Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!
This week we are joined by Chris Piazza Co-Founder of Cannadevices to discuss :
- How to identify quality glass
- How they are helping artists
- Dispelling the myth of the double blown glass
- and so much more
About Canna Devices
CannaDevices was founded by Robert Bank and Chris Piazza to service the fast growing cannabis industry in the United States. Both local glassblowers of the Chicago suburbs they have had a working partnership for over two decades supporting the local industry of glass blowing and their communities.Experience of over thirty years in glass blowing, retail and the cannabis industry allows us to understand and meet your needs with precision. Moving into today, CannaDevices has become the premier Glass Service Provider in Illinois Dispensaries and growing throughout the country.
At Eighth Revolution (8th Rev) we provide services from capital to cannabinoid and everything in between in the cannabinoid industry.
8th Revolution Cannabinoid Playbook is an Industry-leading report covering the entire cannabis supply chain
The Dime is a top 50 Cannabis Podcast
Contact us directly at [email protected] Bryan Fields: @bryanfields24 Kellan Finney: @Kellan_Finney
[00:00:00]Bryan Fields: What’s up guys. Welcome back to the episode of the dime I’m Brian Fields. And with me as always is Kellen Finney. And this week we’ve got a very special guest, Chris Piazza co-founder of Canada devices. Chris, thanks for taking the time. How are you doing today?
[00:00:14]Chris Piazza: Oh, not too bad, Brian. Thanks for having me
[00:00:16]Bryan Fields: excited to dive in Kaelin.
[00:00:17]Kellan Finney: How are you? I’m doing really well, you know, looking forward to holding down the west coast and especially looking forward to chatting about the ancillary equipment needed to consume cannabis. You know,
[00:00:27]Bryan Fields: I’m doing well and justice for the record state. Chris is an east coaster. So the record is state-funded on that.
[00:00:34] So Chris, for our listeners that aren’t familiar about, you, can you share a little background about you and how you got into the Canada?
[00:00:40]Chris Piazza: No problem. No problem. So, uh, you know, I started out in, uh, 2008 as a glass floor. I, um, actually learned the trade myself and, uh, you know, did a little bit of traveling around.
[00:00:52] Living in my car. Uh, I’ve just lived in that free life, you know, uh, as a, as a starving artist, pretty much. And, um, moved [00:01:00] back to the east coast, I guess, in Chicago, um, you know, Midwest, east coast, whatever. I just gotta throw it out there. So, uh, moved back to Chicago where my family was and, um, got situated a little bit more, uh, you know, sort of planted some roots.
[00:01:16] Started blowing glass. Uh, with my business partner, he had a, a chain of, um, head shops in the area. We had like a little school going, I got into the scientific glass world. So I did some work with like the DOD and things like that went back off on my own. Um, and then my, uh, My partner, uh, Bob bank, he came to me with an idea, um, to start to build a distribution company for dispensary’s.
[00:01:43] Um, I’d been working in the head shop, smoke shop space for most of my career. And then, uh, we saw this opportunity that there was so much import, uh, Not super high quality glass and dispensary’s, and I have, uh, a [00:02:00] pretty strong network of glassblowers. So we built this company, Canada vices, and the, it started out with a mission to, for one, provide quality products to dispensary’s, but also take care of artists and have they have true full-time opportunity and work.
[00:02:19] Because up until this point, there hadn’t been anybody. And able to provide solid, consistent work as a distributor, it’s sort of intermixed, some distributors did better than others, but, uh, for the most part, as an artist, I never was able to find a distributor that could keep me, keep me working. Um, and so that was our, our main thing artists before.
[00:02:40] Um, now we’re getting into some other products as well, but yeah, so I’ve been in the cannabis space since 2008, um, in other industries that I guess isn’t that long, but in this industry, it’s crazy how many people are like, oh three months. It’s like, wow, cool. Like, I’m glad you’re here. And I know it’s more than three months cause you probably were partaking before you got into it.
[00:02:58] But, um, you know, [00:03:00] uh, yeah, that’s sort of my journey. I’m
[00:03:03]Bryan Fields: fascinated by how you got into glass blowing. Was it something that you did as a child, the ranger interested, certain artists. Qualities and the kind of led you on the path, like take us how one finds that
[00:03:12]Chris Piazza: journey. Well, so, uh, like I just said, a lot of people partake before they get into the industry.
