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The American Craftsman Podcast Ep. 20 | Technical Difficulties
39 Plays4 years ago
On Episode 20 of The American Craftsman Podcast, hosted by Greene Street Joinery, we talk about milling methodology and our choice of finish.
Beer of the Week (Pipeworks Brewing Company 'Any Other Name'): https://untappd.com/b/pipeworks-brewing-company-any-other-name/2242379
Tool of the Week: (Sand Flex Sanding Blocks) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GACU1Q/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=greenestreetj-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B000GACU1Q&linkId=860dca01bc7aec2752f9969d8cce9485
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
Technical Difficulties: Camera Setup
00:00:17
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a chain. What do you say? If you guys knew, the trouble just went through trying to get this camera set up. So a wood walker is not AV specialists? No. My God. This thing's a nightmare. For those of you listening, you have no idea, but, um...
00:00:47
Speaker
Quite often technical difficulties on the camera. It's a whole other language of stuff that I just know nothing about. Working on it.
Introduction to Episode 20: Woodworking Theme
00:01:00
Speaker
Is this really episode 20? Yeah, believe it or not. Wow. Episode 20 of the American Craftsmen Podcast. Yeah, just two guys talking about wood. Woodworking.
00:01:16
Speaker
We talk about wood sometimes. Yeah. Am I talking about wood today? That's right, that's right. Well, let's not spare any time, not waste any time rather, I should say, because I need a drink now after that aggravation.
Beer of the Week: Uniquely Crafted Bottle
00:01:31
Speaker
We're going to go right to the beer of the week and sticking with our new tradition, we're going with the...
00:01:38
Speaker
The big bottle where we're going to share glass. That's a cool looking bottle. Yeah. I saw this pipe works. Any other name. And you may have heard this. I didn't even know what this was. Say song. Yeah. Brood with roses. What a rose. Say song by any other name. Smell and taste as
00:02:00
Speaker
So wheat as that which we call any other name, maybe enough. This isn't Shakespeare. Right from the label. Too bad puns already. This song was brewed with love, rose hips, rose petals and lemony hops. Its true essence is light, fresh and floral.
00:02:23
Speaker
Stop. Read before opening. This beer is unfiltered. Sedimentation may occur. For best flavor, allow bottle to chill for two hours, et cetera, et cetera. Allowing for the natural yeast to settle out. Pour slowly into your favorite glass, leaving sediment behind. So. Interesting. This is the first for us. Where about is the, say, Illinois? Yeah, Chicago.
00:02:50
Speaker
Uh-oh. Uh-oh, we got a spill. Let me get some of those, uh, those terrible pale towels. Yeah, and I'll pour this out. Wow, it is pretty fragrant right off the bat. I do like a Saison. I don't know if I've ever had one. Nice, uh, straw yellow color.
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah. Oh. Check it out. Maybe not straw yellow. Yeah, it's pretty golden. Make sure we don't get any of that sediment in there. Yeah, I'm not afraid of any sediment. Yeah, let me really tell you the truth. Seems to be pretty clear.
00:03:42
Speaker
Getting a good two glasses out of this. Yeah. Well, there's that's yours. We've hit sediment. Hit rock bottom. All right. Smells good. Cheers. Cheers to you guys. Yeah.
00:04:11
Speaker
That's different. Yeah. I can't say I can even like put my finger on like the smell of a rose because I'm not really out smelling flowers very often. I don't smell. I mean, smell isn't my strongest of senses. But it doesn't have an overly floral scent. I wouldn't say that. More bitter than I was expecting and not as cold as I was expecting it to be. No. I must have just gotten it in.
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah. Pretty good. Yeah. It is light. Yeah. Pipeworks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so we ventured out of the area for this one from the Midwest, Chicago. Yeah. Pipeworks Brewing Company. Label artwork by Eric Lundquist. Hmm. So there you go.
Tool Talk: Sandflex Sanding Blocks
00:05:10
Speaker
Well, that brings us to the tool of the week. Yeah. I had the honor this week. This is a little something I actually got in, um, yesterday. It was yesterday or the day before. I mean, the days just fly by. I know. Especially Wednesdays. Wednesdays are quick. So these are, this is something that I've been meaning to pick up for a long time. I've always wanted to try them out. I see them in the catalogs and online and, um,
00:05:39
Speaker
all over the place so I finally grabbed a little three pack like the sample pack these are the sand flex sanding blocks from clingspore so this is actually there's a three in this pack that I bought and I think these are smaller than the I was gonna ask you if the sample was a little bit smaller yeah I was expecting them to be the size of like a
00:06:04
Speaker
Drywall sponge, you know, like maybe an inch by three by four or something like that. These are these are about five eighths of an inch by two inches by three inches. It's like the motel. So yeah, even a little bit bigger. So this comes with a course, a medium and a fine. This is basically it's just a block of rubber with.
00:06:28
Speaker
grit impregnated into it all the way through. So you can, what I used it for is the, with the steam rig, we got some water on the cast iron and I took the medium one and then the fine one and, and just buffed it out real quick. Yeah. Really polished it up. Nice.
00:06:46
Speaker
And that was with minimal elbow grease. I just did it to kind of see what the deal was. I took a couple spots off of the SawStop because, you know, this is a working shop. Stuff gets on the cast iron. This isn't a show. Not a TV studio. No, it's not a showroom. I used it today to take some like surface rust off of the sole of my shoulder plane.
00:07:09
Speaker
Mine's got a little on there too. Yeah, it's just a good thing to have around. Yeah, so You don't really want to use like regular sandpaper on on that kind of stuff. It's it's not ideal so Some I want to try out. I really like it so far You know, maybe it doesn't have my hundred percent seal of approval yet because I've only been using it for for a day but I thought it was definitely worth checking out the Course I'd say is maybe like
00:07:40
Speaker
180 looks rough from here feels right if it doesn't feel rough it it like looks rough and the the Little rubber pieces that come off like seem big but the grit that's inside of it is is actually pretty fine We feel it. It's pretty fine the medium I'd say is Yeah, cuz if you rub your finger on it's I mean we feel it yeah the mediums may be like a 320 and the fine has got to be
00:08:10
Speaker
Higher than 600 I'd say I mean that that almost feels smooth. Yeah. Oh Yeah, yeah, that's almost feels like an eraser. So it says on it Popular use uses include clean rust from tools and unfinished metals remove rust from outdoor equipment clean stainless steel stainless steel sinks pots and pans Restore nap to suede huh?
00:08:35
Speaker
We've been spending too much time together. Clean electrical contacts. Remove mineral deposits from ceramic tile and toilets. Clean tires and rubber products. Simply use the block like an eraser. Rubbing firmly on the surface can be used wet or dry. Choose from three grits, coarse, medium or fine.
00:08:51
Speaker
Not recommended for plated or painted surfaces. Test on inconspicuous area before use. Non-toxic. Then it says in like a little explosion bubble, it's a solid block of grit. Made by Cligsport. Made in Germany. I like it. Yeah. I like it. 15 bucks for these three little things I figured. Worth a shot. Yeah, we'll get a use out of them for sure. You know what these are probably good for?
