Posted By Lenny E on 28 Dec 2011 10:08 AM
Andy,

I would like to say I am thinking out of the box, but for the past 7 or 8 years I have lived outside the box. Andy, you can’t take 50 sheets? I understand completely.

I would like to propose a factory direct plan that cuts out buyer-resellers and distributors and gives you the best price and quality possible.

How about some of you astute fellows round up like minds in your area? I’m thinking you Andy, Tom, Kelsey and a few others. You order and I ship you a container and ya all split it in your area. The person who organizes it gets a cut.
I can match any color. Tom ya like ¾ inch, I can bury you in it!

I have redundant factories and a price stability plan in place. I will match all your desired colors across a range of factories. In the unlikely event one folds it’s no big deal. It’s a stable scenario. I offer you multiple levels of contingencies. If China folds, I have a foot in Nam and other countries.

Sound interesting? Let’s do it.

BTW I am working on some prefab projects to cut out the fabber for a buyer reseller client of mine. It hurt my heart to work on this, but I coveted  the money.I'm just a  "solid surface mercenary".

Turnabout is fair play. Let’s cut out the distributors, buyer – resellers and overpriced domestic manufacturers and go to a fabricator direct to end user plan! Why should the fabbers always be the ones to get cut out?

You likey? I likey very much!  As the girls in Nam used to say to me..”I love you long time!”

Oh you want ACRYLIC? Lab tests just out on my new acrylic product..Just as good as Livingstone and cheaper! Whoo Hooo! Life is good! Introduction slated for next year.

PM me with any interest or questions!

No peelcoat is insane. Customers on here are complaing about it. Need I say more?

As the one who brought up the issue of the peelcoat, for me that was the first thing I wundered about when we took delivery of our first sheets. Honestly they looked as though they were draged behind the truck. This is going back 3-4 years now. To be honest Gordon the finish on the sheets is not the best either, it's not uniform in any way. We have used probably over a couple hundred sheets of Allagheny and some sheets have looked like they were sanded with orbital discs and others with drums. I have spoken with a few at EOS about this and they explain and know its a quality control issue. I also understand that there is a limited inventory of the product and if I want to meet my obligations to my customers we dont have any choice but to spend ALOT more time sanding these sheets.
A good example of what I mean about the additional time needed to sand the sheets is this.
We used the color Allegheny on an ongoing project and early this year it was discontinued. Our client didnt want to switch over to another color so to give our client what they wanted we switched to using Livingstone Heartland which is a great match to EOS Allegheny. With EOS we were able to cut, seam, mount an undermount kitchen sink, edge profile, and sand the entire kitchen in 10 hours. NO CNC. With Livingstone we can do the same kicthen including the build up edge and adding substrate again in 10 hours. The Livingstone comes with a peelcoat and the finish is flawless. Yes there is the additonal steps but the hours are the same.
If the EOS sheets had a peelcoat and there finish was flawless I could definetly see where there could be a time savings but without this I dont see how there could be.
The weight of the product and the fact that the sheets are stacked upon each other really makes it necessary to protect them during shipment. For awhile we were receiving sheets with some type of powder covering the sheets along with an undersized piece cardboard between them. I see the effort was made but it doesnt help.
I do see a place in the industry for the both the 2cm and the 3cm products. But to really gain the true benefit from them there surface finish and arrival condition must atleast compare to other surface products available.

Posted By Steve Mehan on 28 Dec 2011 07:23 PM
As the one who brought up the issue of the peelcoat, for me that was the first thing I wundered about when we took delivery of our first sheets. Honestly they looked as though they were draged behind the truck. This is going back 3-4 years now. To be honest Gordon the finish on the sheets is not the best either, it's not uniform in any way. We have used probably over a couple hundred sheets of Allagheny and some sheets have looked like they were sanded with orbital discs and others with drums. I have spoken with a few at EOS about this and they explain and know its a quality control issue. I also understand that there is a limited inventory of the product and if I want to meet my obligations to my customers we dont have any choice but to spend ALOT more time sanding these sheets.
A good example of what I mean about the additional time needed to sand the sheets is this.
We used the color Allegheny on an ongoing project and early this year it was discontinued. Our client didnt want to switch over to another color so to give our client what they wanted we switched to using Livingstone Heartland which is a great match to EOS Allegheny. With EOS we were able to cut, seam, mount an undermount kitchen sink, edge profile, and sand the entire kitchen in 10 hours. NO CNC. With Livingstone we can do the same kicthen including the build up edge and adding substrate again in 10 hours. The Livingstone comes with a peelcoat and the finish is flawless. Yes there is the additonal steps but the hours are the same.
If the EOS sheets had a peelcoat and there finish was flawless I could definetly see where there could be a time savings but without this I dont see how there could be.
The weight of the product and the fact that the sheets are stacked upon each other really makes it necessary to protect them during shipment. For awhile we were receiving sheets with some type of powder covering the sheets along with an undersized piece cardboard between them. I see the effort was made but it doesnt help.
I do see a place in the industry for the both the 2cm and the 3cm products. But to really gain the true benefit from them there surface finish and arrival condition must atleast compare to other surface products available.

Steve,
I want to hear all of this, thats why I asked. We definitly had some quality issues in the past, we have made some great improvements in our warehouse and shipping, with the regional distribution we should be able to make even more improvements. Sound like you are happy with Livingstone and I have nothing but positive about them and their products but if you do have an ongoing color that you need from our original pallet and you know you are going to use a certain amount, then send me the details, we can bring in any color in any thickness on our containers if we know we have a buyer for it. The peelcoat works great on thin sheets but 3cm is 286 lbs per sheet stacked 12 high on a pallet, regardless of the brand or style of the peelcoat there are going to be some compression issues.
When you get a crumb of anything betweeen the sheets it slices the peelcoat and damages the sheets, when the sheet arrives you spend 30 minutes picking off tiny strips of peel coat.
For material shipped from the EOS VA location we are working on improved packing and handling, regional distributors will have dedicated trucks and personel to handle their markets, both of these should improve sheet finish as delivered.
I was not implying that you had HIJACKED my thread, I was looking for honest answers fabricators and what they wanted from EOS and all solid surface to help their business. Somebody else HIJACKED my thread and decided to advertise containers direct at better pricing and quality than EOS and Livingstone, I didnt want it to turn into a "I can sell it cheaper and better than the others" thread.
I will continue to monitor everyone's comments and we will make note of them at EOS for continued improvement but I dont want to get into a bidding war on a forum board.
If you are interested in getting more 3cm or 2cm Allegheny then shoot me an email with details @ gordon@eos-surfaces.com or you can call me @ 616-293-6170.
Thanks

Gordon, I would like to add we continue to use the EOS products. The issues I have raised are fixable, and I'm glad you asked for our opinions. Hopefully you can help implement some of these suggestions.

Humm... peelcoat doesn't come off because of too much weight.  Then how come I see skids stacked 8-10 feet high at my LG distributor, I'm sure those bottom sheets are compressed just as much, and I've never had a problem with any LG sheet just peeling right off?

What if that same piece of trash was between

Maybe if your finish was slicker, and you used the same peelcoat as they do, you would have the same outcome as many others.

Kelsey,
Thanks for your input, we will revisit the peelcoat internally during our product discussions for 2012.
Thanks