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The American Craftsman Podcast Ep. 46 | Career Change
43 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 46 of The American Craftsman Podcast, hosted by Greene Street Joinery, we give some tips on making a career change into the trades.
10% off your order from Montana Brand Tools:
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Beer of the Week (Troegs Grand Cacao): https://troegs.com/beer/grand-cacao/
Tool of the Week: (Pentel Graph Gear 1000 .9mm 3-Pack) https://amzn.to/2W4Jzcz
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
Partnership Announcement with Montana Brand Tools
00:00:16
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a change
00:00:22
Speaker
The American Craftsman Podcast is proud to partner with Montana Brand Tools. The West was built by people with strength and great pride in their workmanship. It was a necessity that early settlers of Montana have a strong will, a resilient character, and great determination to tame the rugged landscape while adapting to its dramatic climate. That spirit made in the USA pride and craftsmanship is alive today, both in how Montana Brand Tools are manufactured and how they perform.
00:00:48
Speaker
Montana Brand Power Tool accessories are manufactured utilizing proprietary state-of-the-art CNC machining equipment and the highest quality materials available. Montana Brand tools are guaranteed for life to be free of defects in material and workmanship because we build these tools with pride and determination.
00:01:05
Speaker
Montana Brand Tools are manufactured by Rocky Mountain Twist, located in Ronin, Montana. Montana Brand's heritage comes from a long line of innovative power tool accessories. Use coupon code American Craftsman for 10% off your order at MontanaBrandTools.com.
Episode 46 Kickoff & Banter
00:01:20
Speaker
Okay, after a little camera trouble, a little audio trouble, we're here. We're nothing but trouble. Episode 46 of the American Craftsman Podcast. Yeah, welcome everybody. Yeah, welcome. Look, we got a sheet again this week. Three pages even. We didn't have one last week, yeah.
00:01:41
Speaker
So welcome to the show. If you're listening, I'm sure you've listened before. So yeah, this introduction thing here, probably just nicks that off the sheet. Yeah. What, what does that really encompass the introduction?
00:01:53
Speaker
Well, you know, we had someone a little slow on the team before. Kind of had to spell everything out. Had a hard time saying American Craftsman podcast. Yeah. American Podcast and Craftsman. Yeah. What do you used to call it? The American Podcast. It'd be like one of those reels at the end of a TV show or a movie where they show somebody that can't say their line.
00:02:22
Speaker
Yeah. The buttery flaky crust guy. Yeah. That's the best. That's one of the best blooper reels ever when the lady takes over and she can't do it. That's hysterical. Typical. Yeah. Well, let's get into the beer of the week, right? Yeah, baby.
Tasting & Discussing 'Grand Cacao' Stout
00:02:40
Speaker
Let me bust out the camera. We got, we got real B roll coming soon. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:50
Speaker
I hit it. It's your beer. Oh, that's right. Well, here we go. We got Grand Cacao from, how do you say that? Is it Troggs? Troggs. Yeah, Troggs. And they're in Pennsylvania, I believe. Yep. This one really piqued my interest. Went to the new shop right today. Yeah, baby. I'm a shop right man. You guys know that. And that store, just a liquor store, was as big as a regular grocery store.
00:03:17
Speaker
And they got a nice little barb on here. Welcome to Grand Cacao. This deliciously decadent stout is built on a foundation of rich chocolate malt, caramel malt, and roasted barley. Cold steeping on Peruvian cacao nibs and natural vanilla doubles down on the smooth symphony of chocolate and a splash of milk sugar delivers a velvety sweet and creamy finish. I mean, how could you resist that?
00:03:48
Speaker
Right? So Keith from 2Bit gave us this awesome bottle opener, but we left it at the shop. We don't have it. So I got this Outer Banks gift shop. $3.99. With the sticker still on there. Made in China. Oh no. Can he operate the camera? I'm pretty sure he can. There you go. Thank you.
00:04:19
Speaker
We gotta get the pour in there. Oh yeah. Get some audio on that pour. If you like this glass, you too can have one.
Podcast Meetup at Belford Brewing
00:04:32
Speaker
Either by purchasing it on our website or... about... what? Two weeks? Two weeks from now, August 7th, at 2.30 p.m.,
00:04:48
Speaker
be having a meetup at the Belford Brewing Company in Belford, New Jersey. And we have 36 of these glasses. So if you're there and you're hanging out, you're going to be drinking beer out of one of these and you can, you know, take the glass home.
00:05:06
Speaker
When you leave. Yeah, we're looking forward to putting some faces with names. And of course, just getting to hang out with some of the people we've recently met through the podcast. Yeah. And just having a good old time hanging out, relaxing, drinking some beer. I've got about a more foam than beer here. Come on now. It's going to take you a while to get through that one. Come on.
00:05:36
Speaker
My nose doesn't really work that well, which defies its size, but... What's the ABV on this? 6.5. That's not bad for, you know, these kind of chocolate stouts and stuff a lot of times are up there. Well, I'm going to have to dive through this. Cheers. Cheers to you and cheers to all you out there.
Bloopers, Irish Car Bombs, and AVN Awards
00:06:09
Speaker
That's tasty. So I'm a little different for the summertime. Yeah. Yeah, I'm digging that. Grand cacao. I always like to take a nice deep swallow the first time, you know, you get that
00:06:31
Speaker
See, now you drink this. You're like Guinness. Yeah. And you always have people who are like, you know, people who aren't big beer drinkers are like, Guinness is so heavy. No, it's the opposite. I mean, that and this isn't even a good example of like a heavy beer.
00:06:49
Speaker
But you can tell the difference between something like this and a Guinness. I mean, Guinness is like water. It is. I mean, when we were in Vegas hanging out that Irish pub, I can't remember where it was. It was probably on the bar somewhere where they instructed you how to drink Guinness. Like you're supposed to drink it down. Three sips or something. Yeah. The first one was down to a certain point on the logo on the glass.
00:07:17
Speaker
It's true, it's almost like drinking a glass of water. Yeah, it's thin and it's just dark really in color. Yeah, yeah. The taste is a little bit like, has a little bit of that chocolate malt kind of taste, but not really. No, I like a Guinness. That was part of what led me to try one of these. Plus we've had a lot of like hazy IPAs, so I wanted to mix it up a little.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, I remember you were doing those Irish car bombs in Las Vegas.
00:07:52
Speaker
that was at the avian awards. Yeah. How we stumbled into the avian. Now was that some kind of, uh, somebody stumbled ahead of career ending injury there. That's right. The stars aligned. We were going to, um, the fine woodworking fine home building, fine home building they were having and which wound up being really the nicest event of the whole week we were there.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, we weren't cool enough to get invited to any of the, you know, no, any of the parties or anything. This we actually had to pay pay for. Right. But I went to charity.
00:08:28
Speaker
And it happened to be at the hard rock, which I heard got torn down and rebuilt. And at the very same time, they were having some the adult video. I don't know what the N stands for, network or something awards. So you can imagine. Woodworkers and porn stars and all the hangers on. Yeah, a bunch of creepers. Yeah, there were some creepy folks hanging on there.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yes, that that was a career-ending injury that night. Yeah For the Voldemort of the group that's what happens when you're you know, you know listen to doctors orders now Anywho
00:09:15
Speaker
We've got a tool of the week.
Pentel GraphGear 1000 Pencil Review
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah. I think you guys are going to be pleasantly surprised with this one. Not something that we've ever talked about before in the podcast. Everybody knows that we are pencil aficionados. Oh yeah. Freaks, whatever you want to call it. So we're constantly on the search.
