Grit Nation

Martinez Tool Company - Mark Martinez

November 29, 2021 Mark Martinez Episode 18
Grit Nation
Martinez Tool Company - Mark Martinez
Show Notes Transcript

On this episode I have the pleasure of speaking with Mark Martinez, founder of the Martinez Tool Company. Mark is the designer of the M-1 and M-4 Titanium hybrid hammers and has a long history of tool innovation and design. 

He has also worked as a builder for most of his life and has great insight into what it means to be a professional carpenter. 

We’ll start our conversation by learning about Marks involvement with the big brand tool companies, to better understand what has changed and what has not in hammer design over the decades.

 Next, we’ll dive into the metallurgy of Titanium and discuss its benefits and limitations as a material used in tool design.  

Later, we’ll discuss Mark’s inspiration for designing the M-1 framing hammer and how swinging the M-1, not only makes you more efficient but why it’s good for your health too.   

And we’ll end our conversation by discussing what sets an Alpha apart from the rest on a jobsite and what Mark means when he says, “it is better to work from your heart, and not from your wallet”. 

The Show Notes

Martinez Tool Company

https://martineztools.com/


Carpenters Elbow Symptoms
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1997-12-27-9712240248-story.html

Union Home Plus
Union Home Plus helps union members save money when they buy, sell, or finance their home.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Mark Martinez:

Hello everyone, this is Mark Martinez and I've got Grit.

Joe Cadwell:

Welcome to Grit Northwest. I'm Joe Cadwell, writer, producer and host of the show. And on this episode I have the pleasure of speaking with Mark Martinez, founder of the Martinez Tool Company. Mark is the designer of the M one and m for titanium hybrid hammers, and has a long history of tool Innovation and Design. He's also worked as a builder for most of his life and has great insight into what it means to be a professional carpenter. We'll start our conversation by learning about Mark's involvement with big brand tool companies to better understand what has changed and what is not in hammer design over the decades. Next, we'll dive into the metallurgy of titanium and discuss its benefits and limitations as a material used in tool design. Later, we'll discuss Mark's inspiration for designing the M one framing hammer and how swinging the M one not only makes you more efficient, but why it's good for your health to wander conversation by discussing what sets an alpha apart from the rest of the crew. And what Mark means when he says it's better to work from your heart and not from your wallet. After this episode, be sure to check out the show notes to find out more about Mark and the Martinez Tool Company. And now on to the show. Welcome to the show, Mark Martinez.

Mark Martinez:

Hey, thank you really appreciate it.

Joe Cadwell:

Yeah, thank you, sir, for taking your time to be on the show to talk for myself and for my listeners. Mark. I'm super excited for you to let us know about Martinez tools. You become quite a name in the construction industry. The carpenters that I work with at the Pacific Northwest carpenters Institute here in Portland, so many of my apprentices are covering those Martinez titanium hammers. And I know you started your business back in 2015. I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about your backstory and how you came to build our Tina's Tool Company.

Mark Martinez:

Well actually it goes back way further than that actually goes back to 1970. Back then there was a company called stiletto and I swung a stiletto hammer. In actuality stilettos were was a private label that were made by Vaughn. And in the only difference between that and regular bond Hammer was stilettos were painted black bonds were painted blue. Well I guys used to ask me when I moved down to San Diego out of Northern California what kind of hammer I swung on that Tom and stiletto. And they would go there's no such thing and I go I'm sitting here holding one and they'd look at it and go can you get me one while stiletto went out of business right about that time. So I found a way to locate old stock and buy these hammers and sell them for more, you know, my handling and the trouble that I went through and so the story begins I was involved in a lot of entrepreneurial hammer companies like heart tool, and dead on Tools and then on stole a lot of my ideas and heart tool, I was in house with them and I came up with a curved handle on the on the hammer and I was just wanting to be paid out because I hadn't been paid and when I asked for payment they locked me out of the building so told me to go on their way for me to go on my way and then dead on comes out with my stuff and just buries me and I was I was looking into the abyss I was done. You know I owe the bank$50,000 on a on a loan that I told them I was going to create this great company and got it out of that and they believe my business plan gave me 50 grand in debt on Roxanne and just caught my throat just took every one of my ideas like the nail the curved handle everything, black handle everything and just took it. Well. What I did was earlier in the 90s I just remembered the stiletto name and I loved it so much that I went back and I went to the library in Sacramento at the patent office and I just researched whatever happened to the name stiletto and I found out that it was abandoned. Therefore I resurrected it. And I tried to bring that product back stiletto in it didn't go anywhere. That's the limb dead on ripped it off all the ideas that it was trying to come out with and

