#33 Guest, Chuck Koehler: Standing Bench Jeweler, Columnist, Easy Solder User & Ten Dollar Battery Changer!

We’ve got one of our most anticipated guests on the show—Chuck Koehler.

Chuck is a bench jeweler and jewelry store owner with over four decades of experience in the jewelry industry, and a longtime columnist for Southern Jewelry News. He’s seen just about everything at the bench—and he’s got opinions to match.

In this episode, we dive into Chuck’s journey through the trade, throw back to a reference from Episode 5, and break down real bench topics like the differences between easy, medium, and hard solder, how to approach jewelry repair pricing, and what actually goes into running a successful shop.

We also get into Chuck’s unexpected work in the entertainment industry, plus plenty of stories, insights, and unfiltered takes along the way.

If you’re a bench jeweler, jewelry professional, or just curious about the trade—this one’s packed with experience you don’t want to miss.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Well, good morning, Brad. Good morning. How are you doing? I'm good. Well Steph. I'm doing fantastic. And we have this is the episode we've been looking forward to, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Yeah. Man, seem excited about it.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

So we're about to welcome a very special guest to the show who has a ton of experience, and many of you are going to know his name. And if you not, if you do not know his name, uh, we are going to introduce to the show right now Chuck Kaler, and I know I pronounced that correctly because we've met in person. Chuck, um, for those who don't know who you are, why don't you just uh give us a little quick breakdown of who you are and your experience, and then we're gonna get this awesome conversation started.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Well, thanks for having me, first of all. It's a pleasure to be on like one of the top podcasts in the country. Oh, yeah, it is right under Rogan. Well, let's see. All right, let me just give you a brief rundown. I started in this business in 1978. So if you do the math, I was in this business in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s, and now the 2020s. And if you add that math up, that's about 10 years. Yes, that's what I got. Yeah. But what's crazy about it is how I got into this, I worked for this company when I was uh, I guess I started. I couldn't drive yet, so I was probably 15. And it was a company called Extrusion Finishing. And what that was was if you look at any commercial building that has like metal doors and window frames and all that, like every strip center in America, that the window frames and door frames and all that sort of stuff is extruded aluminum. That I worked for a company called Extrusion Finishing, and we basically painted them. And even though I worked in a bunch of different places in that factory, that one of the things I did was I was in shipping and receiving, which meant the boss would say, Chuck, go get in that hot trailer at 110 degrees in Texas weather, go get in that hot trailer and unload it. And then, you know, a couple of days later, when everything was painted, they go, Chuck, go put all that aluminum back in that trailer. And so at some point I was like wanting to get another job. I was just tired. It was back breaking work. And I saw an ad for warehouse help at a company called Best Products in Dallas, Texas. And they were very similar to service merchandise, if you know who service merchandise was, based out of Tennessee here. But anyway, so I go in there and I apply for the job, and the guy's looking at my resume and goes, Oh, I see you have shipping and res shipping and receiving experience. Somebody here needs that. Let me go ask around. And it turned out it was the jewelry warehouse that needed a shipping and receiving clerk. And I'm 16 years old, I'm senior in high or a uh sophomore in high school. I was either sophomore or junior, something like that. And uh the lady came down and hired me. So hence that's how I ended up in the jewelry industry in 1978. After that, I went to school in Paris, Texas. I spent two and a half years in Paris, Texas at the Texas Institute of Jewelry Technology, and did the jewelry technology course, the gemology course, and actually got my associate degree in applied science in jewelry technology. After that, transferred to the University of North Texas, got my business degree, then moved to Nashville, seeking fame and fortune in the entertainment business, did that for a lot of years, had a lot of fun. One day I didn't want to do it anymore, stumbled into a jewelry store in the coolest neighborhood in Nashville, bought it on the spot, and that was 34 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

So there's crazy. Dang. Everybody has an interesting story on how they got into jewelry, and it's never although I guess there's we're seeing a lot more people who are like second generation, third generation, was in the entertainment business in Nashville, and we're gonna skip over that, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

No. How what'd you do in Nashville?

SPEAKER_02 4:08

I ran the largest film production studio in the city, and this was at the time when country music videos were the biggest thing on the planet. And I had the biggest studio with the best equipment, and everybody said, Do you yes, I've met them. Did you meet yes, I met them. Yes, I did. That they all came through our studio at some point or another. And at one point, people would say, Wow, you get to go backstage at so-and-so. And I go, get to go backstage? Have to go backstage. But I ended up, you know, for a long time, because I was a studio executive, I worked on the party circuit where pretty much after work, every single day, there is in Nashville, there is a party somewhere because there's a number one hit. So whoever the artist is, their manager is gonna throw a party. Whoever the publisher is, they're gonna throw a party. Whoever the record label is, they're gonna throw a party. And so literally Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, every night there's a party that you have to go to. And it's always it's crazy because it's always the same people over and over and over again. But, you know, hey, free drinks, free food. What more could you ask for?

SPEAKER_00 5:25

I'm already slightly worried that this is gonna turn into an hour of talking about 90s country music.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Right. Instead of George.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

We we definitely have at least one day of the week where we just play 90s country in the store all day long, and we don't care who has to listen to it. Who's your favorite? I know that's a tough that's a tough, that's a tough one to answer. You know, that you know, you got the go, uh Garth Brooks, of course.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Do you know what's funny? I'll just tell you, just because we're talking about entertainment in Nashville, Tennessee. At one point when Garth was the biggest thing on the planet, it was called Garth Mania. His manager is a woman named Pam Lewis. And Pam and I were running buddies back then at the time, and so I would hang out at Pam's office, you know, when I had time to go over there for something or the other. And just some of the crazy things like Garth's song Shameless, which is one of my favorite Garth songs, that um I was sitting at her office and it was sometime, I think it was in the winter because it was dark early. And somebody comes in, a courier comes over and hands um hands Pam Lewis a uh package with a cassette in it. And they said, This is the final mix of uh the song Shameless that was going to be like the first single or something like that. And so she said thanks, the current signed for it, the courier left, and Pam goes, Oh, let's go listen to it and drive around in my car. I just got this brand new Jeep, and I've got like this crazy sound system. So we get in her car and we're driving around Music Row and we've got that cranked up. And when Garth does that, you know, with you know, I'm shameless, you know, you can just hear him screaming it out. And it was just like, oh my god, this is gonna be a hit. And it was. That's awesome. And you know, what was funny was when he actually sang that song at the uh CMA, the Country Music Association, their big award show, I think it's in October, he sang that song. Well, right before, oh excuse me, as he's singing it, he has a rose in his hand. And as he's like screaming those lyrics out, he's like pulling these petals off like one at a time. George Bush, the president, was there in the audience. And he's pulling these rose petals off one at a time. So when he finishes the song and walks away, there's all these rose petals sitting on the stage. And I was up high, so I could see it because I had nosebleed sheets. But the next person out was Reba McIntyre to do a performance, and she had this big dress that kind of like, I don't know, had like at this big bell bottom on it or whatever, to and it drugged the ground. So was Reba singing, we're all sitting there like, oh, look, she was sweeping the floor and sweeping all those rugged fellows off. That was pretty funny. One of the crazy things you remember about the entertainment business.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

I I wish I could go back in time and move to Nashville about the time Chuck did, and just followed him, just followed him around for half of our life. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

