Hello and happy Thursday! We are thrilled to be sharing the first post of our #thirstythursdiy series. In this series, we will be connecting with small business owners, fellow DIYers, and other creative minds whose work is awesome and put them in the spotlight. Today we spoke with Dave Schweitzer, founder and craftsman of Magothy Workshop, and talked about all things from favorite tools, to failed projects, to best improvements to his workshop.
So if you're interested in learning more about the creator and designer of these gorgeous crab mallets, keep reading!
JP and I have known Dave for about 12 years, but we've only known Dave the founder, craftsman, designer, and creator of Magothy Workshop since it's formation in January 2019. For those of you who don't know Dave, we cannot say enough amazing thing about him. Not only is he unbelievably kind and gracious, but he is talented and has a smile that'll blind you.😎 He's originally from North Carolina, but lives (and builds) in Maryland. JP sat down with Dave (virtually because hello 2020), and asked him about his life since taking on this venture.
Some of the responses have been edited for brevity and clarity JP: Who is Dave? Why are we talking? DAVE: Well, I am, I've never been asked "who is Dave?" before so. I consider myself, Dave (and I'm going to speak in the third person), Dave is a passionate, competitive, analytical person in that I enjoy crafting and making things with my hands and working with my hands. I've always been that way regardless of what it is, regardless if it's landscaping or woodworking or anything outdoors. I can't stand sitting on the couch all day doing nothing. I like to be moving a lot. I'm very much into helping out the neighbors, friends, family, I enjoy doing that. J: What is Magothy Workshop? D: The name itself just kind of came to me. We live off the river, the Magothy River, which goes into the Chesapeake Bay. What I do in terms of what my shop puts out, it's a lot of smaller items. Sort of the modus operandi of what I use in terms of materials are to re-purpose as much as I can and I can certainly appreciate where you guys are with that, too. Less waste, more re-purpose. For example, the mallets that I have. I had a wooden futon for a lot of years, and part of those mallets actually came from milling out the wood of the futon. I found out it was made out of cherry and ash, so it's good wood to use. The purpose [of Magothy Workshop] is small crafty items ranging from pizza peels, to crab mallets, to cutting boards. Mostly kitchen and dining room pieces, community type things. You know crab mallets is a very social event. [sic] In using repurposed materials, breaking apart old furniture, taking the wood, milling it out, being as close to zero waste I can. Even using the sawdust to use for fire starter logs. I actually use cooking grease as a bonding agent for the sawdust, so it's not only flammable, but now I have something to do with all the grease from the grill, the kitchen. etc. So it's a lot of small things.
J: What made you decide to get started? D: I've always loved making things, and it was the first couple of cutting boards that I made. I was very lucky between those in my family, both my grandfathers were big woodworkers, one of them made an entire violin and a case for it. I'm nowhere near that level, nonetheless, I've been very fortunate with tools and things like that. That was always kind of a barrier of entry as well. If I wanted to do this, then I needed that. But it was using what I had and seeing that I could make something out of it. And then when somebody would see it'd be like, "whoa, look at that!" and then I'm like, "Well, you can have it." And then I started thinking maybe I can make a few bucks off of it. And it's more just about acquiring the skills to make more and cooler things. I can really appreciate furniture, I love colonial furniture and just how it's made. I have so much appreciation for things that are made, and just growing up I'd be like, "I'm going to make that one day."
J: How do you market yourself? D: A lot of it is word of mouth, and honestly I've been able to network a lot just on word of mouth. Just about everyone on our 25-person team where I work has gotten something from me. And they've told their people about it, and a couple of those people, especially when you get to the leadership part of it, they know some people. That's happened with a couple family friends of ours, too. It's social media. I'm working on a website now. I just bought the domain for it and I wanted to get started with that. But it's mainly just been those two channels. There's no Etsy, I don't have a point of sale or anything like that. It's been a lot of Facebook messenger, text messages from numbers that I don't know, or a lot of e-mails.
