S6-E4: Carving Success with Kate Wolf: Precision, Passion & Adaptation

In this episode of For the Love of Jewelers, master wax carver Kate Wolf sits down with host Mark Nelson. They explore Kate's journey as a wax carver, uncovering the experiences that shaped her career and drove her passion. Kate shares the story behind her line of wax carving tools, revealing the extensive research and design process that went into creating each one to ensure the highest level of precision and functionality for jewelry makers. 

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;12;26
Kate
I want to do a blog post called Blame It on Rio, because pretty much everything in my life is because of Rio. So the phone rang at 4:45 and it was the head hunter and he said, you got it. I said, I got what you said, everything you asked for. I said, that's impossible. He said, that's what I thought.

00;00;13;02 - 00;00;30;00
Kate
So when can you start? I could do this every day for the rest of my life. And there would still be a lot left to learn. And now, 46 years later, I know that that's absolutely right.

00;00;30;02 - 00;00;53;09
Mark
Hi, everybody, and welcome to For the Love of Jewelers. I'm your host, Mark Nelson. And today I have a really special guest. She doesn't think she's that special, but she is that special. I have Kate Wolfe with me here today, and she and I have kind of a long history, which is fantastic. And Kate's been, carving wax and making jewelry for about 46 years and teaching for another 35.

00;00;53;12 - 00;01;08;23
Mark
And the entire time she's been developing new tools. And like her wolf wax, you know, works, wax carving tools and a bunch of other stuff. And my favorite thing from Kate, my favorite quote is every tool is a good beginning. Is that right, Kate?

00;01;08;25 - 00;01;14;05
Kate
Yes. Blame your tools. If you're having a problem. Maybe it isn't you. Maybe your tools are the problem.

00;01;14;08 - 00;01;15;29
Mark
And it's always a good beginning, right?

00;01;16;03 - 00;01;17;12
Kate
Yes. Everyone, welcome.

00;01;17;12 - 00;01;19;27
Mark
To the show, Kate. Welcome to the show.

00;01;19;29 - 00;01;21;28
Kate
Thank you. I'm honored to be here.

00;01;22;01 - 00;01;23;04
Mark
Oh, it's so good to see you.

00;01;23;05 - 00;01;24;21
Kate
A fan of the podcast.

00;01;24;23 - 00;01;42;18
Mark
I thank you so much. And it's been a while since we've seen you here in town. But you used to come out all the time to teach, and, there's a really great a moment for me, and, I'd like, kind of get it started to introduce yourself, which, you know, you kind of history. How'd you get started in jewelry making and kind of.

00;01;42;18 - 00;01;45;16
Mark
What led you down this path a little bit.

00;01;45;18 - 00;02;06;20
Kate
Cool. I went to Tyler School of Art. I had been a potters apprentice all through high school, and I went to Tyler to study with the famous guy, Rudy Starfall. And before I had a chance to take a class with him, they retired him. And I was heartbroken. And the new teacher was from Montana, and he was really laid back.

00;02;06;22 - 00;02;23;09
Kate
And I was afraid it wasn't going to be a good, a good fit. So I knew they had a really well equipped metal studio. And I first day of metals class, I fell in love with it. And I remember thinking, I could do this every day for the rest of my life. And there would still be a lot left to learn.

00;02;23;11 - 00;02;48;19
Kate
And now, 46 years later, I know that that's absolutely right. There's never going to be an end to the different areas you can explore in this industry. And I'm still just as excited about it. I was a metals and jewelry major through art school. Mostly. I just learned that I loved it, but when I got out, I knew that there was a lot left for me to learn before I tried to go out on my own and make my own living, making my own stuff.

00;02;48;21 - 00;03;09;04
Kate
So I got a job in the jewelry district in Philadelphia, Sampson Street in a sweat shop with five wild and crazy Armenian brothers who were from Beirut, and they grew up in a refugee camp, and they were really good at making everything in the studio work with duct tape and baling wire. Right. And they would we did a high volume of work.

00;03;09;06 - 00;03;27;07
Kate
There were six of us in the shop, and they would hand me something and say, learn critique, which is, hey sister, I need you to learn this really fast because I need 50 of these by 2:00. So it was a really wonderful way for me to learn a lot of stuff fast and everything. They knew they wanted me to learn as fast as I could.

00;03;27;09 - 00;03;29;01
Kate
So I was there for six years.

00;03;29;01 - 00;03;29;18
Mark
Six years.

00;03;29;19 - 00;03;50;20
Kate
And I started doing some side work carving for other people because I wasn't making much money there. And one of the companies I carved for was the Franklin Mint. They had a jewelry division, and I carved 5 or 6 master models. So what that is, if you do a carve a piece of wax and a cast it and finish it, that's a one of a kind piece.

00;03;50;22 - 00;04;08;19
Kate
But if you're going to carve something or fabricate it and then take molds off of it and do, a production run off of it, that's called a master model. So I did about four master models for the Franklin Mint, and they asked me to come in and interview, and I walked in there and there were 4000 people working there.