Joe Cadwell:

So where I'll cut you, I'll stop you there. Okay, real quick mark. So, the letter was a branch off of Vaughn. One had a blue handle one had a black handle Vaughn is obviously an industry name that had been around for quite a while. And so they just they had an offshoot named stiletto, is that correct?

Mark Martinez:

No. What it was was there was a hardware distributor in Northern California called Baker and Hamilton. And they had been around since 1849. They showed up during the gold rush. And they created this big hardware company while they had a private label brand called stiletto and it was a high end brand while they teamed with a lot of other high end tool companies to private label see before all the before all the co ops like a true value and everything ever all these hardware stores relied on hardware distributors. Therefore distributors would create their own brands and move them out. While stiletto died and Baker and Hamilton died when all these co ops came about. I gotcha, you know, and just forced him out of the market and been around since 1849.

Joe Cadwell:

And technology and hammers really hadn't changed much since 84. haven't

Mark Martinez:

changed at all. I mean, just like you know, a very popular hammer that everybody swings all the concrete guys, there's swinging a design hammer that was designed in 1927.

Joe Cadwell:

So hammers technology really hadn't changed much. And then along comes Mark Martinez, and he says, hey, I can make a better hammer and you pair yourself up with heart you pair yourself up with that on your you reinvigorate the stiletto name. When did stiletto though become known for the titanium hammer? Was that something hits us?

Mark Martinez:

Um, I was just getting Yeah, yeah, I was just getting into that. But I didn't pair up with dead on they were just flat out rip offs. Gotcha. Okay, they just, they just ripped me off. I did try and pair up with heart tool. And like I said, the minute that I brought value to him, and I wanted payment for it, you know, I found myself standing outside the building going what happened? You know? So, with that I created a company in the beginning when they did that to me, I says, You know what? You guys won't pay me. You guys, will you guys keep ripping me off. You know, nobody will hire me. Nobody will see the value in what I'm trying to bring to this industry. So now I created a brand called Renegade. And that was my first venture out into the hammer business with was with a renegade.

Joe Cadwell:

What was that?

Mark Martinez:

90 To 90 between 92 and 95.

Joe Cadwell:

Okay, so you got a long pedigree of hammer design hammer innovations and just a passion for hammers. Okay, got y'all

Mark Martinez:

know when the renegade came out? The guy that started dead on saw it and goes hey, this is a moneymaker and got a million dollar backed backing and just buried me overnight. You know, so I was out of business within a week. And so I In desperation, I didn't know what to do. The internet was brand new, and I just started it became divine intervention and I was in my office garage, the broom in my garage and I had my computer up and I was looking at the Thomas guide for casters to see who I could get to cast me a hammer. And lo and behold, who pops on the screen was Ruger titanium. Okay, I went tight and I went a titanium. Hmm. I wonder if anybody's ever made a hammer out of titanium What the hell's going on there? You know and well

Joe Cadwell:

I'll stop you there real quick I mean titanium they you know the Russians made some Marines out of titanium tennis rackets right out of titanium surgical tool is made out of titanium. It's it's basically a very light and durable metal strong as steel but half the weight so you you stumbled by chance onto the concept of using titanium.

