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**Episode 19 of The Maker and the Mix: Strength in Numbers: The Alpha Advantage & Beyond
Welcome to an episode that is all about strength and speed. Join Jeff and Caleb as they unravel the game-changing capabilities of Alpha Polymer in Episode 19 of The Maker and the Mix.
Imagine increasing the strength of your CTS Rapidset CementAll by 45% or doubling the flexural strength in your Portland Cement-based mix – all in just 24 hours! These aren’t mere hypotheses; Jeff showcases these dramatic results achieved through the use of Alpha Polymer.
But our discussion isn’t confined to the numbers; we explore the realm of concrete craft in-depth, examining the impact of powerful plasticizers and effective curing practices. By sharing anecdotal experiences and concrete facts (pun intended!), we aim to equip you, our listeners, with invaluable insights that could help elevate your craft.
Amidst these enlightening discussions, we couldn’t help but address a rather humorous rumor that has been circulating in our industry. Some folks believe that Caleb’s father, a retired judge, is the financial backbone supporting Caleb’s stake in The Concrete Countertop Institute. We find the idea quite amusing and take it in stride, remaining focused on our mission to innovate and educate in the world of concrete crafting.
Sadly, there won’t be an episode of the podcast next week as we’ll be fully engaged with a course at Caleb’s workshop. But don’t worry, we’ve got more exciting episodes lined up for your learning pleasure!
Speaking of learning, if you’re eager to delve deeper into the world of concrete, consider joining us at one of our upcoming courses – the Ultimate Creative Concrete Course or our 2-Day Professional GFRC Training, hosted by The Concrete Countertop Institute. Simply follow the links below to find out more and enroll:
Ultimate Creative Concrete Course
2-Day Professional GFRC Training
Let’s explore the strength of Alpha Polymer and elevate your craft to the next level!
Listen to Episode 18 on Spotify
Listen to Episode 18 on Youtube
Don’t wait! Seize the opportunity to enhance your skills and create stunning concrete masterpieces.
Transcript:
Caleb Lawson:
Oh, good morning everybody. Um, sorry, I got my dog scratching himself in the background. That’s uh, that’s Bosco.
Jeff Girard:
Good morning,
Caleb Lawson:
For those
Jeff Girard:
folks.
Caleb Lawson:
of you watching video. But yeah, welcome to episode, what is this, 19 I believe of the Maker and the Mix. So we’re getting up there. About
Jeff Girard:
Shocking.
Caleb Lawson:
to hit 20. Excited about that.
Jeff Girard:
Mm-hmm.
Caleb Lawson:
Um, okay, I’m gonna have to let you out. Let me let him out of the room real fast. Come on Bosco.
Jeff Girard:
Dogs eat.
Caleb Lawson:
There you go, good boy.
Jeff Girard:
Yeah, so my dogs are barking in the background. You may or may not hear them, but you’ll hear them eventually.
Caleb Lawson:
Oh man, what’s been going on with you Jeff? What’s new in the world of…
Jeff Girard:
So, you know, last week we were talking a little bit about some of the projects I’m working on. And one of the conversations that we had begun to talk about, and I want to kind of finish up and present the results, are we’re talking about alpha polymer. And, you know, we’ve been we’ve talked about the role of polymer a lot, so I’m not going to get back into that. But one thing that I’ve noticed about my dry polymer that’s different from other dry polymers and other polymers in general is that when it’s mixed into concrete, you can’t really tell it’s there. Like it doesn’t feel like it’s there, it’s not sticky, it has no odor, you really can’t even see it, but you can measure its effects. And what I wanted to do was like a lot of folks use cement all to make pieces, in conjunction with white Portland cement for white pieces or brighter colored pieces. Or exclusively, they only use cement all or rapid set type CSA cement.
Caleb Lawson:
I don’t
Jeff Girard:
And
Caleb Lawson:
know that I’ve
Jeff Girard:
I
Caleb Lawson:
ever mixed the two.
Jeff Girard:
well
Caleb Lawson:
We
Jeff Girard:
you
Caleb Lawson:
don’t
Jeff Girard:
don’t
Caleb Lawson:
generally
Jeff Girard:
mix
Caleb Lawson:
advocate
Jeff Girard:
like
Caleb Lawson:
for it.
Jeff Girard:
no, I’m not saying mix them. I’m saying if you want to make a white piece use white base
Caleb Lawson:
Oh,
Jeff Girard:
Portland concrete.
Caleb Lawson:
I misunderstood
Jeff Girard:
Or
Caleb Lawson:
what
Jeff Girard:
if
Caleb Lawson:
you were
Jeff Girard:
you
Caleb Lawson:
saying.
Jeff Girard:
want to make if you’re going to do rapid set. No, you never ever mix the two. That’s bad juju. You don’t
Caleb Lawson:
So
Jeff Girard:
mix
Caleb Lawson:
you’re
Jeff Girard:
them.
Caleb Lawson:
saying mixing them in your business, not
Jeff Girard:
You
Caleb Lawson:
in a mixer.
Jeff Girard:
have two separate product streams. Some are made with Portland cement. Some are made with CSA. They’re
Caleb Lawson:
I
Jeff Girard:
not
Caleb Lawson:
understand, I apologize for the
Jeff Girard:
blended.
Caleb Lawson:
confusion.
Jeff Girard:
No, no, no. That’s not what I meant. So for many, many years, I have advocated that using polymer in cement all is a good thing. And I had very good reasons for that. And this all based on, you know, when everybody got started with using GFRC, they predominantly used, well, they only used liquid polymers because only liquid polymers were on the market. And we’re talking, what, 15 years ago, more than that. So predominantly Fortan and another brand in the US is Polyplex. And there’s a couple other like, house brands. So. The reason why I advocated for it is, has to do with, again, curing, right? So with Portland cement, the whole chemical reaction occurs pretty slowly. It’s a process that you think about in terms of days and weeks. And in conventional concrete, we’re talking construction. You know, your seven day strength is roughly, and I’m gonna weigh my hands figuratively and literally, roughly 50% of your ultimate compressive strength. It varies, right? And then your 28 day strength, if it’s properly cured, is approximately 90 to 95% of your ultimate strength. So typically a 28 day strength is very convenient from a construction progress standpoint, because things generally don’t happen fast. I mean, look at any road project. Look how slow it goes. And there are very good reasons for that. Don’t think that they’re just dragging their feet. There’s a lot of stuff going on that you’re not aware of.
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah, but it’s still really annoying.
Jeff Girard:
It’s super annoying, especially because it has to happen in warm weathers in the summer when everybody’s on vacation trying to go someplace, like, oh, they got the road closed out. Well, with CSA cement, the chemical reaction occurs very, very quickly. And that’s why we use it. So in general, and this is sort of a very rough way of thinking, you get 28 days strengths in 24 hours. So whatever happens in one day for Portland cement happens in one hour for CSA cement. It’s not a one-to-one, but that’s a good way to think about
Caleb Lawson:
good
Jeff Girard:
it. It’s
Caleb Lawson:
concept.
Jeff Girard:
a good concept. And just like with Portland cement, it’s a
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
good way to
Caleb Lawson:
and
Jeff Girard:
think
Caleb Lawson:
you
Jeff Girard:
about
Caleb Lawson:
got
Jeff Girard:
it.
Caleb Lawson:
to think too, I mean, getting into the weeds of like, what is, what are they calling 28 day strengths? You
Jeff Girard:
Exactly.
Caleb Lawson:
know, what are they basing
Jeff Girard:
Yeah.
Caleb Lawson:
that on?
Jeff Girard:
Is it is it 3000 psi? Is it 10,000 psi? Is it whatever, right? Pick a number, throw a dart. So I’m not going to get into like comparing what A does versus what B does or anything like that. I’m just talking about in general, big broad
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah,
Jeff Girard:
brush
Caleb Lawson:
if
Jeff Girard:
strokes.
Caleb Lawson:
you do want to know about CSA reactions, we do have a podcast on that. I don’t remember what episode I can go look it up. So.
Jeff Girard:
It’s before this one, obviously.
Caleb Lawson:
Yes.
Jeff Girard:
Um, anyway, so with CSA cement, you know, the, the chemical reaction occurs very, very quickly. Generally speaking, you’re going to have, depending on how much you retard it in your environmental conditions, you’re, it’s going to start kicking off. Anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour after you add water to it. Now it could be slower, it could be quicker, but those are the rough. And then once the chemical reaction occurs, once you start, once it gets physically not goopy soft, I call it thumbnail hardware, if you can still dent it with your thumbnail, that’s kind of like that really hard trowel stage where you’re trying to finish up. It’s like hard clay. It’s still not solid. Once it gets past that, and that’s when the chemical reaction really starts to kick in, that’s where it starts to generate heat. I don’t honestly know if it makes more heat than Portland, but what it does is it makes a lot of heat really quickly, whereas Portland makes heat, but more slowly. So if you, and it’s called, if you could trap 100% of the heat that it generated and measure the total quantity of heat that it made, I don’t know if that’d be the same as Portland or not. It doesn’t matter. What matters is, CSA cement reacts it creates a lot of heat really quickly and That heat has to go someplace. So if you’re if you’re casting a really thin panel, that’s big It’s gonna radiate that heat pretty quickly. So the concrete itself may not get super hot It’ll get warm, but it’s not gonna get super hot and If you’re casting something thicker, like let’s say you’re gonna make a cube of concrete There’s a lot of volume and not a lot of surface area to radiate that heat So that block of concrete, even though it may be the same weight of concrete, because it’s a different shape, it’s going to trap more of that heat. And that block of concrete is going to get really, really hot. I think the highest temperature I’ve ever measured was like 160, 170 degrees
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
Fahrenheit.
