- So I'm reading through comments in our recent
Pierson Workholding Q&A about some
of my equipment binder Gretz.
Good feedback, good comments.
And I've got more stuff I'd like to talk about.
Stick around, might be beneficial to you.
Let's head into the conference room.
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So let's talk about some things that I did buy
that I wasn't sure I was making the right decision
but it actually turned out great.
And I would still have made the same decision today
knowing now, or knowing then what I know now.
So the first thing is going to be not buying super speed
machines. Now, the VF2SS is,
I think by far
Haas's most popular machine, it seems like every other guy
that I follow on Instagram has a VF2SS.
It's a great machine.
We just purchased our first one.
But my decision to not go with super speed was
that I was kind of gun shy about the high pitch ball screws
because of the super mini Mill2.
And you have like a medium ball pitch with the VF series.
And then a finer ball pitch would be the Haas VM,
the mold making series machine.
So, I liked, I was okay with the slower
rapids, the slower max feed rates.
I think it's like 650 or 600 inches a minute
cutting that we do now
on our non SS machines; SS machines go 833.
We've never programmed our super spirited machines.
We have two of them.
We've never programmed them to anywhere
near 833 inches a minute, I think on our Via 4SS,
which I purchased that because
of the side mount tool changer and the 12,000 RPM spindle
not the table rapids or speeds.
I think the fastest we program that is about 6, yeah
600 inches a minute.
So, for the price of a super speed machine,
I've been saving those thousands of dollars each time
across 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 standard VF machines.
And I've been able to reinvest the difference
in that into new equipment.
So, you actually get almost a free machine
if you cut back on the options that you need.
Like only half of our machines have probes, I'd say,
yeah three out of six machines have probes.
So we've taken that 55, $6,000 per package
and allotted that to different equipment purchases.
And it's just a strategy that's paid off.
Now I know that some people would say,
well, Jay, an 8,100 RPM spindle is significantly slower
than a 12,000 RPM spindle.
Aren't you giving up some speed?
True. In a lean approach,
speed is actually not at the forefront of improvements.
When we make improvements,
we have four things that we measure it against.
Number one, is this safer, as safe, or less safe?
If anything is less,
we don't push it forward as an improvement.
So we go safety. Then we go quality.
Is that yielding equal quality or better quality?
Simplicity is a third thing.
Is this more simple or equally simple as the previous one?
And then speed.
So there's other things that we weigh first.
When you look at start to finish delivery
of if you're a job shop
when the PO comes in to when you issue the invoice,
what is the total processing time?
A lot of times it's hardly ever, is it tied specifically
to machine time itself.
Now when you get into the thousands,
Yes. Every tool change matters,
every RPM bump matters,
rapids matter. Yes.
But for us, we work in smaller batches.
We don't overproduce.
That's another lean principle.
And so we're okay with giving
up those extra 4,000 RPM.
From a programming standpoint, we cut lots
of stainless, lots of cast iron, lots of steel.
And if I remember correctly,
if you're spinning a half inch end mill
at about 800 surface, which I think is like an average,
it's a little over 6,000, maybe 6,100 RPM
on that spindle. Check my math, but I'm pretty sure.
So, you know, even with our standard machines that only go
up to 8,100, 6,100 is well inside the spindle range.
And also, if you were to look
at a graph of horsepower and torque, you don't get a lot
of torque at those higher, you know, five digit RPMs.
So yeah, you can actually have a higher metal removal rate
at six, seven, 8,000 RPM than you can at 12,000 RPM.
Now there's exceptions to this, of course, but yeah, no
I don't regret not going super speed machines.
Lesson learned early on pinching pennies
is going to pay dividends as you reinvest
every dollar back into your company.
Now, my next no regret purchase
that I was on the fence about,
I was so agonizing for months and months
was purchasing our rotary screw compressor.
Now it's made by Polar,
they're a family owned business in Ohio,
I want to say maybe it's Toledo or Dayton.
But,
we jumped from a eight or $900 80 gallon.
Lowe's compressor up to like
I want to say it was like 6,000 out the door, six or 7,000.
It's been many years, but it was
that's a huge jump to go from $800 to call it $6,000.
Man, I love our rotary screw compressor.
And you know why?
Cause I don't even know it's around.
Piston compressors are so loud.
They're harsh when they turn on and turn on.
Yeah. And off.
Yeah. And off because they have a blow off valve.
It's just jarring.
There's a, a power spike.
When they turn on the rotaries, ours is a
variable speed drive.
It idols.
So once you turn it on,
which is where a lot of the power draws,
it ramps up that speed then starts compressing.
Then when you reach maximum PSI output, then it idols
for a little bit before it completely shuts off.
If we have a large air consumption,
then it ramps back up quietly.
Man, I love it.
It's almost zero maintenance.
Now once a year, we change the filters and the oil.
But yeah, it's one
of those things that I would never start a shop
or recommend anyone get a Piston style pump.
I mean, of course you got to make do
with what money you have, but it's night and day.
Now, the nice strategy that I did was I contacted Polar
and I said, look, the five
and a half horsepower motor is okay for now,
but I got plans to grow this company.
The 10 horsepower motor is, is like, it seems like overkill.
And I don't know if I'll ever do that or get to that point.
What they did is they shipped it to me
and they program the PLC for five horsepower.
So it's not even running at its full capacity.
They have great customer support.
So when we do expand, like when we moved into this building,
we bumped that five horsepower up to seven and a half.
When we moved to our next location in about three
or four months, we will bump that to the full 10 horsepower.
So, the compressor is tuned for our needs.
So we're not just ramping up and getting a ton of air.
Then it sits and we have this cycle time.
This duty cycle is turning on and off.
We can set it to exactly our needs.
I absolutely love it.
Lesson learned, don't hesitate in reaching out
to manufacturers for the inside details on their products.
And my final, no regrets purchase
would have to be our automatic saw.
Now I started out with a, boy, I think
I owned three manual saws.
I can't even remember the brands,
but I think when I first bought my first one
it was 600 bucks. In today's pricing,
they're like 12, 15, 18, maybe $2,000.
But sawing from a lean perspective is over-processing.
If you could take a bar of material
and just put it in a machine,
and that machine runs and spits out finished parts,
much like a bar fed lathe or dual spindle lathe,
that's ideal. But when you take a 12 foot bar material
and you're sawing a bunch of pieces
which then go into a mill, that's,
you're processing the material
and it's not yet adding value. It's preparatory.
When you cut off a part
and then put it in a mill or a vice or a palette.
So an auto saw, it's
I shopped around and I paid
about $20,000 for a new Hemsaw.
Again, another family owned business.
It's a very simple device.
So I looked at some of the, like the Duals and the Cosens
and maybe one other brand,
a few international brands,
but they had beautiful touch screen displays.
If we're doing a simple thing like sawing,
my approach is to have it as simple as possible.
So it just has the basic interface.
It has a crank at the back where you set on a counter
the length and you program, how many pieces you want.
And it just runs, runs, runs.
I have not regretted that. If I spent $20,000
on the simple automatic saw, the next digital saw
up would cost about 30 to $35,000 depending on the brand.
And so I saved money that way on going with a,
it's a PLC based saw.
And it just cuts material.
It takes the operator out of doing the dumb, dirty
dangerous work and puts them in higher brainpower work.
So we're not wasting brainpower, lean waste number eight.
And so I would always go with an auto saw
without any hesitation or any regrets.
Lesson learned.
Don't hesitate in buying equipment that will free people
up to use their brains for higher end tasks.
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in the comments section down below.
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