Home › Topics › Engineering, Transport & Making
Woodworking, metalworking & workshop skills: videos Hacker News recommends
Making: woodworking, metalworking, welding, blacksmithing, machine shop, lathes, tool sharpening, knife making, workshop tips, hand tools, craftsmanship. Below: every video in this topic that at least three HN users linked with real commentary, in at least three different months (15 demos, 8 documentarys, 7 tutorials), best-scored first, with the comments on each video page.
- Aviation & aerospace engineering 124
- Cars, EVs & motorcycles 171
- Transit, cities & urban planning 174
- Civil engineering & construction 70
- Mechanical & precision engineering 141
- Manufacturing & industrial processes 69
- 3D printing, CNC & maker projects 58
- Home, DIY & practical skills 61
- Cooking & food 41
- Ships, submarines & maritime 24
- Engineering & making (other) 27
- 9 HN recommenders 10 months 2014–2024HN repeatedly names it among the best programming talks, loved for its craftsmanship message that complex tooling can hide simpler solutions.
- 10 HN recommenders 8 months 2012–2023S swererbob · documentaryHN recommends it often and warmly, as an inspiring and peaceful view of self-reliance and handcraft, in threads on cabins, solitude and woodworking.
- 11 HN recommenders 9 months 2019–2025HN commenters repeatedly recommend it as a half-hour mini-documentary on how precision is bootstrapped from scratch, relevant to machining and chip manufacturing threads.
- 6 HN recommenders 6 months 2017–2026D Dalibor Farný · documentaryHN commenters call it mesmerizing and a great look at how things are actually made by a dedicated craftsman.
- 7 HN recommenders 5 months 2018–2024HN repeatedly recommends the series for its extraordinary craftsmanship and its credible demonstration of how the mechanism could have been made.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2015–2024C Christopher Roy · documentaryRecommended as an amazing documentary of traditional ironmaking, often used as a baseline for the labor required.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2015–2022Recommended as a gold-standard free course for anyone learning to build precision mechanical things.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2017–2024Recommended as an absorbing masterpiece of craftsmanship, often raised in threads about watches and clockmaking.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2025–2026O OUTDOORS55 · tutorialRecommended by commenters who say its practical, scientific explanations finally taught them how and why sharpening works.
- 4 HN recommenders 4 months 2017–2025D Dobson Astro-Initiatives · tutorialRecommended to anyone interested in telescope making as a guide from Dobson himself.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2016–2018HN people link it as a satisfying demonstration of hand-powered drills being made from nothing.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2019–2024HN commenters recommend it as an excellent introduction to massive forging presses, especially in threads about gigacasting and large manufacturing machines.
- 4 HN recommenders 3 months 2018–2022E Essential Craftsman · tutorialHN users recommend the Spec House series as a free, extremely detailed education in how a house is actually built.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2022–2023Recommended as a thoughtful, enjoyable 45-minute dive into measurement and the appreciation of precision.
- 3 HN recommenders 3 months 2022–2024Z Zack Freedman · demoHN points people to it as the original explanation of what Gridfinity is and why it exists, in threads about the project and its catalogs.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2020–2025T Tod's Workshop · documentaryHN considers it the key experimental evidence on how effective longbows really were against armour.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2015–2021T The Met · documentaryShared as a satisfying look at craftsmen taking pride in traditional handmade tile mosaics.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2015–2018A Anthony Prezutti Comedy Mentalist · demoLinked as the canonical demo of a safety technology that stops a blade before it injures a finger.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2017–2022Recommended as a hands-on introduction to glass melting and chemistry and to Krasnow's channel.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2017–2023P purgatoryironworks · demoHN commenters use it as a quick, hands-on demonstration that steel loses strength well below its melting point.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2021–2022Named as a favorite LPL video, where a skeptical locksmith's challenge gets answered quickly.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2016–2018HN readers like the channel for showing technology rebuilt from raw materials, and cite it as a vivid example of knowledge building on knowledge.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2018–2020M MrFixItDIY · tutorialHN recommends it as a candid mea culpa and a kickback demonstration that changed how people use push blocks.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2019–2025Cited as a marvel of absurd precision in home-built machine tools, and a pointer to Gelbart's other videos.
- 2 HN recommenders 2 months 2020–2022Recommended as a beautiful explanation of how the mechanism models the Moon's uneven motion.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2014–2020M MatthiasWandel · demoCited as a favorite example of clever mechanical design and as a reference for CNC joinery devices.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2019–2023HN people value its authenticity: no cuts, no cheating, and real tool use done entirely with materials found on site.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2018–2025Used to illustrate that fire safes protect against fire and not theft, and that brute force often defeats low-security containers.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2017–2024T Tom Sachs · videoUsed as a short intro to knolling and as an analogy for tidying workspaces and continuously cleaning up code.
- 1 HN recommenders 1 months 2021–2024H Hand Tool Rescue · demoHN shares it as a fun curiosity about early IBM history, with time stamps for the nameplate and the explanation.
- cited 3× 0 months 2017–2024W Wolfgang Lendner · demoCited as a concrete example of how thermite is used for track welding in discussions of rail and thermite.
- cited 3× 0 months 2021–2025Cited as a DIY speaker reference when commenters discuss building their own audio gear.
- cited 8× 0 months 2013–2021M MatthiasWandel · demoHN cites it as the classic example of a mechanical binary adder and a source of inspiration for marble-based computers.
- cited 3× 0 months 2023–2025Referenced in security threads as proof that tamper-evident seals and stickers can be bypassed.
Questions
What is the most recommended woodworking, metalworking & workshop skills video on Hacker News?
Tim Ewald - Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools by ClojureTV: HN repeatedly names it among the best programming talks, loved for its craftsmanship message that complex tooling can hide simpler solutions.
How is this woodworking, metalworking & workshop skills list ranked?
By HackerTube's score: the number of distinct months in which an HN comment recommended the video, plus half a point for every month with a strong recommendation. One viral thread counts less than steady recommendations over years.
Where do the videos come from?
From every Hacker News comment between 2007 and 2026 that linked a YouTube video, labeled by an AI model as a recommendation, a citation, a joke or a criticism. The list is published by HackerTube under ODC-By 1.0; this edition adds indexable pages and the comment context.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.