Workbench Vise
Puppy Doc Bob asked about the tail vise we used in the workbench video recently posted on YouTube.
The vise comes from Lee Valley. It sits in a routed recess in the top. The installation is quick. I don't have a tail vise on my home workbench. However, I do find this one to be handy when I'm working on stuff in the studio.
Project Inspiration
I've been interested in building a desk based on the one seen in the PBS Masterpiece program All Creatures Great & Small. The character Siegfried Farnon has a drop-front desk in his office that I can't get out of my head.
I've never seen one with a small glass-front bookcase on top instead of the tall bookcase. In addition, this desk has doors below the worksurface rather than drawers. I think the doors could be more useful.
If I make one (we have three desks in our house already), I would consider sliding doors as those would be easier to open and get at the stuff inside.
I find TV and movies are great to watch for stuff in the background. A past ShopNotes project was based on the an organizer Bryan Nelson saw in the show NCIS. The main character was often shown working on a boat in his basement shop. So Bryan drew up this organizer based on stills.
Logan saw some Arts & Crafts lamps that he'd like to make. They look like this one.
Chris Carves
A viewer mentioned the carved fish that's over my shoulder in the video version of the podcast. Chris Fitch made it years ago. We filmed a version of it that is frankly mesmerizing.
My Latest Project
I've been working on an organizer for my nightstand. Something to keep my notebooks, books, and a drawer for small odds and ends. The front of the drawer is shaped with a round plane to work as a pencil tray, as well.
Transcript
Phil (00:17.758) It is the Shop Notes podcast. Welcome everybody to episode number 230, also known as your dentist's favorite time, tooth hurty.
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Find the perfect screw for your shop or build at your local distributor or at quickscrews.com.
All right, we'll get started in the usual way by checking out the old proverbial mailbox here for comments.
John Doyle (02:54.801) So yeah, I was going through the comments recently and we're at episode 230. And after going through the past week's comments, I just want to make sure my list of people we have offended or upset is updated. So I just want to go through it. So I have intarsia makers. I've got red Cedar users, shop Smiths, oddly specific.
Phil (02:58.023) Yeah.
Phil (03:10.076) Right. Okay.
Logan Wittmer (03:11.436) Yep.
Logan Wittmer (03:16.812) Mm-hmm.
John Doyle (03:21.988) but 70 year old farmers with a personal home sauna that think our podcasts are too short and infrequent. I mean, if I had a nickel for every time I offended one of those people, I'd have two nickels, but it's not that frequent, but oddly specific. I got white epoxy coated drawer slide users now that we've offended. And then people who think that Logan, yeah, yeah. Let's be sus.
Logan Wittmer (03:26.114) Yup.
Phil (03:30.47) Yes, I have not pulled also.
Logan Wittmer (03:33.42) Yep.
Phil (03:40.232) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (03:41.428) Yep. As long as they have the nylon wheels.
John Doyle (03:51.642) specific there. And then lastly, people who think that Logan talks too much, which I think that's been pretty consistent throughout.
Logan Wittmer (03:54.608) Hahaha!
Logan Wittmer (03:59.372) All 230 episodes. Hell yeah.
John Doyle (04:05.334) Yep, yep, we warned everybody. So you gotta let the peacock fly though.
John Doyle (04:14.703) So that's what I got. Is that what you guys got on your bingo cards?
Phil (04:20.114) Yeah, that's what I had. was just trying to make sure that I was up to date as well. It's kind of like when you're watching a baseball game as a kid and you got the little box score thing on there and you're trying to keep up with your dad on that.
John Doyle (04:25.615) Okay, all right.
Phil (04:37.17) But yes.
Let's see, couple of read out a few comments here. Speaking of Stevie W says, I'm a 78 year old boomer woodworker and I have used the white wheelie slides. Nothing wrong with them you whippersnapper.
Logan Wittmer (04:53.196) there's a lot wrong with them.
Phil (05:00.476) Yeah. Michael Bimonti says, a frequent Walt Disney World visitor and woodworker, I'm always noticing furniture and fixtures that are out of the ordinary. One that immediately comes to mind are a pair of laminated and carved wood chairs in the lobby at Bay Lake Towers. They are a thing of beauty.
