Making it from scratch with Andy George

10.26.2026 ANDY GEORGE Audio Only: Hello friends, how are you doing? Today I have a quick question for you. When was the last time you actually made something from scratch? truly from scratch. We'll answer this today and a lot more about how we actually create in today's conversation. This is a conversation with Carl, and I'm Carl Liebowitz. But before we get started, we're building something really special here, and we want you to be part of that conversation. So remember to look down, hit that subscribe button. So you never miss a moment of the conversations shaping our culture today. Now back to that question about making something from scratch. If your answer was a cake, did you mill the flour? Did you raise the chickens for the eggs? Did you travel to the tropics to harvest cocoa beans? No? Then you didn't really make it from scratch. You just assembled ingredients that thousands of years of technological evolution prepared for you. Our guest today is the man who exposed. Who exposes this incredible illusion? Andy George is the mastermind behind the Smash Hit YouTube channel, How to Make Everything, from forging his own tools and harvesting his own suit of clothes. Andy's work reveals just how interconnected, fragile, and brilliant human civilization really is. Get ready to rethink every single object in your home. Hi, thanks for having me. Thank you so much. So, first thing, let me just say I can't make anything from scratch. I barely can boil water. So we'll begin there. so I'm not gonna make anything from scratch. But what is the hardest everyday item to make completely make from scratch? It always has to be clothing. that's probably like the biggest thing I was kind of surprised by while digging through and making different things is just how labor intensive clothing is. You're starting from a raw fiber. And you have process it, do a bunch of steps, then you are able to eventually spin it into a thread. And then there's multiple more steps there where you spin it, and then you weave it and then sew it. And it's it always surprises me though, like you can buy a shirt today for just a couple of dollars when it was like a a month of work at least. Yeah. And how did you decide to start doing this? I started just out of curiosity. I I went to school for video production and was mostly just doing advertisement at the time and just wanted to to make a video people actually want to watch that was interesting. So just kind of was curious, something in the back of my mind of like, how from scratch can you get with cooking? 'Cause I started first with a sandwich and I wondered like you you buy all those ingredients, but how do you make those ingredients? Like I I realized I d I don't really know the full process of making cheese or milling flour and All everything, all these between steps. So I just got a camera and started filming the process and see how deep I could get into it. And from there I just kept going. Yeah, but you made a sandwich for $1,500. What did that taste like? it was not definitely not the greatest. so I I had a friend taste it and he thought it was horrible. I, from the whole experience of doing it and having it almost kind of fall apart at the end, and having ingredients starting to go bad and just a lot of things almost not working. The fact that it was a sandwich that I could taste and and somewhat enjoy, I I saw the brighter side of it that it was it was edible. And so can't really can't really say it was much better than that, I guess. But that is when you make something or you create something, you ha you you've invested hours, you've invested time You were probably gonna like it a lot better than if you just went and bought it. your friend didn't put any time and effort into it. Yeah. Yeah. even with that though, it was okay. Do you continue to do that? Are you working on making a better sandwich? Or you're like, I learned the lesson and now I'm on to the next thing. so it's like last fall. Yeah, about a year ago. I did a follow-up where I remade the sandwich on the same I like forged on my own tools. And went through all the process of making the tools and then the sandwich, and then talked to a cooking expert to get some advice and actually got a pretty good sandwich. Still had a few issues, but it was significantly better than that first one. And if all modern technology disappeared tomorrow, how far back in time would human humanity reset? That's a good question. all current technology disappeared, you said? Yeah. Computers disappeared, our phones disappeared. We don't have all of that. Now we're back our planes disappeared. I think we'd be back in the before even the the Bronze Age, just in the Stone Age. I think like all this knowledge is just most people don't know it. so like I think it'd be enough people right now that we could kinda rebuild some of it, but I think there'd be a like a a lot of people wouldn't survive the first winter, I think. I don't think most people even could grow most of their own food. So it'll be pretty rough. Yeah, but growing food is a raw is hard. And 'cause you don't get it yeah, and then you have to eat it and at a certain time and you you know, it takes a long time. J a tomato just doesn't just show up. What simple object do we completely take for granted every day? Good question. there's a lot of different ones we do. I I did this video early on of just the bottle, just the concept of a storage item. that I think is easily glossed over. It's just, just grab a cup. But when you have to actually make it from scratch, then you have to go through either ceramics or glass making or wood carving or you can try and find one. Like I I grew my own bottle gourds, which is basically like a a gourd that was kind of cultivated around the world just for this one purpose of making a container. So I think that's kinda interesting, just like the The thing we don't think about is the the container itself. And if you had to make that yourself, it's a little challenging. I'd probably go with an icebox, not that you asked me, but I'd probably be like, you need to make sure the fridge is cold so that we can keep our food good, Otherwise you you're gonna have to buy milk, you have to go to the supermarket every day. but you know, fire's also a big thing, you know, a big invention that changed the world. How far back in nature do you actually have to go to say you've made something from scratch? It kind of depends on the project and what's like actually feasible, but for the most part I try to like get it as it's naturally available in nature. So a lot of times that's trying to find somewhere with the raw ore or something close to that. it's