Q&A with Roger Break

Roger, welcome to Vondriska Woodworks. You came a long way. I'm in central Wisconsin and Roger and his wife are up from Ocala, Florida. Yes. Not just to stop here. They're off to see family little bit North of here, but what brings you here, Roger? Well, I've watched most of your videos. I can't say all for sure, but My sympathy and I usually at two to three in the morning when I'm up and nothing to do I've got wwgoa.com on and going through videos and I'm learning and learning and learning and an amateur woodworker, nothing very professional but I have fun with it. And I've always admired your approach to woodworking right from the day one that I, first thing I saw. Well, thanks. Thanks for letting up stop by and thanks for lunch. It's a long way to drive for lunch, but it was worth it It was worth it. Well, we're happy to treat ya. And what, now you have a shop set up at home today? It's called a garage. Okay. And while you're there, so you're kind of the standard woodworker. If you're in a garage, about how many square feet are you in? Couple hundred? Two car with a four foot extension. Yeah. And what do you have for tools at home? Table saw? Table saw, band saw that was my latest addition was a a band saw by Laguna. Nice And I had to assemble it And that was a real chore and it weighs 300 pounds. Yeah. So getting it home and in the garage and standing up, putting the chain hookup top and standing it up and so forth, but finally got it up and running. And I'm satisfied with its performance. And what, is there a kind of stuff you particularly like to make? Well, I do a lot of work with pallet wood and we've made a variety of bird houses and wine racks and picture frames and all kinds of things like that. Pretty light duty things. I've not built any furniture, so to speak. Any amazing material you've come across in the pallets, like so it comes out of the pallet, are you planing it then? I do sometimes, yep If I'm making finer wood, then I'll plan it and then a millet to the dimension I need. So then has anything really surprised you like once you send it through the planer? Oh my gosh, this is an amazing looking piece. I guess I haven't had that experience Not yet. but I look forward to it Yeah. That's when I, I used to work for Shopsmith and we'd get stuff on pallets and man, every once in a while, maybe something that came from overseas and the wood would be mahogany or purple heart or some, something that for us is this incredible imported wood and to them was just a commodity species. Well, the payload is interesting cause people are that's kind of all the rage today. So what, how about tips for pallet wood? What about, is there junk in the wood? How do you work around to make sure you're not hitting a nail? Well, I've got a good metal detector for sure. But I had also talked with a restaurateur in our area who had tabletops made from pallet wood and I talked to him about it and I said, well, how do you do? Pull it apart? Or what do you do? He's "nah, I just take a saw and cut the nails. So, if I hit it, I buy cheap blades. If I hit a nail and no big deal. So he has a different approach to it. I pry it all apart. I usually ended up cutting with the jigsaw, cut the pieces out, the slats out and I'm going to be using what I call the rail part of the Like the two by four? The two by four, yeah. You get a bunch of those start up that are going to be legs for my new tabletop and put that all together. And primarily, is it hardwoods that are coming out of the pallets? I kind of separate it between the real softwood There's some real, really soft stuff that's So, it's a mix. The pallets themselves are Yes, they're all predictable. Right? A lot of it is just a firewood to cut them up and burn them in the backyard, you know? And are you having to pay for the pallets? Or are you able to pick them up free? No, pick them up free. Last stop was a brand new, a dollar general store opened and they had just stocked it. And they were just piles of pallets out in the front. Driving by, I couldn't go buy that. So I stopped and they were delighted to have me take as many as they could. Huh And there was some nice wood in there, so Well, that's cool. Longer pieces, you know, length is kind of hard thing to come by in a pallet For. Well, so if it's a long pallet, you'll get long rails but still short, the slats on top are always short. Correct, correct. So, if you have, do you have a kind of an end budding technique that if you need the slat material to be longer that you're, I dunno what scarfing them together or anything, or you just don't do that. I just haven't done it, I guess. I'm very unsophisticated woodworker, George. Well that's okay, if it's fun then you're okay Yeah. But I just got to tell ya how much I appreciate your videos and your presentation and your approach to woodworking is what captured me the first time. So basic and straightforward and honest Well, thanks. I just very much appreciate that. Thanks. Well, it's Thanks again for letting me come in The manner which I was taught and I'm happy to pass it along. You do a good job of that. Thanks for stopping in. You bet. Thank you for having us. You got the long distance record. Florida to Wisconsin. okay. Might have to do this again sometime. Happy to have you. Alright, thanks.