 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. Today is a very cool episode because it is all about Keller shells and I'm joined by Justin Owen of Keller Products. Justin, how are you? I am well. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. It's my pleasure and it's really neat because this is an episode that was requested by a listener and I just love it because there's, I think there's basically endless possibilities of historical drum topics that we can talk about. So this fits right in. Sure. Sure. And you know, over its history, Keller Products has kind of been, you know, a quiet player in the industry. You know, it wasn't until probably 15, 18 years ago that we really started becoming more, more public oriented. So there are some misconceptions out there and the rumor mill, you know, has some crazy ideas on how shells are made and how we produce them. So, you know, we'd be happy to clear some of that up. But going back to the beginning of the company, it was started by Robert Keller Sr. shortly after World War II 1946 with some of his buddies that had just gotten out of the Army and, you know, they were tossing around some ideas for working with wood and they started developing methods for molding plywood into different shapes. So that through the late 40s, they did a lot of military applications, aircraft parts, glider parts and then they got into tubes for military purposes like shipping bazooka rounds and stuff like that and wooden tubes because they were non-static. And then the round tubes kind of let it, lent itself to musical applications as people began to see them. So, you know, through the 50s, we did most of the music stuff we did back then was primarily like tambourines, the angio-resonator rims. I'm sure somebody was making drums out of them, but it really wasn't something that they were focusing on at the time. It was more of a byproduct of what it was. Wow. So, it was born during the World War II era, not as drumming, but just as an essential like kind of wartime necessity for a multitude of basically cylindrical applications, right? And then it evolved into, hey, there might be a market for drums. Yep. And, you know, there was, you know, other things like glider parts, you know, molded plywood wing panels that were very light and structurally sound. Wow. That's amazing. Architectural products, you know, over the course of the years since 1946, we've manufactured virtually hundreds of different plywood products. For example, in the mid to late 60s, we were doing a lot of snowboards for Burton out of plywood. Oh, my gosh. It was a very early snowboard. Hockey sticks were big for a long time. Platform shoe heels in the 1970s. Wow. We used to load up railroad cars full of them. We had a railroad track right next to the factory. The car would pull up. We'd load them up full of shoe heels and platform shoes. Oh, man. I never ever would have guessed that. That's pretty cool, though. Yeah. So, you know, eventually, you know, moving into the 60s, you know, the musical applications became more prevalent, you know, in the mid-60s, 66 or so, a gentleman from Fender came in and said, hey, I heard you guys are molding plywood and making round stuff, and this was shortly after CBS had acquired the Rogers Company, and they were packing everything up and moving them to Fullerton. Yeah. As I understand it, they didn't want to mess around with all the molds and machines. They just wanted to have somebody else make them. You know, so this gentleman came in. I don't know what his name was. That was a little bit before my time. You know, he said, hey, I'm looking for wood drum shells that are, you know, made of maple and from 10 inches to 26 inches in diameter. And if you can tool up for everything in between every couple of inches, you know, he says, I'll give you an order for 50,000 shells. Oh, boy. So that kind of got everybody's attention, and they went into high gear designing tools and fixtures to start running all of those diameters, and it really didn't take all that long, you know, within a matter of four or five months, you know, they had tooled up and were starting to run production. So to back up, so was it Rogers, who was the first person to begin using Keller as kind of outsourcing their shells? Commercially, yes. OK. You know, there were there were, you know, private builders and in restoration people and tinkers that were that were using them. And of course, you know, there were guys, banjo builders and stuff that were using them and tambourine builders. Wow. OK. But the, you know, the really first big commercial push into a full range of of drum sizes was was with Rogers. Wow. OK. That's great to know, because it kind of just seems like Keller's always been a it's just always been there. I'm glad I I'm glad we now know who the first person was. So that's wild. That's as far as my understanding of it goes, you know, the most of the old time crew, you know, they've since passed on. I mean, I've I've been with the company about twenty six years. So in the in the longevity of it, you know, that's not a real long time. Yeah. So then