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The American Craftsman Podcast Ep. 45 | Wiping
38 Plays4 years ago
**Meet-Up: Saturday August 7th @ 2:30pm. Belford Brewing Co. in Belford, NJ. Facebook Event: https://fb.me/e/1QutOnfNz **
On Episode 45 of The American Craftsman Podcast, hosted by Greene Street Joinery, we answering an interesting question about wiping.
10% off your order from Montana Brand Tools:
https://www.montanabrandtools.com/discount/AMERICANCRAFTSMAN
Beer of the Week (Carton Brewing Larry): https://cartonbrewing.com/beers/larry/
Tool of the Week: (Stanley Titan Retractable Knife) https://amzn.to/3ey6SC3Greene 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 & Partnership Announcement
00:00:16
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a change
00:00:22
Speaker
The American Craftsman Podcast is proud to partner with Montana Brand Tools. The West was built by people with strength and great pride in their workmanship. It was a necessity that early settlers of Montana have a strong will, a resilient character, and great determination to tame the rugged landscape while adapting to its dramatic climate. That spirit made in the USA pride and craftsmanship is alive today, both in how Montana Brand Tools are manufactured and how they perform.
00:00:48
Speaker
Montana Brand Power Tool accessories are manufactured utilizing proprietary state-of-the-art CNC machining equipment and the highest quality materials available. Montana Brand tools are guaranteed for life to be free of defects in material and workmanship because we build these tools with pride and determination.
00:01:05
Speaker
Montana Brand Tools are manufactured by Rocky Mountain Twist, located in Ronin, Montana. Montana Brand's heritage comes from a long line of innovative power tool accessories.
Discount Code Announcement
00:01:14
Speaker
Use coupon code American Craftsman for 10% off your order at MontanaBrandTools.com. All right,
Episode Reflection & Challenges
00:01:21
Speaker
people. Welcome to episode 45. Wow. The American Craftsman podcast. You know, it's only seven more and we got a full year. Yeah. That's crazy.
00:01:36
Speaker
I can still remember you saying, oh, we got to do a podcast. I'm like, well, you mean like 15 minutes, right? It's our longest with Manny three and a half hours or something. Had a couple that we had to split into two or lower the quality really far. Don't have a printed template this week because it's just been one hell of a day. I didn't get the question thing out until late last night.
00:02:05
Speaker
Um, so we don't have a ton of questions. Um, but we got some good ones, it seems. So we're, we're coming, coming off the, off the cuff today. Yeah. Plus we were already in Newark. Yeah. And Sir caucus this morning. Yeah. And we did the same, the webinar or whatever we're calling the design webinar.
Beer of the Week & Personal Memories
00:02:28
Speaker
Maybe we'll, uh, let's, let's do the beer and the tool and then we can start out. We'll talk about what we did on the Patreon. Okay. Sure. A rundown of the day. Um, so yeah, beer the week is first. Yeah. Bust it open. We just went and picked this up. Thank you. Oh, wait. B roll video.
00:03:00
Speaker
So we have a beer this week from Carton Brewing, which is right up the street in Atlantic Islands. This is called Larry Islander Vice Sour Ale with salted cantaloupe. 3.9% ABV. IBU is sour.
00:03:21
Speaker
There's no end to what my dad taught me in the kitchen as a child, and every carton beer is seeded in a concept I germinated after he planted it. Larry is the most direct translation of one of those memories. Making breakfast for the family one morning, we cut an under-ripe cantaloupe that was just too flat and boring to satisfy dad.
Lessons from Recording Mishaps
00:03:38
Speaker
He diced it rather than slicing, squeezed a lemon, and sprinkled some salt. It wasn't the sweet fruit it had been, but it was zippy and bright, and its firm texture bettered the dish.
00:03:48
Speaker
It was exciting, new and different to my young perspective. Drink, Larry, because a thousand mile journey of off the beaten craft starts with those first steps. Mm hmm. I'm guessing his dad's name is Larry. I guess so. I think there's another brewery who's like catchphrases off the beaten craft. Oh, let me see.
00:04:16
Speaker
I am
Favorite Utility Knife Discussion
00:04:17
Speaker
recording, right? I think so. We don't want another episode like that one. No, I don't think we got it. I don't think we got it in us to do. I think that was the day of the live stream, wasn't it? The last one? Where we went wrong. Yeah. You might be right. Cause it was like a marathon day. Yeah.
00:04:45
Speaker
Very clear. I think this is gonna be good. Yeah. Looking forward to this first sip. Mmm. Here we go. Cheers, bro. Cheers. Cheers to all you. Mmm. Wow. I'm not getting a lot of cantaloupe.
00:05:20
Speaker
I feel like I got lemon. I did just eat some cashews. Maybe a little bit of cantaloupe. It's good though. Yeah. We got a first this week. A first? Oh yeah.
00:05:48
Speaker
Cheese of the week. You can see that this costs $4.99 at the shop rate. This is just where we need a snack. Yeah, we've been running on empty. Now it says Google over there. Oh, yeah. I want to. Off. The beaten. Craft.
00:06:22
Speaker
No, I guess it's their thing. All right, good. Yeah. Staying corrected. Um. What do you what do you got for the cheese of the week? This is Kerrygold Dubliner 100% natural cheese aged cheese with a distinctive taste and a natural hint of sweetness imported from Ireland. I like Kerrygold.
00:06:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of my go-tos. I like the butter. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I'm more familiar with their butter. This stuff is so yellow. Hopefully I don't cut through his plate and cut through my femoral artery. That would be a little off-script. Yeah. I think this thing's gonna have to soften up a little bit. Thank you. But we'll get into the cheese. Yeah. Don't mind our eating. No.
00:07:20
Speaker
Well, we do drink, so. That's true. Mm. Probably a good. Wait, wasn't the livestream one where we ate all the peanuts afterwards? That drove people crazy, because we're cracking peanuts for like an hour and a half straight. A little hungry. Yeah. So all the week, again, a little off the cuff, I had to grab some out of the basement because we're all discombobulated today.
00:07:52
Speaker
So tool of the week this week, Stanley Titan utility knife. This is, uh, my favorite, favorite utility knife. Not for shop work. This is for site work. Um, you know, rough install kind of stuff.
00:08:10
Speaker
So these aren't available in the US anymore. This I had to get imported in from England. But you see, the good thing about it is it has this locking wheel. So when you put this blade out and you lock this down, the blade won't go back in. Like it's next to impossible. Other thing is, let me see, I'll get it all the way open. You can hold like about 20 spare blades in here.
00:08:41
Speaker
So you see how wide that is. That's pretty nice. It's like a year's worth of blades. So you kind of got to pay through the nose to get these now. I think this one I paid like 35 bucks, but it's a good knife. It's solid. It's got this big, you know, flare at the base and that angle. Yeah, that way. Yeah, the angle is nice. But this, you know, it's not going to slip out of your hand. We just got this big flare.
00:09:08
Speaker
I like it. So yeah, this is my second one, the first one. What the hell did I do to it? I think I might have broken this. Broke the button off. Yeah. And I couldn't find a replacement, so. Yeah. I mean, these things take a beating. Really good for, like, carpentry work.
00:09:26
Speaker
You know, when you have to cut shims or something, let's say you're cutting a big stack of shims on a door and you lock this thing down, you know, cause you'll cut shims and the blade will push back in or sheetrock, you know, this, there's no way you get two hands on it. It's big. So yeah, Stanley, the Stanley Titan, they replaced it with some like fat max BS. That's just not the same thing. Biggest.
00:09:52
Speaker
I'll see if I can get a link down in the description. Might be an eBay only kind of thing though. Yeah, yeah.
Design Webinar Success
00:10:18
Speaker
like it.
00:10:34
Speaker
10-122. Check it out. Yeah. They will cut the cheese with it. Alright. Alright, onward and upward. I guess, uh, talk a little bit about what, uh,
00:10:59
Speaker
what we did today in terms of Patreon stuff. Yeah, we had a requested format of design. Yeah, so something we do for the Patreon is we'll do a quarterly live stream. So this is only the second one, something we started doing last quarter, four months ago.
