Strong, Light, and Lasting: The Truth About GFRC Countertops & Sinks
“GFRC opened up a world of possibilities we could never achieve with traditional concrete - lighter, stronger, and built to last.” - Brandon Gore
Most makers carry a quiet frustration - they want their work to be lighter, stronger, and more refined, but the materials and methods they’ve been handed keep them stuck in the old way of doing things. This week we pull back the curtain on GFRC, a material that changes the game for concrete countertops, sinks, and furniture.
You’ll hear how GFRC stands apart from traditional mixes, why it matters for strength and beauty, and how it frees you from the weight and limitations of standard pours. We’ll talk mixing, spraying, fiber, and the myths that keep many craftspeople from unlocking its full potential.
At the heart of it, this isn’t just about concrete - it’s about your story as a maker. When you learn to harness the right materials, you save time, reduce stress, and create pieces that set you apart. That’s what every artisan wants: the freedom to create without compromise.
And here’s the thing - tools like Kodiak Pro products exist to put that freedom in your hands. They’re engineered by makers, for makers. The result? Less time fixing problems, more time building the kind of work that carries your name forward.
#ConcreteCountertops #MakersMindset #GrowthThroughCraft #ConcreteArtisans #KodiakPro #GFRCConcrete #CraftsmanshipMatters #concretedesign #gfrc
TRANSCRIPT:
00:00:15.118 --> 00:00:17.018
(Brandon Gore) Hello, Jon Schuler.
00:00:17.018 --> 00:00:18.058
(Jon Schuler) Happy Friday.
00:00:18.058 --> 00:00:20.898
(Brandon Gore) Happy Friday, happy Friday.
00:00:20.898 --> 00:00:22.618
(Brandon Gore) Friday, August 29th.
00:00:22.618 --> 00:00:26.118
(Brandon Gore) Our last podcast was July 29th, Jon.
00:00:26.118 --> 00:00:27.918
(Brandon Gore) We said we were gonna do better.
00:00:27.918 --> 00:00:29.518
(Brandon Gore) We said we were gonna do better, and we didn't.
00:00:29.518 --> 00:00:31.058
(Brandon Gore) We actually went worse.
00:00:31.058 --> 00:00:34.098
(Brandon Gore) If we were like in two week increments, now we're in four week increments.
00:00:34.098 --> 00:00:36.098
(Brandon Gore) We're going the wrong direction here.
00:00:37.478 --> 00:00:39.138
(Jon Schuler) Well, we really have been busy.
00:00:39.138 --> 00:00:43.838
(Jon Schuler) I had to drive through all the states, and then you did a family vacation, but yeah, we're here.
00:00:44.318 --> 00:00:44.578
(Brandon Gore) We're here.
00:00:44.578 --> 00:00:45.398
(Jon Schuler) That's what matters.
00:00:45.398 --> 00:00:46.058
(Jon Schuler) We're here.
00:00:46.058 --> 00:00:46.798
(Brandon Gore) That's what matters.
00:00:46.798 --> 00:00:47.278
(Brandon Gore) Yep.
00:00:47.278 --> 00:00:47.638
(Brandon Gore) Yep.
00:00:47.638 --> 00:00:48.058
(Brandon Gore) Yep.
00:00:48.058 --> 00:00:48.858
(Jon Schuler) Yep.
00:00:48.858 --> 00:00:52.998
(Jon Schuler) So, and if you look at it, since we do in every other, we only missed one.
00:00:52.998 --> 00:00:53.718
(Jon Schuler) True.
00:00:53.718 --> 00:00:55.298
(Jon Schuler) That's not bad.
00:00:55.298 --> 00:00:59.378
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, it's not bad, but I feel that we need to get back.
00:00:59.378 --> 00:01:00.598
(Brandon Gore) Consistency.
00:01:00.598 --> 00:01:01.158
(Brandon Gore) Consistency.
00:01:01.158 --> 00:01:01.878
(Jon Schuler) Oh, I guarantee it.
00:01:01.998 --> 00:01:03.458
(Jon Schuler) I bet there's...
00:01:03.458 --> 00:01:05.898
(Jon Schuler) Well, we know what the listening rate is, so there's what?
00:01:05.898 --> 00:01:10.738
(Jon Schuler) About 1,200 people that have been now, you know, like addicts.
00:01:10.738 --> 00:01:11.418
(Jon Schuler) They're already...
00:01:11.418 --> 00:01:12.958
(Jon Schuler) They've gone back to overeating.
00:01:13.538 --> 00:01:16.418
(Jon Schuler) They've gone back to all their vices.
00:01:16.418 --> 00:01:19.558
(Jon Schuler) Someone keeps putting the needle back aside.
00:01:19.558 --> 00:01:22.658
(Brandon Gore) Somebody's standing down the corner out here trying to flag down cars.
00:01:22.658 --> 00:01:24.458
(Jon Schuler) Right.
00:01:24.458 --> 00:01:25.778
(Jon Schuler) They gotta get their fix.
00:01:25.778 --> 00:01:26.558
(Jon Schuler) I get it, man.
00:01:26.558 --> 00:01:27.098
(Jon Schuler) I get it.
00:01:27.098 --> 00:01:28.058
(Jon Schuler) So that's awesome.
00:01:28.058 --> 00:01:29.918
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, it is awesome.
00:01:29.918 --> 00:01:31.118
(Brandon Gore) So glad to be back.
00:01:31.118 --> 00:01:33.378
(Brandon Gore) Let's see a couple of things really quick.
00:01:33.378 --> 00:01:34.038
(Brandon Gore) Workshops.
00:01:34.038 --> 00:01:39.918
(Brandon Gore) I've received quite a few emails in the last month about people asking questions about workshops.
00:01:39.978 --> 00:01:44.878
(Brandon Gore) If you go to, and they're going to Kodiak Pro, looking for the workshops, and the workshops are separate.
00:01:44.878 --> 00:01:46.838
(Brandon Gore) Concrete Design School is workshops.
00:01:46.838 --> 00:01:50.238
(Brandon Gore) So they keep asking, hey, I hear you guys talk about workshops on a podcast.
00:01:50.238 --> 00:01:52.018
(Brandon Gore) I can't find them on your website.
00:01:53.198 --> 00:01:55.538
(Brandon Gore) concretedesignschool.com is where you go.
00:01:55.538 --> 00:01:56.938
(Brandon Gore) So we have two workshops coming up.
00:01:56.938 --> 00:02:03.138
(Brandon Gore) The Basics Fundamentals Workshop, September 20th and 21st, and then RammCrete Workshop, October 18th and 19th.
00:02:03.138 --> 00:02:06.058
(Brandon Gore) Both of those are here in Goddard, Kansas.
00:02:06.058 --> 00:02:10.198
(Brandon Gore) The RammCrete Workshop, I think Jon Schuler is going to fly out for that one, October 18th and 19th.
00:02:10.198 --> 00:02:11.678
(Brandon Gore) You're looking at flights.
00:02:11.678 --> 00:02:14.958
(Brandon Gore) So that'll be a good class, be a lot of fun.
00:02:14.958 --> 00:02:16.338
(Brandon Gore) But go to concretedesignschool.com.
00:02:18.058 --> 00:02:19.138
(Jon Schuler) I just thought about this.
00:02:19.138 --> 00:02:20.778
(Jon Schuler) Do we have a link on the page?
00:02:20.778 --> 00:02:24.418
(Jon Schuler) Maybe we need to put a page on the Kodiak Pro as a link.
00:02:24.418 --> 00:02:25.558
(Brandon Gore) I got my laptop open.
00:02:25.558 --> 00:02:26.098
(Brandon Gore) Let me see here.
00:02:26.098 --> 00:02:27.538
(Brandon Gore) Kodiak Pro.
00:02:30.778 --> 00:02:32.218
(Jon Schuler) I can certainly understand that.
00:02:32.218 --> 00:02:34.078
(Brandon Gore) Well, hold on, Jon.
00:02:34.078 --> 00:02:41.138
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, if you go to the About section on Kodiak Pro and scroll down, it says visit Concrete Design School to see our current class schedule.
00:02:41.138 --> 00:02:45.278
(Brandon Gore) But on Kodiak Pro, we also have a training and events page.
00:02:45.278 --> 00:02:46.698
(Brandon Gore) And I could link it.
00:02:46.698 --> 00:02:47.998
(Brandon Gore) I just haven't done it.
00:02:47.998 --> 00:02:54.138
(Brandon Gore) I could go in and put the Concrete Design School workshops there as well, because I think people are looking there, and that's where we do the demo days.
00:02:54.138 --> 00:02:57.398
(Brandon Gore) But for the actual training classes, that's been Concrete Design School.
00:02:57.398 --> 00:02:59.178
(Brandon Gore) So I'll figure out a workaround.
00:02:59.178 --> 00:03:00.938
(Brandon Gore) But anyways, like I said, let's do it.
00:03:00.938 --> 00:03:01.998
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:03:01.998 --> 00:03:04.658
(Brandon Gore) A lot of people asking what the class schedule is.
00:03:04.658 --> 00:03:05.838
(Brandon Gore) I can't find it on your website.
00:03:06.058 --> 00:03:07.538
(Brandon Gore) Well, it's on a different website.
00:03:07.538 --> 00:03:08.318
(Brandon Gore) So go to that website.
00:03:08.318 --> 00:03:09.838
(Brandon Gore) Concrete Design School.
00:03:09.838 --> 00:03:10.498
(Jon Schuler) So there's that.
00:03:10.498 --> 00:03:11.718
(Jon Schuler) Well, we try not to mix them.
00:03:11.718 --> 00:03:12.338
(Jon Schuler) You know what I mean?
00:03:12.338 --> 00:03:18.158
(Jon Schuler) I mean, I think that's one thing that's important for people, anybody to understand with the things we do.
00:03:18.158 --> 00:03:29.438
(Jon Schuler) I mean, are we absolutely, I mean, I can't even anyway, are we absolutely confident in the materials that are provided through Kodiak Pro?
00:03:29.438 --> 00:03:31.238
(Jon Schuler) Undeniable, undeniable.
00:03:31.238 --> 00:03:49.998
(Jon Schuler) But the reality is the training, as much as that's all the training is based on our personal experience, we use the materials, but the training events, they're not meant to be product sales.
00:03:49.998 --> 00:03:50.718
(Jon Schuler) You know what I mean?
00:03:50.718 --> 00:03:54.758
(Jon Schuler) I mean, we use them and we will use them, but they're not meant to be demos.
00:03:54.758 --> 00:04:02.098
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, the workshops are based on experience and we're teaching you the hard learned lessons of being a professional concrete artisan in this space.
00:04:02.258 --> 00:04:04.878
(Brandon Gore) And so, that's a lot more than how to mix, how to cast.
00:04:04.878 --> 00:04:06.818
(Brandon Gore) It's sales and marketing.
00:04:06.818 --> 00:04:08.598
(Brandon Gore) It's working with designers.
00:04:08.598 --> 00:04:11.218
(Brandon Gore) It's all these different things, social media, whatever.
00:04:11.218 --> 00:04:15.018
(Brandon Gore) All the questions that people have, that's what the workshops are for.
00:04:15.018 --> 00:04:16.818
(Brandon Gore) That's what Concrete Design School is for.
00:04:16.818 --> 00:04:18.998
(Brandon Gore) Kodiak Pro, that's materials.
00:04:18.998 --> 00:04:24.418
(Brandon Gore) So you might see some other material companies out there that do quote unquote training.
00:04:24.418 --> 00:04:25.178
(Brandon Gore) It's not training.
00:04:26.098 --> 00:04:31.798
(Brandon Gore) It's come get a slice of pizza and watch us mix and mix and tell you how to be profitable, although we were never profitable.
00:04:32.678 --> 00:04:36.558
(Brandon Gore) We never did this for a living, but we're going to tell you how to be profitable doing this, which is insane.
00:04:36.558 --> 00:04:41.018
(Brandon Gore) That reminds me of something, not to go negative Nellie right out of the gates on the podcast.
00:04:41.018 --> 00:04:54.278
(Brandon Gore) But there is a person that is listening to training classes and talking about how you don't know what you don't know, experience matters, come learn from me, I'll teach you how to be profitable, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:04:54.278 --> 00:04:57.258
(Brandon Gore) And I'm dying laughing because this person's never done any of those things.
00:04:57.258 --> 00:04:58.758
(Brandon Gore) They've never been profitable.
00:04:58.758 --> 00:04:59.878
(Brandon Gore) They don't have any experience.
00:04:59.878 --> 00:05:00.798
(Brandon Gore) They don't do this for a living.
00:05:01.378 --> 00:05:06.118
(Brandon Gore) But you were telling me that you read a quote, or you read something about how it's like...
00:05:06.118 --> 00:05:07.638
(Jon Schuler) Oh, I thought it was a phenomenal quote.
00:05:07.638 --> 00:05:08.178
(Brandon Gore) What was the quote?
00:05:08.178 --> 00:05:09.058
(Brandon Gore) Because I messed it up.
00:05:09.058 --> 00:05:09.998
(Brandon Gore) Tell me what it is.
00:05:09.998 --> 00:05:14.958
(Jon Schuler) Yeah.
00:05:14.958 --> 00:05:19.318
(Jon Schuler) Well, you don't learn how to swim by reading about the water.
00:05:19.318 --> 00:05:20.438
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:05:20.438 --> 00:05:22.418
(Jon Schuler) And that's what this person has done.
00:05:22.418 --> 00:05:29.838
(Jon Schuler) You know, and again, I mean, I'm not here to knock anybody's educational background, you know, or any of these kinds of things.
00:05:30.358 --> 00:05:37.758
(Jon Schuler) But, you know, you can read about it all you want.
00:05:37.918 --> 00:05:42.758
(Jon Schuler) You don't become a coach and a teacher because you read about it.
