ChatGPR: Igor Koronić from Croatia
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Gene Fetty: [00:00:00] Hey, what's up guys? Gene Fetty with AAI, back with another session of our chat GPR. Today, we're going a little international with Mr. Igor Koronić live from Croatia. Right, made the flight over for the Anson open house and we decided to snag him and get a little sneak peek into what the glue pool world looks like in In Europe, right?
So, Igor, thanks so much for, for agreeing to the interview, uh, glad to come over, uh, and, right, maybe we'll be able to sneak in a meal. If not now, you'll have to come back and we'll hit Vegas again. Maybe you can come to our part of the world. There we go, a trip to Croatia. There it is. All right, good deal.
Uh, so, uh, welcome to the show. How about a little background on, uh, how long you've been in PDR? Where do you generally work? What, what does, what does your PDR life look like?
Igor Koronić: Well, I started 2008, January, 2008. Okay. [00:01:00] Just, I was given one rod, red Mazda, Hood and a bulb like a neon bulb or something and I was told to fix it that and that's it And that's it.
That's that and that's my school. Yeah, it's right to the wolves and the next day was a BMW x5 hail car. Oh, and they let me work on that And I felt great working on one piece of roof with a guy And I was so happy and so proud until they called me to cross check the car from the behind. Yeah, I, I'm not sure if they ever fixed that.
Right. It might've been, it might've been a goner. That was absolutely horrible. But, uh, yeah, I was just looking what people were doing and working and this is how I got into. So basically self taught. Self taught. And, uh, I didn't really know in English PDR. You know what it means, but in my country that [00:02:00] doesn't mean nothing, you know, it doesn't have a meaning.
So if you, you wouldn't come to idea of researching, googling a word PDR or, right. So when I discovered the first time we had, uh, only one brand of tools in the country, and then we got a SKB case full of fancy, beautiful tools. Okay. And I was like, whoa, thankfully they had engraved the name of the tools on it.
So then it was done. Crap. This is when I Googled and I was like, well, tails, you know, right. Right. The whole new world. Yes. It was a new world. And that was a few years after. We started somewhere. I don't know. And then, uh, we were still not the part of EU. We were inside Europe, of course, but right part of EU and every work outside the country was basically illegal.
Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Because you cannot get any [00:03:00] papers or whatever. And the borders were pretty weak. Sure. No, only one border to cross and the whole Europe is open. No more borders, you know? Right. This is how we worked for. Um, till 2013, I think, and, uh, all across Europe, everywhere, everywhere. I was an employee of the company, a slave, right?
Yeah, sure. We all were at that company and we were the only ones in Croatia, like four guys in the country. Okay. PDR. Wow. Today we have maybe 22, three. I'm not sure. It's still
Gene Fetty: small, right? Not a huge country, but still not a lot of technicians.
Igor Koronić: Yeah. I would say enough and not enough. You know, because we don't have so much hail, but when it happens, we do have friends who we call, you know, we don't miss people.
And that's actually it. I was working. I didn't work on Antarctica and I didn't work in South America. And that's it. So everywhere else you've been everywhere else. [00:04:00] And, uh, I could say North of Europe, Scandinavia is my favorite part because the, the level of, of, uh, How do you say that? Yeah, my English is broken.
That's all right. Uh, it's pretty good. You know, the economy is good. They pay well and, uh, they treat you like they should treat every single person that works, you know, with a lot of respect. And, uh, it's nice, you know, Switzerland and, uh, North Europe is pretty nice to work. Yeah. I also spend many years in Japan teaching in school over there.
Gene Fetty: Okay.
Igor Koronić: And, uh, Yeah. That's it actually.
Gene Fetty: Yeah. World traveler all over the place. Do you still have the yellow suitcase with the stickers? Is it here? Yeah. That, that may be the most well traveled suitcase in PDR. I know Dave did a lot of travel, but I think he was mostly back and forth. All right. Igor has, has branched out.
[00:05:00] So, uh, technicians since 2008 done some instructing. What does, What does glue pool look like for you? Are you just doing hail? Are you seeing glue pool coming into collision? What do you see? I
Igor Koronić: love, I love glue pooling and I love hail. Parking dents are something that is always something I don't want to do because in Europe, mostly, if you have a hail car, every parking dent on the car, you have to fix for free, basically.
Right. You know, this is how I started hating, not hating, just don't I didn't like dislike it. Right. Yeah. I just dislike it. And, uh, but then again, when you work on a proper place where they pay you for what you do, it's not a problem to fix a parking den. Right. And I always use glue always on every parking den.
I think I start with the glue just to get it, just to get it moving in a matter of seconds. You have it 80 percent done. Right. Right. I do love it. I use it. [00:06:00] Yeah.
Gene Fetty: Yeah, what are your favorite, uh, what are your favorite glue pool tools? What, what are you, what, what's your glue? What kind of tabs do you like and what, what are your go tos?
So my,
Igor Koronić: my favorite tabs are Laka square ones. That's two people today for the square Laka tabs. Yeah, that's good. HF, the black square ones, they were the first. I don't know, I've seen this. Yes, you have. Okay. They are at the every MT. Okay. Father and the daughter in the blue shirts. Oh, yeah, yeah,
Gene Fetty: yes.
Igor Koronić: Okay.
