Workshops in Motion
A quick check-in to highlight what's happening in this episode. The biggest news items are additions to Logan's shop. And it isn't a big old tool that needs tons of work.
First up is a woodstove to take the chill off the air as we slide into winter. It's in the place where his radial arm drill press lived. This one change set off a set of dominos leading to Logan (possibly) relocating his metalworking tools into the single stall garage attached to his house.
Shop Cat Intro
Last year, Logan added a shop manager to his staff. Goose has been doing a solid, if lonely job of it. There's enough work that Logan added Notch to the staff. You'll notice Logan's flair for formal help. All black and a tuxedo ... very classy.
Episode Transcript
Follow along with the podcast. It can help you learn English ... sort of.
Phil (01:57.245) It is the ShopNotes Podcast. Welcome everybody. I'm your host Phil Huber joined by the usual cast of suspects, Logan Whitmer, John Doyle, and the hidden meowing of a tuxedo kitten that will make its appearance shortly. This is episode number 249.
closing in on a milestone here at the Shop Notes podcast. We're now go over some listener comments and feedback. We're going to circle back around to the Red Oak rebrand that we've been pushing so hard and that society demands that we do. We'll also do a quick update on woodworking in America and a few other shop updates that are going on here.
Thanks as always for listening. you have any questions, comments, or smart remarks, you can send those in as email. The address is, of course, woodsmith at woodsmith.com. Or you can leave a comment on our dedicated Shop Notes podcast YouTube channel. Check it out over at the Shop Notes podcast. Oddly enough is where you're going to find that. Podcast is brought to you by people who are
unlimited subscribers to Woodsmith and Popwood Plus members and subscribers to both of those magazines, in addition to a few other sponsors.
When you're working on a project in the shop, 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, cleans up with water, and dries in natural color. And of course, there's the reliable Gorilla strength you can always trust. Also check out Gorilla Wood Filler for strong, durable repairs. Gorilla is strong enough for the pro and easy enough for the beginner. Built by you, backed by Gorilla.
All right. We're going to jump right in as we always do on the shop notes podcast with some listener questions and comments. IJWTBotDad says inheritance machining is a great channel. That channel. And of course you guys are a couple of the only channels I subscribe to and get notifications. I've never done metal work, but I get mesmerized watching the precise minuscule cuts. Plus I love puns.
Who doesn't? Who doesn't?
Logan Wittmer (05:22.622) So that inheritance machining, he has a really cool thing where like his shop, his shops any building, okay, as most shops are. But.
It is like the side of a building or like a portion of the building and he has a giant removable wall, which is pretty awesome. So it's like every time he gets a new piece of equipment, he's like, gotta take down the wall. So it's like pulling, I don't know, screws out and stuff in this entire section of wall. It's like a freezer panel. just pops out and can wheel whatever machines in. It's pretty sweet.
Phil (05:59.885) I kind of love that. That's a great idea.
Puppy Doc says, once made a pen out of a branch of Russian olive and oak. I gave it to a boss I truly respected. Told him the oak represented the great strength he had shown in restraint from causing bodily harm and the olive representative peacekeeping skills. Woodworking in America was fantastic. The new venue was a huge improvement. The presenters were informative and entertaining. I can't wait for next year.
There you go.
John Doyle (06:31.79) I think we gotta give a shout out to puppy doc Bob for endowing us with a fridge full of cheese and root beer and beer. Yeah, we should be good for a while.
Logan Wittmer (06:40.734) Beer and soda, yep.
Phil (06:42.689) Yeah, yeah. It is quite lovely having somebody that can come out from behind the cheese curtain and get us fixed up with Sprecher's root beer and then also a lot of cheese.
Logan Wittmer (06:50.075) Hehehehe
Logan Wittmer (06:59.316) Yeah, heck yes. He knows the way to our hearts.
John Doyle (07:05.486) straight through our arteries.
Logan Wittmer (07:07.102) Yup.
Phil (07:07.307) you
Phil (07:11.701) Unjay6 says, at the beginning and end, sponsored by Gorilla Wood Glue and in the middle, Titebond is the sponsor. Both sponsor the same podcast? That's weird. ijwtbotdad says, it must have been a sticky situation coordinating that.
Yes, yes it is.
Logan Wittmer (07:38.76) I a cat fight going on if you guys can hear that. Yeah. Yeah. Does it count if one is underage though?
