No Sign. No Walk-Ins. Inside a Tennessee Hydraulic Machine Shop | NewSource Shop Tour

本站添加: 2026-05-08

[00:00:00]The first thing that comes to my [music] mind is he picked probably the worst time to start a business the last 20 years.

[00:00:05]>> You wouldn't know this place [music] is here really. You don't have any signage 2 miles off any major road. That's 22 inches in diameter. It'll get chucked up on the outside [music] of the jaws.

[00:00:14]That's a big part for a 12-in chuck lathe, but You make it work. Did your dad buy this new? Yeah, he did. Wow.

[00:00:20]This [music] is a '52 Willys M38 military Jeep. They're a lot of fun.

[00:00:24]Kind of like a [music] big kids go-kart.

[00:00:27]>> How many ducks do you have laying around?

[00:00:29]Hopefully zero right now.

[00:00:31]>> Good answer.

[00:00:34]>> [music] [music] >> Hello everyone and welcome to another Practical Machinist shop tour. My name is Patrick and today I'm bringing you to New Source Machining Services here in Niota, Tennessee.

[00:00:48]Uh I'm joined by Brock Newman. Pat. Good to meet you.

[00:00:51]>> Yep.

[00:00:52]Your dad started this business back in 2008. Yeah, he decided he was going to start this around '07, '08 whenever he kind of uh caught wind that the shop that he was working at at the time was going to go out of business at least in the Athens location. Um he worked at that plant for about 30 years, maybe a little more doing Mhm. hydraulic cylinder part manufacturing, machine work, worked in maintenance, kind of did that whole deal and whenever they decided they were going to close that location down, he decided said, "Well, you know, I can do this. I'll just start my own business."

[00:01:26]So, that's what he did and we've been here ever since. That's awesome, but the the first thing that comes to my mind is not that he would have known, he picked probably the worst time to start a business in the last 20 years.

[00:01:37]>> Yeah, anybody who decided they were going to go out on their own then was taking a big chance, so. Yeah. But So, your dad started the company back in '08. Um at at what point did you come into it? Cuz you you're 30 or so? I'm 30, yeah.

[00:01:50]>> 30. Yeah, I just turned 30 last week.

[00:01:52]But uh Happy birthday. Yeah, appreciate it. But uh I kind of came into the picture really from the beginning cuz like I said, their house is just down the way here, so I was watching this all kind of take place. Dad decided he was going to get the building built, so when I was a kid, you know, there was an excavator up here and a dozer doing the concrete work and then a guy came and built the building and then machines were showing up on a big truck and we were unloading them inside and doing the wiring and everything. So, I mean, I was up here a lot when I was a kid kind of just playing around and running the manual mill once in a while or, you know, playing running some parts, doing whatever and I really didn't start working here I guess you'd say full-time until about 2016, 2015, but I was up here all time when I was a kid just kind of doing what needed to be done, so.

[00:02:41]Nice.

[00:02:42]So, I mean, you definitely can kind of grew up into the trade. Yeah, for sure.

[00:02:46]I kind of watched it all happen, so kind of decided that's what I wanted to do um after watching my dad make some of this stuff and some of the other things we get into, you know, it kind of contributes to that, so it's it's good to I guess have a business that kind of goes along with some of your hobbies and things like that and maybe help somebody once in a while and help somebody out and make it happen for somebody else.

[00:03:09]The the crazy thing is you would you wouldn't know this place was here really.

[00:03:13]I mean, you you you don't have any signage and you're, you know, 2 miles off any major road. We kind of like it that way. We kind of keeps people from uh walking in, keeping coming in and bringing stuff to us and junk to fix. No yahoos. Yeah, no walk-ins.

[00:03:30]Well, all right. So, like I said, we've been in this location since 2008 and at the beginning of the business, this shop was just a 40 by 60. So, it was this end of the shop >> [snorts] >> past that bay door out there was just a wall.

[00:03:45]And uh this is kind of standard setup for us. That little MB Junior has a fourth axis on it. We used to do a lot of stuff with it, but we haven't really been running it a ton here lately.

[00:03:57]And the old Mori here, we just it's got a 10-in chuck on it, so we use it to run a lot of pistons and some glands, not a lot of real big stuff, mostly in the 4, 5, 6-in range.

[00:04:08]We used to do a lot of 8-in pistons on it for a customer down Alabama, but we haven't been doing them too much here lately, so. This part here is a little 4-in piston for a hydraulic cylinder and it goes in as a piece of raw stock.

[00:04:24]That one's halfway done. And then these right here are the complete part. It just gets turned, bored, gets basic counterbore on the back and have a wire ring groove on it and your seal ring groove.

