The crew recaps a hot and humid weekend at Handworks, sharing favorite tools, makers, and highlights from the show. Plus, they tackle listener questions about shop storage and tool safety, look ahead to Woodworking in America, and check in on Logan’s long-running table saw outfeed station project.
Handworks
I picked up a few of the items on my list: A large beading plane, and the books Make Fresh Milk Paint, and Benchwork.
Table Saw Outfeed Table
Woodworking In America
The other Iowa woodworking show is less than a month away. Check out all the speakers and book in here.
Transcript
Phil Huber (00:02.294) We're ready. It's the ShopNotes Podcast, episode number two hundred and eighty-five. That means there are two hundred and eighty-four other episodes that you may or may not have listened to yet. And you have that opportunity to go back and check those out wherever you get your podcasts, or you could check them out on YouTube, the ShopNotes Podcast YouTube channel. Sign up, subscribe, ring the bell for notifications, and join the listeners there.
See, now I've noticed that this last episode of the podcast had like twice as many listens or views on YouTube than other episodes. So if you're new here, welcome. We're a big, warm, welcoming family of woodworking nonsense and information. I'm your host, Phil Huber, joined by John Doyle and Logan Wittmer. On today's episode, we're gonna address some
Listener comments. We are also going to do a recap of handworks and an update on things like woodworking in America. And we dip back in a little bit to Logan's long fermenting project on a table saw outfeed station. You want to check it all out? We're going to pause a little bit for paying the bills, and then we'll see you right back here.
Phil Huber (01:35.266) All right, let's check out last week's episodes.
questions and comments here. Harold McDonald writes At sixteen forty five, Phil uses the term dope. Well done, sir. That was hella fire. In other news, after Logan's glowing review, I have just purchased a Brondel Bidet toilet seat from Amazon. I will update you on how that works out for me.
Logan (02:05.484) Yep. I was asked no less than five times about bidets at handworks.
John Doyle (02:06.844) we good or not?
Phil Huber (02:12.012) Ha ha ha.
John Doyle (02:12.966) We need to get an affiliate link so we can be, you know, making a little money off that.
Logan (02:15.092) Yeah, yeah.
Phil Huber (02:17.538) Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.
John Doyle (02:20.56) Yeah. And I remember when he said dope in the episode and I thought that's literally six, seven. That is literally six, seven.
Phil Huber (02:26.355) Ha ha ha
Logan (02:29.59) This is how my kids feel whenever I say anything. Like
John Doyle (02:34.748) It's the bee's knees.
Logan (02:36.318) It's so
Phil Huber (02:39.554) New Mexico Dan dropping back in. He says, Congratulations that you will get an introduction to Shopsmith as they will be attending Woodworking in America this October. I hope you talk to them. after after seeing
John Doyle (02:54.396) I'm gonna start building the professional wrestling ring now.
Logan (02:54.743) Yes, we will. I discovered that yesterday.
Phil Huber (03:02.09) Right. Yeah. after seeing that, Logan and I checked in with our sales folk who are responsible for shepherding in all the exhibitors who will be at Woodworking in America and did verify that. Yes, that shopsmith will be there. So yeah. I am sure that we will stop in and talk with them. We always chat with all the exhibitors that are there. got a
Logan (03:15.006) Logan (03:25.954) Yeah.
I'll be interested to hear if their CEO, who I think's coming, the the owner slash CEO, if he's heard of our beef with Shopsmith. Yeah. Yeah.
John Doyle (03:36.572) Yeah. Be like, I don't even know who you are. He's like, I have never heard of you.
Phil Huber (03:39.936) Right, yeah. Ts yeah, slash care.
Yep. So yeah, there you go. We will have an update on that on the podcast following hand work woodworking in America. So if you haven't signed up yet, now that you know that Shopsmith is going to be there, that's even greater incentive to want to join in to check out, see what they're doing. under new ownership, working to revive an American made tool and
get more people involved with woodworking in many different ways possible. So we'll see you there. New Mexico, Dan, are you coming to woodworking in America to help facilitate some of this, maybe? That's the question that I have. almost perfection rights, thanks for the answers. Definitely prefer drawers, waste level and below. He had asked last week about our preferences for shop storage.
Logan (04:41.57) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (04:44.566) He goes, in fact, a drill press cabinet was towards the top of my list. I already have some of the countersync bits, drill bits in gridfinity bins, waiting for a drawer to put them in near the drill press, which I think is a solid, solid choice.
Logan (04:53.377) Heck yeah.
Phil Huber (05:04.274) one Joe B says, I'm new to woodworking and went down the path of buying too much before I knew what I needed. You are not alone, sir. You are not alone. Long story, but in doing that, my shop became an unorganized mess with no room to work. So now I'm at the point I need to get things organized. It was good to hear the comments on drawers, doors, shelves, pegboard, et cetera.
