Zak Lewis: Yes, it’s definitely too early. It’s only been open for a couple hours. We’re probably the first booth as you walk in. So, most people during the show are going for the cabinet side of the business or cabinet millwork. They see our booth and are a little bit confused because we generally have a thirty thousand square foot booth in the main hall loaded with machinery. This is a new test, so to speak, at IWF, there are timberframe manufacturers, machine suppliers. So, our expectations are high, but we just don’t know who’s going to be attending. How well was it marketed to the industry? Only time will tell in the next couple of days. So far, at eleven o’clock this morning, I think I’ve spoken to maybe one customer that has even a remote interest in the product, or so. This is when we’re starting at phase one. This could turn into something good over the years, but you have to start somewhere.

Zak Lewis: Well, as a sales guy, of course, we want to have machines on the booth, but the logistics of doing it is just too expensive. For example, to ship an area machine here, even without the tables. It’s nearly one hundred thousand dollars in freight cost to ship an oikos machine, which is our beam machine for glulam beams and solid wood beams. The freight cost is forty five thousand dollars. Plus, the size of the machines themselves is not conducive to having a square booth like this. So, the next best thing is we’re going to showcase our products with digital screens, TV monitors, lots of print on the walls, samples of what our machines can do, and just get the message out there that we’re a machine manufacturer. A little bit tough. People walk into the booth and think we’re a wood beam manufacturer because of the samples we have. But that’s our job to change that. The only way we can change in the future is to have a machine here.

Zak Lewis: Yes of course. So, the new machines for the timber construction side of our business that we’re offering, showing, showcasing would be our area GL, which stands for glulam. It’s a traditional gantry-style CNC router that would normally be used for doing CLT panels or DLT panels, but we can put a glulam beam on there that’s curved and shuttle the tables into that position, machine the glulam beam that’s curved while we’re loading a CLT panel on the opposite end of the machine. So, it’s a hybrid machine and we can machine the underside of the beam. That’s traditionally been the issue with a gantry-style machine that works from the top. It’s difficult to machine the underside. So, with the new workholding fixtures, we can machine the underside of the beam quite well. And it’s a universal machine now for doing beams and panels. The other machine that we’re showcasing, which is fairly new, is our Celaschi double-end tenoners end which is a machining center for doing continuous flow machining of CLT panels on both sides of the panel simultaneously, so for much higher production, and then also new but not extremely new is our DMC XL Sanders, which can stand up to 3.2 meters wide, 15 inches thick. Again, these machines to have here in the booth is cost prohibitive. They’re custom built machines specifically for a customer.

And they’re the size of a school bus, so the freight, the logistics of having it on the booth is nearly impossible. It’s easy to do in Europe because we’re so close to Hanover or Milan, so to speak. But the ocean freight to do it over here, it’s not conducive. So we just try to engage with the customer and let them know what we’re doing by showing them the video walls, the posters. The people that are in the business that are serious about it — they know who we are. It’s a relationship building and letting them know you know we’re displaying here, letting them know we’re spending a little bit of money to let them know we’re in the business and there to help. So, the idea is just to engage with people.

Zak Lewis: Yeah, good question. The last couple of years have been quite a challenge for sales. I think the market has been hurt for whatever reason — fuel costs, transportation. Uncertainty has been the biggest one. That’s the theme that I get from everybody is just the uncertainty. But when it comes to capital equipment purchases, what I hear from customers is the, a tariff on a machine that’s two million dollars—it’s going to be approaching, say, three hundred thousand dollars—has been a real tough pill to swallow. I think SCM, as well as our industry competitors, have suffered quite a bit of a setback in sales because of that. I have many accounts waiting to pull the trigger on a machine until things politically settle down.

There’s some stability globally, and there’s some finality in the cost of goods coming from Europe.

Zak Lewis: Well, right now the area gl is our last innovation, and the oikos x4, which I should have mentioned earlier, those two machines right now at the forefront as something new. The X4 is a linear beam machine that will handle a curved beam, a camber beam, we call it in the industry, which was unheard of before to process on a linear beam machine. That’s quite innovative. We have one installed in France now. That’s been quite successful. So, we try to test a machine close to our market, our manufacturing sites, first before bringing it, you know, to North America. Coming up, I mean, we’re always improving on software. We’re very, very software neutral and work with all of the third-party design softwares. We’re always improving on that. And right now, I think that’s about it for.