I'm more nervous when a customer supplies the material. I've had to make that phone call a few times telling the customer that we need another piece and the customer scrambles trying to get more material in time. If we have an issue, I like to keep it in house. Our shop does a material markup, and if it's high risk, We will throw in a scrap risk factor into the material markup. Basically insurance for the job.
If the customer wants to supply the material they don’t get a bid due to unknowns. They also don’t get a guarantee we might not waste some material. They only get a piece price if we source the material.
Місяць тому+9
It does creates another surface of additional variables and risk on your side of the value chain. However, if the customer is professional, responsive, and organized... then it could be workable. Probably worth talking with and negotiating with the customer to see what works best for them and what their priorities are. They might be fine paying $600/part if they prefer doing less logistics and less billing. Creative solutions can lead to more business, more profits, and amped customer satisfaction when the risk is managed appropriately.
Just had that happen. The customer insisted on supplying the material. When machining it, the material deformed due to internal stress, and more stock was needed. The parts are already a week late, and the new stock just came in. Be direct with your customer, get material yourself to keep the process reliable
I’m with you. How do you go back to the customer asking for more material because you screwed up? You don’t. You might not be on the hook for the initial material, but that doesn’t matter if you don’t mess up. “Hey, we screwed up, we need you to give us more material”. Better to charge the markup and be able to source the material yourself. I’ve liked a lot of Titan’s stuff, but this one just doesn’t make sense. This screams that you aren’t willing to take a risk and take accountability. First Titan video I 100% disagree with. Id take a job that the customer wants to supply the material, but I’d never demand they do.
I had a job in my shop machining pump shafts for split case pumps. My customer always supplied the 4140 material to save my material markup which was cool with me. Less out of my pocket. Then he came to me one day having found a CNC shop that was selling aftermarket shafts for not much more than the cost of material. I was stunned but business is business so I told him to go for it. Gotta love Chinese steel. Shaft breakage became an instant issue because 1018 equivalent is what they were selling him.
China #18 (which is what they substitute) is not as good as 1018, and I found asking for 1045 is the best option with them if you are avoiding expensive alloys
@ 1045 is fair in this application. It will give the customer a good run but the bearing fits wallow out faster than with 4140. Thats the main reason I use 4140. I have also had good luck using 416 stainless.
I've been machining vespel and other expensive plastics for over 15 years. Vespel cuts really easy and holds tolerances very well compared to other plastics.
I guess it's just people being scared of scrapping expensive material. A good machinist should be happy to work with a easily machined stuff like this.
@@mad0uche Thats not how cnc works. Sure, run a test piece out of aluminum first. But after that, more time is spent readjusting for speeds and feed rates, which will add to to the setup cost. Also, I hated machining Ti.
Absolutely, never had any issue or worries with most of the high cost engineering plastics. If someone is freaking about about the material, it just means they aren’t confident in their shops skills
@@phillefever1934at those prices you’re a jeweler, except a jeweler can always sweep up broken gold and melt it into new bars. Can you recycle these high spec engineering plastics and recover the scrap?
Recognized that material immediately. Its used in cryogenic stirling cycle cooling units for MRI machines. It does machine quite easily but its expensive. Mainly because the pieces have been inspected with ultrasound and x ray due to its use in mission critical gadgets. ❤
Vespel Parts and Shapes is a DuPont Polymer Material product that comes in different grades for different applications. I machined a grade with high graphite content, and another with carbon fibers. I used to machine it in a controlled environment shop. Just make sure not to use too much pressure in your work holding because it will flex. One part had a .060" wall thickness, so we bought a gage pin that was the finish ID size and put it in the part before we turned the OD. It worked out Ok. We asked the customer to buy a small quantity of test material for us to fine tune the process and they were ok with it since we would only need it the first time we were machining that Vespel grade. I used slower speeds and feeds, kept my tools sharp and it worked ok.
Is it actually still DuPont, or is the label changed to Celanese at this point, too? Since DuPont sold its Polyamide/Nylon section to Celanese, about.... 2 years or so ago.
yo Titan, you're truly an inspiration man! I started my own business in control automation a year ago, and seeing your journey has been incredibly motivating, specially whn the doubts set in. You exemplify what it means to to strive for the American dream. Thank you! Wishing you continued success in all your endeavors and many blessings to you, brother
This is excellent advice. I've used this technique with vendors for over 20 years. As an engineer with over 38 years of experience, I long ago discovered the importance of fully communicating with vendors to alleviate their concerns. This is especially true with mom and pop shops. Address their risks head on. Are they concerned about the cost of breaking tools? I have those tools show up magically on their doorstep. Are they concerned about scrapping expensive material and taking a bath on the job? I arrange that very material dropped on their dock. Good communication, negotiation and always looking for the win-win are key to success. After all, good vendors are priceless. You work with them to achieve mutual wealth and success.
Only problem with CPM is when you are calling them to let them know they need to supply 12 more cause you messed up 12 of them.. whatever reason doesn't matter they wont be happy about it. And either A. They quit that contract or B. they finish it and find a new machiner
It’s not about messing the material up imo. It’s if there’s a part failure later on they will blame the material for the failure, question your suppliers etc etc. you get rid of that by having them supplying it.
This is only an issue if you weren't upfront about the risks. If you have a set aside for rework/yield in the PO, then the customer is already prepared to exercise the option. I'm an aerospace customer, and I can tell you that I'll only be upset if I have to go through my massive purchasing process as an emergency because a supplier didn't consider that they might scrap a few pieces. We have rigid limits on surplus spend on PO's, so it's a huge inconvenience and we don't have the admin headcount that you probably think we do to process those things timely.
@@allenklingsporn6993 If a company tells me "oh you have to supply the material because we are not confident enough in our skills to not botch it" I will tell all my friends to blacklist that company. They give me the quote, they calculate the risk, I will not sign a quote and then carry the risk of them botching like 90% because they are incompetent
This channel is amazing. Not only do you guys show advance manufacturing, but you also give out really good business advice. Please keep up the good work.
exactly if I am a customer I would prefer if the other person would be honest with issues and doesnt try to sweep issues under the rug it only builds trust
I’ve worked with that material many times, it actually runs really easily, it’s just expensive, but no more than doing second or third operations on some high grade stainless
They’ve said it isn’t difficult. But it’s still plastic. I worked with a lot of plastic. It’s far more variable that different metals. And the slightest problem becomes a mountain to climb over.