John Doyle (07:41.326) Okay, that's totally legal as long as you don't bet on it.
Phil (07:41.911) All right.
Yeah.
John Doyle (07:49.992) that's... yeah, I don't know.
Logan Wittmer (07:51.818) Yeah.
Phil (07:52.875) Yeah. We had also talked about whether red oak as a name for a species is like the Patagonian tooth fish of, of wood species and would do better if it was just, just had a better name. So we had several submissions for that. DP Meyer 4867 says red oak could just be called corcus rouge.
just go with the Latin name on it. That's a possibility. Michael Thompson, 5875 says, if we're taking suggestions for the rebrand of Red Oak, I'd like to suggest Joiner's Oak in honor of Mr. Peter Follensby, who always manages to make it look spectacular.
That one I can go along with. kind of like that. Joiners Oak has that, I don't know, vaguely heritage name that says something, that says something without really saying anything.
Logan Wittmer (08:55.464) nostalgic name. Yeah.
Phil (09:01.633) And then I got a email from Sean who says, hope you guys had an amazing woodworking in America and are recovering well from all the good times and the hard work. Was listening to shop notes podcast 247 and had way too much fun with your challenge to rebrand red oak for classic Americana woodworkers. It's clearly time we started calling it blushing acorn.
But for the younger TikTok influencer space with all the amazing inlays and bow ties made of hard to find exotic species, the clear winner is Steepleheart.
And I think you would agree that people would pay $80 per board foot for Steeple Heart.
Phil (09:49.917) love it. Bring it all in. Yup. Ryan Osterbrink says, great job on woodworking in America this year. had a great time and learned a bunch of new tricks. It's great to watch and listen to people who have honed their craft to the level of these speakers. Watching Shay use hand tools to churn out a chair leg at the speed he did or seeing Albert saw perfectly fitting small pieces of veneer makes most of us scratch our heads in wonder.
John Doyle (09:53.408) stuff.
Phil (10:19.829) I thought the venue this year was a definite upgrade over last year and having concessions on site was a plus. I'm already looking forward to next year.
There you go.
Phil (10:34.849) Thanks again for all of your and your crew's hard work putting together the magazine, podcast, TV show, and woodworking in America. Ryan from Rhinelander.
Phil (10:46.295) Fun fact, Rhinelander is the home of Wisconsin state mythical beast, the Hodag.
Phil (10:57.377) Look that up. There you go.
All right, keep sending in those suggestions that you have for rebranding red oak. See if you can top joiners oak. I think that's the, that's clearly the favorite so far.
Phil (11:17.249) Alright, you guys have any thoughts concluding remarks to summarize woodworking in America? It's like a little over a week in the rearview mirror for us here. So the trauma of it is largely passed for us. And now we're just left with the memories.
Logan Wittmer (11:36.04) Once again, I was not able, not able, I did not get in anybody else's sessions, which I wish I would have.
Phil (11:50.509) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (11:51.528) But it's just one of those things. I always felt I was running around doing stuff, checking on vendors, checking on people, making sure they had what they needed for their session, stuff like that. Overall, great success. I...
On the front end of it would have said, I would have wanted us to maybe grab, you know, another a hundred attendees there. but I think we would have had a hard time fitting that many people in the classrooms because there was several times where it's like classrooms were standing room only. I actually had to interrupt Shays, one class to make them move into the next room because it was slightly larger.
So that will be a good exercise for next year trying to figure out how we.
I mean, we expect that the number of attendees year after year is going to get a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger as this thing gains momentum and people want to continue to come to it. So figuring out exactly how we're going to make the classrooms work with that number of people, whether that's breaking out in another building, you know, using classrooms in another building. Maybe I would love to have a few like maybe green woodworking classes next year. So maybe have a 10 outside.
You know, is it too much to have Roy Underhill out there hewing logs probably at his age, but maybe.
Phil (13:23.373) Or maybe we can finally lure Pete Fallins to be here. And he could do that, so.
John Doyle (13:31.084) Yeah, yeah, I think if we were going to have more people, we'd have to take the partitions out of the class and only have two classrooms instead of four. And then, like you said, either set up a tent outside or set up spaces in the vendor area somehow to to expand that. So. But good problems to have.
Logan Wittmer (13:39.451) Yeah.
Phil (13:55.831) Yeah. John, you were kind of camped out in at the registration table headquarters right there. How was the event from your perspective?