Caleb Lawson:
and I don’t know if you remember that, well, I’m sure you remember it, but I was thinking about at the Legends of Rock event, we made
Jeff Girard:
Mm-hmm.
Caleb Lawson:
that big, massive, you know, 16 foot cantilever post tension table. And I have a Corian table. And, you know, it’s funny, I didn’t really think about this before we cast it. And then it occurred to me in the moment that I walked into the shop, if any of you have ever had experience with Corian, as a surface material, you cannot put like a crock pot on it for any real length of time. It will crack violently, okay?
Jeff Girard:
It’s a pretty brittle plastic.
Caleb Lawson:
And it’s a great material for casting, but keep it cool. And I did not, I didn’t, I just didn’t even think about this when I cast essentially a 16 foot crock pot, because the, um,
Jeff Girard:
We had
Caleb Lawson:
the
Jeff Girard:
a pretty
Caleb Lawson:
width
Jeff Girard:
massive
Caleb Lawson:
of the
Jeff Girard:
discussion
Caleb Lawson:
beam
Jeff Girard:
there.
Caleb Lawson:
is what? Six inches wide at the peak is nine inches tall and then you know the inch and a quarter of concrete that is the face of the table not that big a deal but the center it put a fat crack all the way across my six foot table
Jeff Girard:
That got hot. That
Caleb Lawson:
hot
Jeff Girard:
got hot.
Caleb Lawson:
now the good news is Corian is infinitely repairable so by Tuesday of the week after class I was casting again so not a huge deal but
Jeff Girard:
Yeah, but it cracked after the slab had hardened, of course. But when we demolded it, we could see sort of a shadow of where that crack was in the concrete.
Caleb Lawson:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Girard:
It wasn’t a big deal. But yeah, things get hot. And the whole point of this is, and this is intuitive, if you want to dry something out, you get it hot. That’s why
Caleb Lawson:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Girard:
hairdryers exist, right? Well, if you cast a piece of concrete, that in all concrete, right, CSA included, needs water to keep that chemical reaction going.
Caleb Lawson:
Right.
Jeff Girard:
And it’s…
Caleb Lawson:
Which is why the minimum in cementals 0.35.
Jeff Girard:
Yeah,
Caleb Lawson:
As
Jeff Girard:
the chemical reaction needs a lot more moisture for the chemistry, although it’s Similar to there goes my phone again. I forgot for the silence
Caleb Lawson:
It’s telling
Jeff Girard:
it.
Caleb Lawson:
him
Jeff Girard:
Um,
Caleb Lawson:
that the podcast should be recording soon.
Jeff Girard:
yes exactly brain fart here. So, because a chemical reaction happens so fast and it needs moisture, if it gets really hot, right, what you’re supposed to do with CSA cement is you need to keep that wet. Like, put a hose on it, keep it wet. Not, you’re not putting water back in the concrete, but you’re cooling it off for one, so that water is a cooling agent, and it’s keeping that surface from drying out. And as we all know or should know, concrete that dries out, shrinks. So if your concrete is cooking itself and it’s drying out and you’re not doing anything to prevent that and covering it with plastic doesn’t always work because the moisture is still coming out to some extent. that moisture loss is gonna cause surface cracks. And it could cause curling. And it depends on the thickness of the piece and the shape of the piece and all that. I’ve seen it where you get the face, the good side face, if you under hydrate it or you let it dry out, it looks like you dripped oil on it. You get these little dark spots here and there.
Caleb Lawson:
I’ve
Jeff Girard:
And…
Caleb Lawson:
seen that. I saw somebody post that about something like that on I think
Jeff Girard:
Yeah.
Caleb Lawson:
Facebook forum recently.
Jeff Girard:
So, you know, advocating for, oh, I don’t use polymer, I’ve never had a problem, you know, anecdotal seat of the pants kind of recommendations like that, that are contrary to good practices, especially the practices put forth by the manufacturer. Like, RapidSet says, wet cure it. Right? If you choose not to do that, and then you make state public statements that say, hey, you don’t have to do that. And you really have no basis for that other than your anecdotal experience that may or may not be comprehensive. You are giving people bad advice that creates problems for them. And they don’t know why it’s happening because they have a tiny piece of a distorted picture. And that’s kind of where I’m coming from. And a lot of people don’t like to hear this because they want to do what they want to do. It’s concrete makes its own rules, right? We’re just interpreters. Like I said this in class, and if you’ve ever been in class, I don’t say it all the time, but I’m just a translator, right?
Caleb Lawson:
Right.
Jeff Girard:
Concrete, when you make things with concrete, it does its own thing. It has its own rules. It speaks its own language. And when you don’t do what it needs to have done, when you don’t do what it wants to have done, it tells you. It cracks, it curls. it does things you don’t want it to do. And learning how to read that, learning how to understand that is part of becoming a master of your material. Well, if you can have somebody who already knows those things and can translate that for you, that’s where deep knowledge paired with experience comes into play. Experience without knowledge, is saying, I don’t need to wet cure my concrete, I’ve never had a problem.
Caleb Lawson:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Girard:
Well, that only, you’re only reporting positive things, you’re probably not going to be reporting the negative things, so it’s already biased. Anyway, the reason why I say use polymer in cement all is that what’s the role of polymer? Hold moisture in. So I can now put polymer in my concrete, my cement all. not have to wet cure it, I can simply cover it in plastic and not have any problems at all, because what’s the role of the polymer? To hold moisture in. It keeps that concrete from drying itself out. So
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
it
Caleb Lawson:
and
Jeff Girard:
is
Caleb Lawson:
if you really want to see how much moisture cement all needs and what the effects are on the surface of a countertop of very, very fast drying, go use Portland and do like a thick hand pressed something or other or a marbled something or other or just, you know, do a face coat or do a thick face coat
Jeff Girard:
Mm-hmm.
Caleb Lawson:
and then use a rapid set with no retarder as your backer. the face will crack all over the place. I promise you. Pretty much guaranteed. It will crack everywhere. And also, just a note if you try that, just anecdotally, for fun, don’t
Jeff Girard:
Ten,
Caleb Lawson:
use citric
Jeff Girard:
ten feet under
Caleb Lawson:
acid.
Jeff Girard:
real.
Caleb Lawson:
Don’t use citric acid because it will retard the absolute crap out of the Portland and the Portland will never set.
Jeff Girard:
Citric acid is an incredibly powerful retarder for Portland
Caleb Lawson:
Portland.
Jeff Girard:
cement. And you can use it, but you have to use it in very, very small doses because it is very powerful. It’s like, okay, I got a, there’s a bug on my plate glass window and I need you to kill it instead of swatting it with a fly swatter, you’ve got a
Caleb Lawson:
get
Jeff Girard:
20
Caleb Lawson:
a sledgehammer.
Jeff Girard:
pound plate hammer. Yeah. So you’ve got to be really careful. So generally I say don’t do it. But getting back to the polymer in CSA. With Fortan, a lot of people have used it and a lot of people don’t like it because it’s very sticky. It makes it very difficult to trial your concrete. It’s sticky. We’ve already talked about how when not cast through a pump sprayer, it can be foamy because it traps a lot of foam. The polymer is great for making stable foam. I did some tests, let’s see, today’s the August 2nd. So not quite two weeks ago, I made some cement all samples. I went to Home Depot, bought a fresh bag of cement all, and I made two separate samples, both identical with the only difference, one used the recommended dose of alpha polymer in it, and one didn’t. And I ran flexural tests, so I did 24 hour tests. So the recipe was… Cemental, straight cemental. I put a little tiny bit of pigment in it just to differentiate the two samples. I always do that so that I don’t mix up a, you know, two samples at the same color can be easily mixed up if I don’t label them properly, but I always put a tiny bit of pigment just to tint them.
Caleb Lawson:
How
Jeff Girard:
So
Caleb Lawson:
do you
Jeff Girard:
it’s
Caleb Lawson:
get to thousands of samples? How do you have thousands of different colors? Like how do you keep thinking of, ooh, I haven’t used this pigment yet?
