Jay Bates is the owner of the eponymous YouTube channel featuring production videos from his own woodworking company Jays Custom Creations LLC. The platform provides a haven for the niche’s enthusiasts, with a combination of creative ideas, instructional resources, and project highlights. The veteran carpenter in charge shares his considerable knowledge and passion for the profession through well-produced videos, with content ranging from simple DIY projects to sophisticated furniture pieces. He strives to keep the vibe both inspirational and instructional, which helps a decently wide audience find fancy with what he does. His videos often include detailed step-by-step directions, tool use guidance, and design process analysis. The channel has acquired a considerable following from Jay’s unique presenting style and personality, remaining a valuable resource for everyone seeking inspiration for their next project or additional knowledge about woodworking.
What’s the channel all about?
Jay prides himself on having a very diverse channel, featuring multiple kinds of DIY work, both in and out of the workshop. Be it the customary woodworking project, building a metal vise here and there, or using heavier machinery to sculpt a driveway, his content is there to both teach and impress.
While the breadth of the uploads is quite massive, the main focus remains on woodworking, as that’s the soul of his business. More often than not, his videos feature cheap projects but requiring sustainable materials, with easy-to-follow instructions that can keep most of his viewers engaged, helping them make their own impressive pieces. Jay is easy to recognize through his down-to-earth and approachable demeanor that makes all the instructions easier to follow, providing the audience with a sense of relaxation and support throughout their often stressful woodworking follow-alongs.
In one of his most popular videos, Jay walks viewers through the process of making a strong workbench using easily obtained components. He begins by outlining his affordable substitute for pricey hardwoods, which is his choice of southern yellow pine boards, costing no more than $110. Before breaking the boards in half and building the top, Jay carefully chooses and prepares the boards to have neat edges. Outlining the need to build a strong, lasting workbench top capable of heavy usage, he details his technique of gluing the boards into beams, and then squaring them using a jointer and planer.
He then builds the legs and fastens them to the workbench top using through tenons, going over how he marks and cuts the mortises for the legs to guarantee exact alignment and a snug fit. Jay shows his knowledge and attention to detail by using hand tools and power equipment in concert, to achieve the intended outcome, thereby also offering advice on how to control the workbench’s weight and stability, including applying polyurethane on his construction table to simplify maneuverability.
He finally puts together the workbench by fixing the joints with glue and screws, stating that he decided to use screws as makeshift clamps until the glue would dry before substituting oak dowels. Jay ends the video saying he’s happy with the finished product, noting its flaws but appreciating its firmness and usefulness. For anyone interested in reproducing the project, he offers the last measurements of the workstation, and notes that thorough plans with choices for vices and a cabinet are available in further resources.
Thanks to videos like that, Jay manages to keep his place in the YouTube woodworking spotlight, ensuring that the curious audience will keep coming back for more original content. That’s not all, however, as those more curious about the YouTuber’s personal life can always check out his second channel, dedicated mostly to vlogging his extracurricular activities around the shop, sometimes involving simple stories from his life as an expert woodworker. The channel is also used as a sort-of dumping site for all the minor projects that aren’t significant enough to be featured on the main channel, reviewing non-crucial products and tools, and even giving advice about the most optimal computer-aided design (CAD) software and hardware.
Who really is Jay Bates?
Jay Bates took an interesting path towards the career he has today, built up for the craft from early on in his youth. He was born on 18 October 1986, in Livonia, Michigan, developing an interest in DIY craftsmanship from the first time he knew how to hold a tool. His passion for the niche evolved in high school, at which point he turned his bedroom into a makeshift work area with custom-built furniture and lights, becoming well-versed in the business before most of his classmates even knew what they wanted to do in life. Following his matriculation, Bates bought an acre of property, and a mobile house that required major renovation– a task he took on with as much vigor as any of his YouTube projects. Along with working with his great uncle on a house, this experience gave Jay priceless practical knowledge in many areas of construction, including plumbing, roofing, framing, and electrical work, all of which served to prepare him for the feats his channel boasts today.
From my family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving! If you're not in the USA, Happy Thursday! pic.twitter.com/ADCWtSY4AK
— Jay Bates (@JayBates86) November 22, 2018
A few years later he chose to study CAD as unemployment ultimately set in. He was a top student in his class, earning his degree alongside multiple awards. Nevertheless, he was aware that a career in CAD wasn’t his natural calling, regardless of the various successes he’d experienced in the field. After graduating, Bates looked at other possibilities, having missed the practical side of producing and making things. He relocated to a new area, and married during this somewhat uncertain period of his life, doing maintenance on an apartment complex while his wife finished her degree. This occupation let him keep developing his talents, and concentrate on personal projects using an empty flat as a woodshop, practicing crucial woodworking skills that would form the core of his career later on.
Early 2014 saw Jay and his wife buy a property with a two-car garage that he turned into his workshop as she finished her studies. He made a leap of faith in August of the same year, leaving his steady day job in order to pursue his full-time internet career, having already uploaded a number of widely-watched videos. Following this choice, he also started Jay’s Custom Creations LLC – a venue in which he could expose his ideas, workings and expertise to a larger audience.
What is his net worth?
Some of the most credible sources have estimated Jay Bates’ accumulated wealth at over $300,000, owing to a multitude of factors. Social Blade estimates the channel’s annual earnings at t up to $16,000, based solely on predicted ad revenue. There are also sponsorships and affiliate marketing deals that further boost his total YouTube salary.
Apart from that, Jay also owns a dedicated business website, which offers a number of highly customized woodworking plans, created in the software called Sketchup, which he learned to use over his years of CAD schooling. Notably, this is most useful to architects, who regularly employ such programs on their own work. In turn, his designs are quite easy to incorporate with brand-new homes and apartments custom-built in Sketchup or other CAD programs.
