It seems that Logan cannot escape getting tangled in a large project. Fresh off his church doors, he dove into a new Shaker-style workbench. You'll see the results in PopWood later this year (2025). That's the base for the bench in the photo. Most the visible parts are made from cherry he milled. The plans and write up come from an author. Logan needed photos to go with the article, and he needed a new workbench.
Repetitive Tasks
While making the joinery for the base, Logan didn't realize that the table on his Pantorouter was set to 2-ish°. He caught the mistake in time to recut the mortises without larger consequnces.
Around the same time, I was cutting mortises at a much smaller scale for my spice box project. The lessons here spurred a discussion on the podcast about how to approach an involved process.
There seem to be two ways to do it: You could just dive in and work it out as you go. You'll learn lessons that can be applied to the next time you do something similar. The three of us have done this plenty in our own shops and for the TV show.
The other option is to do a test run through. This method lets the trial parts teach you lessons about setup, order of operations and potential pitfalls.
In all cases, you are forced to pay close attention to the process and the details so that it all works well and avoid needless time delays.
Summer Projects
Long days and mild weather is ideal for spending time in my garage shop with the door and windows open. My spice box project is coming along ... slowly.
Since it's grilling season, I made a couple of wood grill cleaner/scrapers. In an effort to avoid a copycat look from the commercial versions available, I based these off a Irish hurling stick I got from my brother. My versions are 16" long and about 5" wide.
I traced portions of the stick onto the blank using the stick like a French curve to make smooth transitions and a profile that looks like a mini hurling stick while still able to serve its intended purpose.
My grandparents were dairy farmers in Wisconsin and I have fond memories of visits and the animals. I'm a sucker for cattle. I wanted to carve some in a folk stlye that leaned either Scandinavian or Germanic. I found this Swiss place online.
I drew my own pattens and have started on some that I'll give as gifts. The sheep seem like a good place to start. Cattle next.
Woodworkers Archive
In the previous episode, Logan talked about picking up some woodworking books and magazines. A viewer asked about posting them online. While that would be a copyright violation, we do offer many of those magazines as part of a giant collection of now-extinct woodworking magazines. We call it the Woodworkers Archive. It features the entire collection of: American Woodworker (185 Issues) ShopNotes Magazine (138 Issues) Woodsmith Time-Life Books (20 Books) Woodwork Magazine (120 Issues) Woodworking Magazine (16 Issues) Workbench Magazine (316 Issues)
The collection comes on a single USB.
Transcript
Here's the transcript to read along with the show. Or to find something specific.
Phil (01:25.145) Welcome, welcome everybody. It's another episode of the Shop Notes Podcast, episode number 238, July summer fever dreams of a podcast. This episode will drop on July 4th, 2025. Happy Independence Day for all of you celebrating around the country and even around the world. If you're going to celebrate with us, bring it on.
celebrate responsibly.
John Doyle (01:55.735) Yep, cue the Lee Greenwood.
Phil (01:58.745) Yep. just want to give a shout out and a thanks to everybody who listens and to let you know that with this being 238, there are 237 other shop notes, podcast episodes that you could have listened to already. If you want to check in on our back catalog of content, you can do that at woodsmith shop or woodsmith.com slash podcasts, or on YouTube.
at ShopNotes podcast, be able to find it all there.
This episode of the shop notes podcast is brought to you by quick screws for 37 years. Quick screws has been the trusted source for professional and hobbyist woodworkers, cabinet makers and furniture builders know that the right screw makes all the difference, which is why quick screws designs fasteners for specific woods and applications. The legendary quick screws pocket screw delivers secure, reliable joints with fine thread for hardwoods, coarse thread for general use.
and high-low threads for softwoods and melamine. You want a screw that stops flush and eliminates chipping? Funnelhead does exactly that, making it the top choice for melamine and a great fit for all woods. From drawer fronts to installation and conformat screws, even exterior rated fasteners, quick screws are built for speed, precision, and reliability. Find the perfect screw for your shop or build at your local distributor or at
Quickscrews.com.
All right. In this episode, it's summertime. I got my coffee microwaved. The raspberries are ripening and we're ready to get started with some comments from the last episode.
got one listener says great sticker on the Naugahyde binder, John. I could use one of those on my Shop Smith.
Phil (04:33.423) Which if remember, John had a bunch of back issues that he had found from a relative,
John Doyle (04:41.452) It was like my mother-in-law's neighbor's dad's garage sale or something. So yeah, we're related.
Phil (04:47.267) Yep, Relative. Yep. And it had a vintage shop Smith sticker on it. I'll put a photo on the show notes page because it's lovely.
Phil (05:03.227) Alphita158 said, found the discussion about old magazine copies interesting. I happen to have the full shop notes collection in PDF, both the original prints and the recent electronic iteration. So when I need a shop copy of a plan, either print those pages of the magazine PDF to another PDF file, or I just hard print those selected pages. However, with other magazines that I have printed on wood pulp,
I use something called office lens to scan what pages I need to a PDF that I can print as a disposable copy, which I can spill glue, coffee, blood, sweat, and sometimes the tears of a poplar tree, knowing that I still have an original copy of that Rubo bread box or the Rockler wheel coffee mill. And then he also says, I can see Logan shop 20 years from now, Northfield everything, including knee, shoulder, and hip replacements.