00:09:18
Speaker
I took the gum rubber, you know those gum rubber things for cleaning sandpaper, I took that to the grit blocks because I noticed that the little nubs had gotten all dusty and it really helped but I bet this couple swipes over that will clean all the dust out of those and it won't be
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to borrow those when I have a minute of time. Clean off my planes because they do get a little bit. I mean, we live in the Northeast. Yeah. Even though we have a conditioned shop. I mean, like I'm not the best at after I sharpen my stuff to like dry it off 100 percent with a coat of like a coat of oil on it. So sometimes the work. Yeah. Like the top the top of your chisel will get rust on it.
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, which you know in the long run is not good. It's not really like an immediate problem where it's like man I gotta get this rest off right now, but you know you want to keep your tools nice Yeah, they get it when they start getting spotty. They don't look as nice. Yeah
00:10:22
Speaker
So check it out. Maybe I'll take it to my Yeti coffee cup over there. Yeah. That thing's been through some shit. The true test. Yeah. Clean that. Yeah. But check it out. Sandflex hand block painting and polishing. We'll have a link down in the description as always. Yeah. You know what that brings us?
Life Reflections & Humor in Routine
00:10:47
Speaker
Where's that gripe of the week? Gonna take a little diversion this week. I was talking to Jeff and I was like, you know, it's only 20 weeks in and I'm running out of petty gripes. And, you know, this week I think I just, I just need a break because
00:11:06
Speaker
Life is good. I don't even have anything petty to gripe about this week. How's that? It had to be extra petty. In all seriousness, there's a lot going on out there. Everybody knows we have the coronavirus and everything else that goes with it.
00:11:28
Speaker
But we're doing alright for ourselves, you know. We live here, we work here, and I'm feeling pretty good. I know Jeff is, I could speak for him. We spend enough time together. Yeah. It's looking like it's shaping up to be a good year. Yeah, yeah. So, no gripe this week. Yeah, we're going to count our blessings this week. There you go. There you go.
00:11:52
Speaker
And we have I see a lot of questions. Oh, yeah, we got a we got a three pager today We don't usually have that many we're trying to get started early, but these camera issues I need to get somebody in here to teach me how to set up that camera really a full two pages The last page is kind of doesn't really have anything on it So we're gonna start off the show with a joke from our buddy Dave
00:12:17
Speaker
DW is remodeling on Instagram, actually wearing Dave's shirt today. Yeah, had mine on yesterday. I think I had my Blake Woodward shirt yesterday. So Dave wants to know, what's your exercise routine? Well, Dave.
00:12:35
Speaker
I tell you, I start each workday off with a brisk walk. How long a walk is it? Well, the back door we can see from right here. I'm going to say it's a good 30 feet. It involves five steps.
00:12:50
Speaker
And then I'm into the shop. I sit down with my cup of coffee and we, we start the work day. Usually, you know, we have a short meeting. So, um, and then I like to end the day the same way with that, that long, that brisk walk, five steps back up into the house.
00:13:08
Speaker
I'm getting Instagram messages on the price of cherry in Michigan. It definitely can't beat what we're getting here. No way. Yeah. Oh, she is. I mean, we just select them better. They're getting a dollar more than what we're paying for. Yeah.
00:13:28
Speaker
We spent half a day yesterday and half a day today jointing and playing. So over here off camera is an entire 100 plus board feet of cherry that's down to an inch plus a 64th. We'll run it through the, I always want to call it a wide belt sander, I wish it was, through the double drum sander and then we'll have it down to an inch.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, and be more or less ready to start making parts. You know, we'll have to joint an edge too, but... Yeah. Yeah, I always... I mean, we have some questions about this, so maybe we won't talk about it, but... So yeah, I mean, that's a pretty stringent exercise routine. Can you top that? Well...
00:14:23
Speaker
My exercise consists of carrying boards into the shop from the woodshed, joining, hand planing, sanding. That's about it. Yeah, of course it should do more. But yeah, I was thinking that maybe, you know, once it warms up, we might get out on our bicycles or something like that. The Henry Hudson trails right here. Yeah. You might even start riding your bike to work. Maybe speak for yourself. What is it, about two miles? Yeah.
00:14:53
Speaker
It's a good little ride. I mean, the first thing in the morning, though, you know, you're really just not in the mood. No. And and then last thing. Yeah. And then maybe it's going to rain or I mean, I do believe me, I would love to have the time to. And I know this is always like a thing where it's like everybody's got time to do anything, but.
00:15:13
Speaker
I do a lot of work in the morning, like I wake up at five, I sit down with my coffee, I'll get on the computer, I'm writing emails, drawing on fusion, writing up proposals, editing, videos, whatever. So it's like I'm going to carve out an hour of that to go exercise. Yeah, I mean I'm not a morning person by any stretch so I could really
00:15:36
Speaker
I wouldn't enjoy it. And at this point in life, you know, as long as I can maintain, you know, semblance of health. I mean, I did bike. I was a pretty avid bicyclist for a while. I but it's it's been wow. I mean, I don't even know how many years I want to say it might be.
00:15:55
Speaker
six or seven years now since I last rode my bike, but I did ride from here down to Chincoteague, Virginia, and back in four days. That was 400 miles, so that was a pretty good ride.
00:16:10
Speaker
So I have the ability. I just don't have to drive. I don't have to drive anymore to do that. Yeah, probably about eight years ago, I did 15 miles every morning on my bike. My bike was a two-speed. Plus, you know, you have bad knees. I have bad knees. Yeah, I start physical therapy on Monday. I'm wearing these sleeves because, you know,
00:16:38
Speaker
it i was told you know it it manifests itself in my elbows like right at the joint but i was told it's part of the bicep tendon that that's where it hooks on yeah that's what gets strained so that's like i'm having i've been having some neck pain my god we sound like
00:16:57
Speaker
having some neck pain. My life is still good. It's from working on the computer and editing the last cut. It started when I edited that first YouTube video which takes a while even for like a 20 minute long video. But my wife thinks it's originating in my shoulder blade. So like one of the muscles under there is pulling something.
00:17:18
Speaker
but who knows we're not going to pretend we're doctors no no so we don't really exercise we know the job is physical we don't get any cardio really here no but we are moving and you know joining planning all that stuff is it's pretty physical work yeah oh yeah yeah so um
00:17:38
Speaker
Thanks for your concern, Dave. It's like I'm talking to my doctor, like, I know I should be doing something, but I'm not. I promise next year. Next year you'll have to send us new shirts, they'll all have to be a size bigger. Oh god, please no. Hopefully not.
00:17:59
Speaker
You want to read the second question? Yeah, here's our next one. So this is building on what we were talking about last week a little bit. Building on your quote, buy one chisel slash plane at a time and quote philosophy from last week. What size and type of chisel and plane would you buy first? And in what order would you buy the rest from Alan S? He's Al about it on Instagram.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, well, you think I guess he's asking like sizes. Yeah, yeah. Size of chisel and, you know, size and type of plane. Yeah, I'm if I would start with one chisel.
00:18:37
Speaker
I would probably start with like a mortise style so that, you know, because I like that where you can get into the corners and stuff like that. I like the long blade on it. I like that. And maybe something three eighths or a half inch, small enough
00:18:58
Speaker
to get inside some of those mortises and clean them out. And, you know, for bigger cuts, you're just going to have to make do. You'll have to multiple passes.
