DIY & Home Improvement — YouTube Channel
Based in Yorkshire, England
Shelves, fencing, concreting, wood joints & tool restoration — real projects, honest guidance, no fluff.
A Proper
Yorkshire DIYer
Hello — I'm Mick, and I've been tinkering, building and fixing things since I was old enough to hold a hammer. Born and bred in Yorkshire, I started ToolGeeks as a simple way to document what I was learning as I tackled projects around the house, in the garage and out in the garden. A few years on it's grown into something I'm genuinely proud of — a proper community of everyday DIYers who want to learn practical skills without paying through the nose.
I'm not a qualified tradesman. I'm a homeowner who got tired of waiting for quotes that never arrived, watching tradespeople do jobs I reckoned I could do myself with a bit of research and the right tools. Some of those early attempts were disasters — and I film those too, because the failures are often more educational than the successes.
The projects you'll find on ToolGeeks are the kind of things most homeowners need to tackle sooner or later: fitting shelves that don't sag, putting up a fence that lasts, mixing and laying concrete properly, cutting woodwork joints that actually fit, and cleaning up and restoring old tools so they work better than the cheap new ones from the big sheds. I'm based near Harrogate, and I work out of a home workshop that's grown considerably over the past few years.
100K+
Subscribers
300+
Videos
6M+
Total Views
8+
Yrs DIYing
The Projects
From a morning spent cleaning up a rusty old plane to a week-long fence replacement across the back garden — here's the kind of work that ends up on ToolGeeks.
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Shelving
Shelves That Actually Hold Weight
There's a right way and a dozen wrong ways to put up a shelf. I've done most of the wrong ways so you don't have to. From wall anchors and noggins to spanning timber and invisible brackets — everything you need for shelves that'll still be there in twenty years. Covers home, garage and workshop applications including heavy tool storage.
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Fencing
Garden Fencing from Post to Panel
Replacing a fence is one of the most common weekend jobs in Britain and one of the most frequently botched. I cover the full process: digging and setting posts in concrete, choosing the right panel type for your exposure, fixing gravel boards, capping and treating timber so it doesn't rot after one wet Yorkshire winter. Also includes repairs to existing fencing and dealing with difficult ground conditions like clay and slope.
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Concreting
Mixing, Laying and Finishing Concrete
Whether it's setting a fence post, laying a small slab for a shed base or filling in an uneven path, concrete is one of those skills that comes up constantly. I walk through the mixes you actually need (not the ones on bags that assume you have a degree in chemistry), how to use a mixer efficiently, tamping and finishing techniques, and what to do when the weather decides not to cooperate — which in Yorkshire is most of the time.
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Woodwork
Learning Wood Joints Properly
Woodwork joints are the foundation of quality furniture and construction — and they're far more achievable than most people think. I've been working through them methodically: butt joints done properly with the right adhesive and fixings, housing joints for shelving, mortise and tenon for frames and gates, halving joints for garden structures, and basic dovetails for box making. Every joint is explained from marking out to test-fitting, with honest commentary about where I went wrong first time.
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Tool Restoration
Cleaning and Restoring Old Tools
There's something immensely satisfying about rescuing a rusty old Record plane or a knackered Stanley chisel from a car boot sale and bringing it back to working order. I cover full teardowns and reassembly, rust removal (electrolysis, wire wheels and rust converters), lapping and flattening soles, sharpening blades to a working edge, and re-handling chisels and screwdrivers. Old tools, properly restored, often outperform modern equivalents — and they cost a fraction of the price.
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Tool Maintenance
Keeping Your Tools in Working Order
Most tools fail not because they're cheap but because they're not looked after. I show you how to clean, lubricate, sharpen and store hand tools and power tools properly — saw blade cleaning and tensioning, drill sharpening, chisel honing, plane tuning, and basic care for power tools like circular saws and routers. A well-maintained cheap tool beats a neglected expensive one every single time.
Fresh from
the Channel
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How to Build Solid Workshop Shelving from Scratch
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Replacing a Full Garden Fence — Start to Finish
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Restoring a Rusty Hand Plane Back to Perfect Condition
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Mixing Concrete by Hand: The Ratios That Actually Work
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Mortise and Tenon Joints for Beginners — No Special Tools Needed
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5 Chisels from Car Boot Sales — Cleaned, Sharpened and Tested
Every Corner
of the Workshop
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Shelving
Finding studs, choosing fixings, spanning timber, floating shelves, alcove shelving and heavy-duty workshop racking — done properly so nothing falls down.
