ShopNotes Podcast 271 — Hierarchy of Panels or Most Valuable Panel

Leather & Woodworking

The last couple weeks we've been talking about woodworking adjacent crafts that could easily become full-on hobbies. It was sparked by a leather tool roll we made for an upcoming issue of the Woodsmith Shop.

Logan decided to make a leather cover for his sharpening station. This fits over a tiered set of stones near his workbench.

John's Shop Cabinets

With a graduation coming up, John decided to fix up a "ratty old cabinet" in the garage. The cabinet sat in the carriage house of a previous Woodsmith builing. It was a great setting. I loved that carriage house. I used to go eat my lunch in there. Kind of an idyllic shop look if one were deep into hand tools.

Back to the cabinets. John stained the cabinet to refresh the look. The end nearest the door to the house was painted a mid-century blueish-greenish-grayish color — you know the color I mean. He made a new end panel to fit. I have to say it turned out fantastic.

Lasers & Woodworking

A few years ago, we got the LaserPecker 2 in for a review. I wrote the review and played with it some at time. In the last week, I've got it out as a way to dabble some more in digital wooworking tools (think CNCs or 3D printers). This kind of stuff is interesting to me, but I worry about the time commitment involved to get good at it in order to make the costs and space justifiable.

I carved a red-winged blackbird emblem from basswood. It's my favorite bird. Think of this as a wood tile or perhaps a small carved sign. I used this photo to create an outline in Illustrator.

Then I started lasering it onto things. It could get out of hand. The tool has presets for a variety of materials. So the change between leather and wood was just a matter of switching between options.

Kentucky Coffee Tree

Logan planted a coffee tree outside his shop. Every fall, it loses many of its branches. Here it's just leafing out and looks a little Dr. Seuss-ian or perhaps the tree version of Beaker the Muppet.

One more before we're out. This is the sail fish Logan landed when he was 12. Great shop art.

Transcript

Someday I would like to be in the same room to podcast again.

Phil Huber (00:28.205) Welcome, welcome everybody. It is the ShopNotes Podcast. I'm Phil, your host today, along with Logan and John. It's the full crew here today. It's episode number 271 on today's episode. We're going to be talking about some shop updates and progress going on here, upcoming events, as well as nonsense projects that you start at the last minute.

because some big event is happening in your life. We'll dive into that and more. First, we'll check in with our sponsor.

All right, we'll get started today as we usually do with comments and questions from the Shop Notes podcast YouTube channel. It's a great way to join in here if you have any questions, comments, or smart remarks. You can put them there. Subscribe, like, do all the things that you're supposed to. Or you can send them as an email, woodsmith at woodsmith.com.

DP Meyer says, that weekend project, that will be the best three weeks you ever spent. And you'll look fondly back on those four months of your life. True story.

John Doyle (01:49.398) Like they say, the hardest part of a five minute project is the first two hours.

Phil Huber (01:54.532) Yes.

Phil Huber (01:58.257) Bony Board Woodshop says, that might have been me asking about the carbide tip blades. I've been needing to get new blade for my bandsaw for a while.

Logan Wittmer (02:06.858) I will put Gloria's email in the show notes page so you can reach out. You will, you will have to state your band saw blade length in millimeters, width in millimeters. And I also discovered

Phil Huber (02:13.413) All

Logan Wittmer (02:24.962) The finest teeth per inch that they can do is three TPI. So they're aggressive blades. I believe, and I didn't realize this originally when I ordered them, because originally I ordered sawmill blades from them and I got like standard band saw blades. They must only have two-thirds for bigger, more aggressive saws.

I was initially getting quotes on blades that were, they kept calling them 12 and I'm thinking 12 TPI. I'm like, that's really fine. No, it's 12 pitch. So 12 millimeters between teeth, which is like a one to one and a half TPI blade. So, I'll put Gloria's email up there. You can get, you can get three TPI blades. I highly suggest ordering like five of them. It'll come out to like 250 bucks or so.

maybe a little more, but that sets you up for a long time.

Phil Huber (03:34.959) Do you have to be humming to yourself the song GLORIA as you email her?

Logan Wittmer (03:43.266) I do not know the song.

John Doyle (03:47.988) I was gonna say, I don't even know that one.

Phil Huber (03:50.479) G-L-O-R-I-A! Gloria! No? It's like a 60's song?

John Doyle (03:54.91) Okay. Yeah, I think I remember hearing that on the AM radio.

Phil Huber (04:00.249) Yeah, All right. People who are listening to the podcast are going to remember that one.

John Doyle (04:07.456) They'll love that. They'll eat that up.

Phil Huber (04:08.995) I'm not that old.

