transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:04] Welcome to Wood Talk.

Speaker 2:
[00:05] Now here are three guys who love the smell of shellac in the morning, Marc, Shannon and Matt. All right, it is show number 605. And on today's show, we're talking about woodworking as therapy. Is my wood dry enough for a workbench and dealing with oil stains on plywood? All that and more coming up, but first we want to let you know that Wood Talk is proudly sponsored by Woodcraft. Woodcraft is the leading authority in woodworking, making and creating. They have the tools, supplies, expertise and hands-on classes to inspire creativity at every level. Learn more at woodcraft.com and be sure to use the code WT2026 for 10% off regularly. Priced merchandise can't be combined with other offers and exclusions apply.

Speaker 1:
[00:48] You're excluded.

Speaker 2:
[00:49] Yay!

Speaker 1:
[00:49] You're welcome.

Speaker 2:
[00:50] Woohoo!

Speaker 3:
[00:53] I love the cameo appearance of one of Matt's children streaking by, not streaking, zipping by.

Speaker 1:
[00:59] I mean, it's pretty close to it. Fair enough.

Speaker 3:
[01:02] All I saw was a pink blur. So assuming that was your daughter, but you never know.

Speaker 1:
[01:07] Yes, it was actually. Here she comes again.

Speaker 2:
[01:10] See, my kids go that way. There's a hallway, but you can't see it.

Speaker 1:
[01:13] So I am the hallway. So that's just cool.

Speaker 3:
[01:16] It was just perfect. Because right when Marc said, this show is brought to you by Zoom in the background. Brought to you by The Running Child.

Speaker 1:
[01:26] They're here. They're there. They're everywhere. Do you know our show is also sponsored by the generous contributions of people like you? Not you guys, but the other people. Maybe.

Speaker 3:
[01:35] We used to sponsor it. Remember, Matt, when we, Marc used to make us sponsor it, just so we could see the notes.

Speaker 2:
[01:40] Yeah. I made a little dollar tier for you guys. It was great.

Speaker 1:
[01:43] Speaking of exclusions, our Patreons memberships or whatever.

Speaker 3:
[01:47] There you go.

Speaker 1:
[01:47] Exclusive access to us and stuff. If you want to support the show and make me stop talking about this, you can do so by going to patreon.com/woodtalk and saddening up the pickup page of the show. We'd like to thank Doug, Flink, Mark, Pets, and Lisa.

Speaker 2:
[02:05] All right. Thanks, guys. You guys are awesome. Appreciate that support. All right. Let's get to what's on the bench. I haven't been doing a ton of woodworking because that's what I do now.

Speaker 1:
[02:17] Just goofing off.

Speaker 2:
[02:18] Just goofing off, farting around as they say. Finishing test, I did some of those and I can't really talk about the finish itself and the brand because it's a whole NDA thing, but I did some Mark style tests where I basically just put household crap on the surface and see what happens. That's always fairly enlightening. I had a person actually message me when he saw some of these like ketchup and mustard and wine and Windex and things like that. All these tests are like, do you know if the finishing companies run tests like this? Because a lot of times it's like large chemical companies that are producing these things and you've got the marketing armed and like, at what point are they doing testing? What kind of durability testing are they actually doing with these things? Especially if you're talking about a modern company that's using fairly proven materials, they're just doing their version of it. You like wonder what kind of internal testing they do on stuff like this. And I don't have an answer. I have no idea what these companies are doing. Shannon, do you have any perspective on that? Like, I mean, you see a little bit more on the inside. You do internal testing for your company, but finish wise.

Speaker 3:
[03:25] Well, I've been to a couple of factories. I can't speak to the finishes, but I know materials wise, like lumber, plastics, all the modified woods have been to multiple factories there. There's a lot of testing, but generally, it's not like household products, but it's the, what do you call them? The active ingredients in those products. So instead of ketchup, they use, what's the acid that's in ketchup? I don't know, citric acid? Maybe. Tomatoes? They'll put like three molar citric acid on the surface and rub it around. There's not some guy back there with a ketchup bottle.

Speaker 2:
[04:02] There's a whole case of Heinz over in the corner just for testing.

Speaker 3:
[04:06] Yeah. I've seen like muriatic acid baths. I love the plywood factories where they put it in boiling water for like six days.

Speaker 1:
[04:17] Trying to delaminate it or something?

Speaker 3:
[04:18] Yeah. That's why they call it water boil proof glue because they literally dump it in a tank of salt water.

Speaker 2:
[04:24] That's wild.

Speaker 1:
[04:25] Salt water too?

Speaker 3:
[04:26] Yeah. That's crazy. But as far as finishes, I don't know. You would think like it's one of those things where it's just chemistry, right? Like there is a chemist somewhere who is like, here's what happens when this reacts. And if you put olive oil on it, then what chemical reaction?

Speaker 1:
[04:41] That's the most breaking bad thing you've ever said. It's just chemistry. It's just chemistry.

Speaker 2:
[04:45] It's just chemistry, people.

Speaker 3:
[04:48] Well, you know, some chemists have more teeth than others.

Speaker 2:
[04:50] That's literally what it comes down to. Shannon making that blue ice again. So the other thing I had going on is product. We've got clamp pans. The TruGrip clamp pans are finally back in stock. All the pre-orders have been shipped out. Thank goodness.

Speaker 1:
[05:04] Really? You got all those out?

Speaker 2:
[05:06] Dude, we got it done in three days. Nicole and I, just that's all we did for like 10 hours a day for three days.

Speaker 1:
[05:12] Look at all these cases. And you open the case like, holy crap, look how many are in each box. Like, oh my, oh.

Speaker 2:
[05:18] It was unbelievable. I've never done anything like that before. The closest thing we've done to that was our book pre-order packing parties. Those were pretty intense. But this was something we haven't done in a long time.

Speaker 1:
[05:28] A little bit easier on the wrist this time?

Speaker 2:
[05:29] A little bit, yeah. But I'll tell you, any repetitive task like that, printing labels, ripping the label, you're packing everything very carefully, and we're just being real. We want people to have a good experience when they open these things. So trying to make it nice at the same time. Counting all of these things, they come in packs of 50, but we sold them in packs of 12 or 24. So we're constantly counting and re-stacking. It was such a nightmare, but it was cool to have that experience. It was heartening to see that that many people thought it was a good product and decided to try it and buy it. And the feedback's coming in and it's all pretty good. So excited about that. Preppin Weapons are still flying out of the shop, which boggles my mind. I mean, it's a great product. I just thought everybody had them already.

Speaker 1:
[06:15] You never have enough of them though.

Speaker 2:
[06:16] That's a problem. No, apparently not.

Speaker 1:
[06:18] I mean, it's a weird thing because it's super easy to change the sandpaper on them, but I still don't want to.

Speaker 3:
[06:23] But you don't.

Speaker 2:
[06:24] No, it's just one extra step. If we can have zero extra steps, that'd be great. Yeah, so having those extra colors is great.

Speaker 1:
[06:32] It's like how many routers do you need? I mean, I don't want to change bits. Just have another router for every single bit.

Speaker 2:
[06:39] I got two of those little baby Milwaukee laminate trimmers because one has a straight bit and the other has an eighth inch round over bit. And I don't want to swap them. So yeah, I get it.

Speaker 3:
[06:48] Well, and with sandpaper, doesn't it just become a finer grit as it wears out? So, you know.

