David Seber has been using hemp to improve products for over 30 years. He joins Joy Beckerman to talk about his plywood that uses hemp instead of wood sawdust and his hemp wood stain & sealant. His company, Hemp Shield produces hemp-oil based wood stain and wood sealant which last longer than its chemical-based counterpart and is non-toxic. Produced by PodCONX https://podconx.com/guests/david-seber
David Seber has been using hemp to improve products for over 30 years. He joins Joy Beckerman to talk about his plywood that uses hemp instead of wood sawdust and his hemp wood stain & sealant. His company, Hemp Shield produces hemp-oil based wood stain and wood sealant which last longer than its chemical-based counterpart and is non-toxic.
https://podconx.com/guests/david-seber
Announcer: [00:00:09] Welcome to another episode of Hemp Barons. On today's show, Joy brings back an old friend and former guest to talk about his early Hemp pioneering breakthroughs, including plywood made from Hemp and Hemp oil based wood stain and sealant. Let's join Joy's conversation with David Sieber from Hemp Shield.
Joy Beckerman: [00:00:38] Well, David, thank you for being with us on Hemp Barons today.
David Seber: [00:00:42] Thank you for inviting me. It was very nice of you.
Joy Beckerman: [00:00:45] Well, it's very nice of you to make time for us. David Seeber, you are a Hemp hero of just really tremendous and special special proportions, decades in this movement. And that is as we're aware and you and I have known each other for a number of years now. And you have been involved, of course, in the movements for Cannabis in all of its forms. You are just prolific in your in your intellect, in your activism in the region. Impact that you have had over the last 30 plus years. We're getting into the 40 year mark with you in these movements. And I want to get right into it because again, your impact and contributions are so voluminous that there's just a lot to talk about here. And I like to talk from the beginning. And in the beginning you began to learn about Hemp and Cannabis and all of those different forms on an intellectual level. I'm sure you enjoyed them as a young man or enjoyed, you know, adult youth, Cannabis medical Cannabis as a young man, but then began to learn about these fiber alternatives. And you then created a business and the first poster and still my favorite poster that I used to educate with a fiber alternative. Can you explain how that came to be and and what motivated you to start in the in the 90s?
David Seber: [00:02:18] I had left Oregon for a year, so I moved out to the bay. And when I came back, I teamed up with Wave. Khandi Wave and I have friends forever. And he has been a Hemp activist for a really, really long time. And after I moved back, he had a lumber yard. And then after I moved back on the lumber yard, he and I took a trip down to the Bay Area and went and visited Jeff Rosenthal and bought a bunch, the caps and all sorts of memorabilia stuff that he had. He when we got back the next day, I'm looking at all this stuff and I walk into the office and I say to William, I see it's really nice that we got these caps and all that. But what business are we. Saying? What are you talking about? I said, what's your business? He says, we're no lumber business, ISIS. Then how come we're not making the lumber with the Hemp? And that's how it all got started. I felt like I owed dues to the forest. I wanted to see what plan was possible to replace the amount of fiber that we derive out of the forest. And it turned out that the only place that could do that in non tropical areas is a store. I then started working with Mr. Tom Malony, who was the head of the Washington State University Wood Materials Engineering Lab. And we created the first piece of coral class Hemp medium density fiberboard. And the reason why I chose that was because it used to showcase product of compositor industry. And so I knew that if I could demonstrate that that whoever was into manufacturing would realize they could make anything. If we could make that, not only did it come out really, really well, we we. Over 99 percent of the requirements for it on our first our first round of testing.
Joy Beckerman: [00:04:52] I wanted him to quickly draw draw attention to that. David, what you're saying here and what I've known about you and in fact have photographs of this beautiful hardbound book called Proceedings 30th International Particle Board Composite Materials Symposium at Washington State University in 1996. You created with Dr. Erwin Lloyd the first and the F medium density fiberboard way back in 1996 with Hemp. Is this amazing?
David Seber: [00:05:24] That's correct. And we and Mr. Malony, who was the head of the department, was the greatest academic mind in the compositor industries. You ever produced.
David Seber: [00:05:38] So it was a true spiritual meeting of the minds on all sorts of levels and way back in 1996 and I'm looking at photographs, by the way, because of course, I've been to your home many times and I love going through your building materials in your archives and and looking at the photographs that I've taken of this very medium density. fiberboard. One of them is, of course, dated 3, 3, 94, 12 percent. And the I just in plastics and other composites that you have made.
Joy Beckerman: [00:06:15] So. And please don't go right back and take us to that. That accomplishment at Ground Zero.