The overall consensus with that drawers were the preferred choice. I was wondering if there are certain items that just make sense to put in a door cabinet, et cetera. For example, I was thinking of grouping my safety equipment all on an exposed cabinet, maybe even using pegboard and shelves. my.
if to answer for myself, I don't know that I would put those in a cabinet. We have those stashed here on the on the set in several different places. Kinda easy to get to.
John designed I think you did it for a tip, like a little wall valet.
Phil Huber (06:17.363) So I th so that's a solid choice for that. As for things that could be in cabinets behind a door.
Phil Huber (06:32.567) For lower cabinets, the only thing would be something that is like really bulky and you don't get to very often because right.
Logan (06:38.38) Yeah. Belt sander, biscuit joiner.
John Doyle (06:42.214) circular saw.
Phil Huber (06:43.736) Yeah.
You know, but even then on some of those, like my tool cabinet that I have, I have two big drawers at the bottom where I keep some of my handheld power tools in. Cause then it's just one motion. Open the drawer and you get at the item. Whereas with a cabinet
A lot of stuff just gets lost in the back pretty easily. So that would have to be like deep storage stuff, I would think.
Logan (07:11.106) Yeah. I'm I am slowly switching over to not having any like shelves, I guess, like cabinets. Like, you know, you open the cabinet and there's shelves in there. Cause stuff just gets lost. So everything now, you know, working on this outfit table. I've been planning my my kind of tool station behind my workbench and stuff. Like it's all doors and pullouts because
As soon as it's a shelf something gets stuck in the back and then you forget you have it.
John Doyle (07:42.844) Yep. Yeah, I think that's the same for kitchens. If it's like a base cabinet that's two feet deep, if it's not a pullout, then it's just going to get buried back there and you're never going to use it anyway. So shelves are good for upper cabinets that are, you know, 12 inches deep, but your routers and that kind of size tool, but anything beyond that is going to get buried to the back. So pullouts or drawers are the way to go.
Phil Huber (07:43.366) yeah.
Logan (08:05.592) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (08:13.793) Yeah, anybody who comes to woodworking in America, we do the open house here in the studio and the shop. So you'll get to see kind of how we do our organization system and some of the shop projects that we've added along with it. So there are a lot of exposed shelves, which do gather dust, but it also makes it easy to see what's in there. And then you can see.
in the studio here, our back corner that you we very rarely film against, because that is our little corner of shame, because that section of cabinets, door cabinets at the bottom, are just very difficult to keep organized. And even the upper cabinets, you know, we have one cabinet that we kind of keep some of our, let's just call it the shop chemistry set in there, where there's some
Like three in one oil or
Phil Huber (09:20.769) wax things like that that we can kind of keep in those cabinets and use for organization on that. So it's a good question.
Bony Board Woodshop says with Shaper being absorbed into Fest Tool, does that mean the Shaper guys will be out of a job? Also would love to hear the reason behind the bandsaw over other tools. Maybe easier to figure out how to make the blade stop system to work. R.I.P. Resaw King Blades when that break goes off.
Logan (09:52.591) Yeah, you aren't kidding. As somebody who has a four hundred dollar resaw king in his big thirty six inch bandsaw, yeah, they're pricey.
Phil Huber (10:01.559) Yeah. Which I didn't realize at first when they announced that they had that the blade break on there, that they actually that it actually does break the blade and stops it. Yeah.
Logan (10:13.462) It cut it has to cut it. It cuts it for momentum purposes. So yes. The yeah. asked somebody that was at IWF a couple weeks ago and talked to the Festool and Sauce Top CEO, same person. I can I'll feel I'll field this one. there are some positions at Shaper that are being absorbed by Festool. and then some of them are
Phil Huber (10:18.315) Right. Which kinda makes sense.
Logan (10:41.826) dissolving as of the new year. you know, obviously festival has a marketing team. They don't need two marketing teams, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot of the engineering and RD people that were on the shaper side that are intimately attached to that system and the technology, those are going into festival. some of the other customer service and marketing type people, those, those people I think are
going to be pursuing careers elsewhere. and as far as the the saw stop thing goes, I think that it was a twofold reason why they went to a bandsaw first. first, I think it's the easiest of the tools to stop. if you're, you know, after the table saw, it's the easiest, it's the easiest thing to stop. It's it's still a blade. It's not a cutter head. It's not a spinning bit. I think it is the
the easiest thing. And it's also what their users have asked for. So SawStop has a huge black book of of their clients, right? And in their focus groups and their surveys and stuff, Bansaw was always top of the list from their audience. So that's that's why it was a bandsaw.
