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00:00:01
Today's Craftsmen Return
9 Plays4 months ago
Sorry for the massive lapse in podcast uploads! Things have been incredibly busy in the shop and I'm finally all caught up.
Listen in to hear about the future of The American Craftsman Podcast.
Don't forget to subscribe to our new YouTube channel Today's Craftsmen https://www.youtube.com/@TodaysCraftsmen
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Today's Craftsmen: https://amzn.to/3R5DRl8
Check Out Our Sponsors!
Visit Häfele at www.hafele.com
Visit Ridge Carbide at www.ridgecarbidetool.com
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https://www.patreon.com/Greene_st_joinery
Greene Street Joinery is a custom design & build shop located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. We build multigenerational furniture with an eco-friendly and sustainable mindset.
Inspired and guided by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, we believe in the use of traditional craftsmanship and simple, well-proportioned forms; sustainability and ethical practices; and importantly, taking pleasure in our work as craftsmen to create quality pieces of enduring value.
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Transcript
Sponsorships and Introductions
00:00:01
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, wood glue, shop carts, and everything in between. Exclusive product lines such as looks, LED lighting, and Slido door hardware ensure that every project you create is built to last. Learn more at hayfla.com. Additional sponsorship provided by Ridge Carbide.
00:00:29
Speaker
When you need the right saw blade for the job, put your trust in Ridge Carbide Tools. For over 50 years, Ridge Carbide has been producing industrial saw blades designed with the exact specifications for the cutting results you expect. Before you buy, call us and we'll help you determine the right tool that meets your needs and your budget.
00:00:45
Speaker
After the sale, Rich Carbide provides sharpening services for all your saw blades, dado sets, router bits, and jointer planer knives. Located in Kansas, Rich Carbide Tools provides high quality products with outstanding customer service at a fair price. What are you cutting? Enjoy the show.
00:01:13
Speaker
Welcome back. I got to trim that intro just a little bit because I was ready to come in. I think that was a pretty good shout for Ridge carbide. That's a long one. Yeah. Um, so I, I rerecorded that this morning and I'm looking at it on this and you know, you could see how it's like a timeline and I'm looking at the Haefel one and I'm looking at the Ridge carbide one. I'm like, man, that's pretty long. How many seconds is that?
00:01:40
Speaker
Well, we're at a minute and 40 now, so they have to be like, I think hateful is maybe 30, rich carb bites got to be close to a minute. Wow. A minute's a long time. Yeah. Well, it's been a while. I'm trying to think of the last episode that got released. It's been, it's got to be eight or 10 weeks since an episode came out.
Podcast Changes and New Ventures
00:02:05
Speaker
It was the boys are back.
00:02:11
Speaker
I guess before the rumor mill goes around or dispel any questions in anybody's head, just explain what's going on. So Rob did end up retiring all on good terms. Rob and I are still friends. We still talk all the time. He's at a point in his life where it's hard to do this kind of work.
00:02:31
Speaker
Oh yeah, it was Robin. I yeah. Yeah. So, um,
00:02:37
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I'm 56 and I think Rob's got a few years on me. Yeah, 62. Yeah. So, I mean, you start to think about how to wind this down and actually doing what I do over on my YouTube channel, meeting someone like you who's 20 years younger. What are you, 36?
00:02:58
Speaker
It's like finding a new energy, right? Because when I was your age, I was building a business. I think I started it maybe, I was probably in business about the same amount of time as you are about four or five years and just full of energy. But at some point, you know, it starts to, starts to change a little bit. So, so yeah, it, it,
00:03:24
Speaker
working with somebody who's excited to build their business and you're at a very young place in your life for the young family. It's pretty cool. And doing the YouTube channel, that's been about 12 years.
00:03:39
Speaker
That's another scenario where you start to get a little bit of a burnout and you're like, how do I find a way to make this interesting again? This is John Peters, by the way. If you didn't recognize his voice. But yeah, so John and I, we've been talking for a couple of weeks now about how
00:04:00
Speaker
we should do the podcast together now. We can use it as a way to sort of talk about what we're doing with today's craftsmen. And it helps me out because I lost my podcasting partner and it helps today's craftsmen out because now we have a way that we can talk about, you know, A, what we're doing and B, like it's interesting the sort of the business side of YouTube and social media and all that stuff. So,
00:04:29
Speaker
For sure. I mean, we're starting to build now with today's craftsman.
Authenticity in Sponsorships
00:04:34
Speaker
And the next step is to get some sponsorship. I'd like to start off with some long-term sponsorships. I think it's a great opportunity for some good brands.
00:04:44
Speaker
I think that people who are tuning in to today's craftsmen every Saturday morning are tradespeople, people who are actually building stuff, not just sort of scrolling by and seeing what's going on. And I think that that's an audience where there's a real potential to actually buy a product like Hayfla or Ridge Carbide or
00:05:07
Speaker
Are any of the products that that you are I use on a regular basis and I think that that's sort of the.
