Woodworking and Leather Craft
As part of our update, Logan and I talked about making some tool storage projects from leather. We're filming an episode of the Woodsmith Shop featuring a couple items.
For a limited time, we're offering the plans for a chisel roll on Woodsmith Plans.
Logan shared his favorite site for leather projects Leather-patterns.com
Callery Bradford Pear Tree Update
Last episode, we talked about invasive callery pear trees. They were planted frequently in suburban areas. However, in addition to being invasive and a deterent to local wildlife, the trees are prone to breaking, and their blossoms smell terrible. I wondered about their utility to woodworkers.
What uses can woodworkers find for the material to help dispose of the trees?
Hunter Menken, one of our listeners submitted these comments along with some photos of some pear he recently scored:
It was nice to hear Phil mention Krenov's beloved swiss pear in conjunction with bradford pear in E268 of the ShopNotes Podcast. While I was at the Krenov School from 2022-2024 I had the pleasure of making a cabinet out of swiss pear and doussie (two of JK's favorites). It was an absolute delight, but expensive. In general swiss pear carries a hefty cost, so when I returned to Iowa after my time in NorCal I wanted to find a wood that was semi-comparable. For those familiar with Old Jim's work you know he loved his fruitwoods. So, when I had the opportunity to buy some air dried bradford pear, I took advantage of it (a story JK often told reflected the fact that he always regretted not buying all of a log his gut told him to buy, so I don't let my wallet stop me when my gut speaks).
I lived with the three slabs I purchased for around a year and a half. Like Jim I like to live with my wood, glance at it from time to time, turn it over in the light, take a few shavings off the face to reveal what's underneath. Poking and prodding until the wood tells me what it wants to be. Then I came across some kwila and I knew they were destined for each other. With the recent birth of my nephew, Liam, and the need to hold his impressive book collection (for a baby) I set to work on "Lil' Prince" a bookshelf out of kwila and pear. It's a post and panel case with almost all shop-sawn veneer work. The pear is mostly used in the form of veneers, with the exception of the drawer sides and backs, which are solid. I'm around 3/4 of the way through, but my experience so far has been remarkably similar to working swiss pear. Fruitwood is the best in terms of color range, from the color of cream in the sap to a blood red at the heart, it is truly magnificent. The bradford pear itself has proven to be a bit of a challenge. The tree itself grows under a tremendous amount of stress resulting in high figure and lots of twisting. Getting the veneers to behave was a challenge, but with some time tested techniques I got them flat enough to glue up edge to edge and then on to my substrate. The thicker pieces for drawer sides I milled out and I'm just taking my time getting them dimensioned. So far they've been more agreeable than the veneers. As it relates to the hand tooling though (all my milling is done by machine, but all surfaces are finished by hand tools) I found it fairly friendly in workability. With a sharp iron you can easily get full width shavings even through some of the heavy curling. For the very few spots that had tear out scraping proved to be a challenge. The scraper, even freshly sharpened/honed, seemed to generate only small shavings, but almost 95% dust. It still would do the trick, but when compared to scraping the kwila, which gives you nice fluffy shavings, it was a bit of a bummer. Almost forgot to mention that pear has to me a wonderful sweet smell when machining. When I was slicing veneers I was in heaven. I'm a bit of an odd duck when it comes to the smell of machined lumber, I even like elm, which most folks passionately dislike.
So, to answer some of the questions posed in the podcast: I think it is a great turning wood. I don't turn much myself, but I've given some scraps to a turner I work with, Mark Nelson, and he has made some beautiful bowls. In terms of furniture making, if properly dried (it wants to twist and check and generally rend itself asunder) it could be considered. I'd be afraid of unseen checks creating trouble down the road. Like I've already been doing, veneers, accents, and small projects seem to be favored by pear (as it is with many fruitwoods). I recently acquired several sizable slabs that were cut down by a local tree service. Perhaps all the pear I'll ever need assuming the drying goes well. I plan to use most of it for veneered case work, but I'm interested in trying at least a chair or two out of it.
