Chris Cash

Eric Girouard  0:00  

This is Bucket Talk weekly podcast where people who work in the trades and construction that aren't just trying to survive, but have the ambition and desire to thrive. The opportunity to trade and construction is absolutely ridiculous right now. So if you're hungry, it's time to eat. We discuss what it takes to rise from the bottom to the top with people who are well on their way and roll up their sleeves every single day.

Jeremy Perkins  0:28  

This is Jeremy and Eric here with bucket talk powered by BRUNT. This week, we have Chris Cash of Mt. Phillip Metal Works. But before we dive in, Eric, what's up?

Eric Girouard  0:37  

Alright, all right, so So all things in my world have been crazier than ever heading in the new year, we're planning out what 2022 is going to look like. laying out some pretty aggressive goals. But one of the more exciting things less important but exciting for myself, I think of the team is we finally got the new Bay next door so we doubled our space our garage space downstairs. For those of you that don't know, we've got you know, we've got a 12 foot bar and a kind of a show room and a cool spot on left side it was getting overtaken by shelves of 1000s of hats and T shirts and T shirt presses and we moved all that stuff over into the new Bay. So we've got a kind of a mini fulfillment center for some of our smaller stuff. And which cleaned out a ton of space and the nice side, the epoxied side, the bar side and we've got some soundproof booths coming over for folks to work in and be able to focus and have meetings and and yeah, just more space for the growing team and the team is gonna go you know from we're gonna go from 11 to 30 people this year, so we just need to just need more space and then you know, hard to come by in the area we're in so super pumped about you Jeremy.

Jeremy Perkins  1:49  

Well, I bought a house in that was built in the 1700s and I didn't realize the amount of fucked up shit that there was gonna be with it. So my pipes are frozen right now it is negative 11 up in Maine and yeah, we don't have running water in certain parts of the house dishwasher exploded. It's been quite the the interesting affair I might say. And so we've had hair dryers we've had lines run through pipes and just really trying to throw everything out. I know the big fix here is insulation better heating system but really we got a boiler that's about to die we have old radiators we have baseboard heat, it's like a hodgepodge of different heating systems. So really, it's been it has been a wood stove burning stove. So honestly in one part of the house we have a wood burning stove which we run wood in it daily. In the kitchen we have a radiator heating system, which the wall for the the sink and everything has no insulation, so those pipes just freeze. And then in the front part of the house. We have like electric baseboard heat and stuff like that. So our electric bills through the roof, our oil bills through the roof. Our propane is through the roof, so it's like four cords of wood this year. It is I love living in Maine, but boy, I can't wait until it gets a little bit warmer.

Eric Girouard  3:16  

Nice. Nice. Alright, let's dig in. Alright,

Jeremy Perkins  3:22  

today we're here with Chris cash of Mount Phillip metalworks. Chris, welcome.

Chris Cash  3:27  

Hey, what's up guys? You've been set it correctly. That's awesome. A lot of people tend to put an S on the end of Philip for some reason, which is strange to me. But how's it going? Good. Good. Yeah, good. Good. I'm excited to be here. This is an awesome show. I've heard a lot of good things about it. I haven't actually listened to a full episode yet. I have to confess. But yeah, I've heard a lot of really great things about your guys's podcast.

Jeremy Perkins  3:49  

That's the problem with being a podcasters. You end up listening to your podcast over and over and over again. You don't actually have time to listen to other podcast. No, I actually

Chris Cash  3:58  

consume way too many podcasts and I don't really listen to hours as much Roy will call me and for the listeners at Roy Scott and myself do the Axe and Iron podcast but I listen to a lot of freakin podcasts throughout the day. And I get people that send me different podcasts and stuff to listen to. Right sometimes it just becomes too overwhelming. Like there's so much media that you can consume that it starts to like swell your brain.

Eric Girouard  4:25  

So all in all and no out. Yeah,

Chris Cash  4:27  

exactly. Exactly.

Jeremy Perkins  4:29  

So you're a blacksmith by trade.

Chris Cash  4:31  

I wouldn't call myself a blacksmith. I am a metal worker. And the reason I say I wouldn't call myself a blacksmith is because blacksmithing and to call yourself a blacksmith is a very kind of it's kind of an honor to call yourself a blacksmith. I am not there yet. I am very novice in the trade in terms of blacksmithing but I have been working with metal since actually I was still in high school when I got my first job doing metal work. So yeah, I was 15 When I started working in the trades, and that was actually as a sheet metal fabricator in the production autobody trade. Yep. So I did that for 18 years. And in the midst of all that, one day, I decided to start doing hot metal work.

