Listener Comments
Phil Huber and John Doyle are back for a special back-to-school edition of the ShopNotes Podcast! This week, they dig into listener comments on radial arm saws, cabinet joinery, woodworking books, and even the ongoing Buc-ee’s debate. They also share what’s happening around the Woodsmith Shop, including upcoming events, new tools spotted at IWF, Phil’s finishing course and desk build, and John’s latest outdoor chair project. Plus, there’s plenty of talk about shop maintenance, band saw surprises, and the busy woodworking season ahead.
Transcript
Phil Huber (00:04.952) Here we are, everybody. It's the ShopNotes Podcast, episode number two hundred and eighty-three, special back to school edition that we got going on here. and I think also we're ready to move from the iced coffee to regular hot coffee weather. So hopefully it's getting cooler where you are, and you can enjoy some extra shop time with the windows and the doors open.
We'll get started here right after our message from our sponsor. We're gonna be diving into reader and listener comments and then giving some updates on what's going on here. I'm Phil Huber, joined by John Doyle. Logan Wittmer is on assignment at the International Woodworking Fair in Atlanta, Georgia, which unfortunately does not have corndogs.
Phil Huber (01:04.354) Alright, let's get things started here with some feedback from the last episode. we had brought up radial arm saws and then was also talking about the ongoing news of a Buc-ees here in Iowa. So
Phil Huber (01:27.662) Let's just jump right in, John.
Phil Huber (01:33.454) Paul Christian said about nineteen sixty seven my father in law found me a used nine inch craftsman radial arm saw. It made me nervous doing anything but cross cutting cross cutting. It tended to grab and jam until I rigged up a bunchy cord to have a positive pull on the cut. After I bought a table saw, I set it up for cross cut only. I can routinely make three rotating cuts and be square all the way around.
I still use the radial arm saw daily. I enjoy all of your banter and occasionally learn something worthwhile. Keep it up.
Phil Huber (02:13.613) Trying to decide if the occasionally learn something is a compliment or
John Doyle (02:23.987) I mean that sounds about right. It's mostly it's we'll call it edutainment. It's mostly entertainment, but there might be some you might get some education in there.
Phil Huber (02:26.487) Yeah.
Phil Huber (02:29.972) Yeah.
Phil Huber (02:34.443) Right, right. Gabriel Webb says butt joints with screws will make a cabinet, but I do not enjoy assembling them when built that way. I work in a shop with a CNC, which makes dados and grooves extra easy, but even before we had one, we still use Dados and Rabbits cut on the table saw for case construction. An unmentioned benefit of this type of construction is how easy to keep everything square. This carries through the entire project.
Even making on-site installations easier and cleaner. Our cabinets also include rails on the front and back to support and locate Blum undermount drawer hardware. This system may be a little overkill, but we never have to fight with getting the drawer glides installed parallel and square.
John Doyle (03:26.771) There's there's something to doing a little extra work up front that will save some headache down the line as far as taking the time to cut joinery and then that makes assembly easier and and just squaring up the the cabinets rather than butt joints and screws, I guess. So
Phil Huber (03:52.055) Yeah.
John Doyle (03:54.91) mean it seems like you're saving time up front, but might be a headache down the road.
Phil Huber (04:00.716) Right. I also feel like just straight up butt joints and screws have a tendency until you get especially on a built in cabinet, they have a tendency to just feel a little wobbly until they're attached to the wall or to each other or something like that. Which I get they totally, you know, share strength as you start attaching them together, but up until then I think you risk stripping out something or
Whatever. And I like the idea of putting rails front and back to support hardware. Cause I know a lot of times on some projects that we do, if there's full extension drawer slides, they're just kind of in in this cave of a space and you have to try and figure out where those slides need to go. But if you have a place to register them against
automatically, then yeah, you're you're right there.
John Doyle (05:02.787) Trying think when I worked in a kitchen cabinet shop, I believe, I mean this was 20 some years ago. Turn of the century stuff here. So, but I believe we got all of our cabinet boxes like CNC'd, and then so they were basically butt joints, but they were all pre-drilled for the screws and dowels. So at least the there was dowels there for registration and then that extra strength of of
Phil Huber (05:12.421) Ha ha ha.