One final note on fruitwood in general. I haven't ever seen it written, but I have a working theory on why these trees tend to have such color diversity. As most of us know fruit trees are typically cut down when they're dead standing, mostly because they rot from the inside out, often fully soft with rot before we even notice their impending death. The wood of course may be wholly unusable if it makes it that far. My theory is that the pre-rot is what gives birth to the stunning color, especially the crimsons. A tree when pulling in nutrients from the soil can't secrete what it would consider poison or waste, if it did, it would just pull it in again. I think most of it just gets pushed into the pith of the tree, which is why it rots there first. Of course this is probably well documented somewhere, but I have to read it, and frankly if it isn't true, I kind of prefer my version of what is happening.
SO, should we be saving pear wood as we cut it down due to its invasiveness? YES. Then we should dry it and give it to me, so that I can use it all.
Transcript:
Phil Huber (02:08.686) Hey everybody, it's the ShopNotes Podcast. I'm Phil Huber today joined by Logan and it's episode number 269. On today's episode of the ShopNotes Podcast, we're going to dive into readers comments. We're going to talk about some upcoming events that we have going on in the Woodsmith, Pop Wood, Fine Woodworking universe. And just check out all the great stuff that we've been thinking about with woodworking. Happy to have you along. If you want to take part in this, we thrive on your questions, comments, and smart remarks. You can send those into us at woodsmith at woodsmith.com for email, or you can subscribe to the ShopNotes Podcast on YouTube.
We have a dedicated channel for that where you can go back and listen to past episodes. Show notes for all of our episodes are at woodsmith.com slash podcast.
And here is where we're going to insert a little sponsor message.
Phil Huber (03:29.496) All right. On last week's episode, we were discussing the Bradford pear, part of the larger family of calorie pears that have become invasive and aggressive in many parts of the country and reached out for some folk to see if they could help us out with any of the questions about more about that.
Logan Wittmer (03:38.987) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (03:58.798) And nope.
Logan Wittmer (04:02.793) Hehehehe
John Doyle (04:03.397) Yeah.
Phil Huber (04:06.082) based on the comments that I have.
John Doyle (04:08.103) .
Phil Huber (04:09.78) Other than the fact of here is a representative of it. Tim Passmore says in Indiana, we have an abundance of bread prepared trees. They're an invasive tree with very pungent white blooms and no fruit. It turns nicely. Which I can see that that as a fruit would it seems. But then on the other hand, like I don't know, you know,
know, like crab apples are apple trees, but nobody's making applesauce out of crab apples. So.
You never know what the material is going to be like. Another user on here says, I use a Ryobi Bluetooth radio. No problem with tripping a breaker.
in relation to our comments about electric circuits.
John Doyle (05:00.007) Thanks
Phil Huber (05:02.955) Michael Wittenton says, love the show. Any chance any of you would know how to acquire a poster of the HO Studley tool chest.
Phil Huber (05:15.682) which I don't. I think Fine Woodworking had published those years and years and years ago, but I don't know if they did new ones after the Studley bookcase.
So Michael, my response to you is either to check with the folk at Fine Woodworking or better yet, reach out to Lost Art Press.
Logan Wittmer (05:42.793) Yeah, they don't have any in stock. doesn't look like I just was looking.
Phil Huber (06:01.518) Final comment on here was by PuppyDoc, Bob, who is joining us for our Denmark and Sweden tour, which for those of you who don't know, whenever you sign up for the tours, you get put onto a WhatsApp chat for all the other tour members on there. Bob got added to that the other day, connected with John Nastah, who I know is listening right now. And that chat is lighting up. So this is going to be.
one of those kind of tours. So you're wanna be a part of it. Make sure to check it out.
Logan Wittmer (06:44.029) Did it inform everybody when I left that chat? Or did I John Doyle out of it?
Phil Huber (06:47.254) It did not.
You just did the Ankeny goodbye.
Logan Wittmer (06:52.976) Yep, kind of like here. Yeah.
Phil Huber (06:59.724) All right. We had one other comment sent in by email about Bradford pair This one's by Hunter Menken who's a friend of the show listener and Works at the Woodcraft store in Iowa City, Iowa. So just down the road on on I-80 He's the education
Logan Wittmer (07:28.625) Yeah, two hours down the road.
Logan Wittmer (07:37.486) Education director? Yeah.
Phil Huber (07:38.912) Education manager of the Woodcraft down there. Logan and I were both out there doing presentations. I was there last week, had a great time with the folks from the Corridor Woodworkers group. And then you were there last fall-ish winter? Something like that? Yeah. Anyway, I was chatting with Hunter before this episode came out and he had mentioned that he had gotten a bunch of Bradford pear from somebody that had milled it.
