Mastering SCC GFRC: Craftsmanship and Fiber Secrets Unveiled

This week on The Concrete Podcast, we're exploring the world of SCC GFRC mixes. We'll share insider tips on perfecting your mixes, setting realistic expectations as a concrete craftsman, and minimizing that pesky fiber ghosting. Plus, we’ll reveal the best glass fibers currently available here in the USA. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, this episode is packed with knowledge to elevate your craft. Tune in and let’s get our hands dirty!

#ConcreteCraftsmanship #SCCGFRC #FiberGhostingSolutions #TopGlassFibers #ConcreteMixMastery #CraftsmanExpectations #ConcreteArtistry #GFRCExperts #BuildingBetter #ConcreteInnovation

Here is the Kodiak Pro Playlist:

And here is the Stephen Wilson Jr. Playlist:

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, Jon Schuler.

Hello, Brandon Gore.

It's been a good week.

How's your week been?

Oh, it's going great.

Good.

Yeah, yeah, I'm happy with it.

Well, let's get right into it.

You want to jump right into it?

Sure.

Okay, so the first question I want to hit is from a gentleman, Bill Steinhoff.

This is on the concrete countertop, concrete sink, concrete furniture, and concrete tile Facebook page.

And he is having some issues with air pockets, and he's using Kodiak Pro Maker Mix and casting into a vessel sink form.

So it's a two-sided form that you pour down into.

And he's having issues on the backside of having some air entrainment.

Now, what I'll say is, anytime you have a form that nearly goes horizontal, like a vessel sink, so it curves up and then almost horizontal, air is not going to be able to completely escape out of that.

It's just the nature of air rises, and at some point, there's not enough angle of the form for it to work its way out.

It just gets stuck.

So that's it is what it is.

When I put a backer form on, say, a countertop or something, air is going to come straight up.

There's things I can do.

I can tilt the form a little bit to give it an angle, so the air can work its way out.

I can drill holes.

I can do different things to help minimize it, but it's just at some point, there's just no place for the air to go and it's going to be stuck.

So that's something.

Also casting style.

Casting style, but that's something to just keep in mind, calibrating expectations.

So having a realistic expectation of what you're going to get when you have a two-sided form.

But the second part of it is, and I'd say the biggest issue he has is he's using Kodiak Pro Maker Mix and Kodiak Pro TBP, Tom Bill Paul, the best plasticizer, at an SCC consistency.

And if you're new to Concrete, which you could be, the acronym SCC means Self Consolidating Concrete.

And all that really means is the concrete is flowable in itself, consolidates without additional vibration.

So in traditional concrete, for the last hundreds or thousands of years of concrete being used, when the concrete went into the form, you'd have to agitate the concrete.

You'd have to beat on the form.

You'd have to prod it.

You'd have to do whatever you could to agitate it, get the air to work its way out.

With SCC, it does it on its own, and that's through particle compaction, particle gradation, and the plasticizer plays a big part in this.

So TBP, really for a true SCC consistency, I'm right around 70 grams, up to 72, 73 in that range.

This gentleman, I guess, initially went 85.

So let's talk about TBP for one second.

85, if you go 85, that's like jumping in a Ferrari and just flooring it all the way to the ground.

You just went to one extreme.

So if you go 85 in just a normal shop, that is far too much plasticizer, beyond too much plasticizer.

Let it interject.

There's a reason, so I'm reading this.

I apologize.

I agree with you on the 80 grams, but there's a few caveats that get lost in translation.

Not saying you're doing it, but right.

He's mixing using a dual-paddle mixer.

So guys, anybody who knows this, single mixing by hand, well, that dual-paddle mixer is going to increase shear, which is going to make that 80 grams act like 90 grams.

Yeah, but it's not 80, it's 85.

He said he did 85.

Oh, sorry.

Even worse.

So my point is, 85 is the extreme high end.

That would be, you're in Australia in a tin shed, in the outback in the middle of summer, and it's 120 degrees, and your water is hot.

You'd be 85 grams.

Yeah.

But if you're in a regular shop, 70, 80 degrees, your water is cool, your ice in your water, 85 is way too much.

So he did 85 initially, which is on the far extreme, and it foamed up.

Well, of course, it's going to foam up.

It's way over plasticized, okay?

So then the pendulum swung the other way.

He beat the foam in with a dual paddle mixer.

I know, but I'm saying if I put 85 in with a single paddle mixer, it's going to be foamy because it's just over plasticized.

So then he's like, oh my God, too much plasticizer.

I get it.

But the pendulum swung the other way and he went to 58 grams, which is on the extreme low end.

That would be, you're in a freezing cold shop and you don't really need hardly any plasticizer.

So 58 grams, if you're in Alaska in the wintertime, might be sufficient.

But again, that's one extreme to the other extreme.

The zone you want to be in, the Goldilocks zone, as I responded to him, would be around 70 grams, 70 grams.

And you know, this plasticizer is very precise.

So going from 85 to 58 is going from a Ferrari to a Volkswagen Bug.

You know, I mean, it went from one side to the other side.

You have to be precise.

When I say 70 to 73 grams, we're talking about three grams.

Three grams is hardly anything.

You know, it's a couple little like salt shakers of plasticizer when I'm measuring it out.

And there you go.

So 70 to 73, that's the level of precision we're at with this plasticizer.

It's not one that you can just like, you know, eyeball, just, oh, I'm gonna dump some more in there.

You know, the old school way of doing plasticizer.

You cannot do that with this.

You have to measure it out.

So anyways, that's the first thing I hit on that I saw, but you read further into it and the dual powder mixer is something you want to talk about.

Well, that, yeah.

So dual powder mixer, if he's whichever extreme, he's gonna be whipping air into it.

It's nature of the beast.

But there's a couple things in here, again, that I'm just not seeing answers to.

So, you know, again, sorry, I keep asking more questions, but I don't see any, anywhere was said what fiber loads or which fibers he's using.

