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Does Colonial Furniture Matter? Season 2, Episode 8.
45 Plays4 years ago
On the Colonial Furniture section wrap-up we examine the relevance of Colonial furniture today. Is it relevant? Does it matter? We ask ourselves the same questions and bring it home with some good thoughts at the end.
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Transcript
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Green Street Joinery and the American Craftsmen Podcast are proud to partner with Montana Brand Tools. Montana Brand Tools are manufactured by Rocky Mountain Twist in Montana, USA. With numerous patents dating back to the invention of the hex shank system by our founders, we strive to produce accessories that add precision, flexibility, and efficiency to your toolkit.
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Colonial Period Furniture Discussion
00:01:00
Speaker
For 10% off your order, visit MontanaBrandTools.com and use the coupon code American Craftsman.
00:01:07
Speaker
Well, we're here. We're back. Yeah. We're on our, it's the start of, this would be what, the start of hour four. Is that how that works? Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:22
Speaker
So this is the last episode of the colonial period.
Chippendale Furniture's Influence
00:01:27
Speaker
Doing a little wrap up at the end, a little review. Is it going to be a quiz? It could be. I'm not sure how well I'd do it. We'll talk about how some of this stuff we discussed over the last three episodes relates to now.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, the title I put up there was relevance to today. The question is, is it relevant? Yeah. We're talking about design, furniture, cabinet making, and such of the card 250 years ago. Is any of it still relevant?
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah. Cause like I said, you know, they, uh, they're grabbing those things on Facebook marketplace and I'm paying them a chalk paint, Queens and revival. So the Queen Anne lives on. I'm going to give you another shout out. The IKG mug makes another appearance. Yeah. Um, yeah. Did it, does it influence us as our, as so-called modern cat craftsmen?
Value of Antique Chippendale Pieces
00:02:44
Speaker
I think maybe directly it does not at least us because the style of furniture that we're doing but you know we use the music analogy a lot it's like without Chippendale would there have been a Stickley and without Stickley would there be a Green Street? Yeah I mean
00:03:09
Speaker
There's a couple of steps in between, like the stuff that Stickley was sort of railing against. Yeah, I mean, he was going against stuff like Chippendale, you know, this extravagant using mahogany and all the carving and marketry. I mean, Stickley did do some marketry, but. Yeah, so I wrote down a couple of notes about the Chippendale.
00:03:40
Speaker
Obviously, there's a bunch of antiques that are still around. You have a couple that are worth, you know, sold for millions. The Harrington commode, there's that word again. It's basically a chest of drawers sold for $5 million. That's a $5 million toilet. That's right. Commode, from the French, meaning suitable or convenient.
00:04:11
Speaker
So that definitely is has a bearing on on what we do. I mean, it's it's still relevant because it's it exists.
Chippendale's Impact in Europe and America
00:04:21
Speaker
Right. It's still out there in it's still being bought and sold now. Yeah. Things that were built, you know, 250 years ago. I don't know of anybody, but I bet up in New England there are some shops like ours that basically just specialize in that sort of stuff.
00:04:37
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know if he does any Chippendale stuff per se, but I know like guys like Robert Bliss, you know, they're doing historic. Yeah. Reproductions and interpretations of historic pieces that are, you know, in this sort of vein of furniture. Right. Right. And at the bottom end, you can go to Raymore and Flanagan and pick up Chippendale for a thousand bucks. Yeah.
00:05:05
Speaker
in mahogany finish. I said it has as much to do with Thomas Chippendale's work as chicken parmigiana has to do with actual Italian food. Telling me chicken parmigiani ain't Italian? That's what I want to know. How'd my mute get off on my laptop? That's right. I'm sure we shocked a lot of folks with that one there. That's right.
00:05:33
Speaker
There's no, go to Italy, there's no chicken palm. What about garlic knots? That's funny, you put Ray Moore and Flanagan in there and that's what I mentioned that episode or two ago. Yeah, we spent too much time together, obviously. All those commercials. Ashley Furniture. You get it down at the Cabinet and the Poultry Warehouse. That's right.
00:06:03
Speaker
They're having a sale this weekend. So you're in percent financing. Anything with a red sticker is 25% off. So what do you think of Chip and Dale's influence?
00:06:18
Speaker
Well, I mean, you could see how far reaching it was. It made it all the way across the Atlantic over to the colonies.
Comparing Chippendale to Modern Design Trends
00:06:24
Speaker
And if it was going that far, you can only imagine how it spread through Europe like wildfire. And as we know, all things European were coming here after the fact.
00:06:39
Speaker
you know, with the publication that he put out, he was probably the most influential. I mean, I probably you could say it without any doubt he was the most influential person in furniture at that time. Yeah. What about today? I mean, could you consider who would we consider might be more influential, not in our little world, but in general? Is there anybody with that's that's had more impact?
00:07:10
Speaker
in the entirety of. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I'd say now the influence is coming mostly from like the the Danish modern kind of stuff and the the. You know, the more contemporary kind of. Yeah. But like if you're walking down the street and you stop somebody said you ever hear of Chippendale Furniture?
00:07:41
Speaker
It would probably say, well, it depends how old they are, I guess. I don't know. I think most people would have no idea. No. I think there's a name recognition, but then I think there's a big disconnect on what it could you say? Well, what does it look like?
00:07:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean people, the term Chippendale, it's in people's vocabulary because of Chippendale, there's Chippendale furniture, there's the Chippendale railing, there's Chippendale's, the strip joint, it's just a... Is Chippendale the cartoon? Yeah, Chippendale.
