The Joiner's Bench
“Welcome to The Joiner’s Bench — stories, skills, and conversations from the heart of the woodshop. I’m Steven, founder of The Joinery, and every other week I’ll be here sharing reflections, lessons, and stories from inside the shop. Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been working with your hands for years — this is your bench too.”
The Joiner's Bench
So Many Ways Into Woodworking
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Welcome and intro
SPEAKER_01Hey, welcome to the Joiners Bench. I'm Steven. And I'm Alex. And we're just two guys talking about woodworking in craft.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and this week I wanted to take a little bit of a step back and have that beginner point of view. Like, what kinds of things can I get into with woodworking?
SPEAKER_01Oh man. Besides trouble. Yeah, and that's yeah, that's one of them, but there's so, so many. So yeah. Well, before we get into that, and we'll get into that in our main segment,
What's on our Bench
SPEAKER_01let's let's talk about what we've been doing in the workshop. Do you want to you have have you been able you've been busy, I know.
SPEAKER_00So I've been out of the workshop. I don't know that I really got anything done since the last recording. And that happens. Yeah. It was I volunteer on the photo video lead at a music festival. So that was like five or six days of 20-hour days, just go, go, go. And I think I'm finally recovering from that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now you can make frames for all those photos you took.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I, on the other hand, probably made up for both of us because I have been in the shop working on a lot of things. Uh, one of them is sitting here on the table. My my youngest son, Simon, has been making an electric guitar. And so myself, as long as as well as a couple of our other members that are luthers here have been been helping on. And it's it's been an experiment, experience. It's something new for me. The precision involved in that, and we're going to talk about that later on in our disciplines. The precision level in this is not extremely high, but it's higher than just normal crafting. And because everything affects the tonality of the guitar and all that kind of fun. So this is going to be an electric stratocaster type thing. And I guess these days you can't say that because Fender will sue you.
SPEAKER_00So if you were looking at this, it would look a lot like one of those, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_01Right. Right. It's a simulation of it. But yeah, it's going to be really nice when he's done with it. But that's been keeping us a little bit busy. And then my project is I think we talked about it last time, making a new dining room table. And I've got the base just about all glued up and I'm ready to start milling the top. And that's something that I'm going to be working on and trying. We have a new sander that's 25 inches wide, a new wide belt sander that's 25 inches wide. So I think I'm going to make it in two halves, be able to sand those down and then have to do the final glue up together. But that'll be an interesting thing. So yeah, we've been uh we've been in the shop quite a bit. I've been 3D printing a lot of things. Yeah, we moved our how home about a month and a half ago, and so there's been all kinds of stuff crop up that you have to do all those little things.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Like, how do we keep our silverware set in this bigger drawer than we had before? Exactly. Where how can I hang my my anything by the door? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Those all those little things that just pop up. It's just it's crazy. And some of them are quick and easy. You can just knock them out, and some of them are like, hmm, I need to think about that a little bit. But yeah, so so that's been fun. I've I've been loving actually doing projects for myself now, even if it's and especially working with my kid, and he'll be going off to college this fall, so it is a good time to be together.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. And it looks like I mean, I'm looking at the guitar now, it looks really cool and exciting, and it makes me want to try and make a guitar. And and it's actually it's not well, we haven't hit that.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if we've hit the hard parts yet, but it's not as bad as it seems. It's just it's a little scary because of the precision you have to do. But what we're finding is once you find the right tool for the job, it's it's simple. So it's it's been really good. And uh, we'll put some pictures of that up on the website when we when we get done with it. It'll be one of the things in our Discord for our members. There's already I saw that Eric, one of our luthers here, just posted a guitar that he's been making and and and it is gorgeous. It is a wonderful thing.
SPEAKER_00So
Woodworking disciplines explained
SPEAKER_00but that leads into our main segment. Yeah, there's just so many things that it seems like you can get into kind of a where to start. Can you can you just explain some of the disciplines or specialties that someone getting into woodworking might come across? Yeah, it is vast.
