sure. The more and more I exist, the more I'm value controlling the information. We had a separate goof, not the one I just alluded to, but a separate goof where
00:19:45
Speaker
We quoted a custom job. We quoted it two different ways. Customer picked way number A and everybody met well. It's kind of like one of those like, look, nobody thought, let's not do this correctly. But we failed at multiple different points, including the person
00:20:02
Speaker
person grabbed the B version and a person checked it against the unsigned drawing, you're supposed to always check against the signed drawing. That's a fault. But like, okay, it happened. Like, why did it happen? Because we're not doing a good enough job with the runners. And I can elaborate, but that's the spirit of it. So okay, so we fix it, make it right with the customer.
Learning from Mistakes
00:20:21
Speaker
And then we, in this case, we purchased like neon colored folders that will serve as runners for custom jobs, which also now get our PO form. Most custom jobs are just, well, some are PO's, some are bots, so we didn't always use that form. But now we're creating this kind of sacred folder. This is like, I know, super basic for a lot of manufacturing folks. But it's new to us. Yeah, we weren't doing it. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. So now,
00:20:48
Speaker
Anytime we want to go say, hey, let's take a look at that custom job throughout the process, that folder is going to live with it, which has the form that has been phenomenal. We couldn't live without that PO form that we use nowadays. It's actually really funny. We have a signed copy of the drawing, but we've realized that sometimes the signed copy comes back to a scan in such a low res that we don't want to QC off the signed copy.
00:21:13
Speaker
it is sacred to use the signed copy because unsigned copies are bogus. So what we're now going to do is also for illegible signed copies, we're going to staple the unsigned PDF to it with a John or Alex sign off saying this is the signed copy just reprinted. Yeah. Nice.
00:21:36
Speaker
Yeah. Sounds good. Sounds good. Hashtag day in the life. Yeah, exactly. And those mistakes are literally part of growing a business and.
00:21:46
Speaker
It's easy to look at them negatively, but at the end of the day, you kind of have to go back and you go, you know, we learned a lesson and we grew from that and we probably won't do it again. And if we do, then there's still a problem. And then we evolve and we iterate and we improve and we get better and better and better. And there are things you struggled with five years ago that you haven't thought about for four and a half years because they're just better, right? And you're smarter and you're better at it. And
00:22:10
Speaker
yet we don't look back on those wins because they're part of our life now that they're gone, you know? Yeah, yes. I'm trying to remind myself of those things. But yep, there's actually something I
00:22:22
Speaker
Oh, is it Jay Pearson that said this credit to him? If it was, you know, the absence of negatives isn't actually a positive, like the absence avoidance of stress doesn't make you necessarily feel happier, fulfilled or successful. But you have to remind yourself that that is progress. And you should be proud of it kind of goes back to being this podcast.
Handling Delayed Orders
00:22:39
Speaker
You should be proud of where you're at, what you've built. Period. You should. Thank you, you too.
00:22:47
Speaker
So I've got an update. The Iroa hookup for the video, a big box of parts came in the other day, which is everything we need, except we also ordered an eight foot tall sheet metal door panel to cover that side, which apparently never got ordered.
00:23:05
Speaker
It was on the PO and it was ordered and like, yeah, so many weeks. We waited almost 12 weeks for this six to eight week order to come in. And the box goes up and I'm like, where's the panel? It's like huge. And they're like, oh, let me look into that. I never actually got ordered. So they're rushing it right now.
00:23:28
Speaker
And I'm thinking about looking a closer look at our old panel and be like, why don't we just cut a hole in that and call it good instead of spending thousands of dollars to have this panel made in Switzerland and shipped over here.
00:23:43
Speaker
The problem is it serious, you're gonna make it. Oh my god. Well, Aroa makes it like themselves, right? We talked about making it locally here, having a fabricated fabricating a one office, you know, not always the cheapest thing. But
00:23:59
Speaker
The problem with the original door is it's mostly sheet metal except it has this V-shaped acrylic
Service and Support Experiences
00:24:05
Speaker
tinted glass that goes from the top all the way down to the floor. For me to cut a hole through the middle, I'd be cutting through acrylic and metal. It just felt weird. I was like, that's not right. Whereas the panel that's- I'm selling a Wazer.
