Phil (00:19.948) Welcome everybody. It's the shop notes podcast. I'm your host Phil, along with John and Logan today. It's episode number 224, which means it's not just the second season of this. It means that there are 223 previous episodes of the shop notes podcast. So if you haven't been familiar with our back catalog, feel free to check it out on your podcast platform of choice.
and listen to previous episodes and may even dissuade you from listening to more. Who knows? This episode of the Shop Notes podcast is brought to you by Harvey Industries. Good enough is not good enough. See all of our new tools at harveywoodworking.com.
Phil (01:11.512) All right. As is our tradition, we're going to get started with some comments from the last episode.
Woodtick Greg says I have a fully restored 1949 South Bend Heavy 10 lathe that I have made a lot of stuff for the wood shop with, like dowel transfers, wood lathe tools, etc. I also make bicycle parts with it or whatever I need. It's cool to have.
John Doyle (01:42.652) He's just bragging.
Phil (01:44.012) Yeah, I think he's trying to get Logan to buy a metal lathe. Like it's just another, just another vote in that corner.
Logan Wittmer (01:51.99) I'm not mad about it.
Phil (01:55.691) Christopher Hathaway said it was a great podcast and the dreamy music was spot on.
Phil (02:03.214) Jeffrey... Jeff Yantha says that it was this one we were starting out hot with Logan on a couple of hot takes from him. Puppy Doc.
Logan Wittmer (02:12.726) don't remember what our podcast was about, but probably.
John Doyle (02:15.921) We need to go back and look at the catalog apparently.
Phil (02:17.101) Yeah.
Yeah. Puppy Doc says, I was going to harass Logan about the 3D printed Wolverine and Deadpool accoutrement in the window sill, but then he confessed his addiction to it on his own. I've printed out more fun stuff than actual tools and shop aids. It is an addiction. The dreamy music was spot on. Right. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (02:40.32) See, that's a you problem, Bob.
Phil (02:44.162) The dreamy music was spot on and yeah, Logan did have a bit of a romance look in his eyes while talking about the pattern makers lathe. Great episodes and plenty of laughs. Thanks again for keeping the show going. and Phil, great reference to 227. I'm old enough to remember and picked up on the reference write off. I'm old.
Logan Wittmer (03:05.632) Alright boomers.
Phil (03:07.117) Right?
It was more like we are children of boomers. So we had to watch whatever they were watching on TV. If we wanted to watch TV, right? You're not wrong.
John Doyle (03:14.543) was our babysitter.
Phil (03:24.59) All right, there you go.
So earlier this week, Logan, you sent us photos of your scroll saw adventures.
Logan Wittmer (03:40.138) Yeah, I hate to admit it was kind of fun for the first like 20 minutes and then it was really the same old. But.
It looks kinda sweet, not gonna-
So, you know, will Peter Jackson come after me for copyright infringement? Maybe. But that's a problem for future Logan.
John Doyle (04:01.794) Yep, that sounds like something Peter Jackson would do.
Logan Wittmer (04:04.138) Probably.
Phil (04:07.234) Also, it's not like you're selling it, so.
Logan Wittmer (04:09.426) No, no, and I'm not gonna offer the pattern, like, for the white tree of Gondor. It just happens to adorn the front door of my desk.
Phil (04:19.618) Yeah. We'll put a, I'll put a photo of it on the show notes page. I think I'm a little behind on getting show notes pages up there. We changed our login information for website content and it's been a little bit of a fiasco. So.
Logan Wittmer (04:36.104) It's not password1234 anymore.
Phil (04:38.806) Right. Yeah.
John Doyle (04:39.497) It's so secure we can't even get into it. So good luck, hackers. Yeah. Yeah. The hackers are probably like, we're already in here waiting for you.
Phil (04:42.264) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (04:45.43) fool us once through the Taunton servers, never again!
Phil (04:50.851) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (04:54.614) Do you need us to unlock the door?
Phil (04:55.896) Yeah.
John Doyle (04:59.392) Yeah, can you let us in?
Phil (05:03.906) Yeah. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, back to you.
Logan Wittmer (05:09.184) Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Phil (05:14.926) All right, so is the desk complete now? that the?
