Popular Woodworking
The latest issue of Popular Woodworking launched into the world. This week on the podcast, we talk about the articles, authors, and projects with Logan.
The big project in the issue is Logan's Arts & Crafts desk. We've covered the progress of the desk on the podcast for the last couple months.
Designer's Notebook
An issue of Woodsmith wrapped up at the time of this recording. I asked John about one of his designs that was featured in the magazine: a 6-drawer dresser.
The construction is mostly plywood, yet doesn't look like a "plywood" project." He talks about what he's learned from building projects and stunt parts for the TV show and how that influences his own work as a project designer. Plywood features in many of our projects in Woodsmith. In the last year or so, I've seen a real leveling up of how John, Dillon, and Chris are making use of this material.
Shaker-Inspired Dining Table
I recently recorded an online learning course on building a Shaker-inspired trestle table. The design comes from Chris Fitch. He wanted something that didn't look like a picnic table, nor something fancy. This is an everyday table for all the everyday activities and memory building.
In the course, I talk about composing and assembling a top with breadboard ends. The trestles incorporate a lot of curves, so we'll talk about making those shapes and the joinery that takes place on an angle. The plan features a matching bench, and we dive into my preferred finish for projects like this.
Check out the course here
Transcript
What's not bizarre is the Shop Notes podcast, which is starting right now. I'm your host, Phil Huber, joined by Logan and John. This is episode number 228, giving you an update of all things in the woodsmith, popular woodworking, and shop notes world. Thanks for listening, everybody. I want to give a shout out to our sponsors. This episode of the Shop Notes podcast is sponsored by Harvey Industries. Good enough is not good enough.
See all of our new tools at harveywoodworking.com.
Phil (01:05.003) Alright, ordinarily at this point I would read a bunch of comments from previous episodes, but there really weren't that many.
that more.
Logan Wittmer (01:15.949) I don't know, I got called the wookest.
John Doyle (01:19.324) A snowflake. They called it a snowflake. But I don't think it is, I think by context, don't think they meant what you think they meant. They're not saying that you're like a crystallized piece of like moisture in the air. They're saying you're like really weak and vulnerable.
Logan Wittmer (01:30.861) Hmm.
Logan Wittmer (01:36.609) was gonna go with white and beautiful, but...
John Doyle (01:38.923) Yeah, I mean, we know that.
Logan Wittmer (01:41.547) Yeah. Huh. Huh. That's true.
John Doyle (01:42.966) I mean, the people that watch it on YouTube don't know that, but. I got called out to they said that like I disappeared for a month and that I was at Disney World this whole time. Right. Well, what was inaccurate is that they said that I was using my kids as an excuse to go back to Disney World, which is inaccurate because everybody knows I would go to Disney World without my kids. Yeah, and I have and I, you know, I'm not making any excuses about it.
Logan Wittmer (01:55.585) which is not inaccurate.
Logan Wittmer (02:07.915) And you have.
Phil (02:09.822) Right.
Logan Wittmer (02:11.724) You
John Doyle (02:13.302) So, I mean, I got a bag packed right now for, if there's a Disney World emergency, I got a go bag. I can be on a plane in 15 minutes. So.
Logan Wittmer (02:16.237) He's race!
Logan Wittmer (02:21.24) You
Phil (02:24.628) mean, if there's one thing that anything has taught us these last few years is you have to be prepared for all sorts of emergencies.
John Doyle (02:31.859) Right? Yep. Yep. When it all goes down, you know where I'm So
Logan Wittmer (02:31.927) Mm-hmm.
Phil (02:42.324) All right, so there you are. Looking for questions, comments, and smart remarks, you can put them on the comment section on our YouTube channel or send us an email, woodsmith at woodsmith.com.
John Doyle (02:58.315) But yeah, I think we definitely appreciate the smart remarks the most. That's what we're here for. That's what fuels us.
Phil (03:02.216) Right. We do. Yeah.
sometimes by sheer entertainment value and sometimes by rage.
Phil (03:14.9) So.
What we'd like to know is for any other woodworkers out there who travel extensively to Disney World is what are the best woodworking places to go to in Disney where you're gonna see the best stuff.
Logan Wittmer (03:28.653) J-J-Japetto's workshop.
John Doyle (03:31.849) Mm-hmm.
Phil (03:31.977) Right.
