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I had never heard of a jet boat before Jimmy sent me a video of a guy flying down a river in a small extremely fast aluminum boat. In this episode, Jimmy joins me to tell how he built a jet boat from a jet ski.

We go through a few steps:

• Finding the right jet ski with the correct motor
• Getting the jet ski motor rebuilt
• Taking apart the jet ski
• Driving the parts to RiverRat Jet Boats in Ohio
• Working with David at RiverRat
• Test driving the boat
• Future modifications and things learned

Listen to more of Jimmy and I on this episode of GF Radio.

Jimmy first heard of the Jet Boat from an AquaChigger Video

Find David of RiverRat Jet Boats in Tiffin, Ohio on Instagram https://instagram.com/riverratjetboat

Eric: Hey, welcome to GardenFork Radio. Thanks for downloading the show. My name is Eric. I’m your host. I have this podcast and a YouTube channel. It’s all about eclectic DIY it’s fixing stuff or building stuff or cooking stuff. And me and my friends talk about what we think are interesting, and I hope that you will find it interesting as well. Today. I’m here with the executive producer and longtime friend of garden, fork radio, Jimmy. Welcome, Jimmy.

Jimmy: They welcome. I love that intro music. I tell you what, every time I hear that I can’t wait to see what’s in store and this time it’s me. How are you doing here?

Eric: I’m great. It’s , I’m S I got a big smile on my face, cause we don’t talk often enough. We text a lot, with your great knowledge and influence on the podcast. but we don’t talk as much as we should know.

Jimmy: And it’s still funny. Cause when I hear your voice, I get, I still get starstruck.

Eric: Well, I’m star struck today because you sent me a text of you standing next to what looked like an aluminum UFO. And I’m like, what’s that? And you said, it’s my new jet boat. And then you sent me a link to a YouTube channel and I went down a rabbit hole.

Jimmy: Yeah, you might have to brush up on your welding skills. If you want to put one, you get, you can buy a kit and put it together, but it all just got more overwhelming. I may want one of these things for like four, five years. I just saw a video one time, this a guy named Thomas Hewitt and he’s in, New Zealand. And I think that’s where they kind of started. , yeah. And if you just Google or go on YouTube and put in a jet boat, New Zealand or mini jet boat, you’ll see them. And they do look like UFO’s as funny or, you know, some people say it looks like, , it looks like James Bond’s boats.

Eric: Yes. Yes. So let’s just dial back for a minute. And what is a jet boat?

Jimmy: Well, , I’m sure everyone knows what a jet ski is. And this is, a tiny little two seat, even though I’ve seen them now, they’re making them for seat and they, they, they even make them that are 50 feet long where they take people up giant rivers on excursions and whatnot. But, , this thing is 11 feet long. It has two seats and it has the engine out of a jet ski sitting right behind you. And instead of riding over top of it, it’s in the back. And so it sucks water up from underneath of the boat and shoots it out the back. That’s what propels you. And you can buy this kit and weld all these flat pieces together, bend it, weld it. And then you put a jet ski engine in it. And there’s a whole lot of complicated stuff involved with it, but that’s essentially it it’s, it weighs less than a jet ski it’s it looks much bigger, but it weighs less. Cause it’s not all fiberglass.

Eric: Well, the video you sent me, I was like, Holy cow, it was two guys in a jet ski with what looked like a GoPro. And the one guy is driving and steering the other guy’s holding on with a rope.

Jimmy: Yes. Like the rope idea.

Eric: And they’re skimming over the water and able to fly across really shallow, shallow. They looked like they were in a river and really shallow parts of a river to the point at the bottom was scraping.

Jimmy: Yeah. So the bottom is covered. I mean, this is something that you can add if you’re just going to get one and put it in a Lake. I mean, you’re, you’re kind of an idiot because if there’s one other boat on the Lake, this thing is going to just beat you to death because it’s not really meant to take, , any kind of sideward wave action and stuff. I mean, if you want to go hit some stuff, you can jump over a big wake. Absolutely. But, , it’s not meant to be out there with a bunch of other boats. It’s, it’s semi flat bottom with like a V hall front where it goes from a V to a flat bottom, and it’s got a little swim deck on the back where you can climb in and out. And it’s real basic. But essentially what you do is you take a jet ski and you just tear everything out of it.

Jimmy: The engine, the, , all of the electronics, the steering cables, the gas tank, the, , the muffler, which actually water runs through. Just take everything out of the Jessie. I paid my, my jet ski mechanic guy a hundred dollars and he just tore everything out of it, put it all in my, back of my wife’s little Subaru. And then I drove it up to this guy in Ohio, , David, a river rat jet boats. And, he helped me put the whole thing together. So it was kind of a one-stop deal. I knew that me and my dad could weld the thing together, but then I’m not going to be able to tear the ski apart where I could tear it. I could tear anything apart, right. That wasn’t going to behave with it. Put it in here. Yeah. There’s, there’s like the intake part where it sucks up out and goes into the engine.

Jimmy: You can’t take that out of the jet ski. you have to, that has like it’s specialized. So depending on what motor you have, if it’s a two stroke or a four stroke or Dave and a half four strokes supercharged Rotax is out of some of these big Polaris ones are 300 and 320 horsepower, just insane. people put like 20 or 40 gallon gas tanks in them so that they can go a long ways. But the way I went with mine, it’s it’s from a 1998, Cal Saki 1100, STX, which is, was like the Cadillac of a jet skis in 1998. They made a smaller version with the same engine, which is faster, but this is the big one that you can put three people on, but I just pretty much bought it for the engine. And it had, that was it. I got it for like $800 with a trailer that would hold two jets skis.

Jimmy: Oh, wow. So, so I paid this guy, , my boat mechanic, you know, hundreds of dollars to rebuild the engine and just kind of refresh it because you know, it was 21 years old and then he kept the shell and he’s using parts of that. And he might says he might turn it back into one cause he’s got all these other parts, but, it was a fun process. I bought that jet ski in the summer of 2019 and rode the jet ski around that summer and made sure that the engine was all going right and got everything ironed out. And I learned a lot about two-stroke motors

Eric: Cause the, the Kawasaki you had is a two stroke. It is. So for everyone listening, a two-stroke engine will burn a gas, oil mixture, and four stroke burns, just gas, four stroke engines are like your, , car is a four stroke engine. And two stroke is like a chain saw engine

Jimmy: Motorcycle. Yeah. So older, you know, dirt motorcycle, everything is really lately going to four strokes because, , number one, they’re they’re cleaner. And, but they tend to be a little, have to be a little bigger and a little heavier. and they’re more expensive. But the, this, this motor was when I was researching and I talked to all these different people that make the boats like people at mini jet and people at jet stream, adventure, boats, the big people who really do them all up in Canada. And so what kind of jet ski shot I’ll be looking for? And they say either, a Rotax or one of these Cal sockies. So the Rotax when they, when they break, they break bad and they’re expensive and they’re finicky. But he said, this one here, this 1100 cow Saki is just, it’s small, it’s light, it’s simple and they’ll run forever. And I liked the sound of all that. And they were cheap. So these people who were building these ones with superchargers and all these gizmos and gadgets and huge gas tanks, if they get stuck, they’re not going to be able to get behind it and slide this thing off of the rock and they’re stuck on. Right. So I just figured it goes small light, nimble, you know, like Bruce Lee,

Eric: Do you shop on Amazon? I shop locally and also on Amazon and other line line stores. If I need something very specific light seat covers for the new used car we just bought, I will go online and sometimes use Amazon and GardenFork happens to have a dedicated shopping page on the Amazon site now, which is very cool. It is an affiliate linked page. We do get a finder’s fee for anything that you buy when you start shopping from that page. But I list their interesting items that I think are worthy of the GardenFork, DIY person, it’s amazon.com/shop/GardenFork. If you would start your Amazon shopping experience, no matter what you’re looking for on Amazon started at GardenFork. And that would be great. It’s amazon.com/shop/GardenFork. That’s amazon.com/shop/GardenFork. So you brought all this up to, , the gentlemen up in Ohio and it took them like weeks or a couple of months to put it all together for you.

Jimmy: Yeah, it took about cause you know, with Christmas, , it took about five or six weeks. I got kind of lucky because when I was the first person after watching this video on YouTube, this guy is channels called Aqua chigger. Like the bug C H I G G E R. And he just showed up with one, one day he’s goes metal detecting and venturing and goes in caves. And he had a, a kayak that had a built-in motor that he would use to get all these places. He wanted to go on these rivers in Maryland. And then one day he shows up with this jet boat and I was just like, Oh my God, that’s one of the boats I want. And he said, he bought it from this guy in Ohio. And I was excited because it was so close to North Carolina. I said, I can drive up and talk to this guy.

Jimmy: So I was the first person to email him. And then I got him on Instagram and we were talking that night and I got first in line and it wasn’t just a week later he was booked up until March with the owners. But I got super lucky because he had already built this boat and it was built for the engine that I had because he already, as a matter of fact, he had two of those engines sitting in a shop just like mine. They’re like teal blue. You can’t miss it. And he had built this boat for, and it was for this motor. And then he just decided all of a sudden he wanted to have a four stroke, but the boat wasn’t built and designed for it. So he sold me the one that he built for himself. So I kind of thought if you’re building it for yourself, you know, you’re, you’re probably doing a really good job cause it’s for you.

Jimmy: So I got that boat and then he started, he’s building his own. I’m watching him on Instagram as he goes through building. Is that a, what was that? I was going to say earlier, you talked about the, how the boat can go in shallow water. You can run it through zero water if there’s like a huge sandbar or like a tree that’s halfway submerged across the water. The whole bottom of it is covered in this half inch thick, , U H M w plastic. And that stands for ultra high molecular weight. It’s really danced. I mean, you can take the super sharp hunting knife and just jab into it and like pull backwards on it and just going to leave a tiny little scratch. And it’s almost semi self healing. So I’ve seen people that will they jump them over, over a bank and into another body of water or, or they’ll run it right up onto the bank, in the snow, , and just, and go like a hundred yards and we’re looped back into another bit of water. So all that really had me excited for five years. I haven’t done any of that yet. I’ve only had it on the Lake because, , , all the river’s been kind of swollen and the places where you can go put them in are still muddy. They have went and got them ready for spring yet, but it is it’s, it might be the funniest thing I’ve ever owned.

