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The American Craftsman Podcast Ep. 9 | Keith from Two Bit Woodworks
49 Plays5 years ago
On Episode 9 of The American Craftsman Podcast hosted by Greene Street Joinery we sit down with our friend Keith Schoeneick from Two Bit Woodworks. Keith is an Army veteran, woodworker, content creator, and father. (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA8ds4d5aQGQoFDhtDNxDsg)
Beer of the Week (Kane Sneakbox): https://www.kanebrewing.com/
Tool of the Week (W.L. Fuller #6 Tapered Countersink): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DDWQJQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=greenestreetj-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B001DDWQJQ&linkId=df7bc7f7d8a5b964b51d21b08366ac20
Greene Street Joinery is a custom design & build shop located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. We build multigenerational furniture with an eco-friendly and sustainable mindset.
Inspired and guided by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, we believe in the use of traditional craftsmanship and simple, well-proportioned forms; sustainability and ethical practices; and importantly, taking pleasure in our work as craftsmen to create quality pieces of enduring value.
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Introduction
00:00:17
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a chain. Oh, it's a double. Yeah! OK, everybody, this is our welcome to the podcast. This is our ninth.
00:00:30
Speaker
American Craftsman podcast. Can you believe it? We made it nine times. It's the anniversary time. Can it happen? We didn't even think about that. There you go. We have another guest today. I want you to I want to introduce you to Keith. He's a veteran. Yes. Thank you for your service.
Movember Initiative & Personal Stories
00:00:50
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. He's a content creator.
00:00:53
Speaker
That's the second time I heard that. We had another contact. That's a tongue twister. I gotta know what exactly they'd do. That's what we tried to explain. A web designer, a woodworker, a husband, a father, and as far as we know you don't have a criminal background.
00:01:11
Speaker
I cannot. Gotcha. Can't comment. Not just an ordinary vet, but 101st year of one. I read. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And before we start, I just wanted to let everybody know I didn't shave this mustache for nothing. So this is the place to go for donations. So we only got one donation so far, a quarter dime, a dollar. Come on.
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's Movember.com slash M slash Green ST Street. What does it all go for, Rich? It goes to men's suicide awareness. It goes to prostate cancer, which I am a survivor. That's right. And the other cancer was testicular cancer. Yeah. Yeah. You know, men's health in general. Yeah, men's health issues, I was going to say.
00:02:01
Speaker
So help us out, because again, I didn't shave this for nothing. Yeah, we set a goal of 500 bucks. I thought I was being conservative. Yeah, Jeff shaved his mustache. Yeah. And I've been a little painful. Yeah, I saved this morning. It was good. Yeah, mine's getting darker as I get older.
Keith's Background & Heritage
00:02:23
Speaker
I think mine is the greatest mine. We should have added on the intro that you're from two bit woodworks. Oh yeah. We just skipped over conveniently Keith's last name because none of us knew how to correct. That's fine. I don't know how to pronounce it. Shownick. Shownick.
00:02:38
Speaker
German-Hungarian. We've got three Hungarians sitting at the table. That's right. No, don't include him. Rod's got a little bit of everything. He's got a little bit of everything. I've talked to a couple of people lately that are Hungarian and talking about... I've got a good amount of Hungarian. I'm just Slavic. Go Slavic.
Beer of the Week & Local Breweries
00:02:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I wasn't really raised by it's more of a blood than a cultural thing. I was telling these guys about chicken paprikash. Yeah. What about pot of chinkas? Yeah. Yeah. The first time I made chicken paprikash for my wife, she was like, uh, not eating that. Oh, so good. Ziggly goulash. Yeah. Yeah. My, my Nana, she would cook all the Hungarian stuff. The pot of chinkas are the best with a little grape jelly on the inside. It's like a crepe, like a Hungarian crepe.
00:03:24
Speaker
It's not that aspect stuff, is it? No, no, it's like a crepe. OK, don't think like that. It's like like a pancake. Yeah. Like the like head cheese, head cheese. I like that, too. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah. Jeff will eat anything, really. Well, if it's good. Yeah. Well, we usually ask our guests what they want to take part in, you know, and keep elected to bring the beer of the week. So that's got a great too. So yeah.
00:03:53
Speaker
We have a bonus gripe this week. I had all three, but I'll do it. Everybody loves to get a good gripe for everybody. That's okay, you're the guest. How are we doing this? Ooh. I like the looks of this one. Oh yeah, here we go. So it looks like it's cherry coke, but it's not. Okay, sir. Thank you, Keith. Yeah, yeah. Sneak box. Wow. Sneak box from Kane Brewing Company. Yeah.
00:04:19
Speaker
I, last place I lived before we moved to Howell, I lived in Ocean Township and right on Sunset Avenue, which is the main shop between Route 35 and Asbury Park. And right up the road from me on Sunset is Kane Brewing. Yeah, I've been there. Yeah, Kane's good.
00:04:37
Speaker
I used to work at this place in Highlands called Twin Lights App House. OK. And the owner, Mike, Mike Kane, he would come in and, you know, they'd bring in like special kegs and stuff. Really nice people. Brewed and canned in Ocean, New Jersey. Yeah, it's hard to find, though. If you don't go there, it's hard to crack it open and toast. And to find that place at one time, because it's like in any industrial park. Yeah. Yeah, there's like a granite place. Thank you.
00:05:04
Speaker
Picked a bad time to stop drinking. Yeah, we'll have to next week. Keith brought us a beautiful little bottle opener. We got, what, cherry maple walnut? Yep. Yeah. Is it my turn next week? We'll have a guest.
00:05:27
Speaker
I brought it last Rob's turn. Yeah, you know and these are nice and cold Keith. Yeah We got a fridge just to keep That's why everybody has a fridge in their shop Food
00:05:49
Speaker
It was too good of a deal to pass up on yeah, it was like brand brace basically brand new we wouldn't grabbed it 40 bucks for you know, it's like a $200 Wow, this is good. I guess we can't talk about it yet. But yeah, be quiet. They had another one. It was a
00:06:04
Speaker
I mean, the alcohol percentage is a little high. Yeah. Yeah. But they had one that was double that. It was almost eight percent. I was like, I don't think they made a bourbon barrel stout. I forget what it was called. It had a really long name and it was like twelve, twelve, thirteen percent or something. Yeah. High. Yeah. That's what it was. They only let me get it to have two. Yeah. I'm not cut out for that kind of stuff anymore. I have never been.
00:06:30
Speaker
All right. So we're going to get things started. And usually, again, in keeping with our forum, we ask our guests, how'd you get into woodworking?
Keith's Woodworking Journey
00:06:40
Speaker
So for me, woodworking has always been something that's kind of been in my hobby list. When I was a kid, you know, my father was very good with his hands. He did a lot of built ins. He built a lot of things.
00:06:57
Speaker
I used to have someone in my neighborhood that would open up his garage shop for kids during the holidays and or if they just wanted to to come over and you know build little duck planters or whatever and so that kind of just kind of always stayed with me when I was in the military I did a lot of carpentry when I got out I started doing more DIY doing some home renovation stuff with you know family
00:07:23
Speaker
And then just more of doing our home and then more projects and just fell in love with it, something that I really enjoy. That's usually a story from everybody you hear. They fall in love with it. In fact, one of the questions coming up is pretty interesting, which I'll save to later on about that whole concept.
00:07:44
Speaker
Because one of the things I got from, you know, just looking through your website and everything and it's a lot of good stuff on there. Everybody should check it out. Two Bitwood works. There's a bit of like a self-reliance theme. You know, you like doing stuff for yourself. The DIY thing. Absolutely. You take it to heart.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we just, you know, with all this craziness going on right now, we, we kind of like we want to get stuff done with this house. And we've been in it for a while, but we haven't really got anything done. And then with all this stuff going on, we're like, let's, let's do some projects in the house. Let's take this time and do some stuff in the house. And we ended up, I just finished the living room. We did the flooring, living room, dining room, new crown, baseboard.
00:08:27
Speaker
all the trim we did a faux shiplap wall and we're just we've been going through and just knocking out projects so it's it's been it's fun i like doing it myself which tells me you're not a full-time woodworker yet oh yeah i'm not yeah that's okay okay wait did you get to that it's like the shoemaker whose kids don't have shoes i didn't tell you when i started the project either oh you don't tell me i have a couple of projects i just finished when i was 18 years old yeah
00:08:58
Speaker
That's it. Yeah. Well, that's, that's how you get in and you learn and you make mistakes. And oh yeah. And that's, that's part of the joy of it too is, uh, you know, fearlessly stepping into the void, you know, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this, especially to try and pick up a couple of these skills that I don't have. Now my son's getting old enough where I can start to share that with him.
00:09:20
Speaker
Yeah. Two-bit. Yeah. He's my... He's bit... Three bits. No, he's actually bit two. He's bit two. Bit one's the dog, the first dog. My wife and the other new dog are kind of left out and company. Yeah, so where did you get the name Two-bit?
00:09:39
Speaker
It was just something we were thinking up. I do a lot of branding and web design, graphic design myself. That's just something I've always done. And I just kind of was playing with a couple of different names. And I'm just thinking of stuff. And I'm like, Oh, it's just, you know, some two bit hobby. And I was like, Oh, that's a great name. It would work. So
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean we I don't know how long we kicked around ideas and you really I mean you throw out some real crappy ideas when you're trying to you have to get those you have to get the bad ones out Oh, yeah until you get a good one I'm trying to think of what some of the other ones were
00:10:19
Speaker
You know what, I have complaint now because you guys never discussed the names with me. No, no, I love I love Green Street Joinery. And when I first what they told me that I said that I didn't know the other names. So be careful what you say now. Well, I just kidding. I think the origin of the name goes back to before we actually formed the company back when we were talking about. Yes, that's all. Yeah, it was before that.
00:10:44
Speaker
It was it was even before we had like Wright Works. Yeah, we were playing with first we came across a few. That's it. Like Woodwork type Frank. Well, it's like joinery. Yeah. And Half Moon Woodworks, which they're actually there is somebody with that name. Half Moon Point Point Pleasant restaurant bar. Yeah. Well, that was like Henry Hudson's the name of his boat or something. He landed right here. You know, when he
00:11:13
Speaker
I mean, the green is obviously for green and green. Yeah. But I think we just like the way it sounded, you know, like there's, you know, 49 street bagels and all this stuff. Yeah. It just kind of seems natural. It's got a ring. Yeah. I like it. Well, didn't you grow up like right here? On Green Street. On Green Street. In Jersey City. With an E. With a 30. I believe it was an E. Yes. Yeah. Well, in a Steely Dan song, they said, Down the Green Street.
00:11:41
Speaker
Driving into the old shop one day and I hear that I'm like, hmm. Yeah, but I do like 49th Street Bagels Confusion there and you're in you know, yeah labeling and walking so You know, it's funny because a lot of people they asked me what does joinery mean? You don't understand joinery
00:12:02
Speaker
It's more of like a UK kind of term, I think. Yeah. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, they're joiners over there. Yeah, the third E throws people all the time. Yeah. With emails, especially. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah, you know, Jeff at greenstreetjoinery.com and that's G-R-E-E-N-E. Green with an X. And it still goes, God knows, goes somewhere else. It's Greeny. Greeny Street. Yeah. Greeny Street. Yeah, I can't have my last name in any email at all. Right. Just like to send it to Keith at... You think you got it bad? What about Rich? Yeah.