Phil Huber (12:03.141) Okay.
Logan (12:04.278) Which I I did tell Colin as we were driving, like to me a bandsaw is kind of one of those things that it's it's it's almost hard to get hurt on a bandsaw. Like as soon as I start cutting my finger, I'm like, ow, that hurts. I should stop that. Like, let's not keep pushing. but you know, it yeah. There are plenty of bandsaw accidents that do happen.
Phil Huber (12:27.063) Yeah. I was wondering about perhaps a miter saw.
Especially, you know, like do you do you do the Venn diagram of sawstop and fest tool and put a blade break on a capex?
Phil Huber (12:52.266) as a possibility. So
Logan (12:52.728) You could.
Phil Huber (13:19.747) got a couple of from Puppy Doc here. Bob writes, I've officially started the handstool hand tool restoration course. I sent Logan a couple photos of a couple hand tools I recently scored. Finishing the workbench may get another delay. we know what that's like.
Logan (13:37.688) Feel like I feel like Bob needs a priority list from somebody on the outside.
Phil Huber (13:42.003) Yeah.
he also writes, so I built the cabinet from the Woodsmith plants that John has in his shop with the pegboard. I love it. I did make it bigger and deeper by smallish amounts. I used pegboard for the back and then found omniwall panels for the sliding doors. OmniWall is one of the brands of metal panels that Logan had talked about. I wish I had done OmniWall for the whole project. Having said that, I've 3D printed many different shelves, baskets, hangers for various tools and batteries, etc.
It's not my favorite way to store things, but for my most used tools and accessories are right there. So I think that's solid. Like I said, I think in last episode, like I could see pegboard or those any kind of wallboard organizer really thriving in a 3D printed world.
Phil Huber (14:40.152) Which makes me wanna like dig out some of the vintage
organization systems that we've shown in both Woodsmith and shop notes over the years just to see like you can 3D print it or you can go through a lot of process on making these in your own shop. We'll see once. Maybe I'll put a link to them. If I can find the plans for that they're available, I'll put a link to them in the show notes page.
Logan (15:08.448) I have been on a 3D printing bender the last week or two. Like, yeah, we just had that bad boy running nonstop. I finally ordered so I I've I've for the most part ran PLA, which is kind of the standard basic, like it's the it's the gasoline of the of the 3D printing world everything runs off of. I I have ordered
Phil Huber (15:12.696) Yeah.
Logan (15:35.471) printed some TPU in the past for like stuff that need TPU is kind of rubbery and squishy. so stuff that needs a little stretch to it. I printed some stuff for mainly like you know air tag holders for kids bracelets for when we go to Disney or whatever, you know, like that type of stuff. but I ordered some P E T G the last week because I needed something that had a little bit more I was I I sent you guys a picture of the pencil sharpener
ten and cutter for chair making. I printed that out of PETG and I have a couple others that need a little bit more structural integrity than the PLA has. and it's it's been interesting. But now I'm finding myself in that classic like conundrum of anybody that has a 3D printer and uses it regularly. I have rolls of filament and I have currently sitting here with three or four airtight
like rubber made totes for lack of better term from menards that I'm storing in because it's so humid here and they'll absorb humidity if you don't. It's like, so
Phil Huber (16:44.6) Yeah. I think it's funny when I hear people talk about, like you said, that are deep into three D printing, about keeping their filament at the ready. It's like speaking of Venn diagrams, the overlap of like cigar aficionados and three D printers in keeping the right humidity balance for your for your filament.
Logan (17:03.063) Yeah.
Logan (17:10.798) Yep, so there's the filament in a box with a dehumidifier deskant pack. So
Phil Huber (17:15.051) yeah.
So maybe keep an eye out in coming issues of popular woodworking for a shop built filament humidor. You never know. Spanish cedar.
Logan (17:27.982) Yeah. Yes. Which was extremely cheap last time I bought it. It was like three bucks a board foot. It's also like building with styrofoam, so it's kind of it's kind of right up Phil's alley with the softwood thing.
John Doyle (17:28.57) Ha ha.
Phil Huber (17:45.78) Because with Spain right now.
Logan (17:47.704) That's fair, that's fair.
Phil Huber (17:50.148) Bot Dad writes that Harvey table saw looks amazing. I thought of that safety feature of just retracting the blade instead of breaking things and putting the saw out of commission until parts are reinstalled when I first looked into SawStop. Not sure why no one else is doing that. Even every Harvey tool I've seen has been drool worthy, though. I kind of think of Grizzly as the BMW of tools and Harvey as the Lamborghini. Awesome machines, but we'll never own one until I have.
More money than I know what to do with.