Eric: So you sent me a picture, a little video or a picture of you with it, , on the Lake. And there were two guys in a fishing boat, Jon boat, and they, they looked a little concerned. Was there, , where they actually were they just curious about the boat or they really didn’t want the boat near them?

Jimmy: I think it was mostly curiosity if they were, they were, it was right by the dock. So they weren’t going out, you know, a hundred yards from the dock and fishing. They were either on their way in, or on their way out, but you know what? I didn’t care. I just got a new toy and I just went, just went to rip. And that was the day that I got it. And the guy was out there showing me how to do everything. But I mean, it, it turns a lot of heads. I’ve, I’d never seen one in person and boy, when they got back off the water and we’re pulling it out, it’s a whole crowd gathered around with questions, wanting to see what it was, how much are they? Where’d you get this? W what is this thing? They were like asking questions out of order that they all wanted to see the engine. And yeah, even the, that runs the Marine that came out there and he’s like, what is that thing? He was like, what, what propels that thing? And he says, you were throwing like a 30 foot rooster tail behind you. What’s

Eric: Going on. Wow. So

Jimmy: He’s got adjustable trim. Oh, wow. So you can, it’s just three positions backs and the center where you’re going to run it most of the time. But if you, if you put the trim forward, it sort of dips the backend down. Yep. And it drags them in swimming. You could, you can go by and just sink someone in a canoe, which I plan on doing to my buddies on the river trip.

Eric: I like canoes.

Jimmy: Oh, I, I have a canoe. I need two boats. I have, I usually have two canoes and I’ve got, you know, trolling motor set up on, on my canoe. And that’s what I’ve done for years. I love to go up river because you can go by yourself. Yep. And then you come back down, there’s your truck. Well, this thing here, you can go up wherever, but, , you can get where you’re going a little bit faster. Anyway, if you see like a little side channel coming off the river, you can just, if you scouted a little bit, you can just go through. I mean, if you’re sitting still, you can probably get away with being in like six inches of water. Yeah. But if you’re just ripping, you can go through three inches of water. Wow. Cause it sort of lifts itself up and mine’s got this built in thing, the grade in the bottom, I dunno.

Jimmy: It’s about the size of a, like a tray from McDonald’s that you get your food on, maybe a few inches more narrow. And it’s just these metal slats where it sucks the water up then. And the slats are there to keep from sucking up rocks and sticks and leaves and things. But if that gets clogged, the performance really drops off fast. So this has, this has another set of grapes that are located directly above those. And there’s, there’s this little platform in the back with two little pipes that spring loaded. And you step on that and it drives that top series of plates through the bottom ones. Like you put your fingers out, facing each other and just sort of, you know, weave them up and down through it just sort of cleans everything out. But what I’ve found out is if you don’t turn the engine off, the suction won’t let anything loose.

Jimmy: So, , yeah, I learned that I got back into some leaves, , displace at the end of the Lake and the whole bottom just got clogged and it was freezing cold. And I was stuck in a sandbar. I had to take off my boots and my socks and roll my pants all the way up. And I finally got the thing off, but it, it, it wasn’t running very good. It was just very sluggish. So it was just like bla bla, bla bla bla. So I’m motored that way for 20, 25 minutes, which if the boat was running I’ve would have been able to go that far in about, I don’t know, 90 seconds. So that fouled the plugs. Cause I took it out again. The week later after I got the big gob of goo out from underneath of it. So that was jumping on the stomp grape, but I wasn’t turning the engine off. So it was sort of keeping everything stuck. So I’m trying to learn all this stuff before for spring come. So yeah, the guy replaced the plugs and he said, Oh yeah, they’re filed. They were just black because he said, where you idle in it for a long time. And I said about a half hour. There you go. Yeah, that’ll do it.

Eric: No, it’s, it’s David of RiverRat Jet Boats is the guy in Ohio.

Jimmy: That’s it? Yeah. David, you can, if you look at up, I think, I think he has a Facebook page. I don’t use Facebook, but I know he has an Instagram and you can contact him through that. Cause you can buy a kit. He actually, he has a license through, mini jet and they had this original design and this new design is built different. , the rear end is different. It’s sort of, the backend has more flotation built into it. And the bottom of it has these things I can think of. They’re called. Strafes sorta like when you have a canoe, that’s got those rails on the bottom that helps the boat track better.

Eric: Yes. it’s called a Skeg.

Jimmy: All right. So this has got those built into it. So it allows you to make a little bit more precise turns and the boat just tracks better. So they, he was building these, the old style boats, but they didn’t want to let him build the new ones. Well, they finally relented and now he has to, he pays them a certain amount of money for everyone that he builds.

Eric: He has a license,

Jimmy: A license. Yeah. And that’s all aluminum. That’s cut on a CNC machine. Ben folded and they’ll ship them to you on a big pallet and you can weld it all together yourself. There’s lots of YouTube videos. You can watch guys going from the beginning to the end. There’s one guy. I think his YouTube channel is local host. It’s weird, but he doesn’t get a lot of views, but him and his buddies showing him unpack in the crate, in a burning, a burning the crate up, out in the yard and start starting to weld on the thing. And you know, not the best looking welds, but , you know, welding aluminum takes an art.

Eric: Oh, it’s hard. It’s hard. All right. So I’ll link to all that. cause I see the video here of Aqua Aqua chigger with his, , jet boat. So I’ll have to watch that.

Jimmy: So that’s it. And well, he said there in that thing, which got me super excited that if you get a hold of David, a river rat and you ended buying a boat, which I had pretty much already decided, he said, he’ll send you a two hats. And I just got my Aqua chigger hats yesterday. I was so excited. I’m part of cigs army.

Eric: Yeah. You’re the, you’re the head, the head of the GardenFork army. But , you don’t have a hat.

Jimmy: I do have a, I’ve got two hoodies

Jimmy: And , I got a G-Fork sticker on the back of my truck. Yeah. Yeah. Never been asked about that. I think people are a little afraid. They ask more, more often they ask about this, this jug that I have on the back that has a huge magnet in it that I always have sitting on the side of the bed. It’ll stay on there going like 70 miles an hour. People will stop at a red light and they’re like, you see them tapping on the glass or honking the horn or rolling down the window. And they’re like, Hey, Hey, Hey man, you got that thing on there. I’m like, Oh, thanks. Sometimes I’ll even jump out and pull it off and like stick it right to the side of the truck. And they’re like, Oh, okay. You gotta be good. But it’s a no, it’s fun. It’s a good, it’s a good little advertisement for my business

Eric: Garden. Fork radio is produced by GardenFork media, LLC in Brooklyn, New York, executive producer, Jimmy Coots. If you’d like to learn more about Jimmy and the custom hollow books, he makes you can visit hollowbooks.com. The music for our show is licensed from audio blocks.com and unique tracks.com.

Wondering how to buy a tractor? Erin, Will, and I talk about our experiences buying a new vs. used tractor, and the pros and cons of both.

So you want to buy a tractor but aren’t sure if you should buy a new or used tractor, right? Today on the GardenFork Radio podcast, we talk about how Will and I bought our tractors. Will bought a new tractor and I bought a used tractor. There are pros and cons to buying either way. Plus we talk about how to avoid Craigslist scams.

Subcribe to GardenFork Radio on iTunes here.

Listen to more episodes of the podcast on the website here.

Eric: Today we’re going to talk about how to buy a tractor and whether you should buy a new tractor or a used tractor. And to answer this question, I called the Wisconsin cheese mafia. I have Erin from the inpatient gardener and I have well from the weekend homestead on the line here. Hello.

Will: Hi Eric. Hi Eric. How are you doing?

Eric: We’re great. Everyone is listening. We couldn’t quite get the technology to work so it might not be superb podcast quality, but the content is worth listening to. I think

Will: it’s that collect call to Wisconsin he had to make, it was just, it just didn’t work, you know, technology wise, the string and the tin can.

Erin: Okay.

Eric: Erin, you’re not taking the bait here.

Erin: I, I have nothing to add to that. I, I feel like I’ve, I’ve sort of at fault here. It was really me who started the technology problems. So I’m just going to sit here and be quiet about it.

Eric: But you had the brilliant idea to do this show because you texted me and you said basically, how did you buy your tractor? And I said let’s talk about it on the podcast.

Erin: Yes. So I’ve been waiting, waiting to have this conversation cause you haven’t answered my question yet. So I’m, I’m, I’m looking forward to hearing what the answer is. As much as all your listeners.

Eric: Well just withdraw many thousands of dollars in cash out of your bank account and hand it to some guy that you barely know and you’ve bought a tractor.

Erin: Well see that’s what I was feeling like he wasn’t, I thought there must be a better answer than that. So that’s what I’m coming to. You tracked your experts for.

Eric: Well basically Erin, why don’t we start with Erin, why don’t you start it with why you’re thinking about buying a tractor and for everyone. I bought a used tractor and I think we’ll bought a new tractor so we can offer different experiences and we as we answer your question,

Erin: perfect. So basically I wish we would have bought a tractor 15 years ago because I, we keep, we have thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and the number of times we’ve needed a tractor, so we have either rented them or borrowed them from neighbors, although our neighbors tend to like to drive their own tractors. So when you asked them if you could borrow their trash or what really happens is they spend their afternoon using their tractor at our house and it, it is kind of an awkward situation because now it’s not just their stuff, it’s their time. And so that gets a little weird to keep asking for that favor over and over and over again. So, you know, we are sort of at this situation where it’s like, well, we can either go another 10 years and look back and say, boy, now we wished we would have bought a tractor 25 years ago.

Erin: Or maybe it’s time for us to think about getting one. And I mean, I need it for a lot of like big garden projects, but you know, we have, so we’re on like just under an acre and a half, which is like just big enough to like probably need one for various projects including like dealing with trees and all that stuff and like just a little bit small to be like, well maybe we don’t need one. It’s kind of that InBetween sized piece of property and stuff that we do things on. So we really started looking into it because you know at some point you go, they’re not cheap to rent and we have rented them for projects before and you start thinking, boy, you know, I know it’s one of those things that I think once you have it, you would use it more often than you currently use one in one way or another. So that’s sort of where we’re at.

