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The American Craftsman Podcast Ep. 13 | Client Nightmares
43 Plays5 years ago
On Episode 13 of The American Craftsman Podcast, hosted by Greene Street Joinery, we sit down and talk about nightmare clients.
Beer of the Week (Bell's Amber Ale): http://www.bellsbeer.com/beer/year-round/bells-amber-ale
Tool of the Week (Streamlight Stylus Pro): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015UC17E/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=greenestreetj-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B0015UC17E&linkId=c28d8a548c431af1393175a0e53ae23c
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
Global Challenges and Yoga
00:00:24
Speaker
It takes Cathy to see what time she's gonna pick me up. 7.30, 8.30. You can't stay here. I gotta be home before 5. Otherwise I'm in trouble. Alice teaching a class. How is the yoga going?
00:00:39
Speaker
Good. I mean, it's slow. Things are, you know, the world is all fucked up right now. Yeah. I need a yoga one foot guy. A global pandemic. Can I do yoga one foot? Uh, probably. We're doing yoga right now. So, uh, do your thing there, Ricardo. Would you crumple your paper all up? No, this was, I made a copy of my home.
00:01:00
Speaker
I was doing my homework. I used to write and put some notes down. I was ahead of the game. I had nothing else to do at home. Wasn't being prepared. That's true. I got lots to do. You seem to be surprised what I'm doing. I would be surprised. You'd be shocked. You will be. We are shocked. You'll see. All
Podcast Introduction and Recent Highlights
00:01:24
Speaker
right. Well, welcome, everybody. This is the 13th.
00:01:28
Speaker
American Craftsman Podcast. I got to write fondly. I got to write last week too. You did, past couple of weeks. You've been on a roll. I think it's three in a row. Yeah. With a new view. Well, it can't be three because I missed one two episodes ago. Yeah. I just want to shout out to Keith from Keith Two-Bit Woodworks. Let us know how you're doing with your shoulder. Yeah. Surgery. You can see how Rich is doing. Yeah, exactly. I got my new cast. See?
00:01:57
Speaker
It's blue. Yeah, the blue. They didn't have cowboy blue, so I had to go with giant blue. I think that's lion blue. That's like Honolulu blue. I really don't care. It's blue. To me, it's cowboy blue. As much as I want to aggravate myself. You still want to ride that bus. That cowboy bus. That bus is going. I think it hit the guardrail a couple of weeks ago. The whole NFC East hit the guardrail.
YouTube Milestones and Community Support
00:02:25
Speaker
Speaking of Keith, though, I actually I was just talking to Keith, like, I don't know, 10 minutes ago. He is like just about to hit 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. So if you don't follow Keith, go follow him. Yeah. Get him to get him to 10,000. Put him over the edge. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I mean, we got we're creeping up on 600. But we've been at it for a little while now.
00:02:51
Speaker
Good for you, Keith. It's quality. It's quality. It takes time. It takes time. Oh yeah. The viewers.
00:02:59
Speaker
Well, let's let's get on with the show. Thanks for the November donations. We raised what, six hundred and five dollars. Yeah. That's very nice. Thank you guys out there. Thanks to the anonymous donor and thank everybody else for participating. Yeah. Yeah. Broke our our goal of five hundred. So yeah. I'm waiting for Rob to shave now because it's it's over and I kind of can't look at his squiddly face anymore. It's the wife likes it.
00:03:26
Speaker
That's why he's keeping it. Yeah, you know I do everything to please the wife. I just dispelled that myth. You know she doesn't listen to these podcasts. She doesn't have a computer.
Secret Santa Event and Gratitude
00:03:42
Speaker
And I'll let you handle on the next thing, The Secret Santa. I don't even know what's going on with that, but I'll leave it to Jeff.
00:03:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So anybody that signed up for the Secret Santa, I sent out emails last night with your person you matched up with. So check your email. It'll be from American Craftsman at Green Street Joinery dot com. Check out the box if somebody gets the three of us, but we get one gift, right? Right. So whoever got us, you only sent us one thing. We're going to send you three, but only send us one. Yeah.
00:04:15
Speaker
There's also two bonus gifts going out. Whoa. Yeah. From a mysterious benefactor is sending out to Green Street joinery gift cards to our website. Oh, nice. Two random people got selected.
Cultural References and Humor
00:04:30
Speaker
So they'll get. I wonder who it is. I don't know. Benevolent person is. Yeah, it's not us. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Too cheap.
00:04:40
Speaker
It's kind of like a Charles Dickens story, don't you think? Yeah, I mean, I guess they'll find out when they get it, but... Who's Magwitch? Who's our Magwitch?
00:04:48
Speaker
OK, we're going into these British mystery movies again. It's a classic story. Is that like Mag switch? I know. Christmas Carol, the Christmas Carol. I don't know the other one. Yeah. Yeah. OK, nothing. We won't die. Let's get to more pressing matters. Yes, the beard a week.
Beer Selection and Preferences
00:05:10
Speaker
Now I just happened to stop at the liquor store when Mr. Robert picked me up at the train station because of my leg and I had a tough choice picking it out. I had one I eyed and I thought was pretty cool.
00:05:27
Speaker
But then I went with something that let's have something that we're going to enjoy. Not like that. Waffle flavored, is it? Oh, God. Pancakes this time. I spilled that last one out on the on the gravel. This is an amber ale. Hmm. Well, I love that label. Different bells. Yes. Yeah, that's a good brewery.
00:05:48
Speaker
I think they're out in, uh, MI. Is that Missouri? That's Michigan. No, that's M-O is Michigan, is, uh, Missouri. Good stuff in Michigan. Yeah, a little hairin' on there. Yeah.
00:06:02
Speaker
This bottle isn't even round. The beer that helped build our brewery, Bell's Amber Ale features both toasted and sweet caramel notes from carefully selected malts bounce with herbal and citrus hop aromas. Does it have pecan in it? No. Capped by a clean bitterness, it's incredibly versatile with food, but very tasty on its own. What do you mean? Packaged on October 7th, 2020. We're using the Keith bottle opener. Yeah, thanks Keith.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah, this is nice. Oh, sorry, I thought you opened it. Well, you handed it to me, so I thought you were done. I was being nice. We're not nice around here. No. Cheers. Cheers. You hear how we talk about you when you're not here. I don't really care anymore. Hmm. Not what I was expecting. Good, though. Yeah.
00:06:56
Speaker
See, I don't like to drink left handed. I got this mic on my right. Making things difficult. Does it taste different? I try and like swing in here. Does it taste different left handed versus right handed? Definitely feels different. Yeah. We could digress into that conversation. Small deviations from the norm.
Gadget Highlights: Streamlight Stylus Pro
00:07:15
Speaker
That's all I can handle. Did you finally pick the tool of the week? Yeah. OK. Yeah. I knew you were going to think I forgot.
00:07:21
Speaker
No, I didn't. I didn't cross my mind at all. Because that's what time it is, right? It's time for Tool of the Week. All right. So I came up with this Tool of the Week literally about 45 seconds ago as I was outside coming in for the podcast.
00:07:39
Speaker
This is something that's in my pocket literally every day. This is my Streamlight Stylus Pro. Yeah, that's true. So this, I don't know if you can see. It is. It comes out all the time.
00:07:57
Speaker
I don't know how well you can see, but this started out as flat black. I mean, the whole thing was black. And now it's I mean, it's all worn down to the silver aluminum underneath. Yeah. I've literally carried this in my pocket every single day since I want to say 2013. So seven years every day in my pocket. Did you ever go to the wash? Nice. Yeah.
00:08:27
Speaker
How many batteries? This takes two AAA batteries. The only thing I've ever worn out is this little rubber button here. So I've actually purchased replacement. They sell replacement. These are, it's a United States company. I'm not sure if this one is made in the US. I think it is. I don't want to say for sure. I use rechargeable batteries in here. You can use regular batteries, but a flashlight is to me like a knife. I carry a knife in my pocket too.
00:08:56
Speaker
Until you carry one in your pocket every day, you don't realize how often you really need it or use it.
00:09:04
Speaker
Well, you were you started as an installer and I mean, yeah, I started as a as a general carpenter and then as an installer. Yeah, because the times that I've been on the job with you installing that thing does come out all the time. Here in the shop, I probably wouldn't see the need for it as much, but it's always out when we're on the job.
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, drop the nut to the table saw down inside the flashlight. Even just trying to see something a little bit better, you know, something that you're working on, you just hand it to me. Probably.
00:09:43
Speaker
I've I've lost it before and found it and lent it to people and and you know, didn't get it back for for a week or so. But, yeah, I mean, for like less than 20 bucks or 25 bucks, whatever they sell for now. Yeah, it's a great thing to have around, even if you just keep it in your in your hand tool bag or something like that in your truck. Yeah, it's always good to have a flashlight. I have another one at home that just sits in the sock drawer. In case I end up losing this one.
