A router stands at the core of my woodworking. I remember when my dad got his Porter Cable 690 and how excited he was. (That router is still going strong 40 plus years later.) Between my dad and watching Norm on the New Yankee Workshop, I knew that a router had a lot of potential and a place in my future workshop.
An early benefit of working at Woodsmith was the woodworking library of books and other woodworking magazines. I came across the books of Pat Warner, then later his articles in Fine Woodworking. Here was a woodworker that took routers even more seriously than Norm. Pat's jigs remain inspirational for both their simplicity and level of detail. They were often works of industrial art, too.
In my own shop, my two routers handle much of the joinery work for rabbets, dadoes, grooves, and mortises. I used to teach seminars at the Woodsmith Store here in Iowa and became known as "the router guy." I ended up writing many of the Router Workshop department articles in ShopNotes and also Woodsmith. You can certainly go as crazy as you want, but that is just a sign of its versatility.
Several years ago, I designed a router table fence for a ShopNotes compact router table that's inspired by Pat's fence.
New Router Book
The new book "Routing" by Toyohisa Sugita falls in line with a presentation of the router's capability and the tinkerer's fascination with hotrodding and accessorizing your tools. Toyohisa, a Japanese woodworker focuses on the small compact routers. He calls it a "trimmer."
In my teaching, I've found these machines are less intimidating for new woodworkers to use. The Bosch Colt I have is the router I reach for first. That leaves my 690 for table work and the biggest of the jobs.
I like Toyohisa's preference for user-made modifications and jigs. The act of making your own jigs or tools, provides a more complete knowledge of the your specfic tool and puts you another layer deeper in your process for building projects. In fact, there are several jigs offered in the book that I want to try for myself.
Jigs without context are gizmos. The book uses the jigs to lead you to techniques, then simple projects that connect the dots. A woodworker then sees the open wardrobe inviting you to step in a apply those approaches to other projects.
The fact the Toyohisa is from Japan and works within a different tradition and approach to tools offers an opportunity to think about my own work patterns. The scrutiny more than likely lead me to refine or change my methods.
Elsewhere
John and I spend a good deal of time discussing routers. In addition, I present a question to you:
How do you manage woodworking in hot weather?
It's coming up on Fair season, too. Please consider exhibiting your work in a county or state fair. While you're at it, support other woodworkers by checking out those same shows, as well as the 4H woodworkers.
Transcript
Here follow's the transcript from this episode. Happy listening.
Phil (00:04.266) Hey everybody. Welcome to the ShopNotes podcast. This is episode number 240. It's a hot town summer in the city. Back of my neck is getting dirt and gritty. And in this episode, we're going to talk about woodworking in the heat. We'll also talk about a new woodworking book that's out on the market and going to see other people's woodworking.
among whatever else pops up. It's me, Phil Huber, your host today, joined by John Doyle. Logan Wittmer is out on assignment. He is trying to find someplace that's even hotter than the state of Iowa right now. And we'll be back next time for a full report of his trip out West. So, before we get started, a little word from our sponsor.
This episode of the ShopNotes podcast is brought to you by Harvey Industries, when good enough is not good enough. See all of our new tools at harveywoodworking.com.
Phil (01:20.17) All right. One of the things that I've noticed here is that we've made a strategic decision to move the shop notes podcast to its own channel. And as a result, some of our normal commenters haven't followed up and come over to be able to, I'm looking at you puppy doc, Bob.
calling you out.
John Doyle (01:41.612) Yeah. Apparently he hasn't been listening because you've said we're moving and we finally moved.
Phil (01:47.305) Yeah.
Yep. So we need you to go over to the shop notes podcast on YouTube. You can look it up that way. youtube.com slash Shop Notes podcast. right there. Sign up, subscribe, like, ring the bell, whatever, to make sure that you can continue on with the conversation. Otherwise, it's just John and I making comments about ShopSmith's and nobody is going to care.
John Doyle (02:18.487) Yep. Which we'll do it anyways. We don't care if people care.
Phil (02:22.27) Right. We've proven that.
Phil (02:29.512) All right. Speaking of comments, alpheta158 says, I liked Logan's comments about last episode about every dovetail jig being very difficult to understand where you'd have to read the manual every time before you use it. He says, in fact, how many of us have gone out and bought a new router just so we don't have to mess with the collar bit height configuration of that one router that you use with that one jig?
