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The Podcast that Unveils the Hidden World of Powder Coating Artists

August 1, 2023 by pcnearme

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.22.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:00:04) – In this episode, my featured coater interview goes bust. I usually have a set format when interviewing coaters, but today’s interviewee breaks the mold. Everything is different about him in a good way. He leads with heart first. Ashton Palmer is a true artist with a deep love of powder coating and a passion for myth busting the trade. This guy is easy to talk to. As we roll through topics like how the coating industry is evolving from the bottom up, the artist’s way, and the subtleties of powder coating the need for top down technology to serve us better, creating a better platform for the free flow of ideas and information. And listen up, Jimmy O’Malley. A great tip on coating candies. Will I ever get to his story? Find out. Get ready to level up your powder coater game. How’s it going? It’s going good.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfqgqLt-HyU[/embedyt]

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:01:34) – Heck, yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:01:36) – Hi.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:01:39) – How’s it going? Nice to meet you.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:01:41) – Me too.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:01:43) – So what you guys are doing is super cool, in my opinion. It’s about time somebody started, like, doing something like this.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:01:53) – Well, that’s great. I’m glad you like it. And I love your enthusiasm. Um, sometimes we kind of don’t know what we’re doing, and we get kind of, kind of lost on our path. And I feel like powder.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:02:07) – Coating, in a nutshell, is a very like. Like mistakes. Like mystic. Mystic. Like, you know, everything’s hush hush like you figured something out. Keep it to yourself. Don’t tell your competitor like it is. You know what I mean? And like.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:02:24) – It is, we we interview.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:02:26) – Very taboo industry.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:02:29) – If you go back and listen to Russell. 399, I think it was like the third or fourth one we did. It’s fast and I found it fascinating. In fact, it’s one of my still one of my favorite podcasts because he goes through the history of powder coating. That’s right. And and then goes into custom coaters and how they how they ended up getting started and stuff like that. So I really I really enjoyed that one.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:03:03) – But I’m a history buff and and stuff, so if you have time go back and.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:03:07) – Yeah I’ll definitely I’m definitely been like skimming through them and listening to a lot of them. Like I listen to Casas, that kid is, Oh.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:03:14) – I love him.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:03:15) – He’s a huge inspiration and a lot of what he does reminds me of myself and what I went through prior to becoming, you know, who I am today. And it’s it’s crazy, man. Like this industry is a dog eat dog world. And you’re either you’re either a laborer or you’re an owner or you’re both so.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:03:35) – And you’re still and then you’re, you know, you’re slave to your business. You know, it’s just. But I really like what you’re doing. And I just want to talk briefly before we get going.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:03:50) – Yeah, of course.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:03:52) – Um, what do we want to talk about and mean? Let’s. Let’s get some topics on the table. Of course, what I’m going to do or how it works is I’ll introduce you.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:06) – And then the first is. Can you hear.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:09) – That? Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:12) – Let me ask him how long he’s going to do that. We’re building the big oven right now. It’s 20 foot.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:19) – Oh, yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:22) – Are you done? I got a podcast. Oh, no. Well, I’ll have to. He’s cutting for the whole day, he said.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:33) – That’s fine. We’ll be.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:34) – Doing. He’s doing the. He’s connecting the electrical to it and stuff.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:39) – But when do you guys go with.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:43) – It’s a powder coating shop. People are just going to have to get over it, right?

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:47) – What oven did you guys go with?

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:49) – Oh, no. We’re building it from scratch.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:51) – Oh, heck, yeah. Are you guys going Gas? Are you going electric?

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:55) – We do electric.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:56) – That’s what I got to. Yeah, I got two of them.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:59) – When you say you have an electric oven and people. What?

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:05:04) – Yeah, that’s like. It’s super. It’s super like I come from. I’m in the northwest, so, like, I’m in touch really big with Kardinal.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:05:11) – Like, I have a really long standing relationship with Kardinal and Alex and Clint, and they’re. They’re a lot of y. I know. My knowledge is because of them. They’re awesome paint reps. They’ve helped me get to where I was at in the industry, you know, on the industrial side, and that every time I would tell them, you know, I’m doing stuff at home in my garage and he’s like, he just rolling his eyes. He already knows. You’re like, you know, they cringe when they hear electric. You know what?

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:05:41) – They don’t even know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:05:42) – Oh, I’ve test. I’ve done some serious testing on both ends, and my stuff is like that. You can’t tell. You cannot tell the difference. Well.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:05:51) – It’s so much better and mean it’s been thousands.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:05:55) – Of dollars on gas.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:05:56) – It’s cheaper.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:05:57) – Yeah. I’m just going to keep my mouth shut about it.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:06:01) – So, so good to talk to you and to have someone to talk to about this because it is seriously like the one of the deepest, darkest secrets out there.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:06:13) – It is. And like, Well, and like, my biggest thing is, is like I went to I got the the fab oven. I can’t remember the full name. It’s something fab. He’s out of like the East. I like the Midwest.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:06:26) – Yeah.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:06:26) – Fab Fab is the fab shop or whatever. You mean.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:06:30) – Ted’s fabs?

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:06:32) – No, it’s the fab shop. But I bought his 4×4 by six convection electric oven. And I have got no complaints. Right. So yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:06:44) – We kind of touched on it a little bit in one of our, um, I think in our, I don’t know, one of our first. Hi cast. Now they’re kind of getting to be kind of blurry now. I’ve done a lot of.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:06:57) – So have you listened to the Joe the Joe Powder Coat show or whatever? The guys from one Kevin.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:03) – Kevin Yeah. I hope to listen.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:07:05) – To one where they were talking about UV ovens.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:09) – Infrared.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:07:10) – That’s. That’s a trip. Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:13) – In fact, I was actually talking to.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:17) – Oh, What were they? You know, I’m on the PCI committee or I’m in the membership PCI, and somebody brought that up at the meeting, you know, and stuff.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:07:29) – Yeah. It’s curious to where it’s going to take our industry. That’s what I’m curious about. I’m curious about, you know, like, is it going to leave us convection ovens and gas oven guys in the dust or is it you know, it also kind of takes me back to like, you know, the actual you know, you’ve got to bring your substrate up to temp. We don’t want our actual powder curing prior to our substrate being, you know, at good temperatures. So it’s it’s a difference and there’s a lot of difference when it comes to, you know, chemical bonds and stuff at that point. So I’m interested to learn it. But then again, I’m also skeptical about it. Right.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:08:01) – So, um, I have something to share with you before we get going. But, but to finish, what I was saying is I usually just kind of introduce you and then.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:08:13) – And then, you know, that part about, you know, how to get in. You can take as long as you want. I usually unless there’s, unless there’s a topic topic, which I think the topic could be like artistry within powder coating. Um, certainly, um, what you do is so unique and I want to clarify that you actually sell the pens on your it’s a product and a finish or so.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:08:44) – Like what I’m doing is I’m offering like long story short is like in my, like, I’m a vapor. So like, I quit smoking years ago, like seven years ago when my son was born. And it was like a big thing to me, you know, like I’d smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and like, that’s any, you know, powder shop or any employers, you know, problem, you know, at a threshold is like his employee smoking or wasting time smoking. Right. So long story short, like I won’t bore you with the whole vaping thing.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:09:12) – I think you should tell people your story. So don’t want to stop you right there because don’t want to get it because it’s so easy to just start talking.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:09:19) – Yeah yeah yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:09:20) – I’ve started yet but usually it’s just like, you know, take as long as you need. Um, unless we have a deeper topic but think the topic we can just. It sounds like you and I are going to just roll it.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:09:35) – Go right. I could go for days. And I’m also like. So like, obviously I’m in the northwest, I’m in a cannabis culture area to like these things. This isn’t cannabis, this is just nicotine vaping. This is what helped me smoke. Quit smoking cigarettes. Yeah. And I’m on I do a podcast every Sunday that is counterculture for cannabis and vaping, and I’m a big vape advocate. So like the whole podcast thing is.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:09:59) – Well, no, because it’s.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:10:00) – To be with you.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:10:01) – Yeah, because there has been some careful guess about a certain person in the groups who has a cannabis thing going and they’re being backed or supported on some level by Are you talking about 710.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:10:22) – Oh God, please. Yes. You know about that. Oh with him mean.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:10:27) – No, no, no I’m not I haven’t talked to him on a personal level, but like I knew, I knew about him prior to what he became. Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:10:37) – And he out of his group.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:10:40) – So, like, I don’t like my big thing about the whole powder coat. Like people that do, you know, videos and shit, like more power to them. Like, I respect you for doing something with your life. You’re being productive. But powder coating is like, you know, with the whole custom thing and then the whole industrial thing. Like there’s this this head butting of like, who’s doing what, right? Who’s doing what correctly. And when you’re you’re doing stuff online and you’re doing stuff in like a sketchy booth or you don’t know how to ground your stuff properly and you’re smoking a cigarette while you’re trying to fucking paint and and you just look like a hack, right? You just look like a hack.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:18) – So at the end of the day, you make me look like a fucking idiot. You make Shaun look like a fucking idiot. And that’s like, where I’m like.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:24) – That’s where people were professional. Yeah. Profession. That is where people were drawing a line.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:31) – And the fact that he’s got like tiger dry black.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:34) – And that’s the thing. So that’s.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:37) – That’s got me pissed.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:38) – Oh no trust me I gave a because.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:42) – Shaun can’t even do this kind of.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:43) – Shit. No, hell no. Hell no. And so here’s the thing.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:48) – That’s the button.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:50) – Yeah, that’s crazy. And we’re going to. I want you to. I’m glad you have samples and stuff here because I want.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:56) – You did this one yesterday. You don’t really see.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:58) – I saw that on your Instagram. I love Malbec. It’s one of. It’s so.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:12:02) – Weird. I can’t the the thing about this, though, is, like with these doormats, I don’t think they. Have that one chemically, right? Because that shit mars up and scuffs.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:12:13) – No matter. I could cure that thing for a fucking hour. Yeah. And it’s this thin, like.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:12:18) – No, you know, we did a whole lift kit in that and unfortunately, nothing else.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:12:24) – I haven’t had that problem but that one.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:12:26) – Well, so what happened was we had we done this lift kit, the guy took forever to pick it up. It wasn’t. We tried to cover it up as best we can, but, you know, it still was a little bit exposed. And and on top of it, we were doing some huge ass like, architectural job with a 2605. And that stuff is so gummy. I have like it landed on everything and immediately bonded with anything. It was just weird. And so the whole the whole shop was covered in this shit and you can’t wipe it off. And then here.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:13:03) – We are, trapped in your gun.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:13:05) – Off.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:13:05) – Got got that shit coming out my gun for weeks and I like, rip the whole thing apart and clean it.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:13:11) – Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:13:12) – But I want to show you something that I’m working on, and I, I, I made a present for you.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:13:21) – Oh, shit.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:13:23) – I did. Well, sort of. I hope you think it’s a present. So we launched earlier this week. Um. And I’m going to pull this up. Hold on. I’m just. We launched a new website. I got some cares money and I wanted to. I wanted to do something with it, and this was part of what I wanted to do with it. So we’re wrapping it up. We have we’re it’s just a soft launch right now. But I want to show you what and get your opinion of it. But so let me share my screen.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:14:16) – Hmm.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:14:17) – So, um, I this is a directory website that we created, and the directory is for consumers to find powder coaters. So in my experience, you know, we do really well with the blog. My blog is like one of the top consumer blogs out there for powder coating.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:14:39) – And I realized this early on and, and I realized that when you type in powder coating near me and your Google search, it doesn’t necessarily tell you what specifically what that guy does. And if he doesn’t have a website or maybe he’s just on Instagram or whatever, you know, how do you know that that’s all he does, right? Unless you do a website and stuff. And so in a way to kind of define and, you know, I created kind of a directory site for custom for consumers to sort of marketplace who they’re looking for, what kind of project they have. And again, this is just like barebones, but we’re going to add so much more to this. But I you have a listing in here. I made sure of that.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:15:29) – Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:15:30) – Um, so let’s see. Let me.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:15:34) – This is so rad. You’re bringing so much light. To what? Like, here we are. I feel like. Like people like us that are doing. You know, like our own things and bringing like, our own topics to things.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:15:46) – It’s. It’s really bringing what powder coating should have been ten years ago.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:15:51) – Well, think about this. I mean, I don’t know how mean. Imagine people shop from all over the world, but you know like they could see you even more here, you know, beyond your website or whatever. And I don’t know if you’re on Etsy or where you’re at, but or how people find it. I imagine it’s Instagram, but, you know, how do they even know you exist? I didn’t know you existed and and stuff. So we just kind of, you know, took some pictures from your from your website and.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:16:22) – Those two mods right there that those that black and that pink one is really what blew me up.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:16:27) – Yeah, I’m sure it’s ideal. It’s like perfect. So here’s your page. You can log in and and alter it as much as you want. So you just hit claim listing. Okay, I’m going to get rid of this. This is not what I want on your page.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:16:43) – I want. I need something. There’s something else that’s going to be here.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:16:47) – But like, well, eventually, like once this is up and out, you could put the link to, like, our episode on that page. We could because this is going to be honestly, I’m going to take this as a driving force to like put your guys’s name on the map like and just big talk up you because honestly, like I’ve been holding back, jumping into like the actual powder coating scene, like I’ve been hiding from it just because of the sense of like, I don’t know how the industry is going to take that. I’m doing vape related stuff. I think it’s.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:17:17) – Great. That’s why I you on the podcast when you.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:17:20) – Can see like I don’t I don’t know that thing like you know like Alex from Cardinal he’s just like super blown away by what I can do. He doesn’t even know, you know, like he’s told me, he’s like, Ashton, you’re doing something that 99% of people around the world haven’t even figured out with powder.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:17:36) – No.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:17:37) – I look at the patina powder coating. I mean, it’s your.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:17:42) – Guys’s patina is insane. I was I was looking at that and I was like, Oh, awesome.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:17:51) – We’ve got concrete, we have wood, we have steel.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:17:58) – See, I’ve been trying to get like because so like my background, my brother is a really, really good airbrush and pinstripe artist and that’s really kind of why I did this with powder coating. I grew up in the background of the custom car culture and doing bodywork and paint work and doing collision work and, you know, really suffering and trying to figure out what life was and. Once we get going and stuff. I’ll tell you, like the startup of where where it came from. But really my background, you know, lied in custom car and the hot rod industry around here and. I ended up going my own way. And, you know, like a lot of a lot of what I do is inspired by my brother and him, you know, having his own business and being.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:18:43) – You know, an artist and everything. And once I started powder coating, it was like. I don’t know. It took me like, probably. I’d say about a year. And then I started doing my own vape stuff and then it was just like over from there.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:18:59) – Yeah. What you’re doing is just it’s mind blowing and it’s only going to get better for you. I see that. In fact, I was thinking, who is this guy that reached out to me on my Instagram to get on the show? And then I was.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:19:17) – Talking to Sean. I talked to Sean.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:19:19) – Oh, you talked to Sean? Okay.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:19:21) – Well, so I was talking to Sean the other day and I like I just kind of like I don’t really I’m not a big follower of his or. You know, in the instance of just like out of respect, like I respect him for what he does and, you know, his work is speaks for itself. But at the end of the day, like I don’t care about, you know, just talking about just shit like he does, I guess.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:19:44) – I don’t want to get too far into it, but, um, yeah, like.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:19:48) – He. He’s very good at it too, you know? So. Oh, yeah.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:19:51) – Like, Oh, I messaged him one day just to shoot shit, and I was like, What’s up with 710 Trying to copy your fucking, your, your sparkle. Like, I already know how he makes it because I’m like, my brother is really in cahoots with PG. And I’ve had people be like, Hey, you should use some of this. And like, that just takes away from the whole powder coating thing in my head. So I don’t do those kind of things. Um, but I was like, I messaged him, I was just like, What’s up with, you know, 710 trying to copy you and blah blah, blah. And then I was like, Dude, we me and you need to, like, sit down and talk and just kind of have like a roundtable to, like, weed out the fucking bullshit online.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:20:33) – Yeah, it’s, you know, I look at it and.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:20:37) – Then, you know what he said to me? He’s like, You need to talk to Maui Powder works.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:20:43) – You know, Here’s how I look at it. I look at it as there’s, you know, just like what you said earlier, you know, we’re there are some movements in a very boring market. Right? It’s it’s an industrial market. And yet there are people like you. There’s people like Sean. There’s even people like 710. As much as I hate to say that word.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:21:08) – Exactly.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:21:10) – Yeah. At least they’re moving and shaking, right? And it’s waking up a very dormant industry. Corrupt.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:21:19) – It’s like it’s disturbing an industry.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:21:22) – It is. And it’s so quiet and almost when I talk to these industrial people that have, you know, they’re they’re they’ve been general managers, CEOs, you know, sales guys, they can’t even wrap their head around it. They’re so into, you know, they’re their they’ve been working for the one same company for 30 years or it’s it’s mind blowing and here we are.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:21:48) – And okay, so I’m going to date myself right now because I remember the 70s and Punk and UK and, you know, whatever that whole movement and then I’m going to date myself again. Madonna and I was in fashion back then, so, you know, I was paying attention to that. I was going to college for fashion marketing. And by, you know, I wanted to be a buyer. At least that’s what I thought.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:22:20) – I wanted a lot of my life and a lot of my colors come off of what I grew up doing in the 90s and yeah, we’ll get into it. Trust me. That’s like why you see me using a lot of fluorescent colors and yeah, so just bringing the layer back.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:22:35) – Here’s the thing that Madonna did. Madonna was on the streets of New York. She was playing around local gigs. There was a you know, this was kind of towards the end of the whole punk movement. And we were transitioning into the 80s and she picked up on a lot of first of all, she was, you know, a starving artist and she picked up on a lot of that fashion coming out of the out of that world.

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.22.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:23:01) – And she would shop at vintage markets and stuff like that for her fashion, right? She literally pulled this was the first time this had ever happened. She pulled from the street and brought it up to haute couture, which had never been done before. Mean Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, all of these people, Christian Dior, they never looked at the street for inspiration. Right. They they she somehow managed to cross over and broke through. I think she did more for mean as good as she is or how how much she broke broke barriers in music. She did the same in fashion, especially at the beginning of her career. And that had never been done before. And I’ve seen that before in fashion. And I’m telling you, it’s happening in powder coating people like us that are creative and are thinking outside the box. Whether you’ve got a YouTube channel and you’re just teaching people everyday stuff or you’re you’re doing extreme coating on small items that are artistic and beautiful and super highly customized, or you’re doing a patina powder coating or some other strange anomaly that is just so out of the norm.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:24:36) – You’re breaking people’s minds. And that’s a good thing. And you know, it’s going to it’s it’s a tough road, though.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:24:44) – You know? It is It’s like a my biggest thing was, is I started doing this because a lot of these products, you know, as a consumer, you know, trying to quit smoking, trying to find a nice mod that was going to stand up with me, going to work and being, you know, dirty powder coat hands, being in an industrial shop all fucking day, you know, maybe I drop it and it breaks all these these. Products were, you know, maybe if they were made in America, they were coming with Sarah coat finishes. And I’m not here to knock Sarah coat you know, Sarah coat has its place and its time, you know, maybe on your gun on the shelf that’s never going to see use. But. You know, Circo is something that when you’re using something every day, it’s very it just wears. And, you know, as a coater myself, I was like, I saw an opportunity there and I was like, okay, I have a I have this opportunity to, you know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:25:37) – Combine both of my passions, you know, with, you know, the the love for quit smoking and helping people to quit smoking and spread that awareness, but also take my passion from a custom culture and background and actually put something on this device that’s going to stand a drop test, that’s going to stand, you know, the acids on your hands that you know it’s going to stand the nicotine and the juice may be rolling down your mod like it’s it’s it’s things that it’s more than just, you know, me. You know, locking myself in my garage and figuring things out. But it was, you know, it’s it never.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:26:11) – Involving solving a need.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:26:13) – Yeah. And that was that was like the big thing is, like, I looked at it in like a, you know, I guess I could go back on if you want me to start like on how I, you know, got to where I’m at. I could Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:26:26) – But, but first I’m going to give you your present.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:26:29) – Okay? We’ve given you your present yet? This is just. I wanted to get your opinion on this. Um, you know, and this might just, you know, we might just roll with this the way it is. It our conversations just happening naturally, and we’re just kind of talking. Talking the shit about powder coating, so. Uh, you know, this is just. I liked your profile. This is exactly what I want to see Powder coaters doing, and I hope they’re going to log in and register their page and stuff because this is ideal. This is what we want. You know, you’ve got specialty items, specialty finishes. So it’s all just growing. It’s just the basic thing. Oh, geez, hold on. Nobody’s supposed to call me on a Saturday. We’re closed. Maui powder works. Uh, you can stop by. We’re not officially open, but you can stop by. We’re here now. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Bye. Okay. See you.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:27:46) – Okay. Sorry about that. No, you’re good. Cut it out. Um, but anyways, I really wanted to show this to you just because I knew we were going to talk and stuff, and it’s a good.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:27:59) – Place for people to go and like and put their stuff and become, you know, make other people well aware. Not only necessarily, you know, somebody’s looking to get something done specialized, but just people within the industry. This could be groundbreaking in the sense of, you know, this could help somebody that’s struggled with illusion. Violet Every time they’ve sprayed it, you know, and, you know, maybe they’ve gone by the spec sheet, but something’s not right. You know, that’s that’s where I kind of pride myself in as I came from, like a big background. One of my employers was a big guy and obviously he had Cardinal in there 24 over seven. And if it wasn’t Cardinal, it was Sherwin Williams or it was my Wagner rep or it was my my gamma rep in there trying to sell me a gamma or it was, you know, it was there’s a lot of things.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:28:47) – And that’s kind of like why I want to be here and touch on because I feel like I’ve touched every aspect of this industry in a short amount of ten years. And. There’s a lot of things that I want to bring to light in this subject when it comes to even just, you know, a kid that’s maybe in his mid 20s and he’s been doing it for five years and he’s, you know, maybe he hates his life, but he’s still coating, you know, like those are the kids that I want to give inspiration to because I was maybe once that kid at one point, you know, like getting to the point where you felt like you’ve done everything and you’ve accomplished all these goals within yourself and trying to just be a good painter at the end of the day. And, you know, and sometimes that’s the unfortunate thing about powder coating is you live these really high highs and then you live these really low lows of like maybe there’s a lot of work coming in and you’re loving it, but then it’s like you finally catch up and it’s done and then it’s never ending or, you know, you did something really, really cool.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:29:45) – And then like the next customer, you know, you did something just as cool, if not better, and they’re not satisfied. It’s a it’s a juggling act and it’s.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:29:52) – A it’s a struggle. And especially when you work with your hands and it’s a it’s sort of a mastery thing. And I Ross and I are both like this. We we tend to master things and then we want to move on.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:30:08) – Yeah, that’s, that’s where I’m getting to.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:30:11) – Yeah. And I don’t know what this solution is to someone like us because it’s like. You know, unfortunately, the downside of that is you’re constantly creating something new, which sounds beautiful, but it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to financial. A regular or financial because you need stability in order to. And that means sticking with something for the long haul in order to generate you know, if you’re self-employed, you’ve got to keep on that day in and day out or you’re going to have to hire someone to to make sure that you can achieve that day and day out.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:30:54) – Right. And so that’s the problem. I think that we mean, on one hand, we have so much experience, we have so much energy, we have so much stuff to share people with with powder coaters because of all the ups and downs we’ve learned. But at the same time, we constantly are trying something new or doing something new, and we’re not focusing back on what we’ve created, you know, and there is a you know, it’s sort of a it’s the journey of the alchemist, really. Yeah, That’s.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:31:27) – Like what my brother told me, you know, like I asked my brother because, you know, it’s like sometimes I struggle with it. And he told me he’s like, Ashton, you need to go back and look at what you’ve done just in the last month or look at what you’ve done and look at what you’ve done in six months fashion. He’s like, You got to go back and just put yourself in that same headspace or like, I’ll have I had a customer that a lot of like you seen that mod that had the pharaoh on it and the beetle and its like ten different colors with you know, that purple and violet shift and then it glows in the dark like I’ve had my customer be like, I want to do something crazier than this.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:32:03) – And I’ve told him, like, I honestly don’t think I could put myself in that headspace again because, you know, like at that point I was like working a full time job and running my business. So I would go paint, you know, 10 to 12 hours a day, run, you know, 15 to 20 carts a day or 2000 to 4000ft of handrail, whatever it may have been that day. And then I’d go home and spray all night long till wee hours in the morning in my garage with my craftsman powder coating gun and my my convection toaster oven. And, you know, I would slam these orders out and then I would get up and drag my ass to work and do it again. And that’s.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:32:43) – Insane. Yeah, it’s hard to keep that up. I mean, that’s how I feel right now. Covid 19 is certainly.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:32:51) – I don’t think I’ve ever been busier. This is this thing has made me so busy. It’s been like a blessing in disguise.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:33:00) – Yeah. How is that? I’m trying to answer that question.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:33:03) – I cannot think if you look at it in the aspect like I’m really big into motocross and supercross and I’ve, I grew up racing BMX and dirt bikes and stuff, but now I’m like, I’m a big fan of it all. But I listened to a lot of podcasts. I listen to a lot of announcing and and one of the announcers said he was like, you know, for racing motorcycles, everybody’s racing Saturday to sell dirt bikes on Monday, you know, because dirt bike shops like that’s how that’s how dirt bikes are sold and bought. You know, whoever’s winning Sunday or Saturday. So and so is buying that bike, right? So when all this hit and every all the racing stopped or, you know, give or take it’s basketball or football or whatever it may be. Yeah, like everybody’s like, wait a second. Like they’re freaking out. Like, what’s this going to do to our industry? What’s this going to do for sales? You know? Well, the first thing everybody did was like, I’m going to go outside.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:33:56) – So bicycles got bought, dirt bikes got bought. You can’t go to a dirt bike or a or a bicycle shop right now and find what you want because they’re all sold out because everybody’s doing everybody’s doing and wanting to do what they’ve they’ve held back for how many years? So it’s like it’s kind of like a crazy thing.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:34:18) – It is mean for us digitally. What we’re doing is we’ve got Maui Powder Works, but we’re also opening up this digital side to our business, which in itself is its own business, you know? Oh yeah, for sure. Ultimately, you know, this is going to, you know, bring consumers. It’s a marketplace for consumers to come and find power, coaters also to learn about more about powder coating them in themselves. Right. You know, because they’re on the hunt as well. And so, you know, I think that it’s getting there. And I think that something like this that can marry the powder coaters to, you know, the people that are searching for the information is is going to be you know, it’s small right now.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:35:10) – But ultimately I want it to give, you know, a value. This is a valuable backlink to your to your website.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:35:18) – This is it’s valuable for, you know, like I come from like this this crew of like these people that do the podcast with and like that I’m on like if you type my name in, you’ve probably seen me on quite a few vape shows. And the vaping community is something that I’ve aspired to like show the world. Like because I grew up, you know, following my brother around to pinstriping shows, doing brush brushes and being in that side of an artist world where, you know, there’s 10 million stripers and there’s 50,000 airbrushes and they’re all got these egos and they all don’t get along. And, and there’s all this, you know, animosity between each other. But when I stumbled across the vape community and became a part of it, and everybody’s out to help everybody, you know, like I’m out to help, you know, if somebody’s trying to quit smoking, I don’t want them to jump through the loopholes and and find all these products that didn’t help me.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:36:15) – You know, I want them to experience it and not have to deal with that stress and and you know what I mean? And move on. And and maybe that’s what this industry needs as as powder coaters. We need to help other people solve problems because you know what? Guess what? Our our paint isn’t going to show up and be better because we just bitched about it. You know what I mean? Like, our guns aren’t going to get better because if we don’t voice our opinions, you know what I mean? That’s, that’s the thing. We’re starting to see the technology and the paint and like, the guns and the paint are starting to match up with technology today. Yeah. And if we don’t keep going, it’s not going to get better. So, like, if we want things to get better, we have to want that. We have to voice our opinions. And yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:36:56) – I hate that. I hate to, quote, wrestle again, but that’s exactly what he said.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:37:01) – It’s time for us to band together to demand lower prices for equipment, to demand better services from these industrial companies that think that we’re just mosquitos flying around their head and and to create a better equipment mean.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:37:23) – And I guarantee you I would put I would put my business name on it that I guarantee you I can do something with a gamer that a gamer rep couldn’t even figure out with his own gun.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:37:34) – That’s good.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:37:36) – And that’s the thing. Like, I started on the first powder coating gun I ever use back in the day when I started in 2012 at an industrial shop after I had had to sandblast for two years prior to even him letting me touch the gun, I. I started on an old nordson versus spray two out of a pressure pot. And then like as time went on, I moved to another shop. I got to learn on a GMA. I learned the GMA really well, and then I moved to another shop and all these three shops that I’ve been to, I was the lead coater and all three of those shops I got to use Nordson and Wagner and the Wagner sprint.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:38:16) – Sorry to say, you guys, that is my favorite gun out of everything I’ve ever used. That’s there’s something about that double click feature gun that I could not get away from. I’m saving my money up for another one.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:38:30) – Good. That’s good. We need to hear about that and and stuff because it’s just the same question that gets asked every day in the groups. If I have to see another one, I’m, you know, like, Oh, maybe that’s what I’m seeing in the groups today. I took a look at some stuff that had been going on in the last couple of days and. It seems like it’s and getting back to what I was saying earlier, it’s like it’s evolving. It’s evolving right now. It’s oh, it’s going yeah, it’s evolving really fast on the group’s. It’s evolving.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:39:07) – And that’s the thing. I don’t want to be behind. Like I want I want my name to be out there. I want to be able to help people and I want to be able to.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:39:14) – At the end of the day, I really want to be able to help companies like I want to. I want yeah, I want to be able to reach out and talk to Columbia Coatings about my cool coat benchtop setup that I’ve been running for over a year now. You know, and, and that’s the thing. Like, I don’t see people. Doing that. Like, I want these companies to know that their products are working good, right?

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:39:37) – It almost when I talk to these guys and I talk to them about the products in the, you know, the equipment, it almost feels like they it’s like they’ve never heard what I’ve just told them before, you know, like that kind of that kind of unsolicited opinion or review or whatever is marketing gold to them. But they’re not used to getting it. They’re only used to it at their level or their high level. It’s like the hot couture or the high fashion people. And you know, of the 80s, they, they hadn’t heard the street before.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:40:17) – Um, and that’s what changed fashion from there on out. A lot of stuff is much more freer and open and deregulated in a sense of, you know, creativity in fashion today because of that, that change, that that sea change. And I see it. We’re on the verge of that right now. And that’s why it’s happening. It’s evolving really fast. And I think the more the merrier at this point. Um, I don’t necessarily condone, um, you know, uh. Some some stuff and maybe that’s just me. But like, you know, you don’t want to prey on people either. And that’s some of the stuff that I haven’t been happy with in terms of, you know, preying on innocent people. Or maybe they’re not so innocent, but if they are, maybe they’re asking for it in terms of like, you know, helping someone who doesn’t even have a legit coating company represent us that I get uncomfortable with. It’s fine. He wants to have a digital marketing company because that’s really all it is.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:41:32) – You click his affiliate links and he gets paid. Just because he’s recommending this certain brand of tape doesn’t necessarily mean he knows anything about coating. That’s just my opinion. Right. But. But I haven’t given you your present yet. So we’re about ready to promote the directory. And I thought, I’m going to just take the coaters that I’ve interviewed and make kind of like mini commercials because I think every coater has a story to tell. And so I created a sort of a mini commercial that was going to promote on Facebook. It obviously features your stuff, But so let me get to the commercial and see if you can. Oh, shoot. Where’s. Oh, here it is. Can you still see my screen?

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:42:27) – Oh, yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:42:28) – Okay. Um.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:42:33) – This is cool. It’s like a dream. It’s a dream for me. Like to put Idaho on the map for a lot of different things. You know what I mean? So that’s cool. It’s like when I see this kind of stuff and you guys doing what you do, it’s been a I’m excited for it.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:42:47) – So. Yeah, I did see this earlier. I seen this somewhere. Got.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:43:06) – Not bad.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:43:08) – Yeah. You’re just like the marketing whiz. You got your. You got your husband in the backseat, you know, sweating to death, and you’re in the office just making your guys’s name loud. That’s awesome.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:43:20) – Well, you know. Exactly. I mean, it’s his fault. I’m going to just right now. So I had a very successful refinishing business. And in addition to that, we got into remodeling condos and homes and and all kinds of things, you know, because, uh, you know, the, the Great Recession happened, and so we had to just wear many hats, right? And so we got into room makeovers and condominiums and, and everything. And it, it blossomed really fast because I was already in the market. And so it was easy to pick up jobs here and there. And, you know, it was a great company in the sense that it offered a lot of cash flow.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:44:11) – But it wasn’t a you know, a lot of contracting companies don’t profit, you know, they just have the cash flow, right? Yep. So that’s kind of the unless you can really master the all of that, It’s that really was kind of a dead end.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:44:28) – You got the unless you got the whole contract on the whole island. In your case?

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:44:33) – Yeah. So plus it was high pressure and we’d been doing it for ten years and Ross was just over it. And he’s like, you know, we’d already had this side. Powder coating thing going. But, you know, we just decided, well, hell, let’s you know, he was just giving me such a hard time of trying to get stuff done, you know, finishing up. Oh, here comes a customer. Hi. Hey. How’s it going? Did you call? Did? Okay. Let me direct you around the corner here and talk to let you talk to Ross. Perfect. Thank. Just another day at Maui Powder Works.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:45:28) – Yeah, you guys. You guys are. You deal with the general public. I’m a wish. You guys ever come to Idaho? You have to come to my shop like I love you would be mind blowing because we’re. We’re like, by appointment only. Kind of. So when you walk into my shop, a lot of it’s obviously my brother’s artwork and his airbrushing and everything. And then there’s like the candy machine I powder coated or like the tons of vices that I’ve done and then like the sores in there and it’s just everywhere you look, there’s airbrushing on the garage door, there’s Bob or we got Jimi Hendrix on the back door by my, by my booth and stuff.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:46:05) – So my nephew does airbrushing and I’ve always wanted him to airbrush, like the oven door. Yeah. And that’s what.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:46:13) – Chaz wants to do, my big logo on my door. And I’m like, Yeah, I don’t know.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:46:17) – I know a lot of people put stickers on their butt, was like, I have an idea for, for, for that.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:46:24) – But yeah, you know, it’s. I forgot what we were talking about. What were we talking about? Where this industry is going or where it should go, kind of just to redirect and giving back. Think it should just be starting with just a give and a give and a give and then hopefully something will because somebody got to start doing it right. You know, somebody has to get it out there at first. And I got this a it’s called an adaptability grant through my county. And I’m like, I’m just going to do this. And I ended up getting most of what I requested. And so we went to we went right into building out the directory and and getting it going. Um, but yeah, I want to feature and talk about as I interview people, I realized they have a story. It’s like Victor Pete from Black Label has a story. He’s, he wasn’t satisfied and he started his own powder line, you know, So you have your story, which is, you know, kind of touched on in the in the ad And, you know, I think everybody has a story, you know, and every powder coater does.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:47:46) – And we should just be highlighting those stories, you know, and and putting them up on the directory and and seeing what happens, you know, it’s just content, right? It’s just content. So, um, I think we can. I think we can do it. I hope you like what I created. Um.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:48:04) – Yeah, I’m all for it. I’m definitely going to be a I’m definitely whenever you guys need help or anything like this side of things too, even with the podcast, like I’m down to come in and chat whenever you guys are available or that’s great. Just to keep it, keep it flowing like, you know, I know once podcast things get going, sometimes at the end of the day, it’s hard to get people on, you know and, and maybe, you know, like, you know, Ross says, you know, we need a lot of people in maybe one of these days we can get Ross on and just have a couple other people and get a roundtable of, you know, things going, maybe get a question I would.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:48:38) – Love to do. People know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:48:41) – Questions of, you know, serious questions that you know from coaters that we want not necessarily answered, but we want, you know, questions asked to us and then we can relay information because at the end of the day or the people using the products and, you know, and dumping the paint.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:48:55) – Let’s do that think you know, and and I’m just you know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:49:00) – At the end of the day what can it hurt from like a bunch of people at the end of the day that are really behind the gun with the experience? You know, because at the end of the day, a lot of these reps would come in and they’d be like, Oh, your guns set up wrong. And they would set my gun up and I’d be like, Look at my boss. And I’m like, This is what they think transfer efficiency is. And I’d spray it in. More than 50% of it’s hitting the ground. You know, you’re like, That’s not how my guns set up, dude.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:49:25) – Like, and, and that’s the thing you know, a lot of these I’ve seen a lot of these reps come in from Sherman Williams to be exact, and they don’t know their fucking foot from their ass. And they’re selling Wagners and and they’re trying, you know, it’s just like. That’s like, you know, at the end of the day, my boss told me one day he goes, Dude, a rep really isn’t a rep today. They’re fucking salesmen.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:49:46) – Right?

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:49:47) – You know, like at the end of the day, they’re trying to sell you what their product is and it’s the best.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:49:52) – Yeah. And that’s. And that’s kind of like in the groups, too. Why so many people ask that same question over and over again, you know, Which again, should I get? What, you know, I just saw it again.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:50:03) – You should get is what gun you know how to work the best and what tailors to your your environment your your what applications you’re doing like you know and.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:50:14) – Like so if you go and, you know, we’re in Hawaii, so we never attended any we never went to Powder X, we never went to like powder coating week and done the one on one class or the 102 over there. We never done any of those things. And so like, have you ever done those and.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:50:33) – Got the opportunity to do a seminar with Forrest? But so I didn’t get a go because the shop that I was in, I was I was the only painter for like the two years that I was there until I quit. And that was like the thing I was told I was going to be flown out to Pcci and I was told I was going to do this or I was told I was going to be featured in PCI Mag and all this crazy stuff. But at the end of the day, it was like, No, you still got to paint and and do this stuff. So I felt like at the end of the day, if I did go to any of those seminars, I would have a lot to tell and to teach.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:51:05) – But I felt like some of the things like just from experience of like certain reps coming in and kind of like confusing me and taking away and like almost setting me back like a week or, or give or take, you know, like I did a lot of, I did a lot of spring in my industrial career and felt like some of those things were they were they were awesome when it came down to learning chemicals and and just learning, you know, the whole chemistry behind things and understanding, you know, primers and, and, and zinke’s and stuff and how you shouldn’t spray zinc, you know, above 250 or you shouldn’t, you know, if like you’re in a production shop and you’re trying to put the paint down like. Primer and Zinc was a big learning curve for any applicator. And if you can’t apply it and you can’t get transfer efficiency with zinc, your life’s going to be hell and your boss is going to be mad. Right, Right.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:51:55) – So, yeah. And you know.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:52:02) – It looks like there’s a homeless man outside my door. Okay. With this tweaker bike and all of that stuff. Okay.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:52:10) – So the industrial park life.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:52:15) – So, yeah, you know, and but it’s crazy because I’ll go to the source, right? And I’ll go, I’ll call up or I’ll call up these people that I’ve been talking to and they are so in and passionate for the business, yet they’re not they can’t relay right.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:52:33) – Information to you.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:52:35) – Well, I think that that has something to do with the corporate thing. Right? You know what?