00:10:12
Speaker
So Streamlight Stylus Pro, they make a lot of different flashlights. This one is not as powerful as some of the other stuff they make, but good for the company. Streamlight. Streamlight. Yeah. Is that LIGHT? Yes. That's good to know. Yeah.
00:10:28
Speaker
Yeah, so we'll put a link in the description good on the website Check it out. I love it. You're gonna get into habit of carrying a flashlight Yeah, yeah, the knife gets used way more than the flashlight, but I do use the flashlight a lot I don't like to carry a knife because I don't trust myself What are you gonna do cut myself? You're just gonna fly out of your pocket. Oh, you never know I might want to do something like when West Side Story or something and
00:10:53
Speaker
Oh God, on the crutches too. Do you remember when that came out on TV when we were young? Yeah. I must have been in like the third grade. They had TVs back then? Yeah. I remember. So I was going to PS 32.
00:11:08
Speaker
We added you to jets. That's what happened. You get to the playground the next morning. Are you a shark or are you a jet? What? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It would be instant fisticuffs in regards to what? What's that story? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know about that. Yeah. When you're a jet, you're a jet.
00:11:28
Speaker
That's it. Yeah, I'm not into musicals. Oh, come on. That was it was a classic. I don't like the ending. You had to be there, I guess. Yeah, I never was a fan of the ending at all. What happened at the end? The kid gets killed.
00:11:43
Speaker
Oh yeah. Spoiler alert, if you haven't seen it. If you haven't seen it, then you've had 60 years to see it. Some of us haven't been alive that long. I know. Officer Crumkey. Oh yes, yes.
00:12:01
Speaker
Oh God. And these kids thought they were tough. All these nice slacks and sweaters on. And they were gang members. They were going to a rumble in loafers. Yeah, exactly. And chinos. Oh God. Wow. That brings us to that time of the week. That brings us to the gripe of the week. Ah, the gripe of the
Driving Etiquette Rant
00:12:25
Speaker
week. I got a good one.
00:12:26
Speaker
This is a real gripe. Not one of those. I can't find the salt on the pretzel's gripes. Those are real gripes. I mean, those are real gripes, but those are. This one is less petty. It's supposed to be the petty gripe of the week. It's supposed to be the petty gripe of the week. This is a little less petty. This is yeah.
00:12:42
Speaker
My petty gripe, I don't know if it's just people here in the Northeast, people in New Jersey where we live, but you're driving in your car down the road and people are pulling out of a parking lot where there's a stop sign and they just kind of roll through it right into
00:13:05
Speaker
Not only are they not stopping, but now they're going 20 miles an hour. And if you happen to get too close to them because you're going 50 on a 50 mile an hour road, they think they're going to teach you a lesson by going even slower.
00:13:21
Speaker
So that's that's my gripe of the week. You I'm going to say you morons, you inconsiderate bad drivers who just pull out into the road without waiting the 10 seconds. And if you've ever done that and then I look in my rearview mirror and there's no cars behind me, there's a clear road.
00:13:43
Speaker
That's always the case. That's somebody. All they have to do is wait for one call. But God forbid somebody just waits like 10 seconds. I'm going to put you on the hot seat now. Yeah. Ethnicity or.
00:13:56
Speaker
A male or female. Don't go there. Oh, God. I'm going to say this. I hate when people turn straight into the left lane. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or they're they're up here at the highway. So we're on a street and and up. I don't want to say the next block, but the next cross street is Highway 36, which is a two lane highway.
00:14:23
Speaker
People are coming from the opposite side of Wilson Avenue and we're both turning. I'm making a right turn. They're making a left turn and they turn into my right lane. Yes, exactly. You're supposed to turn into the lane closest to you. And they do it to get over here into the food town. That's right. But same thing. All they had to do was wait. Let me turn. They're trying to cut in front of me.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah that I mean people do not want to yield at all anymore in traffic.
00:14:55
Speaker
And I mean, what do you think, Rich? I question again ethnicity and male, female. No, it's there are some stereotypes that hold true. And I think around here, especially it's mostly women who are doing it that I find because they're out running errands and they got three kids that go to dance and lessons and this and that and everything. It's not like when you and I were kids, you just went outside to play.
00:15:24
Speaker
Now, kids, they have to be caught everywhere. Yeah, they're in the car. They go from this place to that place with an adult supervising it. And so they're always there on the phone. They got two kids screaming in the back seats and they don't care. They're just like too bad. We need more drug handles. Oh, no. No more drug. No more drug. No drug handles are good.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yeah, I'm guilty of doing a rolling stop at times, but I don't do it to cut in front of somebody. I keep my eye. I look to see as I'm rolling towards the stop sign and look to see what's down the road. Oh, yeah. There's nobody coming. I'm blown right through the stop sign because that stop sign isn't even real. There's no stop signs in a parking lot because it's not a real street. Yeah. But you got to yield to traffic. That's that's the rule number one. Well, that's like all the side streets.
00:16:20
Speaker
You have a stop sign on one corner, but you don't have a stop sign going the other way. But I still slow down, even though I don't have the stop sign, because you never know what moron is going to come and rush through the stop signs. See you at night time.
00:16:35
Speaker
Yeah, forget it. I got clipped with that guy. I'm behind so I'm screaming and yelling cuz you're slowing down. Yeah, exactly And frickin old people they had the insurance out here They make you use your own insurance even if the other person's have fault. Yeah, you know, no fault No, I got in an accident driving down Route 571 in Thomas River out by you in actually Manchester and
00:16:59
Speaker
That's not by me. I don't live out that far. Oh, it's it's close. It's significantly closer to you than it is here. Yes. Anyway, significantly driving in the left lane and a guy turns from the other side of the highway, makes a left turn in front of me and I T-boned him. They found me 20 percent at fault. Yeah. Yeah. They said, well, you could have like swerved or tried to stop or something.
00:17:22
Speaker
You don't think if I could have stopped and not hit this guy that I would that I would have willingly hit him. Maybe you thought maybe they thought you maybe had a chip on your shoulder. You want to teach this guy a lesson. I did want to teach him. Listen, it is down at the corner of Wilson and Cherry Tree.
00:17:37
Speaker
Andrew was taken a left. Somebody ran the red light and hit her. I mean, not in the, you know, the beginning or the end of the cycle, right in the middle, the cop comes. She admits she ran the red light to the cop.
Insurance Complaints and Experiences
00:17:53
Speaker
Her insurance company said, wouldn't pay. And well, you know, our insurance company has to go through their insurance companies how it works. They wanted to pay 80 percent. I had a fight with them. Then they said, OK, we'll pay 90 percent. I said 90 percent. I said, why isn't 100 percent? They said, the only way we'll pay 100 percent is if you're not in the car and our client hits your car.
00:18:23
Speaker
But if you're in the car, the most will pay is 90 percent. Yeah. I mean, I was young. I was rigged. Probably 20. I don't know, 22 or 23. And, you know, I'm on the phone with their insurance company. I'm like, I'm going to get an attorney. They said, go ahead. Exactly. Go ahead. Yeah.
00:18:41
Speaker
We have an entire legal team. You think you're going to take us to court? It's a joke. Do you ever notice that? It just sidetracked a little bit. You ever notice that during if you're watching a football game or watching any kind of TV, what commercials do you see the most?
00:18:59
Speaker
Insurance companies. These insurance companies must make a lot of friggin money to actually keep putting these commercials out. Geico, Progressive. They're also big sponsors for a lot of the pre-aim stuff. Yeah, but they gotta pay for that. So where are they getting all this money from? From all of us. That's why I pay a thousand bucks a month for insurance.
00:19:22
Speaker
You can't put a claim in. No, you can't go in. And if you do, they raise your premium. Oh, they drop you. Yeah. Meanwhile, we just got our liability insurance thing. I don't know what our premium was, but I'm pretty sure it went up. And you know, our coverage didn't go up. No, shit. Coverage didn't change. We didn't have any claims and probably never will. Yeah.
00:19:45
Speaker
Now raise us. We don't want any insurance companies sponsoring us. That's right. Unless you got a lot of money. Yeah. Well, yeah, it depends on how many zeros. I'm not going to lower my, my quality, my standards. No question last week. I'll take free insurance though. Well, maybe I'll do that. Well, there's our not so petty gripe of the week. And you know, right in, let us know if you've got a gripe with the insurance companies or with the bad drivers in general.
00:20:14
Speaker
And if you are a bad driver, don't admit it. I'm gonna say most people are not the best.
00:20:21
Speaker
Well, this brings us to the main segment of the week. Questions of the week. Questions of the week. Yeah.
Podcast Technical Setup
00:20:29
Speaker
I'll go ahead and take this first one because I know you guys have no idea. You might have some idea. This is from Locomodern on Instagram. That stands for Low Country Modern. They said, or they asked rather, or they said actually, I go back and forth. Hope you guys had a great holiday. Love the podcast. What is your camera and filming setup?