Speaker 1:
[06:53] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[06:53] It just depends on the friability.

Speaker 3:
[06:56] You just keep sanding and you work your way through the grits with the same.

Speaker 2:
[06:59] So, interesting thing, though, when I was decided to sell this, I'm looking for some of the marketing materials on Time Shavers. That's the company that makes the Preppin Weapons. Looking for information on what they say about it. Now, first of all, they're really targeting automotive with this product. And I think Woodworking is just kind of like side conversation. But one of the things that they promote is that you could put multiple sheets on there at the same time. Now, I've never done this. I always put a single sheet. And when we ship them, we give you some free sandpaper. And I put six sheets on there. And I clamp them in. And that's how we ship them out. So they will hold multiple sheets. So there is something to it that you still have to unclip them. But you could theoretically put three or four sheets on there.

Speaker 1:
[07:41] Oh, that's a great idea.

Speaker 2:
[07:42] And then just unclip it, take one off.

Speaker 1:
[07:44] That's actually a lot better of an idea for storage. You can take a whole sheet, slice it up and put them all in there. So you don't have these strips just everywhere.

Speaker 2:
[07:51] Yeah, you don't have all the spares, right? So there is something to that.

Speaker 1:
[07:54] Oh, there is some product education here.

Speaker 2:
[07:57] Yeah, and what I don't know for sure, though, is this is part of the same reason why I don't want to... People keep asking for double-sided sandpaper, the backside sandpaper, cut in a preppin weapon format. And my problem is I don't want the grit up against the soft pad that's on there, right? It seems like it's just going to wear that out. So what happens when the grit is facing the backer of the other paper? Is there something over time, or is that all pretty...

Speaker 1:
[08:23] I think you're going to wear the sandpaper out first before you have to worry about the backing getting messed up or the...

Speaker 2:
[08:30] No, and what I'm saying is I'm not worried about the... Yeah, I'm not worried about the pad's rubber if we're talking about putting four sheets and they're all oriented the correct way. I think the rubber is fine. What I'm curious is will that prematurely wear the sandpaper that's in the backer layers? Like, you know, as you're working...

Speaker 1:
[08:46] Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't think it's going to... You're going to wear that sandpaper out long before...

Speaker 2:
[08:50] Before anything happens to the next layer. Yeah, okay, I got you.

Speaker 1:
[08:54] At least that's my unscientific opinion on that.

Speaker 2:
[08:58] Let's try it. Let's see what happens.

Speaker 1:
[09:00] Actually, that's... It's so stupid, but it makes so much sense. I'm like, I don't know why I didn't think of that, just to store them all. Even just from a storage standpoint.

Speaker 2:
[09:08] I didn't think of it?

Speaker 1:
[09:10] Cut them all up all at once. The whole was like four pieces out of a sheet, right? Cut them all, cut all four, and stick them in there. Because I was doing that for all the same-between coats when I did all the painted finishes for the kitchen, I had all these strips just like wherever. And I always lose them and go cut another piece. I take a whole other sheet of sandpaper and slice one off of there.

Speaker 2:
[09:32] Or I would have a bunch of them pre-cut. Less frequently you have to even just deal with it because you cut four. Those four will last you a long time.

Speaker 1:
[09:39] They're there already. I can just keep working and less task switching. But I think there is your comment on being more focused on the automotive industry. There's so many bodywork things that would bleed over really well into woodworking that a lot of us haven't used or experienced before. The foam sanding block things, the contour ones, they got the super long ones for blocking entire body panels. The ones we usually see in woodworking are six inches long, but they make those to 24 inches. So you can have one long block to really feather a curve. So there's a lot of stuff in the automotive space and bodywork specifically that woodworkers would be able to glean quite a lot of utility from.

Speaker 2:
[10:25] I'm going to put a link in here to Shannon for later. So I did a Tools Unleashed video where I had made this discovery, the one you're talking about, Matt, like no one's thought of this. But it's basically the substitute for the flexible sanding strip that a lot of woodworkers will make themselves out of some scraps. Why not? It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But imagine if you could have this foam and different flexible, some of them are more flexible than others, some have a little steel backer. So yeah, it can flex, but it's got its own rigidity and shape to it. They have a ton of these in all different flexibilities, and you buy the rolls of sandpaper for hook and loop, and they are perforated, and you just pull it out, zip, pop that on there, and you're done. I can't imagine making a flexible sanding strip anymore while this stuff exists, and it's existed for a long time. It's just these two worlds didn't talk to each other for most people. So I'll put a link in there if you guys want to see one of these things exactly what Matt was talking about. Not intended for our world, but very, very helpful. Longboard sanding blocks is what they're called, so. Good stuff. All right, Matt.

Speaker 1:
[11:36] I did get my glue roller too, just by the way. Did you? That thing is, I'm really happy. It's heavy. You don't even have to push on it, because it's so heavy in itself.

Speaker 2:
[11:48] I figured you would like it, given our conversations about low-angle jack planes and traditional planes being heavier, you like that extra heft. This is what you're looking for.

Speaker 1:
[11:59] I mean, it feels like an actual tool and not like some toy that I might break, or I'm afraid to drop, or it's a lifetime glue roller.

Speaker 2:
[12:07] Yeah, lifetime glue roller. Which is weird to say out loud. That's what everyone's been asking for. Seriously, decades.

Speaker 3:
[12:14] Somebody finally stepped up.

Speaker 2:
[12:17] So look, all these are available. twwstore.com is where you could find. All these products, they're all in stock. Go get some. Oh, man. Matt, thanks for helping me sell stuff, man. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:
[12:27] That's all I'm here for. Buy a hat, too, while you're at it.

Speaker 2:
[12:30] While you're there. Well, oh my God. Did you guys see what Nicole did with the Girl Scout cookies?

Speaker 1:
[12:36] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[12:37] What, the free cookies?

Speaker 2:
[12:38] Yes. She over buys every year and it drives me crazy because Ava is not that motivated to go out and do the selling, so Nicole sells all the Girl Scout cookies so she can get-

Speaker 1:
[12:48] Oh, I thought she meant to go like-

Speaker 3:
[12:49] Why would she be motivated? Mom sells something. She's not stupid.

Speaker 2:
[12:52] She doesn't have to, right? She still gets the T-shirt and whatever else prizes that the Girl Scouts get, but she over buys. Once again, Girl Scout cookie season ended and we're left with this giant supply of cookies. I love them, but I don't eat them. I might take one or two and I'm trying to be good. I've got a whole diabetes thing to worry about. Trying to behave over here. She was like, well, I'm just going to do a thing where you buy $75 or more, you get some free Girl Scout cookies. That's not just what happened. People would buy stuff and get the cookies, but we had people come in who just, I guess, ran out of cookies and wanted more. So they bought six boxes of cookies. So yeah, so we're doing all these cookie transactions through the store and I'm just like, man, okay.

Speaker 1:
[13:40] The things you get into.

Speaker 3:
[13:41] Right?

Speaker 2:
[13:42] When parenting and business clash.

Speaker 3:
[13:46] You know, every store's got the little impulse aisle. Now they make you walk through a little serpentine thing to get to the registers and there's all this stuff there.

Speaker 2:
[13:55] Makes sense.

Speaker 3:
[13:55] Just on your way to pick up a glue roller and, you know, a piece of walnut. Hey, there's a cookie.

Speaker 2:
[14:01] Why not?

Speaker 3:
[14:01] While you're here. Make people wait long enough, they get hungry on the way, you know? It's perfect.

