One man is sick. Actually scratch that. One man is completely destroyed. Colton showed up to record this podcast after a week that included a Creed concert, a karaoke night, felling trees across his yard, and what he describes as looking, feeling, and sounding like hammer dog you-know-what. And yet here he is. A true hero of the craft.

But before the sawdust flies, the crew does what they always do first and they talk food. Specifically sandwiches. Ross is heading to London and has a mission to personally visit the Sensational Sandwiches shop and hand deliver Beat Around the Bench stickers to the man himself. The debate over the greatest sandwich meat of all time gets heated. Colton goes Cajun turkey. Jess goes Reuben on marble rye pressed like a panini in a George Foreman. Ross drops the truth bomb that nobody asked for but everybody needed. Salami. Salami is the answer. Throw it on anything. It just works.

Then the show pivots hard into the shop. Ross has a customer table in crisis and the breadboard ends are warping like a propeller because Chicago winters pull indoor humidity down to six percent and the wood is screaming for mercy. Jess and Colton walk him through his options. Cut it. Seal it. Rubio it. Ceramic coat it. Accept that wood moves because wood has always moved and wood will always move. This is woodworking. These are the stakes.

Then things get really dangerous because Jess rolls out a 25 question lightning round trivia challenge and the rules are brutal. Eight seconds to answer. Five hundred BATB bucks if you are right. Minus five hundred if you are wrong. Questions fly faster than sawdust off a drum sander. Pine. Plumb bob. Dovetail. Bandsaw. Kiln dried. Ipe. The adze. And the final boss question that neither man could answer. The word is chatoyance. It is a French term for cat's eye and it describes that shimmering three dimensional figure you see in curly maple and sapele when the light hits it just right. Use it with your customers. They will never question your credibility again.

The crew wraps it out with three heavy hitting nuggets. Jess swears by the framer rig suspender tool belt that changed his life on the jobsite. Colton puts the Woodworkers Companion app on the radar tipped off by patron Greg at Platte Valley Woodworks. It is free and does quoting, invoicing, wood movement calculations, and customer management all in one place. And Ross drops the truth about surviving slow seasons. Find the easy job. Clear coating guitars for an artist. Three hundred bucks. Done. Keep that tap running even when the big projects dry up.

This is Beat Around the Bench. Episode 138. The Walking Deadwood. Go follow the podcast wherever you listen and if you need someone to keep Jess and Colton accountable while Ross is eating sandwiches in Scotland, that responsibility falls on you.

woodworking podcast, Beat Around the Bench, woodworking trivia, breadboard table repair, wood movement, chatoyance, Woodworkers Companion app, framer rig tool belt, sandwich debate, London travel, kiln dried wood, dovetail joint, bandsaw, hand plane, salami sandwich, BATB, woodworking tips, furniture maker podcast, custom woodworking, Colton Cold Crit, JessBuildIt, RNC Woodworking