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Communication Is Key
4 Plays1 year ago
Do your client communicate effectively? Do YOU communicate effectively?
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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.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsor Highlight
00:00:22
Speaker
And we're back. Yeah. Oh, good morning. Yeah. Another morning, uh, episode. Podcast and coffee. Yeah. Um, real quick. Want to thank our sponsor. Hey, flow.
00:00:38
Speaker
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.
00:00:59
Speaker
If you're in the Northeast, we'll be at the Wednesday, June 7th looks lighting classes at the New York City showroom, a full showroom.
00:01:14
Speaker
If you're interested, reach out to your Hayflow rep or get a Hayflow rep and get set up. It's a free class. Um, they have two running that day. We're taking both. Um, the first is a complete beginner course, which, um, we do have some experience, but it's been a while. So we're going to take that as a refresher and then, um, that's, so that's nine to 11, I think. And then lunch.
00:01:43
Speaker
12 to 2 is the class for existing users. We're also taking both because lunch is offered in the second class. So, you know, we got to be there for lunch. Oh, yeah. It's good to keep up on all that stuff because there's so many little interchangeable parts.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yeah. It's like anything, you know, we got some lighting coming up. So, um, rather than just wing it on our own, we might as well get some good info. Yeah. And it's a nice day. Get into the city. Hopefully it'll be a nice spring type day. Yeah. Well, we'll be inside. So yeah. The wall. Cause I always like walking in the city. I mean,
00:02:37
Speaker
I'm gonna stay as far away from the city as possible. Yeah, I mean that part, but like once I get in there, I like walking around. Yeah, it's not too bad.
Project Discussions and Local Trivia
00:02:51
Speaker
So since we last spoke, let's see.
00:02:55
Speaker
Not much has been going on. I've been working on those barn doors. Those are done, ready to go. We're going out there next week. Going to the Hamptons after Memorial Day seems like a bad recipe for disaster there.
00:03:22
Speaker
Clinton Street. I feel like we've worked on Clinton Street in Hoboken. That's where we're headed later. Later today, we have to go up to Hoboken to measure a job in Hoboken. Hoboken High School. Oh, is this right by another job we did?
00:03:52
Speaker
Yeah, so you were to pass where we did the wine library and keep going for like two blocks. It's right there.
00:04:14
Speaker
Everybody's all clustered in one spot. Well, Hoboken's like only like a square mile. Like literally. I didn't realize it was that small. Yeah. Let's see. Hoboken. New Jersey. Famously homeless Frank Sinatra. Yeah.
00:04:46
Speaker
22,000 per square mile. Come on, give me the, give me the area. Total 1.97 square miles land of which 1.25 square miles is land. So it's one and a quarter square miles. Tiny. Yeah. That's nothing a square mile. Yeah. I mean, Kingsburg's got to be,
00:05:12
Speaker
at least what five square miles. Yeah. It's kind of a weird shape. I think we hassle. It comes in there. I'm not sure to tell you the truth. And how, how far does Keensburg go over towards like port mama? Do they touch each other, port mama, I think Keensburg, uh, on the wet side over here. Yeah. Yeah. They must. Yeah.
00:05:38
Speaker
because on the dry side, there's no Kingsburg on the dry side. Oh, there isn't. Oh, okay. So that's all like Haslett and Middletown and North Middletown. And well, I don't know how big Port Monmouth is on the dry side. I think there's only like me and my neighbor. It's weird. Well, no, you got Main Street Port Monmouth. That's all Port Monmouth.
00:06:08
Speaker
Um, you mean that, that, uh, like if you go down chestnut and take a left, that's all. Yeah. That's main street. I didn't know that on the dry side. Yeah. Oh, what'd you think it was? Main street, Middletown. I didn't know what it was. Cause I remember when we first, first year we lived there was Middletown. And then they said mailing, mailing. Yeah. Things are different. Ah.
00:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's Port Monmouth. Um, Keensburg is only 1.07 square miles. Wow.
Woodworking Suppliers and Product Comparisons
00:06:43
Speaker
Of land. It's 16.44 square miles total. So it's, it's got a decent amount of water. Yeah, that's huge. I don't want it 16 to one. Look at the map. That's the land. The water goes off, which doesn't really make sense because you can't own water. So
00:07:06
Speaker
Is that the bay that they include in their map? Yeah. So yeah, headed up to Hoboken later this afternoon to measure for a little wall unit and a banquet. So it should be pretty simple. Just get some good measurements, see the space. Yeah, hopefully everything's in good condition.
