Good afternoon. Welcome to PCI's production workshop series. Today's workshop is Acceptability of Appearance, the Importance of Samples and Mockups. This workshop is sponsored by Architectural Precast Committee. My name is Nicole Clow, Marketing Coordinator at PCI, and I will be your moderator for this session. Before I turn the controls over to your presenters for today, I have a few introductory items to note. All attendee lines are muted. The GoToWebinar toolbox has an area for you to raise your hand. If you raise your hand, you will receive a private chat message from me. If you have a question for the presenters, please type it into the questions pane. Also, a pop-up survey will appear after the webinar ends. Earlier today, we sent a reminder email to all registered attendees that included a handout of today's presentation. That handout for this webinar can also be found in the handout section of your webinar pane. If you cannot download the handout, please email PCI Marketing at marketing at pci.org. Today's presentation will be recorded and uploaded to the PCI eLearning Center. PCI is a registered provider of AIA-CS, but today's presentation does not contain content that has been endorsed by AIA. Today's presentation is non-CEU. To start off the presentation, I would like to introduce Randy Wilson, Director of Architectural Precast Systems at PCI. Thank you, Nicole, and thanks, everybody, for attending today. Hopefully, you will get a lot of really good information out of this webinar. Gary Reed is our new chair of the Architectural Precast Concrete Committee, and like, I guess, all of you, he is a volunteer and he's out trying to sell more precast. So, good luck to Gary. Hopefully, he'll do a good job of obtaining another architectural precast project for the industry. Today's presentation is Acceptability of Appearance Series, and that's the series we're working through here, these workshops six through nine, and this is the second of our series called Samples and Mock-Ups. Our presenters today are Steve Kloos, Senior Vice President of Quality at Wells out of Albany, Minnesota, and our second presenter is Gary Burkhouse, who's a QC foreman from High Concrete Group in Springboro, Ohio. Gary had a family emergency this week, so he's not going to be able to join us today, so we just ask everyone to keep Gary and his family in our thoughts and our prayers as he works through a very serious issue he's got with his family, but I'm sure that everything will be just fine, especially with all of our well wishes. So, as I mentioned, this is part of a four-program series. The first one was Following the Process of Acceptability of Appearance, Following the Processes, PCI's Process, and our manuals. Today, we'll talk a little bit more about Samples and Mock-Ups. Our next two workshops, Remedial Actions, Methods, and Costs, Remedial Actions we're talking about, you know, field patching, field finishing, and some means and methods there, but also some preventative actions within our plants. And then lastly, we will have one or two architects that are going to speak with us about internal and external communication. What does our customers want to hear? What do they expect? And how can we work with our customers, especially when we talk about Acceptability of Appearance? So the Production Management Workshop, most of you have heard this little spiel before, but for those that haven't heard it, that are new to the webinar, the Production Management Workshop used to be a live event pre-COVID. We turned it into a monthly webinar, which we try to do about, you know, six to nine a year, started last year. So this program is something that we want to try to do is build camaraderie among all plant managers. It's very difficult to do online, obviously, but over time, you'll get to know several plant managers from around the country. And when you go back and look at some of the recorded workshops that we have done, you'll be able to get the names of those folks that have been speakers, and by all means, you can reach out to them at any point in time if you have a question or a concern or you run into a roadblock. We're all here as an architectural precast family, and that's why we're doing this is to help you build some resources when you do have an issue that you may need to overcome. And what's a better way of doing it than calling one of your comrades across the country? So the topics that we've been talking about, the previously ones that are recorded and the ones we were talking about today are ones that were developed through the Architectural Precast Concrete Committee. Hopefully, you'll be able to take this information that you see here and then share that with your plant leadership team, also your plant foreman, and also use this as a training mechanism for those people within your plant that are up and coming. The format is we've got about 40 minutes of speaker information, and then what we're going to do is try to allow as much time at the end for Q&A. Gary not being able to join us today will probably give us a little bit extra time for Q&A, so please send in your questions to the chat box to me. I'll be monitoring the chat box. I'm getting relatively good at doing two things at once at PCI. It's kind of what we have to do. So go ahead and send me your questions in the chat box, and I will try to get those asked and answered as we go. To start things off with all PCI meetings, we will be following PCI's antitrust policy and code of conduct policies. For those that aren't familiar, the antitrust policy is one to where we will be following it to the letter of the law. We will not be talking about pricing. We'll be not talking about increased, decreasing pricing, standardizing pricing, or any type of pricing procedures, or dividing or allocating markets. This is strictly an informational webinar for our precast members. So to get started, a little bit of a review. Being the Architectural Director of PCI, the most, the number one question I get centers around acceptability of appearance. And because I represent all PCI plants, my answers come black and white straight out of one of these manuals. So what I typically do is I go right to the Section 2.10 and Appendix A of MNL116, or I go to Section 2.10, 2.10, and Appendix C out of 117. And sometimes I have to refer back to PCI MNL122 Chapter 3, which talks a lot about acceptability of appearance, sample processes, etc. So when I do get a question, I do go to these manuals. I try to field the question from the person that's