50 People Share Their Weird Yet Hilarious Creations In This “Un-Craftsman-Like” Group

We managed to get in touch with the moderators of '[Bad] Woodworking' and they agreed to give us more insight into this subreddit.

"Moderating here is fairly simple and the general philosophy is to let downvotes take care of unpopular content," the team told Bored Panda. 

"Some posts are off-topic but get upvoted and they usually get left alone, even if reported."

The moderators said there have been some bans from off-topic spammers but it has been a while since the last time.

"People generally seem to post about things they are proud of or happy about, but know could use improvement," they added.

The maturity of the subreddit's members, their respect towards each other, and their genuine interest in the craft as well as the desire to get better at it have to be some of the main reasons why this niche community, despite being almost a decade old, remains active.

Many insiders believe that woodworking is somewhat easy to become decent at but takes a lifetime to master.

Even Paul Sellers, whose biography as a woodworker began in a small joiner's workshop in 1965 in Stockport, England, and who now has two of his pieces gracing the Cabinet Room of the White House, calls himself "a lifelong amateur woodworker."

So staying humble and not being ashamed of your mistakes seems to be really important in this particular field.

It's one of those things where the journey really is more important than the destination. "In making, I find unsurpassed peace," Sellers wrote in one of his blog posts.

"It's a silencing of excess that gives me encouragement in the simplicity of making with my hands."

Sellers has spent a large part of his working life in the USA where he taught woodworking courses and he advises everyone to embrace the challenges. "Throughout my work teaching classes hands-on, I learned from students what troubles them the most. Cutting square, planing square, cutting straight and sharpening a perfect edge, the list could be exhausting were we to go down that road," he recalled.

"We could soon convince one another that we should just go the machine route. And yet there is something truly magical every time you develop a very particular skill you never thought you could or would own."

"Thinking back through my years as a full-time, lifetime, lifestyle maker, I can recall every step where I earned my ability through my stubborn determination not to give up. Some recollections came when I was one step away from giving up and giving in. In that split second, a lone voice, barely audible, said just one more try. There it was. The launch was complete and I was flying in euphoria as all resistance left, the cut was made and the two pieces slipped perfectly together for the very first time," the woodworker explained.

The moderators of '[Bad] Woodworking' said that, ideally, they would like to see more engagement, as they're sure there is plenty of "content" being created nearly daily in every neighborhood, "but probably most people would be put off by having their work labeled as [bad] here."

"It seems to be a space for people that are capable of more and have respectable creations, but need a quick solution and would agree that what they made is a bit comical."