David Seber: [00:06:22] Well, that's what I was going to say was before the we. This is what's called an engineer product compositor. And that means that they're set up to satisfy a set of standards. In the case of construction composites, those standards more could mimic the performance of soft wood. So that's where they develop the original standards for the wood industry and also for the compositing industry. And in the process of making up prototypes and rounds of prototypes. At one point, we actually had boards that were three times stronger than sawn lumber. But the deal was, is that this is an engineered product.
David Seber: [00:07:17] So any deviation is is a deviation. Even if it's positive. So we had we took the numbers back so that we were in confirmation. And at the same time, I attended for three years. And I finally presented at the international, I suppose the amount comply. It's an industrial whizzer with their own mood that you help me to write out the paper that we present. Is it teach him about him? So the rest of the story goes in that Tom Aloni was was a great genius. He was good enough that he was the only one. He ran the international composites from Pullman every year, and the top 500 production and owners of all the composite mills all over the world attended this meeting because Tom had the gravitas study that he had. He would always make the last session of the last day on the non wood based complies. Every three years I sat in the main vestibule where everybody transferred between sessions and I was told that I had the best samples of anyone. And this was all all the manufacturers and production managers, as I say, from all the composite plants all over the world. And when they said, what do you have there? And I told them, they said, where did you break that? And I told them. They knew it was real bad. At that point, the entire industry knew that this worked. And it turned out that the only industry, existing industry that we could use basically as it is, is the composite industry.
Joy Beckerman: [00:09:25] You mean. And by that you mean with most of the industries that have served, whether it's grain, whether it's textile, whether it's paper, we have to alter the infrastructure. We have to alter the machinery and the engineering around it. Yes. What you're saying there is we do not need to alter the infrastructure or the composite industry. Is that what you're telling us?
David Seber: [00:09:49] That's what I'm saying, that there's a minor, minor addition of a machine in the front of the line, which is relatively a part of 1 percent. It's it's minor expense in terms of a factory. Otherwise, it runs the way it is has. As I later found out, every time that I got to do research, the products that I produced weren't just equivalents. They were superior. For example, at one point we actually made boards, panels that were three times the strength of the saw number. Now, that is not an accepted form, but that demonstrates what you can do. And to present at this show was the height of the credibility. Sponsored by the Forest Products Society, normally because it's on the last day and it's the last session, everybody usually leaves. They don't even want to hear about it. And I could understand why, because the years before I presented on Hemp, they were doing presentations based on graphs and other things that made no sense at all, even to them. A hundred and twenty five of the 500 people who attended day specifically to hear our talk. The way you works is you get up and you give a 20 minute talk and then they give you they give the crowd 20 minutes to come at you. And there's always a couple of guys in the crowd who are suddenly reading everything that comes out. We gave our presentation. Sure enough, the two guys stood up. I refuted everything that they said. When the session was over, everybody stood up and applauded. That was definitely a high point in industrial Hemp and at the very beginning.
Joy Beckerman: [00:11:54] I mean, that's when we really first started to gain a little traction there, right? One day we were going to make the movie Dave. These stories are just so, so amazing. And there and so early and so ready. And yet it takes another 30 years or so.
David Seber: [00:12:14] And it's just so I want to continue to have through that. Tom Lowney introduced me to the number two main hub of the heaviest redneck lumber company in the United States, which is Roseburg Lumber. They make particle board and I was invited to go visit them. And I went and had I brought my my my prototype borsa with. It definitely was a setup. It was totally friendly. After I spoke, he said to me, he says, Dave, we know what you did worked and we know it's real. The issue is we need we use 14:00 dry pounds of fiber every day. Three hundred and twenty three days a year. As soon as you're ready to meet our quantity and our price, we're ready to buy. You take home the Hemp that's being grown in the world right now. You don't have enough to feed that one factory.
[00:13:25] Absolutely. And when you tell me what year was it, the year that you're talking about this? Because I think I lost track. The Romesberg lumber here. When did that happen?
David Seber: [00:13:35] 96 to 97.
Joy Beckerman: [00:13:38] And when you say the amount of fiber. Were you talking about Hemp fiber or were you talking about some other cellulose?
David Seber: [00:13:45] No, I was talking about bio fiber. Just wood fiber, actually. Wood waste. So you saw those in chips to make particle board.
Joy Beckerman: [00:13:56] Got you. I just wanted to make sure that we clarify that for the audience who was not as ingrained in all of this is as you and I.
