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THAT Guy w/ Tim Beardsley
47 Plays1 year ago
The return of THAT guy, Tim Beardsley, of True Trade Carpentry.
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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.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:28
Speaker
The American Craftsman podcast is sponsored by Hayfla. Hayfla offers a wide range of products and solutions for the woodworking and furniture making industries. From hinges and drawer slides to connectors and dowels, sandpaper, shop carts, wood glue, and everything in between. Exclusive product lines such as Lux LED lighting and Slido door hardware ensure that every project you create is built to last. Learn more at hayfla.com.
Nostalgia and Guest Introduction
00:00:56
Speaker
I had to do the, you know, uh, the new intro. It's not, I mean, it's not really new. I think maybe I took a new section of the song for season four and I was like, yeah, we throw something.
00:01:07
Speaker
I was going to say, you actually didn't change your song. You know, you keep it nostalgic, you know, keeping it true. That's Rob's. Oh, that's Rob's? Yeah. That's your band? That's from 1992. Oh shit. Okay. All right. All right. Where were you in 92? Probably just getting out of diapers. 11. Man, I was 11. What was I doing in 92? That was three. Just before I got the hammer though, probably messed around with something.
00:01:36
Speaker
Well, if you don't recognize the voice and if you didn't read the description of the episode, we're joined by our good friend, Tim Beardsley, true trade carpentry. Hey, I didn't have you back. I didn't think I was going to come back after our, you know, what, woodpecker scandal, pocket hole debacle. Let's see. We cross paths in a lot of different ways, but let's see what the, uh,
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah. What episode the original was. It's episode 25, 26. Man. That's like a 120 episodes ago. How many episodes we got? Let's see. I want to say 25, 26. 26. Oh, okay. Yeah. March 3rd, 2021. Wow. Almost three years.
Shop Upgrades and Fire Safety
00:02:30
Speaker
Wow. Wow. What's happened in three years? Yeah, we've been at it for...
00:02:35
Speaker
Don't give up. For some time now. Don't give up. Look at us, we got big boy shops now too. I mean, I was in my garage at the time, I believe. And we were in the glorified garage. Yeah, you're back there. Yeah, referred to as many by a garage. Yeah, we get people in here like, I forget who, one of the salesmen had somebody who's like, yeah, you know, these guys used to be in their garage.
00:03:01
Speaker
It was just a small shop. It was a small shop. It's what you build pressure out of and it's how you get to here. You don't get to here without just, you know, I don't know, a lot of debt without, you know, building up some pressure. You know what I mean? Like you got to like get that bubble and pop. Unless you got a rich mommy and daddy or something. Yeah. Which we are not. No, more like a sugar mama. No.
00:03:29
Speaker
I don't have one of those either. No, no. Well, yes and no, I got a pastry chef as a wife. So yeah, yeah. Newlywed here. Yeah. A couple months now. Yeah. A couple months, two months now going on. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. New homeowners too. We just bought a new house too. So yeah, lots changed. God damn compressor. Yeah. Never fails. I know. Never fails at all.
00:03:54
Speaker
At least you're not leaving it on in the middle of the night at a homeowner's house. That used to be my favorite when I used to do, you know, trim molding or something, you know, renovation. You just forget to unplug the compressor. Set on fire in your shop. Oh, yes. Yes. We did have the one set on fire in the shop. Oh my God. We talked about that because
00:04:11
Speaker
So you messaged in the group and, you know, said something about it or it might even been the night before, but I was, you know, we're so we're in the Hamptons, like about to get to this job. Yeah. And I say to Rob, like, we should really like turn the compressor off at night, you know, and then not like 30 seconds, like less, like probably more like 10 seconds later, get a notification from Simply Safe. Your smoke smoke alarm is going off. I'm like, what the fuck? Oh, shit.
00:04:38
Speaker
We're on the Sunrise Highway. Yeah, like three, four hours away. So they call me, they're like, do you want us to dispatch police? I'm like, yes, absolutely. We're like three hours away. I'm like thinking we're gonna have to turn around. And it was a fluke. It was just freak. Yeah.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, we had we are electric motor caught fire and it was, you know, doing one coat on some late night, actually for Keith Johnson. And yeah, I turned around and man, the belt whipped off the motor. And all of a sudden the thing just burst into flames. It was just
00:05:16
Speaker
It must have like, uh, what do they call it when like a diesel engine, like it runs away. Yeah. Yeah. Because it didn't have the tension, you know, the load of the belt that the motor just, Oh my God, I scared the shit. And then like, you know, I don't know. I would suggest that anybody practice fire drill in your fucking shop. Cause I'm not going to lie. Like Keith looked at me for a second. I looked at him for a second. I was like, I started like blowing up a big asshole. And he's like, what do you, wait, wait.
00:05:40
Speaker
the extinguisher was like, thank God right next to me. But it was still like, I don't know, you plan for a fire drill in school, but you never plan for a fire drill in your shop. You know what I mean? So it ain't a bad thing to think about doing, you know what I mean? And definitely turn off your goddamn compressor.
00:05:57
Speaker
everything at night like my old shop i used to hit the main breaker because you know the old shop was what the wiring was a little sketchy and if i wasn't there you know wasn't there so yeah it was a barn in the back of somebody's yard you know shop aluminum wire probably yeah there no it wasn't like that it was just you know
00:06:13
Speaker
I'm a carpenter, you know, and I, you know, I run some wires sometimes, you know, to get things running. And, you know, that was with all the necessary permits. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We're familiar. Yeah. So we turn off the compressor at night and
00:06:28
Speaker
And that's really it. We have lights that are plugged into the ceiling and that's all old electric work. We turn those off. Yeah. But everything else is pretty much new. Yeah. Can't go wrong. We ran though. The new shops got everything which Ed and Spak did. And my brother did a fantastic job of running all the wiring and stuff. In fact, the electrician who we were going to hire came in and looked at some of the work he did.
00:06:51
Speaker
Yeah. You want to work for me, like pretty much is offering him a job. Like he did such a good job. So, um, but that's, you know, yeah. Yeah. I was in a couple of fives. Yeah. One was in a restaurant. Oh yeah. Did the thing go off the what's it called? Yeah. The Ansel system. Oh my God. The compression systems they have. Yeah. Yeah. And one was in a house, woke up to like smoke filled house. Oh,
00:07:19
Speaker
I'm not gonna lie, that happened once when I was a kid, but that's more like falling asleep, leaving a tombstone in the oven kind of situation. My brother Chris smacking me awake like, dude, what's the matter with you? You're sorry. My bad. In Texas, I don't know if they have them anywhere else. It's like a gas
00:07:40
Speaker
furnace, almost like we have hanging in the shop and it's in the floor. So it's like a big grate. Oh, it's like the crawl space. Yeah, it's a big grate in the floor. And somebody, we had this party. Oh, that's like what, yeah, like my house, if you go into the basement, like, you know where that, I don't know if you have been to my house since we moved things around.
00:08:01
Speaker
When you walk in the front door, there's that wall. You know, there's the two doorways that go in the kitchen. There's that wall. Yeah. Right below that, there was a big like a three by three great. Yeah. That house back in the day. Yeah. It was a cold front by downstairs. If you look in the basement, you can see where it's box, you know, now it's boxed in. Yeah. Yeah. It was one of those. And we had this party and somebody pushed a piece of furniture over it.
00:08:24
Speaker
And it caught on fire. Oh my God. It happens. The stupid things you're lucky to live through as a kid. Oh God. Yeah. So we have all the like mandated fire extinguishers by the doors. Yeah. But really like if something was to happen, those are not in very good spots. No, no, they're not at all over here. There's one by the garage door, which is like the furthest point from any machine.
00:08:53
Speaker
That one, there's one by the side door, one by the back door. We really should have one like on the lollycomb where the cabinet saws are maybe.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yeah, I would keep one. I mean, my shop's like more narrow. So one's by the office, one's by the back door. They're both within like two second run. You know what I mean? They're both pretty visible. Those are weird spots to be mandated right by the exits. I don't
Tool Safety and Shop Accidents
00:09:17
Speaker
know why. Yeah, I guess so. It's like, you know, you can, as you're running for the fire extinguisher, you can be like, oh, fuck this, I'm out of here. The fire got too big, so I just left. Yeah, exactly. Really, it should be like on the pole, like next to the saw, you know?
00:09:31
Speaker
Even just like some of those small ones. Yeah. Everybody thinks it's going to be like a dust explosion or something. You don't think, oh, the electric motor on my one thing is going to catch fire. Also, think about your table saw, too. Have you all gotten down dirty to your table saw and been like, man, this thing's packed.
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're all bad there. You know, I should have cleaned this out a month ago. Especially the Unisaw that just fills up. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. The Unisaw. Yeah. Yeah. That is not as much here that it's just got it's just sharing the dust collection with the saw stuff. Oh, yeah. And we don't use it. But in the old shop. Oh, my God. Yeah. Because it went through the floor and then up and then into the thing just wasn't enough suction.
00:10:19
Speaker
No, I get it. I try to do a pre-filter before my dust collection so I don't have to clean it as much because whatever shitty. But yeah, I know when I run that it doesn't have enough suction to clean out the unit. So it's got to be like a direct line to the unit because there's so many openings in the unit. So you know what I mean? It needs to run that much.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah, we've got like tape over like the angle. That's like the hussy too. Occasionally I'll take it off like the joiner.
00:10:56
Speaker
I think that's the problem with shop people. Sometimes if you don't come from a construction background, you don't think that sometimes it's got to be perfect. It's a perfect situation. It doesn't. You know what I mean? You got to just go at it sometimes. Yeah, let the dust fly. See how it lands. Okay, it did work. We'll try it this way. You know what I mean?
00:11:17
Speaker
I think there's so many guys out there that are just stuck in like, it's gotta be a perfect cut every time and perfect situation. Like, no, just jam the thing through the saw and go. You know what I mean? Sometimes. Not all the time. The hussy doesn't bother me because it comes off in those flakes. Oh yeah. It's a router that's the right. Yeah, a router bothers me too. And it's funny because I have this, I've got a video going viral right now and you've seen it and I'm cutting this curved piece of molding with the table saw. Yeah, I saw that.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, the thing's up to like almost over a half a million views. And like the comments are great because people like I don't know who don't follow me like we're just seeing the video for the first time like, I still want to save and you should use a router. I'm like, first of all, router is gonna blow this shit out. Like, you know, get a reference surface that's only Yeah, it's like, it's very unsafe. Like I'm just running straight lines in the end. I'm just cleaning the roundabout with the saw like, if you know
00:12:10
Speaker
If you know the saw and you know how to work the saw, it's safe. Pushing things through a router is not always the answer. That was like I put up a video free handing. So I was making a thing to hold the spray gun. So it's just a rectangle. Yeah, I remember the video. And I knew that I was posting it because I knew that people would.
00:12:32
Speaker
Sometimes you do that, but I was just like, you know, sometimes in the moment, I was like, man, that was that was a really, I thought it was a genius thing instead of having to go over to my freaking router, set up another bit, have to take multiple passes on it. So like, I'm like, you know,
00:12:48
Speaker
multiple passes on this thing and yada, yada. It's like, no, I just went over the table saw, I set it to the thing, did the back cut, did a few sweeps on it, and then ran it through and cleaned it up. And it was perfect. It's what I needed, because in the backside, nobody cares. You're never going to see any of it. Yeah, and with a router, just bad news. Yeah, exactly. You're really good with cards. Just climb cut it by hands with a palm router.
00:13:12
Speaker
I've had more blowout on routers and more dangerous than you, you would think. You know what I mean? They really are. They're pretty, they're pretty dangerous. I mean, I know one, I know we, you know, a fellow carpenter just lost half a finger last year. Yeah. About this time. Yeah. Well, listen, hey, dude, it's never, when you think it's going to happen, it happens when you don't think it's going to fucking happen. That's why it's an accident. You know what I mean? I'm just kidding. I hope you're listening. So you
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, you know, we're part of that nine and three quarters club. We share a new e-club. I got my thumb on a table saw many years ago. Yeah, we talked about that on the first episode. Yeah. So, you know, back room surgery. Yeah, back room
Health Challenges and Recovery
00:13:52
Speaker
surgery. That was some shit. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:57
Speaker
You can move on from that one. We've had brain surgery since then. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was what? Was it a year or two years ago? It was November 15th, 2022. My noggin checked.
00:14:13
Speaker
But yeah, you remember I was making a lot of funny faces I think in our last time we did this and that was due to that. So what was the, I forget what it was called. It was called trigeminalralgia. So basically it's the compression of the trigeminal nerve and it's up in the skull and it actually is what the nerve, it controls the right or the left side of your face.
00:14:35
Speaker
So when that nerve is compressed, it feels like, you know, like you bump your elbow with like an electrical shock, but across your face, like through your mouth, like, yeah, depending on what side is what, what side it hurts on. And it, you know, it can be caused by eating, sleeping, touching warm water, like anything that touched the right side of my head, like.
00:14:53
Speaker
Yeah, it was, I say wild, because it's the best way I can describe it, because it was just like, in electrical shock, like randomly, any time of the day, like straight to the face. Yeah, for a few years. It just came about one day, it really did. And then, you know, like a lot of people do, they chase their mouths and their teeth because they think the nerve and I did that.
00:15:14
Speaker
My dentist couldn't figure it out. And then Max, with the time played, you know, Dr. Google and got me to neurologist and neurologist. They took one scan in my head. They're like, yeah, that's it right there. Go down the hole and see that guy or go on this medication for the rest of your life. And it took me probably about another year and a half due to COVID and also being a worse, you know, I don't want to get brain surgery, you know, like to finally get it done. You know what I mean? Like I've never had major surgery at all. I'm like, hey,
00:15:41
Speaker
We're going to just, you know, I'm going to put you out in four hours. We're going to just, you know, rattle through your back of your head. You know, that was it like a small scope that they went in with or was no, they took about like a six to six. I think it's about a six inch piece by one inch piece out of the back of my skull and I had to go in there and basically wrap the nerve with Teflon.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, to actually to get to relieve the pressure of the cells around the blood cells around it. And that's what actually relieves the pain. So yeah, there's like teflon tape in the back of my fucking head right now.
Expanding the Shop and Resource Sharing
00:16:15
Speaker
So like pipe dope. Yeah. But whatever it works like in the doctor is, you know, not everybody gets 100% relief. And I actually was one of the patients I got that. So yeah. How did they patch the skull?
00:16:28
Speaker
No, they put it back and then that's the hardest part is the recovery or six weeks you can't do anything. And as we are carpenters, self-employed jerks, that's the hardest part. You just have to wear one of those safety helmets? No, no. You probably can't lift anything heavy. Basically, you can't lift anything heavy because basically the brain fluid can come through the mesh of the skull, the skull actually has to recombine. It's basically a broken bone that has to reconnect.