00:05:42.758 --> 00:05:43.878
(Jon Schuler) That's what blows my mind.
00:05:43.878 --> 00:05:47.698
(Brandon Gore) You watch YouTube videos, you're like, man, I can do this.
00:05:47.698 --> 00:05:48.058
(Brandon Gore) No.
00:05:48.058 --> 00:05:50.338
(Brandon Gore) The best coaches are the ones who are players.
00:05:50.338 --> 00:05:53.658
(Brandon Gore) You know, they went through it for 15, 20 years.
00:05:53.658 --> 00:05:58.298
(Brandon Gore) And then they get to the point where they're ready to start showing other people how to do it, how to be successful doing it.
00:05:58.878 --> 00:06:00.378
(Brandon Gore) Those are the best coaches.
00:06:03.838 --> 00:06:05.858
(Brandon Gore) You there, buddy?
00:06:05.858 --> 00:06:07.198
(Jon Schuler) Sorry, buddy, I ran away real quick.
00:06:07.198 --> 00:06:11.038
(Jon Schuler) I forgot my grandfather clock sitting out here.
00:06:11.038 --> 00:06:15.098
(Jon Schuler) So I just totally heard it going, bong, bong, bong, bong.
00:06:15.098 --> 00:06:17.638
(Jon Schuler) So I just ran it back, put it away.
00:06:17.638 --> 00:06:18.938
(Brandon Gore) Gotcha.
00:06:18.938 --> 00:06:22.538
(Brandon Gore) So is there anything, before we get started, anything you want to talk about?
00:06:22.578 --> 00:06:25.798
(Jon Schuler) No, man, nothing.
00:06:25.798 --> 00:06:31.218
(Jon Schuler) I mean, other than little things happening in tech support world, but yeah, nothing crazy.
00:06:31.218 --> 00:06:40.078
(Jon Schuler) I mean, in tech support world, it's more about general issues that I think a lot of people are aware of.
00:06:40.078 --> 00:06:49.238
(Jon Schuler) But if you're new to things or newer to things, they don't seem as obvious until after you failed.
00:06:49.238 --> 00:06:50.878
(Jon Schuler) And that's actually a good thing, in my opinion.
00:06:51.358 --> 00:06:54.918
(Jon Schuler) But, you know, I mean, with every failure, you should learn.
00:06:54.918 --> 00:06:56.058
(Jon Schuler) But other than that, no.
00:06:56.058 --> 00:06:56.458
(Brandon Gore) Okay.
00:06:56.578 --> 00:07:01.978
(Brandon Gore) You can't say cryptic things and then just be like, well, what are you talking about?
00:07:01.978 --> 00:07:03.218
(Jon Schuler) What am I talking about?
00:07:03.218 --> 00:07:03.518
(Jon Schuler) All right.
00:07:03.518 --> 00:07:08.458
(Jon Schuler) So anybody doing, this is a really, really good dude.
00:07:08.458 --> 00:07:09.678
(Jon Schuler) So he's making a bathtub.
00:07:09.678 --> 00:07:10.078
(Brandon Gore) Okay.
00:07:10.078 --> 00:07:10.398
(Jon Schuler) Right?
00:07:10.398 --> 00:07:10.958
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:07:10.958 --> 00:07:19.938
(Jon Schuler) And most of us know it's become second nature to us that you always pull your molds, sinks, you know, any of those kinds of things.
00:07:20.338 --> 00:07:22.038
(Jon Schuler) You always pull them the next day.
00:07:22.038 --> 00:07:23.518
(Jon Schuler) You pull them early.
00:07:23.518 --> 00:07:29.238
(Jon Schuler) Concrete, inevitably, regardless of mixed designs, they move a slight amount of shrinkage.
00:07:29.238 --> 00:07:40.038
(Jon Schuler) But on the other side of that, your mold materials typically have the ability to, under the heat and the stress and the steam, to expand.
00:07:40.038 --> 00:07:51.738
(Jon Schuler) And so something, an internal mold expanding by the exterior concrete trying to like consolidate on itself is just a recipe for a crack disaster.
00:07:51.738 --> 00:07:52.518
(Jon Schuler) And that's what happened.
00:07:52.518 --> 00:08:03.138
(Jon Schuler) So this particular, he called me, he was making a really nice bathtub, but he left it in, I think, for three days or four days, something like that.
00:08:03.138 --> 00:08:07.838
(Jon Schuler) And had some cracks come right down the sides.
00:08:07.838 --> 00:08:09.898
(Jon Schuler) It's like, oh man, what happened here?
00:08:09.898 --> 00:08:19.818
(Jon Schuler) And so we went through the explanation about his internal mold is an epoxy-coated wood, his exterior is the same thing, and he left it in too long.
00:08:19.818 --> 00:08:22.878
(Jon Schuler) So he cast another one, pulled it within a reasonable amount of time.
00:08:22.878 --> 00:08:24.418
(Jon Schuler) Everything's fantastic.
00:08:24.418 --> 00:08:34.338
(Jon Schuler) The flip side of that, now he's trying to figure out how to create more cracks because they don't crack all the way through, and they really make a pretty interesting aesthetic.
00:08:34.338 --> 00:08:44.358
(Jon Schuler) But the same thing, I had a guy who's a fairly experienced artisan making a fire table, and the same idea.
00:08:45.598 --> 00:08:48.578
(Jon Schuler) The internal mold was out of melamine.
00:08:49.738 --> 00:08:52.958
(Jon Schuler) He left it in there for over a weekend, so like three days.
00:08:53.258 --> 00:08:54.538
(Jon Schuler) I think it was a Thursday or Friday.
00:08:54.538 --> 00:09:02.578
(Jon Schuler) I can't remember exactly, but left for the weekend to go on a family trip or a family getaway, came back on money to demold it.
00:09:02.578 --> 00:09:10.658
(Jon Schuler) And in the corners, the melamine throughout that period of time had expanded, and there was these little tiny cracks in the corners.
00:09:10.658 --> 00:09:31.938
(Jon Schuler) So anybody listening, you know, any of these internal molds, you know, sink molds, fire table, bathtub, any of those kinds of things, you know, all of us have learned you definitely want to pull those, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know, no more than, you know, let's say 20 to 30 hours post-casting.
00:09:31.938 --> 00:09:33.738
(Jon Schuler) They need to be pulled.
00:09:33.938 --> 00:09:35.398
(Jon Schuler) And that's just nature of the beast.
00:09:35.818 --> 00:09:48.878
(Jon Schuler) The longer they sit in there between, you know, the internal steams, your mold material, whether it be plastic, melamine, especially woods, holy moly, they're going to expand, they're going to swell.
00:09:48.878 --> 00:09:52.738
(Jon Schuler) And at the end of the day, it's the fresh concrete that's gonna give.
00:09:52.738 --> 00:09:53.158
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:09:53.158 --> 00:09:55.298
(Brandon Gore) And the concrete is shrinking microscopically.
00:09:55.298 --> 00:10:05.838
(Brandon Gore) I mean, it's a thousandth of an inch, but if it's trying to shrink a thousandth of an inch and the mold's trying to expand a thousandth of an inch, the pressure that's been exerted is tremendous.
00:10:05.838 --> 00:10:08.698
(Brandon Gore) And yeah, it's just a bad, bad thing.
00:10:08.698 --> 00:10:17.598
(Brandon Gore) It's funny, I have a connection here in Wichita to Yoder Grills, phenomenal pellet smokers, like super, super cool pellet smokers.
00:10:18.818 --> 00:10:23.838
(Brandon Gore) And a buddy of mine, Jared Case, went down there and he's working with them to make concrete countertops.
00:10:23.838 --> 00:10:24.978
(Brandon Gore) They do a lot of outdoor kitchens.
00:10:24.978 --> 00:10:28.938
(Brandon Gore) He's gonna start making concrete countertops for their outdoor kitchens.
00:10:28.938 --> 00:10:34.158
(Brandon Gore) But he was talking to him, the owner, who I know, a really nice guy.
00:10:34.158 --> 00:10:35.518
(Brandon Gore) He was talking to him.
00:10:35.518 --> 00:10:39.318
(Brandon Gore) And they had gone to a futung chain class, like back a long time ago.
00:10:39.318 --> 00:10:41.378
(Brandon Gore) This was 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago.
00:10:41.378 --> 00:10:44.518
(Brandon Gore) I don't know how long ago they went, but it was a long time ago out in California.
00:10:44.518 --> 00:10:48.138
(Brandon Gore) And they learned how to do concrete countertops at a chain class.
00:10:48.138 --> 00:10:54.018
(Brandon Gore) And what they were told was, and they're using quitcrete or sacrete, you know, 5,000 PSI.
00:10:54.018 --> 00:10:57.598
(Brandon Gore) They were told to leave it in the form for 21 days.
00:10:58.898 --> 00:11:02.078
(Brandon Gore) In the form, curing for 21 days.
00:11:02.078 --> 00:11:11.018
(Brandon Gore) So when he came back, the guy that owns this place, and they started making concrete countertops for their outdoor kitchen customers, he told Case, dude, we couldn't be profitable.
00:11:11.018 --> 00:11:15.778
(Brandon Gore) Like, we were casting stuff and we had to wait three weeks where we could even get it out to start to process it.
00:11:15.778 --> 00:11:18.698
(Brandon Gore) So we just gave up on doing concrete, you know?
00:11:18.818 --> 00:11:21.978
(Brandon Gore) 21 days!
00:11:21.978 --> 00:11:22.878
(Brandon Gore) Insane.
00:11:22.878 --> 00:11:24.158
(Brandon Gore) I can't imagine.
00:11:24.158 --> 00:11:25.858
(Jon Schuler) Well, that's where we all were at one time, right?
00:11:25.858 --> 00:11:27.138
(Brandon Gore) No, I was never 21 days.
00:11:27.298 --> 00:11:29.418
(Brandon Gore) I was three days, you know?
00:11:29.418 --> 00:11:31.858
(Brandon Gore) Quick creed, three days, two days, three days.
00:11:31.898 --> 00:11:34.418
(Jon Schuler) No, I just mean basic information, though.
00:11:34.418 --> 00:11:35.318
(Jon Schuler) Basic information.
00:11:35.318 --> 00:11:46.418
(Jon Schuler) I mean, when all of us, I mean, I still look back, and I think one of our earliest podcasts, we're talking about, you know, what are memories of some of your worst failures?
00:11:47.498 --> 00:12:00.858
(Jon Schuler) And the story I told and still, right, comes boom, glaring right back to my head, is when we were doing a modified, you know, quick creedish kind of thing, the days of Chang and Buddy Rhodes information and this and that.
00:12:00.858 --> 00:12:03.818
(Jon Schuler) And me and again, there was a center cutout.
00:12:03.818 --> 00:12:06.018
(Jon Schuler) I can't remember if it was a first sink or a cooktop.
00:12:06.018 --> 00:12:07.398
(Jon Schuler) I don't remember, man.
00:12:07.398 --> 00:12:12.218
(Jon Schuler) But right, I mean, these things were, I think two inches thick.
00:12:12.218 --> 00:12:15.378
(Jon Schuler) My brother and I each grabbed an end of this thing to pick it up.
00:12:15.378 --> 00:12:25.098
(Jon Schuler) And I mean, all we could do is laugh because the moment we like even tried to slide it, it just snapped in half, fell right to the ground.
00:12:26.278 --> 00:12:31.698
(Jon Schuler) And that was after at least five days of curing, at least.
00:12:31.698 --> 00:12:33.578
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:12:33.578 --> 00:12:40.958
(Jon Schuler) So I mean, just, you know, the industry has come a long way since then, since then, undeniably, mixed designs.
00:12:40.958 --> 00:12:55.958
(Jon Schuler) Well, most companies anyway, mixed designs, pinholes, you know, the ability to cast and turn in 24 hours, seal in, you know, I mean, today's sealers or at least a few of them anyway.
00:12:55.958 --> 00:12:56.398
(Jon Schuler) Yeah.
00:12:56.398 --> 00:13:02.898
(Jon Schuler) I mean, it's an entirely different world than even 10, 15 years ago.
00:13:02.898 --> 00:13:03.978
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:13:03.978 --> 00:13:16.058
(Brandon Gore) Well, that's kind of a lead in to what I want to talk about today, Jon, is exploring GFRC for lightweight concrete countertops and sinks.
00:13:16.058 --> 00:13:17.098
(Brandon Gore) Okay.
00:13:17.098 --> 00:13:24.498
(Brandon Gore) So GFRC, I remember when I taught the first class on GFRC for this industry.
00:13:24.498 --> 00:13:26.318
(Brandon Gore) I taught class number one.
00:13:26.318 --> 00:13:29.378
(Brandon Gore) Your boy BG brought it to the market.
00:13:29.378 --> 00:13:30.078
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:13:30.078 --> 00:13:31.258
(Brandon Gore) But that's a story for a different day.
00:13:31.258 --> 00:13:41.018
(Brandon Gore) But I remember when I brought it to market, the pushback from some people, how some people railed against it, the old guard of using traditional quick creep.
00:13:41.018 --> 00:13:41.578
(Jon Schuler) Oh yeah.
00:13:41.578 --> 00:13:43.718
(Brandon Gore) And they would say, this is unnecessary.
00:13:43.718 --> 00:13:44.898
(Brandon Gore) You don't need this.
00:13:44.898 --> 00:13:46.538
(Brandon Gore) This is blah, blah, blah.
00:13:47.698 --> 00:13:48.818
(Jon Schuler) You need two inches thick.
00:13:48.818 --> 00:13:50.478
(Jon Schuler) You need steel reinforcement.
00:13:50.478 --> 00:13:50.778
(Jon Schuler) Yeah.
00:13:50.778 --> 00:13:54.378
(Brandon Gore) And this went on for years after we started doing GFRC.
