Ep. 73: Barnacles, Bandsaws & Bad Decisions

About this episode

In this episode, the hosts discuss their recent challenges with anodizing, packaging, and various workshop improvements while sharing humorous anecdotes.

This week on the The Lone Machinist Podcast, Jamie fights anodizing for three straight days, accidentally makes the wrong color parts, redesigns a bandsaw out of pure spite, and discovers that South African customs agents apparently moonlight as package demolition experts. Meanwhile, Curt declares war on bubble mailers after the packaging industry collectively decided quality control was optional. Customs also disassembled a customer's pen shipment like they were searching for state secrets, proving once again that no cardboard box survives international shipping emotionally intact. There's also: * A Harbor Freight bandsaw running entirely on anger * Soap bottle engineering failures * Tiny dovetail vises called Barnacles * A chip tray overflowing with enough aluminum to build a second machine * A possible new workshop * A helicopter seat machined from an aluminum brick the size of a kitchen appliance * And at least three business ideas that should probably not be pursued without supervision. If you've ever looked at a machine and thought "this can definitely be improved with compressed air and bad financial decisions," this episode is for you. Links Discussed: * sigma wallet…

People in this episode

Hosts: Jamie Peacock, Curt Van Filipowski

Guest: Jon Dillehay

Topics covered

• anodizing
• bandsaw redesign
• packaging issues
• customs challenges
• workshop improvements
• business ideas

Keywords

• anodizing
• bandsaw
• customs
• packaging
• business ideas
• workshop
• engineering

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Harbor Freight, Subtract Manufacturing, sigma wallet

More episodes of The Lone Machinists

• Ep. 76: The Billet Volcano Arms Race with Ben from Blackfox · June 10, 2026 · 1h 17m
• Ep. 75: CADing a Fence Like It's Aerospace · June 3, 2026 · 1h 14m
• Ep. 74: Death Pallet Stackers & Other OSHA Nightmares · May 27, 2026 · 1h 16m
• Ep. 72: Someone Let The Machinists Near The Kitchen Equipment · May 13, 2026 · 1h 9m
• Ep. 71: The World's Cutest Vice (and Other Lies) · May 6, 2026 · 1h 14m
• Ep. 70: How to Build a Business by Accident with Titan Ring Designs · April 29, 2026 · 1h 26m