calling me. I try to understand what their concerns are. And then I go to the black and white language within the manual. But at some point, you got to get on the conversation with an architect, and we have to have an offline discussion and help them get through the process of if he or she does have a question about appearances. But what I typically find as the result of it is that maybe the sample process wasn't followed as per PCI suggests, or the producer or the architect didn't require a sample, so the producer didn't make a sample, or there's some sort of an exotic mix design that maybe some aggregate didn't come in the right shade. So there are reasons why we do have an acceptability of appearance issue, but most of it boils down to, which will be a repeat theme through all these webinars, it's really communicating with the architect early on in the process and setting a realistic expectations of what the color and the texture is going to be and the finished product. So with that, I always say that all problems, they really start with sales. And I like to say that because I was selling precast for 15 years, so I can kind of pick on myself. And I was really hoping Gary was going to be here because I did work with Gary for many years, and he could attest that he trained me on how to sell mixes and finishes and set realistic expectations. So the goal of this whole series is to encourage each producer to develop a sampling process that, number one, follows PCI's best practices. Number two is really to establish realistic expectations with your architect and your customer early in the design process. Gain written approval for each sample as the process goes. But we also realize that every plant's different, every project's different, every customer's different. So there are going to be some nuances, especially when you start looking at, you know, a warehouse building is going to be a little bit different than maybe a museum or a high-end stadium or something like that. So there is some nuances that have to be implemented as you go through the process. But I really encourage all PCI architectural plants to have a written process that the salespeople follow, QC people follow, the plant follows. So make sure everybody's on the same page when it comes to setting realistic expectations early. So today's goal, along with the series goals, is to discuss strategies to collaborate with the customer to bring solutions and build a trusting relationship. The other is to produce samples that meet the customer's expectation and can be produced with a color and texture consistency. And we'll be talking a lot about that today. That'll be our primary subject matter as we go through today. So just to kind of go a little bit deeper into the manuals, Sections 1.5 talk about samples in 117. Also, Appendix C talks about finished samples in a little bit more detail. In 116, you've got Division I, provisions for special finishes. And you also got the Sections 1.5, A1.5, that talk more about samples. So those are the basics of putting together your program. So with that, I'll introduce our first speaker. Our first speaker is Steve Kloos, the Senior Vice President of Quality at Wells in Albany, Minnesota. Steve has been servicing the precast industry for 27 years. He started with Wells back in 1995. I know he doesn't look that old, but I'm guaranteeing his body feels that old. He started in QC, worked his way up through field services. He was the ready mix manager. So he's definitely the right person to talk to about colors and textures and making samples. And then he became the VP of Quality, and now he's the Senior VP of Quality at Wells. So a little bit about Wells. Wells started back in the 1950s, last century. They're a last century company. They're old. But now they are still family owned, but they have six plants serving the Midwest. And they also have, you know, manufacture the AA architectural precast out of several plants. And they also manufacture structural precast along with some Holocore and other products. Altogether, they have about 1,300 plant employees across all plants. And that's what's one of the things that Steve does there is to ensure that the quality across all the plants meet PCI certification requirements. So, you know, Steve, I'll start off with, you know, a little bit of a softball question here. You know, you've got all this experience in ready mix and precast. So why'd you choose precast over ready mix? And why are you still here? Well, first, thank you, Randy. And, you know, I took this kind of as a summer job as soon as I got out of high school and going into college. And I thought it was just going to be a way to finance and fund my way through. And probably a lot like a lot of the other people that are out today on the webinar. Once you get into this industry, you really, it just doesn't seem like you ever get out of it. We have colleagues that have come and gone and whether they're vendors or producers. And it seems like when you do get out, you just resurface somewhere else with underneath a different name or a different company or what have you. So kind of my background, same thing. I thought it was going to be a pit stop onto something different. And once it got into your blood and you get the precast fever, it's hard to get away from. So that's exactly it. But we got a couple of projects here to kind of show people some of the work that you've done. If you could tell us a little bit about maybe some challenges you had with these projects, especially when it comes to color, finish, et cetera. Sure. The one that you see there in front of you, obviously the herringbone brick, the different cornices, the different radius, all the different things that we have going on here. It takes a lot of time or a lot of work in the planning stages ahead of time to make sure not only the layout, but then the colors and they keep everything consistent. Making sure that our openings are all lining up, everything's square, the geometry of the panels. Once again, we all have these projects that we work on and every one of them are a little bit different. And you definitely want to meet and exceed PCI's tolerances and meet and exceed the architect and owner's expectations. This one in particular, this is some terra cotta in Rochester, Minnesota over at a parking ramp facility. Very long lead times on the terra cotta, which we'll talk about later on in one of the other questions coming up. But then also the big, the stressed arch that we had to produce and make that all come