00:24:25
Speaker
I like it actually. The panel that's on the current side has no glass in it. It's just metal with a perforated cutout section where the pallet goes through. I was like, I might as well just get the proper panel, but with all these delays and stuff, I'm like,
00:24:40
Speaker
Yeah, ways or wise, I'm like, I got a water jet shop three blocks down the street that we use all the time. What would happen if I just took it there and they poked a hole in it exactly where we told them to? I'm like, this could be perfect. So I'm going to look at it with the team today and see if that's a feasible thing. But for $100 at the water jet shop, and some touch-up paint so it doesn't rust, it sounds like we have a deal here. And you don't see it.
00:25:07
Speaker
It's a safety thing so you don't crutch your arm if you put your arm where it shouldn't go. I think we need a solution. Yeah, good. When our horizontal Okuma came, there was a random panel missing over by the chip conveyor part of the Okuma though.
Customer Service Disappointments
00:25:27
Speaker
I think we all, certainly I have a desire to like, I actually do have this desire to not be confrontational or not.
00:25:34
Speaker
the untoward toward people like it's you want to please people. And so I was part of it was really inclined to tell my sales rep, ah, don't worry about it. Like it's not gonna hurt anything like it's whatever. But I just I shut my mouth for a minute. And he was like, Oh, he's like, Yeah, no, no problem. Akuma always provides us with the sheet metal drawing prints. And then we just send it out to a shop here in the Midwest, they will, you know, laser it, press break it powder coated and send it to us. And he couldn't have been more
00:26:00
Speaker
You know, yeah, stuff happens. It's not a big deal. It's just, you know, a panel, but like, I really appreciated his, how he handled it. And it was like, Oh good. Like it's no, that's going to be a service. They were like, dressed assured this will be fixed and it will be fixed on our, like no, no, you know, they would have even sent a service tech out here. I'm like, please do not send a service tech out to screw in a panel. Yes. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. It's good when people, uh, handle situations. Well, I like that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:31
Speaker
I wasn't going to say this, but now you got to be worked out. I'm going to throw some shade at hardening. Willamond had told us that you can buy hardens, you can buy collets from hardenge that are pet compatible. And we needed a seven eighths and they had it
00:26:49
Speaker
not in stock, but it said 18 days and so I emailed them. I said, hey, just want to make sure is that 18 day website accurate?
Technical Setups and Installations
00:26:56
Speaker
And Shannon Reitmeyer responded back that day and said, yes, that is accurate. And so we bought it that day and it still hasn't shipped. And they're now saying, we'll check with the production team. And by the way, the lead time is like six to eight weeks or something. And there's very much part of me that wanted to just reply with a screenshot of that. And then it's like, what are you going to
00:27:19
Speaker
You know, there's just what you've lost. Like we won't buy. It was, it was nice to save a few bucks, but in hard edges and exactly like saving a few bucks with still a quality brand, but you get, you guys can't execute and you're, there was no acknowledgement of, of, of anything of like, Hey, we did group drop the ball or we did do nothing like that. So, um, you know, simply put throw in, you're, you're no longer a good solution for us.
00:27:48
Speaker
That's too bad. For the Wilhelmin, I've just been buying the collets from Wilhelmin, but did they not have the size you needed or something? I don't know if I'm supposed to say this or not, but one of the Wilhelmin employees was like, hey, like they're, and Wilhelmin sells them, they don't make them. I think he's like, hey, if it's $500 from us, you can get up to 360 bucks from the cartons. It's the exact same thing, like knock your socks off. Yeah. Now, Wilhelmin, like many-
00:28:13
Speaker
Like many Swiss companies, they are very proud of their products. Let's say with a Roa too, you know, some of the costs of a Roa components is like, are you kidding me? And you're selling that, you know, adapter plate with holes in it to a machine shop for $8,000. Like, what? I think you should be, well, not getting worked out because it's doing good, but you should be
00:28:38
Speaker
figuring out what they're going to do to make this right with you on how they botched your install, John. Yeah. And the install lead service tech guy is conveniently on vacation for three weeks at the moment. But when he's back, then they will immediately schedule a service guy to come in and install. So in the box, it was like a three foot by three foot cubed box of cables. And there's actually a whole huge circuit board
00:29:05
Speaker
that is being added to the machine, which I guess it only has enough brain power for one site controlling. So they're adding a whole other brain to it. And then cable chains and airlines and all this stuff. So very much looking forward to that being set up. And yeah, it'll be good.
