20 Minute Blog

Another client and another service offered by a client that I actually understand — this time it’s custom sewing! Better yet, this client is actually related, somewhat, to the industrial market! I think this may be the first time in my day job that I’ve worked with an industrial client where I could get what they were doing after hearing them describe it in a sentence.

In this case the custom sewing is used to make all kinds of fabric and leather and fake leather bags and coverings. In particular they use the custom sewing to make equipment covers — basically a couple steps up from tossing a tarp over fancy industrial equipment to keep it free from dirt, dust, and the varagies of junk.

The custom sewn covers are a nice thick material that is shaped to cover the specific equipment, and of course usually has a big logo or brand name on it.

I have to say that it’s really nice sometimes to not have to spend time researching what a client does before even getting started working on the account. You hear custom sewing to make equipment covers like lawn mower covers and stuff, and you’re good to go. Now it’s just a matter of working on their marketing strategies.

More day job discussion, in under 20 minutes… as you know my company works a lot with the industrial market, but not exclusively. I’m now working with a company that sells metal for precious metals IRA account. This is a substantial difference from the usual clients — largely because I can basically understand what they do without having to spend an hour researching the industry online.

Of course I’m still researching the precious metals IRA online, because I need to know more than the very basics. Just a little more, mind you.

What is a Precious Metals IRA

A precious metals IRA is an IRA account that you can store actual physical precious metals in. The idea is that you actual buy gold bars or gold coins and those physical gold bars can be a part of your IRA investment account. These are still legitimate government (US government) recognized IRA accounts.

Of course since the precious metals IRA are government recognized, that means they also have to follow some government rules specific to precious metals IRA accounts, in addition to standard IRA stuff. Here are the key rules:

• There are regulations on the kind of gold and silver that you can store in your precious metals IRA. These have to be of a certain purity (varies by metal) and they cannot be collectible gold or silver coins. The collectible coins have a collectors’ value that does not transfer to a precious metals IRA and the end result is that you simply can’t use collectible gold or silver coins at all.
• The gold and silver in your precious metals IRA cannot be under your mattress! You have to store the physical precious metals in a recognized depository that meets certain security and insurance requirements, etc.
• You can buy gold bullion or silver bullion from wherever you want to, but you cannot by from a precious metals dealer or broker that you’re related to in any way. The assumption is that the two of you could somehow be cheating stuff or giving each other deals.

That’s the big stuff. Most IRA investment places offer precious metals IRAs and they have all the forms and know all the details. The big thing is that you don’t want to use only precious metals in your IRA, instead you use it as a way of diversifying your portfolio with something that has historically been a pretty safe investment. Of course over the last few years both gold and silver have been crazy — mostly going up, but also having a lot larger fluctuations than they historically have.

Even when I think I finally understand something within the industrial market, I find that I don’t really understand what I think I do. In this case it’s CNC stone machine.

Now, I know what CNC machining is, and I know what a CNC machine is. It’s a machine that is controlled by a computer with a spindle that cuts out metal. You can make just about any kind of metal part you can imagine with CNC machining, from knobs to pistons to blocks to actual 3D metal sculptures of faces and whatever else you can imagine. CNC machining is kind of cool.

So now at work I’m working with a company that manufactures CNC stone machines — the actual machines that do the CNC machining. I had to pause for a moment and figure out why a CNC machine would be made of stone, which at first didn’t make much sense. Then I realized that it’s probably not the whole machine made of stone, but instead just the surface that holds the metal — after all, you need something big and thick and heavy and what better than stone?

Well… that was a pretty idiotic guess.

CNC stone machines are normal, regular CNC machines — made out of metal — that are used for machining stone. So you use the machine to make stone sculptures, or cut out marble bannisters, or even tombstones. Yup, there’s no guy with a chisel there — it is in fact a machine shop using CNC machining on the stone to cut everything out just so, to very precise measurements that are entered into the CAD software. Then the computer does all the cutting with a spinning spindle chopping into the stone.

Of course the stone CNC machining is a little bit different — after all stone is much more likely to break off in chunks than metal is, so it requires different spindles and different speeds and different pathways programmed in through the CAD software. But overall… it’s still just the normal CNC machining that you’re used to.

Now I kinda want a wee personal-sized CNC machine (and the knowledge of how to work the CAD software) so that I can machine out my own little sculptures. Like Darth Vadar head of metal, or out of ebony. And fake tombstones. And who the heck knows what else. A metal tape dispenser, or anything else that is improbably to be made out of solid metal or solid stone. The fun is endless!

Okay, I decided I was going to write about whatever it was that I was working on at work today, and that means I have to talk about truck door seals. I’m going to try to blow through this in five minutes today. Hold on a sec, getting my timer application on my phone running….