00:19:09
Speaker
So, I guess we'll talk about chisels and then we'll go to plane. I'm gonna say a three quarter inch beveled edge chisel. You know, like your standard beveled edge chisel with, you know, make sure it has really fine bevels so that you can get into, not get in square to a corner, but get in tight to a corner. Like a dovetail, for example, when you're clearing out the, you know, between the tails, you need something that can get very tight into a very acute corner.
00:19:38
Speaker
I think three-quarter inch is a is a good general size because you have enough reference surface But but it's not too big where it's gonna be. Yeah, that's the thing. I mean if you've ever tried to chisel it a straight line Small chisel it can wind up looking like you know a snake
00:19:56
Speaker
Find that as a finished carpenter three-quarter inch was the chisel I always reached for and now My five ace is actually what I reach for most so I'd say somewhere in that range anywhere between a half
Beginner's Guide: Chisels and Jointing in Woodworking
00:20:07
Speaker
inch and three-quarter. Yeah And I mean I like to Lee Neal since I've had a bunch of different kinds of chisels Those are the only like high-end chisels I've had had the Stanley 750s and a bunch of other junky kind of stuff I think the bang for the buck is
00:20:22
Speaker
Can't beat it. Yeah. Can't beat it. That's 50 bucks well spent. It's a lifetime tool. Can we say it all the time? Yeah. And you'll wind up learning another skill because you learn to keep them sharp. Yeah. It's not a disposable item like maybe which we actually we have a question about that today.
00:20:42
Speaker
Well, what do you know? What about planes? You're going to go with your old standby? Yeah, I'm going to say start out with a block plane, a low angle block plane. Now, if you had to live with one, just one plane for a while before you got another, I don't know if you would go with the like I have the small angle, maybe go with a full size, low angle block plane and.
00:21:09
Speaker
I was reading today, they all said I forget, but they basically they were talking about how all of these modern, not all of them, all of the modern block planes made by like Stanley and, uh, Tate tools and shop Fox, you know, all these like lower record. Yeah. They're just junk. They're total. They're not even worth having. So again, we always say it, spend the money, get one. That's good. Cause it's going to work. If you get one that's cheap, it's just not going to work that well.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I agree 100% with the, you know, block playing, get one that's, you know, sort of mid-size. So it'll tackle most jobs. I mean, it's a do all kind of playing for the most part. And for general woodworking.
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah, if you're just getting started with hand tools, you're not smoothing surfaces. You're going to be cleaning up an edge, taking milling marks off of an edge, breaking the corners. It's easy to control because you can get your whole hand on it and stuff. It's a great choice. Yeah. All right. And then what order would you buy the rest? Were we having some technical difficulties there? Well, we're back.
00:22:23
Speaker
Did I mention that we were woodworkers and not AV specialists? Oh, it's the second question? Yeah. Well, somebody forgot to plug in the laptop. It wasn't Rob. So we got cut off 22 minutes in.
00:22:42
Speaker
That was an hour ago. Yeah. We're going to fly through these questions. Oh, no. More than an hour ago. You know, for 20 episodes, we've had very minimal. Yeah. Screw today. Today wasn't our day as far as, you know, the electronics and the things. So where we got cut off, we were talking on Alan's question. Yeah. All about it on Instagram, about the chisels and planes to sum it up.
00:23:13
Speaker
Excuse me. Either a mortise chisel or a beveled as chisel to start and then find out what you need job by job. If you're going to be cutting through mortises, obviously you want to pick up a mortise chisel. If you're going to be doing dove tails, you want a beveled chisel. So go job by job and pick things up that way. So you just fulfill that need for your job. It's the easiest way to sort of you'll know. You'll know what's going on after you get one thing. You'll you'll feel the need for another thing that it doesn't do. Yep, exactly.
00:23:44
Speaker
And we both agreed on a nice block plane, not a tiny one, but something that feels good in the hand, something that's universal. Yeah, I think when it got cut off, I was talking about, I was reading something about, you know, all these modern block planes, for the most part, are really junky and always spend the money on the real deal. Yeah. And a block plane is a good buy.
00:24:09
Speaker
Under $200, you can get just about anything.
00:24:15
Speaker
Then we had a question from Keith K. Kelbecca on Instagram. Yeah, I got it this time. Rob read it on the unrecorded version of the podcast. That's right. What joiner and planer do you use? Shelix? Yeah, we spoke for quite a bit last week, not yesterday, about the virtues of our 40 to 40 Oliver 10 inch joiner.
00:24:41
Speaker
If we had a bigger one, I mean, 12 inches would be cool. That's we do run into some size limitations. We had to trim some of the boards for this armoire project on the bandsaw. But generally speaking, that thing is as good as gold's. I'm just thinking to myself, I'm glad I looked over and saw the laptop. That's right. We were about to go to the second page of the podcast.
00:25:10
Speaker
My laptop the screen is black that doesn't sound right at least we can see it imagine yeah So and then a planer The York craft 20-inch yeah, we got a generic 20-inch planer Probably I bought it
00:25:30
Speaker
you know, 16, 17, 18 years ago for a thousand bucks or whatever brand new. Nothing special, except we did put a helical head in it. Yeah. Lux cut three from I forget the name of the website, wood cutter dot com. Was he up in Canada? That guy, right? Canada or somewhere like north. Yeah. They sell the Sheelix and Lux cut all that stuff.
00:25:58
Speaker
But I mean, we wouldn't be able to get this planer for the price today because everything's gone up. But for what we have invested in this machine, an entry level commercial machine, it's.
00:26:13
Speaker
It's great. I mean, we we would love something a little bit better. And we probably if things go as we feel this year, we'll probably upgrade that if anybody is looking for a beautiful 20 inch entry level plane with a workhorse.
00:26:30
Speaker
Basically a new helical head in it. Yeah, we just turned the cutters for the first time I mean, I'd love to get that that Oliver 20 inch over in. Yeah, that's that's what we have our eye on. Yeah and And that's it. We don't really have anything fancy in this shop I mean the fanciest and air quotes tool we have is our saw stop
00:26:51
Speaker
You know, it's good. I mean, we got the festival stuff, but yeah, it's just not fancy. It's just good. Right. Right. We don't have any anything like that. That's doing the work for us. No, no. We're pushing all the boards through. Yeah. I'd like to get a power feed. We got the next question from Miles Thompson, one of our patrons. He wants to know about our joining process.
00:27:17
Speaker
Well, if you guys can believe it, we had even more problems looked up. My computer was off again. So we're going to go back one, two, three, four, five, six. We're going to go back six questions again. It's from our buddy Miles Thompson. He's one of our Patreon patrons.
00:27:42
Speaker
I was asking about our joining process. So we just talked about what joiner and planer we use. And now we'll talk a little bit about how we go about joining. So Rob, what's your, what's your methodology?
00:27:57
Speaker
I do it the old-fashioned way. Face, edge, edge. If we have a whole bunch like we have over there on the tables, basically we'll just do the face and then run it straight over to the planer so we have the parallel surface. And that way, when we bring it back to the joint, we can, you know, pick the best edge to join and then we'll bring it over to the table saw and start with the ripping and things like that.
00:28:25
Speaker
You might notice we're chowing on some gum right now. Dude, my mouth is so dry. Yeah.
