Scott - Yellowstone Metal

Over the last decade, he's moved his fabrication shop at different times, built a successful architectural metal business from the ground up, walked away from business ownership entirely to become an employee, and then found out that he was completely unemployable.

In this episode, we talk about the realities of moving a welding business, rebuilding a business from scratch, surviving burnout from custom fabrication, and why running your own welding shop is a whole lot harder and a whole lot more rewarding than most people realize. If you've ever questioned whether all the stress is really worth it, or wondered whether the grass is greener working for someone else, you're gonna want to hear how Scott's story ends. So let's get into it.

Let's back it up a little bit and tell me a little bit about what you do. And uh, you know, I like, you know, so to what I was saying, Dave said that you have moved your shop multiple times and I should talk to you because I'm moving my shop. But he also said that you went from like a business owner to an employee back to a business owner.

So I kind of want to touch on that a little bit later on, but um tell me about the moves and what prompted the moves, uh, like how big of a shop are you working out of? And um, if if if if you were to give me advice on moving my welding shop for the first time after all your moves, what would you give me? So let's start and tell tell me what you do, and um, we'll just kind of go from there.

Uh at that time there was just a lot of uh a lot of the a lot of the architectural work, uh which is kind of what I do, you know, staircases, railings, fireplace, stove hoods, any sort of element or component for the home or business, you know, that if you want it to, you know, look good, that's kind of what I did. And uh at the time and at the time in Bozeman, you know, it was a lot of people have their second, third, fourth homes, whatever.

Bozeman's a very wealthy area, but they wanted it to be like real kitschy western, you know, like rawhide lampshades and elk handler chandeliers, and you know, it does just I was it was always uh more of a kind of a more contemporary style, linear kind of strip down. Like that's the difference between like rustic and contemporary rustic is like how much how many embellishments and things can I add to it, and contemporary is like uh how much can I strip it back? And so I was like that.

And so uh that kind of prompted my move out to Washington because you know it's kind of it's uh it's a more uh urban, urban area, a little more a little more contemporary. So that was the first move back in 2016. Uh moved to Tacoma, Washington, and uh opened splice welding and design. And at the time I was doing some woodwork too, and so that's kind of where the name came from, is because I was adding the steel and the wood.

Uh so I continued to do like the architectural work, and that's it going back to like my first shop job, that's what we did, and so that's that's what I cut my teeth on was the architectural work. And so that's just kind of what I what I focused on. I wasn't really doing any like uh repair work or or pickup work uh or anything like that. So I was pretty much just strictly focused on the on the architectural stuff.

Worked out of a small worked out of a small garage that I rented from someone there in central Tacoma and uh worked out of there for uh about a year, found a house that had a uh about a thousand square foot garage shop on it.

Gentleman had passed away, but he was an old car guy, so the shop was like set up as a workspace, and so then I worked out of there for a number of years, and then uh so then I moved from the single-car garage that I was renting to this, I don't know, it was more of like a three or four-car garage. And then from there moved into a commercial space and was after COVID sometime, maybe 2021 or 22.

And by that time, uh, you know, the moves became, you know, a little more a little more challenging, um, you know, a lot more downtime.

And so you know, and what we have we have special electrical requirements for all our stuff, you know, as as opposed to, you know, maybe some other trades. Um a lot of our equipment is three phase, and so we either have to get, you know, phase converters or actually the commercial space I moved into had three phase, which was nice. But when I moved but it here's the other challenge too, is uh you know, a commercial space is never going to be what you want it to be.

When I moved in there, there was it was uh it was a a shell of a warehouse space. It had it had a single 60 watt bulb up above and like one outlet on the wall is it was silly.

So it's it's stressful because all you want to do is get up and produce and start, you know, yeah, getting the cash flow coming back in. So that was uh that was that was a big challenge.

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Then head over to Fabricator Olympics and sign up to put your skills to the test. Bring your foreman and bring your team because one person learning helps, but a whole team aligned changes everything. So spots are limited, we'll see you there. Yeah. So uh like when you moved, did you just use U-Hauls? Did you rent a tractor trailer and load it all in there and just have it go? Did you just call all the all the favors that you've got with people with trucks and trailers?

I I did have at the uh once I got into the commercial space, I was able to get a forklift because I I couldn't have a forklift at my home shop. Just it didn't work that way. And also uh the the city the the there was lots of regulations there in Tacoma and the city wouldn't allow it. Uh so I had to rent a forklift, get everything loaded up. You know, I at that point I had like a mill, you know, a big mill. The what the one I don't know if you can see it, but behind me, big big mill.

