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The American Craftsman Podcast Ep. 6 | Improving Yourself
43 Plays4 years ago
On Episode 6 of The American Craftsman Podcast hosted by Greene Street Joinery we discuss one of the hot button topics of current events and talk about improving ourselves.
Beer of the Week (Hoegaarden): https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/83/248/
Tool of the Week (Bessey K-Body REVOlution): https://www.bessey.de/en-US/BESSEY-Tools-North-America/Products/Clamping-Tools/K-Body-Parallel-and-case-clamps/K-Body%C2%AE-REVOlution
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
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:17
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a change. Aren't you really easy? All right. Yeah, right. Jeff, get into the picture here. I'm gonna get this ball rolling. Hope you have a bottle opener. You've got something. Jeff will open them. Definitely. I think we need a bottle opener with this one. Okay. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the sixth
00:00:43
Speaker
Broadcast of the podcast of the newscast of Green Street joinery. It's actually not it's the craftsman
00:00:51
Speaker
It's the American Craftsman. American Craftsman podcast. Yes, I knew that. Don't. Well, we have a busy schedule today. That's what happens when I take introduction off of the. Yes. We have a lot of questions to answer today too. Some are pretty good. Some are pretty, I'm not even going to say anything. I ain't even going to point out who it is. I hope you picked a tool of the week.
00:01:18
Speaker
I'm still waiting. Anyway, welcome everybody. How do we usually start the show, Rich? Introduction? And then? And the beauty week? No, I'm not done with my introduction. I want to shout out to the sponsors. I'm still waiting for those t-shirts. Come on, guys. What sizes? Extra large, large and large.
00:01:46
Speaker
This week, don't disappoint me, please. And now, for something serious. 213 Wilson Avenue, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey 07758. Yes, remember 07758. Don't put any other, because the mail delivery here is really strange. If you don't put the right zip code or you just put Middletown, we won't get it. Maybe that's what's happening. Maybe we're not getting it because- No, we're in Fort Monmouth. I know, but if you put Middletown. Don't put Middletown.
Sponsor Shoutouts and Mail Humor
00:02:15
Speaker
And now, something serious is the beer of the week. But I had a chance to pick out this week, and the beer is... Drum roll. I hear bottles. Ooh, hoo garden. Or as we say, hoe garden. Can you say that nowadays? You can. It's hoe garden.
00:02:45
Speaker
I haven't had this in a long time. It's another Belgian wheat. Yes, and it supposedly ordered a more healthier beers out there.
Beer of the Week: Hoegarden Discussion
00:02:53
Speaker
In fact, when I first started, not when I first started, when I was looking at beer to see what didn't have
00:03:01
Speaker
A lot of the crap in it. This was one that came up. That was one of the good ones. What crap? That sugar. Rice and that kind of stuff. Yeah. And this one came out to be very good. So we're going to compare this even to last week's beer, which was, uh, yeah, I guess. Cause that was a, that was a Belgian wheat. Yeah. Cheers gentlemen. Yeah. This has instructions on the back. It does. I can't see. Here we go. I like the bottle.
00:03:37
Speaker
That's good. That's not happy at all. This one also says Cory Andrew and Orange peel on it. Yeah, that's a traditional sort of thing.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, I really don't taste it. Almost 600 years in the Belgian village of Hoegarden, a band of monks experimented by adding oddball botanicals from halfway around the world to their traditional wheat beer. Our recipe, inspired by their creation, is an unfiltered beer with a refreshing flavor and captivating aroma. Unlike any in the world, you might call it an inspired creation. We call it Hoegarden. Hoegarden. I like that better than the Allagash.
00:04:10
Speaker
I like the alligator shirt though, the design. Well, I would like this shirt too, if somebody was some of your shirt. I can kind of taste the floral notes in this one more than the other. Well, now you're giving your reasons for liking the bed nights, so just hold that for later on.
Tool of the Week: Clamps
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah, keep it in. Okay, the tool of the week. Put it in the vault.
00:04:29
Speaker
I was gonna point to Rob as the tool of the week. He is the tool, he's the tool of the week. But I'm pointing to what's behind me here is to all these clamps that we have. And I consider that the tool of the week and the tool of the month, the tool of the year. Because you always say, for those who are watching, you can never have enough clamps. And it's so true.
00:04:56
Speaker
And we have a nice array of Bessie clamps, most shameless plug out there for the Bessie. We like them. We like to use them a lot. We even have some of the lesser clamps, but we don't use them as much because we do a lot of glue ups and all that. So this is clamps are very, very, very important to a job to work with. We couldn't make it through a job without these clamps.
00:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, you know how many clamps they say it takes to do a job, right? Was that like a Polish joke? I don't think so. All of them plus two. Gotcha. So you never have enough. Yeah, if I remember, there was this... Well, let's bring him up again. The Tom in the air quotes. Yes, that strange non-fictional character. He had a 5,000 square foot shop with five clamps. Yeah.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Well, he had a lot of. Yeah. He had those five five parallel clamps. Yeah. A lot of cheap crappy clamps. But yeah. I mean, he had probably good three dozen of those dollar store squeezy clamps. Yeah.
00:06:08
Speaker
those were good for something clamping to the edge of a table and leaving there. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of the really old, uh, pipe clamps. Yep. Well, we do use some of those squeezy clamps. Oh yeah. And the funny story is, is one clamp in particular around here that we all make fun of. And it's probably the one we go through the most.
00:06:29
Speaker
I don't know where it is. It's over there holding this power strip. It's being used right now. But they come in handy. We don't like, we don't use them for heavy duty work, but those spring clamps, you don't need a lot of them. You don't need these ones that are like four feet long. Those are ridiculous.
Environmental Impact of Littering
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah. Down to using the tool for what it's good at. Exactly. Whatever size these are, four inch or six inch. If you're clamping something bigger than that with a squeeze clamp, you should probably be reaching for a real clamp.