together right on that opening. Yeah, these are two excellent projects that I think kind of typify some of the things that we face as architectural producers. And we'll be able to talk a little bit more, you know, using those as examples going forward. This is where I was going to introduce Gary, but I'm going to introduce him anyway. So, you know, I met Gary back in 1990 when I first started working in Springboro, Ohio. And he was in drafting at that time and we pretty much hit it off. Because he's just a great guy and I feel really bad that he's gone through some things this week. But Gary was starting drafting, moved into quality control, and he's been the quality control foreman there in Springboro, Ohio for the better part of 25 years. You know, he's working for High Concrete. They purchased Springboro, Ohio plant from a company called Concrete Technology back probably around 2005 or so, if my memory serves me correctly. It's a relatively small plant. They're servicing Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana markets. They do reach out to Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan and Chicago and other parts. But they produce about, you know, 20,000 square foot a week or plus or minus. So, very, very efficient plant. If you ever get a chance to get to Springboro, Ohio, I'm sure they would love to have you there. A couple of things that, you know, I talked to Gary about last couple of days was this Coastside Museum project. And I think this is a really typifies what we do as architectural precast producers. When that project first came across my desk as a salesperson, a construction manager drew a curved line about the shape as you see on the edge of that panel and says it's 85 foot tall. It bends 14 foot back. How much is the price? Of course, we're like, dude, I can't price that. But once we started going through the design assist process, we realized that precast was the perfect option for that project. One of the concerns was the architect wanted gray as-cast. Now, we all know gray as-cast is the kiss of death when it comes to architectural precast and color consistency. And we basically refused to do the job if it was gray as-cast. We insisted on 100% white. Well, it ended up being like 80% white and an acid wash finish. So the point of that story is that we really need to be strong in our convictions of what our capabilities are and help guide our architects through the process. This project here in Columbus, Ohio, I didn't have the glory of selling this project. It's more of a recent project. But I wanted to show this project because it does show the form liners, which we'll talk about a little bit later. But also black mixes, which is also a very difficult thing to do. But it seems like everybody wants black, white, and gray these days. Wanted to also show this project, Mercy Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. This is actually a glazed thin brick. It looks like a tile, but it's a glazed thin brick. Kind of a similar story. An architect had a vision. We looked at it and said, what in the world is this architect thinking? But as we started to walk through and educate the architect, and we started educating our own people internally about how this could really turn out to be something that's precastable and have some repetitiveness to it, it really just took a life of its own. And it really turned out to be a fantastic, fantastic project. So those are a few projects we can kind of jump off on. So it's all you now, Steve. Just kidding. So let's start off by talking about, you know, what's your plant sample creation and approval process? Right. So just like it all starts with sales, right? Like you were referencing right away at the beginning of our webinar here today. Sample comes in the request, particularly here in the Wells group. We have different request sheets that get filled out. We always, from an operational or QC or production side, we always would like to have a sample, whether that's referencing something that we've done in the past and or looking at an existing sample that we have out there. If we could get pictures of the building or what it might look like or a sample of that, whether that be a piece of the stone or whatever we're trying to match. And then we start to talk about the blending of the aggregates and getting the matrix right and combining different sands and looking at does this take a color? Is it a dye? are we using white and gray together? All of those things that come in, and every one of them are uniquely different as everybody knows, every project is a little different. So that has to start right away at the beginning. We really push color matches and to make sure that that consistency is always there and that we can repeat it, right? And we'd be able to go from the sample to the mock-up into the actual building. So right away, it starts with sales through architect owner and then back into the operations. And we start with a 12 by 12. We go right to a 12 by 12. We might have a number of renditions of that 12 by 12. We might have to change it a little bit based on feedback, listening to the architect when they send that back to us. So once again, the earlier we start, the better understanding, being a good listener goes a long way, whether that be with your sales folks and the architect owner and trying to figure out exactly what they want and build that into that sample to start off on the right foot. Yeah, it's very similar to what I was speaking with Gary about. And so you talked a little bit about when you're making specifically 12 by 12s, I know a lot of times an architect might say, can you make it two shades darker, two shades lighter? Do you typically anticipate that and send out multiple shades of samples or do you just send one? That's our best guess, Mr. and Ms. Architect, let's start here. Yeah, there's some of us that deal with black and white in our daily lives. And then there are others that like to use ish and errs a lot. And the ish's and the errs, sometimes we will make a range or give a couple of different samples every time they go out. Trying to get into those people to figure out exactly what the ish's and the errs might be is kind of the key. And that goes back to being a good listener and trying to draw that out of them at the very beginning to try to figure that out and head it off right away at the beginning. But no, typically we will send out two, three, possibly even four, depending on what the sales or what the architect's actually looking for. So. Got