Eric Girouard  5:19  

Say one day when you call yourself like, what's up? It's not like you've got your black belt now. Yeah, it's kind of like,

Chris Cash  5:25  

I don't know, really. I mean, that's what a lot of people refer to me as because it's simple. You know, you don't have to really think about it. You know, it's just like being called an artist or being called a welder. Or if you welded one thing in your life, are you really a welder? You know, if you well the 10 things in your life, are you well, you know what I mean? Like, so? Do you go around calling yourself a welder? I don't know. It's kind of something as well. Yes, some people do. But I don't know. Plus, it kind of humbles you. There's a lot of people going around, saying I'm a blacksmith. I'm a blacksmith because it's a hot buzz term right now. Right? I don't see it that way. I see it as like, you're not even remotely close. I mean, there's guys that worked until the day there died that were metal workers and they never actually called themselves blacksmith and they were actually forging steel every single day of their lives. So it's just kind of a I don't know it's a weird thing to say it's kind of in the lines of the buzzword right now influencer young people online. You know, that's a gross thing to say that you're an influencer. But it's not that I get offended by or anything. It's just a weird thing to call myself that. So it's generally I just go with a metal worker and then the name of the business mount Phillip metal works metal works is actually separated because it was a play on words that the things that I produce work. Yep. So it's like my job. I'm in the tool trade. I'm in the forging and fabrication trade. I weld a lot of stuff. And it's just like, all my stuff is meant to work. So it wasn't like, necessarily, you know, I'm a blacksmith, Har Har Har kind of thing. It's a weird. It's a weird thing. I mean, I don't know how I can make

Eric Girouard  7:06  

things out of wood. He made things out of plastic, but I'm not talking about metal metal works. Yeah, metal

Chris Cash  7:12  

works, man.

Eric Girouard  7:15  

No need to metal works.

Jeremy Perkins  7:16  

That's right. That's right. You don't like

Chris Cash  7:17  

wood? Right? No, it's not that I don't like it. It's just I just never really got a knack for it. Yeah, I could care less about a table saw or even a vertical bandsaw like things like that. Just don't get me excited about

Eric Girouard  7:30  

your partner Roy hammering on those all day long and really

Chris Cash  7:34  

loves that shit. I can't stand it though. Like we have a rule in my shop that there's there's two other guys that work with me where there's literally one because it's a fire hazard. But two, I just cannot stand having wood anywhere around. Like it bothers me that I always think in the back of your head when I'm going to sleep at night that you know, is there a piece of a spark or slag on top of that piece of woods smoldering because I've heard of guys even seen instances where that's happened. Yeah, so in the metal shop, we literally have zero wood.

Jeremy Perkins  8:07  

Well, that actually happened to me. I was working on a an old duster and we had the firewall jute that was still up there. And it was tucked behind the dash and he had to pull the whole dash out. We're doing a floor patch. Same thing, the whole thing went right out and we had to take the dash out and

Chris Cash  8:21  

that's scary crap. It is. I

Jeremy Perkins  8:23  

mean, it was contained. You know, the whole Yeah, the whole car was gutted. So it was just that one piece that was there that were like just a little too lazy to take the whole dash out just to remote. Yeah, we ended up having to do it anyways. So

Chris Cash  8:36  

yeah, working on cars is a whole nother avenue of like, things you think about before you go to sleep if stuffs on fire. Did you tighten that last bolt?

Jeremy Perkins  8:47  

Trust me loose I lost sleep over a lot of things are your parking lot checking that drain plug? What? Did I do it? Exactly. But so how did you get the start? How did you do the transition from sheet metal to full on, you know, iron work essentially.

Chris Cash  9:00  

So I was doing production auto body work? So basically, it was collision work. Yeah. And I was doing a lot of repairing frames, mostly repairing frames, because in the late 90s, in the early 2000s, a lot of the machines we were using were coming from Sweden, and they all involve the metric system. And a lot of the old timers didn't want to learn the metric system. Yeah. So I was the young guy, the young punk in there. And I decided to take that on and learn the system and learn the machines that we were using. And then I ended up becoming very successful at it and was making a really, really good living. I made a whole lot of money way too early in life. blew it all because I don't have any kids and you know, a boudoir wife since I've been in that trade. So Oh, wow. Yeah. And

Eric Girouard  9:53  

well, hey, you're not gonna take it with you. So you might as well enjoy wire.

