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The American Craftsman Podcast Ep. 48 | New Materials
41 Plays4 years ago
**Meet-Up: Saturday August 7th @ 2:30pm. Belford Brewing Co. in Belford, NJ. Facebook Event: https://fb.me/e/1QutOnfNz **
On Episode 48 of The American Craftsman Podcast, hosted by Greene Street Joinery, we discuss new materials we'd like to use.
10% off your order from Montana Brand Tools:
https://www.montanabrandtools.com/discount/AMERICANCRAFTSMAN
Beer of the Week (Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar): https://www.rogue.com/products/hazelnut-brown-nectar
Tool of the Week: (Makita 18v Biscuit Joiner) https://amzn.to/3CgSHLU
Greene Street Joinery is a custom design & build shop located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. We build multigenerational furniture with an eco-friendly and sustainable mindset.
Inspired and guided by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, we believe in the use of traditional craftsmanship and simple, well-proportioned forms; sustainability and ethical practices; and importantly, taking pleasure in our work as craftsmen to create quality pieces of enduring value.
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Transcript
Introduction and Montana Brand Tools Partnership
00:00:16
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a change
00:00:22
Speaker
The American Craftsman Podcast is proud to partner with Montana Brand Tools. The West was built by people with strength and great pride in their workmanship. It was a necessity that early settlers of Montana have a strong will, a resilient character, and great determination to tame the rugged landscape while adapting to its dramatic climate. That spirit made in the USA pride and craftsmanship is alive today, both in how Montana Brand Tools are manufactured and how they perform.
00:00:48
Speaker
Montana Brand Power Tool accessories are manufactured utilizing proprietary state-of-the-art CNC machining equipment and the highest quality materials available. Montana Brand tools are guaranteed for life to be free of defects in material and workmanship because we build these tools with pride and determination.
00:01:05
Speaker
Montana Brand Tools are manufactured by Rocky Mountain Twist, located in Ronin, Montana. Montana Brand's heritage comes from a long line of innovative power tool accessories. Use coupon code American Craftsman for 10% off your order at MontanaBrandTools.com.
00:01:20
Speaker
All right. We're rolling.
Episode Introduction and Humor
00:01:23
Speaker
Coming at you from high in the Custer Dome, episode 48, the American Craftsman podcast. You get that reference. Score 10 for you. Yeah, 100 out of 10. Well.
00:01:38
Speaker
Here we are again. Yeah, you could see I remembered to bring Keith's bottle opener. So it's starring right front and center now. Although we just went out today and bought a month's worth of podcast beer, none of which is in the bottle. Yeah, and cans, of course. But it's there at least. Yeah. You could see the cherry on that's nice and dark because the table is darkening up even though it's down here with no sun.
00:02:08
Speaker
still got oxygen. Yeah. Um, so we bust out the
Beer of the Week: Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar
00:02:13
Speaker
beer of the week. Yeah. Might as well.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, so we took a trip today to a liquor store in Long Branch called Court Liquors. Oh, you know what? Let me get the B roll going. And they have a really good selection of beers, we figured. Let's let's go down to Court Liquors. We'll grab grab a handful of beers and we'll be set, you know, for a while.
00:02:42
Speaker
So what do we got? Is this, they say a rogue? Rogue, yeah. Hazelnut brown nectar. It's ale with a natural hazelnut flavor and it's dedicated to Chris Studak and home brewers everywhere. Um, ooh, it's kind of a light as far as alcohol by volume, right? 5.6%.
00:03:03
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Yeah, but for like a craft beer. A nutty twist to a traditional European brown ale. Dark brown in color with a hazelnut aroma. A rich nutty flavor and a smooth multi-finish. Oh, Newport, Oregon. I don't know why I thought Rogue was in California. Yeah, I like the way it sounds. They say this is especially good to be paired with a grilled cheese sandwich, pork chops, and bread pudding.
00:03:32
Speaker
I'm not sure if that's one meal. They're talking like Kraft singles on Wonder Bread. Probably not. We're talking about homemade bread, thick sliced, you know, some of that little like sourdough action. Kerrygold butter slathered on before it hits the pan. Does have a hazelnut aroma to it.
00:03:59
Speaker
clearer than I was expecting. I was expecting some haziness, some cloudiness. I think this is one of those beers where one can is probably. Gonna be it. Definitely yeasty. Yeah. Oh, I gotta tell us. Well, cheers. Cheers to you. Cheers to all you out there.
00:04:31
Speaker
Give you a little, hmm, little b-roll view of the beer and the glass. This glass is huge from this angle. It's naughty. It's good. Yeah.
Safety and Upcoming Meetup Announcement
00:04:47
Speaker
If you like beer and you like this glass, you can join us this weekend, Saturday, August 7th at Belford Brewing Company. Yeah, nice tie in there. Belford, New Jersey. From 2.30 p.m. to, what are we saying, 6 p.m.? Yeah, I think so. Something like that? I think that's when they close. Yeah. We're trying to hang out outside, you know, we don't want to be responsible for anybody's illness here. Yeah. Things are starting to heat up again in New Jersey and more so in other places.
00:05:16
Speaker
So try to be responsible, but you know, if you're unwell, don't come because you're just going to look like a dick.
00:05:27
Speaker
Don't sugarcoat it. Yeah. But yeah, it should be a good time. I know a bunch of people who are coming. We'll have glasses, like we've been saying, and some other stuff. I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah. Yeah, it'd be a good time. It's supposed to be a nice day. I think last I checked 80 and sunny. Nice, nice. They have a little outside area.
00:05:51
Speaker
Perfect weather for being outside. 81, 81 and cloudy, which that's actually probably all right. Even better. Yeah. So, yeah, hey, should be a good time. We've got a Facebook event if you want to. I mean, nobody's really more people have told me personally that they're coming than have responded to the Facebook thing. But I have it up there with some info on there if you want to take a look. Yeah, it'll be in the in the description. Um.
00:06:19
Speaker
So yeah, hey, I mean, you guys know where that brings us.
Tool of the Week: Makita Biscuit Joiner
00:06:22
Speaker
Tool of the week. Tool of the week. Yeah, well, I'm wearing long pants down here in the chill of the basement. And I got my sleeves on. But that's because I'm going to meet John Peters after.
00:06:35
Speaker
I've been bugging him to go out and check out the beehives. And tonight's the night after the podcast. So he said, wear long pants and everything. And the reason I mentioned that is I'm going to blow John Peter's mind with the tool of the week. Because here it is. The Makita biscuit or sometimes known as plate joint. That's right. And what
00:07:05
Speaker
Come on there, cell phone. This is the cordless version, which makes it especially nice. Now, we got this for this commercial job we were doing when we were joining all these pieces of, what do you call that, that stuff for the trees and the
00:07:27
Speaker
the you know the the like industry term is TFL but I mean I always just refer to it as melamine but I don't know if melamine is more specific to just like your uh your white you know right you know it had that brown texture that we chose so it looked more like uh you know an artistic uh block yeah what was that called brother brother furds you know they have these stupid names
00:07:54
Speaker
Well, we got it specifically for that job. And I have to say, I've broken this tool out on basically every job since. Yeah. And we, uh, it was funny, you know, you brought up with John, why are you going to blow his mind? Because, um, you know, I had known John for several years. We used to talk on Instagram and, you know, we're local to each other. So we had, you know, a, a friendship through Instagram. And then when John finally came to the shop, I forget how it came up. We were talking about,
00:08:23
Speaker
And we're like, he was asking about a biscuit joiner. We're like, we don't even have a biscuit joiner. We don't feel the need to even have one. And John was like, what? Like, what do you mean you don't have a biscuit joiner?
00:08:37
Speaker
We kind of offended him a little bit. It was just one of those things that like, you know, we don't have one. We have the domino. We make do, you know, if there's a situation where the domino won't work, it's like, then we just don't use anything. Yeah. He's like, how could you not have a biscuit joiner? I love the biscuit joiner.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, and I was saying the other day, the biscuit joiner is one of those things where we're going up that sconce for Tommy G, Manhattan stained glass, which was a... What shape would you call that? Trapezoidal? Yeah, like a trapezoidal prism. So the basically three face frames shaped like trapezoid, well, two triangles, well, no, for three trapezoids.
00:09:27
Speaker
And the sides butt into the back edge of the fronts. Like imagine you're building a face frame with a return finish panel on it. Don't need a biscuit there. It doesn't add anything to the strength or anything. And it's really like the alignment is, you don't need it to align it.