00:08:17
Speaker
So I think in that way, the name recognition is there, but I don't think people would have any idea what it actually is.
Is Chippendale High Art?
00:08:23
Speaker
I don't either. I mean, it's a household name to a certain degree, but so is Mr. Clean. Yeah.
00:08:35
Speaker
You know, we're furniture makers, so Chip and Dale, we know what Chip and Dale is. And, you know, I didn't know a whole lot about Chip and Dale's style, but, you know, had seen examples of it. Yeah, me either. I mean, and the stuff that we saw, it was pretty broad.
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, I always associated Chippendale with highly ornate. That's about what I thought, too. But a person on the street's not going to say, well, yeah, Chippendale had a lot of Cabrio legs and the ribbon carvings. Right, before these last few episodes, I couldn't have been able to tell the difference between something from Newport and something from Chippendale.
00:09:23
Speaker
Not even close. And then we kind of got to see the difference between the country style of Chippendale and Philadelphia's version of the Queen Anne. I mean, all that stuff's similar, but it's part of our vernacular now as far as being able to look at something with an educated eye and go, oh, I see where that came from, and I can trace the lineage.
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't so hard, was it? See how easy it is to... It only took about 12 hours of reading. Well, all I had to do was sit here. No, you were working on other various things.
00:10:09
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, even like for the listener, you know, now that you just had to wrap your head around a little bit of this information, it really expands your knowledge of a furniture. Yeah. You know, just you fill in these little pieces and all of a sudden, you know, the whole picture opens up.
00:10:27
Speaker
It's true. I'm wondering how we're going to feel as we're like, let's say halfway through, because we'll have done this in its order and its chronological order. So we're kind of naturally building on it as it occurred. Right. And we can piece it together. Certainly a learning experience for us. Yeah. I asked a question more of myself.
00:10:55
Speaker
Like, is Chippendale considered high art in the same way we think of classical music? Music, you know, the same technique, skills and design cues needed to complete a piece of Chippendale taught in the same manner that music students are taught Mozart, Bach or Beethoven.
Craftsmanship in Chippendale and Modern Design
00:11:14
Speaker
And then does that apply to, you know, sort of like regular life and regular craft?
00:11:24
Speaker
as it's more commonly done.
00:11:30
Speaker
Well, so we got Chip and Dale and all those skills that are needed to do it, whether it's designing it, following the proportion and all that. And then there's, there's the different hand skills that are needed. It reminds me more of like how somebody who's going to school to study music is going to study classics.
00:11:56
Speaker
Right. Like you go to Berkeley, you're going to learn. You're going to learn about all these these compositions from Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. And but then there's a certain detachment between that and like popular culture. So, you know, how relevant is it? Oh, yeah. I mean, to the common person, Chippendale is not relevant in the least bit. Right. He's only relevant to us because we're furniture makers. So so.
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, we have to think about things in our small little world and not in a grander scheme of things.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's for it's on us to to put that out to other people. You know what I mean? You don't look to the banker for music, right? You know, you don't you don't expect the banker to come up with a new hit song. You look at the musician and the musician has studied all of these things in the past. And now they're creating an interpretation or even a ripoff of something, you know, old.
00:12:58
Speaker
Well, I glad Zeppelin copied the blues musicians that came before them. Right. Do we feel any connection at Chippendale? Well, yeah, I mean, of course, to some degree. Because it's all all roads lead here.
Profitability of Chippendale Today
00:13:18
Speaker
Mm hmm. I mean, what did you get out of out of seeing his stuff?
00:13:27
Speaker
I mean, definitely an appreciation of the level of craftsmanship. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty, pretty insane. Yeah. On the chairs, especially, I really took away the use of negative space. I mean, those chests, the level of detail on that is, it's almost incomprehensible. Yeah.
00:13:50
Speaker
They're, they reminded me of like going to the Vatican and, uh, you know, looking at every way you turn in the Vatican, there's like, uh, there's an outlet cover that somebody spent 12 years working on, you know, things like that. Um, but that's what it looks like when you look at that chest, you know, it's like, how long did this take? How many people worked on this and how many hours are into it? Yeah. And,
00:14:18
Speaker
How could, you know, how could we build something like that and make a living? Yeah. I mean, there's just a select few number of people who are, you know, who do this commission work where it's all, you know, they might work on it for six months, something like that. Yeah. Two years. Imagine working on one piece of furniture for two years. Yeah. I can't, it would have to be man.
00:14:48
Speaker
That's crazy. Yeah, because we kind of get bored with with projects in a way if they're too big and too long. Yeah, I get bored after a week sometimes. Like you've been working on those watch boxes. Oh, Lord, I don't want to talk about those. But imagine if five more.
00:15:14
Speaker
Imagine if that like one one guy might be doing like ball and claw feet for years and years. Yeah. The problem with those watch boxes is made up of like six parts of all just tedious BS. Yeah. Yeah. None of which requires much skill. Just.
00:15:43
Speaker
Imagine how proficient you'd be though if that's all you did was make the octagonal box. That would be what somebody did. It's not as glamorous as folks outside think it is.
00:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, like proficiency is cool, but once you get it, it's no more fun. No. It's like, all right, now I'm proficient at it. It's almost worse. Yeah, no, it is worse. That's why I've been procrastinating on these stupid things. They are finally finished. Yeah. The three are going to make five more. Yeah, I think he thinks I'm like making like just making like all kinds. He's like, you got the other ones? I'm like, what do you I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. He thinks they're just popping them out. Yeah.
