The Full Line of Metal Benders by Malco Tools - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Shane Norman of MalcoTools. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Intro: Hello everybody, and welcome to this MetalTalk from MetalCoffeeShop. My name's Karen Edwards, and today we are being joined by Malco Tools and Shane Norman's here. Shane, welcome.

Shane Norman: Hi Karen, how are you doing?

Karen Edwards: Good, good. Hey, before I ask you to introduce yourself, I do want to do just a little bit of housekeeping for everybody. The chat is open, so feel free to drop your name in there, where you're watching from, say hello and use that for your questions or use the Q&A feature. We do have some time set aside at the end, in case anybody has any questions. And we are recording this episode, and it will be available on metalcoffeeshop.com within one to two business days. So, let's dive in. Shane, welcome and please tell everyone about you.

Shane Norman: Yeah. Thank you, Karen. Thanks for the introduction. Like you said, my name is Shane Norman. I am our senior product manager overseeing all of our RSG-focused tools at Malco. So, that'd be roofing, siding and gutter-specific tools. There are some crossover tools that go into our HVAC, H-V-A-C channel as well that I also manage, but that's where I spend most of my time, is on the building construction side of our business, managing our portfolio tools for the trade pros that would be on today's webinar. So, glad to be in front of all of you and discussing Metal Benders today. It's an exciting new launch that we've been going down the road on over the last year, and looking forward to spending more time with you. The first half of my career I spent as a new product design engineer, so I'm very mechanical in nature. I'd say a mechanical nerd, if you will, but now I've then since transferred into the more commercial side of the business, managing tools themselves and portfolios in general. So, that's what I love to do.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. So, let's first start, for those that may not be familiar, with a little bit of the history behind Malco.

Shane Norman: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Great introduction. Malco started almost 75 years ago, as a little family run outfit, primarily focused on tools for the HVAC market. Fast-forward over half a century, and now we are a 100% employee owned company, which is awesome to be a part of. Everybody on the team is very involved, and it's great to be part of that ESOP. And realistically, Malco has been developing tools now for the just building and construction industry as a whole for decades. So, a lot of those same tools that cut, form, bend sheet metal for the HVAC market, were directly applicable to the building and construction market as well. Some we might've had to make some minor tweaks in order to cut different materials, like vinyl for instance, instead of sheet metal, but it goes hand in hand very nicely with Malco's business, is the more you're building and construction side, as well.

Karen Edwards: Talk a little bit, and we've got a bullet point up here about the company's commitment to quality in tools. I think we chatted about this a little bit before we came on, but that's really something that Malco truly puts first, is the quality.

Shane Norman: Yeah. Quality is our pride and joy at Malco. So, our Malco badge, if you see that on a tool, it stands for quality. First and foremost, that's what we're going to be focusing on is tools that are designed for the trade professionals. We don't design tools for the DIY type person that's maybe going to use their tool on one or two jobs around the house. Our tools are meant to last in heavy abuse type situations, where that trade professional relies on our tools in order to make the end products for their customers.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. And right under the logo, there's that word, "Outlast."

Shane Norman: Yeah, exactly. It's top of mind. Anytime we're doing any product development, or sustaining type work at Malco, is always quality first.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So, before we dive into each specific tool, let's talk about the current state of the metal building industry. I mean, this is just taking off.

Shane Norman: Yeah, so metal is interesting as a whole. So, whether it's metal siding, roofing, even interior metal panels are getting very popular, especially in commercial applications. The market itself, like you mentioned, is growing rapidly. So if we focus on metal roofing for a minute, IBIS has, the metal roofing industry last year was about 17% of all roof installations were metal and them and other outside agencies also believe that metal roofing is going to grow at upper single digit for annual growth rate all the way through 2030, compared to other type of substrates like asphalt or your TPU roofs, that's probably going to be more like your standard low single digit type growth. So, we're getting more and more trade pros and just companies in general adding metal as an option for their installations, whether it's residential or commercial, because it's growing in both.

Karen Edwards: Now, the next point up here is labor, because there are labor challenges happening in our industry, believe it or not. We hear about it all the time. But tools can actually help, right?

