Listener Question
One commenter revealed his weakness for measuring/layout tools. Which lead to a discussion about squares and assemblies. The practical application for is the tool chest project I've been working through. A few episodes ago, I shared my frustration with fitting several wide drawers.
One afternoon, I centered myself and dove in with the expectation of coming out successful, no matter how long it took.
The problem. After assembly, I checked the sides of our case for square across the front edge. It seemed that each side was out of square a bit. I used the face frame stiles to re-register a square reference. Turns out the front edge of the case had a subtle curve to it; a hollow in the middle. That threw off my square reference, as well as my fix.
Back to Zero. Once I figured out that problem, I clamped long straight edge across the whole front of the cart. You can see it in the photo. Checking with a square from this true-er reference edge revealed that the case as originally built was pretty close to square. Hooray and boo at the same time.
To be fair, the drawers needed a little fine-tuning. I jointed, sanded, and planed the sides to get them square and the correct size. Actually, they ended up being a little too narrow once I dianosed the case troubles.
However, I was able to make shims to attach the drawer slides, as needed. All these issues came out one by one as I fit the top drawer. Once I had it running smoothly, the remaining two drawers fell into place much quicker. It was a long afternoon's work. But the results are satisfying and I learned much in the process.
Also Mentioned
Logan is working on a mailbox for his home, that will also appear in the pages of PopWood.
As another sneak preview, Collin Knoff built a Sam Maloof-inspired wall cabinet. Ordinarily, Sam is remembered for his chairs, rockers mostly. However, I've always been a fan of his furniture pieces. Collin does a solid job of nodding to Maloof, while driving his own lane.
Transcript
Proof positive that it's better to listen to a podcast than to read it.
Phil (00:25.036) Welcome, welcome everybody. It's the ShopNotes Podcast episode number 246. Coming up on that silver anniversary of 250. I'm sure we'll celebrate that somehow. On today's episode, we're going to do little updates on doings here at the shop. One last pitch for coming to Woodworking in America, because you are coming, aren't you? And we're also going to check in with some listener and viewer comments and feedback. Thanks for listening, everybody. And also thank you to those who subscribe to Popular Woodworking Magazine and our Woodsmith Unlimited members. Your support is what makes this podcast and its invaluable content possible week after week after week. All right, let's get started with today's show. But first, a quick message from our sponsors.
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Phil (02:06.85) All right, let's check in with last week's episode here. Puppy Doc writes, the buffer logic is exactly what I say whenever I might be overloading something. Kind of like, I know it says 1500 pounds, but I'm sure this extra 600 or 700 pounds will be just fine. I'll just keep the speed down so it doesn't bounce too much, or it's only five or six miles. I'm sure that's such a short distance, everything will be fine.
What's maybe worse when you combine both forms of logic? I'll keep my speed down and it's only a few miles. What could possibly go wrong?
Logan Wittmer (02:46.276) And I know that Bob has not put anything overweight on that sawmill and pulled it down the road. Pretty sure I have picture evidence of that happening.
Phil (02:52.14) Ha ha ha ha.
Phil (02:59.886) I think there are also equivalents to that in the sense that there's been a few times the deck on the back of our house is pretty large so that I've had to replace a few of the deck boards because it's at that age where it's like every other year you're replacing one or two deck boards. So in about six years, it's going to be a brand new deck. But those deck boards are the like 23 footers.
Logan Wittmer (03:08.386) Hehehehe
Phil (03:28.888) that you have to get at Menards.
Phil (03:36.942) 23 foot pressure treated deck boards have the rigidity of half cooked rigatoni.
So I'm strapping them to the top of my minivan. And there's a generous overhang front and back on there. So that when you start driving and then there's a little bit of bounce in the road, you can see those things flapping. Thankfully, I normally have to get at least two deck boards so I C-clamp them together to kind of control that.
But yeah, it's the same sort of thing where it's like, I should probably have a better way of doing that, but I don't. So this is what we're doing. We're driving slow with the flashers on and we're just going to live with whatever bouncing happens.
Logan Wittmer (04:20.376) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (04:29.923) I mean, I think that's what they call man-jousting. Like you find another minivan that has the same thing going on and you joust. That's modern day jousting.
Phil (04:33.88) Ha ha ha ha ha!
Phil (04:39.138) Yep, I can totally see that.
The worst part is when you have to remove them from the minivan because, you know, if you have one person on each end, you have to lift it like six feet to get the sag part off. So you just don't scrape it across the roof of the car.
Logan Wittmer (04:56.875) Luckily we're both really tall people.
Phil (04:59.2) Right, yeah. T.G. Atkins says, weakness for tools equals rulers. I've bought more rulers than anything else. Different lengths, different style of squaring, implements with rulers on them, et cetera.
Logan Wittmer (05:15.267) That's an interesting one.
Phil (05:16.738) Yep. I feel like layout tools in general, layout slash measuring tools in general is probably one of the most common tool obsessions that folk get.