John Doyle (03:35.338) Yeah, I have seen on Facebook or somewhere there's a guy that used to work for Disney World carving all the signs. You know I'm talking about. You've seen him, Logan.
Logan Wittmer (03:41.793) God... I- yeah, he drives me nuts. Start-
starts every post with, I'm a former Disney artist.
John Doyle (03:54.771) Yeah, I don't want to brag, but.
Logan Wittmer (03:56.609) We got it. Yeah, we got it.
John Doyle (04:01.929) believe they're called Imagineers.
Logan Wittmer (04:04.917) Now there, they weren't back when he started.
Phil (04:10.634) All right, there you are. Yep. Whew.
John Doyle (04:11.785) Now that we've got that out.
Phil (04:18.506) All right, yesterday in the mail, a brand new issue of popular woodworking landed in my mailbox.
So I was thinking that we'd start today's episode with Logan kind of talking about what's in that episode or what's in that issue.
Logan Wittmer (04:37.962) I don't remember.
John Doyle (04:43.193) way back machine.
Logan Wittmer (04:43.355) Phil (04:43.54) This is, this is the life of woodworking publishing in the sense that you work on an issue, sometimes several issues at the same time. And when one goes out, you kind of purge it from your memory a little bit because you've been living with it very closely for too long. And it also blends in with all the other ones that you've done.
Logan Wittmer (04:46.537) Yeah.
John Doyle (05:01.384) It's kind of like cramming for a big test in school. Like, you push really hard, remembered it all for 24 hours, and then, as soon as it's over, dumped it.
Logan Wittmer (05:01.6) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (05:10.828) Dump. Yep. So that was the issue with my desk in it that I have now been living at for several months. So we have the Crestman desk in there. Kind of traditional Stickley style. It's a little bit of Middle Earth flair thrown into it. There is also
me think about this. What else? God, what else? I'm gonna have to grab that issue and see.
Phil (05:47.124) There was a, the mocks advice was in it.
Logan Wittmer (05:50.22) yeah, yeah, yep, so that's the cover, is the Mox and Vice from Albert Klein. And then we also had...
What was the third one? I feel like it was a Willie, but maybe it wasn't.
Phil (06:09.108) the shop notes project the portable workbench
Logan Wittmer (06:11.098) yeah, we threw a Shrapnitz project. Yeah, that's what it was. God, thank you. Wow, I have dumped that out of my brain so hard. Like ridiculously so. And yeah, mean, so the Mox and Vice from Albert is a kind of traditional style Mox and Vice, kind of semi-handwork, semi-machine work on it. He made that one very,
John Doyle (06:18.512) Thanks.
Logan Wittmer (06:40.445) large for that one was actually for Shay whose shop we were shooting that project in. So he wanted a wide enough one to do some like blanket chest sides in it. So that's what it was. The desk we talked about the workbench sidekick, which is actually in my shop here. It's kind of my lathe bench.
Phil (06:56.615) okay.
Logan Wittmer (07:07.537) It is kind of a small format bench meant to go, you know, in your shop around your main bench as a secondary work surface. Works really well for that. And I've been using it in here, so I figured that would be good one to include. Also did an article on doing rabbits by hand. So kind of cutting rabbits with a rabbit plane, whether that is an old
style molding. I'm gonna say molding plane even though it's not a molding. A old style wood body rabbit plane or a modern and kind of the different approach take with each of those because the modern one has some bells and whistles that you just need to plane. The vintage wood style if it is truly a rabbit plane versus a shoulder plane sometimes does not have a fence so there's some different ways you can approach
long grain and cross grain rabbits. Let's talk about doing some of those. Also had an article from the Wayback Machine from Bob Flexner, who recently passed away, on doing shellac. It was, I had planned on doing a shellac article in this issue because this desk is finished in shellac. It's finished with glances oil and shellac.
And it kind of just worked out as a kind of attribute to Bob, who had been a longtime contributor that we pulled that one forward. And then I did a little bespoke maker spotlight on a company called Hillview Tools, who I have several tools from. Tony makes tools out of New York. He is a trained machinist.
So, you know, in the machinist world, you often make tools for specific tasks and Tony kind of rolled that into making woodworking tools. Makes some of the nicest sliding squares, bevel gauges, makes really nice block planes, which I do not own one of those guys. I had one for this article shoot though, and it's very nice.