That would make a difference, right?

And that's going to make a change in your flow.

And then again, by how hard or how soft you're mixing it.

That show he's got his water.

He's talking about TBP, but I'm guessing he says TBP because he's saying plasticizer.

But yeah, what fibers?

Do you have any idea what fibers he was using?

I have no idea.

I don't know.

Okay.

So that's part of my question.

And the next question would be, and we've talked about this, but in something this small, if the same, if you want to minimize air, you minimize it first with your mixing techniques.

That's what he's doing, the fiber, the plasticizer loading, the mixing, the fibers that you're using.

Okay, that's the way to minimize it.

And then another minimization would be in the casting technique.

So this would definitely, if I was doing sinks like this, I no question would be casting from the bottom of the bucket.

Let the air bubble itself out through the mix, come to the top of the bucket, because right off the bat, if he is a, sorry, I'm going through this again, double paddle mixer.

So again, anybody listening, just think of double paddle mixers, which are awesome.

It's like whipping meringue, right?

It's like turning egg whites into meringue.

It's the nature of the beast.

It's just what they do.

So it is what it is.

Anybody, if you've mixed even a little bit of concrete, we've all seen that when you mix, especially if he's doing this in a five-gallon bucket, every time he comes in and out of that bucket with that mixer, you're going to see that air.

And it sounds like stupid.

I'm not trying to be condescending, but where does the air try to release from?

It bubbles up to the top of the bucket.

So if that's where you're initially pouring from, well, what do you think you're pouring right into your mold, which, based on the shape of your mold, doesn't have an easy route to escape?

You know, I mean, it just is what it is.

So I'm just saying, this would be a situation, undeniable, where I would modify my casting technique and then just let the mix fall out from the bottom of the bucket, off a gate valve or the other things that we've described.

Yeah, I think that's a great point.

And I've had a few people in the last, I don't know, a week or two, ask me about that, because I think there's still a bit of confusion about what that means, about pouring from the bottom of the bucket, that idea, that concept, and really all it means.

And we've talked about it in two or three podcasts back.

We talked about it.

Yeah.

But I get maybe a few more than that, maybe four or five now.

But essentially, you just take a normal five gallon bucket, drill a hole in the bottom, put a gate valve on it.

Jon has found honey distributors or suppliers that distribute today.

Yeah, they're on Amazon.

Yeah, I think that's what they're called, the honeypot valve or something.

I can't remember the name of the damn things.

Well, honeypot is when you pee in a bucket in Alaska.

That's what it was honeypot.

And maybe they are honeypot valves.

Dude, all the off-grid cabins have a bucket by the front door outside, and it's called the honeypot.

Really?

Yeah, it's gross.

Oh, that's funny.

Maybe it's called the honey bucket gate valve.

I sure hope so.

But you drill a hole, you put the valve, and then that way when you pour your freshly mixed mix into that bucket, all the air is coming up and working its way out.

And then you open up the valve at the bottom, and the mix that goes in your form is degassed mix.

It's really free of air at that point.

And you can take it a step further by taking a discharge hose.

They sell it in the plumbing section at Lowe's, Home Depot, Ace.

Oh man, people are texting me.

I wish I could turn that off, but I can't.

The discharge hose that they use for pool equipment, for like pump equipment.

They're blue, they roll up.

Dude, this is Gabriel.

Tell Gabriel to shut up.

We're doing a podcast, Gabriel.

Gabe, stop it.

Yeah.

Yes, you're pretty.

He's doing the Jon Schuler move.

Although I cut his hair, he's not as pretty anymore.

He's doing a Jon Schuler move.

Write one text.

But Jon does Train of Consciousness text, where it's like, hey, send, Brandon, send, I send, M send.

And just I'm on a phone call to me.

It's like, oh, my God, John, just write one cohesive text.

It's the 400 words that you send independently.

Anyway, no, I do it as sentences, though.

I do it as sentences.

Kind of not really.

And you'll just keep sending them, keep sending them, keep sending them.

But back to the discharge shows, it's the blue discharge hose that rolls up in a coil.

They come in 25-foot sections.

And essentially, you can just cut off a piece and attach it to the gate valve, and then put that down into your form at the very bottom of the form.

And that way, as the mix comes out, it runs down into the form without touching the form.

So it's not creating that thin layer that would want to trap air at a later point, or maybe dry and create a little bit of discoloration.

And then you just slowly pull the hose up and out as you fill it.

So you're filling from the bottom cleanly, and you just slowly pull it up as it fills.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And that will yield the cleanest cast you could ever imagine.

So that's another little tip and trick.

You can send your check for $500 for this tip and trick to Brandon Gore at Goddard, Kansas.

But yeah, so that's a good one.

Well, hang on.

So to add to that, which I guess, maybe I'll take pictures and you can load it with the thing, or load it with the podcast.

So what I'm talking about, they're called 2-inch PVC bulkhead water tank connectors.

They're super simple.

It's a 2-inch hole.

And then, I mean, I just had them at my local Ace Hardware.

With that, they're called Schedule 80 plastic, and it screws right into the end of it, and for the connector to the hose that you're talking about.

Super simple, easy to pick up pieces, available pretty much anywhere.

Yeah, it's a good idea.

So anyways, that's for Bill.

The biggest thing, in my opinion, the biggest thing is the 58 grams of TBP.

There's no way you're gonna get 58 grams to flow in a way that's gonna let the air out.

And I'm actually surprised it came out as good as it did at 58 grams, because the pictures of the inside of the sink are flawless.

The outside has some air, and it's actually better than what I used to get when I was using polymer, but it has air.

If he bumps it up to 70, it's gonna be dramatically better.

If he uses a single paddle mixer, even better.

If he didn't measure the temperature, he didn't have a thermometer, but if he can get his mix dial to be around 60 degrees, 30, 40, 50% ice, be around 60 degrees, even better.

