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The American Craftsman Podcast Ep. 2 | Shop Gear
69 Plays5 years ago
On Episode 2 of The American Craftsman Podcast hosted by Greene Street Joinery we talk about non-tool shop gear as well as a few different hand planes.
Beer of the Week (Grolsch): https://www.grolsch.com/our-beers/grolsch-premium-pilsner
Tool of the Week (Veritas Precision Square): http://www.veritastools.com/Products/Page.aspx?p=533
Greene Street Joinery is a custom design & build shop located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. We build multigenerational furniture with an eco-friendly and sustainable mindset.
Inspired and guided by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, we believe in the use of traditional craftsmanship and simple, well-proportioned forms; sustainability and ethical practices; and importantly, taking pleasure in our work as craftsmen to create quality pieces of enduring value.
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Transcript
Introduction and Anecdotes
00:00:17
Speaker
Aint no shame, but there's been a chain. A man on Reddit told me that... What the fuck did he say? He was with the glue caps. He said, like, oh, that's what happens, you know, when an engineer has a problem. I said, I am not an engineer. He said, you know, an engineer isn't a job title. It's a state of mind. Oh, my God.
00:00:46
Speaker
uh again good afternoon good afternoon ladies and gentlemen we're here with our second podcast of the week now we're on our second podcast because we kind of have some extra time on our hands waiting for some jobs to come in so we think we'd fill out the time during this podcast so this is our second weekly podcast of the american craftsmen podcast
00:01:15
Speaker
I gotta write this down. Not bad, not bad. Now, I just wanted to do a couple of things. I wanted to do a shout out to my daughter, Kendall. It's her birthday today, so happy birthday. Oh, happy birthday. Kendall, even though she's in Aruba right now. Oh, living the good life. Must be nice.
Sponsor Humor and Beer Introduction
00:01:30
Speaker
And also, I want to shout out to our sponsors out there. We don't have any yet, but we are looking for sponsors, so if you want to sponsor us,
00:01:39
Speaker
We're not ashamed to plug you. As long as it's not Ryobi. Exactly. We do have our scruples.
00:01:49
Speaker
So that's our short introduction today. So now we're going to do what we did yesterday. We're introducing the beer of the week. And it was Rob's choice this week. And we have no idea what he picked. As you know from the first, if you're still here after that first episode, my drink of choice is Guinness. And everybody expected me to bring a Guinness.
00:02:13
Speaker
But instead I reached into the cooler for an old classic and nobody knows what it is except me I'm gonna reach back here and get it Yeah, if it came in a four-pack and bottles and it's not innocent gun
00:02:25
Speaker
Ah. Put this down gently. Yeah, I'm sure if you watch the first, you heard the rumble of beer bottles, or beer cans rather, on the bench. So you have a solution for that. Yeah, so I picked up some Grash.
Grolsch Beer Tasting and Memories
00:02:40
Speaker
Of course, when you're younger, the cap is quite cool. And it's still cool now, even though I'm an old dude. And this was one of the first super premium exotic beers I ever
00:02:52
Speaker
Remember getting my hands on it's got a beautiful bottle beautiful crisp Beer to drink and I thought everybody would enjoy it. So here we are beer of the week. Shout out gross cool. Let's pop it open How'd you do that so easy This is we forgot to have a cheers list. Yeah, cheers. Oh
00:03:23
Speaker
Hope you don't have headphones on because that was probably very loud. Tastes like I remember. Grocer's good. I think they just redesigned the bottle. No, that was Stella Artois. We just saw they changed the bottle or something.
00:03:40
Speaker
We're not heavy drinkers really will will probably end a week, you know, especially during the warmer months We'll go out and we'll we'll sit on the deck and we'll probably have a beer or two And just talk about would maybe start a fire and and talk about the week but it's just a great way to share some time and and Converse unwind exactly. Yeah
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah.
Rob's Career Journey
00:04:06
Speaker
So I think, Rob, you're going to tell us a little bit today about how you got into woodworking. So this is just episode number two. So we're still really introducing ourselves. I came into woodworking just like Rich from another career. You want to count? No, actually, that's not my strong suit. That's good news. Yeah.
00:04:30
Speaker
If there's a job out there, Rob has done it. Trust me. Except for an accountant. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I mean, I kind of came in through the autistic side. I have an educational background in drafting and technical drawing. That's what they used to call it. And architectural work engineering, my first
00:04:55
Speaker
major in college was architecture and drawing and it just kind of bored me sitting behind the desk for three and four hours in those labs and that's when I realized
00:05:08
Speaker
i just couldn't do it but uh... you know i went to art school as well and um... uh... for just regular drawing and painting and and that's that's kind of my take on things it's probably what i bring most uh... to the business the other guys are probably a little bit more accomplished woodworkers than i am and uh... well yeah uh... the way i fell into this was uh... purely by accident i i was a musician for the first
00:05:37
Speaker
you know, chunk of my life up until my early 30s. No, no insurance, no anything like that, you know, pretty much just living off, you know, acquaintances, a dollar and a dream.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And as I was working as a musician, every now and again, there'd be low points and this stuff's good. Yeah, yeah. Worked in the restaurants like like most of us washing dishes and whatnot. I worked my way up inadvertently to becoming a chef and actually worked at all these really nice places in San Francisco and
00:06:17
Speaker
Didn't you actually cook for the president, too? I cooked for President Clinton while I was sitting president, yes. Yeah, give a little, like, timeline of, like, because you've been all over, you've lived all over the country. That's true, that's true. Born in Brooklyn, moved out to a little city outside Phoenix, Arizona in the 70s. Went to high school in China Spring, Texas, a little town outside Waco.
00:06:48
Speaker
private joke, sorry. Then this is pre-branch Davidian's Waco. Yes, yes. This is, I graduated high school in 1980, so that'll tell you how long ago that was. From there, I went to Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. That's where I, my first major was architecture and then engineering. From there, my band took me out to San Francisco for the first time.