SPEAKER_01And yet it's not. It kind of starts with four basics. You've got your carpentry. So that's that's the rough you know, oftentimes you'll hear it called rough carpentry. That's like the framing of a house, the the um you know jungle gym in the backyard. Right, exactly. And and and what I like to think about these things is like part of it is the precision level that it takes to do things. So and I don't think I don't think carpenters will argue with me about this. The precision work in rough carpentry is rough. It's it's we're talking an eighth to a quarter of an inch precision, and that's probably pretty tight for most of them. It's the it's to take the portable chop saw, put it out on a deck, and then whack it away, right? And then that leads into the traditional style of joinery, which is not like the word for the joints. It's it's actually uh a name of a craft, which was considered kind of the the mill work that we consider today. It's kind of like the trim, the door frames, the windows. Okay, back when all that kind of wood was wood and made out of wood. So it went went carpenter, joiner. Okay, and then and the joiners kind of crept in the later, and I'm talking in the 1700s, right? So not way, way back, but not but here in the US, the joiners kind of crept into what we call cabinet making today, which is the other one, which is kind of like the the and the reason it did is because a joiner was considered doing any woodworking or millwork that was attached to the building. Okay. And that and that that day, that time, it was like the cabinets were built into the building, right? So it just became like trim work to them. They hand cut each piece to go into the house or the storefront or whatever they were doing. So joiners were kind of like they crossed over in the cabinet makers. And then it got even blurry because then cabinet makers, the name cabinet maker, it was really what we call furniture makers today. Okay. And furniture makers or cabinet makers were the ones that made the cabinets, the chest of drawers, the kitchen hutches, the dining room tables, but then even went into the chairs and things like that. So, yeah, you had your carpenters, you had your joiners, your cabinet makers. And then even at the time, there was like the fine furniture makers who made more the fancy furniture that mostly was made in Europe and then moved over here. Those standalone pieces is what I'm gathering. Right, right. The the Dutch cabinets, the things like that, those are those types of things. But today, modern, then so that's everything kind of can group into that, right? And group into those four things. And but when you get into each one of those things, there is obviously subdivisions of what's in there, right? And you know, we haven't even talked about wood turning yet, which isn't even in there. Marquetry, parquetry, those types of things. So the you can specialize, you can you can jump on one thing and do it really, really well in woodworking, or you can broaden and kind of be a jack of all trades, which is kind of what I've done. I've done a little bit of turning, I've done pin making, I've done spoon carving. Oh, and we haven't even talked about the carving end of it, right? You've got relief carving and you've got spoon carving, and just you know, letter carving is a whole craft on its own as well.
SPEAKER_00The sign making, I know, is yeah, very easy to take for granted or to just totally not think of it within the craft. But it's it's a definitely a skill, right?
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's and it's a it's a thing. I've got a list here that I made when we said we were gonna talk about it, but we just talked about well, that reordered my list. You know, we talked about marketry. Oh, windsor chair making or chair making in general is one. And we talked about letter and relief carving boxes, you know, just making small jewelry boxes and things like that. Segmented turning. So once you get into turning, then you can get into things like are you doing bowls? Are you doing greenwood turning? Are you doing pin making, which is a whole craft on its own? So I think that's what I like about this this craft is that you can take it anywhere you want. And then, you know, we've we've mentioned Luthery a couple a couple times for those that don't know what that is. It's guitar making or musical instrument making. I think a luthier, I could be wrong on this. Somebody will probably correct me, but I believe a Luther Luther is anyone who makes a resonant instrument. Okay.
SPEAKER_00I've heard it for like violins. I've heard the term for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, violins, upright basses, you know, but I think I think it's like all the craft it's expanded, and sometimes I've even I've heard people that make custom wooden drums are called ears as well. Oh so there is that. And then there is what we started the conversation with is your basic home shop projects and repair, right? Which is considered a trait as well. So that's kind of the big picture, yeah. Which may be more confusing now than it was before.
SPEAKER_00I mean, there there is so much of it, and it can be kind of intimidating going into it again as a newer to the craft kind of person, and I have ADHD. I am all over the place, and I hyperfixate on one cool new thing for a few weeks, and then it becomes old news, and find the next thing, and it's like I gotta try that. Like something I've dreamt of making is a humidor, something cool and fancy to have in my new renovated basement, and all these things, and as I go down the list of oh, I could do this and that and what whatever with it, inlays and whatnot, little voice in that head is like, dude, you can't even make a box right now. Like focus on getting things square and then go down another rabbit hole.