Logan Wittmer (07:52.857) Yeah, sometime. Yeah.
Phil Huber (08:08.93) So I asked him to share some thoughts. He wrote a good long part on here. I'm going to post that in on the show notes page for you to check that out. There's some fun information on there. But I just want to say that just to pull out a few excerpts. One is he thinks that it's a great turning wood. He has given some scraps to a turner he works with. Mark Nelson has made some beautiful bowls.
In of furniture making, if properly dried, it wants to twist and check and generally rend itself asunder. It could be considered.
I'd be afraid of unseen checks creating trouble down the road. Like I've already been doing, veneers, accents, and small projects seem to be favored by Pear, as it is with many fruit woods.
So he was doing some shop sawn veneers and doing that with a project that he's been, he's in the midst of doing. So that would be kind of cool to see. And then sent some photos and like I said, I'll put some of those photos on there as well. But yes. So should we be saving pear wood as we cut it down due to invasiveness? Yes. Then we should dry it and give it to me so that I can use it all.
Logan Wittmer (09:30.415) Speaking of pear, I forgot we talked about that. I mean, comparing pears to apples, I sold some lumber the other day and I moved a bunch of stuff that somebody stacked in front of said walnut lumber. And yeah, a couple of those were a couple big chunks of apple that I had, saw in the fall, summer last year maybe.
Might have cut it in the summer. And I was like, oh, I'm going to check and see how dry this stuff is because it feels really dry. It feels really light for Apple. So I'm like, okay, maybe this is getting down there. Shouldn't be, but maybe it is. And it measured like 7%. So yeah. And I, like, I know I got this from, uh, three finger Bobby, uh, Bobby three fingers. Um, it was, I think his
father-in-law's tree I think and I think it was down for a while before I cut it so it may have been like standing dead because there's definitely some spalt lines in it so you know maybe potentially started to dry but yeah so now I got a couple of big I cut some hand plane blanks out of it so there's like some big like three by four stock for hand plane bodies yep there's there's some
Phil Huber (10:48.141) Ooh, that's cool.
Logan Wittmer (10:53.325) turning blanks in there. There's a couple of boards that are two inches thick. So yeah, we'll see. We'll figure out something to do with it. I don't know why yet, but something.
Phil Huber (11:03.64) All right, now tell me this, because this goes back to some of Hunter's comments, is he was slicing the veneers from the pear and he loves the smell of cut pear, which I think apple, I mean, it doesn't smell the same as pear, but it does have a delightful smell to it. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (11:17.301) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (11:20.798) It's close. It does. It smells wonderful.
Phil Huber (11:36.27) Yeah, he thought that the Bradford pear worked very similar to Swiss pear that he had worked with at the Krenov school, which is also a very Krenovian type of wood, Swiss pear, and used with veneers, drawer sides and backs, which are solid. And great color. Because he said too that one of the pieces that he had
Logan Wittmer (12:02.099) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (12:05.026) the tree had started to rot a little bit, so there was some color streaking on the inside.
Logan Wittmer (12:09.675) Yeah.
Phil Huber (12:16.012) Yeah, fun stuff. All right. If you have any experience on working with Bradford Pear,
still want to hear about it, learn a little bit more about this material and figuring out how to make use of it besides just chipping it up into mulch and saving it. Don't let this become
Logan Wittmer (12:40.202) I mean, if you chip it up into mulch, you can smoke your meats with it, probably, maybe.
Phil Huber (12:45.154) Well, that's probably true too, but we just don't want this turning into the Asian carp of trees. So.
Logan Wittmer (12:50.218) Which you can also smoke. Thank you very much
Phil Huber (12:54.754) Ha ha ha ha ha!
Logan Wittmer (12:56.242) Supposedly they're delicious, cannot bring myself to try one.
Phil Huber (13:03.992) I don't know, maybe. Just gotta try.
Phil Huber (13:10.168) All right, here we are.
Phil Huber (13:17.27) next segment.
Logan Wittmer (14:45.869) It's leather working for woodworkers by woodworkers.
Phil Huber (14:52.364) Right, a number of years ago in Shop Notes, Chris had designed several leather working projects. And the first of them...
when we started it was a chisel roll. So I was assigned to write that article and ended up making my own chisel roll. We had two different colors of leather. And then his design had little tabs so that you could hang it like on a tool wall or pegboard wall or something like that. I'll put some photos with that in the show notes page, link to it if that plan is up, question mark.