00:11:25
Speaker
So the first one we did on pricing, so it was all on how to price a job and how to correspond with a client, all that good stuff.
00:11:36
Speaker
This one was on design. So one of our patrons, Jerry, he wrote in with an idea of what he wanted, sent like a floor plan. And we actually, or I should say, Rob, drew it in Sketchup. And we went back and forth with Jerry, just like we were with a client, made some revisions and stuff, and came away with, you know, in an hour and a half, what could be finished into an actual design. Yeah, it was a good collaborative effort.
00:12:06
Speaker
So it was a lot of fun. And what we do is we save it. So now the patrons can go back. If they weren't able to make the live stream, they can go back and watch it. Jerry was a good sport and a lot of help. He gave us feedback along the way and really provided a platform for us to do this. Yep. Yeah, it was fun.
00:12:37
Speaker
We had a hell of a time getting the two computers into one. Once again, we were reminded that our medium is wood. Not technology. So, yeah. We got a Best Buy yesterday. And it was like a ghost town in there, wasn't it? And bought a bunch of stuff we didn't even need, apparently.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah. We got a capture card and this monster HDMI cable. That was $40. And then we had to try and figure out how to make it work, which went right down to the Y, didn't it? Yeah. So we use this program called OBS to do the podcast.
Upcoming Meet-up Announcement
00:13:30
Speaker
So it basically takes
00:13:33
Speaker
multiple sources, which could vary from a camera, an audio source, a screen capture, a media source, and several, excuse me, several other things and combines them into one stream or file recording, like now we're recording before we were streaming. So what we were trying to do is get Rob's
00:14:00
Speaker
get a screen cap of Rob's computer and get it to my computer so that I could use it as a source on OBS so that people could follow along as Rob is drawing, but also see us on camera. Excuse me. And it was just like not working.
00:14:21
Speaker
There was a lot of trial and error until you finally hit the right video that gave us the right information. But we were driving back from Newark trying to download something that wasn't going to work, listening to videos, all the while trying to glean the right bit of info. Yeah, so the capture card, you had the right idea with the capture card. I don't know what went wrong. So a capture card takes an HDMI signal, turns it into USB.
00:14:52
Speaker
So that's what we use from the camera. So you can take a DSLR or a mirrorless camera and basically turn it into a webcam by plugging it into from mini HDMI to HDMI to the capture card, which goes HDMI to USB. So that's how we get the camera signal to the computer. Rob's laptop has an HDMI out. So we figure, oh, easy, capture card to the computer. Well, I don't know why it didn't work. Just a black, a black screen.
00:15:23
Speaker
But we did it. Yeah. Yeah. It was quite an accomplishment. Yeah. Right in the nick of time, too. We're only a couple of minutes late. We're supposed to start at 1130. I forgot the mouse. Originally we were supposed to start at 11. Forgot the mouse. Forgot all my notes that I made yesterday. Work best under pressure.
00:15:47
Speaker
So we totally have lived the whole thing. Yeah, what else is new? Meet up August 7th, 2.30 p.m. at Belford Brewing Co. in Belford, New Jersey. Looking forward to that. Yeah, we hope to see you guys there if you're in the area or if you're not in the area. First 36 people to arrive. Get one of these beer glasses.
00:16:18
Speaker
and we'll be doing a giveaway from Montana brand tools. That's right. It's nothing crazy, but it's a giveaway. It is. Um, so yeah, but one of these glasses, that's, that's worth the price of admission there. Yeah. Admissions free. Well, well worth it. Um,
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah. We don't have a template this week, so I'm just going to be reading the questions off my phone. Yeah. You know, it's fun, though, when you finally put a face to a name like now, I just met Keith when he was helping us. Blackthorn concepts. Yeah. But now I feel like I've known him after I've met him just two or three times shortly. Yeah. Like I've known him for so long.
Advice for Australian Listener on Shop Management
00:17:03
Speaker
It's funny how that works. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was like that with like Keith from two bid and John Peters and
00:17:09
Speaker
Yeah. You know, when you have this this connection through social media first, it makes getting to know someone like. Yeah, you become fast friends. Yeah. I know. Yeah, John will be there, I'm sure. Yeah, he's he has something going on later, so he won't be he'll be there, but not for very long. Cool.
00:17:36
Speaker
So yeah, we have a post on Instagram. So if you're coming or know anyone who would like to come, you know, feel free to share the post and get the word out. They can fit up to 100 people. So I mean, I don't expect us to have 100, but if we could get 100 people, that'd be awesome.
00:17:52
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. This is a cool little brewery. Two brothers, good beer. We had we had their beer at my wedding. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to be drinking the beer that they're making on the premises. Yeah. Yeah. And our glasses in these American craftsmen glasses. Nice. Yeah. Well, I guess we better get into these questions here. Yeah. Let's see what we got.
00:18:19
Speaker
What do you think about Jack's question? Should that be the, um, question of the week? Oh, wait. I don't know. This one from, uh, from Parker, our, uh, patrons pretty good for question of the week. All right. I'll, I'll leave it in your capable hands. Let's see.
00:18:44
Speaker
You want to open with Jax? It's a good one. Get us thinking. So this is from Jack Thornton. He is Jack Thornton 98 on Instagram. He's in Australia. He's an apprentice. We've had a bunch of questions from Jack and talked about his apprenticeship and stuff.
00:19:04
Speaker
Dear Rob and Jeff, hope all is well in the United States and in your little pocket of paradise, aka the shop. It is. I have been following along keenly to both the podcast and the Instagram feed. As always, very informative, relatable and inspiring. Thank you.
00:19:18
Speaker
I have been working on a variety of interesting projects at work and at home but have been having some issues with poor communication and organization from quote-unquote management. It stems from the two workers in the office, one being the boss, being too busy to look far ahead and keep us on the shop floor informed about what to do next and what needs to be organized to continue workflow. I feel the need to implement some actual systems or forms
00:19:43
Speaker
to be able to improve communication and allow the workers to look ahead at upcoming jobs and ensure there are sufficient materials, measurements, and the ability to check whether all aspects of construction have been carefully considered and planned. What measures could be put into place to improve communication and forward planning? Do you have any experience with sanding schedules, job cards, or even Gantt charts? Any advice would be appreciated. Keep on fighting the good fight. Yours sincerely, Jack Thornton, Sydney, Australia. Nice.
00:20:12
Speaker
Great question. Yeah, we read this on the drive up to to we're going to sick caucus. So I guess we better backtrack to.
00:20:26
Speaker
what we did today. So I've been working on a prototype for my buddy. Um, I don't think I could say too much about it. I've been talking to some, some people about it, but, um, he has a company and making something for him to present to another company. He's got a warehouse up in Sakakis. So I thought I had it done yesterday.
00:20:47
Speaker
Lou called me on the way home. We're chatting. I'm sitting out in my truck, you know, because it takes me five minutes to get home. So I'm sitting out in the truck and we're talking and I go, oh, shit. I said, I forgot to make the the X for the thing. So I had to I went to the shop. We were planning on leaving at seven to to deliver this thing because, you know, it's about an hour and a half, an hour and a half, two hour drive.
00:21:15
Speaker
It was only 23 miles or was it 40 miles? No, it was 40 miles. 40 miles. So for those not familiar, 40 miles takes an hour and a half around here. Yeah.
00:21:28
Speaker
So, yeah, so I had to go in the shop at five to get it done. We still didn't leave until like 720 for me to get these couple of things done. Yeah. And, you know, battle with traffic all the way up. Got that delivered. I think we left there about nine. Nine forty five, maybe. Yeah.
