Ep 076 Poolside Art The SplinterWorks Slide

In this episode of the Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast, host Mike and Trey Farley talk with Miles from SplinterWorks, a company known for its functional sculptures, including high-end furniture and pool slides. Miles shares the journey from growing up in a workshop to co-founding SplinterWorks with Matt. They discuss the transition from creating furniture and kitchens to designing revolutionary pool slides with unique materials like carbon fiber and stainless steel. The episode also delves into the challenges and innovations in the design process, the importance of art in functional pieces, and new upcoming projects.

 

Additionally, the podcast features a BBQ Bits segment with tips on choosing the best griddles for outdoor kitchens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGToLYiKLG0&list=PLPlPlvI-VHR19xo3MqcAebiu37iDFj9PP&index=5

 

00:00 Welcome to Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast 01:17 Introducing Miles and His Journey 02:40 The Birth of Splinterworks 06:42 The Hammock Bath Revolution 14:06 BBQ Bits: The EVO Griddle 20:42 The Evolution of Pool Slides 31:25 Filling the Market Gap with Downtime 31:43 Introducing the Downtime Slides 33:09 New Products in the Pipeline 34:30 Sculptural Outdoor Bars and Kitchens 35:45 The Halo Slide Concept 37:27 Custom Metal Slides and Design Challenges 40:39 Manufacturing and Shipping Timelines 42:33 Global Safety Codes and Standards 45:28 Clientele and Artistic Appreciation 50:29 Maintenance and Longevity of Slides 54:39 Inspiration and Future Innovations 01:00:18 Closing Thoughts and Future Prospects  

Please follow us on YouTube to see the Videos, BBQ Bits segment and other features of the episodes.

https://www.youtube.com/@MikeFarleyDesigns

Discover more outdoor solutions from Texas Outfitters:

https://texasoutfitters.com/

Episode Transcript

Mike (00:02):
Welcome to Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast with Mike and Trey
Farley of Farley Pool Designs.
For over 40 years, we've helpedhomeowners turn their backyards into
personal retreats, spaces of joy,relaxation, and unforgettable memories.
And whether it's a cozy,

(00:29):
And that's why after decades of designingand teaching in this industry, we're
here to share our knowledge, helping younavigate the process with confidence.

Trey (00:39):
Every week we break down design trends and insider tips
to turn your vision into reality.
And since this is about creatingsomething amazing together, drop a
comment if you have any questions.
questions, ideas, or just wantto be part of the conversation.
If you find this helpful, a like helpsget this out to more people like you.
And if you want to keep upwith what's next, go ahead

(01:00):
and hit that subscribe button.
We'd love to have you along for the ride.
Let's build your paradise together.

Mike (01:17):
So Miles, I just want to thank you for joining us here,
uh, luxury outdoor living podcast.
And we're here at the pool show.
Miles coming over from England.
It's hard to connect.
And so we were both here and we werelike, let's take an opportunity to
talk about your amazing, your product.
And

Miles (01:33):
it's great to be here.
Good to see you.

Mike (01:34):
Yeah.
It's always interesting in talking withsomebody about the journey on how they got
into their particular part of the career.
Why don't you share alittle bit of your story?
Well, it's a little bit.

Miles (01:45):
of a convoluted tale, I guess.
They're perfect.
There's twists and turns.
We like those stories.
I think a reasonable time wouldbe to talk about when Somebody
started with when they were born.
You don't need to go back that far.
Suffice to say, though, that I grew up ina house which had a fantastic workshop.
My dad was a real maker of things.

(02:06):
And mostly around boatsand stuff like that.
But he was just reallyphenomenal at that kind of stuff.
And we had this amazing workshop.
Some of my earliest childhoodmemories are from that workshop space.
And so it was kind of a wayto kind of want to be design
and making things like that.
I think we've pretty fast forwardthrough sort of school and
university and that kind of thing.
But basically I got into themy first kind of proper work.

(02:30):
I found myself workingat a furniture company.
Okay.
And that kind of set me ona path and I'm just doing.
Furniture and kitchens, high end stuff forkind of private residential properties.
Matt, my co founder of Splintworks,and I met at a company doing exactly
that in the south of England.
And we, between us, that's Mattand I, started to incorporate some

(02:51):
quite sculptural ideas into thework we were doing for this company.
It was all around the time, inthe early noughties, there was
this kind of movement in design.
It's a phrase you don't really hear muchanymore, but it's called design art.
And really the concept was that Youwere making things that were functional,
but function wasn't the main priority.
It was art and design.

(03:12):
It was design.
It was art.
If there's like a Venn diagram of art anddesign, it's the crossover in the middle.
If anyone's got time, Google peoplelike Wendell Castle, Ron Arods, Thomas
Heatherwick, those kinds of peoplehave incredible inspirations for us.
And Matt and I started, like Isaid, to incorporate some of his
ideas into the work we were doing.
got so enthusiastic about all thisstuff that it got to a point where we

(03:33):
really needed to set up on our own andso in 2009 we would start to moonlight
after work you know we'd finish workand go yeah bye see you tomorrow yeah
fine and off we'd go meet up after workand sit and kind of plan splinterworks
and actually funny enough we're here totalk about Pools and stuff like that,
but you might be wondering why we'vegot such a terrible name for a poolside

(03:55):
company Because it's Prince works Thegenesis of spoons books was in furniture.
In fact, even more really kitchens.
We set out to make superhigh end Sculptural kitchens.
So the product was mostlywood Here and there.
Yeah, here and there.
Mostly, probably.
That's probably a fair assessment.
We quite liked the idea of Splinterworks.
It sounded kind of edgy.

(04:16):
The works bit implied the art side ofthings, the splintering at the time.
It felt like we were splintering offfrom our roots and where we'd met.
And it was, yeah, related tothe medium that we worked in.
It was kind of poetic in a way, yeah.
So we started trading at Splinterworkson the 1st of September 2009.
So we're 15 and a half years oldnow, and the company's evolved.

(04:36):
over time to what it is now.
It's the first, I'm going to say,four years we've spent really
just doing furniture and kitchens.
But we're doing somereally interesting stuff.
It was all very sculptural andinteresting and innovative.
Some of the key pieces from themthat got us noticed originally
were we did a lady's dressing tablethat was like a stiletto heel.
So it looked like a Louboutin shoe.
So it had like a redunderside and it came down.

(04:58):
And you know, who says atable has to have four legs?
So this is the kind ofstuff we were doing.
We did a chair that kind of levitated.
It wasn't bolted down or anything.
It just had a clever kindof waiting system in it.
So sit and flop around like that.
And when you satinate, it would godown, but when it wasn't in use,
it was just hover and levitate.
Things like that were really fun.
Anyway, we got approached by a companyin the south of England who did carbon

(05:23):
fiber work for Formula One racing cars.
OK, and I don't know what you know aboutthis industry, but all the equipment and
expertise to work with carbon fiber is.
It's like costly, should we say?
Yeah.
And the way it broadly speakingworks is that they'll get, it'll
be very patchy, very peaky.
So they'll have a phone callfrom a Formula One team saying,
we need to redesign the wing.

(05:43):
We're at Monza this weekend, we needit done in 72 hours kind of thing.
And all this type of machinery andexpertise springs into life and they get
this stuff done and that's how they work.
And they wanted some things tomake, it's more like products when
they weren't actually respondingto this kind of this peaky demand.
And they asked us tocome up with some ideas.
And Matt and I had onevery productive afternoon.

(06:05):
I don't know what we were on thatday, but we came up with a I'm going
to back up just a second quickly toexplain if you don't know carbon fibre.
So carbon fibre, when it's cured,it's hard, and that's the bit that
you guys will know and recognise.
But when it's, before it'scured, it's like a fabric.
It's like this.
It's soft.
It's like it's a woven fabric.
It's fibre.
It's just fibres.
And we had the tour of the factoryand they'd given us a bit of

(06:27):
a kind of 101 on Carbon Fibre.
We were by no means experts, but wedecided to understand a little bit
about what we could do with this thing.
And, we were sittingthere playing with stuff.
The conversation kind of went, What'scurrently made in fabric that would
be super cool if it was like solid?
And we both kind of looked at each otheralmost at the same time and went, Hammock.