But yeah, it's been, I was surprised on how relatively straightforward it was to do some leather working. I don't know why I thought it was going to be super difficult, which is not to say that I'm getting into like custom saddles or anything, but you know, things like chisel rolls or small tool covers. did like a cover for a small axe, hand axe that I have.
just to cover stuff up. And it's really fun to do and I think works really well with a lot of our woodworking tools to provide some organization, a little style, a little safety with it.
Logan Wittmer (16:17.977) Yeah, I like, there was maybe a Shop Notes. Maybe that was a tool, like a tool tote. That was leather. That was pretty cool. I liked that one. I have to...
Phil Huber (16:29.643) yeah, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (16:37.143) I do have to do a leather cover for, I made that little stone holder in my shop. I still need to do a leather cover for that. I haven't done that yet. So maybe while we're doing this episode, I'll sit off to the side and do that as I run a camera. So we'll see. But like, mean, it's funny because I think there's a little bit of...
You get these hand tool purists that are like, oh, you should never use a leather cover on something like a chisel or something because it holds moisture. I'm like, meh. If you're not using your, yeah, if you're not using your chisels, maybe.
Phil Huber (17:11.234) Yeah. Or there were asked.
Phil Huber (17:16.834) Yeah. Or there's like acids left over from the tanning process that are going to cause corrosion and whatever. And I've had that tool roll, I keep my chisels in it out in my unheated garage and I've never had trouble with rust on it.
Logan Wittmer (17:34.007) Yeah.
Phil Huber (17:35.286) So yeah, I don't buy that. And I would like to know somebody who's had experience, legitimate experience with tools rusting in a leather or something or other to explain it other than other environmental factors in their shop.
Logan Wittmer (17:49.485) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (17:54.891) Yeah, if you're on the beach in Florida, I don't want to hear crap from you.
Logan Wittmer (18:01.827) But like, it's funny because I think one of the things that it's leather working to me is very much like woodworking. What drew me to leather working is what drew me to woodworking is that it is a natural renewable material and there are umpteen different flavors of leather. Like if anybody has ever walked through like, so the big leather working chain is Tandy Leather.
They're they're they're kind of who you order stuff from I'm not gonna say they have like the best quality stuff But they have like different levels So it's like if you go in and look for a leather skiver You're gonna find like they're good better best like they have that that sort of thing for everything so you walk in there though and it's like you don't know where to start with leather because there are there's You know full hides that are you know? 16 ounce hides there are eight ounce hides I mean and you just like
there's all these different thicknesses, they're all different materials, whether they're from a cow or a buffalo or an ostrich or you know, whatever. Goat hides and then they start getting into all these weird textures that they emboss them with and like, it's a very deep rabbit hole that you could quickly go down, so.
Phil Huber (19:17.698) Right. But like I said, I mean, it's also one of those things, as you implied, you can nerd out as much as you want on it, or you can get probably, let's say, six different tools and be set up to make, you know, saw covers, axe sheaths, chisel clases, you know, and all that kind of stuff, and be able to dabble in it enough to...
Logan Wittmer (19:28.285) Yeah.
Phil Huber (19:47.128) to do stuff. You know, one application for leather that I've found is to use like the little scrappies on the bottom of chair legs and cabinet legs, because I think they last longer and do a better job of preventing scuffs on floors than those stupid felt pads that you'd find. Right, they don't stick and they seem to attract and absorb
Logan Wittmer (20:08.659) Yep, they don't actually ever stick, yeah.
Phil Huber (20:16.318) all the sand and grit in your house so that as you slide it around it's really an abrasive pad then to scratch up your floors.
Logan Wittmer (20:27.507) Yeah, I, you know, I'm sitting here. Obviously I have my apron from leather by dragonfly that I wear all the time. also have, this is a mouse pad from them. That's like a, I don't know even know what thickness is it, what thickness it is, but it's like a pebbled texture on the bottom and it doesn't fit on my, where my mouse goes. So it's actually my like, that's where my coffee sits and my like writing pad and stuff. I also like that you can,
very easily with, I say very easily, with some practice you can make wearables out of leather, like shop aprons. You know, obviously that's much bigger task. There was a guy that I really enjoyed his, so there are people that produce leather working patterns, very much like we make woodworking patterns, but.