John Doyle (05:31.122) racking as far as keeping all together until they weren't s screwed to the walls and t to each other. So I mean even that helped, but I mean that's not any putting like screwing for dowels probably isn't even any more or less work than than just if like for a home shop, cutting dados and grooves and and whatnot. So
I don't know, it's not a bad idea to go to extra trouble, I guess.
Phil Huber (06:01.442) Yeah. No, I like that. I think that's something that again, 'cause in my own shop, the last time that I did some built-in cabinets, I always use biscuits on case construction. And then if I need to run attach drawer or attach cabinet backs, I'll run those in a groove that I just route with a slot cutter or straight bit or something like that.
But yeah, I think dowels would work, loose tenon, you know, if you got the like domino Craig Edge kind of thing, or biscuits, it would all be great. And I think stand in the same way of Dados and Rabbits would in in terms of giving you that ability to register parts, keep it square, and just make for a little bit more of a solid assembly. I think where dowels get
a bum wrap is the like ready to assemble cheapy heart cheapy projects that you find at discount stores where they're just there's like two or three dowels per section when what you need is, you know, eight or more.
John Doyle (07:09.17) Mm-hmm.
John Doyle (07:23.891) Yeah, w I just moved a college freshman into a dorm and we were putting together one of those knockdown cuppy pieces of furniture and it was it was yes, the the cheap thin dowels and then it to keep the whole thing from racking were just like felt like little square pieces of cardboard that were tacked onto the back and it's like, well, this this'll last maybe a year, but it's not gonna make a move.
Phil Huber (07:49.142) Yeah.
John Doyle (07:54.558) This is disposable furniture at this point, so
Phil Huber (07:58.766) Right.
Phil Huber (08:02.474) Tree of Life Woodworking says, as of last week, I am officially a full time woodworker, nine and a half years into woodworking, and I was finally able to make the jump and leave corporate America. So congratulations there. And be interesting to see how you how you fare and how your life changes here with that. So but still, good on you.
Larry Atha said, My dad also had a Craftsman radial arm saw in the seventies and early eighties. The most we ever did was pivot the motor and rip with it. He bought it used. There were some shaper dado things and maybe a sanding disc, but they were never used too.
Which, yeah, I think that's in my opinion, if you're gonna have a radial arm saw, and we'll get to this, there's a couple of more comments coming up on this. I think setting it up as either a dedicated cross cut station or dado tool is your way to go. And for the most part, I don't have a problem ripping on a radial arm saw.
Phil Huber (09:19.15) James Cottingham says, No buckies here in Southside Virginia yet. We just got a wahwa. Not familiar. Growing up in southern Idaho, we had stinker stations. They were famous for the road signs. At places where the road was near rounded boulders left over from the prehistoric Bonneville flood, they would put up a sign that said, petrified watermelons. Take one home to your mother-in-law. Or at random places, nudist area.
Keep your eyes on the road. Or it's uncanny, no restrooms near here. The signs were taken down in the sixties due to legal regulations.
Yeah.
John Doyle (10:00.999) Yeah, Wawa is the seems like it's the main gas station in Florida when we're down there. So it's interesting. it's harder to find Pepsi products down in the South. It's all everybody loves their Coca-Cola. So gotta go out of your way. Maybe it'll find a find a Dr. Pepper here and there, but Mountain Dew Pepsi, hit the road.
Phil Huber (10:06.999) okay.
Phil Huber (10:20.088) Curious.
Phil Huber (10:29.838) Bony Board Woodshop says there was a radial armsaw book by a guy named Mr. Sawdust who was from New Jersey and was an intro to them. I think old DeWalt manuals had all the wild different uses for a radial armsaw, gang ripping, molding, and many other sketchy uses. And yeah, I've had quite a few people recommend Mr. Sawdust on there. If you go on YouTube, you can actually find some of the videos.
that are out there that Mr. Sawdust did. And I think there's even a website still active for it. he was a guy who went around, did like the trade shows and hardware store, in-store demos of the tool and could really show off a lot of stuff. So there's a lot of interesting things there, but it feels to me it's just one of those things it
To mi it comes across as
Clever card tricks that your uncle knows.