00:16:29
Speaker
He's like, you got any of the protects? I'm like, no, I'm not making anything unless you tell me explicitly that I want two of these, three of these. Yeah, I think we're just jerking around. Yeah, it takes time. Those things take a lot of time. And money. Yeah. That leaves me this question, and I think I already asked it, but at today's cost of living, can a Chippendale piece be produced in America for profit? Mass produced, no, but produced, yes.
00:17:01
Speaker
You just gotta find a buyer. I mean, there are guys building that kind of stuff and getting paid for it.
00:17:08
Speaker
I wonder what it would cost. You know, here's talking about 50 grand for one, you know, one, like, let's say a highboy 50K. I saw there's a guy who started a company in Asia somewhere like Indonesia or something like that. Doing all Chippendale reproductions. Oh, really?
00:17:35
Speaker
And the chairs were like five and six hundred dollars each. They do a lot of carving in Southeast Asia. Yeah. And they're fast and cheap. I was pretty shocked. I'm not shocked by anything anymore when it comes to making things cheaply. It's crazy, you know, how cheap some things are.
00:18:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it makes you wonder. It's like, well, it's just another form of exploitation, I suppose. Yeah. And, you know, it's not made to the same level that Chippendale would have made it. Oh, no, no, no. I would love to examine one up close. Yeah. Probably using some cheap Acacia wood or something, some kind of crappy swamp tree. Some swamp mahogany.
00:18:28
Speaker
they're working on a dirt floor with no shoes on, no bench, paying these people next to nothing. Yeah, I mean a lot of those jobs are the only way to make a living after this. It makes it impossible to be a subsistence farmer, which is a lot of times what that population comes from. Once that becomes impossible, they got to make a living by hook or by crook.
Evolution of Colonial Furniture Styles
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's a shame. Yeah. So there's some, you know, some guy in a suit somewhere wringing his hands ready to to pounce and make a couple bucks off the sweat of somebody else. Yeah, not much has changed, has it? Not really. So should we review what we what we've done in these past episodes? Yeah, we could hit we could hit some of the
00:19:27
Speaker
the broader points just as a little bit of a summary. Yeah. Where did we start? You know, started with the Chippendales and the Townsend's and
00:19:42
Speaker
You know, so OK, so we're talking about the influences of of colonial furniture. Jacobean, Jacobian. Whatever the hell it is. Carolin. So Carolin, you're getting into a little bit lighter. Jacobean was the real heavy.
00:20:01
Speaker
Oh yeah. Heavily carved, just heavy looking. The Viking chair. Yeah, the carolian. You're starting to lighten up a little bit with sort of a gothic kind of look to it. Then where do we go from there into the William & Mary? William & Mary, which is getting closer to that.
00:20:20
Speaker
Queen Anne kind of look then you go into the Queen Anne where you know you're getting Cabrio legs and things are starting to lighten up it's the the casework is up on thin legs and stuff and chippy yeah then you got Chippendale who's you know
00:20:41
Speaker
Playing off of the William and Mary or the Queen Anne. Yeah. Yeah doing his spin on that and he's you know influenced by Chinese furniture and all kinds of stuff.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, imagine what it took to be exposed to things from China. That's wild. And how exotic and far off it must have seemed to someone in the buying public, even the rich people that could afford Chippendale's work.
00:21:16
Speaker
Who who went to China? Yeah. Marco Polo. Yeah. You know, so again, world events influencing design, you know, trade with Asia, people bringing things back from Asia, whether they be boxes or chess or pieces of furniture influences design becomes vogue. Yep.
00:21:45
Speaker
Um, that, that's where all this stuff comes from. The, the, the Renaissance, even the Italian Renaissance influences the Baroque, uh, out of, out of Italy, which influences the French, which influences the English. Um,
00:22:04
Speaker
It doesn't seem like there's anything today that's as significant. We seem to go in trends nowadays instead of, I guess these were trends, but they seem so fleeting and flimsy compared to
00:22:22
Speaker
They were, uh, there was just more to be discovered back then. You know what I mean? I guess so. I guess since we've, we've done it all, we've played all the chords. Yeah. Um, or maybe that's, you know, we're just looking through the lens and now and in 300 years they're going to be talking about how things were, you know, from white shaker painted to that half dowel thing that seems to be popular.
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's hard to say. These things seem to move in, except for the white paint. I mean, that's a couple of years or more that that was going on. Before that, there was that distressed oak. Yeah, they're still doing that. But these things, the time frame is so much shorter. Yeah, and you know, those might be forgotten to history and they only, you know, like
00:23:21
Speaker
those might not make the history books, but maybe there's something, they're going to be looking at the broader picture 250 years from now and say, in the 2000s to the 2500s, they were using influence from the middle of the century prior and blah, blah, blah.
20th Century Design Context
00:23:44
Speaker
I'm sure there was little
00:23:46
Speaker
Patches of like I said people doing wacky stuff that is forgotten those pieces are gone. They didn't know who did it when You know if you were looking if you could go forward and look back on the last ten years What would you say were some dominant trends if you were? trying to be a historian and say You know back a hundred years ago. This is what happened and
00:24:19
Speaker
I'd say the biggest Trends now aside from like the crappy like white shaker and stuff like that there are
00:24:28
Speaker
Like I said, homage is to the mid-century designers, to the art deco designers, to the, I don't know what you call that sort of like immediately following World War II. I guess that's like part of the art deco period. Yeah, mid-century, modern? Yeah, it's like that period between art deco and mid-century. Basically from art deco to mid-century, I feel like those are the big driving
00:24:53
Speaker
Design elements now at least when you look at design that is contemporary and is good Mm-hmm like because there's a lot of contemporary design That's just shit just mishmash of things are picking pieces out of a bin and sticking it together Yeah, you know like the white shaker. That's not Design that's just no that's lazy. Yeah How does something like that become popular well
00:25:21
Speaker
Do we really want to get into that? You could say the same thing about you know.