That was it was fun, but you know, one day I was very fortunate, and I remember where I was, what I was doing, who I was with when the entertainment business left me. And there's so many people that come in here, you know, seeking fame and fortune in the entertainment business where they don't make it and they have to make the decision on their own that I have to leave, and it's like an unfulfilled dream, and you know, they're never it, they're never gonna forget that. And I was lucky because it left me. I'm sitting there, we're driving down I-75, going to Cincinnati for something or the other. And I just looked over at the guy I was with and I go, when we get back to Nashville, I quit. He's like, What are you talking about? I said, the entertainment business just left me right then and there. And literally the next day, or the day after that, I think we spent the night in Cincinnati, but the next day I go back and I had a haircut appointment. And I'd been getting my hair cut at the same place for a long time. And I'm telling my the lady that cuts my hair, I said, You're not gonna believe this, but I'm gonna go back into the jewelry business. Because I had done jewelry for 10 years before I moved to Nashville. And she said, Well, you know, that old guy across the streets wanting to sell his jewelry store. And I said, What old guy across the street? And I'd like I said I've been getting my hair cut there three or four or five years. And I I go, Oh, yeah, it's kind of like that little junkie store or whatever. And so I walked over there, met the guy for the first time. We made a deal on the spot. I came back the next day with a contract and money, and bam, boom, bought it. And like I said, that was about 34 years ago. But it was in such a cool area that that's where it was an area called the rock block, and that's where all the country stars and rock stars and all the big stars hang out.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

That's a good thing. But we're not here to talk about the internet.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

That's a that's a cool but what we may get into some stories as we go on, but as we get along, but we do have to address one thing because we had um your good friend and mine and Brad's uh Mac Thomas on early on when we started this podcast, and he had so many stories um from when I guess it was his grandma sent him out to basically train and learn some stuff under you, and you took issue with a couple things that he left out when he visited you, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Oh, yeah, he just talked about um his new shoes. Do you remember when he was talking about his shoes that he came here?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah, he went out there to and he just wore some nice fancy shoes and realized he was going to be standing up a lot if I if my memory is correct. I think so.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Yeah, or some oh no, what it was was he showed up because he's on Eastern Time Zone and I'm on Central Time Zone. So he got to my store an hour before I opened, and there's a shopping center behind me. And he realized that standing up all the time in brand new shoes is not a good idea after he bought the shoes. But so what happened was he had an hour to kill, so he goes over to this shopping center behind me and buys this brand new pair of shoes, and he's all like happy, like you know, woo, look at me, I'm fancy now. Well, it turned out so I get to work, and if you you know Mac was a uh fireman in an EMT for a lot of years in Walterboro. Well, I've been a first responder in Nashville for over 20 years. So anyway, that particular day we had all kinds of weather warnings and things like that that were, you know, circulating, my pagers going off left and right. Hey, everybody be advised or whatever. Well, all of a sudden, so Matt comes in, he's got these brand new shoes on, and he's like, I go, wow, those look cool. Well, I show up for work and turnout gear in my storm turnout gear, which is just basically I've got work boots on, what they call BDU pants that have all kinds of stuff in the pockets that you need. Uh and just in the event we got called out, well, sure enough, all of a sudden, like this big wind storm comes through with you know 50, 60 mile an hour wind comes blowing through. And I told Mac, I said, let's go out and drive around, let's go see what's happening. So I grabbed my radio and I'm in my personal truck. And, you know, I felt okay taking Mac just because he was also a first responder. And so we go out and we get about, I don't know, two or three blocks from my store, and there is this massive tree that went right down through this lady's house. And this is probably just less than five minutes after the storm. So anyway, I was like, man, we got to get up there and try to check, check on this person. So we get there, and this tree is massive, and it's across the driveway, and it's just mess everywhere. And because a lot of other debris had blown through and all of that. So we're having to climb up on this tree, climb over it, and I'm sitting there in clothes that are designed to work a storm, and Mac's sitting there the whole time going, damn, I wish I wasn't wearing my brand new shoes. We're sitting there traipsing through mud, and he's trying to get a foothold on this tree and hike himself up, and he's wearing like nice clothes, and he just like going, damn, I wish I left my other shoes on.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

So anyway, that's what I always remember about Mac and his new shoes. Mac has a gift for putting himself in positions for there's always a story. Like, yeah. Oh, but you know what?

SPEAKER_02 13:46

So we got there, yeah. But so we ended up getting there, and we finally got over this tree and got up there, and it's going through the porch. So then we're having to try to kind of maneuver our way in and make sure it's not going to collapse on us, and we're walking around the house, and we finally made contact. It was an elderly lady in the house, and she was in another part of the house. And uh, so she was able to uh meet us at another door uh towards the side of the house or something like that, and we went over there and she was fine. And she said, I just called my daughter, she's on the way over here, and I'm gonna go over to her house. So, anyway, all in all, there was nobody was hurt and everybody was fine. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Except Max shoes. Is that Max Shoes? They never recovered. Now, the another thing we gotta talk about, Chuck, and I tried to I tried to paraphrase this story for Brad just recently because we knew we were gonna be having you on soon. But obviously, I think you need to tell the story. And if people follow you on Facebook or um, and we'll get to the Southern Jewelry news stuff, um, I was surprised to find out. I think you made it public, or was it right after Christmas or before Christmas about some health?

SPEAKER_02 14:54

My health care. Yes. Yeah. Um I tell you what, let me I'm going to uh let me see if I can. I'm gonna move it. Oh yeah, I gotta get well. I'm just gonna move this a little bit so you can see, all right. Let me go back here and push a button.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

You got it. This is gonna make me do some real editing work, ain't it?

SPEAKER_01 15:20

There is okay.

unknown 15:23

Now we're coming.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Okay. Now this all this will all make sense now. Um all right, so if you look over my shoulder right here, you can see this vice. Hang on, let me try to get more of this frame in. All right, so you can see this video.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

I'm gonna have to describe it in great detail for all the people who listen and don't watch.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Yeah, I am. I'm just telling y'all that y'all can see this because I want y'all to be the ones doing the details so you can see where it is and what's happening. All right, so back to my health scare. Back in the year twelve 2000, I think it was, I ended up having major back surgery, and the reason because of that was basically sitting at a jeweler's bench for years and years and decades in the same position that somebody a hundred years ago decided that this is the position that every person that sits at a jeweler's bench has to sit in. So, anyway, I ended up having major back surgery because of that. So, about I don't know, eight or nine months after that, right? Y'all see what's happening? What's happening here? Yep, the bench is slowly rising.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

So like uh like a I don't even know what you would call like a device. Like it's almost it reminds me of exoskeleton. Yeah, there you go. It reminds me of something that would lift like an engine block in a garage. Um it's like a big cage, not cage, but some bars that's lifting up your bench, it looks like pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

It's like a cage, it's like an exoskeleton. And uh, but anyway, as it's going up in the corner, I just want y'all to pay attention. Matter of fact, let me walk over there now and show you where it is, and is in relation to me standing there.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

While he's doing that, Brad, I remember when I was out at New Approach for a week. I got to hang out for you.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

You can see what height it is, and it's still going up. This is at 18 inches raised, and it goes up to 24. So I'll come back over here and get my headsets back on.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

