Ep 127: Koa & The Gang

The crew welcomes special guest Lee Dumond from Busted Knuckle Woodworks who is recording from his incredibly organized shop in Austin Texas and is about to hit the magical 100,000 subscriber milestone on YouTube after three years of grinding which means he will finally get that silver play button

Lee drops some serious knowledge about why hitting 100K on YouTube is actually meaningful because the verification checkmark you get is literally the only checkmark left on social media that you cannot buy since Twitter Instagram Facebook and Meta all sell verification for just 10 bucks a month making YouTube verification an actual achievement you have to earn

The conversation dives into Lee's background building outdoor furniture in Texas where it is sunny 300 days a year compared to his Maine upbringing which only has three months of summer and nine months of poor sledding and how outdoor furniture was extremely lucrative because people in Texas spend so much time outside

Lee shares his powerful story about getting cancer and going through chemo and radiation which made it impossible to lift the heavy materials needed for building arbors and pergolas so he pivoted to creating smaller projects like jewelry boxes and bandsaw boxes as a creative outlet during treatment

The YouTube journey started when Lee spread out all his bandsaw boxes on his table and set up a camera to talk about how he made each one including the wood types and finishes and that single video sparked his entire channel growth over the past three years

Ross reveals that his top three performing YouTube videos are all outdoor furniture builds including a simple outdoor bench that has gotten insane views proving that outdoor furniture content performs incredibly well on the platform even for small channels

Lee explains that his SawStop actually saved his hand from a table saw kickback incident where a piece of cedar smashed into his knuckles which is how he came up with the name Busted Knuckle Woodworks and he keeps the brake cartridge disk of shame displayed in his shop

The discussion touches on Lee's unique lifestyle living part-time in Paris France and how he creates casual Patreon content about random topics like American fast food in Paris while just sitting at his table saw or walking around the shop talking about whatever is on his mind

Lee shares his incredible quote that winners want feedback while losers want praise explaining that honest feedback is the most valuable thing you can get in any endeavor and when someone tells him his video sucked instead of praising it that person becomes way more valuable to him

The crew mentions that Lee has been on four podcasts now since WorkbenchCon where he met Alex Duffy who made it his mission to get Lee on podcasts after learning Lee had been a podcast host but never a guest and now he has over 1800 Patreon members supporting his work

Ross announces a special 15 percent discount code BATB15% for Gearhart Industry custom branding irons that works for the rest of the year whether you need branding irons for food leather furniture or any other custom branding project