pick it up there after we're, you know, we're working with Rogers and it's beginning to look like, hey, this drum thing might be a might be a viable option for for the business to start working with. Sure. You know, and I don't believe we really had any kind of exclusivity agreement with Rogers, you know. So as word kind of got around, you know, mostly through the 70s and then into the 80s, you know, we did a lot of miscellaneous projects with with other companies in the early 80s. Pearl had was retooling their factory in Taiwan and they wanted to push into the U.S. market, you know, so they had us run, you know, what's what's now known as their U.S. Maple series back in the 80s, you know, until they got tooled up and and then they, you know, went back to make them themselves, you know, and over the years, all the custom drum builders, you know, eventually word got around because it was a relatively small community, you know, at that time, there wasn't a whole lot of guys that were, you know, building custom drums. It was, you know, you pretty much went to the music store and and, you know, bought what you want. Yeah. But, you know, as, you know, Slingeland ended up, you know, dismantling their tooling, you know, then they came to us for for shells. The other company in the country that was producing commercial shells, Jasper Wood Products, they ended up closing their doors probably somewhere around the early 2000s, you know, so we ended up, we ended up picking up, you know, a lot of their customers. Yeah. So Jasper would have been the big competitor because I know they were working with Gratch early on and all this stuff. So that was kind of the, the only other competitor at that point. Right? On a commercial level, yeah. You know, you always have your tinkerers that are, you know, building different types of shells, either steam bent shells or stave shells or segment shells, you know, but as far as commercial plywood, molded plywood shells, Jasper and Keller were pretty much the ones, you know, outside of companies that weren't just making them for their own use, you know, like Ludwig and Slingeland and and the like. Yeah. And I think that's where some of the, I don't want to say confusion or debate comes up is, is this who is actually making their own shells? I think that's where a lot of like when I do some of these episodes, I get people saying, well, Gratch wasn't making their own shells. And the guy didn't talk about that. And it's kind of a, I think when a company does make their own shells, it gives them a little bit, someone can say, Oh, that's, they're different and they're their very own distinct sound because of that, which I'm sure different companies would maybe, would they then let's say Pearl or Rogers, would they modify the shells at all after they after they got them to make them just like the bearing edges or anything to make them distinctly Pearl at that time? Oh, sure. Sure. You know, Rogers, you know, always had the the speckled gray painted interiors. Yeah. Which I don't think it was so much a function of sound rather than giving them a uniform look and not having to worry about Jesus has a dark streak of wood in it or, you know, this knot is visible or that's not the most attractive scene. You know, they just painted it over and moved right on. Sure. I think people read into there being an acoustic benefit to it just because added to its its story. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But you know, these days and over the years, you know, we've always produced lots of different types of shells. There's there's really not just one shell recipe. You know, we have, you know, some standards that, you know, are available to everyone. But we also have, you know, probably 40 or 50 proprietary shell designs that we only make available to a specific customer. Interesting. So, you know, to for someone to say that a company, well, they don't make their own shells, so they can't, you know, tailor their own sound or they sound like everybody else. Not necessarily, you know, because companies that that are running production and and have the the capacity to, you know, run those kind of numbers, you know, we're happy to put together a proprietary shell and run that just for them. Interesting. Wow. Okay, that's good to know because I mentioned to you before that I, I personally have a dark horse percussion kit that I got year I got probably in like 2012 and it was this big like, yes, it's great. I've saved up a bunch of money. And yeah, and then you find out that a lot of the companies are using Keller shells and it's just good to clear up that maybe misconception that that you're getting the same drum, let's say in that boutique world that shine is the same as dark horse is the same as SJC is the same as it. It's interesting to hear that they are all sort of proprietary and in some cases and unique to that company. Yep. And it depends on on the builders perspective and their techniques, the hardware, you know, there's a lot of things that are going to have an effect on the sound of the drum. You know, it's not not just the shell composition, but