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The American Craftsman Podcast Ep. 24 | Jon Peters (Part 2)
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On Episode 24 of The American Craftsman Podcast, hosted by Greene Street Joinery, we sit down with our buddy Jon Peters. Part 2 of 2.
Beer of the Week (Twin Lights Brewing Double Vision): https://untappd.com/b/twin-lights-brewing-double-vision/3757406
Tool of the Week: (Grip6 Wool Socks) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08VF9BT8N/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=greenestreetj-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B08VF9BT8N&linkId=6367077cd8a00aa86f0e21363958e1ed
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
Cost vs Quality in Material Choices
00:00:22
Speaker
What's this next question is this it's for Manny this is Manny Manny, yeah
00:00:28
Speaker
All right. Too many mistakes on Instagram. Too many mistakes. Oh, all right. Work with what you have or buy what you need. That's his question. Are you really saving money on a job by buying the cheapest materials?
00:00:46
Speaker
This is a somewhat rhetorical question. No, you're just ripping off the client. Yeah. No, we always get the best materials we can. It makes your job easier, makes the final product better. And it's not as if that money is really coming out of our pocket. We charge for it. If we want to use
00:01:10
Speaker
the best slides we can, we pass that cost on to the client, the end user. We don't, you know, we don't mark it up. We just say this is the slide. We put a cost. Yeah, this is what the best slide costs.
00:01:25
Speaker
It just doesn't make any sense to go any other way. If we could save $100 on a job by using cheaper slides and then we charge the client $100 less, what's the point? Plus, it's going to cost you time, which is going to be money because it's going to be harder to get everything to work the way you want it to work. And that goes for slides. It goes for plywood. It goes for everything.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah. You buy shop grade, they call it plywood or scratch and dent where it got gouged by the forklift and you have to play. Now you have to work around it. Right. You got to play in your cuts and say, we can't use this piece, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So you paid 50 bucks instead of 75 for the sheet of plywood. You just lost $25 dicking around. So you might as well just bought the sheet
Garnica Plywood: A Case Study
00:02:10
Speaker
that was good. We just talked to the guy from Fez. It's
00:02:13
Speaker
33, was it 33 or 32 cents? A square. Right. For Garnica versus the crappy pre-fin plywood. So wait, what is the, what's the price difference though? 30 cents a square. Oh, okay. Yeah. So there's, it's a no brainer. Nine dollars a sheet.
00:02:30
Speaker
I was talking to Brian. I was talking to him about the same thing. I said that just for me, it's worth the extra money. I don't even care if it was, you know, 60 cents a square. I just don't want to deal with a product that's not good. And the other thing that's really nice about Garnica is it's dimensionally accurate. Right. So three quarter is going to be three quarter.
00:02:51
Speaker
that in and of itself that's just a beautiful thing so if you're doing dados or whatever you're doing it's just so nice even just you know building a cabinet okay 34 inch wide cabinet yeah minus inch and a half yeah i can cut my internals and know that they're going to be the right size yeah because we do all our drawings
00:03:09
Speaker
And then we make the working drawings. And we're not saying that a sheet in the drawing, we're not putting that the sheet of plywood is. Because we don't know exactly what it's going to be. So we put three quarters and then have to compensate while we're actually doing it.
00:03:25
Speaker
When you start working with the, have you gotten a sheet of Garnica yet? No, but well, next time we buy plywood, that's what we'll be buying. When you do, when you have a couple of scraps, cut a few pieces, stack them up and measure and see what you got.
Supplier Relationships and Social Media
00:03:38
Speaker
I did a, I think I did a stack.
00:03:42
Speaker
Maybe six pieces and I think the math would work out to be a full yeah four and a half and that's what I got nice I had a connection there with Guardian can I was working with them as a sponsor for a while but that fell away the guy that I
00:03:59
Speaker
Worked with over at Blaisdale lumber ended up passing away and so that connection ended up passing away But now that I'm working with Fez or I'm not working with Fez but buying Apply wood from them. Maybe I can revive that relationship. We'll say yeah. Yeah. Yeah I was actually I was pleasantly surprised when Brian Brian our rep from Fez stopped by yesterday and we were asking him about Garnica
00:04:22
Speaker
Did he just drive up or did he come with a delivery? He was in the neighborhood and he called. He actually parked over there and walked over because I was like, you're not going to be able to get down the driveway. I'm sure he's going to come to the barn one day because we were talking and I tagged him. I tagged Fessenden Hall in a story. They have an Instagram?
00:04:43
Speaker
They do. I looked for it. Yeah, you'll find it now. Um, and, uh, a lot of people were like, Oh, where do you get plywood like that? Because I was using the Baltic birch
Challenges with Plywood Quality
00:04:55
Speaker
plywood. I've got a question about Baltic birch plywood actually, because I'm sure everybody has to deal with this. How do you deal with the chip out? Don't you seem to get more chip out with Baltic? You mean on the other side when you're using a table or drilling, like drilling a hole next to the edge?
00:05:12
Speaker
Seems like you get, no matter how long I've, are splinters or something. That top veneer. That top veneer. It's thick. Oh, you're talking about pre-fin? It's pre-fin. No, no, not pre-fin. The top veneer is a thick veneer. It's almost a sixteenth of an inch. And it can splinter off. Probably just need a very sharp countersink, I guess. Yeah, I think that's what it... Because we ran into that when we built the benches at the yoga studio that my wife owns at a Baltic.
00:05:41
Speaker
And you're getting some of that little bit of, yeah, you're going to get, I mean, I've been using Baltic for more than 20 years and I've always like, that's always an issue. Something to look out for. Yeah. Did you get four by eights or five by fives? I got four by eights. I found the five by fives are actually better quality. I don't know why.
00:06:00
Speaker
That's that's one of those things like there's no good reason for that. Yeah, but like I don't know why to handle those five foot wide pieces This is the first time I've ever bought four by it's because five by fives was all that was yeah Yeah, and this is this Russian birch. They're calling it. Okay, which one is they're calling the five by five Yeah, I think they're calling both. Okay, it's not like authentic Baltic birch
00:06:25
Speaker
You could feel the difference in the weight. I can. I mean, I think the... We have a sheet of eighth-inch Baltic birch out there. I've used eighth-inch Baltic birch. Yeah. I use it for like this kind of artwork thing I do. Just like three veneers. Well, the thing with Baltic, I mean, a four by eight sheet of Baltic is heavy. Yeah, yeah. It's over a hundred pounds, I think. Yeah. Is it? Shit, man, I'm in pretty good shape. Did you have footballs on just one side? See, the five by fives didn't have any.
00:06:54
Speaker
Okay. I was carrying those four by eights like from the truck to the barn. And I was like, wow, these things are heavy. I think like a regular like maple is like 70, 72 pounds. Is it that much? Wow. Now the Garnica, you're going to notice that the Garnica plywood is very light.
00:07:12
Speaker
Really? Because it's popular. Because it's popular. Yeah, it's nice. Good stuff. Some of the growth rings, like we use the the pre-fin, regular pre-fin on this table saw. Some of the growth rings were like an inch. Yeah, it's bad. Yeah. And every piece split because we, you know, we have ribs going this way and then the top and we screwed screw up. Yeah. Yeah. And like almost every piece split. Yeah. Pre-drilled.
00:07:39
Speaker
pre-drilled, oh my god. And Brian was like, I don't know, that's like our bread and butter. We're a little picky. That's one of those things, you use it for a shop project and you're like, I'm not using this again. Well, we bought it for a kitchen.
Pandemic Impact on Tool Availability
00:07:53
Speaker
That was the leftovers. Yeah, I mean, as cabinet plywood, it didn't really have any issues. But again, we'd rather just have something that's better. For sure. It's just easier to work with.
00:08:07
Speaker
So, the answer Manny, no. Don't buy the most expensive thing that you can afford, I'd say. The best. Yeah, not the most expensive. I like this next question. It's a good one. Yeah, from Adam, one of our patrons. Thank you, Adam. Adam says, you've convinced me to invest in a quality low angle block plane.
00:08:28
Speaker
Do you have any idea why it's so hard to get one right now? I'm gonna guess the demand. Veritas, Lee Nielsen, and even Woodworker are way back ordered. Any suggestions on other people who make quality low angle block planes? Can a quality shoulder plane accomplish some of the same work? Breaking edges and such. Should I get a standard angle? That's, again, Adam, one of our patrons.
00:08:55
Speaker
Uh, that plane, uh, that I just got, how long did it take? Two weeks or three weeks? No, no, not even. You ordered it and it said it was backward. And then you got it. Two days later they were like, Hey, we shipped. That's right.
00:09:10
Speaker
I actually spoke to Lee Nielsen through email. I love that plane, by the way. Last week was two of the week, but it was like first impressions. I used it to square up some of the doors on this secretary. And it's, I love it. I love it. Yeah, I think it's sweet.
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah, I spoke to, uh, same John, I think, uh, Lee Nielsen, cause I was asking about the one eighth inch chisel. Cause I want to grab an eighth inch chisel. I said, you guys have any plans on, um, you know, making it again soon. And he said like, they've really had to shift around the production schedules with COVID. And I guess they have to have limited people in the factories and stuff. So that's why everything is, is backordered. Even machines. I heard people saying grizzlies sold out of planers and all, you know, all these different companies. So.
00:09:59
Speaker
That's why things are backordered because of COVID and, you know, more people would working and less production. Yeah, I think that probably the two more. There's more demand because people are at home, you know, doing hobby type stuff. But yeah, like Rob ordered his and it showed up.
00:10:16
Speaker
Two weeks at the most. Yeah. So I wouldn't go ahead and just like get something because you need it now. Like I'd wait and get the good. Get what you want. Yeah. Because it said backordered when I ordered it. But I was. Who'd you get yours from? Lee Nielsen. Yeah. Right from their catalog or their website? Right direct from them and just do it. Just order the Lee Nielsen. Yeah. Don't get a Wood River.
00:10:44
Speaker
I haven't used them personally, but they're made in China. It's just, and the pricing is not that competitive compared to a Lee Nielsen. Get their low angle block plane or check out at least the one that I just got, which is the low angle block rabbit plane. Rabbit and block plane. So they're both pretty cool. Yeah. That's a nice plane.
00:11:12
Speaker
And I, I did use some of my mini planes as well. Yeah. They came in handy. Yeah. And John and Lee Nielsen said, you know, check back in like a month or two for the eighth inch chisel. So like they have, they have plans to start getting these things, but it just, it takes a little bit of time. Things are going to start loosening up.