So, looking for John Doyle to confirm that.
John Doyle (05:27.112) I have not been to the Bay Lake Towers at the Contemporary, so I'll to check that out. I have seen the carved nanny chairs at I believe it's at the Yacht Club Resort at Disney World, so I'll have to check that out if I ever go back. I don't know if I will.
Phil (05:38.972) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (05:45.067) That hyper-fixation has passed.
Phil (05:46.046) All right, who knows? It's an open question.
Yeah. Puppy Doc Bob says he saw Logan's desk in the Popwood issue and it turned out really great. Now I have shop envy and desk envy. Thanks a lot.
Logan Wittmer (06:01.278) Don't hate me cause you hate me.
Phil (06:09.458) Right. Al Feta says, Bill, does the coelacanth behind you talk like his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson Billy? And just over my shoulder right here in the jaws of a, I'm pretty sure it's a real fossil of a Triceratops head is a musky that Chris Fitch carved a number of years ago now. We have that as a video.
on our YouTube channel, I'm pretty sure we'll dig that up and put that on the show notes page because Chris's carving skills are something else. It's a pretty cool piece of wall art. I think it actually needs its own place other than on the horns of Dilemma, our Triceratops. yeah. And for anybody who's coming to
John Doyle (07:06.633) I thought.
Phil (07:08.28) Woodworking in America later this fall, you'll be able to find both of those items here on the open house for that evening prior.
Logan Wittmer (07:13.832) We can even take the musky down and you can take a picture with
Phil (07:20.39) Right. Yeah.
John Doyle (07:22.475) I think that's the same one that Logan took a picture with in the huge puddle of our old video studio parking lot.
Logan Wittmer (07:29.823) John, everybody thought that was the Northwoods Lake until you said that. I mean, the dumpster behind me doesn't give it away, but...
Phil (07:32.615) Yes.
John Doyle (07:36.243) Right. mean, it.
Phil (07:36.636) Hahaha
John Doyle (07:40.075) I mean, basically it was a lake.
Phil (07:48.719) He also continues, says, John is correct. We've replaced the worn out European style drawer slides with brand new drawer slides because they work fine and go in with nothing but a screwdriver. One of those screwdrivers that has the compound head shaft thingy where you have like a number two or number one Phillips or a wide narrow slot blade. I don't know of self-closing drawer slides. I know there are soft closing drawer slides which are overrated.
If you install the slides right, they stay shut because they have a clicky mechanism thing. And order your slides online. If you go to the home center to get slides, they'll always have one pair less than you need for a project. True. It's a fact proven by quantum mechanics, like how the nut you drop while working on your car always rolls to the exact center underneath the car. Also true. Science, people. Science.
John Doyle (08:45.961) fundamental truth.
Phil (08:50.75) Let's see, and then from last week's episode...
Jim Gilchrist writes, I've been struggling the last while and finally made the decision today to just unsubscribe. This has now reached the point of ridiculous. Just change the title and call it the Logan Whitmer Shop Build Podcast and move on. At least it would be truth in advertising.
Logan Wittmer (09:20.498) Here's to you, Jim. Have fun.
John Doyle (09:23.593) So 200, yep, 229 episodes, that's a maximum strength Logan. Any more than that will kill you.
Phil (09:30.364) Yeah. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (09:31.624) Au revoir.
John Doyle (09:36.07) Yeah, I think people don't...
Phil (09:36.444) Although I will say that I appreciate the fact that Jim's ridiculous point is that high.
John Doyle (09:43.016) Yeah. It's like it should have been episode three that he figured that out. So. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (09:45.447) Yeah, I mean that's on him at this point.
Phil (09:51.047) Yeah. Although I will say just as to the truth and advertising part, we are talking about shops and notes about building or equipping the shop. So I feel like, I mean, that's sort of the name of the podcast, right?
Logan Wittmer (10:06.345) Saz advertised!
Phil (10:11.506) Yeah, yeah, anyway, bobbles or.
