Old Tools
John and I were inspired by Logan's elearning class, Purchasing & Restoring Hand Tools.
John fixed up a Stanley #4
I restored a Stanley #51 spokeshave
Denmark-Sweden Tour Reacap
Logan and I shared a few highlights of our recent tour. We talked about the Viking Ship Museum and the Roskilde Cathedral.
Construction details of Viking-era ships:
We also took the Under the Roof tour in the cathedral. It's a great tour if you get the chance.
Transcript
Phil Huber (00:26.896) Hey, hey everybody. It's the ShopNotes podcast and we've started the month of October, not fully understanding what exactly happened to the month of September. But here we are nonetheless, we are one week out from woodworking in America. We're going to kick off this episode. I'm your host Phil Huber along with John and Logan. And today we got a lot of stuff going on. going to check in on woodworking in America, some e-learning stuff.
a review of the Sweden and Denmark tour and all kinds of things. But first, what we're going to do is kick things off with reader and listener comments.
Phil Huber (01:17.764) Yes.
Logan (01:20.064) And we're back.
John Doyle (01:21.378) Back with the traffic report on KXNT.
Logan Wittmer (01:24.302) I okay, so I c I was kinda hoping that that was a fart sound because it's a little cloud icon. It wasn't
John Doyle (01:37.676) I mean any sound could be a fart sound. This depends what your diet is, you know?
Phil Huber (01:39.868) Hahaha
John Doyle (01:46.782) yeah.
Logan Wittmer (01:49.294) Speaking of diet, man, the food in Sweden and Denmark was fantastic.
Phil Huber (01:53.475) It was it was amazing.
John Doyle (01:54.71) Y yeah, I was getting photos of food and drink plates at five thirty in the morning local time here. I don't know what a time it was there, but
Phil Huber (02:06.32) Meal times.
Logan Wittmer (02:06.51) o'clock at night? No, three. Yeah, it'd be three. Seven hours ahead.
Phil Huber (02:14.364) All right, we'll kick off with a few comments from the podcast two weeks ago. DP Meyer says, I love the Zenwoo magnetic plate sharpening system. I paired it with the KM Tools universal sharpening jig. I've been sharpening things that don't need to be sharpened. And I now look forward to sharpening after seeing what a sharp chisel can do. And there is something to be said for...
understanding what your goal is. Because if you're just working with like say a flea market find chisel, when you bring it up to sharp and you bring it up to what you think is sharp, and you're just on the beginning of this path, you may not know exactly what sharp really means.
Logan Wittmer (03:01.57) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (03:05.762) Yeah.
I do I freehand sharpen.
What do you guys use?
John Doyle (03:17.449) I use the tools that somebody else sharpens.
Phil Huber (03:22.332) I mean, yeah, yeah.
John Doyle (03:23.851) No, I I usually grab the honing jig that we have sitting there on the bench. So
Logan Wittmer (03:27.106) Mm.
Phil Huber (03:30.833) Yeah, here in the studio, we have a little sharpening station where we have a couple of water stones soaking in water. I think it was a tip that you did, John, years and years ago about like a rubber car floor mat as the base. And then we have a couple of the eclipse style honing guides, the side clamping ones made out of pot metal and whatever.
And they work fine. And we have a gauge block to set them up for specific angles. And that works great. At home, I use the Veritas Mark II sharpening system. Because here's the reason why. I got a set of Craftsman chisels as a wedding gift. And one of the things about the Craftsman
Logan Wittmer (04:16.366) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (04:31.962) chisels is that they're pretty thick blades and square edged. So the
Eclipse style guides didn't do a good job of holding onto those. And then it was right around that time that Veritas came out with their Mark II honing guide. And it looked super cool, had some fun features to go with it. And I got it. And I've been pretty happy with it for all of my sharp, pretty much all of my sharpening. And then they came out several years ago with like a side clamp version or
attachment for it, which I use for all of my chisels and then just leave the original one for the plane blade.
Logan Wittmer (05:17.932) I say that the yeah. That would be way better. Cause I don't like the Mark II because it's very easy to get something set up off square. Very like very slightly off square. You know, like there's there's scribe lines on the base of it, so you can kind of like set your blade in there based on those. But like it's I don't know. I I prefer
Phil Huber (05:30.458) Right, it is.
Phil Huber (05:41.969) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (05:45.985) I freehand most of my stuff in my shop. but if I am using a guide or if I have somebody in here using a guide, I prefer a side clamp one. And I think the best one. Now this one is really only fits narrower blades like chisels and like block lane blades, but I love the the blue spruce honing guide is really, really nice. This little guy. and it
It works really, really nicely for those narrow ones. And the reason I asked this is because I spent, I don't know, 10 minutes yesterday sharpening a tool I've had for several years that I've never had to sharpen it. but I was cleaning up some glue off this outfeed station yesterday and I needed to trim a couple surfaces flush. And I was like, I wonder how that chisel plane will do on that. So I honed it quick. and I
John Doyle (06:43.467) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (06:44.268) There is a this is the spear point chisel plane from Blue Spruce. They have a straight one too. And I don't care what Albert Klein says, like I love a chisel plane. He he just posted a video the other day like tools you don't need to buy and chisel plane was on his don't need to buy list. Nope, I'll love this stupid thing. but like I love the spear point. Same thing can be said with a spear point
Retterplane blade, but like they're kind of a pain in the butt to sharpen just because like again, I freehand everything, so it's not a big deal. And with a spear point that big, I don't know if that's gonna focus on there or not. With a spear point that big, like there's a big enough bevel, it's easy to register. but like maybe the Veritas guide would work okay for that one because you could set it at a pretty sharp angle.
