The Impractical Machinists

When an end mill starts misbehaving, the cutter usually gets blamed first. But Scott Walrath says the real problem may be the toolholder, the runout, or the way the whole setup is working together. In this episode...

Planning to attend IMTS? This year, IMTS is celebrating manufacturing with a 6-week giveaway . Through August 14 , they're releasing a new limited-edition hat patch every week. The first 100 people to register for IMTS...

Brad Jacob from Maple Lane Machine and Tool joins Patrick and Cameron as guest host for this episode. They catch up on what has changed at Brad’s shop, how the VF-2 is working out, and why he has been considering a...

Every machine shop runs into the same challenges sooner or later. Cash flow gets tight, tooling costs keep climbing, and deciding when to invest in new equipment is never easy. In this episode of the Impractical...

Taylor Jenkins didn't start out wanting to be a machinist. He wanted to fly planes. Then COVID hit, his plans changed, and he ended up in a composites program working with carbon fiber instead, chasing the same hands-on...

Ron Gobbels, CEO of Kam Wire EDM Technologies located in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, joins the guys for a conversation that covers a lot more than just wire EDM. From growing up in the trade under an old school German...

Eddie Riddell runs Steele Co Engineering out of Perth, Australia — one of the most isolated cities on the planet, about 12 hours from the nearest place. He started with a fabrication business, got it up to four...

What's actually killing machinists faster — big corporate shop rules or the chaos of running your own place? This week Pat jumps in as guest host and we go deep on all of it. Lead time strategy that keeps customers off...

Owning a machine shop sounds great… until you’re chasing work, quoting jobs at midnight, dealing with problem customers, and trying to stay profitable while keeping the lights on. Recorded live as a panel session during...

Pat, Cameron, and Brad catch up on what’s been going on in their shops—from current projects and production challenges to the reality of keeping work on track. They also dive into a listener question about when to go...

The guys kick things off talking about the realities of repair and walk-in work, then get into quoting strategy — specifically what to do when a customer hands you a massive stack of confusing prints and expects a price...

Hans Keisler from Motor Control Technology joins the podcast to talk about his path through the machining trade — from working at Lockheed to building his own aerospace-focused machine shop. We get into what it’s really...

If you've spent any time in online machining communities, you know the name. Titan Gilroy has been one of the most talked-about — and most polarizing — figures in online machining for over a decade. Whether you're a fan...

Michael is 20 years old and runs his own machine shop in Idaho. He bought his first CNC at 17 while still in high school, taught himself machining entirely through YouTube, and has never spent a dollar on advertising...

We flip the script on Dylan Jackson — co-owner of Proteum Machining and host of the Within Tolerance podcast — and dig into how he actually got here. Dylan didn’t follow a clean, traditional path. He struggled in...