00:09:51
Speaker
But with this thing in 30 seconds, I just popped three biscuits in it and it, you know, am I fine without it? Yeah, but we have it now. So it it's quick and easy. Yeah, it's really accurate. It's it's it's a typical, you know, tool of its sort, but it just kind of does it well. Yeah. Because we've used a few different brands.
00:10:18
Speaker
Yeah. Lamelos, everything. And to me, the thing, not having that cord in the way, because we do use it with the vacuum port. So it's not that it's totally untethered, but not having that cord in the way makes a big difference, I think, too. Yeah. And the nice thing about this is when you sit it on the base, it stands up.
00:10:42
Speaker
because there's a little, like a kickstand on the back where, you know, at Tom's shop, he had a lamello, not a Zeta or anything, just like did the most basic lamello. You know, you put that thing down.
00:10:58
Speaker
And it's tipped like this because they're not weighted, right? So this you can sit, and I like to reference off a flat surface like that a lot of times when you join in flat pieces to one another. Because the fence, it could be inaccurate if you're not holding everything perfect. Especially with small parts, it's really nice to be able to reference off of a table. Yeah, your bench, stuff like that. So yeah, I mean, I've been really happy with that.
00:11:27
Speaker
You know, it's it's funny because It started off. All right, I'm gonna use it too. I happen to be working on that part of the job So I busted it out and I was a real I'm not you know, not a non-believer not a hater but close. Yeah pretty close I mean we were looking at the Zeta P2, which is like the you know, the $1,500 Lamello that does all the connectors and stuff but decided that
00:11:55
Speaker
The job at hand didn't call for it, so it's like 200 some odd dollars versus 1,500 would just go with the basic one. Yeah, and we're part of the Makita battery platform, so that works its way into our shop. But it feels good, and like today, same thing. I said, let me throw a couple of biscuits in here. You know, his pocket's growing the thing together, but the countertop?
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But it's nice, and I like it. I really like it. Yeah, it's quiet. It cuts. I mean, we'll see how the blade holds up, but I mean, we cut probably
00:12:40
Speaker
I don't know 250 biscuits with it. Yeah. Maybe a little bit more a little bit less and it's still very sharp and cutting into those TFL panels. I mean that stuff is that's nasty on any type of blade glue. It does have big carbide teeth the the cutter itself. Let me see if
00:13:04
Speaker
And the biscuits really seem to fit in there nice, too. Well, that's because we're using real Lamello biscuits. So here, I'll turn it on. It's got that quintessential biscuit joiner wind down, so why don't they all do that?
00:13:29
Speaker
I don't know what it is about. Basically, these are a grinder with a plunge base on them. Because I have the Makita grinder, and it's basically identical to this. Yeah, so John Peters, whenever he hears this episode, I'm sure he's going to smile a little bit. You might have to bring it over tonight.
00:13:56
Speaker
I know John's a Milwaukee guy, but he may, uh, maybe sued. Yeah. So if you're in the market for something like this, uh, I really liked the fact that it's, you know, cordless.
00:14:11
Speaker
Yeah. And I think of, you know, the cordless as, uh, on a job site. You might need, you know, it's always nice to have a biscuit joiner on the job. Um, especially if you're doing, you know, these weird kind of things like that tree that we built. Um, so, you know, you might be up on top of a scaffold or a ladder and, you know, joining, uh, a fascia to a cabinet, something whatever. And you know, it'd be good for that.
00:14:37
Speaker
So there you go. There'll be a link down at the bottom of the page,
Shop Setup and Workflow Insights
00:14:41
Speaker
right? Like usual. Yep. And check it out. The Makita XPSJ06 or something like that. XJP03. That was pretty close. You got some memory. Only for the important stuff, like biscuit joiner model numbers. When's your anniversary, quick. 10, 1, and 16.
00:15:08
Speaker
I almost forgot. I could have sworn there was something that I thought I was forgetting and then now I'm forgetting what it is. Well, we mentioned the meetup. Yeah, I got that on here. We got the beer, we got the tool. And that brings us up to the questions, unless there was something else. I don't think so. It might come to you.
00:15:34
Speaker
We got a decent amount of questions this week. You guys were slacking last week, and you made up for it this week. We got a full two-pager. The first question. I'll read this so that you can answer it. This is from Nick, Nicktrayer on Instagram. We got a couple guys who asked a lot of questions this week, which I like.
00:15:56
Speaker
Um, if you could go, if you could go back in time, what would you say to Tom at Tom's shop? Boy, I mean, there's so many instances. You know, if I, if I knew how things were going to transpire,
00:16:16
Speaker
Um, Tom is very non-confrontational and I'm kind of the opposite when it comes to stuff like that where, uh, you know, not typically though, but you, you could be driven to that point by Tom because of, you know, his demeanor.
00:16:34
Speaker
That's that's a good way to put it. I try. I try to be democratic and, you know, kind and all these things. But with Tom, I didn't I didn't really let too much, you know, slide by because he had reached his limit. I would I would definitely like to say some things to him when he was telling me to stay home for two weeks. You know, that two weeks is about up, huh? Yeah. I mean, I want 13 days now.
00:17:04
Speaker
I think he's about ready to call me back anytime now. So maybe he'll stop by on Saturday. Maybe, maybe he's got a job offer. Yeah.
00:17:20
Speaker
That's crazy. Your things have happened. Yeah. So one thing about Tom, he overlooks a lot of stuff, you know, you know, so maybe that's, that's one of the good things you could say about, um, man, you know, we said so much. We really aired our grievances on a regular basis. No punches. Um, but, uh,
00:17:46
Speaker
Wow. You know, I would say that
00:17:52
Speaker
It would really was a blessing that in disguise because I would easily still be there. Yeah. You know, kind of biting my tongue like everybody does there and living with the frustrations of seeing something that could be, you know, a really good gig just
00:18:17
Speaker
you know, kind of be a really bad gig. You could just like shave like 10 years off your lifespan. Yeah. What would I say to him though? I'm going to have to agree with you though. You know, I'm non-confrontational. You know, I do a lot of talking, you know, like, especially like for driving and stuff like that. But like, I'm not going to confront anybody.
00:18:44
Speaker
you know, just because it's it's too much hassle. It's not you know, it's not worth anything. It's better to just vent to yourself and you know. But you always like you said, no is on your right with Tom. I didn't I didn't pull any punches because, you know, he would just get you to the point of, you know, complete and utter frustration where basically you just tell him like it is.
00:19:09
Speaker
Um, so I, I don't have anything to say to Tom because I, I let it all hang out anyway. I would have liked to, if I would have known what was coming, I would have liked to, you know, make him a little uncomfortable, you know, when he was trying to send me home, you know, say like, you sure you're going to call me back? This isn't your way of telling me that you want to fire me, is it? Just to see if I could get him to say it. Yeah.
00:19:38
Speaker
Um, but, uh, yeah, we, we pretty much said what we, we liked at Tom's and we don't dwell on that past because that was just a stepping stone.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a joke now, you know, a running gag of one of several. Um, but you know, as they say, things happen for a reason. Uh, we got to work together. We met, um, and we forged what would be the beginnings of green street before it was green street. And then it became green street.
00:20:17
Speaker
We got to meet, you know, Manny and Lou and all
Reflections on Job Experiences
00:20:20
Speaker
kinds of other people. We still got good friends through there. Yeah, so, you know, as much of a dipshit as Tom is, there was some green grass there. Plenty of positives. Plenty of positives that come from it. But that was a good question, Nick. Thank you.
00:20:39
Speaker
Uh, you want me to read this next one from Matt? Sure. One of our patrons, Matt's Hey Good Hardwoods on Instagram. And he's asking us, what has been the job or project where you learn the most? Well, for me, these, uh, these questions are always hard for me. These like very, um,
00:20:59
Speaker
that's what I'm looking for, not definitive, but he's like really specific about the most X circumstance. So, you know, this is probably not the one, but the one that sticks out to me, not the one in actuality, you know what I mean? This is the one that's popping into my head, would be the chaise lounges for Celiah, where we tried to steam bend. Yes.
00:21:22
Speaker
Because we learned the hard way a lot of stuff Yeah, it was just a lot of hitting our head against the wall trying to figure this out So yeah, I mean that's the one that sticks out in my head is trying to steambend the white oak to build these chaise lounges Yeah, I like that one that's true because
00:21:43
Speaker
We learned a lot because we really stepped way out on a limb on that one. And we were trying things that many thought could not be done. And they were pretty much right. If we had been better equipped with steel jigs and forms and everything. Yeah, some green wood.
