The Workshop Domino Effect
The theme for this episode of the podcast turned out to be shop projects. Several of John's recent projects are shop related. Logan is nearly done with his new workbench. And I wrapped up a small toolbox.
A thread connecting all of these is how they cause (or a caused by) a domino effect that turns out to be pretty common. The universal truth is that a workshop is never truly complete. When we launched the podcast way back in 2020 (it's mid 2025, as I write this) Logan was about to lauch his shop's construction. He thought it would be over in less than a year — it's still not done.
His workbench offers an example of why. His previous bench had an open base with limited storage (and lots of clutter). The new bench has a bank of drawers and a couple doored compartments. That additional storage and organization changes what and where he can keep tools. That inspired a new tool storage system directly behind his bench. Is it a hutch like Norm's or a shop credenza? I can't wait to see. This piece will hold even more tools, collecting some from other corners of his shop. You see how that opens up other spaces. Don't forget his comments on moving or repositioning his dust collector and the need to find a permanent parking place for the Pantorouter cart.
Here in the shop for the Woodsmith Shop set, we're adding a sliding table to our table saw. That means we need to reconfigure the outfeed table that came with the saw. The idea is to build a new outfeed table that accounts for the slider, adds storage, and looks good on camera (a strange, but necessary point).
Discussion Question:
This leads to my question, what shop upgrades would you like to make? And what dominos does that project lead to?
Elsewhere in this Episode
I mentioned a carving tool box that I recently completed. Trouble is, I glued it up without installing the bottom for the upper compartment. I did come up with a solution.
Fun fact: A listener made a comment about wanting to build a Tage Frid-inspired "hobelbank." Turns out he's referring to Tage's workbench. Hobelbank being German for planing bench.
John is part of an upcoming elearning course on setting up a woodworking shop. As part of the course, he's designing a workbench. The plan will be part of a larger One-Wall Workshop suite that will debut later this year. We've featured several of these over the years and the plans are pretty popular.
Here's a look at Logan's new bench as it stands now. Plans for that one will appear in an upcoming PopWood issue.
Episode Transcript Follow along here for specific information. And to see how awkward a spoken word conversation looks as text.
Phil (01:39.016) Hey everybody, it's the ShopNotes podcast. That's right. Time again for another check in with me. I'm your host, Phil Huber, along with John Doyle and Logan Whitmer today. It's episode number 241. We did it. Made it all the way here. You can check all of our past episodes and the show notes pages over at woodsmith.com slash podcasts.
Thanks for everybody who's listening and also for people who subscribe to Woodsmith, ShopNotes, or Popular Woodworking Magazine. It's your support that makes this all possible. On today's episode, we're going to get a couple of check-ins and it's high summer. With all the associated things that go along with it. We'll also get a report from Logan on his recent trip to Las Vegas. That's right, Las Vegas in summer.
Why not? We'll get things started here with a special word from our sponsor. This episode of the Shop Notes podcast is brought to you by Harvey Industries. Good enough is not good enough. See all of our new tools at harveywoodworking.com.
All right. The last time we did a podcast, John and I did a little check in here. So we're going to just read off a few comments and then give us an opportunity for Logan to check in too. Steven Ferguson writes, you hit a lot of check marks on this one. Corn sweat field of dreams has a good visual with the fog hanging above the corn. That's true.
Radio in the shop, I'm so glad Dubuque has a station keying on the 80s to overcome the voices in my head. 4H, so cool you guys helped judge. I grew up in 4H and my son even tried his hand at a woodworking project when he was of age. Heat index, even with a fan, I'm stopping when I'm raising more grain than I'm removing because of sweat falling on the project.
Phil (04:14.034) which I remember working on a desktop project and was two layers of plywood, did solid wood breadboard ends on it and I was getting ready to put stain on it and I had some sweat drip onto the wood. One bead, didn't realize it until I was putting stain on and because
It's even an oil-based stain. And that spot is now permanently darker on the project. Super, super irritating.
Phil (04:58.12) James Scottingham, 2205 says, we're having those same heat warnings here in Southside, Virginia, 110 plus. My workshop is a shed, no heating, no cooling. I tend to burn up fans in the summer. So a couple of years ago, I finally broke down and bought an industrial fan that was on sale at Home Depot. It has three speeds, but all three seem like the same speed. However, it does work. For the winter, I bought a infrared wall mounted patio heater.
It's supposed to cover a whopping 18 square feet. That's about the size of my workspace in the shed. I've yet to stay in the shed long enough in the winter to see how well it works.
Puppy Doc says, wow, guilted into subscribing as soon as I was called out. Yeah, that's right.
Logan Wittmer (05:48.641) I mean...