Logan Wittmer (06:02.276) Good old cast iron! I don't think that's sterile enough,
Phil (06:10.971) just got to boil it before you put it in.
Logan Wittmer (06:12.235) Yeah. Yeah.
Phil (06:18.073) I can see that because when we do TV show episodes, most of those projects come from magazines. So we'll print off several copies of the PDFs that we have floating around here, sometimes leaving them for months after we're done with that episode.
Logan Wittmer (06:30.072) Yeah.
Phil (06:39.909) So I can see where you're going with that. It's also easier, I think, sometimes with the PDF pages, feeling like you can annotate them easier than if you would have the printed magazines. Because I'm not usually a write in the book kind of person. So I don't know that I would do that in a printed magazine.
Logan Wittmer (07:00.087) Which is funny because, as I say, I love finding somebody else's notes in a book.
Phil (07:06.288) Yo, yeah.
John Doyle (07:06.536) Yeah
Logan Wittmer (07:07.469) yeah, like it's, I think it's great. But I don't do it.
Phil (07:11.257) I think that's true. Because I know there's books that my mom has and she's a note taker within a book. So that part would be kind of interesting, especially knowing that, you know, I'd have that connection to my mom. The part that I don't like are the highlights because there's no context to go with it. It's like, are you highlighting it because this is important to you right now or this sums up the whole thing?
Would you then take a Sharpie and cross out parts of the book that you wouldn't like?
Logan Wittmer (07:45.571) It's like a classified document, yeah.
Phil (07:45.603) Reverse highlighting. Yeah.
John Doyle (07:51.178) I was gonna say I like the printed version just because they lay flat and then you can spread them all out and look at everything at once rather than flipping back and forth and figuring out what page you're on.
Logan Wittmer (08:01.443) Except when the stupid printer defaults to two-sided printing.
John Doyle (08:05.96) Yeah, then you're stuck. Then you just want to kill all the trees.
Logan Wittmer (08:07.201) And then it's ridiculous. Yep.
Phil (08:12.601) Yeah. And a little window into our TV show process is I will say that there are some times when we don't go through the full level of preparation that we like to. And having the instructions printed on two sides, we'll do something, flip the page over and then be like, crap. Before you cut the red wire.
Logan Wittmer (08:34.435) should have done that first, yep.
John Doyle (08:35.838) But before you do that last step.
Before you drill those holes... Yeah.
Phil (08:49.911) Yep. What do do? Michael Thompson says, Phil, not to be critical or cast dispersions on any other magazine, but I own every issue of Woodworking magazine that was popular published. And I still think it's the best woodworking magazine ever published. I love the layout, the look, the projects. It was a fantastic set. Some of my favorite woodworking books are Nick Engler's book, American Country Furniture.
Einar Hanberg's shop drawings of shaker furniture and John Shay's book, Making Authentic Shaker Furniture.
Phil (09:30.521) And I can see that the graphic design and layout of Woodworking magazine was pretty cool. Personally, I feel like it owed a lot to earlier versions of Woodsmith magazine, which is not a slam or a criticism. It just is what it is. And I think they pulled what was the best of the vintage woodwork or woodsmith look.
and updated it. of course in Woodworking magazine they did more photos than Woodsmith did because we did a lot of drawings and still do. That's what makes us I think different from all the other titles out there is the number of drawings that we have. And they did some cool stuff in it.
So yeah, no offense taken.
Phil (10:27.323) Daniel L says it's a shame that Logan can't follow Keith Rucker's example and put scanned copies of all that woodworking literature on a website to share with the wider community.
Logan Wittmer (10:39.328) I feel like that's illegal and I would go to jail. I can't do that again.
John Doyle (10:46.13) make it.
Logan Wittmer (10:47.564) copyright laws exist for a reason. That's the only reason the three of us have jobs.
John Doyle (10:49.288) Yeah, they're probably all out there already somewhere anyways. He's got to go to the dark web.
Phil (10:57.263) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (10:58.763) You look tired enough,
Phil (11:01.827) Although, you know, we have a product, the Woodworkers Archive, is that what it's called? I think where it has the full back issues of American woodworker, woodworking.
John Doyle (11:09.0) Andrew.
Logan Wittmer (11:09.023) Yeah. Yup.
Phil (11:17.657) would work, shop notes and workbench magazine. So they're, yeah, fallen flags, if you will.
Logan Wittmer (11:17.921) Yep.
Logan Wittmer (11:23.531) Yep, all the defunct titles.
Phil (11:30.297) I could put a, I'll put a link to that on the show notes page.
Logan Wittmer (11:37.109) But if we catch wind of anybody uploading those PDFs, I like Keith Rucker.
Phil (11:40.943) Yeah. Alla Ted's woodworking.
John Doyle (11:41.992) calling in the FBI.
Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (11:46.282) Yeah, yeah, no kidding, my god.
John Doyle (11:50.152) Mm-hmm.
Phil (11:51.215) we will come after you. Let's see, one other, couple other comments here.