it. And then kind of transitioning into when you do present those samples, right? You've sent out one set, two set, three set, four. At some point, an architect may be a little bit persnickety or an architect may not quite fully understand what some of the other tricks to try to put the nail on the head that we talked about. Well, there again, it comes back to being a good listener. And then also, I think there's one of the bigger pieces that we try to do a better job on it is the education part of it, right? Being able to explain what he or she might want or owner might want. Sometimes we just, we can get darn close, but there's going to be a better way or something that we might just want to twist a little bit better to make sure the project's going to be successful. So by doing that, by being a good listener and kind of walking them down that path of that education portion of it, it helps us to venture in and to make it more successful. Some of those tips and tricks, obviously using the different pigments, introducing the different grays or whites or a blend of the different cements, just educating them on the entire process and inviting them to the plant so they can see that these might be hurdles or what they're asking for is we can get close, but sometimes these are our hurdles or this is going to be the obstacle that we have to overcome. And if you can show that to them, sometimes that makes it a lot easier conversation and they get the understanding of exactly what we're trying to do. But ultimately, by all means, we're going to try to match as 100% all the time as we can. But when we do have those hurdles, I think it's a lot about the education and showing them how and why. So. Yeah, I like to give stories. I had an architect once said, he was trying to explain a color to me. And I was like, I don't have that crayon in my box, dude. I need something. Give me something I can deal with. And it can't be a piece of metal or a piece of glass, something I can get my hands around. He says, I want you to match the color of the Abu Dhabi desert. I thought I was gonna get a free trip to Abu Dhabi. That's what I thought. But no, he had a bowl full of sand from Abu Dhabi desert and he gave it to me in a little film canister, which if you're under 35 years old, you probably don't know what that is. But he gave me a little bit in a canister. I took it to Gary and Gary hit it dead on. I think we did two or three samples at once and took them into the architect. He picked the one right off and said, that's it, you crushed it. So like you said, the best way of getting close or starting to narrow it in is to get a sample of material that they wanna match. And that's always been the first big hurdle. Right, and again, if there's a piece of stone they're trying to match on the existing building or something that they want, that's always very, very helpful as well. I mean, anything that we can start with and build off of. Instead of trying to draw that out of their minds, that issues and urge some of us just don't operate in that world all the time. And if there's any architects on the call, I apologize, but sometimes architects are a little out of their mind. Tongue in cheek, come on, keep it light. So talk about the transition from 12 by 12s. Most people make 12 by 12s at a small mixer and a wheelbarrow or they're using Petri dishes to try to get the matrix right, et cetera. So taking that 12 by 12 to a full-size mock-up or an actual production sample, what's some of the challenges there for you guys? Sure, that's exactly what we do here at Wells is we do use lab mixers. Once we go to mock-up stage, that's when we are going to put it into our architectural mixers or structural mixers, depending on what we're matching but we're actually looking at real life, right? This mock-up stage is very, very important to start pointing out those differences or figuring out those hurdles as we're going through this mock-up process, whether that be going from a thin, say one inch 12 by 12 sample, now to a full-blown, you know, a 633 panel where we're actually, if we're doing that in the mock-up stage, a lot of times we will use the foam backer and show that backside. So moisture, curing, all these things start to come in. Hardness as it relates to the finish, whether we're putting, it might be a polish and or an acid etch or something like that on it. The texture really comes into play on the mock-up as well. And that's where we can start to find where these issues might come up with in that mock-up stage. And it's very helpful for the production or operation folks of exploring that and then also exposing it and having a conversation about that. You know, another really vital point that we shouldn't be comparing sample and mock-up to actual panel indoors. We, at Wells, we have what we call a showroom. It's on the south side of our finished building. So as panels are coming through, we're doing that comparison and we like to do it at two o'clock and look, just because the sun is right at a certain angle and at the same plane, we want to make sure everything is at that same plane. So we're not comparing different shadows or different looks to it. Now, on days when it's snowing or raining or cloudy, I mean, you have to take all those into consideration, right, but for the most part, we try to stay as consistent as we can and make sure that we're running everything through what we call our mock-up or our showrooms, showroom area. So the other thing that you really, at this time and this stage is look at repairs to figure out that patch mix, to figure out that range and show that and to be transparent so that way, when they are viewing the mock-up, they can see that what if there is a chip, a spall, something that we got to patch in, whether that be on a lifting, on a berk or what have you, that we definitely will be showing and being transparent and letting them know that this is what you could expect and get it out there in front of them so everybody knows, so. So those are excellent points because I think a couple of things that, being in sales and process and not in plant and technical, I look at those things, it's just those small things that mean a lot, which is indoor versus outdoor, making the repair, looking at a connection, how do you patch a connection? I've seen us before put three connections or three lifting loops in a top of a panel and didn't repair one of the three so they could see what that would look like, especially like in a parking garage. So that's one aspect of what we're