Chris Cash  9:55  

Yeah, exactly. So ultimately what it boiled down to how I transitioned back to your original question was, I just got tired of working for assholes. And I was like doing this I was mixing, I was mixing the two things together. And on the side in the evenings, I would work in the shop till 10 or 11 at night, you know, whether it was a lot of what I do now restoring the antique tools. And by that I mean anything prior to 1940. And generally, it's somewhat mechanical, but a lot of it's a lot of hand tools, you know, a lot of the vices and stuff like that I do a very specific vise, which a lot of people know is the blacksmith vise. Yeah, and or leg vices. I just started doing those one day. And I found a niche for like this customer that didn't want to go out and find a broken vise or a rusty vise or a bent up vise. So I kind of started doing those like 10 years ago, and it became a thing that I started making a really good living doing, which is really odd to me. But so I told my wife when I'm 35, I'm gonna retire. So what I told her, and the week before I turned 35, I quit my day job, so to speak, and just started doing this. And I was doing sculpture, I was mixing sculpture in with the tools and just trying to like, find my way in kind of the art sculpture world, which I still haven't found my way. And I'm still trying to figure all that out. When you get into the art world, that's kind of hard, hard sell, you really got to find a client base and all that. But tools was really easy. You know, I worked with tools my entire life, and I knew what I got excited about. So you know, other people would find the same kind of excitement out of seeing an old restored tool and stuff. And then I just started selling the stuff. And it was like, it became this crazy thing now that I can make a living people ask me what I do for a living now and I say whatever I want. Which is kind of cool. Because, you know, I'll be 40 this year and I'm like, Man, I get to literally wake up every single day and do whatever I want. Yeah, crazy.

Jeremy Perkins  12:10  

Well, it's it's crazy to said that because, you know, to be honest with you, I mean, my stuff isn't of, you know, top tier artistic value. Yeah, but I've copied some of the stuff that some of the makers have done and yeah, my stuff was, you know, really close but unless you have a name really

Eric Girouard  12:26  

close as a stretch, but

Jeremy Perkins  12:29  

I have never said I never said I was good at hanging. But I mean, I made I made a chain x one day and and you know, welded it all up look really nice sharpen and everything. But like you said, I mean, you have to have a following. You have to have, you know, a group of people that like your stuff. And it's really hard today, because there's a lot of people out there trying to do that.

Chris Cash  12:53  

Yeah. And I was totally anti social media when I started all this stuff, too. Yeah, like so my sales were coming from Craigslist. I was I was a huge Craigslist person to the point where I would start making sculpture, say, like, in the middle of winter, like January or something all the way through the year. And then the following spring, I would post on Craigslist, that I was having a sale at my place. Yeah, found objects, sculptures, a lot of what I used to do were that was just taking old farm implements and turning them into sculpture, you know, putting something that would normally be horizontal, vertically, and then making end tables, you know, that kind of stuff. It was hot there for a minute. And I think there's a lot of people that still do it and make a living at it. I just fell out of love with it. I thought it was kind of cheesy. But I would post on Craigslist every year, once a year that I was having this big sale. And I'll never forget the first time I did it. I made like 6000 bucks in the first time I did. I live in Maryland. So I was pulling people from like Delaware and Pennsylvania and New York. And they were all just from the stupid little Craigslist ad with a couple photos of the things I had made. And they were coming from all over. And I was like, dang, it kind of solidifies what you're trying to do in life. Like I just wanted to figure out what the hell I wanted to do with metal. And then I was like, well, if people are traveling three, four or five hours to come by my shit, I must be doing something. Okay, yeah. And then I kind of just mixed that part with the tool started restoring tools, same thing, Craigslist, I would just post on Craigslist when I get tools restored and started. That was my main source of income for a really long time. Yeah, was just Craigslist and then that's incredible. Jet buddy of mine convinced me to go on Instagram one day and that started a whole nother rabbit hole. Different things but it's been fun. I don't demonize social media at all. I think it's great. There's a lot of bad aspects to it. But I think the good far outweighs the bad part of it. Especially If you're trying to grow,

Jeremy Perkins  15:01  

and there's probably a little bit of luck to it, I mean, staying on top of different social media channels and different outlets to sell your product. I mean, because it sounds like you hit Craigslist, probably around the when Craigslist was huge. I know. Yeah, I know. It's huge now, but

Chris Cash  15:15  

Zuck took that over Yeah, marketplace killed, killed that which is fine. I don't, you know, everything evolves and changes.

