We kick things off with listener comments about the upcoming “Domino Killer” joinery tools, Kreg’s woodworking-focused approach to tool development, and the ongoing debate between premium and budget woodworking equipment.
Then Phil shares the ups and downs of rebuilding his vintage Delta drill press - including seized bearings, stubborn chucks, hydraulic presses, and why old machines aren’t always as easy to restore as YouTube makes them look.
Come join us for all woodworking discussion and so much more!
Phil Huber (01:07.138) All right, we're on our second cup of coffee here at the ShopNotes Podcast. Time for another episode. It is episode number two hundred and seventy four. You're joined by three woodworkers, Phil, Logan, and John, today, as we discuss the happenings here at Woodsmith, popular woodworking, the Woodsmith Shop, and more. On today's episode, we're going to address some listener and viewer comments. We'll also talk about
Old tools and the joys and heartaches that they bring to you. we'll also check in on any projects that we've got going on as well. Thanks as always for listening. You can join in on the fun by sending in your questions, comments, and smart remarks. You can do that by email, woodsmith at woodsmith.com, or you can subscribe to the Shop Notes Podcast YouTube channel where you can see everything that's going on here.
as well as leave your comments there too. So let's get started right after a word from this week's sponsor.
Logan (02:21.231) You know, I'm pretty sure that's what we used to call the group of farmers that would gather for breakfast and coffee at the gas station, like sitting inside: old tools. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (02:30.39) Old tools, yeah. Yeah.
John Doyle (02:30.414) Old Tools Forum dot com.
Phil Huber (02:37.346) My mom calls them Romeos, retired old men eating out.
John Doyle (02:40.359) yeah.
Logan (02:40.377) Mm.
At the gas station. At the gas station. Gotta get that gas station coffee. Gross.
Phil Huber (02:45.89) Yeah. Yep.
Yeah. And Casey's breakfast pizza. Like give him that.
Logan (02:53.891) Ours was a break point. It was not a Casey's even.
John Doyle (02:58.222) Is it a case he's now though?
Logan (03:00.527) I think it is. I'm pretty sure it is.
John Doyle (03:01.709) Yeah.
Phil Huber (03:02.21) Ha ha ha
Phil Huber (03:08.002) That being said, I will say that the gas station coffee at the Quick Stars here in Iowa, which is quick trip in other parts of the Midwest, very delicious.
Logan (03:14.117) Yes.
Logan (03:18.723) It is, yes. Yep. I so I'm gonna I you know because I know the the quick star quick trip executives listen to this podcast. I'm gonna pick a bone with them real quick. Okay. they had an espresso machine in there that I'm calling it an espresso machine. It's one of those digital touch screen and you can pick out what you want, macchiato or latte or whatever. That made spectacular coffee. However, they have since
Phil Huber (03:28.098) Okay.
Logan (03:47.801) Started phasing those out. And now it's like the, yeah, now it's like the it's still the digital coffee maker, but you're making like straight black pour over coffee at that point. So it's like, you want the Karuba Gold or you want the Colombian, you know, leave room or not? What size? Yada yada. They're fine. But those other espresso machines, and I get it, because it was it's like the McDonald's soft serve machines. It's down 85% of the time, especially when you want one. So like
Phil Huber (03:49.902) Uh-huh.
Logan (04:17.827) I get it that they phased them out, but it's like, what the heck, man? Like that was the that was good coffee. The rest of it's still pretty good, but
John Doyle (04:30.36) feel like we could do a whole like hour long podcast just on like this the gas station situation in central Iowa because yeah because you have
Logan (04:42.543) I mean it's kind of a drama point, right? It's like a drama nexus.
John Doyle (04:46.102) Yes, you have like Quick Trip with a Q, like coming from the West, and you had Quick Trip with a K coming from Wisconsin and the East. And they for the longest time they had a line. Like you cannot cross central Iowa. But then I th I don't know who broke that, but then Quick Trip with a I probably quick trip with a Q like moved across the line. And then Quick Trip with a
Logan (04:58.785) Yeah.
John Doyle (05:10.67) K started moving here to the Des Moines metro area, but they had to change their name to Quick Star to be different. And then we had
we have Casey's, which is headquartered here in central Iowa. That's like the best cast gas station pizza in the world, and now it's all over the Midwest. And then you have Come and Go that was stationed here in Des Moines and bought out by Maverick. And so now they're all Mavericks. Like Mavericks out of like Colorado, I think. So it's just it's just I don't know. It's
Logan (05:27.995) Yes.
Logan (05:40.337) Well, and then you have you have high v fresh and fat fet fresh and fast, which are yeah, which are gas stations most of the time, anyways. They must have some affiliation with Casey's. So I don't know if like Casey's owns the fuel contract with them because you can use your Casey's rewards at the yeah. I don't know. Yeah.
