Golden Oak
If there's one predictable part of the woodworking world, it's the cyclical nature of styles. Fads come and go. While some looks have a timeless popularity, it seems even these ebb and flow with larger trends. With that in mind, John wondered about the chances of "golden oak" furniture coming back. Not only are we talking about the finish color. The design language of large roundovers, flatsawn materials, arch-top doors. If not a full revival, are there elements that could find a new expression? Can the concept be redeemed?
Old Tools
Logan has expressed a dream to outfit his shop entirely with Northfield machines, if he could. One podcast listener, hoping to undercut him, purchased a Northfield band saw. We chatted about the nature of the old tools, their simplicity, and industrial design. Logan and I attended the Grizzly Tool tent sale a couple weeks back. In the showroom are a couple old South Bend Machines. The shape of the castings and even the power switches had a warm and humanity that feels lacking in current options. Or perhaps that's just my preference.
Clamp Cart
John designed a new (second) clamp cart for the Woodsmith Shop set. It's designed to hold clamps and the gear needed for a stress-free glueup. A small worksurface is welcome. The cart features some of the motifs he used in a shop organizer that is also on set.
Transcript
We include it here for search engine results and for those who want to find specific content from the show easier.
Phil (00:22.606) Hey everybody. Welcome again to another episode of the shop notes podcast. It's episode number 237 today. I'm Phil Huber, your host joined by Logan Whitmer and John Doyle, the usual cast of suspects back, ready to go. All set on today's episode. We're going to get an old tool update, maybe a little bit of a humble brag from one of our listeners. We'll check in on some of the things that we've been doing this summer already. And then we're going to ask the question, is Golden Oak ready for a comeback?
All this and more on this episode of the Shop Notes podcast. I want to remind listeners several things. One is we're moving the podcast from our main YouTube channel, the Woodsmith YouTube channel, to its own podcast channel. It's a way to help the podcast find a better, larger audience and also to help the content that we're producing on YouTube. All deep weeds, math stuff as part of the algorithms that just make our lives so much more rich than what they were 35 years ago. Another thing is, please, if you're not listening on the YouTube channel, which is a great place to leave comments, by the way, to give us a rating. If we deserve it five stars on your local podcastery, shop local there, it helps us again algorithmically.
to find more woodworkers like you who would enjoy listening to the three of us share our darkest, deepest, innermost woodworking thoughts. That's what we're here for. And then also 237, that means that we have 236 episodes that you may or not have listened to. There's plenty of great content back there. Show notes pages that goes along with it and just a lot of great woodworking content and perfect ways to pass the time while you're on your summer travels, whether you're in a car or an airplane or wherever. So there you go. As per usual, we start off with a little thank you to one of 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.
Then I also like to share a few listener comments from previous episodes. Last week we had a special one. Rob Petrie, assistant editor here at Woodsmith did an interview with Dorian Bracht a German woodworker who wrote a book on Japanese joinery. It's kind of a joinery nerd. Rob wrote a book review.
that appeared in Woodsmith a couple issues ago. And as part of that was with this interview, some really great stuff on there about joinery and woodworking in general. Make sure you check that out. Brent Jenkins says, I have the book. Really been enjoying it too.
And then going back two weeks since we missed out from episode number 235, PuppyDocBob says, just went to the Woodsmith website to look at the uploaded pictures. The church doors look fantastic. I especially like the cat's mouse door into the office in the backdrop. LOL. Great touch. Burr Oak? Why not just use the sawmill and slice it down the center?
Bob also writes, torrified woods, often spruce, are used in guitar tops as an artificial way of aging to optimize the tonality. It also produces a bit of an amber effect versus the ebonizing. You know, the three of us are fathers, and I think there's many times when we've told our children to watch their tonality.
John Doyle (04:45.291) you better optimize that tonality.
Phil (04:47.756) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (04:51.71) Let the record state I have never said that to my kids
John Doyle (04:55.242) Not yet, not yet. Just wait.
Logan Wittmer (04:56.584) I don't give them warnings, I just...
Phil (04:56.686) Not yet.
I think that's the, that's the longer form way of saying check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Logan Wittmer (05:10.891) Yeah.
Phil (05:19.738) Daniel L says drawer fronts for a cabinet for the walnut. So there was a listener had sent us a photo of some really highly figured walnut and was wondering what we what he could do with it. Drawer fronts that would be a good good look as well. James Cottingham says bur oak as veneer. Yes, we've done that commercially.
For the past 40 years, I've worked at a veneer mill, not a vernier mill because that would be really small. Occasionally we would get bur oak instead of white oak, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident. The right log works very well. The biggest problem, when we cook it, it smells like an open sewer.
