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The Busy Creator Podcast with Prescott Perez-Fox


The Busy Creator Podcast is a discussion program where creative professionals from across the spectrum share tools, techniques, and habits they use in their practice. Listeners are introduced to strategies and pro tips to be their most creative, productive selves.

Full website available at http://busycreator.com and http://busycreator.com/podcast/ for the show specifically.

Jul 6, 2015

The Busy Creator 61

Matt Cremona (@MattCremona) is best known for his woodworking video channel on YouTube. Primarily self-taught, Matt challenges himself to build beautiful furniture, going so far as to cut and prepare the timber, documenting the forest-to-finished-piece process along the way.

Matt’s background is diverse, with previous work in software development, interface design, and economics. Together we discuss wood, carpentry and essential tools, and producing a weekly video show. Check out his videos and some of his work at MattCremona.com

Show Notes & Links

  •  Woodworking with Matt Cremona on YouTube
  • Matt calls himself a “furniture maker” because he doesn’t focus on pure design
  • Matt, a former software designer, learned to build and maintain homes by working for his landlord
  • Unlike most woodworkers, Matt will take a piece from forest to showroom.
  • Adam Smith wrote about the input of labour into the cost of goods
  • Matt studied Business Finance and Vertical Integration

“Everything I have that’s useful in my day-to-day life … I taught myself.”

—Matt Cremona

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“Every time [timber] changes hands, the cost doubles.”

—Matt Cremona

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“Geometry plays an incredibly large part in what I do.”

—Matt Cremona

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Tools

  • Milling machines such as jointers, planers
  • YouTube, for learning just about anything
  • A second monitor (the best tool for a digital workflow)
  • Display Fusion, and other Taskbar management apps for dual monitors
  • Evernote
  • Adobe Premiere
  • Stabilization Plugins
  • Saws – hand saw, circular saw, mitre saw

Techniques

  • Examine your material costs and where you can save money by producing your own
  • Hire a guy with a saw mill, rather than try to do that part yourself
  • Look for trees that have already fallen or been damaged
  • Publish a weekly update to force yourself to do something each week
  • Fight to have everything square from the start
  • Keep an old computer in your shop and look at your notes
  • Shop for used equipment, build your workshop slowly
  • Arrange your workshop around your workflow; place first-run tools closer to the door
  • Pick a first project before you choose your first tools
  • Bring a camera and record events … you never know when you’ll need the footage!
  • Learn to use the grain of the wood

Habits

  • Combine power tools with hand tools
  • Find the time that’s most productive for your (midnight–3:00am for Matt)
  • Prepare and eat pancakes every day
  • Answer email and connect via social early in the morning, get it out of the way
  • Map out “main goals” for each day

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