Thread: Look beyond the bling and asthetics, some real gem of ideas here

Ray

You beat me to it. I don't even mind the bling, although I am not prepared to devote 2½ months to it. I even sent it to my son in Norway yesterday. He replied that he intended to go almost straight to the finish, but it was so good, he watched every second.

I particularly liked the bench dogs with the pop up Blum parts. The only drawback there may be the lack of adjustment in height. They are either up or they are down: A bit like the grand old duke of york in the nursery rhyme.

I have long hankered after a Roubo bench. I even have most of the component parts including the timber to build it. Just nowhere to put it.

Regards
Paul

that is the most lucious piece of wood Ive ever seen. Damn to have the $$$ for that kind of workshop but then one needs the talent and craftsmanship to go with it. Maple wood and solid brass fittings

Wow !

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

...although I am not prepared to devote 2½ months to it.

Wish I could do it in 2½ months.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

... I particularly liked the bench dogs with the pop up Blum parts. ...

Linclon Sentry has the Blum Tip-On for Doors at $11.84 each. I would also worry about dust in the holes.
Blum Tip-On For Doors 956.1004 Adjustable 50mm Set Carbon Black | Lincoln Sentry

And Trademaster has them at $7.70 each.
Blum Tip On Short - 956.1004

Also liked his overhead rail/gantry crane at around 24-30 mins of the video.

Anyone know now what it is?

I'm sure this won't be received well, but literally nothing he showed building looked like anything I'd want to do in a workshop (standing over drill presses, sanding brass, etc) and all of the overdone chamfering and sanding will be lost if it prevents any use of the bench, and lost when it's gone from using the bench.

The whole thing strikes me as a need to gather social media viewers and not something really related to woodworking.

I made a much less nice bench, but every bit as capable in 30 hours, partially by hand, and have beaten the ever living crap out of it with both metal and woodwork. it will outlast me, and when my kids showed up in the shop and drew on it with a marker almost as soon as it was finished, I was happy they were in the shop, not horrified that my youtube studio was messed up.

The fascination with the woodworking community to get into what's similar to playing softball and using a new composite bat every 5 innings is beyond me.

the march into more people watching woodworking and fewer doing it just continues to get stronger.

the key part at the end of it was there "I'm thankful that I am getting money from youtube and won't have to build as much". You wish you could've watched him stream actual paid work from end to end before he figured out how to make advertisers the customer and you the product before moving away from clients the customer and the woodworking the product.

David

You are quite right in stating that he is moving towards an online following and in fact he makes no bones about it. He declares that is his intention, which is a rather refreshing departure from the charlatan approach of U-tubers you have derided so often in the past where their ulterior motive is disguised, albeit thinly.

In the past Pedulla has made exceptional woodworking pieces that are as much sculptural as technical and this latest Roubo bench is just the culmination journey. It is his shop window: The woodworking Bugatti Veyron of Volkswagen. I imagine that having an online following will allow him to indulge in works of his own choosing rather than pieces commissioned by others. In so doing we may be treated to a showing of extraordinary work. Will we re-create those works? Probably not. Speaking for myself the chances are about the same as buying a Veyron or a Chiron or a Bolide or a Type 57SC or a Type 41.....I digress .

Right from the beginning he acknowledges that the bench is "OTT." To my mind, his woodwork explores the limits of the medium creating pieces that most of us couldn't even imagine (speaking for myself). In creating the online following we will be treated to a technical and creative offering that otherwise we would not see. As I have dreams of making a Roubo bench myself (there is a picture of it below, unfinished since 2013 ), I was particularly interested in the bench. I had already seen it before Ray posted this thread. In fact, I was watching another Pedulla thread where he made mention of this bench build and I went looking for it.

In a way, online videos are the same story as advertising in newspapers and commercials on TV. They permit access to material that we would not otherwise be able to see. My argument is that we should be saying "thank you" for those annoying advertisements and commercials and "thank you" for the Pedullas of this IT world. For the moment we can still choose which videos we watch and which we follow: Different story if that changes.

My bench 2013-2023:

P1070954 (Medium).JPG



Regards
Paul

Paul, I guess I'm in the minority in thinking that the work that serves the purpose of the client or the purpose of the maker is at the top. it's distorted if it's to derive revenue another way.