00:07:18
Speaker
The band took me back to New York, lived there till 91, went back to San Francisco still playing music, and that's when I started doing some catering. Worked for Taste, caterers in San Francisco. So speaking of the music, the intro song and the outro song is actually Rob's band from, is that second stint in San Francisco or first? Second, yeah, second stint. That was like 91, 92, moose.
00:07:48
Speaker
Good song. We were together for about three months. A lot of short-lived stuff going on in my life. So yeah I cooked and you know I really loved cooking for a living but again it just there was no stability in my life and so I said
00:08:06
Speaker
I'm going to move back to New York. I'm going to become a teacher. And I'll have my pension and all that stuff. And so that's what I that's what I had my eyes set on. I went back to New York. I did it. I got my degree in history from the new school in New York City, which I really enjoyed. And I started teaching. I was teaching history at Knossy High School, actually the area of Brooklyn where I was born, Knossy, Brooklyn.
00:08:33
Speaker
And I met my wife, also a teacher. We got married, moved to New Jersey shortly after that.
Rob's Transition to Woodworking
00:08:41
Speaker
And while I was waiting to get my teacher's license, because you have to have a new license for each state, I thought to myself, well, I'll backtrack a little bit. We bought a house that was built in like 1900, so it needed a lot of work. And I started fixing things up and I had a couple of tools here and there, and I'd always dreamed of it like a lot of guys.
00:09:03
Speaker
I'd done volunteer work. I happened to meet Norm Abrams back, you know, from New Yankee Workshop when I was doing volunteer work. But woodworking was just a pie-in-the-sky dream back then. It was nothing. Everything I knew I learned from books and watching New Yankee Workshop. But while I was waiting for a job, I said, let me just make a sign and put it in my front yard.
00:09:31
Speaker
And lo and behold, sometimes I just pinch myself. I worked two years in the basement of my house with probably less tools and machinery than most people watching have. Really nothing. I found that if I just really applied myself, pushed myself,
00:09:55
Speaker
And I just came along and it was really going back to my design roots that I think propelled my early business Because I was presenting things and I was also drawing them out You know with all my drawing training and presenting them to prospective clients. This is what I'd like to build you and year by year I got busier and busier and I
00:10:18
Speaker
A couple of years in, I built this shop back here just to, you know, almost a thousand square feet. It's not huge. Moved in and little by little added machinery, added knowledge. And as you know, from yesterday, it was an injury that kind of cut my time short. And it was a blessing in disguise because I met these guys and that's that's
00:10:45
Speaker
Not a platitude, that's
The Leap to Woodworking Careers
00:10:47
Speaker
real stuff. We're really good friends and we're like family here because, you know, we bicker and argue and the kidding is merciless. Oh yeah. Don't mess up. Oh yeah, God forbid you make a mistake. One day we'll show you, one of the things we have here is known as the wall of shame. I don't know if this isn't free or probably not. That's my contribution to the wall of shame.
00:11:14
Speaker
That's right. Just one for now, thankfully. Mounted for all to see. So I guess to wrap that up, there's really hope for all aspiring hobbyists and things like that. The thing that Rich and I did that maybe a lot of people don't do is we made that leap. We gave up something that was secure to do something that's totally insecure and even
00:11:40
Speaker
all these years on, it's still not a secure profession. We go from job to job many times. Well, wait, thanks to my wife's fat pension. I'm able to do this. Cheers to that. Or silent benefactor. Love you, honey.
00:12:00
Speaker
Good stuff. So Jeff, what's our talking point today?
Essential Power Tools Debate
00:12:05
Speaker
So if you guys follow Rockler on Instagram, they post every now and again these just sort of questions and you can respond to them. They had one a couple weeks ago that actually we started talking about. And I talked to a couple other people about, which I thought was a good one.
00:12:26
Speaker
If you had only two power tools in the entire shop, this is anything that takes a battery, gets plugged in, what would they be? Right, so a drill is a power tool. Right. Well, it only to a table saw. So don't think of it as, when I first posed this question, I was thinking of drills and jigsaw and things like that. Not any machine. It's machinery too. And combo machines don't count. Yeah, that's right.
00:12:56
Speaker
for this conversation. Which machine? Combo machines. We don't have any. No, we don't know. Well, it doesn't have to be the tools that we have. If you had to set up a shop and it was all hand tools and two things that took electricity or if you wanted a gas compressor, I guess that's fine. I would definitely have a kegerator first. I mean, no. I would definitely have... It's a tough question.
00:13:25
Speaker
A table saw is probably the most versatile tool you're going to have. You could do a lot with a table saw and probably the jointer to get your edges straight and also to plane a wood down to get it flat. If that's the only two I had, those would be my choice. I could see that being what I could use, make the best use out of. So you're going to drill holes how?
00:13:56
Speaker
Like the old fashioned way. The old drill that had that handle. Just turn it. Oh the egg beater. And screws and everything. I gave you my choices. Now you're tacking me. I'm gonna wait to see what you choose. Well I guess if you had a if you had a jointer technically you could joint one face and then if it was you know six inches or less you could probably get it pretty close to parallel on the
00:14:19
Speaker
Table saw. Then finish it with a hand plane. Or yeah, or one last pass on the jointer. Right. I mean, they're good choices. I'm just. Yeah, I can't wait. I'm just asking. I'm just asking. Just asking. Well, you know what's going on in that mind. He's going to do the same too, aren't you? Well, those are my choices. Yeah, drills. Come on. You definitely need to drill.
00:14:47
Speaker
but that's not part of the question. So those two things, saws, those two tools are my pick. All right. You want me to go? Yeah, I can't wait for this one. I'd also take a table saw, but I'd get a drill, like a drill driver kind of thing. Because, I mean, the planer is if I only could get rough lumber,
00:15:16
Speaker
That's an obvious choice, but I could just buy S4S lumber. And so that would probably give me the best of the things that I would need. You could cut simple joinery on the table saw, you could run grooves, you put dado blades on there.