John Doyle (05:51.114) We're gonna go back through the old pages subscriber list and call each person out by name to get them over to the new shop notes channel.
Phil (05:59.102) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (06:01.017) All 17 of those names.
John Doyle (06:03.162) Right. Don't make us do it.
Phil (06:04.082) Right. Yeah. Especially, sauna man. Don't remember. Harold. There you go. Yeah. Is that what it is? Okay. Yep. Seems right. Because he's frankly the whole reason why we have, we keep track of the time that we're recording on here is to make sure that we get. Yeah. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (06:12.493) Yeah. Harold. Yep.
John Doyle (06:12.671) Harold. Harold McDonald.
I think so. He had a farm.
Logan Wittmer (06:28.548) Gotta get you the sauna.
Phil (06:32.948) John Vogt says, here in Maine, Portland, we have basements. The outside temperatures can vary from 10 to 35 degrees in the winter to 60 to 88 in the summer. I decided to place my shop in the basement rather than the garage. The basement isn't heated or air conditioned. The temperature varies from 66 in the winter to 73 in the summer. The EMC varies from seven to eight in winter to 12 to 13 in the summer.
This hybrid shop is 14 by 25 and can store about 800 board feet of mostly cherry, walnut, ash, poplar, sapele, and hard maple. You know, like all the domestics. That way the wood is ready to use. Wood movement here in Maine is important to be aware of, so all pieces need to allow for the fairly wide range of EMC. For example, a 24 inch wide coffee tabletop will vary by a quarter of an inch from winter to summer.
joinery is adjusted for this.
a couple more from PuppyDoc here. In the last episode, Logan mentioned moving his dust collector out of the shop. A couple months ago, I upgraded to a Oneida Supercell, which I think is what you have, right, Logan?
Logan Wittmer (07:48.767) No, well I did. I have the Gorilla, Smart Gorilla Pro now. But I'm pretty sure Bob had asked me about the Oneida and I was like, that's the one I would get for his shot for sure.
Phil (07:54.464) OK.
Phil (08:01.874) Okay. And he absolutely loves it except for one major flaw. It really puts out some serious heat in the shop. His shop is big enough that it may not be noticeable, but in my tiny 8 by 18 shop, it's awful and the window AC just can't keep up. I'm in the process of moving it into the attached garage and ducting through a door, but it's been too dang hot here to do anything in the garage. need AC in the garage. He also said interesting facts.
A study was done several years ago to evaluate what kind of music stimulates the best milk production in dairy cattle.
Classical music, Bach, Mozart, etc. produced best results followed by country and western, both kinds of music. Apparently the losses were pretty dramatic when heavy metal or acid rock was played.
John Doyle (08:49.724) both kinds.
Logan Wittmer (08:56.953) Would just like to know what the business proposition was like what was your plan? What was your proposal going into that saying? Hey, I want to do a study You see these 65 dairy cows. I want to split them up punk rock over here Gangster rap over here Mozart in the back, which one gives us the most milk
Phil (09:15.86) Mm-hmm.
Phil (09:20.488) Yep. And go.
Logan Wittmer (09:25.772) Bad enough that somebody funded that. Come on.
Phil (09:28.06) Yeah, Paul Wheeler's.
John Doyle (09:29.224) I think we need to try K-pop next. That's kind of a new Korean pop music. I think there's some milk production to be had there.
Phil (09:33.14) that's true.
Phil (09:41.18) Right. But then I feel like you'd have to go head to head with like, I don't know, like 80s, 90s boy bands then, like just to have like a control on that. Right.
John Doyle (09:52.197) Yes.
Phil (09:58.91) Paul Wheeler says, for anyone who watched or grew up on the New Yankee Workshop, Norm had a drawer full of routers set up to do any task. That is where it was engraved into the psyche that you could not have too many. He lives in Nebraska, same weather issue, true story. Then Larry Atha says, I have seven routers, one old Ryobi, one Bosch 1617EVS in a Bosch router table.
Porter Cable 690 with a plunge base, I keep four Makita RT-0701C trim routers, two with plunge bases, two with regular bases, each set up for a particular cut and a bit with or without bushings to be used in a particular jig. I'd like to have a few more. All right. I live in North Alabama where it's hot, and my 250 square foot shop has a window air conditioner.
but I don't like to get bitten by mosquitoes on the way to the shop in the evenings, 15 feet from the back door, PS. So I stay in the house and work on designs on the drafting board in July and August frequently. I've also been ordering all the hardware and tools needed to make a Tay-Frid inspired Scandinavian hobble bank.
Phil (11:21.478) Note to self, Google hobble bank after this episode.
Logan Wittmer (11:23.959) That's it.
