McRee Shop #1

[twmcree]

Hey Ox.

Alive and well, things are moving forward once more.

I appreciate the thought.

 

[twmcree]

Trying to find my footing.

Recently co-founded a business in the fitness industry with someone who is well known and connected in the field... I no longer have to deal with networking or social media... for this is am eternally grateful.


Conceptualized and ran a prototype for a product a couple weeks ago.

With this product, he has gone and created an entire sales network... influencers are lining up to order and represent.. investors are coming into the picture claiming this is a 100m $ product... idk what that all means....... but hopefully the outcome will be the production facility I’ve been planning the past.. 6 years or so..

At the moment I don’t have the capacity required to meet production and it is stressful trying to get the gravity of that point across.. of production costs vs cycle times & the role efficiency plays in decreasing overhead.. or especially timeframes required for integration and ramping.. there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes required to make things happen in this world. Up to this point the turnaround from discussion to engineering to cad to prototype has been under two days for products.. but it is because I’ve been putting in 18 hours a day at the blackboard, on fusion, and in front of the mill... maybe it has given the false impression as to the level of difficulty or range of concepts required to create. .... on the other hand.. I completely lack the wherewithal to comprehend the progress of the front end, or what is required to reach the point where we are currently. .. so perhaps that is just life’s game of contrasting perspectives and personal experiences.


We are getting flown out to Tucson by some investors mid next week. Maybe things will work out for us to acquire the capitol required to expand the backend sufficiently... all I know is that there is something in me that will not allow my work or designs to be outsourced if it is brought up... i can’t really see a fulfilling life without them...... idk.


I’ve got around 175 amps of single phase to spare that can be converted into 3phase via a phase perfect.

a HMC w/ tombstones & pallet changer for primary ops, a speedio for any one off customizations, a high density plasma cutter for initial stock processing, and a lathe w/ 3” bore, subspindle, barfeeder, & live tooling for an auxiliary part.. I think I can make this shop handle at least some of the required production.... all used machinery of course.... still running with duct tape and paper clips to push things forward as quickly & efficiently as possible... maybe too much duct tape at times, which is not so efficient..

At least until things get to that life-altering step.. into the world of 3-wire facilities...... at that point I can finally begin to fully automate my own processes.. I’ve been dreaming of that moment for quite some time.

We will see what happens I reckon... it feels like a dream.. perhaps it is the sleep deprivation.. idk.

 

[Panza]

Sounds like you are on the brink of being a big shop. We haven't seen that HMC or the lathe, I would like to see them.
Can you let us know what sort of parts you will hopefully be running ? Material/size/complexity etc.
If it is a $100 million product , how many years is that spread over ? Even if it is ten years it seems like a reach to be able to step up to that production in one year, even if you have got your current shop running good ? Hope you can keep it all in house though!

 

[Garwood]

I can relate to your situation.

I find I can run several low HP mills and lathes making many more parts than if I run a single larger machine. Can't run any of the 20+ HP machines and another small one at the same time reliably. Controls will brown out on spindle ramping. I have a 50KVA transformer @ 240V and a 60HP RPC.

Cover your ass best you can. Investors that only care about profits probably won't like keeping manufacturing domestic if they cost out having it made overseas.

 

[twmcree]

Sounds like you are on the brink of being a big shop. We haven't seen that HMC or the lathe, I would like to see them.
Can you let us know what sort of parts you will hopefully be running ? Material/size/complexity etc.
If it is a $100 million product , how many years is that spread over ? Even if it is ten years it seems like a reach to be able to step up to that production in one year, even if you have got your current shop running good ? Hope you can keep it all in house though!

Haha. I would like to see them too. It’s gonna be a bit on the hmc most likely. Going to pull the trigger on that one in the next shop. The foundation here moves so much that I think it may screw with something as substantial as an hmc.. which is why I am planning on the Llano Uplift for the next shop.. basically a huge ass granite formation in central Texas. .. I’ve lived in Texas black gumbo my entire life, it demolishes foundations.

I am uncertain as to the timeline. There is a video conference next week with the owner of a major player in the field. Our contact, who is basically a right hand, says that in 20 years she’s never seen him setup a call like this with relatively unknown individuals.

We’ve acquired the funding necessary for this deal. Says they can loan whatever we need.

I’ve got a lot to iron out on paper before the conference to come up with plans per whatever requests are made. .. namely quantity, lead time, and margins vs investment, integration time, and expected throughput.

The current shop is running well. There are plenty of places for optimization and expansion within the realms of the given constraints.

All I’ve currently got is the fadal pegged at around 110%-120% for as much of the roughing as possible. ... it is incredible what production tooling is capable of. I couldn’t believe my mill was capable of such destruction as I went further down the rabbit hole.

A36 plate
Range from 1”-2.5” thickness
12”x9” raw stock
(1) 2” through bore
(2) 6”x1.5” through slots
Some peripheral profiling and recesses
Some 1/4” tapped holes
powder coated.
Not strict tolerances.
Machined on both sides.. 2 ops.

 

[twmcree]

Been a steady grind.. need a sec to reflect and ground myself.

There is certainly a learning curve associated with moving from dinking around with prototypes and short runs to optimizing for larger scale production.

Have spent a decent amount of time liberating myself from the constraints of my own ignorance.. though once the veil of enlightenment is breached, the newfound knowledge is dwindled by an awareness of yet a far greater ignorance.


had an epiphany the other day.. something that I am sure is fairly obvious to the majority of the population:

Was designing a toolpath that utilized a facemill in a manner that seemed at the time to be unconventional, yet may have reduced cycle time.. got to researching better suited tooling and discovered it was called high feed milling.

The epiphany: fuck man.. why don’t I just talk to the people that actually build the tools instead of trying to re-invent the wheel.. it seems a man can be blinded by isolation, I suppose there must be a balance at some point.

Talked to Dapra about acquiring some of their tooling in the near future. Mike was really helpful over there. I am looking forward exploring the capabilities of high feed milling strategies.

In the mean time I picked up some Kennametal harvi I Te & III ... a lot of tweaking parameters to get everything on par.

A tech outta San Antonio from Kennametal came by a couple days ago.. I was a little nervous as I had no real barometer to gauge myself or my progress other than my previous trials and errors.

He ended up staying a good 3.5 hrs discussing production concepts, the industry, and machinery. In the end he told me he was really impressed with my setup and parameters... it was gratifying.

Have a meeting later next week.. If it goes well, there will be a few new additions to the shop in the very near future. ... have a lot of research to do. ... everything is coming together.

 

[twmcree]

I can relate to your situation.

I find I can run several low HP mills and lathes making many more parts than if I run a single larger machine. Can't run any of the 20+ HP machines and another small one at the same time reliably. Controls will brown out on spindle ramping. I have a 50KVA transformer @ 240V and a 60HP RPC.

Cover your ass best you can. Investors that only care about profits probably won't like keeping manufacturing domestic if they cost out having it made overseas.

Thank you for the input

 

[pat pounden]

same here !!..... beautiful!

 

[twmcree]

We killed it. New machine day coming soon.