Phil Huber (05:46.702) Fast and fresh.
John Doyle (05:47.143) yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
John Doyle (05:58.939) yeah, 'cause they did have well yeah, they did for a while. I don't know if you still can or if the or if that what that whole situation or contract is or but yeah, there's just a there's a lot going on here in central Iowa. It's just like a all of these gas station like companies meet up here in the Midwest and
Logan (06:08.581) I mean yeah.
Logan (06:18.095) Well, and it's like we don't have any of like the the other big ones that you see in other other places like Marathon or Chevron or you know, like any of those, you know, Phillip sixty six, like we don't have any of those big, you know, kind of fuel station things. And ours, I believe, as somebody who travels pretty regularly, I feel like ours are more convenience stores than gas stations, where a lot of those other ones are more gas stations with a little bit of convenience stuff.
On seventy elevens, we don't have a ton of seventy elevens. There's some, but not many.
John Doyle (06:52.844) Yeah. 'Cause Casey's started out with I don't know how long they've been doing pizza, but that kinda took off in all the small towns their pizza and then they did breakfast pizza. Then all of the gas stations wanted to put a kitchen in their gas stations to sell food and you just can't compete with the with Casey's pizzas, so sorry.
Logan (07:13.219) No, you can't. No.
Phil Huber (07:13.762) Yeah. No. Al although I will say it feels like, especially coming from outside of Iowa, moving in here, is that when you come into central Iowa specifically, and maybe this is a larger thing across the Midwest, it's sort of like enrolling at Hogwarts and you have to like get sorted into the different like gas station houses. So you definitely have your devoted fans of each one. But
Logan (07:33.457) Yeah.
Logan (07:40.345) I and I switched. I went from a Casey's to a quickstar guy. One hundred percent.
Phil Huber (07:44.738) Yeah.
But I still go over to Slytherin for pizza every now and then, so
Logan (07:50.907) yeah, yeah.
John Doyle (07:53.773) It's funny because where I live just north of Des Moines here, Ankeny is the headquarters for Casey's and we have I don't know how many Casey's in Ankeny now, but there's a there's on one corner, probably like the busiest corner in in Ankeny, there's a Casey's, and then there's a McDonald's, and then there's another Casey's.
And I it's funny because I will drive past the one Casey's because I only go to the Casey's on the corner. Like I will just drive right by it. I'm not going to that case I never go into that Casey's, but I'll go to that Casey's on the other side of McDonald's. So I don't know.
Phil Huber (08:29.462) In my hometown in Wisconsin, Fleet Farm had gas stations. And at our Fleet Farm for a while, they actually had Fleet Farm gas stations on opposite corners of the intersection. So it was kinda like right. You just you're just there. Kinda wondered like if you went to the bathroom, did you have to like go under the road and then come back out on the other one or who knows? Anyway.
Logan (08:44.419) Easy access from all directions.
Phil Huber (09:00.11) So there we are. That's what's going on here in Iowa. And would love to know what your convenience store gas station situation is where you live. Puppy Doc, are you are you a quick trip kind of person? Because I can remember quick trips when I was growing up, there was one just a few blocks away from our house. I'd have to get on my bike periodically, drive or ride up there and
Bring back like three of the half gallon bags of milk that Quick Trip used to sell with the little f special pitcher that went with it. So
Sometimes when you get in with a store like that, you're in deep. So would love to know what you got going on there. Let's check in with comments and questions from last episode. almost perfection says, looking forward to see the Craig Edge. Can't hurt to have competition in the market. I was just checking out Andy Klein's video on his new loose tenon tool that he's releasing. I think that's called the like the Trinity or something like that.
Logan (10:07.865) Yeah, something like that.
Phil Huber (10:10.156) Yeah, 'cause it's
But basically you hook it up to your drill and it drills three dowel holes simultaneously in a fixed spacing next there. So yeah, I kinda get it. Domino's are kind of cool. Grizzly, by the time this podcast releases, Logan and I will be at the Grizzly tent sale in Springfield. They have a little
Biscuit joiner kind of tool that does like a double dowel hole at the same time. Same sort of thing. So
Jim Carroll says Jonathan Katz Moses puts up an interesting post about the domino killer in that it they have not fully covered all the patent parts yet and they are not legally allowed to pre-sale or promote the sale of the new tool. It will be as good as will it be as good as the Fest tool? No one really knows till they it really gets a workout in the joineries, but pricing indicates it's f for more the humble handyman, so may not get a full workout. It was like Tormec.
made the whetstone grinder, everyone said that they were too expensive and the cheap versions came out. The wheels wear away too quick and the jigs are next to hopeless, so you end up buying the Tormec wheels and jigs and try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. No one seems to make the equivalent or better than the original, and Craig should know this as they have the best pocket to hold jigs and there's a lot of mediocre pocket hold jigs out there now.