Phil Huber (21:07.106) No, okay.
Phil Huber (21:23.512) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (21:24.498) they do leatherworking patterns. There's a guy, name is Tony See. He runs a diesel punk, I think is his.
like business name, but he has all of these really cool like steampunky leatherworking designs and handbag designs and backpack designs and stuff like that. And you get like all these patterns and stuff with them that you can print out and cut out and stitch. like you said, it's one of those things like you can make really, really nice stuff with very few tools.
And it's like for those type, for those people that really have a need to make something, but don't have the space, you don't need a ton of space to do leatherworking stuff, you know? So I think it's one of those really cool things that you can make really usable stuff very easily. I don't know. I also have an affinity for like handmade stuff like that. So.
Phil Huber (22:24.793) yeah, yeah, it's really cool. like I said, I just done a few things with it, but
It's been a delight to do. I mean, my mouse pad too is a piece of leather that we had used and from something else. So there was just little scraps left from it. And then, you know, we had, we had gotten one of the laser pecker in, you know, combine that with some of the like newer digital tools that are out there. So you could do.
Logan Wittmer (22:51.376) Yeah.
Phil Huber (23:01.442) basically like laser engraved emblems and stuff that go on the things that you make with leather custom designs, which would be kind of fun.
Logan Wittmer (23:13.264) Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of cool. It's been a few years since I've looked at some of Tony's stuff, but leather hyphen patterns.com is his website. And I mean, there's like, you know, messenger bags and
shoe patterns, saddlebags, like he, mean, he just has a ton of different patterns for stuff. His design is impeccable. It's, very good. I don't remember where Tony's at. He's, he's in Europe somewhere. So everything's listed in pounds, or euros, I guess, and stuff. But with all that being said, first thing you need is a stitching pony and that's what we're building. So.
Phil Huber (24:00.6) Right, so that's the woodworking part of that episode. We'll be making a stitching pony and then put it to use, probably demonstrating some of the techniques for making like one of those leather tool rolls. Don't know if we'll make the whole thing, we'll see. The techniques are really simple, but they can take a little bit long to do, just lots of hand stitching. So.
Logan Wittmer (24:03.823) Yep, yep.
Logan Wittmer (24:24.974) Yep. Yep.
Phil Huber (24:29.292) Alright, going back to the clamp cart for a moment. I was working on the drawers. There's two small drawers on this clamp cart.
And John had designed this project and this is a very John thing to do is that the, these drawers are, I don't know, three and a half inches tall ish.
and he decided to use locking rabbits on the front, lipped locking rabbits on the front of the drawer.
Which makes sense, honestly, because to do like a tongue and dado drawer with false fronts would be sort of ridiculous for a not very deep drawer. Also, these drawers are, I don't know, eight or nine inches deep and he put full extension drawer slides on them. Also John. Which again, I think sounds silly, but is a great idea because with a drawer that shallow, if there weren't slides on there,
you would essentially pull that drawer out and dump it out every time you opened it, I think.
Logan Wittmer (25:42.294) Yeah. Yep. And to be fair, I did suggest that we not put the slides on it. I was like, Hey, how about we just do these as like non-lipped fronts, just cut them to fit just for simplicity sake. He's like, yeah, that's a idea. And here's slides going in.
Phil Huber (26:05.762) Yep, which I didn't know that that that discussion had happened. So.
Logan Wittmer (26:10.582) Yeah, that's funny. Well, that was, to be fair, that's when I thought I was doing the drawers.
Phil Huber (26:15.774) So what I ended up doing then is using a drawer lock bit in the router table, which gives you a
a joint that looks very similar to, pretty much identical to the locking rabbit, but I think is a lot easier to set up and
And honestly is my favorite drawer joint to use because of how easy it is. With a just, it's a router table setup and you can do lift joinery too. You just make several passes, you know, extending the rabbit on either side before you cut the, the joinery part. I, I have found that to be really intuitive to set up and use.
And it's like a locking rabbit, but there's beveled faces on the inside that as you pull the pieces together, it like self aligns all the parts and more or less self squares unless you are really over clamping it, which all of it is really nice. And every time I demonstrate it for a class or something like that, people love it. So.
Logan Wittmer (27:29.759) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (27:42.306) That's my plug. Skip the locking rabbit, get the drawer joint bit, and save yourself some aggravation.