Shane Norman: Right, exactly. Yep. So, labor is just a consistent problem across the board, especially in building construction. So, what Malco does, is we try to make tools that are going to make the job as efficient as possible and provide the best end result for the actual end customer that's paying for your work. So, that's where having the right tool for the job is really imperative, in order to get in and get out and not have those callbacks when you don't have the labor to begin with, in order to fulfill those. So, having the right tool for the right job is what we're all about here.

Karen Edwards: And we talked a little bit about the standing seam seamers in your vendor line, that they're lighter, they're easier to move around the roof, all of those, where you might have needed two people to move something before, now you don't.

Shane Norman: Right, yeah. So that's another way that you can make work more efficient, right, Karen? Is to reduce the total number of guys or gals that you need to do a job in the first place. So, that's definitely an aspect. Ergonomics are important. We have... The labor that we do have, we don't want them going on the injured reserve list if you will. We need to keep everybody actively working and ergonomics is always a focus. Quality, like we mentioned and then just making everybody as efficient as possible.

Karen Edwards: So, the variety of metal options that are available now, I think even 10, 15 years ago, most people would be thinking of, "Oh, it's a standing seam metal roof." That's the standard. But there's all different kinds of options that are out there. Can you speak a little bit about that?

Shane Norman: Yeah, so Karen, I honestly think that the variety of metal, as we have mentioned here, is what's leading to the growth. So, you have all these metal manufacturers that are creating more aesthetically pleasing panels, so you start seeing more and more metal roofs being installed into residential over asphalt and then just using metal in general areas where you might not have seen it before. Like if you go to a lot of your commercial buildings, you're going to see metal wall panels on reception areas and it's just gotten a lot more aesthetically pleasing over the last two decades and the options are almost limitless, as far as profiles. I know you mentioned standing seam, that's a consistent winner out in the market for roofing, whether it's one inch, inch and a half or two inch standing seam panels. Those have been used for decades in commercial, and now we're seeing it transition more and more into that residential space, as well.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. And it's fascinating, there's metal pattern to look like nature and there's stone coated and there's so many different kinds. So, it could be maybe a little intimidating to think about working with all that different metal. So, maybe you can touch on a little bit about how you make it easier.

Shane Norman: Yeah, exactly. So, for the guys and girls that are starting to get into metal in general, we have it laid out really nicely in Malco's tool book. Go to Malco.com, and get yourself a Malco tool book.

Karen Edwards: Nice.

Shane Norman: So, we got an RSG specific one. We have just an array of products that anybody in metal, whether it's standing seam roofing or just metal siding, that are going to help make your job easier. We have a picture here of one of our classic turbo shears. So, we definitely utilize drill power where applicable for certain jobs, but turbo shears have their place. So, if you need to cut a specific panel down to size, whether it's lengthwise or if you're cutting an angle on a gable, especially over corrugated, you want to do that quickly. You're not going to be sitting there with a tin snip, in order to make all those cuts on all the panels that you're going to have to, if you're installing like a pole shed, for instance on the gable ends.

So, we really pride ourselves in looking at all of the jobs to be done on a work site, whether it's residential or commercial and focusing on where we can add efficiency. So, we have nine different models of the turbo shears. Several of those are focused specifically around metal roofing or metal siding and then we have all kinds of options for hand shears, seaming tools, because you're going to have to fold these materials in order to make different panels to cleat into. So, we really do have you covered, as far as hand tools go, if you're starting to look to get into the business.

So, that's where we're starting to see more and more traction, are companies that used to only do asphalt roofs, for instance. Now all of a sudden they're being requested by residential customers to either one, put an entire metal roof onto their building or they might want an accent piece. So, it is very common nowadays to see a roof that's 95% asphalt, but then you might have a decorative porch or a dormer or even a curb feature somewhere on the roof that's now made out of metal. So, people are getting more and more creative on where they can use metal and honestly, it stands up better than a lot of your other materials do. So, I know a lot of people are trying to get to that 50 plus year rating on their roof, because it is a pain if you have to redo your roof every 15 or 20 years,

Karen Edwards: That's for sure. And metal, it's got such great performance and longevity and sustainability and we could probably do an entire webinar on that.

