"expert" tubers

[SawyerTed]

When my dad asked a used car dealer friend of his why he had a row of clunkers on the back row, his response was, " There's a butt for every saddle."

When it comes to quality or lack of quality content on social media, the same thing applies.  People are looking for different things.  Some are looking for quality content, education and answers; some are looking for entertainment; some are looking for justification or vindication; some have a morbid fascination with failures of others; still others are looking for spandex... 

It's hard for those with quality content to see others catering to a different audience with different motivations and values.  When your values differ watch something else.  

Just know, most of US know the difference between quality sawmill content and eye candy. 

[SawyerTed]

Just another thought.  

If you asked 10 people, "What is the purpose of YouTube?"

How many different answers would you get?  5? 8? 10?

That variety of perspectives is why there's a continuum of quality content on YouTube. 

[OlJarhead]

YouTube is show business and big money.  Many of the people are actors, just like on TV.  I hope people don't learn how to sail a boat from watching Gilligan's Island, or how to survive in the widlerness by watching Bear Grylls. 

Very true for the most part though only 4% of all Monetized YT channels make $12,000 a YEAR or more.

My only point was that one does not have to be 'in business' to be an 'expert.

As for me, I was never an expert.  Yes I owned a business etc and yes I had several repeat customers so I like to think I had a good idea of how to mill a log properly (thanks to guys like Peter, Magic, YellowHammer, Doc and so many others here) so I tried to share what I learned but hope I never came off as an 'expert'.

And yes, I knew several channels that bought a mill and started a YT channel with ZERO knowledge or experience.  Some went the spandex route becuase that gets views.

Most either died away (that $20 check from YT wasn't enough for the work they did etc) but some stuck it out and learned both sawmilling and youtubing (which might be harder).

It takes about 1 million views a month to make a living off yt income alone, that's hard to get to!

[OlJarhead]

True - and YT's purpose isn't the same as those on the platform.

Youtube is in the business of making money, pure and simple.

Some of us use it to share what we've learned/know with others and some of those also appreciate that they can earn a dollar or 12 doing it (ok, I'll be honest here, I make enough to bump up against that 4% but just barely and even then, only because of my solar power and power station videos though all of that wouldn't have happened if it were not for the sawmilling content I did - and rarely get to do now.

200k-250k views a month does not make me an expert in anything though and a million plus would just mean I figured YT out -- which is the key here:  understand what your viewers want and you can do well on YT - but it has nothing to do with or very little, your knowledge on a given subject but rather your ability to present it.

[Percy]

Because of the misinformation I seldom watch any sawing videos and shake my head at most of what I read on fb. 

The only valid source of information that I have ever found, Thanks to Jeff, is here on The Forestry Forum.

It's good here. Yellowhammer is an " expert " tuber. That's some good stuff right there. 

On the other hand, I think most folks here can identify click bait. Some of it looks pretty good in spite of room temperature milling IQ.   🤣🤣🤣

[Digger Don]

No doubt, several people here qualify as experts in the normal term. I won't try to name them all, because I know I'd miss most of them. But, I'll throw out another definition I heard years ago. Expert (Ex-spurt): A former drip, under pressure.

[YellowHammer]

Whether people think I'm an Expert or Ex-spurt on this Forum, or anywhere else, that't their choice.  I don't make any money posting here, I'm trying to help, and people can take it any way they want.  And Yes, there are people on the Forum who have businesses, experience, and skill level that put me in the "little guy" category, and I respect them more than they know.     

However, many people who have never heard of the Forum hit the "sawmill wall" and get very frustrated because they know they should be able to do better, but can't, and it's mainly because they are learning from YouTube sawmill actors who have never sold a board in their life.  Those are the people I am trying to help. 

The most satisfying thing to me is the surprisingly many people who tell me they have been drinking the YouTube Sawmill KoolAid, have been running into the "wall" of not getting anything other than "OK" lumber then watched one or other video of mine and had a Eureka moment, figured out what was holding them back, and then their lumber quality or production rate jumped significantly.  In many cases, the "secret tip" may be common knowledge here on the Forum, or not, but it never makes it to their eyes.

