Live from Legends of Rock

Description

This week we went live at our Legends of Rock class and met a few of the attendees from Switzerland, Australia, Texas, New Jersey and Singapore. We saw the freestanding concrete bar project completed in the first 2 days using Buddy Rhodes’ pressed technique and GFRC and got a hint of what’s planned for the next 3 days.

A description of this class is available at www.concretecountertopinstitute.com/legends, and now that it’s in progress the week of May 8-12, 2023, you can follow along on our social media on Facebook and Instagram. Stay tuned for future classes and dates on our website.

Join us LIVE every Wednesday! Click  here for joining info.  To submit podcast topic requests or suggestions, click here.

Transcript

Jeff Girard (00:03):
Hey, good morning everybody. Welcome to the Legends of Rock event. This is Lane. You know who I am.

Lane Mangum (00:09):
I’ll be running the podcast this morning because Jeff and Caleb are busy getting ready for today. And I’m just going to, we’re going to be live, and I’m just going to go around and show you what’s going on at Legends Rock.

Jeff Girard (00:22):
There he is.

Lane Mangum (00:25):
And we have come over here. You’ve seen this speaker. He’s here from Switzerland. This is Flavian Bornet, and he’s been the mystery man on the podcast, so we’re very excited to have him here in person. Now let’s see who else we’ve got. Buddy was over here somewhere. Buddy, say good morning. We are live on the podcast. Hey, good morning. Yep, Buddy’s here. Stopped by this morning to see a few more people. His part of the class is over. We made an incredible creation the past two days, and I’m going to show you that next. Yeah, so let’s go out to the installation area.

Lane Mangum (01:14):
We have Robert from Australia, Satu Bumi. Patrick is here. Hey, Patrick. We’re live on the podcast.

Patrick Golladay (01:22):
Oh, what am I doing here?

Lane Mangum (01:26):
Adam, from North Carolina. Morning. I’ll show you what we made yesterday. It turned out amazing. You can see that this is a bar top. It’s a freestanding bar with an integral sink, and you can tell of course that the freestanding bar part was made with the Buddy Rhodes signature press technique turned out absolutely beautiful. The main color is the Buddy Rhodes wheat pigment, and then we infilled with a lighter color first and then the gray, sorry, it’s hard to hold the camera so you can actually see the whole thing. Let me go around here. Maybe you can see that. The countertop part is GFRC. So we had a couple of different techniques that we covered the past two days, which was really fun. And we may have had a few drinks out here yesterday afternoon. So let’s see who else is here so far this morning. This class is starting at 8:30. It’s only 8:03 so far, so we have people arriving. The next three days we’re going to be making another really cool creation that’s going to blow your mind, so stay tuned on social media. We’ve got some forms ready for it over here. Doesn’t make any sense right now, but it will. I hear some more folks who’ve just arrived. This is Bart Randolph from Texas, TexCrete Designs. And you’ve been doing this for a while?

Bart Randolph (03:52):
About eight years,

Lane Mangum (03:52):
Yeah, about eight years now. Tell us a little bit about what you do

Bart Randolph (03:59):
Primarily countertops. Not too much.

Lane Mangum (04:03):
You do a lot of residential?

Bart Randolph (04:04):
Yes. Residential. Mainly residential. Yeah. I don’t think we’ve ever done any commercial.

Lane Mangum (04:09):
I like residential.

Bart Randolph (04:10):
Yeah. But yeah, that’s it. Cool.

Lane Mangum (04:14):
And you also have a micro topping product.

Bart Randolph (04:17):
Micro cement. Right. And we do micro cement and with that we mainly do showers.

Lane Mangum (04:22):
Yeah. Oh, very cool.

Bart Randolph (04:23):
Yeah. Very cool. That’s kind of taken off as well. That’s great. So yeah, we’re glad to be here.

Lane Mangum (04:29):
That’s great. Yeah. And we probably have a few of your pictures posted on our website or something. Yeah,

Bart Randolph (04:33):
I think so. Yeah. Yeah,

Lane Mangum (04:35):
Yeah. Cool.

Bart Randolph (04:37):
Well, thank you. Thanks.

Lane Mangum (04:42):
Who else? Oh, we have Martin Dickerson here. What are we doing? Yes, from Work the Concrete Designs in Kentucky.

Martin Dickerson (04:48):
Hey everybody.

Lane Mangum (04:51):
And we recently featured you in one of our Weekly Inspirations. It was the one that had the really cool, like the

Martin Dickerson (05:01):
Wooden bench.

Lane Mangum (05:03):
Yeah.

Martin Dickerson (05:03):
Fire table.

Lane Mangum (05:04):
Yeah. People really liked that one.

Martin Dickerson (05:08):
Yes. Thank you.

Lane Mangum (05:09):
Yeah, thank, thank you.

Martin Dickerson (05:11):
It was greatly appreciated it. Yeah. You got a lot of attention.

