Behind the scenes. We've moved the YouTube version of the ShopNotes Podcast over to its dedicated channel. So please head over to subscribe, listen along, and comment. All new episodes will post there from now on. The previous episodes are still on the Woodsmith YouTube page. A split video archive isn't ideal; however, the show notes pages are still all in one place.
Poll Questions
I came up with three questions I invite your response to in this episode. Send an email to us woodsmith@woodsmith.com or leave a comment on the podcast page on YouTube.
Easy-to-Use Tools: I've found the Jessem Pocket Mill to be a lovely tool to use in making the chair base (see below). The more I use it, the more I understand it and find its application and setup easy to work with.
What tool is like that in your shop?
Chaos Reigns: The back bench area of the Woodsmith Shop TV show set/studio serves a lot of purposes. Staying organized is not one of those.
What area of your shop causes you similar trouble?
Dust Collector Relocation: Logan is reconsidering the location of his dust collector. It works great, it just takes up a lot of space. He could simply raise the collector above head height and gain some floor space. This unit is heavy and would barely clear his head.
If he moves the dust collector just outside the shop, Logan can gain more space for his metalworking corner of the shop.
Should the dust collector stay in the shop, just raise it; or should he move it outside the shop space?
Turning Corner
Logan devoted a part of his shop to turning. A bowl is something he can do start-to-finish in a single session. What I like is that this part of the shop is like a shop with a shop. In fact, this is all that's necessary for someone interested in turning. Well, maybe a bandsaw, but Logan's is steps away.
Project Updates
I had a quick project come up. I was asked to replace the metal base of a chair with something more stable. So I framed a base from pin oak. The joints are 10mm loose tenons cut with the Jessem Pocket Mill. I also pinned the joints using bamboo skewers.
The base's angles and footprint are based off the original to speed the design process. The look leans Mid-Century and I think works well with the seat. That I attached using steel connectors and machine screws.
Old Business
In the previous episode, I talked about some carved animals that I'm working on. The style of these toys from Trauffer combines the mix of simplicity and detail that I like. There are just enough curves and sculpting to allow your eye to connect the dots into the form. Otherwise, I feel that I end up having to make the carving as lifelike as possible. The leather (Naugahyde?) ears and horns are the chef's kiss.
I have two sheep complete (ewe & ram), and now I'm onto cattle, a mix of cows and bulls. Being from Wisconsin, I've always loved dairy cattle. While holsteins dominate where I grew up, there are so many other breeds that I've learned about over the years. I'll probably make a brown Swiss and a milking shorthorn, at least. Probably a Jersey and some holsteins.
Episode Transcript
Use the following transcript to find specific content in the episode quickly based on the time codes. Otherwise, you need to slog through the entire episode in order to find where we mention Mynocks.
Phil (02:07.691) Hey everybody, it's the dog days of summer here at the Shop Notes podcast where we have to turn on the fans to get the wifi flow in and we're all kind of jonesing for a dilly bar. So it's time to get started with episode number 239. That means there's a back catalog of 238 episodes of the Shop Notes podcast that you may not have heard before. You can go to...
our YouTube channel at Shop Notes Podcast and check out all the action there and catch up on all the content that we've created in the Shop Notes Podcast since way back in the before times of 2020. This episode of the Shop Notes Podcast is brought to you by Harvey Woodworking, by Harvey Industries. Good enough is not good enough.
See all of our new tools at harveywoodworking.com.
Phil (03:09.387) All right, on today's episode, have a few scheduled segments for us to run through. We're gonna check in with listener comments, as always. We'll do a project update for me, talk about some tools, shop cleanup here. We'll check in with Logan on a workbench update and see what else happens. Thanks for listening, everybody, and a thank you to everybody who subscribes to Woodsmith.
Popular Woodworking and ShopNotes Magazine. It's what allows us to be able to do the podcast here every week. And I put every week with an asterisk by it because it's not always every week because it's summer. And some of us take vacations.
So there you go. Also want to let you know a couple of things, new things going on later this fall, we'll be running Woodworking in America here in Des Moines, Iowa. We got a full slate of presenters. Tickets are going fast already. You could check out all the information, still get booked in on the early bird pricing at woodworkinginamerica.com. And as part of that, Logan,
just put the order in for the coffee mugs that are going to be, yeah, collectors. I'll put a photo of those on the show notes page. So you know what you're going to get when you sign up to join us at Woodworking in America, because you'll be able to put all your woodworking knowledge that you find and gather there in that coffee mug, in addition to all the sweet motivation juice that you need to get rolling in the morning and all throughout the day.
Logan Wittmer (04:29.014) just today. Yep, the collector's edition mugs.