John Doyle (14:06.306) A lot of positive feedback kind of echoing what the one person that wrote in said that upgrade to the event space. We had plenty of room. It was very convenient to get to parking, food on site and around the area. And like Logan said, I would have liked to.
bop into some of the classes. only stopped into Albert's real quick. I was like first 15 minutes, so I didn't even really get into it. But yeah, it's just busy with, you know, run around taking care of people. So we need to have an event just for us that we get to attend and not work. Yeah, yeah, it's just a hangout.
Logan Wittmer (14:52.356) Yes. Yeah. Like if we can have all the presenters stay an extra day and do demos for us, that'd be great. Maybe we'll work that into contracts next year.
John Doyle (15:00.522) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, but yeah.
Logan Wittmer (15:05.99) I honestly, I have to say, some of my favorite times though are...
Phil (15:06.561) Maybe.
Logan Wittmer (15:11.856) Cause a lot of these presenters are contributors to one of the titles, right? They're people we've worked with, people we know, but getting able or getting the chance and being able to go like have dinner with them the night after the day, that's one of my favorite parts. Like just being able to sit there and, know, shoot the shit with, you know, Alex and Wilbur and Shay and you know, whoever else, Vic, just super fun. Like being able to hang out with people, get their
John Doyle (15:15.747) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (15:41.81) opinions on you know what could be better what could be worse how their sessions went stuff like that
Phil (15:51.435) I would agree that part was. Go ahead.
John Doyle (15:51.598) And the open house is always fun too, I was gonna say, because that's kind of our little break to relax before it starts and get to talk to people face to face and they get to see where we work and do our thing and all that fun stuff, so.
Phil (16:11.085) Yeah. Yeah. I overall, I thought it was a really good event. I, uh, spent a lot of time talking to attendees at different tables in between sessions or afterwards and kind of impromptu Q and A sessions for folk, uh, before my presentations and all of that, tons of fun being able to just find out where people were from. I, we had a stat that there were folk from like 35 states.
which is pretty impressive for our event. So it was all good things. After taking a few days to recover, I was able to spend some time in my workshop this past weekend and made a new rack for my hand screw clamps, because the previous one held like less than half of them. did that. I've discovered that I feel like
If you have a workshop space, one of the things that they don't tell you is that you will spend an inordinate amount of time of cleaning up, throwing away stuff and restacking wood piles more than you think. And I know Logan, you spent a lot of time in your recovery, your woodworking in America recovery in your space and
Maybe you can chime in on some of the things you've been up to.
Logan Wittmer (17:42.265) Yeah. So my initial thought was like, we're working like.
Saturday we're working Sunday we're working you know doing terror you know pick up tear downs I take a couple days off Monday had to be at the event space all day to get pallets picked up just because of some of the logistics that the fairgrounds needed whatever so like Tuesday Wednesday Thursday kind of partial days kind of doing my own thing doing you know things around here whatever excuse me while I yell at cats quick
Bully cat, but I'm not convinced that the little cat is not dramatic Because I've been watching them and I'm pretty sure the little cat is just dramatic But yes But now he's instigating so it is what it is But yeah, so I have been talking about putting a wood stove here in the shop and I'm the type of guy that when I
Phil (18:24.769) Mm.
Phil (18:29.869) Yeah, second borns are.
Logan Wittmer (18:48.695) want to do something like that, A, I'm probably just gonna do it, but B, I'm gonna like way over investigate and research and like overthink it to the, you know, 10th degree. So over the last 36 years, I've just decided if I'm gonna do it, just do it, cause then I'll stop obsessing over it.
So I, yes, yes it is. I, last week, went out and grabbed a wood stove. I was trying to decide like, I get one that is appropriately sized? Do I oversize one for my space? So I oversized it for the space a little bit. have about 1600 square feet here in the shop. I bought one that's rated for 2000 square feet, knowing that I have high,
Phil (19:11.243) It's a form of therapy and self-care really.