Logan Wittmer (05:54.859) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (06:08.767) Yeah, it's stinky.
Phil (06:10.35) Yeah. Yeah. Which if you're not familiar with how veneer is made, those logs go into a big vat of very not clean water and soak for a while so they can peel off the veneer easier or slice it off depending on how it's getting sliced.
Phil (06:37.498) Somebody with a HJ8607 says, it be too much tech to use the coffee mug rectangle on YouTube to insert a visual of items we can only guess about the image? We'll have to check with that to see if that's a possibility. But also, that's what the show notes pages are for, is to have you check those out too.
Logan Wittmer (06:52.34) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (07:01.545) Yeah. And what you don't see is it took us 15 minutes to figure out how to get our audio and video working before this podcast. 200 and some episodes in. We still haven't figured that out.
Phil (07:09.816) Right.
John Doyle (07:12.328) Yep. Every episode is the first episode.
Phil (07:13.89) Right. Yep. For some re yeah, for some reason, my microphone, even though I was using it not five minutes before on a team's call, decided that it did not want to contact or connect with our podcast platform. Who knows why had to unplug it, plug it back in all the usual IT self-help that you can think of there.
Alphita one five eight says I built the clamp storage project, including the modest caddy, which is like a vertical I beam and that has been great. And I'm usually able to roll that out to a project. However, I've outgrown it and need something bigger. I'm afraid then it will become more of a fixture in my garage shop. I also built the four by eight lumber cart. And just like Logan said, if you've got a less than perfect floor, go big on casters.
I feel like that should be one of our new t-shirt designs. Go big on casters.
Logan Wittmer (08:16.617) Yeah.
Phil (08:18.862) I've had to retrofit mine because it got heavier than I expected, especially with all the old stock saw tracks, jigs, and basically cutoffs that I should just throw away. I'm also thinking about a storage caddy for saw horses, stepladders, and small folding workbenches. You know, the kind of stuff that your workmates would use.
There go. Yeah. That's in relation to, we were talking about making another.
clamp cart for here in the video studio. And then John designed one that kind of has the family resemblance to a shop organizer he made a few years ago, which then inspired some of the styling on a, what was that? Like an assembly cart that was like a year or two ago, John, that you did.
John Doyle (09:08.585) Yeah, was a assembly cart. Had some of the same features. But yeah, that one just couldn't, the assembly cart couldn't hold longer clamps. yeah, kind of stretch this design about as far as it can go.
Phil (09:15.502) Yeah.
Phil (09:28.27) Right. Well, what's interesting to me is that you've kind of backed into doing a suite of shop based projects at the same time that you're also got backed into doing a suite of furniture based projects, starting with a dresser, then a bed, and then coming up in the next issue, a nightstand.
John Doyle (09:49.949) Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of times where we're designing stuff and it's like, as you're doing it, you're designing for one project and then you're kind of like, what if I tweaked this and made it into this or used this design and did something a little bit different? So kind of lot of copy and paste and to come up with different things and either put them all together into a suite or take the things you like and just make.
one-off projects.
Phil (10:22.468) Right, which the best part is that any of the one-off, any element of the suite works really well on its own, either shop or the furniture ones.
Phil (10:37.304) I'll put a link to that clamp cart in the show notes page. And then because that'll be coming up in a future issue as well. And then as we transition to our second segment here, I got an email a couple of weeks ago with the subject line, all caps. I'm sick of Logan buying all the good vintage machinery. Harold McDonald writes.
Logan Wittmer (10:56.028) Yeah.
Phil (11:05.742) So when I heard he, Logan, was out looking for a Northfield bandsaw, I endeavored to buy it out from under him. Not sure if I got the right one, but I hope so. Take that, Logan. And if you all, and John, could secretly let me know what Logan is trying to buy, I may endeavor to steal more of his potential purchases out from under him. So we have a photo that got attached to it of a Northfield bandsaw strapped down in a U-Haul trailer. Very well strapped down and anchored, I might add. Like that's...
That's a quality job on there. That one will go on the show notes page as well, but I just wanted to put that out there.
Logan Wittmer (11:43.337) Okay, now I have a few points to make to Harold.
Phil (11:47.192) you
Logan Wittmer (11:49.041) And I have traded emails with Harold and we have confirmed that this is not the bandsaw. First of all, I have not been looking for a Northfield bandsaw. If I come across one, that's a different story, okay? It is a action of opportunity, not a search for it, okay? This is not premeditated tool purchasing. Second off, incorrect bandsaw.
Phil (12:07.994) Not premeditated.