John Doyle (11:48.559) Yeah, I saw John the Catmoses post on that and I did is he sponsored by Festool? He just seemed like he was making a video kind of defending Fest Tool or was just like
Logan (12:01.209) No, that's I think just kind of his attitude. Yeah, yeah.
John Doyle (12:05.694) just his thing. It's his thing. So and he I d he was saying stuff about the patents. I don't know if he's really in the know about the patent situation or if he was just saying stuff. So it's like yeah I saw that and I kinda
Phil Huber (12:29.388) Yeah, the connection to the Tormec is a good one. And I it's interesting to see how that plays out in that terms. another one that I saw a comparison was like tracksaws and the proliferation of track saws recently. the one that I thought of immediately when it came to the fest tools domino joiner and whatever is when biscuit joiners kind of became popular.
Cause they were the original machine was by a Swiss company, Lamello, and they still make high-end, really nice biscuit joiners. But after that, after their patent ran out, there was a bigillion other companies that made biscuit joiners. And some of them were perfectly serviceable. I still have one, a vintage porter cable five fifty-five, I think, biscuit joiner works great.
It just kinda depends on what you're looking for. You know, like are you looking for a pickup truck that hauls a pontoon boat? Or are you looking for a pickup truck that you occasionally have to put a load of mulch in? You know, those are two very very different trucks. So
Phil Huber (15:06.006) Right. Yeah.
Phil Huber (15:40.675) Right. I I think it also falls into some of the discussions that we've had in the past about, you know, like what tools are you getting at Harbor Freight simply because they're accessible? And if you're buying a specialized tool at Harbor Freight and you end up using it four times in your life, it's turned out to be a lifetime tool, right? You know, compared to something where, you know, not a lot of auto mechanics are gonna buy
Power tools, impact drivers from Harbor Freight for their work because they need it for a different set of conditions than what the three of us do.
Phil Huber (16:58.04) Yeah. I mean, it's also like you see a lot of woodworkers on YouTube that have like a whole wall of like domino f or bunch of sustainers behind and then, you know, people will complain about that and how expensive they are. So in a sense it's like you just can't win, which I which I totally get. But
Yeah, but the snob appeal can drive me crazy sometimes on tools. Michael Thompson says Megilla Gorilla. I was honestly more partial to Grape Ape, which I mean I get that. That's true. After scrolling through the tubes, I think rather than a Woodsmith shop notes trip through Sweden and Denmark, we should do a group outing to see He Man and the Masters of the Universe.
Just two more weeks. Also, I think it's time to hold a contest to design the official chunk-a-trunk logo. Winner gets the log of their choice.
Phil Huber (18:08.216) Wow. I'm but maybe you
John Doyle (18:09.92) I I I feel like I was doing that in chat GPT, yeah, back not or I mean it yeah, there were some good designs. That and what the duck I was making logos for back when getting in the runner duck business. So it's all right there. Just gotta yep. Yep.
Phil Huber (18:31.182) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (18:38.208) Adam Vos says we're regarding the domino, my domino DF700 plug into a fine dust collector, turning it on and off as needed. Maybe I'm spoiled. Which we had talked about, you know, that was kind of the issue with a cordless one and, you know, tool activated things and whatever. So totally get that. That's fair. Although it would be interesting, like you said, Logan, about having some sort of a battery adapter that's a little transformer that is a
AC connector to plug in. You know? Maybe. Puppy Doc, I have had people ask me to mill logs in exchange for some of the lumber. I have more lumber than I need and want. So I've had to just say no. I've also had to start advising potential customers that I don't haul the slabs 150 yards into their backyard. I just take them off the mill and stack them out of my way, and that's it.
Carrying thirteen foot by thirty inch by three and a half inch thick slabs is crazy, especially a hundred plus yards. Finally, I know this may come as a surprise to some, but milling logs does create sawdust. Who knew? Yeah, someone complained that the mill was making sawdust.
Phil Huber (19:59.94) Yep.
John Doyle (20:02.03) Do they make some sort of like wheelbarrow type attachment to move slabs around like that? Is that or is that something I can invent? Okay. I'm on it.
All right. Let's do this. Yeah.
Phil Huber (20:16.844) The chunk a trunk slab mover. All right. Okay. Driver says regarding Craig being designed for woodworkers, Makita, Milwaukee, etc. def definitely have tools designed for woodworkers. Not really understanding the argument in favor of Craig here.