00:05:16
Speaker
that's always been the way I wanted to go. And I can tell that it's the way you want to go too, which is to find a product that you've been using that's already proven and then try to get them on board. So how do you do that? And so if you follow, if you follow us on any of our Instagram pages,
00:05:38
Speaker
You'll see that we're pushing, not pushing brands, but we're like, for instance, I did a caulking video. Today I did a caulking video and I know that you use a Sashko's Big Stretch Caulk and some of their other products.
00:05:54
Speaker
And so when I cut the caulking tip, I made sure that the way I was going to be using the gun, that the label was front and center and that they would see that. And then I would tag them in the video and also tag them in the stories.
00:06:14
Speaker
and just get on the radar because there's nothing like working with a company where you use their product because then it's it's effortless to make content around it. Yeah. And it's it's genuine. You know, it's not like a brand X sent us some caulk and it's like now we got to make a video talking about brand X caulk. It's like I never used it. I don't know if it's any good.
00:06:37
Speaker
there's a little bit of like a sleaze factor about like trying to show something that you can't confidently say is good, you know. I totally agree. And I think that the fun thing is, so if you're watching the channel, you know that 99% of the camera talent is Jeff. And
00:07:04
Speaker
It's fun for me to shoot because I know that Jeff can talk about just about anything in a very confident way with a great way of articulating the subject. And so even if we get a sponsor that is something that we've been using, that's great because then you can make a video that doesn't even have to be related to caulking.
00:07:28
Speaker
But at the very beginning of the video, you can talk for 30 seconds with some B roll. And I think that our viewers will put up with that because it's just sort of, it's, it reminds me of like the old, this old house. And it's good information. Yeah. It's like, uh, someone's getting someone who you trust seal of approval on something just removes the whole question of like, man, what, what brand of caulking should I buy? Should I buy that?
00:07:57
Speaker
or Sachco or whatever. It just makes your life easier when you can just be like, okay, I trust what John and Jeff say. I'm going to try this out because I need to buy some car.
00:08:11
Speaker
Absolutely. And so that brings me to the other side of, eventually or not eventually, periodically we'll be contacted by people who want to give us things to just make a video.
Creating Sponsored Content: Challenges and Techniques
00:08:24
Speaker
And I think at this point in our channel, where any money we can bring in is important money, because right now we're just doing this. Yes, sweat equity. Yeah, we're just putting in the sweat equity at this point.
00:08:37
Speaker
So we did the laser video. So I know nothing about lasers, if you know me, just the tech guy. I'm the old school woodworker here.
00:08:50
Speaker
I thought you gave great information on that and it was really very realistic information. But at the same time, I didn't think you weren't saying like, oh, I'm gonna use this all the time now to make stuff. And I think that everybody realizes like, okay, they're gonna make this video with this thing and then try to sell it and help pay the bills for the next thing that comes along.
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah, and that was probably one of the most difficult videos that we shot because had to get this new thing, set it up, learn how to use it. And then you have the company behind who's like, well, you got to show this and that. And you know, you know this, but I don't think anybody else knows, you know, they were kind of like
00:09:35
Speaker
pushing us to do. They wanted to see more things. They were like, oh, can you cut out this side table? I'm like, no. Listen, the video needs to be concise to the point. It needs to showcase this in a way that people who watch our channel might use. Otherwise, they're just going to turn the video off.
00:09:51
Speaker
Absolutely. They sent Jeff back this list of requests after we'd shot the video, fulfilled everything on the like little punch list. And I was like, that's ridiculous. It's good as it is. And just like, yeah, that's what I fired back. And then they said, yeah. I mean, at that point, what do we have to lose?
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, what are you going to come take the laser back? Take it. Exactly. So it's cool. I'm enjoying the change in my schedule and coming over here and I'm always up for learning.
00:10:25
Speaker
It's neat to kind of have your mind opened at my age because there is definitely truth to old dogs, new tricks or whatever it is. So I just learned something today. We just shot a video on scribing because our last video was on
00:10:48
Speaker
the work fan and Jeff was talking about the power plane and how he uses it for scribing and during the video you said this would probably make a good video and there was a few comments saying yeah we'd like to see that video so that's what we shot today and
00:11:03
Speaker
the, you want to just talk about the tools that you use because I've always used the pencil compass thing. Yeah. That's what I've always used. And when you bought out this, this way that you did it, I was like, I just learned something new. Yeah. So like, ever since I started, I use that fast cap black scribe, which is basically just like a fancy compass or divider, whatever a compass, I guess it would be.