00:16:53
Speaker
You know what I mean? So, and then with a, you know, you got a surgeon looking over, you're saying, yeah, don't do this because I don't want to have to go back in there and fix it because you're actually, your, your brain matter can come through. And I'm like, are you, I was like, all right, you know, I'm not going to do anything. That'll scare you. So, uh, what brand of multi-tool did they use? I'd like to know. I really would. Milwaukee or Makita. Hava wasn't a dremel. No, I don't know. It was the best nap I had, nap I've ever had. Holy crap.
00:17:20
Speaker
Oh man. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, recovered from that. And then, uh, yeah, we, you know, we, we moved into a new shop, you know, uh, that next July, you know, we've been, you know, hustling at it ever since. So, yeah.
00:17:34
Speaker
How's it feel to have more space now? I do love the space. It just obviously comes with a cost. Yeah. You know what I mean? And obviously we're not huge production shops, so it's hard to keep up. I'm not going to lie, you know, it is what it is. So we'll just keep trucking away and you earn, you know, like maybe a little bit more, but, you know, you just make it work and keep going, you know, so.
00:17:59
Speaker
But it's great to have an office like you guys have here, you know, a bathroom. I've never had a bathroom in any of my shops, you know, that sounds kind of weird to say, but the other shop we had was a barn in the woods, like, would you like a couple guys, you know, just go back and take a week, you know, that was the old shop for us to take care of business, you know, the other one was a garage, you know, and then we just go in the house.
00:18:20
Speaker
And he'd be able to like, you know, run over to the bathroom. He's like, sounds weird, but it's great. Yeah. I mean, even if it saves you, you know, a couple of minutes. I mean, I drink a lot of coffee and water, so if I might pee 10 times during the work day, that's like saving a half hour. Yeah. Yeah. What is it called? Yeah. And then we have a like a metal shop right next door, which is like fantastic. What's that guy's name? Ryan Dempsey's liquid metals. Yeah. So you can find him on the gram. He's, he is.
00:18:50
Speaker
just a phenomenal metalwork guy. And he's just a great guy to have next door. Like we're very, you know, we push each other, help you out each other, help, help you help each other out. You know, the camaraderie is great. And also he's like a woman. I like being him grew up together. Like it just so happened to have a shop next door to each other. You know? Yeah, that's cool. I know. It's really great. Like, and he's got a forklift. So he's like, I saw you moving the shaper the other day. Oh yeah. It's just a loading a thing about, but it's about having gamers to help each other out. You know, like it's great, you know? So.
Trade Value and Bartering
00:19:19
Speaker
It must be cool. Are there any other like shops in that? Well, there's actually a tin knocker. I'll call him like so there's a guy who does like cheap metal fabrication stuff. Yeah, exactly. You ever need any custom dust, dust chutes or anything? I thought about calling him but he does a lot of more square tube stuff. He doesn't do any round tube stuff. You know what I mean? So.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's more like heat ducting and stuff like that. And I don't know what he's got going on, but he's barely there and like, he seems to be doing okay. I'm like, maybe I picked the wrong trade. Oh, we definitely did. That's for sure. We're at the bottom of the food chain. Isn't it funny? Passionate profit.
00:20:01
Speaker
It's a hard knife. It's like we were talking about, you know, electric before. And I think last week we were talking about our electrician and how, you know, whatever, that whole thing went south. But just like the perception of of what it takes to do their work and the value of their work compared to what we do, it's like I could do what you do tomorrow. Yeah, you couldn't do what I do. Not a fucking chance. No, it's years. It takes years. Yeah. And even then, I don't think you cut out for it like.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's a hard pill to swallow, I get that. But there's also is, I see a lot that goes into it. I have a hard time with a lot of work, you know what I mean? So it's a lot of like,
00:20:46
Speaker
you know, taking pictures and looking at something. But I also get like, yeah, like I can hang a box and run a wire in a second and make it look somewhat decent. Yeah. Can this guy do, you know, a triple stacked arch molding? I highly doubt that. You know what I mean?
00:21:03
Speaker
And it sucks because there are smart and good electricians out there that are quick. I have my electrician, Mike Adams, I use on my projects. It's phenomenal. He blows my mind. He's very simple and humble about it. No, we're going to do this, Tim. We're going to do that. And he's only ever got mad at me once because I had to move something. But he's just always like, OK, no problem, Tim. And he's like, we got you. And he also never asks for a favor and we don't barter. So maybe that's why we work together well.
00:21:33
Speaker
I'm very selecting for you about who I barter and do kind of some situations like that with, you know what I mean? Because- That's our stance now. Yeah. I've lost too many friends, you know what I mean? At this point, it's like, you just hear, this is my price, you know what I mean? This is what I do. It is what it is. It sucks. It's either free or you pay. Free or full price. Yeah.
00:21:56
Speaker
I get that. I'd rather do it for free. Yeah. You know what I mean? We would do like a small, like so our plumber, he wants like a little console for his van. Like we barter something for that, you know, because even if we got the shit under the deal, was it a couple hours? You know, is it just like made out of melamine, little stupid little thing. And, you know, we could get him in here to whatever, fix the leak in the sink. So that's that's cool. But, you know, when you're bartering 50K worth of electrical work,
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, that was a lesson learned. It can't be like I'll get you down the road. It has to be like, hey, I want this made and you're going to be like, okay, I want this done.
00:22:40
Speaker
And you agree on these two terms, you know what I mean? Cuz you have to agree, payments go, I can't just be like, hey, down the road, I'll get you. Cuz then it's like, hey, you remember I did that favor for you? And their head is compounded to almost nothing and they owe you so much and your head is the opposite, you know what I mean? And I've had that happen where it's like, I gotta do this work with my fucking pay. It's just like, yeah, he'll get you, but- That's like the guy we used to work for. He just repaid a debt that was like,
00:23:07
Speaker
I don't know, 10 years old probably. Guy came in and did a bunch of work on the shop before he moved in and so he just repaid that on a kitchen.
Craftsmanship and Learning from Mistakes
00:23:16
Speaker
I had to build a guy a kitchen like 10 years later.
00:23:21
Speaker
I want to owe nothing. And get a bang-up job, I heard. Yeah, allegedly there were some issues. Yeah, I hate it. But that's to be expected. Stay focused, don't worry about that. Just keep your head straight. That's what I'm learning right now. I guess in my 40s is I'm learning to be very humble and just stay focused and not
00:23:44
Speaker
not bother with anything else going on that's not positive for you and going forward. You know what I mean? Like I've wasted a lot of time with some, you know, other issues and thinking about other things and it's like, you know, so much time wasted, you know? Yeah. What's that? There's like a good saying in stoicism about like, uh,
00:24:03
Speaker
Um, you know, like don't, I don't know what it is exactly. It's like, but like, don't inflict pain on yourself worrying about things that could, you know, could be or it's like, you know, you worry about it when it happens. Well, that's also like, it comes down to like, we're talking about the perfect cup before. You know what I mean? Like you could sit there and prep all day and like worry about it. You know what I mean? Like,
00:24:24
Speaker
Or you could go for it and like it could work or it could not work and then yeah, you know what? You figured out what you did wrong. You get another piece of wood. You cut it again. You know what I mean? As long as you're walking away with all 10 digits or not three quarters, you're fine. You know what I mean? Like go for it again. It's just a piece of wood. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I've had plenty of shit blow out breaking. You know what I mean? Like,
00:24:45
Speaker
lessons learned, you know? Yeah. And, you know, you got to learn those hard lessons so that for the next time, you know, okay, we can't do it this way. Yeah. Where we have to, you know, make sure we do this before that, you know, that was like when we were making those doors the first time we got knives from Neil for the shaper was having those issues with the coping where the, you know, it was actually feeding, you know, the, the shaper was pulling the piece sideways into the cutter and, and kicking it back and
00:25:16
Speaker
You know, just had to stop, reevaluate, change the setup. This is not working. Like, if you know when it's working and you're like, I just got to just give it a little oof, or just drop the, you know what I mean? And then you know, like, oh, no, no, this ain't cool. Like, this is, you know, something's going to go across the shop at this point, you know, like, or this is so bad. Like, it's just, just hold on. I just had the same
Working with Custom Tools
00:25:38
Speaker
thing happen with Neil. Me and Neil, we're doing a very large raise panel for a door.
00:25:42
Speaker
That black set, I just installed the last set on Clinton Hill. I got to cut the knife for a hussy and also for the shaper because you get slotted knives for the hussy. So you can use it to be the ore, which is great if you want it, whatever.
00:25:58
Speaker
and I was running it through the the hussy and I just didn't like it had too much chatter coming out the backside like I knew I could consistently cut the panel even though it was cut great against against the grain like across the grain I was man this is sweet but still at the end it had the fucking
00:26:13
Speaker
you know, the cut, you know, it just wasn't cutting smooth, whatever. So over to the shaper we went, we stood the freaking knife up, around the panel like that. Well, great, you know. Wait, so you can get knives that are corrugated and they have holes? Yes. Oh, yeah. That's cool. Oh, yeah. They cost a dollar or two more, but then you have a knife for both. Yeah, sure. You know, it's a great option. Like, especially for that to mean- Just pass that cost on to the customer. Yeah, it'd be, you know, obviously if you ever deal with Neil, Evan, I'll plug the heck out of Neil right now. Emmenty tooling, he's just,
00:26:42
Speaker
Besides being a fantastic mechanic, just a great guy to, you know, get on the phone with it. If you have a problem, talk it out with him, you know? Like, hey, it's gonna be like this, hey, it's gonna be like that, you know? And he'll give you an honest opinion about it, you know? Like, I don't think you should run it like that or, you know, it'll be good like this. You're like, okay, you know, thanks. I trust you. You know, or sometimes also straight up send over the wrong measurements. He's like, this doesn't scale out right.
00:27:04
Speaker
No, I'll go back in a bit. Yeah, you're right. It should be this, you know, like my bad. We actually have moldings where I took a really thin crosscut, threw it on the scanner, scanned it. He's like scanning at 300 dpi, send it over, and he's able to just pull the image and make the exact knife.
00:27:20
Speaker
I straight up sent him a chicken scratch with a few numbers. He sends me back beautiful drawings. I say he sent it to press and I get another for the day or two. And I'm like, yeah, he's a fantastic guy to work with. And I'm not gonna lie, he
00:27:36
Speaker
push to get me because we were talking and I was getting nice from another guy. I won't mention his name. Great guy too. I trust guys. I'm not one to shop around. That's me. I've used this pretty much to see a hardware dealership or a dealership dealer. You know what I mean? My whole career, I want to know somebody and work with them. So my other knife guy was the same thing. I'd set up drawings and he'd be like, Tim, you're going to have to do this. I was like, that's fine because
00:28:00
Speaker
I know how to work the machine to make everything pretty much work on it. And Neil was like, I want to cut your knives, I want to cut your knives. I'm like, Neil, I get a great deal from this guy. He basically honored the price. And once we got a work relationship, I felt comfortable with them. And it didn't matter at that point. He doesn't say charge or whatever, but I don't go, hey, hey, it seems a little bit more than we used to pay. I get it. It might be a little bit more work now.
00:28:24
Speaker
might be going up a little bit more, you know, and like also like, I want to be able to call my friend to have months to be dialed in on it and have a great conversation with them and then go, Oh yeah, by the way, that job, you know, like, how many sets of knives do you think you have from Neil? I have, I have no idea. Hundreds. Not that many, but a lot. I probably, you know, maybe I would say at least a hundred figure if I order a knife a month.
00:28:47
Speaker
and I'm dealing with them with three, probably 40 to 50 knives. I would say easily sets of knives. Yeah. Oh yeah. Those drawers get heavy quick. And it's like, I was going to ask how you store them. I just store them up right in a drawer. And then the, then I have like little pieces of wood. I really need to get better storage for this shit to categorize this. Cause when you start out, you don't realize you're going to end up with so many knives, but
00:29:08
Speaker
you know, if you ever see somebody's old knife collection, you go in anybody's shop like, man, look at all these knives. And it's like, then they get sold on Facebook for a dollar. A dollar. Yeah, but that's fine. They made their money. But like, if you ask me, it's people like, oh, they're great. Like, you only use them once or twice. Like, I have very few knives. Like, I can, like, I know the molding and I really enjoy using it. Like, you know, simple panel moldings, you know, get used a lot.
00:29:32
Speaker
some panel, you know, actually like raised panel blades get used a lot. But like, I got a lot of like intricate stuff that's only going to get used once. You know, where am I going to use this again? You know, it was a historic detail on something that like I had to recreate, you know, and never use it again. Or we just got weird and decided to make something, you know, new and different. And, you know, that's the client's design. I'm not going to use that again. That's their design, you know, which I think is also cool, you know, like
00:29:59
Speaker
I'm not going to recreate this because I created it for you. That's what you've done in the past. Yeah, we've got a bunch of one-off stuff that, again, we probably have, I don't know, dozen, dozen and a half nines from Neil. Like stuff that we used for one job that we'll probably never use again. It was just appropriate for that job. Yeah.
00:30:20
Speaker
No, I, yeah, again, you know, you pass the price, the cost onto the customer and yeah, you end up with the bench jingle and call it, you know, a little extra steel, but yeah. But it's good to have, you know? Oh yeah, it is good to have. I do, like I said, there's some moldings like I even used in my old house that like, I specifically love. There's a couple of little detail moldings I had to recreate for Brooklyn that I thought were fantastic. It's just had like the appeal of like,
00:30:49
Speaker
I don't know, just the stuff you don't see anymore today. I think, you know, little curves, little details to it that I enjoyed, you know, I used it. Yeah. It's good too, you know, if a client looks at your portfolio and they're like, oh, I love that molding that you use there. You're like, wow, okay, here I got the knife. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We make everything custom in house, which is, which is fantastic. And people have sometimes a hard time understanding that like, um,
00:31:13
Speaker
That's why a lot of the viewers I've been doing, I start out with like, hey, this is this is what we got. And this is what we got. You know, I got a crappy opening and a pile of sticks. Let's see what we can do with this. You know what I mean? And like at the end of the day, we end up with this beautiful set of doors or whatever. And, you know, so gratifying. I don't know how anybody does anything different. Yeah, personally. So yeah, to not be creating something
00:31:40
Speaker
Yeah, something, or just be able to walk away and look at something. I don't know. Yeah, something tangible. I get everybody's got to. Versus they're like, hey, sales were up this quarter. You're like, ah, I did a good job. Yeah. I guess, but everybody sees their work in different ways. You know what I mean? Like people can visually see that on a piece of paper and be excited, I guess, or a computer screen, like see their numbers. You know, first I look at numbers on the screen and go, eh, you know. Yeah. I think to some degree, yeah, they may get some satisfaction, but
00:32:08
Speaker
You know, they're not at the office on a Saturday at 6am. And like, you know, if that's the case for them, they're miserable, whereas we might do that. And it's just like, yeah, no, that's cool. Like, I like being here. No, I do. I guess that's the problem with, you know, loving what you do. You're always doing it. You're always at it. You're always thinking about it.