David Seber: [00:14:04] And what has happened was the federal government had shut off the access to lumber from the national forest. So the price of wood waste went crazy for a while there in the 1960s. In the 1990s. So they were looking for a viable alternative because the price had gone up like 500 percent. And they were used to just paying for the cost of the gas, basically to drive the truck back for it. So it was almost free. Now, all of a sudden, it was expensive. So that's why they were looking for alternatives. And that's how the Hemp came out.
Joy Beckerman: [00:14:50] Absolutely. And now, 26 years later, we can start to fill that supply and fill that demand.
David Seber: [00:14:57] Well, not only that, I realize that that we weren't going to be able to go from zero to those kind of numbers.
Joy Beckerman: [00:15:08] Of course, not right away that we had to develop a bunch of intermediary crops that while making the farmer money on a very fast basis, starting in the year two with a black bottom line to be able to support a farm with with was a product from that.
Joy Beckerman: [00:15:32] Now, it's not unusual, of course, that products that. We begin to blend Hemp into whether they're food, cosmetic industrial oils and sealants, bio composites, paper, textiles that they start building materials, Hemp create, you know, of a big one that these these materials start to behave better and more superior than they were before. Not an unusual discovery when we start to do our GHI with Hemp and actually use the plant for all of its potential.
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Joy Beckerman: [00:16:51] And before we get into another incredible example of your contribution and of exactly that fact, a superior performance which is Hemp Shield Your Baby, your masterpiece. I want to talk a little bit about pyrolysis and bio digestion because it's so important on so many levels of planetary healing and of course, for our farmers and to create a very first market for that biomass. So could you first tell our audience what is pyrolysis, what is bio digestion? So they first can get the difference between pyrolysis and bio digestion and then we'll talk a little bit further about those things.
David Seber: [00:17:35] This is because as a continuation of this story, pyrolysis is the combustion of biomass in a sealed container with low oxygen and bio digestion is where you use bio activity at a micro level to digest the biomass. There are not the same at all in the way that they work. Pyrolysis involves a combustion. Now I have to talk about two different different ways that pyrolysis works. One way is to use an external heat source in the process of paralyzing the biomass. You pull off a volatile gas that can be used as a fuel. This thing is because of perpetual motion, if that's what you use. Now, I just recently went through my files and I saw a picture of somebody else who's using a giant microwave set up to do pyrolysis unhip stock where instead of using an open heating, you use microwaves Hemp. And the point of it is that you why make char and not not ash. You want char. And the deal with Charlie is that charcoal has sixteen hundred square feet of surface area per gram, even if you powder it. So anything that you put on is on the on the earth where you put enough charcoal stays there. So this is. This is the end of bad agricultural and forestry practices. It's the end of polluting the watershed to do agriculture or to do forestry and to continue to story when they told me how much they needed.
David Seber: [00:19:49] And I found out that that was that was the high end, but that was the range that one of these mills used. I realised that we had to have some intermediate steps so that the farmers could build up the crop and because their farmers. Those steps have to be fairly easy to do and fairly profitable very quickly. And that's where the pyrolysis comes in. What you're getting is you can make biofuel, you can make diesel, you can make gasoline, or you can make plastic resins. And what's interesting is whatever you make, it's absolutely pure, which is not the way that it comes from the earth. So it actually does perform better than the normal forms of that stuff because it's totally pure. In other words, if you're going to run it and you're going to make plastic Reagan, it's pure blue, pure resin. If you're going to make a biofuel, it's a hundred percent pure gasoline or 100 percent pure biodiesel, which is really interesting because they normally have a big crop. Separating out the constituents of raw oil from the Earth. There's a whole line of products that could come from it. The first thing after we develop the bio char is to make a thing called carbon black. I don't know if you ever heard of this, but it's a substance and its main use is automobile tires and coherant.
David Seber: [00:21:33] Encodings. And it's a big market niche product that can be made from the carbon. Nice things.
David Seber: [00:21:41] The fiber, once it's burned makes incredible nanu too.
David Seber: [00:21:48] And I don't know if you ever heard of the law from the intel that says that every generation of chips should be four times more powerful than one before.
David Seber: [00:22:01] But they know there's only two steps left that they should stay on. Sukant. Keep going. So they're going to switch to carbon. That's so funny that we can start making chips and circuitry out of Hemp carpet products. We we can also make graphite and graphene.
Joy Beckerman: [00:22:23] So I again want to just so impress upon the listeners that when we talk about what the farmers can do, the first market, the farmers themselves can farm this stuff and get these pyrolysis machines and start creating these materials that can be used for energy, for nanotechnology and for the air and space industries.