Mark Martinez:

Right well I was familiar with titanium due to the fact that a lot of my relatives worked at the one of the biggest titanium foundries in the world at a time at in Las Vegas or in Henderson Nevada. And it's called time at and Bay and during the war they've made magnesium but after the war when the space age in the end, the Cold War started heating up they wanted to start you know producing titanium so they made that titanium foundry and the thing was is back then I don't mean to think you were allowed to own it. You know, it was a very very highly sought after like paddle while proprietary proprietary extremely expensive as well. Not really sure about the expense. I've never researched that but I've had the privilege of going back and interviewing my uncle's who work there. And a matter of fact, some of the Moulton tight Tanium that fell out of those, the manufacturing my uncle, gravel them up and brought them home and I have those, oh, they just cooler than hell yeah. And fortunate I mean, me being involved in the titanium industries, I was asked to speak at the ITA, which is the International titanium Association. But we're talking about NASA, Boeing, Lockheed, all the big boys, but they wanted to bring me in from a consumer standpoint of view rather than a commercial view. And in that meeting, I was able to meet the owner of timeout, and he allowed me to go on a very cool VIP tour of the titanium foundry that my uncle's worked on, but it had been really majorly upgraded. And I got to see the whole process. So I've had a lot of a lot of really cool things happened to me once I started delving into it. But my involvement with all these top NASA engineers and stuff, I had a really good consulting base out of Ruger because there was a gentleman by the name of John Thorne, who was a world renowned metallurgy just that worked for Ruger. While he he was Dr. John Thorne, you know, like to be called that. But he knew a lot of really, really intense engineers in titanium, one of them being a doctor Freud's and Dr. Freud's had something like 80 some odd patents. And what was cool about Dr. Freud's is that he was part of skunkworks you know, part of life to one skunkworks

Joe Cadwell:

area. All right. Oh, I gotcha. Okay.

Mark Martinez:

Yeah. Where the Skunk Works was a division of I don't forget, which I think is McDonnell Douglas, or or one of those. And it was a division that made top secret aircraft like the YouTube the SRS 71, stuff like that.

Joe Cadwell:

Alright, it sounds like we got a topic for another podcast getting into Skunk Works and that so why is Why is titanium so beneficial for your average carpenter to be swinging?

Mark Martinez:

That's where I was going with this. Okay. The thing was, is, what I did notice was, there wasn't much shock when I started making my first titanium hammers. So what Dr. Freud's did was, he proved scientifically, that let's take a steel hammer when when a carpenter swings a steel hammer and he hits it 67% of that blow goes into the strike, and the nail

Joe Cadwell:

was the other 33% Go

Mark Martinez:

into your soft tissue. Now, if you're, yeah, it just absolutely destroys your arm.

Joe Cadwell:

So that's the reverberation, that that comes up the arm and can, over time begin to have soft tissue injury.

Mark Martinez:

Right, right. Carpal Tunnel was early injury, right. It was early on, in, in me recognizing this that we got the patent based on that criteria. And, but was more important is doctors started realizing that guys who were suffering from chronic carpenters elbow or you know, epicondylitis, the thing was, is he would prescribe these hammers to him and it would clean them up. So it became part of the workman's comp,

Joe Cadwell:

writing a prescription for carpenters hammer. I've never heard of such a thing, but it makes sense.

Mark Martinez:

Yeah. Right. And and everybody and actually the first workman's comp to really accelerate that and do that was Washington State.

Joe Cadwell:

Really, okay up where the podcast is home based out of the Pacific

Mark Martinez:

courses telling you how it how it broke down.

Joe Cadwell:

Man, that is amazing. Now quick break in the action for a word from our sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at Union Home Plus, union Home Plus has been in the business since 2002. Helping Northwest carpenter families just like yours, save money when they buy, sell, or finance their home. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you've probably heard me talk with Patrick Townes, the director of operations for a union Home Plus, Patrick and his team of finance real estate professionals are dedicated to helping you make the right decisions with what many considered to be the cornerstone of the American Dream Homeownership. For more information, be sure to check out the show notes and today's episode, or visit union Home Plus dot o RG on the web union Home Plus, helping Northwest carpenter families find their way home for nearly 20 years. And now back to the show.