00:21:48
Speaker
or maybe nine 30. Then we went to Newark because we filled up my truck yesterday with stuff to deliver there that we're going to install tomorrow. But this marathon is not, not ending. So we dropped that stuff off and then we had to, we had to fight all the traffic to get back here. So yeah, I mean, just been a crazy day. Yeah. We're just catching our breath now. I set, I set my alarm for three 40 this morning. That's what time I woke up.
00:22:19
Speaker
He'll be going to bed early tonight. Yeah. It'll be a race between you and the boy. It is anyway, even on a good day. So what do you think about Jack's question? I mean, we definitely have experience with, uh, poor bosses who are bad planners and have zero for, you
Experiences with Poor Management
00:22:45
Speaker
know, forethought. Poor management. Yeah.
00:22:48
Speaker
I mean, that's one thing that comes to mind right off the bat is that one of the people responsible for all this chaos is the boss. It leaves, in our experience, at least very little hope for things to change.
00:23:04
Speaker
Yeah, you know the first thing I said when we read the question in the truck was and Jack is the apprentice Yeah, like yeah, and he's the one that has to say, you know, we should have some systems in place And this is a situation that we've been in ourselves Where you know everybody from the from the very bottom people the guys would that's there just to sweep the floor mm-hmm knows that it's just a total mess and
00:23:32
Speaker
Not to like sound defeatist but like don't get your hopes up. Yeah. Because a lot of times when when the boss is like that there's no changing it. No. And there's no hope in ever changing it. Right. So you don't want to get too too invested in it because it's going to eat you alive if you.
00:23:52
Speaker
That's why it's been perpetuated. The people that have been there for a long enough time, they've already succumbed to it and their coping mechanism is to just ride the waves. And that's kind of how we found it as well when we worked in a place where there was
00:24:10
Speaker
a lot of chaos and mismanagement. Things constantly go wrong and they repeatedly go wrong in the same way. And you say to yourself, this is really obvious. Why can't we just
00:24:25
Speaker
Changes just a little bit and things will be better, but it doesn't it just doesn't yeah And that's not to say that it can't maybe in a in a different situation But you need to keep that in mind before you before you dive into this process of trying to implement changes
00:24:46
Speaker
You know, it's a slippery slope because, you know, you're down towards the bottom, Jack, as an apprentice. And it's it might not be met with a positive response. No. You know, they're going to say who's Jack to be saying that, you know, we're disorganized and and, you know, don't know how to run a job and.
00:25:11
Speaker
but frequently it's the fresh eyes that see all these things. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. Everything he sees is real. It's just people don't want to hear it. Right. Um, so that's a tough one. Uh, what could we offer in a, in a perfect world? If somebody at the top was receptive to suggestion, what kind of, um, suggestions could we offer? Um,
00:25:41
Speaker
I mean, I have limited experience with Gantt charts. I think Gantt charts are very good. It's hard when the schedule is changing all the time because you have this big Gantt chart that all of a sudden it gets scrapped because you made a little change and everything, you know, it's a domino effect.
00:25:58
Speaker
But I like the idea of something like that where you have a calendar for the job that says start date is this, completion date is this, and filling in everything in between, whether it's ordering material, confirming the design. They need to be in finishing by this day. They need to be delivered by this day. I think something like that's good. Just creating an atmosphere of communication where you're
00:26:27
Speaker
You know, it kind of starts with that. Like it's clear that no one is communicating. So in order to create a system of communication, first you need to just start communicating. Right. So I mean, that sounds kind of weird, but. I wonder if he's, you know, because he mentioned measurements, I wonder if the if there are plans are being communicated clearly and accurately.
00:26:56
Speaker
It makes me think to the days when I was a catering chef and we had a really great system at the company and everybody had a specific role and things went off pretty flawlessly and I would think
00:27:16
Speaker
that the key to it all was the kitchen manager because he was the guy who communicated from the office to the workers, we'll call them, to all the prep cooks in the kitchen. Now I did prep a little bit, but mostly I worked on site as a chef. And then I took the job of the chef on his two days off. So I had a good overview of what was going on and
00:27:45
Speaker
The chef would create the menus, which is more or less like creating the plans, the drawings.
00:27:53
Speaker
And he would also then break those down into the prep lists. So if, you know, there was a party for a thousand people and it had, you know, certain entrees, certain, you know, first course, that kind of thing, he would have that all broken down into recipes and all the recipes would then be broken down into the different stages of prep work.
00:28:20
Speaker
And all this was given to the kitchen manager, who would then assign all these tasks to individual people. And then those individual people had to sign off on their job. So if the onions weren't diced to the right size, we could trace that back to a specific person. And when it was done, it was reported and it was crossed off the list. That place we used to work.
00:28:49
Speaker
It was kind of like that. Except they give you the recipe and then you start cooking. And then there'd be like a blank area in the recipe where you're like, wait a minute, it says put in the chicken stock, but there's no chicken stock on the ingredients. Use water. Or, you know, the recipe would change mid and you're already cooking.
Improving Workplace Efficiency
00:29:16
Speaker
That's right. So you can't cook like that. We're going to beef bourguignon now. Yeah. But I have veal here. These are veal cutlets. Yeah. Systems. That place had a system. Yeah. And you know what? Everybody was happy. Sometimes people get the idea that a system is constraining in a bad way. But it's freeing. Yeah.
00:29:44
Speaker
because you know what you're supposed to do and you know that everybody is accountable for what they're doing. So you kind of work with this freedom, you know, and you, you know, you'll be recognized for doing the right thing and, um, such an, and everything went off really without a hitch in that place.
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah, it is nice as an employee to work somewhere that has good systems. I haven't been so lucky to experience it, but I learned a lot from working at that place.
00:30:21
Speaker
When we would go out on the job to prepare for the events, we had these big, long sheets of, you know, utensils and tools. Like a checklist. Yeah. You know, what truck you're taking, how many cutting boards, how many, you know, ovens you were going to need, the platters you were going to use. It was great. Yeah, I like all that kind of stuff, all the, you know,
00:30:54
Speaker
over preparation is, is, it's better than under preparation. Oh, for sure. For sure. Um, and we did the same thing. There might be like past hors d'oeuvres for a dozen people in a small office, or it might be a sit down dinner, literally for a thousand people, same system. And it worked. Yeah. You know,
00:31:23
Speaker
It never hurts to be over prepared or you know, but it always hurts to be under prepared. That's that's a good way to put it
00:31:31
Speaker
It's like, you know, we go to install, we we paint over what we're going to bring in. There's nothing worse than not having what you need. But if you brought it and you didn't use it, it's it's not a big deal. What's the worst? We pack it and unpack it. That's it. And pretty soon we're going to have plenty of room. Yeah.
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah, I guess last week we still hadn't pulled the trigger. We're still looking for a van, but we finally, we put a deposit down on a van. Should be here in, I don't know, hopefully a week or less. We're excited like little kids. Yeah.
00:32:11
Speaker
So we got a 2021 1500 Mercedes Sprinter It's still at the factory in Charleston. They're made in the USA Charleston, South Carolina. Yeah So we should be getting that and maybe as soon as like Thursday Yeah, it's I I can't remember the last time I was really looking forward to something as much as this. Yeah, it's gonna be nice We've really we need nice to had it like yeah, you know two weeks ago, but I
00:32:39
Speaker
We definitely need it. Yeah. And man, buying a fan right now is hard. Yeah. We went to two or three places and they, I mean, they were nice enough. They just didn't really seem like they care if we bought anything or not. Yeah. And, um, a few places would, didn't even like call us back, uh, right away or at all.
00:33:06
Speaker
Yeah, the one place like the guy talked to him and he was like, oh, yeah, I think I got something. Let me check on it. I'll give you a call back. I didn't hear from him. So the next day I called always with a client, you know, he'll call you back, didn't call back. So I called again, got somebody else. I said, listen, I'm not got time to wait for this guy. I'll talk to you.
00:33:25
Speaker
Then he called, oh, Doug is actually, he's going to call you back. And then didn't hear anything. Then the guy, Hey, this is Carmine. I said, Carmine, I bought a car from somebody else. He's like, I got time to wait around for you. This was like two days later. Yeah. So there is a real shortage of vans and a real, real shortage of the Mercedes.
