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The American Craftsman Podcast Ep. 5 | Essential Beginner Tools
60 Plays5 years ago
On Episode 5 of The American Craftsman Podcast hosted by Greene Street Joinery we discuss our favorite wood species and answer some viewer questions about getting started as a woodworker.
Beer of the Week (Allagash White): https://www.allagash.com/beer/white/?ao_confirm
Tool of the Week (Olfa SVR-2): https://olfa.com/professional/product/stainless-steel-precision-knife-svr-2/
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
Podcasting Challenges and Humor
00:00:22
Speaker
I'm working up a sweat already. It doesn't take much. This podcasting is tough business. You gotta wear that new cologne that I got. The ambassador. I didn't take the cracking guard out today. Take a chisel to the spine. These pretzels are making me thirsty. Yeah, indeed.
00:00:44
Speaker
So, we're here again, Rich,
Introduction to 'Off Pit' and Sponsors
00:00:46
Speaker
right? Where did you start the set? Set it off. Hey, everybody. This is Off Pit podcast. I want to wish you all a good day. Hope you guys are having fun out there. Wanted to shout out to, to make two shout outs today. Went to my friend Mark, who's so enamored by our podcast. His birthday was just past Sunday. Happy birthday, Mark. And the other one I want to shout out to our sponsors. I still haven't gotten any shirts yet.
00:01:12
Speaker
Extra large, too large. Come on, guys. You better get in on it quick because we get to the point where we're not going to want to take sponsors because we've got too many. They're probably in the mail. USPS is pretty messed up right now. OK, then I take that back. I'll wait. Yeah.
Beer of the Week: Allagash White
00:01:29
Speaker
So here we are, the fifth podcast, and we're going to start again as we usually start.
00:01:34
Speaker
with the introduction to the beer of the week. All right. And today's choice or today's person who's picking it is Robert. Yeah. Their own need. Let's see what you got. Open up the paper bag and we'll hand them out. What do we got? A little alagash white Belgian style wheat beer.
00:01:59
Speaker
Yeah, I'll tell you why I never had this. And that's part of the reason I picked it. The biggest reason I picked it was it's a Belgian style wheat beer. When I was a much younger man, I was backpacking through Europe. And while I was in Belgium, I stopped in Bruges and I was there for about a week or so and
00:02:25
Speaker
You know, living at the hostel and all that stuff. And I'd learned that, uh, all of these towns, cities, everybody had their own brewery and they took a lot of pride in their, in their beer. And that's where I first had a Belgian style wheat beer. And I liked it a lot. So.
00:02:42
Speaker
I hope this lives up to it. This would look good on shirts. I've had this before. It's a good beer. It's been a long time. I think it's brewed up in Maine. Just you, allagashes. Brewed and bottled in Portland, Maine. Cheers, gentlemen. Follow.
00:03:06
Speaker
Rouse your yeast. Pour allogash white slowly, saving last inch of liquid in the bottle. Pour remaining yeast in bottle and pour into glass. I should have. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Not bad. Cool. Is the yeast going to make me crazy if it's on the bottom?
00:03:24
Speaker
We can't make any guarantees going outside the realm of possibility.
Acquiring Tools and Auction Experiences
00:03:30
Speaker
Well, here's another shout out to the week to our friend Owlhead for tipping us off to this line ball machine we picked up this week, the Red Baron. It's made by Ganomat.
00:03:45
Speaker
Germany Austria Austria and it's the it's what we're looking for a nice little line ball machine not to go crazy with All the holes for shelves and all that want to space them out a little bit differently So it doesn't look like there's a thousand holes in the side of a cabinet. That's boring, too Yes, it does hinge boring. Yeah, so thank you very much. I'll head
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, we're on the hunt, as a matter of fact, for the it has the hinge boring set up now, but it will take a seven spindle line boring. So we're looking for that. You don't have shirts yet, do you, Owlhead? Just asking. You think Rich would come to work without a shirt on? Yeah, no sleeves, though. Make sure it has no sleeves. If I can cut those off, don't worry about it. Yeah. So thank you for that. Yeah. So actually, we were yesterday, we took a trip out to Robinsville to a
00:04:34
Speaker
Pre auction viewing I guess you would call it inspection. Yeah a pre auction inspection. There's a Actually an exhibit and set building company called Jack Morton. That's going out of business and They're selling the contents of this hundred and fifty thousand square foot, you know warehouse where they make they make sets for
00:04:53
Speaker
college game day, all kinds of TV shows, stuff like that. So they actually have two of these machines and we're looking at maybe. Yeah, grab the one that has a line boring attachment because it's not a cheap accessory.
00:05:08
Speaker
So any of you guys, you didn't hear us mention that name. So don't go on and bid on those machines. Yeah. You bet us up. We'll come looking for you. Oh yeah. There's some good stuff though. So if you're in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, Tri-Stay area, I would check it out because there's some stuff that's real cheap.
00:05:26
Speaker
Oh yeah, if you're in the market for a Unisaw or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, they had four table saws. Yeah, about four table saws. Drill press. Drill presses. I mean, no, nobody wants a drill press. Big time CNCs, a lot of hand routers and things like that. Yeah. Tables full of them.
00:05:43
Speaker
an entire table of extension cords. Yeah. For 50 bucks right now. Yeah. There might be a thousand pieces on that. Yeah. Yeah. It was cool, though. Nice to finally see an auction. You know, we look at them online pretty often, but usually they're in the Midwest or Pennsylvania, New York. Not a lot of manufacturing in this in New Jersey in general, I guess, not woodworking type manufacturing. So to be able to actually go see one was a was a nice opportunity. Plus it
Tool of the Week: Olfa Knife
00:06:10
Speaker
was a road trip.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah. Some trailers. They had exercise equipment, believe it or not. Yeah. Yeah. It was a nice company. I mean, they had exercise equipment there because the folks at the company got to work out and play games, shoot hoops, throw the ball around inside the warehouse. It was so big. Yeah. Good, good. So that takes us now to the tool of the week. And it's Jeffrey's turn to pick out the tool.
00:06:39
Speaker
All right, so I had a little difficulty trying to decide what I wanted to do, but this week I chose my nine millimeter olfa knife, little snap off knife made in Japan.
00:06:56
Speaker
Nice and small. I like to use it as a marking knife because it's so thin. And when it's dull, I just snap the tip off and I have a fresh one right there. It's long, so you can use it to scrape stuff. You know, it stays flush to the work. Doesn't take up a lot of space in the apron. It's light.
00:07:15
Speaker
You know, if people are watching, is there anything you could do to describe it that differentiates it from like a regular kind of folding knife that we might carry? Yeah. So in terms of size, it's only three eighths inch wide. It's probably three sixteenths of an inch thick and probably five inches long. So versus a regular utility knife, it's much, much smaller and it weighs very little. You know, I'd say less than an ounce.
