Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:01:34) – Heck, yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:01:36) – Hi.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:01:39) – How’s it going? Nice to meet you.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:01:41) – Me too.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:01:43) – So what you guys are doing is super cool, in my opinion. It’s about time somebody started, like, doing something like this.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:01:53) – Well, that’s great. I’m glad you like it. And I love your enthusiasm. Um, sometimes we kind of don’t know what we’re doing, and we get kind of, kind of lost on our path. And I feel like powder.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:02:07) – Coating, in a nutshell, is a very like. Like mistakes. Like mystic. Mystic. Like, you know, everything’s hush hush like you figured something out. Keep it to yourself. Don’t tell your competitor like it is. You know what I mean? And like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:02:24) – It is, we we interview.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:02:26) – Very taboo industry.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:02:29) – If you go back and listen to Russell. 399, I think it was like the third or fourth one we did. It’s fast and I found it fascinating. In fact, it’s one of my still one of my favorite podcasts because he goes through the history of powder coating. That’s right. And and then goes into custom coaters and how they how they ended up getting started and stuff like that. So I really I really enjoyed that one.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:03:03) – But I’m a history buff and and stuff, so if you have time go back and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:03:07) – Yeah I’ll definitely I’m definitely been like skimming through them and listening to a lot of them. Like I listen to Casas, that kid is, Oh.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:03:14) – I love him.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:03:15) – He’s a huge inspiration and a lot of what he does reminds me of myself and what I went through prior to becoming, you know, who I am today. And it’s it’s crazy, man. Like this industry is a dog eat dog world. And you’re either you’re either a laborer or you’re an owner or you’re both so.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:03:35) – And you’re still and then you’re, you know, you’re slave to your business. You know, it’s just. But I really like what you’re doing. And I just want to talk briefly before we get going.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:03:50) – Yeah, of course.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:03:52) – Um, what do we want to talk about and mean? Let’s. Let’s get some topics on the table. Of course, what I’m going to do or how it works is I’ll introduce you.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:06) – And then the first is. Can you hear.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:09) – That? Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:12) – Let me ask him how long he’s going to do that. We’re building the big oven right now. It’s 20 foot.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:19) – Oh, yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:22) – Are you done? I got a podcast. Oh, no. Well, I’ll have to. He’s cutting for the whole day, he said.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:33) – That’s fine. We’ll be.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:34) – Doing. He’s doing the. He’s connecting the electrical to it and stuff.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:39) – But when do you guys go with.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:43) – It’s a powder coating shop. People are just going to have to get over it, right?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:47) – What oven did you guys go with?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:49) – Oh, no. We’re building it from scratch.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:51) – Oh, heck, yeah. Are you guys going Gas? Are you going electric?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:55) – We do electric.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:04:56) – That’s what I got to. Yeah, I got two of them.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:04:59) – When you say you have an electric oven and people. What?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:05:04) – Yeah, that’s like. It’s super. It’s super like I come from. I’m in the northwest, so, like, I’m in touch really big with Kardinal.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:05:11) – Like, I have a really long standing relationship with Kardinal and Alex and Clint, and they’re. They’re a lot of y. I know. My knowledge is because of them. They’re awesome paint reps. They’ve helped me get to where I was at in the industry, you know, on the industrial side, and that every time I would tell them, you know, I’m doing stuff at home in my garage and he’s like, he just rolling his eyes. He already knows. You’re like, you know, they cringe when they hear electric. You know what?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:05:41) – They don’t even know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:05:42) – Oh, I’ve test. I’ve done some serious testing on both ends, and my stuff is like that. You can’t tell. You cannot tell the difference. Well.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:05:51) – It’s so much better and mean it’s been thousands.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:05:55) – Of dollars on gas.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:05:56) – It’s cheaper.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:05:57) – Yeah. I’m just going to keep my mouth shut about it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:06:01) – So, so good to talk to you and to have someone to talk to about this because it is seriously like the one of the deepest, darkest secrets out there.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:06:13) – It is. And like, Well, and like, my biggest thing is, is like I went to I got the the fab oven. I can’t remember the full name. It’s something fab. He’s out of like the East. I like the Midwest.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:06:26) – Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:06:26) – Fab Fab is the fab shop or whatever. You mean.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:06:30) – Ted’s fabs?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:06:32) – No, it’s the fab shop. But I bought his 4×4 by six convection electric oven. And I have got no complaints. Right. So yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:06:44) – We kind of touched on it a little bit in one of our, um, I think in our, I don’t know, one of our first. Hi cast. Now they’re kind of getting to be kind of blurry now. I’ve done a lot of.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:06:57) – So have you listened to the Joe the Joe Powder Coat show or whatever? The guys from one Kevin.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:03) – Kevin Yeah. I hope to listen.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:07:05) – To one where they were talking about UV ovens.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:09) – Infrared.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:07:10) – That’s. That’s a trip. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:13) – In fact, I was actually talking to.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:07:17) – Oh, What were they? You know, I’m on the PCI committee or I’m in the membership PCI, and somebody brought that up at the meeting, you know, and stuff.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:07:29) – Yeah. It’s curious to where it’s going to take our industry. That’s what I’m curious about. I’m curious about, you know, like, is it going to leave us convection ovens and gas oven guys in the dust or is it you know, it also kind of takes me back to like, you know, the actual you know, you’ve got to bring your substrate up to temp. We don’t want our actual powder curing prior to our substrate being, you know, at good temperatures. So it’s it’s a difference and there’s a lot of difference when it comes to, you know, chemical bonds and stuff at that point. So I’m interested to learn it. But then again, I’m also skeptical about it. Right.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:08:01) – So, um, I have something to share with you before we get going. But, but to finish, what I was saying is I usually just kind of introduce you and then.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:08:13) – And then, you know, that part about, you know, how to get in. You can take as long as you want. I usually unless there’s, unless there’s a topic topic, which I think the topic could be like artistry within powder coating. Um, certainly, um, what you do is so unique and I want to clarify that you actually sell the pens on your it’s a product and a finish or so.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:08:44) – Like what I’m doing is I’m offering like long story short is like in my, like, I’m a vapor. So like, I quit smoking years ago, like seven years ago when my son was born. And it was like a big thing to me, you know, like I’d smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and like, that’s any, you know, powder shop or any employers, you know, problem, you know, at a threshold is like his employee smoking or wasting time smoking. Right. So long story short, like I won’t bore you with the whole vaping thing.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:09:12) – I think you should tell people your story. So don’t want to stop you right there because don’t want to get it because it’s so easy to just start talking.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:09:19) – Yeah yeah yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:09:20) – I’ve started yet but usually it’s just like, you know, take as long as you need. Um, unless we have a deeper topic but think the topic we can just. It sounds like you and I are going to just roll it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:09:35) – Go right. I could go for days. And I’m also like. So like, obviously I’m in the northwest, I’m in a cannabis culture area to like these things. This isn’t cannabis, this is just nicotine vaping. This is what helped me smoke. Quit smoking cigarettes. Yeah. And I’m on I do a podcast every Sunday that is counterculture for cannabis and vaping, and I’m a big vape advocate. So like the whole podcast thing is.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:09:59) – Well, no, because it’s.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:10:00) – To be with you.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:10:01) – Yeah, because there has been some careful guess about a certain person in the groups who has a cannabis thing going and they’re being backed or supported on some level by Are you talking about 710.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:10:22) – Oh God, please. Yes. You know about that. Oh with him mean.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:10:27) – No, no, no I’m not I haven’t talked to him on a personal level, but like I knew, I knew about him prior to what he became. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:10:37) – And he out of his group.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:10:40) – So, like, I don’t like my big thing about the whole powder coat. Like people that do, you know, videos and shit, like more power to them. Like, I respect you for doing something with your life. You’re being productive. But powder coating is like, you know, with the whole custom thing and then the whole industrial thing. Like there’s this this head butting of like, who’s doing what, right? Who’s doing what correctly. And when you’re you’re doing stuff online and you’re doing stuff in like a sketchy booth or you don’t know how to ground your stuff properly and you’re smoking a cigarette while you’re trying to fucking paint and and you just look like a hack, right? You just look like a hack.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:18) – So at the end of the day, you make me look like a fucking idiot. You make Shaun look like a fucking idiot. And that’s like, where I’m like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:24) – That’s where people were professional. Yeah. Profession. That is where people were drawing a line.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:31) – And the fact that he’s got like tiger dry black.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:34) – And that’s the thing. So that’s.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:37) – That’s got me pissed.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:38) – Oh no trust me I gave a because.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:42) – Shaun can’t even do this kind of.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:43) – Shit. No, hell no. Hell no. And so here’s the thing.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:48) – That’s the button.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:50) – Yeah, that’s crazy. And we’re going to. I want you to. I’m glad you have samples and stuff here because I want.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:11:56) – You did this one yesterday. You don’t really see.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:11:58) – I saw that on your Instagram. I love Malbec. It’s one of. It’s so.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:12:02) – Weird. I can’t the the thing about this, though, is, like with these doormats, I don’t think they. Have that one chemically, right? Because that shit mars up and scuffs.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:12:13) – No matter. I could cure that thing for a fucking hour. Yeah. And it’s this thin, like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:12:18) – No, you know, we did a whole lift kit in that and unfortunately, nothing else.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:12:24) – I haven’t had that problem but that one.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:12:26) – Well, so what happened was we had we done this lift kit, the guy took forever to pick it up. It wasn’t. We tried to cover it up as best we can, but, you know, it still was a little bit exposed. And and on top of it, we were doing some huge ass like, architectural job with a 2605. And that stuff is so gummy. I have like it landed on everything and immediately bonded with anything. It was just weird. And so the whole the whole shop was covered in this shit and you can’t wipe it off. And then here.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:13:03) – We are, trapped in your gun.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:13:05) – Off.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:13:05) – Got got that shit coming out my gun for weeks and I like, rip the whole thing apart and clean it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:13:11) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:13:12) – But I want to show you something that I’m working on, and I, I, I made a present for you.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:13:21) – Oh, shit.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:13:23) – I did. Well, sort of. I hope you think it’s a present. So we launched earlier this week. Um. And I’m going to pull this up. Hold on. I’m just. We launched a new website. I got some cares money and I wanted to. I wanted to do something with it, and this was part of what I wanted to do with it. So we’re wrapping it up. We have we’re it’s just a soft launch right now. But I want to show you what and get your opinion of it. But so let me share my screen.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:14:16) – Hmm.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:14:17) – So, um, I this is a directory website that we created, and the directory is for consumers to find powder coaters. So in my experience, you know, we do really well with the blog. My blog is like one of the top consumer blogs out there for powder coating.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:14:39) – And I realized this early on and, and I realized that when you type in powder coating near me and your Google search, it doesn’t necessarily tell you what specifically what that guy does. And if he doesn’t have a website or maybe he’s just on Instagram or whatever, you know, how do you know that that’s all he does, right? Unless you do a website and stuff. And so in a way to kind of define and, you know, I created kind of a directory site for custom for consumers to sort of marketplace who they’re looking for, what kind of project they have. And again, this is just like barebones, but we’re going to add so much more to this. But I you have a listing in here. I made sure of that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:15:29) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:15:30) – Um, so let’s see. Let me.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:15:34) – This is so rad. You’re bringing so much light. To what? Like, here we are. I feel like. Like people like us that are doing. You know, like our own things and bringing like, our own topics to things.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:15:46) – It’s. It’s really bringing what powder coating should have been ten years ago.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:15:51) – Well, think about this. I mean, I don’t know how mean. Imagine people shop from all over the world, but you know like they could see you even more here, you know, beyond your website or whatever. And I don’t know if you’re on Etsy or where you’re at, but or how people find it. I imagine it’s Instagram, but, you know, how do they even know you exist? I didn’t know you existed and and stuff. So we just kind of, you know, took some pictures from your from your website and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:16:22) – Those two mods right there that those that black and that pink one is really what blew me up.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:16:27) – Yeah, I’m sure it’s ideal. It’s like perfect. So here’s your page. You can log in and and alter it as much as you want. So you just hit claim listing. Okay, I’m going to get rid of this. This is not what I want on your page.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:16:43) – I want. I need something. There’s something else that’s going to be here.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:16:47) – But like, well, eventually, like once this is up and out, you could put the link to, like, our episode on that page. We could because this is going to be honestly, I’m going to take this as a driving force to like put your guys’s name on the map like and just big talk up you because honestly, like I’ve been holding back, jumping into like the actual powder coating scene, like I’ve been hiding from it just because of the sense of like, I don’t know how the industry is going to take that. I’m doing vape related stuff. I think it’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:17:17) – Great. That’s why I you on the podcast when you.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:17:20) – Can see like I don’t I don’t know that thing like you know like Alex from Cardinal he’s just like super blown away by what I can do. He doesn’t even know, you know, like he’s told me, he’s like, Ashton, you’re doing something that 99% of people around the world haven’t even figured out with powder.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:17:36) – No.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:17:37) – I look at the patina powder coating. I mean, it’s your.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:17:42) – Guys’s patina is insane. I was I was looking at that and I was like, Oh, awesome.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:17:51) – We’ve got concrete, we have wood, we have steel.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:17:58) – See, I’ve been trying to get like because so like my background, my brother is a really, really good airbrush and pinstripe artist and that’s really kind of why I did this with powder coating. I grew up in the background of the custom car culture and doing bodywork and paint work and doing collision work and, you know, really suffering and trying to figure out what life was and. Once we get going and stuff. I’ll tell you, like the startup of where where it came from. But really my background, you know, lied in custom car and the hot rod industry around here and. I ended up going my own way. And, you know, like a lot of a lot of what I do is inspired by my brother and him, you know, having his own business and being.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:18:43) – You know, an artist and everything. And once I started powder coating, it was like. I don’t know. It took me like, probably. I’d say about a year. And then I started doing my own vape stuff and then it was just like over from there.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:18:59) – Yeah. What you’re doing is just it’s mind blowing and it’s only going to get better for you. I see that. In fact, I was thinking, who is this guy that reached out to me on my Instagram to get on the show? And then I was.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:19:17) – Talking to Sean. I talked to Sean.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:19:19) – Oh, you talked to Sean? Okay.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:19:21) – Well, so I was talking to Sean the other day and I like I just kind of like I don’t really I’m not a big follower of his or. You know, in the instance of just like out of respect, like I respect him for what he does and, you know, his work is speaks for itself. But at the end of the day, like I don’t care about, you know, just talking about just shit like he does, I guess.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:19:44) – I don’t want to get too far into it, but, um, yeah, like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:19:48) – He. He’s very good at it too, you know? So. Oh, yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:19:51) – Like, Oh, I messaged him one day just to shoot shit, and I was like, What’s up with 710 Trying to copy your fucking, your, your sparkle. Like, I already know how he makes it because I’m like, my brother is really in cahoots with PG. And I’ve had people be like, Hey, you should use some of this. And like, that just takes away from the whole powder coating thing in my head. So I don’t do those kind of things. Um, but I was like, I messaged him, I was just like, What’s up with, you know, 710 trying to copy you and blah blah, blah. And then I was like, Dude, we me and you need to, like, sit down and talk and just kind of have like a roundtable to, like, weed out the fucking bullshit online.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:20:33) – Yeah, it’s, you know, I look at it and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:20:37) – Then, you know what he said to me? He’s like, You need to talk to Maui Powder works.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:20:43) – You know, Here’s how I look at it. I look at it as there’s, you know, just like what you said earlier, you know, we’re there are some movements in a very boring market. Right? It’s it’s an industrial market. And yet there are people like you. There’s people like Sean. There’s even people like 710. As much as I hate to say that word.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:21:08) – Exactly.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:21:10) – Yeah. At least they’re moving and shaking, right? And it’s waking up a very dormant industry. Corrupt.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:21:19) – It’s like it’s disturbing an industry.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:21:22) – It is. And it’s so quiet and almost when I talk to these industrial people that have, you know, they’re they’re they’ve been general managers, CEOs, you know, sales guys, they can’t even wrap their head around it. They’re so into, you know, they’re their they’ve been working for the one same company for 30 years or it’s it’s mind blowing and here we are.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:21:48) – And okay, so I’m going to date myself right now because I remember the 70s and Punk and UK and, you know, whatever that whole movement and then I’m going to date myself again. Madonna and I was in fashion back then, so, you know, I was paying attention to that. I was going to college for fashion marketing. And by, you know, I wanted to be a buyer. At least that’s what I thought.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:22:20) – I wanted a lot of my life and a lot of my colors come off of what I grew up doing in the 90s and yeah, we’ll get into it. Trust me. That’s like why you see me using a lot of fluorescent colors and yeah, so just bringing the layer back.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:22:35) – Here’s the thing that Madonna did. Madonna was on the streets of New York. She was playing around local gigs. There was a you know, this was kind of towards the end of the whole punk movement. And we were transitioning into the 80s and she picked up on a lot of first of all, she was, you know, a starving artist and she picked up on a lot of that fashion coming out of the out of that world.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:24:36) – You’re breaking people’s minds. And that’s a good thing. And you know, it’s going to it’s it’s a tough road, though.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:24:44) – You know? It is It’s like a my biggest thing was, is I started doing this because a lot of these products, you know, as a consumer, you know, trying to quit smoking, trying to find a nice mod that was going to stand up with me, going to work and being, you know, dirty powder coat hands, being in an industrial shop all fucking day, you know, maybe I drop it and it breaks all these these. Products were, you know, maybe if they were made in America, they were coming with Sarah coat finishes. And I’m not here to knock Sarah coat you know, Sarah coat has its place and its time, you know, maybe on your gun on the shelf that’s never going to see use. But. You know, Circo is something that when you’re using something every day, it’s very it just wears. And, you know, as a coater myself, I was like, I saw an opportunity there and I was like, okay, I have a I have this opportunity to, you know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:25:37) – Combine both of my passions, you know, with, you know, the the love for quit smoking and helping people to quit smoking and spread that awareness, but also take my passion from a custom culture and background and actually put something on this device that’s going to stand a drop test, that’s going to stand, you know, the acids on your hands that you know it’s going to stand the nicotine and the juice may be rolling down your mod like it’s it’s it’s things that it’s more than just, you know, me. You know, locking myself in my garage and figuring things out. But it was, you know, it’s it never.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:26:11) – Involving solving a need.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:26:13) – Yeah. And that was that was like the big thing is, like, I looked at it in like a, you know, I guess I could go back on if you want me to start like on how I, you know, got to where I’m at. I could Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:26:26) – But, but first I’m going to give you your present.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:26:29) – Okay? We’ve given you your present yet? This is just. I wanted to get your opinion on this. Um, you know, and this might just, you know, we might just roll with this the way it is. It our conversations just happening naturally, and we’re just kind of talking. Talking the shit about powder coating, so. Uh, you know, this is just. I liked your profile. This is exactly what I want to see Powder coaters doing, and I hope they’re going to log in and register their page and stuff because this is ideal. This is what we want. You know, you’ve got specialty items, specialty finishes. So it’s all just growing. It’s just the basic thing. Oh, geez, hold on. Nobody’s supposed to call me on a Saturday. We’re closed. Maui powder works. Uh, you can stop by. We’re not officially open, but you can stop by. We’re here now. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Bye. Okay. See you.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:27:46) – Okay. Sorry about that. No, you’re good. Cut it out. Um, but anyways, I really wanted to show this to you just because I knew we were going to talk and stuff, and it’s a good.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:27:59) – Place for people to go and like and put their stuff and become, you know, make other people well aware. Not only necessarily, you know, somebody’s looking to get something done specialized, but just people within the industry. This could be groundbreaking in the sense of, you know, this could help somebody that’s struggled with illusion. Violet Every time they’ve sprayed it, you know, and, you know, maybe they’ve gone by the spec sheet, but something’s not right. You know, that’s that’s where I kind of pride myself in as I came from, like a big background. One of my employers was a big guy and obviously he had Cardinal in there 24 over seven. And if it wasn’t Cardinal, it was Sherwin Williams or it was my Wagner rep or it was my my gamma rep in there trying to sell me a gamma or it was, you know, it was there’s a lot of things.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:28:47) – And that’s kind of like why I want to be here and touch on because I feel like I’ve touched every aspect of this industry in a short amount of ten years. And. There’s a lot of things that I want to bring to light in this subject when it comes to even just, you know, a kid that’s maybe in his mid 20s and he’s been doing it for five years and he’s, you know, maybe he hates his life, but he’s still coating, you know, like those are the kids that I want to give inspiration to because I was maybe once that kid at one point, you know, like getting to the point where you felt like you’ve done everything and you’ve accomplished all these goals within yourself and trying to just be a good painter at the end of the day. And, you know, and sometimes that’s the unfortunate thing about powder coating is you live these really high highs and then you live these really low lows of like maybe there’s a lot of work coming in and you’re loving it, but then it’s like you finally catch up and it’s done and then it’s never ending or, you know, you did something really, really cool.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:29:45) – And then like the next customer, you know, you did something just as cool, if not better, and they’re not satisfied. It’s a it’s a juggling act and it’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:29:52) – A it’s a struggle. And especially when you work with your hands and it’s a it’s sort of a mastery thing. And I Ross and I are both like this. We we tend to master things and then we want to move on.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:30:08) – Yeah, that’s, that’s where I’m getting to.