Meet Tay Whiteside: Metal Fabricator and Producer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tay Whiteside and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tay, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I had been working at a family business, Black Dog Salvage, for almost 16 years. I learned an incredible amount during my time there and it is where my love of custom fabrication began (other than spending time with my dad in the garage as a young kid helping him repair things). In the last five or so years of me working there, however, I had taken on rolls such as photographer, social media marketing manager, videographer, in-house tech specialist. While those are all interests of mine, i knew that for me to be truly happy in life i would need to make my way back to the custom fabrication world. Being that i had hit a creative ceiling in the custom fab shop at Black Dog Salvage, I wanted to start taking the necessary steps for me to open a shop of my own so that i could continue to push myself as a craftsman. Which is what i continue to do to this day at my newly opened shop, Lift Arc Studios, in downtown Roanoke, VA.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am a custom metal fabricator and welder. While a great deal of the work i do is (what many may consider) boring, industrial and structural fabrication, at Black Dog Salvage, my last place of employment, we took salvaged materials (reclaimed wood, rusty metal parts, etc. and turned them into pieces of custom furniture and architectural accessories for the modern home. More often than not, people would consider what we built them to be art.

The road to where I am now professionally is a long and winding one. As a kid (middle school age), all i wanted to do was skateboard and play videogames with my friends after school and all weekend. Both my parents started their own businesses before my sister and I were born so we grew up with the acceptance that mom and dad are busy a lot of the time. As we got older, they would let us know more and more about what they do for a living and being that i was always naturally interested in anything related to building, machinery, mechanics, etc. I found myself naturally interested in my dad’s architectural salvage business, Black Dog Salvage.

That being said, when i was a kid, i would have much rather played videogames all weekend as opposed to go to work with dad and mop the floors or clean the bathrooms but with him, i didnt really have a choice. After a few years of resisting and complaining (little brat) i grew to appreciate the simple exchange of labor for money (we’re only talking $10-$20 of allowance money) as it allowed me to go buy my OWN videogames or skateboards if i saved up enough.

With each year of working at the shop, i was trusted with more responsibility. i was soon taught how to operate a forklift, how to use power tools, how to ring people up at the cash register and how to talk to adult customers. These skills are PARAMOUNT to learn if you want to start your own venture (at least the how to talk to people part) and I cant stress enough how lucky i was to grow up in an environment which was subconsciously training me how to navigate the professional world while simultaneously indulging the side of my brain that was fascinated with building and creating things.

As the years continued to go by, i started working my way up through the custom fabrication shop. One of Black Dog’s biggest profit centers was their manufacture of custom furniture and home goods made from the various items and materials they saved from buildings that were being torn down (the nature of the business). It was in this shop that i really reinforced my love of creating and building custom things through the pursuit of creating pieces that would exceed customers expectations. In a world filled with craftsmen and women who like to use the phrase “that’s good enough” i was always motivated to learn how to do it better, faster, more efficiently, with a higher quality and in the end, result in a better product that would be more worthy of the label “art”.

Fast forward almost a decade (which included spending almost 8 years on the international TV show “Salvage Dawgs” which was based on the very business my dad started, Black Dog Salvage) and I had outgrown the shop at black dog and wanted to place myself in an environment that would motivate me to push myself harder and make more of a name for myself in the industry. It is at this time that, coupled with a few other well-timed life events, i decided to work on renovating an old building downtown, take out some loans, and start my own venture, Lift Arc Studios.

There were many times along this journey that I questioned myself. “Is it really worth it” “is there something you could do to satisfy your desires without so much financial risk” etc. And every time, i would counter those thoughts with “if it was easy, everyone would do it” and “you cant enjoy the rewards of life without taking risks”.

I am working tirelessly to position Lift Arc Studios as one of the lead custom fabrication shops in southwest Virginia. There aren’t many things that i don’t have experience working on or creating so I am a one stop shop for most people that have any metal design, repair or custom fabrication needs. At Black Dog, i was an employee. Here at Lift Arc Studios, i have complete control over the company’s narrative, the designs and the work quality that comes out of my doors, and that’s the best feeling in the world.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Roanoke Virginia is a small mountain town with big city feels. We are known for having the biggest man-made illuminated star in the world which sits atop Mill Mountain and is visible from just about anywhere in the valley. We would drive to the star at some point to get a pretty amazing view of the city. We would then have to go check out the thriving craft beer scene and visit one of the amazing breweries here like Golden Cactus or Big Lick Brewing. We would have to eat at Jack Brown’s at least once so you can try a burger with peanut butter on it and follow it up with a fried Oreo for dessert.

If you’re into the outdoors, there are dozens and dozens of mountain biking and hiking trails in the surrounding Blue Ridge mountains, many of which connect to the Appalachian trail which runs the entire east coast of the country.

To wind down the night, the live music scene is alive and well with many outdoor festivals and shows in the warmer months. If you like to camp, you’ll enjoy a night under the stars! Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I owe a great deal of what i am capable of to my dad, Mike Whiteside. As a kid, i was always asking “why does that happen” “how does that work” “where did that come from”. I was an unsaturable sponge for knowledge, especially when it came to the physical and mechanical world around us and he was always happy to provide me with the best answer he had which of course further stoked my curiosity. As i got older, I continued to learn more and more from various craftsmen and women around me but the seed was without a doubt planted by my dad.

Website: liftarcstudios.com

Instagram: @liftarcstudios @taywhiteside

Facebook: @liftarcstudios @rtwhiteside

Youtube: Lift Arc Studios

Image Credits
Lift Arc Studios