3 Terrific Woodworking Podcasts for Your Daily Commute

08 Mar 3 Terrific Woodworking Podcasts for Your Daily Commute

Terrific Woodworking Podcasts for Your Drivetime Commute

While you could make the argument that some woodworking pros can turn out amazing custom shaker style cabinets in minutes, blindfolded, with only a toothpick for a tool, this doesn’t go for everyone. Most of us need to keep learning constantly; we need to apply a lesson, fail, and learn from the failures too. There are amazing articles and YouTube videos covering DIY projects out there, but often there just isn’t time to sit at the computer for hours.

We love listening to a large variety of podcasts, and one day decided to browse around and see if we could find one of the thousands available that covered methodology for shop work. Well, seek and you shall find!

The Woodworking Podcast

This audio show is a real treat. The standard outline of an episode is just a casual conversation between passionate and experienced woodworkers. They cover anything from equipment and tools they use for specific projects all the way to shop layouts. While it went on a temporary hiatus about a year ago, it has returned with new episodes and a great new co-host.

In the most recent episode of The Woodworking Podcast, hosts Nick Ferry and Bob Kloes talk about the Midwest Tool Collectors Association. They also release a full YouTube video for each episode if you want to kick up your heels at home to watch them talk. The videos will also show some reference images to their projects or equipment:

We’re big fans of episode 14 where they answer that burning question: How Do YOU Build Cabinets?. You should definitely check them out–their episodes are available to soundcloud listeners.

Shop Talk Live

The Shop Talk Live podcast comes to you from a team of editors at Fine Woodworking magazine, a 40 year publication that goes in-depth about crafting beautiful furniture. As you might expect from a group spawned by a fairly successful trade publication, the episodes of Shop Talk Live have a very high production value.

The format of their show is a basic Q & A style where they respond to questions about woodworking tradecraft submitted by readers. Something we find that adds incredible value to their show is that if you go to the page for any of their episodes, they list the questions that were posed during it along with links to relevant answers from Fine Woodworking. So for anyone seeking extra info after listening, there’s a huge body of interconnected info you can get into.

Here’s a great example of how they clarify stuff from the show with helpful imagery:

44:58 – Question 5:
As part of her booth at a craft show, my wife asked me to produce two pieces of wood that could be joined together end to end and then pulled apart for transport. I chose to do this using a sliding dovetail. I did it on the router table but the problem I had was that on both the male and female parts, although one dovetail cut was normal, the other side had to be a climb cut. I got away with it after some cleaning up but the climb cuts were more “exciting” than I would have liked. Could I have made this joint a different way or was it dumb to even try? -Graham”

Up to around 160 episodes at this point, their archives go back to 2012 and if you like the current one we’d highly recommend going back to listen to them from the start.

Wood Talk

Starting all the way back in 2007 as a garage band of misfit woodworkers, the Wood Talk podcast has clocked over 400 recorded episodes at this point. They have a very strong community of listeners who make the comments section of each installment fun to read after you give it a listen. They also often help each other out with project questions they’re having trouble tackling, so you may find that useful.

Their format was pretty fast and loose at the start (what podcast doesn’t experience some growing pains during its first few runs), but they have long since settled into a mixture of Q & A with their current projects. If you want a bit of both worlds, then you’ll really like their approach. They’re also very funny and keep the conversation lively–some coffee for your ears!

An interesting bit of trivia is that one of the hosts, Matt Cremona, was present on the video call that started The Woodworking Podcast. In fact, if Matt hadn’t been about to begin co-hosting Wood Talk then he very well may have been working on TWP with Nick Ferry. Quite a tight-knit community of woodworking enthusiasts in the podcast world!

That’s All for Now!

Between the three of these, we think you’ve got plenty of content to check out for now. But we will keep on the lookout for more to keep your hungry ears sated. Tune in next time!