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:52:41) – They’re very they’re very particular about the right vocabulary when you’re talking about stuff and, you know, certain painters have certain vocabularies about things, that was like the hardest thing for me when I worked in. I was the lead coater and the paint manager at Precision Powder and Blast here in Idaho, and it’s the biggest it was at the time when it first opened, it was the biggest booth and oven this side of the Mississippi. So it was like 55ft long, 15 wide and 15 tall.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:53:08) – Wow. And I was I had two Wagner pumps in there. So like, one would either be in Primer or, you know, whatever one was in top coat, vice versa. And I would dump at least 300 to £400 a day. And like learning, learning all that and learning like, you know, how far an actual mill goes or, you know, learning how to actually stack mills and watch, you know, back ionisation and really watch how Powder’s talking to you, that that’s one thing even to this day that I’m just like, Oh, I’m a glutton for that information. You know, Like, that’s like I saw my eyes are addicted to watching powder transfer to metal in like, what, 3 or 4 passes does that, you know, 45 Like I’m very big on, you know, on your, on your amperage and your voltage settings and where they’re at with your air. Like if I can see somebody spraying with too much air, I’m just like, oh yeah, comment down, bring it back down, dude.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:54:04) – And that’s that’s the thing is you’re seeing a lot of these. Guns. And a lot of these people are they’re fucking maxing out their CVS and their micro amps and you really don’t need to be at the end of the day, if you want that gun to last you 20 to 15 years. If you spent 7 to 8 grand on a gun. You don’t need to be rocking it at 100. And you know, I like to keep mine around 80 if I’m doing hot coats and stuff. And that’s like what you guys are talking about the other day. Ross is talking about hot flocking and I’m pretty big on hot flocking.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:54:36) – So many people are. And by that I don’t know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:54:40) – I got videos on videos of me doing like thousands of feet of handrail, just just ripping and then letting it drop. Temp cool back. Go over to your gun. That’s the cool thing about doing a hot flock. Like, let’s say if Ross was to to mess with a Wagner, you could set that gun up to, you know, higher, higher voltage and amperage.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:55:02) – Bring your your powder, your air up and your powder down a little bit and just get a decent coat over everything, let it drop, and then you can set up the gun to where you can double click it and then it’ll drop your microamps and your voltage and your air and your powder or put your powder up or, you know, wherever you want to save that setting and then recut the whole thing. Boom, it’s done going back in the oven and. You got perfect Mills. Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:55:28) – Yeah. I think there’s a lot of. Upside in what can be talked about in the future. And of course it’ll all be driven. The more we create in this case, the more questions will be answered, the more you know. And that’s what I was talking about earlier. Like there was some discussion in the groups about how like forums aren’t being used and yet a lot of us were, say, us, but my husband, that’s how he learned, you know, and they’re not user friendly.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_shop posts_number=”3″ _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_shop][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.22.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]​RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:56:08) – They’re bulky and awkward to use. You just want the answer now. And so that’s why the groups has. You know, blown up in terms of, you know, getting answers to questions you have. Plus, people want content. In their fingertips. They don’t want to have to go and search it now.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:56:28) – They want to just be able to type in what their problem is and they want an answer for it. Now, like, that’s the biggest thing about like when I would go to a new shop and let’s say I just came off the nordson and I had to learn how to run a GMA that bought my boss isn’t going to tell me or give me a load on on how to run his GMA. He expects me to know how to run that thing. So guess what? I went and try to search all the gun settings you could figure out for GMA. Guess what? Nobody was online five years ago telling you how to do that. Yeah, nowhere. And. And so what do I do? I just go up and I look up the user manual and I would figure out every damn button and how to run that box.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:57:06) – Yeah. And that’s that’s really what you have to do. And it’s like at the end of the day, I don’t, I don’t like, I don’t like settings being told like I don’t like, okay, you need to run this setting. Like, no, that’s not how it’s going to go. I’m going to set my gun up how I feel like on my body or, you know, specific application. Like if I’m doing a set of wheels and I’m doing them hot. Yeah, I want my, my, my voltage way up and vice versa. But it’s like those are the things like if you can’t figure out how to set up your gun correctly, like you just need to go back to square one, dial the gun back down like I learned on an old dial gun. You know what I mean? And now we’re learning on guns with digital buttons. And that’s it’s like a big learning curve going from a gun that you’ve used, you know, with dials and getting everything set just right.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:57:56) – It can mess with you when you get to a new gun.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:57:59) – And let’s face it, I mean, I’m I’m always the way of the warrior or the way of I’m I’m an alchemist at heart. I read a lot of esoteric and alchemy. Books and stuff like that through for my own spirituality and stuff. And yeah, you know, there is, um, you know, the, the search for the human or, or just a deeper understanding. And let’s face it. Electricity isn’t for everybody. You know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:58:29) – And that’s that was, that’s kind of funny you bring that up because, you know, I spent a lot of my younger 20s like. Wondering like, is this electricity messing with my psyche? Is it messing with my emotions like. And that’s that’s one thing that I kind of like. It was weird to think about. Like, there’s that sound that, you know, if if anybody knows if you’ve worked in an industrial shop and you’re doing handrail or you’re doing wheels and and you pull a load out of the oven and it’s at 400 degrees and you got your gun set up just where you need it.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:59:02) – And you start spraying a hot coat and you get that that sound of just, you know, like that sweet hot coat sound. And I remember the first time, my very first I see my very first boss doing a hot coat on this old I was sandblasting these old circus rides and there’s these old rocket ships that you would sit in, right? Oh, cool. And they had I can’t begin to explain how many mils of like lead and lacquer paint was, you know, all over these things. And, you know, I’d blast them and then I’d run them over on the forklift to the powder shop and my boss would hang them up and he was spraying them, but he was heating them up. And, you know, the dudes that were in their sprint at the normal times, they weren’t doing or I wasn’t catching them doing stuff hot. And I remember walking into the shop, I was like 19 years old and my this big fat boss that I had just sweating his ass off, no mask on, you know, spraying in this dark dungeon.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:59:55) – And it’s like this bright purple from Sherwin-Williams at the time, and he’s laying it hot. And I’m just like, that’s when I knew. I was like, whoa, this is this is cool. Like, this is cool right now. I now I understand what you’re doing because it looks wet, you know, like growing up painting hot rods and doing all that stuff with my brother, I was like, Oh. And then I was like, I was just waiting for somebody to quit. Waiting for somebody to quit to get that spot. You know.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:00:21) – There are subtleties to to it. And you kind of touched on that a couple minutes ago when you said, you know, how’s my body feeling? How, you know, and the gun settings and and watching the powder float, you know, people think it’s just, you know, and it’s not it’s there are especially when you do the fine work that you’re doing, you know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:00:46) – So that’s kind of like the the inlay work and like the that stuff’s like a totally different thing, but.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:00:53) – Like when you think about Faraday Cage and stuff like that, like I can touch on things that I had to do when I was working in the big industrial shop and I had to do all these like huge boot dryers for like ski resorts. They were like there were like 27, just like 60 slots for boots to go in. And they’re like these big, you know, sheet metal structures. But then they have these slots coming out. And the Faraday cage behind that.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:01:19) – Between the two was.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:01:20) – So gnarly to get. And my boss is like, I was like, Let me paint one hot. Like just let me paint one hot in those spots real quick. And he’s like, No, it’ll get too heavy. And, you know, because there’s like textured, it was like BC 47 or something from Cardinal. And I’m like, Just let me do it, dude. And I did one and he’s like, Oh my God. And I’m like, See? I got to stack it more and it looks more healthier.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:01:43) – But then I’d figured out like, I could go in like, you know, say I had ten of them on a cart. I couldn’t get them all hot. But like, you’d be surprised with like how you can the whole shaking thing I’ve got away from over the years and like coming into these new guns, like these new guns have so much. This this cloud of electricity that you work with and there’s sharp edges to it. If you know where to point your gun and you can kind of like, okay, you can kind of come into things and then pull the trigger and then come out and then whip and do certain things with like, you know, regular fan tip. Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:02:18) – It sounds like you’ve been a deep study on that.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:02:21) – Oh, yeah. And it’s pretty it’s pretty tricky. And that’s just from time. That’s time and experience of, you know, hours of being in the booth, you know, nonsense. And those those were the the days that I honestly, I don’t miss that.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:02:33) – I don’t miss the, the hustle and bustle of it, because those are the days that I was ignoring the science. Those are the days that I was listening to podcasts just to get me through the day. You know, like that looks jumpy enough. Like after it comes out and I’m milled out, fine, I’m cool. You know, like I was just at that point of life in this industry. I was just like a robot, you know, And I felt like a number and I was getting paid good. But there’s there’s a lot of things that that fall into it.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:03:00) – Yeah, you have a way of explaining things into the the subtleties that I think even my husband has a hard time talking about. And it’s, you know, it was when we were teaching our employee, you know, those, those subtleties, you know, and the confidence, you know, just get in there, get in there. And it’s like.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:03:22) – The best thing that I can say for anybody is like, you’re not going to learn from doing it right.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:03:27) – Like you’re going to fuck shit up. And like, at the end of the day, that’s what makes you a better painter is if you can fix that, if you can sand it down and recode it with no issues because guess what? You’re going to have an issue recoating. If you can’t code it properly the first time, you know, like and those are the things you know. But it’s I just encourage even like employer employers or if they have a coater that’s, you know, getting frustrated and stuff, just like give him time, let him figure it out, you know, And like that’s the thing. Like in those, in those instances like I had at the very first job that I had, I had a boss that was like my favorite boss that taught me the most. And in the instance of like not giving a fuck and just doing it and getting in there and figuring it out like he didn’t tell me, like, this is your error, this is your power, this is this.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:04:11) – He was like, this does this. This does this. This does this. Figure it out. And he gave me he gave me eight years to figure it out. And I learned, you know, and like. Right. But then I went to other shops and you don’t have that time like you don’t have that time to figure it out, your.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:04:26) – Margins, because they have, you know, and that’s why you got a 50.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:04:31) – When you got a 50 foot oven, that’s a fire breathing dragon. And if there ain’t 50 grand pumping out of that fucker every, you know, ten hours, you’re losing money. Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:04:41) – And they don’t have that time to waste on mistakes and stuff. And I can understand totally, you know, this is great. We’re talking about this because you can totally understand that. Um, but I, I resort back to those original scientists, mad scientist that came out with the powder coating and, you know, gamer and Fortnite and all of that stuff that came out of that out of 99 podcast because that’s where I.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:05:16) – I gravitate to write those people. That’s the stuff.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:05:19) – That, like, need to know about and I don’t know about yet.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:05:22) – They were experimenting every day and it was like, Talk about hustle. Yeah, they were trying to beat out the other guy because there were patterns on the line. There were industries to. Yeah. And I mean probably more under the gun back in the 50s and 60s than we are today. We definitely have more of a privilege because it’s out there. And yet, you know, as big as the coating industry is, we’re still a small, small part of it that’s supposed to be, you know, I’m excited because I don’t think these powder coaters understand even the garage guys. Shout out to you guys. You need to understand that we’re about ready to double double how much money this industry is going to produce in the next 7 to 10 years. Double.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:06:18) – That’s what that was like. I had a lot of insight on magazine.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:06:21) – That was.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:06:23) – That. A lot of insight on that last year.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:06:26) – At the tail end of my, you know, my industrial career. That was like the big thing with where I was living in Idaho at the time. That’s like the big boom city right now. And they’re supposed to be, you know, they’re expecting another 50,000 people moving in that area. Guess what? That’s housing developments. That’s that’s more numbers in handrail footage than you can fucking put your mind on like. Right. Right at that. At that point, it was I walked into a shop that. He put millions of dollars into this shop and didn’t know how to run it. And I walked in and I’m just like, I remember the first day I walked in and I ran like ten carts in like an hour for him. And he looked at me and he was like, How did anybody ever let you walk out their door? And I said, I guess you’ll figure that out in a couple of months or a couple of years, you know? And that’s that’s just the, you know, the severity of it.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:07:18) – Yeah, it’s definitely evolving. Think it’s good evolving, but, you know, it’s not without, um. You know, it’s not without its drama. You know, it’s not about.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:07:34) – Talk about an industry full of drama that you don’t hear about. Right. It’s like there’s so much drama, But I don’t it’s just it’s fucking hilarious.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:07:44) – And how do you, you know, had this issue last week with Tiger? It’s like, how do you. How do I. Tell. This corporate guy.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:07:59) – You don’t. You just let him fall on his face because at the end of the day, that’s what’s going to happen. Fuck fuck me for saying it. But somebody got you through.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:08:10) – And I explained it to him. He didn’t get it. I explained it again, and I’m thinking, Am I just not saying this right? Or are you that derpy? And, you know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:08:20) – Like, you got to look at it in the aspect of like, look at America and look at what paint companies are on the West Coast and look at what paint companies are on the East Coast.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:08:30) – Tiger Dry Lake and PG and Axel Noble, they rule the East Coast and there’s not much you’re not seeing what we’re doing. You’re not seeing the severity of just the sheer passion and and and and skill of people that you do on the West Coast. And with you guys going into Hawaii that you do on the East Coast. East coast is they’re big, big money shops. They’re big production shops. It’s just big box paint. So and that’s that’s where like what you’re saying, we’re breaking that mold and, you know, it might be six months from now, it might be a year to now. But like at the end of the day, I think, you know, it’s like the companies that are on the West Coast are more towards, you know, the center of the states like Columbia Coatings and prismatic, And you got Cardinal in Washington and California and Vegas now. But Cardinals, you know, a big box company. But I’ve worked a lot with cardinal They’ll send you £5 of paint.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:09:26) – They’ll they’re very, very awesome with their technicals and a lot of their blacks, a lot of their whites. You can spray that stuff hot and you don’t have to worry about it running like that. Stuff like BC all that stuff’s formulated to be sprayed hot and cold like, right? There’s so much like and that’s the thing that kind of bugs me about Cardinal is like they have such a good base for colors like black gloss, black silvers, you know, charcoal grays. Like if you can’t get your hands on ifs, which I mean, if you can get your hands on ifs, I would suggest it because it sprays so nice. Yeah. But, you know, that’s at the end of the day, it’s like if it’s if it’s cost effective, if their shipping is on point, you know, there’s a lot of variables that roll into where you’re pulling paint from and if you’re getting. You’re getting like bad feedback from certain colors, you know, like I get sometimes I get bad feedback from, like, Jack Black from Prismatic.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:10:22) – Right? Think they think the one big thing that’s holding back these bigger companies is the fact that they don’t have e-commerce sites. Yeah, and it’s very expensive to build that out and it’s not been on their radar and it should be 100% priority number one. Make it. Well, it’s.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:10:44) – Like prismatic put it out there and everybody’s face you guys could be selling small amounts and be making a fucking killing off of it, especially if your product is good. Like at the end of the day, if I would if I could pay ten bucks to get a pound of just something from Cardinal from their website, you bet your ass I would. Yeah, you know what I mean? But at the end of the day, certain companies just, you know, they’re stuck in their old ways.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:11:12) – I think the think the pandemic has helped them understand that, although I think the majority of what they’ve been more worried about versus e-commerce is just logistics and getting making sure that their product and.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:11:26) – That it’s going to go.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:11:27) – Is working. And that’s what’s definitely been an issue in this in this whole thing and what makes it slightly different than other recessions. But, you know, I think that it’s expensive to start on the level that they’re at with the size of their company, the size of their websites to build out an e-commerce site. Even if they could just do a separate it could even just be a separate website.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:11:55) – Yeah, a separate entity. You know, like I don’t see like even Cardinal and PG, they already have the format. They already sell custom colors, you know, like they already have somewhat of what these other big box companies don’t have. I don’t see why they’re not like. Here. Like here’s the like.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:12:16) – Said, don’t think it’s on their radar and.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:12:18) – Like, have you seen this new color changing stuff that all of a sudden just popped up in the last month? Like, you know how long I’ve been waiting for those five color changing colors that just hit powder? Like we’ve been waiting ten plus years for that.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:12:31) – Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:12:32) – Yeah. Um, is that the tiger one?

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:12:36) – Yeah, Tiger just did one. And I seen powder by the pound has one, but we all know they buy and sell everybody else’s powder.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:12:43) – And I went to SEMA 360. It was sort of a non-event. Um, from what I’m hearing about the participate participant. Yeah.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:12:54) – Was like curious about that and like, I didn’t really see anything.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:12:58) – Like it was probably the most expensive. Experiment ever done.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:13:05) – In the car industry? For sure. That’s everybody. That’s everybody out there on a limb, though, Like that’s that invests into that show. You got to think about it like Foose and all these wheel companies and all these tire companies and all these paint companies seem as what keeps us alive at the end.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:13:20) – Well, I think part of it was that the week of SEMA was the same week as the presidential. Yeah, the.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:13:27) – Election. Well, I mean, even even, you know, like you you have social media platforms.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:13:34) – You saw a drop in a serious drop in the last two weeks in activity than anything.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:13:41) – Yeah. And you know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:13:43) – Unless you hashtag like fucking some politician bullshit like you weren’t showing up in the algorithm that week.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:13:52) – Right. So I think timing wise, that was not a good time to have an online event. And then, you know, the content seemed interesting. Of course, I was in Hawaii, so I was already missing the live stuff. But yeah, you could attend the webinar after just like any other webinar. They’d hold it up there. But then and so I was excited that, okay, I missed it this week because of all the, you know, crazy stuff going on business and the politics and all of that. And then I go back like a day later after the event, like, think it ended on the sixth, then it went on the seventh and all the webinars were gone. Like, leave that shit up. I’ve already paid to go, Leave it up.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:14:37) – Why leave it up for a month? Leave it up for a year, Who cares? You know, it’s not.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:14:41) – Like we can go and shake each other’s hands right now.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:14:44) – You can’t even click on the website now it’s just gone. And I’m like crazy. I could go back any time I want now and listen to anything that anybody said. And there was some good topics. They were topics about trends. There was talking topics about rims, there was topics, you know, and, you know, I just went there as I got in as press mean, my God, it took me an hour to come up with all the stuff that they wanted in order for me to qualify as press, you know, and then to zip it off and make it go bye bye just because the event was over. Like, what is this? You know, you could have people all over the world watch this 24 over seven every day of the week. All they got to do is just pay a small entrance fee.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:15:31) – So what, you’re not there at the lives. Anyways, I did talk to some of the Tiger guys that were there and they were saying it was just a big bus. But then I noticed when I went to search I was just assuming Prismatic is going to be there and they weren’t. So if anything, that should have, you know, let Tiger know that they shouldn’t be in it either because they were the only powder code or the crazy.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:15:54) – Thing that like the shit that cracks me up about them at like expos. Like, I’ve never got to go to an expo and experience it, but like, to see their booth and they have like fucking 3600 colors on the wall and you’re like, Dude, 90% of us ain’t going to try to figure out how you formulated that certain teal. Like you’re crazy.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:16:16) – Right? Right. Just give me the teal, right?

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:16:19) – Yeah, yeah. Just give me the teal, or I’ll just buy the next one over. That looks somewhat close enough, and I’ll just go a little darker.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:16:26) – Right? Yeah.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:16:27) – I got a I got a quick tip for you. If you guys are ever doing, like a candy red or a candy blue and you’re having a hard time with it, you know, if you’re just spraying like an actual candy instead of an illusion. I’ve been doing Cadillac gray first. And. And then, like, go like 80% cure on the Cadillac gray and then come into it with the candy red or the blue or green or or whatever else and then go full cure. It is so deep and rich and you don’t have to worry about like the pink. And.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:16:59) – Yeah, whereas I was having problems with brassy gold.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:17:03) – Yeah, that’s a good one.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:05) – And I wanted to bring it up here. Let me see if I can bring up the.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:17:11) – Is it going copper on you?

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:15) – Um, no, it was running, It wasn’t staying. And it was like, are we having a Faraday? Because it’s small parts, right? And it’s break break handles for some Decoutere don’t know.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:29) – Or some kind of motorcycle. The guys from Oahu. So, you know, it’s a big deal when we get these.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:17:36) – Jobs off.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:37) – From other islands, you know, we want to impress them and.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:17:42) – What are you using for a base or are you going over like raw substrate?

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:47) – Ross was using the new Prismatic Chrome two. Okay. Because that was what was suggested and so we’d already wanted to try it anyways. And anyways, so I want to bring this up and share it because it’s Steve from Okinawa and I know I keep bringing Steve up. He’s just so awesome. Where’s his So it he posted brassy gold same week but he did a rim and let me share my screen because it’s absolutely beautiful work and everybody should be. Everybody should follow Steve. He’s in Okinawa. He’s awesome. And every time he just seems to be improving his work over and over and over again.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:18:39) – Helene.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:18:41) – Yeah, he is. He has stepped it up a notch.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:18:46) – He is in for a gun.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:18:48) – Uh oh, It’s.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:18:50) – I did see it. Here. Hold on. He just did one here. Nordson. Look at that.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:18:56) – Oh, he’s using an encore.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:18:57) – It’s surprised me. He was using Nordson. And he doesn’t say that.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:19:02) – You know, it’s. I’ve been. That’s the only gun I haven’t got a spray with is the newer nordson stuff.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:19:08) – Yeah. Think I’m going to have him on the show. Okay, Steve, I know you listen to the podcast, you’re invited. I’m going to message you today. But he was helping me out with Ross Ross. If this is just two, three tiny little things, I mean, it’s crazy. He’s redundant 2 or 3 times.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:19:26) – Well, so like, the biggest thing is, is is he going full cure on the chrome?

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:19:30) – No. What? Here’s what I showed Ross this this post today and told him that I talked to Steve about what he used on this rim and he said Chrome, a chrome chroma chrome. What is that.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:19:46) – It might be tiger dry like.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:19:48) – I don’t know. So I. I messaged him, but he hasn’t messaged me back.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:19:52) – But Cardinal. Cardinal does a pretty decent chrome, too.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:19:57) – Yeah, we usually use tiger chrome, but we want to come to you.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:20:04) – I got to do. I did a whole barber chair with it and I went I went like fucking 20 minutes over here on it. And then I cleared it. And then I went from like. I think I went 25 minutes on the clear. And it was fine, but it still goes gray.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:20:24) – Yeah. So Ross looked at this video and he goes, You know what? I bet. Um, it’s the prismatic room, and it’s the first time he was using the new chrome tube. And I bet you it’s. I don’t know. You know that chrome from Prismatic? It’s temperamental.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:20:45) – It’s, uh. It makes me curious of. Because, like. Okay, so with super chrome one, they were suggesting at nuke the shit at 450 degrees and going forward, you’re.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:20:55) – Right.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:20:57) – That you’re fucking burning the shit out of it at that point. Like. Like, I mean, God damn, we might as well just go grab a chrome wheel and clear it and clear it and cook it for 12 minutes at that point. But you know what I mean. It’s just like it’s the, it’s the it’s that color where you’re like. I’m going to give you what I can give you. And if this is what satisfies you, then I’m fucking stoked. At the other end, you’re like, it’s chemically, it’s not. You can’t do it. It’s just we’ve I mean, how many years have we been spraying this shit? How many renditions have we sprayed? And we all fall for the damn same joke again. It’s going to look like chrome. You know, the only thing coming out looking like chrome after you clear everything is the damn hooks you used to hang this shit with. But I mean, at least it looks. At least it’s. Yeah, At least it’s not orange.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:21:51) – Peel your shit this time.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:21:55) – Yeah. Oh, man, that could be a whole nother podcast. Maybe that’s what we talk about if we get the whole group together right now.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:22:05) – Now. Okay, so a lot of people think that I had, like, this huge thing on my paint booth at Precision when I was there, and it was like this Sherman Williams like guide to troubleshooting. And it was almost comical to me because like some of the things of that, Oh, I think I do. I was like looking through it for through my phone the other day and I was like, I swear to God, I have a picture of this thing somewhere. But if you have Sherman Williams available or if you have a Sherman Williams rep, say, Hey, can I have one of your guys’s troubleshooting posters for powder.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:22:40) – Coating if they reply to my email?

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:22:43) – Oh fuck, it’s hilarious.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:22:45) – Answer the phone.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:22:46) – Like they’re talking about like, you know, if you have, you know, like how you have your pass through and your gun and then it get kinks right there and you’ll get build up inside there if you don’t clean it out and stuff.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:22:58) – They’re talking about debris coming out of your gun. If you don’t clean it and you’re like, this is like one one like powder coating 101, like, did you not blow your gun out five colors ago? Like, it’s pretty funny.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:23:15) – Yeah, I think it’s going to change. I have a feeling if we shout out loud, loud enough, you know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:23:22) – I was could get from Cardinal on this.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:23:26) – I bet I could tell you I was literally shouting on Friday last not this past Friday, but Friday before. I just was like. You don’t know me, you don’t know custom coaters and you don’t even know what you’re doing. And they weren’t even watching the videos is what I got. And they weren’t even aware. And they thought it was a funny thing that the prismatic versus Tiger thing was cool. Oh, that.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:23:57) – Shit got my blood boiling. I was was like.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:24:00) – How dare you bash prison? You okay? Okay. I’m not prismatic.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:24:05) – I’m not trying to talk shit or knock somebody’s fucking hustle.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:24:09) – But at the end of the day, when you badmouth ink black or if you just badmouth any gloss black at that point because you’re not getting coverage, maybe you should learn how to fucking spray and set up the gun right at the end of the day, rounded properly. Then you might not have those problems.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:24:28) – Just saying and he was saying how flashing the light in there. And it’s like, Dude, you didn’t even cover in there. What are you saying? It’s a bad, bad.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:24:37) – That’s why that’s like you can’t bad mouth something if you didn’t like get coverage.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:24:42) – Yeah I know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:24:44) – Like if I’m doing a set of wheels and they’re like a solid wheel and they’re not a custom color and they’re like, semi-gloss black. You bet your ass I’m hot coating them and then I’m going to coat them again.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:24:53) – You go back to that video and this is what I brought up. You go back to that video where he’s hitting it with a gun and running it down the road. Oh, whatever it was he was doing.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:25:04) – I mean.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:25:04) – I saw some of that on Instagram last night and I’m just like.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:25:08) – Okay, so you you look at that and they thought, oh, wow. Well, they’re using Tiger. How what what harm could it do? And I’m like, don’t you don’t even understand. You stop the video. And you look, this is something that John and I were talking about because we were watching it together and he was like, look at this video. And I’m like, you look at this. You look at the rim, it’s barely got any mil on there. Like it’s barely coated.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:25:35) – Yeah. If I’m doing wheels, I want it job. Yeah, I want it like a mil above spec. At least I’m going out the.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:25:44) – Door thin it is mean. Everybody go back to that video and stop it and look at how thin that is coated. It’s not even coated properly and I don’t know, whatever. It’s just silly. But you know, if they want to pander to silliness and stuff like that or, you know, then.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:26:04) – Guess at the end of the day. At the end of the day, if.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:26:07) – You look what he’s doing, that he’s that he’s infuriating the custom coaters, the legit guys that are out there, the professionals.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:26:14) – I’ve spent 11 years of my life getting to this point. Like at the end of the day, I’ve spent 11 years of my life getting to this point to be able to even talk to somebody in the industry, you know what I mean? Like outside of dealing with reps, Like that’s, that’s like, yeah, okay, that’s the industry. But like at the end of the day, like if we have a platform to speak on, right, like I feel like my word in your word speaks way more louder than a rep is going to because the rep is going to get shut down by a multi, you know, a CEO. Like at the end of the day, you know, it’s we’re the people doing the actual work. You know it’s yeah we’re the people and.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:26:50) – I feel insulted. I know you do. Yeah.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:26:53) – It’s the end of the day. It’s like I’ve, I’ve spent, you know, my even my whole career in the industrial side of things. I spent my whole, my whole goal was to make liquid painters look like shit. At the end of the day, that’s been my whole goal because my brother’s a liquid painter. My brother’s been a collision car painter. He’s been a hot rod painter. My brothers painted multimillion dollar paint jobs on boats like. Right. And my brother is like, I’ve aspired my finish to look tight and glassy like his, you know? And at the end of the day, there’s a lot of that. There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears that rolls into that. There’s a lot of knowledge that rolls into paint that you’re flying out. There’s a lot of knowledge that, you know, where is your your power and what’s your oven doing. A lot of people don’t understand like how much the oven plays in, you know, and if your oven’s not clean, you’re not going to get a clean product.

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:27:44) – Yeah. Yeah. I you know, I see. I see the upside and I see it changing and evolving rapidly. And I think that I hope that the podcast just helps people. That’s all I want to do. I’m not making at the moment not making any money. I do have one advertiser and I hope to get many more because it does take a lot of time and effort to put to to produce it. You know.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:28:12) – Think once, you know, as time goes on, I mean, think about it. You’re, what, three months into this. You know about and. You know, give it another three months, give it another like just a year. And like, you’re going to be surprised by the people that are going to come on and the things that are going to get said and just the things we’re going to learn. But you got to think of it’s only going to be a matter of time until Wagner wants to get on here and talk and, you know, or even other people.

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:28:40) – And that’s the thing that’s like, I feel like these companies, they want to be out in there and they want to be, you know, conversing all this stuff. But I feel like a lot of these companies don’t understand how to and with like how media is.

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.22.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]​RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:28:54) – Is No, you know what the problem is? It’s it’s people that are, you know, the that have been in the industry that are just you know they’re they’ve worked for the company for so long and they’re they’re enthusiasts and they do want to share their information. They are passionate about what they do. They’ve worked for the company for. And but the problem is, is it gets trickled. Unfortunately, they’re not the ones that we want to talk to, the ones we want to ask questions to, the ones we want to get answers from are not the ones that are readily available. It’s sales reps. And that’s the problem. Um, you know that is with these corporations is we don’t want to talk to the marketing guy, we.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:29:39) – Don’t want to talk to you want to talk to like the chemist Clint from fucking Cardinal guy.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:29:44) – That’s formulating the powder. We want to talk to the guy that’s shooting out of the gun and testing the gun or creating a new feature, or. We want to talk to those guys.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:29:53) – Yeah. Speaking of that new feature, have you seen, uh, Norton just came out with a gun with a light on top.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:30:00) – Mhm.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:30:01) – Yeah. No, if you go to like the Norton Instagram page, there’s they just rolled out a newer gun that has a light on top.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:30:12) – Norton has a Instagram.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:30:16) – Yeah, it’s like Norton. So it’s like a partnering company with Norton. So I think act. So like act. They do. Like, I think they also build something. Oh, yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:30:27) – Wait, it just came up and there it is.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:30:32) – Yeah, I got big love for Norton because there were the guns that I first learned on, and those old school versus spray twos were like. Relentless.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:30:41) – You could, like, drown that tip of that gun into, like, Faraday areas and it wouldn’t make the paint react. It was the weirdest gun. Like, you could get away with murder with that gun.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:30:51) – Which video is it?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:30:54) – I. Yeah. See? Look it right there. The second row down there it is. The encore and light.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:30:58) – Oh, you know what? I think I did see it. They post so early. By the time I wake up, I don’t, you know, I don’t see it. I have to actually go to there.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:31:06) – That and that switch. Look at how they have like the whole white piece is probably like the trigger. But then there’s that black piece up in the top of that switch. I wonder if.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:31:15) – Yeah, Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:31:17) – I wonder what that’s for. I wonder if that’s for like, extra air to, like, get like your tip cleaned out and enlightened. There’s some. There’s just like the technology with guns that’s coming out today.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:31:30) – I get so excited, but then I’m like, Oh wait, you’re probably going to be ten grand. Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:31:36) – Yeah. Well, Ross just, you know, not, you know, that’s actually kind of a really simple solution. Um, he ended up just doing the full Led and I don’t, I don’t know if I think I posted it on my Instagram. Um, let me go back to my page.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:31:56) – Do you know anything about Luma Light? They make lights for liquid guns.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:32:02) – No. You mean like guns?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:32:05) – Yeah. VLP guns. So, like any of your Iwata or any of your Zetas, they make Led lights that screw behind the tip of the gun. And I talked to them a couple of weeks ago and they said they got something coming out in the new year for powder coating.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:32:23) – I didn’t post this. I don’t know why I didn’t post this, but let me look good. Yeah, he’s. Everybody likes red here. Yeah, Red.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:32:34) – Is a black. You don’t want to know how many pounds of candy red I go through.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:32:39) – Oh, I know. It’s just a hot color. Don’t know.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:32:42) – Don’t even order candy red anymore. I prefer deep red candy because then you can avoid some of the issues that you would have with, like, candies and having to spray it twice.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:32:55) – Well, the lollipop thread is nice. Yeah, this is. This is cherry.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:33:02) – Mm hmm. Um.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:33:05) – This diamond. Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:33:07) – So you could make that cherry with you put, um, the Cadillac gray down and then just any candy right over it. Interesting. Yeah. And you come up with a nice, really rich, deep candy Red.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:33:20) – I wanted to show you a picture of the, um. He’s so proud of this. Of course, it doesn’t look this clean now, but let me see if I can. I’ll stop sharing. And then we keep talking. I’m going to bring up this picture, um, because. The problem with our shop is. Okay, so we had a small shop, just like everybody always needs more room in their shop.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:33:45) – Right? But what are you going to do? Because you need to make your. Business bigger. You need to have bigger equipment and then all of a sudden you run out of space. So we thought moving over here to the bigger part of the island and being closer to our customer base, we’ll get a bigger shop. All our problems will be solved. And then Covid happened and then that just went out. But instead of, you know, instead of downsizing in his mind for equipment, he kept the size. He went bigger in his mind. But the shop size really wasn’t. It’s only like, well, it’s only like 102, 200ft² bigger than what we had before. So the problem is, is everything in here is giant. It’s just giant, but there’s no room shop floor space to work or that.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:34:35) – Was what it was like when I walked into precision and it was like the Taj Mahal of powder coating, you know? And then six months into the job, I’m the only painter that’s walked in at the time that’s pushing, you know, making this place stay alive.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:34:50) – And then guess what? There ain’t no fucking floor space in this place anymore because you got so much stuff you’re doing.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:34:56) – Oh, my God. He didn’t downsize his mind, right? You know, you only kept it big.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:35:02) – So, yeah, even.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:35:03) – Got a look. It’s just kind of funny, you know, We’re in this. I don’t want to say just. It’s not a dysfunctional space.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:35:13) – These were. This is some of the bigger stuff that I was doing last year. That’s the booth that I was in.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:35:21) – Oh, wait, let me see. Hold on. I got a I went out. I opened up this. Hold on. I’m just. Oh, wow. That is huge. Whoa. That’s giant stuff. Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:35:31) – And I would do that whole thing hot and then come back and recode it. Wow. So that thing would be preheating in my oven at 420 degrees because it’s so big. And like, the plates on it are just so thick that you’re just trying to get it to get up to 400.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:35:47) – So I would get it up to, you know, 420, let it sit there for 20 minutes. And then by the time I could get it out of the oven and then pushed into my booth, I would just start spraying it hot and it’d be at like probably 403 50 and I could get the whole thing done hot and then come back and do it cold. Wow. And then put it in the oven. And I would do like three of those a day on top of like push and handrail in between. And I got some crazy videos I’ll have to send you day. Yeah. I would come home and just be done with the wall. Yeah like it was I’d start at five in the morning and sometimes I wouldn’t get home till two in the morning the next day like, and I was the only painter at this shop like that was, it was really, it was a really a. It was a really fun time, but it was also a very like I felt like I was taken advantage of and a lot of other things.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:36:37) – Like once I get into like my story and shit, I’ll tell you. Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:36:42) – Okay. Let me show you the booth here. This is what it turned out to be. Can you see that?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:36:49) – Oh, man.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:36:51) – Yeah. He’s very proud of this.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:36:54) – So nice gun.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:36:55) – Yeah, he’s a Wagner guy.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:36:57) – Heck, yes. I love Ross now.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:37:02) – But these are 4500 looms led.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:37:08) – He didn’t want any in the ceiling, Huh?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:37:11) – This is so bright. You don’t need it.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:37:15) – I’ve always been curious about spraying in a booth that has cross lighting like that instead of ceiling lit.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:37:22) – Well, the reason why he did it like this, because we used to just have just a ceiling light in the booth. So we converted a six by six spray booth that we owned for years when we have our refinishing business. Yeah. And you guys.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:37:38) – Made it into your open face booth.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:37:40) – Yeah, we created. And then hope I can zoom in. Let me zoom in, because people have asked us what this stuff is, and I didn’t get a chance to respond to what Ross bought, but it’s a special kind of.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:37:59) – Like the sack filters.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:38:00) – Yeah, that. That’s what it is.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:38:02) – Yeah. They’re like, you pull out the whole square, but then it’s got like. They go back quite a ways.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:38:08) – Yeah. Um, of course there’s a bigger. Well, it’s not a bigger engine. I’m not engine, but, um. Fan motor. Yeah, fan motor. It’s the same that we had before. But I’ll tell you this. He bought these and laid them up like this because of the long, linear architectural jobs and gates and railings that we do. But, man, what a difference.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:38:33) – And I’d love I would love to come out there and spray like a bunch of gates and stuff with you guys because that’s like I used to do so much of that kind of work when I was younger and just to like, it’s.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:38:44) – A whole nother game. It’s mean.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:38:46) – I can show you how to paint a gate like a huge driveway gate in less than 30 minutes.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:38:52) – Yeah. Wow. That’s amazing because it can be awkward.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:38:57) – And then how do you know when you’re a job shop like us? How do you switch your game from. Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:39:03) – That was that was like a big thing when I was when I was a lead coater, it was like I was very, you know, like being the lead coater. You have to set the tone in the shop. And if you’re kind of like the person that, you know, kind of just shuts down and kind of is quiet, you’re going to be taking advantage of that aspect of like, let’s say I’m paying, I’m painting something that I have to spray zinc primer down and then I have to flash it just until it’s going wet and then pull it out and then start getting top coat on it. And then, you know, the fucking dude from the office comes in and he tells me, I got to get off this job and get on this job. Okay, You know how frustrating that is as a coater to fucking just flip on a dime and be like, Oh yeah, I’m not stressed out now.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:39:49) – I got to blow my gun out and clean this 50 foot fucking booth out and totally change the operation of what my brain’s computing, what my gun is telling me to do and right. And that’s like I’m super manuals.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:40:03) – There’s two different manuals going on in your head, you know. Yeah, that’s what you have to. And I never knew that, you know, I’m kind of the one that drives the sales and do this. Do you know I’m.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:40:13) – That’s like, let’s say you’re going from just black and then somebody wants you to do some candy job. You’re like, Here comes the anxiety, you know, like.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:40:22) – Right, Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:40:23) – I found myself.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:40:25) – And now I do.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:40:26) – I found myself even like at the top of my game, you know, day in, day out. And, you know, in a real shop, I found myself like, let’s say like, like the big wild mint that I just showed you that I painted. And it’s sitting in the oven getting hot for me.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:40:40) – Like I would be going stir crazy because I’m just like, itching. I’m like, ready to just get color on this thing, you know? And like, you’re just so excited. And sometimes your emotions and your anxiety and your excitement gets the best of you. Some days, you know, I’m like, Yeah. And then you pull that out and it’s not hot enough or, you know, it’s those are the those things kind of got, you know, can get the best of you. But that’s why I like doing what I do now with the custom side of things is because everything’s on my own time, you know, like I can spend up to six hours on one tube, you know what I mean? Like, and that’s that’s a lot of time and that’s a lot of energy going into something so small. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think I’ve, I try to pride myself in, you know, making somebody look at what I do and being like, No, dude, he’s using paint.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:41:26) – And at the end of the day, guess what? I ain’t using any paint. Zero paint.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:41:30) – It’s hard to tell, you know?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:41:33) – And prismatic.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:41:34) – When I saw them originally, I was like, Wait, is he painting those or, you know, And then I realized it’s powder. I mean, it took me a while to kind of I went through several of your Instagram posts and there’s only.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:41:48) – One job on there that I did airbrushing on and then cleared it with automotive Clear.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:41:53) – I’m going to go back because I want to share. I want to tell you what I want to show you. I’m not a vapor, but my favorite one is the Disney one. Yeah, those got taken.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:42:05) – Those got taken off the shelves. So I’m partnered up. That’s Merle’s mods. They’re out of the UK and I partnered up with them to make my own signature tube. Yeah. And they did a bunch of like, Disney dope ones and we went crazy on them. And he’s like, Dude, we can’t post these now because I think we’re going to get too much attention.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:42:23) – Yeah, that could be. Um.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:42:26) – But like, all I said is like, yeah, I totally understand. I really respect that. But at the end of the day, I feel like, you know, me and you aren’t this big company that’s really making that much noise toward Disney is going to come out and sue us.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:42:40) – This is mean. It’s like, well, first of all, you know, Disney’s. If you follow like a lot of the crazy conspiracy stuff, you know, like Disney connection there. Yep. And and then it wasn’t just mean you didn’t realize how many kooky crazy.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:02) – Oh, there’s like Alice in there. There’s the Mad Hatter in there. Like if you go.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:07) – Oh, yeah, the Mad Hatter. Okay. Yeah, I’m going to go to the video. But this one right here, the, the, the is the Pinocchio one, you know, And then there’s Mowgli. I mean. Oh, yeah, mostly. That’s right.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:23) – Then there’s the Indians smoking the hash pipe.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:27) – I mean, it’s nuts, right?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:30) – That’s just simple. The black and white inlay. That’s super simple.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:34) – Yeah, I love that. The black and white is my favorite one. Me too.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:38) – Like black and white. It’s my favorite. That’s even when I have on my Mac.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:41) – Clear on that or.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:42) – No, that’s so that’s just soft satin white and Jack Black from prismatic.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:47) – Oh, okay. All right.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:49) – So if you guys are curious on those two, they go perfect together, sheen wise.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:53) – And so this guy created the graphic. Is that what it is?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:57) – So the company Merle’s mods they’re out of the UK they do they are the ones that actually machined the tube and do the engraving and then they have a team of artists throughout the whole world that do a bunch of stuff for us. Wow.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:11) – It’s, you know.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:44:13) – Keep going down. This is like this is like just cookie cutter stuff. But if you keep going down. Um, to.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:23) – That’s a nice combo.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:25) – Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:44:25) – The candy red with silver vein. Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:29) – Whoa.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:44:30) – That’s the one that the fire one with. That’s done with airbrush. And then I cleared it with automotive. Clear. But that is a black powder coat base. And that that coke cooler is pretty classy. Did that? Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:46) – That’s cool.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:44:48) – And then. Wow.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:49) – Look at that one.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:44:51) – Yeah. That’s just my brother’s pinstriping work. There’s some of the RS I’ve done. Mhm. That’s a big.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:58) – Is this with powder or.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:00) – Yeah. That’s all powder. That’s a big that’s cool. That’s a big uh, fart gone over in church every time I do again.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:07) – Yeah. And then it looks like Malbec.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:12) – Yep, That’s Malbec. I did that on, like, a little. Toolbox kind of thing for my brother.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:17) – Whoa, That’s cool.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:19) – Yeah, that. That’s like a faded black pink. And then I flip flop the engravings on the inlay.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:28) – Wow. Wow.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:33) – Zero liquid.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:37) – Ashton. That’s amazing.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:38) – Did you see those rocket racing wheels? I did.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:42) – No.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:43) – Yeah. Keep going. Oh, wow. There you go.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:47) – Okay. Didn’t get. Wow. That’s nice. That’s.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:50) – That’s my first set of two tone wheels I’ve ever got to do. You know how long You know how long I’ve been dreaming about doing that.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:46:00) – Those are nice colors that you used.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:46:03) – So that’s misty root beer from prismatic and then Yankee gold.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:46:09) – Nice. Did you put it up on your prismatic page? Do you have one?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:46:14) – I think I do. But I, like you guys are saying something about it. In one of the episodes that I was watching. I need to go in and do some of that stuff.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:46:21) – I’m going to do. I’m getting ready to do a podcast or I don’t know if it’s a podcast really, but it’s it’s like a tutorial. Guess I’m going to I’m going to start kind of doing more different kinds of content other than just the podcast.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:46:36) – Yeah, you guys have definitely inspired me to kind of like come out of my shell and post like lives or videos of me what I’m doing.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:46:43) – Like with like the tubes and stuff. Like, I’ve just. I don’t know. I felt like I needed to, like, stay quiet for a while because I didn’t want people to, like, steal my my ideas just yet. And I feel like now, like even just coming on the show, like I felt like now I’m confident enough. And I feel that I have, you know, quite the backlog of work that I.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:47:04) – You know, if.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:47:05) – Anything, trying to come out now, you know what I mean, and be in the industry and just kind of show my work off to like I’ve kind of just kept it behind. And even locally, I don’t really I do a lot of work locally for like antique restoration and stuff like that, but I just haven’t really hit the pavement to, you know, have people banging down my door just yet because I want to be. Really ready for it. You know what I mean?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:47:30) – Like, well, isn’t that what’s so ironic about 710? And I’m not going to bash them any longer.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:47:37) – I’m over it. But here’s the thing. Most custom coaters like yourself, like Ross, like Shaun. And, you know, they’re humble people. They don’t go out and be bombastic and all this stuff. So that right there might tell you something about the kind of type of people we are. Um, we’re.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:48:01) – I’m just like, at the end of the day, like, before, I’m a powder coater, before I’m a husband. You know, I’m a father to two children. And that’s, that’s they’re the main driving force behind polymers powders. You know, like, I walked away from the industrial industry because. You know, I. I would get scrutinized because I had to stay home with my children because she was sick or my son had a doctor’s appointment. And, you know, bosses don’t like that. You know, they don’t like you when you’re making them money. They don’t want you out of there, like and that’s kind of what it came down to. And at that time, like that black and pink mod that I was showing you, that was I got a job from a big vape reviewer that’s from Australia.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:48:44) – And he he commissioned me to do like it was like 38 of those mods. So I did like 19 pink and then I did like 17 or so black. And that’s really what kind of set me up social media wise and like got my name out there, you know, within the vape industry to, to start doing custom work. So I was going to work, you know, full time spraying all damn day. And then I’d come home and I would do these mods and. After a while, it got to this point where so much noise is going off over here outside of work, and I’m just kind of like getting stressed, you know, like feeling like I’m taking advantage of, like, you know, I’m working. I was working almost six, seven days a week. I was working 10 to 12 hour if not 15 hour days, just depending on what what had to get done and how much the freaking boss bit off more than you can chew. And it was like, you know, I was I just said, fuck it.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:49:38) – And, you know, I grabbed everything. I walked in Sunday, grab my mask, grab my gun, and my boss is like, Where are you going? I said, I’m fucking leaving, dude. I’m done. I’m done. And I walked out and I never looked back. And at that, around that same time, my brother was just getting his shop and he was like, Come set up your bench and stuff in here. And he’s like, We can just share the shop together. And I was like, okay. So then at that same time I had bought in my bench top, set up my Columbia coatings, you know, cool coat booth and little tiny, you know, bench top set up. And that was going to be my new coating setup for my mods. So I ordered that. And then I got a little like impulsive because I was still making, you know, decent salary money for my real job. And I was like, Fuck it. I bought one of those optiflex two clones from the powder coating gun chick.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:50:35) – You know I trust you so much. She’s so rad. She helps me out a lot and ordered one of those guns and just been killing it ever since with that thing.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:50:45) – Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:50:46) – That was after my craftsman gun went because I was spraying all these mods with with a craftsman gun for like two years.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:50:53) – Wow. We started with the Eastwood thing, like, just.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:51:01) – I’m sorry.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:51:02) – Very beginning. Well, 180 bucks mean can’t beat that. It was 180 and we didn’t know. Again, you know, this was just hobby side, Right? Right. And just trying.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:51:16) – To figure out the concept of it.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:51:18) – Like.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:51:19) – Mind blowing. Even when you do it with like that gun and you may you may have done a tumbler or something for yourself and you’re just like.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:51:27) – Well, we were. We. Our shop was right next door to custom motorcycle shop. They did mostly customs and Harleys and stuff. Nice. And and I mean, we’ve told several stories and there are several stories to how we got into this business.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:51:43) – But one of them is that we just were convenient, you know? And so Ross had been looking, going to all the forums and stuff and, you know, so he decided to pull the trigger on. But, you know, I mean, our main thing was just refinishing and stuff. This is way well before the crash and all that. And so he started with that. And then of course, you know, that didn’t last very long. Um, and then, you know, we had the infrared or the, the propane lights or what do they call there on the stands?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:52:19) – Oh, the infrared lights.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:52:22) – The heat lamps.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:52:23) – Oh, God, those things scare me. Like, I remember I worked.