And then if he can do the bucket casting method, so that mixes de-gas, even better.

So there's layers to making the best product you can.

And there's the steps.

Agreed.

Well, other than, like I said, the only last part of this missing is what fibers, if he's using fibers.

I don't know if he's using fibers.

I'm sure he's using fibers.

You know, and then he's using a pigment, I think.

I can't tell if there's a pigment, but not necessarily in this case, but I'll tell you in a lot of cases, pigment does create air depending on the pigment.

It's the nature of pigment.

So, you know, again, it's calibrating expectations.

If you think that every piece I cast is going to come out absolutely pristine, but then you introduce red pigment, brother, I'm going to tell you, you're going to have lava, because red just whips air like you would not believe.

Yeah, all the super pigments do.

Exactly.

That's why per, we talked a little while back, I used to put out the information, and I get it, I'm really bad about that, is when to load pigments based on different pigment types and da-da-da-da.

And that's how I just came like, the heck with that, it got confusing to people.

So now we changed all of our recommendations to, regardless of pigment, the best time to load that pigment is closer to the end of your mix cycle, period.

Yeah.

That's a good point.

You know, before we go to the next question, because I have several good things to discuss.

I was having a conversation with a gentleman a few days ago that is struggling right now.

And we were talking about ideas of how to generate business, which we've talked about in previous podcasts.

And we could talk a little bit about that, but you know, but the bigger picture was he was stressing out.

And I 100% get it.

I've been running my business for 21 years.

And the biggest stressor in my life is being a business owner and worrying about going out of business.

That is by far my biggest stressor.

So I totally empathize with him because, you know, for 21 years, that's where I've been.

And it's just what it is.

I was talking to Dusty Baker.

Dusty Baker is getting ready to place a huge order, but he's like, dude, I am dead or I'm slammed.

And that's been the nature of 21 years for me.

It's never been, there's never a time when it's just consistent.

Yeah, it's never steady.

Yeah, it's either feast or famine.

It's the nature of the beast.

And you also have to have faith that it's not always, you know, this too will pass.

The only consistent is inconsistent, meaning the only thing that's gonna, the only thing you can count on is it's not gonna stay the same.

So if you're busy, it's gonna get slow.

And if it's slow, you gotta believe that, you know, at some point it's gotta turn and it's gonna get busy again.

And you just gotta be able to get to that point.

So anyways, that's what my little pep talk in it.

But the conversation I had with him reminded me of the statistic that you and I know, and that's that 70% of businesses in this niche market will go out of business this year.

It just, and I've seen it, you know, you'll see somebody pop up and you're like, hey, you know, and you'll follow them for a minute, then they're gone.

And then somebody else pops up and you're like, oh, I didn't even know there was somebody in that city doing concrete.

And then, you know, a year later, we're gone.

And why are the reasons for that?

There's a multitude of reasons.

There's a lack of marketing.

They're not reaching the right people effectively.

They're not portraying their product.

Yeah, they can't charge what they need to charge to stay successful.

Well, pricing is part of it, but I'm saying they're not effectively portraying their product in a way that will, that will justify the cost they want to charge.

Meaning, if you have a GoDaddyTonight website, and you took pictures with your flip phone, and they're not professional, and it's fluorescent lighting, and it's just a horrible photo, and then you say to somebody, I want $10,000 for that sink, forget about it.

Not going to do it.

So there's a marketing aspect of understanding how to present your product to a client in a way that justifies the value that you believe you're worth for that work.

That's number one.

Number two is going to be product design.

You have to make things that people want to buy.

This is something, again, I see a lot of people struggle with.

It's been inconsistent.

I've seen people that are very proficient in the craft of concrete, but they lose sight of making things that people want to buy.

They lose sight of design.

They think that the concrete will carry them, meaning that if they get really good at casting, they get really good at curing, they get really good at sealing, people will come to them.

That's not necessarily true.

That's the things you got to learn as a business owner to create the best product you can so you have a good name in the industry and so you don't get callbacks.

But that's not enough.

You have to focus on design, right?

But the third part of this kind of trifecta between marketing and design is gonna be the products you use.

And so the place where I've seen a lot of people fail is they just, for whatever reason, whether they went to a free seminar or something, they started purchasing a line of products that ended up being the demise of their business.

I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that went out of business because of sealer failures, because of the concrete cracking, because of time.

Time's a big one because they spend so much time.

I mean, what's his name up in Canada?

You know, he's been talking about, he's been sending this message about how he's able to do three or four projects in the time he's taken to do one with his old products he's using.

So it's one of the things that, you know, if you're not effectively marketing, which it's something you have to learn, nobody's born being a marketing guru.

Like you have to study, you have to learn, you have to really invest in yourself to do the research.

But if you're not good at marketing, if you're not good at design, and if you're using a product line that's prone to failure, any one of those things can take you down.

And all three of them together is a recipe for certain failure, you know, as far as being a successful business.

So my message to him was, you know, these are the things I would focus on for you.

I'd focus on your sales and marketing.

I'd focus on really thinking about something you're passionate about, like designing something you're passionate about, because if you're passionate about it, other people will become passionate about it.

And then lastly, and he's making a switch to Kodak, that's why he called me.

He's making a switch to Kodak.

But the last thing is, really choose products wisely that A, is gonna save you a ton of time.

I mean, that's the big thing.

Time is money.

If you're spending a week on one project, but you have three to do, and you could have got those three done in that week, time is money.

But also choose a product line that you're not gonna get callbacks on.

Because the thing that almost took me under, the thing that almost took Dusty Baker under, the thing that's taken a lot of guys under, is sealer failure.

Sealer failure.

The sealer of the month club, the sealer ferris wheel or carousel or whatever you know call it, that people get on, and they just jump from sealer to sealer, sealer to sealer.

They never actually get any of them dialed in, because they're just jumping to the next one.