Logan Wittmer (05:32.085) Yeah, and I have to assume that there's like a, there has to be like a correlation between the ease of misplacing one in the middle of a project and the number that you just pick up. Like tape measures, like I don't need any more, but you know what? I can never find one when I need one. So might as well buy another one.
Phil (05:44.15) Right.
Phil (05:49.804) Yeah, yeah. Well, plus you always think that there's a different approach.
I know. And they come in different forms, and some of them are pretty attractive as tools go. I think they're a little bit more open to an artistic or industrial design that is appealing.
Logan Wittmer (06:06.573) Mm-hmm.
Phil (06:20.118) And there's also the ability for measuring and marking tools to be just enough gadgety.
to seem like it's super useful and you would use it every day.
Phil (06:40.066) Which reminds me, I was gonna ask you this one other time, speaking of rulers, since we're on this.
Phil (06:50.498) when it comes to squares.
Phil (06:57.1) I feel like there's two different schools of thought in that a lot of modern woodworking squares have some sort of a fence built into it.
so that you can hold it up to an edge and then measure or scribe along that line. But if you think of something like a framing square or like those wee little squares that Veritas sells or like a Japanese framing square, no fence on them.
Logan Wittmer (07:27.872) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (07:33.217) from yes I don't know if the Japanese framing square
Phil (07:36.845) Yeah, it basically looks about the size of a Western framing square, except that it's only like 5 eighths inch wide. Each leg is and they're really flexible. Yeah. And I had actually found a vintage, not really a framing square because it's only like six inches on one arm and then 12 inches on the other. No fence on it.
Logan Wittmer (07:43.072) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (07:46.537) Okay, okay, yep, I got you. Yep, yep, I'm falling. Yep.
Phil (08:03.522) And I'm trying to decide like, cause you watch videos online of Japanese carpenters using those thin flexible framing squares and they just kind of go at it like a champ.
And yet I feel like.
And maybe I've just been conditioned, but it's like, if it doesn't have a fence, then it's really not that useful, right?
Logan Wittmer (08:29.057) I I guess it depends on if you're checking for square or if you're using it for layout. Like, I feel like those are almost two distinct tasks you can use it for, right? Like, if you are using it for layout, you want that fence. If you're just checking for square, this fence is kind of useless.
Phil (08:39.404) Right.
Phil (08:48.6) That's true.
Logan Wittmer (08:49.757) So I feel like those are two distinct different tasks that you could assign each one. And I think that kind of tells you what you want on it.
Phil (08:59.916) Right, because we did.
on a TV show episode a couple years ago, shop built tools, and I did the fence that you put onto a framing square to turn it into like a big layout square. And in this tool chest project that I'm working on with my son, like that thing has been invaluable on laying out cuts on plywood.
Logan Wittmer (09:26.015) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I'm gonna bear it all for the world right now. I don't use the square in my shop to check for square, ever.
Like, during the build of a project, I don't think I ever use a square.
Phil (09:47.723) okay.
Logan Wittmer (09:49.216) here's the reason I'm measuring 90 % of the time so if I'm checking for square I will I will check the fence on the jointer I will check the table saw blade my bandsaw never gets moved so like I'll check those but like if I'm doing like a drawer box I'm just measuring the corners
Phil (09:54.306) Okay.
Phil (10:14.583) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (10:15.633) I mean, same thing with doing a big carcass glue up. Usually I'm just measuring corners because by that point, I already have the thing in clamps and if it's out of square, I'm gonna put a clamp across the corners that are long. So I to know which way that is. And then it gives me an idea on like how much I need to squeeze it as well.
Phil (10:16.91) Ahem.
Phil (10:22.509) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (10:40.017) With that said, Colin was down here last week or two weeks ago and he did a little wall cabinet. He did check that one for square. It was funny when you brought that up.
That's the one thing I put in my apron when I had Leathered by Dragonfly make it that I won't put in my next one. I won't put in place for my square because I don't do that.
Phil (11:05.656) Okay.
Phil (11:12.823) I find it.
Phil (11:17.142) I see where you're going with that. And I can't agree with you because I feel like there's a lot of times by the time I get clamps on it, it's almost like there's no place to put a square. Cause like clamps are in a way, or, know, like if you're using assembly squares or some kind of form or something, then, and then if that's the case, then you end up using like some little two inch by two inch square. And it's like, what's that really telling you?
Logan Wittmer (11:29.405) Yes. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (11:42.887) Mm-hmm Yeah, yeah and by you by measuring corners you're doing a full length on the square right like you're getting a true Mathematical square versus you know a six inch combo square or whatever you're using That is a good point
because I have a set of the Woodpecker's assembly squares that, you know, they clamp the corner with a little, you know, wing nut and stuff. I use those for everything. Like, is hardly glue up that I do that I don't use those. So, with that in mind, those are squaring projects for me. So.