So I was um I was telling Brad Chuck when I went out, when I was out at New Approach, what like seven, eight years ago, I came and spent spent a day with you, I think, or some an evening with you, and you just had the standard stand-up desk, which blew which blew my mind. I have a picture of it somewhere. I'll have to have to post it after this. Um, so now instead of just the standard standing bench that you made, now you have one that goes up and down to whatever height you need it to.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Raises and lowers at will. It would go from a sitting bench to a standing bench to a sitting on a tall stool to sitting in a chair, to, you know, whatever you want. But let me go back to my why I ended up building it. So after about a year, uh after my surgery, eight months to a year, I started feeling those like little pangs in the in my back again. And I knew what it was was me going back to sitting in that position. So I basically took my bench and I built it up on stilts. And I remember the first day I took it in, I built I built it, it was just my regular jeweler's bench, I put it up on stilts and had to put a bunch of bracing and stuff in it to kind of deal with the lateral loads and things. So I remember the first day that I took it in and went to work, I had to do a fairly complicated Pave layout and setting job. And I'm like, well, if I can do this, I can do anything. And within, I don't know, 30 minutes or something like that, all of a sudden I completely stopped paying attention to the fact that I was standing, not sitting. And I was like, why would I ever sit again? So I stood at my bench for 22 years or something like that. And but now what ended up, so now we're gonna get to what happened with my current health scare, you know, 22 years later, that even though I stood all those years, it uh my neck was in the same position the entire time. And so all of a sudden, back in uh August of excuse me, end of July of 2025, something in my neck just caught on fire like nothing I've ever experienced in my life. Pain level 10 out of 10. So me and a spinal doctor start chasing it down and ended up basically my spine broke. And I was basically I was damn near an invalid. I I swear I was two weeks to 45 days, like 14 to 45 days, somewhere in that, of probably either being in an assisted living facility or hospice. That I could I couldn't drive anymore any longer because I didn't have enough arm strength to hold on to a steering wheel. And all of this just like went quickly. And I had to stop driving my car because I couldn't get out of my car. I had to start driving my truck so gravity would get me out of it. And I could no longer walk unassisted. I had to start using crutches, and we did, you know, dealing with the doctors, went and did the MRIs and everything. And my surgeon looked at me after the MRIs, and I could see in her eyes, I was like, oh, no, this isn't good. And it wasn't. And she said, the surgery's brutal. It's two different days because we can't have you under anesthesia that long. So the first day they go in, this would have been on November 19th of 2025, so five months ago, something like that. And uh they go in, they cut open the side of my neck on the front, and basically pull and pin my trachea off to the side so they can look at my spinal column. Did six and a half hours worth of work on it, and then sewed me back up. The next morning they wheeled me back into the operating room, cut me open from the back, and then uh cut over 30 muscles away from my spinal column, and then did another four or five hours worth of work, sewed 30 muscles back together, closed everything up, and then put me in a recovery room where I got to lay on my surgery, uh, my surgical area for the next like two weeks because it Was on the back of my neck, and you get a lay on it. And it was brutal, I'm telling you. But when I ended up, I was in the hospital for seven days. I was in a rehab hospital for 10 days after that, learning how to walk again. And I was, I went into the rehab facility on a stretcher and basically walked out using a walker. And now I'm pretty much back to, I would say, 95-96%. You know, I'm fully back at work and all that. And there's still a few little things that, you know, because it was a nervous system that my nerves are still kind of trying to regenerate and stuff like that. Let me move my microphone here. So uh so anyway, but all in all, it's uh I wouldn't want to do it again, but I truly think, yeah, but I truly think that what ended up happening was related to this job, was that even though I solved my lower back issue when I raised my bench to a standing bench, my neck was always in that same position for years, but now with my new lifting bench system, and I should have it on the market this year. And I'm gonna be honest with you, y'all, it's not cheap. You know, it's probably gonna be about $18,000 for this thing. I mean, I mean, it looks like it's looks heavy-duty. But on the other hand, you know, what'd you pay for your laser welder? And uh it'll probably be one of the same things that uh like a laser welder, you just gotta lease it. You're not, you don't have to buy it right out, but you lease it. But if you think about it, uh, you know, you're no longer relegated to basically sitting in some the same position that somebody else decided a hundred years ago that you are now able to sit in whatever position is comfortable. And what I end up doing with mine is I literally will just be sitting there working and I'll move it two or three inches up or down, just out of the blue. And within 10 minutes, like my back will hurt a little bit if I'm sitting down, and I'll reach over and hit it and move it up two or three inches. And within a few minutes, all of a sudden, you know, my back quits hurting, my neck doesn't hurt. So, but if you think about it, if you start in this industry with something like what I built, that you're never gonna have the problems because every bench jeweler, by God, we sound horrible getting up. Just like, oh, you know, and uh but this system will basically solve that problem.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

This is like a good encouragement for all the people who are young and listening to this. Yes. And they have so much to look forward to.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Yeah, but I mean But like I said, this is just something that uh, like I said, it's expensive, but you know, it's it'll it'll change your life. I'm sure it's a good thing. Especially if it'll change your life 30 years later.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Well, that's what I'm saying. It's probably gonna in the long run with uh a couple surgeries, and I'm sure it's you you end up saving some money potentially instead of just uh spending worried about I mean that's that's how it is. You know, it's all an investment. It's just like new tools and new new equipment that they come out with. It's meant to to help us and it should be worth worth the cost.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Yeah, my surgery was three hundred and three thousand dollars. I saw the insurance claim on it, and I was just like, holy crap. But let me tell you something about this, just because I know like Brad, you you work on the laser welder there quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

That why do you and Dusty have to work on the laser welder at the exact same height? Because y'all are not the exact same height. I'm way taller, I'm way taller. No. But one of the things about my lifting system, and what I about the only thing I'm still kind of finishing and working out is is the engineering of the brackets that hold the frame to whatever goes in the inside of it. And one of the inserts that'll go in there is going to be a tray, a fortified tray system that a laser welder can sit on. So now all of a sudden, you if you're gonna sit there and spend two or three hours sitting there at the laser welder doing something, raise it up and stand if you want, you know, sit down, you know, two different people are using it or something like that. You just reach over and hit the button and raise it to where you're comfortable. And then it's also gonna have a polishing system. So I basically the three pieces of equipment we spend most of our time at, which is the jeweler's bench, the laser welder, and the polishing system, all three of those are gonna have independent lifting systems to where, because of you know how it is a lot of shops, you know, different people use it and you know rotate back and forth. So now you can raise it to where you want it, no matter what the person before you, you know, had it set out. So anyway, I'm pretty excited about it. It's gonna be uh I should have it out this year.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah, once it once it goes out.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

If anybody wants to pre-order one, just send me a check for $18,000. And that's right.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

That's the that's the early bird pricing, right? That's right. It goes, yeah, that's early bird pricing.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

It's only gonna go up because we start adding bells and whistles to it and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

It can only go up. That's right. Brad's workaround for this is I just not allowed to use the laser anymore. So you you know what? I have a I have I have a story for you that is gonna lead to a different story, which I know we said we were gonna save it to the end, but we're just gonna get into it. And I thought you would find this interesting. I re we recorded it, but we forgot to re-record the whole process. I was gonna post a video because I know how you have a laser welder, but I don't think you use it a ton, correct? No, no.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

So I use it to tack things together. I'm I'm better with a torch. That's just the way it is. I'm I'm much more skilled with a torch than I am with a laser welder.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

I mean, and here we have we just have a system because we got I have the torch on my bench, Brad has a laser, so collectively we can kind of tackle different things at different times, but I was curious uh because sometimes lasers get a bad rap of what they can and can't do. And from my experience, a lot of it is just people are not using the the equipment the correct way. So one day what we did is we cut a wedding band, just a standard wedding band, just cut it as if it was going to be sized, V'd it out, laser welded it, annealed it, and stretched it up like a whole size, size and a half, something like that, just to see if it could be done because people are like, oh, you know, laser welders are terrible, you can't, you know, they're not a strong weld. And it's like, if you're doing it correctly, it absolutely is a strong weld. I say all that to say, for one, I thought you would be impressed that we were able to successfully laser weld something and stretch it without a breaking. I'm gonna tell you about soldering something and doing that same thing. And that's and that's where I want to that's what I want you to go next. That's why I told that story because I want to hear your perspective on all this. And I know let's just do a little trigger warning right now. Oh, oh Lord. Because some people are gonna be upset about this conversation, but I'm here for it and I've heard you talk about it before, and so I want you to be on the record of kind of explaining some stuff to your fellow bench jewelers.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Does it have the words or the letters an E and a Z in it? It sure does. Oh boy, that's hate mail time. Let's do it. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

