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Epoxy River Tables
22 Plays2 months ago
This week Jon shops for epoxy river tables and we discuss artist Donald Judd. Thanks for listening!
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Transcript
Sponsorship Introductions
00:00:01
Speaker
The American Craftsmen Podcast is sponsored by Hayfla. Hayfla offers a wide range of products and solutions for the woodworking and furniture making industries. From hinges and drawer slides to connectors and dowels, sandpaper, wood glue, shop carts, and everything in between. Exclusive product lines such as looks, LED lighting, and Slido door hardware ensure that every project you create is built to last. Learn more at hayfla.com. Additional sponsorship provided by Ridge Carbide.
00:00:29
Speaker
When you need the right saw blade for the job, put your trust in Ridge Carbide Tools. For over 50 years, Ridge Carbide has been producing industrial saw blades designed with the exact specifications for the cutting results you expect. Before you buy, call us and we'll help you determine the right tool that meets your needs and your budget.
00:00:45
Speaker
After the sale, Rich Carbide provides sharpening services for all your saw blades, dado sets, router bits, and jointer planer knives. Located in Kansas, Rich Carbide Tools provides high quality products with outstanding customer service at a fair price. What are you cutting? Enjoy the show.
Podcast Intro Length Discussion
00:01:10
Speaker
All right. I still haven't gotten around to cutting down that intro. That's a long one. Maybe next week. Oh, thank you for sitting through that. All 30. Oh, no. It's about a minute and 15 seconds. And Hayflow is only about, it sounds like maybe 35 seconds. Yeah. I, um, I told him, I said, we should probably change the verbiage of the, uh, of the ad spot because people, you know, at this point they've been a sponsor for,
00:01:40
Speaker
Were they sponsoring the second season? I can't remember. It's been a long time. Maybe even from the first season at some point, people are just tuning that out by now. Yeah. Yeah. I would change it up a little bit. You've heard it a thousand times. Yeah. You can get into the, uh, Saliche, uh, drawer slides and just like that. Yeah.
Product Promotions: Drawer Slides
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah. So we should be doing a video with them soon about the Saliche drawer slide.
00:02:03
Speaker
They're nice. I know that Corey just posted a story maybe last week talking about them. And I think, I don't know this, but I think he may have been convinced to switch over from one of the videos that we did.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, we've been in his ear for a while because he was a bloom guy, you know, being a customer of Robert's plywood. They were a bloom dealer. So he would just get his stuff from them. Like, dude, buy your slides from Hayflip. Get this. A, this leach is a better slide and B, the price is going to be better.
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah, he had nothing but good things to say about Solice. So I think that I think that you're getting the word out, not only on the podcast here because it's weekly, but also I think we just do one video. We might've mentioned them twice.
00:02:51
Speaker
So we did the one where we did like a quick install video with Rob installing the F70. And then we talked about it in the video with all the Sentry components pullouts. Yeah. Just recently. Yeah. We got a lot of, I don't want to say hate, but a lot of skepticism on that video. I was surprised at that. Yeah. Sort of like, I think some people, I mean, to me, it just makes sense. So why question it?
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah. They're like, the physics just like a rack opinion is like, okay, maybe I'm not, I'm not a physicist or a kinetic, you know, kinesiologist. I'm not explaining it maybe with the right terminology, but whatever it's doing, it's making a better action on the slide.
Furniture Challenges and Solutions
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah. I used the bloom under mounts on a chest of drawers about two or three years ago. And I kind of.
00:03:43
Speaker
I think somebody's out there. It sounded like the 3d printer was running. Okay. Uh, anyway, the, the drawers, like the one drawer, I kind of have to like push a little, like another eighth of an inch to get that. Cause it's, it's just three drawers in a box with a perfect eighth inch reveal on every drawer. And it's a really modern piece. So if it's out, it's not right. Oh yeah.
00:04:07
Speaker
And so the top drawer, I always have, you know, it closes, you know, they have the soft clothes. Then it stops. But then it stops just like an eighth minute short. And I take my index finger and I just push it a little and kind of get a little annoyed. So and it's only on the left side. So the right side is sort of back, but the left side. And so it's mine. But if it were for a customer, then I'd be like, oh, what do it cost you 500 bucks to go change it out.
00:04:37
Speaker
Well, that's the whole thing. Callbacks, like my friend is an electrician and he says callbacks will kill you. And, you know, a lot of times as an electrician, you can kind of, you know, justify a callback and still charge. It's kind of hard to do that in like the cabinet making business. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So speaking of callbacks, I got two this week. We did that job. We shot a bunch of videos on it. The white oak cabinets that were on wheels with the very style
00:05:06
Speaker
grill kind of in the panel. So we did a, she had all these mirrors, super 1990s building up in North Bergen. We did these. White oak or red oak? White oak. We did the, the cabinets were white oak. Are these to cover the heaters? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
00:05:25
Speaker
For some reason I thought they were red oak. That was white oak. We did the spray stain on the red oak. I got you. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, speaking of which, I don't know if you need any red oak, but I have like so much over there. I was looking at it. I'm like, I need to get rid of some of this. If you could use it outside, I would take it, but you can't really use red oak outside.
00:05:44
Speaker
Maybe I'll do some with it, maybe paint it black. There you go. Like maybe the bank at my kitchen. Anyway, aside from those cabinets, we did these frames that sat over top of the mirror, just white oak frames. Originally she wanted lattice. I remember. And I'm like, you can't do lattice. You're going to be cleaning these one inch by one inch squares. You're going to drive yourself crazy. We just did simple. They were maybe like the openings were like, say 16 by 24. I remember them.
00:06:12
Speaker
So I got a text when I get an email and a phone call. And some pictures like the mirror was like separating from the wall. I'm thinking to myself, I don't know how the hell that could have anything to do with me. You know, I said, was there like construction going on in the building or something?
00:06:33
Speaker
Anyway, I went up to Ramsey to finish up that kitchen on Monday and I left there about 12 and went down to that job because I'm going south anyway. And come to find out, the mirror is coming off of the wall. It's two big panels and the one panel is like really separated. I'm pretty positive what happened is we had to pull off the baseboard
00:06:58
Speaker
There must've been something behind the baseboard where the baseboard itself was physically holding the mirror up and the mirror actually sloughed down the wall and is now sitting on the floor. So when it did that, it's separated from the wall. So now I got to go back up there. I got to uninstall my frames. I got to re-glue the glass to the wall.
00:07:20
Speaker
It's tough. I mean, that's, those are like the worst texts and phone calls to get. And she was like, Oh, so what should I do? Like call a glass company? And I'm like, no, I'm like, I'll fix it. You know, I can't put that on her. It's not, I mean, well, it's nice that you, you're doing the right thing. Yeah. But not everybody does do the right thing. Yeah. I should have, I should have realized that by removing the baseboard, it was going to do that.
00:07:49
Speaker
It's just frustrating because that's going to take some time. It's going to be two people for a day because it's an hour up there. Yeah. It's not a lot of work, you know.
00:07:59
Speaker
No, but it's just, yeah, callbacks are the worst. I mean, that's, I love making things for the channel where the bulk of the income comes from the sponsor and then selling plans because if I give the piece to somebody or I usually don't give the piece to somebody unless it's a kid, one of my kids or something, but if I
00:08:22
Speaker
Yeah. I'm not going to give anything. Yeah. My point is
Skepticism Towards Epoxy Tables
00:08:25
Speaker
you don't have the stress because even if you sell something for like 500 bucks, somebody will still call and complain about it. And then you're like, well, I gave it to you for 500 bucks. It's like, but yeah, that like, like I said, with, with that drawer,
00:08:41
Speaker
That could be a callback. And then I was like, you know, I just don't want to deal with it. And what if you built that piece and shipped it to Arizona? That's why like when I see some of these videos where people are selling epoxy tables.
00:08:57
Speaker
Like you'll see, uh, I'm not going to mention any names, but there's one guy who's really popular. And he seems like a really talented guy because he does a lot of stuff, but he makes like 20 and $30,000 epoxy tables that gets shipped around.
00:09:12
Speaker
And I don't know. I just would moves. Who's buying that? Like the Beverly hillbillies. I don't know. I don't, I've never liked them. And, and the other thing is you'll see people make epoxy tables that like white epoxy and epoxy yellows. Yeah.
00:09:27
Speaker
And it's just sort of, uh, so I don't know how you can, I don't know how you can make any kind of an epoxy poor table with a clear conscience. And unless you're going to just do build new tables. Yeah. I mean, I could be completely wrong. It's funny. I was in Bayhead this weekend and, uh, we went into some little, uh, high end store right on bridge Avenue there. Yeah. Bayhead's nice.
00:09:53
Speaker
at Bayhead is the architecture in Bayhead is beautiful. Yeah. And no expense is spared on the on the craftsmanship. And I went into one of these little shops with my wife and very expensive shop and they had these sort of decorative epoxy pour surfboards. So it's like a wave kind of like, yeah, it was just sort of like two pieces. It was just like an epoxy table, but cut into the shape of a surfboard.