The only downside of customer furnished material is that sometimes customers will furnish bad material and leave you to sort out how to make a good part out of it. I ran into this frequently at a shop I used to work with. It was mostly when we'd have to deal with large steel castings and forgings.
I know this all too well. Customer supplies 100 castings on a first time run and doesn't understand why only 99 are delivered. "Where's our other part?" Never fails. Or the castings that have enormous voids right in the middle of a critical dimension, and somehow that's our fault. 😅
Had the same issue machining a spline type part for a big Japanese company rhymes with Smoyota. They gave us the most thrown together bent up castings literally from the desert in Iraq. Then wanted .0002 tolerances.
I've seen it used as a wetted part in chemically pure environments and vacuum, e.g. in the sample path for gas chromatography / mass spectrometry for chemical analysis. Where you need the resilience and chemical inertness of PTFE, but the strength closer to Delrin.
You probably have lots of polyamide items in your house. Usually you would come across it as a fiber or a film. Chemical resistance would be why its needed in something like this. Maybe the customer makes dialysis machines or something like that.
If a shop lacks the confidence in its machinists to accept the risk itself, any potential customers are also unlikely to accept the risk. That said, it's a nice strategy to offer established customers that try to negotiate better pricing. Instead of a direct discount, they accept a little more risk and variability in pricing for a lower average per-part cost.
As a customer, if I was supplying the material, I would only accept a % of risk. After that no payment until the number of parts agreed was supplied, and a visit from the lawyer with their costs added if they didn't like it. No way I'm allowing you to scrap 50% of that material without major consequences
if you're afraid you can always use another cheaper version that has similar properties, then machine it and if you're satisfied with the result use vespel.. its not even that hard to machine tbh
I've successfully machined little 5mm plastic guide buttons to a 0.01mm (~4/10000") tolerance. I remember that one of the selected materials I used was called Ertalon. No machinist near me took it so had to resort to DIY. There was one big lathe nearby where I could sneak in at night. Had to create my own custom cutting tool too because there wasn't anything nearly as small and sharp in that shop. Quite some experience, luckily did not end wound up around the chuck.
@@SeersantLoom The thing is lots of plastics "grow" after being machined so yea you might get .01mm measurements but the next day you can have +.1... Been there done that, sux arse.
I love the public outreach you do. This is how it is done and instead of keeping your knowledge all to yourself, you're sharing it with the next generation of machinists.
Would be good to hear how you setup your contracts on your agreements for percentage scrap or something. Do you offer any guarantees to the customer about scrap rate? Or do you just promise to do your best?
If you gave them a percentage scrap rate, you could also just buy the material and charge them based on your calculated scrap rate. So its the same issue really. I suspect they just expect the customer to trust them. They said they'd do smaller lot sizes, based on the price, so i guess if the scrap rate is too high for the customer, the customer can back out and just pay for the parts already received.
That’s where you charge 20% more for the material. But when the material is so expensive you can’t do it any longer. When I do big expensive jobs I talk to the customer and if he doesn’t agree with possible additional scrap cost I decline the job. But I mainly do Prototyp parts and design them as well.
3:42 For anyone looking to cut out the bullshit. Why I call it bullshit? Because of course you're only quoting for labour/machine time if your customer is the one buying the material. It's not really sage business advice, why bullshit like that?
Great advice Titan, even for shops that aren't heavy CNC. Having the customer as involved as possible while incorporating other business's, capabilities, and partnerships goes a long way.
I absolutely love vespel. During my internship I had to make 7 parts and got material for 7 part. I was so worried but found out it cuts like a charm. Holds tolerances and nice surface finishing
I worked in molding for years before I moved over to capital equipment design /fabrication. Most expensive material I ever ran was a $1500/ lbs implantable PEEK. The runner and sprue was over 80% of the part cost and purging the stuff was $750 every time you did it. But it is what it is. our sister company machined a ton of high end plastics and metals ( Platinum, titanium, vespel, ETC). The reward is there if you have the ability to do it.
Wait,so you throw the risk at the customer and claim its better that way? Are you doing this as a way to gain their trust (if you make no mistakes)? Only then does this all make sense
As you were explaining things it hit me that you were more than likely using material supplied by the customer. Shortly after I realized that you gave the answer.
I have two components that many subcontractors won’t touch or give crazy pricing for. Like $1,200 from one vendor, others around $300. The parts are available standard with more complex geometry for $8. I was told it can only be done on 5axis (it’s 3 interpolation and an indexer). I’ve been told it’s expensive because it’s helical (it isn’t) This isn’t about volume. It’s about understanding what can be done. Design engineers like me often get told “that can’t be made” as if we’re stupid. Often that’s well founded. However, I’m an ex-machinist and I model CNC parts as they would be machined. In Fusion 360 for example, you can model a cutter, model a cutter path and the form will generate exactly what you can make. Everything you said resonates. As a design engineer, I often take the work others refuse and I build long term relationships on transparency on good communication. Also, very impressed with Syil
I don‘t get it. When you eff it up, it is still your fault. The only difference is the markup and upfront payment you maybe don‘t have to do. What did I miss ?
I don't understand the deal you are making. Why would they accept to not hold you liable if you screw up and bin precious material? Your customer probably wants to know how much it will cost them to have 1000 pieces without defects. What is in it for them to accept the burden of things going wrong on your end - something they have no control over?
Very interesting breakdown of your cost calculations and how you truly work with and engage your customers. The other interesting thing is your labor cost per hour, it is cheaper in Australia for machining services than the US (per hr).The hourly rate is between 10-30 per hour less and the exchange rate is defiantly in favor of the us
Personally, I view this in the same manner as a mechanic shop (my Grandfather ran an auto shop). He wouldn't let the customers source the parts because on average they would put the blame back on his labor versus their part selection. If a marked-up part went bad, he footed the bill to replace that part. When we mark up material it's because we are taking responsibility for the quality and accuracy of the metallurgy. I imagine Titan was able to weigh the qualifications of the customer to be honorable and resourceful enough to replace material and do it quickly. Most of my customers are smaller scale so they just want a bill and a part. Definitely see the good advice in this depending on the customer, the ability of both parties to maintain close communication, and obviously a binding contract to hold parties accountable.