I'll give a I'll put your email. Once this goes live, I'll put your email in there so everybody can see. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to hear it. Chuck it. Yeah. I have to edit that out too. Thanks, Chuck. I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

We it's benchduler memes at gmail.com. There you go. Let's go. That's where all the hate mail needs to go. Okay, now first, let me just say that just like you had talked about how uh you could uh laser weld something and stretch it, that I took a wedding band one time that uh came in here, and what I didn't bother to tell anybody was this came in because a guy wanted me to melt it down and make something else out of it for him. So because I had it, I wanted to prove a point. And so it had already been, it came in, I think it was broken. And it was just your standard, regular old four millimeter half round, not super heavy or anything like that. And it was a size nine. So I went ahead using 14 karat easy flow solder, I soldered it together and nailed it, and then I stretched it up to, wait, excuse me, it was a size seven because I stretched it up to the highest thing my stretcher would go to, which was like a 13. And so over the course of, you know, I knew what I was doing. So I I sized it one time or just soldered it one time. I would anneal it, I would stretch it a size or so, go back, anneal it again, you know, hit that solder spoint just to reflow the solder, never put other solder on it. And I stretched it up like five or six sizes. And the easy flow solder joint never broke. And of course, all of a sudden people are like going, you know, you don't know what you're doing because now you've ruined that guy's wedding band. It would have been easier to size it. Now it's too thin. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm I'm melting it down, you know, to make something else. But the whole point was about easy flow solder. So now let me tell you the story.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

This is perfect because I know in the early days of JHJ when you were on there, this came up occasionally, and I remember just seeing the the hate being directed and how much of an idiot you are. So let's explain how much of an idiot you are not.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Yes. Okay, so one of the advantages of being a longtime columnist in this industry, I'm the longest running published columnist in the jewelry industry. So one of the advantages of that is I can actually call people and they'll answer the phone and answer my questions because they want to get their name in the paper. So one of the things I did is because if I'm doing like a re tip job, I like to do it with 14 karat easy flow solder. And everybody says you can't do it and if you're a hack and you know you're gonna ruin somebody's ring and all that sort of stuff. And with the uh bench jewelers helping bench jewelers, occasionally I'll go in there and post something about it, and I'm not doing it to stir up a hornet's nest. What I'm doing is I'm always looking at, from my perspective, I'm always looking at somebody that's new in the industry that doesn't really know, all right, what's true, what's not true, how do I do something? So I'll go in there and say, I re-tip with 14 karat easy flow solder, and I'll take the hate mail, you know, people calling me a dumbass, and you know, you're a hack, you need to get out of this industry, you're an embarrassment. But on the other hand, then there'll be a hundred comments of people telling me why I'm wrong and why the way that they do it is right. So, what the whole point of it is, is if you're new and you really don't know, now you've got a hundred things that you can read and a hundred different options to do the exact same job. So now let's get into easy flow solder and why everybody is wrong. Now, first off, I need to be very clear about something that what I am saying is not my personal opinion. Okay? So it's dusty. Yeah, yeah. All right, so repeat after me. So repeat after me. This is not Chuck's personal opinion. Let me hear it. Okay. So doing some research, I was I started to write a column about this, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago. God, I've been doing this like 27 years in the writing in the jewelry industry. So, anyway, about 10, 15 years ago, I was just curious, am I wrong? So I called up and spoke to the head metallurgist at all of the major uh suppliers where we get our solders and our metals and stuff from. I think it was like Stellar, Hoover and Strong, United Precious Metals, Noble Metals, one other in there. It was like four or five of them. And like I said, fortunately, I can call and people will answer my phone call. And, you know, I tell them what I'm doing, and I've just said, I want to know, you know, I want to know some specifics. So in all of my conversations, I wasn't talking to the just somebody who worked there. I was actually talking to the person that made the formula. It was his formula that we use that whatever it is, you get a 14 karat, you know, hard solder, 14 karat medium solder, 14 karat uh easy flow, whatever it is you're doing, that you're buying it from a supplier, I'm actually talking to the person. It was their formula. They made it to do something very specific. So, anyway, in the course of all this, you know, I told them like, you know, hey, I'm trying to solve an urban legend here, as opposed to is easy flow better, worse, or something like that. And unanimously, they all said the same thing, and that is they wish that the solders would have been named something other than easy, hard, medium, because it has nothing to do with any of their physical properties, no matter what it is. And people say, like when you re-tip a prong with 14 karat easy flow solder, that you know it's so soft it won't last. My god, it's gold. Gold is soft. You're not putting stainless steel on this thing, you're putting gold on there. So, no matter what method you use, you're putting soft metal on soft metal, and all you're really trying to do is add metal to build it up so you start wearing that metal out as opposed to wearing out the structural metal that's underneath. But when it comes to tensile strength and hardness and wearability and things of that nature, the difference between easy flow, medium flow, hard solders are negligible. They are, you can't tell the difference. You have to really get down into very scientific testing that to just the average person, and something whenever I'm having to explain this to a class or something like that, I always use the term room temperature. That uh, like Dusty, you were in a waiting ring right there. Uh I have it set right here. Oh, okay. Well, that's good enough.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

So that's not to like bang it into my mic.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Yeah, that's all right. So, what temperature is that ring right now?

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Yep, it's probably uh a balmy 75 degrees right now.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

Okay, so we're gonna call it room temperature, okay? Yeah. So understand the term room temperature. That 99.999% of the time somebody has a piece of jewelry that they're wearing, it is at room temperature. The only time it goes above room temperature is when we're working on it on our bench. Okay. So the only difference between easy, medium, and hard, like the negligible difference, is the temperature at which they go from a solid to where they flow to then where they start cooling back down. That once it starts to cool back down and you go back to room temperature, there is no difference between a tip on easy flow and a tip on hard solder or a tip on medium, or if you take a white gold wire or one of those little ready tips and you put on there and solder it or whatever, that basically you're putting gold on gold. And you know what 14 karat easy flow solder is at room temperature? 14 carat. It's 14 karat gold. That's right. So, anyhow, like I said, that is not my opinion. That is the actual statements from the people that formulated it, and they were all unanimous. And I probably ought to do that again, but uh God, just I don't know. We'll we'll start up with this.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

You know, that does make a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

Yeah, so they should have just named it like um, they should have just called it temperatures like 1200, 1400, 1600, but they all unanimously said the same thing. I wish they weren't named that because people have this misconception that 14 karat hard solder is all of a sudden some hard metal. No, it's 14 karat gold, it's all soft.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

So anyway, which kind of which brings me up to a topic that that sometimes come up um what between me and Brad, but also with clients, like just jewelry being 10 carat versus 14 karat. I know that's one of the topics that that we kind of listed out. But I think the difference is so negligible. But I think you would agree my biggest pet fee if I we say it all the time on this podcast is not having an opinion, it's it's putting someone else's opinion down as if yours is the only correct opinion. And so there's stores that are like, well, I'll never sell lab and I'm never selling 10 karat uh jewelry. And I think that's fine if they want to do that. I just think they they should think it's fine if we want to do the opposite or the same.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

Well, I've got into this discussion with somebody one time about it. And fortunately, like through the years, I've got to travel around the country and teach classes and stuff like that. I love to do it. And one day we get in the subject of 10 karat or 14 karat. And I'm telling you, if it's not stamped, if it's just a gold ring, I cannot tell you if I'm working on it, if it's 10 karat or 14 karat. I cannot tell a difference. Period, end of story, they're just the exact same. So anyway, we get to having this discussion. And one of the guys in the room said, I've got an opinion on it. I go, okay, what's that? He goes, if it's 10 carat, I all I know that automatically from the beginning, they were already cutting corners right from the start. And I was like, no kidding. But if it's 10 carat, they yeah, they were already cutting corners before they ever made the first piece. But I can't tell the difference.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

I do have a question, Chuck. Let's hear it. Do you have any hard solder at your bench?