Shane Norman: Yeah. Yeah. Or solar, if you want to put solar on your house, it's easier to do that on a metal roof. If you're going to put solar on your roof, you want that roof to last longer than that solar panel. So, a lot of your panel systems have 30 plus year warranties and if you put it on a roof that's only good for 20 years. Well, now you got to work around that too. So, just like you said, we could spend hours that, Karen.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, I know. I know. That's a whole webinar in itself, but I want to talk a little bit too, about like you mentioned, it really can differentiate a business, if you have the skill and the tools and the knowledge to add metal to your business, but there's ways to get started easily and I think when you and I talked previously, you touched about finding a local roll former. Like, what are some options for getting started that make it not as intimidating?

Shane Norman: Right. So, as you get started into that metal business, especially metal roofing, like you mentioned Karen, you're going to want to find who's supplying your metal to all the local big supply shops. Usually there's going to be a local roll former that's supplying to SRS or Beacon or any of those type of locations. You can still get those materials from those locations, as well. And that's really how people are going to get started. You're going to pre-order all of your panels, all of your trim to the right size, cut to length.

But where we're seeing a lot more of the more seasoned veterans going, are actually starting to roll form their own materials. So they'll have either a trailer or a truck that's completely set up with an internal roll former, so then they're carrying coil. So, it's a lot easier and cheaper to ship coil, than it is to have all these pre-cut pieces laying around the job site and so you lay them out as you need them, you don't have to stack pallets worth of just raw materials on your job site.

So, to get into it, I would definitely be focusing on sourcing your metal through that local location. But I know a lot of companies that have been in the business over a decade now, that are investing heavily more in forming their own, whether it's a roof panel itself or all the trim pieces. That's where our future part of this discussion goes, is more into that forming it on site type tools. So, you're still going to need the turbo shears and standard tin snips and folding tools, whether you're going to be forming all your trim and metal panels themselves or if you're buying them in. So you still need those hand tools, which is nice. But you get into the business, you don't have to go then and reinvest in completely new tools in order to take that next leap into forming your own panels. But, it's definitely all applicable.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. When we were recently... I think the most recent show that I attended for roofing was in Florida and there's a lot of sheet metal obviously in that state, but some of the contractors that have opened their own sheet metal shops are actually in fabricating for HVAC and for other contractors as well. So, there's a lot of potential there beyond roofing.

Shane Norman: Oh, absolutely. Yep, yep. We're siding, wall panels. Wall panels are getting very popular, vertical wall panels.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. Especially with all these cool patterns, and styles. Okay. So let's dive into metal benders.

Shane Norman: Yeah. So, as you can see pictured here, this is a two-station metal bender. We are going to get into more specifics on all the other total portfolio of benders, but essentially what a bender allows our trade professionals to do is to make those panels or trim pieces on site, to any length that they need. So, instead of having a prefabricated piece of side trim that only comes in a 10 or 12 foot stick and you got to lap over all the sticks as you're putting on your trim, you really want to have that really clean, crisp look for your end customers. That's how the more professional crews are going to stand out to the guys that are getting their materials from a big box store.

So, if you have a 40-foot gable that you need to put a drip edge trim onto, as long as you have the coil and the right width, you can form your own 40-foot piece of drip edge if you needed to. So, that's just going to prevent future water intrusion issues and just give your end customer that cleaner, crisper look. So, that's exactly what these tools are set out to do. They're made to either bend up 90 degrees, which is what this two station bender does, 90 to 100 degrees and we also have a line of disc benders. Then if you need to cleat in a panel to make that open hem, that full 180 hem, we have disc benders that then take it from that 90 or 100 degrees and folds it over the rest of the way, as far as hand tools go.

Karen Edwards: It's hard to tell, looking at a picture, but give me an idea of the size and weight of that.