Phil Huber (04:13.261) Yeah, yeah. Driftless Joinery says, a mill is getting dropped off onto my shop floor in June. Still looking for a lathe. Making model steam engines has been something I've wanted to do at home for a couple of decades. Unloading some tools I got at a great price that have just occupied space for 10 years to make room physically and financially.

Which is interesting because Chris Fitch wants to do that as well. To make his own steam locomotive. Kind of like garden railway. Yeah.

Logan Wittmer (04:42.83) The model's steam engine thing?

John Doyle (04:49.588) I think the hardest part of making a model steam engine is getting the steam to the right scale, scaling that down. But there's probably a formula for that.

Phil Huber (04:55.961) Ha ha ha!

Phil Huber (05:02.307) Yeah, probably. think it's like, you know how when you go up an elevation, water boils at a lower temperature. I think water boils at a lower temperature when it's smaller too.

John Doyle (05:13.588) Yeah, because of the pressure.

Phil Huber (05:16.153) Yeah. Right.

Bot Dad says regarding 3D printing design as a gateway drug to CNC's, Logan, you hit the nail on the head. I'm trying to learn Fusion 360 and the first time I saw a CNC machine, I started drooling internally. I can't justify it yet, but it will definitely be in my future. I'm purposely trying to avoid lasers and UV printers at this point for the very same reason.

Logan Wittmer (05:44.93) So UV printers, you tickled my printer background with that because yes, I have, I have long thought about that. Like it'd be cool. mean like, and, it's a niche market for sure. Right. But like what, like printing somebody's photo on the lid of a box, like, or, whatever, like maybe that's not what you're doing, but you know, you could do a, you know, fly rod box and print a little motif of flies on the top. If you didn't want to do Mark.

trade stuff like that. You know, think there's possibilities there.

John Doyle (06:18.976) Phil, you dabbled in some lasering here in the last couple weeks, didn't you? No.

Logan Wittmer (06:23.052) Recently,

Phil Huber (06:24.215) I did, yeah. We had gotten in a few years ago the Laser Pecker 2. It's a little, I mean, I'm going to call it a benchtop laser, but it's really about the size of a small coffee maker.

John Doyle (06:43.894) It's a child's desktop laser.

Phil Huber (06:46.394) Yeah.

Logan Wittmer (06:48.024) But it's like you it's like the shape of like a megaphone, like where you can like hold it on the stuff. it's it's calling it bench tops. Not really right, but like kind of. Like it's small.

Phil Huber (07:01.603) Yeah. Yeah. In the, yeah, in the background here, I did a little carved, I don't know, logo emblem, something of a Redwing Blackbird, which is my favorite bird. And I thought it would be kind of cool to do that as like a logo for some of my woodworking stuff. So I took a photo of it and then traced it in Illustrator.

and then exported that and then was able to put some photos on the show notes page. But then I turned that logo, put it, lasered it onto my mouse pad. I have a leather mouse pad in my office here and then put it on one of my hand planes. So I've just been trying to figure out a little bit of what I can do with that thing or what it's capable of doing.

I don't know, the idea of getting into either 3D printing or CNC stuff is kind of interesting to me, but I just don't know how much I really have the inclination to want to...

have to go all in on it in order to be good.

It feels like something that that's hard to just dabble in.

Logan Wittmer (08:25.986) I mean, 3D printing, can dabble because there's so many. There's so many libraries available of like just random, like right now, my 3D printer sitting here running, it's been running nonstop yesterday. I'll run nonstop today. I'm printing a bunch more like spray paint can holders for the wall. Like that one, I think is pretty easy to dabble in. You can just kind of, you know, you don't have to design anything. You can just.

Phil Huber (08:31.514) Yeah.

Logan Wittmer (08:55.128) Grab stuff, print it, you know, little accessories and stuff. you know.

Phil Huber (08:57.978) Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, because I've thought of, know, like my Delta bandsaw, the dust port underneath the table is like too far underneath the table to catch stuff. And I've seen some where they have where the 3D printed models where it's basically like connected to the underside of the table to make a more solid connection to be able to collect dust. And I thought about doing something like that.

But anyway.

Logan Wittmer (09:35.83) And yeah, even those like first one I just, I've just pulled up Delta 28, two or three bands at dust port, like 30 seconds can have one.

Phil Huber (09:45.062) Yeah. So, because I've seen, I was on Thingverse looking for one and they had one, it was just basically like a copy of the one that comes on there. And I'm like, that's not what I want. Because I have that one and it doesn't work really well.

So anyway, Elphita158 says, Sunday Sunday, Chainsaw Creed versus Axeman Phil and his notorious double stack feather board hold. Boom, tenon. All right.

