The crew welcomes special guest Lee Dumond from Busted Knuckle Woodworks who is recording from his incredibly organized shop in Austin Texas and is about to hit the magical 100,000 subscriber milestone on YouTube after three years of grinding which means he will finally get that silver play button

Lee drops some serious knowledge about why hitting 100K on YouTube is actually meaningful because the verification checkmark you get is literally the only checkmark left on social media that you cannot buy since Twitter Instagram Facebook and Meta all sell verification for just 10 bucks a month making YouTube verification an actual achievement you have to earn

The conversation dives into Lee's background building outdoor furniture in Texas where it is sunny 300 days a year compared to his Maine upbringing which only has three months of summer and nine months of poor sledding and how outdoor furniture was extremely lucrative because people in Texas spend so much time outside

Lee shares his powerful story about getting cancer and going through chemo and radiation which made it impossible to lift the heavy materials needed for building arbors and pergolas so he pivoted to creating smaller projects like jewelry boxes and bandsaw boxes as a creative outlet during treatment

The YouTube journey started when Lee spread out all his bandsaw boxes on his table and set up a camera to talk about how he made each one including the wood types and finishes and that single video sparked his entire channel growth over the past three years

Ross reveals that his top three performing YouTube videos are all outdoor furniture builds including a simple outdoor bench that has gotten insane views proving that outdoor furniture content performs incredibly well on the platform even for small channels

Lee explains that his SawStop actually saved his hand from a table saw kickback incident where a piece of cedar smashed into his knuckles which is how he came up with the name Busted Knuckle Woodworks and he keeps the brake cartridge disk of shame displayed in his shop

The discussion touches on Lee's unique lifestyle living part-time in Paris France and how he creates casual Patreon content about random topics like American fast food in Paris while just sitting at his table saw or walking around the shop talking about whatever is on his mind

Lee shares his incredible quote that winners want feedback while losers want praise explaining that honest feedback is the most valuable thing you can get in any endeavor and when someone tells him his video sucked instead of praising it that person becomes way more valuable to him

The crew mentions that Lee has been on four podcasts now since WorkbenchCon where he met Alex Duffy who made it his mission to get Lee on podcasts after learning Lee had been a podcast host but never a guest and now he has over 1800 Patreon members supporting his work

Ross announces a special 15 percent discount code BATB15% for Gearhart Industry custom branding irons that works for the rest of the year whether you need branding irons for food leather furniture or any other custom branding project

The guys agree that Alanis Mortise Set might be the best episode title so far and kick off Thanksgiving week with Colton already up in Tioga at his in laws place chopping wood and doing horse stuff while Jess is staying local because they have a big trip planned for early December

Ross reveals his Thanksgiving menu game is next level with a 12 to 14 hour Cajun smoked turkey using mesquite wood and injecting flavor underneath the skin like turkey Botox plus a 14 pound brisket and he shares his third favorite which is Greek style lamb roast that requires cross hatching the meat and shoving whole garlic cloves down into the skin

The crew dives deep into the perfect lamb preparation technique which involves covering the entire roast in olive oil and rosemary then slow cooking at 180 to 200 degrees for 10 hours before kicking it up to 250 for the final two hours and Ross explains you have to put it in the night before to get that perfect fall off the bone texture

This episode delivers the promised Deep Cut hair trivia segment covering everything from barbers being the original multi tool professionals to beards representing power fashion and rebellion throughout history plus mustaches going through their own eras with styles like the handlebar walrus Fu Manchu chevron and that pencil thin villain look

The guys drop some incredible mustache facts including that Tom Selleck had his signature Magnum PI mustache insured for over a million dollars and he was originally discovered as the Marlboro man before becoming a Hollywood icon which explains his rugged look

They reveal that Salvador Dali famously stiffened his pencil thin mustache with shellac and waxed it vertically to impossible angles creating his trademark surrealist look and the word mustache actually comes from the Greek word mystax which translates to lip bristle or upper lip hair

Colton shares a story about dressing up as Tom Selleck for Halloween which is when his wife Crystal fell in love with him and there is apparently a secret bar in Houston called the handlebar with Tom Selleck pictures all over the walls constantly playing his movies on the TVs

Jess launches into a passionate snipe about Home Depot trailer parking spots being taken by regular vehicles when contractors with actual trailers need them and he cannot understand why Home Depot does not enforce the rules better especially since there are literally a thousand other parking spots available

The conversation shifts to practical shop knowledge with Jess explaining the three four five rule for squaring corners using basic trigonometry where you measure three feet one way four feet the other way and if the diagonal between those points is exactly five feet then you have a perfect 90 degree corner

Ross shares two essential home maintenance nuggets including using SharkBite fittings for copper pipe connections which plumbers might not love but work great for amateur DIYers and the importance of updating old fixtures like shutoff valves and gas line connections when you have appliances pulled out since his 1976 original connections were causing water damage

The crew kicks off with an epic hot sauce showdown where Jess reveals his new number one favorite is Lolas hot sauce especially the regga original which is absolutely insane on tacos and their ghost pepper version which is surprisingly not too crazy hot because it is mostly jalapenos with some ghost pepper and has this amazing smoky flavor that he discovered when Dixies was going out of business at 95 percent off

Colton shares his love for Marie Sharp Belizean heat habanero hot sauce because it has enough kick to get you going but will not stay around making you sweat and miserable for hours like some of those nuclear hot sauces that ruin your entire day and the next morning too

Ross drops his three tier hot sauce system starting with Trader Joes green dragon tomatillo hot sauce for everyday use that enhances flavor without killing you then classic Franks red hot that literally goes on everything just like the commercials say and finally his special occasion weapon called Z which is the second hottest hot sauce in the world rated at 20 million Scoville units compared to Tabasco at only 1400

The guys get into an absolutely wild story where Ross had to sign a legal waiver just to purchase the Z hot sauce promising not to give it to children or the elderly and then he accidentally got some on his finger and put in his contact lens which literally dropped him to the floor in pain and he had to throw away that pair of contacts because it burned for two full days

Jess explains the science behind hot peppers revealing that most people think the heat comes from the seeds but actually the majority of the capsaicin is in the white pith part where the seeds attach to the pepper and he talks about the guy who invented the Carolina Reaper who just eats them straight off the vine like it is nothing

The conversation shifts to an exciting preview of next weeks episode titled Deep Cut A Hair Raising Story which will cover everything about barbers beards mustaches scissors and the strange human obsession with keratin including segments about the earliest hair rituals how barbers were the original multi tool professionals and famous hairstyles through history

Ross and Jess drop some mustache trivia including the fact that Tom Selleck had his signature Magnum PI mustache insured for over a million dollars and he was originally discovered as a model for Marlboro which was his very first gig before becoming a Hollywood icon

They reveal that Salvador Dali famously stiffened his pencil thin mustache with shellac and waxed it vertically to create those impossible angles that became his trademark look and the term mustache actually comes from the Greek word mystax which translates roughly to lip bristle

Jess points out how the current era of woodworking is all about beards and mustaches after noticing at Woodworking BitchCon that everyone looked the same with leather patch hats beards and similar styles making it almost like a uniform for makers

The guys also mention that there is a secret Tiki bar in Houston called the handlebar with an unmarked door in the back that has pictures of Tom Selleck all over the walls and they constantly play his movies on the TVs which sounds like an amazing place to grab a drink