Phil (12:27.608) Since we're on the subject, and I think this relates, I was talking a couple of episodes back about some trouble that I was having fitting drawers to our tool chest project. And when we made the plywood case, I had added basically wide styles to each side of the case on the front for, to create kind of some framing.
and as like sheer panels essentially, you know, to keep it from racking side to side. But what, right. And when I was doing that, part of my reason was also that I would be essentially creating a square drawer box opening front to back. Because when I had, when we had glued up the case originally, I put my big framing square in along the front divider.
Logan Wittmer (13:03.123) Yep, extra beef.
Phil (13:25.378) to see how square it was to the sides. And I felt like they weren't very square either side. So I was trying to correct for that with the placement of these face frame styles.
And then, as I said, we were having a lot of trouble fitting these drawers. And I ended up taking the drawers all the way out, all the slides out, and then starting over just to flip the Etch A Sketch over and begin again.
Logan Wittmer (13:55.582) Yeah. Yep.
Phil (13:58.775) It's at that point that I discovered that the front divider that I was measuring square off of, somewhere in the track sawing of it, it's not a straight edge. It had a bow to it. So that was throwing off my viewpoint of what square really was. So I ended up taking this big stick of oak
Logan Wittmer (14:12.638) Mmm.
Yeah.
Phil (14:28.118) cut off of the top that I knew had a straight parallel edge, clamping that across the whole front of the tool cabinet, and then using the square on that to see how square the case was. Which turns out our case was actually remarkably pretty square to begin with. And now I was fighting the fact that my face frame pieces overlapped the case sides.
So I had shimmed those out now in order to get the drawer slides in the correct position.
So the lesson learned here is figuring, you're measuring square off of something, make sure that that surface is actually a straight line.
Logan Wittmer (15:05.736) The... yeah.
Logan Wittmer (15:12.926) I it's funny because I have
I've never noticed that, I've heard a lot of people say that they have had experiences with track saw guides, or tracks for track saws, that are along those lines where it's like, the track is warped, or it has a bow in it, or something like that. I hear that quite often, which makes me question, like, should I double check mine? I've never had a problem with it, but I guess I only use it for rough cuts, kind of.
Like if I'm, you know, building a plywood case or something, I'm using that to break down a part, then usually I'm taking that edge to the jointer and then putting it on the table saw. So, you know, but yeah, probably should, probably should check it.
Phil (15:58.455) Okay. Yeah.
Phil (16:04.46) be also interesting to know how much of that is technique. Like if you just are like forcing the saw along the line, will the blade deflect one way or another because of cutting stress? Because a lot of those blades on a track saw don't have a lot of teeth in there, so they're going to fill up.
Logan Wittmer (16:09.726) Mm.
Logan Wittmer (16:27.818) Yeah. Which, you don't have to which saw you use. Did you use the bag on it or did you have a vac on it? Did you?
Phil (16:35.906) had the bag on it.
Anyway, these are the things that come up.
Logan Wittmer (16:46.641) Yep, all the time.
Phil (16:47.918) Ian McCullough writes, when it comes to tools and particularly older tools, I find that I can resist almost anything except temptation.
Logan Wittmer (16:56.572) You
Phil (17:00.012) Yep. Right. Right. It's like all things in moderation, including moderation.
Logan Wittmer (17:00.944) I think that goes without saying though, come on.
Logan Wittmer (17:07.632) Yeah. Yeah. It's like I can avoid any large overpriced tool if I wanted to.
Phil (17:13.836) Hahaha
Logan Wittmer (17:17.104) I just don't want to.
Phil (17:17.902) Right.
Master Ranger 71 says, I'd love few things more than a woodworking tour of Japan. I'd need a couple years warning though to save up the cash.
Logan Wittmer (17:32.06) it's also fair.
Phil (17:33.442) Yeah. Which we'll keep in mind because I know that that's, we have that on our calendar in a couple of weeks is a woodworking tours planning meeting. So good to know. If anybody else has any recommendations on where they'd want to go for a tour.
Logan Wittmer (17:37.552) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (17:44.112) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (17:51.868) it.
Phil (17:52.729) bring it, know, are there specific locations? We're also looking at the possibility, like, do we do a domestic tour? Like, is that not special enough or would a domestic tour be equally compelling?
to be fair, our parent company has a few gardening magazines titles, and they've been running basically four tours a year for the past few years. And they've gone to such exotic places as Italy, Ireland, Seattle. They just had one to the Pacific Northwest. So anyway, it's just.
Logan Wittmer (18:21.457) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (18:28.774) Holland?
Phil (18:36.366) Just a curiosity, I would be interested to know where you would want to go and what kinds of things you'd like to see.
Harold McDonald says, yeah, I've been saving them in the backlog, so don't you worry. He also wants to know already, when are we going to get part three of Phil's shop tour? I'm hoping soon because we're getting into excuse season here. I mean, winter. Sorry.
Phil (19:10.776) We'll see. I got a big, huge project cluttering up my shop right now, so I'm not sure that I really want to dig into doing another tour until I get that kind of scraped up a little bit. So I'm hoping shortly after Woodworking in America to film that one. So stay tuned. Stay tuned.