TG Atkins says, I'd buy a t-shirt with the go big on casters design, title of last podcast. I'm okay with that. Harold McDonald says, I got the tandem U-Haul, I'll have you know. The Northfield stuff is amazing. I nearly went on a 3000 mile road trip to pick up a 14 inch table saw, 18 inch planer and a 12 inch joiner all in one go. All in working condition.
would have cost $6,500 plus gas and lodging, but then my Northfield fever broke. Now I wish I would have done it just to stick it to Logan.
John Doyle (12:38.258) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (12:38.485) Well you know what Harold, you're just, you're a quitter.
Phil (12:41.115) Hahaha!
John Doyle (12:43.452) The best reason to buy tools is out of spite.
Phil (12:50.607) And then finally, Jacob Schenker says, are we going to get a shop tour out of Phil before winter? Then it'll be too cold again. And Phil will be back to making excuses.
Logan Wittmer (13:00.19) WAP WAP!
Phil (13:02.543) Yeah, I mean, maybe I just do like a Kickstarter to like heat fill shop.
Phil (13:11.575) Yes, I actually have the second second part of my shop tour video is filmed and Edited and will probably drop at some point here in the near future. I'm not sure when that's scheduled to go out. So There you have it. If you want to make comments about the show or Whatever else we have going on You can send those to woodsmith at woodsmith comm or leave them in the comment section on our YouTube channel
That's a great place to pick up all of that kind of stuff. As we dive into today's episode, I wanted to check in with Logan, because we were chatting the other day, and you're in the middle of a workbench build.
Logan Wittmer (14:02.174) Yeah, well, yeah, I've been out, technically I'm off today and yesterday. But yeah, I have a workbench base all put together, not glued up, but it's put together. We didn't podcast, but so I use the Panto router to do all these mortise and tenons. I think I told you this fell while we were for Mr. Mike Peckovich to join our meeting that he never did. Hashtag Mike's too busy for us.
so I, I did all the mortises with the Pantor.
So you do all the mortises, because that's one set up. Then you, using the same template, you switch bits and bearings to do the tenons. I did two tenons on two of the side stretchers, or I did tenons on two of the side stretchers, and I dry assembled it. I'm like, why can I not get this stupid shoulder to go together? Something is just goofy.
something's going on here. look at the pantorouter and I realized that had the table kicked up at two and like two two and a half degrees. So all my mortises were at two and a half degrees. I'm like are you flipping kidding me? And there are six legs. There are
Logan Wittmer (15:33.662) Like, it's just, there's a lot. Like, there, I mean, I don't, I didn't calculate it out. There has to be 30-some-odd mortises in this thing. And they're all at two degrees. I'm like, ugh. Do I try to cut the tenons at two degrees too, and then hope that when I do the assembly, everything like just self-squares? Like, I don't know. I like, you know what, I have the room.
The tenon the way the template works you can size the tenons and I had to make the tenon as small as I could I was like I Have the room to actually increase the tenon size so I can actually reroute the mortises make the tenon size slightly larger And make it work. So I just went back redid all the mortises Redid all I didn't redo the tens. I cut the tenons but yeah, like
I say it every time that I bring the Panto router into a project. Like there is, in my opinion, the only way that is faster than the Panto router is to do dominoes. If I did not have to recut all those mortises, I did all the mortises on this workbench base and these are three by three pieces. Mortises are an inch wide, an inch and a quarter deep.
Phil (16:40.75) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (16:54.622) by two inches long.
I did all the mortises 40 minutes. I did all the tenons in maybe an hour. So like under two hours I had all the joinery done for the base, like completely. Which, I mean, I don't think there's any other way you cut those that quick. So.
Phil (17:05.55) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (17:24.058) yeah, it's, it's all cl- it's actually not even clamped anymore. I have panels glued up, because all the bass, I'll, I'll put a picture up on the show notes page, or Phil, I'll give Phil a picture to put up on the show notes page. let's be fair. the bass has raised panels in each one of the-
Sections so I have all those panels glued up. They are ready to trim to size and route I Don't know what profile I'm doing on the edges Stevens drawings he had just a simple 45 degree not
bevel but a bevel with a flat on it so that the panel was a 45 degree chamfer all the way around. But I don't have a bit that will do that. It sounds like a good excuse to buy another shaper cutter to do those. But I also thought maybe just doing the OG that I have here. The panels are a little thicker, they're 7 eighths. So the workbench is gonna be stout. She's gonna be stout.
I realized the other day as I was going back through Stephen's drawings and stuff, he only spec'd an inch and a half for the workbench top. So an inch and a half for the workbench top and then a four inch apron on the front and back edge where dog holes are. Which I think is kind of what you did on your workbench, at least the thickness. I don't think you did the apron.
Phil (18:49.219) okay.
Phil (18:55.811) Yeah. Right.
Logan Wittmer (18:59.837) But looking at it, I'm like, yeah, I want just a little more meat on this workbench top. That way I don't have to worry about being directly overlaid if I'm chopping mortises or whatever. So I am gonna go three inches on it. I'm gonna go three inches, and that puts all the way across, three inches all the way across except the dog hole strips. I will go four, maybe four and a half on those.
John Doyle (19:11.653) Thanks.
Phil (19:16.089) all the way across.