00:09:36
Speaker
And so if you've been following us on Instagram, you know that we, that the key from black thorn has been doing some work with us. He's been seeing, seeing these things for us and it was a really great surprise. He left these for us in the shop.
00:09:55
Speaker
And we had both kind of eye these pencils. It's a, it's a graph gear 1000 by Pentel main Japan forgetting my B roll. Yeah. And, um, what separates. And now we were both Pentel users, but what separates this one from the others is that the little clip that holds it on to your apron. When you click it,
00:10:20
Speaker
it brings in and retracts the lead and the little, um, what would you call that little Farrell that year? I don't know if they call that the barrel. Yeah. No, I guess the barrel is the, the part that sort of, you know, holds the lead at the base, which is always breaking when you're shoving it into a leather apron. Like we have. Yeah. Retract that again.
00:10:49
Speaker
We need a macro lens. So this was a real game changer and I took to it immediately. Yeah, me too and I was kind of a hater on this pencil Just and I never had one but just looking at it online and it just looked a little over the top and sort of more flash than it looked like it was form over function and
00:11:13
Speaker
But, you know, and then when you get like the little muscle memory of, you know, clicking it and retracting it and because you retract it and sort of pull out the spring clip at the same time. See me, I don't, I never retract it. Yeah. I always retract it because I was constantly jamming stuff into the end of my pencil and breaking it. So I want to thank Keith. Yeah. Thanks Keith.
00:11:39
Speaker
We got to have Keith on in the next couple of weeks. Yeah, that'll be a lot of fun. See if he can get free himself up on a Tuesday. Yeah, I'm sure he could. Yeah. And there you go. We got another pencil. So now I've got like three expensive pencils just sitting on the bench because it's been replaced with this Pentel.
00:11:58
Speaker
I like the little rubber thing because I like the graph gear 500 and I like the weight of it and this weights very similar but the graph gear is just knurled and I can get a little slippery sometimes you know this pencils a real winner yeah I know we obsess about this thing but we're gonna have to change a yellow color though yeah to green yeah
00:12:24
Speaker
There's nothing that gets used more than the pencil. Yeah. The humble pencil. So we're, we're finicky about our tapes, our pencils, and you know, the amount of layout tools. We're finicky. Speaking of tapes, I'm the newest winner of the Stare giveaway on Instagram. He wins everything. I know. You gotta be in it to win it. That's right. Gotta be in it to win it. Yeah.
00:12:54
Speaker
I forget what my comment was. They wanted to know. Oh, yeah. What's a project that you used your stare at tape measure on? I said, I use my stare at exact 16 foot tape measure on every project because accuracy matters. Of course he won with that. I knew too when I sent it in. I'm like, this is pretty good. Yeah. Simple to the point. Yeah. But it's true. Yes, it is.
00:13:20
Speaker
And you do use it on everything. Yeah. I got one a couple of feet away. Yeah. You got one tape. You're a one tape man. Although you have multiples of that same one tape. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:32
Speaker
Yeah, there's about a dozen of them floating around. One of each. That's it. I'm constantly on the hunt. I've settled with the staret. Yeah. I think next year when we take our vacation, I'm going to send my apron back to Calavera. I'm going to have them put like a little bit of like a half circle cut out where I reach in for my tape measure, fish it out a little bit easier.
00:14:01
Speaker
you need a hole at the bottom and you put your finger in and push the table. Yeah. Yeah. That's like what my Occidental has. I'll ask him to do that too. Um, but other than that,
00:14:13
Speaker
I was shocked at what my apron looks like now compared to when I got it. It's only been a year, but we put those things through hard use. And last week it was Wednesday. It was a day after the podcast when we were working in Newark. Oh Lord. And we're in our aprons and it was a hundred years. It was a whole another color.
00:14:35
Speaker
It went from white to brown. It was like 110 degrees there. 600% humidity. No air moving in a giant cinder block building. Everything was just soaking wet. We were just dripping wet. Water running off your elbows kind of wet. Yeah, that was rough. Then we went to go see Tommy G and it was like
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah. Excuse our appearance. We've just been working in a building all day. Our fingers were literally starting to get wrinkled like when you're in the pool too long. Boy, that was a good one. I can't believe that was only a week ago. I know. Yeah, not even six days ago. We got a new little segment this week, the listener tip of the week.
00:15:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
Exploring the Uses of Yarrow Plants
00:15:29
Speaker
This is from our buddy Corey at C.T. Woodwork. Corey, tentatively, I know is going to come to the meetup, I won't say for sure, because I don't want to, you know, box him in. But you said he's coming. So I'd love to meet him. If you if you don't give a shit about us and you want to meet Corey, you can meet him at the meetup. There you go. There is a sales pitch.
00:15:52
Speaker
So Corey wrote in about this last week. He said, if you have a cut, grab some yarrow plant and put it on the cut with some tape. It naturally stops bleeding, is a natural pain reliever and natural antiseptic. I now have two yarrow plants or yarrow Y-A-R-R-O-W plants in front of my shop. So someone that he was doing work for gave him this tip. Yeah, we got to do that. We got to plant those.
00:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, I don't even, I'll be honest, I meant to look it up this morning when I was writing this out. As to what, see what it looks like. It even looks like Europlant. But we got plenty of spot. We have those flower boxes on the house. It looks, looks vaguely familiar. Doesn't look at all like I imagined. I was imagining almost something like, look more like a succulent.
00:16:42
Speaker
flowering plant in the family of Osterosterosae. And do you use the flowering part or the stem? I don't know. Yarrow plant uses
00:17:05
Speaker
Yarrow is an herb or a herb depending on where you're from. The above ground parts are used to make medicine. Yarrow is used for fever, common cold, hay fever, absence of menstruation, dysentery, diarrhea, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal tract discomfort, and to induce sweating. You don't need help with the last one. Some people chew the fresh leaves to relieve toothache. Wow.
00:17:33
Speaker
Yarrow's most ancient use is in healing the skin. Yarrow has antimicrobial and pain relieving traits and is wonderful for soothing skin that is prone to irritations. It is also deeply nourishing and restorative. It aids in healing broken capillaries and is ideal for sensitive skin as well as problematic skin. I wonder where we can get some. How do you use Yarrow for wounds?
00:17:57
Speaker
Wound Aid for Animals. What was this? Buckmountainbotanicals.net. Don't trust any of these sources that I'm reading off of, by the way. This is all entertainment only. That's right. Your mileage may vary. Some, blah, blah, blah. Harvested in full bloom, dried and powdered, it is liberally applied to open bleeding, oozing, and otherwise raw wounds.
00:18:22
Speaker
Is Yarrow good for hair? Yarrow is beneficial ingredient for all hair types and regular use of Yarrow in hair care has been shown to promote healthy hair growth. Soothe scalp inflammation, remove buildup and reduce hair loss. Yeah man rub some on my top of my head. Looks like it'll basically do anything. Yarrow emotional benefits. The flavonoids and alkaloids in Yarrow Tea may alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety.
00:18:49
Speaker
With sources, studies demonstrate the plant-based alkaloids, like those in Yarrow T, reduce the secretion of corticosterone, a hormone that's high, during chronic stress. So Yarrow does just about everything, as you said. Is Yarrow a sedative? Yarrow may act as a sedative as well. Antacids and other medications that decrease stomach acids, such as H2 blockers and proton pump inhibitors.