Lane Mangum (05:14):
Yeah. Yeah. People really liked that piece. It was beautiful. So check it out on our, it’s on the photo gallery page on our website as well. People can check it out there. But tell us a little bit about your business and what you do there in Kentucky.

Martin Dickerson (05:30):
Just outside of Louisville, Kentucky, we’ve been functioning about two years. I’ve been in concrete all my life, but mainly we’re doing some fire tables, outdoor furniture, and we do countertops. So we do have a few familiar with Zeppas, they do have our stuff on display in our outdoor venue.

Lane Mangum (05:51):
Oh, yeah. I noticed it was like an outdoor garden center.

Martin Dickerson (05:54):
Yeah. Yes. They were gracious enough to give us their outdoor venue. Very cool. That was very cool. That’s huge. But it’s fun. We appreciate CCI and everything they do.

Lane Mangum (06:03):
We appreciate you. Yeah. Martin’s got a great family business.

Martin Dickerson (06:07):
Yes, yes. The wife puts up with me.

Lane Mangum (06:13):
The boss, right?

Martin Dickerson (06:14):
Yes, exactly. Right, right. She makes it all work. I just do the labor. Right.

Lane Mangum (06:19):
Just do what the boss says.

Martin Dickerson (06:20):
Yes. That’s exactly right.

Lane Mangum (06:22):
Very good. I love it. Family business. Yes. I’m going to talk to Robert over here from Australia. Thank you, Martin.

Martin Dickerson (06:30):
Thank you. See you,

Lane Mangum (06:32):
Robert. Yes. This is Robert Landers. He’s from Australia, and he’s too tall to have both of us in the picture. Satu Bumi. Tell us a little bit about your company. It’s a bit unique.

Robert Landers (06:48):
We produce GFRC planter boxes, primarily. Custom size for the construction and commercial landscaping industries. And we’ve been doing it for about 11 years. And we love it. Love the material. We can’t get enough of it, actually. While we’re here to catch up with Jeff and Lane legends of the industry and thoroughly enjoying it. Thank you. Yeah.

Lane Mangum (07:20):
Good, good, good. Yeah. Yeah. We’re really happy to have you here. Thank you. Yeah. And he actually flew all the way from Indonesia. I mean, I think Australia might be even farther, but

Robert Landers (07:33):
It’s a little bit further. Yeah.

Lane Mangum (07:35):
But, they have an amazing operation actually working out of Indonesia in partnership with some really fine craftsmen over there.

Robert Landers (07:45):
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, Indonesia. And it’s great. The climate for curing our pieces.

Lane Mangum (07:50):
Good point. Good humidity.

Robert Landers (07:52):
Fantastic. Yeah.

Lane Mangum (07:54):
It’s not going to dry out.

Robert Landers (07:55):
No, that’s right. No, it’s quick. You got to be onto it. Yeah, we got to slow it down. We use a lot of ice.

Lane Mangum (08:01):
Ah, I bet. Yeah. Hot and humid. Very cool. Thank you, Robert.

Robert Landers (08:07):
Thank you. Thanks guys.

Lane Mangum (08:10):
Let’s see who else we got. Oh, Peter has arrived. This is Peter from Hard Life. You’re in New Jersey, right? Yes.

Peter Cicalo (08:18):
Yeah, the Jersey Shore.

Lane Mangum (08:19):
We’re live on the podcast. Good morning. Do you want to tell people a little bit about what you do in your business?

Peter Cicalo (08:29):
I pretty much do a wide range of stuff. The majority of my business is obviously concrete, but I do wood and steel fabrication as well, building bases, commercial, residential, fire pits, fireplace surrounds. Pretty much anything that the customer wants to design and build, we figure out a way to make it happen.

Lane Mangum (08:49):
Very cool. Yeah. And you came to CCI years ago?

Peter Cicalo (08:54):
Yeah, I looked up, it was 2013 when I first came to CCI.

Lane Mangum (09:00):
So very cool. So 10 years ago. Well, happy 10 year anniversary. Yeah. Thanks. Glad to have you here. Yes, good to be here. Ah, okay. Over here we have the Australian boys, more Australian boys.

Justin Lim (09:16):
Well, just two of them.

Lane Mangum (09:17):
This is Terry from Melbourne.

Terry Mercuri (09:22):
Hello everyone.

Lane Mangum (09:23):
And this is Damian from Dubbo west of Sydney. And these guys get into a lot of trouble together. This is Justin from Singapore. Howdy. And this is what the third, fourth time we’re seeing you. Justin came over to Raleigh for our training in

Justin Lim (09:46):
20 16.

Lane Mangum (09:49):
And then Jeff and I actually went over to Singapore in 2018 to train in his shop, actually with his employees. That was really cool.

Justin Lim (10:04):
Had a great time.

Lane Mangum (10:05):
And then in 2019, Jeff did a three day advanced class in Australia. All these guys were there, and Justin came over for that, and now he’s here.

Justin Lim (10:16):
And now I’m here.

Lane Mangum (10:17):
Yeah. So what have you learned so far in the Legends of Rock Event?

