The Maker's Quest

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Machining With Tony Rouleau – EP6

Machining With Tony Rouleau – EP6

In this episode, we are joined by a professional machinist From Hillview Wood & Metal, Tony Rouleau.  Tony designs and manufactures heirloom tools for all types of craftspeople, from woodworkers to other machinists.  His dedication to quality, style, and a high level of functionality in the tools he makes is unmatched.

You can find out more about him and the tools he makes at:

Website: https://www.hillviewtool.com/

Instagram @hillview_tool

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hillviewwm/

 

Watch On YouTube

 

Audio Version

 

Tony’s Work

 

Show Transcription

00:00:00:03 – 00:00:02:20

Brian Benham

You’re listening to the Maker’s Quest podcast. I’m Brian Benham.

 

00:00:03:09 – 00:00:25:13

Greg Porter

And I’m Greg Porter. And today we’re joined by a special guest, Toni Rouleau, who is of Hill View of wood and metal. Almost said it wrong there believe you would in metal. And Toni is a tool maker that has made one heck of a name for himself among the makers in our community. So, Toni, first off, thanks for hopping on the show.

 

00:00:25:14 – 00:00:38:14

Greg Porter

I know you’re busy in the shop making all kinds of cool tools to share with people, and you’ve got a few prototypes going. So it’s always nice when folks like you can take a little time out of their day to share some thoughts with us.

 

00:00:39:11 – 00:00:41:07

Tony Rouleau

It’s good being with you guys. Thanks for having me on.

 

00:00:41:16 – 00:00:55:18

Greg Porter

I was trying to think back to I think we’ve only met one time in person and that was up in New York. Maybe over in was it over in Brooklyn or maybe just east of Brooklyn is that Long Island that gets east of Brooklyn.

 

00:00:56:03 – 00:00:57:04

Tony Rouleau

Flushing Meadows.

 

00:00:57:12 – 00:00:58:11

Greg Porter

That’s where that is.

 

00:00:59:01 – 00:01:01:19

Tony Rouleau

That’s where the. Yeah, I met you and Tom Miller.

 

00:01:02:06 – 00:01:06:14

Greg Porter

Yeah, me and Tom. And it was a oh, shit. What did they call that?

 

00:01:06:23 – 00:01:08:15

Tony Rouleau

The maker faire.

 

00:01:08:23 – 00:01:23:15

Greg Porter

Maker Faire. I was trying to say maker meet up, but Maker Faire is really cool. I think there was a whole bunch of us up there with Jimmy de Rasta, and it seemed like Laura Camp was there and Jocko was there, if I remember, right?

 

00:01:23:16 – 00:01:24:07

Tony Rouleau

Yes. Yep.

 

00:01:24:09 – 00:01:47:16

Greg Porter

And April Wilkerson maybe was there, too. So it was it was a really good group of of well-known makers. And holy cow, I came out of there. So for those of you who don’t know Tony mentioned Tom. Tom is another machinist, and Tom does a ton of work for me. So Tom does all the production work on my guitar.

 

00:01:47:16 – 00:02:09:14

Greg Porter

Tools that I make. So he makes probably about 10,000 parts a year for me. So it’s a lot. And Tom has been a machinist his whole life, so it was really great to kind of put some some good minds together. And I sat on the sidelines as somebody who who is a complete hack, just listening to other people talk but really a cool conversation that week.

 

00:02:09:15 – 00:02:31:09

Greg Porter

Sorry. There was no question there. All right. Anyway. Well, so I think probably to be fair, to to the audience who may not know who you are, they’ve probably seen your tools in a lot of YouTube videos. They show up in a lot of Instagram post. They show up but can you tell us a little bit about the tools you make and how you got started making them?

 

00:02:31:13 – 00:03:01:02

Tony Rouleau

I guess I’m know it’s kind of weird to say I guess I’m known for this small excuse me, it’s an infill walk plan and a these brass and steel double squares that I make. That’s really what my bread and butter is. I’ve done a handful of other tools, but that’s what’s mostly out with ether, as you’ll you’ll see a lot of the squares pop up, you know, on different YouTube videos stuff.

 

00:03:02:02 – 00:03:19:17

Tony Rouleau

It’s kind of surreal still to this day. It was funny. I was looking I was just sorting through drawers today and I had these little stickers made up. And back when I started my company, I put cents towards the theme and I thought that was just corny. And I put it out as a joke and I’m like, Well, that was seven.

 

00:03:19:19 – 00:03:30:09

Tony Rouleau

At some point, that’s going to become something, you know, maybe 20, 25. It’ll be, you know, just something interesting. Well, we’re all thinking about. Yeah.

 

00:03:30:19 – 00:03:37:20

Greg Porter

The first infill plan that I saw from you, I think was for a maker gifting exchange. Is that.

 

00:03:37:20 – 00:04:17:17

Tony Rouleau

Yes. Yeah. Sorry, I got sidetracked. There was one of the first, like, Maker podcasts, you know, there’s wood talk and there was a couple others, but there was one called Maker Cash. Chopper Art hosted it, and he interviewed a bunch of different people and he had approached me like a month or two after I did my it said he was going to do a big giveaway at the end of the summer and he was having guys like Bark Spec, although Jimmy and a bunch of other guys just donating stuff, you know, whether it was T-shirts or 3D printers, it was all kinds of stuff.

 

00:04:17:17 – 00:04:36:00

Tony Rouleau

And I’m like, well, I’m I’m not nobody. I’m like, what am I going to do? So I was like, and at the time I’d been making branding iron. So for in the maker community. So that’s how kind of my name was getting out. But I’d always wanted to make a plane because I’m a machinist for my day job.

 

00:04:36:17 – 00:05:03:24

Tony Rouleau

But at home I was a hobby woodworker, and that’s what I did to, you know, relieve stress, just keep from going, stir crazy. So I’d always wanted to make a plane. So the first couple months of summer, I just sat just I’m not a I rarely draw things out of paper. I it it festers in my head and I’ll just constantly pick away at it, go, I want to change this.

 

00:05:03:24 – 00:05:30:11

Tony Rouleau

I want to change that. And usually like when I make a tool, the first one, the prototype will be like 95% of what the production is I will change a few things to make it a little easier to manufacture. Or somebody else say, Hey, what if you did this? You know, I always accept constructive criticism. And a lot of times, you know, I’ll just tweak things.

 

00:05:31:03 – 00:05:43:08

Tony Rouleau

So I made this plane and it just kinda took off from there. And I believe you were in the first batch. I think you were one of the first. You’re number seven, right? If I still.

 

00:05:43:08 – 00:06:00:19

Greg Porter

Remember, you got a great memory, Tony. I guess my side of the story from the customer experience is I can remember following Tony on Instagram, and I don’t think you were even doing some videos on YouTube at the time as well. A little bit, right?

 

00:06:00:24 – 00:06:02:09

Tony Rouleau

Yeah, a little bit more stuff.