I made one of the adjustable dado jigs from Plans Now or whatever they're calling it now, btwitswoodsmithplans.com. And I have that one router with the half inch square cut bit set to the right height for a quarter inch dado. And I crazy glued everything in place.
hashtag complain brag
John Doyle (03:26.315) I don't think you've made it as a woodworker until you have 10 different routers and different configurations and different bits and just kind of collected them all hit all the auctions and garage sales.
Phil (03:41.182) You know, there's something to be said for that because I, and especially with
dare I say the discount tool stores that there are now that you could get a S have basically a single use router drill kind of insert in there and not spend a lot of money on it. And unless you were doing it all the time every day, it would still sort of be a long lived tool because it's just not going to get a lot of
operating time.
Phil (04:23.316) you know, in the same way that I think some people would have a small router with just like a chamfer bit or a round over bit in it. Always set up, ready to go. Buzz that, buzz that around.
Phil (04:45.438) which I have always been against, so to speak, because there was a time when in my woodworking, I was lucky and happy to have just the one router and tried to do as much as I can with it. I have two now and...
I would really hesitate to go beyond that.
John Doyle (05:13.334) Yeah, once I got a router table that I used more frequently, I went to two routers. Just I didn't want to take it in and out of the table all the time. So one in the table, one handheld. I might go with a compact router as well. I have a full size handheld and a compact handheld just because they're convenient. Like the new battery powered ones, they're pretty decent.
Phil (05:38.205) Okay.
John Doyle (05:42.847) Convenient and having a cord they do a lot of the you know smaller profiles and joinery so
Phil (05:48.873) Yeah.
John Doyle (05:50.186) those.
Phil (05:51.346) I'm kind of amazed frankly at how...
Phil (05:58.186) quickly those cordless routers improved. Because I remember when Porter Cable years and years ago had like a battery powered version of their 690. And it was sketchy, just because of the battery didn't last very long. And then you had some of the early 18 volt
John Doyle (06:17.865) Yeah.
Phil (06:23.146) cordless routers that were small and it didn't seem like they could do very much for very long. But now, the simple fact that Chris, Mark, and Dylan in the shop all have Milwaukee 18 volt cordless routers.
and use them basically as their default router unless they're doing something at a router table or deep mortises, whatever.
John Doyle (06:56.371) Right. Yeah. They're just so convenient because I mean, even like most handheld routers, have to find an extension cord and plug it in and then you're always the cords kind of dragging behind you and in the way. it's just, it's so convenient to grab those and the battery powered ones and just kind of go and set it to the side and keep moving.
John Doyle (07:25.78) But yeah, I can remember this was probably 20, 30 years ago by now, but having all the battery powered tools like seemed like it had a car battery on it and it would tone that thing around and then still would only last about 30 minutes and then you're charging it for eight hours. And so yeah, it's come a long way.
Phil (07:51.05) Yeah, it is kind of crazy to remember some of my dad's cordless tools or because Woodsmith and ShopNotes have been around for so long, seeing their photos in the archive where you're just flipping through looking for article research or background or something. And then there's just at the time, the new cool tool sitting there, you know, and it's this 12 volt.
tool with a brick of a battery.
Phil (08:29.044) how quickly that can date a photo.
John Doyle (08:31.313) Yeah. Yeah, the hand planes, they still look the same. It's the battery powered tools that quickly date everything.
Phil (08:39.594) Yeah, think it's also funny that there's enough people out there speaking to hand planes that will
in good fun tease some woodworkers for having a bunch of routers where then you'll get somebody that has like six or eight different hand planes that all essentially do the same thing.
Okay, goes both ways.
So what do you have for router? What is your router then, or two routers?
John Doyle (09:17.546) I've kind of latched on to the Bosch What is that? Like the 1618 or 7. I don't know. What is that your Google? Yeah, is that it 1617?
Phil (09:27.914) 16, 17, yeah. Yeah, yep.
John Doyle (09:34.001) Yeah, so I kind of got that got in on that one early on and because we've had both the Bosch and the Porter cable routers here and it's just not that one is better than the other. It's just where the controls are on the Bosch is more familiar to me. So I've got a couple of those and with the plunge base and all the different accoutrement as the French say.