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RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:52:29) – For a paint shop with like, probably urethane and oh, I have, like.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:52:35) – I have, like, a nightmare. And sorry about those things.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:52:38) – I was worried. Right. Anyways, um, so we. And the reason why we started with that is because most of the air conditioning registers were, you know, that’s what we were getting, right? We had this one hotel that was renovating and, you know, we were, they had a special custom size made.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:52:58) – And so ordering was improbable or impossible to get something new and be reasonable. So we got into refinishing the registers and so we would have these heat lamps and some of these registers were like 30, 40in long. So literally, like we’d watch the powder flow out as we dropped the thing down, down, down, down, you know. And that was, you know, we didn’t have an oven. We didn’t have, you know, a nice cool gun or anything like that. Um, it was just crazy how, how we just made steps towards that and didn’t care what he was doing. I thought, Oh, this is just one of those other hobbies that he’s picked up and is another thing.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:53:48) – Another garage thing.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:53:50) – Yeah. You know, and of course he had a motor, he had a custom bike that he had bought off of somebody that for a real good deal. So of course, you know, he had his own project just like all the other guys that are getting started right now.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:54:02) – It’s a similar story. Um, and then we and then he decided to get serious and he bought a Wagner brand new $5,000. And I’m like, Whoa, this shit is expensive. This is insane gun that cost $99 at Home Depot. And, you know, well.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:54:22) – It’s even like I even make my brother laugh. Like he’s got $700,000, you know Ira’s and say to us that he does his work with. And I just laugh. I laugh at him and I’m like, Dude, I could buy like 5 or 6 of those things for the amount of one unit of mine.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:54:39) – Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, what happened was the Wagner was too complicated for him. Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:54:46) – So even to this day, even to this day, if he needs help, call me. I will answer any given damn time of the day and help you with that gun. Because that gun is so user friendly compared to what is actually now.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:54:59) – This is our second Wagner now. But. But he got scared using it because it was so complex.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:55:06) – So he went from Eastwood to Wagner, but then he got scared and something happened to it, like it brokered. I don’t know, some part, I don’t know. So he kind of shelved it and he bought the cool coat from Brian Alley because, you know, Columbia. Yeah. And we use that. That was a great intermediate kind of level.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:55:27) – It taught you how to to adjust your flow and your air and your powder. And it gave you like the basics of understanding what you’re watching. And that’s like the big thing is nobody really relays that information of what you actually want to see comparatively, what you don’t want to see, you know, and and and a lot of it actually it comes off a feel. You know, a lot of it comes off of field experience but. At the end of the day.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:55:52) – You know what? The jobs were just getting more complex. They were getting more, you know, and and and then, you know, of course, we ran that thing into the ground.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:56:01) – And then, you know, things started to pick, you know, get kind of, you know, just growth and everything. And that’s when we decided, okay, let’s get back to this. Wagner Let’s try to figure it out. What’s the problem? I know a lot more about caves and clouds and, you know, like all that.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:56:18) – The cool thing about that gun is it’s got slope adjustment.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:56:23) – Well, I don’t know how old this one was. This was like I want to say we bought it.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:56:28) – The one you guys got now in that spray booth.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:56:30) – That’s the new one. That’s. Yeah, that’s.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:56:31) – The sprint that’s got slope adjustment. You got, we got, you got every damn cool setting on that gun and it’s, it’s really honestly it’s user friendly and it’ll that gun will tell you if you’re setting like because what that gun is telling you is it’s telling you like how close you have your tip to your substrate. So even if you do have your setting wherever you want it, that gun’s going to dial down.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:56:56) – Even if you get like this close to the substrate, that gun is going to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m going to come back down here where it’s safe. It’s. It’s pretty damn cool.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:57:07) – That is cool. I don’t I’m pretty sure he knows that. But I’ll. I’ll make sure he listens to what you just said. Um, yeah. He loves that gun. He loves it. But he.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:57:18) – Because you can also set up that gun to actually spray true to a conical tip because it’s got air adjustments for the tip and you can mimic try both through that gun.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:57:27) – Okay, So he’s now interested in trying comparing now he wants to try a a gamma or whatever, whatever they call it. And, um.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:57:39) – Yeah, I’m curious to try their new pro, the new Gamma Optiflex Pro. I’m curious to try it. But when it comes down to it and at the end of the day, there’s certain things about their pump that I don’t care about.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:57:53) – Comparatively to the Wagner pump? Yeah, the Wagner pump is a block, and it’s still fucking dinosaur age technology in a sense. But the plugs, the little white plugs that go in the block for the Wagner, they’re completely movable. So the the Wagner or the the ones are they only go in one way. So they wear one way. Okay. So you’re constantly flying through them tips. You can’t wear that tip evenly. And then even though at the same thing with the GMA you got or not the GMA but the Wagner, your hose is going to kind of slouch so that that white piece will wear but.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:58:31) – Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:58:32) – That’s just the name of the game.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:58:34) – Yeah. Mean they’re not, you know, every it’s just design and how they make them and why they make them, you know? And let’s face it, they’re making them for the industrial people. They’re not making them for us. Right? We’re adapting to them again, you know, I mean.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:58:48) – It would be sweet if they would come out with like a little bit smaller scale of a gun.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:58:52) – For us custom coaters.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:58:53) – That would be a good option. Um, that would be a really good idea.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:58:58) – And even if you think about it, like when, when we get into like these custom colors and we’re recoating candies and stuff, we don’t need a gun that’s going to give us fucking 100, you know? Cves We don’t, we’re never that high. You should never be that high if you’re recoating something anyways, unless you’re doing it hot, right? But at the end of the day, it would be kind of cool to see, you know, a little scale down in a gun and maybe more aptitude to, to custom stuff. Yeah, he knows. Like maybe if a gun isn’t that aptitude to be that high of a of a power, then you’re going to see a lot more production shops using it for those colors. So it does have there’s a win win if you think about it.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:59:39) – I think that’s brilliant. You know, So, you know, my you know, it’s it’s all about trying to get through to these people and get that what you just said to them, you know, through to them and maybe get their minds thinking even.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:59:54) – Even though, like when I was a production painter, that was like the biggest thing that was hard for me was relaying my information, you know, like trying to trying to explain my information to somebody that’s 100 times book smarter than me, but isn’t 100 times experience smarter than me. It was like you’re just sitting there bashing heads all day. And that’s, you know, unfortunate. That’s where, like our industry has came to on the industrial side of things. But, you know, we we have the opportunity, you know, as custom coaters to break this mold, you know, and. Right. I’m excited to be a part of that.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:00:28) – As much as they want to give you that, give that information or relay that information back to the guy that matters all all they really have to do or their main part of their job is is equal to dollar sold. It’s not improving or, hey, this is a great idea. Or, you know, Ashton from, you know, over here said this or that, you know, you might want to think about it’s not about innovation.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:00:55) – And that’s the problem. Right. Innovation is from is in our industry is top down. It’s not bottom up. And this is the stuff that I’m trying to scream and shout at every chance I get. This is why we started the podcast, is to get that information. Let’s have a discussion about it. Let’s meet these guys, let’s tell them what we want and let’s get the price down lower. Let’s get the barrier to market. Let’s get, you know, something that is unique and tell our story and share a story. And by sharing it, we’re going to improve the industry. I mean.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:01:30) – At the end of the day, we’ve we’ve obviously seen China cut the Prague cut. Obviously, the quality of a gun that’s coming out of Switzerland is going to be ten times higher than the gun coming out of China. But at the end of the day, if China can figure out how to program a gun to run almost identical to the one that’s actually real.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:01:52) – Yeah. Like.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:01:54) – Why? Why? Why is there just this still this weird misconstrued of.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:01:58) – You know what I mean? Like, I’m surprised we haven’t seen.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:02:02) – It’s crazy that they’re doing that. They’re reaching out to us directly now, right? Yeah. When they speak in broken English or not. And here we have just put the nail in the head right here and just said, come up with a lower priced quality product that will buy because we’ll rather buy that. Then something from China. You know, same here.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:02:27) – Because, you know, at the end of the day, you know, how much of a pain in the ass it is for me to order tips or order any other parts for my gun. And I at the end of the day, I don’t want to pay the cost for a real tip. I don’t want to pay 200 bucks for a tip. Right? I don’t want to pay 200, 200 bucks for my in line like it’s could have.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:02:47) – They could, you know, I’m I’m all for keeping things in the United States. Me, too. I don’t think any of us are, but could be.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:02:57) – Maybe there are some people that think it’s just.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:03:00) – Crazy to me that we haven’t seen. Like it’s just crazy to me that we haven’t seen like a paint company, a liquid paint company produce a powder gun yet. Like, even like PG And how PG is so involved with so many different applications from liquid to industrial to marine to powder, they they’re pretty all over the place. And for them to not. See that there’s like this huge market for an applicable gun that’s.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:03:35) – Tell you is China’s knocking on the door. I don’t think we’re answering the door because we know it’s a vampire. Right. And we’re not going to invite the vampire in. But, you know, I mean, they’re trying and they’re eventually, you know, and there are people out there that are already buying China stuff just because they don’t realize the deeper, the deeper thing that’s going on here with that. But, you know, and it’s.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:04:04) – Mind blowing to me that we haven’t seen a lawsuit, but it’s surprising to me that we haven’t seen a lawsuit with GMA like because how many times has that that gun been knocked off? How many people are knocking that gun off? Like, if you think about at the end of the day, there’s like ten different brands with that name on on that gun to ask.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:04:25) – It’s crazy.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:04:27) – Like they rolled their eyes when I’m meeting with them next week, so I probably should be careful. But, um, you know, they, they he rolled his eyes on me the other day when I said, Yeah, we want to do a Wagner show off, you know, like comparison, because that’s the biggest question, right, that people ask, you know? And he just kind of rolled his eyes, you know, like, how many times has he heard that or, you know, whatever.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:04:52) – And it’s like at the end of the day, we all know people are going to go buy the Wagner because it’s cheaper. Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:04:57) – So, you know, but people want that video. They want that comparison. They want that review.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:05:03) – Not that in the Wagner isn’t out there. Like people don’t necessarily know about it unless you’re in the industry, like people first coming into powder coating, All they really know is because that’s all fucking people talk about, right? You know what I mean?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:05:18) – And it’s like it’s definitely more broad than Wagner and Dawson and stuff.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:05:22) – Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, but I know they’re kind of rolling their eyes, but at the same time, it’s like, No, this is you’re selling.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:05:30) – You’re selling units because of people want to do this, right? You know what I mean? At the end of the day, all this talk, all it’s doing is selling their gun, you know?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:05:39) – Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, think the China thing is going to be interesting how it unfolds.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:05:45) – I think it’ll phase out. It’s not going to. I don’t. Oh yeah. Just from like my experience with vaping like a lot of the stuff from, you know, vaping is obviously manufactured in China and you see a lot of that. You see a lot of companies get knocked off from China and it’s around a little bit and then it just fizzles out. And the only reason why you’re seeing a lot of it right now is because of the high demand in garage coating and people don’t want to pay box price for cool codes and version of what they could get for.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:06:17) – Whatever else prior to having to wait for shipping. You know, it’s. Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:06:22) – I can tell you personally, like with the projects that we get here, of course, well, they call it patio furniture, probably on the mainland, but we call it Lanai furniture. And you know, we, we work with Trapattoni, a Windsor Brown. Jordan did say Coppertone, Tropic tone. These are all us made manufacturers. And I can get replacement parts from any almost any year, any, any style, any year. People call us. They got these condos. They want to redo their lanai furniture and they call me and I go, Well, where did you buy it? Oh, I bought it. It’s Martha Stewart or it’s Lowe’s or Home Depot. And I’m like, Throw it away. They’re like, What? I pay $300 for this set, you know? And it’s like the coating.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:07:16) – The coating that you see and coming on it is like literally, well, or it’s like rusted so bad because of their fucking process sucked in, like the whole chairs rotting.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:07:27) – Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:07:29) – I can’t get replacement parts. China only makes things to sell us to throw away metal or plastic or anything. They don’t make things to replace. Okay. Only in America do they make something right. Like we’ve done trapattoni furniture that is 40, 50 years old and we can find replacement parts. It still looks great and we’re going to give it a finish that’s going to last another ten years. You know, and you cannot do that with China, They don’t think.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:08:00) – Those were some of my favorite jobs to do was like when this older lady would come in and she’s like, Oh, I just want something really nice, you know, off white or some beige and you find the right color she likes, and then she’s all tickled pink about it. And then she shows up and it looks brand new and she’s like, Can’t breathe. Because, like, her patio furniture is brand new again. And now she’s telling her husband he’s got to make new cushions for it. That’s like, that’s the best day, you know, like when I could care less about my handrail customer that’s bringing me shitloads of money.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:08:29) – But that old lady that’s more tickled pink about her, you know, or her seashell chairs that she got when she was 15 and the 50s look brand new again. It’s fun.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:08:38) – And I love it, too, because I can’t wait to tell the guy that owns the vacation rental here in Maui that they bought the wrong furniture from Lowe’s or Home Depot. And now you have to throw it away even though it’s only two years old because can’t get a strap or a sling to refit to fix it. Yeah. And you’re going to throw it in our dump, you know, in our, you know, in our trash on our island and go out and buy another cheap ass set. And now you’re going to add to our trash problem because you didn’t buy us made you can’t restore it and make them feel as bad as I can and make them guilty. And, you know, and at.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:09:25) – The end of the day, like when it comes down to it, we live in such a disposable world now, you know, or we’re programmed to buy a new smartphone every fucking year or, or our flat screen TV we bought five years ago is already broken.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:09:39) – Like we live in such a disposable society now. And that’s like what? You know, it’s like had somebody asked me the other day, Well, what do you think about wrapping my truck? And I’m like, You’re asking the wrong person. And they’re like, Well, why is that? And I’m like, I’m trying to keep I’m trying to keep an art, a dying art alive. And people that are wrapping vehicles and stickers are killing my industry. You know, they’re killing the artist in me because they want to take my art and put it on a fucking sticker and not have to do anything like, you know, And that’s it boils down into a lot of things. And that’s unfortunate. But, you know, that’s why we’re here and that’s why we’re around, is to keep things alive and keep things new again.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:10:18) – And I think that that’s, you know, how powder coating just aligns so well with with how Ross and I feel about the world and and about our island.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:10:30) – And so are they are they big sticklers about like on the island or is that kind of you guys are still with in laws.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:10:38) – Yeah it’s not like Europe yeah. Yeah. No, it’s not even that. And I mean, I don’t know how much we of that we do imagine it’s majority of the powders that we use but we like you.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:10:55) – Surprised how much even you’d be surprised today of how much is people don’t use it anymore.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:02) – Yeah, well, I know the industry is trying to change it and go in that, you know.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:11:08) – I hope to God we still have some target 25 years from now because it’s fucking amazing. But and it’s pretty it’s pretty dangerous.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:16) – With the extreme conditions that we have here, it’s very hard to recommend something else, you know? What do you.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:11:24) – Guys what do you like for a question for me, for you guys is what do you guys spray a lot like what do you guys mostly spray like big box wise.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:32) – Brand wise?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:11:33) – Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:34) – Tiger. Tiger crazy. That’s what infuriated me so much last week when I talked to them because I was like.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:11:41) – Have you not sprayed much, Cardinal, or is cardinal kind of hard for you to get?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:45) – No, it’s not hard for me to get.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:47) – I have to email them. So it’s a bit of a back and forth. Uh. We have half samples here and we usually wait for the customer to request it. Right, right, right. Don’t know what that is. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that. And. Our you know, Tiger was one of the first people to reach out to us and send us brochures when we were getting going. They have an incredible line of bronzes which are very popular here. You know, we have red dirt and it gets everywhere. So like whites and light colors and stuff, other than if it’s on a rim, you know, people tend to gravitate toward the darker colors just to hide the stuff. And, you know, it just it just happened that I had a rabbit tiger at the time that was just, just very willing, we think.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:12:49) – I would think because we have a distributor like Cardinal has a distribution hub here in Washington in Woodland. So I would assume like either that or California would be they.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:13:00) – Usually shut out of California for us. And I think that, you know, I don’t know how you order this is kind of an interesting this would be a great question for our group forum, and that is, how do you guys handle your pricing? You know, how are you building in a powder pricing? Are you you know, for us, it’s like, well, if you special order for a gate or a railing, you’re going to buy that box whether I use the whole thing or not. And then if you want it, you can have it. But you know it’s going to end up on my shelf anyways, right?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:13:34) – So, yeah, so like obviously that’s, I would say that’s any, any powder coating shops like problem, you know, trying to deal with excess paint like in the industrial industrial side, any powder shop I’ve ever been to unless it’s some kid that’s like bought his own paint and brought it in.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:13:51) – Yeah, I’m not doing that anymore. Forget that. We’ve had some bad stuff happen to us.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:13:56) – Yeah. We don’t know how old it is.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:13:57) – Yeah. And that’s. I’ve had issues with that too, but that’s really like the only time that I would give the paint back. But for me coming like from my side of things, like I’m such of an abnormal coater, comparative like everybody else in the industry, I would say. So I buy colors to bring colors to market. So like what I’m doing is I’m trying to obviously I’ll do stuff on if somebody brings something, sends me something to do. It’s my job to pick their brain apart, see what they want style wise, and then I’ll be like, Suggest this, this or this. Or unless they have like a good idea, then I’ll roll with it and kind of put my twist on it. But but for mainly I just buy like I just buy by the pound. So like, ah, £2. So like I don’t really go through a lot. I’m not, I’m not having to put on a lot of mileage with what I’m doing obviously.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:14:46) – And so a pound goes a long ways for me. Yeah. At the end of the day I buy paint just to have in stock to play with, to learn. I’m, you know, I’m constantly experimenting. I’m constantly learning. I’m constantly trying to figure out which colors won’t chemically work together. You know, being that, you know, certain fluorescents don’t like to be inlaid on top of with certain other colors and they’ll just go different.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:15:11) – Going deep down the rabbit hole there, you know, because most. Yeah. That you know in.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:15:17) – A lot of it also like ties back into like with like the elaborate and like working I’m doing I’m racing against the clock of jail time. So literally you’re in laying within your gel time, but you’re also like almost on that verge of 80%. So you’re not going to get delirium issues, but you’re also not going to get like molding issues where you’re getting other colors, bonding to colors and then creating another one. You know what I mean? So you’re constantly playing this fucking window game and not trying to go too far before you’re you’re going to actually final set everything.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:15:52) – Yeah. I mean it’s, it’s one of those your items and that’s the thing you have to be so precise. There really isn’t any room for mistakes at all on your level. So if I told.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:16:02) – You when you think I do my inlay work, do you think it’s done with electricity?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:16:08) – No. Well, I can see some of it isn’t, but, um, I’m just saying, in terms of the product, like, you’ve got one shot and you cannot make a mistake at all, you know? And that’s like the.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:16:22) – Sometimes you, you’ll make a mistake and you’re like, Strip tank, Here we go. Start all over, you know? And that’s the benefit. I’m not doing like a wheel or I’m not doing, you know, somebody’s big bumper or something at the time. Like I do have that I have capable, I have like obviously my benchtop setup. And then I also have my 4×4 by six convection electric. So that’s that’s been nice because I do I get I’m contracted with a lot of these cap makers like feature from coil turret.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:16:52) – I do his caps MTurk from MTurk I do his caps I, I do a lot of big name people’s stuff. So like my background of doing, you know, production work and being in a production shop doesn’t, you know, getting right, it doesn’t stress me out when I have 400 to 1000 caps in my living room that I got a process within a week. I’m like, let’s go like money, money, money. You know, like it’s I’m not, you know, any point I’m not uncomfortable. But I think the only times when I really do get nervous is like when I’m doing one job and it’s been like a couple of days and I’m a little shaky or, you know.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:17:30) – Or you have. So you also sell like you, you’re also selling like your.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:17:36) – So like with what I do, I’m selling just a service, obviously like I’m a powder coater. But what people would do is instance they would like if they had a certain mod like these are mechanical mods. There’s no.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:17:51) – Board. There’s no electronical regulated board in these. These are all mechanical. They’re unregulated. And with that, people like to personalize them or, you know, there’s certain brands that are people are super loyal to or, you know, there’s just like anything, there’s people that like this company or that company and there’s all walks of life in this industry and they all like to personalize them. And that’s where I came in and kind of turned the industry upside down and was like, This is what I can offer. And it just kind of blew up to where, you know, now I have people all over the world sending me their setups to coat one of one for them. You know, it’s special to them. And but I’m surprised.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:18:28) – You’re not selling the you’re not selling them either. Like, so.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:18:32) – Yeah, that’s like it’s a big taboo thing. And the sense of like with my website, I don’t want to have it to be like 21 plus age, you know what I mean? So like, I don’t want to get down that rabbit hole of like having to deal with like the age restriction and you know what I mean? Like, really, like, the whole mod thing was my meal ticket to get me into the industry to be doing wheels and to be doing lift kits and doing, you know, the things that I’ve been doing for the last ten years.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:19:02) – But guess what? Like I don’t have 20 grand to go buy a big oven and buy a gun and buy a nice booth. And because if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right. And everything I’ve done, I’ve never done it. I’ve never gotten a loan. It’s all been out of pocket. Like I’ve, you know, job comes in and I get extra money. Cool. It’s going back into the business.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:19:20) – Yep.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:19:21) – That’s how you scale or, you know, obviously it pays to keep the lights on and food in my children’s tummy, right? Yeah. And you know, and that’s really at the end of the day, this is like the meal ticket to me, you know, getting a booth big enough to spray wheels and comfortably and, and that’s like, I can do it. But right now it’s like, kind of sketchy putting my cart in front of my little tiny booth, top bench booth and spraying one wheel at a time and then like, racking it over here and yeah, it’s just it’s not like it’s not doable, but I don’t want to get, you know, an hour into a wheel and then have like a little piece of debris in it.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:19:58) – And I’m like, you know, going crazy. So it’s, I’m just taking my time. And that’s I feel like, you know, with other coaters in the industry, it’s like they don’t take their time. They’re not taking their time, you know, perfecting their process. They’re not perfecting their environment. And and that’s where you’re going to run into issues like, you know, like. Certain things can’t be done correctly if you don’t have the the right environment to do it in like I have the right environment to do these little toys and all fucking day. But when it comes down to doing big stuff, I got to shut the whole shop down, clean it down, you know, and make sure a door is open. So I’m getting all my shit going in my little tiny booth and. But that’s the goal, is to to get a bigger boost and be kind of I want to get a bigger booth so where I can be doing wheels and then I can hire somebody within like the vape industry that I’m friends with and give them a job and have them kind of take over the mod coating side of things.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:21:00) – Yeah. So I can keep going. And yeah, I would like to be like a, you know, I want to give Shawn a little run for his money and you know, you see a lot of like Zach Penick and Lacey Blair, they’re doing a lot of cool work and I want, you know, I want to be up there with those names and I want to be kind of turning some heads and giving a little bit of run for their money.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:21:20) – Yeah, I’d like to have them on the show at some point. I know they’re big heavy hitters.

 

Speaker 3 (02:21:27) – Um.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:21:28) – That dude Zack does some insane work.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:21:31) – He does?

 

Speaker 3 (02:21:32) – Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:21:33) – But think he’s it’s not just that he’s at another level. I don’t know his whole story, so I’m not going to speak too much.

 

Speaker 3 (02:21:40) – Right.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:21:41) – Really, just from what I see, it’s like I see a lot of hard work went into what he’s doing and he’s obviously, you know, it’s paid off and it’s cool to see somebody stay humble, put out good content and hear no drama from it.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:21:53) – You know what I mean? Like, that’s just that’s what I’m after is good organic content and that’s what I follow. You know, I’m not going to follow a fucking fake wannabe shit and think when.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:22:03) – You’re at that level two, you’re given opportunities. Like you’re like you were saying, you know, you’re working with some of the top fake people in the industry. Yeah, I think he’s also in that on that level in his realm, right is right. He’s been given the opportunity to make the rims for, you know, a truck or this or that, you know, and that’s boosted his profile and stuff. You know, we all need inspiration for sure. I think there’s more than one person or one girl or and think I would that’s why I’d love to have lacy or any just yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:22:41) – That’s like a big thing like the the impact of women coming into this industry.

 

Speaker 3 (02:22:45) – Of women fucking.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:22:47) – Rad.

 

Speaker 3 (02:22:47) – Like it Don’t.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:22:48) – Stop. Keep going, don’t stop. Don’t let any dude with the dick between his legs tell you otherwise keep fucking kicking ass.

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RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:22:56) – Yeah I agree. And I’m really just I haven’t met the right girl yet and I’m just going to do a shout out that if you are that girl, I want to hear from you. I did email Laci, if she’s ever listening to this podcast, did email her, but I didn’t hear back from her yet. But, you know, there’s a process. You have to you know, you have to engage with them on social media. They have to know who you are before they’re going to even respond to some dorky, you know, dorky email from like, who are you? You know? But I didn’t notice that you follow the utensil guy.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:23:31) – Yeah, me and me and him are good friends, man. He’s a he’s a big inspiration to me with what he’s doing with Powder. I feel like he kind of follows the same same thing I do. He wants to see powder come to a different, you know, a different form. Like for me, I’m inspired by my brother’s airbrushing.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:23:50) – Obviously, I’m not doing stencil work. Like he is like kind of I’ve kind of stayed away from that because I don’t want to step on his toes in any way because the level of stencil work that he is bringing to this industry is like. I have so much respect for that guy, have so much love for that.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:24:08) – How he does it, I don’t know how.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:24:10) – Did you see that CP3 bottle? He did with, like five different colors and it’s got purple and stuff in it. I’m like, Dude, you’re making my hair, You’re pulling my hair out, looking at your work.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:24:20) – Here’s the thing that here’s the rub. I look at his profile and I only see like a couple hundred, few hundred people following him. And I’m like, What the fuck? Like, where? How? Oh, my God.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:24:33) – He’s using the same booth I am.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:24:36) – You know, how is he not having, like, 3000 followers? 4000 followers like you? Because I think that’s incredible what he does.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:24:44) – And anybody listening, please go over there right now.

 

Speaker 3 (02:24:48) – And yeah, the utensil guy and the utensil company.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:24:52) – I’ve noticed he hasn’t been doing much on his page. The utensil guy page much lately. He’s been really think him and his wife have been really focusing on like the company page.

 

Speaker 3 (02:25:01) – Let’s bring.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:25:01) – Him up because I want to Yeah let me okay this is your page so let’s go here and then we’ll Google.

 

Speaker 3 (02:25:11) – The name right now.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:25:12) – Here we go. Aaron Okay.

 

Speaker 3 (02:25:14) – Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:25:15) – Big shout outs to Aaron. He’s.

 

Speaker 3 (02:25:17) – Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:25:18) – This stuff is incredible. I mean, you can see this for weddings or for wedding gifts mean everything he does is just insane. It’s so puffy. And yet you can see the lines clearly. It baffles me how he does this.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:25:34) – Like the thing that the thing that gets me off about his work is when you look at the mileage between his car and you can see how much he’s stacked it and you’re like, Yeah.

 

Speaker 3 (02:25:43) – Yes, you know what I’m saying?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:25:46) – Like how oh my God, my daughter would this is like.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:25:50) – This is like Serena from. What’s that? Oh, that. Oh, my God. One of the first. I might have to buy that. It’s like one of the first anime we used to watch was the Sailor Moon. Yeah, A.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:03) – Lot of the Simpson donut stuff. Like all the the cups. And he’s just been killing it lately. He’s all.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:26:11) – I wanted to get that for my daughter’s fiance. He loves the Joker. I mean it just goes on and on. The creativity coming out of this guy is insane, you know?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:22) – Oh, yeah. And this is like this. His page isn’t really. You should go look at the utensil company page. The utensil company has more of their that one.

 

Speaker 3 (02:26:31) – Yeah that has.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:32) – More of their recent work. And that’s where you’re going to be able to buy his stuff and.

 

Speaker 3 (02:26:38) – Oh, here we go.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:26:39) – Okay. Yeah, Maybe I’m following the wrong Instagram. Oh, here we go.

 

Speaker 3 (02:26:43) – Hold your breath.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:44) – Because he’s got a bunch of new stuff that just dropped that right.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:47) – And sustain.

 

Speaker 3 (02:26:50) – Like the duff beer mugs.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:26:52) – How has he got all? Only 200 followers. But. Okay. It’s here. This is the main page.

 

Speaker 3 (02:26:57) – Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:57) – And then he’s got videos of him pulling his stencils and stuff. I messaged him the other day. I’m like, Bro, why aren’t you? Why are you sharing your secrets right now?

 

Speaker 3 (02:27:07) – I usually do that.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:27:08) – But but at the same time, Ashton, I couldn’t do that or my husband wouldn’t have the time. You know, it’s not for everybody, you know?

 

Speaker 3 (02:27:16) – Right.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:27:17) – And oh, my God, that is insane.

 

Speaker 3 (02:27:20) – Yeah, he was.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:27:22) – Is he like you? Where he. Does he sell these and you buy them.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:27:26) – So, like, they’re. I encourage you guys to go to their website, buy all their mugs, buy all their utensils, because this dude busts his ass and he is so kind.

 

Speaker 3 (02:27:36) – Does. Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:27:37) – And like. Prior like to talking to him. Like last summer he was me and him started talking quite a bit and he would have problems like he was having Faraday problems and some of the mugs he was doing.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:27:48) – And I was like, No, dude, like, drop your CV’s here, put your air here and then tell me what you think and then switch to a different tip. He messaged, he messaged me back and he’s like, I’ve been dealing with this for so long. He’s like, Thank you so much. And then he like, kind of taught me some of his tricks. And he was actually supposed to come up here and we were supposed to do some stuff together, but with Covid happening and so on and so forth, they didn’t end up making it up this way this year.

 

Speaker 3 (02:28:14) – So that’s insane.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:28:16) – Yeah, the the freaking Iron Man one is nuts.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:28:21) – And where is he based out of?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:28:23) – I want to say they’re like RV. They’re like an RV couple. So they, like, travel all over the place.

 

Speaker 3 (02:28:29) – You’re kidding.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:28:30) – Yeah. So I don’t know. The last time I talked to him, he was telling me he was in Texas somewhere. And then I think I seen them that they were in California or something.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:28:39) – But.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:28:40) – Wow. Talk about crafting a life.

 

Speaker 3 (02:28:42) – That’s great.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:28:43) – Well, they what they did, what they were doing is they were chasing all these, like, you know, art festivals and stuff. And like, up here in the Northwest, we have like, art on the green and we have a lot of car shows and stuff. So I could see them going to a lot of these shows and really selling out in my opinion, like they would kill it.

 

Speaker 3 (02:29:02) – This is look at that.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:29:04) – Yeah. His Mandela work is insane.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:29:09) – Oh, my goodness.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:29:12) – A lot of he taught me that white technique to. So some of the work that you see, I use a little bit of his technique and then he uses some technique that I use that I’ve taught him how to use to. Just from talking. And that’s like kind of the thing is like I’ve kept a lot of. What I do to myself. But when somebody is doing work like this, I’m like, bro.

 

Speaker 3 (02:29:36) – So.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:29:39) – I mean, so he’s. So you pay for the tumbler. Let’s just.

 

Speaker 3 (02:29:44) – Pick that. Add it to the cart.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:29:47) – Okay. So 115 that’s.

 

Speaker 3 (02:29:49) – Still like.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:29:50) – Such a good price for the amount of.

 

Speaker 3 (02:29:53) – Dirt cheap.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:29:54) – That’s so cheap.