Logan Wittmer (28:03.689) Yep, I've started to get down a rabbit hole now looking at these leather patterns again. No, bad Logan. Bad. Do not need more hobbies.
Phil Huber (28:16.942) All right, we were talking about leather working and that would be an interesting thing is like as a woodworker, what little side quests have you been on that you initially thought is I'm just going to dot dot dot to help my woodworking. And then it turns into a whole little thing.
Logan Wittmer (28:34.608) Yeah. I feel like there's lots of those and maybe not even like woodworking wise, but it's a lot of times I'm like, Oh, how did you, you know, just talking to random people? Like, how did you get into this? Well, I used to really be into this and then I needed to do this thing for this. And then I kind of went down that rabbit hole and that's kind all I do anymore. Well, all right. Yep. Side quests become their own storyline. So.
Phil Huber (29:00.142) Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I was thinking of that in a similar way. We just had an issue of Woodsmith go out earlier this week. And in that issue, Chris Fitch wrote an article on metalworking tools because he designed and built a model of the Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. And it's, it's very steampunk, mahogany, brass.
Logan Wittmer (29:28.422) Yep.
Phil Huber (29:29.942) some glass in there. So he did a corresponding article on working with metal kind of for woodworkers. And again, that's just one of those things where it's like, if you're into woodworking more, at some point, you're dealing with metal, even in small amounts. And learning a few skills and acquiring just a few metal working tools.
All a sudden you can add really cool custom details to projects or not be limited by some things.
All right, we've talked about it on the show several times already about our upcoming event or upcoming tours later this fall to Denmark and Sweden and also the England tour that Fine Woodworking is doing. Mike Peckovich and John Benson gonna be leading that one. Both great tours. Something to keep on your radar is that we're gonna be hosting webinars, live webinars where you can
Find out a little bit more about the details, some of the things that you know like for our trip that Logan and I are looking forward to little learn a little bit more about the
Phil Huber (32:13.218) some of the things that we're gonna be seeing, what to expect on the tour, ask any questions that you have. That'll be in the first week of May. I think ours is May 5th. We're gonna do a special Cinco de Mayo episode webinar on going to Denmark and Sweden. Because nothing says Mexican culture like Denmark and Sweden.
Logan Wittmer (32:37.527) right? They have margaritas there, it's fine.
Phil Huber (32:40.566) Right. Mike and Jonathan, think, are going to be doing one on the seventh, I believe, of May about their trip. You want to tune into those. Both of those will be free webinars. Like I said, you can ask questions, find out more about those.
Logan Wittmer (32:57.231) Yeah, if you're on the fence and are interested, you can ask us anything about the trip. And if we have an answer, we'll let you know. If we don't, we'll make something up that you want to hear to get you to go on the trip with us. So, yeah.
Phil Huber (33:08.492) Right? Yeah. Come along. Basically, all the answers will revolve around you're just going to have to come and find out.
Otherwise, you can get some free advice. One of our podcast super fans, John Nastah comments on here. So ask questions on the YouTube channel here. John can answer those. He was on our trip for the England trip last year. He and his wife joined us and we had a blast. It was great fun. So he can ask questions about the England tour because it's going to be very similar in a lot of the
sites and experiences there. So check it out.
And then you're just a few weeks away from, speaking of May, from Plane Wellness, the Hand Tool Haven.
Logan Wittmer (34:00.162) Mm-hmm.
Yep, yep, out in Butler, Pennsylvania. So that'll be fun. We'll be out there. You know, there's two days of demos, myself, Shay Alexander, Albert Klein, a bunch of other people doing demos. I think Amanda Russell's doing a demo and bunch of vendors. So it's honestly more of like a just go out and hang out with your friends type event. Hang out with...
500 of your closest friends.
No Jamie, I'm not driving out there.
Logan Wittmer (34:43.752) flying and got time to drive.
Phil Huber (34:52.76) I mean, gas prices though, it's probably gonna be a wash either way, so.
Logan Wittmer (34:56.672) That is true, especially with diesel.
Phil Huber (35:04.472) All right, what's going on in popular woodworking land?
Logan Wittmer (35:06.856) We are putting finishing touches. I say that with a question mark on the next issue of Pop-A-Wood. John Hughes is our new graphic designer. He has been plugging away at articles, getting them laid out. Super happy with how they look. So we have a carved boarded box by Shay Alexander. So it is a box.