00:28:30
Speaker
Lord this is our third time through this been the doom the cursed number 20 podcast Yeah, I like to face joint one face face I like to face joint then plane and then join an edge. That's just my the way I like to do it You know, this is the third time we've answered this leash. You shouldn't be making any mistakes. Oh my god
00:28:57
Speaker
You have three different answers for the third goal round. Next one is from Randall M, RM Crafts and Customs on Instagram. These questions all seem scarily familiar. What software do you guys use to design your builds and what do you think you can improve on when using your software? Well, we use SketchUp. That was our first. I learned SketchUp about 15 years ago. Kind of taught you a little bit. You learn most of it from the Internet.
00:29:28
Speaker
Then we found out about fusion 360. Yep. That's where you're at right now. Yeah. So the whole 3d printing thing got me, um, got me to see the weaknesses in sketch up. Yeah. And then, you know, explored some other options, saw the power of fusion 360 and decided like, Hey, I think this is a really good, um, tool to have in our quiver. So it's a better program for what we do. Yeah. Um,
00:29:58
Speaker
Oh, I got a reminder. Take the shop garbage out. I'd say the biggest thing to improve is using these programs to their full potential. Finding the time to learn all the ins and outs. I think so. How to extrapolate different information automatically. Because we just kind of got we're just brushing the surface with these. We're just getting by. We're doing what we need to, but not learning it 100 percent.
00:30:24
Speaker
Right, because we're wearing every single hat here in the shop. Yeah, there's only so much time to devote to. We go to bed early. We wake up, start. I mean, Jeff really kicks into work early.
00:30:41
Speaker
he's working five o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Now me, I'm thinking about work, but I'm not necessarily doing much work until about seven o'clock. You know, I'm sort of playing and I'm not really a morning person, but you know, I'm pretty good. Once I get going, I busted out that drawing this morning. Yeah. Forgot about that. It seems like a lifetime ago because we just were shooting this podcast for a third time. Um,
00:31:06
Speaker
We got our next one here from Neil. Neil Tango golf on Instagram. Those are his initials, by the way. He doesn't like to dance and golf. He may like to do those as well, but that's not what he signifies. Do you have a sharpening routine for hand tools like planes and chisels? This is too funny to do in this third time.
00:31:25
Speaker
Oh, good. Yeah, yeah, we do. So I have a trend 300,000 grit combo, diamond stone. Then I go to a Shapton 5000, Shapton 8000, Shapton 12000. And that's it.
00:31:41
Speaker
I have the machine. I have the Veritas mark something or other. It's like a slow speed, like a disc sander almost. It's perfect for kind of like the entry level sharpener.
00:31:58
Speaker
It's quick and dirty. Exactly. It'll get them it'll get them sharp, not to shave with. But if I'm working with a chisel and I need that specific chisel and it's getting a little dull in five minutes, I can pull out the machine, hone that thing up and be back at work. Yep. So that's what it's good for. It mostly sits around. But, you know, probably once a year I break it out and go through all the tools. Yeah. A couple of months ago, we all had a day doing some sharpening.
00:32:28
Speaker
Uh, you want to take this next one from Jeff B? Yeah. I quit my charm. How much skill and knowledge have you gained from books versus a mentor or coworker? That's Jeff B, Jeff Geofaria or Geofaria on Instagram. We've debated that all three times. We still have no answer. Um,
00:32:53
Speaker
I'd say that most of my, um, knowledge is from like YouTube videos and a little bit of books and a little bit of magazines, stuff like that. And just picking up little tidbits from different people, but the bulk of it is sort of self-taught. I would agree. I mean, I learned quite a bit from watching Norm Abrams like new Yankee workshop. This is going back 25 years now.
Learning Woodworking: Sources and Tips
00:33:21
Speaker
books from the library, find woodworking magazine. And then every way you work, you kind of pick up something. And it doesn't necessarily have to be like I worked in a wood shop and picked this up. I might have been helping some guy do some plumbing work or whatever. And you just pick up a habit or a way to do things. So
00:33:44
Speaker
neither of us have really been lucky enough to be in a formalized program or anything like that. So we've had to teach ourselves through trial and a lot of error and sharing what we know and having an open mind. And like I, I like to say, keep your ears open and your mouth shut and you're going to be better off. Yeah. So there you go.
00:34:08
Speaker
What's next? Is this where we left off last time? Now I'm paranoid, I keep looking over at my computer making sure the screen's not black. Yeah, it's still on. Alright, I'll ask this one. Do you foresee any issue with making a three inch thick bench top out of various hardwood scraps? I have maple, cherry, walnut, red oak, hickory and poplar.
00:34:49
Speaker
I think we've developed a good opinion on this over the last
00:34:55
Speaker
Three go arounds. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Was solid. Think think about how much headache you're willing to. Rich, what? Oh, it's rich carbide ready to send our blades back about time. Thanks a lot, rich. Been been a month. I know they move the can just without telling us we had to borrow a blade from John. Yeah.
00:35:24
Speaker
Just consider how much headache you're willing to deal with versus spending a little bit of money on material. You could get yourself some 12 quarter and make a single species top and you're going to have less worry with different expansion and contraction. If you start to butt these different species together,
00:35:42
Speaker
You know, your top is probably going to implode. It's going to be a lot of work to flatten. Yeah. All those small pieces. And then it's going to, you know, they're going to expand and contract at different rates. So you're going to have high spots and low spots and.
00:35:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a you got to make a compromise somewhere. It's either going to be with the amount of work or the amount of money you spend. So is it impossible? No. But is it worth it? Yeah. Is it worth it? Maybe not. We were saying that, you know, you can maybe add some in as like an accent would to make the bench look cool. Totally cool. But to glue up thin strips. Again, we don't know what kind of material you have. It could be two inches, two inches wide and three inches thick.
00:36:27
Speaker
But yeah, gluing up a bunch of little pieces, probably not a good idea. That's why you don't really see benches made that way. No, no. In terms of dog holes, bench dogs, hold fast, that kind of stuff. Make your own wooden dogs. Yeah, Jeff made mine. Well, he made his and then he made me some and he knocked it out of the park. I mean, I just basically threw away the aluminum woods I had. They're pretty easy to make. It's like,
00:36:55
Speaker
One, two, two cuts on the table saw and one on the band saw and then you glue a little thing on, you're good to go. And you gotta be careful while you're cutting those small parts. You guys miss that part. We're not going to go back over. We can't do it.
00:37:10
Speaker
Check out Tools for Working Wood. They have a bunch of Holdfast and stuff like that. Gramercy, I think, is the brand. Again, I don't have any experience with Holdfast, but their stuff looks good and I've heard good things. All this stuff in Lee Valley, all the regular catalog folks, they have tons of that stuff. Yeah, get one made by an actual blacksmith, not one. Miles, we just passed your question, Miles. He sent me a funny message on Instagram.
00:37:41
Speaker
Here's our next one from Cory K Cory R Kennedy on Instagram. What is your opinion on framed versus frameless cabinets? Well, we've developed quite an opinion on this. Yeah, you know the bottom line is It's an it's an aesthetic choice for us. It's not one of economy and and usually Frameless cabinets get lumped in with the the cheaper quick and you know inexpensive way to make something
00:38:09
Speaker
We design stuff from the ground up and sometimes a frameless cabinet with an overlay door is gonna fit the bill. Yep. Modern aesthetic, that's what the client's looking for. We just want to encourage everybody to do things as well as they can with intention, with integrity, and don't get hung up on any of these other things. Yeah, if you're not using frameless as a crutch to just knock something out cheaper at a lower level of quality. Right.