00:15:37
Speaker
can make tenons, you know, you can get things pretty close to square. We got a sliding miter gauge and all that stuff. I can't see going wrong there. I mean, there's a couple of tools that are close. And then what do we use most? I mean, besides the tape measure, what do we have in our hands most all day long?
00:16:00
Speaker
Yeah, you know, on the finished product there's not a lot of use of the drill, but in the parkest work, you know, you don't have a compressor, so there's no nailing together the box. I mean, if we were just building, you know, the small pieces of furniture with all the joiner and everything, but a typical job. Yeah, if you make cutting boards. Yeah, I mean, it all has interior casework. Those types of, those pieces are very rare where we're not using some
00:16:29
Speaker
type of plywood substructure and all that other stuff.
00:16:33
Speaker
Okay, smarty pants. I'm surprised you didn't pick the biscuit joiner, Rich. That was on my list, too. You seen that? And the table saw. The biscuit joiner or the riffle? You could maybe rip something with a biscuit joiner. There's a lot of small passes. Yeah, she can. Power riffle? Oh, yeah. Power riffle, too. Oh, that's a good idea. Don't steal my tool a little weak. Jeffrey? Yeah, I don't know. I've been torn on the whole question. Between a...
00:17:02
Speaker
You know, a really well set up bandsaw and a table saw.
00:17:08
Speaker
You know because I mean we do a lot on our bandsaw and yeah I mean you could rip on a bandsaw that's set up well and clean up an edge you know with just a couple passes you know the hand plane and then you can also cut curves you can't cut any curves on the table saw now it depends on what kind of work you're doing because you know in all honesty we don't really deal with a whole lot of curves
00:17:33
Speaker
So the table saw, you know, with this question, you kind of have to change your entire thing that you're doing. We couldn't do what we're doing with two tools. Yeah, that's how we have to sort of set the stage. So if I wanted to build the things that I like to build, I'd probably go with the table saw because that's just more, it works more with sort of that style of work. And then I'd have to go with the drill because the drill is,
00:17:59
Speaker
I mean, I have three right here that are constantly, constantly being used. And you know who's always going to want to borrow a drill?
00:18:10
Speaker
Of course, I would be in big trouble if Rich called in his voucher. And I only have one tool. He would have one tool, that's right. That would be my drill. Well, so let's say we each got to pick two to make a shot. Yeah, I was going to ask you that question. What would we do? Which two tools would we pick? So if I stick with the table saw and the jointer, what would you add to that? Yeah, I'd probably, I'd go with the band saw and
00:18:40
Speaker
Maybe, you know, the planer. What about the drill? You're leaving the drill out? Somebody's still got to pick the drill. He's going to pick the drill. So we got table saw, band saw, planer, and joiner. I mean, that's pretty much everything that you need, aside from a drill. And I'm going to say compressor, because being able to run pneumatic tools, the tool itself isn't a power tool. It's just an art. So you can run a sander, a pneumatic sander.
00:19:09
Speaker
Think about hand planing or hand sanding every single thing because if you don't have any power tools aside from a table saw. Is that kind of a trick piece though, the compressor? Because now we're saying we can use sanders and everything. Yeah, but it's a pneumatic sander. It'd be like using a jig on your table saw.
00:19:36
Speaker
I'm going to allow it. Oh, my God. This is the judge and the MC. Judge, jury, and executioner. That's it. It's done. All right. So, you know, like, you guys, if there's somebody out there that has something to say, write in. Well, tell us your two. Yeah. Yeah. What would you pick?
00:19:56
Speaker
You people and why tell us I'm not gonna lie Barry over here. This is our we have a Not sure how much is a frame 38 inch double drum sander from Woodmaster made in
Tool Maintenance and Recycling
00:20:07
Speaker
the USA. Yeah customer service absolutely horrendous but the machine once you spend a couple months and a couple hundred dollars in parts and
00:20:22
Speaker
We've taken Barry apart to the point where we weren't sure we could put him back together again. And she's doing good. Yeah, it's a good tool for
00:20:35
Speaker
We build a lot of big hardwood tops. We don't ban plywood for tops of furniture, whether it's a table or even a bench seat or something like that. So it saves us a ton of time. We run it through. And we use a pretty coarse grit. Of course, we're going to find sand. It adds to two grits. We add 100 on the front and 120 on the back.
00:20:58
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, and it's nice to be able to plane everything and then take the snipe off through there. Everything ends up, you know, whether it's an inch or three quarter, whatever you're trying to get to that way. All of your parts are the same thickness. Yeah. Yeah. So it's been it's been a headache, but it's been worth it. We got it for a thousand bucks. Yeah, we curse Barry once a month about that much into it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At least 500 in parts and then time labor. Yeah, it is way more. Yeah.
00:21:27
Speaker
I'll tell you the story one time about me taking off the velcro that was on there forever. It took me a whole day to get it off. Jeff showed you how to do it on the second one. Yeah, the second one, it came off one, two, three. The one I had to take off, no, it wasn't going to work that way. It was about six hours worth of scraping. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And my hands, acetone, all of my hands. We got it into the shop pretty
00:21:54
Speaker
Yeah, it was easily compared to, you know, how it could have went. That that would have been a good video to have of us getting this machine into the shop. Yeah. Now, I mean, this is it's basically a four foot cube and it weighs about twelve hundred pounds. It's got a seven and a half horsepower motor that, you know, makes the one corner way heavier than the rest. So it was you put it on an engine, right? Yeah. Yeah. Harbor Freight is good for shout out to Harbor Freight.