00;04;08;19 - 00;04;29;17
Kate
There's closed circuit cameras everywhere, and I couldn't get out of the building fast enough. It was just the opposite of where I was working. Where I worked on Friday afternoons. We would take the company petty cash money and get a couple six packs of beer and clean up the shop and then play poker. It was like a totally different vibe.

00;04;29;20 - 00;04;46;11
Kate
So the next day, the headhunter called me up and offered me the job, and I said, thank you, but I'm not interested. And he happened to he had been a jeweler in the jewelry district before, so I knew him before. That's how I got the freelance work from them. And he said, well, I have to take you out for lunch anywhere you want to go.

00;04;46;11 - 00;05;02;23
Kate
So of course, I picked Bon Patty, which was $100 for two people for lunch. And this was in 1987. So that gives you an idea. I mean, it's expensive now, but back then, my goodness. So he came and took me out to lunch four times. And every time I said, Lou, I'm not going to take the job. I'm not interested.

00;05;02;25 - 00;05;21;29
Kate
And the job had been in the paper for 25,000 a year, which was almost double what I was making with the with the wild and crazy Armenians at Castle View Jewelers. So finally I was using this gold oxidizing solution that was hydrochloric acid mixed with something. It was bad and we had an exhaust fan that was really good.

00;05;21;29 - 00;05;38;01
Kate
But what I didn't realize is if you have all the windows and doors closed, you're not exhausting any fumes. You're creating a vacuum. So I got overcome by fumes and I went outside and my boss came out and he said, what was that stuff? I feel whacked. And I told him and he said, I feel work, too. He said, do you want to go get a beer?

00;05;38;01 - 00;05;55;06
Kate
Which I don't recommend, by the way. You've just poisoned yourself. So we went and had a quick beer and came back and the phone was ringing it. It was the headhunter from the Franklin Mint and he said, Linda Resnick, who's the owner of the company, said, I have to hire you or I'm going to lose my job. So what would it take to get you to take this job?

00;05;55;08 - 00;06;18;06
Kate
I need to be really clear. I was not good enough for the job I was. I had never done anything that was done in mass production, and every mistake I made would be multiplied by the size of the production run. And they were doing huge production runs. So it wasn't just that I didn't like the environment, but I also knew that I was not qualified, but I had just had a fast beer after being overwhelmed by shoes.

00;06;18;08 - 00;06;39;20
Kate
So I was rattling off the most insane list of demands, thinking, well, that'll put the end of this to leave me alone now. So I told them I wanted 40,000 a year to start with six months severance pay if they get if they fire me with an extra month for every year I'm there. And I was planning on getting fired, with a week to go.

00;06;39;22 - 00;06;59;18
Kate
To take a workshop somewhere in the continental U.S., all expenses paid every year, medical insurance to start immediately. Three weeks vacation starting immediately. It was an extra week for every year. There and then, a trip to New York once a month ago. Gallery, museum hopping on the company dime. And I said, no, no, this is the expensive part.

00;06;59;20 - 00;07;16;27
Kate
Any tool I want, no questions asked. And there will never be enough tools for me. And he asked. He's like, there's no way I could get you all that. You'd have a much better deal than your boss. And he I said, can you let me know? By five I got go and I hung up and my bosses were literally laying on the floor, kicking their hands and feet up and laughing.

00;07;16;29 - 00;07;32;23
Kate
So the phone rang at 4:45 and it was the head hunter. And he said, you got it. I said, I got what he said, everything you asked for. I said, that's impossible. He said, that's what I thought. So when can you start? And I was like, my bosses said, are you crazy? We're not going anywhere. If you don't like it, you can come back.

00;07;32;25 - 00;07;51;22
Kate
So I said, I reluctantly said, well, I guess I'll start in three weeks. And it was more than double my salary with really good perks. So I got there and I knew immediately I was in over my head. So we were doing things. When I first started there, we were doing $54 million a year in jewelry sales. It was a big business.

00;07;51;22 - 00;07;55;07
Kate
We were one of the world's top six advertisers right up there.

00;07;55;12 - 00;07;57;17
Mark
And this is for the Franklin Mint, right?

00;07;57;19 - 00;08;18;29
Kate
Yes, the Franklin Mint. And it was huge business. So they would hand me something. And I was so out of my league and I would think, well, it's I'm going to make mistakes. So I should start out with a big piece of wax. Now, I know you're better off starting with it as close to the right size as possible, so you're just trimming out your pattern and rounding corners.

00;08;19;01 - 00;08;39;01
Kate
But I started with so much material that it looked like a water bubble gum, which was not the look I was going for, and I would spend three quarters of the project in total panic. And I realized that my creative process is divided into three phases avoidance, amateur hour, and flow. Right? I would avoid giving them an estimate because I've never been good at that.