00:13:54.378 --> 00:13:56.558
(Brandon Gore) I have all this pushback from people.
00:13:56.558 --> 00:13:58.018
(Brandon Gore) And now I'd say it's de facto.
00:13:58.018 --> 00:13:59.958
(Brandon Gore) Everybody has GFRC.
00:13:59.958 --> 00:14:02.058
(Brandon Gore) You're an outlier.
00:14:02.058 --> 00:14:05.338
(Brandon Gore) If you're not doing GFRC, Michael Carmody is a good example.
00:14:05.338 --> 00:14:08.318
(Brandon Gore) He does modify GFRC, but he does a lot of traditional concrete.
00:14:08.318 --> 00:14:10.358
(Brandon Gore) But he's one of the few that doesn't.
00:14:10.358 --> 00:14:18.638
(Brandon Gore) I would say most people, 99% of people doing what we do, concrete sinks, countertops, furniture, tile, we're all doing GFRC now, right?
00:14:18.638 --> 00:14:19.478
(Brandon Gore) Why is that?
00:14:19.698 --> 00:14:20.978
(Brandon Gore) Why did we make the switch?
00:14:20.978 --> 00:14:22.218
(Brandon Gore) What do you think, Jon?
00:14:22.218 --> 00:14:23.838
(Jon Schuler) Well, I got one addition to that.
00:14:23.838 --> 00:14:39.938
(Jon Schuler) We're all doing versions of GFRC, using the G part, but the RC part is the only thing that still is up for debate, or whether it's argument or fighting or whatever the case may be.
00:14:39.938 --> 00:14:40.718
(Jon Schuler) But why?
00:14:40.718 --> 00:14:42.298
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, just because I just described.
00:14:42.298 --> 00:14:53.978
(Jon Schuler) I mean, we no longer, it used to be, as you know, there was no question about the thickness, two inches, three inches, you know, I mean, it had to be bulky.
00:14:53.978 --> 00:14:56.298
(Jon Schuler) It had to be solid.
00:14:56.298 --> 00:15:07.598
(Jon Schuler) I used to remember a time where, and this is no kidding, man, where I literally had, I was, you know, where I live, there's these cabins, you know, up in what's called Dorrington area.
00:15:07.598 --> 00:15:10.798
(Jon Schuler) And it wasn't even a big top.
00:15:10.798 --> 00:15:12.358
(Jon Schuler) And this, these people hired me.
00:15:12.478 --> 00:15:14.238
(Jon Schuler) Oh yeah, Concrete Times.
00:15:14.238 --> 00:15:28.758
(Jon Schuler) Buddy, I'm telling you, I had me, my brother, AIM, my mom, my stepdad, all of like this family affair to carry this monster piece.
00:15:28.858 --> 00:15:30.998
(Jon Schuler) I mean, monster and heavy.
00:15:30.998 --> 00:15:32.918
(Jon Schuler) It wasn't a big piece.
00:15:32.918 --> 00:15:38.898
(Jon Schuler) It was like a little small island thing, but it was just so heavy and monstrous.
00:15:39.458 --> 00:15:43.818
(Jon Schuler) And I still remember all of us back then.
00:15:43.818 --> 00:15:46.218
(Jon Schuler) And like, oh my God, why am I doing this?
00:15:46.218 --> 00:15:48.018
(Jon Schuler) You know, this is, but I love the finish.
00:15:48.018 --> 00:15:49.258
(Jon Schuler) It was beautiful.
00:15:49.258 --> 00:16:02.798
(Jon Schuler) And I don't even know if it's still the house or, you know, probably sent them subfloor at some point, but that's where all that was the general approach period.
00:16:02.798 --> 00:16:04.038
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, period.
00:16:04.038 --> 00:16:06.578
(Jon Schuler) So why did we change?
00:16:06.578 --> 00:16:07.238
(Jon Schuler) Well, come on, man.
00:16:07.278 --> 00:16:09.538
(Jon Schuler) Anyway, I mean, all of us, and who was it?
00:16:09.538 --> 00:16:15.038
(Jon Schuler) Has something, you know, bigger, faster, stronger, or something like that, we, you know, we needed to get it within reason.
00:16:15.038 --> 00:16:16.598
(Jon Schuler) They need to be thinner.
00:16:16.598 --> 00:16:22.578
(Jon Schuler) As you just described, we can't hold on for things for 21 days to cure.
00:16:22.578 --> 00:16:26.478
(Jon Schuler) I mean, if we do, so be it, but that can't be an absolute.
00:16:26.478 --> 00:16:36.218
(Jon Schuler) You're not going to run a business that way unless you have, you know, whatever, a 20,000 square foot shop that you can put projects aside to cure for three weeks.
00:16:37.618 --> 00:16:40.198
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, it's just, you're not going to be profitable.
00:16:40.198 --> 00:16:50.958
(Jon Schuler) As, sorry to keep this rant going, you look around how much of the old guard, and now we learn they weren't profitable.
00:16:50.958 --> 00:16:52.438
(Jon Schuler) They weren't.
00:16:52.438 --> 00:16:53.398
(Jon Schuler) They went upside down.
00:16:53.398 --> 00:16:54.278
(Jon Schuler) They went bankrupt.
00:16:54.278 --> 00:16:55.258
(Jon Schuler) They went out of business.
00:16:55.258 --> 00:16:58.538
(Jon Schuler) I mean, they became, you know, I mean, they're just gone.
00:16:58.538 --> 00:17:04.938
(Jon Schuler) Not because, I mean, they went, you know, we winkity wink that they retired, but the reality is they lost everything.
00:17:04.938 --> 00:17:05.458
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:17:05.458 --> 00:17:16.838
(Brandon Gore) Well, for me, GFRC, how I even came to do it for the first project was I'd made a countertop for this architect.
00:17:16.838 --> 00:17:19.438
(Brandon Gore) I still remember Jeff Cutberth was his name.
00:17:19.438 --> 00:17:40.638
(Brandon Gore) He was an architect in Phoenix, and I was taking it to his house, and it was like a wing-shaped countertop, but it was, I don't know, 15 feet long, maybe, and it tapered, and it had like this crazy undercut tapered edge, and it had all this recycled red glass terrazzo in it.
00:17:40.638 --> 00:17:42.398
(Brandon Gore) And, you know, it was back when I used to do that kind of stuff.
00:17:42.398 --> 00:17:43.998
(Brandon Gore) I don't do it anymore, but back then I did.
00:17:43.998 --> 00:17:51.318
(Brandon Gore) And anyways, I'd made it out of Quickrete, and I had to have a seam in the middle, because I want to say it's like 15 feet, maybe 17 feet.
00:17:51.318 --> 00:17:52.458
(Brandon Gore) It was pretty long.
00:17:52.458 --> 00:17:53.178
(Brandon Gore) I had to have a seam.
00:17:53.178 --> 00:17:56.598
(Brandon Gore) It was too long and slender to do one piece in Quickrete.
00:17:56.598 --> 00:17:57.298
(Brandon Gore) So I did the seam.
00:17:57.438 --> 00:18:01.198
(Brandon Gore) And the seam, because I didn't know what was good design back then.
00:18:01.198 --> 00:18:03.458
(Brandon Gore) You only learn good by doing bad.
00:18:03.458 --> 00:18:06.358
(Brandon Gore) And through the process, you're like, oh, I wouldn't do that again.
00:18:06.358 --> 00:18:10.498
(Brandon Gore) So a little bit better design on the next one.
00:18:10.498 --> 00:18:12.878
(Brandon Gore) But I did this curved seam detail.
00:18:12.878 --> 00:18:21.598
(Brandon Gore) I don't know if you remember when people used to do that, where I took metal, a little thin piece of metal, and did a little S-shaped curve in the countertop to create two pieces that would lock together, but it wouldn't be a straight seam.
00:18:21.598 --> 00:18:25.618
(Brandon Gore) It was this S-shaped seam, and I thought it was the coolest thing.
00:18:25.618 --> 00:18:26.498
(Brandon Gore) Man, I'm so cool.
00:18:27.298 --> 00:18:28.798
(Brandon Gore) So I did this.
00:18:28.798 --> 00:18:39.438
(Brandon Gore) I'm driving to Jeff Kuppert's house with this two pieces of countertop on an A-frame on my trailer, and I'd had a buddy, and I've talked about him in the past, Sam Graham.
00:18:39.438 --> 00:18:45.338
(Brandon Gore) He did granite, and he came by my shop and I was loading this on, and I was gonna put straps.
00:18:45.338 --> 00:18:48.858
(Brandon Gore) He's like, hey bro, we just do clamps on it.
00:18:48.858 --> 00:18:49.558
(Brandon Gore) I'm thinking, what am I thinking?
00:18:49.558 --> 00:18:51.258
(Brandon Gore) Like the sliding clamps, bar clamps.
00:18:51.258 --> 00:18:52.818
(Brandon Gore) He's like, we just do clamps.
00:18:52.818 --> 00:18:54.118
(Brandon Gore) I'm like, you don't do straps?
00:18:54.118 --> 00:18:55.218
(Brandon Gore) He's like, no, we just clamp it.
00:18:55.318 --> 00:18:56.858
(Brandon Gore) Like, you know, all the granite they do.
00:18:56.858 --> 00:18:58.758
(Brandon Gore) And they did a ton of granite.
00:18:58.758 --> 00:19:00.138
(Brandon Gore) I was like, okay.
00:19:00.138 --> 00:19:01.678
(Brandon Gore) So I told my guys, hey, don't worry about the straps.
00:19:01.678 --> 00:19:02.358
(Brandon Gore) Just do the clamps.
00:19:02.358 --> 00:19:03.618
(Brandon Gore) We just did the clamps.
00:19:03.618 --> 00:19:05.078
(Brandon Gore) So we're driving down the road.
00:19:05.078 --> 00:19:05.958
(Brandon Gore) I have this on my trailer.
00:19:05.958 --> 00:19:11.018
(Brandon Gore) I look in my mirror and I see one of the countertops fall off the A-frame.
00:19:11.018 --> 00:19:15.178
(Brandon Gore) And luckily, there was like a Honda Civic or something next to me.
00:19:15.178 --> 00:19:20.758
(Brandon Gore) It almost hit the Civic, but it hit the rail on my trailer and fell back in to my trailer.
00:19:20.758 --> 00:19:23.038
(Brandon Gore) But it almost went over, and it would have hit the Civic, right?
00:19:23.898 --> 00:19:25.778
(Brandon Gore) And we're going like 60 miles an hour when this happens.
00:19:25.778 --> 00:19:28.698
(Brandon Gore) I look in the mirror and I just see it right at that moment.
00:19:28.698 --> 00:19:33.178
(Brandon Gore) So I get to Cutberth's house, and he comes out and this piece is all busted up.
00:19:33.638 --> 00:19:35.098
(Brandon Gore) It's traditional concrete.
00:19:35.098 --> 00:19:36.138
(Brandon Gore) It broke.
00:19:36.138 --> 00:19:39.558
(Brandon Gore) And he's like, well, install the other piece and just remake that piece.
00:19:39.558 --> 00:19:41.118
(Brandon Gore) I'm like, all right, so we install the other piece.
00:19:41.118 --> 00:19:43.358
(Brandon Gore) And I go back to my shop and I remake it, come back.
00:19:43.358 --> 00:19:45.638
(Brandon Gore) The seam doesn't line up perfectly.
00:19:45.638 --> 00:19:47.118
(Brandon Gore) Make it again, come back.
00:19:47.118 --> 00:19:49.478
(Brandon Gore) The colors don't match, and the glass doesn't look right.
00:19:50.598 --> 00:19:55.738
(Brandon Gore) And so I literally tried to redo the recast like twice.
00:19:55.738 --> 00:19:59.038
(Brandon Gore) And so finally, I just said, dude, I'm just going to do this again entirely.
00:19:59.038 --> 00:20:01.758
(Brandon Gore) Like, let's just scrap that other piece.
00:20:01.758 --> 00:20:04.858
(Brandon Gore) We've been playing with GFRC, but it wasn't...
00:20:04.858 --> 00:20:07.778
(Brandon Gore) Back then, I talked about this again in a previous podcast, but it looked like plastic.
00:20:07.778 --> 00:20:10.838
(Brandon Gore) We were doing so much of the fortan per Hiram Ball's recommendation.
00:20:10.838 --> 00:20:12.418
(Brandon Gore) It looked like plastic back then.
00:20:12.418 --> 00:20:14.738
(Brandon Gore) GFRC just didn't look like concrete.
00:20:14.738 --> 00:20:16.658
(Brandon Gore) But I said, I'm going to do this one piece.
00:20:16.898 --> 00:20:20.138
(Brandon Gore) And so, that was my very, very, very first...
00:20:21.198 --> 00:20:24.718
(Brandon Gore) Well, it wasn't my very first, because I did Jeff Hebbett's first.
00:20:24.718 --> 00:20:30.078
(Brandon Gore) But it was like one of my first, like my second or third big pieces out of GFRC.
00:20:30.718 --> 00:20:32.178
(Brandon Gore) And I did it one piece, and it worked fine.
00:20:32.178 --> 00:20:35.458
(Brandon Gore) We went and installed it and problem solved.
00:20:35.458 --> 00:20:40.398
(Brandon Gore) But the point is, we were able to do things we could never do before with traditional concrete.
00:20:40.398 --> 00:20:47.798
(Brandon Gore) And one of the big benefits was weight, because we could do one inch thick versus two to three inches minimum by the time you have reinforcement.
00:20:47.798 --> 00:20:52.618
(Brandon Gore) You know, back in the day, there used to be this shtick of engineered concrete countertops.
00:20:52.618 --> 00:20:54.898
(Brandon Gore) Come learn how to make an engineered concrete countertop.