00:32:29
Speaker
Like last Friday night, I didn't have anything to do. I was at the shop till nine o'clock. I'm like, life's like what the... doing, you know? Like, yeah, but you were out doing this, and the kids were off doing that, and I didn't have anything else really to do, you know? Like, it's just what you have to do when I clean my shop, you know? Like, I... Yeah, I mean, that's great. That's like... That's like everyone's dream, you know? Is to have a job that you like enough to go there when you're not required to be, you know? Yeah. I love a clean shop. Yeah.
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah, I do. I'm a Tasmanian devil. I am not organized at all. As I say, you're asking how I organize my knives. I bought a Craftsman toolbox like whatever years ago, just started throwing knives in it with like, and then like, okay, that's full. Then we had to make little racks there.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah. And then I have like a box of like, you know, I just save a little trim piece of each, you know what I mean? So you know what you got and it actually can physically see it. Yeah, that's not that we haven't done that, which we should. Yeah. Yeah. But Neil also does acrylic. No, no. The piece of acrylic is great, too. That's actually the form of it. But he does the whole barcode on the back, not the barcode, the QR code that is on the back, which is fantastic. But scan it and screenshot it before you put your knives in.
00:33:45
Speaker
I was looking for mine the other day, and I'm like, fuck, it's already in there. Oh, that's on the backside. Anyways, if I found it, but still, it was just, man, damn it. The QR code's on the back.
00:33:56
Speaker
But yeah, no, he does that, which is fantastic, but like, yeah, I wish I actually had like a bind here I could walk through or whatever at the time, because, you know, a lot of the old knives from my other guy, he would send me just basically a paper copy in the invoice of what the knife was, you know what I mean? And that was it, when Neil was, you know, he was going as far as make digital drawings and put them out there, you know? So, they're fantastic. You can digitize, digitize the whole thing.
Saw Blades and Material Management
00:34:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. What kind of saw blades are you using in your table saw?
00:34:23
Speaker
Uh, I think he's forced, but, um, we used to use force. Yeah. But I, I'll be honest with you. I just sent a bunch out to them to get blade sharpened and I wasn't satisfied. And then I have, um, I honestly got to have like a bit.
00:34:41
Speaker
of fucking blades. I just, so like when I get three back, I sent five out, but I, what do we have a bin of like, you know, your standard crappy red Diablos that like, I just sharp. Yeah. We got the answer. Yeah. So if you're not satisfied with forest, we got a, we got your answer for you right here.
00:34:56
Speaker
We want to thank our sponsor Ridge Carbide when you need the right saw blade for the job. Put your trust in Ridge Carbide tools. Yeah, for over 50 years Ridge Carbide has been producing industrial saw blades designed with exact specifications for the cutting results you expect.
00:35:11
Speaker
Before you buy, give Rich Carbide a call and we'll help you determine the right tool that meets the needs of your project and your budget. Yeah. And after the sale, Rich Carbide provides sharpening services for all your saw blades, dado sets, router bits, and joint to planer knives. Located in good old Kansas, USA, Rich Carbide Tools provides high quality products with outstanding customer service at a fair price. What are you cutting?
00:35:40
Speaker
I'm about to go, weren't they in New Jersey? Yeah, they were. So Ridge was I think like maybe like across the street from Forest or something. They were right both there and it's Clifton, right? Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:54
Speaker
And so for years, this company in Kansas called Everlast was actually producing a lot of the blades for Rich Carbide. And in 2021, I believe it was Everlast actually bought them out. So now, you know, the whole company is based in Kansas. Yeah, we use a lot of Everlast and Rich Carbide. The Everlast blades are... I think I have an Everlast blade actually. I think Keith gave me one.
00:36:24
Speaker
Sure, there actually is a nice blade. It's a sprawled out blade. I'm not particular about my blades, I don't know. And in case you have realized, I come from a framing background and whatever cuts, cuts, and when it doesn't cut, I get rid of it, or put it to the side, I get to the next thing.
00:36:40
Speaker
People ask me a lot of like detailed questions and I'm like, I don't know. I just, I just do it or I just use it. And it's like, I'm not particular about my blades. I'm really not. And you know what I mean? I've gotten into using some more high-end blades recently, but you know, I don't know. Just like convert you. Yeah. No, I know. Dude, I, I'll send them, I got a pack of blades I'll send out there next. You know what I mean? What do we have in the, in the
00:37:04
Speaker
I think they're in the van. I can mail them out. Just give me their dress. I'll give them a shot. I wasn't exactly happy. It felt like I had like a snaggle tooth. I don't know. Like you ever just, you have a blade that's, I feel like they, and I describe it. It was just like the one tooth felt like it was just a snaggle tooth. Like it just wasn't a clean, full cut through. And I don't know how else to describe it. And I was annoyed because it was like one of my nicer blades. I said, you know, I sent out, usually have like one, two or three really nice blades. And like I said, I have like
00:37:29
Speaker
a bin full of the old red diablos, whatever, that I sent out to get sharpened and they work. They look at me and smile, but they fucking work. They're sending them the same place that they, this place sharpened, so they're getting the same edge as this place. Does this deal not last as long and send about quicker?
00:37:45
Speaker
probably, but when you have an entire bit full of them, you leave all that red paint on your, on your wood. Now, if you're cutting properly, if you're not, if you're fucking cutting properly, you should not have any red shit on you. You know what I mean? I feel like the plates on those, on those blades just heat up. You know, they don't take the heat as well. So they start to wobble, you know, when you're doing a lot of cutting.
00:38:06
Speaker
Cause I get, cause I get hot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I don't know a table saw is not a finished finish. I mean, it is, but it isn't. I mean, really, if you're using a rich car, but where's your, where's your last edge going? You ask me, it's usually going on the joiner and then you're standing it. You know what I mean?
00:38:23
Speaker
don't get me wrong like i had some great blades i could join off of you know i will join off of it but like no matter what you're standing if you're standing you're joining and sanding a finished edge it's long long and short of it yeah you know you're setting that joiner to skim and you're gonna give it a sand you know
00:38:44
Speaker
Give it a shot. Yeah. Hey, I'm in. I'm in. There's a simple joy in running a piece of wood past the beautiful blade.
00:38:54
Speaker
I'm not gonna deny that at all. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. We're due for some sharpening. Yeah. Well, that's why I try to do like, I look and see when I, I never sent it out when I was, when I'm taking the last blade out. Like I always want to have a pile come back when I have a blade left. You know what I mean? It's like when you get down to the last fricking stick of the freaking pile and you're like, I didn't have enough lumber. Cause like if you get through the job and you have nothing left, you didn't have enough. Like some could have happened.
00:39:21
Speaker
That's where I'm at with this freaking door I'm building right now. I'm literally down on my last piece of five quarter. And it was just- Is it a quarter or is it? Oh, it's quarter. Beautiful quarter. I was going to say we got some flat. We could spare you a couple pieces. No, I have two pieces of like rift that I could probably, you know, that rift and quartered are pretty close. That I, you know, if I need some smaller detail pieces, but man, I call my sales when I was like 12.
00:39:45
Speaker
What is this? And this is why I like to use one company. This will come out for me. I'm not a huge shop. I'm ordering, you know, whatever, you know, a couple hundred board feet at a time. I try to, you know, stack it up. Like I'll order a large amount of sapele and oak and pine, usually in one shot. That'll get me a few months. You know what I mean? Which I like having.
00:40:03
Speaker
just want to start grabbing shit. You don't have to be like, oh, I got to order material. But man, I looked at this white oak because shit's so expensive right now. I ordered just what I needed. I was like, man, we literally went through the pieces like I've never done before prior and labeled each one like, hey.
00:40:18
Speaker
And I got out of the pile and I'm making the mullion right now and I got like a two inch by 10 foot piece left. That's it. That's it in the pile. That's it. And that's like, that's too close. I'm like, yeah, I just, man, that's too close. What are they getting for, for quarter right now? Nine, 10, 11. Yeah. Now you see the, you know, white oak used to be the freaking cheaper option, but now quarter even. And like,
00:40:40
Speaker
Quarter used to be seven, just going back like three years ago. Oh yeah, that's one of my first jobs. I'll never forget my first big door job, commercial job, not commercial, but like historic job was in Brooklyn at Park Slope and we did a whole bunch of quarters on doors. And I straight up like laminated like five quarter
00:40:59
Speaker
a quarter small white oak because it was just plentiful. There's so much of it, nobody's using it, it was plentiful. I didn't say I wasted it, but we just used it. Now I'm veneering things with it. I'm freaking doing Steve course. I'm making every bit of it last. I'm not hiding a bit of that away. And if you look at the doors we're building right now, they're just, I mean, the flaking. I'm like, they're
00:41:22
Speaker
by far the last doors we're going to do this year, but my favorite, you know, just as far as detail, you know, simple, clean, but in the woodspeak for the, you know, the piece.
00:41:31
Speaker
But they're going to be, you know, I'm going to say this, people are going to be shocked. They're going to get stained black, you know? Oh man, you're the black door bandit. Yeah, I am the black door bandit and it breaks my heart, but at least these will be stained. So I'm hoping the flake and the grain still shows through. But you see the way I paint my doors. You still see the grain. Yeah. The grain is still very heavily like seen. I, you know, with the emerald paint I use, like you can, it's, it's painted, but it's, you can see the grain, you know, it's not a smooth surface.
00:41:56
Speaker
So people don't understand this until I explain it to them that like painted is harder. Like if you do a clean painted piece, it's harder than doing a stained piece. Oh yeah, 1000%. And people are like, oh, but it's painted. Like, yeah, there's nothing to hide the mistake. When you look at a stained piece or green piece, you're getting caught up in the green, the beauty of the wood. Oh yeah, you can have joints with gaps. Yeah, you don't see it. They'll get crazy here. Well, not like big gaps, but like a hairline gap in something stained, you can't see. No.
00:42:26
Speaker
but painted it makes it highlights that oh absolutely or a dang it nail hole any flaw even like a chatter on the blade you you know the moldings everything's got to be like spot on it people just i gotta have a nice sharp ridge carbide blade i know i know i know i know
00:42:45
Speaker
So, you guys, am I leaving here with a fresh one? And is that how sponsored are we here? No, we haven't even got any yet. Damn it. Come on now. That's season five. Rich Carbite here at Make It Rain. Let's go. Oh, man.
00:43:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Painting is I'm having my own paint battles right now with bubbles. I'm just can't get rid of the bubbles. What are you using? The Enduro general finishes. Yeah. I've got it. And again, is that like this? It's a poly. It's a poly. Does it have a catalyst? No, it's a 1K. Is it? They do sell it 2K.
00:43:19
Speaker
Let's try that. I don't know. Yeah. I don't want to get into that. I hear it. I, you know, I, again, like I, I use, well, I, I use, uh, so I use the, uh, emerald, Sherman Williams emerald. It's like my favorite. So it's the hardest. It's a urethane based. That's what we used on the Nancy's yellow. Um, I diluted, you know, like 10%. So it's like two ounces, 20 ounces of material. And what I do with people think it's weird is I heat it up.
00:43:44
Speaker
So I get the viscosity up on it. I should use a pressure cup. I actually have a little stove in the freaking shop and I double boil the paint and I get a little steamy and I kind of stir it and I feel it. I know where it needs to be. You know what I mean? It's not bubble and it's not hot, but it's viscosity. It's like candy. Yeah, pretty much, dude. I drop that shit in there and usually I have another cup ready to go. So after that cup, the other cup's ready and hot.
00:44:09
Speaker
kind of keep it going. Man, it weighs and it weighs out so beautiful. I've seen people do like a heating pad like around the can too. Yeah. No, I get that. Whatever. I was just one day. I'm like, man, I will just heat this up. I'm just heat it up. Like, okay. And it worked. It came out great. And I just kind of continue with that, you know? Oh.
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, painting is definitely harder than that stain. Yeah, it is. But this door should be, I guess, a testament of both, because I've done this black stain before, and it's hard. It is not easy to stain something black. And I'm actually attacking this door a bit differently. I'm fully assembling it when it's finished. So the exterior has all the moldings nailed, glued, on.
00:44:58
Speaker
all the interiors are actually like frames we're going to apply, but the panels and everything we're going to assemble after the door is finished because I don't want to have to try to battle in the panel. But what does it matter? I'm going to have a fully sealed panel now.
Custom Door Projects
00:45:11
Speaker
So even if the door strengths or moves, even the panel will be completely finished. So that's some of the little details if you don't realize what go into doors and
00:45:21
Speaker
I don't know, I try to show that when I build a lot of doors and all the extra little things that go into it. It's not just the sanding, but the weep holes, it's the finishing of the inside, the way you glaze your glass. There's a lot to it. Yeah, I saw this morning you drilling those holes. That's great nerve-wracking. Oh yeah, that's yeah, but you just clean bed, take your time, and then it's almost things like stave cores. You're really kind of, you're topping your bottom or you're white oak, but I'm just trying to,
00:45:48
Speaker
A little straight right through the pine, real nice and easy. Yeah, so that's a bit of a drift. When I hit the resistance of the oak, it will probably start. Yeah, I could show you a door, no bullshit. When, you know, obviously you learn, I used to not make mole ants in my doors. So I used to actually mount the flush bolts into the stationary door. I could show you just one set of doors I did. I tried drilling like whatever, like a two foot freaking run of a freaking hole in a solid white oak door and came out the face of it.
00:46:18
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And you feel like you're going dead straight and then, oh, it's just like, then you got to fix it and then you still got to get the hole in there. Yeah. So that's right. You're battling that existing hole. No. So that's when I just, you know, at times like this, you weren't, you weren't new tricks and trades and I just turned it on edge and grooved the line straight down the thing and put a new piece in and nobody notices that because that's, you know, really who's staring at the inside of that door. But now I make,
00:46:45
Speaker
And a mullion is a T-shaped piece I make out of two different pieces. If you look at my stories today, it's, well, you see, I'll talk about it quite a bit, but that gets the flush bolts, which actually has a track in it that the side bar runs through. And then also that has a piece of weather stripping in it that the other door seals to. The thing is, I always forget, not forget how much goes into a mullion. It's a day to make me a mullion. Not a day, but it was a process.
00:47:11
Speaker
Yeah, a lot to it. Yeah, doors are a whole different animal. How about that big curved door that we were talking about? Oh, what? The one you were sharing yesterday? Yeah, the one that you sent that I sent. Yeah, no, that was an interesting piece. I would have enjoyed building that. Yeah, I would have been definitely a challenge. Us too. We had like six months. What did we talk about the price of that? Yeah, I forget what we were after the whole thing. It was like $110,000 for like four doors. Like that though.
