20 ga. vs 16 ga. Panels - What Should You Purchase

This ain't no backyard story. This ain't no quiet tail. It's the fence show in Vegas where legends set sail. What a vinyl, steel or aluminum shine. Automatic gates cutting edge design. Brian's here and you know he's a man. Cowboy hat got the master plan. It's the number one show in the nation. You got your destination. Still a on display from the Vegas. Don't let this slip away. The street's got it blitz, but we've got the grid access control so slick you won't want to quit. Every post, every panel standing tall and proud at the show we're drawing

Gates. This is where innovation away the desert call. This show's got it all. Show you got your destination. Still on display.

Whoa. That song never gets old. Yes, sir. Looks like you're still always, man. It's like you live at that that Vegas show right there, huh? I'm getting ready. I'm still here. Haven't left. All right, everybody. Thank you for tuning in tonight. Uh we're super excited. We've got a special guest today. You may know him. This is Sasha. He's the official janitor for Founders Fence. And if you need if you're ever over at one of the locations, you need something straightened up, some new toilet paper, something, this is your guy. Yep. Yes, sir. With some cleaning fluid. Whatever your needs are. But all kidding aside, uh, director of Founders Fence live on this podcast with us, which is really cool. So, how you doing today, man? Not too bad. Uh, for California, we've got flooding. We've got landslides going on at the moment. Our location in Arizona seems to have the snow going now. It's been a crazy week. Yeah. Yeah. Weather is everywhere. It's everywhere. We had We had a roof leak in here. Um, you know, you don't we just don't like you guys, we don't get a lot of rain. So, it's like we don't even know how to handle it. The there's just flooding all over the roads and all the stuff's filling up. It's just a mess. It's a mess. But, uh, it's good for the fence industry, right? Hey, you know, can't natural disasters, uh, tend to give us some business. Yeah. We don't want anybody getting hurt, but we don't mind a fence falling over. But, yeah, as long as it ain't one we just installed. That's true. That's true. Hopefully hopefully didn't fall over before you got paid everyone. But yeah, but uh but uh yeah, it's uh it's nice to have you on here. It's been a while since uh we chatted about anything. And I know we chat anybody that knows us knows we're pretty good friends. So we chat on a regular basis. You probably followed us and hell we were just in uh the UK together up there. So that was that was you know that was surprised let you in to the UK but you know I know they may not again. I know it was a good time. So no it was good. Yep. Yeah. Big shout out to First Fence. uh for hosting the first part of our trip out there and picking us up at the airport and setting us up and shuttling us around. Um it really did make the first few days early and visiting their facilities and it was good to see how how other countries do fence and you know manufacturing and and even the show over there was it was just good to see you know get another perspective of our of our industry and how intertwined it is. Yeah. And it does go back to what we were saying um one degree apart. this isn't like a normal industry. I mean, it was amazing walking around that that Fencex show up in um the UK and you couldn't it was just like here you couldn't go 5t without either somebody saying they knew you or somebody you met at one of the other shows or was at the Vegas show. Um it was uh it was really cool to see how close of a industry we really are even across the pond. They like to call it. Yeah. Well, that is it the pond or whatever. But and I think that's that's what's cool about our industry, right? It's, you know, we we've talked a lot about, you know, people are either born in it, they stumble in it, um they know someone, they get involved, but when you look at the global aspect of fencing, there's not much that separates us. Our industry itself, you know, we we yeah, we're doing innovative stuff. There's new designs. There's new machinery that comes out, but as a whole, the fence goes post first and then everything else. And most of our countries these days in our industry anyway. Yep. They're just so intertwined and even ASM codes and stuff like that they're pretty much very similar across the whole countries and in the world. So it's very unique industry in that way. It's um which is cool because it I feel like we're a closed a more like you know closed niche um construction industry than probably anything else out there to be honest. Yeah, we are. But I noticed that there was a huge material difference in the

Style of everything from the iron panels to the temporary panels. And we've been talking about it for years. Um how it's changed and it's evolved even you know I mean I I can't speak for the whole country um around the country other than just the you know the massive amount of conversations I have with people now um from the association and the fence show. So obviously I have a lot more conversations that I had you know five years ago with people outside of my little bubble that uh I like to call Las Vegas, right? But um it's grown a lot here in the last um 20 years. I mean 20 years ago we were buying there was two different options. We were buying iron panels that were just raw steel with uh primed and powder coated or even raw steel with just powder coated a lot of local stuff. Right. So um and I think for decade at least or decades we just purchased uh primed and and powder coated panels or even primed and painted. they would I don't know if they were