00:12:32
Speaker
I think it took me about six months to finally learn the spelling. I mean, it's really it's not that easy, but but it's easy to disease those people. Yeah. Yeah. To phonetically like switch those around is pretty because you got three consonants at the front. Yeah.
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah, I get shoe. I get shoe Nick a lot. Yeah, I've gotten show Nick and shows Nick It's like those Irish names where the pronunciation is not phonetic at all. Yeah. Well, I mean not phonetic enough for us. Yeah
00:13:10
Speaker
Oh, that's pretty cool. So, you know, you just kind of gradually worked your way into the place you are now. Yeah, yeah. Slowly but surely. Yeah. So there's a couple of questions as Rich was. Yeah. I got curious on your answer with this one question that I'm thinking about it now, but I'm not going to tell you now. I'm going to wait till the question.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's always best to practice on your own stuff because you really you have the time to work out the kinks and put it to the side if you run into a problem where you're like, I really got to figure out how to do this. If you're not on on a time crunch and on a client's payroll, basically, you know, you have the time to really figure out how to do it the right way and not end up passing something off that's not.
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah, you want to see if something's going to stand the test of time. Yeah. You know, join rewise and that sort of thing. We, you know, we laugh all the time about our stories of trying to figure things out when we were first starting. And we make mistakes now. We just were good at covering up.
00:14:13
Speaker
Actually, one of the first big, big, bigger client projects I did was one of my coworkers lives down the street on Dogwood Terrace. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That is literally down the street. Yeah, it is literally. I just passed it. I'm like, oh, I know where this is. And then I did her daughter's closet. I turned it into a built-in. Okay. So, you know, like a normal sliding door closet. I took those doors off and built, made a built-in with shelves and drawers and
00:14:39
Speaker
It turned out really good. When you're building something, if you're building just a cabinet, it's one thing, it's freestanding, but when you're building something that has to be assembled in another slot, it's very, you can't really do a lot of filler strips.
00:15:00
Speaker
We do that a lot, you know, sometimes we'll have to make a few templates and you'll find out the house isn't square, straight, plumb. Yeah, I went over there like three or four times to get measurements just to be sure and did it in Sketchup and yeah. Yeah, that's something I wanted to talk to you about because I learned on Sketchup too.
SketchUp in Woodworking
00:15:20
Speaker
We're sort of trying to move Jeff's the most adept at Fusion 360, which is a more advanced
00:15:25
Speaker
drawing program. And I learned on SketchUp and it sort of changed my whole way of doing business because of the ability to present jobs. How does that affect your work?
00:15:40
Speaker
I mean, it's definitely, it gives the client a better idea of kind of, you know, what it's going to look like in the end. There were some options. Oh, I didn't know it was going to look like that. Or it can, you know, make this kind of alteration. And, you know, for me, with just even planning, you know, I've always been a sketcher. I've always done, you know, drafting, that kind of thing was very interesting to me growing up.
00:16:03
Speaker
So that precision for me is bar none. It's perfect for what I'm looking for. Right. And to finish a project and go back and compare and you're on the nose between the SketchUp and the actual product, it's just a little, you know, satisfying. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, the SketchUp does have sort of two main functions for us. One is we can build from it and it all depends on how detailed you get into the drawings. But
00:16:33
Speaker
As a presentation tool for somebody Hiring you to build something that doesn't exist. They're not picking it out of a catalog So you have to bring your ideas to them in some form or fashion. Yeah, and now you have this 3d platform and you can navigate through it. You could draw it to scale You could set it in there in their house in a sense. Yeah, absolutely
00:16:57
Speaker
Did you did you work at all with pencil and paper and presenting that idea? I have I started out with, you know, just pencil sketches and kind of, you know, two pictures of the room. And then you can kind of, you know, show different options with the pencil sketches. But
00:17:15
Speaker
You know, I usually not very long in pencil. I'm always because I'm a digital person. I've always been digital as far as, you know, I'm a graphic designer, web designer. Everything's digital. So for me, I work faster in that format than I do pencil sketching. I'll get frustrated in pencil sketching because I want everything perfect with a pencil sketch. So I get out the ruler. I'm like, this is stupid. I'm just going to get on the computer. I can get it done faster. So, you know, I usually end up going right to the computer, but.
00:17:43
Speaker
It's interesting. Yeah. Computers have changed the way most people do business and even in a field like ours, which is very traditional, you know, working with old time skills and materials and computers are integral to everything we do now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I might have two hours a day on the computer. Yeah. Yeah. You're basically that's just like a regular game computer guy, really. I'm usually about eight to 10. Wow. I can't. We say we start to get antsy than working in the shop. Like a tough day in the shop is not as hard as a tough day on the computer. Working at home is I notice I'm working more hours.
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah, with all this, you know, I'm usually go into the office, you know, our offices in Red Bank and, you know, being home is I'm definitely spending more time before work on the computer and more time after work on the computer. So, yeah.
00:18:44
Speaker
When do you generally do your woodworking? Nights and weekends, mostly weekends. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, sons and scouts, he's in soccer, so he's got lots of stuff going on, too. So we're shuffling back and forth. And there's some weeks where I just walk through the shop. You know, I'm like, I really should do that. I wish I should do that. You know, sometimes you got to give yourself a break. Yeah. You regenerate yourself. Yeah. I'm going to take a break in a couple of weeks.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Shoulder replacement surgery. Yes. Oh, me too. Except I get my foot replaced. There you go. Yeah. Give me a peg leg. Yeah. Getting a brand new shoulder. It's going to be fun. Oof. Yeah. Not looking forward to it, but you know. Yeah. You don't want to watch those videos online of the surgery. Nope. Or like a knee replacement. Yeah. No. I'd be looking at one of those and probably, I don't know. Yeah. 15 years.
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah. Two weeks from today. Wow. Yeah. When's two weeks from Monday? There you go. Where you going with hospital? East Orange. The VA hospital up in East Orange. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. We were actually joking because Rich isn't going to be able to drive because it's his right foot. And you're probably not going to be able to drive because it's your shoulder. We'll combine you guys together. We'll get a truck where the gas pedal's on one side and the steering wheel's on the other. Nice.
00:20:08
Speaker
I can use my left hand is just he'll shift. Yeah. You got to learn how to drive with your left foot. If the gas pedal was on that side, they is dangerous. Like putting a stick down there and trying to stick. You driving is dangerous anyway. Well, I'm old. It's New Jersey. It's all right. Yeah. Just stay in the right lane. Do 50 on the Parkway.
00:20:30
Speaker
Okay. We, we got a lot of stuff to get to today because, uh, I know you have, you know, it's kind of a timeline too, because you got something going on, uh, later on today. Yeah. Got another shoot with John. So we got something else to do. Okay. So we're getting back to, uh, uh, the tool of the week and, uh, it's Jeff's turn. So Jeff, take it away. What do you got for us? So this week I have this, my number six, hold that up.
00:21:01
Speaker
Number six, Fuller countersink. So this is a company in Rhode Island, I believe. You know, they make all kinds of drill bits and I guess I guess that's all they make. Different types of drill bits, counterbores, countersinks, all that kind of stuff.
00:21:21
Speaker
We drill a lot of countersunk holes here everything almost yeah, you know any Cabinet is gonna be screwed together
00:21:35
Speaker
You know, I mean, I use it to drill pilot holes for drawer slides, all that kind of stuff. I don't really use a Vix bit if I don't have to. So it's a nice American made bit. One modification I make is I actually I grind a flat spot on the drill bit itself so the set screws have a good spot to sort of grab into. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, that's the one thing about all these countersink bits is that
00:21:58
Speaker
When it gets gummed up, you know, the bit wants to spin and the countersink stops. So I took, I think I took the belt sander over there, ground a little flat spot. So now it doesn't spin anymore. Yeah, that's a good idea. How do you compare this to, let's say, your generic big box countersink?
00:22:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, aside from the fact that it's made, you know, in the U.S., which we really endorse and love. Yeah, the the countersink part stays sharper way longer. We've had like some DeWalt and, you know, I want to say like Irwin or something kind of countersinks sitting around the shop. They tend to get dull. You know, we're using all hardwood, oak, cherry, mahogany, that kind of stuff. So we need a drill bit that's going to last.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, if you're if you're just doing for, you know, cabinets and plywood where you're not going to see the screws, even though we countersink them, it's not that big of a deal if there's any kind of little fuzz or whatever. But on the hardwood, generally, there's there's a neatness factor involved. So those things got to be sharp.
00:23:08
Speaker
Yeah. And even, you know, where we get a little neurotic, even if the, even if you're not going to see it, I still want it to be, you know, a nice clean hole. Um, and you know, it's just nice to have a nice countersink. The bit is super sharp. It's actually a tapered countersink. So, um, you get a good bite with the screw. We use number six screws. So it's a, yeah, I like countersink the tapered too. What about you? Well, yeah, I loved it for a little bit, a little pricey, but I, they're worth it.
00:23:35
Speaker
It costs more to be made here. I mean, that's part of it. Yeah. You got to pay for what, you know, what you get. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have an Amana tool one with the little thing on it that stops. Yeah. Which is it's nice, but a couple of times it's actually marred the wood, which, yeah, that's not a good thing. Yeah. I have like the snappy version of that. And I think I use it a couple of times and same thing. You know, it's supposed to stop spinning, but sometimes it doesn't stop. And then you have a ring on the exactly.
00:24:04
Speaker
And this, I actually, I forget what I was doing, something that I probably shouldn't have been, I was using it really fast, a lot of holes, and I broke the bit and Fuller sent me out a bit. Oh yeah, that's right. You know, like same day. Yeah, it came within a couple of days. Yeah.
00:24:19
Speaker
It's it's a company gratis. Yeah. Yeah. I mean good luck getting that from DeWalt or I had the DeWalt the three pack of the six eight and ten or something and they all have like run out so you spin the bit and you know the tip wobbles and yeah, I mean I broke them all Within a very short period of time. Yeah, so there you go. Yeah, so spend the 25 bucks instead of 25 for three and
00:24:45
Speaker
And get the one made in Rhode Island. And you can sharpen those, not the bit itself, but the canister. There is a sharpener with a file. It's a nice tool. Yeah, I'm sure there is a way to... They have those drill bit sharpeners. I don't know if they do tapered bits. Yeah, I don't know either.
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah, but they sell replacement bits. Well, we're going to we're going to move to what's become a favorite of our guests.
Authenticity in Content Creation
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think everybody out there likes it because we all got them. Oh, yeah.
00:25:19
Speaker
So it's the gripe for the week, Keith, and you've been thinking about this. I have. I wasn't done. I was just going to do the beer, and then couldn't pass it up. Something must have happened recently. I saw something on YouTube, and it just kind of got to me.