00:10:23
Speaker
And I was going over it like, not with a fine tooth comb, but just kind of giving it an inspection. And I was surprised to see, I didn't see any hairline cracks where the epoxy meets the wood. Yeah. It's a pretty small piece though, you know? Yeah. Make that 10 times bigger. You got 10 times as much movement in the wood. I just, I mean, wood moves. Like that's the thing. Even like glue joints, you know, you could probably feel them on this table. You can feel that glue joint.
00:10:53
Speaker
100%. So I just look at these epoxy projects and I think they've got to fail. Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I guess it depends on what you consider a failure, but, um,
00:11:05
Speaker
making an epoxy table. I don't think any of the epoxy guys are tuning into our our our podcast anyway. Probably not. Probably safe. So I had another call back yesterday. We built it was like a 20, I think it was about 25 foot long banquette for a coffee shop
Vandalism and Repairs
00:11:25
Speaker
down in Brick. That was like November last year.
00:11:29
Speaker
I think I remember that. Yeah, it was the material that I made all the finishing cabinets out of. I remember that. Honey Carini walnut. They had like some vandalism is all I could think of what it could be where like somebody was digging at the edge banding and like ripping it off. So it was all messed up. I said to the designer, I'm like, you couldn't tear this edge banding off if you wanted to.
00:11:55
Speaker
you would rip your fingernails out. Yeah. Like somebody had to be in there with a knife or something, digging at it and then peeling it, you know, picking at it over, had to be over days. Yeah. So I had to go down, I took a heat gun, I heated up the edge banding, melted the glue, peeled all the edge banding off, got all the glue off, and I had to set up with contact cement. And, you know, so I was there at like 640 in the morning, they opened up at seven.
00:12:24
Speaker
God. Yeah. So. And that like I, I, I could have made a stink and charge for that, but. Yeah. In that situation, that's a, the first situation you own it. The second situations, I don't know. It's a tough one. Yeah. I think like you say no and you charge for that visit. So that's going to be a pretty expensive
00:12:53
Speaker
repair, travel there, travel back, it's a brick. So it's an hour there, an hour back, another hour there. So that's three hours. A lot of times, you know, I want to say I have a minimum. It's a minimum of four, four hours, whatever material. Where was I going with this? Oh, so if you, if you play hardball and make them pay,
00:13:17
Speaker
Now you just open yourself up for them to go over everything. That's true. With a fine tooth comb. And anytime something pops up, they're going to be calling you saying, Hey, well.
00:13:29
Speaker
We paid for that, but what's up with this? You know, oh, there's a, there's a Nick in the finish or whatever. Just that's, I tell you what, that's what I love about selling a painting. They don't have to do anything, but you know, usually the paintings I sell, I frame too. So you're talking about four miters.
00:13:48
Speaker
And then it just hangs on the wall. That being said, I did have one painting fail. Really? Yeah, I had a delamination. It was aluminum. And the aluminum delaminated because I tried to do some funky thing. That's years. That's probably like the paint came off of the aluminum.
00:14:05
Speaker
Now the aluminum, um, bubbled and it bubbled. I adhered the, I, I adhered the aluminum to the substrate with contact cement. And I think I told this story.
00:14:21
Speaker
I think I told the story in the podcast where years and years ago I was getting ready for a show and I, I had a big like five by five foot aluminum painting and I was painting them in the barn and it was cold in the barn. So I bought them in the house to hopefully warm up. It was like that the show was opening the next day and I leaned the painting against the wall with the heater behind it, not realizing it. And, um,
00:14:50
Speaker
and the aluminum expanded and the substrate didn't. And you could see this. Oh, actually I talked about it in a video. I talked about it in a video on my channel. Okay. It sounds familiar. Yeah. I was talking about some of the artwork in the home. So this painting is now more than 20 years old.
00:15:08
Speaker
And it was sort of like, I noticed that at first I thought my kids threw a gummy worm against it. Cause I just felt like I thought it was a gummy worm. And then when I realized there was a shadow, I had like a heart attack. I was like, Oh my God, this painting's like falling apart from my eyes and it's got to go on the show tomorrow.
00:15:25
Speaker
And so then I like ran out to the barn, grabbed a heat gun and a, uh, an iron and a J roller. And I, it proceeded to just screw it up more. And then out of my frustration, I smashed the painting with the J roller and then kind of pushed it all back. And I don't think that painting went in the show.
00:15:48
Speaker
But now everything is stuck and it looks cool. So I just kept it hanging in my dining, my living room. That's part of art. Yeah, sort of like it's it's funny because that particular painting I was trying to keep sort of a pristine finish.
00:16:03
Speaker
where you've seen some of those other paintings, they're sort of like big airplane wing symbols. Sometimes I'll remove the paint with fire or paint remover or whatever, and they can look all kind of beat up. But this one I was trying to keep kind of pristine, and of course, now it looks all beat up. That's what you get.
00:16:23
Speaker
But, yeah, so we got there through, I think, not really having to worry about callbacks with with fine artwork, at least. It's sort of you're making something. It goes on the wall. You don't have to deal with it. When when you're building something, it's like, hey, why is this draw stick or why does this cabinet? Why does this door not open the way it did 10 years ago? Yeah. Well, it's 10 years old. That's why. And, you know, when you do something like a kitchen. Oh, my God. There's a lot of areas where little things can
00:16:52
Speaker
go wrong. You know, you forget to adjust the door or whatever. There's so much in the case of like this Ramsey kitchen, fingers crossed, knock on wood that I don't ever have to go back there. But you know, that's a 90 minute trip up there. If I have to go adjust the door. Now, are you working with the general contractor on that project? No, the designer. Okay. So, and in a case like that,
00:17:17
Speaker
You have to do it. There's nobody, it's not like the designer's going to go in. No, yeah, I couldn't. I would love to pawn it off on somebody. Yeah. Cause it's a 90 minute drive. Yeah. I mean, you're never going to get that 90 minutes back. Yeah. It's three hours. Yeah. More. That was like the site visit. We talked about that. You know, they made me go up there for a site visit that took 15 minutes. Well, I charged for two guys for, you know, it was seven main hours. Yeah. That's a lot.
00:17:44
Speaker
Sorry. And then they still, you know, didn't put the outlet where it was supposed to be. And I'm like, why did I waste my time? I'm glad, gladly take your money, but I didn't make any money doing that. It's a break even for me. So that job is hopefully behind you now. Yeah.
00:18:02
Speaker
Are you happy with the way it turned out? Yeah. Now you didn't get to get any good shots of it though, because the job site stole a mass. Yeah, it's a wreck. Um, so it was supposed to be done on the 14th. We talked about this with the doors where the doors weren't going to be here until the 19th. And I was all worried that, you know, I was going to be the last guy. Job was supposed to be complete the 14th.
00:18:23
Speaker
Yeah. So we were there Friday. It was myself, Walter and Keith. And, um, so I was there Wednesday with the doors, um, with Leilani. It's another thing we'll get into that. Um, Wednesday I was there me and Leilani. Thursday I was there by myself. And then Friday was Walter, Keith and myself. And we, um, we wrapped up everything except for the fridge panels I have in my scope of work, like,
00:18:51
Speaker
Fridge must be installed plumb level and square prior to fridge panel installation. Dishwasher, same thing. No appliance install included, blah, blah, blah. All spelled out plain in English, black and white. So fridge wasn't set.
00:19:07
Speaker
We ran out of time anyway and it turned out that like the fridge, I don't know if I have the spec, it required GE monogram. If you're a cabinet maker and you get a spec for fridge panels, flush inset on a GE monogram, just beware that requires some real heavy notching on the hinge side. Two inches, they make you notch into this door. So these doors only had two and three-eighths inch rails and styles. This was like buried in the specs.
00:19:37
Speaker
I don't want to get into it too far, but very confusing. They call it like a raised panel and then they're showing a raised panel door. And I'm like, oh, these are regular doors. I'm like, doesn't require this. Um, typically you just have like a backer panel on a three quarter inch door, but they only allow a half inch door with a backer panel, which I don't know who the hell makes half inch doors, at least rail and style doors. Not me. Um,
00:20:01
Speaker
Where was I going with this? Oh, so I went back Monday to set those. But yeah, the place was still like, they were still spackling, a ton of painting to do. Do you worry about that? Like some of the subs? Not my problem. So they get paint on your cabinet?
00:20:21
Speaker
That's a, you know, it's one thing if it's, if it's my job and I'm working direct with the client and I feel I have a little more responsibility there, but it's like, Hey, listen, you wanted to run this job. Yeah. The paint should have been done. If you get paid on the cabinets, you figure out.
00:20:37
Speaker
That's not on me. I installed the cabinets. I don't protect the cabinets. I don't, they're your responsibility now. You own them, you paid for them. So when you left the countertops on yet? No, countertops were in. So we went, Cameron and I installed all the cabinets going back a couple of weeks ago. Then they installed the countertops. They did the tile. And then I had those cabinets that sat on top of the tile. So we installed those on Wednesday.
00:21:01
Speaker
Will the designer ever be able to get back there and get some decent photos that she can send you? Yeah. She tends to have stuff photographed. Usually it takes a while. Like it probably won't be for several months, but it'd be good to maybe shoot a video kind of going back into some of those things. And then having, because generally we're shooting videos about the project you're working on, but we usually never see the finished product. Yeah. A lot of times I never even see it.