talking about today is the process administration of working with your customers. The other is the technical. So a couple of things that, see if what your thoughts are is, have you ever had to maybe modify the pigment or modify the matrix or modify the sand content, et cetera, to go from a 12 by 12 to a full thickness panel to try to get the color, to get more representative of the 12 by 12? What kind of mix modifications have you had to do? In our 12 by 12 process, in-house we use a dry pigment, we'll use a powder form, and then when we go to actual production, we're actually using a liquid dye at that time. So yes, there's adjustments there that have to be made. We get some tribal knowledge goes a long way in that process, but there's also some very specific recipe that we follow to make sure that we're keeping that consistency and looking at that. So we will be tweaking our, for example, like for sure our dyes and our different things like that. Matrix-wise, as far as, yeah, sometimes I ask the Dutch if we have to tweak the sand a little bit and try to bring some more of that sand out, especially when it comes to contrasting mixes. Those are some of the more difficult ones, but it seems like those are the ones that everybody wants. You referenced the blacks, the tans, the whites, black and white for a finish or production type, that's usually the first one that scares us all to death, right? I mean, that high contrasting mix, but you can get there. It just takes some time and some of that tribal knowledge to get there. Basically anything that's going to change our color or change that texture, this is the time to sort those out. One that just jumped in my head is like an anti-graffiti. If we're going to, we're putting a building somewhere and the owner architect might want an anti-graffiti sprayed up 15, 20 feet off of wherever foot traffic is, that's definitely going to change the color. And we should show that, or at least talk about it and be transparent and be open. That's definitely going to change. It's going to change the look, so. Are you seeing my questions here? That was one of the questions we got. Okay, you're not supposed to see the questions playing. I'm supposed to throw those at the end to surprise you. So if anybody has any questions, be sure and send them over. We'll try to answer as many as we can at the conclusion of this. But kind of broke my thought. I had another question for you before we moved on, but it'll come back to me eventually. I guess this is it. Okay, this is why, again, why I relied on Gary so much is that I made sure that he never gave me, as he taught me this, he never gave me a sample that he couldn't make color consistently. So the skillset and the talent that we have in our QC departments, that they're just concrete mixologists, that talent and that skill is well worth it, is to rely on that going forward. As architects want what they want, what they see in their head, and it's up to our QC guys and our mixologists to deliver. So it's a huge, and in a color consistent manner. So let's talk a little bit about shapes, multiple mixes and finishes and some intricacies. So how's the sample process different when it comes to a flat panel, relatively simplistic design, as opposed to something that's going to have some shape to it? Right, you know, we usually, me personally at Wells, if we can go larger at that time, it's usually better. And I know there's a cost to that, and there's a lot of money that gets involved, especially on a mock-up. If you can achieve it with a four by four, by all means, that's great. But if we have multiple features, if we have a lot of different detail that's going in, this is a time where I, and we've seen a trend here more at Wells as of late of going more to an eight by eight and being able to show all those features of if we have multiple finishes, whether that be sandblast or acid etch and some polish combined in there. These also give us the ability to kind of work through some of the gotchas that we might end up, once we get into full-scale production. I mean, you can, I think it's safe to say that we can all make a four by four look really, really good on that smaller scale. But when you have to do that and lay different reveals down and try to go to an eight by eight or a 10 by 10 or whatever that might be on a larger scale, that definitely starts to show up and expose some different things that you might not have thought about, whether that be one color to two or just looking at, looking at, to be quite honest here, the back face is sometimes things that we overlook again, whether that's power trawl or maybe there's an acid etch on the front and then are we going to get some acid streaking on the back if we're not flooding or taking some precautions there to stop that acid streaking on the backside. But these are the times that we should really be working on to expose all that and talk about it. A lot of the other part too is, we have a lot of parking ramp that are architectural spandrels, but they're more of an architectural spandrel where we're combining the dyes and not only do we need the strength, but we need that appearance, that color, that finish, that look, that texture. But we sometimes think about, we don't think about the patching of the side burks or whatever lifting devices. How does that look? How does that all tie in? And showing all these conditions in one of the pictures there you have, you have some cornices and the architect may want an 18 inch type cornice, but is it possible? Can you get by with eight? I don't know. Is that something that we should show? And I agree at this time, this is probably the best time to do that. Can we save you some money here and do you really need an 18 inch projected cornice or would an eight or a 10 inch be sufficient? Can you show that? And I think that's what Gary was probably going to talk about right here in these pictures. Oh, that's exactly right. We had another project. That's why we made those mock-ups is that we were trying to work with a developer who had a very tight budget. And we're like, well, this is what you drew and this is what we can do. Don't remember what the outcome of that was, but that's why we made those. And once we made one, we might as well make some other colors in it. We also did a project that went the other way. Architects spent gobs of time, if that's a word, working out all these intricate details of how reveal strips were going to be able to cascade down the panel and go cross horizontally and go around