 

Speaker 3 (02:29:56) – I can’t.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:29:58) – Like, even my mugs, like I charge for a mug like this that’s like faded and galaxy. This even has glow in the dark. Clear on it? Yeah. I charge, like, 50 bucks for that.

 

Speaker 3 (02:30:10) – For the work part, not the.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:30:12) – Know for the mug and everything, because this is just the cheaper Arctic trail.

 

Speaker 3 (02:30:16) – Ones.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:30:17) – Or those arc trail or whatever. Not the Yeti. That’s when it starts getting spendy is when you start doing this stuff on Yeti mugs.

 

Speaker 3 (02:30:24) – Right.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:30:25) – Yeah, because it’s such an expensive product. But they’re popular, right? So.

 

Speaker 3 (02:30:30) – Yeah, this.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:30:31) – Is. Everybody needs to go check that guy out. I’ve been following them for at least a year or so. But I’m glad you rerouted me to the correct one.

 

Speaker 3 (02:30:41) – Because, yeah, he was.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:30:41) – I was kind of worried about him for a minute because I didn’t see much work coming out of him and I’m like, What the heck? Where’s all this work at? And then my wife was like, No, he’s been posting stuff on like the, the business page lately. And I’m like, Oh, okay. That makes sense.

 

Speaker 3 (02:30:54) – Right? Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:30:56) – Because I was thinking, what’s why does he not, you know, saw his posts and he’s using hashtags and stuff, but I’m like, how come?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:31:03) – Well, even for the longest time I had a lot of good work out there, too. And up until I got plugged into the right community with people and people started shouting me out. And, you know, it takes time, you know, like I didn’t reach a thousand followers. It took me like seven years to get to 1000 followers. And then once you hit 1000, it’s like overnight you’re. Yeah, you know, it’s nothing like everything seems so simple beyond that point.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:31:28) – And yeah, like, to be honest with you, that’s not why I’m here. That’s not. That’s not what I do. What I do. It’s not, you know, I’m not here for the followers. I’m not here for to be famous, you know, I’m just here to. To be happy. And that was, like, really my main goal of starting my own business is to be able to wake up and be happy, to be able to be there at any given chance for my children, you know, and to really think the thing of just seeing being in the industry for, you know, a good ten years. And seeing that me as a production painter, you know, a lot of people wanted my work, but at the end of the day, you know, people either didn’t want to wait for, you know, the over, you know, the time of me getting to their jobs, you know, being in a big production shop, you know, how long stuff takes to get done.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:32:12) – And, you know, after being through three different shops dealing with three different, you know, employers, three different formats of how to run a powder shop, I felt like I had a good enough idea of where I wanted to go. And I just I wanted to be able to cater towards the mom and pop people. I wanted to be able to cater towards those people that they actually want to pay you a little extra money to get that better. You know, that better finish. They don’t want some white, you know, handrail with black in it or, you know, like they’re going to come to me for my experience in my time. And I kind of pride myself in that. I run my shop off of time and materials, so like my shop rate is 65 bucks an hour and I’ll run time and materials and I can pretty much tell you if like you bring me four wheels, they’re going to take me like four hours.

 

Speaker 3 (02:32:57) – Five hours at least, you know. Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:33:00) – Exactly.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:33:01) – And, you know, give or take, if I have to strip them and blast them and then they have to be in the oven for an hour or two to to thermal clean correctly, then you know, that’s what it is. But, you know, I’m going to explain that to you. And the shop down the road isn’t going to explain that to you. And the shop down the road isn’t going to show you how clean the inside of their sandblast cabinet or their sandblast booth is. You know, and and that’s the thing is people don’t understand that 90% of the work. Is your sandblasting and the material you’re using. Like I go the extra length and I use Garnet. I use expensive material because for one, it doesn’t create too much dust too. It doesn’t break down as fast. And three, the profile you get from Garnet is next to nothing. Yeah, in my opinion.

 

Speaker 3 (02:33:47) – So just have.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:33:49) – That last week on the one last week, but the last episode we talked about that.

 

Speaker 3 (02:33:54) – I’ve used a.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:33:54) – Lot. I’ve used Clean Blast, I’ve used Green Diamond, they all, you know, copper, slag, they all work good. They all do. They all have their right place. But I got spoiled with using Garnet at the last shop I was at and I was like, I am. I’m not going to switch to anything else or back to anything else. It’s worth the money, in my opinion.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:34:12) – Yes, totally. Yeah. And mean, he said on the podcast, You know, that’s Jeff Taylor and I’m actually going to interview him tomorrow. No, Monday, we’re going for another another round. Um, and that, you know. You know, the benefits of Garnet and, you know, it’s more expensive. But then he was saying, oh, you need to change it out like 4 to 5, every 4 to 5 times. And I’m like, now we’re stretching it a little longer than that. That’s how much you would want us to replace it.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:34:48) – Yeah, but, you know, we’re stretching it out just a little bit longer than that.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:34:53) – It’s just the the severity of the the cleanliness of it that I like the most about Garnet. And it’s just at the end of the day, if I don’t have to stress about, you know, what’s in my broken down material. Then I’m not stressing when it comes to putting paint on this wheel or whatever it may be, you know. And I think that’s one thing that people don’t stress enough on, is like if you go to a production shop and you have a set of aluminum wheels for your roadster or something that you’ve spent your hard earned money on, the last thing I want is some coating shop to sandblast a bunch of carbon steel before they did my aluminum wheels and then impregnate my aluminum wheels with a bunch of carbon. You know, and that’s that’s the thing. Like we’re I learned a lot to where almost as a coater, it makes you like second guess yourself almost, you know, And it almost sucks to be the coater that knows too much because then you’re just always constantly worried about what’s going to go wrong, you know, and.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:35:57) – I think if you just kind of take a breath, take your time and and just make sure every step of your process is foolproof from even washing to to even cleaning to hanging your product. Like that’s that’s the big thing that even, you know, ten years down the road that drives me nuts is when I see hanging points. Yeah. Like hang marks.

 

Speaker 3 (02:36:18) – And it’s.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:36:18) – Constantly like that is the challenge, right? When you’re given something, it’s like, what’s going to give you the least amount?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:36:25) – And. But still give you great ground. Yeah, right. You know, and that’s we’re constantly fighting between that and.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:36:32) – And it’s not easy to teach that to. We, you know, we had that going on with our employee where we were like, okay, think this through. You know, what are you how are you going to do this?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:36:42) – And that was like the that’s one thing I preach on, especially when you’re doing big, big fucking admits is like. I’ve already in my head prior to even going into that sandblast building, I’ve already up and down that thing 20 times and I’ve already come up with a process of where I’m going and what I’m doing because, you know, a lot of the stuff I would paint hot, you know, like when you’re in a production shop, you’re doing stuff hot to get the mileage on there and to get the product in the oven faster, you know? And that’s really the goal.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:37:11) – And like, I don’t I miss the days of the hustle and bustle. But then again, I realize, you know, like I don’t miss coming home with £300 of zinc and black in my hair.

 

Speaker 3 (02:37:24) – Oh, gosh, yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:37:25) – I mean.

 

Speaker 3 (02:37:27) – Uh.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:37:28) – Yeah. Some of the things that we’re doing with this new shop is sort of hybrid our ovens right now.

 

Speaker 3 (02:37:36) – That’s rad.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:37:37) – Uh, so, yeah, we’ve got a little bit of a small little Frankenstein back behind this wall here. And, you know, it’s small enough that if we made the mistake or miscalculated or whatever, but so far, it has improved. Uh, cure times or just production times on rims and everything else so much faster. I can’t even believe it. Like, it’s like lightning speed and it’s just, you know, don’t want to give too much away because think Ross wants to talk about it soon, and he’s just in the middle of building the big oven now. But, um, I think someday soon we’re going to, we’re going to kind of reveal and take some video of it and stuff to see what the reaction will be.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:38:25) – But so far, so good. It’s it’s kept the temp no problem. And it gets to temp faster because that’s also an issue.

 

Speaker 3 (02:38:32) – Right.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:38:33) – And and and maintaining that temp stronger but the production time it’s like oh man the wheel is just getting done so much faster you know.

 

Speaker 3 (02:38:46) – Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:38:46) – That was like the big thing that you know, went from. I left a shop that was, you know, the Taj Mahal, 50 foot, you know, Booth and a rapid fire oven. And it’s all cool and dandy. But once you get to that size, you don’t understand the stress of like. Shit has to be perfect when it’s going in that oven like it’s in. I almost like I lived for that, you know, I lived for that, you know, being at the forefront and hustling and busing. And I was very prideful and prideful of that. But at the end of the day, it’s like, I think I have more fun taking my time and just breathing and calming down and just taking in everything and just enjoying the moment, you know? And like that was like when I got to do those two tone wheels, like I dreamed for years and years.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:39:36) – Like I remember watching like, really the only information that you could find on YouTube back in the day was the guy from ADC Powder Coating, and that’s how I figured out how to do a two tone wheel because he showed like the whole vacuuming and the whole wiping technique. And that’s all that that’s all that took is him showing me how to wipe something. Five, six years ago. And that’s it literally every day repeated in my head. And then like, you know, if you put your gun on the on the stand again and then it dropped like right out of the gun and it hits the ground and it splatters everywhere. That’s how I figured out, like, oh, I could make these galaxies look splatters. Yeah. And it was just weird things that kind of popped up in my head over the production side for so many years that, you know, once I.

 

Speaker 3 (02:40:20) – Got.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:40:21) – coatings on YouTube has some stuff on there too, right? I think. Is it them or.

 

Speaker 3 (02:40:28) – I don’t know.

 

Speaker 3 (02:40:28) – I haven’t.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:40:29) – Seen his.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:40:30) – Yeah envy and is a Nancy is in Victor.

 

Speaker 3 (02:40:34) – And it’s.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:40:35) – Pretty crazy I started powder coating in 2012 for Lake City powder coating here in Coeur d’Alene. And I worked I worked for Larry for about eight years. And then I got a wild hair up my ass and I was going to go back and spray it liquid. So I went and worked for a roller coaster company called Rocky Mountain Roller Coasters here in Idaho. I worked for them for two.

 

Speaker 3 (02:40:57) – Weeks.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:40:58) – And I was like, Fuck, liquid, I can’t. I can’t stand liquid. And just the the differences between bosses, it was like, holy cow, these guys are crazy. I can’t deal with it.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:41:10) – Well, good thing for you, because Ross is allergic to polyurethane now. Oil based polyurethane. Yeah. Allergic to it.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:41:20) – Yeah. And then. So I got sick of that. Walked down the street to my competitor powder coating shop at the time. And I walked in there and he was like, Oh, I’m looking for a new manager right now.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:41:31) – And I was like, Well, I guess I’d probably be your best bet in this town. Like I put money on it and that ended up being not so well. And, you know, it was just kind of like it was a family run business. And the son was kind of, you know, a bad person and didn’t we really didn’t see eye to eye. And I figured out really soon that he wasn’t going to leave and I wasn’t going to get that manager spot and I was just going to be the little grunt that knew everything, right? So during this time, I knew there was a shop being built out in after him, and at the time that was going to be, you know, the biggest shop, the biggest oven, the biggest everything, the newest equipment this side of Mississippi, pretty much to like California or southern Washington. So I was like, Heck yeah. Like I had I’d had all this experience from, you know. The the Nordson versus Bray two. And, you know, being able to lay gloss black like it was glass with that gun.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:42:27) – And then I went to to Spectrum and I learned how to use the GMA and they never let me spray hot So I like pretty much went backwards and just taught myself how to spray cold again, you know, and learn a newer ish gun. And then I walked into they told me to leave and go like apply for unemployment one day. And I was like, all right, like, cool. Like you just told me what I wanted to hear. So I left and I had like some side jobs at home because I had my little craftsman gun in my little convection toaster oven that I was doing mods with. So at that time, I was literally covering my rent with my side work. So I like got a wild hair at my ass, went into that shop that was being built and that guy that owned that shop was in there painting like a full cart, a handrail. And he’s got a dude behind him with a flashlight and he’s in this huge that booth that I just showed you that’s all lit up and beautiful.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:43:24) – And he’s got this nice gun. And I’m like, What are you doing? He’s like, Oh, he’s my QC guy. And I’m just like, Your QC guy shouldn’t be here. You should be outside checking your stuff. That’s like getting ready to be leaving. And he’s like looking at me like, Who the fuck are you? And I’m like, Dude, you you need a painter. And he’s like, Oh, yeah, I know. And he’s like, Can you be here at seven tomorrow? And I’m like, Sure. So I wake up and I get ready to leave and he’s like, I was up till like five spray. And he’s like, Come in at 11. So then I walked in at like 11. They didn’t have anything racked up. They didn’t have anything ready for me to paint. And this is like you would probably have a heart attack seeing like how nice this building like you could eat off the floors in this building like it’s nothing powder coating has ever seen at this point, you know? Right.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:44:14) – And I’m just like. Holy crap. So they rack me up all this stuff and I put my headphones on and I go in the booth and I’m dancing and I’m painting and I’m doing my thing, and I’m like, Are you guys going to load up another? Like, I’m yelling, like, keep going. Like, this is what a powder shop is like. Do I have to teach you how to do this? Like this dude spent millions of dollars building this shop and he had no idea how to run it. Yeah. So then, you know, I go in and I helped them turn and burn, you know, and he started to get the idea like, Holy shit, this kid knows what he’s doing. And you know, then reps started coming in and reps were telling me like, Do you probably have the most style I’ve seen on a gun? Like, you look like a liquid painter when you paint. I’m like, Well, that’s what I came from originally and I just wanted to be, you know, if a painter came in here, I’d want him to see what a you know, it’s a painter.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:45:04) – Like you shouldn’t be shaking your gun like a crazy man. Like this isn’t the 1950s anymore. And that was just something I took pride in and I ran with it. And I think like the biggest realization is I turned this job with like all these awnings that I had. I had to spray all this paint from Mexico. I can’t remember the company, what it was called. There’s a bunch of powder that we bought from Mexico and we had like did this huge equation on all the surface area and how much, you know, like a mil covers so much. So we did all this math and we ordered all this paint and stuff. So I had to like. I had to calculate certain pounds per, you know, per awning, and I had to dump that much on set awning and said cart. So like I would have certain bags weighed up or I’d, you know, I’d weigh throughout the whole thing. And I would, I would have to obviously weigh, but then I would have to calculate and I’d have to write everything down.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:46:01) – So, like I.

 

Speaker 3 (02:46:02) – Said, monitor.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:46:03) – How many years? How many? Yeah. Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:46:05) – So I don’t run out of this green or I don’t run out of this red or I don’t run out of this beige because I had all these awnings to do for like this extended stay hotel in Mexico, but in Arizona somewhere. Long story short, it was like. Over a $500,000 job and I turned it in five days. Obviously, I had like the best sand blaster, this kid that I had. He’s no longer with us, but he was this younger kid, that fucking amazing sand blaster. He walked in, had no idea what he was doing, and we taught him how to do what we wanted to do. And that’s what we got from this kid. But, you know, thankfully we had, you know, a good crew that was sandblasting. We had a good hanging crew, and I was the only painter. Nobody would at this time had the gumption to get on the other gun.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:46:50) – I had two pumps in this room and nobody would use the other pump. I can’t use both pumps like. So I was I turned this job in like a week was like seven days, watched it all get loaded up and taken out. And it was, you know, like seven days of, like non-stop, like there at 5:00 in the morning till 4:00 in the morning, like sleeping an hour or not sleeping at all. And, you know, I’m not the kind of person that’s like, hey, give me my money or anything. But it would have been nice to have been like, Here’s a bonus. You just made me half $1 million in five days, you know, like and that’s when I knew I was like. You know. I’ve obviously taught this guy how to make a lot of money. I’ve showed him a lot of my tricks, which a lot of my prior bosses would probably be mad about because I probably took a lot of work from them after leaving their shops, you know? And it’s just like a I got I got really tired.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:47:45) – I got really complacent. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t I got excited at first because I got to paint with all this cool stuff, but. Then, you know, after a year or two years goes by, you’re like. It’s never ending that. You know, he’s biting off more than he can chew every day. You know, he’s expecting you to do this, this and this. And then he would hire another painter to come in and the other painter would supposedly have 15 years, like they all say. And then the funniest thing I’ll never forget, this guy is like, you know, talking himself up like, oh, yeah, yeah. I’ve been painting this and this for so many years. And I worked at this shop and that shop and I’m like, okay, cool. I was like, That gun behind you, He’s ready. You got a new mask right there. I was like, You ready to do a hot coat? And the dude looks at me and he goes, What’s a hot coat? You’ve been painting, you’ve been powder coating for 15 years and you don’t know what a hot coat is.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:48:38) – That’s the stuff that I had to deal with, you know? And then, you know, like every painter, you know, give or take.

 

Speaker 3 (02:48:43) – Something.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:48:44) – That didn’t even happen by accident.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:48:46) – Yeah, right, exactly. Like, how were you not preheating anything and getting away with it.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:48:53) – And just, you know, like, by chance.

 

Speaker 3 (02:48:56) – I mean, we even.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:48:56) – Have guns that are called hot coats today. Like, I mean, wasn’t that like the trick back in the 50s and they couldn’t get stuff to stick. They’d just heat it up and like, yeah, you know, like that was, that’s how I got taught from a dude that had 30 years of experience, you know, and. It was just it’s kind of crazy. And, you know, I hear through the grapevine that they’ve gone through ten plus painters since or, you know, and that’s not I’m not here to to say or do that. You know, it’s like I just wanted to be happy and to be able to provide my family with the things I want to give my family and.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:49:31) – And this area, there’s nobody that can do what I can do.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:49:34) – So to me, just see you.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:49:36) – I just rolled my dice.

 

Speaker 3 (02:49:38) – I just.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:49:40) – Hopefully that’s the goal. You know, like is the barrier.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:49:44) – You found a product that you can be global with.

 

Speaker 3 (02:49:47) – That’s amazing.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:49:48) – I think like the main thing though is like what I would like to do is like to be able to travel to shops and help people like with problems or, you know, just help them figure out what they’re they’re, they’re trying to troubleshoot, you know, like because a lot of. You know, having somebody else around or having somebody else that has like a like, you know, mine that kind of thinks the same, you might be able to see something that they’re not seeing or, you know, just help somebody troubleshoot a problem that they’ve had, you know, a hell of a time with. And I don’t feel like there’s people in this industry that want to do that. But, you know, it’d be pretty cool to be able to fly out to you guys and help you guys for a couple of days or show you a couple tricks of how to paint a huge walk in gate and, you know, and to be right, you know, and that’s the thing.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:50:36) – Like, I don’t that’s what I would I wish of like I wish you know, reps would come in and put their suit on and get in the booth with me and spray with me. Like I would have loved to have a pissing match with a rep. You know what I mean? Like those things, those, those are what these painters need, you know, like painters need somebody to come in and like. You know, ruffle their feathers a little bit and like ask them questions and make them think. Because at the end of the day, like, I’m sure, you know, people deal with it, too. Like, I’m sure Kaser deals with, you know, having good people that come in that are applicators that he’s got a babysit or that, you know, like that. He has to make sure that he’s probably got a lot of money invested into his applicators, you know, to know what So something doesn’t go wrong.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:51:22) – Yeah. And inevitably he just posted the other day about how.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:51:26) – Just even using the wrong hook. Yeah, he kind of messed up his whole operation, you know, and, you know, and it’s just a. Such an everyday occurrence. And how he goes about explaining it is just, you know, and the process and the way he writes or, you know, like helpers, but.

 

Speaker 3 (02:51:46) – Like he’s like.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:51:48) – He’s like the the perfect advocate for our industry.

 

Speaker 3 (02:51:52) – Yes. Yeah, you know what I mean?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:51:53) – I’m going to have him on the directory and we’re working out like his blog. We’re going to try to put a feed in there of his blog because although he’s speaking to coaters, not all of his posts are out there to the consumer as well. Like how what to expect on a rainy day. You know I mean love that post.

 

Speaker 3 (02:52:12) – That’s see and.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:52:12) – That’s the stuff that I oversee. You know, that’s the stuff that I had to deal with as a lead coater. Guess what? I was the dude that had to run the forklift and I had to package everything up.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:52:21) – They had to bubble everything up.

 

Speaker 3 (02:52:23) – Oh, my God.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:52:24) – Oh, so long.

 

Speaker 3 (02:52:25) – You know, stacking.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:52:26) – Handrail correctly and padding it correctly. Like, those are the things that like, I would just go a wall over and to have somebody in the industry that’s actually explaining that stuff for consumers is like, why didn’t we think of this?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:52:40) – Yeah. Think he’s you know, it’s just he’s just sharing his journey. But the way he writes is towards like a consumer or someone he can write either way.

 

Speaker 3 (02:52:52) – Right?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:52:53) – You know.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:52:54) – And I think that’s.

 

Speaker 3 (02:52:54) – Kind of like a.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:52:55) – Guy I’m hoping to interview soon. He just started a YouTube channel, um, and thought, should I reach out to him as soon, you know, because he’s really just kind of growing a channel and I’m so glad I did. I hope to have him on the show, but his angle is so unique. Well, I don’t know what his angle is. I’m trying to figure it out. But what I saw was someone that could actually be perfectly placed on the directory front and center because it’s it’s almost like this one one video I was watching was him talking about a small project, just a garage project.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:53:38) – This is ideal. This is what we need to inspire consumers to get to why they want to go with a powder coater versus a painter, you know, And it’s just a small little job shop. It was, you know, it’s a DIY project that probably was more advanced than the average and why you’d want to set it to a powder coater because they’ve got this extra knowledge that, you know, a DIY or wouldn’t have, but you could totally direct that whole that whole YouTube channel to just the consumer market and doing small projects and featuring, you know, like those little things that you the, the circus stuff, you know, the restoring of the old stuff and rims, whatever, you could just make it towards a consumer the angle, you know. So we’ll see how he develops this channel because a lot of the people that we’re watching now are, you know, like unknown who’s just giving you DIY because you’re already in you’ve already been powder coating for a while and you just want this question answer.

 

Speaker 3 (02:54:44) – He’s like.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:54:45) – He’s. He’s pretty much like the cookie cutter of knowledge. For people that want the knowledge fast, that have obviously jumped through loopholes, figured out, you know, that this gun really isn’t going to do this for me. And they’re already beyond that point. These are the people that are having. Problems or, you know, in the sense of just kind of looking where they’re going to go next, of what they want to try to do. And I think that’s a lot of unfortunate. That’s a lot of things that we deal with in this industry is a lot of monkey see monkey do and not a monkey get off your ass and do what you want to do. You know, like and I feel like that’s what I tried as myself, as I try to put out as much organic and as much raw me as myself because I don’t want to have to deal with some different persona of me, you know, like I don’t want to put on some fake face of this or like I want I want people to have real knowledge and I want to have people to like me for who I am and not, you know, just think I’m some dude that’s just a painter like.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:55:47) – You know, and that’s that’s unfortunate. Like I think that’s what Sean Sean puts forward a lot of organic contact like Sean is Sean and the Sean’s raw and if you don’t like Sean then.

 

Speaker 3 (02:55:58) – It’s. Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:55:59) – Go somewhere else, you know, like.

 

Speaker 3 (02:56:01) – Right. Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:56:02) – And he’s pretty. He’s pretty right on with his, you know, like with what he’s telling you. And that’s kind of something I’ve tried to relay in what I’m doing in my live feeds is kind of explain, you know, this is this powder and this is what I have this set at. You know, even though a lot of my people that are viewing me don’t come to me for that information. But I feel like it’s my job and my duty to to be professional and to explain certain things. So like, let’s say a powder coater does show up on my life feed. I don’t look like some dumb ass that doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

 

Speaker 3 (02:56:33) – Right?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:56:34) – You know what I mean? And that’s just being professional and what you do.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:56:37) – And that’s obviously, you know, it’s going to that’s the passion showing to, you know.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:56:42) – Well, you know, and the thing is, is everybody wants to be everywhere. But, you know, how where are you going to be good at? Right. So you can.

 

Speaker 3 (02:56:50) – Have.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:56:51) – Being everywhere. That’s all I got to say. I deal with Facebook and Instagram and I have my own website and that that is enough to drive me crazy. Like I’ve finally gotten to this point to where, like, my wife was like working a job that she really didn’t like and she was getting really stressed out and I was just like, Fuck it, just quit. And you can work for me. Like you can come in. And she’s been sandblasting for me. She’s been hanging parts for me. Like there’s nothing that. Like she won’t get on the gun just yet. Like, I’m, like, trying to, like. Come on, just try it. You know, like, it’s fun, you know? And.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:57:26) – And like, she’ll sit there and stand stuff with me. And a lot of. I do a lot of trick stuff. So, like, I don’t like tape. I try to avoid tape at any given moment. And you’d be amazed what you could do with an air hose or like, an air blower. Yeah, right. And obviously these tubes and stuff, you can blow them out and wipe and and do a lot of clean, cool stuff. And she’s pretty talented at that. You know, I’ve showed her how to do it. And she started, you know, we’ve dropped a few things here and there together, but she’s she’s getting good at it and she holds me accountable, you know, And it’s it makes.

 

Speaker 3 (02:57:59) – Me like Jennifer.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:58:00) – Hate, you know, she’s the main coater at Black Label.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:58:04) – That’s crazy. That’s cool.

 

Speaker 3 (02:58:06) – She does.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:58:07) – A lot of it herself, you know, And.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:58:09) – That’s like something that I want to bring, you know, I want her to maybe get on the gun someday because women are a little.

 

Speaker 3 (02:58:15) – Bit more know.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:58:16) – What they’re good at until you.

 

Speaker 3 (02:58:17) – Give them. That can be.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:58:18) – Better than us. They could be way better than us. So that’s the that’s the thing, You know, I’d like it to be able to, you know, if something happens, she knows what to do and she can provide for herself or for my kids and her kids. And and that’s the thing, you know, and but main reason why I brought her on is to deal with like my business page on Facebook. Obviously, I have a group, but that’s more towards like the vape side community, things of what I do. And she deals with that. She helps me with like the booking and and all that great stuff. And she’s actually the reason why I got the big oven. She invested into me to get the big oven and to do wheels. And it takes a, takes a pretty strong woman to, uh, you know, take that big of an investment and throw it at me.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:59:04) – But she’s obviously had to deal with me and listen to me talk like this every night. So I think she believes in me a little bit.

 

Speaker 3 (02:59:12) – Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:59:13) – Yeah. I think for me, it was just when I started to go and want knowledge or seek knowledge, I couldn’t find any, you know, it’s like where, you know, I guess I’d come from a different industry. So it seemed like it was just more prevalent. You know, it was interior design and construction contract, everything.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:59:35) – I feel like everything is so much more explanatory, you know, like everything everybody’s kind of sees like the okay, what’s the catch in it, you know, being that it’s shoes or clothes or fashion or or whatever it may be. But then it kind of comes down to like these industrial things that, you know, you got to go to a special shop for. You got to go to this special someone for. And it’s just kept out. I honestly think it’s been like the demise of our industry.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:00:00) – It’s kept our industry so quiet. You know, it’s like and that’s the unfortunate part, is that that’s why there’s no information out there because, no, nobody wants to share their information. Because if you look at the East Coast side of things, it’s a lot of these manufacturing and huge powder coating shops, you know, that you may do manufacture inside and have a powder coating operation or you have like the Sherwin-Williams plant, you know, that obviously paint stuff for a lot of people. So a lot of stuff’s like in-house or it’s a lot of secrets or, you know, like obviously companies don’t want this company coming up with a match. Like if you’ve ever sprayed BK eight from Cardinal, I swear to God, everybody in the industry has a match to BK Cardinal that doesn’t match, you know, like and that’s kind of like the thing I would, I would just really like to see everybody get along, come together, do their thing, but also, you know, stay in their lane.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:00:56) – You know, it’s like find out what you’re good at and just run with it. And that’s kind of what I did. I just found something I was passionate about and what I was good at, and I didn’t give up. You know, it’s like there may have been some days where it was, you know, a little bit rougher than others. And, you know, you just wanted to quit and give up and maybe go get a real job again. But at the end of the day, the the smell of melting powder, you know, like just there’s just something about it that gets me excited, you know, and. There was nothing about liquid or sanding Bondo or doing metal work or any of the things that I did prior to this as a kid growing up with my brother, it was like. This is kind of my thing and I feel like I fit here and I’m not going to go anywhere, you know? Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:01:40) – That’s how Ross and I feel like I know Ross when he discovered powder coating it.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:01:48) – It was that feeling like I finally found my place, you know, kind of thing.

 

Speaker 3 (03:01:52) – Yeah, like a million years.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:01:54) – Things born, a million hats, done a million things prior to this. This is, you know, we’re older. We’re not your age. We’re older. And so we had a lot of. And it’s funny because when you look back at your life, you look back and you see, Oh, wow, all these things that I did prior to this has led me to this moment, you know? Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:02:13) – When it’s like I’m like sitting here before this podcast, like, nervous. Like, I’m, like, shaking. I’m like, freaking out. And it’s just like, I felt like, you know, every aspect of me powder coating everything that I’ve done has led me to this point and given me all this knowledge that I can’t contain. You know, like you couldn’t contain all my knowledge in one episode or five. Like we’re all still learning, we’re all still experimenting.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:02:38) – And that’s the thing is, it’s like once you get that bug and once you figure out, you know, it’s just like a light bulb goes off and it’s just like everything powder coating lives just kind of becomes effortless. And like, you just become one with your gun and you become one with your oven and everything just starts flowing and stuff. And it. That’s like something it’s hard to come by, you know, like I grew up racing BMX and motocross, and those were the things that I was very passionate about for a long time. And I’m still a big fan of today, but I get a lot of those, you know, feelings and those emotions when I pull out a hot load of something and I turn the music on and I’m just jamming and I’m in my own element, I get those same endorphins running through my body as I would, you know, if I was racing a big national when I was a kid or, you know, and.

 

Speaker 3 (03:03:27) – I feel like.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:03:28) – That’s the one thing that worries me about all the new people coming out and.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:03:32) – They don’t know the supper part. They don’t know.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:03:35) – Well, they don’t know, but.

 

Speaker 3 (03:03:37) – We’re.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:03:37) – All on our own journey there. But but I think that it’s like they’re just starting to be starting. But there’s no. Uh, there’s no story yet. There’s no journey.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:03:51) – Nothing’s really sparked them yet.

 

Speaker 3 (03:03:52) – It’s.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:03:53) – And it’s like, well, where what are you going to say about your, your website? Well, I’m not going to get that well, but, you know, I’m like, no, you don’t understand. There are certain things that you have to craft to make a brand. You know, nobody’s just going to go to you because you’re just around the corner from the other guy. You got to give them a reason.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.22.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:04:13) – This thing right here, this signature, believe it or not, that was the signature. I got sick and tired of signing my full name on invoices and my paint booth because a job come in and you got an invoice and you got to sign off.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:04:26) – And I you know, there’s a little note section that I would write, you know, how many passes or I would write equations just in case I came back to it, you know. And after a while, I got so tired of signing my full name, I just started doing the AP thing. And then it’s turn into like the little star AP thing. And then I just kept daydreaming about that and daydream about that and daydream about that. And then I was just like, you know, things kind of molded into another thing. And I had my other logo with my face on it and stuff and that kind of that put me out there, that put my face to my product, that gave me brand recognition. And then I was like, okay, I got to bring this in. We brought this in and kind of put it on shirts, and then now it’s on my mod.

 

Speaker 3 (03:05:10) – Right?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:05:12) – And that’s kind of like a, you know, it’s, it’s cool like to. To see like your signature, your seal of approval, you know, like kind of become a thing, kind of in a household name kind of way, you know? And that’s kind of what I’m trying to do with powder coating.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:05:27) – I don’t want to just be a painter, you know what I mean? I don’t want you to look at. Oh, Palmer’s powders as a powder coater. Yeah, I might be a powder cutter, but I want to bring other things to powder coating. I would like to, you know, maybe make tools, you know, and, you know, in certain aspects, you know, like certain tools for certain applications depending on what you’re painting, you know, like. And that’s where you got to kind of go. You got to like, for me, I’m not thinking about what’s the next thing I’m going to be coating. I’m kind of thinking on like, what’s the next collaborative thing I can be doing that not only, you know, it puts my name out there, but it’s also putting somebody else’s name out there. Kind of like this whole podcast you’re bringing me on to build me up. And then also in return you’re going to be surprised of what I do once I leave here.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:06:13) – I have this whole other. You know, platform that I can speak upon, that I can say, you know, for my powder coating people or I can recommend people that are having problems, I can tell them to come listen to you now because you have a lot of information to relay. You have to deal with Ros. You have to deal with all the books and and you order the paint. So at the end of the day, it comes down to you’ve learned a lot of knowledge to tell him to pass on to him, you know, and if it’s like at this point we have such this base to start growing on and it’s going to take you and Ros to bigger places and to learn other experiences and and other things. And that’s just the cool part of, you know, people that are open to this is it’s it’s going to fucking blow up quick.

 

Speaker 3 (03:07:01) – I hope.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:07:02) – So. I mean, I really want that to happen. I think the industry is ripe for it.

 

Speaker 3 (03:07:08) – And hopefully it blows up it.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:07:10) – We just we deserve it. You deserve it. I deserve it. Ros deserves it.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:07:16) – Well, and and if you think about it, your community deserves it. You know what I mean? Like Hawaii, the community you guys are serving, you’re not only serving to look cool, you guys have to preach corrosion protection. There’s there’s so much more that you guys know than just looking cool. Then, you know, you guys have to deal with salt in your air. You have to deal with humidity. Like there’s so much shit that us mainland people, you know, yeah, we deal with, but we don’t deal with island like conditions. We don’t deal with tropic conditions like. And you guys in the sense are on the forefront of making that product better in that environment, you know what I mean? And you’re bringing it to your community to where your community thrives off of that. And that’s one thing that, you know, I feel like we need to preach is, yeah, I may be a separate person in my community, but I’m going to offer you a better product.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:08:09) – You’re going to get your money’s worth. You’re going to feel better walking out my door. You’re not going to feel jaded. And if you do, I’m going to try to make it feel it make you feel better about it, you know? Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:08:18) – Well, this, you know, we’re scaling again because we kind of got hit back down from the Covid thing and rebuilding our shop and all of that with the new location and, you know, just we’re just doing like we did before, which is we waited for a job to help pay for this oven to be built. I’m not going to go and just buy, you know, we we have the the knowledge to build it. It’s not even that anymore.

 

Speaker 3 (03:08:44) – Yeah. It’s the.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:08:44) – Time and the money that you got to fall.

 

Speaker 3 (03:08:46) – Into change.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:08:47) – Right? So we waited and sure enough, you know, this railing that we’re doing next week is has been a nightmare for this construction company where they ordered it from the mainland. It came out of Pennsylvania.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:01) – They sent the first one over and it had all these different weird angles. And, you know, of course, they didn’t weld it. Right. And it doesn’t doesn’t meet the wall. And I mean, it’s just when, you know, aside from that, that’s crazy.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:09:14) – You guys don’t have any good like.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:16) – Oh no, no, no. They we do. They just decided to order it from Pennsylvania because it was cheaper. That was six months ago.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:09:25) – It gives me like, Yeah, that freaks me out.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:27) – It’s the classic thing that people do here. It really is.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:09:31) – They it’s like it sounds like classic fucking handrail builders here that would bring me a rail, not test fit it and then bring it back the next day and be like, Hey, can you recode this? Because I had to fix it. And you’re like.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:44) – How can I?

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:09:45) – Five days from now, I can.

 

Speaker 3 (03:09:47) – Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:48) – Can I fix it.

 

Speaker 3 (03:09:48) – On the wall?

 

Speaker 4 (03:09:49) – The code inspectors come in at, like, 5:00, and I said it’d be done.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:09:54) – Yeah, I’ve been there.

 

Speaker 3 (03:09:56) – Done that.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:56) – Because we’re so far away from the mainland. But, you know, like, I went to this.

 

Speaker 3 (03:10:00) – You know, she could only imagine.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:10:02) – Got it from right where she originally bought it from. And on this website is everything you need to know about a gate. Except for the coating. Like they say, they’re powder coating it and that’s all they say. There’s no spec, there’s no nothing anything about the kind of finishes you’re going to get or how we do it or anything. Like what kind of weird website is this? So I realized the gig was up then, you know, and then so now they’re trying to just satisfy the homeowner at this point because the homeowner is holding back the last payment. Right. And so this is dragging on. And I’m sure it’s like tens of thousands of dollars that they’re waiting on for this, you know, $3,000 gate, you know, railing. So they finally went and got it done locally. And we’re getting it next week.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:10:49) – And what.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:10:49) – Color is it.

 

Speaker 3 (03:10:50) – Going?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:10:50) – Oh, so the thing is, is you should see the horrendous photos they sent us. It looks like a chrome, but the chrome isn’t done well at all. Like it’s like a prismatic chrome. Or it could be chrome, but or even a Columbia Chrome. But it’s milky, you know, it’s kind of weird in some places. It just. Oh, it’s awful. It’s awful.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:11:15) – So to think that somebody wants to put that outside scares me.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:11:20) – No, it’s an inside railing.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:11:21) – Oh, it is?

 

Speaker 3 (03:11:22) – Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:11:25) – It makes it even more, you know, like if.

 

Speaker 3 (03:11:29) – Eyes are.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:11:29) – Way more on.

 

Speaker 3 (03:11:30) – It. Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:11:31) – You know, and I’m looking at the coating and just looking at how crappy this coating is, if they were trying to attempt some kind of a, a chrome or reflective look or any kind of like silver, even, it didn’t even come out right. I don’t even know what they shot. And they wouldn’t tell.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:11:48) – They wouldn’t tell us. Said, well, find out what powder because obviously that’s the powder that they picked. So I got to go in order that whether it’s Columbia or prison or.

 

Speaker 3 (03:11:58) – Yeah. Or wherever.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:12:00) – Right, wherever. And they wouldn’t tell me. And then on top of that, you know, they were about ready to send. So they made it again. They, they, they made a new one again. And this time we discovered that they were mixing aluminum with steel.

 

Speaker 3 (03:12:19) – Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:12:21) – So the top rail was aluminum, but the but this. Oh, my God, it’s just a Frankenstein thing. And I’m like, how is that you already having like, dissimilar metals? Do you think that’s going to last here in Hawaii with.

 

Speaker 3 (03:12:34) – I’m so.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:12:35) – Picky, even to the point of like, on all your like all your bases to where your, your handrail is going to get bolted to all those plates all go in and bevel all those edges so you can’t get any bulge. Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:12:47) – Yeah I’ll go in and I’ll scrape all the freaking little babies and clean everything up.

 

Speaker 3 (03:12:53) – So they ordered.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:12:53) – An aluminum railing, but they really didn’t get an aluminum. The top rail is aluminum, but the other stuff is all made out of steel because it’s cheap ass or whatever. And. And I gave this lady a whole education. Just the fact that I, you know, helped her kind of think through this thing, you know, like with the pictures and what I was seeing. And I’m like, This isn’t what you’re ordering this, this isn’t what you’re getting, you know? Now, far be it for me to tell this manufacturer in this powder coater, so sure enough, they powder coated and they’re ready to ship it out. But they realized that the coating isn’t right. It’s a little messy and it’s not passing their inspection. And they’re wondering, should we spend another week sending it back to the powder coated so they’re not even doing in-house powder coating, which means they have no control over the quality of what they’re getting once they send it out on top of the.