David Seber: [00:22:46] Yes, that's true. But what I'd say is we can start on a really simple level that a farmer can understand. In that view, solution to pyrolysis itself is less than the cost of a new tractor is less than a billion dollars, according to the wording I'm looking at. Within two to three years, the farmers can have a black bottom line. This is what. And so you get to understand what it is and how to use it.
Joy Beckerman: [00:23:20] And this is why the USDA is performing research on pyrolysis. They are clearly missing the mark. And let me ask you this before we move on to Henschel. And that is pyrolysis versus bio digestion. So we've learned about parol, pyrolysis, pyrolysis, creates char and all of these other gases that can be pulled out and so many things that can be made with these pure pressed plastic resins. These pure fuels now with bio digestion. Can you tell us a little bit more about bio digestion and what that can do for the farm in terms of producing fuel and energy on farm and and what is left over and what we can do with that?
David Seber: [00:24:05] The end result of the bio digestion by digestion is basically just an extension of organic farming. This she this active Cobb. Is the process of actively composting soil pyrolysis where?
Joy Beckerman: [00:24:23] I don't mean to say all the magic is because bio digestion is certainly an important thing, although certainly a valuable used to have compost that you made yourself far less valuable than a pyrolysis operation where you're creating char and it fuels and plastic resin.
David Seber: [00:24:42] Right. It doesn't have the breadth of the applications that the bio the pyrolysis provides.
Joy Beckerman: [00:24:52] So helpful. Brother's so helpful. And I want to make sure, brother, the real treasure here of all of your treasures. Everybody who knows about Hemp Shield does some project with Hemp Shield, whether it's in three Herrman doing her barn in Manitoba, Canada, whether it's a dog house being done by the monograph somewhere, and all manner of art projects and other construction. Tell us first about Hemp. Shield, of course, is an industrial sealant and it is it can it comes in various stains as well as the wood stain wood sealant far superior to its petrochemical competitors. It only takes one coating instead of two coats, and it lasts for about three years instead of one and a half years because it actually penetrates the wood. Tell us further how you came to invent Hemp shield and then please tell us about how we can buy it and why it is superior in far more detail than its petrochemical competitors.
David Seber: [00:25:57] The secret to head while Hemp shield is revolutionary and every component in the Hemp shield is. So the secret to Hemp shield is the Hemp Sieger oil that it contains, because it turns out that hemp seed oil molecules are smaller than all the other oils that are used in coatings. So not only does it work better, but it does a synergy of everything else, you mixing with it and carries it along. So the basic revolutionary part of it starts with the with the hemp seed oil. From there, every other component of the Hemp shield is also revolutionary. The Hemp shield is called water-borne versus something that is water-based or oil-based. It has a tiny amount of oil. It's actually in water. They do this to lower the VEO seeds of volatile organic compounds so that so that they are less toxic and home sheild are clear. None at all. And our shades only have some formaldehyde in the pigments themselves.
David Seber: [00:27:15] And it's a tiny, tiny amount that even the EPA has officially said will never be released. And although you can say that you have no P.O.S. pay, you legally can't say that you haven't no VEO see Steyne although Hemp shield is lower in VEO seas than so-called no 0C.
Joy Beckerman: [00:27:41] So fascinating. So interesting here. And you came to develop Hemp shield. Would you like to share that story of how you moved on from composites, although there's still a big part of your life to industrial sealants encoding.
David Seber: [00:27:55] What happened was I hurt my back seriously and I was like I needed to be operated on. But they told me that they couldn't do it until I got exercise to give good shape. So I started going to this pool and I met this guy and we became friends. We may know each other's names. And right around the time, right about 2000 or so, I finally asked what he did and he told me he was the research director for the first paint company. So I explained to him what I did and that I was interested in industrial hemp. And would he make me a product based on industrial hemp? It turns out that he's a he's an international worldclass paint chemist, and he'd literally put all the things that he had learned over 30 years that no one was using you into Hemp Shield. Between that and my interaction with him, that's how we created what we did. As you say, it definitely outperforms anything else on the market. By the way, it has no fuze. So it's the only thing that people with chemical sensitivities can use and it can be used inside or outside. It's designed as a one code application and it gets 450 to 650 square feet per gallon between those two facts alone. You say there is on the market, but we don't sell it that way. We sell it as the best.
Joy Beckerman: [00:29:40] Can you tell us a little bit about the new the natural new protection or you'll be resistance within feet oil and how that translates into Hemp shield and translate into the preservation of your wood?