John Doyle (11:27.279) Ikea translator here.
Phil (11:29.64) Yeah.
Phil (11:33.214) All right. As always, we appreciate your questions, comments, and smart remarks because it gives us ideas of what you want to hear about and to answer the poll questions that we frequently have in here as part of the podcast. So I think we'll kick things off. Logan, you were in Vegas. Was that like a week ago, week and a half ago now?
Logan Wittmer (11:57.111) Almost two weeks ago, yeah. Yep. And I will say, believe it or not, it was nicer in Las Vegas than it was in Des Moines, weather-wise. It was a high of like 98, 99 every day, 1 % humidity, and it felt wonderful. Like, in the shade, it was, I wouldn't say cool, but you could stand out there without sweating.
Phil (11:59.508) Yeah.
Phil (12:10.804) All right.
Logan Wittmer (12:27.159) In the sun, you were sweating, but you didn't know you were sweating? Because it evaporates so fast. Yes, yeah. But like, yeah, it was wonderful. So, yep, did the AWFS show. Met a lot of, it's funny we were talking, so there was a lot of us there.
Phil (12:32.724) Boils off
Phil (12:39.24) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (12:47.135) Myself, Ben Strano and Amanda Russell from Fine Woodworking. couple of our ad guys. Some of our coworkers from Woodshop News were there. And we all kind of said the same thing. It felt like this year there was a lot more hobbyists there than there was in the past. I don't think that's necessarily an accurate statement. I think that there was a lot less.
business consumers there than in the past. So there was a lot fewer professionals, so the hobbyists stood out more. So I met a lot of people. I got stopped by a of people who said, hey, I love your podcast or love the TV show. And I'm like, you need a friend, sir. But.
Yeah, it was cool. Nothing super crazy, nothing groundbreaking at the show necessarily. There were some new tools. Shapr Origin. So, Shapr now has a...
See a doc for their origin CNC router that Makes it hands-free so the the hands held the handheld CNC router is no longer handheld if you don't want it to be Which is actually really cool. I called that a year ago. I was like hey, you know be really cool They're like yeah, we couldn't speak about that if that was a thing. I was like gotcha. I know So that was pretty cool
Harvey was there they had so there's a couple of cool things there. There's there's a few things I appreciate I feel like got over
Logan Wittmer (14:30.95) Shadowed by some of the Harvey things So the Harvey crew had their a15 bandsaw, which is available. It was released when I was in China. It is a Digitally controlled bandsaw. So there's a touchscreen on it. You can change speeds. It reads out tension Table angle all everything like that
So that was there, that was getting quite a bit of attention, but what was getting maybe more attention was two new products from them. One of which is called their Baby Gyro. So their Gyro Air dust collectors are kind of like the horizontal style. Their Baby Gyro is more of like a dust extractor. It can suck or blow, so you can use it as like a shot blower to dust and stuff.
That one's pretty cool. I think that will be out sooner than the other one. The other one they announced there, and they had talked about it when I was in China, is a self-aligning drill press. So think of a drill press where the entire quill moves to where your mark is made.
So you mark your work piece where you need your hole and there's like 30 some sensors on this thing. It looks, sees your mark and it moves the center point of the quill to your hole location. Within reason. mean you can't step it five inches at a time. But you get it within an inch, it's gonna find it and go. So that was getting a lot of attention. Take that out.
that like moving quill out of it, it seems like a really, really nicely made drill press. Like it's super heavy. The table is freaking massive and it is nickel plated. So, and the table's motorized. So you can push a button and the table goes up and down, which is kind of nice. But.
Logan Wittmer (16:37.2) On the Bridge City side, they had prototypes there of two different tools, one of which is a spokeshave designed by a well-known chair maker. I don't know if it's technically announced, so I don't wanna say a name, but then another one is a pair of side rabbit planes, or edge-trimming planes, which were pretty cool.
What else did I see there that was considered new? Those were the two big ones. SawStop has a new fence for their table saws. It is an upgrade option. So as you are ordering your saw, you can upgrade to the fence.
It is a direct replacement for the current fence. So like if you want to order their new style fence, you can just take your Beesmire style fence off and put this new fence on there. Has an aluminum face on it with quick release clamps on it. So you can quickly go from high to low fence on it. Yep.
Phil (17:45.12) that's cool.
Logan Wittmer (17:50.974) think if there was anything else that was super crazy. There was a lot of newer things that were kind of like what I would consider industrial-ish. A company called Apollo Sprayers, Apollo Spray Systems, they won one of the Innovation Awards for a...
spray gun, so think of like a Fuji spray system or a standard HVLP gun, but this gun that they released can be ran HVLP with one of their turbine sprayers, or inside there's a fitting where you could run it standard high pressure off of air compressor, which is kind of cool. Usually a gun is either compressor or HVLP. This one is dual, which is kind of cool.