00;08;39;01 - 00;08;54;27
Kate
They wanted to know not only how long would it take me to make it, but how much it would weigh, how much it would cost to produce. And I couldn't figure out any of that. And then Amateur Hour, unfortunately, lasted me way more than an hour. It lasted me days, and I would have these negative voices in my head saying, you don't belong here.

00;08;54;27 - 00;09;13;16
Kate
You're an impostor. The last job that you pulled off by the skin of your teeth, that was just an a fluke. You're you don't you know, you're never going to be good at this. You should do something else with your life. And this would go on. I would go into the bathroom to have a panic attack. But there were women in there having full blown panic attacks, and I'd be like, oh my goodness, I'm going to get out of here.

00;09;13;18 - 00;09;34;16
Kate
And I go back to my bench. But about three quarters of the way through the project, it would start to pull together. And it was almost like it's coming out of the fog and starting to come in focus. And I would start, you know, I get excited, like, oh, maybe it's going to work. And then I got into the flow state, which is why I think we're all making jewelry as we're looking for that flow state.

00;09;34;18 - 00;09;52;25
Kate
And I would my skills would be matched to the, you know, the task at hand. I would lose sense of time and space and, you know, it would come together and it would look pretty good by the end of the year, amateur hour was only a third of the project, not three quarters of the project. So it seemed much more manageable.

00;09;52;27 - 00;10;07;21
Kate
And I had somebody at one of my big REO demos said to me, when you talk about Amateur Hour, I call that spending time with my itty bitty shitty committee. And it's like, I have all these mean people saying horrible things to me, and I have to just flick them off my shoulder and tell them to go away.

00;10;07;23 - 00;10;32;15
Kate
And since then, there's, a book called Imagine by Jonah Lehrer, and he talks about Amateur Hour. I forget what he calls it, but he says it's absolutely essential to our creative process, that if we have a problem that we have to solve a creative problem, it will spur different creativity, new ideas, and more dynamic solutions. So I tell my students in the classroom, my goal is for you to shorten your amateur hour.

00;10;32;15 - 00;10;53;08
Kate
I don't want you to get rid of it, but I want you to welcome it and embrace it and find a way to work within it so that you get to the good stuff faster and that you have less time, an amateur hour and more time in your flow state. So, I worked I was a model maker for a year, and then they offered me a job as production manager.

00;10;53;11 - 00;11;13;19
Kate
So I was overseeing 27 factories all over the world. I had nine model makers and designers. Specifications. Writer. And then I became director of the jewelry division. I was the youngest director in the history of the company by 12 years, and the only female director under the age of 50, and I was 29 at the time.

00;11;13;22 - 00;11;34;29
Kate
And, so it was I learned a lot. I had planned on being there for a year, long enough to start up my own line of jewelry, but since I was, you know, overseeing all the production and stuff and learning about mass manufacturing, I stayed because it was exciting and compelling. Okay. And then I, met a guy at the Santa Fe Symposium.

00;11;35;02 - 00;11;53;08
Kate
I want to do a blog post called Blame It on Rio, because pretty much everything in my life is because of Rio. I went to the Santa Fe Symposium, met a man who got me to main, and then, because of that, I ended up, you know, with a tool company, which really helped me out with that, giving me exposure.

00;11;53;10 - 00;12;12;13
Kate
So, I started out in Maine. I was going to start my own line of jewelry. It was during recession, and I took this collection of 18 karat gold jewelry with gems and diamonds. And all this store said, I love it. I like it on consignment, and I couldn't afford to to manufacture all this stuff and put it on memo.

00;12;12;16 - 00;12;38;16
Kate
And also I realized that if people didn't pay for something, they didn't push it as much when it was in their showcase. So right when I ran out of money, people started calling me up and asking me to car for them. So I spent the next 16 years carving for Monet, Lenox, Gorham, keepsake, Art, carved, Yvonne Shea, Bill Blass, Mary McFadden, House of Faberge, a and QVC.

00;12;38;17 - 00;12;59;03
Kate
But that was not fun. And Disney and the last work I did was a lot of work for Disney. I was carving little tiny dwarves, and friends of mine said, maybe if you whistled while you're worked, you wouldn't be so cranky. I tried that it didn't work and I'd be like, hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work, I go, I was just, I was billing them out $90 an hour and I was I hated the work.

00;12;59;03 - 00;13;18;27
Kate
So much. It was microscope work, very tedious that my studio was never cleaner. And you know that you're not doing the right thing when you'd rather clean the bathroom than sit and write half. So I had. In the meantime, I was teaching people how to carve wax. We would start up making tools out of bike spokes and everybody would.

00;13;19;02 - 00;13;30;09
Kate
We say, you should, you should manufacture these tools. And I would say, what the same thing, which is I don't have the money to start up a tool company. So Rio invited me to their catalog, a motion show in Tucson.