And you know, a lathe and the and the big Sigmund table and my other shop built table. And so uh just made just made runs back and forth with a flatbed, it's like a 19-foot flatbed kind of uh you know, utility flatbed. Yeah. Yeah, and then once I got over there, uh you know, it's it's a big it's a big expense uh moving into a um a new shop, bigger shop. Uh uh had to buy a forklift. So that's how we did it.

We just made multiple runs and you know, inevitably things are just gonna get thrown together and thrown in a box or you know, crates, and it's just disorder as as much as you try to stay organized, it just it's awful. And so, you know. So then you get everything over there and you've got three guys or whatever, you know, that are picking things up and then setting them down, and you're like, Well, I just set this over here, where is it now?

And you spend half your time moving things three and four times, if not more, you know, you can't even find you can't even find a an extension cord. You know, it's just it's awful. There there's nothing there's nothing enjoyable about it. Yeah. Except having a little bit more elbow room, you know. You're like you feel like that scene in Step Brothers, you know, there's like all these rooms for activities.

So that's that's where I'm in now is the garage shop, which I've turned into into the machine shop, and then the main fabrication is over in the bigger shop. But all that kind of ties in, you know, to what we were talking about earlier about going from business owner to employee back to business owner. So I don't know if you want to dive into that or Yeah, yeah, I want to hear that. So after about after about eight years of business ownership, you know, I think everybody goes through this.

I everybody I talk to, you know, it's like it's like a daily daily struggle. The the stress, it just wears down on you and it and it just grinds and grinds and grinds. And you just have these fantasies where you're just like, man, I wish I could just clock in at eight and clock out at three or whatever, and just go home and work on my own projects, or just you know, put work behind me until the next day. And um that's kind of the point I had reached, you know.

I'm um you know, it's a it's a tough racket, man. You get as a subcontractor, you're at the bottom of the pile, and you know, it all runs downhill and you're at the very bottom. And so it's just a lot of pressure, a lot of stress, and uh that's kind of where I was at. And there was a a GC that I did a lot of work for over the years, and he was responsible for probably half my yearly revenue.

And um, I kind of I kind of just thought about it, you know, and he had been talking about buying a a shop, kind of expanding his GC operation, because they they self-performed a lot. So he had he had a crew of like five or five or six guys, you know, that were out in the field, field guys, they're out in the field producing, you know, in addition to the subs. They worked on nice homes, you know, anywhere from two to ten million dollar homes, you know, this this is nice stuff.

So I kind of thought about it, you know, and I he was saying he kind of wanted to expand, and I liked him and his crew, and so I just put a proposal together and I just kind of floated this proposal to him and said, Hey, you know, to bring me on, I'll sell you kind of like the big ticket items, you know, table, drill press, saw, a couple welding machines or whatever. You know, you don't have to have a big, big cash outlay.

I'll run the metal shop, you know, we'll keep my current contacts, we'll just work everything through, you know, on through your business. And uh, you know, I'll take uh I'll take a percentage of all the jobs that come that I you know bring in and and that we push through. And you know, there was there were some more finer points to it, but that's kind of the gist of it. And uh so we ran with it.

And uh and that was I still had a year left on my commercial lease, and so unfortunately I had to buy my way out of that. Not the full 12 months, but that was an expensive buyout.

I I could clock it, I could clock in and clock out, and uh you know what I came to discover was that after at that point, you know, eight eight plus years or whatever as a business owner, that I just couldn't work for somebody else, you know.

I can think clearly without you know, everybody around, you know, pulling my attention in different directions. And uh he didn't he didn't want that. He wanted me, you know, coming in at seven or eight, eight o'clock, you know, with the rest of everybody.

And uh and then also at that time too, I just uh I was just real unhappy with living out in Washington State and um was kind of was just felt the call to come back home to Montana. And uh that's that's that's kind of how the how it come to where I am now. And all the name changes, right? So I went to I was splice welding and design, and then you know, once once I dissolved that business and went to work for the GC, I just I I renamed my Instagram page Salvation Garage.

You know, just kind of doing more of my own personal stuff on there, some stuff related to the the GC that I was working with. And uh and then when I came back here, I'm in Yellowstone County, Montana. And uh and we've got the Yellowstone River, all that. So I I renamed it Yellowstone Metals. So it's been confusing for a lot of people, a lot of my followers, and uh and and now my friends and family and acquaintances back here in Billings. Like, what is going on?

Look, different names, same quality work. So it's been a challenge, you know, like on the marketing side and uh, you know, getting everybody up to speed on uh on uh what what's going on because I'm not I'm typically not one of those guys who like hops on Instagram and gets behind the the the camera and it really kind of gives everybody like a real in-depth peek into my life. So people were pretty confused, yeah.

