The last 4 months have been very interesting. I made a commitment to get stuff done this year like I never have before. So in this episode I talk about the successes, and the failures.
I would like to say I have had nothing, but success… but I can’t.
I also go into the progress I have made on the weekend woodworker course, and a few of the mistakes I have made with making the paper tray.
Please give the show a listen to find out more.
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to the 17th Episode of the Buddiy Podcast. I’m your host Buddy Lindsey. And today we’re going to talk about the first quarter of the year and how things have gone. But before that, let’s talk a little bit about what’s going on around here. So, let’s say two successes happened this week, is I finished off the table that I’ve been making for my wife, putting on one final coat of polyurethane and it should be ready to go into the house. It’s going to be … It’s awesome. There are several things that I’m super happy about on this project and I feel like it’s a win. It looks decent enough. Some of the joinery that I did looks okay, it looks good and I think it’s going to be a piece that lasts for a while depending on how things go with it, it might just tear itself apart, I don’t know.
I just had that nagging feeling in the back of my head just because this is the first thing I’ve made that’s like this. But we’ll see how it goes. And then the next thing is, I jumped on and worked on the paper tray from the Weekend Woodworker Course. I almost have it done with the Oak hardwood and I think it’s turning out really, really nice. I’ll tell you a failure that I had later on at the end of the show regarding the paper tray. This is kind of funny. But other than that, I mean, it’s coming out really well. I was able to get everything cut and I think it took me probably two and a half hours to mostly finish it in actual total working time. I’ve been doing different filming techniques with it to do an Instagram video, kind of a longer form Instagram video for it. And so, we’ll see how that turns.
But from an actual, getting it done perspective, it actually went really, really well and really, really quickly. And so, I’m super excited about that and almost done with that and can move onto the table that’s in the Weekend Woodworker Course. The coffee table that I’m going to modify, so that it’s a table for the girls. So yeah, I feel like this week was a good week and getting stuff done. Fingers mostly healed up at this point. I think that final outer layer of skin that needs to heal back, is still super sensitive. I was breaking up branches to put in a little fire over the weekend to get rid of extra branches and I squeezed my finger in between two branches and oh, it hurt so bad. But that’s the name of the game. So with that, let’s jump into the main segment and that’s a review of the last quarter.
It’s been a crazy four months in the United … Well actually, I guess all around the world with the coronavirus and everything, it’s just been nuts. But for me personally, things have not been all that bad. I started out the year doing a commitment to myself that I’m going to do a post every day this year on Instagram, be a video image or whatever I come up with to put up on there. And so far, I have done that every day. I have released a post on Instagram. If you’re not following me on Instagram and you have an Instagram, give me a follow at instagram.com/buddylindseyjr. So, that’s gone really well. My video editing has greatly improved over this time because I’d like to put up more video content and I’ve really taken time to get different shots and lay everything together. Actually this weekend, I was doing some preliminary editing for the paper tray and I have a couple sequences that I did together and it just looks so awesome.
I can tell I’ve taken a little bit of another step in my video editing process and flow and being able to stitch together clips to be able to put together a little bit of a story. It’s about a three second chunk, but I think it turned out really well and I was just super excited about it. So yeah, I can tell my skills there are improving. I’m getting better at my storytelling, I’m getting better at the editing part. Got a little bit better at colors and exposure and things like that. I did find out that I’m overexposing my videos and so I need to work on tweaking my settings so that I’m not overexposing it. So I’m spending less time attempting to do color grading. But yeah, other than that I mean, I’ve been doing really well on Instagram.
I think things are going good. I mean, and I’m really liking it. The other thing that I committed to myself this year is, I want to do 52 podcast episodes and so far, I have done a podcast every week. And so, that’s exciting. I’m going to be honest, almost nobody listens to this podcast and it’s kind of demotivating in the sense that putting in all this effort all this time, I mean, it basically takes a half of a day to a day in order to record this podcast between putting together material, coming up with a topic, putting things together so that it flows. And then finally recording, editing and what I call the paperwork of getting it up on the Internet. I’m going to take some time and to not get a lot of viewership or listens, it’s a little frustrating.