Logan Wittmer (05:19.44) It is ready for final photos. Does that mean it's complete? Not necessarily. I have a little bit of fitting to do with like drawers and stuff. And of course, the sidemount drawer slides I bought have no adjustment on the screws. Like there's no like slot for the slide to move up and down or you know, whatever wiggle around. So what that means is it's an entire process of
Phil (05:22.295) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (05:46.974) like measuring, seeing what corner needs to move where, moving the pair of slides in conjunction to get faces. It looks fine on a final photo, but in reality sitting here, I could see one corner sticking out a little bit, one corner needs to back, but yes, all the woodworking is done on the desk.
Phil (05:57.986) Okay.
Phil (06:09.249) Okay.
Logan Wittmer (06:10.761) So.
John Doyle (06:10.955) See, when I'm building stuff, love using hinges and drawer slides that are adjustable because I can never get stuff right on the first time. But the other problem with those are you are always adjusting them. It seems like they always need adjusted. They're always moving and then you readjust.
Logan Wittmer (06:17.609) Yes.
Logan Wittmer (06:23.83) Yes. Yeah. Yep.
Well, and of course, I also kind of I didn't make a mistake. I knew I knew this going in. I didn't know how close I cut it, though. I used 20. So I originally bought 24 inch side mount drawer slides or bottom mount drawer slides, which are very expensive. I think the pair of them was like 85 bucks, right? They're very expensive. And then I realized that the 24 inch slides were far too long.
Phil (06:49.986) Whoa. Okay.
Logan Wittmer (06:57.078) I technically, my top is 26 or 28 inches. So I'm like, yeah, 24 will be fine. They were too long. So there is no 22. A 22 inch slide would have been perfect. But there was 21 and I'm like, yeah, I can get that to work. Well, the problem is, that the clips that mount to the bottom side of the drawer
It's so tight, like it's just, it's like right there. So there, I didn't have a whole lot of room to fudge on these drawers anyways. And now I'm just kind of, you know, paying the piper by having to go in and move slides and all that jazz. But I am very happy with how the keyboard tray worked. I use Butler hinges to do a drop front. So there's basically a front and a false front. And then
when you pull it out, that front folds flat. So you have an entire keyboard tray at your disposal. It is too small for my keyboard. It's the perfect size for my Mac keyboard. And I'm gonna kind of outline that. Like, hey, you know, if you have a mechanical gaming keyboard like I have, it's too big. But if you have, you know, a standard like Mac or, you know, whatever, it's the perfect size.
but I'm very happy with how this worked. I did the pockets. I think we talked about that. I did the pockets with the Shaper Origin for those Butler hinges. Worked beautiful. Again, my keyboard tray slides are side mount. No adjustment on those either. So, yeah.
Phil (08:30.19) you
Phil (08:38.606) Hmm.
Logan Wittmer (08:42.25) But nope, this project is wrapped up. I have to write the article in the next three days to send it to the printer next week. And then, yeah, my next project is those church doors. So I gotta get material picked up for those. And that should be a pretty, I mean, as we talked about, doors are a big project, but there's not many parts. So it should be a pretty fast one, I think.
Phil (09:08.044) Yeah. Okay.
John Doyle (09:10.886) So is that going to be a project for the magazine?
Logan Wittmer (09:13.227) Yeah, I think I'm going to. Just kind of like, I don't know if it's gonna be like, I mean, who's gonna want to build a Serbian Orthodox church door pair? You know what I mean? But like, hey, yeah, yeah, that's true. But I think it's gonna be more of a, you know, door building techniques, like, you know, big mortises, big tenons, raised panels, stuff like that.
John Doyle (09:23.674) mean, if somebody's starting a Serbian Orthodox Church, you gotta start with the doors, right? You need doors.
Phil (09:29.836) Right.
Phil (09:44.718) Well, and you could talk about hardware too for what you need for exterior doors and supporting that kind of weight and that kind of thing. So, so you're to do like ball bearing hinges. Is that what it is? Or is it just big giant strap hinges?
Logan Wittmer (09:53.631) Mm-hmm.
Logan Wittmer (09:59.638) I think giant strap hinges. I think those look sweet. The problem is I also have to build like the door frame on it. So it's like, I gotta go double check all the measurements. I figure you kinda, you halfway build that on site, right? Like you kinda like, there's a threshold that's already there.
Phil (10:06.018) Okay.
Phil (10:19.992) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (10:26.806) That threshold will probably do a new mahogany threshold to match the doors, you know. So there's a lot of little things that need to be finessed on the fitting. But that also gives me the leeway to use what hinges I want. You I can use big strap hinges. Those would look really cool. You know, it does have to have, you know, because it's a public space, it has to be like ADA compliant with like
being able to have the right poles on it and it has to be secure so they can lock it. So there has to be some form of deadbolts and pins in the tops and bottoms of the door so they can lock one door and leave the other door open. There's a lot of things that have to happen on this. So I think it'll make an interesting article just to kind of touch on something different. And we did, I mean, we did the Craftsman door in Woodsmith a couple of years ago. That was really cool.