John Doyle (21:17.42) I'm sure any of those companies will take crossover traffic, but Craig is kinda started in the woodworking field and has focused on that whereas the other ones have started in the trades and kind of crossed over to the
Phil Huber (22:08.118) Yeah. And I mean, long ago I feel like one of the things that Craig is trying to do is bring back the like mid-level tool market. In that for the longest time, you know, you had in their heyday brands like Craftsman or Montgomery Ward, Porter Cable.
They sold tools that were well made but not
Phil Huber (22:44.43) high end tools. You know, they they occupied a nice middle ground for somebody who was like a serious DIYer or hobbyist as opposed to like a very occasional user where you pull in like the you know the the original like Harbor Freight kind of look to it. So
Phil Huber (23:10.574) Yeah.
Right. And I feel like that's been kind of missing for a while or neglected.
Phil Huber (23:39.512) Green Rockwell.
John Doyle (23:44.43) Whatever happened to them? Who bought Rockwell?
Phil Huber (24:11.724) Yeah. Which is not the same Rockwell as Delta Rockwell from way long ago.
John Doyle (24:17.336) Hmm. Rockwell was purchased by Positec Tool Group, parent company Works, WRX. Is that what is that what's sold in Lowe's? Is Works or Home Depot?
Phil Huber (24:27.662) yeah.
Phil Huber (24:33.09) Maybe or Yeah.
John Doyle (24:33.344) Again, only questions here, no answers.
Phil Huber (24:39.138) This is why people listen to the Shop Notes podcast is to be able to see this kind of deep thinking happening real time.
John Doyle (24:41.826) Yeah.
John Doyle (24:45.954) Right. Real time w watching us figure it out. It's like watching a baby calf learn to walk. Stumbling through.
Phil Huber (24:49.432) Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Phil Huber (24:57.078) Yeah.
John Doyle (25:04.247) Yeah.
Phil Huber (25:08.674) All right, let's get started on today's topics. like I mentioned earlier, when this comes out, Logan and I will be at the Grizzly tent sale, which is always a delight to be there to see some folks, do some demonstrations, and to see the kind of deals that are going on. But that's not the only thing happening with Grizzly. right now is the second annual Grizzly Makers Challenge.
that is happening where you can submit your woodworking projects to the site. You can also go check out other people's stuff, get involved, start voting on what you think are the cool ones out there. And then later this summer, Logan and I will be part of the judging crew to narrow that down for the winners. And the top prize gets a little special treatment.
Phil Huber (26:52.781) Phil Huber (27:58.817) It it's also interesting to me that having judged for the state fair, they are very distinct about categories where it's like turning, carving, you know, furniture, instruments, toys. This one is like all in the hopper. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a there's a fun element of that is like
Are there really legitimate ways to compare a turned object to a highly intricate, you know, marketry something or other? And it's like yes and no. So all this to say is that in spite of the fact that Logan and I are judges, along with Larissa and Shabir and Shiraz, like it's nine hundred percent subjective.
Phil Huber (30:10.854) yeah.
Phil Huber (30:31.65) Yeah. Yeah.
John Doyle (30:34.082) Do you wait the location that you would have to travel to in the judging?
John Doyle (31:07.766) yeah.
Phil Huber (31:09.122) Wow. All right. There you go. Yep. Yep.
There you go, John Nasta. Logan picks Texas above Atlanta. Pretty soon, after I don't know, a few hundred more episodes of the Shop Notes podcast, we'll end up with a ranking of locations within these United States of where Logan loves and hates to be. So stay tuned.
Phil Huber (31:39.49) All right. Okay.
So if you're a woodworking club or group and you think that you have a pretty sweet section of America that you want Logan to come speak at your event and maybe move your place up in the rankings, you're gonna want to reach out. Let us know. Yeah. Please note that any submissions from Texas or Georgia, you will get Colin.
to come out there and that's how that's gonna work out.
Phil Huber (32:22.082) All right. one of the things that I want to talk about today, I'm going to start with a narrow subject on it and then expand it out. Is that I have an early 1970s speaking Rockwell Delta drill press. The specific model is 15-017. And I did a video on it a couple of years ago on a little cleanup rehab that I did to it, made some upgrades.
Still love it. But even after doing some lubrication, I noticed that there were still some bearing noises in it. So I got a bearing kit to replace that. There's a plate, I think it's out in California, Hammer Scale, that offers kits for replacing whole sections of the of the drill press. Got that kit. And like many of you, that thing has sat around.
acclimating to my shop for about a year before I got started on it.
Phil Huber (33:29.26) Right. Yeah. So my dad came down for a visit and we thought that we would tackle that last weekend because really you're just removing three bearings. Pull the quill out. I've seen some videos online, you know, with clever guitar music and like high speed of what it's like to replace these bearings, and they all make it sound delightfully easy.
