WT166 – The Wet Spot

Special thanks to our show sponsor Festool.

On today’s show, we’re talking about sweating on your projects, what grit you should sand to, and wood prices.

 

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What’s on the Bench

Marc – Power sculpting, bluetooth headphone solution
Matt – Assembling the platform of the platform bed
Shannon – Bowl turning and spooning

What’s New

– Wood Talk is now broadcasting on Alpha Geek Radio. Support the IndieGoGo Project.
Video of classical guitar construction.
Woodworking in America 2014 dates and location announced!
Collapsable spray booth.
A plywood Raspberry Pi tablet
Amazing wood sculptures made to look like everyday items.
Canadians unloading lumber from a barge.

Kickback

– Brian has some thoughts on beefing up a torsion box.
– Sean tells about wood movement in Hawaii.
– Brian lets us in on a sad secret about distressed furniture. See how his former employer does it.
– Brad is upset about us burning scraps.

Voicemail

– Mike is looking for advice on getting better results when routing endgrain as he flattens his cutting boards.
– John sent an end grain cutting board through his planer and paid the price. Here’s Marc’s article on the topic: End Grain Through the Planer?

Email

– Kevin has a question about dealing with sweat stains on his projects.
– Barry wants to know at what grit he should stop sanding.
– Brett is trying to calculate wood costs. Shannon recommended this article.

Reviews and Thanks!

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14 replies on “WT166 – The Wet Spot”

I also did the 5th-leg-at-the-corner-of-the-table thing. I don’t have a torsion-box top, but my top is a bit thickness challenged at the moment (only a 3/4″ MDF sheet on top of a 3/4″ plywood sheet). And i had this very heavy Jorgensen vise i wanted to mount on the overhanging front-left corner, where the top overhangs a ways and has no support.

Well, it didn’t need a structural engineer to figure out that top corner was going to do some serious sagging pretty soon. So i cut a length of 2×3 and attached a couple of those Rockler adjustable-height feet on the bottom end. That lets me fine-tune the leg height, and also remove the leg if i need to.

Now later, i used the remaining adjustable-height feet from the Rockler kit to make a similar removable ‘sliding’ deadman for the front of the table. In this case, using a length of 2×6 which fits vertically just under the table front overhang. The top end of the deadman extends back just deep enough to sit under the front row of dogholes, so i secure the top end by aligning it under the desired doghole and inserting a benchdog.

I don’t know if they still make them but you used to be able to get a small fm transmitter for your iPod to allow you to use it in the car, would mean you could carry on using the same headphones?

It did, but not for that reason. If you listen closely, you will often find that I’m so focused on getting on to the next segment that I barely hear what Matt says right before I speak. The great thing is that when I listen back, I get to finally enjoy Matt’s jokes. 🙂

I just run the cord from the headset under my shirt with the ipod in my front pocket. With my basement shop I’m very rarely wearing less than two layers so it’s not a big deal.

Another low tech option might be to figure out a way to attach the player directly to the headset, if you could get over the fear of having it get knocked off. Maybe one of those cradles intended for the car could be stripped down and zip tied directly to the headset, or maybe even make something out of wood. Then sell it to the rest of us.

I use the work tunes headset and attached an iPod Nano directly to it. The iPod is in a hard clear case that is velcroed to a small piece of hardboard on the headset. And Darrel is right, you can take out the batteries and still use the work tunes as headphones, makes them much lighter.

You missed the link to Shannon’s article on Wood prices. I’ve been trying to find it, but can never seem to remember/hear the website he wrote it for.

Thanks for the link on wood prices. This may be a post better suited to the actual website, however, it should be worth mentioning here as well. I understand fully the different variables that a lumber dealer must go through to come up with a daily price on various lumber. The problem is, I shouldn’t have to understand these variables. We are all consumers of lumber and it is our job to simply go in and purchase the lumber. It should then be the lumber dealer’s job to make the process for the consumer more enjoyable. If all this means is generating a daily, weekly, or monthly list of lumber prices, is that really such a difficult feat? It seems that the real problem is that many lumber dealers are using antiquated business models that have not kept up with the changes/availability of new technology.

Ray I couldn’t agree more. The lumber industry as a whole is very much behind the times in how they do business. It is something I battle every day. What I object to more than anything is the feeling that we need to keep information away from our customers and play “close to the vest”. It is this lack of information that has built up resentment towards the industry more than anything else.

I do not however completely agree that we as woodworkers need not know any of the other factors. It think it is our job to be informed consumers no matter what product we are buying. I take you point about creating price sheets and I do believe that many yards do this. It is a lot tougher than you think though unless your yard specializes in only one market (retail vs wholesale) and a small range of species and products. And those yards that do operate that way have either gone out of business or are very close and desperately need to diversify.

Of course diversity brings even more problems and takes us back to the behind the time statement.

I’ve always wanted to try taking an FM transmitter (kind of like what you’d use in your car) and then use a Y cable to output audio from my ipod/phone to both the transmitter and my shop stereo. Then technically I can use the worktunes tuned to the FM channel and get a seamless transition from headphones to no headphones…. so, if somebody could try that and let me know. Some of those FM transmitters get quite a bit of range, so you can also use them just wandering around the house.

I’ll have to double check but i don’t think I have to power on my worktunes when I use the pass through port. But I don’t know if the batteries are needed.

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