00:20:54.898 --> 00:20:57.558
(Brandon Gore) And all that really had to do was put the steel in the bottom.
00:20:57.938 --> 00:20:59.978
(Brandon Gore) Well, steel in the bottom.
00:20:59.978 --> 00:21:02.458
(Brandon Gore) If you're putting downward force, steel in the top.
00:21:02.458 --> 00:21:05.118
(Brandon Gore) If you're going to have a cantilever.
00:21:05.118 --> 00:21:07.058
(Brandon Gore) So anyways, it was just about where to place the steel.
00:21:07.058 --> 00:21:12.058
(Brandon Gore) But you had to have a thick enough piece that you put the steel in the top or the bottom, and that it wouldn't ghost.
00:21:12.058 --> 00:21:14.318
(Brandon Gore) So one inch thick, you could just be dead middle.
00:21:14.378 --> 00:21:17.618
(Brandon Gore) And if you know anything about steel reinforcement, that does nothing.
00:21:17.618 --> 00:21:20.178
(Brandon Gore) If you put it in the middle, it's neutral, and it doesn't do anything.
00:21:20.178 --> 00:21:21.838
(Brandon Gore) So you might as well not even put it in.
00:21:21.838 --> 00:21:26.658
(Brandon Gore) So it had to be thick enough that you could put the steel either high or low in the slab, depending on what you're doing.
00:21:26.658 --> 00:21:28.758
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, without it cracking and ghosting.
00:21:28.778 --> 00:21:29.438
(Brandon Gore) Exactly.
00:21:29.438 --> 00:21:32.858
(Brandon Gore) But without the steel, by using glass fiber, we're able to do one inch thick.
00:21:32.858 --> 00:21:34.118
(Brandon Gore) We didn't have to worry about the steel.
00:21:34.118 --> 00:21:41.998
(Brandon Gore) We weren't dicking with zip tying, carbon fiber grid to ladder wire, and all the stuff we used to do.
00:21:41.998 --> 00:21:42.838
(Brandon Gore) We didn't have to do that anymore.
00:21:43.018 --> 00:21:44.718
(Brandon Gore) We didn't have to suspend it in our forums.
00:21:46.578 --> 00:21:47.878
(Brandon Gore) I don't miss those days.
00:21:47.878 --> 00:21:53.338
(Brandon Gore) But that was the reason I switched to GFRC.
00:21:53.338 --> 00:21:54.938
(Brandon Gore) That was the reason.
00:21:54.938 --> 00:21:59.758
(Brandon Gore) It opened up a world of possibilities that weren't available with traditional concrete.
00:21:59.758 --> 00:22:01.198
(Brandon Gore) Agreed.
00:22:01.198 --> 00:22:03.158
(Jon Schuler) I think that's why we all did it.
00:22:03.158 --> 00:22:04.938
(Jon Schuler) Undeniable.
00:22:04.938 --> 00:22:05.978
(Brandon Gore) I have a list here.
00:22:06.078 --> 00:22:10.158
(Brandon Gore) I asked my buddy, ChatGBT, to give me a list of questions about this, right?
00:22:10.158 --> 00:22:17.558
(Brandon Gore) So the first question it has is, what makes GFRC different and better for certain projects?
00:22:18.578 --> 00:22:20.278
(Brandon Gore) How would you answer that, Jon?
00:22:20.278 --> 00:22:41.338
(Jon Schuler) Well, just the idea of fiber reinforcements becomes your primary reinforcement, which allows, per what we were just saying, better ability to build three-dimensional objects by pouring and casting, and not having to worry about a lot of the traditional primary reinforcements to the same degree.
00:22:41.338 --> 00:22:48.318
(Jon Schuler) It offers a lot more versatility in size and dimension and weight.
00:22:48.318 --> 00:22:53.978
(Jon Schuler) I mean, to me, that's all the benefits of the fiber reinforced.
00:22:53.978 --> 00:22:57.678
(Brandon Gore) When would you not use GFRC?
00:22:57.678 --> 00:23:01.438
(Jon Schuler) Well, I guess the only time, but still, I would still want fiber reinforced.
00:23:01.598 --> 00:23:07.658
(Jon Schuler) I would think, if I wanted some kind of terrazzo, you know what I mean?
00:23:07.658 --> 00:23:09.438
(Jon Schuler) A pea gravel showing.
00:23:09.438 --> 00:23:14.518
(Jon Schuler) I mean, something more traditional in a mix.
00:23:14.518 --> 00:23:22.198
(Jon Schuler) Because in that, if I want a traditional mix, then the whole idea of your fiber reinforcement just, it doesn't act the same.
00:23:22.198 --> 00:23:26.418
(Jon Schuler) So that would be the only situation that I could come up with.
00:23:26.478 --> 00:23:26.818
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:23:26.818 --> 00:23:27.318
(Jon Schuler) Period.
00:23:27.318 --> 00:23:33.518
(Brandon Gore) For me, the only time I would not use GFRC would be if it's a big cast-in-place project.
00:23:33.518 --> 00:23:38.738
(Brandon Gore) I'm going to use ready mix from a truck and pump it in, something massive, like super thick, super heavy.
00:23:38.738 --> 00:23:44.118
(Brandon Gore) At that point, GFRC is not needed because I'm casting a wall 24 inches thick, you know?
00:23:44.118 --> 00:23:46.018
(Brandon Gore) It doesn't make sense to use GFRC for that.
00:23:46.018 --> 00:23:48.718
(Brandon Gore) But I did this before.
00:23:48.718 --> 00:23:49.978
(Brandon Gore) This was a long time ago.
00:23:49.978 --> 00:23:53.578
(Brandon Gore) This was way before you were with Blue and Buddy Roads.
00:23:54.178 --> 00:24:13.578
(Brandon Gore) I did a project, a fabric-formed wall, cast in place in Phoenix at a restaurant called Green, and I talked to you about it, and you recommended that I add some pozzolins to the ready mix to, again, increase the density more or less, to make it a better mix.
00:24:13.678 --> 00:24:14.718
(Jon Schuler) And the fibers.
00:24:14.718 --> 00:24:15.618
(Brandon Gore) And the fibers, yeah.
00:24:15.618 --> 00:24:18.998
(Brandon Gore) The cellulose fibers, I want to say, is what you recommended.
00:24:18.998 --> 00:24:23.098
(Brandon Gore) So you sent me a couple buckets of stuff that you blended up, you sent it to me.
00:24:23.098 --> 00:24:26.538
(Brandon Gore) And when the ready mix showed up, I went up there and dumped it in and let it blend for a while and poured it.
00:24:26.538 --> 00:24:30.698
(Brandon Gore) And yeah, but that's the only time I would not use GFRC.
00:24:30.698 --> 00:24:36.478
(Brandon Gore) If it's a poured in place, mass amount of concrete, but I'd still add pozzolins.
00:24:36.478 --> 00:24:39.358
(Brandon Gore) So today that would be a rad mix.
00:24:39.358 --> 00:24:47.238
(Brandon Gore) You know, you'd add that to the ready mix to increase the performance of the mix and the surface quality of the mix.
00:24:47.318 --> 00:24:50.658
(Jon Schuler) Oh yeah, it would increase, help increase flow, creaminess.
00:24:50.658 --> 00:24:53.058
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, the whole nine yards.
00:24:53.058 --> 00:24:53.418
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:24:53.418 --> 00:24:58.578
(Jon Schuler) And that's to a degree, that's what you did, a very early form of any of that kind of thing.
00:24:58.578 --> 00:25:00.918
(Jon Schuler) And so you gotta post those pictures again.
00:25:00.918 --> 00:25:04.238
(Jon Schuler) That was a really cool project with the fabric forming and stuff.
00:25:04.238 --> 00:25:06.378
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, I'll post those on this.
00:25:06.378 --> 00:25:12.158
(Brandon Gore) If you go to Kodiak Pro and scroll down to the podcast, I'll put additional images in the podcast.
00:25:12.158 --> 00:25:20.598
(Brandon Gore) When you see it on Spotify or Apple or Epidemic Sound or any of these other platforms, it only shows one picture, which is the cover picture.
00:25:20.598 --> 00:25:22.578
(Brandon Gore) You don't see any of the additional photos.
00:25:22.578 --> 00:25:32.718
(Brandon Gore) But if you go to Kodiak Pro and go down, there's a longer post that has the transcript, but also has additional photos that I post, so you can see those.
00:25:32.718 --> 00:25:39.898
(Brandon Gore) The second question, Jon, how to mix and spray GFRC for maximum strength and beauty?
00:25:39.898 --> 00:25:40.938
(Brandon Gore) Now, I love this question.
00:25:40.938 --> 00:25:44.838
(Brandon Gore) I love that ChatGBT thought that you need to spray GFRC, right?
00:25:45.638 --> 00:25:46.978
(Brandon Gore) Because I thought it, too.
00:25:46.978 --> 00:25:54.678
(Brandon Gore) I mean, they say ChatGBT hasn't reached general intelligence yet, you know, AGI, artificial general intelligence.
00:25:54.678 --> 00:25:56.698
(Brandon Gore) And I would say that's true, because it asks this question.
00:25:56.698 --> 00:25:57.318
(Brandon Gore) It asks this question.
00:25:57.318 --> 00:26:01.558
(Brandon Gore) So it tells me it's still very young in its understanding of things.
00:26:01.558 --> 00:26:08.858
(Brandon Gore) Because I was once very young in my understanding of things, and I thought I had to spray a face coat.
00:26:08.858 --> 00:26:12.938
(Brandon Gore) So once you get some general intelligence, you're like, man, I don't have to do this anymore.
00:26:12.938 --> 00:26:14.118
(Brandon Gore) But I found out by accident.
00:26:14.398 --> 00:26:16.518
(Brandon Gore) So that's the funny thing.
00:26:16.518 --> 00:26:19.778
(Brandon Gore) But let's talk about mixing and spraying a face coat.
00:26:19.778 --> 00:26:30.858
(Brandon Gore) When I learned of GFRC, I talked to Hiram Ball, Ball Consulting, who he's now passed away, but he was one of the inventors of GFRC.
00:26:30.858 --> 00:26:33.178
(Brandon Gore) He was on a team of people that developed it.
00:26:33.178 --> 00:26:36.418
(Brandon Gore) And they developed it for more or less cladding.
00:26:36.418 --> 00:26:38.878
(Brandon Gore) That was their market.
00:26:38.878 --> 00:26:47.398
(Brandon Gore) And with cladding, they developed equipment, that he worked with companies, PowerSpray, Gulfstream, developed these mixers and sprayers.
00:26:47.398 --> 00:26:57.018
(Brandon Gore) They could spray, essentially, coating, and then they could come back and have a chopped strand sprayer that's cutting the fiber and spraying it in with the concrete mix and spray the back.
00:26:57.018 --> 00:26:58.918
(Brandon Gore) And there's people behind with compaction rollers.
00:26:58.918 --> 00:27:02.758
(Brandon Gore) And it's just a whole assembly line, you know?
00:27:02.758 --> 00:27:04.698
(Brandon Gore) But that's not what we do.
00:27:04.698 --> 00:27:05.558
(Brandon Gore) But that's what he knew.
00:27:05.558 --> 00:27:06.598
(Brandon Gore) That's what they developed it for.
00:27:06.598 --> 00:27:14.558
(Brandon Gore) That's what he was selling the polymer for, was for these types of facilities over in Asia and the Middle East that we're doing...
00:27:14.558 --> 00:27:15.238
(Jon Schuler) Mass production.
00:27:15.238 --> 00:27:19.158
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, that we're doing cladding for the skyscrapers and different things.
00:27:19.158 --> 00:27:24.558
(Brandon Gore) So when I talked to Hiram, he's like, well, you know, you want to spray a face coat, and then you want to make a back coat.
00:27:25.358 --> 00:27:31.798
(Brandon Gore) The extent of my knowledge or my training was him telling me this on the phone, right?
00:27:31.798 --> 00:27:32.838
(Brandon Gore) Here's what you want to do.
00:27:32.838 --> 00:27:42.358
(Brandon Gore) He's like, you want to spray a face coat, you want to mix up a thicker mix just with some fiber in it, and you just want to hand-ply that on there and try to get it to be about 3 quarters of an inch to an inch thick.
00:27:43.678 --> 00:27:48.238
(Brandon Gore) You can take a little nail and put it in a cork and just check every now and then to see if it's thick enough.
00:27:49.158 --> 00:27:50.078
(Brandon Gore) Okay, yeah, sounds good.
00:27:50.078 --> 00:27:51.238
(Jon Schuler) I forgot to do it all that.
00:27:51.238 --> 00:27:52.678
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, yeah.
00:27:52.678 --> 00:27:54.278
(Brandon Gore) But I just assumed.
00:27:54.278 --> 00:27:55.158
(Brandon Gore) I'm like, well, how do I spray?
00:27:55.158 --> 00:28:01.098
(Brandon Gore) He's like, well, we sell equipment, but you can go down and get a drywall sprayer and just spray the face coat with that.
00:28:01.098 --> 00:28:02.298
(Brandon Gore) I'm like, all right, cool.
00:28:02.318 --> 00:28:06.338
(Brandon Gore) So I went down to Home Depot, got a drywall sprayer, and I started experimenting.
00:28:06.338 --> 00:28:09.838
(Brandon Gore) And forever, for years, that's how I was doing GFRC, everything.
00:28:09.838 --> 00:28:14.738
(Brandon Gore) It didn't matter if it was a flat countertop, it didn't matter if it was tile, it didn't matter what it was.
00:28:14.738 --> 00:28:18.718
(Brandon Gore) I was spraying a face coat, mixing up a back coat, and applying it.
00:28:18.718 --> 00:28:26.978
(Brandon Gore) And plasticizers back then, there was no plasticizers readily available for GFRC.