Will: Can I ask a question just to kind of get an understanding of what you’ve used it for before or what you plan to use it for because that ultimately will tell you what tractor to buy and what features, sizes, that kind of stuff that you would need to know to make a good decision on which one would work.

Erin: The main thing we’ve used it for in the past and the main thing I see us using it for in the future is sort of front loader type of deal. a big bucket, to move materials, soil, mulch, you know, bulk materials around the yard is the big thing that I’m seeing. But also I’m also sort of moving around like if we take down a tree or something, moving that stuff around. things like that are the main thing that I see us using it for. But I can see one of those things where if you get one, you know, I’d be a situation where you add like the snowplow attachment onto it. And so instead of snow blowing our driveway, we could start, you know, doing like a mini plow situation, that kind of thing.

Will: You know, one of the big things on tractors is there’s, there’s really a couple of different things they’re used for lifting and hauling. Like you’re talking about pushing and then there’s a number of attachments that attach usually to the back of the tractor called three point attachments where you have things that spin. So blades, augers, you know, that type of stuff. Do you plan on doing anything like that down the road or even adding like a mini excavator or anything like that?

Erin: I don’t see that probably happening. I mean maybe, but I don’t really see a use an obvious use for that at this point.

Will: Okay. Cause I mean that’s, that really kind of defines the horsepower of the tractor. Like if you said, Oh I want to move up a bale of hay on my mini farm, you might be looking at a different tractor because maybe the bales of hay are wet or something like that and they weigh 700 pounds. So you want something they can pick up that much versus kind of the things you’re describing fall more into the light duty side of it than kind of the heavy duty. And that’s one of the big mistakes a lot of people make when they buy a tractor is they think, okay, I need to buy a 50 horsepower gigantic machine that does all these things. And in all reality, you never even get close to using the potential of it. And because of that you end spending way more than you need to on the tractor. I agree. Void spending way more than I need to.

Eric: So I what I, my thoughts with, before coming on the show, my thoughts were, kind of laying out the advantages of buying a new one versus a used one. I mean, the, obviously it’s price, but, we’ll, why did you, did you buy a new one?

Will: I’ve actually, I’ve had a number of tractors, so I’ve had to use tractors in one new tractor. So I started out buying used tractors and then kind of, I’ll be honest with you, I kind of would buy them. I do some fixing on them. I use them and it’s interesting thing about tractors is they tend not to lose their value. It’s not like buying a boat where you buy it and it’s $20,000 in the next year it’s 10 because it’s used tractors tend to hold their value. So I had bought a number of tractors where I bought them, worked on them a little bit, used them for a little while, sold them for basically almost what I paid for them or even a little bit better and then bought the next one and kind of kept working my way up to eventually selling the last tractor I had and then getting the one that I have today.

Eric: And the one you have today is a new one, correct? Yep. So there are at least the state I live in, there are, if you are self employed with an LLC, there are actually some tax advantages to buying brand new equipment or leasing brand new equipment. And that if you use that tractor for a business like Erin for your blog, which is a business about gardening, if you leased a tractor, there would be a tax advantage there. I don’t know how great of an advantage versus the price you’re going to pay every month, but that’s something to think about.

Will: Well actually really interesting. The other way to look at it too is like I’ll use the Kubota tractor cause I had a used Kubota and then I bought the new Kubota. The use Kubota was, you know, between 10 and $14,000 to purchase it and I had to pay for it all upfront. I paid it to a guy that I bought it from, used it, and eventually I ended up selling it for the same. I paid for it when we decided, well I don’t want to do that again because sinking that amount of cash in one shot upfront was just too much, especially when we were trying to do the remodel and do to the other things. We’ll come to find out that there are some exceptionally great deals with regards to financing new tractors. And that’s actually the reason why we pulled the trigger on a new one was because I got no interest at all for 60 months on it. And once you divide that larger payment out over a period of time with a very small amount down, it made it very affordable to actually afford a new one. And then it gave you all the warranty. It gave you basically everything new. There wasn’t a lot of things you had to put into it. And then if anything ever went wrong I just dropped it off at the dealership. They took care of it and you know I got it right back.

Eric: The thing to think about with, going to a dealer for the repairs is that you have to get the tractor to the dealer and that usually means trailer so.

Erin: Right. Exactly. Cause that’s the other thing we don’t have is a trailer or frankly a truck capable. At least at this point. We have trucks, we can, we have trucks in the family but we don’t have one like currently.

Will: Yeah, you’d be surprised at what you can pull a trailer with. Cause I mean we had a Ford Explorer for a long time and a single axle trailer and we were able to pull our Kubota around because we bought a light duty tractor. You know, that’s, that’s the thing is you fall into all these categories cause you have lawn tractors, which, you know, a riding lawnmower is. So there’s a riding lawn mower, then there’s a riding lawnmower tractor. And then there’s the subcompact tractor, which is a size that we got. And then eventually you get to the mini tractor that mid size, the large, and then the big farm equipment. And now the higher you go up on that list, the heavier they get. So what we looked at was our tractor was 3000 pounds. Well to put that on a trailer and pull it somewhere that’s, you know, like pulling a boat around or something like that. So if you have a vehicle that can pull a boat, you can probably pull a small to mid size tractor easily on that trailer. A lot of people think, Oh, the weight on them is exceptionally high when you’re on the lower scale and doing light duty stuff. The other thing that’s nice about it is the tractor’s usually a lot lighter.

Erin: Yeah, there we go.

Eric: Let me walk you through my experience of buying a used tractor. my good friend who’s also my neighbors are a tired guy and he has worked with, outdoor power equipment, backhoes and big machines all his life. And he started out working in farming and ended up working on, he would build roads so he knew he knows a lot about equipment and he goes through Craigslist just to see what’s for sale. And he sent me a link to a, I had been making some noise about maybe, you know, it’d be, it’d be handy to have a, a backhoe, cause I have to hire my neighbor to do things and I’d be like, you know, he’s a great guy, but I kind of want to do it myself. But the price was always kind of prohibitive. And he sent me a link to a John Deere 10 50 tractor and it’s a nine, 1985, John Deere 10 50, which is considered a compact utility tractor.

Eric: I don’t think it’s compact at all, but, and it was $12,000. And I’m like, okay, that’s a lot of, that’s a lot of money for me. But then I was talking to two of my buddies up there are also weekenders and I’m like, they were both like, wow, I’d be great to have a backhoe. And I’m like, well, why don’t we buy this thing and split it, you know? So, neither of none of us really knew that much about tractors. So I worked with my neighbor who does know tractors and we ended up, and I looked at the tractor several times that I met with the guy and he lived probably about 50 miles away and he was like, look, I’m moving to Maine. I have to sell one of these tractors. I’m going to sell this one. But it had a backhoe, it had a front end loader.

Eric: It was in very good shape compared to other 30 year old John Deere 1050 that I’ve seen. Actually my neighbor who I always used to hire has the same tractor and it is really beat up. So we bought it. And so for $4,000 I had a tractor instead of laying out the $12,000 but with that came a little bit of a bumpy road with my other two friends and we’re still friends, but it ends up that one of them I didn’t realize, didn’t really know how to drive or use a tractor. And we ran into some bumps with that. And then suddenly one day the clutch started smoking and burnt out. And that added some tension as well because it was a $3,000 repair. I got the repair done by a neighbor who fixes farm equipment. That’s his business. He works out of his barn.

Eric: Everyone takes their tractors there. He gave me a deal because he’s, he’s my neighbor. I, you know, but, it caused some tension within the people that bought it and I didn’t, I was like, we should just have tractor school, you know. So we went over how to use the tractor. But the flip side is that that bump has smoothed out. Each of us uses the tractor when we need it. And it only costs us a third of what, the tractor would cost individually. And a lot of times I see people have tractors in their yard and 90% of the time they’re just sitting in the yard.

Eric: So if you have somebody you trust or you have it up front, it’s possible to buy it with someone else. We’ve, we’ve kinda gotten over the bumpy part now, but it was, it was a little bumpy.

Erin: Can I ask, did you have any kind of, do you have any kind of like formal contract or anything about it or did you guys just kind of, is it all very, you know, handshake friendly kind of thing in terms of whatever, how, who gets to use it when, or anything like that? You guys have anything formal on a piece of paper?

Eric: Well, I did it. I sent an email to each, to the group an email. The three of us said, look, you know, we’re gonna have to share this. We’re on all wanted on weekends. So I think it’s only fair that people ask like a week ahead. we’re gonna split all the maintenance three-ways there’s going to be more maintenance than you think happens. Parts for it are expensive. Like we have to put new brakes on it. The brake shoes are $400. I’ll put them on. It’s, it’s like a Volkswagen, you know, you just put them on. But, and then we have a running total that I email everyone, you know, a two gallon container of hydraulic fluid and we have a 30 year old tracker. So it leaks. Hydraulic fluid is, it’s like $30 and we probably go through three of those in a summer, you know, so we just keep a running total and every once in a while they just hand me some cash cause I, I buy all the parts in the maintenance and everything. So

Will: I would say that’s a lot of hydraulic fluid to be going through. I think with all of the equipment we go through maybe a gallon and a half between four different pieces of equipment in the year.

Eric: Well it ends up we had a hydraulic hose that was leaking. Oh. So and we didn’t realize it. I mean I actually love working on the tractor so, but if, and there’s going to be some other hoses we have to replace. The other thing I found was we have a backhoe and a front end loader and it also came with a, a set of forks, which are for people don’t know what that is. It imagine you’re eating fork has two tines on it and they just stick out front and they’re adjustable across the front end of the tractor so you can lift up pallets, but we use it for lifting up trees and logs and stuff. Both my friends live on dirt roads and if a tree falls, we’d go over with the tractor, we cut the end of the tree off, we lift it up and we’d dump it off the side of the road and then later on we’ll go cut it up. So we have all found that you never run out of uses for a tractor once you own it.

Erin: Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking is exactly what happens is that, is that I just feel like we’d be using it. We’d find a lot of things that would be really helpful to have it for if we owned one and had one sitting there. You know?