At my last job, we kept the vespel locked up in a tiny cupboard, when there was stacks and stacks of oxygen free copper just left out, and we kept the aluminum outside.
the GD&T on this part is surprisingly succinct. It looks like the engineers actually took time to determine what the real functional requirements of this part are instead of just blanket tolerancing everything. I wish all designers were this precise with their design intent.
Engineer here, and I used to blanket tolerance...until I was like 26. For something like a robot head adapter plate, I just check the machine shop stock and use those for external dimensions, such dimensions (101.6mm) W x (101.6mm) L x 5mm T, reason for the thickness being just to flatten out the material from 6.35mm stock.
@zchris87v80 often times, depending on the features of the part, 1.3 mm is not enough to hold onto when machining your part on op 1. If your part was 5mm thick and had to be machined on the edges, I would be making it out of 10mm thick stock.
@@Dillybar777 in this case, I was using reference dimensions to just use 4" stock and cut it to 4" in length, then just remove a portion of the 1.35mm from each side. I've only ever asked one absurd thing of a machinist - a spacer plate for an ID grinder (used in series bearing production), made of stainless steel, 0.7mm thick. I am amazed it didn't instantly curl up, and more amazed that he figured out a way to fixture it to a surface grinder. I was the engineer over automotive bearing grinding production back then (again, prior to age 26, when I didn't realize how difficult it would be to make). I've since started taking machining into consideration - for example, a solid block of aluminum for a small robot, about 12" in height. It'd be easy to just ask to machine down the sides and put some through holes through the flange, but that's a ton of material removal. Instead, I just created pockets for bolts and a hex key to be able to fit through (requiring turning the block on each side and slotting, then putting through holes through the bottom).
@zchris87v80 ooh that stainless piece is devilish indeed hahaha. Good on you for actually improving your design skills. Machinists absolutely love working with well designed parts.
Once, I sawed some Vespel for a company ( their saw was not large enough). The material was 11” diameter. We sawed it 1.5 inches long. I have no idea what those pieces were worth.
I’ve dealt with both customer supplied material and material my work supplies. As the machinist on the floor I prefer material we supply that way I know where it is coming from and I can talk to that material supplier if we have problems or questions. We had some customer supplied 316 stainless, only problem was, when I got it at my machine it was magnet, and I’ve never seen 316 in that shade of dark gray almost black. It was harder than all hell too. We asked the customer about it and they said that’s the material they’ve always used. I still have no clue what it was. It was around 60rockwell according to our tester.
I'm not a CNC guy, but I service bicycles, bicycle hydraulics and stuff. And I have a mini lathe that is one of my best investments. Yes, talking to customers is crucial, that's the way how I explain what's different between, let's say, my fork service and others' fork service (I know how competitors workshops work in my city). This is how I turn my new customers to regular customers despite the fact that I charge the highest price in the city
I've made a total of 9 parts in 23 years out of Vespel. It's not bad to work with, but the added stress of the expensive material can get to you if you let it. It's really not something that I see a lot so this doesn't apply. BUT! For "special" material, then yes, every time, I require CSM (Customer Supplied Material).
So you trash half the material and then go back to the customer cap in hand with a finish qty half of what they expected, or the customer gives you material that isn't right for the job? Customer supplied material isn't without problems.
Great job mate! Why didn’t you swiss machine this piece? Polymers are not so stiff and the guide bushing would help a lot! And also bar loader would boost your OEE since you would have so much more parts per bars, allowing lights-out shift. I would like to see how we can improve quotes using OEE and Cp analysis for medium-large job. Keep it up man, greetings from Italy !
I had to make a couple transitions with super high tolerances out of explosion bonded iconel/aluminum, crazy expensive and long leadtime. Pretty stressful even after proving everything out on 6061
Meh. Prove put the program on something else. Run customer supplied material. Its not rocket science. One shop I worked at all we did was work with customer supplied material. Some was expensive soMe wasn't. It was all specialty alloys for microwave tubes. Cupronickel was common, but the high purity level required meant it wasn't easily found off the shelf. Being an ITAR shop meant suppliers had to meet specific requirements as well. My last year at that shop the mill had 2 full runs of the Cupronickel fail in QA. That meant that there was no new material available for purchase for over a year. That is stressful. Every inch of that material was irreplaceable.
@@Dillybar777Yeah. Our customers were scrambling. It's even crazier but that a lot of the work we did was for military radar and communication systems. So it was pretty time sensitive work.
Interesting video. I used to Quality Manage an engineering company that specialised in Aerospace and Nuclear components. We had material supplied from the customer only. Released and certified only. No scrap allowances as well. We did some prototype Rolls Royce RB211 turbine blades, no CNC or Co-ordinate measuring machines, either. Cost Plus job, lots of overtime and bonuses. I had to make all the calculations, as the customer had not drawn it all out, when we took it on. Would you risk jobs like that, as I had to make multi million pound decisions as the jobs ran, also on nuclear reactor components, no mistakes allowed. Best job I ever had, until they went bust, when defence spending was cut.
I just had to re machine 430 Delrin blocks there is a .050” wall on one side and the pocket needs to be -.001”/+.003” it’s possibly to hit. But It was wandering constantly by about .003”. I’m sure it could change finishing passes. but that’s just another example of tolerance plastic can be rough
Scrap parts are inevitable. Do you comminucate a scrap percantage with your customer? Cause while the manufacturer adding a cushion in his pricing is understandable, as a customer i'd also want to know how much extra material i might need to buy
Your customer is nice. Because in my company we buy the raw material, send it to the suppliers for machining. But they have an allowance on the scrap rate, maybe 1 or 2%. Every scrap over that is for the supplier.
I actually do this for my big 3d prints or large quantity prints. Tell the customer it drops the price if they just buy the filament, anything leftover I get for other projects, and sometimes they don't pay extra because they end up only using half the material.
Lots of auto repair shops refuse customer supplied parts. They dont run a 10% mark up. Its usually way over 25% and they dont even have to leave their desk to get it.