Speaker 2:
[14:06] Yeah. Well, that's why we make our load times especially slow on the website.

Speaker 1:
[14:10] Great. All right, Matt.

Speaker 3:
[14:13] Is there a plugin for that to make the site especially slow?

Speaker 2:
[14:17] That works, right? I mean, it seems like it's cool.

Speaker 3:
[14:18] I guess just install enough plugins and activate them all.

Speaker 2:
[14:21] While I'm waiting here, let me buy some cookies. All right, Matt, I saw your story, actually. I've come across my feed recently of your installed bench seat thing is looking good and you're just about ready to throw that top on there, right?

Speaker 1:
[14:35] Yeah, I'm getting there. It's been, I'm not looking forward to the edits of those lessons because there's so much like back and forth and like talking about everything needs to be scribed and templated. I've done a lot of built-in stuff before. I've done a lot of scribing before, but this is like the next level where like it's scribed in on three sides, it's scribed into something else. So like you only have one chance to really get it in there on one try. So that's been slow more than anything, but kind of once you get through the methodology of it, you take your time with it, you can get it to go in and have it look really, really sharp and crisp like it's supposed to be there. Cause it's definitely a very different world than the traditional stuff that I'm used to, where like you're in the shop and like, you can make the world perfect. So you're not really worried about like what's going on. But this, you have to kind of suspend your assumptions on how things look or how things should be because nothing is going to be perfect. And you have to like remind yourself that you actually have to like look at what's going on here. I actually understand that like these two things, they're probably not going to be square. Like the, I'm putting this bench between two pillar column things. The columns themselves aren't square. If the column trim has cupped, it's no longer flat. So you can't make a straight cut. Are the two columns coplanar? They're not. They're probably offset and rolled relative to each other. So when you're trying to put something between those two things, you got to think about, okay, which way they are rolled. Can I cut things to like just slide them in from the front? Or is it narrower in the back or wider in the back? I can't actually do that. I got to like tip it in. So there's a lot of analyzing the scenario you're kind of going into and then figuring out what your actual game plan is going to be to get everything in there and looking correct. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[16:30] I think there's a really profound statement in there, especially relating to one of our topics on the show. What was it? Woodworking therapy? What did Matt say? When you're in the shop, you can make the world perfect.

Speaker 1:
[16:41] You can. Absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[16:42] I like that.

Speaker 2:
[16:43] Sometimes.

Speaker 3:
[16:44] I like that.

Speaker 2:
[16:45] Not always.

Speaker 3:
[16:47] That's like a song lyric, man.

Speaker 2:
[16:49] But I think that does highlight how different just building furniture for your own means and stand-alone pieces of furniture, you create the ecosystem. You're creating the outer boundaries of what we're building. If it's slightly off, it's not going to affect anything. But when we were talking about a built-in, it's a different way of thinking, making sure everything fits into a space that's not perfect, but it still needs to look perfect from the outside.

Speaker 1:
[17:12] You got to plan that in the beginning too, because all your parts need to have those areas for scribing. So you're going to cut off later. So everything's got to be bigger than it needs to be. And you got to plan for that ahead of time.

Speaker 2:
[17:23] It's an interesting theme that we accidentally landed on this year. It's like 2026 and the Guild is going to be all about built-ins.

Speaker 1:
[17:29] Well, I'm glad. I was a little worried at first, because two built-in projects, is that really going to compete? But this is so much different than what you did.

Speaker 2:
[17:38] So different. I think all they have in common is that they are technically both built-ins.

Speaker 1:
[17:44] Yes, that's kind of it.

Speaker 2:
[17:45] And also, it's not like we communicated on this, your methodology is probably going to be very different than mine, although it accomplishes the same goal. So I'm looking forward to seeing how you did all this stuff.

Speaker 3:
[17:55] But it's such a common thing. That was like my first major woodworking project was built-in bookshelves. I think every person they start woodworking, eventually a bookshelf, a built-in bookshelf or desk comes their way. It doesn't really get a lot of press. I mean, I can think of maybe two articles in all of my time with reading popular woodworking or wood or fine woodworking that it's come up. Because I think the answer is what you just said. Everybody's got a slightly different methodology and just assume nothing's flat, nothing's square, nothing's go-planar.

Speaker 2:
[18:29] It is one of those things that, I mean, there have been articles in books and certainly videos now about these topics. You got to search for them, but they're there. But not as much as like just regular furniture. It's not as easy to find, but it is super interesting to see how, I just lost my train of thought. I'll let you guys go. I was going to say something really insightful, but it just left my brain as fast as it went in. Now, I was just thinking about, oh shoot, what's his name? Follow him still on Instagram. But like these older school installers and the work that they do, and you always get like a little glimpse, like a little tip here, a little tip there, but you never really see it in the context of a bigger project. And I think that's kind of what's missing and what's helpful about this stuff in the Guild.

Speaker 1:
[19:11] I think this one escalated really quickly, is I think what I talked to you, Marc, about this particular project, I'm like, I don't know if there's enough here to make a full Guild class out of. And this one is going to be longer than the table.

Speaker 2:
[19:27] No kidding.

Speaker 1:
[19:28] More content than the table. I'm like, because there's so much nuance. I'm like, just like as you mentioned, like you don't see it all come together. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna put it all in here. This is every single consideration of making this thing in first of all, like thinking through the whole process before starting and then spending the time in the shop to make things make sense. So when you get to the install, you can actually achieve the goal you're looking for when you get there. And then when you get to the install, working through the entire process to get that thing in there. So the install is actually gonna be three different lessons. The first one, all we really do is get the legs set because the floor isn't flat, it's not level, it's not true. It's going, the legs go against the columns, which aren't perfectly plumb. The floor is not perfectly level, so that angle is not square. Of course. So those get scribed in. Yeah. And they're at different elevations. So one leg is longer than the other one. So there is, just to get the legs in there, just to get your flat foundation is a whole thing in itself.

Speaker 2:
[20:24] Yeah. I also think about the people who typically do this work and that this is more of the guys who are out there just getting the job done, right? And how many of these people are taking the time to come out and make videos about it and explain their process. It's a little bit more or a little bit less obvious that these people have an avenue to go to YouTube and be like, hey, I'm going to tell you all the secrets of scribing and all this. It's not the same as furniture. So it's cool to be able to learn that and then share that information from a top to bottom sort of perspective.

Speaker 1:
[20:54] You can also see like how much more the, I guess the, the level of fitment needs to be even higher in my case, just because I'm going against a white trim. White accentuates everything, like any little gap. The contrast is so stark, just not shadow line, that if it's not like 100%, it looks like it doesn't fit right. So things you can get away with going like wood to wood or like wood to drywall, you can't get away with, with that level of that contrast level.

Speaker 2:
[21:24] I did go with walnut to a lighter color wall, which afforded me just a little bit of flexibility there. Shadow line or, you know, is that just a rolled edge? Like it's a little bit more forgiving, but not by a ton. Hey, Shannon, I'm going to let you go. And then I just, I drank too much water. I got to go pee. So I'm going to let you, you get started on everything. I'll be back.

Speaker 1:
[21:44] Just grab a jug.

Speaker 3:
[21:46] What I love is, is there was really no reason to say that. Like he could have just got up and left.

Speaker 1:
[21:51] I mean, he's done it before. He's disappeared for almost on end.