00:25:37
Speaker
You know, I'm all about doing content creation and capturing your projects that are useful projects that you're doing for something or someone. And my gripe is the making a project just to make a project for a video.
00:25:57
Speaker
It's I've seen a lot of people doing it lately. And I know that there's a lot of money involved in ads and sponsors. And but it's just you look at the video and you're kind of like when and where are you going to use that? You know, and it's just I don't I don't get it to me. It's just it's like it's a gripe.
00:26:19
Speaker
You got an example of one. I'm curious. No, no. I was just curious. Well, it takes there are. But like I just there's so many just go on YouTube now. Yeah. Look at some of the bigger channels. I look at the reality shows that on TV and there's there's a perfect example of all the crap that's out there for what reason is just to make money. You know, it is right. Yeah. It's also it's a focus on self and.
00:26:42
Speaker
You could see from the stuff that you're doing on your site, you know, especially there's a definite emphasis on sharing, on doing things that you think are going to help others, whether it's shop organization, tips and tricks, that sort of thing. Yeah, a shop organization for me is huge. Like I'm in a 12 by 24 rounding up shop, you know, less than maybe about 250 square feet. But yeah, it's
00:27:11
Speaker
I need organization. I need things to do, you know, multiple different things. And, you know, for me, that's that's one big thing that I've enjoyed and people have enjoyed on my channel, you know, is different ways to save some space. And yeah. And for me, that's that's a fun thing to do. That's a third of our shop. Yeah. Yeah. We're 24 by 36. Quit bragging. Yeah. The three of us. So he's got about he's got about a 12 by 24.
00:27:38
Speaker
I mean, this thing is, that's nine square feet right there. If you have three of every tool, you know, then it might be even. Yeah, it's true. You know, we experience the same thing where you're always robbing Peter to pay Paul with the space.
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm trying to think of like an example offhand of something that I've seen, but it sort of takes away the authenticity, which is supposed to be the whole point of like being like a partner with a brand. You know, a lot of these people that are doing these one off videos of some unuseful whatever it is, right? You know, they're partnered with a brand and the whole the whole.
00:28:22
Speaker
point of these videos is supposed to be that it's an authentic opinion and use of the tool. They might say, I have this new drill from whomever and I'm using it to make this, you know, this thing that nobody would ever use. Right. You know, the whole idea between or the whole idea behind these types of videos is to show it in a real situation. Right. So it really co-ops the whole, you know, relationship. Yeah.
00:28:49
Speaker
I mean, you know, if I'm not going to make an epoxy cigar, hold it, you know, it's just some of these weird things. It's like, I just don't see. Yeah, it's just we have a question about epoxy. I don't use it. I haven't. Yeah, we use it for one specific thing, but not what most people are using it for. Yeah. I guess I don't want a question or ruin it. So let's respond. Let's
00:29:19
Speaker
You know, let's hear from you out there. What do you think about Keith's gripe? Do you agree, disagree even? You have any experience with it yourselves? Yeah. Thanks Keith. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. We have a sub gripe this week.
00:29:34
Speaker
Yeah, this one came out because of what happened on a project that we were working on. And my gripe is basically not only with this particular paint store, but in general, that people that are in areas to help you don't have a freaking clue what they're talking about.
00:29:54
Speaker
Yeah, I get that all the time. With this one particular paint store, I'm not going to mention its name. It's in Middletown. And we're not talking big box. We're talking about where, you know, you would expect a little bit more knowledge. Yes. Professional tradesmen go to get their materials. There's two main paint brands, and this is one of them. Yeah, we put this special paint, which unfortunately, well, not fortunately, a specific type of sealer.
00:30:22
Speaker
to be used with it. And the gentleman gave us the wrong sealer. In fact, when we when we talked about it was going to be for Sapili, he asked, what kind of room is that? So he had no clue what Sapili was to begin with. And that that was this just happened recently. That's on us. We shouldn't run away. I say that's my son's favorite word. He knows that would pick him out and he's he's built projects. He's like, can I use that?
00:30:48
Speaker
The first time we ran into a problem with him is was we were looking for a application to use to paint with. And he says, oh, no, you got to get these velour rollers. They had best their best things around. And we used them and they were horrible. Really? You could do it with a brush. Yeah. They were horrible.
00:31:10
Speaker
We have a few if you want to take some home. I heard they're great. I didn't see any over there. No, but it's like that. It's like that. Any store you go to the big box stores, the construction or the home center stores out there and just people out there don't have a clue what they're talking about. But there's three guys in there that should know what they're talking about. That's all they sell is that stuff.
00:31:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean right on the can of, so we're using the color code as this one specific line of Alkyd enamel paint or whatever. Right on the can it says use this primer with it.
00:31:48
Speaker
Well, he gave us a completely different primer and a primer that doesn't even work with sapele. Yeah. So now this morning, you know, all the parts through the sander. Luckily we have this sander, which we just fixed. You got to say in the entire project about the fifth time, still breaks my heart a little bit that you're painting it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the client. I know. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah, so we had to run everything through the sand, get it back down to the wood, and I had to brush the oil-based primer on today. It's supposed to take five hours to dry, but it was pretty dry. It actually feels chalky, too. It feels like a primer.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This primer was gummy. Yeah. Super gummy. And the pieces would stick together after days to like three or four days. We kept saying to each other, something's not right here. Yeah. And Jeff, you know, the writing is so tiny. He's the only one that could actually see the print on the can. And he's looking through it and he comes across this line of information. And that was last night. Yeah.
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I can't say that we're 100 percent, you know, not to blame. Right. We could have done our homework. Right. But as guys that don't really do a lot of painted work, we're going to this store with the name on the store, you know, who we.
00:33:11
Speaker
Sell their paint and say this is the best paint. This is what we use We're relying on them to give us the correct information And you know these guys are there just punching the clock because they had they're clueless that won't happen again But you know the gentleman I spoke I went to a different paint store same brand, but one in Point Pleasant Okay, and the guy was very helpful. I explained to him I I said superior, but I said it's like like mahogany and
00:33:35
Speaker
and as a very tannic type of wood. And he said, oh, no, you can't use even the sealer that was on the can to use. He said, don't use the oil base sealer. It'll hold the tannins down. So and he was it was great. It was great. Yeah.
00:33:50
Speaker
We'll call you brothers. Thank you. We have one in Hamilton. John Peters, who you're going to see later on. He asked that question. He wanted to know about it. So that's the whole story.
Rapid-Fire Questions with Keith
00:34:07
Speaker
If you have a job, try and do the best job you can. Don't phone it in. IT support and everything.
00:34:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's your job. Like, don't send me a link to go research it on my own. Well, that's the thing. I mean, we could have, but the whole thing is we try and network, we share our knowledge with others. And we were hoping that we were going to get a little of that, you know, reciprocation. Exactly. It just didn't happen this time around. Yeah, this is the paint story. You need to know about wood and what woods go with what paints. I mean,
00:34:43
Speaker
because you're selling the paint. When we sell the wood, we know about the wood. Yeah, that's right. So a little frustrating, but we're not out too much time, I guess. I could say it's on Route 35, but they're both on Route 35. So I think every single one of them is on Route 35. It's not giving away. Route 9, one of the two. Also on the 88. Well, that other big paint store is on 35 on the other side, I think. Exactly. As I was saying, I'm not giving away who it is.
00:35:11
Speaker
I want to say it, but I'm not going to say it. They're in New Jersey. Yes. Which brings us to our, uh, it is one of my favorite and when you get a little bit more, uh, revealing with these questions later on down the road, uh, 20 quick, uh, fire questions. Uh, you have one word answers. We don't need an explanation. We just want a one word answer. So I'll go off a coffee, a tea coffee.
00:35:35
Speaker
12 volt or 18 volt? 18. Boxers, briefs. Both. Boxer briefs at the same time. Coverage. You kind of answered this question, painted or stained? Stained. Summer or winter? Fall. Or winter. I'll take winter, but yeah. 16 foot or a 25 foot tape measure? 16. Cheetos, crunchy or puffed?
00:36:01
Speaker
I heard this one. I'm going to say crunchy. And cheese doodles, not Cheetos. Cheese doodles are better. Regular or mechanical pencil? Mechanical. Seinfeld or office? Office.
00:36:18
Speaker
Square Drive or Phillips, or Slotted. Square. I like the star though, like John. It's creeping in. The star is creeping in. Yeah, Builders General, which is more of like a family-owned supply house around here. They have, I think, like four or five locations. All the deck screws about four years ago went from square to star. Yeah, Home Depot's like that, and Lowe's, they're all star now.
00:36:47
Speaker
I'm a Phillips guy. Does it go on for you? Windows or Mac? Mac. Push saw, pull saw. Pull saw. Sicilian pie, corner edge or the center? Edge. That's interesting. No more questions on the pie. Flat panel or raised panel? Flat. Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate.
00:37:16
Speaker
10 inch or 12 inch miter saw? 12. You'd rather go to the beach or the mountains? Mountains. All right. Quarter saw or rift? Quarter. Pizza or Chinese? Sure. That's one word. That's one word. You can tell we think about food a lot. Yeah.
00:37:40
Speaker
Well, we're going through the questions. Every idea we have relates to that's funny. Well, then I got a little too. We know we can't think we couldn't get digress real quick. I've watched the Halloween candy things. Yeah, I get it. Chamfer or round over. Last question. Chamfer.
00:38:01
Speaker
All right. Yeah. Well, you remember everything. Good work. Good work. We have proof positive of that this afternoon. We're getting more and more questions. And this is really, this is really a fun topic. Uh, and be like, be like the president's, uh, the, uh, nothing. What am I looking for? The, uh, the debates stick to the subject, please. Don't go wandering off into a no man's land.
00:38:29
Speaker
Yeah, we got a lot of late questions. As always, they all come in like, you know, two hours before we sit down. And we appreciate them. And some I have specifically for Keith here. Yeah. This one's a general
Favorite Project & Community Impact
00:38:40
Speaker
question. What's your favorite project you built? This is from Jordan.
00:38:45
Speaker
from Jordan4jz on Instagram. I'm going to have to say it was the frame that I did earlier this year for the Makers for Jesse Foundation. The Jesse Combs Foundation. So me and one other person started talking last year
00:39:06
Speaker
about, you know, kind of doing something for Jesse, you know, we had an extra picture and I was like, Oh, why don't we just frame it and give it off to charity and her name's Tamara. She said, well, you know, we can get a whole bunch of people together and have them all make frames and then we could make a lot of money and
00:39:27
Speaker
donate that to the foundation. So her and I are kind of the founders of Makers for Jesse. And we did an auction earlier this year. We raised over thirty five hundred dollars. Nice. We had myself. I did wood. Tamara did leather. Savannah Rose did. She did metal. Jess Crow from Crow Creek. She did a epoxy.
00:39:55
Speaker
and Jimmy DiResta did metal. So we got some big names in there. That was a cool frame. Yeah, that was a big, big project for me. That was a lot of different woods. First time working with a frame that size and it was a big kind of high visibility project. Yeah. Nice.