Logan (18:22.744) So Felder has had that technology for several years now. Felder has a I I think SCM may have something similar as well, but I know Felder for sure does where it's the same type of like just drop the blade, you hit reset, and you're back off to the races.
Phil Huber (18:40.29) Yeah, kind of a proximity sensor or something. Yeah. that's it for questions, comments, and smart remarks from listeners and viewers. If you want to get in on the action, you can send us an email, woodsmith at woodsmith.com is one option. The other is to leave a comment on our YouTube channel and join in with other listeners as well. Soon your name could be just as renowned and famous as folk like Puppy Doc.
and Harold McDonald. So all right.
Logan (19:14.254) Choose your company wisely.
Phil Huber (19:16.196) Yeah.
Phil Huber (19:21.22) All right, so last week was Handworks and it's pretty close to being, I think it's been like they've been going on for like eleven years. Wasn't twenty fifteen like the first one? Something like that. That one had a cool rainy day with it. They moved it to the fall ish, sort of was Labor Day weekend, the last hurrah of summer. And we in Iowa decided to go out with a bang.
Logan (19:38.446) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (19:49.012) And it was ninety degrees plus with the normal temperature. And then when you add on the old heat index was past a hundred pretty easily.
Logan (20:01.258) Every every weather app you looked at said heat warning, stay inside. So what do a bunch of old white guys do? Go walk around the barns? Yeah. Yeah.
Phil Huber (20:09.784) They stayed inside barns. Yeah. Yeah. My dad was talking to Wilbur Pan, who was demonstrating in the main barn, and Wilbur was like, On Friday I drank six bottles of water and didn't pee once. So
John Doyle (20:11.686) Yeah.
Logan (20:17.197) Yeah.
Logan (20:24.972) Yep.
Phil Huber (20:29.464) So yeah, it was it was a steamy time. I was there on Saturday and Saturday had the benefit of having some cloudy some cloud cover until probably mid or late afternoon before it started to get too nutty there. And then it was and then it was roasty. But then for me it just felt like a day at the fair. It was just
Logan (20:52.142) It was so hot. It was I was there Friday. John was there Friday. It was so hot. Like just w I ran into John in the barn and just watching people walk around, everybody was drenched. And I mean it was like I was looking at ink blots on people's shirts trying to figure out what the picture was. Like
John Doyle (20:55.889) Yeah.
John Doyle (21:04.572) Yeah.
John Doyle (21:12.55) Chris Schwartz could have been selling bottles of his own sweat, making quite the profit, I'm sure. He had quite the line, and he was dripping from the moment it opened, so.
Phil Huber (21:25.678) That main barn is a gorgeous venue. It's beautiful on the inside. I I feel like they must have redone the floor recently in there 'cause it looked pretty fresh and clean.
Logan (21:34.186) Mm-mm. I don't think so. I've had I've had a few friends get married in that barn and I think it's been the same thing all like yeah. Yeah. I mean I think they they they make it go through yeah, yeah. Yep.
Phil Huber (21:42.703) yeah? Okay. If they just they take care of it really well then.
I feel like that barn though needs the barn is oriented north south and the two primary doors on it are on the west side. If they could have a a door, just one door of that of one of the sides, you know, the ones on the west, on the east side, even if it just goes nowhere, would would have made a world of difference in that.
Logan (21:52.802) Air conditioning.
Logan (22:12.642) Yep. Little crossbury's.
Phil Huber (22:18.859) Space.
But it was kind of interesting to see people walking around because I've I've there were several people that I knew from my Texas trip last year that were from Houston, and they were walking around like it was fine. They knew what to do with the humidity and the heat. And then there were other people that looked like they just needed to take the nesty plunge. And w one person that I was kind of surprised.
Surprised, not surprised on his level of coolness was Brian Boggs. Cause he was he was chattering away nonstop as Brian does and wearing one of his Bansaw Love shirts and jeans and not sweaty at all. There were no pit stains or you know dark color from being all sweated out.
Logan (22:57.314) Yeah, that's just Brian though.
Logan (23:18.734) That's it's a country boy for ya.
Phil Huber (23:19.626) And he also is follically challenged, keeps it tight up top, and you would have expected him to kind of be rolling in sweat from up there, but nope, he was he had it down.
Logan (23:31.003) it's funny. I don't remember who it was because Brian was so Brian was across the hall from our booth with a hap from Nanohone. So straight across from us was Zenwoo, which we'll get to in a minute. I have a couple of their tools. next door was Nanohone, I think right next door, and then it was Bad Axe. so Hap and Brian were sharing a booth.
Phil Huber (23:53.304) Yep. Right.