00:07:43
Speaker
And anybody that's not familiar with this snap off style of blade? Yeah, so this is a blade with probably 15, 20 segments. And when your tip is dull, you just snap the tip off. You know, it's divided into about quarter inch sections and you have a fresh tip. So, you know, in the palm of your hand, you have a really light, compact, well made, made in Japan. You know, this is a
00:08:10
Speaker
I don't know if it's steel or aluminum, but it's all metal except for the little clip that you push on is made out of plastic. I've had this going for a couple of years. Great. Yeah, it's very handy. I don't feel the need to have a big utility knife in the shop. That's more of a site tool for me, cutting shims, stuff like that.
00:08:30
Speaker
But for the shop, this is great opening up boxes. That's that's the I mean, really use it for that a lot. I know. Well, a lot of boxes involved in the business. It's crazy. Even cutting. We don't work with edge banning a whole lot, but I had to make a little something for my own house yesterday and trimming the edge banning. I use that. It's good for.
00:08:54
Speaker
cutting tape. I mean, it's it's a you use it more than you would think. Right. Yeah. So I like it. It's cheap, small, works well. I like it, too. And in fact, after seeing that, you converted me to a similar tool because I for the longest time use the Milwaukee, which was sort of that switchbladey kind of action utility knife. And they call that a lifetime tool because, you know, it's all steel and everything. But
00:09:24
Speaker
And I used to love the one hand action of flipping it open and you get used to that, but it is a little bulky. And I think I prefer the snap off style of blade, you know, instead of replacing that whole blade, you're really using the tip more than the meat of the blade in this instance. So I have an olfa as well. It's a little bit bigger, but not much. And it's got like a plastic
00:09:51
Speaker
surround over the metal. Same size blade, just a more ergonomic type handle. What I like about this is if you have to cut Kaizen foam or something like that, we find ourselves cutting some thicker things that are still soft.
00:10:10
Speaker
batting for, you know, we do the upholstery for the stuff in the church, stuff like that. You can I mean, you can with a fresh blade, you can extend this blade about four or five inches so you can get a really deep and pretty straight cut with with this knife.
00:10:24
Speaker
Yeah, shout out to all of you. Yeah, we have, I mean, I have one in my truck, one inch. Like most, we have too many of them. Yeah, tape measures and knives and pencils, we have a lot of those. An embarrassing amount of stuff we won't admit to having. I think the model, so actually I see now, it says stainless steel. So it's all stainless steel, aside from the little clip. And I think the model is a S9, I want to say, maybe for stainless. Yeah. But about 10, 15 bucks.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, they're cheap. They really are. I mean, inexpensive, I'm going to say. Not cheap. No, yeah. Well made. So check it out. What do you think, Rich? This is the first time I hear about these blades. I don't have one where you've been. I guess I've been. I've been locked away because I never knew you guys use these kind of blades.
00:11:14
Speaker
The I'm not on my, my bench is over there, not over here on the other side. The guys are over here. I'm on the other side of the tracks. Me and Jeff. So I don't even have one of those. So now I'm jealous. What kind of night do you have? I got the old Stanley. You keep it in your car. I keep it in my apron. Yes. The big one.
00:11:37
Speaker
That's the way I think. Well, I have a Stanley.
The Brad Nailer Debate
00:11:40
Speaker
I have a Stanley that I keep in the truck for install. It's a Stanley Titan, which has a it actually is a you know, it's in a what do they call it? A retractable knife. It's not a fixed blade, but it has a brass wheel where you can actually tighten down the blade and lock it. So, you know, with a utility knife, if you're cutting like, let's say drywall, the blade can actually get pushed back into the knife with this. You cannot push it back into the knife. Yeah.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah, I have to get one. I have to ask my wife if I can buy one. You can borrow money from her pension. You didn't use up the allowance? Yeah, she gives me the allowance. It's very strict, too. And by Thursdays, it's usually gone. Yeah, now I can't buy the knife, even though it's only a $15 knife. I can't buy it. Maybe I'll get it for my birthday. Or Christmas. Or Halloween.
00:12:27
Speaker
No, but it's a it's a good knife. We went. We were at the trade show, the KBS, a KBI KBIS show in Vegas. And we met up with the people that sell that. Well, yeah, they were supposed to send free knives. I got one, but you guys didn't. So I'm not sure what happened. And it took about three months.
00:12:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they said because of covid, the supply chain, many of my gloves are still going to come. Those extra. Yeah. Those gloves, like the lady said, she's going to give me for free. That helped my my arthritis and all. Yeah. I guess I'm not getting out either for Christmas and my kayak. That's it. That's another story. We should talk about that, though, on a podcast about KBIS and the adventures we had. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:12
Speaker
But you know what, it's a good tool. I'm going to get one when I remember to get one. A plus. All right. What's up next? Well, we come to the pretty gripe of the week. And again, you notice I don't have any gripes. Yeah, this is my department. But I mean, this is almost I mean, the other week we had
00:13:34
Speaker
a not so gripey gripe when we're talking about fall and how old we all love fall. That was two weeks ago. Last week was the Veritas mini square. Yeah, that was a good gripe. I'm still griping about that. And this one's not quite so petty. I think there's going to be a lot of people that hear this and I go, oh, yeah, you're right. So my petty gripe of the week and it'll probably be for next week and the week after, even though I won't talk about it.
00:14:01
Speaker
are Brad Naylor's and especially the 23 gauge in Naylor that don't have a dry fire lockout. So I want to explain to that to the audience what that means when there's when there's no more Brad's no more little pins inside the magazine.
00:14:21
Speaker
When you have a lockout, it won't fire. And if you if it, you know, you're out of pins and you just keep shooting and those little brads, they're tiny. You don't even know if they're going in until you try moving the thing you think you're fascinating. Yeah, I think we've all sort of stitched something up and then went to move the piece. And then the piece you were you thought you were nailing just sort of falls off. Yeah, there were no no nails.
00:14:47
Speaker
I'd like to know really why so many, because I think it's more common than not that they don't have this, that that the guns will just keep firing forever. Yeah, and it's hit or miss with manufacturers because I've had, you know, Hitachi nailers that have it and ones that don't and Bostitch nailers that have it and ones that don't. Yeah. My Grex, I think does have it.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're right. I remember like we saw the ad for those new Metabos. Yep. And they advertise that they have it, which it's a it's a great, great feature. I wonder how much it costs to add this feature because it probably boils down to the cost of putting this piece in. Right.
00:15:30
Speaker
you agree with i agree i agree i think that's a good good idea i've gone through that many times even though i have that they have that little window on the bottom of the the nail is that you can see where the bread how many breads you got it's getting close to the end but you're not really paying attention and i've done that a couple times where i
00:15:47
Speaker
Pins about five pins didn't realize only one came out and the rest was empty. You're not always like on your bench and, you know, getting able to peer around to it. You might be going up overhead, putting on molding or something. And you don't want to think about that. You're thinking about what you're doing. I don't want to have to think about how many nails are left in the nailer and predicting, OK, it's going to be empty.
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, I remember as a finished carpenter running baseboard and you know, you mark out your studs or you're pulling 16s, whatever. And you would you would pop in two nails and the piece would still be loose. Say, oh, shit, I must have missed a stud. Throw in a couple more. Next thing you know, you have 10 holes in a three inch space. You're going in either. Yeah, because the firing pin is just going through and sticking into the wood. So in a three inch area, you have all these holes and come to find out you don't have any nails. That's why it's not sticking to the wall.