Almost Perfection says Logan's previous shop was a basement shop, correct? What are the pros and cons versus a garage shop in your guys' opinion? okay.

John Doyle (10:34.006) Open the garage door and blow out all the dust

Phil Huber (10:38.203) Hahaha

John Doyle (10:40.182) Can't do that in the basement. Yeah.

Logan Wittmer (10:41.08) Yep. Nope. The basement shop worked well and it was nice because it was air-conditioned and heated.

It also, I felt was a little limiting because I never felt like I could exactly just go down there and just rip sawdust left and right. Like I had a, I had a dust collector in there. Wasn't the greatest one. but it was super convenient. finishing in the basement shop, not super great because you get those fumes throughout the house. I did have, I did have like,

some filter material behind like the cold air return and the air return and stuff. Not that that's doing things for chemicals, but like for dust, it helped. The one thing that it was, it was in the basement to walk out though. And I knew when I built the house that it was going to be a shop down there. So I put a 36 inch wide sliding glass door in the basement so I could get like tools in and out. So I could get like the table saw, the bandsaw.

you know, whatever in and out pretty easily. however, rolling those heavy tools across the carpet, even with like a dolly was not fun. So, you know, I, I did enjoy having the basement shop.

Phil Huber (12:10.565) Yeah, I think another pro of a basement shop is that it's usually easier to modify electrical service in there because you're more than likely closer to your panel. have, you know, you could probably connect to several other circuits that are already running through the basement. My garage shop, the garage is detached. So

electrical upgrades are going to be just a big pain in the butt.

Logan Wittmer (12:45.132) Mm-hmm.

John Doyle (12:48.372) I think a basement shop would be good for more hand tool work where you're not creating a lot of sawdust and smaller, smallish projects would good.

Phil Huber (13:02.906) Yeah.

Logan Wittmer (13:04.982) I mean, I built a lot of stuff out of my basement shop.

John Doyle (13:05.302) I don't know. It'd be fun to go in there. Yeah.

Phil Huber (13:08.941) Right. Yeah, I did too. I liked it for the convenience, like you said, Logan, and for kind of the borrowed heat cooling in the house because of that. Being in the basement kind of moderates winter temperatures. My basement shop was in a old craftsman house built in the 20s, so it was not really heated, but

you know, kind of being below ground moderated how cold it could get down there. So that was nice. Garage shop is nice if is if you have small kids, you're less likely to wake them up during naps or after bedtimes or stuff like that.

John Doyle (13:43.008) heat adjacent.

Logan Wittmer (13:52.322) Yep. the other thing I will say, and this maybe isn't as big a deal, cause I think most people will deal with this outside of the shop, a basement shop. I find in a basement shop, the head space is pretty limited. like working with long boards, it's hard to flip a board and for, and you got to kind of do a weird spin to get it to flip. And instead of, you know, being in the garage, generally it's a little bit higher ceiling. So you can stand a board up or whatever.

So you lose a little bit of that head.

Phil Huber (14:29.018) Yeah, I think a garage shop, one of the things you're going to have to negotiate is permanent space versus temporary space. Like, are you going to end up with, you know, just can you dedicate a stall to your shop where it can stay set up? Or is it something where your shop is essentially mobile, and you have to shove it against the wall to be able to get cars in? Or

how much a garage shop can also turn into like bike storage and lawnmower fixing. And this is where the snowblower ends up and that kind of thing.

John Doyle (15:12.352) Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say all the stuff in my shop, my garage shop is, is mobile, but I have to move like two bikes and a lawnmower to get to the table saw to do one cut. So.

be a challenge.

Phil Huber (15:34.148) Yeah. So yeah, I almost perfection. think you could make it you can definitely make it work in either location. You are just going to have to live with the advantages and manage the the limitations of that space.

Phil Huber (15:55.142) Michael Thompson 5875 says, let's be honest here, Logan isn't going down the rabbit hole of leatherworking to make a chisel roll. He's making a custom pair of lederhosen for Oktoberfest this year.

Logan Wittmer (16:10.186) You got me, you son of a *, you got me.

Phil Huber (16:13.51) Although you did end up making the cover for your sharpening stones. Right there. Yeah, I'll put a cover. I'll put a photo of that on the show notes page.

Logan Wittmer (16:18.06) KEEEH

Oop, right there.

Hey there.

Yep. Also right next to the, the makeshift leather stitching pony that I used, which was my saw vice. It worked. Yeah. It wasn't the greatest.

Phil Huber (16:36.742) So perfect.

John Doyle (16:38.784) Yeah.

Phil Huber (16:48.816) I like it.