00:25:28
Speaker
TikTok and McDonald's and people are just the masses are the unwashed masses. Yes are just simple I guess to say that we're you know special but But it seems like if we looked at these design trends and we have the benefit of looking back over a couple of centuries
00:25:51
Speaker
There were significant changes and it felt like there was so much more going on as far as the design work and the craft. I don't know if we're ever going to see that again.
00:26:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, well, the craft is really gone. And I'm sure we'll see that trend once we hit like the Industrial Revolution. But the craft is gone. Yeah, it was only craft then. Now it's mass production. And there's this little sliver of craft that remains, which that little sliver will always be there. But you had an entire industry that was
00:26:41
Speaker
a craft, you know, it was people, real people building furniture by hand. That's how all the furniture got made. Now that's, it's what, a half a percent of the furniture? Less? Oh yeah, I'm sure it's less.
00:26:56
Speaker
So it's yeah, no that the days are gone where you're not gonna see innovation Even if even if there was stuff We're trying to say here even if there was still things left to be Invented in terms of furniture design, which you know at this point basically all of it's been done There's no one to invent it
00:27:21
Speaker
Because people are more worried about making it faster and cheaper, right? They want to take a tried and true image, create it quickly and cheaply to sell it. Yeah. Yeah, so a lot of this falls on the designers. What are they doing to innovate and to create? What designers?
00:27:50
Speaker
Well, just designers in general. Like furniture designers? Yeah, yeah.
00:27:56
Speaker
you know, or materials designers, things like that. That's how I see, you know, the evolution of furniture from early American through Chippendale. Those are some significant changes. And in my view, growth, let's say, for lack of a better word.
Impact of Design History on Current Trends
00:28:21
Speaker
And I wonder where that growth is going to occur in the future, or if we're just going to continue to regurgitate ideas. Yeah, I mean, obviously there's going to be changes, but...
00:28:36
Speaker
you see a lot of these changes were being influenced by technology back then too like you know before there were lathes there wasn't anything that was turned because they couldn't do it so at the advent of the you know treadle lathe you see turnings become more popular you know they weren't doing mortise and tenon joinery when they didn't have
00:28:57
Speaker
iron tools to work with. Yeah, no sharp tools. So now we're at the point where like how many more innovations could there be? We've got CNC milling now, you got lasers, that kind of stuff, water jets. So we're able to manipulate materials in different ways, which, you know, lead to different designs that you can do. But, you know, what's going to be the next innovation that shakes up the furniture? That's a good question.
00:29:24
Speaker
You know, is there is there anything that could make a big, a huge shake up in design? I just don't see. And I guess if we could see, then we'd have the idea. But right. I just can't think of anything that.
00:29:44
Speaker
Yeah, because we're kind of doing things the old fashioned way. I mean, we have we're we're just doing things the way they did it. We're taking wood and putting the pieces together to make a piece of furniture. Mm hmm. So I could see how that would create kind of a ceiling. Yeah. So is the future CNC? Is it materials, different materials?
00:30:16
Speaker
I mean, what could a CNC do that hand can't? No, I mean, it's not even about CNC versus hand. But. It's what could change, what what could they what what new thing could we make? What material, what new material could come out that could make us build things differently? We got plywood that bends, we got hardwood, we got. Plastics, there's metals. Yeah.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, I'm stumped. What was the last big design motif? What was it? Was it mid-century modern? What filed that?
00:31:07
Speaker
the 60s and 70s, possibly. Yeah, the Atomic Age type stuff. Yeah. I mean, there was definitely a style in the 70s and. Yeah, that's when they introduced plastics and things like that. They had those egg chairs and those round plastic chairs with the cushion in them. So. Then the 80s came. Anything there?
00:31:36
Speaker
I don't know. I wasn't born. You're going to have to take that take 80s. Let's see what I mean. I was so I was like living in a car, basically. So. Now, I can't think of anything of note in the 88. You know, what I remember from the 80s is there was sort of like
00:32:01
Speaker
this musically, there was a bit of a throwback to the 50s. That was the first time I remember there being this look backward and became like a fashion sense. So maybe that was when something new stopped being... Well, let's say like 80s, you think like disco.
00:32:27
Speaker
I guess that's what. Yeah, late 70s, you know, like 81, 82. Yeah, I'm thinking like a disco guy's like, like pad, you know, he's got some kind of, I would think that that's kind of like a mid-century, atomic-y kind of plastic-y. Yeah. I think a disco guy lived at home with his mom and he was...
00:32:50
Speaker
The original disco man. The original disco man. Did you know
Community Among Craftsmen
00:32:55
Speaker
that? James Brown. James Brown was the original disco man. He put out an entire disco album. We learned that yesterday. Much too, and this is the word of the podcast. Sugar In. Sugar In, yes. It was not pleasant. That was a terrible song. We play it for you, but they'll probably take us off air. Yeah.