00:06:59
Speaker
Yeah, a man's clamp. Yeah, a woman's clamp. That's right. I'm in touch with my feminine side. So that's my total week. You guys have any more to talk about these? It's basically it's clamp shut. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's essential.
00:07:22
Speaker
Once you start using this type of clamp, you can't go back to anything else. I mean the F-style clamps and those types of things, they have a lot of gripping strength with the right size clamp.
00:07:36
Speaker
These, they just, they pull everything flat. They're called parallel body clamps for a reason. Yeah. And plus we have, you know, what the only complaint used to be that they weren't wide enough for real long pieces that you had to glue up, but now you have a connection. You could take the end off of the clamp and put a connection piece on there and then put two of them together to really stretch them out. Well, we have 50 or 60 inch. Yeah. I think there's a sixties, right?
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah. So that's almost a 10 foot long parallel clamp. Yeah. Yeah. But the 24s, they're probably the most commonly used. Yeah. They're worth the money. Yeah. I mean, most of our glue ups are, you know, aside from doing countertops and stuff like that, or, you know, tops to a piece of furniture would be doors and book match panels. So 24 is the perfect size. Even the drawer boxes.
00:08:29
Speaker
yeah because typically they're like 21 inches yep so yeah we don't typically build giant sized doors we're gonna split it up no no just looks a little bit better yeah hey that was good choice rich good choice i had to keep it secret i didn't want you guys to steal my thunder yeah i wouldn't have guessed
00:08:49
Speaker
Let's clear the deck. All right. Which leads us to the next episode or the next segment. What is it? The petty gripe of the week. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And we talked to the gripe master. That's me. I am the gripe master and I didn't get any, you know, I was a little disappointed. I didn't get any response from my gripes of the week so far. The crusty cabinet maker. That's me. That's me. Well, this week, you know, there's so much to gripe about out there.
00:09:16
Speaker
I try to try to hit a nerve. And one of the things that bugs me is littering. That's right. I said it, especially people who throw stuff out of their car window. You're driving down the road. Somebody rolls down the window.
00:09:34
Speaker
And
Halloween Candy Debate
00:09:35
Speaker
now comes a paper cup, the top of their cigarette wrap or whatever. What a cigarette butt. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That kills me. Yeah. The ash, the total ashtray dump at the stoplight. That's that's disgusting. But
00:09:50
Speaker
I don't know. What do you guys think about it? I hate it. I can't stand it drives me crazy when I see people throwing things out the window or they cause it's just yeah, the cigarette butt is the one I see the most and You know, we live in a coastal area So all those get washed off of the roadway into the drain and they end up in the bay Which is you know right at the end of the other end of the street here. Yeah, so that yeah, I hate seeing that I've
00:10:15
Speaker
I've had to bite my tongue on many occasions. You always want to like drive up next to him. Yeah. And you know, I used to smoke cigarettes and I never threw them out the window. I would put them out in my, in a whatever, a bottle or something in my car and then throw them away. So, I mean, it's really not that difficult. And it's really, you know, antithetical to what we do here as far as planting trees when we, you know, finish a project and
00:10:40
Speaker
and the, you know, ecologically sound finishes that aren't washing into the drains because like those finishes, even though they're nice for us and the client in their, you know, their finished state. Think about all the brushes that have to be cleaned using, you know, chemicals and harsh detergents just to, you know, get the stuff your equipment clean after using those other types of finishes. Yeah. Has to go somewhere.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. The cups that the finishes, you know, if you have a cup gun, all the finishes going into a cup, that cup has to be thrown away. You can't recycle it. It's going to a landfill. It's going to sit there and take a thousand years to rot away. So I mean, probably more. Yeah. All that stuff goes into the ground, into the earth, into the water supply, into the air supply some way, somehow. And the manufacturing process. Yeah. Yeah. Probably doing just as much, if not more polluting, polluting.
00:11:34
Speaker
Yeah, so if you are a litter bug, it's never too late to change the way. Shame on you. Doobie a doobie. Don't be a don't be. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Yes, there you go. That says it all.
00:11:49
Speaker
All right, you want to move on to the topic of the week? This is a this is a it's a pretty serious topic. Oh, yeah, it is. We thought, you know, might be a little too much for you guys, but we think everybody's mature enough. Maybe we can handle this sort of conversation. Yeah. We were actually discussing this at lunchtime and it came into a very heated argument because it's a couple of weeks before the event. Yeah. I mean, it's divisive. It's probably the most divisive thing going on right now. I'd say. Yeah. Yeah. Scooty election.
00:12:19
Speaker
What is it Jeff? What is your favorite Halloween candy? I know I can tell you right now. Yeah, I think rich and I probably have the same answer Reese's peanut butter cups. Yeah
00:12:35
Speaker
Yep. I like the cup or do you like the pumpkin? The doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. I think the Christmas tree don't matter. Yeah. I like all of those Christmas tree shaped ones. The bat, the pumpkin. They're a little bit less chocolate, a little more peanut butter. Yeah, you're right. They are. How do you feel about the Reese's Pieces? I like those two. Where do they rank in the Reese's hierarchy? I mean, they're definitely below the cup. That's for sure.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah, I don't, I put them down here. I like the standard cup the most. I like the seasonal cup. Okay. The shaped.
00:13:14
Speaker
Cause you get more peanut butter. Yeah. Yeah. See that's, I'm going to, you know, make it three across the board recently. My favorite as well. But I'm going to say it's the cup because I like that little extra bit of chocolate that you get in the crease there on the edge. Especially you put it in the refrigerator and that snaps. You know what I like is the big cup.
00:13:35
Speaker
And the question is, how do you eat your Reese's? I used to eat all around the chocolate and then save the peanut butter to the end. No, I just eat them. Yeah. I'm about two bites or if I have my hands full, that's one bite. You guys shove them in my face. You guys don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. But, you know, the reason I mean, we all agree on this, but the reason this came up and like supplanted our other topic was that Jeff here
00:14:04
Speaker
Unlike Rich and I, he likes both the candy corn and the circus peanut. Oh yeah. I love circus peanuts. I'm sure somebody's going to have something to say about that. That's funny. Maybe it's going to be in favor of the circus peanuts. No shame here. Yeah, no. That's the thing about us. We wear it well. You know, we stand and we have the wall of shame. What do you have against a circus peanut?