Phil Huber (07:39.714) because you could you could set. Yeah, put this put a skew in there. Yeah. I yeah, in the last couple of years, Veritas did come out with more of a traditional side clamp guide. And if I were where I was when I got the mark to I think I would have just got the Veritas site, the new Veritas side clamp one. That said, like all of my gouges like my carving gouges, I do all those freehand.
Logan Wittmer (07:43.788) Yeah, but nope, it was just just a question.
Phil Huber (08:10.449) which I don't think is a...
There are ways to set up little guides for it and I think it would be kind of fun, for right now I just freehand them.
Logan Wittmer (08:23.532) Yeah. I I so this was for anybody watching on the radio, this is the Mark Two. that's the I bought this god your year this is the Mark One? Okay. Never mind, it's Mark One. it I bought it years ago. It's fine. I don't care for this system, is what I don't care for, where you're setting up the angle based on this little pivoting thing, which is probably why they're on.
Phil Huber (08:33.755) That's the Mark 1. Yeah.
Phil Huber (08:46.296) yeah.
Logan Wittmer (08:53.048) two or mark three now, mark two, mark three, whatever they're on. I much prefer like and this is I think exactly like the shot made one we have where you set a projection, right? So it's like you just set a projection, run your tool up to that, and then you know, that's how you set your angle. So
Phil Huber (08:55.677) I don't know. Yeah.
John Doyle (08:58.497) Okay.
Phil Huber (09:07.814) Yes.
Phil Huber (09:18.449) Yeah, you set the angle, it also helps ensure that the blade is square too.
Logan Wittmer (09:24.078) Correct.
Phil Huber (09:41.768) Yeah, all that to say is that it just reinforces my belief that 100 % of tool reviews are 100 % subjective. don't care how many charts or statistics you put with it, it's still subjective.
Logan Wittmer (09:54.208) Absolutely.
Logan Wittmer (10:01.538) Yeah. I mean, I think it's very easy to pick out some like good metrics that are measurable.
Phil Huber (10:12.635) Right.
Logan Wittmer (10:13.1) Right. Like if I'm if I'm doing a review on rasps, it's very easy for me to say, this is a you know, hand stitched tooth and a whatever tooth per inch or whatever it is. You know what I mean? Like like there are metrics there that are just they are what they are. but yeah, like in use one hundred percent.
Phil Huber (10:25.733) Right. Yeah, yeah.
Phil Huber (10:31.217) Yeah.
Phil Huber (10:37.245) Bony Board Woodshop says, started dying bowls that I have turned like ash. Ceri Robinson's talk will be, would definitely be one I would love to sit in. They do have a few books for people who are interested in the information but can't attend. True. Ceri's talk, I think is gonna, I think we've put Ceri in the big room just for that.
Logan Wittmer (10:53.858) Yes, I don't know.
Phil Huber (11:03.845) And if not for the first day, the second day, because people will, I think a good handful of people will be there the first day, but then words gonna get around and then the second day is gonna be SRO.
Logan Wittmer (11:04.088) Yeah, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (11:13.688) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (11:21.805) Almost Perfection says, fun in Sweden and Denmark. Noted and done. We have an anonymous user that says, can you show Logan's tool dresser?
Logan Wittmer (11:27.96) Mission accomplished.
Logan Wittmer (11:32.79) Hey.
Phil Huber (11:37.809) I don't know what tool dresser you're looking for. we looking at the tool cabinet that's right behind you? Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (11:37.837) That?
John Doyle (11:38.049) Is it that thing? Is it that thing? The little thing underneath his cabinet? Or is it the I can see the corner?
Logan Wittmer (11:44.706) I mean, yeah, you can see that on Wood Sh Woodsmith Shop season eighteen, episode ten, I think.
Phil Huber (11:50.257) There you go. Yep. Yep.
John Doyle (11:50.465) Mm. Yeah, the wall cabinet.
Logan Wittmer (11:52.835) Yeah. But yep, it's back there. It's a it's a Chris Schwarz design from the back yonder when he was at Popwood. We built it on the TV show a couple of years ago. So if he's talking or she, it's an anonymous, right? It may be they may be talking about like my watchmakers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was built like a watchmaker spool cabinet type thing. that I keep all my carving tools in and my draw knives.
Phil Huber (12:11.587) carving tool one. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (12:22.38) Or smoke shoes.
John Doyle (12:24.809) wall cabinet was was that Cortisan sycamore that you had milled?