Logan (23:59.495) And I was standing there talking to somebody and they look over at Brian and Brian's sitting on a shave, or it's just going to town with a spoke shave. And somebody was like, Jesus, look at his forearms. He doesn't do this very often, does he? Because Brian's forearms are like that big, and he just is going to town with a spoke shave. And I he was talking to a couple people and I don't know what he was talking to him about, but I'm Yeah, like that needs spent a lot of time in a saddle. So
Phil Huber (24:27.406) Yeah, it was it was crazy. one of our coworkers at Fine Woodworking when I was there on Saturday, Anissa came up to me or came up and she was saying, Somebody was telling me about corn sweats, and I thought they were totally joking, but it's like
Logan (24:44.607) Nope.
Phil Huber (24:46.776) Nope. This is what we do. So anyway, I was there. I picked up a couple of books. I got Mike Pekovich's benchwork book signed by the author, who's also my manager, so that's a little awkward, but it's still fine. It's fine. I also at the Lost Art Press booth picked up the Make Fresh Milk Paint little book by Nick Kroll.
Logan (25:05.934) Yes
John Doyle (25:06.928) Yeah.
Phil Huber (25:17.196) because it's small, I've already read it and it's a very delightful read. I wasn't expecting him to be as sassy in his in the print as he I mean that's kind of how he is, but it definitely his personality definitely came through. So and then as listeners to the podcast will know, I've been on the lookout for a larger radius beating plane and
did come up with a winner in one the bead here on this guy. I'll put a photo of it in the show notes page. The bead across the diameter is three quarter of an inch. So pretty much right on for what I was looking for. Again, it's not going to be something I'm going to use a lot, but a bead detail is one of those very classic things that work with so many furniture styles.
From very historic, obviously, to contemporary pieces. So came out pretty good. There were a couple of books I was looking for that were sold out, so I might just have to get those through the normal channels, but always a good time to to see there. What do you guys got? Did you guide any of you get anything else?
Logan (26:35.224) John.
John Doyle (26:36.06) I got there at We were rolling to the town at 10 a.m. On Friday. So about the time it was supposed to be opening and it was so busy already like could not even get within two feet of Any of the booths or anything? So I was a little overwhelmed and I wasn't looking for anything in particular So I ended up not getting anything. So we're just a little disappointed disappointing. I would have spent some money, but
Seemed like a lot of the like used vintage tools. It's not like you'd go there to get a deal or anything. It's retail, I'd say, on all that stuff. So there wasn't anything that I had to get.
Logan (27:12.407) Mm mm.
Logan (27:16.067) Yeah.
Phil Huber (27:20.664) I think the advantage is being able to actually see it and handle it as opposed to you know, like looking at something on eBay or marketplace or whatever where you don't really get to you know, you're kind of at the mercy of whoever took the photos of the pieces. So
John Doyle (27:24.72) Yeah.
John Doyle (27:37.564) Yeah. It was giving me a little anxiety of like all of those vintage tools laid out and then all the sweaty bodies, like just heat and humidity, like dripping down. It's like, whatever gets packed up, it's going to have to, I don't know, get oiled down after this, or it's just going to, it's going to be a rust bucket. So.
Phil Huber (27:44.932) Okay.
Logan (27:51.534) Mm-hmm.
Logan (27:59.885) Yep. I I stayed true to my guns and did not buy anything. I didn't even see anything that I was like, yeah. Let me rephrase that. I I would have in our booth, we were in the furniture shop. so our building had us, the three
John Doyle (28:02.396) Thank
Phil Huber (28:05.475) Whoa.
Logan (28:26.136) previously mentioned people, Nanohone, with Brian Boggs, Zenwoo, Badaxe, Frank Straza, Lake Erie. Yep, Lake Erie Toolworks, Sterling, New Concepts, and then there was a used tool dealer in the back corner that I don't I didn't pay much attention to.
Phil Huber (28:36.324) Sterling.
Phil Huber (28:46.52) Yeah, Slav. He's been at all the other handworks. He kind of specializes in files, files and rasps and stuff. Mostly files. And he if nothing and usually he has a bunch of other Femera that kind of goes with stuff. but he's got some cool stuff there too.
Logan (28:51.918) Machinist type stuff. Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Logan (29:02.36) Yeah.
and I've known Brian Meeks at New Concepts for a couple of years now. I have I have one of their original saws, like Mark, maybe a Mark II, and they're up to Mark V, I think now. I he he always had somebody at the boost. I never got a chance to go over and talk to him. I stood there for a couple minutes while he was chatting away. I would have probably bought they had a he had a couple of like stainless steel French curves.