Phil (04:58.369) The other thing is we've relaunched the Woodsmith Unlimited membership package. You can check that out at woodsmith.com where you'll get full access to all the stuff that's been going on at Woodsmith for 45 years, back issues, all the Woodsmith plans on woodsmithplans.com. There's also full access to all 18 seasons.
of the Woodsmith Shop TV show, soon to be 19 seasons because season 19 will be airing starting in a couple of months here. So that's kind of cool to be thinking about that. And I've already been bugged by our show producer about meeting for season 20. That's right, 20th anniversary season of the Woodsmith Shop.
Logan Wittmer (05:52.788) So the Diamond Anniversary.
Phil (05:55.86) Cardboard, I think.
Logan Wittmer (05:58.059) the poetic alignment
John Doyle (05:59.639) was going say it's the Walnut Anniversary. We should do all Walnut projects, Season 20.
Phil (06:02.752) Yeah.
Phil (06:06.144) Right.
All the shop projects out of walnut plywood. Yep. We got it. All right. Let's check in with a couple of comments from last episode. Alfita158 says, a place in Switzerland where they carve animals out of wood. Well, that narrows it down a lot. Yeah, it's a place called Trauffer. I will put another link to it in this week's show notes page. It's pretty cool.
I finished my two sheep that I was carving and delivered those to their recipient and it was very well received. On to making some cattle now.
Logan Wittmer (06:51.133) 20th anniversary is china, in case anybody's wondering.
Phil (06:54.687) All right. Okay, that makes sense. He also says all of this. Right. All of this dairy discussing has made me wish I sprung for the ShopSmith cheese curd making attachment.
John Doyle (06:58.541) All of the tools will be in China.
Logan Wittmer (07:09.035) Still a better use for your shop smith.
Phil (07:11.785) Shopsmiths transformed!
Phil (07:19.935) I am, it would be interesting to know like what's the compatibility of KitchenAid attachments and ShopSmith attachments. How well do they, do they mesh?
I want to know. Daniel Elf says, proper project pre-flight checklist, Logan. Check switches, positions, and settings. That goes back to Logan's re-mortising adventure on his workbench project.
Logan Wittmer (07:51.728) So I appreciate this that he dropped in the, well, okay. I guess it's technically an aeronautical term, the preflight. In the printing industry, that is also a term. I was gonna say, I was hoping he was dropping in a printing reference there, because that would have tickled my heartstrings. But now I just feel like a fool standing there at the altar by myself.
Phil (08:05.099) Right.
Phil (08:20.129) Baddy Crone Woodcrafts asks, are all three of you left-handed or are your cameras flipped? So left is right lol. Unfortunately, I'm the only one that is left-handed in this group.
Logan Wittmer (08:30.387) This is my right hand.
John Doyle (08:38.355) And I have a theory and I don't have a way of proving it, but I think that left-handed people just do it for attention.
Phil (08:47.969) I mean, you're not wrong really. Yeah.
John Doyle (08:47.994) Prove me wrong. They just chose it from day one. They're going to be dramatic.
Logan Wittmer (08:49.725) Hehehehehe
Phil (08:57.375) Yep. Barking Beaver says you should design cheap t-shirts with various clever shop notes titles and offer them for sale. I'd buy that.
Logan Wittmer (09:08.264) I'll tell you, Barking Beaver would be the first woodworking logo that we would make.
Phil (09:13.663) Yeah. Well, that was in reference to episode 238, which was before you cut the red wire.
John Doyle (09:16.537) and
Phil (09:24.501) Which I'm going to give credit right here. Nate's probably going to edit this out to Nate Gruca, our podcast editor, who for the most part comes up with the show titles from some bit of nonsense that we say during the episode. yes. So special kudos to Nate for doing that for us.
John Doyle (09:42.36) And there's a lot of nonsense to wade through,
Logan Wittmer (09:44.828) There's the guys.
Phil (09:53.651) And also, once again, we're sorry.
But not really.
Phil (10:02.399) All right. Anyway, that's it for the listener feedback portion. As always, it's what drives a lot of what we do here. So please keep the questions and comments and smart remarks coming. We thrive on it.
We feed on it like a Mynock on power cables is really how you would want to want to think of that.
Logan Wittmer (10:23.151) Mm-hmm.
Phil (10:29.697) All right, little project update for me here is, I don't remember if I started talking about this last episode or not, but my wife recently started a new job and she has a standup desk. Like John and Logan both have standup desks when they're in the office here. Because it's nice to stand sometimes and then it's also good to have
a stool to be able to sit when you need to without it feeling really awkward like you're a little kid at the big at the grownup table. So we had purchased a stool at one of the local home stores in town here. It was just the right height, great comfort, but the legs on this thing were a little spindly. And my wife asked if I could
fix it up, make it a little bit more stable. So I just happened to have a bunch of pin oak, I believe, leftover from some projects that we had done around here, some scraps. So I put together a base for that. And that was actually a pretty fun project because I more or less copied the footprint of the existing base and just made it out of wood instead of...
basically looks like, you know, eight gauge wiring.