(06:47):
We were like, Hammock.
We should make a hammock bath.
And they were like, yes, great idea.
Anyway, that same afternoon wealso did a design for a pool slide.
That was cantilevered out the ground,like a chute of water because carbon
fiber is very strong, very light.
And so we thought rather than makingthis sort of fiberglass poolside, we
could do something in carbon fiber.
So this is one day?
One day, one afternoon.

(07:08):
Hanging out in the factory?
Well, we were actually, back then,yeah, I'm not ashamed to admit that
the company was a very different place.
And we were working out of my front room.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think we had a couple of doors turnedon their back for desks and you know.

Trey (07:20):
It's fine.
It's awesome.

Miles (07:22):
Yeah.
We went back to this company.
And I might just think theymust have thought we were mad.
I think they were expectinglike a coffee table or a, like
a magazine rack or something.
And here we were with a hammockbath and a swimming pool side.
And they were just like,no, it's a polite no.
And they were like, yeah.
And we went our separate ways.
But we thought that thework we'd done was good.

(07:44):
Yeah.
And so we stood by it and we.
As you probably guessed by what I wasjust saying about the desks in the office,
we had no money, but Did y'all have a

Trey (07:51):
prototype that y'all showed them, or was it like more of an idea thing?
No, it was just an idea.
Okay, so the idea was born in yourbrain and you couldn't let it go.

Miles (07:59):
Exactly that.
That's awesome.
I would also say over the years we've hadplenty of ideas that do turn out to be
total and just end up in the bin, but thisone was, you know, we felt they were good.
So we Scripts and save lots ofmoney to get some renders done,
which going back to this kind ofsince around 2011, very common now.
I mean, like anyone having a pool designwhere we'll probably get CGI renders

(08:21):
from their pool designers 14 years ago.
It wasn't that common andit was very expensive.
So it was all

Mike (08:27):
hand rendering prior

Miles (08:28):
to that.
It was just done on a computersoftware and sketches.
We found this guy in Guatemala.
We still work with now, actually, whodid some renders for us of our ideas.
And we were like, and so wejust went fishing with them.
We put them on our website and said thesewere some ideas we want to get made.
It took a little while.
I'm going to talk a little bitabout the hammock bath now.
I think that's actually theperfect part of the story.

(08:48):
And this is the tail, I guess.
We got a bit of interest in it,but nothing really that serious.
Of course, we never made one.
And then we actually got a phone callfrom a lady who sounded very serious.
She was really interested.
And we said to her that, this is great,but I'm afraid it's just, it's in concept
at the moment, when it progresses, we'lllet you know, and we'll talk about it.
Anyway, like, she's fine.

(09:09):
Maybe five or six weekslater, she phoned back again.
It's like, have you guysgot that bath going yet?
Yeah, we're really interested.
And I was like, sorry, we're stillin prototyping, we haven't got there.
Anyway, about another monthwent by, she phoned again.
And at this point, we're like, okay, so.
Uh, the only way we're going toget this off the sketchbooks is
for it to make it a paying project.
But, you know, you understand we'venot done this before, so we're going

(09:31):
to need some time and we're going toneed some money to get it forward.
And she was like, yeah,fine, okay, no worries.
How much do you need?
And we're like, uh, and the time, oh myGod, we should have asked for a lot more.
We asked for, I think, about 12,000 with 50 percent up front.
And she was like, fine.
She cut us a cheque, like, don't know.
And when we got the cheque,we found out she's one of the
wealthiest women in the world.

(09:51):
I'm not going to give any nameshere, but we were like, Ah!
I don't think it would havebeen a problem to have asked for
significantly more than that.
But hey, a life lesson.
Because we went on to spend 10xthat developing it, and getting
it from, off the sketchbooksto a working piece for her.
That journey was quite an incrediblelearning curve, but when we had
this bath and we had it made, wewere like, this is really something.

(10:14):
We're going to get this photographedand we'll ship this off to this lady.
And as soon as we got those photographsback, We put them out, it was like a
press release, and I, I get a littlesort of segue here, but like, prior
to this, every time we'd ever sent outanything, like a press release to the
press, saying, you know, look at ourgreat new work, isn't it wonderful?

(10:34):
It was always like, crickets, just likenothing, just wouldn't hear anything
from anyone, then you'd follow up.
And that's fine, we were a smallcompany, we were insignificant,
it's fine, like, we get that.
But then when we sent out the hammockbath pictures, not exaggerating,
the phone rang 40 seconds later.
Oh wow.
And it was this, do you remember blogs?
Blogs, that seem like ancient historynow, but there was this blog, I don't

(10:55):
know if it was over here in the US,but in Europe at the time, it was quite
popular, it was called Contemporist,and they were like, we've just received
your press release, we absolutely loveit, it's amazing, can we run with it?
And we were like, yeah, please do it,please, yeah, and they put it out, and
Again, a little kind of little segue here,but it just feels so funny talking about
this stuff now, but back in those days, Iused to have this Google alert set up so

(11:18):
that if we had what we called high trafficon our website, it would give me an alert.
And I think back then we calledanything more than 100 people a
week on our website, high traffic.
And I came in the morning the next dayand I had this string of Google alerts.
I'm like, wow, what thehell's going on there?
And then just gone nine.
The guy, who's actually a friendof mine, who was hosting our

(11:39):
website at the time, phoned andhe's like, Marz, what is going on?
You've been crashing theservers all through the night.
We've had to upgrade you three times.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
He's like, well, you've had70, 000 visitors on your
website in the last 14 hours.
Oh my gosh.
Anyway, it's funny to say,this, it just blew up.

(12:01):
The industry, the bath industryhad not seen anything like this.
It was, it kind of shook, shook thingsup in a way that I just think it's 2014.
This would have beenaround the early 2013.
Oh, wow.
Because

Trey (12:15):
your product is already unique.
Now.

Miles (12:16):
Yeah.
So I'm back again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's kind of you to say.
Actually, one of the things that we alwaystry and do is we're not trying to do
things that are fashionable or trendy.
Yeah.
And that applies tomaterials and the design.
So it's a hopefully these thingswill stand the test of time.
And everything we make really hasalways made exceptionally well.
And because of that, and the design, Sosentiments behind the design, we like

(12:38):
to think they're all legacy pieces.
They should all lastfor generations, really.
Anyway, that was a massivegear change for the company.
So things changed around that timebecause we were suddenly on the map.
Really on the map.
We were in all the magazines.
We were even in Playboy magazine.
It was that popular.
I mean, it had such wide appeal thateveryone wanted to write about it.
We were on, again, I don't knowif you've got this show over here,

(12:59):
but it's a very well known showin the UK called Grand Designs.
We were on that.
And that's our path.
Recently, they had a kind of a lookback over the last 20 years of grand
designs and voted and all the kind ofpeople who watched so voted for the
favorite projects and the project wewere on was voted the favorite project.
I'm not saying that'sdown to us necessarily.
It was a great project,but we were on that.
That's impressive.
It was really cool.

(13:20):
Anyway, keep weaving this along to getto where we're probably trying to get to.
It's a relevance.

Mike (13:26):
No, but it's always a journey.
Okay.
Sometimes people expect you

Trey (13:30):
to just get there.
Okay.
And it's a journey and shoutout to the first person that had
the, she's got one of a kind.
Yeah.
But that first bathtub

Miles (13:39):
is in a hotel in Chile.
And if any of you are interested, youcan look up, it's the Vinevic hotel.
It's a very much like a kindof wine connoisseurs retreat in
Chile and the bath hangs in thewindow full floor ceiling glass.
And it's the Andes behind you.
And it's just incredible settings.
So yeah.

Trey (13:58):
I'll

Miles (13:59):
have to

Trey (14:00):
look that up.
Hopefully I can see youin person one day too.
That'd be really

Mike (14:05):
cool.
We're going to take a break here fora second and get into outdoor living.
So with outdoor living welike to go to BBQ Bits here.
We're going to share some informationof everything that you may want to
consider in your outdoor living space.
As far as features,especially for the kitchen.
Hope you enjoy this.