However, I got a big smile out of your bench picture.

I think the battle on the internet to get people actually up and building things is dead. I've never seen the guy in the channel making things before, but the idea of spending lots of time on youtube isn't just ads. You'll be the product now, and three or four times as much money will be made from pitching crap at you. It's inevitable - that's the model, no matter how pretty the wrapper.

David

I understand your reservations and for many U-Tubers I would find it difficult to argue.

However, you might like to view this brief gallery of his. Some of the builds are available separately on You Tube videos. Nick Pedulla, in my opinion, has a talent not commonly seen.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Wow !



Wish I could do it in 2½ months.

Graeme

I meant for my version: Not his version, which is well beyond my capabilities.

Regards
Paul

Nick Pedulla makes some great pieces.

He is not trying to hide his income from his online activities. He is not doing dodgy product comparison videos pretending to help the viewer but really just shilling products.

He is an artist woodworker. He has found enough interest is his work online to enable him to spend less time doing commission work and more time creating pieces that he wants to.

If you look back over his videos, he started with no narration and wearing a mask all the time. He has changed his videos a bit in response to demand from the viewers.

As pointed out eloquently above, the bench forms part of his 'shop window'

Greame, I'd suggest something from an engineering shed/workshop akin to car assembly plant.
one pic showed air hose auto roller thingy. then a cradle with various clamps hanging from it.

Where would you find them ??

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Also liked his overhead rail/gantry crane at around 24-30 mins of the video.

Anyone know now what it is?

I know one thing . I want one! .

VEVOR New Portable Tracking Block Electric Winch Hoist Tools 500kg / 1100lbs Remote | VEVOR AU

I couldn't be bolting a girder to my roof. I thought steel legs with cross pieces like web trusses with a web truss made up to hang the girder trolley from would be good.
I went to a auto upholstery guy in town some time back and he worked in an old factory which was just a big tin shed that used to manufacture the plaster mouldings / cornices, ceiling roses and possibly plaster sheet. This place has a long curved girder set up with over head with big U bends and a gate in it that went out the large back door into the plaster mixing yard outside. Large mixed pots of plaster would be rolled in and around over the moulds and then back outside. A great set up. A small version of that would be nice.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

David

I understand your reservations and for many U-Tubers I would find it difficult to argue.

However, you might like to view this brief gallery of his. Some of the builds are available separately on You Tube videos. Nick Pedulla, in my opinion, has a talent not commonly seen.

Regards
Paul

He definitely has the taste to make interesting looking things, and he's expert at photographing them.

I think all of us could do that level of work if we had to full time. The thing that maybe none or at least few of us could do (me included) is actually run a viable business doing it, though. I don't think I could do that.

The amount of CNC and jigged work would run me out of the shop, too, but the guy who got me into woodworking would love to have traded his day job to operate and set up machines.

The heavily sanded aesthetic leaves me cold, though, and the lettering on the front of the bench is ack.

But that doesn't distract from it being top work.

I've stopped using youtube, so I'll never see any of this, though. What it's become is anti-making in my opinion, and the greed of youtube and the business model creating an alternate reality is just beyond me - not to mention the censorship. I've never had great videos, but what I had, I unlisted, too. I am crack-addict-addicted to the shop now and just can't justify watching much of it. Cynicism has always gone high speed for me, it's no secret, but I guess I'm over the top and when this guy gets full swing into youtube, if he's not peddling affiliate links or slickly marketed courses for beginners, I'll be shocked.

He's a better maker than me, but I see examples like peter ross, mack headley, george wilson - the former two are probably still going at it, George is still alive. George couldn't separate himself from making to ever begin to pause for a second to teach anyone other than an apprentice here and there.

(I did look to see how long it would take me to figure out if the guy did the whole affiliate redirect token thing - it took one video. A click on "what I use" and the page is abloom with redirect tokens that will block out anything you buy on any of the sites, even if you don't do it immediately. it's the youtube model. The incentives and bias are about as accurate as someone doing reviews for a friend's tool company but calling them unbiased. we all have bias, even if we have no connection - there is no such thing as unbiased like a fair coin in a probability problem, but incentives - sincere or not, change the answer. And I think in a completely antisocial way. )