00:22:05
Speaker
we might have been able to pull it off. But yeah, yeah, I think we I think now if we had like a little bit of time, we could definitely get everything, you know, we'd weld up the forms and all that stuff. Yeah. Like that guy who was making the parts that when we watched that video, he was steam bending the wagon wheels. Yeah. Yeah. Or even like Craig's got that T welded thing.
00:22:32
Speaker
Let's see. I learned the most. You know, I, I learned a lot from, you know, seeing different tools in use. Uh,
00:22:47
Speaker
One of the things I watched mostly as you did the shaper work on those lounge chairs, I would say anything that had to do with the shaper, I learned. Even if I wasn't on it, this last thing with the sconce was really my first independent shaper work. And I was using that little tiny router bit. So that was a great way. Minimal clench factor. Yes. That was a great way to enter into it.
00:23:16
Speaker
But that's the tool, the machine I'm most unfamiliar with. Right. So I would say that was a biggie. Think of I mean, we learn stuff on every job because we're I mean, purposefully.
00:23:31
Speaker
You know, the job we're going to work on after these last two are wrapped up that we're working on now, we're going to be. I mean, I guess what we're doing is pretty is stuff we've done before, but like we're going to be a vacuum bag, veneering doors, which we've done and we're buying the, you know, the veneers are prelaid up. So we're kind of easing our way into, you know, laying up veneers ourselves. But
00:23:57
Speaker
You know, typically we don't build doors that way, but this job that's coming up, we'd say, hey, we're going to do it this way. It calls for it. It could happen that way. You could just use plywood, but this is going to be better. Yeah. And we want to do with the solid wood edging where the veneer over the top of it.
00:24:16
Speaker
Yes, we're taking five-ace Baltic birch. We'll put a five-ace edging on four sides and then veneer up four doors with 16th inch veneer that we're getting laid up by these guys in Indiana. Yeah. Superior veneers seem like good guys. They make, you know, thick. They specialize in thick veneers because
00:24:39
Speaker
You know, that's what we want to use is a sixth, my 16th inch veneer. Yeah. You know, maybe next one we've re-sawed ourselves or we go with a, you know, a more traditionally thickness, thickness of veneer and, and, you know, lay them up. And I'm just like, my watch is going crazy. Celaya concierge. Oh, yeah.
00:25:12
Speaker
Sorry, guys. Got distracted. Forgot that we're doing a podcast. I'm getting texts about jobs. I don't even remember what the hell I was saying. Well, you were talking about, what were we talking about? Job where we learn stuff and the veneering and
00:25:32
Speaker
Next time we might do something a little bit different. But that's kind of it. We try and learn something each job as well or incorporate something we've seen or have been inspired by. And just in general, I mean, like.
00:25:51
Speaker
the confessionals, we learn stuff. We, we just by putting in the heating elements and you know, there's all the mechanical stuff, the lighting, all the, yeah, really the job where we learn the most is the next job. That's it. Um, cause we're, we're totally ignorant about that. Not totally, but there's that element that we haven't experienced yet. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a good question.
00:26:19
Speaker
Next question comes in from Brian. Gray Point Woodworks on Instagram. Building Adirondack chairs, what's your choice of wood for outdoor furniture? Cost matters. Oh, well, if cost matters, I think we'll agree on the easy answer for us now, right? I think we will, but... All right, you say
Wood Recommendations for Outdoor Furniture
00:26:39
Speaker
it. Let's say it together. One, two, three. Sapili.
00:26:48
Speaker
Um, yeah, I mean, sepulae is, uh, I wouldn't say it's cheap. Yeah. Comparatively. Yeah. It's cheaper than, uh, ochre walnut or teak. Oh yeah. Way cheaper than teak. Um,
00:27:05
Speaker
you know, it's a good outdoor wood, cheaper than e-pay. Easier to work than those super hard woods too. Yeah, it's dense, but it's not, you know, not super difficult to work with. You know, it takes on nice color outside. You know, you can find it for about six bucks a board foot. That's, you know, you can find it for cheaper than that, which I think is pretty,
00:27:32
Speaker
pretty cheap yeah yeah it's not like maple cheap or cherry cheap but no um well maples going up a little bit I wonder like out on the west coast if they're still redwood yeah using redwood
00:27:48
Speaker
Not really. You know, it was like pine basically at the turn of the last century. And when I lived out in San Francisco and you would be in these old houses and you'd strip down 20 layers of paint, like these were
00:28:03
Speaker
Painted originally painted it was all redwood. Yeah, they would that was paint grade wood for them back then well those trees are so goddamn big uh-huh Yeah, I mean there's companies now that what they do is they dismantle redwood water towers, and they sell the wood Yeah, and it's expensive about $30 a board foot Wow Wow yeah, because I Mean that would be the only other wood that I could think of cedar
00:28:30
Speaker
Yeah, just too soft. I mean, white oak is great outside, but I mean, I guess if you use flat sawn, the thing is you really want to use quarter sawn outside. You can get quarter sawn sapele for, like I said, $6, $6.50 a board foot. Quarter sawn white oak, you're talking $8, $9 right now. Yeah, it's hard to get. Those are wholesale prices. You're buying at retail, you're only buying
00:28:58
Speaker
20, 30 board feet. You're talking $10 plus a board foot. Yeah. When I talk to guys, they're paying $15 a board foot for Walnut. That's insane, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, um, Walnut was $5 and 40 cents a board foot. Not that long ago. I don't know. I mean, the sky has slowed down at some point. Yeah.
00:29:24
Speaker
We'll see. Yeah, I was watching a thing on supply and demand last night about elasticity. And you know, it's it's a very complicated, very complicated thing. There's elasticity in supply and demand and in any elasticity. It's a whole crazy thing.
00:29:45
Speaker
Yeah, everybody's a little bit gun shy about how long things are going to last. Mm hmm. Whether it's shortages or booms. Yeah. You know, even when things are booming now, people are because the last time things boomed, it dried up really quickly afterwards.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah, well, yeah, there wasn't even a boom. It was just there was such a drop off that, you know, they never really recovered. And the prices were super low. And now, you know, you can tell me you're going to invest millions of dollars in infrastructure, your company when, you know, two weeks from now, the real estate market could crash and there's no demand for your product anymore. You know,
00:30:29
Speaker
Yeah, everybody's kind of happy to just be working at capacity and turning down things rather than trying to fill every order.
00:30:40
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of conjecture about, oh, you know, this is all, prices are rigged and this and that. It just shows how uneducated people are about supply chain and, you know, how these things actually work. You know how fragile the supply chain remains. You know, a good conspiracy theory is it's a lot easier to believe. We're going to control the population by jacking up the price of plywood.
00:31:08
Speaker
They can't have babies, they don't have houses to live in. Here you go. I love this next question. This came in, I'm sitting on the couch this morning, about 5.05am.
00:31:26
Speaker
You read it. Question, boys. Apart from the ugly Adirondack chairs that you have to crawl out of, any aspirations on building or plans to develop your own chairs anytime soon? One you could sit in when doing the podcast. Love all the other comments. Maybe I can suggest the Y's do their own podcast. Lend them the gear.
00:31:48
Speaker
That's from Colin, one of our patrons, Beaver Badger on Instagram. Colin's building a kiln. That's awesome. I think he's probably just about done now. Oh, man, I love that. I mean, that's question of the year right there. That's pretty good. Yeah, we have we have totally thick skin about everything. I guess Colin's not making it to meet up. Yeah.
00:32:16
Speaker
Collins referring to our Adirondack chair plans. Yeah. No, those, those are tried and true. Those things are proven.
00:32:27
Speaker
I spent a good bit of time sitting in one. Yeah. Yeah. We have the prototypes that are probably about 15 years old sitting out in the weather. It's like that, uh, those, um, those Benjamin Moore paint sample places where they paint the shingles and then they leave them out in the sun and the rain and everything. Then they go back and check on them. That's what we did with our Adirondacks. Yeah.
00:32:53
Speaker
Um, you know, there's, there are not enough hours and not enough days in the week. That's, that's about what it comes down to. We'd love to really got enough time for this. Right. We would love to do all that stuff.
Approach to Design and Client Collaboration
00:33:08
Speaker
Um,
00:33:10
Speaker
but it's like a luxury item. We're still embroiled in just the meat and potatoes. Yeah. I mean, you know, we saw maybe a dozen sets of those plans. Yeah. We gave away a few. Yeah. I mean, you're talking a hundred.