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't give like an official scope of work letter. So everything is, you know, still up for changes. That's cool. Um, yeah, I'm done like sending scope of work before with some of these designers because it always changes and it's not worth the time. You know, here's the ballpark number. Okay. Sounds good. We'll come measure. Then you get a scope of work letter.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, we're working on that kitchen and it's a little bit of a back and forth same thing kind of. Yeah. We'll get those samples today. Hopefully that'll wrap things up. We could, you know, nail everything down. Yeah, I've got Carl from Meridian, which is a
00:08:34
Speaker
I don't know what they call those kind of places. They're a door manufacturer, but they do, I guess they probably build cabinets and stuff too. Yeah. They like to call themselves wood specialties. Oh yeah. See what they, what they build themselves as. You know, that's what, like that keystone place. That's what they say. It says cabinet maker. That's what, oh, they're in new homes.
00:09:07
Speaker
I guess it's one of those things like they'll build an entire kitchen or if you want to just buy doors and whatever, fillers and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, we'll see. Maybe Conestoga will come through and get some samples. I don't know. We had the Richelieu salesman Andre stopped by yesterday, a little cold visit, which was
00:09:30
Speaker
Which was cool, you know, found out some stuff that they have that, you know, would be interested in, in buying. That's for sure. Yeah. They, they stock a lot more product than I imagined, actually. Yeah. The nice thing about Richelieu is you can go on their website and see pricing for all this stuff. Like you can go look at pricing on, on melamine or plywood or edge banding, you know, like our, our plywood supplier, Fez. I don't have too much to complain about with them, but the problem is if I want,
00:10:00
Speaker
First of all, there's no catalog. I don't know what you have. They must have 20,000 different types of plywood. Sometimes I'll call and ask for, you know, do you have this? And it's like, no, but they might have something that's similar, but we're not well versed enough in the entire catalog to
00:10:19
Speaker
To know our salesman's been MIA, he came to the shop once and we even called him out on it and you know, he still hasn't came by. No. Come by. So at Richelieu, you can actually go on the website and see like, all right, a four by eight sheet of white melamine is $28. And if you buy, you know, that's if you buy one to eight, if you buy eight to 20, it's $25. And if you buy 20 or more, it's $22.
00:10:48
Speaker
Um, and it might come in five by nine. Right. It has all the little selections. So you can choose your, your width and then, you know, it'll delete whatever selections, you know, you can't, but it's like, okay, this one's available in five by nine, uh, available in three quarter inch and half inch. And you know, so it's pretty cool.
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's good to be able to reference all that stuff instead of waiting on hold and making a phone call. And like you said, they just tell you a flat no, cause we ask one question. They don't, they don't really offer any alternatives really. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's on you to be educated in their product line when, you know, well, unless our salesman comes here and walks us through it, then I don't know what you have.
00:11:36
Speaker
Yeah. Cause they're not really like, I mean, I guess they're in sales when you call them up, but then they're not like trying to sell you anything. So they don't go, Hey, we've got this, this'll work for you. Yeah. Like, yeah. They're, they're in sales, but it's like a sales desk. It's not like they're a sales person. Yeah. Like we have a salesman.
00:11:55
Speaker
Allegedly. Who came to the shop once, like two and a half years ago. You get to see him or hear from him since I actually got his phone number. I called him once. But that was it. Yeah, he did answer my question, but he never did come by. Yeah, I don't get it. I mean, we're not huge buyers, but. But we are customers. Yeah, it was like I told Andre, it's like, you know,
00:12:26
Speaker
Our biggest, you know, how you're going to get us to buy more stuff from you is by educating us on what you have. I was actually on Richel this morning looking at edge banding for my kitchen and they have
00:12:44
Speaker
you know, so I need cherry, pre-finished cherry edge banding. Well, they have it. And I think it's cheaper than Edgeco, which I don't know how, because Edgeco is, their prices are fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. It was like 70 bucks for, for a 500 foot roll of pre-finished cherry. Wow. And you know, shipping was 15, but that's not bad. I mean, it's going to be at least that from Edgeco, they ship UPS. So, um,
00:13:10
Speaker
I think what we'll probably do is order some stuff. Maybe with this sectional job, I'll offer them to take a look at that Eggers TFL chain that Andre left us and maybe they can select something from there. We can try that out. Seems like the price point is a little better, which I will not tell the client because
00:13:32
Speaker
kind of dicking us around anyway. Yeah. It's nice to have that, that sample chain too. So we can, you know, flip through it. I'd love to get some, you know, now we're getting into places like Conestoga, Meridian. I'd love to have some physical samples. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the big things like, okay, clearly the pricing between Meridian and Conestoga is comparable because we, we had Meridian price out.