SPEAKER_01You know, sometimes, and I I don't disagree with that, but sometimes the desire, or I call it the spark, is what gets you to do something. And I think as long as you approach it in the right manner, of like, I'm gonna try to build a humidor and I want it to look like this, and I know the first one's not gonna come out the way I want it to come out, but I'll learn what I need to learn and I'll learn what I like about the humidor. And this kind of I think also talks to the evolution of what of these disciplines that we're talking about is like in the day, it would probably have been a joiner that made the humidor. Oh, wow. Okay. If I'm and I'm talking here in the US in the 1700s. Because it was just a simple box. The same person who made a casket would make the cigar box. Now, if you're George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, you're a rich farmer, you're gonna hire probably a furniture maker to make your humidor because the they're gonna do the inlay, the marketry, the veneering of the wood. So all that to say is that you could make a simple humidor that is a simple box, and that could be the first step. And or you could say, you know, I know all of these things are intimidating together, but each one on its own, like we're talking about with the guitar, is actually fairly simple if I attack it one step at a time. And so I'm always on the fence on this because I I what I see here at the joinery is I see people who jump into the deep end and fail and then be like, well, this that's it. I'm not a woodworker. Right. And and the problem wasn't that they jumped into the deep end, the problem was that they jumped into the deep end believing the YouTube hype. Oh, yeah. I watched a video, that's easy, I'm gonna do it. And it probably is easy, but what the guy on YouTube wasn't able to show you wasn't able to stand there and say, well, yeah, don't cut it that way, cut it this way. Or instead of using that glue, let's use this glue. Or, you know, so I always say, like, if you want to make a humidor and want to make it, you know, with veneered wood and some inlay and the whole bit, I say go for it. And then find a group somewhere here at the Joinery, it's easy, post on our Discord and say, hey, this is something I want to do. Here's the elements that I want to use in it, and you will get people who will say, I will come help you with that. Oh, yeah. And so I think that's the difference between I want to make this, jump over my head over my head in the water, fail, and then just say this isn't for me versus anything else you tackle in life. I want to do this, let me study this. What's the best way to make this joint? And you know, the other thing is there's tons of there are tons of good resources on the internet.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. Oh, yeah. They're yeah, so many good resources, and as you said, the community uh just helpful people. And the joinery is great for that through my experience here, it has been awesome. Uh there's communities like that all over.
SPEAKER_01Well, there's a big one that I I'm remiss at not talking about enough. I think I did a blog post a couple of weeks ago where I finally mentioned them. It's called lumberjocks.com. Okay. And it is a it's probably even a global, it's free for sure US um woodworkers forum. It's a modern day forum. You get it's free to use, at least the last time I checked, they might have some paid features that you can do. Gotcha. But you can create your own profile, talk about what type of work you want to do, or that you don't do any work right now. You can put a project gallery up. Here's the things that I've done. But the big thing is there's forums for everything. You know, there's probably a forum on there for humidors. Sure. For sure there's one for box joinery, for sure, there's one for marketry. And you just go on and say, hey, this is what this is where I'm at. This is what I want to do. And you know, woodworking people are usually good people. They may be, if anything, they may be overly indulgent or overly supportive, and they definitely will be opinionated. But so lumberjocks.com, I think is a really, really good resource for an interactive community type thing if you don't have one in your area. But I would definitely look for a makerspace or something like that that that you could go and do in person because you can't beat the in-person thing. Oh, yeah. A lot of woodcrafts and rockers have instructors and teachers that you can go in and say, Hey, I would like to learn how to do this. How do I do it? So there's a lot of resources here in the US. And then on the the one kind of I think the gold standard in helpfulness in woodworking is findwoodworking.com. Okay. It's a magazine, used to be only a print magazine. Now they have a very great website. In my opinion, now you can get a lot of stuff on there for free, but it but in my opinion, I think it's $50 a year, and that is cheap. For like the resource that that opens up to you? Yeah, because you get you get access to their once-a-month magazine in a digital form. I think you can actually buy a more expensive one where you get the actual magazine in your mailbox if people still do that kind of thing. But then they have a whole project library of like all their past projects. They have video classes, it's another good resource, but again, nothing beats that face-to-face hands-on-the tool. And you can find that at makerspaces, woodcrafts, broccler, woodworking shops. Sometimes you can even go into somebody's who a professional woodworker and say, I'd like some help with this. If you're nice, they'll probably help you out.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. The the neighbor down the way that they're help or they're making a playset in their backyard, and you know, you offer to help because you can't put something up like that by yourself, even if it's just the manual labor you help, but then pick things up along the way, build that relationship, be able to ask more detailed questions down the line.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00There's no reason not to get started.