 

00:06:02:17 – 00:06:30:03

Greg Porter

But it was like, you know, it was a small community and some really cool folks. And there was a Facebook group that we all kind of chatted in, and I saw the pictures leading up to that very first plane getting made and it just the detail in it and and sort of that the way it was made, I can remember sending you a message something along the lines of Tony, if you ever make another one of these, I want to buy it.

 

00:06:30:15 – 00:06:53:01

Greg Porter

I don’t care what it costs, just tell me. And I want one of those and and it was as a tool user, I’ve got all of my favorites, right? Some of them came handed down. My grandfather was a gunsmith. My uncle was also a gunsmith and a machinist. My wife’s two grandfathers. One of them was a machinist for CWA and another was a sheet metal mechanic.

 

00:06:53:09 – 00:07:15:09

Greg Porter

And I have all their old tools. And so my tools, most of them don’t come from Home Depot or, you know, online or anything like that. They they have a lot of they have something behind them. And and I always feel like the way I’ve always said it is when I used my grandfather’s tools or my wife’s grandfather’s tools, I feel like they’re in the shop with me.

 

00:07:15:17 – 00:07:32:19

Greg Porter

And it’s just this really cool thing. When I saw your tool or saw your plane, it went through my head that this is something I feel like I needed my toolbox because there is going to be somebody somewhere down the line that’s going to get this thing. And it’s going to be like, they’re working with me in the shop and that’s going to be mine.

 

00:07:32:19 – 00:07:50:10

Greg Porter

And they’re going to know it because it’s so much different. And I did. I got number seven. When you said the first batch, Hey, I’m thinking about making these and I can remember at the time money was tight and everything else, and I’m not going to talk about your prices or anything else, but I remember what it cost.

 

00:07:50:10 – 00:08:07:08

Greg Porter

I was like, Man, that’s going to be hard to pay, you know, it’s not that I didn’t have the money. It was an extravagant expense, but it was it’s like, no, no, it is worth every penny because of what it is. And I see people that have your tools. They put them on a shelf and never use them.

 

00:08:07:17 – 00:08:30:09

Greg Porter

And I cry inside a little bit because your plane is my number one plane. When I reach for a block plane, I grab yours. And it is so well tuned. It’s so well put together, it’s so solid, but there’s just enough weight to it that it works well and it’s like you’re missing out. If you’re not using this tool, take it off of yourself and start using it because it’s awesome.

 

00:08:30:09 – 00:08:57:07

Tony Rouleau

Yeah. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of playmakers that it’s like 5050. And I don’t really even consider myself a good plane maker because I always get asked about making smooth airs and stuff like that, and I don’t feel that I have enough knowledge intimately of higher end know working with different frag angles and stuff like that to really tackle.

 

00:08:57:08 – 00:09:21:03

Tony Rouleau

Could I copy like Ali Nielsen and put my own spin on it? Yes, but it just doesn’t it doesn’t interest me. But that block plate bomb, there was a lot of a lot of fussing, you know, one thing I always fretted over was the mouth opening. That’s one of those things that certain plane makers are like, you should be able to slide a piece of paper through and that’s it.

 

00:09:21:15 – 00:09:54:24

Tony Rouleau

And then I got to thinking, I’m like, well, this is a black plane. This is made to put Chamfer on. It supports, you know, one thing. It really is really excels at. And I didn’t discover it until after I made it because it’s really it works really well. On anchoring. I don’t know if it’s the half of it in the weight, but it just slight rendering really nice and even though the mouth so little it I basically just went through like three or four block plates kind of took an average and tighten it up just a little bit over the years.

 

00:09:54:24 – 00:10:15:07

Tony Rouleau

I brought it in just a little bit, but I just always focused on it’s a general purpose plane. But you talk about people not using it. One of my favorite pictures is, is J. Bates was one of the first guys in the batch and he was one of the guys said, I always say that kind of help push my name out there.

 

00:10:15:14 – 00:10:40:23

Tony Rouleau

He did like an unboxing video and it’s like it just it kind of vaulted me into, you know, where I, you know, basically planes are sold out every year. I don’t there’s I used to try to keep a waiting list, but it’s just so long that I, I ended up going to a lottery system. So she was out in Oklahoma.

 

00:10:41:05 – 00:11:05:11

Tony Rouleau

There was a woodworking event out there. It was a real homegirl thing. But I remember seeing it. I saw my point. The plane that I made hip sitting on a workbench, and the plane is like almost green with tarnish, except for these two spots where your hand goes and they’re just here. And to me, that was one of them that showed me that that plane got used that used all weekend.

 

00:11:05:19 – 00:11:10:24

Tony Rouleau

And it was just and it still looked good, but it was just it was being used, you know?

 

00:11:11:09 – 00:11:12:03

Greg Porter

Yeah. Because you got.

 

00:11:12:12 – 00:11:24:18

Tony Rouleau

Like like is he will use his what is he had his great by chef power. He does amazing engraving but that things kind of turned into more of an art piece but he will use it he will break it out.

 

00:11:25:02 – 00:11:30:11

Greg Porter

Go ahead, Brian. I was just going to put this up here for people who don’t know what we’re talking about.

 

00:11:31:19 – 00:11:44:04

Brian Benham

Yeah. So that’s a beautiful plate. So you talked a little bit about developing the frog mouth, but how did you develop the the shape of the general shape? How did you decide the style of it?

 

00:11:44:23 – 00:12:09:07

Tony Rouleau

It just kind of I don’t I don’t really have a certain style. There probably is probably subconsciously there’s a style, but it’s more it’s just organically it’s more organic to me. I just kind of played around with it. I knew I wanted it into on the front. And I just I think I had to that one actually. I contradicting myself.

 

00:12:09:07 – 00:12:34:13

Tony Rouleau

But that one, I actually had the cat draw a little bit to get the curves and everything and people to encourage you. I don’t know if you guys know him. He’s a wonderful pet maker. Yeah. He says it has a it has a very feminine curves to it, just to put it kind of nonchalantly. But and it does it has that vibe to it.

 

00:12:34:13 – 00:12:55:24

Tony Rouleau

And that I think that’s what like a lot of my other tools, I tend to I’m not a I’m not a huge gun person, but I really I grew up around you know, I’m in upstate New York, which might as well be Tennessee or Georgia. It’s just very country vibe here. I my house is built on a cow field.

 

00:12:56:00 – 00:13:25:05

Tony Rouleau

So guns were always around me, but they were you know, they were throwing out more of the guns that are now the static stocks and everything. They were the blood metal. They were beautiful brass star or walnut stocks. Sometimes they had gold brass inlays. They were just they were works of art. They were functioning art. And that’s really what you see it a lot more in my squares and my bubbles that that’s the type that I, I tend to go towards.

 

00:13:25:18 – 00:13:29:22

Greg Porter

The gnarled knobs. I think I think they’re second to none. Tony.

 

00:13:30:13 – 00:13:31:02

Tony Rouleau

Thank you.

 

00:13:31:14 – 00:13:39:24

Brian Benham

It’s a beautiful inlay, too. I’m curious how you machine that and made the wood fit what your process was.

