Reflections in Metal Customer Spotlight
Aaron Anderson, Reliant’s Customer Service Manager, recently spoke with Andrew Krob, one of the owners of Reflections in Metal, a fabrication and metalworking company based in Cortez, Colorado. Andrew discussed how the company started and has employed 3 generations of his family. He also explained how upgrading from an older powder curing oven helped propel the company forward.
Please tell us about the history of your company. How did you get started?
My dad, Jason Krob, was a pipeline welder in Alaska. The job paid great money, but the hours were terrible. He’d have to leave us for 3 weeks at a time, then come back for a week. While he was there, he discovered he loved working with metal and he really liked the way the colors worked out on the steel. He was doing stainless tig welding, so he’d get the pretty welds and see the colorful stuff the metal does when heated. In 1992, he started his own side business when he was at home from the pipeline work. It worked out well and he was able to leave his job and grow his own company. In 2004, he went full time with Reflections in Metal. That’s when we started doing our metal art on a larger scale.
At that time, my grandpa, Jerry Krob, partnered with him. It was just him and my grandpa basically working out of the garage doing metalwork full time. I had been working with them since I was a kid, but once I graduated, I wanted to go out and get my welding certs. I was trying to decide if I wanted to stay with the family business or go out on my own. I got all my welding certs in Phoenix and did tig welding outside in Phoenix, Arizona. It wasn’t long until I realized I didn’t want to work for anyone else again for the rest of my life.
Back then, I was young and making good money. I thought I was big and bad but wanted more. I came back home took over 33% of the family company. From 2013 until my grandpa’s death, it was a split company. We were growing and things were really kicking off. We were doing art shows all over the country, selling gates and railings, and we began upgrading to industrial fabrication equipment, like brakes and shears.
What does your company make?
We do just about anything made out of metal. The majority is decorative metal art–wall art, business signs, logos, things like that. As we’ve grown, an increasing portion of our work involves serious fabrication. These projects can require hundreds of feet of railing, large decorative gates, even structural components. We just helped build a Starbucks in Gallup, New Mexico, where we erected the steel and put it all together. That’s the nice thing about our company; we can do just about anything under the sun that’s metal.
Since your family has welding experience, that probably comes in handy, doesn’t it?
Yes, that certainly does make it easier, but I can tell you the whole family aspect of it can make it challenging sometimes. I joke that my dad likes to stick weld everything like it’s 1965.
Since most of your experience is with metalworking, what was your main reason for bringing powder coating in-house?
When my dad first started doing metal art, he didn’t know the best way to seal it. At that time, he’d just do raw cut outs or spray paint it. He was doing nice large pieces and he started applying the burned finishes, where you grind the metal and apply the heat, and it gives it that cool rainbow patina. He was limited in his coating ability because he was using an automotive clear coat, probably a lacquer, and it just wasn’t lasting.
In 2009, he discovered powder coating, built his own oven, and it was off to the races. He only had that one for 2 years. Believe it or not, homemade ovens are not the smartest move if you’re trying to run a serious business. Next, he ended up buying a used oven. It worked for a while, but everything was antiquated and the oven was only 7’ x 7’ x 9’. Powder coating was a great move, and it was the right choice for finishing everything we made. If a customer wanted something simple, like black, or something more detailed, like copper vein, we could do that no problem. He quit messing around with any other finishing techniques, but we were severely limited by our oven. That oven had been discontinued, and there was no support. We were making parts for it, building our own burner components, and dealing with issues with the safety devices–it was horrible.
Once you got the new Reliant oven, what were some of the major differences you noticed between it and the used oven?
I could talk all day about that! Simplicity, as far as ease of use and reliability, is the most notable difference across the board. You go over, turn it on, it gets to temp, and you get to work. You’re not over there watching it and worrying about it shutting down, overheating, or failing to reach temp. The reliability is incredible. We’ve had it running almost non-stop since May and it just keeps going like clockwork. We do a small bit of routine maintenance like we were told to, and it just keeps going. No major breakdowns or loss of time or messing up. Our used oven wouldn’t always get up to temperature, so you’d end up in a panic trying to fix the thing while you had parts curing in it.