00:19:17
Speaker
Yarrow may increase stomach acid and therefore decrease the effectiveness of antacids. Hmm. I wonder if Yarrow is in any of these medications or some sort of synthetic version of Yarrow. You know how like the pharmaceutical companies they'll. Yeah. They're taking those alkaloids and. Right. They'll harness something that's natural and make a synthetic version of it really cheaply. Yeah.
00:19:44
Speaker
That was a great tip and something I definitely want to check into further. I want to see if there's like a nursery or something like that nearby. It doesn't look anything at all like I imagined.
00:19:56
Speaker
by Yarrow. I mean I hope you don't have to plant it from the seed. Is this on like a DEA banless? Yeah, just by looking that up. Does Yarrow plant make you hallucinate? Perennial, oh it's a perennial, that's cool. Yeah.
00:20:16
Speaker
You can order it for $4.89 at TennesseeNursery.net. Probably comes in like a little baggy like when you go to the Auburn Day Foundation. Color, white, bloom, spring, summer, under three feet, drought tolerant, flowering, ponds and watering gardens. Oh, we got one of those. Ships year round.
00:20:37
Speaker
We ship bare root plants, which are dormant in a wintertime state and have no pretty foliage, blooms or greenery. But they will bloom out in the following spring after they are planted and be beautiful. This is why we offer a one year warranty to show our customers their plants will thrive come spring. All right. We could do a whole podcast just on Yarrow. I know. We better get into these questions because we've been babbling on for 20 minutes about Yarrow and pens.
Writing Tools Discussion
00:21:05
Speaker
What I didn't do was mix these questions up, but it doesn't matter. Yeah, because look at this first question here. Yeah. What writing utensils do you use in the shop? I have a regular lead pencil, pen, marker, carpenter's pencil, and a white lead pencil. Also, thanks for last week's response to the podcast. You're very welcome. It has really helped me a lot. And that's from Jack Thornton, 98 on Instagram.
00:21:33
Speaker
Our pleasure, Jack. Yeah. We wouldn't have a podcast without everybody's questions, so it's our pleasure to answer them. So yeah, I mean, we kind of just talked about this a little bit, but I mean, we're both using that Graphgear 1000. I also use a Graphgear 500. I have BIC permanent marker, not a Sharpie.
00:21:59
Speaker
They were like on sale at ShopRite, two for 99 cents, like I don't even know. Two years ago and I bought like a dickload of them. There's a bunch of them in the shop. They're pretty good. Yeah, they're like a really fine point and they stink to high heaven. It's like some sort of solvent based kind of thing or something. And then yeah, I have a white lead pencil. That's really it. We keep pens around for like writing checks, but
00:22:29
Speaker
I have a red lead pencil. It's it's handy on on half of the things and not so much on the other half. But that's that's it. I can't have two pencils my regular pencil my red pencil. And lately I've had that Pika fine tip marker that was gifted to us from a rich
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And that's really that's really about it. Basically do everything with pencil. I mean, squint on some of the darker woods. But yeah, like this appeal, sometimes you got to turn it a little bit to get the angle right. We might use like a lumber crayon when we're doing like super rough marking and layout. But we don't hold that in our aprons or anything.
00:23:19
Speaker
Let's see, we got one here from one of our patrons, Wojciech, this is coming in from YouTube.
Professionalism on Job Sites
00:23:25
Speaker
What has been the most violent disagreement, I think it means violent and more the maybe verbal, violent disagreement you have ever had at a job site with a client or another crew? I don't have anything jumping out to me immediately.
00:23:42
Speaker
Yeah. The only time I ever got into any kind of heated, uh, argument was at a long branch. It was the, it was a day, uh, that I told Tom, if you lean something against my bench, I was going to snap them in half. Yeah. I was going to say, like, I might have precipitated my fire.
00:24:13
Speaker
I was going to say, yeah, I think you probably had some, some harsh words. Yeah. Those are probably the harshest ones, you know, because most people are reasonable. Yeah. Tom had this way of really getting, you know, to your last nerve and bring out the very worst in you. Cause these are things, you know, we laugh about them, but
00:24:40
Speaker
it's not something you're proud of when you get to that point. You always want to be able to take the high road. Yeah. Yup. But he's, he certainly had that ability to the sort of a just neither way. Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:56
Speaker
You know, it's funny because I was, I was on the gear page, which is like this guitarist, musician kind of thing. And somebody was talking about, uh, band disagreements, which are basically, you know, like a bunch of teenage boys always. Yeah. And a spat. There's no,
00:25:17
Speaker
emotional maturity involved at all. And this one guy, he uploaded like a little video and his drummer just flips out because he lost his glasses and attacks the guitar player. And the drum set, the guitar player picks up a symbol stand.
00:25:41
Speaker
So anyway, it happens all over. Anytime you get a bunch of people in the same room, people are going to lose their temper. Sometimes people go aggro. But that's a, that's a, that's a funny question. I would like to hear from Wojciech. Yeah. Usually if you have a question like that, he's leading a little bit. Yeah. You have a story. Look at this next one. How apropos. All right. Oh yeah.
00:26:09
Speaker
Do you brand your pieces with a branding iron or a signature?
The Significance of Branding Irons
00:26:13
Speaker
I brand my pieces and a serial number. That's from Corey, CT Woodwork. Well, we actually just finally ordered a branding iron on Saturday or Sunday, so we should have in about a week.
00:26:30
Speaker
Those watch the watch flower box room be building a couple more and one is going to go to to a pretty high profile client. Somebody who. Who you would know like if I said their name like a like a top of the A list. Yeah. He's an A list celebrity. Yeah. And like at the like a double A plus list like he's. Yeah. We're not talking about. Well I don't know.
00:26:58
Speaker
He's current, you know, he's somebody who's current. So I said, this box ain't going to this guy without some kind of green screen. Because that's just a, you know, a total missed opportunity. So yeah, we ordered it from, um, shit, what is the, let me see here. Cause I'll give him a little plug. Custom branding iron made in California.
00:27:34
Speaker
Branding irons unlimited. Cool, they got a nice website. Yeah, so they're in Canoga Park, California.
00:27:47
Speaker
Not cheap. No. Not cheap in the least bit. Paid about 500 bucks. Yeah. For a good heavy duty. Strong heating element. Electric, yeah, plug-in sort of deal.
00:28:02
Speaker
So we'll see excited to get it, but we do you know I? Like to write Green Street joinery in the year On stuff since we don't have a branding iron like put it in an inconspicuous place on the bottom and the back and
00:28:18
Speaker
They won't see. But if somebody pulls the thing out 25 years from now or 50 years from now, we'll see. It's always fun. Like when we find stuff like that, we really enjoy it. So we like to kind of keep that tradition going.
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's wild how appropriate the questions are from a week. Today was the pencil, the branding iron. It's amazing. And then even like the one, not this next one, but the one after that. All right. You want to read the next one?
00:29:00
Speaker
Yeah, we got another one from Cory because I forgot to mix these up. How long do you guys keep finished samples around after a project is done with? Cory C.T. would work on Instagram. Well, there's probably about a dozen up in that little cabinet that you built, that little superior sample cabinet that we've not really referenced since we put them up there. But they're handy to have.
00:29:29
Speaker
We, I mean, a lot of times we don't even make a finished sample. No, we say we're going to, but yeah, like it's in the scope of work, but the people just kind of just trust our judgment. So if they want it, we'll make it. Yeah. And usually it just goes to them and we never get it back because we don't even want it. You know, what do you OK? White Oak with tongue oil. Make it and send it.