[00:04:35]So, from that to that. Yep.

[00:04:39]Easy enough, no mill work, no threads, nothing on that, so, you know, that's That basically is what we do most of the time is make pistons and glands for hydraulic cylinders. Uh we make some valve bodies and some rod end type things and stuff like that. We just don't manufacture the tube and we don't manufacture the rod. We we just make components for them that go inside them.

[00:05:02]So, obviously you guys are mainly focused on the hydraulic world cuz obviously that's where your dad >> [snorts] >> came up in. Um So, is there any other kind of work you guys do or are you mainly focused on hydraulic stuff? We mainly do 90% of what we do is hydraulic cylinder components, but we do some flanges and some things like that for another customer here in town that has a fab shop and they build tanks for hydraulics. Uh they build hydraulic tanks for forklifts, what they do. So, uh we make some things for them that are usually a burnout or it'll be just, you know, like a fitting that gets welded on a tank that may be a sending unit for a fuel tank or for a hydraulic tank goes in, something like that. I mean, we do a few things like that, but 90% of what we do is the hydraulic cylinder components. Nice. Well, it's one thing like it as as we walk through here already, I can see, you know, you guys are set up for stuff like that.

[00:05:56]You've got the >> [snorts] >> indicator set up for your grooves, you you know, you kind of got somewhat standardized tooling Yeah. [snorts] for everything because it's all similar, but different. Yes, it's all very similar. A lot of these pistons and glands are all standard size. I mean, the O-ring companies only make certain sizes, so, you know, it'll have a 3-in ID groove and it'll be bored 2 inches and have 4-in OD, something like that, but um it's all really standard stuff and a lot of these parts we do and we'll say like a quantity of 50 to 300 at the most. So, and it's all repeat stuff. I mean, we probably will do an order of these every month. We'll probably do 100 of them a month, something like that.

[00:06:40]So, we got jaws set up for these machines to run all these parts that we do all time and all the tools are always in them and they're all programmed the same as far as, you know, tool one's a rougher, tool [snorts] two's profile tool, tool three big grooving tool, tool four BOE threader on and on and on. Are a lot of the machines do they have similar chucks where you can share jaws between machines? The two Hyundais that we have, they both have 12-in chucks on them, so the jaws that we have for them fit either one and then the SL-25 Mori and SL-30 Haas, they both have 10-in chucks on them, so we can swap the jaws between both of them. So, we usually have programs in both of these two and both the other two to do any part that we need to do on it for either machine. So, if this one's tied up, that one's available, we can run it over there or vice versa.

[00:07:28]Very nice. It took my dad a while to figure out how to get this thing set up cuz it came with a book. You open the book up and it's all in like Japanese English or Korean English, so. And uh it's it's really weird. It's hard to understand how to get it [snorts] going, so.

[00:07:45]As far as your programming, is it all done right here? No, my dad kind of does it. He's still the brains of the operation as far as the programming goes. I'm not real real good at it [snorts] and I'm mostly out here working in the shop a lot of time, but he does program it all along hand old school way. I mean, that's just the way he learned to do it, so.

[00:08:03]Cool. Yeah, we'll look at the Hyundai.

[00:08:05]Yeah, we can check out the Hyundai. I don't have it set up on anything right now. In the back, is that a sub spindle or tailstock?

[00:08:12]>> It's a tailstock. First thing I see, these massive ways.

[00:08:17]Yeah. For the tailstock.

[00:08:19]These uh That is something else. These Korean and Japanese imported lathes are they're heavy duty compared to a Haas. I mean, everything on them is more heavy duty. Now, I will say the the chip conveyor in them and the coolant tank situation is not ideal. They they really don't know what they got going on there.

[00:08:38]It's hard to keep these things from A leaking coolant and B piling chips up in the coolant tank. Cuz if you don't have the chips kind of scrape down in the bottom if you're going to run them out, they'll pile over into the coolant tank or you just have to run the conveyor about all day.

[00:08:53]Mhm. But I'm kind of guy that I'll just let the chips pile up to about the bottom of the chuck and then I run them out. That way the coolant doesn't end up in the hopper. Right. What kind of coolant are you using? We're just running a Trim semi-synthetic right now.

[00:09:06]We've we've ran a lot of different coolants. Uh the last one we tried was one from Omada and I liked it pretty well, but it was a petroleum based coolant, so it kind of stayed oily a lot and, you know, these things they they puke [snorts] some way oil in there every now and then and especially these older ones, they they leak way oil and hydraulic oil in them relatively often, but and uh like I said, this machine we used to run an 8 and 1/2-in gland all the time on this thing. I mean, this thing has run thousands of those and it handles those big parts no problem.