Eric Girouard  15:22  

My place sucks. Because there's all the paid advertising, you don't know what's what, yeah. Isn't that crazy? That's annoying, to the

Chris Cash  15:29  

point where you can click on like, say, an old tool, for instance, and it'll take you to a page that has nothing to do with that. Like, how could they do this? This is crazy.

Jeremy Perkins  15:40  

I would assume same thing with Instagram, you probably hit it right at the right time. And, and you were able to build a profile and a following. I mean, now it's almost impossible to do that on Instagram, as it is. I mean, the growth back in the day was huge. Now it's just are you paying for followers? Are you doing mess? Are you doing bad? I mean, it's it's

Chris Cash  15:58  

a thing I've always heard that's a thing, but I don't know how real that is.

Eric Girouard  16:02  

Oh, you can definitely do it. I mean, it's that's a real thing. You get there good about banning people that do that now. But in the early days, people were just buying their

Chris Cash  16:10  

toys. Scott, is that how you build? No, I did. I did Instagram literally for my friends. Yeah. Like, show them what I'm doing. Instead of texting them, they can all go here. And when I say friends, I'm talking about like, two or three guys that I knew local that were into my shit. Yeah. And then I started meeting people that were kind of local within the tri state region and stuff. And they were like, Oh, that's really cool stuff you do. And I kind of built like, I look at my thing as a community, like 90% of the people that comment on my shit, or send me DMS, I know them personally. Now. It's really weird thing. And nothing I'm doing is like, out of this world in saying cool. I've just literally a normal guy in a dirt floor shop. Just like having a good time restoring old tools, making sculpture beaten on hot metal. I'm just doing what's fun to me. And other people seem to enjoy it. So

Jeremy Perkins  17:04  

well. I mean, you're also going to look at though, part of the art is what's hidden. And what's hidden is the fact that you probably have this underground network of being able to find, locate, and even get leads for different old tools. Now, I'm sure that some of the more valuable ones are getting harder and harder to find. And then, you know, so for me to go out and find, you know, let's just take for instance, because I don't know really much about old tools. But to go out and find a double bit black raven, you know, axe head, I'm not going to find it. I'm

Eric Girouard  17:34  

name dropping over there.

Jeremy Perkins  17:38  

So I mean, for me to go out and find it is going to be you know, absolutely, you know, difficult. But I'm sure that through your network, you're able to find diamonds in the rough. I guess.

Chris Cash  17:48  

I wish that were true. No, I literally do the exact same thing that you would do. Hmm, there's no, there is but I'm not in that club. Okay, yeah, there is a network like that, that I know about. And I know guys that are in it. But my interest varies from week to week, one week, I don't even look at a tool, I won't clean up an old drill press or anything like that. I'll be out into moving metal and you know, making anvils or making hammers or something like that. And then the following week, I'll be like, Oh, really want to get back on a tool. And I think a lot of that stems from when I was in the auto body trade. Everything that came in the door, because it was collision work. Everything that came in was completely different, the job would be hit completely different. It'd be a different set of, you know, steps you were following to repair the vehicle. But what was monotonous about it is it was always a car truck. Right? It was always like, this grind of like, yeah, I might have to weld a bedside on today or weld a floorboard. Or like you were talking about doing firewall work, you know, yeah. And that shit just got to me over time. Now, you know, going back to what I say I could do whatever I want is literally what I'm trying to achieve. I want to be able to go out there every single day, and just work on literally whatever I want. And I've been fortunate enough to, you know, people pay me for, for whatever the final outcome is of whatever I'm doing,

Jeremy Perkins  19:15  

what was the most challenging piece of equipment you had to move and get back to your shop? And how do you do it?

Chris Cash  19:21  

I haven't done that yet. But we do have something that's very challenging. I can't really say what it is just because I don't want to jinx it. Yeah, but one part of it weighs 11,000 pounds and is awkward, and the other part of it weighs 29,000 pounds.

Jeremy Perkins  19:38  

I mean, I'm looking at some of these, you know, power hammers, I mean, they're just, it's all

Eric Girouard  19:43  

weight. Is that like something that you'll end up with that's going to help your business or is that something you're going to work on? And then that's gonna have to go to someone else afterwards?