00;13;30;12 - 00;13;32;04
Mark
Every year was I, you know.

00;13;32;07 - 00;13;32;20
Kate
What's it.

00;13;32;26 - 00;13;34;06
Mark
About? What year was that?

00;13;34;09 - 00;13;40;07
Kate
2000 and probably 2001, maybe, but 2002.

00;13;40;09 - 00;13;42;12
Mark
And either and that was.

00;13;42;18 - 00;13;56;19
Kate
Yeah. In exchange for a booth in the hallway, we did a big public demo. So I was showing people how to carve with the bike spoke tools, and everybody came up to me and said I would buy these, you should make these tools. And I said, I don't have the money to start a tool company. And then that night I didn't sleep.

00;13;56;19 - 00;14;19;05
Kate
I was up all night long thinking if I remembered any of the might said, if you have a problem you can solve by throwing money at it, you don't have a very interesting problem, right? So that kind of like hooked me. And I thought, well, maybe I should see what I can do. So I send out samples to people all over the country at nine sets of of prototypes, I said, and people would sit on it for months and say, we can make these at any cost.

00;14;19;08 - 00;14;38;20
Kate
In the meantime, my buddy Lois heard about a guy who had a tool company in North Jersey. I we and we went to see him and thank goodness I had him signed a letter of non-disclosure saying that the tools are mine. You can manufacture him, but only with my permission. So he had the tools. He had a factory in India, made them.

00;14;38;22 - 00;15;09;10
Kate
And for years I wanted wax and gold and silver colors. So I thought, well, I will call up first who is my favorite, favorite wax and say, do you do special order special colors? They said, sure, you need to order 100 pounds of every shape. I'm thinking, there's no way I can do that. So when I knew that the carvers were being made, I mocked up the logo wolf wax by ferrous and mocked up a box with all marketing blurbs like now and colors that make sense for jewelers and send it to the guy who ran the company.

00;15;09;10 - 00;15;27;29
Kate
And he called me up immediately said, why did anybody think of this before? And I'm like, I don't know. And he said, let's do it. He said, we'll make it and ship it and we'll give you $0.50 a unit. I said, done. And then, we launched that at the same time as the carvers and won an Innovator award with some amazing manufacturing jewelers and suppliers of America.

00;15;28;01 - 00;15;43;11
Mark
So that was exciting at the time. It's revolutionary. You're the only one that ever did that. Yeah. I mean, it's always been dental tools or handmade tools. Yeah. And then you came out with this set. The first one is like all these specialty shapes and they are wicked sharp.

00;15;43;13 - 00;15;46;12
Kate
And the booklet telling you how to use them. Nobody had done that before.

00;15;46;15 - 00;15;55;22
Mark
No, I mean, that was revolutionary. You know, now, on the touch, on the wax real quick. Yeah. Was it just a color that you change or the consistency? The formula.

00;15;55;23 - 00;16;18;09
Kate
It was exactly ferrous purple file a wax that's gold and silver color. And then we ran into a problem with the silver. We couldn't find a silver dye that wasn't fugitive. And no matter what we do, it would just turn pink, pale pink. So we discontinued it because we couldn't find the right pigment or dye. It's not a a big minute to die, the right dye that wouldn't change color.

00;16;18;12 - 00;16;25;05
Mark
I love the gold, the gold wax, because it's for me, it's easier to see. Yeah. You know, when you look at it in the lights and things, you can see it.

00;16;25;12 - 00;16;45;06
Kate
The gold wax is a new formula. We started with first purple formula. But then when people started doing a lot of computer aided design and machining, I listened to all the problems people were having milling wax. And we came up with the new wealth milling wax. It's carving emelie wax, so it's harder, but it doesn't clog up that.

00;16;45;07 - 00;16;50;03
Kate
It's more powdery when you cut it and it's not as brittle. It doesn't crack as easily.

00;16;50;06 - 00;16;50;22
Mark
It's still, it's my.

00;16;50;22 - 00;16;51;19
Kate
Favorite in carving.

00;16;51;19 - 00;16;53;19
Mark
Wax. Yeah, it's still wonderful. The hand carve.

00;16;53;20 - 00;16;55;12
Kate
Yeah. It's fun.

00;16;55;14 - 00;17;19;18
Mark
This episode is sponsored by Wolf Tools and Wax. Now through April 30th, get 20% off, select Wolf Tools and Wolf Wax with promo code Wolf 20. So you did the wax. You did the tools first and then the wax, and then you're on this whole spiral thing of like just making new, new tools for the industry explained to me, you know, the fundamental thought process of that.

00;17;19;21 - 00;17;41;02
Kate
Well, a lot of times, like I would start with my, my carvers, I sent them my bike, spoke, you know, tools, and they reverse engineered them at my shape. And they figured out the stamping and everything. Then I had my trimmer and my adjustable trimmer and I mock up my prototypes like I will turn with my new belt sander I'm working on with Fortum.