They made the first square tab that I've ever seen with the same twist on the top. Yeah. This is what they did. Okay. It's their product. Their design. Their design. And their, their tab is absolutely perfect. I love that tab and I love, uh, dentless. Yeah. I absolutely adore them because they are smooth in my hand.
Right. Sharp. You know, right. Absolutely love the feel of them and they pull pretty good. [00:07:00] They don't break so much. KECO, uh, Mac Meyer, uh, Dantripper. Yeah. Yeah. That's like 80, 90 percent off. Those are your go to's. And one brand that's dead. Um, they didn't make many glue tabs, but three types of glue tabs they did are my everyday.
Something that we use glue, cold glue today for is what I use. Those glue tabs for hot glue.
Gene Fetty: Okay.
Igor Koronić: It needs to be a wet pool. Right. And it's absolutely amazing. And I've asked one of the companies if they can make those tabs for me, because Yeah, I have few left and I'm not sure what to
Gene Fetty: do.
Igor Koronić: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't care if they break, they don't break so much for the big damage.
They do big damage you, you repair, but I absolutely love them. I hope, uh, they will be able to recreate them really because there
Gene Fetty: is somebody, [00:08:00] somebody somewhere we'll be able to recreate it. Well, I hope they will. Yeah, I think they will. And what about your glue? What's, what's your go to glue or glues?
Igor Koronić: Glue. Okay. Um, we don't have, we do have big differences in temperatures, but not so much in humidity. I would say so. Okay. And, uh, the thing I spoke this morning at breakfast with Dave is about just coming to a new country or new season of the year. It takes a few pools, like two pools, three pools until I get the set setup time, right?
That's everything I need to use always the same glue. Yes. And that's what I love because I already know 99 percent of time. I pull perfect, perfectly timing wise. Yeah. So I have one blue and then I have one more for big, big stuff that when the metal doesn't move, I have one that. That
Gene Fetty: really, really works well for you.
It works well. Yeah. [00:09:00] Nice. So guys listen to that. Pay attention to that. It's a repeating theme here, right? The, these great technicians are not chasing all the different glues, right? They're finding one or two glues that work and they're mastering and learning those glues.
Igor Koronić: You know, if you don't, I use Polish honey glue for like 10 years.
Okay. And it's good. Yep. It was perfect for me. And then I get, got a chance to try something else. And it was like, Whoa, right. This is a big, huge different game. It's a really Polish honey is a great glue. It was a great glue before all this new stuff came out. Right. But now for the last, I think two or three years I'm using the dark green glue.
Okay. What's the name? The cactus green from no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's packed by kilos. Um, Megapower or something. Megapower. Okay. Yep. I've seen that. I've seen that brand before. It's dark green. It's [00:10:00] absolutely brilliant. You don't need alcohol to remove it from the car. It pulls crazy on the smallest tabs on the biggest tabs.
Everything in between. Always every day of the year. Nice. For me, that's the best, but some people say a tab weld is brilliant for them. I've tried it and. It didn't do anything for me. That's why all these different glues exist,
Gene Fetty: right? Try them out. Test drive. Find what works for you. And that's it. That's it.
That's the name of the game.
Igor Koronić: Having 10 different glues, you know, Oh, this doesn't work on Wednesdays. I need, it doesn't work for me. I found my glue. For example, John, John is incredible with glue. He really is. And he uses the glue that we all threw away like 15 years ago,
Gene Fetty: but he knows that glue inside knows
Igor Koronić: the glue.
That's the thing. He managed to know the glue good and he knows how to use it.
Gene Fetty: And he uses it all year round. Oh, all year round, big, dense, little dense. I tried to. I said, John, try this, try this. No, I know my glue. He doesn't want I just adjust. He's like, I don't want it. It's not broken. I'm not going to fix it.
Exactly. [00:11:00] And you certainly can't argue with his results. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.
Igor Koronić: He doesn't have a reason to change. No, not at all. And to go in a different directions.
Gene Fetty: Yes. Absolutely. Uh, so maybe that's your best piece of advice is to try all the glues and find one. Uh, what, what advice would you give to somebody trying to.
Learned loophole, something, somebody trying to get started in glue, poor repair,
Igor Koronić: just to be open minded and listen to the advice from someone who tried it before. Right. Just that right. Three people can give you three different advices. Try them all. Right. Absolutely. Because he didn't tell you wrong. He just told you what works for him, correct?
It doesn't mean it's going to work for you because I have a different slide hammer. You have a different slide hammer. You use mini lifter. So just try it. I'm going to tell you this glue with this and this, and that's it. If it doesn't work for you, try something else.
Gene Fetty: Exactly. It's very simple. That's what I learned very early on.
That there is more than one way to skin a cat. [00:12:00] There's always more approaches. I had my original instructor was a line guy, right? You have to work lines you inside out my dent guy that they came into the detail shop. You don't need lines. Use a bare fluorescent bulb. And then my mentor was a wizard, right?
Ah, fog's the only way inside and out. All three of those guys could fix dents. So I was fortunate that early on in my career, I learned that. It's not wrong. It's their way, right? It's the hardest, harder way. I believe it's harder. It's possible. It's doable, but it's hard. Yeah. But it's, but to be open minded is such great advice.
Yeah, for sure. Good deal. Well, Igor, thanks so much for taking a few minutes and sitting down with us. Thanks for giving us a little peek into, to what your, uh, glue game looks like. And, uh, I'm sure we'll see you. for holding me up. Absolutely.
