Parts Department

Justin sits down with Jonny Fenderson, a machinist at Like Butter who went from pouring lattes to vibe coding his own shop software. He walks through browser-based G code generators, a digital tool tag system, nesting, and a packing brain that boxes orders. Plus ball screw woes and a dirty sensor mystery. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic Jonny Jonathan Fenderson instagram....

Drew Dayberry of Debris Factory joins Justin solo while Jem takes a break. Drew went from skate shops and ad agencies to Shopify, brooms, and melting sign-shop plastic into brushes. They swap stories on vibe coding, hardware tinkering, and building versus buying a pricey Italian machine. Get the story of Debris Factory on Parts Department. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic...

Justin's fresh back from IMTS, a giant manufacturing trade show, and has stories about the machines, the crowds, and a bit of luck along the way. Jem shares how he's handling bully builders and their monster purchase orders. Plus: mountains of dead plywood stock and some serious shipping envy. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic IMTS - the people Won a raffle from Haas Henry...

Jem's machinist has quietly thrown out the Multicam software and now runs the CNC from a web browser, complete with utilization tracking. Justin's stuck clicking thousands of tabs in Fusion and is (likely) ready to build his own fix. Plus a big plywood job that got dicey on cashflow, deposit math, and build fatigue. Plus IMTS plans! Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic Trackin...

Jem closes $19K in sales via text message while Justin battles shipping errors and imperial tape measures (slam?!). Justin shares CNC de-tabbing tricks, discuss auto-chucks with torque sensing for the pencil sharpener, and debate customer service boundaries. Jem admits he's avoiding his robot cell safety project while Justin celebrates finally killing Text Expander with SnipSnip Watch on Youtube D...

Jem hits the dream product mix with 16 deliveries in one day while Justin codes at coffee shops and preps for baby number two. Justin built a free Mac app that previews CAD and G-code files in QuickLook. Assembly guide workflows, and Jem's massive new speakers that are taller than he is. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic Budgies Mac CAD Preview mini-app Rake - Tip of spear...

Justin cuts 4140 steel for the first time for PDX CNC products while Jem battles venomous spiders and pallet racking inspections. They discuss organizing shop kits with gridfinity bins, Airtable's uncertain future, local file storage versus cloud chaos, and surviving wildfire smoke. Plus: Christopher Nolan's massive IMAX camera and the eternal struggle of documentation. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED:...

Jem and Justin compare sales swings and shop chaos: a robot-cooked sander, a $15k sanding head quote, and high schoolers quality-checking parts before they ship. Plus network tinkering regrets, blowing nine million tokens in one sitting, Fusion file manager grievances, and the debut of a very questionably named app. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic No quoting, still hittin...

Jem’s wiped out after installing seven sculptures in a single day, while Justin’s machining a 65-inch timber spear gun and fighting the ShopSabre’s Y-axis overheating. They talk Shopify bill wins, Justin’s new private dashboard app, GitHub issues, packing-station kiosks, voice notes, and the surprisingly good iOS 27 beta. Plus AR headphone daydreams and why documenting warehouse workflow is still...

Jem and Justin trade toddler war stories before Jem confesses he'd rather tear down 4.5m pallet racking alone at midnight than hire anyone. Justin reveals his June sales cliff after a domain migration tanked Google traffic, hitting Profit First distributions hard. They also riff on the Obsidian exodus from Notion, breaking up with Cursor for Claude Code, and why rearranging the shop is happening b...

Jem and Justin chat about the World Cup's surprisingly warm reception in the US, Jem's Kitta Parts Builder getting a 3D preview upgrade (doors that actually open), and a FedEx API build that finally came together. Justin shares how Shopify's AI flagged a 430-pound weight bug before support did. They close on a real Profit First curveball: what do you do when a big deposit lands early? Watch on You...

Justin makes himself a 5-axis trophy and a quick YouTube shop tour and tests his Gimbel CoolantClear. Jem survives a short production week down a person, rants about builder POs and spirals into late-night Rhino scripting with Cursor. Plus bot orders, prototype hoarding, and the emotional weight of unfinished projects. Also, sea shanties. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic D...

Justin migrates from Squarespace to Shopify (finally!), accidentally nukes his navigation menus with AI, and drops $1,200 on used Lista cabinets. Jem wraps up 10 months of robot programming, ships his first four-shelf new robot sanding programs. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic Migrated the Blog! Lost my menus Big Ass CNC CRO Skills skills skills ꘎ Caveman AirShop Updates...