00:20:52
Speaker
Oh, we got about five people doing it in the background work. Yeah, we got that camera that has the dual turbo carburetors on it. Yeah, we got a sound guy. Yeah. Video makeup. One one camera on a dolly. We even have a couple of stunt guys. Gaffer. I'm not sure what Gaffer is, but I've seen. Well, my stunt double didn't show up today. I hurt my foot. Yeah. Now I'll leave this to Jeff. He knows he's got all the technical information.
00:21:19
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll give you a rundown of basically everything that we use for the podcast. The camera is a Sony A6000 with the kit lens. And we run that into what's called a capture card. And we have the I had to unlock the camera to get past the 30 minute. All these these photo cameras come with a 30 minute maximum on the video. So you kind of like hack the camera to to bypass that.
00:21:49
Speaker
Which actually I think the way I have it set up, I maybe I wouldn't have to do. But anyway, so it goes into a 4K capture card, which goes into a MacBook Pro and it syncs up with the audio, which is going through a Mackie 10 channel mixer. I don't remember exactly what that's a pro effects. Yeah, it's pro effects. Pro effects. Rich picked that up from Guitar Center. Yeah. Yep.
00:22:13
Speaker
And then we we're going into a program program called OBS, which is open broadcast something or another open broadcast streaming. I don't know what it stands for or something like that. That stands for Spikowski. Yeah. Open broadcast Spikowski. That combines the video and the audio. The audio is coming from Audio Technica 80 2020s in fancy green XLR chords from Amazon. Yeah.
00:22:39
Speaker
Special order. Yeah. And that's pretty much it. Did you mention the microphone? That's the AT 2020. Yeah, I thought so. I was just testing. You got it right. It's funny, when we bought the first three mics, we got them for about 100 bucks apiece. And then when we went to buy the fourth mic, when we were planning on having John on as the first guest, the price had shot up 50%. Yeah, a lot of this stuff for podcasting did.
00:23:07
Speaker
And even people are that are doing Zoom calls and stuff from home. They're using like real professional mics and stuff because I mean, if you've ever been on a Skype or a Zoom call, the audio is horrible. So there are people actually using like this OBS for stuff like that. I'm going to be Zoom in Santa in a couple of weeks. Yeah. Yeah. What did you ask for this year? I'm not telling you because I won't get it then. New foot.
00:23:31
Speaker
This foot is healing quite nicely. There are a couple of elves at the North Plough working on toes right now. Yeah, they're carving a nice wooden leg.
00:23:41
Speaker
I tell you, I got to tell you, the experience with that peg leg, it's not it's not comfortable at all. You're really changing your tune. Rich is having a reality check. I cook with that peg leg on and I'm telling you, man, it hurts. No shit. It's a peg leg. Rich was like, I'll be in the work tomorrow. Yeah. We're like, you better take it easy, Rich. Oh, no, man. I got the crutches. I got the peg leg. Even got a scooter.
00:24:08
Speaker
First to go down was the peg leg. Then we picked him up at the train station and he's like, man, that walking on crutches, that's it. It sucked. It sucked. Yeah, crutches are no fun. I thought I was in shape. I'm moving along and I'm saying, Glenn, I'm getting tired.
00:24:30
Speaker
There was a four year old kid behind Rich telling to get out of the way. He was moving too slow. Couple of snails were passing me. Needless to say. But that's what we use to film this this lovely podcast. Say the whole set up cost to get going. You know, somebody wanted to do this themselves.
00:24:49
Speaker
Well, this setup? Well, I guess maybe if they're doing a one like a mic. Yeah, I mean, you could do it if you were doing it by yourself. You could just do it with your computer and a microphone or I mean, people do podcasts with just their headphone. Yeah, with their you do need an interface. I'm pretty sure to go into your computer.
00:25:08
Speaker
Mm. I mean, you can record the audio right on your USB mics. Well, you can record it right on your phone with the mic on your headphones. I mean, there's there's a thousand ways. This is like I feel like the is a good budget. I mean, I don't know. I guess it depends on your budget. This is about a little over a thousand bucks. Yeah. It's four hundred dollars worth of mics. Two hundred fifty dollar mixer, six hundred dollar camera. All right. I can't wait to do so. Two thousand. They didn't get they didn't run this to accounting.
00:25:38
Speaker
I have to talk to you about it later on. Sponsorships. We wish. All right. Let's go to the next question, Rich. Are you the kind of woodworkers who change out the table saw blade for a specific cut you're making?
Woodworking Tools Discussion
00:25:55
Speaker
I can tell you where this is going.
00:25:57
Speaker
Meaning do you use a dedicated crosscut blade, ripping blade, plywood blade, or do you prefer single generic general purpose blade for all your tasks? This is Alec from Owlhead Woodwork on Instagram. He's been on this a couple of times with his questions. Yeah, it's woodco. And you were studying this at home? Yeah. Owlhead Woodco. Why couldn't it be wood company? You said works.
00:26:27
Speaker
Did I say Woodworks? Yeah. You know what? I think Woodworks is a little bit better. Alex, another repeat offender. Why don't you change that? Now, think about change. No, I'm not changing the blade because one minute you're cutting hardwood, the next second you're cutting plywood. There's no way you're going to be changing the blade. Now, having a dedicated saw to doing dadoing,
00:26:52
Speaker
That's perfect. That's great. But changing the blade on the table saw, unless you're doing melamine work and you need that kind of a melamine blade, that's a different story. But as far as basic woodworking, there's no way I'm going to change that blade every couple of seconds or minutes.
00:27:10
Speaker
Yeah I mean we keep a combination blade as they're called in the saw which is a crosscut ripping sort of jack of all trades blade. I would definitely like to get a plywood blade for when we're breaking down plywood because typically it'll be a one day of
00:27:27
Speaker
All plywood. Yeah, and I've noticed lately that that blade has been true not to plywood on the other side. Yeah, even the woodworker twos or I mean, they're just not you need more than 40 teeth to cut plywood, basically. Yeah. And that's what's on the. Yeah, it's a 42 rich carbide. T.S. 2000. Yeah, it's a good blade.
00:27:48
Speaker
If we had the room, we're the kind of guys that would be more likely to have a saw. Yeah. Have another table. So just apply with we'd have apply to a table. So. Oh, yeah, I'd love to have a panel. We'd have a cross. So a panel. Yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, a sliding table, a big sliding table. You're a table. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to ask a few questions. And they're back to back. One has the data.
00:28:18
Speaker
blade set up on it. One just has a general purpose. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to use the right blade, the, you know, the best blade for every cut. But here we're a production shop. We have to make a living. So we have to do what is most cost effective and best bang for the buck time versus, you know. So for us, a general purpose blade is the way to go. But
00:28:42
Speaker
But a good, it has to be a good giant carpet place, not a Diablo. Otherwise, there's too much hair out and things like that. Or anything like that. Cobalt or? You got to get a good one. A Avanti Pro 2-pack. What, you got something against the Italians? Those are not Italians. Avanti? They're commandeering, you know, trying to ride the Cobjails. Don't tell me it's China again. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Fuck.
00:29:07
Speaker
Those might not even be made in China. Yeah. What's lower than China as far as manufacturing quality? I don't think anything. Well, I think it depends on the factory, but some of those like central sort of... Central European? I was going to say like where they have like match factories in Africa. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think there's anything lower then.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah, they probably don't have like machinery factories in those lesser developed countries. Yeah. All right. So does that answer the question? And we're, we're a, we're a general purpose, a good general purpose blade. Best we can find when it starts to get dull, we put in another sharp or new. Yeah. Good question. Alec from Owlhead Woodworks.
00:29:56
Speaker
Yeah, we certainly see the benefit of changing them out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. I guess I'll read this. There you go.
Material Sourcing During Pandemic
00:30:03
Speaker
How a contract is getting needed building materials during this pandemic. Walt from Walt Atwood on Instagram asks us.
00:30:12
Speaker
Dumps of diving. That's for a lot of money. That's how they're getting it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, unfortunately, we have been in a situation where there's not a lot of work coming in. So we haven't really experienced any problems with getting materials yet. We've had because we usually keep we keep a lot of material on when we get a hardwood. For example, we have to buy a certain amount
00:30:42
Speaker
to get it delivered here. So we'll order, if it's just a pure maple job, we'll order, superiorly we'll order some oak and we'll order some maple with it. So we'll stockpile a lot of the wood. So thankfully we've been able to use some of that stockpile the last couple of jobs.
00:31:01
Speaker
We did order plywood from one of our suppliers and we didn't have a problem. No. Yeah. So we really haven't. I don't think we've really had a problem yet. No. I'm afraid that if we get a big job in that what the situation is because there is a scarcity on everything out there now. Look at you with the refrigerator.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yeah, everything. Well, I mean, we're in the Northeast, too. It's like we're basically Middletown. Port Monmouth is almost a suburb of New York City. I mean, people here commute to the city of 45 minute ferry ride. So, I mean, we're probably in an area that has a ton of materials compared to, you know, some other places in the country. Yeah. Well, the thing is, we're sort of in a sheltered position in terms of material because
00:31:51
Speaker
Building material, I'm not sure if you're asking specifically like home building material, two by fours, you know, twenty three thirty second plywood, stuff like that. We don't use that kind of stuff, but that's the stuff that's really gone up in price and been in high demand. Yeah. I spoke to our lumber supplier about.