Logan Wittmer (16:49.174) I did. I did discover that one thing I would if I was going to do much more leather working. The one thing I would like to get is a good like leather knife like a you almost call it like a Ulu like a single handle wide curved blade for cutting leather because I was using like a utility knife and it's fine. But it's it's not the greatest.

Phil Huber (17:10.928) Yeah.

Phil Huber (17:17.998) Yeah. I was using one of those rotary fabric cutters and a thinner leather that actually works really well. had some, we had that really thick stuff that you had brought in Logan that you kind of had to do two passes to get through. But the, the like pizza cutter fabric knives work really well too.

Logan Wittmer (17:25.884) yeah.

Phil Huber (17:49.06) All right, we'll move on here to the next segment. Appreciate everybody who writes in and leaves a comment, asks a question. It's what helps keep the podcast moving along here.

We'll jump in with John, you got a big life event coming up and decided to do a little home improvement project to go with it.

John Doyle (18:13.308) Right. Yeah, I have a high school graduation coming up. So that's just kind of their tradition is like, you have to do something to your house, whether it's remodel a kitchen or a bathroom. But I didn't I didn't go to that extent this time. We usually host part of the gathering in the garage just because it's a big open space and usually nice weather this time of year.

And so I was just cleaning up the garage and I had gotten a 12 foot cabinet from one of our auctions here. I don't know, several years back at Woodsmith, we were cleaning out the carriage house and there was this antique cabinet with

oak sliding doors that I didn't necessarily want, but I really wanted to bid up our CFO, Brian van Hoover's one and I ended up getting it. So it's kind of a, it's a trophy for me, but so it's, it's, it lived in my garage. It's moved houses or whatever. So, um,

It on one end so it's 12 feet one end is against the wall The other is in kind of the middle of the garage where our stairs are and it it never had a finished end on that end Seemed like it had a nice like oak front to it But then the like the the case of it just just was made out of I don't know shipping container and pallets and stuff so the end was never finished and I was like, know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and finish this and and make it look nice. So I

started into that is like, you know, this will be a quick job and, made some, some paneled shiplap parts for it out of oak. And it's like, well, I got to stain it. And so I stained that and well, I got, you know, this end all looking nice and the rest of it looks terrible. So then I'm like pulling everything else apart and staining doors and refinishing. And so it's been like one of those projects where you pull on one thread and yeah, you just get going into it.

John Doyle (20:26.678) turns into a whole big thing.

Phil Huber (20:29.166) Yeah. I will say that cabinet was always really cool out in the carriage house. It had just kind of a fun built-in oak look to it that was just really, I mean, it just said like a cool sliding door cabinet. Seemed like you could put a lot of stuff in it.

John Doyle (20:49.962) Yeah, and there is a lot of stuff in it. yeah, it showed up in a lot of the old photos from Woodsmith and Shop Notes Magazine. use that kind of back room as the carriage house as a set. it's in a lot of the photos and stuff, but yeah, but yeah, pretty much done with that and turned out pretty nice. So onto the next thing.

Phil Huber (20:53.306) Ha ha ha ha.

Logan Wittmer (21:01.742) Hmm.

Phil Huber (21:16.998) All right. Yeah, I was going to say you almost have time to try and get one more thing started.

John Doyle (21:21.76) Yeah, yeah, I think so. We still have a couple weeks, so I could tear into something else. Who knows? Bust out a wall maybe. Let's get nutty.

Phil Huber (21:33.114) Yeah. Yeah.

I was pretty impressed. The stain color that you had picked had turned out really great on it. Had a nice look to it. And for a cabinet that had lived most of its life here being neglected, I felt like it took the stain pretty well too. Like there wasn't any obvious, know, blotchiness or something.

John Doyle (21:58.443) Yeah. Yeah, I didn't, I mean, I didn't do that much sanding to it. was just the kind of the, the finish that was on it was kind of worn through a little bit and pretty dry. So it soaked up the, the stain pretty evenly. And yeah, I was a little worried about that if I, you know, start,

you know, trying to refinish the whole thing. Like a lot of times, you know, you'd have to strip a finish or do a lot of sanding or, you know, that kind of thing. And who knows if there's lead paint or finish on it. So I didn't want to get too involved.

Logan Wittmer (22:37.88) So maybe I missed this, but like what is the use of this cabinet for the graduation? Like what are you planning on doing with it? Or is this like the, have guests coming over so I need to replace the mailbox.

John Doyle (22:51.646) I mean, it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. like, hey, we got people come over an hour time to clean out the gutters type of thing. So. No, mostly it just exists in the garage, and I think my daughter made some comment about like that ratty cabinet in the garage and, know, I took it personally, so I'm sure it'll be like, you know, yeah, show you ratty or whatever.