[00:03:19] So I was like 14 and this kid came back from a fish show and, uh, it was, uh, I don’t know, trench coats means something different today than they used to, uh, this get out of trenchcoat though. And he had a whole bunch of pipes and he just started showing all these things off and I was. What is this? So I bought a pipe and, you know, we ditched first period and we went, um, out in the woods and we were just smoking.
[00:03:44] And, uh, I remember it, you know, I obviously, you know, got it. First. I, I passed around and it came back to me and like the light hit it. And I’m just looking at this, I’m getting tingles, just thinking about it. I was like, you know, there’s like four of us sitting around. I saw this piece, it lit up in the sun.[00:04:00]
[00:04:00] I looked around and said, I’m going to fucking make these, excuse me. I don’t know if that’s all right. That’s cool. But I want to make these, this is what I want to do. Everybody’s are all yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Um, then, you know, yeah, it was like a 22 or so. 21 out in Colorado. And before Facebook there were forums and I found a glass forum.
[00:04:24] I put up a post, I said, Hey, I’m, I’m finishing up doing seasonal work at copper mountain, looking for an apprenticeship and, uh, got down. And within 24 hours, I found an apprenticeship and Rowan glass. I always like to throw out some love to him. It’s at R O N E glass, uh, on Instagram. He’s amazing artists.
[00:04:44] He took me under his wing and, um, Yeah, that’s how I got started,
[00:04:48]Kellan Finney: but I mean, with glassblowing, there’s a ton of different items that you can make. Right. Um, but you kind of ended up settling on, on smoking devices. So was it [00:05:00] just kind of that pairing the passion of cannabis and the glass blowing together?
[00:05:04] And it just created that that opportunity is that kind of the, the whole story associated with Y uh, spoken devices where your, your specialty
[00:05:12] okay.
[00:05:13]Chris Piazza: Pretty much, you know, I I’d, I’d been involved, um, in the cannabis industry and different ways, um, you know, sourcing, supplying type of situations. And then, uh, so it was just sort of like a, like a nice transition from there, you know?
[00:05:30] Um, it, it, it was where I, yeah, the industry has always been. I kind of felt my place was what’s the
[00:05:38]Kellan Finney: biggest difference from a glass for like perspective in terms of glowing blowing glass for like spoken devices. Versus you mentioned earlier, you kind of dabbled in the scientific glassblowing sector as well.
[00:05:48] So what are the, some of the differences associated with those two methods?
[00:05:53]Chris Piazza: So actually there’s not as much as you would think. So in, from pipes to, uh, [00:06:00] scientific, those are generally speaking of a bore of silicate blend of some sort, which is a hard glass. Um, the glass. Most pipes came from the scientific glass, uh, raw material.
[00:06:15] Now, when you’re talking about vases and all sorts of other things, like things you’ll, I’m in Vegas right now at the G4 conference. And I’m seeing like the truly exhibits and stuff like that, that’s all what’s called soft glass. And so that’s a totally different animal. That’s like, uh, how I describe it as like oil painting versus like painting with a pencil or, you know, drawing with a pencil.
[00:06:34] Um, but as far as scientific glass, it’s actually very.
[00:06:40]Bryan Fields: I want to stay on like the learning curve associated with that. Right? So your first day of blowing glass, is that something where like it’s a week learning curve, it takes a month or something like you’ve got skills just based on your artistic and you can kind of hit the ground running day one, take us through what the.
[00:06:55]Chris Piazza: Um, so I really went through like the Miyagi school of glass [00:07:00] and that’s how I’ve always taught to like, um, definitely there’s, there’s a level, like I can see someone on their first day if they are going to have an easier time or a harder time to learn it. Right. I think anybody can do anything, you know, and you might not be able to shoot a basketball, like, like Kobe Bryant, Coby, or something like that.
[00:07:21] But like at least. you could Don’t play a pick-up game. Right. So like, I don’t think that, um, there’s like a, you can or can’t, but there’s definitely some level that you can see naturally, um, from the beginning. But yeah, I went through the Miyagi school, man. I, I, I had to put like two rods together. And just put them together.
[00:07:42] And then I had to make marbles and I had to make a jar of marbles and my teacher would pull them out. And if they didn’t roll nice, then they’d throw those out. He’d say, Hey, your jar is not filled because these aren’t marbles, they don’t roll. And then, you know, it was that type of thing. And so back when I started, there was no YouTube.