00:13:58
Speaker
We gave them a quote from Conestoga and said, here prices out. And they came in, what, $100 more? Uh, yeah. Yeah. So that's nothing. You know, it's, uh, it was, uh, it was what, like a six, $7,000 order. What's a hundred bucks? I think that's 0.15%. No, that, that'll be 15%. 7,000 divided by a hundred.
00:14:28
Speaker
Oh no. 100 divided by 7000. 1.4%. Yeah, because 70 would be 1%. Wait.
00:14:46
Speaker
I don't know. Anyway, it's not a lot. So their pricing is very sorry to all the mathematicians out there. We apologize. It's not a lot. So now it's down to service like and speed. You know, that's one thing we didn't ask Meridian is what the lead time is. I don't know if it's set on the quote. It might see if I can pull it up.
00:15:15
Speaker
You know, we're willing to pay a little bit more if the service is better. Yeah. And the speed is better. Here we go. Blah, blah, blah. 50% deposit, 50% COD.
00:15:48
Speaker
Doesn't, doesn't say blue ball, Pennsylvania. That's funny. They gave us a 5% discount, discount amount, 160 for shipping, 93 for packaging and handling, no sales tax.
00:16:13
Speaker
It doesn't say, but we can ask. We can ask Coral today. Yeah, that's funny. They have here it's New Holland and then their accounts receivable is in blue ball. So, yeah, it's going to be things like, you know, customer service, speed, quality.
Challenges with Designers and Personal Anecdotes
00:16:41
Speaker
and all that stuff. We need a sample last minute. He's driving it out to us. Yeah, it goes a long way. That's a big check mark in your bracket. One thing I like about Conestoga so far is Mandy, the estimator. She's pretty good turning her stuff around like a day, day and a half.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's one thing I'd like to talk to Carl about is, you know, just being able to send drawings and how quick they could turn around. Just a quote, you know, we don't want a hard price, just something that's close enough that we can, you know, give the client a price and not lose our shirt if it swings 10% one way or the other. Yeah.
00:17:31
Speaker
Because, you know, you got to invest minimal time into bidding jobs. So the key is to get as close as possible with as little work as possible. Yeah. Because it's a big time suck. And it's just it's unnecessary because the conditions always change. So then you're doing twice the work.
00:17:56
Speaker
Right. Cause you always got to go back and redo it after you get, you know, the, everything's an inch off and you got to re-measure and not re-measure, but you know, redraw. So you get all the accurate stuff.
00:18:08
Speaker
Yeah. And you go make a site visit and realize, you know, you can't put that there because you got this, whatever. The door won't open. Right. So the conditions always change. You know, if you get, if you get a working drawing from a designer or somebody, it's, you know, that's a hundred percent accurate. That's, that's very rare. Yeah. They're just using those elevation and plan views, those, you know, in their,
00:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, I guarantee you they have a CAD program that they can upload the PDF to and click around and pull measurements. And, you know, they're not doing that shit by hand. No.
00:18:46
Speaker
So yeah, we'll see what he says about that. Um, see what he says about lead time. You know, maybe we'll see if they can get us set up with, uh, some door samples. Yeah. That'd be nice. Nice to have on hand, you know, um, you know, a couple, maybe a couple of paint colors and a couple, a couple of stains.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, some of the more common families of stuff. I mean, I went through Conestoga's yesterday just to see what was going on. There was like 60 pages. Yeah, it's too much. And, you know, most of them are, I guess I'm going to say they're sort of like outdated, you know, that darker brown family that's just not happening anymore.
00:19:32
Speaker
Now, if you want brown, use walnut. No, this was a lot of like the brown and brownish red kind of stain. Yeah. Burgundy kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Arch panel doors. Yeah. I don't know who's buying that stuff, but. I mean, we see a lot of it still out there. Most of it's been around for a while, like the
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah. I don't see any, any of it new. No, no, hope not. I mean, it's good if you have to replace something, but, um, there, they have the tooling from way back when, why, why stop offering it. You know what I mean? All they're doing is setting up, you know, to run a job. So the setup is going to be the same no matter what. Not like a diner menu.
00:20:22
Speaker
It kind of is like a diner menu. Except now that the food doesn't go bad. Yeah. What was that? That was a squeaky chair. Oh, yeah. Sounds like somebody talking. Yeah. I was going to say something. I don't know what the hell it was.
00:20:51
Speaker
I know you were talking to Tony the other day. Was he going down to D.C. for a competition? No, just going on vacation. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I thought of it because we were talking about pizza. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Keith was saying, you know, where should Tony go for pizza, Grimaldi's or L.M.B. Spaloni Gardens?