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:30:11) – Yeah. And I don’t know what this solution is to someone like us because it’s like. You know, unfortunately, the downside of that is you’re constantly creating something new, which sounds beautiful, but it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to financial. A regular or financial because you need stability in order to. And that means sticking with something for the long haul in order to generate you know, if you’re self-employed, you’ve got to keep on that day in and day out or you’re going to have to hire someone to to make sure that you can achieve that day and day out.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:30:54) – Right. And so that’s the problem. I think that we mean, on one hand, we have so much experience, we have so much energy, we have so much stuff to share people with with powder coaters because of all the ups and downs we’ve learned. But at the same time, we constantly are trying something new or doing something new, and we’re not focusing back on what we’ve created, you know, and there is a you know, it’s sort of a it’s the journey of the alchemist, really. Yeah, That’s.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:31:27) – Like what my brother told me, you know, like I asked my brother because, you know, it’s like sometimes I struggle with it. And he told me he’s like, Ashton, you need to go back and look at what you’ve done just in the last month or look at what you’ve done and look at what you’ve done in six months fashion. He’s like, You got to go back and just put yourself in that same headspace or like, I’ll have I had a customer that a lot of like you seen that mod that had the pharaoh on it and the beetle and its like ten different colors with you know, that purple and violet shift and then it glows in the dark like I’ve had my customer be like, I want to do something crazier than this.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:32:03) – And I’ve told him, like, I honestly don’t think I could put myself in that headspace again because, you know, like at that point I was like working a full time job and running my business. So I would go paint, you know, 10 to 12 hours a day, run, you know, 15 to 20 carts a day or 2000 to 4000ft of handrail, whatever it may have been that day. And then I’d go home and spray all night long till wee hours in the morning in my garage with my craftsman powder coating gun and my my convection toaster oven. And, you know, I would slam these orders out and then I would get up and drag my ass to work and do it again. And that’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:32:43) – Insane. Yeah, it’s hard to keep that up. I mean, that’s how I feel right now. Covid 19 is certainly.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:32:51) – I don’t think I’ve ever been busier. This is this thing has made me so busy. It’s been like a blessing in disguise.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:33:00) – Yeah. How is that? I’m trying to answer that question.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:33:03) – I cannot think if you look at it in the aspect like I’m really big into motocross and supercross and I’ve, I grew up racing BMX and dirt bikes and stuff, but now I’m like, I’m a big fan of it all. But I listened to a lot of podcasts. I listen to a lot of announcing and and one of the announcers said he was like, you know, for racing motorcycles, everybody’s racing Saturday to sell dirt bikes on Monday, you know, because dirt bike shops like that’s how that’s how dirt bikes are sold and bought. You know, whoever’s winning Sunday or Saturday. So and so is buying that bike, right? So when all this hit and every all the racing stopped or, you know, give or take it’s basketball or football or whatever it may be. Yeah, like everybody’s like, wait a second. Like they’re freaking out. Like, what’s this going to do to our industry? What’s this going to do for sales? You know? Well, the first thing everybody did was like, I’m going to go outside.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:33:56) – So bicycles got bought, dirt bikes got bought. You can’t go to a dirt bike or a or a bicycle shop right now and find what you want because they’re all sold out because everybody’s doing everybody’s doing and wanting to do what they’ve they’ve held back for how many years? So it’s like it’s kind of like a crazy thing.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:34:18) – It is mean for us digitally. What we’re doing is we’ve got Maui Powder Works, but we’re also opening up this digital side to our business, which in itself is its own business, you know? Oh yeah, for sure. Ultimately, you know, this is going to, you know, bring consumers. It’s a marketplace for consumers to come and find power, coaters also to learn about more about powder coating them in themselves. Right. You know, because they’re on the hunt as well. And so, you know, I think that it’s getting there. And I think that something like this that can marry the powder coaters to, you know, the people that are searching for the information is is going to be you know, it’s small right now.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:35:10) – But ultimately I want it to give, you know, a value. This is a valuable backlink to your to your website.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:35:18) – This is it’s valuable for, you know, like I come from like this this crew of like these people that do the podcast with and like that I’m on like if you type my name in, you’ve probably seen me on quite a few vape shows. And the vaping community is something that I’ve aspired to like show the world. Like because I grew up, you know, following my brother around to pinstriping shows, doing brush brushes and being in that side of an artist world where, you know, there’s 10 million stripers and there’s 50,000 airbrushes and they’re all got these egos and they all don’t get along. And, and there’s all this, you know, animosity between each other. But when I stumbled across the vape community and became a part of it, and everybody’s out to help everybody, you know, like I’m out to help, you know, if somebody’s trying to quit smoking, I don’t want them to jump through the loopholes and and find all these products that didn’t help me.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:36:15) – You know, I want them to experience it and not have to deal with that stress and and you know what I mean? And move on. And and maybe that’s what this industry needs as as powder coaters. We need to help other people solve problems because you know what? Guess what? Our our paint isn’t going to show up and be better because we just bitched about it. You know what I mean? Like, our guns aren’t going to get better because if we don’t voice our opinions, you know what I mean? That’s, that’s the thing. We’re starting to see the technology and the paint and like, the guns and the paint are starting to match up with technology today. Yeah. And if we don’t keep going, it’s not going to get better. So, like, if we want things to get better, we have to want that. We have to voice our opinions. And yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:36:56) – I hate that. I hate to, quote, wrestle again, but that’s exactly what he said.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:37:01) – It’s time for us to band together to demand lower prices for equipment, to demand better services from these industrial companies that think that we’re just mosquitos flying around their head and and to create a better equipment mean.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:37:23) – And I guarantee you I would put I would put my business name on it that I guarantee you I can do something with a gamer that a gamer rep couldn’t even figure out with his own gun.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:37:34) – That’s good.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:37:36) – And that’s the thing. Like, I started on the first powder coating gun I ever use back in the day when I started in 2012 at an industrial shop after I had had to sandblast for two years prior to even him letting me touch the gun, I. I started on an old nordson versus spray two out of a pressure pot. And then like as time went on, I moved to another shop. I got to learn on a GMA. I learned the GMA really well, and then I moved to another shop and all these three shops that I’ve been to, I was the lead coater and all three of those shops I got to use Nordson and Wagner and the Wagner sprint.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:38:16) – Sorry to say, you guys, that is my favorite gun out of everything I’ve ever used. That’s there’s something about that double click feature gun that I could not get away from. I’m saving my money up for another one.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:38:30) – Good. That’s good. We need to hear about that and and stuff because it’s just the same question that gets asked every day in the groups. If I have to see another one, I’m, you know, like, Oh, maybe that’s what I’m seeing in the groups today. I took a look at some stuff that had been going on in the last couple of days and. It seems like it’s and getting back to what I was saying earlier, it’s like it’s evolving. It’s evolving right now. It’s oh, it’s going yeah, it’s evolving really fast on the group’s. It’s evolving.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:39:07) – And that’s the thing. I don’t want to be behind. Like I want I want my name to be out there. I want to be able to help people and I want to be able to.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:39:14) – At the end of the day, I really want to be able to help companies like I want to. I want yeah, I want to be able to reach out and talk to Columbia Coatings about my cool coat benchtop setup that I’ve been running for over a year now. You know, and, and that’s the thing. Like, I don’t see people. Doing that. Like, I want these companies to know that their products are working good, right?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:39:37) – It almost when I talk to these guys and I talk to them about the products in the, you know, the equipment, it almost feels like they it’s like they’ve never heard what I’ve just told them before, you know, like that kind of that kind of unsolicited opinion or review or whatever is marketing gold to them. But they’re not used to getting it. They’re only used to it at their level or their high level. It’s like the hot couture or the high fashion people. And you know, of the 80s, they, they hadn’t heard the street before.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:40:17) – Um, and that’s what changed fashion from there on out. A lot of stuff is much more freer and open and deregulated in a sense of, you know, creativity in fashion today because of that, that change, that that sea change. And I see it. We’re on the verge of that right now. And that’s why it’s happening. It’s evolving really fast. And I think the more the merrier at this point. Um, I don’t necessarily condone, um, you know, uh. Some some stuff and maybe that’s just me. But like, you know, you don’t want to prey on people either. And that’s some of the stuff that I haven’t been happy with in terms of, you know, preying on innocent people. Or maybe they’re not so innocent, but if they are, maybe they’re asking for it in terms of like, you know, helping someone who doesn’t even have a legit coating company represent us that I get uncomfortable with. It’s fine. He wants to have a digital marketing company because that’s really all it is.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:41:32) – You click his affiliate links and he gets paid. Just because he’s recommending this certain brand of tape doesn’t necessarily mean he knows anything about coating. That’s just my opinion. Right. But. But I haven’t given you your present yet. So we’re about ready to promote the directory. And I thought, I’m going to just take the coaters that I’ve interviewed and make kind of like mini commercials because I think every coater has a story to tell. And so I created a sort of a mini commercial that was going to promote on Facebook. It obviously features your stuff, But so let me get to the commercial and see if you can. Oh, shoot. Where’s. Oh, here it is. Can you still see my screen?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:42:27) – Oh, yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:42:28) – Okay. Um.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:42:33) – This is cool. It’s like a dream. It’s a dream for me. Like to put Idaho on the map for a lot of different things. You know what I mean? So that’s cool. It’s like when I see this kind of stuff and you guys doing what you do, it’s been a I’m excited for it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:42:47) – So. Yeah, I did see this earlier. I seen this somewhere. Got.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:43:06) – Not bad.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:43:08) – Yeah. You’re just like the marketing whiz. You got your. You got your husband in the backseat, you know, sweating to death, and you’re in the office just making your guys’s name loud. That’s awesome.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:43:20) – Well, you know. Exactly. I mean, it’s his fault. I’m going to just right now. So I had a very successful refinishing business. And in addition to that, we got into remodeling condos and homes and and all kinds of things, you know, because, uh, you know, the, the Great Recession happened, and so we had to just wear many hats, right? And so we got into room makeovers and condominiums and, and everything. And it, it blossomed really fast because I was already in the market. And so it was easy to pick up jobs here and there. And, you know, it was a great company in the sense that it offered a lot of cash flow.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:44:11) – But it wasn’t a you know, a lot of contracting companies don’t profit, you know, they just have the cash flow, right? Yep. So that’s kind of the unless you can really master the all of that, It’s that really was kind of a dead end.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:44:28) – You got the unless you got the whole contract on the whole island. In your case?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:44:33) – Yeah. So plus it was high pressure and we’d been doing it for ten years and Ross was just over it. And he’s like, you know, we’d already had this side. Powder coating thing going. But, you know, we just decided, well, hell, let’s you know, he was just giving me such a hard time of trying to get stuff done, you know, finishing up. Oh, here comes a customer. Hi. Hey. How’s it going? Did you call? Did? Okay. Let me direct you around the corner here and talk to let you talk to Ross. Perfect. Thank. Just another day at Maui Powder Works.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:45:28) – Yeah, you guys. You guys are. You deal with the general public. I’m a wish. You guys ever come to Idaho? You have to come to my shop like I love you would be mind blowing because we’re. We’re like, by appointment only. Kind of. So when you walk into my shop, a lot of it’s obviously my brother’s artwork and his airbrushing and everything. And then there’s like the candy machine I powder coated or like the tons of vices that I’ve done and then like the sores in there and it’s just everywhere you look, there’s airbrushing on the garage door, there’s Bob or we got Jimi Hendrix on the back door by my, by my booth and stuff.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:46:05) – So my nephew does airbrushing and I’ve always wanted him to airbrush, like the oven door. Yeah. And that’s what.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:46:13) – Chaz wants to do, my big logo on my door. And I’m like, Yeah, I don’t know.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:46:17) – I know a lot of people put stickers on their butt, was like, I have an idea for, for, for that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:46:24) – But yeah, you know, it’s. I forgot what we were talking about. What were we talking about? Where this industry is going or where it should go, kind of just to redirect and giving back. Think it should just be starting with just a give and a give and a give and then hopefully something will because somebody got to start doing it right. You know, somebody has to get it out there at first. And I got this a it’s called an adaptability grant through my county. And I’m like, I’m just going to do this. And I ended up getting most of what I requested. And so we went to we went right into building out the directory and and getting it going. Um, but yeah, I want to feature and talk about as I interview people, I realized they have a story. It’s like Victor Pete from Black Label has a story. He’s, he wasn’t satisfied and he started his own powder line, you know, So you have your story, which is, you know, kind of touched on in the in the ad And, you know, I think everybody has a story, you know, and every powder coater does.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:47:46) – And we should just be highlighting those stories, you know, and and putting them up on the directory and and seeing what happens, you know, it’s just content, right? It’s just content. So, um, I think we can. I think we can do it. I hope you like what I created. Um.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:48:04) – Yeah, I’m all for it. I’m definitely going to be a I’m definitely whenever you guys need help or anything like this side of things too, even with the podcast, like I’m down to come in and chat whenever you guys are available or that’s great. Just to keep it, keep it flowing like, you know, I know once podcast things get going, sometimes at the end of the day, it’s hard to get people on, you know and, and maybe, you know, like, you know, Ross says, you know, we need a lot of people in maybe one of these days we can get Ross on and just have a couple other people and get a roundtable of, you know, things going, maybe get a question I would.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:48:38) – Love to do. People know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:48:41) – Questions of, you know, serious questions that you know from coaters that we want not necessarily answered, but we want, you know, questions asked to us and then we can relay information because at the end of the day or the people using the products and, you know, and dumping the paint.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:48:55) – Let’s do that think you know, and and I’m just you know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:49:00) – At the end of the day what can it hurt from like a bunch of people at the end of the day that are really behind the gun with the experience? You know, because at the end of the day, a lot of these reps would come in and they’d be like, Oh, your guns set up wrong. And they would set my gun up and I’d be like, Look at my boss. And I’m like, This is what they think transfer efficiency is. And I’d spray it in. More than 50% of it’s hitting the ground. You know, you’re like, That’s not how my guns set up, dude.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:49:25) – Like, and, and that’s the thing you know, a lot of these I’ve seen a lot of these reps come in from Sherman Williams to be exact, and they don’t know their fucking foot from their ass. And they’re selling Wagners and and they’re trying, you know, it’s just like. That’s like, you know, at the end of the day, my boss told me one day he goes, Dude, a rep really isn’t a rep today. They’re fucking salesmen.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:49:46) – Right?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:49:47) – You know, like at the end of the day, they’re trying to sell you what their product is and it’s the best.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:49:52) – Yeah. And that’s. And that’s kind of like in the groups, too. Why so many people ask that same question over and over again, you know, Which again, should I get? What, you know, I just saw it again.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:50:03) – You should get is what gun you know how to work the best and what tailors to your your environment your your what applications you’re doing like you know and.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:50:14) – Like so if you go and, you know, we’re in Hawaii, so we never attended any we never went to Powder X, we never went to like powder coating week and done the one on one class or the 102 over there. We never done any of those things. And so like, have you ever done those and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:50:33) – Got the opportunity to do a seminar with Forrest? But so I didn’t get a go because the shop that I was in, I was I was the only painter for like the two years that I was there until I quit. And that was like the thing I was told I was going to be flown out to Pcci and I was told I was going to do this or I was told I was going to be featured in PCI Mag and all this crazy stuff. But at the end of the day, it was like, No, you still got to paint and and do this stuff. So I felt like at the end of the day, if I did go to any of those seminars, I would have a lot to tell and to teach.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:51:05) – But I felt like some of the things like just from experience of like certain reps coming in and kind of like confusing me and taking away and like almost setting me back like a week or, or give or take, you know, like I did a lot of, I did a lot of spring in my industrial career and felt like some of those things were they were they were awesome when it came down to learning chemicals and and just learning, you know, the whole chemistry behind things and understanding, you know, primers and, and, and zinke’s and stuff and how you shouldn’t spray zinc, you know, above 250 or you shouldn’t, you know, if like you’re in a production shop and you’re trying to put the paint down like. Primer and Zinc was a big learning curve for any applicator. And if you can’t apply it and you can’t get transfer efficiency with zinc, your life’s going to be hell and your boss is going to be mad. Right, Right.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:51:55) – So, yeah. And you know.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:52:02) – It looks like there’s a homeless man outside my door. Okay. With this tweaker bike and all of that stuff. Okay.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:52:10) – So the industrial park life.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:52:15) – So, yeah, you know, and but it’s crazy because I’ll go to the source, right? And I’ll go, I’ll call up or I’ll call up these people that I’ve been talking to and they are so in and passionate for the business, yet they’re not they can’t relay right.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:52:33) – Information to you.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:52:35) – Well, I think that that has something to do with the corporate thing. Right? You know what?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:52:41) – They’re very they’re very particular about the right vocabulary when you’re talking about stuff and, you know, certain painters have certain vocabularies about things, that was like the hardest thing for me when I worked in. I was the lead coater and the paint manager at Precision Powder and Blast here in Idaho, and it’s the biggest it was at the time when it first opened, it was the biggest booth and oven this side of the Mississippi. So it was like 55ft long, 15 wide and 15 tall.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:53:08) – Wow. And I was I had two Wagner pumps in there. So like, one would either be in Primer or, you know, whatever one was in top coat, vice versa. And I would dump at least 300 to £400 a day. And like learning, learning all that and learning like, you know, how far an actual mill goes or, you know, learning how to actually stack mills and watch, you know, back ionisation and really watch how Powder’s talking to you, that that’s one thing even to this day that I’m just like, Oh, I’m a glutton for that information. You know, Like, that’s like I saw my eyes are addicted to watching powder transfer to metal in like, what, 3 or 4 passes does that, you know, 45 Like I’m very big on, you know, on your, on your amperage and your voltage settings and where they’re at with your air. Like if I can see somebody spraying with too much air, I’m just like, oh yeah, comment down, bring it back down, dude.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:54:04) – And that’s that’s the thing is you’re seeing a lot of these. Guns. And a lot of these people are they’re fucking maxing out their CVS and their micro amps and you really don’t need to be at the end of the day, if you want that gun to last you 20 to 15 years. If you spent 7 to 8 grand on a gun. You don’t need to be rocking it at 100. And you know, I like to keep mine around 80 if I’m doing hot coats and stuff. And that’s like what you guys are talking about the other day. Ross is talking about hot flocking and I’m pretty big on hot flocking.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:54:36) – So many people are. And by that I don’t know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:54:40) – I got videos on videos of me doing like thousands of feet of handrail, just just ripping and then letting it drop. Temp cool back. Go over to your gun. That’s the cool thing about doing a hot flock. Like, let’s say if Ross was to to mess with a Wagner, you could set that gun up to, you know, higher, higher voltage and amperage.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:55:02) – Bring your your powder, your air up and your powder down a little bit and just get a decent coat over everything, let it drop, and then you can set up the gun to where you can double click it and then it’ll drop your microamps and your voltage and your air and your powder or put your powder up or, you know, wherever you want to save that setting and then recut the whole thing. Boom, it’s done going back in the oven and. You got perfect Mills. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:55:28) – Yeah. I think there’s a lot of. Upside in what can be talked about in the future. And of course it’ll all be driven. The more we create in this case, the more questions will be answered, the more you know. And that’s what I was talking about earlier. Like there was some discussion in the groups about how like forums aren’t being used and yet a lot of us were, say, us, but my husband, that’s how he learned, you know, and they’re not user friendly.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:56:28) – They want to just be able to type in what their problem is and they want an answer for it. Now, like, that’s the biggest thing about like when I would go to a new shop and let’s say I just came off the nordson and I had to learn how to run a GMA that bought my boss isn’t going to tell me or give me a load on on how to run his GMA. He expects me to know how to run that thing. So guess what? I went and try to search all the gun settings you could figure out for GMA. Guess what? Nobody was online five years ago telling you how to do that. Yeah, nowhere. And. And so what do I do? I just go up and I look up the user manual and I would figure out every damn button and how to run that box.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:57:06) – Yeah. And that’s that’s really what you have to do. And it’s like at the end of the day, I don’t, I don’t like, I don’t like settings being told like I don’t like, okay, you need to run this setting. Like, no, that’s not how it’s going to go. I’m going to set my gun up how I feel like on my body or, you know, specific application. Like if I’m doing a set of wheels and I’m doing them hot. Yeah, I want my, my, my voltage way up and vice versa. But it’s like those are the things like if you can’t figure out how to set up your gun correctly, like you just need to go back to square one, dial the gun back down like I learned on an old dial gun. You know what I mean? And now we’re learning on guns with digital buttons. And that’s it’s like a big learning curve going from a gun that you’ve used, you know, with dials and getting everything set just right.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:57:56) – It can mess with you when you get to a new gun.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (00:57:59) – And let’s face it, I mean, I’m I’m always the way of the warrior or the way of I’m I’m an alchemist at heart. I read a lot of esoteric and alchemy. Books and stuff like that through for my own spirituality and stuff. And yeah, you know, there is, um, you know, the, the search for the human or, or just a deeper understanding. And let’s face it. Electricity isn’t for everybody. You know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:58:29) – And that’s that was, that’s kind of funny you bring that up because, you know, I spent a lot of my younger 20s like. Wondering like, is this electricity messing with my psyche? Is it messing with my emotions like. And that’s that’s one thing that I kind of like. It was weird to think about. Like, there’s that sound that, you know, if if anybody knows if you’ve worked in an industrial shop and you’re doing handrail or you’re doing wheels and and you pull a load out of the oven and it’s at 400 degrees and you got your gun set up just where you need it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:59:02) – And you start spraying a hot coat and you get that that sound of just, you know, like that sweet hot coat sound. And I remember the first time, my very first I see my very first boss doing a hot coat on this old I was sandblasting these old circus rides and there’s these old rocket ships that you would sit in, right? Oh, cool. And they had I can’t begin to explain how many mils of like lead and lacquer paint was, you know, all over these things. And, you know, I’d blast them and then I’d run them over on the forklift to the powder shop and my boss would hang them up and he was spraying them, but he was heating them up. And, you know, the dudes that were in their sprint at the normal times, they weren’t doing or I wasn’t catching them doing stuff hot. And I remember walking into the shop, I was like 19 years old and my this big fat boss that I had just sweating his ass off, no mask on, you know, spraying in this dark dungeon.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (00:59:55) – And it’s like this bright purple from Sherwin-Williams at the time, and he’s laying it hot. And I’m just like, that’s when I knew. I was like, whoa, this is this is cool. Like, this is cool right now. I now I understand what you’re doing because it looks wet, you know, like growing up painting hot rods and doing all that stuff with my brother, I was like, Oh. And then I was like, I was just waiting for somebody to quit. Waiting for somebody to quit to get that spot. You know.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:00:21) – There are subtleties to to it. And you kind of touched on that a couple minutes ago when you said, you know, how’s my body feeling? How, you know, and the gun settings and and watching the powder float, you know, people think it’s just, you know, and it’s not it’s there are especially when you do the fine work that you’re doing, you know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:00:46) – So that’s kind of like the the inlay work and like the that stuff’s like a totally different thing, but.