The website has come a long way over the last year. In October, the new forum was added and that continues to grow. My original plan to be more dedicated to writing blog entries on there fell through, again not enough time. What can I say? I’ll try to do better this year 🙂

Many new projects over the course of the year, with the most significant the new 2×72 belt grinder. A project of that size with a full set of plans and build videos kind of leaves its mark, and when I think about the year, it’s the most memorable. Another that stands out is the wooden blinds build for my workshop.

I made a lot of changes to the shop and near the beginning of January, I started a new YouTube channel for videos that cover projects in a more detailed and less formal way. Most of the shop improvements were featured on this new channel.
The new channel has been a great success and has gained a large following in a very short time. As of today, it stands at 33,000 subscribers and has amassed nearly 1.5 million views. There are 64 videos on the channel covering a wide range of diy projects.

My main YouTube channel is now reserved for full build videos, more tightly edited and limited to one project per video. This has also worked out very well, since I can actually condense a project that I covered in detail on the second channel and post it on there. I did that with the new planer / belt grinder stand and with the window blinds build. I also make videos exclusively for this channel, like the very popular wooden Damascus knife and the even more popular shovel and concrete knife.
The main channel has had substantial growth over the year and today stands at 200,000 subscribers, 295 videos and 35 million views. The number of subscribers has more than doubled over the last year.

Back in December, 2013 my brother Don started writing weekly article for the site. Offcuts covers a wide array of topics, usually woodworking or diy related and always with humourous slant. I’m pretty sure he’s only missed one week during that time, and that was due to a heavy work load in his day job away from home.

Also, the website has been redesigned to a new layout that is better suited for viewing on all devices. With mobile phone and tablet use on a steady rise, I figured now was the time to make the change. This is an ongoing process, but many of the more popular build articles have already been converted, and all of the new ones are in the new format.
I’ve also improved the overall navigation of the site with projects put into convenient directories.

It’s been customary for me to talk a bit about future changes or things I would like to do with the site in the next year, but I don’t think I’ll do that this time. Too often things change on the fly and ideas that I thought were good ones, often don’t live up to expectations or are too difficult to implement. So, my best prediction of the coming year is that some things will change, and some things will stay the same. But one thing is certain, I’ll try to make it as interesting as I can.