However, I am not really broadcasting this thing exists very well. My search engine optimization for it, sucks. I don’t have a big following anywhere on the Internet for people to know about it. So, it is understandable that I’m not getting a lot of follows. And there’s the other side that most podcasts, they stop right here between 10 and 20 episodes. Most podcasts just stop because they’re in the exact same situation I’m in. Putting a lot of work, a lot of time and nothing is happening. And so, I’m not going to stop. That’s why I knew this would happen. I knew I would come up against this frustration and that’s why I said, “Every week I’m going to put out an episode. So there’s going to be 52 episodes by the end of the year and I’m going to continue on down that path.”
That’s my goal. And that was my commitment. And so, that’s what I’m going to do. I might get to the end of the year and still not have a very good traction and be like, “Okay, I’m done.” But we’ll see what happens. I’m enjoying doing this, I’ve always wanted to do a podcast. And so, I’m having a lot of fun even if nobody’s listening. However, it is also building a back catalog of data or of information for people to listen to as people might want to start listening in the future. So yeah, the podcast has been a lot of fun and I’m enjoying it, making a little bit of traction and we’ll just see how life goes. So, the next thing that I had for a goal this year was to do the Weekend Woodworker Course. I had intended initially to basically start in January and get all of the projects done by now.
Because you know, the idea is you can do each of the projects over a weekend and in all reality that’s true. You know, if you block off your weekend and on Saturday, you can do some on Sunday, you can do some and you can finish. For a few of the projects, you might have to do some finish at night during the week because you need to let them dry and everything but the bulk of the project is done. And while that was a great goal, I have definitely not hit it, due to weather, due to family, due to everything in the world, just all the different things going on. I did not hit that goal. However, I’ve learned a lot along the way. I also stopped and did another project in the process. Originally, I didn’t want to do any other project until I got done with the Weekend Woodworker Course, so that I could make sure I had all of those skills set into place.
And I mean unfortunately, or fortunately or unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. My wife wanted a table and we want a couple other little minor things. And so, I just knocked them out and they went really well and I think it was okay. But now I’m back on the Weekend Woodworker Course. I’ve been doing really well at them. I’ve been really learning a lot and I’m really enjoying it. And so, I’m going to continue. I’m still going to finish those projects. And then the next project I have after that is to do a cube storage system for my wife. Literally the project that started me down this path.
And then after that, later this summer, we’re going to look at finishing out a room in our house that we closed in from the outside. And we’re going to do all of the stuff that needs … Walls, insulation, tile floor. And then we’re going to do floor to ceiling built in cabinetry system. And yeah, that’s going to be a lot of fun and going to be an interesting project. So, we’ll see how that goes. But to start off all of that was the Weekend Woodworker Course. And so, I’ve got to finish that up so that I make sure that I at least have some of the skills that I need it to start on that project. And then finally is the update. I’ve done a couple of episodes. This is my injury on my finger, I guess it’s this finger here. It’s doing really well, it’s healing really well.
But it also delayed a lot of different things and it got me thinking in how things are going. How I’m going to continue on in the future. I had originally gotten my Delta Unisaw to be my forever machine. I went with a three horsepower cabinet saw with cast iron top and got a mobile base for it. I had originally intended this thing to basically last me forever and I put in the work and the effort to restore it and then I had my accident and it sucked. And I got really lucky that it wasn’t worse and it’s not like a super expensive medical bill going on. And so, that happened and I don’t want every quarter to be sparked by some particular injury. But based on that and based on some stuff that’s going on in life for me right now, we’ve decided to go ahead and buy a SawStop. And so I will be selling my Unisaw once I get a new SawStop in and I am going to go for the three horsepower professional cabinet saw.
I did a lot of research and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go with a 36 inch extension table or the 52 inch extension table. It’s literally only a hundred dollar difference. And so, at first I was like, “Let’s just go with the 52 inch because it’s 52 inch and you’ll have extra space.” However, probably spent an hour of time doing due diligence because if I came out not getting it, that would be $100 an hour of effort to save. And so, I did the research and I think I’m going to land on the 36 inch because most of the things I read online, no one ever used their 52 inch unless they were breaking down sheath goods. And I don’t plan on breaking that down because I don’t really have two people to do it safely with.
And so, I will use my circular saw someday. I hope to get a track saw and I’ll break down plywood as needed on that and then use the table saw for the rest of the cuts. And based on that, everyone that I read about online was basically saying they never use their 52 inch. A lot of people never actually go over 30 to 32 inches on their 36 inch extension table. And so, I think that’s what I’m going to do and I’m going to save $100 there. Granted, I mean this thing is going to be crap expensive. So saving $100 isn’t necessarily all that big of a deal but, “Hey, there it is.”