00:40:14
Speaker
Yeah, it was interesting. That was my favorite. It turned out great and it was kind of hard to see it go. Yeah, we talk about that too. The emotional investment and then you get attached to things. Yeah, and you know, to Darren who won the auction, you know, he was a friend of Terry who was Jesse's
00:40:36
Speaker
partner and the, you know, he, I said to him, like, Hey, I got to see a picture of this thing. You know, I feel like I should check in on it. How's it going? Is it split? That's funny. Cause it ties into a question that we have coming up, but I explained a little bit about Jesse and who she was and for people that don't know.
00:40:58
Speaker
So Jesse, she has been on TV for a long time. She's, you know, was on. I remember watching her on four by four and Spike TV. She was on MythBusters. I think she was on MythBusters. Maybe that's Tamara. But I mean, she's been on.
00:41:14
Speaker
overhauling. She's just been very big into the kind of women's empowerment and inspiring and engaging. You know, it doesn't matter who you are, what gender you are, you can do whatever you want, you know, get out there and just do it. And, you know, for me, that was that was a great thing, you know, then she's always been someone I've looked up to. So to be able to give back to that foundation is
00:41:43
Speaker
It's been great. Yeah, that's what I remember most from is the like, yeah, those Saturday, Saturday or Sunday morning, like, you know, car shows on Spike. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She actually she passed away in a jet car. She's trying to break her own record or the record for fastest line speed. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah.
00:42:08
Speaker
That's a, you know, that was a sudden. Yeah. Yeah. I remember hearing about that right when it happened. Yeah. You have a favorite project, Rich? I can't remember all the projects. You know what? Every time I get a new, I start a new project using my favorite. Yeah. But I liked that doing that blanket chest I did recently. Yeah. That was really nice. And it was probably, but all those other projects, sometimes it's just,
00:42:35
Speaker
When you're a furniture builder, well, even a cabinet maker industry, so you build a lot of
00:42:42
Speaker
wall units and they're kind of generic after a while. So it's probably the furniture pieces that give you more, give me more meaning to what I'm doing. And that was one of them. I remember I did a blanket chest in a corded white oak for someone. And to this day, I don't remember the design, but I liked it. Jeff, do you believe that? Hard to believe.
00:43:11
Speaker
Now, I kind of agree with you, though, you know, my favorite project, I can't put my finger on, you know, one specifically. Usually it's whatever the new project is because you tend to get a little fizzled out towards the end of a long project, especially when you get into the minutia of adjusting doors and putting on hardware and that kind of stuff. So what I enjoy most is the, you know, really getting into the beginning of a project and and getting all the big, big parts knocked out.
00:43:41
Speaker
For me, and I'll limit it to the time we've been together, it's definitely the altar rail that we did at St. Anthony's. Yeah, that was cool. One for the creativity. We were allowed in the design and then the installation, how it all went in. But really because it was our first like big, big job, you know, and I remember the excitement. That's like, wow, man, this is this is great launching the business and that this job rolls in right away and
00:44:11
Speaker
Well, that's what's interesting about this. What we do is that it's not. They're not. We don't do the same thing. No. So everything changes all the time, which is always always picture and trust. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's me from retiring. All right. So I'll read the next question and.
00:44:33
Speaker
So I'll address it to Keith first. What's your use of epoxy glues in your workshop from Jack Thornton? Zero. Every once in a while you'll need to glue, you know, something into a handle, but not very often. Yeah.
00:44:52
Speaker
Yeah, well, I could let Jeff answer this because we don't, I don't use it that much. Jeff could speak for all of us on this. Yeah, I mean, really, our main use is, you know, we have a can of West system around for filling, you know, not holes. That's really it. We don't keep big knots in projects.
00:45:11
Speaker
You know, so if there's a small knot, we'll use a little tinted epoxy to fill that. We just used some recently to repair a table, which we don't we don't do repair work. But we got an email from someone and decided to. It was a nice big name. Yeah. Well known sort of family. So we went, we fixed the Rockefell's.
00:45:34
Speaker
Like the family? It wasn't the Clintons. No, not an Italian last name. So yeah, we repaired this table, this farm table that was in total disrepair, this big, you know, camel hump table. So we glued the tenon back into the leg where it had, you know, over time had broken free of like the the dowels.
00:46:01
Speaker
So we will use it on something like you said where we need to glue a piece of metal into wood or something like that Typically, it's not for a project. It's more for like shop kind of stuff. Yeah, we glued the end back on to a and it of course it failed like a couple days later But glued the end back on to a vacuum hose stuff like that so not a lot of woodworking use but
00:46:26
Speaker
You know, we definitely use it. Yeah, it's it's there when when nothing else will work that epoxy is there and and we'll pull it out. But you notice recently a lot of people are using epoxies now in the woodworking field. He has a design. Yeah, yeah. Color it and then stick it in his livewood slab and all that. Yeah, it's a trend. Sure. It seems to be waning a little bit. The trend, the trend. I mean, I hate to
00:46:55
Speaker
sound like a dick but like I mean come on it's it's too much yeah it's bad for the environment and it's not gonna you know age well it's very thing it's not tested like you have a two inch thick walnut slab table
00:47:13
Speaker
It's not going to go anywhere. You have a two inch thick epoxy table that's with wood and other like how do you know that in 20 years this is going to last because it's epoxy. It can still break away from like there's no.
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we know that the wood is going to move. Right. So what's the epoxy going to do? Yeah, the epoxy is not moving, I don't think. Let the wood breathe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not mix all this like petroleum product in with our nice natural wood. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.
00:47:46
Speaker
Why don't you address the next is again, this is straight to key. Oh, yeah. So this is from our buddy while Willie who we had on last week. Sorry about the terrible audio. He said, is there longevity in content creation? Do you think it's becoming too oversaturated?
00:48:02
Speaker
I think that comes down to my gripe a little bit. I think, you know, it's I am all about like, you know, with John's channel, I always use his channel as an example, because he's got a billion videos. And there and it's not like one thing, it's on a bunch of different things. And that's what I'm trying to do with mine is, you know, I'm doing a lot of shop, but you know, I've got a lot of stuff filmed on, you know, a lot of the home repairs and how to do this and that. And
00:48:30
Speaker
You know, if it's for a purpose, you know, I'm doing a project anyway, I might as well fill it, uh, film in. And when I first got into this a couple of years ago into, you know, Instagram and YouTube, I had someone, uh, Chris Zeppieri from Make Everything shop up in New York.
00:48:47
Speaker
And I bought his old table saw from him and you know, he kind of like took me on his wing and kind of guided me on what to do and introduced me to Jimmy DiResta and you know, I kind of met with him at all these different events and you know, he kind of said, if you're doing a project,
00:49:04
Speaker
And you're like, Hey, I wonder if someone could, you know, learn how to do this or would want to know how to do this. Film it. And if it's good, use it. If it's not, you filmed it. What do you know? It's no big deal, but film everything. And my wife reminds me of that all the time. She's like, you know, I'm like, Oh, I'm doing this. She's like, did you film it? I'm like, I just want to get it done. Like I'll film it another time. We're doing this shiplap wall. Did you film it? No, it's a 25 foot wall. I'm not filming it.
00:49:34
Speaker
I'll do it on the bedroom wall at eight by 10. You know, there you go. There you go. Sounds like me when we were first really trying to push ourselves to, you know, become more active on Instagram. I don't always look at these guys. I'm like, did you just film what you were doing video? It's hard. It's it's it's.
00:49:54
Speaker
Mentally, it's very tiring to try and film all these things that you're doing. You know, we're used to just putting our head down and working. Yeah. So to try and set up a camera or your phone and film it and stay, you know, in frame. I mean, it's tough. Yeah. Yeah. The only insight I had to the process before we started trying to do it here was
00:50:17
Speaker
years ago, I guess probably around 1990, 1991 or so, and I was doing some work with the Sierra Club, so it was all volunteer stuff.
00:50:31
Speaker
just by chance because they didn't tell us about it beforehand. Norm Abrams came out to see what we were doing up there in Wyoming. And you could see how they did the show because this was for one of those excerpts that they put into New Yankee Workshop and such. And the director would say,
00:50:52
Speaker
All right, Norm, go over there and scoop out a little bit of that log. We're working with logs. And then say something like, uh, yeah. And if you hold your ax in this way, you'll find it much easier. And then Norm will go over there and they'd roll the camera and he'd do it. And generally it was like one or two takes and that was it. Then they'd set up for the next shot and they just moved through the job in that fashion. Yeah.
00:51:20
Speaker
I like the process, I like the editing kind of thinking about it. I do agree, and I say this all the time and I don't ever do it, is a schedule. As far as what projects you have coming up, which ones you want to film, what parts you want to film. I think prep on that is huge and important.
00:51:43
Speaker
Keeping those videos and kind of breaking them out to use them is also beneficial. It's all about the prep work for that. Yeah. You know, if they had it storyboarded in a way. Absolutely. They didn't know exactly what would happen, but the director had a whole thing. It's like, OK, now we're going to move to this. Yeah. And you got to be your own director a little bit, you know, and I enjoy that part of, all right, these are the steps that I'm going to take to do this project and
00:52:13
Speaker
You know, OK, if I don't get this shot, I'm going to be doing it 15 other times. I could do it on one of the other ones or if that didn't turn out right or, you know, do it from different angles. And, you know, so it adds a little bit to it. You know, you want to keep those videos like 10 minutes. But so do you have any thoughts on on like the gist of the question? Do you think the market is oversaturated with all this content creation?
00:52:37
Speaker
I don't know. I would say, I would say no, just for the fact that everybody does something different. Um, like you guys do your thing. John does everything. You know, there's a lot of people. That's John Peters. You know, and I think everybody kind of has their niche, you know, or niche.
00:53:00
Speaker
I don't think it's oversaturated. I think if you want to go and find something, you're going to find one person who does it well and you would go and watch that one. You know, there's plenty of people out there. I don't know if it's oversaturated.
00:53:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean I'm no expert on content creation or I don't even know if I would consider us content creators at this point, not to say that we don't have aspirations to do some content creation, but I think it's really just in its infancy.
00:53:34
Speaker
I think it's really the future of marketing and even, not TV, but I mean, I watch YouTube, I don't really watch TV. So I have all these different accounts that I follow and most of them aren't even woodworking related. So I consume a lot of non-woodworking related content from content creators. So I think it's really just getting started and you're gonna see more and more of it as time goes on.