Speaker 3:
[21:55] I long ago stopped taking offense when Marc takes his headphones off when I start talking. It just kind of just happens now. Yeah, I was handed a beautiful, like genuine mahogany ring box by a coworker. And he said, can you finish this for me? This is for my wedding. I was like, yeah, that's like, wow, that's cool. That's a lot of like pressure. And are you getting married this weekend? Yeah, like, oh my God. Okay, so meanwhile, I had a one day business trip, well, an overnight business trip in the middle of that week. So I'm thinking, okay, let's do this. So I got out my Royal Lac and did a little French polish, which was kind of fun. Like, you know, it's rare. I always have intentions of doing French polish on smaller boxes and things. But by the time I get done, I'm kind of like, nah, it doesn't really need that. You know, it's like, it looks fine with if I'm using shellac. I don't have to like go to that level. But this is a ring box, you know, like it's going to it's going to like set on a shelf forever. So I went with the full on French polish and, you know, followed Vijay Velji's process. I mean, I switched to what's the Royal Lac, right? I don't know, cans on my deck, on my bench here. Yeah, Royal Lac. I couldn't remember what it was called. I had it for so long. But I went, switched to Royal Lac, I don't know, 10 years ago. Kind of, I still have some flakes and stuff that I mix from time to time, but pulled out all the cheesecloth and went full on onto this. I mean, again, it's a small little ring box. So there's really no excuse, like, oh, there's too much surface or anything, guy. But I actually discovered what a royal pain in the butt. Because, like, finish French polishing, it's all about the technique. But when the box is this big, there is no technique. It's just boop and you're done. You know? It's like, you know, so you got to get all six sides, obviously. But it was like, boop, boop, boop, boop, done. I'm like, OK, this is really uneventful. This would have been the most boring French polish video ever because all the technique of gliding it over the surface and packing the, you know, the wad of cotton in there and wrapping it and just all that and boop, done.

Speaker 2:
[24:12] It's one of those things that dramatically changes too on a larger project. It's like, you might be able to do it in a small space, but what happens if you are trying to do a full size desk? You know, OK, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[24:22] That's where it's drying by the time you get to the other side.

Speaker 2:
[24:24] Right. A little bit more difficult.

Speaker 3:
[24:26] So yeah, that was that was fun. On my bench at work, and this is this is a little advertisement, I'm hiring somebody. So I'm going to throw out the little job description out here. I will say first and foremost, I'm sorry, folks, this is an on-site local job. So if you're not interested in working in the Baltimore region, sorry. But my sample coordinator is moving back to Ohio. So it's leaving her position open. And this is a, it's kind of an odd position. It's a little bit of marketing department. You know, if you've got some graphic design chops or just an ability to work in a marketing environment, but ultimately you're fulfilling sample requests. So I'm looking for somebody that actually has some color theory experience, has applied some finish to wood, but not to make it sound super sexy. Like we're talking little blocks of wood, like with finish on it. You know, sometimes they're longer than that, but the big thing is, is we get ourselves in a situation where we do an awful lot of color matching. Architects expect something and they want it to match the trim, or sometimes a builder comes to us and says, this product is specked, I don't want to use that product. Can you match that? There's a lot of that that comes into play. You will probably spend 30 hours a week in the finishing shed applying finish to samples, shipping them out. And you're responsible for getting them out to the customer and, you know, all the fun little tracking numbers and things like that. But the cool part about this is I've gotten the approval to build out a fabrication shop now, because we want to take our sampling game kind of the next level. I've researched laser engravers. I talked to Marc a little bit about a laser engravers. I've tested a few of them. So we're going to bring in an engraver in. I'm going to bring in basically a full wood shop. You know, just think like the benchtop portable wood shop. You know, I'm going to get a 10 inch bandsaw. I don't need big, big tools for this type of thing. But so there's going to be a fair bit of fabrication. Because one of the things that's a difficult thing now when I'm producing a sample is I'm relying upon my mill to produce like the tongue and groove profile. Well, you know, the mill doesn't just like shut down and set up a molder for 8 minutes. You know, it's a 20, 25 minute setup on a molder blade. Give me one sample of this? Yeah, sure. Exactly, yeah. Tomorrow. So we're always like just, well, what do we have off the back of her? Can you add like this board to that profile or whatever? And we do often run into situations where customers want the exact profile and several of them. So they can see the reveal, whether it's a tight line or a nickel gap or whatever. So, but we've got this yard with 7 million board feet of rough sawn lumber.

Speaker 1:
[27:10] We've got this yard like you did.

Speaker 3:
[27:12] And I have no, well, it's so funny because like where there's professional millwork, but like there's no joiner on site. We don't use a joiner for anything.

Speaker 1:
[27:21] It's built into other tools.

Speaker 3:
[27:23] Exactly. Yeah. You know, I've got a quarter million dollar joiner over here.

Speaker 1:
[27:26] What would your head inside of the boulder?

Speaker 3:
[27:29] Seven different spinning heads on it. So I'm gonna, I'm not gonna buy a joiner, but I'm gonna create a joiner plane, a joiner fence and like a router table. I'm gonna bring in a bandsaw, bring in a separate planer. Actually, I already have a 15 inch planer and it's literally under a tarp in the back of the yard. No one's using it. So, you know, I'm hopeful that this person can help us when it comes to developing our next lines, can help us kind of up our game from a fabrication perspective. It's like a mixture of a little bit of woodworking experience, a lot of finishing experience. No question there's a career path there. I don't quite know what it is just yet, but I know it could be a lot of fun. So anybody out there who's looking, interested, just graduating from college even.

Speaker 1:
[28:15] Sounds interesting. It's like everything, every day is a little bit different and you're kind of-

Speaker 3:
[28:19] Oh, totally.

Speaker 1:
[28:20] Getting your own, you're getting to kind of do things on your own a little bit.

Speaker 3:
[28:24] Yeah, there's no question. I mean, you'll be interfacing directly with architecture spec reps and our Salesforce and working with customers to understand what's the color that you're actually looking for. And you get those designers to like, send me six different ones in varying shades. You have to play that line of, yes, I can do that because this is a $20 million project or yeah, no. No, you need 700 feet for a feature wall. So yeah, I mean, and when all else fails, if there's no sampling going on, that's why I'm thinking if they had any kind of eye for design or anything like that, I got a thousand things they can do within the context of marketing and creating boxes that samples can go in, creating cool promotional jackets and samples go in, all kinds of stuff like that. So and you know, if I'm not to put too fine a point on it, I'm not going to be working for 10 more years. I plan to retire pretty soon. So you know, hey, a little bit of heir apparent there. If you do a good job, you're never gonna...

Speaker 2:
[29:25] Hey, do Shannon's job.

Speaker 1:
[29:28] Do Shannon's job.

Speaker 2:
[29:29] That's a good title for the show. Do Shannon's job.

Speaker 3:
[29:32] So yeah, very, very kind of off the cuff. I wasn't sure if I was gonna say this or not, but why not? We got listeners who were into wood and yeah.

Speaker 1:
[29:41] People are always asking about some careers in woodworking fields.

Speaker 3:
[29:44] Yeah, I get that a lot in the lumber update. So I'll just say again, there's no way this job can be done remote. You've got to be there applying, finish and wood. So I will get a thousand. Oh, and I guess if you are interested, just go to mclevane.com, M-C-I-L-V-A-I-N, and there's an employment page there, and you can submit your resume there.