Phil Huber (11:35.566) Phil Huber (11:39.893) Esdeman says, I want to thank you for your recommendation on John Pastor's book White Pine. This audiobook version I found for free on my library's hoopla app has been enjoyed so much while working and in the shop, mowing and driving to work. Please continue to share good titles to audiobooks that make good shop listening maybe a small feature for the podcast. You're welcome. I did enjoy that book and would love for other people to do that or check it out as well. So
Yeah, and if we come across any other woodworking books or woodworking adjacent books like the White Pine One, definitely we'll mention that here.
Phil Huber (12:20.706) Driver says you guys need to check out Jack Forsberg slash Jack English machines. He runs radial arm saws as precision tools, and I believe he makes his own cutter heads. Also, look up Mr. Sawdust.
Ryan McGregor wants an update on Logan's Windsor Chair style saw horses. Also, he says the shapeware seems to be working, so keep it up. Yep.
Phil Huber (12:50.636) Here we go. Rick Belmer. Delmer, the my shopsmith being a single arbor machine, does have a sanding disc similar to putting a sanding disc on a table saw. But unlike a table saw, I can adjust the arbor speed on the shopsmith. Shopsmith one, table saw zero.
John Doyle (13:13.779) Yeah.
Phil Huber (13:16.182) Right. Can't go back to jail. Ryan Mortensen says, I have a Buc-ees in my town in the DFW area. It's fun to take company to when they're in town, but it's not my go to place. Too busy. They also sell ethanol free gas, so that's where I get gas for my small engine equipment.
Which is good to know because here in Iowa it's tough to escape ethanol gas.
John Doyle (13:44.468) Yeah. I think it the deal is it's required by law to be sold at every gas station. So unless unless they it's like a bigger gas station that has enough tanks to do all the different kinds of gas, it's hard to find non ethanol gas. So
Phil Huber (14:07.438) Master Ranger says I live south of the Buc-ees on I ten and the Baldwin Beach Express in Alabama. It's a great place to go early in the morning and late at night. Otherwise, it's an absolute nightmare to get into and out of. I don't know if that's still the case, but it was once the most visited Buc-ees anywhere. The lack of eighteen wheelers does absolutely nothing for traffic here. But when we get there, it's fun. Good food and road snacks.
When Hurricane Sally came through, it was the only place to get gas for generators. So they have that going for them. I've actually stopped at that Bucky's. that's where we exited to be able to go to a couple of family trips to Gulf Shores, Alabama, down through there.
Phil Huber (14:57.474) Puppy Doc Bob says, I'm not a Buc-ees fan at all. I've stopped at one between Milwaukee and Nashville, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I just can't stand the crowds of rude people and mediocre service. I've tried twice, both times later at night, and absolute chaos. I will say the food is decent, but not worth everything else that goes with it. Wisconsin is getting their first Buc-ees in Oak Creek, just south of Milwaukee, scheduled to open in 2028. I will be avoiding that area like the plague.
John Doyle (15:29.747) So maybe we thought that maybe it was a bad omen for the other gas stations at that exit, but maybe it will bode well for them getting more local traffic and Bucky's is would be kind of the novelty, like out of towners that wanna stop. So
Phil Huber (15:47.299) Sure. Yeah. Who knows? Yep. Apparently you just need disruptors in life of all sorts, just to I mean shake up your snow globe every so often.
John Doyle (16:01.799) Yep, absolutely.
Phil Huber (16:04.734) Pragmatic Luthier says, Greetings, gentlemen, regarding your comments on woodworking books, may I bring to your attention Cabinet Making and Millwork by John L. Farer and Constructing and Manufacturing Wood Products by Wayne Zook. These are the only two examples of several industrial arts textbooks written by these and several authors, all of them very similar and disgraceful.
Several dated, overused photos were common to just about all of them, and in nearly every case these books completely failed to provide instruction to do anything in particular, and in several instances they were objectively wrong. As textbooks, probably written specifically for the industrial arts curriculum project, they read like textbooks, a purely academic treatise lacking substantive instruction.