Logan Wittmer (12:17.331) take that Harold I've already told you that it is still for sale I'm just waiting for the guy to email me back and say you know what you're right I don't need to get my full asking price for it and then we'll deal with that when that comes thirdly I think Harold that you over weighted that U-Haul trailer because those things are weak so
Phil (12:18.926) You
Logan Wittmer (12:42.866) take that. I believe he said, maybe in his response back to me, like, hey, if you do go pick up that bandsaw, take the table off, because he said they're super top heavy with the table on them, I guess. So, yeah.
Phil (12:47.435) Phil (12:59.243) I mean, I could see that. Because really above the table, it's just that upper wheel. There's not a lot of cast iron that's up there. yeah. That one was a delight because that came through on a Saturday. And that was just right.
Logan Wittmer (13:04.806) Yeah. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (13:16.972) Yeah
Logan Wittmer (13:21.384) yeah, I'm gonna be in Cedar Rapids, not this weekend coming up, but the next weekend. And my wife will be out of town.
So if a Bansa were to show up here, not that she would really know anyways, because let's, I mean, let's be fair. It's kind of revolving revolving door of tools in my shop. she wouldn't know. So if it happens to come, then it happens to come then.
So.
Phil (13:59.258) So to sum up, he didn't get the bandsaw you were looking for.
Logan Wittmer (14:04.517) Nope.
Phil (14:07.224) You are casually interested in Northfield tools in general. North... You're not intentionally looking, but you're also not not looking.
Logan Wittmer (14:12.197) Northfield Curious, we would call that, yes.
Logan Wittmer (14:23.057) think you summed that up very elegantly.
Phil (14:25.846) Okay. So what is it about Northfield? I think you've brought them up before in other instances.
Logan Wittmer (14:31.323) Yeah.
Phil (14:34.414) Does it go back to our conversation on having like a suite of furniture? Like having a, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (14:34.573) Logan Wittmer (14:39.276) Little bit. Little bit. And...
I like the fact I've said before that I enjoy the vintage machinery just because it is made really really well. Super heavy, super cool aesthetics. Northfield's still round.
So I could still order parts for a saw made in 1940, right? Like that's pretty sweet to me. Everything was made here. Everything Northfield is still made here in the US. And it is a value proposition in my opinion. It's like, if I want to go buy a new, let's just say,
the 32 inch Northfield bandsaw I'm looking at. If I wanna buy, go buy the new version of that, it is $24,000. It is a very expensive saw because it is made in the US. It is all machined up in Northfield, Minnesota.
But it is a beautiful saw. If I can get one for under a thousand bucks that I might have to a little bit of work into, like, that is a great deal. Yeah. So I think if you look forward 20 years, what Logan's shop looks like.
Logan Wittmer (16:19.552) I would love it to be all Northfield stuff.
Phil (16:22.829) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (16:25.55) Because it is-
Phil (16:25.836) And you're the kind of person that would be willing to deal your way up there, so to speak. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (16:33.718) yeah, 100%. And that's exactly what it is. Like it is one of those like I would, you know, if I, if I bring this Northfield Bandsaw home, I will have it in my stores, inside of my shop. This is one that I would go through the effort of sandblasting it and refinishing it and getting it back to almost as sold state.
And once I got it there, I would sell my crescent, my big 36 inch crescent. And then the next thing I'd be looking for would be a Northfield jointer. And I would wait until I found one. When I found one, it would come in here and then the MOAC would go away. So like, it would be one of those things like over the years I would try to get to a point where I have all Northfield stuff because I...
Phil (17:11.417) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (17:33.493) I believe that the Northfield stuff is the best of the best that you can buy. I don't think that there is anybody that makes nicer equipment than Northfield. You could argue that the way they make it and the stuff they make currently is... I mean, they're still to this day, as of June 18th at 2.36 p.m. unless they close their doors an hour ago,
Phil (17:39.844) Okay.
John Doyle (17:52.962) Thanks.
Logan Wittmer (18:03.142) They are still manufacturing this equipment the same way they did in the 60s so One could potentially argue that like somebody like Felder or SCM might make nicer stuff because they've redesigned it You know, they have a little bit higher tech in their tools, but that's not what I want in the tool not in these tools. So Yeah, so I would I would work my way up to those
Phil (18:30.648) Yeah. I mean, we'll get to this in a little bit later segment of the show, but you and I, two weeks ago, we're at the Grizzly tent sale and in the Grizzly showroom in Springfield, Missouri, they have a section because they own South Bend tools. So they have several South Bend vintage tools that they've restored.
and are in sweet, sweet shape. There is a great sense of industrial design to those machines that modern tools are lacking to me.