dipping them or how they were doing them back then, but the powder coated the pregalve and the powder coated iron panels was a completely different option. It was a more expensive option. So, um but now it's pretty much the go-to standard. It's it's you're getting a you're getting a pregal panel with some sort of finish most likely, you know, to protect it and then also powder coated and but sometimes they don't. Sometimes it's just a a pregal panel with powder coating. What are your thoughts on that that transition? I mean, why did that happen? And why aren't we still just doing raw with powder? I mean, if it worked in this area for so long, what's what's caused this shift? Is it that you get cheaper pre-galve materials now? Because it used to be a big difference. What do you what do you think that reasoning is? Look, I think I I really believe a lot of that happened overseas first. Um, you know, my story for those you don't know, you know, came out of the install side in Australia and it was already all preg material. The hard part was welding it, right? Making sure there was ventilation and because it's a bit nastier to weld. I think back in the day, raw was the easiest product. Everything was made raw. You were either hot dipping it to protect the raw product or you were simply painting it. You weren't even powder cuz it was paint. Sorry, my earbud just fell out. But um yeah, I get too excited. So there's there was a couple of different transition and then preg is a better product than raw, right? It's it's got more longevity than raw steel. Um and it's a bit cheaper. You don't then have to hot dip it um to protect the coating. So I feel like galvanizing came a long way in 20 years. So did the welding of it. It became there was a lot more technology and you know look at the packs that the guys used to weld now you know to ventilate. So it became easier to work with and it became more readily available because the process is cheaper. Right. Like you said you got pregalve now you don't have to hot dip one. And the problem too with hot dipping, Brian, which you know in our industry, most of the people we send our hot dip to, their vats aren't that clean. Like we there's better there's better hot dippers than others, but um then you don't get that blotching and then you try to paint over the blotching and it's it's not a finish, a smooth finish. And powder coating has come such a long way. Um, you know that you got the different glosses, it gives you more life, you put more UV. I think over the last 15 to 20 years, the process is cheaper and the product quality is better. Um, as they've developed the paints back in the day, like you know, it was raw, you would hot dip or you would just paint on site or paint. And it it's not the same finish. Cuz the problem with the raw is once it gets scratched, it just rusts. It's cuz it's raw. It's it's going to get exposed to moisture. And um with the galvanizing, you're already protected with the actual raw product. Um then you traditionally these days, it's primed and then it's powder coated. So you're getting that triple layer of protection. And I think as the iron industry expanded, you know, again, for good or bad, right, I'm not here to discuss import versus domestic. I still feel domestic is always going to be a little bit better, but it's a little bit more expensive, but the processes are now the same. It's generally, I would say in the market at the moment, you're looking about 95% of any welded iron products, all preg primed and powder coated. And then these

Days too, they've got laser welding, which has changed our industry again. You're now not even burning the galvanizing. So, traditionally where you would weld the pickets and the rails together, that's where you you're leaving yourself open to rust. Um because you're burning off the galvanizing a little bit where now with laser welding, it's a cold weld. It's an amazing technology and you know it's just adding extra extra protection um versus the the old days where if you go to a raw product and they're still around you'll see peeling everywhere. Um you know it just doesn't it doesn't last as long. Right. And I think uh I think one of the most interesting things you said was you're right when you were dealing with galvanizing material in the past um we didn't have as much EPA stuff to deal with back then either as we do now. I mean, we were just spraying stuff in our makeshift paint booths and stuff and they shut all those down. Now everything has to go to powder coating, but dealing with galvanizing. Yeah. The venting was always an issue and certain people, you know, I mean, a lot of us just had fans and stuff set up and now we're getting more into the respirators and things. So, you think you think as we transition into more robotics and stuff that that became less of an issue, right? Yeah. And I think that's another very important point is robotics has changed every industry, not just ours. Um, look at the automotive industry. I mean, those are the guys that really got into robotics, you know, production lines and stuff like that. So, robotics again, you know, people don't realize robotics have been around for like 15 plus years. Like they haven't just come up in the last decade. Um, and as the robots are getting better and better and you know they're, you know, because back in the day, there's a couple companies I used to deal with that would make um, the gates, the chain link gates with robots. It's a robotic, but it would break down a lot, you know? So, robotics was one of those things. It was great in theory, right? But it had a lot of issues, you know, with breakdowns and and and and even our production lines in the iron side, you know, has