Shane Norman: Yeah. So, this tool in particular, this one adjusts, I believe up to about, looks like our six-inch tool. So we have two station benders that go from anywhere from six inches, all the way up to 14 inches. So, the six-inch tool is really good for any side trim piece. You'll be able to have the depth of that bend no problem. Where we see a lot of the larger tools being used are on more like flashing materials. So if you have E flashing, you can literally get the whole sheet not pre bent and then you can bend it as you need on site. So, if you've got a lot of different valleys coming together at odd angles, the fewer pieces that you have to stitch together the better. Or a long 20 some foot trough in a valley, now you can create that valley, with just one piece of metal, instead of having to overlap a bunch of pieces to get the same job done.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. So they save space, they reduce waste, you said a cleaner end result, which, that brings your repeat customers in, right?

Shane Norman: Right.

Karen Edwards: Because you're taking yourself from just an installer of prefabricated or off the shelf panels, to a craftsman.

Shane Norman: Exactly, yep. And your best advertising is going to be your work, right on the field. So, customers that enjoyed working with you, from a business standpoint and then your end result, that just speaks volumes. So, having the cleanest looking end result for your customers is going to help win more and more business. And these tools aren't heavy, either. They're primarily made out of CNC aluminum, aluminum billets, so they're nice and light in the hand. They're very sturdy and robust. So, you'll have to try one to believe me, Karen. When you're at METALCON, you'll have to stop over by the booth and we can let you bend up some metal.

Karen Edwards: I will, because I've been looking at these tools now for a while, because we've done webinars previously and a podcast. So yeah, I'm excited to... That's why I asked about the size and the weight. I want to feel what it feels like in the hands. So, I think you talked a lot about and I probably jumped ahead in asking you the sizes and stuff, but the six to 14 inch depth, but the importance of having the right tool for the job. What are the differences between a single and a double and when might you need it?

Shane Norman: Right, so that's a good point, Karen. I mean, these are not Swiss army knife tools, so they do all have a very specific purpose. So, the two station benders, you'll notice here in the picture, the larger forming wheel that's in the center, on that center rod, that's your forming wheel. So, what the actual trade professional is going to be doing is just maintaining those four rollers on the edge of the material and then providing just a little bit of upward pressure on the tool. And then that forming wheel does actual... Almost all the work.

So with a two station bender, what that does is it gives you two forming wheels. So, for the same amount of travel across your panel, as you're folding up that piece of material, it's going to essentially do twice the work. So, it's going to be faster and more efficient to do those longer pieces. Like I mentioned, that 40 foot run, a two station bender is going to be able to do that in half the time that a single station is going to and the two stations are more stable, because the bearing points on the material are just further out, so they keep you centered.

So, the single station benders are really good at shorter pieces. So, if you've got trim pieces that are under that 10 foot mark, they work really well for that. They're quick, they're a little bit lighter weight, but once you get over that 10 foot mark, it really pays dividends to have that two station tool. It's a little bit bulkier, but it does provide that bending in half the amount of time and it's more stable, so you get a nice clean, crisp bend, across that whole 40 foot or 60 foot, whatever that whole length is going to be. So, they all definitely have their purpose.

We do have a very narrow single-station bender as well. So, it's about half the width of the one that's pictured and that's more for radius work. So if you've got a radius cove, or some decorative piece, whether it's commercial or residential, they can be a real pain to bend up that lip in order to cleat something on, like a final trim piece. But that single-station that's really narrow allows you enough dexterity to be able to work that curve in there, where your larger two-station or wider single-stations just won't allow. So, each tool definitely has its place. And then same goes for the disc tools.

So, I mentioned that this style bender that you see on your screen will bend it up to roughly 100 degrees. If you have to make that open hem that you're going to cleat another panel into, you got to fold it the rest of the way. That's where those discs will slide on, and typically you have about a one-inch cleat, is the most common industry standard for cleating two panels together. And so, those disc benders can handle up to, I think it's like an inch and three-quarter total, full, 180 bend, if needed. And that's primarily what our handheld benders are for.

And so, these can be used on virtually any roof install. You'll find places to use these on siding installs as well, when you have all those side trim pieces that you're going to be mounting on. And then eventually, I believe in our next slides, we're going to start talking more about standing seam and that's where those tools-

Karen Edwards: Yes.

Shane Norman: Yeah, right. So these tools are very specific tools they're made for mechanically seamed roof panels. So, mechanically seamed panels are very common in commercial applications and they are required on low sloped pitch roofs as well. So, if it's residential or commercial, the mechanically seamed panels, so what this machine is doing, is it's taking two pieces of metal and then it's folding the first 180 with half the tool and then it's folding it again over itself. So, it creates a completely watertight solution for the roof.