00:29:51
Speaker
A lot of times I literally put in an envelope, a bubble mailer and just mail it to the club. Yeah, it's cheaper, faster, easier to just mail it out. Yeah, for seven bucks I can mail it. I can't drive down the street and back for seven bucks. So we don't really stock them. No, it's like the ones we keep in there, somebody comes to the shop and wants to see some things. We have a couple of different things. We have
00:30:17
Speaker
Mostly it's like cherry, white oak, sapele, and walnut. And that's probably it. Yeah, with a couple of different finishes. With a couple of rubios on there. Rubio, tongue oil, dark tongue oil. And that's really it. Yeah, we don't get crazy with the finishes. No. So, I mean, we've learned, too, this, we try and stick to what we do best. Yep.
00:30:42
Speaker
Don't get too crazy. We actually just got word today. We're going to be doing a job in, um, in the Rubio pre-color intense black. Yeah. It's going to be black, black, white oak, um, just completely black. Yeah. All right. Well, I don't think we can mess that one up. Uh, yeah, I don't think so. All right. So, uh,
00:31:08
Speaker
Is this the next question you were talking about here? What specific design elements do you use for different styles of furniture? For example, what elements do you usually use in the modern style of furniture? From Wojciech, again, one of our patrons, and this was via YouTube.
00:31:28
Speaker
Well, you're the primary design guy, so that you handle this one. Well, we have a couple of things that we do like in the modern stuff. We like the slightly floating top, angular sort of, you know, with a nod to the east.
00:31:53
Speaker
to the mid-century, all that stuff is pretty well documented. And you can kind of tell when it hits the mar. Simple, clean. Yeah, mostly sort of unadorned. I thought it was funny because I drew up that console, which
00:32:19
Speaker
I mean it is modern. It's not traditionally modern like it doesn't just doesn't just only fit in the mid-century mold or like the the Scandinavian because that's what a lot of people kind of reference. Yeah.
00:32:38
Speaker
Because it's a mixture of all the things that we bring to the table personally. You had those octagonal tapered legs, which was like a Welsh chair, kind of stick furniture kind of thing, and then the floating top with the undercut.
00:32:57
Speaker
But in general, its lines speak of a clean, sort of almost universal design. Yeah, it's sort of just contemporary. Yeah, there's a better way to put it. It's nothing, you know, it's not mid-century modern, it's not modern modern.
00:33:20
Speaker
you know one of the things that I like about mid century I got to do a little bit of it when I did these bunk beds and furniture out of bamboo is the way they place like window openings and things like that where they stagger the rectangles and stuff. I like that element of
00:33:41
Speaker
of mid-century and modern work, sort of like the cloud lift is to the green arts and crafts style.
00:33:55
Speaker
So all this stuff is pretty well documented. And it's like anything else. All musicians, you start out sort of, let's say you're a guitar player and you love Eric Clapton. You're going to try and learn Eric Clapton songs. You're going to be copying his style, even though you don't really know it. And then eventually, you develop your own vocabulary.
00:34:21
Speaker
And you may have roots somewhere, but as you develop personally, you add your own touches to it. And that's kind of where we are.
00:34:32
Speaker
Yeah, so what would you say are some more specific design elements, like so arts and crafts tapered, tapering up to the top of a piece is a specific design element that's going to be for that style. The rail and style, of course, with the flat panel.
00:34:52
Speaker
You know for the most part proportion good proportions are good proportions Yes And and modern stuff can be kind of low to the ground or or raised off the ground like we've done both Yeah, sort of like a tall and skinny or hmm or a low slung like when we did some years
00:35:17
Speaker
Case work that was kind of, you know, extraordinarily low compared to most cabinets. Even that console is, uh, let me see. Let me see if I can put on the screen. Um, media source. Okay.
00:35:34
Speaker
We're getting pretty deaf with the technology. Yeah. OBS would like to access. Okay. Sure. You can access my computer. Where's my desktop? Applications, downloads. No desktop? There it is.
00:36:01
Speaker
Go with the one. This one black legs. Yeah, we're doing this. That's the one the client really likes. Oh, where'd it go? Well, it's not working. That's a shame because it's that's a pretty sweet design. Yeah, you have to stay tuned. Hopefully we build it.
00:36:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, semi modern kind of stuff, contemporary arts and crafts, those are the things we get called to do most of the time. You know, that kind of that white painted shaker thing. I'm glad we have a shaker.
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah, I always call that cottage. Yeah, I don't know why because I to me shaker door has been attributed to this whole like I don't know. It's not none of that stuff is shaker style. No, I mean the shakers a lot. Most of their stuff was slab. I feel like yeah, they were real minimalists. I mean that was the whole thing. It was really function first.
00:37:19
Speaker
They were too busy praying and working. Talk about utilitarian. I mean, that was, that was the key. They needed to have something that was you make it good, make it once, make it last. Yeah. So they could get out in the field and bring in the crops and, and so the clothes and people were busy. Yeah. So that's a good question and I hope we answered it sufficiently. Yeah.
00:37:49
Speaker
I got another one here from Cory. If you guys were asked to start a TV show, what would it be about? C.T. Woodward. I'm going to say probably like out of place objects, ancient alien phenomenon. Might do some reading of Yelp reviews.
00:38:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I would love to have, you know, bring back the gripe of the week on the TV show and just talk about how people stopped using their turn signals. I mean, we've been driving around a lot lately compared to, you know, most times and horrific out there. It's, it's insane.
00:38:33
Speaker
Nobody signals people just pull out into 50 mile an hour traffic. Yeah expect you to stop This is my favorite thing happened to me on the way here pulling into the shoulder and then driving down the shoulder as like it's a merge lane. Yeah
00:38:51
Speaker
I mean, it's just, and nobody stops anymore. Like stop signs, especially coming out of a parking lot. It's just, it's a, it's the wild west out there.
00:39:06
Speaker
So, you know, I would like to have like an Andy Rooney moment at the end of the show. So everybody knows the show 60 minutes at Andy Rooney's passed away, but he used to have this. He was a TV personality and a writer.
00:39:31
Speaker
And he had this little two minute segment at the end of 60 minutes. And he would often talk about the idiosyncrasies of human nature or society or something like a little monologue. Yes. Yes. And he would often poke fun at himself as well. And he was quite an avid woodworker. So I think it's apropos that we pay homage to Andy Rooney with
00:39:58
Speaker
the two minutes at the end of the show. And here have the airing of grievances. I'd say all jokes aside, I think it would be cool like a show where sort of like, remember when Alton Brown did that show where he traveled around? Oh yeah, yeah. Something like that, but like going to visit different shops.
00:40:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah, it doesn't even have to necessarily be furniture Just other people who are crafts people. Mm-hmm. Whatever. Yeah a worker or a candle maker glass blower, whatever
00:40:38
Speaker
And we could eat different places. Yeah, because that's part of it, too. You know, be like a little travelogue. Yeah. Where you maybe you go to like a region. And today we're doing, you know, the Smoky Mountain. You go to a couple of different places, all sort of people who are makers of something. I like that.
00:40:57
Speaker
So if any of you have connections at a not history channel because they're up to no good with all these TV shows. Yeah, maybe like a Nat Geo or a Discovery. Yeah, put us in touch. I'm down. Oh, this is a good question here from Kevin, one of our patrons. He's Stelzer Furniture on Instagram and he's probably run into this himself. What's your go to doorstop for inset doors? We like
00:41:28
Speaker
One of two things, the fast cap eccentric Euro stops, I think they call them. That's it. That, it sort of depends. Like you have to have a flush bottom. Bottom has to be flush with the face frame or relatively close. They do sell tall ones too. That or just a wooden shop made sort of wooden stop with a little bumper on it.