00:21:15
Speaker
The consensus I think is that he just needs to go to both. Yeah, exactly. Cause it's, it's two completely different takes. Yeah. You know, can't, can't pick between, uh, just go to both. Yeah. Plus morning gardens. You get the Spomoni. Yeah. Tonya Woodland iron.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah. Of Working Hands podcast. Yeah. I think. Yeah. I think he's probably leaving. Maybe he's leaving today. I'm not sure. I know he was saying that they're going to be around in like around Memorial Day. So. That's a crazy time to be driving around.
00:21:54
Speaker
Yeah. Well, actual Memorial day, there's not, there's nothing going on. It's the Friday before and the Tuesday after this one. It's crazy. Yeah. I wonder what that road going into the Hamptons is going to be like on Friday. Well, I guess none of the tradesmen will be going in. No, they got to know. Yeah. So early in the morning, it might be okay.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know when, you know, do those people go in on Friday or they take off a couple of days before? Yeah. Yeah. We don't, we're not, we're not privy to that info. I don't think, you know, Hamptons is a big, well, I don't know. I was going to say, I don't think it's a big like vacation spot per se, where there's just like random people who are like, let's rent a house in the Hamptons.
00:22:44
Speaker
Right, from Memorial Day, you mean? Yeah, it's not like Seaside or Lavalette or something like that. You know, the people in the Hamptons, they own those houses. You know, maybe they're doing Verbo or Airbnb, but I think most of those homes are actual residents. You know, not full time necessarily, but. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there is some hotels and stuff, but
00:23:11
Speaker
Or what's the Atlantic? What's the one we kept dying? Yeah, the Atlantic. That's in South Hampton. But I think as you get out further towards like Montauk and stuff, I think there's a bunch of Montauk. But yeah, we'll be going out next Wednesday. Yeah, a week from yesterday.
00:23:36
Speaker
Yeah. To install those barn doors, we're going to install the mantle. Got to do a little touch up on the island countertop. She said there's a spot that's like collecting dust, which it must just be a little bit rough. So I'll just hit that real quick. I'm going to put the legs that we made on the polyform cabinet. And we got to measure a kitchen in Sag Harbor.
00:24:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, we got a busy day. Nancy's like, he'll be back. She's like, come out, you got to come out, spend a weekend in the summer. I'm like, yeah. Yeah, that's not weird. Hey, I'm here to stay in your house for a weekend.
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah, I don't even like going to my relative's house and spending the night. Yeah, man. I like sleeping in my own bed. I mean, they're totally cool, but yeah. Yeah, they're super, super nice people. Oh yeah. Yeah. I wonder what condition the pool will be in when we get out there. What do they do to those pools? In the West, they used to shoot this stuff called Gunite.
00:25:00
Speaker
which was like the, the finish, uh, application to the pool. That's what gave it that white kind of, I thought they had tile in it. Yeah. There was tile always at the top. And then, but the, the base of the pool, like the, the bowl of the pool was this stuff called gunite. They'd shoot it out of like a fire hose looking thing. Yeah. And then guys are going with trials. I don't remember. It might just be concrete. Huh?
00:25:31
Speaker
I don't remember what it looked like. Yeah. Swimming pools for big business out West. Oh yeah. Um, so they painted the, the pool house and, uh, it'll be ready to go for us.
Tips and Frustrations in Woodworking Projects
00:25:45
Speaker
We'll get that barn door. Shouldn't take very long. Um, not willing. Yeah. What, uh, there's a hardscape in front of the,
00:25:57
Speaker
Um, the opening now we can put ladders up and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just got to get that 19 foot track nice and straight, you know, probably, um, maybe get a laser up on top of the ladder. Yeah. Mark a couple of points.
00:26:20
Speaker
You know, you should probably have a blue chalk line on hand. Good idea. Snap a line, lay out the holes, drill them, put the track up, hang the doors. It's, you know, the install onboard barn door is pretty simple. Yeah. They're just heavy and awkward.
00:26:39
Speaker
It's the floor guides that and, you know, on this got the channel one instead of the one that goes in the groove figured. You know, with seasonal expansion, contraction and water, I don't want water getting up inside of that groove, even if it's painted and everything. Then, you know, if the door wants to to swell in the summertime, you know, is it going to be tight on that?
00:27:07
Speaker
Is the slot going to be too tight for the guide? So these ones just go around the door, like at the bottom. Aesthetically, not quite as nice, but certainly more functional for an outdoor door.