Introduction to Beekeeping
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah. It seems not what I ordered chisels in. When was it?
00:11:36
Speaker
I forget, maybe summertime? And they were backordered. And it only took maybe two weeks, three weeks, and then they shipped. I ordered a Festival CT-15 and I just called them because it's been two weeks and they said, oh, maybe it will come in a week from now, like middle of next week.
00:12:01
Speaker
And I thought, geez, this is kind of getting ridiculous. Maybe I should have. It's a real reality that we're just, we've kind of been spoiled in a sense where, you know, between Amazon and next day and second day, and that was our normal state of minds. We're not used to waiting. No, well, I don't order that many tools. And I thought, you know, I ordered this from Acme. And at the same time, I ordered a few things from Rockler.
00:12:28
Speaker
for dust collection stuff. The dust collection stuff came, you know, like three days later, and then I just didn't hear anything. And I'm just, I'm getting... Builders probably hasn't been stocked. Oh, yeah. That's a good idea. That's where we bought. We said, give us two CT15s. Do you know what? That's what I'm going to do because I need it.
00:12:51
Speaker
I'm going to call them up and I'll just go there and then I'll have it because I've got some Sanders coming and I need the dust collection. Price is the same everywhere. Yeah, I don't care. Plus it's local. Yeah. There you go. That's good. Hey, I'm reading ahead and this next question I want to know the answer to. Okay. John. This is a good one. How often do you have to replace a queen bee due to not making it through the winter or hive abandonment? And how many hives do you have? That's Jordan Elridge on Instagram.
00:13:21
Speaker
Going into the winter, we had seven hives.
00:13:26
Speaker
three of the hives were already dead. Oh, maybe more. Um, was that because of weather? Weather and bees are a finicky thing. It's not easy keeping bees. And, uh, I keep bees with a friend of mine named Mike and Mike has become more of the beekeeper and I've become more of the carpenter who's going to help out and do things. And, um,
00:13:53
Speaker
Beekeeping's a lot of work, and I might even take a year off. It depends if we end up having one or two hives that make it through, I might just say, okay, I'll do, let me just help out here and there, but then just take some time off because... Do people view it as something that you just kind of set it and forget it? I think with one or two hives, you could do that.
00:14:20
Speaker
but it's like anything you get one or two hives, like, oh, four or five hives, and then you get more, and then you get more. I just need a three quarter inch chisel. Yeah, well, there you go. I got 10 or more there. Yeah, so it's, I recognized last year that I spent a lot of time doing beekeeping work, cleaning hives, cleaning frames, things like that, and we'll see, but as far as queens,
00:14:50
Speaker
What happens is if the hive starts to get pretty big, the queen might signal that they need more space. And if the queen leaves, then theoretically there should be enough nurse bees and other bees in the hive to create another queen. But then what happens is you end up with a weak hive.
00:15:16
Speaker
So you want to always try to keep your, your, your beehive from swarming. That's what happens when the queen leaves half of the hive leaves with it and that's a swarm. And, um, where does the queen go? They look for another home. Uh-huh. So they just what, like fly up into a tree and they do kind of cluster up there. You end up with a, they call it a, um, is it a B cluster or something like that? Uh, a B swarm, you know, like that's get the queen.
00:15:45
Speaker
Well, when you're just getting into beekeeping, you go to like an apiary and you buy either a nuclear, a nuke, which is half of a beehive, or you buy, I think it's a one pound box of bees that comes with
00:16:04
Speaker
a queen and you shake them into a hive and right away they start making a honeycomb to store their to to start to make homes for the not the babies but the eggs. What's a pound of bees cost?
00:16:21
Speaker
Looks like going right for a pound of bees. I think it might be, I mean, I think it's three pounds. I think it's a... Man, that's a lot of bees. I think it's a three pound box of bees. Yeah, that's a lot of bees. Yeah, it's a three pound box of bees, I believe. And it's about a hundred bucks. Do those come chocolate coated? 33 bucks a pound. Yeah.
00:16:40
Speaker
That seems like thousands of bees. So it's funny because I started keeping bees in top bar hives, which is a much different way to keep bees. But I really enjoyed that. And then I started keeping bees in Langstrode hives with my friends because I didn't have any success.
00:16:55
Speaker
Those are like the horizontal ones. Yeah, Langstra is named after the guy who came up with this idea. His last name was Langstra. And apparently, there's like a 3.8s B spacing in between each frame, and that's the optimum spacing for these Bs. And it just makes sense because if you think of you're like a professional B operation, you could fit four hives on a pallet. They can be moved around.
The Role of Bees in Agriculture
00:17:21
Speaker
They can be brought to different
00:17:25
Speaker
Orchards and things like that because the money in beekeeping is not selling honey or wax. It's in pollination Yeah, so it's really like bringing it from farm to farm for Almond almond trees and things like that
00:17:42
Speaker
Yeah, for pollinators. That's what they use them for something recently. It's like bees are directly responsible for 37 percent of all food production or something like without without the bees, 37 percent of and the biodiversity like the bees actually created all of these different types of fruits and vegetables due to cross pollination and stuff. You know, the
00:18:06
Speaker
I hear the same things, and I think that that's probably true. But at the same rate, I don't think that honeybees are native to North America. Yeah, I guess it's not just honeybees, but like even like bumblebees, some of the hornets and wasps kind of things, I guess, that go into plants.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah. But isn't that funny though? You always hear about honeybees and honeybees have only been in North America, I think for like, you know, maybe 200 years because I think that was a European thing. And so most beekeepers are keeping either Italian bees or Russian bees. So, um,
00:18:43
Speaker
I don't know. There's a lot to learn there. I think I'll continue to do it. We'll see how it goes. But one day when I have more time, I hope to have just like one or two top bar hives. It's a little bit different. The way you deal with the top bar hive is the bees create their own comb that hangs from a top bar. And you just continually add bars as the hive gets bigger. And instead of
00:19:13
Speaker
When we go to harvest a hive, we, we pick like a honey super off the top of the hive. We take all that honey off, honey frames out of there, leaving enough honey for the bees. And then we spin that honey and the centrifugal force in a honey spinner. Yeah. And the way that you would harvest honey from a top bar hive is you would just go in there and be like, Oh, here's a nice,
00:19:42
Speaker
comb or not comb, a bar full of capped honeycomb and just take it. So you open up the hive, take that one bar, maybe two bars and leave it. You really don't disturb the hive all that much. And if you think about it, the top bar hive is more like a tree.
00:20:01
Speaker
where natural bees would be anyway so maybe they have a better way of fighting things like varroa mite and stuff like that and you take those uh then you take your honeycomb and you crush and crush and strain it and that's how you harvest that honey so you just crush it all down put it through a strainer a paint strainer and that's how you get your honey so we'll start they'll sort of like fill up all the combs and then just move on to another one
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, like so there's nothing really going on in that one anymore and you could just take it out No, they're just they just put that there to save it up. There's like a squirrel with nuts. Yeah, you know, they're just like saving it up. Yeah So they're just saving that up for the winter they're gonna have they're gonna need that carbohydrate to eat and keep themselves warm because they keep
00:20:48
Speaker
They keep the hive warm by vibrating around like the queen. And then they're like penguins where they just are like a circulating ball. So the ones on the insides that are now warmer work their way to the outside and they keep kind of doing that throughout the winter. And in order to do that, they need to eat honey. It's like geese, like, you know, they fly in the V and the one in the front takes the most wind resistance. And then eventually they go to the back and work in, you know,
00:21:18
Speaker
Just like bicycle riding and exactly That was pretty interesting. Yeah This is a topical question from Chris see Chris s on Instagram How long do you steam the wood and does the species of wood matter with bending? Oh
00:21:40
Speaker
Do we know the answer to the first part? We're qualified to answer these bending questions, but from what I've seen an hour per inch is a pretty standard guesstimate.
Woodworking Techniques and Tools
00:21:54
Speaker
So we have one inch white oak. We actually steam the second one for
00:21:59
Speaker
Almost two. Close to two hours. Now fifty minutes. Now I think most of these figures are for green wood. This is kiln dried wood and what happens is the lignin in the wood actually gets sort of set. So when they kiln dry it's essentially it's baked. So the lignin gets set and it's not as susceptible to the steam. So you have to go a little bit longer and that's what the soaking is for. With green wood, I mean some green wood you can just bend
00:22:27
Speaker
yeah straight away you just not without even steaming it but so yeah anywhere between an hour to two hours an inch I think is a common measurement we don't really know anything about the differences in species no straight green wood is what you're looking for an inch of run out per foot maximum they say
00:22:51
Speaker
Yeah, we'll keep you a prize to that one. Yeah, you may You may want to consult some more seasoned veterans But you would think like if you were just taking this right from a log off the sawmill And then throwing you could almost do it without yeah, I mean, yeah, it's pretty me. Yeah You would yeah. Yeah. Yeah because like
00:23:16
Speaker
I don't know what it is, like straight off of a cut tree, but like 30 percent moisture content is probably not out of the question. Oh, yeah, for sure. Because even in this tight bend that we did, there was no like water squeezing out of this. No, no. And it was soaking for 10 days. As soon as you take it out of the steam box, like the surface, like almost flash dries. Yeah, dry. Yeah. I don't know if it's because it's already so hot that, you know, once the steam isn't contained anymore, it's just evaporating.
00:23:47
Speaker
I don't know. We're really just in the infancy of doing any type of steam. We're learning as we go. Yeah. And who knows? This might not even work out for these. I think it's going to work. I'm thinking it's going to work. It looks pretty good. John's our resident optimist today.
00:24:04
Speaker
All right. Um, so Ethan Broska, Broska, Ethan Broska on Instagram wants to know, can you help a novice woodworker prioritize what tools and skills to start with? That's a good one. Yeah.
00:24:20
Speaker
I would say we're going to talk about hand tools I guess because they're accessible and relatively cheap. I would say a Japanese saw like a Gaikucho 372 which is a dovetail saw they call it. Super thin kerf it's a pull saw and probably a good western block plane would be a good place to start.
00:24:49
Speaker
and that was for hand tools. Did he say power tools also? Just prioritize what tools and skills to start with. Yeah, I think those are good. Power tools, your basic drill and driver is really going to be a mainstay. You can do a lot with a convocate. Random orbit sander, help you for finishing, that'll save you a few hours. What about skills?
00:25:17
Speaker
cutting to align, marking, measuring. I'd say accurate measuring and cutting is highly overlooked. People rely on stop blocks a lot, which can actually be inaccurate.