 

00:13:40:00 – 00:14:03:14

Tony Rouleau

Well, what it it’s it’s it’s cheating. It’s fancy hey, could I do that by hand? Probably. Do you want to pay me to do it by hand or pay me to do that by hand? That’s the thing. But it’s just I’ve, I’ve got over 25 years experience, see it, see machining. So that’s where a lot of my processes really get refined.

 

00:14:03:14 – 00:14:31:08

Tony Rouleau

Out. And with the brass, what I traditionally do is I cut the pocket for the wood and then I have someone choose the wood. I stabilize the wood and the only what I want I can’t stabilize. So there’s two was African Blackwood and Desert Ironwood. They just won’t take the resin, but I’ll cut the inlay piece in the black and then I’ll just saw it on the Bandsaw just rough.

 

00:14:32:00 – 00:14:57:03

Tony Rouleau

So when I glue it in, it sits anywhere from a quarter inch to a 16th proud. And then what I could do is I have, I’ve actually built a dedicated machine now, but I basically put a belt sander on a surface grinder. Just if you’re not familiar with machining, a surface grinder is basically think of a bench grinder that’s sitting above a table that can move left and right.

 

00:14:57:23 – 00:15:25:03

Tony Rouleau

So what I did is I replaced a grinding wheel with a belt sanding belt so now I can hold the white, the square and a vice, and I move the table left and right and bring the belt to it. And I could see in that almost storage flush it’s probably about less than a 64 high. Then what I do is I have a bunch of granite stones that are flat on my workbench that have different grips.

 

00:15:25:13 – 00:15:51:23

Tony Rouleau

And this is where a lot of my time is spent is I can’t see it. Everything can’t fit every say see it. C can only get you so far, you know, it’s the I think that’s where, that’s where I try to I try to shine over some of the other tool makers and even bigger guys is it’s the handwork that’s involved and the care yeah.

 

00:15:51:24 – 00:16:04:02

Brian Benham

So I so just for people that are listening that may not understand stabilization, that’s to prevent it from expanding and contracting a lot. So that way it stays locked into inside the brass piece.

 

00:16:04:02 – 00:16:24:13

Tony Rouleau

Yeah. What it is you put it, I think it was originally designed for like punky woods, like salted maple and it and stuff what you do is you put it in a vacuum chamber and it’s a very, very thin resin that when the vacuum pulls in, it pulls the resonant to the wood and then you take it out and you bake it at a low temperature.

 

00:16:24:18 – 00:16:57:16

Tony Rouleau

I think it’s like 220 degrees or around there, Fahrenheit, you cook it for a couple of hours, basically theoretically it turns it into a block of plastic. So it can’t really move at that. That’s how I can’t, you know, it just I’ve never really had issues with wood movement because it’s such a small piece of wood, but this just really it improves the resiliency of the wood and the fit finishes better because it’s just a better product.

 

00:16:57:17 – 00:17:15:20

Brian Benham

So when you’re when you’re a hand sanding the area, the transition between the wood and the metal, when I’ve ever I’ve done things like that, I have problems with the metal getting into the wood fibers. Is that is that something that resin will help prevent? Or is that.

 

00:17:15:20 – 00:17:38:20

Tony Rouleau

Just the I have to be very careful with maple. If you if I do like a curly maple, you’ll get that. It’ll have that dirty look. A lot of times what I’ll do is I’ll take the square body and I’ll wrap just a little bit of painter’s tape. If you saw when Greg was holding it up where the logo is, that’s where the most brass is.

 

00:17:39:06 – 00:18:13:15

Tony Rouleau

And also, when I do custom engraving on those, I’ll do people’s logos sometimes see engravings, only one or two out deep. So if I get aggressive, I can wipe that or change it. So it’s a it’s not as complicated as it sounds. It’s just developing a feel for it. But what I’ll do is I have to keep that sandpaper very clean and then what I’ll do is every so often I’ll wipe that area down with mineral spirits to keep that grip from moving into the from the brass powder and from moving into the wood.

 

00:18:14:04 – 00:18:26:06

Tony Rouleau

But it is controllable. And I think you’re right. I think the stabilization helps because it doesn’t there’s really no pores anymore because it’s filled with the rest so I mean, obviously, maple is a porous wood, but still they are there.

 

00:18:26:23 – 00:18:30:15

Brian Benham

Would be in a light colored wood. It probably shows up more. Yeah.

 

00:18:30:18 – 00:18:52:03

Greg Porter

So I want to move a little bit away from let’s call it technique and design and talk about your shop a little bit and how that grew over time. And I think I know a little bit of your back story in terms of how you got started making. Let’s just talk about the first batch of block planes that you made did you do that?

 

00:18:52:10 – 00:19:05:19

Greg Porter

Your shop is in your basement, if I remember correctly. Yep. And you’re using some term machines. And then I think you’ve got some older a Bridgeport style mill or do you have. Yeah.

 

00:19:06:20 – 00:19:28:21

Tony Rouleau

Right now I have a two hour max 770 series three C and C Milling Machine. It’s like the middle series of their offering. I just got I was it’s about it’s about a year and a half old. I got the tarmac S.A.C. lathe the slant pro. I bought a jet. I have a jet and email which is just a Bridgeport.

 

00:19:29:01 – 00:20:09:00

Tony Rouleau

I cough and then I have my pride and joy is is a sharp tool relate which is it’s basically a copy of a hardened showroom lathe which they’re just they’re these tiny tanks like the lathe is is only I think it has an eight inch swing and it’s like 19 inches between centers and it weighs more than the bridge for it’s just this instead of having two rails like a traditional lathe broadsword it’s a whole it’s about an eight inch white solid dovetail that’s ground and it’s just it’s overkill for what I do.

 

00:20:09:00 – 00:20:34:21

Tony Rouleau

But they are so smooth and they’re just they’re just precision machines. I was lucky I had the, the place where I worked where I’ll talk about why I started the plant. My supervisor actually saw it at an auction or a machine dealer sell it. And I got it for like these these slaves sell through. I don’t know what they sell for now, but, you know, four years ago they sold for 36 grand now.

 

00:20:34:22 – 00:20:54:12

Tony Rouleau

And it’s just it’s, you know, it’s not a big lay but I got it for a little more than quarter of the price. And it just the problem is, is unless you have a really good reason to use it, what I think was is a shop bought it nobody used it for like just get rid of it. That’s how I inherited it.

 

00:20:55:10 – 00:21:19:07

Tony Rouleau

But when I started with the block planes I had been working for a couple of years where I work now spent over ten years at it’s a small chop shop called Payne and Packard Machinery. We do a lot of paper industry that’s pretty big in this area, a tiny bit of aerospace, a lot of medical and anything that boxed indoor.

 

00:21:19:07 – 00:21:49:19

Tony Rouleau

Well, one of the things that the owner does is he he allows us to do, but a lot of machines call government jobs which are just just after hours work at his at which that’s really rare because the machines that I run in most any machine is run nowadays or anywhere from 50,000 the 500,000 and more you know like the five axis sensing that I run daily that’s like 250 300,000.