So like when Dave was when Dave was was probably telling you and you were look trying to look me up and you couldn't find me, but then uh you come to my page and then it says Yellowstone Metal, but it's Salvation Garage. So it's it's a little it's a little confusing, and I I understand and Yeah, no, it doesn't matter. It's just how it is. Yeah. So so that's kind of that's kind of how how that all played out from a from a ten thousand foot view.

Obviously, there's there's a lot more nuance and a lot more details to it.

And I always thought it's like, well, it's right here in the email, you know, but emails, what I've come to find out is that from a legal standpoint, emails are not binding. It's not it's not a binding statement, agreement, anything like that. So it was quite messy, and um no, we do not. Talk anymore. We are not friendly anymore. And it's unfortunate. Yeah. It's unfortunate because we had a good we had a good relationship for a lot of years. Yeah.

And uh I had made the decision to so the actually the way it worked out was I had made the decision to m move back to Montana and and then I I I went to the to the owner of the company and I said, Hey, I'm deciding that I want to I don't like it here anymore. Uh I want to move back to Montana. And um and then that's that's kind of when, you know. I didn't get fired. I I mean I I guess I kinda quit, but once that happened, then then once I I said that things things kinda got messy.

But yeah, uh I lost uh I lost a lot of my my big ticket items. But I still you know I didn't the one thing I've learned is always you always gotta leave yourself an out. Always leave yourself an out. And so I I kept welding machines, I kept my mill, my lathe, you know, a couple saws, yeah. Table. So that if you know what hits the fan, um and I g I have to hunker down, I can do that.

And so But yeah, I'm in the process, I'm in the process of retooling up here and uh getting my house sold out there and you know using the proceeds from that to to kind of get back on my on my feet out here. But I'm I'm here in Montana, I'm producing work and um yeah, it's all it's all good. You know, the the highs and lows of this racket are just extreme, you know. Like very very seldom is it just even even keel, you know.

It's yeah, real high highs and real low lows, and uh it's those swings, you know, that that really can get to a lot of people and and really be a huge st source of stress and anxiety. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, in 2016, I was literally pounding the pavement, knocking on doors, driving around on Sundays in the rich neighborhoods, seeing what kind of builds were happening, seeing if I could get names of some GCs on some of these some of these build sites, and then uh contacting them Monday morning, you know, or coming back Monday morning at the end or Monday afternoon at the end of the day and trying to catch someone, introduce myself, just real old school boots on the ground type stuff.

Um and hardly had any followers on my Instagram page. So it was it was a real struggle in the beginning. Now, you know, ten years later, uh uh you know, social I mean TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, you know, all of them, which I'm I'm not on TikTok. There's just between Instagram and Facebook, that's enough for me. It's a lot, it's a lot, but it's all it's all social media now. And I'm yeah, I'm self-admittedly, I'm I'm pretty poor at it. But um I mean yeah some people are pretty good.

Some most of us are not. I mean, I think most of us are good at our craft, right? Yeah, you can we and that's what we focus on and and that's what we love. I love being on the tools. I love it. And that was that also contributed to you know a lot of my decisions in the past, you know, is because the more you grow the the the the further away from the tools you get and you just spend all day in an office or or you know running around in your truck.

But so now now I'm I'm back in my hometown and I I do have a lot of contacts here, but it's just it's an awareness thing of getting the word out uh to friends and family and and those on social media that hey I am back in town now, throw me work, you know? I I have to be bold about it, and it's just not my style. So I'm just like spamming Facebook every day with posts, you know, but that's just how it is. That's just how it is. I mean, it has changed so much.

But then also, you know, like I said, I don't think some things will ever change, like just pounding the pavement and knocking on doors and going and introducing yourself, you know, being outgoing and uh, you know, try to go to events where there's gonna be other, you know, industry folk, even talking to you know, your local suppliers and vendors, you know, the gas supply and the steel supply and and you know, wherever you get your hardware and construction supplies.

Yeah, it's just constantly promoting yourself.

So I do most of the installs myself, but they do a lot of the fabrication now, and then some of them might help me on the install. So at a unique point where I don't have any full time I I don't have any 40-hour week W-2 employees, but I have guys doing things all the time.

So, like I said, I bought um I bought crates, I bought pallets, um, I picked up like a hundred and fifty. They're not like milk crates, but they're heavy duty, heavier duty plastic crates. They came from a greenhouse, um, just to like throw spray paint in whatever Yeah.