00:21:28
Speaker
So that would be nice if you can get some decent beauty shots and then we could just almost just give you like a short Q and A and then just feed in some images with B roll. And you can talk about some of the
00:21:45
Speaker
Just some of the highlights of the kitchen and we probably have that in B roll and then I can use that, you know, in that video. Yeah. And then having some pictures of the final kitchen install without all the construction work going on around, it would be great.
00:22:02
Speaker
Yeah, we could always do like all of these jobs. I feel like after, you know, because a renovation is super stressful and hectic for the client. For sure. So like once they have some time to decompress and live in the space a little bit, I have no problem reaching out and saying, Hey, could we like come by for an hour and like shoot a video on your kitchen? Yeah, that'd be cool. Cause then we can actually get in and see everything and you know. Yeah. And you can like fix some things while you're there. Yeah.
00:22:30
Speaker
That's the one thing you want to be careful of. Oh, but yeah, what I was getting at is, yeah, the whole place was just like, you know, like they protect the floor with just paper. I'm like, this is crazy. Paper? What? Might as well not do anything. So what would you use?
00:22:45
Speaker
paper and then ramboard on top or masonite even better. You know, just not the way that I'm used to doing things. I mean, I worked for a general contractor. So they just had like rosin paper on the ground. Yeah. Yeah. Not even red rosin paper, brown, like the crap. Wow. It's, you know, you could see where it was all ripped up and, um,
00:23:07
Speaker
dust everywhere. And you know, so we cleaned the vet. We, I always clean the cabinets out after install. They were just full of crap. Sheetrock dust, stuff from the countertop guys, stuff from the electrician, from the plumber. Yeah. Then the plumber shows up Friday and he's like, Oh, he's like, are you going to install the dishwasher? I'm like, no. I'm like, what makes you think I'm the guy who's installing the dishwasher? Like that's your job. Yeah.
00:23:35
Speaker
And if it's not your job, it's somebody else's, but it's definitely not mine. So what do you say? Uh, they were like real, uh, Eastern European, like, I don't know. Maybe I'll cut that out. They didn't have much to say. They were too busy outside smoking cigarettes. So who's Leilani? All right. So, uh, I fired Cameron on Tuesday.
Staff Changes in the Workshop
00:24:03
Speaker
which was like a little while after I think we recorded the last podcast. He just wasn't.
00:24:10
Speaker
He didn't want the job, you know, he wasn't putting in the effort. I don't need to get into the specifics. I don't want to bash anybody as much as I would love to. But so Leilani, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you probably heard the name come up. She was my helper back when I was a finished carpenter and she got in a, she got a job in a shop shortly after I left that job to get a job at Tom's shop.
00:24:38
Speaker
So she's been working in that shop for six years and recently got let go. So it was like the stars aligned Tuesday. She actually came in. I don't know if we talked about this on the podcast. You mentioned that you had somebody that you had worked with in the past who you think might work with you again.
00:24:55
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. So she was here Tuesday morning. Not on the podcast though. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't sure if I did. Uh, so Tuesday she came by last week. We talked and then, um, I ended up letting Cameron go later that day, not directly related, but I think definitely, um, led to me.
00:25:16
Speaker
finally coming to that decision. I had been thinking about it for a while because he had his three-month review coming up, first week of September, I think. And I was like, for a while, I'm thinking about it. I'm like, I think I got to let him go at this three-month review because he's just not doing what I said I would expect.
00:25:40
Speaker
Sure. He's not taking the initiative. Right. I laid it out very clearly in the beginning. Like I'm looking for someone who wants to be a cabinet maker. You can't hang your hat at the door and leave and you're not a cabinet maker anymore. You're a cabinet maker 24 seven. If you really want to do it, you have to do it. It's not like, you know, this isn't a, a nine to five job. You got to really want it. Sure. You got to be somewhere else. You can do that, but not here, you know,
00:26:06
Speaker
You have to be thinking about tomorrow's problem tonight. Yeah. I'm not asking you to do work that you're not getting paid for. It's not like that. But if you want to be a cabinet maker, you need to live, breathe and eat this, you know, unless you just want to be out there sweeping the floor. But that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for someone who's trying to fast track themselves to become a cabinet maker.
00:26:26
Speaker
And I'm offering you a good paying job, benefits, paid time off, all these things. And that's something I would tell them all the time. I'm like, you don't get all of this and then get to do this. I'm a pretty good boss, I think. I'm going to expect a lot out of you, but I'm also giving you a lot of things, things that I never got.
00:26:47
Speaker
It's like you don't get to have both. I'm going to expect a lot out of you if you're going to get all these things. So he just clearly wasn't motivated enough to become a cabinet maker. So is Leilani going to be full-time? So we're still hashing out
00:27:07
Speaker
everything, you know, I would love to bring her on full time and that's my intention. It's just, I want to make sure that the work is there because I don't want to bring her on and then not be able to, to give her the work. So obviously she's been working in a shop for six years. So she comes at more of an expense versus someone who has no experience. So I need to take that, you know, I just need to make sure that for her sake, I don't bring her on that. I'm like, Hey, I'm a little bit slow this week. I can't, you know, well that's responsible. Yeah.
00:27:38
Speaker
So she's going to do some part time in the meantime. You know, I, I foresee almost definitely that she's going to come up full time. That's great. Yeah. That'd be great. So she did a lot of, you know, curved work, veneer work. Wow. Yeah. She's to ask her a few questions. Yeah. I wonder what she was using to veneer. I'm not sure. Probably contact cement.
00:28:07
Speaker
That's all I ever use just because I'm always building cabinets. And so, I mean, yeah, if you're going to put veneer on a, on a board, then you can use a vacuum press. But if you're going to build a cabinet and wrap it, how much would you put the veneer on there? Yeah. If you're going to build something with a curve, well, you could put small parts in a vacuum press curve, but a whole big thing for the look.
00:28:32
Speaker
I have to think of another veneer project. So I did, I do four projects for GL veneer a year. And I just posted the video for the last one a few weeks ago. And the next one is going to be a
00:28:51
Speaker
He's got, they're going to send me two, two sheets because I couldn't decide which one. And I thought, well, maybe I'd make a video looking at the two sheets and maybe even ask the viewers. So one is figured eucalyptus and one is figured and fumed eucalyptus. So it's the fumed is much darker. Yeah.
00:29:12
Speaker
Uh, so I want to look at those. The, the one thing that I have to think about is a lot of times when I work with veneer, I'll ban the edge with the same product, the same species or similar species. So with, with few eucalyptus, I'm not exactly sure what I would ban the edge with. Yeah. Where are you going to, where do you buy solid eucalyptus? Yeah.
00:29:38
Speaker
And with the figured eucalyptus, you could probably go with, with white oak. Oh, it's that light. Looks pretty similar. Yeah. You could, you could fume some white oak. How do you do that? Just ammonia. Is that it? You make a little tent. All right. You put a pan of ammonia. I'm probably over simplifying it, but that's basically it. Like, you know, they used to take a chair, put it inside this thing with the thing of ammonia. Later you take it out and that's it. Okay. Yeah.
00:30:07
Speaker
Well, maybe I can use the, yeah, maybe I can fume some white oak for the fumed.
00:30:11
Speaker
So anyway, that's something that's on the horizon and that's why I sent you that video link. I don't know if you had a chance to look at that. I didn't. I realized just as I was sitting down, I'm like, I didn't even get to watch that video. You might look at it. It's interesting. We can talk about it maybe next time. One of the things that Jeff and I talked about with the podcast is talk about a woodworker in one episode and maybe an artist in another episode just to
00:30:41
Speaker
not only brought in the conversation, but brought in our own vision. Yeah. Right. Well, and this guy is sort of both. Yeah. He's we were talking about Donald Judd and I built two end tables with zebra wood on the outside and ash on the inside. And they're directly inspired by Donald Judd sculptor sculptures.
00:31:07
Speaker
And we maybe will get into it a little bit more next week, but just a quick overview. Donald Judd was a minimalist sculptor and he would work in aluminum. He would work in plywood. He would work in acrylic. And so just very, very simple. Now I have my opinions on some of it.
00:31:28
Speaker
Some of it I like and some of it. Actually, I like most of it, but I mean, you could be talking about a room as big as your shop. So one idea for like a Donald Judd Museum would be a room as big as a shop filled with basically aluminum rectangles. So yeah, that's cool. Like standing up like doors kind of.
00:31:54
Speaker
Uh, almost like this table, but like a rectangle, you know what I mean? Like just minimal, like it's a statement or, or you could take, uh, like maybe, um, six aluminum blocks that measure six inches by 18 by 18 inches and stack them up like a totem and attach them to the wall.
00:32:16
Speaker
And that's really cool. That makes, that I can see because I can live with that. So I look at artwork and I think, can I live with it? If I can't live with it, does it become more of about just an, an ego flex, right? So like some of these gigantic paintings that you'll see are some of these gigantic, like institutional artwork is, I don't know, there's something for me. I, I believe in artwork. I think more of artwork that you can live with.
