If you’re interested in woodworking, and enjoy seeing beautiful (and generally cold) scenery, the “Trustin Timber” YouTube channel might be worth checking out. As he describes it in his channel intro video, he was sick of going to big box stores and knowing that everything was overpriced and under built. The name Trustin Timber originally started out as “Trust In Timber,” but Gmail required an actual name, so Mr. Timber was born!
His well-produced videos feature a few power tools (like a chainsaw), but also a lot of improvisation and work with hand tools. As you can see in his first “Timber Transformers” video, he starts off with a Sketchup model to help him and “Lil Miss Timber” visualize what the final product will look like. Though a tough critic, he considers her input integral to the creative process, and she is always supportive of the final result.
The results of this build are a versatile transforming system of wood blocks. These blocks can be used as a bench, a side table, a coffee table, or probably any number of other items. Timber notes that though he did not make the dining room table shown in the video, but when he received it the leafs weren’t laying flat, as well as a few other issues. Naturally he was able to fix it with a hand plane and a few other tools.
Chisels seem to be Timber’s hand tool of choice, and are used as a substitute for such things as a band saw or table saw. As he puts it, “This isn’t the way to make a living but for me wood working is just time after a hard days work to relax, drink a beer, listen to podcasts and let the mind wonder so I like the mindless work of a chisel.” For those that perhaps don’t use chisels much (me included), he encourages people to “Get a honing guide and get a razor edge, and give it a try.”
As you might suspect, Timber’s video-making skills aren’t entirely amateur. He took video editing in college, but before this YouTube series, it had been about eight years since he edited something like this together. He started his career at a motion graphic agency in Toronto, but eventually moved up the ranks to become a creative director. Although this is certainly good pay and career-wise, moving up the ranks meant that he didn’t get to do as much of the actual work that he was trained for. As he puts it, these builds are “a reason to blow the dust off my old gear and create for myself again.”
In the second video below, you can see his process for creating a “Wrap Around Rustic Mantel.” As with the first video, the results are extremely good, and this time Lil Miss Timber makes an appearance, helping stain the wood and generally setting things up.
The raw material for this mantle were given to him by a neighbor. According to Timber, “I use whatever wood falls in front of me and build according to it’s strength. Most of the beams I worked with so far were covered in mold and gravel when I found them.” Given his results, it is definitely good to have a vision of what something can become.
Another interesting video on his channel is the Game Maker Challenge, which features Tim Sway, Vance Maker, and Lil Miss Timber. In this video, people are encouraged to make games and make a video of the process. The plan is to reproduce 10 of these game designs 10 times each, in order to give them away to children at Christmas. Hopefully it will be a lot of fun for those that receive the gifts as well as those that design and document the games themselves.
If you do check out his page, you might notice that he currently has only five videos up, but incredibly has over 1000 subscribers as of this writing. Given the quality of his work and video documentation, it might not be that surprising, but it might be worth noting the emphasis on quality over quantity in them.
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