Matthias Wandel Visits My Shop Workshop Projects

Matthias stopped by and brought along a few of his homemade projects to compare with mine. In the time he was here we spent a few hours in my shop and recorded much of what happened. We ended up with enough material for several videos in a very short time, which is a welcome break from how long project normally take!

First up is a video that Matthias made, a quick tour through my shop:

Next, an amusing comparison of or homemade strip sanders and beam compasses:

We both made major build articles for these tools and also sell plans for them. Matthias’s strip sander uses a 42″ belt and has a deeper throat. My strip sander works with a 30″ belt and also has a 5″ disk sander.

Matthias looks over the features of my homemade band saw:

Next, some testing on my biscuit shelf pin idea, to see just how strong it actually is:

An ongoing problem when building and showing projects online is that most people don’t think about how strong something needs to be, they only think in absolute terms. While this arrangement of biscuit shelf pins and particleboard shelves is definitely not the strongest option, it is more than strong enough for the application.

The “rivalry” intensifies when we compare our long reach clamps:

My long reach clamp didn’t do as well, but it is made from smaller parts. Matthias’s clamp held up remarkably well and what I found most impressive was just how strong the box joint construction is.

Finished up with a box joint jig head to head “competition”:

My Ultimate box joint jig is smaller (but with a larger capacity) and easier to build and to use, while Matthias’s screw advance jig has a larger base that is more suitable for making cut in bigger stock. It also has the ability to cut odd sized joints, as shown in the video.

The whole thing was a lot of fun to do for both of us. While the camera was running, we both went out of our way to appear more competitive and territorial, but that was just for the sake of showmanship.
Unfortunately, some of the viewers didn’t realize that, and thought that it was all very serious and that I was picking on Matthias, or vice versa. I’m not sure how they cope with real-life situations if they lack that essential ability to detect when someone is messing with them.