And going.

Truck door seals are a form of security seal that is used to secure the back door of semi trucks. The truck door seals actually serve two separate purposes. They do effectively lock the door; however, the big thing with security seals that separates them from a lock or a padlock is that there is no way to open a security seal. Thus you put the truck door seal on once the truck is loaded up and then the only way to get it open again is to actually cut the seal off — this typically requires bolt cutters, at least in the case of metal truck door seals.

The other feature of truck door seals is that they have a serial number printed on them, and obviously no two truck door seals have the same security number. What this means in practice is that the truck door seal is “tamper evident” — this way it’s not possible for anyone to have done anything that you don’t know about.

Here’s an example:

Lets say you load up your truck only you use some kind of padlock instead of a truck door seal. Someone could break in by picking the lock, they could steal something, or change something, or copy sensitive documents, etc. Then they could replace the lock and you’d never know that they did anything (especially in the case of copying sensitive documents). Similarly, even if the intruder had to cut off the padlock, they could just replace it with an identical padlock. Not so the security seal — even if you replace the truck door seal with an identical truck door seal, it would perforce have a different serial number, so it would be obvious that someone did something.

Thus: tamper evident.

Of course, not all truck door seals are giant metal things that require bolt cutters to remove. There are also plastic truck door seals. They serve the same purpose — they lock the truck door down and have a serial number to provide evidence of tampering — but they are much easier to cut off. A plastic truck door seal provides less security against break-ins, but makes like a lot easier on the receiving end since you don’t need the giant whopping bolt cutters to remove them. And there’s some logic to the theory that if someone is going to cut off the truck door seals, they can just as easily bring bolt cutters with them as a tool to cut the plastic truck door seal.

The other advantage of the plastic truck door seals is that they cost less — much less in fact. This becomes a big deal for shipping companies, because truck door seals with serial numbers are becoming required for more and more shipping. Any kind of international shipping has to have them, and more domestic shipping companies are requiring them — after all, everyone who is shipping something thinks that their stuff is vitally important. And for some of them, it is.

Damn — went over. Just under 7 minutes for this truck door seal write-up. Ah well, still not bad.

I learned something new today about internet terminology and industrial technology as it relates to EtherNet IP. Happily I learned this while doing some research rather than saying something terribly foolish in front of a client. At my day job I’m working with a company that makes protocol gateways — basically stuff that translates one protocol into another.

The concept is that you might have your computer that speaks french and your giant machine making bottles that speaks Chinese. The protocol gateway translates one language into the other so your equipment can talk to each other.

They work with a whole bunch of protocols, most of which I had never heard of, and among them is EtherNet IP. This was the one that I thought I knew what it was. After all, we’re all familiar with ethernet cords that plug our computers into the vastness of the internet. And I happen to know that IP stands for Internet Protocol. Since this client works in protocols it was a short but clever leap to realize that EtherNet IP was the Ethernet Internet Protocol.

This is entirely untrue, alas.

As it turns out Ethernet is one thing, and the IP protocol is another thing. EtherNet IP is yet a third thing, which stands for Ethernet Industrial Protocol. The idea of EtherNet/IP is that it’s a protocol designed specifically for industrial applications that is built on the Ethernet physical layer.

EtherNet IP is an application layer that uses TCP packets to send information. It is better than standard Internet Protocol for industrial applications because normal IP has all kinds of little pauses and gaps in data transmission. You and I don’t notice them because a pause of a half second is no biggie when you’re loading a web page. But when you have that bottle making equipment stomping around doing something every second, a half-second gap in the transmission of instruction to the equipment can cause a big problem that might require the entire operation to be shut down while things are resynched.

So EtherNet/IP is very different from ethernet (though related) and IP (unrelated). Good to know.

An interesting thing about working with all these different industrial companies at work is that in addition to learning a bit about the industries, I’ve found that I’m beginning to pick up vaguely related side knowledge that is now transferring from one client to another. Today’s case in point is stainless steel. I work with several companies that do manufacturing in stainless steel, including stainless steel metal stamping and another completely unrelated company that does stainless steel forging and still other companies that do machining or die casting in stainless steel.

As I’m working with one client and I have to write some copy about stainless steel metal stamping, I suddenly realized that I was able to ramble on for some time about the various characteristics and benefits of stainless steel because of what I learned working with a stainless steel forging company.

I know, for example — and without looking anything up here, just off the top of my head — that stainless steel is corrosion resistant and is resistant to stress cracks and deformation. This make stainless steel ideal for applications that are exposed to the elements or where a longer lifespan is desirable. Stainless steel forgings in particular will last pretty much forever, and are increasingly popular for many heavy duty applications.