00:32:43
Speaker
Once it gets out of that realm, I'm like, okay, it's cool, but I don't know. Yeah. It feels more phoned in, you know, cause it's like, if it's so simple and it, but it's inaccessible to where you have to sort of like go to see it.
00:33:02
Speaker
It kind of, I feel like it kind of takes away from it. You know, it's one thing if you could see it every day and it's simple, but if it's like a destination and you go and it's just a big rectangle, it's like, that's cool, but.
00:33:15
Speaker
I think that there are only so many people who get sort of tapped who can actually work that way. Right. So if you think of I'll get into artists that I wouldn't expect you to know their names, but like Richard Sarah, who does these gigantic arching pieces of steel and they are cool. So when I say an arching piece of steel, it's probably 12 feet tall, two inches thick by 40 feet long.
00:33:46
Speaker
You know what I mean? You could make that and it's like anybody given the resources and the money could be like, yeah, I'm going to do this big bent piece of steel. Well, that's the thing. So like he, I mean, he had to work up to it, but at the same time,
00:34:02
Speaker
Like he didn't start making those. He started doing smaller stuff, but he was working with the, I think the, the art dealer, Leo Castelli. And, uh, that gave him sort of the stature to be able to build these, these things. It's no different than like Demi and hers too. Yeah. I'm sure you're familiar with the, um, the shark. I don't know the $12 million shark. So.
00:34:25
Speaker
Damien Hurst is really famous for polka dot paintings. Like, okay. But he became, he kind of really blew up when he did a commissioned piece and they, they ended up hiring a fisherman to, to catch a, uh, I think it was like a 12 foot long tiger shark. And then they put that shark in a, in a tank of formaldehyde. And then it went into a gallery.
00:34:53
Speaker
And, you know, meanwhile, the shark has been replaced like two or three times, but it's sold for like $12 million. So it's just crazy. I mean, that's the thing. Like, I don't know. Some of this shit is cool, but it's like, I don't know. How can you even like quantify that as like a single person? Yeah. Like I'm looking at this. I pulled up Donald Judd. Um,
00:35:18
Speaker
So you see those paintings on the mid side on the right hand corner. Those are acrylic right hand corner in the middle. I really liked that. Yeah, that's cool. So what I like about that is this is less, I mean, it's cool, but I'm with you like where the impact of this is less than this.
00:35:37
Speaker
Yeah, because it's on a human scale and like you could make that, you know, like not that you could make that painting, but you probably could cause it's just very technical, but you could make that and, and, and hang it on the wall in your home. The other thing is a sculpture garden somewhere.
Inspired Furniture Design
00:35:56
Speaker
It's an institution. So it's cool, but it's sort of like, I don't know, there's,
00:36:03
Speaker
It's an odd thing, but all that being said, I do appreciate the way he's used lines. He's made a chair, if you Google the Donald Judge chair. It's been ripped off by a lot of... And it's a very simple thing. This isn't the one I'm thinking of. I just saw what I thought.
00:36:28
Speaker
this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't look very comfortable, but it's cool. Oh yeah. Especially with the contrast of like the white banding. Yeah. But every like hipster woodworker I feel like has, has made that out of like Baltic birch. Sure. And they're like, Oh yeah, this is so cool. And it, you know, I'm not saying it's not cool, but yeah, these are here. Yeah.
00:36:54
Speaker
I like this. I do like that. Now that's a big institutional piece. Like I could see that as like a big reception desk or something. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. So you can see why I like his stuff. Anyway, the, the, the piece of furniture that I'll, I'll make with this fumed eucalyptus or, or the figured eucalyptus will,
00:37:22
Speaker
more than likely have a Donald Judd feel to it. Nice. I think any kind of rec, clean rec rectangle has a piece of furniture. I just automatically think Donald Judd. Yeah. Yeah. I was familiar with the name and the chair, but I didn't know. I thought he was more of a furniture guy. I didn't know if his, like, this is pretty cool. Yeah. I didn't know that he was an artist. Not that furniture is not art, but you know what I mean? So
00:37:52
Speaker
Those, uh, those chairs are really cool too. I think they're called, um, I forget what the kind of chair that is. It's like a Z chair. I don't think that's Donald Judd though. So, so what I'll do now is I'll get this veneer and I'll just sort of take some deep dives, looking at other furniture and try to come up with something that
00:38:21
Speaker
is somehow a little bit of my own, but probably, I mean, everything is inspired by something else. So you can't really, you can't really say that, uh, that every idea is an original Kim Kardashian is really, uh, all over this Donald Judd. Is that who that is? Apparently she got sued.
00:38:46
Speaker
Kim Kardashian is facing a lawsuit over allegedly falsely claiming the origin of furniture in her office, sparking a legal dispute with a prestigious foundation that does not want to be, quote, mixed up with the TV star. I didn't realize she had blonde hair. I thought she had dark hair.
00:39:03
Speaker
Sure it's ever changing. Yeah. Well, I can see your roots. Office space immersed in blah, blah, blah. Not only first with minimalist designs, claim to mostly be designed by late Donald learns Judd. I think basically she was saying that she had Judd chairs, but they were not actually. Okay. Maybe inspired by, but not made by. It's, I mean, it's definitely cool stuff.
00:39:33
Speaker
Yeah. I like these. Yeah. Those are nice. And I mean, I think I might put a cushion on it. These actually look like they're upholstered with leather. The, the, uh, the seat area, but not the back. The back looks like wood grain to me. Yeah. I hate when you go to a restaurant and like the chair is really uncomfortable. Yeah. It sucks. Or it like the worst is when it's too high. Do you go to restaurants a lot?
00:40:00
Speaker
No, neither do I. I thought you might just because you worked in a restaurant, you know, before you got into woodworking, you were. You you worked in the restaurant industry. Yeah, I enjoy it, but. You know, I don't know, I just don't. I'd rather spend the money on good ingredients and cook it myself. Yeah, my wife's not like a real foodie and we both sort of have dietary restrictions, so it's like it has to be.
00:40:27
Speaker
on occasion. So you're keto. Yeah. Which means you don't eat sugar. Yeah. No sugar, no like carbohydrates, not no carbohydrates, but no like bread or pasta or beans or sugary fruits. What'd you have to eat today? I do cottage cheese for breakfast, almonds for lunch. What do you do for dinner then?
00:40:53
Speaker
A lot of times it's just like a salad with chicken or any meat and vegetable, but it's got to be like a green vegetable, asparagus, kale, cabbage, spinach, you can eat stuff like that. So that is keto. Yeah. All right. I'm going to try to eat less carbohydrates. I think that
00:41:18
Speaker
I used to eat a lot of bread and I used to, I think that that affected my asthma, gave me my asthma worst. I think that, uh, maybe more inflammation. Somebody was talking to me about that. That's what they say. I don't know. Um,
00:41:34
Speaker
the validity of it, but yeah, it's just like 20 notifications. I know that when I eat that stuff, I don't feel as good as I do when I don't. Like I get brain fog, I get moody, tired. And you don't, you really don't drink. No, I had,
00:41:57
Speaker
two or three beers and some Grand Marnier. Just one night when I was in Atlanta, that was it. I don't think I'm gonna drink at Maker Camp. Really? Yeah, maybe a little bit, but...
00:42:09
Speaker
Yeah, I don't feel as good when I, when I drink, I don't drink nearly as much. I used to be good for one or two, sometimes three, mostly one or two beers, but now I, I very rarely drink just cause I'm on a major fitness kick. That's what happens when you get old. You're either going to say, I don't want to continue to get old or you're going to say I give up and I'm in this mode now. I'll just tell you my workout today was good. I, um,
00:42:37
Speaker
I built this like a gym for Michael, maybe 10 years ago. There's a video of it on my channel. It's got dip bars and pull up bars. And then, and then Michael bought these, these like little things that you do pull ups, but you can get a better extension. It's like, you know, they're like the bars are like six inches off the ground. So you can get a full extension on a, not a pull up, a push up. Okay. Yeah.
00:43:03
Speaker
So I'll go out to the bars and today I just did sets of three. So three pull-ups, three dips, 10 push-ups, 10 times. So when it was all done, it's a hundred push-ups, 30 dips, 30. And that's all just to, just to stay in shape and be able to eat.
Fitness Routine Insights
00:43:22
Speaker
And I've been working out now pretty regularly for about six or eight months and I feel so much better. Push-ups kill my shoulders. That's the thing. Like if you, if you get an injury,
00:43:34
Speaker
It'll just destroy you. Like my friend, Walter's friend. Walter's friend is a bodybuilder. And he like slipped a disc in his back doing powerlifting. I'm like, Walter, what is he doing?
00:43:47
Speaker
You know, he's 27 years old now or 26 maybe. Give him 20 years. He's going to be walking around hobbled over. What did it all like? Who cares if I lift 400 pounds? That's like my knee. You know, I blew my knee out. Like it's almost 20 years ago now in football. Yeah.