Logan Wittmer (12:28.738) The panels and the drawer fronts are Cortison sycamore. The rest of it's cherry. Yeah. And I've decided that Cortison sycamore is a terrible wood to put a finish on because it looks great and it feels super smooth. And then after two years, it feels fuzzy again. And I thought it was just whatever finish we put on this. But then when we were down Phil in
At the Grizzly tent sale, there was a gentleman there that had a bunch of chairs. And we were sitting there and he had a Coruscamore one. And he's That's the only. And this guy was a an older guy, like late 80s, maybe. He's like, That's the only chair I've ever made out of Coruscant Sycamore, and it's the only one I will ever make out of Coruscant Sycamore. I was like, why is that? And he he reiterated. He's like, I put a finish on it about once every five years, and then it just slowly feels fuzzy again.
Phil Huber (13:00.221) yeah, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (13:24.856) He's like, at some point in the future, this chair will be sanded into nothing because there won't be anything left. So
Phil Huber (13:36.317) Jean Marie McCracken says, I agree with low or with Jacob. yeah. Jacob Schenker says pretty boring episode. I'm being honest.
Jean Marie McCracken. I agree with Jacob on this one being a yawn fest. Should have read Harold Bade review, that would have livened things up.
Logan Wittmer (13:48.727) Noted.
John Doyle (13:50.177) Mm.
John Doyle (14:01.601) There's the door right there. Yeah.
Phil Huber (14:01.693) All right. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (14:02.84) But you listened, didn't you? You s you powered through it because your mama raised a strong, independent man or woman.
John Doyle (14:07.425) Yeah.
John Doyle (14:12.565) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Buckle up 'cause this one is gonna be exciting.
John Doyle (14:21.281) Hope you didn't have any coffee today because it is self caffeinating.
Logan Wittmer (14:23.138) Yeah.
Mm.
Phil Huber (14:28.817) All right, as always, questions, comments, and smart remarks, send them to woodsmith at woodsmith.com or leave a comment along with Jacob and Jean Marie on our YouTube channel for the Shop Notes podcast, dedicated channel. You can catch up on the back episodes there and join in the conversation. Always appreciated it.
John Doyle (14:53.151) I also have to address I was gonna say we got an email from Ryan Osterbrink back middle September or whatever about the podcast. And I just want to address, he said in the email, I did see John walking around hand works, but he looked as if he didn't want to talk to anybody. But maybe that's how he always looks. And maybe maybe maybe that is how I always look. I don't know how I look, but maybe it was when I was in the barn and I lost my dad.
Phil Huber (14:59.429) right.
John Doyle (15:22.195) And it was like, I'm look I'm never gonna find him. He looks like every other seventy year old man here. I was I was so scared. I didn't think I was ever gonna find him. So maybe that was the the case there. So
Logan Wittmer (15:30.838) Ooh.
Logan Wittmer (15:35.363) That's great.
Phil Huber (15:37.904) that might be the case.
John Doyle (15:38.613) Yeah. So yeah. If you see me looking like that, don't be afraid to come up and talk to me. I'll talk anytime. there's the clap. Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (15:43.46) yeah, I got him. Sorry. I got him. I got him.
Phil Huber (15:49.927) That's kill everybody.
Logan Wittmer (15:51.395) Yep. Confirm kill. Another notch in yep. On the handle. Yep.
Phil Huber (15:53.566) Put another one on the, another mark on the outside of his cockpit. Yep. All right. Then last week's episode was a tag team one with fine woodworking. You and Bridget did an interview with sought to stop CEO, Matt Howard. We won't recapitulate the whole thing, but Logan, what are, what was your takeaways from that?
Logan Wittmer (16:18.142) the takeaways are that the bandsaw from SawStop is just the first of many tools they have on a roadmap. Matt won't say how long that's gonna be. but to kind of distill it down, the saw stop mentality is that if they're gonna make a tool, they're gonna make a tool. Like they are going to it's not like the safety feature is at the core of it, but they're gonna rethink a lot of the other things on the tool.
so that was kind of what led to the development of the bandsaw and why it has been in development for this long. so and then Matt Howard is also the CEO of Festival North America. So we touched real quickly on the announcement from a couple weeks ago that as of twenty twenty seven, January, Shaper
will be wrapped into the Fest Tool lineup. it's not a purchase, it's not an acquisition. They've been the same company for a long time. It is swinging that tool brand under Festool to put a little bit more power behind it. So so yeah, that was kind of the the quick recap.
Phil Huber (17:35.399) Okay. Yeah.
All right, good episode. If you wanted to have it heard that one, go back, check it out, see what you're going on with. Next up, John, I think we're gonna check in with you, see what you've been up to recently, right?
John Doyle (17:50.978) I didn't do anything while you guys were gone. No, I'm yeah, I just no, and just like scrolling through the IKEA website, just thinking about Sweden and Denmark, playing with Legos, eating meatballs, you know. So now while you're gone, I did get the I don't even know what we're calling it. It's like a utility bench, coffee table type thing. I got that drawn up so we can
Logan Wittmer (17:53.454) So many YouTube videos.
Phil Huber (18:06.032) You
John Doyle (18:18.825) start working on that, but I feel and like I've had this feeling like pushed down of just panic of now the the calendar has turned that woodworking in America is coming up next week and it's been like all the things we need to do, but I've done nothing. Just but think about it's like where do we start? Where do we start as far as cleaning and get ready for that? So I did do some landscaping here.