That is very simple construction, wooden pegs on the front and back to hold it to the sides and a nailed on bottom and a wooden hinge bracket for the lid. And then a separate article of that is carving it, so laying out and doing some geometric relief carving on it.
Also have the mid-century side tables from Colin. Walnut side tables, kind of with a Maloof slat style bookshelf underneath them. And then I have the tea cabinet. I say tea cabinet, I propped it out with whiskey because that's kind of a clicky thing is whiskey cabinet.
Phil Huber (36:16.802) Right, and your favorite tea frankly is whiskey, so.
Logan Wittmer (36:19.026) My exactly. Yeah. I like, I like that. the barley tea, it's just, it's a long steep. so that is in there. have a book excerpt, from, make things with wood, I think is the title of the book. John's working on land that now. So I haven't reviewed it super closely yet as well as what was the other article.
Phil Huber (36:24.142) You
Logan Wittmer (36:49.927) I don't remember what the last one was. That may be it. That's gonna fill us out. I'm trying something and I don't know how it's gonna go, how it will be received. I may not hear anything about it, which is fine. Sometimes we make little changes to the magazine. like, watch this. Like everyone's gonna notice this and then nobody notices it. Or if they notice, they don't say anything. And then sometimes you're like, nobody will notice this. And then you get.
three weeks of hate mail for changing something. But I'm gonna increase the photo sizes a little bit in Popwood. We increased.
the font sizes maybe six months ago, maybe a year ago, because I had a few emails saying, hey, copy's a little hard to read, I'm an older guy, just a little hard to read. So we bumped it up half size, and a lot of people appreciated that. Gonna also make the photo slightly larger, and I'm kind of going to put a little more...
Saying I'm gonna put a little more effort into our illustrations does not, that implies that we weren't putting effort into them, that's not the case. I'm gonna put a little more emphasis on our illustrations because John's very, very good at that. So we're gonna maybe put a little more horsepower behind those illustrations. So let the pictures, so basically if you don't like to read and you like picture books, Popwood's for you.
Logan Wittmer (38:25.871) Words are hard, pictures are easy. Which everybody loves highlights, so I have no problem with this analogy. That's awesome. So, yeah.
Phil Huber (38:28.11) There you go. Pop Wood, the highlights of Woodworking Magazine.
Phil Huber (38:35.17) Right? Yeah.
No, that's amazing. That's cool. That'll be fun. So related to changes then, I mean, it wasn't, it's been a while, but also not a long time ago, historically, that you went back to probably more of a historic logo to the title.
Logan Wittmer (38:50.107) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (38:56.75) Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, know, I think we've talked about this in the past. I, there was a long time where the two magazines I subscribed to were Popular Woodworking and Woodsmith. Those were the two magazines I got. Those are the two magazines I paid for long before I worked here. And I was always a big fan from a hand tool standpoint. I was always a big fan of Popular Woodworking. It was very hand tool forward on a lot of stuff.
And when we bought it out of a bankruptcy auction when the previous publisher filed for bankruptcy, they had recently in the timeframe of that.
bankruptcy auction had a company come in and do a rebrand for popular woodworking. So they had a design firm come in, do a rebrand. They brought in, I don't even have one of those issues sitting here. yeah, I do. They had brought in this logo that was, is that it? Nope. I have one, it's right here. Under my Menard's receipts.
They had kind of that square box thing going on with a sans serif logo. And it was cool, but it, I felt like this old school logo has a little bit more flavor. It kind of has a little bit more of the feel of what we want the magazine to be, which is that kind of.
There are hands putting this thing together. It's not just something that shows up in your mailbox. It's something that people that are woodworkers are behind it, putting it together and we have our own style and our own tastes. And yeah, just, I felt like it had a better feel. So we rolled back to that. We'll probably slowly over the next year or so make some other small changes to kind of some of the details in the magazine that people may not.
Logan Wittmer (41:04.822) may not notice, which is fine. But yeah, so just kind of tweaking the knobs ever so slightly getting it to be what we want it to be. So.
Phil Huber (41:15.278) I was liking it to like the soundtrack of a movie in the sense that when it's working right, you don't notice it. But if it's wrong, you notice it. Yeah. So I feel like it's one of those things where as you've been making changes and improvements on stuff, it just feels better without necessarily being able to put your finger on exactly what the change is on there. So that's cool.