And just so everybody's a little bit more educated on roof, or standing seam in general, there are multiple panel types that you can choose from. The most common in the marketplace is called snap lock. So, that's where you still have hidden fasteners, but then the two panels, they just literally snap in place, then you move onto the next one. And that's great for residential work, you're still going to have drip edge work that you need to do. You're still going to have trim pieces that you need to form with benders, but then once you get into the mechanically seamed roof panels, that's where you have to have a seamer. So, you could hand seam. We do have a line of hand seamers that complement these powered seamers, but you can imagine hand seaming an entire roof deck, right?

Karen Edwards: Wow.

Shane Norman: You're hand seaming, single lock and double lock, it would take a lot of labor to do that. Where the powered seamers in the past, most of these power seamers, they have a built-in power source, so they're 70 plus pound machines that now you have to have a cord up on the roof. It takes usually a couple people just to get it onto the roof surface and then to do the same job. So, what Malco's done is work on making this as efficiently and ergonomically pleasing as possible. So, that's where we really like to use power assisted power sources whenever possible.

So, you can see this one is attached to a Milwaukee. It doesn't matter what lithium drill your crew is running, whether it's... Even Ryobi will run these tools just fine. It's not very common to see that, but the tool itself doesn't care which power source you're using, as long as it's a lithium drill, not an impact, a drill, then it can physically do the seaming job.

We have specific models for one inch, to inch and a half standing seam and then the one pictured is our two-inch model. This is the first two-inch power assisted seamer that's on the market. So, pretty exciting for Malco, because usually two inch standing seam, you're going to find more on commercial applications, where you might have 20 plus square jobs is pretty common. These tools will run all day without break, as long as you have batteries for your drills.

Karen Edwards: Battery.

Shane Norman: Yeah. Yeah. And I was on a roof recently that we did about... I think it was about one square an amp hour was what the battery was able to do. Now, it's going to change depending on your battery age and brand. That was what we got out of that one. So, it was a pretty successful day. We were able to do the majority of an entire roof deck on a higher end residential cabin with just one battery.

Karen Edwards: Oh, nice.

Shane Norman: Yeah.

Karen Edwards: So, these are using like CNC technology you mentioned, versus... How is that different from maybe the more traditional benders that people might be used to seeing?

Shane Norman: Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of your hand benders out in the market, I mean, we're not first to market by any means, but we are definitely, I'd say the highest quality product that you can find on the market. We're not stamping parts out of sheet metal, out of plate steel. These are CNC machined to very tight tolerances. Even the bearings are very high quality. There's very little, or no slop at all in any of the tool.

So, we know that it's imperative to have really tight tolerances, in order to keep that bend clear and crisp. As you're bending a panel, you don't want, you're forming wheels to walk at all, because always you're going to get wave in your panel.

Karen Edwards: Oh, yeah.

Shane Norman: So, having really tightly controlled manufacturing processes are key to having a really high-end finish for those customers. And same thing goes for our power assisted tools. So, they're a highly engineered tool. We do provide support, and we have some nice tutorials on how to use them. So, anybody on the call or watching this in the future, shouldn't be concerned about whether or not they'd be able to actually run this type of machine. It looks a little bit more complicated than it truly is. We really have it set up pretty well and intuitive for the customer.

Karen Edwards: Excellent, excellent. Okay, so let's talk about... I mean, great segue into the quality and the highly engineered tools, but tell us a little bit about what does that QA, quality assurance, look like on Malco's end? And a little bit about the expected performance, and quality.

Shane Norman: Right. Yeah. So, I really attribute it all the way back to our design engineering team. We have a full in-house staff of engineers, whether it's new product design or continuation engineering, they're constantly evaluating how parts are ran and the end products that we're constantly inspecting. So, as we mentioned at the beginning of this webinar, quality is by far the most important thing to Malco. So, we know we're never going to be the lowest cost solution and we don't pretend to be. We want to be that highest value solution to the end customer and that comes through quality. So, we want to make sure that our tools are going to be built to last, not six months, not 12 months. We want them to last a very long time. So, if it's got a Malco name on it, you can rest assured that it's going to last.