Another benefit I wasn’t expecting–that’s been a big plus–is the efficiency. With the Reliant oven, we can get a huge rack of parts up to temp, cure them, and roll them out in less than an hour. With our old oven, which had only about 1/3rd of the capacity, this would take up to 2-3 hours. Our gas bill is also lower. We figure we’re using about a 1/3rd of the propane we were using with the old oven, while tripling our output. It’s nuts.
What made you decide to choose Reliant?
To be candid, we were looking at a lot of different companies and trying to really do our homework. We already had some experience buying new equipment. Around the time we purchased the Reliant oven, we were buying lasers and all kinds of other equipment, plus new powder coating guns. We really got a bad taste in our mouth from another company that we bought an air compressor from. So, on our future equipment purchases, we wanted to vet the companies and make sure the equipment was American-made and the company would be easy to get ahold of if we needed them.
We like companies where you can talk to one person and they’ve got a team that can help you out. A big plus was when we called and your guys were able to work with us on the double-ended oven design. It just seemed like we were making a human connection, as weird as that sounds. It’s not like dealing with some crazy corporation where I’m talking to “John” who doesn’t really exist. We looked into your company, and the reliability of the equipment seemed legit and the reviews were excellent. We even went as far as Googling companies addresses to make sure there were real businesses there and, honestly, you guys passed the vibe check. We saw where you were located and it was a real place where you’re actually manufacturing the equipment, and not just a sales office or some kind of front.
So you saw our no-frills factory and sales offices?
I saw an American business. Your guy came down and saw our shop. It’s a smallish family business where everything seems to be in chaos right now. At our place, I’m looking at weeds that I need to knock down, but that’s not the most important thing about running a successful business and turning out a quality product.
Speaking of our tech who came out, how did the start-up go?
Amazing, absolutely amazing. Wasn’t his name Tim?
Yes, he’s one of our in-house technicians. So, you were pleased with the outcome of his visit?
He was an absolute godsend. We had some issues, because the regulator system that was on our old oven was a little redneck engineered. For the new oven, we had to get a different regulator installed and make sure it was flowing right. Your tech stayed and made sure everything was on point and functioning like it should. He walked us through how to operate the oven. He ran it to temp a few times and that was crazy to watch. He was doing the start-up sequence, and the oven was getting to 400° so fast. Unbelievably fast to us based on our old oven, so we were like “this is amazing.” He said, “this isn’t even that great–we can get a little more out of it.” We were blown away. I can’t say enough good things about how everything went.
What are your future plans?
Well, thanks to y’all’s oven we’ve already started focusing more energy on larger projects. I’m now able to do 60′ of linear railing in a single batch. It would have taken 6 full batches with my old oven. We’re looking to take on more large-scale fabrication jobs since we have greater capabilities, while continuing to do metalworking projects. I’ll always do metalworking because I love some aspects of it. I was born into it, and I watched my dad and grandpa do metalwork for years.
It’s exciting because now we can accomplish so much more and on a larger scale. I recently did a 15′ eagle sculpture that I never would have been able to do before. I got it worked up, powder coated it, and I could feel proud of the finished product because it turned out amazing.
Andrew, thanks again for your business and for taking time to tell us about your company. We’re extremely happy that Reflections in Metal is growing and getting great results from your Reliant powder curing oven and we look forward to hearing about your continued success!
If you need custom fabrication and metalworking services in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, or Utah—or just want see see some beautiful examples of custom metal fabrication—please visit https://www.reflectionsinmetal.net/ to learn more. You can also find Reflections in Metal on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/reflectionsinmetal/.
If you’d like to discuss how Reliant Finishing Systems can help you launch, expand, or upgrade your powder coating operation, give us a call at (256) 355-9000 today.