Logan Wittmer (23:15.182) I'll show you.

Hehehe

John Doyle (23:21.074) So, they'll probably just be like, you know, the picture photos and all the memorabilia will probably be on that cabinet, but it'll just, it'll just look nicer. So.

Logan Wittmer (23:30.594) Got it.

Phil Huber (23:39.888) Speaking of shop upgrades, Logan, you were saying before we got started here that your shop is in remarkably clean state now too.

Logan Wittmer (23:49.068) Yeah, clean's a relative term. Stuff's put away, which is big. I over the last couple, I mean, so I say that as I'm sitting at my work bench with mounds of mahogany for the second set of church doors just piled all over, but like look around the rest of the shop, it's pretty put away. Like I got, lot of my turning stuff put in its place. I finally moved all of the big,

Phil Huber (23:57.126) you

Logan Wittmer (24:19.474) Oliver pattern maker lathe accessories into that cabinet that was under there. You guys helped me put that cabinet underneath it. the lathe actually had been sitting on that cabinet for the last like six months. so is now officially sitting on the floor and the cabinets underneath it. So I have all the, the giant tool rests are hung on the back of that cabinet. the face plates are all there. The 85 pound Chuck that is 12 inches in diameter is there. So

Phil Huber (24:28.954) Go DIL.

Logan Wittmer (24:49.486) yeah, everything's kind of, kind of put away. this kind of, mean, again, this kind of stemmed from me moving the metalworking stuff out of here. And I started doing this like great purge of unneeded and unused items and I'm continuing to do that. So I have right now, like a table full of for sale stuff sitting over there. So.

So I got like a little, little makeshift plywood table set up with, with stuff that needs to be listed or sold or whatever. The department was like, Oh, maybe I should do like a Woodworking garage sale weekend or like a Saturday where I do a woodworking garage sale and sell lumber and stuff. I'm like, yeah, I just don't want people coming out and hanging out in the shop all day. So, which I love when people do, but you know,

Phil Huber (25:42.822) There we go.

Phil Huber (25:52.24) Yeah, just bring it down here. I've thought about doing an open house, boot sale, garage sale kind of event here at Woodsmith. I think that would be kind of fun.

Logan Wittmer (25:54.99) Yeah.

John Doyle (26:03.777) Yeah, I always thought that would be a good idea because we're always, you know, we collect projects and tools and, you know, shorter pieces of lumber that just kind of get piled up and we don't use. It'd be fun to have a parking lot sale. Pull everything out in the parking lot and invite everybody over.

Phil Huber (26:24.058) Yeah. Hang out, do tours, talk about what's going on. People can bring their stuff, swap meat. Yeah, start up a grill. I really don't see any downsides.

John Doyle (26:31.83) Start up the grill.

John Doyle (26:38.686) Light the dumpster on fire.

Phil Huber (26:46.778) mean we're how many days out from our previous dumpster fire so

John Doyle (26:49.782) All right, it's time, we're due.

Logan Wittmer (26:49.902) That's right. Yeah.

Phil Huber (26:52.154) Yep. Was it two years or three years now?

John Doyle (26:57.162) I feel like it was two summers ago. So we're coming up on the two year anniversary.

Logan Wittmer (27:00.003) Yeah.

Phil Huber (27:00.195) Okay.

Phil Huber (27:09.52) All right. I've been working on some, my frames project off and on here. And I had some longer pieces of oak and I was, I had to maneuver my bandsaw. don't have on a mobile base because it just kind of lives where it does. And in order to work with these long pieces, I've moved it kind of into the middle of my shop. And it's been nice to be able to work with that, but then also weird because it's just feels out of place when you have something just not

in its normal location. And having to work around that has been kind of an interesting challenge. But it's also crazy dealing with oak that was sawn, I don't know, probably almost 50 years ago and has a

has a crust on it, so to speak, of just oxidized dust and gunk on the, I don't know, outside 16th to an eighth inch layer there. It's pretty funny.

Phil Huber (28:15.686) But then you cut through that and all of a sudden it's like, oh, this is some really beautiful stuff. I love it.

Yeah. So that's parts kind of cool.

Phil Huber (28:29.018) So do you, so church doors are your next project, Logan?

Logan Wittmer (28:33.804) Yeah, I just got to pound them out. It's just one of those. Like I just got to do it. and the problem is it's, it's almost exactly a year ago that I installed those doors on the church. And these ones are going to be exactly the same doors kind of, it's also for a Serbian Orthodox church in Sioux falls, South Dakota. but the guy that I'm working with there's like, Hey, our cross is a little different.

didn't know that, I don't know, their cross is a little different looking. So it's like, instead of the middle rail being halfway up, it has to be like two thirds the way down and they want the top section extended a little bit. So there's a little, a few little nuances to it, um, that are different, but it's like almost like relearning how I did these doors originally is the problem is it's like, Oh shoot. gotta, I gotta refigure this out. This is dumb. So

Phil Huber (29:27.792) Sure.

