What is a woodworker?

This question seems simple doesn't it? On the surface it refers to anyone who makes things out of wood. That should be the reality but there's so many schools of thought and it all gets worse when you bring in the maker community on YouTube and the like.

I know this will rark a number of purists up but to me woodworking must be taken at its dictionary definition:

the activity or skill of making things from wood.

Wood itself is defined as:

the hard fibrous material that forms the main substance of the trunk or branches of a tree or shrub, used for fuel or timber

One could argue that by definition MDF and customboard doesn't fit into that description but that's like saying steam isn't water because it's not solid. If you look at wood the dictionary definition is not correct either as wood is in fact not fibres but straw like entities compacted together to form a singular entity... very much the same as MDF or customboard.

Essentially a woodworker is anyone who turns a tree into a human usable product.

So now we've settled on dictionary definitions as our basis I want to look at why I think YouTube is detrimental to learning about woodworking but is also a pretty good place to learn about woodworking. As bipolar as that statement is we need to look at both statements separate to understand.

YouTube is a terrible place to learn about woodworking

Do a search for woodworking on YouTube and you'll find so much to like but so much crap. Most of the stuff you'll find is from the maker community and it's their stuff that makes it difficult to use YouTube for learning how to do woodworking because most of what you'll find are people who just show you stuff that they've made with little to no explanation. The worst are the ones that have nothing but the video and music with no talking at all. These are in fact the most predominant videos on YouTube when it comes to woodworking and they all suck. How on earth can you learn about how to make stuff or how to work with wood when there's no explanation as to what is going on?

Because these videos are so numerous it's next to impossible to find what you're really after.

YouTube is a great place to learn about woodworking

On the flip side though there are some really great sources of information on woodworking to be found on YouTube. I have three great sources and each for various reasons so I'll outline them here:

The Wood Whisperer

This channel is a great place to learn slightly more complex stuff or interesting projects. There's a tonne of videos on this channel and Mark does a pretty good job of explaining what he's doing and why.

My only gripe is there's no real split in playlists that allow beginners to start at the beginning and intermediates or advanced woodworkers. Also sometimes the videos blur the lines between the levels and so a beginner can quickly get overwhelmed.

Woodwork Web

The reason I like Colin's channel is that he has a lot of old school tips and tricks that can help everyone from beginner to advanced. You don't really learn a lot about woodworking per se but the tips really do help.

Woodworking for Mere Mortals

All of this leads me to my go to channel. This channel has helped me the most and I do refer to it a lot. I'm not paid to promote this channel and I certainly don't mean to come across as someone promoting this channel but Steve's channel by far has the best information for the beginner.

He approaches woodworking from the perspective of most of us who can only do it in dribs and drabs and he makes heavy use of power tools (sacrilege if you listen to some woodworkers). I love this channel because Steve goes into detail about wood, tools, and techniques. These are all things that need to be learned in some part by beginners to understand how to best learn to manipulate a live product.

I do however need to say that I can't recommend his courses enough. The projects in the Weekend Woodworker course are easy, practical, and fun whereas the Weekend Workshop course helps us setup our workshops more efficiently.

Conclusion

Ultimately the best thing I can say in regards to woodworking is just give it a go. My first ever real project was a set of deck chairs and then it progressed to baby stuff and soon I will be getting into wooden toys.

I've come a long way in the five or six years since I really started to give woodworking a go and I do now consider myself to be a woodworker. I feel like I've learned a lot despite the fact I've still got a long way to go.

Don't listen to people who tell you that a woodworker is this, that, or the other because there's one source that trumps every single woodworker on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, 3Speak, or DTube and that's the dictionary. It's been around a lot longer and literally defines our language and by dictionary definition if you make things, anything, out of wood, great or not, then you are a woodworker.