Phil (11:22.976) Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (11:25.472) So I don't know where that ever went. Who ended up with that door?
John Doyle (11:29.281) I remember.
Phil (11:30.382) Chris Hennessy. Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (11:31.498) did he?
Phil (11:36.92) So, yeah, how big, how wide are each of the doors?
Logan Wittmer (11:43.414) I think I, it's been a couple months since I measured them, I think they're 36. So each door is 36. 36 by 80 is each door, so the overall opening would be 72 by 80. If my public school math checks out, which I think it does.
Phil (11:49.003) Okay.
Phil (11:58.03) .
Never know.
John Doyle (12:01.506) So you're to go down south and get mahogany to soyer yourself and yep.
Logan Wittmer (12:06.142) Yep, we're driving to Florida. You and the family want to ride with John? You can ride in the trailer. You're good anyways, yeah.
Phil (12:07.97) Ha ha ha.
John Doyle (12:11.148) Sure, I mean, we're going anyways, so.
Phil (12:13.699) Yeah.
John Doyle (12:15.49) We'll split gas.
Logan Wittmer (12:21.62) Nope, that will be a order it from Liberty Hardwood, our preferred hardwood dealer in town that's not chunk of trunk. Yeah, I mean, again, this is always an issue when you order material like that. It's like I need all my parts have to be six inches wide. If I order 200 board feet of mahogany, I might get some that's four inches wide.
I might be able to specify, you know, minimum of six, but then I'm going to get stuff that's nine inches wide and I'm going to have to rip three inches off. So there's always that, like, I'm going to lose something somewhere.
Logan Wittmer (13:09.44) So it's like, I'm gonna add 30%. I think that's what I estimated. And I told the folks at the church that, you know, here's the material cost or here's the amount of material we need plus 30 % for trimming and stuff. like raised panels and stuff, I'm not concerned about those being glue ups. So, you know, if I am ripping three inches off, I can make a panel of three inch wide mahogany.
Phil (13:38.69) That's true. Yeah.
Phil (13:44.28) All right.
Logan Wittmer (13:45.579) Yeah.
Phil (13:49.484) All right, earlier this week, John and I, well, we're continuing to do it as a online learning course that I'm shooting on making a dining room table that was recently featured in Woodsmith magazine. So you'll be able to see that coming up soon. In the course of making it, we had to remake a couple of parts that had a little bit of a failure in it. So and
In doing so, in order to get the parts remade, we went with loose tenon joinery on it. And John used a jig that I designed and made. And I know that at one point, John, you had appreciated, you made a comment about appreciating the concept of loose tenon joinery.
John Doyle (14:43.871) I'm sold on it.
don't need a chisel at all. Just route both things and make some loose tenons to fit and keep on trucking.
Phil (14:56.556) Yeah. I think the other part.
I'm really happy with how that jig turned out. It's worked pretty well. There are probably some changes if I were to think about it that I would maybe incorporate. But one of the things that I noticed is,
Phil (15:20.446) having the right bit really makes a difference.
And we had just recently got a
one of Woodpecker's new bits in that has three flutes, cutting flutes on it, and had at least two inches or just a shade over two inches of cutting length on it, which worked out really well for that jig and to be able to cut pretty large, deep mortises in the pieces, which I thought was really nice.
Because I had used it previously, the jig, with a different bit.
And I don't know, there's just that sound that a spiral bit that's either dull or not well designed makes that gives you a sense of unease as you're using it.
John Doyle (16:20.988) You get a little clenchy.
Logan Wittmer (16:25.994) Well, I find that with, we've shown them, we've used them and they do work well, but they tend to, they're not sharp per se, those like end mill, milling bits. We've used those in the past and they work. So they work really well in like stringy wood, I guess, you know, where you really need to like chew up the material and get it pulled out of there. But same thing.
Phil (16:37.527) Right.
Logan Wittmer (16:53.654) It's like once they start to, yep, that guy right there.