00:11:26
Speaker
So that's how I always scribe those with a compass or that fast cap. I don't know what they call it fast scribe or something like that probably. It's just a black plastic compass basically, but I've been seeing for years guys using a marking knife and these mag shims from fast cap. So they're just little plastic.
00:11:48
Speaker
shims that are an eighth inch and a sixteenth inch they have. And I've used other little things to make up the difference if I need to have like a 30 second. But basically you just, you take as many of these magnetic shims as you need, you stack them together, you stick the marking knife onto it because it's magnetic. And you use that with tape and you cut the tape, remove the waste side, and then you just work up to that tape line.
00:12:15
Speaker
Um, and I've been seeing it for years and I finally, like a couple months ago was like, how, why don't I just try this? You know, it was just one of those things where, you know, you're only on install so often and you're kind of setting your ways and it's like sometimes introducing something new is just like too much to handle. Sure. It's like do what you know. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, cause installs are like stressful enough. Um, so ended up switching over to doing it that way and it works great.
00:12:45
Speaker
To me, I mean, it makes total sense because that line, you can't miss the tape line where with a pencil line, you know, it's kind of faint, especially depending on what you're trying to transfer that pencil line onto if it's a dark piece of wood. So, yeah, I thought that was a good one. Of course, there are some.
00:13:06
Speaker
areas where you're not going to be able to use it. Like you mentioned in the video, like on a brick wall or a stone wall, you're still gonna have to break out the compass, but, or it seems like 90%. Usually just up to the wall. Yeah, usually just up to the wall. Yeah. What the hell was I gonna say?
00:13:25
Speaker
Oh shit, I lost it. I had, I had some point I was going to make, but. Did you use that scribe on the last cabinet, the kitchen job
Woodworking Projects and CNC Plans
00:13:33
Speaker
you did? You want to talk about that kitchen job at all? Yeah. Um, Oh, what the hell was it? I forget. Um, so yeah, we wrapped up, uh, a pretty big kitchen in Avon by the sea. So that was, uh, I want to say 20 now 35 cabinet boxes.
00:13:55
Speaker
Pretty big kitchen. So that was like a super tight timeline job and then had some delays on my end, some delays on like manufacturing end, but came out good. I was glad to be done with that. That was like the last thing really holding me back from being caught up. And that was all cut on CNC. Yeah. So I used a new CNC guy on that. We shot a video on that a couple of months ago.
00:14:25
Speaker
and had some issues with, you know, having not worked with this guy before, had some issues with sort of his setup. I'm actually emailing back and forth with him today because he's getting ready to cut another kitchen for me. Where's that going? That's going in Ramsey. So up Bergen County and he's going to be cutting my kitchen. So yeah, that'd be nice to finally have my kitchen cut. That's exciting. Yeah.
00:14:52
Speaker
I was telling my wife, I was like, yeah, Jeff designed his kitchen. She's like, can he design our kitchen? I'll ask him six months from now. Yeah. Well, no, it's nice to finally be caught up because now going, you know, I'm finally caught up going back to February. Yeah. You were in a real push. It was, it was bad. It was rough.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, I know my son Walter worked for you a few days. He helped with that kitchen. Yeah. Which is cool. I actually, for the first time, like the day, so we just shot, also shot a video about shed I just got.
00:15:30
Speaker
day it got delivered, I had that and some other stuff going on. And it was like I sent Walter and Cameron who... There's so much new information in this episode. Cameron is my apprentice who I hired about a month ago. I sent Walter and Cameron to this job and it was the first time as a business owner that I had people working on a job and I was off doing something else.
00:15:55
Speaker
Well, technology helped with that because I was talking to Walter about it and he goes, yeah, I had a FaceTime Jeff a few times and I said, holy cow. I didn't even think of that, but that really probably set your mind at ease. Like you could actually see the job without being there, but that's nice. I know Walter found it like an invaluable experience and he said too, he said, wow, installs are a lot of work. Oh yeah. They did a good job.
00:16:20
Speaker
It's good. They got done like more than, you know, I gave them like this big long list thinking like, yeah, they're not going to get all this done. And then, you know, they knocked out a lot of stuff. That's awesome. Yeah. And you had Jackie working here a little bit then I remember because she's in the video. I think she's in the background of the video where you're putting some of the I think we shot a video on assembling one of the CNC cabinets. Yep. So if you want to see that episode, you haven't seen it. It's right there on the channel.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah, so I had Jackie from Jam Studio as her business. She's busy now, you know, doing her own thing, but I had her, I had Walter, I had Rob DeMarco came out, helped me twice. Rob came and helped out a couple days. Yeah, because then you had the boxes too. Yeah.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah, so the 500 salt boxes, so the whole debacle with the laser going down and then having to buy the new laser. I think, yeah, that I talked about. I think we're in the middle of finishing up the boxes when Rob came to do the podcast last.