Logan Wittmer (19:08.152) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (19:13.869) Yeah, back then is where the designers would go on their lunch break, smoke a cigarette and bare-knuckle box for fun. Like, that's when the designers were men.
John Doyle (19:22.82) Thank
Phil (19:34.626) Second point I was gonna make there is that I also feel like vintage tools, including those ones that we saw, there's an, along with the industrial design.
the aesthetics of it, there is an elegant simplicity to the machines themselves.
Logan Wittmer (19:53.221) Yep. And I think honestly where a lot of my love of this came from was the print shop I managed before this. had a couple of old Heidelberg letter presses built in the 40s. I think one was a 42, one was a 58 or something like that. And I mean, it's exactly the same thing. They were, I mean, everything was mechanical on them.
Everything was robust. Everything was industrial and you know Having multiple times stood there and ran they were converted from a letterpress printing press into a rotary die cutter Having stood there for you know, there were several times I've been there all weekend running a die cutter just me in the shop and just watching that machine run and just there is this
rhythm that the machine is in and you're just watching all the mechanics of it run and operate. You're like, this is fantastic. Like this is what I love about tools. And yeah, like I think I told you when we were at the Grizzly showroom, like I really just want to crawl up there and turn that shaper on. There was this little metal shaper that just was, it was so cool looking.
Phil (21:14.01) Super cool. I have a couple of photos of it that I took. I'm to put those on the show notes page too. It was one of those, I have a text thread with my two brothers and my dad and I took a picture and sent it out. I'm like, I'm not entirely sure what this tool does, but I would really love to have it. And I'm pretty sure I would use it every day.
Logan Wittmer (21:32.001) Yeah. Yep.
Phil (21:35.108) So I'll put those on there. think it was just even to the point that on that it's called a horizontal shaper, seven inch. I think it was a seven inch horizontal shaper directly above the power switch was this small tray so that you could put, I don't know, just some stuff right there. was just a nice, Yep. Drop your keys in your.
Logan Wittmer (21:44.996) Yep.
Logan Wittmer (21:59.107) Whatever you need, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (22:03.491) See, and, you packed cigarettes. Like, what I love about that, and I'm saying this full well knowing that 99 % of all tool companies operate this way today. Modern tool companies.
Phil (22:04.706) lighter and whatever and yeah.
Logan Wittmer (22:27.17) for the most part, whether it's a Grizzly, a Powermatic, a Jet, a Laguna, you know, they are ordering their tools from a factory that's making everybody else's tools as well. So they have, you know, that factory presumably has a big metal break that is cranking out table saw cabinets. And then whatever tool...
manufacturer ordered that tool, they're painting it that color and they're slapping on an emblem.
To me, a little bit of that charm is lost.
because of that process. But you go back to an old Crescent or an old Northfield, that name is cast into the base. Nobody else is like that tool was designed and manufactured from start to finish by the Northfield design or by the MoAC design or whatever. You know what I mean? Now some tools definitely share that tripod.
feature that my MOAC is, Northfield also uses that style. There were several that used that style of base. So there's, you have some commonalities in the design, but it's not like today where I could grab, you know, a power switch off of a, you know, XYZ table saw and put it on another brand because it's pretty much the same saw. Not the case.
Logan Wittmer (24:02.176) So different animals.
Phil (24:05.134) Yeah. Anyway, it was just kind of a cool thought. It was really fun to see well-preserved or taken care of old tools. And, you know, we chatted about that when we were at the tent sale about that kind of thing. So in light of that, I think it's been a while since we've checked in on you on this. Where are you at with some of your old tool projects? Cause I think you had, you were...
waiting on something for the MoAC and then we're also dealing with some issue with the Crescent too, right?
Logan Wittmer (24:37.217) now the Crescent's running just fine. I actually re-sawed a bunch of cherry on it the other day for a new project. but now I'm still waiting on the head on the Moac. the company I'm getting the head from, WGM, they manufacture most of their stuff in, Taiwan or China and they had
Phil (24:40.141) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (25:04.854) their next shipment of stuff was waiting due to tariffs. So they were kind of holding off on because this was a custom machined part. It wasn't just off the shelf thing. was in it was sitting overseas in China. So I'm still waiting on that, which is fine. I'm not in any huge rush for it. I do want to do a video on installing that head though. So I just want to as soon as it shows up here, the week it shows up, we're filming.
because I want to get that thing up and running. Mainly, mainly because I want the space back in the shop that the second joiner, which is a smaller jet, is taking up. But yeah, so.
Phil (25:47.076) Okay.
Phil (25:55.652) All right. Next up, John posed this question just before we were, we hit record here on the podcast. Cause Logan just recently scored a big bundle of old woodworking books and magazines.