Logan Wittmer (29:33.282) So I just got, yeah, I, I got a lot of the stuff, hacked to length. The, the problem is I don't know if it's a problem or not. The original church doors I did all them into hero material came in really wide. So it was all like 12 to 13 inches wide. And it was full of all these wormholes. I'm sure you guys remember me talking about.

you know, there's warm holes in it. could stick my finger into. So I had to work around a lot of those. this stock is all really nice and clean, really nice, fairly course on stuff, which is good for next year door, but it's narrow. So it's like all my rails and styles are six inches wide except for the top rail, which is 14 inches wide. So I'm having to glue up some of it, which I don't like doing. the long rails are the long styles.

Phil Huber (30:23.252) okay.

Logan Wittmer (30:31.032) the left and right styles. I don't have to. I got those out of four pieces. but there is maybe one rail I'm going to have to glue up. so not ideal. It'll be fine. Just not ideal.

Phil Huber (30:50.095) Yeah. Same finish.

Logan Wittmer (30:50.638) So, so yeah, my goal is yeah, exactly the same finish. So it's the same general finishes, rich mahogany finish. And it's great. It's a great color on mahogany. It really is. I will this time spray the stain on instead of wiping it on the spring of that stain just goes so nicely. And then it is going to be there.

ascend exterior water based finish as well. So, yeah, the biggest problem and this kind of isn't my problem, but it kind of is my problem is that I have not seen this church. I have been told what the stud to stud size is. So I'm building this frame to fit stud to stud with a, I think I did a quarter inch

quarter inch room around the outside. So, so there's room for shims and squaring stuff up.

Phil Huber (31:53.135) Okay.

Logan Wittmer (31:58.218) If it's not that dimension, not really my problem, I think.

John Doyle (32:00.823) Mm-hmm.

Move the studs.

Phil Huber (32:19.152) All right, what's after that then?

Logan Wittmer (32:21.474) back to the dang outfeed table. It's still sitting there staring at me. Yup. The, the, have the three bent. Yeah. Yeah. I started that a couple of months ago. and they've kind of been sitting there waiting for stuff. to be honest with you, I miscounted my rails and somehow I ended up two rails short. So I kind of have been just sitting on them. I've had other little projects, that have kind of went in front of them. So that'll be, that'll be the next one. Finish up these.

Phil Huber (32:28.362) right.

Logan Wittmer (32:51.176) onto that one. So it, it will replace my absolute mess of an outfeed table, which is that is the current state of it, which is awful. but, and I did add my sailfish up there on my wall. So that was kind of fun. I kind of like seeing that guy in here.

John Doyle (33:13.365) Nice.

Phil Huber (33:17.542) Yeah, it's a great color on it.

Logan Wittmer (33:19.586) Yeah. Yeah, he's cool. Although I had a little bit of a like I was hanging it up, measuring it like, cause I wanted to get it fairly centered on the wall. And I was told when I caught it, was 12. I think I was 12 when I caught that. And I was told it was a 10 foot sailfish, which would put it as like the number two in the world for under for.

like 14 and under at that time for a Pacific sailfish. However,

There is international fishing regulations and guidance on how you measure fish and they measured it incorrectly. So it is like lower jaw to fork of tail where like freshwater fish you would measure from lower jaw to the folded tail. So I'm like, it's, still, it's still a big trophy size sailfish. It just is not as big as I was told it was. So.

Phil Huber (34:13.119) okay.

Logan Wittmer (34:27.822) Anybody that I bragged about the size of my sailfish too. I'm sorry. I was incorrect.

John Doyle (34:32.899) the

Phil Huber (34:38.022) Perfect. I'm sure they'll come back to you.

Logan Wittmer (34:42.388) Yeah, I'm sure they will. Yeah. The other thing that I've started to do kind of like in the shop is I've had all these pieces of wood stashed, like, like nice pieces that have been either I bought them from somebody when I was buying, you know, turning blanks or whatever, but like burl pieces or, for some reason I started stashing away a little like cubby full of walnut crotches like

So like if I cut a board and there's a crash section, was, you know, lopping that up, not using that on most pieces of furniture, just cause you don't want one random piece of grain in there. And I started like running them over the jointer and stuff. And then I started stacking them on top of my cabinet. So they're kind of like my little display pieces, like sitting up there until I figure out exactly what I'm to do with them. now I have like this weird collection of like,

I don't know, 18 inch long foot wide crotch sections of Walnut where it's like, well, okay, maybe I wait till I have enough of them. And then those become like door panels for, uh, my tool cabinet behind me or something. I don't know. I don't know, but it's kind of, it's kind of, it's kind of cool. Just running the, some of this stuff over the joint or be like, Oh, that's a really nice piece of wood. I'll set it up there until I figure out what I want to do with it.