[00:09:37]Now, this poor old dinosaur over here.

[00:09:39]Yeah.

[00:09:40]Man, I was running this thing when I was a kid. I remember coming [snorts] up here when I was 12, 13 years old running this old gal, but this has been one of the most reliable ones of these older Moris that we've had. I mean, it it comes on every time >> [snorts] >> and it just goes.

[00:09:55]We've had to change the springs in the the spindle a couple time that pull the draw bar up.

[00:10:01]And it leaks some hydraulic oil out, so you have to pull the head down every now and then and top it off and start again, but I don't know.

[00:10:09]It's a good machine. That's to be expected on something this, you know, this old. It's It's going to have its issues, but really the fact that something this electronically complicated from 40 years ago still runs Yeah.

[00:10:22]And that one's got a fourth axis on it.

[00:10:24]We used to use it to do a lot of fourth axis work, smaller parts, you know, so I mean, but it works great and that's the fourth axis is really quiet and it operates perfect. Very cool, man.

[00:10:36]I love it.

[00:10:37]Now, auto saw?

[00:10:40]Yeah, the cold and saw we got here is automated. It'll cut up to about an 18-in wide piece of flat stock or round stock. You're limited to around like 12-13 in.

[00:10:52]This machine's cut a lot of 8-in duct or wide half-in duct or 9-in duct or round stock that we used to use for these glands and pistons we make a lot but um it's got I think it's got 16-in stroke on the the back vise, so you know, you can set it up to pull up an 18-in part and if you wanted to go further than that, it'll make two, three, four strokes, whatever and pull out however long of a piece of material you want and cut it, but super reliable and works great for us.

[00:11:20]It's the heart of the operation. I mean, if you can't cut the material to start making the parts, you can't do anything.

[00:11:25]So It really is where everything starts.

[00:11:27]Yeah.

[00:11:29]>> [music] >> We'll make our way over here.

[00:11:34]Like I said, we got a little Haas SL 30 here and we got a Haas VF 3. We do kind of a little bit of everything with this machine versus the SL 25 down there. It has the same size chuck on it, but we use this one around a few smaller pistons and some smaller glands that we do, but if we have any kind of part off parts or something that's like a tube, we'll use that or use this for that cuz we've got a stop that goes in it and we can run a bar all the way back through it really easy. Pull the plug out of the chuck. We've got a little part off part set up on it right now. That's just a piece of 1-in round stock that gets faced off, drilled, and tapped 3/8 16 and we part it off and set it in there and take the drill with the countersink on it, deburr the end, it's good to go. These are just a little weld on fixture that get attached to a tank to bolt something else to it, so we do those relatively often and 100, you know, 200 [snorts] quantity, something like that.

[00:12:29]But we use this lathe a lot for the little part off stuff and just for doing some OD threading and doing smaller glands and pistons, things like that.

[00:12:38]And then like I said, the VF 3 Haas, this machine for majority of its life here had four vices on it and that was what we'd use it to do was mainly second ops on some parts.

[00:12:54]Then once the old MB 45 over there started causing some issues with the fourth axis on it, we decided to just go ahead and upgrade to the new Haas [snorts] one that we got and we threw it on this thing and it It works good. It works great. For some of the stuff we do, you got to kind of baby this thing a little bit. It can't take a as heavy of a cut as that, but it's a lot easier to get set up, get going, and having the full cabinet on this machine versus that one over there makes way less of a mess. That That thing used to just, you know, sling chips out everywhere and coolant. I didn't have the whole floor soaked all around it, but you got to do what you got to do. You do. You do. I mean, yeah, and really what is that? A bit 2-in spade?

[00:13:35]>> spade bit, yeah.

[00:13:37]So I mean, pushing that in a Haas, a lot of Okay, a lot of people say you can't machine steel in a Haas.

[00:13:47]It's right here. You can. It's just You You might have to, you know, dial things back a little bit, but you absolutely can.

[00:13:54]You got to kind of take it slow with these things, but if you're willing to push them and try, they'll do it. I mean, and then it will make its way down to the the DB 5100 DMG [snorts] to get the third op done on it, which would be this SAE O-ring port and valve cavity done in it with the counterbore. That's where your fitting for your hydraulic line would thread into this and um hydraulic fluid go into that fitting there and come out this hole and that's what extends and retracts the cylinder.

[00:14:24]It also has these fittings here on the sides, but that's part of the second operation. I haven't done a whole lot of hydraulic stuff in my career, so a a big thing that I get into discussions about with people is when you use a a form tool for your hydraulic ports or when you just machine it, drill it, mill it. And from there, what do you guys do? We We do use form tools for some of the fittings that we do. That right there would be a T11, I think, off the top of my head. Can't really remember. We do so many.