 

00:21:50:01 – 00:22:15:21

Tony Rouleau

But he would allow us to use that because his thoughts were the more we use up, the better we’re going to be and that’s really where I, I at, I started doing the majority of the machining was after hours and what that allowed me to do was the first thing I had a small chat drill like the drill mill, which they’re thorough, OK, they’re fine.

 

00:22:15:21 – 00:22:34:17

Tony Rouleau

For what they are, but they’re not a real there. I don’t want to say it’s not a real machine, but it’s not an industrial machine. And then I had a, a chat a 13 by 40 metal which, which is a good lathe, it’s just set this, this one was sexier so I had to go with it.

 

00:22:34:21 – 00:22:35:14

Greg Porter

So yeah.

 

00:22:35:23 – 00:22:58:17

Tony Rouleau

You know, it’s, it’s like having the Corolla or having the Porsche 911, you know, there’s the Corolla. That’s just fine. But so, so what that allowed me to do is I was able to buy the jet bill. I got that and then I went, I went to try to finance the tarmac which that was a whole thing in and out in and of itself.

 

00:22:59:12 – 00:23:23:10

Tony Rouleau

But I got that and then I was, I got the lathe and I, that’s the one thing that this whole tool thing, it’s done. It’s allowed me to, to just, you know, build basically 100% this year will be the first year that all tools that I’ve made will be made here in my shop because there used to be a time where I would I would utilize the machine.

 

00:23:23:10 – 00:23:47:18

Tony Rouleau

Sound like a week at like the the rear pad of the block plane. There’s a lot of different things going on there where I had a program where the five axis would cut the angle, it would drill the hole the back, it would do this, it would do that. And I’m trying to weed myself off because there is hope that someday this is like my I want to be top.

 

00:23:48:16 – 00:24:08:14

Tony Rouleau

Yeah. I just want to do my own thing eventually. So so this year is going to be the year that I, I’m hopefully do 100% in my shop in the basement and it’s a walk out basement. So there was a you hear all these stories about guys cutting holes in their floors to lower bridge parts and all that stuff.

 

00:24:09:00 – 00:24:11:11

Tony Rouleau

Now I have a nice walk. I’ll be smart.

 

00:24:12:16 – 00:24:15:09

Greg Porter

Yeah. Well, I’m sure it’s still a pain in the neck too.

 

00:24:15:22 – 00:24:16:14

Tony Rouleau

Oh yeah.

 

00:24:16:23 – 00:24:19:09

Greg Porter

Well, a 770 around the corner.

 

00:24:20:16 – 00:24:39:06

Tony Rouleau

So the that when we got, when I got the bridge for I was really intelligent and I ordered it at the end of January and it was just, it was for week we get good winters up, up where I am I’m about an hour north of Albany, New York, right on the edge of the Adirondacks. And it’s just cold.

 

00:24:40:01 – 00:25:03:18

Tony Rouleau

It was, the wind was awful and I have a bucket tractor and the bucket tractor theoretically could pick it, but the bucket was up so high that I lost the mechanical advantage of the hydraulics. So just sit there and I’ve got like four guys standing around with their hands in their pockets. And you notice guys are disappearing and they’re all congregated in my shop just trying to stay warm.

 

00:25:03:18 – 00:25:14:22

Tony Rouleau

And we ended it. It ended up, you know, I swallowed my pride, took it apart in pieces, brought it down. But so I vowed every machine after that. It’s only got to be 50 degrees.

 

00:25:15:09 – 00:25:36:12

Greg Porter

Yeah. No, I think it’s super smart and dry, right? Yeah. Keep the tractor moving instead of sliding yeah. Well, I guess my point for asking that question, I think a lot of us go through this as we’re, we’re building something. You know, you start off with these big ideas and you have big dreams about what you want to do.

 

00:25:36:12 – 00:26:01:13

Greg Porter

And sometimes the reality is there’s unless you’re born a millionaire, there’s there’s no way to to get into doing what you want to do other than asking people for favors or finding another way to get it done on somebody else’s with someone else’s resources. That doesn’t mean you have to be a freeloader all the time, but it means that you can’t always expect to.

 

00:26:01:20 – 00:26:22:19

Greg Porter

You know, you see so many comments on people’s YouTube videos. Oh, it’d be great if I had, you know, $400,000 worth of equipment in my basement. It’s like, well, most of us didn’t start out that way, but. Yeah, but we started to build with a small thing, and then we replicated it, replicated it. And then eventually you’re using, like you said, you’re going to build your next batch.

 

00:26:22:19 – 00:26:46:08

Greg Porter

100% there at Casa de Rouleau. And, and I expect that from a from a cash flow perspective, when you’re no longer having to buy 30 and $40,000 machines every year, then it starts to become something that’s sustainable. That you can do and support a family on and do all the things that you need to do to pay the bills.

 

00:26:46:18 – 00:27:21:23

Tony Rouleau

Yeah. And that’s, that’s the thought right now too is, is the majority of my revenue goes back into the business because I do have a full time job. There’s times I get grumpy about that but I’ve stuck to my guns and, and that’s that’s the plan certain machines I don’t know if the longevity will be there, but I think, you know, in the long run if that’s the plan is is to try to at least at least with the manual machines so be my you know, as long as I take care, they’ll be my forever tool.

 

00:27:21:23 – 00:27:40:17

Tony Rouleau

I’ll have those for you know, and because I always tell my wife, McKenzie, like you’re going to have when I’m gone, you’re going have one hell of a garage sale. That’s like I’m leaving. I’m just thinking about all the the pain in the butt just to get this stuff in here. I was like, well, it’s somebody else’s problem, so.

 

00:27:41:04 – 00:27:42:00

Greg Porter

But yeah.

 

00:27:42:21 – 00:28:08:11

Tony Rouleau

But that’s the other thing, too, is there’s equity here. And, you know, that’s that’s another thing, you know, and I have stepchildren. I don’t know if they sometimes they show interest and stuff, but I don’t want to be I tell people I don’t want to be the Little League dad of machining. Like you got to go down and cut an interference fit for a bearing or, you know, scream at the kid while they’re trying to, you know, for a hole or something.

 

00:28:08:19 – 00:28:12:18

Brian Benham

Yeah. My kids only show interest when they need something made for themselves.

 

00:28:13:13 – 00:28:49:09

Tony Rouleau

Well, at least it’s something. And that’s how I mean, I when I did woodworking, I did a lot of like a lot of scroll saw work, but it wasn’t a tool like I need. I was building this house, you know, I need, you know, I need a coffee table. Well, I want to make a coffee table. So I, you know, I, I bought premade legs for clothes, but then the whole rest of it I made, you know, and that, that I think that’s what really fuels people to get into hobbies like that, you know, and, and it’s sometimes necessity is does that.

 

00:28:50:22 – 00:28:56:09

Greg Porter

Well and I’ve seen you so I’m, I’m going to guess that, you know, John Grimm’s Mo.