John Doyle (10:13.991) Plus don't, I mean, isn't it kind of just a thing where like the old guys at work just sit back and let the young guy do all the heavy lifting? Like we've put our time in.
Logan Wittmer (10:19.88) I mean... Yeah.
Phil (10:26.748) Right.
John Doyle (10:29.799) Let the young guy do it.
Phil (10:34.846) Bob also writes, just watched the Just Write bench video. Do you have a source for that tail vise? I might incorporate that into my workbench that I still haven't completed. Looks like a great little bench, very similar in size to the one I have under construction.
John Doyle (10:49.222) It's from Lee Valley Veritas.
Phil (10:54.0) Yeah, it's called their inset vice. Yeah. I did put a link to it on the comments for that particular episode for episode 229, but I'll put that in the show notes as well with a a link to that video.
John Doyle (10:54.896) Part number, yeah.
Phil (11:17.512) make a note of that here to myself.
Phil (11:28.988) All right. There we go.
Kind of excited because the next couple of days we're going to have a special guest in to do an e-learning course with us. Logan, you want to talk about that? Briefly, apparently.
Logan Wittmer (11:42.033) Yeah, s- I guess, like... Mark, the founder of Bad Axe Toolworks, will be here filming an online course. The end. See, Jim? That's what you get! You asked for this! These cards are here!
John Doyle (11:57.677) Yeah, no, Jim's gone. Jim's gone. You can talk as long as you want now. Jim left. He's not listening anymore.
Logan Wittmer (12:05.53) man, all right, let's add Jim to John's list. Yeah, so we not only obviously do the magazine, this podcast, TV show stuff, but part of our offering that we do is online classes. Phil has a few of them available through Woodsmith. We have a few of them available through Popular Woodworking. One of which we are releasing this year is going to be
with Mark, the founder of Bad Axe Toolworks up in Wisconsin. Mark has since retired and is now running his own little class setup. And we invited him to come down and spend a couple of days teaching a saw sharpening class. So that is what we are going to be filming. So if you're like me and have 38 hand saws on your wall, two of which are new, therefore sharp.
and you need to sharpen the other 36. This is a great value. It's gonna be a couple bucks per saw to get your sharpened. And Mark is going to teach you how to do that. The nuances of sharpening rip and cross cut saws and stuff like that. So it'd very cool to sit here and watch a master sharpen some saws. We didn't really plan out with him on
whose saws he's sharpening, so maybe I just bring a couple in by happenstance. So, we'll see.
John Doyle (13:42.658) And just to confirm that's bad ax saws, A-X-X, right?
Phil (13:42.91) Sorry.
Logan Wittmer (13:43.407) Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Phil (13:55.615) Wonderful. Well, I'm excited to have him down here. We've talked about him being here a number of times in the past. I think it would be great to do an event with him here and do one of his sharpening classes. So maybe once he's here, he can see how cool it is and want to come back. Because I think that would be fun.
Logan Wittmer (14:11.759) Or maybe he'll be sick of me in 30 seconds, Jim, and then never come back.
John Doyle (14:18.561) Mm-hmm.
Phil (14:20.882) Right. Or that all options are on the table right now.
Logan Wittmer (14:27.844) Yeah, you asked for this. Brought this upon yourself.
Phil (14:28.732) Also don't get us started.
Phil (14:33.894) So going, going back to some of the comments and what we had talked about a couple of episodes ago about woodworking at Walt Disney World. I was wondering if you guys are ever or how you guys are inspired by projects. Like when you go someplace, do you, do you notice the woodworking or my practical example that I'll start with is.
My wife got me hooked on the masterpiece show, All Creatures Great and Small. I've read the books in the past and then just started watching the shows, I don't know, over winter when it was dark and cold and whatever. And the desk in Siegfried Farnan's office has just like grabbed hold of my brain in a way that...
I just really want to build something inspired by it. We already have two, we already have three desks in our house and don't really need another one, but I sorta need to build a desk that's inspired by that one. I don't know, John, you got anything? Have you ever seen a project?