[00:14:54]Um but we use a a form drill and a form tool to make that Well, a form reamer, I guess, is what the technical term would be, but the form drill goes in and it kind of steps out. We'll drill it with a spade drill and then take the form drill and step out the the lands in it and then the form reamer comes in and just reams out what's left and makes all the lands really pretty and nice. So when you put your when you put your valve in there, all the O-rings on the valve will seal up against those lands.

[00:15:25]Because I don't really know the technical term for what this style of base would be, but you're going to have a fitting here and a fitting here and here. And see, this one's stamped extend and then this side be your pilot, [snorts] but this base would go on the tube of the cylinder and it will divert the fluid in a way that it can extend and retract the cylinder.

[00:15:47]So you don't have to have multiple fittings on the tube of the cylinder to extend and retract it. This This fitting here would more than likely go up to the other end of the cylinder and feed fluid in to the top of the piston to retract it. With hydraulics, I mean, the little bit that I have dabbled with it, there's kind of there's a lot of like trade standards and stuff like that, you know, that but there's a lot of different standards from my understanding, so it's not really all that standard. It kind of depends also on like what level you're operating at. I mean, as far as like a cylinder for a bush hog, that's bottom of the bottom and that's going to be your loosest tolerances and easiest way to make it happen, basically. And then something like this, it's a little more complicated. This might be for like a boom truck or for a bucket truck or something like that. You know, all that stuff has to be a little bit more precise because if somebody's up in a bucket truck, it could kill them if it falls.

[00:16:41]You know, bush hog or something, you can kind of get away with a lot of things.

[00:16:45]Now, that That actually makes a lot of sense, for sure.

[00:16:49]In that sort of spectrum of like low-end, you know, farm implement type work and tractor repair to what's the high end that you guys deal with?

[00:16:58]High end, I guess, kind of be like a cylinder maybe for a crane or for a bucket truck or something like that.

[00:17:04]Um something that's going to be higher value, but as far as the smaller cylinders and stuff, we make some parts for some smaller cylinders and for some ag type stuff, but a lot of that stuff is just coming from China. I mean, you know, that's that's the easiest way for them to get it and cheapest way for them to get it, so And I like the little tool setup cart that you have here with all the uh spade drills and face mills. I So I assume a lot of that stuff you keep set up for different hydraulic fittings and things like that.

[00:17:32]>> of that stuff I do kind of leave set up.

[00:17:35]Those tool holders are just regular CAT 40 tool holders, so I mean, they'll fit in any of these mills in here. Those all have my Haas pull knobs in them right now.

[00:17:43]Um so I just use them in this machine for whatever, but if we're doing like like we were talking there a minute ago, these are my uh cavity drills. This is my cavity drill and reamer that I'm using right now.

[00:17:58]Uh this drill would go in behind the spade drill and kind of step that out and then this reamer would go in and clean that up. It's not for that particular port. Um this would be for a different port that we used to do a lot of, but you can kind of see how that works and what what that would look like on the end.

[00:18:15]Now, this is a high speed steel drill. It is.

[00:18:20]Is this an off-the-shelf item or is this something that you have made?

[00:18:23]There's a company that we just kind of started doing some work with far as ordering some tooling from them and compared to what I used to use, those work a lot better.

[00:18:32]>> [snorts] >> I don't know if I have one laying around. See, this is what I was using before I upgraded to something like that.

[00:18:38]>> Okay. So also still high speed steel drill pretty much, but those are junk compared to this. This works way better.

[00:18:48]Yeah, I can tell just based on how the geometry of everything, that's got a more of a helix. You can feed that a lot faster, a lot harder and run it at a higher RPM and it won't gall. It evacuates chips a lot better and this reamer right here works 10 times better than what we used to use, too.

[00:19:03]I think I got the reamer here, too.

[00:19:05]Yeah, see, there's a CT 10.

[00:19:07]>> Okay. I've used a tool a lot like that.

[00:19:10]I was going to say >> Carbide, you know, tipped, I guess you'd say, or carbide coated reamer deal.

[00:19:16]Which these work, they're just outdated. They're junk.

[00:19:21]That That's been one of the few times I've done hydraulic stuff, I used one of those. And even in aluminum, I had a hard time with it wanting to get chips out of the hole and stuff like that.

[00:19:31]>> Yeah, well, like these smaller ones, um we used to use a Dex port form tool all the time for these, but Dex port went out of business, so we started using Allied, which we've used both over the years, but I've got some little Allied form tools for these for number six, number four, number eight that are inserted, so So, change the inserts out of them, and they're ready to roll.