00:16:37
Speaker
Yeah, I'll tell you what, I'm going to add on to this gripe. Now we have a few Porter Cable guns, right? They're real finicky about how many nails you can put in there. So you'll... Oh, the pin nailer you're talking about. The pin nailer and the 18 gauge. So you'll try and like load it up right before it runs out. We'll have an 18 gauge Porter Cable.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah, we do. Oh, yeah, we got rid of them. Yeah. Yeah, because we got the Bostitch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, take this port of cable. That's why we got rid of you. We try and circumvent this whole thing where we would load up the magazine before it ran out.
Efficient Tools Discussion
00:17:17
Speaker
But it like it only takes a certain amount. You can't
00:17:21
Speaker
Overfill isn't the right term, but you it'll really only take that full flip and maybe two other extra bread. Yeah. So you got to break off, you know, and then you put in all these little broken pieces and they fold up on top when you try and slide the magazine. They're the worst. Yeah, they're the worst. All right. I think that that was enough. Right. Yeah, that was a good gripe. I like that. Yeah. We've been talking about that for a long time. Yeah. It just.
00:17:47
Speaker
Make them with the dry fire lockout. Come on. Why not? Why not? What's it cost? Pay the extra 10 bucks. I would be curious to know how much it actually cost the company because I would bet that, you know, consumers like ourselves, users would pay double whatever it costs them, you know, because if it's a few dollars, we would easily pay $10 for it. And if it's a pro tool, well, it should have it. Yeah. As far as I'm concerned. You know, listeners, let us know how you feel. Yeah.
00:18:16
Speaker
What gun do you have and what does it have a dry fire? Yeah. Well, do you do the old fashioned way hammering nails? Yeah. Now, the guy I used to work for, we would nail everything off with a pneumatic nailer. We went back and we hand nailed everything. Yeah. After the fact. That's the that's the good way. So crown molding every every piece of framing with a three inch finish. And you got to set all those nails.
00:18:40
Speaker
Yeah. And hope you don't miss. Yeah. Faceboard. It was rough, but they stick to the wall. Yeah. And it's a good foundation for learning how to do things the right way. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not a good way to make money, but. Well, we can't have everything. That's true. What we got next.
00:19:05
Speaker
Well, now we have the topic of the week. And you know, it's funny, we were discussing this yesterday. We're trying to come up with a good idea.
00:19:16
Speaker
It took us a while, but this is a really good topic I think people would appreciate.
Favorite Wood Species for Craftsmanship
00:19:21
Speaker
And it is, if you could use only one species, what would it be? Or what's your favorite species to use as a hardwood, softwood when you're working, when you're building things? I mean, what would be some of the reasons you'd pick a specific board, Rich?
00:19:37
Speaker
Me, yeah. Personally, I go with corded white oak. I love the craftsman era. I love the style. I love the look of the white oak with all the flecks and the rays in it. And it's a little bit difficult to work with as far as splintering and all that, but I just think it's a beautiful piece of wood to work with. I love the moor.
00:20:04
Speaker
Bigger to it, the better. And that's why I love it. I just love that whole. I mean, worked on the church thought that we did was all courted white oaks. It was a pleasure. Yeah. I like the smell of it too. As freaky as that sounds. It's a funky smell. You know the difference between white oak and cut red oak. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:20:25
Speaker
You know, there's some guys out there that are picking MDF right now. It doesn't count. No, there's a guy. Not that fictitious Tom character. In the air quotes. Tom in air quotes. Isn't it made of a lot of different woods? Yeah, a whole slew of different woods. What about you, Rob? What are you picking?
00:20:46
Speaker
I'm gonna pick mahogany and like the old growth kind of mahogany that we really can't get much anymore. And I'm only experienced with it because I happen to get a few slabs from an old woodworker who gifted them to me of all things.
00:21:06
Speaker
And you know it's for those that don't know the mahogany that is used in all the furniture from the eighteen hundreds and such. Most of that stuff was all cut up and used because it was such a pleasure to work with and it was really really nice to make furniture from and they they decimated the forest.
00:21:27
Speaker
So nowadays we have all these substitutes, but he gave me these two short, maybe about a five, six foot, 20 inch wide. Yeah. Yeah. And about two, two and a quarter inch thick slabs of mahogany.
00:21:44
Speaker
And I wound up making a bass for a friend of mine, and the guitar that I play most often, that's all real mahogany. And it was just so luxurious and easy to work, and I didn't get to be too choosy about picking the grain and everything I had to use every inch of the wood that I could.
00:22:07
Speaker
Um, you know, especially because the bodies have these odd shapes to them. But, uh, if I could get my hands on it, that would be my choice. I wouldn't want to be irresponsible about it as far as, you know, the ecology goes. So, but if it was available, that would be my choice.
00:22:25
Speaker
I think I did see something about mahogany starting to come back out of Honduras. Wow. That's interesting. I never knew that. I know it's been banned. Even African mahogany, you can't really get now that now the species they're selling is superior.
00:22:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've never used African mahogany. I know our supplier does sell it, but we, you know, we tend to buy it. It's very similar. It's very similar to mahogany. I think a more pinkish color. It's a little harder, too, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We use a lot of sapele, which is has a similar look, I'd say a little darker and definitely much harder. Yeah. Which is it's nice to work with. You know, I could see mahogany for the workability because it is pretty soft.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah, and it doesn't tear out a lot. It's just. Which, Sapili will. Yes. Even with spiral tools. Yeah, even spiral heads on the planer and the jointer, the Sapili will tear out. The grain reverses all over the place, too.
00:23:21
Speaker
What about you? Well, you'll ask. I think I'm going with cherry. Yeah. Eastern go wrong with cherry. Eastern black cherry. It's it's cheap. It's beautiful. It's easy to work with. Didn't used to be so cheap. Yeah. Oh, no. It was very expensive.
00:23:39
Speaker
That's another KBIS story. We hear from a lumber supplier there that the reason cherry prices fell so quickly and so drastically was because the Chinese cabinet manufacturers stopped buying it. Because cherry really fell out of style in the US. We have clients all the time that say, because we like to use cherry. So we offer it to our clients a lot. And they say, oh, I don't like cherry.
00:24:07
Speaker
You know that pink pinkish red cherry kitchen you know it doesn't it doesn't look like I'm sitting on a cherry store right now it doesn't look anything like that yeah it's you know a nice honey brown and it has streaks of of darker brown and pink and gray I mean it's really nice stuff
00:24:27
Speaker
Most of the time they've been sold something that might be maple. It might not even be a native species. It might be sort of like one of those Asian weed trees with this reddish stain on it. It's the spray stain. This is what most consumers have been led to believe is cherry.
00:24:46
Speaker
Yeah. And we see the same thing with walnut and mahogany, where if you use a walnut stain, you can call it walnut. I mean, I see it a lot on like sort of Facebook marketplace kind of things where people are refinishing furniture, you know, to say, oh, walnut. Yeah. Bookcase. Really deceptive. Yeah. And but it's because they don't even know, you know, it's like a pine bookcase that someone stained with minwax walnut. So they call it walnut.