(14:25):
Okay.
So the griddle has gotten really popular.
Okay.
And so we get more andmore requests for griddles.
And if you're going to talk about the bestgriddle to install where would you start?

Bobby (14:38):
We would definitely start with Evo another American made
product drive to Wellington, Oregon.
All American made, but why Evo?
I'm just not going to sell a product.
What's the value added piece of this?
There's two types of griddles as aconsumer you want to look at and as
specifiers There's a in salespeople.
We want to go into a discovery phase.

(14:58):
Is this the right griddle?
In other words, is this goingto be a connection piece?
am I going to have Kevin just didand you have done the radius bars?
We were doing a particular job thathas a full radius bar that wraps
around the Evo This is recessed in it.
I believe it's a deck pond or agrain at top We're going to omit
this piece here, and now I'mconnected with the whole family.

(15:20):
It's really important.
Or, are you going to buy a griddle that'sgoing to be in line with the equipment,
away from that entertainment area?
That's the questions we ask.
Not a lot of peoplewant a connection piece.
If you don't configure table andchairs by this, you will get a
lot of congregation around this.
Everybody wants to cook on Evo.
They make a commercial side,like Mongolian Grill, then

(15:41):
they make a residential side.
They make two versions.
They make a They call it25, and they make it 30.
We do 30 in Texas,because bigger is better.
This is a hardened steel plate thathas been seasoned from the factory,
and it gets better and betterevery time that you cook on it.
Two zone burner system.
I've got an interior burnerand an exterior burner.

(16:03):
Can you bake on this?
Yes, there's bakingracks that are on here.
You can do pizzas on here.
I didn't believe this at first.
I have Evo foodie guys that comein here and say, here's my pizza.
And I have not learned how to do a pizza.
I'm more of a alpha oven guy,but you can do it on here.

Kevin (16:19):
When I first came to CU the first time, a year and a half ago or
so, whenever it was, that is the onething that has always stuck in my mind.
Is that evil?
Because when my kids were growing up,we love going to the hibachi grills
and teppanyaki and everything else.
And I love cooking breakfaston Sunday mornings.
And that is just perfect.
They had to have one of those.

Bobby (16:39):
Can you hold food?
So if you've got a large familyhow does this value added to hold?
If I have a lot of community orfamily friends over, you can use
that vehicle even as a warmer.
In other words, I can use this.
I set this outside burner for lowand put my food in the middle of
this and this acts as a humidor.
You can put a lid on it and yourmoisture control is up here in

(17:03):
the top with this daisy wheel.
It's more of a moisture control.
I have a lot of customers HeyBobby, where's the grease go?
You get some fall off, but your accesspoints for clean outs are right here.
And they have little cups thatyou actually can line and coil
and you can actually slide out.
No electricity is needed to this.
It's battery op.
They make it simple.

(17:24):
It's what they do.
Pros and cons.
So many pros we can go on andon and kill about an hour.
The only con, and I'll tell you.
Where do I domicile orwhere do I set the lid at?
Where does that go?
It's like Captain America'sShield, . So that's one thing that
you guys have done really well.
It's Hey, listen, we need that lid kit.

(17:45):
There is a device that holds it.
So where it would go, wouldit probably on the end of this
island when I'm not using it.
You want to think in advanceof where to put the lid at.
So

Mike (17:55):
good thought.
I see here in this cabinetthat it's sticking out past
the island, the cooking island.
Yes.
Is it designed to do that allthe time or can you actually have
the counter follow it around?

Bobby (18:09):
This is a great question.
I'm glad you let me on this becauseI was going to bring that up next.
Two ways to build this in you guysknow, looter's stone, I'm from Texas,
this is what they call a buff, it's achiseled edge, whenever I do a, whenever
we do a looter's stone, the stone isso thick it's hard, can you do it, yes,
but it's hard to do a radius cut, sowe'll always recommend the trim kit.

(18:30):
It can be a buff, now you're gonna seemore evos that are flush, and it'll
look like it's monolithic with the time.
We see a lot of Dekton nowhigher end man made surfaces.
Do you need this?
Not exactly.
You can omit this and then buildthis particular piece in to let, to
make it get a more of a contemporaryand soft feel as you look in this

(18:50):
picture here with Buddy the Cake Guyor whatever, yeah, Buddy Velastro.
This is built into a granite top and it,we have some consumers that want that.
They want that, more of that streamlinedlook and that contemporary and soft feel.
They don't want it so bulky.
But to answer your question, yes,it does come outside a little bit
so I can access more of the centerand back of the griddle itself.

(19:15):
Two zone system, interiorand exterior burner.
They make a built in cover for thisthat you can cover this when not in use.

Mike (19:25):
Awesome.
Do you recommend having the storage below?

Bobby (19:29):
I do.
The drawers are real popular becauseit's ease of use for your hard lines
from flippers cleaning kit, thingslike that can go inside of here.
And something that's really popular thatI've seen with a lot of clappy islands is
under counter lighting that we don't sell.
The reason why is that really popular?
You can see in the drawer systems at nightand then give them knosh at nighttime

(19:52):
versus what daytime can give you.
It's a different look.
So

Kevin (19:56):
have any of the manufacturers started making storage systems
that actually have lighting inthem, low voltage lighting in them.

Bobby (20:02):
They do.
There's two types.
there's one that has a low voltagelighting that's a 12 volt which Winks
makes and that's their exclusive.
That's a brand out of Mississippi.
And then most of them have a motionactivated watch battery in the
drawer and they last an extremelylong time and they found out that's.
More ease of use and lessstrain on the power supply.

(20:25):
Pointless.
Wired.
That's correct.

Mike (20:28):
So I hope you enjoyed the barbecue bits that we just featured today, and
we'll have more coming up next week.
If there's something in particular thatyou're interested for, let us know, and
we'll get back into the episode now.

Trey (20:42):
So how'd y'all get from there to the slides?
Well, it was one afternoon,they came up with both ideas.
So

Miles (20:47):
going back to that day, so we still had, with the success of
the bathtub, we then had the fundsto then basically do what we did.
With the Bob.
So we got the slide we designed renderedand put it on our website to see if
we could find someone to be interestedin buying a discipline throughout.
So that

Mike (21:04):
initial rendering, is it applicable to one of the models that you have today?
Or

Miles (21:10):
there's a line that will take you to orchids now.
Yes, they're significantly different.
But to the untrained eye,you would look at a guy.
Yeah, that's where we put therenders out on our website.
The problem was That to make itin carbon fiber, so this was a, so
carbon fiber is black, essentially,and our concept was this would be

(21:32):
a gilded, with silver, pure silver,do you know what I mean by gilding?
It's the same process if you have a kindof antique gold mirror, it's applied
using very microns thin squares of gold,but you can use any metal, really, since
silver is one of them, and you essentiallyHow is it applied onto the material?
They use a type of glue called size,but essentially, to dumb it down a
little bit, it's basically, you coatthe thing in glue, and then lay on these

(21:56):
sheets of metal, and it sticks to it.
When it's on, it's all crumpled up,and it's a real skill to get this
looking great, and we do bathtubsin this stuff now, uh, as well.
But you can apply this coating toit at relatively low cost, because
you're not making the whole thing insilver, and it's not, like, fixed.
Anyway, so it's a silver slide,much like what we're doing now.

(22:18):
The problem was is that we, I mean,even going back, so this would now
take us to, I'm going to say we're now2040 doing this, that kind of thing.
Even back then, I think the pricein British pounds was about 125,
000 that we needed to make it.
It's that probably best partof 160, 000 US at the moment.
And it was problematic becausewe didn't have a portfolio.