SPEAKER_02 40:46

I bought some hard solder. I know that the uh uh they can't see the video, but I'm gonna show you something here because I can read Well, hell, I gotta stand up because my bench is all the way to standing bench. Hang on, let me grab something to show you.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

It's way up there. I mean it's way up there.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

About about two or three years ago, I accidentally bought hard solder as opposed to easy flow solder for something. So this is, I don't know, two or three years ago. Yeah. So this is, as you can see, it's pretty much all there still, except for a little bit. And all of that was just like going, why is this solder not working correctly? But let me just tell you something, though, that you know, and people think that I have an opinion that you should only use easy flow or not, but my opinion is this that whatever it is that you can control the best, because this all comes down to controlling thermal energy. If you can control if you need a higher thermal energy in order to control it to make it do what you want it to do, use that one. To me, I can control the thermal energy on easy flow solder way better than I can with medium or hard. Now, if I'm doing a fabrication, you know, yeah, I'll use like a hard solder and do some stuff like that, but I don't get into that much fabrication anymore. I just CAD cam it out. But uh, but the thing is, is I can take a, like say if I'm gonna re-tip something, I can go in there and put a tip on there. Now, granted, I have seen some really crappy soft solder or like easy flow solder tips where the solder went everywhere and it's just an absolute mess. You can do that with hard solder too. It's not exclusive to easy flow solder to like mess up and not be any good at what you're doing. But I can take a tip and flow it with easy flow solder, and I can do what I call a half flow. I can take ball the solder up, put it on the tip. I can control my thermal energy to a point where it starts to half melt and then stop, and it's still a ball on the top, but the bottom is blended in, and you will never know by the time I clean it and polish whether it's hard solder, easy solder, medium solder, whether I used a laser welder, whether I used an easy tip, you will never know the difference. And in all reality, that if if whatever it is you use, you can control it and do the job correctly and make your customer happy who's writing your check, do that. You know, just because I do it one way doesn't mean you have to do it that way. I'm all for if if medium solder works for you and you can get like a hundred percent like constant like perfection on re tip job, don't ever change. Don't change. Stop, you know, stop experimenting, you know, stop experimenting and just do that every time. Because once again, at the uh at room temperature, there's no difference.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

And that's the thing I hope we kind of at least somewhat normalize and get people used to hearing is that there are so many different ways to do something. Now I will say that is there well is there a wrong way to do it? Yeah, if you use silver solder, that's wrong. But if you're re-tipping it with 14 karat solder, if it's easy, medium, or hard, it's still 14 karat and you're re-tipping it and you did it appropriately, then all three ways are correct. Just like like Brad, how do how do we handle re-tips here? We do it on the laser. We we pretty much started doing them exclusively on the laser because it just works for us and it looks good, and it's one of those things we can divide and conquer the jobs here.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

And so if Brad can handle all the re tips on the laser efficiently and they look good and they hold, and we haven't had issues, and the customer's happy, that's what we and the stones stay in and the tips last for eight or ten years. Like, don't change. Don't change. You know, tips were never designed to be anything more than a stopgap measure in order to stop the wearing of the prong so you don't go any further down into the base metal and the uh structural integrity of the prong. All you're doing is adding precious metal to the top of what's already there, and you start wearing that metal out, not the metal that's underneath it. That's all a tip is supposed to do and look good.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Now, I this conversation I think is insightful for what if you've experienced Ben Schuller, but we do have quite a few people who listen who are either new to the industry or they feel like they're new, and so I think this is a good conversation. But also the thing that comes up, which I thought we would talk about, is let's say you're either you're just getting started or you've just started in a few years, what's some advice, some continuing education, some tips, however you want to handle that conversation, we can navigate it. But that comes up all the time as like, hey, you know, maybe they work for a signet type place and they want to uh grow their skills, or maybe they're just getting into it because it's a family business and it's like where do we even how do we even start? And I know you mentioned where you got your start, but I do think there's a few other options these days, correct?

