[Gordon Doull]

Welcome, AK Dave. It is good to have you aboard.

“mispeelings and Typos”? Oh man, you’re gonna fit in great around here. 😉

I look forward to hearing from you.

[Gene McDonald]

hello Eveyone! My name is gene McDonald and I just started Refresh Interiors Inc. in St. Petersburg, florida. I love Solid Surface difficult and awesome challenged projects, my business is refreshing old solid surface jobs, by repairs then sanded and mostly i get calls for polishing Avonites Polyesters, I have made inlaid SS doors already with Aluminum Laminate, Won the 2006 Fab award in SF magazine for my backlit bar top, April 2007 Sf magazine printed an article I wrote about Solid Surface Ambition for the beginner, I made cabinetry out of SS for Nokia, glass series conference tables, Ive done alot of Citron Ice by formica for the Arnold palmer hospital in Orlando…Whew..30 sheets of that color i can’t seem to get outta my head…I might need therapy for that who knows, I’m not too confident in thermoforming yet …but i will be soon , I been doing woodwork and laminate for at least 20 years, For the past 8 i’ve been doing commercial exhibits and alot of stuff like that, I’m good friends with FEDSAW Dave (I think), Sf magazine chopped out all my good brownnose remarks about Dave, he let me know it when I was in the shop the other day… Man all them router bits he thru at me hurt !! ha-ha-ha Anyway…I love chess, Bruce Lee and Old School Punk Rock…I’m from Elizabeth, New Jersey and in 94 i flew south for the winter and never flew back to jersey. I love this network and look forward to someday meeting youse guys.
Gene

[David Gerard]

Hey Gene , Good to meet ya. Tighten down your router bit cause these folks are spot on with the right info ,some zany stuff too. My life didn’t begin till I found “The Fabricator Network” David G.

[Aatif Markar]

Hello everybody out there in internet world.. My name is Eddie. I’m located in ST. Petersburg, Fla.. I’m new to this site. I’m also new to the whole cabinet making/solid surface world… I was a union dock worker in N.J. up until 4 months ago..I am working with a good friend named Gene McDonald who owns Refresh Interiors Inc. in ST. Pete he is teaching me about this new world of cabinet making/solid surface.. I think it is really cool stuff there is so many things that can be done with S.S.. I have soooooo much to learn..I went to the ISSFA convention in Orlando not to long ago and was amazed with everthing going on.. It was pretty cool to see all those fabricators united.. My friend Gene won an award which was cool for me because he’s the one teaching me how to work with the S.S. Well I just wanted to interduce myself to you all and to thank Andy for having this site I also want to thank the old school S.S. guys for getting S.S. out there and known..

[JesseS]

Hello everyone. I am new to the site but I think this is great for Fabricators new and old alike. I started in the countertop industry working in the warehouse for the Wilsonart Distributor in Memphis, TN in 1984. I worked my way up to outside sales and was there for about 10 years. I went through Wilsonarts training on the original Gibraltar. Later I left there and went to work for one of my customers who opened his own shop doing postform and solid surface. There I gained a whole new respect for countertop fabricators. After 5 years there I went to work as rep for a solid surface importer and opened my own company with my father-in-law out of his garage. At that time all we sold was Gem sanders and abrasives for the Gem Sander. Now although my father-in-law has passed away my wife and I run what is now WEBB Supply Inc in Munford TN selling adhesives, sinks, bits, blades, tools and alot of other supplies to solid surface, stone, quartz and laminate countertop fabricators. I am amazed at how much this industry has changed in the last 5 years in this area. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out something else changes. I look forward to the opportunity to stay in touch better on a nationwide level through this forum.

[Brian Smith]

Hello, I am Brian Smith. I am located in Melbourne,FL (east, central coast) I work for Source1 Inc. Source 1 Inc. is a distributor of Solid Surface and Cultured Marble products. Thanks Andy for pointing that out! I thought I added that to my original quote, sorry again.

A little about me:

I have been in the Solid Surface and Cultured Marble industry for about four years now. I know far more about Cultured Marble than Solid Surface which is what brings me here. I am 26 years old so I’m fairly new to just about everything :). I’m helping a friend start this business (we’ve been in full operation for about two weeks) but I worked for another company before this that specialized in Cultured Marble, which is why I know more about that vs. fabrication. I really look forward to reading everyones posts, and chiming in from time to time. Please drop some knowledge on me.