Oneida had a few, speaking of, we were talking about Bob's Oneida Supercell, they had a few prototypes there of their version of the dust extractor, kind of built off their dust deputy cyclone.
kit that people can buy but think of like a little 30 gallon drum with the Dust Deputy already installed on top with a motor so it's kind of like a mini cyclone dust collector dust shop back which is pretty cool so yeah it was a good show overall traffic was was pretty light i don't know if economy's coming into that at all or not but it was still a good show to go walk around
Phil (19:27.228) Okay. So, I mean, you mentioned the fact that in the past, there've been a bunch of business slash industrial folk there. Is that more like larger shops or small medium kind of places? Cause I know IW, okay. Cause like IWF in Atlanta definitely gears large shops.
Logan Wittmer (19:48.186) I would say larger shops.
John Doyle (19:50.083) Peace.
John Doyle (19:53.942) Thank
Logan Wittmer (19:54.308) It does, yes. Yeah, yeah, that definitely is a large shop deal in Atlanta. AWFS in Vegas is quite a bit smaller. Definitely smaller scale as well, but yeah.
Phil (20:14.035) Okay.
Cool. And then did you do another article out there too?
Logan Wittmer (20:22.194) Yeah, I shot an article with Mr. Clues, Mr. Jimmy Clues on... So Jimmy has... Jimmy's been in the woodturning world for...
such a long time, made his living demonstrating. And part of that he's written for a lot of different publications, written for Fine Woodworking, obviously writes for me, has written for the AAW Magazine in the past. The one that we ended up shooting, so what I'm getting at is...
He's at the point where turning just a live edge bowl, it's an interesting technique to show, but it's kind of old news. So he's looking for different things to do. So we did a carved, I don't know where this idea came from, but he was cutting some bowl blanks I sent down to him and he was making them a little smaller. So I think I had sent him some like 20 some inch ash bowl blanks and he cut them to smaller blanks and
cutting them into the smaller blanks, he ended up with this tapered curved offcut that looked like a horn, right? So we ended up, ended up, had a couple of them already done, and I think I took a picture of one last time I was down there, because I thought they were kind of cool, where you take the ash offcut, you do a lot of power carving on it with a, like a Fordham or a,
Arbor Tech power carver and you are basically shaping this offcut into the likeness of like a bull's horn Okay, and then the what would be the socket that would attach to the head has a recessed Birch
Phil (22:05.127) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (22:13.745) box in it with a pewter rim and a colored top. it's kind of this horn with a box in the end. So it's kind of this ornamental style piece, decorative piece, which is kind of cool. It's a way to show different...
applications of turning that's not just turning a bowl or turning a spoon or turning a handle, you know, it's like, hey, you can do a little power carving, make this as a stand for a turn piece, you know, whatever. So yeah, so it'd be pretty cool. And then I, I hung out for a day and did a little bit of turning in my own. So that was fun. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Phil (22:57.14) Cool. Love it.
Logan Wittmer (23:02.222) We call that professional development.
Phil (23:09.076) to fulfill your continuing education credits.
Logan Wittmer (23:11.696) That's right.
Phil (23:15.336) John, how about you? What's your update?
John Doyle (23:18.002) I think we talked about it a little bit last time that Chris and Dylan and I were kind of teaming up to design a new one wall workshop for shop notes and an online education. And we just started filming that this week. So did a little bit of the preliminary introduction and just general talking about
setting up shop and that particular project and getting into the building here next week. And so we got that going on. And I don't know if people know this, but lot of times, like usually the TV show stuff that we film, the projects from those are from projects in the past, maybe the last couple of years or even farther back that have already been published and vetted and
and things like that. this is kind of interesting that we're mid kind of towards the end of the design and building it before it's been in the magazine. So that's been interesting. And then we also in the past week or so laid out projects for season 20, which we'll start filming here probably end of October, November, and decided that episode one will be a
outfeed table for our shop because we need one. So that's another thing that needs to be designed before we get into TV show season. So starting to work on that too. So
Phil (25:00.37) Yep. I you got to get into shape for TV show season. We got to start with like with the two a days or something coming up here.
John Doyle (25:04.456) Right, Yeah, you definitely have to build up to that. So you can't just go in, you know, cold turkey.
Logan Wittmer (25:07.15) Yeah.
Phil (25:10.44) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (25:13.424) I'm going in, raw dog. You guys are gonna see me puking in the corner. Am I puking in the corner?
John Doyle (25:19.639) Yeah. Yeah. That's another way to do it.