windows and all this great stuff. But the mixed design was about the same color as that gray on the picture on the right, the bottom part of that. And then where the building was set, they got lost. There was no sun on that building ever. So all that time wasted trying to create this intricate reveal patterns that basically just got lost because they're only three quarter inch deep. They weren't pronounced enough to really create anything. So I strongly suggest that if somebody, if an architect owner is really looking at for some details like that, it's best just to go ahead and put them in a mock-up form, whether it be a true mock-up or it's just some mini samples. So let's talk a little bit about form liners. How's the sample process different with form liners for you guys? Well, I mean, obviously every time we have a liner that comes up, whether that be a rock face, and that discussion or a decision has to be made at that time of plastic versus rubber, where do the seams line up? A lot of those things have to be thought about and talked about right away. And this is, once again, during that mock-up, that is the time to show that. There's a lot of different producers out there of it. There is a lot of liners can grow, they can shrink the different oils that you're using, the heat, there's just so many different things that can happen. So this is probably the best time to go ahead and throw those out there and start troubleshooting everything that you have in front of you. Some of the seams could be some big issues, just the way that that seams up. And if we can do the layout properly and get that hidden and or bring it to the corner or to the joint, whatever it might be, or possibly even breaking it up with a reveal pattern that it jumps back up. Those are all the things that we need to talk about and get the buy-in from the owner and the architects, so. Yeah, and we've also found, again, talking to form liner suppliers, as I was talking to them about some questions here and some points to bring up, the thinner the form liner is, the cleaner your beds need to be. Yeah, thinner liners are more economical, and in some cases, are the perfect choice, especially if you've got some real highly textured liners, like you see in that picture on the left. I think you can see where those bands, you probably could go with a little bit thinner liner, depending on how to get that depth. But really, what I would suggest that you do, coming from the form liner people, is to procure the form liner, make a sample, and a small piece of sand underneath a thin liner can turn into a golf ball dimple when the sun's hitting it just right. So just, it's really be important to make sure you consult with the form liner company to say, this is the project we're doing, this is the kind of repetitiveness, these are the transitions, and really have them recommend the best liner for the job, because if you do have a thin liner and you're not cleaning that bed perfectly, that will, whatever's underneath that liner is gonna show through. We've seen where you try to overlap even ribs, where rib on top of rib can create a difference in appearance at the end of the day, because that seam is shown. And again, talking to Gary, he's like, you gotta inspect your panels daily, because liners do shift. Liners do some crazy things when that concrete's in there and through the hydration. So if you're using any kind of, no matter what liner you're using, it's really good to have somebody put their eyes on those panels in a very critical manner to make sure that liner is staying exactly where you want it, and everything's lining from panel to panel also. Would you agree with that, Steve? Absolutely, yep. Okay, cool. Got a couple of questions here, but we've only got one more question, and I think this is a very, very important question, not because I sold thin brick for all these years, but just because I think I get a lot of questions about thin brick from producers. So let's talk about embedded brick, terracotta, and stone a little bit. Sure, so probably the largest one with us, with the brick, we really like to, we like to procure, we like to secure our whole lot of whatever we're making our sample and our mock-up from, we want those to be of that same lot that we will be producing. With the longer lead times and the things get stretched out, especially with our supply chains right now, sometimes it makes it a little more difficult, but when at all costs, we would rather produce the sample, the mock-up, using that allotment of that brick, if the architect has already named that brick or looked at it. Some of the issues that we come up with in the brick, that if they're not within PCI tolerance, the liner's got to fit, and there's a lot of good, there's a lot of wonderful plastic liner companies that will custom fit them. We will send the bricks out a lot of times, whether that's terracotta or, just depending on the brick size, and get a custom liner made if needed. So that way we're getting a proper fit to eliminate that, what we would call eyebrowing of, if the brick is slightly out of tolerance or if it's not a tight fit, you can get what we call eyebrowing, which you get a lot of paste that comes back through, so you got extra work of cleaning and getting that all, getting the tuck point and everything back to where it should be. We also see when we have those bowing or banana-type bricks, it can lead to a little more cracking as we're walking across and placing these. It could also lead to some tipping, or you might even call it a floating brick, if you will, just not being square in that liner. As far as terracotta, once again, terracotta is a very, very long lead time, wonderful product. One thing that I took away from that whole experience is that as we off-stacked the, it will come to you in a pallet, not necessarily in the order in which we're using it, so you got to kind of sort through it. We learned early on that we couldn't just take our random guy workers, laborers right off the bed. We had special guys that actually wore white gloves because the oil, if you had some formal oil or rust or what have you, because the terracotta is so porous and absorbed that we had to use gloves to kind of sort through that, or else we would end up seeing little fingerprints in the terracotta, so one of those takeaways is that we used just a white cotton-type glove that went right on. And kind of leading back to the brick a little bit, I don't mean to jump around, but there's something that also jumped at me is the