00:44:07
Speaker
See now apparently knee surgeries are getting really good. Yeah. And like the, um, ability to either, I think maybe put in implant new cartilage or regrow cartilage that's gone is on the horizon, but we'll see. Yeah. I mean, I don't want any replacement, but it's something that I need to seriously think about. Is it a meniscus? Yeah. They removed 80% of my, uh, lateral meniscus. Wow. Yeah.
00:44:35
Speaker
I injured my left knee snowboarding maybe 15 years ago and it hurt for about 11 years when I would go downstairs or go on a ladder. It was just very few motions. Also on the downstroke on a bicycle.
00:45:00
Speaker
And then I started to ride just, but not as, not as hard. And it, it repaired itself just from riding and then getting the pedal assist bike. Now I'm riding like probably five times a week. I don't even, I don't even remember what he bothered me. I think it was my left knee, but it was for about 10 years. It was bad. And just doing the, uh, just doing the cycling has fixed it. Yeah. My back's been bothering me now for a while.
00:45:30
Speaker
It's mostly just stiffness. Like I really need to start stretching. So what do you want to do? Like what is your, your dream? So 10 years from now, if everything like, where do you want to be? Um, there's a shop that's running, that's able to run with me, not there. Um, that's basically it. And then you'll have this time to run the business.
00:45:57
Speaker
Well, the idea is that yeah, I am running the business, but it also functions independently from me. You know, I would have people in place where I could say, I'm going to be gone for a week. Here's, here's the plan about it. And then so that's going to give you time. So what do you want to do with your time?
00:46:16
Speaker
sit on the beach. Really? No, no. I don't know. I'm not good with free time. So I'd have to be doing something. So what would be your thing? Would it be fishing? Would it be golf? I can't see you playing golf. No, I've never golfed. I mean, who knows? I might love it. But I mean, like, so exercise is definitely one of those things that I would like to do. I like
00:46:38
Speaker
exercising, that vigorous exercise, the feeling afterwards, but it's too much to inject into my day-to-day. My day-to-day is too chaotic where I really need consistency. If I'm going to do something, it needs to be consistent and it's too crazy for me now.
00:47:00
Speaker
where like, you know, so I was walking every morning and then I go to Atlanta and now it's, it's been a week and I haven't walked any morning since then. Cause I'm here trying to catch up. I'm at the shop at five 30. I'm sure, you know, so it's like, if I, if I didn't have to be here until eight o'clock, yeah, it'd be easy for me to do something every morning, but so walking on a treadmill. Yeah. That's what I have been doing. So if you had more time, you'd focus more on your health. Yeah.
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah. That's a good thing. A better thing would be if you can figure out, you know, I know that you're catching up, but if you can figure out how to find 20 minutes a day. Yeah. I was doing 30 minutes, just walking for 30 minutes. That's a lot. Cause that's the other thing. Like, um, when you have so much else going on, like I can't burn myself out at
00:47:52
Speaker
Like I get on the treadmill at four o'clock in the morning. I can't run five miles at four o'clock in the morning. It's going to screw up. Yeah. You'll be too, you'll be too gassed for the rest of the day. Yeah. And like, you know, I leave it all in the field here every day, so I don't have it after work either. So that's my slot from four to whatever time I got to be here.
00:48:12
Speaker
If I don't do my workout in the morning, it's really, really hard to do it later in the afternoon or in the evening, especially as the sun starts to go down. And I like the morning. I just feel stronger in the morning. But that's, those are good goals. I think that's an achievable thing. It's not like you, you know,
00:48:34
Speaker
have a, you know, I want to own a mansion in a yacht. It's really just time. Yeah. Uh, those things, it would be nice to not have to worry about money, but yeah, that's not, that's the thing. Money is you always have to think about money.
00:48:48
Speaker
I'm in a place where this is never going to happen because my wife is never going to leave New Jersey, especially because we have the three boys and our and our daughter. And they're they love it here. But because I bought my house 30 years ago, I could downsize.
00:49:07
Speaker
and basically move out of this area, get out of this area and like cash out. That's what people do. Yeah. People cash out in New Jersey and they, well, it's getting harder to go to North Carolina now, but that's what people would do because the taxes in North, like the taxes around here are out of control. Yeah. You get a lot for him though, or you get more for them then.
00:49:27
Speaker
You do. You do. Because I like I always say I want to go to Vermont and I do because I like mountain bike and I'd like to go skiing and fishing and all that. But that's that that's kind of what I'm getting at. Like if it were up to me, I probably would move, but I might regret it because I'd be like six hours away from my family wondering what the hell I'm doing. Yeah. Or in like a cultural dead zone, you know,
00:49:56
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know if I need that much culture, like, like, like going to the theater or something. You go to the theater a lot. Actually, I drove, I drove by Two River Theater today and I'm like, I wonder what they're like, what's going on in there? You know, like what kind of plays they have. Did you ever go to one? No, I went to the gala. I worked the gala. Okay. That was it. I went to a few when we had a subscription there and
00:50:20
Speaker
I'm just being honest. I get to something like that and I'm sort of like, when can I leave? Yeah, like the plays are a little too extra for me. I saw one, I saw two plays that just stand out. They're both in New York. I saw Blue Man Group, which isn't really a play as much as a performance. You know what that is, right? Sounds like a concert. Yeah. Very, very cool.
00:50:45
Speaker
And then I saw a one man show with Al Pacino. I don't even know what it was about, but I just remember thinking like, holy cow. This is, and it was at this tiny little theater. Um, again, before we had kids before my may have even been before I was married. So more than 30 years ago. And that was cool. And then I saw a couple things that the two of her
00:51:08
Speaker
And they were cool, but musical I can't do. Yeah, musicals are tough. It's it's too much for me. It's funny, like I think it's South Park or maybe not South Park and Family Guy does a good good like take off on musicals where they just like make fun of them. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what I mean. Like it's just too extra. It's too. I could probably see that the Book of Mormon.
00:51:33
Speaker
Yeah, that was coming to mind. Like that I could go see or I'm trying to think. There were some other ones. Oh, oh, hello with Nick Kroll and John Mulaney. You ever seen those guys? They're fun. They're ringing a bell, but I can't picture them. They recorded it for Netflix, like one of the live performances. I watched that. It was good. Oh, cool.
00:51:58
Speaker
But yeah, like I'm not going to go see Lion King or cats or. I think I actually did see cats now. Now that you and I think I remember the commercials in the 90s were like relentless. You know, it's funny now. Now you've sparked memories. I think I saw that back in the early 90s or maybe even in the 80s. And I think I also saw Phantom of the Opera. Oh, man. Yeah, that's going way, way, way back.
00:52:25
Speaker
I've seen like Christmas Carol a couple of times at MacArthur Theater in Princeton. That's cool. I think those things I was dragged to. I don't think I like willingly went. I think that was like, oh, you have to go to this, you know, it might have gone with my parents or something like that. My wife went recently to Harry Potter and the what's called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. She said it was cool. It has like a bunch of like special effects and stuff.
00:52:48
Speaker
I'm just boring, man. I just would rather like stand by the grill, cook some food, go for a bite. I am a boring, boring person. And even fishing is funny because the strippers, not the strippers, but the snappers are in the bed.
00:53:05
Speaker
I rode my bike over the Blue Bridge there, you know, over by, I forget the name of that road, but, you know, the Blue Bridge, Lucas Point Bridge. And the snappers were going wild. And I would rather just use a little, you know, five foot ugly stick with a spinner and fish for snappers than go out in a, you know, in a half million dollar boat and go tuna fishing.
00:53:34
Speaker
It's a big commitment. It is. It's an all day affair.
00:53:37
Speaker
And I just like catching a little fish on a, you know, a little lightweight rod. You know, that's why I like trout fishing. Trout fishing is as much about hiking and being in nature as it is about fishing. The nice part about trout fishing is you usually fish upstream and then walk downstream. And if you've ever done that, you realize it's a hell of a lot easier walking downstream than it is upstream. You kind of just go with the flow.
00:54:08
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sort of taking the same approach with fishing. You know, I'm a gearhead, like no matter what tools or fishing or whatever. Like I really, I don't know, I like gear. I like having all the stuff, researching and like, so for the steelhead and stuff like that, I'm still of that mindset. But like now, if I go down to the Leonardo Marina,
00:54:31
Speaker
I use my bass rod, so it's just a little Abu Garcia and a little Abu Garcia reel. And I just have like little jig heads and some grubs. And that's what I'm fishing for fluke with. It used to be I have every size bucktail and different 15 colors of gulps. And it's like now I'm like, if I catch something, I catch something. If not, whatever.
00:54:54
Speaker
Yeah. If you can have like a half dozen lures in a little thing that'll fit in your pocket and maybe some nail clippers to cut the line. Just, you know, it's, it's nice to have a knife too. If you're gonna, if you're going to keep anything because then you can gut it right there in the water. But you don't need much and it's just, you know, just traveling light. That's how I would always fish when I fished the river up in Vermont. Have you done any more of the tankara? Cause you did that a couple of times, right?
