Within Tolerance is a podcast where the hosts talk everything from machine shop work, CAD/CAM, and other manufacturing processes!
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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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
Kicking off Down the Rabbit Hole, a new Within Tolerance podcast for nerds, by nerds. Justin and Zap launch their multi-part series "My Tool Library Is Better Than Yours" with the bootstrap basics: a simple four-folder structure, modeling your holders and tools accurately, and getting roughing and finishing presets dialed in. No money required—just stop building tools from scratch every damn time.…
Justin Gray catches us up on life post-Toolpath. We get into Justin Gray Labs and his vibe coding kits — along with the security nightmares they're built to prevent. He's also chasing fidget pistons to a two-tenth window on a Syil and Speedio. Then we get into Kinematic Sauce, the calibration algorithm he and Zap built for Speedios, with Fanuc and Haas next. Plus, his new show Down the Rabbit Hole…
Two months of catching up with Zap: the Toolpath Summit recap, his Claude-built ERP CritLink processing real money, and his Boise shop dialed in for remote operation. Dylan finally has power, runs the Flex overnight, untangles a kinematic shift on the C250, and survives a titanium job that tried to take him out. Check out Zap's IG @zap.consulting ----------------------------------------- Help…
Matt Blackwell spent over two decades fixing jets and flying C-17s before building a one-man backyard shop and a fiber laser fixture business he never planned on. We talk spindle gripping lessons, the messy line between hobby and business, and how a guy in a backyard shop ends up tapping a few hundred thousand holes. Check out Matt's IG @blackwell_engineering…
Joe Alonso tells the full Novo Modo origin story—off-grid childhood, working full-time at 16, a career detour through blindness and Microsoft, and launching a shop on pure conviction with no customers lined up. We dig into his inspection-first approach, keeping shops small on purpose, and why culture fixes more than training ever will. Check out Joe's LinkedIn at…