00:32:11
Speaker
I don't know, two weeks ago, three weeks ago. Prices have remained pretty stable for everything that we buy. He did say that it looks like, you know, things like White Oak are going to start going up. I mean, White Oak has been trending up, but it's going to take maybe a little bit of a steeper climb pretty soon.
00:32:30
Speaker
But we've been lucky. The plywood was same price as it was before, you know, pre pandemic or just at the beginning. You know, there's not as much of a demand for the stuff that we buy. Exactly. I mean, F.A.S. roughs on hardwood. Not a lot of guys are buying it. Nobody's ordering a couple of hundred board feet of quarters on some peel.
00:32:49
Speaker
And maybe if we were a like like a manual kitchen manufacturer, we might have problems. I don't know how they have doing. Maybe they are having problems with their supply and demand because our stuff comes from Pennsylvania for the most part. I mean, it's grown in Pennsylvania. It's milled in Pennsylvania. Comes on a truck from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. Not in China. Right. Exactly. And we're one of we're probably like their smallest account.
00:33:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So where's it going with this? I don't remember. They've got plenty of stuff for us. Yeah. Like, you know, we're taking this little sliver of what they have. It's not like they're not going to be like, oh, yeah, we don't have 300 board feet. Yeah. You know, there's guys. I mean, we get the truck. They come. Our material comes on a tractor trailer. So they pull up and this thing might be basically full of wood. And we're just getting a little slice. I mean, we've gotten like
00:33:46
Speaker
A little over a thousand board feet is like the most that we'll really get at a time. Yeah. Which I know that might sound crazy to some people because some people don't use that in a year or two years. But yeah, I mean, we're not buying in such huge quantities where it's really an issue to get. Yeah. Luckily, we haven't had it with screws and all. I don't know. Did you say it was out of the SPACs that we like?
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah. So I guess we are getting hit a little bit because we're running out of some basic supplies. Yeah. But we did see when we built that room and had to buy some two by fours, the price of two by fours is insane. Yeah. Yeah. Almost a dollar a foot. You know, junky stuff, too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It didn't. The material didn't get any better. The price just almost doubled, I guess.
00:34:36
Speaker
I don't know. Well, what's your experience? I mean, do you share the same troubles that we do here? I'm not sure where you're located. Yeah, exactly. I think he's in Pennsylvania. I like to know what he's doing, too. Is he more of a contractor doing dealing with two by fours and things like that? Or is he a woodshop? It depends on your business, too. Yeah, definitely. We got next is from our buddy Tom McGuire. He's a local guy, a couple of towns over.
00:35:06
Speaker
What do you buy for someone that seems to have all the tools he needs?
Gift Ideas for Tool Enthusiasts
00:35:10
Speaker
I think that's in reference to the secret saying I won't give away who Tom got. But yeah, I guess good question for it might be the tool snob in the shop. No. Listen, there is always something you can get. Yeah, he's asking specifically. What do you think?
00:35:27
Speaker
Well, I have checked out the latest Lee Valley Christmas catalog and there's some nice cool things in there. Gadgets. Nice gardening stuff. No, not gardening stuff. There's some. Like a glove that's got claws so you can dig in the dirt. No, my wife bought one of those. I put on my hand and say, what the fuck is this thing? Oh my God. She's my language. I'm a little antsy from being home. They got them all medicated.
00:35:54
Speaker
But no, there are some stuff. There was some woodworking things I saw under twenty five hours. I thought it would be pretty cool. I got the the clingspore. I didn't get that cattle clingspores woodworking shop. I'm not sure what the affiliation is with the sandpaper. Is it the same people? Yeah, I think so. They have that's the shop that's in North Carolina. Yeah. Which I tell you what, I called them one time trying to get sandpaper for our drum sander and they were no help.
00:36:22
Speaker
But I've had another experience where they were helpful, so I don't know. Maybe she was having a bad day. I think it was miles craft sand plane. Did you see that? That was super cool. So it's a little block that takes a five inch sanding disc that you use on your orbital sander and it has like four or five different profiles that you can attach to the bottom. So it has a convex one, a concave one, like a V shape.
00:36:51
Speaker
I thought that was cool. I think I'm 99. Yeah. All right. Pickles up for myself. There are some things in there you could you could find him at the point, you know, if you know a guy has everything, he's everything he's got. That's when you got to start getting a little cup, a couple of gadget kind of tools. You know, I think and you guys, you'll agree, especially on this books.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah, I just look so great. Yes, you know, whether it's for instruction or inspiration, sometimes it's personal inspiration. It could be like, you know, maybe you want to read a book by, you know,
00:37:30
Speaker
A woodworker, Kranov or somebody like that. Well strictly books and maybe it's something that's just like somebody who's had adversity or like a motivational kind of thing. I read in those like lookbooks. Yeah. That just sort of just photos of design architecture. Those are super inspirational. The fine woodworking like the Taunton Press is good for the picture book. Yeah.
00:37:55
Speaker
So there are there are gifts out there. You just got to you just got to realize you just got to look for it. I was going to say like so let's say it's a secret saying in the limits. Twenty five bucks. Find something that everybody has that's like five bucks. But find that one that's like really good. It costs twenty five. The twenty five dollar bottle opener. Well, like woodworking like a instead of like a two ninety nine countersink. Get a fuller countersink. Exactly. Exactly. There's one right there.
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah. You know what else is good are those tweezers. Yeah. That was really good. Yeah. You got to cut a couple of them because they disappear. 26 and one screwdriver. Yeah. There you go. Stylist Pro flashlight. Avera screwdriver. Yeah. Got the micro jig.
00:38:41
Speaker
Grip block. Yeah. See him back there on the joiner. Those things are priceless, really. I mean, the way they. Yeah. Actually, I just have opener from two bit woodworking. Yeah. Yeah. I saw it here. The Green Street joinery gift certificate. Yeah. I just remembered I have a question that's not on here. Brian, I forget his last name on Instagram. He was asking about he's looking for a new joiner.
00:39:04
Speaker
And he's wondering about helical versus straight blades what we think And I I I Sent him a little video of our our Oliver. So we have an Oliver 42 40 It's a 10-inch joiner that came with straight blades and we put a she looks head on it and you can buy They don't make this particular model anymore, but you can buy a 10-inch Oliver with the she looks head I
00:39:30
Speaker
These Oliver, I mean, this is the only Oliver tool I've used. That thing is bulletproof. Yeah. It's set. I mean, it holds its settings. You never really have week.
00:39:41
Speaker
We run all of our material through there. It basically just stays at one thirty second or one thirty second light. And that's it. You turn it on. You use it. You turn it off. You don't have to think about it. It's always parallel. It's always square. Yeah. I mean, we edge glue all our tops and everything. And for the most part,
00:40:02
Speaker
We're not using any kind of, you know, mechanical or other type of fast or no biscuits, no dominoes, we're just edge glue on a two jointed surfaces. And I mean, yeah, you're right. It's like it makes it seem almost too easy.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah, because I've worked on a real shoddy joiner and it. It's not shoddy from the factory, just. No, I mean, it probably wasn't a great joiner to start out with anyway, like an eight inch delta or something. Right. I know that one. Yeah, man. For the life of me, I couldn't get a good finish. Two points to go. No, I fixed that machine a number of times to level it out. And it just kept just once. I know.
00:40:47
Speaker
Well, that thing was always getting moved around, too. Yeah. That would be set to like three sixteenths. Yeah. Taking a giant bite of straight blades. No patience over there. No. Well, when you buy, you know, the cheapest wood possible, you have to take off three sixteenths four times to get a freaking flat face. I'm not going to mention who that is. Everybody knows.
00:41:06
Speaker
So, yeah, I would say check out the Oliver stuff, Oliver. I mean, they make nice. Yeah, we're really happy with it. I mean, if you know old machines, you know the Oliver name. I mean, they were those big 24 inch Oliver joiners. We had a place I worked. We had a big Oliver. We had all Oliver table source. Yeah. I never seen anything like these old ones like the 40s. Unbelievable. What a massive piece of equipment. And the way they the way they had these
00:41:36
Speaker
the way to change the settings and all that. There was like these indentations in the tabletop. It was really weird, but it was so such a solid machine. Yeah. Well, before we move on, let's just touch on the difference between the helical and the helical pad.
00:41:55
Speaker
Yeah, so since we switched over, obviously difficult grain is much easier to deal with. You can go reversing grain with the right feed speed on this and you really get no tear out. It's much quieter. The chips are a lot smaller.
