Honeysuckle
It's officially Christmas project season. Actually a little late for me. This year, rather than give completed gifts, I plan to do a woodworking craft for the nieces and nephews. I've decided to do small shrink pots.
This type of green woodworking uses a branch or small tree section. The inside is hollowed out. A groove is cut to house a dry wood bottom. As the branch dries, it constricts around the bottom locking it in place.
The outside surface can take many types of decoration from leaving the bark, to painted, carved or faceted surfaces.
I know Logan has a lot of timber and other tree bits from his sawmilling. But I was shocked when he suggested honeysuckle. I know it as a garden vine, maybe half inch in diameter. Then he sends the photos shown here. Those are gigantic.
Take a look at what the wood looks like when turned. I have to agree. It does have a bit of a boxwood look to it. I can't wait to try it out with the T-handle auger.
The Future of Shopsmith
We've teased about the Shopsmith for a while on the podcast. Several of the regulars on the YouTube comments have teased back. However, we were sad to learn of the possibility of Shopsmith closing its doors for good.
I know several folk who rely on their machines to pursue their woodworking passion. It's a machine that's gotten a lot of folk into the craft.
There are rumors of buyouts and rescues. I for one hope that's the case. Woodworking is better served when there are more options for folk to enjoy the craft.
Scandinavian Wall Shelf
John mentioned a project he's designing for Woodsmith. It's based off a shelf we saw in one of the other magazines from our parent corporation — Old House Journal.
The August 2025 issue highlight a kitchen remodel that was inspired by Swedish artists Carl and Karin Larsson. In the photo, you can see a vintage Danish trestle table. The shape of the ends inspired the details for the painted wall shelf.
John's version riffs on that. Like a crazy design family tree.
Transcript
If only we had a bouncing ball to help follow along as you listen.
Phil It is episode 247. Welcome to the Shop Notes podcast, everybody. I'm your host, Phil Huber. Joined with the full crew, John Doyle in the house, Logan Whitmer eating eggs. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about such delights as that early part of fall where everything seems fun and the leaves are changing and you can have the doors open and not the junkie fall with everything brown and dead.
By the time you're listening to this, it's Woodworking in America. If you're not here, we miss you. We'll get started with listener comments, check in with John and Logan and see what's going on and updates that we have here. Some sad tool manufacturer news, all this and some spooky.
Logan Wittmer (01:43.189) you
Phil (01:45.954) furniture, woodworking projects, all in the works. Thanks for listening everybody. Kick things off with a word from our sponsors.
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All right. We have a few comments from the last episode to share here. We'll run through those pretty quickly. Larryatha3221, good old Larry, says he'd like to go to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland to see woodworking, woodworking schools, museums, and manufacturers of tools.
Logan Wittmer (03:35.582) That's a solid suggestion. Yup.
Phil (03:37.197) I can get behind that. Do like a file Swiss made tour. That would be fun. Michael Thompson says, been meaning to ask this for a while, but when will we see Logan travel to Kentucky to meet with Brandon from the YouTube channel inheritance machining to discuss old tool restoration? I would love to see that myself.
Logan Wittmer (03:42.502) yeah.
Logan Wittmer (04:01.064) Dude, okay. I am not, I'm not shitting you. I just started following his channel the last three weeks. So calm yourself. Don't get the cart ahead of the horse.
Phil (04:17.932) Right. All right. Also, Phil, I think a domestic woodworking tour might be nice. Several of the New England shaker communities are relatively close together. The Connecticut Valley and Boston would be interesting. Philadelphia and New York, possibly Virginia. This is solid. And would an architectural tour be apropos? Some of the colonial homes and especially some of the good examples of arts and crafts bungalows, the woodworking
And some of those is spectacular. I think that's fair. I think one of the ones we were talking about was like a Southern California, something or other where we could hit Pasadena and a lot of the green and green kind of stuff, among other things. Stiegs T says, I wish I was able to make it to the Woodworking in America this year, but cannot, unfortunately. I really hope there is plans to continue it on next year too. there are plans.