 

00:28:57:09 – 00:29:03:21

Tony Rouleau

I know we don’t I’ve never spoken to him, but I know that that man has done very well for himself.

 

00:29:04:14 – 00:29:30:05

Greg Porter

Well, and I guess what what I look at in John’s world and I don’t know that I’ve ever idolized anyone for any reason, but but I admire when somebody takes things to the next level and I feel like that’s his entire business is this next level nice? Yeah. And he does it very well. But he he decided and he started off in his garage with a grizzly conversion, if I remember correctly, yeah.

 

00:29:30:09 – 00:29:44:18

Greg Porter

And, you know, made his own C and C machine out of something that was was just a mill and then added a hour mark and then went from tour mark, and now he’s into Kern at $1,000,000. I think he just got his second one in it. You know, I’m like a little schoolgirl look.

 

00:29:44:20 – 00:30:04:06

Tony Rouleau

Oh, sure. Yeah, I know. It’s it’s it’s impressive. But again, I saw an Instagram story, I think it was this morning or whatever it was 1230 at night. And he’s playing with his new camp. It’s measuring machine and it’s like, if you’re going to do that, that’s what you got to do, you know? And he’s.

 

00:30:04:06 – 00:30:18:15

Greg Porter

Yeah, well, and I guess what my point is not to, not to sit and drool about John Grimes most tools, although I do look in and I think, gosh, just for that one person, he probably spent as much on tooling as I did on my house.

 

00:30:18:24 – 00:30:53:19

Tony Rouleau

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s it’s me, all the pallets and everything that that he has for it. And yeah, it’s, it’s a lot. And that’s what a lot of people they get into machining, even just people that buy a little lathe. I’ve had a handful of guys messaged me and that’s the one thing is you guys probably I could tell I like to ramble, but if people open that door and say, oh, they’re all nervous, they want to talk to me about machining you won’t get me to shut up because I like and especially I like helping you people get into the craft.

 

00:30:53:19 – 00:31:29:03

Tony Rouleau

But that’s the first thing is they’re like, I’m going to buy a Boeing share but buy a lathe. And I’m like, Well, you’re going to spend what you spent again, you know, and you even on cheap stuff. It’s just that’s that’s the one thing I always want people is the point of entry in machining. It’s a hit, but if you commit to it, it’s more worthwhile that just going like super cheese, you know, all I have and that’s one thing I’ll tell people I have meals and plants and I have harbor freight tools and they all get used.

 

00:31:29:07 – 00:31:45:09

Tony Rouleau

It’s just, you know, the Lee Nielsen airplane would be used every day in the harbor. Freight gets brought out once every three months, and it serves its purpose. But you have to know where and when to spend money, especially because you’ll get back hard.

 

00:31:45:15 – 00:31:52:11

Brian Benham

Yeah. Prioritize using your your use cases which are going to use the boats and what you need your accuracy at.

 

00:31:52:20 – 00:31:53:13

Tony Rouleau

Exactly.

 

00:31:53:21 – 00:32:17:12

Greg Porter

Well, so and I’ll go back to this again. The reason I brought up John, I find his he he gets to a spot where he might want to make a fastener that does a certain thing or looks a certain way and he doesn’t eat anything you could ever buy off the shelf. And so it’s a matter of, OK, now what machine do I need to buy to make this?

 

00:32:17:12 – 00:32:37:17

Greg Porter

And I can remember when he bought his first Swiss screw machine and I’m going to say his knives probably have half a dozen to a dozen fasteners and they’re all, you know, could could fit ten of them on on the end of your pinky. You know, they’re super small. He bought this enormous machine in the Swiss machine. Yeah.

 

00:32:38:05 – 00:32:49:05

Greg Porter

And and it was it was like, that’s the only machine that will do this. You have to have this. And that’s what makes his knives so good. But your tools very similarly, you make all the.

 

00:32:49:23 – 00:33:17:10

Tony Rouleau

That’s that’s kind of funny is is I had this idea in my head and it required two small fasteners and you start looking and you you in it. It’s it’s way outside of my realm of even thinking about purchasing. But you understand why he did what he did because you either find the screw and the screws $9 screw and you’re like, well, I have ten screws in this one tool.

 

00:33:17:10 – 00:33:36:16

Tony Rouleau

So now that’s, that’s $90 and you’re like, you know, and that just adds to the cost. But I mean, he’s doing it truly for quality and he could really use some exotic materials, but I understand exactly where he went with that because you’re sometimes there’s times where you’re limited by your suppliers.

 

00:33:37:06 – 00:33:38:07

Greg Porter

Yeah. And I see.

 

00:33:38:13 – 00:33:39:12

Tony Rouleau

The eliminates that.

 

00:33:40:00 – 00:33:54:20

Greg Porter

I’ve seen and, and correct me if I’m wrong, I want to say in your bevel your bevel, I wanted to add another word there, but your bevel, did you take a stock screw and modify it for the clamping mechanism in here?

 

00:33:55:04 – 00:34:43:22

Tony Rouleau

Yes. And the reason why is a lot of like the perfect example is the bull on a double square. If if you drop any one of the the brand name double squares just right it’ll snap the bolt because the bolts are cast. Mm. That was one of the things as I thought about just buying the bolts off the shelf from whoever, you know I do a lot of it’s I use p c exclusively now for my blades, but Mark Spagnolia actually reached out because his he had a Lee Bailey which had broken a couple times and they, they were great with the you know, customer service sentiment to screw.

 

00:34:43:22 – 00:35:08:09

Tony Rouleau

But the one thing that I prided myself on is it’s a modified bolt because those bolts are, I want to see a cap. Screw is like a great 12. It’s higher than a great eight. Right. And they’re just it sucks the machine. It’s very hard. I tooling but as far as I know, I’ve made over 600 squares. I’ve never had a guy break a screw.

 

00:35:09:00 – 00:35:30:00

Tony Rouleau

And I know that some of that dropped pretty hard, too. So that’s one of those things. Yeah, I try to use that now. And the other thing too, that limited B is again, it’s one of those things with a manual. Can I do it? Yes. But I don’t want to spend all my time cutting screws on a manual machine.

 

00:35:30:00 – 00:35:51:15

Tony Rouleau

And now that I have the C insulated, I can do that. And it’s all I was talking to my cousin who was also my accountant, small business, you know that and I was saying to her because we were just talking about woes and life and I was like, it’s time. And that’s what it’s, that’s what this whole journey has really taught.

 

00:35:51:24 – 00:36:16:14

Tony Rouleau

There’s only so much time. And that’s what I really have to do is I have to it’s not necessarily cutting corners because I refuse to do that. It’s it’s just realizing what how much I could utilize my time. And the, the CMC lathe is just one of those things. The knobs I used to make the knobs for the squares for a batch of about 75 squares.

