March 20, 2026

Estimating Materials, Grain Selection, Maloof Chairs and MORE!!!

1 hour

Brians Questions:

My sister and brother-in-law would like to recruit/hire me to install/build built-in bank of drawers and shelves for them for their new home. The only relatable experience I have with this type of woodworking is building a face frame cabinet and constructing some under the bed drawer storage, each of which I have done exactly one time. The remainder of my woodworking experience has involved making small knick-knacks such as cutting boards, boxes, etc.

Considering your experience with built-in shelving and closets, I was hoping you could lend me your expertise in regards to the following questions:

1. What's the easiest way to go about coming up with accurate calculations for the amount of materials I'll need? I might need a very dumbed down explanation.

2. How do you price projects like this? Do you estimate the time it will take and give the customer a set price, or do you use a time + materials structure? I want to help my sister do this for significantly less than she would pay someone else, but I also don't want to be committing an undetermined amount of my time for free.

Thanks in advance for all your help. Zach Owens

I have a question about Sawstops and the brake cartridge. I recently tripped my brake last night after changing from a Forest Woodworker blade to a Diable blade. Not sure why it happened. They are both 10" blades. Any suggestions for how to prevent this from happening in the future? Mark

Guys Questions:

I've had this question in my mind for a few months now. How do I know when I'm qualified and ready to teach others how to woodwork? For context, I am a teacher by trade, and have only been woodworking for about 2 and a half years. I am single and have no family, so I do have a lot of time to myself. I primarily use hand tools though I occasionally break out my track saw for sheet goods. I don't have any experience with power tools like a table saw, bandsaw, jointer, planer. My dovetails range from "functional-but-ugly" to "decent", I can chop out mortises with chisels, I can joint my edges with my hand plane, and I can get my surfaces to be "flat enough".

With all that said, is there a point where you know you can effectively teach others how to woodwork? Down the line, I wouldn't mind being able to teach some hand tool woodworking classes. I do want to hold myself to a high standard and to be able to teach everyone proper technique without seriously hurting themselves. Thanks in advance for your input, Jose

1. Over the past a couple years I have gotten spoiled by building with a bunch of rift sawn white oak veneer, large slabs of walnut where I can cut parts out as I see fit. Now I can't go back to flat sawn boards!! All I see is the glue line, cathedrals that don't match, or kinda do and just a jumble of boards that just kinda go together. Am I doomed to only hunt for the straightest best grain board? How do you guys incorporate flat sawn (cathedrals) and other wildly grain boards into your work? Or are you only trying to select straight grain for table tops, and use flat sawn stuff for lesser seen parts? Jesse

Huys Questions:

My question is about moving my shop. My wife and I are moving from California to Washington - about 800 miles north of us. I'm going to upgrade from a 1 car garage shop to probably twice the space.

We're going to hire professional movers but I'm wondering how to prepare and ship certain machines. The ones I think most about are the Sawstop, the Festool Kapex 120, the DeWalt 735 planer, and my Laguna 14" bandsaw also with wheels.

The Sawstop has an extension table. Would you remove that or let the professional movers move the fully assembled saw? I would remove the blade and cartridge. How about the Kapex, planer, and Laguna bandsaw? Any special precautions or recommendations there?

For my planes and handsaws am thinking lots of bubble wrap and packed into boxes.

Would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks for the great show guys!

Ron Novato, CA

Hi guys, I am relatively new to the podcast so maybe it has been talked about before, but I had a question about Maloof inspired rocking chairs. Have any of you attempted making a chair with a Maloof inspired design? If so, did you use/purchase a pattern and do you have any recommendations? I have found several patterns out there, but some of them are a bit pricey and I don’t want to commit to a specific pattern without doing my research. I consider myself an intermediate woodworker and this would by far be the most difficult project I have attempted so any advise is appreciated. Zach

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