Woodworking with Tommy Mac...and Festool!

CDM

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Dec 8, 2010
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For the last couple of months my local PBS station has been running teasers for a new woodworking show called "Rough Cut - Woodworking with Tommy Mac".  Over the weekend I got to watch an episode, and some Festools had starring equipment roles in the building of an octagonal lazy susan.
 
CDM said:
For the last couple of months my local PBS station has been running teasers for a new woodworking show called "Rough Cut - Woodworking with Tommy Mac".  Over the weekend I got to watch an episode, and some Festools had starring equipment roles in the building of an octagonal lazy susan.

Earlier today I mentioned Rough Cut: Woodworking on the RO 90 on This Old House thread. Our SoCal PBS station was transferring from KCET to KOCE over New Years, so apparently they did not run the PBS DIY block on 1 January. All of November and December 2010 Saturdays on KOCE were pledge specials.

Tommy MacDonald is quite a sea change from Norm Abrams. Tommy comes across as an aging California surfer dude and a hipster. Perhaps he actually is a fine furniture maker, but letting chips and dust go uncollected is a horrible example for viewers new to woodworking. Same with carelessly leaving a circular saw on the floor, connected to an extension cord, just behind him while doing something on a bench.

Using a circular saw to break down the substantial piece of walnut plank would not have been my choice. But in a shop, with a Sysport of Systainers, you would think a TS75 connected to a CT36 would have looked good. And, his sponsor Woodcraft is a Festool dealer. At least the TS75 is a plunge saw, so less likely to be damaged on the floor.

On the only episode I saw Tommy did no sanding. Yet in the background he has a vertical belt sander for cleaning edges. I did not see an oscillating spindle sander. He does have a new mortising machine larger than the one Norm Abrams has used the past few years.
 
Our local POS PBS station has decided in its infinite wisdom not to broadcast this program.  I've been seaching for a streaming version on the web to no avail.  Anyone have any sucess in finding a way to watch the programs off the web?

Thanks for the help

Jay
 
I've watched 5 episodes and I really like the show mainly because of the projects so far.  While he doesn't go into a whole lot of detail and a good number of steps are not shown, the projects are all easy enough to complete in a weekend or two and don't require plans to build.

Being a Festool Owner, I would love to see him use them, but he seems to be more about using tools that a number of woodworking shops have - tablesaw, bandsaw, chisels, handplanes, router, etc.  Okay, not everyone has a massive mortising tool (I've seen him use it once), but I like that he uses shop tools.  It use to drive me nuts when Norm started using some of his equipment that you only see in cabinet shops.
 
Jay Knoll said:
Our local POS PBS station has decided in its infinite wisdom not to broadcast this program.  I've been seaching for a streaming version on the web to no avail.  Anyone have any sucess in finding a way to watch the programs off the web?

Thanks for the help

Jay

Tommy MacDonald started off doing a lot of pod-casts on You Tube. Maybe you can look there and find some of his old stuff.
 
Jay Knoll said:
Our local POS PBS station has decided in its infinite wisdom not to broadcast this program.  I've been seaching for a streaming version on the web to no avail.  Anyone have any sucess in finding a way to watch the programs off the web?

Thanks for the help

Jay

I am with you, Houston PBS on Directv does not show this.
 
So yeah, this is an old thread. I just learned about this show. I found a couple seasons on Amazon Prime but it says I'm not allowed to watch it in my area.

Does anyone know where you can watch these shows? I've tried PBS, YouTube, and other streaming services but no luck. Google finds the Fine Woodworking versions (after Tommy Mac left) but they are also not viewable.

Looks like it could be an interesting show, or at the very least, a nice alternative to the usual YouTube woodworking channels.

Anyone? Thanks!

[cool]
 
Tommy and PBS had a falling out and parted ways.

Because of litigation I suspect there are no or few
opportunities to view past episodes online or OTA.

I used to record using the TiVo so I could watch later.
I probably have a dozen or more of his episodes stored
on the TiVo hard drive. After al these years and knowing
they won't come back I hesitate to delete them. I have
loads of room on the TiVo HD so no need to push them
for that reason.

I can access and view the video on the TiVo from any PC
on my network. That requires a Media Access Key to break
the encryption they record with. That key is unique to each
TiVo unit so those files won't do you any good even if you
had a TiVo of your own.

The current TiVo Edge has 6 tuners so you can record 6 football
games (or anything) at once if you wanted to and watch them later.
 
Bob D. said:
Tommy and PBS had a falling out and parted ways.

Because of litigation I suspect there are no or few
opportunities to view past episodes online or OTA.

I used to record using the TiVo so I could watch later.
I probably have a dozen or more of his episodes stored
on the TiVo hard drive. After al these years and knowing
they won't come back I hesitate to delete them. I have
loads of room on the TiVo HD so no need to push them
for that reason.

I can access and view the video on the TiVo from any PC
on my network. That requires a Media Access Key to break
the encryption they record with. That key is unique to each
TiVo unit so those files won't do you any good even if you
had a TiVo of your own.

The current TiVo Edge has 6 tuners so you can record 6 football
games (or anything) at once if you wanted to and watch them later.

I used to use/have a program on my Mac to convert and save shows from my Tivo to my laptop and then offload them to my NAS (or maybe I was smart enough to go direct to NAS, but it was a long time ago).  I stopped using it many moons ago because I found myself hoarding stuff that I learned that I would never watch again later and filled up my NAS instead of the TIVO's hard drive.

Now my DVR is up to 99% because I still have Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, a few Blackhawks Stanley Cup clinchers, some local disaster media coverage that my wife helped produce, and other random "I don't want to lose this" shows.  I may need to re-visit that old program and see if it still works and run it at night on the Mini that serves up the music library.
 
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