So, let’s finally talk about some of the goals moving forward for the rest of the year, the next quarter. And then again, still going to hit every day to do a post on Instagram. Sometimes that is super hard to get done. One of the reasons I wanted to do it is, to make sure I’m always moving, to make sure I’m always doing something to move my DIYing forward. Because if I don’t have some kind of commitment like that, then I’ll stop and I’ll take a break for a couple of days and then I’ll take a break for a couple more days. And then the next thing you know, it’s been two months and I haven’t done anything and I’m nowhere near closer to the goals that I have in mind. So, every day I’m going to continue to do a post a day on Instagram. And I’m really enjoying it, so it’s not really that bad. And it also has helped my photography. It’s helped my video editing and other skills around that area. So, I’m not really mad at not doing that at all.
I’m actually looking forward to it. I mean, there is the project that’s 365 day of pictures, let’s go take a picture every day. It’s not quite as intense as that but I feel like it’s similar in the sense that I’ve constantly got to think about it, constantly got to apply myself and I’m having a lot of fun doing. Also going to continue the podcast. Like I told myself, “One year.” And those are my two main commitments for this year and if I accomplish nothing else other than those things, then this year has been a success. Project wise, I’m going to keep continuing. I’m going to finish the Weekend Woodworker Projects by the time I do another quarterly update. And that’s just a commitment that I’m going to make because I’m about to move on to the third project in the course and so, that only means I have two more.
And this one’s going to be interesting because I’ve got to modify it for use. And then the same thing with the next project after that, I’ve got to modify it, as well. So it’s going to be a lot of fun. And then also something that I want to throw in the mix in this next quarter is, I want to do at least three or four blog posts talking about the projects that I’ve done and update those. That’s something that by the end of the year I would like to incorporate blog posts on the website at buddiy.net and get information out there, a text based form for others to consume, as well. And so, that’s something that I want to dabble with. I’m not going to commit to a specific posting schedule but I am going to commit to at least a couple of posts in the next quarter.
So, yeah. So, those are the goals for the next quarter and some for the end of the year. We will see how everything goes and shakes out on that. So with that, we’re done with the main segment of an update based on the corner and see how everything’s going in the future. So now let’s jump into the failures that I have had. This is going to go really quick. I basically had a failure with, I guess, three things. And they’re all shapes around the paper tray. One is, I glued a two by four to the stupid thing when I did clamping on it and I didn’t bother to push down on the thing first to see if there was any seep out, wipe it away and then put the two by four on to get clamping pressure. I just did it. Fortunately it was only a tiny little bead and I was able to yank on the two by four and it ripped it off and it did not damage the paper tray at all.
But in the future, I need to do some initial pressure and wipe off any excess glue if I’m going to use a wood cull of some sort to glue down or some sort of like wax paper over it or whatever. Anyway, I just need to figure that out. Another failure is, I, I don’t know if I could’ve prevented this, but the quarter inch plywood that I was cutting down and trimming down and it actually warped a little over time. And so, I don’t know if I need to store it differently or what but it had this weird bow thing. So, I had to really mess with it with a couple different grippers trying to get good pressure on it while running it through the table saw. Super stressful cut. I’ve been super stressed about all cuts on the table saw. This one added a little bit extra to it but I got it done. I got it done safely. Got the piece figured out and done.
And then the third mistake that I made and I learned from, was doing a dado cut. One thing that I noticed a lot of people doing but it never clicked until I was doing the cut, is when doing a dado cut most people don’t start on the outside, the complete outside of the cut on the board. And I figured that out because it causes tear out. What they do is, they come in a little bit so there’s still something left on the outside. It gets a cleaner cut going all the way through it and didn’t strip out a bunch of wood.
So, I got some nice tear out on this stupid thing, on this paper tray and we’ll see how that goes. But I can probably sand it out and be good to go. But I did learn a better technique for doing dado cuts on wood. So yeah, a few failures, but overall successful project learned from them. I’ll take that skill on into the next project. So with that, I thank you for your time. I thank you for giving a listen. Visit the website at buddiy.net. Sign up for our email newsletter. Follow us on YouTube and podcasting applications. Follow me on Instagram and we will see you next time in Episode 18
BudDIY Podcast – Episode 16 – 5 Materials I Want to Use in a DIY Project