00:17:26
Speaker
So yeah, finished up those like third week of June, second week of June, just a couple of weeks late, which, you know, I felt bad and like, but there was nothing I could do at some point. There's just nothing you can do. It's just, and what are you going to do? Beat yourself up, drive yourself insane. I mean, it is what it is. And you know, I had to bring in all these people who had never done it before. So they're working at.
00:17:51
Speaker
half, one third the speed of what Rob and I could do because we've done it 2,000 times. If you've done a process 2,000 times, some of these things, some of these processes one box has, you might be doing the same process six times or two times on so thousands and thousands of repetitions. There's no substitution for that. So after material and buying the new laser,
00:18:19
Speaker
I was all out of pocket for everything else. Literally, I paid for those boxes. So now I have to bring in Jackie, Walter, Keith, Rob DiMarco, all these people. And I was glad to have the help, but now I have to pay people to do it at a slow speed. It was crazy. So then I couldn't just buckle down and do the boxes because I have to do other work to keep bringing in money. It was crazy.
00:18:46
Speaker
Well, it's nice to have that behind. You're going to take a vacation this summer? Uh, I'm going to, I'm going to Atlanta in a month, actually a month from, uh, Sunday. So I'm going to I W F the seventh to the 10th, and I'm going to be looking at some CNCs. Um, my goal is to have one in the shop by the end of the year. Wow.
00:19:06
Speaker
Wow. So you'll be cutting your own kitchens. Yeah. Would you cut kitchens for other woodworkers? We talked about this a little bit, you and I, it's not like something that I want to focus on, but I mean, it's definitely something that in the beginning as I'm trying to ramp up the business to, you know, like I want to, I want to put out a kitchen a week if I can. Wow. And it's going to take time to get to that point.
00:19:32
Speaker
So in the meantime, I think that's a total totally viable way to pay for the machine. You know, is that where the kitchen business is going? All CNC all. Oh, yeah. It's been there for a while. It's already been there. Yeah. So when you and Rob were making cabinets.
00:19:52
Speaker
So what are you going to use this? What will be your use for tools like the Stree Big and your planers? You're just going to be using them anyway and just regular woodworking that has to go along with all the other cabinetry work that you do. Yeah. You know, like you always have to produce fillers and toe kick and stuff like that. So like, let's say we cut a kitchen out.
00:20:14
Speaker
You can cut the toe kick out on the CNC, but let's say you don't want to, or you run the program and the piece is wrong. You don't want to have to sit there and program something to cut out a rectangle. So you bring it over the street big, you break it down. It takes you two minutes versus coming into the shop, sitting down, programming the file, putting it on the machine.
00:20:38
Speaker
So for sheet goods, I definitely want to keep the street big around. It's an indispensable tool and there's always parts that need to be cut, things that need to be remade, shelf needs to be trimmed, whatever. Even with the CNC jobs that we've gotten, there's always something that needs to be modified. Something either gets programmed wrong or gets damaged or whatever, or site conditions change.
00:21:06
Speaker
Will you approach more builders once you have the CNC running? Do you think you will put some kind of marketing thing together where builders can find you easier and be like, oh, there's another avenue if we need a kitchen made. Especially I mean around here because it's a very affluent area in the whole Rumson, Fairhaven. And there's just a ton of builders who seem to be busy all the time.
00:21:35
Speaker
So if you get with two or three builders, it seems like you just have plenty of work. Yeah. And to be able to do these at a somewhat reasonable price because of the automation of having a CNC, removing all that labor, you can knock your price down a little bit. You're going to end up making more profit and taking in more work because you can offer it at a lower price.
00:22:03
Speaker
Because you're doing a lot of the design work now, yourself, do you feel like you, will you still be working with as many designers or would you be working directly with a client or a little bit of both probably? Because sometimes the client doesn't want to deal with, the client doesn't know enough and they're busy in life anyway. So I guess you'll work with whoever wants to take on the job.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah, whoever calls, you know, it's like if there's a designer sometimes, you know, it's a double edged sword. It's like sometimes having a designer on the job is a good thing. Sometimes it's a bad thing. You know, the kitchen I'm working on right now, it's like I've worked with these designers for years, but this job has been like a nightmare. You know, it's like there's this roadblock between you and the client. Yeah. And sometimes you have a simple question like, oh, can we do this with the lighting? And it's like three days.
00:22:48
Speaker
And you're like, hey, do you have an answer to that question? Hey, do you have an answer to that question? It's like, whereas I would have texted the client and said, you know, hey, can we do this? Yes. Okay, let's move on. And the whole money thing, it's like, you know, they're taking a cut. So it's like, that money should be going in my pocket. Yeah. Because if there was that much value in it,
00:23:11
Speaker
They're not bringing the equivalent value to what they're getting out of the job. They're just tacking a number, a percentage on top of my number. Yeah, and they're not troubleshooting anything. You have to make sure it will work. Yeah. They'll have an idea, but you have to make sure that idea actually works in the space, which is
00:23:31
Speaker
You know, that's where the real difficulties come in because I don't care if it's new construction or renovation.