John Doyle (15:52.411) yeah. I mean, anywhere I go, I'm looking like hotels, any kind of traveling, like furniture. Like we were in the manas, manna colonies last summer, stayed there, had hit all the furniture stores of the local, you know, manna furniture craftsmen and check out all the furniture. So yeah, just as a project designer, I'm looking for inspiration just about anywhere we go.
Phil (16:25.938) mean, Logan, you on your desk that you're at right now, you added the tree of Gondor on the door. So obviously there's a little bit of inspiration there.
Logan Wittmer (16:32.44) Yeah, and like I agree, like I'm always noticing furniture and stuff. Especially when it's not real stuff, if that makes sense. Like a lot of the times, like I'll be like watching like Lord of the Rings, for example, and be like, wow, like the Elvish designs in that movie for furniture, like chairs and stuff, like super cool, not practical.
Nobody would ever build them and use them, but they're cool. Same way, like have a bunch of photos on my phone of like TV shows. I paused just to take a picture of a piece of furniture. One of them is off the top of my head. There's a TV series called Supernatural. It was on CW for, God, 20 seasons or so. And in one part of the show, they have basically a
a home base or their house that they live in. And there's a bunch of big, long, let's call them library tables for lack of better term. It's coincidentally in their library. But they have these little craftsman style lamps sitting on the desk. And for the longest time, like I have a bunch of pictures on my phone and I've actually, you can pull them up on Google. I wanted to build a couple of lamps based on that design.
You know, obviously some prop house somewhere has these lamps and they were produced somewhere. So, you know, at that point you'd be taking inspiration from whoever originally manufactured it. But yeah, I'm always noticing stuff like that.
John Doyle (18:22.404) I believe, if I recall this correctly, one of the benchtop organizers that we had, maybe it was in shop notes, Brian Nelson, one of the former editors, saw on a episode of Criminal Minds or CSI that was on somebody's desk and took a liking to it and we have a project based on that. Maybe one of those.
Phil (18:43.25) Yeah, yeah.
Phil (18:46.812) that NCIS or?
John Doyle (18:51.491) one of those letters combinations. So I have to go back and look, but.
Phil (18:54.342) Right. I think is where that one came from. I'll put a link to that plan too. That was a kind of a fun little organizer. Yeah, one of the characters was a woodworker and had a little basement shop or whatever where they always showed him fake woodworking. And Brian definitely took a shine to that little lazy Susan organizer.
John Doyle (19:01.657) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (19:15.264) It was NCIS, he was a boat builder in his basement.
John Doyle (19:24.367) I was told I wasn't going be fact-checked.
Phil (19:24.382) There you go.
Phil (19:28.274) Hahaha
Logan Wittmer (19:28.501) There it is.
John Doyle (19:32.6) Okay.
Phil (19:35.582) All right, there you go.
Speaking of projects, also have a little, and organizers, I'm working on a number of years ago, I rehabbed a bookcase from my grandma's house. I always remember it as a bookcase. The bottom shelf always had National Geographics from the 1960s down there. So whenever we went to visit grandma, I'd pull out, you know, one of those and sit in the porch and.
read old National Geographic, which is entertaining. I came to find out that that bookcase actually used to be an old radio. And one of my uncles had torn all of the radio guts out of it, took the back off of it, and then had turned it around. So the back was now the front. And
The back was now the front, added a shelf in it, and then instead of the grill work at the front of the radio, he just put wood grain contact paper on both sides of that panel.
So when I discovered that, after my grandma passed, I was like, I'm going to hold onto that. So we used it as a bookshelf for a while. And then I took the contact paper off, turned it back around, and then put veneer on what was the original front of it and turned that into two doors. That's the nightstand at my house now.
Phil (21:17.79) And I wanted a little bit, little organizer in there to keep some notebooks and a drawer for pencils and bookmarks and that kind of thing. So I'm working on a little pine organizer for that. And for some odd reason, just decided to dovetail the case of it in quarter inch pine, which is a, an adventure.
Not insurmountable, but just, it's a curious.
curious technique to work on. I'm not normally a dovetail kind of person, so that's part of the reason is. And that's mostly just due to my Gen X rebelliousness of everybody making a big deal about being all uppity about dovetails. So I'm like, nope.
