Podcast Summary:
What happens when woodworking meets determination, technology, and a supportive community? Meet Bob Geyer, a retired public works professional turned passionate blind woodworker. After losing his sight to retinitis pigmentosa, Bob nearly gave up his tools—until a chance encounter with Woodworking for the Blind (WW4B) at Enchanted Hills Camp changed everything. In this episode, Bob shares how hands-on training, adaptive measuring tools, and accessible technology rekindled his confidence in the shop. From Bluetooth-enabled calipers and talking protractors to clever low-cost hacks like taping screws to boxes, Bob reveals how blind and visually impaired woodworkers innovate every day. Along the way, he reflects on the power of community—friends who troubleshoot projects together, swap tips online, and spark those “aha” moments that save time, energy, and frustration. Whether you’re curious about woodworking or simply love stories of resilience and ingenuity, this conversation will leave you inspired to pick up new tools—and new perspectives.
Full Transcript
Bob: When you do learn about it, it’s like, oh, if I only would have known, I could have cut my time in half using this particular method or tools. New blind woodworkers who will join the group and say, hey, I want to start doing woodworking. I know nothing about it. And what tools do you recommend? And you’ll get a dozen responses within that day of different helpful tips from everybody. Ww Forbes helped out a lot.
Jeff: Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson. Today in the studio we have Bob Guyer. He’s from California and I met Bob way back in. Geez, I can’t even remember what it was years ago at Enchanted Hills Camp when we had WW for woodworkers for the blind organization, had an event out there, and I met him in person, met him a couple times out there in person, and he’s been a long time listener of blind abilities, and he’s always sent in messages, feedback, suggestions, all sorts of stuff. So, Bob, welcome to Blind Abilities.
Bob: Thank you Jeff. Glad to be here.
Jeff: Oh, this is really good. I know we’ve done interviews with other people. And I was thinking, you know, I talked to Bob every three months we have a phone call and it ends up being an hour spontaneous, just chatting about something. Answering questions and figuring something out or just reminiscing. So it’s good to have you on here to really drill down on what makes Bob the woodworker he is.
Bob: Well, I can remember we met in 2018. I remember going out to Enchanted Hills, and I don’t know if you remember, I went into Tony’s office when we first got there to check in and you were in a back office somewhere talking, and as soon as I walked in there, my wife was with me. I go, That’s Jeff Thompson, because I recognized your voice from blind abilities.
Jeff: That’s right.
Bob: And that’s when you you walked out. Go. Yes. I’m Jeff. And I said, gosh, so great to hear your voice and meet you in person. And that was the.
Jeff: Oh, it all comes back to me now. And like I said, over the years, it’s been great talking to you. It’s been great having your friendship. But here we are now on blind abilities. So let’s dig in. Why don’t you tell the listeners a little bit about who is Bob Geyer?
Bob: Bob Geyer? Well, I’m a retired and I consider myself a woodworker. I had a public works career for 40 years. I worked in public works, and I’ve always had a mechanical, just ability about me that something that I learned from my dad. He he and I used to spend hours in the garage either working on vehicles or building making things around the house. And I think that’s where I first picked up my interest in mechanical things, that there isn’t anything my dad wouldn’t tear apart and figure out how to put back together. So that’s kind of where I learned a lot of it. I have retinitis pigmentosa, and so as a lot of people know, it’s a degenerative eye disease. And I fortunately had good vision for most of my life until I was like 48 years old. And that’s when my vision took a huge turn and I had to stop driving and turn to my local vista center for the blind and visually impaired out here. And I turned to them for help, and that’s where I first got got started learning all about how to be blind and all of the tools that are available to help us in our daily lives. And I used to be kind of a more of a carpenter type of a woodworker, building things around the house from decks to sheds to I actually built a 1500 square foot addition onto my house and did everything from all of the plumbing to the electrical to the insulation to roofing.