00:33:17
Speaker
Well, I think I'm not sure if we've got anything left on this time in... Time in question? Yeah, the early colonial period.
00:33:35
Speaker
Is there how could let's go back to the how it could be used today. How could we incorporate some sort of Chippendale element or not necessarily just Chippendale, but one of these colonial design elements into a modern piece of furniture? That's a good question. I mean, they had a lot of carvings. All that stuff is well, you know, we did that with the altar rail.
00:34:04
Speaker
although it was, you know, done by a machine, CNC'd. Yeah. But still, I would say that that piece incorporated a bit of, you know, Jacka Bean was high relief carving. That was high relief carving. Had that heavy, blocky kind of look to it. You know, with the six by six, whatever they were, six by five, five by five posts. Yeah.
00:34:33
Speaker
Yeah, you know, the chunky top rail. Yeah, that was, if anything, Jacka Bean with a little mixture of of craftsmen. Yeah. I mean, we can't help. That's that's our real language, you know, is is sort of the craftsmen, stickly green brothers that. That's I think everybody that does what we do has a little bit of that in them.
00:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, because it's not so far in the past. It's still it's still pretty fresh. We're only talking 100 years ago. And it's attainable. It's not as difficult to do as, you know, it was made for common people. Right. Try to build a Newport style chest. Right.
00:35:20
Speaker
That's being done all the time, especially in the New England area, but I guess there's a taste for it there as well. The consumer has a taste for it. Could you imagine us trying to sell that to somebody down here?
00:35:37
Speaker
Yeah, probably not. They we live, you know, sort of on the coast. People, they are the beachy. Yeah. You know, we are on the coast. What's that? We are on the coast. Yeah. You know, they want that weather look sometimes. The cottage look, all that stuff that sort of. You know, makes it seem like a
00:36:08
Speaker
stereotypical beachfront kind of place. Well, you have the McMansions. What kind of furnishings they got in those places? I mean, I could see like Queen Anne kind of stuff in those. Or, you know, it depends. I mean, people have different aesthetics and the outside of the house doesn't always dictate what they have on the inside.
00:36:35
Speaker
It's true. I mean, there was quite a mixture of stuff where we put in that really modern glass and metal cabinet. Yeah. I mean, the fact of the matter is people who are spending money on furniture, like people that we would build furniture for, they have a contemporary taste, typically. Yeah. That's, you know. Yes, I agree with that. So they're, you know, taking design cues from mid-century and other
00:37:05
Speaker
you know, sort of the classic periods and there might be a combination of all different, you know, you could see in that room with the wine thing. The wine thing is, I don't even know, that's a completely contemporary design because it's not like anything, it's just a steel box basically. But then you have like the credenza, which is sort of mid-century and then the chairs and couch and stuff are really more like art deco-y and then... Yeah, remember those tables? Yeah.
00:37:35
Speaker
They were quite sculptural and they had that high gloss lacquer kind of finish on them in colors and bright colors. Yeah. Patterned rug, you know, I mean, I do like well executed transitional design. Yeah. And I think that is the design style of now when they look back in 250 years, you know,
00:38:03
Speaker
That's a good point. Because it is an amalgamation of a bunch of different designs, not its own thing. I mean, look, we just talked about how Chippendale was a combination of all these different designs. Well, that's what's going on now. Well, there you go. It only took us 37 minutes to drive that circle all the way back down to the beginning.
00:38:26
Speaker
Well, you know, sometimes you have to think out loud. Yeah. But I agree with you 100 percent. If you look at what the designers are bringing us, it's pretty modern. Yeah. You know, it's at least in that in that in that box. Yeah. Like 1940 to present.
00:38:46
Speaker
Right. And when we're left to our own devices, we kind of, um, we have some of that in us, some of the modern, uh, mixed with craftsmen style or dealing with rectangles and that kind of classic proportion. Um, and I never thought of the word transitional to describe it, but that's exactly what it is. Well, that's what they actually call it. Yeah. So kudos to you.
00:39:18
Speaker
Gold Star. It must be that lunch you got You can probably can probably hear we got that post lunch Slump. Yeah But we're gonna pick it up big time for the patreon. That's right. We're gonna shoot for patreon episodes after this So maybe we give everybody a little update of what's going on in the shop. We got 20 minutes left here So okay, I know everybody misses that Those of you who don't care about learning
00:39:50
Speaker
and bettering yourself. Shame on you.
New Tools and Partnerships
00:39:54
Speaker
If you don't, you probably didn't make it this far. You probably already unsubscribed. If you don't care about learning, you unsubscribe to us and you're now listening to something else. And you're going, man, those guys lost it. Yeah. If you can't stand listening to us anymore, go check out our buddy Keith's podcast. Yeah. Keith, Tony and Chad over at the Working Hands podcast. Yeah. They're shooting from the hip over there. Yeah. A bunch of good guys.
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah. I heard Rob's thinking about that. I keep calling him Rob because I'm thinking about my friend, Rob, but his friend, Rob, it's Corey. Yeah. Corey and what's his place name? Matt, maybe. Yeah. They were thinking about maybe by now when you guys hear this in five weeks, they might have it. Yeah. I don't know what they're going to call it, but we'll check that out too. Yeah. Um,
00:40:46
Speaker
The hell are we talking about? Oh, what's going on in the shop? Any new tools since the last time we spoke? Um, I got that gimbal yesterday. Oh, that's going to be pretty cool. Yeah. So hopefully by now, when you're hearing this, we will have in effort to shoot some video with it and put said videos out.
