All right. so we are here Ahr 2023 uh in Atlanta and I'm here with my good friend Mike Pastorello from Refrigeration Technologies and Viper thanks for joining us Mike It's good to be here. Thanks for having me! Yeah! so uh, this product is one that I'm super excited about. I I had the privilege of putting hands on it like way way way before uh, it's it's public release and I was just waiting to be able to talk about it.

So this is pretty cool to be able to talk about it here. Yeah, so we just showed everybody. Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. and um, so this is the Wet Rag heat shield from Refrigeration Technologies Viper grid So tell us all about it.

Yeah, so just a little background on this. This was actually our original idea before we came out with wet Rag. To be honest with you, I was researching welding products and fabrics so we've looked at um, the Fabrics that firefighter outfits were made of and all sorts of different things. We've got a bunch of samples in and they were okay, but they weren't great and then I stumbled upon Ceramics and that's what made Wet Rag was all these These Fine ceramic fibers? Yeah, Um, so we ended up going with Rag and that was fantastic and we've had some great success with it.

So we've thought I know let's revisit this this welding heat shield again because we've created a good market for the Viper product. So um I ended up uh, finding a few textile mills that make these high temperature carbon. Fabrics So we ended up getting a few swatches and you know the test is you put a Brazen torch up to it and see what it does and this thing performed really really good. So we ended up building a relationship with this textile mill and uh, we're able to get these these Fabrics in these big giant rolls sent to us and make this product.

So it's a very special carbon fabric and we've double layered it so you're going to have two pieces where as opposed to others you're gonna have one piece. you have a little added protection. Um, and then we also Source this great um Teflon coated fiberglass thread that's good for uh, well over a thousand degrees. so it's not just a regular, you know thread you can go down to your local store to get.

So um yeah and this is it here. Yeah, but we did a video on our YouTube channel that shows this I'm just going to leave this up here, um shows this product in use. but what's really cool about it? a lot of the other Shields um some of the kind of fiberglass type stuff. If you have your flame right on it for an extended period of time, it still kind of recedes on you and obviously everything has a temperature limit.

but they were actually taking this at their booth and putting a penny on top of it and basically just melting the penny, just destroying it and it still really, uh, the the heat shield came away unscathed, right? And there's some good fiberglass heat shields out there that are great for certain uh, aspects. but we really want technicians to get in this with flame and get close to everything. Um, so we constructed this. um, got very lucky that this material is also absorbent so you can get this thing wet.

You can soak it and it's going to retain water. It's not going to drip all over the place, which is great, so that's going to increase the temperature. You can get a torch on this right and extend the longevity of the product as well. So and if it gets a little funky, you can machine wash this and machine dry it as well.

Machine washability is is awesome. We actually used it replacing an evaporator coil inside the house and that's where you know you got surfaces that are around. A lot of times when you're brazing up against an air handler panel or a case coil panel, you've got your stub coming out and you don't have a lot of space. We also used it around a line dryer.

even around the line dryer. Sometimes you know there may be some other wires around or whatever and this kind of covers all that. There's still a real opportunity to use wet rag traditional wet rag to pack it around in tight areas, but for this you get the advantage of being able to get really close but also protecting surfaces around the area. It just gives you a much larger area, Correct, because you know, if you get the flame off for a second, you could you know torch some Armic cell.

you know, get some paint off somewhere so it's it's cheap insurance for sure. Yeah, yeah, I like it for that reason. Also, you know I'm a big fan of aracetylene for a lot of technicians. kind of the the swirl tip or Turbo Torch style tip and those are nice, but they do project a lot more convective heat.

So for techs who are used to using an oxacetylene torch, it's a very small tip and it kind of gets in there. but a lot of newer texts find that it's easier to use aerocetylene. This is great for that because it helps block that convective heat that's coming off the back. Just like what Mike was showing earlier, he actually melted the penny on top and then immediately took the shield and put it on his hand and so it does help protect from that.

Radiance convection Exactly. So we get that penny that melts at just over a thousand degrees and put our hand right on the back. It's a little bit warm, but it's not hot, not going to burn in and then you have this molten metal that's kind of rolling around on this pad and it doesn't leave any damage to this pad. So basically the metal rolls right off and you have this nice virgin pad that's left for you.

So yeah for sure? Yeah, um yeah. Refrigeration Technologies has just so many kind of fundamentally sound products. one of the ones that I haven't talked a lot about but I thought was really cool and we don't have it here. But is the is the wipes? Yes! So you're doing a great.

They're doing a great demo. they're showing it. you can find it on social media on their social media platforms. it shows the same thing but something as simple as wipes you don't think of like all right, You know a lot of people they see it think oh it's just cleaning up a little mess but you do some pretty amazing stuff with it in terms of like the sorts of soil that you can get up.