SPEAKER_02 46:07

Do you know? And the one I always recommend is New Approach, and just because it's I don't know, 30 miles from me here, yeah, and uh I really like that program. And what kind of what they specialize in down there is for working bench jewelers that are already on the job, if you want to learn how to set, you know, a certain type of stone, or you want to, you know, you want to brush up on stone setting, or you don't do stone setting, you want to learn it, you can go down there and do a one-week or a two-week class that's exclusive to that particular part of the job. And then you leave there and you actually have a new skill set. Now, in Paris, Texas, where I went to school, let me tell you kind of what happened there. Uh that when I was there, I was there in 80 uh 81 through 83. And wasn't even alive then. Well, I was I was. Of course, I don't remember it. It's okay. He was alive. I was alive. Barely. Barely. Yeah. I was in jewelry school. Anybody that went to jewelry school knows that, man, you're just it was a it was a wild time. But the jewelry school was independent, it was very independent from the junior college, which is Paris Junior College in Paris, Texas. The jewelry school was independent and it ran on its own schedule. And so what would happen is people that, you know, in a situation like their family owned a jewelry store, and then, you know, they would decide, you know, I want to go learn how to be a bench jeweler so I can take over the store, they would go move to Paris, rent a house, and set up an entire shop in like a spare bedroom or something like that. They would go to jewelry school during the day, then they would go home at night and work on the projects, work on them all weekend, and they would blow through the program in six or seven months. And but it was kind of a self-paced program that if you were faster at something, you you went faster and then you moved forward. If you were slower at something, you went slower, and you know, you there was no connection to other students other than it's self-paced, you do it at your pace. So back in 2018, I think, a kid that worked for me went there. And so I took him on a school visit and we went, it's the first time I'd been back in 30 years, and I was surprised that one, they used the exact same molds and models and everything that we had used like back in the 80s. But the and I kind of got over that because in reality, setting up stone is setting a stone no matter what the mounting is. So I was okay. I I let that go. But what one of my biggest problems with it was was they switched from self-paced to the uh semester system. And now all of a sudden, if you were faster than everybody else, if you finished all of your projects in that particular module six weeks before the semester was open, you just sat there and didn't make work or whatever. You just twiddled your thumbs. So I decided to approach the school and see if we could change it back. So I spent about a year researching and basically polling the jewelry industry. So when I went back to Paris Junior College and Texas Institute of Jewel Jewelry Technology, that I wasn't taking my opinion in there. I had all the research, and because, you know, I told them, y'all are basically training people to come into our industry. So I have got all of these people in the industry that are telling, you know, telling me, and they want me to relay to you, this is what we need. This is what these are the students that you are turning out into the world, these are the skills that we need them to have. So I went in there and I had a feeling it was going to be kind of an adversarial meeting, and it kind of started that way, but it didn't last very long. By the end of it all, they were just like going, you're right. And one of my big arguments, and something that the industry argued against, was with the semester system, you know, it's similar to like the cosmetology program that it's on semesters. I said, the difference is every cosmetology student you have here in Paris lives in Paris. I said, every junior college in the Texas State Community College system has a cosmetology program that the locals go to, but there's only one jewelry school in the United States of this level, and it's located in Paris, Texas, and everybody that's here comes from all over the world to come to this particular program, and you are now taking something that should have taken that should take about a year, maybe 15 months, and you're dragging it out to two and a half years, and nobody wants to do it. And so they said, you know what, I think we need to address this. And this meeting was in October of 2019. So I said, well, let's get through uh, let me get through Christmas and then like around Valentine's, get through that, and then sometime, you know, towards the end of the first quarter next year, let's get together and start petitioning the uh state board of education down in Austin and you know, see if we can start making these moves. So we were gonna get back together in March of 2020. And we all know what happened in March of 2020. Everything shut down. But now I've had several phone calls here over the last, I don't know, six months to a year, and people are going, what are we gonna do about bench jewelers? You know, we've got to have more bench jewelers. And I said, you know what, I'm gonna revisit that program now. And but one of the things that there's no reason that they can't do what New Approach is doing, and basically offer breakout classes as well. Let somebody come down there, do two-week classes on stone setting. And, you know, so anyhow, we we had a good meeting and we we agreed that, you know, those are some changes that need to be made. And once again, I wasn't going in there with a personal opinion, and I had pages and pages of like testimonials and things from jewelry store owners all over the country that are saying this is what we need. So, anyway, I think we're going to uh I think I'm gonna force myself to you know re-revisit that. And because we do need more, more uh, you know, like breakout classes, like how do I do casting? Let me just do that, let me just do stone setting. So anyhow.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Yeah, that's perfect for I mean that's what took me to new approach um several years ago was you know, at my old job, I just did not have the opportunity to set stones or to learn how to do it properly. And I knew I could figure it out, but I wanted to to have an actual foundation for how to appropriately and correctly set stones. And so to be able to, you know, for somebody who's already a bench tooler and they're already or they already have a store to just say, Hey, I just gotta take a week off and I'm gonna go out there, and it was uh it was some of the best time I ever had. I think we're gonna really shoot for this year to try to get either Blaine or one of the guys from New Approach to come on. Um and then of course some people that have gone through their whole I think it's like a whole 12-week program and the guys who have taken it, guys and gals who have taken it seriously and got out of it and and continue developing their skills are they're actually quite phenomenal jewelers, so good for them. Yeah, I wish there were more people that did it, but that's why it's kind of cool to have a second option. Yeah, it would be nice to have a second option in America. I mean, we'd have it'd be better to have more than two options, but two is better than one.

SPEAKER_02 54:08

Yeah, but like I said, I've I really like what Blaine's doing down there, and it is great for somebody that's already a working bench jeweler that you just kind of go down there and you just need to practice or learn how to do one or two specific things because few people can take a year off, two years, whatever. I was lucky because I had graduated high school in 1980, and I was on the waiting list to get into Paris back then, a year and a half to get on the waiting or to get in there. So I graduated high school, what was that, May of 1980, and my uh Paris class started in January of 81. And you know, but I was just a kid, you know, and I was gonna go to college somewhere or the other. So to me, I could take two years off because I was going to college. I wasn't working, supporting a family.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Yep. Nope, I agree exactly. All right, let's see here. Some of the other things we were gonna I now I have a note to bring up Johnny Cash and Z Top for some reason.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

Oh, do you know when uh when I bought my store that, like I told you, it was in a cool area called uh the rock block, and that's where like all the musicians in Nashville, it's not just country music, it's everybody records here. But Johnny Cash, him and his wife June, really like one of their favorite restaurants was the sushi bar beside me. And the sushi bar was closed between lunch and dinner, so you know, from like two o'clock to five o'clock, they were closed. So anyway, I'd look there and we had parallel street parking right in front of my store. And I remember the very first day uh I looked out and I saw this big black Mercedes trying to parallel park in front of my store. And I'm just sitting there because it was kind of funny to watch people, you know, not be able to do it. And then I just happened to look up and see the passenger was the guy, and his wife was driving. And so the guy gets out and he starts like going, turn your wheel, do this. And I looked out and I realized that's Johnny Cash. And uh so anyway, I go out there and his wife, June Carter Cash, was driving. Well, back in my entertainment days, I worked on a project where we did all these videos that we had this exclusive video footage from the Grand Old Opry back in the 50s. And if you're not aware of this, June Carter Cash, at the time she was just June Carter, that she was a comedian, one of the uh most popular female comedians on the circuit, uh at the same level with like Minnie Pearl.

SPEAKER_03 56:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

So when we were doing these projects and putting these tapes together with all of this sort of stuff, June Carter was one of the uh female comedians, and so I saw all of her acts and saw all this footage, and she became one of my favorite comedians. She was just really funny, and this was like back from the 50s. So anyway, I just happened to look up there and I see Johnny Cash directing, you know, this car to get in there, and you know, then realize it's June Carter. So she gets out and she's flustered and like, ah, I got it. And then she starts reaching in her purse to try to find change. And I go, here, I've got quarters in my pocket here, let me do it for you. And she goes, Well, I'll pay you back and all that. And I started talking to her, and you know, because most people, they glob on to Johnny, like, oh my god, Johnny Cash or whatever. To me, all of a sudden, I'm like going, June Carter Cash, one of my favorite comedians ever. And I just said, Do you know? I said, You used to be really funny. And she looks at me and she goes, Used to be funny. She goes, Did you ever hear the story about? And she sat there and me and Johnny Cash just leaned against the fender of his car and laughed. And I got like a 15-minute private comedy show from June Carter Cash. She hadn't skipped a beat. And I mean, it was literally one of the funniest times, and me and Johnny are just dying laughing. And probably 10 or 15 times after that, before they both passed away, I'd happen to look up and I'd see this big black Mercedes trying to park. I'd reach in my cash register, grab a handful of quarters, and I would go out and uh, you know, feed the meter for them. And then until the sushi bar opened, June would sit there and just entertain me. It was great. But with Z Z Top, one year uh on their tour, the Cadillac was sponsoring Z Z Top. And I found this all out afterwards. But uh anyhow, I looked out across the street and I see this Cadillac. And you can spend $100,000 plus thousand dollars on a Cadillac if you try really hard to get custom wheels and tires and you know roofs and paints and all this sort of stuff like that. So I looked out and I saw this hundred something thousand dollar Cadillac. This was 15 years ago. So I saw this hundred something thousand dollar Cadillac parking, and I'm looking up, looking at across the street, and I'm like, going, God, those dudes are homeless. And but in the back seat, in the back seat were these like, I don't know, these incredibly attractive women sitting in the back seat, and I'm like, what the heck? And about that time the phone rang or whatever, and I I go back out there a little while later and look, and the car is gone. So don't think anything about it. The next day the car comes back again, and I'm like, here we go, the same situation. What is going on here? So they parked, and then when they get out, the two guys in the front seat are uh Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons from Z Z Top. And right down the street from my store was a place called Dangerous Threads that did stage wear for all of the musicians and stuff, all the fancy jackets and all that. So I looked up and I go, oh, that's why there's two homeless-looking dudes in a car with two incredibly gorgeous women that, you know, in the backseat or whatever. So as they came across the street, I was just kind of standing in my front window and Billy Gibbons comes in and we get to talking, and I always keep a guitar in my store back there because you never know who was going to come in. And like while I was sitting there working on their watch or something, I go, here, play me a song. And so anyway, Billy Gibbons comes in, he goes, Oh wow. He goes, I like your Alvarez, and I hand it to him, and Billy Gibbons is just sitting there playing my guitar, you know, and we're talking about something. Then somebody realizes at the last second that, oh my God, it's Billy Gibbons, and they came in and started germing. And he goes, Hey, I gotta go and left. So hang on, my doorbell's ringing. Even though I'm not open, let me make sure it's not my mail, man. You know what I do?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Hang on, I can yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:02