00:41:05
Speaker
Yeah. So exactly explain exactly what that thing does. Well, a gimbal is this is for a phone. So it's like a handle and your phone mounts in it and your phone is suspended. There's actually little motors in it too. And it'll balance the phone. You know, it's like a gyroscopic kind of deal. So you could turn your hands and the phone will stay. And it has a little joystick. You can point the thing around. You can lock on to a person. It'll follow them around. It's pretty cool.
00:41:33
Speaker
Yeah, you could set it up on a desktop and things like that. And it'll go on a tripod. It's cool. It's amazing technology for 150 bucks. Yeah, crazy. Keith had one up at the makers meet up. But man, he got one.
00:41:53
Speaker
And we got one. Pull the trigger. He texted me last night. He wanted to know if I had it all figured out yet. I said, no, I left that to you. Who, Manny? Yeah. I think he's having a hard time with it. Yeah, it is a little, it's hard to figure out. I mean, it's not hard to figure out, but it has its quirks that you got to figure out. Yeah. Because you try and steer it, it doesn't, because it just stays where you got to actually use the joystick thing.
00:42:24
Speaker
You know, you can move it anywhere in the one plane. But if you turn your hand, I guess if you don't have it locked on. Yeah, I mean, even I only have about 15 minutes of use on it, but it is cool. It makes the footage look nice because it's nice and stable. That's probably part of it, too. It's like a steady cam.
00:42:47
Speaker
That's exactly what it is. They have them for big cameras and they're crazy expensive when you get into that kind of stuff.
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, crazy technology for 150 bucks. Yeah. So that's new. I mean, our relationship with vesting is new. Yeah. We had a pretty cool meeting with, was it Jake? Zach? Zach. Yeah, so Zach is, I guess there's two owners. He's one of the owners of Vesting USA. So he works directly with Vesting Europe. Actually, Vesting USA does Canada and the United States.
00:43:26
Speaker
So they're out in Pennsylvania, like right near our lumber supplier. He came out to the shop and demoed a bunch of stuff for us, gave us some samples, handed out like a dozen cans of finish at the maker camp. We had a nice lunch that day too from Big Mike's. That's what I remember the most. It was good. That's always the best way to, you know, kick off a relationship with somebody to sit down and have a meal.
00:43:53
Speaker
It was a great day too. It was really nice. We were sitting on the back porch, eating some nice big sandwiches. Yeah. Yeah. That led finishes really cool.
00:44:05
Speaker
And you will have seen it by now when you listen to this.
Maker Camp Experiences
00:44:11
Speaker
You know, I wish we had some footage of, uh, bliss pouring that beer out right after we did. I mean, it was less than a minute after it was done. It was like 10, 20 seconds. I think we could recreate that. Doesn't have to be a beer, but maybe coffee, coffee stains, you know, maybe we get like a piece of maple, put it on there, dump some coffee in it.
00:44:35
Speaker
Nice. That's a good idea. Yeah. And watch it beat up. Yeah. The UV stuff is very cool. It still kind of feels like magic. Yeah. You know you touch it. You don't quite believe it. It's dry.
00:44:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, instantaneous. It's crazy. Mm hmm. Even like you wipe it on, you know, with a towel, you can hit the towel delay and it it's like freezes it. Yeah. It becomes a hard, you know, like a. Well, there's a bit of acrylic in there. Yeah. In the UV. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's cool stuff. What else? Well, we're still waiting to get paid by that dickhead up in Newark.
00:45:22
Speaker
Yeah. If anybody's been following that story. Yeah. And I bet by the time this airs, we'd still be waiting to get it paid. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. We're probably going to have to wind up. Well, we're definitely going to have to go to arbitration. Yeah. Show out a thousand bucks for that. It's going to cost us money to get our money back. Right. And you don't get that money back. No. You can't. In New Jersey, you can't even. That's the really shitty part of all this. Yeah.
00:45:53
Speaker
No protection for the little guy. None at all. I guess that's what people were in that, you know, in his position bank on. But he owes us too much money. We have to do it. And unfortunately, you know, it's going to come out of our profit, but we have no choice.
00:46:19
Speaker
What else? Oh, well, we went to maker camp last week. Yeah. Which is, you know, again, this is all going to be old news to you, but that was a lot of fun. Did some blacksmith thing. Hung out with a bunch of different people. It was a good time. We're going back next year. Might got some plans in the work. Won't speak about those because it's all secretive at this point. But yeah, we'll be back. We already booked our room.
00:46:48
Speaker
What did you think of the Blackthorn? It was better than expected. Everybody made it seem like it was going to be like a serious dump. And I mean, I didn't see the other rooms, but our room was clean. You know, yeah, it was not modern by any stretch of the imagination. But, you know, it may be like the Unisau syndrome with the dust collection. That's what it was. Yeah. Lower your expectations.