00:28:26.978 --> 00:28:32.418
(Brandon Gore) They're all for traditional OPC, but traditional concrete.
00:28:32.418 --> 00:28:33.778
(Brandon Gore) That's what they're all for.
00:28:33.778 --> 00:28:42.638
(Brandon Gore) And I tried, Grace Chemicals had a representative in Phoenix, and he'd come by my shop, and he's like, hey, yeah, he'd bring me a sample.
00:28:42.638 --> 00:28:43.658
(Brandon Gore) I don't know if you remember getting samples.
00:28:43.658 --> 00:28:45.158
(Brandon Gore) It was five-gallon buckets.
00:28:45.158 --> 00:28:52.218
(Brandon Gore) He'd bring a five-gallon bucket of all these different plasticizers as a sample, because they're used to going to ready-mix places.
00:28:53.398 --> 00:28:57.498
(Brandon Gore) And I was having very inconsistent results with plasticizer.
00:28:57.498 --> 00:28:59.818
(Brandon Gore) They would foam up the concrete dramatically.
00:28:59.818 --> 00:29:03.778
(Brandon Gore) There was all these weird chemical reactions were going on.
00:29:03.858 --> 00:29:10.698
(Brandon Gore) And anyways, but there was very little for the GFRC market back then in ways of that.
00:29:10.698 --> 00:29:15.138
(Brandon Gore) But Grace came out with a plasticizer called Advo 555, specifically for GFRC.
00:29:15.138 --> 00:29:17.298
(Brandon Gore) They developed specifically for that use.
00:29:17.918 --> 00:29:20.498
(Brandon Gore) And I started playing with that, and I was having pretty good results.
00:29:20.498 --> 00:29:23.958
(Brandon Gore) And so I started doing this thing where I was mixing up a thinner mix.
00:29:23.958 --> 00:29:25.278
(Brandon Gore) So I would spray my face coat.
00:29:25.278 --> 00:29:26.958
(Brandon Gore) I do my vertical back coat, the thick stuff.
00:29:26.958 --> 00:29:30.538
(Brandon Gore) And then I would pour in a more liquidy mix with the fiber.
00:29:30.538 --> 00:29:35.018
(Brandon Gore) So I wouldn't have to try to like trowel out one inches on the big flat surface.
00:29:35.018 --> 00:29:36.258
(Brandon Gore) You know, I could do it a lot faster.
00:29:36.258 --> 00:29:37.318
(Brandon Gore) Great.
00:29:37.318 --> 00:29:42.258
(Brandon Gore) And then one day, I had leftover, you know, what we now call SCC.
00:29:42.258 --> 00:29:43.218
(Brandon Gore) Back then, we didn't call it that.
00:29:43.218 --> 00:29:46.558
(Brandon Gore) It was just like, you know, a more liquid mix.
00:29:46.558 --> 00:29:49.618
(Brandon Gore) But I had leftover liquid backer coat.
00:29:49.618 --> 00:29:53.558
(Brandon Gore) And I poured it into, I want to say it was a five-gallon bucket, but it was some kind of plastic container.
00:29:53.558 --> 00:29:55.058
(Brandon Gore) I poured it into it.
00:29:55.058 --> 00:29:58.158
(Brandon Gore) And, you know, next day I came and I went to dump it out.
00:29:58.158 --> 00:30:01.318
(Brandon Gore) And I assumed I was going to see all these fibers.
00:30:01.318 --> 00:30:02.218
(Brandon Gore) I dumped it out and looked at it.
00:30:02.258 --> 00:30:03.578
(Brandon Gore) There was no fibers.
00:30:04.898 --> 00:30:06.118
(Brandon Gore) What do you mean, there's no fibers?
00:30:06.118 --> 00:30:07.038
(Brandon Gore) I'm looking at them.
00:30:07.038 --> 00:30:08.298
(Brandon Gore) Where are the fibers?
00:30:08.298 --> 00:30:11.078
(Brandon Gore) I don't, you know, I took it over and packed it in with water polishing.
00:30:11.078 --> 00:30:15.838
(Brandon Gore) We're on acid action yet, but I took a water polishing, I polished around and still no fibers were exposed.
00:30:15.838 --> 00:30:19.838
(Brandon Gore) I had to like really grind into it to start to expose any fibers, right?
00:30:19.838 --> 00:30:21.998
(Brandon Gore) I was like, what the hell is this?
00:30:21.998 --> 00:30:23.058
(Brandon Gore) What is this?
00:30:23.058 --> 00:30:24.298
(Brandon Gore) Hiram didn't tell me this.
00:30:24.298 --> 00:30:27.378
(Brandon Gore) I just assumed it had to be this way.
00:30:27.378 --> 00:30:30.198
(Brandon Gore) I just assumed that the fibers would show.
00:30:30.898 --> 00:30:35.118
(Brandon Gore) I assumed they tested this already and determined it wasn't a good way to go.
00:30:35.118 --> 00:30:39.278
(Brandon Gore) That's why I've been doing it this way, because that's what Hiram said to do.
00:30:39.278 --> 00:30:42.218
(Brandon Gore) So that was a turning point for me.
00:30:42.218 --> 00:30:50.118
(Brandon Gore) That was when I started thinking about not spraying a face coat, because face coats are a world of pain.
00:30:50.118 --> 00:31:08.118
(Brandon Gore) Anybody that does it, you get sand built up in your corners, you drag your hose through the face coat, you hit it too much with the back coat and you pull some off, you push through the back coat and the face coat, and you end up with this big discoloration, you have runs and drips, a million things can go sideways with a face coat.
00:31:08.118 --> 00:31:10.138
(Brandon Gore) A million things.
00:31:10.138 --> 00:31:17.138
(Brandon Gore) With an SEC GFRC mix, very few things can go wrong, in comparison to a sprayed face coat.
00:31:17.138 --> 00:31:22.878
(Brandon Gore) And so anyways, I slowly, back then, started making the shift away from spraying face coats.
00:31:22.878 --> 00:31:30.078
(Brandon Gore) It took a few years to get away from it, but I slowly started moving away from doing that, to go into an SEC only.
00:31:30.078 --> 00:31:48.918
(Brandon Gore) And dude, I want to say, the last time I sprayed a face coat, like, for a job, not just to demonstrate, because I've demonstrated it a few times in, you know, the past 10 years or whatever, but for a job, it was probably 2010 or 11, maybe?
00:31:48.918 --> 00:31:54.218
(Brandon Gore) Was the last time I did it for a project, maybe 12, I don't know, somewhere around there, for like an actual client project.
00:31:54.218 --> 00:31:55.638
(Brandon Gore) So it's been that long.
00:31:55.738 --> 00:31:59.598
(Brandon Gore) It's been 13 years at least, 14 years since I've done it for a job.
00:31:59.598 --> 00:32:02.338
(Brandon Gore) I just, I've gone to SCC.
00:32:02.338 --> 00:32:08.138
(Brandon Gore) And then the evolution of SCC has come so far, with Kodiak Pro Maker Mix and TBP and all these things.
00:32:08.138 --> 00:32:12.758
(Brandon Gore) Now we get such a incredible surface quality that we were unable to never...
00:32:13.298 --> 00:32:14.418
(Brandon Gore) I can't even talk.
00:32:14.478 --> 00:32:16.658
(Jon Schuler) No, you often didn't even get it from spraying.
00:32:16.658 --> 00:32:17.318
(Brandon Gore) Exactly.
00:32:17.318 --> 00:32:18.118
(Brandon Gore) No, you didn't get it from spraying.
00:32:18.118 --> 00:32:20.178
(Brandon Gore) You got all kinds of entrained air and different things.
00:32:20.178 --> 00:32:20.718
(Jon Schuler) Yeah.
00:32:20.718 --> 00:32:24.338
(Brandon Gore) But, you know, you'd brush it out and then you'd spray it again, and you'd have to wait.
00:32:24.878 --> 00:32:32.238
(Brandon Gore) But even with the SEC back then, with the Advo 555 and the quality mixes we had, which weren't that great, you would still end up with a lot of pinners.
00:32:32.238 --> 00:32:35.938
(Brandon Gore) But it was a thousand times better than what I was getting with the sprayed face coats.
00:32:35.938 --> 00:32:37.658
(Brandon Gore) I'm like, oh, this is great.
00:32:37.658 --> 00:32:41.758
(Brandon Gore) But now with Kodiak, it's like, you know, it's the frame of reference.
00:32:41.758 --> 00:32:46.438
(Brandon Gore) Now you see, like, what's actually possible, and you look back at that, and you're like, oh, man, that was horrible compared to what we do today.
00:32:46.438 --> 00:32:47.978
(Brandon Gore) But back then, it was as good as it got.
00:32:49.118 --> 00:32:50.938
(Brandon Gore) So anyways, but I love this question.
00:32:51.058 --> 00:32:52.738
(Jon Schuler) How to make a spray?
00:32:52.738 --> 00:32:59.518
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, when I think of spraying, which to me is pretty cool, meaning where we're at today is cool.
00:32:59.518 --> 00:33:24.198
(Jon Schuler) It's now become, instead of like the have to, if you're gonna do this thing called GFRC, it's become more of a technique, maybe a certain look, or maybe, you know, to be able to do a certain mold, or whatever the case may be, you know, it's, so today, most people, if they decide to spray, it's not out of necessity anymore.
00:33:24.198 --> 00:33:31.358
(Jon Schuler) It's a specific situation, maybe a specific look of some sort, and nothing more than that.
00:33:31.358 --> 00:33:42.318
(Jon Schuler) And I think there's still some people out there that are still try to, I don't know, educate or instruct on this thing called GFRC and spraying.
00:33:42.318 --> 00:33:43.378
(Brandon Gore) They read about it in the book, Jon.
00:33:43.378 --> 00:33:50.018
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, because they read about it somewhere, and they went, like you did, like back then, you went and you bought a hopper gun and blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:33:51.338 --> 00:33:59.018
(Jon Schuler) And it's just a whole new world, you know, and has been for a while now for those people, which brings me full circle.
00:33:59.018 --> 00:34:04.898
(Jon Schuler) I know we're using these G and an F and R and a C for glass fiber reinforced concrete.
00:34:04.898 --> 00:34:07.898
(Jon Schuler) And that's the other thing that's really changed over the years.
00:34:07.898 --> 00:34:13.878
(Jon Schuler) That acronym used to specifically mean more than what it was.
00:34:13.958 --> 00:34:17.258
(Jon Schuler) It wasn't just about glass fiber reinforced concrete.
00:34:17.258 --> 00:34:26.598
(Jon Schuler) It had to do with this polymer modified, the steps it took in, like we're saying, spring and compaction rollers and dah, dah, dah, dah.
00:34:26.598 --> 00:34:32.658
(Jon Schuler) And now today, that acronym actually stands for glass fiber reinforced.
00:34:32.658 --> 00:34:36.238
(Jon Schuler) You just happen to use glass fiber.
00:34:36.238 --> 00:34:43.458
(Jon Schuler) No more necessities, at least for those people that have moved on for, you know, some polymer additions.
00:34:43.458 --> 00:34:57.878
(Jon Schuler) I mean, it's a whole new world where now the glass fiber, actually, we have the conversation about the glass fiber, does not directly indicate the steps or the mix.
00:34:57.878 --> 00:34:59.178
(Jon Schuler) So I think that's pretty cool.
00:34:59.178 --> 00:35:00.618
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, absolutely.
00:35:01.818 --> 00:35:02.378
(Brandon Gore) Absolutely.
00:35:02.378 --> 00:35:03.658
(Brandon Gore) And I agree.
00:35:03.658 --> 00:35:04.978
(Brandon Gore) So yeah, there's some training out there.
00:35:05.018 --> 00:35:12.858
(Brandon Gore) It's still showing that, and it's because they read my Concrete Decor article on how to do GFRC from like 2006 or 2007 or whenever that was.
00:35:12.858 --> 00:35:14.938
(Brandon Gore) They read the article and they're like, that's how you do GFRC.
00:35:14.938 --> 00:35:16.058
(Brandon Gore) So now they're teaching classes.
00:35:16.058 --> 00:35:18.858
(Brandon Gore) It's the guy that learned how to swim by reading a book about water, right?
00:35:18.858 --> 00:35:24.658
(Brandon Gore) There's people out there teaching how to do GFRC by reading my Concrete Decor article from nearly 20 years ago.
00:35:24.658 --> 00:35:30.838
(Brandon Gore) But the only reason anybody's spraying GFRC anymore, or spraying a face coat anymore, is because they're going for an aesthetic look.
00:35:30.838 --> 00:35:41.698
(Brandon Gore) So it's either like Justin Bird's high spray method where he sprays like kind of a loose face coat in one color, and then he sprays another one in a different color, and ends up with this really cool modeling effect.
00:35:41.698 --> 00:35:54.458
(Brandon Gore) Or what Joe Bates was talking about was he sprays an inner mold one color, and then he puts the outer mold and pours SCC and flips it over and ends up with a different, you know, the base is a different color than the rest of the concrete.
00:35:54.458 --> 00:35:56.658
(Jon Schuler) Right, creating kind of a color seam.
00:35:56.658 --> 00:35:58.538
(Brandon Gore) Exactly, so that'd be a reason to do it.
00:35:58.538 --> 00:36:10.578
(Brandon Gore) So there's instances where it makes sense for creative opportunities, but for just day-to-day nuts and bolts for making a countertop, you don't need to do it unless you want to do it.
00:36:10.578 --> 00:36:12.238
(Jon Schuler) No, it's so time-consuming.
00:36:12.238 --> 00:36:16.378
(Jon Schuler) I mean, like, I legitimately wouldn't understand.
00:36:16.378 --> 00:36:28.058
(Jon Schuler) And when I say I don't understand, it doesn't mean I'm saying somebody's wrong, but I would need somebody to like absolutely get me to understand the steps if they were making a, you know, a flat countertop.