00:25:10
Speaker
Is there a species called golden oak? There might be. I think it died out in the early 2000s. Yeah. Got eradicated. It's all over the place. Yeah. That's that's a new old stock. So it's up to you guys. What do you like to work with? Pine? Poplar? Basswood?
00:25:30
Speaker
You finished the cherry. I mean, I just kind of cut you off there. No, yeah, I mean, it's great. It's easy to work. It's it's hard, but it's not too hard. Everything we get tends to have some nice curl in it, usually some cat's paws, which are little.
00:25:47
Speaker
little sections of knots where if you ever seen a patch of little leaves sprouting out of the side of a tree you'll get a something called a cat's paw underneath which is like a little it's hard to explain look it up they call it um in england they call it pippy there's pippy oak pippy cherry yeah it's a really nice nice feature on the wood so
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, I like cherry cost-effective beautiful Native, you know to our area so that definitely be my second choice. Yeah But I like white oak a lot to ordered white oak. Yeah, not me
00:26:25
Speaker
I haven't really worked with mahogany. So I have too many three inch long white elk splinter. Yeah, that's true. That's another story. So Pele is really nice, too, though. I like I like it. Well, we got it quartered. The Pele. Yeah, that's what all this great grain. We get regular superior. It gets it get really crazy. We're into it.
00:26:49
Speaker
We have a big barn door sitting right here. Actually, my laptop, that's the camera and the audio is going to. We have a 41 by 90 inch right now barn door. That's a dry fit. Yeah, maybe a little bit. Yeah. Nice. You know, it's like an inch and seven sixteenths thick right now. So. All right. Good. Now we move on to the view question a week and leave that up to Jeff to ask the questions.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yes, we got we got here four or five good questions this week. So we'll get started. This is from Tanner Hutchins, who is Tanner Hutchins, 14 on Instagram. He says, I'm new to woodworking. What tools would you recommend to get started? Rich, become an electrician. It pays better. Exactly. They have a union.
00:27:40
Speaker
Yeah. Woodworking is a tough, tough business. You got to love to do it if you want to pursue it. What if you want to just be a hobbyist? If you're a hobbyist, then pick up a table saw.
00:27:57
Speaker
a bandsaw, a scroll saw, things like that to do hobby work. And then you can go on later on, pick up a joiner and a planer. You can get those portable planers that are really not that expensive and get one for about 300 bucks. That'll handle most of your work. The table so you can get a nice little job site table. So I might have trouble cutting some hardwoods, but for start out, it's good. But you know what, you can pick up
00:28:24
Speaker
A lot of people are selling Unisaws now, and you can get one pretty cheap. They're not really that expensive anymore. So you can pick up a used case. And we have a Unisaw here in the shop. I mean, a lot of pro shops use them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was the gold standard for a long time. Yeah. And a couple of good sanders, because you need sanders, a router. A router, if you want to keep changing bits, you just get the one router that has the different collets, the half inch and the quarter inch collet. And you grow from there.
00:28:53
Speaker
If you're doing jobs, you know what? Add on, add that onto the job. Next job you do say, I want to pick up another tool. So add a little bit onto the job so you can pick up another tool. Yeah. That's how I did it. I think we all start that way. Yeah. You know, I'm going to add on to what Rich said and say, you can't have enough clamps. Um, I was just thinking that.
00:29:16
Speaker
If you're watching and not listening, behind us is the wall where we have all our clamps, at least most of them. We are fortunate enough to have a lot of Bessie parallel clamps because that's what we invested in. They're probably the best bang for the buck as far as
00:29:36
Speaker
I'm a parallel clamp and you can't have too many. It's a tried and true saying, but you're going to need to have clamps to hold your things together. And as we all started out individually, clamps are always going to be your third, fourth, and fifth hands.
00:29:54
Speaker
And use them more for more than just clamping boards. Oh, yeah. And the other thing for your question, we'd probably want to have a couple of more bits of information to give you the best answer we could because we don't know what your goals are, what your space is. I mean, maybe you live in an apartment in a city, maybe you want to concentrate on hand tools.
00:30:21
Speaker
what your budget is. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of things. And the good news is no matter what your situation, there's a solution for it and a way to get started and build skills. So thanks for joining us in the in the craft. Good luck. If you have more questions, we're here.
00:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, I'd say something that's cheap and really I bought it as a finished carbon nervous, something that really changed a lot of what I did was the Gekucho 372. That's a G Y O K U C H O 372. It's a, you know, a Japanese pull saw what I think they refer to as their dovetail saw. So it'll cross cut, it'll rip.
00:31:08
Speaker
It has super fine teeth, very thin blade. I used to use it to cut shoe molding and stuff like that on punch lists where, you know, you don't want to break out the chop saw. So as a hobby, as not even necessarily a hobbyist, but somebody that's just getting into woodworking, you can do a lot with a saw like that. Explain to folks what the difference is between the Japanese and the American handsaw.
00:31:31
Speaker
Well, the main difference is that a Japanese saw cuts on the pull stroke and a Western saw cuts on the push stroke. So when you're pulling a saw through the work, the blade wants to self-straighten, which they say will help you cut a straighter line. Yeah, because cutting to a line is a fundamental skill that we all should have.
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah, and even if you're a power tool woodworker, there's going to be a time where you're going to have to cut something by hand. Also, maybe, again, for somebody who's just starting out, you might not even be aware of the difference in the physical layout, the appearance of the tool between a hand saw where in America we're thinking this D handle and this big piece of steel on the end of it.
00:32:15
Speaker
Yeah, you know, a Japanese saw is made to be used with two hands as a long handle, rectangular blade. Yeah, it is a back saw, so it has a spine. So it's long and thin compared to, you know, yeah, I mean, it's here. So probably, I don't know, 28 inches long. As a 10 inch blade.
00:32:45
Speaker
Really, really thin too. And they're cheap. This is probably a $40 saw. Replaceable blades, so you just back this screw out, blade comes out, you put a new one in, they're not made to be re-sharpened. And super, super fine teeth. Yeah. So good for all kinds of cross cuts and rip cuts. Yeah, they make a whole variety of saws, you know, for doing. Yeah. Yeah, I got a couple back here. Yeah, that's a good answer.
00:33:12
Speaker
It's a whole world of tools out there to explore if you get into that stuff. Yeah, I'd say table saw is if you're going to go power tool, woodworking, invest in a good table. So I find something to use. It's good because you'll be spending a lot of time on it. It'll do everything that you need it to. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, that was a good question, Tana. I hope give us give us give us some feedback. We like a little bit more what you're trying to do. I mean, we can help you out even further.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah, shoot us a message. We'll answer any questions that you have. All right. What's next up? Jack Thornton. Yes, we got a question here from Jack Thornton, Jack Thornton, 98 on Instagram. I think he's out in Australia.
Podcast Hosts' Future Business Plans
00:33:53
Speaker
I'm not sure. Hey, mate. If you if you if you leave a question on Instagram, give us your name and your location so we'll you know, we can tell everybody where you're from because I can't always find out from looking at your profile.