All right. That's it for viewer comments. If you have any questions, comments or smart remarks, you can put those. The best place to have those read out loud is on the YouTube channel comments in youtube.com slash shop notes podcast, the channel for the show. You can also send them into woodsmith at woodsmith.com. get all of those right to my e-box.
email inbox so you can do that as well.
Phil (20:09.122) Alright, before we get going with our next segment, periodically Logan, John, and I will do some recommendations on things that are, that we are fancying at the moment. And John brought in a few of these guys.
Phil (20:34.658) Doritos Dynamita.
kind of talkies sort of things. The dynameter says they're extra hot and those bad boys are spicy, but I cannot stop with them. It's like my mouth is burning and I'm sweating. Just one more.
Logan Wittmer (20:46.81) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (20:54.372) No way. Nope.
Phil (21:02.115) No?
Logan Wittmer (21:02.254) You know what I've been fancying lately? Two things. Freaking all these brand energy drinks sugar free. No dyes or anything in them. Not saying they're great for you. But for two bucks for four of them, way better than a Red Bull. Second is a preparation technique. I recently added a sous vide machine to my kitchen.
Phil (21:04.833) Okay.
Phil (21:11.405) Okay.
Phil (21:31.328) Okay, I thought you were going to go some kind of manscape preparation thing, but...
Logan Wittmer (21:34.394) No, no, we're like full beard season right now. The sous vide is a freaking amazing way, especially for a guy that's on a meat only diet to cook steak. I have a chuck eye steak that is in there right now that has been cooking for 24 hours.
Phil (21:38.51) you
Logan Wittmer (21:57.894) at 132 degrees and it is ready in an hour and 14 minutes. watching my timer. So excited. man. Best way to make a steak. I will throw hands with you if you're a charcoal grill type of guy. I don't care. Like you finish it on the grill, but you do it in the sous vide to the perfect doneness.
Phil (22:20.558) Okay, the so-called like reverse sear sort of thing.
Logan Wittmer (22:24.15) It is a reverse sear, 100%. Yeah, but it's like, how do you want it? Do you want it medium? Do you want it medium well? Do you want it medium rare? Do you want it blue? You can do it however you want. You cannot overcook it. It is vacuum sealed in a bag, so it's making, it's in its own juice, right? And depending on how long you cook it, now I'm doing mainly beef in it, beef and deer.
have also done pork and chicken in it. You can cook beef long enough that the toughest cuts break down and are super tender. But chicken breasts in it, my god, I'm not a chicken breast type of guy. Like, I love meat that dark meat, give me some thighs and stuff. But like...
the best chicken breast I've ever had, came out at Sous Vide. It like cooked at like a, yeah, was like cooked at like 140 degrees for an hour and a half, which you're like, okay, that's not safe temperature, it's pasteurizing it. So it is phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. First time ever my kids have said, this chicken's really good. Like, yeah, dang right it is, butt heads.
Phil (23:16.728) Really?
Phil (23:21.537) Okay.
Phil (23:35.374) Ha
Phil (23:39.822) All right, all right, that's fair.
Logan Wittmer (23:40.824) So yeah, I thought we were gonna go into shop recommendations, but man, you opened up a can of worms there.
Phil (23:45.647) Right, which we could totally do. Yeah, yeah. Since you did a beverage recommendation also, I've been on, I'm normally kind of a root beer kind of person. But during the tour in England, also had a few ginger beers. Not ginger ale, ginger beer that were super delicious.
Logan Wittmer (23:51.181) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (23:56.962) Yeah, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (24:06.826) Okay, yeah. Yep. Yep.
Phil (24:13.976) There's an English brand called Fentimons that I think was my favorite one that I had.
Logan Wittmer (24:17.08) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (24:21.536) Yeah. Yep. I was introduced to ginger beer via Moscow Mules, but yes, ginger beer is fantastic.
Phil (24:30.958) Right.
Phil (24:34.444) Right, so it's a nice accompaniment to a root beer if you find some good ones.
Logan Wittmer (24:40.716) Yeah. Now I'd say you would be proud of me.
Phil (24:45.057) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (24:45.814) We are in the fall, so we are in the basic white woman phase of flavors. So lots of pumpkin spice, lots of maple pecan. I just ordered a new box of coffee for the shop. So we got some interesting flavors here that are actually all really good. But in my journeys to the land of Aldi, I have avoided buying us any flavored coffee for the office because we know how bad those are.
Phil (24:56.131) Right.
Logan Wittmer (25:15.738) You
Phil (25:16.342) Well, there probably are good ones out there, but we've always gone kind of the cheap route in the sense that if you're buying office cop coffee at Menards, for example, you should expect to get what you're paying for. it tastes, if it tastes a little bit like superfund site, then yeah, that's what it is.
Logan Wittmer (25:23.211) I just... yeah.
Logan Wittmer (25:28.553) Yeah
Yep. That's... that's fair. Yeah. There were a couple at all these, and I'm like, ooh, we could bring this in, make Nate try it, see what he thinks.