waxing of the brick to make sure that we're getting the proper wax, whether they be quarter bricks or returns or what have you, that that wax isn't too heavy, and then that's changing that fit in there, or not enough, and then we're scraping and possibly doing damage to that face of that brick as well or creating more work for us. But the PCI-tolerant brick is going to set us up, in my opinion only, that makes a world of difference from an operations or a production standpoint. When we are out of tolerance, that seems to be the most, when we end up having a little more issue from a production side, so. And I'll add to that corner brick and edge caps, that sort of thing too. It's very important that working with your architect, working with your thin brick provider, getting a good realistic understanding of how the corner brick is going to be able to create, whether you got the corbeling or you got a window setback or it's the corner of the building, what kind of joint do you want? Is it a return? Is it a miter joint? Really having those, it's cork miters, really having those discussions up front and giving architects those options because each one of those can affect how you approach the job. Some producers say, you know, I'd love cork miters because they're great for us. Others are like, nope, we just do nothing but miters. Others want those big three foot returns. So each producer is different, but whatever process that your plant likes to do, I would just suggest making a couple of mockups from different couple of brick manufacturers proactively, put them in your display yard. And that way, when those architects, you get them into your plan or even photographically, you can video your guys doing it. It's a good way of educating your customer about what the options are there. So we do have a few questions. We're probably not gonna get to all of them, but we're gonna try. First question is, how do you explain color shifts in aggregates to the customer and how you define an acceptable range for a finished product? So that's an excellent question. This is one we kind of bantered back and forth too, is that, you know, I've seen this in projects where you get a couple of loads of rock in, everything looks great. And the third load, you got a little bit more grays in it. And the fourth, you got a little more whites in it. I mean, it's, how do you handle that? So, excuse me, particularly right in the, I'll just use the Albany location in Central Minnesota. There's a lot of granites in that area, one being a very large granite producer. And as we go through those different veins or as that producer is mining, it can change, I would say daily. I don't wanna say weekly, but there is definitely a distinct difference of the pinkish or red, if you will, switching to black. So once again, we always challenge sales in working with the architects that if we know that that's the one that we're going towards and we make this sample, once again, we'll try to procure that and haul as all of it or as much of it as we possibly can. Because we know that the tribal knowledge tells us, right, that a lot of those, some of those quarries that are subject that they change that much. They're that volatile that we definitely will try to secure that as much and bring it in house and bring it right on the yard and set it in the bunkers. How do you do that without? How do you combat it? How do you make an acceptable range? If you don't have those options, that's a tough one. I maybe a recommendation I might have is you might have to make a couple of different samples or maybe there are even some pie tin muffin type ones or some smaller ones that can show that different range or that different aggregate color, if you will, or that contrast as the quarry changes. But you got to remember, this is man-made material and it's going to change and Mother Earth is doing it and we just got to combat it the best that we can and try to figure it out, so. Yeah, because there's two things that we did when I was at a precast plant was just do a good job of blending the material that you do get. Like you said, you're bringing in two or three or more truckloads into a bin and just don't, just put truckload one, truckload two, truckload three and hope for the best. Try to blend as you go. Larger projects definitely have a risk to them because you don't have bin space for that much rock. And I've been in situations where you've got five different mixes being poured in the same day, so you don't have enough bins for the different mixes that you have. So managing, proactively managing every aspect of that, again, communication, communication, communication back to your supplier and let them know how much rock you're getting, how soon you need it and how to procure the right colors is probably the best you're going to be able to do, but you're not going to be able to tell the quarry, hey, don't move, don't move from the east side to the west side, you know? Right. So hopefully that helps answer your question. I know part of that was how you define an acceptable range for finished products, the range samples. You guys typically do range samples by, you know, depending on the mix, depending on the finish or just that's just what you do for every job. That's what we will do for every job. And then in certain regions in the Midwest group, a lot of times we'll go out with the one because we might have a little more finicky, I would say a little more specialized that we have to be dead on. And that one, you know, the range sample is great. It can establish what could be expected, but we're always thriving to hit that very, the one that is perfect, so. Yeah, so here's another question. Have you ever had a scenario where you have had an architect not know exactly what he or she wants as a starting point for the color finish, but not a finished spot in mind? Are there precautions we take in beyond the sample process other than, I'll add, other than I got to have a sample approved by Friday or your job's delayed three months? Other than that. You know, for the most part, my experience is yes, it has happened and I would, you know, I have to call myself a liar here if I didn't say it didn't happen. I mean, we do have those ones that linger out there. You know, everybody has those jobs that you made, you know, 10, 12 different samples until we got the color right. And now we're pushing the mock up through and we want to hurry up and get going because we got to produce in say two weeks or what have you. But once again, it comes