How many of your viewers or listeners remember some of these books? Move them to the humor or fiction sections of your libraries. Radial Armsaw? I had one in every shop I taught, and because of the propensity to self-feed into the work, I never allowed students to use them unless they were under my direct supervision. Thanks for a very entertaining podcast.
Phil Huber (17:23.34) Yeah. I mean I do remember going to the library and looking in the woodworking section and
John Doyle (17:24.818) Yeah.
Phil Huber (17:33.034) No offense to any of the libraries that I ever visited because they were just trying to do their best and I love hanging out in libraries. But usually the woodworking books there are many, many of the terrible books that are out there for woodworking.
So I would like to know anybody who's found like a fun woodworking book in a library.
John Doyle (18:01.501) Maybe Woodsmith need needs to put together a wood shop textbook. That'd be fun. Talk with some shop teachers, mix in a few beginner projects or variation of some projects to get you through a whole school year. Yeah.
Phil Huber (18:09.137) there you go. Yep. Yep.
Okay, let's see. Jim Lundberg says I was watching your podcast and heard you mention that you had been in the upper peninsula of Michigan at a friend's property and discussed all the white pine trees. My grandfather and granduncles helped harvest a lot of those trees up here in the central UP back in the twenties, thirties and forties. I live in the Delta County area and have traveled the UP from east to west for many years. I'm an avid woodworker and hobbyist, now retired.
From woodwork from working in computers as an IT director at a local community college. I also worked for the University of Michigan, Merrick Network, for the last 14 years, been a member of the woodsmith community for the last 20, and have enjoyed all of your efforts over the years. Believe it or not, but my Bachelor of Science degree is in industrial education and have been a woodworker since I was a kid in 4-H back in the 1960s.
What part of the UP did you visit? I feel honored to know that you have spent time here in the UP as it is such a beautiful place. It is. I actually enjoy any time I get up in the UP. And youpers are some of my favorite people. I've spent a good amount of time in Iron Mountain. back in college I worked at a summer camp in northern Wisconsin and
After our Saturday softball league, we would always head to Iron Mountain and go to Pizza Hut for a celebratory dinner. I was actually in the southern part of the upper peninsula, if that makes sense. Kind of in the Kearney, Michigan, Daggett sort of area, but close to the Menominee River is where we were.
along through there. So I did some canoeing and a and a inner tube float trip down the Menominee, which in the summertime is a delight. Always enjoyable. So thanks, Jim. And then one last one.
Phil Huber (21:09.974) Gonna have to buckle up for this one, John.
Phil Huber (21:15.224) Jim LaRue says, Hello, gents. I listen to your podcast all the time when driving or working out at the Y and always get some great insight and tips. On occasion, and in episode 282, I think, you sometimes do a general beatdown on the good old radial armsaw. I consider myself a woodworker of advanced caliper, but not probably professional status, such as you, gents. And I don't sell my work. I'm now 80. Yikes, he writes.
And I've been a woodworker on and off since I built my first project in eighth grade shop in my hometown of in Montana. Now it's mostly on for woodworking, and I primarily enjoy building furniture such as desks, coffee tables, end tables, nightstands, kitchen islands, and beds. Lots of variety of what most would consider high-quality work. Fifty years ago, I bought a Craftsman radial armsaw, thinking that it could do pretty much everything I needed to do in one tool.
For the project I had in mind. I built out approximately 2,000 square feet of the lower level of our home that included a large great room, game room, bedroom, bathroom, hallway, and shop, all with my trusty radial arm saw, crosscuts, miters, compound miters, rips, dados, grooves, etc. etc. Yes, it takes some careful setup for everything and regular adjustments, just like any tool.
I have moved it twice and it has been in this home as a major tool in my shop now for 23 years. I tune it up regularly and it performs beautifully. Yes, you have to treat it with respect and be cautious, just like with every power tool. I rarely use it for ripping now because I have a good table saw, but it is a workhorse for all cross-cutting dados and et cetera. And always handy and able to handle just about any size project.