Phil (22:09.813) There you go.
Logan Wittmer (22:11.405) So I discovered.
This lamp that I wanted to build was designed by a guy by the name of Dirk Van Ert.
Phil (22:16.285) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (22:22.371) Guess he was a famous lamp designer. Didn't know that was a thing. But I just sent you guys a link to 1-800-Lighting.com. You can buy the lamps. I mean, not I was his, but they're $563. I can build it for half that.
Phil (22:27.902) All
Logan Wittmer (22:42.987) Yeah, so that's the style of lamp that I've wanted to build for a while. Actually, my plan was to build that fairly soon for my desk gym that we've talked about. And instead, I picked up one of the lamps that was in our office that I think must have been a woodsmith project a couple of years ago with the stained glass in it. So it kind of bumped that down the road.
Phil (22:44.698) At least, yeah.
Phil (23:09.054) yeah,
Logan Wittmer (23:11.51) But I always thought that lamp would be cool to build and it'd be fun to do some like wood veneer lampshades and stuff.
Logan Wittmer (23:23.766) Yeah, and that's what this lamp has in it, is micropanels.
Phil (23:24.466) Forget like the mica panels or whatever. Yeah.
Phil (23:31.249) yeah, yeah. Okay.
Logan Wittmer (23:38.114) You
Phil (23:38.398) All right. That's kind of cool.
Phil (23:44.217) Nice.
Phil (23:50.783) All right. This week on the TV show, we are working on our second to last episode for the season. And it's a mid-century bar that was actually designed by our shop craftsman, Mark Hopkins. He did a version of it and then Dylan drew up the plans and did a slightly different version using some different materials just to change up the look. And it's mostly plywood and we're using veneer tape.
on the exposed edges, which is not something we normally show in the magazine. And I have to say that I was biased against veneer tape for a long time. And I think that was mainly because of crappy flat pack old furniture rather than anything about the veneer tape itself.
Phil (24:47.944) Cause I did set of built-ins last year where I used hard maple plywood and then because I didn't want to do a ton of veneer tape or edge hardwood edging and glue it all on. used veneer tape and was surprised on how nice it looked.
and how easy it was to work with when it was put on.
Logan Wittmer (25:15.817) I'm still biased against it.
Phil (25:16.264) Thoughts, comments?
John Doyle (25:18.712) Yeah. When when done right and done well, I think it's fine. mean, I wouldn't, but you do you.
Logan Wittmer (25:24.406) Yeah
Phil (25:27.656) There you go!
Logan Wittmer (25:27.753) Meth is fun, but I wouldn't do it.
John Doyle (25:30.578) No Yeah, I wouldn't mean But yeah Yeah, I haven't used it on any of my projects personal projects in a while, but Yeah, it's fine. It's quick gets the job done can look good. I mean look fine, whatever But I think it looks good on The yeah, I think it looks good on the bar that you know that we're doing now and that was in the magazine so it's not like
Phil (25:52.574) It's fine.
John Doyle (26:02.418) It's not a main feature, so.
Logan Wittmer (26:03.985) See, okay, I have a problem with it because I feel as though it never actually gets a good.
Now, I'm saying this based solely on my experience with like the iron-on banding.
and I feel like that always has a tendency to peel off.
Logan Wittmer (26:34.324) Yeah, mate.
John Doyle (26:36.364) Or if you're just in normal use, cut that or catch the edges and rip it off or.
Logan Wittmer (26:39.496) Yeah, yeah, like, and maybe that's just, you know, my experience and poor application of it. And I've only used it a couple of times, not very often. I think if you start to talk about industrial edge banding with an edge banding machine, I think that's different. I'm not saying it's any better, but I'm saying I think the adhesive's certainly better.
So I think there you're probably a lot less likely to have that issue.
So.
Phil (27:18.75) Right. I could see that. I think my experience in the past was edge banding on particle board is just a losing proper proposition anyway, because it's such a porous substrate, you know, because it's the cut edge, it's not even the face. So there's just, it's going to be more difficult to get a decent bond there.
Logan Wittmer (27:26.741) Mm.