00:33:25
Speaker
Would it make $100? Sales are $100 and it costs two full days of Rob's time to make them. So we're at a net loss of go figure. No, if we were one of these big content creator people who's got a billion followers, then we could make plans and sell them for profit, but nobody wants to buy our plans.
00:33:54
Speaker
And the truth is we're more excited about getting tidbits of information from a would be client and creating something fresh and new. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Um, that, that's the part that really, you know, gets us going.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yeah, I find design without some sort of direction is difficult, too. You know, could I pick out of a hat or I'm going to build a transitional style buffet and then sit down and try and design something? Yeah, but that's not, you know, it seems. I don't know, weird.
00:34:31
Speaker
Yeah. We like to have some, some goal in mind, like when we start. Yeah. Like I want somebody else to figure out all the, the need to, the, you know, the necessary information or the, uh, the required, the requirements and then design from that. I want to have to start from just a blank canvas and come up with something that's a little too, uh, too, uh, far ahead of my skillset.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah, the other thing is when we've tried to do something like that, we sort of box ourselves into this idea that we're going to please everyone in every situation, and it makes it almost impossible. It's like, well, you know, we're going to do this coffee table. Yeah, but what if they wanted it like this instead of like that?
00:35:18
Speaker
you find that a lot of these spec built pieces of furniture that aren't like something kind of run-of-the-mill are very impractical typically you know they're just kind of form over function and don't really suit like actual yeah it's a gallery piece yeah I don't know what fucking gallery these things are in but
00:35:43
Speaker
gonna say anything but yeah like a dining room table where it looks great in a photo but you know everybody's knees are gonna hit you know where they're trying to you know side a lot up to the table and that that kind of thing or where it's totally unstable it's just set up there for a picture yeah and what you don't see is there's actually it's leaning on a stick to hold up a corner of the ropes come from yeah I mean that's that's not unheard of so
00:36:13
Speaker
Um, no, the response to the Adirondack chairs is kind of, uh, settle us into the idea that we should stick to just, uh, building on a commission basis. Yeah.
00:36:25
Speaker
Unless Colin's got some other ideas. That's true. You could send us some of that nice Australian wood he's got. Yeah. All right, I'll read this next one. I'm really interested in that dowel technique I saw you use for the oak dutch door. Am I correct to assume you drilled the dowels post-assembly through the joint to reinforce, then capped the dowels with a false through tenon?
00:36:51
Speaker
I've always liked the floating tenon plunge router jig method, but deep mortises can be a challenge in wide style doors. Domino XL is cool, but expensive, and I wouldn't use it as much as my 500. That DAL technique seemed like a good economical way to get a strong door. That's from Parsons Woodwork on Instagram.
00:37:14
Speaker
It's pretty much right on there, right? Yeah, I couldn't find your name. You're a slippery fellow while there on Instagram.
Techniques for Reinforcing Door Joints
00:37:23
Speaker
You know, your actual, your government name.
00:37:27
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad somebody liked the technique, because I got a lot of shit over there. I don't know what everybody's problem is. You should have used reel-through tenants. Okay, let's just make the door cost twice as much as it costs now. We're working within the reality. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, we're going to cut eight-through tenants on the door.
00:37:49
Speaker
So, you're right. That's what we did. We, you know, it's a cope and stick door. So the tenons are only, you know, five-eighths long. So, you know, stub tenons like that. It's not strong enough for a door like that. The door is too big. There's too much movement. It's an exterior door.
00:38:11
Speaker
So yeah, I mean there's a couple ways to go. Like you said, you could do an actual, you could do a big slip tenon with a router, you could do a through tenon with a router, you could build it with through tenons. The DF700, you could use that, the big Domino.
00:38:31
Speaker
What we decided to do was cut a mortise on the outside. We sunk in, what was it, four? Yeah, four like 10 inch long, three-eighths inch dowels going into a five-eighths wide.
00:38:48
Speaker
uh, tenon going through, you know, through the, the styles into the rails, you know, so going dead center and then covered up with an end grain plug that it makes it look like a through tenant, you know, going in a house that would have doors built that way with through tenants. So, you know, match the look of the, of the time period.
00:39:10
Speaker
Right. I mean, if that's a tried and true method. Yeah. I mean, people build, you know, blind, doweled doors like that all the time. We just did it, you know, we just covered the end with a different look rather than you see in the. Yeah. Or some people do them blind. So it's only on the inside. And but then you got to worry about lining all those things up. We don't have a dialing jig. It's not just not something that we do.
00:39:35
Speaker
So this was really killing two birds with one stone. It was making a door that was more, you know, looked more period appropriate and was stronger than what it would have been otherwise. Just using the coping stick joint.
00:39:51
Speaker
that probably would have failed because, you know, the homeowner is going to be responsible for the upkeep of the door and the weather. And up here we get all four seasons. It can be tough on something like that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's a door that operates a lot, you know, and it's big. I mean, you're talking a nine inch rail on the bottom. That thing was heavy. Yeah.
00:40:19
Speaker
All right. So if he's got any questions, I mean, I think he's got it sorted out. Yeah. But yeah, and there's, you know, you could probably do that several different ways. This next question. Got one here from Ryan R.P. Woodwork on Instagram. How big is your shop? Not big at all.
00:40:40
Speaker
Subjective but yeah, I'm gonna have to grow. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's 24 by 36 On the pad, you know, that's the outside dimensions. It's essentially like a two-car garage
00:40:53
Speaker
right. So must be 23 by 35, roughly 22 by, by a 34 on the inside and it's jammed with stuff, but it's typically not messy. It jammed. It's, you know, we, we spend a lot of time sorting out where the machines are going to go though. The work path
00:41:14
Speaker
And when something new comes in the shop, you know, we try and figure out where it's going to go. A lot of things have been stored over there in Deadwood Gulch lately. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like right now, I mean, it's packed. We got ropes in there for the commercial job. We got a cabinet, all these glass panels, glass for the wine cabinet. I mean, it's full of
00:41:38
Speaker
It's full. It's full of jobs. Besides, yeah. So you can get a lot done in a small place. And we don't move tools around or anything like that. Once in a while, we got to slide the shape rather way for using the crosscut sled for something big. But other than that, everything's pretty much good to go where it is.
00:42:05
Speaker
Uh, so give us your best. We had a week to get X done story. That's from Matt. Patron. I know a guy vis on Instagram. This guy works. I follow him on Instagram and I'm tired just trying to keep up with his posts. Proud new owner of a Mercedes Sprinter van. He must've got a diesel. Um, I think I asked him. I forget what he said. I'm pretty sure he did.
00:42:36
Speaker
we're still waiting on ours. I was hoping they would call today, but yeah, he's gotten more done this summer than I think, uh, especially around the house. I mean, then I have, he's never got anybody helping him. It's clearing the land. We're planting a garden, digging ponds, just laying stone, the whole shop. Yeah.
00:43:03
Speaker
This is another, I mean, it's a tough one because we don't really rush, do we? Not typically. I mean, only if, you know, something happens. The hardest we probably work was building the deck. That's true. There was no type limit on that though. Yeah. Um, you know, have we ever been under the gun to get something done?
00:43:27
Speaker
I mean, recently, like the watch the Audemars watch thing, you know. But. I mean, nothing crazy. You know, that's the thing people probably don't understand that how small our shop is and how.
00:43:50
Speaker
our pace of work. It's very human. You know, we go by our clocks and everything like that. Well, yeah. And I think the reality is that most other people just
00:44:07
Speaker
allow themselves to get into these situations where they don't allocate enough time for a job or they allow the clients to dictate timeline where we're not working any slower or faster than anybody else. We have the client to an understanding of it's going to take this long and no matter what you say, it just takes this long.
00:44:33
Speaker
You know, it doesn't do us any good to work 100 hours a week. No. Who said it to us the other day? Do you want it good or do you want it fast? I think we were just we were talking about that with Tommy and Joe. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Tommy G because he does stay in glass, which is, you know, it's a similar kind of craft where you have to pay attention to what you're doing. It's not really something that you can blast through. Yeah.
00:45:02
Speaker
Um, but we, you know, there are those days where we go, wow, we got a lot done today, but that's just kind of just working at our regular pace. Yeah. Um, so we don't, we don't have anything like that. I, we, and we haven't really been in business that long to, um, have any kind of crazy story about the being behind schedule and getting anything, you know, getting something done. Yeah. I mean,
00:45:33
Speaker
I don't know. To me, it's like all these deadlines are flexible. You know, if it looks like we're going to run late on a job and it's like we're a week behind schedule, I'm not going to put in an extra week. I'm not going to put in two weeks of work in one week before I call the client and say, you know, listen, we're behind. This happened. The material was delayed. Some got fucked up, whatever.