 

00:36:16:14 – 00:36:41:14

Tony Rouleau

It’d be two weeks of nights and I would just do this operation and do this operation to a 70 times pop up with the CMC lathe. I can knock out 120 Dobson like a Saturday and they’re, they’re better quality just because they’re so refined. It’s just one of those things. It’s like I know people get cranky about seeing it, sees they have their place you know.

 

00:36:42:08 – 00:37:06:18

Tony Rouleau

Yeah. Yeah. And that that’s, that’s a perfect example of this return on investment that makes me feel good that I spent the money on the lead but it’s just, it’s, it’s the time I’m lose it myself but it’s the time, you know, I just feel that like I tell myself, I need another CFC bill. I don’t have any room to put one, but if I had a second one, I could have a second spindle running.

 

00:37:06:18 – 00:37:28:08

Tony Rouleau

And it’s just because I tried that’s why I did the pro tractors, because I had a ton of time that was going to be dedicated to the surface grinder and the Bridgeport. There’s a lot of things I do on the squares that I it’s a waste of time to do it. So you, like, drill the hole in the square body.

 

00:37:28:11 – 00:37:52:05

Tony Rouleau

It’s quicker for me just to swap about, do the handle, then push the button and wait for it to wrap it down and then pack the whole and up. It’s sold for 4 hours a night. I would just let’s see it see run. And I got three of those little protractor bodies and I’m just going to I’m trying to peck away at them as I go through my backlog.

 

00:37:52:05 – 00:38:01:02

Tony Rouleau

And then eventually I’ll come out and I’ll have, you know, ten finished pro tractors and I’m also refining my process so while I do that.

 

00:38:02:05 – 00:38:34:13

Greg Porter

Well I, I share a similar desire. I’ve got the CMC, Evans CMC router in my shop, I’ve got the Tor mark in my shop and I’ve got a laser cutter and my rule is if I’m doing hand work in the shop, I want one of those robots working the entire time I’m in there. And it’s, it’s an interesting I started doing this when I was out of it, the Autodesk build in space in Boston and essentially they had a work time.

 

00:38:34:13 – 00:38:57:13

Greg Porter

I’m going to say it was from call at 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. That was the only time you could get on their machines and go because you had to be supervised and all this stuff. And they had every machine on demand out there is amazing. And so I got in this routine of every night. I would work all night long putting together the G code and all the programing and everything else, the design side of things.

 

00:38:57:18 – 00:39:17:04

Greg Porter

And then I would get in during the day. And the second they open those doors, I was on the spindle making it go or doing whatever. And, and that allowed me to get it was just an interesting way. The contrast to that was there were tons of teams working alongside of me on completely different projects and really fascinating stuff.

 

00:39:17:19 – 00:39:36:07

Greg Porter

And they would get in, in the morning and start, you know, tapping away on fusion or I can’t remember what some of the programs were, but they had the big, huge five access machines and they had the Kuka arms and all that kind of stuff. And these guys would get in and start programing that stuff. And I’m like, You should have been doing that last night.

 

00:39:36:07 – 00:39:36:24

Greg Porter

You’re just wasted.

 

00:39:37:05 – 00:39:56:12

Tony Rouleau

And that’s and that’s what I did. You know, I would sit on the couch and watch TV with my wife and I would have the, the laptop on my lap and I would just be building the fixture and figuring out because like you said, as soon as I get home at about 4 p.m. that a thumb drive goes into the machine and I’m trying to set it up.

 

00:39:56:12 – 00:40:09:09

Tony Rouleau

But soon as I see the spindle go and it does drive itself into the vise, I see over to the bridge four and I start drilling a hole in it. You know, we’ve all been there at least people see it, been there.

 

00:40:09:12 – 00:40:37:18

Greg Porter

So yeah, yeah, there’s, there’s not a single C and C operator, owner, fill in the blank. But it hasn’t been, has it watched a tool go down just miserably slow and go, well, that doesn’t look like it’s going to stop. Before I could break oh, gosh. Well, I don’t know. I’ve been asking a ton of questions. Brian, is there anything on your mind that I don’t want to just own this conversation here?

 

00:40:38:04 – 00:41:05:20

Brian Benham

Yeah. Well, just to go back a little bit to where you’re talking about your resources or whatnot, I’ve always felt like that time and money has been a limiting factor to pretty much any maker out there of their ability to make anything like you always just come up against this roadblock of either that’s going to take way too long to do or or it’s just going to cost more money than I have to get there.

 

00:41:05:21 – 00:41:18:09

Brian Benham

That machining or material to to get it done. Is there anything that you have in your mind that you really want to build that you haven’t been able to pull pull the resources together, either time and materials or.

 

00:41:19:00 – 00:41:43:19

Tony Rouleau

I do like I said, I would love to to take the time to make a proper like like I don’t, you know, a proper infill plane. Like, I don’t know if you guys know, like from Reese or Conrad Tower or you know, these are like that. The real high end plane makers, their planes come in a thousand start like my, my plane commands hundreds of dollars.

 

00:41:43:19 – 00:42:12:22

Tony Rouleau

There’s commands thousands of dollars. There’s just really I would love to have the time to just for lack of a better term, fart around and figure out, you know, OK, the mouth is too tight. Or if I change the angle of the frog, you know, it’s better and figured would and that’s what I would love to do. The machinist needed me to would love I love to make a micrometer in my style.

 

00:42:13:14 – 00:42:49:24

Tony Rouleau

Oh that would be fun to do. I would really love to explore. I made these little pocket levels. It was just I I’ll I spend a lot of time looking at like 800 1900s tools and a lot of the I saw a little it was a little pocket level and it was a cast iron. And I liked the shape of it and it just it was just it was neat so I ended up last year I sold, I think it was around 150, 200 of them.

 

00:42:50:04 – 00:43:28:10

Tony Rouleau

I did a big batch of them and they did well. But I want to get more into the precision levels and I want to get like ornate and I would like to get like a fourth axis for the, the tarmac, which that, that’s think of just basically think of a lathe truck that could turn in any position above a building machine that for people that don’t know what, what a fourth axis is and it that that’s that’s what I really, you know, those will eventually, I think, happen.

 

00:43:28:13 – 00:43:42:01

Tony Rouleau

It’s just I have to do the squares and stuff because those keep the lights on. I enjoy making them. But those are like the bread and butter that pay for the machines and and do that stuff.

 

00:43:42:04 – 00:43:52:21

Brian Benham

So and you said developing your own style or with the fourth axis and see is that could to be like an engraving type of a thing like a Jimmy Bower type type style.

 

00:43:52:21 – 00:44:18:10

Tony Rouleau

In a way. But but like like on a machinist level, it’s basically a pedestal. And then the file sits in a two I’m giving away too much but the, the two I would like to to do intricate cuts in the tube that the file sits at and things like that, maybe skeletonized that to just make it look more ridiculous and ornate.

 

00:44:18:21 – 00:44:27:12

Brian Benham

Yeah. So some of your speaking of your style, I saw you post a picture in the Wood Whisper Guild or something that you’re is that something you’re prototyping now?