David Seber: [00:29:54] It has to do with the pigments that we use and the way that they work in that the pigments cause the lies when it shines on the object to be sent sideways. So you see into the subject matter better. Actually, it's better looking now are clear. Obviously doesn't have any pigment, but it also has no VLCC at all. It lasts quite long.
Joy Beckerman: [00:30:26] It's just such a superior product in so many ways. Then you explain to us how Hemp shield penetrate the wood versus the products that we're used to from the petrochemical industry.
David Seber: [00:30:37] Yes, well, that's that's the basis of why I am sheilas revolutionary. It's because of the size of the hemp seed oil molecules. They actually are what causes the penetration of the wood because they're smaller than all the other oils that are used in coatings.
David Seber: [00:30:59] And the truth of it is that this is this was kept for over four centuries as. Tight secret could mean Michelangelo Vinci, they all use Hemp Gozo oil and their oil paints, but nobody told each other what they were doing. That was a secret.
Joy Beckerman: [00:31:17] So fascinating. Can you tell us the colors that the Hemp shield stains come in and shoe Kosuke to clear?
David Seber: [00:31:26] No, there was no yellow shoes. It also comes in a hickories, which is an orange cast. It comes in a Wal-Mart which has a brownish cast. It comes in a cobblestone gray and a redwood.
David Seber: [00:31:44] It also comes in a cedar color. Another feeling is that you can't mix them shouk colors together, but you can use clear should go mood any one of those colors up to one to one. For example, are shigley kind of yellow? But it turns out that the people in the south like that, whereas the people in the north will to clear it there to make you less yellow.
Joy Beckerman: [00:32:13] Oh, excellent to know.
David Seber: [00:32:15] Not only is it true that we don't know all the potential uses for Hemp shoe, but one of the things I have a sweater. I have this couple that's from Europe who lives in the Blue Mountains of Virginia, who run a special apiary fair. They teach professional AP areas. The beekeepers have had a bee beekeepers there now suggesting in their seminars that everybody that everybody shield their hives with Hemp shields because the bees, like the bees, love it.
Joy Beckerman: [00:32:55] From what I understand, they don't just like it. They love it.
David Seber: [00:32:58] Yeah, the bees like it.
Joy Beckerman: [00:33:01] Got bouquets as we as we wrap up here, David. Can you tell me how on earth can people order Hemp shield? How do we get our hands on this amazing high value lower-cost product?
David Seber: [00:33:14] You can buy Hemp Shield online. Hemp shield. Got it. And if you buy online and you buy two gallons or more, shipping is free.
Joy Beckerman: [00:33:26] Amazing because that shipping costs it is not inexpensive. When we talk about these things to gallons or more, shipping is free. Hemp sheild dot net. Make your home a healthier place, your garage, your farm, your camp, your second residence. Your daughter calls every wood project you have. If you're going to put a sealer on your wood, let it be Hemp shield for optimal performance to help spur the Hemp economy. As you know, David, I travel all around educating about industrial Hemp and building materials are my number one love for Hemp. Hemp create Hemp shield Hemp wood Hemp board Hemp insulation made of the non woven basket fiber. That's where my real passion is because it's just the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time that we can have on our quality of life, on the longevity and durability and performance of our building on interior air quality and of course on the healing of the planet by reducing the reduction in lumber, the reduction in toxic off gassing materials that we have come to rely upon to build temporary construction and temporary homes, which is just so completely unacceptable. And also the reduction in landfill waste, knowing that over 50 percent of the waste in our landfills comes from the construction industry. So it's really just the biggest game changer. And such a huge part of my collection is Hemp Shield and all of the different colors and a beautiful board that I have that can demonstrate all of those colors for folks. It comes with me everywhere. What else would you like to add about him? Sheild as we come to a close here on this very, very educational podcast.
David Seber: [00:35:12] Here's another one. If you have a growing room. Have you have raw wood in there? The flowery mildew hides. Spores will hide out in the woods for years. You'll have to fill it with them.
Joy Beckerman: [00:35:26] Amazing. David Sieber. It is such an honor and a privilege to be able to have you on the show. Thank you for everything that you have done that you continue to do for the Hemp industries. The Hemp economies and the planet.
Joy Beckerman: [00:35:41] Brother, we can't wait to have you back on again and we wish you everything healthy.
David Seber: [00:35:44] Thank you, Joy. I love.
Joy Beckerman: [00:35:46] Love you back, brother. Talk very soon. Take care.
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