00:34:07
Speaker
So jack says do you have a future business plan to grow or maintain current production size if so what is the next big step towards growth. That's a good question it's a good question for us it's a good question for i think the younger is in the business.
00:34:30
Speaker
Do I? Well, I don't mean it to be. I'm included. No, you know, you got to understand what I'm trying to say is that right now I'm not thinking. Yes. So I want the business to grow. Yes, I do. Will I see it within my lifetime? Not that I'm going to pass away, but I'm getting old. I want to get start to retire soon. But you want to enjoy that pension that's way. Exactly. Exactly.
00:34:57
Speaker
No pension here, sorry. So, for me, I'm not looking to that future.
00:35:05
Speaker
If what the next step is towards growth, that depends. I mean, right now with the COVID-19 crap that's going on right now, businesses are so screwed up. Customers are screwed up. They don't know what they want. They don't want you in the house. So it's hard to say what growth is going to be like over the next year. Hopefully it's going to pick up. Well, not hopefully. I believe it's going to pick up.
00:35:33
Speaker
But I don't know what our as even if the question as far as maintaining current production size, I think we do fairly well for what we have right now. Yeah. If we got a real, real big job, we might have to look into expanding the shop. But I don't see it happening in the next year or two. Yeah. And so I don't I'm sorry, guys, I don't plan on being around. Well, you might be on a fast track. Exactly.
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would love to see in maybe 10 years having some employees and being able to teach some people how to be a woodworker and have a company that treats the employees well. I look to sort of like Thomas Moser, places like that, where they build a very high quality product and they employ people gainfully.
00:36:30
Speaker
because most of the cabinet type production that's going on and furniture is low wage, just sort of grunt work. So I'd love to see that. I think the the biggest step would just to be that busy. I mean, we're not turning away work like crazy where we need to bring someone in. You know, bringing an employee is a big the big step for a company. Yeah.
00:36:59
Speaker
It's a lot simpler when it's just three partners or one or one guy, whatever. We're not paying the insurance and taxes and everything that's associated with having an employee, not to mention you have to manage an employee. You have to make sure that they're doing their job properly. You have to train them, which takes you away from what you're doing. You have to make sure that you find someone you can trust.
00:37:24
Speaker
So, it's definitely a big step. I hope that one day we're that busy where we can bring some people in, but... Oh, yeah. It's a good question, not just for us, but for any small business because that's where a lot of small businesses fail, is growing and properly growing too fast, not making the right decisions and, you know,
00:37:49
Speaker
investment, whether that's in, you know, tooling infrastructure, leasing a building. So we have any future plans to grow. I would say for the near future, we're, as Rich alluded to, we're just looking to maintain where we are during this crisis. And fortunately we have, and I'm expecting there to be a bit of a mini boom.
00:38:14
Speaker
by the time this really starts to, uh, have a bit, you know, maybe the next summer, probably 2021 summer. Uh, that's a, that's a good time of year as well for our business. Um, so maintain current production size. That's, that's kind of the same thing. Um, yeah. I mean, I think if you have a business and you don't have a plan to grow, then
00:38:40
Speaker
you know the idea of a business is to progress and grow right am I right I mean yeah even though we haven't physically been growing we do evolve yes growth isn't necessarily growing the size of the company but like just doing this podcast right reinvesting in the company I mean hey we could pay ourselves a lot more if we didn't
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean it's important it that's that's growing the company Yeah, yeah because the next job is gonna be 2% easier Yeah, then the next job after that's gonna be 2% the company's healthy and we're healthy So we tend to take it
00:39:21
Speaker
uh you know a day a week at a time we do talk about it all the time so i think that's important uh we may not have anything formalized but it it's certainly on our minds all the time what can we do to be better and if that involves growing if that involves changing that's always uh something for us and we look at as an opportunity yeah you have to be flexible and yeah
00:39:48
Speaker
So any of you guys out there want to take my spot, uh, some of your resume and for small fee, we have a waiting list. It literally is a waiting list. You're telling me something now. Oh, we hear it all the time. People, people show up and they say, Oh man, I wish I could work here. Yeah. They, they usually ask how old riches. Yeah.
00:40:11
Speaker
I'm ready to be pushed out the door. But good to have friends, isn't it? Big shoes to fill. So what this this next question really comes. I mean, this has been a very unusual bit of interest. Yes, I'll let you take this one. All right. Your department.
00:40:30
Speaker
Well, the question from my Covian, who's known as Quartersong Weekend on Instagram, he asks, what's your favorite Afro beat track? Which so we get these. I get this question from time to time because I'll post stories on Instagram and, you know, people hear the Afro beat music in the background.
00:40:51
Speaker
And surprisingly enough, I've had a bunch of people reach out and comment, which I didn't even know what Afro Beat was until I met Rob. So there's I mean, there's a lot of Afro Beat that plays in the show. Yeah. Yeah. We have Pandora on a channel that.
00:41:09
Speaker
Circulates. We got clutch and some typical rock and roll. A lot of afro beat, a lot of soul R&B. Once in a while, one of Rich's tunes by Brett will come on. And if he's not around, we'll skip it.
00:41:24
Speaker
So for the uninitiated Afrobeat, what is it? It's a mixture of West African, primarily Nigerian, indigenous music mixed with American funk, soul, R&B type of grooves.
00:41:40
Speaker
Everybody knows who James Brown is. He's the godfather of soul. JB. Yeah. And so his equivalent, his equal in every sense would be Fela Kuti. He's passed now, but he's Nigerian and he's the godfather, the father and the son of Afrobeat. And he's got a great message. Afrobeat's filled with a lot of
00:42:08
Speaker
political message, at least it was.
00:42:11
Speaker
when it started out. Pretty apropos. Yes. And so it's it's pretty timely music. My favorite track by Fela Kuti would be the Kalakuta show. And it's a group. I know. Well, you could look it up and a band called Afro Diz does. It's a remake. It's a little slightly different and it's really powerful. And for whatever reason, they call it the Kalaruta show with an R instead of a
00:42:40
Speaker
Second K.
Exploring Afrobeat Music
00:42:42
Speaker
I advise everybody to check that out. Afro Diz plays. Calla Ruta show. And the father, Fela, Calla Kuta show. So Jeff may have one. I mean, I'd say that I'm not I'm not an afro be buff by any. No, no. Because we hear it a lot. Yeah, I hear a good bit here and I have some Fela Kuti on my phone. Yeah.
00:43:08
Speaker
I'm gonna say just like that. Shout out to our buddy Manny.
00:43:13
Speaker
Just like that. Yeah. Just like that. That's the only thing, too, in the song. Just like that. Yeah, it's about it. I'm going to say, what, 18 minute long song. It's a good one, though. Yeah, that's the other thing. You know, a lot of songs are very, very long. Yeah. Could be 20 minute long. Yeah. I mean, just like that will be in your head for the entire day. It's in my head right now. Just like that. You got anything to add there, Rich? No, you lost me on Fave when you started with Fave Ro Afro Beat, because I wasn't independent attention. What the hell are you saying?