Phil (16:56.61) Yeah. So I'm holding up one. Chris Fitch had recommended it and he had purchased a few of these because he, in a previous life, he was, did some like landscape related woodworking and, and, you know, mortised a lot of cedar. So this is technically like a roughing bit with, can see all the striations or individual teeth on the flutes. and I've used one, one of these we've, like I said, we had several around here, but this one, I don't know how well it shows. I'll put a photo on the show notes page.
is a little burny at the end. And when I was using it, it was basically just like friction burning its way to make a mortise rather than cutting any wood.
Logan Wittmer (17:38.9) Yeah. Well, and like as I'm, as I'm going down this machinist rabbit hole a little bit, I'm, I'm certain understand like end mills like that definitely have different applications where there are non-center cutting and mills there are center cutting and mills, you know, ones that you can plunge once you cannot plunge stuff like that. So I think making sure you have the right one is exactly what, you know, make sure you have exactly the one you need.
gives you the best opportunity, but still, those are made for metal. You don't need sharp stuff to cut metal usually. Like you need sharper tools to cut wood than you do to cut metal. You need harder tools to cut metal. So those don't last super long. And like you said, that's a really long bit.
Phil (18:14.029) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (18:26.984) So like as soon as it starts getting a little dull, you get a little bit vibration. You get that little, as you're trying to route the mortise. It's like, yeah, this would not, this is not good.
Phil (18:27.853) Yeah.
Phil (18:39.01) Yeah. Well, and even so I had started with that bit, the end mill and that one was terrible. And then I had found another one that was shorter, but still worked for my application. And I don't know, there is a geometry of, know, like the angle of the spiral flutes and.
that kind of thing that just for whatever reason just did not agree to me with like what a nice sound would be. And I think, you know, one of the reasons Chris likes these metal cutting end mill bits is he likes the four flute ones because there's more stability in the bit and there's more root left of the bit than if you have like a two flute one where there's just so much metal that's removed out of the bit.
So whatever secret formula that Woodpeckers is using on that spiral bit with the three cutting flutes and that angle, I don't know what the name of the angle is. Some math nerd will correct me on that, but it just, it worked really well. And plus it was a new sharp bit, which also makes a big difference.
Logan Wittmer (19:55.284) Yeah. Yeah. I will say.
that I believe the Woodpecker's blades and bits are the best products that they make. Yeah, yeah. I think their router bits are better than anybody else's. Come at me, come at me, Amana. But I think that they are better than anybody's, especially for the price, because they manufacture right there. And...
Phil (20:08.238) really? Wow.
Logan Wittmer (20:30.558) Like, and we know other router bit companies. know, Woodline, we use a lot of Woodline router bits. Woodline's been a sponsor of, or an advertiser for a long time. And they're good, but Woodline doesn't make all their bits. So there's always that kind of little bit of extra markup. So sometimes you might pay a little bit more for a Woodline bit than you would one from like somebody like Woodpeckers who is making it there. they're the manufacturer direct to consumer.
So you save a little bit. What was it? Must have been the little mantle box class that I did. We had to route a bunch of stuff. So I'm like, you know what? I know what these people are gonna do to my router bits. So it's just like, I ordered, I don't know, six or eight quarter inch spiral up cut bits from Woodpecker's. And it was like 70 bucks. Like it wasn't hard. I like, I would spend.
that for two bits from a lot of other places. So, and they're super nice.
Phil (21:38.286) So anyway, that combination and it was nice working with loose tenon joinery just because it made the replacement of some parts for this project really quick. Because we just had to basically cut them to size, route some mortises, make up some loose tenon stock, and then we were good to go.
Logan Wittmer (21:59.52) So the audience wants to know what failed on them.
Phil (22:02.766) the user
John Doyle (22:05.14) Human error. It's got an angle, like angled, like cut off on the torso of the trestle table. And at some point, I got off on the jig that cut the angle. So then that angle was slightly wrong. And then it just, we didn't catch it till later. So it kind of compounded down the line from there.
Logan Wittmer (22:07.23) Okay. Okay.
Logan Wittmer (22:33.163) Got it.
John Doyle (22:37.756) Azure wants cut 10 million times.
Phil (22:40.29) Right. And then when we had originally glued on blanks where the, so it's a trestle table. So there's the upright piece on the trestle is called the, we're calling it a torso just because of the shape of it. And then the two feet come off at an angle. In order to simplify the clamping, we left the feet in a rectangular blank with tenons on the end that fit into the angled.
mortises or angled cuts on the, on the upright and combination of setting up the jig and whatever, making those angle cuts a little bit off. And then in gluing up, I just got turned around and flipped the orientation of the feet. So we were going to end up with a much shorter, squattier looking trestle table, which isn't
isn't as comfortable to sit at. So we ended up having to remake those parts.