SPEAKER_01And I'm gonna sound like whoever it was from Ratatouille, anyone can do woodworking versus anyone can cook. But I truly believe that. And I think that's kind of that is the whole reason why I started the joinery, is because I think there's so many people that get burned quickly by watching YouTube. And I love watching the YouTube. I love you know, I get it's meditative sometimes, but I don't think I would go build a project based on what yeah, just based on just that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I have to admit, I'm guilty of that. I saw, and I'm still convinced it's a pretty simple design of a twisty table, so it it's really hard to describe, but you have the vertical parts are kind of L's, except they they're cut so they twist in the middle. Oh yeah, okay. So it's a little bit of an optical illusion there, and I watched the video once or twice and was like, okay, straightforward. Come in here, and I'm like, well, I want to change it just these little ways. And those little ways ended up being enough that I it's still sitting incompleted in my in my trunk, I think. So it yeah, that is all short story long. That's my experience with biting off more than you can chew.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I that brings up a good point, which is and I I on this guitar I run into it where it's a technique that I'm familiar with, but not enough. And I hit a wall where I'm like, I don't want to mess this up, so I'm gonna stop. And then what's nice about doing that in a shared shop is somebody comes in and you go, oh, they would know how to do this. And you can say, Hey, how would you make this cut? And even if you talk through it and come up with a third alternative, it gives you that confidence to move ahead. That sometimes when you're working on your own, you don't have that person standing there. And you can get in your own head, and that's terrible. I'm gonna I don't want to keep sounding preachy about this, but another great resource if you're into books is Lost Art Press. I've heard of them. Lostart Press.com. Highly recommend them. Chris Schwartz is one of the co-owners. I've taken many woodworking classes from him. He's a brilliant teacher. They've they have a whole series of their Lost Art Press is really just a woodworking book company. Okay. They write, print, manufacture their own books, they reprint old historic books. And I just bought two because I thought it'd be interesting. There's one called Smalls that is just small woodworking projects, like like, you know, letter holders and keyboxes, and they're all very simple designs. And it's a very small book. I think this book was like $15 or something like that. Here's a little three-tiered shelf. They're all easy for the beginner to do, and that's a great resource. And that's one where I would say that there's probably enough information in this book that you could go build it just off the book.
SPEAKER_00And with what I think is cool with those, is even somebody who's more advanced can see that and then get ideas.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That's why I bought it.
SPEAKER_01I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. Uh, and then another one that I just bought, they have tons of these books and they have some really good general woodworking ones. This one's one I've been wanting for a while, and I hadn't bought it. This is a project I've been wanting to do for a long time, which is the other way to get into it. This is the Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's Declaration Desk.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And it's actually a whole book written on and showing you the process to make the same desk that Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration, supposedly wrote the declaration of independence on. And I think we do know that. I think there's, I think, I don't know if it lives at Monticello or if it lives in the Smithsonian, but and it's not a complicated thing. It looks really, really complicated, but it's just a it's just a box with a drawer in it and a couple of panels. But again, it's a book that is written just for that that will walk you through the whole process. So that's way cool. And I bet knowing Lost Art Press, they probably have a video to go along with this one. So so yeah, books are also a good the right books are right. Uh actually, Chris Swarez is one of the people early on, and I had taken a couple classes from him, he was the editor at Popular Woodworking magazine. Okay. For many, many years before he started Lost Art Press. And there was a project I was building from from the magazine, and it it in my mind it was just missing a whole lot. And I wrote him, I think back then, a letter that accused him of withholding facts to make sure that the project didn't turn out for people, which he thought was hilarious because he's like, Yeah, that's what I want to do, is have people build something and and not be able to build it. And and it turns out though it was exactly what I was talking about. It's like there's what you read and see in the picture, and then what actually is happening with the tools. And so that was what it what it was. And but he's he's a good guy. I like him. I like I think their company is great. You know, all their books are made here in the US, they're printed and they're just they're high quality books, which means something to me these days. Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_00Like they they're lasting. Yeah, it feels like so much in our world not to. Wax poetic, but like it's a very disposable world. That printed craft is going to online, you have just everything there at at the keystroke. But having that physical thing still has a place and adds so much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think as woodworkers, we should we should live into that. And I I would say as I'm getting older, I'm getting more and more into that. But yeah, I'm being a little more choosy about what I keep. Oh yeah. But yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I do have one more kind of question on to close this up. It's two questions in one if I'm honest. Do you have a so we were kind of talking about barriers to entry a little bit or like fighting off more than you can chew? Are there some paths that you would recommend for somebody learning to go to get better at woodworking and even along that path on finding their niche?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it's gonna be a really simple answer. It is build something. Yeah, fair. And I think that's kind of what we've talked about today, is like we you can I think that's the other thing that I kind of rail against in in the education of woodworking these days is is there seems to be a lot of ego and I'm trying to find the right word for it, but a precision, maybe, or like a gatekeeping. Almost gatekeeping of like, you know, if you're gonna do this, you have to go deep on this. Oh, sure. Or you have to, you have you have to have these tools. You have to have, you know, all that kind of stuff fun stuff. I I think like anything else, it's like, what do you have? What do you want to build? What suits your fancy? There's always a simplified version of it. It's kind of what I was getting about with a humidor, right? There's the fancy ones with inlay and felt and you know the whole bit, or there's a pine box with a with a humid, what is that humid humid, no thermostat. Thermostat is a humid, humid weather. Hybrometer? Yeah, hygrometer, yeah. Oh, there we go. Yeah, we're reaching today. Uh you know, you you can you can do that, and then that experience will let you know what you're comfortable with and what you weren't comfortable with. And then you can go say, Okay, I've built a box that's just butt joints because that's what I could do. Now I'd kind of like to do a miter joint. And I so I think that's I think the people that I see that are successful in continuing it are building the things they want. They may not be uh I think they're always happy with what they built. They may not be satisfied that they've reached the level they want to reach with that. Uh and that's why, you know, in our classes we start people off on the Shaker style end table, which if you look at that's a pretty big project and a pretty intense thing, but it gets people on all the standard woodworking tools. And at the end of it, they're like, Oh, this is a bar.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I guess my answer to your question is build something. Okay. Find something. But do your research, do your homework, and and if you can find somebody to to help you with it or or lead the way. But I I would, you know, you could build a bookcase. They're not that hard. You could build, you know, a birdhouse. You could get this smalls book. There's all kinds of stuff in here. But some of it's gonna depend on what tools you have at your disposal as well. And I'm sure we'll do a show on that of like what are the basic set of tools you need for a home shop and how do you get started easily. But I'm probably always gonna tell you, now I was all, you know, for 35 years, I was a home shop guy. But having the joinery and having access to the joinery has really enlightened me to just the fact of having tools that are set up and ready to go and work. Yes. Makes your process go so much quicker. But then the thing that we have here that I think a lot of places have is the community and just being able to, I still learn stuff out there every day from people. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, do make something. Pick a project, get get up, get off the couch, make something.
SPEAKER_00So I have a a little bit of a story that segues into our next segment.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think the first project, I think of it as the first project I did as a woodworker was something that really got me coming here to the to the shop. I had been, as we said, watching a ton of YouTube, looking at all the cool things, and I was like, oh, the boxes are really cool. I want to try that. Then you put out a message on the Discord that we we need somebody to, or we were using a cup, like a styrofoam cup for donations, and you're like, this is getting pretty worn out. We need something else. Anyone willing to make something new? And I just saw that as an opportunity to to do what I wanted. I made it more complicated than necessary, but it turned out actually really cool. It was a I used the laser on it, so it was a learning excuse with that. And I was doing some kind of box joints. I knew I wanted to try that, and I think I hand cut them on that one, but it led me to wanting to do more in an easier way. And so I pulled out the shaper origin, and it was it was kind of magical, really. But also not. It took me a I don't know how much wood I wasted to find the little nuanced things, but that was so cool of being able to just set it up of my wood is five inches wide. I want to do box joints that are I want ten box joints or whatever, and then it it's able to do the complicated math, and like, okay, each one is 0.162 inches wide, and it felt very helpful. So you have that, and then you have like the the big boy version of the CNC.
Myth or Real - Digital tools debate
SPEAKER_00What is your opinion on these tools fitting in? Like, is this digital era taking over? Is it taking the like the soul out of woodworking? Is it the way of the future? Like, how how do you see it fitting in? Okay, this what deep, deep subject here.
