For machine shops & fabricators

Your best machinist knows why that part chatters. Keep it.

KeptLabs turns 60-second voice notes from the people who know your machines into answers the whole shop can search. Built for job shops, CNC shops and fab shops.
Pricing
The numbers

The people who know your machines are getting close to retirement.

And the openings coming up are mostly to replace them, not to grow. Whatever they know that isn't written down leaves when they do.

38%

of US machinists are 50 to 64 years old.

Source: Data USA, 2024

30,400

openings a year for machinists and tool & die makers through 2035. All of them replace people who leave or retire.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
What it captures

The stuff that never makes it into the traveler.

Your programs and drawings are documented. The judgment that makes them run is not.

Setups & workholding

The fixture, the offsets, which vise and why. How to hold the part nobody likes running.

Feeds that actually work

What really runs on your machines and your materials, not what the catalog says.

Material quirks

17-4 versus 316, the bar stock that always comes in oversize, the heat lot that runs harder.

Tooling

Which endmill, which insert, which holder, and the ones to keep away from finish passes.

Machine personalities

The mill that needs a warm-up, the lathe with the tired tailstock, the probe that drifts.

Customer specifics

Who wants every edge broken, who rejects on cosmetic marks, what the drawing never says.

On the floor

Ask it like you'd ask your lead.

  • Record at the machine from a phone's browser. Nothing to install.
  • Scan the QR sticker on the machine to see its notes or record a new one.
  • Each note is transcribed and tagged with the problem, cause, fix, materials and tools.
  • Anyone in the shop searches in plain words and hears the answer in the machinist's own voice.
  • Ask a question and get the answer from your shop's notes, with the notes it used.
Knowledge base
chatter on 17-4 finish pass
3 recordingsMost relevant

  • Chatter on 17-4 finish pass

    2:14

    Shorten the stickout first. Then drop the RPM about fifteen percent and keep the feed up. A light pass on 17-4 rubs instead of cutting…

    ProblemMaterial · 17-4 PHLocation · Mill 3R. Martinez

  • Which endmill for stainless finishing

    1:31

    The variable-pitch four-flutes in drawer six are the ones for 17-4 and 316. The standard ones will sing on a finish pass…

    SolutionTool · EndmillD. Okafor

  • Warm up Mill 3 before tight-tolerance work

    0:48

    Run the twenty-minute warm-up program first, or the first few parts walk a couple tenths in Z…

    WarningLocation · Mill 3S. Chen
Start here

Keep what your best machinists know.

Book a 15-minute demo. We'll show you KeptLabs with machine-shop examples and give you a straight quote for your team.

How it works