Kitchen Renovation Decisions
00:23:39
Speaker
There's always some kind of give and take. Not everything is possible. Right. And you have to look for the best solution. There's some kind of compromise. Yeah. I'm going through that with my own kitchen. You know, like.
00:23:54
Speaker
I have windows and spots and it's like, you know, the sink wants to be centered on the window. But if I put it dead center on the window, I can't get a trash pullout. Oops, sorry. Can't get a trash pullout next to the sink. It's like I have to I have to make it a smaller base and I have to shift it over a little bit. It is what it is. Did you did you ask your wife? No. Smart move.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah. I told her, I'm like, we got to get a new sink. And I, you know, cause I originally, I was doing a 30, um, 36 inch sink, which is big. Is it a undermount or overlay? I bought an apron front undermount, but I'm nixing it for just a undermount. So your countertop will go over it a little bit. Yeah. And you'll put a, uh, a silicone bead around the inside. And, um, what's your countertop is going to be?
00:24:43
Speaker
probably just like quartz, you know, something inexpensive.
00:24:48
Speaker
I have to redo my kitchen at some point, but we have a Cori on top, which is not, uh, it doesn't look great, but geez, it's held up. I mean, Cori is nice. I would do it again. It's not that cheap. No, it's not cheap at all, but it holds up. My oldest son is going to be 27 and we've been in the same house and nothing's been taken care of. I mean, four kids, uh, I would do Cori on again, but I've seen courts and I think course looks really nice.
00:25:16
Speaker
Yeah, like Wilson or they all make like a quartz product now. It's basically the same thing. I feel like what I was thinking is in court is courts just like cultured stone. Is that what it is with some binders in there? I don't know. I don't know. But I wouldn't do like a marble top. First of all, like a lot of these very expensive countertops.
00:25:36
Speaker
look out his date in 10 years. You know, if you do something somewhat. Oh yeah. If you did like a, like a granite with like red in it, like, you know, 15 years ago, now you're wanting to rip it out. Corian's pretty easy too. That'd be a cool video. Well, maybe I, you know what, you know how to cut Corian? Oh yeah. Put it on the street bake. Yeah. Really. That's a huge tool for a solid surface guys. Yeah. A lot of them use that.
00:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, I would love to have you over just to look at the kitchen, because right now it's just me looking at it. There's nothing like a second pair of eyes. It's amazing what a second pair of eyes can see. I don't care what it is, what your piece of furniture designing, something you're doing in the landscape, because you just don't think of everything.
00:26:24
Speaker
We're, we're probably sticking with kind of the layout that we have, but, uh, I'm replacing the windows actually now in the kitchen, which they're really in bad, bad shape. I ended up going with Anderson replacements on, I think five windows, which is extremely expensive. Um, I don't even want to say what it is. Cause I feel like I probably am paying too much installed or just the windows.
00:26:47
Speaker
installed. So they're going to be installed from the inside. Yep. And, um, so they got to be, you know, they have to be manufactured. Yeah. I had mine built by suburban aluminum over there on Leonardville road. I thought about doing something like that, but I wanted, I didn't want to, I wanted to do like, uh, like something really nice. Um,
00:27:11
Speaker
And I wanted to keep the existing trim. So I'm taking, the prior owner was funny because he was a surgeon and everything he did was so half ass, which is sort of counterintuitive to being a surgeon.
00:27:29
Speaker
And he replaced the windows with like the cheapest windows you could probably get. And then he covered over all this kind of nice molding that was like the softening on the house comes out two feet. And then there's the windows go almost up to the softening. There's a little bed molding that goes around the casing at the top. And it really, it works. I mean, ideally it'd be nice to have another six inches.
00:27:55
Speaker
maybe even another six inches of brick and then the softening, but that's not what I have because I have eight foot ceilings. Anyway, they just went over everything with the crummiest aluminum job you ever want to see. And then they went over that with like this terrible silicone caulk with like there's nothing smooth about it. So
00:28:17
Speaker
I'm ripping all that out. And just by ripping that out, I already feel like I know a lot more just by seeing what's behind it. So I'm kind of prepping all the trim on the outside. I'm actually going to remove all the interior trim. Uh, and then they're just going to come and put these windows in. And I feel like I'm paying more because I'm kind of going to school and I'm looking at what they're doing. I'm like, okay, maybe I won't do this for the other windows in the house, but here I just needed a kick in the ass to get this thing started. Yeah.