Again, that's a recipe for misery.

And ultimately, for going out of business.

So that was my advice to him.

Any thoughts on that?

No, you hit them all.

I guess the final one ends, and this is probably, I'm just sensitive to it.

Like back to the sealer issue, which, as you know, I go about five steps before we even talk sealer, but understand the materials you're working with, so that you choose your sealer and your methods of applying sealer effectively to minimize, you know, long-term problems.

And I think that's a lot.

When people get into it, that's a lot of the issues that I've seen is, I hate to say a lot of times, you know, people are sold a bill of goods, but a lot of the information out there, if you look at various, you know, distributors and so forth, though they actually, it almost seems like you're encouraged to be on the sealer of the month club.

You know what I mean?

It's just, I don't know if it's intentional or not, subliminal, I don't know, but everything's talked about the sealer from the sealer point of view, right?

Oh, it's scratch resistance, stain resistance, and oh, you'll never use it.

This is the last one you'll ever need or whatever the case may be.

But then the focus doesn't change to, well, wait a minute, like the reality is this was never designed to go on something that's, you know, three days ago was water, cement, and sand.

Like, oh, you mean that, in other words, you know, that your things have issues with moisture and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And so that end of it's never discussed.

And because of that, in my opinion, so much of the information starts off with you basically taking a, you know, a ball peen hammer and smoke smacking yourself in the toes before you even get going, because you're listening to people who have no experience doing it, but they have lots of experience selling you stuff, right?

And I don't mean that to be derogatory to anybody selling materials, but it just is what it is.

So, you know, we all need to take that time and understand.

You and I have been, you know, chastised for discussing curing techniques, which is all about sealer, not actually strength of concrete.

It all had to do with sealer and mixed designs and why you're doing certain casting methods in a certain way, which ultimately always leads back to a sealer because we're trying to optimize the concrete in a way to get the best performance out of the sealer because sealer is always the last thing put on and it's always what's blamed.

You know what I mean?

So, I don't know.

So, I'm just going, so that's a big one.

And I know that's a massive thing for people to navigate.

So, right off the bat, yeah, look around, try to glean your information from successful people.

You know, be part of a successful community.

That doesn't mean all this community has to be using the same products.

But, you know, glean off their success.

This is one thing you and I talk about constantly.

You know, if you want to be a millionaire, you know, hang around millionaires.

In this case, if you want to be successful and you can keep pushing for success, then try your best to, you know, be part of a community that continues to be successful with answers towards that.

Marketing, materials, practices, sealers, you know.

And then take what they're doing and then, you know, find your happy place of manipulating it into what you're doing that then fosters your success.

Well, the other thing that I wanted to hit on that I didn't cover when I just talked about this was, my message to him is, we're here to help you.

At the end of the day, Kodiak Pro, in this podcast, we discuss a lot of very important things for people in this business, things that are there to help them.

So our job at Kodiak Pro, Jon and I, we're here to help you be successful.

That's our number one goal as a company, is we're here to help you be successful.

And that's my message to him, dude, I'm here to help you.

So, I'm happy to give you my thoughts on this.

I'm happy to give you my advice from somebody that's been in the trenches for 21 years and has tried every wrong thing to arrive at the right thing.

And I'm happy to share that with you.

But at the end of the day, I wanna do what I can to help you be successful.

And that's our mission.

And as you're saying, a tribe, a community, that's really the tribe and community we're trying to foster with Kodiak Pro and Concrete Design School, is a tribe of professionalism, a tribe of integrity, a tribe of quality and craftsmanship.

And that's what we're all focused on.

We're focused on trying to make the best products we can, trying to run the most professional business we can, trying to present ourselves in the most high end way that we can to our clientele to justify our prices.

And these are the things that, you know, again, the top nine people you surround yourself are who you become.

So we would invite you, if you're not a part of the Kodiak Pro community, to become a part of the community, because the people that are really in this space are people that I view as leaders in the sector.

Justin Byrd, oh man, I mean, there's so many damn people.

I can only think of Justin Byrd.

I know, because we just talked to him last week.

Only Justin Byrd.

He's the one guy in the community.

The one and only, the one and only, dude, my brain is fried, fried.

But anyways.

I do love Justin, 100%.

But yeah, the list goes on.

Brandon Browning, Dusty Baker, Tommy Hearn.

Oh, come on, yeah, the list goes on and in.

BB, you know, even big or small, it doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, it depends what success anybody's looking for.

There's still obviously, there's people that I know rocking and rolling.

And, you know, like I just heard, had to buy a CNC machine to try to bury money and yada, yada, yada.

And then doesn't like what he's doing, doesn't, you know.

So ultimately comes back to what you and I talk about, Eliott, who was I just talking to, like Joren Smith, just, you know, young one, he's got a younger one on the way, you know, congratulations, by the way, if you end up listening.

And yeah, where do you, where do you divine your success?

Those definitions of my success definitely changed over the last 25 years of, you know, walking this road.

So with any of that, I certainly don't know all the answers.

I certainly have made my share of, you know, mix ups.

I wouldn't call them mistakes, maybe poor choices, which got me to learn and gain, you know, untold amounts of experience, which is fantastic.

So if those things can be shared in a way that continues to fosters other people's success, yeah, absolutely.

That's what we're here for.

That's what brought these materials on board.

You know, I'd love to champion, oh, they're best in the world, which I think we did talk about at one point, but you know, that's not what it's about at the end of the day.

You know what I mean?

I mean, I think I'll say the same thing, and we do talk about this, oftentimes, I think too much focus is on the product or the training.

I don't mean by us specifically, I just mean in general.

And, you know, look at so and so, he came to such and such, this is what made him successful.

No, he made himself successful.

He did it, maybe he did it in some minor parts of it.

But, you know, ultimately, yeah, taking that person said, man, man, how did you get off the ground?

And where did you get there?