 

00:44:28:02 – 00:44:58:23

Tony Rouleau

I made that. I made that in the wintertime. That was that was I don’t think I have it here. I’ve always found it. General, I think was the original. It’s it’s just it’s a square protractor. It’s a piece of like three by two and a half, just sheet metal, for lack. It’s like it’s not even a six feet thick and it has 180 degrees on it and then it has a leg that you adjust and that’s how you set your ankle.

 

00:44:58:23 – 00:45:24:00

Tony Rouleau

That protractor now is like two, but there are always sheets and there’s really, there’s like the ridiculous machinist protractor that you could set to the minute or the second degree, but there’s really no other work. Well, what I did is I made one in that vein of the general, but I made it brass and then I dovetailed a ledge on it because that’s the thing with the sheet metal.

 

00:45:24:00 – 00:46:01:01

Tony Rouleau

It’s a sectional bearing surface for you to register off up. And that was the thought there. And it also has a depth gauge feature because a lot of those protractor did. So I it’s great can attest my stuff, the spotlight bait. And at first it really wasn’t designed to be heavyweight, but every time I go to a show when someone takes a tool, I carry this ridiculous case around that has my tools because people, the people would rather see the tools you know, than me being like, I don’t have anything on me.

 

00:46:01:01 – 00:46:31:03

Tony Rouleau

So I’ll, I’ll bring a case with like a bevel and a block plane. And every time someone picks that up, they go, Oh, they appreciate that. So I, I don’t, you know, a skeletal protractor, skeletonized. But the one thing I was asking about in the one was for a gilt was is the thickness of the blade. Because I didn’t realize that some guys, when they set up their bevel cage, they’ll slip that bar through the bevel gauge and line up their blade.

 

00:46:32:01 – 00:47:13:16

Tony Rouleau

Or my bevel gauge is, is the blade on. It’s really thick. It’s almost 330 seconds where most of like the Shinhwa and stuff like that or anywhere from six, you know, 60 to just a little under there, very thin which they work fine for what they are. But the one thing I wanted is I want to see Chris Vesper make I feel the best bell in the world Miner could find are probably comparable but he makes 500 for my 20 so he gets that I feel he gets that title but I didn’t know the thickness of this blade so I wanted to make sure if the people that are going to be buying this protractor are

 

00:47:13:17 – 00:47:41:23

Tony Rouleau

more than likely going to have either his bevel or mine or a comparable so I’m trying to find how thin I can go with that blade to allow that to happen, but then keep it as stout as possible because the blade on the general is only like 40,000. It’s like 364 seven inches it’s, it’s metal and it’s fine because it’s a $10 protractor.

 

00:47:41:23 – 00:47:51:19

Tony Rouleau

But that’s the other thing. If you’re going to pay this money for this tool, I want it to be rugged and elegant, just, you know, quality. Yeah.

 

00:47:52:02 – 00:48:18:04

Brian Benham

So, so two things. One, your stuff is heavy which is a good thing for me being a woodworker. I’ll tell you, the planes that I have that have a lot of weight to them cut better just because it reduces the chatter slides smoother. Once you get that momentum going, it just slices off. But why I brought up the, the post that you posted in the Wood Whisper Guild is this.

 

00:48:18:06 – 00:48:38:21

Brian Benham

I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw that post. I didn’t see the name right away. But as soon as I saw the picture of the dovetails in there, I was like, Huh, that looks like a Tony Rolo style because of the hand plain dovetail and I was wondering if that was an intentional thing that you’re trying to carry through all your stuff.

 

00:48:39:08 – 00:48:41:07

Brian Benham

That machined metal dovetail.

 

00:48:41:07 – 00:49:13:04

Tony Rouleau

I mean, metal dovetails are cool. No matter how whatever anybody sees, metal dovetails. You just and I do want to that I do want that to be part I actually the precision level I want to do I want to incorporate that as well just because Ducktails are cool. But yeah, I try you do see I think I use a certain radius and everything and like I said, I don’t, I don’t feel I have a style that I’m going after.

 

00:49:13:04 – 00:49:16:05

Tony Rouleau

I just think it’s subconscious it’s it’s how you do things.

 

00:49:17:04 – 00:49:22:24

Brian Benham

So it has a lot of more function to it. But you like how it looks is kind of how that came about.

 

00:49:22:24 – 00:49:46:08

Tony Rouleau

Got it. Yeah. I want to be because that’s the one thing I battle a lot in my head two ways is I try, I want my tools to be elegant, but I also want it to be simple. I only want them to do maybe one or two like it seems like now. Toolmakers, their stuff is like Ron Popeil you know, there’s like, it just does everything.

 

00:49:46:20 – 00:50:09:21

Tony Rouleau

And I try to fight that gimmicky ness. I don’t even know if that’s a proper word, but I don’t like gimmicks. In my tools personally. So I try to the the stuff that I put into them, I want it to be I just don’t want it to be wasted. You know, I don’t want to say, oh, it’ll do X, Y, and Z when 99.9% of the people are going to use X.

 

00:50:09:22 – 00:50:19:03

Brian Benham

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of the tools that I have that I bought because I thought, Oh, I’m going to buy this because it does everything. I won’t need to do it. And he says, Yeah.

 

00:50:19:15 – 00:50:24:16

Tony Rouleau

I have the same stuff. You know, I have yeah, I have all that kind of you know, that looks cool.

 

00:50:24:16 – 00:50:48:22

Brian Benham

But those tools only do the one thing really well and only sort of do the things, other things. And so then I end up buying the tools to do the other things. And so now I if, if someone says, Oh, look at all these ten things that does, I’m just like, OK, see you later. I’m still going to go buy the individual tools just because I don’t want to fall into that gimmick because it’ll do the one thing good, but not all ten.

 

00:50:48:24 – 00:51:18:14

Tony Rouleau

I want my tools to just do the thing that they’re meant for really well. And a lot of people have use coined the use the term heirloom tool. That’s what I like to think of them as is. I want you know, I actually I it was it was a little weird. I had a guy messaged me out of the blue on Instagram and he was asking me questions about he had one of my black plates and he’s like, Oh, you know, did you offer plates?

 

00:51:19:02 – 00:51:43:23

Tony Rouleau

And I’m just like, I I’ve only made just over 100 black plates. So I pretty much remember, you know, I don’t I remember great because at number seven, seven, easy to remember. But I just this guy’s name, he ended up buying the plane from a state sale from a guy who passed away. And I’m like, my stuff has been around long enough to turn into this.

 

00:51:43:23 – 00:52:17:06

Tony Rouleau

Now it’s, you know, like there’s this website, Jim Bodie or Chip Bode, and he says this. They sell like these. They’ll sell everything for Brick City to like the older Brick City tools to tools from like the 1700s. And it’s all like high dollar stuff that I hope you know this is this is a little arrogant of me but I hope someday that, you know, one of my squares or something will pop up and I’ll be like, oh, look at that, you know.

 

00:52:18:24 – 00:52:20:07

Greg Porter

I could be charging triple.

 

00:52:21:02 – 00:52:21:06

Tony Rouleau

Yeah.