00:54:02
Speaker
I'm constantly amazed at how much stuff is out there I play music and I love all the gear and the gizmos that go with it and so I have All these pedals and stuff to go my guitar and like I had a cry baby Wow one of the old traditional ones and I wanted to make it a true bypass which means the signal goes and
00:54:28
Speaker
through the pedal without going through the circuit when it's in the off position and add a little light. So all I do is type in
00:54:36
Speaker
you know, Adam on a cry baby. Why? True bypass and on off LED. And up comes a video of some guy leading me through step by step how to do it. And it's creepy, you know, it was I did it. It was I was like, I can't believe this. Yeah, it's definitely the info age. Yeah. You know, if you want to find out how to do something,
00:54:59
Speaker
Someone has done it. Yeah, and that they're sharing it is really cool. That's why not sure Yeah, I think the beauty of it too is like what I was touching on before with the authenticity Like that guy that made that video
00:55:13
Speaker
he was probably just doing, he was going to do it anyway, even if he wasn't a content creator, because he loves working on pedals and doing this stuff. So he just wanted to share it with someone. So you find all this super genuine stuff where people really know what they're talking about versus, you know, you watch a, let's say a show on the DIY network or HDTV, those people, I mean, they're not necessarily scripted. Right. Yeah. And they don't care that much. It's just a job. It's got that house built in two days. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's like the guy at the paint store where it's just their job.
00:55:42
Speaker
But this guy this guy loves working on pedals, so you're gonna get the passion is there yeah, so you get better info It's more engaging for the people to watch so and I wouldn't know how to do it So he doesn't skip over any of the stuff. It's not self focused. It's let me show you how to do this. Yeah, yeah
00:56:01
Speaker
Yeah there's I'm sure there's enjoyment from the people creating the content because like we put out a little video of cutting rough lumber on the miter saw and a bunch of people were like wow like I had no idea and it's like that's really cool like this is just like every day stuff for us. Yes little tips you think about it and it's like oh that's that's cool. Yeah so it's nice to be able to share something with people that don't necessarily know
00:56:25
Speaker
I don't think it's, you know what, I just, I thought it was saturated, but now I'm thinking about it. It's not, and a perfect example, not into woodworking, but I built a model tanks. And I was talking about this one time, applying Zimmerit to a German tanks that were built in 1943, 1944. Zimmerit is an anti-magnetic paste that they used to put on the tanks. So nobody would put a mine on, a magnetic mine on the tank.
00:56:54
Speaker
But they are really no good videos out there. And I've watched a couple of them, but nothing worked. So there is stuff out there that can be useful if somebody takes the time and says, this is the exact way to go about doing it. Because I tried the techniques they showed me and they weren't working.
00:57:16
Speaker
Yeah. So now you did you you figured it out like how to do it? No, I'm still still waiting for that. I was going to say, you need to make a video out. Yeah, put it online. Yeah. Filming because you're going to help that next guy and then. Yeah, absolutely. And that's that's just being, you know, enjoying what you're doing and kind of putting something out that someone gets something out of. I've got that a lot is. Well, that's a great idea or, you know, little things like that. I really enjoyed this. That helped out. This is perfect. Yeah. You know.
00:57:41
Speaker
Not a huge channel, but it's nice to get that, you know, you don't always know what's going to hit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's certain things like that frame. I did the frame build and that video just flopped.
00:57:53
Speaker
but like other videos like a French cleat walls. Yeah, I like that. I saw like really that. I'm like, no, that's good. That's good stuff. You've said that pictures that we've posted on things that we weren't really impressed with people. Oh, we love that. Shop shop stuff is by far gets a lot more views than other projects. I did some of my buddies RV cabinets. Same like nothing.
00:58:20
Speaker
but build a shop piece of furniture. Everybody's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we'll put up a picture of something that we love and we think, yeah, people are going to really like this. And then like you said, it flops. And then just a filler picture of something you're like, I haven't posted on Instagram in a couple of days. I better put something up. And all of a sudden, you know, it hits and has like, you know, 200, 300 likes or whatever. Keith Johnson's little screwing in a little, uh, threaded nut.
00:58:49
Speaker
Oh, like a threaded insert on it. Threaded insert. If I see one more of these threaded insert. He's the start. He's the Jersey guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's a really good guy and two Keiths, me and him. And yeah, he did that the first time and it was just like, everybody's just like, oh, it's amazing. And now you can see every once in a while you see one come up and you're like, all right, it's not new.
00:59:12
Speaker
Again, that's one of those things where for us, that's just an everyday, put it in the threaded insert. But for people that don't know, it's this like aha sort of moment. Magic. Yeah.
00:59:25
Speaker
Yeah, which I mean, we're we're on YouTube all the time, or at least I know I am. If we run into an issue, first place I go, Google YouTube, how to whatever. Yeah. And the paint sprayer. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, with this paint sprayer, we got how to set it up, how to run it, clean it. I mean, there's a real wealth of knowledge out there where it's at your fingertips. I just figured out how to work some smoking paraphernalia today, which I wasn't aware of. So
00:59:52
Speaker
Well, they did just legalize marijuana in New Jersey. They did. So so the answer for for Willie is no. No, I don't think it is. And wait and see. Yeah. So what's what's this next question here? You want to read it, Jeff? Yeah, we're on the next page now. Yeah. So this is from Dave Miller. He's Blue Gerson, Blue Gerson on Instagram. What is your go to style for joinery, simplicity versus looks versus strength?
01:00:20
Speaker
Um, I guess it depends on a project shop projects. It's just, it's all about strength. Um, you gotta handle the weight. So it's, you know, either straight screws and glue or pocket holes. Um, you know, with other furniture though, I think it would be glue and even biscuits would be good.
01:00:41
Speaker
It's John Peter's favorite. I like this. I mean, when you don't have a biscuit man, when you don't have a joiner, a domino, I had a biscuit joiner. Yeah. Biscuit joiner does have its place. Yeah. We, uh, we get a little snarky about it, but that's just because it's all in fun. You made me take it out of the shop.
01:01:02
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's fine. We have limited space room in here. You can't have a domino and a biscuit joiner. Right. What do you think, Rich? What do you think? I kind of agree with Keith. It's it depends on the project. If it's a shop project.
01:01:20
Speaker
Not everybody is like that. Speaking to somebody who likes to build all his shop project to make a look like a piece of furniture. Yes, that's a standing cart right there. If you look to my bench, everything's just put together with plywood. No, no edge sanded or anything like that. So if it's going to be in a shop, it's down and dirty.
01:01:44
Speaker
If it's something for a customer, it has to be sturdy and the joinery has to look good, too. Yeah, we do all dovetail draw boxes in all our kitchens, all our kitchen cabinets. Yeah, yeah. That's I'll say it's a combination of appearance, looks and strength for us. Simplicity.
01:02:06
Speaker
I don't know if that ever really comes into the question. I mean, if we're doing a big job and then we have to sort of cost it out, we'll of course weigh that in. It's like, how long is it going to take us? You know, can the customer afford to pay this price for it? But when we're engineering a job, it's going to be build it to last. And then, you know, now how do we make it look good? Right.
01:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would say to generalize our most common joinery style would be like a stub tenon because that's how we build all of our doors and drawers. So stub tenons that are just glued. I've been seeing guys put dominoes in stub tenons. I'm not really quite sure what the purpose of that is. I mean, people have been building doors with stub tenons for a long time with no issues. We don't really make the tenon bigger.
01:02:59
Speaker
Yeah, we'll do breadboard ends on all the traditional stuff that's been proven to work. That's basically our guide. Yeah, why reinvent the wheel? Right, right. Yeah, dovetails. So yeah, I mean, simplicity, I would say is more of like a cost factor.
01:03:18
Speaker
for the client, you know, where we could stick in some type of intricate joinery. You know, you have to you have to gauge the job and see, you know, what you can do. But, you know, simple mortise and tenon stub tails. That's really our bread and butter, I would say.
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, and we're kind of set up in the shop to do that. So in a way, that is simplicity for us, like our tooling and our our our knowledge and skill base is all set up to cut those joints. So do you do those all by hand, dovetails? Or do you have like a we use a router? OK, so we have like a simple template. Yeah, Keller, Keller jig, Keller. Yeah, a lot of them out there, like Porter cables. Yeah, this is a much more simple. Oh, yeah. This is amazing. Non adjustable. Just one set up.
01:04:02
Speaker
We've all gone through this circle. I started with the Keller as my very first jig and I went through, I thought, this is too simple. There's got to be something better, more elaborate. I went through all of them all the way up to the, the lead jig that comes with like the 200 page manual.
01:04:20
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's like $7,000. Yeah, it went through that and came all the way back around to the lead jig, which I think is the best, cuts the best, most consistent through dovetails out of any of the jigs. I'll say that. The Keller jigs. Yeah, the Keller. I'm sorry. A hundred out of a hundred times. The lead jig has some idiosyncrasies to it that
01:04:45
Speaker
I think the setup is more difficult because I've used a lead jig. I still have someone sitting in my crawl space. So we do all of our drawers with the Keller jig.
01:04:56
Speaker
And cutting the dovetails is quick. It's just making a drawer box is so many steps. It's not just cutting the dovetails. Yeah, and you know, we build everything with through tails, which is, you know, to me, the whole idea between half blinds are you can just stick your bottom sort of anywhere. And I feel like that's why a lot of guys go with that. But you're definitely getting more strength out of a through dovetail. And to me, it definitely looks better. Yeah. And they're three quarter inch.
01:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, we have to we have to place the bottom at a very specific point. So there's some more sort of stringent size limitations. Yeah. And most of the drawers are, you know, in a kitchen or something like that. So you're using mechanical slides, the amount, everything's got to go a certain spot.
01:05:44
Speaker
Yeah. So we have, I think it's hanging up over there, like four sort of standard size drawers that we make. That way we have one stop set up on the jig and we can butt the piece to the stop and then it'll end up equal. Yeah. There you go. All right. Here we go. Next question. These are, these are pretty good questions this week. I have to say, how did you start selling projects and getting clients? This is from Kevin Lauck.
01:06:11
Speaker
Oh, I'd say it's a lot of its word of mouth. You know, it starts with family and friends. Yeah. I think those are always going to be your first clients. What was your first job? Your first paid job from a stranger?
01:06:25
Speaker
stranger yeah how'd you get that job woodworking job make it more difficult yeah it's just it was a Facebook post and someone kind of called me and said hey can you do this and it was like yeah yeah I could do that and then you know for how much I'm like what's your budget yeah
01:06:51
Speaker
Sure, I could deal for that. You know, it's one of those. Yeah, just kind of want to get stuff made sometimes, you know, and I'm like I said, I'm, you know, a couple weeks ago, he's ever talking about hobbyists versus full time. And, you know, obviously, I'm 100% a hobbyist person. So for me, and you know, I'm not, I don't ever try to take anything away from anybody. But, you know, if someone that I know comes to say, can you do this? And yeah, all right, you know, maybe I'll mark it up a little bit. But
01:07:16
Speaker
You know, for me, it's about the project and working with my hands and kind of if I can record it, there you go. Bonus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a win-win for everybody. Yeah, absolutely. You get to do what you love and and, you know, somebody gets to have that nice piece in their house.
01:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to do something once on Facebook and just say, Hey, these are three projects. If you, you know, if someone wants one, you can just pay for the materials and just kind of, just to kind of get the, my word, you know, the name out there. Right.
01:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, we've done stuff like that, like for Mike over at Big Mike's, you know, we we said the big red star, you know, we love to like build your table and like you just pay for the material. We'll build it. You know, it's good for you. It's good for us. People come in. They say, wow, look at that table. Who made it? Green Tree made it so.
01:08:10
Speaker
But now with COVID, nobody's going into the store. I tried to do that. We got a brewery going in and how and I went over there and tried messaging him and like, hey, if you need anything, I'd love to work with you. You know, just product costs, material costs just to kind of, you know, help you make those flight boards.
01:08:32
Speaker
anything like $300 in material. I guess it's a target for 150 bucks. Come on. But you know, I got no response. Whatever. And I was like, Oh, good luck. You're still on open and it's been a year and a half. So yeah, no response. I can relate to that. Yeah. The no response is the, is the most common response nowadays it seems. Yeah.
01:08:54
Speaker
So how did we, I mean we kind of relied upon all our old contacts. When we formed, we just made the phone calls to all the people we'd worked for in the past as individual, you know, cabinet makers and woodworkers. But I kind of started out just the way you did.
01:09:16
Speaker
Um, it was just almost on a whim. I said, eh, you know, what's the worst that could happen? And I put a sign in my front yard and somebody hired me with the infamous sign. Yeah. Yeah. That was it. Um, not the reflexology sign, but it was, it was a little bit of luck.
Turning Hobby into Business
01:09:34
Speaker
Yeah. Fortunate timing, being in the right place at the right time. And, you know, I used to first couple of years, I used to pinch myself and say, wow, I can't believe I'm still going that I didn't have to go back to my old one of my old professions. I mean, that's the goal is to, you know, turn this hobby into something. Right. It's hard. You know, it's yeah, it's hard now right now. So it's, you know,
01:10:01
Speaker
It's hard with the times that we're going through. It's definitely if you're looking to start a woodworking business now, it's not easy. Now's not the time to. Yeah. And the company I work for is I've been with them since I got out of the army in 2004.
Career Reflections & Workplace Changes
01:10:17
Speaker
So minus three years in the city because I had to go to the city and be a designer in the city. Why not? But, you know, I've been with them for so long. Their family.
01:10:27
Speaker
And, you know, they're really great. They're like a great company to work for. That's awesome. Yeah. I'm very, very blessed. You don't want to take any of that to them. That's so you can imagine. Slurry creative in a red bank. Gotcha. I think I've heard that name. Yeah. West front street. They used to be a neat town. We did a lot of contract work for mom. I was a contractor for mom. My wife was an employee.
01:10:52
Speaker
government employee. That's how we met. Nice. So, yeah, now everything's torn down and it's just building condos. I installed some cabinets in one of those condos. Yes. I mean, it's a little like my son went last summer, not this past summer, some before with the Fort Mama summer camp.
01:11:08
Speaker
So for me, it was kind of cool because, you know, we can go in there and I was like, oh, this is where that's where I met your mom. And I used to walk around that building and now the building is gone. And so a lot of history just changes.
Personal History with Fort Mamas
01:11:22
Speaker
But it full circle because now I'm doing a website at the company for a bowling alley that's coming to Fort Mamas. Well, the alley at the Ford, they're redoing it and we're doing their website and it's
01:11:34
Speaker
It's a fun project because I've been there. And now it's kind of seen it come full circle and they're repurposing it, which is always great. You know, so that for me is, you know, kind of keeping that history alive. And it's nice. Yeah, that's a that was a long road to go when they opened it up finally to go through to get to the other side of it's such a I thought it was just short. But I'm running on, I'm running, running. Wow. Look at this is pretty long and I know what a bowling alley is. Yeah.
01:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, I've never gone in on that. I guess it would be like the south entrance or whatever the south. And then there's the Charles Woods area, which the Charles Woods area is kind of where Trinity is now.
01:12:19
Speaker
I've gone in like through Oceanport, like Branch Avenue. I've gone in that side. That's like the back. Yeah, I've never gone into like that main entrance. That was closed for a long time. When I first got out, I was still going to the PX in the commissary there when that was still open.
Company Shifts & Family Impact
01:12:34
Speaker
I mean it looks a lot better now that they sort of like started to keep up with the grass. You know it's kind of one of those you know the the weird New Jersey when you see kind of things abandoned and yeah and it's funny because my wife was actually at Fort Monmouth today because she works for a construction company and they're doing some piping some water pipes there on the fort and she was standing on they did like a site visit.
01:12:58
Speaker
And she was standing out in front of her old office building and my old office building. So it was kind of like, yeah, it's neat when you see all these little tie ins, you know, it's kind of like nice history lesson. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of jobs lost when they closed. Oh, yeah. I know people that, you know, like whose parents worked there and now work in like Maryland. So they commute to Maryland weekly. Everybody I work for. I mean, my whole company, the company Solari, it was just
01:13:26
Speaker
I mean, we had commercial, but we did 90% was was government contracts. And now I mean, we have 20 something employees down in Maryland. And we're still doing commercial stuff up here. Yeah. Yeah. All the contracts moved down there. What's the next question we got here, Rich? I'm gonna have you read that, huh? Who's that from?
01:13:54
Speaker
Who was asking this question?
Caring for Butcher Block Countertops
01:13:56
Speaker
Who's got a crazy last name for a butcher block kitchen countertop? Is it necessary to sand it down before reapplying tung oil? Or can you just apply it over the existing coat?
01:14:11
Speaker
And this is from a gentleman, Dan Sapkowski. I sense a relationship there. Yeah, since my son kudos to him. Shout out. He's the main photographer for the Jets. And Dan's helped us out. Yes. Quite a bit. If you've seen any of the good pictures on our Instagram lately.
01:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, all the good stuff is doing awesome videos, but I think what Dan's saying is hey pop Can you come over on Saturday and do something around? I know that that top is in his whole kitchen even by the sink. Yeah, so I
01:14:55
Speaker
I don't think you need to sand it down to bare wood. I think you need to scuff it up and apply another coat. I wouldn't go crazy about it unless you see it that it's wearing down a lot in one particular area. But keep it coated. Keep it coated every couple of months and just put another coat on it. Yeah. So you're talking about more of a refresher, except in the damaged areas. Yeah, exactly.
01:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's one thing I want to do is do a little countertop in our kitchen of nice wood.
Kitchen Renovation Experiences
01:15:26
Speaker
One of these days, it's it's it's a scary project because nobody wants to put wood in a kitchen by the sink like a vanity. I wouldn't. Yeah, it was it's like more like a coffee bar kind of thing. You've got these crazy long kitchen. It's bigger than my shop, the kitchen. Yeah. How many doors? I remember talking about the doors, like 40 doors or something. 56.
01:15:48
Speaker
56 doors and drawers or doors and drawers, maybe just the doors. I think it's both. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I'm like, cause I was talking to them, I wanted to, we're doing new flooring in the kitchen too. And I'm like, well, I want to paint the cabinets. So I got to sand them a little bit and prime them and paint them. And I was just going to make new doors, do Shaker style doors. And I'm like, that's a lot to make. I'm like, it's going to be enough. Cause I'm going to have to paint and prime the new ones.
01:16:16
Speaker
after I make them or just paint and prime the old ones. Yeah. Like we could just make that happen. Yeah. That's like the kitchen we just did was like about that many. Maybe. No, there were 70 some odd doors and drawer faces. This is why we bought the house. I mean, the kitchen was insane. It's huge.
01:16:36
Speaker
Well, this had the mud room and a couple of auxiliary things, another sort of like bar area. But it took us two months basically to build that all out. Maybe three. Yeah. Yeah. I would have to section, which is nice because there's a row when you go in on the right and there's this sum over there, an L on the left, and then there's one on the far corner.
01:16:59
Speaker
So I make definitely something that can be done in stages. Yeah. You know, like one year do that one. 10 years later do the homes. 10 years later, you know, sell it and just leave the paint for them, you know.
01:17:12
Speaker
But I'm sure, Rob, Dan's waiting for your answer on his butcher block. What do you think? Problem. I think that if there's like some damage, some grain raised, I would knock that down, you know, maybe with one of the higher grits, 180, something like that.
01:17:31
Speaker
And then reapply, you know, you want to keep those things wood around water. You just want to keep it maintained. You want to, you know, not wait for it to look like it's damaged, but sort of, you know, keep it clean, you know, dry up any standing water, et cetera, and and renourish.
01:17:48
Speaker
Yeah, and don't just leave the tongue oil on there forever. Put it on, let it dry a little bit, then wipe it off. Yeah, you always want to wipe off the excess. Let the wood absorb what it can and wipe off what it can't. Yeah, I constantly yell at my wife for the cutting board. Don't leave it in the sink! Yeah, oh god, I didn't even get in here in the sink. Yeah, she's so mad. Because I'm like, I'll just wash it now.
01:18:12
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I just did a new cutting board for the house. We had a boost and it turned into a potato chip after. Maybe seven years and I resanded it a couple of times and refinished it. But so I built a little maple and sapele, little just a cutting board, not a butcher block. And I put six, I think six coats of tongue oil on it. Yeah. And I mean, the water beads up on it now. I mean, it's waterproof.
01:18:40
Speaker
But yeah, I think for Dan, like if it's in good shape, you can probably get away with just putting some on top and letting it soak back in. Yeah. I mean, it's a penetrative penetrative finish. So it's down there in the wood grain. Yeah. But if it needs a little touch up, you can probably just touch it up. I agree with that. All right. So you got that, Dan, your father will be over on Saturday, probably about 10 o'clock. We're working on your fancy ball.
01:19:10
Speaker
was just going to be a regular cabinet in there, but somebody had to get carried away. Listen, he deserves it. Come on. All right. So here we got another question from Nathan, who's a tree of life woodworking on Instagram. And that's that's pretty cool. The tree of life is part of our own insignia. Yeah, our logo right here.
01:19:32
Speaker
So, what are your favorite ways to advertise or
Marketing through Giveaways & Instagram
01:19:36
Speaker
market? For example, giveaways get me lots of business. That's a good tip, Nathan. So, this is sort of related to one of the earlier questions. What do you have to say?
01:19:50
Speaker
I did a giveaway once. It was, you know, you just get on Instagram and you're like, oh, I got 500 followers. I'm going to do a giveaway. Yeah. You know, and, you know, I actually had a decent amount of people. The companies donate some stuff for it. And I haven't done one since because I haven't really built a huge following on Instagram yet. So if you're not following me, go follow me.
01:20:15
Speaker
Us too, if you're not following us and you're listening to this, we got a problem. Exactly.
Website Maintenance & SEO Importance
01:20:20
Speaker
But you know, for me, it's website. My website is big in the YouTube and the ads on the website help with, monetarily they help. But knowing how to do the SEO on my website has benefited me, you know, tenfold.
01:20:41
Speaker
Yeah. What does that SEO tell everybody? Research engine optimization. So kind of keywords and descriptions and using certain. I could nerd out here and just, you know, talk about using the key phrase and the alt tags of your images and using it in headings. And it's just repetitive kind of usage and linking out to social media and keeping fresh content and like fresh content is the biggest thing with Google is.