I don't know if you saw those back there, some big ones. I would have maybe grabbed those, but I didn't. so the the thing that I like about hand works is that I get to wander around and talk to people I don't get to see very often. people I know, a lot of people I know. I mean, there wasn't some I don't think that there wasn't a single booth there that I wasn't like familiar with, at least in the people. gotta talk to
Phil Huber (29:34.178) Hm. I did not, no.
Logan (30:03.456) Steven Slocum at New Heritage for a while. the couple other people, a couple contributing writers were there either walking around or had booths or whatever. but no, I it it's just a good chance to to talk to people. It's also a good chance to talk to some of these small makers that editorially we can help out. You know, like a lot of these small makers, like they're not going to ever buy, they can't afford to buy a
An ad in the magazine, right? Like that's not that's not what they're doing. That's not their business model. they'd have to sell a lot of XYZ tool to pay for that ad. And I don't know if that that's the right play for them. But what we what we can do is we can help by showing their tools or just doing, you know, we've done these bespoke maker spotlights for a while where it's like, you know, hey, we're gonna we're gonna show Tony from Hillview tool and kind of his his tools and you know, people that are not on some of the social media groups would never have.
Seen them otherwise. so that's that's a pretty cool thing to get to do, and that's what I like about handworks because it kind of brings all those people together. I did get to spend quite a bit of time over talking to Luke from Zen Wu Tools. Zen Wu has quickly become one of my favorite tool makers. I'm still a Blue Spruce fanboy, always will be.
Blue spruce has a spot in my heart. However, there are some there is something about the Zenwoo tools that I just am in absolute love with. And I think it's the metal. Like they're they make really nice looking tools, but their tools are a much nicer steel than almost anybody is using. so I I got two tools from them for tool reviews.
so these I think are gonna have to go back to to Luke at some point. the first is a thumper.
Logan (32:08.258) And I don't know. I don't I'd have to go look at the box. Actually, the box is underneath you guys right now. it is the F4 titanium hammer. So this thing's titanium. It must have a steel face on it because it's got some heft for it on it, and titanium is not a heavy metal. it just feels really, really nice in the hand. and then the other one is one that Luke had emailed me asking if I would like to review it. and I said, yes.
But I'll wait till we're at hand works. And that is the titanium block plane. It is titanium. This thing is absolutely insane. I may see if I can buy this from them because this thing is absolutely nuts. This is the very first shaving I took with this thing off of cherry.
Phil Huber (32:45.627) it's titanium.
Logan (33:04.428) And I'm gonna show it to you, but you're gonna be able to see me through it, I'm guessing. Like absolutely crazy. Zenwu, I think are the and I I told Luke this. I think Zenwu tools are the sharpest tools out of the box. Like Blue Spruce does a really nice job. Their optimum chisels are fantastic. they are rather behind me.
Zenwoo's at a different level. And Luke's yeah, he's like, I don't, I just don't think many people like we hand hone all of them. We hand sharpen all of them before they leave. And they are ridiculous. I also started looking, and this may be I did not buy anything at handworks. That doesn't mean I'm not gonna have a purchase that came from handworks. Because John messed with the same plane that I'm looking at buying. It not the acrylic one, but Zenwu had a set.
Of they had a bunch of Japanese planes sitting there. So they had Japanese planes, they had Western planes, and then they had Chinese planes. Chinese are push planes, Japanese planes are are pull planes, and then obviously they had a they had a titanium version of a jack plane, too, there. which is not currently on their website, so I don't know if that was like the first debut of it or whatever. but they had
A I don't know how wided it it was. It had to have been
Four inch, three and a half inch wide blade. Like it was a big blade. But they had this, they had a they had two different planes sitting there. They had one that had an acrylic body and and Luke's like, that one's not we don't sell that. It's not a practical plane. It it breaks if you drop it. He's like, it's more to show how it how the plane is working. and then they had a a standard die body plane.
Logan (35:03.61) white oak plane there. and I I mess with those a little bit. god, they're so cool. They're so nice. The problem is, and we've said this before, like I don't know Japanese tools and Japanese planes in particular are one of those rabbit holes that stuff gets very expensive very, very quickly. Especially when you start getting into like blacksmith made kanas and you know the a dye is made from a a dye maker and
stuff. they also r are a lot different to set up and use than a Western style plane. Like on a Japanese plane you have hollows on the sole. Like the sole's not completely flat. You have a hollow. and you know I was looking at the Zenwoo website and I like I think they're they're Japanese plane blades and bodies, like I think they're you know they go from
350 down. So I think, you know, they're they're anywhere from like 275 to 350 bucks for the for the plane. And if it's the same plane we were messing with, I think it's a freaking steal. but there's a big note in there that says, you know, these ship, I don't remember what was several weeks after ordering, they'll ship and they are sent out per the Japanese tradition of being unset up. So it's for the user to set them up. So then I'm like, like
John Doyle (36:32.924) you
Logan (36:33.294) Kinda, kinda just want to get one ready to go. But I know like stuff moves in shipping and stuff, so like it it would never actually be ready to go. So I don't know. I I I am now very Japanese playing Curious. So
Logan (36:54.85) I mean it helps when you're like when you are taking a whisper thin shaving of cedar or whatever they had sitting there. It's like, this isn't even fair. Like, give us some
Phil Huber (37:04.814) Yeah. It was definitely s it was superhero wood there, yeah.