Stainless steel also is pretty — it shines up nicely and believe it or not this is also a significant benefit in many manufacturing processes. In particular stainless steel stamping is often used because the metal can be polished or burnished without the need for application of additional layers or solvents to shine it up. For parts that are going to be seen, the appearance of the metal stamping (or forging) can be an important selling point.

And finally, I know that stainless steel is expensive — far, far more expensive than other steels. In both stainless steel forging and stainless steel metal stamping applications the main reasons stainless steel isn’t used like 80% of the time is due to cost. When compared to your dead average steel — low carbon steel — stainless steel can cost up to five times as much. And that’s a big price to pay even if your part will be stronger, prettier, and last longer. The result is that low carbon steel is often preferred for metal stamping and in fact is the default material for deep drawn metal stampings, and low carbon steel or alloy steels are more often used for giant open die forgings rather than the most costly stainless steel forgings.

I figure at the rate I’m going within a few years I’ll finally have a new client walk in the door and be able to hold discourse intelligently on anything they do. Even if I’m not familiar with their exact industry, odds are I know enough about industrial processes and materials that I can talk about what they do in one form or another.

At my day job, we work with a lot of companies in the industrial market, as I’ve discussed in the past. One of the most common specific industries that we work with is the CNC machining industry. These are the local machine shops that are all over the country.

For those who don’t know (and I certainly didn’t) CNC machining is any kind of metal cutting or shaping where the cutting tools are controlled by a computer. In fact, CNC machining doesn’t even need to be metal — you can use CNC machining for wood or stone or glass as well. The idea here is that you program what you want your final product to look like in CAD design software, and then the computer comes up with a way for your milling and machining equipment to automatically cut out the shape.

In addition to being easier and more accurate, CNC machining also has the advantage of being highly replicable, so you can make part after part that looks exactly the same.

Machine Shops

So a ton of companies that we work with are machine shops, or machining centers — guys that do CNC machining. These are almost always local, because most of what they do is machining metal and since metal is heavy, it gets expensive to ship it long distances. Thus you really want a guy in your city or county who can do the machining, rather than someone on the other side of the country. As far as I know there aren’t really any huge national chains of machining centers (though I have to imagine that would be a potential opportunity in the massive machining industry, for anyone out there with the hundreds of millions to invest in it).

After working with all these machine shops for so long, I was delighted that we’re now working with a company that actually makes the machining equipment that’s used by all these machining centers. Rather than just talking to the guys who do the metal forming we’re now talking with the guys who make the CNC machines.

Vertical Machining Centers

Interestingly, despite the fact that I thought I knew a good amount about the machining industry it turns out there’s massive amounts I don’t know. Because when I talk to machine shops we talk about the kinds of work they do and the kinds of customers they work with — but we don’t talk a whole lot about the CNC machines that they use to do their machining.

It turns out the most common CNC machine is actually referred to as a Veritcal Machining Center, and then I learned (as mentioned earlier) that you can actually do CNC machining on stone, and wood, and even glass (though you need some pretty sophisticated glass cutting tables for the latter).

Here’s a video of a CNC machine doing it’s thing:

It’s pretty frickin cool to watch it work, and see the detail in the part that it makes. It’s also a bit staggering to realize even with this incredibly high speed and automated machinery it still take a comparatively long time to make this part (maybe it’s a prototype or something — I know CNC machining is really big for custom stuff, short run, and prototypes that are then make with die casting or metal stamping in mass production).

I talk about work stuff and clients that we work with every now and then, mostly because work is on my mind a lot when I get home and writing this is kinda a way to purge that stuff out of my brain, but also ’cause I like my work and I find all these different companies fascinating. Today I was working with a company that sells, or manufactures – not sure which – beaded cable ties and something called the V-Tool attacher system.

This is a beaded cable tie -- see, I bet you've seen 'em before too.

Normally most of the client I work with are very heavily industrial companies that do incomprehensible seeming things. I have to spend a bunch of time just learning what the heck it is that they do — because telling me what they do doesn’t help unless it’s in a lot of detail.

Every now and then we have a non-industrial client. It’s delightful, because I usually know exactly what they do once they tell me. For example, I know what a cable tie is. You tell me you sell cable ties and I know exactly what you’re talking about. I don’t need a long involved description of what a cable tie is, how it’s made, or what it’s used for. It’s a cable tie. I got it. It’s a plastic thingy that ties up cables.

In fact, you can even get into more detail and I’m still good. I know what beaded cable ties are, I know that cable ties are called zip ties too. I’ve even heard of fire extinguisher seals — at least once I saw a picture of them I knew what they were. You can even go into stuff that I’m not familiar with like ladder ties and I still have a basic idea. So I was delighted to have a client where I knew what they did.