Jeff Girard:
I don’t because I don’t eat them. Whenever I do a batch, let’s say I do four different samples, which is a lot for me. I’ll do a red, a yellow, a green, and a blue. Or I’ll do a gray, a green, a tan, and some other color. It’s just whatever I have on hand. And literally, I’m putting a teaspoon of color in 20 pounds of concrete. It’s just a tiny, tiny amount. I never use any super colors or anything that is going to have a p-. a great potent effect. These are
Caleb Lawson:
So
Jeff Girard:
just
Caleb Lawson:
it’s your
Jeff Girard:
oxide
Caleb Lawson:
standard
Jeff Girard:
pigment, red oxide,
Caleb Lawson:
kind of
Jeff Girard:
green oxide.
Caleb Lawson:
oxides and…
Jeff Girard:
Just your standard run of the mill, basic, basic pigments just to tint them. So cementol, water cement ratio 0.36, citric acid dose of 0.2%, which is a pretty common, you’re gonna get roughly 20, 30 minutes of work time on that, more than enough to do what you need to do in moderate temperatures. Um Gen, and 19 mil, all my tests are 19 millimeter glass fibers at 3%. I have done other fibers at other doses and I lost you, I lost you visually, but
Caleb Lawson:
Oh, I’m still here, so it’ll show
Jeff Girard:
that
Caleb Lawson:
up
Jeff Girard:
was.
Caleb Lawson:
in the recording.
Jeff Girard:
Oh, that’s good. So basically you’re very generic, cement all GFRC mix, very standard, nothing fancy. I also did, I added 0.2% of alpha fluidizer, our super plasticizer. And I did that because I wanted to ensure that these samples were going to be very fluid to cast. Turns out they weren’t, but I’ll get that, I’ll get that, I’ll get back to that in a second. The sample without any polymer in it. what most people would consider, that’s what they would make stuff out of. You know, you could spray it, you could hand pack it, you could pour it, that’s what they make stuff. That’s, I don’t use polymer approach. My one day flexural tests, and when I make a sample, I make a 14 by 14 inch sample, cut those into six segments. And this is all per an ASTM test for fiber reinforced concrete. And each of those samples, three of those are tested good side up. or like cast side up and the other three cast side down so you can see a bias. And then you take the average of those six values. So you’re gonna get a range between the highest and lowest and then you take the average of that. So the average of those six samples with no polymer in it, the 24 hour flexural strength was 1,279 PSI, which is pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. The same sample made, well, the same next sample, sample
Caleb Lawson:
Same
Jeff Girard:
B
Caleb Lawson:
bag of concrete.
Jeff Girard:
with three and a half percent, same bag of concrete, same bag of concrete, same 0.36 water cement ratio, same everything except I added, I added three and a half percent alpha polymer. First, you couldn’t really tell visually or from feeling it that there was polymer in it.
Caleb Lawson:
Now I probably
Jeff Girard:
So
Caleb Lawson:
consolidated
Jeff Girard:
actually
Caleb Lawson:
better
Jeff Girard:
you could.
Caleb Lawson:
and felt
Jeff Girard:
It flowed
Caleb Lawson:
denser.
Jeff Girard:
a little bit better. Well, during casting you really… the only way you could tell is it kind of flowed a little bit better than the sample without. The flexural test and the density were much greater. So I got almost 50% more strength. using polymer than what using polymer the flexural strength the average flexural strength was where is it 1885 so 1885 versus 1279 almost a 600 psi difference now that doesn’t sound like a lot if you think in terms of compressive strength but if you think like regular um regular sidewalk concrete with aggregate no fibers or anything like that The average flexural strength for stuff like that, of course you could never ever cast it really thin, is probably three, 400 PSI, right? So
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
my,
Caleb Lawson:
OK, let’s compare
Jeff Girard:
my
Caleb Lawson:
it to
Jeff Girard:
strength
Caleb Lawson:
something.
Jeff Girard:
gain is
Caleb Lawson:
Can you compare it to
Jeff Girard:
So
Caleb Lawson:
something
Jeff Girard:
that I can…
Caleb Lawson:
that we have a frame of reference for? You
Jeff Girard:
Yeah,
Caleb Lawson:
know, I mean, a lot of
Jeff Girard:
absolutely.
Caleb Lawson:
us have used.
Jeff Girard:
So a lot of folks have used the Buddy Rhodes blended mix. And they have published, they’re one of the few companies who actually have published data. And that’s something that I eventually will have when I have a complete product line. Let me get their data sheet on here. I just saved it. I’m trying to look it up so I have the numbers.
Caleb Lawson:
You can hear my kids out the window. They’re leaving for, their school has a camp this week, so they’re doing that this week.
Jeff Girard:
Oh, how fun. Ah, there we go. Okay. So the tech data sheet for Buddy Rhodes published, and you can get this on their website. Their one-day flexural strength. So this is where I’m, all minor tests are one day. For that is 1,010 PSI. So it’s a little bit, you know, cement all with no polymers, a little bit better than the Buddy Rhodes at one day. the Buddy Rhodes at seven days is 1,280 psi. So cement all that particular bag at one day is basically the same as the seven day Buddy Rhodes flexural strength. And then the Buddy Rhodes flexural strength at 28 days, which in a long-term is 1,460 psi, right? Almost 1,500 psi. With alpha polymer, I made cement all get 50% more strength and it’s now more than 400 PSI even greater than Buddy Rhodes at 28 days. I know that’s a lot of words and all that, but there is a clear, clear benefit to using polymer, not just, hey, I don’t have to stand around, um, wetting these things. Oh, and the way I cured it is I did what everybody does. I just covered it in plastic. Like that’s… You know, I didn’t sit around and wet it and anything like that. I just covered it in plastic.
Caleb Lawson:
Well, you’re using more than just plastic, right? Well, maybe not for cement all, but
Jeff Girard:
In this it
Caleb Lawson:
in
Jeff Girard:
was just
Caleb Lawson:
Portland,
Jeff Girard:
plastic.
Caleb Lawson:
you’ve got a couple of different blankets and stuff,
Jeff Girard:
Yeah,
Caleb Lawson:
right?
Jeff Girard:
if I’m curing Portland, what I’ll do is I’ll, you know, cover it in plastic and then I have that just because I have it. Like I don’t know if it does anything or not, but they sell it as radiant barrier and heat is, you know, it’s there to reflect heat. So I just stick that on top. It’s cheap. You can reuse it and then I throw moving blankets on it because I have them. I’ll do like two or three. A lot of that’s just to make sure the plastic gets held down properly, you know, so I’m not losing moisture.
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah, but it’s trapping heat too, and that’s
Jeff Girard:
Trap and heat, absolutely.
Caleb Lawson:
beneficial.
Jeff Girard:
I mean, think about it, like you’re in, your room is cold and you get in bed and you want to be warm, you put on a couple more blankets, right? You know, I’m not putting 300 blankets on. That’s absolutely ridiculous. I’m going to put three, maybe four? Not a lot. I mean, you don’t have to be crazy about it. The, um… You
Caleb Lawson:
So
Jeff Girard:
wanna-
Caleb Lawson:
basically what you’re saying is with RapidSet, you’re the alpha, pretty much alpha by itself. Now, one thing you also noticed was certain liquid super plasticizers actually detract from the strength. Is that
Jeff Girard:
Right,
Caleb Lawson:
correct?
Jeff Girard:
well, I actually made three samples. One with no polymer, one with polymer, alpha polymer, both identical, like both use, and the difference was that the two common things that were outside of water and fibers was fluidizer. I used point, again, 0.2% fluidizer, which is a very low dose.
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah, and fluidizer has not been shown to detract from strength at all.
Jeff Girard:
No, no, not at all. And I was trying to make this concrete fluid because this particular batch of cementol was a little bit, I’ll call it ornery. Cementol has a mild super plasticizer blended into it.
Caleb Lawson:
It’s nuts.
Jeff Girard:
And it’s not consistent. Sometimes you get a lot and it doesn’t take much water to make it really, call it juicy, really fluid. And other times it’s more pasty. because there’s not a lot of it in there. And I happened to get a bag where it was more pasty. So it never really was pourable on its own. So I added a little bit of fluidizer to kind of kick it, but I didn’t want to overdo it and segregate it. And I was kind of guessing, so I was like a little bit is better than a lot. So when I cast it, like I poured it out of the bucket, but it didn’t flow out. It was not self-consolidating. I had to… you know, spread it with a trowel and then I shook the samples. And once I was shaking it and tapping it, then it flowed out. Right. So it’s
Caleb Lawson:
Well, and
Jeff Girard:
that.
Caleb Lawson:
I’m using a bigger dose of alpha than you are, or you were in that instance. I think you use
Jeff Girard:
Yeah,
Caleb Lawson:
more than me generally, but.
Jeff Girard:
but in this case I wanted to use a very, very small amount because I did not want it to influence anything. So a very small amount, just enough to make it so it could flow out. The third sample, I wanted to do it where, let me get my facts straight because again this was two weeks ago and I had a lot going on. Okay, so the third sample. used alpha polymer in it, which has a defoamer in it. I’ll come back to that. But I did not use fluidizer to make it fluid. I used Advo 555
Caleb Lawson:
Bye,
Jeff Girard:
to
Caleb Lawson:
everyone.