Will: Can I give one word of warning. When you’re looking at tractors though, try, you know, don’t buy the first one you find like look at, get a piece of paper and you know, fire up Craigslist or however you’re going to shop for this and just start looking at different ads you and do that for maybe 30, 30 days at minimum. And what you’re going to learn is you’re going to learn the vernacular that people use and you know, what features come with what and which ones are a good deal and not, and just kind of keep watching because I will tell you in the tractor world, there is a lot of scammers out online and if you see a $20,000 machine and they are selling it for $5,000, either it’s broken or it’s a scam. And there’s a lot of that kind of stuff out there.

Will: So you know, one thing you can do to like if you go to look at a tractor, ever look at things like the hoses, are they leaking? you know, when you go there, I actually check and put my hand in the engine to figure out if it’s warm because a warm tractor starts much easier than a, cold tractor. So did they fire up the tractor and run it for 20 minutes before he got there? And then when you get there they go Roman and start your up like look there’s no problem but you didn’t know that they had the jumper out there and all these other things to get it going. Not saying that people are doing that kind of stuff, but it happens, you know, are the safety equipment features on the tractor disabled. You know, sometimes they take off the rollover protection or the PTO shield or you know, that kind of stuff where somebody had modified the tractor and now all of a sudden you’re buying something that potentially is not even safe to use. So that happens a lot too. So you just kind of have to know what you’re looking at and know what’s a good deal and not a good deal on. The only way to figure that out is by looking at a bunch of tractors. Yeah,

Erin: good to know. We’re seeing a lot of ads. I have looked at Craigslist a little bit and I’ve been seeing a lot of ads from dealers who are selling, you know, use tractors, on Craigslist. is I see a lot of that if you either like so far I found really, really crusty, really old. I mean, I don’t know if you can tell much by looking at a tractor, but they don’t, they don’t look like they’re, I’ll tell you that. And then a lot of used ones that are being sold through dealerships. Is that a, is that a reasonable way to go, is to buy a, you know, a used tractor through a dealership? Or is that probably not. I mean, I’m sure it’s not as good of a deal as if you bought it from a private individual in most cases. But, is that a good option to consider?

Will: Actually one comment I’d make on that is, you know, buying from a dealer. If you’re just buying the tractor, it’s usually just a tractor. That’s what you’re buying and you have to buy all the implements separately. When you find private parties, the price is probably the same on the tractor as you would find at the dealership, but maybe they have a backup blade forward or maybe they bought this snowblower attachment. When dealers sell tractors, they usually strip off all the extra attachments and all the extra stuff, so you just get the basic unit because then it’s less likely to come back for a repair because instead of the tractor just being defective now the snowblower could be defective or whatever, so when you buy from a dealership, you usually get a good deal on price, but usually it doesn’t have any extra bells and whistles with it versus a private party where you might get all the other stuff that they’ve accumulated over the years of owning the tractor when you buy it.

Eric: That’s what we got actually, because I looked at the John Deere 1050, sells about $12,000 at a dealership or a used implement dealer. But ours came with a backhoe, a rebuilt backhoe with all new hoses and new seals. the front end loader, which is in good shape and a set of adjustable forks for 12 grand. And the backhoe alone is like three or 4,000 on the used market. I’m pretty sure. So you take all those implements and it seemed like a much better deal. I will, I do want to comment on the scams they are, if you see something and it’s too good to be true, it is there. They have these beautiful pictures of a, a mid range Kubota and it’s like $9,000. And you email them and they email back and they go, send me your cell phone number so I can call you or send me your email address. And they immediately try and get you off of Craigslist because Craigslist allows an email exchange that, I would keep up, I would not leave. And I, so I think I sent one of them my cell phone number and he texted me and he goes, Oh, I’m, I’m out of the country right now, but if you wire me the money, I’ll have my friend bring the tractor over to you.

Erin: Yeah, I ran into that same thing when I sold, was selling my car on Craigslist too. Same deal where I got those people who were like, Oh, sometimes my Craig’s, I don’t get the emails from Craigslist, so make sure you email me at this other email address or call me or whatever. So,

Will: right. So you can always say, go ahead. I was going to say, I will say this though, on Craigslist for tractors, I have been successful three different times selling tractors and four different times buying tractors and devices off of them. In fact, one of them, I bought the Kubota tractor and the guy had a box blade and a back blade and a tiller and all these other implements and he’d put it all together and sold it all. I brought it home. I got the tractor up and running and the couple of issues that were wrong with it and I sold it for the same amount that I bought the entire kit for. So now the tractor rolls off the driveway and goes away. And now I’ve got, you know, $4,000 worth of implements that when I bought my next tractor. I just put them on that next one. So that is something that does work really well when you’re buying from private parties. You just gotta watch out for the ones that are way too good to be true.

Eric: Right? I mean, that’s, it’s like with anything, but they are out there and, it’s always a shiny picture of a tractor and they’re like, I’m like, nah, this ain’t, this ain’t the real deal. There are, I’ve had overwhelmingly positive experiences on Craigslist. I actually helped my neighbor who helped me buy my tractor. He has sold two tractors through Craigslist

Will: can I make one other suggestion on buying and selling that a lot of people don’t think about, but actually the Facebook marketplace is become a great place to buy tractors because the person who’s usually on Facebook is actually the person and they usually have an account and everything associated with it. So there’s a lot less scammers with regards to it versus Craigslist where it’s a lot more anonymous. And actually I bought in some implements for the skidsteer through Facebook, for the, for over at the resort. And it actually has turned out to be a really great transaction.

Erin: That’s great. Can I ask you guys about brands? I mean, I know some of the big brands for tractors, I know Kubota and John Deere and you guys will use those until you guys had mentioned. But you know, I know some of the big ones, are there, you know, is there some brands that you know, are definitely not something that if I’m looking at, especially if I’m looking at something that’s used that’s maybe not there for the long haul, or is it, is that less important when I’m looking at these things and some of the other just general condition type stuff?

Eric: I know two brands that are good. Yanmar is a Japanese brand and actually my John Deere tractor was made in Japan by Yanmar, Y. A. N. M. a. R. I have a Yanmar three cylinder diesel engine in my John Deere tractor. And my tractor was made in Japan and shipped over. John Deere only makes the larger tractors now in the United States,that’s what I’m told. And then from India is a brand called Mahindra and they sell more tractors worldwide than anybody else.

Will: And they’ve actually been in business for 40 years. Did you know that?

Eric: Yeah. And I see Mahindra more and more in my area. And then there are some, Chinese brands that I don’t know much about, but I have seen a couple of people buy them.

Will: I would say one other, one other one to throw into the equation too. And for your application you might want to look at what’s called a mini skid steer. it sounds daunting and I think they’re called landscape skidsteers. Basically it’s a skid steer, but you stand on the back of it to use it and it has

Erin: i did one use of those ones

Will: amazingly enough, I found them for ridiculously good prices on Craigslist and it uses such a small footprint that it works really good in people’s garages. That’s one thing that a lot of people forget about is they want to buy the tractor with the big bucket on the front and all the big tires and everything else. And then they look at their property and they’re trying to figure out where to park it or where to put it.

Erin: Right.

Eric: That’s a huge thing actually with my buddies. We have a standing agreement that the tractor is always under a roof because if you leave any, I think you will leave any machine out. It’s going to degrade much faster than if you put it under cover and out of rain. And also UV sunlight, UV sunlight degrades your all the hydraulic hoses, you know. Exactly. So you get three car garage now, Erin.

Will: Yeah. Well do you have any fences on your property?

Erin: No.

Will: Cause a lot of people don’t put into the equation either. Like I want to use this in my backyard, but your gate’s only 48 inches wide and you just brought a tractor that’s, you know, 60 inches wide. Oh right. That would be a problem. Now you have a part of your,

Erin: Oh for sure.

Eric: Yeah. It’s kinda tricky. I am, I, I would suggest buying a tractor that has a backhoe, but it, it might not be exactly what you need, but if you want to put, if you want to put in a tree that has a big ball or you want to put in a bunch of smaller bushes, it’s actually a lot of fun to dig the holes with the backhoe.

Speaker 1:
Yeah, I bet it is.

Eric: So any more questions?

Erin: Formation? yeah. Well yeah, who’s got a, he’s got a tractor you feel like selling, so no, that was really helpful. Thank you guys very much. I appreciate that a lot. So I mean I just, just out of curiosity, I’m assuming, I mean do you guys find yourself finding uses to use these all the time? Well beyond probably the purpose you originally bought it for? Is that true? I mean, I’m just trying to judge for sure to make sure that making this kind of purchase is something that is really going to be valuable for us. And my thought is we’re going to find more things to use it for with them, we think. And I’m curious if that’s been your experience too.

Eric: Oh, I think so. Yeah. It’s, I actually have, I’m going to put in drainage along my driveway and I know I don’t have to call one of my neighbors and pay them $70 an hour to dig a trench. You know, I can just, me and my buddies are like, Hey, get the tractor out. Okay. You know, we do it.

Will: one side of it, and it might be a little bit more of a cavalier attitude about it, but I’ve never been stuck with a piece of equipment. So one of those scenarios where I, I bought a piece of equipment and I’ve used it and found all these different things and then I decided to upgrade to something because I want to do something else. I usually get at least 95% of my money back, sometimes 100% of my money back when I’ve gone to sell the tractor or to, you know, sell it to the next party after even using it for a short period of time. So you might buy something, decide to use it, find out it’s not the right thing. A lot of people are really afraid, Oh, I’m going to lose a ton of money by trying to sell this or move on. We’ll tractors, like we said in the beginning of the show, hold their value. So even if you buy it, find out that it doesn’t do what you’re looking for. It only does like 50% of the stuff you wanted to do to get out of it and get into the next thing. It’s a good way, you know, start with something small, figure out how you use it, and then as your need grows, you can always sell that device or that tractor and then buy the next size up. Try that for awhile and kind of figure out where the sweet spot is.