Phil (25:22.324) plenty of water to stay hydrated.
Logan Wittmer (25:24.079) Yep. Yep.
Phil (25:27.828) you
John Doyle (25:29.696) I don't know.
Phil (25:30.42) So definitely a lot of shop projects that have been on your queue recently.
John Doyle (25:35.88) Yes, yeah, and I enjoy those, so they're fun. It's usually stuff we need around here anyway, so the inspiration, you know, is not too hard to come up with something because it's not just coming out of the blue. It's stuff we need either in our own shops or in the video studio shop or whatnot, so.
Phil (25:58.706) Yeah, because they're out. Go ahead.
Logan Wittmer (25:58.768) You know something, oh, go ahead. I was thinking about this outfeed table because this is something that's been on my list to build here for the shop because I have just got rid of my old workbench, new workbenches in place. That's the next shop project here. The one thing that I didn't realize that I really appreciate about the Grizzly table saw that we have is that the dust port is on the side of the saw.
Because that is a royal pain with the SawStop is that it's on the back right where you want to mount an outfeed table So that's been something I've been trying to like figure out how do I dance around that because I have to get a hose in there
John Doyle (26:37.299) Yeah.
John Doyle (26:45.021) I like that's pretty, I'm trying to think of a saw that we have that it doesn't come out the back other than the Grizzly. That seems to be kind of the standard mode of operation is come out the back and then yeah, you're either trying to go through the outfeed table with the duct work or take a quick right turn and avoid it. So yeah, that is nice with the Grizzly, but yeah, definitely something to consider with most other people's saws too.
Phil (27:13.672) Yeah. Cause I mean, it's almost like a dryer, a clothes dryer where you have this, this port on the backside, which you occasionally yet regularly need access to for cleaning or general maintenance or whatever. Yeah. All of that kind of stuff. then like you said, John, if you put a right angle immediately after that, like that is a
Logan Wittmer (27:18.189) Yeah. Yeah.
John Doyle (27:18.761) Yes.
John Doyle (27:27.743) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (27:31.64) Drop nuts.
Phil (27:42.1) great way to kill the airflow from your dust collector.
But what's the solution then? Like a slow turn, but then that takes up a lot more space that you end up having to build basically like a Minecraft tunnel through your outfeed table in order for it to work that way. What I'm kind of excited about to see is, you know, we've been talking about what we want to do with the one for the TV show set for the outfeed table.
which feels like both in appearance and function is going to be very different from what Logan's going to be doing on his outfeed table, even though they're both kind of the same thing. So it's just really interesting to be able to have that.
Phil (28:38.964) I don't know how to say it. Like just what the needs of the space are and what the needs of the shop is on it. Cause I think Logan's is probably, if I'm remembering right, yours is probably gonna be longer out from the back of the saw. Whereas the one I think John's looking at is wider and not as deep.
Part of it is that we're also upgrading our saw in the shop with the sliding table attachment. So that's driving some of this as well, that we want to be able to provide clearance for that. Since we have a grizzly saw, we're using the grizzly sliding table attachment on it. But I think you put a slider on your saw, right, Logan?
Logan Wittmer (29:28.505) yeah, I did.
And it's funny, I was actually picking the Harvey guy's brains while I was in their booth a couple weeks ago. Yeah, I have the Harvey slider on mine. Initially I bought it to go on the Shaper, but I really, really like it on the table saw. And I don't really feel like I should spend another $1,200 on another one, so it might just stay on the table saw. But I installed it with the cast iron wing in place.
Whereas most of them you install it with a cast iron wing taken off So then the fence is a little bit closer the sliding is a little bit closer to the saw or to the blade but then you have to Push the Table saw rails on my big eye fence off the end of the table which you know I'm sitting I'm sitting in here looking at out the door right now I think I have room to do that
So, you know, I'm trying to figure that all out and you do have to take into account that the sliding table goes past the saw. So if you're designing an outfeed table, you have to take that into account or else you're going be running into it. So.
Phil (30:42.236) Yeah. Which to a certain extent, you have to account for that with an outfeed table without a sliding table, because then you got to plow. You're either setting it deliberately low or you're plowing grooves into it for miter gauges, table saw sleds, that kind of thing too. But I think with the sliding table, you're definitely making more structural changes as to where it's.
where its geographical position is going to end up being.
Phil (31:21.522) All right, cool.
All right, now you've alluded to it, Logan. You have your new workbench. What's the update there?
Logan Wittmer (31:30.157) Yep. I don't remember where we last left it, but it is to the point where I have doors not quite glued up. The only thing left to do is drawers. So bench is done. I put the molding. I've been doing a lot of hand tool work on this workbench. Like...