00:14:32
Speaker
That fake banana? Yeah. Oh God. I remember those. I don't like, I never, I ate them, but it wasn't that crazy about it. Yeah, no. And the texture. It's a marshmallow. No. No, not really. It's got the hot skin on it. It wasn't really a marshmallow. We'll have to bring one in now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to have to, next week, we will bring in some samples of Halloween candy. That's a good idea. That's a good idea. Yeah. That's right. Jeff, Kenny, you guys are good.
00:15:00
Speaker
Well, yeah, I did it. You got to eat one of those candy corns. Yeah. Yeah. Because those are the most disgusting things I have proved to you that I like it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:08
Speaker
Those things could be a decade old and you would oh, yeah, you would know if I like them I like the pumpkins better actually The candy corn you know what the candy corns it's more candy corn in one bite It's it's gotta be related to those old wax candies remember like the yeah rich you and I are old enough It'd be like these wax teeth. Yeah. Yeah stick them in your mouth. Yeah. Yeah, but you can't eat those Yeah, but that's what candy corns like no, it's
Woodworking and Craftsmanship
00:15:33
Speaker
not
00:15:33
Speaker
It's just a decoration. It's just sugar. No, it isn't. It's basically just a block of sugar. It's decoration. No. Yeah. Those aren't supposed to be. I don't think so. Let us know your thoughts on Halloween candy. Well, we'll get to the bottom of this. Second, second favorite. All right. What's your second favorite? Because that'll be different. Nestle's crunch. I'll be a fan of those.
00:15:59
Speaker
That's my separate favorite. Twix. Twix. Oh, Twix is good. I wasn't even thinking of that. I was going to say 100 grand bar. That's a good one, too. Yeah, that's kind of like a combination of a Twix and a Crunch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to go Almond Joy, but I like the Crunch. Those are good, too. Yeah. I like it. Man, that's a lot of good candy. I'll eat any candy, really. Yeah. As you can see, because I like the candy corn, apparently. What's that? He just said he wasn't going to eat any candy. I know I can eat it. I wish I could. Yeah.
00:16:23
Speaker
You ever have a zag nut? I think I'm irritable now. Those are, yeah, those are old. They still make this. Isn't that like a taffy with peanut butter inside? No, isn't it wrapped in peanut butter or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are pretty good. Taffy wrapped in peanut butter? No, it's got like white chocolate on it, doesn't it? I don't remember. And like that toasted coconut. Oh, I'm thinking of Abba Zaba. Isn't that taffy with peanut butter inside? It's an Abba Zaba.
00:16:46
Speaker
That's from your guy's time. No, Bonamo, I remember. Not Abba Zaba. Yeah, Abba Zaba. Yeah, Bonamo's Turkish taffy. Yeah, Bonamo's Turkish taffy. Abba Zaba's like a yellow and black checkered... B-O-N-O-M-O. Bonamo, it's O-O-O. I don't know. We've got about a sponsorship. Did you hear this jingle? Did I still make it? I think so. Yeah, you can find it online.
00:17:11
Speaker
You used to go smack it down on the ground just to break into pieces. Oh, what about Charleston Chew? I'm not a Charleston Chew, or even old Mary Jane's. Those are good. They're a bit of honey. Yeah. I don't like any of that consistency. The closest would be a Tootsie Roll. I like a Tootsie Roll too. Yeah. Yeah, I don't like Tootsie Roll. I didn't like it. What about the Tootsie Pop? No, I never liked that. You never liked the Tootsie Pop? No, I don't like that thing. Why would I cut the top of your mouth with one of those things? Yeah. Oh my God.
00:17:37
Speaker
I'm not big on the lollipop. I like lollipop, but I actually like tootsie pop. You don't like the tootsie pop. I'll take a dum-dum over a tootsie pop. Dum-dum-dums had some good flavors. Yeah, and it was small. There was some good dum-dums. Butterscotch. Oh, God. Why does he pick that flavor? Pineapple was good. I had pineapple. Yeah, and watermelon. Blue raspberry.
00:18:00
Speaker
I gotta make a beer one. Boomers. Okay, we gotta end this. This conversation is going nowhere. I said it was divisive. So we'll go through the questions of the week and we'll hand that over to Jeff to read them because I can't read it anyway. Yeah, we got a lot of questions this week. So many that the font is too small, these guys can't read it. Yeah, you want my glasses on.
00:18:20
Speaker
We got a couple of repeat offenders here, too. So we'll start out with the first one. Nice and easy. What two woods do you think complement each other the best? That's from who the 90 on Instagram. Who the 90? Who the 90? Oh, one word. That was like a band. Who the 90 and the Blowfish. That's right. Is he the band? Are you that guy? Are you Hootie? My two.
00:18:51
Speaker
To me a lot of woods don't complement each other in a sense Like you really couldn't put a white oak with with cherry But I would go with cherry and maple
00:19:04
Speaker
Well, maybe a maple and a walnut too, those two. Any kind
Cabinet Installation Tips
00:19:10
Speaker
of oak I wouldn't really pair with anything else, but cherry you can pair with something and walnut you could and definitely maple. Well yeah, maples are probably the least used wood if we're going to finish it naturally.