Phil (25:46.275) right. The unfortunate part is that when you open up the bag of those is the best part of that coffee. Because the smell is spot on. Even though the label says no pumpkins were harmed in the making of or spices were harmed in the making of because I know that people are going to say pumpkin spice lattes should have the spices.
Logan Wittmer (25:59.731) yeah, the smell.
Logan Wittmer (26:04.013) Yep.
Logan Wittmer (26:08.865) Yeah.
Phil (26:16.192) and not the pumpkin and I would agree with you. But yeah, they smell great and taste like chemicals.
Logan Wittmer (26:18.614) Yes.
Logan Wittmer (26:22.998) Yep. Yeah. So. But. We are rolling into that fall season. So it's. It's been. I got a maple pecan. I got a caramel. I got a it's like a it's like a burnt caramel or something like that. Got a chocolate.
Phil (26:34.264) So what were the flavors that you got then?
Phil (26:39.511) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (26:50.935) There's one other, I think I got a pumpkin, like a pumpkin one. That was my wife's request. But no, they're pretty good. mean, it's the Nespresso brand, so they're like super overpriced. When we go to Sweden later this year, we're bringing an empty suitcase to bring a bunch back with us because they're like 30 % of the cost there. But yeah, no, it's like, but being the fall season, like this week's been warm, right? So it hasn't been.
Phil (27:01.933) Right.
Phil (27:09.953) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (27:21.207) super folly yet. Walnuts have started to slow down hitting the shop. I oh yeah yeah they're definitely we're down to maybe three or four a day now instead of three or four an hour. But what this has done is this has really like kind of kicked me into gear to try to figure out how to get wood stove in my shop. Not
Phil (27:26.576) have they really?
Phil (27:42.605) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (27:43.831) Not this week, because it's been warm, but like a week ago, it was like in the 40s or 50s in the morning. I'm like, oh yeah, okay, need to figure out where the stove's going. So I actually made a, I was at Menards last night. They have a couple wood stoves on Clarence at Menards, but they're like slightly too small. Like my shop's 1400 square feet. They said 1200 square feet.
So I'm kind of like, I mean, I have supplemental heat in the floor, right? So it's probably fine. But I did make an email this morning, make an email, I wrote an email, sent an email this morning to my insurance lady. So I'm like, I should probably double check that because I got lots of money in the shop. And if something, if something burnt down and I have insurance, I would.
Phil (28:15.872) Right. Yeah.
Phil (28:29.688) Yeah, that's fair.
Logan Wittmer (28:35.775) not only be out of a shop, I would be a single man because my wife would leave me probably. So I double checked with my insurance lady. She's like, no, you can't, we can't cover wood stoves and exterior structures. I'm like, what? That's bull crap. So I said, okay, Jordan, what about if I...
Phil (28:40.014) you
Logan Wittmer (29:02.539) have an outside wood furnace or an outside wood boiler. So like if I put one outside, that heats the shop or you know, whatever, the house. And she did email me back. She's like, correction, I have not looked into this for a while. She's like, it appears that we can cover them now. I'm like, boom. So now I just gotta figure out where the stupid wood stove is going. And then.
Phil (29:11.565) Yeah, yeah.
Phil (29:22.402) Boom!
Logan Wittmer (29:30.891) get one installed. But yeah, it's gonna be sweet. just don't, it's like, I got a good spot for it where the drill press is. Seems to be the best place, but the drill press really fits nicely there. I don't know.
Phil (29:44.142) We've talked about it. Yep.
Logan Wittmer (29:46.455) So, yep, yep.
Phil (29:49.346) It would be super cool though.
Logan Wittmer (29:51.058) I know it has to happen like I have so many scraps like I've been processing some This week last weekend and this week. I've been processing a bunch of
My buddy Bobby Three Fingers, he had milled a giant ash tree with a chainsaw mill and it was super figured, like super figured, whole way through it. But the slabs had a bunch of wind shake in it, so there's random cracks throughout the slab. So he was gonna cut them into runners for his lumber stacks. I'm like, my ass you are, like, I'll take those. I'll saw you some runners.
giant pieces of ash on the sawmill and like breaking them apart into turning blanks and stuff like that and there's I mean I'm talking like these things are four and a half feet wide and ten foot long they're huge they are big to the point where I had to actually rip them with the chainsaw before I put them on the sawmill like they were that big
Phil (30:51.352) Wow. Okay.
Phil (30:58.478) Wow, okay.
Logan Wittmer (31:01.993) But it's like I'm breaking all these turning blanks down and I have like, have three or four steel trash cans in the shop, like we have in the set there, for all my wood scraps. So wood scraps go in the steel, trash cans, garbage goes in the plastic trash can. Like I can't bring myself just to bring it outside and dump it on the burn pile outside. Like should I? Absolutely.
But I'm also thinking, man, I could really just throw that into the wood stove. And this kind of all stems from my trip out to Chez Alexander's last fall, which is almost exactly a year ago, when I was out there and he's like, yeah, my miter saw scraps heat my shop the entire winter. I'm like, dang it, because I'm paying 300 bucks a month to heat my shop. And that sure seems like that would pay for itself really quickly.