SPEAKER_01This so this is our myth or real section of the show. You know, I I am not a purist by any means. I I use hand tools, I'm I'm trained in hand tools, and I use power tools. I think, and I I don't know if it was this last there's an article I've got a blog post coming out that that's titled something like I'm a lazy woodworker. And what I mean by that is that my my goal, and I think everybody's goal should be to build the thing. Right. Right. And whatever is the most efficient at building that that gets you the results that you want is the way to do it. So so you had a couple of questions in there. Is it are we losing the soul of woodworking by using these digital tools? No, I think it's the next evolution. I think it is, you know, I I don't think, or I'm sure that we've been talking about the 1700s. If we brought a joiner or a furniture maker from the 1700s and showed them a hand router or a powered router, they'd be like, What is this? You know, no, you can't do it that way. That's that's you know, that's not good. I don't think our grandfathers complained when when the ran the router, the powered router came. They were kind of like, oh, I can do this faster now. Uh the one I always equate this to is the planer. Okay. Right. You can sit there all day and plane a piece of wood with a hand plane, oh yeah, and it's beautiful, and you get the satisfaction and it's quiet and it's meditative, but it's gonna take you a while. Or you can go over to the power joiner, put your earplugs in, and run the thing for 10 minutes and get enough wood to build your whole project. I don't get joy out of planting wood, I get joy out of building something. So, so that's the way I am. So I look at at the CNC router. Let's go there first. This guitar that we're making, we they had a digital file of the guitar body. The the main section of the body itself was cut on the CNC router because it's a fairly, as you can imagine, a guitar shape is uh fairly intricate and also, like I said, precise. And could I have cut that by hand? Could have Simon cut that by hand? Abso freaking lutely. It probably would have taken us two or three times to get it right, but we were able to put it on on the CNC router and do it, and everything comes out exactly right. Right. Now there is a top that has to go on top of that. Now that we did, we used the body that we cut out on the CNC as the template, and we use a hand router to cut out the top.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01And now we have to do some insert pocket things, and we may use the shaper origin for that. So now we'll move into so I I I think there is a way to do that. Now, there's still a lot of hand work that has to be done on this guitar. There's gonna be some chisel work, there's gonna be, you know, all kinds of stuff. So I don't I think it's just a way of again taking a project that you could do by hand, but then becomes unaccessible to somebody like Simon. Oh, sure. Who says, well, I've only got a limited amount of time. Yep, I want to build a so I don't I think that's allowing that's giving people capabilities that they didn't have or that they saw were hurdles to doing the job. Now, some people see the router as a hurdle because they don't understand the digital aspect of it. And that's fine too. Doesn't mean you have to use it. Although I'd say it's very easy to use. So the Shaper Origin, for those of you that don't know what it is, it is basically a handheld CNC router. And it is a magical wonder of the modern world. It really is. Yeah, it is exactly what you envision it being. It's it's a handheld router like a like a DeWalt or a porter cable router. It's not, it's their own brand, mounted in a digital package with handles on it, and it's got a screen and it's got a camera, and it by these certain tape and patterns, it registers to your piece of work. And you can put any odd shape you want or any, you know. I think the way I always try to explain it to people is like if you're a hardwood flooring installer and you want a fancy compass rose in the middle of your floor, you can either do all that piece by piece as you lay it, or you can lay the whole floor and then take the shaper origin and cut out the compass rose and put it in. You can do that with an inlay on a cigar box. You can do that on, you know, on a piece of furniture. And it cuts box joints and tenons and mortises and dovetails, and it's all computer driven. And once you get so you can draw something on your computer, load it in, and then the way it works is when you move the router over your line, it says, Oh, I can cut there, and it cuts. If you go outside of the line, it pulls up and it retracts, it doesn't allow you to mess up. So it's it's a little intimidating, but it's actually very simple to use. I would say these tools again make there are a lot of people that want dovetails. I don't really understand why, but they want them, and they don't have the patience or the time to learn to cut them by hand. So they use something like the Shaper Origin to do it. I think that's great because what I want is people doing woodworking and making things. And if you talk about what's the purpose of the dovetail joint, it is a structural member and it is used in situations, it was developed to be used in situations where you needed to contradict the forces that were put on the piece you were building. So if you need that and you need dovetails and you don't know how to cut them by hand, then by all means cut them with a machine that can just cut them beautifully for you.
SPEAKER_00Just an example of like the contradictory forces, a drawer is what comes to mind where you're pulling on it, and if it's like butt joints there for that front, chances are pretty good that over time you'll pull that front off. But with the dovetails in there, it helps, it pulls it in. Yeah, it holds it together, keeps it from it's a mechanical counterforce to that.