[00:07:58] You know, training and all this [00:08:00] other stuff. I mean, these kids, these days, it’s crazy. They’re making rigs after six months and that school, some of them are actually nice, but most of them have no fundamental understanding of how glass works and, you know, um, it, it, I don’t know now I just sound like an old, old guy, but, uh, this.
[00:08:20]Bryan Fields: I mean, most people haven’t had their marbles rolled out and said, do it again. Right. Or tune of watching YouTube over and over again. So I’m sure the learning curve, while it probably is steep, but it’s probably super helpful to have, you know, like an established teacher, like you’re saying. So is it, is it easy when you’re looking at glass now to tell the differences between one, let’s say that’s high end versus low end, is it like a noticeable for your eye?
[00:08:41] And can you kind of share some of those, those, those tricks that you had noticed.
[00:08:46]Chris Piazza: Uh, it’s uh, I can, I can try. Um, I can definitely see, you know, I, I can see an important piece from a mile away. Um, they always look basically the same. They, they just, they just look off like, there’s [00:09:00] something just off about it.
[00:09:03] Um, colors are melted in a lack of much color, things like that. Um, as far as a quality piece, like a nice. If you’re looking at like the weld. So the attachment of the mouthpiece and the can, if there’s like extra thickness or if you look at it in the light and there’s any sort of weirdness there, it’s a bad description.
[00:09:27] But if you just, if you pick up a bunch, you’ll see like certain ones have like. Look, it’s glass show should be melted and blended together perfectly. And a quality, a quality weld. There’s no thicknesses. There’s no anything else it’s just clear and you can look right through it. So stuff like that is what I look for.
[00:09:47] And so
[00:09:47]Kellan Finney: you guys, you have a ton of different artists, artists that you work with. Um, you mentioned that, is there a certain vetting process that you have to kind of, that they go through so that they can actually be part of your network? And, and can you walk us through it that, that he processed. [00:10:00]
[00:10:00]Chris Piazza: Oh, no, that’s a great question.
[00:10:01] Um, yeah, so currently we have 65 artists that work for us. Full-time, um, they’re all over the country and, um, we’re shooting to be at a hundred by the end of the year and 300 by 2025. Um, these are full-timers. They literally, we asked them how much do you want. And they tell us a number and we just buy it from them.
[00:10:22] Um, so it’s a pretty cool little setup. They get to pick their own, uh, their own income and everything, as far as the vetting process goes, you know, we, so we have, we have everybody send us samples and then we look at the samples and we compare them to what we have. And if they’re good, Um, I, if they’re not in, they need a little bit of work, then I can step in and help make suggestions and things like that.
[00:10:46] We’re actually building out a full, um, the, the, the bigger we get, the more busy I am, and I’m not at the warehouse or at the studio very often anymore. But what we’re trying to [00:11:00] do is to build out an actual education sort of platform for guys, that guys and gals that, uh, ended up joining the. And so then they’re going to be able to have a whole education platform that, uh, I can present to them, uh, as they get on.
[00:11:15] But yeah, we, we make sure that everything’s to the spec that we need it to be. We have them send in samples. We always pay for the samples. I used to hate it as an artist. Oh, send me some samples, blah, blah, blah. It’s like, dude, I can’t eat. Like I can’t send you a hundred dollars worth of. Like, you know, um, I just can’t do that.
[00:11:33] So we make sure to pay our artists, even for the samples. Um, and we get them onboarded from there. Do they
[00:11:39]Bryan Fields: have creative freedom, freedom to do the designs that they think are best or they get input from you? Because I would assume someone like you who’s established has probably a keen eye for what’s probably going to sell and what’s going to work.
[00:11:49] So how does that process work?
[00:11:51]Chris Piazza: Well, I, I appreciate that little spin you put on that. You know, uh, visit. So essentially this is my product line that I’ve had [00:12:00] for whatever 10 years or so. Um, so what we say is we need that. We need our artists to make our products, um, and then that awards them time to be creative on.
[00:12:16] Right. So when we ask them, how much do you want, how much do you want to make? If they’re like, oh, you know, I’d like to make some creative stuff too. It’s like, okay. So just tell us what you can make in four days. And then you got three days to do whatever you want. Um, and if you are having, if you’re hard up and you need a seven days worth of work for the next few, few weeks or whatever, that’s fine too.