Phil (09:53.236) Okay.
Phil (10:00.836) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because that's the one, the fixed bass one has the like turned maple or beech handles on it or something. Yeah. Which is kind of a cool look. I know that some people don't like it, but I kind of do.
John Doyle (10:08.135) Yep. Yep.
Phil (10:20.542) Yeah, we have had both of those and it is amazing how durable each of those models are. Because I don't think there's any one of those Porter Cable or Bosch ones here that's less than...
10 years old easily.
John Doyle (10:38.803) Great. Yeah, I'm trying to think. I must have got my first one more than 20 years ago, just before I had kids, so a long time ago. And it's still going strong. So.
Phil (10:49.522) Yeah.
Really cool.
Phil (10:58.602) Speaking of routers, we got...
being print text kind of folk, keep an eye on what's going on for woodworking related media and magazines and books in particular. And a new book by the Guild of Master Craftsmen called Routing. I'll put a photo and a link to it in the show notes page. It's by
I apologize for butchering the name Toyohisa Sugita, a Japanese craftsman who has written several other books that have been translated into English. One of them is on like hand tool woodworking and just came up with this one for routing and it's primarily with small compact routers. He uses all the photos in his book use a little Makita router which
I still believe Makita is an underdog tool that actually is tool company or brand or whatever you want to say that actually makes extremely well-made stuff. So I was flipping through that book the last couple of weeks since we've gotten it and it's really kind of cool because
Being from Japan, he's taking a look at routing operations from a totally different point of view than what we do in the US. Even though you think to yourself, like, it's a router, how different can you use it?
Phil (12:43.23) But I really enjoyed that perspective, I think, for the fact that...
Phil (12:55.53) They don't make the same mistakes we make in a different culture. They'll make different ones, which is fine, but it's being able to step outside of what you normally do to get a different perspective on stuff.
John Doyle (13:12.199) Having not read the book, makes me wonder, do their routers spin the other way and they're like a western pull router? We push routers and they pull them. It's like, I don't know. I'll have to read the book.
Phil (13:18.942) you
Maybe, I don't know, that could be. I do know that in Australia, I think their bits spin the other direction, but.
John Doyle (13:29.275) yeah, just because Southern Hemisphere has to.
Phil (13:36.575) I think it's like almost Christmas there now in Australia.
Phil (13:42.506) I think, I don't know.
John Doyle (13:44.664) Australian Christmas.
Phil (13:46.367) Yeah.
somebody will correct me.
Phil (13:54.322) Anyway, his books reminded me of another set of woodworking router related books that was pretty influential when I first started at Woodsmith was a guy by the name of Pat Warner lived out in California. I think he passed away like 10 years ago or something now, but he had a cool website that I wish wouldn't have gone away for all the information that he had on it, but
in our woodsmith library that if you're here for woodworking in America, you could browse, see what we have for books. Anyway, Pat Warner wrote books related to the router, getting the very best from your router. Fast, easy and accurate router jigs. Also kind of a classic and the router joinery handbook. And if you can find some of these books,
at used online or your local used bookstore or whatever. Again, you may not use everything that's in there, but it's an interesting, interesting approach to woodworking and using a router because he kind of goes nuts on making jigs. So it's very shop notes adjacent.
John Doyle (15:13.702) Yeah, I'm always amazed going through either our archive or older books like that where I feel like I've been around a long time and seen it all and there are still like little pieces of information that I can learn from or I was like, oh, I haven't seen that before and incorporate into what I'm doing. So haven't learned it all yet.
Phil (15:41.386) I also find myself relearning some of it that I'll just, you know, just pick up or flip through one of those books reminds me of something else that I had seen and go back and dig it back up. And it's like, yeah.
Phil (16:00.348) Or maybe to realize that I've adopted some things that came from like Pat Warner's books, but I just had forgotten that that's the source that it came from. it just filtered into your woodworking, you know, that you just pick either whether it's a book or like the other people that work around here, something like that, that you just see that, yeah, that's where I got that idea from. What do know?
Phil (16:31.24) Behind the scenes, most of the time, John and I, because if we've been around here so long, we try and remember where something was that we've misplaced. And either John or I remember two very distinct places where that item used to be, and it hasn't been there for years.