Speaker 2:
[30:03] Nicely done. All right, well, good luck to one and all who apply. The one applicant, is that what you're trying to say? If he gets one, it'll be a freaking miracle from this audience.

Speaker 3:
[30:16] Right, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[30:17] It's worth a shot, though. Why not?

Speaker 3:
[30:18] Hey, you know, the number of requests for quotes we get on our site from, like, where the source cited is, I listen to Wood Talk.

Speaker 2:
[30:25] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[30:25] It's like, nice.

Speaker 2:
[30:26] Nothing wrong with that. All right, let's get to our kickback.

Speaker 3:
[30:28] What is this Wood Talk thing?

Speaker 2:
[30:30] We got three pieces of kick, two, three, yeah, three pieces of kickback here. Von Welch, we talk about him all the time. Big supporter of ours. All the time. Constantly. We were talking about him before we started recording. We'll talk about him after.

Speaker 3:
[30:43] We should see how much we start talking about him.

Speaker 2:
[30:46] So much. He says, I'm proud to report that I've joined the elite club of those who have listened to all the Wood Talk online episodes. I shared this news with various folks in my life and thought that you'd be interested in their reactions. My wife. Wow, I bet even Nicole hasn't done that. The guys at the local Woodworking club. Didn't they quit? The staff at the local Woodcraft. That's great. Hansol Sharpening Supplies are in aisle five. The staff at the local Rockler. Didn't they quit? My wife again a few minutes later. Hey, did you get anything done in the shop while you were doing all that listening? The nurse at my doctor's office that explains things. Some guys at a bicycling hub that I ran to in a bar. That's awesome. We love those guys. Thanks for all the entertainment and come to think of it. Yeah, I didn't get much done. So there you go, a rousing endorsement from Von Welch for listening to the entire catalog, if you so dare.

Speaker 1:
[31:40] I was hoping that nurse was going to go somewhere different.

Speaker 3:
[31:43] Yeah, F.

Speaker 2:
[31:43] Shannon.

Speaker 3:
[31:44] I was afraid.

Speaker 2:
[31:46] Missed opportunity, Von. Yeah. Next time. You'll get him next time. All right, Matt, you got the next one.

Speaker 1:
[31:51] All right, this is from Joel. In a recent episode, you guys gave some advice to my question about purchasing a planer. Well, Amazon helped me make your advice my reality. The DW735 with extension tables and a spare set of blades popped up for $522 in the big spring sale. At that price point, how could I not follow your advice? It's now sitting in my shop, ready and willing to make my boards thinner. You guys are awesome. Keep up the knitting, the quitting and the extolling the virtues of woodcraft.

Speaker 3:
[32:24] That's a good deal. Isn't that like a $600 planer, like $599 alone? That's awesome.

Speaker 2:
[32:30] Yeah. Go Amazon sometimes. Go Amazon.

Speaker 3:
[32:35] This is from Wayne at Goosewoodworking. He says, guys, sending you an email with some kickback for episode 604 when you were talking about sanding disks. I have one of the Mike Farrington double tapered sandy disks and it's pretty amazing for running a lot of rails and styles through for edge sanding. The two degree taper on the disk gives a perfect entry point into the moving disk while using your fence so that it doesn't burn or get jammed up while trying to enter the space between the fence and the disk. In case anybody's not sure what he's talking about, we're asking about sanding on the table saw, replacing your blade with a sanding disk. So that's what he's referring to when he says between the fence and the disk.

Speaker 2:
[33:13] And I think the key factor with Farrington's design is that two degree taper. So as you're putting it in, you are not immediately contacting the sandpaper surface. You're kind of working your way into it. So, because you can imagine if you put a piece of sandpaper on the end of a blade as the wood hits it, that first little edge on the sandpaper is going to take a whole lot of abuse. But if you give it a little bit of taper, you could see how that would kind of promote, you know, not burning and just the nice smooth sanding operation.

Speaker 3:
[33:41] Seems like it would help on the exit as well.

Speaker 2:
[33:43] Uh-huh, yeah. You would think. So pretty cool stuff. Thanks for that feedback, Wayne. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about our sponsor.

Speaker 3:
[33:51] How do you say it like that? Wayne. Wayne.

Speaker 2:
[33:54] I don't know. It's a Wayne's World reference. I don't know. We dropped a Wayne's World reference in a video on Friday, and I don't know how many people in the audience even caught it, like, or know what it is. I don't know anymore. I don't know who our audience is anymore.

Speaker 3:
[34:07] I don't have a glue roller, let alone a need for a rack.

Speaker 2:
[34:11] So that's what was on my mind when I said Wayne. Just Wayne. All right. Let's get into something here about Woodcraft. You know, the theme this month, I believe, is woodturning. You guys know more about this than I do. I own a lathe, but I don't use it. It just sits there. I wax it once in a while. But it is the perfect time to check out Woodcraft for everything that you need to get started, including lathes, turning tools, chucks, finishes, pen kits, blanks. Just about any turning accessory that you can think of. Now, easy wood tools, mid-sized turning tools are 15% off this month. Looking at the flyer, there's a couple other things in here. You got those three-piece gardening tool turning set. If you want to turn the handles on stuff, this is your opportunity.

Speaker 1:
[34:55] A glue roller.

Speaker 2:
[34:56] A glue roller.

Speaker 3:
[34:58] I got to tell you, those gardening tools, great Mother's Day gift. I got some serious Mother's Day kudos points like, I don't know, five years ago. She still uses them.

Speaker 2:
[35:08] That's awesome.

Speaker 3:
[35:09] This is my mother-in-law, obviously, for people who know that my mother passed this year.

Speaker 2:
[35:14] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[35:16] I could just see somebody writing in going, you said that she's still using them. You jerk, you lied on the show.

Speaker 2:
[35:21] Seriously. Settle down, people.

Speaker 1:
[35:23] You like to lie about things like that.

Speaker 3:
[35:25] Seriously, right?

Speaker 2:
[35:27] He just thinks it's funny.

Speaker 3:
[35:28] That much of a monster.

Speaker 2:
[35:29] Good, innocent fun. Anyway, there's a bunch of other stuff on sale related to turning and all the tools and supplies that you could possibly need over there. If you want to build your skills along with your tool collection, Woodcraft also offers classes and educational resources to help you become a better turner. We're going to put a link in the notes to a video and article that is talking about choosing a lathe set up. Maybe you're just getting started and you don't know. Do you want to go mini, full size? What size do you need for the things you want to make? Then there's also another... What's that, Shannon?

Speaker 3:
[36:03] Matt sized.

Speaker 2:
[36:04] Matt sized or Shannon sized? No pole lathes, though, unfortunately. There's also an article we're going to link to for essential lathe work holding methods, because I think that's maybe one of the things that's a bit of a surprise when you get into turning is how many devices, chucks, and methodology for keeping this stuff safely on the lathe. That's a whole...

Speaker 1:
[36:25] Oh yeah, you'll learn that one quickly.

Speaker 2:
[36:27] It's a whole little rabbit hole that you can get into. All right, so whether you're making bowls, pens, pepper mills, or just making a giant pile of shavings, which is what I like to do, head over to woodcraft.com, see what they got, make sure you use the code WT2026 at checkout, and I'm pretty sure that is not gonna work with sale items, so keep that in mind. And you can find out more at woodcraft.com.

Speaker 1:
[36:47] Everything's a sale item with that code. What are you talking about?