00;17;41;04 - 00;18;03;06
Kate
I turned the wheels on my flex shaft lathe and I fabricated the body. I had a brass sheet. I just sent them the funkiest like crudest prototype. And then we work from there and, you know, with their manufacturing capabilities. So with the trimmers, I my adjustable trimmer, I made it out of brass and plexiglass and, send it off to their factory.

00;18;03;06 - 00;18;24;10
Kate
And then they figured out within their manufacturing capabilities what made sense. Right. And so that's how we worked with that. And then there were some products like the the first wolf I call a belt sander was there's a factory in Taiwan called Phase It Cool. It was their belt sander that they developed and they they showed it to Ike.

00;18;24;10 - 00;18;41;21
Kate
We said, let's do this with Kate. So I got it and I made a lot of changes. There was, you know what? I put on a, a coupler that you could hook up a shop-vac. I wanted to put a post so that you could hook it up to a gears bench, mate. Yeah. And then I wanted to add a disc sander onto to the drive wheel.

00;18;41;24 - 00;19;01;06
Kate
So they started out with it, and then I took it and went from there. And we worked together to make it better. Yeah. And stuff. So there was some products that I co we started that with. Their manufacturer would say, hey do you want to sell this and let's do it through Kate and see what input she has right now.

00;19;01;06 - 00;19;23;23
Mark
Getting good input from jewelers who are actually using the tools is critical. Yeah. And that's what I love about this new era of the industry, because when I first started, you know, 25 years ago now, there was pretty much nothing, you know, manufacturers made stuff and you worked with it. And then and this new generation jewelers are coming from all, all aspects and different perspectives.

00;19;23;23 - 00;19;37;01
Mark
I mean, Pat Pruitt modified your belt sander with some crazy modifications, you know, and it was kind of outrageous. And I love it. I'm loving seeing all this new material coming out and the new ways of doing things.

00;19;37;04 - 00;20;03;28
Kate
Rio Grande was the first company that I know of that supported people like me that were jewelers, that were making tools for jewelers and like people like Bonnie Doon and, Bill Fritz and there's and Jane Redman, there's so many of us that we give Rios so much credit for helping us get get ourselves out there. And there's people I don't think realize that the profit margins on tools is not what you would think it is.

00;20;03;28 - 00;20;23;18
Kate
It's very small. And this is a big volume business. Like you're you need to have quite a few tools in the pipeline to make a living at this. So I make most of my living teaching and the tools just, you know, supplements my income. Hopefully I have 14 new things I'm working on with Fordham, and I'm super excited about that.

00;20;23;18 - 00;20;26;01
Kate
And hopefully that'll tip the scale a little bit. So I'll be the.

00;20;26;04 - 00;20;27;19
Mark
Only for only 14, though.

00;20;27;22 - 00;20;28;26
Kate
Only 14.

00;20;28;28 - 00;20;30;05
Mark
I mean, you can do you can do better.

00;20;30;05 - 00;20;43;18
Kate
But just I went down and had a meeting with them and the owner, Rich, was like, I want to do all of them, but let's not try and do them all at once. So pick three. We'll start with. As soon as they start moving along, we'll keep adding the others in.

00;20;43;20 - 00;20;46;13
Mark
So all these have your name on them? Yes okay.

00;20;46;13 - 00;21;04;26
Kate
Good tools by them. Okay. So we have a new I can tell you about a little bit. We have a new two inch belt sander coming out that is dynamite. And my marketing campaign is twice as nice because the old belt sander was one inch wide and this is two inches wide, and it has all kinds of bells and whistles.

00;21;04;26 - 00;21;29;29
Kate
It has an adjustable deck that you can do mitered. If you want to do mitered edges, you could do a 45 degree miter edge, and you can flip it upside down and slack sand in between the rollers. When you're doing like the round radius of the outside of a ring. And there's three different radius wheels. So if you want to use it like a drum sander, you can, you know, you can you can do concave surfaces on the rollers.

00;21;30;02 - 00;21;39;00
Kate
So it's really exciting and it's super easy to flip around and pivot around and spin it upside down. So it's it's really exciting.

00;21;39;02 - 00;21;47;00
Mark
That's when you buy your it's own flex shaft to commit to. It seems to fit right here next to your side. Hit that foot pedal and go to town. Yes. Yeah. You need any flex shaft too?

00;21;47;02 - 00;21;56;08
Kate
Yes. And then we have we're working on new sand blasters and, all kinds of other tools.

00;21;56;10 - 00;22;02;01
Mark
Okay. So talk to me a little bit about sound Blaster. I've always had trouble with Sound Blasters because they just get sand everywhere.

00;22;02;08 - 00;22;24;07
Kate
That's what this is good at. It has an air tight. I mean, it is it's a solid machine. It's beautifully built, but it has a great gasket and, with magnetic on the lid. So that. And then it has a, a filtration system that we're actually filing a patent on. It's revolutionary. And that way you can reclaim the material.