00:27:26
Speaker
I mean, it's the barn doors. They're going to be rough to pick up and freaking. And hang. Yeah. We should bring those glass. I'm not sure if they'll suck on there, but we could try. Yeah. Put one on the back. I mean, it's only got to go up a couple inches to hang on the.
00:27:48
Speaker
on the track. You know, I saw this thing on Instagram. There were sort of like these mini helping hands, but they have like a little foot that you use to slip underneath something. Oh, the Viking arm it's called. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you look at the price? I thought it was 1999. Oh, well that's some bullshit knock Chinese knockoff. I wouldn't trust that with a $8,000 barn doors.
00:28:16
Speaker
Said it was a number one Father's Day gift. And it came in like a little sustainer. Yeah, then it definitely wasn't 1999. In a real sustainer? Yeah, I think so. Like it had like that Kaizen foam. Is that how you say it? Yeah, because one Viking arm is $206.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, it was a pair. And they came in, yeah, they came in like a little box. Yeah, I've seen them packed in a sustainer, but... It was a real sustainer. I mean, a sustainer is 80 bucks. Yeah.
00:29:13
Speaker
Was it this? Um, you know, cause that's 140 just for the box. Oh my God. I don't think it was that. I don't remember that. Like, uh, egg crady looking foam. Yeah, this must be good. I, um, I had some Bessie, uh, I forget what they call them. Squeeze clamps.
00:29:39
Speaker
that were real good for like lifting stuff up like that. Obviously you couldn't do anything heavy, but I used to use them on cabinets to lift up the front and then just drop the adjustable legs down rather than have to crank them up by hand. Yeah, this little advertisement showed them like lifting up appliances and junk like that.
00:30:02
Speaker
Maybe I was looking at the wrong price. I don't know what was 1999. Maybe it was something below, you know, like on Instagram, how the two windows sometimes. Oh yeah. I mean, it also could have just been some bullshit ad for, for something different. Anyway, something like that might be useful. Yeah.
00:30:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, maybe, maybe want to knock off some work. See what they got. Viking arm. Reach out the Viking arm. See if they can send us a couple. That would be awesome. Use your powers of persuasion on them. Yeah, they're not.
00:31:11
Speaker
I need like to reconfigure this whole podcast setup. Making it more user friendly. I can't get to the computer. I can't get to that. You got to bring the boom in from a different direction.
00:31:27
Speaker
Even if it was, if I sit back in the chair, I can't put the table any closer because of where the chair is. Save 12% if you buy more than two units. 12 inch level arm lifter. 14 inch labor saving arm. How is this thing?
00:31:56
Speaker
I can hold jig. What's this? Viking strength bicep tricep arm blaster. Tactical. Viking bracelet.
00:32:18
Speaker
Nordic Metal Arm Ring with Dragon Heads. These are the power of a Viking. Adjustable Pewter Norse Torque with Midgard Serpent Jormungandr. Wow these ones look horrible.
00:32:43
Speaker
It doesn't even do it and even try and make it look like the same thing. I'll reach out to some people, see if they have any, any knockoffs that are any good. Cause yeah, we could just tip the door a little bit, slide them under and then rank it up. Yeah. That'd be the ticket. Shoot out a message.
00:33:25
Speaker
So yeah, it'd be nice, it'll be nice to get out of the Hamptons. Yeah, that was a, it was a great job. And it carried us through a lot of like the end of last year and the beginning of this year, just because the sheer amount of work that we did in there.
00:33:47
Speaker
But yeah, it's the travel is rough. Yeah. I mean, it's it's easier now just having done it so many times. Yeah, I guess because we know what to expect. Yeah. But yeah, it's just I'd rather rather not have to travel so far. We'll see about that Sag Harbor kitchen. I mean, it's going to have to have some exorbitant price on it.
00:34:14
Speaker
Yeah, we had to plan on staying out there for a week. Yeah, because to do the install, we can't travel back and forth with that. No. You know, have to rent a U-Haul for a week unless we can do it one way. But no, then we'd be stuck out there unless we drove or take two vehicles. Yeah. Got to put the tools in something. Oh, yeah. Just to deliver all the cabinets. Yeah. That or have them, you know, picked up.
00:34:45
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder if Spamoni Gardens in downtown Brooklyn will be open by then. Get off at Cabin Plaza West. Double park. Get a quarter Spamoni. That'll hold me over till we get back to Jersey. Yeah.
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the Roland Roaster dream is dead. Yeah. So there's just Spimoni left. For those that follow the podcast, sometime back, the myth of Roland Roaster was debunked. Oh yeah, I'm sure they remember. Oh yeah. Can't look back.