People know not only do I mill wood everyday, but I also buy it (we sell 54 species, there is no way I can mill and dry it all, and I guess some people on the Forum think that's backsliding, oh well, who cares), and I will always take an opportunity to compete, head to head, Owner to Owner, with some of the most well renowned pro mills in the country, ones that you probably know, West coast to East Coast and anywhere in between.  Open challenge to meet my grade and price, and you'd be surprised at the mega companies who have tried and failed to meet our standards and what I and my wife (and Chip) can produce with my little Woodmizer bandmill and Nyle Kilns, and no, I'm not sponsored by either. You can't win if you do not compete, and I love to compete, I want to be the best, and put my money where my mouth is, and I must be doing something right, we sell to people all over the country, including to the company who hand picked us as their lumber supplier as they build 60 custom guitars a year for the stars invited to the Grand Ol Opry, as was as Braid Paisley and Elanis Morisett's custom guitar maker, as well as a five time world champion turkey call maker from Texas, as well as ...Anyway, case in point, Friday, I had the owner of a quite large mill, his foreman and certified grader instructor, not local, with 4 mills, sales in the US and exports overseas, personally hand deliver a load of walnut that they had hand picked for me exclusively, out of a nearly 60,000 board foot walnut run.  He had heard about us, we had been working this deal for a couple months, and he showed up with one little pack of wood, 900 board foot kiln dried, hit or miss planed.  Yes, his best hand picked 900 bdft out of a 60,000 bdft run, "Sales Rack Ready" as we said we wanted.  So we unloaded it, went inside and he looked at the walnut we made in house and were selling, with customers there, and his face fell.  We went back outside, he looked at his wood and said there was very few boards that could come off his hand picked pack and go directly onto our sales rack.  Yes, correct, but that is our business niche, and what I try to teach on my videos, if people want to watch them.  Anyway, this guy was a good guy, he said he gave it his best shot, and I believed him, I mean he showed up with his best people with him, and so I paid for his pack of walnut (nearly $9 per bdft, wholesale) and he asked if he "could try again if he got his guys to pick up their game."  So I said sure, give it a go, in a little while.  Meanwhile, during the sales day, I put his pack, still on the pallet, next to our walnut rack, and sure enough, our wood outsold his by a wide margin, (competing once again, head to head) which means I will have a few hours on the SLR and Facer, getting his wood up to our grade, which is not fun, and time consuming.   

I'm telling this because the one thing I try to get across in my videos is to inspire people to get it in their minds and thought processes that people with a decent mill, and a little knowledge and care, can not only meet the grades of any professional mill, but can exceed them, and can do so while having fun and yes, can make money doing it.

Anyways, that's why I make the videos, to help people out.  The video money, at my level of subscriber count, is pretty insignificant, to put it in perspective, we have 54 species of wood that we sell, from all over the world, including 45 year old ebony at $200 per bdft and did you get how much money I just spent on one pack of not great walnut, not to mention how much I have invested in walnut logs of my own, plus the packs of walnut air drying, and the walnut I have already in the rack. Then think about how much $$ I have in the other 53 species we sell.  Anyway, just like with my sawing and kiln drying, I'm always trying to improve my videos, get my audio better, and my content better.  But all my videos are very real, what I try to teach is very real and I am trying to pass on techniques we use to compete against the best in the county, while we are in our business prime, to the guy or girl with a sawmill, who is trying to get better, and there ain't Spandex in my videos. 

And its aggravates me to no end when I see a Sawmill YouTuber Expert tell aspiring samwillers to mill a log like it's a pack of cheese and nothing can be done about the crooked lumber coming off because the "wood's just gonna do what the wood's gonna do."   

[taylorsmissbeehaven]

More cool aid please!!

[Peter Drouin]

I agree with you YH, Do the best you can. And when you get to the other end of your working life you slow down, I did.
No more cutting TT loads of lumber or having 1000$$ in logs and lumber in the yard. 
 Now I am taking 4 months off a year or more 
From all the years of sawing. I have a big following. No need to advertise. I been thinking of pulling my web thing too.

Education is a good thing, keep it up YH, and Good luck.
Your friend from the glacier north.

[Machinebuilder]

I always heard
An expert is someone more than 50 mi from home with a briefcase.


I don't watch many youtube sawmillers,
I have learned enough that most of them aren't going to teach me more.
I have also learned from this forum and some of the real experts here, I know nothing.

Robert I look forward to your video's, I learn a little with each one. Please keep doing them.
While some of it isn't directly applicable to a low hp manual mill with a big log on it, I still watch because the basics still count, no matter the mill

I am at the point I look at the lumber i have stacked in my barn and realise I will probably never use it all.
Then Thursday I was offered some good sized pine logs (which I don't have any of)

This Forum is where I will get most of my information and I know yall will point out the mistakes I miss.  THANK YOU

[Magicman]

I know yall will point out the mistakes I miss. 

Ain't a mistake, just stuff that we do whenever someone it either looking ....or not. 

[caveman]

I appreciate the well-done videos.  Even though I was relatively proficient at my old job, I still took the opportunity to learn from my peers.  I'd sometimes just pop into their classrooms or FFA practices and watch and listen.  Other times, our professional organization would have "experts", usually teachers, instruct us in an area that they are known to be really good at.  Some of their methods could be adapted to my style of instruction and some would not be effective for me.