 

Speaker 3 (03:13:44) – On the device.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:13:46) – On top of the fact that they built it wrong in the first place. And this is the second railing that they’re having to do. And. Yeah, it was one of those, but yay, it came our way. We were able to build our big oven. We’re able to, you know, finally that’s.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:13:59) – Usually, that’s usually how it is. It’s like it’s always some crazy, convoluted, stressful job that, you know, that ends up, you know, you get to the end of it, you can wipe your hands clean and then it works out, you know?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:14:12) – Yeah. And they know do it local and get it done right with Maui Powder works right now. They know they’re not going to make that mistake again, you know So yeah it’s you know, it’s it’s good. We’re almost like it’s almost for us, it’s like starting over again or starting again.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:14:30) – It’s that was the big thing. Even I did like a big change just with inside my shop.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:14:37) – I had my bench in one area and I moved it to a different area. And then we got the bigger oven in and there was a lot of changing of where my, you know, my area was going to be. And even for like a good month, it kind of threw me off mentally. Because I wasn’t, you know, used to not being in that one spot, you know, And it was just kind of it’s kind of weird what, you know, little things can kind of affect you or kind of throw you off of your flow and kind of disrupt you. But I think at the end of the day. As a good powder coater. We’re always contradicting ourselves or we’re always second guessing ourselves. So, like, I feel like if we can all kind of learn how to just bite our tongue, believe in ourselves and just get over certain humps, like we would just be better off, you know? But that’s not how you know, that’s not how Murphy’s Law works or.

 

Speaker 3 (03:15:27) – Yeah. Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:15:28) – Habit.

 

Speaker 3 (03:15:29) – Yeah. Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:15:32) – Well, what do you think we should ask the listeners? Like I always try to end with some kind of a thought provoking question. Don’t be quiet now.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:15:46) – A thought provoking question.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:15:48) – Well, like, you know.

 

Speaker 3 (03:15:51) – Yeah, I.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:15:52) – Mean, it just usually surrounds yourself or, you know, around this subject or topic that we’ve been talking about, you know, like I’m always about brand and, you know, I have that marketing edge. And so, you know. You know, I guess. What do you think of the directory? That’s a good one. Kind of just soft, softly disclosed what we’re doing. I want to do another, you know, maybe get Ross on or somebody just kind of introduce it more formally. But, you know, it’s just we’re in a soft launch right now and we’re going to start advertising. And I think, I mean, what do you think of the directory? You kind of got a little peep show on it.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:16:33) – I think you guys are going to all have to kind of fucking hold on because. We’re getting shot into outer space, in my opinion. You know, it’s like a this is a big thing. And, you know, like a lot of people don’t think they’re going to understand the severity of it or they’re not going to understand it at the beginning. But then there’s going to be a lot of things that come from it that make people understand. And it’s kind of like, I don’t know, kind of go back to like what the buff says about like being casted by Spielberg, you know, like he was ready to be casted by Spielberg, but he wasn’t ready to be stuck in that rocket ship and shot out into orbit. And then, you know, okay, you’re out in orbit. What do I do now? You know, and I think there’s going to be a lot of this will either make or break people. It’s going to put people out there that are actually doing real, honest, true work.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:17:22) – And then it’s going to decipher you from the people that are kind of blowing smoke up your ass.

 

Speaker 3 (03:17:27) – Yeah. You know, and.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:17:28) – That’s that’s honestly that, that’s what you do need in this industry and you know, it’s. Not to to badmouth people. But, you know, if there’s people out there that are doing stuff and spreading wrong information about what we’re doing, it really kind of sends an echo throughout the whole industry. And this industry is quite a big echo chamber. And it is you know, you’ve experienced that quite a bit. And I try to I honestly try to avoid it, you know what I mean? I try not to to be in anybody’s drama or, you know, I’m out here doing my own thing. And that’s kind of like the benefit I’m in Idaho. I don’t I don’t have any of my big vape friends that are around me, you know, distracting me with what I’m doing. I don’t have a lot of people ha people in the industry that are buy my shop a lot, you know, fucking bugging me or anything.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:18:12) – So I really just get a go and shut myself off from the world and then come out of my shell and, and post it on social media. And I’m glad that this is coming out because this is giving me more of a chance to break out of my shell, you know, as a powder coater and as a custom coater myself. And, you know, to be able to bring my skill set to wheels and to other things instead of just doing little, little mods.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:18:38) – Yeah. Think you know it’s and you know the world we live in is is sometimes derived by influencers in the market. It’s just the nature of our society now thanks to Instagram and stuff like that.

 

Speaker 3 (03:18:56) – That’s like another thing.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:18:57) – I really don’t want to be an influencer.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:19:00) – Well, but in a sense, you know, a lot of people don’t. I’m not saying, you know, unless you’re Kim Kardashian or whatever, whoever.

 

Speaker 3 (03:19:10) – Exactly.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:19:11) – Or Kylie, Kylie Jenner or whatever. I mean, that’s not what I’m I’m not talking about that.

 

Speaker 3 (03:19:16) – No, I totally.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:19:16) – Get what you mean. But you got to look at it in the aspect of like there is influencers in this industry, like certain people influence certain products and obviously that’s how they make their money. I’m not knocking that, but I’m not going to be, you know, like I’m I would like people to, you know, endorse me maybe or, or endorse Maui Powder Works. I would like to see endorsements, but I don’t want to see like this whole influencer bullshit because then it kind of gets it kind of gets misconstrued and kind of like how we’re talking, you know, what’s kind of like irritating all of us, you know, people that have been here for years and that are, you know, working our hard asses off for this, you know, these things like.

 

Speaker 3 (03:19:56) – Maybe.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:19:56) – Maybe influencer isn’t the right word, but it’s it’s leadership in in some sense of the word like, you know, you’re not necessarily. Um, looking at other powder code, you know, like.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:20:10) – Guess you’re certainly doing something way, way different than everybody else. You may not look at yourself as a leader in that sense, but you are in the sense that you’re doing something so, so different and then.

 

Speaker 3 (03:20:24) – Trying to.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:20:25) – I guess it’s like I’m really trying to bring something to powder coating to just really open to open up everybody’s eyes. Like, you know, when people say, you can’t do that, like, okay, yeah, you may be not able to do certain things chemically. We understand that and on a chemistry basis. But there’s things that, you know, our industry hasn’t allowed our coaters to take the time to figure out what I’ve done, you know what I mean? Like, and that’s the thing is like, I want people to just. Fucking shut the clock off for ten minutes or an hour and just let your mind go crazy, you know, like, yes, we get it. Bills have to be paid. And. Trust me, I’m on that same train.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:21:03) – I have bills. I have to pay two. But there is still common ground. Like you said, you can bring the price down to a certain point to where still everybody is fucking happy. You know, you’re still making your money. They’re still making you’re making your customer happy. Or in my instance, like certain things, I have to chop my price down. But yeah, I still make money. But then that product can still get in the hands of consumers at a at a reasonable price, you know what I mean? Yeah. And that’s the thing. Like, okay, if my brother can do airbrush work or car paint work at the same rate I can, what’s the difference between us? There really isn’t other than the chemical, you know, things that are dividing us, you know, And that’s the thing. It’s like I’ve just taken the time and realized that, you know, an hour of your time you can actually. Figure out a lot of shit that people told us we couldn’t do with powder, right? You know what I mean? And it’s like, no, it’s just because I wasn’t in the area or the environment that allowed me to do that.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:22:01) – Yeah, you know what I mean? Remember, I tried to do a set of two tone wheels for my boss one time and I blew their all their minds once I started wiping this wheel and got halfway through it and he was like, Oh, blow it off. This is taking too long.

 

Speaker 3 (03:22:14) – So.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:22:14) – Okay, get the tech rag out. You can clean it off, you know, And it’s just those and that’s just the thing, you know, like, I feel like obviously our industry has to cost a lot to get into. It costs a lot to take your time to, to fuck with it. And you know, once stuff starts flying through the gun, you can’t get that back.

 

Speaker 3 (03:22:33) – You know? Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:22:37) – By. And that’s why I’m so into people’s stories, you know, and as it’s not like as in influencing or myth building. But but there is a story behind every powder coater and but there are some that are doing something so different that it intrigues me to have them on the podcast, to to get their story out more and to get that exposure.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:23:03) – And what is, you know, the question to our listeners is what makes you different? What’s your differential? You know, what’s your what’s your story? What is what’s your uniqueness? That’s a big thing that they’re talking about in all these seminars that I’m attending and stuff like that, you know, with Covid 19 and how are you different, you know, and what are you going to bring to the industry? You know, I want to connect everybody. It’s like herding cats right now. I think the.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:23:35) – Difference I think for me is like, what I bring is just open your mind. Like, stop, stop holding yourself back so much. Stop, Stop being so scared. Like, don’t be scared. Like, figure it out. It’s all, it’s all about learning and it’s all about having that knowledge. So when that person does come in your door and they want something, guess what? Maybe two years ago somebody wanted something and I could have been honest with them and be like, I don’t know how to do that.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:24:00) – Yeah, but now I’ve done so many different kinds of things that I can think of that I don’t have any ideas anymore, but I know certain things are possible and I know things aren’t. So it’s like what I can bring to the industry or what I can bring to companies or whatever it may be, or even just coaters that have questions. It’s like, just stop being scared at the end of the day and just go with it, you know? Like, yeah, nothing ever happened from just sitting by like, you know, got sick and tired of watching videos of Shaun and all these powder coat guys and all these guys on Instagram got so fucking tired of seeing all this cool shit and not being a part of it. So did something about it, you know, it’s like and that’s just really, you know, we live in such a society today where everybody wants everything fucking handed to them. And that’s in this industry. It kind of, you know, you nothing comes handed to you.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:24:52) – You’re sweating your ass off. You’re always in a hot environment or it’s, you know, it stinks or it burns or you’ve hit your hand with a sand blaster or or something, you know, it’s like it’s not for the the kind hearted. No, you know what I mean?

 

Speaker 3 (03:25:08) – And for the faint of heart.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:25:09) – Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:25:09) – Think, you know, that’s my benefit of, you know, growing up, race and dirt bikes and BMX enjoyed suffering, you know what I mean? I enjoyed the whole. The whole just the the grinding, just grit, you know, to get to the point of winning, you know? And I think that’s one thing about powder coating that, you know, you got to suffer just a little bit. But once you’re done suffering that instant gratification of that product coming out of the oven, you know, you can’t match it.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:25:37) – Yeah. And it’s, um, you know, people that think that’s another quality is they love a challenge, you know, because how they really realize accepting the challenge could they could fail or they could be in over their heads, but they’re not going to allow themselves to do that and they’re going to stick through it until they get it right.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:26:02) – Stuff, you know? So there is that, too, that you should have in order to to succeed or have in your brand, you know, that, you know, because at some point somebody’s going to ask you that question Can you do this rim or can you do this part like this? And you’re going to have you’re going to be.

 

Speaker 3 (03:26:24) – Either you’re a good coat reader, good.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:26:27) – Applicator, or you’re an applicator that doesn’t know. You know, not to say that you’re not a good applicator. It’s not saying that. But certain certain powders, you know, have certain you have to have certain skill sets for them. Like you have to know how to set your gun up to spray a hammered correctly or spray a vein correctly. You know, and and you know, certain colors. You know, I can tell you straight up like certain colors I I’m scared to death of it because I’ve had bad experiences with you know. But it takes you time and experience, time and experience to get over those hurdles, you know, and.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:27:02) – It’s just certain things, you know, certain powder coaters will say no to things because they just don’t know how to or they’re, you know, they’re just scared of messing something up, you know, like.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:27:14) – Yeah, I think that that’s where, like, you know, people get worried. There’s so many people coming into this market, they don’t know what they’re doing. And I’m like, Just relax. They’re there either. Of course, when, you know, like, let them, you know, they’re going to get burned or they’re going to run out of money or or.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:27:31) – You’re going to be fixing their work six months from.

 

Speaker 3 (03:27:34) – Now or you’re.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:27:34) – Going to be fixing their work or, you know, it’s you just need to kind of let it happen. And I know it’s harder because you’re, you know, you might be in more of a competitive area of the country. And there definitely are some areas we’re actually doing like I just kind of scraped a lot of data just to help with building the directory and working through.

 

Speaker 3 (03:27:59) – Yeah, you got.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:27:59) – Like the biggest custom coater close to me is forever powder coating. It’s a Washington and those guys do some killer work.

 

Speaker 3 (03:28:09) – Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:28:11) – Um, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t survive either.

 

Speaker 3 (03:28:14) – No, I’m.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:28:14) – Doing just fine. I figured out my own little niche, you know, I’m doing just fine. And that’s the thing, you know, it’s not. I’m not here to be scared of, you know, people taking work for me or vice versa that, you know, I’ve figured out my own way. And I think at this point, you know, if I’m ten, 11 years into powder coating and I’m a year over a year now being self-employed with Palmer’s powders, you know, think at this point if I’m scared about people taking my work. You know, I feel like I’m probably in the wrong industry, you know, to have those two to be second guessing yourself like that. And, you know, like, if you’re worried about that kind of stuff, then your work obviously doesn’t speak for itself enough, you know, and that’s that’s really kind of what it goes from, you know, and.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:28:55) – I couldn’t say it better. Yeah, you just said it. It’s so well said there.

 

Speaker 3 (03:28:59) – Yeah.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:28:59) – I started in the dirtiest dingy powder coating shop in this area. But guess what? Still to this day, that shop pumps out some of the best work probably in the world, you know, from just solid colors, you know, And I got to learn from that. And I got to take what I liked from that process and mix it with other processes and to see what didn’t really work and what did work the best, you know? And I feel like in the Northwest, besides certain people that are still obviously coating industrial wise and on the gun, you know, ten hours a day, I feel like in this area I could. I could be, you know. One of the top painters for just knowledge for people, you know, to help. And and that’s just kind of like the thing it’s just time and experience and just being humble about it, you know, like not being cocky about what you’re doing and just let let your work talk.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:29:52) – Yeah. And don’t think, you know, the community can’t grow unless we do kind of just stop and have conversations like this and have you share that information or share that knowledge because that’s how we’re all really going to grow and make make it better because it’s like.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:30:09) – Every shop I’ve ever been in at this shop talks shit about that shop and that shop talks shit about that shop. And guess what? None of those guys know each other. They don’t know each other’s names. They don’t. They don’t know who they are, you know? And that’s the funny thing about it, you know, it’s like you all, you all can run your fucking mouths. But at the end of the day, I’ve been a lead painter in all three of these shops, and none of you guys know each other, you know, it’s like. And that’s the thing that, you know, cracks you up at the end of the day is it’s like, guess what? Not Not one shop in this town can deal with every manufacturer, every handrail guy, every dude wanting to fucking do his car.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:30:46) – There’s enough work for you all to deal with, you know? And that’s why I got away from it and started my own shop. And didn’t want to fight over contract jobs. You know, like if I’d never have to see a handrail again a day in my life, I did something right, you know, like. And that’s just like where I’m at, you know? I feel like I’m probably one of the younger dudes in the industry. But I started when I was 17 and I walked away from it when I was 26, and now I’m 29 rolling on to 30 this year. And you know that my future is bright. And I you know, it’s it only things only keep coming and that’s the way I want it to be. Yeah.

 

Speaker 3 (03:31:26) – Yeah.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:31:27) – Awesome. Well, it’s been great talking to you. We could talk all day, right? Geez, I’ll have to turn this into one, 2 or 3 parter here.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:31:38) – Heck, yeah. Well, whenever you guys need help or anything, you guys have questions about anything.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:31:44) – Or if you guys want to get in touch with Cardinal, I can get you guys in touch with Cardinal. Really? Well, and.

 

Speaker 3 (03:31:49) – And it would be.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:31:50) – Nice to have some powder suppliers on the show. We haven’t had success with that yet and I don’t know what that is. I think there’s a shyness of some sort of or maybe not understanding of what it is.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:32:06) – It’s more of like a. I think it’s just more of like, they’re just so. Their desk driven jobs, you know what I mean? They’re so yeah, they’re in their offices, you know what I mean? And it’s like even Alex, like Alex from Cardinal, he would be a rep to have on your show because he’s so full of knowledge and he’s the dude that can get movement going in and within cardinal, you know, and making other people maybe follow.

 

Speaker 3 (03:32:33) – Right?

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:32:33) – Yeah.

 

Speaker 3 (03:32:35) – That’s all it takes.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:32:35) – Is it takes one little duckling for everybody else to be like, Oh, we got to hop on this train, right? That’s why I’m here.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:32:42) – I seen Sean the other day on here and I was like, I got to go talk to her and reach out to Ross and go blow their minds. So.

 

Speaker 3 (03:32:49) – Well, thank.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:32:50) – You. It’s been a pleasure having you. And I’m so glad to know you and have you be a part of helping build what we’re doing. You know.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:32:59) – It’s been an absolute honor, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for everybody. It’s been a it’s been an awesome conversation.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:33:06) – Yeah, awesome. Okay.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:33:09) – Right on. You guys have an awesome night. And tell Ross and everybody else I said hi.

 

RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:33:13) – Okay. Aloha.

 

Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:33:15) – Yeah, aloha.

 

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About us

RossKote is committed to sharing their experience in metal coatings, painting, and restoration so customers & powder coaters can navigate the process of powder coating and make the best choices for getting their projects done.

RossKote regularly contributes helpful videos on his blog and YouTube channel.

Join us.  As we build a powder coating community online to share our passion for performance finishes by subscribing to RossKote’s Powder Coater Podcast

Connect with us. Comment below. What would you like to know more about? I love to answer everyday questions to the consumer market wants to know about powder coating.   

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Filed Under: All Posts, Podcast Tagged With: artist, custom coaters, myth busting, powder coater podcast, powder coating

Frustrations to Finishing with Jase Kaser

August 2, 2022 by pcnearme

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]In our exclusive interview with Jase Kaser, Owner of Kaser Blastings and Coatings, we uncover some of the everyday frustrations of running a powder coating business and how to overcome them.

We feature an up and coming coater, Jase Kaser. I stumbled upon his blog one day and discovered a fountain of inspiration, like no other. If you’re looking for solace in the life of powder coating this young man lends you a reprieve. He shares pearls of wisdom about the subtleties of coating, from a self-reliant mindset and covers everything from lessons learned in technical problem solving, to managing customers and employee expectations.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I call him the Ralph Waldo Emerson of powder coating. I hope you will call him a friend. Follow along as he melds his life experience with growing his powder coating biz, get ready to level up your powder coater game.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Welcome to episode 10, I’m Kim Scott, your host of the RossKote Powder Coater Podcast. Where we interview influencers in the industry and cover trending topics. So powder coaters can effectively learn and grow their business. Today, we’re reaching out to interview Jase Kaser from Kaser Blasting and Coating he’s out of Nebraska and I was attracted to his story.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0li-E1DqZ3E[/embedyt]

RossKote (Kim Scott): As a powder coater or the wife of a powder coater, because he has an approach on his blog that addresses the subtleties of coating things, the struggles with it, learning the business and addressing his customer’s expectations. And I found it very inspirational. I wanted to bring this podcast to you today because I found it’s almost like he has, it’s a training manual and a journal all in one.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So I’m happy to welcome Jase Kaser to the show. Welcome.

Jase Kaser: Thanks for having me on.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. Now I found you a Tim Pennington. So I’m just going to give a shout out to Tim Pennington of the finishings and coatings online magazine. If you don’t follow Tim, he usually is giving featured focuses and addresses all kinds of coating content in the coatings and finishing from powder coating.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So liquid coatings and beyond. So if you don’t follow Tim or you don’t get his email in your inbox go ahead and head over to his finishing and coating magazine online. Just Google it. And you will find you can sign up to get his newsletter, but recently a Kaser got featured in his magazine and I enjoyed reading it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): What was said in the magazine is just a feature of, they were just featuring you as a coater. But there was one thing that really brought an attention to me was just an introduction to your business and stuff. But I really found something that you said that was really compelling and that you’re grateful for your customers for the positive reviews and stuff.

RossKote (Kim Scott): But later on you said the more transparent and communicative, we are, the more satisfied our customers are likely to be. And that’s the one reason why I wanted to bring you on the show, because I do think that there are barriers to market and communicate. And especially when communicating.

RossKote (Kim Scott): To your customers, the subtleties of powder coating and the struggles that you have as a powder coater to educate customers or shed light on the process. But before we dive deep into that, I want to know how long have you been powder coating in the industry and or how did you get started?

RossKote (Kim Scott): Talk me through it.

Jase Kaser: Okay. My parents started Kaser painting incorporated before I was born back in 1987 and that started as a residential painting company. So it started off with my dad painting houses and then it grew from there and went into more commercial painting. Like new construction, hospitals and schools and office buildings.

Jase Kaser: In 2004, my mom and dad added a blast facility that was just adjacent to the building. If they already. And so they started blasting and then doing, I call it liquid coating. It’s still painting, but it’s just all the painting was done inside of booth. Like high-performance industrial type coatings.

Jase Kaser: And then in 2014 is when we finally started powder coating. And so when I was younger and growing up in high school, I always worked on in the summers, usually in the Kaser painting shop staining and finishing wood.And then I would also work in the blast shop a little bit like in the blast cabinet or if our main blaster was gone or on vacation, I would get in there and try to wrangle the blast hose as a young middle school or high schooler, which can be challenging.

Jase Kaser: Just because it’s, that’s probably the most physically demanding job that we have. And then when we started the powder coating, it was 2014. So I was in college at that time. I had just finished my let’s see, fourth year, it took me five years. I went to the university of Nebraska Lincoln for mechanical engineering.

Jase Kaser: So I’ve always been interested in setting up equipment and how it all works, how it goes together. And so I was interested in helping get all the powder coating stuff set up. So over that summer, between my fourth and fifth year, so going into my senior year of college, we started putting up the powder coating oven and boots.

Jase Kaser: And I sprayed our first part and then we hired one guy to help run it. And then I finished my senior year college. And then it was, I was getting right to the end of my senior year. I was trying to decide if I wanted to go to graduate school or if I wanted to just be done with school and had my bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and just go the family business.

Jase Kaser: But it was a tough decision. I was going back and forth because I had done a lot of undergraduate research and engineering. And that particular professor really wanted me to go on and be a grad student and get my master’s and get my PhD. But the powder coating was really taken off and dad really needed my help in the sense that like he was running the Kaser painting.

Jase Kaser: So the commercial, residential painting, also the blast thing, and then the powder coating and he could run all three of them, but it was like he was the limiting factor. You can’t be in three places at once, all day, every day.And so it ultimately, it was my decision, but they really needed help.

Jase Kaser: So I was like, you know what? I have powder coated or putting stuff together. And. I am getting really tired of school. I’m not sure if I will use this master’s or PhD, cause in the long run, I wanted to get into the family business someday and then hopefully take it over. So I decided that a bachelor’s degree was enough and then started helping and jumped right in and help in the powder coating right away on the floor.

Jase Kaser: And then since then it’s grown. So that was 2015 that would’ve been when I started working at full time. That’s been five years ago now, a little over five years. So the summer of 2015 and we’ve grown a lot since then, powder coating has been our fastest growing division ever since that time. And yeah, that’s where we’re at now.

Jase Kaser: Now instead of being on the floor and doing all the work, I’m mostly in the office. Trying to organize all the work and get all of the logistical stuff done. So all of our team members can focus on their craft. Everybody’s really good at what they do. And so it’s my job to get all their obstacles out the way so they can do their job.

Jase Kaser: If our sprayers can come in and spray all day washers can come in and pre-treat all day and not have to worry about equipment breaking and running on the supplies and materials, then they can do their job a lot better. So that’s what I focus on. I’m mostly scheduling an, order being a purchaser and cloning and dealing with customers.

Jase Kaser: I still like to get on the floor when I can, because that’s usually the funest part is when you can get in and work and not have any interruptions and get sweaty and stuff. That’s fun.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. Get lost in the work and just, I always was like that with painting. Let myself work without having any, distractions and stuff like that.

RossKote (Kim Scott): The logistics is hard, it’s not that easy. You have to know it all in order to understand how to logistically set something up. And it sounds like you guys do it all then like liquid and powder you’re out both sides.

Jase Kaser: Correct, yeah. So we have our blast and liquid booth, our indoor there 18 foot wide, 15 foot tall by 50foot long.

Jase Kaser: So we can do like concrete trucks and dump trucks. We do a lot of the 40 foot shipping containers. For construction companies. They don’t have to see those as job trailers. So we have that in one of our, one of our buildings and then our other building is fully powder coating.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And as a family business, are you the only family, the son or are there other siblings.

Jase Kaser: I have a younger brother. He’s not involved in the family business. He is also a mechanical engineer. And he decided to take an engineering job right out of college. It was a really good job. And so he’s still doing that right now. And I don’t know that he has much desire to come into the family business maybe someday.

Jase Kaser: But he really likes the engineering job he has right now. So that’s where he’s at, but yeah, I do have a younger brother.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So do you and your dad, I’m assuming your mom and dad are still seem like they’re young enough, they’re still involved in the business or you’re trying to get more hands-off?

Jase Kaser: So they, I would say, so they still run the Kaser painting side.

Jase Kaser: And then what I say, I run as a Kaser of blasting and coating side. So the Kaser painting as the commercial and residential painting. Like I talked about my dad’s still there every day, there from as I am from five in the morning till five at night. And so he’s doing the day today office running the painting side.

Jase Kaser: And my mom does all of the accounting and bookkeeping for all of the, all of our divisions. So they’re still there every day. They are getting them to the point where they want to slow down a little bit, but as far as the day to daywork and decisions and the blasting of powder coating I pretty much handle all that now.

Jase Kaser: And it’s been interesting. I’ve never, I haven’t thought about it much, but when I reflect on it as I’ve been, I’m surprised how quickly my mom and dad just let me run with it. As I started going but my dad is a very, he’s also very hands-on. He likes to be involved be very particular.

Jase Kaser: But he’s letting me make my own decisions. If we have a disagreement, he’s usually the one that will back down and they’ll just kinda let me learn the hard way. Sometimes other times I’ll step in and say, I know that Idid this before and this way isn’t going to work. But they do a really good job of just letting me go ahead and run with it.

Jase Kaser: And obviously there’s when there’s big, really big decisions to make. I involve them and we all three talk about it and come up with a good decision, but I’ve never felt that I was, I don’t really feel like their son when I’mat work, so when I’m at work, I call them Jay & Sherry. I don’t call it mom and dad.

Jase Kaser: Yeah. I’m just never, it doesn’t feel like it’s mom and dad watching over me at work. It just feels like we’re we have good working relationship if we work alongside each other really well and compliment each other because I look at stuff a lot differently than they do. Cause I’m younger went to engineering school.

Jase Kaser: And I’m interested in technology and every trying to do everything faster and on the cloud and more remote and either technology to help us go faster. And they’re, used to doing this. I don’t necessarily want to say old school, but you know that older way, but they have all the experience too.

Jase Kaser: So there’s, I might have a lot of new ideas that can help, but then when I run them by them, they can give me their input okay, that might work, but don’t forget about this and this, because they’re thinking about things that I don’t think about.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. That you haven’t even, because you don’t have this much experience.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. It makes you think that, what sets Kaser apart from other powder coaters in your area?

Jase Kaser: I would say our. We pay really close attention to detail. And in general, our feed back from our customers is that our quality is usually typically better than other places. And with going along with that, we’re usually more expensive.

Jase Kaser: We hear that as a lot of feedback too, but I would say definitely our quality. We’re very particular about everything that we do and from start to finish. So there’s a lot of intricacies and blasting and coatings that the general customer doesn’t necessarily realize at the surface. And then when it comes to any kind of coating everybody thinks it’s just painting.

Jase Kaser: I can do it myself. I can go to Menards and get an aerosol can and spray paint my car, parts myself, which you can, but it’s a lot different and there’s a lot more to it than people think. When it comes down to it, it’s hard to explain to customers. And that’s what we do. Our blogs started to explain to customers when they’re coming in to drop parts up or get a quote what’s all involved and all the steps that we’re taking to make sure that their coating’s going to look good, but then also have longevity.

Jase Kaser: Cause we’re all the substrates that we coat and the Kaser blasting, coating side, it’s all metal. And so we’re going for corrosion protection is what’s really important. And obviously everybody, when it comes to powder coating, we do a lot of general public stuff, the lawn furniture, car parts, and all kinds of stuff like that.

Jase Kaser: So they’re more looking for the aesthetics, but if it’s going outside, it’s really important to have, make sure the substrates craft properly with the right blast and pretreated properly with the right chemicals or you get either paint or powder coating over the top make sure that they have a good, long lasting finish.

Jase Kaser: So I think all that attention to detail sets us aside from everybody else, but that’s hard to convey to customers really hard.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. I think that’s what I found so compelling about your blog and just for the listeners, you can actually find the blog at Kaser, K-A-S-E-R blasting.com forward slash blog. (kaserblasting.com/blog)

RossKote (Kim Scott): And I feel like when I started to read it it’s a, it’s an ode to powder coating again, if I thought, wow, this could be a training manual for the subtleties of powder coating for both consumers or your customers, and your employees. It’s a journal, it’s a journey.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I don’t know your writing style intrigued me, I don’t know if you’re doing all of the writing. How do you get, how do you get inspired to write? Is it something happens with a customer or an event happens at work, and then that’s the impetus?

Jase Kaser: It’s a combination of things. But if somebody takes the time to go through and read all of our blogs, they might be able to tell that some of them are a little more passionate and ranty than others. So sometimes it’s the frustration that triggers me to record it. Other times. It’s just, I want to help educate.

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Jase Kaser: About a certain thing. We’re also, we really try to be active on social media, on all forms and blogging is this one of them that we do on our website. And and I work with we have a couple team members that helped me with that. I can’t take all the credit for writing the blogs. The content is definitely coming from me.
Jase Kaser: And typically the process that we use to do the blogs is I’ll record myself talking. It’s like we’re doing right now. And then I gave that to Chloe. I’ll give her a shout out and she’s the one who watches my videos and then she writes it out. So she’s using all of my words and contexts, but she is a very good writer.

Jase Kaser: And as a good way with words to get some of my long-winded rants down onto the page and actually make sense. So she does a very good job of that. I can’t take credit, for the physical writing, but the. Yeah, the topics just come up. There’s a lot of things that happen on a daily basis. And usually it’s just something that happened in that particular day.

Jase Kaser: I try to just, when I’m thinking about wanting to do any type of social media content, I just try to think about now what happened today, instead of trying to make up something special, that’s usually hard to do. It’s easier to just go off of what’s on my mind, what I’m dealing with, ton of customers calling in and asking the same question in a day or I feel like I’m answering the same thing over and over again, or explaining the same thing over and over. And I just feel like we need to make a blog about.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, that was, that’s pretty much how I got started. Someone suggested to me one day when we first launched our website, well, you need a blog, and I’m like, “oh God, what’s that? Like really?” And it was just quite simply put, what is the most asked question when somebody answers the phone?

RossKote (Kim Scott): What is the question they asked the most and that’s how it all started. And lo and behold, a year later after that blog post was posted, we reached number one in Google. And then it just took off from there. And that’s when I realized we were actually writing to consumer; our consumer based market rather than to other powder coaters or to any other audience, but I think what I like about what you’re doing is.

RossKote (Kim Scott): For those that have thought, “oh, I need a blog too.And, or I need a video log or a YouTube channel or where this and that”. I think what I like best about your approach is it seems simple. You’re just recording yourself. It’s you’re dealing with the day to day. Yes. You have help along the way.

RossKote (Kim Scott): You’ve got people re-crafting or redrafting the message, but it doesn’t have to be, it can be crude. It can be like crude in the sense that it non-processed and still be a great blog or a great blog in addressing to your customer or to your Instagram audience or Facebook, whatever.

RossKote (Kim Scott): It doesn’t have to be complicated. And I guess. The way that they’re writing or the blog that I just don’t feel it, that it’s pressed or not the word. That’s not the word I want to reach, but it’s not a forced thing. You know what I mean? It’s something that happens organically and it can be just that for everybody.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Because as with every job you’re creating content whether it’s a tough job or an easy job, or a shiny, pretty color job or a difficult customer job, or any of the different, that’s the beauty of powder coating is that you’re constantly creating content to write about because with every new project is content.

Jase Kaser: Yes. And the reality of the situation is, and I’m sure you can at test to this as like we’re in a small business. I have a lot of responsibilities that I have to attend to, to keep the business running. So I don’t really have time to sit there and think of these very intricate plans about what we’re going to do on social media and what I need to write a blog about.

Jase Kaser: So it just happens on the fly because I just simply don’t have that much time to dedicate to a long drawn out strategy for it. It’s just, whatever’s popped into my mind that’s all I have time to go with. So I just go with it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And, we talked earlier about using software technology and apps. Can you break down for us? Are you using specific apps to help you, or are you just going straight to the platforms themselves to, maybe dive a little deeper in there? Is there a specific app you’re using?

Jase Kaser: Particularly? It’s, we use a lot of spreadsheets, so like Excel and Google sheets.

Jase Kaser: We just like to keep track of what we’re doing and then scheduling, you could also do that, any type of spreadsheet program. We liked the little sheets because that’s, on the internet and on the cloud. So you can access it from multiple places. You can access it from a phone or a tablet or a computer and in the powder shop with computer in my office instead of having to be at one particular place.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I agree. We use Google a lot too. But when you’re recording, what are you recording just on your phone? Or how does that work out?

Jase Kaser: Oh, for content. Yeah, I just record them. I’m just using my phone.I’ve tried to, they have those kind of like selfie stick things. And also, I think it’s called a gimbal it’ll self balance, the phone, and I’ve used that a little bit, but it boils down to time.

Jase Kaser: So the people that helped me on social media they liked that and they want me to use it because it balances the phone better and get better video. And man, I got, it takes me 30 minutes to get that thing working. I don’t have that. So I’m just going to go with my phone. If I have a full day, like a Saturday or something that I can dedicate to it, then I’ll get out some tripod and set some stuff up and get the lighting.

Jase Kaser: But otherwise now I’m just using my cell phone. Now a days I’m used to it because I grew up with cell phones, but they can do almost everything. It’s basically like a computer in your pocket. So if you have a pretty new phone, you can pretty much take pictures, video record yourself, and all that content is good to put on social media.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I’ve struggled with the gimbal thing too. Maybe someday, it’s just one more thing to add to my list of many things. Yeah, I encourage everybody to check out some of the titles from your blog. And you’re putting out quite a bit of content.

RossKote (Kim Scott): You’ve put out something at least once or twice a week here, so you’ve got lots of content to read through and I like it because, you could be struggling with a project as a powder coater and reading your stories.Here’s one “three rules of training”. I thought that was very valuable.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s the most recent one that you’ve put up and, you’re a general manager at Kaser and I’m imagining you make it sound so easy, but I know it probably took you a little while to figure this stuff out. And here you are just right here. Super easy. You’ve got three different points that you’re using that other powder coaters could read to figure out how to work through some of their training issues as well.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Like, there’s never enough over explaining, figuring out the progression of a job and investing in your time wisely and stuff. And I think that’s, this is the valuable stuff that I think powder coaters should be reading on a regular basis and stuff, does it seem to help you to get it out?benco sales b17 ad

Jase Kaser: All of that’s the stuff like that last article that we wrote, that’s a little more, I would say in depth or more process oriented and less about like coating a part or something. That’s just learned, I’ve learned that over time. I definitely managed differently. I think we have a blog about pretty recently.

Jase Kaser: I don’t like it’s that one, but it’s one right for that, about how, when I first started I thought the best way to get my point across was yelling and intimidating. And I learned pretty quickly that, that wasn’t so it’s been a dry trial now really. And so throughout the years, we’ve and I know for me to say that you’re probably thinking, yeah, but you’re still super young, it’s been five years for me, so that’s a big portion of my life.

Jase Kaser: And that’s just what we’ve learned. We finally, I’ve gotten to a point where the team members that we have now have been there for a while.We used to have pretty high turnover and we still do. It seems like when you’re trying to fill a new position. You just gotta be prepared, the closer that you can keep yourself to reality and not get too high and not get too low when things are going bad, then it’s, it goes a little bit better.

Jase Kaser: So when it comes to training and hiring to try to just be realistic.And instead of, when you’re really busy and you’re hiring people, you can be really, you can get frustrated really easy, or really helps that someone’s going todo really good because he got a big project coming up and then you need a couple more, really good people that know exactly what they’re doing and have experienced.

Jase Kaser: But a lot of the time, even if they do have experience, they’re not going to do it exactly the way it, your particular team does it. Everybody has their own hands in the house. So that’s where we came up with the over explaining because when you have someone that you feel like has experienced and you just assume that they know.

Jase Kaser: Most of that, and it didn’t really come across in the article to start, but I can put it better now that we’re doing an interview in words, is that a lot of my background mechanical background comes from, I used to race when I was younger. So when I was nine years old, I started riding dirt track racing all the way until I was 25.

Jase Kaser: But it’s just recently that we stopped doing that. So I’m really mechanically inclined and used to whatever tools called and what’s the size of bolts are and this looking at something and telling if that’s gonna hold or if that’s going to break or if that’s going to work or not just because I’ve been around mechanical stuff my whole life ever sinceI was little.

Jase Kaser: And so we have some team members that come in that maybe have had a coating experience, or maybe don’t. But they, I take for granted that they don’t necessarily have that background if they haven’t used all the tools I have, they haven’t been around all the mechanical stuff I have. In the beginning, I used to not really explain that stuff and just assumed, like they knew exactly what I was talking about.

Jase Kaser: Or, if you go to hang a really heavy thing, really heavy part and you’re hanging it with a forklift because it’s too heavy for two or three people lift it. You have to get the forklift under it. It’s this natural for me to say, Hey, we’re going to need some like really big hooks, probably big chain to hang this because nobody can lift it, little tiny hooks.

Jase Kaser: Aren’t going to hold, it’s going to fall. And if someone doesn’t have experience with mechanical type stuff and being around, things like that, they just, they simply don’t know. That’s not because it’s no fault to them. They just don’t have experience with it. And so those are the little things that sometimes seem obvious to some people because of their experience.

Jase Kaser: And then, but you still got to train on it. And I, we found that it’s easier to over explain and keep saying the same thing and keep explaining stuff and let the person roll their eyes at you and be like, okay. Yeah, I know you told me, he told me, I know that. Of course, I know that it’s better to do that than assume they know something and then something goes wrong or more importantly, like someone gets hurt because the safety thing that someone’s doesn’t know.Yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I think it’s easy. I think most people think I’ve told you once, how many more times do I have to tell you? But not everybody. My, I have a daughter that has a learning issue and, it did take multiple times, but once she got it in her head, it was in there for good, it was just this over coming this learning curve. And then once she learned the task or whatever, It was just, it never leaves it. And it is hard to adapt to your training to multiple levels. And one thing that was said in this blog called “Busting the Myth of Self-Direction” the intensity level ranges from moderate flurry to fog of war.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I love that because that’s exactly what happens in a very busy powder coating shop. It can, it’s this hurry up and wait. And then once it’s in the oven, then you’re sitting there waiting for the timer to ding, kind of thing. How do you keep your people busy during that slow time?

RossKote (Kim Scott): Do they, what are some strategies there? Because I’m sure a lot of powder coaters do have this busy and then hurry up and wait. And they, what do they do with their customer?

Jase Kaser: So we were lucky enough that we have a big enough shop and we have enough equipment now that we try to keep a pretty good flow go on. And we have enough people that someone can be hanging. Someone can be in the wash bay, pre-treating someone could be spraying and then someone can be packing. And so as long as the flow is going pretty well and I do a good enough job at scheduling it, it usually can flow out and obviously you have to have enough work to be able to do that.

Jase Kaser: But if you have enough parts there, usually there’s always something for someone to be doing. We try to keep someone spraying all day long. And we usually do a good job of that. And so usually there’s, there’s always parts in the oven. There’s always parts cooling down and there’s parts that are cold enough that can actually be being packaged.