And yes, I have used it with a disc sander on the arbor and even small drum sanders. This beauty is 50 years old and performs just great. If a beginner woodworker asked me what tool to buy, I would definitely recommend a radial armsaw. Of course, now I have a table saw, miter saw, router table, sanding machine, drill press, bandsaw. But the radial arm saw is still a mainstay in my shop. I built a dust collection box around it that works great.
Phil Huber (23:38.189) with my WEN Dust Collector, I would never trade it for a table saw with a cross-cut sled, just saying. So give this old workout horse the respect that it deserves for the power and versatility that it can deliver in one tool. Thanks for listening and reading my rant. And not to brag, but I have built some beautiful furniture over the years, and that baby has been a part of every project. Tune it up, maintain it, and as with every power tool, treat it with respect.
And it will reward you with performance and versatility gym.
John Doyle (24:13.811) I don't know that we've beat down on rail arm saws. Not like we do to shopsmith, but
Phil Huber (24:20.086) Right. Yeah.
i he makes several points that I would like to
reinforce, I think, is one that every tool requires a certain amount of care and feeding in order to perform at a at a high level. So if you're doing something, you know, like for example, my band saw shop, I have to regularly clean up around the saw, you know,
When I do blade changes, kind of make sure all the settings are right because I want that tool to make straight rip cuts, do a good job on cross cuts, not have the blade twist all over the place when I'm making curve cuts and things like that. So I think his point about keeping on top of maintenance, no matter what your primary tool is, is is a is an important thing.
And y I think you're right, John. I I don't feel like I've disparaged the radial arm saw. I've disparaged the idea that you should have and use all the weirdo attachments that go with a radial arm saw.
John Doyle (25:53.734) Some of those were pretty niche. I don't know, kinda like any like even like kitchen tools, like stand mixers that try to add every little thing onto it just to make it sell more parts and seem like it's more valuable than it is when you know what, just set it up for mixing and go and
But yeah, if you have the patience and to to do all of those things with all the setups and the tuning and but well another thing, like you said, of just like having setting up tools properly, like the Bosch sliding miter saw we have in the shop. It's a really good tool, but sometimes it frustrates us because it's not
It's not tuned for precision, cross-cutting has just kind of been abused and no one's taken the time to fine-tune it or the fences, it's just been used to kind of chop larger pieces of wood into shorter pieces of wood. So yes, if if you have the patience and and the wherewithal to to do all the tuning and set up, you're probably gonna get a lot better results and be happier with just about any tool.
So
Phil Huber (27:12.268) Yeah. And I'm I'm one just if you check out my shop tour videos that I have on our channel, like I don't have a lot of space. So I'm all for getting as much as you possibly can out of a tool to make it work for you. And yeah, like you can do a lot with a radial arm saw. I have no doubt about that. I just think that there are some things
That a radial arm saw is better suited for than others. So I personally, I was thinking about this when I got that that email from Jim was if my shop were slightly larger and I were to consider adding another machine.
Phil Huber (28:05.994) I think I would rather have a radial arm saw.
than a miter saw for for the space that it takes up. Because let's be honest, a miter saw and a radial arm saw essentially take up the same amount of space in a shop.
Phil Huber (28:28.098) And I would rather have the radial arm saw because I think it's gonna be a more accurate, reliable cross cutting tool, and that's what I would set it up for. Cross cutting and or dados possibly.
Like as a table dado kind of situation that you could do with it. Which you can't do on a miter cell.
Phil Huber (28:53.848) So yeah.
Appreciate all the letters, questions, comments, and smart remarks that you send to us. if you want to do that, you can send those to woodsmith at woodsmith.com or leave a comment on our shop notes podcast YouTube channel. Don't forget to subscribe to that so you can find out when new episodes are released. We've had a little bit of a lull here in the summer, people being in and out and schedules on
summer break, but we're ramping back up here and getting ready for all the stuff that's going on. and in fact, next week at this time, you'll find probably the three of us wandering around handworks in the Amana colonies in Iowa here, checking out all the cool tools and dealers and people that are going to be there looking at hand tools. So
If you see us, come on up, say hi, thanks for listening for the show, and we'll give a report on what's going on there. Hopefully, you'll also get a chance to get a report from Logan on the International Woodworking Fair going on in Atlanta. Two things of note that I noticed from that show already that we found out is the Shaper Origin handheld CNC.
has been part of the same family of companies that Festool and Sawstop are part of and now the origin will be rolled into the Festool tool lineup. So that's kind of a breaking news item going on there.