00:47:15
Speaker
we were so happy with our room. We just live on a certain strata. I think it was just an expectation. Right. We weren't expecting the Hyatt. We didn't get the Hyatt, but we got so much more than we
00:47:35
Speaker
Everybody made it seem like you're gonna like fall through the floor and that you know, there'd be like a Now the place up the road. We can't speak to that. I know Cory. Yeah, you had a hell of a time over there, but Yeah, I mean It was fun
00:47:50
Speaker
We had plenty of hot water. We didn't try out the Jacuzzi tub, which I know Manny regrets. The beds were fine. My back didn't hurt at all. No, Tony, Tony said he like fold up into like a clam on his. I slept great. Me too. I don't know if that was the beer or the first from the first night on. And I usually like we stayed when we went to Vegas, we stayed in a much nicer place. And I don't think I was
00:48:15
Speaker
Any more comfortable there. I think I was less comfortable. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I slept on that cot in Vegas that thing sucked Yeah, even Manny said this cot was better than his bed at home. Yeah Maybe it's us And what about that food
00:48:31
Speaker
The food was good. Yeah. It was really good. I mean, and it's better than going to like going to Chili's or some shit. Oh yeah. Much better. Um, they had pie every night. Yup. Pie every night. Just don't remember the chocolate pie. And after I discovered the cold cereal section for breakfast, forget about it. Yeah. Whole milk and cold cereal and my frosted mini weeds, my fruit loops. If they would have had cocoa puffs, I would have been out of my mind.
00:49:00
Speaker
Cocoa puffs are a little too crunchy for me. Yeah. Cocoa puffs. Golden grams would have been another one. I could have just probably eaten about 12 boxes. Those little tiny bowls that they had there. Yeah. Mini-wheats though. Yeah. I didn't get into the cereal. I was having intestinal issues at that point from all the drinking and eating that I don't typically do. And the same with Manny too. Yeah. Manny made a new friend. Yeah.
00:49:31
Speaker
We made lots of new friends. Yeah. It was very cool. Um, especially meeting people that, uh, we chat with on, um, clubhouse because the voice is so familiar. Um, so it like, it's, it's a weird thing. You see their face for the first time, which is odd, but then very quickly it's as if you know them.
00:49:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Now like me, like I know what everybody looks like cause I'm on the Instagram, you know, and I, and there's that cross contamination of people, but yeah, you go into clubhouse, you don't know what the hell any of these people are.
Social Interactions at Maker Events
00:50:09
Speaker
No, no. Um, and it was great. It was a lot of fun. I mean, meeting Matt, you know, you have, the thing is
00:50:18
Speaker
It's just by its nature, you're going to have a lot in common with these folks anyway. So it really makes it a good time. Had a great time hanging out with Cory and Rob. Those are awesome dudes.
00:50:35
Speaker
Rob was quite an understated fellow, isn't he? Yeah. I mean, he's really, he's, he's quite an accomplished. He always refers to himself as a hobbyist because you know, and it's not his full time, right? The true sense he is, but he's quite accomplished. And he had some great stories about his time working for New York city transit. I mean, talk about
00:50:59
Speaker
Yeah. Welding the train tracks together. That's, that's another. I didn't even know that that was a thing. I had no idea. I never even thought about it. I figured there was just like a joint. Yes. That they were bolted together somehow. But I guess it's got to be perfectly seamless. What about the night we spent talking to Johnny?
00:51:21
Speaker
John, you're dressed. Oh, yeah. That was funny. Yeah. He said he would come on the podcast. I don't see how we could make it about woodworking, but he does a little bit of woodworking. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So maybe we could. I think John's the kind of guy. All you got to do is push start. Yeah. Well, yeah. And well, you saw the conversation when we had to have a briefing beforehand.
00:51:50
Speaker
Not, not PC and all that stuff. Say, listen, don't tell the story about the guy that used to have sex with the female bums. Yeah. We're going to lose our sponsorship. Yeah. Yeah. My side was heart in there for a little while. He was, he was funny. Um,
00:52:11
Speaker
Yeah. What else? Um, we, you know, we missed the pine car Derby though. We pine wood. Yeah. I would Darby everything we saw so fast. Yeah. It was like, there wasn't enough hours in the day. That's the amazing thing. We're in this little area. Um, the days just flew by. Yeah. You know, you go to breakfast at eight 30 or whatever,
00:52:35
Speaker
you get out and you start going to whatever we did, like the blacksmithing, then it was lunch. Right. So you go back to the room, eat some lunch, you know, sit down, relax for an hour or whatever. You get back up, you do a little, and then it's dinner. Exactly. And then after dinner, you know, inevitably crack open a beer. Yeah, it was just milling around, milling and chatting for six hours, which flew by. Yeah.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah, it was a good time. It really was. I tell you, I'm not the kind of person to socialize like that. Right. Neither of us are. And I'm also not the kind of person to look forward to doing something again like that, but I really am.
00:53:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, like typically, like even if I just go to like a friend's place, like I'll be exhausted from socializing. But I don't know, I guess maybe because there's so many different people and people, you know, who you know, but don't really know, it was kind of different. Yeah, I think we're going to have to step up our game for the swap next year. Yeah. Yeah, they got to get a new announcer.
00:53:52
Speaker
Yeah, that announces suck. Yeah. Well, maybe we'll talk about that on Patreon and give us something to talk about. Yeah. Some of the stuff in that swap or I mean, the thing that Corey won. Oh my God. Insane. Insane metal work. Yeah. Go to Corey's Instagram, CT Woodwork. Yeah. And I'm sure he's got pictures up there. Yeah. I don't remember seeing any. I mean,
00:54:19
Speaker
But, you know, things that don't use me as a... He definitely posted stories about it. As a be-all. Yeah, you're not an authority on Instagram. Things totally fly by me. I'll catch like every fourth thing. No, he doesn't have...
00:54:43
Speaker
No, he doesn't have anything up. But that's not to say that five weeks from now he won't. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because a lot of what I saw up to this point was just sort of like recapping, you know, the people. Which is what everybody's kind of done. That's a great picture of Manny. Yeah. Oh, that there was a photographer there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He was great.