Chris Cash  19:51  

That's a great question, because a lot of the things that I do are intended to stay here. Yeah. And then you know, a lot of people say like, how do you not keep all this Great stuff that you restore is like, well, the drug dealer doesn't smoke his own supply. Like, if I kept all the shit that I brought home, yeah, I would have so much stuff here. It'd be ridiculous.

Eric Girouard  20:13  

So so we got a dilemma NOT 11,020 9000 our dilemma is, we're getting a forklift here at the ground. Except you need a forklift to get Get off the fucking truck. Like this doesn't make any sense. So

Chris Cash  20:28  

I gotta I gotta put a muffler on my forklift to put a muffler on, it's to remove the weight box, right, right. Forklift to fix my forklift.

Jeremy Perkins  20:39  

I actually, so I had to do that on our forklift. I use our to post lift to pull it off.

Chris Cash  20:44  

Oh, that doesn't sound sketchy at all. No. sketchy? Yeah, you're right about that.

Jeremy Perkins  20:52  

You're standing on a forklift two stories up to get oh,

Chris Cash  20:55  

hell we did that. We were putting up a new shop behind my existing shop and myself. And the other two guys that work with me are Ilya and Matt. They have a really successful YouTube channel that they've had for a couple years now. And they work with me and my shop now. But we're building another shop. And that's how we built the entire shop. It's got 24 foot ceilings, and it was literally alien in a basket in the forklift. Like 20 feet up in the air stretching. Yeah. But yeah, about moving things and heavy things. And like you said, it's all weight is, a lot of the times I just have a Dodge Ram 1500 not overload the crap out of that thing. Yeah, but sometimes, like, for instance, this other thing that we're trying to acquire, we're just gonna pay a company because yeah, yeah, ultimately, there's there's just things that is as much as you try and figure out a way to move something like that. It's just easier to pay a guy that does that kind of stuff. All Yeah, yeah. You know,

Eric Girouard  21:53  

first having a crazy trailer that you spend a shit ton of money on and it sits in your backyard, and you might not ever get it again.

Jeremy Perkins  22:00  

I don't even know I might have been on yours. Or somebody posted a story recently of somebody tried to offload an old drill press and then it just fell and shattered, but had

Chris Cash  22:11  

Oh no, that was so what that was was my buddy will Stelter from Montana. Yeah, was right in the middle of a beautiful power hammer restoration. Okay, and he put it on a pallet jack. And the wheel turned on the handle. Yeah. And it offset the weight of the power hammer. He had the power hammer on there the wrong way anyway, but the whole thing fell over and broke and destroyed it. Yeah. And it was a beautiful hammer. But yeah, it's it's a lot of sketchy shit. Like when you're strapping things in, and especially going long distances with heavy loads, you know, there's a couple times I should have been pulled over. And I'm like, we get pulled over. I'm getting one hell of a ticket, because this truck is not rated for what's in the backup.

Jeremy Perkins  22:56  

You know, who gets away with that on a daily basis? is these guys that go around the automotive shops into scrap metal? Oh, yeah, for sure. They'll have, they'll have 1000s and 1000s of pounds of rotors in the back. Yeah. First dragon on the ground. Yeah, everyone's pulled over.

Chris Cash  23:10  

It's crazy. It's crazy, who they pick and choose on. We just went and picked up a press the other day. And judging from the photos, it didn't look that big. But when I got there, it was six and a half foot tall and 2700 pounds. And Matt said before we left that morning, he's like, Should we bring the trailer I'm like, now we'll just throw in the back of the truck. And I got there. I'm like, holy shit. And it was three hours away. So it was like having that much weight in the bed of a pickup truck is kind of sketchy, especially when it's six and a half foot tall. But just take your time.

Eric Girouard  23:42  

Just blow out the side of your truck. No, right?

Chris Cash  23:44  

Yeah, I've wrote home many times on the bumpstops or the suspensions completely bottomed out. You know, it's just like anything, the more you do it, you know, what's kind of like, what's sketchy and what's not sketchy? A lot of what I do isn't that bad? No, it's like, I go to buy a drill press or power hammer or something that has a lot of top weight in it. And the guy that I'm getting it from be like, Oh, you want to lay this down. And that's almost the worst thing you can do for something, especially if it's made out of cast iron is lay it on its side and haul it because you're just there's so much stress that that that casting wasn't intended for right. So a lot of things I'll haul vertically, such as power hammers, which are, you know, at a minimum six foot tall with them vertically in the back of the truck, and but it's on the way you strap things down and shit like that. So anyway, that's a whole nother thing.