00:41:48
Speaker
That's it. I can't add a thing to it. Those are those are our two that we use every single time, one or the other. Yeah. And those like we barely even use the eccentric part of that. No, it's just it's going to be flush to the back of the face. That's why they're so easy. You know, the thing I like about those two is it's a bumper and a stop on one. So the door has a nice
00:42:15
Speaker
You don't have to account for any type of thickness. Satisfying kind of low thud when it hits. I'm realizing I have a question from a patron, from actually one of our newest patrons that I didn't put on here. We're going to have to hit that in the after show. All right. You want to look for it and read it? We'll hit it in the Patreon one. OK.
00:42:41
Speaker
What's next? We got one here from Brian Gray Point Woodworks on Instagram. Have you ever finished a job and had a client not like or hate the project? That's like a fear. I always the night before we have to do the installation, I'm always filled with anxiety, not so much anymore.
00:43:06
Speaker
There's something weird about having you as the partner now, where it defrays 50% of the responsibility. And that's true. And when you work by yourself, it's all you. And so even though I'm 100% responsible, you're 100% responsible. When you're by yourself,
00:43:30
Speaker
You're 200%. Yeah, it's like 200%. And I could never sleep the night before thinking, what if they don't like it? What if it doesn't fit? What if something goes wrong? What if this? Yeah, it's like when you have someone else, you go to the job, you can never be outnumbered by the client.
00:43:49
Speaker
like well what about this it's like well you got two people it's two against one to explain and sort of quell their their fears and also we're very communicative throughout the process so we're
00:44:04
Speaker
I mean, our our proposal is so thorough to begin with. And then all through the process, we're sending photographs and talking and this and that. Yeah. If I have any shade of anxiety about a specific element where I'm like, I wonder if then I'm sending pictures. Yeah. Yeah. Even if it's subversively where we want to get. Yeah. Like see what they check it out.
00:44:29
Speaker
I'm not saying anything about that one thing that's bothering me, but I want to see what they say. Right. They say anything or whatever. I can't think of a job. The only one that was close to that was Michelle's that color. Yeah. She said we've installed. She says I thought it would be darker. Yeah.
00:44:50
Speaker
And we've kind of just, you know, said, no, this is it. And, um, you don't want it. We'll take it back. Well, that was, that was also, that's kind of what happened at the end too. We, we assured her that as it aged, you know, it would deepen. And we also, because, you know, it was such a, it was such a sweetheart deal. We thought, you know, well, we'll take it. You know, you don't have to pay for it. We'll just take it back.
00:45:18
Speaker
We're going to auction it off for a charity. So that's what we were going to do. But I'm pretty sure she's happy with it. Yeah. I mean, maple, it's going to darken for sure. Some maple looks like cherry.
00:45:34
Speaker
I know. Like you ever see the stuff on antiques roadshow and one of those maple maple. I had the first time he was talking about that. You know, the twin brother guys. I haven't watched it in a while. I do like antiques roadshow. I can't remember their names, but he was like, yeah, this maple blah, blah, blah. I'm like, it was dark, dark brown with like a little red in it.
00:45:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the great fear, isn't it, that the client hates. Yeah. I'm always like, even like the commercial install, I'm like, I'm waiting for a text is to say like, oh, because the ceiling was all whacked out. Like, you know, the letters look like they're a little bit off. Yeah. You know, I'm just but that's part of like touching on that question we had last week about like how does
00:46:24
Speaker
how does our work how has our work affected our like way of living kind of thing from was it Matt was ever met I forget or no from Parker
00:46:38
Speaker
I think it's just ingrained in us anyway. It has nothing to do with the work. It's just, we have, yeah, we're like, um, not low self worth, but like, uh, that imposter syndrome where it's never good enough. Like what you did isn't, you know, you always, you're expecting them to pick out the one flaw.
00:46:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would love to hear some stories though. Yeah. Um, I mean we, we've been around, you know, again, working, working, uh, in Long Branch. We've been around. I have one actually.
00:47:14
Speaker
the house that we met With the designer yeah, yeah name We had these closets on the second floor. I was still working as the finished carpenter at this point and The pitch of the roof was in the closet and it was only I Don't know it was it was to nothing at the top of the you know at the ceiling of the closet the angle was intersecting the wall with no flat
00:47:39
Speaker
So I had to put hanging rods, you know, which typically you'll put a like a piece of one by six on the wall and then put a shelf on top of it and then put the bar between. So this I had to do like this.
00:47:51
Speaker
This tri- and there was no detailed drawings anything from this designer. No, that was like a triangle attached to the ceiling that came down then I dadoed in a shelf that went across like imagine kind of like the tail of a plane like it almost like looked like that and She comes in she's like I hate it. I'm like
00:48:13
Speaker
Like, well, we couldn't get any guidance from you. So this is what we came up with. That's really the only one I could think of. Points for a subtlety, huh? Yeah. Like the cleat had on the wall because the wall was angled. I had to put a level cut on it. It was crazy.
00:48:34
Speaker
Fucking crazy. And knowing you, you agonized over this and did, like, the best job that anyone could ever do. I'm on site laminating plywood together. Stop dados in it. And I had to attach it to, you know, rafters, pocket screws. And then I saw, I ended up having to like cut it. And while it was in place and it was a whole. That's funny.
00:49:01
Speaker
Yeah. With that full gazey designer. I know that I had my own run in one hour when I was working out the work and drawings. And this was again, one of the first jobs I was doing when I was in the office trying to
00:49:17
Speaker
you know translate these drawings that she had given and the measurements added up you know it would be like 48 she'd show like something that's 48 inches and something that's 36 inches and then at the top will be like 108 inches you know these don't add up I'm not here measuring I'm just writing stuff down yeah
00:49:44
Speaker
That's probably where Tom learns how to measure. Two peas in a pod. Yes, indeed. We got a jokester on this next one. All right. Do you use a center punch on your mark for drilling a hole? That's Keith, our good buddy Keith, pointing out the obvious from Blackthorn Concepts on Instagram.
00:50:08
Speaker
I do when it's necessary. It's funny, I got a couple people busting my balls. I posted a video yesterday using the Montana brat point bit, you know, drilling a hole, and you know, the hole comes out, it comes out so clean. But I missed my mark, and it's a weep hole in the bottom of the sign that we're making for the designer we work with.
00:50:34
Speaker
So you're never gonna see it and it doesn't matter but I got a couple of people busting my chops
00:50:43
Speaker
I'm filming one hand, drilling with another hand, looking through the viewfinder. That's the other thing. People don't understand is you're holding your phone up, looking through your phone with your drill, trying to spot that mark. It's hard. You get all discombobulated. Yeah, that's why. Your head isn't facing really the direction you're going in.
00:51:05
Speaker
I like this one from another patron Jaffa Jaffa Hernandez on Instagram. How many cardboard shims is too many cardboard shims on a door hinge repair job? That's your department there. Well, I'd say all jokes aside, if you start to be able to see a gap between the hinge and the hinge mortise, then you probably gone too far and then you could get into bending the knuckles.
00:51:34
Speaker
So if you understand what I'm saying, if you can stick something between the hinge and the mortise, then you've gone too far. You can get away with bringing the hinge out and still have some hinge in the mortise. But I would even go from cardboard to aluminum shims. We used to take aluminum stock for making flashings and cut it down into pieces that were the same size as the hinge mortise.