You guys saw? Okay. Got some flowers planted. I I cleared the pumpkin patch that had been growing this summer and replanted some landscape since we're gonna have company here for the open house and one Yep, yeah. It's like, company's coming. Yeah, time to get up on the roof and clean the gutters. You know. So don't don't worry about cleaning up the shop or anything. It's just like let's see what we can work on. So
Logan Wittmer (18:48.046) Yes, you did.
Logan Wittmer (19:00.152) Doing the dad thing. Companies come in, fix the mailbox.
Mm.
John Doyle (19:17.717) But yeah, now that the the calendar's turned it's it's go time. So
Phil Huber (19:26.119) Yeah, because you definitely can't tell it from the background of watching on here, but we do have to get the studio cleaned up, both studios, especially for the garage sale that's going on. Get some pricing on some things. We are going to be selling...
John Doyle (19:26.251) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (19:37.592) Yeah.
Phil Huber (19:47.216) Looks like...
two workbenches from the shop, a giant shaker workbench, and then one of our easy to build workbenches. We'll have several CNC machines that are gonna be for sale. This is gonna be cash and carry, and then a lot of projects, both large and small. So if you're traveling long distance, there might still be something here for you. That's, you could put into a suitcase and ship it back.
or if you're relatively local, or if you have a convertible that you can just stick it in the top and deal with it that way. Should be great. We're looking forward at the weather forecast for woodworking in America next week. The last several weeks have seen significant rainfall here in central Iowa. I think we ended September as like the second wettest September ever.
Logan Wittmer (20:26.029) Yes.
Phil Huber (20:48.443) and then like the sixth, fifth or sixth wettest month of all time.
John Doyle (20:56.063) Yeah, I was thinking I was looking back to the calendar of September and we had like blazing hot temperatures right before Labor Day. So first week no rain. And then after starting at Labor Day, we had rain every day except for like three days of the month, which is unheard of for September here. And yeah. Yeah. And I think what I heard last was we were three tenths of an inch off of the record.
Logan Wittmer (21:15.764) It is so squishy walking out here to the shop.
Logan Wittmer (21:25.26) Yeah. When I saw it last night, yep.
John Doyle (21:25.375) Because it was raining it was raining last night, but they took the measurement at midnight. So we probably had the wettest last four weeks. It just happened to be the calendar turned. So but yeah, it's been it's been crazy. But
Logan Wittmer (21:35.362) Yeah. Yep.
Phil Huber (21:41.169) Yeah, walking my dog around and you step on people's yards, it feels very similar to stepping on like a dish sponge that's wet, because you just kind of squash into it, a little bit of water pools up around your shoe and...
John Doyle (21:43.636) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (21:59.513) Yeah. It's brutal.
John Doyle (22:02.593) We're looking at 70 degree temperatures and sun for the next week, so good to go. Good to go for this sawmilling in the parking lot. Better be better be nice.
Phil Huber (22:08.315) Yeah. So everybody's going to come here and it's going to be, yeah, super pretty.
Logan Wittmer (22:08.418) Go. Let's go.
Phil Huber (22:15.793) Yeah. Yeah. So we're down to the last details on woodworking in America. One of the things that this is kind of the inside baseball part of it. One of the things that Logan and I are super excited about is the fact that about a month ago, our parent corporation hired a full time events coordinator. And you'll meet Katie if you're coming to woodworking in America at the event.
Logan Wittmer (22:39.34) Yeah.
Phil Huber (22:45.045) And she is fantastic. And it's so nice to have somebody who frankly knows what they're doing and have the time to do it.
Logan Wittmer (22:54.712) She hasn't read her emails, but yeah, she's awesome. It's for you, Katie.
Phil Huber (22:57.244) Hahaha!
John Doyle (23:01.749) Yep. We're the cats and she's the herder. So
Logan Wittmer (23:08.782) I also think she's in a little bit of amazement that we rag tag put this together the way we have the last couple of years. Like, we'll say something and she'll be like, Are you effing kidding me? Like that's how you guys did that? Like, yep, we sure did.
John Doyle (23:15.828) Yeah.
John Doyle (23:21.334) Yeah.
Phil Huber (23:21.703) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're at this. Yeah.
John Doyle (23:25.141) We're high functioning idiots.
Logan Wittmer (23:26.734) Ha ha
Phil Huber (23:31.325) We're at the stage of event planning where we're having weekly check-in meetings. And the last three weeks for sure within that meeting, Katie has asked Logan and I some version of the question, what's your process for dot, dot, dot.
Logan Wittmer (23:31.894) Mm.
Phil Huber (23:51.59) And Logan and I are like, when you see a dumpster on fire, you put the fire out. That's the process.
Logan Wittmer (23:53.824) Yeah.
Yep. Bingo. Yeah. Is there fire? Yes. Put it out.
John Doyle (24:00.588) Simple flow chart. Yeah.
Phil Huber (24:05.425) Yeah. Or it's like, let's just be honest, most of our listeners are male on here, but when you were a kid and you played football at the park or out on the street and you came up with plays, did you have a playbook? No. Did you watch any film for those games? No. You were playing against some other hooligans from down the street or a couple of blocks away and you drew up plays in the dirt and that's what you did. That's how we do events.
Logan Wittmer (24:28.535) Yep.