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:00:53) – Like when you think about Faraday Cage and stuff like that, like I can touch on things that I had to do when I was working in the big industrial shop and I had to do all these like huge boot dryers for like ski resorts. They were like there were like 27, just like 60 slots for boots to go in. And they’re like these big, you know, sheet metal structures. But then they have these slots coming out. And the Faraday cage behind that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:01:19) – Between the two was.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:01:20) – So gnarly to get. And my boss is like, I was like, Let me paint one hot. Like just let me paint one hot in those spots real quick. And he’s like, No, it’ll get too heavy. And, you know, because there’s like textured, it was like BC 47 or something from Cardinal. And I’m like, Just let me do it, dude. And I did one and he’s like, Oh my God. And I’m like, See? I got to stack it more and it looks more healthier.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:01:43) – But then I’d figured out like, I could go in like, you know, say I had ten of them on a cart. I couldn’t get them all hot. But like, you’d be surprised with like how you can the whole shaking thing I’ve got away from over the years and like coming into these new guns, like these new guns have so much. This this cloud of electricity that you work with and there’s sharp edges to it. If you know where to point your gun and you can kind of like, okay, you can kind of come into things and then pull the trigger and then come out and then whip and do certain things with like, you know, regular fan tip. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:02:18) – It sounds like you’ve been a deep study on that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:02:21) – Oh, yeah. And it’s pretty it’s pretty tricky. And that’s just from time. That’s time and experience of, you know, hours of being in the booth, you know, nonsense. And those those were the the days that I honestly, I don’t miss that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:02:33) – I don’t miss the, the hustle and bustle of it, because those are the days that I was ignoring the science. Those are the days that I was listening to podcasts just to get me through the day. You know, like that looks jumpy enough. Like after it comes out and I’m milled out, fine, I’m cool. You know, like I was just at that point of life in this industry. I was just like a robot, you know, And I felt like a number and I was getting paid good. But there’s there’s a lot of things that that fall into it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:03:00) – Yeah, you have a way of explaining things into the the subtleties that I think even my husband has a hard time talking about. And it’s, you know, it was when we were teaching our employee, you know, those, those subtleties, you know, and the confidence, you know, just get in there, get in there. And it’s like.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:03:22) – The best thing that I can say for anybody is like, you’re not going to learn from doing it right.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:03:27) – Like you’re going to fuck shit up. And like, at the end of the day, that’s what makes you a better painter is if you can fix that, if you can sand it down and recode it with no issues because guess what? You’re going to have an issue recoating. If you can’t code it properly the first time, you know, like and those are the things you know. But it’s I just encourage even like employer employers or if they have a coater that’s, you know, getting frustrated and stuff, just like give him time, let him figure it out, you know, And like that’s the thing. Like in those, in those instances like I had at the very first job that I had, I had a boss that was like my favorite boss that taught me the most. And in the instance of like not giving a fuck and just doing it and getting in there and figuring it out like he didn’t tell me, like, this is your error, this is your power, this is this.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:04:11) – He was like, this does this. This does this. This does this. Figure it out. And he gave me he gave me eight years to figure it out. And I learned, you know, and like. Right. But then I went to other shops and you don’t have that time like you don’t have that time to figure it out, your.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:04:26) – Margins, because they have, you know, and that’s why you got a 50.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:04:31) – When you got a 50 foot oven, that’s a fire breathing dragon. And if there ain’t 50 grand pumping out of that fucker every, you know, ten hours, you’re losing money. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:04:41) – And they don’t have that time to waste on mistakes and stuff. And I can understand totally, you know, this is great. We’re talking about this because you can totally understand that. Um, but I, I resort back to those original scientists, mad scientist that came out with the powder coating and, you know, gamer and Fortnite and all of that stuff that came out of that out of 99 podcast because that’s where I.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:05:16) – I gravitate to write those people. That’s the stuff.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:05:19) – That, like, need to know about and I don’t know about yet.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:05:22) – They were experimenting every day and it was like, Talk about hustle. Yeah, they were trying to beat out the other guy because there were patterns on the line. There were industries to. Yeah. And I mean probably more under the gun back in the 50s and 60s than we are today. We definitely have more of a privilege because it’s out there. And yet, you know, as big as the coating industry is, we’re still a small, small part of it that’s supposed to be, you know, I’m excited because I don’t think these powder coaters understand even the garage guys. Shout out to you guys. You need to understand that we’re about ready to double double how much money this industry is going to produce in the next 7 to 10 years. Double.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:06:18) – That’s what that was like. I had a lot of insight on magazine.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:06:21) – That was.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:06:23) – That. A lot of insight on that last year.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:06:26) – At the tail end of my, you know, my industrial career. That was like the big thing with where I was living in Idaho at the time. That’s like the big boom city right now. And they’re supposed to be, you know, they’re expecting another 50,000 people moving in that area. Guess what? That’s housing developments. That’s that’s more numbers in handrail footage than you can fucking put your mind on like. Right. Right at that. At that point, it was I walked into a shop that. He put millions of dollars into this shop and didn’t know how to run it. And I walked in and I’m just like, I remember the first day I walked in and I ran like ten carts in like an hour for him. And he looked at me and he was like, How did anybody ever let you walk out their door? And I said, I guess you’ll figure that out in a couple of months or a couple of years, you know? And that’s that’s just the, you know, the severity of it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:07:18) – Yeah, it’s definitely evolving. Think it’s good evolving, but, you know, it’s not without, um. You know, it’s not without its drama. You know, it’s not about.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:07:34) – Talk about an industry full of drama that you don’t hear about. Right. It’s like there’s so much drama, But I don’t it’s just it’s fucking hilarious.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:07:44) – And how do you, you know, had this issue last week with Tiger? It’s like, how do you. How do I. Tell. This corporate guy.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:07:59) – You don’t. You just let him fall on his face because at the end of the day, that’s what’s going to happen. Fuck fuck me for saying it. But somebody got you through.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:08:10) – And I explained it to him. He didn’t get it. I explained it again, and I’m thinking, Am I just not saying this right? Or are you that derpy? And, you know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:08:20) – Like, you got to look at it in the aspect of like, look at America and look at what paint companies are on the West Coast and look at what paint companies are on the East Coast.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:08:30) – Tiger Dry Lake and PG and Axel Noble, they rule the East Coast and there’s not much you’re not seeing what we’re doing. You’re not seeing the severity of just the sheer passion and and and and skill of people that you do on the West Coast. And with you guys going into Hawaii that you do on the East Coast. East coast is they’re big, big money shops. They’re big production shops. It’s just big box paint. So and that’s that’s where like what you’re saying, we’re breaking that mold and, you know, it might be six months from now, it might be a year to now. But like at the end of the day, I think, you know, it’s like the companies that are on the West Coast are more towards, you know, the center of the states like Columbia Coatings and prismatic, And you got Cardinal in Washington and California and Vegas now. But Cardinals, you know, a big box company. But I’ve worked a lot with cardinal They’ll send you £5 of paint.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:09:26) – They’ll they’re very, very awesome with their technicals and a lot of their blacks, a lot of their whites. You can spray that stuff hot and you don’t have to worry about it running like that. Stuff like BC all that stuff’s formulated to be sprayed hot and cold like, right? There’s so much like and that’s the thing that kind of bugs me about Cardinal is like they have such a good base for colors like black gloss, black silvers, you know, charcoal grays. Like if you can’t get your hands on ifs, which I mean, if you can get your hands on ifs, I would suggest it because it sprays so nice. Yeah. But, you know, that’s at the end of the day, it’s like if it’s if it’s cost effective, if their shipping is on point, you know, there’s a lot of variables that roll into where you’re pulling paint from and if you’re getting. You’re getting like bad feedback from certain colors, you know, like I get sometimes I get bad feedback from, like, Jack Black from Prismatic.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:10:22) – Right? Think they think the one big thing that’s holding back these bigger companies is the fact that they don’t have e-commerce sites. Yeah, and it’s very expensive to build that out and it’s not been on their radar and it should be 100% priority number one. Make it. Well, it’s.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:10:44) – Like prismatic put it out there and everybody’s face you guys could be selling small amounts and be making a fucking killing off of it, especially if your product is good. Like at the end of the day, if I would if I could pay ten bucks to get a pound of just something from Cardinal from their website, you bet your ass I would. Yeah, you know what I mean? But at the end of the day, certain companies just, you know, they’re stuck in their old ways.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:11:12) – I think the think the pandemic has helped them understand that, although I think the majority of what they’ve been more worried about versus e-commerce is just logistics and getting making sure that their product and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:11:26) – That it’s going to go.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:11:27) – Is working. And that’s what’s definitely been an issue in this in this whole thing and what makes it slightly different than other recessions. But, you know, I think that it’s expensive to start on the level that they’re at with the size of their company, the size of their websites to build out an e-commerce site. Even if they could just do a separate it could even just be a separate website.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:11:55) – Yeah, a separate entity. You know, like I don’t see like even Cardinal and PG, they already have the format. They already sell custom colors, you know, like they already have somewhat of what these other big box companies don’t have. I don’t see why they’re not like. Here. Like here’s the like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:12:16) – Said, don’t think it’s on their radar and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:12:18) – Like, have you seen this new color changing stuff that all of a sudden just popped up in the last month? Like, you know how long I’ve been waiting for those five color changing colors that just hit powder? Like we’ve been waiting ten plus years for that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:12:31) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:12:32) – Yeah. Um, is that the tiger one?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:12:36) – Yeah, Tiger just did one. And I seen powder by the pound has one, but we all know they buy and sell everybody else’s powder.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:12:43) – And I went to SEMA 360. It was sort of a non-event. Um, from what I’m hearing about the participate participant. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:12:54) – Was like curious about that and like, I didn’t really see anything.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:12:58) – Like it was probably the most expensive. Experiment ever done.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:13:05) – In the car industry? For sure. That’s everybody. That’s everybody out there on a limb, though, Like that’s that invests into that show. You got to think about it like Foose and all these wheel companies and all these tire companies and all these paint companies seem as what keeps us alive at the end.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:13:20) – Well, I think part of it was that the week of SEMA was the same week as the presidential. Yeah, the.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:13:27) – Election. Well, I mean, even even, you know, like you you have social media platforms.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:13:34) – You saw a drop in a serious drop in the last two weeks in activity than anything.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:13:41) – Yeah. And you know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:13:43) – Unless you hashtag like fucking some politician bullshit like you weren’t showing up in the algorithm that week.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:13:52) – Right. So I think timing wise, that was not a good time to have an online event. And then, you know, the content seemed interesting. Of course, I was in Hawaii, so I was already missing the live stuff. But yeah, you could attend the webinar after just like any other webinar. They’d hold it up there. But then and so I was excited that, okay, I missed it this week because of all the, you know, crazy stuff going on business and the politics and all of that. And then I go back like a day later after the event, like, think it ended on the sixth, then it went on the seventh and all the webinars were gone. Like, leave that shit up. I’ve already paid to go, Leave it up.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:14:37) – Why leave it up for a month? Leave it up for a year, Who cares? You know, it’s not.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:14:41) – Like we can go and shake each other’s hands right now.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:14:44) – You can’t even click on the website now it’s just gone. And I’m like crazy. I could go back any time I want now and listen to anything that anybody said. And there was some good topics. They were topics about trends. There was talking topics about rims, there was topics, you know, and, you know, I just went there as I got in as press mean, my God, it took me an hour to come up with all the stuff that they wanted in order for me to qualify as press, you know, and then to zip it off and make it go bye bye just because the event was over. Like, what is this? You know, you could have people all over the world watch this 24 over seven every day of the week. All they got to do is just pay a small entrance fee.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:15:31) – So what, you’re not there at the lives. Anyways, I did talk to some of the Tiger guys that were there and they were saying it was just a big bus. But then I noticed when I went to search I was just assuming Prismatic is going to be there and they weren’t. So if anything, that should have, you know, let Tiger know that they shouldn’t be in it either because they were the only powder code or the crazy.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:15:54) – Thing that like the shit that cracks me up about them at like expos. Like, I’ve never got to go to an expo and experience it, but like, to see their booth and they have like fucking 3600 colors on the wall and you’re like, Dude, 90% of us ain’t going to try to figure out how you formulated that certain teal. Like you’re crazy.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:16:16) – Right? Right. Just give me the teal, right?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:16:19) – Yeah, yeah. Just give me the teal, or I’ll just buy the next one over. That looks somewhat close enough, and I’ll just go a little darker.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:16:26) – Right? Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:16:27) – I got a I got a quick tip for you. If you guys are ever doing, like a candy red or a candy blue and you’re having a hard time with it, you know, if you’re just spraying like an actual candy instead of an illusion. I’ve been doing Cadillac gray first. And. And then, like, go like 80% cure on the Cadillac gray and then come into it with the candy red or the blue or green or or whatever else and then go full cure. It is so deep and rich and you don’t have to worry about like the pink. And.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:16:59) – Yeah, whereas I was having problems with brassy gold.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:17:03) – Yeah, that’s a good one.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:05) – And I wanted to bring it up here. Let me see if I can bring up the.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:17:11) – Is it going copper on you?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:15) – Um, no, it was running, It wasn’t staying. And it was like, are we having a Faraday? Because it’s small parts, right? And it’s break break handles for some Decoutere don’t know.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:29) – Or some kind of motorcycle. The guys from Oahu. So, you know, it’s a big deal when we get these.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:17:36) – Jobs off.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:37) – From other islands, you know, we want to impress them and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:17:42) – What are you using for a base or are you going over like raw substrate?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:17:47) – Ross was using the new Prismatic Chrome two. Okay. Because that was what was suggested and so we’d already wanted to try it anyways. And anyways, so I want to bring this up and share it because it’s Steve from Okinawa and I know I keep bringing Steve up. He’s just so awesome. Where’s his So it he posted brassy gold same week but he did a rim and let me share my screen because it’s absolutely beautiful work and everybody should be. Everybody should follow Steve. He’s in Okinawa. He’s awesome. And every time he just seems to be improving his work over and over and over again.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:18:39) – Helene.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:18:41) – Yeah, he is. He has stepped it up a notch.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:18:46) – He is in for a gun.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:18:48) – Uh oh, It’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:18:50) – I did see it. Here. Hold on. He just did one here. Nordson. Look at that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:18:56) – Oh, he’s using an encore.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:18:57) – It’s surprised me. He was using Nordson. And he doesn’t say that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:19:02) – You know, it’s. I’ve been. That’s the only gun I haven’t got a spray with is the newer nordson stuff.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:19:08) – Yeah. Think I’m going to have him on the show. Okay, Steve, I know you listen to the podcast, you’re invited. I’m going to message you today. But he was helping me out with Ross Ross. If this is just two, three tiny little things, I mean, it’s crazy. He’s redundant 2 or 3 times.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:19:26) – Well, so like, the biggest thing is, is is he going full cure on the chrome?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:19:30) – No. What? Here’s what I showed Ross this this post today and told him that I talked to Steve about what he used on this rim and he said Chrome, a chrome chroma chrome. What is that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:19:46) – It might be tiger dry like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:19:48) – I don’t know. So I. I messaged him, but he hasn’t messaged me back.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:19:52) – But Cardinal. Cardinal does a pretty decent chrome, too.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:19:57) – Yeah, we usually use tiger chrome, but we want to come to you.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:20:04) – I got to do. I did a whole barber chair with it and I went I went like fucking 20 minutes over here on it. And then I cleared it. And then I went from like. I think I went 25 minutes on the clear. And it was fine, but it still goes gray.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:20:24) – Yeah. So Ross looked at this video and he goes, You know what? I bet. Um, it’s the prismatic room, and it’s the first time he was using the new chrome tube. And I bet you it’s. I don’t know. You know that chrome from Prismatic? It’s temperamental.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:20:45) – It’s, uh. It makes me curious of. Because, like. Okay, so with super chrome one, they were suggesting at nuke the shit at 450 degrees and going forward, you’re.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:20:55) – Right.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:20:57) – That you’re fucking burning the shit out of it at that point. Like. Like, I mean, God damn, we might as well just go grab a chrome wheel and clear it and clear it and cook it for 12 minutes at that point. But you know what I mean. It’s just like it’s the, it’s the it’s that color where you’re like. I’m going to give you what I can give you. And if this is what satisfies you, then I’m fucking stoked. At the other end, you’re like, it’s chemically, it’s not. You can’t do it. It’s just we’ve I mean, how many years have we been spraying this shit? How many renditions have we sprayed? And we all fall for the damn same joke again. It’s going to look like chrome. You know, the only thing coming out looking like chrome after you clear everything is the damn hooks you used to hang this shit with. But I mean, at least it looks. At least it’s. Yeah, At least it’s not orange.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:21:51) – Peel your shit this time.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:21:55) – Yeah. Oh, man, that could be a whole nother podcast. Maybe that’s what we talk about if we get the whole group together right now.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:22:05) – Now. Okay, so a lot of people think that I had, like, this huge thing on my paint booth at Precision when I was there, and it was like this Sherman Williams like guide to troubleshooting. And it was almost comical to me because like some of the things of that, Oh, I think I do. I was like looking through it for through my phone the other day and I was like, I swear to God, I have a picture of this thing somewhere. But if you have Sherman Williams available or if you have a Sherman Williams rep, say, Hey, can I have one of your guys’s troubleshooting posters for powder.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:22:40) – Coating if they reply to my email?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:22:43) – Oh fuck, it’s hilarious.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:22:45) – Answer the phone.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:22:46) – Like they’re talking about like, you know, if you have, you know, like how you have your pass through and your gun and then it get kinks right there and you’ll get build up inside there if you don’t clean it out and stuff.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:22:58) – They’re talking about debris coming out of your gun. If you don’t clean it and you’re like, this is like one one like powder coating 101, like, did you not blow your gun out five colors ago? Like, it’s pretty funny.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:23:15) – Yeah, I think it’s going to change. I have a feeling if we shout out loud, loud enough, you know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:23:22) – I was could get from Cardinal on this.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:23:26) – I bet I could tell you I was literally shouting on Friday last not this past Friday, but Friday before. I just was like. You don’t know me, you don’t know custom coaters and you don’t even know what you’re doing. And they weren’t even watching the videos is what I got. And they weren’t even aware. And they thought it was a funny thing that the prismatic versus Tiger thing was cool. Oh, that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:23:57) – Shit got my blood boiling. I was was like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:24:00) – How dare you bash prison? You okay? Okay. I’m not prismatic.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:24:05) – I’m not trying to talk shit or knock somebody’s fucking hustle.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:24:09) – But at the end of the day, when you badmouth ink black or if you just badmouth any gloss black at that point because you’re not getting coverage, maybe you should learn how to fucking spray and set up the gun right at the end of the day, rounded properly. Then you might not have those problems.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:24:28) – Just saying and he was saying how flashing the light in there. And it’s like, Dude, you didn’t even cover in there. What are you saying? It’s a bad, bad.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:24:37) – That’s why that’s like you can’t bad mouth something if you didn’t like get coverage.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:24:42) – Yeah I know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:24:44) – Like if I’m doing a set of wheels and they’re like a solid wheel and they’re not a custom color and they’re like, semi-gloss black. You bet your ass I’m hot coating them and then I’m going to coat them again.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:24:53) – You go back to that video and this is what I brought up. You go back to that video where he’s hitting it with a gun and running it down the road. Oh, whatever it was he was doing.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:25:04) – I mean.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:25:04) – I saw some of that on Instagram last night and I’m just like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:25:08) – Okay, so you you look at that and they thought, oh, wow. Well, they’re using Tiger. How what what harm could it do? And I’m like, don’t you don’t even understand. You stop the video. And you look, this is something that John and I were talking about because we were watching it together and he was like, look at this video. And I’m like, you look at this. You look at the rim, it’s barely got any mil on there. Like it’s barely coated.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:25:35) – Yeah. If I’m doing wheels, I want it job. Yeah, I want it like a mil above spec. At least I’m going out the.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:25:44) – Door thin it is mean. Everybody go back to that video and stop it and look at how thin that is coated. It’s not even coated properly and I don’t know, whatever. It’s just silly. But you know, if they want to pander to silliness and stuff like that or, you know, then.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:26:04) – Guess at the end of the day. At the end of the day, if.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:26:07) – You look what he’s doing, that he’s that he’s infuriating the custom coaters, the legit guys that are out there, the professionals.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:26:14) – I’ve spent 11 years of my life getting to this point. Like at the end of the day, I’ve spent 11 years of my life getting to this point to be able to even talk to somebody in the industry, you know what I mean? Like outside of dealing with reps, Like that’s, that’s like, yeah, okay, that’s the industry. But like at the end of the day, like if we have a platform to speak on, right, like I feel like my word in your word speaks way more louder than a rep is going to because the rep is going to get shut down by a multi, you know, a CEO. Like at the end of the day, you know, it’s we’re the people doing the actual work. You know it’s yeah we’re the people and.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:26:50) – I feel insulted. I know you do. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:26:53) – It’s the end of the day. It’s like I’ve, I’ve spent, you know, my even my whole career in the industrial side of things. I spent my whole, my whole goal was to make liquid painters look like shit. At the end of the day, that’s been my whole goal because my brother’s a liquid painter. My brother’s been a collision car painter. He’s been a hot rod painter. My brothers painted multimillion dollar paint jobs on boats like. Right. And my brother is like, I’ve aspired my finish to look tight and glassy like his, you know? And at the end of the day, there’s a lot of that. There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears that rolls into that. There’s a lot of knowledge that rolls into paint that you’re flying out. There’s a lot of knowledge that, you know, where is your your power and what’s your oven doing. A lot of people don’t understand like how much the oven plays in, you know, and if your oven’s not clean, you’re not going to get a clean product.