Phil Huber (30:44.226) And then the other one is SawStop sometime next year in 2027 will be releasing a bandsaw, fourteen inch bandsaw with fourteen inches of resaw capacity, which is pretty generous. But then also a blade breaking technology on there. So that'll be
John Doyle (31:05.853) B R A K I N G braking. Not like snapping braking. Cause we already have that technology. We we can ba break a b bandsaw blade with the best of So
Phil Huber (31:09.6) Right. Yeah, that stopp yeah. Right. Yeah.
Phil Huber (31:20.172) Right. And I did on our Grizzly one a few weeks ago and we still haven't replaced the blade on it. But
Phil Huber (31:29.9) It's funny because I thought that the blade was acting weird and I tried to make an adjustment to it and then it snapped. So
John Doyle (31:39.207) Which is usually loud and unsettling, but doesn't actually like you would think the blade's gonna start just like whipping everywhere, but it just it just stops. 'Cause it's doesn't have the tension on the wheel anymore. So
Phil Huber (31:42.593) Ha ha
Phil Huber (31:48.269) Right.
Yeah, 'cause I I had always felt like a blade and a bandsaw when it breaks would just get like spit out.
you know, like a snake coming out of there, but it doesn't. It just snaps tight on the inside of the housing usually and short of a change of underpants, you're all set to just pull it out of there and keep going.
John Doyle (32:12.835) Ha ha.
John Doyle (32:20.455) Yeah, we're I was just gonna say you mentioned handworks and it feels like we just got a issue out last week. So it feels like this week is just kinda like a deep breath and it's like, it's gonna be a light week, which it never is. It's there's always stuff going on. But then yeah, it ramps up real quick in in September with hand works on Labor Day weekend and then you guys are doing your traveling mid to late September to
Phil Huber (32:20.483) All right.
John Doyle (32:49.839) Europe and then we get right into woodworking in America and start filming the the next season of the Woodsmith Shop and it's it's a sprint to the end of the year at that point, so
Phil Huber (33:02.52) Yeah. It's really funny because you're right. I always feel like towards the beginning of the year we have TV show filming that we're trying to get done in a certain amount of time so that Bailey can do all the editing on it. And we did. That was a nutso time. And then you think to yourself, Now that we're done filming the show, we have like a chance to just take a little bit of a breather and get some other stuff done. And nope. Several other dumpsters catch on fire.
And then you get to beginning of the school year and you're ready. I'm just ready for the kids to go back to school so things can just settle down. And they won't. They won't.
John Doyle (33:46.951) Yep. It's one thing after another, but such is the life.
Phil Huber (33:52.054) Yeah. As my brother said, the strongest steel is forged in the hottest dumpster fires. So
John Doyle (33:57.827) Phil Huber (34:00.163) Wisdom of the ancients there.
Yeah, so we have that. and then let's see, I feel like there was some other stuff that was going on too that was that was happening. But yeah, the Denmark and Sweden tour. I've been messaging the group on that. Getting excited for that. Bob's attending that and John will be there. Not this John, other John, John Nasta.
probably some other podcast listeners. They're just not commenting on here, so we can't call you out individually as easily. yeah, I'm really excited about that trip. I'm looking forward to some cooler weather. Not that it's been super hot all summer here, but there's been enough hot days, and I'm just rather reggae. Let's start that over. After my trip to Wisconsin, I'm ready for.
John Doyle (34:58.339) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (35:02.862) Cool weather in forested areas. Let's ta let's say it that way.
Phil Huber (35:12.542) yeah. And even if you're within driving distance of Des Moines, we have single day event passes for woodworking in America. So if you don't want to be here for the whole thing, just get the single day and come in for that. You'll also want to bring a trailer or a minivan because of our Woodsmith Garage sale. We got projects piling up all over the place.