(22:39):
So anyone who's, it was a big leapof faith for someone to come to us
and say, Oh yeah, I love it so much.
to make it happen.
Again, without mentioning any names, butyou know who you are if you're watching.
We had a client in Boca Raton who hadseen this and was really excited by it
and was fed up with the kids spendingall the time on Xbox or whatever it
was back then and wanted to spend moretime in the backyard and the pool and

(23:01):
he had this kind of, he invested a lotof time and effort making this cool
backyard and he just did not want to putsome blue plastic Walmart slide there.
In his backyard, right?
And he'd come across our design and he waslike, I want you to make it for me, but
I'm not spending 160, 000 dollars on it.
I'll spend half.
Okay.

(23:21):
And we were okay.
So how that's going to work,but give us a week or so.
And we're trying to figure somethingout because we wanted to do this.
It was, it was definitely in our interest.
So we went away and figured out infairness, credit credit is mostly
Matt figured this out rather than me,but we figured out how to make it in.
Fiberglass.
And so we went back to him withsome proposals and some drawings
and he was like, yep, time me up.

(23:43):
We were off to the races really.
It was quite a process to getthere, but essentially the
design just carried through.
It didn't change wildlyfrom our early concepts.
Uh, we delivered this thing in 2015.
I remember going out there to film it.
We took a crew out there because we got toget this filmed and get some photographs.
So we went out and we made thiscute little video and took loads

(24:05):
of photographs and it kept going.
It wasn't quite as dramatic as whenthe bathtub first got noticed, but
it was, again, a pretty big update.
We put it out on YouTube you know what?
I think if you have, this is on YouTube,if you look it up, you'll find it.
It's like a kind of coppercolored, a brown copper colored
slide that comes out of the groundlike this and it's in Florida.
That video will date back from like 2015.

(24:25):
Anyway, we just got loads of interest.
In response to that interest, we had toslow things down a little bit, because
it sounds a little bit ridiculous,but that first slide, we didn't
even know there was any safety code.
It wasn't like we were brazenly ignoringit and being negligent, we just hadn't
even, we're sculptural furnitureguys, and we've been asking for a
sculptural slide, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(24:47):
But of course, by the timethis other interest was coming
through, we realized, hold on.
Although this slide in Boca isperfectly safe, they've been using it
for over ten years now, and it's fine.
Nonetheless, it doesn't meet anyU. S. safety code whatsoever.
In order to respond to the newdemand, we took a little bit of a
break, figure out how it's done.
You know, it's a, there'sa reason why pull slides.

(25:08):
All look the way they do, and that'sbecause if you follow the safety code
to the letter, it just comes out lookinglike that thing that we all know.
Again, I'm not going to mentionnames, but there's one down there.
And, you know, that's what they look like.
They're functional,but not very aesthetic.
Not very aesthetic.
Not a lot of beauty.
I'm not here to diss other people's work.
They operate at a very differentprice point to us, and it's fine.

(25:28):
But that's not what we wanted to do.

Trey (25:29):
Exactly.
And there's a lot of customersthat, like, for instance, you said
he didn't want that blue slide.
Because it didn't fit his setting.
It didn't fit his backyard, andthere's clients that want that.
So, yeah.

Miles (25:39):
And also, and again, there's nothing really wrong with making
pool sides in fiberglass at all.
It's just that through this processof development, we were also looking
for ways to fall more in line with thesplinterworks aesthetic, which is much
more on the sculptural side of things.
We were searching through materiality toelevate the design to being something that
is much more like an outdoor sculpturewhen it's not in use, because, yeah, any

(26:02):
Even a well used pool slide in a familyhome, even if the kids use it all weekend,
you could still give me, what, five orsix hours a week the rest of the time.
You need to look at it, and youneed to enjoy looking at it.
So that was really ourdriver moving forwards.
And we found a sculpture foundryin China that could make the
designs we wanted to get made.

(26:23):
And the very first one wecommissioned to be made in 2016.
I remember it distinctly because I wasout there when Brexit was happening,
I saw it unfold on the news when I wasin Shanghai, quite scary, but yeah,
one of my sort of favourite memoriesof building Splinterworks is that
day when I walked into the factory inChina and saw our slide design for the

(26:46):
first time, and it gives me goosebumpsnow just thinking about it, it was
incredible, and I'll never forget that,I was just like blown away, I remember
phoning Max being like, you are, you'rejust not going to believe this mate,
it is the most It's just incrediblething was polished stainless steel.
So think of like, you know,Chicago being kind of thing
when I first saw the slide that

Trey (27:08):
came to my head.
Exactly.
It's

Miles (27:09):
flight of the navigator.
It's terminated.
It's the beam.
It's to my breath away.
And I was just absolutely incrediblewhen we actually delivered that piece.
The first one went into ahome in Hampstead in London.
I was stood there with the dad.
When the kids came home fromschool and saw it for the first
time and it blew their mind.
They would just be like

(27:33):
Yeah, they could not believe what theirfather had bought for them They were just
like it and it was just he was beamingwith pride and the kids just stood there.
We were just Yeah, it was just an amazingafternoon when they were just arrived.
Prior to that, we've donefurniture and bath tubs.
I like furniture and bathtubs as much as the next guy.
But you do not get that reaction.

Mike (27:55):
The emotion.
The emotion, the

Miles (27:57):
playfulness, the fun.
It's so different, butyet so easy to understand.
It's not completelyreinventing the wheel here.
So you have to look at it.
What is that?
It's obvious what it is.
It's just very beautiful.

Mike (28:10):
Oh, so when you look at it, it's art though.
When you look at it, it's a piece of art.
It is a slide as well.
We've got this stainless steel structure.
I get into all technical stuff.
That's got to be hot in the sun.
So yeah, it'll burn your ass.
So how do you create something that's

Miles (28:28):
functional but still beautiful?
That's it.
I'm messing around really.
But yeah, we had to figure outpretty quickly how to cool them down.
Without the cooling wateron, they get really hot.
And as you can probably imagine, we'vegot a lot of clients in warm places.
And So we have, it's not complicated,some of the best things in
life are quite simple, right?
But we have this, this system wherebythe whole side is cooled, so all

(28:50):
the touch points are cooled, so thesteps are cooled, the handrails are
cooled, the sliding surface is cooled.
I've stood at the top of one of thesethings on a hot day, and you can
barely stand there because there'sso much heat coming off of it,
because it's like a parabolic, likea satellite dish reflecting heat up.
You turn the water on.
And it cools down right away.
I think the one I was on, I timedabout 12 seconds to cool down.

(29:12):
So it's not like you gotta wait,kids need to wait an hour before
they can go and play with it.
It's, it all happenspretty much right away.

Trey (29:19):
Yeah.
So was there any, that first slide, howdid that change with the cooling process?
Is there anything different?
Because I think you mentioned earlierthat it like, it's like water cooled
inside of it or something like

Miles (29:29):
that?
The water flows up throughThe hand and essentially the
handrails become the conduits tolet the water out onto the slide.
So when you're touching thehandrail, they're, they're cool.
Yeah.
'cause water's flowing through them.

Trey (29:40):
That's cool.

Miles (29:41):
And there are actually two sets of handrails, and that's part of the
safety code that, that we need to,there's all sorts of rules about how
the handrails relate to the steps.
Anyway, I won't bore you withthat, but there's, um, there's two
handrails and we also have someoutlets that come onto the steps.
But these are three differentvelocities that come out.
And in fact, we actually run'em in on three different feed.
Okay.
And it could sound complicated, butyeah, it's, for someone who's putting

(30:05):
in a pool, this is not complicated.
And you just put in barrel speedpumps and it works pretty well.
So

Mike (30:10):
someone's got an existing pool.

Miles (30:12):
Yeah.

Mike (30:13):
Is this something that could be added because of the structure,
the footing that needs to support it?
How does this,

Miles (30:20):
that work?
To be perfectly honest, the majority ofthe big metal slides that we do go in as
part of a major renovation or a new build.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
That doesn't mean you can't put one inon an existing, and we've done plenty of
those in that situation, and I'm afraidthere's no simple answer that fits all.
It really depends on the model you want.
Some of the more interestingsculptural designs that we offer,

(30:42):
they look like the structure almostlooks like it's falling over and
that's part of the sculpture of it.
They look hang like this and swoop backround to achieve that as significant
concrete footings in the ground.
Yeah, but there are others that perhapslook a bit more straightforward.
And they require much less.
And if you've even just got likea basic footing beneath what would
be a fairly normal tile pool area,then you could probably put them in.

