[Un-Authorized]

I’m leaving for the airport in an hour or so, I’ll watch the game there. The day before yesterday, I checked the ISFA website, booked my $211.00 round trip airfare to Vegas, then booked the ISFA repair training by Fred Hueston. I got an email from ISFA that they were refunding my money, the training was cancelled.  But then I thought for $211.00 bucks, I’m going to the show anyway. I stay with friends in Henderson so even with a car rental I’m going cheap.

The guys from the http://www.dirtygrout forum are meeting at the Aurora bar in the Luxor at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. That should be fun. I’m sure I’ll see some SFA brothers too.

I’ll keep y’all posted here.

Joe

[KCWOOD]

Posted By Kowboy on 22 Jan 2012 03:39 PM
I’m leaving for the airport in an hour or so, I’ll watch the game there. The day before yesterday, I checked the ISFA website, booked my $211.00 round trip airfare to Vegas, then booked the ISFA repair training by Fred Hueston. I got an email from ISFA that they were refunding my money, the training was cancelled.  But then I thought for $211.00 bucks, I’m going to the show anyway. I stay with friends in Henderson so even with a car rental I’m going cheap.

The guys from the http://www.dirtygrout forum are meeting at the Aurora bar in the Luxor at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. That should be fun. I’m sure I’ll see some SFA brothers too.

I’ll keep y’all posted here.

Joe

I hear attendance at the shows out there is very low.

Joe, you think the training class got cancelled because you signed up and everyone else back out? LOL   Just Kiddin

[Un-Authorized]

Kelsey:

Dustin Broadway from the SFA told me Mr. Hueston has a history of not showing for his scheduled training. I have not confirmed this.
The show was pretty well-attended.

This is a ring saw. I had no idea such a tool existed. If you need some glass, tile, or stone cut into small shapes and don’t have a quarter-million-dollar saw jet laying about this will do the job for less than a grand. The demo guy stuck his finger in the blade – twice- and I damned near passed out each time he did it. I declined his invitation to test it. It will cut tile but not flesh. Go figure.

This is pretty cool; I don’t know how big it will be. The idea is to mechanically adjust and fasten granite countertop seams together from underneath. Watch out Gorilla Grips.

Damn, I love this place.

I ran into Chad and Ray and had a nice conversation with Chuck Sawyer and Jay Shah.

The thing I noticed is that there are constantly new and more efficient ideas/products at these shows. You ignore change at your own peril. “We’ve always done it this way” is the kiss of death in business.

I was talking to a fabricator we all know and love and he was telling me that he’d been getting a lot of tile backsplash work lately, but his guys make two trips waiting for the thinset to bond the tile. Yes, the new spray-on glue is more expensive than thinset, but think of the time you save paying guys to ride in the truck and clean up twice. Think of how grateful your customer is they didn’t have to take another day off work since they hired you instead of Mr. Old Fashioned. Plus, you can see your layout lines through the adhesive, not through thinset. It works perfectly for the glass tile that’s all the rage these days too. This is the cliched no-brainer.

http://www.TileRedi.com makes an amazing and cheap shower pan. Plop the pan and tile it. Done and no leaks ever.

I”ve got a plane to catch in a bit. I leave here at 2:30 p.m. and get home at 9:30 p.m. I can never figure out that time changey thing.

Later,

Joe

[Gordon Shell]

Thanks for the update Joe, wish I could have made it to the show, too busy here.

As far as the thinset idea, I just installed Glass tile in my own kitchen, I used a very kool but expensive product sold off the shelf at Lowes, it is a very strong double stick tape 18 or 24″ width, 10 feet in length, you stick it to the wall and then just peel off the front side as you lay your sheets of glass tile, you can grout immediately, no return trips. I did approx 30lin ft of backsplash in about 3 hours with grout and cuts, the product is called Bondera, I think I paid 32.00 for a 18″x10′ roll, well worth it I think.

[Gordon Shell]

here is the link for Bondera
http://www.bonderatilematset.com/index.html

good video too. The stuff works great for glass tile because you dont see the trowel lines of the thinset thru the tile.

[Andy Graves]

Hey Joe,

Looks like some pretty cool stuff. I can’t believe you wimped out not touching the blade.

I hope to make it to the show tomorrow, will fly up. We are just swamped and I am glad so I am not complaining but it makes it difficult to make it to shows.

[Un-Authorized]

Posted By Andy Graves on 25 Jan 2012 06:25 PM
Hey Joe,

Looks like some pretty cool stuff. I can’t believe you wimped out not touching the blade.