00;22;24;07 - 00;22;34;11
Kate
It makes it easier to swap media. So and it works with a foot pedal. So that you don't have to be messing around with the switch. So it's it's really exciting.

00;22;34;13 - 00;22;37;13
Mark
But what's the size footprint size approximately. It's about.

00;22;37;13 - 00;22;39;18
Kate
This big. We have two of them coming out.

00;22;39;19 - 00;22;40;12
Mark
One so kind of.

00;22;40;15 - 00;23;05;27
Kate
More small for desktop for jewelers that you might have in a jewelry store or in your in the shop. And then one that's a little bigger that like knife makers or blacksmiths might use or people who are doing glass that might be sandblasting, but we're the, the, the first size I'm actually going to for them tomorrow. And we have our, I think, final prototype for the belt sander and the sand blaster for me to to look at with their engineers.

00;23;05;27 - 00;23;29;09
Kate
And I love working with Fortum. Their engineers are such brilliant and they make a whole lot right here in the US, which is really exciting. But they're, they're just wonderful to work with. And when I worked with Koay, they didn't let me interact with the manufacturers. They always were in the middle. And with Fortum on Wednesday nights at 9:00, we're talking to the factory in Taiwan.

00;23;29;10 - 00;23;34;05
Kate
That's it's it's nine in the morning there and we go over any production issues.

00;23;34;05 - 00;23;35;20
Mark
So that's super.

00;23;35;25 - 00;23;46;03
Kate
Exciting. And I have some stuff made here. My wax is made in Cleveland. My sanding mantles are made in Missouri, so not everything is made. I try to make things here as I can as.

00;23;46;03 - 00;23;46;26
Mark
Much as you can.

00;23;46;28 - 00;23;48;06
Kate
Yeah, yeah.

00;23;48;08 - 00;23;52;28
Mark
Yeah, I know sanding manuals are incredible. I was talking to my class the other day about them and they're.

00;23;53;01 - 00;23;55;25
Kate
Yeah, it's like ten bucks for three of them. And it's like they say.

00;23;55;25 - 00;23;57;05
Mark
And there's so much safer.

00;23;57;07 - 00;24;03;04
Kate
Yeah. And with the bigger diameter, it's six times faster. And it's you don't get as many ridges on the inside of a ring.

00;24;03;07 - 00;24;04;06
Mark
And they don't bend.

00;24;04;08 - 00;24;06;00
Kate
No.

00;24;06;03 - 00;24;14;07
Mark
And start attacking you. Yeah. Right on. So we talked a lot about your products, the new products coming out. Anything else you want to add to that or.

00;24;14;09 - 00;24;25;09
Kate
I kind of don't want to talk about them yet. Okay? I don't like the new products. I'm, I need to keep it a little secret until we get them out there. I don't I don't I want to be careful. What? I'm leaking out.

00;24;25;12 - 00;24;26;24
Mark
No, no, man, about.

00;24;27;00 - 00;24;56;01
Kate
The mysteries, I think, Yeah, I the with stuff that's pretty much ready to go. I'm talking about. But the other stuff, I want to sort of keep it under wraps. One of the things that is troublesome in our industry is how easy it is to reverse engineer when somebody has something to do. I know that there's been trade shows where somebody has an amazing photo booth set up, a little photo box set up that you can take dynamite pictures of your work, and within three months, you know, everybody has it there.

00;24;56;02 - 00;24;58;23
Kate
They took it in reverse, engineered it, and they're they're doing it.

00;24;58;23 - 00;24;59;22
Mark
So that's happening.

00;24;59;22 - 00;25;02;11
Kate
We're trying to be as careful as we can.

00;25;02;13 - 00;25;03;29
Mark
And this stuff happened to me too.

00;25;04;01 - 00;25;05;15
Kate
Oh yeah.

00;25;05;18 - 00;25;09;01
Mark
Yeah. So I can just contributing at that point, you know.

00;25;09;04 - 00;25;15;19
Kate
Yeah. Well it's nice to partner with a big company that can help keep that at bay.

00;25;15;22 - 00;25;17;11
Mark
And keep the quality up to.

00;25;17;13 - 00;25;27;09
Kate
It. Keeps the quality up. Yes. And they can get things through the pipeline with the manufacturing. Better than just a one person business that's trying to have things made.

00;25;27;11 - 00;25;32;24
Mark
Yeah. So are you still teaching or kind of putting it on the back burner a little bit or.

00;25;32;25 - 00;25;44;15
Kate
No, not at all. I have a classroom in Portland, I have benches for 11 students, and sign ups have been great. I think I have four spots left for the year, if that.

00;25;44;18 - 00;25;48;07
Mark
Do they get to do that? Do they go to the website to do that?

00;25;48;10 - 00;25;49;28
Kate
You know, you have to start com.

00;25;50;00 - 00;25;51;09
Mark
Wealth tools.com.