00:25:34
Speaker
cut a square end, measure over and then split your line and do that over and over again. You're going to be pretty well off because you can't always use a stop block. I don't even know what this goes to, maybe 49, 50 inches.
00:25:50
Speaker
Well, if you're cutting a seven foot long piece, the stop block doesn't really do you any good. So you need to be able to cut to align on the miter saw or whatever. Safety, you know, getting the good safety habits. And take your time and realizing that you can't skip steps.
00:26:08
Speaker
there's no such thing like it's like you have to pre-drill if you're gonna put a screw in are you gonna split the wood and it's just gonna waste time or even worse break your screw off and then oh there you go then you have two pieces that are stuck together not not the tight joint two separate pieces with a screw going through yeah now you've got an eighth of an inch gap yeah you gotta figure okay
00:26:29
Speaker
That's like I did it on this today and I've been doing this for whatever, 10 years now. Tried to put in a screw and find the hole through the metal and I said, I'm just gonna put it in here. Broke the screw off and now there's a little gap. Down that head. Yeah, oh yeah. Luckily I got the head out.
00:26:49
Speaker
The skills that you should work on are whatever's in the project you're going to build. So pick something you want to do and focus on that and then move on to something else. You got to just learn as you go I think is the best way.
00:27:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good idea. Master the hand tools, the fundamentals of, I mean, it's not too early to get involved in learning about design and good proportion and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like don't start with hand cut dovetails. Start with something simple and then as your skills build, you'll be able to move on to more advanced techniques.
00:27:28
Speaker
What did we hear the other day about? Was it you, John, or who said that you should build a project around what you know but have a certain amount of something that you don't know that's going to challenge you? Do you remember that? I think that might have just been us. Was that us?
00:27:48
Speaker
We had that question on the last podcast, like, you know, how can I incorporate Mortis and Tenon joinery into my project? But it was good. It must have been you then, because I probably would have remembered if I said it. I don't know. I'm guessing. Maybe. But that makes sense because it's increasing your vocabulary. And if you increase your design vocabulary, then you increase your design vocabulary. Right.
00:28:16
Speaker
And I'm doing that right now with something as simple as just undermount drawers. I just never use the undermount drawer slides for whatever reason. And we're finding a lot of people have it. Yeah. And, um, like you guys have already said, once you use them, you're not going to use anything else, you know, go back much better. Yeah. And, uh, they're not difficult. It's just, uh, you know, when things get metric for me, I start to glaze over. I'm sure people feel the same way.
00:28:44
Speaker
You know, I always get the question why do you do everything in inches?
00:28:47
Speaker
Uh, cause that's what we do.
Furniture Design and Innovations
00:28:51
Speaker
Sorry. But you know, it's funny. Like I asked you guys a few questions. I asked a bunch of questions and it's just like, okay, now I know how to do these things. And now I'm going to, you know, build this chest of drawers. And the funny thing is I'm building a chest of drawers and I'm working with a company named GL Veneer and they sent me two pieces of Veneer to do this project.
00:29:16
Speaker
And I'm using the white oak because more people actually kind of wanted the white oak, but I was surprised that most people were like, oh, do the white oak. Everybody does walnut or do a combination. So I'm going to do a white oak chest of drawers on a walnut base. I think those go well together and very kind of modern look. So now that I've got this piece of Claro walnut, I'm already thinking, oh, I'm making another
00:29:44
Speaker
like a server or something and I'm going to use these undermount drawers and it just because I know how to use them now I'm thinking oh that's a way I can design around them you know and I think one of the reasons why I'm going with the undermount drawers and I because I like wood on wood is just the fact that I know that the drawers are going to stop and not get pulled out of the cabinet and it's a shallow cabinet you know they move super freely with side mounts
00:30:13
Speaker
If everything isn't exactly right, they'd bind up, or they have a lot of slops side to side, I feel like. With the under mounts, everything just feels really nice. They slide in and out really well. The soft clothes works really nicely. That bedroom set that we built right before we started the company, and it was real craftsman-y. And maple and lacewood. Yeah. It had a tall dresser and a low dresser.
00:30:41
Speaker
And this guy was really oriented towards the handmade stuff and craftsman era furnishings, but he specifically asked for the undermount slides as opposed to the wood drawer slides because
00:30:59
Speaker
The ease of use, you know, through the years is just... And they hold up. You've seen kitchens that have had them for... Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And they're... I think they're rated higher, you know, weight-wise than side mounts. Yeah, I think it's something like 100 pounds. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean you could load them up with silverware and I mean our drawers themselves weigh, I don't even know, 20 pounds? It's nice too because you don't see the slide so it gives you that sort of, you know, alright this is a hand built drawer, you could see the dovetails and everything like that and the workmanship that goes into the drawer box.
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah, I can't imagine like putting a side mount slide on one of our drawers. Yeah. No, it's like sacrilege. Those are nice. I was just looking at that. That's a nice drawer. Yeah. That's how we build all the drawers. And it's all done with a router. Yeah. Yeah. And a calorie jig. Should do a video on that. If you guys want to do a video on that.
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's somewhere around here up there. Two dedicated routers, one with the dovetail bit. You just keep them set up like that all the time. And you always make your drawers out of three quarter inch material. Not five eighths. No.
00:32:17
Speaker
I mean, I'm just, I'm thinking, it's just a little bit, a little bit here. Yeah. You know, we build one inch face frames and doors. We use three quarter. So yeah, we do everything a little bit heavier duty. It's, you know, what is that? One eighth inches, what? 20%. Yeah. It makes a big difference. I think it does for sure.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you can see when you like when we plane something to three quarter, it looks incredibly thin to us. Yeah, because we're so used to working at one inch thickness one inches our base thickness for so much of our material. Yeah. So when you get your material raw, it's at five quarter.
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah, so it'll be inch and a quarter or sometimes inch and three-eighths. When you're planing it down here. Right, yeah. And then, you know, we can take the twist out, we can take the cup out. If we want it to be an inch and a sixteenth, it could be an inch and a sixteenth, or an inch and an eighth, or whatever. It doesn't have to be, you know, we're not constrained by S4S sizing. No, that definitely, you definitely have a point with that.
00:33:25
Speaker
I mean, with the inch over three quarter, that's substantial. That's, oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. That's huge. Stronger joints and things like that. Yeah. Like, you know, we like to build doors with a half inch panel. You can't do that with three quarter inch material and your, and your drawer bottoms are three eighths. Yeah. And are you using Baltic? Uh, just regular. Yeah. Cabinet grade. That's nice. Yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, again, it's just feel we do and it doesn't work for everybody. But the quarter inch Baltic, I think is like almost like a true quarter inch. That's kind of nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With us, like the three A's fits really well with the Keller jig. We have three sizes of drawer where because you need it to fall on a certain spot. Sure. Otherwise it just doesn't work with the half inch for the the undermount because you need a half inch and then three A's of a dado.
00:34:21
Speaker
So you have that seven-eighths there where things need to fall within the right spot on the dovetails. So we have like a four and nine sixteenths or something and a six and an eighth and a nine and three-quarter somewhere. Those are the three standard drawer sizes.
00:34:41
Speaker
All right. This is actually pretty topical as well. Another one of our patrons, Rich, is asking, if you had to completely redo your dust collection system, what would you change and what would you keep the same?
00:34:56
Speaker
Well, we're actually hoping to, at some point this year, re-pipe the whole shop with Dust Collection. It's kind of just, you know, a patchwork now because we moved all the machines around a couple times and added new machines. We have new machine coming. I think the Dust Collector we have is maybe a little underpowered at this point. It's like a 1900 CFM and we have
00:35:23
Speaker
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven big machines hooked up to it. So maybe if we could completely redo it, a bigger dust collector, I think an airlock would be nice. Yeah, I mean, we have gates on every machine and that's pretty much how we operate, you know, one machine at a time.
00:35:46
Speaker
an airlock so that it would just empty itself. So you can actually have a at the bottom of the cyclone and airlock which is like a who was it Eric Blake, Blake woodworks explained it like a revolving door. So this thing every you could set it to 60 seconds 90 seconds whatever it'll turn and eject the dust out into like it's just a garbage can so it remains pressurized and that seal just turns and empties out. Wow.
00:36:13
Speaker
With ours, you know, we have like a was a 35 gallon. Yeah 35 gallon drum underneath and we have to go out sometimes every if we're planing I mean every 10 minutes sometimes the cheese and dump it out a fill up fast Yeah, so with that it'll empty out into whatever size container you have and You know, you could just Dump it at your leisure, I guess. Yeah, I I tell you if I I mean things I would keep the same probably the only thing I would
00:36:42
Speaker
Definitely keep the same as having the underground under the slab for the table saws. I like that. I might tweak the design a little bit, but I like having that underneath the floor.
00:36:56
Speaker
I would be curious about going with maybe if not a bigger collector, maybe two collector system, where one is on this side of the shop, especially for the sander, because it's got so much fine dust. I feel like it almost needs its own collector. Yeah, I mean, we've learned as we've looked into redoing this that like the way we have it set up is not ideal. Like really, we should have eight inch pipe
00:37:28
Speaker
almost all the way to the tool with a shorter six inch run of the smaller diameter. Between a four inch and a five inch, you actually double the velocity of the air. So in a one inch difference, you double the velocity. So by going six inch straight out of the machine, which has an eight inch port, we're already kind of screwing ourselves there.
00:37:52
Speaker
And, you know, we have spots where it goes from five to from six to five and from six to four. Those need to be sort of tapered and longer. So like re-engineering the whole thing is it's definitely going to bring some more efficiency. Yeah. I mean, it's physics. Yeah. Fluid dynamics. Yeah. So that's all we do. We'd probably read a little bit more.
00:38:22
Speaker
I got plenty of time for that. Yeah. Yeah. You want to read the next question? Yeah, sure. This is from John Welsh 21 on Instagram. How do you guys delineate who does what on a build? Do you guys have your specialties or do you switch back and forth so you're not always doing the same thing? That's a good question. I mean, it's hard to say. I don't even know how we do it. We kind of just show up in the morning and do
00:38:52
Speaker
We're both kind of worker bees. Yeah. So we just do it, you know. And I think also we're both cognizant of the grunt work type of thing. So we're never going to let the other person do all that. Like if if I've seen Jeff's been sanding for two days, there's no way I'm going to come in on the third day and go, you almost done with that sanding, Jeff?