Jeremy Perkins  24:34  

We could do this forever. Yeah, I usually like to ask, it's a very simple question, but at the same time, it could be. You can go as deep as you want. Yeah. What's the number one thing you know now that you wish you knew when you were starting out?

Chris Cash  24:47  

What's the number one thing I don't know? I have no idea. I should have saved more money when I was younger, but I think we all should have right? Yeah, I mean, I also lived in Germany. For a long time, and I could care less about anything that I saw in Germany now I would, you know, love to go back to Germany. That's a weird. That's a strange question.

Jeremy Perkins  25:10  

Well, the reason why we ask it is usually usually something like, like, for me, I went to trade school and I should have gone to trade school because everything that I learned, can either be learned on the job or learn from my military experience. So usually we ask somebody, if somebody has always made a mistake, or something, they're like, damn, I wish I didn't waste my time doing that. And it's always good to tell the younger generation something.

Chris Cash  25:33  

I don't think there's I'm really fortunate, I mean, oh, how much I can say that. It's just don't work for assholes. For one leg is as good as it seems like, if you're getting paid a shit ton of money, and you're trying to justify why you're at this place, if you are literally unhappy with and I know, you know, people say to me all the time, like, oh, I have kids, or I need insurance or this that the other. It's like, yeah, if you're not happy where you're at, it doesn't matter how much money you're making, how great your insurance is, it really doesn't. Like in the grand scheme of things, I get these comments like, oh, you probably made a killing doing that. It's like, not, I didn't really but waking up with a smile on my face. As cheesy as it sounds, is so much better than any amount of money that I get. And I just came to this point where, you know, I said earlier, I made a lot of money way too early in life is I was justifying working for these people that didn't have my best interests at heart, because I was getting a fat paycheck every

Jeremy Perkins  26:35  

week. That's actually a really good takeaway. I mean, so what

Chris Cash  26:39  

do I learn now that I wish I knew is I would have left these crappy jobs earlier. Yeah. And when I didn't work very many places in my trade. I was at two shops, one for 11 years and one for seven years. And I was done after that, like, so it's not like I was bounced around from place to place. But if I would have started this a little bit earlier, like the guy we were just talking about, my buddy will add Montana. He's only 21. And this is what he does. Wow. And yeah, he's a great guy. He's very work driven. He actually flew out here last month, and we did a project together. But yeah, I wish I would have started this earlier, because the hardest thing is starting. So everybody thinks like, Oh, you're gonna take a pay cut, or you're not gonna have insurance for a month as you get going. It's like, the hardest part literally is starting and everything else will just work its way out. It'll just work itself out. I mean, it's just like the same thing as you starting a new job at a corporate place. Yeah, no, yeah. So don't work for somebody or a business or something that you know, isn't your path. Maybe it is right then in there, and you're making a crap ton of money, and everything's great. But my wife worked at a mortgage company for 18 years, and she was tired of it. And I told her one day, I was like, just quit, she had a team of 60 people, I was like, just be done with it. If you come home miserable every day, is it really worth it? Is it really worth all that? You know? So I think being happy in what you're doing? And again, it's cliche and as cheesy as it sounds, it really is a true thing.

Jeremy Perkins  28:10  

No, no. And I think I think a lot of the older generation, a lot of the retirees will tell you that, like, Hey, I worked 30 years for the man and I have nothing to show for it. You know, I wasted all that time in there trying to make up for lost time. And I think that this generation and the generations to calmer, more in tuned with that. Yeah, the fact that now people are looking for more time off and whatever. And I know that there's a balance, I know that it's like, yeah, you can't just go skiing all day long every day, unless you're going to be you know, work for a ski schema, but at the same time, like, why can't that be an option? Go try to pursue that if that's what you love to do.