changed too. And in Europe, what they consider a standard product, we don't in America, you know, they use a lot of welded wire, which is, you know, machinebased. It's, you know, these machines are running the gauges through the strand through and spot welding, you know, and spitting it out the other side. Um so yeah it's in it's interesting I think a lot of this technology um has come from other countries and then as we've adapted it in America for ourselves like we are very unique because we have our own our needs um I think that's where we at this point now where it you'd be very hard now depending on the gauges will mean okay certain thickness gauges we might have to go to a raw product but if we're going to a raw product nine out of 10en times hot dipping it um just because they want a hot dip finish. So, if somebody really wants that hot dip finish, then for sure we're going, you know, a raw product to hot dip, you know, on a hot You're never going to get, it's really hard to get that hot dip and not have it have those rough edges. And when you get those rough edges and and a little bubbles and stuff, not even bubbles, I don't slag almost, right? Yeah. You got that rail and then you go and powder coat it, it's still there and it just looks like it was something something in the powder coating or something went wrong. So, it's really tough. I I would assume not too many people unless it's some government thing specked out where they're not picking it apart would you have uh pregouted. So that's um yeah I mean that's pretty interesting. There's no doubt. Um and then did you see the the well we were in UK we're at one of the facilities for First Fence where they actually were punching a hole through the rail and they lasered their name in it. I I I wish I could remember the name of what was on that product. It was their own product brand and then it went through that top rail and then it went into like a star diamond shape or some star that was cut out over and it was pressed in there. Have you seen some Have you seen some of that stuff? You think that's some product that's out there that's gonna I think you'd have to have at least three rails to make that work, right? But and then the the concept of brilliant,

Right? The concept is less less. Yeah. And there's less rust. There's less rusting points. So, um the concept's brilliant. Um just like anything, you know, we get used to a certain way of doing anything in life. And I don't care what business it is and it's hard to get change. I think, you know, the way I think the industry is sort of going these days, you know, we're we're fighting everything based on cheap, right, which I get it. Everything's so much more expensive. Um, you know, even, you know, living and just a whole lot right now in the States. And I think, you know, countries like Europe have already gone through that. So, they've got they've got cheaper products and then they're trying to make products last as long as they can, which makes sense, right? You want a product, but I don't know if that's necessarily good for the industry or not. At the end of the day, you know, me putting in a fence or, you know, trying to compete in the market, cheap is not always good, right? Right. Um so as we develop try to do you know especially in the steel industry um you know aluminum is big over east but where we are Brian it's not that big it's it's mainly all welded welded steel products is still bigger. Um, so I think I don't know. We've we've tried as an industry, how far can you really go cuz it's a fence, right? Um, so I think I think the pregalve preg is here to stay. It's whether you prime it or powder coat it. The finish is like we can do a 20 year finish now on our powder coating. So it's a different level of UV. It's a different type of powder. Um, so I feel like what's happened over the years is they've gone, okay, the core products there. It's a steelbased product. Depending on how thick it is or the or what the product is, you might have to hot dip it because it's like you said, you're doing a government job. They're using 3/4 in solid pickets. You know, you got to have them in raw. You can't you can't pre get them pre-galved. Um, so certain items will historically have to go that route, but I think, you know, when you look at 60 70% of the products out there, it's all pregalve, it's all powder coated and either primed and powder coated and it's and it's lasting, you know, 10 plus years um, so long as people aren't abusing it. So, tell me about um, pregal and I'm asking you because I know you have a lot more experiences. You've been to the factories uh, China and here and I mean you know quite a bit about um, the fabrication process. So you're not just you're not just selling panels or a product number. Most of these stuff you've actually helped design wherever you're having it made, right? Or your factories and so on. So um tell me about pregalve. You know, I mean I I never knew it until someone else told me that most of those chain link posts we're getting. I guess I was always assuming growing up it was all hot dip galve, right? So um a lot of the posts were seeing everything were from the box stores, even were buying from the distributors. Someone else told me and you can verify this. Are these mainly um preg posts? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And you know there's different varieties, right? Domestic versus import. The thickness of the pregalve has to be pretty much universal. That's that's why I said our industry is so intertwined. It doesn't matter what STM's here like 1043 1083 on the post. It's pretty much the same across the world. So it's a thickness of the galvanizing the quality. Right? So the real issue with galvanizing over the years has always been iron ore. Right? that's the core product. Then they have to put some chemicals in, you know, to get it right. So, what's happened years and years ago, and I'm sure you've been aware of it, there was some cheap galvanizing or not as good quality coming in where the where it's inline welded to to form it round. It would split. Uh it was just it was real blotchy because there's there's bad iron ore in the countries out there that are producing. And I think that's sort of where the bad rep of galvanizing came from. But over the years that's I mean I haven't seen a a split in a post around you know schedule 40 SS20 um for years and I can tell the country that it was coming from. I'm not going to. But you know that that sort of stuff's all