Logan Wittmer (19:40.814) ceilings so you know I have a little bit of extra heat burden here by the way because I just picked him up that's the new shop cat his name's notch because of his cleft palate in case anybody's wondering he has kind of that little skull look to him he's a little turd I got him as a friend to goose they're not very friendly right now but anyways so I I
I ended up buying this wood stove, it was on sale at Tractor Supply, little oversized, got it into the shop and decided where it was going to go, which is ultimately the corner where my radial arm drill press was. So a lot of what I was doing last week was moving stuff. mean, it's like trying to situate this where it's gonna go, moving the radial arm drill press, where is that going to go?
and then kind of some deep self-reflection on like, does it make sense? I feel like there's one of those Logan's deep self-reflections every podcast. But it's like, do I keep my metalworking stuff here in the shop or do I move that into my garage? Because I mean, my garage that's attached to our house is three stalls. We only use one stall. The single stall is right now just full of lumber.
and welders. So it's like half the metalworking stuff's in there already. I have a couple of welders in there. So I also have the power there. I have 220 that runs through that single stall into the basement shop. So it's like, have the power. Does it make sense to move the metalworking stuff? Meaning the, uh,
vertical mill, the metal lathe and like the arbor press and the tool cabinet into that single stall and that then frees up a lot of room and I will move that radial arm drill press in there too. So that kind of positions a lot of the mill working stuff at the house, frees up some space here, gives me little bit more room because I am so sick of listening to our video crew complain about how much crap I have in my shop.
Logan Wittmer (21:54.659) is valid. But so there's there's lots of things that are still moving. Lots of things that need still removed. But yeah, it's yeah. Having a shop and being in a shop does not always mean building stuff. Shop is a state of being.
Phil (22:17.985) That's.
Right. Yeah. What's Adam Savage's line? It's not a problem to be solved. It's a process to be managed.
Logan Wittmer (22:29.699) 100%.
Phil (22:31.275) Yeah, because I feel like it's one of those things again, where it's a domino project. You just do, you're just doing one thing. I'm just adding a wood stove and then all the dominoes start falling afterwards. And until you like pull a few of them out farther down the string, like the next thing you know, you're, you've revamped the whole place.
Logan Wittmer (22:39.208) yeah.
Logan Wittmer (22:56.992) Yeah, I mean kind of. And like part of this entire thing is like, again, this is all like that shop vision that I've been working on that I've had for years. And it's like, okay, Woodstow's in the corner, moving stuff around, gotta work in some lumber storage in the shop somewhere. So that's like coming in the near future. So like there's all of these things, you know.
And then somebody decides that, know what, it's been a beautiful week out. The sawmill was out because of Woodworking in America and we should just set a goal to get through three logs a day. So we've also been doing that. Why not?
Phil (23:40.257) Right, yeah. Which we started talking about a little bit before we hit record here on this episode is to be fair to yourself, prior to woodworking in America is not what I would call sawmilling weather.
Logan Wittmer (23:57.075) No, it's hot, it's sweaty, sawdust sticks to you. I mean, it's just been one of those things, you know. And to be honest with you, I've had a problem with the sawmill and I've been fighting it. And it popped up last year, before winter, I'm just using last year, you before winter, it popped up.
and it kind of disappeared and then it reappeared. Thankfully it reappeared after my Woodworking in America demonstrations.
I had the sawmill set up here last week and I was running a couple of things through it. And all of a sudden the power feed would just stop completely. Like I'd be in the middle of a cut and it would be stopping every foot. Almost like, so there's a sensor, there's DC motors that drive everything. It's driven, the power feed's driven off a chain sprocket. And there is a DC motor that drives it. And then there's a little logic board that drives that motor.
And the logic board has programming built into it if it senses over amp draw Meaning it is having to push too hard as if it runs into something it stops So it was almost like it was running into something But it wasn't like like if you bump if you if there's a limb sticking out and you bump into it with this Sawhead it will stop and it will not allow you to just try to power through it There's a threshold there
Phil (25:11.264) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (25:30.363) Sometimes I would saw all day, not stop once. Sometimes, like two days ago, must've been Saturday night, Saturday night afternoon, my neighbor actually wandered over, because he saw me out sawing, and he was standing there talking to me, and this thing's stopping every six inches.
I am like, what the heck? And I had emailed, um, Hartville hardware, like, Hey, you know, don't know if Logosol has seen this. I know this has to be something stupid. Like, like the saw mill is brand new. It's built fantastically. Like something here is going on. Like something's going on. Um, I had tried to spray all the connectors with lithium grease, like everything. Nothing was helping. Um, and actually yesterday morning, it got to a point where.