00:19:29
Speaker
and it's so light it's going to complement much of the exactly exactly yeah yeah that that's a good one because you really can't you really can't stain maple it's it's just ugly yeah it's ugly um what about like the same species of wood but you know like tinting one of them you ever think about that yeah no yes yes and no but we don't really do any kind of tinting work so
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, we'll change species before we. Yeah, that's how we usually roll. Yeah, it's hard to experiment with that because once you get the sample piece, sometimes it's hard to get that next piece to look like that. Yeah, it's a natural product. Exactly. We have two cherry shelves over here and they're going to even out as they age. But I mean, they're not from the same batch of wood. Yeah, they're pretty different pieces of wood. Yeah.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah, I like that too. Cherry and maple, especially if you get some nice straight-grained maple to complement it. And we use that a lot. A lot of times we'll throw in a little bit of walnut as the small or the third species. And it's kind of a limited palette really because we use mostly, you know, North American
00:20:48
Speaker
and northeastern hardwood. So you're kind of dealing with just those couple of boards, the cherry, walnut, maple. I mean, ash and oak, they're going to be so similar, they're really not going to complement one another that well.
00:21:05
Speaker
I've been a big fan of the sapeleon cherry lately. Yeah. You know, that looks pretty good that once that cherry darkens up a little bit, I have a chessboard at home that I made that's a sapeleon cherry. And now that the cherry has darkened, it looks nice and the sapele is darkened as well. Yeah. You should get a picture of that and send it to put on the, on the Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. It's on there. If you go back a ways, you'll see it.
00:21:30
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess mostly we're looking for something that's a contrast in the base color of it too, right? Well, you realize we do use two woods anyway. We use maple for the draw boxes and it could be oak, it could be cherry, it could be walnut, but it's not seen in a sense. Maples almost always are secondary wood in every job. We use it for all our paint grade stuff, all the draw boxes, anything that's structural that calls for
00:22:00
Speaker
hard would we use maple if it's not seen in the job yeah uh maple and sapele i just uh finished that cutting board today for my own house yeah kind of some scrap we had laying around that looks nice maple i guess maple with anything really that we use here yeah just not uh one of the other lighter right like maple and oak probably just not gonna give us that same effect
00:22:23
Speaker
No, that real open grain with the, you know, wider cathedraling, just, yeah, even better off by itself. Like mahogany, which I named as my favorite wood. I, I, we don't really use anything here that complements it.
00:22:38
Speaker
In the way that you know maple and cherry go together or maple and some of these other yeah I mean you get into stuff where they have like some holly stringing stuff like that a really super white Contrasting yeah, but All right, so I guess we say yeah maple with anything else yeah Just about yeah, just Nordic cherry Nordic cherry. Yeah Nordic birch drawer boxes. Yeah, I
00:23:06
Speaker
All right, what do we got next? Number two. So this is from Mill Crafted Carpentry on Instagram. This actually came in last week, a little late, so we're hitting it this week. What is the industry standard to remove dried glue off of clamp rails? I'm going to be honest, I don't know because I've never done it. Kind of just let it accumulate on there until...
00:23:27
Speaker
And it comes off naturally. Yeah, it kind of just falls off on its own. Yeah, it breaks it off. Yeah. Yeah, we would have sometimes we'd have helpers here cleaning the shop and we'd give them a, you know, steel brush or just tell them to chip off the big pieces.
00:23:43
Speaker
But, Jeff's right, you run the head up and down on it and knock it off. And we don't really get an excessive amount of squeeze out. I mean, just, that's part of the trick of the glue up too. Getting the right amount of squeeze out out of the glue up so it's not excessive, so it's not dry and the joint winds up being starved. But just getting that right amount and then there's just a little, you know, bead on there. And a lot of times we'll scrape that off.
00:24:13
Speaker
when it gets that tacky way. Yeah, I like to wait like a half hour, pull the clamps off, scrape the glue, and then put the clamps back on, usually flip them over to the other side.
00:24:22
Speaker
Makes it easier in the end too to get it off or it dries too much. Most of our glue ups too are, even if it's a big top, let's say it's a 25 inch deep top for some sort of cabinetry, it's only gonna be four or five pieces, Max. Oh yeah. So there's not many glue joints there to really get a lot of glue on the clamps. The bigger the piece, I mean, tops usually we'll look at seven, eight inch boards to get a top out of.
00:24:49
Speaker
Um, the, the joint will take a almost 10 inches and that's, that's pretty much our limit. Yeah. That's it. No, that answers that question. What about a heat gun? I feel like I'm going to burn myself. I'm not going to touch it. Yeah. That's your problem. Was, I mean, maybe he was thinking about, uh, you know, pipe clamps or, um, yeah, maybe I'm
Challenges of Installation Work
00:25:13
Speaker
not sure. Yeah.
00:25:14
Speaker
You could take a scraper to that too. Yeah. Those would probably be a little bit easier. Easy to clean. But you know, it's a good question. Something that, it's those little things that.
00:25:25
Speaker
When you're running a business, you never really cost that into a job or, you know, the cost of doing business. But it's all those little things, whether it's sweeping up, whether it's cleaning the clamps or ordering the glue and brushes and all these little things. Try to fix the tool that broke. That's a whole episode.
00:25:51
Speaker
Oh, man. It's a short answer. We don't know, but try just scraping it off. Manual labor. Yeah. Manual labor. Take them home on the weekend. Yeah. Get down with a beer and. Exactly. Yeah. Just watch the game or whatever you do. I want to watch TV. Just scrape it away.
00:26:10
Speaker
All right, so next up, this is from Eric Blake down in New Orleans, Blake Woodworks on Instagram. Do you install your cabinets? I've found that I spend at least twice as much time installing versus the time to build whatever it is. I find it very difficult to make the homeowner understand this. I do not find it cost effective at all.
00:26:30
Speaker
Well, I'll go first on this. Eric, we checked out your work and you do some nice work. So you definitely know what you're doing. I honestly had a little bit of a hard time understanding the question because we typically spend a lot more time
00:26:49
Speaker
building the piece or the project, then installing it. So I might have a hard time answering the question the way you would expect it because we have sort of the opposite situation here.
00:27:05
Speaker
Not that we have the homeowner not understanding, but if it's something like a suite of cabinets, like a kitchen might take us six to eight weeks to build. And then the three of us can pretty much do it in three days.