So that I could use the existing base for all of the angles, rake and splay and all that kind of stuff and more or less just follow that. And it was tons of fun. And gave me something quick to focus on. Also, I also did something in this project that I don't normally do, which is make a full-size drawing. Because in order to be able to catch the angles that I needed for cross rails,
Phil (12:32.683) to miter the ends of those pieces. I needed something better than the existing piece.
So I was able to draw everything out. did a front view and a side view on a big piece of craft paper, rolled it out on one of the tables here in the office, and then used a little transfer bevel gauge that Ben Strano actually designed for making on a 3D printer. Chris had printed up one of those for me and I was able to use that and it worked out great. On all the joinery, I did loose tenon.
as is my preference now. And I did the loose tendons with my Jessam.
Phil (13:25.173) Mortise mill pocket, mortise mill, think is what they call it. And it was tons of fun. I liked it.
It's one of those things that...
Phil (13:39.839) I was thinking about it as I was working with it because I had set up little stops for doing repeat operations on parts just so that I didn't have to align everything. You could just kind of slip part in, clamp it down, make the mortise. And I've discovered that there is a difference between easy to use tools and tools that are easy to use.
like once you get the hang of it. And I feel like there are different categories. And I feel like the latter category that
there's a little bit that the tool requires of you to understand what it's doing and why that gives you a better opportunity to make the most of that tool for other operations, if that makes sense.
Phil (14:37.589) For example, with that Jessum tool, the basic concept, you use a drill and a carbide spiral bit, and you make a loose tenon slot. But once you figure out what's going on with it and think about what exactly the operation is, then all of sudden, it's easy for you to think in that system. some of that kind of is inspired by the fact of
In the last episode, we were talking about Logan's workbench and him using the Panto router and that there's a lot of crossover principles between the Panto router and the Jessam thing that I think kind of opens up exactly what you're doing and gave me a better idea of what I'm trying to do with a particular operation with the
with the mortise mill.
Phil (15:43.713) So there you go. That's my little.
vague soliloquy on easy to use tools.
Because I think there are some quote unquote easy to use tools that are too limiting in what you can do with it.
Logan Wittmer (15:59.565) yeah.
Phil (16:05.579) Just as I think as on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are tools that purport to be easy to use, but you have to dig out the manual every time you go to use it.
Logan Wittmer (16:15.563) every dovetail jig ever made.
John Doyle (16:17.567) Yep, that's exactly what I was thinking.
You almost have to use a dovetail jig every day and keep it set up to really to get it to work easily.
Logan Wittmer (16:22.758) Stupid things, I hate them.
Yeah. Yeah.
Phil (16:35.263) Yeah. That came up, I was watching, and I blame Logan for this, watching a few new Yankee workshop videos on their YouTube channel. And Norm was using a dovetail jig on there quite often. There were some pretty early episodes and then ones later on. And so he was using different generations of different jigs. And it was kind of interesting to see, like he had the jig just set up.
ready to go for the particular operation that he was using. So you just saw the part go in clamped down, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. And look, perfectly fit dovetails on drawers. And I know from a fact that that dovetail jig, there's more going on there than what was stated, which is fine. mean, that's, from doing the show, the three of us know.
It's not easy to fully explain everything and get done with an episode in 2646.
Logan Wittmer (17:42.67) Mm-hmm.
Phil (17:46.027) But on the other hand, think, like John said, unless you use that dovetail jig regularly.
It's kind of a, it's a math word problem every time.
Logan Wittmer (18:00.184) Yeah. Yep.
John Doyle (18:05.758) Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts as far as adjusting the bit height and the different templates. You move one thing and then that other thing's off. So there's a lot of back and forth until you get it honed in.
Phil (18:20.959) Right. And the other thing with a dovetail jig, it's not like you can recut apart either. Like you have to have whole new pieces or chop the ends off of it and recut the joint. I know for the longest time, we had a Porter Cable half blind dovetail jig in the main shop that we would use periodically on drawers. And the guys in the shop had a
Porter Cable 690 router with a guide bushing and a dovetail bit in it all set up.
and essentially tack welded in place that you couldn't change the bit height setting on it at all. Because it was like, this is dialed in, ready to go. We're not messing with this anymore.
John Doyle (19:14.014) And I can't remember, does it really depend on part thicknesses too, if those are a little off or not as much? Because it's based off the inside of the drawer. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (19:22.276) Only on only on half blinds Yep
Phil (19:25.513) Yeah, and that really only has to do with like the depth of the sockets when you're cutting those.
Phil (19:35.083) The other thing that I was noticing on the norm one to continue on with this is he used the dovetail jig on regular veneer core plywood to do both through and half blind dovetails a lot more than I remember.
Logan Wittmer (19:57.409) It's just because it gives, well, let's say, it's just because it gives you the ick now, but knowing with what you do with plywood, it might not give you the ick.
