Woodworking on YouTube?

[Karl Brogger]

I don’t know if any of this really would appeal to you, but I’ve been kicking around doing sort of a video blog, I guess, of projects. Walk through some of the steps in a sort of a New Yankee Workshop sort of manner. I’d probably just use YouTube as a place to host the videos, so nothing too terrible long, as the maximum length video allowed on there is 15 minutes. No commercials at least, and easily accessed.

Basically what I had in mind would be start to almost finish. Bit of a pun there as I don’t actually do my own finishing. I’d walk through cut out, building face frames, box construction, doors and drawers. Then staging and install for each of my jobs. Which as of right now, is very few. I could start off small, with say building doors or something of that nature. I’ve got a fairly well equipped shop and I’d be open to suggestions on what people would like to see.

Would there be any interest in something like this? What spawned the idea was the thread about Woodworks being no longer on.

Need a good title too.

[Jacob Mac]

I am one of those guys that learns by seeing a lot easier than reading. So I always like to watch videos of woodworking. I'd watch, especially if you made a video about making a door.

[Alan Schaffter]

Good idea, but the Wood Whisperer and others have beat you to it.

[Dave Lehnert]

Shop Smith does this type of thing called a Sawdust Session. May give you some ideas.

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Sawdust_Sessions.htm

[Chuck Tringo]

Good idea, but the Wood Whisperer and others have beat you to it.

I wouldn't say beat him to it so much as validate the demand for such a thing. I personally love the wood whisperer and obviously a lot of people do as Festool and Powermatic among others have pretty much given him a new shop over the last 2 years as his major sponsors. I would definitely say yes there is a stong demand to watch something like this if it is done well.

[Norman Pyles]

There is a bunch of woodworkin videos on UTube. I think it's a great idea.

[Pat Meeuwissen]

If done well I enjoy programs like this old house and especially good ol' Norm, I seem to get much better feedback from seeing things done rather than just seeing it written down which seems to leave things open to interpretation. Could someone post some more info on the "Wood Whisperer" sounds like something I would like to check out. Thanks Pat

[Michael Wildt]

Here ya go: http://thewoodwhisperer.com/

Look in his video section.

Michael

[Todd Hyman]

Shop Smith does this type of thing called a Sawdust Session. May give you some ideas.

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Sawdust_Sessions.htm

Didn't know about these. Thanks!

[Jim Kountz]

There are a number of people already doing this but that doesnt mean you shouldnt! The more the merrier I say. Everyone has something to add in this field, just when you think you have heard or seen it all you learn something new so I say go for it and keep us posted on your progress!

[Jim Becker]

I agree with Jim...there is plenty of opportunity and enjoyment and the woodworking community is blessed that the technology to share via video easily and inexpensively. I've often thought about this, myself....only time has kept it from becoming something serious.

[Andrew Joiner]

Great idea. Since your in Northfield do a tour of Northfield Foundry and Machine. They might want to sponsor you (OK it's fun to dream) but worth asking.

I'd love to get a tour of that place.

[Alan Schaffter]

Not to hijack the thread, but could someone tell me the attraction for the Wood Whisperer. I don't find anything about him or his show that would entice the sponsorship (and contributing editor status) he has gotten from the likes of FWW and PWW. Of the shows I have seen, his WW techniques are only average- nothing new or unique, and in fact some are a bit outdated, etc. He built a fairly crappy torsion box table in one where he freely admitted using David Mark's method (there is a better one by the way). And frankly, his presentation and delivery are not that great either.

Is it that he represents and is providing shorter, more a available (YouTube) tutorials to a new, younger generation of Woodworkers (a replacement for Norm?)? And what is up with that soul patch? Does he think he is another Extreme Makeover Ty Pennington. I just don't get it!

I did talk to a fellow WW who said Marc is the real deal. Who'da thunk it?!?!?!

[Jim Becker]

Marc is the real deal...and an SMC member. :) One thing that is a little different about his approach is that it's more "pod cast" focused as you point out...shorter things that are easy to download/listen/watch. That format is really broadening the amount of content available to more folks since it doesn't depend upon expensive TV time nor the unfortunate dictates of those who schedule said TV time.

[Jim Kountz]

Hey Karl, if you do this I really think you should demo that backwards pulling across the dado scoring cut. I would love to see how you do that. The idea still scares me thinking about it so to see it done would help.

[Paul Atkins]

As evidenced by this website there are many ways to skin the cat - well, you know. I have a number of small turning videos (clips really) that I've made to show techniques and for experimenting with the camera. I have been turning for more than 25 years and figure it's time to share some of my knowledge too. I thought a 'video bucket' for woodworkers to post their snippets and tips and even replies to these forums would be great, without sorting through You Tube. Not everyone wants to have their own website. Seems like if a picture is worth a 1000 words a video is worth gigabytes. I somewhat agree with Alan about the 'whisperer', but think there is need for very basic stuff too. Full screen quality is marginal at best.
Anyway, I think it's a great idea to toss around and refine.

[Pat Germain]

Not to hijack the thread, but could someone tell me the attraction for the Wood Whisperer. I don't find anything about him or his show that would entice the sponsorship (and contributing editor status) he has gotten from the likes of FWW and PWW. Of the shows I have seen, his WW techniques are only average- nothing new or unique, and in fact some are a bit outdated, etc. He built a fairly crappy torsion box table in one where he freely admitted using David Mark's method (there is a better one by the way). And frankly, his presentation and delivery are not that great either.

