Within Tolerance

Chris Townsend joins me to talk about Eagle Manufacturing, the student-run business at Brown County High School in Indiana. We get into running a real shop with 70 students working short class-period shifts, using ProShop to keep handoffs on track, and giving kids room to fail safely. Plus, why a flat top grill might be the best culture investment in the program.Check out Eagle Manufacturing's IG @bceaglemfg-----------------------------------------Help support the podcast www.patreon.com/withintolerancepodcast

Episode five of My Tool Library Is Better Than Yours. If your shop runs on a standard tool library, those tools need to always be there. Justin and Zap break down Kanban cards, tool tags, and tool storage. Sometimes the answer is a better system. Sometimes it's just more holders.Check out Justin's IG @justingraylabsCheck out Zap's IG @zap.consulting-----------------------------------------Help support the podcast www.patreon.com/withintolerancepodcast

Everyone's answer for the best part of IMTS 2026 was the same: the people. Zap, Justin, John Grimsmo, Chris Hopkins, Andrew Henry, and James Meyette join me across four days of mini episodes, recorded from the Kennametal, Rego-Fix, Datron, and Matsuura booths, to talk about what caught their eye. We get into less AI hype than expected, metrology finds in the back rows, high-density workholding done the crawl-walk-run way, and the unglamorous side of running automation overnight. We also talk about a very special knife reveal and a packed meetup, with a massive thanks to Kern for hosting!Check out Zap's IG @zap.consultingCheck out Justin's IG @justingraylabsCheck out Andrew's IG @henryholsters

Check out James' IG @cncappsjames

Check out Chris' IG @chopkinsmax

Massive thanks again to @kernprecision for providing a wonderful place again for the meetup and to @datroncnc @matsuurausa @regofix_group and @kennametal for allowing us to record in their booths! -----------------------------------------Help support the podcast www.patreon.com/withintolerancepodcast

Andrew Henry of Henry Holsters is back after nearly five years, and a lot has changed: 11 employees to just over 30, a building addition, a Matsuura MX-420, and a shift from making parts to running the whole stack for other holster brands. We get into hiring his first real programmer and handing over the keys, the dark side of lean and why gratitude has to come with it, bringing on a fractional CFO, and why you should set up a line of credit before you need one. Plus the one-button shipping software they built that pushed 1,100 orders in a single day.Shipster Pro: https://shipsterpro.com

Nicholas Means- "How to Crash an Airplane":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=099cHWSbAL8

Check out Andrew's IG @henryholstersand check out his podcast Lean Built: Manufacturing Freedom

https://open.spotify.com/show/6GjYm11Mo4vwWRzzdY1hQ8?si=b5a70c7bdc474642

-----------------------------------------Help support the podcast at www.patreon.com/withintolerancepodcast

Zap and I go live one more time before IMTS with Patreon members firing off questions. We map out the meetups (Kern on Wednesday the 3rd, plus a rotation of podcast recordings around the show floor) and swap updates: Zap on Kinematic Sauce, CritLink, and nonstop coast-to-coast travel, me on the new auto CMM, the coolant dosing project, and the podcast bot that's now live in the Discord. Plus a Fraisa vs. the world taper battle in 17-4.Check out Zap's IG @zap.consulting-----------------------------------------Help support the podcast www.patreon.com/withintolerancepodcast

Justin and Zap are back for chapter four of My Tool Library Is Better Than Yours: Standard Tools Are the Cheapest Automation You Can Buy. Standardizing saves you a little time every day, but the real money is in killing the expensive outliers that blow up a Saturday night. They get into what "standard" actually means (it's not one holder for everything), why drills and taps are the best place to start, buying a holder or at least a collet with every tool, and keeping a bullpen of ER holders for the one-off cutters. Plus the pull-stud fix Justin talks himself into live on the mic.Justin's IG @justingraylabsZap's IG @zap.consulting-----------------------------------------Help support the podcast at www.patreon.com/withintolerancepodcast

Eddie Riddell of Steele & Co Engineering joins Dylan this week from his one-man job shop in one of the most remote cities in the world. Eddie traces a wild path from a New Zealand apprenticeship to the Australian mines to going out on his own, buying Haas machines sight unseen from across the world and landing on a DN Solutions SMX mill turn. They get into learning G-code out of necessity, why turning tools in Fusion are a nightmare, and the fixtures that have no business working but do. Plus the payment dispute he settled with an angle grinder.Eddie's YouTube for his boat, container house, and other builds: https://www.youtube.com/@eddiereddierEddie's IG @steele_co_engineering-----------------------------------------Help support the podcast www.patreon.com/withintolerancepodcast

A long overdue catch-up with Dylan and Zap. Dylan owns up to overcommitting the shop and relearning that automation doesn't save you from yourself, then runs through tooling, RO water, and a 3D printer that ate itself mid-print. Zap talks Kinematic Sauce, building systems that persist without him, and why being cheap is the fastest way to sink a shop. Plus neat oil, buying machines the right way, and a vice that took a swan dive into the chip bin.Check out Zap's IG @zap.consulting-----------------------------------------Help support the podcast www.patreon.com/withintolerancepodcast

Justin and Zap dig into the idea that a good tool library is never finished. They cover treating it as a digital twin of your crib, promoting tools from bench to standard, and when it's fine to let a specialty tool live outside the system entirely. The theme running underneath it all: seek perfection if you want, just don't let it stop you from starting.Check out Zap's IG @zap.consulting-----------------------------------------Help support the podcast www.patreon.com/withintolerancepodcast

Episode two digs into presets to boost throughput in CAM. Justin and Zap break down the golden rule—if you're dialing in feeds and speeds every single program, you need a preset—plus how far the rabbit hole goes with floor finishing, wall finishing, tape-and-glue, and everything in between. Plus why the same carbide in a different holder isn't the same tool at all.Check out Zap's IG @zap.consulting-----------------------------------------Help support the podcast www.patreon.com/withintolerancepodcast