Jeff Girard:
make it fluid. So without any polymer, I mean, without any super plasticizer whatsoever, this mix was very stiff. It was not dry, but it was, you could pack it up the side of the bucket and it would stay. I had to add one and a quarter percent Advo 555 to get the equivalent workability that 2%
Caleb Lawson:
of 0.2% fluidizer? Oh my gosh.
Jeff Girard:
fluidizer. So I had to use six times more super plasticizer just to get the same workability. And that made it more foamy. But more importantly… that very high dose, and I’m not 100% sure what the maximum recommended dose of Advo 555 is, one and a quarter percent is a lot, right? That killed my strength, my one day, so alpha polymer in cementol with fluidizer, flexural strength 1885. Cementol with the same amount of alpha polymer, but with one and a quarter percent Advo 555. My flexural strength was 1206. I lost more than eight, 600 PSI in flexural strength, just by using too much of the wrong super plasticizer. Now don’t get me wrong, Edmund 555 is a wonderful super plasticizer, but if you’re trying to make something really fluid, the answer is not just to dump more in, because you will sacrifice a lot of strength doing that. My test results bear that out. And that’s why I did it is like, if If the strengths were kind of comparable, you’re like, all right, you just use more. But I see so many people do that. I’ve been in lots of people’s shops. I’ve seen, you know, you’ve got the squirt bottle and you’re just adding more. I want to make it more fluid. So you add a bigger squirt.
Caleb Lawson:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Girard:
That is very, you know, you can really be hurting your concrete by doing that. And that is specifically why I developed Fluidizer is you don’t use more of something that’s weak. You use something really potent and you use just what you need.
Caleb Lawson:
Right.
Jeff Girard:
Um, so the moral of the story is alpha polymer. Absolutely. Not only does it not have any bad effects in cement all it gives you almost 50% more strength, um, fluidizer as being in the most powerful plasticizer I’ve ever seen, um, gives you workability without sacrificing strength. and
Caleb Lawson:
And
Jeff Girard:
using.
Caleb Lawson:
it’s pretty long lasting too. I mean, it’ll, it’ll
Jeff Girard:
Yeah,
Caleb Lawson:
keep.
Jeff Girard:
it’s not a quickie go away kind of thing. It’s made for making concrete fluid. And yeah, so if you want to make direct cast, SCC, pourable concrete, whatever you want to call it, if you’re not using fluidizer, you’re probably sacrificing strength, potential strength of your concrete because you’re probably having to use too much. Like when you make, now we’re talking about Portland now, when you make Portland cement-based GFRC, you’re using what, 0.35% fluidizer?
Caleb Lawson:
Well and anecdotally, you know, I have I mean I’ve used a bunch of different super plasticizers You know I’ve used I’m not gonna name them all but I’ve used a couple of different powdered plasticizers From several different companies, you know, not just the ones from bigger companies and I had to use double of Every powdered plasticizer I had to use double to get a similar effect. Whereas Well, and then don’t even talk about the liquid super plasticizers there.
Jeff Girard:
Liquids are convenient because they disperse really fast and they don’t clump when you put them in water,
Caleb Lawson:
not as powerful.
Jeff Girard:
but they’re never as powerful because they’re diluted, like that to be made a liquid.
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah, so I mean, yeah, definitely. I mean, and the double number wasn’t just a, oh, I think I used about double. It was like 40 grams versus 80 grams. I mean, I measured it out and.
Jeff Girard:
And I don’t want, I hope folks don’t think that we’re trying to, you know, turn this into a commercial.
Caleb Lawson:
No, but it’s really exciting.
Jeff Girard:
But
Caleb Lawson:
to discover these things. Because
Jeff Girard:
yeah,
Caleb Lawson:
I mean,
Jeff Girard:
we’re.
Caleb Lawson:
that’s kind of new information for us as well.
Jeff Girard:
It is.
Caleb Lawson:
We knew it was good, but we didn’t know it was that good.
Jeff Girard:
This is going to be a weird way of describing this, so just bear with me. This is how I think of investigating concrete and looking at the effects of different mix designs or different fibers or different admixtures or whatever, right? It’s kind of like you’re looking for You’re looking for something you dropped into a puddle of water or a pool of water, but you can’t see because the pool of water is murky. So you’re feeling around blindly and you bump into things and you discover things and you’re looking for something, right? And you hope you’re going to find your, you know, you dropped your keys, right? You’re in a boat, you dropped your keys and the water’s shallow enough that you could reach the bottom, but… you can’t see the bottom, it’s totally murky. And you’re going to start discovering things that you weren’t anticipating. Hopefully there’s nothing that’s going to come out and bite you, right? But it could. And hopefully you’re going to find, ideally, exactly what you’re going to looking for quickly. But along the lines, you’re going to learn things. And… When we all as artisans or makers or whatever label we wanna put on ourselves, measure out our ingredients and put them in a bucket and stir them up and dump them into a form and de-mold the piece, our observations are very far removed from what’s actually happening. We’re kind of seeing the end result of a long chain of different causes and effects. So for instance, the sample, that cement all sample that I made that did not use alpha polymer in it, it was just plain, it’s bulk density. So let’s say I made a, here’s my phone, let’s say I made a block of concrete thicker than this, but let’s say I made a block of concrete that’s
Caleb Lawson:
Oh, you’ve
Jeff Girard:
roughly,
Caleb Lawson:
got a new phone.
Jeff Girard:
yeah, I got a new phone, yeah.
Caleb Lawson:
How is
Jeff Girard:
I
Caleb Lawson:
it?
Jeff Girard:
love it. It’s a phone. I’ll measure its length, its thickness, and its width, at several points, take the average so I know the, I have a good sense of its volume, like really, how big is this? And then I weigh it. So if this weighs a certain amount, 200 grams, 300 grams, whatever, and I know its volume, I can divide its weight by its volume. or is it volume by weight? Pounds per cubic foot. So it’s weight divided by volume. It’s too early, right?
Caleb Lawson:
It’s too early
Jeff Girard:
And
Caleb Lawson:
and you’re not looking at your notebook.
Jeff Girard:
I get a bulk density. So a bulk density is just how much weight versus how much volume, and it accounts for everything that’s in there, including the air, right? So if you think about like a balloon, a balloon is like 99% air. So it’s got a lot of volume, but not a lot of weight. So its bulk density is very, very low because it’s like one gram per, however big that balloon is, huge. Whereas a chunk of say, lead has a very high bulk density because, A, there’s probably no air in it, but it’s very, very heavy for a small volume. And bulk density is kind of what we, that’s how we feel. You know, you make a chunk of concrete, your slab of concrete that you make. fills the forms and it weighs a certain amount. So you have to make a certain amount of concrete to fill that volume. It’s kind of what we work with in the real world. Well, the bulk density of cement all with no polymer in it was, again, I wanna quote the right numbers here, 123 pounds per cubic foot. Again, not terrible. Um, the sample with- with polymer was 134. So that doesn’t sound like a big change, but the theoretical maximum of GFRC, you know, if you took out all the air and you just looked at that what’s
Caleb Lawson:
like sticking
Jeff Girard:
the
Caleb Lawson:
in a vacuum chamber kind of
Jeff Girard:
second
Caleb Lawson:
thing.
Jeff Girard:
vacuum chain we get all the air there’s no voids in it this is theoretical is like 138. So we’re already close to that, which means we don’t have a lot of trapped air in there. Now there’s always going to be some air in it. You can never make concrete with no air in it unless you do put it in a vacuum chamber, which is… nobody does that. It’s inconvenient. But if you can make a concrete mix that naturally purges its air, that’s why you want to make it fluid. That’s why I want to make it fluid so I can get the air out. Well, you know, not using polymer, not using my polymer. made a big difference. I’ve done the same tests way but last year with Cementol with Fortone. So
Caleb Lawson:
Way filmier.
Jeff Girard:
waveform here. So not only I had two observations of using cemental with photon, I saw no significant difference in strength.
Caleb Lawson:
Interesting. So I guess that kind of, this is an interesting sort of juxtaposition, right? Because that sort of confirms, in theory, that theoretically confirms a lot of the people who are like, oh, I don’t want to use polymer because their only frame of reference is photon, which in your observations is not increasing the strength,
Jeff Girard:
Right.
Caleb Lawson:
nor is
Jeff Girard:
In fact,
Caleb Lawson:
it detracting
Jeff Girard:
it
Caleb Lawson:
from
Jeff Girard:
kind
Caleb Lawson:
the strength.
Jeff Girard:
of,
Caleb Lawson:
So that’s interesting.