Y'all talk about yourself just a second.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:04

Oh yeah. Yeah, you can the best part of this while check's chucking for check Chuck is checking. There we go. Okay, it's a Chuck check. While Chuck is checking for his customer, we're in our shop today while it's closed. Did you see the couple that they like put their they did the whole goggle hands up to the windows? Like clearly we're closed. Uh we were just saying why while you were telling that story, we had customers like doing the whole like goggle hands up to our glass, even though we're clearly closed on Mondays. Um, it doesn't stop them from peering in and just looking, and they can kind of see us, so it makes it super awkward.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:38

Yeah, yeah, I see. He's just some customer, he'll come back when I open. So a couple of things. But anyhow, so uh yeah. Yeah, so anyway, but that was just kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:49

I started, I don't remember when. Um I and we've talked about this. I started I first heard about you from reading Southern Jewelry News because at my old job, you know, it'd come in the mail just like it does every jewelry store, and I was never interested in pretty much anything that was in there, but once I started reading your columns, um I always got a good laugh out of it, and it inspired me for two reasons. One, um, I started out in in journalism, I thought that was gonna be my career, and uh, but secondly, when I was time for me to open my own store, I took a tip from you and never in having my name attached to my business. Um because that's your name is nowhere attached to your business, and I just love the reason why.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:32

Yeah, it was uh that when I because my store is called Anthony Jewelers, and when I bought my store, I bought it from the old guy that was across the street from where I got my hair cut in June of 1993. And it was called Anthony Jewelers, it had been in business since 1947, so when I bought it, I didn't have any money left. So, in order to change the name, I would have to put up a new sign, I'd have to get new letter head, new appraisal forms, new envelopes, new everything, and I couldn't afford it at the time. And uh so I left it Anthony Jewler's. Well, when I finally ended up having to move in 2007 to a new location, I decided that, you know what, now's the time I'm gonna change the name, you know, because I have to put up a new sign, I've got a new address, I got to get new business cards, I got to get new everything. So I'd done a bunch of thinking about it, and because my my full name is Charles Michael Kaler, that I decided my jewelry store was gonna be called Charles Michael Fine Jewelers. And I'm like, wow, this is gonna sound good.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:46

So I finally made the decision, and I was in my new store three or four months, and I hadn't ran out of old envelopes or anything yet, but I'm getting ready to have to order new, at which point you're gonna have to put up put the name on it and everything. So anyway, I decided I'm gonna go with Charles Michael Find Jewelers. So on a Monday was the first day I decided to do it. The phone rings and I go, Charles Michael Find Jewelers, and somebody goes, Oh, I'm sorry, I've got the wrong number, and they hung up. And so I hit caller ID, you know, hit recall, and I said, Yeah, sorry, who are you calling? I go, Well, I was calling Anthony Jewelers. I go, Oh, that's me. We're just changing our name since we moved or whatever. So a little bit later, the phone rings again, and I go, Anthony, Charles Michael, find jewelers, and they go, uh, who is this? And I go, you know, so a little bit later the phone rings again, and I just pick up the phone and I just go, Anthony Jewellers. And since then I've never thought twice about it. But the thing is, not having your name on the front door, you can be the owner, you cannot be the owner. When somebody comes in and they're just like, I want to talk to the owner, it's like going, he ain't here. Or, you know, especially if somebody's soliciting donations or soliciting stuff, you know, yeah, can I speak to the owner? Nope. Anthony's not here, you know. I'm Chuck. Exactly. So that's also anyhow, that's just kind of one of my things is uh, you know, it but like I said, it was kind of crazy. I decided to change it, and then probably by like the third phone call, I think, I was just like, you know, Anthony jewelers. And then I realized I don't care what the name of company is, it's you know, it's whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

And the other thing was is like for most normal people who are trying to search out and find a jeweler or they're driving down the road, all they're gonna look for is the word jeweler. Yeah. Yeah. Which is why even when we were setting up ours a decade ago, like the word jeweler is the largest, most prominent thing, and everything else is small, small font. Because that's you know, that's you're driving by the side.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:56

Yeah, that we've all made that mistake, and you know, do all the fancy fonts. On the street, and people are driving by at 45 miles an hour and don't know what it is. But you know, when I ended up having to move, uh, they bulldozed my second location I was in for 12, 13 years or whatever. And I moved a mile away, and I'm in this shopping center. It's an older shopping center, but it's it's kind of a big complex. It's got a front, a middle, a back, and the there was an opening on the back side. It was a mile away. And uh, so I thought, well, I'm I'm gonna take it, you know, just because I need to kind of de-stress my life, knowing I'm gonna have to pack up my company and move it because they're gonna bulldoze where I'm at. And, you know, I was worried about being around back and like trying to figure out how do people find you back here. And in the old days, that people would drive around that you had to kind of be on a major road with frontage where people could see you because that's how they found stores back then. But in the year 2026, people just go to Google that it doesn't matter if you're in the front of my shopping center, the middle of my shopping center, or the back where I am, people just Google jewelers near me, and I'm the nearest one by them. And the most common phone call that I get is like, yeah, I'm uh here at the Downey Center and I'm trying to find you, and I just you know tell them I we're around back, it's bigger than it looks from the road and all that. But it hasn't been a detriment at all that uh, you know, just trying to uh it's just the way the difference is between uh how it is, you know, in 2026 and how it was in, you know, 2016.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:45

Well, this transitions to another topic of because I was about to say, you know, people are gonna find you. For one, they're gonna they're gonna Google it no matter where it is, and they're gonna briefly run through your reviews. And we briefly touched on this um the last time we talked just about trust sensitive and price sensitive pricing. And I know you have strong opinions about this. That actually somewhat different from mine, but I but but you get a you get the chance to explain explain yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:15

Okay. I don't care what anybody tells you. Repairs are price sensitive. They are price sensitive. That I don't care what anybody says, I don't care if they trust you or not, that somebody brings in a hundred and eighty-nine dollar ring and it's gonna be seven hundred and fifty dollars to repair it, they're gonna say no, no matter how much they trust you. But well, yes, but I think up to a certain extent you are correct. Yeah, that pri you know, everything is price sensitive. And it's just one of those that I want every, especially new jewelers out there, you know, that don't fall for that. Repairs are price sensitive, buying jewelry is price sensitive, you know. If you're gonna go buy something anywhere, you're gonna go into Walmart and buy a shirt that at some point you're gonna look at the price tag. And a lot of times you're gonna make a decision at by basically, you know, well, this one's less expensive than this one. You know, you may like the other one a little more, but the fact is repairs are price sensitive. And it's funny that I had a uh one of my other jewelry stores, you know him, uh, that's real close by me here, uh-huh, that he's a big aficionado of the blue book. And so he'd go in the blue book, and a repair would be, you know, twelve hundred and fifty dollars or something like that. And with me here, I charge two hundred dollars an hour retail and triple key on prices or on parts. So, which is pretty fair that, and let me explain on my $200 an hour, that is a average jeweler, the time that somebody you know, with an average set of skills, somebody with, you know, eight or 10 years experience or something, you know, if they could do the job in one hour, I'm gonna charge $200 labor for it. There's a pretty good chance I could do that job in 20 minutes. But, you know, I've been doing it for 40 years, but you don't get you're still paying the full hour, you know. So but the thing is, is there are just some repairs that come in and it's just gonna be it's gonna be five hours, so it's gonna be a thousand dollars. I'm gonna have to use X amount of parts, I'm gonna triple key them. And a lot of times the jewelry's just not worth it. And they're just like, you know, nah. And one of my favorite sayings is like, you know, it's probably time you put it in your jewelry box, and every now and then you're gonna see it and think happy thoughts. That's what that's what this jewelry is. That's what this piece of jewelry needs to do now is sit in your jewelry box and give you happy thoughts every now and then.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:59