00:47:41
Speaker
Well, that was the big one. Then it was two like plain ones that were barreled like that. Okay. And then it was just like a regular door with side lights. Okay. Yeah. No, it sounds about right. Maybe it was 150. I forget. It was over 100. It was a lot. We did those barrel doors for the doctor's office in the barn door in Manhattan. Yeah. That was a really cool project. I'm not going to lie. That was right around the
00:48:04
Speaker
I think I was literally laying in the hospital bed and that guy called me. And I was like, listen, it was a random call I picked up. I was obviously feeling good. And he's like, I got your number. And he's like, no, everybody glassed at me. So can you just listen to this? I hear you're the guy. And I'm like, what? And he's like, so I have a round room I need barrel doors for.
00:48:25
Speaker
I need them to roll with the barrel. I'm like, okay. He's just like, okay. And I'm like, yeah, okay. He's just like, that's it. He's like, oh, you are the guy. Yeah. Listen, I explained my situation. I go, it's going to be a few weeks before I get out there. And he's just like, okay. And I like, and from there, I was listening to you touch base me a couple of weeks. He's like, are you really picking up the hospital bed? I'm like, yeah. Like, you know, I got nothing else going on right now. Yeah. This is small business, buddy. Yeah.
00:48:51
Speaker
Later on, I met the guy, you know, and he threw me the room and I told him what I was going to do. I took a piece of the track home that the room was made out of. And, you know, you can't, whatever, I bid on the price. I got it. You know, it was really cool. We did a bunch of, we did a round, like, ornament in there. And then the front desk, we ended up doing, we ended up doing, like, everything that we did in that place was curved and wild. And it was just... Was that the one that you had the issues with the veneers? Like, the bubbled or something? Or was that something else?
00:49:18
Speaker
veneer bubbling. Uh, no, no, that door is that, that job was of course, another all white oak job. No, but the doors were, I used wiggle board and you know, the vacuum bag and press those, you know, multiple layers. Basically I made my own plywood. I got quarter inch wiggle board or half inch wiggle board, whatever. And then ended up making a two inch door just basically pressed over a form, you know, basically pulling off of the radius of what I was given, you know, it was pretty, pretty simple. So that's how you made the rails.
00:49:48
Speaker
Yeah, it was a slab, right? Yeah, it was a slab door. What did you do to the edges? Oh, the edges, I just... No, I just ordered some two inch edge banding. Straight up, and I cut them flush and I cleaned them up, sanded them, and my headbanded them. Well, at the top and bottom, you didn't worry about it because you're never going to see it anyway. Exactly. Those are all the details people probably would worry about, but like in a commercial setting, also like in real life, who the hell is looking at that crap?
00:50:14
Speaker
You know what I mean? I mean, when you go to the doctor and you're sitting in the, you know, you go from the waiting room into the office and you sit there for 20 minutes and you start to look around and you're like, oh my God, that's like some of the worst work that you walked into. Yeah. Well, you walked into this doctor's office and you're greeted by like this magnificent front desk that had like
00:50:33
Speaker
It was almost an elliptical, what is that called? See, I'm not a smart cop in it, but it's got three different curves to it. So there's a very gentle curve around the front, and then it had a hard curve around the side, front desk, and it was all this cold molding. We got somebody looking for that right now. I had you in mind for the CNC work on that, but I told them it was going to be expensive. Yeah, it is going to be expensive. That machine ain't cheap. We got to get it running though. But that was a fan. I mean, again, that's all William and Hussey. Actually,
00:51:04
Speaker
That would have been also a great CNC project, but at the time we didn't have it. I was working out of my buddy's shop. My brother drew it and then we went to Staples and basically made templates and then traced the templates on the mold, on the wood. And that's how we got all of our arches and shapes to it. So you make a pattern and use the hussy with a bearing?
00:51:26
Speaker
No, no, no, no, I'm talking about the plywood. So there's a plywood substructure to the desk. And that was how we got the shape. And then basically it was a lot of straight pieces that I basically started the middle and then as I worked them around the side, I had to accommodate for back cutting each one of them. And then basically hand sanding and filing them smooth together. So it was a lot of multiple pieces kind of basically hand forming around the side of this desk. But if you had to make a molding like that,
00:51:55
Speaker
Oh, a molding like that? So you basically, man, to make a molding like that, yes, you would basically make a pattern. And then, yeah, you'd have to actually cut your piece out of the top. Yeah, like they wanted something like that. Yeah. Where, and, you know, then these continued down. Yeah.
00:52:13
Speaker
Yeah. So, but basically you could do it like that or, you know, you can make it with, you know, a wrap, a router, you know, like whatever. But, um, yeah, you actually, you know, you scroll through my videos, you could see how I explained how to do one of those. I don't explain it because I don't like talking very much. So it's like an arch top, but instead of having square, you know, miter corners, they want another radius there. Yeah. You can do that.
00:52:36
Speaker
And then sometimes like I before I even had the freaking the CNC was just about playing with circles and you know That template is you make for the router, you know I'm talking about you make circles, you know And I just get all the circles to work together, you know, like I if you'll get some my older work I've ever had a CNC and I'm you know, and the old timers were I'm reduplicating their work of didn't have a CNC. Yeah, they worked off of you know, they had molding planes
00:53:01
Speaker
Yeah, they had strings, you know what I mean? They built everything with a string, you know, and a pencil and all, you know what I mean? They pegged a hole and traced a circle and cut it out and they smoothed it out, you know, with their hands and then they then they sucked it through a machine, you know, or whatever. So the problem with this job is they have a very tight budget. I've never heard of that. Really? By the time the finished guys get there, there's no money. Beer budget, beer budget with a champagne taste. Oh, never happened.
00:53:28
Speaker
You want this bar like, you know, we're thinking like 10,000 like, if you want this, like, you know, it is a fun getting to the point where I feel like, you know, I do post quite a bit. I'm also trying to justify all of the work and the detail that goes into the doors, you know, like, and I enjoy making the videos as part of the craft. Now I've made it part of what I do.
00:53:47
Speaker
So it really doesn't, you know, sideline me too much. It's just about having the tripod around and the other camera and just taking a couple of videos as we go about the day. And then, you know, you should know with your cup of coffee or, you know, at the night and you just, you know, make a quick video. But I was going with this. The budget, budget day. Oh, the budget. But yeah, so I finally have clients that, you know, appreciate it. And I show up at these doors, they've watched me build like from a pile of sticks and they're like,
00:54:15
Speaker
Oh my God, they're actually like, they've watched them be born, you know what I mean? It's like a child, you know, they're showing up with it that they get to have, you know, and, you know, some of them don't realize how much goes into it until they watch me do it. Then they get actually their hands on it. And they're like, wow, I know, I know went into this, you know, like Lexi and Noah was the last one of the last doors we did prior. I call it the belt buckles for Bed-Stuy door at
00:54:38
Speaker
They were very patient for us to get it done, but when they got it done, they stopped me multiple times to tell me how beautiful it was. Their kids were like, oh my God. They were really on FaceTime with their dad. I guess his dad's a blacksmith somewhere up in Boston. What is it called? He was like, oh my God, he had him on FaceTime. It was cool. I appreciate that. It makes it worth
00:55:03
Speaker
the effort, you know, when people are actually really happy and satisfied, you know, you get that like, you know, I like it paid, but like, you know, and clients of pain in the ass are never happy. You know what I mean? Like all they do is pick your stuff. Yeah, guys, I know we all we all go through that. But like, you know, we also get the clients and what we really do it for is, you know, that smile on that happiness, you know, like,
00:55:23
Speaker
I'm trying to ditch this corner of you have a million doors in your house, maybe the first one you see and the last one. We make you be happy to come home to. What you've watched this thing get made from me. I want the clients to have a good experience with me that almost they think of me when they look at their door. They don't want to think of paying an ass contractor or whoever built this door.
00:55:47
Speaker
I've gotten comfortable with myself enough to be clear with these clients of who I am and like, you know, it takes a little time and I'm not always, you know, going to pick up the phone, but I'm here, you know, I've gotten better at it, you know, and communication, you know, like it's going to take some time and a lot of clients don't want to hear that. But if, you know, they know what they're getting, you know, they'll be happy to wait, you know, and when it's their turn, it's their turn. Like this last, the door I'm building right now, the client was, you know, she texted me the day she saw me installing the last door. She's like, oh, I'm so jealous. I wish it was me.
00:56:15
Speaker
You're up next and trust me, your door is coming in. I like your door. You know what I mean? You're on deck next and it was kind of happy to hear that. She was excited and along the process, she's been, people on the fire of saying how much she likes it and enjoys watching me build it, which is cool. Yeah, it's good to find clients that
00:56:34
Speaker
appreciate a small shop, like that big curved door. That's a big shop that built that. And it's like, yeah, no shit they could do that. You know what I mean? They have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment. They've got probably dozens of guys working there. They have every resource known to man. But when guys like us can pull stuff off like that,
00:56:55
Speaker
Yeah, one or two guys with limited resources. That's what it's about. That's really what it's about. And that's what I'm just trying to do. I enjoy my big commercial shop, but like most craftsmen, we'd be happy to walk out back to a beautiful shop and just build what we love. It does put a little bit more pressure on getting the projects out the door that I'd like
00:57:17
Speaker
opposed to, you know, like being able to relax on them for a minute and let them, you know, simmer and get really done where I have, you know, a need to make profit, which we all have to do to, you know, to put a roof over everybody's head. So, you know. Yeah, it's a blessing and a curse. Yeah, it is a blessing. It really is, you know, we have, you know, profit and pride, you know what I mean? It's one of those things, you might have all the pride, you know, but like, you gotta walk around with a little bit of profit, you know, like, you know, if you don't realize that, like, you know, it's just, you know. No, no, it's,
00:57:46
Speaker
You know, back before Instagram, when I started out, I used to feel so guilty, like getting a big check from somebody and saying, you know, yeah, it's going to be like three months for something that I used to send them pictures. You know, as I was going through my day, I'd send, you know, take like two or three pictures. And most people would say, I didn't realize so much work went into whatever it is you were making.
00:58:12
Speaker
Yeah, just as simple as breaking down the lumber, you know, yeah, right. You're right. I'd send people as like, here's your lumber getting delivered at the end of the week. Here's all your parts label. But again, I think it's about communication. It really is like obviously clients.
00:58:28
Speaker
I feel really guilty about not communicating with a client that gave me a large check and like, hey, what's going on? I'm getting the process of starting projects, overlapping projects, so it's not just a cut and dry process. So right now we've got Steve Kors going for the next project and I order glass and I have the knives. Really, when it's time to dedicate my time to that job, it's not like, oh, we got to do this and do that.
00:58:51
Speaker
We have the Steve Kors. Let's get the veneers. Let's get it in the bag. Tomorrow we'll have that assembled. We already have the glass. We can check that size three different times. You know what I mean? I'll probably make an arch for it. Start bending some things so they're ready to go on the side because that's also very time consuming. That's the curse of having overhead is that in the past, you could have a little bit of downtime. You could be working on one job and have those little moments of downtime. Yeah.
00:59:18
Speaker
And it's fine, but when you have, you know, $4,000 rent and all that, to think about, you have to do multiple jobs. You have to have multiple jobs going on at the same time.
Teamwork and Shop Logistics
00:59:29
Speaker
No downtime. You have to stage it. You have to stage it.
00:59:33
Speaker
you know you're very lucky you have a teammate here you know you guys can you know brought the load together you know and like figure out divide and conquer which is which is a great thing you know i was really hoping that that was going to be my case in my shop um it's it's taking a couple different turns but like at the end of the day you know we'll we'll push through and you know make everybody happy and make some beautiful things and keep her smile on our faces you know that's just it you know it's it's important um you know everybody's
01:00:02
Speaker
Everybody's going through it in one form or fashion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, you know, we could talk about the loveliness of social media and how it could make it. This all seem very, very luxurious. Yeah. Jeff, look at this great new machine you have back here. You know, it's like, yeah, but you know what? It took me to get here and what it takes on the sideline to keep it running and working.
01:00:24
Speaker
Yeah. No, nobody knows, you know. Just the logistics of getting of, aside from all the money it costs to get a new machine, the logistics of getting it and setting it up. You're talking about money, just bleeding money. Couple of days of nothing.
01:00:39
Speaker
I know that CNC when I think showed up as a whole rigging crew. First of all, they're paving our building and they basically pulled pushed off the paving so that we could get our machine, you know, pushed in which is, you know, took a very large rigging crew. I tracked a trailer showed up. I mean, a big ass forklift rolled off that thing and pick that thing up like once they got in the building, it was on skates.
01:01:01
Speaker
over the corner and it was pretty easy. I was like, but like getting it from here to there. Yeah, it was a lot. We need to get a rigging crew for the edge banner. We were the rigging crew. That thing showed up in a box truck.
01:01:12
Speaker
Yeah, I showed my jointer, showed up in a box truck, and I'm sure that thing was the equivalent weight of the CNC. The CNC was just so massive. It just needed to get picked up with such a spread. And I'll be honest, I'm already going to be pricing, moving it with the ring and crew. I'll just have to move everything because it was just too much last time. It really was. I'd rather maybe take an out project for a month, knowing I'm going to be in the field.
01:01:38
Speaker
Like if you could figure that one out, maybe that'd be, you know, work out, but maybe it won't, but, and then just let the shop, you know, let them do their job. You know what I mean? That's kind of, as it gets older, I'm figuring out like just what to pay people to do and not to, you know what I mean? Like, I just got time for that shit. I just don't, you know what I mean? Like, do I have the money for it? No, but it's the whole chopping wood and paying for oil, you know, thing. Like if you don't have any time, you buy the oil, but if you're all the time, chop the wood, you know what I mean?
01:02:07
Speaker
So sometimes you got to buy the oil. Yeah. That's like, you know, we did a couple of jobs. Well, yeah, we did a couple of jobs that we had, like CNC cut. We had the jobs where we bought the doors. You know, so it's like take a kitchen that might take us 12 weeks to build. But if we farm out the cutting the boxes and making the doors, now it's a one week job. I know. And, you know, it's all my old boss used to do. It's way less. But
01:02:33
Speaker
In those 12 weeks we did another 8 jobs. Yeah, it's volume. It's all about what you're set up really to do. You know what I mean?
01:02:44
Speaker
as cabinet guys or carpenters, it's like, if you don't niche somewhat, you end up doing a lot of everything and then it's hard to get into a rhythm and make money. You know what I mean? It really is like recently, like, yeah, I'm going to niche for the doors. I do a lot of doors, obviously the doors, but like, I'm building a lot of things. I want to build anything and everything. Anybody puts in front of me. You know what I mean? But sometimes it's hard to slice over to the other side. Like, okay, we're going to take this off the burner and go over here.