Logan Wittmer (19:29.838) Yeah,
I'm marching ahead. I pulled the Emmert vise into the shop the other day because that is my plan is to mount that bad boy. Forgot how big it is. Those pattern maker vises are large. And the length of the stem on it means it has to be mounted past the end of the base of the bench because the stems like 20 some inches. So
Phil (19:39.29) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (20:02.853) I think I might actually offset my top a little bit so I have a bigger overhang on the left hand side versus the right hand side. It will keep the bench top at a manageable size, which I think is 70 inches, but it will give me enough room to mount that vice. So yeah, I feel like I'm ahead of the game, but then I'm going to go to Las Vegas where we can then be behind the game again.
Phil (20:29.539) Yep. Okay. Well, that'll be.
John Doyle (20:30.563) So is this workbench going to replace your current workbench?
Logan Wittmer (20:31.865) is what it is.
Logan Wittmer (20:35.959) yeah, that current workbench needs the GTFO. Get the frick outta here. Phil and I have shared our distaste for benches that have gaps underneath them, and mine does. So it can catch a lot of shavings. It's a nice, like the base itself is pretty nice. It's like six by eights. Like I glued up some meaty, meaty legs and stretchers for it.
The top itself is a bowling alley. It sags, it has rebar through the center of it, or not rebar, all threads through the center of it to kind of hold tension on it and keep it flat. Doesn't really keep it flat. So it's to be determined whether or not that base gets repurposed into my outfeed table, which is a possibility. Or does the entire workbench just go somewhere?
you know, which is also a possibility.
But I'm looking forward to having five drawers in the workbench. There is a set of double doors that open up into a cabinet area, which will have a shelf in it. mean, think of a traditional shaker workbench. You know, that's exactly what this is. Cabinet, it's in drawers. So just a little bit different size, a little bit different construction. So, yeah, it's going pretty well. I love I love working with Cherry.
Love, Cherry.
Phil (22:12.943) you thought about giving your workbench a Viking funeral then?
Logan Wittmer (22:18.14) No, I would hopefully put it up for free for somebody to come get.
Phil (22:26.235) Trying to look up here, I just saw recently that I had finished, I think my workbench is now four years old. Yep, completed 721 according to the shop notebook.
Logan Wittmer (22:33.146) Is it really?
John Doyle (22:34.027) I could see that.
Logan Wittmer (22:39.129) It would be because that was a derecho tree.
Logan Wittmer (22:44.099) And that would have been a year later, yeah? Huh.
Phil (22:48.903) And it's still fantastic. I still have a couple of drawers that are empty in it. So it's working out pretty well.
Logan Wittmer (22:53.541) Humble brag.
Phil (22:58.031) Yep. I mean, I have plenty of other stuff that's just laying around the shop that needs a home just not in those drawers.
Logan Wittmer (23:03.547) Yeah. Yeah. Well, that and that I was kind of thinking that too. I feel like Steven had some drawings in what he had sent me, which was very like rough, you know, sketches for some like drawer dividers and maybe like sliding tills within the drawers. And I think I'm actually going to do that.
Phil (23:24.238) OK.
Logan Wittmer (23:26.723) Like, I feel like sliding tills in those drawers, especially for my carving tools, because those are kind of starting to get out of hand. You know, maybe some sliding tills for those will make sense. So, we'll see.
John Doyle (23:36.374) you
Logan Wittmer (23:43.766) I am definitely putting a swing out seat on it though.
Phil (23:49.624) That'd be cool.
Logan Wittmer (23:50.702) Yeah, I don't know. Like, if I could find a vintage one, But, you know, maybe Benchcrafted or something.
Phil (24:01.273) I do like the idea of having drawer organizers. There was a shop notes article, I should see if I can find, that we did some, it was like a drop-in organizer to help.
make a large drawer a little bit more functional.
But I like that idea because cabinet doors are tough to unless you know you have something bulky that you can stick in there.
Logan Wittmer (24:29.339) Yeah, yeah. Well, like, what I'm thinking is the actual cabinets, the doors, those shelves, I don't remember off the top of my head, they're probably 28 inches tall is the opening for the cabinet, and then, you know, maybe 30 inches deep, 24 inches deep. So it's a pretty big space and 28 wide. I was thinking I was gonna put all my routers in there.
My plan is maybe not the next project, but fairly soon is to start working on a pretty big tool cabinet. But I want to do it like a la Norm Abrams tool hutch style where there's an actual like a lower with a counter and then uppers. I like that idea, I think.
Phil (25:11.887) Okay.
Phil (25:20.223) Logan Wittmer (25:27.766) So that's where all my power tools will then be stored, but we'll see.
John Doyle (25:33.705) I like you already have the base for a tool cabinet. No, you don't have that? No.
Logan Wittmer (25:37.538) No, that was too small. I mean, I do have it. Yes, I do have that.
Yeah, I do have that.
Phil (25:49.039) would be a fascinating topic at some point to be shop projects we gave up on because they just didn't end up working out.