Logan Wittmer (09:34.866) so kind of cool to show, you know, a little one man shop in his home basement machine shop, making a bunch of tools. and it's interesting because it's probably the Facebook algorithm now and Instagram I'm seeing all these shows that Tony's going to. I'm like, I need to see if we can get a couple of these bespoke makers out here for our Woodworking in America event. Cause that'd be really cool.
Phil (10:02.794) True story.
Logan Wittmer (10:04.362) So yeah, so that was the last issue. Man, I feel like I'm looking at the files right now. Those were all sent to the printer on May or March 14th. I feel like that was three years ago. For better or for worse, I feel like that is a long time ago, but it's really not.
Phil (10:20.187) Ha ha.
Phil (10:29.258) So let me ask you this question about that issue, because I read the Bob's shellac article. He took a very curmudgeonly approach in that one.
Logan Wittmer (10:37.074) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (10:41.801) Hey, he's... Yeah, I don't remember how he words it, but, shellac, a difficult finish, or something like that. Yeah.
Phil (10:48.05) Right. Yeah. So it just kind of came across a little bizarre, but I also know that he did that periodically. It feels like there were some topics that Bob just came back to and pounded on over and over again. and shellac being one of them. And it was just kind of an interesting, like, why the rage dude?
Logan Wittmer (11:04.476) Yeah
Logan Wittmer (11:12.157) So yeah, I mean, you can email him and ask him, but you might not hear from him. So Bob kind of, so I had spoken to Bob's brother several months ago and kind of got a little bit of Bob's back story. Cause I was not around during, you know, Bob's time of writing for the magazine and stuff. But Bob had kind of started in the finishing world.
Phil (11:15.602) Right, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (11:41.351) woodworking world really doing a lot of he was running like a one-man antique restoration and furniture shop So he that's where he got a lot of his Finishing knowledge was just kind of hands-on experience messing around with this stuff I'm sure he worked with you know some finishing manufacturers and whatever but
Yeah, so I think some of his curmudgeony tendencies are from his experience having to repair these finishes. Which is, you know, is what it is. So yeah, yeah, he's he's. Yeah.
Phil (12:20.958) Right, no, I'm not taking issue. It was just an interesting, he had interesting approaches on some of his stuff that, you know, his personal presentation style or whatever.
Logan Wittmer (12:29.074) Yes.
Logan Wittmer (12:36.732) Yeah.
John Doyle (12:40.945) sounds like a good, I was gonna say that sounds like a good section to have in the magazine, maybe like an airing of grievances, or Logan's What grinds your chisels? woodworking therapy just like, you know, I got a lot of problems with you people and now you're gonna hear about
Phil (12:41.3) To be fair...
Phil (12:59.796) We haven't done a what grinds your chisels episode in a while. So maybe we need to bring that one back.
Logan Wittmer (13:03.781) No. Yeah, revisit.
John Doyle (13:06.172) think we need that. We got a lot of pent up rage.
Phil (13:08.34) Yep.
Phil (13:15.85) All right, so you've lived with your desk for a while now, satisfied?
Logan Wittmer (13:19.336) Yeah, yes. Yeah, I still haven't redone these drawer slides. I hate these stupid bottom out drawer slides. So like I had started monkeying around with them trying to flush up drawer fronts. There's just not a lot of adjustments on these. And I got to the point where I just slapped them back together and there's still a little like haggletooth. This is what I'm calling the south side desk. They're a little snaggletooth drawer fronts right now. haven't got the veneers on them yet.
but, yeah, south side of whichever town you want.
Phil (13:50.302) South side of what? We don't know. Fill in the blank.
John Doyle (13:55.557) She's right behind you, Phil.
Phil (13:57.899) You
John Doyle (14:00.642) I I saw Bailey come in.
Logan Wittmer (14:02.696) He did. But yeah, I love it. The only thing that I would change in this is just a
Two things and this is just my own unique situation that I'm in with this desk is There are times where I wish the knee hole the the spot for your knees was a little wider Because as I'm pushing a dog's head out of the way they try to get between my legs and the like lander there which one's a 70 pound dog one's a 45 pound dog so like if that was a little bit bigger make it easier for the dogs getting out of just
That's just me. Once they die, I won't care about that. The other is that even with this little cutout on the front of this door, that cubby of that desk gets really hot. And that's, that's because of the computer I have in there. If you were just doing like word processing or whatever, if I'm doing video editing or whatever, it gets pretty warm in there. So I leave that door open. So there may be a time
in the near future where I go in there with a reciprocating tool and cut out a couple of the panels in the back. So the back is basically open air, which again is just a function of how I'm using this thing. So if you're using a standard, you know, word processing, web browsing, YouTube type computer, you'd be fine. So.