We discovered that that's not always the case and had some serious difficulties with it. Some of them were our own doing, being not too familiar with the machines, even though let's be honest, a drill press is a not super complicated machine. so much so what one of the problems that I had was getting the drive shaft out of the quill assembly.
And the problem that we had is that we didn't see because of all the gunk buildup on the inside is a little threaded stop collar in there, I guess you could call it. Got that out. And then the bearing on the top end came off relatively easy. The bearing on the bottom end has to come off the bottom end, but the keyless chuck that I had on there just would not come off the shaft.
We were pounding on it, tapping on the side, following all the instructions to make it work. So reached out to Logan and he was like, yeah, we could totally get that off.
spent a good but it spent some time on Monday realizing that nope, couldn't really get it off at just with normal tools around. So I think you ended up using the hydraulic press on it.
Phil Huber (36:48.012) It was a thing, yeah. I mean we used a torch to heat up the chuck to see if that would help bring it off. And even that lower bearing was stuck on in a way that ended up having to blow that thing apart too. So
Yep. So anyway, it was it was educational for me in the sense of understanding the tools and how they work better. Also educational from the standpoint of you know, when we present information in Woodsmith or in videos or whatever, what it takes to really communicate something that's going on. You know, like some of those.
Time lapse videos that you see out there are fun entertainment wise, but they don't necessarily communicate what's going on with an actual tool that had lived its life, you know, and just had a bunch of dust and grease and gunk and whatever just all builds up in there. So I do plan on doing a video and maybe a web article on it. Maybe that won't go through the whole process because we have it disassembled right now.
But I think my focus is gonna be on, you know, like not everybody is going to have my specific drill press. However, the way drill presses are, there's a lot of commonalities in its construction. So like here are the potential pitfalls or things you need to be looking out for. Cause I mean you did your Delta drill press, that radial arm one in your shop. Walker Turner, yeah.
You know, so like the construction is the same, but even it's not quite the same.
Phil Huber (38:51.788) Right. Yeah.
Phil Huber (39:25.624) Yeah. Cause you know, the old Woodworking Machines Forum and the Vintage Machines website has a lot of old owners manuals and diagrams and things like that. But sometimes it can be a little bit of a challenge to try and find them even on their site or just in general searching. So if you can find one, that's great. But otherwise, you know, like yeah, as you're taking things apart.
Like that's one of the benefits of having a phone. You know, the way modern phones are is being able to take a lot of photos of what things look like. Cause even now you had dropped off the shaft and the other part of the chuck that was still on there. And then I was looking and I'm like, where did this little pin go now? I don't quite remember. I eventually figured it out, but you know, it's as what as much as you can to make your own memory aids for that.
Phil Huber (40:52.428) Yeah. Well, and there were a couple of things that looked like they could have been Allen screws, but they weren't, you know, it was like a roll pin or just like the seat from another screw that fit into there, you know. So it's all you know, and if it's not something you do very often, you're not as familiar with it.
John, what's going on with you?
John Doyle (41:28.706) well, I just wanna share two anecdotes going back to that your situation with trying to remove the shaft from your drill press. And it's like reminds you of two different situations where like I think that was the last time that I was changing the tire flat tire on my car, got all the lug nuts off and it was the the tire just would not come off. And it's like is there some sort of secret like
set screw or nut on here to to remove this. And so I'm you know googling YouTube videos or whatever, and it's like, nope, you just brute strength, smack it with a sledgehammer on the back and popped up was just fused on there. So it's like sometimes you need the brute strength. And then the other anecdote would be the time that we got a planer joiner in on a palette and Logan and I
We're trying to lift it off the this palette and we could not lift it. It was like it can't be that heavy that we're not even budgeting it. We're standing on this palette, both trying to lift, and finally we realized it was bolted down to the palette we were standing on. So sometimes, yeah, there's brute strength or there's some sort of secret, you know, attachment on there that you have to figure out and and and so it's like, which one is it? Am I gonna
just beat on this and bend the shaft or is there some sort of attachment holding it on there? So that's always yeah the interesting thing about those type of situations. So but so but yeah. So I think last time we talked we were no we still pre graduation party. Last time so yeah. So we've made it through the graduation party.
Phil Huber (43:12.236) Yes.
John Doyle (43:17.676) All my projects ended up great. I had the the photo backdrop, the lemonade stand from a refurbished potting bench. my daughter had me make a little planter crate chalkboard sign thing and worked out great. as far as the party was concerned, there were like a half dozen points of contention that as a dad and father.
or husband, I had to put my foot down and say, We are not doing those things and we did end up doing those things. So that shows my authority and all those things worked out great and was a very nice party. But yeah, we had several of her friends have parties after and everybody wanted to borrow different things we had. So
If you are in a I don't know populated area that has lots of graduation parties as a woodworker, I think you would do quite well to do these little projects and just rent them out. Like photo backdrops, little chalkboard signs, planters type stuff, and beverage carts, nacho carts, whatever it is that you can make cheap, cause
Phil Huber (44:35.854) Beverage cart, yeah.