Logan Wittmer (05:17.061) There's always plans. We haven't finished this year.
Phil (05:19.52) Yeah, and meetings and meetings about plans.
Finally, Jacob Schenker writes, only Phil could turn a shop tour into a two to three year ordeal. LOL.
John Doyle (05:33.093) It's a huge shop. It's a huge shop. You just can't get it all in one.
Logan Wittmer (05:33.437) Called out!
Phil (05:35.852) Yeah, right. I'd be up to going to Japan if we could see Ishitani Furniture's shop and play with his dog.
Logan Wittmer (05:45.872) Yes.
Phil (05:50.549) All solid suggestions.
Logan Wittmer (05:50.963) I know where I, yeah, I don't know where, like to be honest with you, I don't know where Ishitani is at in Japan. I mean, Japan's a pretty big, it's a pretty big country. Like it is pretty much, if you look at the overlay of Japan versus the United States, it's basically the East Coast. So it's not like you're just like popping over to this Ishitani Furniture Studio.
and if you know Ishtani Furniture's YouTube channel, they don't really talk during it. It is very much a woodworking ASMR. So there's not a whole lot of info there. But we're working on stuff. Yeah, we're working on stuff.
Phil (06:31.118) But nevertheless, yeah.
Phil (06:37.89) Yeah, super cool. Keep the suggestions on tour ideas coming.
Logan Wittmer (06:46.628) I was gonna say, speaking of last week, what we were talking about, we talked about our vices recently, and you were talking about the Flamin' Cheetos? Was it Flamin' Hot Cheetos? Doritos.
Phil (06:58.168) Doritos, yeah, the Doritos. That was actually started by John.
Logan Wittmer (07:04.295) Yeah, thanks, John. Yep.
John Doyle (07:05.253) I invented them.
Logan Wittmer (07:09.842) I
just made one of the accidental, like I made an accidental purchase one of the times I was ordering coffee. You can't just go by like, I talked about having this Nespresso Venturo here in the shop. can't just go to Target, I mean, you can go to Target and buy those, but you can't go to like Costco or, know, Hy-Vee or any grocery store and just buy those pods. So you gotta order them. And I accidentally ordered one that was like over-iced only, and it is a almond vanilla over-ice.
They says over iced only like you sure you could drink it hot, but it's meant to be over ice First time I've had it. It's pretty good Happy little accidents, you know
Phil (07:51.052) Okay.
Phil (07:54.497) Okay.
Phil (07:58.489) Yeah, last week, John, I shared about the super spicy Doritos Takis that you kind of brought in as a recommendation.
John Doyle (08:10.053) Yeah, they're good. They're hot. They're not for the week. That's for sure. But they're good.
Phil (08:13.518) Yeah, yeah. Do you have any recommendations before we keep going here?
John Doyle (08:21.322) on snacks?
Phil (08:22.696) Sure. Anything.
Logan Wittmer (08:24.335) Yeah, any of it. Life in general.
John Doyle (08:28.493) There's so much I don't even know where to start let's come back to me
Phil (08:30.766) Okay. All right. Now, before we get move on from the listener and viewer feedback, because I think this is very connected to the relationship that the three of us have with our tens of listeners is Logan, you
stumbled across some disturbing news last week about a tool manufacturer.
Logan Wittmer (09:06.417) I mean, it depends on your perspective. Some could say that we succeeded. Some could, some might be little distraught at this. I may get some hate mail, which I love, I love getting. And to be fair, Randy, whom I got my anvil from, is the one that forwarded me the email. And he said,
Phil (09:09.805) Right.
Logan Wittmer (09:32.101) By George, you guys did it. You ran Shopsmith out of business. And I was like, what? And yes, going to the shop.
Smith website. ShopSmith has a post on there that says, yeah, important update. And when you click on important update, it says after more than 70 years of serving makers, builders, and woodworking enthusiasts, ShopSmith has unfortunately reached the decision to suspend operations immediately. And it goes on to say basically,
It sounds like the current ownership is ready to retire and be done with it. So if somebody would step in and purchase the company, they will continue operations. There are a few companies that are looking at it. I know that for a fact. Phil, we discussed one that you said ingest, but then they are looking at that. But...