I hope to make it to the show tomorrow, will fly up. We are just swamped and I am glad so I am not complaining but it makes it difficult to make it to shows.

Andy:

You go and touch the blade. Make a video so we can see it. Call me a wimp, I don’t care.

Be sure to check out the genuine stone veneer that is as thin and workable as plastic laminate. Freaky.

You know I can’t go anywhere without finding poor countertop repairs. This is in the Men’s room at Mandalay Bay. It’s got about three more lavs going the other direction. The edge built-up bond failed and they just gooed it back together. It tapers to a nice lamination.

Mmmm… how’s that for a lamination?
 

This blasphemy, along with the above, is located at the eatery at the State museum; I can’t remember the dang name. Yeah, all that funk is someone trying to polish a 3cm drop edge flush. The food was excellent, but hard to keep down after seeing this.

My buddy Dave spins the top of a granite thingie at the museum. Dave and his wife Pat were the best man and matron of honor at my wedding, September 26, 1981. They left our wedding in the Ford pick-up and headed to Vegas where Dave pursued a career as a bass guitar player. Now he’s a kitchen designer at Lowe’s and plays on the weekends.
 

Dave’s daughter Ginny and her boyfriend Antonio. I held Ginny in my arms when she was three and saw snow for the first time at the Grand Canyon. I hadn’t seen her in three years or so and I’m not ashamed to say I got a little weepy when I hugged her when they came for dinner.

Here’s the new bridge taken from the Hoover dam.

Here’s the Hoover dam taken from the bridge.

Joe

[Andy Graves]

What surprises me more than the poor fabrication is the fact someone accepted it. When we have the smallest imperfection, we get called out on it and have to fix it. Not that we don’t want it to be perfect, but some things are just not even noticable.

Maybe we just have customers that are more particular.

Any other new stuff at the show?

[Len Smith]

Posted By Andy Graves on 27 Jan 2012 12:02 PM

What surprises me more than the poor fabrication is the fact someone accepted it. When we have the smallest imperfection, we get called out on it and have to fix it. Not that we don’t want it to be perfect, but some things are just not even noticable.

Maybe we just have customers that are more particular.

Any other new stuff at the show?

I think some of the hotels have in-house “trained” staff to repair things.

[Miles Crowe]

Joe,

I hate I missed you. We could have gone to the SFA party together. All those guys think that you and I sleep together anyway!

I thought the show was well attended. I only got to spend one day at the actual show. I think the biggest new developments are in the area of production/scheduling software. I saw a couple of things that blew me away. I thought the actual number of vendors was low.

I was a presenter at the Stone Installation forum and the turnout was much better than I anticipated. The discussion these days is more geared towards business issues than toward technical fabrication/installation stuff.

[Un-Authorized]

Posted By Andy Graves on 27 Jan 2012 12:02 PM

Any other new stuff at the show?

Andy:

I bought one of these.

Joe

[Un-Authorized]

Posted By Miles Crowe on 28 Jan 2012 02:33 PM
Joe,

I hate I missed you. We could have gone to the SFA party together. All those guys think that you and I sleep together anyway! 

Miles:

I shook hands with your very dear friend Ron Hannah. Then he asked me how I had the nerve to show up at the show. Uh, well Ron, perhaps it’s because I haven’t done anything wrong or for which I’m ashamed? Talk about nerve. Geesh.

I still have many friends in the SFA, but they have to keep underground or they’ll be kicked out too.

I’m sorry I missed the party. I’m sure we would have had a great time. I was able to have dinner and drinks with Cameron DiMille, Ted McFadden, Mark DeFusco and others who hang out at http://www.dirtygrout.com

Joe

[David Gerard]

yep, that can be one hostile crowd over there. Did you at least try and climb the “Mt Busty” there in the pic? Good on you for going Joe, it’s a very interesting facet of our industry that I get absolutly no opportunity to be around. thanks.

[Un-Authorized]

Posted By David Gerard on 30 Jan 2012 11:38 PM
yep, that can be one hostile crowd over there. Did you at least try and climb the “Mt Busty” there in the pic? Good on you for going Joe, it’s a very interesting facet of our industry that I get absolutly no opportunity to be around. thanks.

David:

That woulda been a tough climb:

Joe

[dws123]

Stone making is done by a complete process, it involves various phases of production. production planning is done before starting any task. To perform stone making task we use different production planning software to ensure that our process is in right way and will provide good result.

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