I find if you're getting it from a very notreutable company and you you want really cheap, you might have issues. But these days, it's so strict to bring anything into America as well. And even for domestic people making it in the mills that you can't it's it's very hard to have rubbish products these days. Now in manufacturing, are you going to have issues? Yes. I don't care who manufactures I mean look at cars for example you are going to have issues it's manufacturing it just there things are going to happen along the line but generally that's it's all negated these days with the quality of the iron or to be honest because that's where it really begins where you're getting it from and then the manufacturing process everyone has a little bit of a different process you know whether they coat it with a little bit of a better UV uh rating um or UVcoated on the pipe, but it's it's predominantly all pregalve. So, if um I mean, just to run a scenario, say somebody was to go buy uh two and 38 post from one of the box stores, right? Yep. And whether it be Home Depot, Lowe's, wherever it happen, wherever they happen to go to get the the material locally. If someone was to buy one of those pre those would be, I assume, pregal posts in most of those locations. There' be a lot of import products in there. and um they were to get a pregal post in there, would that pre-alve finish be pretty similar to what you'd find on a founders uh fence panel? Yeah. Yeah. You Yeah, exactly. So, like the their panels themselves, like the box stores that stock iron and and also the chain link as well. That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the chain link post, like a two and three chain link post. How would that prealve hold up against like uh the pregalve on another like an somebody's iron panel? Yeah, it it'll hold up just as well. Like that's why it's preg. If you look at chain link, you're talking a commodity product, right? It's the cheapest of the cheap. So most of it is preg um pre it's all pregal product. Now g which has been a big argument in our industry for years um and years and years. I think you know my opinion on that is the issue with GW which is galvanized after weaving right so that's a hot dip type of product raw the strand is weaved it's then put through vats and it's shaken off the GBW of today is just as good as the GAW without the little icicles right people are going to argue with me till till we you know I know this is an old argument um because they're saying it's hot dipped and where the knuckles a a cut at the bottom, it exposes it. But every chain link fence has a rusting point. Like it's actually on ASM and it will rust at a certain level. Um, so it it look at the end of the day, the pregalanized products, they're they're good. The warranty on GBW and the warranty on J, they're exactly the same. The fence gray is the same, right? You know, everyone wants shiny chain link, but after a month of you putting it up, it's dulling. You know what I mean? And then it will rust. It has a certain rust um value to it. Um so, yeah, it's hard, right? Pregve is the way to go. It's it's it's ready to go. That's why the box stores, you know, unless they're pre- like a custom ordered, it's all pregalve, even the fittings. It sounds like you're taking a pregalp post which is pretty similar to a chain link post that you would put anywhere in the ground and comp you put it in also because you you put it in areas where you're worried about rust because it's got the pregalve right. So um it's galvanized chain link uh posts. So that sounds to me like then if anything at some cases it'll be a step up because now you've got a pregalve then you've got a a primer layer then you've got powder coating over that. So, you have to break through that powder coating primer before you even get to the um you know to the actual pregalve surface to start working on that. So, it might even in some cases an iron fence that had the pregalve primed and powder coated might actually hold up better than a chain link fence unless I mean if I'm reading this correctly. Yeah. And I'll be honest with you, it does. I mean that's why you're paying a little bit more for iron. Um it's going to last longer. Again, it's a sturdier