Tools that we've had in for testing, shop jigs and fixtures and just stuff around here that collects after a while. And we're ready to move it along to someone else in the universe. And hopefully it can spark joy with you. Stuff will be priced to move, and we just want it out. So October 8th, here at the Woodsmith Mothership, we will be doing the garage sale.
So come check it out.
John Doyle (36:13.159) Yeah. Yeah, I feel like we're gonna like have this garage sale. That's gonna get us through the first layer of stuff and then we'll be able to see what we really have underneath underneath that. Might have have a a secondary sale at some point, so
Phil Huber (36:24.418) Ha ha ha.
John Doyle (36:31.347) Yeah, it should be a good time. And a and I have a minivan. I can negotiate delivery. So we we can talk.
Phil Huber (36:36.044) Right. Yeah. We can yeah. Let's look at it this way. You can find some deals and then we'll also make some deals in order for that to for that to happen.
Phil Huber (36:55.852) All right. wrapped up some filming yesterday on the last section of our finishing e learning course. I did a segment on surface prep and then used a project, the Hokkaido sideboard that we did for season nineteen for the TV show and used that as the as the prop for that. The benefit of that is
That cabinet has doors, drawers, a large top, and some casework to provide practical examples of what you're doing for surface prep. The downside of that is that it has doors and drawers and a large top and a lot of casework that needs to look good as I'm doing it. So
The actual filming didn't take so long. It's the in between stuff where I made all the other surfaces look good on it that works there. So
John Doyle (37:59.156) Which there's a lot of good practical ad advice and techniques in that because it's a lot of times you think it's like, well, I just gotta sand this all to whatever grit and throw the stain on, throw the finish on and and move on. But there's a lot more to it than that as far as doing it efficiently and not having to backtrack when you
like mar other surfaces as you're sanding or planing or scraping and so there's there's some nuance there. So I thought it was a a good segment as far as kind of stepping through surface prep. So it's good stuff.
Phil Huber (38:39.852) Yeah. you just delivered some plans over to Mark for a next project. You want to talk about that a little?
John Doyle (38:47.611) Yes. So I had been yeah, so I was working on a garden bench when I don't know that was kind of in the in the matrix of of projects and had drawn up a bench and then I was talking to Dylan and he kind of misspoke. He's like, Hey, did you get done with that that chair yet? And then I got to think it's like, we did just do a
a bench last issue. So it's like maybe I should just change this into a chair. So spent the weekend kind of shrinking it down, which I mean isn't hard. You just take out some of the middle parts and then shrink the slats and stuff and bring it down to to chair sized. And we had just kind of done that for a TV show up or so where the plans were for a double porch rocker.
So it was double wide and we brought it down to single wide. And so it wasn't hard. So we're gonna do a chair and it's all kind of designed around
like two by material cedar that you can pick up at the the local box stores and cedar decking. So easy to procure materials and kinda work with that. And then I'm I think I'm gonna I told him to build two chairs and then I'll design a little table that goes in between it. So got a little bit work to do on that, but it's in the shop and
It's always interesting interesting getting it drawn up and and getting marked the the drawings. 'Cause it's like I w it's like I'm wondering how this is gonna turn out. So kinda like to watch the progress of of how that works. So
Phil Huber (40:31.574) Right, which is funny because you think like you provided the plans, like that's how it's gonna turn out, right? But there always is a certain level of interpretation of those plans from a building perspective. And then that becomes a little circular because there's probably something you'll change on the plans in order to make assembly easier or use materials better or
John Doyle (40:35.537) Right. Right.
Phil Huber (40:59.938) highlight a joinery technique or something like that. So
John Doyle (41:02.643) Yeah. Yeah, it's always interesting as far as how that process works 'cause we're it's a little bit different than building projects at home because it's kind of a yeah, a process that it's it's a working prototype. So you hand off the drawings and he starts building and then it's like, Well this doesn't work the way you think it does and then you kinda go back and change the drawings and kinda go back and forth a little bit until you've you've figured it out and and you can
explain it all then to the readers and kinda I guess get past the pitfalls of building it the first time and kind of learn from that and then pass on that knowledge and and make it a little bit easier process for the for the reader then.
Phil Huber (41:51.298) I like the idea of a garden bench, but I just wonder how many garden benches actually get sat in.