John Doyle (44:43.628) Yeah, people use them for a few hours and then don't want to have them anymore after that. So I think that would be a a business opportunity for board workers. Because like the backdrop that I did, it was just two by fours and cedar fence pickets, which are relatively cheap when it comes to it as far as materials and stuff like that. So I think that's a business opportunity out there.
bridal showers, baby showers, people eat that up. So get out there, make some projects, rent them out, go nuts.
Phil Huber (45:24.622) I mean, and not only that, but you're connecting people to the fact that this kind of stuff can be made, you know, rather than going to X party supply store or rental house or something where it's like, like this backdrop is just cedar fence pickets, like for real? And you're like, Yeah, that's all it is. You just lop the dog ear part off. I think you ran it through a planer just to kind of clean the curse off of it a little bit, right?
John Doyle (45:52.247) Yeah, yeah. S smooth it a little but doesn't take much. So didn't even have to put any finish on it. But yeah. Make it I would suggest make it modular so you could transport it though. In the in the back of a minivan. so but so that's been that's been my thing lately. So but
Phil Huber (46:08.108) Right. Yeah. Yeah.
John Doyle (46:20.716) And then Logan he just walked off. Okay. Okay.
Phil Huber (46:21.038) Alright, now that we brought Logan back Yeah, one of the things
Logan (46:25.12) I'm here. I'm ch I'm chasing a cat that stole a wrapper.
Phil Huber (46:29.132) One of the things that I wanted to bring go back to the old tools thing is the fact that
Working on old tools like that, you get the idea that these tools were meant to have parts replaced, repaired, taken care of, cleaned up, all of that kind of stuff in order for them to last, you know, generations, to be honest. You know, like we saw that with your jointer. Like obviously you have an industrial tool. So clearly that thing needs to be able to stand up to a lot of service hours. But
Logan (46:49.594) yeah.
Logan (47:09.345) Yeah.
Phil Huber (47:10.08) Like my drill press was a pretty commonly available Delta drill press when it came out, but it still could very easily be kept in running condition for much longer than I'm gonna have.
Logan (47:26.985) Yeah, well and it I think that goes to show because that that was a what sixties, fifties, sixties model?
Phil Huber (47:33.718) Seventies, I think, is from when I figured it out. Yeah.
Logan (47:35.381) Seventies. So like now, fifty six years later.
Logan (47:46.891) Parts are still available for it. Like somebody is still servicing that. You know, they're kind of like bearings. There's common sizes for bearings. Like you can always get bearings for the most part, whether it depends on how much you want to pay for them, but you could still get bearings. But like I think that just goes to show that, like, yeah, even at a homeowner model, I mean, even if you go back and look at like these, you know, looking at a jointer from the the 50s.
Or 40s, even a homeowner model six inch or eight inch cast iron jointer, it still was meant to be serviced for its lifetime, for the owner's lifetime. Like it was, you know, Babbitt bearings you could pour, you could get parts. you know, sometimes like some of those things, you there's there's a point where you can't replace certain parts like
a direct drive motor off one of those you can't find a direct drive motor for that but like a lot of the wear items absolutely like they're meant to be pulled apart cleaned serviced I like my let's see what has them my spindle sander the oliver pattern maker lathe the Moak jointer did have them the Rockwell thirty six inch bandsaw has them they all had oil cups on them like
You were you were meant to service it. You were supposed to keep it full of oil and let it run. you know, we kinda lost that.
Phil Huber (49:21.878) Yeah.
Logan (49:22.889) Like, yeah, you can go get parts from PowerMatic or from Jed or Harvey or whatever. Like, yeah, you can do that. But that that almost and maybe it was a shift in mentality on us as consumers or corporate America, where it's like, Hey, now my parts department is a profit center. Right. Like I'm I'm actually making money on those. you know, is what it is, capitalism and such, but
Phil Huber (49:55.289) Yeah, I I there's definitely a chicken and egg thing going on in the sense that are tools more cheaply made and harder to be serviced because people don't want to service them? Or did we lose that kind of community knowledge of how to take care of machines just over time? You know, and where you know, that's all kind of a blurry, I think in many ways, a blurry aspect of where we are with
The tool market. But I was watching the videos of a guy who contributes to fine woodworking who moved from the United States to Japan and was setting up his shop in Japan to be a furniture maker there. And one thing that he talked about is that in Japan at least.
There were quite a number of stores that sold used power tools.