Mark Martinez:

Yeah, oh, I think about all the stuff I've been through and it's it's pretty it is. I mean, I pinch myself I can't believe I know this much bullshit. I mean,

Joe Cadwell:

so you've come out with two hammers, you've come out with a framing hammer the M one and you've come out with the finishing Carpenter's hammer the M four. And what was the time lapse between the two? Which one came out first, the framing hammer?

Mark Martinez:

No, it pretty much the same time. The thing was, is when I sold stiletto to Milwaukee in 2007, you know, I didn't I was done with tools. I want nothing to do with them. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't a good experience, you might say it was in and I and I. And so therefore, I just receded and went back into the woodwork. Right. Now this 2007 I sold, I had to stay on Milwaukee for five years. But that got, you know, it ended in 2012.

Joe Cadwell:

And that's the Milwaukee tool line that now loans to at least it did, right. Okay.

Mark Martinez:

Right. Yeah, still does. And so what I did was, you know, I kept looking them and I had no interest in tools anymore. I hadn't even been in a Home Depot or any, I haven't even looked at a tool. And in years, years and years. And so one day, I went into Home Depot, and I looked and I started and I looked at the new S wings, and I looked at the new defaults, where you know, they had the head and the handle. And the Walt TIG welded their handle on to the head. On that new one they have,

Joe Cadwell:

okay, so not forward, and but actually TIG welding,

Mark Martinez:

TIG welded where Estwing forged it, okay.

Joe Cadwell:

And the difference being and design it, what's the difference? Why we

Mark Martinez:

design, the design just stuck, right? In my face, I looked and I go, Wow, these guys did it wrong. Hated it wrong. But they gave me the idea, you know, and all sudden, I had this epiphany of the M M one and I go, they haven't done any improvement in design from me designing the the tie bone, the all titanium stiletto in 2000. And here it is 2015 And nothing has nothing's been done. And I'm going, damn, I don't want to do it. So I called up a swing. And you know, cuz I know. And I know them. Well, sure. And I just told him I said, Hey, would you be interested, I have a design you might be interested in. And therefore we worked out a thing and man, it took a lot of BS to finally just be in a position to where I could show him my idea. And because what I really wanted to do was just design this thing and turn it over to Eskalene and let them be the heroes and how they're and have their titanium hammer. And I just collect a royalty you know and just and just be done. Well, that didn't pan out so good. What you know it came down to I'll show you yours if you show me mine. I'll show you mine if you show me yours sure kind of thing. And they were working on that new aluminum one, but I think they showed me theirs. Ah. And I said well, that's not cool.

Joe Cadwell:

You were fixing to get burned again. And from what I'm understanding this hammer business is pretty cutthroat. So what did you do to keep from from getting burned again.

Mark Martinez:

I opened up I just looked at it. I called my old engineer and told him Hey, bro, I got an idea. And I'm gonna like this candle again. You know, I took a grip of money, a lot of money. And I just fired it. And I said and I lit up all my contacts again. And I was up and running in one month. Titanium foundries all the manufacture everybody just came on board with me and said Mark if you're doing it, I'm behind you 100% So so the Martinus was born and I and I developed it and came out with it in six tene or 17 Okay, and I've never had inventory again.

Joe Cadwell:

So for the listeners who may not know who haven't found them their selves on to the Martinez tools.com website yet what what differentiates a Martinez hammer when we'll talk later about the rest of your tools to align what differentiates a Martinez hammer from the competition aside from the fact that it's made with titanium and I understand you actually use a titanium and steel hybrid as well. Where am I in Corolla?

Mark Martinez:

Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Are you familiar with the stiletto tie bones?

Joe Cadwell:

I can't say that I am as a commercial diver. I swing a different type of hammer.

Mark Martinez:

Okay, well anyway your your listeners will know what I mean cuz that's what I was swinging up and then when request and then switching from that one to my but the tide bone how to replaceable face on it with a very precarious way that you took the face off the way you took the bolt off, and you took the face off, okay? And it would loosen and it had an allen head in there if you didn't get the wrench in there just right you strip it, then you couldn't get the bolt out. It was problematic, it wasn't easy to take off and replace the face. Because titanium isn't durable as a striking tool. It's very malleable, very moldable, where you have an RC which is hardness on a head, steel head between like 4049 and 52, something like that. Okay, and and titanium, you're lucky if you can get it up to 30.