always a little bit difficult. I've I've been able to go into like a handful of mines and stuff, but like actually being able to dig and get raw ore is a little limited. So oftentimes I do like a substitution where I I get just processed raw or processed chemical of that ore and replicate it. but whenever possible I'll try to like actually dig it up if I can find a good site. I think my favorite is for iron ore. I went up to the this mountainous area in Utah and dug up this what's called bog ore, which is just like a naturally produced ore from I think it's bacteria in the soil of a formerly boggy area. and then you're able to process that all the way into an actual metal. before that I've been to like a few iron mines and stuff and only on a few small samples, but this was like the first time I could get like a a bucket full of high quality ore to actually smelt. What do you want to make? What it what haven't you made yet that you wanna make? Well, the big goal is trying to build my way up technology. So like the big the big target I have I've had for a while now is a steam engine. but I'm trying to like filled up other technologies along the way too. Big ones I'm trying to do is like a photography, trying to make a photographic film from scratch, some other technologies like that. Are you working on the film right now? Yeah, still in the early stages. I started started some parts of the project pretty early on and I've kind of put in the back burner. I made a camera lens some years ago that still isn't quite perfect. So I need to like revisit and remake that. So it's kind of my plan. I finally get that so I can take an actual photograph from scratch. So if you were gonna make a camera lens, where would you go get the glass? glass making has been one my biggest topics. Trying to get optically clear glass that I can make lenses from. The sand, the main ingredient of the sand is not too difficult. especially here in Minnesota, there's some pretty good white, clean sand deposits that I used to make for car windshields that I was able to collect sand from. the higher thing is more the fluxes, which help lower the melting point. So I I got some soda ash. I think I got that out in Wyoming from this lake that has a lot of it dissolved in it. One ingredient I found that really helps a lot is borax, which is helps lower the melting point even more. and that really helps drive out all the impurities and the bubbles. And that was what I was able to use to make some decent quality glass for the lenses on it. What's one of your favorite things that you've made so far from scratch? Probably chocolate. It was one of my early ones. we took a trip down to Mexico and went through the whole process from picking it from the tree and all the way to making it into chocolate and it was it was both a process I didn't know anything about beforehand. So it was really interesting to learn and go through all the steps. And then the result was just delicious. I imagine cho cocoa beans and making that and turning that into chocolate would be a fun project. Is there something that you've made that you were like, this is impossible to do. I can't continue doing it? Hmm. It's a good question. Is there anything I'm necessarily rule out? There's always a few things have proven to be a little difficult and I'll just try and come at it from different direction. But I'm starting to do early electronics and I know there's gonna be a wall I hit somewhere that I can't actually recreate. I think the biggest challenge right now is doing vacuum tubes and making a vacuum pump that'll get strong enough vacuum to do that. So I'm hoping to at least get up to vacuum tube technology beyond that to actual modern electronics. I think probably gonna hit a wall. Do you work with someone? Are you working alone to do this? Or do you have a whole team who you're working with? I have a few people that help me here and there, a couple assistants that'll help me in the shop when they're available. If somebody helps me a little bit with research. Mostly it's myself though. This is like to me so fascinating because as I said at the beginning, I couldn't make anything if I tried. boiling water is too hard for me. So I that's a joke. I could boil water. Is our reliance on complex supply chains making us smarter or too dependent? I don't know. I think it could be both. I think there's very much this need to specialize that is very much more possible today than it ever was when people had to do everything. The fact that we can buy things at such convenience allows you to focus on whatever you want. But I feel like there there's very much that disconnect that kind of forget what goes into making these things. I'm trying to hop to at least somewhat bridge that gap and kind of like reconnect people with the processes and understand what actually goes into making something. So at least appreciate it and in the off chance something happens and you have to actually make it from scratch. Do you have at least some clue how you might do it. Yeah. some people love making clothes. They don't like making it they don't like make threading it and doing all that. But they like, you know, buying the material and then doing the second part of it. And there's a lot of people that do, you know, you go bake a cake and you say baking it from scratch. But, the it'd be very hard to go if you don't have chickens. I know a lot of people are now raising chickens, but if you don't have a chicken, you know, you have to go get the chicken to get the eggs and then you have to go get the flour. That's a lot of work. What has surprised you most about how ancient humans actually survived and built things? Most of their life was very similar to ours and they just was a little bit different 'cause they didn't have cell phones and stuff. But all the complexity of life and c civilization, early civilization was I think pretty close to even modern today, with a few exceptions. Well, people want the same things. I think if you go back and you look at human nature, I don't think it's changed that much over time. It's just we've got we're some ti a little more comfortable being able to fly in a plane and go somewhere. we're able to go do things, but I don't think it's our need for love and for connection and to be with people. That hasn't changed. Yeah. And I think they say like biolog biologically we're all we're the same exact people that like at the beginning of civilizations, like we're the exact same people, just we just have different tools available now than they did. If you had to recreate modern society starting with just a rock and a stick, where do you begin? The f the first big technology I guess would be fire and