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:27:44) – Yeah. Yeah. I you know, I see. I see the upside and I see it changing and evolving rapidly. And I think that I hope that the podcast just helps people. That’s all I want to do. I’m not making at the moment not making any money. I do have one advertiser and I hope to get many more because it does take a lot of time and effort to put to to produce it. You know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:28:12) – Think once, you know, as time goes on, I mean, think about it. You’re, what, three months into this. You know about and. You know, give it another three months, give it another like just a year. And like, you’re going to be surprised by the people that are going to come on and the things that are going to get said and just the things we’re going to learn. But you got to think of it’s only going to be a matter of time until Wagner wants to get on here and talk and, you know, or even other people.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:28:40) – And that’s the thing that’s like, I feel like these companies, they want to be out in there and they want to be, you know, conversing all this stuff. But I feel like a lot of these companies don’t understand how to and with like how media is.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:29:39) – Don’t want to talk to you want to talk to like the chemist Clint from fucking Cardinal guy.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:29:44) – That’s formulating the powder. We want to talk to the guy that’s shooting out of the gun and testing the gun or creating a new feature, or. We want to talk to those guys.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:29:53) – Yeah. Speaking of that new feature, have you seen, uh, Norton just came out with a gun with a light on top.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:30:00) – Mhm.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:30:01) – Yeah. No, if you go to like the Norton Instagram page, there’s they just rolled out a newer gun that has a light on top.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:30:12) – Norton has a Instagram.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:30:16) – Yeah, it’s like Norton. So it’s like a partnering company with Norton. So I think act. So like act. They do. Like, I think they also build something. Oh, yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:30:27) – Wait, it just came up and there it is.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:30:32) – Yeah, I got big love for Norton because there were the guns that I first learned on, and those old school versus spray twos were like. Relentless.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:30:41) – You could, like, drown that tip of that gun into, like, Faraday areas and it wouldn’t make the paint react. It was the weirdest gun. Like, you could get away with murder with that gun.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:30:51) – Which video is it?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:30:54) – I. Yeah. See? Look it right there. The second row down there it is. The encore and light.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:30:58) – Oh, you know what? I think I did see it. They post so early. By the time I wake up, I don’t, you know, I don’t see it. I have to actually go to there.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:31:06) – That and that switch. Look at how they have like the whole white piece is probably like the trigger. But then there’s that black piece up in the top of that switch. I wonder if.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:31:15) – Yeah, Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:31:17) – I wonder what that’s for. I wonder if that’s for like, extra air to, like, get like your tip cleaned out and enlightened. There’s some. There’s just like the technology with guns that’s coming out today.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:31:30) – I get so excited, but then I’m like, Oh wait, you’re probably going to be ten grand. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:31:36) – Yeah. Well, Ross just, you know, not, you know, that’s actually kind of a really simple solution. Um, he ended up just doing the full Led and I don’t, I don’t know if I think I posted it on my Instagram. Um, let me go back to my page.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:31:56) – Do you know anything about Luma Light? They make lights for liquid guns.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:32:02) – No. You mean like guns?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:32:05) – Yeah. VLP guns. So, like any of your Iwata or any of your Zetas, they make Led lights that screw behind the tip of the gun. And I talked to them a couple of weeks ago and they said they got something coming out in the new year for powder coating.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:32:23) – I didn’t post this. I don’t know why I didn’t post this, but let me look good. Yeah, he’s. Everybody likes red here. Yeah, Red.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:32:34) – Is a black. You don’t want to know how many pounds of candy red I go through.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:32:39) – Oh, I know. It’s just a hot color. Don’t know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:32:42) – Don’t even order candy red anymore. I prefer deep red candy because then you can avoid some of the issues that you would have with, like, candies and having to spray it twice.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:32:55) – Well, the lollipop thread is nice. Yeah, this is. This is cherry.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:33:02) – Mm hmm. Um.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:33:05) – This diamond. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:33:07) – So you could make that cherry with you put, um, the Cadillac gray down and then just any candy right over it. Interesting. Yeah. And you come up with a nice, really rich, deep candy Red.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:33:20) – I wanted to show you a picture of the, um. He’s so proud of this. Of course, it doesn’t look this clean now, but let me see if I can. I’ll stop sharing. And then we keep talking. I’m going to bring up this picture, um, because. The problem with our shop is. Okay, so we had a small shop, just like everybody always needs more room in their shop.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:33:45) – Right? But what are you going to do? Because you need to make your. Business bigger. You need to have bigger equipment and then all of a sudden you run out of space. So we thought moving over here to the bigger part of the island and being closer to our customer base, we’ll get a bigger shop. All our problems will be solved. And then Covid happened and then that just went out. But instead of, you know, instead of downsizing in his mind for equipment, he kept the size. He went bigger in his mind. But the shop size really wasn’t. It’s only like, well, it’s only like 102, 200ft² bigger than what we had before. So the problem is, is everything in here is giant. It’s just giant, but there’s no room shop floor space to work or that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:34:35) – Was what it was like when I walked into precision and it was like the Taj Mahal of powder coating, you know? And then six months into the job, I’m the only painter that’s walked in at the time that’s pushing, you know, making this place stay alive.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:34:50) – And then guess what? There ain’t no fucking floor space in this place anymore because you got so much stuff you’re doing.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:34:56) – Oh, my God. He didn’t downsize his mind, right? You know, you only kept it big.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:35:02) – So, yeah, even.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:35:03) – Got a look. It’s just kind of funny, you know, We’re in this. I don’t want to say just. It’s not a dysfunctional space.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:35:13) – These were. This is some of the bigger stuff that I was doing last year. That’s the booth that I was in.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:35:21) – Oh, wait, let me see. Hold on. I got a I went out. I opened up this. Hold on. I’m just. Oh, wow. That is huge. Whoa. That’s giant stuff. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:35:31) – And I would do that whole thing hot and then come back and recode it. Wow. So that thing would be preheating in my oven at 420 degrees because it’s so big. And like, the plates on it are just so thick that you’re just trying to get it to get up to 400.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:35:47) – So I would get it up to, you know, 420, let it sit there for 20 minutes. And then by the time I could get it out of the oven and then pushed into my booth, I would just start spraying it hot and it’d be at like probably 403 50 and I could get the whole thing done hot and then come back and do it cold. Wow. And then put it in the oven. And I would do like three of those a day on top of like push and handrail in between. And I got some crazy videos I’ll have to send you day. Yeah. I would come home and just be done with the wall. Yeah like it was I’d start at five in the morning and sometimes I wouldn’t get home till two in the morning the next day like, and I was the only painter at this shop like that was, it was really, it was a really a. It was a really fun time, but it was also a very like I felt like I was taken advantage of and a lot of other things.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:36:37) – Like once I get into like my story and shit, I’ll tell you. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:36:42) – Okay. Let me show you the booth here. This is what it turned out to be. Can you see that?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:36:49) – Oh, man.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:36:51) – Yeah. He’s very proud of this.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:36:54) – So nice gun.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:36:55) – Yeah, he’s a Wagner guy.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:36:57) – Heck, yes. I love Ross now.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:37:02) – But these are 4500 looms led.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:37:08) – He didn’t want any in the ceiling, Huh?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:37:11) – This is so bright. You don’t need it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:37:15) – I’ve always been curious about spraying in a booth that has cross lighting like that instead of ceiling lit.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:37:22) – Well, the reason why he did it like this, because we used to just have just a ceiling light in the booth. So we converted a six by six spray booth that we owned for years when we have our refinishing business. Yeah. And you guys.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:37:38) – Made it into your open face booth.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:37:40) – Yeah, we created. And then hope I can zoom in. Let me zoom in, because people have asked us what this stuff is, and I didn’t get a chance to respond to what Ross bought, but it’s a special kind of.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:37:59) – Like the sack filters.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:38:00) – Yeah, that. That’s what it is.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:38:02) – Yeah. They’re like, you pull out the whole square, but then it’s got like. They go back quite a ways.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:38:08) – Yeah. Um, of course there’s a bigger. Well, it’s not a bigger engine. I’m not engine, but, um. Fan motor. Yeah, fan motor. It’s the same that we had before. But I’ll tell you this. He bought these and laid them up like this because of the long, linear architectural jobs and gates and railings that we do. But, man, what a difference.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:38:33) – And I’d love I would love to come out there and spray like a bunch of gates and stuff with you guys because that’s like I used to do so much of that kind of work when I was younger and just to like, it’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:38:44) – A whole nother game. It’s mean.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:38:46) – I can show you how to paint a gate like a huge driveway gate in less than 30 minutes.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:38:52) – Yeah. Wow. That’s amazing because it can be awkward.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:38:57) – And then how do you know when you’re a job shop like us? How do you switch your game from. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:39:03) – That was that was like a big thing when I was when I was a lead coater, it was like I was very, you know, like being the lead coater. You have to set the tone in the shop. And if you’re kind of like the person that, you know, kind of just shuts down and kind of is quiet, you’re going to be taking advantage of that aspect of like, let’s say I’m paying, I’m painting something that I have to spray zinc primer down and then I have to flash it just until it’s going wet and then pull it out and then start getting top coat on it. And then, you know, the fucking dude from the office comes in and he tells me, I got to get off this job and get on this job. Okay, You know how frustrating that is as a coater to fucking just flip on a dime and be like, Oh yeah, I’m not stressed out now.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:39:49) – I got to blow my gun out and clean this 50 foot fucking booth out and totally change the operation of what my brain’s computing, what my gun is telling me to do and right. And that’s like I’m super manuals.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:40:03) – There’s two different manuals going on in your head, you know. Yeah, that’s what you have to. And I never knew that, you know, I’m kind of the one that drives the sales and do this. Do you know I’m.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:40:13) – That’s like, let’s say you’re going from just black and then somebody wants you to do some candy job. You’re like, Here comes the anxiety, you know, like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:40:22) – Right, Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:40:23) – I found myself.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:40:25) – And now I do.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:40:26) – I found myself even like at the top of my game, you know, day in, day out. And, you know, in a real shop, I found myself like, let’s say like, like the big wild mint that I just showed you that I painted. And it’s sitting in the oven getting hot for me.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:40:40) – Like I would be going stir crazy because I’m just like, itching. I’m like, ready to just get color on this thing, you know? And like, you’re just so excited. And sometimes your emotions and your anxiety and your excitement gets the best of you. Some days, you know, I’m like, Yeah. And then you pull that out and it’s not hot enough or, you know, it’s those are the those things kind of got, you know, can get the best of you. But that’s why I like doing what I do now with the custom side of things is because everything’s on my own time, you know, like I can spend up to six hours on one tube, you know what I mean? Like, and that’s that’s a lot of time and that’s a lot of energy going into something so small. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think I’ve, I try to pride myself in, you know, making somebody look at what I do and being like, No, dude, he’s using paint.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:41:26) – And at the end of the day, guess what? I ain’t using any paint. Zero paint.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:41:30) – It’s hard to tell, you know?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:41:33) – And prismatic.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:41:34) – When I saw them originally, I was like, Wait, is he painting those or, you know, And then I realized it’s powder. I mean, it took me a while to kind of I went through several of your Instagram posts and there’s only.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:41:48) – One job on there that I did airbrushing on and then cleared it with automotive Clear.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:41:53) – I’m going to go back because I want to share. I want to tell you what I want to show you. I’m not a vapor, but my favorite one is the Disney one. Yeah, those got taken.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:42:05) – Those got taken off the shelves. So I’m partnered up. That’s Merle’s mods. They’re out of the UK and I partnered up with them to make my own signature tube. Yeah. And they did a bunch of like, Disney dope ones and we went crazy on them. And he’s like, Dude, we can’t post these now because I think we’re going to get too much attention.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:42:23) – Yeah, that could be. Um.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:42:26) – But like, all I said is like, yeah, I totally understand. I really respect that. But at the end of the day, I feel like, you know, me and you aren’t this big company that’s really making that much noise toward Disney is going to come out and sue us.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:42:40) – This is mean. It’s like, well, first of all, you know, Disney’s. If you follow like a lot of the crazy conspiracy stuff, you know, like Disney connection there. Yep. And and then it wasn’t just mean you didn’t realize how many kooky crazy.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:02) – Oh, there’s like Alice in there. There’s the Mad Hatter in there. Like if you go.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:07) – Oh, yeah, the Mad Hatter. Okay. Yeah, I’m going to go to the video. But this one right here, the, the, the is the Pinocchio one, you know, And then there’s Mowgli. I mean. Oh, yeah, mostly. That’s right.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:23) – Then there’s the Indians smoking the hash pipe.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:27) – I mean, it’s nuts, right?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:30) – That’s just simple. The black and white inlay. That’s super simple.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:34) – Yeah, I love that. The black and white is my favorite one. Me too.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:38) – Like black and white. It’s my favorite. That’s even when I have on my Mac.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:41) – Clear on that or.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:42) – No, that’s so that’s just soft satin white and Jack Black from prismatic.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:47) – Oh, okay. All right.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:49) – So if you guys are curious on those two, they go perfect together, sheen wise.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:43:53) – And so this guy created the graphic. Is that what it is?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:43:57) – So the company Merle’s mods they’re out of the UK they do they are the ones that actually machined the tube and do the engraving and then they have a team of artists throughout the whole world that do a bunch of stuff for us. Wow.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:11) – It’s, you know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:44:13) – Keep going down. This is like this is like just cookie cutter stuff. But if you keep going down. Um, to.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:23) – That’s a nice combo.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:25) – Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:44:25) – The candy red with silver vein. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:29) – Whoa.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:44:30) – That’s the one that the fire one with. That’s done with airbrush. And then I cleared it with automotive. Clear. But that is a black powder coat base. And that that coke cooler is pretty classy. Did that? Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:46) – That’s cool.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:44:48) – And then. Wow.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:49) – Look at that one.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:44:51) – Yeah. That’s just my brother’s pinstriping work. There’s some of the RS I’ve done. Mhm. That’s a big.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:44:58) – Is this with powder or.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:00) – Yeah. That’s all powder. That’s a big that’s cool. That’s a big uh, fart gone over in church every time I do again.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:07) – Yeah. And then it looks like Malbec.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:12) – Yep, That’s Malbec. I did that on, like, a little. Toolbox kind of thing for my brother.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:17) – Whoa, That’s cool.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:19) – Yeah, that. That’s like a faded black pink. And then I flip flop the engravings on the inlay.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:28) – Wow. Wow.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:33) – Zero liquid.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:37) – Ashton. That’s amazing.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:38) – Did you see those rocket racing wheels? I did.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:42) – No.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:43) – Yeah. Keep going. Oh, wow. There you go.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:45:47) – Okay. Didn’t get. Wow. That’s nice. That’s.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:45:50) – That’s my first set of two tone wheels I’ve ever got to do. You know how long You know how long I’ve been dreaming about doing that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:46:00) – Those are nice colors that you used.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:46:03) – So that’s misty root beer from prismatic and then Yankee gold.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:46:09) – Nice. Did you put it up on your prismatic page? Do you have one?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:46:14) – I think I do. But I, like you guys are saying something about it. In one of the episodes that I was watching. I need to go in and do some of that stuff.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:46:21) – I’m going to do. I’m getting ready to do a podcast or I don’t know if it’s a podcast really, but it’s it’s like a tutorial. Guess I’m going to I’m going to start kind of doing more different kinds of content other than just the podcast.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:46:36) – Yeah, you guys have definitely inspired me to kind of like come out of my shell and post like lives or videos of me what I’m doing.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:46:43) – Like with like the tubes and stuff. Like, I’ve just. I don’t know. I felt like I needed to, like, stay quiet for a while because I didn’t want people to, like, steal my my ideas just yet. And I feel like now, like even just coming on the show, like I felt like now I’m confident enough. And I feel that I have, you know, quite the backlog of work that I.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:47:04) – You know, if.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:47:05) – Anything, trying to come out now, you know what I mean, and be in the industry and just kind of show my work off to like I’ve kind of just kept it behind. And even locally, I don’t really I do a lot of work locally for like antique restoration and stuff like that, but I just haven’t really hit the pavement to, you know, have people banging down my door just yet because I want to be. Really ready for it. You know what I mean?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:47:30) – Like, well, isn’t that what’s so ironic about 710? And I’m not going to bash them any longer.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:47:37) – I’m over it. But here’s the thing. Most custom coaters like yourself, like Ross, like Shaun. And, you know, they’re humble people. They don’t go out and be bombastic and all this stuff. So that right there might tell you something about the kind of type of people we are. Um, we’re.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:48:01) – I’m just like, at the end of the day, like, before, I’m a powder coater, before I’m a husband. You know, I’m a father to two children. And that’s, that’s they’re the main driving force behind polymers powders. You know, like, I walked away from the industrial industry because. You know, I. I would get scrutinized because I had to stay home with my children because she was sick or my son had a doctor’s appointment. And, you know, bosses don’t like that. You know, they don’t like you when you’re making them money. They don’t want you out of there, like and that’s kind of what it came down to. And at that time, like that black and pink mod that I was showing you, that was I got a job from a big vape reviewer that’s from Australia.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:48:44) – And he he commissioned me to do like it was like 38 of those mods. So I did like 19 pink and then I did like 17 or so black. And that’s really what kind of set me up social media wise and like got my name out there, you know, within the vape industry to, to start doing custom work. So I was going to work, you know, full time spraying all damn day. And then I’d come home and I would do these mods and. After a while, it got to this point where so much noise is going off over here outside of work, and I’m just kind of like getting stressed, you know, like feeling like I’m taking advantage of, like, you know, I’m working. I was working almost six, seven days a week. I was working 10 to 12 hour if not 15 hour days, just depending on what what had to get done and how much the freaking boss bit off more than you can chew. And it was like, you know, I was I just said, fuck it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:49:38) – And, you know, I grabbed everything. I walked in Sunday, grab my mask, grab my gun, and my boss is like, Where are you going? I said, I’m fucking leaving, dude. I’m done. I’m done. And I walked out and I never looked back. And at that, around that same time, my brother was just getting his shop and he was like, Come set up your bench and stuff in here. And he’s like, We can just share the shop together. And I was like, okay. So then at that same time I had bought in my bench top, set up my Columbia coatings, you know, cool coat booth and little tiny, you know, bench top set up. And that was going to be my new coating setup for my mods. So I ordered that. And then I got a little like impulsive because I was still making, you know, decent salary money for my real job. And I was like, Fuck it. I bought one of those optiflex two clones from the powder coating gun chick.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:50:35) – You know I trust you so much. She’s so rad. She helps me out a lot and ordered one of those guns and just been killing it ever since with that thing.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:50:45) – Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:50:46) – That was after my craftsman gun went because I was spraying all these mods with with a craftsman gun for like two years.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:50:53) – Wow. We started with the Eastwood thing, like, just.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:51:01) – I’m sorry.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:51:02) – Very beginning. Well, 180 bucks mean can’t beat that. It was 180 and we didn’t know. Again, you know, this was just hobby side, Right? Right. And just trying.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:51:16) – To figure out the concept of it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:51:18) – Like.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:51:19) – Mind blowing. Even when you do it with like that gun and you may you may have done a tumbler or something for yourself and you’re just like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:51:27) – Well, we were. We. Our shop was right next door to custom motorcycle shop. They did mostly customs and Harleys and stuff. Nice. And and I mean, we’ve told several stories and there are several stories to how we got into this business.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:51:43) – But one of them is that we just were convenient, you know? And so Ross had been looking, going to all the forums and stuff and, you know, so he decided to pull the trigger on. But, you know, I mean, our main thing was just refinishing and stuff. This is way well before the crash and all that. And so he started with that. And then of course, you know, that didn’t last very long. Um, and then, you know, we had the infrared or the, the propane lights or what do they call there on the stands?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:52:19) – Oh, the infrared lights.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:52:22) – The heat lamps.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:52:23) – Oh, God, those things scare me. Like, I remember I worked.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:52:29) – For a paint shop with like, probably urethane and oh, I have, like.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:52:35) – I have, like, a nightmare. And sorry about those things.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:52:38) – I was worried. Right. Anyways, um, so we. And the reason why we started with that is because most of the air conditioning registers were, you know, that’s what we were getting, right? We had this one hotel that was renovating and, you know, we were, they had a special custom size made.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:52:58) – And so ordering was improbable or impossible to get something new and be reasonable. So we got into refinishing the registers and so we would have these heat lamps and some of these registers were like 30, 40in long. So literally, like we’d watch the powder flow out as we dropped the thing down, down, down, down, you know. And that was, you know, we didn’t have an oven. We didn’t have, you know, a nice cool gun or anything like that. Um, it was just crazy how, how we just made steps towards that and didn’t care what he was doing. I thought, Oh, this is just one of those other hobbies that he’s picked up and is another thing.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:53:48) – Another garage thing.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:53:50) – Yeah. You know, and of course he had a motor, he had a custom bike that he had bought off of somebody that for a real good deal. So of course, you know, he had his own project just like all the other guys that are getting started right now.