00:22:23
Speaker
yeah and then we sold it and then we sold immediately after that we're into the recycling yeah um even our old tools like when our old tools go off to die we usually just sell them here locally on craigslist for
00:22:40
Speaker
really pennies on the dollar or sometimes we give away the tools just to keep them in service, give them to somebody who's learning the skills and the trade and give them a leg up like people gave us.
00:22:57
Speaker
Except my tools when I got here. My tools helping to disappear into the, uh, waste baskets somewhere. I don't know. Oh yeah. Okay. I took off one day. No comment. I came back. I don't know what happened to it. It's like that plane that Rob took. Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:18
Speaker
No, I'm not. Well, speaking of tools, this tool of the week or tool of the day, whatever. So I'm up. And what I picked is it just happens to be another Veritas tool. So this is the six inch precision square. It's fine. This lives in my Calavera apron back there. I didn't want to put mine on and be uncomfortable. It's hot.
00:23:46
Speaker
so i keep it here sort of in the right breast pocket and it's just great uh... it's exactly three-quarters of an inch wide so you can use it to check your four-quarter stuff when it's milled draw square lines connecting dots on you know random angles
00:24:05
Speaker
It's just a great second. The corner on a piece of wood. Yeah. You know, checking things for square, scraping glue out of the corner of the box. Yeah, I used it for that. Yeah. Prying. I've pried open a can can to finish with it gingerly. Yeah. You know, something I had to do is actually round these two corners over because I constantly, you know, I cut my arm open on it all the time. But I think actually we all have. Yeah, you guys have that one.
00:24:30
Speaker
That's something that confirms the tool of the week's credibility. Typically, somebody will get a new tool. The others will admire it, maybe mock it. In my case, I get that most often. But then the real compliment comes when the others go out and get one of their own.
00:24:54
Speaker
because there's quite a few triple kits in the shop. Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And this actually, main USA. So Veritas is subbing it out to somebody not quite sure who, but doesn't look like Starrett, but maybe, you know, one of the other companies. We're like a commercial for Veritas sometimes. Yeah.
00:25:20
Speaker
Well, a lot of their smaller hand items are reasonably priced and really great value. We have a lot of marketing stuff from them. Yeah.
00:25:29
Speaker
Well, see, Jeff being the tool snob, anything he gets, you know, it's going to be good. So we all we all watch when he comes in to see if he's got anything new. That's something we would like to get. That sometimes we get hell bent on trying to find a better version of what he has. It's not going to happen. We haven't been able to do it yet. I mean, one day Rich and I were here. Where were you? What happened that day? I was working from home. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:25:57
Speaker
and uh so Jeff's always telling us one of the things that's like a bugaboo here is this magnetic the bit holder yeah and when the bit comes out look what you got in there
00:26:12
Speaker
I have two now. It's really really annoying. You know for a while I had these that had like a little screw top on and a washer and they worked for quite a while but then they started giving away and Jeff what who do you have yours from? I like the snappy
00:26:36
Speaker
two and a half inch bit holder, whatever it's called. And it's got a monster of a magnet. So Jeff has been, you know, sort of like lording this over us now for Maine, Texas. Couple of... Yeah, that's snappy. Looking for a sponsor. And so one day, Jeff's not here, Rich and I get on the internet, the two old dudes. No, first you texted me and said, can you order some bit holders? And I said, I'm not ordering those bit holders.
00:27:05
Speaker
Well, because they were made in an Asian market place. Oh, yeah. That's right. That's right. Regardless of where they made, they're not as good as it could be. Yeah. So we decided we were going to dive into the German tool market, KC Toolco. And we got a couple that I don't even know if we can pronounce one of them. Oh, it's a Vera. Vera. And the other one is a... Is it a door?
00:27:34
Speaker
Yeah, done. This is a beer. Better. Both of them? Yeah. I think this one is too. Is it? No, you got a star wall. Yeah, yeah. That's what it was. A star wall and this is a beer. Better. Yeah. Rich Speaks German. And good, but not as good. See? They have flaws. And when I tell you they were not inexpensive,
00:28:00
Speaker
That's an understatement. But we were overjoyed. We were like, wait till he sees our German bid holders. I mean, we could tell in the first 15 minutes of use that they weren't going to dominate the shop. So our big balloon was quickly deflated. So shout out to...
00:28:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, one thing I do is if I if I'm not happy with a tool, I'm going to find a different one because there's so many so many options out there. Yeah. So especially something small like that. That's 10, 15 bucks to replace. It's not worth the headache to struggle every single day with. Yeah. Because like we were talking about, what do we have in our hands almost, you know, every day? Some kind of drill or drive or situation beer that too. But during the work day,
00:28:52
Speaker
So should we go up to the next topic? Yeah, yeah. Now this is not a strange topic, but being in a lot of different shops through the course of my lifetime, I was always curious how people dress in a shop.
Shop Attire Preferences
00:29:12
Speaker
What's their favorite clothing to wear? It sounds silly, but some shops are pretty rigid on what you should wear. You should wear their t-shirt with their name on it. You go out on installs, you should have their t-shirt on, their hat on, their jacket on, their underwear on, and so forth and so on. Socks. Socks, too.
00:29:34
Speaker
But for other times, the most shops, it's just people, just regular guys. They're just wearing what they feel comfortable in. Some guys wear sneakers in a shop. Some guys wear steel-toed shoes. Some guys, like right now, wear sandals in a shop. Yeah, they don't see that. They don't see that. But for me, personally, I happen to like a cut-off shirt. I don't know why. It's just I want to show these guns off, baby. Who knows?
00:30:03
Speaker
but ever since every time people know me they know I buy a t-shirt and the first thing I do is cut the sleeves off I just like the freedom of movement and all that and they just don't like that clothing hanging down this part of the arm it's just me and I wear hiking shoes
00:30:23
Speaker
when I work. Pretty flexible. Yeah, and that hurt. You're going to feel it tomorrow. Yeah. And usually a pair of shorts or some lightweight hiking pants that are nylon. Yeah. They can easily, they dry off and they're lightweight and all. I mean, that shop's pretty well conditioned. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I always wear a hat. It's part of me. That's who I am. And your reading glasses. And my reading glasses, my clickettes. Yeah.