the type of hardware, the heads, the tuning, the bearing edges, the stick, they're using the room they're playing in. You know, and the shells that we do make available to the general public, a lot of them are available through distributors. You know, there's enough of those out there so that, you know, people can develop their own blend of shell thicknesses. Some people like, you know, very thin shells on the tom a little bit thicker on the on the floor tom and thicker yet on the bass drum and then a really thick snare. Yeah, for and manufacture enough different types that, you know, they can mix and match, you know, to whatever, whatever fits their, their theory. Okay, cool. All right, well then let's let's back up here. So I think we left off history wise. I believe you said Slingerland was that in the 80s ish area or no, it was Pearl who was in the 80s. Where do we go? Yeah, and as I recall, the, you know, the Slingerland tooling was kind of mothballed in in the early 90s. Yeah. And, you know, they made a few different runs at it. You know, they were producing them in Nashville for a while. But they just never really seemed to get their legs back under them like the old days. Yeah. So then after that, we were in the 90s. Was this a big booming period for Keller? Was the the name has always been there? But what was what was going on then? Well, starting in the 90s, that's, that's early. That's when I came on board was in the very early 90s. You know, and I myself, I really had no idea what Keller products on, you know, did. Just because it's such a nondescript place. And, and, you know, it's a relatively large company in town. Just because it's part of the Keller group of companies. You know, so it's one of five or six different divisions that do everything from translucent building systems to solar friendly buildings. Wow. Super span structure buildings. Interesting. Okay. You know, I just happened to walk in the back door one day and was looking for a job. And then once I, you know, they said, Oh, sure, start tomorrow. You know, and then I started saying, Well, what do you use these things for? You know, and we started explaining it. So I started spent a lot of time talking with different drum builders, you know, about what, you know, what their theories were. And, and, you know, it eventually kind of morphed into me being able to better assist them, you know, develop their shells, you know, based on, you know, what they were looking for. And, and my knowledge of what was available and what we could do for them. Sure. Now, let's, let's pause here. Let me ask the question. Are you yourself a drummer? Not a very good one. But you, you are a drummer. So that that's good to know that there's, you know, there's well, I'm more of a design and builder. Got it. I've been kind of tinkering and building them, you know, ever since about the third week I was here. Okay, because kind of fascinated me. But I, you know, I build, you know, drums as kind of a little thing on the side. But I also do furniture pieces and architectural pieces. You know, I'm not kind of limited to just that if it's round and wood, you know, I've kind of got an interest in it. Gotcha. Yeah, it seems like that's the right place to be. I didn't know that that there was like a Keller group creating all these different things. It's, is the drum group kind of the I know not in a bad way, but is it kind of the black sheep of the the the divisions of of Keller where it's building, building, building, no, not really. It's it's really more the the founding company. And it was always the the owners kind of pet project, you know, that, you know, because his office was right in right in our building. And, you know, and he was out on the floor on a regular basis. And Mr. Keller passed away and my senior passed away in 2012. Okay. And right up until he was 98 years old, he was still in the office three days a week. Wow. You know, he was, you know, he was a good, good man to work for you know, he was he was a fair but tough boss as you know, many of that that era were. Yeah. But he has four sons that are all involved in the company. That's great. They kind of each head up their own division of of the different companies. And now the you know, there's grandchildren involved in and great grandchildren that are involved in the company. So it's still a very family oriented company. It's privately held there's there's no public component to it. Interesting. That's I love when I hear drum. It's kind of like the Ludwigs and the well not as much the slinger lens, but it's it's a you know, and now that I think about it, not as much the Ludwigs, but at some point, a lot of these companies had family ties. But okay, so then we the 90s, that's all happening. There seems to be a point in my mind, and correct me if I'm wrong, but as you get into the, as we mentioned, there's a big boom of those these boutique drum brands coming out of the woodwork like Truth and all these different companies who I think relied a lot on Keller as a it lowered the threshold of I want to start a drum company, but I don't know how to make my