Phil (31:55.311) Yeah, I think that's funny because I was going to ask you, because I feel like you were at a shop not that long ago where you sent us a photo that had a cool wood stove in it. Okay, so it was Shae's, right?
Logan Wittmer (32:02.185) Yeah, it was Jaze.
Yeah, yeah, he had that, he has one of those Morso's, Morose, Morso's, Morso I think. The Swedish one, and I looked at those, man they're just so expensive. They're so expensive. And I'm like, boy, we're in the middle of Iowa. I could buy a wood stove or a pack of Bud Light on Facebook Marketplace, you know?
Phil (32:09.787) yeah, more so, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (32:27.605) Is that what my insurance agent wants me to do? Probably not. It has to have certified stamps on it and stuff for them to insure it. There are certain requirements for it. yeah, I'm looking at all these... They do, I know. And I'm looking at all these wood scraps like, this would be so nice to be able to walk over to the stove, pop it open, and throw all this crap into it.
Phil (32:28.012) Yeah.
Phil (32:35.909) it does. Okay.
Phil (32:41.346) but Vintage Stove just looks so cool.
Phil (32:58.67) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (32:59.753) Yes.
Phil (33:02.574) So tune in.
Logan Wittmer (33:04.597) Mm-hmm.
Phil (33:05.332) question going back to the walnuts. You had said earlier in the spring or summer that you thought this was going to be a bumper year for walnuts. Did it turn out to be that way? Okay.
Logan Wittmer (33:08.596) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (33:15.38) My god, yes, everywhere and it must be a cycle it must be cyclical because I Noticed it. I sent you guys a picture I think on teams of my driveway and it looked green because of all the walnut flowers that had fallen
And that's when I said I think it's gonna be a bumper crop. And it has been. And I didn't know if it was just my trees. I didn't know if it was patches in areas where maybe this patch of walnuts has a bumper crop this year and maybe that one over there has one next year. But my buddy Sean took down five or six walnut trees.
about 10 miles away two or three weekends ago is the opening weekend of football season. So four weeks ago now. And I went and picked those walnut trees up. And I mean, those ones, same thing, like all over, like thousands. And the unfortunate thing is, and I'm sure people...
that have been listening for a while remember my stories of like trying to of like harvesting walnuts and my son was picking them up and stuff. I still have a 70 pound bag of walnuts in my basement.
Phil (34:34.849) you
Logan Wittmer (34:37.277) There is so much work. I love walnuts. I love walnuts. They are one of my favorite foods. Super nostalgic for me. My great-grandpa used to do everything with them. And there's so much work for such little reward out of them. Like even...
Phil (34:41.635) I do too.
Logan Wittmer (34:57.763) after buying a... yeah, even like I bought a spi- it's called Grandpa's Goodie Getter. It's a walnut cracker made in Missouri, made specifically for walnuts. Still, like for me to get a half a cup of walnuts for a recipe, it's an hour. god.
Phil (34:58.03) They are labor intensive, yeah.
Phil (35:16.348) yeah.
Logan Wittmer (35:19.123) It's ridiculous. It's not like in England. I was trying to explain by buddy Jimmy about this because he's, mate, love walnuts. I'm like, yeah, you're thinking English walnuts? That's not what we have. English walnuts, you crack open, they come apart like a perfect two halves of a nut. Like, no. Like here, you're getting grains of rice out of a walnut is kind of what you're getting. You're getting bits.
Phil (35:41.506) Yeah. Yep. Even though black walnuts are far and away more delicious than
Logan Wittmer (35:47.556) yeah. Yup.
Phil (35:49.432) than the European or the Persian walnuts or whatever you want to call them. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (35:53.511) Yep. Yeah. I wonder if you could burn walnuts in a wood stove.
Maybe I have infinite fuel going on here. I still have to pay my son a dollar per gallon to pick him up. Probably would lose that real quickly.
Phil (36:04.567) Ha
Phil (36:10.636) Yeah. What you got to do is get one of those like golf ball picker uppers, you know, from like a driving range and you just roll around your yard. Yeah. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (36:16.657) Yeah. Like a toe behind one, yep. Yep.
Phil (36:23.372) I can see that. Because I was going to ask, I was thinking about seeing if I could come out and pick up some walnuts, but...
Logan Wittmer (36:28.467) as many as you want. As many as you want. The ones that are on the ground now are starting to get a little iffy. I think there's still some good ones around, but like yeah.
Phil (36:41.164) Right. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (36:49.862) I'll bring you 30 pounds of them if you want. All right.
Phil (36:53.398) I'm in, because I found a recipe for walnut bread where you ground up the walnuts into walnut flour and then made, and that sounded, sounded amazing.
Logan Wittmer (36:59.313) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (37:03.602) Mmm.
Yeah.
Phil (37:12.802) All right, that's all still woodworking adjacent. We've declared it. Walnuts, wood burning stoves, it's connected. That's where we're at.