Karen Edwards: We mentioned, and you mentioned earlier, they're not hard to learn how to use. You guys have trainings that you do through your distribution partners and you've got a lot of YouTube videos, right?

Shane Norman: Exactly. Yeah. So, we place a lot of training videos onto YouTube. We do sell through distribution, so we rely on our distribution partners to be trained up. We do have a whole rep network as well that we train. And training as a whole is a very key focus for Malco, as we get more into this digital age and it is easy to share videos and podcasts like today, it's super simple to shoot a webinar over to somebody, where they can get that content.

So, we do have a full-time trainer on staff and that's what he's focused on, is bringing the latest and greatest training materials on different installations, how to set tools up. So, definitely check out our YouTube channel, so you can find that there is a Malco YouTube channel and we've got a ton of training videos up there. And anytime anybody does have a question that's not easily answered, feel free to give a call right to the Malco customer service team and they'll get you in touch with the right person. Usually it's myself, or an engineer or something, if there's some sort of complicated problem, but we're there to support the end customer, certainly.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, I think that's one of the challenges of... Especially if you're just starting out, or just adding metal, is knowing which tools you need and why you need them. So, hopefully this has been helpful for folks today, but definitely, like you said, there's always somebody there to answer a question or help you decide.

Shane Norman: Yeah. And we do have a lot of great content built out on malcotools.com as well, so that's a good segue on how does somebody find these vendors, right? I mentioned we do sell through distribution, that we do have a where to buy little button you can press on the website. You can go to the US dealers and then you can enter your zip code and it'll pull up any of the Malco dealers in your area.

I would make sure that you select roofing, siding and gutter, because that's what these tools are going to fall into under the market. And then that's going to give you what locations, your local locations that may have these tools. We don't sell them in retail, even though you may see some retail outlets pop up on your search. And we also do have these on Amazon, as well, but any of your larger, more regional building and construction type distributors would have access to these tools. So, SRS, Beacons, yeah, you name it, that size distribution outlet's going to have these.

Karen Edwards: They're going have it.

Shane Norman: ABC Supply, ACME Tools, so there's a lot of them.

Karen Edwards: Do you sell outside the US?

Shane Norman: We do sell a little bit outside the US, but our primary focus is the US market.

Karen Edwards: Okay.

Shane Norman: Yeah.

Karen Edwards: Because there's metal roofs everywhere, right? And metal walls everywhere. All right. So, I would love to know, what's the future hold? What can we expect? What does your development cycle look like, and what's coming down the pike?

Shane Norman: Yeah, so at Malco we understand that new products is kind of what breathes the lifeblood into our company. So, we're constantly tweaking products or coming out with the latest things. We do have a number of new products that we're actively developing, that are going to fit directly into this segment. And we will be showcasing some of those here coming up at METALCON. Our Malco booth number is 707, so make sure if you're at METALCON, to come and check some of the new stuff that we're rolling out. But, we will see additional tools that we're going to focus on utilizing that power assisted theme. That's more to come, future, next year stuff. But we have some other great hand tools that are going to be launching this fall. So, make sure you keep an eye out for all the Malco information that's going to be blasting out on LinkedIn and METALCON and the like

Karen Edwards: Sure. Yeah.

Shane Norman: We have some more exciting stuff coming down the pipeline.

Karen Edwards: And you mentioned that you're continually improving what you have, even, "Is there a way we can make this better? How can we improve on this?" What does that look like? Where do you get that feedback? Are you talking to contractors?

Shane Norman: Yeah, so like myself, I try to be on the road at least one week a month, longterm, that's kind of the cadence that product managers need to be out and in touch with the field. But we also do have direct regional sales managers that are listening to contractors. So, not just myself out on the field, but anytime we do get feedback directly from our sales staff or any of the actual end customers that go and talk to their counter guys, we try to get as much of that information back to the mothership at Malco that we can and then we definitely do make product tweaks as necessary, if we're finding that something might be having a problem out in the market, we react to it really quickly. Yeah.