Yeah, but no, I like it. Yeah, the other thing that would would be. Good if you did widen out the I think the proportion the proportions are correct for this knee area. But if you did widen it out, you would gain a little bit of real estate on the keyboard tray. Which for most like for most keyboards with a without a 10 key on them like this one.
Logan Wittmer (16:17.104) You know, it works out great. So like standard Mac keyboard works out really nicely. If you have a larger keyboard with function keys on the side and a 10 key on the right, it's a little snug with the mouse. But for a smaller keyboard, which is what I use, it works out perfect.
Logan Wittmer (16:42.768) See ya.
Phil (16:44.916) Yeah, I always find that on a project like that, especially where you've designed it yourself, is there's a, you you try and fit certain parameters into it to what you think will work for a specific use, especially for something like a desk that sees use rather than just kind of an is piece, if that makes sense.
And then at some point you kind of live with it and then you realize like, Hey, this worked. This maybe didn't work as well. And then you adapt to it. And then all of sudden it's just fine.
Logan Wittmer (17:21.382) Yeah, well, that was the keyboard thing immediately. What for me was, proportions are correct between left cubby, right drawers and the knee hole. Those proportions look right. But as soon as I brought like, you know, my desktop from my downstairs office up here and put my keyboard on it, I'm like, ooh, that's a little snug. But it's like, well, no problem. I don't use my 10 key on the right hand side, the number pad for anybody that doesn't know what
10 keys, the number pad on the right hand side. I don't use that. So I'll just order a smaller keyboard. So that's what I did and no issue.
Phil (18:00.457) Right. So would you consider putting an extra fan in your cubby to help cool that? Just open the door.
Logan Wittmer (18:07.95) No, Yeah, I mean, if I knock out so right now. There are two quarter inch panels in the back that are six inches wide. I will probably just cut those out. And that should provide enough airflow. I to be fair, I have two computers in there. It's not one I have to. I have a Mac in there. I have my.
Phil (18:34.185) Logan Wittmer (18:37.584) PC in there. So there's a lot of stuff going on. You know, it's, it is completely just a function of how, and I have not had the air conditioner in this office hooked up. So like on a sunny day, I came in here on Sunday and it was 96 degrees in this office because of the two big windows and the sun beating through them. Needless to say, I went out and hooked up the AC.
Phil (18:58.772) Toe!
Logan Wittmer (19:07.045) in the office. So that has also helped a little bit. But yeah, it's yeah, I wouldn't I did that whole thing in the basement office in the in the lower cabinets. I did finish for my wife's office. On my side of that desk, I did put a couple of fans and
Phil (19:09.322) All right. All right.
Logan Wittmer (19:36.46) Think of like a wall register grate in the side of it to help pull cool air in there And it just ends up being loud and it doesn't look the greatest and stuff like that So now I think just I think just cutting out either cutting out the cubbies in the back or just plopping the computer off to the side The biggest thing is I just did not want to look at the computer sitting on the floor. I would prefer to have it hidden somewhere So yep
Phil (20:02.9) Yeah, no, that's fair. Yeah.
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So anyway, you were talking about the dresser that you did for the current issue of Woodsmith. And one of the goals for that was like a plywood dresser, but not make it look like a plywood dresser.
John Doyle (23:25.612) Yes, correct. So start with the plywood box and add hardwood from there using simple joinery to kind of dress it out and not make it look like a plywood box. So that was the goal on that. And when I got that done, it's anything like bedroom. It's like, you did a dresser. Let's fill out the bedroom suite.
Phil (23:42.899) Right.
Phil (23:55.4) Right. Yep.
John Doyle (23:56.183) So we hadn't done a platform bed in a while, so kind of took it from there, I guess. And kind of same thing, platform beds are usually pretty simple, simple construction. They don't have a footboard. So kind of come up with something that matches with the dresser. The dresser was made out of cherry. So kind of try to use the same materials.
same kind of construction techniques and style so it all go together and kind of going from there I guess. So simple project that somebody could probably build in a weekend or two and have a decent piece of furniture. So keeping it simple.