I don't know, we'll see, we'll see if somebody picks it up. Now in all seriousness, it is not a fun thing when a company that's been around for a long time decides to, you know, close their doors.
You know, you could blame it on lots of things. You could blame it on the state of the economy. You could blame it on, you know, imported tools coming from overseas. You could blame it on a lot of things. And nobody really will know. It could just be that the owners are ready to retire and there's nobody within their family that wants to take it over. I do know that running a tool manufacturer made in the US, like ShopSmith is,
Logan Wittmer (11:27.151) with.
overseas parts, let's be very clear, they are manufacturing, they are bringing in parts from overseas and they're assembling in the United States. They are not actually manufacturing, like physically manufacturing a lot of their stuff here. That's a very hard thing to do. Labor force, stuff like that, staying competitive in the marketplace. And I think, I think we've even probably said that on the podcast, like their Mark 7 machine, it's not cheap. Like it's $6,000. It's,
you can buy a SawStop and a bandsaw or a joiner planer combo for that price. It's not cheap. And I think that is a function of their commitment to manufacturing. Again, I'm using that loosely, manufacturing in the United States. But they have decided to cease operations. Now what does that mean for current ShopSmith users? I don't know.
I do know that historically what has happened when a company decides to shut their doors like this, generally somebody picks up the parts and service aspect of the company. you know, does that mean that all shop Smith owners are SOL and they're not going to be able parts? I don't think so. But that's to be determined.
So.
Logan Wittmer (13:00.578) Yeah, not necessarily what we, we made a lot of jests, but it's not what anybody wants to see happen, so.
Phil (13:10.988) Right, yeah.
John Doyle (13:12.517) Yeah, we have no beef with shopsmith. We just like poking shopsmith. Hornet nests, yeah. So.
Logan Wittmer (13:19.128) People. Yeah.
Phil (13:20.76) Yeah, yeah, and we've bandied snarky comments back and forth with some, with some fans and some have taken it well and others haven't and.
Logan Wittmer (13:33.486) Yeah
Phil (13:34.496) It was all meant in good fun, the good-natured ribbing of fans of different teams.
Logan Wittmer (13:41.795) Yep, exactly. You know, and this is not, to be very honest, this is not the first tool company this year to shut their doors either. Earlier this year, Technitool, who makes the Nova line of lathes, I believe ceased their US operations.
I, they filed bankruptcy, they filed a classification bankruptcy that I believe allows them to restructure and not cease operations.
But I know that is happening. There is a sawmill manufacturer in Norwood, former sawmill I had. They are under bankruptcy protection. So they are operating basically at a loss, but the Canadian government is protecting them. I don't know exactly how the Canadians operate other than on maple syrup and bourbon. They have some form of protection for that.
You know, definitely not booming economic times for a lot of folk. Some of them obviously are not able to continue to operate, but we'll see. We'll see what happens.
Phil (15:00.568) Which is always kind of interesting. remember there was some, we had a guy in our marketing department a few years ago, Ian Warner, who had a podcast and I was listening to his podcast and he talked about how...
throughout every economic downturn, there are quite a few companies that ends up closing, but every economic downturn produces some sort of company launch that proves to be a winner in the next 10 years after that. So it's almost one of those things where it's like everything that you can say about our current economic climate, the opposite is true as well.
you know, that it's really tough for businesses to survive because of credit and supply chain and blah, blah, blah. And conversely, there's a lot of people who are going to find opportunities in it as well. So it's a, it's a strange.
Logan Wittmer (16:04.046) Mm-hmm.
John Doyle (16:06.191) Yep, just like a shake up of the status quo. Cut down some old trees and plant some new trees and see what works out.
Phil (16:17.55) So you can count on the shop notes podcast to stay on top of this developing story as we move forward, just to see what's going to happen here. So, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (16:26.785) to make sure it doesn't come back to life.
John Doyle (16:29.849) Yeah, they don't they don't call us woodworking journalists for nothing.