00:39:21
Speaker
and likewise. Yeah, that makes sense. So you just share the work. You know what needs to be done. Yeah, like just pick something and do it because every job is quantitative. Like there's all these things that have to get done and the job isn't done until they're all finished. So when you show up in the morning, either you pick up what you were doing and finish it or just pick something that needs to be done and just do it. And then that's one thing that's checked off the list.
00:39:44
Speaker
Sure, do you make a list like every day like oh that needs to be done or no sometimes we will But we're pretty we used to do that when it was the three of us because Yeah, rather than trying to delegate things all day I mean
00:40:05
Speaker
Sometimes we might not even look at each other, talk to each other for two hours because we're just so engrossed in what we're doing that we're just working towards whatever it is and then occasionally we're like, all right, what do you think I should do? And then have that conversation as to what's going to best push the job forward. We intuitively know what needs to get done. Like if Rob is doing some finishing, I'm like, I know I got to get this done so that he can finish that while he's finishing these other parts.
00:40:35
Speaker
A lot of it's non-verbal and just- That makes total sense because you're- It's only two of us. Yeah, it's only the two of you and you're both working towards the same goal. Right, right. And nobody wants to, you know, I think we're both more likely to pick the less desirable of the jobs left.
00:40:54
Speaker
There's something sometimes relaxing about those jobs anyway, because those less desirable jobs sometimes don't take as much brain power. So you can kind of think, like, okay, well, this needs to get done. I'm just going to sit here and sand. Yeah, I'm just going to sand and get this done. You're like, I keep messing up this, like, whatever. I'm just going to put in my headphones, turn the sander on and just I can't mess this up. So yeah, I'll just sit here with the sander and.
00:41:20
Speaker
Like I came in on, was it Sunday? With Hunter and I just like, I finished the stuff for the doors so that on Monday they'd be ready for Rob to put together, so. There's something beautiful about doing those little things on Sunday that make Monday go so much smoother. Yeah, yeah, like we'd be a day behind on the, not behind, but we'd be a day or a day further ahead on the doors than we would be if
00:41:44
Speaker
I love I love doing things like that on the weekend It's just like three or four hours or two or three hours here. Yeah, just makes the week go so much better Yeah, it's amazing sometimes like how long it takes to do these little things like I literally I finished four panels four of the top rail Fang assemblies were calling them and And one part
00:42:06
Speaker
The back and that it took me four hours to do all that. Yeah, it takes time That's the thing with woodworking. It takes time. There's nothing quick about it. No No, and especially if you're trying to do really quality stuff like it demands that you take time. Yeah that time's the least
00:42:26
Speaker
important thing as far as like pushing a job out the door like we don't we don't use that as uh unless a client has a specific demand the the work is what takes precedence not oh we have to have this done tuesday
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, it's different. Like, I think when I was first starting making YouTube videos, it was a major push to try to get a project done in a week. But now I don't really put that on myself. You know you're working as hard as you can. Well, that's the other thing, too. Like sometimes I'll say, shit, I didn't get anything done like I wanted to get done.
00:43:06
Speaker
but I haven't been looking at my phone and I'm not watching TV and I'm getting something done. It's just not, you know, there's only so much that can get done at the moment, you know, but the other thing too is, uh, I, I know when I'm making projects for YouTube, like a furniture build, I can take six weeks doing it, but if it needs that, you know, just because
00:43:31
Speaker
Nobody cares at the end of the day when the video goes up or the piece of furniture gets delivered how long it took if it's not right. That's right. Yeah sometimes you need you know like days of preparatory work which seems like nothing is getting done and then you have a day or two where it's like the project goes from non-existent to almost finished because you were doing all this time setting up
00:43:53
Speaker
Your jigs or whatever whatever it is like when we did those window grills They were just sticks and all this preparation and then the next day they were fully assembled Yeah, so it takes it takes a lot of time to just wrap your head around what you're doing sometimes yeah, and it pays off because you know You're you're working through the problems before they happen
00:44:16
Speaker
Absolutely. And that's like where I am with this chest of drawers. I haven't even started it yet, but I took time to get the correct plywood and not be building it with plywood that I didn't want to use and to learn how to use these under mounts. So now, I mean, it's a chest of drawers. It's basically a box with three drawers. So now that I know how to do that and I've got the material, I'm going to, and I had to wait for the veneer. Now I can just go ahead and bang that out. And I wouldn't be surprised that
00:44:46
Speaker
By Friday next week, it should be 90% done.
Traditional vs Modern Woodworking Approaches
00:44:50
Speaker
And that's just how things go. Nice. What's up next? Yeah, we got the one from WhoThe90. I'm not sure what your name is. I tried to find out. But repeat offender on the podcast. Is craftsmanship higher if you use traditional joinery versus dominoes, biscuits, and CNC? That's an interesting question. Yeah. What do you think?
00:45:15
Speaker
Is craftsmanship higher? Yeah, is it a higher level of craftsmanship if you're using, we'll say like through mortise and tenon versus dominos or biscuits or CNC? I don't really, that question doesn't come into mind. I just care about the finished product and the design. Yeah. However you get there, you get there.
00:45:39
Speaker
Yeah, like it's it's not the same design. You're not going to use the same design for something that's built with dominoes versus something that's built with traditional joinery. To me, like if it's a a.
00:45:53
Speaker
I don't think hidden mortise and tenon would be the right terminology, but... Yeah, dominoes are... If it was a blind mortise and tenon, like you were physically cutting a tenon onto the end and cutting a mortise and it was blind where you didn't see the joinery, use the domino. I don't care. Like you said, I don't care that you hand cut it. It is a higher level of craftsmanship, but to the end user and to everybody else, it's still the same thing. It's no stronger.
00:46:22
Speaker
It's no better looking. So it's kind of like a self-indulgent kind of thing, I guess.
00:46:30
Speaker
Yeah, if you have the time and that's what makes you happy, go ahead and do it. But if you have the Domino and you just want to get the product project done, then do that. Obviously through mortise and tenon is a different situation. Yeah, you're going to get a different look. I think they call the Domino a loose mortise and tenon. Yeah, or a slip tenon I think they call it sometime. Right, so it's an actual
00:46:55
Speaker
form of joinery, it's just now you have this machine that cuts it, but is it any different than like a benchtop mortiser? I mean, not really. You're using a machine to cut a slot or a hole. Is it different from using a drill and then cleaning it up with a chisel? So it's different skill sets, for sure.
00:47:23
Speaker
But craftsmanship, I think, as you were alluding to, John, is in the finished product. Yeah, and how you can best get that. I mean, because no matter what tool you're using, it's going to take skill to use that tool. Right. Yeah. You know, you're going to use it correctly or incorrectly. You don't just pick up the domino and instantly make doors with it. Exactly. And everything fits. And it's, I mean, it's a tool, like a chisel is a tool. What about a CNC though?
00:47:52
Speaker
Well, that's another entirely different skill set. That's going to involve more design, strength, where everything has to be forethought. You've pictured this out. You're not working through it at all. You've manufactured this on paper first.
00:48:13
Speaker
and now plugged all this information into the machine. You've positioned, as Manny's told us, you don't just plop a piece of wood on the CNC and press go. It's got to be pinpoint accuracy where the machine is. You've got origins. Or the right bits. Now that guy that programs the machine, do you call him a craftsman?
00:48:36
Speaker
I would call him a programmer. I would call the guy who might be assembling that
00:48:46
Speaker
depending on the level of skill required, a craftsman. If you're assembling knockdown type furniture from Ikea, which is probably all cut on a CNC, I wouldn't call you a craftsman, you're an assembler. So depending on the design. It's like a design engineer, whoever's ever coming up with that.
00:49:12
Speaker
Right now for me, it's just beyond me For one reason is space and on the space for one. Yeah, but at the same time right now I don't have any problems with CNC. But right now I just don't have any desire To bring that into my workflow. It's not what I want to do right and I'm saying right now if
00:49:32
Speaker
I had, say, an assistant working with me who wanted to take that workload on and could show me the value of it and how it would work to help me out. Then I think it would be a great thing. I could see actually using it in artwork. I could see, I see it more in artwork for me than I do in furniture. But right now where I'm at, I just don't, I'm not thinking that way.
00:49:55
Speaker
Yeah, we would have to come up with things to use it for, I feel like. Like, it would be good for shop fixtures and stuff like that. Like, you know, being able to design if we wanted some kind of blastgate mechanism, something like that. Because trying to make that
00:50:14
Speaker
from scratch with pieces of plywood and stuff. It's very time consuming. Most of the time is in figuring it out. And then you have to translate that into routers and table saws and band saws and sanding and this and that. So if you could figure it out and then just draw it in Fusion and then plug it into the machine, it would save a lot of time. It would be much more accurate. So I could see it for stuff like that. But the kind of stuff we build,
00:50:44
Speaker
There's just not a whole lot of demand for a CNC. I don't see it. Right now, I don't see it.
00:50:52
Speaker
I have I have an open mind for it. And I think for me, I have more of an open mind for how I could use it with artwork one day. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to have one. What bothers me, like I don't have anything against the CNC, but I see guys like using the CNC for things that you could just use regular, like flattening a board on a CNC that's like a six inch wide board. Just get a joiner for like you can get like a five hundred dollar joint that will do that and it'll do it, you know, 100 times faster.
00:51:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think for me a lot of it is just fear not wanting to well fear of something taking up space and occupying time That's why I say if I had somebody working with me who really that was their skill set and And was intuitive to what I wanted to do Then I think there could be some real value and if I had a market for what I could make with it. Mm-hmm
00:51:47
Speaker
then it all makes sense. Right now for me it just doesn't make sense. Right now I just want to make furniture, design and build furniture.
00:51:54
Speaker
Yeah. Can make those live, laugh, live, laugh, love signs engraved. Yeah. CNC. That's, that's what you can do with a CNC. Yeah. What's it called? Live, laugh, love. Yeah. Like you see him, you know, in somebody's kitchen, there you go. Or, uh, we gather here with like a cornucopia market for that. No cussing, no fuss.
00:52:18
Speaker
Think that I think that Michaels and and bed baths beyond already have that market corner. Yeah, that's it Those prices you're going to one of those places and you see something for $9.99. You're like, oh I can't buy a board like yeah, but this is me that of you know, Jerry Okay, so This is a good question from Adam F patron far out woodworks on Instagram. Thank you, Adam
00:52:49
Speaker
What are some non-furniture woodworking projects you want to make? Boats, instruments, etc. You got anything for that John? Non-furniture?