Speaker 2:
[36:50] There's never not a sale when you have that code. Process of elimination.

Speaker 1:
[36:55] You just gotta frame it better, Marc.

Speaker 2:
[36:57] Ah man, I gotta get better at this. One of these days, I'll figure this job out. Alright, let's get into our questions. Well yeah, we are due to quit. Everyone keeps reminding me I should be moving now. I'm in that window of time that I'm supposed to move. I don't want to though. My back hurts a little bit. Okay, I got a interesting question. This one was one that until he put a spin on there that he needed an answer. I just thought this was something that would be an internal email. But I think it is good to talk about this. So Hamilton wrote in, he said, I just wanted to reach out and let you know that I had to pause my Patreon sub due to a job loss. First of all, let me just say, if anyone supports us on Patreon, never feel obligated to let us know why. You should be able to come and go as you please. We don't, not as a policy, but just as a form of laziness, I suppose, we don't even look at who leaves. We look at who comes in, we don't look at who goes.

Speaker 1:
[37:55] Oh yeah, I don't announce your name if you leave. You don't get any extra bonus.

Speaker 2:
[37:59] Could you imagine? Maybe we should add that. We could have a show like a guilt trip.

Speaker 3:
[38:02] Oh my God. Nice people. That could actually work for this show. Those of us who quit this month, let's honor those who quit this month. That actually works for our brand.

Speaker 2:
[38:13] We are big fans of quitting. Why not celebrate it?

Speaker 3:
[38:16] I love that.

Speaker 1:
[38:17] I mean, I guess.

Speaker 3:
[38:18] It's a terrible business model, but sure.

Speaker 1:
[38:20] We can try it, I guess.

Speaker 2:
[38:22] You got to sign up to be able to quit. So, I mean, we're getting it on the front end. I don't know. This is a genius plan.

Speaker 1:
[38:29] I hated it at first, but I kind of like it now. I kind of like it a lot.

Speaker 3:
[38:34] I think we need to jingle on everything. This is great.

Speaker 1:
[38:36] Oh, boy.

Speaker 2:
[38:37] Well, we'll have to talk about this later.

Speaker 3:
[38:39] Since Hamilton brought it up, we could pirate some stuff from Lin-Manuel Miranda. Just change a few notes.

Speaker 1:
[38:45] Oh, good. Yeah. Sure.

Speaker 2:
[38:46] Well, AI can do that for us. No problem.

Speaker 3:
[38:49] All right.

Speaker 2:
[38:50] Anyway, back to Hamilton's serious issue here. So, he's asking about, or he mentioned that he had to stop because of a job loss. Epic Games.

Speaker 3:
[39:00] Sorry, Hamilton, we're totally making fun of this.

Speaker 2:
[39:03] Yeah, we threw a joke in the middle of a serious email. Apologies for that.

Speaker 3:
[39:07] That's awful.

Speaker 2:
[39:08] Anyway, Epic Games. You guys familiar with Epic Games? They do Fortnite. They had a major layoff recently. I guess he was a part of that. He says, I'll be back though. I just need to put Woodworking on hold for a while while I look for something new. Just didn't want you all to think that I was anything or that it was anything with the content. I'll be back. Maybe one last question. He says, how do you get out into the workshop when you're going through something devastating like a job loss? Thanks for everything. So that's what turned that into something that I thought was worthy of discussing on the show. So I've never had the job loss thing to deal with. I've certainly had family challenges to deal with where my shop was a bit of a meditative place for me to go that felt like a safe space for me to just go and recharge my batteries. Just thinking more broadly on this and trying to give Hamilton some decent advice. I think first thing, it's okay to acknowledge that your situation sucks right now. I don't think you need to put a whole lot of pressure on the shop to bail you out of that or to feel pressured to go in there at all. I think you should maybe set your goal to just be, maybe have no goal in particular at all, go into the shop, do a little sweeping, some vacuuming, some organizing, sharpen a few blades, real low risk, low pressure, low stress tasks that you may be only be in there for 20 or 30 minutes. Just give yourself a little bit of a break. Give your brain some room to breathe. You don't have to get too crazy with it, but I think the idea here is you want to set the stage for being able to return to the shop at some point soon with bigger tasks that you could focus on because I think where you want to get to is the stuff where Woodworking as a meditation and the way this works for people with PTSD that utilize Woodworking is that you're keeping your hands so busy that your brain has no choice but to focus on the thing you're doing and that laser focus is a form of meditation. It's a mindfulness where you really don't have room to think about the other stuff that's in your brain and I use this all the time. That's why the shop is to me so much of a part of my recharging of my batteries is because I can't think about all the other crap stirring around in my dumb brain that I can't shut those voices off. When I'm in the shop and I'm focusing on a hand, especially if we talk about hand tools in particular, they give you... You just don't have any choice. You have to focus on the dexterity, your body English, what's happening with the blade. There's so much focus there that's so healthy for your brain. I think once you get back to that point, you'll find that solace that you'll be able to take when you get into the shop. Who knows? It's those times when you clear your mind that new ideas come about so that as you're in there getting that work done, your brain is focused, you may go, oh wait a minute, something related to the job market or an idea of where you can go from this point. Answers can sometimes come from those moments. And Shannon, I know you probably can relate to this as well with exercise. A lot of times, exercise is one of those things where I can't really focus on anything but that thing I'm doing, because I'm dying going up this hill. This is all I can focus on right now. And you give yourself, you're kind of clearing your cash, your brain cash a little bit so that you have a little bit more bandwidth to solve the problems that you're dealing with. So I don't know if you guys have any additional input for Hamilton here.

Speaker 3:
[42:22] I would, I mean, I like the idea of going in and kind of tidying up the shop, but I would actually urge you to, to like cut a dovetail. You know, if it's a two-tailed dovetail, three, I always say cut a three-tailed dovetail. Everybody can cut a two-tailed dovetail. But like, it's, it's, it's engaging. Sweeping is not really engaging. Your mind can wander. That could be good for you. But if you need, like Marc's saying, to kind of get into a bit of a flow state, I like that clear the cache a little bit. Cutting dovetails, like you just grab two boards and a saw, you know, and you could cut three or four of them. You could cut one, you know, five, 20 minutes, but it's, it's really engaging. There's really no way to hand cut a dovetail on autopilot. I don't care who you are. Frank Klaus, maybe, maybe could cut it on autopilot, but you're focused on the line. And what side of the line am I cutting on? Even laying out a dovetail could be really good. And it's one of those things that could also be like with working out, where I succeed in working out is when I have quantitative measurement. I can see my FTP has gone up by X watts or whatever. You could put that dovetail on the shelf and you could cut a dovetail every day during that layoff period or whatever. And then when you get that new job again, you can look back and see, look how much better my dovetails got. Some progress. It's this progressive thing and Marc's absolutely right. You will be focused, but like that whatever subconscious thing will be running in the background and you'll suddenly walk in and go, oh, I forgot to put this on my resume. Oh, I should call this guy that I worked with 20 years ago or something along that line.

Speaker 2:
[43:59] I think one of the most dangerous things that we can do is when we are struggling over these things. I have this with health fears and anxiety that just builds and builds and builds. You spend so much time focusing on things that are out of your control or things that haven't happened yet, catastrophizing and just think about the worst-case scenario. That is such an unhealthy state for your brain to stay in for long periods of time. Anything you can do to just literally replace, again, I think in terms of computer references here, but fill up the cache and your RAM with other things so that that bad stuff doesn't have any real estate. Focus on that stuff and then flush it out. Then sometimes you just find answers because you haven't been, the last few hours, focused on the crap of the situation.