00:38:40
Speaker
We just do what works for the design. So as long as it's made well, we don't care if it's framed or frameless. We use them interchangeably. Yeah. I mean, 75, 80% of what we do is framed, inset doors. Yeah. But we go with the flow here. Yeah. All right. So the next question is from our good buddy Tim B, true trade carpentry on Instagram.
00:39:04
Speaker
And we couldn't decide if Tim was looking for us to come up there and give him a hand in North Jersey because he asked, travel for work? Would you guys have you guys and how far would you go? I'd say there's no limit to that distance as long as, you know, the cost of travel has worked into the job. We'll go as far as far as somebody would be willing to pay us to go. Yeah. Except for Tim, we'd go up for lunch. Yeah. Yeah. Tim, you just, you know, gotta be good lunch.
00:39:35
Speaker
Tim's a badass, he doesn't need our help. No, yeah, man, some of these doors and stuff that Tim's made, insane. But if he ever did, we'd be there. Oh, yeah. You bring stuff, we'll buy you lunch, Tim. Yeah, that's crazy talk.
00:39:53
Speaker
Tim's going to be on the podcast as soon as we start having guests again. We're doing our due diligence to keep our circle small right now. This is the question that we haven't gotten through yet. Is this the cursed question? Alan from Misfit Woodworking, what did you put a hex on this thing? Because if I look over and my laptop's off again, I'm going to scream. It was rough enough getting started with the camera.
00:40:18
Speaker
Which router bits have you had the best experience with? Amana, Whiteside, CMT, bits and bits, or others? And Rob said, I think we use them all. Then I said, I think the computer went off again.
00:40:34
Speaker
We have an Amana in the router right now that we did all the saw stuff with. We've got CMT in the drawer. We've got bits and bits and white side. We have Astra coated white side bits from bits and bits. Yeah. I mean, I I don't know if any of them are better than the others. I really like the Astra coated stuff by bits and bits. Yeah. That compression flush trim bit is badass. It is both of them. We have the quarter inch and the half inch.
00:41:04
Speaker
I think as long as it's high quality, sharp, that's kind of it. I mean, it's the same stuff we say all the time. It sounds like we're repeating ourselves, but that's really it. If it's a good quality maker, they're all pretty equivalent. Yep.
00:41:20
Speaker
Yeah. Check out the bits and bits. Use coupon code FRANK15, our buddy Frank out in San Diego, corporate one three. Yeah. But but speaking of blades, you know, I have to, you know, digress just a little bit. We got that phone message just now from Ridge Carby, who there now we send our saw blades out to get sharpened. And I used to send them up to dynamic.
00:41:43
Speaker
in Buffalo. And, you know, it's a little bit of a big deal to get it all the way up to Buffalo. And it's a slow process. And since Ridge is like 45 minutes away, we say we have the bright idea. Go, let's try Ridge. Let's send our stuff over to Ridge. Yeah, we got that Ridge carbide blade. Yeah, we have we have their blades in our machine. So let's do that. Well, it's about a week now. This is mid December. We send them out.
00:42:13
Speaker
So last week, like, man, where are our saw blades? You know, we needed to swap out the blade. John Peters was nice enough to to give us a blade, a CMT. And I call them up. It turns out they move their entire operation to Kansas.
00:42:33
Speaker
I had a call Kansas and they're like, oh yeah, we're just getting around to start sharpening now. You know, we just finished unpack everything. What?
00:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, we sent him out January 15, uh, December 15th and he's now January 20th. He needs the security code on the back of the card to send him out. That's what the voicemail, I just read it. And we got a very interesting email that we, I'm dying to talk about, but we can't talk about it on there. Um, so yeah, I would say check out bits and bits.
00:43:10
Speaker
All right. Here's our next one from David A. This is brand new for the first time today. The laptop is still on. We're doing okay. Yeah. D Atkins builds on Instagram. What'll happen next is the fucking power will go out. Yeah. Ever had an adjustable shelf, not sit level? Use the jig for the holes, but one corner is about one 30 second low. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:27
Speaker
Yes. Absolutely. All the time. Even happens with, you know, boring machines. Yeah. So they make these eccentric shelf pins. Personally, I hate the way they look. Yeah. They they stick out like a sore thumb, but they will solve your problem. Yeah. So you have that as a choice. The other one is to maybe add like a door bumper or something to your shelf where it hits the pin. Yeah. If it's a fine piece of furniture, you don't want to do that.
00:43:56
Speaker
I don't know what the hell you're going to do. Yeah, it depends what the sides made out of. On occasion, even in the plywood cabinet sides, I've plugged that hole and then just come back the next day and redrill them because we use those little collars. Yep. They'll cover up anything. Yeah. Yeah. That'll. But you wouldn't even see it even if you didn't, if it's only a 30 second of an inch. But yeah, I've plugged the holes and redrilled them.
00:44:27
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes you can turn the pin. If you have the pins that are flat, you can turn it 90. That's right. Or 180 sometimes is enough. A little bit, yeah. I'd say try any of those out. If it's a solid wood shelf, you can remake the shelf with the taper on it. Taper the sun. I've done that too. Get crafty.
00:44:47
Speaker
You know all the ways to fix it. Now you know that we've done the same thing too. If it's like a shop thing, just put a bunch of layers of blue tape there. All right, on to the next one. We're doing good. Pin nailers and brad nailers. Most woodworkers use them in the shop. What is your go-to brand and what do you look for in these tools? Pneumatic versus cordless. Brushless or not? Does the battery platform play a role in your decision?
00:45:14
Speaker
Thank you for continuing to keep the podcast down to earth from Randy M Martin Woodwork 73 on Instagram. Well, thank you, Randy. Thanks, Randy. We're trying. I know we're big stars, but we're trying to remain humble. Yeah, our wives keep us in check, believe me. I mean, it's been tough getting in my truck the last couple of days with paparazzi. Yeah, yeah. Cameras are flashing.
00:45:38
Speaker
Well, what do we got? We have a in the shop, we have a Porter Cable Pin Nailer and a Bostitch 18 gauge. That's really all we use. I've got a Hitachi Pin Nailer, a Bostitch 18 and a Passload regular pneumatic Passload 16 at home. Yeah. And what about the Grex?
00:45:59
Speaker
Yeah. And then I also have the Grex GC 1850, which is a gas powered 18 gauge cordless. And I have the Makita 23 gauge pinner, you know, battery powered. You worked in the field for a long time. So you have a lot of stuff that, you know, makes it extra handy, cordless stuff, too. For me, I haven't left this building in the last 23 years. At least not for an extended period of time.
00:46:29
Speaker
I'd say things we look for, dry fire lockout. Please make it stand, dude. I don't understand what the point of not having that is. If you're saving money, it can't really be that much. I'd pay an extra 20 bucks. Because the next nailer we get, we will not buy if it doesn't have a dry fire lock. I'd like to ditch that Bostitch just because of that. Because it doesn't. The pin nailers especially, you have no clue when you're firing one or when you're not. No. Until your piece comes loose and you're like, what the hell?
00:46:56
Speaker
The one thing I'll say about that port of cable and the way things are going, I shouldn't even bring it up. But when I bought it a long time ago, because they weren't that plentiful back then, you know, people would say, you know, you got to be careful about which way you put the pins in there. They jam all the time. That thing has been a little workhorse. One of the gripe with that is it only takes one inch max one inch. Yeah. Yeah. It's a stubby little thing. Yeah.