00:33:45
Speaker
gas and gas. There's a bunch of diesels around, but no gas. A diesel wouldn't work for us because of our short trips of driving and things like that. So we needed a gas engine. We wanted the Mercedes. It's really that we feel the best value and the best vehicle for us. And there was none to be had.
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah, and the used market is like insanely inflated. Right, right. Everything's got over 100,000 miles on it. You'd be lucky to get one for less than 30,000 used. Right, right. So they're not really marking them down appropriately. And we learned that it still baffles me why they're all getting turned into refrigerated vans.
00:34:39
Speaker
But there's a high markup on I guess that's that's all the info I need.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah. And even from other dealers, we heard like just people doing highway drive or city driving. Everybody's buying up the gas. Yeah. Because, you know, diesel is diesel is a highway. Right. You want to drive 100 miles a clip, at least with diesel, you know, and really run it. So I guess in our area, it's all congested. It's probably opposite in some areas of the country where there's more wide open
00:35:11
Speaker
I think it just has to do with the function of the of the van, you know, like what people are using them for deliveries and within the city and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. So we got one coming. We got we're shopping now. We got a got a nice wrap thing. Yeah, I'm waiting to. I got to send that guy a deposit.
00:35:31
Speaker
We've got to get a stereo. No, not a stereo. You know, a new head unit put in because it just comes with a stock. Just a just a tiny little screen, like an LCD screen. Yeah, I can't read that small thing.
00:35:45
Speaker
No. And yeah, we need to have, you know, CarPlay integrated so we can have our navigation and all that shit. And the backup. It'll be nice on the big screen. Yep. Yeah. So that's some big news. I mean, that's that's a big thing for a little company like ours. Yeah. Moving on up. Yeah. To the east side. Mm hmm.
00:36:12
Speaker
We kind of got off tangent there. What are we talking about? Jack's question. Oh, Jack. Sorry, Jack. Systems.
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah. Um, what I asked about measurements and I, I don't know if we touched on that, but yeah, it all starts at the top. Yeah. Really all starts at the top. And you'll find that for the most part, the, the workforce will start taking on the personality of, of what's, you know, delivered to them from the office.
00:36:51
Speaker
If they don't care, or if there's a sense that they don't care in the office, the people tend to care a little bit less down there on the shop floor. So it's a bad scene. Yeah, I'd say just open up the lines of communication, express how you feel, and go from there. You'll get a feel whether it's going to be worth your time to try and figure out something concrete or not.
00:37:19
Speaker
I, one little thing, I don't know if it'll help you. When I was in a position more similar to yours, I would tend to post things more like a question instead of putting people on the defensive. You want to almost make it seem like it's their idea. A little reverse psychology.
00:37:40
Speaker
What do you guys think? If something like this was to happen, I, I'm not sure, but you remember that idea you had, you told me the other day about, that was my day. Yeah, it was your idea. Well, good luck to you, Jack. Yeah. Sounds like you got a lot on the ball. Yeah. So, you know, maybe you're outgrowing that position already. Right.
00:38:09
Speaker
What's our next question? Let's see. Got one here from Lucas Baudette on Instagram. That's a new name, I think. Yeah. Ever have any accidents in the shop?
Shop Safety & Minor Accidents
00:38:32
Speaker
I mean, a real accident, thank goodness, no. Nothing serious.
00:38:37
Speaker
It wasn't time you shot the nail through your thumb. Yeah. And there we've had enormous splinters. I mean, like well over an inch long splinters. Oh yeah. White Oak especially. Yeah. But if you if you're in the shop, there's always going to be some blood somewhere. Yeah. I mean, if you look at our hands and we've been working with that
00:39:05
Speaker
That material for the commercial job, that stuff will cut you up like nobody's business. Oh yeah, especially you catch a corner of edge banding or something. Yeah, I mean there's always bloody knuckles and you know you get like you cut yourself on the square edge of a board. But nothing serious, I mean... We got good safety protocols and there's... I've had like a rough kickback or two in my day but
00:39:36
Speaker
Nothing, luckily nothing crazy. Yeah. We work pretty steady and at a, you know, not harried pace, which helps. Yeah. We tend to recognize when we're starting to maybe fatigue or something of that nature. So we try and avoid those situations where you might get hurt.
00:40:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm more likely to like drop like a clamp on my foot or something. I mean, that kind of stuff happens all the time. I walk into something. Yeah, catch your ankle knuckle on a freaking... Hit my head on the corner of the machine. Yeah. Yeah. We have the saw stop, which... But knock on wood. Yes. Yeah, which I ran and bypass like all day yesterday. Cutting aluminum. Yeah, I'm like, this can cut me now.
00:40:31
Speaker
But yeah, for those that didn't know that the SawStop can run in a bypass mode. Right. So you could cut. Oh, excuse me, Lou, I'm yawning. Um, yeah, the SawStop can cut conductive material. Um, you just run it in bypass mode. Yeah. Yeah. We had to cut a bunch of aluminum for that prototype. Yeah. I was even cutting it again this morning.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah, when you rip aluminum, like quarter inch thick aluminum, I was bleeding like all over the place. My hands, my arms were all cut up from a little pieces coming off of the blade. Yeah, little shards. Yeah, I mean, they were sticking in me like little needles. And I was mid rip of like, I forget how long that was. 24 inches or maybe more long rip. So there was no turning back. No way.
00:41:27
Speaker
Let's see what we got next. This one's from who the 90 on Instagram. What do you do with wood scraps? I feel guilty not using them, but it accumulates quickly. Yeah. Well, short answer is we give them away or burn them.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah. Use them for jigs, a little crap around the shop. Yeah. You know, we always, we need to make something and hardwood is suitable. We'll go digging around in the, in the scrap bin that's in the shop. You know, we keep like one. They're not even, it's not even a 55. It's like 35, 35 gallon, you know, rubber made garbage can.
00:42:05
Speaker
We have three. One is plywood scraps, one is garbage, and one is hardwood scraps. And we'll go rummage around in there.
00:42:14
Speaker
Yeah, when it fills up, we put it outside. Yeah, typically we've been getting rid of it before. Yeah. We cover it up and we have a guy that'll come and take it away when... Yeah, several now. That's right. Yeah. And over at the woodworkers, what are they called? Woodworker supply or what's the place we got our planer? What's it called? Woodcraft. Woodcraft.
00:42:39
Speaker
that he said, you know, you guys, we sell those things. You want to get them over to us. They mean it. Tell me we could drive these scraps all the way to Downing town, Pennsylvania hours away. If it was nearby, we'd definitely just dump them off.
00:42:54
Speaker
Yeah, they sell them as pen blanks and stuff like that. But he's so right. The stuff builds up before you know it. Yeah. Especially at the start of a job, because those chunks off the ends of the boards and then creating the parts and stuff. Cut out knots and stuff. Oh, forget it. Yeah, that's more good firewood stuff, those big pieces. Yeah. You might get a foot long piece.
00:43:25
Speaker
Yeah, I like a like a two by two by 16 inches long. That's like perfect burning. That's perfect fire pit wood for me. Yeah. Yeah. Fits and we have a, um, what do you call those stoves that we have? It's not, um,
00:43:43
Speaker
You know, oh, it's an insert. That's what it's called, a fireplace insert. So it's like a cast iron stove that goes into the fireplace opening because the house is so old, the chimney wasn't drafting. So the easiest way to fix that was to line the chimney with a stainless steel flue.
00:44:05
Speaker
And then we put this cast iron insert. So it looks, you know, sort of like a fireplace with a cast iron face on it. And it, you know, reduced the size of the firebox. But that size is perfect. Those things. Yeah, you don't need a big. If you're not heating, like literally heating your house with a fireplace, all you need is something nice and small. I'll fill up like one of those Homer buckets. Yeah. And that's that's all night long.