Fence, too. So that you know, everyone's definition of lasting is different as well. Like a chain link is a cheap fence. Um, and as you know, in our area in the West Coast, it's getting harder and harder to put in residential, right? You either have to go, you know, in residential you might have to go an extruded um black or colored vinyl or polyurethane, whatever you want to call it, um fence, but generally galvvin like chain link is getting phased out of residential where I'm from um you know, originally Australia, you you can't use chain link residentially at all. Yeah. Um just because too it's you know it it doesn't have the longevity of iron um and some of these other fence and it's because of the finish like you've just got this g finish um you know where the iron is pregal primed and powder coated so you've got you got three layers of protection and you know the powder like I've had this argument you know as you're aware we're in Arizona as well and People feel like that weather, you know, the heat. Yeah. Not anymore. Like back in the day. Yes. Back in the day, the UV coating was different inside the P. Like it's all just changed. And you can take a black a black fence in the middle of Arizona at 120 130 degrees and it will hold up. Um in that heat, you know. Um same thing here. I mean, in Las Vegas, we got pretty similar heat. So, um you know, it bakes. anything we got here, it's like running it through the uh powder coat oven again every year in Las Vegas. So, and we have we've had iron panels up for decades, you know, but um without any seeing too much wear and tear other than you'll see some uh color fading sometimes every once in a while, but I mean it's we're talking a long time down the road, but that's just normal I think anywhere. But even then, you wouldn't notice it. It had to be so gradual that it takes it takes a while. But um yeah, so um that you know iron, like I said, iron I'm a huge fan of iron. So that I'm we're going to do some tests in Florida as well when I'm down there um for demo days. Uh March 26th, 27th, everybody. Uh go to fenco.com, get registered for demo days because that's going to be coming to Florida. You guys are going to be there. We're gonna be bringing some of your panels, I heard, Yeah, we will. We'll go and smash them around a bit and test them out and put them out into the um out for the guys and the ladies to go and test it, right? So again it's like the cool thing too about the industry at the moment where it's going and yeah I mean is it going in the right direction? Look like anything change is hard. It's hard for me it's hard for everyone. So it's it's more we're getting more especially in America to cookie cutter type of fencing. You know if we can buy a you know off the shelf to an appointment um and put it up I mean that's just the way we're going. It's it's been that way. I think uh convenience and also quality um has just taken leaps and bounds and you know with our products you can cut them you know you know this is all pregav you can cut once you cut a raw product that's painted. Exposing that that metal to to to air and moisture and oxidization. That's what people don't realize. Once you scratch a raw product that's been painted, it oxidizes super quick, really quick. Um, and that's where you get the white rust, the rust. Um, and back in the day, what's that? Even a minor scratch while you're installing on that. It's just next thing you know, you got rust points wherever it might have touched something. Yeah. Yeah. And and with pregal, like back in the day, there were white rust issues, the quality, the cleaning, you know, and then you go powder coat something that has white rust and you don't necessarily see it, but once the powder coating goes, it won't stick right. So, what happens is you get the peeling that happens. And look, it happens to domestic guys as well. It's not a perfect art. We're manufacturing, but that those days of having all these issues are gone. Like I you can go down any of these developments and HOAs and you know in California, you can tell when something's just been raw and painted. It's it's already looks like rubbish. Like it's just now hot dip's different. Like if you're hot dipping it, um you know, we're talking about a, you know,

That third layer of protection that you've been saying, but the old school way of raw and then powder coating is just it's it's no one's doing it anymore, you know. There you have it, guys. Nobody wants rubbish. So, uh, so find yourself some pregalvanized, primed, and powder coated panels. Um, get a hold of Sasha if he can help as well. And, uh, if you want to see these things in action, he's going to be bringing some of those down to demo days. So, you'll get to actually touch and feel. And, uh, let's com let's put these things up against some chain link posts while we're there and, uh, kind of show you guys how, you know, how sturdy it is and stuff. I know we use a lot of um this some panels from you as well and some panels for Las Vegas fence. So um you know from multiple places and it definitely uh it's the way to go. We've been using them for years. But um also I wanted to talk to you Sasha while I got you on here because you do a lot with temporary fence. A lot with temporary fence. And when we were in the UK there were some panels, you know, that were they weighed half of what yours weighed. Man, why why do I why do I want to haul your big heavy ass panels around when I could, you know, lift these things up with a couple couple fingers? And look, I'm not here to knock, you know, we just talked about that earlier, right? Cheap is not necessarily bad, but when when you're like the market and you're going to bring in a product and it's very price oriented, like so the one thing about temp fencing, it's a commodity as well, right? It's just like chain link. It's on it's temp, right? Temp fence. So that word says cheap basically. Um and there's there's 20 gauge stuff out there that you know bends. Now do people want it? Sure. But when they ask me sash, well why why can I get these panels for $50 and your panels are $61? And my first question is what's the gauge? Because you got to compare. My only thing is I don't like everyone's got to do what they got to do to survive in their own business, but you can't compare apples to, you know, let's make correct comparisons. And I feel like that's