00:42:14
Speaker
And it's easier. Yeah. I mean, I used to be sore after joining because again, we'll join 300 board feet, face and edge joint 300 board feet of of wood in a day sometimes. And I used to be tired. It's hell on your knees because you're really pushing with your with your legs a lot of times.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yeah, there's no feeder or anything like that. Yeah. And Oliver has a great video of their 16 inch joiner with a power feeder. Man, that would be sweet. Yeah. Yeah, we'd find room for that, wouldn't we? Oh, yeah. I would love a nice Oliver if you're listening. Nice 16 inch Oliver joiner right there. Well, the thing that I mean, it wouldn't take up that much more space because the thing that's really nice about this 10 inch is that the bed is seven feet long. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing that makes
00:43:03
Speaker
jointing, you know, easier. You have to have a long bed. Yeah. That's like I see those little tabletop, like a four inch joiner. And I'm thinking to myself, like, how does that even work? Because the reference surface is so small. It's only like craft stuff that you can't. Yeah. Even eight or 10 inches on either side. You're better off making a joining jig on your table. So I feel with the.
00:43:25
Speaker
All right. So definitely go save the money and buy the helical head if it's a matter of cost. There's no comparison. Yeah. And if you can't, if you want to get the joiner, get the head after. I mean, we sold the the straight blades on this for a hundred bucks or something. Yeah. Yeah. Which I mean, it's the head itself costs like a thousand. Yeah. So you're not making your money back. But
00:43:51
Speaker
Well, we got a little bit back. We saw the head, the two sets of blades, a little money. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I hope that helps. We got Kevin. I'll take this because, oh, man, now I forgot how to say his last name. The way you would think. Yeah. OK. I had to check with Kevin because.
00:44:12
Speaker
I've been friends with Kevin on Instagram for a while now and I see his name all the time. It's one of those things. I don't know how I'm not positive on how to say it. So this is from Kevin Pardelli. Pardelli Wood working on Instagram. Super skilled guy up in Canada. What's your favorite little trick or method you're using in the shop right now? There's a little trick I use.
00:44:39
Speaker
And especially when I'm working on my my bench and I have my computer on, there's a way that I can actually prop myself
Starting a Furniture-Making Apprenticeship
00:44:47
Speaker
up and put the computer on and my back is to everybody and I can actually fall asleep for a little while. And then I don't even know I'm sleeping. That's that's we think he's work. That's that's when you're doing the accounting. Yeah, exactly. So that's a little trick that well, now it's I can't do it anymore. It goes down with cats out of the bag. Now you're just sleeping at home.
00:45:07
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. But tricks. You should mull it over. Let's give you a go. I don't have anything. I got one. Yeah, I don't know if it's a trick or not, but I like a scraper. You know, it's something I go to instead. It's it's before I go to sanding. You like scraping. Kevin is a fucking phenom. I was amazed with how he was scraping stuff. Yeah.
00:45:36
Speaker
It blew my mind. I thought I had a nice my scraper was set up nice. I like felt totally emasculated when I saw it. I would probably experience the same thing. I'm a hack scraper, but I do like the scraper as a as a you know, a pre sanding step. I don't like to sand to get out like machine marks and things like that. I like to go straight to my little scraper and then go to sanding. So that's my tip.
00:46:06
Speaker
What do you want me to go? Go. Can't think of one. I can't. This is one that I thought of that I'm not sure who I picked it up from. But if you're running like when we build doors, we run a groove down, you know, the entire style, you know, that the tenant will fit into and the panel will fit into. So our panel and our and our tenant are the same width.
00:46:29
Speaker
and we have one inch stock and I want to run a three, let's say three eighths inch or a half inch wide groove. Usually what you would do is you would set up your fence so that the blade was a quarter inch from and you, let's just say you had a, you're going to do two passes so it's perfectly centered. You have a three eighths inch wide, you have a quarter inch
00:46:50
Speaker
Now I'm confusing everyone. You're doing a half inch wide groove and you have a three-eighths inch wide dado stack in the saw. So rather than setting your fence a quarter inch from the blade, set it so that on the far left side, away from the blade, that way if your piece comes away from the fence towards the left,
00:47:16
Speaker
You're going into waste material. You're not going into the part that you're keeping. There you go. Little, little hard to explain. Maybe we'll make a little YouTube video about that. No, I get it. I get it. I have one too, but I can't explain it. Well, I'll try. Does it have to do with sleeping on the job? No, no, it has to do with the joiner when I'm joining edges on a tabletop. I got alternate. Oh, there you go. I'll walk on the board face.
00:47:45
Speaker
and an X and the face, meaning the one goes against the, uh, defense defense. And the next one I do, I do it opposite in case the, uh, the, uh, the fence itself has any kind of deviation and it's not from 90. Yeah. So it'll, they'll always match up to one or another.
00:48:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good that's a good rule. I always do that. Yeah, especially if you're doing things like panels and every and stuff like that. We want that super, super tight seam and the sleeping one. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of times with a joiner, you know, you'll be square. You won't be square across the whole fence. So even if you have it set up perfectly square, you might be square in the center and a little bit one way at this end and a little bit one way at the other end. So it's a little bit of insurance in case. Yeah, because the the mass some flex. Yeah.
00:48:37
Speaker
So those are the tricks of Drake? Yeah. Wow, giving them all away. I got plenty of tricks. I just learned some new ones.
00:48:45
Speaker
Oh, this is this is a great question. Yeah. About to start a furniture making apprenticeship and would love some advice. This is from Jack. Jack Thornton, 98 on Instagram. Before we even get to it, I'll just say congratulations. Yeah, it's just another repeat offender. Yeah. I guess I would say envious in a way like I could imagine going back to that time and having that opportunity and
00:49:15
Speaker
Oh yeah, 98. Is that how old you are, Jack? Because that's pretty young. That's 18 years after I graduated high school. Yeah, that's nine years after I was born.
00:49:27
Speaker
How do you want to go there? So I guess I guess I'll be first. What what's advice? I would say advice on any learning experiences to I mean, here's here's what I'll say. You're going to get out of it what you put into it. That's with anything. And if I know it's kind of a
00:49:51
Speaker
generic vague kind of thing, but it's also pretty specific in in an inverse way. You're going to get out of it what you put into it 100% in 100% out. Yeah. Yeah, I would say the way I sort of learn things as quick as I did is
00:50:11
Speaker
Dive in head first. When you go home, don't put on the TV and watch a TV show. Go on YouTube, put on a video, learn how to do something else. You have to constantly try and learn. Read books. Talk to other guys. You need to be at it 24-7, basically. If you really want to learn and learn quick, you got to devote yourself to it. That's what an apprenticeship really is. It's not a thing that really, at least in the US, that
00:50:41
Speaker
happens anymore. You know, this is like a lifelong endeavor where you're undertaking this task to learn for you furniture making.
00:50:53
Speaker
Yeah. Apprentices in the in the I mean, I don't know when it really ended, but let's say 100 years ago, they're going to be living with the teacher. That's right. They live basically in the shop. You're cleaning up the shop. You you're spending all your time there. So like Rob said, you got to put in the work. Exactly.
00:51:15
Speaker
Yeah, I hope you did your homework to where you're going to be doing this apprenticeship because you do want to go with somebody who's reputable because you don't want to be stuck in an apprenticeship program that you're not getting anything out of it. So hopefully this is as you do it. You did your diligent homework. And my last thing to say to you is enjoy the fucking ride. Yeah, that's all man. Enjoy it.
00:51:40
Speaker
Yeah, I was a teacher for a little while and I would say the students that I enjoyed most were enthusiastic, were actively involved and they challenged me to be a better teacher.
00:52:00
Speaker
I have a degree in history and I taught history and English. But in New York City, they would have something called Saturday School and it would be something for kids to catch up. And so I taught math on Saturday School and I was like two pages ahead of the kids. Every day I'd go in there and pray that those those good students wouldn't ask me something that I couldn't answer. But
00:52:30
Speaker
those were the best students, the ones that would say, Mr. B, what happens if this, you know, occurs? And every now and again, you would have to fess up and say, you know, we're going to tackle that next Saturday. But yeah, as as Jeff, that's a tack on to what Jeff was saying. You go home, you see something on a video that leads you to a second and third video. You go into work the next day.
00:52:59
Speaker
and you ask your mentor and his response will tell you a lot. This is piggybacking off of Rich's response. If he's the kind of guy that says, no,
00:53:14
Speaker
I'll tell you what you're learning and when you're learning it or this is the only way to do something then you might not be in the best situation because there's not from for the most part there's not only one way to get what you want as far as results.
00:53:30
Speaker
Yeah, and you have to realize that there is no perfect teacher and there may never be the perfect apprenticeship. So don't expect someone else to make it everything it needs to be for you. You got to put in the work yourself and you may.
00:53:45
Speaker
take the lessons you, let's say this guy sucks, take those lessons and learn for yourself using those negative experiences for a positive. We've all learned something from working together at a shop that we mock most of the time because of the bad habits and the behaviors that are there. But it's, as Jeff said, you learn not to do things that way. And when you get an opportunity, you do things the way you choose.