(31:04):
I don't know whether now's the righttime to talk about this as well,
but we also offer, we have a sisterbrand, sub brand, whatever you
want to call it, called Downtime.
So, I'll talk a little bitabout that if that's alright.
So we, going back to the slightlyless aesthetic slides we were talking
about earlier, prior to us comingalong, the kind of most you could spend
on an off the shelf poolside in theU. S. was somewhere around probably
about 12, 000, something like that.

(31:25):
And then we came along andwent, they're 120, 000.
And of course, unwittinglystretched the market.
And we've been operating at this pointever since, but there's this big gap in
the market, and we've decided basicallyto fill that with what someone else does.
So we created and launched lastyear a brand called Downtime.
And basically, it's a, we've onlygot one model at the moment, but

(31:46):
it's heavily based upon one ofour most popular metal sides.
But unlike a metal side, this, metalsides require, All the cooling, all
the footings, they require a crane todeliver them, they're quite heavy and
they come in one piece, like a sculpture.
The downtime slides, they come in a kit,comes in two boxes, there's five parts,
including the handrails, a few more thanthat, but essentially they're five parts

(32:08):
that any competent homeowner, perhapsyou might not do it just two people, but
if you invite the neighbours over for anafternoon, you could put it together, or
your contractor could do it, no problem,and you don't really need the footings.
It's good to have water, but youdon't really need it because they
don't get hot in the same way.
They're made of fiberglass.
There's lots of colors too.
You can have any color you want.

(32:28):
The most popular is white, but we havea standard range of colors as well.
And you can see the choice isdown to, does it turn left?
Does it turn right?
And what color do I want?
Whereas with the custom slides,custom metal slides, they are
made from scratch every time.
And we could do anything you want.
So you might say, Oh, I love that.
And for example, the.
Most popular metal slide we do is calledVertex, and we must have so many different

(32:52):
iterations of that because so oftenpeople say, I love that, but can I just
have it, you know, a foot taller or 10degrees more to the right, whatever.
So stuff is all possible.

Mike (33:01):
Amazing.
So we can look at the two different lines.
We've got differentcustomizations that we can do.
Cool.
So you came out with Downtime last year.
Is there a new product?
Yeah, it's been a

Miles (33:12):
long time coming, in truth.
And I think Matt and I have gota lot of respect now for people
who prototype and make products.
It's very easy as consumers to think, Oh,it's a slider as a dinghy or a chair or
an iPhone or something, but the amountsof work that goes into, because when you
do something custom for an individualclient, although the, although the

(33:34):
costs might be higher, the freedom isthere and you can tweak this when you're
trying to make something for everyone.
It's very very difficult.
It took us a lot longer thanwe thought it would take.
But yeah, sorry I rambled on.
I can't remember your question now.
You have other things thatare in the works coming up?
We do actually.
We have some other productswe're working on now.
Over the last seven years or so havefound a bit of a role to play in the kind

(33:56):
of outdoor living movement as it were.
And so we want to add to that.
So we're going back to our roots.
We're going to do some furniturethat's in the pipeline now.
It's not ready at the moment andprobably won't be ready this year, but
maybe this time next year for spring.
26, I hope that we'd have, we'vegot some outdoor furniture coming.
That's exciting.
Yeah, and that's going to be a product,and that's going to be, again, something

(34:17):
you might choose a colour or what haveyou, but it's going to be very sculptural.
I'm not going to say what it is just yet,but suffice to say it'll be something
that will Be a welcome addition I thinkto most kind of high end backyards got me
thinking i'm like, what is it in my head?
It's furniture because I know y'allstyle i'm trying to yeah Oh, man, um, and
we're also doing some outdoor bars again.
These are a bit more custom at themoment So they're they're kind of

(34:40):
available now already so if someone'sinterested and you created like an
entertaining space outdoors and youwanted like a Sculptural area to cook on
or serve drinks from we're doing outdoorkitchens and bars now very sculptural
So you mustn't think like a square bar?
We've got to the moment one's like akind of crescent shape It's got balances
on a knife edge it swings round likethis and it's in stainless steel as

(35:03):
well polished But with drawers andstone counters and stuff like that And
the other one we've just done actuallyfor a project in Tampa, like wavy,
whole things like a wavy, almost likea kind of scarf blowing in the breeze.
And it's got like a glasscountertop and you'd stand behind
that and just serve drinks.
It's not going to pass huge kindof critique over how functional it

(35:24):
is because the storage is limited.
But the idea is you might have, I'veseen so many of these over the years
now where people build these supercool outdoor areas where they might
have a big TV for the game and theyhave big fridges and sound system and.
Drawers to store plates and stuff.
So you've got all that there.
And then you can just have that front.
Much like we're stood now, youcould have this kind of cool
sculpture with some seats behind it.

(35:45):
And

Trey (35:45):
yeah, one of the slides that I really like is the halo.
Oh, yeah.
That's one of the first ones we did.
The round one.
Yeah.
Can you like walk throughit like a tunnel almost?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So how'd that concept come up to be?

Miles (35:57):
So one of the things we quite like to do in our design work is to play with
people's expectation of kind of weightand balance and what should be achievable.
And this is reflected even in that veryfirst design, you know, the very first
one was just like this cantilever thingthat came out of the ground in one point
like this and that the whole thing.
It was kind of hanging out.
Well, one of the things aboutthat is it really frames a view.

(36:17):
And I guess it's quite popular withlandscape designers and that kind
of thing, because they're often kindof not thinking about, yeah, they're
not just thinking about the immediatearea of the pool, they're thinking
about the wider scope of that.
And so you can position it in a way thatlike frames a statue or a particularly
interesting element of the view.
Um.
It's like a Japanese moon gate.
Yeah, it really is.

(36:39):
There's actually a projecthere in Texas where they really
wanted to walk through it.
And so we actually sunk it down.
So instead of, if you can imagine,a complete circle like that, we
actually imagine you drop it down.
So the actual, the completion ofthe circle dips beneath the paving.
So it actually has alittle walkthrough in it.
And we positioned it right onthe steps as they come down.

(36:59):
And it's actually on our website.
Care to have a look?
Um, let's see it.
But yeah, one of the sort of major partsof design is the circle, but one of the
things that's quite intriguing as well,I think, is that the end cantilevers out.
So it's a circle, and then the end ofthat side does not touch the ground.
It comes off the top of the circle,and it just hangs like that.
Yeah, and I think that's one ofthose things, you just look at it.

(37:22):
How is that balancing there?
Yeah, that's the fun of it, that'swhy we enjoy doing this kind of stuff.
That sits somewhere in the middle, andthere are other designs that, in fact,
the kind of entry point, if you like, forthe metal sides, is a design that is It's
closely aligned with halo actually, it'sinteresting you bring that up because it's
the, we call it sema, which means wave inGreek, and the shape of it, just looking

(37:44):
at, glancing at our portfolio, you'd beforgiven for thinking it's the same one.
But actually it's sort of the curvatureof the steel running all the way around,
it's actually one curve that runs throughto the tube, like this, from the steps,
and actually the completion of thecircle is done by a separate element.
It's still circular, but it'sa flat plate, steel plate that
has bolts on it and acts as thefooting there, the entry level.