John Doyle (16:53.157) It's not even in the same building that we're in. It's a totally different building.
Phil (16:55.346) Yeah.
John Doyle (16:59.109) It's probably still there.
Phil (17:00.554) Probably is, yep. I still think some things that I print are in that other building across the street.
John Doyle (17:05.049) Yeah, yeah, it's just printing like crazy and they're all piling up.
Phil (17:14.996) There you go.
Phil (17:20.306) All right, second next section that I want to address today is the fact that when we're recording this episode in the back end of July here. Today is a heat advisory day in Iowa heat indices will be above 100 degrees, which I believe and also
Phil (17:47.082) People from not the Midwest are going to laugh and dismiss this, but there is a thing called corn sweat that is legit.
in the fact that in the last 30-40 years, Iowa corn farmers have been packing more corn plants per acre than they used to. And corn plants as they grow transpire water into the atmosphere, leading to an increase in the relative humidity.
Phil (18:25.968) And I know, because I've talked to people, that it just doesn't seem to make sense. Like that's just not a thing. But it is.
John Doyle (18:38.341) Corn is causing global warming. So all you people eating your corn on the cob, it's your fault. It's real. Which is coincidentally isn't David Cornsweat the new Superman actor? Is that his name?
Phil (18:41.202) you
Phil (18:54.93) Yeah, I think so. think you're right.
John Doyle (18:58.03) So he's causing the humidity in Iowa. I blame him.
Phil (18:59.966) he's cause. Right.
Anyway, as a result, trying to work in my garage shop these last couple of weeks has been a struggle.
My son and I are working on a project together and.
We've on purpose gone out at eight or a little after just because it's a little cooler in the day, so to speak, and have fans going, garage door and windows open. And it's not bad, but by the end of the night, we're both dripping with sweat and caked with sawdust.
John Doyle (19:47.044) When it's that humid, it's like jumping in a pool that's like 98 degrees where it's just not, like you can move the air all you want, but it's just not refreshing. It's just moving hot air. So, but yeah, I noticed that last week I was working on a landscaping project kind of off the east corner of our house and
Phil (19:57.418) you
John Doyle (20:14.786) My work followed the shade, how the shade kind of moved the shadow of the house. I only worked in that area. That was the only like relief I could find. Would not go into the sun. So I would be a terrible landscape or probably. So don't hire me.
Phil (20:18.633) Mm-hmm.
Phil (20:33.37) or like a really cagey landscaper and the fact that your day would be.
Phil (20:43.454) have a distinct rhythm to it as you started on one edge of the how of the property and then moved along to the other side.
John Doyle (20:51.829) I only work at night out digging holes at midnight. The shady landscaper.
Phil (20:53.48) Yeah.
Phil (21:07.986) I can see it. I can see it.
So yeah, and that kind of came back to bite me yesterday in the fact that I've had my shop windows open to help the garage stay moderate in its temperature as much as possible. But last night we had sort of a sudden unexpected storm roll through. And in one of the windows next to the bandsaw where nothing was on the window, totally dry.
The other window above my workbench where on the windowsill I have a wood bodied hand plane and a little steel like six by 12.
like little baby framing square on there got rain in on it. So hand plane got wet. The blade of the plane left a little black straight line on my windowsill. And then there's a little black line underneath where the little square was. Had to wipe those down. And then I closed the windows because you know, the horses are already out of the barn. So
John Doyle (22:19.714) Yeah, trap in all that moisture.
Phil (22:23.338) Right.
Fool me once, Mother Nature.
Phil (22:33.834) So anyway, I would like to know how other folk cope with woodworking when it's hot out. And maybe that's why woodworking is seasonal, that there's enough people that don't have conditioned shop spaces that they'll just work in the cooler months rather than when it's hot. So if you're a woodworker in the South or a place where it gets hot in the summer, I'd like to know what you do to...
keep on working. You know, do you live in a dry enough climate that you can do a evaporative swamp cooler, lots of fans, just work at night, whatever. Send me your ideas. We'll talk about them on a on a future episode. I'd love to hear it. You can send those to woodsmith at woodsmith.com as an email address or leave them on
the YouTube channel for the Shop Notes podcast and we'll read those off.