00:30:51
Speaker
But, you know, also you're talking about stuff, shop gear, that's not a tool. Yes, I have a bib that I got for my birthday from my partners here. This is a Calavera bib. They put the cowboy blue on here for me. So, you know, cowboy fan. So, unfortunately, yeah.
00:31:13
Speaker
So it's, it's, it's heavy duty. It's, it's, it's heavy, but it's got all the spots I need. I might make some modifications to it. Now that I got it, this, uh, add some extra things to put tools in and all that, but I like to keep four pencils, four or five pencils. That's that accountant. Yeah. No, I just, I don't like to be without a pencil. Then I have my big marking pencil.
00:31:36
Speaker
Yeah, what do you think of that? I like this. This is a, this is a nice, the only problem is you got to sharpen it, but for writing on lumber and it comes, you can change the lead out to a white. Two millimeter or five millimeter. That's like two millimeters. It's big.
00:31:53
Speaker
And it can change out the white when we're working with walnut and you want to mark the boards when you're cutting them to say this is specifically for a Side this is for the top and all that so This comes in handy. I love this thing. What's this and this here?
00:32:12
Speaker
I'm kind of embarrassed to say this, but these are the ashes of one of my parents. No, this is the remote control for the
00:32:24
Speaker
Vacuum said the dust system here. So if I press this it'll make a noise and it'll probably cause some problems with the speaker So I'm not gonna do that. So we have more control It's it's set up over there in that corner and each one of us have one of these And I keep it on my on my bed because it's in another room outside the shop. Yeah, so we just it's easy just to press it and Get the vacuum system going get the gates open and all that. Yeah Other than that. Yeah, that just is
00:32:52
Speaker
This is what I wear. You always see me with a cutoff on, even in winter time. Yeah. Well, we got the heat on in here. Oh, yeah. Oh, we're spoiled. Yeah, it's about 72, 365 in here. That's right. When I was in that fictitious Tom shop.
00:33:11
Speaker
It's hat and gloves, no joke. It was, yes. And in the summertime, you died. Oh, yeah. It was hot now. It's good for the wood. Yeah, exactly. The finishers loved it. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Oh, God.
00:33:25
Speaker
Well, that's another story, but what do you like to wear? I mean, obviously I'm wearing my Calavera apron. You could see Mike, we're a big fan of his, not just because he does custom work and because he does it here in the States, but you could see right off the bat, Rich and I have two really different products here. And Mike makes these,
00:33:53
Speaker
by hand per order. This is what you should get when you get something called custom. And I think I'm gonna get into that a little bit later, but yeah, the apron's indispensable. You know, you keep your stuff in here like Rich, you know, I keep my pencils, I have a rote ring, you know, there's another one.
00:34:15
Speaker
How long did it take you to find that pencil? Rob went through about six or seven expensive pencils. Not that these are cheap. I mean, this is an aluminum body. But this is another one of our little idiosyncratic things. Rob Winstein spent the whole day looking for a tape measure that was made not in China.
00:34:39
Speaker
Yeah, it was more than a day. It might have been a week. Finding a German. Yeah, we couldn't find it. We found tape measures that were made in Germany, but the tape itself was from China.
00:34:52
Speaker
Yeah. The other issue is that everything European is going to be on the metric system. That's true, too. Is that a combo? This is a combo. That was the closest thing I could find. I can't do it. And it's small. So for measuring larger things, I use my Japanese tape measure. That's not the smallest one you got. No, it's not.
00:35:16
Speaker
Two, but you don't have your mini pencil around. Yeah, I lost it. I lost it was too small. But I did just I mean, I talked to Mike today at Calavera and he's going to make me a little addition to my apron, a little leather holster for my.
00:35:34
Speaker
Yeah, for his pocket plane. Yeah, so it's going to be a true apron plane because I'm going to be able to carry it around with me. And we spoke to Mike today and he's interested in being on our podcast in the future. And that's the second person. I always spoke to somebody else that was interested. So any of you guys out there that do woodworking or want to be on the podcast, send us a drop us a note. Where's Mike? North Carolina? He's in Charleston.
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, this will be all done remotely. We're going to have to figure out how to do that. Oh, road trip. Yeah. We'll go on the road. Great. All right. Well, the only other thing I think of distinction that is different for me, even though I'm wearing my sandals right now, when I go to work, I prefer a nice big heavy boot. This is a Silverado. Didn't she ever tell you don't put your shoe on the table? Yeah, she did. Well, you know how that works. It's my bench. Yeah.
00:36:31
Speaker
These are, you know, made in America, hand stitched, double stitched, made in Pennsylvania. And this is the type of shoe, this is the type of footwear I prefer when I'm in the shop. You know, these are known as eights, if you like a Doc Martin wear, whatever, that refers to the height and the eyelets. I like a safety toe.
00:36:56
Speaker
And these boots, these are only like what, two weeks old? And you can see they're already starting to show what goes on here and the type of use I put them through. When I work, I want to be secure in my feet. And I do have flat feet and bad knees. So aside from the mats that we have on the floor, I like to have some good, secure shoes and boots on whenever I'm doing any kind of work.
00:37:26
Speaker
That's my recommendation, everybody out there. Keep your feet happy, and you'll be happy. Yeah. Where the rubber meets the road. That's right. There you go. Silverado. Check them out. Yeah, they're nice. Well, me personally, I wear sneakers. The antithesis of the boot. Kids today. I mean, I will wear boots. Yeah, when we did the deck. Yeah, we built a deck in the, what, in the spring? The summer?