Make it a great day would ya!

Brian Smith

[Tom M]

Hi, Brian.

Melbourne is a nice area. My folks spend the Winter in Cape Canaveral.

You will see Matt posting often. He also runs a cultured marble shop that makes their own SS as well.

You’re in good company.

Tom

[Brian Smith]

Melbourne is very nice. Much better than (weather anyway) than Columbus, which is where I’m from originally. I live pretty close to Cape Canaveral and I like going out there to dine. Where are you from?

[Lenny E]

Hi all,

Its me Lenny, I never knew this thread existed. So for the benefit of the newbies this is the boring tale of the circuitous route I took to the SS biz. ..Im pretty opinionated, call em as I see em, and most people either love me or hate me for that. Please forgive the length. For those afflicted by insomnia read on (guaranteed to cure that). For all others either skip the rest or snag some No Doze tablets before reading further.

Most of you moldy oldies (like me) know me, but some may be surprised by a detail or two.

Skool Daze: BS in Chemistry. Completed some grad courses along the way. Almost got kicked out junior college during a summer session (near July the 4th) along with 2 friends for making a dilute form of a contact explosive and painting it everywhere. Ever time someone sat on a toilet seat, closed a door, desk drawer etc, a loud pop would be heard accompanied by some purple smoke. Good clean fun (lottsa laffs- no one hurt in the least, and it was the talk of the campus) but the administration was not amused by our antics. Today we would most likely be taken into custody by the FBI, accused of being a terrorist sleeper cell and end up in on a nameless CIA flight with a long running story on CNN for a stupid prank like that. How times change. I participated in demos against the Viet Nam War.

In spite of the above I started my career working exclusively for Private Military Contractors in the mid 70’s (in the foreign military sales program and also management of an Air Force Project) Private contractors worked for include Air Freight International, CFE Air Cargo, Kenworthy, Hoblemann, Lear Sieglar Inc., etc. That’s about all I can say about those days.

I resigned that fascinating biz to do a 4 year stint as a filtration chemist working for a subsidiary of Brunswick (mainly membrane filtration, Reverse osmosis and industrial applications). I was recruited from there by Nevamar in the 80’s working in R&D mainly on Fountainhead SS but did some laminate work also.

Nevamar was bought by International Paper in the 90s which in turn sold the solid surface portion to Formica in 99. Formica was stopped by the Justice Dept (anti trust considerations) from acquiring the laminating part of the biz.

I resigned from Formica (Creative Differences) in late 2000 taking a position at ISSFA (as Technical Director) during the glory days under Mike Duggan. When ISSFA went under new management they bought out my contract (Major Creative Differences) early in 2004 and I established Ba Shi Ba Inc.

Due to an increasing amount of work I was doing in the Orient (China, Taiwan, Korea, Philippines etc.) I moved to China in late 2004 spending about a week per year in the US. I met my wife and step daughter here in China. Some of Ba Shi Ba’s more interesting clients include Formica, Samsung, .Vistas Group International, Grandstone International Inc., ICPA, Hudson Surfaces, Bateman Gibson LLC, (I was the expert witness for the plaintiffs in the SSV class action suit) as well as others TNTC (too numerous to Count).

Worked mainly on solid surface, designing new patterns and process as well as problem solving. I have been onsite for the building 3 separate SS factories in the orient. and actually lived in a Chinese workers dorm for 7 months (an experience to say the least). This work was responsible for hundreds of containers (I haven’t broken a thousand yet) exported to the US and Europe and has taken me to at least 13 different countrys so far. I branched out into E stone last year, doing design work etc. for that industry. Did a little work on laminate and Stainless Steel sinks also. Along the way I garnered 7 patents (all for SS) and put in applications for 2 more. I am currently working on 2 other patent applicaions.

My favorite patent (and product) is for the award winning acrylic glow in the dark solid surface and I also own 1/3 of that company which is just now coming into its own. I was reading David G’s post and see you also do guitars. While working with laminates I had a chance to play a few riffs on a laminate guitar prototype we were working on several years back. I liked the sound. What do you think of them?