Dude.
Logan Wittmer (26:16.553) Scored makes it sound like I'm proud of it. I'm not proud of this.
Phil (26:19.128) Right. What happened is that Logan went to the woodworking equivalent of the Animal Rescue League, found one puppy, and then six more puppies came home with him.
Logan Wittmer (26:27.72) Hehehehehe
Logan Wittmer (26:32.352) But while it's more like, hey, if you want those, you have to take the entire litter.
Phil (26:35.834) Yeah. Yeah. So I, we were reminiscing because one of those books was an old, uh, New Yankee Workshop book. Norm Abrams I had, there you go. I built a, my wedding gift to my wife was a dining room table that was from New Yankee Workshop.
Back then, shaker stuff was super popular. Not that it's not popular now, but I think there's a lot of other styles that compete with it. And then John brought up the question, and I'm gonna pose it to our listeners here, is golden oak primed for a comeback? In the same way that you see fashion styles come in different cycles, maybe in slightly different iterations.
But is there an element of golden oak that could return?
John Doyle (27:29.246) Thanks
Yeah, I don't know. I think I saw this like on a tick tock like some designer something on a tick tock talking about this and it's like I remember the era very clearly. So I'm not ready for it to come back yet. But maybe for the younger generation that didn't live in that that's like it's gonna be their thing. But they said it's about ready to pop. It's a bubble here and it's coming. So
Logan Wittmer (27:33.62) God, I hope for future generations there isn't.
Phil (27:36.846) Ha
John Doyle (28:01.576) Prepare yourselves.
Logan Wittmer (28:03.524) See the problem is like I'm going through all of like okay these woodworking books were listed for free. I saw two books in the picture that I wanted but the the rule was you had to take it all. So I took it all. Yeah me and these two ladies we probably took 15 trips each in and out carrying books into my truck like backseat was full.
Phil (28:19.514) Which is fine, I mean.
Logan Wittmer (28:30.847) There's a lot of woodsmiths in there. There's a lot of shop notes in there. There are a lot of workbench magazines in there. Family handymans, you know, whatever. I'm flipping through a lot of these trying to figure out which ones I'm going to keep here, which ones I'm going to bring into the office. lot of them honestly are probably just going to go in the garbage. was an entire two magazine holders full of like catalogs from the early 2000s. So like
You know, I'm going through them, but as I'm flipping through some of these books, like, small projects books, like, you know what, that might not be a bad one to have on hand in here just to flip through it, get ideas. As I'm doing it, it's like, these are, these are straight out of 1992. Like, and they're black and white. And I know that they are golden oak, like straight up, like you just know. And
So like, is that design gonna come back with Golden Oak? I hope not.
There's a lot of heart cutouts, you know? I don't know. Oh man. So bad.
Phil (29:40.792) Yeah, the old country, quote unquote, country look with the little like kitten faces and.
John Doyle (29:47.656) geese with little handkerchiefs around their necks and...
Logan Wittmer (29:49.949) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The tilt out potato bins, you know? Yeah. There was honestly, well there was a lot of, which I think, God, I feel so dirty saying this. I feel so gross saying this. There were a lot of scroll saw books or scroll saw magazines. They're fascinating. Like.
John Doyle (29:54.504) Country cousins.
John Doyle (29:58.854) Yes.
Logan Wittmer (30:18.557) They're kinda cool. I don't want them. But they're kind of cool. It's like a moped. Kind of. Like, moped curious, that's it.
John Doyle (30:32.637) It's cool until your friends see you with one.
Logan Wittmer (30:35.455) Yup.
Phil (30:37.914) Well, it's probably the difference between a 1990 Honda Elite scooter and a 1950s Vespa. It's the execution, not necessarily the category.
Logan Wittmer (30:45.566) Yes. Yes.
Logan Wittmer (30:54.878) Yes, that is fair because The magazine the scroll saw magazines there are some that I'm like, okay, that's kind of cool and I recognize the Skill and the dedication that this person has had to that versus Me scroll sawing the white tree of Gondor on a desk
You know, so there's, yeah, definitely different.
Phil (31:24.878) Okay.
John Doyle (31:26.077) Oh, and speaking of inheriting old magazines, I've had this sitting on my desk for a few weeks now. should share. Yes. So I got, somebody gave me a set of like old Woodsmith magazine. Somebody was having a garage sale. I'm Hey, you work for Woodsmith. Do you want these? And I'm like, no, but I'll take them, I guess. Don't throw them away. I'll take them. So it's like issues like 40 or 30, like this one's 35 to 60. So late eighties.
Phil (31:33.462) right, I was going to talk about that.