[00:19:53]And they have a drill point on them, too, but some of these, depending on the the tolerances for the thread depth and the hole depth, you can't use the drill point on it. So, we have a few that we've cut the drill point off of just to where we can go in with a spade drill or twist drill and drill the hole, then tap it, and then well, do the form and then tap it, but um just some small tricks like that kind of get away with it.

[00:20:16]Very nice. They're kind of made to use with the drill point though where you can just drill the hole and do the form all in one, but if tolerances won't allow for it, you got to do something else. This Hyundai L300 is pretty much the same as the one down there. This is just like I said, this is the longer bed version. Um still has 12-in chuck on it. Still got the same old tool presetter and everything. Control panel pretty much same.

[00:20:38]We used to use this one quite a bit with steady rest in it and with tailstock in it to do some some copper parts for a company in Sweetwater that got drilled all the way through. You might know a little bit about them, but um haven't done that in a long time. So, the steady rest hasn't been in the lathe quite a few years, but we do have one big burnout part [snorts] that we do for one of our local customers that's 22 in diameter.

[00:21:02]So, it'll get chucked up on the outside of the jaws, and we [snorts] come in and face it off and put a groove in it for O-ring, and then it'll go over to the mill and get a big bolt pattern put in it. Think it's like 30 holes.

[00:21:14]Something like that. So, it's a big cleanout for a tank that gets welded on.

[00:21:17]So, it's big enough for a man to go in it.

[00:21:20]Pretty much.

[00:21:22]Okay. We That's a big part for a 12-in chuck lathe. Yeah. But you make it work.

[00:21:27]Yeah. Right.

[00:21:28]And one thing I like is you got this jib crane set up here, too. Yeah, we we put the jib cranes in quite a long time ago because like I said, when we were using the MV 45 over there for fourth axis work, some of those bigger flanges and things we were milling, they'd have to go over to the Haas also to get a bolt pattern drilled in them or or you know, some other feature done on them on the face.

[00:21:51]So, we would use the jib crane to go between those two machines keeping from having to carry the part and set it down in there and it it also makes it a lot easier for me if I need to take the vices out of that Haas and put the tailstock in or if you need to take the vices out of the MV 45 and put a tailstock or the fourth axis back in it, you're not fighting it with the forklift or just grunt manhandling it, you know.

[00:22:13]Um but we we've used the one with the lathe here quite a bit for some other stuff we used to do. So, um it was nothing to have 60-70 lb part, you know, just a slug to stick in there. So, had to have the crane.

[00:22:27]Yeah, I mean, you you can fight with it, you know, but one wrong move or one, you know, tap wrong tap of the of the pedal and that thing's going to end up on your foot.

[00:22:38]Yeah, or you drop the part down in the machine, you know, when it totals one of the ways or bends up the chip conveyor or whatever, you know, it ends up costing you more than it's worth to put the jib crane up.

[00:22:48]Yep, absolutely.

[00:22:50]It's forward thinking. And we're not trying to hurt anybody's back. I've got a pretty bad back anyway, so >> [laughter] >> anything I can do to help Yep. It's good. Absolutely, man. That I mean, that that's mentality a lot of people can learn from, honestly, is what can I do to make my quality of life or my guys' quality of life better.

[00:23:09]Anything that'll help any of us is great for me. I mean, it it if it's something we can do, it's worth the money, I feel like.

[00:23:18]It's good attitude.

[00:23:19]>> [music] [music] >> I see a manual lathe over here, too.

[00:23:28]Yeah, we got a old Takisawa.

[00:23:31]I think that's a 20-in 21-in swing manual lathe.

[00:23:36]We don't use it a ton.

[00:23:38]Just kind of use it if we need to fix something or if we've got a piece of stock that we need to turn down to put in one of the fittings or something or something like that. Sometimes, like I said a minute minute ago, got a sharp manual mill. Um Dad bought that several years ago. Just have it as a second manual mill machine. He kind of wanted a uh a new one. He hadn't ever had a nice one. So, he wanted a new one, and uh we were using it to kind of do some stuff as far as like drilling bolt patterns, and we've got a indexing head for it and some stuff like that.

[00:24:07]So, went ahead and got one of those and put it down here on this end of the shop. So, if we needed to use it to do a secondary op or something, we're not going between both ends of the shop. I think every machine shop really needs a Bridgeport.

[00:24:20]Oh, everybody's got to have a manual mill. I I don't see how anybody who's a machinist could get by without one. I'd have one in my garage if I had a way to power it, for sure.

