5 tips youtube woodworkers give that professionals HATE

I don't really have a reason but I just kind of feel like Duncan on YouTube today [Music] so first of all and this has nothing to do with this week's video this month's edition of fine woodworking guess what yeah that's your boy now is it silly is it Superfluous does it have anything to do with what we're talking about no is it an actual denominator denominator is it an actual marker of success in the industry it kind of to some extent but it's more than that it's it's one of those things that like when you begin your woodworking Journey you kind of dream about being published in fine Woodworking and then it happens and you just even though it's a minor marker it's still a marker of progress and you gotta you gotta find those markers at points in your career in your progress in your journey as a woodworker right you have to find the things you set out to achieve and that bring you Joy when you do achieve them there's a great deal of value in that and so it just made me smile and I wanted to share that with y'all in hopes that it makes you smile I'm not attempting to brag about it what I'm attempting to do is say like set a goal for yourself go accomplish that goal whether that's learning how to cut dovetails by hand whether that's making a table for your family whether that's getting published and fine woodworking whatever that thing is set that goal and set after achieving it now on to this week's video I woke up this morning with an entirely different plan of what I was going to film today but when I got to the shop up I needed some kind of release some kind of playful thing to do and this is a video I've been thinking about for a while because it just makes me chuckle how certain tips become common practice for no reason outside of you see other people do them so that's what we're going to address today five tips that I see all across social media on YouTube on Instagram on Tick Tock and I never see any professional Woodworkers do them it boggles my mind how they became known as like the thing to do so without any further Ado let's get to number one so first up on this list the old blue tape and CA glue trick so there's nothing inherently wrong with using blue tape and some super glue as an alternative to double stick tape it is a thing that in a pinch works really well I'm not trying to say that it doesn't work what I am trying to say is for some reason over the last few years this has become like the the hobbyist intermediate woodworker way of using double stick tape instead of just buying double stick tape and I don't really understand it because number one every time I've used this setup it sticks to the wood more than I want it to and that can be a positive application in some senses but what I mean by this is it never comes off cleanly and easily and then you're in the process of waiting to make sure that the CA glue is fully cured by the time you actually need to work and then there's the chance that you use too much CA glue and then you get glue all over your wood and now your project is stuck together it just like there's a lot of variables in here that I don't understand why this has become such a popular method instead of just using double stick tape there's a reason this stuff exists and it's brilliant and it's not that expensive I understand that everybody has blue tape in their shop and that's fine again in a pinch I've used the blue tape CA glue method and it works but for 99 of our applications buy yourself a roll of double stick tape and this will last you years I think it's this thing of not spending money as a hobbyist which I get but this roll a double stick probably cost I don't know 10 bucks maybe maybe I've also had it for probably already a year I this is gonna last me until the adhesive fails on this roll I guarantee it so spend the extra five dollars save yourself a little time this comes off easier it's easier to work with it's cleaner or or don't use the blue tape and CA method if you like that method if you're happy with it but it's just the thing that stands out to me as odd how prevalent it's become now method number two actually does kind of irk me a little bit and that is using C channel to keep a slab flat the c channel routed into the bottom of a slab was used originally as an attachment point for Lex which is a perfectly reasonable application for that technique but for some reason over a period of time the internet decided that what that c channel is doing is actually keeping the slab flat I started to prep some c channel for my table which is going to help the table from warping or twisting in the future guys it ain't keeping the slab flat this is a conversation I've had with many friends of mine including but not limited to Sam from DIY Huntress who is one of my favorite people on the planet and I did ask her if I could mention this conversation and use some shots of her video before I filmed this so thanks to Sam and don't worry I'm not throwing her under the bus but it's a brilliant point where like we've had this conversation and I tell her that it's not doing anything and her response is that's fine it might not be doing anything but I just kind of feel better having it there which I get right that that much I will concede to but let's not