Phil (16:32.736) Right.
Logan Wittmer (16:33.166) Always got to make sure that shop Smith doesn't rise from the ashes like a phoenix reborn
Phil (16:41.863) Yeah. We put the for nothing in word working journalists for nothing.
Logan Wittmer (16:52.161) To be honest with you, I hate to say it, but this is like the most time I've ever spent on the ShopSmith website.
Phil (16:58.262) All right.
John Doyle (16:59.451) You're like, I'm thinking about buying. What if Logan ends up buying shop Smith?
Phil (17:04.513) you
John Doyle (17:07.535) And just lords it over the shop Smithians, Smithsonian's, or whatever you call them.
Phil (17:17.496) Smithereens.
John Doyle (17:18.075) Yep. Yep.
Logan Wittmer (17:18.39) Hmm.
Phil (17:21.26) All right. I was, like a lot of us, have several projects going right now. So it seems like a great time to start another one.
Phil (17:38.123) If I think you can all agree with me on that. but I was, reading the other night and I get a text from my sister and she's redoing her deck or front porch on her house. was a house built in the early 1900s, a little more than a century old. And the steps from the front porch down to the front walk.
She realized as she was pulling off one of the treads that the stringers were really only attached by hope and a couple of rusty ends of nails. So she had kind of an emergency Sunday fun day project of replacing those steps, got those taken care of. Her conundrum then was she sent me a photo.
that the sides now, the way she attached them has those stair stringer holders, piece of hardware, and those are visible from the sides of her stairway. And she'd like to cover those up and was asking me for ideas. So what I came up with, and I will put one of my sad, sad set of drawings on the
show notes page, but I'll show it here on the YouTubes, is doing little cutouts that I can put over the top of it. So I had several options for her. One related to the hometown Appleton, Wisconsin. One with like maybe like a fleur de lis look to it or an owl or bats. So she chose to do an owl on one side and a bat on the other. So I'm going to
make little carved, there's a name for what these are. Cause you see them like on the inside, on inside staircases. And there's like little whoop-de-do's that can go on there. So I wanted to do something that was a little.
Logan Wittmer (19:45.996) Yeah, I did a set of these back in high school for an inside staircase. Like I said, there's a name for them. I don't remember what they're called, but yeah, they're little decorative end caps for the stairs.
Phil (19:52.45) Okay.
Phil (20:01.292) Right. So anyway, I thought that seemed like a fun one to do because it's largely find some cedar, glue it up and cut it out on the bandsaw sort of a thing. And then it can just really just get nailed in place and live its life and be kind of a fun, fun thing to see on the house.
Anyway, there's the element of it that I like is a kind of quick turnaround on it and sketching out something and then cut it on the bandsaw. More than likely, I'll hit it with some chisels and carving gouges just to give it a little shape and texture to it.
Phil (20:54.062) So there you go. So you did some in shop class, you said? Yeah, that's cool.
Logan Wittmer (20:57.451) school yeah yeah I was it was actually for is for a friend of ours one of our actually their son was one of my best friends growing up he was in our wedding and stuff and I don't think you can steep listen to this podcast thank God but they had started this house like oh god we were young when they when they started this house
It took them a long time to there's always like little those little projects that were just unfinished and Steve I think was building the entire house himself for the most part. So it was like the husband of the couple building this house with his own hands like Everybody's dream, right? But it was very realistic where it like took a long time to get certain projects done and I don't remember if They were
They may have been selling their house. They were trying to wrap up some of these projects. I don't know. But they had asked me like, hey, would you be able to make these? They knew, you know, that I was into shop stuff. And I'm like, yeah, I think so. So I, yeah, I ended up making, it was a full two story house with really tall ceilings. So there was probably 25 or 30 of them. First time ever I did pattern routing.
because I made a pattern, template to do them all. I just zipped them out and stuff. And then I give them to them. They were, ah, they're made out of pine or something, because they're painting them white. And they were like, none of these are square. I'm like, bullshit, they're square. Your stairs aren't square. this is not a me problem, this is a you problem. So, looking back, they may have not been square. don't know. So, yeah.