Jeff Girard:
in this one, yeah, this was done last May, May 3rd. So sample B, cement all 0.36, no photon. It’s seven day. Now these are seven day strengths, not one day strength. So the seven day strength was 1675 PSI. Different bag, of course. 5% Fortan dose made on the same day, seven day flexural strength of 1620. So tiny bit, now averages, the difference this is like 55 PSI, the averages can swing a lot more. So that’s in the noise. So maybe it’s close, maybe you can’t really put too fine a point on that.
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah. It’s near as makes no difference as.
Jeff Girard:
Density however, it’s a lot more accurate, 118. So it dropped. Not
Caleb Lawson:
Wow.
Jeff Girard:
a
Caleb Lawson:
Okay.
Jeff Girard:
ton, but it dropped.
Caleb Lawson:
But a drop.
Jeff Girard:
So because it shows that four tons a little bit more foamy.
Caleb Lawson:
So that’s a really good, you know, because most people out there are like, oh, well, Fortan is polymer. Polymer is Fortan. It’s kind of like Kleenex are tissue,
Jeff Girard:
Yeah,
Caleb Lawson:
right? So,
Jeff Girard:
yes.
Caleb Lawson:
you know, if you were to start saying, you know, let’s say you have a beard and you’re wiping your nose and you get a bunch of like Kleenex crud on your
Jeff Girard:
Mm-hmm.
Caleb Lawson:
mustache, right? Well, all tissues do that, but maybe there’s one that doesn’t. You know what I mean? So. I
Jeff Girard:
Making
Caleb Lawson:
think that people.
Jeff Girard:
broad generalizations based on your experience with only one product is a little dangerous.
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah, I agree.
Jeff Girard:
Maybe dangerous is the wrong word.
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
It’s limiting.
Caleb Lawson:
it’s short-sighted.
Jeff Girard:
It’s limited. It’s short-sighted. And it could really hamstring you from achieving something better. Like if you really, let’s say you wanna make, you wanna make something a cool piece of furniture and you wanna make it thinner because, well, it’s thinner is lighter, right? But every time you tried doing the way you normally do it, it breaks because your concrete isn’t strong enough and the way you get around that is you make it thicker. Well, if you can very easily make your concrete stronger, measurably stronger, significantly stronger, maybe you can start doing designs you can’t do now. Maybe you can start demolding with more confidence now. So it has some real impacts
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
on
Caleb Lawson:
that’s
Jeff Girard:
the
Caleb Lawson:
one
Jeff Girard:
business.
Caleb Lawson:
of the reasons for years I’ve used Cementol as a primary,
Jeff Girard:
Mm-hmm.
Caleb Lawson:
because it gave me a lot more confidence. Now I had to overcome the fact that it’s tan, you know, from a color perspective, I’ve developed most of my color palette around that, but that was one of the biggest reasons that I chose to use it was because the blended mix designs that I was using, which I like using blended mix designs. And I’ve been from scratch for a while with Portland, but I primarily use Rapid Set. Um, which will be changing soon. Um, I actually am. And which is what I’m getting to is I was much more confident flipping the rapid set pieces because I knew they were stronger,
Jeff Girard:
Right.
Caleb Lawson:
um, you know, and. With all this testing you’re doing it with my experience with the alpha products and you know, we’re turning this into a commercial kind of, and I, you know, but it’s worth bearing out because I’m blown away. I mean. I’m making half inch panels that are, you know, five feet by five feet. And there’s almost no flex to them the next day. Whereas even with rapid set, you flip them, there’s a little bit of,
Jeff Girard:
Mm-hmm.
Caleb Lawson:
like they’re really hard. It’s, it’s unbelievable how hard and that’s again, anecdotal, but it really, and then the, but the, the data is showing that what my, what I’m experiencing is happening on a technical level too. And so.
Jeff Girard:
That’s an excellent point, Caleb. Personal observation is real. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to dismiss it. But you can only take that so far, because there’s no metric. It’s very subjective. It’s very contextual. It’s very specific to the conditions
Caleb Lawson:
your
Jeff Girard:
of
Caleb Lawson:
personal
Jeff Girard:
the
Caleb Lawson:
experience
Jeff Girard:
object.
Caleb Lawson:
though.
Jeff Girard:
And then it’s also. specific to your personal experience and your personal biases and prejudices. Whereas having machine, even though it’s a homemade machine, it’s made with the same design characteristics as a commercial machine, all right? So it’s not made on machine metal, et cetera, et cetera, but it does the same, serves the same function. And I’ve done comparisons to make sure that my machine is producing the same kind of results. with the same consistency and the same accuracy as a commercial $50,000 test machine. So it’s not just some, oh, I’m putting a five gallon bucket on a couple two by fours and calling that a machine. No, it’s a lot more specific to that. The thing about measuring is the machine has no prejudice, has no bias. It just, it does one thing and it spits out a result. Now I have to prepare the samples properly. I have to test them properly. I can’t just do things willy-nilly. I have to have consistency. But I am now getting closer to doing an apples to apples comparison. And that’s where I start making the water clearer so I can start honing in and seeing results that aren’t skewed by. my opinions or my perceptions or something that I’m not even aware of. It gives me the ability to be more objective and isolate the phenomena I’m seeing, whether my concrete gets denser or it gets more foamy or it’s weaker or it’s stronger or it’s more brittle or it’s more ductile. All of these things are manifestations of a machine doing something to concrete, and I’m not involved at all.
Caleb Lawson:
Well, you know, it’s in a totally kind of separate sphere of personal observation. You know, I think we can have these perceptions about reality, about the way other people are, the way that life is, the way whatever, that are only driven by our perception of it or our biases or our personal experience. And they’re being influenced. So, it’s really funny. So, Yesterday I was in Detroit, Michigan on an install and I was planning on shipping. It was just, it was a coffee table, a bench and a dining table. And I did it because the designer is partnering with me on another project that I’m working on. And so it’s one of his clients. And so, you know, you do things a little bit out of your… out of your zone to help your friends out. And
Jeff Girard:
Right.
Caleb Lawson:
it’s
Jeff Girard:
And build
Caleb Lawson:
also,
Jeff Girard:
good relationships. That’s
Caleb Lawson:
yeah,
Jeff Girard:
how to
Caleb Lawson:
build
Jeff Girard:
build.
Caleb Lawson:
good relationships. But I was planning on shipping these pieces, okay? And then I discovered that there was a, I use freightquote.com, which if any of you listening like to ship things, they’re great. I
Jeff Girard:
Yeah, I’ve used that before.
Caleb Lawson:
have really, really good experience with them over three and a half, four years now. And… And I’ve worked with the same rep. So if you’re going to ship a lot, get a rep, don’t do the online thing. My rep is Kyle. He’s amazing. But anyway, neither here nor there. YRC Yellow Freight just kind of imploded last week. I haven’t read a ton of reports on what happened, but I got the information before it was public because they’re involved with the shipping companies and they had to stop using YRC, which doubled my shipping costs and made it take longer. And then on top of that, My client didn’t have enough people to get stuff off of a truck. And so I was like, Oh my gosh, I’ve got these pieces ready. I need to get them out of my shop. So I just, I said, screw it. I’ll drive them. Nine hour drive from here to Michigan, to Detroit, not horrible. So we left yesterday or I’m sorry, we
Jeff Girard:
for
Caleb Lawson:
left
Jeff Girard:
longer.
Caleb Lawson:
Monday afternoon. Um, got into Detroit area very late. Uh, Monday night, spent the night and then, um, and then delivered and then drove home yesterday. And it’s just, I think it’s funny because I was listening to something on the way and I promise I’m going somewhere. I’m listening to something on the way and I discovered something about myself, Jeff. It’s news to me, but did you know? This is obviously 100% factual. Did you know that my dad pays for everything?
Jeff Girard:
Does he?
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah, apparently. I this is news, right? I I’m totally I guess I need to call him and get some money because he must not know either.
Jeff Girard:
Yeah, that’s funny.
Caleb Lawson:
It’s very funny. But again, it’s your perception of things, right? I think, you know, some people might be, oh, Caleb’s part of the ownership of CCI now. He doesn’t, he can’t be, you know, he can’t be doing this on his own. Daddy must pay for it, right? Uh.
Jeff Girard:
Right. That must be coming from a very insecure person.
Caleb Lawson:
I just don’t know where, I don’t know why that needed to be insinuated anywhere. I just really, I mean, who cares, right? Like I’m not, he didn’t,
Jeff Girard:
Mm-hmm.
Caleb Lawson:
first of all, I would love to, let’s, let’s bring dad on the podcast, shall we?
Jeff Girard:
That would be nice. Wouldn’t it be nice? The last time my parents paid for anything for me was my very first car when I graduated from high school. And the deal was they buy me the car and I pay for the insurance and the gas from there on in and
Caleb Lawson:
My
Jeff Girard:
I
Caleb Lawson:
dad
Jeff Girard:
maintain.
Caleb Lawson:
bought me a really nice bottle of bourbon for Christmas last year.
Jeff Girard:
I have, yeah, it’s a…
Caleb Lawson:
He buys lunch occasionally, you know?