Logan Wittmer (20:14.71) Now, but like seriously though, is there ever a point where you're like, yeah, making these drawer boxes out of Baltic birch plywood. You know what it needs? Through dovetails. Because there is it with me. It's like, if it's a plywood drawer box, we're wrapping in that SOB and throwing screws in it.
John Doyle (20:27.475) Mm-hmm.
Phil (20:27.819) Right.
Phil (20:31.233) you
Phil (20:37.557) Yeah. I know we've done that in the past where we've only with Baltic birch plywood that we did half blind dovetails. It was half blind dovetail sides, I think into a solid wood front.
Logan Wittmer (20:56.481) That's fine because you still have a clean look at the joint.
Phil (21:00.405) Right.
Logan Wittmer (21:02.115) That's permissible.
Phil (21:08.203) John's skeptical yet.
John Doyle (21:08.484) But you still see the top edges of it. I mean, along the top of the drawer. it's like, yeah.
Phil (21:13.385) Right, but with Baltic Birch, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (21:13.442) Yeah, but that's a drawer box, yeah.
John Doyle (21:22.096) I don't know. Yeah.
Phil (21:22.601) It's a choice. Of all the design choices, it's one of them.
Logan Wittmer (21:23.874) You
Phil (21:30.731) There was one set of projects that we did here and I kind of hesitate to mention it that.
we joined the drawer sides to the front with a sliding dovetail.
So there was a tail routed on the ends of the drawer sides. And then the drawer front like slipped over the top of it because it had a dovetail socket channel dado, whatever you want to call it in there, which is fine. However, the designer of that particular project ended up using MDF core plywood.
Logan Wittmer (21:49.121) Hmm
Logan Wittmer (22:15.682) Phil (22:18.113) for both the drawer sides and the front. So it was like half inch, maybe it was even three quarter inch, at least half inch MDF core plywood.
and then the same on the front and i was like why why are we doing this this seems weird
Logan Wittmer (22:41.291) And you know what resists racking strength is a thin dovetail MDF tongue.
Phil (22:46.241) Yes. Yeah.
Phil (22:54.144) Anyway.
Phil (23:00.683) So circling back, I would like to find out from folk what are some tools that they have in their shop that wasn't necessarily an easy to use tool, but has become so that you just turn too often.
And that you kind of like, you get it, it gets you. You're making good projects because of the understanding that you have and that the way that this particular tool or jig or whatever it is works.
John Doyle (23:35.442) Nobody better say shop-smith. Nobody better say shop-smith. You're catch these hands.
Phil (23:35.745) That'd be my whole question.
Logan Wittmer (23:43.061) Yeah.
Phil (23:48.191) There we go.
John Doyle (23:49.905) We've got to start that back up again.
Logan Wittmer (23:52.225) Catching hands
John Doyle (23:54.447) Yeah, just shop smith, shop smith people. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (23:56.425) I say, Orshard Smith, yeah.
John Doyle (24:00.66) Ahhhh
Logan Wittmer (24:01.343) Phil (24:04.341) Another little update here in the studio after we finished filming season 19, we did a couple of e-learning courses. So we did the one with Mark Harrell with as a joint course with Popular Woodworking and Fine Woodworking on handsaw sharpening and restoration, which was a really, that was a really fun set of days with Mark here in the studio.
Logan Wittmer (24:31.649) Mm-hmm.
Phil (24:33.736) And then I was out in Houston for an event. And then you guys did a course on Windsor chairs.
Logan Wittmer (24:43.221) Yep, with Jeff Wyatt.
Phil (24:45.429) and that'll be coming out soon.
Logan Wittmer (24:47.165) Mm-hmm, Nate is working on editing of that right now.
Phil (24:51.135) Yeah. So as a result, we were at the end of our TV show season, two e-learning courses, and the studio here was in a state of...
Logan Wittmer (25:05.28) lived in.
Phil (25:06.913) It was in a lived in state. Yep. It had kind of a evacuation sort of look to it in that just stuff was just out. So I've spent the last couple of days sweeping and organizing. still have a bit to go. We also have some upgrades that we want to do in the shop. got the, we got the grizzly sliding table saw attachment for our table saw, which I'm kind of excited about getting that put together.
Logan Wittmer (25:26.719) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (25:33.108) Mm-hmm.
Phil (25:38.453) Though the idea of cracking open that box and seeing all the little Erector set parts in there, I'm just not super thrilled about right off the top of my head, but we'll see.
Logan Wittmer (25:48.296) You know, if it's like the Harvey one, which I have to assume they're they're fairly similar, it's not bad.
Phil (25:57.642) No?
Logan Wittmer (25:58.364) No, it's not like a woodpecker's box where it's like you're doing the assembly. But I am a convertee of the sliding table.
Phil (26:03.691) Ha ha.
Phil (26:10.517) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (26:11.794) Yep, I'm excited for Mark to come in and try that one because we've talked for years about adding one into our shop there and I want him to see it, play with it, and tell us if he would use it. The shop guys are notorious for getting into their ways with tools and then you give them something new and they just don't wanna, it's not that they don't wanna learn it, it's that
Phil (26:20.299) Right.