00:47:25
Speaker
So that's it. I mean, in the shop we use full air tools. Yeah, we don't really use the nailer as a whole lot. It's got to be something pretty rough to bust out the nailer. A lot of times when I'm working by myself, I'm putting the cabinet together, like I'll tack the corners like the plywood, just sort of hold it together.
00:47:43
Speaker
I'm paranoid of nails coming out in the wrong directions.
Shop Practices: Nailer Usage and Finishing Techniques
00:47:47
Speaker
They always tend to do that, don't they? Yeah, so I shy away from the nailers when I can. I'd rather use a pocket hole if I'm worried about like tacking something together. We don't use it a lot, actually. No.
00:48:00
Speaker
We use it on like this sauce thing to nail the trim on, but then it's just a hole that has to be putted. If you're not going to see it, I'll just put a screw in. Yeah, we try to stay away from making holes where you're going to see them. That's just one of our little things. Oh, we go in here from Sal. Sal the carpenter on Instagram.
00:48:20
Speaker
Want to know about the real milk paint clear you used on the next story. I thought they only made paint. So he's referring to the story I put up yesterday was after the one asking for the podcast questions.
00:48:31
Speaker
It was me applying some finish to the sauce wall. Mm-hmm. So that's real milk paint company Dark tongue oil. It's a pure tongue oil with Hydrocarbons added to it that gives it a darker They say it's like a naturally occurring resin. We had to look up what a hydrocarbon was. Yeah, cuz we're not chemists
00:48:51
Speaker
We don't want to come off like we know that much. So they have the regular pure tongue oil and the dark pure tongue oil. Yeah. So we're using the dark on this. It's like an antiquing look almost. Yeah. So it gave the sapele like a really nice medium brown. Yeah. The oil almost looks black. Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:14
Speaker
Like a, like a dark corn syrup. Yeah. Except not as thick. Like oil. Yeah. Yeah. Oil. Yeah. That's a good one. Like engine oil, you know, engine oil. Um, so yeah, their stuff is great. All natural. You can pour it in the grass. It's like the solvent is a just a orange peel oil. So you mix it 50 50 or you can buy it pre-mixed. Um, we can finish in the middle of the day. The shop doesn't smell smell actually smells good. Yeah.
00:49:41
Speaker
Yeah, well, so what is he's got there the name of the company down? Yeah milk paint so you can look them up online. Yeah They're down in Tennessee. Yeah small, you know family-owned company. Yeah, check it out and it's real easy to use. Yeah
00:49:58
Speaker
It's real easy. Wipe it on, wipe it off, come back the next day, do it over again. Do that as many days as you can stand and you're gonna go. It's foolproof. Yeah, it polymerizes, so it turns into, you know, like a hard finish on the inside of the wood. Yeah, the non-toxicity of it is a big thing for us. Yep.
00:50:20
Speaker
Well, look look at this. I didn't even know this next question was coming. This is from Nathan T. Tree of Life. I put these together. Yeah, we kind of half answered this question. Yeah. What made you guys decide to use tongue oil for everything? I don't mean that as a critique at all. Well, thank you Nathan. We didn't even think that. Yeah, you better not be critiquing us, Nathan. Just kidding.
00:50:44
Speaker
I think we just answered that question. Yeah, the eco-friendly nature of the product, the non-toxic nature of it, the ease of application. And we spend an awful lot of time and effort putting these pieces together to look good in the raw and without finish on them. I mean, the finish is what highlights it, but
00:51:10
Speaker
But we don't use finish to cover anything up, to blend two pieces of disparate wood together. It's a winch. I'm going crazy. Yeah. So the tongue oil is perfect because it highlights what we've already done.
00:51:25
Speaker
Yeah, and I like the feel of a penetrative finish versus a film finish. I want to be able to feel the wood. It is wood, so I want it to feel like wood. We'll put a coat of wax on stuff to give it a little bit of sheen because the tongue was a very matte finish. Right, just soft luster. We'd never really go for a buffed out car thing. No, no, no. No, I mean, we're not opposed to it if that's what somebody wants. Yeah, it's not our go-to thing. No, I don't know. Yeah.
00:51:54
Speaker
All right, so that was pretty good. That was that was easy to answer. I'll read this one because I'm going to hand it off to you because this is for your house. How big should a single pedestal base be in ratio to a tabletop 30 by 72 inch top from Brad Ethan or Aithan I T H A N Creek Woodworks on Instagram?
00:52:14
Speaker
Wow. Well, there might be formulas for this. Yeah. Look up the book. I haven't read it yet. I have a human dimension in design. I think it's called. It has all of the necessary information as the human body relates to furniture. Yeah. Those are great things.
00:52:34
Speaker
You know, I've built my share of dining room tables and desks and things like that. And people generally, when they approach you for a job like this, they want to see X number of people. And it's usually more that can fit. So and then you have to tell them.
00:52:53
Speaker
That's you can't sit, you know, 24 inches apart and and have, you know, yeah, this isn't a restaurant in New York City, right? Where the bankhead is shoulder to shoulder. So, you know, we try and fit like 30 inches. That's that's my rule of thumb. 30 to 36 inches is a comfortable, you know, slot to fit into on a table. I'd say 30 inches wide for the table. That's pretty narrow. Yeah. And then you're going to need
00:53:22
Speaker
I mean a foot is is minimal for your knees. I like to go more like 14 to 16 inches for for knee space. So now you're starting to get an idea how big this base can be like where it's fastening to the table and.
00:53:42
Speaker
That's how I start. It's like, what are my limitations? How's this going to fit with a human body in use? Like, pass the roast beef. I got my arms out and I'm cutting something. Yeah. What kind of plates do you have? 30 inches. The plates might be touching it. The people that are sitting across from one another. You're not going to have room for a glass or the salt or food. Exactly. Exactly. And then you can kind of use your, you know,
00:54:10
Speaker
your common sense, so to speak, of how broad the bass has to be so that the table's not tipping over if you're leaning on the edge. And a lot of that will have to do with the design of how the the bass fastens to the table as well. Yeah, and a single pedestal on a 30 by 72 table, it's going to have to be quite long. Yeah, it'd have to mirror the shape of the table in some respects. Yeah.
Design Considerations: Table Base and Measurement Accuracy
00:54:36
Speaker
So I would, you know, I think it's a great time to actually learn about this stuff instead of relying on like a formula or something like that. This is where you'll see the ins and outs of what affects that formula because it's not just, well, you need something that's six inches clear here and 12 inches clear there. There's a lot of variables that go into it.
00:55:02
Speaker
So, we didn't really answer it completely, but we did give you a good place to look for the information, because that's really what it is. There is no hard, fast answer to that. And, you know, in terms of aesthetics, once you have your criteria set, like, okay, I need to have this much space, then you can start to see what visually you can fit into that space. Yeah, and what looks good. Right. Because it's got to look good while doing it.
00:55:31
Speaker
All right, we're rolling now. Oh, yeah. 500 ish budget for a palm sander. Which one too would you buy? That's from Cory K Cory R Kennedy on Instagram.
00:55:45
Speaker
Well, we've said it once. We're going to say it again. Get yourself either the five or the six inch Rotex from Festival. That's it. You're going to be pushing a little closer to six hundred bucks for one, but well worth it. I think it's a very versatile sander. Yeah. If you can only have one sander, that's the sander we we.
