Instagram journey continued...

So it's September 2019 and i've vaguely decided I want to explore woodworking.

My life is now not only taken up with being a dad/husband, having a full time job and renovating a house...but now also spending every waking hour of my life discovering this thing called youtube that i've pretty much shunned my entire life up until this point (small Minecraft obsession aside...)

I've purchased an 8" Axminster Craft planer/thicknesser, a Craft extractor and I am now also the proud owner of a Festoool track saw/router/domino...because I saw a video on youtube that I thought i'd have a crack at!

That video was of course 'The PowerTool Workbench' by some guy called Matt Estlea...look him up on the tube if you haven't come across him before, kid's going places!!

I stumbled upon it completely by accident, youtube was sending me from maker to maker to maker, from April Wilkerson, to Paul Sellers, to some utter rubbish, and then to Matt. Matt's style and attitude instantly resonated with me and I found myself gorging upon his content (not a euphemism) at every spare opportunity.

I watched his 'Powertool Workbench' series from start to finish about 8 times and ultimately decided that was the workbench I was going to build, so I set about trying to source timber, something I truly had no fucking clue about! Matt made his from Southern Yellow Pine, which I could not find anywhere. I tried sending the cutting list to several timber yards and getting quotes and they came back ranging from £600 up to £1100 for the timber, dimensioned and cut according to Matt's specifications. I decided that was fucking horseshit, so i'd do it myself.

My first foray into purchasing timber (other than C16/20 constructional timber) was to buy Wickes PSE redwood. Let me just forewarn you now... DO NOT EVER BUY PSE TIMBER FROM WICKES!!! It was so bent it made a roundabout look square, so I there and then decided I had to take matters into my own hands, again (you may see a running theme begin to occur here)...

I had acquired a vast number of pallets and had also been given a number as well, and through the house renovation had amassed a sizeable collection of constructional timber from the mid 80's that was of far superior quality to timber you can buy today, so I decided that I would follow the plans and build the entire workbench out of reclaimed timber seeing as I had the tools available to process and dimension it (save the torsion box and OSB aspects)...

So it had begun, I was planing down palette wood, laminating it together to make legs, cutting and dimensioning reclaimed constructional timber and cultivating my endless love and obsession for OSB which actually began before I discovered Matt, he just helped me take my fetish to whole new levels of wood chip...

I stressed over this build for weeks, I spent hours every night in the workshop obsessing over every minute detail, rewatched the build series god knows how many more times and started to build some consistency over my Instagram posting and engagement with the community. In 4 weeks it went from piles of old wood with nail holes in, to something that almost resembled a finished workbench...

All it needed now were the side skirt son the torsion box and it was done...but firstly I couldn't make a decision on what I wanted to do the side skirts in, secondly I couldn't decide where to source the wood from and thirdly, I decided to buy my first lathe...so finishing this got put on the back burner until Jan 2020 and became one of those jobs I thought about doing but just couldn't be bothered to and in the end one of those jobs I just had to get done and out of the way...which I eventually did on 30th January 2020...

Now the important part of this part of my "Instagram Journey' was not the fact that I had finished a workbench, or was making something out of reclaimed timber or anything like that, it was that I learned a lot about how to approach Instagram, and what did and din't work! Instagram is a temperamental beast at the best of times, and when it's not working, especially int he beginning, it can be debilitating, and when it is winning you can feel legitimately euphoric!

And here is what I got from these 4 weeks...

- I made a concerted effort to engage and interact with as many people as I could. Whilst at first this was more a push from my side than responding to engagement myself, i tried to make a positive impact and make conversations happen.

- I tagged Mr Estlea in almost every post I did about the workbench, which from memory, was numerous! I had no endgame other than 'tag the guy who's plans I am following because that seems like the right thing to do?!!?' This ultimately paid off a couple of times when he shared a picture of my build half way through September and I reckon I gained 300 followers in a 24 hour period and then similarly again once I had finished it.

- If you don't have content to create, then just document what you are doing. Anyone who is anyone and has listened to anything from Gary Lee will undoubtedly have heard this a million times.

- Post content for you, not for anyone else!! Posting for what you think other people will enjoy is a slippery slippery slope to losing your passion and your drive because you'r eno longer doing it for you!

However this came after falling into a number of pitfalls...

- I became obsessed with my follower numbers, and the number of likes I was getting and drew the only surefire conclusion that if my number of followers wasn't increasing steadily and fuck quickly then I was doing something wrong and should just quit Instagram. I would check Instagram daily, questioning myself, questioning why more people weren't liking what I was doing, and was really hard on myself for literally no fucking reason whatsoever because ultimately...what people on Instagram think should have no correlative affect on your life!!

- I started doing like bombs, and sharing pictures of like bombs I would receive as posts, and following people in the hope that they would follow me back and then getting pissed off if they didn't follow me back and blah blah blah blah blah slowly spiralling into that bullshit game of follow for follow and not using Instagram for what it is most valuable for - The Community!!

- I had no idea on how to effectively use stories and looking back now on the stories I posted back then straight up makes me want to vomit...it's no wonder nobody had any interest in my Instagram page. I know now that it is better to pos nothing than post something that is utter shite for the sake of keeping up appearances!!

I did however 'create' my first piece of content in September 2019 which I'm still pretty proud of...

And THAT is how you remove clamps from a glue up...

So here I was, end of September 2019, I had a 90% finished workbench, some tools, and some space. I was getting more involved and intrigued by Instagram, I had started to make some acquaintances, was making conversation with people and I was actively enjoying getting into the workshop in order to do something, anything, so I could put a post up and start engaging with people.

But...

I still had no idea what my endgame was. I had no plans other than to build a workshop. I had no joinery skills, no woodworking skills, I had literally no idea where I was going.

So on the 2nd October (ignoring the purchase of the lathe for the time being) I made something I had been thinking about since before I discovered Matt's Powertool Workbench series. Something that would ultimately go on to form a pretty strong foundation of where I find myself today. I made myself a couple of mallets...

To be continued...