John Doyle (22:37.467) Take it to the belt sander.
Logan Wittmer (22:45.921) But yeah, so it was just one of those things that was like, what an odd thing. But yeah, I definitely did a set of those.
John Doyle (22:51.899) Yeah. I can imagine like polished OSB kitchen floors for a while. it's like, well, what would it be like if I was living in a house that I was building?
Logan Wittmer (22:57.065) Yeah Yeah
Logan Wittmer (23:04.267) Yeah. Yup. was... it wasn't none of that, like it wasn't that bad. But it was like, was like little things. It's kind like my shop. It's like you have this vision, this is what's gonna be in the end. It just is a long journey to get there and there's a lot of iterations along the way.
John Doyle (23:13.541) Just little, little detail stuff.
John Doyle (23:24.389) Yeah. Yeah.
I'm trying to think of my old house. I redid the kitchen would have been like 2008 and we moved in 2000 or 2021. So that's when I was like doing all of the like quarter round and little trim pieces and stuff that needed didn't need to get done. But when you're moving, that's when you get all the projects done. So
Phil (23:53.485) Yeah, I was going to say the best time to do projects on your house is right before you sell it. And the second best time is right after you buy a house.
Logan Wittmer (23:53.972) Yep, that's right.
Phil (24:05.344) is usually how it seems.
Phil (24:11.564) Logan, last time you gave a little intro to your mailbox project. How's that?
Logan Wittmer (24:17.021) Yeah, it's in, it's hanging. I think it looks good. It's not necessarily my style. I think if you say, hey Logan, what type of mailbox would you like to build for your house?
I'm gonna do some form of like probably traditional cedar, know, tiny little cedar shake shingles on it, you know, nice, like I'll make it a nice ass mailbox, like a mailbox that you don't, you know, you don't want to leave outside. But realistically, I am one of four people that live in this house. The only other important one whose opinion matters is my wife's. So I had to...
She didn't really, I mean she just, she was at the point she just wanted a mailbox up. So the design is something that she kind of wanted. So it's a pretty modern, you know, painted black with cedar polyurethane slats on it. Nice house numbers applied to it. I am building...
the mailbox. Currently there is a steel purchased mailbox from Amazon that is on it, just so I can continue to get mail because the post office was getting a little grumpy that I didn't have a mailbox for while. But I am going to do a cedar mailbox. Now it's, I'm trying to, this is a weird thing because I'm trying to weigh the longevity versus the aesthetics of it. Because as a woodworker, I want to make something that is proportionately correct. I want
Phil (25:53.453) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (25:59.31) you know a box that's 16 inches wide and seven inches deep I don't feel like needs to be any thicker than like 5-8 material you know pretty pretty light and delicate for what it is but knowing full well that
we get fricking wet snow coming off the snowplow and it just wrecks every mailbox on our main street. Like our road is not a county highway but it's close to a county highway. So that snowplow is going 45-50 pushing wet snow. There's a lot of know momentum behind that snow and kinetic energy so it is taking a beating. So part of me is like okay do I really build this out of 5-8 material or do I build it out of 3-quarter? Just make it
it's gonna stand up or do I build it out of 5-8 material for the magazine knowing full well that it's probably not gonna survive the first winner and put that in my story to go along with it like hey you know I'm building this proportionately this looks right on thickness and I think it would be if you're in town and and you don't get a lot of like heavy snow discharge or you're in the south where you don't get snow at all but if you're up
north like us and you're on a road that gets heavy snow from the snowplow you know maybe maybe make it thicker I don't know it's one of those things it's kind of damn if I do damn if I don't so I'm probably gonna build it thinner build it how I think it looks correct proportionately and then see the see the last winner
Phil (27:40.268) Okay.
Phil (27:43.746) Yeah, guess I wouldn't living in town that would not have crossed my mind about having to deal with the impact damage of fast moving snow, gravel, salt, whatever.