back to being a good listener, trying to educate the architect, the owners of what can you achieve and where can you get there? Now, it's going to take some time to figure that out of what they're exactly looking for. But I'd always go back to, you know, like you said with the example of the sand, give us some kind of an example, give us a swatch, look at the, well, another great resource is using the PCI handbook with the different finishes. They can reference different aggregates, they can reference different finishes, whether that be exposed, sandblast, an acid etch, what have you. Try to form it up or rail it up if you would to get them going the right way. It's going to take some time. And that's, again, I can't say enough. You got to be a good listener and try to figure that out and help with that process, if that answers it. I think it does. I think it gives them, you know, the listeners to a little bit of direction. You know, we can't solve all their problems in the next seven minutes, right? Just, I'm trying to, it's so hard to work a silent room. We have three very good questions. We're not going to be able to get to them, but I wanted to list the question. And then I got one last question to ask you. One was maintaining color consistency on a large wall area, which is difficult. You know, how do you set expectations when you know you're going to struggle with color consistency? I think that's a question I would love to tackle. And I appreciate the question, but we're not going to really be able to get that, sorry. We'll try to hit that next month, okay? Are you seeing trends for applied materials like natural stone, tile, glazed products, et cetera? And how do you sample those? Quick answer would be, you'd have to have the tile setter come in if you're not going to self-perform that work and just have them actually lay that up in the plant. So that if you're going to do some natural stone that just can't be cast in, or maybe a glazed tile or a porcelain tile, the best way to do it is to go ahead and build the mock-up, leave that insert and just have somebody come put that in there. The other one was, I guess I think we addressed that one already. So let's do this one right here. Is it typical for other pre-casters to use a structural back mix instead of a full white architectural? And if so, should you create samples with intentional cold joints? So I would, if this was at one of our facilities, we would, if we're going to try to make that color come out and I think I'm reading the question as almost like an architectural mixture, that face needs to be just the architectural, but you need that structural layer. What we're going to do, we'll definitely try to do that. We've had a cold joint or not a cold joint, but raked it and then poured back over the top to get that bond. We've also, if it's an engineering solid and we had to put some bars sticking back through, whatever we need that way from an engineering standpoint, but whatever you're going to do in the actual process in how you're going to produce these in the production run, you definitely want to show that in the mock-up. I mean, you could have some bleed, you could have some different things that are going on. So in that case, yes, I would say we have done that and we would do that. With the architectural, you just need to be careful that we're not disturbing again. You need to look at means and measures of vibration back on the top, whether that be just by using a vibrating screed or what have you. So, or not unless you're pouring an SCC or whatnot, so. Yeah, cause I've seen where they want like a white face mix, what they want, they want gray inside because the stair towers are going to be gray, right? The double Ts are gray, the columns are gray, the cast in place is gray. So they want the gray from the inside for consistency, but they want the white on the outside. And then of course, as a producer, I want to put that little 45 degree miter on the back of my panel, or I want to tool that edge. But you got those two colors come together on the back edge. So you want the white on the top, the white on the bottom, but you want gray in the back. And what we did in the past is we went ahead, we would insist on making a, whether it's a four by four, if it's a eight wide by six tall, a full thickness piece. And we would specifically call that out, put that on the sample review form. I think that's what we called it. And then have them sign it and take photographs of it. And again, I'm old. So that was back when you didn't have cameras to, you didn't have a camera on your phone. You had to actually take a picture and hope the hell it came out. But yeah, we would do it that way. So it's just, it's document, document, document. Think of every scenario. The more you can think ahead of the time while your brain's cranking at your desk versus staying out at a job site when everyone's pointing at a hundred panels saying we don't like it, that's what you do. Just prevent as much as you can. So with that, hopefully we got to a lot of the questions. I definitely want to talk about this maintaining color consistency on a large wall area on our next webinar. I'll put that at the front of the webinar and I'll get smarter people than me. And I don't know if I can find anyone smarter than Steve that'll help me answer that question. So I'll have you some solutions for that next time. And with that, I want to thank Steve very much for your time today, Steve. Well, thank you, Randy. It was my pleasure. I enjoyed it. Hopefully everybody got something out of it and happy St. Patrick's Day to everybody. And if you're not Irish, I'm sure you will be tonight for a little time. So hope everybody enjoyed it. Yep, and I also wish you want to put one out for, put Gary and his family in your prayers going forward today and this weekend. And with that, I just remind everybody that our next workshop will be April 21st. It's usually the third Thursday of the month. Sometimes we may have to modify that a little bit based on other things, but that's the one scheduled. And with that, thank everyone for attending and I'll patch it back to Nicole. Thank you, Randy. On behalf of PCI, I'd like to thank our presenters for a great presentation. If you have any further questions about today's webinar, please email marketingatpci.org. Thank you again. Have a great day and stay safe.

architectural precast concrete projects

sample creation

sample approval

clear communication

color consistency

form liners

embedded brick

terracotta

stone