Joe Cadwell:

So titanium cuts down on the vibration back to the user's arm, but the steel head is designed to take the impact.

Mark Martinez:

Right? Okay, right. And, and but stiletto had that too. But the problem was, is all the cost was in the titanium handle. So if you have that head, tied to your titanium handle, and you break something on that head, you kind of buy a whole nother $250 Hammer, yikes. Yeah, they went, Well, that doesn't make much sense, you know, that needed to be changed. And that was the epiphany I had at Home Depot. Okay, and so I went. And then this, the other thing was, is the grip on the stiletto on the tie bone was vulcanized on. So what that meant is you had to have the hand titanium handle in the plant, where the ham when the handle was going to be put on, and they actually mounted the titanium handle into the fixture, and then the machine sheen closes and the rubber shoots around, it opens up and you've got a handle on the hammer, right? Sure. Well, what happens, if something happens to that grip,

Joe Cadwell:

you're buying a new hammer,

Mark Martinez:

or you're having to send it back. And with all of them that are coming back, they vulcanize the old ones. And what they do is they go out to a rack and they pull one that looks kinda like yours with the same wear and tear. And that's the one you get back no GS, so you don't get you don't get your regular hammer back.

Joe Cadwell:

And then downtime. That's your without your favorite

Mark Martinez:

tool. 668 weeks. Yeah,

Joe Cadwell:

so now Martinez tools, you have interchangeable hammers and interchangeable heads on your tools. And I understand you can actually design and build your own tool to your liking color on the handles, grip materials on the handles. And that's all part of your innovations. Right. That's fantastic.

Mark Martinez:

I just, I just took it to a whole different level. So everybody that's had the experience of wearing out a stiletto grip looks at me and goes, I can just change the grip. You know, anytime I want. You know, if I don't like that grip, buy a new good put a grip on it. I don't like that head, I want to put a smaller head on, I put it on. But inadvertently when I when I designed and and came up with this, you know this interlocking head to the handle and bolting it on. I didn't realize at that time what I was doing, because I did in a way, but I didn't know the effects would be like this. The thing is, is by separating that titanium in that steel head it didn't allow any of the vibration to go down into the tie. knot like if it was all molded as one do you follow me? I am. So the thing was is all of a sudden you take a martini and you slam it down on concrete is a dead bow deadblow it just said it says nothing. Whereas if you take a steel hammer and you slam it down on concrete, you're gonna look like a cartoon, you know what I mean? And so it's a it's, it's a technology that's, I'm not gonna say it's time. It's time.

Joe Cadwell:

So it's innovations that build upon innovation and it sounds like you've perfected the carpenters tool. Now in prepping for our interview Mark I did do a little research online and visited your website website, which I'm very impressed with. I saw a video where you're, you're quoted as saying it's better to work from the heart and not from the wallet What exactly do you mean by that?

Mark Martinez:

Passion? Passion. If you have a passion for something, you're not working, you know, and if you're doing it right and you're doing it with extreme passion, the money just follows you. It just comes. It's effortless, it's effortless. But if you and but you have to be doing some constructive and you know, in forward, but, you know, you don't approach a job by going, how much money am I gonna make? I used to do that, you know, how much money can I make doing this? And you know, is it gonna be? I just threw that out the window. You know, for the, for the first what, five years of stiletto I paid myself $15 an hour. You know, I didn't pay myself anything, I could hardly even pay my rent as the company grew, but I was so drunk and so motivated in passion, that the money left my mind. And I woke up one day and there was somebody knocking on my door trying to pull an armored truck in my yard and dump it out and love it my company. See what I'm saying? I do that. That wasn't in one of our earlier years. The what it was all about was seeing how I can get that armored truck here as fast as I could, you know, any mean? So I had my priorities in the wrong place. I had them. I had them in the wallet. You know, any mean? The minute I turned all that into my passion, which is my heart, man, you know, think about it.