[00:24:29]And then like I said, we got the old DMG uh DB5100 here. This This machine's always had four vices on it. We've never had a fourth axis or fifth axis or anything for it. We just used it for straight-up mill work. I mean, secondary ops and whatever else we need to do with it.

[00:24:49]Drilling bolt patterns, things like that. It's kind of finicky to set up cuz it don't have a probe or anything in it.

[00:24:54]We just have to kind of set it up with a edge finder, top deal.

[00:24:57]But uh it's kind of hard to set it up really cuz you can't really run the spindle or anything with the door open on this without defeating the interlocks on it and all that. So, we've got a little um edge finder that you can use without turning. [snorts] It It just kind of beeps when you bump it up next something.

[00:25:16]Uh we've used this a lot to drill a lot of those valve cavities and do valve blocks and things like that on.

[00:25:22]So, that was [snorts] kind of what this machine was bought for.

[00:25:25]And we used to do I'm not going to say a lot of stainless, but we used to do quite a few stainless valve blocks for a company. And this is what we did it on.

[00:25:38]Um did your dad buy this new? Yeah, he did. Wow. Yeah, he did buy this one brand new. I mean, there's not many DMG Moris in East Tennessee. So, Yeah, I mean, you don't really hear about them a whole lot. These parts here, this is just a I guess you'd say like a port or a feeder for a hydraulic cylinder.

[00:25:55]And we do this op on it on the lathe over there. So, it just gets faced off faced drilled bored. Nothing crazy. And then they go in here, get a mill flat done on them. And these just are going to get a fitting welded into them, nothing threaded in. So, it just needs to be drilled with a 3/4 3/4 drill, and then we go in and drill that out with just a spade drill.

[00:26:19]And then they'll go over to the MV Junior after that cuz they get a radius milled on the bottom of them to where they can sit on top of the tube of the cylinder and get welded on.

[00:26:27]So, get deburred here, and then we'll move down here, and we've got this machine set up kind of to do mainly radius is all we do with this machine anymore. We don't really use it to do anything else. Um we've got two curbs in there.

[00:26:45]Wow.

[00:26:46]>> curb turned sideways in it, and uh got some stops going on there and got set up. We used a boring head come in and >> [snorts] >> cut the radius on some stuff. Okay, so you basically just cope it to where it would go on your Yeah, it'll sit down on the tube, and then [snorts] uh they kind of just put it over the hole and weld it on.

[00:27:06]Wow.

[00:27:08]Nothing fancy, nothing complicated.

[00:27:09]Basically a CNC Bridgeport at this point.

[00:27:12]>> [laughter] >> It's I mean, it's it's simple, but it works.

[00:27:16]Yeah, I mean, you could always go in with a end mill, you know, and mill that or use like a shell mill or something to make that radius on there, but we do so many different radii on some of these parts that boring head just works good cuz we can make it any size you want. Right. Right.

[00:27:31]How do you go about setting that? Do you have any kind of trick to it or There's really no trick to it. I mean, it's just like if you're going to use it to bore a hole, you just put the part in there and >> [snorts] >> calculate out how far you need to stick the boring bar out to make a a diameter, and then when you go in, it makes the radius you want.

[00:27:48]And then I guess we can head down here to my my baby, I guess. This was, you know, I put a lot of hours in on this thing.

[00:27:57]Um running the fourth axis on it. Only had it on it. I've just got one vice on it right now.

[00:28:02]But this is essentially just a big kids' drill press at this point for us. This is kind of what we use it for is just for drilling holes and you know, if we needed to make a 2-in hole or something like that.

[00:28:13]That's all we use it for. I had a I had it set up for a really large flange.

[00:28:18]You saw it on Instagram the other day probably those that I was working on.

[00:28:21]And uh just using a uh inch and a 16th >> [snorts] >> spade bit to drill a hole in that one section, and it doesn't have enough travel to capture that capture that second hole in it. So, I was pulling them out and using the My Girl to Mhm.

[00:28:36]do the second hole on there, but that second hole is just kind of a locating deal for when the guys go to weld it on to whatever they're welding it on to.

[00:28:44]So, it doesn't have to be super precise. One of the biggest things I noticed, the spindle housing on this thing is huge.

[00:28:52]>> Yeah.

[00:28:52]I mean, it's it's like twice the size of what would be on a Haas or something like that.

[00:28:57]>> [snorts] >> But it's still a 40 taper.

[00:28:59]And we used to run you know, some stuff like this on it all the time. It's just a little burnout um that got some ports put in it for hydraulic fittings, but I mean, that's a 1-in thread, you know, we could drill and tap a 1-in no problem. And it We've used it for some big NPT threads, and it's got a lot of power in low gear.