Jeff Girard:
Yeah,
Caleb Lawson:
I mean, I have a great relationship with my dad, but he doesn’t pay for my life.
Jeff Girard:
but you are fully self-made.
Caleb Lawson:
He’s got his own stuff to pay for and it’s funny because people assume no, he’s a retired judge He must be just filthy rich and it’s so funny because judges really don’t make as much money as people think they do
Jeff Girard:
Right?
Caleb Lawson:
I have an acute experience of that, you know, cuz everybody was like, oh your dad must do so well and I’m like, I mean
Jeff Girard:
Honest
Caleb Lawson:
We’re
Jeff Girard:
judges.
Caleb Lawson:
not like squandering but also we
Jeff Girard:
Honest
Caleb Lawson:
have a
Jeff Girard:
judge
Caleb Lawson:
budget
Jeff Girard:
aren’t. Honest
Caleb Lawson:
Huh? Honest
Jeff Girard:
judge.
Caleb Lawson:
judge
Jeff Girard:
Right?
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. So anyway, if you if you want to know how I have just, you know, so much money that I’m living in a house that’s buried in the 90s and I’m not renovating it all at once, because daddy pays for everything.
Jeff Girard:
Yep, yep, that must be it.
Caleb Lawson:
I forgot to text him. I need to call him and tell him he pays for everything. I wonder what he’ll say.
Jeff Girard:
We should have him on and have him comment about that. That’d
Caleb Lawson:
We
Jeff Girard:
be
Caleb Lawson:
should.
Jeff Girard:
funny.
Caleb Lawson:
Well, it’d be actually, okay, total seriousness. It would be fun to have Dad on because he has a lot of, I imagine he’d have a lot of things to offer from a very different perspective because
Jeff Girard:
What was his legal specialty?
Caleb Lawson:
When he was, before he became a judge, when he was a, he was, he did mostly corporate litigation. And, and what’s interesting about that is that is a field you can make a ton of money in, but when I was very young, so dad started at a firm called Steel Hector and Davis. I don’t know if it’s still around or not. I assume it is, but it was in Miami and then Tallahassee. I was born in Miami. And
Jeff Girard:
I said that it counts everything.
Caleb Lawson:
what?
Jeff Girard:
Ha ha ha, nothing.
Caleb Lawson:
Oh
Jeff Girard:
I said
Caleb Lawson:
man,
Jeff Girard:
that
Caleb Lawson:
I’m going
Jeff Girard:
it counts
Caleb Lawson:
to go read the
Jeff Girard:
everything.
Caleb Lawson:
transcript
Jeff Girard:
Ha ha ha.
Caleb Lawson:
now. And so when we moved to Orlando, when I was… five, I guess. He got a job with a firm and then the guy who the partner who he was working for as private firm, corporate litigation, the guy ended up going to jail for fraud of some kind. It was just a, and dad had thankfully resigned right before that. And he went to work for the county attorney’s office in Orange County, Florida in Orlando. And
Jeff Girard:
Well,
Caleb Lawson:
part
Jeff Girard:
that’s
Caleb Lawson:
of the
Jeff Girard:
where
Caleb Lawson:
reason
Jeff Girard:
I get
Caleb Lawson:
he
Jeff Girard:
all
Caleb Lawson:
did
Jeff Girard:
the money.
Caleb Lawson:
that was because he worked so much that he never saw my sister and I or my mom. And so he wanted to have a life that involved like family, you know, I don’t know. And so he quit a career. I mean, he had made partner at one of his firms and there was a year or two where he did very well in referral fees and things like that, but he quit all of that because he wanted to be home with the family. And so he worked for the county attorney’s office doing their corporate litigation. So he actually fought like in 15 years of being attorney prior to being a judge, he actually never lost a case. So I’m very proud of my dad for a lot of things. But then he became a, he was appointed to the criminal bench in central Florida. And you know, the thing is you can look all of these, like if you actually are interested in facts, you can look up all of the salaries of. judges
Jeff Girard:
Absolutely
Caleb Lawson:
because it’s public. And so you can see what kind of income I grew up on, right? It wasn’t poor, but it wasn’t certainly what we were. We were not. We were the least affluent members of our family. Let’s just put it that way. And then he became an appellate court judge on the Fifth District Court of Appeals in central Florida. And then he was appointed to the Florida Supreme Court, which again, I’m super proud of. phenomenally talented jurist. And then he retired and actually just recently opened up his own appellate practice law firm in Florida. So I imagine he’d have a lot actually to offer as far as just insight into
Jeff Girard:
Absolutely.
Caleb Lawson:
different realms. So I mean, it’d be kind of fun to just have him on anyway, because he’s… starting a business for the first time in his career, which is fun and interesting to kind of have that as camaraderie topic.
Jeff Girard:
Right.
Caleb Lawson:
But no, dad doesn’t pay for my life. It would be nice, but
Jeff Girard:
I’m sorry.
Caleb Lawson:
he doesn’t. I’m very proud of him and honestly, I don’t, I wouldn’t want,
Jeff Girard:
Good.
Caleb Lawson:
I wouldn’t want my life to be handed to me. That would not be, that’s just not very fulfilling. So anyway, all jokes aside, I’m going to text dad and see if he would come on at a later date. I think we’re supposed to have Bob Chatterton on soon.
Jeff Girard:
Yeah.
Caleb Lawson:
So I need to text him and get information of when that’ll happen. So we should start having some guests. What do you think?
Jeff Girard:
I like that. I like that
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah,
Jeff Girard:
idea. I think your dad could comment on contracts.
Caleb Lawson:
absolutely. Oh my gosh, yes, he’s helped me with mine on several occasions. And it’s funny, because he’ll he’s very, very modest to live with this is not my area of expertise. But, you know, I mean, but he’s like,
Jeff Girard:
Yeah, but you’re a lawyer, so
Caleb Lawson:
he’s
Jeff Girard:
at
Caleb Lawson:
a
Jeff Girard:
least
Caleb Lawson:
legal
Jeff Girard:
you
Caleb Lawson:
freaking
Jeff Girard:
have some…
Caleb Lawson:
dictionary. It’s ridiculous. But and anyway, he’s helped. He’s helped me in a business partner in another project, form a company. So he’s kind of getting into some more things now that he’s not a judge, and it’s not a moral conflict or a ethical conflict. Yep. So yeah, guests.
Jeff Girard:
guess. Getting
Caleb Lawson:
I have
Jeff Girard:
back
Caleb Lawson:
a
Jeff Girard:
to
Caleb Lawson:
financial
Jeff Girard:
Kinalake.
Caleb Lawson:
guy that would be really cool to have on as well.
Jeff Girard:
Definitely, definitely. I’ve never had to do this, but talk about business loans and things like that, getting advice for some folks. I know over the years, as people’s businesses grow, right? I started in a garage, my two-car garage was part of my house, and then I got out of that and I leased a shop. which is still Lisa shop. My career choice, my career path has deviated quite. radically from the path that most people take. Like yours is just starting to take that same deviation
Caleb Lawson:
deviate.
Jeff Girard:
of,
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah, it is.
Jeff Girard:
yeah,
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
we’re deviating,
Caleb Lawson:
in about the same time
Jeff Girard:
Caleb,
Caleb Lawson:
frame
Jeff Girard:
we’re
Caleb Lawson:
as
Jeff Girard:
deviating.
Caleb Lawson:
you said, actually. Kind of funny.
Jeff Girard:
So, you know, I fabricated 100% of the time for almost seven years. And toward the tail end of that, that’s when I started CCI. This was back in 2000. four or five or back in the midst of time, you know, almost 20 years ago. And in that time, I’ve always had shops, you know, the smallest shop I had was like a 1800 square foot shop. My biggest shop was a 7,000 square foot shop, but I’ve never owned a shop because, you know, it takes a lot to like buy a building and you’re committed, right? And then at the point of time where I was considering that, that’s when I… got into, that’s when I formed CCI and got into teaching as my primary business. So there wasn’t any need to own a big building that was centered around manufacturing. So it’s a very, very different topic. But when you’re considering doing something like that, finding the right kind of construction loan, do you buy an existing building? Do you buy land and build? What does it take? I don’t know, I’ve never been through that. So I don’t know what are the pearls of wisdom that you need to take away from that. But somebody who is involved in that might be somebody that people wanna hear about. So if that’s something you wanna hear about, let us know. And we’ll find a way to have them talk about that. Because the more you understand about your business, the more you’re gonna be successful. It’s not about cool colors you can make or how do you hold a trowel or whatever fancy finished du jour.
Caleb Lawson:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Girard:
That’s not what it takes to be successful.
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
That’s
Caleb Lawson:
it was
Jeff Girard:
the
Caleb Lawson:
interesting.
Jeff Girard:
bottom line on the cake.
Caleb Lawson:
I was, um,
Jeff Girard:
How do you
Caleb Lawson:
sorry.