00:54:14
Speaker
Yeah, like Rob said, ask questions and learn when to ask questions the right time to ask questions. You don't want to ask questions nonstop constantly. Sometimes you have to just do something. Do the work. Yeah. Yes, I'm happy for you, Keith. I was Keith. Jack. Jack. Good luck. Check back with us. Let us know how you're doing. And did you send that candy out to us yet? No, that was Miles. That was Miles. That was Jack. That's Eat, Drink, Wine guy. But he's from Australia, too.
00:54:42
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think Jack is from Australia. I think he maybe he's from New Zealand. OK, it's just as good. But that might not be true at all. Same area. Yeah, a little bit further down under. Yeah. And we'd like to come down and visit you. Is it? I thought New Zealand was north of Australia. No, it's south of Australia. Where did the thing go?
00:55:04
Speaker
It's right the south the southern island of New Zealand abuts the great ice wall that holds the options in that's where NASA stands guard Yeah, like Game of Thrones any pesky people around We're globe towards yeah, yeah If you know what that means reach out
00:55:29
Speaker
Oh man. Here's a good one. This is from my buddy Brad down in Georgia. I met Brad at WorkbenchCon. Share a bad experience with a client or vendor and what you learned from it.
Managing Client Interactions
00:55:42
Speaker
Brad the naughty log on Instagram. I believe he's on YouTube as well.
00:55:48
Speaker
I didn't learn from my last bad experience, but I just I got fed up and I didn't explain this. I was involved with one of these services that every time somebody calls, they ding you and then you have to pay twenty five or thirty five dollars for the lead.
00:56:07
Speaker
So, yeah, lead generator. Yeah, lead generator plan. I'm not going to tell you who it is. It's one of the big ones out there. And I went on this job to do this crown molding in this gentleman's house by myself, which is fine. I can I have tricks to do crown molding by myself. So I did all the crown molding and then he holds up a couple of days later, a seam opened up because it was more than a 16 foot length.
00:56:36
Speaker
And I didn't get back to the guy right away. So he right away, he complained to a home advisor. I said it, you know, home advisor was very nice to us in Las Vegas. Yes, they were. And so they sent me a scathing note saying that when you get it back to this guy and all that, we're going to drop it. I don't want to.
00:56:56
Speaker
I must have been in a bad mood at that point in time. And I said to you, you know what? I'm not going back. So that was a pain. Yes. I'm not going back. You want to drop me? Drop me. And that's what they did. That's not the rich I know and love. Yeah. No. But you know what? Sometimes a person can really get under your skin. And I have a breaking point just like everybody else. There you go. I mean, it had paint cracks. Things open up. That's what happened. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:26
Speaker
He wanted me replace the whole thing instead of trying to fill the gap. And he was just he constantly kept calling me and I just couldn't get get there to fix it right away. And he went right behind my back and called the company up. Yeah. So screw you.
00:57:41
Speaker
There you go. Yeah, it's a client worth losing. Yes, exactly. Unfortunately. When I put this question down here on the sheet, I tried to think real quick of an example. I couldn't think of one offhand. I mean, one that just pops into my head. When we first got together, there's two main plywood suppliers in our area. There's a Pheasant Hall and Atlantic plywood.
00:58:05
Speaker
Now, Atlantic plywood, we got in touch with them about getting some material because we had, I forget what we had coming up. Maybe you're planning the church job and we were actually, I think we were still looking for a hardwood supplier at this time and they do sell hardwood. It's, you know, half-assed at best, I'd say. So they send their rep out guy that we
00:58:30
Speaker
Hadn't met before, the previous shop we worked in used both of those companies so we knew some of those reps and whatnot. So he comes out, meets with us, we talk, we order some material. Wasn't his name Mike or something like that? Anthony. A couple times we order material.
00:58:50
Speaker
We had some issues with an order and, you know, I would reach out to him and say, hey, Anthony, you know, we're looking for this. Do you have it? Whatever. Doesn't get back to me. I mean, he just basically brushed us off like because we were I mean, we don't we use more hardwood than plywood. We don't buy a lot of plywood. Yeah. Unless we're building the kitchen. There's not a lot of plywood, really, in most of our projects. Just basically the casework.
00:59:20
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, that put a real bad taste in my mouth. I know that we've basically stuck to Fez now. Yeah. He never got back to us at all. He never stopped by. He never called us. He never gave us any swag.
00:59:34
Speaker
Yeah, never checked in. I mean, you're the and he was a new he was a new. Yeah. Yeah. We weren't worth his time. Right. I mean, we we could be in that position, too. Any business can. But it's. It's not really courteous, ethical or any of those things to treat
01:00:01
Speaker
Small customers small clients any differently than a large customer client You know, we'll all be on both sides of that coin probably in our lives and It's it's always good. It comes back to you. I think yeah either way What about what about bad clients can you guys think of any I mean a rich I had a horrible client before I knew you guys I
01:00:29
Speaker
When I first started back, I was even working in the basement. So this is like right at the beginning when I thought medieval times. Yeah. Go into business. So my wife has this friend for like 20 something years. Really close friend. I'll tell you how close.
01:00:53
Speaker
When my wife and I got married the first time, we got married once outside the church and once inside. I did the same thing. Yeah. So. Suckers. Yeah. So we got married at her friend's apartment in Rockaway.
01:01:12
Speaker
So it's, you know, just me, my wife, my wife's friends, the cup, their couple and my aunt was, was there. I think it was your best pieces of this. What's that? Who's your best man? You'd never bet. No, I didn't have one. I just had my aunt there for me. I didn't have one either. I did. When I went to, uh, I went to the mayor, we had one of those hippie weddings, you know, where the vows were flowers. Yeah, basically right. Your own vows. Yeah.
01:01:38
Speaker
Yeah. So you remember I'd like to hear this. So we had. So this is how close we my wife is to these people. Now, I don't really know him that well, but I know him through my wife for a couple of months. So they decide they're going to hire me to do this job.
01:02:01
Speaker
And I give them a nice sweetheart. This is my wife's good friends. We got married in their house and they live about an hour's drive from where we are. So I drive not an easy hour. No, it's tough driving into New York. Yeah, it's about as bad as it gets.
01:02:19
Speaker
So now the husband, he's always at work. I go there and I redo some things in their bedroom. I build a bed frame and they have a water bed mattress and
01:02:34
Speaker
They every time I'm there, they're like, you know, Rob, why are there? Could you hang these blinds for me? Handyman, Rob. Exactly. So it's like I'm there for four or five days and I come home every time and I'm like, tell my wife, yeah, you know, every time I'm there, I got to do this. I got to do that. I can't charge a 12 hour day with. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, just, you know, do it for me. All right. All right.
01:03:05
Speaker
Finally, I wrap up this job and I go home and maybe about a month later, the husband, the, no, the wife emails me and says, you know, the bed squeaking like that. I don't know what this I did. I built a headboard, which is fast into the wall. Okay. So I was like, that really doesn't have anything to do with me. It didn't squeak before.
01:03:35
Speaker
like oh god doesn't even touch them i mean yeah barely touches them so of course i had to go back there i couldn't find anything to you know do i tried let's recreate the squeak right yeah so i went back home
01:03:53
Speaker
And then I got the angry email from the husband. And he's like, what kind of business person are you? This and the other side, I'm like, oh man, what am I gonna do now? Now I'm only in business for a couple of months. I thought maybe this isn't for me, you know, if this is the way it's gonna go down. So he's pissed off because you couldn't find the squeak? Yeah, and I couldn't rectify the situation. So I said, all right, now this is like,
01:04:22
Speaker
mid-November. It's about this time of year, almost. I said, I'm gonna be in Brooklyn for Thanksgiving to see my aunt. I will come over there. This is less than two weeks. He writes back.
01:04:37
Speaker
That's unacceptable. This, you know, next thing I know, I get a summons in the mail. He's taken me to small claims court in Queens of all places. I got to go. So this is a guy at the long story short. It's too late for that.
01:04:54
Speaker
He knew he'd done this before. He knew how to do this. So I get to small claims court with my date in New York. It's very crowded. So they put you with an arbitrator. Yeah. Yes. They don't want to take it. So the arbitrator says to now we're all in the same room. He tells the guy there's no case here.
01:05:16
Speaker
Let's just settle this and not take up anybody's time. He was suing me for $1,300, which is what he said. He paid somebody to come and fix it. What? Yeah. Probably less than you charge him to freaking make it. No, but it was. Yeah. So I said, I'll give him half just to make him go away. He said, no, I want my day in court.
01:05:42
Speaker
So a month goes by, I go back to court, he shows up with an attorney. And I'm sitting there, and the wife of this guy, he's looking straight ahead, won't look at my wife in the eye, my wife came. So the guy says, the judge now hears everything, and he says to the guy, there's no case here.
01:06:12
Speaker
There's no, I'm going to rule in favor of the defendant. Um, and the guy has a conference with his lawyer and they, I can't remember exactly how they phrase it, but it's, they're going to bring new charges.