00:44:35
Speaker
Yeah, I mean I've been working on the same wood here for quite a while now.
00:44:40
Speaker
Yeah. We tried to give away some of the oak when we had all that oak from the confessionals to a barbecue place. You said, yeah, you can bring it on. Come pick it up, you dickhead. We had a trailer full of oak scraps. Hot, white, hard oak. I've only had one beer. It's not even. White, quarter song, white oak. Yeah.
00:45:08
Speaker
Yeah, like, you know, scraps from a thousand board feet. Mm hmm. Which was probably a hundred board feet. Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot. It was a lot of wood. Yeah. Bring them on down. Oh, we said. Oh, sure. How about I pay you to take it to. Oh, Neil's to say we didn't bring them. No. What we got next?
00:45:33
Speaker
Going from our buddy Justin, Justin De Palma on Instagram. Why does alcohol on a cut only hurt sometimes? Is that true? I don't think so. We need to consult some medical professionals.
00:45:53
Speaker
So Justin did the move yesterday, the pocket hole bit into the web of the hand. The old square dry puncture wound. Yeah, that doesn't feel good. No. I forget, was it a finger?
00:46:11
Speaker
Remember that time you had to bring me a first aid kit. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Um, that, that was on Phillips. Yeah. Yeah. That was a bad one. Yeah. We were doing it. I was doing an install in a commercial, like a, what was it? Like a financial advisor building or something. And you know, of course the, the boss didn't have any, it's all steel studs.
Handling Wood Scraps
00:46:34
Speaker
Yeah, no proper fasteners. No, so I'm putting regular no self tap number eight by two and a half wood screws into the things and you got to lean into them like a mother to get them to get in get through, you know and bite and yeah, it took a I use those Filo number two Phillips and they're they're pretty sharp. Yeah, and I took it in the finger and you know, I could see all the meat in there that that hurt.
00:47:04
Speaker
That was a long time in healing. It was kind of like right in the finger. I think maybe that's a score there. I was leaving that day to go to my cousin's wedding in Baltimore too, so I had to go down there with this throbbing
00:47:22
Speaker
Did alcohol help? Not at all. You know, we have in the shop is that, that nail polish thing that look, it's supposed to like seal up the cut. Yeah. Liquid bandage. Yeah. That stings.
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can like smell the acetone and stuff. Um, it always makes me think of when I was a kid, I I've told you this a hundred times, the iodine Mecura Chrome debate. Yeah. I don't know if anybody that's young knows what that stuff is.
00:47:59
Speaker
I knew what iodine was, but I'm a Curacrome. Curacrome was also red like iodine, but it didn't sting. And you know how they came out with that stuff back teen and all those other sprays that didn't sting? Bassetracin. Bassetracin, that's what it is. Well, it must be made out of the same thing. Curacrome was. Water.
00:48:25
Speaker
I would cut myself, which was often as a little kid, my mom would bust out the iodine. And that was back when they thought, well, if it stings, it must be good. You know, it's true though. Yeah. And I'm saying, no, no, give me the Mercure Crow. We're like, no, here comes the iodine. And it'd be like a branding.
00:48:46
Speaker
touch your, your wound. We always, uh, hydrogen peroxide. Oh yeah. Apparently it doesn't, it's not actually good to use. Knees born, don't use it. Hydrogen peroxide, don't use it. All that stuff doesn't, it doesn't work and it's not good for you. Oh, that's good to know. Soap, just soap and water.
00:49:04
Speaker
Yeah, like with a burn and stuff like that. They say the best thing is to just run cool water for 10 or so minutes to cool down the area. But not like cold, cold water. Right. You know, those old wives tales like put butter on it and all that. That's that's all wrong. Read it and throw it in a skillet. Yeah.
00:49:27
Speaker
So Justin, I think if it doesn't hurt that you might have killed on the nerve endings. Yeah. Go to the hospital. Yeah. Call 911. Yes. Next up. Next one here is coming in from Anonymous.
00:49:43
Speaker
Anonymous. How come humans have to wipe their asses but animals don't? Hashtag thoughts from a one-man shop.
Humorous Question on Animal Anatomy
00:49:57
Speaker
I'm gonna question whether they do or not. I mean we need to like ask like Jane Goodall or something like that. Do bunkies wipe their butts? I think it has to do with the, no they definitely don't. I'm typing at him. I think it has to do with the posture.
00:50:13
Speaker
You know, none of these animals are upright. I think the cheeks are naturally in a more of an open position when you're a quad, what do they call it, quadruped? A bipedal. No, well, we're bipedal. What's four-legged? I guess, yeah, I guess you're right. Do monkeys wipe their butt? All right.
00:50:43
Speaker
This is, let's open this up and read it because somebody else is asking. It's gonna get a virus. There are a number of factors in play, including what humans consider adequately clean compared to what other primates do. That's definitely a factor, yeah. Man, you are right on. A significant difference comes from posture and buttock presence. Man, I'm just like a genius. Oh man, this is where the kid gets it.
00:51:12
Speaker
Even in other species with fairly prominent posterias, the anus isn't tucked away between mounds of flesh as it is with even skinny humans. This is where we've this is where we've ended up. Why would this matter?
00:51:35
Speaker
Well, the passing of any but the hardest of stools will leave traces in the human buttock cleft, needing to be cleaned away. For our primate cousins, a similar stool could drop away fairly cleanly, and the anus and surroundings can air dry. So this is the moral of the story. You start walking on all fours, you don't have to wipe your butt anymore.
00:52:03
Speaker
God. Well, anonymous.
Improving Woodworking Skills
00:52:09
Speaker
I hope that answers your question. But you know what? You ask a question, you get an answer. That's true. Do you know the capital of? Assyria. Assyria. Oh, man. I think it was Assyria. Yeah. I was thinking of like the old capital. Nineveh. Nineveh.
00:52:33
Speaker
Oh my God. Here's a question coming in from Nick Trayer. What is one woodworking skill you think you can approve, improve upon and why?
00:52:45
Speaker
Oh, man. How much time he got? Yeah, it's it's endless. I tell you one thing that leaps to mind would I love to spend a lot more time on the shaper and kind of dissipate some of that fear of that thing spinning those. Thank you. Those massive cutters. But because we don't use it that often. So it's like every time is like the first time almost. Yeah, I had to fire it up yesterday.
00:53:16
Speaker
Just a flush trim something. And it feels like the risk is so high that you question yourself. Like any operation with a fence is fine. But I don't know. That flush trim just sticking out of there by itself. You know, that thing's five horsepower. It's gonna grab on. And I mean, maybe it's less likely to grab.
00:53:46
Speaker
I don't know. I think you're right. I mean, it's a long list for me. Design is definitely towards the top. You know, I want to get better at design. You're talking more like tactile woodworking stuff.
00:54:12
Speaker
I don't know. Nothing's jumping out. I mean, we're constantly doing so many new things that like it's not like we're repeating the same things. I'm like, man, you know, I'm always messing up on this. So I wish I could get better at it. We're kind of always pushing ourselves to do something else. So it's kind of it's kind of all new all the time. And even if it's the same task, the situation is so different that that it's kind of new anyway. Like the contour. Oh, yeah. Another another new thing. I mean,
00:54:41
Speaker
We didn't even really talk about it. Yeah. We did. We talked about last week. Did we? Can't even remember. That was the first question. Oh yeah. That's right. I got it right here. What'd you think about the contour? Well, I used it yesterday. What do you think about the new contour from Jerry? Hey Jerry, well listen to this. I used the contour yesterday and without any kind of refresher like busting open the manual or anything,
00:55:11
Speaker
had to do like four or five pieces. Flawless, easy to use. I mean, the machine just does the work. It really does. Yep. Worth every penny. I agree. 100%. It was a joy to use and made me feel a little smarter than I really am because I got to, you know, do it without having to break open a book. Yeah. Um,
00:55:38
Speaker
So there you go. I mean, there's so much to learn. I, I don't even know what I don't know. Yeah. I mean, that's the truth. Um, you know, you have to be in a very comfortable place to like, just have these certain sets of skills and it's like, okay, there's these 10 things, but this number three, I gotta get better at number three. Yeah. Um, I mean, there's like,
00:56:06
Speaker
dozens upon dozens of different things that we do. I mean, just cutting to a line with a handsaw is a skill that I wish I was better at. We don't do it enough to really develop that skill to a fine, fine point. Yeah, it's like one of those things that comes up maybe a couple of times per job, but then, you know, it's not like we're hand cutting a whole kitchen full of dovetails.