01:03:08
Speaker
Now I'm in a run of doing, I couldn't tell you how many doors in a row right now. So now it's just like, I just moved through the motions. I come in, I know what needs to get done. You know what I mean? Although it was a little rusty in the beginning of the summer because we did that massive bar and some other things like, okay, let's get back to doors. And it was like, wait, what are we doing? Okay, let's go. You know what I mean? But yeah, no, you think it's funny, but like that's just- No, I laugh because I relate totally.
01:03:31
Speaker
I like to have all my parts lined up. I like to not have to think about everything that's going into it. When you're doing the same thing over the same kind of thing a lot, you can either A, price more competitively or B, make a better profit because you have all these systems. When you build 12 doors in a year, that 12th door is going to take you way less than the first day. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's about
01:03:59
Speaker
You know, talk about the top bottom of the door, you know, it's about, I'm not saying what you're going to get away with, but like I keep getting back this thing about like everybody wants everything so perfect and everything to be perfect. And in this Instagram world and this fake media world, like everything's going to be perfect and looking perfect. It's not, it's not going to be perfect. Like, and I'm not going to say like, my doors might look perfect, but I also might do every floor on the floor. You know what I mean?
01:04:23
Speaker
That's not perfect to me, but it might be perfect to somebody else. You know what I mean? Like we talked about that last week with Clinton about scribing how Instagram created this like really toxic, this toxic expectation for scribing. You're scribing these fillers to the stone. It's like nobody fucking cares about that. The client doesn't care. You could do it. You could do it. I could do it. Anybody could do it. It just takes time. But the client didn't necessarily pay for all that time. You know what I mean? Like if the budget is here.
01:04:53
Speaker
And the client's expectation is here. I'm not going to spend an extra 90 minutes scribing this thing, you know, airtight. It's going to get close and we're going to call it in. That's just, you know. Yeah, exactly. There is the, like I said, this expectation, everything's perfect.
01:05:09
Speaker
showing the bullshit. I tried to here or there. You know what I mean? We sacrificed enough for the client as a small business. We're always given more than we're being paid for. Oh, absolutely. I got screwed for
Carpentry Skills and Urban Challenges
01:05:22
Speaker
the first time ever. I've only ever taken one set of doors home from the city. And that was because I showed up to a site the other day that wasn't prepared for me properly. I told you you should just tap count it in. Dude, no bullshit. I probably could have and should have. But at the end of the day, the client had an obligation to provide an opening for me.
01:05:39
Speaker
But at the end of the day, I ended up doing the guy's job anyway. I used to need to get the freaking door turned on and it was just like, you want a lot? And sometimes it just is what it is. You know what I mean? And if I was prepared, I would never have left the doors in the van. I would have put them in because it's just what we do. I'm not that guy who likes taking things home. I don't like saying I can't do anything. I should never be in here. I like being out.
01:06:05
Speaker
I mean, honestly, come on, how many cabinet guys you know that can't frame, they can't do any kind of back blocking, you know what I mean? Like, they show up to a job and they're like, I don't know. And it's just like, come on, guys, really? But it's almost like having a plumber show up and you're talking about electricians and plumbers who can't do a rough.
01:06:24
Speaker
You know what I mean? You got a guy who can always set a toilet? What the hell? You know what I mean? That guy should be able to plump that thing, clean that drain, whatever it does do, start to finish with that thing. And that's how I feel carpentry should be. But we get these aisles of like, I'm a finished guy.
01:06:44
Speaker
I'm a framer, you know what I mean? You know, it's like, you know, it's like anything I think you should, that should be like the progression. It's like you start as a framer, then you become a finished carpenter, then you become a cabinet maker, then you become a furniture maker. Did anybody go to tech here? Vocational school? No, no, you go to vocational school.
01:07:01
Speaker
That was the greatest part. I actually learned from, my vocational shop teacher was fantastic. Tippie Larkin, Morris County Vocational School. Old timer, World War II CB. I mean, the guy was tough as nails. I called him Tippie because he used to be a boxer. I mean, always wore overalls and a conductor's hat. I mean, you're classic, like what I strive to be as a carpenter back in the day. I mean, the guy had the old stick. Like a Larry Hawn kind of guy. Yeah, dude, the guy had the old stick.
01:07:30
Speaker
tape, you know, roar, man, he whipped that thing out. He could do math with that thing. I still can't do it. I can't even figure it out. But man, he literally took it from the ground up. I mean, he literally started out with foundation work, form work, hand saws, and you worked up. You built the foundation walls. You know what I mean? You did somewhat of masonry work because that's what a carpenter did. You know, you did your form work. You know what I mean? And then
01:07:51
Speaker
What is it called that you'd start building a shed and a shed would have everything you would need to know Framing into a framing house. It was a small-scale house And then from there you moved inside and he started doing some cabinet work and some finer things, you know Then he taught you about trim work and stuff like that, you know, like
01:08:08
Speaker
It was fantastic. And then, you know, I also was very blessed to work with some great carpenters who, you know, guys like us aren't around anywhere that would literally like take something out of the ground and build every aspect of it. You know, there was no end to what we did. All those guys take care of that. It's like, hell no. Like we were putting flooring right behind the freaking sheetrockers, you know, and then as soon as the painters, we didn't paint, but as soon as the painters were done, we were trimming, you know, and if we, you know, in the meantime, we were out back building the deck. We weren't inside doing something.
01:08:37
Speaker
You know, like with the front roof, like, man, I'll talk about Scott Pollio all day, man, it's a love-hate relationship, but that dude, man, he would, we would cut the lot down, build the wood, build the frame, and then like, you know, in the end part, put the wood back into the house. Like, it was just, it was crazy, you know? So like, great teachers, you know? You know, there's- Some of that's attitude too. Yeah. Makes me think of,
01:09:05
Speaker
Remember that, was it Hoboken or Jersey City? The big tall, the big wide piece that went in with the wall panels. We had to get it up the elevator. We had to, the guy was worried about us messing up his elevator. Oh yeah, yeah, that was Hoboken. Yeah, you know. The white thing.
01:09:22
Speaker
Yeah, so we had these big wall panels that were made, and then there were these outlets in the wall that we weren't prepared for. But it's, you know, Jeff cut them in. You know, it takes another hour or whatever, but it's not like, no, no, you know, this isn't part of our scope. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You didn't tell us that there were outlets. We got to go, you know.
01:09:42
Speaker
You just did it. It's funny. The other day where I was the belt buckle doors, I totally forgot there was a light in there. I didn't have it. I didn't have a whole solid kind of light out.
01:09:54
Speaker
Yeah, I was out there with my multi-tool, you're talking, joke about multi-tool. Yeah, I do doing surgery with the multi-tool. I got to get this box in because I'm not leaving this. When you get in there and you get to the point of no return is when you tear somebody's front door out at the city. There's no return, you got to get the shit done. So at that point, it's like, all right, we got to figure out if there's light in here and all this other shit.
01:10:17
Speaker
Sometimes that happens, you know, all those best laid plans, you know, in the shop, everything's flat and square. Michael Tyson line, you know, everybody's got a plan to get punched in the face. Yeah, that's true. That's how it is, you know. And you get on site and you like got an old chisel in the bottom of your box that you're like. Oh, I take, like I said, I pride myself in never taking a set of doors home that once. I mean, they never left the van, but still like,
01:10:47
Speaker
I know what it takes to get a set of doors in a day by myself in the city. And I know that the moment I step on site. And if I walked in a situation, I can't get this done today because I would have had to leave, go to the Home Depot, whatever hardware store, get some things, get back there. But then it'd be 9, 10 o'clock. Yeah, I show up in people's house and they don't believe me. I'll be in the city at 7 o'clock, if not 6 30, because I'm already planning my attack.
01:11:11
Speaker
I'm not showing up at seven or eight getting ready to go. I'm there at 6.30 outside your house, staring at this thing. And you're going to be leaving at 6.30? Yeah, I'm going to be leaving whenever it's done. It doesn't matter, actually. That's the end of things. I could have a great day and I could go leave there four or five, but 99% of the time I'll leave in the dark or seven. Do you have a pain in the ass tax for a Brooklyn install?
01:11:36
Speaker
This is what it is. It's part of the door package, you know It's I've only let somebody else install one of my doors once and it was for the TV show I'm gonna talk about the TV show for the TV show we did in case anybody plugged that one the brownstone boys and uh, what was it up? That was the showdown can't even think about it. It was uh, man see
01:11:59
Speaker
How horrible is that? It was a- What the hell just happened? Did it just get really loud for you guys? No. No. What the hell? I'm good. But anyways, they installed the door.
01:12:15
Speaker
Oh, I moved my phone and it turned my monitor knob. It got so loud. Holy crap. They wanted the best deal. And I said, well, I can just, we can do a curbside delivery at that point. You know what I mean? And I said, okay. Because they had a contractor on site that was going to install it. And then I don't know what happened, but there was a massive gap at the bottom of the door. And
01:12:37
Speaker
Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I messed something up. I'm not perfect. I am not perfect, but I could have- It's called Point of View, a designer profile. No, it was Jesus. It was on the Magnolia Network and it was, God, what- Arian Jordan. No, it's speed. It was- Groundstone Boys episode, Magnolia. Man.
01:13:05
Speaker
How horrible is this point of view? A designer profile. Brownstone boys tackle a Brooklyn renovation and their home studio. No, it's, uh, it was Clinton Hill project and it was, uh, let's see what we got here. I'll be right back. Go hit it. Clinton Hills, one of those neighborhoods that, uh, used to be off limits when I lived in Brooklyn. Really? Yeah. Uh, wasn't quite gentrified.
01:13:34
Speaker
No, now it is. What is
Media Exposure and Marketing
01:13:39
Speaker
it called? Where I used to live, underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. It was the old. That's it. It was the old. And if you actually look up the brownstone voice, you'll see a picture of the
01:13:56
Speaker
door right there on the cover. It was actually on the cover of Magnolia Network, Magnolia magazine, I believe. Did they give you credit? Actually, we did quite a bit of credit on that one. It was actually really cool. We went out and me and my brother went out and after doing a consultation, we did some drawings and then we went out and spoke with the
01:14:21
Speaker
the homeowner and designer and the Brownstone boys and had like, you know, like an impromptu meetup at the, you know, on site, you know, they filmed. It was pretty cool. And then they came down to the shop and they filmed me at my buddy's shop. I was at my buddy's shop at the time of Buddy Scott. It was long when he was the shop at the time in between our shop. And they filmed me doing some things. It was pretty cool. And I had him like, you know, pick the veneers and then I we they filmed me doing the delivery. Yeah, it was we got credit. It was pretty cool. We got some screen time and
01:14:51
Speaker
It was an experience, you know, and then actually now reaping a couple of the benefits for the last two doors, the door I'm working on currently and the door prior were both, you know, people who found, you know, saw me out there and, you know, reached out to me and got a door. Did they pay at all like on top of the door? No. No. Well, you think the funny part, no, the funny part, we'll get into this real quick. You're gonna go price for the door. No, no, we'll get into this real quick.
01:15:15
Speaker
But no, I was already under contract with the door because I'm a guy who's reaching out. I'm not going to lie. You'll see me on Instagram. You know, like if you're a builder and I haven't reached out to you, I probably will. And I see you're building something or something going on. I'll be like, hey, what's the front door? Oh, yeah, I do that. I do. Why not? That's how I got this door.
01:15:32
Speaker
And they're like, actually, no, we were going to reach out to you, you know, or they were, you know, in the market looking for one and it was an odd sized opening. I think it was a, it was a three six, like nine. Oh, it is a massive door. It's, you know, that's white oak. It was, it was a big boy. You know, it's almost like my front door. It's huge. It's a huge front door, but this is an old carriage house.
01:15:53
Speaker
And yeah, no, we were already under contract at the time. And again, they wanted the best deal. I didn't know I was going to be on TV at all when we started working on the project. And they were like, hey, by the way, you know, the Brownstone boys reached out and they're like, we're gonna, they're filming this with the Magnolia network. And I'm like, yeah, I'm in it. So I was just like, don't worry about it. I got you guys. And they're great guys. I like working with the Brownstone boys. They're just
01:16:14
Speaker
They're just, they're the energy I want to work with. You know what I mean? They're just happy to, you know, make people happy and make dreams come true. And, you know, like... And they're good salesmen, I'm sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah. To clients. Yeah. They come in, they say, we got this guy. He builds these amazing doors. Yeah. No. We did this door. It's on TV. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah. We, yeah. Well, we also have done, this is our second project I've done. We did another project around the corner, but it's funny. The clients actually found me and introduced me to the brownstone boys and then
01:16:38
Speaker
We kind of worked together from there. And then it was great. Yeah, they came out to the country. Obviously, you know, we work in the country and, you know, the Browns of words are out and we, you know, it was fun. And then we went and delivered it. So, but I wish I had sold that door. That was, that's the end of the thing. You know, at the time I was very busy and still kind of like, you know, we wasted not wasted a lot of time, but we vested a lot of time in the project. You know, like, you know, we waited the one day for the one filming, like for a few hours just to like be there. And it was like, you know, you.
01:17:08
Speaker
got things to do. But they're very accommodating. They're like, they'll give you whatever you want. You know what I mean? Basically, we're sitting in the car waiting. They're like, what do we bring us coffee and food? But it was cool. And then they came out to set. They bike you up. Did they install? Did they do a good job? Yeah, the door works, but there was a gap at the bottom. And either somebody never adjusted the bottom. I didn't know how to adjust the bottom.
01:17:34
Speaker
threshold or it was set wrong or something. I don't know, but the homeowner kept reaching out to me and it was just like, dude, I didn't do the install. It's hard for me to say, because if there's something wrong prior to install, I would have saw that and adjusted it. You know what I mean? These guys just threw a door and said, oh, the guy built it wrong. If so, you know what I mean? I'm not perfect. Again, this whole social media world, nothing's perfect. You know what I mean? So, yeah.
01:18:04
Speaker
Whatever. Any opportunity to not install something. I'm all for it. Yeah. Yeah. Like that vanity we went back and forth on. Yeah. When are you building that? Uh, next month ASAP behind, behind these other set of doors. That was like that door. You know, I was joking around like literally, I could probably go back to the emails and get exact dates as to when they, that they just installed and they wanted that. Let's see.
01:18:31
Speaker
I'm pretty sure it was October 2022 that they said that had to be had to be done. Let's see. I hate that. I hate that. And then you see Waiter on like somebody else did it. You know what I mean? Like we would likely need them to be installed around May, May of 2022. And they just got installed.
01:18:56
Speaker
Because I said, I said, if we got into the doors full tilt after we complete what's on our books, I couldn't see us having them done any earlier than October. Best case scenario. And that was February 2022.