Promotional Sales and Tooling Credits
00:29:26
Speaker
On a positive note,
00:29:30
Speaker
Tormach is having a sale. They just emailed me and asked, they asked if we would share this, which I don't always love like shilling like that, really. But I was like, well, hold on. What's the deal going on? So they're having a customer appreciation sale. If you buy one of their machines, I don't think it could be like the little ones like 1100, 770.
00:29:49
Speaker
they're giving $2,000 in tooling credit, which drum roll includes the saunters machine works fixture plates that Tormach has on their site. So you can basically get a free fixture place and modify setup if you buy a machine and that's not something that happens. No. Or if you apply that to tool holders and tooling and stuff, that's like probably a full tooling package, you know, for to get you started kind of thing. Yeah. That's a big deal. So legit, good for that. That's a legit opportunity.
00:30:19
Speaker
I'm really happy with how TorMac has grown since you bought your first one in what, 2008 or whatever. Yeah. And it's great to see. Yeah, to see what an 1100 MX is compared to the 1100 Series 3 we had back then. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah.
Reflecting on Machinery Usage
00:30:36
Speaker
Sweet.
00:30:38
Speaker
I remember wanting to upgrade my machine to ClearPath Motors before you could do it, before there was a kit, before Tormack ever did it. We're like, Tormack, you just got to sell them with ClearPath Motors. Obviously, they wanted to and they listened and everything and now the MX came out. I've seen a lot of happy customers. Remember pre-podcasts when you and I were hashing it out on
00:31:03
Speaker
not I was trying to convince you I think not to clear path your slant pro. Yeah, the lady. Yeah. And you ended up buying the knock instead. Right? Which is like, what? $300,000 lay instead of Yeah. But no, that's I had the slant pro and I was like, how do I upgrade this? You know, how do I make it better? How do I make it do what I want? How to make it accurate and all that?
00:31:30
Speaker
Fun fact about the Nakamura, I still wonder if I should have gotten the Swiss first, and I think that'd be better for our parts. I mean, it's fine in retrospect, but as a learning lesson, I was on the fence, and I leaned one way, and we made it work. It was great, but Swiss would have been a better first choice for us. Yeah, where I would push you now, and I want you to push me the same, is the decision's been made. There's no point in overthinking the past, but be more aggressive of right-sizing what you have today.
00:32:00
Speaker
Yeah. Sell the neck, sell the neck period. If you can get by that or buy, sell and buy another Swiss. I don't care if it's paid for. I don't care. Like I said, it's just no. I did even just the other day. I spent a few minutes just staring around the shop going, okay, what, what are we maximizing? What are we utilizing? What's wrong? What do we have that we don't need? Um, what does the future look like kind of thing? You know, it's a very interesting process because
00:32:26
Speaker
I do have attachment to the machines that I have, but it goes away pretty quickly once logic sets in and, you know, I don't need those anymore.
Selling Unused Equipment
00:32:37
Speaker
It is surprising me how frustrating or much time it is to get rid of stuff. I didn't even think we were as bad as we were. And I feel like I've mentioned it too much on this podcast. I don't want to keep belaboring it. But I've got a box full of ClearPath drivers. I've got a box full of Deltranis gauge pins. I've got stuff that I'm not going to just put in a dumpster, but is 100 bucks here, 200 bucks there. I don't
00:33:03
Speaker
I love eBay because just I love eBay, but someone's going to have to go there because I don't want to sit here and deal with piecemeal Craigslist guys that want to ask a thousand questions or no shows, all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And you got to get rid of those Umacs, Sean. Yes. I had a guy, another guy who was interested and then he just ghosted me. I don't know what's going on, but I do. I did email two or three local machine vendors and also never heard back from them those weeks ago.