00:28:43
Speaker
And I'll go to school on it. Well, you get the Anderson renewal by Anderson flyer in the mail. That's twice a week. My wife, my wife got that and she made an appointment. She's like, oh, the guys are coming out at 10 o'clock on Monday morning. This is last week. And I'm like, oh, my God. And once the guy's in the house, it's like he got to buy something. Oh, yeah. It's like high pressure sales. Yeah. And I was just like, OK.
00:29:07
Speaker
They're like, here's the price and it's only valid right now. Yeah. And then he's like, well, let me look at all your other windows. I'm patting myself on the back for just keeping in the kitchen. I'm like, I'm not doing those now. I'm just doing, and I may end up doing those on my own. You know, the ones, uh, in the rest of the house, but ultimately I need to replace all of them, which I think will be a huge benefit, not only aesthetically, but for noise for. It's pretty easy.
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah. You just, you can kind of just put them in, you know, molding holds them in. Yeah. Just to stop molding. But the question for me is, uh, where do you get the windows?
00:29:48
Speaker
I got them from suburban. No, but I mean, if you want like a nice Anderson window, um, because suburban is a vinyl window, right? Yeah. So, um, you know, I wanted like to divided with the whole divided lights and everything with the metal on the inside and.
00:30:04
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure. They might do nicer ones than the ones I bought. The ones I bought are equivalent to a silver line, I think, Anderson. They're not the cheapest, but they're pretty cheap. They were like 100 and change a piece. Jeez. I have to look at what you're doing. I'm going to go to school and learn from you and we'll see what I do going forward. You could probably go to a place like Tower Window and they might not be Anderson, but they probably have a brand.
00:30:31
Speaker
And so when you had your windows made, did you take off the interior trim and then just give them a measurement and then not take your windows out until your new ones were ready? Yeah. Yep. So you, so you just sat with the house without any interior trim for a little while. Wow. My kitchen was gutted for like, but that's how you got your true measurement. Yeah. We just took those stops off. Did you take the windows out and then measure and then put the windows back in? No.
00:30:57
Speaker
You just measure, you know, outside to outside. All right. Or you can give them the rough opening size and they'll deduct, you know, whatever. All right. Yeah, I'm not. I wasn't familiar with that because we have brick siding. I don't know. I was just. It's just been something that's been in the back of my mind that I wasn't really thinking about. Now it's been pushed forward. And like I said, I'll get these ones done, kind of pay probably way too much for it and then deal with it going forward.
00:31:26
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I was just telling you about having those stumps ripped out. Now, I'm addicted to having other people do stuff.
Personal Stories and Social Reflections
00:31:34
Speaker
I'm not going to have the money to do it forever. So I had my garage ripped down, paid somebody to do that. The shed, paid somebody to build it, deliver it.
00:31:47
Speaker
My wife and I ripped down these three big bushes a lilac in those two lilac and one butterfly bush anyway massive like.
00:31:58
Speaker
as long as this room and, you know, 12, 14 feet high and like about the size of this fricking room, ripped it all out. And I got one stump out on Saturday. I've had this tennis elbow since May. And I'm like, if I do these other two, I'm going to be like I was chopping them into quarters with the Sawzall going around and they were still like, you know, those things have been there for a long time.
00:32:28
Speaker
I'm like, if I rip out these other two, like my arm is never going to heal. Yeah. So I paid somebody to come rip those out. How'd you find them? I put a post on Facebook. Wow. And it was like you, the messages just come flying in. And then when you find somebody, just delete it. What, what are you paying for the stump removal?
00:32:48
Speaker
Uh, so he did that and he, he, uh, cleaned up a bunch of brush out of the Ivy behind my shed. Cause that's where I was getting to the fact that we're doing a fence. That's why I had to rip the bush out. Um, so the two stumps getting all the stuff out of the Ivy and disposal 385. Jeez. Yeah. I can't go wrong. It's so worth it. Yeah.
00:33:12
Speaker
It was brutal. I mean, getting that thing out was brutal. But see, it's pretty easy to hire something like that because how can they screw it up? Right. Where hiring like somebody to work on your house. Yeah, that's different. It's so different because it. First of all, I don't really want anybody in my house. I don't know. And second of all, the prospects of getting anybody who's got any talent who's going to answer Facebook market. Yeah, they're probably working for somebody.
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah, this is like, you know, Keensburg Facebook page. I'm like just anybody with a pulse who can come just like muscle these things out. That's it. You're buying muscle. That's fine. And like I so I also paid somebody to take away all this the the bush that we ripped out.