01:19:10
Speaker
Listen, you can't make everybody happy. And I'm blessed to be busy. And that's what the lines I'm keep trying to say to myself, blessed to be busy, blessed to be busy. And it's like, you can't get everything. You know, small business, we can't, and you can't stress about it. Like I used to stress so much about the bids that didn't get out and the stuff I might've missed or like, you know, like the clients seem to know it never came out. I like, make sure to get out there. Like, you know what, at the end of the day, like, I'm sorry. I'm only one person. If you just convey that to somebody, like,
01:19:38
Speaker
Do the best you can, you know what I mean? That's it. I'm sorry. Yes, it's five months out, and I'm sorry we're that far out. I apologize. We're not a huge shop, this is what you're getting, but if you don't want that slot five months out, I have five months for somebody to fill that slot, which is basically a great place to be. I hate
Tool Preferences and Techniques
01:19:57
Speaker
being that cocky asshole.
01:19:59
Speaker
I really don't want to ever be that cocky asshole. I want a client to be like, okay, no problem. The doors are building now, I think. We went back and forth for almost a year now. I want to say, yeah. And then April, I went out and looked and then we got her some drawings. And again, we were all behind the drawings and stuff. I'm learning to do now, fusion, yada, yada, and figuring that out so I can take care of those needs when they're needed, not down the road. There it is.
01:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, so I get it. I want to be playing with that very soon, you know, getting that CNC up and running and humming, you know. Here's the white oak cabins. Oh, you're doing right now? Yeah, that's cool. Very nice. I like that. They're all mobile. Yeah, so they're all on casters and then we're doing, we got this, like a mirror wall. Okay, how is your fancy?
01:20:54
Speaker
I like it. Here's that Ben Kett. See, but this is what clients need. Like this is what sets people off. You know what I mean? It sets people different from like, like I enjoy doing a nice piece of chicken scratch and making something look really cool. Especially when you go into this, you start doing a rendering. Yeah. And you get this nice photo realistic rendering. You know, you, these are exact site measurements of the windows, everything. So they can see it as it will actually be. Yeah. And it just, you know, changes everything. It blows their mind.
01:21:24
Speaker
That's awesome. The computer gets nice and hot when you're running these things. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, fusion's good. And mosaic. I mean, you really don't do.
01:21:40
Speaker
Well, not to say that you don't, but most of your stuff isn't like production cabinets like that where you would be mosaic, but mosaic is super fast for just like cabinet boxes and doors. You know, you can just set your door style, the doors all populate. Whereas fusion, you got to draw everything from scratch. Yeah. Yeah, I just have to get into it because we have the CNC at the shop and
01:22:09
Speaker
You know, sometimes people think different ways and I think, you know, my brother thinks one way and I think another way and I'm not saying his way is wrong, but like, it's kind of one of those things you think more eyes on it, maybe more brains in it, you know, like it can't hurt. You know, I think of a different way of woodworking as far as everything and, you know, he thinks of a different way.
01:22:27
Speaker
I'm hoping to learn this and be able to evolve what that machine can do with what I need to do. It's not necessarily the tool, but the hand that guides it. And I always preach that because I don't have the nicest tools, go back to the saw blades. I don't have the nicest saw blades. What do we got here?
01:22:42
Speaker
Rich carbide. I don't have very many Rich Carbide blades here, but it's the hand that guides it. You know what I mean? What about sanders? What are you working with for sanders? I actually got that one sander from TJ. I got that surface prep and I really book in the market for a six inch sander. Well, well, well.
01:22:59
Speaker
What have we got here? We're about to plug something else here. We want to thank our third sponsor. You need a Sanders. You need a, well, you need a, an ex-SAND. So you need is their line of sandpaper and ex-SAND or their line of Sanders. So we have, do you have a, is it a three by four year standard, your surf prep? My surf press is a five inch disc.
01:23:18
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. So, you might actually like having a three by four sander for sanding inside panels and stuff between, you know, your coat's finished. So it's a little three inch by four inch and it's a true orbiting sander, which is what we have. And, you know, they make a line of five inch, six inch, three by four is all the sandpaper.
01:23:39
Speaker
And yeah, I've been using the hell out of that 3x4. It's nice because it's not very aggressive. I mean, it can be. You can turn up the speed and everything, but sand and primer and sand in between coats of finish, it's so nice. It's a game changer for that, especially. Yeah, you get real nice flat sand versus doing it by hand where you got to worry about your pressure and your speed and all that stuff. Yeah.
01:24:05
Speaker
I have the Surface Prep I got from TJ. Again, I just recently bought a bunch of six-inch discs on accident. So now I need to buy a six-inch sander. That's economical. Yeah. Yeah. Well, whatever. You know what I mean? Sometimes that's how it happens, right? Yes, exactly. Sometimes that's how it happens. You're just like, well, you know, I bought these and I was looking at that. You know, oops.
01:24:29
Speaker
It's just an excuse. It's just man, I have such a hard time with festival and like everybody's like, Oh, get the first tool, get the first one, Mike. I just have a hard time like giving them anybody beyond a track. So like I bought that T 75 and like, yes, it's a great saw.
01:24:44
Speaker
Man that shit is so underpowered. I thought for freaking $1,200 or $1,300 I was gonna get something that jerked my hand. I got a freaking 12 inch Milwaukee framing freaking saw. I'll show you some power. That's what I used to buck the doors with, is that. But it's obviously the bed's not good and it's
01:25:03
Speaker
Freaking freakin thing so yeah, you know baby. That's how I would cut my big two-inch doors down You know is with this big old thing and man, so I got the tracks on initially for that But I was like man. I gotta take three swipes on a fucking two-inch door come on Because we use the well we use the Makita use the Makita battery powered on an inch and three-quarter solid oak door no problem
01:25:24
Speaker
Yeah, I like to take my time, make it nice, but it's a two inch thick. I mean, again, like I think an inch and three, we were not, that extra quarter, it makes a difference. You know, it really does. You know, I don't know. But again, I was just not impressed at the festival when I got it. I was like, shh, this is, I was like, this is gonna be the bomb. Like I'm a fucking stoked. And I'm like, wah. But like, it was my first track saw. It's a great tool. It takes a big size blade. It does, it does a lot. You have Diablo Blade on there.
01:25:52
Speaker
No, I actually have two Festools. Actually, that's one of my tools I filter out, is one of my, I have two Festool blades. Yeah, but I'll tell you, it's, man, track songs have just changed the game. I'm not gonna lie, it's a game changer. You saw the bar, I did, man. Come on, that thing was all sliced and diced with the track song. Twice, I'll say, because you'll know. If people don't know, me and Jeff talk quite a bit, but I had a pretty big boo-boo on that. Again, we're not gonna say nobody's perfect,
01:26:20
Speaker
But I made the bar big and I scaled everything what I thought was the right sizes and the designer came in and he was just like, this thing's way too big. It was, it was, it was like three inches big on the back and the front bar was six inches too wide. Like I get it. I fucked up. Like he was freaking out and he was just like, man. And I'm like, listen, I'm going to do the work. Like we're just going to cut it. I looked at him. I go, I go, I understand. I messed up. I'm taking the fall. I go, but like at the end of the day, like
01:26:45
Speaker
You address the issue, I go, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not bucking back at you. I go, if you come in here on Monday and it's not right and I'm mad, then we can have a problem. I go, right now, like I need you to go so I can do my job and fix this. And you know, like you'll come back and be happy. When you come back and you're not happy, then we'll have a discussion. You know what I mean? But right now, like we'll address the issue. And I did, I took that bar back apart real quick, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, slice that thing back apart. I wasn't happy about it. Slammed right through some of those
01:27:12
Speaker
little mellow connectors. Those things cut great. By the way, this has got a great soft metal. Pocket screws is what fuck yum. That's what fuck yum is. Pocket screws. But the little mellow, those connectors, it's nice soft metal. Yeah, it's like zinc or something. Yeah, it's nice. I can slice right through those things, no problem. That's two bucks. Besides the blade, I just at that point had a demo blade to cut through things. And then just when I got a fresh blade, cut started fresh.
01:27:41
Speaker
It's funny how fast you can do things sometimes. Yeah, yeah. Again, I have a very framers set of mind line again with things. If you watch that bar, you'll see how I built that bar there. I pre-planned all the pieces, put it together. We did the big glue ups, like what are on Sykes? The glue ups are 28 feet long on this bar. You know what I mean? It was massive glue ups. Yes, yes, yes. And I actually had
01:28:08
Speaker
M&T, you know, Neil make the knives, where it was all basically everything was a tongue and groove. So when it slammed together, the glue joint, you know, was, you know, basically made them perfectly together. It was perfect. And all the glue, it was great. And then, you know, I just sliced and diced material on site. I made some slabs in the shop. The hardest part was just, you know, the sanding really. So you like coped the ends of each of them so that they were. Yeah. Yeah. So it was basically a tongue and groove. How'd you do that setup? Just like a really big out, like side support on the Shaper.
01:28:36
Speaker
No, so the shaper basically had a head, you know, basically it was a coping stick. I basically had a coping stick on everyone. But they were long ass pieces, right? Yeah, they were long runs of white oak. So basically I had to take a huge pile of white oak and make specific sizes that I felt were going to work per piece because I knew what I needed. And they basically build everything up to exact like width. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? What was your setup on the shaper to support all that on the, you know, because you're going... I had a power feeder. Two feet. I had a power feeder on the fucking shaper, but really, well, I just had a, you know, we did an outfeed.
01:29:07
Speaker
Oh, I thought you were saying you did the ends. No, the ends I just... So basically what I did was if you look at the videos is I actually... I dominoed pocket screwed and... Yeah, dominoed a pocket screwed and epoxied the butt joints. So those actually got like, I feel like three attacks on them and they were clamped. So it was like, and then I gave those a day
01:29:30
Speaker
to set up. So those are 24 hours. They use G-Flex epoxy together and then I use T3 for the whole field because it's got to be food safe. Would you do pinch dogs or something on the back for the butt joint to clamp them? No, what I did was I do a lot of bracketing or I would say blocking. Basically boxes of two by two squares, pocket holes in them. So I basically set one into another one, clamped it on and pulled it together.
01:29:56
Speaker
Again, I mean, you know, people listening as they go, just roll back through my, you know, things. You'll see me, you know, doing some sort of freaking time lapse doing it. You know what I mean? Ask me a question. I'm usually pretty, I like answering questions. I just hate dumb questions. You know what I like? Statements, more like. Oh, I love it. Like everybody's talking about routers now. I'm like, what's a router? How's that going to help me with fucking, you know, like I'll pull out the dad jokes. You know what I mean? Like how, how, how is the internet going to help me route this out? You know, cut this out kind of shit. Like,
01:30:25
Speaker
I was going to say before on the festival sander thing, like in the past, I think that we probably would have said like the only choice to buy a sander would be a festival. But, you know, recently we got a couple of DynaBrades and then we got those Unitas. And I'd say that there's definitely other options. Yeah, they all do seem to do different things too. Like I didn't realize that there was this whole other sector of like nice sanders. Yeah. It's like I always knew about Merka, but never really liked
01:30:53
Speaker
It's weird the way you go from like, you get into it and you know, you start out, you start out, everybody, you go into the depot on camera, the depot guy, and then you, you know, you get into it and then you get to the rock and then it's like, and you start dabbling in the industrial and you're like, oh, this is the way you make money. You know what I mean? Like, obviously you're like, you know, you can buy some homeowner kit freaking edge band, or you can buy like that monster you got there. It's like,
01:31:16
Speaker
Like this thing will get the job done, but what's going to make you some money? You know, but then you got to stack the jobs to make money, but it's moving out. You can't go keep going out that chain, but it's a snowball for sure. Oh, it absolutely is a snowball, but then you've got to feed the machine. That's the other problem.
01:31:31
Speaker
I was gonna talk about my neighbor Ryan. He's got a freaking, like a laser cutter, like a plasma laser cutter. I mean, I think it looks like a goddamn spaceship next door. Like the thing is like a hundred thousand, I mean, I don't know what he paid for it, but like itself feeds in. So it's got like a feeder sheet, like blow one sheet goes in while the other sheet is coming out underneath or on top of. And this thing is just blowing through parts, man. I love watching it. It's really freaking cool to watch, but it's a laser. It's like,
01:31:59
Speaker
Oh yeah. It's like new doors. Yeah. But then again, like he's got, he does a lot of manufacturing and now he gets to pull away from like, I've watched him build this custom set of tables. It's been his shop for a while, but I'm like, but then meanwhile, I've watched him do all this like production stuff because he's got to feed the machine, you know? Yeah. So it's a double edged sword. You want all these cool machines, but you got to feed the machine, you know? Yeah.
01:32:21
Speaker
The way I look at it is like, you know, if we can stay busy enough with like this edge banded euro frameless commercial, that kind of stuff, then, you know, we can take on jobs like this white oak job where the profit margin is like basically nothing. It's like you break you're breaking even after you get paid. So it subsidizes that's that kind of stuff. You know, people see the list price, so to speak. You know, we're making all kinds of money.
01:32:51
Speaker
Man, jobs like that, it's just, you have to get into a production mindset. You know what I mean? Like one-off stuff is different opposed to the, you know, like when I'm doing these doors, everything's one-off. Like this bar we did, like I knew I had to get in a production mode. You know what I mean? Like I had to basically put my head down and go, not every old detail is going to matter. I just have to make everything line up and then polish it smooth. You know? And that's that. At the end of the day, this is a bar, you know?
01:33:21
Speaker
It's about set up and run. You know what I mean? Set up and run, set up and run. That's basically what it is. Set up and run, set up and run. The better you can set up, the better you can run. Yeah, it's all about having the systems in place. Whether it's fine furniture or bullshit commercial cabinets, you got to have systems and you can't let the finished product, you know,
01:33:40
Speaker
the disparity between the two, change the whatever, the need for systems. At the
Networking and Client Management
01:33:48
Speaker
end of the day, a fine hardwood veneer cabinet versus a melamine cabinet, it's the same shit. And the setup is the same. It's about finding the client for the project. You know what I mean? As much as it is.
01:34:05
Speaker
them finding us is us finding them. You know what I mean? And thank God we have these platforms right now that we can do on a self promotion. Like I was lucky when I first started this, I wasn't in social media at all. Like I was just, I knew a lot of people. I was always great at smiling, going to jobs. He's your project manager for a very large framing crew. And that fellow actually introduced me to one of my first historic jobs and they knew me from running framing crews. They were like, this guy's going to come do the finished work, like the trim historic details. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:34:33
Speaker
I'm gonna come up and kick ass on it." And actually, he took me for a ride. He said, listen, I want you and I want you to know nobody else. Let's go. I'm like, okay. And then that's how the whole door thinks snowballed and how you get where you are. But before that, I was on social media. One of my employees showed up, my young guy, Brian Grogard, who worked with me for many years. He's like, dude, you need some kind of presence. You know what I mean? You can't just, you know what I mean? I'm like, oh, okay. So then that's when the whole Instagram thing started.