Uh-huh.
Phil (27:45.119) I've only used, I know they have like the little small little hot plate kind of things to apply the edge banding. I've only ever used like an old household iron and I felt like I got a decent bond with that. So I think it also depends on where and how you're applying the edge banding. If you just take a panel and edge band all four sides, I feel like that's
not quite the same because now you have this horizontal edge banding on what should be the end grain of a solid wood panel if it were solid wood. So I think if you can restrict your edge banding to just the long grain quote unquote edges of a panel and then do something different with the ends I believe is a better better application of that.
John Doyle (28:46.253) I think sometimes when I've done this too, maybe the iron's been too hot where it's heated the glue up too much and then it doesn't like stick down right away. Like it kind of peels back up because the glue is still hot as you're applying pressure. So that's probably something you need to fine tune as you're doing it as well.
Phil (28:57.328) Yeah.
Phil (29:06.238) Yeah.
Phil (29:10.01) Related to that, just something we were discussing earlier today is Logan, had an issue with plastic laminate.
Logan Wittmer (29:17.183) Yeah, yeah, an issue I've never had before. Colin and I did a, Colin pretty much put it together, I shot it, a Dust Deputy cart, so it's cart designed around Onaya's Dust Deputy separator system, so it houses vacuum, Dust Deputy.
all the vacuum accessories, some storage on there for like sander. So the design is to be like kind of a mobile work service. It's pretty tall, but it's still a work service. And we laminated the top and we did it with the brush on roll on contact cement. And this was, man, probably February, January, February when we did it. So it's been a couple of months. It looked great.
Finished it out. I had not I didn't have a time frame that this was going into the magazine So we didn't haul it into the office and spray it with lacquer yet But now it's it's it's going in the next issue of pop wood. So we needed to finish it So I threw it in the truck today and it's been out in the storage side of the shop just to stay out of the way and As soon as I cleared the stuff off the top. I noticed there was a huge
bubble slash wrinkle in the plastic laminate. And I'm like, how the hell does that happen? Like it is plastic, it is glued down, the birch plywood's not moving. Like what is going on here? I was like, you know what, at this point I just gotta get in there and we'll figure out a solution to it. And did not realize that Chris Fitch had worked at a plastic laminate company.
Uh, yeah. Uh, but he's like, Oh yeah, that's a full expanding contract. He said, it more often expands than anything if it's humid. And I was like, okay, so if it's glued down and expands that material has to go somewhere. And it obviously buckled in the center. And we had chamfered the edge, um, as one generally does with, for Micah, chamfer it to keep it from peeling up.
Phil (31:12.446) Yeah, the many lives of Chris Fitch.
Logan Wittmer (31:35.835) and you could feel a little bit of a lip around that chamfer where the entire sheet had expanded slightly. And it actually had expanded enough that when we started pulling up the laminate, it came up pretty easy. Like I don't know if it just sheared the, now I know my adhesive I had here was old, so that probably didn't help, but it it expanded enough that it sheared the contact cement and came up pretty easily, so.
Weird. Yeah, weird. So.
Phil (32:07.826) Yeah, that was shocking to me.
Phil (32:13.714) The, what was your contact adhesive? Was it the solvent stuff or water base?
Logan Wittmer (32:16.178) Solvent Weldwood. Yep. yep, I, you know what? Maybe that one I may have, we may have opened a new can.
Phil (32:21.821) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (32:30.942) I'll have go back and look at the photos and see. We may have opened a new can, because I remember buying a new can. Because I do remember last time we used it, it was kind of pasty instead of goopy. So, but yeah, it was just odd. Not an issue I've had before. Yeah.
Interesting.
Phil (33:01.49) Yeah, it was really surprising because sometimes you'd think, sure, you sometimes don't get a decent bond and you have like a little bit where it starts to peel up. But this was a legit bubble where the middle of the bubble was a solid, I don't know, almost three sixteenths off the surface or more.
Logan Wittmer (33:07.975) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (33:16.061) Oh, easy, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was very odd.
Phil (33:25.49) Yeah. And for Chris to just walk in and be, yeah, that's what happens. It sometimes does that.