[00:12:37] Um, so yeah, our, our product line is, is, uh, is pretty much everything between my partner. It’s our catalog products. Um, and they need to stay within that range. Did they ever
[00:12:49]Bryan Fields: submit like designs and say, Hey Chris, I think this is really awesome. I think this will sell. And then you have to take a look. Is that part of the creative process at all?
[00:12:57]Chris Piazza: So as of right now, it’s not, uh, the [00:13:00] reason for it is, uh, you know, over here on the east coast. I’m just kidding, but we’re, we’re. We’re really targeted and all these dispensaries, which are a lot larger. Um, we don’t really work with many mom and pop dispensary’s at this point. Most of them are, you know, 3, 5, 10, a hundred locations or, you know, in that range.
[00:13:21] So what’s hard for us is if John Smith has this awesome piece, how many can he actually make? And when I get an order, if it hits. 10 or 20, you know what I mean? Um, so that’s why we have to be real strict as far as how we’re, uh, what, why we’re not, while we’re not able to be super open to these other products, it’s sort of where we’ve, we’ve needed to as a business.
[00:13:50] Expand our product offering. And so that’s where we’ve started to add non glass products, to be able to have something new, um, you know, [00:14:00] grinders, we can source in a very large volume, which is no problem to serve a hundred locations. Right. Um, bringing on a new style of glass from a unique glass boards, uh, a very tricky thing.
[00:14:11] We are in 2023, going to be launching. Like a heady line, essentially, we’re going to call it something different because corporate doesn’t understand, honey. Um, but it’s going to be something where it’s like $500 and up, and then in that case, we will have very limited supply when they’re gone. They’re gone that type of thing.
[00:14:32] Um, but not in the production side.
[00:14:35]Kellan Finney: Do you, I want to stay on the artist aspect. Do you guys have certain artists that like a, these 10 are really, really good at making this specific type of rig and that’s what they focus on and these 10 make this type of rig. And what is that process in terms of like categorizing the artists into those specific categories?
[00:14:51]Chris Piazza: Oh, dude, that was a very intuitive, uh, question right there. Yeah. We like our, like our Fritz spoon, for instance, for our Fred hand pipe, we have [00:15:00] 20. People about 18 to 20 people that make it, um, really it’s sort of a two part thing. One is, Hey, is the quality there? And then we turn it back to the artists and we say, okay, so you can do these byproducts.
[00:15:15] Which ones do you make the most amount of money doing? And if they say it’s going to be product one, two, and three, then they’re going to be put into the first tier of that product. So we really want to make it so the artist gets to decide. As long as their quality is there, then it’s whatever you want to make.
[00:15:31] And so sometimes they’re like, you know what? I’m getting burnt out on that. Can I make this one, even though they don’t make much money on it, they’ll still want to change it up. Totally cool. Um, but mainly it’s, it’s about the artists and certain tour, like certain people that have certain porches, which they’re faster at making certain things, things like that.
[00:15:51] And so, um, we really wanna make sure. Tailored to them.
[00:15:55]Bryan Fields: How did you get in front of the big Ms. Sows? And then what’s that pitch like with the glass [00:16:00] in order to kind of have them stock?
[00:16:03]Chris Piazza: Oh, man. It is, uh, the game is definitely who, you know, um, it’s, it’s a, it’s a good old boys network for sure. Um, so my partner, he was a director of wholesale for one of the large RSOs.
[00:16:19] And so he was. Basically, uh, illegal, uh, legal weed dealer, um, wholesaling to other other dispensary’s. And it just was a pretty natural fit. And his boss at the time was cool with him selling glass on the side. So he was just totally connected to all the right people. And it was just a here’s your weed?
[00:16:42] Would you like glass and. Got us plugged in. We really, we get introduced to purchasers from like the executive level down, rather than having to go into a store and try to talk a bud tender, to talk to a manager, to talk to whatever. Um, so we’ve been very fortunate [00:17:00] in that. And then sort of once we got in, uh, Because it’s such a small network work.
[00:17:06] Everybody knew, you know, those big companies. I mean, in Chicago, we have, I believe it’s four MSOE that all have offices on one block in the city. And so all of them go to lunch together. They’re all friends like, yeah, it’s competition, but like their employees they’re their friends. They don’t care that we always, um, so it, it was a pretty unique there as far as the pitch goes, it’s like, If you want, if you have quality cannabis on your body glass, simple as that.