that's my big struggle. Um, is when I get told, oh, well, I could go down the road and get this product and it's coming in uh from temp fencing at the moment. There's a couple of companies that are making a 20 gauge product that is seriously light. And look, if that's what you want to use, um, fine. It will not last. Um, again, what America is unique, not unique, but different is that they reuse temp fence, right? These are throwaways. So, these are disposable. Basic. Other countries in the world, it's a one-time use. They're not putting them up to rent on the cheaper gauge, on the lighter gauge products. So, in the temp fence industry, you're not reusing these. I don't care who you are out there cuz they're cheap and and sure if you want to if you need to be price sensitive and you want you're okay with a lighter gauge and it's not just the frame. Now, you're talking a lighter gauge opening the gaps the you know, especially if it's a welded wire type of product. Um, you know, that's again, you're taking Let's talk about that for a second, Ben. So when we say gauges there's not everybody listening uh does temporary fence. In fact there's a lot of people that might be listening that don't do any chain link at all. So um you know when we start talking about the gauges sometimes of the pipe and the one and 38 one and 58 is something that they don't deal with um on a daily basis. So a standard temp I mean we've been we've been selling and and renting out temporary panels for decades here you know at Las Vegas fence. So, um, I think our standard panels would be a 1 and 38 frame and that's 16 gauge because it's made out of the same materials we'd use for our top rail on fences, residential fences. So, we would have a 1 and 38 frame, right? Uh, 16 gauge and we'd have normally one upright. And a 10 foot long. We use 10 foot. A lot of people only use 12 and things like that, but we use a lot of 10 foot panels. So, we even on a 10, we'd have one upright that went straight up and that's typically the same one and 38 notched and that's welded. And every once in a while you'll find some that are bent, you know, on the on the two top parts. We don't really do those. We do fully welded. And then it's a uh it's a two and 38 inch mesh I believe on the wire um 11 and a half gauge.

So So the so how we've sort of the the industry on temp fence has gone away from not all but like we have gone away from an upright that's an inch and 38 cuz when you stack temp fence and you all the frame is all inch and 38. We've got a 1 in upright that goes up um vertically because when you stack it now it stacks like thing like so when you put on your trucks it's it's easy to carry. Okay. So we won't we don't budge off the 16 gauge. We're open to talking to people about doing a 20 gauge product. But here's the next problem. When you're welding a 20 20 gauge panel and you know better Brian you have a welding shop. man you got to be It's like, And then on top of that, we have clients that want rings, right? So, in certain areas, there's welded rings on the panels and then they drive the post in for stability, right? Um rather than use our stands or sandbags or our weights. When you put windscreen on these panels, they just bend in half. And then how do you weld? And again, it doesn't matter, right? I'm not here knocking anyone that's wanting this product or buying it or making it, but it's got to be apples to apples, right? So, that's the that's the education part is, okay, well, you've got this version that, yes, is cheaper than the standard version that Founders has and a lot of other tempense suppliers have, but there's a reason because you can't weld as well. I'm not going to say you can't weld, but good luck trying to weld rings and um and do proper welds on a 20 gauge product. It's light. You're blowing out the welds. Your welds are um you know can have pitting in it and then that's the problem. You got pitting, you got rust and in America it's not. And maybe it's going to go that way where it's just going to be a disposable type of panel. But I find it hard to believe that these site services companies are going to go with the throwaway because they have so many people that, you know, they rent it, it comes back, the damage, they'll take the chain link off, they'll rewire the chain link, they might have to weld pieces on it, and you just can't do that as effective, if not at all, on these lighter lighter gauges. And that's the issue. Um, so it's a very short I don't know where it's going. It's it's here in America. I won't lie, I've been dealing with it for the last four weeks. Six to four weeks. And like what do we do as a company? Do we do we go, okay, let's offer a one of these products and call it a disposable temp? What? You know, I don't know. But that's the problem. I'm curious because I mean for us um and we're not a cheap rental company obviously. We do more specialty event kind of things sometimes. We don't really chase the work where it's 10 cents a foot, you know, to put it up. So even then it takes I probably got to rent it out two three times before we get our money back out of it. So I don't know how I would be able to do it if you're renting them out you know multiple times with a lighter gauge because they even still get a little beat up but um and I don't know if you remember they all had the rings on them long I mean a while back everything had rings on them those stands they really didn't exist much uh for you know where you would just have the the two bars going up where you'd slide the panel the ends of the one and three it's over them. it was mainly those rings and you either pound a post or you went down into a stand, you know, from that one ring. So, um it's interesting to see how that's evolved and that probably got that probably evolved more because we stopped building them as much locally and that took up too much room. With those rings, it'd be even harder to stack, right? And take more time. Well, not just that. So, the problem with the rings, it's it's, you know, a couple of big big companies back 20 whenever they, you know, they really had the rings and I got it back then. We had more land. We got more, you know, to drive it in the ground. You know, strength and durability will be everybody's argument with driving driving it through the rings. But let's talk about just transporting it. Firstly, transporting panels with rings, you're getting a lot more damage cuz they just don't sit right and you're dragging them out