Joe Cadwell:

All right. So your passion has has pushed this company to where it is today Mark and, and for the average carpenter and I know you know, our union carpenters make make a livable wage, and everything that goes with being in a union. But when you go apples to apples, dollars, it is there's a significant difference in the cost of an S Wang a dead on tools, a heart hammer, stiletto or a Martinez hammer. And aside from being a veteran owned company, aside from your products being made in the good ole us evey with 100% workmanship guarantee side from being bespoke, in the fact that it's titanium and steel hybrid. How, how can we convince the average carpenter that it's worth investing in a Martinez tool?

Mark Martinez:

I you know, that's, that's a really loaded question. It's not convincing anybody. I'm not out to convince anybody. I'm just out here to make it available, and let you draw your own conclusions. You know what I'm saying? But when you see you know, all the the high end guys, you know, the the alphas of the job and I don't need to tell you that, you know, the the betas follow the alphas, you know, and alphas on a on a job site, you know, they're their predominant, and alphas don't bullshit at all.

Joe Cadwell:

They don't cheap out on. So they buy the best knowing that they're going to get the best, they're going to demand the best out of the tools they're using, along the lines of professional mechanics, auto mechanics, my father in law was a snap on tool dealer. And I know that way,

Mark Martinez:

let's say how many snap on ads have you seen in magazines or on TV?

Joe Cadwell:

Absolutely. And those mechanics would line up when when he would roll the snap on tool truck up in front of those dealerships. And they were gladly reaching into their pocket to buy the best and I think, you know, I can't say that. I know for a fact what what your average shop mechanic makes but I can't imagine it's too much more or much less than what an average carpenter professional carpenter in a in the building trades in a union working for a union company brings. But yet there's a mindset there that says we're just going to buy cheap. And it seems like to me it's the wrong philosophy to have especially when you're considering like what you're saying your longevity in the in the craft is dependent on your physicality. And if you can take care of your shoulder, you can take care of your arms, you can take care of your your hands by swinging a hammer that has little recoil, it just seems like a no brainer that you would want to invest from an early point that the swing something that is going to take care of you

Mark Martinez:

actually, you know, advertising that I'm not even looking at this as an advertisement or any kind of spraying more sales or whatever because currently, you know, there's

Joe Cadwell:

dozens of people listening to this podcast right now. Okay, does it literally a half a dozen people I imagine. But no I can I am a big proponent being in my craft mark. Just going back to commercial diving. Yeah, it was life support equipment. It was the tools of the trade that we entered the water with to get our work done and we there was no monkeying around. There was no time to bring down a tool that was going to to not perform for you to break time was money and we could not afford to bring in junk.

Mark Martinez:

Anthony this Joe Anthony this. What are the professions you know, and I've been a lifelong carpenter. Okay. I live and die. He breeds thought us, that's who I am. You know, any mean? I just love working with wood. And you know, I like to think that I'm pretty good with it. But there's much better. Absolutely. And every time I see somebody but some of the skills that I see still surviving, I'm just really excited. But where what are the professions you know, where a guy could go down to Home Depot and walk out of there with with less than a $250 bill and call himself a carpenter and have enough tools hanging on his side to go and pretend he's one?

Joe Cadwell:

Sure. And we see plenty of those people cruising around town with a magnetic signs slap to the side of their truck claimed to be, you know, rockers or framers, so roofers

Mark Martinez:

and how many? Okay, so with that said, with that said, you know, nobody, no Tool Company in the history of carpentry? Nobody makes a high quality tool. You brought up the snap on box. Here's a mechanic, probably, man, I'm making any more than what that union carpenter is making. Right?

Joe Cadwell:

Right. Yeah.

Mark Martinez:

So now the thing is, is you walk over to his toolbox, just his toolbox. And you ask him how much he's in to his toolbox, he'll tell you the box alone cost him 10 grand. And he'll start showing you torque wrenches that cost him $500. Do you think he worries about what those things cost? He just wants his work done, right. Because he knows that by showing up with a snap on toolbox, and having those good tools and knowing how to use them is gonna get him to the top of the food chain.