[00:17:37]Bryan Fields: Wow. When you’re stocking those products, right. Is the dispensary or the bud tender kind of influencing the purchasing manager? Like how does the relationship between all the different dynamics? Right? Because if the bud tender is speaking to the customers, but the purchasing managers kind of like one step removed, it’s kind of interesting dynamic of like each person likes something slightly different.
[00:17:56] So how does the conversation go from selecting the inventory? [00:18:00]
[00:18:01]Chris Piazza: You know, we definitely look a lot more at price point than style. Um, just, you know, the, the corporate side, you know, this is the, you know, the big guy taboo thing to talk about in when it comes to cannabis is the corporate cannabis. But a lot of times we’re looking at price points and then from price point, we can then, okay, Hey, the $15 price points doing strong, let’s try another skew in the $15 price point.
[00:18:28] That sort of thing. Um, budtenders are. Yeah, like you said, they’re the gateway I’m here at the G4 conferences, the budtender awards. Um, you know, I want to be here supporting them and, uh, they’re, they’re, they’re the most important piece of the whole puzzle. Right. And, uh, purchasing managers, they are removed, but they do a lot of communication with their budtenders and, uh, yeah, it’s, uh, there’s just a lot of community.
[00:18:56]Kellan Finney: Is it a one size fits all kind of situation where [00:19:00] the St. Juan MSO has Spencer’s across the country. And they’re just like, all right, every dispensary has this same, same skew, or is it almost like customized based on like geographical region at all?
[00:19:11]Chris Piazza: I, it depends on the company. Some companies, um, we have one company that, uh, They’re going after like the McDonald’s model where, how, how long will it help?
[00:19:22] Can we shave 10 seconds off of a customer to get them through, to, um, you know, through the line or whatever, through the drive-through they’re doing stuff that’s similar to that. So they had 15 skews then they’ve said, no, let’s go down to eight, but double the volume. And so, and then. There their customers or patients aren’t looking around at different pipes.
[00:19:45] Right. Smart. So you have that, right? Exactly. Um, there’s that going on? It’s honestly, all of the above is the answer. Some places like to have the same thing everywhere. Some places like at, based off of how the layout in the dispensary [00:20:00] is. Um, and then some of the state regulations, Florida, um, if you have.
[00:20:06] Two pipes. One is blue and one is clear. They both need to be approved separately. The, the department of health, they’re the same damn thing. They’re both glass, they’re both the same shape. There’s nothing different except for the color, but they need to be separately approved. So Florida dispensary’s, don’t want to be messing around with a whole bunch of different approval stuff.
[00:20:30] Right. So, um, very, very different on, on the legal side, for sure.
[00:20:36]Bryan Fields: Is that on your team to know the differences in all those rules and rags, or is it. Spencer to help that, because I can imagine with all the different states, you have all different challenges, which makes you know, your role a little harder in that.
[00:20:49]Chris Piazza: Yes, both. Perfect. It’s all across the board. Um, yeah, we’re we [00:21:00] need to do our own internal so that we can, um, choose to where we, where we market and where we put our attention. Um, we are very fortunate to be with these large RSOs where, when Florida, uh, about six months ago, they, uh, it was actually September of last year.
[00:21:16] That’s when they opened. Allowing glass to be sold in dispensary’s and our partners told us on Friday, the news came out on Saturday. Right. So a lot of it is relying on, on the big episodes. I mean, they have legal teams that are yeah, probably same amount of as. Mike, my company,
[00:21:38]Bryan Fields: the football team, football teams, long of
[00:21:40]Chris Piazza: players.
[00:21:44] building
[00:21:45]Bryan Fields: what’s the lead time from, let’s say inception idea to finish product for some of those products.
[00:21:51]Chris Piazza: We do our best to warehouse, uh, ahead of time. So we’re trying to forecast, um, forecast manufacturing to [00:22:00] have as close as just-in-time inventory for our customers as we can. Um, it’s definitely. I think there’s certain products that, uh, are in such high demand and very tricky to make.
[00:22:12] So that creates bottlenecks for us. But, um, we’re at about a three to five day ship period for general orders. We also, um, actually have one over there. We also do like custom branded class, so private label, and we can make like hitters, spoons, uh, nectar straws, theme, rollers, chillums all with like the company’s logo on them.
[00:22:38] Initial order of those take about six weeks. And then afterwards it’s about a two week lead time. Cause we bring in all the decals in house, but, uh, that’s, that’s been a big one for us there. Um, for actually. These hitters that have a ceramic decal that’s baked into the glass. So it’s not like a vinyl sticker or anything like that.