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:54:02) – It’s a similar story. Um, and then we and then he decided to get serious and he bought a Wagner brand new $5,000. And I’m like, Whoa, this shit is expensive. This is insane gun that cost $99 at Home Depot. And, you know, well.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:54:22) – It’s even like I even make my brother laugh. Like he’s got $700,000, you know Ira’s and say to us that he does his work with. And I just laugh. I laugh at him and I’m like, Dude, I could buy like 5 or 6 of those things for the amount of one unit of mine.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:54:39) – Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, what happened was the Wagner was too complicated for him. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:54:46) – So even to this day, even to this day, if he needs help, call me. I will answer any given damn time of the day and help you with that gun. Because that gun is so user friendly compared to what is actually now.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:54:59) – This is our second Wagner now. But. But he got scared using it because it was so complex.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:55:06) – So he went from Eastwood to Wagner, but then he got scared and something happened to it, like it brokered. I don’t know, some part, I don’t know. So he kind of shelved it and he bought the cool coat from Brian Alley because, you know, Columbia. Yeah. And we use that. That was a great intermediate kind of level.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:55:27) – It taught you how to to adjust your flow and your air and your powder. And it gave you like the basics of understanding what you’re watching. And that’s like the big thing is nobody really relays that information of what you actually want to see comparatively, what you don’t want to see, you know, and and and a lot of it actually it comes off a feel. You know, a lot of it comes off of field experience but. At the end of the day.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:55:52) – You know what? The jobs were just getting more complex. They were getting more, you know, and and and then, you know, of course, we ran that thing into the ground.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:56:01) – And then, you know, things started to pick, you know, get kind of, you know, just growth and everything. And that’s when we decided, okay, let’s get back to this. Wagner Let’s try to figure it out. What’s the problem? I know a lot more about caves and clouds and, you know, like all that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:56:18) – The cool thing about that gun is it’s got slope adjustment.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:56:23) – Well, I don’t know how old this one was. This was like I want to say we bought it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:56:28) – The one you guys got now in that spray booth.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:56:30) – That’s the new one. That’s. Yeah, that’s.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:56:31) – The sprint that’s got slope adjustment. You got, we got, you got every damn cool setting on that gun and it’s, it’s really honestly it’s user friendly and it’ll that gun will tell you if you’re setting like because what that gun is telling you is it’s telling you like how close you have your tip to your substrate. So even if you do have your setting wherever you want it, that gun’s going to dial down.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:56:56) – Even if you get like this close to the substrate, that gun is going to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m going to come back down here where it’s safe. It’s. It’s pretty damn cool.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:57:07) – That is cool. I don’t I’m pretty sure he knows that. But I’ll. I’ll make sure he listens to what you just said. Um, yeah. He loves that gun. He loves it. But he.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:57:18) – Because you can also set up that gun to actually spray true to a conical tip because it’s got air adjustments for the tip and you can mimic try both through that gun.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:57:27) – Okay, So he’s now interested in trying comparing now he wants to try a a gamma or whatever, whatever they call it. And, um.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:57:39) – Yeah, I’m curious to try their new pro, the new Gamma Optiflex Pro. I’m curious to try it. But when it comes down to it and at the end of the day, there’s certain things about their pump that I don’t care about.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:57:53) – Comparatively to the Wagner pump? Yeah, the Wagner pump is a block, and it’s still fucking dinosaur age technology in a sense. But the plugs, the little white plugs that go in the block for the Wagner, they’re completely movable. So the the Wagner or the the ones are they only go in one way. So they wear one way. Okay. So you’re constantly flying through them tips. You can’t wear that tip evenly. And then even though at the same thing with the GMA you got or not the GMA but the Wagner, your hose is going to kind of slouch so that that white piece will wear but.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:58:31) – Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:58:32) – That’s just the name of the game.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:58:34) – Yeah. Mean they’re not, you know, every it’s just design and how they make them and why they make them, you know? And let’s face it, they’re making them for the industrial people. They’re not making them for us. Right? We’re adapting to them again, you know, I mean.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:58:48) – It would be sweet if they would come out with like a little bit smaller scale of a gun.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:58:52) – For us custom coaters.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:58:53) – That would be a good option. Um, that would be a really good idea.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:58:58) – And even if you think about it, like when, when we get into like these custom colors and we’re recoating candies and stuff, we don’t need a gun that’s going to give us fucking 100, you know? Cves We don’t, we’re never that high. You should never be that high if you’re recoating something anyways, unless you’re doing it hot, right? But at the end of the day, it would be kind of cool to see, you know, a little scale down in a gun and maybe more aptitude to, to custom stuff. Yeah, he knows. Like maybe if a gun isn’t that aptitude to be that high of a of a power, then you’re going to see a lot more production shops using it for those colors. So it does have there’s a win win if you think about it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (01:59:39) – I think that’s brilliant. You know, So, you know, my you know, it’s it’s all about trying to get through to these people and get that what you just said to them, you know, through to them and maybe get their minds thinking even.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (01:59:54) – Even though, like when I was a production painter, that was like the biggest thing that was hard for me was relaying my information, you know, like trying to trying to explain my information to somebody that’s 100 times book smarter than me, but isn’t 100 times experience smarter than me. It was like you’re just sitting there bashing heads all day. And that’s, you know, unfortunate. That’s where, like our industry has came to on the industrial side of things. But, you know, we we have the opportunity, you know, as custom coaters to break this mold, you know, and. Right. I’m excited to be a part of that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:00:28) – As much as they want to give you that, give that information or relay that information back to the guy that matters all all they really have to do or their main part of their job is is equal to dollar sold. It’s not improving or, hey, this is a great idea. Or, you know, Ashton from, you know, over here said this or that, you know, you might want to think about it’s not about innovation.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:00:55) – And that’s the problem. Right. Innovation is from is in our industry is top down. It’s not bottom up. And this is the stuff that I’m trying to scream and shout at every chance I get. This is why we started the podcast, is to get that information. Let’s have a discussion about it. Let’s meet these guys, let’s tell them what we want and let’s get the price down lower. Let’s get the barrier to market. Let’s get, you know, something that is unique and tell our story and share a story. And by sharing it, we’re going to improve the industry. I mean.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:01:30) – At the end of the day, we’ve we’ve obviously seen China cut the Prague cut. Obviously, the quality of a gun that’s coming out of Switzerland is going to be ten times higher than the gun coming out of China. But at the end of the day, if China can figure out how to program a gun to run almost identical to the one that’s actually real.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:01:52) – Yeah. Like.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:01:54) – Why? Why? Why is there just this still this weird misconstrued of.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:01:58) – You know what I mean? Like, I’m surprised we haven’t seen.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:02:02) – It’s crazy that they’re doing that. They’re reaching out to us directly now, right? Yeah. When they speak in broken English or not. And here we have just put the nail in the head right here and just said, come up with a lower priced quality product that will buy because we’ll rather buy that. Then something from China. You know, same here.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:02:27) – Because, you know, at the end of the day, you know, how much of a pain in the ass it is for me to order tips or order any other parts for my gun. And I at the end of the day, I don’t want to pay the cost for a real tip. I don’t want to pay 200 bucks for a tip. Right? I don’t want to pay 200, 200 bucks for my in line like it’s could have.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:02:47) – They could, you know, I’m I’m all for keeping things in the United States. Me, too. I don’t think any of us are, but could be.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:02:57) – Maybe there are some people that think it’s just.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:03:00) – Crazy to me that we haven’t seen. Like it’s just crazy to me that we haven’t seen like a paint company, a liquid paint company produce a powder gun yet. Like, even like PG And how PG is so involved with so many different applications from liquid to industrial to marine to powder, they they’re pretty all over the place. And for them to not. See that there’s like this huge market for an applicable gun that’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:03:35) – Tell you is China’s knocking on the door. I don’t think we’re answering the door because we know it’s a vampire. Right. And we’re not going to invite the vampire in. But, you know, I mean, they’re trying and they’re eventually, you know, and there are people out there that are already buying China stuff just because they don’t realize the deeper, the deeper thing that’s going on here with that. But, you know, and it’s.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:04:04) – Mind blowing to me that we haven’t seen a lawsuit, but it’s surprising to me that we haven’t seen a lawsuit with GMA like because how many times has that that gun been knocked off? How many people are knocking that gun off? Like, if you think about at the end of the day, there’s like ten different brands with that name on on that gun to ask.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:04:25) – It’s crazy.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:04:27) – Like they rolled their eyes when I’m meeting with them next week, so I probably should be careful. But, um, you know, they, they he rolled his eyes on me the other day when I said, Yeah, we want to do a Wagner show off, you know, like comparison, because that’s the biggest question, right, that people ask, you know? And he just kind of rolled his eyes, you know, like, how many times has he heard that or, you know, whatever.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:04:52) – And it’s like at the end of the day, we all know people are going to go buy the Wagner because it’s cheaper. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:04:57) – So, you know, but people want that video. They want that comparison. They want that review.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:05:03) – Not that in the Wagner isn’t out there. Like people don’t necessarily know about it unless you’re in the industry, like people first coming into powder coating, All they really know is because that’s all fucking people talk about, right? You know what I mean?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:05:18) – And it’s like it’s definitely more broad than Wagner and Dawson and stuff.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:05:22) – Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, but I know they’re kind of rolling their eyes, but at the same time, it’s like, No, this is you’re selling.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:05:30) – You’re selling units because of people want to do this, right? You know what I mean? At the end of the day, all this talk, all it’s doing is selling their gun, you know?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:05:39) – Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, think the China thing is going to be interesting how it unfolds.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:05:45) – I think it’ll phase out. It’s not going to. I don’t. Oh yeah. Just from like my experience with vaping like a lot of the stuff from, you know, vaping is obviously manufactured in China and you see a lot of that. You see a lot of companies get knocked off from China and it’s around a little bit and then it just fizzles out. And the only reason why you’re seeing a lot of it right now is because of the high demand in garage coating and people don’t want to pay box price for cool codes and version of what they could get for.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:06:17) – Whatever else prior to having to wait for shipping. You know, it’s. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:06:22) – I can tell you personally, like with the projects that we get here, of course, well, they call it patio furniture, probably on the mainland, but we call it Lanai furniture. And you know, we, we work with Trapattoni, a Windsor Brown. Jordan did say Coppertone, Tropic tone. These are all us made manufacturers. And I can get replacement parts from any almost any year, any, any style, any year. People call us. They got these condos. They want to redo their lanai furniture and they call me and I go, Well, where did you buy it? Oh, I bought it. It’s Martha Stewart or it’s Lowe’s or Home Depot. And I’m like, Throw it away. They’re like, What? I pay $300 for this set, you know? And it’s like the coating.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:07:16) – The coating that you see and coming on it is like literally, well, or it’s like rusted so bad because of their fucking process sucked in, like the whole chairs rotting.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:07:27) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:07:29) – I can’t get replacement parts. China only makes things to sell us to throw away metal or plastic or anything. They don’t make things to replace. Okay. Only in America do they make something right. Like we’ve done trapattoni furniture that is 40, 50 years old and we can find replacement parts. It still looks great and we’re going to give it a finish that’s going to last another ten years. You know, and you cannot do that with China, They don’t think.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:08:00) – Those were some of my favorite jobs to do was like when this older lady would come in and she’s like, Oh, I just want something really nice, you know, off white or some beige and you find the right color she likes, and then she’s all tickled pink about it. And then she shows up and it looks brand new and she’s like, Can’t breathe. Because, like, her patio furniture is brand new again. And now she’s telling her husband he’s got to make new cushions for it. That’s like, that’s the best day, you know, like when I could care less about my handrail customer that’s bringing me shitloads of money.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:08:29) – But that old lady that’s more tickled pink about her, you know, or her seashell chairs that she got when she was 15 and the 50s look brand new again. It’s fun.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:08:38) – And I love it, too, because I can’t wait to tell the guy that owns the vacation rental here in Maui that they bought the wrong furniture from Lowe’s or Home Depot. And now you have to throw it away even though it’s only two years old because can’t get a strap or a sling to refit to fix it. Yeah. And you’re going to throw it in our dump, you know, in our, you know, in our trash on our island and go out and buy another cheap ass set. And now you’re going to add to our trash problem because you didn’t buy us made you can’t restore it and make them feel as bad as I can and make them guilty. And, you know, and at.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:09:25) – The end of the day, like when it comes down to it, we live in such a disposable world now, you know, or we’re programmed to buy a new smartphone every fucking year or, or our flat screen TV we bought five years ago is already broken.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:09:39) – Like we live in such a disposable society now. And that’s like what? You know, it’s like had somebody asked me the other day, Well, what do you think about wrapping my truck? And I’m like, You’re asking the wrong person. And they’re like, Well, why is that? And I’m like, I’m trying to keep I’m trying to keep an art, a dying art alive. And people that are wrapping vehicles and stickers are killing my industry. You know, they’re killing the artist in me because they want to take my art and put it on a fucking sticker and not have to do anything like, you know, And that’s it boils down into a lot of things. And that’s unfortunate. But, you know, that’s why we’re here and that’s why we’re around, is to keep things alive and keep things new again.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:10:18) – And I think that that’s, you know, how powder coating just aligns so well with with how Ross and I feel about the world and and about our island.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:10:30) – And so are they are they big sticklers about like on the island or is that kind of you guys are still with in laws.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:10:38) – Yeah it’s not like Europe yeah. Yeah. No, it’s not even that. And I mean, I don’t know how much we of that we do imagine it’s majority of the powders that we use but we like you.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:10:55) – Surprised how much even you’d be surprised today of how much is people don’t use it anymore.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:02) – Yeah, well, I know the industry is trying to change it and go in that, you know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:11:08) – I hope to God we still have some target 25 years from now because it’s fucking amazing. But and it’s pretty it’s pretty dangerous.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:16) – With the extreme conditions that we have here, it’s very hard to recommend something else, you know? What do you.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:11:24) – Guys what do you like for a question for me, for you guys is what do you guys spray a lot like what do you guys mostly spray like big box wise.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:32) – Brand wise?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:11:33) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:34) – Tiger. Tiger crazy. That’s what infuriated me so much last week when I talked to them because I was like.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:11:41) – Have you not sprayed much, Cardinal, or is cardinal kind of hard for you to get?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:45) – No, it’s not hard for me to get.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:11:47) – I have to email them. So it’s a bit of a back and forth. Uh. We have half samples here and we usually wait for the customer to request it. Right, right, right. Don’t know what that is. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that. And. Our you know, Tiger was one of the first people to reach out to us and send us brochures when we were getting going. They have an incredible line of bronzes which are very popular here. You know, we have red dirt and it gets everywhere. So like whites and light colors and stuff, other than if it’s on a rim, you know, people tend to gravitate toward the darker colors just to hide the stuff. And, you know, it just it just happened that I had a rabbit tiger at the time that was just, just very willing, we think.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:12:49) – I would think because we have a distributor like Cardinal has a distribution hub here in Washington in Woodland. So I would assume like either that or California would be they.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:13:00) – Usually shut out of California for us. And I think that, you know, I don’t know how you order this is kind of an interesting this would be a great question for our group forum, and that is, how do you guys handle your pricing? You know, how are you building in a powder pricing? Are you you know, for us, it’s like, well, if you special order for a gate or a railing, you’re going to buy that box whether I use the whole thing or not. And then if you want it, you can have it. But you know it’s going to end up on my shelf anyways, right?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:13:34) – So, yeah, so like obviously that’s, I would say that’s any, any powder coating shops like problem, you know, trying to deal with excess paint like in the industrial industrial side, any powder shop I’ve ever been to unless it’s some kid that’s like bought his own paint and brought it in.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:13:51) – Yeah, I’m not doing that anymore. Forget that. We’ve had some bad stuff happen to us.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:13:56) – Yeah. We don’t know how old it is.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:13:57) – Yeah. And that’s. I’ve had issues with that too, but that’s really like the only time that I would give the paint back. But for me coming like from my side of things, like I’m such of an abnormal coater, comparative like everybody else in the industry, I would say. So I buy colors to bring colors to market. So like what I’m doing is I’m trying to obviously I’ll do stuff on if somebody brings something, sends me something to do. It’s my job to pick their brain apart, see what they want style wise, and then I’ll be like, Suggest this, this or this. Or unless they have like a good idea, then I’ll roll with it and kind of put my twist on it. But but for mainly I just buy like I just buy by the pound. So like, ah, £2. So like I don’t really go through a lot. I’m not, I’m not having to put on a lot of mileage with what I’m doing obviously.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:14:46) – And so a pound goes a long ways for me. Yeah. At the end of the day I buy paint just to have in stock to play with, to learn. I’m, you know, I’m constantly experimenting. I’m constantly learning. I’m constantly trying to figure out which colors won’t chemically work together. You know, being that, you know, certain fluorescents don’t like to be inlaid on top of with certain other colors and they’ll just go different.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:15:11) – Going deep down the rabbit hole there, you know, because most. Yeah. That you know in.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:15:17) – A lot of it also like ties back into like with like the elaborate and like working I’m doing I’m racing against the clock of jail time. So literally you’re in laying within your gel time, but you’re also like almost on that verge of 80%. So you’re not going to get delirium issues, but you’re also not going to get like molding issues where you’re getting other colors, bonding to colors and then creating another one. You know what I mean? So you’re constantly playing this fucking window game and not trying to go too far before you’re you’re going to actually final set everything.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:15:52) – Yeah. I mean it’s, it’s one of those your items and that’s the thing you have to be so precise. There really isn’t any room for mistakes at all on your level. So if I told.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:16:02) – You when you think I do my inlay work, do you think it’s done with electricity?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:16:08) – No. Well, I can see some of it isn’t, but, um, I’m just saying, in terms of the product, like, you’ve got one shot and you cannot make a mistake at all, you know? And that’s like the.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:16:22) – Sometimes you, you’ll make a mistake and you’re like, Strip tank, Here we go. Start all over, you know? And that’s the benefit. I’m not doing like a wheel or I’m not doing, you know, somebody’s big bumper or something at the time. Like I do have that I have capable, I have like obviously my benchtop setup. And then I also have my 4×4 by six convection electric. So that’s that’s been nice because I do I get I’m contracted with a lot of these cap makers like feature from coil turret.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:16:52) – I do his caps MTurk from MTurk I do his caps I, I do a lot of big name people’s stuff. So like my background of doing, you know, production work and being in a production shop doesn’t, you know, getting right, it doesn’t stress me out when I have 400 to 1000 caps in my living room that I got a process within a week. I’m like, let’s go like money, money, money. You know, like it’s I’m not, you know, any point I’m not uncomfortable. But I think the only times when I really do get nervous is like when I’m doing one job and it’s been like a couple of days and I’m a little shaky or, you know.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:17:30) – Or you have. So you also sell like you, you’re also selling like your.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:17:36) – So like with what I do, I’m selling just a service, obviously like I’m a powder coater. But what people would do is instance they would like if they had a certain mod like these are mechanical mods. There’s no.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:17:51) – Board. There’s no electronical regulated board in these. These are all mechanical. They’re unregulated. And with that, people like to personalize them or, you know, there’s certain brands that are people are super loyal to or, you know, there’s just like anything, there’s people that like this company or that company and there’s all walks of life in this industry and they all like to personalize them. And that’s where I came in and kind of turned the industry upside down and was like, This is what I can offer. And it just kind of blew up to where, you know, now I have people all over the world sending me their setups to coat one of one for them. You know, it’s special to them. And but I’m surprised.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:18:28) – You’re not selling the you’re not selling them either. Like, so.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:18:32) – Yeah, that’s like it’s a big taboo thing. And the sense of like with my website, I don’t want to have it to be like 21 plus age, you know what I mean? So like, I don’t want to get down that rabbit hole of like having to deal with like the age restriction and you know what I mean? Like, really, like, the whole mod thing was my meal ticket to get me into the industry to be doing wheels and to be doing lift kits and doing, you know, the things that I’ve been doing for the last ten years.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:19:02) – But guess what? Like I don’t have 20 grand to go buy a big oven and buy a gun and buy a nice booth. And because if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right. And everything I’ve done, I’ve never done it. I’ve never gotten a loan. It’s all been out of pocket. Like I’ve, you know, job comes in and I get extra money. Cool. It’s going back into the business.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:19:20) – Yep.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:19:21) – That’s how you scale or, you know, obviously it pays to keep the lights on and food in my children’s tummy, right? Yeah. And you know, and that’s really at the end of the day, this is like the meal ticket to me, you know, getting a booth big enough to spray wheels and comfortably and, and that’s like, I can do it. But right now it’s like, kind of sketchy putting my cart in front of my little tiny booth, top bench booth and spraying one wheel at a time and then like, racking it over here and yeah, it’s just it’s not like it’s not doable, but I don’t want to get, you know, an hour into a wheel and then have like a little piece of debris in it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:19:58) – And I’m like, you know, going crazy. So it’s, I’m just taking my time. And that’s I feel like, you know, with other coaters in the industry, it’s like they don’t take their time. They’re not taking their time, you know, perfecting their process. They’re not perfecting their environment. And and that’s where you’re going to run into issues like, you know, like. Certain things can’t be done correctly if you don’t have the the right environment to do it in like I have the right environment to do these little toys and all fucking day. But when it comes down to doing big stuff, I got to shut the whole shop down, clean it down, you know, and make sure a door is open. So I’m getting all my shit going in my little tiny booth and. But that’s the goal, is to to get a bigger boost and be kind of I want to get a bigger booth so where I can be doing wheels and then I can hire somebody within like the vape industry that I’m friends with and give them a job and have them kind of take over the mod coating side of things.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:21:00) – Yeah. So I can keep going. And yeah, I would like to be like a, you know, I want to give Shawn a little run for his money and you know, you see a lot of like Zach Penick and Lacey Blair, they’re doing a lot of cool work and I want, you know, I want to be up there with those names and I want to be kind of turning some heads and giving a little bit of run for their money.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:21:20) – Yeah, I’d like to have them on the show at some point. I know they’re big heavy hitters.
