Episode 2.01- The Rotating Cat Food Dispenser

Happy New Yea', Y'all!

I see I'm fulfilling one of my Resolutions already-- to throw a little Southern in it from time to time. It's an important time of year, I think... a chance to remake the old you, to bring it into the shop and give it a remodel, so to speak. I have tried major changes over the years, I've attempted subtle modifications from time to time, but to be honest I can barely make it out of January. Y'all.

So I'm gonna take it easy on myself and just resolve to come up with the most interesting projects I can think of. There are some fun ones in the hopper, but I promised Pete I wouldn't give out any spoilers, so all I can say is... think moving parts. I'll say no more. 

For now.

Well, if I haven't said it before, I'll say it again. Bench Dogs has a mission, you see. We're not just the end result of hapless filming coming from a coupla director wannabees, oh, no. We are filling a void in programming within the genre of blue-collar trades, I figure. Hear me out. Right now, if you search for our type of programming (woodworking or furniture repair, for starters) you'll end up with two broad categories. The first and by far the largest are the under one minute clips with no beginning, no end, and no explanation of any sort, where someone has simply uploaded a clip of themselves performing some task and labeled it 'underwater shoe sharpening' or something. They could be helpful, and I won't knock them.

The smaller category is made up of, for lack of a better term, 'Normies'. No disrespect to that famed 'This Old House' alum, but the copycat shows are filled with detailed operations in immaculate, spacious shops and state-of-the-art equipment. The presentations themselves are much more professional and have titles, music and even some special effects. Yee-hah!

Bench Dogs is different. Bench Dogs attempts to address the wide middle ground, where people have to do their own repairs using simple power tools and low-end machinery. None of the machines in our videos cost over $100 each (some were bought used). We try to show the process without getting mired in the details. We also care about the Earth, and re-use materials whenever possible. That means we won't always have the prettiest projects at the end of the show-- but  they will fill a need and do so in a hopefully elegant way. Finally we try to show how old, broken down furniture can take on a new life with just a few minor repairs. And we try to have a little fun when doing so--by dropping the fourth wall, airing some of the flubs and letting you in on the jokes. And then we pretty the package up a little with titles and music. And an occasional sound effect.

This episode, the first one of season 2, does not involve any rotating cats. I'm sorry, that is an unfortunate side effect of the way I constructed the episode title.  Actually, it has more to do with the action I used to bring small portions of food from a large reservoir of dry food into the cat food dish. I had fun designing it, and because this is a low budget show, you're watching us build it once, and only once, no matter how it turns out... that's the fun of Blog TV!

Tell a friend!