Speaker 3:
[44:49] I definitely wouldn't go play Fortnite.

Speaker 2:
[44:52] That might not, yeah, there might be a little bit of bad blood there.

Speaker 3:
[44:55] Maybe a competitor's game?

Speaker 1:
[44:57] There you go.

Speaker 2:
[44:58] Unfortunately, there's nothing that competes with Fortnite on that level. I mean, there's games that are good, but Fortnite is just a monster.

Speaker 1:
[45:05] So this happened to me and the job loss is a direct result of why I'm here today talking to you guys.

Speaker 2:
[45:12] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[45:12] There you go.

Speaker 2:
[45:13] Right.

Speaker 1:
[45:13] So I don't think that what happened to me or what the outcome for me is what you're looking for, but I can tell you this much, when I did get laid off, it was not a great time in my life to fret to happen, I don't think it happens in a great time for most people's lives, but we had just found out that we're going to have JR, so I'm like, oh, my wife's pregnant, and then it's almost Christmas and now I lost my job.

Speaker 2:
[45:36] Oh, man.

Speaker 1:
[45:37] So it was like all at once, and I had to come to terms with the introspection of like, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? I'm really fortunate that it happened at the time it did, because it happened earlier in my career, early in my life, and I got to spend some time away from work, or air quotes work, the job stuff, and really think about the future that I wanted to build for myself, for my family, and the shop actually gave me this nice way to kind of get away from all that and think through things and really help me realize that I really enjoy like wood stuff, and I want to find some way to make that my career, make my passion into my career, and it kind of led me down this road. I don't think that's what I'm not telling you to do that. I'm just saying like that's just kind of what happened to me.

Speaker 2:
[46:25] It sounds like Hamilton has a real skill set, so he might want to use that.

Speaker 1:
[46:29] I understand that he's obviously very talented. He's got a lot more going for him than I ever did.

Speaker 3:
[46:37] He's not quite ready to give up on life yet.

Speaker 2:
[46:39] I mean, let's call that the fail safe option.

Speaker 3:
[46:42] A woodworking hermit.

Speaker 2:
[46:43] Option C.

Speaker 1:
[46:43] Option C was down there. But anyway, I went through it. It was a hard decision to make and decide like, I'm going to go from like, okay, I can have a job tomorrow, presumably and have the same or better income that I was having, or I can start from nothing.

Speaker 2:
[47:02] So this might be hard to remember at this point. How long did it take before you felt like this was, or like, did you give yourself a window of time? And we're getting way off of Hamilton's situation here, but I'm just curious for my own reasons that you sort of, did you give yourself an amount of time to make a certain amount of revenue from this that you would consider it viable, both you and your wife thinking about your future?

Speaker 1:
[47:24] Yeah. The way that we approach it wasn't quite concrete like that. We approach it as, well, we're going to have to pay for child care for our child anyway, so it's going to be your responsibility to deal with that. However, that happens and works out, whether you do it yourself and you give up on this, or you make enough money to pay for that because we had to obviously figure out our own finances and figure out how we can go from a two-income household to basically one. And just we're getting way off the tangent here, but we found out how to do that, how to live on only her revenue, her income, and we stayed that way even as our business grew. So the reason I was able to grow my business so much is because I never took a paycheck from the business. Everything stayed with the business and continues to be rolled into it to allow it to grow, because we found out how to live off of that one income. But that's obviously way off of where we're going with this.

Speaker 3:
[48:19] But I mean, it's a useful message, I could say.

Speaker 1:
[48:22] Also, different economy back then.

Speaker 3:
[48:24] Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 2:
[48:25] Everything was very different.

Speaker 1:
[48:27] What was this? 2014, so 2014, 2015, very different than now.

Speaker 3:
[48:33] But we are goldfish. We grow into the size of the space that we have around us. If you've got two incomes, you live with the two income, and then you're forced to...

Speaker 1:
[48:42] We absolutely did at that time. So there were some lifestyle changes.

Speaker 3:
[48:47] And I think there's a lot of stories out there where this happens, and then you end up better off. Had I not been laid off, I wouldn't have come to work in the lumber business. And this combining my two loves into one, I've never been happier in that respect. If I were still in IT, I don't think I would say that. Probably would have been laid off, actually. So yeah, no thank you.

Speaker 1:
[49:06] All right.

Speaker 2:
[49:07] Well, hopefully that gives you a little bit of guidance, Hamilton, and I wish you the best of luck working that situation out. Matt, you're up next.

Speaker 1:
[49:14] Oh boy. Okay. This should be a little less deep. This is from Mike. Mike says, I had a white oak tree cut and processed into boards and slabs in May 2025. I plan to make a Roubo-esque bench from them. They're currently stickered, covered in air drying outside in Southwest Virginia. He's basically got individually cut pieces for the top and the legs are three and a half inches thick and a bunch of other boards for other stuff. He says, the swords wonders how dry Roubo's components were before he assembled his into benches. Have you guys made up your minds on when it's safe to build this bench? And I have two kind of trains of thought with this. I think it just depends on the way that you approach woodworking and your workbench. The first is going to be, I think, the least common. It's going to be the person who views the workbench as a utilitarian thing, that's a living tool, in which case you can build it whenever you want. Just expect that it's going to move around on you and you'd be happy and fine with flattening it as you go. The other, which I think is categorically the larger group of people, are the people that want a workbench that is flat. It's going to be true. It's never going to move and be perfect forever. So I think you decide which camp you're in. That's going to depend on what answer you can end up at. Because if you go and build the bench now, which you totally can, it will work. It will support your workpieces. It will not fall apart. You'll be able to chop and chisel and saw on it without any problem with the functionality in it. But just keep in mind that it's probably going to move around a little bit. You're going to see some changes in the size of things. If you're doing a split top, your gap size is probably going to change as your top slabs shrink in width as they dry. Does that matter to you? If you're front face of your bench, where your legs plan out with your top, that will probably end up with some kind of step there, probably a seam change there over time. Do you care? Does it matter to you that you're going to have to continuously work on this bench or not? The only caveat to this is that this being White Oak and having that much moisture in it, don't leave your tools sitting overnight on it. Anything that's iron will stain your bench top, and you'll probably end up rusting your tools. That's the only functionality thing that I would worry about here. But otherwise, pick which camp you're in, build it now, build it later. Just go into it with realistic expectations, I think. Otherwise, you'd be waiting probably only five years.

Speaker 3:
[51:46] I think it's interesting how the BenchMarket has shifted almost exclusively to wide slab tops now, whether it's split or not, it's two slabs. When I built mine, it's laminated, it's turned on edge, it's a bunch of eight-quarter boards. When you build it that way, sucker's not going to move. I don't care how wet it is. It really doesn't.

Speaker 1:
[52:07] Mine moved. Mine moved a bunch.

Speaker 3:
[52:09] All right. Well, I don't know what I'm talking about. Thanks a lot. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[52:11] So much for that. I just stepped on a-

Speaker 1:
[52:14] Mine needs to be flat and it's got this serpentine thing as you go from front to back.