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Fencing
Post setting, concrete post bases, panel types, gravel boards, capping, timber treatment and weatherproofing — everything from a simple repair to a full replacement.
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Concreting
Mix ratios, hand mixing vs. mixer, slump tests, tamping, floating, finishing and curing. Shed bases, paths, post holes and small slabs covered in detail.
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Wood Joints
Butt, housing, halving, mortise and tenon, bridle, through-dovetail and lap joints — marked out, cut and fitted by hand, step by step, with mistakes shown honestly.
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Tool Restoration
Full teardowns, rust removal, flattening, sharpening and reassembly of old hand planes, chisels, saws, braces and marking gauges. Car boot bargains made useful again.
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Tool Maintenance
Keeping hand tools and power tools in top condition through proper cleaning, lubrication, blade care and storage. A maintained tool is always a safer tool.
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Home Repairs
Plastering patches, filling cracks, rehanging doors, replacing hinges, fixing sash windows and general household maintenance that saves you waiting on a tradesperson.
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Buying Guides
What to look for at car boots, which budget tools are actually worth buying, and which expensive ones aren't worth the premium. Independent advice, no sponsorship.
Frequently
Asked Questions
A few things people ask regularly. If your question isn't here, drop a comment on any video and Mick usually replies.
No — most of the projects on ToolGeeks can be done with a surprisingly modest toolkit. For shelving you need a drill, a spirit level and a tape measure. For fencing, add a post-hole borer or a spade and a concrete mixing bucket. For woodwork joints, a tenon saw, a couple of chisels and a mallet will take you a very long way. I always list the tools used at the start of each video and include budget alternatives where they exist.
Mostly car boot sales, charity shops and online marketplaces like eBay and Facebook Marketplace. Yorkshire is brilliant for this — there are car boots running most weekends between spring and autumn, and there's no shortage of old tools that have sat in sheds and garages for forty years. Knowing what to look for is half the battle, which is why I've done several buying-guide videos covering what makes a good restoration candidate versus something that isn't worth the time.
The shelving videos are a great starting point — they cover core skills like drilling into walls, identifying fixings and working with timber without requiring any previous experience. The wood joints series starts from absolute scratch with a butt joint and builds up gradually. I'd also recommend the tool maintenance playlist, because understanding your tools before you start a project makes everything easier and safer.
At the moment, no. Everything you see on ToolGeeks has been bought with my own money. That's deliberately so — I think it matters that the recommendations come from someone who had to weigh up whether something was actually worth spending money on. If that ever changes, I'll be upfront about it in the video and in the description.
Because that's where I'm from and where I live. The honest answer is that most of this content could come from anywhere, but being in Yorkshire means working with Yorkshire weather — wind, damp, frost, the occasional proper downpour — and that shapes the projects. Timber treatment advice that works here genuinely works anywhere. It also means I'm never far from a good car boot sale.
The best way is to leave a comment on a relevant video — Mick reads all of them and replies to most. You can also reach out through Instagram or Twitter. A lot of video ideas come directly from viewer questions, so if there's a project you're struggling with and can't find a good guide for, it's absolutely worth asking.
What the
Viewers Say
ToolGeeks has built a brilliant community of homeowners, hobbyists and weekend DIYers from across the UK and beyond. Here's what a few of them have to say.
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I put up shelves in my garage following Mick's video and they've held 80kg of kit without so much as a wobble. Previous ones — done by a "handyman" — lasted about six months before pulling out of the wall.
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The fence replacement series is exactly what I needed. Mick shows the posts going in wonky, corrects them, explains why they went wonky in the first place — that's the kind of honest content that actually teaches you something.
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Bought a box of old chisels for a fiver at a boot sale after watching the restoration guide. Cleaned them up, sharpened them on a cheap oilstone. They're the best chisels I've ever used.
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I work for a local builder and we've started recommending ToolGeeks to customers who want to do their own follow-up work. The concreting guidance in particular is solid — accurate ratios, realistic expectations.
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Started the mortise and tenon series having never cut a joint in my life. Made a small garden gate six weeks later. Mick's patient way of explaining the marking-out process is what made it click for me.
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As someone who genuinely thought DIY was not for them, ToolGeeks has completely changed my confidence. I've now put up shelves, repaired a fence panel and laid a small concrete base for a bin store. None of it is perfect but all of it works.
Never Miss a Project
Join over 100,000 DIYers and get notified every time Mick uploads something new — whether it's a shelving build, a fence job, a woodwork joint tutorial or another tool rescued from a car boot sale.