own shelves. They it's almost like you guys took the hard part out. Was that when did that happen? Don't let me skip anything if in the 2000 stuff happened. No, you know, probably, you know, right around the early 2000s, we started to become a little bit more marketing focused. And, you know, OK, how can we, you know, start, you know, running more production numbers? And, you know, so we started a marketing campaign. The decision was made to sort of step out of the shadows a little bit. So, you know, we started having a booth at the NAMM show in Nashville and then LA. So we did that for a number of years. You know, so that helped, you know, bring the brand awareness. Sure. You know, but we were still we were still just a component manufacturer. We don't we don't build finished drums. You know, we don't really do any finishing or drilling. You know, we can we can do bearing edges, you know, if somebody really needs us to do it like on, you know, something that comes out of our eBay store. Yeah. But as far as the production shells are concerned, you know, they're just raw square cut shells to their specs and out the door they go. But yeah, in the mid 2000s up through, you know, even into the 2010s you know, there were there was a really big boom of of custom drum builders. And you know, part of it I think was was related to the financial recession. You know, a lot of people got laid off. They got, you know, a pay out, you know, either their 401k or retirement or whatever. And I said, geez, you know, what's what's a company that I can start that, you know, really takes a relatively low startup cost, you know, which building drums, you know, to to do it, it doesn't take a, you know, a huge shop, you know, you can do it in your garage. Yeah. And then, you know, work into it slowly by adding, you know, more and more tools. But I think your initial startup cost is relatively low. So we did see, you know, a lot of guys and gals come out, you know, doing that. Who do you think was the first company to do that, to be the one who says, hey, we're going to be this probably came from Nam or some sort of show, who was the one who was who sticks out in your mind as being an early leader in the custom boutique drum companies? Well, I think it kind of it goes down to Joe Montaneri was certainly one of the earlier guys that that was really getting into the custom fabrication and design and all of that. And I've known known Joe for many, many, many years. And he actually came and worked with Keller for for several years with me in doing product development. Wow. Cool. Yeah. Rob Campa from MagStar Custom Drums currently the owner of World Max USA was instrumental in the early the early years as a basically as a sounding board for new shell designs and and always had great input and, you know, we send stuff down to them to try out and he'd give us a yay or nay or we're on the right track or no, that's isn't isn't going to cut it. And then, you know, built at a more pork pie, you know, he's been and he's been in the game a long time. Yes. Doing very well. Sweetheart of a guy. The guys at GMS Farmingdale, New York, they were they were in kind of early in the game. A fellow named Dale Flanagan out at Fortune Drums. Yeah. He's still around. Cool. Another fellow named Paul Blythus. Out of San Diego area. He passed away a number of years ago, but he was another one that, you know, that I talked with regularly. And of course, John Good, DW, you know, really kind of help further the interest in drum construction and and, you know, manipulating woods and and applies. So sure. Now, I always thought I always thought John Good, now DW, though, they make for like their signature custom stuff. They make their own shells, correct? I'm sure they have some lines that are they do now. Okay, but early on they did do now. But oh, no, they we did we did all their all their shells for them. Wow. Okay. Cool. That's good to know. Right up through the late 90s. Okay. And then it, you know, it just kind of tapered off as they, you know, began to tool up and start producing their own shells. Now, is that a common theme where people almost use you guys as like a starting point? And then they get legitimized enough to then maybe venture into building their own because they've then got the backing or let's say that the funding to do that? In some cases, I would say it's the exception, rather than the rule. Okay. Because, you know, jumping into into that portion of manufacturing, you know, is it's difficult, and it's extensive, and it's rather complex, you know, there's a big financial part to it. And and not everybody is prepared to, you know, to prepare to take that step. So many of them are happy to just say, Hey, I don't need to mess with that part of it. They're making me what I want. It's how I want, you know. Yeah. Now, my my thought here is, is that I again, sometimes as a buyer of someone who for a four piece drum set, about $2,000 for a custom boutique brand, those are pretty good margins for a drum company to sell to be sourcing the shells, sourcing the hardware, putting them all together, obviously putting