play the game of I think this is going to prevent the wood from warping the only way to do that is with proper drying techniques with proper Machining techniques and allowing the wood to expand to contract with the seasons so that it's not forced to cup or bow to make up for any limitations your place sing on it I have seen wood blow pieces of Steel apart I've seen it Blow pieces of concrete apart you've seen it Blow pieces of concrete apart when you're walking down the sidewalk in a tree right next to it just blows up the sidewalk that's the pressure that wood can bring to other objects it is an immensely powerful process as it expands and contracts or in this case warps twists cups bows whatever it wants to do so c channel great for attaching legs not doing jack all for actually keeping a piece of wood flat now tip number three is less a tip and it is just a confusion about how a specific product became so ubiquitous in this space that product is of course Rubio mono coat now don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with Rubio monocoat it's a solid finish but I also think it's the result of the echo chamber of social media kind of promoting a single product as the finish that Woodworkers use but I don't know a single woodworker who's not on social media who uses Rubio Monaco and I don't know a single cabinet shop that uses Rubio monocoat it's this weird Niche on Instagram and YouTube where it's so prevalent and so I just want to bring to your attention that there are other Alternatives now of course the advantage or the appeal of Rubio monocoat is in its name Monaco right singular Coke but I also know people who State outwardly that using a second coat really helps the finish and brings up the sheen to a really nice lovely level now I have no problem with Rubio it's it's a good product don't get me wrong but again there are other Alternatives out there so osmo being one of them osmo is more or less identical to Rubio I don't know if they are technically chemically identical but they are both hard wax oils I know they are very chemically similar if not identical in the application process is identical so this is just another alternative that you have and just like Rubio osmo comes in a number of colors as well this one being white this is the finish I used on a project I did in October November a little cabinet piece it's made of Ash and nothing more than two coats of white osmo on top of that it didn't even bleach it and it is perfectly and beautifully white but of course there are many other finishes such as my finish which I'll throw a link to in whichever corner it belongs this is really nothing more than a polyurethane oil mix with some turpentine to thin it down this is really my favorite finish but I admit that it takes a long time and it takes several coats and so a product like Rubio does have a real advantage over this finish because it's so quick to apply so I get that but there are still other alternatives to the quick drying finishes such as don't sleep on shellac it's great especially when you're using it in an aerosol form in a spray finish form which not for nothing every Cabinet Shop I've ever worked in uses almost exclusively if not exclusively spray finishes so spraying shellac is going to dry quickly it's going to look great it is a brilliant finish and speaking of brilliant this week's video is sponsored by brilliant man I nailed that transition brilliant.org is the best way to learn math and science interactively now why is math important to woodworking that is an excellent question and even if mildly self-evident I'm very glad you asked brilliant has thousands of lessons from Everyday Math which of course helps with design principles as well as dividing fractions to physics and Engineering which is literally the foundations of what we do as furniture makers to a course called Beautiful geometry which helps you think intuitively about ratios and patterns which is literally the foundations of what we do as furniture designers and new lessons are added monthly still not sold huh all right okay fair hear me out when I was in high school I had a physics teacher named Mr seabold now this is a crazy old Kook of a guy with coke bottle glasses and used to walk around and shoot us with an air cannon just because it brought him some kind of Joy I'm sure there was a physics lesson in there somewhere but in that class we learned valuable foundational information about the physical world from basic mechanical principles to electrical circuitry which are still lessons that I apply in the shop today when I'm designing say a chair that's going to be used and abused by families for 50 years I need to consider the mechanical load each one of those joints is going to take so it doesn't break under the weight of a sitting person or when I'm designing a lighting piece or repairing a machine in the shop that's all simple circuitry right there so for those Among Us who like yours truly are naturally curious about the physical world and want to continue to expand their knowledge luckily there's brilliant if you you want to try everything brilliant has to offer for free for 30 days visit brilliant.org encurtis or click the link down in the description the first 200 of you will get 20 off Brilliance annual premium subscription now