Must have yesterday morning, got to a point where I couldn't even get the head to move. Like, usually I can get it to like, come back towards me, no problem. But it was the forward feed that was always the issue. It would never stop on the way back. So I get to the end of the log, raise the head up, and then bring it back, no problem. And I was just beating my head against this. Long story even longer.
charged the batteries that didn't do it. actually replaced the battery because my battery did go bad. But I finally pulled all the covers off.
and I was looking at it and one of the logic boards had an error code flashing and I could not come up with what the error code was. There's a USB port on it where you can plug your computer in to read the diagnostics. But I started like touching the wires and then I realized one of the connectors, if you put a pressure on it, it's fine. then the lights all turn green. If you let it go, the lights turn red. So there's something in that one connector and I think it's actually inside the board. Something in there.
Logan Wittmer (27:27.042) is not right, I'm working with Logosoul to get a new one of those in. Currently it's zip-tied to put tension on it, and it's working just fine. man, but yeah, so.
Phil (27:36.749) All right.
Phil (27:40.461) The old turn up the radio solves your car problems solution.
Logan Wittmer (27:43.508) Yes, yep, yeah. But I'll tell you what, it's run great. A lot of people are probably like, three logs a day, that seems like a pretty big burden to cut. I can get through three logs in 40 minutes. Like.
No issues. The cleanup for three logs, that's the problem. So it's like I got all off cuts, you know, I got a, restack a little bit or something, you know, so there's a little bit more than that, but it's like, what I've been trying to do is be very strategic, where it's like, okay, uh.
like must have been Friday and Saturday, I ran all walnut. So I just cut a bunch of walnut. So it's like all that walnut goes on a stack. So it's like cut it, put it on the forks of the skid loader. I can get two logs at once, put one on the sawmill, one on the loader, then I just leave the forks there. So it's like cut through, put them on the forks, load up the next log without moving the skid loader, and I can just keep stacking up on the forks and then I just have to restack it. So not a big deal. So it's been going pretty quickly, but then I have all
these offcuts that are left and actually the the whole
Nexus for getting the saw mill set up and doing this is one of the wood magazine former editors was coming out last week because he had an ashtray he wanted slapped out so actually both of their their editors that retired came out and we ran stuff through the saw mill and stuff and yeah I had there was a giant oak that I was gonna bring to do the quarter sawing on the saw mill at the Woodworking in America. Skiddler wouldn't lift it until I topped
Logan Wittmer (29:27.88) off the diesel and then that gave me enough counterbalance to actually lift it up which means I was really like bouncing on two tires most of the way but yeah
Got that cut up, went through a bunch of walnuts, been going through some nasty cherries. These cherries have been down for like two or three years, so the sapwood's pretty much gone on them. It's very soft if it's there, but the heartwood's still good, so. We've been cranking through. I don't know what's gonna happen when I don't have any logs sitting here. I'm not gonna know what to do with my hands.
Phil (29:58.955) Right. Well, I think a lot of this was driven by the fact of like in the building of your shop now, and then the rerouting of your driveway and that whole process, just because you're working with, I think you were working with the county, right? On how and when that all got taken care of. So all of that is what's finally giving you the space.
to create the log yard, so to speak, that you have there.
Logan Wittmer (30:29.628) Yeah. Yup.
Yeah, it's... completely! Yeah.
Phil (30:33.847) So again, another domino project where you had to wait for a few other dominoes to come down in order to be able to organize all this.
Logan Wittmer (30:41.95) And the other thing is, you know, not to make this a complete sawmilling freaking podcast, but one of the other things I was waiting for to start, when you're cutting lumber, right, you have to have somewhere to put it, okay? I could just stack it anywhere. My wife hates to hear that, but I can. I can just kind of stack it anywhere. But if you're not stacking it on level ground,
you're basically steam bending all of this material into whatever shape it's laying on. So either you have to set up level ground, you have to level blocks, you gotta do something. So for the longest time, I was always looking for what are called hog slats, okay?
Hog slats are used in hog confinement facilities. They are precast concrete pads that are four foot wide, four inches thick, and 10 feet long. And this is what they build hog confinement facilities out of, and it's the floors on them. And they sit on ribs and stuff, like there's this whole thing, right?