Erin: That’s actually a really compelling argument because when you start adding up how much you can conceivably spend on renting these things for a day or a weekend, you know, that’s, that’s a lot of money and you know, that adds up very quickly. If you’re looking at a situation where you, these things keep their value so well that if you used it for awhile and when you’re done using it, you’re able to sell it for 95% of its value. You’re probably ahead

Will: one other thing to put in the equation too is the of the tractor on how you take care of it versus you know, the next person and so on. You’d be surprised what a pressure washer will do to the value of a tractor. I’ve bought a tractor and it was in really bad condition. You know, we did some grease cleaning in the engine compartment. We fixed a bunch of leaky pieces on it just to make it nicer for ourselves. And then when we went to sell it, you know, we were able to get actually an extra $500 out of it just because it was in a much better condition. You know, spray painting some of the rust up and you know, fixed it up. I actually found a John Deere three 18 tractor when we were kind of prepping for the show. I was like, I’m going to see if I can find something that might fit into what Erin might be looking for. I found them as cheap as $1,000 and as high as $5,000 and the main difference is how did it look like the $5,000 one, the wheels were new. The outside of the housing was all new. Everything else, the thousand dollar one looked like a rusty pile. I mean it basically worked, but you could easily buy something like that, have it work and just fix it up as time goes along.

Erin: Great idea.

Eric: Wow. Now it’s excited. It’s like this vicarious thrill of helping Erin buy a tractor.

Will: I think everybody should leave a comment or send you a message and just throw in their ideas. Cause I mean I’m guessing there’s a bunch of people talking to the radio right now cause talking about tractors is like talking about pickup trucks. Some people like forward, some people like Chevy tractors. It’s the exact same thing.

Erin: Yeah, I’d love to, I’d love to hear some feedback from people on it.

Eric: My other, my other thought was if you buy a used tractor, do not take it to the dealer for repair cause they’re just, they’re just going to nail you. I mean it’s like if you buy a used Subaru, you take it to your local foreign car mechanic, you don’t take it to the Subaru dealer. And I would just ask around, maybe you know some of the local ag store, the local feed store, Hey do you know anyone that works on tractors around here? Cause that person might have a few tractors that he’s bought and fixed up and, and sells them on the side to make additional money or it’s just good to know them to fix your tractor. Or they might even know some tractors that are for sale. Word of mouth is, I think the best way to buy one.

Erin: That’s a great idea. Good deal.

Eric: All right, we have dead air here. We’ll start talking.

Will: Sorry I had him muted. I was coughing. I thought you were chugging another one.

Erin: Well you guys are, you guys are a font of knowledge on tractors so thank you for sharing that information. That’s quite helpful.

Will: I would say slow and steady is the best way to go with regards to it. Every, if you just jump in and buy something blindly, there’s a good chance you get burned. If you’ve looked at a certain model number that you know fits your fancy, you know, just flipping through online and go Oh the John Deere three 18 is a model that I like, you know, search it for a couple weeks and see what comes up. Springtime actually is a really good time to buy tractors cause a lot of people when the snow goes away and Wisconsin, they’ve got stuff in the yard they want to get rid of or they’re cleaning out the barn. You know there’s a lot of estate sales and interestingly enough I’ve actually picked up implements at a state sales and they’d been ridiculously good deals because let’s say a farm you know is shutting down or getting split up or changed or whatever and they’re selling off the equipment. It’s kind of like used furniture. Sometimes the equipment people are just trying to liquidate it to get rid of it cause the tractor is long gone, but they’ve got all the implements laying around and they got nothing to use them for. So they’d rather have the cash.

Will: All right. So I feel like I should hire you guys to buy a tractor for me.

Eric: Just pay for my airline ticket. I’ll be there.

Will: Right. Okay. No, we can’t let Eric come back to Wisconsin. Sorry, I just, that’s part of the rural Eric. Can I come back to Wisconsin?

Eric: All right. So, everyone, do you have some tractor experience or tractor thoughts? It’s [email protected] would be the best way to get hold of us. And you can find Erin at her fabulous YouTube channel, the inpatient Gardner, just amazing information there plus her website and we’ll, we’ll just post a new videos to his YouTube channel, the weekend homestead. And we’ve talked about the pine cone cabin, but you have a video and a live stream about the pine cone cabin there. Right.

Will: I was surprised at how many questions we got with regards to that cabin. It kind of, it was interesting how it got a little louder.

Eric: Yeah, we can talk about that in the after show, which is the part of the podcasts, the garden fork patrons get, but for the moment email us [email protected] and we would love to hear guys. So drive safe and go out and do cool stuff. Thanks for listening.

I talk with Rick about how to stain wood, and his experience staining wood doors. We walk through preparing the wood, why pre stain conditioner is important, choosing the right stain, and how to apply polyurethane. Rick tell us all about it and then I add in some comments and suggestions when using wood stain.

The PBS Back To THe Moon show: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/back-to-the-moon/

Podcasts Rick Suggests:
Longform podcast
Aspen ideas to go
30 animals that made us smarter
Science Rules

GardenFork’s Facebook Discussion group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1692616594342396/

Eric: Hey real quick before we start the show, I just wanted to do a little shout out to garden for scientists. Tony. Um, he had a brain tumor and he posted a pretty amazing little video clip of while these staples in his head. I’m like, I want boy and I think, um, it stuff like that just kinda all of a sudden it makes you realize that if you can get up and walk and talk that the day’s pretty good, you know? So, uh, we are thinking about you my friend and um, maybe you could save some staples for us. All right, so Salem Tony is in the garden fork discussion group on Facebook a lot and he was one of those guys that he was just on the show talking about chemicals. Not all chemicals are bad, which I agree with. All right, here we go. Ready my friend. I am ready.

Eric: hey there. Thanks for downloading the show. This is garden fork radio. My name is Eric. I host this DIY eclectic kind of podcast with my cool friends. I also have a youtube channel. Similar, hey, let’s try this and see what happens kind of things. Today we’re going to talk about staining wood with my good friend Rick Kennerley. Hello Sir. Hey, how are you my friend? I’m good. We don’t have the hurricane. Do you have the hurricane and the hurricane is along the Gulf, right?

Rick: Well it’s, it’s already blown inland. Uh, and so, um, I think the inner center part of the country is getting kind of a drenched, but, um, I hadn’t had it, I don’t think it’s got a hook over this direction. So, uh, we’re doing pretty good. Just a little thunderstorm the area. Beulah, listen closely. You’ll be able to hear it rumble every now and then.

Eric: I closed the door so you don’t hear the air conditioner banging away in the other room. So,

Rick: oh,

Eric: so long story short, quite awhile ago, um, when I was renovating the house I live in now, I had to change out some doors. There were some French doors that opened up into our bedroom and we wanted them to be solid wood doors and it was quite a drama to figure out how to get some doors that would fit. Cause there it’s a brown stone and the doors were oversized. We finally found out what to do. But I got these raw pine panel doors and I had this stain them in polyurethane. And I thought, well I’ll make a video, two videos about this, right. Get yourself a twofer. And those two videos of some of those popular videos, other recent ones I’ve done, we’re constantly, people are writing comments about it. And then you, um, thought you’d stained some doors.

Rick: Yeah. Um, one I want to really thank you for those two videos. They helped me so much in getting prepared and knowing what to buy and, and uh, the importance of reading the label because I did the same thing you did. And one of the, I think your staining video, I, uh, had two cans in my hand. One was a, uh, a stain and the other was a polyurethane. And when I was reading the back of the cans, which I learned from the video, I realized they were an incompatible. And so, you know, I mean you got to really pay attention to this stuff because a mistake can, it’s, it’s painful, uh, mean re sanding. Um, you know, recovery is a, is difficult to get back to the, a clean piece of wood. And so I really appreciate your, uh, your uh, Yo, setting those up for me.

Rick: Thank you. You can be on the show again. Thank you. Okay, well thank you. I’ve earned my key. So let’s back wind. Let’s hit the rewind button on the VHS recorder. Um, cause this was all sparked by, well Wallace of the weekend homestead cause it is. Hey had a barn door hinge kind of door and you know, he uh, he’s renovating this uh, old, uh, camp ground that has some buildings. One, I think our was that in his house he did this house. It might have been at his house. He does so much work. It’s hard to keep up with him. He makes me tired just watching him. But, uh, yeah, he did that. And I looked at and I said, that’s really cool. And so I, you know, I emailed will and got some tips about how that process works because it’s not as, it’s straightforward, but it’s not as straightforward as you might think about basically like a pipe overhead with these roller wheels that hold a door from the top and your role at open and you roll it closed, right.

Rick: And his was actually a kind of a, a bar instead of a pipe. And that’s the real difference between ours. The bar has fixed stanchions where you mount, it mounts it, you have to mount at every so often along the wall, every so many feet or so many inches. And to do that, most of the time you’ve got to have a header board of a board you put up there, uh, that you tie into the, uh, the studs cause the likelihood of hitting a stud with the, even a few of those fixed, uh, stanchions on the, on the back of his rail are very, very small. Now when you have the bar, or at least the system that I have, the stanchions are independent, they, they, they’re loose. And so you can put them where you need them and it’s really easy just to, um, uh, one, put the hardware on top of your door and fit it first and then pull it and y’all stand it up and lift it up about half an edge off the floor and mark exactly where that is.

Rick: So you’ll know where to put the, uh, the stanchion. Did you use a stud finder or, oh yeah, I have to use a stud finder, a yell to find the studs and ag. I locked. Um, we had two of these doors and I locked in almost every stud along there. I missed, uh, a one and I just put, I used a wall anchor in there because all I was going to do is support it so that wouldn’t sag. All the weight was hanging from the, uh, the bar. So that worked out really well. The tricky part about this was, um, actually staining and, um, and prepping the doors and that raw wood when you bought them. Yeah. And they were terribly expensive. Um, it’s, um, pine, uh, the first one and with a glass insert of specialty glass insert. The pattern is called rain, which was,

Eric: okay, we’re going to, we’ll post these pictures on the, uh, the website for, and you’re also in the garden fork discussion group,

Rick: right. And uh, yeah, it looks like rain and it’s, um, it’s nice. In fact, it is raining outside right now. All that thunder is paying off so it provides light but gives you privacy. Exactly. And A, when they’re lit from the back, they’re quite attractive. And um, yeah, we just had to do something. Those little bi-fold doors that came with the house, this is a very old house. Um, we’re just such a problem and they never worked right in the, uh, you know, anything that’s caddy levered like that, uh, hooked on one side at the top and the bottom. And then the way to supported out over something is going to be a problematic. And so we just wanted to get rid of them and do something a little nicer. And the, so that’s the solution that we came up with.