00:36:29.818 --> 00:36:36.638
(Brandon Gore) Have you seen these people that say they're ponies, and they like put on the harnesses and, you know, they go eeee.
00:36:38.458 --> 00:36:39.418
(Jon Schuler) I don't know, man.
00:36:39.418 --> 00:36:40.118
(Brandon Gore) I'm a pony.
00:36:40.118 --> 00:36:42.818
(Jon Schuler) I mean, it's just, it so doesn't make sense.
00:36:42.818 --> 00:36:44.758
(Jon Schuler) It just absolutely doesn't make sense.
00:36:44.758 --> 00:36:51.818
(Jon Schuler) Like I said, unless, well, we're doing it because we wanted this specific modeling look or whatever the case may be.
00:36:51.818 --> 00:36:52.978
(Jon Schuler) Oh, then I understand that.
00:36:52.978 --> 00:37:03.978
(Jon Schuler) And then, but even within, I would understand spraying to create the modeled look, but then just self consolidate and pour out the backer.
00:37:03.978 --> 00:37:07.358
(Jon Schuler) Don't, don't hand pack and roll and steps.
00:37:07.358 --> 00:37:23.338
(Jon Schuler) And I mean, that's those days are so, and I say this like terribly, but it's really not that long ago, but it didn't take all of us very long to learn that that is so archaic that like, yeah, no.
00:37:23.758 --> 00:37:34.118
(Brandon Gore) Well, I would say it didn't take, it didn't take those doing it for a living, meaning doing it for customer projects to learn, because there's still people that are teaching it because they don't, they've never actually done it in practice.
00:37:34.118 --> 00:37:40.778
(Brandon Gore) And if you do it in practice, you do two, three, four, five projects for customers, you're like, man, I gotta find a better way.
00:37:40.778 --> 00:37:42.358
(Jon Schuler) This is killing me.
00:37:42.358 --> 00:37:43.998
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, I'm dying here.
00:37:43.998 --> 00:37:50.438
(Jon Schuler) I mean, I'm not, I can't make a profit out of this with doing all the steps and how long it takes.
00:37:50.518 --> 00:37:52.618
(Jon Schuler) And remember lining up the buckets?
00:37:52.658 --> 00:37:57.938
(Brandon Gore) I mean, jeez, Louise, I got photos in my shop of like 60 buckets lined up, you know?
00:37:57.938 --> 00:37:58.118
(Jon Schuler) Yeah.
00:37:58.118 --> 00:38:05.038
(Jon Schuler) And remember during that period of time, we'd almost be like, you know, pumping our chest like, yeah, look, this is amazing.
00:38:05.038 --> 00:38:08.978
(Jon Schuler) And then six hours later, you're like, what?
00:38:08.978 --> 00:38:09.378
(Jon Schuler) What?
00:38:09.378 --> 00:38:09.758
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:38:09.758 --> 00:38:11.698
(Jon Schuler) I made 50 bucks on this project.
00:38:12.498 --> 00:38:14.258
(Jon Schuler) What am I doing?
00:38:14.258 --> 00:38:15.318
(Jon Schuler) Oh yeah.
00:38:15.318 --> 00:38:16.118
(Jon Schuler) No, no, no, no.
00:38:16.158 --> 00:38:17.778
(Brandon Gore) Back, back, back to my analogy.
00:38:17.778 --> 00:38:26.658
(Brandon Gore) There's people out there that think they're ponies or they, they like to play their ponies and put on the harness, they put on a saddle, they put on the bridle in their mouth and they, they get on all fours and right.
00:38:26.658 --> 00:38:28.458
(Brandon Gore) Those people would love spraying a face coat.
00:38:28.458 --> 00:38:29.438
(Brandon Gore) They would love it.
00:38:29.438 --> 00:38:30.338
(Brandon Gore) That'd be their thing.
00:38:30.338 --> 00:38:32.698
(Brandon Gore) They say, this is the best thing ever.
00:38:32.698 --> 00:38:33.998
(Brandon Gore) So anyways.
00:38:33.998 --> 00:38:34.538
(Jon Schuler) Nuts.
00:38:34.538 --> 00:38:37.258
(Jon Schuler) Absolutely.
00:38:37.258 --> 00:38:40.318
(Jon Schuler) I mean, decorative technique, I get it.
00:38:40.318 --> 00:38:44.218
(Jon Schuler) But anything more than that, you gotta, you gotta be crazy anymore.
00:38:44.218 --> 00:38:45.838
(Brandon Gore) You gotta be crazy.
00:38:45.838 --> 00:38:46.038
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:38:46.038 --> 00:38:46.178
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:38:46.178 --> 00:38:47.598
(Jon Schuler) And it's slow, right?
00:38:47.598 --> 00:38:48.438
(Jon Schuler) I mean, it's slow.
00:38:48.438 --> 00:38:50.398
(Jon Schuler) I mean, so spring.
00:38:50.398 --> 00:38:50.698
(Jon Schuler) Yeah.
00:38:50.698 --> 00:38:58.278
(Jon Schuler) I mean, you know, 20 square feet is spray is just, oh my God, no, no, no, no, no.
00:38:58.278 --> 00:39:00.878
(Jon Schuler) And then coming back out, filling back your hopper gun.
00:39:00.878 --> 00:39:03.498
(Jon Schuler) Like, you know, oh my God, no.
00:39:05.058 --> 00:39:05.538
(Brandon Gore) All right, Jon.
00:39:05.538 --> 00:39:06.518
(Jon Schuler) No, I'm glad.
00:39:06.658 --> 00:39:08.418
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, that was one of those things, man.
00:39:08.418 --> 00:39:16.118
(Jon Schuler) I think I implemented for maybe a half dozen projects because like everybody else, like, wow, this is amazing.
00:39:16.118 --> 00:39:19.478
(Jon Schuler) And then I was like, yeah, no, we're not doing this anymore.
00:39:19.478 --> 00:39:20.358
(Jon Schuler) I'm done.
00:39:20.378 --> 00:39:22.818
(Jon Schuler) I'm not even showing this to anybody anymore.
00:39:22.818 --> 00:39:23.898
(Jon Schuler) It was killing us.
00:39:23.898 --> 00:39:25.018
(Jon Schuler) It was killing us.
00:39:25.018 --> 00:39:26.438
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:39:26.438 --> 00:39:26.718
(Brandon Gore) All right.
00:39:26.718 --> 00:39:28.798
(Brandon Gore) Next question on my my list here.
00:39:28.798 --> 00:39:32.498
(Brandon Gore) Fiber types, loading rates and how they impact finish quality.
00:39:34.078 --> 00:39:38.018
(Brandon Gore) So, fiber types, I mean, it's AR glass fiber, alkali-resistant glass fiber.
00:39:38.018 --> 00:39:38.938
(Brandon Gore) That's what you want to use.
00:39:38.938 --> 00:39:43.198
(Brandon Gore) And those come in all different types of lengths and bundle sizes.
00:39:43.198 --> 00:39:44.778
(Brandon Gore) And some disperse into...
00:39:45.698 --> 00:39:47.498
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, some disperse into individual filaments.
00:39:47.498 --> 00:39:48.858
(Brandon Gore) You don't want to use those.
00:39:48.858 --> 00:39:51.418
(Brandon Gore) I accidentally did a few weeks ago.
00:39:52.018 --> 00:39:58.298
(Brandon Gore) I had a fiber company send us some samples and they had included a high dispersion fiber, which I didn't realize.
00:39:58.298 --> 00:40:01.178
(Brandon Gore) And I just reached over and grabbed a bag off the shelf.
00:40:01.958 --> 00:40:04.058
(Brandon Gore) Dude, I reached over and grabbed a bag and I threw it in.
00:40:04.058 --> 00:40:04.918
(Brandon Gore) I'm like, what is this?
00:40:04.918 --> 00:40:05.718
(Brandon Gore) I go and look at the bag.
00:40:05.718 --> 00:40:07.078
(Brandon Gore) It says HD high dispersion.
00:40:07.078 --> 00:40:12.718
(Brandon Gore) Like, ah, because it turns into like individual filaments, which turned it into like cat hair.
00:40:12.718 --> 00:40:19.478
(Brandon Gore) You know, and so the mix went from like an SEC to like a thick porridge of some sort, like mashed potatoes.
00:40:19.478 --> 00:40:21.058
(Brandon Gore) And I had to redo that project.
00:40:21.518 --> 00:40:22.398
(Brandon Gore) I called you when I left.
00:40:22.398 --> 00:40:24.198
(Brandon Gore) I'm like, dude, I went ahead and tried to cast it.
00:40:24.198 --> 00:40:26.238
(Brandon Gore) It did not want to flow.
00:40:26.238 --> 00:40:28.178
(Brandon Gore) And I'll probably have to redo it.
00:40:28.218 --> 00:40:29.318
(Brandon Gore) Next day, I came in and de-molded it.
00:40:29.318 --> 00:40:30.158
(Brandon Gore) Yep, I had to redo it.
00:40:30.158 --> 00:40:39.418
(Brandon Gore) So anyways, but glass fibers, AOR glass, different types, 100 strand bundles, 200 strand bundles.
00:40:39.418 --> 00:40:41.478
(Brandon Gore) You know, the lengths are in millimeters.
00:40:41.478 --> 00:40:41.798
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:40:42.018 --> 00:40:43.738
(Brandon Gore) Any advice on that, Jon?
00:40:43.738 --> 00:40:47.078
(Jon Schuler) Well, ultimately, the advice just comes around.
00:40:47.078 --> 00:40:51.958
(Jon Schuler) I mean, there are some things that's, you know, there are acceptances.
00:40:51.958 --> 00:40:52.698
(Jon Schuler) There's acceptance.
00:40:52.698 --> 00:40:59.538
(Jon Schuler) There's some things about using glass fibers specifically in self-consolidating concretes that everybody has to find an acceptance with.
00:40:59.538 --> 00:41:09.818
(Jon Schuler) And we've talked about these before, and that is there's always a potential, and a potential of that glass fiber, that white, and it's a white filament fiber.
00:41:09.818 --> 00:41:14.998
(Jon Schuler) Yes, there's a bunch of bundles all there, but it still looks like a white filament fiber.
00:41:14.998 --> 00:41:17.238
(Jon Schuler) Could get near or show up in the face.
00:41:17.238 --> 00:41:19.278
(Jon Schuler) And that's just part of the process.
00:41:19.278 --> 00:41:20.958
(Jon Schuler) It is what it is.
00:41:20.958 --> 00:41:39.898
(Jon Schuler) But the only advice beyond that is work with some of the fibers the 12 mm, which is about 3 quarters inch, the 8 mm, so about a half inch, the various tex sizes, usually about 70, 90, 82, to as much as 135.
00:41:39.898 --> 00:41:42.178
(Jon Schuler) And that number of people don't know.
00:41:42.298 --> 00:41:44.898
(Jon Schuler) It just kind of gives you an idea of the thickness.
00:41:44.898 --> 00:41:46.378
(Jon Schuler) In my opinion, that's how you look at it.
00:41:46.378 --> 00:41:51.558
(Jon Schuler) The thickness of the fiber, the 135s are thicker, hence the larger number than the thing.
00:41:51.558 --> 00:41:52.698
(Jon Schuler) But work with them.
00:41:53.038 --> 00:41:53.998
(Jon Schuler) And then you decide.
00:41:53.998 --> 00:42:10.498
(Jon Schuler) Because based on the casting techniques that you may be used to, the bigger fibers may be very contusive for what you do, where a lot of us have moved to the smaller fibers, the half inch and the smaller tex.
00:42:10.498 --> 00:42:12.038
(Jon Schuler) And those work great for me.
00:42:12.038 --> 00:42:14.598
(Jon Schuler) I feel like they give me much better flow.
00:42:14.598 --> 00:42:17.998
(Jon Schuler) And I've actually tested the flow.
00:42:17.998 --> 00:42:24.578
(Jon Schuler) Where other people are adamant, like, no, no, no, these, I use the bigger fibers because they give me better flow.
00:42:24.998 --> 00:42:26.138
(Brandon Gore) That was me for a long time.
00:42:26.138 --> 00:42:33.518
(Brandon Gore) But that was me with old GFRC, with polymer and 50-50 sand and cement, you know, silica sand.
00:42:33.518 --> 00:42:47.478
(Brandon Gore) And yeah, I was using a 200 filament fiber versus 100 filament, because you're still doing it by weight, but there was half the number of fibers in the mix and less surface area, less tension, surface tension.
00:42:47.478 --> 00:42:56.858
(Brandon Gore) So when I was flowing, I mean, I'd get more SEC because there's bigger fibers but fewer fibers, so less surface tension that was restricting the flow.
00:42:56.858 --> 00:43:00.198
(Brandon Gore) But that's changed in recent years of development.
00:43:00.198 --> 00:43:01.578
(Jon Schuler) Oh, that's changed dramatically.
00:43:01.578 --> 00:43:10.658
(Jon Schuler) I mean, between, which again, more acronyms, ultra-high performance, which are trying to utilize more glass fiber as opposed to VBA.
00:43:10.658 --> 00:43:27.598
(Jon Schuler) As these advances in technologies come across, one of the big advancements in fiber technologies has been, so we keep calling them bundle fibers, which is a whole bunch of single filament glass fibers bundled together to create their strength.
00:43:27.598 --> 00:43:37.338
(Jon Schuler) And in that bundling process, it's, let's say, basically they have this coating that's used, and for us, we refer to it as sizing.
00:43:37.338 --> 00:43:50.598
(Jon Schuler) And depending on what that is used, often dictates either helps them disperse and flow in the mix, or creates a chunkier mix.
00:43:50.598 --> 00:43:54.598
(Jon Schuler) And so over the years, a lot of these, I mean, these fiber companies aren't stupid.