00:53:03
Speaker
I will say the first thing I ever made woodworking was a skateboard. That's cool. That was the whole reason why I wanted to get into escape. Is that a laminate top? Solid red oak. Red Oaks made a comeback. It was a Cadillac. An El Dorado. Let's see something. That was practical.
00:53:25
Speaker
I want to make some sculptural furniture. Yeah. So, you know, that's kind of a mixture of the two. Yeah. It's kind of, uh, like, and when I think of sculptural furniture, I think of, uh, coffee tables with glass tops, you know, so, uh, you know, maybe, um, is it a salmon Noguchi made that table? That's a kind of like the, the three pins. Oh yes. Yes. Um,
00:53:54
Speaker
But not, you know, and then maybe just some some utensils like spoons and spatulas, things like that. Cutting the spoons out. Remember, spoons out. Mostly spatulas. What about a ladle? I feel like a ladle is more practical than a spoon. It probably is, but it's probably more practical to just buy metal one.
00:54:19
Speaker
You know, that's a lot of work. I saw Jimmy DeResta made a label once a long time ago. It was really cool. And I think he put lacquer on it. And it was really funny because in the comments it said, and I'm a big fan of Jimmy DeResta's, I'm sure he laughed about it. And he's the comments was like, lacquer, it's what's for breakfast. Oh, God.
00:54:41
Speaker
But you know, it's like, you know, it's one of those Jimmy DiResta videos where he just like bang the whole thing out on a band saw. He's a master on a band saw. He is. With that thin little blade. Because I guess he was like a sign maker. He's done a million different things. Yeah, when he was young. I think he still does that stuff. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, he's a master on the band saw. I know a ton of different tools. I mean, there's a guy who can use a CNC and make it work for him. Yeah, he's got every tool in the kit.
00:55:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah. What about you, Jeff? I'd like to make a guitar or a bass. Yeah. I played a little bit of guitar, a little bit of bass. I was never any good, but I'd like to make one just for just for kicks. Yeah. Yeah. I've made a few instruments and there's some really rewarding moments in making that. But sanding those cars.
00:55:37
Speaker
the burn marks on, you know, on the little horn. Oh, God. I just made those four feet. That's all I could think of. So that's like that's like eight guitars. You need a little spindle sander. Yeah. Yeah. So if I I mean, how many have I made? One, two, three. I've probably made six or eight. I can't remember now. Guitars and basses and
00:56:05
Speaker
if I made before I made another one I would have to make sure I had all my ducks in a row equipment wise because I'm not hand sanding those parts ever again. Did you make the fret boards too? No, no. I was gonna say that's a whole nother thing. Yeah it is and it's not I mean there it's it's
00:56:24
Speaker
difficult, but they have so many aids and how to lay it out and the fret saws and everything. So it's not that the work is insurmountable, but it takes so much time and there's no money in it for somebody like me. So the most I will do for someone, because these are basically gifts, is choose the wood, make the body, wire it all up, you know, drill it all out and make all the cavities, fit the store-bought neck,
00:56:54
Speaker
And, um, you know, I'll make it playable, but then I'll bring it to a guitar tech who'll do all of the small nuances of intonation and everything else. Wow. I didn't even know there was like such a thing as like bringing it to another.
00:57:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I'm a big fan of Stumak, which is like a distributor of, like, guitar making schools. Stuart McDonald. Yeah. They have a YouTube channel. And they have this guy, David Eldridge, or something is his name. Maybe it's not Eldridge. Something like that. And he's like the luthier. And he makes all these videos about, like, refreading a guitar. It's a great resource. Changing out the tuning pegs. It's cool, because it's like woodworking and guitar.
00:57:39
Speaker
It's amazing how many great resources there are. Like, like you just said, that's a great resource. It's like, think about it. They have all this stuff like, oh, you want to know how to wire up two humbuckers with a push pull pot to like, you know, separate the coils on the bridge humbucker. Here's the diagram.
00:58:00
Speaker
this is I just got off topic because it's all free yeah I just got off topic because I just started thinking once you we were talking about all the different learning resources now you are a teacher yeah
00:58:13
Speaker
and I heard U.S. history, my man. I heard, what's his name? More interesting every day. That's right. It'd be interesting to be teaching history nowadays, but they don't let you talk about stuff.
Education and Career Pathways Debate
00:58:26
Speaker
No, I can't imagine. You can't say anything. You can't say anything today. But I heard
00:58:33
Speaker
who's the guy with the electric car, Elon Musk. He was saying that you need college to be a doctor, you need college to be a lawyer, but most people don't need college. And what are your feelings on that? I think college is a great
00:58:50
Speaker
opportunity for young people to socialize and, and grow emotionally, and experience things outside their, their neighborhood and hometown, if they need it. And most importantly, if they can afford it, it can be an awfully expensive vacation for most kids, and a hardship on families and young adults coming out with
00:59:19
Speaker
and a non-marketable degree. Well, that's the funny thing, like a non-marketable degree, because I have a lot of friends who went to art school and graduated with an art degree. And I've gone way further with my non-art degree. I just took a couple of art classes.
00:59:39
Speaker
And I always thought, you know, why are they spending all this money on an art degree or a philosophy degree or, you know, some of these degrees where you're spending so much money on and
00:59:54
Speaker
I was thinking maybe four or five years ago like, maybe this whole college thing will be done by the time my kids get there. But then of course that wasn't and so I'm footing the bill for probably gotten worse. Oh, it's ridiculous how much you know that's I'm kind of I have this Vermont dream that everybody knows about but it's on hold.
01:00:14
Speaker
until Michael graduates about 18 months from now. And then I can start thinking like, oh, okay, here's, I've got some opportunity to do some things, but right now I'm getting my kids through school. And then I have a reprieve.
01:00:26
Speaker
until Olivia goes to school. But I almost think by the time it's time for her to go to college, she'll go, I'm sure. But the need to go to college is just going to be less and less and less. It all depends. I mean, kids, you're asking somebody who's 18 years old
01:00:48
Speaker
All right. What are you going to do now for the rest of your life? Right. Make a decision in the next, you know, 45 years. And and then after you decide, we're going to tell you whether or not that's a viable investment for you to spend your hundred and twenty or however much it is and two hundred thousand dollars. Like my young friend Christopher, he wanted to be an engineer. All right. There's an investment he knew.
01:01:15
Speaker
He was going to get a job the minute he graduated because he was a dedicated student and he was going into a field that hired people right off, you know, the graduation line. And it's so highly specialized and the information is he needed to go to college to get that information. Yeah. Yeah. So that's an example where like you kind of have to go to college. You can't become an engineer on the job. Right. Now me, I have a degree in history.
01:01:41
Speaker
I mean, I could have learned all that stuff by just reading the same books I did. I wouldn't have been as enjoyable. You know, you learn from your professors. There's something to be said for that. But I already knew I wanted to teach history. There's no other job.
01:01:58
Speaker
I mean, what do you do with a history degree? It's an art degree, it's a degree in English. There's no job for that, except teacher. Yeah, no, it's just... It's just history books. Yeah, but if you want to go to work for $32,000 a year as a brand new teacher somewhere, and then work your way up,
01:02:22
Speaker
you know it's a 20 year plan eventually you'll make depending on what what city you live in 90 you know new york city teachers are making more than a hundred thousand dollars a year now by the time they've put in their 25 years
01:02:37
Speaker
But it's a, it's a road to go from, I think starting pay was 39,000. That's not a lot of money living in New York city. No, no. Um, you know, you're getting your few thousand dollar a year raises. And if you think it's easy, go get your degree and try it. My friend, it's not that easy and deal with those kids.
01:03:00
Speaker
Oh my god and the workload and all that's a ton of teaching is a ton of work It's just it makes me think of like hunter Who he's three now? Uh, yeah, not even what the college situation will be When when he's ready to go if it will be necessary or it's going to have to change Yeah, it's definitely going to have because my kids
01:03:24
Speaker
all went to college or you know they're going now except for Olivia isn't there yet but Jack went to UVM the other boys are going to colleges that are not quite as expensive but still it's a ridiculous amount of money oh yeah and I was the one who was saying hey let's let's let them go to Brookdale for two years that's what my cousin did and then but you know those credits transfer yeah they're way cheaper well that's what I wanted to do but
01:03:51
Speaker
you know, I very rarely do what I want to do in my house. That's why I got the barn. That's I need a barn. The other thing I think is they should really start bringing back the emphasis on vocational schools. Yeah, I agree with that programs where
01:04:08
Speaker
Well, all they do is preach about how the workforce for these, you know, plumbing and electrical and mechanical and woodworking and carpentry, all that, that there's going to be nobody to do it. Yeah. There's the young people aren't getting into it at all. So how come they're not? I mean, I don't know. I'm not in a high school. How come they're not pushing these things to these kids? Blue collar profession still is looked down upon.
01:04:34
Speaker
that are deeply satisfying and fulfilling and you actually physically see, look, we made this. You're pushing papers around a desk and numbers back and forth. You can't. That's the thing, we were talking about
01:04:50
Speaker
Yeah, who who who will work on something and then the project gets cancelled and it's just like okay or even like if he sees it to the end and they say like oh yeah we may you know we made this much money or we close this deal. How fleeting of a satisfactory feeling does that give you?
01:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it all depends what you're doing. But if you can see something to finish, and to see it kind of make a difference somehow, then that gives you that feeling of getting something done and getting you know, that's what gets you out of bed in the morning kind of thing.
01:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, we all have different needs in terms of the longevity and concrete nature of what we're doing. I need to physically see and feel and be around the thing. We get attached to the work. It's sad when something gets delivered. It's literally sad.
01:05:48
Speaker
It's for me, for me, it's sad and then like liberating, but I love, I just love having the space back in the shop. Yes. There's all that when you come back and you clean up a little bit. I don't have to worry about scratching it anymore accidentally. Oh yeah. But it, I mean, when you leave, there's this sense of melancholy, you know, when you're leaving the client's home.
01:06:10
Speaker
And like, yeah, that sense of self-consciousness and anxiety over, are they gonna like it? Is it gonna be, does it live up to the expectation? We talked about that on one of the early episodes, that feeling of anxiety when you
Client Feedback and Project Reflection
01:06:27
Speaker
finally get a client. I always have that. When I'm working for a client, I always have that, because to be perfectly honest, there's never anything that's perfect. No. I've never made anything perfect.