Phil Huber (35:54.245) yeah.

Phil Huber (36:04.102) There you go. That's very Nakashima or Krenov of you too.

Logan Wittmer (36:10.048) Yes, that's exactly what I was going for.

Phil Huber (36:11.514) do that.

Logan Wittmer (36:15.874) Yeah, but.

Phil Huber (36:20.026) Yeah, my other side project is a desk that I'm working on off and on. Sometimes feels like I'm not working on it, but it's getting there. actually assembled the face frame for the lower section earlier this week, which was kind of cool. And have been working on gluing up the shelves and interior dividers for that. So that's kind of fun. It's been a challenge because I had gotten those

pine boards from Logan. I've, I, my goal is for the most part to build the entire desk out of just those pine boards. So there's going to be like, you know, maybe like a cabinet back or something like that, that'll be plywood, but in trying to cut around defects and to get the grain that I want, I've lopped sections off. So I have a bunch of

offcuts of it that are in the 20 to 24 inch range, which isn't long enough to span the full width. So it's like, how do you work around some of those challenges when you're going on? So I think like the lower, the basically the floor of the desk on the bottom, instead of being like a glued up panel that runs the length of it.

I'm gonna do like a tongue and groove and have it run front to back, kind of like an old school cupboard look to it, which I think will be kind of a cool look too.

Logan Wittmer (37:54.808) That's how, that's how I've started doing almost all of my bottoms of stuff is yeah. Like I did that on my first work bench. or it's like, it's just kind of that, you know, either tongue groove or just shiplap. And then it just sits on cleats and then you have access to it. If you ever need to get out of there for a reason, you know, and that's what I'm going to do in the bottom of the outfeed table is.

Phil Huber (38:00.903) yeah.

Phil Huber (38:12.302) Right. Yeah.

Logan Wittmer (38:23.458) the drawer section I'm just going to do like, or the cabinet section.

Phil Huber (38:29.55) Yeah. It's one of those lessons where it feels like you have to relearn it every so often. But on this desk is thinking about the hierarchy of panels on a project, like what's the most important, most visible space. And those are the surfaces that you spend the most time on making them look as

as pretty as you can be. And then stepping down in there where, you know, it's like obviously the sides of this desk because it's kind of a tall drop front desk make a big deal. The drop front desk itself, because when it's closed, like that's a focal point. So I want that piece to look nice. But

Logan Wittmer (38:59.843) Mm-hmm.

Phil Huber (39:21.486) like the desk surface behind the drop front isn't going to be seen as often. So that doesn't have to look as nice. Same goes for like a shelf on the inside of the lower section, you know, and then above the desk, I'm going to have two doors. So the top of that will be visible. So that one should look nice, but the shelf below that is going to be filled with books most of the time. So a few knots.

A bullet hole or two is not going to be a big deal for that.

Logan Wittmer (39:54.284) Yeah. Which is not indicative of the quality of timber that comes from chunk of trunk LLC. And we make no claims about quality of said lumber. No, I mean, we've talked about this before though, is it's like you're almost, I mean, you're talking about the hierarchy of panels and we've talked about designing a project for a space and that kind of goes in the same thing. Right? It's like, I have glued up those panels for the dresser I was going to do five years ago.

John Doyle (40:01.215) you

Logan Wittmer (40:24.376) They're still sitting out there, but it's like, yeah, this is the panel that is going to be the left-hand side because as you walk into our bedroom, that's the side you see. And that's the nicer of the two panels. So the panel that faces the bathroom, which you don't see when you walk in, that's the lesser of the two panels. So, you know, it's kind of the same thing, you know, hierarchy based on what's visible and then what is going to be seen first when you walk into a room and see the piece. So yeah.

Phil Huber (40:57.262) I mean, that's even like John was saying earlier in this episode that cabinet that he pulled out of that we got out of the carriage house, you know, like the front of it looks great. The end panels kind of painted by, you know, some just leftover battleship paint or whatever. So.

John Doyle (41:17.994) Yeah, there's definitely a strategy when you're breaking down rough lumber of as far as like, I'm going to need the longest, know, widest pieces and the stuff that shows first, you know, try to pull the longest, widest stuff you can find out the clear pieces and then, you know, the thinner or the narrower shorter stuff you can kind of cut from what's left. So there's a lot of, you know,

going back and forth on that and finding what's the best looking stuff for what shows.