Karen Edwards: So, you said a phrase when you and I talked before the webinar and you said you, "Like to put the power source in the hands of the pro," and I thought that's a great phrase and as evidenced by the power source, what are we looking at in this picture?

Shane Norman: So, this is a standing seam cutter. So, we went over the seamer, so that's for putting on a new roof. So, we also do have two cutters that are meant for taking standing seam panels off the roof. So, if you've got a hail job, you get a bad enough storm, where the roof deck is actually damaged to the point where it needs to be replaced, instead of prying up all those mechanical seams, because I mentioned, right? Those seamers, they fold that material over itself.

Karen Edwards: It's tight.

Shane Norman: So there's no easy way to rip those panels off. So, we do have a one inch to inch and a half and then an inch and a half to two inch version of this cutter that will just cut that cleat or the cleat and the rib directly off the panel, as it goes up. So, it makes those jobs that much smoother for the crews to go out and tear off a whole roof in an afternoon and then prep and be ready to put the new metal roof on the next day, versus trying to pry it off with prying tools or... I've heard horror stories of people taking angle grinders or saws [inaudible 00:35:27] to cut these ribs off. And then it might take a whole week just to do demo if you're doing it that way.

Karen Edwards: Right. And think about safety, too. I would think that having a tool like this that is designed to do exactly what it's doing is going to keep the workers on the roof safer.

Shane Norman: Yeah, one of the best parts is it's quiet, so, it rotary shears that panel, without making hardly any noise, where if you've got guys out there that are running metal cutting blades, it's not pleasant for anybody in the near vicinity.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, that is a very good point. All right, so we already touched on our next slide here, of purchasing them, but that's okay. We just did a little bit early, but definitely check them out either on Amazon or at your local distributor, ask about them, because there's nothing better than just holding it in your hands and seeing how it works and understanding how to use it. So, I highly recommend that everyone do that.

And then regional building outlets, Amazon, we covered all that. Get in touch with Malco as well, because they have a full directory on both Roofer'sCoffeeShop and MetalCoffeeShop. It has their contact information. I'm sure we have links to the videos, and the YouTube channel, so you don't have to remember all of that. You can just go to one place, and get in touch with Shane. This was really interesting. Do you want to give... I know I said it at the beginning of the webinar, sneak peeks, but you just had a new tool that rolled out, that people might be interested in checking out?

Shane Norman: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point, Karen. So, we did just launch what we call a seven in one flip bit. So, that's a tool that has the most common socket sizes all in one nice tool. Again, we're not necessarily first to market to bring that flip bit to the market. You have Klein, and Milwaukee has versions and others, but ours are, like usual, the highest quality. So if you actually put a high-headed screw into the flip bit, so it's magnetic, so it's going to hold that high-headed screw. If you go and you tap the screw, just the edge of the screw with the competitive product, the screw falls right out.

There's nothing more for frustrating than if you're reaching overhead, and you bump the tip of that screw and there, now of a sudden you're on a ladder and the screw falls, so now you got to reload. Our magnets are top-notch, and just the design itself holds those screws a lot better than the majority of the competition out there. So, check that out. That's also on MalcoTools.com. We'll be highlighting that, along with other new tools yet to launch at METALCON, here at the end of October. So, come join us down in Atlanta. It'll be right over Halloween.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, usually they have good candy. They hand out Halloween-sized candy. So, you can bring some home for the kids.

Shane Norman: Yep. We're going to be rolling out new tools pretty frequently here for the foreseeable future.

Karen Edwards: Awesome. Ah, okay. This has been really educational, and interesting and I really hope that you've taken away something that's going to help you in your journey in the metal roofing and wall business. Roofing, siding, gutters, RSG. I'll say that right. Shane, thank you. And thank you Malco Tools, for providing the equipment that we need to do the work right.

Shane Norman: Yeah. Thanks again, Karen.

Outro: Alrighty. So, just a reminder that this was recorded. It will be available on MetalCoffeeShop within one to two business days, so please share it, especially if you know somebody that is thinking about getting into metal and maybe they're a little hesitant, because the opportunities there are just fantastic. So, thank you for watching and we will see you on a future episode of MetalTalk.