00:55:24
Speaker
I have it and I've, I can see how it'd be good. That'd be cool for Snapper. Yeah. And I have it. I think it might be right out in my truck. I think it might be underneath to see my truck. Like a little top water popper or something. Yeah. And I think that line is only, I think that you have like a, like a 10 foot leader and a 10 foot line or something like that. It's yeah. Cause there's no real, you know, it's just, uh,
00:55:51
Speaker
That the one downside of that is the rod is like 10 feet long, but the rod is big. So if you get in the woods, it's sort of, you know, a lot of people do like little slingshot casts with things like that. But, um, yeah, what, what size fly rod do you use when you do use a fly rod? Uh, for steelhead, I have a, uh, seven weight and an eight weight and I bought a, um,
00:56:21
Speaker
two weight a couple of years ago that I haven't even used. That would be for like around here. Yeah. I think that fly fishing is a commitment that I don't have the time for right now. That's why I always just grab the spinner. Yeah. Yeah. I have like a 10 foot eight weight and I have a 13 foot six, seven weight. That's a two handed rod. Yeah. Holy cow. Yeah. It's huge. It's from here that wall. Do you like cycling?
00:56:50
Speaker
Oh yeah. I think you would really like pedal assist mountain biking. It's a great workout. And because you're a gearhead, like you would go down so many rabbit holes. I have a $20,000 bike. Oh my God. I mean, DJI just came out with an amazing bike. Really? DJI the same, you know, makes the drones, makes your microphone. They came out with a bike that is, uh, so my bike weighs 56 pounds. That's relatively pretty heavy.
00:57:17
Speaker
And then then a lot of people in the industry were going for these, uh, like half the power and three quarters of the weight. So they're getting the bikes down to like 42 pounds, but you'd only have half the, uh, half the battery and half the energy.
00:57:35
Speaker
I think like they measure a new meter. So my motor will put out 85 new meters where the super lights will put out like 55 new meters. Anyway, the DJI is like 19 kilos, which I think is right around 42 pounds.
00:57:53
Speaker
Yeah. And, uh, and it's putting out, I think 110 new meters and has, I think an 850 watt hour battery. So it's, it's got a lot. Yeah, that's big. Yeah. And it's all this down tube that looks like you can't really tell. So it's, you would,
00:58:15
Speaker
You would get into it because it's a relatively new industry and every year they're just doing something like new. You're a Chinese pedal assist mountain bike manufacturer listening to this podcast. There you go. You got the address. I have, um, so Bulls, I, uh, I, uh, I think I mentioned that Bulls sent me a bike and it's good and it's a large though. So, um, it's like, I would probably ride a medium.
00:58:43
Speaker
I bought a large because it was the only one available and they, they sent me another bike just for like a long-term loan to take people out on rides. And I think you'd be fine on it. You know, I think you'd still be fine on it, but I do, I am a little apprehensive like saying, do you want to go for a ride? And then you like break your wrist. Yeah. That's what I'm like. I'm like, I'd feel really bad if we went out for a ride and you ended up like getting injured.
00:59:09
Speaker
Yeah. It's one of those things where you have to like build up to, uh, like, I feel like you have to build up to going into the woods, like deep, you know, you got to take some easy trails and just get accustomed to, cause like I've ridden a bike a little bit over the past couple of years. I used to ride every morning. Um, I would do to the tip of the hook and back when I lived in Highlands, but, uh, you know, I rode a bike a couple of times last year. You know, it's one of those things where you got to get back,
00:59:34
Speaker
Yeah. That skill set. It is. They're weird muscles. It's funny. Like when I first started riding, I was like, I can't believe how hard it is for me to look over my shoulder, like just to look for oncoming traffic. Like I was like, this is like a quite a stretch. Like it hurts my neck. It hurts my shoulders. Now I don't even think about it. It's like, you know, you just kind of get loose. And so it's a, it's a, uh,
00:59:59
Speaker
It's a great way to get back into cycling because you still get a workout, but it doesn't have the same sort of
01:00:11
Speaker
I don't know if it's boring factor, but are just total exhaustion factor. You know, like people are riding and still getting a workout and it's kind of revitalizing the sport. I think I've seen a lot of young people out on them now. So I mean, it's a good thing and a bad thing because it's kind of nice when there's not that many out there, who knows what's going to happen. I think the price point was a little, uh, was keeping people out of the market, but now they seem to be coming down in price.
01:00:38
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, we live in an area that has like more trails than the average place. I feel like, you know, it does like to where you don't have to drive. That's a beautiful thing. If I had to put the bike in the truck, I probably, probably wouldn't use it as much. Yeah. Like I could just shoot up, um, Portland right there and I'd be right. Yeah. Or you could, you could also take the Henry Hudson trail. If you wanted to just ride just to get a nice scenery. Oh yeah.
01:01:07
Speaker
take that all the way through Highlands and then go up by twin lights. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? So kind of like a nice warmup before you get into the woods. Yeah. Kind of a nice thing. Yeah. Popping more points, a nice ride too. I haven't been, you know, you take the Henry Hudson all the way to the Marina and then you go on those boardwalks and everything over to Highlands.
01:01:32
Speaker
Oh yeah. That's the one. Yeah. It's like, uh, it's from Atlantic Highlands to Highlands. Yep. They call that Papa more point. Yeah. That's the name of the beach there. Oh, okay. Yep. Nice. Yeah. So maybe, you know, if you ever want to ride, let me know, but at the same time, I don't want to be responsible. Yeah. That's a bit, that's definitely a fear, but can't live in fear.
01:01:56
Speaker
Now you can't I, um, I went riding with my son Jack last night and I met the guys at the Highlander who, uh, have a bike shop in Atlantic Highlands. And I, uh, I just, I kind of tagged along cause I like, these guys are like 25. They go over, like they'll go over a route.
01:02:16
Speaker
And they'll get like three feet of air on their bicycle. Like they just do these jumps. And the one guy's like, he's like, after you. I'm like, no, thanks. I said, I said, I'm just going to slow you down. I'll catch up. These guys are just, you know, they're just no fear. They're just flying.
01:02:34
Speaker
Yeah, no, I can't do that. No, it's not worth it. I ride it my own. I actually almost enjoy just riding by myself the best cause I ride at my own pace. Yeah. Sometimes you get somebody who's like pretty good and you can ride with them, but still, you know, I'm only going out there. I do my hour to hour and 20 minutes and I'm back and I'm done.
01:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, I could see like it both being either in the front or the one behind being like a weird dynamic. Like the guy in the front, you feel like I always want to look back and make sure the person's still there. And then the person behind, your pace is being set by the person in front of you. Just seems like it could be stressful. I don't, I think everybody's having a good time. I just,
01:03:16
Speaker
I just prefer, I've done two rides with them now and I just say to myself, I'm like, I kind of prefer to ride on my own. Or if I like, I'll go on a ride with like one of my boys and it's just two kids. It's just two of us, not two kids, one kid and one old man, the two of us. And then with those guys, I can pretty much keep up. I think
01:03:39
Speaker
I think when the other guys are riding, my brother, my son Jack was with last night. I think he just finds another gear. Yeah. You know what I mean? Cause cause he texted me afterwards. He's like, wow, those guys are fast. And I'm like, yeah, definitely. So yeah, I don't try to keep up with them. No. And like the downhill stuff is crazy.
01:03:59
Speaker
It is. I'd be afraid of like getting in the woods and then like, I'm just in somebody's way. It's like there's some guy, those guys are behind me and I'm like, I got to get out of these guys way. Everybody's super nice though. I just pull over and let, you know, just kind of wave them by. So what's your next project?
01:04:15
Speaker
So I'm working on that cherry cabinet right now, wrapping that up. We didn't even talk about the video we shot. So I'm getting into that big chair. Oh my God. Keith, if you're, well, Keith, if you're listening to this, you're probably on your way to the shop to start working on the chair on Friday. So Keith will be here. I think I'm going to hand that off to him.
01:04:37
Speaker
To start looking at, I gotta, I gotta pull the plants back up. Um, you're going to be pre-drilling for those screws or just driving them right through? Probably just drive them right in. That's what I always do. Bless you. Yeah, I got the sneezes. Um, so yeah, so we shot a video talking about like ordering a lumber. So I bought all that stuff from Lowe's and just had it delivered. And then we got into the carts, the Hayfla carts.
01:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, those carts are nice. Funny we shot the whole video without the microphone plugged in.
01:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, we had just the regular phone audio. I'm shooting everything on a iPhone 15 with, I think it's a New Holland microphone, wireless mic. And so Jeff was mic'd up with the mic in his apron, but I never put the receiver in the phone. And I was like, wait a minute, something's not right here. I think I asked you for your microphone back. And then I went to take the receiver out of my phone and I was like, oh man.
01:05:43
Speaker
Yeah. I was saying it reminded me of the time that Rob and I recorded the podcast like three times. I forget what happened. Something with, I don't know if it was my computer or the program or what, but yeah, that was brutal. This wasn't so bad. You know, we only shot for 15 minutes or so.
01:05:57
Speaker
I think one clip is five minutes, the other is three. And then the new clips are a little bit shorter and I think they're more condensed and better. So that video will come out like always on Saturday morning, 8 30. I'm trying to get a schedule now. I'm trying to put something out Sunday at 8 30. So I haven't shot anything yet. So I might
01:06:21
Speaker
I got, I've got your bench in the shop now and I just put those casters on it. So I might just put out a short video, talk about that a little bit, the benefits of having a shop, a bench in the shop. And then I'll, um, I'll get back onto, uh, figuring out a piece of furniture. The, what I should do more of is make more cherry pieces of furniture because that, that seems to be what sells the most out of my plans. Cherry pieces of cherry furniture.