And I'm certainly not too old to learn either.

I still call around to people, you know, bro, how did you get into that?

How did, oh, really?

Hey, yeah, that's awesome.

And helps me make some choices, still navigating the direction I'm trying to go.

So, you know, speaking of, I was thinking about the tribe, but Alicia Dietz is a great example.

Here's a female-owned business.

She's a veteran of the army and woman-owned business.

And in my mind, is a very, very successful furniture designer and business owner.

And talented.

She's quite talented.

Yeah, but that's what I mean.

This is the tribe.

This is what we're trying to cultivate.

This is the direction we're going, is let's lift each other up.

Let's help each other.

And us as Kodiak, let us help support your success.

At the end of the day, we want to support your success.

Next question, Jon.

Yes.

Nate Kida.

So he is casting SEC, Direct Cast, which I love.

That's what I do all the time.

And he's having some fibers show up.

So a couple of things, I'm going to let you jump in here because you're very heavy on the fiber side right now.

We're testing some fibers.

Just let you know, I'm not letting the cat out of the bag, but we're testing some fibers that are not available in the United States.

They're much better suited for our particular use.

The fibers that are readily available in the United States weren't made for guys doing countertops, sinks, tile.

Like, no, we're way too small.

These companies, these factories that make fibers are massive, and it's millions of dollars in tooling to set up.

You know, I saw somebody make a post that they had some fibers developed for them, and I laughed out loud.

I'm like, really, dude, you don't even have a shop, and they're developing fibers for you, and you bought a bag, and yeah, they tooled up a couple million dollars in tooling to make that?

I don't know, I bet so.

God bless them, that's all I can say.

The, I don't know, whatever it is, the delusion.

But I'm not even here to talk about that because that's just funny to me.

But the point is, even us, and you know, we'll be buying several truckloads of fiber at a time, several semi-loads at a time, even us, it's not worth it to them to tool up millions of dollars of tooling to custom make fiber.

They're like, bro, no.

So, like, come on, man.

So the fiber that's readily available in the United States is, it wasn't made for us.

It's just something that we're taking and we're adapting to our use.

And here's some trade-offs for that.

The fiber that we found overseas, again, it's not specifically made for us, but it's much better suited to this use.

I guess that's my point is, it's much better suited for our use.

We're testing it.

Jon is excited about it.

I'm excited about it.

We're close to carrying it.

So anyways, that's where I'm at with that.

But the point is, the thing I want to say about this, and then Jon can hop in here, is calibrating expectations with SCC GFRC.

Again, this comes back to, we're doing a fiber-reinforced mix.

And what is a realistic expectation of what a fiber-reinforced mix is?

Is it that you'll never see a fiber ghosted?

No, you're going to see.

Even with these fibers for testing that are not available here yet, you're always going to see some level of ghosting.

You know, it's just the nature of...

Yeah, I think it's always possible.

Yeah, it's just the nature of concrete.

You do everything you can to...

Well, if you want to, anyway, to minimize.

If you're trying to minimize, you take available steps to minimize.

Yeah, but what I'd say is, you calibrate your expectations as the maker of what's a reasonable expectation, number one.

Number two, I've been SEC direct casting, or direct casting SEC, now for 15, 16 years of my career exclusively.

That's all I've done.

I have never had a single customer in all that time mention any of the ghosting, if there's any ghosting present, or even mention the occasional fiber that shows up.

Not one customer has ever mentioned it, pointed it out, been dissatisfied or anything of that nature.

It's within me where the dissatisfaction lies.

It's within me where I view that as a problem.

It's not the customer.

The customer, when we deliver a piece, or we ship a piece, 95, 99% of the time, it's shipped.

But when they receive the piece, it's concrete that exceeds their expectations.

It's a piece that exceeds their expectations.

They're blown away.

Awesome.

For me, being a perfectionist, I'm like, oh my God, I can see some shadows of fibers up here.

The client doesn't care.

They don't care.

To them, it's concrete.

It's only me that knows what that is.

It's only me that views that as an imperfection.

The client doesn't care.

So the sink we did here in the bathroom of the front office of the shop, SCC GFRC.

Is there some ghosting?

Yeah, actually, I'll take some photos of it and post it so you can see.

But again, I'm at the point now to where I've calibrated my expectations of what is this material?

What is this material?

It has fibers in it.

If you're talking about honesty in materials, integrity in the materials, then you're gonna embrace that aspect of it because it's a fiber-reinforced mix.

So I'd say that's part of it, too.

I'm doing a tile project here soon.

I just sent the samples to the architect.

They love them.

Actually, something I want to talk about with you today on the podcast because I sent them a 3% jet loading.

They wanted dark gray and 3% jet, in my opinion.

The difference between 3% and 5% is negligible, if not completely unnoticeable.

So for me, 3% is where I max out at.

So I sent them that, and they're like, well, we want it darker.

And we'll talk about stains and how to do that here in a little bit, because I said, well, I can tint the sealer and get it darker than that.

But anyways, my point is I sent them samples that had a little bit of shadow and fiber in it.

And any more, I kind of do that on purpose, in a way, in the sense of, I used to like kind of pick through the samples, try to find the perfect one.

You know, here's the absolutely perfect one.

Now I'm just like, I'm gonna send this one, because that's the material, that's the material.

And not one person, this is a super high level architect I sent this to.

He was blown away.

He had my samples from 15 years ago.

And he hit me up and I said, the material's changed dramatically.

He's like, why have a charcoal sample here?

And I said, well, let me send you an updated one.

UHPC, it's denser, the color is richer, but also the surface is just a much more refined surface, because that was the old Fortan polymer days.

Let me send you this.

And he was blown away by it, but he said the client wants it to be darker.

They want it to be almost black, like almost jet black.

And I can get there, but anyways.

So my point is just calibrating expectations, calibrating expectations.

I think that's super important as makers.