Like all the beads were all done with a molding plane. Every surface on the workbench is all a hand plane finish. Nothing is sanded. All the rabbets are cut with a rabbet plane. For no reason other than this is air dried cherry and just works wonderfully. And it's nice having like, I got this.
I have a hovarter tail vise in it. So it's quick release tail vise. It is wonderful to use. Like I have been limping along with a, kind of...
half-butted attempt of a tail vise on my last bench and it didn't work real well and now I'm like, this is lovely, this is really nice. So yeah, it's pretty much done. do need to, the top is not attached currently because I need to flip the top over and hog out a little bit material where this pattern maker vise is gonna go. But I think by the end of Friday I should have everything construction-wise done on the bench.
be left to do is to install the pattern microvice. Yeah, and I've been super happy with it. It feels a little bit taller. It's not smaller than my old bench. I thought it was gonna be a little smaller. It's not. It's about the same size. It feels a lot more usable though, because instead of just being an open bass, there is four drawers, there is...
Logan Wittmer (33:26.592) doors and a cabinet. It feels a little bit taller. I don't think it is, but it does feel a little bit taller.
But my old workbench top was a bowling alley lane that was on top of two layers of plywood and the entire thing had all thread through it to kind of hold it in tension. Definitely had a sag in it. I can notice the flatness in this bench. super, super happy with it.
Phil (33:59.124) So speaking of hand tools, how exactly did you flatten that workbench?
Logan Wittmer (34:03.564) the CNC flap slatner. Yeah, so I took the top over to Bobby Three Fingers, we ran it through his slap slatner. You know what, I got, got, I got mouths to feed, Phil. man. I'll tell you what though, that top is heavy. So, it's not as, it is not as heavy as my old workbench top though.
John Doyle (34:07.615) you
Phil (34:17.373) you
Logan Wittmer (34:33.451) A guy and his son came last night to pick up my old workbench. just put it on Facebook for free. I'm like, somebody come get it. Like, you can have it if you can come get it. And these guys showed up to get it and oh my god, I forgot how heavy that top was. That old top was so heavy. This one's definitely not that heavy. but yeah. So.
Phil (34:59.732) Awesome. Well, it's nice that you got the other one out.
Logan Wittmer (35:00.745) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because it was taking up so much room. Like, I couldn't use the slider on my table saw because I was bumping into the top because it was standing on edge at the end of the table saw. So, yeah.
Now, the next big shop project, my wife's like, all right, you need to be done with shop projects for a while. Like we have a laundry list of projects that need done around the house for like building projects. Like I need to build a mailbox and she wants a couple of like lounge chairs for the living room up here and stuff. But I have the outfeed table. The next thing's gonna be kind of a matching tool cabinet, but I'm thinking I don't wanna do like a tool cabinet.
like a hanging one, I wanna do more like a tool hutch, kinda a la norm or, Rob Cosman has kind of one where it's like more of like a counter and a tool wall behind him. I kinda wanna do that style where I have storage behind me with open tool, but like thought out, every tool has a place type thing.
Phil (36:11.633) Yeah, So it's.
Logan Wittmer (36:12.618) I will probably do doors.
Phil (36:15.676) So if you were to compare it to say a home office, it's kind of like a credenza where you have like your workbenches, your desk where the stuff all happens, but then you keep kind of the necessaries, first order of retrievability kind of thing behind you.
Logan Wittmer (36:23.207) Yes, kind of.
Logan Wittmer (36:31.359) Yeah. Exactly. To quote Adam Savage. Yep. you turn it like, I want to be able to have like a cabinet that has my chargers in it, where it's like, all the batteries are plugged in in the cabinet. The router bits and stuff will stay over by the router. But like, I want all the tools to have a place. Knowing full well that...
I just gained a lot of storage in this workbench. So that's another thing that I gotta figure out. There's four drawers. They're five and a half inches deep, 26 inches wide and 22 inches deep, guess. So they're five and a half tall. So like there's a lot of real estate there. So I'm gonna probably end up doing some sliding trays in them for like carving tools and stuff like that. But yeah, we'll see.
Phil (37:27.196) Okay. It's interesting to me, because we were talking about this with the one wall workshop that we're replacing in our photo studio here that John's been talking about is how there's a domino element here in the sense that all you quote unquote, all you did was build a new workbench. However,
It's pushing over a domino that like reconfigures both what your capacity is for tool organization. And then all of a sudden a bunch of other stuff falls over and now you're building a workshop credenza, which is going to change a bunch of other stuff too down the road.