Logan Wittmer (26:41.676) you have to have time to experiment and play around with it and there isn't always that time.
Phil (26:45.225) Right. Yeah.
John Doyle (26:48.514) seems like they're always in the get it done mode so it's just like you go back to the ways you know versus learning something new.
Logan Wittmer (26:52.371) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (26:56.883) Yep. Like I grabbed them a multi-router. Like, they'll use a multi-router. This thing's great.
Phil (27:05.728) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (27:07.913) Yeah.
Phil (27:10.507) but still in the developmental process.
Logan Wittmer (27:10.793) Hmm.
Yeah, yeah, they're still working up the courage to walk across the playground and talk to it.
Phil (27:25.717) Yeah. So.
One area of the shop, have basically like a hutch in the back corner that has two upper cabinets, three lower cabinets, some pretty large drawers in it, stores a lot, but the appearance of it looks like a disaster all the time.
So over the rest of this week, one of my tasks is to sort everything out over there again and see if there's a better way to organize the insides of some of the upper cabinets to make it easier for us to keep it a little neater. Like that some places have a home. Cause right now it's the upper cabinets are basically just one shelf and it's like quick throw it in, shut the doors or just leave it on the counter.
and hopefully the shop fairy will take care of it.
Logan Wittmer (28:29.575) Never does.
Phil (28:31.073) which our shop fairy, I don't know, doesn't have a key card anymore or what, but.
Phil (28:41.121) So anyway, that's what I'm doing.
Phil (28:45.983) rest of it I think is in decent shape. Feels good.
Logan Wittmer (28:48.21) Yeah, we also got the new brush sander from Grizzly Inn, which I'm excited to play with. I think we have to figure out where that's going to go. Is that going to go on the set? Is it going to go in the shop? I know that we had talked with Grizzly about wanting some video content on it, which means it needs to go on set at least for video content.
Phil (28:54.464) Yes.
Logan Wittmer (29:19.442) But does it live there? I don't know.
Logan Wittmer (29:25.799) And I don't know the weight of it, so I don't know how hard it is to move around. It's basically like a 15 inch planer. Size wise.
Phil (29:32.681) Right. I mean, it's on wheels, right?
Logan Wittmer (29:37.426) I it can be on wheels.
Phil (29:39.881) I thought it came with wheels. Yeah. That would make it easier.
Logan Wittmer (29:42.0) I don't know, maybe it did.
Logan Wittmer (29:47.58) Yeah. It would.
Phil (29:55.455) I got a chance to play with it and demo it at the Grizzly tent sale last month, which was kind of fun.
It was surprisingly, I mean not surprisingly, but sometimes with a new tool, especially a new tool category, it can be a little weird to try and figure out what the finesse of using it. But I think it's a pretty quick read.
Logan Wittmer (30:24.851) Yeah.
trying to look and see if it comes with wheels or not.
John Doyle (30:34.873) be really nice if it did.
Logan Wittmer (30:38.108) I don't think it... I don't think it does.
Phil (30:38.207) be really nice if it had casters.
Phil (30:46.537) Well, we're going to want to.
John Doyle (30:46.574) That's really too bad.
Phil (30:52.106) you
Logan Wittmer (30:57.21) boy.
John Doyle (31:00.398) Send it back.
Phil (31:02.209) That's it.
Phil (31:11.733) So the second question that I have for folk is if there's a problem area in your workshop that is just tough to keep organized. Knowing that it's never really like done in the shop.
Like Adam Savage says, it's a process to be managed, not a problem to be solved.
but is there like that part of our shop is essential, but always in a state of chaos.
Logan Wittmer (31:49.63) It's all your mine.
Phil (31:51.445) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (31:53.8) My lathe corner, 100 % because I have three lathes, had a lot of tooling that goes with said lathes. Grinder, vacuum pumps for stabilizing, like there's a lot of accessories and stuff. Chucks, face shields, all that. Currently my storage situation back there.
Phil (31:56.468) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (32:19.709) is we had a machinist cart that was an old ShopNotes project. Is that ShopNotes? That was in our old office that I grabbed when we moved out of there. And really good for this because the heavy duty drawers meant to hold heavy machinist equipment, Holds all my heavy turning tools and stuff really well.
That is back there as is one of the wall-mounted drill or wall-mounted drill press stations We built on the TV show that has the grinder on it Not a whole lot of storage in those two items and there's a lot of stuff And it's just because I love to turn love turning But that's not my day job. So I don't spend as much time back there as I want
because I'm in the rest of the shop doing day job type stuff, right? So a lot of times it's like, oh, 20 minutes to turn, go turn something. Definitely not daily, but when I do. And then it's like, okay, gotta get back to doing my laundry list of stuff to get done for the magazine.
