Essential Craftsman

Essential Craftsman shares more than 40 years of building experience. The videos feature Scott Wadsworth, a builder and contractor. The aim is to pass on knowledge gained through practice and build respect for craftspeople, their tools and their history.

Topics include house building, carpentry, concrete, blacksmithing, safety and productivity on site. Some videos teach a single technique or tool. Others visit mills and workshops to show how other trades work, or compare building methods in other countries, such as Japan and Korea. Scott speaks slowly and clearly, and often adds advice about work and life. Safety comes up often, with clear explanations of how accidents happen and how good habits prevent them.

Some highlights include:

A visit to Japan to learn how traditional Japanese houses are built, and how their methods differ from Western construction.

A demonstration of the tick stick, a simple carpentry tool for copying complex shapes accurately.

A tour of a busy timber mill, showing how logs are turned into building materials at scale.

The channel has around 1.9 million subscribers.

Civil and structural engineers design buildings, but they work alongside the people who build them. This channel shows construction from the site up: loads, materials, joints and the order things happen in. It suits anyone thinking about civil engineering, construction management, architecture or a construction apprenticeship.