John Doyle (37:53.399) you
Logan Wittmer (38:09.802) Well, that's like, feel like that's been the entire story of this shop where it's like, know, I know I can see where I want to go and it's out there a ways. So it's just like knock, like you said, knock one domino over at a time. It's like, okay, once this is done, here's the things that that changes. And now this is what I can do for that. You know, we talked about moving my dust collector. I think I've decided I'm gonna hoist it to the ceiling.
Phil (38:17.875) Right.
Phil (38:37.214) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (38:37.545) because the Oneida guy said I can, there's an 18 inch.
What do call it? It's like air silencer on it. So it's basically a baffle that just has foam on the inside. you take that off if you want. So I gained another 18 inches of head space. So like it's all of these types of things where it's like, okay, hoist that up. I have room for the metal lathe now. So then that opens up the space between the band saws for actually some wood storage, which would be kind of nice. My head is coming from or for the MOAC joiner. So that can get replaced. And then the other jointer
can go out. So like there's all these like things that are moving tiny little projects but they're all the domino analogy is a really good one where it's like one domino has to fall for another one to go.
Phil (39:26.888) But along with that, feel like we've learned with this outfeed table for the Grizzly table saw, because right now as it stands, and a lot of table saws come this way, is side support outfeed table. They're really just tables. Sometimes there's a shelf underneath it, which I get from a manufacturing standpoint, but from a livability in your shop standpoint, it's
John Doyle (39:39.513) Peace.
Phil (39:55.016) they turn into kind of clutter collectors and catch-alls. So we've talked about replacing those with something else, but it's like, you almost don't know what you need until you've lived with it for a while either. Like, I don't think you could have gotten where your shop is now when we first started talking about your shop.
Logan Wittmer (40:15.974) No. Well, because I think you have to get in the space and live in it, right? Like the best laid plans only work until you actually start doing them. So, yeah, mean, stuff evolves, stuff changes, so just roll with it.
Phil (40:38.92) Well, and you've changed as a woodworker too, in response to it.
Logan Wittmer (40:41.459) yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Logan Wittmer (40:50.248) I still don't know where I'm gonna put the panto router though. That's the thing that, that's the thing that I'm like, I don't know where that goes. Cause I use the damn thing all the time. So it's like, I want it, like, I want it to have its own workbench that's always set up, but I can't do that. Cause I gotta move cameras around. So that's the thing I just, I'm like, where does this thing go?
Phil (40:50.516) I feel like.
John Doyle (40:52.93) You
Phil (40:53.106) Right?
John Doyle (41:14.422) Yeah. You got all that space above you should have it like on a winch where just like lowers down and then just like, but it exists above you.
Phil (41:19.697) Hahaha.
Logan Wittmer (41:19.854) I know. Nah. Yeah. Like my topper lift on the other side of the shop.
John Doyle (41:26.954) Yeah.
Phil (41:28.328) Mm-hmm. Yep, like that.
Maybe your outfeed table just has a gigantic flip top on it that you just roll it over and there's the.
Logan Wittmer (41:36.923) Yes! Yup.
Yeah.
Phil (41:46.344) Yeah, I can see that because it just, everything turns into a tile puzzle at that point, because it's like, you know, like it's on a cart. So you think to yourself, it's on a cart. Perfect. I can put it wherever I want. No, there's only a few parking spots available in that shop.
Logan Wittmer (41:51.504) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (42:00.613) Yeah. If I got rid of... Yeah, that's true. If I got rid of a couple ways, maybe we wouldn't have an issue,
John Doyle (42:01.912) So then you're always wheeling it around. You're always pushing it from one place to another.
John Doyle (42:12.737) Let's not do that. That's crazy talk.
Logan Wittmer (42:13.243) I'm not here for that. No, I'm not here for that. No. Yeah.
Phil (42:15.784) you
Phil (42:21.822) I feel like the video studio shop is slowly being redesigned in John's image because I just think of all the little projects in here that he hasn't really said, like, I'm just going to rebuild all of this stuff. He's just done it. And then all of a sudden you just realize, crap, like John owns this whole place now.
John Doyle (42:40.705) Yeah, like the old clamp cart got too close to my shop organizer and then it had a baby clamp organizer offspring and then just yeah, slowly stuff is multiplying and reproducing.
Phil (42:48.148) the
Phil (43:00.69) Yeah, because your shop, the big shop organizer, which I still think is a fantastic, fantastic project. You ended up putting that in the photocopier and hitting like 10 % on it and turning it into a tip of a cordless tool station.
John Doyle (43:14.455) Yeah. yeah, yeah.
Phil (43:19.112) that, you know, was like your shop organizer and your shop valet that you designed several years ago kind of had unholy offspring. And that was what you got.