When we do outside machining, we always supply material due to traceability requirements for ASME Code materials, we have to prove the mill certifications of the materials. If it’s PED materials then we have to to verify the QMS of the mill.
@ it’s the European pressure equipment Director 2014/68/EU, my company manufactures hyperbaric oxygen chambers that are medical devices, we have to meet the ASME section VIII division 1 and 2, PED 2014/68/EU, CSA B51. Now one would think OK that’s all pressure vessel codes however, our design uses flat plates that are machined.
I did this with a customer and they turned around and said they would do it but only if i pay 50% of the product cost that they would have made had they sold it for every scrapped part rather than just the cost of the material lost. needless to say i just buy my own material when i have to scrap a part and remake it.
When I worked in the semi-conductor industry 30 years ago, we used a lot of exotic materials for test fixtures at very high tolerances. If I walked into the machine shop, with a piece of material everyone tried to hide from me. Like I was a homeless guy walking into to a Ferrari dealer. I remember having to get a piece of plastic counter to countered from Japan after spending two days trying to find someone with it. Almost came to about 10k for material to ,make two small 2"x2"x 1/2" parts. We kept some on hand material in a safe in my office if we had to buy more than we wanted to make sure no one used it from something stupid like leveling a machine. 🤨
I don’t do production, only prototype, modification, and instrument building. Stress is when you’re working on a 30 million dollar mirror that took 3 years to make. Or modifying an experiment that flies to space in less than a week. I had to drill a thousand .002" holes in an experiment once and I broke $1000 worth of drills just figuring out the feeds and speeds.
So, if you get material for a 1000 pieces, and you mess up 20 you still need material for those you messed up. Who is gonna pay for that material? Do you have a percentage failure qouted? Do you pay for the lost material and if so how do make money then?
Math time! Having a pad on material goods means that the customer has a limit to their risk, because if you, say lose 20% of the material, the losses past that point are taken by the business. its basically insurance; spending extra money up front to ward off catastrophic losses. But if the customer supplies the goods, they pay less most of the time, but could potentially lose their entire investment in material, say if they bought poor quality steel. The ideal would be something like a hedge bet, where the business would supply the material and pad the price upfront, say 10% but also charge 30% of the price of any losses. that way, the customer still pays less upfront, but in cases of big losses, the customer only risks 30% of the material cost (plus 10% upfront). at the same time, the business makes money when they don't lose any material, can lose up to 10% of the material, and still would, in the worst case, only stand to lose 70% off the price of the materials (60% considering the 10% pad). This is a surface level explanation, the numbers can be replaced to fit your business, and obviously if you lose material you buy more, putting the material investment past 100%, but put simply: the ratio of risk between the business and the customers can be balanced more effectively when neither the customer nor the business has to potentially front 100% of the risk
CSM (Customer Supplied Material), can also be a logistical nightmare and create liabilities. We have aerospace contracts and much of it is CSM. Many of the parts have regulations for the material that have to verified by QA. Well, when your customer switches suppliers without telling you, and they send the wrong material, it might get worked, or worse shipped, without being verified. YES THAT HAPPENED, no none of the parts made it assembly. Many asses were chewed that day.
I'm more nervous when a customer supplies the material. I've had to make that phone call a few times telling the customer that we need another piece and the customer scrambles trying to get more material in time. If we have an issue, I like to keep it in house. Our shop does a material markup, and if it's high risk, We will throw in a scrap risk factor into the material markup. Basically insurance for the job.
If the customer wants to supply the material they don’t get a bid due to unknowns. They also don’t get a guarantee we might not waste some material. They only get a piece price if we source the material.
It does creates another surface of additional variables and risk on your side of the value chain.
However, if the customer is professional, responsive, and organized... then it could be workable.
Probably worth talking with and negotiating with the customer to see what works best for them and what their priorities are. They might be fine paying $600/part if they prefer doing less logistics and less billing.
Creative solutions can lead to more business, more profits, and amped customer satisfaction when the risk is managed appropriately.
We usually make a dry run with PET before making final part in PEEK to validate design before we waste an expensive workpiece.
Just had that happen. The customer insisted on supplying the material. When machining it, the material deformed due to internal stress, and more stock was needed. The parts are already a week late, and the new stock just came in. Be direct with your customer, get material yourself to keep the process reliable
I’m with you. How do you go back to the customer asking for more material because you screwed up? You don’t.
You might not be on the hook for the initial material, but that doesn’t matter if you don’t mess up. “Hey, we screwed up, we need you to give us more material”.
Better to charge the markup and be able to source the material yourself. I’ve liked a lot of Titan’s stuff, but this one just doesn’t make sense.
This screams that you aren’t willing to take a risk and take accountability. First Titan video I 100% disagree with. Id take a job that the customer wants to supply the material, but I’d never demand they do.
I had a job in my shop machining pump shafts for split case pumps. My customer always supplied the 4140 material to save my material markup which was cool with me. Less out of my pocket. Then he came to me one day having found a CNC shop that was selling aftermarket shafts for not much more than the cost of material. I was stunned but business is business so I told him to go for it. Gotta love Chinese steel. Shaft breakage became an instant issue because 1018 equivalent is what they were selling him.
Did they come back to you?
@ yes.
@@martinswiney2192Price just went up, and so did lead time.
China #18 (which is what they substitute) is not as good as 1018, and I found asking for 1045 is the best option with them if you are avoiding expensive alloys
@ 1045 is fair in this application. It will give the customer a good run but the bearing fits wallow out faster than with 4140. Thats the main reason I use 4140. I have also had good luck using 416 stainless.
I've been machining vespel and other expensive plastics for over 15 years. Vespel cuts really easy and holds tolerances very well compared to other plastics.
I guess it's just people being scared of scrapping expensive material. A good machinist should be happy to work with a easily machined stuff like this.
@@andan2293 Just make an aluminum test piece and once it passes inspection switch to the real material..
@@mad0uche Thats not how cnc works. Sure, run a test piece out of aluminum first. But after that, more time is spent readjusting for speeds and feed rates, which will add to to the setup cost.
Also, I hated machining Ti.
As a plastic machinist I love vespel. Its a great material that runs really well. Its just expensive is all. Not a big deal.