01:06:30
Speaker
and so at this point in time everybody in the court that works for the court feels so bad for me that they're giving me advice and they say yes he can do this up to three times and then I can countersue for harassment and anyway he knew how to game the system this guy so
01:06:49
Speaker
I said, if I, so I say out loud in court. So, so if I give this guy the money, will he go away and he could never call me and this and that. And the judge literally says to this guy goes, would you like the defendant to pay for lunch too?
01:07:08
Speaker
And so I paid this guy $1,300 to go away. What a jackass. Yeah. And off camera. I hope he's not alive anymore. Off camera. We will discuss.
01:07:23
Speaker
You may get some of them. That was the one and only thank God bad experience I had was right at the beginning of my my business enterprise and left left me shell shocked for quite a while. I have to say that I I thought, oh, my God, is this what people can do to you? Oh, yeah. Yeah, unfortunately, they can.
01:07:49
Speaker
And so you are sort of you can be victimized. And, you know, we hear a lot of stories. Mostly it's the contractors victimizing clients, but it can go the other way. And there are a lot of savvy people out there that know how to beat down an honest contractor who just doesn't have the time or the stomach to go through this, because it is it really eat you up inside when you feel persecuted like that for doing nothing.
01:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, which brings the importance of which is something I've talked about to Brad specifically is the importance of having not necessarily a contract, but something in writing that lays out the specifics of the job, what is included, what's not included. That way, if you do get taken to court on some sort of bogus.
01:08:38
Speaker
thing, you have a little bit of protection. And as you know, I don't know how you if you've seen them before, but like the way I wrote up a job when you got your crosses every day, it dots every eye. Now, there's there's no leeway in what we write up and draw up for any of this. Yeah, I sent Brad over our our templates.
01:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the exclusion list, it's you know, I'll I'll pack that exclusion list to the Hill. Yeah. Yeah. Anything not specifically quoted is and I see. Yes. Yes. So I guess the part we sort of skimmed over, which is the the meat of the question is what did you learn from it? Yeah. What we just said, you know, I don't I don't work for friends and family anymore.
01:09:31
Speaker
There's no more good guy. I'm doing this. You can't do that anymore. And for everybody and be real thorough with your contract. Don't take anything for granted. And that was my inexperience showing through. And they took advantage of it. They took advantage of my.
01:09:58
Speaker
You know generosity through the job and then they they knew how to get at me after the job so Let it be a lesson learned for you And we've been I've been doing this now for almost 20 years since and Had nothing but glowing things to say about my client list. Yeah We're good friends with a lot of them. Yeah, it ties into a
01:10:27
Speaker
Question we got coming up. All right. Whoo, that kind of shook me up a little bit. I can see that. You got this next one, Rich.
Coordinating with Trades
01:10:34
Speaker
How do you handle coordinating with other trades? For example, receptacle locations. This is from Zachary, trimming out on Instagram. All right. We don't really...
01:10:49
Speaker
We haven't had any prana jobs where, no, that's not true. We did have a job. We also had the job over here in... Yeah, the church, right? Yeah, I mean, we haven't had a problem with dealing with other trades at all, with Nora, with an H. So we really haven't had a problem with, we've been pretty lucky. We're congenial. No, he's asking, how do you coordinate?
01:11:18
Speaker
Well, we just call them up and tell them we're going to be here this particular day. And this is what we're going to be doing. And this is the setup or maybe we send them a picture of what we're doing. So this is where we need the outlets to be. But that's basically it. Yeah, I'd say over communicate just like the contract. Don't leave anything out to question. If you want the outlet, if you're building the kitchen, you want the outlet there, there, there.
01:11:43
Speaker
Market on the wall take a picture send the measurements a sketch of drawing something Don't let don't leave anyone to their own devices because as much as as it's not your job It's gonna affect your job So if you need to put in an extra 20 minutes of effort to make it crystal clear to somebody I say do it It's it it pays for itself every time
01:12:04
Speaker
We put in the kitchen anytime there's an island. It's almost always going to have power in it nowadays. Marked right on the floor. This is where power is going to come up. We're going to put in a new window. Marked right on the wall. This is where the cabinet line is going to start and stop.
01:12:23
Speaker
This is where the cabinets coming on the ceiling. Don't put a light in the ceiling. Too close so that a door is going to open up and hit it. Yeah, where the light is half behind the upper cabinet. Experience is the great teacher here.
01:12:44
Speaker
But yeah, take that advice. We love to talk to the trades beforehand. We like to communicate. We like to do whatever we can to make their job easier and our job better.
01:13:01
Speaker
I'd probably put it more like that. We wanted to look and function as good as possible for the client. So we'll work harder as long as we can get the other guy to prep the site for us.
01:13:20
Speaker
That's it. Unless you got gift, gift baskets work pretty good, too. Yeah. Yeah. Cash. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, be nice. Exactly. Don't be a dick. You catch more flies with with honey than vinegar. Yeah. Yeah.
01:13:34
Speaker
Yeah, no turf wars. No, no. I mean. Jets in the shocks. Yeah. Are you a shock or a jet? When you're a jet. Back to this. This is for rich right here. This kind of ties in with Brad's a little bit, you know, in regards with clients. Me? Yeah, you. I'm horrible at saying no to clients and family.
When to Decline Projects or Clients
01:14:00
Speaker
Have you dealt with saying no to projects or people that you don't want to deal with? Sal, Sal the carpenter on Instagram, the Jersey guy. Well, as far as clients you don't want to deal with or you have just a bad feeling about it, overpriced the job. Yeah, that's they call that the F.U. price. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. See, I'm a little more direct than that.
01:14:28
Speaker
I've told plenty of people I don't think we're a right fit for the job. There you go. Because, hey, money's not everything. You don't want that job even at the FU price. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Because it could cost you. That's the kind of person that takes you to court over a squeaky bed that has nothing to do with you. That's true. Exactly. Yeah. So you know what? The ball's in your court.
01:14:50
Speaker
You're the one that's going to do the work. So don't worry about the client. If you don't want to work with them, don't work with them. It's better if you don't. And there's always a way to say no and be courteous at the same time. Saying no isn't rude in and of itself. We don't have an obligation to work for anyone. No. Clining a job is well within all of our rights and being polite is the easiest route. Yeah. If there's a
01:15:20
Speaker
legitimate reason for the no, like aside from a personality conflict or someone that's, you know, obviously difficult. We straight up tell the client, if they want something like this, well, we can't build it like that because of these reasons. So, you know, in situations like that, it's very easy to explain why we can't do something a particular way, which in turn, a lot of times for the client means that we can't do the job.
01:15:46
Speaker
We want to be able to put our name on the job. Right. So if they're requiring us to do compromise our principles in any way. Yeah, like the church in South River. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're not going to just slap it together because you called. You could always just tell the client, you know, I'm really sorry. I just don't think I'm right for this job.
01:16:11
Speaker
I've done that. Yeah. Then it wouldn't take your client because the husband started calling me about coming down on the price and this and that. I finally turned around and say, you know what? I really can't do this job. It shocked the hell out of the lady. I said, listen, I just, we've all had, we've all had the stocker client that can't take no for an answer.
01:16:33
Speaker
Oh, why not? I know what your husband has for me about lowering the price. I just don't want to do the job.
01:16:43
Speaker
Yeah. Every now and again, it happens. Relatives is different story. Right. Yes. We know Rich cannot say no. Yes. We hope that helps. It might take 18 years, but it'll get done.
Workshop Upgrades and Space Challenges
01:17:02
Speaker
All right. What's the next shop upgrade? Adam Farout Woodworks on Instagram asks us. Oh, Rich, you had an idea about this.
01:17:14
Speaker
You're talking like a stand up panel saw or a like a sliding table saw. I'd like a sliding table saw too. I know some people call that a panel saw. I'd like a sliding table saw but a nice good industrial panel saw. I just don't know where in hell we would put it. Yeah. I had one. Is there. Is there an accurate panel saw though or is it a rough
01:17:40
Speaker
I've used a panel saw in one of my places I worked at and it was great. Did it have a Milwaukee circular saw on it? I actually had a friend who built one himself with that whole get up and he had a Milwaukee saw on it.
01:17:57
Speaker
Did it lock down the plywood in place? Yeah. It was an old one. It was an old one because all the pieces were cut up because people didn't know to turn them this way and that way and all that. Yeah, those things get abused after a while. It's like when you cut the wing on your miter saw. Exactly. Exactly. I've done that. I remember.
01:18:19
Speaker
Now we have a new song. I just saw some really nice ones out there. The one I have was one of those that you'd find at like the Home Depot or Lowe's. To me the track saw is a more versatile tool because you can use it for that end.
01:18:39
Speaker
Cause either way, you got to pull that sheet out. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes there's a pain in the ass, putting it behind the, uh, the two poles running down that guide the table, the, uh, saw.