01:06:37
Speaker
you know you get it close but the grains a little bit different here or something's a little bit different there yeah you get a crack and you have to fix it yeah but you maybe still see something you don't point those out yeah that's like i sent the clients a picture of the doors uh yesterday and like i haven't heard back from them and it's burning me up inside because i'm like yeah i like it or like
01:06:59
Speaker
Meanwhile, I put it up on Instagram. It's, you know, everybody's like, man, those look awesome. You want to hear from the client? Yeah. So it's probably, you know, it's probably nothing, but I just, I got to interrupt. I just read this ahead to this next question. Now we, as we always say, we really just see these questions now, like.
01:07:18
Speaker
Jeff, Jeff types them up. So he, that's, you know, and he's getting them in, but he's not really paying attention. I generally only see it when it comes to the desk and I just read and this is cracking me up.
01:07:31
Speaker
So can we move ahead to this one? Yeah, we got a whole another page full of questions. So this this is from Adam P. He's one of our patrons. So thank you, Adam. And he's going to start like this. Please pass along my respect to John. There you go. Thank you. That's better.
01:07:52
Speaker
As a beginning woodworker, I've learned so much from his videos. I love how he makes woodworking seem so consistent with art and maintaining the land on his channel. But, I have to ask you two, meaning Jeff and I, a question that really bugs me about him. Does he look more like Nathan Fillion, Jeremy Renner, or Jason Bateman? You know what I get more than any of those? Is, um...
01:08:24
Speaker
Jeez, I get that guy who's the chef who's always swearing at everybody. I get Gordon Ramsay more than anything else. I don't know the first guy. Yeah, me neither. But I just love this question. That's a good one. So that's what I get. I get Gordon Ramsay. Not that much, but I get it from time to time. Yeah. I'm going to pass on the question.
01:08:49
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know who Nathan Filion is. Yeah. Well, that's good. Thank you. I'm glad that you liked it. Yeah. Yeah. I think Adam has another question buried in here somewhere. I try and split him up when it's doubled. So that was good. So next question from Brian Hamlet Woodcraft on Instagram. Are you guys upgrading to the 12 inch jointer soon? So can I get dibs on the current setup? Yeah. I mean, we had
01:09:17
Speaker
25 people waiting in line for the planer. And it was like I had to beat people away with a stick. Yeah. People even the day that the guy was picking it up wasn't a man or Mike. Yeah.
01:09:31
Speaker
Did he pick it up? Can I come get it? Did he get did it fall through? And we're cool because we could have easily, you know, raised the price, raised the price. But, you know, even even though we had so much demand for it, we saw it for the original asking. Nice. Yeah. Because I'm not kidding when I said I had like 10 people that wanted to buy it. That's amazing. People that said, no, I'll pay the full price. I'll come pick it up. That's a beautiful thing, though, because of Instagram, you're able to have them, you know, sell this. Yeah. Yeah.
01:10:01
Speaker
It would be very difficult to sell in a normal circumstance. It goes on to a good place. And you're able to DM pictures and all that kind of stuff. Like imagine trying to do this like 20 years ago. Most of it was actually through Facebook Marketplace.
01:10:15
Speaker
So there you go. Facebook is where it's at for stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. I check it constantly for stuff. Yeah. That Red Baron hinge boring machine, Alec, who's Al Head Woodco on Instagram actually brought that to my attention. He's like, hey, look at this thing that just popped up. We rushed down there in the morning. Nice. We were like both messaging the guy. I'm trying to think of what else we found on there.
01:10:46
Speaker
We sold a bunch of stuff. Yeah, we sell a lot of stuff. That's good. I'm always checking like always looking for the old Craig pocket screw machines, castle pocket hole machines, stuff like that, because they pop up sometimes and and they're cheap. Nice. Goes super fast. They got that bench on there for 100 bucks. Can't beat that. It's a Joburg bench. Can't beat it. No.
01:11:06
Speaker
We got to rocket through this these last questions here. It's getting late. Here's our next one from Rich, one of our patrons. You guys live near an abundance of low cost cherry. If you were building a cabinet for yourself, for example, a living room built in and all North American hardwood costs roughly the same, what would you use?
01:11:28
Speaker
For a kitchen? If you're building yourself something, like a built-in for your living room you're saying, and you could use any North American hardwood, they all cost the same. For built-ins, I actually like painted stuff, so I built it with poplar and I might use some white oak accents.
01:11:48
Speaker
I think I'm gonna go with cherry. I like cherry. It would depend on the room, so like the rest of the colors. But cherry or walnut, right now, that's my feelings today. It could change in a week or a month. Any one of them, I like. You can't go wrong. You can't go wrong. It's gonna be based on the design too, of the piece. I do like painted built-ins, just white, just keep it clean and simple. Yeah.
01:12:18
Speaker
Rifts on white oak is definitely something I really like. Really modern. Yeah, I like the look of white oak. I'm not the biggest fan of working with it. Just because it's so... Splinters and wintery. And like the square edges are so sharp. Yeah. But I like cherry. Well, cherry's nice. My go-to. Cherry's a good wood. Yeah.
01:12:41
Speaker
Oh, this, this is another great question. Yeah. You read Jeff. Uh, from Kevin McMahon. Um, one of our patrons, he wants to know, uh, so what is or was plan B if you couldn't get the Oak to Bend is designed. Plan B is still on the table. There is no plan B.
01:13:01
Speaker
We're going to keep bending until we get four good ones. I think it worked. I think you're good. There isn't one. One of our original thoughts was to, you know, so the guys haven't seen the formation. Yeah, that or so it's basically a three straight runs with four inch radius corners. So it's a C with four inch radius corners. We were thinking about making the corners out of
01:13:27
Speaker
you know, either, you know, 12 quarter or something or a glued up section of blocks. And then we could always skin that on the inside and outside with a quarter inch or a one eighth inch veneer. That would work. That would work. And it would also give it a little bit more strength, you know, that blocking. Yeah, because you're going to have some type of end grain to end grain there. Sure.
01:13:53
Speaker
So, yeah, we're still considering. We got our money on this one. Yeah, bent laminations is the other... Alright, hey, this question is the next question from Dave, another one of our patrons.
01:14:05
Speaker
You'll find this interesting, John. Question about band saws. If one's not looking to do a lot of re-sawing, what are your opinions on a 10-inch saw? I'd love to get my hands on a good used 14-inch Delta, the old kind, like you have, John. But they're so hard to find here in Colorado.
01:14:27
Speaker
I think you can probably, for small stuff, you can get away with a 10 inch band saw, no problem. Yeah. And we're going to use a quarter inch blade. And yeah, I have to, I have to do a little TLC work on that Delta, but that's a good saw. Yeah. That's a good saw. Yeah. A lot of that old cast iron stuff, you just can't beat it.
Woodworking Machinery and Preferences
01:14:51
Speaker
The older Delta stuff is solid.
01:14:53
Speaker
If I'm not mistaken the measurement for the saws is like the throat size, isn't it? Between that the wheel. Yeah. Oh, it's the wheel Yeah, like a 10-inch band saw has got 10-inch wheels because to me one of the things I find most Inconvenience when you run out of space in between the
01:15:12
Speaker
that upper arm of the body of the frame of the saw and the blade. Yeah, the bigger the band saw, you know, like if it's a 20 inch band saw, it's got more of a left to right. So that's why that size is then incrementally bigger. It's related to that size of the wheel.
01:15:28
Speaker
Like you could get a 10 inch. I don't know this for sure, but you could get a 10 inch saw that has nearly the same or the same resaw height as a 17 inch bandsaw like we have back here. But yeah, from the what do you call that? The vertical section of the bandsaw to the blade is going to be some frame of the saw. They have those three wheel bandsaws that, you know, goes over. Yeah. And you get a deeper, deeper cut.
01:15:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would say that the height that you want to re-saw is also going to be limited on how much you can join. Yeah. So if you only have a six inch joiner, you don't need to be re-sawing anything taller than six inches. You're going to have to now flatten that edge. Right. So think about that part.
01:16:19
Speaker
Sorry if we feel like we're blasting through these, but we're just, we got to make up some time here as usual. Here we got one from Randall. He's another repeat offender, RM crafts and customs on Instagram. John, how's the new SawStop? Are you going to make new shop jigs for it? I love the SawStop. It's just such a nice saw. I, I probably keep using my crosscut sled on the Powermatic.
01:16:45
Speaker
And, um, I can't think of any jigs that I'm going to make at the moment. No, not really, but it's just a great saw. Super nice. Jordan Eldridge on Instagram wants to know how much do you use your Powermatic since you got the SawStop? I use it a lot less. I would say that I will probably use the SawStop 80% of the time now. We'll say, uh, but yeah.
01:17:12
Speaker
Have you put a dedicated specialty blade on the Powermatic Edato? I put a quarter inch blade on there so it's easy to do half laps and things like that. I'll probably change that from time to time if I'm using the crosscut sled.
01:17:30
Speaker
Maybe eventually I'll make another crosscut sled for the Powermatic just because I made my crosscut sled I think 21 inches deep and in retrospect I probably should have made it 24 inches deep just to, you know, full cabinet depth. Kind of the same thing we got going. Saw stop is the workhorse and then, you know, the dado blades in there where we need it, it's there. So nice to turn that saw on. I mean, it's just
01:18:00
Speaker
For me, it's like the Festool miter saw. You just enjoy using it. It's just... Yeah, I mean, we're right here next to the saw and there's three microphones right here. You can hear how quiet it is. Yeah, it's nice.
01:18:17
Speaker
And listen to how it just breaks, like nice and easy. I mean, my Powermatic is 25 years old, maybe more. So, you know, it's definitely an older saw. But yeah, I just can't, I just can't say enough good things about the SawStop. It's perfect. Yeah, it's been great. No regrets here, that's for sure.
01:18:41
Speaker
All right. That was two birds with one stone there. Yeah. We've got another one here from John Welsh 21 on Instagram. What are the benefits of using veneer and or what projects are best suited for it? I have a client who wants a walnut barn door, but has a tight budget. So I was debating using veneer for the panels. Let me know what you guys think from John.
01:19:04
Speaker
Yeah, well, what projects are best suited for it? That's the wife. She probably wants to know when I'm coming in for dinner. Yeah, I just got the same thing. I just told her home at 6 30. Okay, so this is I want to talk about veneer not so much about the barn door because I don't know if this is the best application for that. But
01:19:25
Speaker
Often when I build a cabinet and I use veneer I get the question, why don't you just build the cabinet out of walnut or white oak plywood and miter the corners? Well, it's not going to be a very strong joint.