Phil (33:13.588) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (33:36.654) Stuff doesn't always get a pull away doesn't always end up where it's supposed supposed to go some stuff doesn't actually have a home But with all of that said I think I have a solution That I'm waiting on two parts to come in I have a
garage storage system, so think of like metal upper cabinets, side cabinets, workbench top, that is actually gonna go back there that I'm gonna mount the grinder on. And here's the other thing that I think is gonna be kinda cool is I'm going to set up my 3D printer inside of the cabinet in there.
So it should stay dust free. I'll put my vacuum accessories in there and my vacuum chambers in there so those can actually be set up ready to go. Like I have a vision of how I can fix this. It's gonna be very similar to what we have on set where there's two uppers, there's lowers, there's a workbench. But these are pretty fab ones. So they, you know, I'd have to build them. Yuck, who wants to do that? But...
I think that's gonna help that area of the shop significantly. And what that's gonna do is that's gonna free up that machinist cart to go over with my machinist stuff in the corner. So, yeah. I definitely have that area of the shop though.
Phil (35:11.519) One thing that I've noticed about your shop as it's evolved is...
There are definitely parts of your workshop that I would call multi-purpose. And then you also are now.
Logan Wittmer (35:22.865) yeah.
Phil (35:28.533) things are kind of gravitating into little clusters. Like the turning corner is definitely maturing as a place where it's almost like a self-contained shop within a shop kind of an idea. Would you agree with that?
Logan Wittmer (35:33.669) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (35:40.002) little shop yeah yeah 100 % yeah and what i've also started to do is mess around with stuff and like try things like okay i'm going to try to put this shelving unit here does it work yeah for storage does it look like crap yeah does our producer hate it yes she does you know it's like
Phil (36:05.451) you
Logan Wittmer (36:06.263) It's like that type of stuff. And there's definitely things that I had planned on, but as I'm in the shop working more and more, I'm like, that's not gonna work. Or this would have been a lot better if I would have done this. One of them is my desk collector. Like, desk collector, absolutely love it. Best $9,000 I ever spent was my desk collector, my desk collection setup.
yeah, that's how I felt when I saw the price take two, John.
Logan Wittmer (36:42.395) But now I'm like, you know what would have been really nice? To put the dust collector outside of the shop. Because the drum it, mean it's a five gallon, a 55 gallon drum it drops into. That doesn't take up a whole lot of area. But the filter that sticks off the side takes up a lot of area. So now I'm looking at the option of potentially punching a hole in the wall and moving the dust collector out into the cold side of the shop. And what does that do?
That frees up the corner so the metal lathe can go over there and if the metal lathe goes over there that frees up the wall between the two bandsaws for maybe a lumber storage rack which I did not design into my shop space
which that is the proper place for it because that's where I break stuff down. That is where my big band's eye is, that's where the jointer is, that's where the planer is. So like, it's definitely a constantly evolving thing and I think anybody that has been in their shop for...
you know, any amount of time and actually put time in like working in the shop, your shop definitely evolves. It definitely changes. And I don't think you can be afraid to change stuff and say, well, I thought this was the right way to do it, but now I see it's not. So here's how we're gonna change it. So.
Phil (38:02.941) I would agree with that because I think there's a lot of.
As a beginning woodworker or a woodworker, when I first started that didn't have much of a shop space, I dreamed of having a more permanent, slightly larger space that I felt could get set up and it would be like, Set up. Like this is your shop. And it's exactly not that. I think even within the course of a project, depending on what your space is like, you're going to configure things.
Logan Wittmer (38:26.01) Mm-hmm.
Phil (38:37.663) to be set up for milling or set up for joinery or set up for something else. And you're going to have that, that changing thing. Like, like even you with the Panto router, it's not like your Panto router stays set up in the same place all the time. You wheel that bad boy out when it's ready to go and set up kind of like a little joinery station around it for when, for when you're doing that.
John Doyle (38:45.034) Thanks.
Logan Wittmer (39:06.798) Yeah, yeah. And it's funny because I was actually, I was thinking about this entire thing the other day because I'm like, do I just, do I move the dust collector out to the cold side? My other option, this one sounds ridiculous, but I could do it, is I currently have five foot above the dust collector and the ceiling. I could raise the entire dust collector clear up to where the motor is touching the ceiling.
That puts the filter at six foot. I'm 5'11", 5'10", 5'10 and a quarter, whatever. I could get under it.
does that make sense? So I'm thinking about this entire thing and about potentially putting a lumber rack there. Same thing, Pantorouter is sitting there right now and it's on a cart and I do, I wheel that in when I'm ready to use it. I wheel it over to the workbench, my parts can be set up on the workbench, I can lay all the parts out, I can make sure I'm putting mortises in the right spot, tenons on the right ends.
I would love to have a joinery station set up somewhere that the panorouter was just always plugged in, always hooked up to a dust extractor, but that's not feasible.