00;25;51;16 - 00;26;14;05
Kate
Yeah okay. And I have classes we run from May through October. And because like right now it's snowing. It's April here and it's snowing pretty hard. So I have most of my students fly in from all over the world and all over the country. And, so I don't want to try and run classes in the winter when we might have hang ups with travel.

00;26;14;08 - 00;26;21;10
Kate
Plus, in the winter I do more tool development and marketing stuff. It seems to be a nice sort of rhythm to have here.

00;26;21;13 - 00;26;22;09
Mark
Excellent.

00;26;22;11 - 00;26;28;02
Kate
But I've had students from I tallied up 16 different countries, which is amazing.

00;26;28;04 - 00;26;36;29
Mark
Well, I know when you had the classes here at Rio, man, we've had from Africa. Yes, all over the world that would come specifically for your class and sometimes take them back to back.

00;26;37;01 - 00;27;01;11
Kate
You know, it's very sobering and I feel like it cost them so much to be with me for the week that I really feel like I have to deliver. But I tell people I'm the codependent workshop hostess. I'm not happy unless everybody in the room is happy and I pride myself on, like, tuning into every student. I had a student by the name of James Sweeney, who gave me the best teaching advice I ever had.

00;27;01;13 - 00;27;15;03
Kate
He said, Kate, you have somebody in the room that would take all the attention if you let them, and you have some shy people in here. So he used to teach a GA and he said, so what I do is I do a demo and I circle the room and talk to everybody, and it changed everything for me.

00;27;15;03 - 00;27;30;04
Kate
So everybody in the room gets one on one attention and I just help everybody till it's time for the next demo and then make the rounds again, and you get good results because you're, you're just looking over their shoulder and helping them. So it's it's been wonderful.

00;27;30;06 - 00;27;31;29
Mark
Are you still making the bubbles and doing the bubbles.

00;27;32;07 - 00;27;34;19
Kate
I do.

00;27;34;21 - 00;27;44;28
Mark
But people don't know. When K was here at Rio Grande, they she had always bring her bubble thing and our security team and everybody in the cafeteria come out and she would do bubbles and everybody is fantastic.

00;27;45;05 - 00;27;51;17
Kate
I've given away almost 800 sets of bubble ones. It's pretty crazy. It's to make ginormous bubbles.

00;27;51;23 - 00;27;54;23
Mark
Yeah. These are like the two handed things that you do this with it.

00;27;54;25 - 00;27;58;01
Kate
It's so much fun. It's hard to be cranky when you're blowing bubbles.

00;27;58;01 - 00;28;09;16
Mark
I try, all right, this doesn't work. And I still tell stories about how long it would take me to clean up all the wax from the classroom. Oh, it's. You guys would have lunch, and I'd be in there vacuuming the whole floor.

00;28;09;18 - 00;28;16;11
Kate
That's one of the things I'm working on is something to help with that. So that's that's something.

00;28;16;14 - 00;28;19;01
Mark
I'll test it out for you if you want me to test it for you.

00;28;19;04 - 00;28;30;19
Kate
Good. That sounds great. It helps remove the dust at the point of where you're making it. So that's one of the projects I'm working on with Fordham. And it's super low tech, but it works great.

00;28;30;22 - 00;28;31;27
Mark
It's like a broom.

00;28;32;00 - 00;28;33;19
Kate
Nope. It's a little bit.

00;28;33;22 - 00;28;34;17
Mark
Fancier than that.

00;28;34;22 - 00;28;37;05
Kate
It's oh.

00;28;37;08 - 00;28;37;19
Mark
It's a.

00;28;37;19 - 00;28;39;01
Kate
Broom. Yeah.

00;28;39;04 - 00;28;44;25
Mark
That's fantastic. And I gosh covered everything on my list. K there we.

00;28;44;25 - 00;28;45;14
Kate
Go.

00;28;45;17 - 00;28;51;19
Mark
I'm just super excited to talk to you and to learn that you're still teaching. People can go to wolf, wolf tools.com.

00;28;51;23 - 00;29;11;20
Kate
Yes. And I think I'm going to try and do this for another 6 or 7 years. I'm 66. Now, look, I'm thinking I'll teach for six more years, but I am going to be teaching less weeks a year. I live about four houses from the Nonesuch River and I have a kayak, and I have a big garden and lots of company in the summer.

00;29;11;20 - 00;29;35;20
Kate
So I. I'm realizing that I might like every year, take one class off the roster and break it down that way. But I being in the classroom is my favorite thing. Just being there when the light bulb goes off for somebody is the best feeling in the world. And then the follow up emails that I get with pictures of what they carved and what they've done with it, is so rewarding.

00;29;35;22 - 00;29;49;15
Mark
Yeah, I hear you, man. That's why I love teaching the little class that I do. Yeah, it helps with that amateur hour. You know, I like that problem solving. And it's like the stuff that they bring to me is like, that is crazy. Let's try and figure it out.