Absolutely, never had any issue or worries with most of the high cost engineering plastics. If someone is freaking about about the material, it just means they aren’t confident in their shops skills
@@phillefever1934 it's a big outlay for 1000 parts in this case, and might have to carry the invoice for a cycle or two depending on the customer..
@@phillefever1934at those prices you’re a jeweler, except a jeweler can always sweep up broken gold and melt it into new bars. Can you recycle these high spec engineering plastics and recover the scrap?
how does it compare to PEEK?
@JinKee nope it's just waste. Only reman plastics I know of are things like low end uhmw and Teflon.
I’m currently running hafnium and zirconium for nuclear reactors. Hafnium for example is $4,400 a kilogram. One billet is 7million dollars.
OK, I think you win today. Would be super interesting to hear more about that, though I'm betting that's not allowed ;)
Keep those chips 😂
so 1590 kg billet about 3500 lb
Lucky. Wholenium costs twice as much. Nuclear react to that.
@@DaddyBiscuits bravo sir, you win the Internet today 😂😂😂
Recognized that material immediately. Its used in cryogenic stirling cycle cooling units for MRI machines. It does machine quite easily but its expensive. Mainly because the pieces have been inspected with ultrasound and x ray due to its use in mission critical gadgets. ❤
Thanks for that. I was wondering what that part was for
looks like the sample tray adapter for a nmr sample tube or something. mri=nmr
Vespel Parts and Shapes is a DuPont Polymer Material product that comes in different grades for different applications. I machined a grade with high graphite content, and another with carbon fibers. I used to machine it in a controlled environment shop. Just make sure not to use too much pressure in your work holding because it will flex. One part had a .060" wall thickness, so we bought a gage pin that was the finish ID size and put it in the part before we turned the OD. It worked out Ok. We asked the customer to buy a small quantity of test material for us to fine tune the process and they were ok with it since we would only need it the first time we were machining that Vespel grade. I used slower speeds and feeds, kept my tools sharp and it worked ok.
Is it actually still DuPont, or is the label changed to Celanese at this point, too? Since DuPont sold its Polyamide/Nylon section to Celanese, about.... 2 years or so ago.
@LordNecron I believe it's still a DuPont product.
yo Titan, you're truly an inspiration man! I started my own business in control automation a year ago, and seeing your journey has been incredibly motivating, specially whn the doubts set in. You exemplify what it means to to strive for the American dream. Thank you! Wishing you continued success in all your endeavors and many blessings to you, brother
This is excellent advice. I've used this technique with vendors for over 20 years. As an engineer with over 38 years of experience, I long ago discovered the importance of fully communicating with vendors to alleviate their concerns. This is especially true with mom and pop shops. Address their risks head on. Are they concerned about the cost of breaking tools? I have those tools show up magically on their doorstep. Are they concerned about scrapping expensive material and taking a bath on the job? I arrange that very material dropped on their dock. Good communication, negotiation and always looking for the win-win are key to success. After all, good vendors are priceless. You work with them to achieve mutual wealth and success.
Only problem with CPM is when you are calling them to let them know they need to supply 12 more cause you messed up 12 of them.. whatever reason doesn't matter they wont be happy about it. And either A. They quit that contract or B. they finish it and find a new machiner
Gotta factor setup scrap into the quote.
It’s not about messing the material up imo. It’s if there’s a part failure later on they will blame the material for the failure, question your suppliers etc etc. you get rid of that by having them supplying it.
This is only an issue if you weren't upfront about the risks. If you have a set aside for rework/yield in the PO, then the customer is already prepared to exercise the option. I'm an aerospace customer, and I can tell you that I'll only be upset if I have to go through my massive purchasing process as an emergency because a supplier didn't consider that they might scrap a few pieces. We have rigid limits on surplus spend on PO's, so it's a huge inconvenience and we don't have the admin headcount that you probably think we do to process those things timely.
@@allenklingsporn6993 If a company tells me "oh you have to supply the material because we are not confident enough in our skills to not botch it" I will tell all my friends to blacklist that company. They give me the quote, they calculate the risk, I will not sign a quote and then carry the risk of them botching like 90% because they are incompetent
This channel is amazing. Not only do you guys show advance manufacturing, but you also give out really good business advice. Please keep up the good work.
Up-front and honest.
More people need to listen to Titan and take his advice. Communication is key, effective communication is priceless.
More people do? How many more people?
exactly
if I am a customer I would prefer if the other person would be honest with issues and doesnt try to sweep issues under the rug
it only builds trust
I'm trying to imagine my plant manager tattooing arms, walking around, fist-bumping people and shouting 'boom'. LOL
I’ve worked with that material many times, it actually runs really easily, it’s just expensive, but no more than doing second or third operations on some high grade stainless
They’ve said it isn’t difficult. But it’s still plastic. I worked with a lot of plastic. It’s far more variable that different metals. And the slightest problem becomes a mountain to climb over.
The only downside of customer furnished material is that sometimes customers will furnish bad material and leave you to sort out how to make a good part out of it. I ran into this frequently at a shop I used to work with. It was mostly when we'd have to deal with large steel castings and forgings.
oh no, the memories are coming back to me
tolerances mentioning arc-seconds on forgings with more stress than a millenial whose dog got repo'd
I know this all too well. Customer supplies 100 castings on a first time run and doesn't understand why only 99 are delivered. "Where's our other part?" Never fails. Or the castings that have enormous voids right in the middle of a critical dimension, and somehow that's our fault. 😅
Had the same issue machining a spline type part for a big Japanese company rhymes with Smoyota. They gave us the most thrown together bent up castings literally from the desert in Iraq. Then wanted .0002 tolerances.
Customer wanted a part with a .812 od, sent us .750 material labeled .825... proceeded to get upset that we couldn't make it work lmao.
Great explanation Titan. I love how your first go to is to communicate, so many people dont do that or they dont do it properly.
I have been a machinist for almost 30 years, and I have never even heard of that material.
You may be an expert, but you are no Titan xD
I've seen it used as a wetted part in chemically pure environments and vacuum, e.g. in the sample path for gas chromatography / mass spectrometry for chemical analysis. Where you need the resilience and chemical inertness of PTFE, but the strength closer to Delrin.