Is it that he represents and is providing shorter, more a available (YouTube) tutorials to a new, younger generation of Woodworkers (a replacement for Norm?)? And what is up with that soul patch? Does he think he is another Extreme Makeover Ty Pennington. I just don't get it!

I did talk to a fellow WW who said Marc is the real deal. Who'da thunk it?!?!?!

I'm a big fan of The Spags. I'm going to sign up for his new "Woodworkers Guild" which is a paid subscription. (Of course, I must renew my SMC contribution first.)

I think your criticisms of TWW are just personal preferences, Alan. What difference does it make what he looks like? Even if you don't like some of his techniques, I'm sure you could learn something. His torsion box may not have been built the way you prefer, but by no means was it "crappy".

But hey. If Marc isn't your cup-O-tea, that's understandable. Most woodworkers think he's great.

As for Karl: go for it, Dude! I think you will find that producing a homemade video is more difficult than you'd imagine. Sound and lighting are the primary techical challenges. Charles Neil's early videos suffered from sound and lighting problems. While his content was great, the poor production was distracting.

You might want to review the "Izzy Video" web site. Izzy offers a lot of great advice for amateur video production. A few basic techniques will go a long way toward producing a quality video.

www.izzyvideo.com

[Karl Brogger]

Hey Karl, if you do this I really think you should demo that backwards pulling across the dado scoring cut. I would love to see how you do that. The idea still scares me thinking about it so to see it done would help.

I can do that.


More responses than I would have figured on here. Now I just gotta get the motivation to do something about it.


If you saw the Northfield Foundry from the outside, you wouldn't be impressed, and the inside looks like any other machine shop.

[Neal Clayton]

i don't see anything wrong with marc's videos. sure alot of people don't get much out of the beginner type videos, but they often have use for everyone.

for instance:

look at all the computer hardware sites out there like tomshardware, anandtech, etc. they get shipments of new equipment to test every day. literally every new piece of computer hardware to hit the market is reviewed by a half a dozen independent websites, most of the time before it hits the store shelves. and people who buy such things are so spoiled on this that if a new item comes up for sale they won't buy it unless it has a review on those sites.

we have nothing of the sort, except for the short list of things that marc gets to use and review and the things people on here and woodweb talk about. i wish marc had more of those (not necessarily a criticism, since i doubt people knock on his door to give him tools to try out).

i'm intentionally leaving out magazine reviews since i don't really trust them. they have an advertising motive with the provider of the equipment and therefore aren't without bias, imo. if such websites existed for tools with video, it would be a huge help to the rest of us, who often have no other avenue for testing something other than buying it, trying it, and either keeping it or if we don't like it returning it at best, selling it at a loss at worst.

someone else mentioned doors, i think we can all grasp the concept of cabinet doors with mitered corners or cope/stick corners, but when i got to the point of building traditional wood passage doors and traditional wood windows, i had nothing but trial and error and a few half-applicable guides that come with router bits to work with. off the top of my head, the only complete tutorial available for window making for free on the net is the CMT window sash router bit guide (which doesn't cover glazing, you have to stumble across john leeke's site for that). as for passage/exterior doors, the only thing that comes to mind is the freud video that they send with their rail/stile bits. neither of those are very comprehensive. the next best thing is a book that's been out of print for a decade which you can buy used on amazon or ebay for about 80 bucks...if there's one for sale.

i'm not a furniture person but i would suspect the same situation exists for furniture.

so is there a need/want for such information? i think so.

why doesn't such information exist already? that's a whole other conversation, but in short, i think it's a generational thing. we're coming out of a generation in which people were taught to specialize their education and skills, and hire other people to do things that you don't know how to do. we're coming into a generation who thinks that they can learn how to do anything on google. so there will be more demand for these types of things in the future, not less. it's logical that such things started with the software, network, and computer hardware areas, since those people built the internet (and thereafter built sourceforge, the hardware sites, and other similar things). but i see no reason why it shouldn't spread out to other skills as well, with woodworking being one.

[William OConnell]

Karl I personally have made some videos. One in particular was making 16 interior passage doors for a client out of locally grown oak.
It not as easy as one would think to get good quality video to the internet. I personally like a full screen WMV as opposed to the small screens of you tube as they degrade the video so much in there conversion to Flash format. I have thgis video in a flash player and a windows Silverlight player ( which I like better) but if you do try and sign up for a Silverlight acct. and they will host video of much higher quality than you will typically find on youtube.
This videos a little jumpy but you get that with allot of motion in the scene., which is something I learned. Lighting , sound, and content are very important with video and just getting that right is more than half the battle
http://silverlight.services.live.com/76965/Buffet%20at%20the%20beach/video.wmv
Heres a flash video hosted by google that I made on making doors. Its hard when you make doors for a living and then try to make a video of making doors. I always have to work as a carpenter to pay my bills, so like Jim said it becomes a time issue just to make and upload the video while trying to feed the family by doing the work.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4406564055255336961&hl=en







http://silverlight.services.live.com/76965/Buffet%20at%20the%20beach/video.wmv

[Karl Brogger]

I personally like a full screen WMV as opposed to the small screens of you tube as they degrade the video so much in there conversion to Flash format.

Somewhere in there YouTube made a change. There is now a "watch in high quality" option on alot of the more recently uploaded videos. I put one up recently screwing around on a motorcycle, the high quality isn't too bad. Not 1080p by any means though.


These are two that I posted. I used a $120 video camera and Windows movie maker to edit them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWDAsmQtIsQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fodevJuORmU