Luling area YouTube creator Chris Badeaux and his YouTube channel, Sawdust and Wood, has over the last five years developed somewhat of an online following, having now reached over 74,000 subscribers online. Some of his more popular videos have gained well over one million views each.
Badeaux said the initial idea of starting a YouTube channel came from his love of woodworking, an interest he developed in his early teens.
“When I was a kid, probably up until I was 13, my dad was a full-time carpenter… I’d go on jobsites during the summer with him, hang out all day, and play with scrap wood,” Badeaux said. “I always had a love for woodworking after that.”
As he got older, Badeaux helped build his father’s second home, assisting with framing the house, cutting roof rafters, along with other carpentry-related work. From that point onward, Badeaux says he developed a lifelong love of woodworking. He began buying carpentry books, reading, asking questions and practicing woodworking in his free time.
The St. Charles Parish native says he named his channel Sawdust and Wood, through a process of researching other woodworking channels, and settling on a new name that did not sound like any other YouTube channel names.
“The name was very random,” Badeaux said. “I wanted it to be original – something that nobody had.”
Badeaux’s Sawdust and Wood YouTube channel features primarily a mix of general woodworking and tutorial videos, the length of each video ranging from numerous short videos just three minutes in length, to longer in-depth tutorials on complex tasks like framing a roof, which can run as long as 28 minutes. Most of his videos are designed to teach homeowners and aspiring woodworkers how to perform certain woodworking tasks.
“Some of my most popular videos are on cutting base boards,” Badeaux said of his channel. I think it’s just because most homeowners, at some point, have to replace a baseboard – it’s a highly searched task.”
The woodworking enthusiast says his base board cutting tutorial has thus far gotten over 1.5 million views in less than a year, receiving over 15,000 views per day on average. His second most popular video, and one of his earliest videos, is an angle-cutting tutorial for beginning woodworkers, with over 1.3 million views.
With so many views on many of his videos, his channel has created a community that brings him inspiration and drives him to create even more video content.
“I have a positive community – my channel pulls in a lot of people new to woodworking,” Badeaux explained of his loyal woodworking followers. “They’re very humble and just looking for information. When you help them, they thank you a million times over – you can feel the gratitude.”
The YouTube channel creator says his biggest obstacle over the last several years has been balancing his longtime refinery career and family life, while still managing his channel.
“Balancing work at a refinery…and being a father, being a husband, and trying to make good content to put out for video is challenging,” he said.
An unexpected benefit Badeaux says came about from running his channel the last five years was in his public speaking skills.
“I wasn’t always comfortable speaking in front of a crowd of people,” Badeaux said of his personality before he started his YouTube channel. “You get so used to speaking to the camera and answering questions…now I can speak to a room full of 1,000 people and not get even a little nervous.”
After putting out so many woodworking-themed videos over the last five years, Badeaux says his channel has driven him to expand his knowledge as a woodworker, and master new skills.
“It gets to the point where I’ve shown [the majority of the woodworking] things I know how to teach, so now I’m challenging myself to read a book, watch a video and learn more techniques in order to create new content,” he said. “It’s actually helped push me to grow in the field of carpentry.”
To learn more about local Chris Badeaux and his woodworking tutorials, visit his channel on YouTube, Sawdust and Wood.
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