01:34:59
Speaker
kind of snowball from there. Now that's where I get most of my work and that's how we got on TV. You know what I mean? And that's how I met you and I've met all these great carpenters and I've always had a network of carpenters around me. I really have. I've always known that was the way to make it, by making friends and keeping in contact with people. Try not to burn bridges. Sometimes you have to, but really,
01:35:23
Speaker
Always keep the platform there to build it again. I keep talking to my buddy Scott, we used to fight all the time. And it wasn't like a, hey, kind of fight, more like somebody who's going to die if somebody comes between us kind of fight. You know what I mean? Like hardcore fights. I mean, we always came back together, you know? But yeah.
01:35:45
Speaker
It's got to keep going. Yeah, like social media, like I wouldn't say if you're if you're a small business and you're not on social media, you're destined to fail. But you're certainly making it harder for yourself. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there is just a fantastic platform to self promote. And it's like, just the resources like the group of guys that we're in like constantly everybody's asking questions. How would you do this? Oh, how would you price this?
01:36:07
Speaker
You know, it's fantastic that like me and you end up like bidding on the same freaking job. It's like, thank God you're like on the on the line for that one because like, you know, I don't know if you should really talk about the fine details about that. But like the designer basically almost had one over on you. And now I broke my heart because like I've had that happen to me. And it's like.
01:36:24
Speaker
use a lot of work that goes in your design and drawings the really isn't it the end of day like that's why i like all go out to a job is the way i work a job is all i'll look at a project you send me some pictures what you looking at and i'll throw a ballpark at it i'm like this is a ballpark and if they're like man get the fuck out of here i'm like okay that's great we need to spend more time but if they're like okay.
01:36:41
Speaker
Then I'll actually come out and I'll actually take a deposit for a drawing. You know what I mean? And then we will talk about what they want to do and we'll be including that project. And that price gets in the drawing. And from there on out, we can price the project and move forward. If not, they can take that drawing to any other cabinet shop or any other door maker and say, hey, this guy was going to charge me this. What could you do it for?
01:37:04
Speaker
you know, and they're like, well, you better go back to that guy or you want to work with us. Like you don't even like think about that. Some people don't even think about that, you know, which is also a fantastic feeling, you know, like, like we're not shopping. Oh, no, you're doing the project. Just just here, you know, like I feel like
01:37:20
Speaker
As I've been getting better and better with communicating with clients, I want to say more people are trying to give me money, but more people are trying to get their time slot, which is a fantastic feeling. Like, okay, no, no, you're six months out. Okay, let's talk now, which is a good feeling. You want to see that vanity in 3D?
01:37:40
Speaker
Show me that vanity in three days. Show me what I have to build, which is kind of crazy to be building your, your, your thing. So I'm going to have to sign the back for us. Oh, absolutely. Here's the thing. Don't worry. I'm going to tag you in everything I do on this one. Don't you worry. That's a funny one where they let the client. So obviously I didn't draw any interior or anything, but
01:38:10
Speaker
Yeah. All right, so that's how it's gonna look. You're not getting any drawers. Yeah. False front, false front, false front. I mean, can we talk about this? I think we might have touched on it. I mean, but can we talk about this? I mean, do you want to dabble into this? This is like, it's kind of a taboo thing that happens with us with people shopping our work and after taking a design and they'll take our design and our time and they'll go someplace else and say, what can you do? Can you do this for better?
01:38:40
Speaker
It's Robert. That was like, so we're this, this thing that we're building, where is it? This window, windows seat, this thing. So they're, they're having rentals done in the house and we came in and gave him a price to build this. And the builders got a guy, you know, who does site, you know, he would like build this on site. And he says to the homeowners, he's like, well, what did they design? Just show me the thing and I'll do, you know, I'll be, I'll beat their price. Yeah.
01:39:07
Speaker
Um, but I guess a little backstory on the vanity. So, um, you know, we had this, this project. Let's start out with the door. Cause really that's how I met these, these clients. There's a very intricate, you know, crazy door. Jeff said, you know, I think Tim would be a good project. You know, it'd be a good project for Tim. I'm too busy. Yeah.
01:39:26
Speaker
And they're asking me to price a vanity, a very different vanity from this. It actually looked- It was just a single. It was a single, kind of looked like this, but it was- It was like, yeah, like cut this down a little. Yeah, and I priced that out. And actually, I got Jeff call me, he's like, you're gonna do this vanity for what? I go, what are you talking about? How do you even know about this?
01:39:45
Speaker
And next, you know, they're trying to get me to build this for the same price. And I was like, no, first of all, that price is totally different. You're like, oh yeah, they sent me an updated design. I'm like, motherfucker, that's my design. Yeah, Jeff's like, that's my drawing. And I'm like, oh shit, this feels really dirty. Like I felt really dirty at that moment. I did, I did. So I'm like underbidding of old carpenters work, you know? But like, again, I have no design time in on it. You know what I mean? So probably the price difference between us
01:40:15
Speaker
Which is probably your design time. I don't know what you got paid. That's your business. You got paid for designing this, but like... I charged them 350 bucks. That's it. I'm sure. Yeah. I'm a little bit more in that difference. But like, again, they tried getting over a single unit on me on this one and I didn't let that happen. And yeah, I ended up charging them. They are going to pay more for the piece, but still at the end of the day, it was kind of like...
01:40:36
Speaker
It felt dirty because I felt like I underbid you. That wasn't the intention at all. It was just trying to work with a new client. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I'm dealing with the designers and they're dealing with the client. I don't think it was the client itself, but the architects or the whatever design team for the architecture firm.
01:40:59
Speaker
So they're sending my stuff over to the client. And so I finished this design and send it to the designers and they're like, oh, actually, clients just told me that they're actually, they're going to go with Tim. I'm like, oh, I'm like, all right, whatever.
01:41:16
Speaker
So where the hell was I going with this? Oh, yeah. So then I think it was like, I don't know, maybe the next day I hit you up and I was like, oh, I was like, are you building this vanity? Or I said, you're going to build this vanity for? Yeah. Because they said they're like, oh, Tim's going to do it for like this much. I was like, oh, wow. Wow. Yeah. How the fuck is he going to do that? I was like,
01:41:37
Speaker
You're going to build it for this much?" And then you were like, something like, oh yeah, they sent over this thing. I'm like, this is my drawing. But the designers didn't know that the clients were going and taking this and sending it to you. Yeah. Again, you don't even know. Thank God we had that connection. Because if we didn't have that connection, you know what I mean? I don't know who I'm bidding against.
01:42:01
Speaker
But the drawings come from somewhere. Yeah. I just, I hate it. I hate it. Cause I just had a client in Jersey city trying to like give me the old, Oh, somebody said he would do it for this. I go, okay. And that was it. I let him, I let him back. I just said, okay. I didn't, I didn't scramble on the pan opposed to what he was hoping I was going to do. I did. And then he, you know, then you, can you, can you do this? Can you do that? You know, at that point I asked clients to do things for me. You know what I mean? Like, what can you do this? And can you do that?
01:42:28
Speaker
You know, and it goes both ways. We won't talk about some things, you know, we're on air here, but like, you know, like, it sucks. It sucks that clients can, you know, feel they could do that. I wish I could go to the food store and, you know, talk to the clerk and say, well, you know,
01:42:41
Speaker
I don't, this banana is a little brown. I don't think I should be paying full price for this. You know what I mean? Or like, this bag was a little crinkly. Dude, these Doritos are definitely broken. A lot of broken pieces. Like, we're going to take half off here and do this here and do that there. And this is what I feel you should be getting, you know? Like, and I want to pay cash. I get a discount for cash, right? Oh yeah. That's my fucking favorite. Like cash. Like, dude, we want to bury 20 grand in cash.
01:43:03
Speaker
I'm not 20 anymore, you know what I mean? I'm a full-grown of gold. I can only buy so many groceries and put gas in my truck. Even then, you can write the gas off and, you know, groceries are groceries, you know what I mean?
01:43:15
Speaker
Yeah, it gets. But I knew, you know, I knew that that client was not the designers. I knew that this client was a snake in the grass anyway, because just like those doors, we need these in by May 2022. They just got installed in December 2023. So, yeah, it just goes to show you what kind of, you know, BS people. I have a firm believing in, you know, we're doing carpentry, not brain surgery.
01:43:37
Speaker
Obviously, I had the brain surgery. So I know the importance of some things. And I guess it's some things you realize later on in life, what's important, what's not important. Making every client happy is not important. It really isn't. And I still stress myself out a lot. I'm here today because I gave up on my Christmas dream of getting a set of doors in. But I realized with some personal things going on I have in my life, it's just not going to happen. I'm going to take a couple hours and come down and talk to my good friend and make myself feel good for the day.
01:44:03
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like we've talked about this. It's just about, it came down the last time. It's been three years, you know? Like let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Finally hit me up this whatever Monday, Sunday, when I was like, you know what? I'm going to come down. It can't hurt my days or my, my week's already screwed. You know? Yeah. Like last week.
01:44:20
Speaker
I swear we didn't get anything done last week. We had the podcast, we had other business owners came in, we had multiple sales reps. We had like five visits that one day. It was insane. John Peters was here twice. I lock my door sometimes. People think it's funny, but I lock the door. I gotta work. I gotta get the blinders on and get in his own.
01:44:42
Speaker
I'm already distracted enough by the freaking digital leash. I keep my pocket around my, you know, my hip, you know, looking at your posting or whatever. You know what I mean? Like that distracts enough of my freaking time. Like, you know, clients text email. Yeah. Oh yeah. But also I realized like, if you don't handle it sometimes, right? When it happens, it festers in my head. Like yesterday had a client reaching out about, you know, product, basically a production, you know, update. You know what I mean? The next set of doors were doing it or Jersey city and like kind of the client's going to be a pain in the butt. He seems very,
01:45:11
Speaker
You know the client, you can just tell. And I'm like, okay, just answer him. Because you know he's going to be festering. He gave you a very large production deposit. And it's not fair that for what he gave you, you shouldn't at least answer him back, like where you're at. Even if it's not something he wants to hear. At least it's off your mind and you're not going, man, what am I going to say to this guy? What am I going to say to this guy? I'm like, fuck. Now, by the time you get back to him, he's mad you didn't get back to him and he's mad you're behind on his shit.
01:45:37
Speaker
At least you answered him right away. He always knew at that point in time, like, hey, he's working as hard as he can to communicate with me where I'm at in the project and that you are a priority to him. If somebody gives you a bunch of money, you should be a priority to them until you're done with their project. You know what I mean? There's nothing a client hates more than feeling like they're being ignored. Even if it's not the case, even if you're just, I'm that busy where I can't respond to you until tonight after I leave the shop.
01:46:02
Speaker
They don't care. I got one right.
Material Sourcing and Project Integrity
01:46:04
Speaker
Yeah, I'm, you know, everybody's been kind of wondering what I'm doing with my stories and stuff. And I'm actually project managing your project while we're doing all these doors too on top of everything else because why not? You know what I mean? Like, you know, I love pulling something out of the ground, man. Like there's something about it, you know, like pulling something out of the ground, like it wasn't there and shaping the land and putting something up, you know, and then I get to do the nice finish work in it. But they're old clients and
01:46:31
Speaker
They're great people and I got great subs. I don't bust my subs' chops. I don't like it. I said it to him. He's like, well, are we going to do multiple prices? I go, yeah, what are we going to do multiple prices for? So I can piss off my subs. If you don't realize that, I want multiple prices. Just get some guy who's not the best guy for the job. Yeah. Well, where you're going to basically take your subs and put them in a corner and as a sub myself and a carpenter myself, I don't like being in the corner.
01:46:55
Speaker
I don't want to have somebody who I've worked with for many years come at me and go, well, I got Joe Schmover here who just gave me a quote for, you know, like, whatever, $200 less, $300. I don't give a shit. Have fun.
01:47:07
Speaker
Yeah, again, now you're basically taking the person that you've trusted and worked with for many years, and they're like, oh, so you're getting other people's prices, and now you want me to do a job for Wes. And then what happens with that is it becomes a double-edged sword. Okay, I'll take that money off. Anything that shows up in their way at that point, extra. At least if you give somebody what they want, you can say, listen, I didn't buck back at your price. I gave you what you wanted. You should have known that in the job. Now, Wes, it's something like,
01:47:36
Speaker
God, the frame would cut a wire in this kid's bedroom, and it was a prime example, and the electrician just couldn't figure out where it was traced, where it was back, and it became an issue. It became more than like, oh, just tie some things back together kind of thing. It was like, oh, shit, we had to do a lot of back tracing. We're going to have to maybe rewire this room. You know what I mean? It becomes an extra. That becomes an extra. That's unforeseen.
01:48:00
Speaker
But you know, I don't I don't like being that guy. I want to I want to work with my friends, you know, my close subs, you know, like they're my friends. You know, at the end of the day, like we have to work in a relationship like you don't want to have to dread picking up the phone.
01:48:10
Speaker
Plus you bring someone in new, let's say on the whole scope of work, you're using a new electrician, he was 2,500 bucks less. You know where that 2,500 bucks comes from? Now you gotta look over this guy's shoulder because you never worked with him before. So you gotta say, is he doing the right thing? Is he following the plans? There's all sorts of things. I used to be an estimator in the city. And so- I don't even know how you do that. I can estimate the one thing I do.
01:48:38
Speaker
Yeah, so it would be for the whole job. I usually fucked that up. A commercial job like for NYU or something. I know, I know you people. And that's the thing, that money comes from somewhere. Nobody's $5,000 or so, let's say 20% less for no reason. Yeah. But even if they are, now the project management team is going to be spending that money watching what they're doing because they don't know who they are.
01:49:06
Speaker
Every trade's like in the restaurant business. You need vendors you can trust. I can't be looking through the case of tomatoes every Wednesday. Oh yeah, it's like those stack of hardwoods I got. In one phone call, my hardwood salesman was down there looking at a pile of wood going to him, you know, you probably got enough. And I'm like, it's not that I don't probably have enough. It's like, I ordered what I ordered and I want better product. And he's like, well,
01:49:30
Speaker
You know, this is what we have right now and I trust him and he's like, you know, like he's straight up looked at me. He goes, if you need a few extra sticks to finish this project, I will hand deliver them to you. And I believe him. I believe he'll come down and hand me like whatever pieces of sticks I need. He does that. He's a good guy, but like, I've heard good things about this guy, but I haven't had the same experience. Who? Pete? Rex? Really? What happened?
01:49:50
Speaker
I have called a couple of times for some things and he's never got back to me. Really? So forth. Yeah. You know, Pete, I think he's at the end of his time if you ask me, but like, again, I feel salesman are kind of listening to the past almost like now, because now anybody can go online and shop for whatever the hell they want. And there's really no, there's no elbow grease or handshake into it anymore.