Logan Wittmer (25:56.25) Well, it's like you like the idea of them and you like the challenge of building them and just the enjoyment of building them, but then you're like, Okay, like I put it together. This size is really big and like I'm really gonna use this how I think I should and the answer is probably no so
John Doyle (26:18.401) Yeah, one time I ended up with too many carts in my shop and
Phil (26:23.631) you
Logan Wittmer (26:24.14) And now I have that problem.
John Doyle (26:24.586) Got rid of some, you know, you don't think it can happen, but it can happen.
Logan Wittmer (26:29.69) It can happen to you.
Logan Wittmer (26:35.202) I did think, I actually thought about that cabinet because right now all my sharpening stuff is in a couple of John Doyle wall hanging bench. I think they were tips. One of them was a grinder stand with a tilt top or one of them had a tilt top on it. They're two of the same thing. think John's built few of these things for different tips. And I ended up with two of them. So I just.
John Doyle (26:57.183) yeah, I know you're talking about
Logan Wittmer (27:03.222) screwed up the wall side by side and all my sharpening stuffs in there the tormec is sitting on them and like I wonder if I could like slice that walnut cabinet a little bit shallower
and mount it up on the wall from a sharpening station.
Phil (27:20.879) Probably.
Logan Wittmer (27:21.815) I think I could, but...
Phil (27:24.783) just flip it upside down and put it on the crescent.
Logan Wittmer (27:27.895) Yeah, yeah, no kidding. Zzzp.
Sawmill actually might do it. Lay on its face.
straight through. That would be sweet.
Phil (27:44.975) I do want video of that. If we could swing that, that would be delightful.
Logan Wittmer (27:46.867) That would be cool.
Phil (27:55.579) All right. Well, speaking of summertime woodworking, while Logan was making giant mortises for his workbench, I'm working on a small little spice cabinet and making wee little tiny doors that have mortise and tenon joinery. And I was using my, the Jessum Mortise, pocket mortise jig, which came out shortly before the Craig version, also made by Jessum.
for all the people who think that Craig copied Jessam. It's not the case that way. So that was kind of fun to be using that and then went through the process of making a whole raft of little loose tenons to fit that. I had some straight grained ash pieces. They were frankly too small to be used for anything, but ash would be ideal for loose tenons. So that's what I did.
And it was kind of fun with that Craig or with a Jessam jig to set up just a little, it was kind of like having a little mini slot mortiser that I could just kind of go to town on all those parts.
Logan Wittmer (29:08.227) Yeah. Did you, when you're making those loose tenons, are you rounding them over with the round over bit?
Phil (29:16.795) Yes. What I would like to do is get a beating bit.
Logan Wittmer (29:26.306) There's, I think Woodpeckers now makes a more, a loose mortise or a loose tenon round over bit. It's basically a little bull nose. Yeah.
Phil (29:36.963) Right. Yeah. And there's the reason I've thought about those two is because like the Craig version and the Jessum version are metrically sized bits that correspond to dominoes, which makes sense. So I was, so their roundovers, the radius are based on, on the metric system, which would be kind of.
kinda handy.
Logan Wittmer (30:08.191) Well, I just, think it might be hard to like the right size beading bit for those. But when I saw some, I think it was, pretty sure it Woodpecker's had the loose tenon bit. I'm like, ooh, you might be onto something there.
Phil (30:16.314) Yeah.
Phil (30:26.925) Yeah, because it would be nice, totally first world problem. It would be nice to be able to just make one pass per side to round the edges of your loose tenon stock rather than doing four passes along each blank, just to speed up the process there.
Phil (30:54.981) But yeah, I was, it's kind of fun when you can, when you can set up a little workstation in your shop and just focus on one particular task and go at it kind of like you with your Panto router and just have that, that dedicated station. that, I think it concentrates your attention to a little bit.
Logan Wittmer (31:17.737) It does. And I also feel you get, if you're sitting there doing a repetitive task at a tool like that.
you start to pay a little bit more attention to what's happening during each, you know, each time doing that, like the Pantorouter. I was standing there, I did all the morsels, you no problem. A one inch straight bit is a big bit to make a mortise with, but Cherry goes pretty quick. You can't plunge real deep, so it's a very like 30 second per.
32nd of an inch per pass. So, know, one forward and back you might be going a 16th of an inch in each time. Which if I'm making mortises that are inch and a quarter deep, like that's a lot of passes, but I mean it goes really, really quickly. But then flipping over to the tenons, I actually started having an issue that...
my dust extractor was not keeping up with the shavings coming off of the panto router because the spiral bit was pulling off the end grain was pulling those long kind of straw like ribbons.
And I'm like, why does this dust collector, it's a dust extractor. I was like, why does this thing sound like it is struggling? Like it sounds like it's smoked a, you know, pack a day for 30 years right now. And it's cause it was clogged up with a ball of these shavings. So it's like, okay, I see what's happening. I understand what's happening. This next one, let's see if we can fix that. So I started making, instead of making a full depth,
Logan Wittmer (33:11.382) pass, you're not making a full depth pass, but instead of cutting the entire inch and a quarter of tenon in length at a time, I would make it in half, like a half inch, half inch, then a quarter inch increments, and that broke those chips up small enough that it would actually keep up. So, you know, having something set up where you have a workstation, you're doing the repetitive task, you can get pretty good at what you're doing pretty quickly.