00:56:32
Speaker
but that's like a super basic fundamental skill that you know it's that that act has been replaced so much with machinery you know that we don't do it too much yeah you get a woodpecker's you draw some lines what 16th apart just cut away we saw we saw the whole board
00:56:58
Speaker
I'm going to have to have to take out a second mortgage on the house or something to be back in too many bills. Yeah. Plus I have to pay for those woodpeckers.
00:57:15
Speaker
We're going to need a cabinet in the van just of Woodpecker's. Oh, God. Here's one from Brian Greypoint Woodworks on Instagram. Who builds your new house? Tom Silva or Mike Holmes? Money's no object. This is an easy question. Tom Silva for me.
00:57:33
Speaker
I don't want to say it, but I don't even like that other guy. Me neither. He's like totally fugazi. I don't like his attitude either. Mr. Clean looking ass.
00:57:49
Speaker
Yeah, Tom Silva all the way. I mean, I've I haven't even really watched any Mike Holmes kind of thing. He's too TV personality for me. Tom Silva's a real guy. Yeah. And Tom Silva's social media is pure gold. His daughter, I guess, is in like advertising and she she does a lot of stuff with him and she's curated this real like like his stuff is it's hilarious.
00:58:13
Speaker
Oh man. Um, yeah.
Building Preferences & Equipment Upgrades
00:58:18
Speaker
Plus, you know, he'd probably bring norm with them. Yeah. But I w you know what I would say? Keep a, keep a, can't kick right. No, I knew you were going to say the same thing. Kevin O'Connor, Kevin O'Connor is not allowed on the job site. He seems okay. But I mean, you could bring Steve Thomas
00:58:39
Speaker
I want the, who's the landscaping guy? Oh, what's his name? Roger. Roger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He wasn't doing so hot. No, no. He was hurting there for awhile because they, now they have a, another person I think. Yeah. I think it's a young, younger woman. Yeah. I think so. I haven't seen the show too much lately.
00:58:57
Speaker
I've talked to Kevin on social media before. He seems like a nice guy, but yeah, but he could keep the tool belt hung up. Yeah, he can come hang out, but he can keep the tool belt off. If he brings food. Yeah. Bring the beer. Don't show up empty handed, Kevin. Oh, Lord. We have to send it now.
00:59:24
Speaker
We got one here from Sam. McClure's Design Build. Where do you see the future of boutique woodworking shops? Will they diminish in AI's path? So I have a feeling this is sort of being tied into the most recent, what is it, Modern Craftsman podcast.
00:59:46
Speaker
Um, where they had this guy tells the name Tony Wang, Anthony Wang. I personally, I don't, I don't listen to it. Um, there's nothing against those guys. I just, I, I don't have time to listen to podcasts. I don't. Um, and apparently it went totally off the rails. I've been seeing all kinds of stuff on social media about it. And, uh, I guess this guy was talking a lot about, you know, AI and it's how it's going to affect the industry. Um,
01:00:15
Speaker
So I don't know, what do you think, boutique woodwork and AI? Now AI is just gonna be like CNC stuff? No, artificial intelligence, so like... I mean, what is it, what can artificial intelligence do that we do? Outside operating machinery like a CNC or something? Well if you had artificial intelligence it could do technically anything, I guess. So you're thinking that, I don't know.
01:00:42
Speaker
I mean, isn't half of what we do based on the fact that a human does it? Otherwise it could just be factory built stuff anyway. Yeah, I don't know. That's the way I look at it. Like AI is just another way of doing factory built stuff where a big machine is doing things and people are just moving the material around. Or maybe not even that. Yeah. Um,
01:01:11
Speaker
I don't see it having it. I would say that it might create more of a focus on what we do. You know, if it really got to a point where, you know, what we did was even more unique. Right. Because less people are doing it.
01:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, less people are doing it and AI is taking over even a larger swath of of high production. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm not as well read on. What AI is is capable of in terms of like woodworking, but yeah, I'm kind of on the same page where. People who want something handmade
01:02:05
Speaker
want it to be handmade like by human just because you know a robot can make this table doesn't mean that someone how am I like wording this just because a robot can make this table doesn't mean that someone who wanted a person to make it would buy the one made by the robot you know what I mean yeah well let's let's look at this table as an example now we know that
01:02:33
Speaker
the somehow these boards could be milled up by machines and we know that a computer could pick out the boards that match by scanning them and then a machine could glue it up together and then a machine could cut it all out. Sand it, put finish on it. A machine could do that just as well as we could. I mean the right set of machines.
01:03:04
Speaker
I think yeah, the point I'm trying to make is It loses that value that people assigned to something being made by another human, right? Yeah, not everybody will think that but not everybody thinks that now anyway, right? That's why I don't think it's gonna have that big of an impact. Yeah, I don't think it's really the the
01:03:28
Speaker
you know, what we do, I don't think is in jeopardy. I think, yeah, like you said, it might even be more in demand because it'll be more unique and it'll be sort of flying in the face of this new technology. And here's the thing that we do that I don't know if AI will do. Of course it could do if, I mean, I don't understand all of it like you do.
01:03:52
Speaker
But it wouldn't be cost effective. We design for the specific space and client. That's what we're all about. You know, we're creating something that AI is just creating that table. It's been programmed to make that table over and over.
01:04:12
Speaker
Well, theoretically, AI could do that and faster and better than us. Because it's a computer, it's infallible, you know. Is it going to go to the client and talk to them and everything? Yeah, it's artificial intelligence. Oh, man. You know, it could run 100,000 design combinations in two seconds and come out with the one that has the highest probability of fulfilling all the client needs and
01:04:41
Speaker
All right. Well, I don't know how cost effective that would be. What? That's my, that's my last straw. You think that like how it's more cost effective. You don't have to pay a computer. I know, but how's the computer going to see the space and everything? You got to go to their home and the client's going to have to fill out the phone. So the client's going to have to take pictures.
01:05:11
Speaker
No, I mean, if it's AI, it could just be in as long as whatever the device is in the space. All right. I'm going to say we're still my lifetime away from that. I got about. Oh, no, you're never wrong about that. We're talking 10 years.
01:05:33
Speaker
talking 15 until it's all over. Well we're just gonna hope that people want furniture built by people. Yeah. Yeah. Say there's some some risk but not much.
01:05:55
Speaker
It's probably more risk to bigger companies that do a closer, you know, thing like a long branch where they're kind of just replicating factory stuff. Yeah. I got one here from Trinity tradesmen. All right. On your Dutch door, why did you run your styles long during the build?
Bandsaw Buying Recommendations
01:06:17
Speaker
Oh, we wanted that rain match. Uh, for one, I mean the specific one.
01:06:23
Speaker
I think he means, you know, we've ran the styles long on the top and bottom. Oh, just just to give us that one extra opportunity to square things up. Yeah. You know, it came out of the clamps out of square.
01:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's basically it. You know, if it's an eighth out of square and you have to taper the bottom rail a sixteenth, nobody's ever going to see that. Right. Luckily, everything was cool. Yeah. But we, you know, that was one of those jobs, too. You were talking about how everything was so pressure packed.
01:06:56
Speaker
to be exactly right. We were trying to leave every opportunity for a correction that we could leave a little escape over here. And perhaps if we had done two, three, four, half a dozen of those, we would have been more self-assured. But that was basically it.