Phil (24:47.304) Yeah, what I liked about the dresser is,
the fact that I believe you could put it together relatively quickly. It's not a, for as big of a project as it is. And the way that you addressed the plywoodiness of stuff without resorting to like thin strips of plywood edge or of hardwood edging, which we've done in the past and also works or can work when well-designed. But it's...
The way you edged the plywood was usually with thicker strips or just covered it with legs altogether. And I think it turned out really cool. I just like that approach that you took to it.
John Doyle (25:35.871) Yeah, I think when you just go with the eighth inch or quarter inch thick edging, it usually just looks like a plywood box with edging on it. So try to use different thicknesses of materials to make legs and make it look like have style and rails applied to it. so went that direction, I guess.
Phil (26:02.216) Yeah. And I had built a dresser for our house based off of a workbench plan. And again, this is just a design choice, but a lot of times when you have a plywood dresser, things like that, instead of doing like a traditional web frame between drawers, you know, where it's like a four pieces of wood, sometimes with a thin panel in it.
A lot of times in plywood, try and simplify it by just having solid plywood panels between every dress, every drawer or banks of drawers or stuff like that. And the problem with that is that it just ends up weighing 6,000 pounds.
And I get that it adds some strength there, but that's like way overbuilt in my opinion. But on this one, you ended up just having the dividers, but they're only a few inches wide. It's not the full depth.
John Doyle (26:54.825) Right.
John Doyle (27:04.179) Yeah, I ended up going with roller bearing drawer slides. So you really don't need any full shelf supports to support drawers or any of kind of thing. And really, the stretchers weren't even necessary. They were more of just kind of a divider decorative type thing. So it just doesn't look like a bank of drawer fronts and whatnot.
Yeah, did that. even, I mean, even when building a cabinet like that, you don't even need a full top or bottom on it because the top's getting covered up with the solid wood top and the bottom you never see because it's full of drawers anyways. But I mean, it doesn't, it really, I mean, it's probably more work to cut strips for the top of the bottom than just use a solid top and bottom. So went that way and it's not saving that much weight either. So.
Phil (28:05.802) Yeah, anyway, it was just one of those things where this project combined with some of the other recent plywood projects that we've done, I don't know, it feels like we've leveled up our design game with plywood, that it's not just giant panels that you stitch together and then kind of slapdash cover the edges later on. There's a thoughtfulness in how it gets used and why you're using plywood for certain situations.
John Doyle (28:35.322) Yeah, it really helps with the construction time too, like we said. You could probably build it in a week or two, especially with, I went with Baltic birch plywood drawers. So then you're not spending your time gluing up, you know, wider panels for the case of solid wood or for the drawers or playing stuff down to thickness. You can just cut strips of plywood and go from there. So it really helps, I think that way.
Phil (29:06.216) Yeah. I forget Logan, did you use plywood on your drawer sides or was it all solid wood? Okay.
Logan Wittmer (29:12.713) Solid wood. Yeah, we don't use plywood to pop wood.
John Doyle (29:17.487) You
Logan Wittmer (29:19.776) just because I hate dealing with it. No, I was gonna say that I didn't realize that I it's funny working with everybody for several years you can kind of pick out whose designs are whose.
John Doyle (29:20.582) Wow.
Logan Wittmer (29:41.065) pretty easily. Chris has pretty distinctive design. Dylan has pretty distinctive design. I would have assumed that Chris designed this dresser, to be honest with you. Yeah, I would have. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. But the one thing that I do really like about it, and as you mentioned, John, so projects end up stacking up, right?
John Doyle (29:52.152) Really?
That's a compliment, I'll take that.
Logan Wittmer (30:10.847) in our photo studio and video studio. So a lot of times, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, oh, hey, you know, if anybody's interested in this, you know, it's yours. Like, just get it out of here. It's gone. So I was like, oh, that's a that's a good dresser to replace my my youngest had a serpentine front, like an antique serpentine front dresser that had wooden slides on it. And I had read I had refinished, you know, God, probably 10 years ago.
when our oldest was young and it's at the point where like the bottoms aren't staying in with how much clothes are shoved in those drawers and they're serpentine front so you like gotta cut the curved plywood to get it to fit right and whatever and he's always pulling the drawers out on his feet because he pulls them out super far and they're very heavy I'm like this I like the size of the drawers in this
dresser because they're smaller, right? They're not very wide, like maybe 18 inches, maybe a little more than that, maybe 20. And they're fairly shallow, so the entire dresser is fairly shallow. So like for like kids clothes, like I could put my stuff in it, but like for kids clothes, this is perfect because it's like small clothes, small drawers, easy for them to organize. There are six drawers in it, I think.