00:27:20
Speaker
If something goes wrong where we need to create a filler of some sort or there was something weird in the house that we had to maybe adjust a cabinet, we'd come back to the shop and then we'd go back in another day and get it all done. Yeah, I'd say a week is five working days. Yeah, tops.
00:27:44
Speaker
trying to do as much in the shop as you possibly can, hanging doors. I mean, we were talking about today, guys that bring the boxes and install them and then hang the doors after the fact. I mean, that's a good point. Our stuff is done, done, done here in the shop.
00:27:59
Speaker
It's always easier here when you have all your tools there and- Your flat surfaces. Yeah, it's a controlled environment. You're not dealing with packing up, unpacking and packing up every day, cleaning up. If we want to leave it a mess in here because we had a long day and we had to get a bunch of stuff done, well, we come in the next morning and it's a mess, big deal. You can't do that in someone's house. Right. And also you might mention how we get our large jobs to the client's home.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, we haven't delivered. We use a moving service. It's a lot easier. I mean, there's three of us here and we could spend, you know, a day of hard labor, loading up a big trailer, hauling the stuff over there. I mean, we have all the moving blankets and such, but.
00:28:46
Speaker
That's a hard job and you really don't want to start working after that. So I've been using a guy, Tommy, and when we all started working together, we brought him in to the same thing. And it's the best money for me that you could spend.
00:29:06
Speaker
They blanket wrap things, they send the guys, they put it in the truck, they deliver it, say, yeah, please, can you put it over there? Yeah, I mean, they show up with a 26 foot box truck or whatever, you know, an entire kitchen and mud room and everything. Yeah. And bring it over, take it out of the truck. You can you just stand there and make sure everything is going in right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's it's a great way to do things.
00:29:31
Speaker
I think the big point in here is finding it difficult to make the homeowner understand. I don't know how you're breaking out the price for the homeowner, but you know, the way we do it is we'll literally break out the hours. Yes. So they can see if it's a week. OK, that's 120 man hours, three guys, 40 hours.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So if all three of us go to a job just to put something in, that's 24 hours that will show on our proposal and our bill for installation at the full hourly rate.
Sanding Techniques and Surface Prep
00:30:05
Speaker
And that's what it is.
00:30:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's easier when it's not just a number. You say, oh, yeah, installation's 2,500 bucks. And they say, well, why is it 2,500? If it's already broken out that, OK, well, it's two days with three guys, then it's a little easier for them to see. Plus, I think maybe you might be running it. I don't know if this is true, but you might be running it to situations where
00:30:31
Speaker
You don't have the right measurements set up for this job. And when you get there, all of a sudden there's a problem. And now you've got to take extra time to go back to the shop to fix things. So maybe getting all, making sure everything is all, all your ducks are in a row before you get to the job.
00:30:49
Speaker
And you won't be spending that much time, those long times there. But I guess there are jobs where you're going to spend some time installing if you got to do a lot of fillers and things like that. But I mean, he is down in New Orleans and where they have a lot of shotguns down there. And maybe there's, you know, some that's a style of house. Yeah, exactly. Idiocyncratic features to these homes. You know, maybe they're all that is always a lot of adjustments on site that we're not aware of. Yeah.
00:31:19
Speaker
Like maybe it does take extra long to fit a piece, you know a built-in piece into one of those homes Maybe scribing around stone or brick work. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I'd say you know trim the fat on the install where you can in the shop and then Really take the time to explain to the homeowner because I think that's where the right the you'll get the most benefit of
00:31:43
Speaker
That's a good answer. Up front, you know. Yeah. Let them know. Tell them exactly, you know, the exact reason. If they don't, if they don't understand, they might not be the right client. Yeah. All right. What do we got next? Oh, that's from our, our buddy, John, buddy, John Peters. I'm sure you all know John. John asks, what is the highest number sandpaper you sand to before applying finish?
00:32:11
Speaker
Tell them, Rich. 220, of course. Were you coached on that answer? Yes. No.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's the process. You should go through the grits. There are times, I guess, when we're painting stuff, we don't go through the grits. Yeah, painting, we don't go to 220 because it doesn't work as well. No, maybe 150. Yeah. Yeah. I don't go to 220 that much personally, but that's me. We got to come in behind it. Is that why we've been sending all that messed up work? That's why we got to come in behind, Rich. That's why pieces of dark are in color.
00:32:50
Speaker
Not everybody knows that. Well, yeah, we use a plain oil finish a tongue oil finish and So it'll take a you know, a nice high grit sand. Yeah and The lower the the grit the more the the wood will absorb too. So that's what rich was referring to It will be a little bit darker
00:33:14
Speaker
So we sand to 220 and sometimes even 320 on the tops because that extra bit, it really, it really brings out that, that satiny kind of feel, doesn't it? Yeah. And I found that at 320, I have to do less wiping. You know, we, we lay the oil on, wait about 20 minutes and then wipe it off. I find I have to do less wiping and less buffing to get a nice, smooth, flat, flat finish. I mean, sanding is so important. I mean,
00:33:43
Speaker
Not nobody here likes to sand, really. And probably nobody out
Affordability of Crafting Work
00:33:48
Speaker
there likes to sand. But it's important. You can't get away from it. It's the basis for the finish. Yeah. So there's the short, quick answer. It's 220 or a painting. It's 120. And top's 320. Yeah. And don't skip grits.
00:34:08
Speaker
Yeah, we go through the grits. It's easier to start at 120, 120 to 320 or 220, whatever, and 240. A little anecdote. We used to have a young man, Christopher, working here. He was just in middle school and then high school and he used to want to go up through the grits before he would, you know, quite finish. So if he was on 120 and he wasn't quite
00:34:31
Speaker
removing the marks, he would then go up to 150. And I told them, I said, if you didn't get out with one, it's going to be a lot more work to get it out with 150, et cetera, et cetera. So the lowest grits put in your work and that's the way to do it.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah, I sanded these cherry shelves today, 120 to 320, and I'd say I spent as much time on 120 as I did cumulatively on all the other grits combined. That's about how I find it, too. So get a good cut with the 120, clear off any mill marks. Yeah, I do. I'm a firm believer in that now.