Or you're moving them around to load and it's twice as you're getting more damage just off the bat. So, as technology changed um these stands and especially in builtup areas. Look, I get it. Like we're fighting this battle in Arizona. There's a lot more land, right? So it sort of makes sense to a lot of people to drive it in the ground. But how do you change? Like one thing I will always challenge everyone is okay makes sense. Don't fix something that's broke. But we have these panels over here and in most bad weather, rain, more wind, and Arizona's just like a windy ass. your P 10 fence panels fall over even with the post driven in to the ground. So, how do you fix it though? Like just to go and replace that versus a panel with a stand where you you know and again people going to argue with Sash, but there's yes, it'll fall over, but there's less falling over than there are stands. Well, I'm like, well, we've got weights. You don't have to use sandbags anymore. And I think I think it's changed a little bit, but certain areas will never change, right? You just got to you got to adapt as a manufacturer, too. You can't just go in and tell everyone, "Ah, that's right." Because it's not. Um you're never going to You're never going to shove an idea down uh a large number of percentage of fence companies throats and expect them to take it. We could be doing it the wrong way for 20 years. And if you came and tell us the way you have to do it, we're going to tell you to go go kick sand because we're uh we don't like to be told what to do. But um it is it has evolved and I've seen it go from those to the you know from the rings over to the regular stands and back then it was rings but it was 12 and even 14 foot long panels if you remember that. Yes. So yeah and our and our stands that we've developed they're a solid rod stand that are drilled and they're welded top and bottom. So it gives you cuz a lot of the stands that are out there are one inch hollow. So what happens and they're just welded on the top of the stand. So when the winds come, they just snap right at the top where ours is drilled through. It's a solid rod. It's a 3/4 inch solid rod and it's welded top and bottom to give it that strength. And then you know, look, sandbags are sandbags, but then weights have come such a long way. You know, we got plastic. Sorry, it is what it is. It's temp fence. I get it. It's got to get it up. You got to maintain it. So to answer your question, the American market is unique to anywhere in the world. Um even though we're all connected and we sell sort of similar products, but the American market is is American, right? So it's it's about how do you so that's why Pregal has taken off because it's it wasn't changing what the what the American market was wanted. It was just giving a all round better product, more easier. Um, and once the welding got better and fumes and all of that um, sort of got fixed, um, it just changed and it just it's a good product. So temp fencing is going to be very interesting because yeah, I've had to field some calls in the last month or so that have been, you know, at times frustrating because it a 20 it's a light gauge. What do you want to do with that when it falls over, you know, and bends in half? Well, you know, like you said, I think the the iron panels going from just raw material, powder coated, it didn't happen overnight. it it happened over over a period of decades, right? So, um but it was always there. The the pregalve with the primed and powder coated was always there. It was there 20 years ago in the books. So, when I was ordering iron panels, um you know, from builders or you know, we get a lot of stuff from builder fence and stuff locally up here. So, um you know, the Las Vegas. So, when when I was ordering it was always there. It was just two pricing. You had this pricing. we were ordering maybe that, but then every once in a while we'd offer this other one, right, to somebody that wanted maybe a little bit um more protection or better coverage or something for the panel. But maybe that's how this whole market's going to change. Maybe maybe we got to