John Doyle (31:17.955) Yes, that's right. Yeah.
Phil (31:19.23) Yeah, I'd have to.
Phil (31:38.228) Six drawers, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (31:39.326) And I'm like this works out really nice, but the one little detail that I appreciate and I feel like gets overlooked all the freaking time is that you had the top overhang the whole way around and instead of being flush on the back, flush tops on the back are stupid because you're gonna push it up against the wall
John Doyle (32:02.595) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (32:08.017) And then you're going to have a gap where the legs won't go up against the wall because there's trim and baseboard. And then you have this stupid three quarter inch gap that crap falls in.
Phil (32:14.184) Mm-hmm.
John Doyle (32:18.177) You lose your socks, your little action figures fall back there. Yeah. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (32:20.701) Yeah, you Legos, yeah! So that's where I'm like, ah, whoever designed this made the top overhang so it actually pushes tight up against the wall. I have it tight up against the wall on two sides. I'm like, kudos to Chris Fitch for designing it this way. Nope, that's John, that guy right there.
John Doyle (32:40.543) No, it's me, this guy who's got two thumbs and overhang all the way around. This guy. Yeah, that that is a small detail. And the other thing is I always put in self closing drawer slides only to keep them closed because we have some dressers that have the drawer slides that are not self closing. And then like this, like the back of the edge of the.
Logan Wittmer (32:58.753) yeah.
John Doyle (33:09.129) like carpet towards the wall that's always like a little thicker because they, you know, roll it or the the nail strips back there. So the dresser is like this slightly tipped forward where the drawer might start slowly creeping open and you're always like going around pushing all the drawers closed and or shimming them up. And so that's the other thing. Or same with same with carts in the shop. You start wheeling around and drawers are flying open and.
Phil (33:13.364) Got the nail strip. Yeah.
Phil (33:28.69) Mm-hmm. Yep.
Phil (33:37.61) flying open, yeah.
John Doyle (33:38.57) So self-closing door slides. Keep them closed.
Phil (33:41.993) Which.
Phil (33:45.717) We've shared our love for the Midwest home center chain called Menards many times on this podcast. And to go to Menards and get self-closing, full extension drawer slides is not a lot of money. And they're pretty solid, the drawer slides. I think that they make some decent hardware.
John Doyle (34:12.991) Yeah, that's where I got all the drawer slides for the cart that we just built for Logan. So good value. And you're getting 11 % back. You're wetting your whistle a little.
Phil (34:13.194) So it's not.
Phil (34:18.518) yeah.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the stock market isn't returning 11 % right now. you know, you're, yeah, Menards beating the market since 19, whatever.
Logan Wittmer (34:22.513) Yeah, you're making money at that point.
John Doyle (34:29.254) No. Put your money in Menards, guys.
Logan Wittmer (34:40.412) See, what I don't understand, you go into Menards, Lowe's, Hone Depot, insert any big box store, you go to the drawer slide section, right? You have the ball bearing slides.
10 or 12 bucks for a pair?
then you have the cheap white ones with just the wheel roller. Who is buying those? Who is cheap enough that they are buying those stupid things to the point where they are still selling them?
John Doyle (35:12.316) Right.
I feel like it's the people that have kitchens that were built in the 1970s that have that kind of drawer slide and then they wear out or break is like, well, I got to replace them with the exact same thing, you know, so they just stay in stock. Yeah. Then I don't. You know, calling them out.
Phil (35:27.585) and you don't.
Logan Wittmer (35:30.362) I'm blaming the Boomers for this.
Phil (35:33.514) All right, there we go, boomer hate.
Send in your comments now.
John Doyle (35:40.881) you
Phil (35:44.447) mean, we're already going to raise the ire of folk who think that full extension slides don't belong on furniture anyway. But to be fair, there's very little that you needed to change on this particular dresser project if you wanted to go with solid wood drawers, like just regular drawer construction.