00:33:33
Speaker
Are you, if you don't mind me asking, are you, do they have value? Are you trying to sell them for something or are you trying to sell them for something? Although I'm very flexible. Anybody listening? Yeah. They can be amazing machines. They just need some work and some love. Yeah. And they would be the perfect garage slash small, small shop machines.
Manufacturing Process Improvements
00:33:50
Speaker
Um, selling them both together. Um, as is.
00:33:55
Speaker
As is where is they're not in power, under power right now. So I can't turn them on and confirm that they work, but, uh, they, they work ish. Yeah. Okay. Put them up on eBay then. eBay or, or, um, Craigslist, Kijiji up here, um, can work. So yeah, I haven't thought about it past few weeks, but, uh, thank you for the reminder. Yeah. Just get, get rid of them, John. Like, yeah, totally. Um, yeah. Yeah.
00:34:23
Speaker
How is any update on a blade with Brother? Working on, I just finished the cam this morning for a new fixture that rotates and tilts the blade ever so slightly, letting it be, I think I talked about this last week, letting the toolpath just be in a more straight direction as opposed to tipping in one axis ever so slightly.
00:34:47
Speaker
So I'm going to machine that today. And then, then that geodesic toolpath, the preview toolpath should work amazing. It actually, it took a while to configure it to do what I want, but it does exactly what I want. Down, over, up, over, down, over, up. And it's like painting the surface, you know? Yeah. I think that'll work great. Well, but don't worry about the toolpath because- I'm not, yeah. We don't think that's the issue. Just like figure out your kinematic issue.
00:35:16
Speaker
Yes, exactly. But yeah, so that's good.
Laser Machine Update
00:35:21
Speaker
That's good.
00:35:22
Speaker
I want to know about your laser. Any updates? Zilch. I tell you, they forgot the base plate. You mentioned it, yeah. They gave us a hard time about it. It arrived. Patrick has it. I've seen something that's been etched, but he is in class. It came Thursday or Friday. He got something done on it. I see something that's been cut, but then he's in class through today. Drain classes, which by the way, hilarious. I was pretty like, oh man, we went from selling on every seat to having
00:35:50
Speaker
only three of eight for the class that's occurring as we speak and it then bumped up to seven at the last minute and then we sold like five more seats for future summer classes last week. That is crazy to go from drought to flood.
Buying a Grinding Machine
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah, good for you guys. Yeah, that was good. Sorry, I don't have any updates yet, but I will share maybe next week. Very curious. Yeah, I mentioned it to Eric just two days ago and he's like, really?
00:36:19
Speaker
No, they were that cheap. They could be that cheap. What would you want to use it for? Probably just artistic patterning on knives and pens.
00:36:32
Speaker
Because it adds so much capability with the etching, but also you can anodize with it in a very controlled drawing. Interesting. You give it so much voltage, that makes it gold. You give it so much voltage, it makes it blue. And there's some guys doing literally like anime artwork on titanium.
00:36:50
Speaker
You want, not ours then John, you want the shoot. Everyone hears listening is going to be screaming at their radios. It's the, not the map feature, but it's a different link. Yes. Thank you. You need that for sure. Okay. Which is more. Yeah. But, but, but again, I wish this was not recorded. Don't John stop. Yeah. Okay. Good. You need to focus on, um,
00:37:17
Speaker
This is too good not to share. Having a good call with one of the grinding companies that we're looking at for machines. And they were talking about, don't kind of pushing them on like, hey, repeatability, tolerance specs, how do the home switches work, how are we going to use it? Because grinders are not, yes. They're not CNC machines. They act, they're built and designed differently in terms of the control. You don't have a home G54 type stuff, obviously. Yeah, you don't have any code. Yes.