Justin Gray joins Jem and Justin to talk vibe coding, from NASA open source to CNC tool library nightmares. They riff on AI security traps, why machinists need GitHub, and the chaos of managing 400 tool holders. Plus toddler nostril emergencies and why pie charts are almost never okay. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic Justin Gray of Justin Gray Labs - formerly of Toolpath...

Justin just crushed a record sale. Jem is actively avoiding his books. Together they navigate code benders, steel headaches, and the beautiful disaster of trying to keep a shop running. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic Addicted to tokens, Jonny too Never bookkeeping again Claude Code first impressions Brain fog, how to leave breadcrumbs Big Ass Sale progress? No donkeys th...

Justin caught a facing issue on fresh UMC pallets before they could ruin parts, while his Shopboard reel blew up on Instagram. Jem survived a surprise WorkSafe inspection and a brutal $8k robot service bill. The guys talk selling out of ATC Pedestals, $5 McMaster parts versus Haas tax, custom ERP dashboards, and a new quest for decent video editing help. Home Assistant just works. Watch on Youtube...

Jem powers through a sick week and sales slump while Justin accidentally nukes his revenue with a premature sale popup. They swap stories about migrating to Obsidian, testing Parakeet voice dictation, and rant about industrial e-commerce still living in 2005. Also: Allbirds going full GPU, Cursor buyout fears, and why keeping credit cards on scrap paper is a bad idea. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍...

Justin wrestles with a backwards-wired Tormach AF50 saw and delegates tasks to his new hire. Jem rebuilds his job management system on a local server. They discuss 150% increase in aluminum, meeting fatigue, and their skepticism about SimTheory's Canva acquisition. Roomba learning to clean pegboard. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic Tormach AF50 Saw, no bueno Linux server?...

Justin hires his first office employee, Jem catches up on emails using Cursor, and both discuss the challenges of delegating tasks in their growing businesses of delegating tasks in their growing businesses. They cover AirShop new features and a big milestone, 3D printer mishaps, expensive robot maintenance, profit-first accounting discipline, and building new custom product configurators. Watch o...

Justin and Jem weigh up if expensive trade shows are worth the $15k entry or if walking the floor with a "trench coat" of products is the smarter play. Between squashing bugs in the kitchen and mourning 62% price hikes on magnets, they tackle the absolute loop of shittness that is FedEx losing custom plywood shelves. Plus, Justin notices used Mac prices are on the rise and orders a cardboard shred...

Jem and Justin chat about complicated speaker parts, CAM programming headaches, and why wood routing feels less reliable than metal work. They geek out over Joe Roggenbuck's knowledge-sharing channel, discuss Jem's new Profit First spreadsheet rebuild (RIP Laura), and explore hiring challenges for a growing team. Plus: trade shows, work stops, and late-night coding sessions as a form of meditation...

Jem quoted big this week while glued to his desk, ditching ChatGPT for Claude and getting his staff into Cursor. His parkour bricked iPhone became surprisingly zen. Justin scored a Tormach autosaw from Seattle, and he's hiring a Shop Coordinator. Both are wrestling with Xero bookkeeping. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic Soggy phone delights ꘎ Dumping Chatty G New role at P...

Jem's rocking top-tier muffs that isolate a screaming spindle while the guys talk one-click Kanban card glory. They discuss the magic of good- documentation, fighting AI amnesia with markdown, and the logistics of shipping PS2 kits to the States. From bike-ride domain buys to handling trade apathy, it's a heavy look at refining the systems that keep a modern shop running. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSE...

Jem's dialed-in tumbler workflow is pumping out thousands of little widgets with barely any intervention, while Justin redesigned the Fang clamp packaging to keep up with demand. They swap war stories about terrible powder coaters, Jem races his cousin vs Cursor on a Raspberry Pi battery project, and Justin finds a surprisingly old-school solution to stop Slacking across the shop. Watch on Youtube...

Justin literally sold a room of his shop. Jem's questioning if his furniture business is secretly a tech company, someone stayed up til 2am installing sketchy AI agents, and plumbing codes make a surprise guest appearance. Also Fusion's new file types are confusing everyone. Watch on Youtube DISCUSSED: ✍️ Comment or Suggest a Topic Praise for Jonny ꘎ Are we a technology company? ꘎ Who buys the stu...