Logan Wittmer (31:39.761) Yep.
Phil (31:47.226) you
John Doyle (31:55.323) mid to late 80s we'll say. But that wasn't the cool part. The cool part was that it came in a binder, Naga-hide binder. So I don't even know it's, says Oklahoma Upholstery Supply Naga-hide. I don't even know if I'm allowed to legally own this now that Naga is a protected species since the 80s or whatever. So that was the cool part. And then the sticker.
Logan Wittmer (32:06.299) Okay, yep.
Phil (32:06.554) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (32:16.242) I don't myself. Yeah, endangered species. Yep. Yep.
Phil (32:16.25) you
Yeah, it's on the side east list. Yep.
John Doyle (32:26.173) on the edge of it. Woodworkers are winners, shop Smith. So it's like this, yes.
Phil (32:33.398) Yes!
Logan Wittmer (32:34.798) You know the shop smith people are great when they have to have their own stickers that say they are winners.
John Doyle (32:39.565) Yep, yep. So I think it might be scratching sniff.
Logan Wittmer (32:44.56) Yeah.
John Doyle (32:46.684) But so I thought that was cool, the binder and the sticker that came with it. So I was like, I'll keep that.
Logan Wittmer (32:52.126) Well, if you need them, I'm pretty sure I just picked up issue number two through 35. So, yeah. Yep, I know it would.
John Doyle (32:58.139) Oh, that would like, that would help my collection.
Phil (32:59.362) Okay.
All right. I honestly was. Few years ago, we moved out of our former larger office building into those single building that we're in now. And we used to have multiple complete sets of all the print issues. And I was under the impression we were going to save one set of both shop notes and woodsmith. And somehow they did not make it over here. So a lot of them ended up.
going to the great compost heap in the sky. So maybe having a few back here would be nice. yeah.
Logan Wittmer (33:41.457) Good, I shall bring them. I think I have a complete set actually in the garage that my father-in-law got me. So this is a thing that I have been thinking about as the last two hours as I've been going through these magazines. There are a lot of, there's some woodworkers journals and some wood magazines, Woodcarver Illustrated, the scroll saw ones, like those we do not own the rights to.
Phil (33:43.578) Bring it.
Phil (33:48.407) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (34:11.613) But then there are other ones like Workbench, Shop Notes, Popwood, Fine Woodworking. There's a lot of those titles in there that we do are part of our corporation now, right? And we have access to all of those digitally. So part of me is like, do I hold on to the print version? it is nice just to kind of thumb through them, not knowing what I'm looking for until I find it.
John Doyle (34:39.962) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (34:41.626) Like I can pull up from my computer here, I can pull up any one of the magazines from any of our titles at any time. But I can't sit here and flip through the pages, you know?
John Doyle (34:52.675) Right. Yeah, you can search through them, but it's like, sometimes you don't know what you're looking for till you just happen upon it.
Logan Wittmer (34:59.472) Yeah.
Phil (35:01.636) Yeah, there's a serendipity to it. I feel the same way because at home, my woodworking library, I have a whole set of shop notes. And those are fun to just flip through. then I keep, off and on, I've had a subscription to find woodworking and I keep a handful of those, but I keep all of their tools and shops issues. And I have that here. And then I was at...
Logan Wittmer (35:13.179) Yep.
Phil (35:32.91) I was at Half Price Books a couple of months ago and came across, it looks like somebody must have.
given up their woodworking library. They aged out. Yeah. We call it attrition. Anyway, in there were bound volumes of F &W, popular woodworking's parent did a magazine for a while called Woodworking, just regular woodworking, not the popular kind of woodworking.
Logan Wittmer (35:45.573) They died. That's what he's saying. Phil saying, they died. They aged out of the hobby.
John Doyle (35:47.386) They aged out.
Phil (36:13.818) I'll put some photos of this on the show notes. Anyway, they had the bound volumes 1 through 7, 8 through 12 there. And I picked those up, again, because I like just flipping through it for article ideas or stuff that I remember.
Phil (36:34.498) And it's probably my age, but I just like being able to pick up something and, and look at it. And sometimes I think my memory is based on physical location. Like I can remember like what side of a page things appeared on. So it's easier for me to find stuff. That's not as easy to stumble across when you're trying to do a search on it.
And sometimes the search is based on.
Phil (37:03.064) I don't know, in a way that it just doesn't come up with the result that you're looking for. So I'd like, I like to look at the real things and have them in there because I may not build, probably won't build something exactly, but there's a detail or a style or something that I will fold into a different kind of project. think that's kind of what you did with your desk too.
Logan Wittmer (37:25.539) Yeah. Yeah.