00:33:57
Speaker
I could have taken it to Kane's Lane, but I drive a Tacoma, it would have been like six trips. So I paid 250 bucks to have somebody take it. It's like I have enough stuff going on. And I just got over being way busier than I care to be, like in the shop before six o'clock every day, five, six, seven days a week. So I'm okay with spending 250 bucks to have somebody take that away.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. But yeah, it needs to be somebody you trust when they're working on. Yeah. I just, um, I just don't like people around my house. I just, I, you know, I just have that feeling. I like, uh, I dunno, there's something about that. I just, yes, we had a Hunter's birthday party on Sunday and my wife is like talking to the other mom. She's like, Oh yeah, we need to set up a play day. You know, we're going to have the fence done. Uh,
00:34:49
Speaker
they're supposed to be doing at the end of this week. Man, I'm like, I don't want these kids or anybody at my house. Your kids open up a whole social thing. I'll put like a port of John outside. Don't go inside. Good luck with that.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah, your kids open up a whole social, you know, all of a sudden you're having friends and families and parents that you wouldn't necessarily have in your life. And now they're, they're in your life. And that's just the, that's just the fact in your kids, six years old. It was just the kids. That's fine. But I don't, you know, I don't need the parents at my house.
00:35:27
Speaker
I hear you. I don't need to be buddies with anybody. No, I hear you. Who's got time for friends. Yeah. Even at the party, you know, it's like, uh, my, my son is really good friends with the, our neighbor, this girl McKenna. They're like, they're super cute. They're like best buddies. Um,
00:35:44
Speaker
So he's been going over there hanging out. My wife will go over there, you know, for a little bit and chit chat. And she's like, oh, she's like, Brian's really cool. Like you guys would really get along. I'm like, just stop right there. Like I don't need anybody's like. It's funny if you find somebody that you actually have something in common with and it just naturally happens. Well, that's fine because you're doing some kind of activity. Yeah. But as you get older, it just seems like especially with a family. And so I've got four kids who
00:36:12
Speaker
If they're going to come to the house, you know, because they're not always around now, the boys, uh, that's what I'm making time for. So unless you're mountain biking or fishing, I'm probably not, you know, I would working, not even that mostly mountain biking and fishing. I'm not doing, I don't have time. Yeah. Like what am I just going to go? We're going to go hang out and drink beer in the garage. That's not really my style. Yeah, that's exactly. It's not my style. Uh, I don't have time for that anyway. You know,
00:36:41
Speaker
Now I'm with you
Social Media and Content Plans
00:36:42
Speaker
a hundred percent. Let's talk about some of the things that we want to do with Instagram because I just want to throw this out there. Uh, so there's a couple of channels that everybody knows that just blow up, which means they're not just blow up, but they've been blown up for a long time. So like Kruger construction, I'm sure he's, I'm sure he's getting paid a lot of money and getting a lot of free product.
00:37:05
Speaker
He's been around for a long time, too. Like I remember when I first got onto Instagram, you know, I was a trim carpenter at the time, so I was more into like the construction stuff. So it was like him toolaholic. Yeah. All those guys. And they've just really like lasted. Well, so so I'll look at some of these accounts to try to get some ideas for our channel. And it looks like, do you know his name, Hoover Construction?
00:37:34
Speaker
Not that it matters, but it doesn't seem like he talks very much. He mostly just shows the product. He shows it in action. Like stories and stuff. He will. Oh, does he? I think so. Yeah. OK. I don't follow too many stories. Yeah. Why can't I think of his name? It doesn't matter. Dusty Lumber company. He blew up and not only did his Instagram blow up, but his YouTube blew up. Somebody sent me one of his reels yesterday and they're like, man, I can't believe SCM is working with this guy.
00:38:02
Speaker
I don't even know what SEM is. Oh, SEM, like a big machinery manufacturer. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah, see that just shows you that I'm at, I'm already retired. I got my little wood shop in the backyard. Like the edge banner at Timbers, SEM, SEMI, like our Minimax, same parent company, Italian machines. But there's no reason why. So that's where I think with
00:38:25
Speaker
with you and your vocabulary of all these machineries. I think this is all a total potential, uh, possibility. And that's, that's what I'd like to do is at least try to get one or two shorts.
00:38:41
Speaker
for YouTube and for Instagram up a week at a minimum. I mean, it'd be better to get four to five. And I think if, uh, I think if we push it, we can get there and it'd be interesting to see if we can really grow the Instagram because it's just nice to any income that you get, any extra income is, you know, in your case goes to the rent. In my case just goes to general overhead. You know what I mean? It's like,
00:39:11
Speaker
And then that also sort of spurs on a whole like level of excitement. Okay. Let's do this. That's kind of the problem with Instagram. Those that you sometimes it's almost like gambling. You get like a, you get like a little hit.