Logan Wittmer (33:28.445) Thanks for the heads up, Chris!
Phil (33:39.056) Super weird. Guys like Mr. Wizard.
Phil (33:47.644) All right. You got any more progress on the church doors, Logan, to report?
Logan Wittmer (33:51.097) No, no, spent the week last week in China, so I didn't get much work done. They are still in the shape I left them. I do need to start, after I this issue shipped off, I'm gonna start breaking down panels, getting panels routed and stuff like that. So I do have finished samples ready for the church to grab. So need to...
hopefully steer them away from staining and just into a clear finish. That would be great, especially since this is pro bono. I guess I could probably just say, we're putting a clear finish on it, but I don't, like to be, I like people to get what they want, except Jim. He gets me talking.
Logan Wittmer (34:39.612) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (34:44.764) Ugh.
Phil (34:44.914) Yep, poke the bear.
Phil (34:49.682) John, what's been on your design calendar recently?
John Doyle (34:53.636) Well, I got the platform bed and Matching nightstand that goes with the cherry dresser that was in last issue or the issue before I think was last issue That's in the shop now Mark's working on it. I think that's going pretty well. He's only coming and bothering me about dimensions one time so Nothing catastrophic has happened yet fingers crossed. So that's in the shop starting to work on
I guess for lack of a better term, table saw cart or cabinet to go under our table saw in the video studio. So we've had kind of an issue with storage at the table saw. Kind of just chuck everything on the shelf there. So see what I can come up with and we'll build that for ourselves. And then I think throw that into shop notes magazine in the upcoming issue.
Those are always fun, seeing what you come up with for storage and shop projects.
Phil (36:02.814) Yeah, one of the best things about that grizzly table saw that we have here in the video studio is that it's got a really wide side support table for the, what is it, 52 inch fence rails. And then there's an outfeed table. Great for long parts and panels and stuff like that. And underneath them is a shelf for, to be honest here, it's just a junk collector.
And it's another example of why I built a cabinet-based workbench. Because just one shelf is really poor use of that space. Because stuff just piles on it. It gets all loaded up with dust and chips that float around. And then you have a bunch of open air space that just doesn't get any, get any use. So.
Logan Wittmer (36:59.024) Yeah, that's.
John Doyle (37:01.45) Yeah, we have a wall hung table saw storage cabinet, but it's clear across the shop and we cannot be bothered to walk back and forth. So chuck it under the table saw.
Phil (37:01.788) We've talked about adding some. Go ahead.
Logan Wittmer (37:13.763) Yeah, I'll just say that's one of the best features of that saw, and it's one of the worst features of that saw. There is lots of room to store stuff, but there's lots of room to store stuff without organizing it.
John Doyle (37:16.236) So it's got to be present.
Logan Wittmer (37:33.392) Yeah.
Phil (37:33.542) Yeah, which I kind of get like it's just an open stand. That's, that's fine. I don't know how else, you know, for a manufacturer, there are so many ways that you could organize that space. It's almost impossible to come up with something that would satisfy everybody.
John Doyle (37:52.832) That's where we come in.
Phil (37:53.417) So we're just looking for, right, so we're just looking for a way to put like your extra dado blade or your other crosscut blade or the push blocks or the little fence clamps to hold on an auxiliary fence and an auxiliary fence for that matter or when you're ripping boards, what do you do with your crosscut sled or miter gauge fence and that kind of thing.
Logan Wittmer (38:23.717) So are you.
Think about that saw. There is a... What would that be? Height adjustment? No. It would be tilt. It would be the bevel on that right hand side of that saw. So like, are you leaving a hole, like an access hole? Or what's the thoughts on
John Doyle (38:36.416) Okay. Yep.
Phil (38:37.67) No, the bevel. Yeah.
John Doyle (38:45.279) Yeah, so I was originally looking at it. The saw has the the the table on the one side and it and the saw is I don't know 32 inches deep and there and so originally I was just like, put you know, make a little cabinet that sits on the shelf underneath, but the shelf is only like 15 inches deep. So if I do that, then drawers are way back underneath the.
the top. So I was thinking just take that whole bottom shelf out and then either put in a car or a cabinet to the right side, leaving, you know, the space for the crank access and everything and making it as deep as what the top is. So I think it's yeah, around 30 inches deep, which is pretty deep for a cart. Like if you were putting drawers in that, those would be pretty deep.