SPEAKER_01Now, the this is a whole nother discussion that we won't get into today, but my in one of my pet peeves is today's modern glues negate the need for a dovetail in some cases. Other cases, it's the if you're doing a big chester drawers, yes, dovetails are the right way to go. Uh, if you're doing some of these little boxes, it's not, but that's a whole nother discussion. But yeah, so no, I'm a believer in these digital tools. The laser is one we haven't talked about yet. And the laser is one that has revolutionized my woodworking because, and this is uh probably a better example that I should have used in the beginning. I love marketry. Okay. I used to hate it. I didn't think I was very good at it. I learned many years practicing cutting them by hand, the double double bevel technique on a scroll saw. I love the the calmness of it. I love the I love the precision of it. I love that it can make things, but I'm not an artistic person, so I don't have that hand eye for fluid shapes and things like that. Gotcha. But you bring the laser into the game, and lasers can cut veneer awesome. Okay. So you take now whatever artwork you want to take, you load it into the computer, you put it into the laser, you put your veneer in, it cuts out the shapes, and then it uh then you can put the shapes together like a puzzle, and then you vacuum form them and glue them in, and now you've got a veneered piece. So that humidor that you want to do becomes very, very simple to do. We have a class, uh the whiskey cabinet class where we do a veneered front panel where you can make whatever, whatever design you want on it. And here's another this goes to the soul of it. So years ago, and I'm we've talked about Mark Adams School of Woodworking many, many times. Highly recommend them, a place everybody should go if you have the time and money to do it. Mark Adams is very much a veneer marketry guy. And if you get a chance to take a class from him on this, he's brilliant at it, especially hand tool techniques. But he's become very much a laser person as well. But years and years ago, there's a, and I'm gonna get it wrong, I'll have to look it up and put it in the show notes, but there's a competition for marketry. And the judges are usually premier craftsmen in this area. And Mark was on a panel, and the panel was unanimous in awarding the award to this one piece. And after the award was done, they talked to the the craftsman who did it and said, Wow, this must have taken you forever. How did you do this? And he said, Oh, I used a laser. And they were like, Oh, you, oh my gosh, what have we done? We've, oh, we shouldn't do that. And so all the judges got together. Now, these are all the great men of of the craft that have been doing this for years and years and years. And that's where I got the line from. One of them said, I don't think our grandfathers argued when the powered router came out. And this is just the next evolution of it. And so they decided that they allowed the person to keep the award. He had to do the work, it just moved the work, right? Exactly. So and for me, that's the same thing. It's like I have to have the concept, I have to have the idea where I want it to go. The computer allows me to make shapes that I'm not able to draw and make. And then the laser just does the cutting that would have taken me hours, it does it in a few minutes. But then I still have to put it together, I still have to have the technique of laying them on top of each other and doing the whole thing. So I I think that these machines, although their price makes them unreachable by a lot of beginner woodworkers, but I think it's tools that should be in everybody's arsenal. And again, another reason to join a makerspace. I was just gonna say that. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I'm all for them.
unknownCool.
SPEAKER_01And I know I may be in the minority on some of this. The other thing is woodworkers as a whole is an aging group. And I think we're we're seeing with the younger generation that is coming in, they are more attuned to this. And so I think that's that's great.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, the uh just a quick story on the origin. It for me, my favorite thing was being able to do design right on the screen.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I was making a gift for my wife to go over the arm of the couch and wanted to put some pockets in it, or just like a tray. I didn't I'm still intimidated by the big CNC, to be honest. I'll get there. Me too, by the way. I haven't used it yet. Okay. So but I knew that I just wanted like two rectangles, maybe rounded corners, whatever, and it took me two, three minutes to set that up, and I was able to just knock out that little piece and then continue on with putting the arms on it and realizing that I cut the miters or I measured and I cut the outside instead of the inside. It was too thin, is my what I'm trying to get at. But yeah, I love that it it helped me move on, and you had said that as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that's it. It's like it took something that you thought, well, I want this, but if if I had to go do it by hand, I probably won't. I'll I'll be uh but this is kind of cool. I'll experiment with it, and it and it did it. And it wasn't quite the reach of going to the big, you know, we keep talking about the big CNC. It's an it's an eight foot by by five foot huge CNC thing. It's actually really easy to use, but it's intimidating. Oh, yeah. And it's got a lot of things you got to remember and do, and things like that, where the shaper is just you pick it up. You literally, Shaper Origin has some great videos online. You watch a few of those and you're good to go. And it's kind of hard to screw it up, actually.