(38:05):
The smallest one of those deliveredinto the U. S. is somewhere, somewhere
between 65, 70, 000 depending onthe exchange rates at the time.
And then our kind of portfolioof pre designed slides, if
you like, tops out around 200.
And there's a design called Trist,which is quite an incredible thing.
I don't know if you've seen it.
It's, uh, it's big for a start, and it'sgot this bit of a step to meet the ground

(38:29):
that isn't the end of the story because itcarries on through and the completion of
the sculpture runs in as this tail kind ofswoops around and provides a third point.
So it's like a tripod,hence the name Trist.
And it's, They're pretty rare things.
I think we've made like four ofthose, but they're quite incredible.
That's beautiful.
Yeah.
How tall are they?
That's a really interestingquestion, actually, because prior

(38:49):
to about two years ago, Yeah.
Okay, I'll do a little step back here,but there's, within building code, if
a ladder goes over seven and a halffeet, It ceases to be a ladder, and it
has to be considered a staircase, andif it's a staircase, you have to have a
landing to go over seven and a half feet.
So if you want to go to eightfeet, you'd go up four, have a

(39:10):
landing, and up another four.
That make sense?
Yeah.
Prior to a couple of years ago,we had a virtual glass ceiling on
all of our slide designs at home.
Several and a half feet, but there's aclient in Hamptons who wanted a tryst
and he wanted it bigger and we were like,sorry We can't but hands are tied here.
And he's like you need to figureout a way to make it bigger.
I want it bigger

(39:32):
It's great and we love that kindof challenge and It wasn't actually
that difficult of a solution.
We just extended the depthof the sculpture around the
staircase and put in a landing.
And his one is huge.
I think it's 3.
7 meters high.
I can't think what that is infeet, but that's pretty big.
It's 12 feet?
Uh, 3 meters, something like that.

(39:55):
It's big.
You stand on top of that,and it's a long way down.
Yeah.
Twice as sad as I mean.
But there's a lot of safety codethat goes around these things, and a
lot of it's to do with how you enterthe water and the depth of the pool.
Where you enter the water, theangle at which you hit the water,
the runoff till you hit the end.
There's actually about five different kindof metrics, like levers you have to pull.
If you increase the speed, you'recoming down the slides, then you

(40:17):
have to reduce the angle or increasethe depth, all these kind of things.
So we can, we wouldn't expect.
pool designers out there, or thehomeowners to figure this stuff out.
So we actually tend todo a design process.
In fact, we always do adesign process as part of it.
It's part of the ordering.
A client or a homeowner would cometo us with their plans, and we would
make proposals about what's goingto fit safely within that scheme.

Mike (40:39):
So someone decides, okay, this is the slide that I
want, and we agree on a price.
From a manufacturingstandpoint, is this take?
A

Miles (40:49):
year?
Does it take months?
Yeah, it takes months.
The downtime slides are much quicker.
We hold stock of those in the UK.
So if you ordered one in the US, if you'reon the East Coast, you can probably expect
to receive that in four to five weeks.
If you're on the West Coast,maybe more like five to six
weeks, something like that.
But the metal ones, once you've gotto the design point of view, so the

(41:11):
design can take the fastest we've everturned one around is three or four days.
But more typically, it takes three or fourweeks to go back and forth, and there's
no stress, it's just the time it takes forpeople to sit with things and think about
it and make decisions and talk to their,I don't know whether it's their architect
or their pool guys or just around thedinner table and decide what they want.
But once you've actually naileddown the design and paid the deposit

(41:33):
to go into production, typicallythree months, so yeah, something
like that is in production.
And then shipping, as I mentioned before,they're all the metal ones are all made
in China, and so they take West, nowI'm going to differently flip it now.
So of course, West Coast ismore like four to five weeks.
And actually the East Coastis more like seven to eight.
There's a point on the China thing.
We've sometimes get a little bit ofraised eyebrows about making things

(41:56):
in China, but I would just say thatwe've scoured the earth to find places
that can make these things to thequality that they make them there.
And they are incredible craftsmen.
And this shouldn't be confused withkind of plastic stuff coming off
a production line out of Shenzhen.
This is real craft and alot of the large scale.
Metal sculptures in the Western worldare made in China because we have

(42:17):
long since offshored all those skills.
These slides are made, it is hundredsand hundreds of hours of thinking.
Beating metal into submission,into shape and welding it
together and polishing it out.
It is an absolute art.
So it's of beauty.

Trey (42:33):
I'm wondering, 'cause you talk about code quite a bit and the restrictions
of it with having your product obviouslyin the US and also the UK and all over
the world, does the code get tricky?
Because I'm sure the code'sdifferent for different places.
Yeah,

Miles (42:47):
you're press actually 'cause the US code.
And the U. S. is, just to beclear, is our biggest market.
Um, but Europe is oursecond biggest market.
And they have two different codes.
A lot of it is very sensible.
And you would think it's common sense.
A lot of these things make perfect sense.
There are some quirks in there.
You think, really?
Uh, and uh, Not pointing the finger, guys.

(43:10):
But yeah, a lot of that isin the American Saved Codes.
But we, to save any complications,With making one thing for one market
and another thing for another market,we actually have amalgamated both.
And everything we make meets safety codein Europe and the U. S. That makes sense.
It added more complication for usto do that, but it simplifies the

(43:30):
business once that's been done.
We actually do a lot of workin the Middle East as well.
The codes there is, they actuallyjust default to the U. S. codes.

Mike (43:38):
Okay.
So in Europe you can maybe get

Miles (43:41):
something a little bit more custom, I guess?
Actually, technically they could.

Mike (43:43):
Yeah.

Miles (43:44):
Yeah.
And to your point, custom All of themetal sizes you see, if you come onto our
website, you'll see like a range of them.
12 to 14 different models onthere, and you can choose any of
those and they can be customized.
They're like, they'renot products as such.
They're, like I said, they'rehandmade and they can be customized
to suit your specific needs anddesires for that, for your area.
We also do completely custom.

(44:06):
And for that, there's no limit on theprice or the lead time we're working on.
And some pretty big projects that twoof which immediately spring to mind
where they are actually coming off theside of the building Oh, so you have
a mezzanine floor or like a pool likea cabana by the pool and actually the
cabana is quite big and off The roof thecabana the running slides that come down.
It's a they can't really be comparedto the standard stuff We're doing is

(44:28):
that on your website as well the custom

Trey (44:30):
stuff or no?

Mike (44:33):
What is your website for?
Oh, yeah, perfect.

Miles (44:35):
Thank you for allowing me to plug that.
Yeah, so we've got www.
splinterworks.
com is the main site.
And then if you're interested in thedowntime slides, that's downtimeslides.
com.
Straightforward.
Yeah, pretty straightforward.
Yeah, and we're on Instagramand all those things.
You'll find us at splinterworksand at downtimeslides.
We have YouTube channels.
We're like, yeah, whodoesn't these days, right?

(44:57):
We have a content machinethat needs feeding.
Yep.
Right.
So, yeah, there's, there's funnyways to see what we're doing.

Mike (45:05):
We, we have a section that's called True Crime and the true crime, uh, could
have been the security guard that justran us off the spot that we were on.
But, uh, change of location.
If you're watching meYouTube , like what is that?
But, uh, is there anything thatyou can think of in the process of
construction and building thingsthat you would say, Hey, this is

(45:27):
something you should think about?
Okay.

Miles (45:29):
I don't want to offend anyone out there who's got like an in ground, kind
of built up, rockery type pool slidecoming off their, into their backyard
with a grotto and all that kind of stuff.
But I think people look at whatwe're doing and they think,
whew, this is for a slide.
And they're right.
If you just look at it likea slide, it's expensive.
I get it.
It's an expensive pool slide.
Most people who are our clients, itreally depends on where you see value.

(45:51):
So if you're someone who just seesit as a slide, you're probably
not the right client for us.
But if you're someone who are, no.
Collects art, or enjoys literature,or spent a lot of time and effort
curating some incredible kind oflandscape, you'll probably see the
value in what we do, because it hasresidual value when it's not being used.
It's not just a wallsite, it's a sculpture.
And I think a lot of people whomight actually quite like that kind

(46:14):
of thing, will think they're savingmoney by buying a fiberglass tube
that runs down a hill, that theythen have to build in their backyard.
And actually, by the time they'vedone the groundwork, brought
in the rocks, landscaped it.
dug in the trenches, run the water upthere, probably in the same ballpark as
we are anyway, maybe not at the top end,but it's It's not that vastly different.

(46:34):
And I think people probably find theyget a lot more enjoyment out of having
a piece of art to look at at the endof the day than just a pile of rocks.