back to woodworking number four on this list the yellow glue and sawdust Gap filling trick now like literally everything else on this list there is nothing wrong with this application periodically under the right circumstances but it is by no means a catch-all solution for filling gaps this is the thing that just boggles my mind is people just think drop just all the glue in there and then rub some sawdust in it and for some reason that UPS the level of craftsmanship I'm not saying you got to be perfect what I am saying is if you have a gap consider the best solution for it rarely rarely do I use this trick there's always going to be a better alternative number one adding more wood on so that there are actual wood fibers where you are trying to make a repair sawdust and wood glue does not look like wood fibers what it's going to look like is putty which is not high level craftsmanship the one exception I will say where I do think this is a really useful trick is on Dark Woods specifically and not even Woods like Walnut because I don't think that's quite dark enough but I'm talking like black woods your wenge your ebonies those types of woods where it's almost impossible to tell the difference between the end fibers of those materials when finished and a wood dust filler but 99 of the time if there is a gap or if there is an issue that I need to fix I'm going to first try to do that with actual wood fibers and make a repair rather than make a filler and if I can't do that number two I'm often going to use a more traditional repair technique like say a shellac stick or a burn-in stick that will have a wider array of color choices so I can get a pretty good match that doesn't just look like end grain or sawdust now listen again I recognize I'm being bougie on this I'm being a little bit bougie on all of these but these are things that hobbyists are taking and they're taking in this information as though this is the best way to fix a thing or the only way I should say to fix a thing and that's just not the case so I want to give you other Alternatives and other options to expand your tool kit because that's what being a high level Craftsman is all about having an expansive tool kit and choosing the appropriate application of those tools now on to number five this is an entire Topic in and of itself and maybe I'll do a video on this if you want me to drop a comment down below but no professional furniture maker uses stain now stain is accessible stain is easy to acquire from the big box stores however no professional is using it what they're doing instead is adding a colorant to their finish creating a toner of sorts now very briefly there are a number of ways you can do this you have things like these colorants from mix all which are great and they mix with basically everything hence the name mix all and they can add a really dense opaque color to your finish so you get some really rich colors another alternative would be these trans tints these are aniline dies now these are pretty traditional actually in fact and if you see a lot of kind of old-timey furniture for lack of a better word where they have these bright colored and highly variant undulations in say like tiger Maple it's because they're often using like a honey colorant which allows that color to really seep into the end grain pores and the undulations I'm getting really technical now but this is another alternative and I use this often especially in Walnut in order to keep the material from changing color over time so adding an aniline dye to your finish specifically is going to give you some really nice results now that's all I'm going to say on that subject for right now because again that is an entire video in and of itself those different finishing techniques but I wanted to acknowledge that there are like everything else on this list other options available to you outside of stain so friends that's that for this week I hope it was educational I hope it was entertaining and I want to be clear I'm not dunking on any individual in this video some of my very closest friends in the world I have met through social media Instagram YouTube Facebook Etc Sam for example is one of my favorite people on the planet and we've had this discussion about sea channels multiple times I just want to bring my perspective as a professional as a trained Furniture maker to the conversation in the hopes that this brings you some knowledge about other potential solutions to these problems that's all plus I kind of didn't want to do joinery this morning I just wanted to sit down to the camera and talk about things because I was in that kind of mood so until next week friends chips [Music]

Channel: ENCurtis

Views: 162,608

Keywords: tips to be a better woodworker, how to be a better woodworker, how to become a better woodworker, woodworking, woodworking tips, woodworking tips and tricks, woodworking how to, how to, how to woodwork, woodwork, woodworking for beginners, be a better woodworker, blue tape and ca glue, rubio monocoat, rubio, osmo oil, woodworking finishes, the best furniture finish, the best wood finish, how to keep wood flat, how to keep a slab flat, wood finishes, diy, Erik Curtis, Encurtis

Id: u1RF7p7Hzl8

Length: 16min 13sec (973 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 17 2023