If you get in your mind that it has to be perfect, you're always gonna be disappointed when you see that shadow of a fiber.

So, but there's things you can do to minimize it.

I mean, we're always trying to do our best to minimize it, and that's just the nature of being perfectionist.

So Jon, I will let you take over and discuss how to minimize fiber ghosting.

Things to minimize.

Well, first of all, when you talk to any distributor, anybody you're buying your materials from, hopefully they're straightforward enough to tell you whatever fibers that they're carrying, how old, meaning how long they've been in stock, where they're coming from, and then pushes you a direction that, in other words, let them know what you're doing, right?

Because I never want to put this idea out there that like, oh, anybody who's carrying these fibers don't know what they're doing.

Well, yeah, so they're probably not doing casting techniques.

They probably sold them to you not knowing what you were actually doing with them.

It reminds me of the time, I think I've told this story, remember I had the Mercka Sanders, and I was trying to use the Mercka Sanders to do a certain thing, and I finally called up the guy to say, one of the guys at Mercka, like, man, these just aren't doing it.

Do they need to be stronger?

Do I need to buy a different version?

And he finally just stopped me and said, Jon, you want to pick up the Fest tool to do what you're trying to accomplish.

I'm like, really?

He's like, oh yeah, this is the one I recommend.

Nothing that they represent at all, but he was willing to push me towards being successful, even if it meant going to something outside their product line.

So that was amazing.

So that was to begin with.

Now let's talk fibers.

Recently talking to the NEG guys, I will say, it looks like they've updated their fibers to a degree, but they're still a reality.

The main NEG available fibers I'm going to say are truly made for, you know, what I would say, conventional GFRC methods.

You know, spraying a face, either hand-placing or spraying backer coats of some sort.

Their fibers are a little softer, I'm going to say a little more feather-like, and the bundles, typically 150 to 200 monofilament fiber bundles, aren't what I would call a toothpick-like bundle.

They're definitely more, you know, a flatter aspect ratio kind of bundle, which is just fine for those kind of things.

In fact, might actually be optimal, quite frankly, you know, and give you better strength and give you better bonding in these kind of things.

But trying to incorporate those into casting technique, like SCC style, fiber, you know, those fibers are gonna have a higher tendency to ghost.

They're gonna be more difficult on flow, which means, you know, a person might think they gotta go higher water or higher plasticizer, you know, but really it's you're combating the fibers.

So that's number one.

So NEGs, I would say, avoid those for casting techniques, hand layups or spray techniques, you know, they'll be just fine, maybe even optimal.

We specifically recommend the Owens Corning.

And the Owens Corning out of the Chemfil 60 line, now it gets into kind of semantics, you know, meaning some guys might like three-quarter inch fibers and some half inch.

But now we're taking a step back and saying, well, Jon, I want to take the steps to minimize the potential for ghosting.

Okay, well, number one, the three-quarters are like toothpicks.

They're amazing, but they are larger.

So, no, they probably won't be as minimal as the half inch.

So I would say half inch would probably be your goal right there.

And then, that's the Kemphill 60s.

Now, Owens Corning also has, I'm going to say, a lesser known version that can also be used for casting.

Joe Bates and a couple other guys have been using them, and that is out of their HD line, and that is an 82 tex, but again, half inch.

I would recommend the half inch.

So again, they're just a slightly smaller, but they are a bundle of monofilament fibers.

They're stiffer.

So they hold up better to...

I'm going to say for us personally, they hold...

These are the lines I recommend, because they hold up better to us using single-paddle or dual-paddle mixers, higher shear than the NEGs are even capable of.

So those are the things.

So that's number one, fibers.

Two, if you're trying to minimize the fibers, a lot of people don't realize or just don't think about that glass is the same specific gravity as your sand.

And Jon, what is your specific gravity?

It just means they weigh the same.

So in a mix, weight, when you're casting, you're vibrating, you're doing everything, there's nothing in that mix that's going to distinguish the difference in the weight of the sand or the fibers.

So if you're doing vibration to create consolidation and you think, oh, well, that'll help the fibers bounce back.

No, they're going to basically settle at exactly the same rate as your sands.

So that's just something to be aware of as well.

And which brings me back to the NEGs.

So the NEGs, because they're a slightly flatter fiber, think about that.

Let's think of it like taking a plate and laying it horizontal or turning it vertical.

What you want is the strength out of that plate, and this I'm calling fibers, is a plate, but you'd want them on the horizontal plane when they lay down flat, and then they're settling at the same rate of your sands, your sands and everything else is getting it, you know, they're actually pushing it further to the face.

It's just nature of the beast.

So again, that's why I recommend the, I wouldn't say smaller fibers, but you know, the tighter bundle fiber, more toothpick-like than the flatter N.E.G.'s.

And then the blending, you know, the blending makes a difference, you guys.

I mean, you know, single paddle mixers, dual paddle mixers, these are again, difficult things to navigate, brings you back to fibers.

A, if you're pumping in air via however you're mixing, and now you're trying to get that air out at the same time, what fibers you use, and you're trying to consolidate them, bring me back to the whole sand versus fiber, which then brings us back into casting techniques.

How are you casting?

Well, to minimize the potential of what I just said, the vibration in the sands, well, you want to cast in a method that needs the least amount of potential vibration, you know, maybe a hip tap or a bump or, or, you know, something like that.

And to accomplish that, we're back to the, again, what we're effectively calling pour from the bottom of the bucket.

You know, develop that kind of casting techniques in those kind of situations.

Don't put it in a five-gallon bucket, and because the moment you start pouring that bucket, any air that's, you know, trying to leave the system has now become, you know, part of the first material being pushed in, you know, or, let's say, rolled into your form.

And that's going to be an issue, which then leads you back to, hey, maybe I got to vibrate it more.

I want to get the air out of it.

Oh, by doing that, you're settling your fibers harder.