00:55:07
Speaker
Um, taking pictures, everybody. And that's like, if you go on Instagram and see all these black and whites, that's why everybody's got these great photos. Yeah. He did a great job. Yeah. You'll have to send me those. Yeah. Oh yeah. I got him an email. We should have taken more, you know, but one of those things hindsight. Yeah. Maybe next year.
00:55:30
Speaker
I did. I changed a couple pictures on the website. That's awesome. We didn't have any pictures of ourselves. You always like to see who you're gonna work with before you work with them. Is that why realtors always have a picture? I always wanted why realtors are like the one trade where there's always a picture.
Upcoming Topics and Events Teasers
00:55:48
Speaker
Yeah, and, you know, you don't see many ugly realtors. No, they may not all be like good, like what you would say, good looking, but none of them are like ugly. And they got a good photographer. Oh, yeah. They get dressed up. They take that one shot. Yep. And they may never look like that again, but it's true. They want to sell a house. They will, though. Yeah.
00:56:15
Speaker
What'd your real to look like? Karen, she's a middle aged woman. Yeah. Look good. Look good in our photo. Oh yeah. Yeah. I know. We know Karen personally. That's, that's it. Yeah. That same thing. Like all the realtor photos I've seen. Drives Mercedes, you know, we got to put up a, keep up the appearances. That's it. Exactly. We show up in our Mercedes.
00:56:40
Speaker
Yeah, you know, we're not the best looking guys ever, but we're no ugly ducklings. We'll hold our own.
00:56:52
Speaker
Oh man. Well maybe we'll do our little plug session and we'll call this one quits. We're eking up on an hour. We'll talk about vesting first. We are partnered up with Vesting Finishes as affiliates. We use them in the shop. They're hard wax oils and
00:57:12
Speaker
We're hoping to get into the LED cured system pretty soon. We just got to save up the money to save for that that Ridiculous light that it uses yeah $4,000 light not to deter you from want to use it, but it's like the 12 times has the Sun yeah, like it'll like set your Table on fire if you leave the light on there. It's that bright I've got three computer fans not even computer like three fans on top of the light itself and an external and
00:57:41
Speaker
Control, 12x12x24 power source with a tether over to the thing. But yeah, they're Dutch made finishes, you know, similar to Rubio Monoco, essentially the same kind of idea. It's like a flax, you know, flax oil and hard wax finish.
00:57:59
Speaker
They have 40 or some colors. Nice stuff goes on great. I think it goes on easier and and dries faster than Rubio. Yeah, at least very similar. Yeah, yeah. Doesn't have that greasy kind of feeling after you wipe it off like Rubio does, which in our shop is like a magnet for dust. So it's like stop all work when there's, you know, finish that's been put on in the same day. If you use the Code American Craftsman,
00:58:29
Speaker
You get 10% off. You can buy it on their sister businesses website, RPMcodingsolutions.com. And yeah, it helps out the podcast. You get some nice finish, get a discount. It's going to end up being cheaper than Rubio. It's a win-win. That way, yeah. Plus their branding is pretty cool again. Yeah, yeah. That strikes a chord with you at all.
00:58:54
Speaker
They gave us nice shirts. I gave mine a mani because it looked, on me, it looked like a medium.
00:59:01
Speaker
It looks like a medium on me too. I'm going to have to drop a couple of pounds if I plan on wearing it. You know what it is? It's the side, the side like screen print on if you're overweight in the least bit, it does not look flattering. So he came to the skinniest guy we know. Let me just like show the contour on my man boo. Manny's Manny's the smallest guy we know. So he got, he got my shirt. I didn't even dry it beforehand. Like if I put it through a dryer, there's no way.
00:59:30
Speaker
All I needed was you. I mean, I was looking at it suspiciously and then you came in the next day and said something. I didn't even put it on. I didn't have the guts to put it on. I just gave it to me. I put it in the in the drawer. Maybe if I drop like 25 pounds, I could wear it, which I do need to buckle back down. I'm hurting after all this. Oh, yeah. We got to thank our gold tier, tier gold tier patrons. Where's my mouse?
00:59:59
Speaker
Looking at a screen that's about four feet away. We got Adam Pothast. We got Colin Lai, Corey Ty, David Murphy, David Shoemaker, Jerry Greenen, Keith Drennan, Manny Sirianni. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Nice. You know, we get to call half of you guys like friends, like real friends. Yes. It means a lot. I mean, I feel like I know Rob and Corey like 100 years already. Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:28
Speaker
Yeah. So everybody be well out there. Yeah. We'll see you next week for the next installment. Do we know what the, uh, what the hell the subject matter is? My guess is federal, but I'm not positive. 12 periods. It's, uh, if I put in 12, it comes up. That's how many times it has to look it up. No, it's not. Uh, let's see. What would it share it in? Capital white.
01:00:57
Speaker
Not federal. I hate that when you have to click read more. Pennsylvania Dutch. 1720 to 1830. So that that's going to be interesting because I don't really know anything about it. It might be like where the shaker that we know of comes from. Well, it's basically in the same time period as colonial. Yeah. Just 1720 to 1830 and then overlapping with federal 1780 to 1820. So it's going to be a regional thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:27
Speaker
Well, we appreciate it. Check us out on YouTube. Check us out on Patreon. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. If you would like, it helps out the podcast. We're not begging, we're just asking. But with that, we'll see you next week.
01:01:59
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a chain