Phil (33:40.473) Yeah, I think you all, like you said, you're paying attention to some of the smaller details. also think that while you're doing that, you're paying attention to what you could do each step of the way that would make like you were doing on that, make it that particular step easier.
But then it's like, Hey, the next time I do a mortise and tendon joint, I'm definitely doing A, B and C instead of what I'm doing now.
John Doyle (34:12.892) you
Phil (34:17.701) And I'm sure, John, that you come across that when you're, like a lot of times when you're prepping pieces for TV show stuff, there's a lot of repetition that you're doing too.
John Doyle (34:25.148) Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah, I was the other thing. I mean, as you were saying that I was thinking, yeah, you get it done fast. But then like you were saying with the two degree bevel that you did, I'm more sometimes you do it so fast that you get it all done. And it's like, oh, got done too fast. So it's like, yeah, you're you get in that zone. But then it's like, yeah, you're you're trying to think, okay, what am I missing here? Am I getting like two lakhs and
Logan Wittmer (34:41.461) Yeah!
John Doyle (34:56.036) and you're gonna screw something up. it's like, yeah, definitely finding that balance of quickness, but still paying attention. It's always a struggle.
Phil (35:07.749) So would you, either of you, when you're doing something where you know you're heading into a large number of X type of operation, would you consider doing the full process as just a trial run through to be, to be like, okay, this is the process. Now having done that.
I've learned these four lessons to apply before I just dive right into the whole big thing. Or are you just going, are you just deep into the pool?
John Doyle (35:43.548) I feel like, not necessarily like, yeah, go through the full process, but also spot checking pieces as I'm going along. Like if I'm doing a lot of like tenants at the table saw going back and, and checking that, you know, like they're still fitting or something didn't move or shift or so. And then also doing that before chained.
Phil (36:06.415) like if your table was altered by two degrees or something.
John Doyle (36:10.267) Right. Yes. That's the perfect example. yes, testing it. Yeah, going through the process of testing and then again, before changing any setups to go to the next step, like testing them all in case I have to like come back and tweak it or maybe I just didn't press down pieces hard enough where it was taking enough off and you know, as you're going, you know, sometimes pieces move or, you know, stuff just shifts. So
Phil (36:12.9) you
John Doyle (36:40.056) just yeah, continuously spot checking every so often.
Logan Wittmer (36:45.749) Yeah. Well, and what I try to do, if there's a part of a project that is a, let's call it like a cornerstone task, so like this workbench base.
John Doyle (36:45.774) then moving on.
Logan Wittmer (37:04.372) those Morse Tenants, I mean, that's the entire, like everything's building off of those. Like if those aren't square, those aren't placed correctly, panels are gonna be different size, it's just gonna cause, you know, a big headache, right? So like, if you can identify what those pivotal processes are in a project, I generally like to have at least one full extra set of parts, if that makes sense. So like this workbench base.
Everything is two and three quarter inches square So when I was milling I didn't have any I don't have anything that thick that I've saw and so I was gluing it all up so as I'm gluing up all the stock I Glued up enough that I had an extra, you know, 30 inch piece then that was my setup piece
And some of it, because all my stuff's rough sawn, straight off the sawmill and air dried outside, some of it doesn't look the greatest and you can't really see what's underneath. So there's certain points where it's like, this one doesn't look very good, this is gonna be my setup piece. But I still take it from that point at the jointer through the planer.
to the same thickness as everything, running everything through the planer at the same time to make sure that it's all at the same thickness. And this is something I picked up from the guys in the shop, and I've seen John do this a lot. If you're making squared legs, run both faces through the planer. I was always taught joint plane and then rip it to width, but it's like, well.
Not a whole lot of difference between sending a square leg through this way or this way, right? So I try to make sure I at least have enough parts where I can do some test cuts to test out joinery, make sure stuff sits where I want it to. And, you know, mean, if you're doing something as routine as mortise and tenon or stuff, something like that, you know, that you've done a lot.
Logan Wittmer (39:14.545) You know those things to watch out for. You know to make sure that there's not dust between the miter gauge and the workpiece. Or, you know, make sure that you are truly hitting your auxiliary fence when you're creating those shoulders so you don't have come back and try to square up a shoulder later or something. yeah.
John Doyle (39:31.766) I try to do that too, as I'm building projects for myself, but especially for the TV show, having a leg or two extra or style, right? That's all milled to the same thickness or the same length. So was like you screw up along the way, or if you need test pieces, you have them. And then as you get past those steps, then you could use that stock for, you know, cut it down or, or playing it for a different part along the way, but kind of have as you're going, having extra parts ready to go.
Logan Wittmer (39:40.263) Yep. Yep.
John Doyle (40:02.457) As you'll probably screw something, or as I probably will screw something up along the way. So it's there, but I'm not having to stop and glue up panels or glue up legs and wait for that and kind of keep the process going.
Phil (40:23.003) think it's also helpful to have, you know, I've used those test pieces that you've made on the show. And then I've worked that into my own shop practice of using that piece then to set up stops or markers or something on a particular tool, you know, so that when I go to the drill press, there's an end stop for this piece for that hole to always be in the same place when they need to be.
or on the table saw or router table be able to mark out locations, especially when you know that there's a lot to do.
because it's really easy to kind of get turned around or to forget a part or to forget doing something on a face that you should. So having the tools set up as well as yourself, I think, makes a big difference.