That's a good line. That's very good. Because there's some stuff that comes in. You're just like there's not a nice way to say what you just said, which is a nice way to say it. That is, that's a great way of saying it.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:09

And you know, of course, we all get that job that comes in and you purposely like, you know, price it three or four times what it's gonna cost, just so you don't have to do it. Oh, yeah. And uh, but you know, repairs are price sensitive. And you know, I don't know how that rumor started floating around the jewelry industry like it's true. But one of the things that, you know, because I think the saying is repairs repairs are trust sensitive, they're not uh price sensitive. But every time we would price a repair, and it was real expensive, and the customer would decide not to do it, that we would all look at each other in the store and go, damn, they don't trust us. You know? Yeah, and but like I said, it's just kind of one of those that don't fall into that trap, people. Repairs are price sensitive.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:57

I do I do think, um which again is like sometimes beating it at horse, that every store needs to consider their how they're set up, how they operate, and for some people it works, and for some people it doesn't. And things that work at your shop might not work for us, and vice versa, and that's and that's perfectly fine. And the one thing that seems like it doesn't uh affect anything as far as trust or price is the dang watch batteries. Because in the last ten years of me being here, we've raised prices twice. We've went from we've they've doubled in ten years, and nobody ever says no. They just keep handing us their watch batteries, the whole bag of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:36

You know, I still charge ten dollars for watch batteries, and people say, Why don't you change your price? And I'm like, Well, because it's too expensive. All of my signage, all over my store, and everything is like ten dollar watch batteries, so the signs out on the street, ten dollar watch batteries. See, look, I'm here. But it's to me, it's I'm gonna show you something, Chuck. All right, let's see it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

I'm gonna show you this. You get these little plastic things right here, leave this, and then you can just change out the sign whenever you want. And so we put it right by the register, and then I can just slip out that. If I decide to change watch batteries to $50 tomorrow, I just print a new piece of paper and slip it on in there.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:14

I've got fancier like printed stuff all over my store. You don't need one. One of my employees one time was said something like, you know what, we need is like this really nice thing that we can frame and hang on the wall. And I said, as long as you do it, and I don't have to do it, sure. So but you know, it's just kind of one of those things. Everybody has to have that one kind of lost leader that brings customers across your threshold. And to me, it's always been $10 watch batteries, and I like doing them. To me, it's mindless entertainment.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

So uh but imagine if it was $20 for the same mindless entertainment and nobody complained. Imagine that.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:00

We stumped it. I'll tell you what, we stumped it. Yeah, the number of people that come in and say something to the effect of, you know, I'm so glad you still do these for ten dollars, and they'll bring me a whole bunch of them. But, you know, like I said, they then show up here, you know, six months later with a $5,000 sale. Because once you're their jeweler, once you're somebody's jeweler, yeah, that unless you give them a reason to go find another jeweler, that no matter what it is, you got them in the door, I get them in the door on ten dollar watch batteries. And once I have them on that, I'm just their jeweler for the rest of their life.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:39

No, and this is all this is just all this is doing is solidifying the point that we always push on here is do what works for you. If it works, just do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:51

Whether that's with retipping, you know, exactly whatever works for you that you can do a really good job for your customer, do that every single time. I think it's great to ten dollar watch batteries works for me. There's no reason there's no reason to change it until it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:08

Yeah. The whole thing of the way we re-tip prongs versus you versus the pricing of batteries versus prices of repairs, it doesn't matter because it works for you and it worked for us. And that's that's where I wish this industry would get a little bit better at because when you see like the JHJ and the interactions, it's like everybody has their opinion is the right opinion, and it just does not make any sense whatsoever.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:30

Yeah, and like I said, you know, whenever you see me do something on like JHJ or bench jewelers helping bench jewelers, where it seems like I'm just trying to stir up a hornet's nest, I'm really not. What I'm trying to do is always a topic where you're gonna get a hundred comments of a hundred different ways to do something and why their way is better than the other 99 ways. But it's just a point because, like I said, I'm always looking at that person who's reading it who's not gonna go on there and ask questions because if you ask like a rookie question, all the people that have been doing it forever, like, why are you even in this site? Get kick him out of here or whatever. That uh, you know, that's where we go. But you know what? Like when it comes to appraisals and things like that, that at some point I asked a question in an appraisal group one time. Hey, does anybody know blah, blah, blah, or whatever it was? And I start getting all these people are going, if you don't know how to do your own research, why are you even doing appraisals? And I'm sitting there thinking, wait, I'm asking a very technical question to a vetted group of very, you know, longtime professionals who all have a, you know, of an opinion on something like that. That why is me asking a question in an online forum of vetted professionals, hey, what's your opinion on something? Why is that not doing your research? Because, you know, I'll I'll take four or five opinions, I'll form my own opinion. But generally, out of the four or five opinions you're gonna get, four of them are gonna be the same. That, you know, hey, I've done this before, here's my research, here's how I did it, or whatever. But it's funny that asking a question in a vetted group, kind of like JHJ or bench jewelers or something like that, why is asking a question in there not doing your homework and not doing your research? Where else would you go to find out an answer for something like that?

unknown 1:17:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:28

Yeah, I know. It's ridiculous. And and I that's why a lot of people have have left the group. I'm still in there, but honestly, it's what got me through the first, you know, few years of opening my shop is exactly what you just said. You you read all the comments, and some you're like, that's not gonna work for me. And that's why there's any people who pose to be an expert and like this is the way to do it, I automatically am suspicious of them. And there's several of them out there in this community, the big names that are just like this is how you do it, and it's just like that that just does not work for me. Yeah, I've tried to do that. And then you see all the other comments that do work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:01

Yeah, I've tried that and it didn't work for me, and I messed something up, and then it took me eight hours to fix it, so I'm not gonna do it that way again.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:09

Yeah. I think that's the good takeaway uh from this episode. Uh, I know here pretty soon you got to open your shop, you're gonna start having customers come in. But uh four minutes. Um I we know the feeling this is a rare opportunity for us to to be able to talk to somebody for longer than you know 40 minutes and not have to cut them off. So with that said, um, we tell almost every guest that we have a good time with um if you're ever willing and able to come back, then we'll schedule another one and we can go into different topics a whole lot deeper if we ever need to.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:40

Oh, we got a whole list of stuff we could go into, and I would love to come back and do it again.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:44

Awesome, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:45

On that note, we're gonna go ahead and sign off here. Chuck, we appreciate you coming on so much. Uh, thank you for taking this much time to talk with us, and we hope everybody enjoys the conversation. I do too. All right. Thanks now.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:56

Have a good rest of your day.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:57

Take care, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:05

Time to pack it in. Red and dust, it's time to tie the grill. Next time with the dust, we'll complain to you next week to back to the bench. Back to the bed with the top list. We'll be right. See you next week.