Speaker 3 (02:21:27) – Um.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:21:28) – That dude Zack does some insane work.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:21:31) – He does?
Speaker 3 (02:21:32) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:21:33) – But think he’s it’s not just that he’s at another level. I don’t know his whole story, so I’m not going to speak too much.
Speaker 3 (02:21:40) – Right.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:21:41) – Really, just from what I see, it’s like I see a lot of hard work went into what he’s doing and he’s obviously, you know, it’s paid off and it’s cool to see somebody stay humble, put out good content and hear no drama from it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:21:53) – You know what I mean? Like, that’s just that’s what I’m after is good organic content and that’s what I follow. You know, I’m not going to follow a fucking fake wannabe shit and think when.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:22:03) – You’re at that level two, you’re given opportunities. Like you’re like you were saying, you know, you’re working with some of the top fake people in the industry. Yeah, I think he’s also in that on that level in his realm, right is right. He’s been given the opportunity to make the rims for, you know, a truck or this or that, you know, and that’s boosted his profile and stuff. You know, we all need inspiration for sure. I think there’s more than one person or one girl or and think I would that’s why I’d love to have lacy or any just yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:22:41) – That’s like a big thing like the the impact of women coming into this industry.
Speaker 3 (02:22:45) – Of women fucking.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:22:47) – Rad.
Speaker 3 (02:22:47) – Like it Don’t.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:22:48) – Stop. Keep going, don’t stop. Don’t let any dude with the dick between his legs tell you otherwise keep fucking kicking ass.
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RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:22:56) – Yeah I agree. And I’m really just I haven’t met the right girl yet and I’m just going to do a shout out that if you are that girl, I want to hear from you. I did email Laci, if she’s ever listening to this podcast, did email her, but I didn’t hear back from her yet. But, you know, there’s a process. You have to you know, you have to engage with them on social media. They have to know who you are before they’re going to even respond to some dorky, you know, dorky email from like, who are you? You know? But I didn’t notice that you follow the utensil guy.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:23:31) – Yeah, me and me and him are good friends, man. He’s a he’s a big inspiration to me with what he’s doing with Powder. I feel like he kind of follows the same same thing I do. He wants to see powder come to a different, you know, a different form. Like for me, I’m inspired by my brother’s airbrushing.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:23:50) – Obviously, I’m not doing stencil work. Like he is like kind of I’ve kind of stayed away from that because I don’t want to step on his toes in any way because the level of stencil work that he is bringing to this industry is like. I have so much respect for that guy, have so much love for that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:24:08) – How he does it, I don’t know how.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:24:10) – Did you see that CP3 bottle? He did with, like five different colors and it’s got purple and stuff in it. I’m like, Dude, you’re making my hair, You’re pulling my hair out, looking at your work.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:24:20) – Here’s the thing that here’s the rub. I look at his profile and I only see like a couple hundred, few hundred people following him. And I’m like, What the fuck? Like, where? How? Oh, my God.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:24:33) – He’s using the same booth I am.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:24:36) – You know, how is he not having, like, 3000 followers? 4000 followers like you? Because I think that’s incredible what he does.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:24:44) – And anybody listening, please go over there right now.
Speaker 3 (02:24:48) – And yeah, the utensil guy and the utensil company.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:24:52) – I’ve noticed he hasn’t been doing much on his page. The utensil guy page much lately. He’s been really think him and his wife have been really focusing on like the company page.
Speaker 3 (02:25:01) – Let’s bring.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:25:01) – Him up because I want to Yeah let me okay this is your page so let’s go here and then we’ll Google.
Speaker 3 (02:25:11) – The name right now.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:25:12) – Here we go. Aaron Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:25:14) – Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:25:15) – Big shout outs to Aaron. He’s.
Speaker 3 (02:25:17) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:25:18) – This stuff is incredible. I mean, you can see this for weddings or for wedding gifts mean everything he does is just insane. It’s so puffy. And yet you can see the lines clearly. It baffles me how he does this.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:25:34) – Like the thing that the thing that gets me off about his work is when you look at the mileage between his car and you can see how much he’s stacked it and you’re like, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:25:43) – Yes, you know what I’m saying?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:25:46) – Like how oh my God, my daughter would this is like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:25:50) – This is like Serena from. What’s that? Oh, that. Oh, my God. One of the first. I might have to buy that. It’s like one of the first anime we used to watch was the Sailor Moon. Yeah, A.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:03) – Lot of the Simpson donut stuff. Like all the the cups. And he’s just been killing it lately. He’s all.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:26:11) – I wanted to get that for my daughter’s fiance. He loves the Joker. I mean it just goes on and on. The creativity coming out of this guy is insane, you know?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:22) – Oh, yeah. And this is like this. His page isn’t really. You should go look at the utensil company page. The utensil company has more of their that one.
Speaker 3 (02:26:31) – Yeah that has.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:32) – More of their recent work. And that’s where you’re going to be able to buy his stuff and.
Speaker 3 (02:26:38) – Oh, here we go.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:26:39) – Okay. Yeah, Maybe I’m following the wrong Instagram. Oh, here we go.
Speaker 3 (02:26:43) – Hold your breath.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:44) – Because he’s got a bunch of new stuff that just dropped that right.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:47) – And sustain.
Speaker 3 (02:26:50) – Like the duff beer mugs.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:26:52) – How has he got all? Only 200 followers. But. Okay. It’s here. This is the main page.
Speaker 3 (02:26:57) – Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:26:57) – And then he’s got videos of him pulling his stencils and stuff. I messaged him the other day. I’m like, Bro, why aren’t you? Why are you sharing your secrets right now?
Speaker 3 (02:27:07) – I usually do that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:27:08) – But but at the same time, Ashton, I couldn’t do that or my husband wouldn’t have the time. You know, it’s not for everybody, you know?
Speaker 3 (02:27:16) – Right.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:27:17) – And oh, my God, that is insane.
Speaker 3 (02:27:20) – Yeah, he was.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:27:22) – Is he like you? Where he. Does he sell these and you buy them.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:27:26) – So, like, they’re. I encourage you guys to go to their website, buy all their mugs, buy all their utensils, because this dude busts his ass and he is so kind.
Speaker 3 (02:27:36) – Does. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:27:37) – And like. Prior like to talking to him. Like last summer he was me and him started talking quite a bit and he would have problems like he was having Faraday problems and some of the mugs he was doing.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:27:48) – And I was like, No, dude, like, drop your CV’s here, put your air here and then tell me what you think and then switch to a different tip. He messaged, he messaged me back and he’s like, I’ve been dealing with this for so long. He’s like, Thank you so much. And then he like, kind of taught me some of his tricks. And he was actually supposed to come up here and we were supposed to do some stuff together, but with Covid happening and so on and so forth, they didn’t end up making it up this way this year.
Speaker 3 (02:28:14) – So that’s insane.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:28:16) – Yeah, the the freaking Iron Man one is nuts.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:28:21) – And where is he based out of?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:28:23) – I want to say they’re like RV. They’re like an RV couple. So they, like, travel all over the place.
Speaker 3 (02:28:29) – You’re kidding.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:28:30) – Yeah. So I don’t know. The last time I talked to him, he was telling me he was in Texas somewhere. And then I think I seen them that they were in California or something.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:28:39) – But.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:28:40) – Wow. Talk about crafting a life.
Speaker 3 (02:28:42) – That’s great.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:28:43) – Well, they what they did, what they were doing is they were chasing all these, like, you know, art festivals and stuff. And like, up here in the Northwest, we have like, art on the green and we have a lot of car shows and stuff. So I could see them going to a lot of these shows and really selling out in my opinion, like they would kill it.
Speaker 3 (02:29:02) – This is look at that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:29:04) – Yeah. His Mandela work is insane.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:29:09) – Oh, my goodness.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:29:12) – A lot of he taught me that white technique to. So some of the work that you see, I use a little bit of his technique and then he uses some technique that I use that I’ve taught him how to use to. Just from talking. And that’s like kind of the thing is like I’ve kept a lot of. What I do to myself. But when somebody is doing work like this, I’m like, bro.
Speaker 3 (02:29:36) – So.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:29:39) – I mean, so he’s. So you pay for the tumbler. Let’s just.
Speaker 3 (02:29:44) – Pick that. Add it to the cart.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:29:47) – Okay. So 115 that’s.
Speaker 3 (02:29:49) – Still like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:29:50) – Such a good price for the amount of.
Speaker 3 (02:29:53) – Dirt cheap.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:29:54) – That’s so cheap.
Speaker 3 (02:29:56) – I can’t.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:29:58) – Like, even my mugs, like I charge for a mug like this that’s like faded and galaxy. This even has glow in the dark. Clear on it? Yeah. I charge, like, 50 bucks for that.
Speaker 3 (02:30:10) – For the work part, not the.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:30:12) – Know for the mug and everything, because this is just the cheaper Arctic trail.
Speaker 3 (02:30:16) – Ones.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:30:17) – Or those arc trail or whatever. Not the Yeti. That’s when it starts getting spendy is when you start doing this stuff on Yeti mugs.
Speaker 3 (02:30:24) – Right.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:30:25) – Yeah, because it’s such an expensive product. But they’re popular, right? So.
Speaker 3 (02:30:30) – Yeah, this.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:30:31) – Is. Everybody needs to go check that guy out. I’ve been following them for at least a year or so. But I’m glad you rerouted me to the correct one.
Speaker 3 (02:30:41) – Because, yeah, he was.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:30:41) – I was kind of worried about him for a minute because I didn’t see much work coming out of him and I’m like, What the heck? Where’s all this work at? And then my wife was like, No, he’s been posting stuff on like the, the business page lately. And I’m like, Oh, okay. That makes sense.
Speaker 3 (02:30:54) – Right? Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:30:56) – Because I was thinking, what’s why does he not, you know, saw his posts and he’s using hashtags and stuff, but I’m like, how come?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:31:03) – Well, even for the longest time I had a lot of good work out there, too. And up until I got plugged into the right community with people and people started shouting me out. And, you know, it takes time, you know, like I didn’t reach a thousand followers. It took me like seven years to get to 1000 followers. And then once you hit 1000, it’s like overnight you’re. Yeah, you know, it’s nothing like everything seems so simple beyond that point.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:31:28) – And yeah, like, to be honest with you, that’s not why I’m here. That’s not. That’s not what I do. What I do. It’s not, you know, I’m not here for the followers. I’m not here for to be famous, you know, I’m just here to. To be happy. And that was, like, really my main goal of starting my own business is to be able to wake up and be happy, to be able to be there at any given chance for my children, you know, and to really think the thing of just seeing being in the industry for, you know, a good ten years. And seeing that me as a production painter, you know, a lot of people wanted my work, but at the end of the day, you know, people either didn’t want to wait for, you know, the over, you know, the time of me getting to their jobs, you know, being in a big production shop, you know, how long stuff takes to get done.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:32:12) – And, you know, after being through three different shops dealing with three different, you know, employers, three different formats of how to run a powder shop, I felt like I had a good enough idea of where I wanted to go. And I just I wanted to be able to cater towards the mom and pop people. I wanted to be able to cater towards those people that they actually want to pay you a little extra money to get that better. You know, that better finish. They don’t want some white, you know, handrail with black in it or, you know, like they’re going to come to me for my experience in my time. And I kind of pride myself in that. I run my shop off of time and materials, so like my shop rate is 65 bucks an hour and I’ll run time and materials and I can pretty much tell you if like you bring me four wheels, they’re going to take me like four hours.
Speaker 3 (02:32:57) – Five hours at least, you know. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:33:00) – Exactly.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:33:01) – And, you know, give or take, if I have to strip them and blast them and then they have to be in the oven for an hour or two to to thermal clean correctly, then you know, that’s what it is. But, you know, I’m going to explain that to you. And the shop down the road isn’t going to explain that to you. And the shop down the road isn’t going to show you how clean the inside of their sandblast cabinet or their sandblast booth is. You know, and and that’s the thing is people don’t understand that 90% of the work. Is your sandblasting and the material you’re using. Like I go the extra length and I use Garnet. I use expensive material because for one, it doesn’t create too much dust too. It doesn’t break down as fast. And three, the profile you get from Garnet is next to nothing. Yeah, in my opinion.
Speaker 3 (02:33:47) – So just have.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:33:49) – That last week on the one last week, but the last episode we talked about that.
Speaker 3 (02:33:54) – I’ve used a.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:33:54) – Lot. I’ve used Clean Blast, I’ve used Green Diamond, they all, you know, copper, slag, they all work good. They all do. They all have their right place. But I got spoiled with using Garnet at the last shop I was at and I was like, I am. I’m not going to switch to anything else or back to anything else. It’s worth the money, in my opinion.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:34:12) – Yes, totally. Yeah. And mean, he said on the podcast, You know, that’s Jeff Taylor and I’m actually going to interview him tomorrow. No, Monday, we’re going for another another round. Um, and that, you know. You know, the benefits of Garnet and, you know, it’s more expensive. But then he was saying, oh, you need to change it out like 4 to 5, every 4 to 5 times. And I’m like, now we’re stretching it a little longer than that. That’s how much you would want us to replace it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:34:48) – Yeah, but, you know, we’re stretching it out just a little bit longer than that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:34:53) – It’s just the the severity of the the cleanliness of it that I like the most about Garnet. And it’s just at the end of the day, if I don’t have to stress about, you know, what’s in my broken down material. Then I’m not stressing when it comes to putting paint on this wheel or whatever it may be, you know. And I think that’s one thing that people don’t stress enough on, is like if you go to a production shop and you have a set of aluminum wheels for your roadster or something that you’ve spent your hard earned money on, the last thing I want is some coating shop to sandblast a bunch of carbon steel before they did my aluminum wheels and then impregnate my aluminum wheels with a bunch of carbon. You know, and that’s that’s the thing. Like we’re I learned a lot to where almost as a coater, it makes you like second guess yourself almost, you know, And it almost sucks to be the coater that knows too much because then you’re just always constantly worried about what’s going to go wrong, you know, and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:35:57) – I think if you just kind of take a breath, take your time and and just make sure every step of your process is foolproof from even washing to to even cleaning to hanging your product. Like that’s that’s the big thing that even, you know, ten years down the road that drives me nuts is when I see hanging points. Yeah. Like hang marks.
Speaker 3 (02:36:18) – And it’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:36:18) – Constantly like that is the challenge, right? When you’re given something, it’s like, what’s going to give you the least amount?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:36:25) – And. But still give you great ground. Yeah, right. You know, and that’s we’re constantly fighting between that and.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:36:32) – And it’s not easy to teach that to. We, you know, we had that going on with our employee where we were like, okay, think this through. You know, what are you how are you going to do this?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:36:42) – And that was like the that’s one thing I preach on, especially when you’re doing big, big fucking admits is like. I’ve already in my head prior to even going into that sandblast building, I’ve already up and down that thing 20 times and I’ve already come up with a process of where I’m going and what I’m doing because, you know, a lot of the stuff I would paint hot, you know, like when you’re in a production shop, you’re doing stuff hot to get the mileage on there and to get the product in the oven faster, you know? And that’s really the goal.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:37:11) – And like, I don’t I miss the days of the hustle and bustle. But then again, I realize, you know, like I don’t miss coming home with £300 of zinc and black in my hair.
Speaker 3 (02:37:24) – Oh, gosh, yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:37:25) – I mean.
Speaker 3 (02:37:27) – Uh.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:37:28) – Yeah. Some of the things that we’re doing with this new shop is sort of hybrid our ovens right now.
Speaker 3 (02:37:36) – That’s rad.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:37:37) – Uh, so, yeah, we’ve got a little bit of a small little Frankenstein back behind this wall here. And, you know, it’s small enough that if we made the mistake or miscalculated or whatever, but so far, it has improved. Uh, cure times or just production times on rims and everything else so much faster. I can’t even believe it. Like, it’s like lightning speed and it’s just, you know, don’t want to give too much away because think Ross wants to talk about it soon, and he’s just in the middle of building the big oven now. But, um, I think someday soon we’re going to, we’re going to kind of reveal and take some video of it and stuff to see what the reaction will be.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:38:25) – But so far, so good. It’s it’s kept the temp no problem. And it gets to temp faster because that’s also an issue.
Speaker 3 (02:38:32) – Right.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:38:33) – And and and maintaining that temp stronger but the production time it’s like oh man the wheel is just getting done so much faster you know.
Speaker 3 (02:38:46) – Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:38:46) – That was like the big thing that you know, went from. I left a shop that was, you know, the Taj Mahal, 50 foot, you know, Booth and a rapid fire oven. And it’s all cool and dandy. But once you get to that size, you don’t understand the stress of like. Shit has to be perfect when it’s going in that oven like it’s in. I almost like I lived for that, you know, I lived for that, you know, being at the forefront and hustling and busing. And I was very prideful and prideful of that. But at the end of the day, it’s like, I think I have more fun taking my time and just breathing and calming down and just taking in everything and just enjoying the moment, you know? And like that was like when I got to do those two tone wheels, like I dreamed for years and years.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:39:36) – Like I remember watching like, really the only information that you could find on YouTube back in the day was the guy from ADC Powder Coating, and that’s how I figured out how to do a two tone wheel because he showed like the whole vacuuming and the whole wiping technique. And that’s all that that’s all that took is him showing me how to wipe something. Five, six years ago. And that’s it literally every day repeated in my head. And then like, you know, if you put your gun on the on the stand again and then it dropped like right out of the gun and it hits the ground and it splatters everywhere. That’s how I figured out, like, oh, I could make these galaxies look splatters. Yeah. And it was just weird things that kind of popped up in my head over the production side for so many years that, you know, once I.
Speaker 3 (02:40:20) – Got.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:40:21) – coatings on YouTube has some stuff on there too, right? I think. Is it them or.
Speaker 3 (02:40:28) – I don’t know.
Speaker 3 (02:40:28) – I haven’t.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:40:29) – Seen his.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:40:30) – Yeah envy and is a Nancy is in Victor.
Speaker 3 (02:40:34) – And it’s.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:40:35) – Pretty crazy I started powder coating in 2012 for Lake City powder coating here in Coeur d’Alene. And I worked I worked for Larry for about eight years. And then I got a wild hair up my ass and I was going to go back and spray it liquid. So I went and worked for a roller coaster company called Rocky Mountain Roller Coasters here in Idaho. I worked for them for two.
Speaker 3 (02:40:57) – Weeks.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:40:58) – And I was like, Fuck, liquid, I can’t. I can’t stand liquid. And just the the differences between bosses, it was like, holy cow, these guys are crazy. I can’t deal with it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:41:10) – Well, good thing for you, because Ross is allergic to polyurethane now. Oil based polyurethane. Yeah. Allergic to it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:41:20) – Yeah. And then. So I got sick of that. Walked down the street to my competitor powder coating shop at the time. And I walked in there and he was like, Oh, I’m looking for a new manager right now.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:41:31) – And I was like, Well, I guess I’d probably be your best bet in this town. Like I put money on it and that ended up being not so well. And, you know, it was just kind of like it was a family run business. And the son was kind of, you know, a bad person and didn’t we really didn’t see eye to eye. And I figured out really soon that he wasn’t going to leave and I wasn’t going to get that manager spot and I was just going to be the little grunt that knew everything, right? So during this time, I knew there was a shop being built out in after him, and at the time that was going to be, you know, the biggest shop, the biggest oven, the biggest everything, the newest equipment this side of Mississippi, pretty much to like California or southern Washington. So I was like, Heck yeah. Like I had I’d had all this experience from, you know. The the Nordson versus Bray two. And, you know, being able to lay gloss black like it was glass with that gun.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:42:27) – And then I went to to Spectrum and I learned how to use the GMA and they never let me spray hot So I like pretty much went backwards and just taught myself how to spray cold again, you know, and learn a newer ish gun. And then I walked into they told me to leave and go like apply for unemployment one day. And I was like, all right, like, cool. Like you just told me what I wanted to hear. So I left and I had like some side jobs at home because I had my little craftsman gun in my little convection toaster oven that I was doing mods with. So at that time, I was literally covering my rent with my side work. So I like got a wild hair at my ass, went into that shop that was being built and that guy that owned that shop was in there painting like a full cart, a handrail. And he’s got a dude behind him with a flashlight and he’s in this huge that booth that I just showed you that’s all lit up and beautiful.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:43:24) – And he’s got this nice gun. And I’m like, What are you doing? He’s like, Oh, he’s my QC guy. And I’m just like, Your QC guy shouldn’t be here. You should be outside checking your stuff. That’s like getting ready to be leaving. And he’s like looking at me like, Who the fuck are you? And I’m like, Dude, you you need a painter. And he’s like, Oh, yeah, I know. And he’s like, Can you be here at seven tomorrow? And I’m like, Sure. So I wake up and I get ready to leave and he’s like, I was up till like five spray. And he’s like, Come in at 11. So then I walked in at like 11. They didn’t have anything racked up. They didn’t have anything ready for me to paint. And this is like you would probably have a heart attack seeing like how nice this building like you could eat off the floors in this building like it’s nothing powder coating has ever seen at this point, you know? Right.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:44:14) – And I’m just like. Holy crap. So they rack me up all this stuff and I put my headphones on and I go in the booth and I’m dancing and I’m painting and I’m doing my thing, and I’m like, Are you guys going to load up another? Like, I’m yelling, like, keep going. Like, this is what a powder shop is like. Do I have to teach you how to do this? Like this dude spent millions of dollars building this shop and he had no idea how to run it. Yeah. So then, you know, I go in and I helped them turn and burn, you know, and he started to get the idea like, Holy shit, this kid knows what he’s doing. And you know, then reps started coming in and reps were telling me like, Do you probably have the most style I’ve seen on a gun? Like, you look like a liquid painter when you paint. I’m like, Well, that’s what I came from originally and I just wanted to be, you know, if a painter came in here, I’d want him to see what a you know, it’s a painter.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:45:04) – Like you shouldn’t be shaking your gun like a crazy man. Like this isn’t the 1950s anymore. And that was just something I took pride in and I ran with it. And I think like the biggest realization is I turned this job with like all these awnings that I had. I had to spray all this paint from Mexico. I can’t remember the company, what it was called. There’s a bunch of powder that we bought from Mexico and we had like did this huge equation on all the surface area and how much, you know, like a mil covers so much. So we did all this math and we ordered all this paint and stuff. So I had to like. I had to calculate certain pounds per, you know, per awning, and I had to dump that much on set awning and said cart. So like I would have certain bags weighed up or I’d, you know, I’d weigh throughout the whole thing. And I would, I would have to obviously weigh, but then I would have to calculate and I’d have to write everything down.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:46:01) – So, like I.