01:50:12
Speaker
You know what I mean? We got a couple. Yeah. You got a couple, but you don't have all. That's what I'm saying. It's a dying thing. That's like Atlantic plywood.
01:50:22
Speaker
We don't have an outside sales rep anymore. He left and they didn't get anybody. Oh, really? What's his name left? Anthony. Anthony left? Okay. Oh, we're getting the same service. He works for rugby now. What's rugby? Rugby is like another plywood architectural building supply. Okay. Yeah. Somebody out there. That's why again, like,
01:50:44
Speaker
Who are you buying your plywood from? I don't use a lot of plywood. I do use Atlantic when I need it, but that's really it. You can't even get them on the phone now. That's the problem. You call and you get a voicemail. Really? If you call the sales number, you get a voicemail and then you leave a message and then you don't get a call back and then you call the next day and you leave a message and you don't get a call back. You just do, you just show up at the freaking warehouse. Yeah, well I'm not driving all the way across that.
01:51:09
Speaker
But we opened an account of Wirth because Wirth basically carries anything that Atlantic carries. You know what I mean? Tafeesa and I probably wouldn't buy like pre-finished plywood from them. They're more specialized in like the laminates and stuff like that for Mica.
01:51:27
Speaker
I hear you. I just, yeah, again, I deal with hardwoods and I used to deal with this company down to read around PA because I used to drive out there and actually hand pick. But at the end of the day, I realized that wasn't worth it. And they're actually not even around anymore. And then whoever bought them shut the whole part down. And it was just like, man, that was such a cool yard to go to. They would, you know, I'd show up there in a bit. I need, I need, you know, eight quarter walnut, you know, they just bring down a whole palette for me. I'm like, here, we'll leave you in the corner and you just pick through what you want.
01:51:56
Speaker
That was the last thing I called Rex for. We were looking for a quarter walnut 12 feet long. Nobody had it. Nobody. I couldn't find it anywhere.
01:52:07
Speaker
Fucking hate walnut. Everybody looks at me like, oh man, how do you hate walnut? Listen, I've never had a good job with walnut, and that's just me. Maybe it's just me, fine. Yeah, that vanity right there. Prime example, walnut vanity. It already started out shitty. I haven't even made a single wick of dust on it. You know what I mean? You're gonna have to call Neil for these knives. Oh, he's already on them, I think. We'll get him. What are you gonna do, like three reeds per piece or something?
01:52:35
Speaker
Probably not, I'll probably all do them individually to get a uniformed look, because then you'll get the triple stack that looks uniformed, but opposed, you know, then you'll have a grain match going down for each three. I think I'd rather it be like really, bro, I don't know. Again, I just, I don't know if I ever just don't estimate enough for walnut. I don't know. This is obviously going to be some sheet goods and then some hardwood. You know what I mean? So.
01:53:01
Speaker
The uniformity will come through the sheet goods and then I'll try to grain match as much as I can through the the the Reeves or whatever we're calling those. Yeah. Going to make the draw boxes? Much so just to do those. So again, farm it out. You know what I mean? Do what you can because you know, while he's making the boxes, I can be doing something else, you know? Just make them out of way, Melanie. Probably. Whatever. You know, make it work. Oh, you actually you wanted wood drawers. That's like another like four grand. Yeah. Make sure to hit them up.
01:53:32
Speaker
Uh, you know, I got twist a knife on them. It's double edged sword too. Cause like I want to work with the people. They seem like they have some very interesting, great work, but like,
01:53:43
Speaker
And this goes back to the bid. You're bidding on things. You don't want to walk into something looking like the fucking chump. You know what I mean? A lot of times you gotta do that and it sucks. You gotta take the cheap road in and then once you prove yourself, you're gonna charge more. Those are kind of the shitty people to work for. First, three years of our business was just having to be the low bid. Yeah, and I get it. It's what we gotta do. But at some point, you gotta turn that around and be like,
01:54:14
Speaker
I want to make money, you know, I'd be happy and comfortable. Yeah, unfortunately, the some clients, you know, commercial clients, I've called like designers and architects, they just jump from, you know, the new guy to the new guy to the new guy to keep that price down.
01:54:32
Speaker
The problem with that is all they're doing is pissing off everybody. You know what I mean? There's no satisfying. I don't know how people work like that, man. I don't get it. It's integrity. Yeah. Yeah, we ran one off for almost two hours here. I was going to say, I don't know how you're looking for time. I don't want to eat up your whole day. Yeah. We'll wrap it up in a couple of minutes. I got...
01:54:53
Speaker
apparently a bunch of people call me about this job right now which is just yeah sometimes you just deal with some you know whatever turn this thing over right now so yeah we i got a little anecdote about integrity we brought it up a couple of times
01:55:11
Speaker
One day we're riding around and there's a contractor with a van wrap. Yeah. And his wrap is a photo of my work. He was a contractor in the same place. Oh, man. It's the kitchen, but he did like the tile on the floor or something.
01:55:39
Speaker
Oh, that's that. And we called them out on it. We called them. Oh, my God. That's that's that's pretty funny. Yeah, that is. Yeah. That's a good one. Oh, my God. That could be. I know that. It was really that sort of a bitch.
01:55:57
Speaker
That's how you see it. And that would have been like, if you didn't know me, I built this thing right around you, follow me, you're like, wait, I designed that. Yeah, exactly. I fucking designed that, you know what I mean? And we're kind of going through that with a contractor right now. We designed a door for, and it's a friend and client of mine, and we wasted four renderings, only to then change the total door project, which made us change the total price of the project, and then next to no, we weren't doing the project. And it was like,
01:56:23
Speaker
wait a minute, we just did four renderings for you. And now because you changed the door from like, it was a very large door with some side lights, regular door to a freaking monster pivot door. I'm talking over 10 foot tall. Wow. Yeah, it was a monster pivot door. And I was like just, and basically all I charged is a more was extra for the hardware because the hardware for the door was an extra couple grand. And I was like, well, I have to add a warning curve. Plus I have to add this new hardware and
01:56:49
Speaker
And they went with somebody else and I was just, man, I'm like, and it was sometimes you don't take that deposit because you're like, oh, this is in the bag. You know,
Exposure Projects and Learning Experiences
01:56:56
Speaker
this is my friend. He's not going to screw me over. Yeah. And actually, you know, like, you know, it's three render, four renderings later and it's actually, we're not doing the project at all. And it's like, yeah.
01:57:04
Speaker
That's like that bar I was talking about that they wanted that weird shape. I don't know what the hell you call that, that arch top with whatever. It's like an ellipse with circular radius and we just kept going back and forth. They kept changing. I'm like, listen, I've already sunk so much time into this for free, just trying to bid this job, get to a design that I can put a number on. I'm like, we can't keep going back and forth.
01:57:29
Speaker
Yeah. You just got to walk away at some point. Yeah. I, uh, we were talking about the TV show and you're talking about, you know, uh, discounts and stuff. I actually had another TV show reach out to me and they were like, Oh, we want you on. Yeah. We want, we want the store. What's your budget? 1500 bucks. Uh, we're going to give you exposure. Uh, what?
01:57:46
Speaker
Uh, no, you have to give up, you have to go with some kind of budget and I'll come up with some kind of door we can do for that budget and we can work for that. I go, you know, maybe I'll do the installs of TV time for free, but like the idea, I can't be handing away, you know, if you know my doors are pretty expensive doors. Yeah. Like where, where do you think my money's going to come from? I like exposure. Being on TV is cool, but like, I remember like we did the TV show and it was like, we were like, me and my brother geared up, like we got to get the website ready. We got, man, we're about to get hammered. Like we were ready for the storm.
01:58:16
Speaker
I never came never came like yes I got a couple projects often if you were of choir easy you know what I mean then it really was worth it but like exposure doesn't pay no no there's no exposure does not pay.
01:58:33
Speaker
You know, like, I just, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, we have to do our job and we have to get paid. Like, I wish, I wish, I wish exposure paid. You know what I mean? I really do. But it's like those watch boxes, you know, we built all those, all those watch boxes that are CNC with the octagonal box and all that, you know, one of them went to Kevin Hart too. And then, you know, so the most recent one we built was a
01:59:00
Speaker
It was the Patek Philippe 5711 or whatever, the Tiffany edition. It was like first one sold for like $6 million. And it went to the president of Patek Philippe, which is this insane watch company. And we're like, oh, this for sure, like they're going to want to order these for all the, nothing ever came. And we were doing these for a song, you know? I get it. I get it. Like you're just, you're putting out your, I feel like you got to put that out there. You know what I mean? It's got to go out there.
01:59:29
Speaker
And then you could say you could did it, you know what I mean? Like, not everything's going to pay back with work and promise, you know, some things you just got to do and, you know. Yeah. If you don't take those opportunities, you know, they're not all going to hit. If you don't take them, the one that will hit, you're going to pass. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you're not going to have the experience to do the one that does hit. That's the other thing, like these watch boxes, you know, like, oh, I just, what is what it is, yada, yada, you know.
01:59:55
Speaker
I get it. I get it. I've done, you know, we've all done that stuff where it's like a promise for work or, you know, it's more of a passion than it is anything, you know what I mean? Or you're just helping a friend out. Like I got to work at the dispensary for my buddy, you know, and I'm not necessarily going to, you know, but he's a friend opening up a small business and he's like, dude, I'm kind of in a bond. Like, dude, I got you. You know what I mean? You're going to be a local business to me. You're an old time friend.
02:00:20
Speaker
I got you. You know what I mean? Like, but yeah, we've done some stuff like that. Yeah. But man, stuff like that, man. I know what you're talking about where you're just like, man, given a first dorm, we're making this thing with dreams and it's like nothing ever comes with it. You know, nothing, you know, like, okay. And then there's always somewhere from like left field that the next project comes. I feel like when something like that happens, you know, like, yeah, they're like, Oh, I'm a Jane's friend. You fixed the leg on your table.
02:00:44
Speaker
I have like a $250,000 cabinet package. Yeah. No, no. Yeah. You just never know. Like I, we did, we talked about those barrel bar doors that, that project came from a project manager friend that like left the company. And I, you know, we keep in contact with, but I never thought I hear anything from, but he referred me to another company.
02:01:01
Speaker
go down the chain here. And they had me bid on multiple things, complicated things that I never did. They knew I was a very intricate carpenter. They refer me to now this other contractor. So now I'm like three people away from this guy and like this guy's using me and like I'm like his like whatever guy if he's got something complicated or things weird as hell. Yeah, he calls me and like he rests easy knowing yeah, don't worry about it. We'll figure it out. You know, so it's good to be that guy. I want to be that guy. I want to be the guy you sent a box to.
02:01:28
Speaker
I got something that's just complex as fuck. Who the hell is going to build that? I got to write that down. That guy, that's going to be the name of this episode. That's how it comes out, right?
02:01:42
Speaker
Now I feel like, entitled to. I don't want to say I'm humble. I guess, you know, you pat yourself on the back, but like, I get constant praises from people and I'm just like, I'm just the dude who's too dumb not to say no. And I just keep doing it and figuring it out. You know what I mean?
02:02:03
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, if you're not always highlighting to yourself your own flaws and mistakes, then you're never going to get any better. If you put out a job and you say, man, this is perfect, you're fucking dead wrong. You know, it's not. You should be you should be disappointed with everything that is because you want to be better for the next one. It's funny because you talk about the complicated things. Like I take on more of the complicated things for myself.
02:02:28
Speaker
You know what I mean? That I do necessarily for the for the for the money aspect, which is, you know, fucked up. But like, you know, if I see a complicated job, like I'm really like, oh, shit, I want to do that. I want to build that. Like, you know, I will get it in my head. Like, you know, like that's that should be mine. You know what I mean? Like that door you initially sent me for with the whole vanity thing like that was like a like a really cool like I was like almost like a straight circle. It was like a hobbit. It was like a hobbit style door. I was like, I want to build this like a dream build for me. You know what I mean? Like,
02:02:59
Speaker
Excuse me, and then get that off the list. You know what I mean? Like, get that dream build off the list, move down the way, you know? Yeah. I feel like guys like us, you know, we think that we're going to do all these things and it's going to build to this point where it's like we could just do everything and it's going to be, but I don't think you ever reach that point. You know, you just keep taking on the, you know.
02:03:22
Speaker
That's the greatest part about what if you literally sit down and you think about anything I've never really shot away from anything. I said except for like, you know things that were I didn't want to really do they're gonna be disgusting like it's like as long as the but you know, they have Yeah, at least like break even you know, yeah like I guess you get paid to knowledge. It's on some projects which is like I
02:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, you know what I'm saying. God damn it, I wish I didn't learn so much on this project. That's like when we were going to build like 12 foot tall floral arrangement. We're going to buy a weather balloon and make outdoor paper mache and make a dome. We had to make a 12 foot diameter. I remember that. I remember that. And I remember I talked you into it as I was telling you as a framing aspect.
02:04:11
Speaker
of how I would have built it was more of a structure, you know, a wrapping, you know what I mean? Which, you know, everybody else in the group had a different way of saying it, thinking about it. And I was like, nah, I would do it like this, very lightweight wrapping substructure and be done with it, you know? Like an airplane wing? Almost, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly like that. I'd make some, you know, whatever. plywood. Yeah, plywood radiuses and some laminated with quarter inch, you know, MDF and, you know, go about it that way. So.
02:04:36
Speaker
It's like the chaise lounges that we just saw. We definitely lost money on those. All right. Let's wrap it up. Yeah. Yeah. No, we could bring up a wall day here, but yeah, I know we could go till tomorrow. I hope you don't have to speed this up too much. No. Oh, we don't speed nothing up. Okay. We've got episodes twice as long. So yeah, thanks for coming down. No, thank you for having me, man. I wish it wasn't so long. Yeah. As if they don't already know, tell everybody where they could find you.
02:05:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you can find me at TrueTrade Carpentry on Instagram. We actually have a YouTube page now too, TrueTrade Carpentry on YouTube. Check that out. I'm really trying to push that right now. And then, yeah, that's about it. We don't have a, what is it called?
02:05:27
Speaker
What is it called? We don't have a website up right now. No, we don't. Yeah, we lost our domain a little while back and then somebody nabbed it, you know, some of those things. Oh my God. Yeah, somebody nabbed True Trade Carpentry. We have to add a dash in there. Yeah, no, so we bought a new domain. It's just, we're waiting to, you know, we're waiting to get that up right now, but it gets lucky enough, been busy enough, so. I was gonna say, if you're five months out, don't worry about the website. Yeah, again, so just, you know, check us out at True Trade Carpentry, you know, on Instagram, Facebook, you know, YouTube. We're there, you know.
02:05:55
Speaker
Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Until next time, everybody take care. We truly appreciate you listening. If you want to support the show, leave us a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Share the show with your friends or consider subscribing to our Patreon. We'll see you next week.
02:06:39
Speaker
Yeah.