00:37:57
Speaker
And I had on my boots, I have a pair of Abrams that are actually made in New York State.
00:38:05
Speaker
But when I'm in the shop, I found the best thing for my knees. I have little to no cartilage in my left knee from a football injury. So sneakers have been the best thing for me. Good sneakers, though. Yeah, I mean, these are just like middle of the road sort of Adidas that I found. And it's my second pair of these. They offer practically zero protection. So I just try and be careful and not drop anything. I can't lift up the.
00:38:35
Speaker
you know, the locks on the casters with them. I mean, really, I'm at risk of hurting myself. But for the most part, it's pretty, pretty safe if you're if you're careful. But, you know, when I get home at night, my legs don't hurt. And when I wear boots, they do. So I've been wearing sneakers for probably the last, I want to say four or five years.
00:39:01
Speaker
with boots mixed in there intermittently. I'm a t-shirt kind of guy, shorts all year long here because we keep it so warm. It's a short walk over to the house, so we have to go inside. It's 50 feet. Don't tell him how spoiled we are.
00:39:24
Speaker
safety glasses on the power tools. Yeah, I am. I'm working on that. It's been tough. Actually, back to the deck, I took a piece of pressure treated in the eye and, you know, that sort of whipped me in the shape for a little bit here. So I finally I found a pair that I like. I don't know. Well, I don't know where they are, but oh, yeah.
00:39:49
Speaker
Yeah, so these are Maverick from
00:39:57
Speaker
I don't know, KG. You can find these on Amazon. These are some of the best I found. They don't distort my vision like most like super curved glasses do. And I got the little lanyard so I can just keep them. Yeah, I got some side protection. The little lanyard, so I keep it around my neck and I have no excuse to not put them on, even though I managed to constantly take them off. We have to look out for Jeff. He's our future. Yeah.
00:40:24
Speaker
I had a LASIK corrective surgery, so I need to protect my investment. Gloves, we didn't talk about gloves. That's true. Rich, you wear gloves. Sometimes I cut the fingers off, not my fingers, but the glove fingers off so I can feel what I'm working on and all that. It's important for me to have that ability to touch something and see if it's hot, cold, or rough or smooth.
00:40:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a big fan of gloves. I wear like the knit gloves with the rubber palms. You know, when you're milling things from rough lumber, the corners are extremely sharp because they're so square. Yeah, a lot of cuts. I mean, if you look at my hands, I'm not a glove wearer and I always have three or four cuts that take weeks to heal because they're the spots that you keep hitting and they're on your knuckles. You keep breaking them and
00:41:20
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you could look over most times in your bleeding. Yeah. At any point during the day. Hey, Rob, this is so bleed-all over here. I know. I'm the shop bleeder.
00:41:32
Speaker
So we do, we keep band-aids. Neosporin and this pair of tweezers, like those tiny little tweezers everywhere. There have been some monster, monster splinters here in the shop. Oh, yeah. I was finishing a piece of white oak. You remember that? Yeah. Really in the morning. They make you shiver those splinters. Oh, yeah. It went through the glove about this big into the meat of my hand here. And Rob actually had to pull it out with like a pair of channel locks.
00:42:03
Speaker
So yeah, right. I do like to wear gloves. Even again, you know, when you get home at night, your hands feel just like a little bit better because you had something protecting you. You got to put the I put on a lot of that O'Keeves that night. I'll do it before I go to sleep because it's so kind of greasy feeling for me. I can't put it on. Yeah, that's why I don't like it.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, should we move on? Is that everybody out there? Tell us. Give us some feedback. You know, we, we keep it on topic. You enjoying the conversation. Anything to add. We want to hear from you.
00:42:39
Speaker
So here we go again. Oh, yeah. With the petty gripe of the day. Yeah. Not the way today. Yeah. There's there's always so much to complain about. I mean, a little bit of great. In general, I like to say that, you know, I want to be grateful and thankful for everything that I do have. And I think I am. And these petty gripes, although they're they're real, they're somewhat ingest. But
00:43:06
Speaker
Not the pretzels. No, not the pretzels. That's a serious topic.
Craftsmanship and Industry Standards
00:43:09
Speaker
Today I want to talk about the word custom. And I touched on it a little bit when we talked about Mike from Calavera, Aprons, and the leather work. Because this is custom. And even yesterday with Will's question about custom cabinets. What's custom? Like, when you go buy a car,
00:43:31
Speaker
You get to pick out the color and you pick out like, do I want this type of air conditioning, this type of sound system? I'll have leather seats instead of, you know, cloth seats, wheel covers, etc. There are a host of options. But you never come home and say, I got a custom Chevy. It's a good point. It's a Chevy. And these are just little things you picked out.
00:43:56
Speaker
And without, I don't want to sound disparaging. I'm just trying to say that we are a custom shop. And this word has been co-opted by all sorts of makers of things that just take
00:44:11
Speaker
stock parts and put a ribbon on here and a bow on there. And that's fine, but don't describe it using the words that actually describe our work, because I'm a little bit offended by that. Yeah, we've run out of adjectives. Yeah, I mean,
00:44:28
Speaker
We used to be a custom cabinet shop because that's what we do. We make one-of-a-kind stuff. There's nothing that's the same ever. It might be similar if somebody asks us, but that's as close as it comes. So when all these run-of-the-mill shops are selling things at our third the price that we are,
00:44:51
Speaker
you all know the reasons why and then saying this is a custom kitchen it offends my sensibilities and to me it's completely dishonest and there's no truth in that statement at all so that's my petty gripe let me know how you feel if you disagree I still want to hear from you
00:45:12
Speaker
Yeah, and it makes it difficult for us to describe what we do. Right. Because you say custom and you're just lumped in with all these other schmoes that are doing. Not custom. Right. Artisan, bespoke, custom. We need new words. They've all been co-opted. I can't think of a word that. I mean, there's handcrafted ice cream and handcrafted this. And a lot of it actually is. Yeah. But a lot of it's being mislabeled. Yeah.