Speaker 2:
[52:18] Generally speaking, Shannon's, that holds true, that if you have a laminated top-

Speaker 3:
[52:23] You're kind of making plywood, you know? I mean, you're laminated a bunch of things together. Now, certainly if you've got some grain variation, mine is all, you know, the quartered faces are all up. But even then, like, I would even, so certainly there's going to be more movement with a wider slab, but I don't know. I'm in the first camp, Matt, like just build it. Like it may be green. I do not care that the front leg is square to the top. I don't care either. It's leaning a little bit as the top has shrunk. Why do I care? Like, why does that need to be square? Why do I ever reference that as a square edge? Never. So, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[53:00] A lot of people, for whatever reason, want that to be perfect. They want a lot of things on the bench to be perfect, which is, I mean, have you talked to some of the people that, like, listen to the show? They're very detail-oriented and very like, I need it perfect. There can't be any variation.

Speaker 3:
[53:15] Most of the people who listen to the show are better woodworkers than me, so I just don't really.

Speaker 1:
[53:19] There's that too. I mean, sure, now you mentioned it.

Speaker 2:
[53:23] Glad you said it. All right, I think you're up, Shannon.

Speaker 3:
[53:29] Yep. So Steven wrote in, he says, I'm working on a Death Star wall light box.

Speaker 1:
[53:35] Cool.

Speaker 2:
[53:35] Interesting.

Speaker 3:
[53:36] Please send us pictures when you're done. I want to see that. I stacked all the oversized boards that are the sides on my workbench. All the plywood is final width, but only a few inches too long. My brother thought I was okay to put a chainsaw on the pile. Oil leaked out of the saw and got all over the pile. I don't live with my parents, so the saw was on there a while due to getting the flu. So I guess he's building this at his parents' house. Okay. I'm painting the project, but don't know what to do now. Do I buy new plywood or can I save the wood? No, don't buy new plywood. So you're painting it, thank goodness. So great, you've got, and certainly the oil, depending on how deep it went in. I mean, if it's really crappy plywood, I still don't think it would de-lam the ply. What you're worried about is an oil stain, like finding its way through the paint. So what you're dealing with, yeah, certainly. The paint de-lamming, do we call that de-lamming when the paint peels off? I don't know, paint failing. So first thing I would do is grab yourself a little bit of good old-fashioned Dawn soap detergent. You know, the stuff that they used to clean the little ducks and things with during an oil spill. Little bit of Dawn, maybe-

Speaker 2:
[54:53] Most people use it for dishes though, Shannon.

Speaker 3:
[54:56] Well, I use it for cleaning ducks, Marc, because I'm not a monster.

Speaker 2:
[54:59] I mean, that's a good use, I'm just saying. There is a more common one that people might relate to.

Speaker 3:
[55:03] All right, fair enough. Point is, it removes oil from little baby ducks, so it can probably remove oil from your plywood. You can even take it straight out of the bottle in pure concentrated form and just put a little dab on there and grab some sandpaper, and just sand it, massage it into the wood, and pull some of that oil out of the surface, and then wipe it down with a damp rag, get the soap off of there. We're not trying to saturate it, douse the whole thing. You're just pulling out some of that oil. And then lay down a seal coat. Shellac is fantastic for this. If you were to, if somebody smoked in an apartment and they've got to come in and repaint the walls and get rid of the smell, they use a shellac-based paint. Shellac is a universal binder, sticks to everything, seals in smells, all that fun stuff, and it'll help you lay down a little bit of protective barrier over that oil that will prevent adhesion issues with the paint that's over top of it. And ideally, any possible pigmentation that you'd have to apply more and more coats of paint to get around that, the shellac should help seal some of that up as well. But you could probably put shellac straight on top of it, but I would recommend trying to clean some of that oil off the surface with dish detergent.

Speaker 2:
[56:21] And I think there's also, aren't there different primers that are gonna be shellac-based, like Zinsser's primers? So, I mean, you could always start with that as something that actually has a shellac-based primer intended for exactly what you're talking about, a smoke-filled apartment or surfaces that just have some kind of staining. And then you're, at least your primer coat is going on with pigment that's putting you closer and closer to layering with whatever color you're using. All right, I think it's gonna do it for us guys. Can't believe we did another show.

Speaker 3:
[56:52] Did another one.

Speaker 2:
[56:53] After all these years, we got it done. All right, well, remember the show is made possible, by the generous contributions of our Patreons. That's at patreon.com/woodtalk, as well as our friends at Woodcraft. There's always something cool going down at your local store, so be sure to check that website at woodcraft.com.

Speaker 1:
[57:10] Oh, did you know Mother's Day is coming up?

Speaker 2:
[57:13] What? What?

Speaker 1:
[57:14] Better keep that in mind, never not forget.

Speaker 2:
[57:16] Yeah. Here's a reminder.

Speaker 1:
[57:18] Here we go. Their Mother's Day street market, that's May 2nd from 9 to 2, that's in the Greenville store. You can meet, meet, yeah, meet local makers and creatives showcasing their skills and treasures. And for some classes at the Atlanta store, there's the Mother's Week of Classes, May 2nd through the 7th. They're gonna make a Budvay's colorful coasters, a small bowl and a sushi set. And Marc sent me the flyer for this, and I'm not entirely sure if this is geared more like come make a gift for your mom or bring your mom with you and make a gift with her, which you could do either one, it kind of seems like.

Speaker 2:
[57:55] I mean, the picture seems to indicate that there are a child and a mother situation going on there.

Speaker 3:
[58:01] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[58:01] There is that.

Speaker 3:
[58:02] Hopefully that lady isn't spinning, because that looks very unsafe. She should take her hand off the scales.

Speaker 1:
[58:06] They're kind of gleaming at how great this pen blank looks all turned up.

Speaker 2:
[58:10] Well, see, now you're gonna have to put this in the notes, Shannon, so that everybody can see what we're talking about. But mom's real happy. She's like, look at that pen, honey. She's like, you see that wood grain? There's no oil on there. You don't even need to put shellac on that.

Speaker 1:
[58:25] It doesn't say bring your mom. It says bring your creativity and make something beautiful.

Speaker 3:
[58:29] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[58:30] All right. Well, we'll have to figure that out.

Speaker 1:
[58:32] Moms are optional, but encouraged.

Speaker 2:
[58:36] Exactly.

Speaker 3:
[58:36] It's highly recommended you give her the things you make.

Speaker 2:
[58:39] For Mother's Day, right.

Speaker 1:
[58:41] The actual thing or the experience of making the thing with you. Take your pick.

Speaker 2:
[58:45] Okay. Well, it sounds like a good time.

Speaker 3:
[58:49] I agree.

Speaker 2:
[58:49] I think it will be fun.

Speaker 3:
[58:50] So, you know, grab your moms, grab your Easywood tools, whatever it is.

Speaker 1:
[58:55] Grab someone's mom, whatever.

Speaker 2:
[58:56] Any mom is fine.

Speaker 3:
[58:57] Any mom, just go down to the corner and say, hey, any mother's here, come with me. That'll work. And let us know how it went. Please. You know, this show relies upon your questions, whether it's about oil stains or mothers or getting back into the shop. We will take all questions from therapy to mothers or therapy because of mothers. Or I don't know, one of the two. I'm going to shut up before I get myself in trouble. Send your questions to woodtalkshow.com. There's a contact form there, or just email us woodtalkshow at gmail.com. Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[59:30] Great. Well, thank you for listening, everybody. And we will catch you next time.

Speaker 1:
[59:34] Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 3:
[59:36] Goodbye.

Speaker 1:
[59:37] Enjoy your moms.