Yeah! so we're doing demos today that show removing paint, removing nail polish, magic marker, and grease. which is easy for us to do here because they're all kind of basic materials. but we've had guys dip their hands in Mastic and uh, removed from their hands and my favorite is we have the Nylog machine right next to the wipes on purpose because everybody wants to stick their hands in Nylog and that's an easy way to get off. That's how we get rid of Nylog at the office is uh with the wipes so um I think another a good added benefit of the wipes as well is a lot of the wipes will leave your hands cracking and dry.

But we put four different types of moisturizers in there. so we have glycerin, aloe, vitamin E, and lanolin, so you're gonna have some protecting agents in there. Well so I just also want to take this opportunity while we're here on this video just to thank you for your support of the industry. I mean you guys supported HVAC Tactical and their event that they did which is really a great great thing.

A lot of like our Tech Quarry was there, he's bad a bad TXV on um Tick Tock right? Corey I was I always like to give you a call out whenever you're yeah bad TXV on Tick Tock uh he uh was able to give out an award there at the event you guys supported that. you guys have supported the Symposium um so many different creators and uh, influencers you guys are always interacting with on social media. so I I just wanted to tell you in person: I Really appreciate that there's a lot of Brands who even much bigger brands in the chemical space who don't take that same approach uh, and who are really just kind of often just defending a piece of turf. But you are.

You've always been really giving to the community and I really appreciate that. Well, thank you! We have a very similar slogan as Human We're All Techs right? You know we were all texts before. We were lucky enough that we came up with some unique items that we're able to get into the market and continue to do that. So you know, stick true to our roots and uh, we're always there to help.

Absolutely Yeah I appreciate that. Yeah, we've had a lot of been able to have a lot of positive side conversations just talking about running businesses that are Legacy businesses where we build good things that provide a good service. and yeah, we all we all want to make money doing it. We have to make a living doing it.

But um I think it's awesome what you guys do and I just encourage everybody to support these guys, follow them on social media, share about them with your friends, and also if you're in distribution so you're at the supply house, this is something a lot of people don't think about and we've talked about this before. But if you're in a supply house and you don't see heat shield there, you don't see wet rag there. you don't see the Venom packs there. Um, ask for them a lot of cases.

it just takes a couple conversations and they can bring it in for you and your company. And now it's actually something that other people can also experience because they're just good, safe, quality products that really more people really should be using and should know about in mind. Yeah, most of the wholesalers sometimes don't want to move on a product until they get that generation. so we rely a lot on the technicians to go out there and ask.

and you know, continue to ask. So um I would Empower you that if you do like something from us or it could be another company, they'll continue to ask your your local branches, your managers, your territory managers and you know it's their job to do the work to get that product in for you. Yeah, and often there may be the kind of that initial resistance of like, well we don't have it but trust me, they can get it. uh correct, it's always buy this instead.

but uh, you know if you're really adamant about something and and with refrigeration technology we have a very Consolidated line. We don't do a thousand items, we just do 40 to 50 great items. So whatever we put out there, we spend a lot of time on this pad was it was a year and a half I think we sent you like a pre-production sample like a year ago. Yeah yeah until we could find the thread because the thread was burning so I had that.

It took a while to sources straight and yeah I got to give it to my I Gotta give a shout out to my wife because um, my wife has a degree in Fashion and Marketing Design. Okay, so be prior to having kids and we have young kids so she's still at home. uh she worked in the fashion industry now out in Los Angeles Okay so after I found the the fabric I said I need a sewer I need a pattern maker I have no idea where to look so she picked up her phone and started going through things. So I got this guy.

this guy. this guy made calls and I think the next week I had someone at the office saying sure, no problem I can do that. You know we need to do this type of Stitch we need to do this. We needed to fold this over so yeah um it was great to involve her.

Yeah, you and I have that also in common of like it's a true family business like Refrigeration Technologies is this true family business and that's the same with me and my business. Um, you know my wife helps me so many things all the family members. It's really cool to see that and it's a it's a business worth supporting. I'm glad that you guys have kept it, kept it in the family.

You know you haven't. You haven't sold out, you're still, you're still who you are having way too much fun I Know you guys just have a blast at what you're doing and and that's uh I think that's really cool that you do that. so thank you again. Yeah, thanks for having me? Yeah, absolutely.

And for everybody out there who isn't familiar, you can go to Refrigetchtech.com in order to find out more about other products and the past. Travelers Are great people. Support them on social media. Follow them everywhere you are! Thanks Brad Thanks for joining! Mike.