Speaker 3 (02:46:02) – Said, monitor.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:46:03) – How many years? How many? Yeah. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:46:05) – So I don’t run out of this green or I don’t run out of this red or I don’t run out of this beige because I had all these awnings to do for like this extended stay hotel in Mexico, but in Arizona somewhere. Long story short, it was like. Over a $500,000 job and I turned it in five days. Obviously, I had like the best sand blaster, this kid that I had. He’s no longer with us, but he was this younger kid, that fucking amazing sand blaster. He walked in, had no idea what he was doing, and we taught him how to do what we wanted to do. And that’s what we got from this kid. But, you know, thankfully we had, you know, a good crew that was sandblasting. We had a good hanging crew, and I was the only painter. Nobody would at this time had the gumption to get on the other gun.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:46:50) – I had two pumps in this room and nobody would use the other pump. I can’t use both pumps like. So I was I turned this job in like a week was like seven days, watched it all get loaded up and taken out. And it was, you know, like seven days of, like non-stop, like there at 5:00 in the morning till 4:00 in the morning, like sleeping an hour or not sleeping at all. And, you know, I’m not the kind of person that’s like, hey, give me my money or anything. But it would have been nice to have been like, Here’s a bonus. You just made me half $1 million in five days, you know, like and that’s when I knew I was like. You know. I’ve obviously taught this guy how to make a lot of money. I’ve showed him a lot of my tricks, which a lot of my prior bosses would probably be mad about because I probably took a lot of work from them after leaving their shops, you know? And it’s just like a I got I got really tired.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:47:45) – I got really complacent. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t I got excited at first because I got to paint with all this cool stuff, but. Then, you know, after a year or two years goes by, you’re like. It’s never ending that. You know, he’s biting off more than he can chew every day. You know, he’s expecting you to do this, this and this. And then he would hire another painter to come in and the other painter would supposedly have 15 years, like they all say. And then the funniest thing I’ll never forget, this guy is like, you know, talking himself up like, oh, yeah, yeah. I’ve been painting this and this for so many years. And I worked at this shop and that shop and I’m like, okay, cool. I was like, That gun behind you, He’s ready. You got a new mask right there. I was like, You ready to do a hot coat? And the dude looks at me and he goes, What’s a hot coat? You’ve been painting, you’ve been powder coating for 15 years and you don’t know what a hot coat is.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:48:38) – That’s the stuff that I had to deal with, you know? And then, you know, like every painter, you know, give or take.
Speaker 3 (02:48:43) – Something.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:48:44) – That didn’t even happen by accident.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:48:46) – Yeah, right, exactly. Like, how were you not preheating anything and getting away with it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:48:53) – And just, you know, like, by chance.
Speaker 3 (02:48:56) – I mean, we even.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:48:56) – Have guns that are called hot coats today. Like, I mean, wasn’t that like the trick back in the 50s and they couldn’t get stuff to stick. They’d just heat it up and like, yeah, you know, like that was, that’s how I got taught from a dude that had 30 years of experience, you know, and. It was just it’s kind of crazy. And, you know, I hear through the grapevine that they’ve gone through ten plus painters since or, you know, and that’s not I’m not here to to say or do that. You know, it’s like I just wanted to be happy and to be able to provide my family with the things I want to give my family and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:49:31) – And this area, there’s nobody that can do what I can do.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:49:34) – So to me, just see you.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:49:36) – I just rolled my dice.
Speaker 3 (02:49:38) – I just.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:49:40) – Hopefully that’s the goal. You know, like is the barrier.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:49:44) – You found a product that you can be global with.
Speaker 3 (02:49:47) – That’s amazing.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:49:48) – I think like the main thing though is like what I would like to do is like to be able to travel to shops and help people like with problems or, you know, just help them figure out what they’re they’re, they’re trying to troubleshoot, you know, like because a lot of. You know, having somebody else around or having somebody else that has like a like, you know, mine that kind of thinks the same, you might be able to see something that they’re not seeing or, you know, just help somebody troubleshoot a problem that they’ve had, you know, a hell of a time with. And I don’t feel like there’s people in this industry that want to do that. But, you know, it’d be pretty cool to be able to fly out to you guys and help you guys for a couple of days or show you a couple tricks of how to paint a huge walk in gate and, you know, and to be right, you know, and that’s the thing.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:50:36) – Like, I don’t that’s what I would I wish of like I wish you know, reps would come in and put their suit on and get in the booth with me and spray with me. Like I would have loved to have a pissing match with a rep. You know what I mean? Like those things, those, those are what these painters need, you know, like painters need somebody to come in and like. You know, ruffle their feathers a little bit and like ask them questions and make them think. Because at the end of the day, like, I’m sure, you know, people deal with it, too. Like, I’m sure Kaser deals with, you know, having good people that come in that are applicators that he’s got a babysit or that, you know, like that. He has to make sure that he’s probably got a lot of money invested into his applicators, you know, to know what So something doesn’t go wrong.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:51:22) – Yeah. And inevitably he just posted the other day about how.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:51:26) – Just even using the wrong hook. Yeah, he kind of messed up his whole operation, you know, and, you know, and it’s just a. Such an everyday occurrence. And how he goes about explaining it is just, you know, and the process and the way he writes or, you know, like helpers, but.
Speaker 3 (02:51:46) – Like he’s like.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:51:48) – He’s like the the perfect advocate for our industry.
Speaker 3 (02:51:52) – Yes. Yeah, you know what I mean?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:51:53) – I’m going to have him on the directory and we’re working out like his blog. We’re going to try to put a feed in there of his blog because although he’s speaking to coaters, not all of his posts are out there to the consumer as well. Like how what to expect on a rainy day. You know I mean love that post.
Speaker 3 (02:52:12) – That’s see and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:52:12) – That’s the stuff that I oversee. You know, that’s the stuff that I had to deal with as a lead coater. Guess what? I was the dude that had to run the forklift and I had to package everything up.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:52:21) – They had to bubble everything up.
Speaker 3 (02:52:23) – Oh, my God.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:52:24) – Oh, so long.
Speaker 3 (02:52:25) – You know, stacking.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:52:26) – Handrail correctly and padding it correctly. Like, those are the things that like, I would just go a wall over and to have somebody in the industry that’s actually explaining that stuff for consumers is like, why didn’t we think of this?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:52:40) – Yeah. Think he’s you know, it’s just he’s just sharing his journey. But the way he writes is towards like a consumer or someone he can write either way.
Speaker 3 (02:52:52) – Right?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:52:53) – You know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:52:54) – And I think that’s.
Speaker 3 (02:52:54) – Kind of like a.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:52:55) – Guy I’m hoping to interview soon. He just started a YouTube channel, um, and thought, should I reach out to him as soon, you know, because he’s really just kind of growing a channel and I’m so glad I did. I hope to have him on the show, but his angle is so unique. Well, I don’t know what his angle is. I’m trying to figure it out. But what I saw was someone that could actually be perfectly placed on the directory front and center because it’s it’s almost like this one one video I was watching was him talking about a small project, just a garage project.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:53:38) – This is ideal. This is what we need to inspire consumers to get to why they want to go with a powder coater versus a painter, you know, And it’s just a small little job shop. It was, you know, it’s a DIY project that probably was more advanced than the average and why you’d want to set it to a powder coater because they’ve got this extra knowledge that, you know, a DIY or wouldn’t have, but you could totally direct that whole that whole YouTube channel to just the consumer market and doing small projects and featuring, you know, like those little things that you the, the circus stuff, you know, the restoring of the old stuff and rims, whatever, you could just make it towards a consumer the angle, you know. So we’ll see how he develops this channel because a lot of the people that we’re watching now are, you know, like unknown who’s just giving you DIY because you’re already in you’ve already been powder coating for a while and you just want this question answer.
Speaker 3 (02:54:44) – He’s like.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:54:45) – He’s. He’s pretty much like the cookie cutter of knowledge. For people that want the knowledge fast, that have obviously jumped through loopholes, figured out, you know, that this gun really isn’t going to do this for me. And they’re already beyond that point. These are the people that are having. Problems or, you know, in the sense of just kind of looking where they’re going to go next, of what they want to try to do. And I think that’s a lot of unfortunate. That’s a lot of things that we deal with in this industry is a lot of monkey see monkey do and not a monkey get off your ass and do what you want to do. You know, like and I feel like that’s what I tried as myself, as I try to put out as much organic and as much raw me as myself because I don’t want to have to deal with some different persona of me, you know, like I don’t want to put on some fake face of this or like I want I want people to have real knowledge and I want to have people to like me for who I am and not, you know, just think I’m some dude that’s just a painter like.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:55:47) – You know, and that’s that’s unfortunate. Like I think that’s what Sean Sean puts forward a lot of organic contact like Sean is Sean and the Sean’s raw and if you don’t like Sean then.
Speaker 3 (02:55:58) – It’s. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:55:59) – Go somewhere else, you know, like.
Speaker 3 (02:56:01) – Right. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:56:02) – And he’s pretty. He’s pretty right on with his, you know, like with what he’s telling you. And that’s kind of something I’ve tried to relay in what I’m doing in my live feeds is kind of explain, you know, this is this powder and this is what I have this set at. You know, even though a lot of my people that are viewing me don’t come to me for that information. But I feel like it’s my job and my duty to to be professional and to explain certain things. So like, let’s say a powder coater does show up on my life feed. I don’t look like some dumb ass that doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:56:33) – Right?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:56:34) – You know what I mean? And that’s just being professional and what you do.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:56:37) – And that’s obviously, you know, it’s going to that’s the passion showing to, you know.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:56:42) – Well, you know, and the thing is, is everybody wants to be everywhere. But, you know, how where are you going to be good at? Right. So you can.
Speaker 3 (02:56:50) – Have.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:56:51) – Being everywhere. That’s all I got to say. I deal with Facebook and Instagram and I have my own website and that that is enough to drive me crazy. Like I’ve finally gotten to this point to where, like, my wife was like working a job that she really didn’t like and she was getting really stressed out and I was just like, Fuck it, just quit. And you can work for me. Like you can come in. And she’s been sandblasting for me. She’s been hanging parts for me. Like there’s nothing that. Like she won’t get on the gun just yet. Like, I’m, like, trying to, like. Come on, just try it. You know, like, it’s fun, you know? And.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:57:26) – And like, she’ll sit there and stand stuff with me. And a lot of. I do a lot of trick stuff. So, like, I don’t like tape. I try to avoid tape at any given moment. And you’d be amazed what you could do with an air hose or like, an air blower. Yeah, right. And obviously these tubes and stuff, you can blow them out and wipe and and do a lot of clean, cool stuff. And she’s pretty talented at that. You know, I’ve showed her how to do it. And she started, you know, we’ve dropped a few things here and there together, but she’s she’s getting good at it and she holds me accountable, you know, And it’s it makes.
Speaker 3 (02:57:59) – Me like Jennifer.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:58:00) – Hate, you know, she’s the main coater at Black Label.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:58:04) – That’s crazy. That’s cool.
Speaker 3 (02:58:06) – She does.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:58:07) – A lot of it herself, you know, And.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:58:09) – That’s like something that I want to bring, you know, I want her to maybe get on the gun someday because women are a little.
Speaker 3 (02:58:15) – Bit more know.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:58:16) – What they’re good at until you.
Speaker 3 (02:58:17) – Give them. That can be.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:58:18) – Better than us. They could be way better than us. So that’s the that’s the thing, You know, I’d like it to be able to, you know, if something happens, she knows what to do and she can provide for herself or for my kids and her kids. And and that’s the thing, you know, and but main reason why I brought her on is to deal with like my business page on Facebook. Obviously, I have a group, but that’s more towards like the vape side community, things of what I do. And she deals with that. She helps me with like the booking and and all that great stuff. And she’s actually the reason why I got the big oven. She invested into me to get the big oven and to do wheels. And it takes a, takes a pretty strong woman to, uh, you know, take that big of an investment and throw it at me.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:59:04) – But she’s obviously had to deal with me and listen to me talk like this every night. So I think she believes in me a little bit.
Speaker 3 (02:59:12) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (02:59:13) – Yeah. I think for me, it was just when I started to go and want knowledge or seek knowledge, I couldn’t find any, you know, it’s like where, you know, I guess I’d come from a different industry. So it seemed like it was just more prevalent. You know, it was interior design and construction contract, everything.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (02:59:35) – I feel like everything is so much more explanatory, you know, like everything everybody’s kind of sees like the okay, what’s the catch in it, you know, being that it’s shoes or clothes or fashion or or whatever it may be. But then it kind of comes down to like these industrial things that, you know, you got to go to a special shop for. You got to go to this special someone for. And it’s just kept out. I honestly think it’s been like the demise of our industry.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:00:00) – It’s kept our industry so quiet. You know, it’s like and that’s the unfortunate part, is that that’s why there’s no information out there because, no, nobody wants to share their information. Because if you look at the East Coast side of things, it’s a lot of these manufacturing and huge powder coating shops, you know, that you may do manufacture inside and have a powder coating operation or you have like the Sherwin-Williams plant, you know, that obviously paint stuff for a lot of people. So a lot of stuff’s like in-house or it’s a lot of secrets or, you know, like obviously companies don’t want this company coming up with a match. Like if you’ve ever sprayed BK eight from Cardinal, I swear to God, everybody in the industry has a match to BK Cardinal that doesn’t match, you know, like and that’s kind of like the thing I would, I would just really like to see everybody get along, come together, do their thing, but also, you know, stay in their lane.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:00:56) – You know, it’s like find out what you’re good at and just run with it. And that’s kind of what I did. I just found something I was passionate about and what I was good at, and I didn’t give up. You know, it’s like there may have been some days where it was, you know, a little bit rougher than others. And, you know, you just wanted to quit and give up and maybe go get a real job again. But at the end of the day, the the smell of melting powder, you know, like just there’s just something about it that gets me excited, you know, and. There was nothing about liquid or sanding Bondo or doing metal work or any of the things that I did prior to this as a kid growing up with my brother, it was like. This is kind of my thing and I feel like I fit here and I’m not going to go anywhere, you know? Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:01:40) – That’s how Ross and I feel like I know Ross when he discovered powder coating it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:01:48) – It was that feeling like I finally found my place, you know, kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (03:01:52) – Yeah, like a million years.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:01:54) – Things born, a million hats, done a million things prior to this. This is, you know, we’re older. We’re not your age. We’re older. And so we had a lot of. And it’s funny because when you look back at your life, you look back and you see, Oh, wow, all these things that I did prior to this has led me to this moment, you know? Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:02:13) – When it’s like I’m like sitting here before this podcast, like, nervous. Like, I’m, like, shaking. I’m like, freaking out. And it’s just like, I felt like, you know, every aspect of me powder coating everything that I’ve done has led me to this point and given me all this knowledge that I can’t contain. You know, like you couldn’t contain all my knowledge in one episode or five. Like we’re all still learning, we’re all still experimenting.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:02:38) – And that’s the thing is, it’s like once you get that bug and once you figure out, you know, it’s just like a light bulb goes off and it’s just like everything powder coating lives just kind of becomes effortless. And like, you just become one with your gun and you become one with your oven and everything just starts flowing and stuff. And it. That’s like something it’s hard to come by, you know, like I grew up racing BMX and motocross, and those were the things that I was very passionate about for a long time. And I’m still a big fan of today, but I get a lot of those, you know, feelings and those emotions when I pull out a hot load of something and I turn the music on and I’m just jamming and I’m in my own element, I get those same endorphins running through my body as I would, you know, if I was racing a big national when I was a kid or, you know, and.
Speaker 3 (03:03:27) – I feel like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:03:28) – That’s the one thing that worries me about all the new people coming out and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:03:32) – They don’t know the supper part. They don’t know.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:03:35) – Well, they don’t know, but.
Speaker 3 (03:03:37) – We’re.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:03:37) – All on our own journey there. But but I think that it’s like they’re just starting to be starting. But there’s no. Uh, there’s no story yet. There’s no journey.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:03:51) – Nothing’s really sparked them yet.
Speaker 3 (03:03:52) – It’s.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:03:53) – And it’s like, well, where what are you going to say about your, your website? Well, I’m not going to get that well, but, you know, I’m like, no, you don’t understand. There are certain things that you have to craft to make a brand. You know, nobody’s just going to go to you because you’re just around the corner from the other guy. You got to give them a reason.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:04:26) – And I you know, there’s a little note section that I would write, you know, how many passes or I would write equations just in case I came back to it, you know. And after a while, I got so tired of signing my full name, I just started doing the AP thing. And then it’s turn into like the little star AP thing. And then I just kept daydreaming about that and daydream about that and daydream about that. And then I was just like, you know, things kind of molded into another thing. And I had my other logo with my face on it and stuff and that kind of that put me out there, that put my face to my product, that gave me brand recognition. And then I was like, okay, I got to bring this in. We brought this in and kind of put it on shirts, and then now it’s on my mod.
Speaker 3 (03:05:10) – Right?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:05:12) – And that’s kind of like a, you know, it’s, it’s cool like to. To see like your signature, your seal of approval, you know, like kind of become a thing, kind of in a household name kind of way, you know? And that’s kind of what I’m trying to do with powder coating.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:05:27) – I don’t want to just be a painter, you know what I mean? I don’t want you to look at. Oh, Palmer’s powders as a powder coater. Yeah, I might be a powder cutter, but I want to bring other things to powder coating. I would like to, you know, maybe make tools, you know, and, you know, in certain aspects, you know, like certain tools for certain applications depending on what you’re painting, you know, like. And that’s where you got to kind of go. You got to like, for me, I’m not thinking about what’s the next thing I’m going to be coating. I’m kind of thinking on like, what’s the next collaborative thing I can be doing that not only, you know, it puts my name out there, but it’s also putting somebody else’s name out there. Kind of like this whole podcast you’re bringing me on to build me up. And then also in return you’re going to be surprised of what I do once I leave here.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:06:13) – I have this whole other. You know, platform that I can speak upon, that I can say, you know, for my powder coating people or I can recommend people that are having problems, I can tell them to come listen to you now because you have a lot of information to relay. You have to deal with Ros. You have to deal with all the books and and you order the paint. So at the end of the day, it comes down to you’ve learned a lot of knowledge to tell him to pass on to him, you know, and if it’s like at this point we have such this base to start growing on and it’s going to take you and Ros to bigger places and to learn other experiences and and other things. And that’s just the cool part of, you know, people that are open to this is it’s it’s going to fucking blow up quick.
Speaker 3 (03:07:01) – I hope.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:07:02) – So. I mean, I really want that to happen. I think the industry is ripe for it.
Speaker 3 (03:07:08) – And hopefully it blows up it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:07:10) – We just we deserve it. You deserve it. I deserve it. Ros deserves it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:07:16) – Well, and and if you think about it, your community deserves it. You know what I mean? Like Hawaii, the community you guys are serving, you’re not only serving to look cool, you guys have to preach corrosion protection. There’s there’s so much more that you guys know than just looking cool. Then, you know, you guys have to deal with salt in your air. You have to deal with humidity. Like there’s so much shit that us mainland people, you know, yeah, we deal with, but we don’t deal with island like conditions. We don’t deal with tropic conditions like. And you guys in the sense are on the forefront of making that product better in that environment, you know what I mean? And you’re bringing it to your community to where your community thrives off of that. And that’s one thing that, you know, I feel like we need to preach is, yeah, I may be a separate person in my community, but I’m going to offer you a better product.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:08:09) – You’re going to get your money’s worth. You’re going to feel better walking out my door. You’re not going to feel jaded. And if you do, I’m going to try to make it feel it make you feel better about it, you know? Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:08:18) – Well, this, you know, we’re scaling again because we kind of got hit back down from the Covid thing and rebuilding our shop and all of that with the new location and, you know, just we’re just doing like we did before, which is we waited for a job to help pay for this oven to be built. I’m not going to go and just buy, you know, we we have the the knowledge to build it. It’s not even that anymore.
Speaker 3 (03:08:44) – Yeah. It’s the.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:08:44) – Time and the money that you got to fall.