Work for a company that machines it for our consumable parts. I knew it wasn't going to be cheap but I never looked into the actual cost of it.
You probably have lots of polyamide items in your house. Usually you would come across it as a fiber or a film.
Chemical resistance would be why its needed in something like this. Maybe the customer makes dialysis machines or something like that.
I've never heard of it either, how can it be that much.
If a shop lacks the confidence in its machinists to accept the risk itself, any potential customers are also unlikely to accept the risk.
That said, it's a nice strategy to offer established customers that try to negotiate better pricing. Instead of a direct discount, they accept a little more risk and variability in pricing for a lower average per-part cost.
As a customer, if I was supplying the material, I would only accept a % of risk. After that no payment until the number of parts agreed was supplied, and a visit from the lawyer with their costs added if they didn't like it.
No way I'm allowing you to scrap 50% of that material without major consequences
if you're afraid you can always use another cheaper version that has similar properties, then machine it and if you're satisfied with the result use vespel.. its not even that hard to machine tbh
We use acetal as a set up part to dial everything in. Works for us
i hate plastic and tolerances combined
Hate has no home here on this channel...Just kidding, yeah I kinda hate plastics too. 🙂
I work at a plastics factory, everyone hates acetal, then I mentioned that machinists love acetal.
depends on the material. Sometimes you are in tolerance, and over night it starts to warp.
I've successfully machined little 5mm plastic guide buttons to a 0.01mm (~4/10000") tolerance. I remember that one of the selected materials I used was called Ertalon.
No machinist near me took it so had to resort to DIY. There was one big lathe nearby where I could sneak in at night. Had to create my own custom cutting tool too because there wasn't anything nearly as small and sharp in that shop. Quite some experience, luckily did not end wound up around the chuck.
@@SeersantLoom The thing is lots of plastics "grow" after being machined so yea you might get .01mm measurements but the next day you can have +.1...
Been there done that, sux arse.
I love the public outreach you do. This is how it is done and instead of keeping your knowledge all to yourself, you're sharing it with the next generation of machinists.
Would be good to hear how you setup your contracts on your agreements for percentage scrap or something. Do you offer any guarantees to the customer about scrap rate? Or do you just promise to do your best?
If you gave them a percentage scrap rate, you could also just buy the material and charge them based on your calculated scrap rate. So its the same issue really. I suspect they just expect the customer to trust them. They said they'd do smaller lot sizes, based on the price, so i guess if the scrap rate is too high for the customer, the customer can back out and just pay for the parts already received.
That’s where you charge 20% more for the material. But when the material is so expensive you can’t do it any longer.
When I do big expensive jobs I talk to the customer and if he doesn’t agree with possible additional scrap cost I decline the job. But I mainly do Prototyp parts and design them as well.
Interesting video that focuses on the behind the scenes part of CNC machining. Thank you very much, I will show it to my students.
Great strategy in that partnership! I'm 65 and learn great things every day... thank you Titan!
Respectfully, Seth
I feel like you machined 6 minutes from my day and I would like to keep the chips
3:42 For anyone looking to cut out the bullshit.
Why I call it bullshit? Because of course you're only quoting for labour/machine time if your customer is the one buying the material. It's not really sage business advice, why bullshit like that?
Great advice Titan, even for shops that aren't heavy CNC. Having the customer as involved as possible while incorporating other business's, capabilities, and partnerships goes a long way.
I absolutely love vespel. During my internship I had to make 7 parts and got material for 7 part. I was so worried but found out it cuts like a charm. Holds tolerances and nice surface finishing
Those hourly rates are insane to me. Is that normal?
What if you mess up a part/material the customer supplied? Is that lost cost the customers or yours?
I worked in molding for years before I moved over to capital equipment design /fabrication.
Most expensive material I ever ran was a $1500/ lbs implantable PEEK. The runner and sprue was over 80% of the part cost and purging the stuff was $750 every time you did it. But it is what it is.
our sister company machined a ton of high end plastics and metals ( Platinum, titanium, vespel, ETC). The reward is there if you have the ability to do it.
Wait,so you throw the risk at the customer and claim its better that way? Are you doing this as a way to gain their trust (if you make no mistakes)? Only then does this all make sense
So you think when customer buys material you dont have to pay for it when your employee fucks it up ?
'We make the customer pay for any screwups.'
That's all you had to say.
As you were explaining things it hit me that you were more than likely using material supplied by the customer. Shortly after I realized that you gave the answer.
I have two components that many subcontractors won’t touch or give crazy pricing for. Like $1,200 from one vendor, others around $300. The parts are available standard with more complex geometry for $8.
I was told it can only be done on 5axis (it’s 3 interpolation and an indexer). I’ve been told it’s expensive because it’s helical (it isn’t)
This isn’t about volume. It’s about understanding what can be done. Design engineers like me often get told “that can’t be made” as if we’re stupid. Often that’s well founded. However, I’m an ex-machinist and I model CNC parts as they would be machined. In Fusion 360 for example, you can model a cutter, model a cutter path and the form will generate exactly what you can make.
Everything you said resonates. As a design engineer, I often take the work others refuse and I build long term relationships on transparency on good communication.
Also, very impressed with Syil
Your shifting the risk to the customer. You may not be on the line for the scraped material but you're more likely to lose the customer.
So basically, you pan the risk off on your company, even though it is YOU who are doing the processing..Most companies want nothing to do with that.
By "i will machine vespel" im sure you mean "my workers on the shop floor will machine vespel"
I don‘t get it. When you eff it up, it is still your fault. The only difference is the markup and upfront payment you maybe don‘t have to do. What did I miss ?
I don't understand the deal you are making. Why would they accept to not hold you liable if you screw up and bin precious material? Your customer probably wants to know how much it will cost them to have 1000 pieces without defects. What is in it for them to accept the burden of things going wrong on your end - something they have no control over?
That there tells you something special, the transparency and integrity building trust. well said mate 🤜🏻🤛🏻
Thanks for detailing your quote process
amazing what communication can do, and being honest with transparency.
Very interesting breakdown of your cost calculations and how you truly work with and engage your customers.