Logan Wittmer (27:57.221) Yep. Yep. Yep. It is. It's every, if you, if you go down a road and look at the mailboxes, every one of them is leaning the same direction because the snow discharge off the snowplow. It's not the snowplow hitting them. The snowplows do not hit them for the most part. It is just that wall of heavy wet snow coming off of the plow. So.
Phil (28:18.03) you
Logan Wittmer (28:25.873) Yep.
Phil (28:28.088) Okay.
Phil (28:32.206) Crazy.
Phil (28:36.91) All right, John, now that your one wall workshop duties are taken care of, what's next for you?
John Doyle (28:46.681) let's see. Well, we have the Woodworking in America coming up here at the end of the week. Well, by the time this airs, it'll be Woodworking in America. And I know after that we have the TV show right around the corner, season 20, getting started. And I know episode one is a outfeed table, I believe, or outfeed cart or something.
Phil (29:10.285) Yes.
Logan Wittmer (29:11.002) Mm-hmm.
John Doyle (29:12.497) that needs to be designed yet so that will be probably priority A1 on the list once we get through woodworking in America. So I do have a couple woodsmith projects that I designed or drew up a while ago that are ready to go to the shop. So digging those files out and getting them printed. So I have a Scandinavian air quotes wall shelf, we're calling it.
Phil (29:19.662) you
John Doyle (29:41.541) that's ready to go to the shop. So ready to go from digital version to IRL. So we have that coming up too. Yeah, as the kids are saying, as they're raising the roof.
Logan Wittmer (29:51.215) As the kids say.
Phil (29:55.48) Yeah, that wolf. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (29:57.945) Yes.
Phil (30:00.089) The wall shelf was kind of cool because that came from one of our sister titles, Old House Journal. They had a kitchen remodel project on the cover and had a, said that the kitchen was Swedish inspired by some artists and designers and had a custom wall unit in there that had kind of a fun look to it and
John and I were chatting about it and Chris and thought that it would be kind of a motif to play around with. So John drew that up. I'll put a link to that in the, in the show notes page for, for folk to see. And yeah, cause one of the reasons that we need an outfeed table is we have the main table saw on the TV show set is a grizzly cabinet saw.
that came with an outfeed table, just a relatively basic surface to catch boards, had a shelf below that that caught mostly debris and random junk that we didn't know where else to put. And then we got an upgrade for that saw in that we put on a sliding table attachment that
Grizzly just released I think earlier this year, right? Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (31:33.259) Mm-hmm, yep, maybe right out right before we were done at the tent sale I think.
Phil (31:39.426) Yeah, so in the springtime era is when that one came out. So we wanted to get that on, I think, partly based on your recommendation of having a sliding attachment on your own home shop table saw, right?
Logan Wittmer (31:55.566) Yep, exactly. Yeah, I thoroughly enjoy it. So when Grizzly released one, and because they underwrite our show, said, hey, I love mine. Let me let people love yours.
Phil (32:08.918) Ha ha ha.
Where this is all going is that in order to make the best use of the sliding table attachment, I think we've agreed that it's better to remove that left cast iron extension wing from your saw and put the sliding attachment as close to the blade as possible.
which that means it would start to impact where the connection point is for the stock outfeed table.
And that gave us the opportunity to come up with a project that incorporates both an outfeed table and some table saw related storage below that.
Phil (32:55.822) So that's what we'll be doing. It'll be the first episode project for the first episode of season 20 of the Woodsmith Shop. So that's kind of cool that we're getting down to that point where it is Woodsmith Shop time and to be able to celebrate the 20th anniversary, which will be weird because we're going to be celebrating it on the show like almost a year before we actually celebrate it. I don't know.
John Doyle (33:21.723) Yeah, season 19 is probably just starting to air and in most places here in the last month or so. So we're starting on 20. We're moving on.
Logan Wittmer (33:23.171) Mm-hmm.
Phil (33:32.78) Okay. All right. So yeah, cool.
let's see one last segment here before we wrap up today's show only so that we can get Harold his full sauna session in.
Phil (33:53.967) This is our sauna segment. It's October, which I'm going to admit is a little late for me, but I'm working on some concepts for Christmas projects right now. Logan's super excited about this.