00:51:59
Speaker
and they don't compress. The problem with the cardboard shim is, you know, you tighten down the screws and unless it's fully compressed, it's like spongy. So it's not going to stay where, you know, where you want it. That's one tip I have, but yeah, you don't want to be able to see a gap there. That's good. That's a good tip.
00:52:24
Speaker
This is from Manny, this next question. Manny's a deep thinker. Did you ever notice that about him? Yeah. What's an opportunity you missed at some point in life that you wish you could have again? I got a lot of snarky thoughts going through my head.
00:52:46
Speaker
about whom and what I should have probably laid out on the ground at some point. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not a big regret guy. Yeah. Now, since I have almost, you know, about 30 years on, not quite, but
00:53:07
Speaker
my perspective has changed. I don't really like to live with regrets or anything like that because I'm a firm believer that you really never know what would happen if you would have taken a different road. Like we want to assume if since we took A if we would have taken B things would have worked out
00:53:26
Speaker
Better or it's like a butterfly. It's like the butterfly effect. You don't know it could it could have gotten worse Yeah, it could be it could have been a little upswing and then you could be down completely So the only thing I would say is as I've gotten older and sort of just settled down a little bit You know, I've always been a pretty volatile person, especially in my youth. I'm sure you guys
00:54:01
Speaker
that when I was younger, you know, I, if I would have liked to, if I could go back and do some things again, I would have liked to had the
00:54:11
Speaker
the where was all to sort of be more patient and see some things through not be so impulsive and hot headed in and make rash decisions because at the time, you know, they usually don't work out for you in a good way. Right. I'm not saying things would have worked out any better, but I would have liked to at least had that ability to do that. Right. Like not going back to change the
00:54:41
Speaker
change the fate of what happened in your life, but those specific moments. Right. Like, you know, if I could have just, you know, been a little bit more patient with things and then let things unfold as they would have, you know, whether it's the same or different. But that's that's what I would say. Yeah. I guess I probably agree. Same sort of thing where I don't I'm so content with my life now and the way things are going now that
00:55:10
Speaker
Can't see going back to change something like I'm
00:55:15
Speaker
Man, if I had just, you know, whatever, now I'd be a billionaire. I'm happy now. So I don't have, you know, dreams of changing anything in my past to change my present. But yeah, I mean, definitely situations where I was probably, you know, not a good person that I go back and change. That kind of stuff. Do that a little bit better. Everybody's got room for improvement there.
00:55:43
Speaker
I mean, for me, missed opportunities are probably more on jobs where I'm like, man, I wish I had done this or wish I had done that. But again, nothing so serious that I can remember. You forget about it after the next job.
00:55:56
Speaker
That's right. And, you know, there's like I always said, when I was a kid, I used to think, oh, I want to be a veterinarian. And that was my whole focus. But then as my home life got disrupted, I didn't have the chance to go to school and those things like that. And there was a time where I thought, man, how did boy, my life got all screwed up and everything.
00:56:22
Speaker
no matter what, it still led me to where I am now and life is good. So just like you, I agree. These things may have, if, if there's whatever school philosophy, believe in fatalism or hard determinism or all these other things, we both got here into these chairs today for whatever reason. And everything that led to it is, is
00:56:48
Speaker
in place. I mean, could have grown up with silver spoons and be in the gutter dead. That's right. I always like to say, I could have had everything going for me. You come home and the wife's in bed with the pool boy.
00:57:03
Speaker
then he kills you. Yeah. So things turned out pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. We've touched on it before. Like contentment is underrated. It is. I mean, there's nothing better than being content because happiness is fleeting. Yeah. So if you're content with life, then I mean, maybe I'm the crazy one, but I don't think so. That's the way I see it.
00:57:29
Speaker
Um, and, and things are really starting to break for us. Yeah. Um, yeah, we, we've, we've been fighting the good fight and being content and, you know, stuck to, uh, you know, our ideals and things like that. And it's nice to see that. I think that adds to our contentment as well.
00:57:50
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's not always easy. I mean, in the beginning, we must have sent 15 bids to get one in the past. Now, granted, we're getting less inquiries, I'll say. They're all
00:58:08
Speaker
the quality right and it's almost a guarantee yeah that we're gonna get the job because people now they already know what the deal is right it's not like hey I I'm a designer in Rumson and I need a laundry cabinet it's 96 tall and we're like okay it's gonna be like and they're like my budget was eight hundred and fifty dollars
00:58:30
Speaker
those people aren't calling anymore. No, we we've whittled away all the quantity and and got 100% quality now. Yeah. So it that which is exactly what we were trying to do. Yeah. So that's great. Absolutely. You want to read this next one? Yes. So this is a
00:58:54
Speaker
Sort of a long, we have a lot on this one. This is from John. John, I don't know how to say your name on Instagram. J-A-L-M-A-N-N-O-J-R. John. Johnma. Jamal Noor? I want it to J silent. And his last name is not Alma. No.
00:59:22
Speaker
We don't know. It could be like J. Almono, Jr. Oh, Jr. Yeah. I think his last name is Phillips. So, so it doesn't fit. Anyway, we got to figure that one out. Yeah. John, you know who you are.
00:59:37
Speaker
Uh, so John writes in, do you guys have any advice for me? I'm thinking about making a career move into the trades carpentry. I'm a 31 year old accountant from the Southern New England area. Do you think it's too late for me? I am a hobbyist woodworker been at it for about two to three years. Any advice you can share as far as skill building slash making myself more marketable to put two potential employers. That would be great. Keep up the good work. Love the podcast. Wow.
01:00:06
Speaker
So we'll give our thoughts, but I actually I reached out to a couple buddies and who are all business owners because I wanted to give you as much perspective as possible. And I figured this would be a good way. These guys are all, you know,
01:00:22
Speaker
Well, if this doesn't give you hope, John, I don't know what will. I was a hobbyist until I was 41. I did all sorts of things as the listeners of the podcast. No. I was a musician for most of my life. And I also worked at a pretty high level as a chef.
01:00:45
Speaker
And once I didn't know, I didn't know what to do with myself. I just fell into cooking. When my music career disintegrated, I really was at a loss. So I came back to New York and I started teaching high school.
01:01:03
Speaker
I moved out to New Jersey and we started fixing up our house and I didn't know half of the things I needed to know, but I had one job offer to teach English on a maternity leave.
01:01:20
Speaker
I just didn't feel like teaching English again. I was a history teacher, although I did teach English in the past. And English as a second language. Yes. I did it all. Not all of it good. And I just said, you know what?
01:01:39
Speaker
I'm going to make a sign. I'm going to put it out in front of my house and I'm going to try making cabinets and things. And if it doesn't work, the worst that can happen is I'll go back to work in the restaurant. I get a job in two minutes in the restaurant.
01:01:56
Speaker
You mean he's not on drugs? Hired. Speaks English. He's got a car and he's not on drugs. Right. You know, that's the one thing about working in the kitchen. You know, you might. You're only a half. You only got half a brain. You're the star of the show. Right. I mean, I might have to take my first job or two beneath my ability, but it doesn't matter. It's a job and it will bring home a paycheck.
01:02:23
Speaker
So I didn't have any fear there. And, um, I built up my skills and one job just turned into another. And you know, it's, it was a long row with plenty of mistakes, but plenty of learning. And here we are today. Uh, so you got plenty of time. That's my first point. 31 is not old.