00:45:39
Speaker
That's true. It's true. It's a shame, but it's marketing. It's the times we live in.
00:45:49
Speaker
Yeah, sell, sell, sell, without really any regard for the truth. Yeah, I laugh when I go by these kitchen showrooms and I see custom kitchen available and I'm thinking to myself, this is custom. Let me ask you this, Rich. Have you ever seen anybody selling a kitchen that didn't use the word custom? Has there anybody said? No, no. Regular kitchen over here. Yeah, standard cabinets with fillers.
00:46:18
Speaker
It's all custom. We installed a stock kitchen for a builder that we know going back probably fall of 2019. That's where I lost my keys. At his house. We actually had Tom shop, built him a kitchen, and installed it in his own home. But this was for a client of his. He needed a favor. So we took a couple of days and installed a stock kitchen for him. And it was, I mean, appalling.
00:46:48
Speaker
Yeah. The more you know about your craft and your trade, everybody out there, whether you're a woodworker, whether you're a plumber, especially the tradesmen, you know the difference between good work and people that just don't care. Everybody does. Even if you're not in the trades, you can see somebody who's just phoning it in.
00:47:10
Speaker
So we do this every day, and we're constantly challenging each other to be as good as possible. There's no lead up here, and that's a great healthy environment. So when we see that stuff going on, we're just like, we'll rip it apart. We just will. Yeah, and there's clearly no initiative to get better by these people that are selling these things.
00:47:38
Speaker
Because people are trying to survive, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. It's a shame. Well, yeah. Well, they're all cleaning up. Oh, yeah. They're the ones trying to survive.
00:47:51
Speaker
I don't know if it's because the standards have been lowered so far that custom is now like just run-of-the-mill. That's just a generic word now. Yeah. It's a generic word. How about we use unique? We need to invent a word. Oh, that's it for the petty griping of the week folks. Let's get on to something nice and positive. What do we got?
Specialty Plane Discussion
00:48:16
Speaker
Viewer question of the week.
00:48:18
Speaker
Who's got that? It's a gentleman in Denver, Nate. Nate's a good guy. Actually asked us this question yesterday, I guess, during our podcast. No, he sent it over today. Oh, he sent it over today. I'm wrong. It was the most versatile specialty plane. Which one is the most versatile specialty plane out there? Where's your beer? It's done. Done. No wonder.
00:48:46
Speaker
I want the other one. What's the question again? The question is, which do you think is the most versatile specialty plane to use in a shop? Okay. What do you go with? We'll let him go last cause he's probably got the best one. Just a regular apron plane. Yeah. I don't, in fact, they do have it on me. So just a block plane. That's just a little block plane. Again, it's, it comes in handy. It just breaks.
00:49:17
Speaker
Lee Nielsen. See, I'm only, I prefer Lee Nielsen to the Veritas, personally. I got this from a special gentleman I used to work with up north. He gave me this mic he sold to me.
00:49:33
Speaker
Gave it to me for money. I love it. He gave it to me for some money. We traded for money. But he gave me a great deal. Why is that the best and most comfortable? Because this is the one I'm comfortable with. First of all, it fits in my hand real easy. If I wanted to break this edge, I'd just... What else will do? We're talking... He's playing in my bench. You want to know versatile.
00:49:54
Speaker
Well, I could actually hit you with it right now and put my fair hand around it and it'll give me more weight to hit you in the head. Plain and murder weapon. Also, you could probably hold the door open with it. You just stuck it under the door because it's got this little curve here. Paperweight. Paperweight wants to hold my
00:50:16
Speaker
So you're saying a small block plane is probably the most versatile. Yeah, for me it is. It comes in handy. Well, you know I have a special relationship with the small block plane. Yeah, I know. I know. Good that you didn't see this one. You made out, though, because you have the better plane, if I have to admit. Of course he does. No, I paid for this. He stole mine. Yeah, but you still made out with the better one. I stole the lesser of the two. Because you didn't see that. I actually had the same one. Yeah. And these guys got me this for my birthday.
00:50:46
Speaker
I think it's the same one. It is. They had like a different angle. This is a 102 I think and the 103 which is discontinued at a different angle or something. But this is a great plane. So what's yours there Robert? I definitely go with a shoulder plane. You want to explain to the people what a shoulder plane is? I think Jeff's got one right there.
00:51:13
Speaker
You know, you took my tool. Oh, I did. Because that's what I was going to say. Oh. Should have one second. Yeah, I should have one second. What can I do? You better start thinking. I'll stall for time. This is a shoulder plane for everybody that doesn't know. Try to be easy on the bench. You can see that the blade goes from edge to edge, as opposed to like on a regular block plane. You can see the blade doesn't go all the way across the bed.
00:51:42
Speaker
So what you could use this for is trimming tenons, so it'll go straight up to the shoulder. And that's really why it's called the shoulder point. You can put it on its side and hold it and trim the shoulder that way. You could use a shooting board, which is a way to hold a board and trim the edge of it, whether it's at an angle or straight.
00:52:10
Speaker
Yeah, and, you know, in a pinch, I mean, it's not what it's designed to do. You could also use it to knock down a corner or, you know, shave down a bump of some sort. But, yeah, I you have a smaller one. Yeah. Oh, go figure.
00:52:32
Speaker
This one, this is a beautiful plane. This is another Lee Nielsen made in the States, but it has just a size smaller than that. And it's it's nice. It's my favorite. Are you talking about the 3A syndrome? No, not that one. The Veritas one. Yeah, the five eights, the five eights.
00:52:53
Speaker
It's so small he can't even find it now. No, no. It's probably about this big. It's very, very useful. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's great for it. I use it a lot for when we do mortise and tennis. If it's sharp, I mean, that's really.