 

00:52:22:03 – 00:52:22:14

Brian Benham

Yeah, for.

 

00:52:22:14 – 00:52:49:24

Greg Porter

Sure. You need to just put out a fake story about yourself, Tony. You know, he’s his hands were you know, whatever crippled by a blueberry pie incident and he can’t make squares anymore, but. Oh, no, I mean, honestly, totally. That was that was one of my thoughts. Like I said, when when I bought the square in the first batch, number seven, I like to think I’m a single digit.

 

00:52:50:00 – 00:53:09:11

Greg Porter

You know who there’s not that many of us out there. And I think all of mine are the number sevens. And you even sent me a message when you were putting out the pocket levels. Yes. Yeah. And it asked if I wanted number seven, and I and I felt terrible. I’m like, I just oh, it’s fine.

 

00:53:09:11 – 00:53:09:21

Tony Rouleau

I just want.

 

00:53:10:02 – 00:53:25:20

Greg Porter

And and and, you know, I guess my reverence for the tools is I want to buy them and use them. And I will tell you, the bevel, I haven’t used much, and it’s only because I haven’t done anything with any angles on it. And I feel I feel like I need to do some things with good angles on them.

 

00:53:26:04 – 00:53:43:13

Greg Porter

But but you have the the pocket level as like, I should, I should just get it because it’s number seven now. I feel like there’s somebody else on that list. Like you said, you know, there’s a wait list for this stop and and it’s like let’s somebody who’s going to use it, buy it, and I’m not going to take that spot in line.

 

00:53:43:14 – 00:53:48:21

Greg Porter

There may be some day where I kick myself in the pants for passing that, but we’ll see.

 

00:53:49:03 – 00:53:51:12

Brian Benham

You could buy it from that high end website later on.

 

00:53:51:14 – 00:53:53:08

Tony Rouleau

There you go. Yeah, I could buy.

 

00:53:53:08 – 00:53:54:08

Greg Porter

It for send. You have a link.

 

00:53:56:19 – 00:54:04:02

Greg Porter

Well, somebody will watch this podcast and go, Oh, I’ve got number seven and I’m holding it for ransom.

 

00:54:04:20 – 00:54:06:08

Tony Rouleau

Sort sending these messages.

 

00:54:08:07 – 00:54:14:21

Greg Porter

Yeah. If I get a bunch of Instagram DMS with the number seven pocket level, I’ll know where they’re coming from.

 

00:54:14:21 – 00:54:23:13

Brian Benham

I have I have one more question for you that’s might be kind of a controversial question metric imperial or cubits. What’s your favorite.

 

00:54:25:11 – 00:54:48:18

Tony Rouleau

It’s all taxable to me, and I know that’s kind of a cop out, but most of my machinist career we would get prints and both, and it just not qubits, but but it just turns into decimals. I mean, obviously for me it gets turned into a perio, but it’s just for me, it’s not that hard to work with.

 

00:54:48:18 – 00:55:06:22

Tony Rouleau

I’ve been around it enough that I know, you know, six millimeters close to quarter it, you know, I know that stop. So I, I am, I believe that metric is better just because of the whole base tent thing. But, you know, it’s just ingrained in me, the whole imperial thing. So.

 

00:55:07:17 – 00:55:11:04

Brian Benham

So on your day to day working, you’re working in Imperial.

 

00:55:12:02 – 00:55:12:12

Tony Rouleau

Yeah.

 

00:55:13:02 – 00:55:15:08

Brian Benham

Your machines are set that way. Yeah.

 

00:55:15:09 – 00:55:21:05

Tony Rouleau

Yeah, it’s all, it’s, but it’s all decimals, you know, like quarter inch is 0.25.

 

00:55:21:05 – 00:55:24:15

Greg Porter

And what’s 764. You have that one in your head.

 

00:55:24:18 – 00:55:27:05

Tony Rouleau

  1. No, I don’t know.

 

00:55:27:05 – 00:55:28:10

Brian Benham

You’re going to get it this time.

 

00:55:28:22 – 00:55:33:03

Greg Porter

No I only like 109 you might say.

 

00:55:33:03 – 00:55:34:02

Tony Rouleau

09 something.

 

00:55:34:20 – 00:55:42:20

Greg Porter

I just know when I ask Tom I’m like, oh yeah I think that’s 764 and he will kick out those decimals for everything down to the 64.

 

00:55:43:12 – 00:55:44:04

Tony Rouleau

Just Yeah.

 

00:55:45:03 – 00:55:49:11

Greg Porter

But that, that tells you how long he’s been doing. But I have.

 

00:55:49:11 – 00:56:13:22

Tony Rouleau

I have seen an uptick in, in people from the States that are buying metric scales for their, for their spares and, and I do offer imperial metric combination squares, but there’s a lot of guys that are just buying just metric and I think it’s festers what they do is push that is a lot of the stuff festival is a metric and.

 

00:56:15:03 – 00:56:26:15

Greg Porter

It’s one on 93. So nice work Tony well awesome I guess all I’ll just kind of wrap up if that’s all right.

 

00:56:26:23 – 00:56:31:18

Brian Benham

Yeah. Before we hang up, is there anything you want to plug Tony? Do you have a website you want to go to.

 

00:56:33:12 – 00:56:55:19

Tony Rouleau

WW dot show you tool h-e-l-l b I excuse me E.w tool dot com is is my website and Hillview underscore w am on Instagram and then you can just search till you tool or to tell you what metal on Facebook that’s Instagram is where I’m most active. OK.

 

00:56:56:21 – 00:57:01:11

Brian Benham

Cool. We’ll have all those links on the maker’s Quest podcast website.

 

00:57:01:16 – 00:57:23:19

Greg Porter

Well, Tony, I want to say a huge thanks. I know we had to reschedule once before and I apologize for that when I had to bug out and go out of the town. But really appreciate you being with us tonight and talking about your journey with tool making and some of the background with your machining it’s always fascinating to talk to someone who’s such a wonderful filmmaker like yourself.

 

00:57:24:17 – 00:57:37:06

Tony Rouleau

Thank you. It was I was looking forward to this because I figured I was going to get asked different questions, and I’m glad I it was it was what I expected, and I’m happy about that. Thanks for having me.

 

00:57:37:23 – 00:57:39:12

Brian Benham

Good thank you for coming.

 

00:57:39:12 – 00:58:05:16

Greg Porter

Awesome. Well, you can check out Tony Willow’s website at Hill View Tool dot com. You can catch Tony on Instagram where he’s most active at Hill View, underscore w m on Instagram and on Facebook. You can search bill. You would in mettle. Did I get that right or ill view tool. So thanks again. And I am Greg Porter.

 

00:58:05:16 – 00:58:10:10

Greg Porter

You can catch my YouTube channel at Greg’s Garage or Skyscraper Guitars.

 

00:58:11:01 – 00:58:15:07

Brian Benham

And I’m Brian Benham and you can find me just search and Brian Benham, thanks for listing.

 

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