00:56:04
Speaker
nominated as our shop favorite. I mean, we only have Festool Sanders here in the shop. Yeah, we got four of them left. We had we had a couple that that went down for the count. Yeah. But we've tried. We tried most of them. I mean, I still want that Delta. Yeah. But yeah, the Rotex hands down is if you can only have one, go for it. Yep. We love it.
00:56:31
Speaker
All right. You want to read the next one? This is from Terraform Woodworking on Instagram. For this project with Cherry, do you usually use 100% solid wood or do you use plywood for the carcass? Yeah, Terraform. I like that. Typically, we do have some type of plywood casework. But for this, it's going to be open most of the time in this cabinet. It's a coffee bar.
00:56:58
Speaker
like a Miele built-in coffee maker and an instant hot and chilled water tap. So 99% of the time in this, these folks kitchen, it's going to be open so that they have access to these things. But they want the ability to be able to close the doors when they have company, you know, if there's a mess. So.
00:57:18
Speaker
We just thought it would be, you know, easier and look better if the casework was all solid wood. So we have a plywood back, which we got some really nice cherry plywood in today for that. But then the rest is all solid wood. Yeah, this entire piece.
00:57:33
Speaker
is solid cherry, except for the backs. Yeah, exactly. It's really nice to build cases that way. Yeah. And if you're we're going to go with solid sides, then what happens on the top and the bottom, then you have to worry about the movement with the side between the bottom. You go with some kind of a sliding dovetail. And now everything's going to move in the same, relatively the same amount.
00:58:01
Speaker
We're set up to work with solid wood. It's easier for us. It's just adding a step really. And because they're flat, the sides are flat. They're not framing panels. So to do apply with carcass on the inside would just be adding a step and adding thickness and material cost and time and this and that. Just kind of like with the frameless, we do what makes sense. So this case, all solid wood makes sense. That's what we're doing. Exactly.
00:58:27
Speaker
Saw stop. A saw stop question. With the sliding crosscut table, is it worth the upgrade? This is a question from one of our patrons, Dustin F. Fair, like mayor. Fair, yeah. With my Brooklyn, Texas accent, fair. I'd say if you're going to get the saw stop, yeah, spring for the extra money and get it. I mean, we use it every day. We do. It's great.
00:58:55
Speaker
It's not without its own little quirks, but right but it's better than a miter gauge. It's not perfect No, but it's but it's better to have it. I've yet to find a perfect tool. So yeah, they're doing pretty good over there It's all stuff. So we're gonna say yes, it is worth it. Yeah. All right
00:59:10
Speaker
Here's one from another patron, Rich M. One of our newest patrons. Rich is the gentleman that sent us those pikas a couple weeks ago. Oh, yeah. Was that last week? That's my main pencil now. Yeah. Rich wants to know, I'm trying to decide on whether or not to spend the annual fee for SketchUp Pro. How much do you use cut lists or do you keep track of cabinet pieces another way? This really ties into the earlier question from Randall. We don't get our cut lists
00:59:40
Speaker
from Sketchup Pro? No, I mean, we're kind of pulling those out manually from Sketchup. Yeah. But we definitely want to figure out how to do that on Sketchup and Fusion that way. Right. But I'd say if you're going to pay for something, I understand if you're if you're you know, Sketchup really well and you want to stick with that, but look into Fusion or something like that. Maybe you see if you're going to spend money, get something that's more powerful, maybe.
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. We just, yeah, we pull our our cut lists off. The cut list isn't really that big. And by the time you have the drawings there, the the cut list is just, you know, it's 10 minutes of of pencil work. Yeah. We like to work from the pictures. Yeah, I'm not sure who knows what we got on tape and what we didn't. The hell we talked about when we didn't.
01:00:30
Speaker
We're saying we just kind of build intuitively. The numbers are just there as a reference and the overalls are all we got to hit. Show us the picture. Yeah. If you're building doors and you know you're supposed to have the drawing show a three-inch style and it ends up two and fifteen, well you can't file the numbers anymore so you just got to look at the overalls and work off of that. Exactly. This isn't a scientific lab and not everything works out perfectly. Especially on like something like the
01:00:57
Speaker
the coffee bar, the RNY, it's a one-off piece, so it doesn't have to match anything, you know? Yeah, and if it's supposed to be 48 and it ends up 47 and three-quarter... Right, you go with the flow, because sometimes the wood isn't going to yield it. Right. You know, there may be a defect that, you know, disallows it, so we're pretty laid back with that kind of thing. Yeah.
01:01:21
Speaker
Oh, I know mistakes are inevitable in woodworking, but what mistakes did you find yourself making less and less of as you grew as craftsmen over the years? In other words, what mistakes should we aspiring woodworkers be looking to grow out of? That's from Adam P. And this is three patrons in a row. Yeah, we've got even more.
01:01:46
Speaker
This is going crazy. Yeah, I saw 20 22 miles an hour. This is a it's a tough question because you I at least I try not to dwell on my mistakes so they don't really jump out to me at first.
01:02:01
Speaker
I'd say like sort of those transcription errors and simple math errors and stuff. Those are really where something simple can turn into a big problem. So you can learn how to check your work and just stay on top of accurately transcribing information. You're going to save a lot of headaches. That's a biggie. Moving numbers around from one spot to the next. It's so easy to make a mistake.
01:02:31
Speaker
That's why I sort of started going to like measuring sticks like for doors and things like that. If I have several openings, I'll cut a stick and I'll write on it. This is the opening to, you know, cabinet 12 opening three. And now then I'll just know and I can have it with me. I don't have to worry about is that 24 and 7 sixteenths or 11 sixteenths? I can't remember. I know a guy that used to cut little sticks up like that. Yeah.
01:02:59
Speaker
and stack them all next to each other. Yeah. I throw mine away after the job's done. But transcription errors. Yeah. And I think the more of a singular mistake you make, the more you learn to grow out of it. So whatever it is that you're doing now that you wish you weren't, that's what's going to happen. Yeah. And you know, mistakes
01:03:26
Speaker
They're gonna happen. Yeah, we make mistakes all the time, but we're really good at backtracking and fixing them. Yeah. That's the thing. And I think with that confidence, actually, there are less mistakes. Yeah. You know, it's not very nerve-wracking. Mm-hmm. Because we know, hey, I made this from scratch anyway. I can fix it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the all-parent, I brought you into this world. I'll take you there.
01:04:04
Speaker
I'm not the only one to over obsess about things that probably don't matter getting square cuts to within a thousandth of an inch
01:04:12
Speaker
making sure your tools are set up, not just good enough, but perfect, et cetera. How far do you feel you should chase something to be perfect when it really doesn't matter in the end result? In both projects, tool set up and other aspects of woodworking, or is it worth just accepting the quote, if it's straight, it's straight frame of mind.
01:04:32
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know what they say about the Parthenon? What's that? No straight lines in there. Yeah. Because it looks straight. And I wonder if that's what he's asking, you know, does it look right? If it looks right, it's right. Right. If it's if it's not straight, but it all looks straight, does it really matter if it's if it's you put a, you know, a three hundred dollar straight edge on it and it's perfectly straight?
01:05:00
Speaker
Right. I don't think so. No. And as we say here, lots of times we're not building the space shuttle or the Japanese satellite.