All right. Now, one of the things that I wanted to get to was the fact that Woodworking in America is a week away. Still would love people to come attend. It's a week away, so you have plenty of time to make your way to Des Moines, Iowa, crossroads of somewhere and do it. I'm at the stage where I'm ready for the event to start and to not have to sit in planning meetings for it.
all the things are ordered, all the people are coming and booked and ready to go. So.
Think it's gonna be a good one.
Logan Wittmer (38:02.246) Yeah, I'm excited. We had a last minute switcheroo ski on one of our presenters. Gary's not able to make it, so I got my boy Albert Klein coming in. I texted him and said, you wanna do a demo? And he's like, dude, he's like, I'm the marketing Batman. I like, all right. All right, Bruce, you're in. So.
Phil (38:09.868) Right.
Phil (38:26.669) Yeah.
Phil (38:30.274) Yeah, that one's pretty exciting. I'm also kind of interested to hear Vic's presentation on his workbench one, just because like it's Vic and he's going to be like deliberately poking the bear a little bit.
Logan Wittmer (38:35.11) Yeah. Yup.
Phil (38:46.796) which I can appreciate.
Logan Wittmer (38:51.858) Yeah, it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting because the palette for Vic's presentation showed up to my house because I needed to unload it with the skid loader. There's not much on there. It's like, oh, this would be cool. So I'm going to try to make a concise effort.
Phil (39:12.13) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (39:16.954) to get into some of the presentations this year because I did not do that last year. I did not sit in a single presentation last year. I was too busy doing other crap. So I'm hoping this year it's like, I'm going to sneak away and listen to somebody.
Phil (39:21.617) you didn't.
Wow, okay. Right.
Phil (39:30.924) Yeah, so I got into a few, it was pretty interesting.
Phil (39:37.986) All right. And since it's been warm enough, like the trees are just starting to turn. So it's going to be some pretty cool fall colors going on here. Plenty of stuff to see.
So, yeah. Looking forward to it. Please come. Love to have you here.
Logan Wittmer (39:58.255) Maybe at 20 vendors or so. Two days full of demonstrations. Come the night before, there's a happy hour, open house happy hour at our shop or Phyllis.
Phil (40:15.268) it lot of fun. get to see a lot of the projects that we've been working on here, both for the past few months that have appeared in the magazine, but you get to see them in real life. And then a sneak peek for some stuff that's going to be coming up. So you can check, check all of that out. We just finished installing a new, what we call a one wall workshop in our photo studio. It's kind of the photo studio backdrop.
But we also use it as a project for the shop because in many ways that photo studio is still kind of a working shop so we have to store a lot of things we need some work surfaces in there and John and Chris and Dylan have a really cool collaboration that they did on projects to come up with a modular design so you want to take a make sure you're there for that
Logan Wittmer (40:47.696) you
Phil (41:05.836) And if you ask nicely, there will be some refreshments.
Logan Wittmer (41:11.492) beer there will be beer and sodas I'll go to Menards against Breckers yep I think so
Phil (41:13.454) And so does.
Phil (41:19.776) there we go. I think we did that last year,
Phil (41:28.568) There you go. All right, so what's happening in popular woodworking land?
Logan Wittmer (41:33.54) Popular woodworking land. So I mentioned Colin was down here a couple weeks ago. He did a little Malufian style wall cabinet. So very simple wall cabinet. So sides top bottom connected with... Did we just screw it or did it... No, we cut.
Hold on, let me think about this. We did, so we did dados and a rabbet for the top and bottom, but then it's connected with screws and those are plugged with dowels. Little half lap back in it. Kind of a cool half lap back, because we cut up some matching, some book matched.
Phil (42:08.248) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (42:19.658) Strips of sappy walnut so there's kind of this weird houndstooth thing going on in the back, so it's kind of cool. Yep, and then solid glued up door on the front, then Colin textured the crap out of it with a Arbortek ball gouge, it has a yeah, so it almost has like a hammered look like
Phil (42:25.346) cool.
Phil (42:38.009) really?
Logan Wittmer (42:43.802) There's no flat left on the front of the door, so it's heavily textured. And then we did, routed in some knife hinges.
Phil (42:46.233) really? Okay.
Logan Wittmer (42:54.486) from brusso using the Shaper Origin, which is really cool because this is the first time I've actually used Origin and their hardware library. So it's like, you buy brusso hardware, the hardware is already loaded onto origin. So you just have to select it and it pulls it in and you just route. So like there was no measuring, there was nothing. It was slick as crap.
did that and then for the pull, Colin actually ended up making his own pull out of brass. I had some 3 16ths brass stock here that he then routed and shaped with origin and used that as the pull. So that's a cool one that's coming up in the next issue. Next issue being the one that goes to the printer in November, which I believe is the December, January, maybe January, February issue. I don't remember.
I don't remember the months. I just remember the stress they cause Then we also have oh What projects did I pull into this one? I Have to go look I know I got I Have projects already shot for this. I can't remember if I have
Phil (43:57.42) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (44:16.174) Yeah, I'll have to go look. But I have one in there and I know what that one is. That's what I was doing right before this. We are... Cancel that phone call because I don't know who you are. I'm doing a mailbox project. So I've always wanted to build a mailbox. My mailbox also gets hit by the snowplow every year.