Eric: Yeah, it’s interesting. Um, I, I’ve never seen the kind of roller thing that is, it’s a stainless steel roller pipe cause they’re usually, they’re all painted black to look like, you know, a rod iron kind of black smithy thing. So yeah, that there’s other, where did you buy those?

Rick: You know, uh, I hate to say this. I did my very best to buy from, uh, uh, you know, independent outfits online that, you know, the restoration hardware, you know, places like that. And in the end, and I couldn’t find what I wanted because, uh, the pipe is kept on either end and by wanting it to be continuous so the doors could roll the full length of the pipe. And so there was a kit sold on Amazon that had, uh, two Tim foot poles or pipes and, uh, uh, center plug, uh, that you took the caps out instead the sitter plug to tie them together. And so I found that kit and the only place I could find it after weeks of shopping was at Amazon. And uh, he came in at about 160 for the entire, uh, entire set. One Bat.

Eric: Okay. So let’s walk through you. So you’ve got rob pine doors, you’re going to have to tape off the glass. But first, first kind of red flag is you’re going to want to stain pine and

Rick: pine is a soft wood and those stains are built, are designed for hardwoods. So Lemon, did you make them miss the big mistake everyone does or did you learn from the video? Uh, yes to both questions. I um, I went ahead and re sanded the doors even when they came in really nicely sanded. I would make sure if there was any wax or, or anything on there that I would got it off. And then I pretreated uh, the soft pine and um, with a priest and conditioner. Yeah, exactly. It’s a pristine conditioner and you just brush it on or are put it on with the rag, uh, let it dry about maybe 15, 20 minutes. And then within two hours of putting that on, do you have to stay? Yes. And uh, my first attempt at staining for some reason, uh, she who must be obeyed, insisted that I use a brush, um, against my better judgment.

Rick: And I used a brush, but we brought the doors inside the house because we wanted them to dry this century. Yeah. And, um, so we had them set up in the sun room, a little bit of a fan of going over the top of them using a low voc, volatile organic compound, uh, both stain and a polyurethane. So I didn’t smell too bad. We weren’t frying our Brighton sales then I put it on, but it dried so quickly behind me that I didn’t get a chance to rub it off. Yes. And that was my first big mistake. And um, I found out that is helpful is your video is the best video to go see every time is how to fix things. You know, how to fix a bad stain job, how to fix that. And, and you, you are not necessarily a video, just a list and you’ll see these discussions.

Rick: And there’ll be eight or 10 people have really messed up their stain jobs. If you get this good information about what to do, it turns out the really simple thing to do, which I had, I guess I just don’t have enough experience to even think about it, is just to put more stain on those spots. The mineral spirits that are in the stain that are, will evaporate off also a soften and will allow you to work that old state again and wipe it off. And so that, that was my first big screw up with this. And so I went to using a rag after that to work the staying in and doing small sections only, maybe a, uh, maybe two foot at a time. Uh, rub it and let it us or wipe it off. Move on to the next section section. And you can kind of do some blending at that spot where you break and the prize that in the end product, if you’re consistent, you can’t see where you start.

Rick: Stopped and started actually, right. And then, uh, yeah, we put on um, uh, two rounds of stain, uh, on all sides of the doors. So that was taking some time. Uh, one of the things that worked out really well for me is because we had a glass insert, we could set the uh, the doors on a table and set tuna cans underneath the glass where they touch the glass between glass and the door. And so we could flip the um, the doors and do them pretty quickly without having to wait for them to drive for four. You turn it over having all those Saul horse problems that you sometimes have when you stained. When I’m doing a door like that, I will drill in the top and the bottom, some pretty substantial drywall screws, like a three inch, two in the top, two in the bottom.

Rick: And then you and another person can flip the door like that. So you’re not touching the door. You’ve got these screws in the top and bottom and you can move it that way. That is brilliant. Why? Why didn’t you, but why didn’t you put that in the video? Video number three, although we were both crazy in the same way, uh, because mine was more Rube Goldberg, I had thought about suspending, um, uh, two pieces of wire rope from the ceiling and putting the bolts in the center of the door so I could kind of spin them as I am.

Eric: [inaudible] would you like to have more Eric in your ears? Maybe not. Um, just to kind of a little boost for the garden fork patrons. They’re people that support me and garden fork on a monthly basis. It’s Kinda like PBS, uh, you know, are you, he basically pumped him a couple bucks a month, $3 a month as a suggested starting point for garden fork. That’s like a cup of coffee a month. What I offer in return for that is some behind the scenes of Eric’s world using the Patrion app, which is the program we use for this program. Does that make sense? Anyway, I use a website called Patriot to collect the supporters contributions. They have a pretty robust app and also email system. So throughout the month I’ll post exclusive. That sounds kind of hokey. Basically I take pictures that I don’t share on Instagram and I’m just like, hey guys, this is what I’m up to today.

Eric: And kind of a sharing a little bit more of Eric’s world. I’m a little reluctant sometimes I just got a little creaked out basically by posting too much stuff on the Internet, and this is maybe a little more secure, but anyway, you either get it as an email or if you load the Patriot app onto your, which is a really cool app. I think it’s not invasive at all. You can look at these pictures and posts and stuff. Plus just recently I’ve added a kind of behind the scenes podcast extra, so as a second podcast, probably three times a week, three times a month. Now it’s me Yakking into the recorder or Yak and the newer microphone, the last one, I walked around the yard and talked and people seem to like that first. I just want to also say that was what, that wasn’t the first thing I said, but anyway, we do have some new supporters. I want to thank Nicole owl and a gentleman who is calling himself stuck in Japan and he’s invited me to come to Japan, which is very tempting because I’m intrigued by the ramen shops there. Anyway, more information about becoming a regular contributor to garden fork is in the show notes. You just click on the Patriot and link or patrion.com/garden park. Thank you.

Eric: So I have a couple thoughts here for people. If you’re thinking about staining wood, first of all, get some similar wood to your project, your scrap wood and practice. Um, take, do tests. I cause I had to match existing stained wood when I put these doors up. So I would lay down stain and I would first with a Sharpie, I would create rectangles on the piece of scrap wood. It was pine actually and that I would do the pretreatment and then I’d write five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes and I would lay down the stain and I’d rub the stain at five minutes, rub it a 10 and rub it at 15 cause you get an idea of how dark it’ll go. And also you get to practice applying stain that way as well. So I would not start at the beginning and all of a sudden y’all just going to stay in this would, you know, buy a piece of scrap and work on that first.

Rick: What did you put that in the video? Okay, well let’s do the second thing. We’ll have a transfer

Eric: scripted this video of this talk and I will just make a video. So,

Rick: well, you know, it, it would actually be helpful to, um, you know, because a lot of us just don’t have your experience in working with this stuff and we don’t think about them, you know, all the permutations of what to go wrong, how to figure out things. Cause that was, you know, how long do you leave staying on? And uh, that was another discussion that went on twin. She and who must be obeyed myself. And uh, I was like, Yo, let’s leave it on just your five minutes and you know, cause it’s easy to restate and make it darker. Right. And, um, and she said she insisted that the cans said 15 minutes and that didn’t take into account that were inside an air conditioned building with the fan going, you have ceiling fans blowing down on the, on your work. And of course she won.

Eric: So some background, she is a registered nurse. So

Rick: there are products

Eric: cause for everything. And she was a brilliant person for even considering being married to you.

Rick: You, you know, uh, you know, she gets points, just a humanitarian points for marrying and marrying the handicapped. I mean, you know, so let’s,

Eric: okay, so another thing people need to realize is you have to let stain dry between coats, read the can, the can, the can spells out the truth, you know, and then when you’re going to polyurethane, you have to let it dry again before you apply. So this is like a, it can be a two or three day project. It’s, you’re not going to get this all done in one day.

Rick: Yeah. And, uh, we, it’s lucky that we, we were doing the work ourselves so we didn’t have the pressure of uh, somebody coming in and we’re trying to, uh, finish the doors, the staining and whatnot, and they’re going to mount the hardware. Yeah. But, uh, you know, if, if that happens to you, uh, just know that you can unmount that door and take it back out as soon as the guy finishes with it, take it back out to your workshop and continue your staying in polyurethane project. Yes, it’s on hinges. You can just pull out the pins and, right. So there, there are ways around almost every obstacle. So should we

Eric: move on onto the polyurethane part of the day?

Rick: Let me think. Oh No. Despite my very best efforts and using the, um, the pretreatment of, for the stain, I don’t know how it happened, but one door on one side came out looking like an Appaloosa horse. Yes. I had the same thing. Yeah, I saw that in your video and I have no idea why that had happened. And so you, you learn to just accept that despite your best efforts. Sometimes something is going to happen. And that required me to take the, uh, uh, door outside, uh, set up in the shade and uh, use the sand dirt and sand it down, uh, get all that stain off and whatever was underneath it. And I have no idea what that was underneath it.

Eric: Interesting comment on the youtube video that, that happened on. A gentleman said that more than likely at the warehouse, some kind of liquid was splashed on the door while it was being stored.

Rick: Oh, maybe.

Eric: Maybe when they were loading it, it was winter and it’s salt water or some kind of fluid off of a forklift truck or something. But um, but yeah, I had to send the whole thing down. So that was very interesting that it was basically somewhere in the process, the manufacturing process, something got spilled on there. Spray sprayed on there.

Rick: Yeah. And the other thing that kind of annoyed me is I had already sanded it because, you know, I started off, I did a pre sand just just to be sure I would catch anything like that and I still got caught out.