John Doyle (43:29.025) Yep. Yeah, there's lots of little tidbits and different things that keep reappearing or repurposing and so.
Phil (43:45.65) All right, well, recently I've been working on a few shop projects myself. I was,
Phil (43:55.378) Very frequently I see some project idea out there and I just kind of want to build a version of it myself. And there was a box that Peter Fallinsby had shown on his substack about he had made it years and years ago to hold carving tools, which oddly enough, I had some carving gouges that I kind of wanted to condense into a specific small case as well. And I just really liked the way that this box looked.
because his version I think was like five inches tall, eight inches wide, like 18 inches, 16, 18 inches deep. And then he had a drawer on the bottom of it and then a sliding lid for the top compartment, which I just liked the way that that layout looked. And then he did all kinds of Fallen's Bee carving on it. But I wanted to try out the
that orientation. And like I said, I have some carving gouges that I end up using together all the time. So it just be nice to be able to put that to put all that stuff in one place. So I was working on that as a project and then had a little bit of a snafu with installing the like middle bottom piece on there. So I had to re reconfigure that.
I'll put a link to an article that I wrote on that particular solution that I had to come up with for that in the show notes page. The other thing that I've been working on is with my son who's been getting into auto mechanics and he wanted, he's been looking at like a rolling tool chest toolbox kind of thing. I would call it a tool cabinet, but in auto repair land, they just kind of refer to it as a toolbox.
And there's all kinds of sheet metal nonsense out there that just doesn't, isn't really worth it. And then he asked me like, Hey, do you think we could build something that would be, that would work? I'm like, yes, we can. And so we've been doing that, which has been a lot of fun to spend some time with him out in the shop. And then also coming up with the, a layout that he wants and size that he's looking for.
Phil (46:26.556) all of that stuff. So pretty cool. I'm loving it. And how the tools kind of dictate, tools and workflow can really dictate how a project comes together. And also a little bit of a tradition because automotive tool cabinets or boxes or whatever.
Phil (46:54.258) have a tradition. So there's a format that he's going for to be able to get at stuff, which is kind of fun to be able to think about and work in another space like that.
Phil (47:11.764) So anyway, think I have a, we got the main carcass all glued up, put together, and then it's onto drawers. Cause he wants three drawers that are going to be like 42 inches wide. So that is top drawer when he pulls it out is going to be like all sockets. And then the second drawer is like wrenches. And then the third drawer is other flat tools. And then below that is a
We divided the case in half then and it'll have like two deep drawers on one side and like three shallower drawers on the other.
So, and to John's earlier thing, it's kind of a magpie, just pulling little details from different carts that we've done around here. There's a little bit of the shop cart that we just built for the TV show that's in Logan's workshop now. There's a little bit of a couple of other Chris, Chris Fitch cabinets in there.
Phil (48:13.926) lovely lovely lovely
And then we're going to build a big chunky solid oak top on it, which I think will be super fun. Yeah.
John Doyle (48:25.342) Heavy.
Phil (48:30.9) and trick it out.
Logan Wittmer (48:31.022) Whaaaat? I saw the slabs today that I'm gonna bring in for you. I need the sizes though again, cuz gotta make sure you... I don't know if you want a solid one or if you wanna glue it up.
Phil (48:36.98) All right.
Okay.
Phil (48:44.82) I don't mind gluing it up. think it's, we're looking at probably 24, 25 wide and then like 54 long, which I figured we'd glue up, but.
Logan Wittmer (48:51.684) You have to glue it up.
Logan Wittmer (48:55.81) Yeah.
Phil (49:03.892) He had a guy that works in the, he works part time in a repair shop. And one of the other mechanics was like, there's no way that you can build a wood one that's actually gonna be as strong or stronger than these metal ones. And I'm like, Yeah. I'm gonna introduce you to Chris Fitch.
John Doyle (49:19.988) Challenge accepted.
Phil (49:27.678) Pretty sure he'll be able to rebuild engines on this thing.
Phil (49:35.828) So, all right. Love to know whatever you have going on out there for shop projects. It's kind of been a shop project theme here on today's episode. Send us your ideas on what you are building, what you would love to do to add to your shop or what we're getting right or getting wrong about the things that we've been talking about today. You can send that as an email to woodsmith at woodsmith.com.
or leave it in the comment section on the Shop Notes podcast YouTube channel. More and more people are remembering to subscribe over there. Let's get those numbers back up. Love to see the comments in there. Thank you, PuppyDoc, for subscribing. Tell all your friends about it. Once again, this episode is brought to you by Harvey and Harvey Tools. Check out all their new stuff, including the things Logan was talking about a little bit earlier over at Harvey Woodworking dot com see you next week everybody