[00:22:57] And they’re durable. They’re. [00:23:00] Because even with a lighter, the ceramic doesn’t melt, I mean, a lighter is not that hot. So, uh, it’s a, it’s a great promotional item, but yeah, the lead time starts out a little bit longer, so it depends on what product. Um, yeah,
[00:23:15]Kellan Finney: so it does kind of, uh, those kind of products and say you have artists across all country and they have dispensaries across all countries.
[00:23:22] You already saw, I’ll make it ship it to a central location. And then you guys distributed. Is that kind of the business model associated with it?
[00:23:28]Chris Piazza: Yeah. Yeah. All it comes to Chicago and it goes back out from there. You know, we, you should be you, you, uh, we can have our artists ship direct. Um, it,
[00:23:40]Kellan Finney: I can only imagine
[00:23:44] good stories and
[00:23:45]Bryan Fields: you’re like, Charlie, what is this Charlie?
[00:23:50]Chris Piazza: We had Christmas paper in July in the box, in the bottom of the box, like where did this come from?
[00:23:58]Bryan Fields: I respected, right. He’s a big fan of the [00:24:00] season. Just didn’t want it to end.
[00:24:04]Chris Piazza: Love it.
[00:24:05]Bryan Fields: So, Chris, I heard you on another podcast and you shared a tidbit about what you look for in a bowl between the carb hole and the actual size of the bowl to kind of tell the difference if it’s made well, can you kinda expand on that? And maybe some backstory. Cool.
[00:24:19]Chris Piazza: Yeah, no problem. Um, this goes back to the, the Miyagi school of glass that I went through.
[00:24:24] Um, you know, a pipe is a pipe is a pipe, but you can have one that’s nicer than another. Right. And so, um, really what I, what I was referencing there is his bowl hole. So the part that’s in here to the carb on the side, the bowl hole needs to be smaller than the card. If you’ve ever used a pipe that never seemed to Clear It just, it always was Chalked like, and it just, it just won’t, it would never, it would never clear it’s because your bowl hole was bigger than your carb hole. And if, if you think about the logic, it just makes [00:25:00] sense. That means that the point of least resistance is coming through the bowl. So more air is traveling through there where there’s a burn plant.
[00:25:07] That’s, that’s continuing to, you know, um, continuing to burn. You need that carb hole to be bigger than. Brings in the fresh air and then clears it up.
[00:25:17]Bryan Fields: I’m glad you shared that because I didn’t know that. I’m curious to know if Kellan knows that and then I take it one step further. Like when you go to these smoke shops, I wonder how many of these bowls have it incorrectly?
[00:25:27] Do you have any sort of guests.
[00:25:30]Kellan Finney: A lot, cause I just went spin shopping, and I didn’t know that exact like ratio thing, but I’ve always been a person who doesn’t like a large bowl, just cause like you get Scooby snacks and stuff. Right. But it’s, it’s wild because that is, there is a ton of glass out there when I was just looking at it like a head shop last week, actually.
[00:25:48] And literally there’s a ton of glass out there with just massive bowls. I was looking at it and I was like, No, that’s too big of a hole in there. You know what I mean? Like I’m literally going to have to have like a plug or something in there to stop her up the hole so I can actually [00:26:00] load a bowl. I
[00:26:01]Bryan Fields: can only imagine how many people are going to hear this and immediately go grab their bowl and start looking me.
[00:26:06] This is why it doesn’t work. Right? Like uncle David, you finally figured out what the problem was. The sizing is completely off. So what is one fact or concept about glass blowing that would shock a cannabis.
[00:26:22]Chris Piazza: Well, I’m going to pause for pause for intenseness. You ready? There’s no such thing as double blown.
[00:26:30] You guys ever heard that phrase before? Yes, no such thing. No, such thing. Is it just good mark? It was okay. Brian’s a little uncomfortable. I just
[00:26:41]Bryan Fields: think like I’m thinking now, like, was I sold the hat? What was I sold?
[00:26:48]Chris Piazza: So there was a, as the story goes, it was some head shop out in California that just started saying this I’ve double blown, triple blown card, do a full blown blah, blah, blah, all this stuff.