the wrap on doing all that stuff. But that's a really good margin there. I mean, what are your thoughts on that on the actual price of the finished product that goes out to people versus what they're paying to you guys? Well, you know, it really depends on the, you know, on the on the finish, really. I mean, because you can, you can get into, you know, doing spray finishes, you know, where the finish alone is, you know, upwards of $200 a gallon. Yeah, that's true. And then you may you may have hours into, into wet sanding and polishing, depending on how good you are at spraying. Sure. Myself, I'm not very good at spraying, so I end up doing a lot of wet sanding and polishing. So, you know, the number of hours that, you know, that can be involved, you know, can be pretty hefty. And, and, you know, if you're putting together that whole kit, you've got, say $600 worth of, of materials and hardware, you know, in another 40 or 50 hours of spraying and assembly, it's $2,000 doesn't, you know, makes for a pretty thin hourly wage. Yeah, you've, okay, you've convinced me. I'm, I'm now, I'm now happy with my drum set. You know, and even, you know, even, even, you know, the wrapped kits, assuming it's a, you know, a quality, you know, like a Del Mar original Del Mar wrap, you know, that stuff's expensive per square foot. Okay. So, you know, that ends up, yeah, you save some time on the, on the finishing and polishing, but you end up, you know, paying more, you know, for, for your materials. I think like you said, that can be kind of a misconception of because a company would be using Keller shells, it doesn't mean that it's worth as much as a company making their own shells. I don't want to say worth as much, but it would be cheaper to manufacture when maybe, as you said, that's, that's not exactly the case. No, no, no, it's not. Okay. I said, many, many, many of the companies, in fact, the vast majority of them are happy to just place the order for the shells, get all the shells in and not have to worry about all the woodworking part of it and the dust collection and, and, you know, all the headaches associated with a whole new different type of manufacturing. In addition to the manufacturing you're already doing to, you know, to make them into finished problems. Yeah. I think delegating the power and that that goes back to Gratch and all these companies is saying and Leedy is like, just because you can make it and you can have a, you know, three city block factory, that doesn't mean that with the margins and logistics that that's even the best case you might be hurting yourself. So you guys obviously know what you're doing. So cases. Yeah. Okay. So then into the 2010s when there was the boom of boutique stuff, that kind of takes us from, from then, I guess, because we're currently in the 2010s, technically, what's happening now? What's going on with Keller from that point up until today? Well, you know, we can, we can kind of pause at the, you know, 2007, 2008, 2009, you know, when the economy really kind of took a turn. Yeah. So, you know, over the years, you know, we've manufactured a variety of products. So that's really helped us to kind of weather the storms, you know, if, you know, historically through much of our history, it was about 30%, 40% furniture goods, another, you know, 20 or 30% architectural components. And then, you know, the balance was the musical shells. When the economy took a turn, you know, all of a sudden the furniture side dropped way off. But the musical side shot way up because, you know, now we've got all the these boutique builders and other companies that were sort of restructuring saying, hey, you know, the manufacturing these things in houses is just not financially viable for us. Let's outsource them. So even though the furniture product and revenue dropped way off, you know, it's shot up on the other side. So, you know, that kind of helped keep things, you know, at an even keel, you know, manufacturing wise, you know, the shop was still busy and and they're still they're still busy right now. But it's kind of leveled out since then, you know, it's music is has kind of stayed steady at about 65 to 70% of our production, you know, furniture kind of goes up and down and store fixtures, you know, that it kind of dropped right off. Sure. Yeah. Now, that makes sense. I mean, it's it's kind of a I don't want to say recession proof business because you have so many categories and you guys are I think there's always a place for for master wood working and manufacturing. So that's great. So so then that kind of takes us up to now where so would you say at this point, it's still just business as usual chugging along people ordering shells and working with the drum brands and all that good stuff? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And we're, you know, we're always developing a new shell recipes for companies. And, you know, they they have new ideas and and we toss them around and do some prototypes and and they say, yeah, we're close. We need to add a little more of this or take away some of that or we need something out of it. What's your suggestion? So, you know, just like any product launch, we'll we'll go through more prototypes and then, you know, we get the blessing and say, okay, let's let's run them. Wow, that's awesome. And I do love I think it was probably 2012. I think I ordered a Keller shell like a like a snare kit from I believe it was drum supply house in Nashville. Yeah. And getting the shell, I obviously opted first when I ever did having they did it where they drilled the holes, they had the bearing edges and it was just to kind of choose your hardware, put it together, stain it. It was so much fun. I still have it. I love the drum. It did make me appreciate the art that goes into really creating a finished, let's say branded real drum set because it's not as easy to get everything like like like the screws on mine. If I play it for, you know, two months, the screw ends up falling out in the snare because I didn't use a pneumatic drill or something. And so you find out those little things. But that's just a cool thing for people to do. And obviously you guys have that where you can on your eBay store and all that things, you can build your own complete Keller drum set. And I mean, I even remember making up a little badge that I never printed because that was a whole another thing. And and thinking now, I'm going to start a drum company. Of course, I didn't. I'm now doing a podcast. But it's just a very fun and you guys, you guys allow people to fulfill their their drum dreams. Yeah, it certainly it gives you a better appreciation of of what it takes to, you know, to put together an instrument like that. Yes, absolutely. It's all it's a lot of work. It is a lot of work. The boutique builders, you know, they, you know, it's it's tough to make ends meet, you know, you need to work the kinks out and you need to move them through quick, but you know, you can't, you can't move them through so quick that you're sacrificing, you know, your quality and you can always run down to a guitar center or whatever and pick up an import kit for, you know, for half the money. So yeah, they've definitely got to maintain their their edge and and their quality and the sound sure, yeah, that their customers have come to rely on. So they rely on us for that. And and we do our best to keep it steady for them. That's great. Now, now let me ask you going way back beginning of time, Mr. Keller, are there any interesting stories that you know that have been passed down of just kind of like there was a big problem with distribution and Rogers got really angry and blah, blah, what anything anything off the top of your mind, some cool old Keller stories? Not really. We've we've had a couple of minor factory incidents where things got a little overheated and and, you know, we had to break out the extinguishers. But a lot of wood, you know, Mr. Keller was, you know, he was he was a famously even keeled person. You know, I don't think I've ever I've ever seen him angry. You know, if if there was something bothering, he'd basically just close his door and then he'd be out in a little while and and you'd work through it. And, you know, he he was always one to go out on the floor and and acknowledge that you were doing a good job for him. And he's happy to see things, you know, those trucks getting loaded up and and heading out. And he's a he's a very nice man to work for. That's great. I mean, I'm the one thing that I absolutely love in all of these. And I think people who listen to the show know is that that period of the World War Two kind of era with all this. And it's just cool to know that Keller was around, albeit they might not have been making drum shells that early on. But there was a lot of growth and development and like that the necessity to create things. It's just great to then put Keller in that same era of sure being born in that time. Yeah. And, you know, for the guys that were working here, you know, I mean, when I when I first started here, there were several of the original founding guys that, you know, were basically, you know, just about ready to retire. But, you know, even they would come into the shop, you know, a couple three days a week, right? You know, into their 70s and 80s. You know, so it was always fascinating talking with them. And, you know, and of course, knowing what I knew at that point, you know, I said, Well, how did you ever come up with being able to do this, you know, without any direction, you know, just kind of making it up as you go along? So it was fascinating to listen to them. And, and they were, you know, there were some tremendously smart gifted guys that, you know, had vision. They, they had ideas and Mr. Keller gave them the latitude to, you know, to run with those ideas and basically create something out of nothing. Yeah. You know, so it was always fascinating talking with the, you know, with any of the original guys. Yeah. You know, he had a very, very loyal circle of guys. You know, you have always have employees that come and go, but the core circle pretty much remained there throughout the life of the company, you know, until they were ready to