Speaker 3 (03:08:46) – Into change.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:08:47) – Right? So we waited and sure enough, you know, this railing that we’re doing next week is has been a nightmare for this construction company where they ordered it from the mainland. It came out of Pennsylvania.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:01) – They sent the first one over and it had all these different weird angles. And, you know, of course, they didn’t weld it. Right. And it doesn’t doesn’t meet the wall. And I mean, it’s just when, you know, aside from that, that’s crazy.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:09:14) – You guys don’t have any good like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:16) – Oh no, no, no. They we do. They just decided to order it from Pennsylvania because it was cheaper. That was six months ago.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:09:25) – It gives me like, Yeah, that freaks me out.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:27) – It’s the classic thing that people do here. It really is.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:09:31) – They it’s like it sounds like classic fucking handrail builders here that would bring me a rail, not test fit it and then bring it back the next day and be like, Hey, can you recode this? Because I had to fix it. And you’re like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:44) – How can I?
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:09:45) – Five days from now, I can.
Speaker 3 (03:09:47) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:48) – Can I fix it.
Speaker 3 (03:09:48) – On the wall?
Speaker 4 (03:09:49) – The code inspectors come in at, like, 5:00, and I said it’d be done.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:09:54) – Yeah, I’ve been there.
Speaker 3 (03:09:56) – Done that.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:09:56) – Because we’re so far away from the mainland. But, you know, like, I went to this.
Speaker 3 (03:10:00) – You know, she could only imagine.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:10:02) – Got it from right where she originally bought it from. And on this website is everything you need to know about a gate. Except for the coating. Like they say, they’re powder coating it and that’s all they say. There’s no spec, there’s no nothing anything about the kind of finishes you’re going to get or how we do it or anything. Like what kind of weird website is this? So I realized the gig was up then, you know, and then so now they’re trying to just satisfy the homeowner at this point because the homeowner is holding back the last payment. Right. And so this is dragging on. And I’m sure it’s like tens of thousands of dollars that they’re waiting on for this, you know, $3,000 gate, you know, railing. So they finally went and got it done locally. And we’re getting it next week.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:10:49) – And what.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:10:49) – Color is it.
Speaker 3 (03:10:50) – Going?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:10:50) – Oh, so the thing is, is you should see the horrendous photos they sent us. It looks like a chrome, but the chrome isn’t done well at all. Like it’s like a prismatic chrome. Or it could be chrome, but or even a Columbia Chrome. But it’s milky, you know, it’s kind of weird in some places. It just. Oh, it’s awful. It’s awful.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:11:15) – So to think that somebody wants to put that outside scares me.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:11:20) – No, it’s an inside railing.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:11:21) – Oh, it is?
Speaker 3 (03:11:22) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:11:25) – It makes it even more, you know, like if.
Speaker 3 (03:11:29) – Eyes are.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:11:29) – Way more on.
Speaker 3 (03:11:30) – It. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:11:31) – You know, and I’m looking at the coating and just looking at how crappy this coating is, if they were trying to attempt some kind of a, a chrome or reflective look or any kind of like silver, even, it didn’t even come out right. I don’t even know what they shot. And they wouldn’t tell.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:11:48) – They wouldn’t tell us. Said, well, find out what powder because obviously that’s the powder that they picked. So I got to go in order that whether it’s Columbia or prison or.
Speaker 3 (03:11:58) – Yeah. Or wherever.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:12:00) – Right, wherever. And they wouldn’t tell me. And then on top of that, you know, they were about ready to send. So they made it again. They, they, they made a new one again. And this time we discovered that they were mixing aluminum with steel.
Speaker 3 (03:12:19) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:12:21) – So the top rail was aluminum, but the but this. Oh, my God, it’s just a Frankenstein thing. And I’m like, how is that you already having like, dissimilar metals? Do you think that’s going to last here in Hawaii with.
Speaker 3 (03:12:34) – I’m so.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:12:35) – Picky, even to the point of like, on all your like all your bases to where your, your handrail is going to get bolted to all those plates all go in and bevel all those edges so you can’t get any bulge. Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:12:47) – Yeah I’ll go in and I’ll scrape all the freaking little babies and clean everything up.
Speaker 3 (03:12:53) – So they ordered.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:12:53) – An aluminum railing, but they really didn’t get an aluminum. The top rail is aluminum, but the other stuff is all made out of steel because it’s cheap ass or whatever. And. And I gave this lady a whole education. Just the fact that I, you know, helped her kind of think through this thing, you know, like with the pictures and what I was seeing. And I’m like, This isn’t what you’re ordering this, this isn’t what you’re getting, you know? Now, far be it for me to tell this manufacturer in this powder coater, so sure enough, they powder coated and they’re ready to ship it out. But they realized that the coating isn’t right. It’s a little messy and it’s not passing their inspection. And they’re wondering, should we spend another week sending it back to the powder coated so they’re not even doing in-house powder coating, which means they have no control over the quality of what they’re getting once they send it out on top of the.
Speaker 3 (03:13:44) – On the device.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:13:46) – On top of the fact that they built it wrong in the first place. And this is the second railing that they’re having to do. And. Yeah, it was one of those, but yay, it came our way. We were able to build our big oven. We’re able to, you know, finally that’s.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:13:59) – Usually, that’s usually how it is. It’s like it’s always some crazy, convoluted, stressful job that, you know, that ends up, you know, you get to the end of it, you can wipe your hands clean and then it works out, you know?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:14:12) – Yeah. And they know do it local and get it done right with Maui Powder works right now. They know they’re not going to make that mistake again, you know So yeah it’s you know, it’s it’s good. We’re almost like it’s almost for us, it’s like starting over again or starting again.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:14:30) – It’s that was the big thing. Even I did like a big change just with inside my shop.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:14:37) – I had my bench in one area and I moved it to a different area. And then we got the bigger oven in and there was a lot of changing of where my, you know, my area was going to be. And even for like a good month, it kind of threw me off mentally. Because I wasn’t, you know, used to not being in that one spot, you know, And it was just kind of it’s kind of weird what, you know, little things can kind of affect you or kind of throw you off of your flow and kind of disrupt you. But I think at the end of the day. As a good powder coater. We’re always contradicting ourselves or we’re always second guessing ourselves. So, like, I feel like if we can all kind of learn how to just bite our tongue, believe in ourselves and just get over certain humps, like we would just be better off, you know? But that’s not how you know, that’s not how Murphy’s Law works or.
Speaker 3 (03:15:27) – Yeah. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:15:28) – Habit.
Speaker 3 (03:15:29) – Yeah. Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:15:32) – Well, what do you think we should ask the listeners? Like I always try to end with some kind of a thought provoking question. Don’t be quiet now.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:15:46) – A thought provoking question.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:15:48) – Well, like, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:15:51) – Yeah, I.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:15:52) – Mean, it just usually surrounds yourself or, you know, around this subject or topic that we’ve been talking about, you know, like I’m always about brand and, you know, I have that marketing edge. And so, you know. You know, I guess. What do you think of the directory? That’s a good one. Kind of just soft, softly disclosed what we’re doing. I want to do another, you know, maybe get Ross on or somebody just kind of introduce it more formally. But, you know, it’s just we’re in a soft launch right now and we’re going to start advertising. And I think, I mean, what do you think of the directory? You kind of got a little peep show on it.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:16:33) – I think you guys are going to all have to kind of fucking hold on because. We’re getting shot into outer space, in my opinion. You know, it’s like a this is a big thing. And, you know, like a lot of people don’t think they’re going to understand the severity of it or they’re not going to understand it at the beginning. But then there’s going to be a lot of things that come from it that make people understand. And it’s kind of like, I don’t know, kind of go back to like what the buff says about like being casted by Spielberg, you know, like he was ready to be casted by Spielberg, but he wasn’t ready to be stuck in that rocket ship and shot out into orbit. And then, you know, okay, you’re out in orbit. What do I do now? You know, and I think there’s going to be a lot of this will either make or break people. It’s going to put people out there that are actually doing real, honest, true work.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:17:22) – And then it’s going to decipher you from the people that are kind of blowing smoke up your ass.
Speaker 3 (03:17:27) – Yeah. You know, and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:17:28) – That’s that’s honestly that, that’s what you do need in this industry and you know, it’s. Not to to badmouth people. But, you know, if there’s people out there that are doing stuff and spreading wrong information about what we’re doing, it really kind of sends an echo throughout the whole industry. And this industry is quite a big echo chamber. And it is you know, you’ve experienced that quite a bit. And I try to I honestly try to avoid it, you know what I mean? I try not to to be in anybody’s drama or, you know, I’m out here doing my own thing. And that’s kind of like the benefit I’m in Idaho. I don’t I don’t have any of my big vape friends that are around me, you know, distracting me with what I’m doing. I don’t have a lot of people ha people in the industry that are buy my shop a lot, you know, fucking bugging me or anything.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:18:12) – So I really just get a go and shut myself off from the world and then come out of my shell and, and post it on social media. And I’m glad that this is coming out because this is giving me more of a chance to break out of my shell, you know, as a powder coater and as a custom coater myself. And, you know, to be able to bring my skill set to wheels and to other things instead of just doing little, little mods.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:18:38) – Yeah. Think you know it’s and you know the world we live in is is sometimes derived by influencers in the market. It’s just the nature of our society now thanks to Instagram and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (03:18:56) – That’s like another thing.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:18:57) – I really don’t want to be an influencer.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:19:00) – Well, but in a sense, you know, a lot of people don’t. I’m not saying, you know, unless you’re Kim Kardashian or whatever, whoever.
Speaker 3 (03:19:10) – Exactly.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:19:11) – Or Kylie, Kylie Jenner or whatever. I mean, that’s not what I’m I’m not talking about that.
Speaker 3 (03:19:16) – No, I totally.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:19:16) – Get what you mean. But you got to look at it in the aspect of like there is influencers in this industry, like certain people influence certain products and obviously that’s how they make their money. I’m not knocking that, but I’m not going to be, you know, like I’m I would like people to, you know, endorse me maybe or, or endorse Maui Powder Works. I would like to see endorsements, but I don’t want to see like this whole influencer bullshit because then it kind of gets it kind of gets misconstrued and kind of like how we’re talking, you know, what’s kind of like irritating all of us, you know, people that have been here for years and that are, you know, working our hard asses off for this, you know, these things like.
Speaker 3 (03:19:56) – Maybe.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:19:56) – Maybe influencer isn’t the right word, but it’s it’s leadership in in some sense of the word like, you know, you’re not necessarily. Um, looking at other powder code, you know, like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:20:10) – Guess you’re certainly doing something way, way different than everybody else. You may not look at yourself as a leader in that sense, but you are in the sense that you’re doing something so, so different and then.
Speaker 3 (03:20:24) – Trying to.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:20:25) – I guess it’s like I’m really trying to bring something to powder coating to just really open to open up everybody’s eyes. Like, you know, when people say, you can’t do that, like, okay, yeah, you may be not able to do certain things chemically. We understand that and on a chemistry basis. But there’s things that, you know, our industry hasn’t allowed our coaters to take the time to figure out what I’ve done, you know what I mean? Like, and that’s the thing is like, I want people to just. Fucking shut the clock off for ten minutes or an hour and just let your mind go crazy, you know, like, yes, we get it. Bills have to be paid. And. Trust me, I’m on that same train.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:21:03) – I have bills. I have to pay two. But there is still common ground. Like you said, you can bring the price down to a certain point to where still everybody is fucking happy. You know, you’re still making your money. They’re still making you’re making your customer happy. Or in my instance, like certain things, I have to chop my price down. But yeah, I still make money. But then that product can still get in the hands of consumers at a at a reasonable price, you know what I mean? Yeah. And that’s the thing. Like, okay, if my brother can do airbrush work or car paint work at the same rate I can, what’s the difference between us? There really isn’t other than the chemical, you know, things that are dividing us, you know, And that’s the thing. It’s like I’ve just taken the time and realized that, you know, an hour of your time you can actually. Figure out a lot of shit that people told us we couldn’t do with powder, right? You know what I mean? And it’s like, no, it’s just because I wasn’t in the area or the environment that allowed me to do that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:22:01) – Yeah, you know what I mean? Remember, I tried to do a set of two tone wheels for my boss one time and I blew their all their minds once I started wiping this wheel and got halfway through it and he was like, Oh, blow it off. This is taking too long.
Speaker 3 (03:22:14) – So.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:22:14) – Okay, get the tech rag out. You can clean it off, you know, And it’s just those and that’s just the thing, you know, like, I feel like obviously our industry has to cost a lot to get into. It costs a lot to take your time to, to fuck with it. And you know, once stuff starts flying through the gun, you can’t get that back.
Speaker 3 (03:22:33) – You know? Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:22:37) – By. And that’s why I’m so into people’s stories, you know, and as it’s not like as in influencing or myth building. But but there is a story behind every powder coater and but there are some that are doing something so different that it intrigues me to have them on the podcast, to to get their story out more and to get that exposure.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:23:03) – And what is, you know, the question to our listeners is what makes you different? What’s your differential? You know, what’s your what’s your story? What is what’s your uniqueness? That’s a big thing that they’re talking about in all these seminars that I’m attending and stuff like that, you know, with Covid 19 and how are you different, you know, and what are you going to bring to the industry? You know, I want to connect everybody. It’s like herding cats right now. I think the.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:23:35) – Difference I think for me is like, what I bring is just open your mind. Like, stop, stop holding yourself back so much. Stop, Stop being so scared. Like, don’t be scared. Like, figure it out. It’s all, it’s all about learning and it’s all about having that knowledge. So when that person does come in your door and they want something, guess what? Maybe two years ago somebody wanted something and I could have been honest with them and be like, I don’t know how to do that.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:24:00) – Yeah, but now I’ve done so many different kinds of things that I can think of that I don’t have any ideas anymore, but I know certain things are possible and I know things aren’t. So it’s like what I can bring to the industry or what I can bring to companies or whatever it may be, or even just coaters that have questions. It’s like, just stop being scared at the end of the day and just go with it, you know? Like, yeah, nothing ever happened from just sitting by like, you know, got sick and tired of watching videos of Shaun and all these powder coat guys and all these guys on Instagram got so fucking tired of seeing all this cool shit and not being a part of it. So did something about it, you know, it’s like and that’s just really, you know, we live in such a society today where everybody wants everything fucking handed to them. And that’s in this industry. It kind of, you know, you nothing comes handed to you.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:24:52) – You’re sweating your ass off. You’re always in a hot environment or it’s, you know, it stinks or it burns or you’ve hit your hand with a sand blaster or or something, you know, it’s like it’s not for the the kind hearted. No, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (03:25:08) – And for the faint of heart.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:25:09) – Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:25:09) – Think, you know, that’s my benefit of, you know, growing up, race and dirt bikes and BMX enjoyed suffering, you know what I mean? I enjoyed the whole. The whole just the the grinding, just grit, you know, to get to the point of winning, you know? And I think that’s one thing about powder coating that, you know, you got to suffer just a little bit. But once you’re done suffering that instant gratification of that product coming out of the oven, you know, you can’t match it.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:25:37) – Yeah. And it’s, um, you know, people that think that’s another quality is they love a challenge, you know, because how they really realize accepting the challenge could they could fail or they could be in over their heads, but they’re not going to allow themselves to do that and they’re going to stick through it until they get it right.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:26:02) – Stuff, you know? So there is that, too, that you should have in order to to succeed or have in your brand, you know, that, you know, because at some point somebody’s going to ask you that question Can you do this rim or can you do this part like this? And you’re going to have you’re going to be.
Speaker 3 (03:26:24) – Either you’re a good coat reader, good.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:26:27) – Applicator, or you’re an applicator that doesn’t know. You know, not to say that you’re not a good applicator. It’s not saying that. But certain certain powders, you know, have certain you have to have certain skill sets for them. Like you have to know how to set your gun up to spray a hammered correctly or spray a vein correctly. You know, and and you know, certain colors. You know, I can tell you straight up like certain colors I I’m scared to death of it because I’ve had bad experiences with you know. But it takes you time and experience, time and experience to get over those hurdles, you know, and.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:27:02) – It’s just certain things, you know, certain powder coaters will say no to things because they just don’t know how to or they’re, you know, they’re just scared of messing something up, you know, like.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:27:14) – Yeah, I think that that’s where, like, you know, people get worried. There’s so many people coming into this market, they don’t know what they’re doing. And I’m like, Just relax. They’re there either. Of course, when, you know, like, let them, you know, they’re going to get burned or they’re going to run out of money or or.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:27:31) – You’re going to be fixing their work six months from.
Speaker 3 (03:27:34) – Now or you’re.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:27:34) – Going to be fixing their work or, you know, it’s you just need to kind of let it happen. And I know it’s harder because you’re, you know, you might be in more of a competitive area of the country. And there definitely are some areas we’re actually doing like I just kind of scraped a lot of data just to help with building the directory and working through.
Speaker 3 (03:27:59) – Yeah, you got.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:27:59) – Like the biggest custom coater close to me is forever powder coating. It’s a Washington and those guys do some killer work.
Speaker 3 (03:28:09) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:28:11) – Um, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t survive either.
Speaker 3 (03:28:14) – No, I’m.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:28:14) – Doing just fine. I figured out my own little niche, you know, I’m doing just fine. And that’s the thing, you know, it’s not. I’m not here to be scared of, you know, people taking work for me or vice versa that, you know, I’ve figured out my own way. And I think at this point, you know, if I’m ten, 11 years into powder coating and I’m a year over a year now being self-employed with Palmer’s powders, you know, think at this point if I’m scared about people taking my work. You know, I feel like I’m probably in the wrong industry, you know, to have those two to be second guessing yourself like that. And, you know, like, if you’re worried about that kind of stuff, then your work obviously doesn’t speak for itself enough, you know, and that’s that’s really kind of what it goes from, you know, and.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:28:55) – I couldn’t say it better. Yeah, you just said it. It’s so well said there.
Speaker 3 (03:28:59) – Yeah.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:28:59) – I started in the dirtiest dingy powder coating shop in this area. But guess what? Still to this day, that shop pumps out some of the best work probably in the world, you know, from just solid colors, you know, And I got to learn from that. And I got to take what I liked from that process and mix it with other processes and to see what didn’t really work and what did work the best, you know? And I feel like in the Northwest, besides certain people that are still obviously coating industrial wise and on the gun, you know, ten hours a day, I feel like in this area I could. I could be, you know. One of the top painters for just knowledge for people, you know, to help. And and that’s just kind of like the thing it’s just time and experience and just being humble about it, you know, like not being cocky about what you’re doing and just let let your work talk.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:29:52) – Yeah. And don’t think, you know, the community can’t grow unless we do kind of just stop and have conversations like this and have you share that information or share that knowledge because that’s how we’re all really going to grow and make make it better because it’s like.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:30:09) – Every shop I’ve ever been in at this shop talks shit about that shop and that shop talks shit about that shop. And guess what? None of those guys know each other. They don’t know each other’s names. They don’t. They don’t know who they are, you know? And that’s the funny thing about it, you know, it’s like you all, you all can run your fucking mouths. But at the end of the day, I’ve been a lead painter in all three of these shops, and none of you guys know each other, you know, it’s like. And that’s the thing that, you know, cracks you up at the end of the day is it’s like, guess what? Not Not one shop in this town can deal with every manufacturer, every handrail guy, every dude wanting to fucking do his car.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:30:46) – There’s enough work for you all to deal with, you know? And that’s why I got away from it and started my own shop. And didn’t want to fight over contract jobs. You know, like if I’d never have to see a handrail again a day in my life, I did something right, you know, like. And that’s just like where I’m at, you know? I feel like I’m probably one of the younger dudes in the industry. But I started when I was 17 and I walked away from it when I was 26, and now I’m 29 rolling on to 30 this year. And you know that my future is bright. And I you know, it’s it only things only keep coming and that’s the way I want it to be. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:31:26) – Yeah.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:31:27) – Awesome. Well, it’s been great talking to you. We could talk all day, right? Geez, I’ll have to turn this into one, 2 or 3 parter here.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:31:38) – Heck, yeah. Well, whenever you guys need help or anything, you guys have questions about anything.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:31:44) – Or if you guys want to get in touch with Cardinal, I can get you guys in touch with Cardinal. Really? Well, and.
Speaker 3 (03:31:49) – And it would be.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:31:50) – Nice to have some powder suppliers on the show. We haven’t had success with that yet and I don’t know what that is. I think there’s a shyness of some sort of or maybe not understanding of what it is.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:32:06) – It’s more of like a. I think it’s just more of like, they’re just so. Their desk driven jobs, you know what I mean? They’re so yeah, they’re in their offices, you know what I mean? And it’s like even Alex, like Alex from Cardinal, he would be a rep to have on your show because he’s so full of knowledge and he’s the dude that can get movement going in and within cardinal, you know, and making other people maybe follow.
Speaker 3 (03:32:33) – Right?
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:32:33) – Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:32:35) – That’s all it takes.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:32:35) – Is it takes one little duckling for everybody else to be like, Oh, we got to hop on this train, right? That’s why I’m here.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:32:42) – I seen Sean the other day on here and I was like, I got to go talk to her and reach out to Ross and go blow their minds. So.
Speaker 3 (03:32:49) – Well, thank.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:32:50) – You. It’s been a pleasure having you. And I’m so glad to know you and have you be a part of helping build what we’re doing. You know.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:32:59) – It’s been an absolute honor, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for everybody. It’s been a it’s been an awesome conversation.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:33:06) – Yeah, awesome. Okay.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:33:09) – Right on. You guys have an awesome night. And tell Ross and everybody else I said hi.
RossKote (Kim Scott) (03:33:13) – Okay. Aloha.
Palmer’s Powders (Ashton Palmer) (03:33:15) – Yeah, aloha.
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