And so I was always able to do that kind of thing. But then when I lost my eyesight, I just didn’t feel safe or comfortable working around my power tools any longer. So I basically just walked away from them. And fortunately I didn’t sell them or get rid of them. I just left them all out in the garage. I have a one car garage shop. It’s I don’t know that it’s ever seen a car in there, but it’s always been a workshop and I was still interested in woodworking, and I used to get all of the different, you know, popular woodworking magazines, and I missed being able to read them and, and look at all the illustrations. And so one day I was searching for there must be audible magazines online that I could find somewhere. So when I was searching for that, that’s when I ran across W.W Forby that they had this huge collection of recorded woodworking magazines. And that’s when I first connected up with W.W Forby.
Jeff: Which is woodworking for the blind.
Bob: Woodworking for the blind. Mhm. So I connected up with them and started participating in the online discussions, and they were offering a woodworking class out at Enchanted Hills summer camp in Napa, California. So I decided I’m going to go to that and see what that’s all about, because it’s a whole group of blind woodworkers. So I could probably learn from and be motivated. So that’s when I went out to Enchanted Hills and met you and George and everybody, and learned how I could safely operate all of my power tools again. And that just gave me the confidence that I could use those tools and not worry about cutting myself or being injured. And I really, really took away from that their style of training. And you know how it was hands on holding your hands, or first you putting your hands on top of the instructor’s hands and following along and seeing how things were done. And then you reversed positions and they put their hand on top of yours while you were doing things to make sure you were doing it safe. And then the next thing is they let you do it by yourself. And, you know, doing that from the chop saws to the drill presses to the table saws to the lathes, that’s the first time I ever used a lathe was out in Enchanted Hills. So learning how to safely use all of those tools through WW four be brought me back into my shop, and I’m just so grateful that I had that opportunity because now, well, since 2018, I’ve been back in the shop just building and making things and repairing things around the house and met one of my good friends out there at Enchanted Hills. He only lives six miles away from me, and we get together all the time to work on things, either at his house or my house. And it’s a WWE for me, is a great community to be a part of.
Jeff: Yeah, Brian and George, we would meet up like 2 or 3 days before the event would happen and get set up and go over a few things, and he’s a good guy to have six miles away. I tell you, he can investigate and will investigate anything you do or anything you’re about to do. And he wants to know. And his hands are groping every little piece, but he understands it. He he’s so curious and stuff. At first I didn’t know how to take him, but after a while, you just realize he’s just collecting data.
Bob: Yeah, he’s pretty amazing. He’s great to just like you. Great to talk to. Whenever I have a question on a project, I’ll give either one of you guys a call and just chat and figure out how to do things, and Brian and I will dissect things. You know, he’ll say, well, why don’t you think about doing it this way? And that makes me think of something. And then I’ll say, oh, okay, but let’s add this to it. And, and we just have a really good friendship and working relationship that we can do things together in the, the shop. And it’s worked out great.
Jeff: So all your tools had been collecting dust over these years, and now you came back to your shop. What was the first thing that you added to your shop?
Bob: Well, after I went to Enchanted Hills, the very first thing I added to my shop, new tool wise was one of the DeWalt 13 inch Planers. After using the big planer out there to Enchanted Hills, I recognize how that was going to help me so much in the shop. I had already had table saw, router, table drill, press, cut off, saw, dust collector, and all the various powered hand tools that all of us have around our shop. So I had all those things. But after Enchanted Hills I bought the the DeWalt planer and really enjoyed that. I, I know you recently bought a new planer with a helical blades in that I wished I had one of those these days, but I’m still happy with my planer. And and then that led to all of the torquing tools. That was, you know, one of the things that I learned out in Enchanted Hills. The first thing was the click rule. I had just bought it and took it out to Enchanted Hills for the class. And then, um, everybody was talking about all the different tools that were available to us. So then I started buying some of the talking tools, like the Wixie angle cube for setting the angle on my table. Saw that that is so handy and so much more accurate than you know. I used to get my score out and set it on the table or my 45, if I was going to cut a 45 and set it up that way. And now you can just put that angle cube right up against your your saw blade magnetically clips on and you just zero it out. And then you can just crank it to whatever angle you want and get it to within. I think they say 2/10 of a degree, but if you play with it, you can get it down to like a 10th of a degree that it’ll.
Jeff: And that will Bluetooth to your phone.