Not at a position to do that right this minute because we're pretty picky about where we want to go and the properties that we're gonna have. So realistically, we're looking for land right now, and then I have to build.

So I'm not like I'm still haven't made the decision what I'm gonna do as to whether I'm gonna pack it all up and just literally just put it in storage and then just outsource everything, or am I going to store most of it, but then have, you know, also have a little spot to work at as well. But my idea is I'm gonna put the forklift, one forklift at the new place, one forklift at the old place, and I'm just going to palletize everything, put it on my deck over trailer.

I have a 45-foot enclosed trailer, like brace collar hauler. I got another 20-foot enclosed trailer. I have a thing for trailers.

And one thing, uh, I think like I like your idea of keeping like kind of like a uh like a skeleton kit, you know, like at the ready in case you do need to do something, you know, just the bare bone stuff, you know, like a few grinders, uh, a way to cut material, and um, you know, maybe like an assembly table, may maybe it's not like a full welding table, but uh you know, something to get you get you by. Yeah um in a pinch. In a pinch.

I I would I would not recommend kind of like boxing everything up and and kind of I don't know, you're kind of dead in the water at that point, you know, if something comes up because you don't know what's what's gonna come. None of us knows what's gonna what kind of calls we're gonna get on a day-to-day basis, you know.

You know, it's just yeah, big big brakes and and and iron workers and five by ten tables. I mean, you know, five uh plasma tables, you know, I would consider that a precision tool, you know. So, you know, the fork bumps into one of the one of your rails and there goes fifteen hundred dollars.

Yeah. And even then it might wait until I finally build something and move it forever, and then I'll I'll wor worry about fixing it.

Um and um, you know, if you have wife and and children, you know, that are having to deal with with that as well. It's just I mean, truly from every perspective, it's a it's a it's a tough deal moving moving shops and and big big changes, you know, big risks. So yeah. And really that's all business is is just a series of risks on a daily basis. Risks and solving problems.

Solving problems and and and taking risks, you know, and uh you try to take the risks with as much information as possible, but um ultimately at the end of the day, that's that's what we're getting paid for, is the risk of being a business owner, you know.

Um so doing those those super nice high-end projects where they expect perfection and are paying you top dollar for those insane details and attention to detail and the and the fit and the finish. Now I'm now I need to focus just on kind of you know good old fashioned down and dirty welding and fabrication projects, you know, repairing trailers, you know, just uh pickup work, jet boats, jet boat repairs.

I think railings and and gates will always kind of be a bread and butter thing, you know, that people will need. But here it's just not gonna be at the level that I was working at before. And I'm okay with that, you know, because one thing I learned is that uh, you know, those those high-end projects, I don't think you really I don't think you really fully get compensated for the the really fine, fine details.

Like, you know, they're asking you to put a price on something that you've never done before. And you kind of have an idea, it's like, okay, all these brackets for this handrail all need to be machined in the mill and the lathe, and you know, they all need a a linear grain finish and and so on and so forth. And you can put your best guess on it, but even you know, even the wealthiest clients have their limits, you know. Sometimes they'd be like, Whoa, that's a crazy price.

You know, but so I I honestly I don't I'm kind of looking forward to uh you know, just kind of like a reasonable expectation of a of a well-built product and not like perfection. You know. So uh I'm changing my focus now to kind of you know being able to take on more pickup work and um you know cast a broader uh broader net, you know, instead of just focusing on kind of the architectural stuff.

And I will say too that you know one one thing I learned was that if like I pretty much just got pigeonholed into the architectural world. And a lot of those projects, you know, you'll get contacted about a project, but you know, maybe they just broke ground. And a lot of these houses, like they're not gonna be ready for your finished product for like a year and a half.

I'm not gonna call that guy to fix my trailer, even though I can totally do it. Yeah, you know, so you're not getting away. It's not gonna be that much money. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, maybe I had a dead week or two weeks or something like that, where it's like, yeah, I would have done something like that.

I like uh you know, you could be working on a multi-million dollar home, and then the next week you're in a you're in a gravel lot putting on a putting on a a box car a cargo carrier for a s a flatbed semi-trailer, you know, and that's that's it's different. It's uh it's a change of pace and and I like that instead of just, you know, doing the same things over and over again. Yeah.

Like, no, some guy he he brought his dishwasher rack to me because one of the little bars in it like like rotted out and he wanted me to like weld a new stainless steel bar in there. And I'm like, my gosh, no.

And then I, you know, like then if I try to say, like, I, you know, if it takes me five minutes to fix it, but they've wasted 20 minutes of my time or 25 minutes of my time, because now I have to get back into the flow of what I was doing before. Yeah. Like if I try to give a bill for $75, they're gonna be like, dude, what the heck? Um, you know, so I like I I I hate I hate those jobs and I hate being that guy. And like, you know, it's just that's why I don't advertise for that.