00:45:57
Speaker
and have a discussion about it. We can see the writing on the wall as far as timing goes.
Managing Project Deadlines
00:46:03
Speaker
Yeah and you know we weren't what's good for the client so again if the situation was no they need it in a week we had to put in two weeks of work in a week then that's what we would do but typically that's not the case. Right.
00:46:17
Speaker
And, you know, people get into this Robin Jack to pay Jill thing or Peter to pay Paul, whatever, whatever you want to say, where they don't have a choice because they got to get paid on this. They need a progress payment on this job. So they have no choice but to to get it done. But we try not to put ourselves in that position.
00:46:35
Speaker
That's kind of a disappointing answer. Yeah. We got we got nothing there. I mean, nothing really worth mentioning. Got nothing. I mean, this knows I was in the shop five o'clock a couple of weeks ago. I had to get that flower thing done, you know, to deliver by 7 a.m. But same thing when it's crazy as it gets. Last Friday, you came in with the scones for Tommy. Yeah.
00:47:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean stuff happens and sometimes you got to come in early stay late, but Yeah, usually we spread it out like we'll work over the weekend like the the computer work will work on designs into the evening But that's you know that remote kind of work. Yeah, we'll be talking electronically So we tend to spread it out like that
00:47:30
Speaker
Oh, look at look at this next. This is gonna be another riveting answer. Jaffa Hernandez on Instagram. He's one of our patrons and he's asking ever done an epoxy finish? No. No. I can definitely appreciate now we're talking about an epoxy finish, not like an epoxy like
00:47:55
Speaker
Table like a poured epoxy. Yeah. Yeah, you know on like a Jewelry box or something like that you get that super thick like lacquer looking finish. I mean I can't appreciate that in certain situations, but Just haven't done it
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah, the closest I ever came to something like that was when I was in the SFMC and we'd have our weekly meetings on Thursdays and we had our own river table. Yeah, no, there was no river table back then. It didn't come
00:48:33
Speaker
Some homeless guy probably had one. Well, we had a bar in our clubhouse and I took it upon myself to refinish it and put one of those epoxy tops on it, you know, for that they sold in the two cans. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what he's talking about. Yeah. Yeah. So I did that. It stunk the whole place up. But I mean it.
00:48:58
Speaker
Like for things like that, like that's when you think of like a bar, like not in a motorcycle club, right? Yeah. We're like, just like a bar, like, yeah, not like a wet bar for your house, like a nice house, but like, you know, it has its place for like things like that. Yeah. Super thick, super durable. Um, and, uh, it's probably that bar top is probably still in service. And that was, uh, about 22 years ago.
00:49:27
Speaker
It goes about, uh, yeah. What grade were you in 22 years ago? 22 years ago was, was a 1998. Yeah. Oh Lord. Third grade. I was riding with the SFMC. Cause, uh, yeah, for the millennium, it was in fifth grade.
00:49:48
Speaker
We had, you know, the SFMC is the second oldest motorcycle club in the entire world. In the world? In the world. The oldest, just by about six months, Yonkers. Yonkers, New York. SFMC started in 1903.
00:50:12
Speaker
And you got a prospect to get your colors You know three well They're barely even motorcycles back then. Yeah, that was the thing So you had bicycle pedals on it. Yeah, there's some all there are some old pictures in the in the clubhouse especially like in the 40s and stuff like that and
00:50:33
Speaker
you could see the people that had like women involved dressed almost like cheerleaders you would think like with wearing sweaters and you know so it had a totally different thing going on before that like I you know the whole thing with the Hells Angels that came about post World War two yeah
00:50:55
Speaker
So before that was really like you know an adventure sport kind of thing because there were no roads really going cross country every lot of dirt track. Yeah. I wonder what I wonder what the guys are doing. There's probably
Exploring Material Integration in Projects
00:51:11
Speaker
a few old timers still there from when I was there. I'm sure.
00:51:17
Speaker
See, this next one's kind of like two questions that are intertwined. So I guess I'll read both and then we can answer accordingly. What materials do you want to work with that you haven't incorporated into your work yet? That's from Keith, our newest patron, our friend and patron, Blackthorn Concepts on Instagram. And now the second question that goes with that,
00:51:41
Speaker
Now that you have worked with steel, glass, and stained glass with your work, what other types of material would you like to incorporate? That's from Corey, CT Woodwork on Instagram. Wow. It's funny how we get these questions that are sort of interlinked like that a lot.
00:51:59
Speaker
Well, I know I won't say one thing I'm thinking of, because I'm sure you're going to, it's on your mind, and I'll leave that for you. OK. I could always add it if you don't say it, but I'm sure you will. A proxy river table? No. One thing I work with early on that I'd like to try again is like forged metal, which was pretty cool.
00:52:29
Speaker
You know, what's left? Metal. There's stone. I've worked with stone. In fact, for the church in Tom's River, I got those stone veneers from Canada and used those for door panels. You know, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, you know. What we got? A velvet. Only on our paint rollers.
00:52:58
Speaker
Were you gonna say alabaster? Yeah, so actually that's why Keith Brings this up. He had a little sub question about the alabaster which I omitted but Yeah, so Keith actually has done He carved this tool about an alabaster and you got to go check it out on his page I mean it's like one of the coolest things I've seen the way that this stone is workable with just like regular tools and
00:53:24
Speaker
So we have this chunk of alabaster that he gave us at the shop to mess around with. So I think that that would be a really cool thing to incorporate. Excuse me. What else?
00:53:41
Speaker
I mean, I definitely think, definitely want to incorporate more steel and stained glass. Steel is great. I really like the way it complements wood. I like to get more into it being part of the mechanical fastening element as well as an aesthetic element in a piece of furniture mixed with wood. Yeah, yeah.
00:54:10
Speaker
you know, because what it is, wood, there's stone, there's metal, there's glass, plastic, plastics. Yeah. Um, you know, uh, canings, pretty cool. Uh, leather.
00:54:27
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we've done some upholstery work. I've done a few headboards where mixed in upholstery. Um, but generally that's something that I'll prepare for an upholsterer. I won't even get into that. Yep. Um, yeah, I'm sure Corey even means in like a, just a design element too. Yeah. I mean, all of it. Yeah. Everything. That's a short answer.
00:54:57
Speaker
or I guess the long answer at this point. Yeah, you know what I'm always intrigued by too? Like incorporating mechanical technology back when they were sort of just coming out. I never got to build one, but I always wanted to build one of those cameras where the TV comes out of it, raises it out of it. So I like stuff like that too, where we're incorporating technology
00:55:24
Speaker
Like that, uh, vanity we designed with the servo drive. Yeah. Yeah. Stuff like that. That's a story. I'd say so technology moving parts. Yeah. Um, that's what I'd like to get more of. Um, all right. You want to move on out? You want me to read the next one? Yeah. This is also, this is from Corey again, CT woodwork. How do you cut out for butt hinges?
00:55:54
Speaker
Um, so me personally, I, uh, I like to screw them on and mark them with a knife and then I pull them off. Then I'll, you know, define the knife wall with the chisel. And then I might use a router to hog out, you know, the bulk of it, depending on what size hinge it is. Then I come in with a, a mortise butt plane. That's it.
00:56:21
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty much do the same thing from the beginning there, but I'm, because of my tool and what I have, I'm a chisel guy. But yeah, those little planes you have, those things are pretty cool. Yeah, the mortise butt plane, you know, made specifically for butt hinges and
00:56:44
Speaker
It's basically a beveled down chisel with two, you know, with a big soul. So you have, you can reference on the edge of the door. It rides on the edge of the door on the outside like that. Yeah. You know, it's just, believe me, I've done more, more hinges with just a chisel than I could even remember, you know, even just working as a finished carpenter and strikes and all that stuff.
00:57:11
Speaker
It's next to impossible to get a perfectly consistent thickness of depth on the mortise with just a chisel. So the mortise butt plane is really nice for that. It's only going to cut as deep as you set it. Yeah, because I always used to do the method where you do all the little cross hits and then... Then the grain of the wood goes down and next thing you know you got a huge chunk out. Got a little chunk missing out of the middle.
00:57:37
Speaker
And that happens with the thing too. Grain direction is everything. You gotta reverse the thing sometimes.
00:57:45
Speaker
Uh, you know, this next question is, it's almost apropos to something we've been working on for about a week in the design phase. It's not, not refuse. Nick tray or on Instagram asks us, was there a time you refuse to do something because of unrealistic expectations?