00;29;49;18 - 00;30;09;28
Kate
Yeah. That's the thing that's exciting is every class somebody has something different they want to achieve. So I have to like try and figure out how to help them achieve their goals and sometimes what they want to do is like, so never going to happen because. Right, I'm like, well, we'd have to make that out of unobtainium because this is a.

00;30;10;01 - 00;30;11;28
Mark
We have to go find Unobtainium.

00;30;12;00 - 00;30;33;00
Kate
I think one of the best things about what we do is the problem solving that goes with it. And to I always say, walk away if you're stuck and take a break, go for a walk, or the next morning wake up and you'll know what to do next. And I pretty much always happens. It's like you're letting your subconscious fill in the blanks and help you along when you're when you've just walked away from it for a little while.

00;30;33;06 - 00;30;37;05
Mark
Just. And it can be a minute or two. Yeah. Sometimes it's not that long.

00;30;37;07 - 00;30;45;14
Kate
Yeah, yeah. But. Or I'll put it down and work on something else. And then while I'm working on something else, I'll have that moment like, oh, I know what to do next.

00;30;45;14 - 00;30;47;10
Mark
The other half of the brain is working on the other problem.

00;30;47;13 - 00;31;04;04
Kate
Yeah. And that's what I do with my tool design. Like with the, the belt sander, I would start the prototype and then I would hit a wall. And then I'd say I wake up the next morning like, oh, I know what to try next and implement that. It would get a little further along and then have to back up again.

00;31;04;07 - 00;31;11;02
Kate
And that's, you know, you don't just it's like writing a book. You don't just write it and have it right. You do a rough draft and then you.

00;31;11;02 - 00;31;11;20
Mark
Can oh yeah, let.

00;31;11;20 - 00;31;12;10
Kate
The rough draft.

00;31;12;16 - 00;31;13;29
Mark
Renditions. Yeah, yeah.

00;31;14;01 - 00;31;33;23
Kate
So I say blame your tools and figure out a way to make them better. And that's that's the way to a happy life at the bench in almost all jewelers I know I, you know, do that. And they're always like putting grooves in their pliers or rounding the edges off their pliers so they don't mark things. And, and, you know, just modifying stuff.

00;31;33;26 - 00;31;36;02
Mark
Yeah. And that's my favorite part is making tools.

00;31;36;04 - 00;31;37;01
Kate
Yes. Me too.

00;31;37;02 - 00;31;41;15
Mark
And that's why I love the flex shaft. I mean, to me the flex shaft is one of the most important tools.

00;31;41;18 - 00;31;42;00
Kate
Oh yeah.

00;31;42;00 - 00;31;43;12
Mark
It makes other tools.

00;31;43;14 - 00;31;43;28
Kate
Yes.

00;31;44;05 - 00;31;44;25
Mark
You know.

00;31;44;28 - 00;31;45;23
Kate
I agree.

00;31;45;25 - 00;31;50;25
Mark
That's one of the first things I tell my students. I was like, this is probably one of the most dangerous tools, and it also one of the best tools.

00;31;50;27 - 00;32;04;08
Kate
Yeah, I had a flex shaft that I sent to for them to fix. And Mike Zak, who's the national sales manager, called me because this flex shaft is 36 years old. And I said, can you fix it?

00;32;04;10 - 00;32;05;17
Mark
Can you fix it?

00;32;05;19 - 00;32;20;00
Kate
And I have to admit, I didn't do a good job of maintaining it over the years. Yeah. And so he's, he's he said it was for the classroom. So he found something in this gadget. Scratch and dent been and sent it up to me from my classroom. He's like he said I'm going to keep this and put it in.

00;32;20;00 - 00;32;33;23
Kate
He has like a little mini museum of the old flagships, but it's a solid, you know, that's a machine. It's like I have flex shafts that have been in my studio for 25 years now. That work just as good today as they did maintain them.

00;32;33;25 - 00;32;41;18
Mark
They last forever. Yeah. Excellent, man. Okay, that's about all I have. It's really, really wonderful to have you on the show today.

00;32;41;19 - 00;32;48;19
Kate
I'm so glad to be here. And just to see you and brings back so many memories of great times with my radio buddies. And.

00;32;48;22 - 00;32;53;27
Mark
But hopefully next time you're out here, we'll get to have a little lunch or do some of that or something.

00;32;53;29 - 00;32;57;18
Kate
That sounds great. And thank you so much. I appreciate you.

00;32;57;21 - 00;33;15;04
Mark
Thank you Kate. Me too. And that's it for today's show. Big thanks to Kate Wolf for joining us today and sharing her remarkable journeys. Don't forget to upgrade your bench with Wolf Tools and Wax and use the promo code Wolf 20 to save 20% through April 30th. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss out on what's coming next.

00;33;15;04 - 00;33;18;01
Mark
And for the love of jewelers, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.