01:21:08
Speaker
If your website is you launch it and it sits there, that's all that's going to happen to your rankings is they're going to sit there. So if I have my own website and I use the one of the companies like Wix or one of the companies that, you know, somebody who's starting a company on a shoestring, they want to get their name out there. These things are, is it possible to attract
01:21:35
Speaker
people to your website? Yeah, absolutely. And every, you know, I cringe at Wixons, others. But I mean, if you're just getting started out, obviously, it's a great avenue to go. Right. It's a DIY kind of thing. Yeah, it's a DIY kind of get your name out there, bare bones kind of stuff.
01:21:56
Speaker
My only issue with those is sometimes when you get larger and you want to and you need more space or users or e-commerce, that kind of thing, you're going to need to move off those platforms. Moving off those platforms is sometimes harder than you would think.
01:22:14
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I experienced that myself early on because when I started my first website, I did myself on Yahoo. And this was so long ago that, you know, people still had the phone book. So, you know, what's the phone? Yeah, it was like, it's not like the contacts in your phone.
01:22:34
Speaker
Almost. It was this big book they throw on your stoop with yellow pages in it. I remember sitting on one of those when I was here. And then when I finally got to the point where I had somebody build my website, they had to start from scratch because they couldn't transfer all that content. It's not a good platform to transfer. Right. So you learn. And there's definitely an advantage to having a professional
01:23:02
Speaker
do something. This is a skill and a craft all in its own. And that's another one of those you get what you pay for. Exactly. I've had plenty of clients like... Wix is IKEA. Yeah, for sure. I've had a couple of clients, web clients, you know, they want, oh, how much is it?
01:23:23
Speaker
I'm like, you have an e-commerce store with 7,000 products in it. How are you balking at a $5,000 price tag? That's nothing. That barely covers my time. It's unfortunate that these price comparisons occur on skilled trade.
01:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, I can't imagine because our cobbled together website was like me for four days straight, like with my eyes burning from looking at the screen, like just trying to get it just to the point where it's passable for a client to go to the website and say, OK, these guys aren't like you know.
01:24:05
Speaker
Emails are pretty big too nowadays. Sending out a styled email, not just, you know, something just kind of templated out. We do a lot of each email emails for clients and everything. Big, big time clients. Those are always nice. Yeah. Now we have a... We just did a flyer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Believe it or not, there's flyers in 2020. A brochure, a three-fold brochure. Yeah.
01:24:30
Speaker
Tri-fold. Yeah. Well, it's for a particular thing. We do a lot of liturgical work. Yeah. Well, I won't say a lot, but it's, um, you know, it's something we, 20 projects, you know, if you, we add in everything we've done together. Yeah. Um, so these are old school clients. These are people that pick up their mail, that read through the mail in that fashion. It's more tangible thing. And the priest,
01:24:57
Speaker
Of a church isn't going to necessarily be on his computer surfing the web if he wants something done He's gonna definitely be going through his daily mail though. Yeah, absolutely and and that so that's the route we chose with that particular Market and we're just starting and we're hopeful that it'll lead to something and it's gonna be interesting to see what kind of feedback we get and
01:25:20
Speaker
And that's a good point about knowing what your target market is.
Targeting Market Demographics
01:25:24
Speaker
Right. And if your target market is, you know, older generation, then doing an Instagram ad campaign. Facebook ad campaign is not going to work. It's not going to work. It's not going to get you what you want. But Instagram is where we get most of our brand new clients. You know, word of mouth is certainly big, but
01:25:47
Speaker
Jeff's been in charge of Instagram from the very beginning, and that's where all of like the new interest has has popped up. I ran the Barone Woodwork Instagram. That's right. Before Green Street was even a thing. Back when it was just a pipe dream that we were going to leave our, you know, unshackle ourselves from the chains at the Tom's shop. Jeff said, I better start. Yeah.
01:26:15
Speaker
showing this all time or what to do a little buzz gone. Then we just migrated over, changed names. Yeah. Yeah. And it was effective. It really was. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't like a bait and switch because I think there was only I think we started out with like 100 followers. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty good. It was a nice introduction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the work is it's your work, but it's you know, it's all
01:26:40
Speaker
All of our cumulative work is Green Streets. Exactly. Just under a different name, you know. Exactly. We all, you know, we work together on everything and everybody does something in the project and we don't really even worry about what's what. It's just, we just want to get it done and get it done right, get it done well. That's the most important thing.
01:27:04
Speaker
What's next, Jeff?
Hosts' Exercise Habits & Anecdotes
01:27:06
Speaker
Okay, so we got one from our buddy John again. John says, is exercise important in your lives and what do you do to stay in shape? I've been biking and hiking for the last few years, but I am now starting to seriously think about yoga. What do you think?
01:27:20
Speaker
Well, John, I don't know if you, I mean, you've met us, you've seen us, you've sat here. Does that look like we work out? John asked me if we're going to talk about that tonight. I'm like, dude, you're going to talk about that. I lift all the time. 12 ounce curls. Yeah.
01:27:35
Speaker
I used to do, I served in the military for nine years. Yeah, you had to be in shape. Yeah, you have to and then kind of, you know, injuries just... That's part of it. An Asian injury will slow you down. Knees, shoulders, back. I mean, I have to herniated this. I mean, it's just the injury list is just...
01:27:52
Speaker
super long. And that's only nine years in the military. It's it's rough to Yeah, every time you start to do something you start to get into it. You know, you're about two months in and all of a sudden you get hurt. And then it's like you got to battle back on that. And it's tough. You're getting the shoulder replacement. Rich is going in is having a major operation on one of his feet.
01:28:14
Speaker
I told my son I'm gonna be the bionic man now. Jeff's 31, he's got two bad knees. Yeah, one worse than the other.
01:28:23
Speaker
I'm going to be moving quicker on my right foot. Yeah, I'm going to be throwing like faster than Tom Brady. I've also got two bad knees. I barely jog. You know, they're they're both just wobbly little things. Yeah, I was told when I had I had 80 percent of the cartilage in my left knee removed when I was 16 or 17 football injury. They said, yeah, you shouldn't probably never run more than a mile again. Yeah, I had that with my back.
01:28:52
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, John, we we should exercise more and maybe have some sort of like, well, restorative yoga. We've been talking about that. We actually did a little bit of work for a yoga studio. Well, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of yoga and the name of that yoga studio.
01:29:10
Speaker
Alchemy House. So my wife is actually opening a yoga studio on the 9th, so a week from this past month. That's a shameless plug. Yeah, totally shameless. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. If you're in New Jersey, go check it out. I think Rich and I are particularly interested in getting in there and maybe doing something to change the course of our
01:29:31
Speaker
Well, see, I do this more than you do. I go to the gym. Rich does work out. I do go to the gym. I was a runner until my foot started to go. And then I love to play golf. So I like to exercise. I used to go for walks every night just to get out there and just.
01:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, I played hockey. Yeah, I did a number on my body, too. That's it. I mean, it's all becoming just I used to I used to. Yeah. But yeah, the older you get, the harder it is. I go hiking when I go into the mountains. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? I'm tired when I get home. Yeah. I just don't want to do it. I know I need to do it, but I'm I'm beat. I give it 110 percent here in the shop. So here's a question for you, John. How do you get to start exercising again?
01:30:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. What are your tips? Yeah. Give us a tip. I'll ask them tonight. Yeah. We want to know how to break this routine of not doing anything, of getting off work, cleaning up, eating dinner and then just sort of watching TV or doing something, you know, vegetative. Mind numbing. Yeah. Yeah. It's very easy to just do nothing. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Especially when you're in the shop problem solving all day because
01:30:46
Speaker
Like we said, everything we do is like very purpose built and one off. So I mean, we're. So it's mental fatigue. Yeah, we're dealing with some serious mental gymnastics all day. Yeah. All right. Watch Little Oak Island. Yeah. Oh, God. Don't start. You know what? Coming soon. Just this season. They're bringing back Searching for Hitler. Yeah. I thought that show went off the edge last year. They everybody back there last year. That's another one of those shows where nothing happens.
01:31:16
Speaker
Because something's gonna happen after the next break After the next commercial break, we're gonna find out you know what you're gonna. Do you're gonna go down one of those chefs on? He's gonna be the seventh one that dies yeah, oh yeah We have an idea who we want the seventh one to be but I'm gonna go there fishmen and plug the shell
01:31:37
Speaker
Trump man.
Advice for Late-Life Woodworkers
01:31:39
Speaker
I'm gonna read this question from our friend Miles Thompson down in Australia. Okay. All right. Miles, I started woodworking a year ago and love it. I would love to make it my career and I hold similar values to you guys. I'm 43 and I'm lucky to have had the means to set myself up with most of the equipment, but all of my knowledge is from YouTube books and self-taught.
01:32:06
Speaker
I'm pretty proficient at what I do, but of course I would love to know more. Do you feel trying to get work with another furniture maker is the best option?
01:32:16
Speaker
or attending woodworking courses on the side. Following a path through construction or building, as others have done, doesn't seem like a viable option at my age. I get that. I'm 100% right there with them. You know, I mean, yeah, you're starting a little later. You're, I mean, I self-taught myself woodworking and as, and web and all that, you know, I did that when I was in the army self-taught books because it wasn't a big YouTube following for that back then.
01:32:46
Speaker
So I mean, I can understand what he's going through. I mean, it's tough. You want to do something. You want to take it to that next level, but you don't want to. That's a big leap. Yeah, it is a big question. He's he's he's wondering about his knowledge base if it's enough or if he needs to have, I guess, some hands on mentorship from a from a larger company or a or working side by side with somebody a little bit more experienced, maybe. I mean, I'm sure that that would help. But I mean, we've also all had those bad
01:33:17
Speaker
that could actually deter you from where you want to go. That's a great point. Yeah. Great point. Yeah. And where do you draw the line? When is enough knowledge enough? When do you, you know, take the leap of faith and say, okay, I know enough now to do this. And you do that for a little while and you learn a little bit more and then you, you know, you broaden what you do. It starts small. Right. And I think it's always good to, um,
01:33:42
Speaker
You know, like you do nights and weekends now. Yeah. And when you're too busy to be able to do your day job and if you really want to do it, you know, then go full time. But don't don't go full time with no work lined up. Yeah. I've seen people do that even in web. They're like, I'm going to go freelance. Go for it. And, you know, it doesn't last.
01:34:03
Speaker
It takes time to build up a client base and to get leads. And I mean, we're what, 13, 14 months in? Yeah. And, you know, the leads are still slower than we would hope that it would be. I mean, it takes time. Yeah.
01:34:18
Speaker
But I worked in the basement of my house for two and a half years. And this is an old house with six and a half foot ceilings. This is no. The band saw was up in between the, you know, the joists until I could afford to do something different. And little by little, you know, we're here.
01:34:43
Speaker
What about you rich my house I gotta ask you a question are you married there's your wife a big fat pension. That's gonna help yeah there you go and I have another question for you but I'll save that to the end. It's I don't know you do for a living.
