You must think I lost my mind. What is Rick doing with all this bread?!

Well, fun fact, almost a century ago Otto Frederick Rohwedder had an innovation (you guessed it) it was the bread slicing machine! And ever since people have been saying, "that's better than sliced bread".

Today I am going to be talking about one of the six features that are available with the D-Drive Modular 5 axis vise, so stick with me!

Have you ever gotten a job in that you thought, "Oh man, I'm going to have to buy another vice or I'm going to have to buy some more hardware to hold this thing". Well, when we develop the D-Drive, we were looking for a solution that would work for many different type of holding situations, including five-axis vise

Just the other day, we were reminiscing about some favorite stories as we were celebrating the anniversary of our company. And one of my favorite stories is the development of this product we call the Zipbushing. And the reason is not because it's super cool product (it is) but because it was embraced, accepted so readily and to this day is one of our best sellers. So I thought I'd take a second and explain to you why somebody would want to buy this thing, what value it brings to the marketplace.

Rick talks about a humbling moment he had in the early days of Elijah Tooling and of a how a customer converted to ELT products after their machine crashed.

Rick describes key features of the website including: our animations, our rewards program, and our instant chat. We created our site for YOU!

So we are all about flat plate modular fixturing. That is our one product, that is where our focus is. Those consist of four elements; our fasteners, our retractable dowel pins, zip bushings (which are an all in one multipurpose hold), and then our modular vices. That's all we got! But we can make a real impact for you today because those guys do the whole thing, and at a lower cost. So I'm just going to go through it with you a little bit, a couple of seconds, give me a little bit of time.

I was supposed to be comparing these two products: this is our fastener, this is Jergens ball lock. You know what? They both­­ have great features. I'm not here to bash my competitor. In fact, I was thinking about ou

Don't Play Games With Your Machine Shop. Workholding solutions need to be repeatable, precise and rapid. When we think about manufacturing, we want something that is standardized, something that's repeatable, something that your programmers, your machinist, everybody, in your organization can depend on.

Making Haas CNC Vertical Mill More Usable and Flexible With Elijah Tooling

I am standing in front of a brand new Haas CNC vertical mill. As you can see, this is what everybody starts out with. Fixture slots. Check it out; we're standing in front of a vertical milling machine. Again, smaller but now it's been enhanced with this modular fixture plate, which involves having other characterist...

Normally I say give me two minutes, but I think it'll take me longer. So, today I am interviewing Hannah. I'm trying to find out what I don't know about Hannah today. So, she works customer service for us and inside sales. And I'm just gonna pick her brain a little bit.

On today’s podcast, we interview Rick Miller, owner, and co-founder of Elijah Tooling, a company that sells innovative CNC work holding equipment. Rick has a knack for coming up with unique products and has several patents in the work holding sector. He says that innovative ideas are vital for success but getting customers to buy into those ideas is what makes for a successful business.

Question: What tool would you like to see invented?

Hey guys, it’s Rick from Elijah Tooling. Nah, not going to take two minutes, probably going to be longer than that. We're just going, Gabriel and I are gonna do a little bit of discussion here. So, this morning I'm going through my closet looking for shirts. And, I particularly like this one; It's a broadcloth shirt. B...

So what we're going to do, is we're going to load our vices, we're going to load a part, we're going to probe it in, we're going to cut it. And then, we're going to go to the next step; which is to load our trunnion, load it, load a part and start it up. What's the point? Well, we're trying to show you how fast you can load and unload your parts of course. And then, also how fast it is to bring the trunnion in, and precisely locate it; get it into place and start machining with it.

We've got three big features to consider a plate that's oversized. One: we get more travel out of our, or use of our travels. Two: ergonometrics, making it easier for the machine operator. And three: if we're using a fourth axis trunnion we're benefiting ourselves again from the travel standpoint.

Hey, as you can see there's a stream right behind me and if you listen carefully, you can hear the rain falling. I'm actually not in my normal location: Denton, Texas. I'm up in the Hochatown, Oklahoma. A lot of people call it Broken Bow because Broken Bow is nearby, but I'm on sabbatical.

How Smart CNC Fixturing Can Help You Save $43,000/Per Year For Every Machine In Your Shop! Comparing a Modular fixture with a dedicated fixture.

Today I want to show you something kinda cool. Because it's going to show you the difference between cnc workholding clamps and our workholding fasteners. So, we have workholding clamps on a CNC machine, and we got our workholding fasteners which you can see on this table.

So let me just, this is going to be fast, kinda. I'm going to time myself in using the clamps on and off, using the fasteners on and off. Okay? You with me? 

Today I would like to present a thought to you that just came to me. Which I found is a terrifying thought, in a sense terrifying. And that is, what if you are competing against somebody that's using our products. Elijah Tooling products. You're not using them, they are using them. What's that look like, what is the downside for you, or potential upside for you, from a financial standpoint

So, this is a t-slot fixture it incorporates our t-slot fasteners, they work like our other invertible fasteners. In other words, they screwed it in and out of the product. In this case, we're having them screw in and out of the modular vices. But, they could be a part, that could be a plate, it could be whatever you want to load and unload.

You can see it's got the shock absorbers on this roller table. What happens is it will reach through the window that you're dealing with, and then it will tilt down to the table. So, what we ran into when designing this is. If it's not the right height then it will bang you into your machine. So what we did, is we created a solution that allows us to increase the height of these struts, and then tilt down. So what I'd like to do is demonstrate this today. Show you how it works, and also just kind of point out some of the features of it.

We had a request recently from somebody who asked us “what do you all with all those fasteners for? What is the point of having all of these different fasteners?” So I’m just going to go through it. I am going to try to make it as quick as possible, but I am going to try to give you some ideas as to why you might use a particular fastener. 