00:58:10
Speaker
I mean, the table has been it's definitely been a, you know, a head scratcher, but refuse is just not the right word. Yeah. I mean, I can't. I just can't think of anything. We rarely refuse to do anything. Yeah. I mean, we definitely passed on jobs before. But not not having to do with unrealistic expectations.
00:58:38
Speaker
No, um, like if somebody wants like the kitchen where they wanted those really narrow styles and rails on the very big doors. Yeah. We kind of talked our way into a compromise there. You know, we made them bigger, not as big as we would have liked, but yeah, we saw what happened with those. Uh-huh. And, uh, so yeah, we don't refuse, but we'll try and, um,
00:59:07
Speaker
kind of lend our experience and, and expertise, if you will, to the situation, see if we can convince somebody to alter their, their ideas a little. Yeah. I mean, I guess unreal. We've had people with unrealistic budgetary expectations. Oh yeah. That happens all the time. Um, yeah, if that's part of it, yeah, we, we just tell them, no, we can't do it for that. Yeah. Yeah. Let's say we got more than that material.
00:59:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's the thing. People are a little bit removed from the cost of doing stuff like this. Oh, yeah. A lot removed. This could be a pretty quick answer if we don't expound on it. This next question, are you on page two? Yeah. There's another one from Ryan. RP Woodwork on Instagram. What do you use the most, plywood or hardwood? Yeah.
01:00:03
Speaker
Typically, we use, I'd say, 75% hardwood and 25% plywood, maybe even more percentage-wise on the hardwood. But, you know, again, it varies for the job. Yeah, job to job. The commercial, there's not a stitch of, oh no, we did those big tabletops.
01:00:30
Speaker
Yeah. The solid walnut. 200 board feet of walnut. Yeah, I forgot all about that. That's more than some people use in a whole year. Yeah.
01:00:41
Speaker
Like things like the confessional, that's a pretty good mix of hardwood and plywood. Yeah, that's probably about maybe a 60-40. Yeah, the altar rail. That's basically all hardwood, that the whole thing's, you know, if you discount the stand. Yeah, the platform. It's all just wrapped in hardwood.
01:01:05
Speaker
Right. It's all hardwood. That cherry kitchen cabinets are going to be mostly plywood. Casework, of course. Yeah. But then, you know, we'll build solid casework, too.
01:01:20
Speaker
You know, we did that black, those two black wall units for Easton. There was a half a sheet of plywood and two, you know, just for the backs. Five foot wide wall units. Same thing for the cherry cat with just the back. Yeah.
01:01:39
Speaker
You know, it has a lot to do with the budgetary constraints, the job, the aesthetic that they're going for. Well, I guess it depends. Every factor of the job, you know, leads us to.
01:01:54
Speaker
you know, the decision of what pieces are going to be sheet stock and what pieces are going to be hardwood. Functionality of the material is always going to be taken into consideration as well. Yeah, I mean, you want slab doors, big slab doors, but your budget is low. We got no choice but to make them out of plywood. So if you want us to do it and we want to do it, then we have no choice but to use plywood. But, you know, if we can make
01:02:20
Speaker
Builds big stave core and veneer them then we'll do that right, but it all all has to do with the specific situation But as a whole we definitely we use a good bit of hardwood At least we try to yeah
01:02:37
Speaker
I'm just looking at this next question from Adam. He's built by AT on Instagram. He's also one of our loyal patrons. I don't know what any of those things are. I don't know what those acronyms are, but...
01:02:54
Speaker
You want me to read it? Do you use any kind of CRM or FSM software or app? I'm currently using Google Docs and Evernote to track everything and I'm looking for something else to stay organized. Managing inquiries, quotes, hours, billing, etc.
01:03:17
Speaker
Let's look up CRM I've heard the terms CRM CRM Customer relationship management. Okay, so we're talking about stuff like home base. I know is one of those FSM Field service scheduling wait field service management Okay
01:03:49
Speaker
No. So all of our customer correspondence is happening within either email, text message and very infrequently phone call. I personally, I like to have everything in writing as insignificant as a conversation may be. So I like text or email because I can always go back and reference that and I'll say,
01:04:16
Speaker
What the hell did I talk? What did they say they wanted? Cherry or walnut? You know, this way it's all in writing. Managing inquiries, quotes, hours billing.
01:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's all this is all basically 90, 95% happening on email. You know, we're not doing a huge amount of volume, so we don't. Yeah, we're not inundated with like, too much. So it's not really, you know, more than we can handle just in that sort of, you know,
01:04:50
Speaker
The quotes are just it's generally it's a file on the computer where a folder where it's going to be the drawing, it's going to be a spreadsheet and a written document. And that's what we refer back to. We open up the Jones folder, how much we got materials on the Jones job, and we can see it there.
01:05:11
Speaker
Yeah. You know, is it the best way to do it? No, but there's two of us and we, you know, we run a pretty small business. Yeah. I mean, when it starts, if it's if and when it starts to pose a problem, then we can shift and do something else. But, you know, we're not fixing leaks that don't exist in the boat.
Client Communication Strategies
01:05:32
Speaker
So when the boat starts leaking, then we'll plug the hole. But up until that point, it's sort of it's.
01:05:38
Speaker
I wouldn't say wasted effort, but, you know, we only have so much that we can do. So that time is better spent somewhere else. Yeah. And we're able to share these documents back and forth. Yeah. From our computers. So, and like, you know, it's all in the email. So, for example, we sent off a bid for this concierge desk at the building where we built the Chase lounges.
01:06:04
Speaker
Now, you know, we didn't get it. Somebody else got it, some hipster guy up in North Jersey. He was less expensive than we were. Yeah, and the design was about, you know, he was probably 10% less expensive and the design was, you know, 35% less good.
01:06:22
Speaker
So now they're saying, Oh, you know, he can't do it in the timeframe. You think you guys could do it, blah, blah, blah. I could just go back. I just search Celia concierge. My email, email pops up. I go to the original bid. I don't even have to go to the, it's all on my phone and I can access it from anywhere.
01:06:39
Speaker
So I like it in that way that everything is just sort of searchable and accessible at all times. Like if if I sent the bid to someone, then I can get it at any time. It doesn't even have to be saved on the computer. It is. But, you know, I can just always pull it up on my phone.
01:06:56
Speaker
Yeah. I like it on the computer because the screen's bigger. I'm old. I mean, I prefer it on the computer, but, um, like when I was looking at the drawings the other day, I kept having like, you know, expand them just so I could see things and scroll. Well, yeah, of course. Yeah. That, that, uh, was this too much work? It's bothersome. You know, I like to like to see it all in one shot. Your phone's only about a quarter of the size of your computer. I know.
01:07:27
Speaker
I got the biggest phone and the smallest computer. Yeah, I got this 27 inch iMac over here. This thing is huge. The screen, like when you full screen stuff, it still shrinks it down like within the thing. You got to zoom it in to make it because I think it, you know, it thinks it's going to be too big for you or something. I see. So we're not using any of those those apps at the moment. No, I mean, we've tried using Google calendars and stuff just for in
01:07:57
Speaker
Uh, would be inter intra intra business. Yeah. Intra business scheduling, like things within the business, not business to business, but within this business, like Google calendars, Asana, which remembered the, uh, complete contempt that deadwood approach. Oh my God.
01:08:19
Speaker
You know, and he had a bookkeeping background. Well, because he couldn't do anything. So he didn't want to be told what he had and had not to do. You know, to try and keep things organized, we tried out a couple of things like that. But yeah, it seems like if we got to the point where we had an office manager that we'd have software like, yeah, yeah, because it has to be, you know, accessible by everybody and
01:08:45
Speaker
Right now we kind of know everything between us, what's going on. It's like, what are we doing today? Oh, we're doing that? Okay. And like some of the information, like we don't even have to, like some of the stuff I know and some of the stuff you know, and the other one doesn't know because we don't both need to know. He's handling that. I'm handling this. It's easier that way. You know, it's on a need to know basis sometimes.
01:09:16
Speaker
We got another one from Nick here, Nick Traer on Instagram. To inlay or not to inlay? That is the question. Oh, I like it. He's getting Shakespearean on us. Poetic, yeah. What would you want to inlay into a piece you make?
01:09:31
Speaker
Yeah, alabaster. Yeah, I mean stone it would be an awesome choice. Yeah I know they do little bits of that like in guitar work with the abalone and things like that shell And with the watch Stuff you've done a little bit, you know in light of the metal. Yeah, I
01:09:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think, yeah, like maybe something with the alabaster that's backlit or something like that would be cool. You know, I like stringing, like Holly stringing, you know, you get that real in something dark, get that real white, thin type of stringing.
