This week on the Lone Machinist Podcast, Curt discovers that despite operating machines, running a business, and apparently being a functioning adult, he still cannot reliably add numbers together. A simple order count leaves him 100 pens short of reality, and it takes Claude to point out that the problem isn't the AI. It's Curt. Meanwhile, Jamie discovers that one of his production parts is effectively being made at a fraction of the required hourly rate. The part itself isn't necessarily a disaster because it sits within a profitable family of parts, but it sparks a much bigger discussion about costing, batch quantities, material, consumables, and knowing where your money is actually going. There's also a serious effort to stop stockouts from screwing up production, with reorder systems, QR codes, minimum quantities, better workflows, and finally getting the workshop organized. Then we get into 3D printers, and both Jamie and Curt are discovering just how much easier life becomes when a printer actually works. Production fixtures, racks, tooling, functional parts, and 18-hour print jobs are suddenly just things you send to the machine and forget about. Plus, gantry automation, uptime monitoring, gauge pins, drag tumbling, and a kindergarten field trip involving a very large corn maze. Math is hard. Good printers are magic. Links Discussed: Tumbling: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4QXPIOOl0z/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==The Lone Machinist: Website: https://thelonemachinists.com/ Bonus Content: https://thelonemachinists.com/#bonus-content Merch: https://www.jspeceng.com/online-store Patreon: https://patreon.com/TheLoneMachinistsNeed Work Done? Check out Subtract Manufacturing at: https://subtractmanufacturing.com/ Jamie: http://instagram.com/jspec_engineering https://www.jspeceng.com/ https://www.noughticalwh.com/Curt: https://www.instagram.com/confoundedmachine/ https://www.confoundedmachine.com/