J: What's the most expensive tool you've bought for your workshop? Was it worth it? D: Dewalt DW735X Planer. I actually made an excuse to leave work early because I looked on my Ring camera and I saw they left part of the package out in the sun and there was a 30% chance of rain that day. And I may have skipped a dinner at my in-laws' house just to try it out. It's absolutely been worth it. Everything that I buy, I buy with the profits that I've earned so I reinvest into the business that way. And I look at how many boards, or what would be my ROI on it. The planer saves hours and hours of sanding. Not only is it clean, but it's a lot faster, it's dustless. It really is a must-have for a shop. I follow a lot of what Nick Offerman's book, Good Clean Fun, says. He owns a shop that is just a dream shop. J: What are three inexpensive tools that everyone should have? D: I would say a good set of mortising chisels, those are great for getting into corner and squaring out joinery. I would look at a basic Stanley jack plane, or a number four or number five Stanley plane. They're not super special, but it's a good tool to learn planing on. Another one would be a four-sided rasp, if you're looking to smooth out edges you can start with the rougher rasp and work through it. And I guess that's three, but also maybe just a rubber mallet that you can use as a hammer when you need a softer surface. Or even just a 90-degree T-square for things like your herringbone table. J: Is there a project that you've completely scrapped mid-project? What was it, and why? D: Haha, how much time do you have? I'm looking at one right now. I was making a shadow box for my father, and it was a tribute to my grandfather who passed away about fifteen years ago. He was really into radio controlled planes and he was a pilot, so I started making a shadowbox. I got the wood and everything cut just right, but my dad decided to add more things to it so everything that I cut that was perfectly sized exactly for this was no longer for it. So now this has been sitting in our corner for a year or so and I have no idea what to do with it. There is another one that came to mind. The origin of the crab mallets were cutting boards, it was end cuts off of cutting boards, especially the checkerboard ones. I made a mistake with one of the cutting boards because it was wood from the futon, I didn't get all the stain off of each piece. And glue doesn't stick to that, so as I was sanding it down and everything, it started to break apart. I got really upset because I was like, "great, all this labor's gone now." But then I thought I have all these squares of wood, and one day it was like, "I could make something out of these." So it ended up turning into something good, but for a while there I would just look at them and think "I hate you so much."
J: What's been your favorite improvement to your home so far? D: Aside from power washing things (that is so satisfying to watch that), I would say the thing that I like doing the most is turning my yard from a mud pit to a nice grass backyard. The gardening, the overall landscaping. It was in really bad shape when we got the house, there was just nothing there. Alice, my wife, and I turned the front yard of the house nice, we got pavers and mulch, put in plants. But then the backyard for a long time was neglected. The backyard was just dirt and vines and weeds. It was terrible. I spent day after day after day clearing stuff and pulling down vines. I rebuilt a tiller that I got from an old coworker so that it works. I rebuilt the whole engine and carburetor and everything else, and I finally got it to start up which was really satisfying. Then I tilled up the whole backyard, put in seed, and now it's a backyard I can lookout over and say, "Wow, this was a transformation." And I don't feel embarrassed about having people over.
J: What's been your favorite addition to your shop? D: I would say two air cleaning systems that I put in. I built these out of, one of them was a DVD rack from Ikea and the other one was just some old piece of pine furniture that came with the house that I found in the basement. It's a 20x20 fan, with a 20x20 filter. It's controlled by one of those TP Link smart switches, so I can turn it on and off with my phone, put a timer on it. But that was a huge improvement in taking out a lot of the dust in the shop. J: What's next on your list? D: Next project right now are mini judge gavel crab mallets for some friends. Also making a stove range cover.
J: I'm sure people would love to know; what's the best way to get in touch with you?
D: Magothy Workshop Facebook page, I do have business cards for local distribution. Magothyworkshop@gmail.com so you can email. I have pricing and a portfolio up, too.
Some details that weren't laid out in the Q&A: The checkerboard mallets resemble the Maryland flag, but that was more of a happy accident than anything else. He's a big supporter or the by local, for local business model, but you can totally purchase some of these amazing products even if you don't live in Maryland!
Dave was kind enough to provide some pictures from his portfolio for us. Take a look!👀
I don't know about you, but I'm ready to break open some crabs.🦀 🤤You can also follow Magothy Workshop on Facebook.
-Karly Who would you love to see as a part of this series? Tag them in the comments!👇