Chris Cash  28:46  

Yeah, you want to do something really funny. I have a hard time with dates. Saturday, Sunday and Monday are not a thing for me, right? Hey, that's not a thing. Because I just work like there's no break. If I bust my ass Saturday and Sunday, get up early, just like I did the day before. So yesterday, I was sitting here waiting for you guys to call me because I thought yesterday was Thursday. I was like I called Roy. I'm like what's up with these guys? It's like pretty professional looking polished podcast. And I'm sitting here in front of my computer for half hour waiting on these assholes. Here, I'm the asshole. Because I thought it was Thursday and I walked back out and it looks like I thought you're doing a podcast today because Roy and I were also gonna record right after I did this. Yeah, he goes, Did you do the show? And I said it's tomorrow, bro. Oh my god. So yeah, and that was my whole point to that story was you know you sang me saying that do what you love and be happy with what you're doing doesn't necessarily mean there's tons of guys I know that have corporate jobs that that's the best thing they've ever done in their life. They love it right? Some people love sharing they'd love nine to five. I've had guys here at the shop working for me that didn't work out because there's no structure here. Yeah, and day, I might wake up and I have to go to Ohio or I have to go to Indiana to pick something up, you know. And it's just like, some people can't do that, like, I'm on the road a lot, I drive a lot. And people like, I can't believe you drove all the way to so and so to go get this thing because they have a nine to five job that's very structured. And that's why I like when you said about doing the podcast is six, I kind of have to unplug at a certain time. My wife comes home, I relax, you know, chill out and middays is usually I can do whatever I want, whenever. But you know, a lot of times that like I said, the guys that worked here, they needed structure. So it didn't work out with them being here because what I do is kind of a crazy thing. Yeah, it doesn't work for everybody. Yeah, yeah. And that's okay. You know, some people love their nine to five welding job, you know, they get to do what they want. So I'm not telling the listeners out there to drop everything and quit your job. That's not what I'm saying. We're saying just do whatever makes you happy. So,

Eric Girouard  31:09  

alright. Alright, so we talked obviously a ton about work. Yeah. Sounds like you're working seven days a week not even paying attention to the days. But yeah, when you're actually able to like not be in the shop. Now think about the shop, not figure out what you're getting next. Yeah. What do you like to do? What's something that you unwind? It's something unrelated to everything we see now.

Chris Cash  31:30  

So I didn't go on vacation for two years. Well, since I guess before COVID was the last time I took like an actual vacation. Yeah, went anywhere. So this past year, I went loud. This is gonna be weird that I'm saying this on your guys's show. I called this guy to animal sanctuary that got all these illegal animals, you know, people that aren't supposed to have them. Yep. And one of the Carolinas, and asked him just randomly he didn't know who I was. I didn't know who he was, and just asked him if I could come there and work for a week. Wow. And he was like, yeah, so it was a crazy place. He had over 1000 Alligators there. He had hyena Mountain Lion, like all this really, really crazy stuff. And basically, just like, shoveled shit and hung out for, like, wasn't quite a week, it was like three days. But yeah,

Eric Girouard  32:30  

did you have any of the what's the tiger kings, any of his stuff, or any traces to that whole network of people, I

Chris Cash  32:37  

didn't really get into that. I didn't really ask him about anything like that. But you know, it was all illegal animals, though. Everything you had was illegal animals. And it was just like, this refuge where all these animals were. And I didn't do anything super crazy. But it was so completely opposite of anything that I'm into, or I do that that's what made it really cool and fun. And that was really relaxing.

Jeremy Perkins  32:59  

So I actually I actually got a chance to do something along those lines. It was really cool. And it was actually pretty much the best vacation I've ever took me and my wife went out to Montana and worked at a ranch. So instead of going to like a dude ranch, or Yeah, we actually went to a family's house stayed there. And we move cattle, we moved all this stuff. It was all new experience to us. It was cool to actually be able to learn the trade work with people and kind of get a little bit more respect than you would for like showing up in your bedazzled shirts. And yeah,

Eric Girouard  33:30  

having the guides getting the fishing poles ready for you. Yeah, exactly. The stuff

Jeremy Perkins  33:35  

Roy does up in the mountains, right.

Chris Cash  33:39  

That's a That's a strange thing to me to get to have the guides, get your shit ready for you. So you can just stay in there and then take all your pictures for Instagram. Fishing thing in Montana,

Jeremy Perkins  33:51  

it was cool to to be able to do a job while I was out there. We laugh we had an old welder at our shop and he hated going on vacation. Right? And he'd go down in the Bahamas and we always used to joke we're like he's going out with his family, but he's gonna go try to find a shop to work at Well, yeah.