00:35:41
Speaker
Well, they say you can never go home. I don't know that one. Oh yeah. I guess it means cause stuff changes. Yeah. Yeah. Aside from that, we got, um,
00:35:59
Speaker
built that reception desk and you know wait and I sent an email this morning like what's the status of the project like you guys said you you know you said you were gonna call yesterday we're good to go but he's gonna call tomorrow okay well he didn't call and you want everything as soon as possible and you've been done now you're dragging your feet for another week
00:36:20
Speaker
So I said it's imperative that we get material ordered this week because it's a six to eight week six to eight week lead time for the upholstery after we finish, which is really not true because he can build he can make the cushions whenever six to eight weeks after we finish building the sectionals. So I hate this like we're in a big rush thing and then it's like, OK.
00:36:43
Speaker
Can you get back to me about the job if you're in such a rush? Because I got no problem. You know, you send an email. You can't you can't get back to me within a couple of days.
00:36:55
Speaker
Yeah, communication. I was reading this a little short interview with Warren Buffett. He was talking about, you know, oncoming maybe not recession, but, you know, slow down the economy and what people could do and all these other things. And he was saying that the communication is really one of the top things to hone and be aware of.
00:37:24
Speaker
I think in general, we're pretty good at that. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's zero reciprocity. You know, the designer calls and she's like, I'm literally begging you to take like take on this part of the job. It's like, OK, we could do it, but let's let's keep the ball rolling like. You roll the ball to me, I roll it back and it sits at your feet for three days. There's no reason for it now.
00:37:54
Speaker
And then, you know, it's like they don't read the scope of work because then they're asking questions that are clearly defined in the scope of work letter. It's like, you know, it's not like it's like 10 pages. It's two pages, double spaced with bullet points. Yeah. Like, please just read it. And a note section and everything's clearly labeled. Yeah. It's all super cut and dry. There's no legalese in it. It's, it's, you know, a kindergartner could figure it out.
00:38:21
Speaker
I'd like to see some, some of the other, uh, like, uh, proposals, contracts, whatever you want to call it. I'd like to see what they get from other companies like ours. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Super obnoxious. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's nothing we could do. I mean, you, you wind up feeling almost like a little pest. Yeah.
00:38:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, this week we're like barely anything going on. Just a bunch of piddly little bullshit. And then, you know, in two weeks from now, we're probably going to have so much work that because everything is just it's, you know, everything's getting.
00:39:10
Speaker
delayed, delayed, delayed. And now we're going to have the kitchen job, the sectional job, the co-working desk job, this Hoboken job. Then July is going to be coming up and we're going to need to work on Carissa's job in Hoboken, wherever that is, Jersey City. I mean, I'd rather
00:39:29
Speaker
I want to be at the point where we're pushing to hit deadlines. That's really where the business needs to be because now we're never at that point where it's like we got to push to get this out because we got to get working on this job to hit that deadline. It adds a little bit of stress, but it also adds
00:39:51
Speaker
When you're done, you get a little bit more of that sense of accomplishment, but. A little endorphin rush. Yeah, but it just keeps everything, you know, moving where it needs to be and, you know, cashflow and all that stuff. Like when you have a week or two weeks between jobs, it's no good. Oh no.
00:40:12
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, it's bad for everything. You're, you're pacing and, um, you know, just the, the, the movement in the shop. Yeah. We got, we got jobs like stacked up in the shop now just sitting here. Yeah. Yeah. The downtime kills me. It fucking kills me.
00:40:37
Speaker
I'll be glad to what, when are we going to, um, those, uh, those bank cats that we have, uh, they're going out in June. I mean, that doesn't bother me. Those can sit there. It's, it's not having something to work on that kills me. You know, the bank ads are getting the way every now and then, but that's whatever they're done. All we gotta do is deliver them. We've been paid. We're not waiting on anything on those have been, we're paid in full. Um,
00:41:06
Speaker
You know, same with that reception desk. Okay. It's in here, but we've got paid in full. So if they want to let it sit in here, so be it. Yeah. We're going to have to start charging storage to them now. That'll light a fire under them. Yeah. Yeah. We need it right away. ASAP. Okay. Well, please define that because apparently they're like, wow, you got that done really fast. Yeah. You said you needed it.
00:41:39
Speaker
No. And I told you if we were going to take it on that I needed to get it in and out. I guess we're going to have to start asking a couple more questions. Like what, what, what date? I do, but they give me some wishy washy answer. Yeah. Well, you know, he'd like to start showing the lobby within the next two weeks. Well, now we're within that timeframe because I finished it over a week ago. Yeah.