Being in the middle of Iowa, occasionally they pop up for sale. Like someone's ripping out a hog confinement facility, you can buy them fairly inexpensively. They're precast concrete. They're not perfectly flat, but they're flat enough for rough-sawed lumber. And I've been looking for a load of these that I could go grab. Now could buy them by the semi-load, but I don't want a semi-load of them. I want like 10 of them.
to stack lumber on. And I found a guy north of us in Ames that had, he said he had a couple hundred available and I was like, cool, I'm gonna come buy 10. Now I don't know if he wanted to dink around selling me just 10 because he's, know, most of these hog confinement guys, need, you know, thousands of them. But I was like, he said he was gonna sell me,
Logan Wittmer (32:45.468) This is all last week, I was kinda waiting on a response on when I could go and get them, cause I have Bobby Three Fingers trailer, and I was like, his trailer is heavier duty than mine is, plus it has floor on it, mine does not.
Never heard back from the guy. So I took a shot in the dark, put it on my local Runnels Facebook page. Like, hey, does anybody, what's the odds that somebody has some of these? And one guy was like, I got some. So I went and grabbed those on Saturday morning. So I grabbed these concrete hog slats. grabbed 10 of them. They're 1400 pounds apiece, pretty heavy. But that is now what I'm stacking lumber on. So it's like, now I got the space, got a little bit of time.
Got the sawmill set up, got the place to put the lumber. Things are starting to fall in line.
Phil (33:35.723) I love it. Right.
Logan Wittmer (33:35.79) Other projects are still there. Those other projects are not going away, but my log projects are going away. So pretty cool.
Phil (33:43.019) Yeah. John, all this reminds me of something that you had started several years ago of a little cleanup challenge that you had done.
John Doyle (33:53.557) yeah.
Phil (33:54.541) the like one month cleanup challenge where you had to get rid of or deal with whatever number day it is.
John Doyle (33:57.006) Yeah.
John Doyle (34:03.158) Mm-hmm one more thing each day So you start getting rid of one thing on the first of the month? If you get rid of two things on the second and on and on ends up being like 400 different things by the end of the month total
Phil (34:18.475) Yeah. It feels like maybe as we close out the year, you know, we're halfway through back half of October here, somewhere in the November, December timeframe, we need to do a shop notes podcast cleanup challenge for all the listeners. The tens of listeners that we have here that would be willing to jump in on this and figure out what to do. Because I think.
Because when you start saying it that way, I think even when you were talking about it, John, like the prospect of getting like into the 20s from the outset felt probably a little intimidating for you.
John Doyle (35:04.658) Yeah, yeah, because it's like, do I have 20 things? But sometimes it's just like a chewed up pencil or three dull drill bits or a bag of hardware or it can be a bucket of old screws that you're never going to use or a coffee can or just odds and ends.
Phil (35:23.137) Yeah. I think also there's there's a inertia too, like by starting with like one and then two, like by the time you start getting into it, you're like, yeah, man, what else can we throw away?
John Doyle (35:34.831) Right. Yeah. And that's what it takes sometimes is like, you don't want to get rid of anything. And then you start doing it. it's like, yeah, I'm really making progress here. Let's keep this going. So. And like you said, I think it's too, there's two good times to do it is like at the kind of the end of the year, as you're bundling up the shop for, for winter and need to bring everything in and organizing outdoor stuff as it comes in or spring as you're kind of getting back out into the shop.
after the cold weather.
Phil (36:08.705) Really cool. So Logan, just to circle back on this for a moment, have you come to a decision on the metalworking stuff? Is it going in the garage? okay, because where I was going with this is like knowing what you wanted your shop to be when you started this whole journey.
Logan Wittmer (36:18.99) Not fully, haven't.
Phil (36:34.797) It feels like it was, you know, part of the vision was to have this like one central place that you could do all kinds of creative expression in it. So the decision to bifurcate your shop in terms of having a metalworking and a woodworking kind of part separate feels like it would be, you know, you'd be working on something in your shop and then be like, I would really love to mill a new blobity bob. And then it's like,
But I gotta go outside.
Logan Wittmer (37:07.608) Yeah, see, I don't feel like that's gonna be that big a deal to me. I feel like I gain more by, I don't like clutter. I do not like clutter. As much as like, you know, our video crew likes to give me crap for how much equipment I have in my shop. Generally, it's not cluttery. It's just big equipment. So like,
Phil (37:33.228) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (37:36.832) I feel like I'm going to gain more by not having that here than I am in the inconvenience of having to go over there.
Phil (37:44.735) Okay. To a certain extent, do you feel like you like what you're doing now?
is like you have to live with an arrangement for a while to figure out whether it's right.