[00:29:21]>> [music] >> One thing that I've noticed, you know, obviously you guys focus on the hydraulics industry, and that's sort of like a niche bubble within machining in general, and there's a lot of them. So, you know, are there any kind of tips or tricks or advice that you'd give people that maybe want to look at hydraulics work or you might be struggling with it?

[00:29:47]I mean, as far as like tips and tricks goes, I'd say just kind of don't really overthink it. Some of this stuff isn't as critical as [snorts] some of these blueprints make it out to be cuz these engineers just get to where they're putting stuff on these prints that are real tight tolerances and you know, in the hindsight of things, out in the real world when it's going to get a pin drove through or a bushing put in it, >> [snorts] >> it's going to work whether it's 100% perfect or not, but the critical aspects of it definitely take serious, but don't overthink it.

[00:30:14]Just kind of do what you can and if you want to get into just I don't know.

[00:30:21]Make it work.

[00:30:22]Would you say most of the work you do, if it functions right, even if it's not 100% by the print, >> [snorts] >> you're good? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, as far as certain things where like a counterbore on the back of a piston where the nut on the rod is going to go in there, it could be way under, way over, as long as it fits, it's going to work. But, >> [snorts] >> we always definitely make everything exactly to the print when we need to, but >> [snorts] >> functionality-wise, some things on just depends on I mean, that helps because you can look at a print for a manifold or you know, whatever it might be and just get overwhelmed. Don't get intimidated, basically, is you know, it it if you think you can do it, go for it, try. And then, as far as your your shop, I know you you know, your dad and your mom both are a little bit more involved at the kind of the head of things, the office part and all that, but it from your perspective, what is kind of the workflow as far as your paperwork and you know, the process basically from quote to part? I mean, obviously, you know, our customers, we do a lot of work with customers we already have on hand. We don't really do a lot of stuff for new customers. Not right now, anyway. We will if somebody needs something, but it's just you get a quote, quote the material, quote them back, they accept the quote, order the material, it comes in, we saw it, write the program, put it in the machine, Okay. get it going, and then whenever [snorts] it's done, box it up, put it on a pallet, call the truck, ship it off. Okay. It's not anything real complicated. It's just kind of a standard process. It's just like ordering from Amazon. Right.

[00:31:51]So, it's simple. You guys keep it simple. You don't you don't bother with any RP software or anything like that.

[00:31:57]No, it's all just kind of Yeah. You know, manual, I guess you'd say. Not necessarily manual, but it's all simple stuff. Right. I've found a lot of people overcomplicate things and this kind of ties in nicely with your hydraulics advice. Like you can overcomplicate your shop process if you get too deep into spreadsheets and ERPs and you know, quoting fancy quoting softwares and all that kind of stuff.

[00:32:21]Um does your dad, when he quotes work, is it basically just material, I'm going to have roughly this much time in it times rate? Yeah, pretty much.

[00:32:30]It's kind of just based off of what the material's going to cost us, the amount of time it's going to take us to do it and you know.

[00:32:36]And your customer base, I you know, your dad obviously worked in the hydraulics industry before he started this.

[00:32:43]Most of his customers, you know, did they come from his background or Some of them did kind of branch from people he'd dealt with in the past.

[00:32:51]Yeah, it was just kind of some contacts he had here and there and then some of them, no, not necessarily, just stuff we found to do, I guess.

[00:33:03]>> [music] >> This is a '52 Willys M38 military Jeep, Korean War era military Jeep that we picked up from a guy down in Alabama that he'd restored some stuff and we just bought a few of them from him and been trying to get them going again to where we can drive them around and enjoy them. We take them up to Windrock and go riding and take them out in the mountains and few things like that. And I just kind of like working on them and cutting them up and turning them into stuff that they're not supposed to be.

[00:33:36]Uh is it is this one working right now?

[00:33:39]I mean, obviously you got the Yeah, it it runs and drives. It's just we've got the brakes apart on this one right now, doing a little bit of work on getting it to stop better and fuel tank needed to be redone on it, so we're putting a or redoing the fuel tank and get some rust out of there and stuff. It's very interesting. They're neat. They're a lot of fun. Kind of like a big kids go-kart.

[00:33:59]Right. Right. Um Kill you in a heartbeat if you ain't careful.

[00:34:04]I'm sure yeah, they're not up to you know, 2026 safety standards by now.

[00:34:09]Does it even have seatbelts? This one don't.

[00:34:12]I mean, you got to think it doesn't have any kind of rollover protection. If it rolls over, you don't want to be in it.

[00:34:17]You'd be better off getting thrown out of it. Yeah, that's a good point.