The other interesting thing is your labor cost per hour, it is cheaper in Australia for machining services than the US (per hr).The hourly rate is between 10-30 per hour less and the exchange rate is defiantly in favor of the us
Personally, I view this in the same manner as a mechanic shop (my Grandfather ran an auto shop). He wouldn't let the customers source the parts because on average they would put the blame back on his labor versus their part selection. If a marked-up part went bad, he footed the bill to replace that part. When we mark up material it's because we are taking responsibility for the quality and accuracy of the metallurgy. I imagine Titan was able to weigh the qualifications of the customer to be honorable and resourceful enough to replace material and do it quickly. Most of my customers are smaller scale so they just want a bill and a part. Definitely see the good advice in this depending on the customer, the ability of both parties to maintain close communication, and obviously a binding contract to hold parties accountable.
Communication is key. In all aspects of business as well. From customer to team. Great video Titan 🔥 that part brought back some great memories 😁
The only challenge with customer purchased material = SCRAP. But once you have the process dialed in you are good
Thank you guys for this video waiting to see more of this material❤
At my last job, we kept the vespel locked up in a tiny cupboard, when there was stacks and stacks of oxygen free copper just left out, and we kept the aluminum outside.
I know ur feeling, we do only plastic.
And sometimes we do parts out of torlon(pai)-plastic :)
And it's totally bullshit to work with it...
the GD&T on this part is surprisingly succinct. It looks like the engineers actually took time to determine what the real functional requirements of this part are instead of just blanket tolerancing everything. I wish all designers were this precise with their design intent.
Blanket tolerances is all too common these days
Engineer here, and I used to blanket tolerance...until I was like 26. For something like a robot head adapter plate, I just check the machine shop stock and use those for external dimensions, such dimensions (101.6mm) W x (101.6mm) L x 5mm T, reason for the thickness being just to flatten out the material from 6.35mm stock.
@zchris87v80 often times, depending on the features of the part, 1.3 mm is not enough to hold onto when machining your part on op 1. If your part was 5mm thick and had to be machined on the edges, I would be making it out of 10mm thick stock.
@@Dillybar777 in this case, I was using reference dimensions to just use 4" stock and cut it to 4" in length, then just remove a portion of the 1.35mm from each side. I've only ever asked one absurd thing of a machinist - a spacer plate for an ID grinder (used in series bearing production), made of stainless steel, 0.7mm thick. I am amazed it didn't instantly curl up, and more amazed that he figured out a way to fixture it to a surface grinder. I was the engineer over automotive bearing grinding production back then (again, prior to age 26, when I didn't realize how difficult it would be to make).
I've since started taking machining into consideration - for example, a solid block of aluminum for a small robot, about 12" in height. It'd be easy to just ask to machine down the sides and put some through holes through the flange, but that's a ton of material removal. Instead, I just created pockets for bolts and a hex key to be able to fit through (requiring turning the block on each side and slotting, then putting through holes through the bottom).
@zchris87v80 ooh that stainless piece is devilish indeed hahaha. Good on you for actually improving your design skills. Machinists absolutely love working with well designed parts.
Fun fact, vespel makes an incredible guitar pick.
I can imagine your 100 dollar guitar pick :D that's cool!
Dude you definitely look like the bad guy in a mission impossible movie
Great information, Titan! Thank you for sharing! 😁
Once, I sawed some Vespel for a company ( their saw was not large enough). The material was 11” diameter. We sawed it 1.5 inches long. I have no idea what those pieces were worth.
11 inch diameter that's a big piece of it. 😮
I’ve dealt with both customer supplied material and material my work supplies. As the machinist on the floor I prefer material we supply that way I know where it is coming from and I can talk to that material supplier if we have problems or questions. We had some customer supplied 316 stainless, only problem was, when I got it at my machine it was magnet, and I’ve never seen 316 in that shade of dark gray almost black. It was harder than all hell too. We asked the customer about it and they said that’s the material they’ve always used. I still have no clue what it was. It was around 60rockwell according to our tester.
Im gonna set up a bank like this, huge payouts on ur invested money, however if we lose it we arent liable..
I'm not a CNC guy, but I service bicycles, bicycle hydraulics and stuff. And I have a mini lathe that is one of my best investments. Yes, talking to customers is crucial, that's the way how I explain what's different between, let's say, my fork service and others' fork service (I know how competitors workshops work in my city). This is how I turn my new customers to regular customers despite the fact that I charge the highest price in the city
I've made a total of 9 parts in 23 years out of Vespel. It's not bad to work with, but the added stress of the expensive material can get to you if you let it. It's really not something that I see a lot so this doesn't apply. BUT! For "special" material, then yes, every time, I require CSM (Customer Supplied Material).
So you trash half the material and then go back to the customer cap in hand with a finish qty half of what they expected, or the customer gives you material that isn't right for the job? Customer supplied material isn't without problems.
Great job mate!
Why didn’t you swiss machine this piece? Polymers are not so stiff and the guide bushing would help a lot! And also bar loader would boost your OEE since you would have so much more parts per bars, allowing lights-out shift. I would like to see how we can improve quotes using OEE and Cp analysis for medium-large job. Keep it up man, greetings from Italy !
Some of the craziest parts I’ve machined have been made out of Vespel. Definitely a stressful material to work with. It machines beautifully though!
TLDR the customer supplies the material
I had to make a couple transitions with super high tolerances out of explosion bonded iconel/aluminum, crazy expensive and long leadtime. Pretty stressful even after proving everything out on 6061
Excellent idea for the high risk material! Win-win for both sides.
Wished I lived close enough to a shop like that to volunteer on weekends. Just for the knowledge and experience
Thanks for the price breakdown
Meh. Prove put the program on something else. Run customer supplied material. Its not rocket science. One shop I worked at all we did was work with customer supplied material. Some was expensive soMe wasn't. It was all specialty alloys for microwave tubes. Cupronickel was common, but the high purity level required meant it wasn't easily found off the shelf. Being an ITAR shop meant suppliers had to meet specific requirements as well. My last year at that shop the mill had 2 full runs of the Cupronickel fail in QA. That meant that there was no new material available for purchase for over a year. That is stressful. Every inch of that material was irreplaceable.
That must have been a really bad day at the shop
@Dillybar777 By mill I mean foundry/ steel mill, not the machine type. We hoarded any bits we could. Bar ends were like gold.