01:35:03
Speaker
But again, I would go like everybody's saying, go slow into it. It's especially now. This this is a really bad time to just say I'm becoming a woodworker and I'm going to rely on that solely to push my business to survive on. So take it steps. Get your get your knowledge. You know what?
01:35:29
Speaker
Just jump into it too, but don't worry about whether you have enough knowledge, you don't have enough knowledge. Have trust in what you're capable of doing and do it.
01:35:38
Speaker
Yeah. So you're saying go slowly into the economic side. Exactly. But the other side, yeah, you there's plenty of information out there. Yes. You're going to make mistakes. You know, exactly. Listen, we make mistakes to this day. Yeah. And you can't be half as bad as most of the guys out there anyway. So don't worry about it. Stay away from it. Yeah. I mean, you sound like you know what you're doing. So I think you probably know enough to
01:36:04
Speaker
yeah to do well it's it's great to know that you don't know everything yeah you know that's step number one i think to have some humility uh and it sounds like you're on the right track yeah if you think that you know everything then you don't yeah i think that's a big fear because i know a few of myself is having i'm my own worst enemy when it comes to building something because
01:36:26
Speaker
I'll pick things out, which nobody else will see. And I'll criticize myself for it instead of saying, well, you know what? I should be proud of what I did. It's what I did. Exactly. It was like, oh, it looks great. I'm like, well, I could have done that. That's one spot. And I always point it out. And they're like, I don't see that. Listen, my other question is, is Crocodile Dundee really Australian?
01:36:50
Speaker
Yeah. Was that an act? Yeah, exactly. We can't tell here in America if he was an actor acting Australian, or if that's what an Australian really is like. Let us know. I'm gonna say a caricature. Yeah, listen, have have had trust yourself. Trust yourself that you can do the work and take it slow.
01:37:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Reach out. Do you have any questions? Find what you're really interested in, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stick to what you know right now and do it as, you know, the best that you can and then broaden your horizons. I hope that helps. I hope that helps, Miles. And like Jeff said, reach out. You know, it doesn't even have to be a question through the podcast. No, no. Yeah, exactly. Anything you need. Yeah.
01:37:35
Speaker
I'm not giving out my home phone number, so you're not getting that. Shoot us an email or message on Instagram, and we'll be happy to help you out as much as we can. All right. Well, is this the last question? Yeah, the last question. Gee, it's getting dark out. Yeah, it is. It's dark here in the Northeast. Thanks, daylight savings time. Yeah.
01:37:54
Speaker
Who's reading it? You want me to read it? Yeah, go ahead. Alright, so this is from Eric Miller. This came in, I think, on YouTube maybe like last week, so we're getting to it this week.
Dealing with Post-Delivery Anxiety
01:38:03
Speaker
This touches on something that we've talked about before. How do you get over the anxiety and worry after completing and delivering a product? I always worry. Are they really excited about it? Will it hold up? What if something happens? How do I explain if something does fail? Will it destroy my reputation? Good question, Eric.
01:38:23
Speaker
I don't know. I like when I did that that walk-in closet or the closet built in, you know, it was kind of one of those things. They're like, oh, great. Thanks. I'm like, well, do you want to go look at it and show you how like you give me some like show me something. I mean, like I said, they're coworkers and I've known they were at my wedding. So I mean, like, you know, I had known them for a long time. I'm sure they have a lot of trust in me and everything. But it was just kind of one of those things where I was like,
01:38:51
Speaker
Give me something, you know, and we want to see tears. Yes. I'm sure it's fine Yeah, you know, I know that yeah you want to give me something Yeah, you got to build your own ego with that. You want to hear that you want to get that pat on your back? Oh, yeah, I'll take that over a check sometimes That's like, you know, you cook somebody a meal. You don't want them to say nothing. Yeah, nothing It was good. It was okay
01:39:19
Speaker
But you know what, it's also, and Rob touched on this when we were talking about this before at lunch, it's how you treat the problems that come up when you're dealing with a customer. How you treat your customers. Cause problems happen, that's just part of...
01:39:36
Speaker
what everybody does. And it doesn't matter what you're doing. We're working or nothing. Exactly. Be honest with people. Be yourself. Do the best that you can. And be honest. Because I think your reputation is really built on
01:39:53
Speaker
the aftermath of a problem. You know, how do you respond to, you know, draw that sticking or something that, you know, is unforeseen? What do you do then? Because that's what people will remember. And that's what they're going to pass on. Like, oh, you had this problem with this and they came right out and fixed it. Yeah, there's real data to support that too. That's not just that's real. You know,
01:40:17
Speaker
The way you handle any potential sort of issue is much more, I wouldn't say much more important, but it has a much bigger impact on a client than just like the job went completely smoothly, everything was fine. It's actually a plus when you can handle these things. That's part of our ethical DNA anyway. This is how we're put together here. We don't leave people hanging in the wind. If something went wrong, we're there because
01:40:45
Speaker
It's it's just who we are individually and as a company, right? So, you know It's a couple of different levels there. There's the you know, what's the feedback immediately you can forge your heart and soul into something and Everybody's gonna be a little bit different. You know, we've had a couple of clients that have been very effusive And that's great
01:41:12
Speaker
And some not as much, but it doesn't mean they don't, you know, really enjoy it. Yeah. And what if something happens? Well, we touched on that. It could, you know, even with the best work, your best intentions and your reputation is built with every aspect of what you do before the job, during the job and after the job. And I agree. Yeah. So I hope that helps you out. Yeah. It's a great question.
01:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, go above and beyond if something happens and you'll be okay. Yeah, definitely pay dividends and you'll feel good about it. Oh, yeah Well that ends all our questions then unless does anybody else has any no more questions getting too late So let's go on to our last few
Beer Review & Lighthearted Banter
01:42:02
Speaker
topics thoughts on the beer two weeks a good timing because I got just a little bit left And here it goes
01:42:13
Speaker
I liked it. I don't think I've had this one. I've had several beers from Kane. Yeah. Nice American pale ale. Yeah. I liked it a lot, actually. Probably if this is a pale ale, more than the others that would fit into that category, this would probably be my favorite. It's not your typical style you like. No. Yeah. Yeah. I like the can.
01:42:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's good looking. Yeah. Look, I thought it was a cherry coconut for you. Yeah. Yeah. And that's all I'm going to say about it. Looks very fall or again. I've stated this before. It's probably too bitter for. Yeah. It's a little too bitter for me. I love that. Me too.
01:42:58
Speaker
I was looking for one that just said completely 100% bitter beer. Couldn't find it. Stone Ruination is a good one. I did see Triples and XXX. I was like, I'm not going to do that. It's bad. Yeah, but it's a good, you know what? I drink it. It's refreshing, but it's not something I'll go back to. I thought it was really flavorful.
01:43:22
Speaker
Yeah, especially at the beginning with that frostiness attached to it. Yes, that cold beer is got to drink it cold. Yeah. Yeah. But I love the can. Yeah. Good. I like the can. Good stuff. Bravo. It's like three and a half thumbs up for the sneak box.
01:43:42
Speaker
Three and a half? No. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and a half. Yeah, again, Schmitt's wrangle chafing. So don't take it personally, Kane. Kane Brewers. Rich is a hard customer. That's the problem I have with going to these microbreweries. I can't find something that I like to drink. Maybe I should have got the higher alcohol content. Then he wouldn't care. The best beer I've ever had.
01:44:13
Speaker
I've been to some that I've had like a red beer that has tasted pretty good. Tom's River Brewery had one. The one that's over in Point. I can't think of any of it. Not Beach House. No. I do not like Beach House. They actually don't brew that there. They brew it in New York. I believe it. I know the guy who owns that. So if I had it, I've had some good ones.
01:44:41
Speaker
So it's funny because I go into the place and I say, give me a beer. It tastes like a beer. That's the thing. This is what real beer tastes like. Not to me. You got to use the right verbiage. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't grow up with this. I grew up with the other beer. Well, it's funny because you grew up in a time where like beer started out here more like not like these pale ales, but more like
01:45:07
Speaker
You know, the pilsers and stuff that we've had the the we have gross. Yeah, the Valentine Ale was was a good beer back in the day. Yeah. But even before that, they were more they were closer to this. And then like everything else, all these big companies said, how can we cut a couple of cents out of each one of these cans? They said, we'll start throwing some corn in there, some rice. So you had this whole generation where the beer got like made as cheaply as possible. And now it's starting to come back to be.
01:45:37
Speaker
You know, one of these artisan craft kind of things. You say I'm a cheap date? No. Well, you didn't know any better. That's just what you grew up with. True. Rich, tell everybody. Listen, everybody, I'm not going to hop on this, but I shaved. I expect some donations. I'm not even hopping about the T-shirt yet. That's coming up. But any $1, $2, 50 cents.
01:46:03
Speaker
Movember.com slash M slash G-R-E-E-N-E-S-T. That's right. Movember. And for you sponsors out there.
01:46:16
Speaker
I still haven't seen any shirts yet, but we're getting there. We're getting there. It'll be sweatshirt season pretty soon. That's true. You guys are working with shorts. No, not in here, but I mean, it was 30, it was 34 this morning. That's cold. We went to a customer's house Monday and he had his shorts on and she was dressed up with a wool hat on, a jacket, a ski jacket. He's getting out of the truck and his shorts on.
01:46:42
Speaker
Yeah, my son S&A, he's like, is 62 too low for, I'm like, it's October. And then that was October. I'm like, no more shorts. Yeah. I did have, I have a vest that has no, you know, it's just like one of those, uh, Cajar vest. I love those. And it's perfect. It's all you need to keep your cord. It gets hot in here. Oh yeah. That heater we have, you can stand in one seat. Probably if you're sitting right here, you get real hot.
01:47:09
Speaker
Yeah, and it's that radiant heat so like you really feel it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:47:14
Speaker
So let's finish up. What do you got? Well, I just want to say I'm going to put a link to the tool of the week in the description. So it'll be on YouTube and on the podcast. And I've been putting them all on the website. So you go to the website, you can find all the ones that I can get on there and put a link. Check out Keith's work at two bits. Yes. What's the exact website? Woodworks.com. All right. That's easy enough. Yeah. YouTube, Instagram. Check it out.
01:47:41
Speaker
Does John Peters have shirts? What? I have shirts, I just don't have them. I have like the, you pay for one and then you get it. Yeah, through YouTube, right? Yeah. We've heard about those. Teespring or something. Yeah. John's got the same thing, yeah.
01:48:00
Speaker
All right. So everybody be safe out there. Follow us all. Comment. Send us your questions. Tell us how you're doing out there. We want you all to be well and come back next week. Exactly. Any questions for us? Feel free to contact us. We're not going to bite your head off. No. Yep. It's probably going to be me you're talking to. That's it. Richard, I don't go near that stuff during the week. I forgot what I was talking about. You want either their phone numbers? Just let me know.
01:48:31
Speaker
I never pick up the phone either. So personal email addresses. I'll do them out. You have to write everybody. Ciao. Bye. Thank you. I got a piece so bad right now.