John Doyle (23:48.614) We could have made it work, but the thing is we're teaching video or shooting video for a class to apply. So it's like you want it to all match up. It's like we're not trying to just get to the end. So it's like, got to get it right. That's shop tested.
Logan Wittmer (24:00.222) Here's not how to do it.
Phil (24:02.733) Yeah.
Logan Wittmer (24:07.166) Yep. And we've said it before, video woodworking is not real woodworking. Or sometimes it's too real of woodworking.
Phil (24:11.139) Mm-hmm.
John Doyle (24:15.441) No.
Yeah, it's unforgiving.
Logan Wittmer (24:20.404) Hehehehe
Phil (24:25.538) Yeah, it's hard to say. if I, if that were in my shop, would I have just rolled with it and adjusted the shape of the
final shape, you know, I think where we ended up, I think even that would have been beyond the amount of putzing that I
can and have done on other projects in order to rescue a part.
John Doyle (24:56.676) And it's always easier doing it the second time because then you know what you're doing. Right.
Logan Wittmer (25:00.374) You know how to not do it
Phil (25:02.506) Mm-hmm. Yeah. So anyway, in...
John Doyle (25:06.392) You're very careful to be like, I'm going to do this, but I'm not going to make the same mistake. Am I? So.
Logan Wittmer (25:12.566) Yeah
Phil (25:13.986) Yeah. Like John said, in the end, we were trying to find out, was it a problem with the plan? No, it was not a problem with the plan. It was a problem with the people who were executing that plan.
John Doyle (25:23.502) rate, which is better. So then we don't have to change the plan.
Phil (25:27.298) Right, yeah. We just had to change us.
Logan Wittmer (25:30.112) Yeah.
Phil (25:35.278) So anyway, lessons learned. was a good opportunity to try some new stuff and exercise some patience.
John Doyle (25:44.515) Yeah, which is good too is going back because when we build a project for the magazine, like the designer draws it up with, you know, shop drawings, hands it off to the builder. They build it however they build it. And then they explain it to the artist and the editor and they show however they want to show it. So was like, it's good to go back and build it from the plans that we put in the magazine. Cause then it's like,
Is there something lost in translation there? Did we explain it right? Is there a way we can explain it better? So it's like going back and checking our own work. So it all checks out. Like we said, the problem's with us.
Phil (26:25.122) Yeah. That's a good way of putting it because you know, something that you don't really see really in a magazine, whether it's Woodsmith or Popular Woodworking is like there's something we it it's especially true in Woodsmith and shop notes where we, we call it pacing that we want to have a certain number of parts that we show or actions that are required on each two page spread. So when you open up that spread,
You know, you're not overwhelmed with building, you know, seeing a drawing that has a thousand parts on it and, you know, hundreds of dimensions. And then you flip the page and it's like, here's a drawing with two parts and six dimensions. You know, so we try and pace those out and.
Phil (27:17.494) sometimes the needs of construction or just an alternate way of construction would be different than how it gets presented in the magazine.
There you go.
Phil (27:32.674) The advantage of being able to do it on video is that we know that we're going to be able to offer the original plan for someone and they can see that way of constructing it. And then in the video, I can talk about different options for doing a similar set up and, you know, compare and contrast so that if somebody has another technique that they prefer, then it's like, okay. Just because a plan shows mortise and tenon.
doesn't mean that it has to be a mortise and tenon, it could be loose tenon.
Phil (28:06.99) So there you go.
Phil (28:13.912) All right. I think that wraps up another episode of the shop notes podcast. Kind of a quick one today for this week. We're coming up on spring breaks through here. So stay tuned. Hopefully the weather is shining on you in all the right ways in these next couple of weeks. If you have any questions, comments, or smart remarks, you can send those to woodsmith at woodsmith.com or leave them in the comment section on our YouTube channel. It's actually a great way.
to interact with us and help us find new things to talk about. It's always fun to read what you have to say. Don't forget to book a place on your calendar, October 10th and 11th this year. We're having Woodworking in America back in Des Moines, Iowa. The website will go live within the next couple of weeks here on signups. So make sure you join us for that. And then coming up.
Logan and I will also be at the Grizzly tent sale in the beginning of June 6th and 7th, I believe. Friday and Saturday in June. So thanks for listening, everybody. Special shout out to Harvey Tools for sponsoring today's episode. You can check out all of their new tools at harveywoodworking.com. All right. Thanks everybody. Bye.