[00:34:21]Oh man, we've come a long way in 70 years. Plus, if you you run into something head-on, you just take the steering wheel right to the chest, so I mean, that's that's a little tough, but Why don't we head outside and check out the ones you have out front, too? Let's do it. This one's also '51, '52, but it's just been restored. That one in there is an older restoration. This one's was done several years ago, but uh this Jeep's all been completely gone through. I mean, the engine's been rebuilt, transmission, transfer case, front rear end have all been redone. It This one's not a really, really perfect example. You can see some of the aspects of the tub are kind of you know, full of Bondo and had some crappy welding done on them, but as far as a good running and driving Jeep, this thing is just it's awesome. I mean, you get in you hit the key, it fires up, goes down the road, no problem. It looks like a lot of fun. Is it road legal? Oh, yeah. Yeah, she's street legal, ready to go. We drive it down every now and then.

[00:35:18]Max speed 35 miles an hour?

[00:35:20]It'll go more than that. Yeah, but that's that's kind of like the army's standard deal with them. They'd put in there, you know, for all the guys that were driving these things, kind of uh speed limits in whatever gears and everything.

[00:35:35]You can see right there, I think on this tag it says See, like in high range, high gear, 60 miles an hour max speed, then intermediate gear, low gear.

[00:35:46]Uh it's just kind of kind of wild, but we enjoy these things. They're a lot of fun just to display with and ride around in and Um now, do you got a Cherokee here, right? Oh, yeah. I got the old XJ Cherokee. That We've had that thing for a long time. That's kind of my primary four-wheeling rig. Okay. Ish. We we take it riding, too. That that thing's it's had a hard life.

[00:36:14]>> [laughter] >> Had a hard life. Since we've had it, anyway. Yeah. It was completely stock whenever we got it. My dad and mom bought that thing when I was in like fifth grade.

[00:36:23]And me and dad built it up a little bit and redid some stuff in the axles and lifted it, obviously, and did all that, but it's been all over the Southeast to go riding. I mean, we go down to South Pittsburg, go up to Oliver Springs.

[00:36:37]This one's a civilian Jeep, actually.

[00:36:39]It's a CJ-2A is what it would technically be. And it's not in really good shape. You can see the floor is a little ventilated in this one. You can kind of see what's going on underneath there, but this one actually runs and drives really good. It's one of the best running ones we got, even though the body is just terrible on it.

[00:36:58]But, um it's a lot of fun. This This one you can kind of go just if you slam it into a rock or a tree or something, you're not going to hurt it.

[00:37:08]That's true. That's kind of what I like.

[00:37:09]I kind of like to take these things out and really see what they can actually do. Right. Uh not just drive them on the road, so You know, some guys are into motorcycles or trucks or whatever, you guys are into Jeeps.

[00:37:21]I mean, the only reason I get to build some of this kind of stuff is cuz we do have all this equipment on hand, you know? I mean, a lot of guys can't knock something out like this in their garage if they don't have anything to drill a hole or mill a slot or cut a block down or whatever, you know? If you got the equipment to do it, it makes it a lot easier to get it done. Absolutely.

[00:37:42]You can kind of tie your hobby and do into your career. Oh, yeah. There's definitely means to do that. For sure.

[00:37:47]There's a lot of things on these old Jeeps and any of these newer ones, too, that you could remanufacture, reproduce in a better way, really, with a better piece of material than what they came with.

[00:37:58]They're cool. There's a there's definitely a market for that kind of stuff if you want to do it.

[00:38:03]So, you know, before we wrap up, Brock, um you know, it seems like this Tennessee area is kind of in a bit of a drought of machine work. You [music] know, you you guys are a little slow.

[00:38:15]Uh where I I you know, where I work is slow. There's a lot of just kind of a downturn going on right now. But, what do you guys see for the future of of your business? As far as future goes, kind of just kind of try to stick to what we're doing right now as far as stay in the hydraulics and keep going with that, but maybe get into a little bit of custom work here and there and maybe kind of develop certain things to you know, maybe put up on the internet and do a little bit of product deal with the Jeeps and maybe with some motorcycle type stuff. That's kind of what I'd like to do is get into doing custom stuff-ish, not necessarily all the time, but maybe do a little bit of production stuff for that kind of industry, but for right now, hydraulics is what's paying the bills, so that's what we're going to keep doing. That's great, man. So, I mean, clearly, I think you guys have a good future here.

[00:39:08]Great shop.

[00:39:10]And I had a great time. I appreciate you coming by. It was great to meet you and enjoyed showing you around.

[00:39:15]There you have it, folks. That's another Practical Machinists Shop Tour. If you enjoyed, make sure you give us a like [music] and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, and thanks for watching.

[00:39:25]>> [laughter]