00:53:05
Speaker
Again, yeah, the key is keeping your tools sharp. Just like the kitchen. It's the most important thing to do with any of your tools. The all tools are dangerous. Exactly. And for me, the biggest thing is the time investment. I'd rather spend, this is like a $200 plane, I'd say. And the Veritas, I think, is probably about the same.
00:53:27
Speaker
but I would rather spend the money up front and be able to set up the blade with the stones that I have, which don't go super coarse.
00:53:37
Speaker
rather than buy something, you know, vintage antique that needs a couple days of setup, you know, sharpening, it's not fun. So after a while, you want to give up and you might not bring it to the point where it needs to be. So if you can just take it out of the box, you know, I go up to like a 12000 grit stone, get your micro bevel with that and then go from there. You know, this has been set up once since I got it. This is on the second
00:54:07
Speaker
you know, real sharpening. It doesn't take a lot of maintenance when you have a good a good tool. Good, good blade, good hardness. Well, since you took my choice, I know you got another one up there. I mean, does that shave count? A rabbit playing? I mean, it's shave is pretty versatile. You know, I'm going to go with the
00:54:38
Speaker
So this is the small router plane from Lee Nielsen. It's good for small hinges, stuff like that. I used it to clean out the bottom of a dado for some floating shelves we just did.
00:54:57
Speaker
So any instance where you need to set a depth, so this, you know, this blade is, you need a screwdriver to loosen this, but the blade is adjustable down, you know, it'll go down probably about a half inch, has a little depth stop on it. So anytime you need a very specific depth in a groove or a dado, you know, this will help you clean up. Can you think of any other tool that can do what that does?
00:55:24
Speaker
a chisel but not you know it's nowhere near as effective because you know it's all the depth is controlled by you versus this where you know you're not gonna be able to push this blade is only gonna go as deep as it's set because it's not it will pull itself down a little bit but it'll just sort of stop
00:55:43
Speaker
But yeah, that's a great little I got that to do the hinges on the confessionals because we use these. So many. Yeah, we use these olive knuckle hinges and there were four doors with three hinges each and.
00:55:56
Speaker
There's no router jig for these olive knuckle hinges because they're all the castings are all a little bit irregular. So you literally have to do them all by hand. So that was a big help in getting them all consistent depth. And it's a pleasure to use, isn't it? Yeah. And this is the smallest one they make. It'll take a good cut. It's got a quarter inch wide blade.
00:56:23
Speaker
So I hope that answered your question, Nate from Denver. Yeah, thanks, Nate. Nate actually gave some really good insight on the intro to the podcast. Oh, cool. Thank you, Nate. Thank you. You told me you told us to cut it off. He did tell us to shorten it, which actually made it a lot better. And I guess that's it. That's it for today. Oh.
00:56:45
Speaker
Oh, we got to do the review of the beer. Yeah, thanks. As you can see, as you can see, the review, this is... Rich liked it. This is done, so... I guess it's going to get some positive reviews.
00:56:56
Speaker
It brought back memories of Jersey City. Because this was like a unique thing to get. This cap that you can actually refill it with. You can't play Scully's with that cap. No, you can't. You can't play bottle caps. If you've heard of Scully's, reach out to us because these guys grew up playing that. But I love it. It's very refreshing.
00:57:22
Speaker
20 ounce or? It's bigger than that. I think it's 12. It's a 12. I thought it was bigger. It's a nice bottle. I love the bottle. Oh wait, 15.2 ounces. It was 450 milliliters. I liked it. It was very good. Again, I'm a regular beer drinker, so this tastes like regular beer to me. Just like a little less bitter than a Heineken. But I liked it.
00:57:49
Speaker
Good, good. I guess you go second since the... Yeah, I liked it. I like Rolsh. The bottle's cool. It's sort of like a novelty kind of thing, but I like these European-style Pilsners. This is like what most American, you know, macro beers were based off of, you know, Budweiser, Bud Light, all that. So it's good. Definitely a good, easy-drinking beer.
00:58:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I'll be honest, I didn't even really remember what it tasted like as much as the bottle. You know, I saw the bottle and like rich people that are our age.
00:58:30
Speaker
this was such a you know an exciting thing to have a bottle of this back then and I enjoyed it drinking it as Jeff says that he could really describe these things much more accurately and I agree this tastes like what I think of as an American beer like a regular
00:58:49
Speaker
you know, standard beer and maybe like a nice version of that, you know, crisp.
Grolsch Beer Review
00:58:58
Speaker
What the beers... Yeah, this probably isn't made with rice and corn. Right. It's probably what they all started out
00:59:05
Speaker
being. Yeah, this is like the done the correct done the Green Street way. That's right. This is the Green Street version of Budweiser. Not even. This is like a custom. This is a custom kitchen. Yeah. And then there's some like place in, you know, in Czechoslovakia where they're making a pilsner you've never heard of. Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:26
Speaker
Exactly. So it was good. It was it was a nice trip down memory lane. And these bottles, you can't keep talking about them. I mean, you can't stop talking about them. They're just so cool. Yeah. Thick. Even up here where you're drinking from, it's really thick and rounded like it was just like blown glass. Yeah. So shout out to Rolsh. A new sponsor. Hopefully thumbs up. Six enthusiastic thumbs up. Yeah, exactly.
00:59:53
Speaker
Well, that's it. We have a, we actually have a customer coming in, uh, any second now. So, uh, we're going to reel her in and hopefully, uh, no, she's already agreed to this table. We're going to build her. So she just wants to come and see the shop and, and see who we are. And also, yeah. So we're looking forward to that. And, uh, we're looking forward to our next, uh, podcast. Yeah. All right. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. Yeah. Next week, something. Yeah. We'll figure it out.
01:00:23
Speaker
Take care. Good night. Be well out there. Don't touch my fucking bag. You gotta hide the evidence of custody.