Phil (23:39.262) Side question to that, John, is when you're outside working landscaping or doing a project in the garage or something like that, are you a music listener while you work?
John Doyle (23:49.724) yes. I usually will have just music on or a baseball game, kind of playing in the background. But there's been a lot of times in the fall where I'm in the shop here on the weekends alone and like we'll have a football game on the radio. It's like, gotta wait for this play to happen before I can turn on the table saw. Okay, that's over. And I got to quick make a few cuts. So then so it's like trying to listen to something and
Phil (24:14.694) you
John Doyle (24:20.576) But yeah, it's a great time to listen to podcasts too.
Phil (24:24.509) It is.
John Doyle (24:28.546) and you're not alone.
Phil (24:28.554) So but usually you're on, you have a radio, not like a noise canceling headphones with, okay.
John Doyle (24:35.794) No, I usually have. I have my little 1980s boom box sitting on the corner of my workbench. Still has the old metal antenna that you gotta flip up and kinda adjust and yep, yep. So.
Phil (24:47.39) Yep. Steer around. Yep.
Phil (24:53.908) classic. Because normally when I'm in my shop, I don't listen to anything. And oftentimes, we'll just leave my my earplugs in my ears and just be cone of silence as I'm working away just probably because I muttered to myself enough that there's plenty of noise going on anyway. But
John Doyle (24:55.104) Yeah.
John Doyle (25:11.094) Yep.
John Doyle (25:15.413) Yeah.
So I was gonna say you're probably listening to your own internal muttering.
Phil (25:21.706) Yeah. But when my son was out with me in the shop, was, he wanted to listen to music and he had bought himself, not that long ago, one of those big like party speakers. It's like two feet high.
John Doyle (25:35.189) Yes. Yeah.
Phil (25:41.264) loves to surround himself with some sound and so he was listening to that while we were working. So that was kind of an interesting change of pace. Although I will say that he was pleasantly surprised when he called up on Spotify the radio channel or the channel was 80s classic rock or something like that and the very first song that played was Van Halen's Jump.
Phil (26:12.143) And so he was just amazed by the how awesome that music was altogether.
John Doyle (26:18.036) Heck yeah. It's classical music.
Phil (26:21.256) Right. Yeah.
John Doyle (26:22.848) Let's see, the 80s are what, 40 years ago? So that's like us in the 80s listening to 1940s music.
Phil (26:32.522) Right, like Benny Goodman's swing. Yeah.
John Doyle (26:35.336) Yeah, some jazz. Okay, this is pretty good.
Phil (26:44.522) which I cannot picture myself being 14 years old listening to something from the 40s. And just rocking out to it and just looking at my dad being like, man, these have all been bangers on the radio here. And.
John Doyle (27:01.802) Yeah.
John Doyle (27:05.184) Yeah, I can remember being the 80s and maybe listening to like late 60s, 70s music and thinking that like this is old, this is old people music. Yeah, yeah.
Phil (27:15.146) Yeah, because that's what it was on the radio. My dad was the primary driver on family car trips. So he got to control the radio dial and it was AM 1040, the oldies station, 50s, 60s and 70s. And by 70s, we met like anything after like 1972. Nope, not on there.
John Doyle (27:33.118) Yeah. Yep.
John Doyle (27:44.436) We listen to both country and Western.
Phil (27:47.114) All the music. yeah. That would have been any time we went to visit my grandparents who had a dairy farm in Wisconsin. And if it was milking time, then Country and Western Station was on and there was a lot of twang. Yeah. Not many people know that, is that secretly.
John Doyle (27:49.247) Classics from Conway Twitty and...
John Doyle (28:07.327) The dairy cows love it. They love it.
Phil (28:16.68) secretly cattle are partial to that music.
John Doyle (28:21.855) which is weird to think because of like us in the 80s, the 60s and 70s would have been like my kids thinking that early 2000s music is like classics, old music.
Phil (28:37.29) kind of breaks my brain when you put it like that on stuff. And those kinds of things come up often enough on internet memes or whatever, where it's like, when this movie came out, blah-bitty-blah, it the same age as if you were whatever random weirdo kind of thing. And it's like, nope, I can't think of that. Yep, totally different. It's new math.