Phil Huber (24:37.029) Logan and I are available for other event planning. Just feel free to contact us.
Logan Wittmer (24:39.406) Yeah. Yeah.
John Doyle (24:40.097) Yeah, we can do baby showers, bridal showers, yeah, i everything.
Phil Huber (24:43.606) Yeah. Retirement parties. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (24:44.14) Retirement parties, everything.
Phil Huber (24:50.225) So anyway, congratulations, Katie, and thank you.
Phil Huber (24:57.489) All right, now last week, Logan and I were in Denmark and Sweden. It's kind of weird to think that it was like a week ago.
that we were like already more than halfway through our.
Logan Wittmer (25:11.628) Yeah, where were we a week ago? Were we we're at Talberg still.
Phil Huber (25:15.441) Yeah, we're in Talburg, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (25:17.624) Or we maybe we just got Salberg.
Phil Huber (25:19.643) Yeah. So anyway, we started the trip flying into Copenhagen, Denmark and staying at a hotel within the old city of Denmark, which is what I found out after having a little chat with a local out in front of our hotel on the sidewalk. We frankly had lovely weather.
Logan Wittmer (25:41.112) The weather was phenomenal the entire week.
Phil Huber (25:43.899) Yeah, leading up to the trip, I was watching the weather for all of our locations and it was basically just rain. Turned out the rain was here in Iowa and clear everywhere else.
Phil Huber (25:58.078) Spent a couple of days in Copenhagen. Went to the... Our first day, I think we probably could not have had a better first day for a tour. We went to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, which is the old capital of Denmark. And then we did a tour of the Roskilde Cathedral, which the cathedral itself was an amazing building.
filled with amazing carving and woodwork.
Logan Wittmer (26:32.994) Yep, and it's it's the National Cathedral of Denmark, and there is over eleven hundred people buried there, like within the cathedral and underneath the cathedral. Like insane.
Phil Huber (26:49.749) And it's been around since like 80, a thousand, something like that. So very historic building, very ornately decorated on the inside, but that's not really what made the tour for us as fun as that was. What did it is that we had arranged with the church warden to do a tour called Under the Roof.
Logan Wittmer (26:54.21) Yeah. Yep.
Logan Wittmer (27:05.311) Hehehehehe.
Logan Wittmer (27:13.836) Is it?
Phil Huber (27:18.267) which I think they only do like a couple times a week. So if you're going to Denmark, it's worth it to do this tour because you go above the ceiling in the church to see the whole timber framed superstructure that supports all the roof and whatever.
Logan Wittmer (27:30.232) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (27:35.937) And unless you don't like heights, then don't do that shit. Cause this guy, couple of us, were like, nope, nope. I mean, we went, we went. But like you no. Or like yeah, and like you're up in the so you're in this cathedral ceiling, right? Like it's 80 feet up there? Like
John Doyle (27:41.417) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (27:46.299) Yeah. But you also didn't look out some of the windows or peer over edges of things.
John Doyle (27:51.381) Ha ha ha
Phil Huber (28:01.757) Something like that, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (28:03.392) Giant domes of mason of brick and and mortar and plaster and stuff. And you go up this little spiral staircase and then there is catwalks. There are catwalks upstairs that go through all the timber frame structure. And they had had a fire at one point in the sixties. And very much like Notre Dame, and it destroyed parts of the roof.
The giant spire in the center, when it fell from the fire, it landed on like cross members, so it didn't destroy anything. so there's some new timber framing up in there. it was very cool. it was, you know, like the the church warden, he's 70 years old, mid-70s, and he's climbing all over this stuff like a church mouse. And
Phil Huber (28:55.67) yeah.
Logan Wittmer (29:00.408) He's like, he jumps off the catwalk onto the top of one of these domes that are brick and mortar. And he grabs a plug and opens it up and he's like, Come down here and look through this hole. And you're looking, you know, 85 feet down on into the church floor. And I'm like, No, that's brick. I know me at 200 pounds is nothing compared to the weight of everything.
Phil Huber (29:08.273) Yeah, right.
John Doyle (29:22.294) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (29:28.568) Hell no, like not doing that. But everybody else did. This guy did not. it was cool.
Phil Huber (29:34.088) Yeah. It was super cool because he was talking about and having that, the start of that tour where you're in the old section, know, timbers that are a thousand years old, all joined together. And you see like little graffiti from people who had to ring the bell from years ago and all that kind of stuff. And then to see where it merged with where the new timbers were and how they scarfed all those together and the joints and see the
Logan Wittmer (29:46.958) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (30:03.825) the new construction and hear some of that story was just an amazing feat of woodworking just on a grand scale because there was like lap dovetails and scarf joints and mortise and tenon joints of all shapes and sizes. Really fun to see.
Logan Wittmer (30:21.634) He called them swallowtails. Isn't that what did he say s did he say swallowtails? I don't feel like that's what he called it, but I I think that was, yeah. It was another bird. Yeah. Yep. Or sparrow tails. Sparrow tails? I don't remember. Anyways.
Phil Huber (30:23.697) He did call.
Yes.
Phil Huber (30:29.979) Yeah, I think it was it was swallowtails. Yeah.