Jase Kaser: As those are being packaged and carts are being opened up, then we just hang the next job and it just keeps going in the assembly line. It doesn’t always work that smooth. The hardest probably most stressful job at across all three of our divisions is running the shop floor in the powder coating shop. Just because you have to be thinking two or three steps ahead of everybody because you’re right. All of a sudden somebody’s okay, I’m done with that. What do you want me to do now? And that it does happen, or we call it the flow. So how things are flowing through the shop, it gets backed up or messed up or turned around.

Jase Kaser: And now you’re waiting, there is stuff in the oven and there’s no carts to pack. And so now you’re sitting there waiting. We just try to keep everybody busy as best we can. And if you have if you’re super busy, you have plenty of work. Usually it’s not an issue. You can start prepping the next thing or something like that, but sometimes it does get challenging.

 

 

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Jase Kaser: I spent a lot of time scheduling, normally I’ll schedule for based on due date when the customers need it. And then I looked back and grouped by color, which most power coaters do. And then I’ll look through to try to see okay, how is this actually going to flow through our shop?Are we going to have, we can’t spray three things in a row that take three hours each to spray because obviously if we’re going to set up a guy in there spraying on one thing for three hours, eventually everything’s going to come to a standstill because, so you have to be careful that, and sometimes it just happens to get a lot of big stuff and you have to spray a lot of big stuff and it’s out on the shop floor slows down a little bit, but then all of a sudden, the next day, it’s, it’s usually, it’s funny because sometimes.
Jase Kaser: The mood on the shop floor is like kickback and relaxed a little bit. It doesn’t happen much, but when the flow gets backed up it will. And then it’s everybody thinks oh, we’re ahead finally. And we’re doing all right. And then the next by middle of the next day, it’s a war zone over there and trying to, now that you can’t get enough help on the shop floor to get that package and hung back up. So it just flips back and forth. It can be stressful, but once, it seems like the newer team members get really stressed out by it. After you’ve been there for a while, you just get used to it. You learn to appreciate the days where it gets a little bit slower because the next eight days are probably going to be super, super busy and fast. And you’re not gonna have time to sit down.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. I would agree that’s probably more of an owner’s perspective too. Like when you’re an owner or you’re a single powder-coater with maybe one or two employee, like you’re used to that just because that’s your business. But how do you convey that to make sure that you’re, that you have conveyed that thinking through your team as well. And I liked this one called scheduling backward instead of forward. And I think you were that’s what you were talking about earlier, right?

RossKote (Kim Scott): Is you have to think about the end result first before you can figure out all the different steps in between to make that deadline.

Jase Kaser: Yeah. So I’ll answer the one about our team members, trying to communicate with that with them. That, so recently we transferred a new guy into running our powder coating shop floor. The one guy that had run it has ran it since we started, he was the first person we hired. And we moved him to more of a production manager across both the blasting and powder coating shop. So he’s helping me more everywhere now, instead of just on the powder coating shop floor, as far as like overseeing things. And we’ve been training this, the other guy that’s learning how tor un the floor in the powder coating shop. He’s been with us for a couple of years. And it was really good at all the tasks hanging, backing, sprang washing. So he’s very well-versed and all that. But it was a learning curve when he first started, having to think about the schedule and look farther forward, look farther down the schedule and really his job.

Jase Kaser: Now it’s kinda think about what everybody else is doing and the powder coating shop, instead of worrying about doing the physical. And it was a learning curve after the first week, he was like, wow, I didn’t realize how much thinking that you guys do on a daily basis, thinking ahead, not thinking about what we’re actually doing today. So it’s just, it’s a lot of talking in the mornings before we get started and explain “Hey, this is how I would do this. Don’t forget about this”. If something gets backed up or something, think about a few things that can be a safety valve for you. So somebody can remember, we have this rework that we just set off the side last week, but we still got to get all that re-sanded.

Jase Kaser: So that could be something somebody can do. So to communicate it to the team it’s difficult in, they have to learn by trial and error a little bit so they’re not until they started making the mistakes themselves and realize oh, that’s why we don’t like to do don’t want to do it in that. Know, you can tell him that as much as you want, but until they experience it themselves and they really get it. And then the scheduling and backwards to forwards. So that’s, that kind of comes from my frustration of that. And I think every, you probably can attest to this and anybody in the coating or finishing industry can, is that we’re the last people in the manufacturing chain typically.

Jase Kaser: And we’re the ones that are responsible for making the parts look nice and last a long time looking nice. Yet we get the littlest amount of time to do it typically because we’re, we’re right at the very end. So we’re the last thing before the due date before the customer gets it. And so all of the mess up and extra days have already been used up by the time it got by the time it gets to us typically, or any coater it’s already past due. So you can’t get it out fast enough. And I, that frustrates me cause we have to, it has to be perfect when it leaves our shop because that’s what everybody sees right away.

Jase Kaser: The customer’s going to, if there’s a nik in the finish, are frustrated with whatever it is, even if that doesn’t necessarily mean that the part’s not functional anymore. If they’re just frustrated that there’s a scuff or you missed the weld or you missed this corner. And so my proposal and line of thinking on that is like, why don’t we schedule backwards, not forwards?

Jase Kaser: Why does it that customers go to a manual metal manufacturing place with an idea and they make the prints up and they come up with what they think it’s going to cost and how long it’s gonna take. And then, typically metal companies are contacts, quoting the powder, coating for their customers. Metal companies will ask me, Hey, can you close this? And I do. And so they add that into their quote to their customer. And my thought is like, and it’s totally different. It would be first to do that, but why doesn’t the end customer come to the powder coater first and say, Hey, this is what I want it to look like in the end.

Jase Kaser: And this is what I want, and this is my due date. So then as a coater, you’re like, okay, this is how much time we need for coating. And we start working backwards. And then I contact the metal fabrication company that we already do business with. It’s just normally they contact me to help, but nowI’m contacting them and saying, Hey, here’s a print that my customer wants. This may, this is when I need you to have it done by so I can get it powder-coated and get it to my customer, will that work? And would you have the right material? And can you get that done? And I feel like scheduling that way. You would have a better chance to hit a few days.

Jase Kaser: You’d still have difficulties, but and some of that thinking comes from my engineering background. I like building things and I’m familiar with metal manufacturing. So I feel like I could help the customer if they had questions. And maybe some power coaters don’t feel like they can do that. But I just think it would be interesting to flip it around and schedule that way. Instead of, I feel like the end customer would be happier.Cause it always seems like then customer is frustrated that it’s past due, so yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I, 100% agree with you on those two valid points, because again, it just comes down to educating the customer and growing powder coating and the powder coating experience, the powder coating marketplace.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I think that will be the future because people will come to you for their personal projects and stuff, too. It is always, it is frustrating. I know that we’ve been in that same situation where we’re at the end and there’s, it’s just nothing but pressure, a pressure cooker situation to bring it to fruition for the end result. And then, to get back and forth between customers and the welder or the producer or whatever, I don’t know, contractor, it, it just, it can get kind of mucky. And I don’t, we’ve, I don’t know what the answer is at this moment. I guess the only future I see is just training up the customer or the consumer market that you can go to your powder coater.

RossKote (Kim Scott): First I just wrote a blog post on how to How to paint or how to coat your gate. And it’s a landmark posts, so it’s something that could be featured in an online magazine or architectural magazine, somehow it, where it just breaks it down for, if you were a homeowner what substrate do you pick? What codings do you pick? What, let me tell you about this, what is sandblasting? Why do you need it? I just walked people through, choosing a color, choosing a, a contractor, that sort of thing. And it, it really, you have to break it out, but how do you share it with everybody? That’s the key, like how do you get that out? How does your, how does the consumer find your website? That would solve a lot of problems.

Jase Kaser: Yeah, it would. And that’s why we try to post as much content as we can. Like he said we post blogs pretty regularly, but we’re, that was probably where we post the least on our website on the blog. So we post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, pretty much every single day, Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn, and we’re posting every day on and trying to as much as possible to keep the content fresh. And I always want to post more. And the people that work with me on all of our content. Always are like, yeah, but then that means you have to make more content, Jase. I’m like, yeah, I know. And I know I don’t have time, but I still want to post more. So just keep bugging me until I get you enough content post more because the more that we post, the more that it helps educate people. And then I just, hopefully in the end it makes our job easier.

Jase Kaser: And that article that Tim wrote on Tim found us because we post on a LinkedIn. So we, I think we shared like an, a blog from our website onLinkedIn, but he read that and then reached out to that, Hey, can I use that blog on my website? And this just put a link to our website in there if you could, and then a few weeks later than he asked to this, write up an article on it. So if we wouldn’t have been making any kind of content and we wouldn’t have been posted on weekends, him would have never found. So it definitely works. It takes a lot of effort and you have to put a lot of effort into it. We’ve been posting on social media for three years now, and that was the first time that someone wanted to write a magazine article on us.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, the coating’s world is huge. Everybody knows that and is, it can be noisy too. So it’s hard to tease out and find these people like you that are doing something a little trend-setting or a little different, or a little I get this as I, navigate the coatings world I find that from an industrial perspective, many of the people that work in coatings, whether they’re middle managers are pencil pushers or phone answers or.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Coders coating, liquid or powder. It’s not much happens. It’s a very slow moving animal, right? I think actually powder coatings move a little faster than just liquid coatings, because I think liquid coatings is just gigantic. We just realized that a couple of weeks ago, when we interviewed Kevin Coursin from PCI and all the, how big they found the liquid market to be and the decorator market to be, it’s just gigantic.

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RossKote (Kim Scott): But. Just because it’s big doesn’t mean it moves very fast. So it tends to be on the boring side powder coatings in general, if you’re just doing a single coat color application, that’s just single coat color application. It’s I think where the thing, the movement is happening is a lot of the creative side, whether it’s blog posts or new finishes or new application styles, or artistic level kind of stuff, that’s where there’s a lot of movement, but it’s hard when you’re in such a big industry to when you’re doing something exciting where new or refreshing, it gets hard to get people’s attention to it just because they’re, so it’s such a big place.
Jase Kaser: Right. And there’s kind of two sides of it. And so the, like Chloe, I said she helps. And now we have a new.Team member helping with social media there. They both really like the bright colors and the general public stuff that we do, or a bird bath, a lot more things like that, because those are cool. Look at people like, see those. So there’s, that’s the one side of like the artistic side, like he said, and people latch onto that then like seeing more of that. And I’m more on the side. Like I like the technical sides. So I like, why does pre-treatment work? What chemistries work better than others?And so there’s two different types of consumers of of like content or just two different, I think two different, mainly two different types of people in the coating industry. There’s the ones that are really focused on the aesthetic finishes. And those are usually the paint and pattern company, and the sales people and everybody in that world. And then there’s the surface prep guys. And I would include pretreatment with a surface prep where that’s more like nitty-gritty to underneath the coating, so nobody sees it. But it’s still really important, probably the most important part.

Jase Kaser: And, but that’s how it gets a lot more technical. And I think I liked that sidebar just because I’ve, I’ve always been hands-on and then my mechanical engineering, I understand to a degree. I understand a lot of what’s happening down on that, on a microscopic level with the chemistries and surface profiles and things like that. So I think that’s why I liked that. The other thing that I’m most familiar with. And so I liked to talk about those and take pictures of that and make content on that. Cause I think that’s the most important, one of the most important parts. And I like to communicate that to people because you don’t see that part it’s. But then, like I said, there’s the other side that everybody likes to see the nice, cool looking finish. And I liked that too, but we are more industrial than we are the general public side. And so most of what we do is industrial stuff. So if all we did was take pictures of what we were coding for one is a lot of the same thing over and over again.

Jase Kaser: Or every month we do a run up the same thing and it’s bland stuff, it’s gray and black and stuff like that. And every once in a while we have cool pieces that come through. So we, that’s why our content, I feel like it’s a pretty good mix of both. Sometimes it leans one way or the other, and depends on what platform we’re on, of what we post. And like Instagram. That’s really picturing. So you don’t easily do many blogs and stuff there but he did do bright colors and stuff.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And you can take a portion of whatever said in the blog and use it as the script for, or the message for your Instagram. I think if you could deconstruct a blog post or a blog post, you could literally, use different portions in each piece could be optimized for whatever the platform is. LinkedIn has its own kind of, what are people wanting from you there? And Instagram is more story type telling. But yeah I like how you are able to grasp and do well with the different kinds of platforms because they are so different. Most of the custom coaters that focus in on automotive parts, of course they thrive in the Instagram realm. But when you are doing other types of jobs, how do you balance that? And you guys do seem to do it pretty well, and you highlight those personal projects that, you can maximize shock and awe on Instagram when you can, and then, and then utilize the LinkedIn for more technical stuff too. It seems it’s not an easy job to do but you seem to doit very well. And I but do you now just to wrap things up, what, is there anything you’d like to see change in the industry, or do you see any trends changing in the industry coming this way?

Jase Kaser: I think that just from a reading I’ve been doing, it seems like that we will be powder coating gun metal, substrates. There’s people that do it now, but it’s not very widespread. I think that’ll eventually someday in the next five to 10 years, it’ll become pretty common that, when someone does bring in their wooden cabinet or something, that’s brand new, we’ll be able to powder coat it. So I think that’s like a technological advance that’s coming. That’ll be, it’ll be interesting. I’m excited for that. I think it’s a little ways off for for a job shop like us to do this because it’ll probably start a big factory scale first.But and then the other thing is just, I wish there were more technical reps available just in all of the things. Exactly these lasting painting and powder coating. There’s always a lot of sales reps. And you have your favorite ones that you’d like to talk to and you have the ones that you wish that they didn’t show up because they were bothering you. I’m sure everybody has their favorites and the ones they don’t like, but it usually seems like when you really have a technical question, whether it be about painting powder coating or blasting, if you’re lucky enough, you’ve met one person along the way, one rep along the way that kind of knows everything pretty good.

Jase Kaser: And so you can call them and ask them and they can be pointed in the right direction, but all your other reps, usually for whatever reason. And they’re like I’m not sure I’m going to have to call the lab or something. And I think that just comes from their sales reps. They’re not tactical reps. So I wish that there was more tactical reps in the industry. I wish it was a little more even seems like there was a lot of, a lot more sales reps than there are technical. And it’s probably hard to find people that want to be a technical rep. They’re usually actually working in production company, but I don’t know if you found that the same, but sometimes it’s hard when you’re having a problem that it’s really hard to find someone to call to even just get a little bit by pretty much, a lot of times I feel like it messed up, but we’re just going to have to try something else and figure it out ourselves, which is fine. But sometimes it’d be nice to have a wealth of information just to call on and say “Hey, we tried this three or four times. It’s not working. Do you have any ideas?”

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I think I agree with you. I think we’re in Hawaii, so getting anybody to come out here is just nearly impossible.

RossKote (Kim Scott): We’re lucky if we get a phone call or something or two from people it’s happening now more for us email wise and people are finding the site just in terms of searches and stuff like that. So they’re finding out about what we’re doing and they’ll reach out to us that way. But I agree with you.Yeah. It’s something, maybe you’re just in a centrally located area, so it’s easy for people to drive up and, or contact you or, you’re in a hub area and stuff. I think that I think that there, there are tech people out there that could answer those questions for you, but they’re more in the consulting realm rather than working for the actual company that’s providing the equipment or the, the supplier that’s providing the powder or the liquid or whatever, the materials yeah.

RossKote (Kim Scott): They probably are more focused on sales and tech, but yeah it’s nice to know if that a company a large company that you’re  buying equipment from has, were powder is, has that. Has that tech person you can goto. Most of it, of the time that we’ve called tech people, it’s just plausible deniability.You did it wrong, okay. How did I do it wrong? Oh, you just did it wrong. Follow the directions on the application guide. Yes I did the whole time and it came out wrong, like it’s a, it can be frustrating. Cause it seems like even when you do find a tech person it just, they don’t want to, they don’t want to admit that their product failed.

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RossKote (Kim Scott):That’s been our biggest frustration, especially when we’ve got, when we’ve got a customer requesting a specific color happened to a certain year this year and it didn’t matter what we did or how we did it. It was wrong. And it’s because they’re there throughout, they probably throughout a powder. Not quite ready for public use, and it’s just, maybe they were driven to, that’s not every powder supplier, but it just, when it rarely does happen, you get frustrated because you feel like I’m buying all this from you and yet you’re not supporting me or trying to help me in any way.
Jase Kaser: You guys been in with you guys being in Hawaii, are there a powder coating manufacturers there, or when you go to order your powder is it a pretty long wait time when you want to get a box of powder ordered in like shipping lines?

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. I mean everything about our businesses based off shipping in terms of what powders we supply, what you know, who we choose and why we choose it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Shipping and humidity. Pretty much like rules our life and it fits equipment

Jase Kaser: In the contiguous 48. It seems like if we run out of powder quick or fast, or we forgot to order something, usually like we’re, since we’re in the middle of the United States, we’re like a two day shift point for pretty much every where or just regular ground, or we could just overnight it in.

Jase Kaser: But for you guys, if you accidentally ran out of a powder or something happened or a box on a box was bad and you had to get that same seller quickly, what is it like for it’s like the capacity for days or…

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, it’s hell because you almost have to anticipate that will happen when you’re in a job, especially something like a huge Gate or railing or architectural level.

RossKote (Kim Scott): It’s it’s almost a paranoia that happens with us because.If we run out, earlier you were saying, because we’re finishers, it’s all on us to perform at the very end, despite all the failings of the, and delays of a huge job.You still have to bring that in on a deadline.

RossKote (Kim Scott): It’s there’s no, they’re not going to give you any extra days because because they brought it in five days late, kind of thing. So basically we have to almost anticipate over ordering powder or be ready to jump on it. If we know something’s going to fall short or read, be redone or something, who knows what the problem is, it’s almost like you have to be paranoid about it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And just go ahead and, and then there is, okay, so say it’s just basic gloss black, even, I have to go to three or four different suppliers and then figure out is it faster to ship USPS from Tennessee or UPS fromIllinois or California, and there’s, it’s different for every supplier and it’s different for every shipping method.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So based on where it’s at and where it’s crazy, like some of the stuff I’ve had to do, I’ve had to order stuff. It came in faster fromTennessee than it did from California. Like in you wouldn’t, you’re like what, so yeah. Mastering logistics in Hawaii is a definite skill you have to have for running any kind of business here.

RossKote (Kim Scott): The other thing is just the cost of equipment. Whatever, usually when you’re in, the regular. Contiguous states it is always usually free shipping or very low price shipping, and it can arrive within a day or two or five days at the most it’s cost as just as much in shipping as it does for the equipment itself.

RossKote (Kim Scott): It’s absolutely crazy. I’ll never forget back in 2004, we ordered our, we were painters back then. We weren’t even, we were just getting started with powder coating and learning about it, but we ordered our open face spray booth cost 2,500 and it costs 2,500 to ship it. That’s a hard pill to swallow.

Jase Kaser: Yeah. There’s, it’s hard enough to keep up with project deadlines and customers. And then when you have that logistical wrinkle and mean that would make them a lot more difficult. I can’t imagine if we, cause I always if I have to overnight something I will I don’t want to, because it costs a lot, it cost more to ship powder than it does for the material itself, but at least we have that option, but yeah, I can definitely understand what you’re saying, where if you’ve got a big project, you’re just going to, over-order just in case we have to rework half of this, we’d better get the extra powder because I don’t have any leeway on fortunately.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Our customers are pretty understanding when it comes to charging them for powder or, including powder or, like making sure that we cover our, cover our ass on the powder expense, including shipping.

RossKote (Kim Scott): We just did a, we’re doing a project for Oprah Winfrey has been building our house here for fricken forever. I think going on three years now, and of course it’s the typical, like they, the spec calls for this or whatever, and then the designer doesn’t like it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So then you’re having to redo it and stuff like that. But generally speaking, like if we order powder for a job like that, we have maybe a minimum order, if, even if it’s just a small thing, but they’ll buy the powder. And we’ll try to use as much as we can have it for that job, but then, pretty much it just stays here and we reuse it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I haven’t really found any kind of way to reclaim that money back or we try to. If it then becomes an in-stock powder for us, I guess as special order, if we don’t have, if we have unused portions of it or pounds of it, and then we’ll make it an in-stock color until we have no longer an in-stock color, kind of thing. Yeah.

 
RossKote (Kim Scott): Oh, that’s good do sell that separately? I think we can order some of that today. Yeah. Okay. We missed I know that in terms of wha twe’ve used in, after burns or whatever is like the silver cream it’s like a cream that has silver nitrate in it, I guess.
 
RossKote (Kim Scott): I don’t know if it’s, I’m saying nitrate, but it does have silver in it. So that actually helps heal the skin. I ended up with a second degree burn on my hand many years ago, not from stripping. Was pouring hot water. It was one of those kitchen disasters.

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Jase Kaser: All right. We do the same thing for different reasons, I think. But yeah we have pretty much a set stock color that we have the samples hanging on the wall. And then if someone’s oh, I don’t like any of those and I want to special order something. I’m like, okay, that’s fine.

Jase Kaser: But we buy usually 50 pounds box minimum. So you want to do that. You’re gonna have to pay for the whole box to powder. And some people are like, no problem. I’ll do that. And then that’s cost way too much. I’ll just take one of your stock colors.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I think one of the frustrations about customers own merchandise, COM I call it COM.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Like the incident we had earlier this year, where we had a difficulty, it needed a tech rep for for the powder supplier, because we had problems with the application. Is I don’t think we will ever do that again. I get that, they bought their own, special, transparent, or illusion colored from XYZ company or whatever.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I appreciate that. That’s good for you. But I don’t knowhow old you’ve been sitting on that powder. I don’t know where you bought it from. You could have bought it on eBay from a second hand seller, a third hand seller. There’s just too many variables and I just kinda had to put it into it because there’s just too many pitfalls with that, so you pretty much have to buy powder from us.

Jase Kaser: Yeah we don’t let anybody use their own. Cause just like what you said, you don’t know how long it’s been sitting there. And usually they don’t have the data sheets with us and we try to have an SDS for everything on file just in case. And yeah, we usually don’t let people bring in their own patterns because a lot of the times, even if it’s we had one not too long ago, they brought in a really low gloss black and that’s the one they wanted. And I was like, oh, we just, we don’t spray other people’s powders.We just, we use our own, we have our own flat black, it’s going to match just saying oh, I just really want you to use ours. And I understand it looks like it’s the exact same color. So you think we might as well just use yours, but it could spray out totally differently.

Jase Kaser: For some reason it might not like, pretreatment we put underneath it. And we just know that our black blacks that hold it up here. So it is the same color. We know how we need a process, ours, what don’t fix this. We need to put it on. And what spray settings maybe. We can just give you a better product if we use what we know as long as it, and if it’s going to look the same, we’d rather just use ours.

Jase Kaser: And that’s how we try to.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, you get used to it, it’s consistency, you know how to, it’s. Yeah. You just know what you can stand behind. And I don’t know what it is about like these celebrities on Maui. I don’t know. It just seemed like all the incidents has. We have, we have this thing, we just did some stuff for Mick Fleetwood, from Fleetwood Mac.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yes he’s retired here. He owns a restaurant. Very good restaurant. Actually. It’s very popular here in Lahaina and he wanted these lights, sconces for his garden, and he ordered them from the mainland and they were powder-coated very well-made I guess they make their own light sconces, and then they powder coat them as well.

RossKote (Kim Scott): But he, so he got them done, but he, for whatever reason, they didn’t that’s right. He thought he could just order whatever color he wanted. And when we went to match the stock on this and call the lighting company to say, what color are you using? We found ourselves into a bit of a pickle because the sample that was sent from the lighting company, they use a box heater.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And instead of the, a hopper, and because this powder had a metallic flake in it, guess what all the metallic wait floated to the bottom.And so when you sprayed, when they sprayed the color, you didn’t see the metallic end. He liked that because it was less, it was more. But then when we got the same exact color from the same exact supplier and we applied it, we use it, we use the hopper, which kind of keeps the metallic floating and it came outlooking different than, so then he didn’t like that and we’re like what do you want us to do?

RossKote (Kim Scott): We just literally ordered the same exact thing that these people are doing, so it was strange. That was a new one for us, new pitfall in powder coating.

Jase Kaser: Yeah, metallics are always challenging.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. It’s been great talking to you. Thanks for joining us today. So how can coaters get ahold of you?

RossKote (Kim Scott): We talked about your blog, but would you like to throwout maybe an email or a website?

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Jase Kaser: Our website is Kaser, K-A-S-E-R blasting.com. And then on all the social media pages, Facebook Twitter and Instagram, the search Kaser blasting and coatings will come up. And then on LinkedIn, we have a Kaser blasting and coatings, but most of it’s posted on my personal LinkedIn, Jase Kaser, K-A-S-E-R.

Jase Kaser: So you can find us there. I won’t list off my email, but I think it’s on our website somewhere. If you have a question, feel free to give us a call.We’ll try to help if you can’t you can’t figure it out from all the content that we have out there. Definitely call us.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Again, definitely head over to the Kaser website and find that blog.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I found it refreshing. I found it insightful. I found it educational for sure. And I appreciate you coming out on the show today very much and taking the time to talk with us and get to know you.

Jase Kaser: Yeah. It was nice to get to know you too. I really appreciate you have on the phone here, we’d been wanting to do some more podcast stuff we haven’t, and this is the first oneI’ve actually been on.

Jase Kaser: But we’ve been talking about it a lot, so we’re happy when you emailed us and thank you. It was, it’s an interesting to learn about the challenges that you have in Hawaii that I would never think of because when you know, just locationally, there’s a lot of differences. So it was interesting.

RossKote (Kim Scott): All right. We’d like to thank our supportive followers and fellow powder coders out there. I hope you’ve learned something new about your powder coating business. Please comment, share, follow, and like the podcast. And if you have a topic you’d like to discuss, email us at info@mauipowderworks.com. Have a great day.

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Industry Insider: Powder Coating Trends with Kevin Coursin

June 6, 2022 by pcnearme

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.3″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]In our exclusive interview with Kevin Coursin, executive director of the Powder Coating Institute, we reveal current and future trends for the global coatings market. He’s here to paint a broader outlook to the powder coating market and discuss what its like to be in this industry.

 

 

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RossKote (Kim Scott): Today. We’re talking about the state of our industry. With someone who has their hands, knee deep in it. Kevin Coursin is the executive director of the Powder Coating Institute. He’s here to share some insights and highlights from the recent annual meeting. I’d like to tease out from him, some of the broader strokes, from the data he presented. In the hopes of giving you a bigger picture of our industry and what it may mean for you.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So how long have you been working in the industry and how did you get started?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I’ve actually been in the paint industry for 38 years now. Long time ago after I graduated from college with my engineering degree, I started working at one of the general motors assembly plants and being just a plant engineer, working on various projects.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): My boss came up to me after two years and said, Kevin, I got good news giving you a 10% raise; and I was extremely happy with that. He says, but you’re going third shift. You’re going to be the maintenance supervisor and the paint shop. And that’s how I was introduced to paint. Now it was liquid paint. It wasn’t powder back then that they had, but I learned a lot about the processes about the equipment and what it took to maintain it.

Industry insider kevin coursin on the powder coater podcastKevin Coursin (PCI): So it was quite an education for two years. After that the came up to me and said, Hey, Kevin, you’re an engineer and you’re in paint. There’s a new plant we’re building in Michigan, we would like you to transfer over there, give you a promotion and you’re going to install a new paint shop.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And I went and took it. Then it was again, quite an education that we had put together and working with a group. And then I learned how to design, how to build and manage putting it all in and starting it up. After that the market wasn’t as good in the automotive market. So I decided to change a little bit of direction, and I went to work for one of the system houses as a project manager and worked at myself into a general manager sales, and eventually became president of KMI systems.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So I’ve done a lot over the years. Just recently here in beginning of February, I started at the Powder Coating Institute is the executive director.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s quite an exciting career. And I find that most of the people that have been in it as long as, 30 plus years or more 40 y’all kind of start in late.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And it all happens with that. And then it moves into powder. Would you agree?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah, I think it depends which, which direction you, that you go into. I, again, when I first started there really that’s when powder coating was really at its infancy, so it wasn’t as much out there. And the automotive had been primary liquid, so that’s where my experience came.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Then when I came over and started working in the system’s houses. That’s where I started learning about powder and both in just regular powder paint. I learned about powder porcelain enamel but also did some liquid systems as well. Did multiple, different types of systems depending on what the customer would wanted to install at the plant.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I had a very broad education on a lot of paint equipment.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So PCI recently had their annual meeting on the state of power coating, but is there anything that stood out to you from the data that really intrigued you the most?

 

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.3″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Kevin Coursin (PCI): I think on the overall market data that it was there. When you see it globally the powder market itself is little over $10.4 billion.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And it sounds like a huge number by itself, but when you compare it against all the other types of coatings that are out there, whether it’s a house paint, auto, refinish, trailers, industrial market, that type of thing; it’s only just a little under 7% of the overall coatings market.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): The largest market itself out there is really the decorative, which is really the house paint with external and internal. That liquid paint type thing is the biggest market itself. So when you compare powder to just that it sounds like, we’re only a tiny little sliver. But when you compare the powder coating to other industrial liquid coating, which is only about 8% of the market, or wood liquid coating is 7%.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So that’s exactly the same as powder. But powder even exceeds the auto OEM original equipment suppliers or manufacturers use of it. And the auto refinish is about 6%. When you compare the powder to those other type markets, we have been growing over the years and have taken more and more of it.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So it is still a growing market.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. I found that right off the cuff, I found that really intriguing and encouraging too. Now on slide 11. In 2019, North America and Europe had negative growth rates. And that was the automotive production, black construction market and a flat manufacturing environment is what this slide is talking about.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And I found that really intriguing because, they were seeing that we were headed for a slowdown in late 2019, but no one really knew what the news articles were referencing. And really you can say that powder was already giving us an indicator that we were heading for a slowdown. Would you agree with that?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah, I would. And what was defined there was, it was working more on the annual basis. But if you would have broken it down and the data that they had on the quarterly basis, you could see that at the beginning of 19, things were moving along pretty well, but it definitely tailed down at the end of 2019.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): You could see that on a quarterly basis. So it was a pretty good indicator of things that we’re up and coming.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, just to continue on this slide 12, and I don’t want to drill down too deep because some of the smaller coaters like ourselves, we’re not really experiencing too much of a slow down locally.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I think that the larger coaters or industrial coaters and line coaters. They are probably the ones that are being affected more on the higher points in the market. Which they’re just basically saying that we were down 1.5%. And overall the year will be down anywhere from 5 to 15%, which is pretty much in line with what national projections are for America in general for the economy.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Correct.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah. And again it can vary by market and like you said, some of the markets that you’re in, you haven’t seen as large of a hit, but in some of the markets that if you were dealing directly for an automotive supplier as a tier one or tier two, and that was a bulk of your work.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And they took a really big hit in quarter two this year because they had shut down all the assembly plants. So they definitely took a larger hit then there. But the overall average, when you take them all into account, it’s probably 10 to 15% down from the market, but again, some are doing better.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Some are not doing as well. So it really is how diversified you are or how tight you are to a single market.

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RossKote (Kim Scott): I think one of my favorite slides, is slide 20 because it really starts to dig down deeper into the overall custom coater market. And I was shocked by this figure on this slide, when it basically said that globally, there are over 42,000 custom powder coaters out there. Did that number shock you?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): It did shock me also. This was the first year that we had actually started breaking down for the custom coater market. And when I saw this slide, I had to call up the consultant company that was doing all the research for us and I questioned them on it. I said, really? And he said, yeah, that’s what they are finding.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And in North America by itself there was over 6,000 that they had in just North America. And even that number, for just North America sounded quite large. Now what they don’t define is how large of a company it is. So that would include some of the very small, custom coater, little chop shops that are out there now.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): They might only be coating a few wheels at a time, but I think they’re included in those numbers. So sometimes that big number, you gotta take a little bit with a grain of salt and just do not dive down or, do a bigger breakdown into the size of the company. We hope to do that into next year.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): To try and get a better picture of the various sizes of custom coaters and how many there are in different markets and what the revenue in those markets would be.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And just to note that on this slide, the definition of a custom coater, is a company that primarily custom coats. And that’s, if they are manufacturing a part and then powder coating it that part for another client, they’re not considered a custom (coater).

RossKote (Kim Scott): And they, on top of that, if they were to include those people, that number would double to the amount of custom powder coaters out there. That’s extraordinary.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah, it is a big number. And it’s something, it just goes to show how large of a market it overall is. Even if you just break it down into the north America or the U S that there is quite a big group of those type companies out there.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Anybody into that market, or, you may think you have competitors, to say that you have 6,000 other ones, it can be a little bit leary. But again, we got to dig a little bit deeper into some of the numbers to break it down into size. Because there are some very large powder coaters, but there’s also some very small ones.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So breaking that range is going to be our next step to try and get a little bit better meaningful data.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I think that’s going to be great for us all. And I really liked slide 21 because the majority of custom coaters are using stock colors and that’s like RALs, right?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah, just the off the shelf, nothing special.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And if you think really when you get into a lot of the custom coaters, they’re offering a slate to a bunch of companies or people, if they want something done special and they’re not going to custom and get a formulation because they’re only spraying so small amount of it.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And I think that’s where, the stock colors are pretty much the standard for them to use.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. Now on the same side, it says, certifications play some role in the process. Are they talking about like PCI ones only, or just all kinds of certifications that are out there.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): No, there are a number of certifications that are out there.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): PCI is one of them that we have on the market. There are some others that can be done. And in fact, even some manufacturers have what they call their certification program. If you’re coating a product directly for them, they may have their spec and they’ll come in, even audit the facility to make sure that you are meeting a certification. So it can depend a little bit. There’s a lot of certification requirements out from the department of transportation in a lot of states. You have to get a certification. One might be from PCI, or it could be from one of the other areas that they may have, in order to be able to coat and provide product to them.

RossKote (Kim Scott): After this presentation was over. I started to think about what was presented on the slides and what it all meant for me, which is why I prompted to call you for an interview because I wanted to know. With powder supplies and global supply chains at risk now regarding China and the economy right now facing all nations, not just some, but all.

RossKote (Kim Scott): What does that mean for me as a powder coater? Especially a small guy. Is it going to be harder for me to get powder someday is pricing going to go up? What does that mean?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I guess that can be always a potential issue that could have occure of getting, and it may be a particular color because there is a raw material that might be coming from China.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And there’s a, if it’s a political dispute, there may be a short break in the action when, while they’re trying to solve it. It could be also from shipping standpoint how long it might take to be able to get some of those colors. It is an issue that’s out there. But I still think overall the world has gotten smaller and everybody has to sell to other people.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So there may be some short term as the politicians deal with issues. But overall, we want to sell to China and China wants to sell to us so it still does everybody good to keep the commerce sorta speak flowing.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I agree with that. I hope it does mean that. And because in the end, people are just people, we all want to do and continue about our business. So now the other part of this that got me thinking was like this reshoring of manufacturing in the United States. With potentiality of shortness in the market. What does this reshoring in manufacturing, I don’t even know if you could speak on it, or if much about it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): What does it all mean for us here? If you can comment on it.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): We definitely have seen a number of companies come in to do reshoring and bringing manufacturing back to the states. I think a lot has to do that, when there were a lot of these global companies were able to bring their money that they had over back into the states.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): They’re doing more investment here. Some of the issues that you were talking about the global supply chain disruptions. They feel if they bring it back here, they have more control over it. So they’re hedging their bet a little bit to bring it here. So I think you’re going to see more of that continue.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Again, once we can get through the pandemic side that we have here, that’s put a little bit of pause on some things, but I think you’ll see it pick back up again. Bringing more manufacturing plants into the states.

RossKote (Kim Scott): I think it will be positive for both the smaller guys growing bigger and maybe some of the other guys sharing some of those jobs for us. Now at Maui Powder Works, we’ve been a member of PCI since 2017. And we joined primarily because it’s a late legislative body because we felt that it was important for us to become part of a greater community of coaters as well as to uphold, higher standards in the industry in terms of coating and what we’re bringing about in our product line. But what is PCI and why should other custom coaters care?

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.3″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]Kevin Coursin (PCI): The Powder Coating Institute, it is a group of suppliers and users that have come together.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Number one goal is that we want to grow the powder coating market itself. But in doing so we recognize that there’s steps that have to go along with it to make sure it happens. One of them is educating, PCI has a number of workshops and webinars. We work on standards. We have a events like the powder coating week that we put on again for education and where people can interact and network.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): We have our technical publications. We have the Powder Coating Tough magazine, which is exclusively published for the powder coating market itself, and lot of good articles, learning new things, how to to do some items there. We actually are working on the Fifth Edition of the Powder Coating Handbook.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): It’s in the final editorial revisions right now. And it looks like we’ll be releasing it in early January next year. And it’s upgraded with all the latest and greatest new technologies that are out there. A one-stop if your powder coater, and you want to learn something or learn, find out if you have a problem, you can go to it as a handbook.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Those are the big things that we want to work on from a PCI standpoint. The other thing we do is we do have our certification program. Again, we talked a little bit about it before, but it’s really a quality program. We want to make sure that the processes that are being used are being controlled and you’re doing what you say you’re going to do and have all the proper training and documentation.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So you can make sure you’re very consistent going through it. But I think in, for the end users that are certified. With the quality program they do get a more consistent and better quality out. It does save them money in the long run because they have less downtime and can produce more through the system itself.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And I think one of the most or two of the most underrated things about PCI that maybe people know or don’t know is even if you’re not a member and you have a troubleshooting question or a problem that you need help solving in your powder line, you can actually write the Powder Coating Institute.

RossKote (Kim Scott): And you will actually help try to troubleshoot that problem for that coater. That’s true right?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Oh, yeah. We do get the inquiries in by email or there’s actually a contact us on our website and we get things in, I actually received one today and it does come to me.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So I’m the first person that looks at it. It happened to be from an architect and he had an issue on how it is to do some touch-up for powder coating product that was out in the field. And I was able to go out to some of our powder suppliers. With this particular issue, I get back some results from them. And then I send back and say here’s something that you can do.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Just one little example of what we do. And we get a number of them throughout the year.

 

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.17.3″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]RossKote (Kim Scott): And I think the other underrated thing, or the thing that I was shocked, I learned this at the custom coater forum when I went a couple of years ago, is that you actually have this thing called, peer groups. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Oh, yeah, I am one of the facilitators for one of the groups, so I am intimately involved with it. And right now it’s jointly managed between the Powder Coating Institute and the Chemical Coaters A ssociation. But we have three groups, they’re built of up to 10 companies and we set them up so that they’re, noncompeting, they’re in different locations throughout the U.S.; different markets, but they all doing the one thing that’s common. They’re applying powder coating to products. So with that in mind, we meet twice a year, typically one of the companies hosts it and the other individuals come in there and it’s two days we’re at the plant.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): We actually do an audit. We walk around and put it into a paint term, it’s an unvarnished information back to the company of what they found and it’s meant to be informative and to help them. Likewise, when you are one of those individuals that you go to the plant and you do the audit, while you’re walking around, you may see something that you can go, that’s a great idea.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I can take that and incorporate that back into my operation. And the individuals that have been part of this find is very good, both from a quality standpoint of learning new things, how to do it, but they also, then they come to know each other. Trust each other, so they can send out an email.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I’ve got this kind of problem. Anybody experienced this before and get some information back from them. So it is a very good program, like I say, we have three groups right now. We are in the process of forming our fourth group. So we hoped we have several that have expressed interest and we hope to find enough more that the starting sometime in 2021, we can get that another group going.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah, I, of course everybody was trying to get me on their group because we were exceptional coaters. It was just that we were in Hawaii.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Stay with us. So they were like, oh no, you want to join my group? No, join my group.