[00:26:58] So. [00:27:00] What, how, when you start with a pipe, you start with broad material, the thickness of the raw material gauges, how thick the pipes going to be later on now you can take a thin wall then a long piece and condense it down so that it becomes thick. Or you can start with a really thick. And shape a pipe from it.
[00:27:26] The closest thing to double blown is if you see pipes that are there, they’re full colored. There’s a bunch of lines in them. How that’s done is there’s a clear tube on the inside and then color rods, glass rods that are color on the outside, and then an outside layer of clear and that’s all melted together, but it’s still.
[00:27:50] Wall of glass. So yeah, that phrase is just not true. There is no such thing. And then I asked, what is double block? Like, what is double [00:28:00] block? What would it even mean? Like I blow it out once and then I blow it out again. Like it does. So when you think about it, it doesn’t make sense to, but yeah, so that’s the, hopefully nobody’s that uncomfortable.
[00:28:13] It’s a
[00:28:13]Bryan Fields: good, it’s a good marketing phrase, right? There’s probably a few people are removing items from their shelves.
[00:28:19]Chris Piazza: It’s not going to work
[00:28:20]Bryan Fields: anymore. What is, what is scientific glass?
[00:28:25]Chris Piazza: So I was doing, uh, x-ray tubes for, um, for GE and then I did some work for the DOD. Um, essentially it is. The, I was making the tubes that go, when you go to the dentist and you get like the, uh, the x-rays on your teeth, there’s a ball that does that.
[00:28:47] And I had to make those because they’re made on a lathe of bite human, who I by a person. And so, um, I could get super technical, but basically, uh, extremely [00:29:00] fine, detailed spacing, all this stuff. Angles need to be perfectly right. That was the stuff that I was doing in the scientific world. Yeah. Um, I was
[00:29:11]Bryan Fields: unfamiliar with that.
[00:29:12] Kevin, were you aware of those?
[00:29:13]Kellan Finney: Yeah. Besides that side to the class. It’s like, well, a lot of glass wearing came from like the science world and like most chemists when they were trained to be a chemist 50 years ago, they were trained blow glass. And so like being a chemist or a scientist, you would learn to blow glass because in order to do all these crazy scientific experiments, the number one media, it’s all done in his class because it’s inert.
[00:29:36] And so like blowing glass and doing science has been hand in hand. So. At the beginning of time. And I mean, it’s one of the most, uh, it still is probably the most, um, hands-on, um, trait, right? Because you can’t automate class boy from a scientific perspective, at least, uh, at least to my knowledge still to this day, it’s all like every, like if everyone in the industry that’s an operator right now.[00:30:00]
[00:30:00] Round bottom flask, that’s on a white, still a white distillation system, like a Pope or a VTS or whatever. All of those are. Hand-blown all of the glass columns that do the distillation are all. Hand-blown the amount of scientific glass that permeate like glass and cannabis, especially nowadays with how much standard, uh, science is going on.
[00:30:19] And all of that is they just go hand in hand. It permeates the industry
[00:30:23]Chris Piazza: so much. You’re spot on. That was an, that was an I w I want to change my answer to what he said
[00:30:33]Bryan Fields: was the chemist and him writing.
[00:30:39]Chris Piazza: We could have talked a little bit more about the electrons and everything else.
[00:30:44]Kellan Finney: We can still do that nerd out hall if you want.
[00:30:49]Chris Piazza: It was pretty cool. Yeah. That was what we were doing. So we were shooting. Like it was an electrical charge that would show. From one side and then it would reflect off of a titanium disk [00:31:00] and it would knock off one of the electrons.
[00:31:01] And that’s how you create the, uh, um, the x-ray from like, yeah, I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone down this rabbit hole,
[00:31:11]Kellan Finney: the how, like how the temperature of the glass and all that stuff affects like how the light travels through it. It’s insane. How, like the amount of attention to detail assigned to the class requires is phenomenal.
[00:31:21] Right? Mad respect for anyone that can do it.
[00:31:25]Chris Piazza: In my opinion, I’ll shoot you a picture of, uh, of one. When I get back into town, I would love that.
[00:31:31]Kellan Finney: Thank you,
[00:31:33]Bryan Fields: Chris. Since you’ve been in the cabinet industry, what has been the biggest misconduct?
[00:31:39]Chris Piazza: Huh that it’s bad for you.
