Brack Zollo, of Brack Zollo Exterior Stucco and Plastering is an applicator based out of Ukiah, California.  Brack and his crew are experienced exterior and stucco applicators that primarily focus their business on commercial projects, developments and large custom homes.  Zollo just finished his first rammed earth house with 7800 square feet of walls done with American Clay Enjarre basecoat and Marittimo finish coats.  And after working with a good number of interior plasters available, he believes that “… American Clay is the easiest by far to work with, the most forgiving and the easiest to train a crew to use correctly.”  Brack Zollo was interviewed by Rick Kantor, Brack’s trainer and Dealer, this month after he finished his first job working with American Clay.  This was Brack’s experience working with American Clay, as discuses in the interview:

My crew is primarily exterior applicators, and they are experts at troweling plaster. On the first job I did with American Clay I would say my workers were hesitant and skeptical at first because the American Clay plaster was a new material that acted differently to plasters they had used in the past. After the second week of working with American Clay plaster, my guys really started to understand the material and feel comfortable working with it.  My crew enjoyed the material’s light weight and forgiving properties.

When we work, we have a reliable system that works very well. Firstly, one guy is always mixing the material.  Secondly, the other crew members follow a sequence of events that start with a person spraying. The individual spraying is followed by two guys. The first person uses a standard trowel to smooth the plaster, while the second guy follows him with a swimming pool trowel.  My workers, subsequently, learned the hard way that the secret is to move fast and then walk away to let the plaster dry.  Like most plaster guys, their tendency was to use too much water. As a result, the plaster failed in a few spots; however, now my guys understand now and they are working fast and moving on. We also figured out that we were initially spraying the product too thin. In actuality, we could spray it much thicker than we expected. And the thicker we could spray on the plaster the better it looked, the easier it was to trowel smooth and the fewer problems we experienced working with too much water. In addition, my workers will come back and compress only when the plaster is completely dry; thus, this results in consistently prefect job every time.

By the end of my first job using American Clay, my crew was all over me to use more of this material. These guys have been with me, some of them, for 24 years now. Frankly, they’re older and the older they get, the less they want to lift 100 lbs, or 90 lbs bags. I already had one hernia in the group! The lighter weight of the material really appeals to my guys. I think, also, my workers have a new sense of pride when they see a completed project using American Clay. When we took all the protective plastic off the walls, and my guys got to see a 7800 square foot rammed earth house with 13 foot ceilings completely done in three colors of American Clay Marittimo, and they were really proud of themselves. Although they were already completely won over with the product, this left them wanting to do more. Coming from my crew, that’s impressive!

Follow up: Brack has asked me to add this paragraph to the interview.

The most important issue to me is how a company supports their product.  American Clay extinguished any fear I might have had in regards to their product.   After attending Rick Kantor’s classes and asking a lot of questions, Rick made me feel competent to take on projects with American Clay products.  When we started our first project, Rick made several trips to the jobsite to make sure everything was working smoothly and to answer any questions from my crew.  He not only talked and explained how to work the material, but got up on the scaffolding and worked with the crew all day.  Rick went above and beyond any of the suppliers I have used over the last 20 years.  But it did not end with Rick.   I called American Clay to get some information on spraying the material and the ladies in the office had information about nozzle tip sizes and air pressures faxed to me within the hour.   In the end, we used the Kodiak M2 sprayer designed by AST American Spray Technologies.  Bill Saas has designed this machine for the American Clay product.  I strongly believe that with more applicators using this machine it is going to make applying the American Clay product easier and will cut labor costs. The sprayer is very affordable and will pay for itself on the first job with the hours of labor saved.  I deal in production, and essentially the faster I can apply the clay on walls and ceilings, the faster I can move through a project and bid more jobs using clay in the future.  With Rick Kantor as my area representative and the support from American Clay, I feel this is going to be a great addition to our company.