00:42:09
Speaker
You know, you say, let me know what days and times would be available for installation. And I'll let you know. No, no days or times provided. Oh boy. I wonder how many other people have these same issues. Probably just about all of them. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:37
Speaker
week just flew by again. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Well, not for me. It fucking dragged. It's Thursday already. I thought Keith might come by this week. He texted me yesterday, but I wasn't, I wasn't in the show. Yeah. We keep trying to get our buddy Lou to come on the podcast, but uh,
00:43:04
Speaker
He's a, he's good at sidestepping. Yeah. Thing is too, you know, we're going to be back at the point where we're going to be too busy to, you know, when you have a guest, it's like, you know, it's an afternoon chat and then you do the podcast and it always runs longer than, you know, an hour. So, you know, it's going to be tough. Yeah. I mean, I like having guests. It's nice, but you're right about the time commitment.
00:43:33
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it would have to be after, after hours. Yeah. Or, or, you know, um, Yeah. Dinnertime thing. Yeah. Or, you know, try and start at four or something. So we only lose half hour.
00:43:52
Speaker
I mean, we could always try the remote thing. I don't know with this. It's apparently you can get really high quality remote. Yes. I don't know. I have to try it. How does that work? What is it? It goes through. You can hook like your phone up to this and do it over a phone call. Oh. Or you could hook the computer and get the zoom. So the audio just tracks automatically into that. That's cool. There's a couple of different ways to do it.
00:44:23
Speaker
Yeah, I don't even really understand it. I mean, I've been around electronics for a long time and I was watching this thing and they were talking about how as a society we're so dependent on all this technology that most people have no idea how it works.
00:44:45
Speaker
I mean, unless you're really, like I was talking to Christopher yesterday, just about, um, you know, running virtual machines and stuff like that. And every other sentence he was saying something that just like went right over my head. Yeah. I mean, it's always been like that though, you know, like,
00:45:07
Speaker
When cars first came out, or whatever, let's say cars became popular in what, the 19-teens? So in 1930, you think everybody knew how a car worked? No, because it doesn't matter. All that matters is that I can get in and drive it. I don't need to know all the back ends of how all this stuff works.
00:45:31
Speaker
We don't have a limited amount of processing that we can do in our head. So anything that's not absolutely necessary is just that. It's not necessary to...
00:45:44
Speaker
Yeah. It's like even something that's been around since when was TV was the forties. Uh, I don't know. But, uh, like, how do you aim a camera at somebody and it goes through the air? Like, uh, you know, as a radio signal or whatever it's called. Yeah. And it comes out on your TV set. How does that work?
00:46:12
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But it doesn't affect, not knowing doesn't affect the end user experience. Yeah. There's that saying that like any, um, you know, technology sufficiently high technology is, is equivalent to magic. Yeah. Um, that's, that's about it. But you know, you take something like TV for granted, it's been around for, you know, our whole lives and have no clue how it works.
00:46:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, look at radio around for how long?
00:46:46
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I could kind of like, you know, it loses me like Morse code or whatever, like the, you know, the tapping on a physical wire. Okay. I get that. But the minute you go wireless. Yeah. Just weird waves. Send out the waves and the waves get collected and then they get, you know, reconfigured into either audio or
00:47:14
Speaker
or a video. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine being like the first people to see like TV, like how does this work? Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, they had, you know, films where I had to pre-date TV by quite some time. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that's just a physical project. You know, it's projecting through the film. Right. Right.
Future of Technology in Woodworking
00:47:40
Speaker
Yeah. And
00:47:43
Speaker
The films were, those early films were like the thing you used to do as a kid, like on the corner of your book. Yeah. Just a bunch of still images. I mean, that's, it's still what it is. Just the frame rates have gone up. I mean, now you have digital, um, which I'm not, I'm not exactly sure how that works, but yeah, like even.
00:48:04
Speaker
You know, if you're shooting video with like a DSLR camera, that's exactly what it is. It's just 60 frames a second instead of two frames. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where do you think it's headed? Oh, fuck if I know. Yeah. I mean, what, what could possibly be next? Uh, well,
00:48:31
Speaker
I think VR probably will continue to get better and get cheaper and will go more into the mainstream. AR and AI and all that type of stuff.
00:48:49
Speaker
As it pertains to our industry, I've been watching all these mosaic videos and a lot of it, we don't have any CNC stuff, but a lot of it obviously is made by guys that are CNCing.