RossKote (Kim Scott): But I really felt wow, this is this is so much more than what I had anticipated as being a member of PCI, was to have this opportunity to do that. And and get to know possibly other coaters that have been in the game a little longer than I have or bigger than me. And how can I scale my business to, it seemed intriguing to me, but also just, having that shoulder to lean on or get confident with, if they’re going to come in and take a look at what I have it keeps you on your toes, but I think it’s a great program that you guys need to maybe get out a little bit more because it seems interesting to be a member of that.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah, we’ve only really got two years of it under our belt. This would have been the third year, but we’ve had to cancel both meetings the spring and the fall meetings because of the issues that we’ve had with the COVID this year. So really next year will be. I guess a repeat.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So we’ll call it year three still. So we are trying to grow it and we are trying to figure out how we can get the word out to people and we appreciate you bringing it up because I think with your podcast again, it’s just another way of getting the information out to people and maybe they’ll get interested to be able to find out some more about it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. So now as executive director, I know this is a new role for you. What do you hope to accomplish, with PCI in the coming years or rather, what do you want?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I guess as the executive director, I’ve got a couple items that are, number one, then two on my list is to grow the powder coating industry and increase membership for the Powder Coating Institute.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): But that’s just the, I think the ultimate goal, if we provide the service, I think all that will we’ll come with it, but we would like to, I want to add and improve the education webinars, things like that. And updating the Powder Coating Handbook, again, getting that out to our members so that they can use that to improve their equipment and their systems.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): I would like to, as you mentioned before, the peer group. We’d like to grow those to the more groups themselves, because we really think it’s important. And it’s a really nice thing for custom coaters to do. Increase the certifications, both for the custom coaters, as well as the OEMs. We think that’s a good quality program that’s really especially made for the powder coating industry. That is, probably very cost-effective overall from a training and learning and making sure that you can do it. And a lot of them use it from a marketing standpoint because they can say that they are certified and try and get additional business. The other areas that I think we’re going to be doing some more work in and we’ve started this year on, is trying to develop more into the alternative substrates, like wood and MDF or plastic and ceramics.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): We think powder coating can really grow into those markets which primarily had been done by in the liquid. But we can do it more efficiently. And then we’ve got a committee that’s dedicated to right now that we’re working on to develop some technical data, some brochures and everything on that.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): The other areas in the architectural market for all the architecture that’s coated and all that, the specifying that comes from architects. And we’re trying to work right now with another association. That’s specifically markets to those for developing specs. But they don’t have any spec whatsoever to talk about powder coating.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So as an industry, we’re going to work on it and hand it to them and say, insert this into your standards. And again, trying to get people to not only grow and choose powder, but also to do it right.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Now in 2021 in February 23rd through the 26th, in Orlando, Florida, you guys are going to have your custom coater forum. But incorporating in that is earlier on in the week and you guys have coating workshops. They’re powder coating 101 workshops. The basics is what this is called. And I went in 2018. I didn’t go to the workshop. I flew in as a presenter and just attended the custom coater forum.

RossKote (Kim Scott): But I was amazed at how many people were actually in that room getting and learning that powder coating 101. It was full.

 

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Kevin Coursin (PCI): Yeah we, in this past February we had 75 people that were in for that workshop alone. And it’s a two day workshop and that runs concurrent with the custom coater forum.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And again, there, we have typically around 40 to 50 custom coaters and there’s a whole set of speakers and tracks that are dedicated to the customer coater market and companies. And then some of it is business. Some of it is, we had some round table discussions and we also have some technical presentations and for 2021, we’ve got the program pretty well all set up and have some great speakers coming in.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And we’re going to be talking about certification and peer groups, again, just trying to educate those on there. We have someone coming in to talk about automation for custom coaters. We have another individual that’s gonna be talking about troubleshooting and different ways to do that and solve problems.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So we’re trying to tax different areas and be helpful and very meaningful for someone that’s coming in there to spend their time. After that we do have a two days that follow, which is we call our technical conferences and there we have papers on everything from batch coating, to automation, to new technologies.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So there’s a lot of different sessions that you can pick and choose which one you’re interested in going to, and while that’s going on, we do also have a, a tabletop exhibits that the suppliers will be there. I think we currently have 74 suppliers who hopefully gain a few more that are going to be coming in, during lunch hour, where lunch is served right among there.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): So you can eat and walk around and talk and network and learn what’s new from the various suppliers. Or if you got a problem, go see a supplier and he’d be probably more than willing to help you out.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. If you think it’s going to be boring, it’s not. I wasn’t sure what to expect that first year I went and it was amazing.

RossKote (Kim Scott): We had one speaker was from Mighty Hook. I can’t remember his name off the top of my head, but I was amazed that he had a solid hour, and it wasn’t boring at all. They went really fast and how he could talk about just hooks in an hour. He was a true expert. We’re not sponsored by Mighty Hook today, just so you know, I’m not pumping them in any way, but I was just floored, how much he could talk about hooks and all the different ways to use it.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So it’s cram packed. It’s always exciting. You get to meet the owners of the companies that are there. Steven from IFS and then they’re not just sitting up on a pedestal in their group. In the evenings, you go to the bar or the lobby and you get to have a personal conversation with them too.

RossKote (Kim Scott): It’s not cut and dry.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): And everyone that attends there, you do have the industry experts. So if you have some things or you want to learn some things, they’re there and believe me, most like myself, we all like to talk. So if you come up to them, they’ll share, they’ll help.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): They’ll do whatever you can. And come up to me and if someone’s got a problem, I can point out someone that you should probably go see and talk to, but it is a, great event. And it’s well worth the time there. And I know it’s a struggle for everybody to get out of their business to go to this.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): But believe me, it is worth while.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. And the location, the Renaissance hotel there, that was really nice. I was impressed. I really liked that hotel and it seemed like a lot of the coaters were going to meet their family later that week to go to, Disney World, Universal and SeaWorld and stuff like that.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So I think it’s a great location to have that.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Especially like individuals like myself that come from the Midwest. They have to go to Florida for a few days it’s pretty nice.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Yeah. Everybody was like, oh, don’t leave Kim. What do you mean you’re not staying for the technical conference? And I’m like, oh no, I didn’t know, there was this other thing. So I just came in for the custom coater thing, but everybody was like, no stay with us.

RossKote (Kim Scott): So I was bummed actually that I had to leave. But yeah I really enjoyed it and I look forward to next year to. It sounds like it’s might be happening. If the world doesn’t come to an end. It will happen. Thanks for joining us today, Kevin. I really learned a lot about, more about PCI, especially with the slides from the presentation. I thought it was it’s very nice of you guys to share this data. Others that may or may not be in PCI. So how can coaters get ahold of you, if they have questions?

Kevin Coursin (PCI): Probably the easiest way to get ahold of me would be to just send me an email.

Kevin Coursin (PCI): It’s kevin@powdercoating.org. Otherwise on the website, there is the office number that you can always reach me through that also.

RossKote (Kim Scott): That’s great. We’d also like to thank our supportive followers and fellow powder coaters out there. I hope you’ve learned something new about your powder coating business.

RossKote (Kim Scott): Please comment, share, or follow us on this podcast. And if you have a topic that you would like to discuss, just email us at info@mauipowderworks.com.

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About us

RossKote is committed to sharing their experience in metal coatings, painting, and restoration so customers & powder coaters can navigate the process of powder coating and make the best choices for getting their projects done.

RossKote regularly contributes helpful videos on his blog and YouTube channel.

Join us.  As we build a powder coating community online to share our passion for performance finishes by subscribing to RossKote’s Powder Coater Podcast

Connect with us. Comment below. What would you like to know more about? I love to answer everyday questions to the consumer market wants to know about powder coating.   

MAUIPOWDERWORKS.COM
Copyright 2016-2022©
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Filed Under: All Posts, Podcast Tagged With: benefits of powder coating, coatings, custom coaters, how powder coating works, powder coater podcast, powder coater trends, powder coating, powder coating podcast, re powder coating, rosskote podcast, troubleshooting powder coating

Why does powder coating matter for metal and antique restoration?

May 27, 2022 by pcnearme

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Powder coatings & Metal refurbishing

Consumers should know that powder coatings are set to be the fastest growth segment of the coatings world because of an increasing need to make old things look new again.

Powder coatings have been around since the 1950s with the rise of essential industrial coatings. It wasn’t till the 1980s that the everyday consumer caught on to the trend of coating for their own metal refurbishing projects. Today, Powder coaters both large and small offer the world with durable coatings. 

Beyond its durability however, there are other various features that have the potential to attract consumers. Namely, it’s safer and more sustainable for clients, applicators and the environment. 

Antique metal restoration and classic auto refurbishing can be a valuable local resource in the circular economy.  Now more clients have access to getting the things they love restored locally, all around the world! 

 

Smaller custom powder coating shops are better for restoration

That being said it’s no wonder custom coaters grew tremendously during 2020-2021, at the height of the pandemic. Staying at home allowed homeowners, automotive enthusiasts and DIYers to get projects they’d been putting off, completed. People shopped closer to home, to help support local services resulting in the growth of metal restoration, particularly the automotive refinishing market. Local coaters are doing considerably better; they’re not experiencing too much of a slow down despite the setbacks of Covid. 

So why aren’t powder coatings used more everyday? To answer this question we need to address the larger paint coatings market.

Kevin Coursin, Executive Director of the PCI has been in the paint industry for over 40 years, says powder coatings are about 6% of the global coatings market. So it is still a growing market. 

In North America alone there are about 6,000 powder coaters, both big and small using about 181 Kilo tons of powder or $1.3B annually. That’s small when compared to the 27.3B liquid paints that need harmful additives to keep viscosity before applying.

Big conveyor line powder coaters are harder to access for the individual restoration market, because they strictly work based on contract. The everyday consumer doesn’t need that level of service. Most custom coaters have the flexibility and adaptability to handle variable sized jobs, because they use a batch oven – think of an oversized kitchen oven. 

Compared to other coatings, batch coaters in particular have been growing more and more each year. From your neighborhood garage coater to the workshop professional, the message about the process of powder coating is getting out. The peace of mind that clients have about a better coating that is healthier for home, work and play is priceless. 
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Why Powder Coatings Are Safer

Andrew Pace, of The Green Design Center, has been consulting homeowners since the 90’s. Offering resources on healthier options for their home design needs. His clients are people with serious chemical sensitivities; or aware of the health hazards and pollutants found in homes, especially volatile organic compounds (VOCs). 

He’s been recommending powder coated materials because they are VOC free, and thus reducing the overall chemical load in the homes of consumers. Andrew says “[for] the powder coatings industry, the fact that it’s going on dry. And it’s been baked in. Means that there are no volatile (organic compounds). Because there’s no solvent to evaporate. So the product is naturally VOC free. The product is by design VOC free.” 

what are vocs graphic

It’s no question that the health and safety of the end user is factored in for custom coaters. And for the long term enjoyment and use, it is also beneficial for the pockets of clients.
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Is Metal Restoration Worth It?

There’s nothing greater than the satisfaction of refurbishing a treasured metal antique or automotive part. When applied, powder coating is more even, and less likely to drip than liquid coatings. Powder coating withstands cracking, fading, peeling, chipping and is chemical resistant.

It doesn’t need maintenance, regular upkeep or re-coating over time. While painting requires longer cure times and fume ventilation; powder can be applied quickly and easily electrostatically, then heated till cured. Once the item is cooled they are ready to be put into service immediately. Powders adhere precisely without waste, unlike paints, so there is no need for a lot of over spray. 
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When a custom coater does a beautiful antique metal restoration job, it can renew the life of a priceless family treasure for a lifetime. The bottom line, it’s simply worth the money when it comes to things that hold intrinsic value or special memories of its owner. That being said, it’s important for consumers to keep in mind price variants. This is either due to location, cost of doing business and/or price increase from ongoing global supply chain disruptions.  Thankfully finding a custom coater has never been easier before with the access of the internet at the clients fingertips.
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How to Find Metal Restoration Near Me?

With a simple search and click of a button consumers can effortlessly find powder coaters readily available.  A great search directory to use is www.powdercoatingnearme.com. 

powder coating near me, powder coating , powder coating directory
A list of qualified coaters will be brought up instantaneously.

 

Consumers can look up shops in their local area and gain buyer confidence with verified listings. They can view photos of a coater’s work and connect instantly with their social media accounts, view maps with shop location, hours and contact information. 

Once on the site, simply scroll down to the map, where you can enter your town, city, state and/or zip code. A list of qualified coaters will be brought up instantaneously. Or maybe you’re looking for a powder coater that knows how to refurbish metal for a particular project like rims, brake calipers etc. Continue to scroll down on the main page where you can find custom coaters based on category.

For example, you need to find a coater that knows how to restore tools for metal restoration in agricultural, architectural or marine sectors. This growing database is easy to use and filled with verified custom coaters. 

Key Takeaways

So there you have it, as a consumer reading this article, you should have a basic understanding of why powder coatings are important to refurbishing metal furniture, car rims or grandma’s favorite antique. In conclusion powder coating is durable, long lasting, safe and green for your wallet and the planet. It’s a growing market and not everyone is aware of the potential that custom coaters can offer no matter the size of the project. 

Finding a custom coater in your local area has never been easier with www.powdercoatingnearme.com

Consumers will be surprised by the knowledge experienced custom coaters have in restoration of metal things. Always ask your powder coater questions, if you want to avoid problems with your custom coater  Lastly, not everything can be restored well, understanding the restoration process of something old is complicated, and is key to spending your money wisely . 

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About us

RossKote is committed to sharing their experience in metal coatings, painting, and restoration so customers & powder coaters can navigate the process of powder coating and make the best choices for getting their projects done.

RossKote regularly contributes helpful videos on his blog and YouTube channel.

Join us.  As we build a powder coating community online to share our passion for performance finishes by subscribing to RossKote’s Powder Coater Podcast

Connect with us. Comment below. What would you like to know more about? I love to answer everyday questions to the consumer market wants to know about powder coating.   

MAUIPOWDERWORKS.COM
Copyright 2016-2022©
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Filed Under: All Posts, Process & Dry Times Tagged With: antique restoration near me, benefits of powder coating, circular economy, custom coaters, how powder coating works, metal antique restoration, metal furniture restoration near me, metal restoration near me, powder coating, powder coating wheels near me, re powder coating, restoration

How to find the best powder coating near me?

December 7, 2020 by pcnearme

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Powder Coating Near Me

Find a powder coating shop near you.

Are you looking to powder coat your wheels or rims? What if you don’t have a powder coating job shop nearby?

Our comprehensive directory of the world’s best custom powder coaters helps consumers find the perfect powder coating for projects.

It’s called Powder Coating Near Me.

We started PowderCoatingNearMe.com because we realized Google doesn’t give you exactly what you need when searching for powder coating. 

There are lots of powder coaters that may populate in your area BUT not all will do rims or automotive parts. Some are industrial only. Some are line coaters. Some just do part manufacturing. They can’t help you but their results don’t tell you.

That’s why we created the largest directory of the best coaters on the planet.

..and they all have a story to tell.

Did you know you can powder coat vape pens? I didn’t until I met Ashton Palmer of Palmers Powders. He’s in our directory & he’s located in Idaho.

There’s also Victor Pate from Black Label Coatings in Tennessee who started his own line of powders just for car rim customizing.

You won’t know what you’re missing until you find out that the best coaters may not be near you at all.

Click HERE to use the directory today.

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”2022 blog wrap up” _builder_version=”4.14.7″ global_module=”18725″ saved_tabs=”all” global_colors_info=”{}”]

About us

RossKote is committed to sharing their experience in metal coatings, painting, and restoration so customers & powder coaters can navigate the process of powder coating and make the best choices for getting their projects done.

RossKote regularly contributes helpful videos on his blog and YouTube channel.

Join us.  As we build a powder coating community online to share our passion for performance finishes by subscribing to RossKote’s Powder Coater Podcast

Connect with us. Comment below. What would you like to know more about? I love to answer everyday questions to the consumer market wants to know about powder coating.   

MAUIPOWDERWORKS.COM
Copyright 2016-2022©
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Filed Under: All Posts, Media & Featured Projects, Rims Prep & Care Tagged With: Auto, coatings, custom coaters, how powder coating works, powder coat rims, powder coating, powder coating directory, powder coating near me, powder coating wheels near me, re powder coating, shortcuts, steps to powder coating, wheel refinishing near me

Knowing Your Worth: Pricing for Powder Coating

September 26, 2020 by pcnearme

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Apple | Google | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | Sign Up 

In this episode, we are going to tackle Pricing! Knowing what you’re Worth. My approach to this subject is both technical & practical. First, an interview with Terry Peterson, who has 40 years in the business of powder coating & now consults coaters like us. He’s seen it all.

 

 

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The 2nd part will be Ross, owner of Maui Powder Works who has a very no stress method to his estimating. Stick around to hear each way to determine the best way for you We’re dropping lots of nuggets of wisdom along the way.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default”][/et_pb_text][et_pb_social_media_follow follow_button=”on” admin_label=”Podcast Follow” _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0)” global_module=”18950″ saved_tabs=”all”][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”dbdb-itunes” url=”https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/powder-coater-podcast/id1521924245″ _builder_version=”4.5.0″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#ff5e51″ custom_button=”on” follow_button=”on” url_new_window=”on”]dbdb-itunes[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”dbdb-spotify” url=”https://open.spotify.com/show/7FgCAAeRaThYLQ038qtkf2″ _builder_version=”4.5.0″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#7bb342″ custom_button=”on” follow_button=”on” url_new_window=”on”]dbdb-spotify[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”dbdb-soundcloud” url=”https://soundcloud.com/ross-scott-228377209″ _builder_version=”4.5.0″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#fe3801″ follow_button=”on” url_new_window=”on”]dbdb-soundcloud[/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][/et_pb_social_media_follow][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text admin_label=”podcast sign up” _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default”]

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Part 1: Interview with Terry Peterson Consulting

RossKote(Kim): Welcome Back to the RossKote Powder Coater Podcast where we are building Community around powder coating. We interview influencers in the industry and cover trending topics to the industry. So powder coaters can effectively learn and grow their businesses. I am your host Kim Scott. This is episode 5 and today we are Tackling pricing getting what you’re worth. My approach to this subject is both Technical and practical First and interview with Terry Peterson who has 40 years in the business of powder coating and now consults coders just like us he has seen it all in the second part. We’ll talk to Ross owner of Maui powder works who has a very no stress method to estimating stick around to hear. What each of them has to offer and hopes of helping you determine the best way for you and your business now, let’s introduce our first guest Terry Peterson. Hi Terry. Thanks for being on the show today.

 

Terry Peterson: Hi Kim. It’s great to be here.

 

RossKote(Kim): This topic of pricing just doesn’t seem to go away. It seems like the most quality custom coders that I talked without. There are humble honest hard-working people. So if you’re good, shouldn’t you get paid what you’re worth?

 

Terry Peterson: Well, yeah, I mean in essence you you’re right Kim and there are different levels of coders that are out there. Some are very meticulous about what they do and some are just out there coating you’ve got hobbyists and you have people that are you know, really striving to create a lifelong business and provide for their family and make a name for themselves. And I think most powder coaters are pretty artsy in their backgrounds. I know I was when I started my business So the number of years ago and I always wanted to do the best for the customers. But yeah the pricing yeah it is. It is a question that keeps popping up you see it time and time again on the internet and I do have people ask me about it from time to time and that

 

RossKote(Kim): So why do you think coaters struggle with it? Is it just a confidence game?

 

Terry Peterson: Well, some of it I think is I think I think some coders I know certainly when I started out and I’ll solid reference a lot of what I did in the beginning. You know what we start out with those the biggest shop the best equipment and you’re trying to Garner, you know as much as you can for your product and once you kind of get past that that fallacy and you’re working more of what we were just talking about a few minutes ago about quality and building a Until then you start working down to the the the Grassroots of how you’re going to how you’re going to charge for your you know for your services and you know what? I think the basic menu for anybody is that you’ve got to figure out how much everything is costing you and that includes your energy cost. How much did you pay for your oven? How much did you pay for your other equipment? How much is your time worth? How much is the powder that’s going on to the items that you’re doing and how much time are you spending prepping it? And those are pretty much the basics, you know questions that you need to ask and just put it down on paper and sometimes you’ll surprise yourself. There’s two how much it’s actually costing you, you know, and you’re

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Terry Peterson: realizing well, I’m not charging up plus there’s always the good old method of how much are my competitors charging and then you kind of work your system.

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Terry Peterson: Backwards and say okay if they’re charging this can I get away with that or how can I make my process more efficient to make what I need to make on it so I can have a profit.

 

RossKote(Kim): I do want to go there and I think before we get going much further. I want to kind of go back up a little bit and kind of give us your background. How did you get started? And you know, how did you learn all this stuff?

 

Terry Peterson: Yeah, you know, how did I learn it all? That’s a funny question. I have people ask me this all the time. And I usually give my Consulting customers a brief history of where I’ve come from. So they feel comfortable with who they have coming into their shops. But anyway about 30 years ago. I was in the paint contracting business at a fairly large business going and I heard about this new powder coating process and this new way to coat metal items. Like most people are when they first start out doing something new. I just went out and found somebody had to used oven and had a hard time finding somebody with a powder gun, but I was lucky enough to come across somebody and I bought the equipment and the funny thing was that oven was put in and it was installed a couple days later. The gentleman that I purchased my gun from came in dropped it off with a small bag of clear and said, okay. Here you go. Goodbye, and I won’t wait a minute. Wait a minute. What am I doing with this thing? And so he kind of gave me a brief. Well, here’s what you do. You put the powder here, you shoot it. It sticks to things you throw it in the oven you’re done and I thought hey, this is great. So I started yeah, you’re right Kim.

 

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Be Our Next Guest

Do you have a topic to discuss? Product or service? We’re looking for you.  Help us build a community around powder coating.

Contact Us 
Info@Maui Powder Works.com

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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default”]RossKote(Kim): How easy is this?

 

Terry Peterson: How easy is this and a lot of those comments over the years from customers geez that looks so easy to do and as I started doing it, luckily, I just started doing things for myself to kind of play with it and I realized it. There’s a big learning curve to this thing and over the years again. Yes me how did I learn? I learned by the good old hard knocks. I graduated from the University of Hard Knocks with a PhD a few years ago. Believe me and that’s… that’s how I learned it just by making mistakes. There were many times that I was in the shop, two three days straight never went home. Just simply because I had to have products in – for customers and there weren’t turning out right until I learned and taught myself what I needed to do to make that product right because there product right because there was was nobody to go to and for a period of time I was doing work for people literally all over the country. literally all over the country. in Arizona had him from New York in Arizona had him from New York south east west north. I mean everywhere because nobody was

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Terry Peterson: doing it. So I had to learn I had to learn and it just and that’s kind of how I got my education and in Powder Coating and I’ve just tried to work the craft when I did have my shop over the years and get as good as you know with it as I possibly could so yeah, that’s kind of where where I started out where I came from this

 

RossKote(Kim): Well, that seems like I mean, it’s kind of interesting because you know, we had Thresh 99 out last week on that previous podcast. If you haven’t heard that one I recommend going back to that one.

 

Terry Peterson: Yes.

 

RossKote(Kim): It was an excellent interview because he kind of and I guess that’s kind of where we’re going with this podcast is we’re kind of filling in the blanks, you know filling in the back story to to how where we are today and I like this story that you just gave us your story because it really kind of adds to that another piece to that puzzle of you being sort of a second-generation powder coater and how you were able just because you were the only guy you were able to Garner all this business from around the country because there wasn’t anybody else they could they could come to and I think that that helps add a little little bit more to how we where we came from and where we’re going and I want to before we get much more into talking directly about prices pricing and and you know sort of the how competition plays a role I want to preface one of the top books for business out. There is a book called traction. I Know if anybody out there is an Avid Reader. I came across this book through a friend and you know, it’s called Traction. It’s by G. No Wickman and on page 47 may start to go into how people make mistakes and I started to laugh when I got to this page. Because the example that he is giving about the classic mistake that people make is about a couple of guys who got into powder coating and I’m I was laughing so hard because it’s like here’s the number one, you know, you would think it would be mistakes on you know, I don’t know a restaurant business or you know a retail business because there’s so many of them, right? but ironically the samp the example

 

Terry Peterson: right

 

RossKote(Kim): they give us an example it is about powder coating and you know, if you’re in the business, it’s kind of like I giggled when I read it because it’s like yeah, you have to know these people really didn’t know what they were doing. So, basically let me just set this quote up from the book traction by G. No Wickman and they’re talking about basically pitfalls. that could lead into making not thinking things through or like the grass is greener on this the other side or you know, the they’re calling it the surest way ways to lose your diamond mind and this couple guys that had a business they were getting bored with it, I guess and they I wanted to do a transaction of with this warehouse and they owned a realist. They were real estate guys. They were Real Estate Investors. Right? And so they came across this Warehouse that they wanted to partner with this other guy who came to them and he goes man. I got all these customers who want powder coating and everything. NG and the quote goes this particular bullet came in the form of a business proposal from a man who wanted this real estate company to buy an industrial building he owns so he could start an engine powder coating company. Well right there like engine powder coating coming like a what but anyways continuing on the deal was that he would lease the building from this real estate. Investor guys would use the proceeds of the sale to build the line and the facilities the man had customers already lined up sounds legit, right, you know, and he just needed to build the company and open its doors on Paper. It was a million-dollar idea excited by the prospect the co-owners decided to go one further and partner with this guy in the powder coating. It’s after investing a million dollars of their own money and a year and a half of their time. They eventually closed the business in the three months. It had been open. It had lost a total of three hundred thousand clearly. It was the worst business decision of

 

Terry Peterson: Yeah.

 

RossKote(Kim): their careers.

 

Terry Peterson: right

 

RossKote(Kim): There was however a serious silver lining six months later when someone stepped in and bought the company for almost as much as they had put in they’re Lucky on the other hand. They still lost a year and a half of

 

Terry Peterson: right

 

RossKote(Kim): time and focus on their Core Business, which was real estate. So I think it’s just a funny example

 

Terry Peterson: right

 

RossKote(Kim): of how things can go bad in a powder

 

Terry Peterson: right

 

RossKote(Kim): coating company and pricing is just obviously one of it and you and I talked earlier about the whole startup. You know how Americans just go into things. They don’t really think things through and we just kind of dive in that’s just our nature as you know, in our nation, you know, we just do it and you know, like your example of

 

Terry Peterson: exactly

 

RossKote(Kim): just learning the hard way, but I mean what do you advise and I’m going to preface this by saying like, you know, this is just your method, right? This is not you know.

 

Terry Peterson: Correct. Yeah.

 

RossKote(Kim): Tell people exactly what you’re going to know, you know, you have Consulting and so we don’t want to talk too deeply about it. But you know, what are some of the things that people should be considering about pricing you touched on a little earlier, but maybe we can go a little deeper now. What are those? What are those things that we have to think about fixed and variable costs stuff like that.

 

Terry Peterson: Exactly, just like you said, I mean you really have to sit down and honestly look at what you’re costing is going to be and that includes as we were talking about before your energy costs your consumable costs your cost of your equipment your overhead your energy if you have any labor if you’re taking any money out of the business or planning on and that’s something that you really is kind of a No-No in the beginning. because your your truck while it all

 

RossKote(Kim): pray

 

Terry Peterson: back in just to just to keep the operation going, you know it there’s a it’s all pretty tried and true. But then with the powder coating business you also have to be aware of and I think this is probably what happened to those gentlemen that we’re trying to do the engine coding business. You have to be involved with the brass tacks of your business yet be inquisitive. You have to learn you have to and what it takes to produce that product and not just okay. I’ve got customers, they’re going to send me work and we’re just going to buy the equipment to do it. There’s so much more to it as we were saying earlier with learning the ins and outs, you know it just again, it’s pretty basic but it’s something that a lot of a lot of folks don’t look at when they are starting a business. What’s this darn thing going to cost? And I mean you need to look as we were saying before it and everything because there’s something that’ll just wheel you away. Let’s take for instance reduce and

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, yeah.

 

Terry Peterson: rejections. Do you figure out how much time it’s taking you to do that you go. Okay. I’m making $100 on this project. I’ve got all my cost covered. But what happens if this project fails and we know this happens particularly with totter coating because you’re dealing with Heat Source you’re dealing with with Metals. You’re dealing with contaminants and cleaning. So this is a factor that a lot of a lot of folks don’t build into their costing which I think is really really important. You know, I’ve seen businesses that I’ve worked with that they’ll just they’ll go. Well, I’m not sure rejection. How many parts you rejector for? What’s the problem with your rejections? I go. I don’t know. a day 20 days or We’re you know x amount it may be ten G data go don’t you ever look at what that’s costing, you know, we don’t we’re not really concerned about that. But yet on the other hand when you sit down and you evaluate their business with them, they’re going out but we’re not make as much money as we should be making how can we do that? Let’s go. Let’s go back and take a look at you know, how we can avoid these rejection. So again, you know, that’s a technical aspect of the business, but it’s still a major cost factor that you have.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, and before we met you Terry, I had consulted a local guy here in Maui to kind of help Ross. This was in the early days of where

 

Terry Peterson: Uh-huh.

 

RossKote(Kim): we were starting to get projects come a bigger projects coming in and stuff and I kind of was getting after him

 

Terry Peterson: right

 

RossKote(Kim): And I kind of was getting after him about underbidding jobs and stuff because I don’t think he was During reduce. I mean the whole point is it is a confidence game in two ways. I mean it’s charging enough, but then Right? also knowing hey, I don’t want to redo this. How am I going to do it, right, you know the first time and you know, one

 

Terry Peterson: Right, right. right

 

RossKote(Kim): of the things that he gave us tip, I

 

Terry Peterson: yeah

 

RossKote(Kim): guess that he gave us is that you know, if if you can if Ross considered the job to be easy, Then you know obviously he wouldn’t have his spidey sense wouldn’t be jumping out of them and he could just charge, you know, like if he’s looking at a project he’s never done before, you know, any wasn’t thinking it was going to be hard to just give him that project. But if he had any doubt or intuition came to him about this project to add 10 to 15 percent On top of the first number that came to him, right? So, you know if you it is and I think

 

Terry Peterson: That’s nice.

 

RossKote(Kim): Ross finally, you know, well, he has his own method to this day. But for those of the people, you know, for those of you out there, you know, you’ve got that first price that just jumps in your head when you’re looking at a project and then Always I don’t want to doubt yourself. But like, you know, if you’re not sure add 10 to 15% and it’s easy to do that in your heads. You know, like if it’s 500 add 50 bucks make it five fifty you know,

 

Terry Peterson: right

 

RossKote(Kim): and that’s just a simple simple little nugget I guess out there to do. Of course, I think some of the other You know technical stuff is to get it on paper. Like what you’re saying is really you got to get it on paper which means you have to have some way to track whether you’re using QuickBooks or some other method of accounting. And for those of you that do, you know start looking at your profit and loss statement, your balance sheet, your cash flow. How do you help your customers? You know that level where you can actually dive into the numbers. I mean what sort of things line items do you look at on those reports?

 

Terry Peterson: Well, I mean again, I’m not an accountant and and I you know, just to kind of preface this I don’t I don’t even pretend to be an accountant by any means numbers are not my bailiwick. But you know if customers come to me and they ask me about some of these things. I mean, we’ll delve into their getting back to we talked about their basic costs and looking at him have you put down on paper? You know, what your actual what you think you’re actually Costs are it’s so important, you know to get back to the Grassroots and it’s great to have an account. It’s great to have accounting programs. But in starting you really need to have that in black and white in front of you and keep Callie that on a daily basis. So those are the things that you know, the questions. You know, how do you know where your You know, how do you know where your What is your powder costing you? What is your powder costing you? Do? product? How long is it taking you those type of things and if they

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Terry Peterson: those then I’ll go maybe really need to start looking at some of those areas a lot closer and so many people start in the business and I’m going to take this into two forms one just not even considering those things. We were just talking about and others they’ll jump into a goal to seek an accountant or accounting programs and they’ll have spreadsheets and I have all this, you know information that they can Garner. But they don’t know how to put it there to make sense of it. So there’s again you have to understand your business. You have to understand where your costs are coming from and that’s pretty again. I’m repeating myself. That’s pretty basic nuts and bolts you’ve downloaded your costs are and believe me. Everybody does when they sit down and look at it. They know that it costs because they pay the bills every month.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, and I you know when I first

 

Terry Peterson: So

 

RossKote(Kim): started looking at those, you know scary things that started popping out of my Quickbooks those reports, you know, I couldn’t make sense of them and I actually even done a business class on him and you know, one of the things that my bookkeeper pointed out to me was like look at your cost of goods. It’s and you know, because that’s just generally everything right and if your cost of goods exceeds, I think it’s like, you know, you don’t want that number to be that percent to be over 50% In fact the lower that number the lower that number the

 

Terry Peterson: Oh, yeah.

 

RossKote(Kim): better because that leads you know, two more. Profitability in a sense. That’s how you would read a you know, you can compare that to your profit now, there’s a formula for that but QuickBooks I know has a percentage thing. You can click in there and it’ll give you that percent right off. It calculates it for you. So ideally you want your costs you want that percentage below 25% and that includes your employee cost expenses, which is extremely Hard to do and you understand why these industrial coders are just so into the numbers and so technical all the time because that’s how they know. They’re you know businesses doing Wells looking at the numbers and stuff and that kind of leads back into what you were saying is to look at these look at your costs because that’s where you start where you can start finding that trail to profitability. bility and making you know

 

Terry Peterson: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah exactly Kim, you know and if there’s any if there’s any hard advice I could give somebody starting out and I know that’s pretty much you know, the audience were trying to approach today and that is as hard as you work on your powder coating and as hard as you work on your techniques work on your accounting work on making sure that you’re you’re watching your expenses that goes hand-in-hand on a daily basis. And you will learn it as you mentioned earlier, you know Ross has got a pretty good way of estimating things and everybody gets to that point. If they pay attention to the numbers you will get to that point and it’ll just become second hand and taking a look at an object and taking a look at a problem and going yeah. This is what it’s going to cost even if you have to counsel and that’s something else you learned over the years is how to counsel your customers to kind of Get them aware of potential issues that could arise with a product. They’ve given you so you learn these things over the years, but unless you really pay attention to it. And again both the powder coating aspect of and your technical aspect. You’ve got to pay attention to the cost and that time factor that you’re putting into it because that’s where your money is going.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, and most of these powder coaters today are bootstrapping their scaling which means they’re not really buying equipment until they need it. I know that’s how we did it as we didn’t buy the whole enchilada powder X thing like a lot of them do and then get into it from there. I don’t think that would have worked

 

Terry Peterson: right

 

RossKote(Kim): for us to be honest with you because we really didn’t even know. The time how much customers were out there for us to even get because you know, we were so excluded here. But you know, it’s you know there’s more like I said, there’s more dissemination or just more information out there for customers to get interested in this finish for their everyday products.

Terry Peterson: right[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default”]RossKote(Kim): And I think that that’s helping gain helping powder coaters. Get started faster and stuff, but I think this has been great, you know trying to figure this out and and wait in the weeds a little bit. Let’s talk about now… competition because I think that also plays a huge role in another way, another facet to actually look at Added from my wheelhouse, which is your brand right? You’re marketing your so I’m kind of

 

Terry Peterson:yes

 

RossKote(Kim): comfortable Zone here. Now with what we’re talking about because when you are faced with competition, direct competition or indirect, you know, knowing that other side can actually help you in your business and how it relates to a brand. Because when you know the industry from that perspective you understand now where you fit in the market and that’s what’s so powerful with understanding, you know, a lot of guys just don’t care or and that’s fine. You don’t have to care because you got your own thing going on and you know, you’re doing just rims or you’re just doing brake calipers or Or whatever you don’t care about

 

Terry Peterson: Hello.

 

RossKote(Kim): these other jobs, but for those that want to scale larger and faster doing these industrial jobs actually can get you there. But knowing what the competition is, you know charging helps you get that fit because maybe you’ll find something. So let’s talk about how do you find how does competition play a role a competition pricing play a role? in your pricing

 

Terry Peterson: Well, I mean, it does play a role because I mean if you’re doing a certain item of widget and your competition is bidding on that same widget you you do need to have some semblance of an idea of where where they’re going with their cost and you can’t be two hundred dollars apart when they’re $10 part, you know, just because you say well I’m worth this. Well, you might be worth it. But is it worth doing the job for you? So Our competition is something that it is good. And it’s bad. I always viewed it as an advantage to me because people are always looking for coaters, especially nowadays. I’m finding this more and more with customers I deal with and it’s always good to know and keep in touch with those customers, even though they’re not your customers keep in touch with them because things do arise from time to time. It gives you insight as to what cost Things Are. Our gives you insight as to what your competition is doing for them. And is there an inroad for you to jump in and grab some business from these folks? So, you know, it’s a cost thing. It’s understanding where your at and where your competition is that type of thing. But yes, definitely you need to have an idea of where your competition is at charging whether again it be rims and I’ve seen all kinds of crazy prices all over the place on those two to win. You know to Industrial think so.

 

RossKote(Kim): So would you would you recommend like

 

Terry Peterson: Yes.

 

RossKote(Kim): calling your competition to to ask are pretending you’re I mean, I don’t

 

Terry Peterson: Well, it’s

 

RossKote(Kim): know. How would you do that like or would you call the customer and say hey and

 

Terry Peterson: yeah, no, somebody catch me.

 

RossKote(Kim): I yeah, I mean that’s gets a little

 

Terry Peterson: Yeah, a lot of times you you can call

 

RossKote(Kim): tricky, right?

 

Terry Peterson: call. Yeah, I mean calling is they’re not they’re not about to give you the time of day, but I would just suggest setting up an appointment. Just take some time during the week. And I know everybody’s busy but if you want to expand your business and and make it grow, you have to develop a customer base. You can’t just do a certain item because that certain item is going to dry up. So you have to develop a pipeline of a customer base per se just even if you take a day every two weeks and set up appointments with people say I’d like to come in and talk to you about my services. You start learning a lot and you start developing relationships with these customers and it may take a couple of times. But you start learning where your competition is at through those discussions with the sit down face-to-face as I’ve always been a face-to-face person with folks. I’d much rather deal with them that way because you know where they’re coming from they know where you’re coming from. So if you’ve got that wherewithal in your personality to do it, I highly suggest that’s how you Uncover the information that’s out there Suite is the best way to do it.

 

RossKote(Kim): So kind of more like a long game perspective.

 

Terry Peterson: Yeah, really? It is a long game.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Terry Peterson: Yeah there unless somebody is you know, you hear through the pipeline that hey XYZ manufacturing really having a hard time with you know, their powder coater. You may want to go see him and that

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Terry Peterson: Those are terrific situations, but you need to develop that customer relationship part of your business also and you learn a lot and it does take it. Of time believe me in the first month year year-and-a-half. You’re not going to develop all of that overnight it takes time. But if you’re in the business long-term to establish a long-term business, that’s what you have to do it to develop your base line of customers.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, I think that’s I mean just to even be ready. So if that does happen, you know, you have something you know that you can present or have some assemblance of getting ready to prefer something like that to happen in your life right now and just always trudging

 

Terry Peterson: exactly

 

RossKote(Kim): forward with your marketing plan or your you know, and how that plays into revenues, you know, but go ahead

 

Terry Peterson: Right, right, and I dunno I want to

 

RossKote(Kim): what were you going to say about that?

 

Terry Peterson: in the fact that I mean nowadays social media plays such a big part in helping businesses develop, but it still comes down to that personal relationship and you’re going to find that especially when you get into the industrial markets and Commercial markets in wanting to delve into that it may get you some awareness, but that personal contact is really ultimately what is going to develop A strong customer base and a good reliable customer base to work with over the years.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, you know it’s true and that’s exactly what we’ve been sort of lately up against you know, is that industrial job the ones that bring you the big bucks are much harder to get we can you know, and that the problem isn’t that they’re not out there. I think they are out there the

 

Terry Peterson: Oh, yes, they are.