So, I mean, it's a spiderweb of things, but these are all the things that take into account if you're trying to minimize the fibers.

And then ultimately, yeah, if you've done everything you can to minimize, because that's what you were trying to do, don't forget to accept the material for what it is, you know?

Yeah, calibrate expectations of a fiber-enforced mix.

Yeah, so, you know, getting a ghosting...

You know, that would be something like, hey, I casted this and, you know, I ask the scrub and I see the sand.

I don't want to see the sand.

Well, sand is a big part of the concrete.

So, you know...

Dude, how many times have I heard that over the years when people do the diamond hand polish on the round-over and they're like, but I exposed the sand.

Of course you did.

Of course you did, yeah.

Yeah, it's concrete.

I just got sand in it.

Yeah, and that's something that both...

See, we always talk about clients, but as you alluded to, you know, the first person you have to...

I hate to use the word understand, but you basically have to beat into our own heads not to forget what this material is and what it's made out of, what the raw materials are, you know, what it is that you're working with, because if you're working with something...

You know what I'm saying?

If I'm trying to get a cat to be a dog, well, then I shouldn't have got a cat.

You know what I mean?

I mean, then if you're going to embrace the materials for what it is, we certainly do our best to control it.

And I think that's really an us issue.

You know what I mean?

We're trying to control this material.

We're trying to craft it at the highest level, which I am a huge advocate for, doing your best at every step of the process.

But let it be what it is.

When you do your best all the way through, your mixing, your casting technique, pouring from the bottom of the bucket with the gate valve, your mixed temperature, your plasticizer loading, your form design, if you used a release, how you applied the release, blah, blah, all the things, all the hundred little things that lead up to that moment.

And you do all of them at the highest level that you know how to do.

Embrace the piece as it is when it comes out.

You know, you did your best.

You did your best.

Let it be.

I want to say something about the vibration, though, because I read your post, Jon, on the Kodiak Pro discussion page, and you said, where is it?

Not doing much if any vibration may be a bump tap on the form.

I pretty much agree with that.

Here's been my experience.

Depends on the casting material, but I mainly cast on melamine, or I cast on plastic, like plexiglass or...

What am I thinking of?

Lexan.

Those are the materials I cast on, and the resonance of those materials, I do pretty well by doing some vibration with rubber mallets.

So I'll hit my tables, boom, boom, boom.

I'll just walk around the table, boom, boom, boom.

And all I'm trying to do is those little tiny...

Yeah, those little air pockets that are stuck in the corners where I did the silicone radius, because silicone, here's the thing, guys, and I tell in every workshop, I have a workshop coming up next week, any place you put silicone sealant for a round over is going to trap air.

I can, I put $1,000 on it any day of the week that when you be molded, there's going to be a couple little air pockets where the silicone was.

Maybe nowhere else, but where the silicone was, it holds air.

It's just the tension of the product, it holds the air.

So all I'm trying to do, bang, bang, bang, is just try to get that little air pocket to go boop and pop off.

That's all I want to do.

I just want to let go of that silicone.

But the other thing is I do the hip shake.

All my tables are on casters, and I'll just give it a little slosh, sloshy, sloshy, back and forth, kind of like the motion of the ocean, let it slosh back and forth.

And again, I'm just trying to get any air that's kind of stuck on the corners or on any verticals to just give it the opportunity, give it a little nudge to let go of that surface and come to the top.

That's all I'm trying to do.

But yeah, if you think of traditional concrete vibration, Vibeco vibrators or anything like that, that you would attach to the table or high frequency, you know, you kick them on, meh, we all remember those from 20 years ago.

I still have some.

That would murder your mix.

All the fibers would end up on the surface.

You do not want to do that.

But yeah, low amplitude, low frequency, tapping with rubber mallets, sloshing it around a table on casters.

For me, that's the level of vibration I like.

And I do think I get it.

I do think what happens is the fibers slightly lift off the surface, which I think helps it.

But if you do an aggressive vibration, they definitely want to settle.

So it's that fine line.

Sure, so let me explain why I said that.

And we're going back to Bill's post, right?

So again, I'm just trying to bring...

There's so many little things...

Oh, this is Nate Kieda's post.

Oh, okay, that often isn't discussed.

So I'm going back to Bill's with the air.

So his is a sink, right?

His is a sink, so I'm guessing it's a two-part mold, probably a fiberglass two-part mold.

The more he starts tapping and vibrating, he's actually going to pull air through the seam, you know, the two-part seam.

Yeah, and a lot of people don't realize that.

So on the inside of his, let's say the sink and the flange, well, that's all one piece, you know?

So you're going to get a nice, clean, crisp edge around that.

But wherever that two-port mold, which you should, you know, wing nuts or something to put it together, the more you start vibrating that thing, you're literally pulling air through that seam, which is going to cause a problem, which is again, make it, and then you might think, oh, look at it, it must have been air in the mix.

No, that's not air in the mix.

That's like legit.

And I remember, I'll never forget, and I'm sure everybody does this.

I can't remember how long ago, but I had the Vibeco Vibrators.

I actually went down to this auction house, and man, I'm telling you, I felt like it was one of my Jon Schuler personal hero moments, because I went down and I bought these little Vibeco Vibrator tables, which are typically, for my budget at the time, and still is, stupid expensive, right?

They were like 55, $6,500 tables.

And I'm like, yeah, but man, and they had these things for like 50 bucks.

They just want to get rid of them.

And so I drove down, I think it was San Jose.

And I get down there and the guy comes out and like, yeah, I want to, you know, I called you about those.

He's like, oh, get these things out of here.

I can't wait.

And I'm like, why?

What's going on?

And he's like, well, I think they got to be all replaced.

They got to be rebuilt or something.

I'm like, oh, shit.

So what it was is these have those air shocks, those little air shocks, and there was no air in them.

So when he plugged them in, when people came by to look at these vibrating tables, all you heard was the racketeers racket, because the table is just bouncing on itself.