Bob: And that will Bluetooth to my iPhone. They have a wiki app that you download and have on your phone. And then you start up the app on your phone, and then it’ll tell you to turn the angle gauge on, angle block on, and then it immediately starts, you know, giving you the reading whether it’s 0 or 90 or whatever degrees it’s currently at. But when you first set it up, you need to set the zero point. And so it talks you through that and you zero it. And then from there on you can just adjust the tilt of your saw blade. And it’s constantly talking back to you as, as the blade is turning. It’s reading off the digital degrees that are built into the angle gauge, what the visual person is able to look at the screen and see the digital numbers changing. That is all being transmitted via Bluetooth to your iPhone, and you can hear it communicating out on your iPhone. So that works really, really well.
Jeff: You also have a caliper that works on the same basis, right?
Bob: Yes. Now that is not by Wicksy. I actually wish Wicksy would make a Bluetooth talking caliper. The caliper that I have is Bluetooth to my phone, but it’s connecting either to like your notes file, or you could open up sheets and it’s communicating to either one of those. And so it’s your voiceover. Then it’s reading those results back to you versus the Wicksy app. It’s the tool talking straight through the app on the iPhone, and that’s a much easier way to communicate. The other eye gauging tool that I have is I have their talking. Excuse me, Quixey tool not engaging. The eye gauging is the calipers that I have.
Jeff: Now, before you move on, can you tell the listeners where would you use the caliper?
Bob: I use that for generally measuring small distances, and generally I’m using it for diameters, because trying to use your click rule to measure a round object, while you can do it, it takes a little bit of finessing to.
Jeff: It’s very subjective.
Bob: Yes, yes. Whereas with the calipers you can just, you know, separate the jaws and bring it up against the round object and get the precise measurement. So that’s where I use the calipers.
Jeff: That’s great for like drill bits and dowels.
Bob: Yeah. To match a dowel to like you say, to a to a drill bit.
Jeff: Oh yeah.
Bob: But the other tool that I have is I have their talking protractor. And all of these tools are reasonably priced I think. The angle gauges, you know, in the 45 to $50 range and the talking protractor, that’s like in the 25 to $30 range, I believe for the talking protractor. And that’s the one that I use a lot.
Jeff: Oh really.
Bob: So it’s basically has two arms on the protractor with a pivot point at the end. And there’s a digital device at the end of the protractor. And you bring the two arms of the protractor blade together and you zero that out. There’s a little button. There’s only two buttons on there. You can turn the power on. And then there’s a zero button. So once you zero the protractor, as you begin to separate those arms, you’re creating an angle as those arms move apart from one another. And there’s a digital readout that a visual person would be able to see. But for those of us that need the audio information sent to us again, that’s connected via Bluetooth through the app on your iPhone. And it’s just talking out those digital measurements as you’re separating the arms on it. And so I’ve used that for setting up my compound miter saw, for setting the different tilts or angles of the blade.
Jeff: Oh yeah.
Bob: I’ve used that inside the house for measuring the corners of my wall. I have, you know, an older home and not all the corners of your walls are, you know, exact 90 degrees. And so I was putting in a whole bunch of new baseboard recently.
Jeff: And except for that new addition you put on.
Bob: That’s that’s true and square, there’s there’s no tilt or anything to that. You’re exactly right.
Jeff: Talking devices are one thing, but there’s other devices that at least make a beep that are what you call audible.
Bob: Yes. So I have an audible level so that I’m able to hang things flat or square against the wall. Level against the wall? Yeah, it’s just a normal everyday level that people would have, except that it has an audible tone to it that as you tilt the level back and forth, the tone changes and you’re able to tell, you know, when your level, you’re not able to tell particular angles, but you’re able to tell if something’s level. And so I used that I’ve got talking multimeter for doing electrical work around the house. And then one of the biggest helps for me has has been just my iPhone and using some of the AI technologies on my iPhone. I recently replaced a thermostat in my house, and I was able to take a picture of the thermostat, pulled the thermostat housing off the wall, but left the mounting plate there with all of the wiring and was able to take a picture of that, and then it immediately came back and described all the terminals to me and the nomenclature that was on each terminal, and the color of the wire that was on each terminal. And so just using my iPhone with some of the seeing AI type of technology, I’m able to do wiring safely and comfortably around the house. So that’s another talking tool I use. But there’s also all of the manual or analog types of measuring devices from everything from the click rule, both the metric and the standard or imperial click rule for doing your measuring to the various setup blocks for setting the height of my table saw blade, or the height of my router bits on the router table to various setup blocks that I have for measuring distances for like setting the the distance on the blade and the fence on my table saw.