01:19:37
Speaker
Right, that's a great point. Second of all, that's not an easy joint. No, that's not a good point. So now, I can go ahead and build this box, because it's just a box, out of three-quarter inch Baltic birch plywood, screw it together, sand it real good, and then grain match and do whatever I want with veneer, and it's easy, it looks great, and it's gonna be strong. Yeah. So that's really the thing, it's just, it's really easy, and it looks great.
01:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, you start mitering plywood. How do you fasten? You put dominoes in it and then you've got to try and figure out how to clamp it or you put Collins clamps and then you got little holes and the corners are 64th of an inch thin. Oh my God. Yeah, I just I get that question like too often and I usually just ignore it because there's no
01:20:28
Speaker
If you have to answer it, it's almost like how can if you're asking me that question, how can I answer it? Yeah. I'd say for John, like if you're going to be making a barn door and it has a panel like it's a frame and panel door, you don't even have to go as far as doing veneer work. You can just get a piece of plywood. Yeah.
01:20:46
Speaker
yeah because then you would use plywood yeah because it's um it's going to be totally captive and there's no joinery um you know there's more than enough for you to just sand it clean you know plywood comes smooth it just needs to be cleaned up a little bit before finish yeah um you know if you're going for a specific like you want rift
01:21:06
Speaker
Walnut or something and you can only find it veneer then it's definitely a good application. That's a great. That's a great time to use it Yeah, because you can't really find a lot of those Yeah, you can get some really specialty woods in veneer and then you can use those panels as accent panels and things like birds eye maple Yeah, like you have the quarter song butternut. Yeah and There's just one little note again going back to our meeting with Fez and
01:21:35
Speaker
If you're going to use plywood like a walnut veneer or plywood for the panel,
01:21:40
Speaker
make sure you get two good sides. Yeah, 1A or 1AA. You know, talk to your supplier about that because one side will look good and then the other side will probably have all these little thin strips, you know, and it'll look bad on that side. It'll look like a piece of plywood in it. So if you use two pieces of 3A's and put the good side. There you go. We've done that in the past. Yeah. Yeah.
01:22:07
Speaker
So a good time to use it is when there's like a rare or distinctive wood or some large flat surface that you want stability as a substrate for a more unique veneer over the top ease of joinery strength
01:22:30
Speaker
There are a lot of good reasons to use veneer. Yeah I like veneer. It's gotten a bad rap you know because it's like anything if it's used poorly to cover up poor workmanship or inferior materials you know that's what people think of but it's got a pretty storied history veneer work. Oh yeah all the mid-century stuff for the most part is veneer. Let's see so let's move on.
01:22:58
Speaker
Here's a question I've been pondering since I started watching Thomas Johnson antique furniture restoration on YouTube.
Adhesives in Woodworking: Traditional vs Modern
01:23:05
Speaker
If your goal is to make furniture that lasts for 100 years, should you be using high glue? Given its reversibility, high glue is the preferred glue of furniture restores. That's from one of our patrons, David.
01:23:22
Speaker
Well, we go back to the old dilemma of what can we do and remain a profitable business? Yeah, what can you do and what can you get paid for? Right. That sums it up. We've kicked around the idea of going to high glue. But it has extended cure times and specific working requirements
01:23:52
Speaker
We can't add that to the mix. A customer would just gloss over if you started to explain that. But we're using high glue. I don't care, use Elmer's glue. These wood glues, they're good for 60 plus years.
01:24:11
Speaker
I think if your joinery is right and your screws are good and all that stuff, it's not coming apart. I just don't think it is. And, you know, if it's in a home, it's going and think about the difference between climate controlled homes now and even 50 years ago. Yeah. You know, so things are just it's like, you know, it's amazing.
01:24:29
Speaker
A lot of the artwork that I make that's rusted steel, I just lacquer over that. And it doesn't, I have pieces that are 20 years old that are just lacquer over steel. The rust just freezes the lacquer, the lacquer freezes the rusting process. And then you think about, okay, if it does move a little bit, that's kind of part of it. So let it be.
01:24:55
Speaker
I don't think, I mean those are for specific restorations. That's like if you had a real restore coming in to reverse it and everything like that. So the chances of that happening also kind of slimmed out.
01:25:11
Speaker
The things that I've repaired for friends, those things haven't been built with high glue, essentially you're removing the damaged part. So you're cutting off a piece and then if you have to bore a hole or what have you, that's how you're repairing that. You're not sort of delicately removing something by heating up the glue.
01:25:33
Speaker
I also think if something has that much value, then people will figure out how to fix it anyway. So that's like a, you can take a painting by Jackson Pollock that was made with oil-based house paint that's now eating through the canvas and they restore it because it's a Jackson Pollock painting. If it's not a Jackson Pollock painting, then nobody cares. He just lets it go anyway. So you know what I mean? It's just like, it's like people will, if it's, if it's, if it's got that value, then people will put the money out. Yeah.
01:26:02
Speaker
When you have to look at the context of the future too, because now the people that you're seeing restoring antiques, they're working with hide glue because that's what the original fabricators were using. So let's say you have, which I highly doubt that there's going to be really many in existence, a guy a hundred years from now who's restoring furniture from 2021. There's not going to be much stuff around.
01:26:25
Speaker
He's not going to even probably know anything about high glue because nobody now is using high glue to build furniture. There will be no jobs for furniture restores. There will be, you know, there's not going to be enough furniture around to make that a viable career choice. Yeah. Yeah. Seems like there's less of them now.
01:26:46
Speaker
I remember that was always a couple of them. Yeah Yeah, people come to us all the time as for restoration refinishing and we don't get into it because it's another thing All right, keep them moving ah Is this for oh, no, I thought no, this is Lyle Aaron AT Lyle on Instagram. He wants to know if we could own just one router. What would it be? Everyone pick their favorite
01:27:13
Speaker
Plunge, fixed, D-handle, combo. Well, combo, that's kinda cheating. Okay, yeah. I'm gonna go with, we have a Festool OF1010, but I want the bigger one that takes a half inch, whatever that is, the 1400. I haven't even used it, but I know that that's the one I want. I second that opinion. I've never used it because it's expensive and we don't have it. We have the small one, though. We might get it. We might get that router. Yeah, why not? That's my choice, because I love Festool.
01:27:43
Speaker
I'm just going to say I love my little Milwaukee handheld router. Just a little straight, it's a mini router, whatever, cordless router. I had the Makita one. They just use it all the time. It's just so easy to use. Zip a cord around our chamfer.
01:27:59
Speaker
I'd like to actually like replace the two corded routers that we have with two more of those. Yeah. The thing is I grab that and set it up with the bits so you don't have to change them out. Yeah. Like keep a chamfer and one round over and then that's it. I got a flush trim in that one.
01:28:14
Speaker
Yep, that's what I want to do. Three or four of those. What about you, Lyle? Let us know. Ah, here's our friend, Ira Jan.
Finding Inspiration in Historic Sites
01:28:24
Speaker
Suspect bucket on Instagram. Do you go to historic houses and museums to study furniture? And where's the coolest stuff?
01:28:32
Speaker
Well, we we found it in that magazine book slash book Yeah, that's good And it's funny because we were while we were fooling with the bending of the oak today The three of us discussed a potential trip out to falling water, which yeah
01:28:50
Speaker
I don't know, it was about an eight hour drive, six hour drive. Is it that far? I don't think it was that far. How far is it? It might be because it's near Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is about five, six hours. The thing about falling water is you have to go on a lot of small roads. That's why I think I looked at it. That sounds like a three or four day trip. I know it's been closed.
01:29:07
Speaker
But you know, once this pandemic is under control, that's something we're probably going to definitely. Yeah. And you said somewhere else, though, too. Yeah, I'd like to go to Nakashima and then I also want to go to Craftsman Farms, which is in like
01:29:22
Speaker
It's in North Jersey. You know, it's like Stickley had a craft that forms there. Yeah, it got damaged in the tropical storm Isaiah that we had all those wind, all that wind like back. What was that? I don't know. It's like in the summertime. Yeah. Yeah. Where like I mean, people were out without power. Yeah, I was I was without power for over a week. Yeah. Oh, God. So they got some damage during that and they were closed. And I guess maybe with covid, they're probably double closed somehow.
01:29:52
Speaker
Double secret probation. Yeah, I haven't I haven't gone anywhere specifically, but when I do go places I'm always looking around I even go places that don't have cool furniture. I'm looking around. Yeah, sure Yeah in people's homes, you know every time you go somewhere new whether it's and we go less and less
01:30:11
Speaker
to places nowadays but you go out to eat you're checking out the reception desk yeah i mean like when we went to see the account first thing we started doing is like poking holes in his furniture yeah you got a cheap desk
01:30:27
Speaker
You can't help it that's what you do sure I was helping my father-in-law Jamie He's a carpenter On a house in Monmouth Beach, and they had two Wegner wishbone chairs. I'm like oh this is cool I mean did you post them in a story or real Wegner's but but
01:30:44
Speaker
There's yeah, they're just cool chairs. Yeah All right, and I you know I was inspired by seen him Yeah, I've seen him before but seeing him in the flesh and gets it back in your head I saw some great chairs in this book that I want to use the domino to kind of rip off that design craftsman We gotta we gotta get John out of here in the next 15 minutes
01:31:05
Speaker
We got our buddy Kevin coming in with a question. He wants us to discuss providing quality and craftsmanship while still keeping a project affordable and profitable. This is something we've been hitting all episode. Where are the areas you try and save a few man hours and where are the areas that you make sure are absolutely perfect? For example, are you sanding the inside of a carcass to 220 or are you going to 100 and calling it a day from Kevin?
01:31:31
Speaker
Oh, that's appropriate. This secretary has got a lot of big, broad, flat surfaces. We chose to sand to 180 for this particular finish, announced what the sample was, and every area, including the top, which even though you're not going to see the top at all,
01:31:55
Speaker
it's sanded to 180 and finished even the bottom is sanded to 180 and finished. It's kind of weird putting finish on something that's not sanded. Yeah, it doesn't. Doesn't. Doesn't work the same. So yeah, I may not spend as much time. Yeah, if there's like a little like swirls or whatever. Yeah. But
01:32:24
Speaker
Typically, we'll go through the whole piece. Maybe the back of the back doesn't get finished or something like that. I finished the back of the bag. So there you go. There's your answer. We're a little bit insane. We tried to price the job knowing what we're going to do. That makes sense.
01:32:51
Speaker
We're not going to cut too many corners. We know all the stuff that goes into it. So we don't say, yeah, we could get this done in three days if we don't do it the way we usually do it. We go, no, this is going to take us five days because this is how we're going to do it. Yeah. I'd say we save time on like making sure that we do things efficiently and not so much on the actual details of the piece. Try not to make mistakes. Yeah. Try to communicate.