01:06:49
Speaker
I forgot how good cherry with oil looks like those parts that I finished out there just looks so good. Cherry's a great wood. It's my favorite by far. Yeah, it's really nice. It's so nice to work with. It smells great. If you've ever smoked food, cherry's a great wood to smoke food with.
01:07:11
Speaker
I'm, I'm thinking of running a few boards over the planer without the dust collection on just to use, use as fuel for my bee smoker. So I usually use pine needles, but they smell a little, they get to me a little bit. Yeah. The smoke that comes off of pine needles is like, like thick white. And the cherry just so sweet. It's a really nice, I have a funny story about the bees. I was, uh,
01:07:39
Speaker
I was doing something by the barn and I noticed some little red thing moving around in the grass. So I look, I get a little closer and sure enough, it's the queen from one of the hives. That's what I was thinking. Cause you said you mark them red. Yeah. Well, last year's was red. I forget what I didn't mark any of the Queens this year. Total hands-off approach to beekeeping this year. But when I looked at that hive in the early spring,
01:08:07
Speaker
I made a note to myself, like this queen is not doing well. She's not, you know, we don't have a good pattern in the hive. And I just said, I forget, I'll let nature take its course. And so I'm assuming that they just kicked her out.
01:08:24
Speaker
And so that's the problem with beekeeping. You could be like having a very productive day. The next thing you know, you've noticed something in the hives and you think, oh, I should go do something about that.
Beekeeping Practices
01:08:34
Speaker
Like you get a swarm or something and now you're putting on the bee suit. And now you've done all that and lit the smoker and you go into the hive and it seems like you didn't do anything anyway, but you've just lost an hour and a half. So this year I'm just sort of like,
01:08:52
Speaker
whatever happens. And all that being said, we did do a harvest, uh, I guess about six weeks ago. And I think we got about 10 gallons of honey from that harvest. I thought I was going to get a lot more, but the, the honey wasn't capped. So I left it in the hive and we went in the hive maybe two weeks ago and most of that honey is now capped. So maybe we'll get a, uh, maybe we'll get a pretty good size fall harvest.
01:09:20
Speaker
It's crazy to think of the volume that like you look at I look at your highs and it's like there's no way there's 10 gallons of honey in there. You know, it's like seems like a lot of volume, you know. So I was always under the impression that each frame held about eight pounds of honey. I was grossly overestimating.
01:09:43
Speaker
Uh, because so the guy I keep these with Mike, we would, we would look at a, a honey super and we'd be like, okay, well you've got nine frames in there and uh, you know, eight times nine, what's that 72 I think. Uh, so then we'd be like, we've got 72 72. Oh, we're going to have like 350 pounds of honey here.
01:10:03
Speaker
And so this time I thought, well, I'm going to weigh one of the frames and a full frame of honey weighs about like 5.2 pounds. Of honey or the whole frame, including all the wax. So then after you spin the honey, the empty frame weighs about a pound and an ounce. So you're really getting about
01:10:30
Speaker
And some frames are a little bit heavier and some are a little bit less. So we're guesstimating now that on the safe side, there's maybe three, just under four pounds of honey for each frame. So all these years, the last 10 years, we've been like, oh yeah, it's like, you know,
01:10:48
Speaker
And we'd always be like, wow, I can't believe we didn't get as much money as we thought we were going to get. I mean, the simple thing doesn't add up. Yeah. All we had to do is weigh one, but I had the scale in the shop. So I was like, oh, I'll do that. And, uh, that's what it turns out to be. What's a gallon of honey weight, 20 pounds? Uh, I don't, uh, five gallons of honey weighs, I think 70 pounds. Okay. So it's definitely heavier than water. Yeah.
01:11:11
Speaker
And I think I don't think honey freezes. That's another thing because there's no moisture content. Yeah. So that's why you wait for it to get capped.
01:11:21
Speaker
they don't cap the honey, the bees don't cap the honey until it's at a specific moisture content. And so if you harvest the honey, you might have a frame that only has like 50% of the comb capped.
01:11:43
Speaker
And so there you might be harvesting honey that has too much moisture content in it, which then might ferment. So that's the whole reason why. So to be on the safe side, I don't, like there's some people who will be testing the moisture content to see if they can do it or whatever.
01:12:00
Speaker
Uh, I just, for me, it's just like, if it's capped, I'm harvesting it. And if it's not, I'm not, because the uncapped honey is still going to either get capped or it's going to feed the bees. So it's not like it's going to waste. Yeah. And like, you know, I'm sure you give away more honey than you eat yourself. So it's like, if you have a little bit less, it's not the end of the world. I do. The kids eat a lot of honey and I'd give more honey away if
01:12:25
Speaker
like people I knew were closer, I just will not ship honey. It's a pain
Beekeeping and Sports in Education
01:12:30
Speaker
in the ass. And my wife is trying to get me to sell honey, like to do a thing with my daughter where I keep bees with my daughter because apparently beekeeping is something that colleges look at. Like, you know, fencing is a good thing. My wife, my daughter doesn't fence, but she does play tennis.
01:12:50
Speaker
So anything that we can figure out how to get a break with college coming up. I know Michael got some good scholarships for golf. And he got the Caddy scholarship for working over at the place. And was it Beacon Hill? No, he worked.
Golf and Lifestyle Choices
01:13:07
Speaker
Michael works to this day, still works at Navasync. OK, I was at Beacon Hill today measuring some stuff. You know what? That's a nice I've never been there, but I hear it's nice.
01:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, I've driven by a million times. This is the first time I went inside. I've never driven in. It's pretty nice. Now I think it's very expensive. $40,000 a year. And that's not even like the top tier. Yeah. It's just crazy. And I think Navasync is probably like 70 or something.
01:13:39
Speaker
So, I mean, that's just not a place where I'm not even thinking that, you know? And I think they have like minimums too, where like you have to spend a certain amount at the bar and at the restaurant on top of that. That's why I always think like this area is just extremely expensive. Like I don't want to play golf around here.
01:13:59
Speaker
Now that being said, you could play on the county courses, but they're still not cheap. Yeah. So if you're going to play golf, I think at a minimum you're spending a hundred bucks. Yeah. I don't know. Like by the time you do a green fee and a car, I went to some and then you're slumming it with all the other cheapos. You know what I mean? I just, you know, I just don't, it's just not for me. Like it's another thing. It seems like a whole to do. Like if you were going to golf, that's your whole Saturday. Yes.
01:14:30
Speaker
I mean, I was talking with Michael about it because he actually played. So he's a cat. He played like two or three days ago. I said, so how was golf? He goes, I played nine halls and realized I haven't played in a long time and I realized why. Because it's a major time suck.
01:14:50
Speaker
And if you're in a mindset where you're still kind of driving at life, like, you know, you're sort of, you know, you got goals, you're trying to do things. It's hard to like give four hours and be like, what did I do that for? You know, like, yeah, where if I go and, and if I go and ride my bike for an hour in 20 minutes, my bike ride is basically an hour and 15 to an hour and 20 minutes. That's what it is.
01:15:16
Speaker
And when I get back, I've gotten my exercise and I didn't pay a dime. Like I didn't, and I didn't have to wait. I just did. And if I'm going to go exercise like on the bars or down, it's 30 minutes and I'm done. I just, I just can't imagine like burning four or five hours right now in my, in this part of my life.
01:15:39
Speaker
where that's why I'll say to my wife, I'm like, well, if we, if we downsized and lived in this little town of Vermont that I have some landed, I think the greens fees there and some beautiful course are like 20 bucks. So there I can say like, all right, you know, I don't have any pressure on me for one thing. And two, it's only 20 bucks and I'm going to play nine holes at four o'clock.
01:16:05
Speaker
It's just a different, it's a different animal. Yeah. And you, you show up there and your pickup truck or whatever, you go over to Navasink. It's like, you know, Ferraris and it's just a whole nother world that I'm just not of that world. And it'd be weird to try to pretend that I was. Yeah. Well, yeah. There's plenty of those people too. There are a lot of people who I can't do that. No.
01:16:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It was nice over there. It's, uh, it's pretty small. Like the, the, uh, whatever you call it, the country club part is pretty small. Nice pool though. Brand new bar. Nice. You going to do a job for them?
01:16:40
Speaker
So I'm going to do some pricing. Yeah. Some local handyman contractor guy reached out, who does some work there. Cool. And they, you know, they're looking for first just like a couple doors for the bar and like a chase. And then the bigger thing would be like the trophy, some trophy cases. And he was like, yeah, I gotta imagine this is going to be like 10,000 bucks. I'm like, more than that. He's like, yeah, 10 or 15. I'm like, yeah.