Hey! Today I'm standing in front of our new and improved loading cart. And I just want to take a very short period of your time to talk about some changes that we’ve made to it and also the quick-change plate. So, I want you to think about 3 minutes 8 seconds. 3 minutes 8 seconds. That’s how long it takes us to quick change this trunnion using this quick-change plate. This plate is made to adapt to the trunnion and in fact we even provide you with the programs so that you can do that adaption.

Today, I’ve got a big product reveal, now first of all let me just say, don’t start calling me and trying to buy this product right now. We’re close. We’ve got the prototype. We’ve got the patent pending going, but, um, we’re not quite ready. Just giving you the reveal, just trying to stroke the fire. So, let me show it to you, ok?

Hey guys, today I’m out at the home ranch. You know city boy turned farmer- actually wife turned farmer. Believe it or not we’ve got five heifers, one cow, three donkeys, two horses, four cats, and a dog. So, of course, we’ve got to have a 50 horse tractor and that’s why I’m out here today. I want to talk to you a little bit about our tractor and a lot about our products.

Today we talk about the lowest cost solution for quick changing a trunnion without a quick change plate. We're going to look at a CAD model of how we can do this using two devices:  the patent-pending fastener and a locator that are used in T-slots. 

Hey guys, it's Rick with Elijah Tooling. Give me two minutes of your time and I'll make it worth it. You know, I had something happen last week and I think of it as going to the school of hard knocks. I don't know if you have ever had that happen to you when you were a kid, for example. Ya know? Dad takes you to the... What they call it... The proverbial "woodshed", am I right? Well, I got taken to the woodshed last week.

I was supposed to tell you that we were supposed to ask you to subscribe. But, you know, I don't like reading from a script, and you may not either. You know, there are people who constantly have their hand out. So, I am just gonna tell you. We are here to help you. We created these products so that your shop will be more productive, saving money, every day; cycle after cycle. 

I've got some exciting stuff to show you today. Today, we're gonna work on a whole different kind of fixture. This is a combination of our Modular Fixture, where you have Fasteners and ZipBushings incrementally. But, we've also added an element, which is our T-Slot Fasteners with the slots that accept the Xzerts Retractable Dowel Pins. So, I am gonna show you how we use that and I'm gonna kinda show you why we might use a riser or a different pattern at the same time.

We've got this vise set up, and I was asked today by a customer, "how much force does this EZE Vise Ultimate produce?" I thought to myself, this is the perfect opportunity to do a video. We will do it live...

Today we're going to go through the steps required to make the holes so that we can install these two common products that are used in our fixtures. So I've got a fixture that's in work right now. So you can see that this fixture has the hole for the Invert-a-bolt Fastener and the hole for the ZipBushing, and that is the most common type of hole that goes into our fixtures. We're going to show you all the steps.

Hey guys it's Rick here from Elijah Tooling.

So, today I am going to take just  bit of your time and we are going to talk about how we go about quoting these plates, the kind of questions we are going to ask you and the kind of information we are going to need so that we can get you what you are going to be able to use. 

Hey ho ho ho! Its Christmas time! God bless you and your families and I hope you have had a great year. You know, we have had a pretty good year. We have had our ups and downs and I bet you have to.

Today I want to show you something that generally manufacturers don't really want to share with the rest of the world but, we are going to do it anyway.

Today, I just wanted to show you these beauties. We are just getting ready to ship them. These are Modular Fixture Plate and I am just going to take a few seconds to describe them so that you know what they do and why you need them. 

This is a round modular fixture that is going into an OKUMA Trunion Type 5 Axis machine. And, as you can see, we have set it up with a standard two inch pattern, just like we have talked about before. it has got the new fastener in it and it has also got the multi-purpose holes. We have talked about them before but, as you can see, it is a bored and threaded hole. 

Today, we are going to talk about the FLEXVISE™ Reversible Modular Dovetail Vise. I just wanted to show you how you can use the Flex Vise in an unconventional way. I am standing this close to the machine to make you guys understand how stable of a setup we actually have running here. This stability is the main point. The FLEXVISE™ Reversible Modular Dovetail Vise is a very robust vise for great workholding.

I remember how I came to the point I wanted to develop this vise in the first place. I was walking through a customer’s plant, a large aerospace company, and they pointed over to where they were running a competitor’s dovetail vise. Now, at the time, we didn’t have one, but, they mentioned that it was not very stable, and I thought to myself that we can do better...

So today we are going to pick up where we left of on Tips for employers and employees. Today we are going to talk about hiring and firing and how that relates to the parable of the ten talents in the bible.

Today, I’ve got this interesting looking aerospace part. I thought I would go through and describe one of the key processes by which many of our fasters, you can see them connected to the back of this, are used. This is called Picture Framing.

This is a unique quick-change application. We made quick change plates for an old manual hydraulic press. But, you know what? You can make good use of quick-change in this situation as well. Check this out!

Today, I wanted to discuss the importance of never giving up on what you are trying to accomplish.

First, I want to introduce you to my youngest son Gabriel. I wanted to have him here so that I could not only discuss my learnings with you but also use this time to teach my son the importance of some of these concepts.

I want to discuss something important today, and I want to discuss it in light of an experience I had as a young man. 

 

Today's video is going to be about how to deal with criticism in a healthy and constructive way. It is one of those stories that shocked me into making some serious changes in how I led my business. Check it out!

- Rick Miller

Today, I'm gonna talk about our EZEVise Ultimates, and you're probably already thinking, "dude he's got content on that already!" You're right. We do. However, we do not have a video describing all of the different features of this product, so I'm going to go through it with you.