Eric: Yeah. It’s weird cause it goes on and then all of a sudden, an hour later you’re like, what is that and why? What did I do wrong? You know,

Rick: and you know,

Eric: the other thing to realize though, when these kinds of things happen because of the texture of the glass, it’s only on one side. And we wanted the texture on the outside. It did occur to me that I, it wasn’t as bad as I thought because we wanted the texture of the glass on the outside. That particular side was on the inside the backside of the door and it would be against the wall and no one would actually see it very much. And so, uh, it’s Kinda like a Christmas tree, you know, you turn the bad bad side to the wall and you know, and that, so that worked out for me, but I went ahead and reset re stained it and sanded it and restate it just to, uh, to catch up cause I couldn’t stand up a project that wasn’t nearly perfect. Right. Yeah. So then how did you set about the polyurethane,

Rick: polyurethane? Not Ones I stayed in the same family I used. Um, Minwax and so I wanted to use their Minwax, um, poly urethane smart. And this is where I actually screwed up the first time though because I had that can, that, uh, they, there are some varieties of Minwax poly that do not mix with the variety, uh, another variety of stains in their, in their system. You’ve got to read them. But I, I got the right one. It was a low volatile organic compound and that stuff is dangerous. Uh, high BLCs. Um, I mean they literally, they say drinking kills brain cells. High Voc really kills brain cells. I went to school with a guy, uh, who was supposedly pretty bright at one time and he worked in the, uh, a university press, uh, printing office and, uh, he was cleaning, uh, those machines every day with a high voc and not wearing a respirator or gloves. And, uh, he ended up, uh, mentally in a very bad place.

Eric: You can get an organic vapor mass, very, I mean, they’re 34, maybe 40 bucks at so worth it.

Rick: Yeah. Yeah. And they’re worth it just for the peace of mind, even if you’re using a low voc a and I bought one and used it. Yeah. So also

Eric: Kinda real quick there, there are, there are water-based polyurethanes, there’s oil based poly or things. And then there are these blended ones as well. And I almost got caught up in this cause the stain I was using, I’ve learned I had to buy the special kind of Minwax poly that as actually kind of hard to find, but I found it and used it, but just read, read the cans because even a ma, even in a same manufacturer, they’re not all compatible.

Rick: Right. And, uh, you know, they, they have, you know, oil, both stains, water-based stains and then they had the new gel stains. And, and that the, I think the real in compatibility happens over there on that gel end. But, um, they’re, they’re just all kinds of little things that you have to keep track of.

Eric: I’ve never had a good experience with the gel stains, but that’s, it’s, I haven’t done it a lot either. So. Yeah.

Rick: And so the, the poly went fine. Uh, getting it on, uh, getting it stayed. Just take your time, put it on thin and uh, and you know, pay attention to what you’re doing. Find some reef, something that reflects, you know, like light from a window and get down low and see if there are any voids or hollows and be sure and check for holidays. You know, little drips down the side that pull up on the backside of your, you’re a door. Oops. Yeah, I had a few of those first time

Eric: you can use a clamp light for that as well. If you don’t have a a that way you can shot, you can move the clamp light around or have your friend move the clamp light around at a really low angle to the door and you can look right across the whole thing.

Rick: Yeah, I actually was using my, um, my sitting bucket, uh, my, um, orange store bucket that has lid that I, I, that I use for gardening, but I actually sat on that so I’d be at a really low angle so I could, uh, see, uh, any holidays missed spots, uh, cause you really want to do a very fine job, but you won’t do a very thin job, uh, too much. Um, too much. Polly is not right.

Eric: Your friend, when you’re mixing poly or thing, do not shake it. You went to stir it because if you shake it, you’ll introduce air bubbles into it, which make for a very poor finish.

Rick: Yeah. Uh, particularly if you’re not, if it’s your final finish, uh, you can correct for that with, um, a little bit of a steel wool datum. Tell me, do you still wall or do you, uh, sand between your, your finishes?

Eric: I use the steel wool. Uh, I don’t understand how it works. It seems counterintuitive that you’re sanding the polyurethane, the smooth, polyurethane, and you just put down, but it makes a huge difference. You’re, you’re knocking down the little high points. You’re giving a tooth to the new layer. And I, I use Pollio steel will for od steel, will very fine steel. And then I go over with a tack cloth, which is cheese cloth that has, I think bees wax in it. And that lifts up all the, uh, the debris that you’ve, you’ve scuffed up basically. Right.

Rick: And take your time between coats and really work the, uh, the, uh, tack rag because, uh, that’s where you’ll screw up your finish. You’ll get a little sand or a little debris from the, um, the uh, steel wool and next thing you know, you’ve sealed that in under the code.

Eric: Yeah. And then the more time you take the better at it takes a while for the polyurethane to cure each time. Some of them say you can recoat in an hour. It just depends, you know, if all else fails, read directions. So yeah, I was,

Rick: I had enough time that I could recode, uh, just once a day and get a nice hard finish every day. And I think that really helped to, um, to make it come out looking good.

Eric: They look great. Except is that a sat and finish or sat in polyurethane? It’s a satin finish. Yeah. I think that looks better. My floors in my brownstone were polyurethane with this super shiny, super high gloss and it was horrible. But luckily we have Labradors who knocked that finish down.

Rick: Just scoped it right up.

Eric: Yeah, that and my, my robot vacuum.

Rick: So, but you know, it, it came out all right. But it was a frustrating and I spent one really sleepless night just, um, you know, when that Appaloosa finish came out, uh, just, you know, cursing everybody and everything,

Eric: right. Cause they’re expensive doors and you’re like, what the h did I do. You know? And it’s something that you have to realize that not everything is within your control. So.

Rick: Oh, well one thing we do need to talk about, first of all, this was not the first set of doors. This project has been hanging fire since, um, March. Uh, we are the custom ordered doors. We got them from the orange store and when they arrived, uh, the manufacturer had put the wrong glass inside and so they had to reorder and then they reordered and they showed up and some reason they were pallet mounted and just raw together and had pallet straps, uh, where they had crushed the wood Time-Warner. Well now on the corners, cross middle of the door. And so I was thinking, well, do I send it back and you know, refuse it in order another set and you’d think, well, they’ll find a new way to screw those up. Yeah. And so I went ahead and took them cause they were at least pretty close to what we wanted. And I did spend a lot of time, um, uh, sanding and filling. Uh, and I should’ve called you and asked, what kind of wood filler do you use or, cause, I mean there’s the micro bubbles. Um, you know, it’s almost like a styrofoam that you can put in there. And then there’s a standard wood filler, which I have no idea what that stuff is. Um,

Eric: sawdust and a and a sire and a glue, a staying compliant glue basically.

Rick: Yeah. And frankly those, those spots did not a stain up as well as I’d hoped now. But I, you know, I worked with what I had and I’m a, it’s like you told me and this is the best advice you ever gave me. You know, in two weeks you’ll know

Eric: exactly because you know you’re obsessing about this and when you get the doors up there’s going to be other stuff around the doors and your eyes are looking all over the place, not at the lower left corner where that little ding is in the door. Yeah, exactly. I would paint so many rooms when I had my painting, contracting business and the client would obsess over what kind of color and I’d be like, look, why don’t you put all your junk in this room? And it was true and it would really be kind of crushing because we would build, we’d paint these beautiful rooms and then I’d maybe have to come back a week later to get paid or something or hang something for them. And they put all this junk in the room. And I’m like, what did you do to my room?

Rick: You know? Well, you know, I hit, I knew that lesson is just, you had to remind me because, uh, I painted our front door and, um, it was a two tone paint, a kind of a beige and a black trim. And there were spots on there that it was so hot and I was so tired. I said, I’m just gonna have to come back out and finish this and you know, take it off and Redo it again. And I talked myself out of it and a week later, uh, I, I’d forgotten all about that little flaw down that, that little corner over there. Yeah. So

Eric: it happens. I do want to circle back to the, uh, on Minwax, I think it’s called pre stained conditioner. Cause my father in law, um, got me to stay in, he’s a cabinet maker. He’s very talented. He’s like, Oh, you can do all the staining. And He’s, he gave me this, can a priest and condition. I’m like, I don’t need this. This is, you know, we don’t, you know, and you really do on softwoods like pine, you really do need to use that because pine, the heartwood and the Sapwood, the different pieces of the wood absorb stain radically differently and the priests and conditioners smoothed that out. So do not skip that step because you will learn from me.

Rick: Well you know in it like say you just have to take your time and really do every step. There are no short cups in a in doing that.

Eric: Oh I’ve gotta be the title of the show. There are north shore cuts and staining wood.

Rick: Well I think

Eric: Do you shop on Amazon? I shop locally and also on Amazon and other line line stores. If I need something very specific like seat covers for the new used car we just bought, I will go online and sometimes use Amazon and garden fork happens to have a dedicated shopping page on the Amazon site now, which is very cool. It is an affiliate link page. We do get a finder’s fee for anything that you buy when you start shopping from that page. But I list their interesting items that I think are worthy of the garden. For DIY person. It’s amazon.com/shop/garden fork. If you would start your Amazon shopping experience no matter what you’re looking for on Amazon, started at garden fork and that would be great. It’s amazon.com/shop/garden fork. That’s amazon.com/shop/garden

OK, total left turn here. I would like to listen to more podcasts and I’d actually, I’m interested in interview podcasts, but a lot of the interview podcasts is for everyone, not just rec, are always about like movie stars. And I would rather they be about interesting people that aren’t movie stars.

Rick: Oh, well then you’re just listening to the wrong podcast. Okay. First is longform podcast. That’s what it’s called. Yeah. Long form podcast. And they interview some of the most interesting people, uh, writers, authors, business people, uh, academics, thinkers, uh, all kinds of things. It is wonderful

Eric: because the iTunes, you know, you go to iTunes podcast, their suggestion machine has always taught, you know, this, this movie star or this actor has a new podcast and they’re just interviewing other actors about act, how they were acting in La. And I’m like [inaudible]

Rick: no, yeah, yeah, I understand. I understand your appeal, your pain. The other is aspen ideas to go. Huh. And this is a s, p. E n. It’s after the Aspen festival and Aspen, Colorado. And it’s, it’s kind of like Ted talks, but their, uh, their audio and the [inaudible] yeah. And yeah, they’re, they’re a little less, uh, you know, sometimes I love, I love Ted talks when they began, but you know, uh, people have started parodying them because they were just so set and yell you where you take your fingers and all the, all the little things you do that just, it was almost like a formula to habitat.