00:39:24
Speaker
And you're like, wow, this really did good. I'm going to do a bunch of videos. And then you get a bunch of duds, which don't seem like they're very different from the one that was a hit. Like for Instagram, it's like that little miter sled. I think that's a few million, right? Uh, that one's like close to a million, but the pocket hole is that it's getting to 2.4 million. Oh, okay. Why? Because of Facebook.
00:39:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like 1.7 million of those views are from Facebook. We're getting a lot of Facebook reels views, but they're, they're not Facebook reels. They're Instagram reels that are being shown on Facebook. See, I don't understand how those two work. Yeah. Because I, I don't know. Yeah. I, it'd be great if we knew somebody who like actually knew the ins and outs of Facebook. Yeah. I started trying to post reels directly on Facebook as well. Um, but I don't want to like do too many at once cause it'll like, you know,
00:40:17
Speaker
Can you, I didn't, I thought there was something against posting a, the same relative Facebook as you do to Instagram. Hmm. Yeah. I don't know. I figured cause it's the same company. It's like,
00:40:29
Speaker
There's no obvious rules. They should just cross post, but they don't. That's what I thought. Yeah. They're just like recommended on Facebook. So if you go on Facebook and you, you might hit like a real section, but they're Instagram reels on Facebook. Okay. Yeah, it's weird. If anybody knows what the ins and outs are, let us know because it would be good. I'm sure that we're not capitalizing on any potential AdSense from Facebook. Yeah.
00:40:56
Speaker
And I know some guys make some good money on Facebook. Yeah, I think you need, I forget, is it 5,000 followers on Facebook to monetize? Oh, is that what it is? Something like that.
00:41:11
Speaker
But anyway, so that's kind of, that's kind of, uh, what we'll be doing is, uh, focusing on some tools, getting some, some, uh, you know, fast edits up there, but also informative, informative. Like I think that describing video is a good informative video.
00:41:27
Speaker
And a lot of times you only need 13 seconds to tell somebody how to, or to show somebody how to do something. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to have both the, you know, junk food, Instagram version and the long format on Instagram where, you know, if you really want to know some people, like we were talking before about, um, sort of like who are audiences, like people who are actually looking to learn something, they're not watching, you know, um, whomever, uh, I won't even say.
00:41:56
Speaker
I had a couple names pops in my head, but I won't say who it's like all entertainment value like they're watching these quote unquote woodworking videos just for pure entertainment. They're not in it to learn any like hard facts.
00:42:10
Speaker
But that's what we're trying to push is actually something that's informative and you can learn something. But it's nice to have the less informative version on Instagram and on shorts. And then if you want the full, it's there for you. It's like you have to play the game. Definitely. So it's getting hot in here. So I think we're going to wrap it up. So Jeff's got an air conditioning in the office here, but we turn it off for noise control. Yeah, it's loud.
00:42:37
Speaker
It's like a sauna in here right now. But we wanted to let you know what's coming out this week. So we do have two videos coming out this week. And I think today's Tuesday. So we'll have, what do you think Wednesday? If we have two videos, we'll stick to the Wednesday, Saturday schedule. Always the main video always goes out 8.30 AM on Saturday mornings, Eastern Standard Time. So this week we are shooting a
00:43:03
Speaker
a video on sheds buyer build and Jeff goes through all the information on on what he thinks will help anybody make that decision and what helped him make that decision. And then if we I think we already mentioned it, but Saturday will be how to how to scribe and use a power plane to scribe. Yep. So that's what's coming up. And I'm excited. And the nice thing is next week
00:43:30
Speaker
I'll be texting Jeff throughout the weekend or Monday morning. What do you think? And usually the ideas just come up. Oh yeah, this is what I'm working on. So let's shoot a video about that. Yeah. Yeah. It's all very organic. You know, I think there's some people sitting with like a storyboard and a six month outline of like, okay, we can do this and then that and that, but you know, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's nice for it to just be sort of spur of the moment and
00:43:56
Speaker
I totally agree. And I think some other exciting things coming down the road, hopefully we'll be able to get to a point where maybe every four to six weeks we visit a woodworker. You know, I can think of Tim from Truth Trade. I'd love to see his shop. He's such a talented guy. Corey from CT Woodworks. And there's a bunch I'm sure I'm forgetting. Maybe the guy's down at New Doors. Yeah, absolutely.
00:44:24
Speaker
I got it in with a guy over at Conestoga, which is like maybe the country's biggest door manufacturer. Like there's so many cool places. Get like a little inside look at at small shops, big shops, manufacturers. And that gives a fun factor for us, which this also has to be about. Yeah. It's got to be fun. Yeah. You can't just grind it out in the shop all week, you know, 100 percent. So.
00:44:52
Speaker
I'm ready when you want to wrap it up. Yeah. Um, yeah, I guess welcome back to the show. And, uh, yeah, we'll see you next week. All right, guys, it's fun being here.
00:45:45
Speaker
you