Deep drawer. So I was thinking of like two sided so you could access it from the back and the front. So like maybe drawers on the user side and then either bins or drawers on the other side. Yeah, something on the back. So it's not like you're trying to pull out or fill up really deep drawers. So that's kind of what I was thinking.
Logan Wittmer (39:53.53) clamp storage.
Phil (40:07.134) I like that.
Phil (40:11.902) That's cool. Table saw stuff on one side and just extra gear on the other.
Phil (40:21.85) Okay. That's always fun because I was thinking just a cabinet that would go underneath there.
John Doyle (40:27.345) Yeah, could definitely just be a stationary cabinet, then throw casters on it, and then can pull it out and set stuff on it if you don't want it on the table saw wing. If you need to move the fence over, just more flat surfaces to clutter up.
Phil (40:53.924) need a few extra flat surfaces to clutter stuff up with. Especially around here, we just don't know what to do with them.
John Doyle (40:56.135) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (41:00.601) We use them up too fast.
John Doyle (41:04.808) Yeah, we should put a timer stopwatch on. Like anytime we create a flat surface, how long does it take to get something put on it or cluttered up? Because the game table that we finished up a few weeks ago is now a staging area.
Phil (41:05.328) Right. Right.
John Doyle (41:26.056) Gathering, gatherer of stuff. it's one of those life axioms like we talked about. It's just fundamental truth. It will happen.
Phil (41:41.534) easy for things to get in the way of actually completing a project all the way. Like that game table is what like 90 % there.
John Doyle (41:52.858) Mm-hmm.
Phil (41:57.609) and then we're gonna sell it through consignment for one of the game stores in town here. But there's a couple of accessories for it that I wanna make, and we have to make the little access holes to be able to get the removable leaves out. Otherwise they're harder to remove. yeah. And maybe one more coat of finish on it just to even out the shine.
John Doyle (42:16.089) become permanent.
Logan Wittmer (42:21.228) I think we lack it, maybe.
Phil (42:26.344) Yeah.
just finding time to do that when we got all the other stuff. Much like projects in my own shop.
Phil (42:38.824) So one last thing before we check out here, Woodworking in America. I've talked about it already before, but now the website is actually live. Woodworkinginamerica.com. You can check out the speakers and start signing up. Reserve your spot now for it. Put it on the calendar. And we're really looking forward to this particular version of it.
One of the things to look forward to is Logan's. Logan knows a guy about getting some really nice coffee mugs for this year's event. So. And make sure you have your have your mug ready for whatever you choose to put inside of it.
Logan Wittmer (43:25.194) We don't judge.
Phil (43:31.934) So make a great soup mug, hot chocolate.
Logan Wittmer (43:35.379) LICKER!
John Doyle (43:40.196) you
Phil (43:44.119) If you're trying to cut down on your coffee intake and just drink the Bailey straight.
Logan Wittmer (43:46.956) That's, yeah.
Phil (43:53.34) all that kind of stuff. anyway, check that out. This episode of the Shop Notes podcast is brought to you by Harvey Woodworking. Harvey Industries, when good enough is not good enough, see all of our new tools at harveywoodworking.com.
Really appreciate everybody who listens and comments on the show. It's the source of content for future episodes and rage to keep us going. So if you want to send us an email, you can do that. Woodsmith at woodsmith.com. Put something in on the comment section on our YouTube channel as well. That's another great feature on there. And then I think just one note of
behind the scenes-ness is I think in the next couple of weeks, we're going to be moving the video version of the shop notes podcast to its own channel, where we will be putting it on its own channel to be able to generate more views and get its own little identity there. So if you start to see that happening in the next few weeks in late April, early May of 2025, that's what's happening. So.
We'll put more notes out about it as that transition occurs. So thanks for listening everybody. We'll see you next time on the Shop Notes podcast. Bye.