00:43:54.598 --> 00:44:04.518
(Jon Schuler) They get better and better sizings, make them slicker to use in the mix, as it allows a lot of us to now to use smaller fibers, smaller bundles, which used to choke out a mix.
00:44:04.518 --> 00:44:07.958
(Jon Schuler) Now we can get very nice flows out of that mix.
00:44:07.958 --> 00:44:09.678
(Brandon Gore) That's right, Jon.
00:44:09.678 --> 00:44:10.258
(Jon Schuler) That's right.
00:44:10.278 --> 00:44:11.858
(Jon Schuler) Big changes, big changes.
00:44:11.858 --> 00:44:12.298
(Jon Schuler) That's right.
00:44:13.398 --> 00:44:15.138
(Brandon Gore) All right, next question.
00:44:15.138 --> 00:44:19.758
(Brandon Gore) Reducing weight without compromising strength.
00:44:19.758 --> 00:44:26.458
(Brandon Gore) And where my mind goes with this is foam coring, the foam core piece, which is something I used to do a lot back in the day.
00:44:26.458 --> 00:44:37.458
(Brandon Gore) And you would essentially sink a piece of styrofoam down into the concrete and let the concrete flow around one inch on all sides of concrete with foam in the middle.
00:44:37.458 --> 00:44:40.098
(Brandon Gore) Sounds like a great idea, right?
00:44:40.098 --> 00:44:40.598
(Brandon Gore) Sounds great.
00:44:40.978 --> 00:44:42.818
(Jon Schuler) See, I'm quenching what you're saying.
00:44:42.818 --> 00:44:43.018
(Brandon Gore) I know.
00:44:43.018 --> 00:44:44.438
(Jon Schuler) Because you've been there.
00:44:44.438 --> 00:44:46.018
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, we've all done it.
00:44:46.018 --> 00:44:47.518
(Brandon Gore) It sounds great.
00:44:47.518 --> 00:44:53.418
(Brandon Gore) But in time, that foam expands and contracts, and it will crack the concrete over time.
00:44:53.418 --> 00:44:54.758
(Brandon Gore) So it's a timeline issue.
00:44:54.758 --> 00:44:56.198
(Brandon Gore) You'll put it in and it looks great.
00:44:56.198 --> 00:45:00.958
(Brandon Gore) And then three or four years down the road, it's cracked on all sides because that foam has expanded and contracted.
00:45:00.958 --> 00:45:03.758
(Brandon Gore) So what we started to do was we'd still foam core.
00:45:03.758 --> 00:45:07.678
(Brandon Gore) And we would have a system to hold the foam down so it wouldn't float.
00:45:08.158 --> 00:45:21.098
(Brandon Gore) And we would pour, and then we would essentially leave foam blocks that after the concrete cured, we could pour acetone down in and essentially melt the foam all the way through.
00:45:21.098 --> 00:45:22.618
(Brandon Gore) And then it was just a void on the inside.
00:45:22.618 --> 00:45:26.838
(Brandon Gore) And then we would patch those openings with concrete a couple days later.
00:45:27.598 --> 00:45:33.338
(Brandon Gore) And so if it's a floating mantle or whatever, now it just has an internal void, but there's no foam that's expanded and contracting.
00:45:33.338 --> 00:45:35.638
(Brandon Gore) So there's that way around it.
00:45:36.858 --> 00:45:41.518
(Brandon Gore) What other things do you think of when you think of reducing weight without compromising strength?
00:45:41.518 --> 00:45:47.298
(Jon Schuler) Well, it's one thing most of us all talked about, but I don't think anybody's really utilized it.
00:45:47.298 --> 00:45:58.738
(Jon Schuler) So some of your lightweight mixes that are used for like verticals and carving and all that kind of stuff, like a person really could cast their own internal foam core.
00:45:58.738 --> 00:45:59.658
(Jon Schuler) You see what I'm saying?
00:45:59.658 --> 00:46:01.638
(Jon Schuler) With a lightweight mix.
00:46:02.558 --> 00:46:12.758
(Jon Schuler) And then you'd recess that, cast around it, and you wouldn't have the same potential issues you would have with a straight foam.
00:46:12.758 --> 00:46:23.338
(Jon Schuler) So that to me, and I played with it a while back with when we were Blue Concrete, I think it was right before we ended up buying out Buddy Rhodes products.
00:46:23.338 --> 00:46:28.358
(Jon Schuler) But again, it's not that it's not a great idea.
00:46:28.358 --> 00:46:32.618
(Jon Schuler) It's one of those though, like most of us, if you're in your shop, you have to be prepared.
00:46:32.618 --> 00:46:38.498
(Jon Schuler) Meaning you got to cast your knockouts a day or a few days in advance, right?
00:46:38.498 --> 00:46:44.498
(Jon Schuler) Knowing and then either cut them to shape or have them ready to go and then place them.
00:46:44.498 --> 00:46:53.918
(Jon Schuler) And at the time when I did it is when we really getting into that product called, I think, Pour Over or Pour Aver was the lightweight material.
00:46:53.918 --> 00:46:57.158
(Jon Schuler) And a fairly simple mix, one to one.
00:46:57.158 --> 00:46:58.378
(Jon Schuler) You know, we followed the old things.
00:46:58.378 --> 00:47:03.858
(Jon Schuler) It's essentially a one to one mix between cement and and Pour Aver is your lightweight.
00:47:03.858 --> 00:47:06.998
(Jon Schuler) And then you're creating your own internal knockout.
00:47:06.998 --> 00:47:09.438
(Jon Schuler) And the only reason why I didn't keep doing it is just for that.
00:47:09.438 --> 00:47:13.418
(Jon Schuler) Like, oh my God, man, I forgot to make these things, but yet I got to get this cast.
00:47:13.418 --> 00:47:17.338
(Jon Schuler) And so it really didn't catch much speed for me.
00:47:18.078 --> 00:47:20.518
(Jon Schuler) But that, to me, would be the other alternative.
00:47:20.518 --> 00:47:28.438
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, well, if you're doing a lot of pieces, maybe they're all the same for a big project, a hotel or a university or something.
00:47:28.438 --> 00:47:33.018
(Brandon Gore) It might make sense to do that, to make a form to pour your lightweight knockouts first.
00:47:33.018 --> 00:47:39.758
(Brandon Gore) And then you can suspend those and pour your SEC GFRC around it to create a lighter product.
00:47:39.758 --> 00:47:43.418
(Brandon Gore) But it'd have to be a project that's worth doing all the extra work.
00:47:43.478 --> 00:47:45.878
(Jon Schuler) Exactly, at the time.
00:47:45.878 --> 00:47:46.218
(Brandon Gore) Great.
00:47:46.218 --> 00:47:46.538
(Brandon Gore) All right.
00:47:46.538 --> 00:47:48.678
(Brandon Gore) Last question, Jon.
00:47:48.678 --> 00:47:52.458
(Brandon Gore) On this podcast about exploring GFRC.
00:47:52.458 --> 00:47:58.238
(Brandon Gore) Common misconceptions about GFRC and the truth behind them.
00:48:03.118 --> 00:48:05.218
(Jon Schuler) Well, I'll let you throw some first.
00:48:05.258 --> 00:48:07.818
(Jon Schuler) Because, see, I start driving towards the polymer.
00:48:07.818 --> 00:48:19.738
(Jon Schuler) Like, the original things was said that the reason for using a polymer in GFRC, or one of the things was it acted as a glue for holding the glass fiber, right?
00:48:19.738 --> 00:48:22.398
(Jon Schuler) Bonding the fiber and so forth and so on.
00:48:22.398 --> 00:48:24.238
(Brandon Gore) No, that's not right.
00:48:24.238 --> 00:48:24.718
(Brandon Gore) What's right?
00:48:24.718 --> 00:48:25.058
(Brandon Gore) At least one...
00:48:25.058 --> 00:48:27.618
(Jon Schuler) I know that's not right, but I'm just saying that's one of the myths and misconceptions.
00:48:27.678 --> 00:48:29.298
(Brandon Gore) That might be a myth, yeah.
00:48:29.298 --> 00:48:31.558
(Brandon Gore) Well, yeah, this is about misconceptions.
00:48:31.558 --> 00:48:38.418
(Brandon Gore) But the truth was, Hyrum, they developed a polymer because alkali-resistant glass didn't exist back then.
00:48:38.418 --> 00:48:45.078
(Brandon Gore) Alkali-resistant glass only came about later, so they were using traditional glass fiber, e-glass, they were putting it in the concrete.
00:48:45.078 --> 00:48:52.618
(Brandon Gore) The alkaline environment of the concrete was degrading the glass, so they were putting in polymer to help offset that so the glass wouldn't degrade.
00:48:53.578 --> 00:49:03.178
(Brandon Gore) And that was really why they came out with the Fortan VF774, was to mitigate that alkaline attack on the glass.
00:49:04.198 --> 00:49:07.178
(Brandon Gore) So that was, he told me, like, that was the reason they came up with that.
00:49:07.178 --> 00:49:08.138
(Brandon Gore) That's why they started doing it.
00:49:08.138 --> 00:49:10.618
(Brandon Gore) And that's why it was at such a high percentage, too.
00:49:10.618 --> 00:49:11.558
(Brandon Gore) You know, they backed it down.
00:49:11.678 --> 00:49:24.718
(Brandon Gore) They claimed all these benefits, which again, I'd say these are misconceptions at this point, because they were spoken as truth forever of flexural strength, color fastness, 24-hour dry cure, all the different things.
00:49:24.718 --> 00:49:34.718
(Brandon Gore) And after, like, not using polymer now for several years and, like, looking back, dude, it was way more problematic with polymer, way, way more downsides.
00:49:34.718 --> 00:49:36.458
(Brandon Gore) But I didn't know it at the time.
00:49:36.458 --> 00:49:38.318
(Brandon Gore) I didn't have a frame of reference yet.
00:49:38.318 --> 00:49:41.038
(Brandon Gore) So that's I would consider that a misconception.
00:49:41.038 --> 00:49:41.878
(Jon Schuler) Yeah, definitely.
00:49:41.938 --> 00:49:45.138
(Jon Schuler) And yeah, treating it as a cure additive.
00:49:45.138 --> 00:49:48.818
(Jon Schuler) And that really came along because there's other thing called cure and seals, right?
00:49:48.818 --> 00:49:56.258
(Jon Schuler) I mean, you're, you know, and so that, boy, if we could put something in there and it floats to the top and it traps the moisture.
00:49:56.258 --> 00:49:57.478
(Brandon Gore) Oh, yeah, the form filming.
00:49:57.558 --> 00:50:01.118
(Jon Schuler) Maybe to a very slight degree, you know?
00:50:01.118 --> 00:50:12.018
(Brandon Gore) Well, that was the whole thing was, I remember when I, when you were coming to me back in like 2006, seven, and you're telling me, hey, man, you need to be curing your concrete by putting plastic and blankets.
00:50:12.018 --> 00:50:18.998
(Brandon Gore) And I talked to Hiram and I was like, no, no, no, this is a form filming, form, a film forming acrylic.
00:50:18.998 --> 00:50:23.798
(Brandon Gore) It floats to the top of the, you know, the back of the concrete, creates a layer and seals it up.
00:50:23.798 --> 00:50:25.098
(Brandon Gore) You don't need to do any of that.
00:50:25.098 --> 00:50:27.818
(Brandon Gore) And I said that to you, you're like, no, bro, like you still need to do it.
00:50:28.558 --> 00:50:34.078
(Brandon Gore) If I'm like, well, Hiram, Hiram said, oh, gosh, man.
00:50:34.078 --> 00:50:34.698
(Jon Schuler) No, no.
00:50:34.698 --> 00:50:49.898
(Jon Schuler) And then the other thing, I mean, now we know that, like some of their original loading rates was based on the ability that, you know, you put enough acrylic or whatever, you put enough plastic into this.
00:50:49.898 --> 00:51:12.558
(Jon Schuler) And if the plastic acrylic has a PSI and a tensile strength and so forth and so on, what you want to do is basically impregnate the characteristic of that material so that the now what we're calling concrete, you know, captures that PSI and that tensile strength.
00:51:12.558 --> 00:51:18.918
(Jon Schuler) And that's why so many of us in the very beginning with those high loading rates, that's why our pieces looked like plastic.
00:51:20.558 --> 00:51:23.758
(Jon Schuler) Because that's essentially what we did.
00:51:24.018 --> 00:51:27.718
(Jon Schuler) You put it in at a rate, then that's what you did.
00:51:27.918 --> 00:51:44.858
(Jon Schuler) And for a while, a lot of companies, that's what they were chasing, trying to create these acrylics with higher PSI, higher tensile strength, higher, higher, higher so that when you were putting X amount of this in your mix, it would take on that.
00:51:45.898 --> 00:51:49.678
(Jon Schuler) And again, for us, that presented problems, you know?
00:51:49.678 --> 00:51:55.318
(Jon Schuler) We started, a lot of our stuff started looking like nothing more than Corian.
00:51:55.318 --> 00:51:55.998
(Jon Schuler) You know what I mean?
00:51:55.998 --> 00:51:58.938
(Jon Schuler) Like, hmm, well, that's not cool.
00:51:58.938 --> 00:52:01.478
(Jon Schuler) So yeah, it was, we've come a long way.
00:52:01.478 --> 00:52:02.158
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:52:02.158 --> 00:52:06.098
(Brandon Gore) I would say the other one we already talked about is a face coat is a necessity.
00:52:06.098 --> 00:52:07.898
(Brandon Gore) That GFRC means spraying a face coat.
00:52:07.898 --> 00:52:08.818
(Brandon Gore) That's a misconception.
00:52:08.818 --> 00:52:11.418
(Brandon Gore) So many people still think that's true.