00:43:44
Speaker
You know what? I listen to anything that's being played in the shop. Rich is a good sport. You can't complain. I like different type of music and all that. I mean, I laugh when I gotta hear this 20 minute song about who shot his mama. They pushed her out a window. It scares the story straight.
00:44:03
Speaker
And just like that. So we kind of joke about it. Well, when we run over and crank up like a Rage Against the Machine song. Yeah. A lot of Rage Against the Machine tool. A lot of tool. James Brown. Steely Dan. What else? The bread comes on. What were the songs that came on yesterday?
00:44:25
Speaker
Oh, there was Jim Croci and Loggins and Missy. Yeah. Rich happened to be out of the shop. We're like, what's like a block, a six dog came on. And I'm going to shop. I hear the afro beat. Yeah. It really brought us down, didn't it? Rage against the machine at 11.
00:44:43
Speaker
We do have a really loud sound system. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For a small shop, I mean, it's the windows will pump. Yeah. It's more than some like bars have that have like those. Oh, hey, I want to especially thank my Covion. And what's your favorite Afro beat song? Yeah. Yeah. Let us know. Send us something that'll, you know, turn us on to some new tunes. Yeah.
00:45:07
Speaker
I'm sure they'll be long. Actually, another one of my favorites is that he kept a shakedown. Yeah. That's like an instrumental sort of Afrobeat fusion kind of. Yeah. There are a lot of younger bands that influenced by Afrobeat that play sort of like a neo version of it. And they're great. They're great.
00:45:25
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a big fan of those new newer bands that are are playing music influenced by older stuff because I like the high fidelity kind of audio stuff like that. I have no more comments. We could do a whole podcast on that. That's right. At least we didn't bring Guinness to the party. That's true.
00:45:48
Speaker
All right, we got this next one. This is from our buddy Tim. He's in New Jersey to down South Jersey. True trade carpentry on Instagram. He does amazing work. So check him out. He asks, how do you start? Oh, wait, he skipped. Sorry, sorry. I have these questions are squished together. Tim was the last question, but we'll skip to him now. He says, why are you here? He's referencing Instagram just for the likes. Are you here to network from Tim?
00:46:15
Speaker
Well, you guys aren't really, I mean, you guys are on Instagram, but not heavily like me. I don't know if you guys can weigh in. Sure can.
Social Media's Role in Business
00:46:27
Speaker
I like it. You're in for the likes? Oh yeah, I'm in for the likes. I would say I'm in for the checks, but I can't. I wouldn't have a fat pension to fall back on. But no, it's nice that
00:46:44
Speaker
You get recognition from what you do, whether it's pictures, whether it's the podcast. It's nice that people like what we do.
00:46:54
Speaker
And we don't do it just for the likes. No, I do for the t-shirts, but I haven't gotten any t-shirts yet. You got one from U.S. Abrasives, but we had to buy like three hundred dollars worth of sandpaper for that. We are here to network. We're here to give people a little bit of knowledge of what it's like to run a small cabinet shop.
00:47:18
Speaker
And I think we're having a good time. We're definitely having a good time doing it. I'm having a lot of fun. And I'm getting to learn how to use Instagram and all that other fancy stuff. You're doing better than Rob. Yeah. I fell off the branch. Jeff urged me to get involved. I even put the app on my phone and everything like that.
00:47:38
Speaker
Um, I just found I didn't have anything to say. Uh, that's, that's pretty funny. It is. Um, but I think I, I think I overthought it more than anything really. I'm in it completely for, for networking. Yeah. Just to, just to put our name out there. Um, because there's really no better place right now than being on social media as far as getting the word out about who you are and what you do.
00:48:08
Speaker
um for better or worse yeah i mean if there is i have no idea what it is because yeah and i'll tell you this before i started trying to do it i didn't realize how much work it is now jeff before he speaks about it i'll just
00:48:25
Speaker
say for Rich and I, we are quite thankful that we have him on board to do this because it's a tremendous amount of work. And that's one of the beauties of having, you know, the three of us and the varied skill set, you know, like one of the things that I'll do is I'll carve out the initial design of some things. A client will miss a sketch on a napkin, even a designer. They're pretty primitive most of the time. And I'll bust it out in SketchUp just so we could get a
00:48:55
Speaker
idea what it is and then we can kind of discuss what kind of cost is attached to the job so that's kind of my thing and Jeff's definitely he handles all the technical stuff for the podcast purchasing all yeah all the Instagram stuff and we try and pitch in but it's really his thing he's responsible for getting our name out there.
00:49:16
Speaker
I go to the store a lot. Pick up lunch, pick up pretzels, peanuts. Rich is the runner, that's for sure. You like going home depot. I like to socialize. That's the other thing, Jeff. You can't pay us to leave the shop. You just can't.
00:49:33
Speaker
Don't even try me on the weekend because I'm not going anywhere. I have to get some air. Not me. There's about as much air as I can get. We don't go anywhere. Two miles to the shop and two miles. We went to see we had to go look at something at six o'clock the other night. Oh, yeah. And so I could tell Jeff didn't want to go. So I said, I'll go with you. He said, you're going to go somewhere at six o'clock.
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah, unless it's a band practice. Yeah, I don't assume you're staying home. That's the truth. That's that's really how I'm the same way after work. I'm I give it 100 percent at work every day. I don't have anything left when I get home. Yeah. Yeah. I sat down with the computer last night to edit a little video I put up last night. And I mean, my eyes are glazing over. It's only 7 30 a night. I don't know. Maybe it's just me.
00:50:26
Speaker
No, it worked in the computer this morning. I did the flyer and it's it wears you out in a different kind of way. We're used to physical work. We're used to standing. We're used to lifting and bending and all that stuff. Sitting in one spot is rough. Not the work is is is more of it. It's more of a stress than building something.
00:50:46
Speaker
We should add that rich does all of our books. He keeps the records for everything, which is another super time consuming thing. Jeff and I were here, we were looking for something. It's like, maybe it's in that file. We all have the file. It's like two feet deep with all these records. And he's like, did you know?
00:51:06
Speaker
It's a lot of work. Everything's a lot of work. So back, you know, all the way around to this. If you're done, we could segue into the the last question. Oh, well, yeah. No, I didn't even talk about what I'm here for. Yeah. So I'll say the chicks. No, I think I first got into Instagram because. There was like a lot of giveaways and stuff, you know, this is going back probably. You're always winning, too.
00:51:35
Speaker
Yeah, three or four years. I want a bunch of stuff. I won two of the holics, like 40,000 giveaway, won the festival domino. I mean, a bunch of t-shirts, stuff like that. I wore one a pair of boots from, yeah, from five of fuse, the drywall company. He was always coming in with something. Yeah, I want a bunch of stuff. So I think that's why I originally got in this like predates Green Street by years. And then
00:52:03
Speaker
When I started Green Street, first I started Rob's page when Rob got laid off from Tom's. That was sort of like a preface to us. Yeah. So I started it for Barone Woodwork, which then that account just changed names over to Green Street. So no, at that point I wasn't in it for likes. I was in it for networking. When we started this company, I must have cold messaged
00:52:33
Speaker
Well over a thousand designers, builders, architects. Yeah. And I don't think we got any work out of it. No, no, we got a few bids, but it would. But at least people started to know who we were. So I got in it for Green Street for networking with clients.
