Check Out Josh Molyneux’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Josh Molyneux.

Hi Josh, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Graduating from Colorado School of Mines in 2012, I had a huge passion for building things with an inventive spirit. In the summer after graduation, I joined a fellow graduate in a longboard manufacturing start-up. Our brand Liqwood Board Sports had its fun begins out of my Golden garage. We hosted a few build your own board workshops with local students. We made many custom longboards that were so artistic, some customers decided to hang them on their walls versus ride them lol. Like many start-ups, this was a side-hustle and the struggles of working many different positions, plus difficulties with time commitment initiated a shift for Liqwood Board Sports. In 2016 my partner took the longboard building to a Denver skate shop, Board Life, that had also acquired a large warehouse with full-scale skateboard building machinery. This was definitely a better fit for Liqwood to enhance their large-scale production. Ride your very own Liqwood, by checking out the shop here: https://liqwoodboardsports.bigcartel.com/. My 2016 experience was heavily corporate, no fun, I worked 60-80 hour/week jobs and by December of 2016 my inventive spirit was just itching to build again! Leveraging my experience gained with the longboard manufacturing, I decided to enter the world of home furniture and décor. The idea started with constructing my own 8’x5′ CNC machine in my garage.

About the size of a car, I wanted my machine this large because the largest sheets of wood at the hardware stores are 8’x5′. By July of 2017, Sol Manufacturing, LLC was born. One my first projects as a furniture maker was to build a line of beetle-kill pine desks for FlowState Branding in the RiNo Art District. FlowState’s employees are still enjoying the desks, and I think I built around 24 desks in total for their company, over a 3-year span. Summer of 2018, the Sol garage started producing laser engraved wooden wall décor that has established a Denver following that keeps me busy to this day! This year, 2022, Sol partnered with Denver artist Denise Zubizarreta aka The Vamp Deville. Check out our large wooden art collaborations at Vamp’s “El Bohio del Bohiti” exhibition at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design this June 10th – July 8th ☺!! Currently, I am working on a large custom coffee table with drawers and a cubby; an awesome commission and opportunity that reminds me how much time this side-hustle actually takes. Catch Sol Manufacturing twice a month at the traveling Denver Independent Artist Showcase markets, we have our fun wooden wall decors on display and available to purchase. Challenges of running Sol today are time balance with my Monday-Friday office job, and the multiple hats one must wear at times … building, marketing, accounting, customer service & communication, etc. All said the amount of joy received working on Sol Manufacturing makes all the various tasks so worth it. Being more involved in the art community has been extra fun as well. If you have a passion project, I’d say go for it and be amazed at yourself for working on an idea from within. Cheers!

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
For the most part, the road has been smooth. I think staying optimistic and focusing on the positive has helped for a smoother path. Biggest challenge for me is time. Many of my weekends are dedicated to Sol Manufacturing to keep projects moving; this is hard sometimes because it does take time away from friends and family. I also struggle with the accounting aspects of running a side business; the periodic tax reporting always seems to sneak up on me, and it’s definitely a less desirable task than inventing + building things.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At Sol Manufacturing, I build custom furniture and wooden wall décor. My designs spark up imagination, smiles, and awe. I specialize in customizations, such as wedding gifts or tables constructed with specific features. In furniture, I’m known for innovative designs with inlayed features; the inlays commonly incorporating futuristic colors or natural scenescapes. In wall hangings, I’m known for clean-looking pieces with dimensions, designs vary from motivational and wilderness-like, to cartoony and fun! Summer of 2021 Sol also released a line of hardwood cutting boards, these have been very popular wedding gifts with the couple’s names and dates engraved on them.

What sets me apart from others is my ability to visualize creations in detail before working on them, and the CNC wood engraver / laser engraver I built in my garage has been amazing in letting creativity flow. It’d be amazing to give more people access to the capabilities of CNC machines, this is a future dream of mine. For now, I’ve been sharing my CNC’s capabilities by partnering with local artists, such as the collaboration with Denise “Vamp” Zubizarreta mentioned earlier. I’ve used the CNC to help a couple of other Golden + Lakewood residents make their wood dreams become realities.

The project I’m most proud of is a current coffee table build in which all visible surfaces are the beetle kill pine. The table includes two large pull-out drawers with magazine shelves above and a large central cubby. The many beetle holes in the pine have been filled in with a metallic blue pigmented epoxy to give the wood a natural “leopard print”. All exterior wood surfaces are finished in epoxy, and then I take an extra step to give each surface a matte finish. (Most people are used to seeing epoxy finishes as the extra shinny bar top in most bars … just wait till you see my matte look!) My friends who commissioned this build originally broke their coffee table by dancing on it, so their new table I’m building is completely dace proof with a 2×4″ framed interior. With the epoxy coated exterior, this table is weatherproof, or in the least, it has extreme resistance to spills and indoor wear & tear. At any point in the future after wear & tear, the exterior surface may be lightly buffed + polished to return the table to its original appearance. Not only is the beetle kill pine gorgeous to look at, using it to build with also helps to clear these dead trees from our forests and mitigate fire risk. Check my Instagram @sol.mfg in the coming weeks for photos as I finish this coffee table.

What makes you happy?
Connecting with friends, family and meeting new people too. Sharing good times others is a feel good! Working on dreams and building towards future goals provides a happy sense of purpose. Eating healthy foods makes my tummy and my mind happy. Supporting the community and our sense of connectedness feels like spreading smiles around the area. Exercising and fun activities always boost happiness, I think because all the movement is energizing and reminiscent of being a kid.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sol.mfg/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SOL.MFG