[00:31:46] Um, yeah. You know that, uh, I think that’s, I mean, I don’t know what else to say. That would be the one that my dad he’s a he’s 76 and for the longest time he was so against it. But when I start to [00:32:00] hear it, Changed his mind. It’s, that’s pretty cool. You know? Um, and, uh, I don’t know, just thinking a lot about that.
[00:32:08]Bryan Fields: Yeah. That’s really well said for, we do predictions. We ask all of our guests, if you could sum up your experience in a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass on to the next generation, what would it be?
[00:32:20]Chris Piazza: Hmm, we have a, if you have a good idea, sometimes timing is more important than the idea. So don’t let.
[00:32:30]Bryan Fields: Nice. We haven’t had that one. That’s a, that’s a really good, yeah. All right. Prediction time, Chris. It’s 2030. What percentage of cannabis? Flower consumers will own the glass piece.
[00:32:45]Chris Piazza: Whoa.
[00:32:48] 75.
[00:32:51]Kellan Finney: Kelly a Honda. I think, I mean, I just think that consuming cannabis goes hand in hand with owning glass and they may, [00:33:00] they may not use the glass every, every day. They might prefer vaporizing it or like using a volcano or something like that. But they’ll, they’ll, they’ll definitely own a glass piece. I mean, it’s just as part of cannabis consumption and.
[00:33:14] Sorry,
[00:33:15]Chris Piazza: go ahead. Can you send us your resume by, by chance
[00:33:21]Kellan Finney: you got it? I don’t know if
[00:33:23]Bryan Fields: I’d say a hundred, right? Like of course a hundred is, is never the one that would take, but I was going to say probably four out of five, right? I think around 80% of people will have that. I think it’s just a cleaner experience plus it’s fast, but I think that there’s some people who consume.
[00:33:37] Who enjoy the process of just the rolling experience. And I think you never going to take that away from them, but I think they might have a glass piece of the same aspect for those times where they don’t want to roll it. So I think for sure, as we continue to progress forward and becomes, you know, a way more traditional mechanism, I think it will become very popular.
[00:33:56]Kellan Finney: One more question. This is, I don’t know why we didn’t ask this book [00:34:00] sooner. I’ve always been curious about the ball jar manufacturing. Method, how complex is it? Is it really like bat crazy that they’re like, what makes ball jars? Cause like ballparks, every one of the whole industry uses ball charts, but, and ball, I mean, they started an aerospace company because their glass manufacturing capabilities.
[00:34:18] Is there something special about that in terms of how they manufacture their targets?
[00:34:21]Chris Piazza: Honestly, I wish I could give you more. I that’s one that I don’t know a ton about. So I don’t, I like to speak on things that I know I don’t like to, you know, so, um, Yeah, no. I mean
[00:34:32]Kellan Finney: like, cause like ball jars and Curt guards, there’s only those two brands.
[00:34:35] And I mean, like I cannot even imagine how much money ball makes from the industry. Just, I mean, like everyone uses ball jars,
[00:34:45]Chris Piazza: I would say Majesta. So I just, I wouldn’t speak on it, but I would, I would assume that it had something to do more about the ceiling side than it had to do about the glass itself.
[00:34:55] Yeah.
[00:34:55]Kellan Finney: I mean, Who is like every single jar is within like two or three grams of each other when you [00:35:00] tear them. So it’s a very accurate manufacturing process that they have dialed down for sure.
[00:35:05]Chris Piazza: Nice. Nice. All right. That was my last question.
[00:35:08]Bryan Fields: That’s something that never kind of, uh, popped in my head. So I’m glad you got a chance to share that.
[00:35:14] So Chris, for our listeners, they want to get in touch. They want to learn more. Where can they find you in your.
[00:35:19]Chris Piazza: So Canon devices.com, C a N N a D E V I C S. Um, that’s the best place. There’s a little, a contact form. If there’s any questions or any of that, um, you know, uh, Instagram, Canon devices, and then, uh, I’m on LinkedIn.
[00:35:37] Chris Piazza. I believe it’s crispy. AZA. I L um, yeah, just change my profile picture. So I’ll actually look like this a little bit more nice short hair hold on. Was like along like, yeah, but, um, LinkedIn is a good place for it and, uh, yeah, that’s about it. Cool. We’ll link it all up
[00:35:56]Bryan Fields: in the show notes. Thanks for taking the time, Chris.
[00:35:58]Chris Piazza: Awesome. Well, thank you guys for the [00:36:00] opportunity. Absolutely.