00:35:12
Speaker
We don't we don't have a lot of mill marks. You know, we get some stuff on the edges. Yeah. A little bit of chatter from the joiner, maybe, or some saw marks from the table saw. But what I notice are the the pressure, not the pressure rollers, but there's little. Yeah. Little fingers in the joiner. Yeah. We'll leave small lines. So that's really the biggest thing to get out. Yeah. All right. Good question, John. Thanks, John.
00:35:39
Speaker
This one. Am I reading all these? I'll read it. This is a good question. And it made us when we got this question, it made us all laugh a little bit. So this is also from WhoThe90 on Instagram. Can you afford your own work? When you need something for your house, do you buy or build?
00:36:04
Speaker
Go ahead, Jeff. You've been going, uh, waiting for all of us to answer. Um, short answer, no. We, we couldn't pay retail for our work. No chance. Um, can we afford to do it ourselves?
00:36:19
Speaker
Well, yeah, if we have the time, you know, it's one of those things you can come in early, you can stay late, you can come in on the weekend and make yourself something, try and fit in little bits and pieces between jobs or between tasks that you're working on, you know, throughout the day. I mean, I have stuff recently that I bought for the house that I'm not proud of. Shame. It is a shameful event. I felt dirty putting this knockdown furniture together.
00:36:50
Speaker
But I glued the dowels in, you know, I did it right. So yeah, I mean, you have to pick your battles on this. Yeah, yeah.
00:36:59
Speaker
It's true. There's no way we could afford to pay these prices because I mean, we went over it in the past. We've made some sacrifices and we love what we're doing. We're not getting rich doing it. We're making a living. And it's not that our work is extravagantly priced. It's just, you know, it's more expensive than we can afford right now. Yeah. Our houses are filled with a lot of sort of finished things and
00:37:29
Speaker
Yep. And like Jeff said, a lot of times we'll try and squeeze a small thing in here or there. And like when Jeff moved, you needed a bed. And we all kind of pitched in, you know, like that's we have a nice spirit here. If something needs to get done, we'll just do it. It's just part of friendship at that point.
00:37:52
Speaker
And we all wind up buying things for our home. We all have the same crummy furniture that everybody else does because we don't have the time to build everything. This isn't a hobby for us. No, it's a business. There's no money to be made spending time building our own furniture. Exactly. You know, we don't we can't afford it in that way as well.
00:38:18
Speaker
Yeah, the time it takes to build, you know, things of the caliber that we're building, it's...
Successful Business Partnership
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah. We don't have full weeks to cut out of our schedule to make. No. You know, anything I make, I try and keep it to like one day, two days. Right. How long have you been finishing that cutting board? Yeah. You know, I made that cutting board with a little downtime and then...
00:38:40
Speaker
You know, I'll put a coat of finish on every morning for a week. Yeah. I made that little desk for the couch. Yeah. Even that bed. I knocked the bed out in two days. Yeah. Yeah. So it's one thing if you if you need something and it's got to get done and you know, then we'll we'll stop what we're doing and do it. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's the way we are. Yeah, definitely. I can't afford my own work. No, it's just I don't have the time or the money.
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we hear constantly from people with money that they can't afford our work. Exactly. White collar folks, they're saying they can't afford it. I let people always say to you, well, your house must look beautiful.
00:39:24
Speaker
I said, you know what, I got Home Depot kitchen cabinets in there from, or maybe Rickle, Rickles back in the day, Golden Oak kitchen cabinets. Sure. Would I love to change them? Would I love to redo everything? Sure. Anybody would love to. Any kind of, any woodworker would like to redo their whole house, but yeah.
00:39:44
Speaker
You can't do that and pay the bills. It's just impossible. It's impossible. That's three man months of labor. That's a month with three guys every single day to build a new kitchen. This is simply no time. That would be like.
00:40:00
Speaker
you know, taking a vacation as far as being paid. And have to work. Hard. And you have to pay for the material. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we said this before, a kitchen costs us five to $6,000. I know that probably sounds like a lot to some people where they're selling, you know, cabinets for $4,000 somewhere.
00:40:26
Speaker
But that's what it costs us to buy the wood and the hardware and all that other stuff. Yeah. All right. Well, I hope that answers your question. Rich, why don't you read the next one? This is from, uh, right there. Far Out Woodworks on Instagram. What is the skill you most wish you had or wish you were better at woodworking?
00:40:54
Speaker
See, that's why we don't let him read. My answer to that would probably be more in the design phase. I have it's not a problem. I just sometimes can't see what something is going to look like and I'll have problem putting it on paper.
00:41:15
Speaker
to bring it to what it's supposed to be. So that's one of my bugaboos. I wish I had more experience doing that. I wish I had the ability to see things a little bit better than what I do now. So sometimes it takes me a while and then I realize, well, that's exactly what I wanted to do. So that's a big one for me.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to piggyback off that because mine is design as well, but more on the creative end of design and having that intuition of how to design a piece of furniture and make it look, you know, look nice, which is something, Rob, I think you you excel at, you have that artist's eye where you can just bust out a design. It's something where
00:42:00
Speaker
When I draw it, it looks like the same thing I drew before. So, you know, that's on me to do some more studying on design. Yeah. Sometimes things like that are just intuitive gift. Yeah. You know, I may have cultivated it through the years of training and everything, but that's just, you know, what they call the God given gift. For me, it's.
00:42:28
Speaker
Definitely planning an organization. And so much of that is a part of what we do. And even more so now that there's three of us and we're working together because if we're doing a job that takes three of us to be coordinated on something.
00:42:45
Speaker
I'll always, I make a mistake every time on every job. I don't know if there's a job I haven't just not carried a number forward or if we made a small change if I didn't add it in here and not over there or remember to call somebody. This is a weak point for me in my entire life but especially in my business life I think.