John Doyle (36:03.654) Yeah. Yeah, Logan, you were talking about how we all kind of our own design style. And I feel like the same thing that I can look at them and kind of tell who designed what. And I feel like Chris is kind of the traditional like design guy, traditional elements. And Dylan is kind of more modern and kind of stretches the, you know, the ideas a little bit. And then I try to be kind of more in the middle.
Just like, here's something simple you can build, nothing fancy. Like, this is just how to do it. You don't have to get too crazy. that's my take on it.
Phil (36:45.63) there's a, yeah, not to give you a big head or anything, John, but it takes a lot to create something that looks good, functions well, and has that simple appeal though to it. So.
Logan Wittmer (37:02.093) Almost there. Almost got it.
John Doyle (37:07.45) Yeah.
Phil (37:12.158) But anyway, so those just a couple of projects that were.
Logan Wittmer (37:16.869) So let me ask this, how much do you think that...
Logan Wittmer (37:24.453) John being the one that does a lot of our parts and stuff as we're working on the show and stuff, how much of that goes into that? Because if you're just designing something and handing it off to somebody, it's not really your problem anymore, right? So I'm not saying Chris does that or Dylan does that, but hey, this would be kinda cool to do this. I don't have to build it, so here we go. You know what I mean?
John Doyle (37:38.17) Mm-hmm.
John Doyle (37:52.896) Yeah, no, I've had that. Yeah. Mark Mark, yeah, it gets a little and I feel like it's a little annoyed with Dylan sometimes on his he'll just be come up with something new is like, here you go. Figure it out. We're like, yeah, I've stressed a lot about on designing stuff and it's like, well, how would I if I did it that way? How would I like how could I do this? And then sometimes it's just like, oh wait, I don't have to and then you just hand it off. So they'll figure it out.
Logan Wittmer (37:53.312) Dylan seems to like mitered shit and he's not the one building it.
Logan Wittmer (38:03.093) Hehehehehe
Logan Wittmer (38:23.706) Hmm.
Phil (38:24.596) Do you find that your years of experience in trying to interpret other people's designs for project parts for the TV show influences the way you make choices for drawer construction or case assembly or something like that when you're designing projects?
John Doyle (38:24.77) But yeah.
John Doyle (38:45.87) yeah. Yeah, I definitely I think that's working on the show for the last, what, 18 seasons has definitely affected the way I design stuff. Just knowing like and forcing to have to build it the way that somebody else did it in the magazine has kind of taught me like different things. But then having to do them. Yeah, definitely pick out the way like.
I like to do things or something that I know that has been successful in the past, like before a project, like, well, like this general technique or, you know, worked out for this project. So I know it's going to work for the magazine here just in the way they draw it or explain it. So. Yeah, I would say that, yeah, definitely affects the way I design stuff.
Phil (39:39.86) All right, cool.
Phil (39:44.331) You know, speaking of design, one thing that we have just coming out, brand new, probably by the time you hear this is I'm doing a e-learning course on a shaker inspired dining table that Chris Fitch designed and, we featured in the magazine. So we're going to do a video workshop course on building it where we're going to walk through the entire process. It's similar to what we do for the TV show, but.
doing it as a course, we're able to do much longer discussion on some things because in the TV show we have 26 minutes to get it out the door and some things we can cover and some things we can't cover. So on this one, we went a deep dive on it, talked about selecting materials for the top, gluing up humongous top panels like you would for a tabletop, the joinery involved on the trestles and through mortises.
mortises and angle, mortise and tenon joints and angled pieces. We even talk about building a bench that goes with the with the table. And because the bench has such a similar construction style to the table, I use that as an opportunity to riff and try some different techniques that you could also apply to the table just to show that there are options. So when you're looking at a set of plans, and it shows
joinery option A. That doesn't mean you have to necessarily go with that one. So you can check that out on our website. I'll put a link to it in the show notes page as well.
Phil (41:29.034) There you have it.
I think that wraps up another episode of the Shop Notes podcast. If you have any questions, comments, or smart remarks we want to hear about them, it's the way, it's the fuel for our episodes. So please send those to woodsmith at woodsmith.com or you can put them in the comment section on our YouTube channel. And who knows, your comment might just be read in a future episode, which is both a warning and an invitation.
Phil (42:04.725) Thanks for listening everybody, bye.