Phil (37:27.0) You know, it's not any one stickly desk. It's a conglomeration of things. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (37:31.419) It's based on one, yep. Yep, yep. Well, and it's funny, so like, yeah, going through a lot of these magazines, just flipping through the pages, I'm like, oh, that's an interesting article idea, or oh, remember this when I subscribed to Popwood and stuff, you know, it's...
I don't know if this is just a me thing or you guys as well. I put more weight on the books than I do the magazines, like to hold onto them. And I think that's because of where we are, you know, career wise, cause you know, we have access to all the magazines. I actually just went online. So last week we had a gentleman here filming a class for pop wood and fine woodworking on building Windsor chairs. And
I've done a few different types of chairs. buddy Rusty came up and we did a Democratic chair and I really enjoyed that process and I have a couple chair seats like ready to go. But having Jeff here last week doing this really like reignited like this is like this is fun. Like I really enjoyed the style and stuff. So I ordered a couple of books last week from
one of the websites, one of the book websites. read on Jenny Alexander. Actually, it was a copy of build a chair from a tree when Jenny was John. So it's one of John Alexander's books. I ordered a Windsor chair book from Thomas Moser, which I didn't know he had produced a Windsor chair book. Yeah. Which has all the drawings for all the chairs that they currently sell, which I had planned on building a few of them. But
The one thing I found, and this is kind of the reason I went to pick up all of these books today, some of those out of print woodworking books are super expensive. Like, I didn't realize that. I think I ordered three books when I ordered these from, I think thriftybooks.com is where I ordered them. And the three books was almost a hundred bucks. Like, yeah. And yeah, thriftbooks.com.
Logan Wittmer (39:53.787) Does this tell me what I ordered? It doesn't. But anyways, like when Thomas Moser's Windsor Chair Making, I paid 40 bucks for. Like, it's, to me, those are ones that I want to keep on the shelf as reference. And maybe not necessarily to build exactly what they're showing. But some of the, I was slipping through the Thomas Moser book last night and
He has an entire like two chapters in there dedicated to body mechanics and body weight in a chair, like angles and stuff like that, which it's that type of stuff that that's really hard in my opinion to jump online and find. Like you can find, you know, probably basics, but you know, he's going through different angles, how they affect people of certain sizes, different weights, stuff like that, which is, is really fascinating.
So.
Phil (41:00.868) Well, when you do find it online, you don't know what the source of it is necessarily.
Logan Wittmer (41:08.194) Yeah. Yeah, is it a keyboard warrior that just sit in there saying, theoretically, here's how everything works, or is it somebody that has built a career on building furniture? So.
Needless to say, I am now a woodworking book rich, so there's gonna be a book case or two in Popwood Magazine in the near future. Let's be fair.
Phil (41:35.482) All right, love to see it.
Phil (41:43.812) John, what do you look for? Do you have a woodworking library collection?
John Doyle (41:48.727) Not really as much as I used to because just like Logan said we have so much available on the archives, so it's not stuff that I keep around as much. I think I have some Frank Lloyd Wright books that I've kept hardcover that I will flip through or some Stickley catalogs and that kind of thing. Kind of like the Thomas Moser thing where it's like a trusted
Phil (41:50.895) I mean it.
John Doyle (42:17.015) timeless source of just general knowledge that you necessarily find online.
Phil (42:25.784) Yeah, I find it interesting. It seems that periodically, I think almost each of the woodworking magazines have published some kind of a must have list of woodworking books. And it's interesting when I look at some of those books on them, I think, yeah, that doesn't really do it for me. But then there's other ones that I have that
I don't know that I would call them super valuable, but for whatever reason, they make a connection with me on why I'd want to hold on to them in different areas of woodworking. So that would be one question that I have for listeners, viewers, is what kind of woodworking books are you on the lookout for? You can recommend a few specific titles, but are there...
categories or styles or what is it when you're wandering through a used bookstore or thrift store garage sale online whatever are you what are you looking at that would be a good one to take a look at so
Wrap things up here, like I mentioned earlier, Logan and I were at the Grizzly tent sale a couple of weeks ago, which was a fun experience. Second one that we've been at and Logan and I each did some demos and that was pretty cool. Logan managed to work outside in the rain on two days doing some sawmill demos.
Logan Wittmer (44:04.396) Yeah, not to say I'm more dedicated than anybody else that was doing demos there, but second place was a long ways in the rearview mirror. No, we had, I had drove down, yeah, with a couple of logs to do some sawmilling demos outside and had some issues with the first pine log that was on there, some knots and stuff.