Phil Huber (30:38.843) Yeah. Anyway, it was just really cool. From several of the windows you could see out into the Bay of Roskilde. And right on the coast of that is where the Viking Ship Museum was, where they had pulled up five Viking-era ships that had been deliberately sunk in the channels to kind of control access to the harbor. And to see all the details and all that they've been able to learn about the ship construction.
John Doyle (30:39.249) That's all.
Logan Wittmer (31:07.448) Yeah.
Phil Huber (31:08.241) back then I think was kind of outstanding from a woodworking point of view. Because one thing that I, go ahead.
Logan Wittmer (31:13.552) yeah. Yeah. It was no, nope, I was nope, nope, you go.
Phil Huber (31:19.405) One thing that surprised me was the stem and stern of the Viking ships, because they're basically a double ended ship. It's not like there's a flat, whatever, transom on the back of the ship, they're the same. But those stems and sterns are the main part of it is one piece. So it's one piece kind of hollowed out in the middle, and then they cut
basically like a stepped angled rabbit on each side to accept the boards from the planking that go up to get nailed into place. And then if that weren't enough, they carved it the edges so that from each one of those curved rabbits, it goes sweeping up to the peak of the stem to make it look like these planks just continue on and taper off into nothing.
Logan Wittmer (32:14.798) Which is what I would have assumed they did. But nope
Phil Huber (32:18.319) yeah. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I'll put a photo couple of photos that I took of this on the show notes page, just to highlight it. But it was it was super cool all the way around.
Logan Wittmer (32:30.072) Yeah. Yeah. I mean I mean, apart from like the the woodworking aspect of it, which was very cool because they have a shipyard out there. There's guys out there building these ships the same way they were built, you know, two thousand years ago or or a thousand years ago. It was really interesting to just learn about so Roskilda was the old capital of Denmark. It was the I think Kitty might have called it the Viking capital of Denmark. But like it was it's
It sits on this giant bay. And if you look at the bay, you're like, yeah, you could sail a ship out there. Well, you can't. Like you could sail a ship in three different channels. The rest of it's too shallow. It's like, you know, sh the the the guy that gave us the tour, which was fantastic at the Viking Museum or Viking Ship Museum, he said he didn't know exactly how deep it was, but he said, you know, the the deeper areas of the shallow are like a meter deep.
So like three three feet, three, four feet at the deepest. The rest of it is shallower than that, except for the three channels. So the defensive thing to do, which is what what happened with these ships, was to block the channels. So they took these five ships, which of the five ships, two of them were considered warships. they were the long ships, so the narrower
longer ships. I think the larger of the two maybe held sixty people. The other one was like thirty people. if that sounds right. And then the other three were like merchant ships. So, you know, we we we all think about Vikings, the the Viking group as like raiders, and that's not that's not accurate. it is. Viking it was a that was a profession. That was something you went and did, right? Like that was that was your you were a
Phil Huber (34:01.264) Yeah, that's about right.
Logan Wittmer (34:25.314) you were a raider during raiding season. That's what a Viking was. But the rest of the economy and the culture really kind of stemmed around like trading and you know bringing goods through the, you know, through the bay and up into Sweden and with all your neighboring countries, your neighboring towns and stuff. But like three of the ships were much larger, like merchant ships, and I think.
If remember right, he said that the one the smallest merchant ship that was there, which was I think like the best preserved out of all of them, would hold four and a half tons of cargo, which that's a lot of that's a lot of cargo for a group of five sailors to to sail. but the ships had been at the end of their lifespan.
so basically he's what we got out of the tour was like the ships have maybe a 30 year lifespan on them before the the repairs just become too extravagant and just build another ship. and so they said, Well, we need to block this channel. So they took these five ships out there and moored them in the in the channel, and then they started dumping rocks into them to sink them. So people would run into these ships to
if they're trying to navigate one of those channels and that that left the other channels easily defensible. what I thought was interesting, and I would have absolutely like this is so out of left field that I would have never even considered it. The largest warship that they have in there that would hold 60 people was built in Dublin. So, like, they had taken a ship from Dublin. Somehow it ended up in Raskilda, you know.
They don't I mean obviously we'll never know why. Like was it a was it a gift to somebody? Was it, you know, trade? Was it a was it a bounty from a raid? Who nobody knows. but they're able to they're able to locate where that timber came from based on growth patterns of the timber and stuff like that. like just it's crazy. It was it was it was cool. It was very cool.
Phil Huber (36:40.017) Yeah. They have replicas of all of the ships in a little harbor next door and several of them they do offer excursions on that you can actually sail in them out in the out in the bay. And it was kind of fun to see a group coming back from that. And like Logan said, they have an outdoor shipyard and like another one indoor that they're working on further replicas and trying out different things. Because as they learn more about the ship,
Logan Wittmer (36:51.949) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (37:09.637) and then sail them, they realize like, hey, we didn't quite do that right and whatever, just really cool. And to see a lot of the tools that they were using, some of them they're using modern tools to do some things, but it's still the same construction techniques. And then in a lot of them, they're doing what they would call experimental archeology, doing it with period appropriate tools, just fun stuff to see all the way around.