00:52:11.758 --> 00:52:21.658
(Brandon Gore) When they come to a class, especially the fundamentals class, they may have done a little research on YouTube or something, and they think you have to spray a face coat to do GFRC.
00:52:21.658 --> 00:52:22.998
(Brandon Gore) And so that's a misconception.
00:52:22.998 --> 00:52:24.218
(Brandon Gore) You don't have to do that.
00:52:24.218 --> 00:52:25.058
(Jon Schuler) That is true.
00:52:25.058 --> 00:52:32.018
(Jon Schuler) And I guess the original intention was, or one of them anyway, just the aesthetics.
00:52:32.018 --> 00:52:37.218
(Jon Schuler) You know, again, the fear that all that fiber, at least based on the way we used to do it, right?
00:52:37.278 --> 00:52:42.618
(Jon Schuler) Remember how thick the back mix was and butter it out, roll it?
00:52:42.618 --> 00:52:43.598
(Jon Schuler) Like, yeah.
00:52:43.598 --> 00:52:50.638
(Jon Schuler) I mean, if you put that as your initial face, it would have a very straw-like look.
00:52:50.638 --> 00:52:51.338
(Jon Schuler) You know what I mean?
00:52:51.338 --> 00:52:54.538
(Jon Schuler) With all that fiber and all that stuff going on.
00:52:54.538 --> 00:53:03.818
(Jon Schuler) So you needed the face coat or the spray coat so that you didn't see all that that was in the background.
00:53:03.898 --> 00:53:05.278
(Brandon Gore) Do I think it about...
00:53:05.278 --> 00:53:08.618
(Brandon Gore) Remember when I used to sell the mortar sprayers, sprayers?
00:53:08.658 --> 00:53:09.558
(Jon Schuler) Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:53:09.558 --> 00:53:12.178
(Brandon Gore) And we'd spray the back coat.
00:53:12.178 --> 00:53:20.578
(Brandon Gore) So we'd spray the face coat and then we'd come back and we'd spray the back coat with the fibers, you know, but it only did like a quart at a time.
00:53:20.978 --> 00:53:33.778
(Brandon Gore) It has like a little tiny hopper on it, so you have to constantly fill it up and then spray and have these huge holes like three-quarter inch orifices, you know, and it has three of them, and you can plug one or two to control how much comes out.
00:53:34.398 --> 00:53:36.598
(Brandon Gore) But yeah, dude, it was like a shocker.
00:53:36.598 --> 00:53:43.018
(Jon Schuler) And again, now that we learned, that wasn't actually the best use for those things.
00:53:45.678 --> 00:53:47.898
(Brandon Gore) Are you talking about when we made the fire?
00:53:49.158 --> 00:53:51.238
(Brandon Gore) I was telling somebody about that the other day.
00:53:51.238 --> 00:53:58.818
(Brandon Gore) Well, ultimately, we ended up, yeah, we were using that, but ultimately I end up getting a PVC pipe and putting it in there and then using the air compressor spray to the pipe.
00:53:58.818 --> 00:54:01.018
(Brandon Gore) But who was I telling that to?
00:54:01.018 --> 00:54:02.058
(Jon Schuler) Through the bonfire.
00:54:02.098 --> 00:54:03.278
(Jon Schuler) Oh, man, that was amazing.
00:54:03.318 --> 00:54:13.478
(Brandon Gore) Well, initially, what it was, was somebody in the workshop, probably Greg Kanucki, if I had to guess, said, hey, have you ever thrown non-dairy creamer in a fire?
00:54:13.478 --> 00:54:14.298
(Jon Schuler) I'm like, no.
00:54:14.298 --> 00:54:16.178
(Brandon Gore) And we had coffee.
00:54:16.178 --> 00:54:16.978
(Brandon Gore) He's like, try it.
00:54:16.978 --> 00:54:19.978
(Brandon Gore) So we went up and got the non-dairy creamer and threw it in there and it exploded.
00:54:19.978 --> 00:54:20.578
(Brandon Gore) Big fireball.
00:54:20.578 --> 00:54:22.358
(Brandon Gore) I'm like, dude, that's awesome.
00:54:22.358 --> 00:54:27.618
(Brandon Gore) So we go through all the non-dairy creamer, start putting it in the hopper sprayer and spraying it into the fire.
00:54:27.618 --> 00:54:29.738
(Brandon Gore) And we ended up with these bus-sized fireballs.
00:54:30.358 --> 00:54:33.838
(Brandon Gore) And so then I sent the guys to the grocery store.
00:54:33.838 --> 00:54:34.638
(Brandon Gore) It's like 10 p.m.
00:54:34.638 --> 00:54:37.338
(Brandon Gore) at night to get all the non-dairy creamer.
00:54:37.338 --> 00:54:40.858
(Brandon Gore) So they go down to the grocery store, they clear out the non-dairy creamer, bring it back.
00:54:40.858 --> 00:54:44.258
(Brandon Gore) We're doing this for another hour or two, but we go through all the non-dairy creamer.
00:54:44.258 --> 00:54:46.178
(Brandon Gore) So I send them back to get flour.
00:54:46.178 --> 00:54:47.558
(Brandon Gore) So they go get bags of flour.
00:54:47.558 --> 00:54:51.198
(Brandon Gore) We did this all night, making huge fireballs, people running and jumping through it.
00:54:51.198 --> 00:54:53.038
(Brandon Gore) It was bananas.
00:54:53.038 --> 00:54:54.358
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:54:54.358 --> 00:54:54.758
(Jon Schuler) Yeah.
00:54:54.758 --> 00:54:56.338
(Brandon Gore) That was a wild time back then.
00:54:56.338 --> 00:55:18.058
(Jon Schuler) But no, man, GFRC, I'm glad it's come to a point where, which also is, as you very well know, because we've been part of it, at least for, it's not happening anymore, but it opened up another huge window with the old guard fighting advancement.
00:55:18.058 --> 00:55:21.098
(Jon Schuler) But I like that now, it just stands for what it is.
00:55:21.158 --> 00:55:25.758
(Jon Schuler) It's glass fiber re-reinforced, glass fiber re-reinforced.
00:55:25.758 --> 00:55:26.878
(Jon Schuler) Nothing more than that.
00:55:26.878 --> 00:55:27.778
(Jon Schuler) Nothing.
00:55:27.778 --> 00:55:30.218
(Jon Schuler) It no longer means it has to be sprayed.
00:55:30.218 --> 00:55:35.138
(Jon Schuler) It no longer means this massive amount of acrylic polymer put in there.
00:55:35.518 --> 00:55:39.758
(Jon Schuler) It doesn't mean that anymore under that acronym.
00:55:39.758 --> 00:55:43.718
(Jon Schuler) It just means that you're using glass fiber as your primary reinforcement.
00:55:43.718 --> 00:55:44.698
(Jon Schuler) That's it.
00:55:44.698 --> 00:55:46.838
(Jon Schuler) And same thing now with PVA.
00:55:46.838 --> 00:55:53.818
(Jon Schuler) PVA used to mean when PVA first came out, the whole bendable concrete and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:55:53.818 --> 00:55:57.458
(Jon Schuler) And now, no, it's just a choice of reinforcement.
00:55:57.458 --> 00:55:59.358
(Jon Schuler) Nothing more, nothing less.
00:55:59.358 --> 00:56:01.398
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:56:01.398 --> 00:56:03.158
(Jon Schuler) At least to those people who know.
00:56:03.158 --> 00:56:04.038
(Jon Schuler) How about that?
00:56:04.038 --> 00:56:17.418
(Jon Schuler) So I would say this, anybody listening, if you do see anybody out there with information related otherwise, then they're just not up to speed.
00:56:17.638 --> 00:56:22.158
(Brandon Gore) Well, they're reading about how to swim by reading a book about water.
00:56:22.158 --> 00:56:24.518
(Brandon Gore) They're learning how to swim by reading a book about water.
00:56:24.518 --> 00:56:26.038
(Brandon Gore) They're learning how to do brain surgery by watching YouTube videos.
00:56:26.038 --> 00:56:27.898
(Jon Schuler) Well, like you said in the other one, right?
00:56:27.898 --> 00:56:32.918
(Jon Schuler) Never let someone who has never done something tell you how to do something.
00:56:32.978 --> 00:56:38.458
(Jon Schuler) I mean, that's crazy town to me, but you'll still see some of it, you know?
00:56:38.458 --> 00:56:40.978
(Jon Schuler) And it is what it is.
00:56:40.978 --> 00:56:52.658
(Jon Schuler) In fact, only because, you know, Joey, I remember I was watching, I think it was on Instagram, and I just thought it was hilarious because I watched this individual, and I don't know what they were trying to promote.
00:56:52.658 --> 00:56:54.258
(Jon Schuler) I think fibers or something like that.
00:56:54.258 --> 00:57:03.898
(Jon Schuler) So they were taking this little, I mean, almost this decorative pot, if you will, this small little pot, and they kept like dropping it, right?
00:57:03.898 --> 00:57:04.478
(Jon Schuler) Dropping it.
00:57:04.478 --> 00:57:07.558
(Jon Schuler) And like the caption would say, drop some eight feet or six feet.
00:57:07.698 --> 00:57:11.438
(Jon Schuler) And like, no, dude, you're like dropping it from three and a half feet, you know?
00:57:11.438 --> 00:57:23.358
(Jon Schuler) And what blew my mind is this person who promotes themselves as, you know, an all-knowing kind of thing, moved up to that pot.
00:57:23.358 --> 00:57:28.618
(Jon Schuler) And that pot was soulful air holes and junk.
00:57:29.858 --> 00:57:33.358
(Jon Schuler) That, I mean, it's the worst craftsmanship I ever seen.
00:57:34.058 --> 00:57:44.658
(Jon Schuler) And it just went again to tell me that that's what some of this industry still continues to fight through, is never done it.
00:57:45.698 --> 00:57:51.098
(Jon Schuler) So don't really know, haven't been up to speed, still can't do it.
00:57:51.098 --> 00:58:12.118
(Jon Schuler) I mean, you know, I mean, with some, because there are, there's materials out there that, even though you and I are talking about decorative techniques with SCC, and, you know, guys now, they're, Jesus, what did Alex, what was that, a six foot vertical, seven feet, whatever it was that he was casting in a straight, as in called us, how hard do I have to vibrate this?
00:58:12.118 --> 00:58:16.778
(Jon Schuler) Anyway, it came out freaking amazingly flawless.
00:58:16.778 --> 00:58:22.038
(Jon Schuler) We talk about that, like it's old news, but it's not old news, bro.
00:58:22.038 --> 00:58:37.198
(Jon Schuler) I mean, to us, it is now, but to a lot of people still in all this older junk that are still, you know, clawing their way forward, they're still casting with a lot of voids, a lot of pinholes.
00:58:37.358 --> 00:58:44.618
(Jon Schuler) I read one today with a guy using a certain version of UHPC asking, you know, how to fill pinholes.
00:58:44.618 --> 00:58:47.518
(Jon Schuler) And it's, so there's still a lot of that going on.
00:58:48.478 --> 00:58:51.778
(Jon Schuler) And that's something you and I just have to keep checking ourselves.
00:58:51.778 --> 00:58:52.518
(Jon Schuler) That's all I'm saying.
00:58:52.518 --> 00:58:57.038
(Jon Schuler) Checking ourselves on sometimes is it may be old news to us.
00:58:57.038 --> 00:59:04.338
(Jon Schuler) So it's great to talk about it and still feel like a lot of people still being introduced as something new.
00:59:04.338 --> 00:59:07.498
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, I agree.
00:59:07.498 --> 00:59:09.898
(Brandon Gore) All right, Jon, I got work to do, bro.
00:59:09.898 --> 00:59:11.538
(Brandon Gore) It's Friday, but trying to get some stuff done.
00:59:11.538 --> 00:59:14.938
(Brandon Gore) Get out of here until next time.
00:59:14.978 --> 00:59:16.258
(Jon Schuler) You had a long weekend, right?
00:59:16.258 --> 00:59:19.318
(Jon Schuler) Is it a labor day?
00:59:19.318 --> 00:59:20.818
(Brandon Gore) Yeah, you know, what's I thought?
00:59:20.818 --> 00:59:23.598
(Brandon Gore) I thought last week is Labor Day, but no, it's this week.
00:59:23.598 --> 00:59:24.038
(Jon Schuler) Yeah.
00:59:24.038 --> 00:59:24.458
(Brandon Gore) Yeah.
00:59:24.458 --> 00:59:26.138
(Jon Schuler) September 1st.
00:59:26.138 --> 00:59:27.998
(Jon Schuler) No third.
00:59:27.998 --> 00:59:28.618
(Jon Schuler) Anyway, yeah.
00:59:28.618 --> 00:59:29.618
(Jon Schuler) So long weekend.
00:59:29.618 --> 00:59:29.798
(Brandon Gore) Long.
00:59:29.838 --> 00:59:32.318
(Jon Schuler) Hopefully you guys do something cool.
00:59:32.318 --> 00:59:34.098
(Jon Schuler) Break out the barbecue.
00:59:34.098 --> 00:59:35.398
(Brandon Gore) Yes, absolutely.
00:59:35.398 --> 00:59:36.178
(Jon Schuler) Have some fun.
00:59:36.178 --> 00:59:37.038
(Brandon Gore) All right, buddy.
00:59:37.038 --> 00:59:37.578
(Brandon Gore) Till next time.
00:59:37.578 --> 00:59:38.598
(Jon Schuler) All right, man.
00:59:38.598 --> 00:59:38.858
(Jon Schuler) All right.
00:59:38.858 --> 00:59:39.538
(Jon Schuler) Till next time.
00:59:39.538 --> 00:59:40.618
(Brandon Gore) Adios.
00:59:40.618 --> 00:59:41.078
(Jon Schuler) Adios.