Jeff Girard:
create the bones of a business to be successful? The procedures, the processes, the choices of product lines, the materials you’re using. Are you using a very, very expensive mix that costs you a lot of money just because, well, it’s easy. Maybe that makes sense for you, but maybe that’s not the best decision for you. Just like maybe a from scratch mix makes a lot of sense for somebody because they have
Caleb Lawson:
Maybe
Jeff Girard:
all
Caleb Lawson:
it doesn’t
Jeff Girard:
the wrong
Caleb Lawson:
make
Jeff Girard:
ingredients.
Caleb Lawson:
sense for somebody else. I mean, I
Jeff Girard:
Yeah.
Caleb Lawson:
think everybody’s
Jeff Girard:
It doesn’t
Caleb Lawson:
different
Jeff Girard:
make sense for
Caleb Lawson:
and
Jeff Girard:
everybody.
Caleb Lawson:
there’s not a single solution for every single person. You know, it’s interesting, you know, traveling a lot, you talk a lot. And I had my shop foreman with me, Jay. And, you know, we were talking about this kind of, I mean, it’s realistically a very small. thing this industry will call it. And, you know,
Jeff Girard:
We’re in a puddle.
Caleb Lawson:
yeah. And it was funny because I was asking him what he thought about, you know, our podcast and, you know, we’ve listened to other things and he’s, you know, one thing that I want to avoid, and I think people see it, right? People can kind of pick up on these little nuances that maybe others don’t realize they’re picking up on. And what I don’t want is to become an echo chamber. I don’t want to… you know, do this to like…
Jeff Girard:
Cure ourselves.
Caleb Lawson:
I don’t want my audience to be myself. You know what I mean? I want to bring value to, I mean, we’re focused on this industry, but if we can bring in outside of industry experts that have a field of knowledge that is beneficial to what we are doing, whether
Jeff Girard:
Mm-hmm.
Caleb Lawson:
it’s finance or the legal field, or if we could bring in a general contractor and architect. I mean… You know, having those kind of guests, I think, would get us out of our own echo chamber and not that we’re in one. I think we’re really exploring the topics that we have yet to talk about publicly. And that’s kind of where a lot of our topics are coming from. But, you know, when you get 60, 70 episodes in and it’s still, you know, it’s still just this. That would be something I don’t want to see. You know, I really want to see this podcast kind of evolve. to where we’re bringing outsiders in. And, you know, I mean, certainly it’s great to have artisans on and talk about their experiences because that’s a camaraderie thing. And I want some of that, absolutely. But I think, you know, getting some outsiders onto our, into our conversation is definitely something that will broaden the horizons of, you know, certainly not only ourselves, but hopefully our audience as well.
Jeff Girard:
Mm-hmm. This is meant to be informative and educational and eye-opening. Not…
Caleb Lawson:
Kind of like my eyes were open, Jeff. I mean,
Jeff Girard:
Yeah.
Caleb Lawson:
you know, my eyes were opened and I learned that I can call my dad and ask for a check.
Jeff Girard:
Well, that’s
Caleb Lawson:
So
Jeff Girard:
the other
Caleb Lawson:
this is
Jeff Girard:
thing,
Caleb Lawson:
a new day.
Jeff Girard:
you know, that’s really the other thing that we’re emphasizing here. And this is part, CCI has always been part of this because we’ve been around longer than, well, pretty much anybody who’s in this industry now. There are very few people left from the old days that came before me. There are a few, right? And most of them don’t get on social media. They’re not part of this kind of… surficial craft puddle. They’re doing their own thing.
Caleb Lawson:
Staying above the noise.
Jeff Girard:
It’s all about building a community. And that’s a kind of a trite thing to say, Oh, I want to build a community.
Caleb Lawson:
Well, I would love to not learn things like that about myself that I don’t know previously, you know, from outside sources. Like
Jeff Girard:
We’re
Caleb Lawson:
I would
Jeff Girard:
here.
Caleb Lawson:
love for there to not be some sort of, you know, I’m happy to exist in a field where other people also exist.
Jeff Girard:
Yeah. And that, for everybody to get along, means there has to be mutual respect. And, okay, maybe we don’t agree, but we can at least be professional and polite about our disagreements. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. You get in any industry, like, I used to be part of the Solid Surface Fabricators Association and the Stone Fabricator. I used to speak at a Stone Expo in Vegas and I spoke at ISSFAs or that’s too many S’s.
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah. Can we add another couple, please?
Jeff Girard:
Yeah. And every industry has the bulk of people who are just, hey, all they want to do is, they want to be successful. They want to do their thing. They want to be happy. And they want to feel part of a bigger whole. Like they want to be part of a bigger group where everybody is positive and everybody’s moving forward and speaking with a common voice. But you’re always going to get the handful of the little bullies in the playground who want to beat their chest and say, Hey, everybody look at me. I’m making the rules because
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
I want to.
Caleb Lawson:
and like you say, you know, I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be, you know, I want to be above that. And I confess that I have very much been sucked in on occasion and it’s hard not to, you know.
Jeff Girard:
It’s easy to have strong opinions, especially when you’re forced to react to those.
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah.
Jeff Girard:
To that.
Caleb Lawson:
But I think our general bent is that we really want, you know, like you said, mutual respect. Like, I have no problem with anybody in this industry. Truly. I mean, I don’t have any. I have I have problems with some of the ways that some people are choosing to behave in public. And I don’t love that. And if that would stop, you know, if there was a genuine mutual, you know, respect. And if we could put down a shield, if you will, we would be happy. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a new day, Jeff.
Jeff Girard:
Maybe. But that’s a choice that those people have to make,
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah,
Jeff Girard:
because they’re
Caleb Lawson:
I
Jeff Girard:
the
Caleb Lawson:
mean, we’re
Jeff Girard:
ones who
Caleb Lawson:
making
Jeff Girard:
do.
Caleb Lawson:
it right now. You know, I don’t want to be involved in any conflict, you know, at all. And so, you know,
Jeff Girard:
We want to…
Caleb Lawson:
I have respect. It’s not mutual at the moment, I don’t think, but I have, you know, I really do think that the players in this industry at large, and it’s a very small industry, so if you’re in the industry, you know who the players are, so I don’t need to talk about them. But I truly think that the players in this industry all have something to offer.
Jeff Girard:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Caleb Lawson:
And that is the tact I’m going to take when I interact with the industry. And Jeff, I know that you agree with me on that.
Jeff Girard:
Absolutely. Yeah. We had a pretty long conversation the other night about certain things and related to this. And, you know, if we all we all want and need to do our own thing, right, when you’re in business, your job is to make your business grow, be successful. That means you’re going to have competition. That means you’re going to. have people who are gonna wanna take your business away. And that’s the nature of it. And if that’s something that you don’t like or can’t accept, then maybe you need
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
to
Caleb Lawson:
but
Jeff Girard:
find.
Caleb Lawson:
we, you know, I mean, it’s like we’re, we’re now, uh, and I don’t think it’s on the website yet, because we haven’t received it yet, but like, you know, we recognize fully that we have competing products with trinic. And yet, because we recognize that they also have something to offer to the industry, we’re offering one of their products on our website because it has a really great application. And we, you know, so. We can play in the sandbox with other people. And I think that’s something that’s really important and it’s gonna be beneficial
Jeff Girard:
Right.
Caleb Lawson:
to people at large. You know what I mean?
Jeff Girard:
And as leaders of this industry, and being the de facto first, we’ve been doing it for almost two decades now. You have to set a good example, like lead by example. And behavior tells a lot, words say a lot. So
Caleb Lawson:
Well,
Jeff Girard:
we wanna be seen as
Caleb Lawson:
we want to show without necessarily saying, I mean, actions are powerful. And
Jeff Girard:
Yeah.
Caleb Lawson:
obviously we are seeking to live and operate with integrity and dignity. And we don’t want our actions to be condemnable really. And so there’s a lot of forethought into that. But when things are being made up about you, it’s hard. It’s really hard not to react. And we, and like I said, I’m guilty of, I’m human. I’m guilty of reacting. But I say it’s time to put down the, put it down.
Jeff Girard:
Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s, you know, we can move on from that. I want to get back to the shipping thing because that’s something that, you know, way back in the old days, I had to do like 50% of my business was out of state. I have shipped, you know, a lot of people have shipped stuff and it’s, it’s no fun. And the bottom line is expect stuff to break. And if it doesn’t break, you’re lucky. So this one story, um, this is back in. the early 2000, 2001, a space odyssey, right? 2001, I was contacted by a contractor out in Seattle and they requested a sample from me. And it was a sample I had made. It was like a really dark, dark mossy green. It wasn’t one of my favorite colors, but I had made it and it was put up on my website and they wanted a sample of it. So I made it, sent it to them and I didn’t hear from them for a while. And about two months later, I get a package of… Blueprints and documents and stuff like that and they wanted me to do a bid on this project and it was for a big I guess you could call it like a weekend home Didn’t know much about it, but it was like a five-story house and it basically was everything but not the kitchen countertops like the master bath countertops the closet countertops the There was
Caleb Lawson:
As
Jeff Girard:
a 12th.