01:02:49
Speaker
I got so lost in the back story there. I just want to touch on his age. Yeah. No, I mean, I definitely don't think it's too, too late. I mean, I got into, I feel like I got a late start. I got into carpentry at 20.
01:03:09
Speaker
23 or 24 and I had never Really done anything before that obviously messed around with stupid stuff Around the house and stuff like that, but never done any never used a miter saw or anything like that And that's only you know
01:03:29
Speaker
I'm still learning so much that I'm not as far off as I was then, you know what I mean? So between 24 and 31, it's not a long time. So I guess, I don't know, maybe we give these guys opinion and then we can give ours? Yeah, sure.
01:03:53
Speaker
So yeah, I reached out. I got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven guys. I said, uh, you know, these are all quality guys. Yeah. Um, and you can, I'm going to give you their Instagram and you know, feel free to reach out to these guys. I know John is actually in new England, so maybe he can help you out. Um, and Sam and Freddie. Uh, so first we got, uh, Luddy Sir Luddy on Instagram. I asked, uh,
01:04:21
Speaker
As an employer, what are you looking for from when you're hiring someone who has, you know, little experience and what do you want to see after they're hired? Initiative and give a fuck. That's all anyone needs. Possess those two things and the rest will fall into place. My dad used to be a lead mechanic and service manager and when he'd hire new guys, he'd literally ask them, are you worth the shit?
01:04:48
Speaker
I tend to agree. Granted, you do have experience, John, but we're using that term loosely. You don't have any professional experience working with a crew and stuff like that, especially if you're going to go into carpentry.
01:05:07
Speaker
Basically, they don't want you to have any any bad habits for one. Right. So you just need to be present, willing to learn and and care. Yeah. Show up on time. Mm hmm. Don't be goofy. Yep.
01:05:28
Speaker
Have your own transportation. Do what you're told. Keep your ears open and your mouth shut is the old phrase. And be willing to do what's asked of you.
01:05:44
Speaker
Makes me think. I had no fear because you know how desperation at times trumps fear. There were times I went into a job. I remember
01:05:58
Speaker
Uh, one time when I had just moved into a new city and there was like a line of people waiting for this line cook job and I went in there and I literally told the guy said, you could send everybody else home because you're not going to find anybody better than me out there. He said, what? I said, just send everybody else home and hire me right now or you're missing your chance.
01:06:24
Speaker
Hired. This kid's got spunk. All right. Don't make me regret this.
01:06:35
Speaker
But you know, I was a real hustler. And like, especially if you come from the Northeast and this was out West, just by nature, you are worth like, at least back then you were worth two Westerners. You just, your motor went at a different speed.
01:06:57
Speaker
I love Luddy's comments because that's really it. When I got in a position to hire, you got to look for the things that you can't, um, you know, that people have in them, like promptness and attention to detail and willingness to, you know, get their hands dirty.
01:07:19
Speaker
So I guess I'll read a John's comment. Jay Walden two on Instagram. John says drive motivation initiative willing slash want to learn. But the big one for me at least is common sense. There you go. You are worthless to me if you have no common sense.
01:07:40
Speaker
And so John actually just fired, you know, the, I don't know if we'll say apprentice, but like the, the low guy on the, the, the laborer that he had. Now this guy, John gave him very specific.
01:07:57
Speaker
Um, tasks to do. And, you know, this guy ended up doing something else and costing him a lot of time and money. So John's up there in Massachusetts, I believe. And, uh, I don't know, maybe get him up, John.
01:08:14
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I would rather have somebody ask me a question than do the wrong thing. Right. Yeah. This this kid put a bunch of two by fours through a window. Okay. They were supposed to go out a window opening, but they went through a closed window. Yeah. That's a lack of common sense there with a, you know, 20 week lead time. That's right. Supply chain. What it used to be. Yeah. Oh my gosh.
01:08:44
Speaker
Uh, next, uh, one here is from Justin, Justin DePalmo on Instagram. Willingness to learn and some common sense goes a long way and shows up on time. I mean, these aren't, these aren't insane demands. So maybe you see, John, that, um, you know, maybe your fears, I mean, you're an accountant, so you, you must have some sort of head on your shoulders. Although I don't know. Um,
01:09:11
Speaker
So, you know, you could see that it doesn't take a lot to be qualified to get in and to impress. Right. That's it. You'll impress somebody with these qualities. Yeah. Some things that we think are just second nature.
01:09:27
Speaker
Mm-hmm. All right. Phrase from a book comes to mind. Humble, hungry, and smart. That's JCH cabinets on Instagram. A fellow's name is John. You may have heard of him. Yeah, I mean. Humble, hungry, smart. That says a lot. Hungry is big.
01:09:52
Speaker
I mean, how can you be good at your job if you're not hungry? Yeah. Yeah. Cause we're still those things and there's nobody really, you know, we account to each other and to ourselves, but, um, that that's the way you are. You're wired that way. Yeah.
01:10:11
Speaker
Yeah. You want to be the guy who's been doing it for 40. I've been doing this the same way for 40 years. Wrong. Yeah. 40 years. Have fun. Yeah. Chances are if you're doing something for 40 years the same way, you know, you're, you're at a step with what's going on now, even if it was right 40 years ago, it might not be right anymore. You know, longevity is not the be all and end all.
01:10:35
Speaker
Yeah, you think the Egyptians built the perfect pyramid? No, we've had, you know, man, when they build those 5,000 years ago, 35 or 3,500 years ago, it was 3,000 BC. No, so it's like 30. I think it was 2,500 BC. Wow. Yeah. Holy cow. Don't even get me started on Puma Punku.
01:10:58
Speaker
Yeah. This one is from Sal, Sal the carpenter on Instagram. Reliable transportation, common sense. You see a theme developing and they need to be trustworthy. I'm in way too many expensive houses. I don't want to worry about that. They don't need to know anything, but have to be teachable. One other thing is most, uh, one other thing is most I've had that think they know something.
01:11:26
Speaker
It somehow translates to them knowing everything and usually won't understand that I want something different and become a liability real fast. That's like that idea of Dunning Kruger where, you know, on a graph of perceived knowledge versus real knowledge, when you get a little bit of knowledge, people think that they have all the knowledge and then you actually find out that you have none. Yeah, I love that one. Yeah. Yeah. The theme is strong, isn't it?
01:11:52
Speaker
it's you don't have to have the technical qualifications just be competent to get here yeah listen ask questions do what what you're told it's like the the football player that impresses on special teams and how he works his way into the lineup because he's a great special teams player
01:12:15
Speaker
If you can take the lunch order from the crew and bring it back and give everybody their change and just do that, you're going to impress people. And listen, the low guy on the crew is going to do those things. But if you do that well, people are going to notice. That's it.
01:12:39
Speaker
All right, this is from Sam, McClure Design Build on Instagram. He says, the couple employees I've had, I just always wish they wanted to be there. If you don't want to be there and learn, then leave. Yeah, I agree. I mean, John's got to be brimming with confidence now that he's hearing all this. Yeah.
01:13:02
Speaker
Now, all these things we're reading, these are guys that run crews, that have a business. Yeah, these are all business guys who own their own businesses. Right, this isn't just speculation. Last one here, and I'll check my phone and see if any of these other guys wrote back. This is from Freddie, period craftsman on Instagram. Another good guy. Yeah, and another New England guy. Show up on time. Learn from your mistakes. Listen and don't question, but be willing to give their opinion.