01:07:17
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's always good measure, I think, to leave yourself any out possible. I mean, why cut it? Why try and cut the styles exact now if you can just cut them later? Doesn't get you any further to cut them now.
01:07:32
Speaker
Right. We had the tooling to do it easily enough. Yeah. Um, so we took that into consideration too. We said, if this is, uh, you know, as square, or even if it is square, we can just zip it off at the bottom with the tracks. Uh,
01:07:49
Speaker
Yeah, we had to put bevels on the door anyway. Obviously the bottom doesn't get a bevel, but had to bevel the top and the sides. So you don't want to, what are we going to bevel the styles and the rail and try and glue it up and get it all perfectly flush? No.
01:08:04
Speaker
you know, you're going to leave it a little bit long and you're going to trim it at a bevel. The sides, you can't bevel before you clamp it up because then you're trying to clamp things together that are beveled and you're going to you could put, you know, beveled calls on there and stuff. But then again, you're you're working backwards. So it's just easier to leave them. Yeah, it seemed to be the best solution for us, given our circumstances and everything else. And that's definitely a time tested technique. I mean, they've been building doors that way for thousands of years. Yeah.
01:08:35
Speaker
thousand years hundred couple weeks yeah no you're right we actually invented that technique people have been doing it for a long time well you do you leave them long and then you take you know 36 inch woodpecker t-square oh across the door that mark a 16th and then you could just bring those 16s all the way down
01:09:01
Speaker
to the bottom of the door. And then if you add them all up, you know how long the door is. Had we do that without a woodpecker? This is some guesswork. Yeah. Um, so that's why we just, you know, we were just being cautious, but it's also, it is a proven method. Yeah. I mean, some people build cabinet doors like that. Yeah. Let me see. I keep forgetting that the questions are on my phone.
01:09:30
Speaker
We did have one here about that secret prototype that I can't read. Oh. Because it is clandestine. Got one here from a patron, Wales Woodworking. Just got my first real dust collector and I'm getting ready to set it up. What is your preferred material for ductwork? Is there anything you would change to the setup you have now?
01:09:51
Speaker
Uh, definitely some changes we'd make. Yeah. Yeah. Our duck work, although it's, it's not terrible. It's kind of grown with the addition of tools and machinery throughout almost 20 years time. Yeah.
01:10:07
Speaker
So you can imagine it's a bit like an expanding city where all the roads are not in the best place. And I guess you want to talk about the difference between PVC and metal. Yeah, spiral and regular hard pipe. Yeah. We toyed heavily with the idea of redoing the entire duct system of the dust collector.
01:10:34
Speaker
And when you start reading about it, it's a real science. It is. A couple of things that we learned, like, you know, we have an eight to six reducer, like right at the dust collector. Horrible, horrible.
01:10:52
Speaker
efficiency of the system so you want to run the biggest pipe possible for the longest amount of time possible on your system you want to minimize the turns you want to minimize flex pipe you want to have 45 degree or greater angles on on any type of turn like you don't want 90 degree turns horrible for dust collection
01:11:16
Speaker
You don't want to use reducers you want to use tapered reducers if you can You know the spiral duct is really nice. It's really expensive. That's the big thing. It's For a small system like ours. We don't really need it. We don't have the power to suck those Things in really to collapse. Yeah So for the most part we have like sheet metal ducts
01:11:41
Speaker
Yeah, just regular hard pipe that you would, you know, any HVAC place. Yeah. And just in the slab, there's a run of PVC down there. Yeah, to me, PVC seems heavy. It is heavy. And generates static.
01:11:59
Speaker
That's the thing that people are worried about, the static electricity, so they talk about grounding it. Just think about how heavy deadwood was. Oh, the soaking tubes? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, those were what? Heatage? Those were eight inch and about eight feet tall. They were heavy. Yeah.
01:12:31
Speaker
Yeah. So, man, what the hell was the name of that website? There's a guy, there's one guy who's done like all these studies on dust collection. It's like Bob or Bill. I think Bill Pence. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Bill Pence. So look him up and do some reading. I mean, that's my biggest suggestion. We're not by far, we're no experts. But that's where we got a lot of that. Yeah. Yeah.
01:12:56
Speaker
We just took the filter off our thing and it's rocking now. I mean, it's definitely inefficient. It's leaky as all hell, but it gets the job done. And also it's time consuming to do all this. You know, we're trying to run the business still. It's not like we're just going to pay somebody to come in and redo all the duck work. Yeah. Because we can't shut down for a week or anything like that. No. Um,
01:13:24
Speaker
Yeah. Is there anything else? Any other tidbits of information? Oh, I don't think so. You know, it was an interesting bit. Uh, again, he could probably get this online, but the way the, instead of doing the drops right at the machine, like how to, how they had the six feet 45 degree. Yeah. Yeah.
01:13:48
Speaker
There's a lot of information online, but check out the drops. Um, and you know, it's, it's not just as simple as hooking things up, you know, with the right diameter at the, in terms of how many openings and the lengths and all that it's serious.
01:14:10
Speaker
Just don't call Oneida and try and get them to design a thing for you. They did us a little dirty. Got another question here from a patron from Matt Hagood. Late to this, but this is from last week. I'm building a dresser with five drawers and of course many things need to be square in order for there not to be any issues.
01:14:33
Speaker
I feel like no matter how much attention I pay to things, they always come out a little bit out of square. How square is square enough? And if things are slightly out of square at glue up, what are tips for bringing them back into square?
01:14:47
Speaker
I mean, for drawers to operate correctly, square is square. There is really not much room for error there. The case needs to be square. We've done the old corner thing. If you wind up building the case and it's slightly out of square and you haven't put the back in yet, you can squeeze in opposite corners.
01:15:16
Speaker
on the appropriate side to squeeze in and that makes the other opposite corners bigger. Should we explain measuring diagonals first? Did I jump ahead? I heard if you got a $20,000 table saw, you don't have to ever check for square. $20,000 when it was new 25 years ago, mind you. With a rectangle or a square, if you measure diagonally and they're equal, it's square. That's a myth.
01:15:48
Speaker
The only way to check for squares with Woodpecker's new 48-inch key square available at your local Woodcraft. So just in the case, you know, it's not a myth.
01:16:02
Speaker
But it is. You use, you know, a clamp or a series of clamps to, you know, pull in the corners that need to be pulled in. And then you when the sides are even, then you can put the back on and screw the back in place to hold it square.
01:16:23
Speaker
Yeah. Or like a drawer box, even if it's like glued up and dry, you might be able to crank it back into square. I've done that with drawer boxes, put it on the floor and give it a little. Um, so how square is square enough? I'd say if, if everything is operating properly, then that's, that's plenty square. Um,
01:16:47
Speaker
you know, with like inset drawers and stuff, it's going to get harder to hide those things. You got overlay frameless that is easy, easy to deal with. But with frame inset, you know, it's going to show the air more. Don't compound the errors. You know what I mean? Really don't look at and go, oh, I'll fix that with the next step. Oh, I'll fix that when I get to this part. That just makes things unfixable at a certain point.
01:17:15
Speaker
You know, do your best. Try and figure out where it is. You know, things went awry. That's, that's my best advice. You know, instead of saying, I've tried hard and it's still not square. See if you can backtrack to the point where things aren't square. Yeah. And you know, slightly off square. I mean, nothing is ever perfectly square. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody's ever built something perfectly square. It's mathematically impossible. Um,
01:17:45
Speaker
Because perfectly square, we're talking about zero deviation. Yeah. So, you know, if your your level of deviation is is small enough that it doesn't impact the overall thing, then then that's square enough. True. You know, he he might be a real perfectionist looking at like, you know, a slide in the paper underneath the the framing square where he's checking. That's that's really close. So let us know, Matt.
01:18:16
Speaker
If you have a specific instance, we can maybe offer some more specific advice. Got one here from one of our three, count them three, female patrons. I feel special. Yeah, we were the rush of podcasts. Yeah.