Like that they were this was not a difficult retail establishment to find. Was to be able to go into you know, it was a building about the size of your I don't know, average hardware store or old school grocery store, so not humongous, but and just had power tools of all sorts, drill presses and table saws and jointers and whatever. And I get
Logan (51:09.228) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (51:32.024) Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, eBay, all that kind of stuff. But feels like it would be nice to be able to go to a place and look at these things because buying some of this stuff sight unseen or in the middle of a parking lot somewhere to try and do a deal has its own set of challenges and isn't necessarily the easiest buying experience either.
Logan (51:51.284) Yeah.
Logan (51:58.473) Yeah. Now with that said, I know there there is a a gentleman, there's a couple of gentlemen that I know that one's in Ohio and one is in right outside DeColl, Illinois. that deal in vintage machines and they they generally have an inventory. They don't necessarily have a storefront though, and like they buy these tools. They're they might need some love. Like, but it would be cool to have like it would be cool to have like a used tool store where it's like it's a retail outlet.
Phil Huber (52:21.837) Right.
Logan (52:27.785) You walk in. It's like it's like you used to walk into Sears, see all the craftsman stuff set up. You can walk around and you know play with it and stuff, but instead of being all Sears or Craftsman stuff, it's a mixture of everything. Whatever's available for sale and it is in working condition because the store has replaced what needs replaced on it. Bearings are good. It's ready to rip.
Phil Huber (52:52.13) Yeah. I don't know. I just feels like it's a market opportunity in the sense that there are, you know, used car lots where I mean, like you can buy a used car online or you can go to a used car lot where you can walk around, look at it, and realize like, hey, this, you know, eighty seven Ford Taurus needs some love, but for this price and a little bit of know how you can put something together and
And take open a a sweet ride. But
Phil Huber (53:27.374) I don't know. Just
John Doyle (53:30.606) This podcast is just full of business opportunities today. Yeah. Yeah. Just get it. The money's there. Just get it.
Phil Huber (53:33.612) Right. Yeah.
Logan (53:33.643) It's just there for people to grab.
Phil Huber (53:36.898) Yeah. Yeah. Shop. Yeah. Shop notes podcast, entrepreneur edition. So
John Doyle (53:44.034) Yeah.
Phil Huber (53:49.367) All right. I've been working on my desk project. We've dropped a few videos that I've been going through how I've been working on my drop front secretary style desk that I've been slowly picking at over these last number of months. It's been fun to see some of it start to take shape. It's also one of those projects where because I don't really have
plans for it. I'm kind of building it and designing it as I go, so to speak. That periodically, John can attest to this. I'm just I just clamp up parts of it just to see how it looks. And then you can be like, that needs to be a little bit wider or that needs to be smaller or whatever. Picks out some of the details. And I know you did that with your desk in your office too, Logan, where it was like,
The drawings come after it's done.
Logan (54:52.459) Yes, I had sizes I was working off of though. Based on scaled drawings from another project.
Phil Huber (54:56.182) Right. I mean I d
Phil Huber (55:00.782) Right. And I did too because I wanted I mean, like your desktop height is sort of like a he like nobody's gonna really come in and be like, you know what? The next cool thing in desks, thirteen inches off the ground. You know, it's like, no, they yeah. Like a kneeling desk or something, but
Logan (55:14.399) Yep. Well in Japan maybe.
Phil Huber (55:21.752) But yeah, I had compared it to different projects whereas I was one of the things was how what's the overall width? Because some of these fall front desks, you can see really small versions that are probably only like twenty-eight inches wide overall to like big, huge ones that are forty eight, fifty two inches wide. And what's the sweet spot there? And that's part of the reason that I'm doing little quick hit.
video check-ins on the project. There's some how to in it, but it's mostly just kind of the behind the scenes thinking of what's going on. So maybe it's a a desk focused peek inside of my brain and how I make projects.
Gonna check those out on the w Woodsmith YouTube channel for those.
John, I noticed you were one of the items that you had to make room in your garage for the graduation party is you brought your router table in here.
John Doyle (56:28.854) Yes. Amongst other things of dispersed throughout this building. It's kind of a a highlights magazine of ISP. Can you find it? Yeah. So I have a Craig router table. I don't remember where I got it from. Probably from when we moved up from the old video studio. It's just the the typical metal framed base with a
Phil Huber (56:30.39) Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Logan (56:31.771) Yeah.