Logan (37:09.068) Yeah, yeah. Like give us give us some burroak and let's see what happens.
Phil Huber (37:15.48) Yeah. So the other one that I the one that would that kinda caught my eye, I don't use and the reason I didn't get one is that I just don't use it enough for me to be able to justify it. And also that I have buyer's remorse before I even buy stuff. So I it's part of my upbringing, I guess. is Peter Galbert's Travisher.
his T two Travisher. Is it just a cool looking tool and would be fun for some shaping tasks.
Logan (37:55.801) Mm-hmm. Travishers are fun to use. I did mess around with I did a spotlight a couple years ago on a gentleman out of Australia named Devin at Iron Bark Tools. I have one of his spook shaves. he showed was showing a new Travisher there. that was kind of interesting. The the handles were kind of like pyramids off to the side.
Phil Huber (38:25.972) huh.
Logan (38:26.752) So I was like, this is almost like an arthritis friendly Travisher. 'Cause like you're holding on to these big handles. and he's like, Yeah, you can use it as push, you can use it as pull. and it's metal bodied, which most of them are gonna be wood body, maybe with a brass sole. they're just yeah, they're fun. They're so fun to use. Like I
Yeah. Sometimes you just need a a good therapy tool that is not really used in everyday work, but it's like, you know what? Sometimes you just grab it and you just make shavings with n no intent behind it. Like
Phil Huber (39:04.439) Yeah. I can see that.
Phil Huber (39:09.955) so yeah, if you were at handworks and want to chime in with a comment on our YouTube channel or an email on what you picked up or what were the things that caught your eye, we'd love to hear from you. We'll share that in a future episode. So like I said, we're about a month out now for woodworking in America, getting ready for having a bunch of people here in Iowa again.
checking out things, seeing all the classes and Logan and I have a meeting about it later this afternoon when we're recording this podcast episode. And yeah. Looking forward to it. Don't forget the garage sale. That'll start nine o'clock. I had somebody podcast listener come up to me at Handworks asking about when we'd start that on Thursday, the eighth.
Yeah, of October
Logan (40:12.49) As we're trying to bring everything over to the event center.
John Doyle (40:15.228) you
Phil Huber (40:16.001) Right. That's how I know that I get to stay here and not have to move stuff around.
Logan (40:17.571) Hmm.
Logan (40:23.022) A little bitter about that, Phil.
Phil Huber (40:25.667) Yeah, I don't know. I we all have our role to play.
Logan (40:32.046) And I just happen to have a truck.
Phil Huber (40:33.805) Yeah.
Right. So if you're coming in for woodworking in America, make sure you're there early enough for that. Or if you're within driving distance, the garage sale is a separate deal from the from woodworking in America. So stop on in even if you aren't planning to come if you're within driving distance. Looking at you, Christine Nielsen.
All right. Let's see. What else you got for Logan, we were gonna check in with you on your outfeed table.
Logan (41:14.53) Yeah, I peeked back up. yeah, this one's been stewing for a while. I don't remember when I started it, but man, had to have been six or eight months ago. and it's kind of just been sitting in the corner. mainly because we had other things to do. Had some v had a OED course we shot on restoring hand tools that Bob has just started. had some sponsored video we had to do. So it's just kind of it's kind of been chilling. and
It's a big enough project that I'm gonna have to dedicate quite a few pages in the magazine to it. And contrary to popular belief, I really hate putting my own stuff in the magazine. Like I would rather put other people's stuff in there and not put my own stuff in there. So it's like, you know, if if I have a a little six or eight pager to fill, cool. I'd rather use my stuff there than somebody else's. you know, I'd rather give other people more more space. but this one's gonna be a little bit bigger.
And I know that this next issue. So I have an issue that is due out. It was actually due out tomorrow, but our sales team's a little behind on the the 8 ball and sales of this one because of IWF and stuff. just timing wise. they're behind the eight ball. And we needed a couple of extra days to get some ad assets in and people were finishing up artwork for ads and stuff. So they got that pushed back to next week.
however, the next issue will go out to the printer. it will be November, second week of November. And I am planning on probably being out of the office for a couple of weeks in November chasing furry critters. So I'm gonna try to get this one kind of buttoned up before then. So figured I would crank out the rest of this project. Plus, now that I got like this drill press table done, I'm kind of in shop.
project mode. absolutely not what I should be doing. I should be doing other projects. but I mean yeah, it's kind of like, well
Phil Huber (43:12.727) Okay.