Tell them, hey, here's your pricing. Or, you know, on the iron panels, we got to say, hey, here's temporary panels. Here's your 20 gauge ones and here's your 16. Maybe it's the only way they're going to understand the difference between the two. [snorts] I think yes and no. Um, I really believe options are good for everyone, but at the end of the day, the qual like at some point to be an issue, right? Cuz in everything you can only go cheap as cheap as you can go, right? You know that, you know, I go to this website, it's coming from here, it's really cheap, but you you pay what you get. But in our industry where it's not just a one-time use, it's got to it's got to be, you know, multiple you in temp fencing is traditionally always multiple use. Like you go put the temp fence out, then you come back and, you know, you reuse it three or four or five times. So, and this is sort of how we're trying to educate people by the you have to buy this again on the next one. My panels are are better cuz they when I say better pan like they they're going to last you longer and you're going to be able to turn the product a couple of times and then okay you have to buy a panel by a panel by a panel by the time you bought your second panel for another job. You're already paid way more than me. So it's tough because I'm with you. I think you know we've discussed this for years me and you Brian and I I warned everyone five or six years ago and I was working for the big guys that at some point it's all going to be about price. Like what's going to happen and we're at that place I believe in fencing where quality is not necessarily it's important but when you can bring in lighter panels like that then is it? But I feel like it will flip again because there's certain products that you're going to look at and go, "Oh, we can't skimp on that." You know what I mean? It's either it's either going to happen that way or people are going to start, I guess, once they place some orders or or you never know. Um 16 gauge, you know, it's all going to be one and 38. I don't think we're going to get away from that because we've got too much invested into the clamps and everything. So to change it from one and 38 might even be more difficult, right? But um if the temporary panels do evolve, maybe there ends up being two different types of temporary panels in the US. A 16 gauge um and a 20 gauge, right? And uh you never know. I'm going to try to get you to make me some 24 gauge. But you know, I don't want to break I don't want I don't want to break a sweat. I want to go out and put up 100 panels without breaking a sweat. Maybe using one arm in case I want to hold my coffee in the other one and still build my temporary fence with this one. You know, I want to be I want to I want to build fence like this, Sasha. like this. It's just just using your hand, you know. Oh, no. I'd love that. And then I want to build it with a robot so I don't have to do anything, you know. I told you, you know, I'm getting one. I'm gonna get those uh they got those robots like 16 grand right now. I'm going to I'm I'm waiting to order one and I'm gonna first thing I'm going to do is teach one how to build uh you know, how to dig holes. Then I'm gonna teach another one how to how to line the holes. And I'll teach another one to mix concrete. Next thing you know, we get to a job site, about 16 robots are going to come out. And they're gonna screw it up even worse. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No. And I think look, that's that's it. Like it's it's how low how low do you want to go? And I think there I think there's going to be a flaw because you can't go there's cheap and then there's doesn't last, you know. So I think there'll be we'll work it out. Probably going to be like you said options. Um but at some point you can't there's going to you just can't you've hit the floor like anything after that is okay how light are we going to go you know. Yeah I think 16 and 20 uh 20 gauge conversations definitely uh it could have a whole entire episode about that and I'd like to get some more information and do some drawings and spec maybe we'll have another one if anybody's interested in that. Drop it in the comments if you're interested about having a full-blown conversation about um the industry when it comes to temporary fence. And maybe

I'd like maybe we could sit down and look at some different options, too. Uh everything from driving the post to stretching the wire um and and also having the panels and when's the right time to use temporary panels versus actually pounding the post and just stretching stretching the wire and how do you do the gates and things like that. So, I think we'll follow up with another episode on that, but um I don't want to I don't want to um leave you here without talking again about Demo Days. So, Demo Days is uh March 26th to the 27th and uh we're doing it. It's it's going to be uh in near Orlando. It's about 30 minutes away and we're pretty excited to have everybody, you know, have everybody get a little bit more information here. So, go to fencow.com. You can see we're going to have the demo days uh area set up here. We're going to have a huge parking lot as well as the demo areas. Uh booths. You can see the booths here. Everybody that gets a booth, um there's it's filling up pretty quick. I think some of these rolls and aisles ways are already actually full. It comes with a a the tent, the table, the chair, and a trash can because we don't want the trash all over the demo uh arena, but there's going to be all kinds of really cool stuff happening. You can see the fishing ponds up there for the kids, trike racing, and um all kinds of things, activities, food trucks. So, um, if you get a chance, go to fenco.com, check it out. Uh, click on it, register for demo days, uh, let us know you're coming, bring your kids, the whole family. It's only $25 for, um, a person, for an adult to get in, five bucks for kids at the time when you come in. And, uh, that's just so we can get a headcount on who's coming to, make it a little bit easier for us. But, we're going to have fishing poles. We're going to have all that stuff there as well for the kids. So, um, if you tuned in, definitely go check out demo days. We're excited to have everybody um, with us here in Florida. It's our first time coming out to Florida on such an event like that. Sasha, thank you for your insight. It's always good chatting with you. All right, thanks, man. Appreciate it. We'll talk to you guys later.