01:18:39
Speaker
for those who don't understand the reference rush the hard rock band progressive rock band. Yeah. They didn't have it. There was a point where they had no female fans. They'd sell out Coliseum's, but there wasn't a female inside, which is a shame. Rush is a good man. Yeah. It's from Kim Erickson.
01:19:03
Speaker
Just one girl in a shed about to purchase first real bandsaw. Nice. But don't want to purchase a second, looking at either a 14 inch or a 16 inch, same brand. While there is a price difference, the bigger is achievable. But what would be, if any, the pros and cons going with the bigger bandsaw? Is bigger always better? We have a 17 inch in the shop. And it's too small. It is.
01:19:31
Speaker
Yeah. Bigger's better. Yeah. With a bandsaw. Definitely. Yeah. Because the bigger one could do everything that the littler one is littler word. Probably not smaller. The smaller one can do the littler of the two. Yeah. But the true is not, it's not true when we reverse the little one can't do everything that the big one can do.
01:19:53
Speaker
Right. You know, typically with a bigger band, a larger wheeled bandsaw, you get a higher resaw capacity. It's not true with all, you know, there may be a 14 inch bandsaw that has a bigger resaw capacity than another 16 inch, but typically you have a higher resaw. And the biggest thing is the distance from the blade to the, what do you call that?
01:20:20
Speaker
that upright position. Yeah, I think they call it, isn't that the throat? Is that the throat? Yeah. Like you get into like a 20 inch or a 36 inch band saw, you have a lot of space between the blade and that upright portion so you can get in there and cut things that are wide, cut curves into big pieces of work. Nice circles. Yeah. You know, we're limited to, it's got to be what, 14 inches I think? I think so. 14 inches from blade, well,
01:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, because it's 17 and then there's some space between them. Yeah, so it's about 14 inches from the blade. So if you need to cut something that's wide, sometimes you have to flip it over, then you got to remark it because you got more, you know, so it can get complicated. They make three wheeled bandsaws too that have it's bigger.
01:21:11
Speaker
But yeah, bandsaw, especially in the smaller range, bigger is better. You know, the 16 to the 14, I totally recommend the 16. You got to get yourself a 36-inch tanowitz. She got the floor space. And you're set. She might need another shed. Yeah, that's true.
01:21:32
Speaker
Didn't Kim, uh, write us something, um, to tell us that, uh, cause we were wondering if Kim was a male or female. Didn't she say she's a full, she's a real carpenter and everything like that. And she gave us a little background on what she's doing. Oh, that was Kirsten. She's the newest, the newest. Yeah. The other day sent over. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So Kim's a woodworker. Kirsten's a woodworker. That's great. Yeah. And, uh, Mary Beth.
01:22:02
Speaker
Yeah, Mary Beth's a scientist. Punching below her weight class over here. These dumb wood guys. I know. I'm a pharmaceutical engineer.
01:22:23
Speaker
Oh, man. So, Kim, definitely. Yeah. Say go
The Role of Little Blue in the Shop
01:22:27
Speaker
to 16. You won't be sorry. And even, you know, if you're not locked in on these two, consider going, you know, as big as you can. 17, 18, 20, whatever. Yeah, I agree. Maybe look for something used that's a little bit bigger. Depends on what you're doing also. Let's see, we're coming to...
01:22:52
Speaker
This is our last question. Then we got a question of the week. Okay. This is from another patron, Colin. Question for you. No one mentions their air compressor as being more important than a saw stop. Build a story around that. I'm sure the dust blower could be a great tool of the week.
01:23:12
Speaker
When you run out of beer, maybe Vino? This is more of a statement rather than a question. That's a great question. You know, the compressor is an unsung hero. It is. Little Blue. Yeah. Little Blue even has his own name. Yeah. And Little Blue went down once. Yeah, but it was just that. It was just a switch. Yeah, that overload switch, which is hidden in like a terrible spot.
Importance of Compressors
01:23:40
Speaker
Makita max 700. Great compressor.
01:23:43
Speaker
Yeah, we keep our compressor in the room with the Cyclone dust collector. So it's it's not in the shop proper. It's outside very much. Yeah, it's enclosed out of the weather, but it's in the it's in the temperature changes. But we don't have to hear kicking on and off the way. And that one's quiet. So you don't hear it any like you don't hear it at all. Right. Little red. I mean, my God, the Porter cable.
01:24:16
Speaker
in the shop and it's in a different room. That's how it got out there to begin with.
01:24:25
Speaker
Yeah, the compressor is the unsung hero because when it's working, it's one of those tools when it's working, you don't pay any mind to it, but you curse at it for some reason. Yeah, imagine not having that blowgun at the end of the day to just blow the dust off yourself or blow it out or whatever you're working on. I know.
01:24:45
Speaker
Yes, that's a good one, Colin. Yeah.
Colin's Kiln Project in Australia
01:24:48
Speaker
Colin's building the kiln. Wow. I think it's not a solar kiln. It's like an actual kiln. That's pretty cool. Not huge, but yeah. You know, he's harvesting trees for some heavy hitters out there in Australia. That's amazing.
01:25:03
Speaker
So did we cover all the bases on that question? Yeah, I think so. And we're not gonna run out of beer, that's for sure. Tools, we might run out of tools of the week. We're gonna start buying stuff. Sorry, wives. Let me see, where'd that one come in? Email, I think. So this week's question of the week comes from our patron Parker, Parker Haynes.
Craftsmanship's Impact on Life
01:25:37
Speaker
How do you think your work as a craftsman affects how you live your life? What is the relationship between the work you do with your hands, which is only possible after years and years of practice and hard work, and the habits you have in other areas of your life?
01:25:52
Speaker
Aristotle wrote that virtue is cultivated through habit and discipline, which ultimately forms our character as human beings. How do you think your work in the crafts has affected your character as a person? In case you're interested, this is one of my favorite theologians, and I thought you might like it. I sent a link. I would love to join the in-person hangout coming up, but alas, I'm a little too far away. I love that question. That's great.
01:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, that goes to the core of really our business model, really. Yeah. So thank you, Parker. Thank you for that question. That's really good. Yeah, we'll cover that on the Patreon.
Sour Beer Review
01:26:31
Speaker
We have to talk about the beer. Oh, yeah. You know, as it warmed up a little bit, I got more cantaloupe, but not. Not a whole lot. Mostly that sort of funky sour
01:26:46
Speaker
Yeah, it was definitely sour, but not in a bad way. No, I mean, I like, I'm a big fan of sour beers. I liked it. Um, wasn't my favorite of the 44 weeks, 45, but it was, uh, very drinkable. Um, and even within this kind of category, I thought it was, you know, had its own, its own flavor, its own distinctive flavor.
01:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, I liked it. Good for carton. I don't know. Carton's beers to me tend to be sort of very similar a lot of times and I like this one. Yeah. It was different than some of the others. I've had they have other sour beers that are kind of
01:27:31
Speaker
So yeah, I feel like if I could pick that one out like in a blind test with other similar beers
Patron Acknowledgments & Fatigue
01:27:40
Speaker
it had a little bit more of a Identifiable flavor, I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing So not bad yeah three thumbs up three thumbs up for Larry I
01:27:56
Speaker
Well, we got to thank our gold tier patrons. We got, uh, Jerry Greenen, Manny Sirianni, Dustin Fair, Adam podcast, David Shoemaker, and Colin Lye. Yeah. Did I get them all? I think so. One, two, three. Did I say Manny? David Murphy. David Murphy, you missed. Yeah. That was pretty good from memory. Yeah.
01:28:20
Speaker
I need a break. Yeah, man, we've been sitting down here since about 11 a.m. It's now three. Oh, my God. And we got another hour to go. Well, troopers. I know. Thank you, guys. We'll see you next week. Episode 46. Don't forget. Meet up August 7th, 2 30 p.m. There will be a link in the description.
01:28:59
Speaker
Sunday ain't no shame, but there's been a chain.