Phil (41:27.727) All right. A couple other projects just for updates on my own part. was because it's grilling season right now and will be for quite a while. And in fact, I grill well into the fall just because I enjoy it.
Phil (41:46.379) And I've seen the wood grill cleaners, scrapers, I don't know what you'd want to call them, that are out there, usually made out of some miscellaneous rando wood. And I've wanted to try them, but I realized I'm a woodworker. I can make this myself. And when I do that, I can shape it however I want so they don't have to look like
something that looks like a form of corporal punishment from an elementary school in the 1800s.
So I had some, I think it was actually some pin oak leftover from one of the projects here and used that to as my blanks for the pieces. They're about 16 inches long. made two of them. have a small cast iron charcoal grill and then a gas grill. So I wanted one, great grill grate pattern is different on each one. Did that. And then for the shape of it, we had gotten some
Logan Wittmer (42:29.829) Mm-hmm.
Phil (42:53.301) Irish field hockey sticks from my brother when he was he and his family were living in Ireland. And I just like the shape of it. And as a little call back to my brother, use that for the shape of it. And then cut those all out, shaped them, made them comfortable to hold on to. And then on my cast iron charcoal grill, got a good fire rolling after making burgers, and then burned in
the tip of the grill cleaner to match that great pattern on there. And even though this is white oak or the pin oak, I was surprised on how fast, I mean, I had a good fire going. So let's, let's be honest. That was nice and hot that that burned into there to create that groove pattern.
and they're really effective. So I know that it's not fine furniture, but it's kind of a woodworking project.
Logan Wittmer (43:46.757) They were great, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (43:54.641) Well, I think I messaged you when you said you were working on that. Back, it's been several years ago when I did the outdoor kitchen, Chris Fitch wrote some Popwood article on making grilling utensils. So he did three of them. He did tongs? No, he did a fork, a flipper, like, yeah, prongs. So he did prongs, he did a spatula.
Phil (44:10.362) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (44:23.632) Both with out of stainless steel because of your he's Chris Fitch and he does what he wants and then he did a grill scraper out and these were all out of What were they? They were like padauk or Iroko or you know one of those dense oily hardwoods He's like I don't want them I use that stupid grill scraper
Every single day every day I use it because I mean I I grill every single day And it works so freaking well like it's unbelievable I do like Chris's because he made it so that the the end was replaceable So once it burns up you can just put a new end on it But yeah, yeah, I know
Phil (45:18.189) yeah.
Logan Wittmer (45:20.687) It's one those stupid little projects that just makes you smile when you use it.
Phil (45:26.949) Yeah, and I had shied away from them a little bit only because they just seemed gimmicky. But like I said, it was just a fun way to spend a couple of hours in the shop building something.
Logan Wittmer (45:33.102) Yeah.
Phil (45:42.233) And then a final project update that I've been working on is I enjoy doing some carving as I've shared in the past and had found inspiration from a place in Switzerland that does carved animals and they do a lot of farm animals. And so I decided to try some myself because I just liked that that full
Germanic, Nordic kind of carving style. And I had some basswood from Logan from, think it was, I don't know what this wasn't the tree from in town here. It was a different basswood tree, I think.
Logan Wittmer (46:26.928) Mmm, I bet you it was the one in town. I think it's still that one. Yeah
Phil (46:29.883) Still that one? Okay. Anyway, I did, got a RAM here.
got kind of and then they place in Switzerland uses leather or fabric for different things so I'd made the horns out of little pieces of leather so I have ram and a you
Phil (46:52.719) Just a fun little carving project. then because I'm from Wisconsin and it's America's dairy land, I'm doing a cow and a bull.
Logan Wittmer (47:02.524) I thought it was a bit blacker cheese.
John Doyle (47:04.329) You
Phil (47:04.633) Yeah, right. I could do the block of cheese. That would also work. But that's the source on it. Best part is just they're relatively easy to do. The shapes are pretty simple on it. So I don't have to feel like I'm trying to create a life perfect carving model on there. And it's just simple tools. And the tools that I'm using are pretty cool too. This has turned into my favorite
carving knife. It's a marking knife that Chris Fitch designed for shop notes. He did a set where it was, you know, a right bevel, a left bevel, and then a double bevel one. So this is one of the double bevels. And for whatever reason, that handle shape is very comfortable for me for carving. So that's been, I've used it for marking and then because it was sharp, I just tried it for carving and was surprised on how well it works. And then speaking of marking knives,
We did, again, it was a shop notes project using a Japanese blade that they made a handle for out of solid wood. And this one.
is it's got a skew tip on it. I'll put photos on the show notes page, but I'm holding it up for the YouTube people. It's got a skew end on the blade and it's like 50 % carving knife, 50 % chisel. So sometimes when you're carving, you want more of like a chisel form factor than a knife. And that one turns out really cool. And it's given me new opportunities.
to pay attention to sharpening, speaking of process, because when you're sharpening carving tools, you really want them as sharp as possible. And because the blades are small, usually, you... I don't know. It's easier to see. I don't know how to describe it. Maybe that's not the right way. But I'm focusing a lot more on what the result is rather than...