Trey (46:42):
You said something earlier, you said that, you know, it's something you can
enjoy and look at through the whole year.
A lot of our clients, they want to enjoytheir pool, but they're not in the pool.
They like looking at it andthey like appreciating it.
And it's one of the biggeststruggles with slides is how do
you make the slide look good?
And it's just an art piece.
Or just a pier.
Yeah, exactly.
Or just a pier.
The seal.
Well, that's a classic thing.

Miles (47:02):
People often ask us, do you have to cover them up in winter?
And the answer is, A, no, not from a sortof technical point of view, or a longevity
point of view, you don't need to.
But most people don't want to,because that's the whole point.
Even when it's not being used, it'sstill there as a sculpture, you're
still enjoying it all year round.
So yes,

Mike (47:18):
that's.
It's the same as people ask mehow often I use my swimming pool.
And I say, every day.
And they're like, you swim every day.
And I said, no, I didn't say that.
You asked me how often Ienjoy my swimming pool.
I look at it every dayand I enjoy looking at it.
So this is the same thing.
We get to enjoy the art that is created.

(47:39):
But it's also fun.

Miles (47:40):
Yeah.
I've just come from North Carolina wherewe've been seeing some clients then and
one particular project that we're lookingat had a very enjoyable meeting there
on site the other day because they'reactually got a dedicated lighting designer
for the landscape, for the outdoors.
And so we're talking aboutall sorts of fun about how to
light this thing up at night.
It's not even, if you're enjoying it inthe daytime, we're going to create a whole

(48:01):
lighting scheme that's going to lightup the slide and it's going to reflect
all sorts of things around it at night.
So

Trey (48:06):
it's

Miles (48:06):
something else.

Trey (48:07):
I'm looking forward to

Miles (48:07):
seeing

Trey (48:08):
how that comes out.
Do you like luxury cars my friendloves luxury cars and the chrome it's
a beautiful look But there's alsoother materials that are like chrome
there are different colors or reflectalmost I forgot what it's called, but
it's you look at it one direction.
It looks red and then you look at theother direction I mean Have you ever
thought about doing something like thatwith the slide as well because it's

(48:28):
the same look just like a different

Miles (48:31):
Lesson kind of thing isn't it?
It kind of changes We've been asked todo some interesting things with them.
In fact, we're looking at doing one at themoment that's going to be gilded in gold.
Oh wow!
So like, it's going to bea stainless steel slide.
The inside will still be, the chuteand the steps and the handrails will
still be stainless steel, but the kindof exterior fascia is going to be gold.

(48:51):
Yeah, that's cool.
We've done a few in bronze.
Bronze is a really lovely materialbecause it goes with a lot of the
kind of slightly more traditionallooking homes that these go into.
I mean, I personallywould say that actually.
The pure look steel slides.
I think they look really goodin traditional homes, actually.
I think there's no harm inmy opinion in having a modern
sculpture in a traditional home.

(49:12):
But for what it's worth, there are peoplethat perhaps don't want that so much.
And we did, the first onewe did that was in Maryland.
We did a steel, okay, it's onour website, you'll see it.
If you go to the Vertexsection, you'll see it.
It's a, it's a steel steps,tube, handrails, but the outside
is actually made from copper.
And the clients there were verykeen to have something that kind of

(49:33):
evolved and would change over time.
And when we first installed it, it wasquite bright, not quite like a brand
new penny, but it was quite colourful.
And actually I had some picturesfrom it five years later, and
it's dark, like really dark.
Yeah, really, it's all, not quiteblack, but it's very dark brown now.
And in another 15 years it'll belike the Statue of Liberty, and
it's gonna, you know, look amazing.
We've We've actually since developedthat a little bit now, and we're still

(49:55):
offering copper but in a slightlydifferent way, so that's very exciting.
We can do painted, we've justdelivered a slide into the new
Ward of Astoria in Costa Rica.
And they very specifically wanteda color on the outside, so we're
actually going to be painting that one.
So it's been, the morethe palette they've got.
So there's all sorts of things youcould do, and if you wanted to, you

(50:16):
could paint it with a pearlescent paint.
In fact, there's a slidethat's indoors in the UK.
It's on our website.
Again, it's a big spiral thing,and that was painted on site.
Quite incredible.
It's awesome.
How's

Trey (50:29):
the maintenance with the products?
A lot of stainless steel products, someare actually stainless steel, right?
And then you have some where theyhave hiccups and they have rust on
them, or maybe like with the smudgesbecause it's such a reflective.
Yeah, that's true.
So,

Miles (50:42):
yeah, that's a good question.
So we have all of ourslides, the metal ones.
I'm going to talk primarilyabout the metal ones here.
They, uh, they, from what's Common termfor it is Marine Grade Stainless Steel,
but there are, there's more than onetype of Marine Grade Stainless Steel,
if that makes sense, and we use what'scalled 316L, which is the highest
grade Marine Grade Stainless Steel.
It is highly resistant to corrosion, butit's not immune, and there Is anything

(51:08):
immune when it comes to stainless steel?
I'm not sure anything iscompletely It's the welding that

Mike (51:14):
You have to be careful.
Yeah.
And

Miles (51:16):
we take great care.
You know, all the tools in the factoryare, you only work with 316L because
if you take a hammer and go and work apiece of normal steel and you come back,
it'll have tiny, microscopic fragments ofother steel and they'll get hammered in.
So that's all very carefullykind of taken care of.
I can't sit here and honestly say we'venever had any rust appear on a site.

(51:36):
That would be a lie.
But most of the time you'll findit's actually from other sources.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
It'll be someone being like.
angle grinding something likefive feet away from the side and
then sparks fly off it and little,again, tiny little fragments of weld
themselves to the side and the client'sgoing like, what's going on here?
It's got rust all over it.
You actually discoverthat it's something else.
There, if, over time you have a saltwater pool, the water evaporates,

(52:00):
obviously the concentration, even ifyou've got like low concentration salt.
As that water evaporates, theconcentration of salt in that
little tiny droplet gets very highjust before it finally evaporates.
And so you end up with, what's onday one, month one or whatever, even
year one, that's going to be fine.
But if that same, happens in thesame spot year on year, day after
day, you can get like rust there.
But you know, it's pretty hardy.

(52:21):
And if you get some, we havesome products that we use,
we'll just get that right off.
And it doesn't really take that long.
Some of our clients have theirslides polished like every month.
And they look.
It's really incredible.
Some people, I don't know,have never touched them.
And they're fine.
And it's, yeah, from 50 feetaway, they still look incredible.
So when you get close, likeyou said, there'll be like hand
prints on it, there's a bitof dust on it, and stuff like

Trey (52:42):
that.
Well, the bean looks amazing in Chicago.
Yeah.
And then you get really close, and you'relike, OK, people haven't touched it.

Miles (52:47):
And the other thing I'd say is that, so there is maintenance to be done.
You do need to maintain that.
You can't just install one of thesethings and just leave it and expect
it to be perfect all the time.
But most people, most of ourclients, I'd say, are not the guys.
cleaning their own slides, they'llhave a team that will come round,
and whether it's once a week,once a fortnight, whatever, it's
part of that maintenance program.
If it just gets added in, that you justneed to hose it down with fresh water

(53:11):
and wipe it down, and if there is atiny rust spot or whatever, with the
steel cleaner, hard water is a thing.
If you've got hard water in your pool,then just like your kettle, you're going
to get limescale build up on there.
So again, if you take it off regularly,it's never going to be a problem.
If you leave it, For a year, you'regoing to have marks on the slides.
And there's all sorts of different Onething we've learned over the years is

(53:31):
that every single pool is different.
It's like a fingerprint, isn't it?
I mean, like the chemistry ofevery single pool is different.
And so we can't really I didn'thave a universal answer for you.
Your maintenance will differfrom someone else's maintenance.

Trey (53:43):
Every backyard has a different ecosystem.
Yeah, they do.
And

Miles (53:46):
it can even be down to the humidity in the air and all these things.
The word

Mike (53:49):
no maintenance doesn't exist, but it is a low maintenance product.
Yeah, it's a

Trey (53:54):
highest grade mill.
Uh, what'd you say?
Marine grade steel.
Yeah.