At all of the projects at Jake's that I've attended, I'd usually be somewhere that I have a good view of what was going on while any lumber processing or handling was occurring.  The sawmill layouts that I've seen in person and on the videos/pictures (Peter Drouin, PAmizerman, YH, Percy) have led to us changing our arrangements and I know we have more changes to make to become more efficient.  Our slab handling still requires too much manual labor.  We need a sky hook to hang one corner of our mill shed from so we can get rid of a pole that we continuously have to maneuver around-I have not seen one for sale on the FF.

I've been fishing for just about my whole life, but I learn from my friends and sometimes videos.  A few months ago, I started putting drop shot rigs with circle hooks in guests' hands to catch bass-it has been very successful.  Until about a year ago, I never even used a drop shot for bass.

The videos that wear me out are the folks that buy the new whatever and before it even loses the new car smell, they are on the tube posing as expert instructors.

[Rhodemont]

I learned in my career, initially working for a large corporation and then running my own manufacturing business, that there a machine operators and there are masters of their machines.  Large coil to coil rolling mills are somewhat like sawmills in my eyes.  Machine operators can turn them on and make them run. Masters of their machines can fine tune the mill to make high quality material.  My rolling supervisor was a Master.   I would watch him in awe of how he made the equipment run.  Initially I ran equipment everyday which became less and less as I got sucked into the office as we grew.  At times if I could not get the material as flat and straight as I wanted I would call him over to help.  He would spend a few moments looking and listening then make an adjustment and the material would flatten/straighten out perfect. "How did you know to do that?" "I could feel a slight vibration in the floor meaning the top back work roll bearing needed an increase in lubrication flow."

The machine operator (youtuber) would have kept right on rolling making inferior product.  The master (Robert and Jake and others) adjusted and made material that made us well known by customers to feed into their part blanking presses.   

[Jeff]

I'm an expert of creating videos no one watches, but I'm making about $3-$4 a week! 

[Digger Don]

Whether people think I'm an Expert or Ex-spurt on this Forum, or anywhere else, that't their choice.

YH. I hope you did not take offense at my definition. You are definitely one of the experts that I did not call by name. Don

[barbender]

I love people sharing knowledge. I mean, that's the main purpose of this Forum. 

I've put my hand to quite a few things over the years, where I learned by absorbing from people that knew more than me about the job, or sometimes took what I'd already learned and figured out new ways to get the job done better, faster, etc. And I'm more than happy to share what I've learned with others unless they are my direct competitors or something.

I'd feel pretty foolish putting out a video the second day I was in a machine I had not ran before and tell people all the tricks of the trade. Doesn't stop most of these "runnin' dummies" as my Grandad would probably call them😊

[SawyerTed]

Maybe the pandemic created new YouTubers - some with sawmills. 

Like new off roaders, RVers, boaters, tent campers, pool owners, woodworkers, scrap bookers, DIY home improvers. 

For many the interest waned or will.

I've noticed in the full time RV crowd, some of the peripheral YouTubers are dropping out.  The fad has run its course or they just aren't generating the income they thought they could. 

[Percy]

There is alot of mill vids of all sorts on youtube...There is probably more instructional videos for guitar playing than sawmilling ones. If you have lots of experience in either of these endevours, it makes it easier to see who is who. A bad song is alot like a crooked wavey board

[Jeff]

Please Like, Subscribe, and ring the flippin bell eh? 

[thecfarm]

You got some wild life coming to that pond you made!!!!!

[SawyerTed]

You want to really shock your sawmill mind?!?

Go over to Reddit and read the sawmill threads there!  "Experts" are a dime a dozen there and the advice will make your head explode!  

[Peter Drouin]

If I see you on youtube I will. Where can I find you?

[OlJarhead]

The things about YT is you have to realize that expertise in the subject has nothing to do with success.

Creating thumbnails and titles to draw attention and creating content that keeps people watching is what makes a channel successful (hence, Yoga Pants).

I'm still striving to crack that 60% AVD (average view duration) and with my hand in a splint and my back being unruly I haven't been able to run my mill, fell trees, build etc so I've had to shift to solar power / of grid power, power stations etc and those have done very well (the market for sawmill channels is flooded and there are some big channels (Yoga Pants) that take the viewership.

A friend of mine who started a channel when he got his mill, but did a good job learning (and never claimed to be an expert) shifted more to forestry and is doing very very well.  

The point, I guess, is that YT channel success has little to do with expertise in a subject other than how to make videos.  

[Magicman]

Go over to Reddit and read the sawmill threads there!

I had never been to that site and it did not take me very long to know that I would not go back.

Just me, but if a video is much over 10 minutes long, I am unlikely to watch it through.  I will also skip through portions that are simply just sawing or tractor bringing logs, etc.

[SawyerTed]

 Sorry about that Lynn!  It's pure awful and makes Facebook sawmill groups really appear to be experts.  🙄 

Expertise?  Is it relative?  To a novice who is an expert?   But to a person with some experience is the expert pool smaller?  I think so.