It was horrible.

But I brought them home through some air in the air shocks, and oh, they're quite as quiet it can be.

But first time I put a mold on there, I thought, well, absolutely, I cranked those things for everything they're worth, but I couldn't get the bubbles to quit coming out.

It's like boiling, the mix was like boiling.

There's no way that it can be this much air in this mix.

And then I turn them down a little bit, and then I turn them back up again, and I turn them down.

I'm like, oh, this is ridiculous.

And finally, I just stopped and you still started the little boop, boop, boop, and then it dawned on me, it was all around the outside of my two-part form.

Well, that's crazy.

And so sure enough, when I, you know, pulled the edges, oh man, you know what I mean?

It looked like, it looked like gophers, you know, or ants, it looked like a little ant farm.

All along the outside, where the air, you know, the pressure from the mix, and again, never under straight, underestimate hydraulic pressure, even from the mixed point of view with air.

So air was coming right up, and it was just pulling right up those sides.

So anyway, that's another thing I don't know if this individual is taking into account, what's going on there.

Well, there you go.

That was me jumping up, and I'm like, oh, let me turn this phone off.

It's ringing.

But you're the last person that has a landline, I swear.

I know.

Nobody ever calls on the landline.

It's antique.

Mabel, can you ring the sheriff?

I'm going to hold on to it, man.

And I made sure I kept it a dial phone, too.

All good stuff.

I was going to talk about stains, and you had a whole thing you want to talk about stains, but we're out of time.

We've gone to the end of this, so we'll save that for next week.

I'll have my list here, and we'll pick that up next week.

Things we love, Jon.

Things we love.

What do we love?

Oh, shoot, man, I'm still sitting, I'm trying to think of how to help Bill cast better.

What do I love?

Well, I'm getting more and more into coffee.

I like coffee.

Have we talked much about coffees?

Yeah.

Coffee enemas?

Well, I do large suppositories.

Yeah.

But I didn't know we wanted to talk about that on the podcast.

You know, we talk about everything.

It's just a couple young guys having a conversation, you know.

No, so I started getting back into coffees, man.

I'm really enjoying coffee.

I think I told everybody about my spin coffee maker, the new one coming out in fall.

So it's going to have different.

Oh, what do you call it anyway?

Two different pods to put different beans and stuff.

And the other person, so I'm having great conversations with related to coffee, coffee beans, origins of coffees, flavors of coffees.

And I don't mean flavors like, you know, almond roasted coffee.

I mean, like where the beans come from, how they're roasted.

It's in Justin Burr.

Justin's very much into coffees.

So that's something I'm getting more and more into.

It's coffee.

Enjoying coffee, yeah.

That's great.

Well, for me, this week is going to be music.

There's a musician that, we have a Kodiak Pro playlist on Spotify for working.

Yeah, did you know that?

I had no idea.

Dude, I posted on a Kodiak Pro discussion page a long time ago.

I'll post it again.

It's a great playlist.

I listen to it all the time.

I'll be working.

My wife's like, what playlist is this?

And I'm like, oh, it's a Kodiak Pro playlist.

I swear to you, because it's a bunch of good stuff.

But Steven Wilson Jr.

is the name of the guy.

S-T-E-P-H-E-N, Steven.

Steven Wilson Jr.

He's on the playlist, but I'm really into this guy right now.

So I just kind of have him on repeat.

And he's like a singer, songwriter, country.

Really good.

I'm like totally digging it.

So Steven Wilson Jr.

So if you're on Spotify, look him up, get him to listen.

What style music?

Really good stuff.

Like singer, songwriter, country.

You know, he just hits on all the stuff.

He's the same age as me, born in 1979, and he just talks about all the stuff.

It's so nostalgic for me of growing up in the South, but just growing up.

I mean, even if you grew up in California, but it's the same thing that you went through.

And it's the same experience as you had.

And so, you know, we're of that age now that people are singing about way back in the day when I was a kid.

And, you know, that's what it was, you know?

So, anyways, I really like it.

American Gothic is one of the songs.

There's just a bunch of great songs that I'd recommend checking out.

So, Stephen Wilson Jr.

Lasting John, I have a workshop coming up next week.

We still have time.

Furniture Design Workshop.

You know, I talked about the importance of design earlier, but it's one of the trifecta, the kind of that triangle of...

What is that thing?

The Trinity, the American Missile System for nuclear.

But it's kind of the Trinity of running a successful concrete business.

It's going to be marketing, design, and then products.

But the design part is a place where a lot of people do truly struggle with.

And, you know, when we had this conversation with Justin Byrd last week, I said, you know, where I really view myself, I'm not a chemist.

I'm not any of those things.

That's what you're good at.

But what I do feel that I enjoy and where I excel the most is in design.

That's the thing that I enjoy the most.

I like I really, really love the process.

And so if I can help share my process with you, if I can help share the insights that I've gleaned over years of design and products, of how you can make your products better, not just furniture, but anything, that's what this class is for, is to help you get better at design.

So if you're interested, go to concretedesignschool.com August 16th through the 18th here in Goddard, Kansas.

The airport you'd fly into is ICT.

I kid you not.

ICT is airport code.

So you look up flights, but check it out if you're interested.

Concrete Design School.

This is only furniture design workshop I've scheduled for this year.

And the last one I did was probably three, four years ago.

And it'll probably be another three or four years before I do another one.

So don't sit on your hands and think, I'll just go to the next one.

It might be a while.

So check it out.

And on that note, Jon, let's wrap it up.

All right, buddy.

All right.

Well, as always, good talking to you.

Yeah.

Until next week.

Next week.

No, you're supposed to say adios, amigo.

I thought you did this first.

You've done this 117 times now.

117 times and you don't know the script.

So here we go.

Adios.

No, no, no, no.

Adios, amigo.

Sorry.

Adios, amigo.

Adios.