Phil Huber (41:51.729) Yeah. And then for me on this desk, like I said, there's that the surface behind the drop front where it's got the, how the tree responded to some bullet holes in there. So there's a lot of sap and resin in that section. And to me, like, I don't mind seeing that, especially in a location like that, because now there's like a, a little bit of a, you know, like this tree came from a place.

and lived a life. Right. You know, so there's that connection to it that, you know, it's not just what this desk is going to be used for, but that there was something that happened before it was a desk.

Logan Wittmer (42:22.676) And it saw some ****.

John Doyle (42:25.046) you

Phil Huber (42:42.192) So maybe that's what it is. It's chunk of trunk. It's lumber with a story.

Logan Wittmer (42:46.36) That's right. Yes.

Phil Huber (42:52.026) you know, just part of.

living in Iowa.

Logan Wittmer (42:59.182) Yep. Kids squirrel hunting in the South side of Des Moines, which is obviously what they were doing was squirrel hunting.

John Doyle (43:06.838) Great, yes.

Phil Huber (43:07.386) Probably, yeah.

John Doyle (43:10.356) Yeah, I can just imagine some South side kids with their coonskin caps and you know out there with their little BB gun hunting with their 22 hunting squirrels. That's what they do on the South side.

Logan Wittmer (43:21.774) man. Yeah. That's I think. Yeah, I think that's right.

Phil Huber (43:24.612) Yep. Yep.

Logan Wittmer (43:30.83) Uh, you know, it's funny talking, you know, talking about trees with the story. So I stuck this, um, I stuck this Kentucky coffee tree outside of my shop a couple of years ago, got it from the DNRs tiny tree program. They're given, you know, sa, saplings away at a bare root saplings away at an event in town. I was like, Oh, Kentucky coffee tree. That's cool. And I stuck that in. Um, I have, I think got four trees from that program.

John Doyle (43:30.998) you

Logan Wittmer (44:00.16) This is the only one that survived and this sob is thriving, but I will tell you did not realize Kentucky coffee trees. I don't remember what the term is for it, but they shed their branches every year. So yeah. So like it grows, shoots branches out and it's a beautiful looking tree. it's maybe 10 foot tall now, maybe a little bit taller. It's growing like a weed.

Phil Huber (44:04.709) All right.

Phil Huber (44:13.925) Really?

Logan Wittmer (44:30.04) but then come fall it loses its branches. So looks like I just have a stick in my yard. Like there's nothing on it. And right now the only thing that has leafed out on it is the top of it. So I can't decide if it looks like a Dr. Seuss tree or if it looks like a teenage kid with one of those frilly haircuts up top. Like, because it just, all it has is leaves and branches up top and nothing for like eight feet. Like it's ridiculous looking.

So yeah, I don't know.

Phil Huber (45:00.156) that's weird. So how long does it do that? Because they don't do that all the time throughout their life.

Logan Wittmer (45:06.53) I have no idea. No, I have no, I can't imagine a tree. A Kentucky coffee tree is dropping, you know, limbs every year. I don't know because it does like the first year did it. I'm like, that's weird. And then came back and yeah, it did it the next year. Although now it does look like, the top of it has its first like crotch in it. so maybe

Phil Huber (45:14.277) Right.

Logan Wittmer (45:35.052) Now, once it started crotching, it will not drop branches. You know, maybe it's just like, maybe it's just like sub branches. I don't know. It, it, was out there the other day and I took a picture of it. I'll send it to you guys and we can put it on the show notes page. It just looks ridiculous. Like absolutely dumb, but Hey, you know what hindsight also, I probably wouldn't have planted it this close to my shop because I'm going have a big old tree hanging over the shop, but you know, it is what it is.

Phil Huber (46:03.482) Yeah, but I mean, it's not like it's black walnuts dropping cannonballs on your roof.

Logan Wittmer (46:06.446) Correct. It's just going to be dropping seed pods.

John Doyle (46:07.286) Yeah

Yeah, once it starts producing that coffee though, it'll be all worth it.

Logan Wittmer (46:16.462) Yeah, that's right.

Phil Huber (46:22.928) All right, I think that wraps up another episode of the ShopNotes podcast. Thanks for listening, everybody. If you have any questions, comments, or smart remarks, please put those in on our Shop Notes podcast YouTube channel. You can subscribe to it there. Or send me an email, woodsmith at woodsmith.com. The ShopNotes podcast is a production of Active Interest Media. It's edited by Nate Gruca.

Executive Digital Editor is Ben Strano, comes out every week. We'll see you next time. Bye.