00:43:11
Speaker
I think there's much less flexibility when it's three people that need to be on the same page and I don't want to say kept busy, but we need to work together so that the job flows smoothly and that we're all working the most efficiently and as productively as possible.
00:43:34
Speaker
So it takes a lot of forethought and I think we've definitely gotten better. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but you guys would ask me so what's going on over here? I'm like, I don't know. I mean Two plus two that's equal five
00:43:52
Speaker
So that's been and and the other stuff like the design stuff as much as that's something I mean, I think you can't improve on it and for me I'm just lucky I work so hard trying to be organized and every time we start a job I go this time I swear this time I'm gonna get it right
00:44:12
Speaker
And I may have made some small improvements, but I'm really waiting for that day where like a substantially sized job just like flows the way I'm imagining it in my head on day one. Because like on day 15, a question comes up and these jobs might run for, you know, 20 or 30 days. And you have to know what's going to happen on day 28.
00:44:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we're still working on the kinks. It's only been a year. So it does take time to get a sort of protocol and the systems in place to be able to do things the best way. We haven't had any real big strokes. Well, that's the thing. I mean, nothing has been insurmountable. And it's usually like, oh, geez, I got to make this part again or something like that. But
00:44:59
Speaker
because it's a lot of numbers. So, you know, you can lose a half inch somewhere and then just dominoes. That's one of the reasons we're trying to get into Fusion 360 is to sort of remove some of that human error. Some of us are working on Fusion 360.
00:45:19
Speaker
Rich is going to learn Fusion 360 on his layaway. Rich, you're going to have to write to Rich and let him know. He thinks Rich is going to get foot surgery in about a month. Yes, I told him. I snapped the tendon. He thinks he's going to take off from the podcast. I just thought of it. He was just talking about how his his dream, as a matter of fact, was to get better at design. I know. I had the chance. Well, you see, see how life works?
00:45:47
Speaker
You're manifesting it right now. Yeah. I snapped that 10 just to do this. Was that at, at KBIS or at the AVN awards? I'll tell you right now, there's going to be, we're going to have to spend the time on the podcasts going through what happened in Vegas. Maybe on the anniversary of the KBIS. Oh yeah. It's been January. It was, it was quite,
00:46:14
Speaker
Eventful. Yeah. We had a great time though. Yeah. It might've been that when I hurt my foot. I don't remember. Jerry's out. All right. Last question. What do we got next? Yeah. Another one from Mill Crafted Carpentry. Another one came in last week. So what are some key factors that make a business partnership work and ensure equity? That's a good question. It is.
00:46:46
Speaker
Rich, you have an accounting background. I don't trust anybody. No, I think I think the key to a good partnership is is.
00:47:00
Speaker
getting a feel, I think you have a feel when you meet somebody and you start working with somebody, you got a feel for whether it's going to work out or not. If you have questions in your mind from day one, even though they're laughing because I say I don't like anybody when I first meet them, but that's not true. But you know, you get that gut feeling that this is the right relationship that's gonna work out.
00:47:30
Speaker
And as far as the equity part of it, we haven't had any issues. Everybody covers one another at times. So there's no there's no problems as far as that. Hopefully there'll be no problems in the future. Yeah, it's kind of like a marriage in a sense. I mean, you meet somebody a day. You really don't know if you're going to get divorced down the road. You're going to argue over money or how to raise your kids.
00:47:58
Speaker
But as Rich said, you kind of can just trust your gut and try to keep things honest and open. We've had some bumps and growing pains, but the thing that I'll say about it is we just say, hey, this happened and I want to talk about it.
Podcast Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:48:21
Speaker
And that's all it really takes.
00:48:23
Speaker
Exactly. It's just like any other relationship. Be honest, be open, be yourself, and things are going to be okay. I think this is a great question because it makes me think of that story I always tell you guys about when I was an English teacher.
00:48:43
Speaker
And I used to teach the book, what's it, Lord of the Flies. So I used to break the kids up into little groups and they didn't really know anything about the book, which is as most people know about these school children that get marooned on an island and there's no adults.
00:49:00
Speaker
So I create this scenario for the groups of my students and I say, this is where you are and you're on this island and you're probably never going to get rescued. I want you to come up with five or 10 rules that you must each abide by so that you can survive.
00:49:19
Speaker
And invariably, the kids, their rules are all how to protect themselves from one another. Like, can't steal food, must share, and things of that order.
00:49:34
Speaker
This is sort of human nature in a way, the survival thing at the expense of others. So I would say that on top of everything else, I value these guys as friends and respect them as people. So that would be my top number one answer for that.
00:49:54
Speaker
Yeah, I'd say a big thing is, you know, try not to take anything personal. It is a business and everyone has I mean, everyone is hard headed and has an opinion about about anything. Oh, yeah.
00:50:10
Speaker
So if you have a disagreement, just go home and start over the next day. You know what I mean? We've all had those days where you get pissy with one another. You just come in the next day and forget about it. You try and go on with, you know, whatever. You try and come to an agreement about whatever it is.
00:50:28
Speaker
The longer it goes on, as far as the relationship, the easier it is because we are like a family here and you do argue and bicker with your family at times. But you don't say, oh, I'm not going to have my wife or my brother or something like that. You know you're going to have to work it out. So that's how we face it, too. You know, this is it.
00:50:57
Speaker
You know, we'll always put the energy into working out any disagreements. But luckily, we we usually see eye to eye on most things. I think that's part of why we formed this company. Yeah. And just like a relationship, you make concessions and all. Yeah, sure. You might see something come in and you say, you know, I'm keeping my mouth shut on this. It's not.