Justin Lim (10:22):
It was more catching up, but I’m looking forward to the next phase of it. Yes. Which would be pretty awesome, I think.

Lane Mangum (10:29):
Yes. And I was showing and mentioning the project, the two day project that we did, the freestanding bar, and then I gave a little tiny tease about the project for the next three days.

Justin Lim (10:45):
That’s why I came all the way here.

Lane Mangum (10:48):
Yes. It’s going to be worth it.

Justin Lim (10:50):
I think so too.

Lane Mangum (10:51):
That’s for sure. So let’s see what Caleb’s got going on. Here we are.

Lane Mangum (11:01):
Sitting I’m able to be in the same frame with you. If we were standing up, you would be like up here.

Caleb Lawson (11:08):
Well, yeah, no, that’s fairly good.

Lane Mangum (11:10):
So I’ve just been going around interviewing people. Oh, great. And just pointing out who we’ve got here so far this morning. And we’re not at class start time yet, so we don’t have quite everybody here, but say a little bit, not too much, about what we’re going to do the next three days.

Caleb Lawson (11:27):
So Jeff and I have been, let’s shall we say, plotting, dreaming, scheming. Really, we were talking about this morning, actually, we actually initially had the kernel of an idea in October. Not for the class necessarily, but for this project that we’re doing.

Lane Mangum (11:45):
Yeah, you were probably talking about it after the October class,

Caleb Lawson (11:48):
After that piece right there. Oh yeah. It started as, we should do this larger, and then somebody, somebody’s in the wait room.

Lane Mangum (12:00):
Oh. Oh gosh. The wait room. Somebody’s in the room. It just happened.

Caleb Lawson (12:03):
It just happened. Okay. We go, we’re Jeff. Jeff’s connected to audio. Can’t hear you yet. So we kind of started dreaming about this idea in October and in January I texted him. I was like, all right, here’s what we’re doing. And it went from there. How are you doing, Jeff?

Lane Mangum (12:26):
Good morning. We are live at the Legends of Rock event, and I’ve just been going around interviewing a few people. So talking to Caleb right now about what’s going on the next three days. So thanks for joining us, Jeff.

Caleb Lawson (12:42):
So yeah, we’re excited about what’s to come.

Caleb Lawson (12:47):
Ambitious project. I think one of the things that we want to really stress in this second three days, and Jeff and I again, we’re talking about this morning, is the, he and I have this kind of play off each other relationship. So I think it really embodies the relationship between an artisan or a designer and an engineer, because I have ridiculous ideas and I say, how do we do this? And then we do it. So that’s how a lot of our projects come about. I think that speaks really great to that play between the two professions. So yeah. Yeah, I’m very excited.

Lane Mangum (13:27):
It’s going to be really cool to see this come together over the next three days.

Caleb Lawson (13:33):
It’s going to be a whirlwind.

Lane Mangum (13:34):
Oh yeah. And we got a bunch more people coming in. Got about 30 people going to be participating and putting this thing together. So I’m going to attempt right now to show the little tiny inspiration piece for this craziness. It’s a little tough with the laptop camera here. Let’s see what I can do. Okay, so this is the piece that Caleb was talking about. Oh, you can just see the tabletop there. Sorry. And you can kind of see the connector legs and if you can see that, just think about how this table stands up. So that was a little tiny inspiration for the project that we’re about to do. And it’s going to be quite a bit bigger, be a 16 footer. So not the biggest thing that these guys have ever done, but pretty big. So I think that’s about it. That’s the folks who have arrived so far this morning. Jeff, did you have any questions or thoughts?

Jeff (15:08):
No just wanted to check in.

Lane Mangum (15:09):
Let me turn the volume up a little bit. We’ve got people all chatting and getting their coffee, but yeah, thanks for joining us, Jeff. This is kind of a weird podcast because it’s just live here at the event, and Caleb and Jeff are busy getting ready. So that’s why I’m on the screen showing as Jeff Girard, and they’re not able to really cover a topic today, but we’re doing a lot of posts to, and little lot of videos, on social media this whole week. So I definitely encourage you to get on Facebook or Instagram and follow along. And we’ll definitely be posting a whole lot of videos and photos of this event and the finished product and all that kind of stuff. And then we will follow up on a subsequent podcast with talking about how this thing was done and just a little bit more in information, informational podcast.

Jeff (16:22):
Well, sounds good.

Lane Mangum (16:23):
That’s about it. What was that, Jeff?

Jeff (16:26):
I said sounds good. I’ll keep checking in.

Lane Mangum (16:30):
Yeah!

Jeff (16:30):
Y’all have fun.

Lane Mangum (16:34):
So yeah, join us again next week, the week after. Like I said, we’ll be covering a little bit more informational material.

Jeff (16:45):
Sounds good. Well y’all have fun and have a great day.

Lane Mangum (16:48):
Oh, we will. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. I’m going to sign off everybody, just a quick one again, but follow along on social media and we’ll see you next week.

Jeff (17:02):
Sounds good.