I have a whole series from 1/32 of an inch, all the way up to six inches of different aluminum blocks that I’m able to set the exact distance, because I know we’ve all experienced using the quick rule and trying to balance that against the edge of a tooth on the on the table saw, and then sliding the fence up against the end of it. And, you know, it’s kind of hit or miss and you can do it with a lot of finesse. But using the setup bars, you’re able to just pick out the the bars that you need. And I always check the width of the setup bars with my click rule so that I know what size bars that I have, but then I can just set those bars on my table, saw top, put them against the blade, and then slide my fence up till it contacts the bars. And I know the exact distance between the inside edge of a tooth on the blade to the fence, and I’m able to make accurate cuts that way.
Jeff: I just want to tell the listeners, if you’re interested in woodworking, there’s math involved. I was yesterday, I was trying to figure out the distance between the a piece of wood to where a screw is. And I could measure up to where the I bored out a hole so it would recess down in there. Countersink. So I was trying to figure out, well, if the screw is this. The hole that I drilled is 7/16. Now you get into, you know, half of that, which is three and a half. Well, let’s go to 14 30s. Okay. Now it’s 13 30s. And then I was taking the board, so I had to convert that to 30s. I was like having fun. So I actually had to sit down in my head and just sit there and play around with the numbers, and I got it. But it comes down to the feel.
Bob: Exactly. And then don’t forget, you got to convert fractions to decimals. You got to be able to do that back and forth pretty easily, to be able to use all these different measuring devices.
Jeff: When you’re woodworking, you’re usually doing stuff that you’re familiar with. And so you have little tips and tricks that you’re using to do some of this stuff with like, you get out your blocks, you set it up, you put the blocks away, and then you verify with your click ruler. Or some people just use the click ruler. I think it’s putting the tools away, putting them where they belong. Organization is key because lately I’ve been setting stuff down and turning around and spending more time looking for stuff, which is very rare for me than I do doing the project in a sense. And it’s just like, gosh, I wish I could have all that time back. And but one thing I do, and you said you do it too, is I get done with a process. I put everything away. And it was funny to hear you come back and say, even though you know you’re going to bring it all back out again.
Bob: Yeah. No, that’s absolutely right. That’s one of the things that’s essential. Being a visually impaired person is to know where everything is and putting everything back in its place again, so you know where things are. That’s so key, whether it’s from all the different cooking implements in your kitchen to things on your desk, all the tools out in your shop, everything you need to know where everything is. And so organization is key to being successful.
Jeff: Yeah .
Bob: I often find that too, be my eyes is one of my go to things these days. Because, you know, I might drop something on the floor or like you say, set something down while you’re building a project and then you can’t find it. So using Be My eyes or my meta glasses, that’s that’s another big, um, help for for me in the shop is using some of the AI technologies or calling up a volunteer from Be My Eyes and let them use the camera on your phone or glasses to help you look for things.
Jeff: I’m an Aira guy, so I. Aira up and get, Jeff, you’re in the shop again, huh?
Bob: Yep. I have an Iris subscription, too. So I bounce back and forth between the two of them. Be my eyes or Aira.
Jeff: With the Aira service, It’s like I get what I need out of it. And then they’re like, wow. And they’re interested in the stuff. So I always end up like chit chatting just a little bit. And it’s really kind of neat.
Bob: Minutes are ticking away.
Jeff: Well you get five minutes free.
Bob: Yes that’s true.
Jeff: So and usually I’m solved within two minutes because I know what I want to ask. I know what I’m looking for. But you know, I’m sure I’ve gone over, but I rarely use all my minutes. I only get the 30 minutes, but I rarely go over my minutes. Ever.