01:17:07
Speaker
Well, you might be barking up the wrong tree, but it's nice and close, at least. Yeah,
Home Renovations
01:17:13
Speaker
that's a good thing. And I was at St. Anthony's measuring some more stuff for Father Al. I got to shoot down to Spring Lake on Friday to
01:17:26
Speaker
look at like a kitchen refacing. We'll see. Cool. What'd you think about the windows? Oh, my windows? Yeah. We talked about that they were going to get done. Oh, they're good. They did a good job. They were happy. I did all the work for them. Yeah. If I didn't do that, it would have been a disaster because they would have just left all that old aluminum on there.
01:17:49
Speaker
I didn't want to have to refurbish and paint the window frames with the new windows in it. So it's good to have that done. I think from now on, I'm going to do, do it the way you did it. I'll save a lot of money. It's now that it's sort of like the mystery is I was like, Oh, I could have done this whole thing. And, uh, yeah, once you ripped out the old windows, you probably saw like, Oh, this is actually, they're just going to go right back in, put in your stop molding.
01:18:15
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. So, so it's good to have that, uh, the bay window that I put up on my channel. Uh, that was a huge job. That's crazy. I watched that video. That was, that was just like, I picked a few good books on, uh, you know, to listen to and, uh, removing all the glazing, 60 panes of glass. So removed all the glazing, talked a little bit about,
01:18:39
Speaker
I've talked a little bit about the project on Instagram and a period craftsman DMed me or left it in the comments to use the Sarco glazing, which was a lot of, you know, thanks, thanks to him. That was a lot, a lot better to use. He's probably done miles and miles of glazing. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to work with somebody like that for a while just to, cause I did it. I did a decent enough job. I mean, yeah, thanks. Uh,
01:19:07
Speaker
I can be a little over critical. My wife's like, oh, it looks great. And I don't know how we who we could have hired to do that job. Some old timer. And where do you find him? Yeah, I don't know. Hanging out at Jasmine. So that it's just good to have those projects. Now, that being said, I have to trim out the windows on the inside.
01:19:30
Speaker
but I decided to like rip some crummy tile that was on the wall off first. So now my kitchen looks kind of torn apart. Yeah. Walter was saying that you kind of got in there and yeah, I ripped out all the cabinets on that side. And I think, I think what I'm going to do is just put some shelving up. I'm going to, I'm going to go over the wall where I rip, rip the tile out with like three eighths MDF bead board.
01:19:58
Speaker
I'm going to use Azek as a backsplash, like a piece of 1x4. And then I'll put the beadboard on that and then just put some shelves and live with that for a little while because we have an area that I have to consult an architect maybe. I don't think it's load bearing, but there's an area where we can push the kitchen maybe another two and a half feet to the left.
01:20:22
Speaker
So we'd get a section that'd be two and a half feet by like seven feet. That's pretty good. Yeah. It's, it could be good. So we'll look into that, but it's funny, like, um, I could do all these projects if I was just in the house by myself, but it's a whole nother thing when you have five people living in the house. My wife is funny because she's great, but geez, she will sometimes
01:20:46
Speaker
put me from a positive can do mood into a into I don't even want to start this because like it'll be something simple.
01:20:58
Speaker
I'm going to tell you what the thing was. So you enter the mudroom. We use the mudroom entrance for the house. You enter the mudroom and back in the day, the mudroom is maybe 44 inches wide by 10 feet long. And it had a linoleum on concrete. So I ripped up the linoleum and it's just concrete.
01:21:27
Speaker
and clean up the concrete and then use the
01:21:33
Speaker
polyurethane, oil-based polyurethane glue to put down quarter-inch exterior plywood, Luan plywood. And then I put the hardwood Jatoba, Brazilian cherry hardwood floor and glued that down. So there's no nails, everything's glued down. And then to hold that down for a little extra insurance, then the baseboard goes over that.
01:21:59
Speaker
And it's, it's not a very wide run. It's only each board is 44 inches long or whatever, but it's still like, I wouldn't want to rip it up. So just like off the cuff, my wife's like, and you could take that floor up and do, and match the floor and the rest of the house.
01:22:18
Speaker
And I'm like, I'm not going to do that. You know what I mean? Like how long ago did you do that? Well, probably 10 years ago, but I still don't want it. That's so pretty fresh. And I still don't want to rip that up and I don't want to put hardwood floor in the kitchen anyway. I'm going to put probably some kind of tile that looks like wood. Yeah.
01:22:37
Speaker
And it's a separate level too. You have to step up into the kitchen. And there's usually some kind of rug that catches some of the dirt coming in. So anyway, it was just so funny because I'm looking at all these things that I have to do.
01:22:54
Speaker
And then I get, well, maybe we should rip up that floor. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, holy cow. It's like, just like we did the window. So I mean, she's great, but I just like, sometimes I just look at these things and I'm like, Hey, I can do this, but don't make it. So I don't
Balancing Art and Home
01:23:11
Speaker
want to do it.
01:23:11
Speaker
Oh yeah. Yeah. Like I think about those cabinets in there that I just need to edge band and assemble. I'm like, but I still need to put in three windows. I still need to paint. I still need to do the floor. What am I going to do with all the shit? I get home yesterday. My wife's at work. There's a new, another sewing machine delivered on the thing. My wife's making clothes now. So she got, she already has one sewing machine and now there's another one. I'm like, where are we putting this?
01:23:37
Speaker
It's so funny. Just stuff. Yeah. She's an artist. That's the, you know? I know. So like I'm an artist, I'm like a reformed artist. I'm an artist who's trying to like get rid of everything. At least you have the barn too. Like I have the barn, even the barn I'm trying to like, yeah. So my wife will throw that at me. Like, well you have the whole barn. And, but even then I'm trying to sort of
01:24:04
Speaker
You know, it's also your livelihood though, you know? Yeah, but there's like, uh, I mean, that's why I love making woodworking videos because you, in a perfect world, everything I made would get like auctioned off and I would still like, I'd get money for it, but I would never have to see it auctioned off and I'd never have to like repair it or get a call back.
01:24:26
Speaker
So
Business Goals and Online Selling Concerns
01:24:27
Speaker
I'd get a little bit of money for that and then you'd get a sponsor and then you sell the plans. The thing about plans is it's, it's a digital product. You don't have to ever touch it. So, I mean, just as I get older, you just realize everything you have requires your time. And if you don't get rid of it before your time is over, somebody else is going to get rid of it or have to deal with it. And so I'm always like very careful of what else
01:24:57
Speaker
I get like tools, like I don't want tools. I could, you know, I'm sure I can get a lot of free tools and I'm like, well, I don't really, what am I going to do with that? You know, so I'm, I'm in a position to like, that's why I asked you like, what's your dream? So to me, it sounds like 10 years you get the business up to where it's functioning. 10 more years you sell the business.
01:25:20
Speaker
or you don't, or just let it keep running. Just let it keep running. Yeah. But you, and you're in a place where you can sell the business, but you're not, cause when you're, when you're manufacturing something, you're always collecting stuff. There's always off cuts. There's always a machine you bought that you used a lot, but now you don't use it that much, but you still don't want to get rid of it. So that's just life. Yeah. I'm pretty good at like,
01:25:46
Speaker
You know, people who come to the shop, I'm always trying to give them something. That's good. Hey, you need like the red oak. If I don't need it, somebody take it. And if I'm selling it, usually I'm going to let it go. I think you could probably sell that red oak on Facebook. Probably. But then I got to deal with people. I know. I know. You have to have something. That's the thing, like who?
01:26:09
Speaker
Is it going to be a normal person or is it going to be abnormal person? Yeah. Right. And you know, 90% of the people on there are wasting your time, you know. Well, that's the thing. Like, uh, I think you open yourself up to all kinds of scams when you do stuff on like my son, Jack is like, cause my wife wanted to sell something and my wife isn't really the most, you know, like tech savvy, like Facebook type person. And Jack's like, I don't know, mom, I don't think, uh, you know, you're going to get a lot of scams.
01:26:39
Speaker
Yeah. Like I won't take, I don't take Venmo for anything. Really? No, because they can do a thing where they pay you and some of them it's like non-reversible, but they'll like pay you and then say that, you know, whatever. And then somehow they get the money back or whatever, you know, there's, there's plenty of ways to get scammed. So it's
Episode Conclusion and Call to Action
01:26:56
Speaker
like, listen, cash, cash only. There you go. That's, that's a good one.
01:27:02
Speaker
Anyway, I think that's what's going on with my week. Yeah. We better. Oh, wow. Oh, it's one 90 minutes. Wow. Yeah. Um, yeah. So video Saturday morning, check it out. Sounds good. And I'll be shooting over here either Friday or Monday to see the progress on the big chair. Yeah. That'd be a thumbnail. Yeah. And get somebody sitting in the big chair.
01:27:26
Speaker
You're like a naked woman probably. Yeah, that would probably be Keith. Keith, if you're listening, get ready. We'll talk to you guys next week. Thanks. All right. Have a good one. If you enjoyed this episode, please tell a friend or share it on social media. You can leave a review of this podcast on Spotify or Apple podcasts. And don't forget today's Craftsman YouTube channel has an upload every Saturday morning at 8 30 a.m. Eastern. We'll see you next week.
01:28:19
Speaker
But there's been a chance