01:13:32
Speaker
I like that a lot. I mean, whenever I was working with someone who I was in the more of like a mentorship role or the, you know, we'll call it Lee Guy and Helper, I always listened to the opinion of the other person. And you know what? A lot of times they were right. And that shows a lot. If you can come up with a constructive idea
01:13:55
Speaker
in one of these situations while the guy who you're working under is going to say, Oh wow, John really knows what the hell he's talking about. He's what do you think, John? We're going to bring these up because it could be just humping stuff up a staircase. What do you think? How should we do this?
01:14:12
Speaker
And you say, well, let's let's go around the back and that way through the window. Yeah. It's not it's not magic, is it? No. You know, you'll pick up on all the technical aspects of the job. Let's say you get in with a finished crew.
01:14:27
Speaker
Well, you're going to be marking studs or cleaning up scraps. But then they're seeing that the job site is clean and they don't have to worry about this. John, go do the baseboard in the closet. It's just like the kitchen, isn't it? Right. Have you been paying attention? Did you see all the things that those guys were doing? You were watching them install and you said, hey, Steve, what's that when you did it that way?
01:14:56
Speaker
That's what it's all about. And when you get home, you need to be learning and taking what you saw all day and doing the homework that it takes to, I don't know what the dog's doing up there, do the homework that it takes to actually learn from what you saw that day. Because there's plenty available now online, easy resources. Everything I know I taught myself on YouTube, not everything, but most of what I know I taught myself on YouTube.
01:15:24
Speaker
Same thing. I got into carpentry with no experience. You have more experience than I had. Yeah. And two years later, not even. I'm the lead finish guy. Right. And the only reason is because I listened. I asked questions. I took what I saw and I learned about it when I got home. And that's it. Yeah. I mean, if you take the initiative, then as long as you're, you know,
01:15:49
Speaker
have the physical capability of doing these things, which in 99.9% of people do, you shouldn't have any problems. Yeah, exactly. You know, you get your chores done and you go to the guy that you think is most receptive. Hey Joe, can I give you a hand here?
01:16:08
Speaker
If Joe says no, go away, then you go to gym, you know, because not everybody's going to be likeable on a crew. And again, I always relate it to my kitchen days because
01:16:23
Speaker
I started working in kitchens as a kid, as a dishwasher. I had no formal training. And as I got higher and higher in ranks, everybody who were my peers, they all went to CIA and Johnson and Wales or, you know, some even went to court on blue and stuff. And so I felt a little bit insecure because I had no training
01:16:47
Speaker
really, except on the job. But I was always succeeding because nobody was going to outwork me. And that was just it. And that because that's that's the one of the keys that these people are talking about here. Yeah. Like, you know, you got the fast track education that those guys got in two years. You are picking it up, working shoulder to shoulder with them. You don't have to do that.
01:17:12
Speaker
I wasn't above learning my secondhand school book education. It's the same thing working on a crew. You might work with a guy, an old-timer, who's been doing this for 50 years. You've got to soak up all that information, but also don't take it as gospel.
01:17:28
Speaker
You got to go out on your own and learn all the new stuff. You know, guys like John, you're getting into, you want to install cabinets. You got to find guys like John, JCA's cabinets, and go on their Instagram and soak up all the information that you can about how to do things. You want to get into restoration, go on Freddie's page. I mean,
01:17:48
Speaker
That's what it's all about. It's all about who said it. John, hungry. You got to be hungry. I mean, that's it. It's all in your hands. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I literally think if somebody had an ad looking for somebody, you could walk onto a job site and talk your way into a job with just the right attitude and just confess. This is how much I know.
01:18:15
Speaker
but I want to know more and I'm here for this job. Yeah, I mean some of the best people I've ever seen come on the jobs were people who came from other
01:18:29
Speaker
trades crap not even trades just like people who were I'm trying to think what my helper what she did before I mean she had like a like a job job not like she was a professional yeah at something I forget what a white collar job she was just smart and
01:18:52
Speaker
That's what it takes most of the time is just being having a good head on your shoulders. Yeah. I'm happy to hear about somebody that wants to go into the trades. There's this guy making t-shirts and stuff like that. Now I can't.
01:19:08
Speaker
think the name of the company, it's sort of like the modern tradesman or something like that. Sorry, say that again? There's a guy selling t-shirts and clothing and I think it's called the modern tradesman and it popped up on my Instagram feed as like one of the ads and so I went to his website and I read about it and he had a great
01:19:33
Speaker
Backstory about how his dad was a master plumber when he was a kid He used to love going with his dad and he thought his dad was like Superman because people were so thankful, you know all you came and you Unclog the toilet or you fixed this leak and this and that and he loved it and then one day and I guess it was junior high school he talked about how he was installing a toilet and Then there was this shame attached to it
01:20:04
Speaker
other kids making fun of him and it took him a while to grow out of that until he finally found his way back to the trades and plumbing and his whole thing is I want to you know kind of create respect around the trades again because
01:20:20
Speaker
You know, we don't really experience it in our end of things because we do kind of like high-end stuff most of the time. But people who are in the trades do kind of get looked down upon by some. And it's totally unfair. So I'm happy to hear the interest in it.
01:20:41
Speaker
And, yeah, I mean, you have more specific questions, feel free to reach out. Oh, I just read the question of the week. That's a goodie. Yeah. So this week's question of the week, which we'll do on the Patreon after show comes from one of our patrons, actually, Danny Snyder.
01:21:01
Speaker
Danny's question. Are there any occupations that you prefer not to work for, regardless of the project, like doctors or lawyers? I personally avoid working for architects. I'll work with them, of course, but not for them on their own houses. So we'll be covering that at length ad nauseam in the after show. Yeah.
01:21:26
Speaker
Uh, what'd you think of the beer? I enjoyed it thoroughly. You know, it's kind of like up my alley, so to speak. So I figured I was going to like it. It was good. Actually, I have a sip left. It's one of those beers. It doesn't, I mean, it tastes good cold. It doesn't have to be super ice cold. Yeah. Stout's like that. Even room temperature.
01:21:50
Speaker
I think that's the way the English even drink them. Yeah, I mean they drink most beer like that. Room temp. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. Well, I mean a little chocolaty. I wouldn't say crazy. No. And the vanilla, a little bit. Yeah.
01:22:12
Speaker
I don't know what else to say about it except I liked it. It was enjoyable. I could easily have had another one. It's six and a half percent alcohol by volume and it's a small bottle. But it doesn't really feel that way. It doesn't feel... We're used to drinking big cans.
01:22:37
Speaker
So it's something that I might even pick up. You know, if I was in the store looking for a six pack, we've got four still upstairs. Oh, there you go. Yeah. All right. So I give it a thumbs up. Grand cacao. Yeah, me too. I like Troggs. I haven't had their nugget nectar. That's a good beer that comes out around February every year.
01:22:59
Speaker
All right, check it out. Yeah. We want to thank our gold tier patrons, Jerry Greening, David Murphy, Manny Sirianni, Dustin Fair, Adam Pothass, David Shoemaker, and Colin Lyne. Thanks a lot, guys. Yeah, we'll see you guys in the after show. Don't forget about the Meetup, August 7th, 2.30 p.m.
01:23:18
Speaker
put the Facebook event link in the description. We only got a couple RSVPs. I don't think anybody's really using the the Facebook event thing. Yeah. No, at least about a dozen dozen folks or so are going to be coming. So, yeah, hope to see you guys there and we'll see you next week. Take care.
01:23:55
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a chain