John Doyle (37:17.61) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (37:26.424) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (37:36.984) Yeah. I took a lot of pictures of their big log pile sitting there. Cause they're like rhing these logs and stuff. It's pretty sweet.
Phil Huber (37:45.488) Yeah, and then as they put each plank on the next row, they have what look like giant cam clamps, like halfway between a cam clamp and a wood hand screw to like pin them on. And then they also have what looks like extremely large clothes pins that just pinch the next board in place while they nail it down or whatever. So really cool. Highly recommended to
Logan Wittmer (37:56.333) Yeah.
Phil Huber (38:15.133) to see. So then saw a museum in Denmark, the Danish Design Museum, which I thought was super fascinating. They have a room, a long gallery with just chairs of all sorts. High style, more rustic ones spanning a long timeframe, and then little pullout information cards that you can read more about each of the chairs, and then just design in general was a
super fascinating super fascinating one so there you go maybe review some of these other ones in upcoming episodes we don't want to bore you with the full detail I think I took approximately a bajillion photos
Logan Wittmer (39:02.382) Yeah. I was I was living in the moment and I looked at Phil was taking photos. I'm like, shoot, I should be taking photos too. So then I started taking photos.
John Doyle (39:03.307) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (39:10.886) You
John Doyle (39:13.921) I think sh at the open house next week we should just have a little space for you to do like a slideshow and talk about your trip.
Phil Huber (39:19.975) There we go.
Logan Wittmer (39:20.876) Yeah, I mean we absolutely I mean we yeah like we could we could set up a a slideshow. So yeah. But I I will tell you, like part of and the reason we do these trips, yes, we're still working on Japan. Really close to an itinerary, really close. is that we get to go with our subscribers. So like the people we went with were fantastic.
Phil Huber (39:26.951) maybe in the conference room.
Logan Wittmer (39:50.531) Like, you know, some of them we knew from prior trips or, you know, there are our cheese and beer mules from Wisconsin and Bob and you know. so like we we've known some of these people. Some of them we met for the first time, but like it was great. And we had we had long days in the bus. We did have long days in the bus. it's a big country. but like we could not have hit the timing better.
Like you already said the weather was great. Like going through once you got north of like Gothenburg and heading towards Seder Glaunton and stuff, like the colors were absolutely phenomenal. And it like it it kind of had like northwoods of Minnesota, northwoods of Mis Wisconsin feel. but it wasn't. You knew it wasn't. you're actually significantly farther north. I didn't realize that. Like looking at the the map.
Like we were what a couple hours from Arctic Circle? Like it's up there.
Phil Huber (40:51.185) Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Yeah, so I know that Ryan Osterbrink, our correspondent from Rhinelander, Wisconsin, had thought about trying to come on this tour, but did not, wasn't able to. Ryan, you missed out, but also there would be a lot of family resemblance between the Rhinelander area and the central section of Sweden that we were in. maybe next year.
Logan Wittmer (41:05.804) Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Logan Wittmer (41:14.869) Hehehe.
Phil Huber (41:22.203) I think we're going to be running a variation of this tour next year, which I think would be super cool. Tweak some of the schedule and sites that we were going to see. lots of fun. Yeah. But anyway, the other thing that I wanted to mention, bring up here, a couple months ago, Logan and we talked about it here, did an e-learning course on
Logan Wittmer (41:25.154) Yes.
Logan Wittmer (41:30.85) Yep. Try to reduce a little bit of bus time, yeah.
Phil Huber (41:51.122) rehabbing old tools. I wasn't there for the filming of it, but John was and it lit a fire under Mr. Doyle to rehab a hand plane. So much so that he actually is going to have a tip coming out in the next issue of Woodsmith related to fixing up old tools that is going to be, I'm not going to ruin the ride here, but you're going to want to hold on to your next issue to have that in there.
In a similar way, one thing that I've been looking for was a spoke shave to go with my wood bodied spoke shave. So my tool mule Logan Whitmer had a Stanley 51.
It's the old school one that doesn't have the adjusters on it. And yeah, a little tap tap. It wasn't in bad shape. It was pretty decent. Yeah. I stripped off all the old paint on it because it was chipping in places and was going to just re-spray paint it. And I did, but even after a week and a half, the spray paint was still sticky. So I...
Logan Wittmer (42:40.334) Well tap a tap.
Logan Wittmer (42:45.92) Fine, yeah.
Logan Wittmer (43:03.79) 'cause we've had so much rain.
Phil Huber (43:05.349) Right. So I stripped all that off and then Dylan had gotten in for a couple of projects, a metal patination kit. So I did a black oxide metal patina on the body and the lever cap of the spokeshave. And I just really dig how it looks because this version of the Stanley 51 in the casting has like a really cool textured handles and
Logan Wittmer (43:31.734) Almost neural dip.
Phil Huber (43:33.118) almost knurled, has a fun texture overall. And then hit that with a little acrylic just to protect the patina on it. And then I bought a replacement blade, Veritas A2 spoke shave blade that goes in there. So speaking of sharpening, I'm have to figure out how I'm going to do that. And then I followed along with Brian Boggs, again, something we had talked about.
using epoxy and some paper to create a really flat smooth bed on the for the blade so that it's not likely to chatter in there. So that was kind of a fun, fun little thing to do. So all I have to do now is a little bit of filing on the mouth just to clean that up and open it up on one side because of the blade being thicker and then ready to put this one to use. So it's super cool for that.