SPEAKER_00You can screw up where you put the put put the things, but which I I did on that project, it wasn't centered, but it turned out all right. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I that's a great story. Yeah, and exactly what we're talking about is like what's gonna move you along.
SPEAKER_00And speaking of moving along,
Upcoming events at the joinery
SPEAKER_00we have some stuff coming up at the joinery here. Can you can you talk to that? Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's coming up just kind of in in the Madison area here, but uh starting our on August 29th and 30th, for the first time, the joinery is going to be having a booth at the Middleton Good Neighbor Fest. So we'll have members there that are bringing works both to just show off and to sell. And uh and then we'll, if we can, we'll have some demonstrations going on there, but uh it'll just be a good time. That's it, the Good Neighbor Fest is a good time here in Middleton anyway. And then in mid-September, we haven't set a date yet, is our annual will be our third annual joinery fest. And that is where we get a lot of our vendors. We have, I don't know who will all come this year, but hoping it'll be like the sharpening supplies.com guys, the capital hardwoods guys. We have artists like Mordecai Bookmaking, yeah, who will be here. We'll have Rick Findora and Morning Glory Glass Studio here. Um, so a lot of the craftsmen that teach here, they'll be here showing off their works, probably have some things to sell. We'll have you know, brats and burgers, and and it's just a good time and a lot of demonstrations, and you get to meet members and decide if this is a place you want to come to or not. So that's coming up. And families too.
SPEAKER_00Like oh, absolutely. It was I loved it last year, being able to bring my kids and show off, like, hey, this is where I go when I'm going to the shop. Here are the big cool tools here, and here's what other people more experienced than me can make, or something that I'll be I can make someday. That's right. Something I'll make someday. And and then also having the other families there was cool building that connection.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's just a just a big community, which I I love. I love. And then starting then in late September and October time frame is really our classes really kick in. And we do them all summer long, but people aren't as interested in doing what we're working there summer. But we've got some great new ones coming out. We have our standard old ones, the introduction to woodworking class, the tool tote class. Eric, one of our instructors, is doing a new serving tray class. It's probably gonna be like a one-day simple but very cool class. And then I'm kind of excited. I've got two new classes. One of them for sure I'm doing because I'm almost done with it, and that is the Craftsman style bench. And it's it's a little bit more complex than our tables and things. It's gonna take us a little bit longer, a little bit more wood, but you get kind of a very cool setting bench. And we're gonna do it two ways. You can choose your way to do it, either do an upholstered cushion on the top, which we won't do here in the class, but or you can do a slat type thing. I'm very excited about that one. And then the other one that I've been asking a lot about is uh Jeff Miller, uh uh woodworker in Chicago. I took a class from him many years ago and I did a slat back chair, which is a curved chair, which they've been sitting out in the shop forever. I got to finish my own up. I'm gonna do a class on that. So we're gonna be teaching that. Hopefully that's this fall, but it might be over the winter, depending on how quick I can get that one put together. But and I'm sure, oh, we're also bringing back the cutting board class. Okay. Tony, one of our members, is actually a very good in-grained cutting board person. So he's doing a class on that. I think we're starting some smaller classes on the CNC to get to learn the CNC. And then looking for some online coaching classes that I think we're gonna try out sometime over the winter for people that maybe aren't local here to Madison that might need some help with projects, and we'll we'll have some of those available, which is kind of cool. And also many of our class and other project plans that we've put together over the years, we're gonna start making those available on the internet as well.
SPEAKER_00So that's exciting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's just more resources for people. So I know I'm looking forward to getting back and it feels weird saying this at the end of July, but start making like the Christmas gift things.
SPEAKER_01But now's the time to start. Yeah, yeah. Now is the time to start. Yeah, not December 20th. Which is when everybody else starts, and then you're fighting for space on the table saw. Yeah,
Wrap up
SPEAKER_01exactly. Yeah, yeah. Well, okay, that's about our time for today. So, yeah, that's it for this one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thank you. This was an awesome conversation. If you want to keep the conversation going, come find us at the joinery.club. If you're a member, I join us on Discord. I've been seeing a lot more conversations going on on there. People comparing work in a good way. Like, hey, here's what I was able to accomplish, and compliments and hints, and oh, here's how you do it. So that's been great.
SPEAKER_01And then yeah, and I should mention watch the website because we're gonna make a free version of that for people to join in the the Discord discussions as well. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then all over social media. But yeah, keep the conversation going, go out, make a thing. Yeah, thanks for hanging with us, and we'll see you next time. See ya. All right.