Logan Wittmer (37:58.81) 100 % oh yeah, you do like and that's why I have Continuously moved stuff around is it's like you have to live with it for a while to figure out exactly what you need that's why like somehow our running joke was always that John was the the adopter of Abandoned carts like
You know, what I am now doing with cats, guess, John used to do that with carts. And somehow I also became the adopter of carts. So now I'm like, I have way more carts than I need. They seemed like a great idea until I have nowhere to park them. And now they're just not a good idea. So it's like, yeah, you have to set it up, use it.
figure out exactly how you need it. I mean, we're talking about a shop, but I feel like it's the same way with my wife and I said the same thing with our house. Like we built our house. She doesn't think this way as much as I do, but I'm like, okay, now that we've lived in our house for almost 10 years, like I know what I would do different. know, house is a whole lot harder to change than the shop is where it's just a reorganization.
But yeah, mean, it's, I think the correct term is continuous improvement.
Phil (39:30.893) There you go. I can see that.
John Doyle (39:32.578) I think of it as as like maximum strength shop. Like you should figure out how much shop will kill you. And then you got to back it off a little. And then that's, that's the, that's the correct amount of shop.
Logan Wittmer (39:39.832) Yes, yes, that's right. Yep.
Phil (39:44.109) Right. I mean, because John, you did collect quite a few shop cards and you still have some, but you've also released some of those back to the universe to, yeah.
John Doyle (39:53.955) Yep, redistributed them to others and they found good homes, but yeah. So I have the correct amount right now. So.
Phil (40:04.939) Yeah. And the sentiment to have shop carts is a noble one in the sense that it gives you flexibility to rearrange space. Cause even in my super tiny shop, I've thought, you know, what I need is maybe a cart. And I've looked at different, and I've got my eye on several different plans for once. And then it's like, don't have room to roll around anything in my space. So it's really just going to be a stand. It just.
Logan Wittmer (40:13.219) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (40:18.925) I got one for you, Phil.
Logan Wittmer (40:30.637) Yeah.
Phil (40:34.199) Coincidentally, the legs are wheels.
Logan Wittmer (40:37.143) Yeah. Well, and that's kind of, so that's kind of the problem that I'm having is it's like, I love when I have a cart in the shop. Cause I have, I think in the shop right now, I have two carts. I have one that has the Pantorouter on it and that's where that lives.
So that in essence is just a, I mean, that's the tool. That's not, it's the stand. It's not a cart, a usable cart. And then I have one other in here that is currently empty because I'm trying to get, I'm like, I'm trying to clear it out, but I like having a cart in here that I can put parts on and move it from the jointer to the planer or planer to the table saw or
workbench to the drill press. Like that way I'm not carrying stacks of parts. I could just put them all there and roll it around. The problem is those tend to be fairly large and I don't really, I don't know. I don't know. I like the sentiment of it. I just don't know that I like the functionality of it in my shop as it sits.
John Doyle (41:43.471) Yeah. Yeah. If you want a cart for that purpose where it's like, you can take stuff on and on and move on. It almost needs to like nest into something else or it will become a stand or just a place that gets stuff stacked up on or whatnot. But yeah.
Logan Wittmer (41:53.495) Yes.
Logan Wittmer (42:03.031) Yeah, I actually, I like that idea of, hmm, so I have a outfeed table that needs to be built here sometime soon. Maybe one of the lowers is a cart that rolls out from underneath it as a shop cart. That might be a good way to do it. Have a little corral underneath for the shop cart.
Phil (42:27.063) There you go.
Logan Wittmer (42:28.089) I don't know.
Phil (42:32.973) All right. So there's the discussion question is where do you stand on shop carts? What do you have for carts in your shop and how have you put them to work? I mean, I have to be fair for carts in my shop right now, when I think about it, my main tool cabinet is on wheels. My hardware storage cabinet is on wheels. have a little power tool storage cabinet and, uh,
planer cart and really only the planer cart is the one that moves because I kind of keep it parked off to the side and when I need to use the planer then I bring it out into the main part of the shop. The other ones really are only on wheels so that I can move them around to sweep under them when it's time to clean up the shop a little bit. So, would love to hear people's thoughts on how that works in your workshop.
So let's see.
Phil (43:40.565) I think the last thing, Logan, you had mentioned you have now tied a bow on the saga of the Moac jointer because you got an electrical box upgrade for that.