00:52:53
Speaker
Now we use it for networking with other furniture makers, cabinet makers. I know some of you are listening right now. I've reached out to for advice. You've reached out to us. We had a situation where what was it with the slides? We wanted to use the
00:53:13
Speaker
Tip-on, are they called? The bloom slide that you push and they open up. But we make three quarter inch drawer boxes. Well, they don't make the tip-on attachment for three quarter inch drawer boxes. So we didn't know that. I pose a question on Instagram. I get feedback from three, four guys about how to fix the problem. So it's a great resource. And that's what Tim's getting at because he I think it was in in regards to the TS 75 he just bought. You know, he was asking a bunch of guys their opinion and
00:53:38
Speaker
You know, it's a great resource to get information. Guys like Tanner, you're just getting into woodworking. Reach out to some of those big accounts that you follow and ask. Most of the times people are very receptive. There's no such thing as a stupid question. No, just stupid people. Don't be afraid to ask anything. I do it all the time.
00:53:58
Speaker
There's usually at least one nice guy or girl at one of these accounts that will treat you with some respect. And you reach out to accounts that have 200, 300,000 plus followers. They'll get back to you. A lot of times they do. And if they don't, well, then maybe they're not worth following. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, we're in it for
00:54:22
Speaker
The networking. Yeah. The likes are nice, too. But plus we got we got a lot of business from Instagram. That's the bulk of our business coming in now. Yeah. Has been from Instagram. It used to be people would find you on the Web. You sort of like the old phone book, so to speak, for those old enough to remember what that was. And let me see your truck passing by and they remember the name of the company on the truck. But that's
00:54:49
Speaker
You don't see that anymore. Yeah. I mean, looking at our Google Analytics, we get a couple dozen, maybe more, less than 100, I'd say, web. It's like a cold hit. Yeah. Or a direct search. But from like Google itself, we're getting probably about 100 people a month going directly to the website from Google or to our Google listing where they can get the phone over the address, all that stuff.
00:55:15
Speaker
Instagram allows you to reach people all over the place. You can reach them versus them trying to reach you. It's great. It gives us a voice. And it's free for the most part. You just have to put in the word. Good question. Yeah, it was a good question. Yeah, pull that answer up into the last question there because it kind of fits, right?
Starting a Cabinet Business
00:55:38
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit. This is from Nathan. He's stocked out woods on Instagram. How do you start a cabinet business with little to no experience? Now, that's a pretty vague, vague question because we don't really know what your goals are and and what your experience level is, or if this is just a broad question. You need to define the experience. No. Yeah. Business experience, woodworking experience.
00:56:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'd say that if you have no cabinet experience, then no, you shouldn't try and start a business. Let's say that you need to go out and find a job in the industry and gain some experience. Especially if you're young, you can find a job in some cabinet shops. You'll be the bottom man on the totem pole, but you'll gain some good experience and you'll be in companies where you learn something.
00:56:28
Speaker
and you'll be in companies when you're not gonna learn the damn thing and those are the companies you leave and go on to the next one you learn what you don't like exactly yeah yeah i mean that's kind of the way i try to approach everything is you go somewhere you learn everything you can when you're not learning anything else you move on to somewhere else and you that's how you progress up the ladder is you need to keep learning so the the biggest basically let's answer this as what can you do to
00:56:54
Speaker
Prepare yourself to start a cabinet business. Keep learning. Learn everything that you can and try and do as much of it as you can. And nowadays it's so available. Oh yeah, YouTube. You do so much stuff. When Rich and I started, it was like a library card. And I'm serious. A library card and watching Norm Abrams
00:57:16
Speaker
build a bookcase on New Yankee Workshop. And that was back when it was, you know, a very low key kind of show. And I would literally buy the tool that he used because I didn't know any better. I said, well, if he can do it with that tool and if I'm looking for a router, well, then that's the one I'm going to get because that's before. Yeah.
00:57:40
Speaker
you know, paid sponsorship. Yes, this was still PBS. Right. Norm was saying that because he believed it. He wasn't saying it because they sent, you know, because Ryobi sent him a free router. No, they wouldn't even have black tape. Yeah. Like that over the labels. They weren't sponsored. The only sponsor they had on the old, old days was Delta. That's true. Yeah. So be wary of what sort of information you're consuming because you need to make sure it's coming from someone that's genuine.
00:58:10
Speaker
Yeah. And I actually met Norm and he's more genuine than you might even imagine someone could be. He's super guy. So I guess I'll pitch in a few cents worth too as well. If you start trying to start a business that you don't have any experience in, that sounds pretty risky to begin with.
00:58:34
Speaker
And then a cabinet business, if you're talking about something that's similar to what we do, which is actually building, designing and building, that requires skill set that these guys were talking about building. If you mean a cabinet business where you open a showroom and sell things, that's sort of like a retail business. I'm assuming you don't mean that.
00:58:59
Speaker
Well, yeah, there's no shortcut. There's just no shortcut. Rich, how long have you been doing this? I've been doing it a long time. I mean, when I first started out, I used to just build shelves and little knickknack type of furniture that I used to go to craft shows. And that's where I got started.
00:59:17
Speaker
I was going to say, you know, Nathan, if you let's say you have a nine to five and you you do you've done some stuff around the house or you do woodworking as a hobby and you want to start a business. Well, now is the time to start preparing yourself by
00:59:32
Speaker
you know, actively making things and selling them and practicing. That's the way you build yourself up to start a business. Don't leave your day job and dive head first because it's a bad idea. Even with the immense skill set that we have, it's still not an easy business. No.
00:59:49
Speaker
No, you're right. And an extremely well-equipped shop, good suppliers where we can get material for a fair price, a good list of clients. I mean, it's not easy. And a lot of support outside the company. We know a lot of people that could help us out in a pinch, whether that's putting on a finish or welding something for us.
01:00:12
Speaker
Um, we had to call out to get something CNC'd at artwork. Um, but cause that's something that everybody should do. Yeah. Timber talent on, uh, Instagram guy. Yeah. Kind of down by rich and, uh, manasquan did some CNC work for us.
01:00:29
Speaker
So did we answer or do we just sort of say, you're crazy, Nathan? Yeah, I'd say how to is to you got to grow yourself to the point of it being financially viable. Yeah.
01:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, so there's there's the two sides of it. I mean to be financially viable. He does have to have certain skill set and then be able to market that skill set. Yeah. Or you got a wife with a fat pension at home. Exactly. That would help. Go for it. That was the answer we were really looking for in Richard's origin story.
01:01:04
Speaker
I don't want to get in trouble with my wife anymore. Just a little quick bit of sunshine, a little ray of hope for you, Nathan. That's almost the way I started just by default. I moved out here to New Jersey 20 years ago.
01:01:21
Speaker
I had probably a 20 year long history as a hobbyist, but never ever thought about starting a business because it seemed quite unimaginable to be able to do it. But I was a school teacher and it was summer. I was in between jobs and I was in the middle of our house here is about 120 years old. I was in the midst of fixing things up and I said, you know what? I got schools. I got the space.