Bob: Yeah, I’m same way.
Jeff: I just use it efficiently. Yeah.
Bob: Like I say, the the media glasses, they’ve been such a help. There was a time when, you know, I’d be out in the shop and I needed, you know, different tubes of caulking, or maybe I needed different glues or or things like that. And so I’d, I’d gather up a handful of them and bring them into the house and ask my wife, what does this one say? What does this one say? What does this one say? Oh, that’s the one I want. And then I was able to identify it that way. Now I can use my meta glasses. I’m standing out there in my shop. I’m looking at the cabinet, open the door with all the materials in there, and I asked, Medha, what am I looking at? Please read me the label. Is it the one on the right? Is it the one on the left? So I’m able to do all those things independently by myself out in the shop. And my wife jokes that she’s being replaced by AI. She’s becoming obsolescent as as I’m using more and more AI technology around the house.
Jeff: Yeah, I’m always using Aira’s, Access AI and asking those types of questions. What kind of glue is this?
That makes me think about something. Now, you were cited and somewhat of a carpenter. You know, my dad used to say, if you can’t afford it, better learn how to do it. And my dad was the weekend warrior himself. So the time that it takes me to do stuff at first, when I first lost eyesight because I had eyesight and I’d put all my tools away for like nine years because I didn’t think it would be safe. I just couldn’t do it. And I remember those days. I mean, the big old Sharpies. The 20/20 pens. That’s not accurate. That’s a thick line. How was it for you to get to the point where I can do this and accept that it takes longer to do what you do? I don’t even think about that anymore today. But I remember there was a time where I battled that.
Bob: No, you’re right. And I still think about that from time to time, about how much longer it does take us to do things than a sighted person, and how you sometimes miss your eyesight because, oh gosh, if I could just see that, it would be so much faster. I could just do this versus we have to feel everything with our hands, our fingers, and touch things and see where things are laid out. And then, you know, take the measurements and try to drill the hole, you know, perfectly square. And just everything we do takes time, takes a lot more time than it would be if you were a sighted person. And so yeah, that did take a long time to get used to. But there’s still times when the frustration creeps in when you’re working on a project and things aren’t going right, and you just knew if you could see it would be a snap to take care of that and put that together. But having to use the various tools that we have at hand does take more time. But, you know, we’re living in a great age right now with all of the technology that’s so rapidly changing and and available to us, that is making things easier for us and faster for us to do things. So I think with those tools, it’s helped me get past that. It just takes a lot longer to do things, because now there are things that can help us move things along.
Jeff: You know, we started out by talking a little bit about WW4B, woodworkers. For the blind. Dot org is where it’s located. How has that helped you along your journey? Being able to contact people at random, really?
Bob: Well, WWE forby is what really got me back into my shop. And so I’m just so grateful for the organization and all the great volunteers that are there. You know, these are all who have some form of visual impairment or they’re totally blind. They were blind their whole life, and they’re out there, you know, doing everything from building homes to building cabinets to find furniture and just using the Groups.io talk forum that’s on there, you’re able to post a question and you’ll get, you know, multiple responses back with ways of doing things or tips. How people have found doing this or a different thing was a way they were able to do it, and then somebody else will chime in with a variation of that or something completely different. So you’re able to pick up a lot of tips from the group on how to do things. And you also, at least I have been able to build up a friendship with a great number of the folks at WW four and am able to email them or pick up the phone and call them and chat with them and ask them how to do things. One of the biggest problems I’ve always had, from carpentry, woodworking to being more of a woodworker these days, is if you only knew about a particular tool, it would make things so much easier for you.
: You know, I’ve often built a project and got it all done only to find out, oh, there’s this tool that if you would use this particular tool, you could have cut that or measured that or drilled that or put it together, whatever. So much easier. But you didn’t know that tool existed. So that’s something that’s been a big help with WW4B, is just the sharing of knowledge from one of the individuals to the next to be able to learn about new tools or different devices. Fasteners, There’s glues, you know, whatever it may be to be able to just make things easier. And that would be true whether you were sighted or whether you were blind. If you don’t know that something exists out there to help you do something, you find a way around that. But when you do learn about it, it’s like, oh, if I only would have known, I could have cut my time in half or whatever, but using this particular method or tool. So yeah, it’s WW4B helped out a lot.