Chris Cash  34:06  

Yeah, I don't necessarily, you know, look forward to a vacation or something like that. I think. What's the saying if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. That's a big part of why I don't like love weekends and I don't care about going on vacations. My wife goes on enough vacations for me for the both of us. Her and her sister they go. They just got back from the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. She loves traveling and I just like I want to be here and like I get like a little bit of anxiety when I'm not my shop. I don't know why it might be something but I just feel like I always need to be in filth in rust and dirt. I just need to be working on something. Yeah, yeah. But don't get me wrong. I'll chill out and like in the middle of the day and sit for an hour and watch YouTube or hang out and you know me and Ilya will shoot the shit for an hour or something. I'm not like, you know, die and over here. I'm having a real Good time doing what I do and I love it and I think that's a lot of why people like what I do is because it comes through them genuinely that I'm just having a good time working hard laughing like it's it's really good man everything's good love it

Jeremy Perkins  35:14  

so so definitely great to get to know you and dive in deeper and

Eric Girouard  35:20  

leasing yes hopefully some stuff this year coming up. Yeah, the world's gonna open back up again. I know right and but

Chris Cash  35:27  

yeah, yeah, people were asking me about that too. How do you travel during all this is like I just did yeah, I just did like my truck and go and go so yeah, it's got to get back to normal eventually, right? I mean, yeah, yep. We're saying it over and over again. But yeah,

Jeremy Perkins  35:44  

we're pretty much at the end of the show. And this is where we want to give you an opportunity to talk about anything you do anything you want to plug

Eric Girouard  35:52  

whatever handles where people can find

Chris Cash  35:55  

Brunt work where I want to see if Brunt work where is fireproof that's what I've seen this ad you guys are doing where you pour water on on the pants.

Eric Girouard  36:08  

Yeah, yep. Slick. We got some WR in the fabric so it beads off. In swatter Greece Jeremy just confirmed blood comes out. Yeah, keep blood out. Yeah, I've

Chris Cash  36:19  

been curious about the grease part because I have some brown pants that are black. On the grease and the restoration. No, I think what you guys are doing the whole brunt. Family and you guys's team over there is incredible. And I think you guys are like, You guys are the real deal. This is a time where I should be plugging my shit. But I don't even know what you guys are doing over there. And I'm not kissing your ass because I'm on your podcast. I don't care I'd have no problem telling you that your shins garbage. But no, you guys are doing a really, really good thing is like holding up the trades. And getting back to like, you know, you talked a little bit about trade schools not being a thing anymore. And I sell tools to guys that do apprenticeships in their houses now at their home shops that are school teachers. Yeah, because all the sharp classes are gone. Yeah. And I can see that you guys over there, Brian are kind of taking this opportunity to like say, you know, we want the working class to be held up to this, you know, higher standard. This is the future. And to get younger people into this is I think that's a lot of the reason that I share the restoration videos and the tools and all that stuff is to get people excited about older things and the way things used to be and I think there's a transition happening right now that we're seeing where, you know, trades are what makes this country go around. Yes. Yep. Makes around. So you guys are doing a great thing over there with the boots and all the work wear and all that stuff. Yeah,

Eric Girouard  37:48  

I mean, that's our bigger mission is at a high level, I mean, boots and product. That's just one of the vehicles that you know, keeps us in business. But at the end of the day, it's driving Canada tried and true hard work that keeps the roads that we drive on built the houses we live in, built the buildings, we go in and out of resolutely all that, you know, oh, yeah, countrymen.

Chris Cash  38:08  

I know you guys are doing a gigantic promotional thing right now. But man, I tell you what, if you even say Brunt around a device that is the internet you get brought ads like crazy. My wife was getting run ads on her phone. Never looked up a Brunt ad.

Eric Girouard  38:31  

I mean, I've gotten good every time work by cell phone, we pick it up and say prom prom prom. Yeah, good stuff.

Chris Cash  38:36  

It's really good stuff.

Jeremy Perkins  38:38  

You got to do that with your podcasts. You got to go anytime somebody has an Alexa you got to go into the house and say play X nine. Volume One.

Chris Cash  38:47  

Yeah, I guess if I'm gonna plug anything. Mount Phillip bottleworks is where you can find me on Instagram. And then ROI and ROI Scott from vintage X works. We do the X and iron podcast, which is just topics from all over the world and all over the map as far as what we're talking about. And yeah, I appreciate you guys having me on. This was great. You guys are doing over there. I can't say enough good things about you.

Jeremy Perkins  39:07  

Thanks for taking the time out of your day, Chris.