John Doyle (41:59.74) Mm-hmm. Yeah, they kinda exist out there as an ideal. It's like, wouldn't it be nice to just sit and enjoy the garden? But then you're usually looking out your windows like it's too hot and buggy and or wet and muddy to just sit out there in the garden. So
Phil Huber (42:18.018) Right. Or you'd rather just have a chair that you can have two armrests on instead of just one and and a side chair.
John Doyle (42:23.195) Right. Yeah, it's kinda like having a a love seat in your house. It's like does do two people ever sit in a love seat? Like two people sit on a full size couch, but two people ever just sit next to each other in a love seat or they usually sit across from each other in chairs. So
Phil Huber (42:39.266) Yeah, yeah.
John Doyle (42:44.019) But I have the I have the drawings for the for the bench too, so if people ask nicely and they really want a bench, I can impart that on them.
Phil Huber (42:54.946) Yeah. I think I think a bench is a great option, especially if you wanted to do like a larger setup, you know, depending on the the nature of your yard or deck or patio or something like that. But I think if you had two chairs would be really cool and a setup and a nice table to go little side table to go with it would is an approachable suite because
You could just build any one of those or a combination. So yeah, I'm looking forward to that one. That'll be kinda cool.
Phil Huber (43:38.571) we'll be releasing a few more videos from my desk build project. We've gotten some of those updates filmed and edited and we'll be sending those out. I'm to the pre-finishing stage. I'm trying to take my own advice here and do some finishing before the assembly, just because it's going to be easier on me to get some of those things assemb or finished before glue starts to go on. Still haven't decided.
on the sides of my bookcase or book or the desk in the bookcase section, if I'm going to do some sort of a cutout or if I'm just going to leave it plain. I've been leaning toward leaving it plain, but that also feels a little bit like the lazy way out. Like just because I don't want to make any more decisions on it.
John Doyle (44:29.693) Yeah.
Phil Huber (44:31.298) But I'm also gonna be joining the upper shelf, the bookcase shelf with pegs, wood pegs in from the sides. And I'm thinking that might be plenty of visual activity going on on the sides.
Who knows? I might have some epiphany here and come with something come up with something that'll work for it.
John Doyle (44:57.299) Yeah, I think that's some of the hard part of when you're building a project where you don't have a a hard and fast deadline or a immediate, absolute need for it. It's you have a tendency to kind of keep like it's hard to make decisions and like, do I do this or do that? And it's just it it's a process that's sometimes hard to get over the humps of like because you don't want to screw it up and you don't wanna
make a mistake and just not sure. So but you're progressing, you're getting there. So you're close.
Phil Huber (45:35.939) Yeah, I have some drop leaf hinges for the fold down part of the desk, and I was trying to figure out where I need to locate those on each part of the desk. So I had two pieces of scrap and just quickly knocked out some mortises to test that fit. And learned that my initial plan for how I was going to locate those hinges was not correct and was going to cause a significant amount of binding and I'd have to like bevel an edge or something, but
That's why we test people is to sort some of that out beforehand.
Phil Huber (46:14.926) yeah. And then gonna be ramping up for our some projects in my home shop. I'm working on dust collection. I have a Delta fourteen inch bandsaw where they didn't believe in dust back then.
And the dust port that's on there is
Ornamental, I believe, really is what it is. Doesn't really do much if you connect a shop vac up to it or a dust collector. Or if you do, it's got to be something moving quite a bit of air, which I just don't have that in my shop. So I've been working on a couple of little prototypes for a better dust collecting port on there. But we'll see. If I find something, figure it out. Talk to you about it here.
John Doyle (47:12.307) You'll hear it here first, folks. Breaking news.
Phil Huber (47:14.038) Right. Right. Yeah.
Here we are. We're at a full sauna session level of the ShopNotes Podcast. It's a good place to end it. Thanks for listening, everybody. If you have any questions, comments, or smart remarks we want to hear from you, send those to woodsmith at woodsmith.com or leave a comment on our YouTube channel, ShopNotes Podcast. Subscribe, click the bell, all the things that they want you to do. And we'll see you next time, everybody. Bye.