@@brandons9138 oh wow. That is insane.
@@Dillybar777Yeah. Our customers were scrambling. It's even crazier but that a lot of the work we did was for military radar and communication systems. So it was pretty time sensitive work.
Interesting video. I used to Quality Manage an engineering company that specialised in Aerospace and Nuclear components. We had material supplied from the customer only. Released and certified only. No scrap allowances as well. We did some prototype Rolls Royce RB211 turbine blades, no CNC or Co-ordinate measuring machines, either. Cost Plus job, lots of overtime and bonuses. I had to make all the calculations, as the customer had not drawn it all out, when we took it on. Would you risk jobs like that, as I had to make multi million pound decisions as the jobs ran, also on nuclear reactor components, no mistakes allowed. Best job I ever had, until they went bust, when defence spending was cut.
Did he just say he solved the problem by putting the cost onto the customer lol?
I just had to re machine 430 Delrin blocks there is a .050” wall on one side and the pocket needs to be -.001”/+.003” it’s possibly to hit. But It was wandering constantly by about .003”. I’m sure it could change finishing passes. but that’s just another example of tolerance plastic can be rough
The procurement term is BFM.... buyer furnished material.
Scrap parts are inevitable. Do you comminucate a scrap percantage with your customer? Cause while the manufacturer adding a cushion in his pricing is understandable, as a customer i'd also want to know how much extra material i might need to buy
Your customer is nice. Because in my company we buy the raw material, send it to the suppliers for machining. But they have an allowance on the scrap rate, maybe 1 or 2%. Every scrap over that is for the supplier.
"I'm going to give you the best prices you've ever seen" "Why?" "Because you're paying for the material LMAO"
I love you and this was the info I needed today!
I actually do this for my big 3d prints or large quantity prints. Tell the customer it drops the price if they just buy the filament, anything leftover I get for other projects, and sometimes they don't pay extra because they end up only using half the material.
Communication! Is keys to the world. Thanks
Cool video Titan!!
Ok it's totally different from Delrin... It's a Polyimide
Lots of auto repair shops refuse customer supplied parts. They dont run a 10% mark up. Its usually way over 25% and they dont even have to leave their desk to get it.
different industry . the auto shop isn't making the part from scratch
Why is vespel expensive over delrin?
Great video guys! 💪🏾
T boils it down to the heart of the matter - Partnership!
We wanna know what vespel is used for? Why not delrin or something else?
When we do outside machining, we always supply material due to traceability requirements for ASME Code materials, we have to prove the mill certifications of the materials. If it’s PED materials then we have to to verify the QMS of the mill.
What’s PED? We do a lot of manufacturing of Code items too… Section VIII and B31.3.
@ it’s the European pressure equipment Director 2014/68/EU, my company manufactures hyperbaric oxygen chambers that are medical devices, we have to meet the ASME section VIII division 1 and 2, PED 2014/68/EU, CSA B51. Now one would think OK that’s all pressure vessel codes however, our design uses flat plates that are machined.
@@DiscoR53 PED = Pressure Equipment Directive. Of course. Duh.
I did this with a customer and they turned around and said they would do it but only if i pay 50% of the product cost that they would have made had they sold it for every scrapped part rather than just the cost of the material lost. needless to say i just buy my own material when i have to scrap a part and remake it.
Vespel has a small learning curve but is fairly easy to machne
I’m I the only one that thinks 30 hours of setup seems excessive?
same ?
We do that sometimes if the customer buys the material we will make the part and they only pay machine running cost
So it WOULD be a $400 part if you bought the material. Got it
When I worked in the semi-conductor industry 30 years ago, we used a lot of exotic materials for test fixtures at very high tolerances. If I walked into the machine shop, with a piece of material everyone tried to hide from me. Like I was a homeless guy walking into to a Ferrari dealer. I remember having to get a piece of plastic counter to countered from Japan after spending two days trying to find someone with it. Almost came to about 10k for material to ,make two small 2"x2"x 1/2" parts. We kept some on hand material in a safe in my office if we had to buy more than we wanted to make sure no one used it from something stupid like leveling a machine. 🤨
I don’t do production, only prototype, modification, and instrument building. Stress is when you’re working on a 30 million dollar mirror that took 3 years to make. Or modifying an experiment that flies to space in less than a week. I had to drill a thousand .002" holes in an experiment once and I broke $1000 worth of drills just figuring out the feeds and speeds.
So, if you get material for a 1000 pieces, and you mess up 20 you still need material for those you messed up. Who is gonna pay for that material? Do you have a percentage failure qouted? Do you pay for the lost material and if so how do make money then?
Oh hope the material is standard I worked in plastics and my gaffer was a right old rouge!
Math time!
Having a pad on material goods means that the customer has a limit to their risk, because if you, say lose 20% of the material, the losses past that point are taken by the business. its basically insurance; spending extra money up front to ward off catastrophic losses.
But if the customer supplies the goods, they pay less most of the time, but could potentially lose their entire investment in material, say if they bought poor quality steel.
The ideal would be something like a hedge bet, where the business would supply the material and pad the price upfront, say 10% but also charge 30% of the price of any losses. that way, the customer still pays less upfront, but in cases of big losses, the customer only risks 30% of the material cost (plus 10% upfront). at the same time, the business makes money when they don't lose any material, can lose up to 10% of the material, and still would, in the worst case, only stand to lose 70% off the price of the materials (60% considering the 10% pad).
This is a surface level explanation, the numbers can be replaced to fit your business, and obviously if you lose material you buy more, putting the material investment past 100%, but put simply: the ratio of risk between the business and the customers can be balanced more effectively when neither the customer nor the business has to potentially front 100% of the risk
Best video to date. Today. To date. ❤
How do you machine material like that for the first time if there is nobody to guide you?
CSM (Customer Supplied Material), can also be a logistical nightmare and create liabilities.
We have aerospace contracts and much of it is CSM. Many of the parts have regulations for the material that have to verified by QA. Well, when your customer switches suppliers without telling you, and they send the wrong material, it might get worked, or worse shipped, without being verified.
YES THAT HAPPENED, no none of the parts made it assembly. Many asses were chewed that day.