01:33:21
Speaker
Have all our ducks in a row, make sure all the material's here. Anything to add there, John? No, that's pretty much what I do. I mean, this chest of drawers that I'm going to build, I originally was going to veneer the back of the cabinet, but now I'm going to build it so the piece of plywood that I use for the back will not have any plywood edge on it. That will be a solid piece. Plant that straight on the back. Exactly. So it's just built differently.
01:33:50
Speaker
And I'm doing that, it's a 32 inch tall piece and maybe one day it will not be against the wall. Maybe it will be a room divider. I don't know. Viewable from all sides. Yeah. So something like that. Just try to, and it's just taking pride in your work. Yeah.
01:34:10
Speaker
We're insane. I mean that's the top and you can look over here and see that We measured it Yeah, look at that
01:34:26
Speaker
That and you're not even gonna see the inside of that board either probably but I mean you should see the countertop on the base section That's covered up by that very top thing there It's like so there's a countertop on top of the countertop and you only see about an inch and it's a little solid cherry We had to cut holes in it for the same nice. Let's just
01:34:47
Speaker
We enjoyed it. Yeah, you're better off doing it. And there's no other way to do it and get the right, what are you going to do? Make faux edges on the side or the end grain? No, come on. So, hey, this question's for you, John.
Blending Metalwork with Woodworking
01:35:03
Speaker
You have a background and interest in steel work and sculpture.
01:35:07
Speaker
And I was curious if it's something you're still fond of. I ask because it doesn't feature much on your channel or Instagram page. Is it something you're still interested in? I'd love to incorporate steel and other metals like brass at some point into my builds. Is that something that interests you at all?
01:35:25
Speaker
For the Green Street crew, are you guys keen to incorporate steel frame or other types of metal into your builds? That's Miles, one of our patrons at Eat, Drink, Wine Guy on Instagram. All topical. Yeah, coming all the way from Australia. Nice. I like working with steel, or I used to. I just kind of pick my spots and stay in my lane right now.
01:35:48
Speaker
If one day I have a big shop and I can have a separate shop for a metal shop, I might do that, especially if I had an assistant who could help with it because steel gets heavy. It's also nice to be able to separate a wood shop from a metal shop. And when I was young and going to art school,
01:36:12
Speaker
I worked with, my professor was Jay Hooley. He was a pretty well-known steel sculptor. And so I got into that and learned about David Smith, a pretty famous steel sculptor, and Sir Anthony Caro. And I just was into that. So of course, the sculptures that you see in my yard are directly inspired by David Smith and Anthony Caro and Julio Gonzalez, who taught Picasso how to weld. But
01:36:41
Speaker
I just don't have the time to do it as much anymore. And then the steel that's in my painting, that's mainly two dimensional. So it's really, I'm not treating steel as much as
01:36:53
Speaker
a way to fabricate with it, but as a surface to paint on and for what it will do. So it's a different way of working with steel. And in that case, I'll use steel, like a ferrous steel that will rust and aluminum. And there's different ways to use them, but often I'm using them with contact cement and just mounting them right to the substrate. And if you're working with steel,
01:37:20
Speaker
then you can't use the woodworking tools, but if you're using aluminum, you can. So trim router and things like that. So in short, I'll probably continue to work with metal on a two-dimensional way as far as painting and not in the foreseeable future in a three-dimensional way. All right.
01:37:42
Speaker
You could answer. You drew up the design for the latest job that was a lot of metal and glass. Yeah, we have a potential job. I don't know what the status of it is yet. It's up in the air. Last I heard.
01:37:56
Speaker
It's a steel and glass wine cabinet. We'll do some type of wood supports for the bottles, but buddy Manny, who's a welder, metal fabricator, he'll be taking on the metal fabrication on that if we get the job. That's 95% metal and glass. Yeah, there's other pieces in the room that we may do as well.
01:38:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean we've been trying to integrate some metal into jobs for you know since our inception Because we a we want to get Manny involved and be you know we like the aesthetic When it's done tastefully. It's again. It's one of those things. We're like a river table with a metal base I don't care about it. Yeah, so you got to use it. You know don't just put it in there because you think it's cool and
01:38:43
Speaker
Not well that sounds weird. Don't just put it in there because you see everybody else putting it in there use it when it's Appropriate yeah appropriate and you know fits with the the overall design aesthetic of the piece One of my favorite finishes for steel and I can see it in steel tables and things and it's not like your square tubing Where then you just paint it black and then you put a slab on it. It's
01:39:11
Speaker
maybe found objects or something welded together and then rusted and then has a beeswax finish burned onto that rust. That just goes, the color, it's not a hard finish to make so you let it rust for a couple months and then sand it with maybe 120 and then just bring the torch out and burn that beeswax in there and that's a beautiful finish that will stay really good. That's cool. That's nice. Yeah.
01:39:39
Speaker
Yeah, we love metal. We love the idea of it. Yeah, I did one project 15 years ago with metal. I went found a blacksmith who I gave a form and he hand hammered these, I guess hoops staves for this round front desk that I I made. And it was a great experience except finding a blacksmith was a chore and then getting him to stay on schedule. That's a whole
01:40:08
Speaker
If you had another building, if you had another building half the size of this building out here with a welder in it and an oxyacetylene torch, you could do a ton of things. Yeah, it's like everything else, the CNC. I would love to have every single one of these things. I'd love to have a metal shop and a leather working thing. But again, we have trouble getting through the day as it is.
01:40:34
Speaker
I think that's the kind of thing that will happen naturally. In Vermont. Yeah, there we go. Let's go to Vermont. Let's all go to Vermont. I think it will happen naturally and you'll actually make things instead of just trying to push it forward. Because again, that square tube table base is just that. Yeah, it's done. It's just that, I mean. Yeah, like a trapezoid, always a trapezoid.
01:40:59
Speaker
And I think that the idea of always trying to make something elegant, that's the highest thing you can do. And I think the hardest thing to do is to really critique yourself and be honest with yourself.
01:41:19
Speaker
I'm the person who's got to be happy with it. I've got to be happy with it. And my wife's got a pretty good eye, too. And she won't let me. Yeah, she's in fashion. She's probably used to looking at stuff with a disturbed eye. So I'll use her eye, too. And I'll be like, is this right? And she'll be like, is that maybe a little bit heavy or whatever? But yeah, you just kind of like the difference between elegant and kind of clumsy is often very small measurement.
01:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, like if you're 100% satisfied with a project when it leaves the shop, like, you're probably not trying hard enough. Do you remember that happening? I can't think of one. I can't think of one, even to the smallest little thing where I was like, yeah, that's 100% perfect. Yeah, yeah. But the funny thing is you go back and you look at that piece five years, six years from now, you're like, wow, that's pretty damn good. Yeah, yeah. They hauled up. I mean, we've been in the houses and stuff like that. Like, wow, that still looks pretty good. Yeah.
01:42:16
Speaker
That's the thing. You gotta push yourself and if it comes out perfect then that means that either you got about as lucky as you could ever get in your entire life or you're not pushing yourself enough on that one. For sure. But we'll see. Maybe this will be the one. Yeah. So let's start with the wrap up. What are our thoughts on the beer of the week? That's you and me because Jon brought it. Man that was ages ago.
01:42:42
Speaker
Yeah, we had one and a half, one and a half pints each. Yeah. No, one and a third pints each. Yeah. Very good. I thought so. Yeah. Yeah. Clean, hoppy.
01:42:55
Speaker
It's nice. It's a good beer, isn't it? Yeah. I haven't had any of the Twin Lights yet.
Community Engagement and Craft Beer Review
01:43:00
Speaker
Yeah, they're good. What's the scent? What's... It's not cheap. I think this is... Piney... Piney kinda... This, I put a piece of gum in there so it smelled like mint. I'm like, that smells right. It's nice. It's um...
01:43:14
Speaker
All these beers are expensive though. I think this was $14 for, that's about what it is. That's the new going right. That's a good beer. Actually I have a Ross in there that you should try that we had last week, the Goza berry. It's good. I'll take it with me if you don't mind. Oh yeah, no you have to stay here and drink it right.
01:43:34
Speaker
So, the tool of the week will be, well, the push stick won't be there, but I'll put the socks down. You know what, I'll leave it here if you want to, because I don't need it, I'll trace it. Yeah, I'll leave that and I'll take this one of yours. Yeah, yeah. Is that all right? Yeah. You see a nice like round over with the router was set too deep. Gives you a little more grip. No going back after you started. On a push stick.
01:44:00
Speaker
So yeah, we'll have the socks down in the description. Follow us on Instagram and subscribe on YouTube, all that. You can send us some messages with questions. If you want to help support the podcast, we're on Patreon. And usually we do like an hour after the show for Patreon, but we're gonna have to figure something out. Maybe we'll do it tomorrow. Yeah, we'll come in in the morning.
01:44:21
Speaker
And, well, over coffee. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Morning. Thursday morning. Morning brew. Yeah. There you go. Should we, should we thank our patrons? Yeah. Thanks to our gold tier patrons, David Murphy, Manny Sirianni, Dustin Fair, Adam Potthast and David Schumacher. All right. Thank you guys. We really appreciate it. We hope you enjoyed the podcast as much as we did. Having John here. That was fun. Special treat. Yeah. And big thanks to Matt.
01:44:51
Speaker
Who was that? He's still there! I'm still here, boys! How was it? It was absolutely awesome. I really appreciated being here. I obviously wasn't there for every single second of it. I was working, but I tuned in for probably 80% of it. It was great. The end was honestly the best. You guys got through a bunch of stuff and it was great. We appreciate it, man. Hopefully you'll be joined by some more people next week.
01:45:24
Speaker
Thank you. Take care. Good talking to you, Matt. So that was Matt. We're over in the room on Clubhouse, which is this new audio-based social media thing. It's invite only and iOS only right now. So if you can get on it, we'll try and do this every week where you can listen to the podcast live and chime in. That's so cool. Chime in, yeah.
01:45:49
Speaker
That is really cool. So rather than do like a live stream on YouTube or something, we'll do it right through here and, you know, you'll be able to hear it as it's coming straight out of our mouths. Cool. Well, we appreciate everybody. We'll see you next week. Episode 25, one quarter of a hundred. Yeah. One quarter of a century. Yeah. Good stuff, guys. This was fun. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. We got to get John back home for dinner.
01:46:32
Speaker
Ain't no shame but there's been a chain