Cold Weather Machine Adjustments
00:37:44
Speaker
So, they were talking about they got a customer that's kind of pushing the machine beyond what it is published to be capable of, which I'm like, love it. Part of me doesn't love it because I'm like, no, we're trying to fall just within the fairway here, but I also love hearing about folks that
00:37:59
Speaker
are smart. And the two hacks that that person does, number one is the aquarium coolant heater, which I'm like, oh, come on, we're all in the know on that one here. But I'm appreciating that more after hearing Spencer Webb talk about how much more energy, water,
00:38:15
Speaker
can hold or it takes to change so you don't want to have your coolant off by 10 degrees and your casting off by 10 degrees because the casting comes to temp really quick, the water takes a lot more time, more energy. So the coolant heater, the cram heater to me means even more. The other one that I've never heard of, and I don't fully understand it yet, but
00:38:34
Speaker
This company, who I believe is in a non climate controlled shop, which I assume that just means no air conditioning, but maybe it means no heat. That seems crazy to me. They are especially because they're in the northern Midwest, where it gets cold, they put a space blanket around the column and it lives there. What? You know, those like shiny? Yeah. So apparently they somehow wrapped. Yeah.
00:39:00
Speaker
Well, if anybody's listening has heard more about that. I mean, I assume it's just as simple as reflecting the heat and trapping it in there, but be curious to see. That's a cool just analysis as to like what's going on. How do I fix it? What's a cheap solution? Like somebody mentioned to me with the speedio specifically to do a warm up routine that jogs the Z up and down just to get a bit of heat in the Z.
00:39:27
Speaker
Which I just thought was interesting and he went really deep into it. And he's like, yeah, we found a lot of repeatability, just getting some heat in the Z before, you know, in a cold run kind of thing. And I love when people dive deep and they're like, what's really happening here? And how do I fix that?
00:39:41
Speaker
What made me rethink some of our warm-up routines, none of which frankly are crazy critical, except the one on the lathe that we did custom write, but some of these warm-up routines focus on spindle RPMs without moving any of the machine accesses and without writing the coolant when coolant is probably going to be your biggest factor. Yeah, we noticed that on the Nakamura, I think.
00:40:05
Speaker
Warm
Machine Warm-up Routines
00:40:06
Speaker
up routine with spindle and a bit of movement is great, but running the coolant for 20 minutes warms up the coolant and gets you much closer to nominal. Um, by the time you're running your first part. Yeah. Uh, what do you see today? Um, big thing is that, uh, a row a panel. I really want to take a few minutes on that. Yeah. Like I said, make the, make the fixture and then, um, not sure. See what else. Fair enough.
00:40:36
Speaker
We just put up a, like an alert header on our website because of the possible UPS strike, which,
Potential UPS Strike Concerns
00:40:44
Speaker
Even if it's just US, John, it's gonna, it'll cause domestic if not global havoc. So we actually got an email. We only use FedEx. We use the post office. We use FedEx for ground. We use FedEx every once in a while for overnight. We use FedEx for freight. And it's been great. Everyone could tell me a story about every carrier that's been terrible and nightmarish, but it's been good. We got an email from our FedEx salesperson that's like, we're gonna be evaluating
00:41:11
Speaker
you're trailing 30 or 90 or some amount trailing sales of shipping volume and that's what we will permit you to have during a FedEx strike because even if every other carrier willingly and cooperatively took on additional capacity, it's not possible to absorb the UPS
00:41:31
Speaker
So it's basically like we're being shipping rationed. So we put up a header that's like, Hey, we would of course, it's also a, hopefully a good sales technique, but that's not the point of not doing that
Conclusion and Wrap-Up
00:41:42
Speaker
with bad intentions. But like, Hey, if you want something, please order it now or in the next few weeks, because if that shark happens in August, it will be not fun for everybody. Cakes. Yeah. And heard about that. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:03
Speaker
Anything else going on? No. Um, uh, I'll save it for next week, but programming, um, some. Well, puck chuck stuff and some might buy stuff, which is fine and good and all that. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. That's about all I got. Cool. All right. I'll see you next week. All right, man. Have a great week.