Logan Wittmer (34:09.024) I knew where- I knew exactly where this was going.
Phil (34:11.886) Yeah, I know you. know. This year, because last year, instead of making something for the nieces and nephews on my wife's side of the family, what I did is brought down some pieces and we made, we did like a Christmas craft event with Uncle Phil. And we made these little Christmas bird ornaments that
Logan Wittmer (34:13.848) Here it is.
Phil (34:42.168) turned out to be a delight for everybody to participate in. I'd like to do something similar this year. And I think what I'm going to do is small little shrink pots where you take like a green branch, drill out the middle of it, cut a small groove and then put a dry bottom into it. And then as the branch shrinks, as it dries, it shrinks around the bottom.
holding it in place. And then we'll do like a decorating painting, whatever for it. So then all the kids will have like a little, I don't know, maybe three inch diameter, few inches high, small little canister that they can use for storing whatever they want. So that's my idea.
just need to do seven of them.
Phil (35:41.209) which I think is doable. Especially since I did, I had gotten a big tea handle auger from Logan and then remade the handle for it, sharpened up the, the cutting flutes on it. And that'll be, I'd like to have most of that work done so that it's primarily just painting and decorating with it, with the kids rather than trying to make all of it at once on a short, short Christmas visit.
with all the other stuff going on.
John Doyle (36:17.841) You got this.
Phil (36:21.922) I just need to come up with like three inch diameter branches somewhere.
Logan Wittmer (36:28.404) Chainsaw and timber.
John Doyle (36:30.321) Yeah. Yeah, what's?
Phil (36:31.49) All right.
Logan Wittmer (36:33.034) I got some honeysuckle that is unbelievable.
John Doyle (36:36.273) What's the word of choice on this?
Phil (36:39.266) something that I can drill out. it's green wood. So, you know, I think almost anything would, would work.
John Doyle (36:43.386) Yeah.
Phil (36:49.838) We all know that I've been following Dave Fisher online for years. A lot of times he's using kind of your lighter, alder, birch.
I think he's done some sycamore, things like that, that are relatively easy to cut and drill out and shape. But he's also done like cherry, walnut, those kind of things too.
Logan Wittmer (37:20.962) Sounds like you need some honeysuckle.
Phil (37:24.982) You have honeysuckle that's three inches in diameter?
Logan Wittmer (37:28.331) Yeah, it's unbelievable like I don't know what you would do with it Other than I have turned some of it and it turns unbelievable. It's almost like boxwood Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool And I got some so there's two types of honey suckle. There's bush honey suckle and then there's like other type of honey suckle
Phil (37:30.733) Wow.
Phil (37:44.386) Really?
Phil (37:48.097) Okay.
Phil (37:55.906) Bush light, honeysuckle?
Logan Wittmer (37:57.842) Might be Bush Light, yeah. And the ones I have, I have some of them out there that are like that big around and I could probably get a six foot piece out of them. Like, they're crazy. Yeah.
Phil (38:11.042) Wow. Cause see in my head, if you say honeysuckle, I'm thinking that it has something the diameter of say like a carpenter's pencil.
Logan Wittmer (38:21.163) No. No.
John Doyle (38:24.689) Do you have any three inch lilac?
Phil (38:27.885) Hahaha
Logan Wittmer (38:28.948) No.
Phil (38:31.222) At my old house, I did, had some old lilac that were that big a diameter. That was...
John Doyle (38:34.981) Yeah. I would think if you could find it that big, it would already be hollowed out. Like, run it, run it out through the... Yeah. Hmm. I think Logan left to go to the timber right now. He's gonna come back with some honeysuckle. Yeah.
Phil (38:42.178) There's a strong possibility. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (38:42.38) Probably.
Phil (38:48.14) Okay.
Right, just to measure the... He's got that big log caliper. He's probably taking that out there with him.
John Doyle (38:57.051) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (38:58.902) This is one of the honeysuckle that I turned. Like I was just messing around with it, because I had no idea what it would do. So it was a little, like the pith is kind of, like there's that hole on the pith, Little weird, but it turned absolutely, like that is not sanded, and obviously like a webcam is not gonna show the finish on it. It is,
John Doyle (39:05.242) Okay.