 

RossKote(Kim): problem. Yeah, the problem has been for us. Is getting in front of these people because they are so busy. They don’t unless you’re doing a lunch and learn kind of presentation kind of thing and their professional so they’ve got their own way, you know, if we’re taught in an I’m talking like contractors Architects, these are some of the targets that we have here that I’ve been trying to get in front. Of either that or you’re spending a bazillion dollars in front of at it some, you know Builder conference or something like that, you know, there’s that approach to that. We’ve tried to put you need a paying a lot of like membership fees and in you’re still an outsider, right? You know, so, you know, that’s how

 

Terry Peterson: right

 

RossKote(Kim): here, you know here been here for us, but you know, it might be a little different on the mainland. I don’t know just because it’s so much bigger. I can’t imagine but You know, it’s kind of well up until covid that’s been our kind of where we’ve been going is just trying to get in front of these people and doing these presentations and getting and still they still need education because they’ve got their own thing that they learned in college or their own method or way of doing things in their business and they haven’t really thought outside of that. So it’s not just getting in front of them. It’s now convincing them how wonderful Coatings are Powder Coatings are you know, but I

 

Terry Peterson: exactly

 

RossKote(Kim): think having that’s how the brand kind of is for me. That’s how the brand kind of has started is just trying to get in front of these people to talk to them about it. And I think once they hear about it, they’re like wait what, you know, other than that, it’s been like a mistake that’s happened and now they’re under a deadline and they’ve reached out to us and you know, we’re now able to help solve their problem and that’s usually been the two ways that we’ve gotten these larger because they’ve heard it from someone else that we did this job and whatever rotation

 

Terry Peterson: Mhm

 

RossKote(Kim): it’s tough. But I think I think we’re right. I mean like there’s I think we’ve presented a few different ways that you know, we’ve even called a competition, you know, and ask them how much they’re charging, you know, and then trying to assess they’re where they’re coming from, you know, or what why do customers go to them? It has been kind of like, you know, helping us figure out where our placement is in the market which has also helped us with our pricing.

 

Terry Peterson: Right, right. Yeah, it is a total awareness the

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Terry Peterson: total awareness and I we started off talking about pricing but it all comes back to this, you know, and without proper pricing you don’t make any money, but all these factors are involved in a total awareness of your business and of the community that you’re going after to Garner work. Yeah, it’s not, it’s not just buying an oven buying a gun and saying okay. I’m in business. Going to start coding things. There’s so much more to it and nowadays. It’s maybe a little more difficult because there are so many places popping up but being aware of developing good customer service understanding where your basic costs are at and then working your craft and working and working and working and I’m going to say this above all be as honest as you possibly can to your customers. Be honest, look at educate them. Let them know what you’re doing and let them know why you’re doing because that develops such a relationship that just goes miles. All you have to do is make one goof up or FIB to a customer and have it get out and enjoy all your hard work goes right down. The drain saw honesty is still the best policy.

 

RossKote(Kim): yeah, and I think a lot of I mean at least a lot of the quality custom coders that I talk to you out there generally our humble honest hard-working people, you know, but at

 

Terry Peterson: Mhm.

 

RossKote(Kim): the same time that same kind of personality trait makes them to a fault sometimes they enter charge and and stuff and so I hope that you know, this is a great way to kind of wrap up our talk because It kind of leads back to that, you know how to get paid what you’re worth and you know for some of us, I think what you said to own awareness having an awareness about it. Okay, it’s sometimes not easy to work math and numbers in your business. A lot of people shy away from it. Some people are just naturally good at it. But either way it’s just becoming aware of it and trying to hopefully use some The things that we’ve talked about today to implement in your business to utilize so that you can at least address, you know your pricing so it’s not necessarily adding one in one, you know equals to all the time. It’s just kind of having that hard conversation with yourself, you know, or your wife who’s complaining or your girlfriend or whatever. ever right

 

Terry Peterson: A good way to put it.

 

RossKote(Kim): Right because I’m usually the one going you didn’t charge an S. You didn’t charge enough, you know, whatever and stuff and so it’s a great way to kind of wrap up is just to have that awareness and have that conversation with yourself. Try to put some numbers together, reach out to Terry if you can’t find a little plug for you Terry, I don’t know if you need another plug but you’re so busy already, but you know, there are Consultants out there. They’re so if you do, you know reach out to a bookkeeper and throw them a couple hundred bucks to help you get an accountant, you know, some of these things do help but it is up to you to do it. So would you agree Terry?

 

Terry Peterson: Oh, I know I fully agree. I mean and and and again numbers don’t lie and it is difficult for a lot of folks. I mean it was difficult for me in the beginning both of my commercial painting business and also especially when I started the powder coating business, but you just have to force yourself to look at that evil. Notebook that is sitting there on your desk. It has all that information in it because it’s so important. It’s so important.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, and I think that that’s four for me to just do one final thought. I’m not naturally that way either with numbers, but I forced myself to sit down and start to look at them. And you know what the thing is once I got into it. I really got into it because the numbers tell a story right? That’s what they do.

 

Terry Peterson: They sure do.

 

RossKote(Kim): And it’s, it’s all of it. It’s the competition and knowing where Places in the market and then it’s all these numbers and then trying to tease out that story behind it and how to go about doing that, you know and everyone, you know, it’s all basically the same but I hope to have a deeper conversation maybe later about that maybe get an expert in here on on that. You know, what kind of numbers do you look at and stuff like that, but I think for the most part from a basic point of view You know, you kind of know what they are. You know, it’s you’ve simply brought them to this conversation today about powders and you know your fixed costs and some of the stuff, you know versus pricing and you know, it’s all been captured here today and stuff.

 

Terry Peterson:

 

RossKote(Kim): So, you know, how do you want to throw out how people can get a hold of you if they have any questions?

 

Terry Peterson: Yeah, I mean if they do they can contact me through my email at mailto:tepowder@msn.com  or my phone number is eight one five. Five, four five seven seven zero nine.

 

RossKote(Kim): That’s awesome.

 

Terry Peterson:Mhm

 

RossKote(Kim): Now Terry. You’re awesome. Thank you. I mean you certainly helped us think a lot of things through while we’ve been scaling as fast as we have and I certainly appreciate you on the show today because I think we’ve definitely given people some food for thought and you know, I hope to have you back again sometime soon type may be talking about some other stuff.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”guest promo” _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#d6d6d6″ custom_margin=”||||false|false” custom_padding=”|14px||14px|false|false” box_shadow_style=”preset1″ box_shadow_color=”#000000″ global_module=”19814″ saved_tabs=”all”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”|||0px|false|false”][et_pb_text admin_label=”be our guest” _builder_version=”4.6.5″]

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Part 2: Interview with Ross Scott

Read my coater story

RossKote(Kim): Okay. All right. So now we’re going into the second half of the interview or part two of pricing and getting what you’re worth or what is your worth? I’ve for this part of this section. We’ve decided to invite Ross, owner of Maui Powder Works to the show Ross…How are you doing today?

 

Ross Scott: I am doing good. Welcome.

 

RossKote(Kim): How’s that dining room table? Is it working for you?

 

Ross Scott: It’s Square.

 

RossKote(Kim): Okay. Well, why don’t you just get right into it? I mean tell us your journey about how That you took to get to where you are today with pricing and the confidence that you have to charge what you do?

 

Ross Scott: Well, obviously I come from Multiple business backgrounds. We had our painting business before that and that was a great mechanism for Price Discovery because we were doing all these jobs with the hotels. I ran a sailboat company before that with employees and taking tourists out on rides and we had a lot of maintenance involved with that. Vessel and you know we learned a lot about the cost of doing maintenance and when I was actually very young. I had a paper route. So, you know, I’ve kind of been in the entrepreneur State my whole life, but as far as price Discovery goes and for Powder Coating it was a little more. Kind of like oh my goodness. What am I gonna charge? And how do I go about charging this and the best way I can say it doing this is Is basically look at the job. Figure how much time it’s going to take? And how much supplies you’re going to burn doing that job. Once you understand just that basic least common denominator part, then you can start figuring out your price structuring. It just didn’t happen overnight. I did call around and figure out what other people are charging and I was like going how come this is so expensive and how come this is so cheap. I couldn’t quite put it all together and you know, obviously over the time I went. Oh, that’s why that’s expensive and that’s just too cheap that guy doesn’t know what he’s doing, you know?

 

RossKote(Kim): right, and I think they’re you know,

 

Ross Scott: Okay, so

 

RossKote(Kim): there is some homework that the powder coders that are getting started in the industry have to do I mean, it’s just part of the process of if you want to get into this business. That’s just one of the things you do the more pieces of the puzzle. You can put them together. I think Terry and I went over this briefly the more the more you can get confident about the Perspective or the enter entrance to Market is for your specific business, you know, and I think we have a good example of that right here in Maui where we have a powder coder near us that specializes in hotel furniture, and he doesn’t necessarily. Want all the crazy stuff that comes into our shop every day. I mean, he doesn’t want that variation or that variable or that, you know, he’s just locked into what he does this works for him and he’s okay with that he wants to get into that at all. I mean it really helped us determine that

 

Ross Scott: but yeah, basically like you said they do Levi Furniture and that’s their business model. and they are really good at it. And you know, I do an occasional Lanai set here and there but I hate doing it because it takes a lot of time and here comes when I’m talking about. You have to figure out how long it takes for you to do your job. And you know if you start doing the numbers you go… Holy crap. I’m not making any money doing this, you know it that it’s that simple. So I stay away from things that are too laborious and take too much time to do and I try to stay on things that are Keep Me In the Zone of making money, so Like rims, I’ve got that down. I’ve got those things down and I I

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: can basically do a set of four rims and four hours. And you know we charge basically $500. so if you break that down, that’s $125 an hour, so

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: that’s that’s okay. That’s not my actual. Target rate I’d rather be at about 150 an hour.

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: I feel for the amount of Stuff we have in the shop that we’re providing. We’re like a high-end welder basically and you know this because of the cost of things that we have like the media. The stripper and being that we’re here in Hawaii and to get these things here is so expensive that I should be at least charging 150 an hour. And so you basically can look at it

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: that way that’s one way to look at it. Say how long is it gonna take me to do this job? So, you know here I go off the model of rims. You got four rims? It’s gonna take you know, four hours a time. You can break that time down you got an hour to strip and you have the amount of stripper you’re using now, of course, if you have it like in a containerized vessel and you’re reusing it, you have a time decay of of that so you can keep reusing it, but eventually you have to re-ad to it and add more so, you know, that’s a hard cost to figure out what that is, but you know you haven’t but let’s just look at it at time wise an hour to strip and then you have basically let’s just say two hours to sandblast and then rinse and then tape And then from there you got about an hour to code them. So there you have it for four hours. 

 

RossKote(Kim): Right, so you should start with how much you want to start making per day or per hour is what you’re saying.

 

Ross Scott: well, yeah, you got to have them at almost two outlets. And one Outlook is the hourly and or the job just look at the job. What am I doing? And you know a good thing to go look if you’re new to business and you’re new to powder coating. I highly recommend checking out that show American Restoration on TV that guy is named Dale. He it’s amazing how he basically you’ll just take me through this long to do it gonna have paint and this sandblast is this and yeah, so your price is $7,000, you know, he’ll say something like that and you just go. Wow, he just rattled that right off his head and it’s pretty amazing how he does that but he’s been doing it for so long he can do that. I’ve gotten why I can route it off

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: pretty much quickly in my head also, but I have to put pay pen and paper to it because there’s hidden costs and you have to be very careful because that’s what can get you in the end.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, and so sometimes it’s sort of a little bit of a confidence game and a math game. It’s about how good you are about adding numbers in your head but no one no Powder should feel. Like I guess my thing is I know when you have a customer staring at you in the face and they’re wanting you to give them a price right then and there no one should feel. Like they should have to do that at all and if they do feel compelled to do so. no, either already know that going in you’re gonna feel that downward pressure of like they want you to charge less or they’re you know, but charge take the other I challenge all these coders out there to actually charge more and see what happens. That’s the challenge because until you say well, yeah, I want this much for this week, you know, don’t even give them a reason just say I’m gonna do this job for this much and see what your customer says. I mean, yeah, it’s possible that they may say that it’s too much and they’re gonna go somewhere else than fine. Go go do that, but you don’t have to constantly push the roof up, you know, especially when you’re learning and trying out new things and you know, when you’ve nailed a good finish, you know, you can do it again, so I don’t know. What do you think of that advice?

 

Ross Scott: I think it’s great the best advice I have ever been given in my life was given by an old friend of mine and he basically said that when you’re charging and you give the price to the client, he should Grumble a little bit. He should basically go over that’s kind of kind of I don’t know. Okay, but you know what? I’m gonna do it that when when that happens, you know, you’re charging perfect you when you’re when you’re

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: not charging enough you go. Okay, it’s gonna be this much for the job and they go sure no problem and you’re like damn I should, you know like to charge more because you want you want them to kind of go just a

 

RossKote(Kim): Them to think yeah.

 

Ross Scott: little bit of hesitation on their And and if they’re not hesitating you’re not charging enough and that’s a good good bear, you know barometric

 

RossKote(Kim): Good point, very good point. Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: pressure model there.

 

RossKote(Kim): Right exactly.

 

Ross Scott: but I did have you know what, you know, I’m going over the hourly, you know, but I don’t look at that pretty much anymore that when I first started that’s how I I looked at it and I was like, okay, this is what I need to charge, you know, and to get the pricing but then after doing this for so many years I realized this oven makes this much in our this oven makes that much an hour and that other oven makes that much an hour and I’ve learned that by looking at

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: How I run my shop I can charge more or less for it. And when I get a big call for a big job. I immediately go. Okay. Well this job can be done in this oven. And I know this oven can run at this rate. And this is what I’m charging how and then what I do instead of figuring out I go well how many batches is gonna take to do this job and then

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: And then and then from there I come up with my price.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: Of course, I add in the powder the time of taping racking too. You got a you know, some of these

 

RossKote(Kim): especially on yeah

 

Ross Scott: jobs. Oh my God, you could spend three hours just racking up. just one run in the oven and you

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: know, so you have to take that an account you you do because there you

 

RossKote(Kim): You do.

 

Ross Scott: know, it will bite you in the end if you know.

 

RossKote(Kim): So what we’re talking about is batch pricing, which I’m not sure how many

 

Ross Scott: yeah, that’s

 

RossKote(Kim): people do that. Now I think we use it in two different ways. We use it like how you just described in how you get your like… If you’ve got a big call and you’ve got to throw out an estimate to a client. It’s sometimes easier to break things down by the part or by, you know, instead of linear inches or feet or whatever. I I never we never really have prescribed to too much to the linear feed and I know they do it in the industrial thing and that’s different those people have all kinds of math equations and spreadsheets and and formulas for that stuff, but it’s hard for the batch coder or the custom coder to do it. That way. We just don’t have the

 

Ross Scott: Yeah, yeah, if you basically take all your pricing and of the batch for the oven and how many times you’re gonna do it how much powder you’re gonna use and so forth with supplies and you basically take that number and you divide it literally by how many linear feet you’re doing or whatever and you can come up with the linear foot price that way too and we’ve we have found that we’ve actually come under National standards for linear pricing. I’ve learned wow and it’s like you said, there you go. Well, maybe we should add more into here or or and you know, I look at you know, that’s right. That’s a real estimate. We gave them and I stick to it and and it always works out it always

 

RossKote(Kim): It does.

 

Ross Scott: works out. Now there’s also you know another. Segment to this as far as what you should charge, you know, and this is a more of a macro View and because we’ve been talking more of a micro view breaking everything down. And this is very important because a lot of people don’t look at this and every business needs to have a goal which they need to achieve and you know, you might say Hey, you know, I want to make you know, $200,000 this year. Well, how much money do you have to do in a day?

 

RossKote(Kim): Oh, yeah. it’s just right. alright And we blew through that one. Now Yeah, we got covid-19 right now exactly. But I think you’re right. I mean you got whatever it is you got to make enough so that you can cover your business expenses and then still put food on the table and pay your mortgage and your rent or whatever. You know what I mean? I mean that’s I think that we’ve covered that pretty well between you and Terry. And stuff, but I want to divert just a little bit off of this. Oh just I mean just another perspective. I guess it’s not really a diversion. But you know because there’s There are customer expectations and then there are deliverables. Right and sometimes you and I get into it. Yes, we’re a husband and wife team and we argue all the time about practically everything. and

 

Ross Scott: healthy arguing

 

RossKote(Kim): Well, we’d like to say that we can get kind of rowdy at times but you know because and and here’s here’s where I’m getting that because this is what you know, you are such a perfectionist and as many of the coders that listen to this show are And it’s just you can’t help it. It’s your nature. You don’t want something to go out unless it’s absolutely 100% spotless. Perfect. No flaws, whatever and then there’s the kind of pricing that and then there’s the price that the customers are willing to pay like the top dollar right? And this is another thing that I’m not sure how many people out there are doing, but you’ve got to understand that there’s only so much your audience or your customer or your target group is going to pay. based on your geographical location your brand and your product and

 

Ross Scott: Right, right.

 

RossKote(Kim): and you know, sometimes you go above and beyond with this and it gets me kind of riled because there’s only there’s still only going to pay this price and I know you do it just because that’s who you are. And of course that’s helped us in ways that you know. Reputation wise has preceded our company, but there is you know, you got to keep in mind that. You know without making yourself so crazy with the Perfection side. You still got to think back? Okay is my customer going to be okay, if there’s one little dimple in there or one little bump or you know, and that’s that’s where I think the subtlety of understanding that and being okay with what you’re delivering or what you’re pushing out the door really really comes to it. So are you gonna be that super neurotic if you you know powder coder where it has to be 100% perfect because if you are you should be charging top dollar top dollar if you

 

Ross Scott: Yes, definitely.

 

RossKote(Kim): if your crossovers like us where we do so many different kinds of jobs and we’re just scaling big little small old new whatever and in between, you know, we need to price a to be kind of come becom. Until timing things because there’s only so much time we can spend on rims and it’s not out of the spectrum of all the products we do or jobs we do. I’d rather take a bigger gate job railing job because we make so much more on that and it’s so much easier to do than a restoration job or something like that. So Do you want to add any I mean, did I kind of cover that pretty well, or I’d like you to add into that if you can.

 

Ross Scott: Well, I think you said that correctly, you know, obviously I think it’s new Fabrications coming in your shop. It is so much easier to deal with you know, so it’s quicker. It’s faster. You’re gonna get it done when you’re dealing with restoration. You’re tearing something back. I mean taking stripping and Sandblasting and You know, you’re spending way more time and there’s only so much somebody will pay. For their restoration and a lot of times I tell people you know what I can do for you. It’s gonna cost you this much and they go. Whoa and I go yeah, it’s a lot of time. So maybe you should throw instead of throwing good money after bad just buy new, you know, and you know, you

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: just have to kind of send them on your way and you know in all honesty. It’s the right thing to do because you’re you’re allowing your schedule to be more open to the better paying jobs, but you know, these These are

 

RossKote(Kim): Right exactly.

 

Ross Scott: But you know, these These are different times now, so, you know,

 

RossKote(Kim): true

 

Ross Scott: you know, you know, like I’ll take a job. I won’t necessarily want to do it and I might negotiate a little bit on it just because I know we got to keep the numbers up. So, you know, those are things you

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: have to keep in mind too and you know, you don’t want to be out of business you want to be in business and you know, you got to answer your phones. It and that’s the most important

 

RossKote(Kim): That’s the main thing.

 

Ross Scott: you know, and and and then you have

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah it is.

 

Ross Scott:

 

RossKote(Kim): right and you know for those that are

 

Ross Scott: I know that

 

RossKote(Kim): sort of on the shy side or kind of procrastinate getting a job getting estimates out. My advice there is to not really get yourself out of that ditch and do it, don’t procrastinate getting job quotes out, do it as fast as you possibly can and challenge yourself to do that first before you even start powder coating for the day. I mean just do it because I’m telling you a lot of times. It’s the first estimate that they get that they go for because it’s the first one out that they get and a lot of the time these jobs need to get they’re just trying to get it out or done or they don’t want to you know, sometimes they’re waiting for three bids. Sometimes they just can go with the one I don’t know but Like get do that first do not procrastinate getting estimates out. That’s number one advice. I think the other thing too like you touched on with the restoration too is, you know, a lot of this stuff people inherit or they want to restore it or it’s an antique that their mother left them or you know, whatever and they get it for free yet. They want to restore it, but they won’t pay To for the restoration because they got it for free. Right like their mindset is so off kilter, right? I mean I had that happen to me and

 

Ross Scott: It’s yeah.

 

RossKote(Kim): the refinishing business with the furniture and she’s like I got this for free from my great aunt. Why would I want to pay all this money for you to restore it? Okay, definitely. Not your customer right? Get out the door, go away, you know.

 

Ross Scott: And that’s a very important thing. You just hit know your customer. Who is your customer? Who do you want it to be your customer you because that’s very

 

RossKote(Kim): now

 

Ross Scott: important. We know who our customer is and we basically say, okay. This is our customer. We are going to attract that customer here and that’s who we want, you know, so if you start bringing in those customers that you don’t want, you know, oh God and then it’s like it just like an eternal Loop. They’ll tell their friends and then you’re like no no. No, I don’t want to be doing this.

 

RossKote(Kim): Right. You don’t want to be that guy.

 

Ross Scott: I don’t like

 

RossKote(Kim): You know.

 

Ross Scott: I don’t I don’t I don’t do Iron Furniture. No, no. No, we don’t do that here.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, yeah. Yeah, don’t don’t be that guy because you do and it’s just this endless cycle, but I think that that’s I think that’s really where we should end because that’s the confidence right? That’s the confidence that you have when you are doing pricing, you know,

 

Ross Scott: Yeah.

 

RossKote(Kim): so we’ve touched on the math part, but we’ve also touched on the confidence part.

 

Ross Scott: Well, yeah, it’s confidence, but you gotta look at it hourly daily monthly yearly and Once you figure those projections out what you want to do, you know, then you can break it down to a daily cost, you know and go. Okay.

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: This is what I need. We’re not a cost but a you know a goal, so you’re like, you know, I

 

RossKote(Kim): goal sales goal

 

Ross Scott: So you’re like, you know, I need to make this much of a day in order to make this much in a month in order to make this much of a year. And you know, it’s really important. I I learned that from my father my father taught me that and and you know, it’s like it was also awesome advice. I mean I used to go into his office as a young teenager and look at these charts and just go wow and you know, I was always I was just impressed by that and we have took in that and do that in our office and that’s what we do and it’s an incentivizer because you you see the numbers on the wall and you go. Okay, we got to do more, you know to make this happen, you know, and if you don’t see that When you don’t you’re not aware of it. And you know, and that’s all part of. Pricing you, you know, and it’s like

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: well, you know, you know if I just charged You know $10 more. What does that do to the end game? Oh boy, you’d be surprised what it

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: does. You know, I I run into this all the

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: time, you know, people charge me. Yeah, I’m charging $90 an hour to sandblast I go you’re what I go. How much does it cost to fill up your pot?

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: You know and then they go they don’t think of those things and I’m just like I’m like whoa, you know and that

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: comes, you know, to buying equipment. How much does it cost to run that piece of equipment, you know, you know when we were looking at that dustless Blaster, you know, I asked her I did the math on it. I was like, this is insane no way and

 

RossKote(Kim): apology is to anybody that owns one of those. Sorry.

 

Ross Scott: and I said we’re gonna

 

RossKote(Kim): We nearly we we nearly I don’t know. What’s the word we nearly missed the miss that one.

 

Ross Scott: No, it looked great. It looks good on the video. You’re like I get you get all you

 

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[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.5″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]Ross Scott: I know I was excited. You know, you see that thing on the video. You’re like, yeah, I want to get that and then you start doing the math on that thing. You’re like, whoa.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, we touched a bullet, right?

 

Ross Scott: Well, I’ll break out right out of business.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, but I think there’s some stuff

 

Ross Scott: and you know

 

RossKote(Kim): that I found on the internet that I wanted to bring up really quick and they’re just four points that I just wanted just to do a couple, you know things back and forth with you and that is Number one everyone has a different starting point and I think that that plays into pricing and confidence. I mean, that’s no brainer there, right?

 

Ross Scott: Yeah. Yeah, I mean you have to basically figure out what you’re worth and You know, what? Is that? What is that number, you know mechanics are you know a good mechanic will be a hundred dollars $120 an hour, you know, just a normal run in the milk mechanics gonna be 35 to 60 bucks an hour and and it’s the

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: And and it’s the same thing with powder coaters, you know, you know, there is matter that time we went to Oahu and and their company it’s no longer in business, but we went over and checked out their facility and I went oh The Wonder they’re charging $50 a rim. I was like, wow, I mean there are

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: literally operating in the open error. I was like

 

RossKote(Kim): I mean, yeah dirt floors.

 

Ross Scott: I was yeah.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, it was okay.

 

Ross Scott: know, so

 

RossKote(Kim): We get it. You know what we went over there to look there just to kind of go. Oh now we get it right. So now you got it and now you realize oh why we’re so much different or better right, you know and you realize but you have to go and do it

 

Ross Scott: It is exactly.

 

RossKote(Kim): you do, you know

 

Ross Scott: Well, you know if you’re paying for a nice building and you have nice equipment and that is money that is out of your pocket to do that and you have to refill that pocket. So you have to charge properly for

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: that.

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: You can’t give it away and you know

 

RossKote(Kim): but everybody starts at a different

 

Ross Scott: you you know.

 

RossKote(Kim): point and everybody, you know, like you look at roro you look at Black Label you look at velocity all these guys they didn’t start yesterday. They started as many years ago and you know to be like them overnight isn’t gonna happen but to you know, but you have to just keep doing you,

 

Ross Scott: No.

 

RossKote(Kim): you know.

 

Ross Scott: Well that and that’s our story we started remember we we started with the the whoop up the stupid little hot coat gun from Eastwood and we have the the infrared heat lamps. I mean, I didn’t even have a blast cabinet. You know when I first started

 

RossKote(Kim): I don’t even know what you’re talking about there. I know I mean, yeah, I know it was pretty Grim but we started right we did something we started, you know,

 

Ross Scott: Yeah, so you gotta start.

 

RossKote(Kim): nobody wants to remember that we started like that. No, you know, but that’s how we

 

Ross Scott: I remember how I started.

 

RossKote(Kim): started.

 

Ross Scott: I remember every excruciating decision in every hard turn where I had to make a left or right and I said this is what I’m doing and that’s unfortunately businesses like that and we are making decisions as of this moment.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, tell him the good news.

 

Ross Scott: Okay powder coders out there. We just secured a new building. We’re moving our building from the west side of the island to the central part of the island, which will give us more business for us. This is a great move. We’ve been wanting to do this for many years. It just happens that you know with the covid-19. It’s just been a real pain in the butt. But yes, we are making that move and

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: it’s gonna be a good move. We’re very excited about other good news. We have the patent coming out for us on our secret weapon. I’ll just leave it at that and

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah. We just filed that yeah, lots of good stuff.

 

Ross Scott: Yeah good things. So, you know even in bad times you can always have a positive outlook and that’s another thing always it’s that it’s easy to get negative. I mean you have to be real. But try to keep that positive outlook and good things will happen.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah. And we’re gonna have I’m setting something up with Kevin Coursin from PCI Powder Coating Institute hopefully in the next week or two and he’s gonna go over some highlights from the annual meeting that we attended regarding powder coating and the state of powder coating and where we’re at. So I’m gonna eek out as much of those details as I can from the meeting as to help everybody out there know where the industries are going right now and stuff, but let’s be okay. So here’s number two. Everyone is unique and has a different level of talent. So find out what your talent is if you like doing a lanai for we call it Lanai Furniture, but outdoor furniture if that’s your bag then and you do really well with that do that, you know, like be that guy, you know, if your rims or your brakes or Until brake calipers do that. You know it just everybody, you know, not everybody’s gonna be good at everything.

 

Ross Scott: No, and certain things you have to be super. Like perfectionists and you know, we’ve you know, we’ve realized that like with rims and stuff. You have to be at that, you know, 98 to 99% Perfection rate. You have to be that way and that’s why you have to charge if you don’t charge properly you’re gonna bite you the butt because you’re gonna end up redoing and stuff. You almost have the price in the fact that you’re gonna redo. a rim here and there, you know another another perfectionist thing

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: is like guns. If you’re doing like people that want their barrels powder coated and you know at the beginning I did this a few times and I realized while this crowd is super perfectionist and it’s like whoa, and it’s like I have to

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: slow down so much to do this that I would have to charge such an exorbitant rate. It’s not feasible and at that moment

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: that’s where I realized. We’re not doing that.

 

RossKote(Kim): right and the point is to train is to

 

Ross Scott: you know, but

 

RossKote(Kim): train the customer market up right?

 

Ross Scott: Yeah, well.

 

RossKote(Kim): I mean to let them know how well how awesome Powder Coatings are so that they will pay more for them right as

 

Ross Scott: yeah, and and there’s people that are

 

RossKote(Kim): a just a general segment.

 

Ross Scott: specialized and that’s what I was getting at. So, you know, I I don’t specialize in that that’s not my deal and if

 

RossKote(Kim): You know.

 

Ross Scott: somebody comes in and say I want this done I’ll say okay, it’s gonna cost as much as with it and if I have you know, because you know, all the guns are very difficult because of all the oil stuff and you just it it’s just one of those things like it’s like

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: you’re literally Powder Coating in WD-40 and it’s like, oh my God

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: fisheye Central. So anyway, you know, but there is

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: people that have more time and there are basically You know what? I you know, I’m gonna do this out of my house and I’ve got this and I don’t need to buy the big oven and I don’t need this and and I just got a little tabletop, you know bench Blaster and you know, their costs are considerably lower than my cost and they can do that and they can spend the time and provide a living for themselves. And that’s the thing. So, you know, if you’re coming from that angle at home guy, you know, you’re gonna have lower costs. You can bring everything down and charge less, you know, it’s just The big guys out there are going to charge more because we have to and we’re gonna but also we’ve been doing it for a long time. We’re gonna bang it out fast and and

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: it’s gonna look good says we have

 

RossKote(Kim): so here’s go ahead. Sorry.

 

Ross Scott: We just have the years of experience, you know, and there’s there’s

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: that can compete against a guy who’s been doing it. For 20 years versus a guy who’s been doing it for a year.

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: It’s just there is just no way.

 

RossKote(Kim): Well, think about this though, like I mean not where you know, a lot of guys that are starting powder coating companies today do have that experience. They’ve just been working for someone else too. So, you know, that’s you know, what we’re talking about is, you know, if you’ve been as you know, you’ve been working at a line cone system for a while and now you’re gonna get in a custom coating. I mean, there’s you know, there’s gonna be some learning curve there and stuff, you know,

 

Ross Scott: Yeah, and that that’s a mental thing. That’s a mental thing. So what you just described is a mental thing. Basically the guys have been working for somebody who’s you know, his whole entire time and now he wants to be the owner and you know it has been making the bids. We don’t know, you know, so if he’s

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: not if he’s not comfortable with that, you know, that’s entrepreneur 101 you have to be comfortable with that and that’s where I started off at the very beginning, you know, you have to run a lemonade stand first.

 

RossKote(Kim): Right. Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: you know, if you can’t run one of those you’re asking for trouble and basically you need to get the help or have a mentor or

 

RossKote(Kim): Mentor yeah, like get someone like Terry who was on earlier Terry’s awesome, and he’s Such a wealth of knowledge. I mean, we just barely tapped into what he knows. And he’s got a really good rapport. He really gets one-on-one with you. He listens. I’m just trying. I’m not trying to plug Terry just because that’s what he does but he’s certainly been helpful to us. We do use him but I mean I brought him on just for the pricing part, but he helps so many different kinds of he helps custom coders and line coders alike. So he’s got he’s just your man, you know, but let’s get on number three because this one really is key for us the resources available to you as another person are different so that definitely plays into us for sure because it’s all about the shipping over here in Hawaii. And anytime you’re buying a new piece of equipment. You got a cost in that the shipping is going to cost just as much as the as the equipment itself

 

Ross Scott: Yes, yes, so there’s and there’s lots of different pricing between the equipment itself. I mean you can go from one sandblast pot that’s you know, two thousand dollars or sub two thousand dollars and then you know, the brand up is almost five thousand. You’re like, well why why is this so much different? You know, so you need to figure out why that’s different and is it gonna mean that you’re gonna be operating at a lower cost? Because in the long run something that’s more expensive might operate at a lesser cost. So you need to understand those things. I’m trying to think of some other thing. Oh like the media, for example. You know Garnet we’ve come to the conclusion for us. It’s the cheapest medium to use for sandblasting. But in the mainland you have you can use that star bright and you can there’s other you can use coleslag. There’s you know various beads you can use all of those glass bead aluminum oxide and you can get those for a lot cheaper but for us we it was darn it. It’s the cheapest and that’s what we It’s the cheapest and that’s what we

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: keep in mind, you know, what works best and what’s quickest and that is the most important what’s quickest. and

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, definitely. I mean but it equipment and no doubt. I think everybody knows at this point how important equipment is in the powder coating, you know how to keep your game going and improve your game too. I mean, you’re not gonna I mean maybe some people will be yelling at me for this one. But you know, you start to see all these beautiful, you know shots on Instagram on Wheels and and you know calipers and all kinds of automotive and motorcycle parts and stuff like that guys. They’re not using the Eastwood gun to get that. Okay, they’re using the top of the line gima Wagner, you know, whatever. I mean they’re using those top of the line guns. I mean they just are so it’s if you think you’re gonna get that level. Until with your little $200 gun. It’s not going to happen, you know.

 

Ross Scott: Yeah, that was mind-boggling when I went from the Cheap-o gun to the Wagner. I was like and that was the old what EPG 207 model and I was just like wow and then of course when I bought the the Wagner Sprint

 

RossKote(Kim): You didn’t even know how to use that thing.

 

Ross Scott: I was like I was like wow. Yeah. I know I spent many times in the the message boards figuring out where the settings need to be, you know, and

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: those are it’s and nowadays it all comes prepackaged. You just hit the button and go, you know, it’s like yeah. All right, this is great and you know, but yeah you get what you pay for there’s you know, definitely a $5,000 powder coating guns gonna shoot way different than a thousand dollar gun. I can tell you that but that’s something I’d like to do is do a comparison shoot and some video one day of all the different various guns and

 

RossKote(Kim): That would be cool. Okay, Gama Wagner, Piccolo.

 

Ross Scott: Yeah.

 

RossKote(Kim): What’s the other one the cool can?

 

Ross Scott: Dark, Nordson. Well, there’s Nordson..

 

RossKote(Kim): Nordson yeah

 

Ross Scott: Yeah, and there’s many others. But yeah, that’s not but I’m I wasn’t

 

RossKote(Kim): give you our address.

 

Ross Scott: trying to name names, but you just did.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, I did. I mean I’m a troublemaker today. Okay. Here’s the last one just know that there is always someone going to be better than you. Nobody wants to hear that but it’s true.

 

Ross Scott: Yes. Yes, and also, you know I could expand on that too is also no when you’re wrong and make a mistake, you know, so, you know, there’s always gonna be some better fish out there, you know, and when that happens you just go. Well, you know, it’s time that my game here. What do I need to do that? You know and and some people are just more predispositioned for this business than other people are so you

 

RossKote(Kim): two, yeah

 

Ross Scott: you know, you have to you have to you kind of have to be in the right mindset to begin with and then from there just keep elevating your game, you know, but let’s this is getting off we’re talking about price so

 

RossKote(Kim): Well, you definitely like to know, you almost have to be like you to get burned by the oven at 400 degrees. That’s quite a qualification. You definitely like to get shocked every now and then with electricity. You know, those are just some of the things you like to get chemical burns.

 

Ross Scott: Mhm.

 

RossKote(Kim): Those are just some of the things you have to put up with in this business. But you’re right and I you know, either you, you know, you’re either gonna be that person that’s gonna be the better person. And if you’re not it’s okay, I guess is what I’m you know, it’s okay to not be the next row or the next whatever I mean like It’s a there are plenty plenty room to be just the best of at who you are or what you do, you know.

 

Ross Scott: Yes. Yeah, and you get understand what

 

RossKote(Kim): So keep it reasonable.

 

Ross Scott: you’re lit, what are your limitations? You know, I have my limitations.

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, what are your limitations? Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: There’s certain things. I just don’t want to do just because

 

RossKote(Kim): No, I know.

 

Ross Scott: me, it’s not that I don’t want to do it because I can do it. It’s just to me it’s just not feasible in the cost to do it and you know.

 

RossKote(Kim): cost or time or your time because you

 

Ross Scott: and I watch I watch these guys, you

 

RossKote(Kim): know how long it’s gonna take.

 

Ross Scott: know, they do the taping and wiping and it’s just like wow, you know, you’re talking about almost, you know, an hour and a half to two hours on each Rim, you know, and it’s like

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: whoo, you know, your cautious went right up doing that, you know, and that’s just for the taping in the wiping and then you got all the other costs involved. So, you know, it’s like at what point do you get to charge and will the customer accept that that’s the thing so then there’s you know, it’s just one of those things so it comes to labor of love. you know and and there’s people that

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: do that but I I won’t you know, because I know I have to make money at this. So when it comes too much of a labor of love I kind of like, okay. I and I just tell the client I can do this but it’s gonna cost as much and then they go. Oh and I go yeah, it’s just because of the time but I can do this and I always always have basically another scenario for them to to make them go. Oh, well. Yeah, I like that. Let’s do that. You’re like, yeah. Okay, you know, so just just just

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, you can always change their 

 

Ross Scott: don’t limit yourself.

 

RossKote(Kim): mind, right?

 

Ross Scott: Don’t limit yourself, but always have

 

RossKote(Kim): right

 

Ross Scott: Street for them an Avenue for them to travel down, you know, and you know,

 

RossKote(Kim): That’s a good point. Very good point. Yeah.

 

Ross Scott: so

 

RossKote(Kim): Yeah, definitely. Well, that’s a I think that’s a great way to end I this is Man, I didn’t think we were going to be able to talk about this much and cover so much. I might have to turn this into two episodes because you know, Terry had some valuable points, but we’ve also covered some other really interesting different perspectives and thought-provoking maybe stuff with just people haven’t had a chance to To even think about because they’re so busy powder coating, you know to you know, but it you do sometimes have to take some time to slow down and and invest in yourself. And one of the things to do is to invest in your pricing invest in your confidence and and and do a I guess a temperature take a temperature of where you’re at, you know, and and is there an opportunity for you to improve your pricing increase your pricing or are you you know, are you just happy where you’re at? All right. Well that concludes the episode of pricing and getting what you’re worth. I hope you’ve enjoyed everything you’ve heard today and you’re able to improve where you’re at. Please remember to like share and subscribe to the podcast and of course always always send us comments questions. If you’ve got an idea for a new podcast direct message anywhere, email us mailto: info@mauipowderworks.com , and I hope you have a great day out there. Take care.
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About us

RossKote is committed to sharing their experience in metal coatings, painting, and restoration so customers & powder coaters can navigate the process of powder coating and make the best choices for getting their projects done.

RossKote regularly contributes helpful videos on his blog and YouTube channel.

Join us.  As we build a powder coating community online to share our passion for performance finishes by subscribing to RossKote’s Powder Coater Podcast

Connect with us. Comment below. What would you like to know more about? I love to answer everyday questions to the consumer market wants to know about powder coating.   

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Filed Under: All Posts, Podcast Tagged With: about rosskote, Auto, coatings, custom coaters, how powder coating works, Maui Powder Works, podcast, powder coat rims, powder coat rims pricing, powder coater podcast, powder coating, powder coating prices, powder coating pricing guide, pricing powder coating, re powder coating, restoration, rosskote, rosskote podcast, steps to powder coating

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