Logan Wittmer (43:49.899) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (43:53.473) Heck yes I did. So...
I, my planer and my jointer sit right next to each other. Each one is running off of a VFD, variable frequency drive, because they're three phase. The VFD for the planer was mounted to the back outfeed side on the base, right in line where boards would fall as they exit the planer and smash the VFD. Done it several times.
The VFD for the MOAC was kind of attached to the back half-heartedly, because I knew I was going to change it, but it never had an on-off switch. You had to walk around the back of the machine, turn it on with the VFD, walk around the front, turn it off, or walk around the back to turn it off again. Super annoying, not convenient, not safe either. You could not reach the off button from the operator position.
I bought an electrical cabinet, which is just a steel locker, basically. That's, I don't know, a foot deep by a foot and a half wide by two feet tall. And I mounted some unistret, so it stands up on the ground. And there's a plug that comes out of it. So now that the little electrical box has a cord coming out of it, plugged into the outlet, that cord feeds both VFDs.
And then there are, there's flex conduit coming out of, there's one flex conduit coming out of it going to the MOAC, one flex conduit coming out of it going to the planer. And I installed an on off button for the MOAC.
Logan Wittmer (45:28.919) I'm gonna embarrass myself here. I Was helping a friend move two weeks ago He had a couple of big toolboxes he's like hey if you want these really nice toolboxes, they're they're giant He's like you can have them, but I need you to help me move my shop said okay. No problem Greg I'll help you move your shop So I get to his house He had a big penske truck rented with a liftgate and we're moving his shop
He paid movers to move his entire house, but like the big stuff, table saw, drill press, bandsaw, jointer, planer, workbench, all this stuff. Had to go in the Penske truck. Okay, cool. I dropped his jointer off the lift gate.
Kind of. It was a steel city, okay? So the steel city with a granite fence.
Phil (46:20.864) Okay.
Phil (46:24.397) Aww.
Logan Wittmer (46:26.206) Okay, so I had the jointer on the lift gate with another tool. I don't remember what the other tool was, but I'm standing there holding one of the tools, using the lift gate with one hand.
And the problem is when you got to the top, angle of his driveway tilted everything forward pretty hard. So I got to the top and the dointer went. So it actually fell, it didn't fall off the tailgate. It fell from an upright position onto the fence support that comes off the backside. The granite fence shattered. The cast iron fence.
Phil (46:59.104) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (47:06.997) Attachment mechanism whatever broke And I'm like dang it Greg like I felt awful right and of course Greg's like, huh? That means I get a new one Like his initial thoughts. Oh cool. I can buy a nicer one now. I'm like I'm gonna replace this obviously like I like I was the one moving it like I wasn't You know should have probably waited for a second person to want to these whatever So last week
Phil (47:20.343) All right.
There you go.
Logan Wittmer (47:36.853) I found somebody in Des Moines had a Steel City 6-inch joiner for 300 bucks. Beautiful shape. Freaking pristine. Okay? So I went and bought it. I'm like, I'm gonna replace it. Great. Like this is my like $300 bad, right? Like I'm gonna replace his joiner. In essence, this was me paying 300 bucks for his two tool cabinets. Not really, but kind of.
Phil (47:44.941) All right.
Logan Wittmer (48:06.837) But what this Steel City jointer had on it so I have Greg's that I dropped off his off the truck sitting here in my shop I have this new one. They both have it bracket arm for the on-off button Like that you I was like, yeah, I know so it worked perfect It just everything worked out the universe healed itself. I got an on-off button for my moac
Phil (48:23.917) yeah.
John Doyle (48:25.518) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (48:35.317) with a bracket arm Yeah, so Is what it is, but yes Moac is completely up and running there is an on off button now The electrical is all done my electrician signed off on it Perfect so it is too bad and she'll never be spoken of again
Phil (48:44.269) All right.
Phil (48:56.128) Love it.
Phil (49:02.955) All right, on that note, we're gonna wrap up this episode of the Shop Notes podcast. Don't forget to check out the show notes page. We'll put a couple of photos up of what's all going on there. Plus a little adorable cat squee of Notch, the new shop cat and Goose's little brother. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions, comments or smart remarks, you can send them to us in an email, woodsmith at woodsmith.com.
or leave them in the comments section on our YouTube channel, Shop Notes Podcast. Thanks for listening, everybody. We gone.