01:01:50
Speaker
I'm just gonna put a sign in my front yard.
01:01:54
Speaker
And lo and behold, that was almost 20 years ago. I'll say that although I lacked business experience and real professional woodworking experience that I had to push myself daily as a challenge. What I did have was a big boost in the design department. You know, I was an artist. I had a background in architecture and design. So that enabled me to win jobs.
01:02:24
Speaker
So maybe you have some kind of hook there, Nathan, besides woodworking. Yeah, I'd say take it on as a side gig until you're too busy that you can't handle it and then think about making the move if that's what you really want to do. But weigh the options because some people like to do things as a hobby and then it's not necessarily as a career.
01:02:47
Speaker
You know, you have to build things sometimes that, you know, you wouldn't necessarily like to put in your own home. Right. Yeah. You guys know the line, you know, oh, it's his passion. His passion is cabinet making. I said it's an inside story. I can't explain the whole thing. But just because you're passionate about doing this doesn't mean that it's necessarily right for you. So you really got to think about it or that you're capable. Right.
01:03:13
Speaker
So good luck. Yeah. Good luck, Nathan. Let us keep in touch with us. Let us know how it's going. If you have more specifics, let us know. Definitely answer. All right. Well, that leaves us to the closing. The thoughts on the beard a week. Yeah. So.
01:03:30
Speaker
We're almost almost time to say goodbye. Wow. I've got a little sad about that. Yeah. So yeah. Turn the air conditioner back on. It's the Allagash white Belgian style wheat beer. What do you think, guys? I'm glad. Good. Good beer. Great for a day like today. It was pretty warm for October. Yeah. We were kind of sweating out there during lunch.
01:03:51
Speaker
And we have to turn the AC off for the cast. Yeah. Yeah. Because I get all that noise in the background. I noticed we all finished like about halfway through. So I think I think everybody likes it. It's the first time. It's good. I'm not the biggest fan of wheat beers. But it was good. I like it.
01:04:11
Speaker
Yeah, I thought it was pretty good. I really think this would make a great t-shirt too. Yeah. Just saying. And again, you know, where I come from, I'm used to just the old fashioned beers. But every once in a while, I like to splurge. And this wasn't that bad at all. I'd have this again. Yeah. But a good pretzel.
01:04:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, this this this was right up my alley. It's a good cooking beer. Yeah, it was very crisp. I thought on the label here, it says has some citrus and spice, specifically coriander and carousel orange peel. Yeah, it's very traditional. And that's yeah. Yeah, it wasn't overpowering at all. It seemed so this is like if you've ever had Blue Moon, this is like a not not bad version of that. Yeah. Blue Moon is like a knock, you know, knock off of this or this is like an American interpretation of
01:05:04
Speaker
You know, Belgian, I thought it was pretty good. I'm back. I thought it was real good. Yeah. Allogash white, Belgian style, wheat beer. Yep.
01:05:13
Speaker
I did want to have to start buying six packs instead of four packs. It becomes a four. Just saying. So what, three thumbs up for the Allagash? I'll give it a thumbs up. Again, I, the shirts would be beautiful. I don't even know if they've got any social media. Well, yeah, they do. Allagash is a big, it's a big, come on, Allagash. Allagash.com. Maybe you're out there listening.
01:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, we put a link in the description of the YouTube page. All right. So I guess that's it. Our closing remarks. Do we have anything to do with the giveaway? Are we going to go over that today or? Well, yeah, you know what? We'll talk about it.
01:05:52
Speaker
We're having a little giveaway and Jeff's reaching out there. We, we went through our tools. Like he said, we've outgrown some of the things we've, we just sort of pulled out some stuff in. Hey, that's my tool. No, that's mine. You know, these are things that we used up until just recently. So, um, they're, they're strong tools and we want to, there's a, there's a start for you there. Yeah.
01:06:25
Speaker
Stacking it up. It's like a Christmas morning over here for those out on out on the airwaves Just on the audio we got a bench plane Block plane Yeah, yeah, so we haven't we haven't cleaned any of this up it's all dusty and but well, you know, we'll blow everything off and make sure they're
01:06:51
Speaker
You know, in working order, which they are, we've been using them. We have English made Stanley number four with the lace wood handle. You might have seen I made for that a record English made block plane. We had the set of four Stanley sweetheart 750s. Hard scraper with a burnisher. We have a Veritas Mark one honing guide. The DMT diamond.
01:07:16
Speaker
I guess they call it medium fine, an extra fine and coarse stone. And I have the little holder for the stones over there. You might find some other stuff that we have. Yeah, but that throw in there, but only the foundation of it. Yeah. Or chisels, two planes, sharpening system. So how is this going to work?
Tool Giveaway Announcement
01:07:35
Speaker
How is this? Well, that I haven't actually decided. OK. Yeah. But this is shirts would help.
01:07:43
Speaker
You have shirts, you don't need them. No, I'm not saying that. We'll probably do something. We'll announce next week how to enter, but it'll be something. Yeah, it'll be everything you read legit. Yeah, via Instagram. So we're going to have a drawing is what you're saying. Yeah, you'll enter and then we'll pick, you know, we'll randomly pick the winner. All right. So it's going to be a random drawing for those that enter.
01:08:06
Speaker
Well, we'll cover shipping in the U.S., but if you're international, you want to enter, we'll have to see what the shipping is. Maybe you cover the shipping and because it's pretty heavy. No, not still be several other items added in. We are pretty
01:08:23
Speaker
pretty nice. Yeah, so I don't want to close it off to international people. No, definitely not. Yeah, I know a lot of giveaways are for the lower 48 only, but we'll keep it open and we'll talk about working out shipping with somebody if they win. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. And yeah, we've been using this stuff. I mean, I pulled that right out of my bench. I haven't even gotten a replacement for my little bench, my little block plane. I haven't even set up all of my new chisels since
01:08:50
Speaker
since I retired those. That's a brand new burnisher. We got that to go with the card scraper. So that way you can actually set up your scraper on the stones, burnish it, you'll be good to go. That's another great tool for a beginner. So Tanner, get a scraper and a burnisher and learn how to use it. Yeah, we use those every day. You can set them up with a file if you don't have stones. It's not ideal, but. Yeah, that's how I usually do a quick and dirty file.
01:09:17
Speaker
Yeah, I'm in dirty. Yeah, yeah, because I'm I'm, you know, scraping glue and just kind of. Yeah. But all right. Yeah. OK, that's it for the fifth podcast. I hope you guys had a good time listening to us and hope we answered your questions and give us your feedback. Yeah. Tune in next week.
01:09:39
Speaker
For another exciting show. Yeah. And you are sponsors out there. Come on. Come on. Somebody send something. Shut this. Send something to Rich, for God's sake. Not just for me.
01:09:55
Speaker
And if you have questions, don't wait for us to ask. You can just send them over. Don't wait till Wednesday morning or Tuesday night. Yeah. And don't be shy. If you want to remain anonymous, just let us know. Yes. All right. Question is too stupid. Take care. Be well. Take care.