Logan Wittmer (41:25.984) Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Logan Wittmer (41:44.289) Yeah, exactly. It's one of those things. We've always said this. Any place where you are serving clients, subscribers, whatever, you generally only hear from the people that have an issue. So 90 % of the population...
Phil Huber (42:06.424) Right.
Logan Wittmer (42:10.879) You know, if you're serving chicken sandwiches and you hear nothing from your customers, 90 % of them are happy with it. But just because you hear from a few people that are like, hey, your chicken sandwich sucks.
that's probably, you're only gonna hear from the people that have an issue. you know, somebody saying, hey, the font's a little hard to read. Great feedback.
somebody coming in and saying, hey, that's a dumb project. Great feedback. I don't care. Like, because guess what? You're one out of a hundred thousand people and 999,999 others said nothing about that project. So you might be the minority. Appreciate you taking your time and sending us in an email. I read every single one of them. I tried to respond to every one of them, but I don't always.
Phil Huber (42:43.534) Ha
Logan Wittmer (43:10.483) Yeah. So, yep. we're kind of buttoning that up. I got to finish up some new tool photos this week. And then it's on to the next one, which means you got to pick back up on the outfit table. It's been stalled out for a few weeks.
Phil Huber (43:30.676) Acclimating, I think, is the word you were looking for.
Logan Wittmer (43:32.317) Yes, yes, yeah, it's, yeah, I'm getting a good patina on that poplar before I paint it. Gotta make sure that base layer is nice and solid.
Phil Huber (43:45.976) Well, it's like when we build projects out of Cedar here, we had done that, that outdoor bar and we had brought in Cedar and it actually sat in the shop in the studio here for a little while before we started working on it. And then we started working and
Logan Wittmer (43:53.022) Yeah.
Phil Huber (44:07.114) had like a break, you know, we filmed a couple of days, had some time, filmed a couple of days, like maybe the next week or something. But the cedar was still wet enough that there are stains, little square four by four stains in our floor tile in the studio here from that cedar. you know, you don't want your, you can't be working on stuff like that. Yeah. Right.
Logan Wittmer (44:25.597) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (44:30.622) No, absolutely not. Yeah, well especially if you like, you just crank projects out left and right, you're setting the bar pretty high. So when all of a sudden your spouse asks you for something, there's a pretty high expectation that it's gonna get done very quickly. But if you leave a office built in unfinished for five years, there's pretty low expectation.
Phil Huber (44:48.344) Quickly, yeah.
Phil Huber (44:59.052) Right, yeah. Set the bar low. Exceed it every time.
Logan Wittmer (45:00.891) So, beat you to that one, Bob.
That's right.
Phil Huber (45:10.542) Speaking of exceeding, last thing to talk about is Woodworking in America. We have that coming up October 9th and 10th. There's a save the date email is going out on that. The site should be going live here in the next week or so. We'll be able to see all what's going on. I have a list of presenters that we have in addition to Logan and I who will be there. David Johnson.
Logan Wittmer (45:15.549) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (45:37.049) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (45:39.926) is going to be there. He works out in California, contributed to fine woodworking. He does lot of repair work. He's College of the Redwoods alum and does Danish cord and seat weaving. He's going to do a demo on that. Shay Alexander's coming back, as is Albert Klein. Ellen Casperin from out east.
North Bennett Street, I believe is her affiliation there. Dan Balik and Vic Tesolin is going to be coming back for that. We also have a few other people that we're working on. Not ready to divulge that information just yet. Just wanted to make sure we get all of our I's crossed and T's dotted. tickets will go on sale first week of May. Be able to check that out. So we want to.
Logan Wittmer (46:10.397) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (46:37.9) Make sure that you're aware of that.
fun stuff to see all what's going on here at Woodsmith and Popular Woodworking. That wraps up another episode of the ShopNotes Podcast. The Shop Notes Podcast is a production of Active Interest Media. It's edited by Nate Gruca. Our digital manager is Ben Strano. And we thank them for all that they do in getting this out the door.
You can contact us, send in your comments to woodsmith at woodsmith.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel, ShopNotes Podcast, or listen to it wherever you get your podcast. Don't forget to leave a review to help other woodworkers find the program as well. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye.