Caleb Lawson:
one does.
Jeff Girard:
And this was before GFRC. So this was all steel reinforced, not regular concrete. I did a mortar base mix. But yeah, all the same color. And eventually, I put the bit in, whatever. It was a lot. This was a huge project for me. And I’d only been in business for two years at the time. So this was an enormous project, one there were lots of logistical issues
Caleb Lawson:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Girard:
that I was learning. Like I really hadn’t started shipping anything yet. So this was like, oh, how am I gonna learn how to ship? How am I gonna create and stuff like that? And long story short is I got the job and it was for a client that I was not allowed to know who it was for. So 2001, heydayofthe.com, I’m in Seattle, Washington. what company is in Seattle, Washington. This was for a house that they flew me there twice. Once to look at the job at some point, I can’t remember if it was before or after they templated it. I was not allowed to do anything. I just had to be there to observe. And then I was there to watch them install. So, you know, this house was a five story. It used to be, this was a renovation and this renovation had been going on for two years before I got there. And it was scheduled to go on for at least another year after I left, after my part was done. And it was originally was like a two story little mountain lodge. On the end of a logging road in the middle of the woods.
Caleb Lawson:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Girard:
And it turned into this five story. structure thing, yeah. Had a wine cellar in it. Had the dining room was cantilevered over a river and the floor of the dining room was glass so you could sit at the table, look down and see the river flowing underneath you. There were hand polished stainless steel staircases that were made by artists. So there was lots of like sculpt, metal sculpture in them and everything was handmade and hand polished. Um, the river flowed down through the property, came out of the woods. You didn’t, you know, it was huge. It was like, I don’t fish. I’m a terrible fisherman and I certainly don’t fly fish, but from what I understand it would be like an awesome fly fishing place to fly fish, huge boulders, big pools of water, mountain stream, river. It was about 10 feet wide. And I learned it was completely artificial. It wasn’t real.
Caleb Lawson:
Bet they stocked it with really nice trout though.
Jeff Girard:
Uh, it. It looked and functioned like a real, real river. And you never saw the end. You never saw the beginning. And it was running the whole time. Cause it has to, I mean, it’s not just a static duck. It’s not like a fountain. There’s a lot of biological ecosystems happening in here, but it was just, it just blew me away that this level of whatever. So when I did the project, this was 4,000 pounds of concrete, six crates. One of the crates was pushing 13 feet long. because that was a big fireplace hearth that I made. And the way I built my crates, and any of you who have any of my books, you see in the back one of my textbooks how I built my crates. So they were all three quarter inch plywood. There are better ways to make crates, but this is how we did it. Very, very strong crates with two inch thick foam all the way around, two inch thick foam between the concrete. So really well packed. And I didn’t have a forklift, so everything had to be liftigated. piece was interesting. I used an engine hoist and lift gate to get it in. And normally when I ship, just like what you were saying earlier in this, in this podcast, Caleb, you go, I dealt with a bunch of different Frank companies. Um, they have local places here. So I would physically walk in and start talking to somebody, Hey, this is what I want to do and develop a relationship with them and That’s, you know, the more you deal with a single company, the more you get better prices on things. Well, the GC is the person I contracted with. They said, my client wants to use their own shipper. They’re going to arrange everything. And normally when you, and this, if you’re getting into shipping or if you already ship, but you don’t do this. It’s extremely important to get everything fully insured.
Caleb Lawson:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Girard:
And that includes not just the market, the retail price of the product, but all the time and the crate and everything like that, as much as you can, because you wanna recover if you have to redo it again. Well, not only was I able to do that, I said, okay, this is, if you’re gonna arrange it, This has to be fully insured because I’m not assuming any liability for anything. As soon as it leaves my shop, I’m not liable for it.
Caleb Lawson:
Uh huh.
Jeff Girard:
That’s how it should be. The customer insisted on having the crates air freight overnight to Seattle.
Caleb Lawson:
That seems expensive.
Jeff Girard:
The shipping cost more than the project. Oh,
Caleb Lawson:
Did your dad pay for it?
Jeff Girard:
no, my uncle paid for it. The client paid for it.
Caleb Lawson:
Boom.
Jeff Girard:
That was crazy. The weird thing is there was no reason for that. Because when I got there,
Caleb Lawson:
They weren’t ready yet.
Jeff Girard:
Well, when I got there, the crates were there, and I got to see the effects of their expensive, client-chosen shipping company. Of the six crates, only one was not damaged, and that was a 13-footer, which I thought would be the one damaged. That was flawlessly perfect. One of the crates had been delivered upside down. Don’t know how. One had the skids ripped off of it. So it had no skids. One had been pushed off the back of the truck or fell off the back of the truck. So it literally was standing on end. Like they just left it that way. And the one that blew me the way the most was through the three quarter inch plywood, there were two holes for forklift tines had punched through the plywood, through the foam, okay, but through two inches of concrete.
Caleb Lawson:
Geez.
Jeff Girard:
That’s how hard they
Caleb Lawson:
They
Jeff Girard:
must
Caleb Lawson:
were
Jeff Girard:
have
Caleb Lawson:
coming
Jeff Girard:
taken,
Caleb Lawson:
at that sucker full tilt.
Jeff Girard:
full tilt. Yeah. Um, so I basically had to redo
Caleb Lawson:
that
Jeff Girard:
five
Caleb Lawson:
whole project.
Jeff Girard:
projects. Yeah. So fortunately I got paid twice. Unfortunately, I had to do it twice,
Caleb Lawson:
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Girard:
which sounds like no big deal, but when you’re in a business with other projects, you know, this is so, so big. It just was completely disruptive and it had a lot of implications. So it sucked, right? But that happens. So,
Caleb Lawson:
So just be aware of that. I mean, you can overcome it by ensuring it and know that, I think setting the expectations and knowing that eventually you’re gonna have to replace the job because the shipper
Jeff Girard:
Right.
Caleb Lawson:
did something stupid
Jeff Girard:
Yeah.
Caleb Lawson:
is part and parcel of the process. You know, I mean, I’ve shipped things and had them, one time I sold five tables and made nine because they kept getting broken in transit and you know, it’s part of it. I’ve got a project coming up for… a restaurant in Los Angeles. And, you know, thankfully the molds will be, you know, pre-made and reusable, because I’m doing three different designs, four of each table, I think, is how it’s working. Or maybe four of two tables and five of one of them, because I think there are 13 tables. Anyway, regardless, I have the mold. So I can replace one or two if they need to be replaced, because shipping.
Jeff Girard:
And that right there is another important thing to realize is, and this is true for even if you’re not shipping, if you’re making something complicated or you’re making something repeatedly, make your molds so they’re reusable, especially more than just once. Let’s say you’re doing a, I don’t know, it doesn’t matter what it is, right? But you spend all this time making this custom mold.
Caleb Lawson:
Yeah, for this I’m going to use foam and fiberglass probably.
Jeff Girard:
And in the course of, you know, it takes you a long time to make it, especially if there’s foam and fiberglass involved and you have to like sand and put it together. But the mold itself is not that durable and it doesn’t survive demolding. Like you have to dig it out of the concrete to get it out or whatever. So basically you destroy it. Well, what if, what if the casting didn’t turn out right? What if,
Caleb Lawson:
CREEP!
Jeff Girard:
you know, you’re screwed because if it took you a week to build a mold. And now, you know. The concrete didn’t mix well because you were in a rush or you got voids where you don’t want voids or, uh, one of your workers broke it cause they were flexing it wrong cause they weren’t thinking and they were in a rush or even if you did everything right, it breaks on the way on transit or the guy installing it, you know, chips the corner and now it’s like, well, or breaks the corner off or does something right. And you have to redo it. You’re literally starting from scratch all over again. And that customer is not going to pay for that. So when you’re doing kind of molds like that, invest in something that you can reuse. If you’re going to have to do it more than twice, make it so you can do the mold 10,
Caleb Lawson:
100
Jeff Girard:
20,
Caleb Lawson:
times.
Jeff Girard:
100 times. It’s not that much more expensive.
Caleb Lawson:
Well, I think that is a great place to just put a cut in it because we’re an hour and 20 minutes in. Contrary to apparent popular belief, I need to go make some money.
Jeff Girard:
There you go. We both do.
Caleb Lawson:
Yep. So
Jeff Girard:
All right.
Caleb Lawson:
yeah, next week we’ve got a class. Excited about that. We’re going to be doing some real projects in real houses. And by real houses, I mean this one. So, you know, and we’ll have a real client, my wife.
Jeff Girard:
Mm-hmm.
Caleb Lawson:
So get excited. I know she is. So anyway, Jeff, I will see you on Saturday. I’m going to go ahead and suggest that we’re not going to have a podcast next week. So we’ll see you in two weeks and hope everybody has a great day.
Jeff Girard:
Thanks for joining us. Bye bye.