01:18:51
Speaker
That's what I found. It wasn't accurate enough. And there was way too much tear out. Like I use it to break down plywood for a minute and a half. But you got to, you know, oversize everything. And then so it was adding a step and not saving me enough as far as, you know, humping that whole sheet in here by myself. I mean,
01:19:17
Speaker
to fit the room we have here. No, we can't put a panel. So I had it right where we keep the plywood now outside. Yeah. And that, that's why that's standing up. Yeah. That's why it's open like that over there. But a nice, uh, yeah, I think I would upgrade the, uh, table saw to a bigger slider. Well, you're going to get rid of my bench. You're gonna get rid of that. So I'll stop. No, I'd make it to get the version up.
01:19:43
Speaker
Oh the big uh yeah yeah yeah get rid of your bench you don't use it. What about your uh what do you think? Wow um you know we finally got and I hesitate to even say it because it's been such a a roller coaster ride but
01:20:03
Speaker
Our wide belt, the 37 inch wood master. Yeah, it's a drum sander. We call them Barry. Now we've done everything possible to this thing and it's finally, finally doing its job. But for most of the tools that I would see, the machines I would see really enjoying,
01:20:31
Speaker
We don't have the facility for it here. We either don't have the footprint or we don't have three-phase power. For those of you who don't know, this is like a less than a thousand square foot shop behind my house, which just happens to be zoned commercial.
Power Limitations and Solutions
01:20:49
Speaker
So we probably could get three phase, but we'd be paying to have it run to the show. Yeah, yeah. There's three phase power right here. Right there at the grocery store. Sure. Yeah, they could bring it in. But, you know, it's we'd have to put up another building. Yeah. New panel. Yeah. Have a hundred amp service. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's only two hundred amps coming into the property. Yeah. Which is pretty good. Yeah.
01:21:16
Speaker
You know, luckily it's there's not much going on in the house during the day, so it's not a big draw. Yeah, for me, I think with what we had, you know, keeping in mind the limitations of the shop, I think a new new planer maybe would be nice. Yeah. This planer works pretty well. But it does leave snipe and you have to tune it up and it doesn't keep tune. So
01:21:46
Speaker
to fit in with the limitations of the drum sander, I think a new planer would be. I still want the line boring machine. But yeah, I'd probably agree with that. You know, I'd really like to try one where the bed is stationary. Oliver makes one of those. And so the cutter head moves up and down. So you could have a nice outfeed. I don't know why. To me, that seems like the much better.
01:22:09
Speaker
Choice. And I don't know why it's it's so rare in the production miles, if it's it has to just be more production. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I guess to lower the motor as opposed to lowering the table rate low and raising the table is probably a lot easier to do that this way.
01:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, you probably have to be a lot stronger at the top. Yeah. Versus this. Yeah, because you don't want to have it to wobble or anything like that, because that's if that's on some kind of mechanism that brings it up and down the tendency for if you hit something really hard, it might call on you. Wack it, whack itself out. Don't they know? No, it's my daughter. Podcast time. She wants something built. Let's let's see. Pick it up. Go ahead. Let's let's say yes. Yes.
01:22:57
Speaker
Oh, you need a new piece of furniture? No. You're just talking about you. Yeah, I don't know. Those Oliver planers look pretty nice. Yeah. We were talking about the Grizzly 25 inch. Nice. 25 inch planer would be nice. We have a 20 inch planer. Or one of those wide belt planer combos. Yeah. Yeah.
01:23:25
Speaker
But again, probably three phase. Yeah, that's always it. Footprint and power consumption. I mean, these are all compromises you got to make when you're running a small business like ours. Yeah. Now, Adam is a hand tool woodworker. So he's got no such. What's your next upgrade? Yeah. Yeah. It is an electric at all. I don't know. We want to hear. I mean, I don't think it works in the dark.
01:23:54
Speaker
Oh, a candle. He uses one of those like whale blubber lamps. Yeah, it could be propane.
01:24:05
Speaker
Well, steam power. That's the last of our viewer questions of the week. Yeah. They were good questions, too. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed the ones this week. Yeah. Yeah. Except the one about the lawsuit. Boy, that I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight. I know you had to bring up bad memories. You know, that's going to. Thanks, Brad. I might. I might start having to make a few phone calls. You know,
01:24:31
Speaker
You know what I mean. You know what guy? I do actually. That's the problem.
01:24:40
Speaker
a little too excited. I was going to ask you ethnicity and if you know how to answer that question, ask that question. Pretend I'm thin ice. Yeah. Well, beer of the week. Rob, what do you think? I like it. You know, your stomach's hurting, you know, you know, I didn't finish it today because I've had like a really bad headache all day. So I've been trying to stay hydrated. Maybe what you need is that and one more. Yeah.
01:25:09
Speaker
I should have brought you some of my medication. I've been on Excedrin, Pepto Bismol all day. I've been seeing you swinging that Pepto. So, but I like it. I really enjoy. I love the look of the bottle. I love the label. I like the name. So all the aesthetics are very pleasing. And I really like the taste of it. It's crisp. It's, you know, kind of got that that bitter kind of. Yeah. That bite that I kind of like. So.
01:25:40
Speaker
It's good. Reminds me of like fat tire almost. Very similar to that. I've had some beers from Bell's. Never had this one, but I would definitely drink this again. Very good. Yeah, I liked it. I'm on my second one, so. Yeah, me too. We don't have any for the Patreon section. I ain't going back and forth on sips. No.
01:26:04
Speaker
We don't have anything left over. Wasn't that raspberry beer in there? No, Rob poured out the raspberry beer. There were two beers I had. What about the maple syrup beer? They exploded. When I loaded up the refrigerator, went out there, everything was frozen solid. Oh, yeah, probably got real cold outside. No, it was weird. It got like the freezer wasn't working and everything in like the half and half froze solid. What about the whole gardens and the sminex? Yeah, the beer popped the top off.
01:26:35
Speaker
So all the beer got destroyed. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. We're just finding out about that now. Something a little fishy about that. Yeah, that's what happened. All right. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. And my ice cream melted. You know, beer can go warm and then get cold again. It blew the top right off the bottle. You could just take another drink. Could you put in a little thing and cut the top on it?
01:26:59
Speaker
I don't care about that maple brown syrup beer. That I just poured out before I even brought the refrigerator out. I'm okay with that. My refrigerator broke on Thanksgiving. So I had the commandeer, the mini shop fridge and that's up on the porch. Nice three cubic footer.
01:27:19
Speaker
because I got tired of walking to the shop in the morning for my half and half. And because everything comes from China, I couldn't get a refrigerator replacement until tomorrow, a full one week. And I had to pay through the nose to get it. That sucks. I can almost guarantee, though, your fridge isn't being made in China. A lot of a lot of the appliances now are being made in Thailand. This air conditioner Vietnam. Oh, yeah. This air conditioner that you see. Yeah, you can see it right here. This LG, you got an LG, right?
01:27:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I can't remember now. I can almost guarantee it's not made in China. They're moving a lot. It seems like a lot of the appliance stuff for some reasons moving out of China to Thailand, Malaysia. You see like a lot of the batteries and stuff for tools are made in Malaysia now. All right. Hopefully it's better quality.
01:28:10
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, we'd like you know us. We want to see stuff. We want to see production come back to America.
Supporting Local Small Businesses
01:28:17
Speaker
It's not a political statement. It's about putting American guys and gals to work so that there's a job here for us. Yeah. Not about CEOs taking a million dollar bonus because that's that's the way it works.
01:28:31
Speaker
Production goes offshore and the people who make money are the major stockholders and what's lost are the jobs that just paid regular working class folks here.
01:28:46
Speaker
So we, you know, if I want to get up on a soapbox and to say we really all need to do our part and get used to the idea of possibly, um, you know, dealing with a higher price, if it's going to support you or your neighbor at a job, you know, bring these things back, we can possibly.
01:29:05
Speaker
Yeah. And hopefully it's a better investment. That's right. Right. Everybody knows that when you spend your money at a local small business, that money stays in the community. The money we make here goes straight out into our community, whether it's the grocery store or any other place that we have to shop.
01:29:27
Speaker
Yeah, daycare, the gas station. Right. All to the same, you know, people and the people that are in the same boat as we are. Sorry. So do your part. Thank you.
01:29:41
Speaker
Well, that ends the the podcast. And I think it was a very good, very, very, very good podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Take a look down in the description. We'll put the tool of the week there. We'll put a link to the beer so you can read about it if you want. We'll also have a link on the Web site to the tool of the week. Yeah. And all the check it out, maybe not all, but most of the previous tools week should be there.
01:30:05
Speaker
And then also, if you'd like to support the podcast, we have those affiliate links on the website and we have the Patreon. So right after this, we're going to do a little bit of a after show, which we put up on the Patreon. If you want to check that out, go over to our Patreon page, see if you want to help support the podcast. So a happy first first week of December. Oh, yeah. And a shout out to our Patreon gold tier patrons, David Murphy and Manny Siriani. Hey.
01:30:35
Speaker
David and Manny. Thank you. Yeah, you guys Very much. That's that's sincere cut. Yeah See you next week