Meet The Maker #1

First and foremost, welcome to the newest addition to the Southern Woodworkers ever growing realm of awesomeness. The Meet The Maker feature will be a new weekly feature here in Southern Woodworkers. Each week we will be featuring a member of the community who has exemplified the meaning of being a true maker and deserves some recognition.

Some of them may be well known in the social community, and you might be familiar with them, however some of them may be flying under the radar, minimally on social media, and just talented beyond belief. This group is one of the most exciting features of Meet the Maker, because if we can find some of the lesser known, but just as skilled talents, we then increase the wealth of knowledge that has already proven itself here in the Southern Woodworkers community. My name is Sean McHenry and I run D.I.Wyatt Custom Woodworks. I'll be your tour guide week by week through this glorious group of makers we have here in the south.

And now...without further ado....let's get this thing rolling with our first Meet The Maker!.........

This weeks Meet the Maker is none other than Daniel Quiroz a.k.a. Dan The Maker Man. Dan is a Texan, hailing from Richmond which is just outside of Houston. Working out of a two-car garage with mostly mobile tools he can shuffle around as needed. Like many of us, he takes over his wife's side of the garage when he's working on a project, and then clears out space for her to park when he's not. Having recently left a career in supply-chain management, Dan is now a full time YouTuber and content creator. Dan told me in our interview "I left my job mainly because of the traveling. Missing out on life events and not being able to spend time with my family was taking it's toll on me".

Dan draws his inspiration from many of the same avenues as a lot of us. He started watching YouTube, discovered people like Steve Ramsey and Jimmy Diresta. Once he fell into the worm hole, he came across Sterling Davis' Pallet Wood Challenge and decided that build would be his first video. "Well I missed the deadline for the challenge, but I have been hooked ever since". Dan doesn't necessarily classify himself as just a woodworker, he likes to make things and/or try to make things. During our interview he told me "The learning experience can be the most fun part. If I make something cool then that's a win if the project sucks then I most likely learned something along the way. Also my interests change and vary. If I see something I like or want to try, I just go for it". Ain't that the truth.

Dan grew up watching Norm Abrams and This Old House so the interest was there at an early age. Once he got married, and started having responsibilities, things like home improvement projects really got the ball rolling. They bought their first home and he started building things. Now, with a flourishing YouTube channel, Dan is able to make things for a living, and make things more frequently than ever. Dan is one of the original members of Southern Woodworkers. Founder Zach Manring of the Southern Ginger Workshop invited him to join back when our 600 strong community was in its infancy.

Out of respect for his work, I am going to include Dan's description of his featured project which is pictured below.

"I made this using dimensional lumber from the big box store and 1/2 inch rebar. The idea behind it was for it to look like a CAD drawing of a bench in the "exploded" view when the program shows you the configuration of the bench and how it goes together. In the program all the parts hover slightly away from one another so you can see the joinery and how it is assembled. What I like about this project is that none of the miters have to be perfect, none of the edges have to be perfectly jointed, and none of that matters because the edges never touch. I think this is a great project for people that are intimidated by woodworking because you don't have to be very precise and still end up with a unique piece of furniture."

And unique it is. What a beautiful piece of work.