Eric: No, I thought about doing a garden fork version of the Ted talk about something really just

Rick: mundane or just off the freaking law. Now, here’s one that I absolutely adore and I think you will too. It’s cool. It’s from the BBC. It’s 30 animals that made us smarter. Oh. And it’s about Geckos. How GIC, it’s really about biomimicry, how we’re creating things. Um, new things for science and human beings, uh, by mimicking nature, um, Geckos and adhesive because of the way they are, they can climb anything with pads that are not sticky. They’re actually hairy. And so it’s counterintuitive. Spiders and robots, they’re making rescue robots now that work like spiders do, you know, spiders do not have muscles in their legs. They work on hydraulics. They increase blood pressure to extend. That’s when you see a dead spider and it’s all curled up. A, that’s just natural state. It has blood pressure, increases the blood pressure to extend that leg and then releases the pressure to close it.

Rick: And they’re creating a robots that work like that, that can run as fast as a spider, a maneuver like spider climb walls. Uh, and the, the idea, the idea of the robot is, um, that it would be a rescue robot going into rubble and debris looking for survivors taking in microphones, that kind of thing. Sharks, sharks have, particularly with sharks, a podcast or this, this thing. No, no, no, no. I’m just fascinated by the story. I can tell my last one now. I’ll pass. I’ll shut up. But the, the shark and the Glock of the shark particularly has a skin that bacteria will not adhere to because of the way it’s constructed and their bio using that as biomimicry in hospitals now on surfaces that people touch because bacteria will not adhere and grow to that. Wow. And so it’s, it’s just fascinating, uh, stories about, um, you know, things around us in the world. It also makes you wonder, you know, if we’re losing all these species, how many, uh, um, you know, really great ideas and technologies are going to go with them because we didn’t realize soon enough, um, you know, through extinction, uh, what a wonder some of these, uh, um, animals have solved what problems they’d solved.

Eric: Wow. Well, thank you. All right, I will link, I will put those names in the podcast notes, um, which you can, by the way, you can see, depending on which podcast app you’re using, if you just scroll up from the little player, usually like little garden for gritty icon and you can scroll up. Just thumb up, swipe up I guess on your phone. And at least on the iTunes pod, the podcast app for the app, iPhones, all the texts and informational texts blow with clickable links. One of those clickable links is to sign up for my weekly email, which you are missing out on. So I’m not missing out on it. You can also just go to our website and it should be on every page, but if, if not, garden fork.tv/news, the link in the show notes here.

Rick: One more podcast and I’ll let you go. Okay, one more. I promise. It’s a science rules with Bill Nye.

Eric: Oh, I just saw a image for that

Rick: and he does remarkable interviews in the realm of science about, uh, all the things you’re interested in, space launches and uh, solar sales. Um, you know, search for extra terrestrial life, uh, just everything. Space-Related and, and he, he’s, you know, he’s moving into more regular sites or other science issues as well. But it’s, it’s just, it’s wonderful to hear, you know, interesting, positive, uh, people that are getting us out of our every everyday we grubby little existences and, and a political turmoil to, uh, to listen to some of this stuff and uh, get away from that and kind of lift your eyes up a little bit.

Eric: All right. Yeah, I actually saw a, uh, a documentary about him and he was, it was very good. He was a debating several times. Um, this gentleman who, ah, denies, uh, evolution and I don’t, I don’t know if he built the arc that’s, um, it’s, I think it’s in the middle of the country, but he visited that, uh, that arch they built with the, uh, evolution denier and they had kind of debate in the Ark itself. And I think, I think in one of the stalls when the animal stalls was like a terra ductal or something, um, a prehistoric dinosaur like animal and Bill Nye is like, how can you have a dinosaur in your art? Because when Noah was alive, they didn’t have this dinosaur. And it was interesting. He’s fighting the good fight. So I got them a lot.

Rick: He’s also president of the planetary society. Uh, did you know that the, a planetary society launched a yacht, essentially a cube sat, yeah. That, that has a solar sail. So they were actually, you know, these are amateur astronomers or at least the private sector going out there and doing these proof of concept things to, uh, to prove they actually work. And that’s very much a bootstrapped organization. So very much, very much

Eric: so. Along those same lines, uh, I don’t know if you’ve seen, um, the new PBS series called chasing the moon. Not yet. I plan to amazing isn’t, it’s, no, there are no talking heads in it. And uh, I’d heard that. I’m a, I’m a PBS donor, I think. I think I gave him like $6 a month and I get what’s called their passport to their back catalog. So it already broadcasting will rebroadcast, I think you can watch it online for maybe the next month. But if you become a PBS passport supporter, you get their whole back catalog you can watch on their website or through your apple TV box. And it’s pretty amazing. But I’m a big mean Moon Geek. Me and Jimmy, my executive producer had been talking about, we’re trying to get Mike from space rocket history on, but go check that out. Chasing the moon. It’s great cause they’re interviewing people who aren’t, they don’t interview Neil Armstrong, they’re interviewing other people. Some of them you know, behind this. A lot of behind the scenes people. I’m one of the few NASA engineers who was a woman, uh, interviewed in there. I know it’s just really good and it’s all, um, there’s voice over interviews and then showing, uh, footage during the NASA moon rocket. I’m mumbling and during the sixth. So it’s not a lot of this Ken Burns talking head stuff.

Rick: Right. And I heard a podcast, I think it was a long form podcast with the, uh, director of the producer events series. And he said they did that intentionally. They did not want to distract from the visual images and they went way beyond the NASA catalog, which is what most people use for the, for the films. They were going everywhere in the world, trying to find more footage, more people to talk to. And so it’s not just a rehash of things you probably see in a dozen times from NASA. This is all, well not all but a lot new material, but they didn’t want to distract from the visual, so they just had the audio, uh, cover. Uh, and it, it worked out beautifully. I think. Uh, I, I have seen trailers that I haven’t seen the actual thing waiting for a good moment. Like when I finished my stations.

Eric: Well, speaking of another beautiful moment, uh, this is the time of the show where we go and look and see if we had any new reviews on iTunes.

Rick: Well, I hope so. You know Eric is actually crushed if there are no reviews due to do, and if you love Eric, you go and do a review.

Eric: One, two, three, four, five, six, six new ones. That’s great. Are you there? Sounds like there’s wind blowing over your microphone. There’s thunder outside. Oh, okay. First one deep dive on being handy. I grew up as a kid, fascinated with the foxfire books. Hand Up. Me Too. Me Too. And Aaron’s home spun advice and how tos reminds me of those books. Youtube channels also must great info and fun. Listened to five stars. Thank you, Bill from [inaudible] master 13 2019 update. You can update your review. By the way, Eric has really dedicated himself to improving the podcast and his videos. What’s he mean by that? What was that in all caps taking classes, upgraded equipment, and an elevated confidence or elevated confidence. Yeah, a must listen for the DIY enthusiast. Eric and his friends host an eclectic DIY homesteading, gardening, cooking, and much more podcasts. Eric’s a long time video blogger and his extended into this podcast.

Eric: He splits his time between Brooklyn and his cabin in the woods. Each episode is a fun mix of topics on whatever’s holding their interest at the moment. Exactly. Each episode feels like a visit with good friends who have lots of practical advice. I credit Eric with giving a city boy like me the courage to buy and fix up a cabin in the woods. Holy Cow. Wow. You’re, you’re the next Henry David Thoreau should get an admission on these mortgages. You will learn. You will laugh and you will be inspired to try something new. Oh, how cool is that? Yeah. Let’s wonderful. Thank you for that. A fidget and smudge FiveStars really enjoyed listening to the podcasts during the day. While I work. There’s a lot of good information to learn and Eric and his crew keep me laughing. Keep up the good work. Also love the videos. Yay.

Eric: Thank you. I think it was for Tina. A Basel Worth Group says DIY at its best. FiveStars Eric and his slash friends will educate you on everything from DIY as well as humor. Interesting facts and Labradors to Eric’s approach of if I can do it, you can do it and done is better than perfect. We’ll encourage you to tackle those projects. Wow. My mantras are coming through. That’s great. Yeah, that’s wonderful. A fun and educational five stars by Tins, a, t, m, Z, Z. A. I’ve yet to come away without learning something new. Listening to Eric and his friends is like sitting around with friends and having a wonderful conversation. That’s exactly what I want this to be like. It’s fun and always. I look forward to the next show. It makes my 3:00 AM commute to work more enjoyable. Who boy allege painful? The show is a great addition to the youtube channel.

Eric: Keep up the great work. My friends from Tony. Thank you, Tony. Tony. That is a great pod podcast by Jennifer, Ohio. I’ve been listening for years. This podcast is so multifaceted by always interesting and educational. Thank you, Eric and Rick. My favorite coat karst. Oh, who was that again? Jennifer, Ohio. Jennifer. Well thank you. Jennifer will be over there and it’s Prius very quickly. I you some pancakes. I’ll even drive the Prius prime instead of the Prius primitive. All right, so we, oh wow. This is a long show, but you should feel good. You should feel loved. I do you feel, are you feeling love? I do. I feel I feel better than when I did walking out of my therapist’s office this morning. So, which we’re going to talk about [inaudible] we reckon I or threatening to talk about it. So we needed to talk about therapy, so, yeah. Alright. Okay. Thank you for taking time, sir. Thank you for telling your epic story. Yeah, it was kind of epic on Felica was a dominating the narrative, but again, it was my narrative so you couldn’t tell it for me. I thought you were bagging the microphone. I didn’t realize it was thunder art or one go out and make it a great day. Radio at Garden Fork Dot TBR. I was wanting to hear from you guys. Thank you. Talk to you later, my friend. Bye Bye.

Eric: Garden fork radio. His executive producer is Jimmy Gootz of hollow books.com and our music is licensed from unique tracks

We talk about the planning failure for the maple syrup season and then the enormous failure that Eric made a video about . Watch Here.

Color correction comes next, not sure why, but you can color correct your video and photos by using a color card when you are shooting.

Podcast we like: Up And Vanished, a true crime show Eric likes. Lean and Hungry is a show Rick likes.

Eric tellls of his succesful beekeeping meetup in BKLN using a Google email list.

Rick suggest using the Ghostery app & plugins when surfing the web. Rick now uses Signal from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for calls and texts.

GF fan Greg sent photos of his pallet compost bins.