Jeff: One thing that popped into my mind is I remember one time I had to cut this channel so I a half inch wide. So I took my table saw and I kept moving it over incrementally. And then someone told me about a Dado blade setup and I’m like, oh, I can just stack blades half inch wide and make one cut.
Bob: Yes.
Jeff: Amazing. Yeah.
Bob: Yeah. And also, it’s maybe not knowing what the name of a particular tool is or or more, say, like a profile on a router bit. I, I can visually picture what it is that you know. I need to cut. And I know that there’s got to be a router bit to cut that particular design on, on the wood that I need, but I don’t know what it’s called. And so I frequently pick up the phone and call George and say, hey George, this I’m working on this and this is what I want to do. And what do you call that type of router bit that has this on one profile and then got the roller bearing and it’s got a different profile. And he instantly tells you, oh, that’s this type of a bit or that type of a bit. And then you can go out and.
Jeff: A Roman ogee or chamfer.
Bob: Yeah exactly. And then you can go out and purchase that particular bit and cut the profile that you want. But you got to know what it’s called to be able to go either online or out to the hardware store to, to look for something.
Jeff: It’s like before we had AI, there was WW4B. We could just throw our questions out there and you get all these responses. I remember I was looking for a certain type of paste wax or a certain type of oil or anything that I have doubts, I just throw it out there and, you know, over the next couple of days, you’ll see these responses come back and you can take bits and pieces of them and you kind of cobble it together and in your mind and go about it. So it’s a really great resource.
So what suggestions would you give to a listener that is interested in getting started in woodworking?
Bob: Well, I definitely would contact WW4B and get on their email distribution list so that you can receive you’ll get. There are times when you’ll get just a constant stream of emails. You know, you might get a dozen or or 20 in a particular day as as guys are helping one another back and forth on a particular topic. Or there could be days that go by when nobody’s posting a how to question. But if you just read the emails that come through and the questions that come through in the responses that come through, you begin to get a pretty good understanding of the group and how they’re able to help one another by reaching out and joining WW4B, I think just listening to the discussion that’s going on and then ultimately participating in the discussion. Everybody has always reached out to help one another. There’s often new blind woodworkers who will join the group and they’ll say, hey, I want to start doing woodworking. I know nothing about it. And what tools do you recommend? And you’ll get a dozen responses within that day of different helpful tips from everybody. And you had mentioned one thing that I absolutely agree with is there’s no one right way of doing things, particularly for the blind and visually impaired. There are multiple ways we can accomplish a task. And so listening to all the responses and taking a little bit of this one and a little bit of that one, and cobbling together what works best for you is ultimately I think the, the way to go.
Jeff: I love it when a new person comes on to the list and asks those, you know, orientation type of questions, I guess. You know, like I have a double car garage and nothing in it, and we’re all like, oh, we want that, you know?
Bob: Yeah, I’d love a double car garage instead of my single.
Jeff: But I mean, if we’ve had tools over the years, I have some tools that are 30, 40 years old and still are working great. Yeah, they took a nine year break when I wasn’t thinking that I didn’t have the confidence to do it. And I taught at Blind, Inc. for years and I was out at Enchanted Hills, and when I found the group, it was like, ah, these people share ideas from experience of being blind from that point of view. And that was really hard to find from anybody out there in the world, because you always had to translate it from sighted to now how can I convert this into doing it myself and WW4B has really opened the mind to the possibilities. So I love it. As we were talking earlier, you gave me a tip about magnets and stud finding.