01:05:12
Speaker
What is a what is an organic material? It's a thousandth of an inch. You're going to cut it and then tomorrow you come back. It's different. It's not the same. It's it's if it's straight, it is straight. That's the way I see it. Yeah. We do chase perfection here, but within reason. Yeah. I mean, we're always working our hardest.
01:05:32
Speaker
to do our best. Right. But we understand the limitations of ourselves, of the of the material we work with. And and that's that's just the truth of it. So don't obsess. That's our advice. Yeah, because drive, you know, right. You could have a job and you do everything to the book.
01:05:57
Speaker
Everything dead square, perfectly 90, straight as an arrow. And then you get to the end and it still didn't make a difference because something happened. The wood and and you're going to feel so defeated because I felt that way before because I am a perfectionist and I'm super conscious of all this stuff.
01:06:16
Speaker
So it's not worth the hassle. Just make it right. You don't have to chase these insane numbers. We're not working with metal on a mill where we're talking about thousandths of an inch. If you're within a 128th or 64th, usually you're good enough. And we can see slight discrepancies with our eye, because we've just been doing it for so long. So we know if something's not right.
01:06:44
Speaker
Yeah, and, you know, put a set of calipers or a straightedge on any piece of furniture that you come across. Nothing's perfect. It's not if it's made out of wood, at least. Yeah. All right. I hope that was good advice. Yeah. You know, I did graduate high school in Texas, so I think I'm qualified to read this next. Yeah, this is an overflow from last week. I missed it. If I ever miss your question,
01:07:05
Speaker
It's not because it didn't make the cut. It's because I forgot. So just let me know. Yeah. Yeah. So this is from chip H to chipped on Instagram. And he's he's from Georgia. So he asks, what are y'all's thoughts on opening up hardwood?
01:07:21
Speaker
You know, they say y'all in Texas, too. And you know what else they say in Texas? I'm fixing to do this. I say that sometimes, kind of a little bit tongue-in-cheek. So what are y'all's thoughts on opening up hardwood? Whether ripping, planing, cross-cutting, basically opening it up to a fresh oxygen after shot acclimation. Man, I'm having a hard time here.
01:07:44
Speaker
Do you open it up on all six sides and let it rest overnight? Or do you go right into the sizing that you need? And if you're not using an oil, going from an unconditioned shop into a low humidity home.
01:08:00
Speaker
We touched on this a little bit before. We may have got, I don't know. We don't know what version made it. Or if it made it at all. We do. We will open it up on all six sides. So we'll cut it, rough cut it. Sometimes we rough cut and then don't joint until the next day. But that's just like a timing thing usually. So we'll rough cut it, joint it, plane it.
01:08:21
Speaker
I'd say yeah, I'd say that typically it's more like four sides the edges might not get touched right so we'll Cut the ends join a face playing the other face then sticker it up. Yeah wait at least overnight Mm-hmm then come in start to bring it down to final thickness. Yeah, it's what we did With this cherry here. We we rough cut it Face joining it and you know of course you have to mark everything all the pieces because we don't just
01:08:52
Speaker
you know, grab boards and just join them and create these long wide boards. We first select all the wood that we're going to use for which part. We have our drawings, we go through, we pick it out, we put a letter designation on it, rough cut it, face join it, plane it.
01:09:12
Speaker
sticker it, and then repeat the next day. Yeah, and if you don't know what chip is getting at, basically when you take the rough surface or even just the top surface, the outside surfaces of these pieces of wood are the driest out of it all. The very core of the wood has the highest moisture content because that's just the way it works. It just evaporates from the inside out.
01:09:38
Speaker
So when you, let's say you take a board and you just face join it and leave it to sit, it's going to cup. Because now you have one side that's very dry, the side that didn't get touched, and the other side that's very, not very wet, but it has a higher moisture content than the opposite side. So it's going to cup, I guess what, the bow will be towards the dry side.
01:10:00
Speaker
So something that we try and do is if we take two passes on the jointer to clean the face, we want to try and take two passes on the planer so that we're taking an equal amount off so we end up with equal moisture content on both of those faces. You're less likely to get a cup. Maintain equilibrium as best as you possibly can, within reason.
01:10:22
Speaker
So he and he wants to know, you know, are we worried about it if if I'm not if you're not using an oil going from an unconditioned shop into a low humidity home? We have a condition shop, so it's not really. We live in a privileged life. Well, you know, no, we do it for the wood, really. We can live with the with the being colder and hotter, but it just makes life a little easier.
01:10:51
Speaker
But we we build things sort of worst case scenario anyway. You have to use sound joinery and construction techniques to ensure that the piece is going to withstand these swings in in humidity. Yeah, yeah. I remember while I was maybe 15, 14 years ago, I built these big sliding doors in a bedroom. They were probably like nine feet by four feet.
01:11:21
Speaker
And they were maple and they were running horizontally and they had like aluminum strips in there. It was sort of a design feature and also is kind of like an expansion joint. And the homeowner went away.
01:11:36
Speaker
Yes, it was in the winter time up in Hoboken and he turned his heat down to like 50 because he didn't want to do it. So then he comes home, cranks the heat up and one of the doors split. He called me up and I'm like, and he says, oh yeah, I think I got a little crack on the door. And I was a little bit incredulous thinking, no.
01:12:02
Speaker
And then so he sends me a picture. Now he didn't tell me this. He didn't give me the backstory.
01:12:09
Speaker
And I'm like, Oh, okay. Yeah. Thanks a lot, buddy. That makes me think we should put something in our like scope of work letter that, that, uh, mentions like the necessity to keep a consistent humidity. Yeah. Yeah. Because it really, I mean, that'll have an effect. Oh yeah. You know, so chip knows what he's talking about. Yeah.
01:12:45
Speaker
I can't remember it. It was like two hours ago. It was good. Yeah, it was good. It was really good. Pipe works. Any other name, I guess, you know, rose by any other name. Yeah. Yeah. Play on words is brewed and bottled in Chicago, Illinois. And it was a say song, which I think this was my first one.
01:12:56
Speaker
Thanks for your question, Chip.
01:13:08
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not on the top of my list of styles that I like the most, but it was very light. Yeah, I thought they're a little funky, little, you know, they have that like not wild yeast, but that kind of funky Belgian kind of yeast thing. It was good. I mean, I if I showed up at a party and they had that in like a cooler with some other ones, I might grab it. Yeah, it was a little colder. I think I would have liked it better. Yeah. Yeah.
01:13:38
Speaker
Well, we'll have that tool of the week down in the description. Yeah. Of the podcast and the YouTube version of the podcast. Check us out on YouTube. We got more videos coming out all the time. Trying to make it a point to film what we're doing so we can broaden our horizons. Yeah. But yeah, hey, episode 20. In the books. Yep. Finally. As difficult and painful as it was. Look, the laptop's still on. It's still on.
01:14:03
Speaker
Third time's the charm, they say. Right now. Yeah. We'll see all you patrons in the Patreon aftershow. If you guys want to help support the podcast, head over to our Patreon. We do a little aftershow every week. 30, 45 minutes of, you know, talk about all kinds of stuff, woodworking, other stuff. Yeah, Banana Revolution. Yeah. Yeah, all kinds of big news going on. All right. Well, you guys be safe out there and thank you very much. We'll see you next week. Ciao.
01:14:48
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a chain