V-Tool System

And then they told me that they also focused a lot on the V-Tool Fastening System and suddenly everything was dark again — I may as well be dealing with open die forging at that point (which, as you’ll recall, was an industrial method of squishing molten metal to make it stronger). It turns out that the V-Tool System is a thing actually made by Avery Dennison as an easy way to attach price tags to merchandise. They’re most commonly used by clothing stores.

There are a couple different ways of attaching price tags, and a whole host of different kinds of tag attacher systems (seriously, this is a competitive market? Apparently so.) that each work slightly differently. The standard tag attacher uses a needle to thread the wee plastic tag through the fabric — I’m sure we’re all familiar with these and yanking them off something we just bought, and later discovering that you forgot one of them as it scratches at the back of your neck.

The V-Tool system is apparently super desirable because it doesn’t actually use a needle to poke a hole in the fabric which, as you can imagine, for some things is pretty important. You don’t want a hole in your brand new silk whatever. The V-Tool actually wraps the tag stem around things, making use of straps or holes. For example, you can use the V-Tool to attach a tag through button holes, or around belt loops, or over the bridge of glasses.

And when you really start to think about it, just about every piece of clothing has some kind of strap or button hole or loop on it somewhere that you can easily thread one of these tags through. So clever idea, and it’s all automated and one-handed — you put the V-Tool to the hole, press the trigger, and pow. You have a tag attached.

Though I still can’t believe how many different companies produce tag attachers. I cannot imagine that market could possible be that large — I mean it’s B2B after all, and a typical store needs only one or a handful of the devices. You’d think they could find less crowded markets to manufacture for.

I don’t know if I talked about my metal stamping client at work before — somehow I vaguely recall talking about deep drawn stuff, but I poked around a bit (kinda halfheartedly, it’s true) and didn’t see anything.

So one of the many new industries I had to learn about was deep drawn metal stamping. Interestingly when I looked up the deep drawing process on wikipedia, one of the reference links they had was actually a link to my client’s website, explaining how deep drawn parts are made. That kinda rocks — they’re the authoritative source of information on deep drawing, apparently.

For reference, here is an example of what deep drawn parts could look like:

Yeah, basically anything, and nothing that you instantly recognize as “hey, I use that.” But deep drawn parts are an incredibly common manufacturing process and most people come into contact with deep drawn parts many times every single day — they’re that common. For example:

• The little metal crimp that holds an eraser onto a pencil is a deep drawn part
• The metal ends of garden hoses are deep drawn parts
• There are dozens of deep drawn parts in every car — automotive stamping is a huge thing (see this image of all the automotive stampings)
• Light sockets are often made from deep drawing
• Locks on doors are almost always made with deep drawn parts — at least in the US. Apparently in Europe they make door locks differently in a way that doesn’t require deep drawn parts. Not really sure what that is.
• Automotive aside, almost every kind of vehicle or motor makes use of deep drawn stamped parts at some point, from lawn mowers to hummers to weed wackers.

The downside to deep drawing is that it’s really only cost effective in huge numbers, truly mass production. If you want 20,000 metal parts, then deep drawing is probably not going to be your answer — the setup costs of the deep drawn presses are expensive and you need really, really big numbers before the parts start getting cheap. Typically deep drawing works for, say, runs of 500,000 or more.

Yikes!

Working again with industrial clients that do strangely obscure things that, after they explain them, are actually incredibly common industrial processes. In this case it’s custom forgings, which is actually the process of forging metal into various parts, only custom parts, as opposed to production-line style parts.

I’m particularly interested in discussions of custom forgings because it related vaguely to some of my ideas for NaNoWriMo. If I do end up doing national novel writing month I’ll probably want to write a steampunk type novel, and among the requirements there is coming up with some neat original ideas on how the steampunk technology works.

Custom Forgings as Power Generation

One of my thoughts came directly from working with a forging manufacturer. The client was talking about how custom forgings include forged crankshafts, and he mentioned that these custom forged crankshafts can be literally hundreds of feet long — specifically the shafts used to power submarines.

So I had this idea for power generation in a steampunk world, where the houses in a city actually have running power. But since there is no electricity (some steampunk has rudimentary electricity, mine would not) the power is supplied via massive custom forged crankshafts. There would be huge “power stations” around the city, and this steam-power would turn the crankshafts. The crankshafts would be hundreds of feet long and run underneath the city streets.

Thus if you went into the basement of any house in a good district, you’d have a special power room that this custom forging went through. The engineers could tap into that constantly rotating shaft to create sub-shafts running into the house that could power clockwork clocks, fans, elevators. Of course if too many people pull too much power from the shaft, disaster could ensue.

I like the idea and I’m happy that working with obscure stuff like custom forgings has lead to neat potential book ideas.