John Doyle (28:38.121) So, yeah, yeah.
John Doyle (28:53.512) Right.
John Doyle (28:58.591) It's not the same.
Phil (29:11.218) Excellent segue, John, in the fact that the other thing that I wanted to talk about, because I just got in the mail today, our state fair permit pass to judge the woodworking show at the Iowa State Fair, which is in three weeks from now starting because
Both Woodsmith and one of the other woodworking magazines just down the street each contribute a judge for the woodworking events that people exhibit at at the Iowa State Fair. And it's been tons of fun to be part of that. This year, Dylan is going to go down and be one of the judges. The judging actually takes place before the fair opens, a couple of days before the fair opens.
so that when you go there, you'll be able to see how everybody did. And I always think it's tons of fun, the times that I've judged out there. And been impressed by the fact that there's that many people that are willing to show off their woodworking in a way, because I think a lot of times...
Phil (30:30.142) Woodworkers are pretty humble about what they do and a little reticent to...
Phil (30:38.792) your work out there for other people to see.
John Doyle (30:44.275) Yeah, a lot of times they're just building things and either for themselves or somebody else and kind of rebuild it and it goes on its way. But to enter into the fair, you got to have, you know, start on it well in advance, I'm sure, and have to plan for that. And always interesting to see what people come up with. I always seem to see a few woodsmith projects either.
by the adults in the cultural building or in the 4-H building. So I'm always looking out for those, see what I recognize people building. So it's pretty cool.
Phil (31:21.064) Yeah, so I would like to recommend folk out there woodworkers to find a way to show off what you do, whether it's at a woodworking club meeting when they do show and tells at their monthly meetings.
or something like a state or a county fair. Like just enter it in. If nothing else, it shows the people that come to the fair and wander through those buildings that there are just regular folk making stuff and it's really awesome. I think we sell ourselves short on a lot of our abilities and skill that we kind of take some of that stuff for granted and it's...
It's a way of showing the natural creativity that people have and being able to do that. also if you're not, if you can't or don't want to do that, at least go to a fair exhibition, whatever, and offer some support by going to see it. You know, like John said, we have the 4-H program here in Iowa, as there are in a lot of places.
And there's a lot of 4-H'ers out there that are working with either a parent or club leaders or whatever to build stuff and learn about the use of tools and the material of woodworking and whatever. to go and be able to offer some support and encouragement there is a great way to build up this.
build up the craft. But yeah, I do love going through the 4-H building and seeing all kinds of metal art and welding and electrical projects and furniture. There's a lot of people around 4-Hers that'll take like a family heirloom and refinish it, you know, and show all the have all the photos that go with it of the before and
Phil (33:19.402) the during and the after, and then they have to do a write up about their project and being able to read through some of those projects and what they all did and what they learned about and kind of in the marginalia of all of those, you'll get, you know, where they talk to some guy about, or a family member or whatever about what was the right material to use or the finish or the story behind why this piece was at grandma's house to begin with and.
Pretty cool.
John Doyle (33:52.881) Yeah, kind of in the same vein of sharing your work. I don't, it seems like people don't do it very often, but like just sharing their projects, either like Facebook or emailing us. I don't, they assume that we've just seen it all and we don't care, but it's like when somebody emails us pictures of projects they've built, especially from the magazine, it was like, we're all so excited and like passing around the photo, sharing the email and like, look what they did. They, you know, changed the finish or.
use a different kind of wood or modified it to fit kind of what they needed, but it was the same basic project. We're always really excited to see that kind of stuff too. So send it our way.
Phil (34:34.642) yeah, definitely. Right. I'd like to be able to do that more, post some of those things on our site more often, whether it's on Instagram or on our webpage, just to be able to do some of those, highlight some of those reader pictures. I also think it's kind of funny the number of people that send in photos. And I'd like to see more like John said, but that
when they do are almost apologetic about the fact that they changed something. Like, you know, you guys made years out of mahogany and that's way too expensive around here. So I made mine out of blah, blah, blah. And it's like, it looks fantastic. You did a great job. mix it up.
John Doyle (35:19.868) Yeah, I mean, even as we're building stuff for the magazine, we probably have three different opinions or four, you know, of what materials we should use or we would have done it differently the next time or, but we can only show it one way and certain things might photograph better than others. So we do it a certain way, but we're all for variation. So.