All that to say is that you haven't if you haven't checked out Logan's e-learning course, you're going to want to do that. It's really I think it's.
It's always exciting for me to find an old tool and rescue it, because in a way you're sort of making it your own.
Logan Wittmer (44:46.478) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (44:47.741) and you get to understand the tool in a way that you don't just from straight up using it, in my opinion.
Phil Huber (45:00.935) Plus Logan's got a lot of good stuff in there.
John Doyle (45:03.349) Did ever did I ever show my hand plane on here or do just talk about it? It's sitting on should I go get it? It's on my desk. Go.
Logan Wittmer (45:03.362) Yeah.
Phil Huber (45:08.337) We just talked about it. I don't think you ever showed it that it was done. Yeah, quick, go get it. We'll wait.
Logan Wittmer (45:09.72) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (45:14.914) And if you're watching, just wait. And he's back awkwardly running.
Phil Huber (45:18.865) There he is right there!
John Doyle (45:23.231) Where it's in the shop. I gotta go farther.
Logan Wittmer (45:28.43) Well, okay, while we're waiting on Mr. Doyle, I think that the next day that we were in Denmark. So we started in Copenhagen, right? And when we left, so we did those three things that you had mentioned in Copenhagen, we ended up at the Scheuberg factory.
it was that was a long it was a long day of of bus ride. we had like three and a half hour to there, three and a half hours to Gothenburg. But like that was pretty cool seeing a company that is producing workbenches, and just their process and the stuff that they have to to put these workbenches together was pretty cool. Like I don't like I think a lot of us were like, they're gonna have giant.
Joiners and planers, and there's gonna be, you know, a bunch of little elves at workbenches building workbenches. That's not the case. Like they're making workbenches. Like they are doing, I don't remember how many she said that they shipped out last year, like 65,000 or something like that. Like lots of stuff. Lots of workbenches. Not all workbenches, some sewing stuff as well. Some sewing tables and you know, textile tables and stuff, but a lot of workbenches.
Phil Huber (46:58.919) All right, John.
John Doyle (47:00.043) Back, I've caught my breath from running across the building. But here is my Stanley Bailey number four. it was my dad's dad's, and I know it has had sat on the shelf for at least 40 years, and I've had it for I don't know, 15 years. It was pretty caked with rust and dust and and stuff, and so I got it all cleared up. found out as I was restoring this.
it must be type nineteen I found based on the kidney shape of the the opening there and then what else did it say? The handles were pretty black lacquered, so you couldn't even tell they were rosewood at the time. I just thought they were black painted, and then there was something else it says Stanley on the
the lever there. So that all indicated that it was a type 19. So built or manufactured in the 50s, early 60s maybe. So kind of cool. Got it all cleaned up. sanded down the handles and just put a wax finish on them. But it's all in usable condition now. So that that was pretty cool. But yeah I'd had it I'd had it for
probably like fifteen years just sitting on the shelf in my shop in not usable condition. It was just collecting dust. So had did that class with Logan this summer and saw him doing all the stuff and got the the itch to finally clean it up. So I did that and it's pretty fun, pretty easy. And
I I think I'd said this before, but Logan's class is called tool rehab, but it's I think it's a gateway drug. It's probably gonna get you hooked if if you take it. So I have I don't think I've ever been in or had the hankering to go in a flea market or antique store, but it was like right after this. I was down in Florida and our hotel was right next to a strip ball with a with an antique store and it's like I'm going in there and I was looking at all the tools and
Logan Wittmer (48:47.438) Yeah. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (49:00.878) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (49:06.766) And
John Doyle (49:08.063) cruising eBay and so yeah, don't don't don't do it unless you want to get hooked.
Logan Wittmer (49:14.594) Yeah. And if you want to see that, I'm doing that seminar next week at WIA. So guys just yeah, yeah. Come ask me your questions. Yep.
John Doyle (49:19.829) You go in person, live.
Phil Huber (49:21.991) Yeah, the circle is complete. There you go. Yeah, for sure. Ask questions about it. That's one of the best parts of woodworking in America, seeing all the presenters give their presentations, but then also seeing them in between sessions and being to just chat about woodworking. I think that was one of the big things too, from our tour to tie this all together, wrap this up with a Phil explains it all kind of thing is that on the tour.
you have that opportunity to be together with other woodworkers, have the permission to look at all the little details at stuff in museums and all the places that we were looking at, and then to talk about it on the bus rides, at meals, in the in-between times, and connect with other people.
Logan Wittmer (50:11.203) Mm-hmm.
Phil Huber (50:13.031) There you go. think that wraps up another episode of the shop notes podcast. Don't forget to check out the show notes page and then over at woodsmith.com slash podcasts. You can check out all the other back episodes. This is episode number 288. Nate is going to remind me that we don't exactly have 287 previous episodes, but that's just a rounding error. It's close enough. So if there's a lot more
content that you can check out. If you look at what's going on back there, join in the conversation sending an email to woodsmith at woodsmith.com or leave a comment on the YouTube channel ShopNotes Podcast. We'll see you next week, everybody. Bye