01:10:19
Speaker
It's a it's a super situational thing. Like we don't get a lot of work that would call for. No. Nor do we typically have the sort of carte blanche on on a budget to incorporate it. Right. That's a lot of hand work. Yeah. And you know. I don't know. There's just not a lot of not a lot of demand for it.
01:10:44
Speaker
That's true, too. I mean, design wise, it's it's not really something that we incorporate a lot or are asked to do either. Yeah. You know, we. I don't know how far you want to stretch the definition inlay, but like, you know, Cheryl's. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, in laying a piece of walnut onto the edge of a shelf that's made out of solid cherry, stuff like that.
01:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, I like that. So we will, you know, do stuff like that, but not any type of marketry or inlay in that sense. No, that's out of order. Not that we wouldn't do it, but... Scope of work most often. Yeah. Hey, this is this next question from John Trinity Tradesman. This is pretty appropriate. We got a good solid answer for him. Just spill the beans.
01:11:37
Speaker
He's asking, buy a SawStop table saw or buy a Grizzly table saw and jointer for the same money. I mean, it's really hard to answer that because I don't know what kind of jointer you have.
01:12:00
Speaker
If you don't have a jointer or your jointer doesn't really work, then I'd say you're better off with a grizzly table saw and a jointer, because then at least you have both working. Like the grizzly table saw is going to work fine. But can't stress enough the benefits of the saw stop in terms of safety and it just being a good saw in general. But it's a hard one to answer.
01:12:25
Speaker
Yeah. I happen to like the better made grizzly stuff. Yeah. You know, I, I believe in those things. Um, because I understand what they are and what they aren't. Right. It's not a Martin. It's never going to be right. Either's a sawstop, but
01:12:43
Speaker
And it's to me priced really well. They've got it down. They've been doing this for a long time. They're the first people to go over there to China and get their factory all tuned up. Taiwan.
01:13:02
Speaker
They let you know this ones are C level. This one's our B level and this one's our A level. Here are the differences. They don't try and sell you the C for the A price.
01:13:18
Speaker
You know, we got that $800 band saw still busting it out. It's not the greatest band. So I ever built. Yeah, but it's 800 bucks and well, it used to be. Yeah. No, it's, it's still kicking it out.
01:13:36
Speaker
And so we have a table saw, we have a Unisaw, and we have a saw stop table saw as our main table saw. We got the industrial model, and we just made another purchase. Yeah, we actually bought it from Grizzly Industrial, the Jobsite Pro. As you guys know, we got the van coming, and we need to start outfitting it for all types of installs.
01:14:05
Speaker
That's one thing that we deadwood had a table saw.
01:14:10
Speaker
Was that a Bosch? Yeah, it was a 4100. But we haven't had a table saw and, you know, going on whatever it is, eight, nine months. Job site, so. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So just something we need, you know, you can't sometimes on an install that the tool you need is a table saw. Sometimes there's no way around it. He didn't have his was mounted on a piece of plywood that he set up on a one of those
01:14:42
Speaker
plastic tables. Oh, I thought this had like a DeWalt stand or something. That was for his miter saw. Oh, I thought he had that little X frame metal one. Hmm. Maybe. It wasn't, whatever it was, it wasn't very good. Um, but this one comes with the, the full, like that folding deal with the wheels. It's a dolly stands up on its own and
01:15:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, you could buy three jobsite table saws for the price of this thing, but, you know, it goes to show you that, you know, we believe in the SawStop, the brand, as lame as that sounds to say.
01:15:20
Speaker
Build quality and the technology. Yeah. Yeah to me I if I could only have the even though we use the the the cabinet saw 90% of the time and we'd use the job site saw 10% of the time if I could only have it on one I'd probably pick the job site saw because the conditions are always gonna be worse and
01:15:45
Speaker
Yeah. You're going to be doing something that you probably wouldn't do on a lawn on the ground. That's where you're going to have an accident. Wacky. You know, it's not like you're standing there ripping pieces on site, like you're going to be scribing a piece of toe or a piece of fascia for a kitchen or.
01:16:04
Speaker
whatever, stuff like that. It's going to be these weird, you're going to have to notch something around something. So yeah, you're always making weird kind of sketchy cuts on the table saw when it comes to in-saw. That's right. So give me that saw stuff. I don't care.
01:16:20
Speaker
You know what's so funny is that it's such a small, even though it sounds like a lot, oh, I could buy two or three of these other saws. Let's say two, you know, good other job site saws. It's double the cost. Well, it is triple with the stand and everything. Yeah. All right. You get a like a Bosch or a dual about 500 bucks or less, maybe even 300. Okay. So it is triple. Um, maybe even five times more.
01:16:49
Speaker
But let's say it was at $900 more, $800 more. What did we pay? $1,300, $1,500? Oh, no. I mean, after everything is $1,625. OK. After tax free, all that shit.
01:17:07
Speaker
But so what's the, is it, was it $12.99 or something like that, or $13.99? $13.99. OK. So $14.00, we'll use that to compare to, let's say, $400, $1,000 in the whole scheme of things, the lifetime of the tool, and your joy in using it, the safety in using it. It's $1,000. Yeah.
01:17:36
Speaker
I mean, if you got to save your money, try and save it somewhere else. Right. It's like, you know, I always crack up where people buy a $20,000 motorcycle and then they buy the cheapest helmet they could find. It's like, that's not where you're looking to save your money. Yeah. Or you buy a lamello biscuit joiner and then you buy the cheapest, happily. Right. It doesn't make any sense.
01:18:02
Speaker
It's a thousand dollars. Are we worth it? Yes, we're worth it. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to have that thing for how many years? Right. Oh, look at it is by the day, you know, so it's going to cost us a dollar a day for five years. That's worth it. Yeah. Even if it sits 90% of the time. I agree. When we need that saw, we're going to be happy to have it.
01:18:26
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you know, what if we have to rip something big? We can set that thing up outside of the shop. You know, we have, we have a decent amount of infeed and outfeed. Um, but you know, you get into these weird situations where you got to do something. It pays to have something that you could set up outside where we have to rip some kind of wacky material that, you know, or whatever. It's just, just another arrow in your quiver. Yeah, I agree. A hundred percent.
01:18:54
Speaker
So there you go. Saw stop table saw. Um, for us, if you had to, if you were pinched in for time and you had to have both tools, I'd go with the grizzly stuff. Yeah. Like if you need a joiner, then get two good tools.
SawStop Jobsite Pro Table Saw Purchase
01:19:12
Speaker
Um, instead of one good tool. I mean, the table saw is not going to be as good as the saw stop, but it's pretty damn close. Yeah. Uh, got another one here from Ryan.
01:19:25
Speaker
RP Woodwork on Instagram. Do you have any sponsors? Well, we're proud to say we do. Yeah. I mean, well, if you listen to the beginning of the podcast, I think that Ryan, maybe, maybe, uh, he's going to start listening this week. This is the first time he's written in, I believe. Um, yeah. So we, uh, we've been working with Montana brand tools now for, I don't even know, must be a couple months, six months. Yeah. Maybe 12 has been six. No, no, it hasn't been that long.
01:19:56
Speaker
Maybe two or three months. Hmm. I don't know. It's hard to tell. I mean, I, I'm really bad judge of time thinking back in the past, but time does go so quickly. We're episode 48. Okay. So at least 10 episodes. That's episode 38. We got it on there.
01:20:25
Speaker
34. I think that's when we started was episode 34. 33. Oh, no 33. That's 15 weeks.
01:20:40
Speaker
So episode 33. Yeah. So for the last 15 weeks, we've been working with, um, with Montana brand tools. Now, you know, we're not getting paid. Um, the deal we worked out is, uh, you know, we wanted some product for the Patreon patrons to give away, give away stuff. Um, so, you know, we, uh, we do a little spot at the beginning.
01:21:03
Speaker
And, you know, they're they're awesome guys out there making stuff in Montana. So I think it's a good fit for us. And, you know, who knows what type of sponsorship it may lead to in the future. But for us now, that's that we think it's fair. Yeah. And even preferable to any type of monetary sponsorship because, you know, we're not going to be paying the bills with any sponsorships at this point. So might as well do something that benefits, you know, the Patreon patrons.