Logan Wittmer (40:28.341) So... And right now, the cart's the best solution for that. Why did I make it a devil's cart? I don't know. It has two fixed wheels and two swivel wheels. Dumbest thing in the world. Yeah. I don't know why. I don't know.
Phil (40:39.341) yeah, why did you do that? Because
Logan Wittmer (40:44.929) Mistakes were made. No, I think Menards was out. I vaguely remember this. Menards was out of swivels, they only had two.
John Doyle (40:45.065) I just followed the plans.
Logan Wittmer (40:57.795) So.
Logan Wittmer (41:07.65) Yep.
Phil (41:08.939) We'll put some photos up of Logan's lathe area and the dust collector corner on the show notes page. You can chime in with your own ideas. Should that go outside? Raise it up to the ceiling? Should he make room for a shop smith? All of that.
Logan Wittmer (41:24.525) Nope, absolutely not.
Phil (41:32.033) So speaking of Workbench, how is the Workbench coming along now?
Logan Wittmer (41:34.008) Yeah.
She's trucking along it's amazing when you don't shoot photos on a project man. You can get a lot of crap done There's been a lot of flip-flop woodworking in my shop like working in flip-flops. It's been great Workbench base is done. I Don't have drawer dividers in it yet. So the drawer dividers. I'm gonna build the drawer slides in the drawer slides and
guides in. So right now the drawer dividers are just a flat piece of stock. I am going to throw a domino on each end and do the slides clear to the back and then guides are going to be mounted to that. So it's going to be a wood on wood drawer connection is what I'm getting at. I have to do those and then can glue those in. I've been finishing parts as I go. I've been using
Shout out to Nick at workshop companion, I believe is the would the channel Nick Engler, I think
Is the YouTube channel he did a really cool comparison on the different hard oil waxes in a recent video So he like very like Rubio Monoco Osmo, you know all of them and he's like, here's the one I use and it's a little shop made Concoction of linseed oil varnish mineral spirits beeswax and carnauba wax And I have been using it. I freaking love it. It's great You
Logan Wittmer (43:13.644) basically melt everything in a double boiler. And then it's like a pudding cup consistency. And you can brush it on. You let it soak in for a little bit and then you buff it off. And when you buff it off, if you buff it extremely hard and fast, the wax melts and it gets smooth and glossy.
John Doyle (43:29.895) BOOM!
Logan Wittmer (43:35.992) If you don't buff it extremely hard and fast it stays a little tacky, but then if you come back the next day all the solvents flash off and then it buffs up really quickly without a ton of elbow grease. And I've been finishing parts as I've been going and it's like unbelievable. Like bases, bases all together, morse and tenons are all done, they're all pegged. Raise panels on the three sides, on the right, doors on the left.
I glued up my workbench top last night. Well, yeah, over the last two days I've glued it up. It is maple. is three inches thick.
It is currently 24 inches wide. And then I am doing thicker aprons on the outside where the dog holes are gonna be. So I'm gonna go probably four, four and a half inches on those and end caps. But I just this morning, right before the podcast, got back home from taking my workbench top over to old Bobby Three Fingers and we ran it through his CNC flattener.
Will never again mess with a router jig to flatten a slab Oh my god, like we're sitting there in his reclining chairs at the end of his at the end of his slab flattener He's just controlling the head with a joystick. We're chatting dust collectors go and it was wonderful Got it all done. I did run into an issue last night as I was trying to I glued it up in two halves. So a foot section
Phil (44:46.952) Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Logan Wittmer (45:10.998) Three inches, three and a half inches before we flatten it, thick. And I went to glue the two together last night at like 10 o'clock at night, because I had planned on going over to Bobby's today to flatten it. Got glue spread, slapped the two parts together, clamped them like, ah, it looks good. Walked around to the other side, which is the top surface. There was an eighth inch gap the whole way. And I am like, what in the world? Something somewhere moved.
Face jointed, edge jointed, and planed everything before it got glued up. Something somewhere got off. Or I had a couple pieces of maple, I ordered just enough maple. Actually, I had to steal a piece of maple from the shop there to finish out the top.
Had a couple pieces that were really twisted and bowed. thought I thought I got them flat, but maybe I didn't And that was what my two mating surfaces were so I just I knocked them apart Let the glue dry and then I'm looking at them at 10 o'clock last night Like how in the hell am I gonna run these things over the jointer? They're 95 pounds apiece So I ended up roughing them down to length. They're a couple inches long just to walk off
a little bit of weight, set up a bunch of roller stands.