retire. Wow. You know, it's a good company. And that also seems true with a lot of drum companies is these, these core guys who were there during the, you know, the, the building and the growth of the company and they stay around until the very last, you know, minute that they can. So now what the company is, it are in the, let's say in the drum division. Is it a lot of drummers who work there or is it like yourself where it's people who drum a little bit, but really enjoy the manufacturing and the working with wood more than let's say, I'm a drummer. We've over the years, we've, we've had some drummers, but it's been my experience that they would rather drum than, than build shells. Yeah. Wow. It's, you know, it's, it's kind of dusty and it's, it's, it's a little bit, a little bit nasty. And there's a certainly an element of danger going on with all the pressures and the machines and the sawblades and swinging things and rotating things. But, you know, having, you know, I would classify most of them as, you know, more woodworkers than musicians. Okay. That's good to know. And we have cabinet shop guys that have made the transition and custom fabricators that, you know, like the, the prospect of a stable company and, you know, the showing up at the same place day after day and having a paycheck every week and the stability of it. Yeah. And, you know, it's always been a good company to work for, you know, the sons and the grandsons and all of that. They're, they, they share a lot of their fathers and grandfathers work ethic and, and, you know, so it was a pretty easy transition over to the, you know, the next generations in the family. That's great. Now, kind of wrapping up here, I want to ask you one question and we can keep it brief and keep it interesting without getting too detailed. But from, sure, from tree to someone's basement playing the drums, can you just kind of briefly take us through what that process looks like in actually creating a drum shell without giving away secrets and all that stuff? But, you know, what is that process? Well, we work directly with the, with the lumber mills. We don't slice veneer ourselves. That's bad as a whole and other industry and manufacturing operation in and of itself. You know, but for, you know, let's say if we narrowed it down to our 50 most popular shell types, you know, there's a variety of woods involved. There's a variety of, of veneer cuts, some of its plain sliced, some of its rotary sliced, some of its quarter cut, you know, so each of those different cuts is basically a different part of the mill or in some case a different mill altogether. So the trees get cut down, they get sent to the mill, they get prepped for processing. Trees that are that are going to be cut into veneer need to be soaked and waterlogged. And then, you know, rotary cut veneer is probably the one we go through the most of. So basically the tree goes up onto a machine, a big blade comes into it, it peels it off like a paper towel roll and it happens very fast. You know, it goes and it's done. And then they cut it, they pre-cut it to the sizes that we've asked them to. It gets dried, packaged up and sent to our factory and then we take it as single ply veneers and, and you know, do some lamination work with it. That part we really can't go into too much detail on. But you know, we prep it, you know, to make it manufacturable and stabilize it for storage. So we'll, we'll run a lot of it and then we'll, you know, we keep it in a climate controlled area so that it, you know, it will remain stable on the shelf until we're ready to continue processing it. Then the shells get formed, they get made to whatever recipe the customer needs or to replenish our distributors and resellers stock. Wow, that's awesome. So then after that you end up with a drum shell and I'm sure you guys have like a warehouse just full of them that are waiting to go out and be turned into drums for all of us to play. Sure. Yeah. As they, you know, they move through the factory. They, we try to keep them in orderly paths so that, you know, they're, they're, they start in one area and they continuously head towards the shipping area. But as they get produced, they get staged in the warehouse and marked off and checked and rechecked. And once they get the final initials that the order is complete, then our shippers go to work and package them up and figure out the best way to get them, you know, all nested inside one of another, you know, in skids and, you know, the type of drums, you know, cover spans everything from your, your standard rock and roll drum sets and, and jazz sets to Native American hand drums, you know, are a good portion of our business. Wow, I didn't know that. So Banjo resonators, clock frames, some people use musical shells for clock frames or picture frames. If it's, if it's round and wood, they, they find a way to use a drum for it. Yeah, really, because it's not an easy thing to actually get that perfectly round cylinder that is going to keep its shape. And as we know through history with the use of reinforcement rings and the Gretches guaranteed and not warp