And that's why I don't want to be on like my shop to be on a main road or anything like that, because I don't want that stopping work because I know a lot of guys who have that. So yeah, that that is really my like I I don't mind it like much more the truck beds and welding on this, and you know, equipment and red iron and ever, you know, rail stairs and railings get hated on a lot, but I freaking love them. You know what I mean?

So there's not much I really don't like other than things that I can't that distract me and or are just like, why did you even bring this to me?

When you stop working on something else to take care of them, you're you're losing the the the time on the you know, on the more profitable project, you know, like you were saying with the stairs and railings. I mean, stairs are are typically like a really high margin, you know, good moneymaker.

And you know, if you have to pull yourself away from something like that to handle the smaller stuff, it it's it's hard, you know, and or someone says someone says, I I can get this I can get this widget, whatever, whatever it is they need, you know, for eight hundred bucks, and you're like, well, you know, I'm gonna have a full day into that, plus design time. It just like it doesn't just like appear like fairy dust out of the sky, like the design, you know.

I may need to chop it up on my computer screen for an hour, um you know, to iron out some of some of the fitment details, whatever, whatever the case may be. And and it's uh 500 in materials plus you know whatever your daily labor rate is, and and it ends up being three to four X what they can get it on the internet for, and then they they think you're you know, they they think you're trying to pull one over on them and that you're you know, scammy. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough.

Yeah, unless you need it fast, unless you unless you can't get that part for four weeks. Okay, then we'll talk. But um, if you can go buy it, please go do that.

You know, you hire an electrician to come over, it's an hour minimum, 225 bucks or whatever. Had the HVAC guy come over and and when I first first got here, again, two hundred and twenty-five bucks or whatever. And you know, if they would have been here for half a day and you know, like maybe would have had to get some parts or something like that, that's a thousand dollar bill.

And uh but for some reason, like they just think like welding and fabrication should just like everything takes five minutes. Like what is that? Like, where does that expectation come from? I don't get it. I don't I don't get it, I don't understand it, and I think you know it's it's up to us to kind of help educate, you know, the the clients.

Man, I gotta I have to drive out there and measure, come back, get on my computer, get in the CAD, you know, the CAD software I run, you know, it costs a thousand dollars a year. The computer to run that CAD software, you know, costs X amount of dollars. You know, the the price of diesel right now, just driving over to your place and back.

I mean you just you just have to charge. I mean, I feel I feel that like there's one shop rate should cover everything, like design time, fabrication time. It should all kind of be the same because especially as a small shop, if I've got four hours of design time on the computer and I'm only charging a hundred dollars an hour and and my fabrication rate is one fifty, uh I'm losing money in there when I could be fabricating. So it's you know, in my eyes, it all has to be the same.

And it just you know, it just makes makes things easier on you as the business owner to just charge a single rate, I I think. I you know, unless some so you know somebody somebody can give me an argument, you know, for a variable rate, I'm all yours, but I just don't see it.

You know, like those things are are stressful, and that stress will lead into your life and it will affect your quality of life, and and it'll make you question everything you're doing and all that. But I would say be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Know that you know the same problems are gonna be there tomorrow and the next day, they're never going away. You can't get ahead of them. The second you put out one fire, another one's gonna come up. Just take it as it comes.

And um uh don't don't sacrifice don't sacrifice your personal physical and mental and emotional spiritual well-being um for anybody because it's not worth it. It's not worth it. We all we all get into this racket for different reasons. Going back to what we first most of us are unemployable. And we're you know, we're reasonab reasonably good at a skill, and um, and so we take a run at it and um uh you know, ask yourself why why are you doing this? Like what why? Is it is it for the challenge?

Is it for ego? Be honest with yourself, like why are you doing this?

Like when you're employee, when you're employee, it's you look at the boss, you're like, oh he's an idiot. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But uh it's it's tough. I would just um yeah, ask yourself why why are you truly doing this? Y you know, and be honest with yourself. Be honest with yourself. If it's if it's uh purely ego driven, then okay, that's fine. Just be honest with yourself. If it's you know, because uh it's about money that's fine. Just be honest with yourself.

If it's you know, if it's just about the craft and the trade and the satisfaction of you know, coming home every night with dirty hands and um you know being in the mix all day, then it which is what I love. I love just being on the tools and coming home dead tired at the end. I just love it. But just ask yourself why you're doing it and let that let that guide your decisions. Awesome.