Logan (43:23.904) The whole like trying to get rid of some stuff and organizing and stuff's kind of motivated me to get back into that. speaking of getting rid of stuff, I'm kind of I'm sitting here looking at these chisels. These are my original set of blue spruce chisels. And I'm considering selling the set of them. There's five of them. And I absolutely love these handles. it's just that that they're a little soft.
But what's interesting is I was talking to Handworks to Nick from Lake Erie and he I was asking about how their they Lake Erie Toolworks sells magna cut blades for hand planes. Lake Erie kind of built their business up as like a wooden vice maker. they were making like wooden screws for vices and stuff. but now I think the blades probably make up like half their business. Like they're doing really well on them. Yeah.
Phil Huber (44:21.304) really? Wow. Okay.
Logan (44:22.902) And I was, I was, I was mentioning he Nick and I were talking about the the process, like the heat treating stuff. And I brought up that I have these blue spruce chisels, and I wasn't super impressed. These are old ones, and I know there was an issue on these old ones. The the new ones from Blue Spruce are great. but these were a little softer. And he said, Well, he's like, you might might want to bring them somewhere as a hardness tester, because he's like, I have learned as I have been grinding.
Our blades for our plane blades that we sell. he's like, it's very easy to lose the temper right at the edge. And I've I've reground these a little bit, but that was interesting. So I'm gonna maybe drop them off at one of the sharpeners in town that I know has a a hardness tester and see how the edges test hardness wise and see if there's a point where I could sharpen back past it because I would then feel better about selling the set knowing that there is still good hard steel in there.
But but yeah, that kind of this whole like thinning out my herd here has kind of remotivated me to finish up this outfeed table because it has a lot of storage built in and right now the the outfeed table I have in here is kind of an eyesore. So so yeah. Got a kind of that post post construction kind of three bents that are all connected with rails and then
Phil Huber (45:42.339) All right.
Logan (45:51.107) Some raised panels. problem is I started this project so long ago that I don't remember where I was. Like, I have two panels that are routed, but those panels don't fit anywhere. So, like, I don't know what I was doing with those. Or if they were just like sometimes, sometimes doing stuff in photos, you make extra parts. And like this may have just been an extra parts thing. so the real question will be, you know, next week when we podcast, how much work did I redo that I didn't need to redo?
Phil Huber (46:21.111) Okay.
Logan (46:21.438) Or how many steps did I skip that I thought I could skip and I didn't I couldn't actually skip, so we'll see. But
Phil Huber (46:29.923) All right. That's my question for everybody is how do you pick up the thread of a project that you've set aside for a while? That you leave notes somewhere? What do you do to find your way back into a project? So John, how about you? Tie all up.
John Doyle (46:51.058) well, looks like Mark has kind of wrapped up my garden chairs and table design build. Did that quite quickly, so that's kind of cool to see it come together. So trying to figure out the next project to hand off to him. So got a couple of irons in the fire, but got to figure that out.
As we get here in the next couple weeks, think we'll have photography starting for the magazine. So start getting readers tips together. So bust out all the Baltic birch and threaded inserts and duct tape and bailing wire and see what we can come up with there. So yeah, all the stuff that goes into readers tips. So that's kind of what I got going on this week is figuring that stuff out.
Phil Huber (47:32.854) Clamps.
Phil Huber (47:44.214) Okay.
I have by the time this podcast comes out, we'll be one week away from leaving for our Sweden and Denmark tour. So what I'd like to do before then is I want to be able to get my desk project all glued up. So if you've been keeping track of that on our YouTube channel, on the Woodsmith YouTube channel, you can see some of the little check-ins that I've been doing. It's not a full bid build video series. It's more of progress reports with little things along the way. That one
Those videos kind of lag where the current progress is, but like Logan, I had set mine aside for a few months while other things were happening here during the summer. And I'm pretty close to being ready to assemble it. And hope to do that before so that I can have that desk pretty much done by Woodworking in America for people to be able to check that out. So there you go. And then
Got a couple of shop projects that I want to work on, which are easy to do. And then because May is going to be a busy graduation season for me, I have some graduation projects that I'm going start on. So there you go. All right. A thank you for listening to the ShopNotes podcast, a weekly woodworking podcast. that's a production of Active Interest Media.
It is edited and mixed by Nate Gruca. John Doyle is the digital editor. We will see you next week, everybody. Bye.