and all this stuff, that it's not a, I mean, it's trial and error. I'm sure over a lot of time to end up where we are today, which is just so cool. So Justin, why don't you, I think now is a perfect time to tell people where they can look more into Keller shells, where they can find out how to order their own shells and, you know, all that good stuff. Sure. Well, Keller shells.com has link store distributors and our eBay stores and other direct sales programs. You know, we do, we count on our distributors heavily to, you know, to handle the smaller single shell orders. And as you experienced, you know, most of them, they can, they can bring the shell up to whatever level you need them to. Some people aren't ready to do layout and drilling, in which case most of them will do that for you. You know, it's sort of an a la carte package. You can buy the shell and the hardware or just the shell or you can buy the shell pre drilled and edged and snare beds and then you do the finishing and assembly. So it's really we try to make it available to anyone that wants to build a drum at whatever level there they're ready to give it a shot at. That's great. I mean, it is a it's a fun experience to put together a drum, albeit the hard part is done by Keller. So we can just have fun and like stain it, get a wrap, all that stuff. It's kind of daunting to even drill the holes, at least for me, a guy who's not that handy with my, you know, drum making skills. But it is an absolute blast. And I think I can speak for everyone in the drum community that says that they have a lot of respect for Keller for doing what they do and being an absolute, you know, essential part of drum history. So just a big thank you from, you know, to everyone at Keller. Yes, fabulous. Thank you. Awesome. You know, the doing building your own drums, it the one thing I see is it often leads to a little bit of an addiction problem with got to build another one, got to build it. Yeah, I'm there's something about drums that I guess if you got to be addicted to something, drums is the is the, you know, the least of many evils. So I know I'm addicted. That's awesome. You know, I've I've over the years, I, you know, I've I've mentored some local builders and kind of brought them along and gave them all the the benefit of my trial and error experience. And I think probably their their proudest moment is when they're at their first gig or second gig and somebody comes up and says, wow, those are great drums. You know, where did you get those? And then they say, well, I built them. Are you kidding me? Yeah. So it is it's sort of a proud pop of moment. You know, that I think every everybody that's built a drum goes through, you know, in the early stages. Absolutely. That's a such a good point, just because if someone comes up, you assume that that drum is made by Pearl or that that drum is made by DW, not by yourself in your basement, then you can take it out and you can use it and do whatever you want with it. So that's that's a perfect that's a perfect way to wrap it up. Justin, I really appreciate you being on the show and I'm glad we can share some knowledge about about Keller that does have a little bit of a I feel like you guys keep your head down and do your work and you stay out of the limelight a little bit and you let other people have the all the credit, you know. Yeah, yeah. And that's that's true. One other misconception that I think I probably I don't see it so much anymore, but it was around a lot in the drum forum days. We do make the shelves individually piece by piece by hand. There's not this big machine that just spits out a continuous tube that we keep chopping off pieces Yeah, okay, that's good enough. Because well, we do and I kind of understand where that rumor came from because we do have a plastic profile extrusion division that is also part of the Keller products division. And up there, yes, the plastic parts come out in the continuous stream and we cut them off into little pieces. But but that's not that doesn't have anything to do with the with the plywood division. Wow. No, so they're handmade shells. That's that is good to know. Yes, everyone is made by hand one by one. Do you guys make acrylic shells at all? I know that's like a completely different, you know, type of no, no, okay. No, no, just plywood. We really don't get into steam bending or or stave shells or or anything like that. It's it's limited to lots of different types of plywood. Well, you know what you're good at and you stick to it. So Justin, this has been great, man. I really appreciate you being on the show and and again, keep up the great work. And I hope that Keller is around for a long, long time to come. And we can keep on enjoying all of the Keller products. All right. Well, thank you very much. All right. Thanks, Justin. We'll see you later. All right. Thanks a lot. Bye bye. If you like this podcast, find me on social media at Drum History and please share, rate and leave a review. And let me know topics that you would like to learn about the future. Until next time, keep on learning. This is a Gwynn Sound podcast.