Bob: Yes. Rare earth magnets. And that’s something that that. George. That’s where I learned it was from George. I can’t remember where I picked that up from, George. But if you buy a package of the rare earth magnets, they’re like a quarter size, diameter, size magnet. And, I don’t know, there’s maybe like eight of them that come in a in a little box. And you take that rare earth magnet and you put it up against the the wall, the sheetrock, and you just lightly hold it with your fingers and then just start rubbing your hand across the wall, and all of a sudden, that magnet will come slipping out of your hand as it attaches to either a nail or a screw that’s holding the sheetrock to the wall. And so then, you know, oh, well, it’s got to be a stud right there, because there’s a nail or a screw that the magnet has attached onto. And, and then you just grab a couple of the other magnets and run your hand along in that same plane, that first magnet attached, and then all of a sudden you’ve just kind of got this line of magnets going down the wall, so you can tell exactly where that stud is from top to bottom. So yeah, rare earth magnets are kind of indispensable, I think these these days, like, I just learned about some rare earth magnets. Again, it’s if you only knew this, this particular tool existed. But at Lee Valley, they sell all these different ends that you can put on your dust collector hoses. And then there’s a matching piece that would go on your individual tools in your shop, and they have rare earth magnets on them. And so then.
Jeff: Funk funk, funk.
Bob: Yeah. Bring your dust collector over to your table. Boom. It just magnetically attaches the hose to your table saw, and then you take it off of there and move it to your drill press or wherever. Yeah, there’s a lot of use for rare earth magnets out there. And again, that’s one of those things that I would not have known about had I not been tuned in to WW4B and heard George talking about them. And that’s one of the things that WW4B you do need to have a credit card, a good credit card with a high limit on it, or lots of cash because you’ll learn about a particular tool or piece of hardware that somebody brought up on WW4B, the next thing you know, you’re online ordering it and can’t wait for a UPS or Amazon truck to pull in the driveway in a couple of days with your new tool.
Jeff: But like a lot of them are affordable when you’re talking about the angle, the caliper and stuff, you know, 45, $25, that stuff is money in the bank in a sense, because, you know, setting up your bevels or your angles and stuff like that. It’s just so much better than practicing and cutting and measuring and cutting and setting two boards against each other to see if they’re equal. And but you just set thing and boom, there you go. That’s time saving right there. So that’s why it’s worth it.
Bob: Absolutely.
Jeff: Another tip that I mentioned that to me wasn’t much, but it you know, also Bob went, oh my gosh. I was at Home Depot and when I buying screws right on the edge underneath the boxes, they usually have uh, under it’s wired to it, but the screw size, you can feel a tactile screw right there. And so when I got home, I took one screw out of the box and used boxing tape to clear stuff because it’s smooth. And I just taped it to the front of the box. And that way when my boxes of screws are up in the cabinet, I can reach up and feel, uh, bigger. Bigger. Oh, maybe this one. Instead of pulling down six boxes, opening them up, checking it out. Nope. Putting it back. And that’s so these little time savers, whether you find out them yourself or find them out from people on WW4B, it’s not isolating anymore. Doing your own little project, you’re usually out there and everyone else is in the house and you’re just working away. But when I kick back and open up my email and see the list. And I get a question. Or see a question or have a question. Got some other people that are busy doing their own thing and they’re all working. So it’s a good group. And that’s how I met Bob.
Bob: Yep. You can pick up, like you say, everything from those simple, no cost or low cost tips from taping the screw onto the outside of the box to all the different big power tools that everybody has and has recommendations on.
Jeff: So and if Dennis suggests a tool, get out your credit card.
Bob: Yes.
Jeff: Well, Bob, thank you so much for coming on and sharing a little bit about your shop, your journey and, uh, yourself.
Bob: Well, thank you, Jeff. It’s been great being part of WW4B and great to always talking with you on Blind Abilities and keep up the great work. We all appreciate all of your fine podcasts that you’re putting out there. So thank you.
Jeff: The pleasure’s all mine, Bob. It’s always great to talk to Bob and the people on WW4B, so check them out on the web at W4B. And Bob, I’ll probably see you on the next WW4B chat call.
Bob: Looking forward to it.
{Music}
Jeff: For more podcasts with the blindness perspective check us out on the web at www.blindabilities .com. On Twitter at Blind Abilities and download the free Blind Abilities app from the App Store. That’s two words, blind abilities.
And if you want to leave some feedback give us some suggestions give us a call at 612 367 6093.
We’d love to hear from you. I want to thank you for listening and until next time bye-bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] –
When we share-
What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.