Phil (39:26.734) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (39:28.353) If somebody would have handed this to me, I would have told you this was boxwood. With how dense it is. And my dog thinks he wants to eat this for some reason. But yeah, it's pretty cool. Maybe next week before or after WIA is all done, I'll go find one and cut it down for you.
Phil (39:32.088) Wow. Okay. Sure.
Phil (39:38.861) Okay.
Phil (39:47.52) Okay, that would be awesome.
Logan Wittmer (39:48.641) Just so you mess with it. I have a feeling and I don't know I have this feeling it would split like an SOB. I don't know why But I feel like that
Phil (40:00.419) Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'd give it a shot. Just like, what am I out? Nothing.
Logan Wittmer (40:03.999) Yeah, just to see. Yeah.
Phil (40:08.032) Okay. All right. So that leads to our discussion question for today's episode is if Logan is turning honeysuckle, what's the like wacko you would never usually find this at a lumber yard kind of material that you've worked with, whether it's carving or turning rescued from the firewood pile that you've made something out of. Because I remember seeing a
I was at a Des Moines woodworker meeting last year and a guy came in and he had turned a rosewood pen. Except it was from a rose bush, not rosewood. Rose space wood is what he was calling it, which I thought was pretty wild that you could get a rose stem big enough to turn even a pen from.
And then like on an old Woodwright, the Woodwright shop Roy Underhill had Peter Fallon's be on and I think he had spoons that were made from like lilac and rhododendron or you know some just kind of weirdo shrubbery kind of things.
Logan Wittmer (41:23.507) Mm-hmm.
Phil (41:27.118) I mean, you've turned some oddball stuff yourself, Logan.
Logan Wittmer (41:30.688) Yeah, mean, yeah, a bowling ball, come on. But yeah, I mean, it's... So there was a guy on PBS for a long time that actually popular woodworking funded his TV show called Wood's Ring with Tim Yoder. And I don't know if he did this on...
Phil (41:31.98) Yeah. Right.
Logan Wittmer (41:51.788) the air or if this was just during the the YouTube era but he was doing a will it turn so he's like chucking up watermelons and ears of corn stretch Armstrong and turning them it was it's pretty awesome
Logan Wittmer (42:11.316) Just remember when you have a lathe, everything is a dowel.
Phil (42:16.59) That's true. We have brought that up in the past. That's a good little nugget of wisdom to bring back.
Phil (42:27.288) All right.
John Doyle (42:27.601) I feel like there's a whole economy here of rebranding woods, kind of like the Patagonian toothfish is Chilean sea bass, or you got crab with a K in the seafood world. It's like, I think we could rebrand some woods here or plants into wood products to sell. yeah.
Phil (42:40.546) Hahaha!
Phil (42:47.67) Okay, I can see that.
Phil (42:53.09) I love it. Maybe Red Oak just needs a rebranding then and people would love it if you just called it something cool. Like gave it. What's your Red Oak rebrand name? That's what I'm looking for. The gritty remix, the gritty reboot of Red Oak.
John Doyle (42:56.785) I think so, yeah. Yeah, or Golden Oak has a new name.
Phil (43:14.286) All right. I think that wraps up another episode of the shop notes podcast questions, comments, and smart remarks are the negative energy that we thrive on here on the show. We'd love to hear what you have to say. Send us an email. woodsmith at woodsmith.com. You can also put it in the comments section on the shop notes podcasts, dedicated YouTube channel. Yeah, that's right. A dedicated channel just to this podcast.
Don't forget to like and subscribe all the little things that you're supposed to do to make sure that some nameless faceless algorithm tells other woodworkers about. So does this seem kind of weird in the world that we live in right now that we are offering up? Oblations to some semi cosmic deity of software to get more people to listen to a fun podcast. I don't know.
Hope to see you at Woodworking in America and if not, we hope to see you next year. Thanks for listening everybody.