Phil (35:43.39) Yeah. And I mean, that's part of the reason that I have people come in to do tours here is to be able to see some of those projects in real life. Because, you know, we do, we have a pretty fantastic photographer to represent those project as best as we can, but it's a three dimensional object getting reproduced on paper with ink using whatever.
color correction that they need to, to match the paper, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's just something different from seeing something real as opposed to what it looks like in the magazine as much as we can do a great job with those. So then we will make choices knowing what it's going to look like on paper. And, and in real life, it's totally different. And then there's been a bunch of times where Mark will build a project, get done with it.
And then we'll be talking about it in preparation for writing the article or presenting. And he would be like, you know, knowing what he does after building it, he would have done something different or, you know, he makes sample boards of stain colors and that stain board sample colors I feel like is a woodworkers Rorschach test in the sense that
any six woodworkers looking at four different stain samples will come up with all kinds of underlying messages that each of those stain colors represent.
Phil (37:25.162) So it's just kind of funny.
John Doyle (37:25.701) Yeah, was gonna say the other reason it's nice to have people in looking at like seeing the stuff in real life. It's like, Mark will spend a week or two and thousands of dollars in materials building projects and then it gets two photographs and then that's it. So it's like, come look at this everyone. We need to get some more use out of this.
Phil (37:43.678) Yeah.
Phil (37:51.112) Yeah. So we've been stockpiling some projects getting ready for Woodworking in America. And part of the event is again, doing an open house here at the mothership where you'll be able to see the video studio where I am right now, where we filmed the TV show and all of our YouTube videos. And then also our photo studio where we shoot photos for all the projects and the main workshop where they're all built.
You get to talk with the designers like John and Dylan and Chris and chat with editors and illustrators and see Mark in person as opposed to the lives that we do on YouTube and then seeing all the projects. We keep a bunch of them here. You can see some over my shoulder in the permanent collection, so to speak.
ones that we want to show off, ones that we're holding for the TV show. You can see the difference in how stuff gets built for the show versus how stuff gets built for the magazine.
and which of us care more?
John Doyle (38:57.049) Well, part of it's just being under the gun for time.
Phil (39:02.6) Yeah.
Yeah, so all of that.
So there you are. Support your local woodworkers by showing off your work and going to a county fair. Get yourself a corn dog. Have some food on a stick. Get corn sweaty.
John Doyle (39:22.467) Get corn sweaty.
Phil (39:28.424) and then sign up for Woodworking in America. Circle it all up.
it right back.
All right, that runs through my list, John. What are you working on right now?
John Doyle (39:41.401) today I am doing reader's tips for photography. it's basically lock me in the corner of the shop with a sheet of Baltic birch, sheet of pegboard, some duct tape, bailing wire, threaded inserts, and let me go nuts. building all the props and kind of winging it from there. So that is.
Phil (39:54.602) you
John Doyle (40:09.08) what I'm currently working on today, but the other interesting thing is we do from time to time a lot of in-shop notes, one wall workshops, which is like basically taking 20 feet of wall, one wall space and coming up with some sort of all encompassing shop. So kind of what would you, you would put maybe on the back wall of a garage or
you know, basement utility room. I think the last one we did was 2016 now. And that's been yeah, I looked it up. That's the one that we have in the photo studio. But it's time to do another one. And we want to do an online ed class kind of around that. But it's been so I've been working on the work benches for that.
Phil (40:46.302) Was it that long ago?
Phil (40:53.514) she is.
John Doyle (41:07.833) project, but I don't know if we've done this before and we've kind of pressed for time. So I'm working on work benches. Dylan's working on some modular storage. Chris is working on wall storage, I believe, for that. And it's kind of like, OK, everybody come up with your own thing, and then we'll come back together and see where we're at and kind of see if we can make a cohesive project out of it. So that's been interesting as far as.
a team effort. Usually we kind of just do our own things and come up with things on our own. So still in the middle of that process. So we'll see how goes, I guess.
Phil (41:52.018) Okay. Yeah, it's been fun to see and I kind of blows me away that that one's been sitting there for that long.