John Doyle (56:58.296) Craig Rider Tabletop, but it never had like any shelf or storage or anything in it. And that's just something that I you know had mentioned I've wanted to add and just never gotten around to. So working on kind of filling the base out with the shelf drawer system and and some pegboard on the ends and
So been toying around with that and like you said,
you're trying to do some short little update videos so working on that and I'm I'll probably shoot a YouTube short kind of doing what we do that. We have a Craig Radder table here in the photo stud video studio as well that's got some storage in it. I'm not going to that extent but I'll probably show that and do some comparison and contrast of what I'm doing in the process and less of a how-to and more of a peek inside
the brain of what's going on. There's plenty of room in there. Come on in. So which is funny because it's like I've had two kind of like wish list projects is
the the router table getting storage in that and then getting rid of that router table because I want to integrate the a router table into my table saw. So it's like I'm gonna finish this up and then once I get the other the second project done I'll get rid of that router table. So just trying to reclaim space more than anything. Because I do like the router table. It's very nice but I would rather have more space. So so
John Doyle (58:42.924) It'll be a nice round table for the next person.
Phil Huber (58:46.062) There we go. Yeah. Yeah, speaking of taking vintage tools and then putting you know
Bringing them back. So Logan, your church doors are done.
John Doyle (58:54.744) Right? Yep.
Logan (58:59.882) Ye ish. Yeah. They're installed. took them up to South Dakota on Saturday and installed them. nothing like showing up after a four hour drive, weeks of building these church doors to realize that the opening that they said the dimensions were X by X, stud to stud were
John Doyle (59:01.307) It will never end.
Logan (59:28.979) Four inches too small in each direction. So I went to like I I pulled up to the church on Saturday morning. They were taking a couple of people from the church were taking the doors out that were there. and I told them, like, hey, this flashing's gonna need removed, the doors are gonna need removed, frames gonna need removed, yada yada. I pull up, they're taking the doors off. And I'm like, all right, cool, let me.
Hold these door jam pieces up just to kind of gauge the lay of the land and it was four inches the opening, the opening my doors were too four inches too tall and three inches too wide.
So twenty minutes after getting there, if you would have asked me if I thought that those church doors were gonna get installed this weekend, the answer would have been a big old H E double hockey sticks 'cause of where I was standing, no.
Logan (01:00:33.429) However
Never underestimate the drive in the Serbian community to get church doors installed and the blatant disregard for structural supports. Now that's not necessarily true, but the the doors that were in the church were a set of French doors with a, I don't know, call it a foot tall flashed divider between the top of the doors and then a pair of windows that swung up.
with a rod on the inside. and that entire thing was one framed section. So, like, they just are like, we'll just cut the the king studs here left and right, and then we'll just remove the header studs out, which technically the header studs really were only holding up the window and the the flashed pieces of plywood above it. And voila, we got an opening that's the right size. Well, kind of.
Phil Huber (01:01:06.325) okay.
Logan (01:01:33.225) Yeah, there was some there were some decisions made. There was some five-inch screws used in certain areas. but the church doors were installed, they fit great. after resizing the opening, the threshold worked out really nicely. I do have to rebuild because of the
way that we got these installed like they're installed, they're plum, they're square, and everything. But the the gap where the astragal goes between the doors so that the astragal is always my like that's always my
Leeway space. Like you can make that wider or you can make it narrower, depending on how big your gap is between the doors. But you don't really know, you can measure everything, but you don't really know how the doors are going to hang until you get them installed, right? So I had built the AstroGoal with a three-quarter inch wide bar between the doors, basically. It needs to be closer to like an inch and a sixteenth wide. So right now there's a little bit bigger of a gap.
in the center of the doors than I want. So I told him, you know, that's just screwed in place. I'm gonna rebuild that and send that up with the priest here maybe next week. but yeah, they're installed out of my hair my lord. Like I was so ready to like they're again they're not hard. they're not hard to build. There's not a lot of parts there. there's some big steps to take big chunks of those projects away. the biggest thing is that they are
They're just heavy. Like just moving them around the shop, it they're heavy. So the the next set I do, if I ever do a set of treasures again, which I've told please kick me my groin if I agree to this at any other point, is the next set will be supplied unstained and unfinished, because that's the honestly, that's the more tedious part. It's almost easier, in my opinion, to hang the doors up and then do it stain them in place and finish them in place.
Logan (01:03:40.359) which is actually how they did my front door here, which is a mahogany front door as well. They they hung it and then the painters stained it and finished it in place.
So yeah. So they're done though, man. They're done. They're gone.
Phil Huber (01:03:58.254) All right, speaking of done and gone, that's it for this week's episode of the ShopNotes Podcast. ShopNotes Podcast is a weekly woodworking podcast from Woodsmith and Popular Woodworking Magazine. It's a production of Active Interest Media. It's edited by Nate Gruca. The executive digital editor is Ben Strano.
Send us your emails, questions, comments, and smart remarks to woodsmith at woodsmith.com or leave a message on our YouTube channel. And we'll see you next week, everybody. Bye.