I once talked to the managers of Cheap Trick (one of fav groups) about having a guitar fabricated from our glow in the dark solid surface product for Rick Nielsen. Heard he was a big fan of the sound made by solid surface electric guitars. It went no where but was an interesting conversation. Just goes to show you why I absolutely love this biz. Its so darn interesting and you get to meet and interact with such fascinating folks, My advice to everyone is to visit Fabnet and Geeks you will met quite a collection of knowledge and talent there. Darn good folks.

I reside in the garden city of Jiangmen (southern China in Guangdong province- no heavy industry- relatively clean air compared to other cities here) with my wife, daughter, mother in law, 2 cats, and 4 turtles. Jiangmen has no airport, or train station but is accessible by boat and car for the more adventurous among you. I have a Chinese drivers license (Im known as Chen Wei Lun in China- that’s the name on the license- don’t ask it’s a long story) and be forewarned-Driving in China is a bit like herding psychotic cats. So my advice is take a cab, a bus or take the boat. My offices are also in Jiangmen. (contact info below).

Last year I put our daughter into Canadian school here in China where she is the best English speaker in her class. Her mother has cautioned our daughter not to use those 4 letter words Daddy sometimes utters while working. I am working on improving that bad habit.
.
Best Regards.

Lenny Elbon
CEO Ba Shi Ba Inc. (12 hours ahead of EST)
Cell: +86-137-2308-1105
Email: bashibainc@yahoo.com
Landline/fax: +86-0750-333-0435

[David Gerard]

Hi Lenny, Good to meet ya. You can picture me now doing the “I’m not worthy ” skit from” Waynes World” after I read your intro. I saw the other day at my luthiers friends shop a solid type of plastic lam. elec guitar. never saw one before. Red & white strat. I must say it was very unattractive but the luthier said it was his fav amoungst his elec collection. I mostly do acoustic stuff.

I would like to see the glow in the dark stuff. What brand is it? Here in the land of dark winters that stuff could be fun.

Cheers David G.

[Chris]

Hello all,

My name’s Chris Abate. I currently reside in Rhode Island and I work in Mass. I’m the Founder/President of Crystallyne Enterprises and the primary author of our countertop estimating software QuickQuote.

I hold a BS in Computer Information Systems from Bentley College in Waltham, MA. That means I’m designed to translate geek to normal-speak and back again.

I have worked in various computer fields including the dreaded tech support for the last seven years or so. Five years ago my father who is a fabricator in MA got me working on QuickQuote. A couple years later I went into business for myself to sell it at his insistence. Despite being a somewhat typical computer geek, I still get drafted from time to time to help out Dad in the shop, and believe it or not I spent this past weekend washing, wrapping, and loading tops.

In my spare time I will take in a good movie, play some video games, or watch SciFi on TV with the guys. I also enjoy writing as a hobby and had a column in the college newspaper for two and a half years. I even have had the good fortune to post a guest commentary in Surface Fabrication Magazine about purchasing software for businesses. I also love a spirited debate and can be found under many aliases railing against or for certain issues on a myriad of forums.

I look forward to getting to know you all.

Chris

[Lenny E]

Hi Crys,

Sorry I have limited time for long names. Im sure Gordon (a fabnet genius) or others will give u a well deserved shorter handle. Still love that T MO avatar Gordon posted, been laughing silly over that for a while. Welcome to the fabnet. Make sure you thank Andy and all the hard working peeps who make this miracle happen. All geeks are welcome..even the puter ones. Im the insane geek incarnate from hades and site resident until they boot me. (it happenned B4 on the ISSFA site after a few uncomfortable questions) If this stuff is of interest, try LenSmiths site ..www.solidsurfacegeeksom, or if its your last day on earth and you have run out of optiions, and are totally bored try http://www.issfa.org, some smart ALEC just recently put a tell all psot under granite.

Anyway, have fun, hope u get some biz from here.

See ya 2morrow, my wife is saying its bedtime for bonzo in China. . .

B Rgds,

Lenny

[David Gerard]

Hi Chris, I had the pleasure of speaking with you and your family in Orlando. Lots of interesting things going on here.

Iv’e learned to type with 2 fingers and a thumb in the short time Iv’e been hanging out in fabber space.

Cheers David G.

[Chris]

Ah thank you for yhe warm welcome.

And indeed, thank you for pointing out I had been remiss in thanking our hosts. I would certainly like to convey my appreciate and gratitude for those who help carry fabricators into the 21st century. 🙂

[Chris]

Appreciation, even.

[Author]

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