Phil (49:17.007) you know, five or six chisels and plane irons that need to be sharpened. So you want to just kind of crank through them. But these I want to make sure that they're right on. So that's what I've been doing. It's been fun.
Logan Wittmer (49:32.462) Speaking of sharpening, next week's podcast I'll tell you my terrible sharpening of chisels this weekend working on a deck project. man. I feel like I'm not ready to talk about it yet.
Phil (49:44.281) Ha ha ha!
John Doyle (49:48.552) Yeah, that's a little teaser. Tune in next week.
Phil (49:51.289) Yeah. Yeah, it's a little too close right now for Logan. So we want to make sure that he's got some space to process that.
Logan Wittmer (49:55.691) Yeah. I'm still... Yeah. You think this is a sunburn, this is me being ashamed of how I sharpened these chisels.
Phil (50:07.077) There you go. All right. And then totally not woodworking related except very adjacently. Logan has a large number of walnut trees in his yard. And based on the amount of blossoms and walnut pollen that were out earlier this spring, this might be what they call a mass year for walnuts.
Logan Wittmer (50:30.379) Yes. It's bumper crap.
Phil (50:33.199) Yeah. And I think Logan, have a jar of nocino going, right? Two! Okay.
Logan Wittmer (50:39.297) I two, I two jars going. I two, yeah, so like we keep, we've talked about this for the last couple of years. Last year we didn't get many walnuts actually. But this year we are. And we have had some wind the last couple of weeks and what's been happening is the walnuts have been dropping some immature walnuts already. Now I've actually come to find out that this is the tree's way of
Getting rid of the nuts that are defective So either you know that that lead of the tree is not getting enough nutrients to support all the nuts So starts dropping some of them so it can feed the rest of them But I decided I was like hey, these are about the perfect size for the nocchino they have to be the Rule of thumb is small lime size
I know what the hell a small lime is because I want the biggest lime I can get. Like, I like big margaritas. So like, I don't know what a small lime is, but you want to be able to cut through the walnut cleanly with a knife without hitting a shell, basically. Now, I sent my son around with a bowl to pick up walnuts off the ground. All those, because they were ones that the trees had gotten rid of, the nuts...
had started to decay in this inside already. Some people say they're actually fine to use. Most people, people being those people on internet say you need to pick them off a tree. These walnut trees are 70 feet tall. Like I'm not gonna go around boom lift and I'm not gonna put my climbing gear on to climb up in the tree to pick immature walnuts. Like not that crazy. But we found, my neighbor has three trees that are growing.
close enough to the ditch and at an angle enough that you could reach the branches from the ground and those branches have walnuts on them. So we went and picked walnuts off of my neighbor's tree, got maybe six cups of walnuts. Most of them were about ping pong ball size. And yeah, I sliced them up, just cut them in half. Currently there is two quarts going.
Phil (52:55.16) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (53:03.661) The walnuts are macerating in Tito's vodka So they need to sit in there for 30 days and then you strain up You discard the solids and then everyone says don't taste that shit right then because it's gonna be nasty And I'm pretty sure that's exactly how they say it too. So I guess I guess at that point it is very very
Phil (53:24.932) you
Logan Wittmer (53:31.884) Tannin heavy so it's like bitter like you do not want to drink it They say let it sit for a year. They said you can Yeah year. Yes. Now they said you could start tasting it after six months, but know that Between the six eight and twelve month mark it matures and that's where the tannins Dissolve basically they don't dissolve but the tannins go away and then you actually get the flavor
Phil (53:40.666) a year? Wow.
Phil (53:59.919) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (54:00.938) So we have two batches going. One quart has walnuts and coffee beans.
which a lot of people were saying was their favorite. The other one is a more traditional one with cloves in it. So, yeah. So now, I don't know why I'm doing this because everyone says, this is basically an alcoholic black jelly bean, which I absolutely despise. But maybe it'll be great, you know?
Phil (54:22.087) okay. I can see cloves.
Phil (54:40.453) But it's not necessarily meant for just drinking straight, right? I was under the impression that it was for...
Logan Wittmer (54:47.627) Italians do a lot, but it is for mixing. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (54:58.994) in the same vein, I don't like to mix my black jelly beans in with my green jelly beans, because I still don't like them.
Phil (55:06.894) Yeah, that's fair.
Logan Wittmer (55:07.91) So, I don't know. We'll see though, we'll see. The opportunity comes once a year. It didn't come at all last year because we didn't have walnuts. Which also means we're almost into Logan getting pelted with shotgun shots in the shop when those walnuts hit the roof.
Phil (55:29.229) all part of the seasonal nature of woodworking.
Phil (55:36.261) Alright, that's it. Wraps up another episode of the ShopNotes Podcast. Questions, comments, smart remarks, we want to hear them. It's the fuel for our episodes. You can send them to us, woodsmith at woodsmith.com or put it in the comments section on our YouTube channel dedicated to the ShopNotes Podcast, youtube.com/shopnotespodcast. We'll see you next week everybody. Happy fourth.