Phil (42:04.596) Yeah, those one-wall workshops have been pretty popular as magazine projects and plans as a way to figure out a way to build out, well, turn any blank space really into a workshop and what would be the basic elements that you'd want to put in there. How can you customize it? All that kind of stuff.
On our show notes page, I'll put a link to several of the plans that we have on Woodsmith plans that have featured previous versions of one wall workshops that we have. That'll be cool. And yes, it is a delight to watch John have like a woodworking jam session with our readers.
It's like woodworking jazz, really. Readers will send in tip ideas along with photos of what they've done. And John takes that melody, flips it around.
and comes out with a whole new riff and puts it out there. it's, but like you said, it is also like a woodworking escape room where you got to get yourself out.
to see how it works.
Phil (43:26.036) which brings up something. We had a tour guy, a guy come through for a tour last week and was looking around. He and his wife were here looking at all the different projects or whatever. And he brought up the question that I know has been asked a bazillion times, but I would, I think it's worthwhile here. He'll say, why do you build everything out of Baltic birch plywood? When A.
It's super expensive. Two, you can't find it in my ex area of the country. And C, it's super expensive.
John Doyle (44:09.717) It's an addiction.
hard habit to kick.
Phil (44:16.397) I mean the main reason I would say
for probably 75 % of the uses that we show Baltic Birch Inn, you could substitute any other sheet material on.
and be totally fine with it.
There are a few times where we're using Baltic birch for a structural, aesthetic, functional reason.
that if you were to switch out to a different material, you would need to know that going into it, that you are making a little bit of a compromise with it. So I think the primary reason that we use Baltic Birch is for how it looks on camera, both in photos and video.
John Doyle (45:17.451) Yeah, I would say, yeah, the way it looks on camera and the just from the fact that it doesn't have any voids in it. So the edges look really good and you don't have to do any filling or covering or anything as far as edges. So it's a big time saver there when it comes to photography. So, but yeah, mostly cause it looks good.
Phil (45:34.654) Yeah, that's true.
Phil (45:40.458) Yeah. I mean, because without being too precious about the stuff that we do, the photos serve an inspirational purpose for readers and viewers and people online. I think that we want the project itself to stand out rather than being distracted by
like you said, some crazy flaw that appears when you cut a sheet apart, where it looks great when you're pulling it off the truck, but then when as soon as you cut it open, all of a sudden there's like vastly different colors in there, a void or something like that, yeah.
John Doyle (46:25.578) Yeah. But yeah, most of the like, jigs and templates and stuff that we make out of Baltic birch, a lot of times like readers tips will get sent in it's three or four different types of plow, whatever they had laying around. And that's totally fine. But it would just be really distracting. photo wise, if we did that in the magazine. And so we're trying to make it look as good as possible. And like you said, kind of aspirational and
Kind of showing off, a little flex, I guess.
Phil (46:56.168) Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, a lot of times the...
Reader's tips are relatively small things too. So it's like a good use of Baltic birch scrap pieces that we have here. It's not like you're taking a big four by eight sheet of Baltic birch and cutting it up into a you know, two drill cordless drill holder with a tape measure rack on it. know, it's all, it's all the trimmings from,
from other projects.
John Doyle (47:32.786) I do have a habit of saving all of the little Baltic birch scraps for such things.
Phil (47:41.401) yeah, no, I do that too.
John Doyle (47:42.198) I'm just a little Baltic Birch Vulture, you know.
Phil (47:45.525) Ha ha.
Phil (47:49.992) Yeah, I have a couple of hoarded pieces of it that I keep here and then also find some little pieces that I take home and use them for shop jigs or templates or whatever. it's because it's just so nice, just smooth, flat, consistent.
Phil (48:16.008) Maybe it's like the smell of rydonium that I just love the smell of Baltic birch when you're cutting into it. It's just...
Phil (48:32.094) just love the smell of rydonium in the morning that's it for another episode of the shop notes podcast if you have any questions comments or remarks you can leave them on the youtube video in the comments section where you're watching this youtube dot com slash shop notes podcast you can also send us an email wood smith at wood smith dot com
Thank you to everybody who listens, writes in, sends us comments and letters, comes in for tours, or goes to support your local 4-H-er building projects out of wood. We'll see you next time, everybody. Bye.