Phil (44:07.372) you
Phil (44:12.57) There you go. Yeah, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (44:34.36) Yeah, no, overall it was a great event. Lots of people. feel like that you and I both said this when we were down there. It felt like it was busier than it was in the fall when we went down there. So yeah, it was, was super cool. Great to see everybody. Again, we say this every time we're with Grizzly, but the people at work are top notch people. Like, so always fun to hang out with them.
Phil (45:00.398) Yeah, they had, they, they let us put up a booth for the magazines that we had there. And that was great to have people come up and offer compliments and congratulations on the show and podcasts and all the stuff that we do. That was pretty cool to see. I did a demo about their new 15 inch portable planer, which at 130 pounds pushes the definition of portable a little bit.
Logan Wittmer (45:06.87) Yep.
Logan Wittmer (45:25.312) Mm-hmm.
Phil (45:30.456) That being said, it's a super cool machine. And what I was surprised at is if you look at it online, it looks very similar to the DeWalt 735 like I have, just a little bit larger.
But the DeWalt 735 has a reputation for being a really loud motored machine. And it is. It's a screecher.
But the grizzly one was surprisingly quiet in operation, I thought.
Logan Wittmer (46:02.785) Yep. And it's 110.
Phil (46:07.171) Yes.
Logan Wittmer (46:07.969) for being a 15 inch planer.
Phil (46:10.254) Right. Which I think.
makes it a big draw because if you look at catalogs you see 15 inch planers that are not much more but can be quite a bit more expensive but they're all 220. And this one ran 110 and we ran some pretty hefty pieces through and it cut cut really smoothly.
The other tool was that I was surprised at, did some demos with their new brush sander, which is a sweet tool, but definitely a niche one. But connected to that brush sander, they just came out with a horizontal dust collector, which I thought was a super cool one.
Logan Wittmer (46:57.451) Yeah, I mean, knowing the bigger unit that we have there on set where you're sitting,
Logan Wittmer (47:07.475) This, they're about the same size, but the horizontal one, I think is significantly more user friendly because you have a work surface on top. Or you can add a work surface. Yeah.
Phil (47:21.336) Yes, you can add a work surface to it. Yeah, it comes as just a metal cabinet, but you could just as easily put a worktop on it, whether one of theirs or make your own. What I
Part of what made it for me is because I work in a small shop, I'm very sensitive to how a space feels when you're in it. And your standard cyclone two-stage dust collector.
feels like you have a grain storage bin in your workshop because it takes up so much vertical visual space that stuff can hide behind or it ends up making your space feel more enclosed than what it is. And this one where the top of the cabinet was, I think they said what 38 inches or something like that. So it's
Logan Wittmer (48:00.417) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (48:13.395) Yeah, it's taller than a table, but not like unusable high.
Phil (48:16.697) Yeah.
Phil (48:23.032) So I like that option on it, just that it was a lower cabinet. And because it's cabinet based, they were able to pack in a lot of sound dampening insulation on the inside. So when that thing powers on, it does not sound like a huge turbine rolling.
Logan Wittmer (48:43.701) Yeah. I mean, we stood there, you and me and I think Juan and Shabir, we all stood around it and were chatting as it was running. And I didn't feel like you had to yell at each other.
Phil (48:56.888) Yeah. So that was one of the travels. And then the next weekend, I was in Houston, Texas. The Woodworkers Club of Houston invited me down to do a one day presentation a week ago by the time this airs. And that was a lot of fun. They had a group, probably close to a hundred people there. And I did presentations on box making.
router jigs, my three favorite router jigs, and then one on making cabinet doors.
full day of chatting with woodworkers and sharing some experience from my own shop and stuff.
It was a of fun. had a great time. There's a great group of people down there.
Logan Wittmer (49:44.928) for Texans.
Phil (49:47.619) you
And we didn't have super hot weather. It was only in the 80s. Plenty of humidity. Had plenty, plenty of humidity. It was a great time.
Phil (50:02.016) Check the Woodsmith Instagram page. One of the people, one of the couples that was there posted some photos and a little summary of what went on.
Phil (50:16.698) There you go.
Phil (50:20.666) think that wraps up another episode of the Shop Notes podcast. If you have any questions, comments, or smart remarks, you can send those to woodsmith at woodsmith.com. Or if you're on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash shop notes podcast, you can see back episodes as well as this one and comment there already. It's what drives us to do these. In addition to your
contribution in subscribing to Woodsmiths, Shop Notes, and popular woodworking magazines. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Titebond. You want a glue that you can trust and fortunately, Titebond has the glue you need to get the job done with confidence. From interior glues with strong initial tack and short clamp time to exterior glues with exceptional strength and water resistance, look to Titebond.
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