Miles (53:59):
And the fiberglass ones are possibly even less because actually
they're like, they perhaps won't.
I can't sit here and say, yeah,this is going to last a hundred
years like the steel one will.
Fiberglass degrades over time,but actually on the day to day
maintenance, probably easier insome ways because it's a color.
It doesn't, it's not reflecting through.
It's not, it's certainlynot going to rust.
It won't show up any, any limescale.
If you've got salt water pool andyou get salt residue, you're hardly

(54:23):
going to notice it on a white slide.
Whereas if you have a reflectiveslide and you've got salt all over it.
We have a rinse cycle built into it, andthat rinse, most people run that cycle
once a day, and it really mitigates thatwhole thing, but, yeah, that's cool.
You can have them washed down once aweek, once a fortnight, you'll be fine.
Where do you get inspiration from?
A lot of the shapes you'll seecoming out of the studio are

(54:45):
inspired, I think on some level, bynatural forms and abstract shapes.
I think this will be particularly truewith some of the new stuff that's coming
out, you'll probably start to see.
The I can't sit here and point out toany particular person or any art movement
that says that's where we draw ourinspiration from, but I think what we like
to do is just to twist people's minds alittle bit about what can be achieved.

(55:08):
I talked a little bitearlier about the furniture.
We started out doing stuff likequestioning, why does a table have
to have four legs as an example?
Why does a pool slidehave to look like that?
It doesn't have to.
And the experience works isn'ta We're not a furniture company.
We're a functional sculpture company.
We get out of bed to make sculpturethat people can use and twist

(55:30):
their minds a little bit andopens their eyes to other options.
That's what drives us.
And that, being at the core ofthe business, means that if we
decided we wanted to make sculpturalwater bottles, that can be in our
wheelhouse and we can go and do that.
It doesn't, we don't need to pivot.
That's what drives us.

Mike (55:46):
That's

Miles (55:46):
a

Mike (55:46):
great

Miles (55:46):
inspiration.
It's fun.

Trey (55:48):
We're still enjoying it.
Who buys your slides?
Who buys from SplinterWorks?
What?
Well, who's your customer?
I know it's a broad range.
That's

Miles (55:57):
a really broad range.
It really varies.
There are some.
Quite significantly well known celebritiesand kind of people in the public realm
that I can't tell you who they are.
They are at a levelwhere we don't meet them.
And we would deal withtheir representatives.

(56:17):
And that's fine.
One quite fun celebrity that Ican tell you about that we did
recently was the, I don't know,wrestler called The Undertaker.
Yes.
Have you seen the video?
Have you seen the video?
Yes.
I need to see you too.
It's great fun.
But there are others that I'm not goingto talk about, but those atypical, I
think if you're going to say, like atype of customer, it tends to be, I

(56:40):
mean, funnily enough, actually, you'dpossibly tend to think that it's young,
fresh, but actually a lot of our businesscomes from people who are a bit older,
and they're actually grandparents, andthey're trying to build the cool house.
That is going to tempt the grandkidsto come to their house and not the
other grandparent's house, you know,that's like a real kind of thing.
It's a real thing.
It's a real thing.

Mike (57:01):
Way off bat, yeah, but it's But then they appreciate our

Miles (57:04):
Yeah, and then perhaps, you know, so you're, you know, early
30s and you've got young kids, fine,of course, there are people out
there that have made enough money toafford what we're doing at age 17.
30. That's, of course, there are.
But actually, if you're asking forwhat's typical, I think people, you'll
find people who are more in theirsort of late 60s and 70s who have the

(57:26):
money, they've run successful business,they've worked hard, they've now got
a bit more time on their hands, andthey want to have the grandkids over.
They're building this super cool backyard,and they'll get one of our slides.
And again, because it's evenmore important for them, because
it's only going to be used.
Like once a fortnight orwhatever by the grandkids.
So actually it's really important that itlooks amazing, but it's not being used.
So it's hard to givean exact typical thing.

(57:46):
And I'm sorry, I can't be moreprecise, but that's kind of
where I think about things.
We have a lot of, a lotof clients like that.

Trey (57:52):
It's interesting with the artistic design, I'm wondering, has there been a
client that doesn't even appreciate art?
Because I feel like every one of yourcustomers would, because it is artwork.

Miles (58:00):
Yeah.
Doesn't appreciate art.
That's a difficult one to answer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not sure I could actuallyanswer that really, because I think
if you didn't like art, I don'tthink you'd even be talking to us.
Yeah.
If you're looking

Mike (58:12):
for function, they get function.
Yeah.
I mean, there

Miles (58:14):
are, spoiler alert, there are other slide companies out there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And.
They cater for those people.
Yeah.
Perfectly, adequately, at amuch lower price point than us.
Um, there's no shame in sayingthat we're not for everyone.
We're not trying to be for everyone.
Mm-hmm.
No, I'm gonna go withno . The answer is no.
That we

Trey (58:31):
don't have any clients who don't appreciate art.
That's awesome.
We've talked about innovationand where you're going.
I always ask people three questionsand they're easy, simple questions.
But I want to know what your favoritebook is, your favorite movie.
In your favorite food.
Now, favorite book.

Miles (58:48):
Favorite book is an easy one for me.
It's a book called Any Human Heart.
My favorite food is probably I'vegot quite a lot of French family.
If any of them see this, they mightget I'm afraid I do love French
food, but probably if I was goingto have to pick, I'd probably say
Thai food is my favorite food.
Favorite movie.

(59:09):
Oh my God.
That's a difficult one.
I'm going to go with, it's come to mymind recently because you know, like
with the kids, you try and tell themlike cool stuff from when you were
growing up and they instantly assume it'snot cool because you used to like it.
And I was.
I've been going on and on at my kidsabout this film called The Matrix.
Oh, man.
And they would, I couldn'tget them to watch it.

(59:30):
They wouldn't watch it.
And then actually, late last year, areally nice local small movie theater
in my hometown did, because I was25 years since The Matrix came out.
And they did a showing back in thecinema and I was like, I don't care.
What are you doing?
I'm buying tickets.
I've bought tickets.
We're going you're all comingand at the end of that I turned
around I said, do you like that?

(59:52):
She's like, oh my god, that was so good.
I love loads of movies I'mgonna go with the Matrix.
That was, that was, I can remember mylife around that time What an impact
that made and do you remember everyonewalking around with the flip phone?
Do you remember?
They're still

Trey (01:00:05):
knockiest Yeah.
Things will pop out.
Heh heh.

Miles (01:00:08):
Ah,

Trey (01:00:09):
yeah, so cool.
Yeah, great.
Do they watch the secondand third one after that?

Miles (01:00:12):
I don't think you need to.
I don't, I don't either.
I don't either.
I don't think you need to.
Don't do

Mike (01:00:16):
this.
One is, one is good.
One is good.
Yeah, yeah.
We greatly appreciate you.
Wow.
So much.
You spending some time with us today.
It's great to be here.
It's great to meet youguys and have a chat.
And, uh, we look forward to,uh, trying to incorporate your
product into our projects.
And, there's, like you said, thatthere's, Opportunities to do that.
So I

Miles (01:00:35):
hope so.
I'm really so look forward to workingwith you on that when the time comes.
Thanks again.

Outro (01:00:41):
This show is all about helping you become a better buyer, a better pool
owner, and hopefully you're going to findsome insights into how to enjoy your pool
even more so, how to help your friends,your family, anybody looking to buy a pool
in the future, or that want to remodeltheir backyard, add an outdoor fireplace,
fire pit, add an outdoor kitchen area, addsome shade cells or whatever else it is.

(01:01:05):
We want to be that resource for you.
And that's the end goal here.
And we promise that there'sgoing to be a ton of information.
We'll try to go through it, youknow, as relatively quickly, but
also slow so people can understand.
But the intent of the show, thereason Mike and I are doing this
is because we just got a lot inour heads and we want to share it.
So we hope to see youhere every single week.
Thanks for listening.