Joe Cadwell:

It's almost a badge of honor, you know, to some extent be to be sporting the best tools. And I know a lot of people take pride and all my stuff is so beat up and look how worn it is. But if it's if it's junk, it's junk, and you're replacing it, and you're constantly having to go through that. And I think that's why so many carpenters are so proud of those leather occidental bags that they wear, they don't buy the cheapest stuff, or maybe they do. And they realize that everyone else on the workforce is wearing Occidental, and that those Occidental's were like iron, their leather, but they were like iron, and that it's an investment in your craft and your your future as a professional carpenter. And I think the same thing goes with investing in the tool that you swing on a day to day basis. And again, I'm not trying to do promo for you, Mark, I just I see a lot of I see that the the mindset of getting into something from the get go with the mindset that yes, I am a professional, I invest in my future of myself and my family by getting the right tool to do the job.

Mark Martinez:

Think about, think about having a tool that compromises you on the job. Why would you have that tool? You know what I mean? You You wouldn't buy $1 298 regulator at the flea market and that test and put it on your tanks and dive down there and work with it, would you? Absolutely not. No, no, no, because why? Your life hinges on it. Well, I'm not gonna say that your life hinges on the hammer. But your physical, you know, you're you're tearing yourself apart if you're not and I don't care if it's a stiletto. I don't care if it's a DeLuca I don't care who's titanium swaying titanium, if you can, because it's gonna save you in the long run. You know, any mean? Find something you're comfortable with? Or don't swing something so heavy that it's gonna blow your arm. You know, just be conscious of how you get that longevity. Early on with stiletto I got a really moving letter from a union guy. Okay, damn near brought me to tears. Now when a union carpenter sits down and pins you a letter on his wife's? Thank you stationery. Okay? You know, he's got something to say. Right?

Joe Cadwell:

Good. So what did he say? Yeah.

Mark Martinez:

He was thanking me from the deepest part of his heart for giving him his life back. Outside and he wanted a personally telling me that. Well think about it. He said that he had epicondylitis so bad. That what he would have to do is have come home, given his easy chair, and he would start taking meds and drinking behind it to kill the pain so that he could wake up the next morning and feed his family. But he was comatose from the time he got home to the time he went to work the next day, only to suffer through and go through again. Okay, well, him switched into titanium. He no longer had to take meds and clear cleared him up. And he had his life back. He could play with his kids. He watched TV with his family. He could interact with him. He wasn't on the moon. trying to suppress the pain he was going through to support his family. Think about that.

Joe Cadwell:

Sounds like he found the right tool and maybe he didn't get a prescription for it but it extended his career and his longevity and improve the quality of his life.

Mark Martinez:

Right What else was he going to do? That's what he knew how to do. You know, so when that really opened my eyes as to what this technology really it really, really opened my eyes so Martinez takes it to the next level. Just takes it to the next level.

Joe Cadwell:

Mark this has been a fantastic conversation where can people go to find out more about you and your tools?

Mark Martinez:

I Martinez tools.com You know, and any questions that they might have? You can DM me on Instagram, I answer all my DMs and I've got 100 I got over 100,000 followers so I answered I answered quite a few.

Joe Cadwell:

All right, well, thank you again, sir, for taking your time to be on the show. It's been a real pleasure.

Mark Martinez:

Thank you and you and thank you for inviting me and how you guys out there. Thanks for all the great support and man I'm just gonna keep on going as long as I can. Not sure how long that is. I'm no spring chicken but we'll see what comes up

Joe Cadwell:

I guess day has been marked Martinez designer of the revolutionary M one and m for titanium hybrid hammers. To learn more about the Martinez Tool Company. Be sure to check out the show notes on your smart device. There you will find hyperlinks that will help you dive deeper into the subject

Mark Martinez:

I could have banned it I could expand it on so much of that.

Joe Cadwell:

I'd love to talk to you about the project skunk skunk project later maybe another she'll go down that that rabbit hole