Really cranked down every fence adjustment on this jet joiner So I didn't throw the fence out of square as I was trying to muscle these across worked beautiful worked absolutely beautiful, so Yeah, so the top is flat is on the base. It's not attached yet I'm actually patching in a little bit of a patch before I glue on the outside aprons because I had one one of those twisted pieces had a little bit of skip planing marks
Phil (46:47.296) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (47:04.856) still and that was on the top edge of the face so you'd see it when I glued up the next laminate so I actually took a rabbiting router bit cut a rabbit and I'm just gonna scab in a piece so it'll just look like a patch not I'm not terribly concerned about it but now my next question is the two questions the first is do I do
Phil (47:18.709) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (47:33.054) I'm gonna do end caps. I have a hovarter tail vise that's gonna get installed on it. Do I do dovetails onto the aprons on the end cap? Or do do what we've done with woodsmith stuff in the past and maybe do a couple splines?
I don't know, dovetails look better, but that just sounds like lot of pain in ass that I want to deal with.
John Doyle (47:57.337) lines would be easy.
Logan Wittmer (47:59.944) Splines would be super easy. Throw a wing cutter in there and just route it.
Phil (48:01.983) I do love this. Right.
John Doyle (48:04.261) Dovetail spline. Just like do a little dovetail spline on the end. Just like a little butterfly thing on the end so it looks like it's a dovetail spline.
Logan Wittmer (48:09.673) There you go, yeah. It would, it would be kinda cool. So that's one question. And then the second question is, I tore apart, yes, straight between meetings, tore apart my pattern maker's vice, okay? I'm gonna clean it up, I'm gonna paint it, I'm gonna polish some of the parts before it gets mounted to the workbench.
Phil (48:11.433) that would be kind of cool.
Logan Wittmer (48:37.234) The top jaw is missing a chunk, or the front jaw is missing a little bit of a chunk. So the Emmer pattern maker rice has two dogs, okay? It has four, it has two on the back jaw, two on the front jaw. And right between them is a little webbing of cast iron and they're notorious for getting a semicircle break out of them. And this one has that. So the question is, do I embrace it for what it is?
Phil (48:43.68) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (49:08.392) Do I try to patch it with like an epoxy pour type thing? Probably with a couple pins in there to hold it in.
Or do I?
make it centered, 45 it, and then just grind it flat. So it just looks like it is a...
Phil (49:31.796) just a notch.
Logan Wittmer (49:32.957) Just a notch. that's kind of where I'm leaning. I found a guy that sells parts to these. He will sell me a new front jaw for 200 bucks plus shipping. 250 bucks. But because I got this from my buddy Norm, don't want to... I don't really want to do that one. I kinda keep it for what it was. I'm leaning towards the clean up the break.
with the angle grinder, make it look semi-presentable, and just call it good.
Phil (50:07.285) Yeah, I guess that's what I would do is just you're kind of acknowledging its history, but not leaving it broken, so to speak. You're doing something to.
Logan Wittmer (50:16.521) Sure.
Yeah. Well, and I, I'm thinking that I will probably put wood jaws inside of the steel jaws. and I could add a little baton on the top of the jaws to kind of fill in that notch area.
Phil (50:28.648) yeah.
Logan Wittmer (50:38.868) I know. don't know. That's... Yeah. I just gotta figure out how I'm going to clean this up, because these jaws are freaking massive. You put it in outfill, and I kind of... I've been looking at this thing for a year now, and it's like, it's not that big, until you start trying to figure out overhangs on a workbench to fit everything. It's massive. The jaws are like 18 inches wide. It's huge. It weighs 95 pounds.
Phil (50:59.745) you
Logan Wittmer (51:08.103) So.
Phil (51:12.063) and stability.
Logan Wittmer (51:13.564) Yeah, yep, gonna, I think we're going with Cerakote as the paint. I have some, I have Cerakote Highland Green that I bought for some machinery and I think that'll look kinda cool. We'll do Cerakote Green and then some of the parts I'm actually gonna not paint and I'm gonna polish instead. So, we'll see. It looks really good on my head. Chat GPT's rendering of it.
Phil (51:20.335) yeah?
Logan Wittmer (51:40.219) looked fine but like it wasn't the right style of vice so
Phil (51:44.021) Yeah, I think the green will play well with the tones in the cherry.
Logan Wittmer (51:49.383) That was exactly my thought. A lot of the Embert devices are either painted black or steel gray or like a machinery gray and like, bleh. Black always looks dirty. Always.
Phil (52:07.497) and color is always a better idea.
Logan Wittmer (52:09.521) Yeah.
Phil (52:14.945) All right, there you have it. I think that wraps up another episode of the ShopNotes podcast. Thanks for listening, everybody. Don't forget to check in on comments, questions, and smart remarks. We got the three poll questions today. Is there an easy to use tool that you have in your shop that you've come to love and why? Is there a spot in your shop that's a little bit of a trouble area in terms of its organization or ability to keep?
serving its needs well. And what should Logan do about his pattern maker vice? Repair, leave it as is or replace the part. We'll check back in with it and see where it all turns out. Want to give a special thanks to Harvey Industries for sponsoring today's episode. Good enough is not good enough for them. You want the right
woodworking tools and Harvey has them check them out at harveywoodworking.com Thanks for listening everybody. Bye