00:51:19
Speaker
No, just let him drive that off the cliff. I'll be there to rescue him but let him drive it off the cliff. And I'm not gonna say I told you so. We do that sometimes. We let people make their own mistakes and then we pitch in and we fix it and then like maybe a day later that's when we start the ribbing. Yeah, don't let you know a catastrophic failure
00:51:44
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I'm not talking about something like that. But yeah, sometimes you just have to just mind your own business. Yeah, exactly. Which is not easy. Yeah, it's a dance. So millcrafted carpentry. Let us know what what are your experiences? Yeah. Are you in a partnership? Are you planning on starting one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're winding down here. That ends us with all our questions this week.
00:52:13
Speaker
And now we're getting on to our final section of the podcast. And it's the thoughts of the Beer of the Week. Yeah, our thoughts on the Beer of the Week. I like it. I liked it. I like this style of beer, as we know from last week. And I think I like this more just a little bit than the beer we had last week. What was that called, that alagash? Alagash white. Yeah, this one's just got a little bit more personality, I'm going to say.
00:52:43
Speaker
because I don't really know that much about the technical aspects of it, but it's got a little bit more personality, the bottle's got a nice shape, you know, like you could see yourself at a party with this and not dropping it, even if you've had a few. High grip bottle. Yeah, you got a good grip on the bottle. Right, because there's this little bell at the bottom and a little one at the top. Good for throat, too. Molotov cocktail. Very European looking bow. Yeah.
00:53:08
Speaker
Pretty good. I don't remember if I prefer the Algash to this. I'm not the biggest fan of wheat beers. I like something a little more dry, but it was good. I drink it again. I've had it in the past. Yeah, I've had it. I've had it in the past. That's why I picked it up. And again, I knew it for health reasons. Health-wise, it's one of the better beers to be drinking. It doesn't have a lot of crap in it. And it's got the yeast in there, which is good for you. Exactly.
00:53:37
Speaker
So I give it a thumbs up. And if I get a shirt from the whole garden, I'll give it a bigger thumbs up. They say it's unlike any in the world. The original 1445. There's three more left. Yeah, it's fair after the cameras go off. All right. Well, we got three thumbs up. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Here we go.
00:54:03
Speaker
So let's talk about the giveaway a little bit. We touched on it last week. We showed what we're going to be giving away. I think we'll throw in a Green Street t-shirt to that. That sounds good. And if we come up with anything else, we'll stick it in the box. So to enter, you're going to have to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Green Street Joinery.
00:54:23
Speaker
follow us on Instagram which you probably already are and I'm gonna put up a post about the giveaway so you know some other people can see it and you'll have to like that post and if you want an extra entry you can share the post either your stories or your feed so be able to look out for that post I'll put it up probably not today maybe tomorrow in the next couple days yeah that sounds good it's gonna be some good stuff yeah oh yeah
00:54:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's a nice giveaway. I mean, we're not a big corporation like Festool or something like that, so... Festool doesn't give anything away. Yeah, we're giving away some good stuff. I used to wear my Festool t-shirt, you know, on the job and people would say, oh, what'd you have to buy to get that? Say, yeah, the t-shirt.
00:55:08
Speaker
I've run into the Festool rep before. And not that I asked for anything, but I mean they're not, and we love our Festool tools. Yeah, we have plenty. We spend money on Festool. We do.
00:55:22
Speaker
Next week. Next week. We have our first guest. We have our first guest. This is going to be really exciting. Yeah. We're going to have to change, I think, to set up a little bit, maybe get some more, get some more room. But yeah, we're trying to figure out what the guest is going to be responsible for, like the tool of the week or the beer of the week, because, you know, we've got to make them work for it. And maybe you out there, you can tell us what you think. You think we should give him the tool of the week, the gripe of the week or the beer of the week?
00:55:52
Speaker
You know why I'm leaning. I figure we'll give him a choice. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, so send out your questions for this guest and the guest is gonna be... John Peters. Yeah, from Longview Woodworking. Yeah, John doesn't live too far from here. He works same thing like us. He works in a building out behind his house. Yeah, he's got the red board. Yeah, yeah. And you may already be following John Peters. Yeah.
00:56:21
Speaker
A lot of you may have come here from John. John has posted about the podcast a couple of times. He's going to be a good guest. He's a very interesting dude. He does a lot of cool things. John's an artist. He is a woodworker. He keeps bees and does all kinds of stuff on his channel.
00:56:42
Speaker
which I think is a really cool thing about YouTube is John's mainly like a YouTube guy and Instagram. But the cool thing about YouTube is you find these guys or gals and you start to watch their channel and you may get into it. Like I got into John's channel as a woodworker and then.
00:57:00
Speaker
I watch the videos about lawn care. Yeah, I don't do any lawn care. I cut my grass and that's it. But, you know, it's interesting you get invested in these people because you like their personality. So that's it. He's a very likable guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, if you have any questions for John, send them out and we'll, you know, we'll post something on Instagram to it to get some questions. Probably I feel like we'll probably run a little longer than usual with a guest because we'll probably have a lot to talk about. Cool.
00:57:30
Speaker
That brings us to the end. That's another successful podcast, I believe. Let us know what you think of the audio. I made some tweaks to the audio. I hope my voice is a little bit deeper.
00:57:44
Speaker
Rich has that nice reedy voice. Yeah, okay. I still haven't hit puberty yet. I don't even know what that means. Don't forget to like, subscribe on YouTube, follow us on Instagram, send any questions over you want. You know, you don't have to wait for us to ask. And your sponsors, 213 Wilson Avenue, Port Bomet's. T-shirts. 07758. T-shirts. Extra Lodge, Lodge and Lodge. Yeah.
00:58:13
Speaker
I'll wear it. I'm no shag. I got no shame. Well, yeah. And if you got anything better than t-shirts or things like that, too. Oh, yeah. Hat. A car. Truck. Motorbike. Cash. Or Bobcat. Bobcat. There you go. Bobcat. Make my dream come true out there, Bobcat. We'll see. Good luck. Everybody stay safe this weekend. Stay healthy. We'll see you next week. Yeah. All right. Ciao. Later on.
00:58:41
Speaker
So.