Fixtures, spray booths and space news, between two friends.
XYZ - The CNC Podcast pairs Aaron Goff, owner of Goff Custom Knives, with Nick Frank, one of the owners of Frank Brothers Guitar Company. Their talk runs from shop fixtures and spray-booth trouble to production goals and material prices, with regular detours into space and science.
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XYZ - The CNC Podcast is a conversation between two co-hosts: Aaron Goff, owner of Goff Custom Knives, and Nick Frank, one of the owners of Frank Brothers Guitar Company. Aaron introduces Nick as his friend, and the episodes sound like it. The show's intros call it a podcast about CNC, automation, robotics, business and space, and that list holds up. The machining talk is specific. One stretch covers a new fixture that supports a blade so it cannot flex out of the way, along with plans to build fixtures for making guitar tailpieces in house. The tailpiece is called poorly designed for manufacturing, and a redesign idea that was put forward got vetoed. Elsewhere the hosts talk about a vacuum fixture for machining G10 and compare two quotes for aluminum plate that came in far apart. Supply-chain trouble is floated as the reason. Finishing has its own problems. A sparkle finish turns the spray booth into a glitter hazard, and the conversation weighs building a pop-up booth against sending the work to someone else. The business thread is just as grounded. In 'Let's Talk Business!' the talk turns to KPIs and the rule that you manage what you measure. Then it gets practical: production at the guitar company is split into woodwork, pre-finish, finish, and assembly and shipping. The contrast is between stages where a target is easy to name, such as a set number of fretboards or guitars, and stages like woodwork and finish. Then there are the detours. Space keeps coming up: it is named in the intros and in the titles, and one sign-off promises a catch-up on space news next time. In a stretch the hosts themselves call very philosophical, they turn to skepticism, to the idea that a scientist proven wrong should simply move on, and to living with some uncertainty. A joke about only a Sith dealing in absolutes makes it in. Life outside the shop gets airtime too. One host is buying a house with a lake over the hill and a path to someone else's off-grid cabin crossing the land, and a girlfriend buys her first car. Titles such as 'Ukraine, Contractor Tools and Space News', 'Telephone Robots, Skepticism, and the James Webb Space Telescope!' and 'Bad Pies, Prototype Machining and GOALS' show how freely the subjects mix. For shop-floor material, 'Fixtures, Litterbugs and Gold Leaf Guitars' has the fixture discussion. For the management side, 'Let's Talk Business!' is the natural place to start.
Made for: Suits a listener who works in or dreams of a machine-equipped shop and enjoys hearing two business owners compare fixture headaches, production targets and supplier quotes. It also suits someone who does not mind when the talk wanders off to space, science and life outside work.
What sets it apart: The CNC talk comes from two working businesses, Goff Custom Knives and Frank Brothers Guitar Company, so the machining sits next to glitter in the spray booth, goal-setting for staff and material prices. The relaxed, wandering format gives personal news and science talk as much room as the shop work.
A show for hobbyists & professionals using CNC machines.
Glitter in the guitar spray booth? Pull up a stool with Aaron Goff and Nick Frank.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A maker's house purchase and CNC mishap shape a candid episode about risk, work, and life around the shop.
A CNC podcast leaves the shop for a while and finds a useful subject in a house purchase. Aaron Goff of Goff Custom Knives talks Nick Frank of Frank Brothers Guitar Company through the new place, where distant neighbors, a lake over the hill, an off-grid cabin nearby, and a path…
A loose shop conversation turns difficult guitar hardware into a grounded CNC problem-solving session.
Fixtures, shop upgrades, and a push to bring guitar tailpieces in house give this single episode its shape. Nick Frank of Frank Brothers Guitar Company and co-host Aaron Goff of Goff Custom work through the practical snags behind CNC work, from a tailpiece that resists efficient…
A plainspoken Ukraine reflection gives way to glitter-spraying shop talk with rough, tactile specificity.
The episode opens with the host speaking plainly about Ukraine, moving through anger, sadness, and powerlessness while recalling friends in the Canadian Armed Forces who helped train the Ukrainian Armed Forces. That candor gives the segment its force.
A grounded shop conversation about CNC building, evidence, and the practice of changing your mind.
XYZ works best as a grounded conversation about making things while staying honest about what is known. Aaron Goff of Goff Custom Knives and co-host Nick Frank of the Frank Brothers Guitar Company start with a practical shop problem: making heat-treatment envelopes with…
A grounded shop conversation where aluminum prices, a G10 fixture, and everyday logistics all sit on the same bench.
"Bad Pies, Prototype Machining and GOALS" frames CNC work as a run of practical choices, moving from a $550 aluminum-plate quote to Aaron Goff's vacuum-fixture plan for machining G10.
Adafruit’s Raspberry Pi workbench, part by part.
Specialists walking through software's tradeoffs, one system at a time.
Founders and engineers on AI coding agents like Claude Code, and supply chain security.
Aaron Goff of Goff Custom Knives and Nick Frank of Frank Brothers Guitar Company spend most of the episode on Aaron's June 15 house closing near the Kawarthas, about 2.25 hours outside Toronto.
Nick Frank and Aaron Goff open XYZ with a shop update about a black slat wall, new shelving, and a 4-foot-by-40-inch "tiny office" built for calls and recording.
Adam Goff and Nick Frank open with Ukraine, citing Canadian Armed Forces trainers, Russian conscripts, and civilians blocking a convoy.
Aaron Goff describes a charity donation call that took more than five minutes to reveal a robot, turning a simple phone pitch into a Turing test.
["Nick Frank and Aaron Goff open the CNC-focused show with Aaron worrying that a day-old Aussie meat pie from his fridge may have made him sick.", "The talk moves into shop work at Frank Brothers Guitar Company and Goff Custom Knives, including email backlog, one-guitar-per-day throughput, and a scrapped guitar with a binding alignment error.", "Aaron then weighs a Kijiji listing for six Fidal 3016 machines, but the price, rigging, and Toronto storage make the bargain look thin.", "The biggest technical thread is a quench press prototype for stainless steel, built around chilled coolant, pneumatic force, and sheet-metal fabrication."]
Aaron Goff of Goff Custom Knives and Nick Frank of Frank Brothers Guitar Company discuss software hiring, shop management, production mistakes, and customer service on XYZ.
XYZ - The CNC Podcast follows two makers through holiday production, including cleared back orders, nine-day Christmas deadlines, and a push to finish the year without debt.
Nick Frank of Frank Brothers Guitar Company and Aaron Goff of Goff Custom Knives compare inventory systems, customer specification changes, toolholder purchasing, and workshop production pressures.
Aaron Goff and Nick Frank compare vacuum pumps for CNC workholding after a 30-year-old Busch pump overheats while machining pickup rings.
XYZ - The CNC Podcast hosts Nick Frank of Frank Brothers Guitar Company and Aaron Goff of Goff Custom Knives compare Haas and Fidal machine work, including a Haas near-crash caused during program restart.
Hosts Craig Lockwood and Aaron Goff discuss CNC machining, 3D printing, and related maker topics, with casual banter about their personal lives.
The hosts discuss a technical issue that caused a lost episode and preview an upcoming interview with Brie Pettis from Bantam Tools.
Two hosts chat about CNC machining, their workshops, and current events like the pandemic.
Two knife makers discuss CNC machining, their current workloads, and shipping challenges during the pandemic.