01:21:35
Speaker
which we should pick somebody this week. We'll give away another little Montana prize pack. Should we, uh, have like a, like a secret question or something like that so that somebody who's listening to the podcast answers the question and, uh, well, it's gotta be a patron though. Yeah. Yeah. Patron. Yeah. Not somebody, a patron listening to the podcast. I guess we could do it during the patron section. Yeah.
01:22:03
Speaker
Give like a math equation. Yeah. Super complicated one. Where was the first to figure it out? Yeah, I think they would figure it out before us. That's possible.
01:22:17
Speaker
This is our penultimate question. Yeah, after this is the question of the week. It's from Alex. AlexMitchell84 on Instagram. Boy, I'm gonna have to take a few breaths before I read this. So Alex, he's telling us, you guys sold me on the real Milk Paint Co. tongue oil.
01:22:39
Speaker
I'm used to sanding cherry and walnut to 500 grit before I apply boiled linseed oil. When I sanded my cherry miter fence to 500 grit, the finish became rough to the touch after a few weeks. I called the sweet people at Real Milk Paint down the road from me. They recommend me to stop sanding at 150 or 180 grit.
Sanding Practices Discussion
01:23:00
Speaker
They said the pores are too tight in cherry and when I sand past 220, the tongue oil can't get inside the wood.
01:23:08
Speaker
For lack of a better term, it sits on top of the surface. So, number one, what grits do you guys sand to before using tongue oil? Number two, after wood comes out of the helical head planer and joiner, what grit do you start with?
01:23:24
Speaker
because of how smooth the lumber is, I start with 180, but would like to know what y'all, southern term, of course, you know, I lived in Texas and I know y'all. That's not south, that's Texas. Okay. So I'd like to know what y'all do after the Powermatic finishes its job.
01:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean I've heard the same thing about sanding too high with oil finishes I've heard people talk about saying it's like a thousand grit with oil finishes and it just sort of has boggled my mind but So we I guess addressing the first
01:24:05
Speaker
Typically, we stand to 220. Now, if it's like a surface that's going to be touched a lot, like a top of something, I'll go to 320 sometimes. Apparently, real milk pain is saying otherwise, and this is even like for cherry.
01:24:23
Speaker
I can't say that I've had the same experience. I mean, these were sanitized, I think, 320. Yeah, we've gotten good results at 320. Yeah. Done white oak at 320, cherry, walnut, and haven't had any bad experiences. But yeah, so typically 220, and we get really good results with that. Like my bed, I was looking at it yesterday.
01:24:52
Speaker
finished with real milk paint. It's cherry, finished with real milk paint, tongue oil, sanded to 220. And it's two or three years old now. It looks great. It got nice and dark. It's still super smooth. I mean, it's in a house with a dog and a kid and a wife and me. You know, so it gets banged up. And I mean, it's still, it feels great. It's still super smooth.
01:25:19
Speaker
Um, it hasn't, it's not showing any signs of being dry. And I think I only have maybe two or three coats on there. Um, now after it comes out of the planer, I like to start with freaking fruit flies start with one 20. Um, always, unless there's something really bad than maybe a hundred, but yeah, for me, it's always one 20.
01:25:43
Speaker
Yeah, 120 is my default grit. If it looks, you know, nice, like there's absolutely no machine mark on it, which is pretty rare because if you hold it to the light, you can kind of see it like it feels smooth, but.
01:25:59
Speaker
there's definitely yeah you know machining marks on there and if it like and that's only happens if it's like a small ish piece or like you know like I just made the toe solid oak toe kick recess toe for the thing like
01:26:15
Speaker
I just did that with just 150 out of the planer because it doesn't really matter. It's going to be down at the floor. A, you're not going to see it and B, it's not going to get touched. But we're talking about like main, you know, main pieces, I guess. I'll typically spend as much time with the 120 as I probably do with all the other grits. Yeah, it's kind of like a
01:26:39
Speaker
like a pyramid for me, like I spend the most time with the lower grits and then it's less and less as it goes up. It's like when you're doing a chisel that you spend the most, when you get a new chisel, spend the most time into lower grits because you're flattening everything out. Then it takes less time when you go from 400 to 1,000, it takes less time at 1,000 to get the 400 marks out. And then when you go up to 5,000, it takes even less time to get the 1,000 marks out.
01:27:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's generally how I do it too. You know, spend most of my time with that 120, making sure that as best as I can, I'm wearing glasses and then those aren't always working. But I try and tilt it in the light because that makes a big difference. Sometimes something looks great, feels great, and then it'll get past every grit. And then you put that oil on you go, how the hell did I miss that?
01:27:35
Speaker
Yeah, little swirl marks. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. So, I mean, the heel goal heads are great, but every cut leaves a mark. Yeah. And, you know, things straight out of the planer don't take finish very well. No. So there you have it. Yeah. Sorry to hear that you had trouble with the 500. I didn't even know 500 grit was a thing. No.
01:28:04
Speaker
It seemed 400 and 600. Yeah. Maybe that's in metric. Hey, that's a Tennessee thing. He using the metric system down there in Tennessee. Oh, I doubt it. You'll get shot in Tennessee if you're doing that. Hey, boy, what are you doing with that metric system?
Patreon and Project Timeline Expectations
01:28:23
Speaker
Does he have a European handbag? That's a European man purse. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Well, that brings us to the question of the week. You don't know already the question of the week. We actually we answer in the Patreon after show, which is appropriately titled the question of the week. This week it comes in from our buddy Eric down Blake Woodworks in New Orleans, Louisiana. And Eric wants to know,
01:28:52
Speaker
I thought the pandemic would reduce people's expectation that every project can be completed in 24 hours. I call it the Amazon Prime mentality. I like that. It just seems the opposite. Completely unrealistic expectations. And of course, all this stuff we build is custom. What is your experience?
01:29:13
Speaker
So if you want to, uh, you want to listen in on the answer, you have to join the Patreon. Eric's a cool dude. Yeah. He's got a great logo, great t-shirt that he sent up. That's one of my, uh, my go tos. That's sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a looker. We got a little shirt envy when those showed up, didn't we? Yeah, that's for sure. Uh, well that brings us to thoughts on the beer of the week. Yeah.
01:29:41
Speaker
Um, you go first, I guess. I liked it. It, um, you know, it definitely has a hazelnut kind of flavor, but not in like an off-putting way, which you find with a lot of these, you know, beers that, you know, are, uh, labeled as a whatever hazelnut waffle or whatever. Um,
01:30:03
Speaker
It was good. Right. I agree that European brown ale, you know, I'm learning a little bit each time, each week. And I agree the nuttiness was there. Definitely. You know, as I finished like the last gulp, I could taste that nuttiness in it.
01:30:28
Speaker
I like the brown, the darkness of it. I guess, you know, they're showing this little star back here. It has like some toffee. Yep. And I think it definitely has that smell. Yeah. Their description is pretty accurate. Yeah. It's not bitter at all, which you tend to like the more bitter, right?
01:30:50
Speaker
Uh, yeah. I mean, I like them all, but yeah, I default to sort of a, that a juicy kind of bitter. I, I easily drink another one of these again. Oh yeah. Um, with a pork chop with the vegan pork chop with a tofu chop bread pudding. Doesn't that sound good? I love bread pudding.
01:31:15
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I could see like making like a, instead of like a brandy sauce, like a sauce. Oh yeah. Yeah. That would, that would be good in a sauce. Yeah. Reduce it down.
01:31:32
Speaker
Yeah, it was good. Smells good. Tastes good. Not too crazy on the hazelnut. Definitely not like a faux hazelnut. Right, it didn't taste fake. So rogue hazelnut brown nectar. Yeah, good stuff. I haven't had a rogue beer in a long time.
01:31:48
Speaker
This is probably available in most places. Rogue is one of the bigger craft breweries. Yeah. Dead Guy Ale is like a crazy popular beer that gets a lot of people into craft beer. Rogue Dead Guy.
Episode Conclusion and Patron Acknowledgments
01:32:09
Speaker
Established 1988. Rogue. Well, all in me. Yeah. Well, I want to thank our gold tier patrons, Jerry Green and David Murphy, Manny Sirianni, Dustin Fayer, Adam Pothass, David Shoemaker, Colin Lye, and our newest Keith Drinan. Yeah, Keith going big. Yeah. Gold star. Gotta like that. Well, we appreciate you guys tuning in.
01:32:39
Speaker
We'll see you next week for episode 49, and hopefully we see you at the meetup on Saturday. Yeah, don't forget. Walk down that date on your calendars. Yeah. Well, ciao. Adios.
01:33:10
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a chain