So the knee, it was kind of a need more than anything. But instead of doing like the kind of traditional wood mailbox with little cedar shingles on it and stuff, I'm doing a super modern one. So building an entire back. So it's gonna be more like a pedestal.
type I guess where there's it's a cedar box with cedar slats the box is painted black the background is painted black then there's cedar slats on it and that faces the road so that flat way faces the road like this and then the mailbox hangs on the front so it's a not an end open mailbox it's a flip up mailbox yeah so I'm going to the mailbox on the front I'm going to build it
Phil (45:13.249) Okay.
Phil (45:24.811) nice.
Logan Wittmer (45:32.56) I checked with the post office because I know I my Grandpa and my aunt Worked for the post office for a long time. So I know that there's kind of regulations and rules on what a post A mailbox has to be so I actually stopped into our local post offices like hey I'm building this mailbox sounds weird. I know but like what do you like? What are your guys thoughts and basically what they told me is, you know, here's the sizes It needs to hold and it's be whole, you know days worth of mail. Yada. Yada. Yada
But what they don't like is they don't like top open ones And I'm thinking I'm a bill top open one because that seems the most straightforward You know just one hinge in the back. It has a nice lip all the way around it to keep weather out stuff like that Snow and ice traps them closed And I would have never thought about that So instead what I'm going to do
Phil (46:22.446) D-I-L.
Logan Wittmer (46:32.81) and I downloaded John's recycle bin plan, the flip out, tilt front, recycle bin plan. So we're gonna do a tilt front mailbox.
Phil (46:40.764) okay. Yeah.
Like a flower bin.
Logan Wittmer (46:47.373) Kind of, yeah, like a flower bin style. But you need to make sure it doesn't accidentally pop open. Like wind, like we get some nasty wind here in Iowa. So it's like you don't want it to be able to flip open. So.
Either we're doing a magnet closure on it, haven't decided this yet. Either I'm doing a magnet closure or if I can get it in there, I'm gonna do a spring closure, I think. So there'll be a spring inside of it that pulls it closed and holds it closed. tilt out, snow and ice won't affect it. It'll be all cedar as well.
Phil (47:17.582) Okay, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (47:26.58) So, initially my thought was, okay, I'm gonna do this, the cedar surround, which is made out of cedar two by eights, so it's two by eights you buy from the home store. Squared them up a little bit, cleaned them up, squared them up, and they are rabbeted and screwed up top. There's a groove for the two panels, which are spaced out to fit over a four by four post.
Those panels are made out of MDO.
because MDO is weather rated. initially what I was going to do is I was going to do about three or four years ago, we did an article on Yagasuki, I believe is what it's called. What people call Shogiban, the burning that they do in Japan and other Eastern Asian countries to weatherproof stuff. I was going to do that on the cedar initially.
But with it having that MDO in there and stuff it's like okay Let's just go ahead and Paint it so so painted with some oil paint You know rolling on oil paint painting stuffs not my favorite Usually if there's any part of the project that I rush it's generally the painting because I just don't like doing it but
Yeah, rolled it on with foam roller, which applies really nicely. It just also means that Goose gets exiled into the house for the next four to six hours while it dries because he would be rubbing all over it. but yeah, that's kind of where we're sitting on the Popwood world.
Phil (49:12.206) you
Phil (49:20.547) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (49:28.24) most recent issue I think should be hitting mailboxes maybe the next week. So, it is. So that's my workbench that has a late Glenn Huey article in there as well. Albert Klein's dovetailed box is in there.
Phil (49:37.76) Okay, and that's the one with your workbench in it, right?
Logan Wittmer (49:54.988) This next issue has Shay Alexander in it. He has a what he calls a hearth stool. So it's a little three-legged stool kind of designed to know sit in front of the fireplace and whittle or whatever. That's in there. And Willie Sandry has a soup up your drill press article in there. So yeah.
Phil (50:18.766) So, okay, thanks.
Phil (50:25.059) Cool.
Logan Wittmer (50:26.091) Yeah.
Phil (50:30.21) All right. There you have it. The next week, next week's podcast will be us freaking out, getting ready for woodworking in America. And then we'll do a, we'll do a post event wrap up on that. But, thanks for listening everybody. Again, if you want to email us the email address, as always, woodsmith at woodsmith.com or leave a comment.
on our YouTube channel. Don't forget to like and subscribe there so we can get more people connected to it on the YouTube channel. Leave your reviews on your local podcaster-y. And then again, special thanks to our sponsor. When you're working on a project, you put in hours of effort. The last thing you want is for it to come apart because the glue didn't hold. That's why you should keep a bottle of Gorilla Wood Glue on the bench.
It's non-foaming, dries in natural color, and of course, it's Gorilla Strong. Built by you, backed by Gorilla. Thanks for listening, everybody. See you next time. Bye.