00:49:06
Speaker
Even though I understand the concepts and everything like that, it's just still mind blowing how much stuff the CNC does. You know, it's like the joinery, the shelf pinholes, the hinge boring. And the ease with which this stuff is, you know, programmed now. It's pretty amazing. It kind of
00:49:36
Speaker
Not humbling, but you know, it's like, you know, I feel a little bit primitive, you know, it's like, and we have a pretty well-equipped shop. Yeah. You know, like I remember doing hinge cups, you know, by hand, you know, with that little plastic guy thing. Now we have a hinge boring machine and it's still, you know, when you see the CNC thing, it's like, man, we're in the stone age.
00:50:03
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, everything that we're using has been around for decades and decades. Even the laser is not anything new. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I mean, I guess, you know,
00:50:22
Speaker
They have all those fully automated lines doing all this stuff too. You know, so it makes even, even like a small shop like ours use a mosaic with a CNC. That's, you know, you know, somewhat, uh, low tech. Oh yeah. Like if we were just using like a flatbed CNC at this point, yeah, that's, that's nothing innovative or it's like standard operating procedure. No.
00:50:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, who knows? We could always get a low 4x8 CNC. That's not too crazy. You get them for relatively inexpensive.
00:51:07
Speaker
you know, when you can get the work done for $65 a sheet. Yeah. Yeah. Where's the, you know, where's the profit point on that? Yeah. It pays to where it's paid for itself. And now you're making, you know, making money with it versus. Yeah. Subbing out has, has definite appeal to, you know, it's comes into the shop all ready to rock and roll. Yeah. I mean, you know, it would have to be running a lot. Yeah.
00:51:37
Speaker
to be worth buying. You know, now it's like, okay, we get a kitchen, we can get that cut on CNC, but like a small job, it's cheaper just to do it on the slider.
00:51:54
Speaker
Yeah, it'd be an interesting internal dialogue to have, like if you had one of those, like what tool you're going to use. I think the point to point is a lot cooler and a lot more versatile. Like Brian was saying, you can rough your parts out on the slider and work in different zones. And, you know, you could load on four cabinet sides and
00:52:21
Speaker
It'll cut it to final size, bore all the holes, and as it moves from zone one to two, you're reloading zone one with a new fresh part and unloading as they finish up.
00:52:38
Speaker
you know, because it's a lot faster to cut rectangles out on a saw than it is with a router. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then you're not burying, you're not burying the bit fully in the work. You're just cutting around the outside, which, um, it's gotta save quite a bit on those expensive bits.
00:52:58
Speaker
Yeah, and I think Brian was saying like you can step up your tooling size for that outside cut. So instead of using a whatever, let's say you use a quarter inch or a three-eighths inch bit when you're doing it, was it called nested base? Like on a flatbed? Yeah. Because you don't want this massive, first of all, it's a big cut because
00:53:21
Speaker
Let's say you can't use a three quarter inch because then you're removing three quarter inches of material and it's harder on the spindle because you're cutting a full three quarter inch wide swath. Right. Here you're just trimming the edge so you could use a larger diameter, which keeps the bit cooler and it can move faster and all that stuff. Yeah.
00:53:46
Speaker
So you could do your outside trim with a big wide bit and it's no problem. But if you do nested base, you can't do that because. You don't want that huge curve waste and all the other. Yeah. All the other things that go with it. We know anybody that does that stuff. What? Flatbed CNC. Anybody in our circle doing that? Flatbed or point to point? Either.
00:54:17
Speaker
Well, yeah, we know the guys at Timber. We know, well, yeah. Yeah. Timber is more. I think of them as a little more like, um, I don't know, uh, like they're not putting cabinets together and stuff like that. Yeah. No, not really. But I mean, they have like four flatbed CNCs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's plenty of guys. I can't think of anybody off the top of my head aside from Timmy, but, um,
00:54:47
Speaker
It's a popular small shop machine for cutting cabinet parts. Keith was really the first person I knew that had one. He's got something about the size of our laser almost, right? I think it's 24 by 36. I haven't heard him talk about it for quite a while. I don't know if it even runs anymore.
00:55:16
Speaker
Yeah, a lot. It was a lot of trouble. Yeah, the machine's a piece of junk. Oh, man. Excuse me. Well, rather than continue to ramble on, we better cut out because this guy could be showing up any minute here.
Conclusion and Listener Appreciation
00:55:37
Speaker
Oh, yeah. We'll see you next week. We'll probably have some stories from the Hamptons. Oh, yeah.
00:55:45
Speaker
everybody take care as always Robin I thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next week if you want to help support the podcast you can leave us a review on Apple podcasts again we appreciate your support thanks for tuning in
00:56:19
Speaker
change.