that one can be pretty hard to do if you just have a rock and a stick. That is very dependent on survival. So probably first start with start with fire. Get your media needs met. I mean is you just kinda go through the hierarchy of needs. And then first off is getting water, clean water, and then finding some sort of fooding forage. And then from there, like you kinda build yourself up, I think, to like actually farming some crops and trying to build a community and shelter. And then I don't know. That's the basis. From there you can kinda start building nicer technologies, I guess. Is there one thing you can point to that you bought at the grocery store that you'll never buy the same way again? I guess maybe just meat. I did a a lot more hands-on killing with my last sandwich where I like went off and hunted an actual boar with a gun that I made and also raised my own chickens and then butchered half of them because it ended up being roosters that I couldn't keep. I don't know, that always kinda changes the perspective on meat. You just go to the store and we you grow up with that, you're around it and you just it's just meat you buy and then there's the animals and those are not connected in any way until you actually make that connection. Then it's like, So I think I think that definitely has changed my perspective on meat. Some do you still eat meat? Yeah. Okay. You you're connected in your head that this is used to be an animal. Are there other things at the grocery store that we just take for granted? In the grocery store, the biggest thing is just how you have everything all of the time year round. 'cause that was one of my biggest first challenges with the sandwich was getting everything growing and harvested and processed and making the cheese so it all lands the same day to to eat it all in one sandwich. So just go to a store and everything every commodity is there, even if it's a dead of winter, I think is is reveals this complex web we have where Stuff is growing in different parts of the world and shipped everywhere to everybody's grocery store so you can get produce any time of the year. And did all these extreme build projects make you appreciate modern life more? Definitely. I think that there's a part of part of me that's just like, I could just go off into an island and build my own society. I c I could do this. But I think actually doing it and you like you realize how hard it is and how connected and dependent we are on having a society and other people helping. So I think having done that, the more I can appreciate more just modern life and being able to go buy something because it's a lot of work always. Yeah. And what is your reaction? What is people's reaction to your channel? I think there's kind of two sides. There's the people who kind of get it, like the people who have like I've always wanted to try and do that and see how well I could do it. And then there's people like, why? You can just go to the store and buy that. So one of those is my fans. fan base. But I would say I'm somewhere in between. I my I do ask why you do this and this is why I wanted to talk to you. But at the the same time, I also think this is really fascinating. And it is you learn a lot by, you know, watching your videos and you learn a lot about how we create things and just you do, you realize how we take things for granted. Yeah. Definitely. That's kind of the main theme of the channel is like what we take for granted and trying to just explore it and Learn to appreciate it through the process. That's one of the hardest things to do too, is to appreciate where you are sometimes because you just like you said, you go to the grocery store, all the food's there. What what you know, what are you gonna do? Like you're not thinking like how did it get here? And if it's not here, you get upset. Like why I don't understand why they couldn't bring in, you know, the malt today. If you could go back to the very beginning of human history and hand early humans one modern invention, what would that be? That's a question. I I've very intrigued on electricity and just like how technically we had most of the materials to do it earlier, you know, just kind of a an understanding conceptual thing that we had to kind of figure out. So I always wonder if you like give them like kind of the basis of like maybe an early battery or maybe something more like a voltaic pile where it's just copper and zinc metals they could potentially make. kind of just kinda start them out a little like thousands of years earlier. w what would happen then? And going back to that the steam engine that we talked about, where do you want to build it? I'm I'm imagine I'm probably gonna build a few different versions. I thought I definitely wanna make one that I could fit onto a small cart or something like actually drive around as a as a car. But I think the the main thing is to get it as a a source of power to power different things. So I can then power mills or generators and other things like that. So multi purpose is gonna be the goal of the the actual steam engine. If someone's watching this and they wanted to make one basic thing from scratch today, what should it be? I mean, my personal favorite's always gardening and like growing your own food. it's fairly simple as long as you have access to some land. And I think it's like one of the first professions of of the humanity that I think it's really good to make that connection back to and Get a feel for what it takes to grow your own food. How does your family react to you doing all of this? they they find it amusing. they don't always fully understand what I'm doing. I remember when I first told them I was making this sandwich. I don't I don't think they followed at all. And then when the video actually came out and ended up going viral, like, that's what you were doing. Do they give you advice now? Like this is what we should be making? Sometimes. I mean Not a ton. A lot of people give me random suggestions and stuff, but not so much for my family, I guess. Okay. And then when people give you random suggestions are do you agree with them most of the times or are you like that I that's gonna be impossible to do? Or I'll research it. Where how do you feel about those reactions or those suggestions? They're always interesting to hear, but there's usually like some aspect they they aren't considering, like I've Sometimes they suggest things like, well, I've done videos similar to that on YouTube and it hasn't performed well, so I don't know if it's worth my effort to actually do it. Or there'll be something really complex that like I I would like to do that, but I need to like do twenty other things beforehand so I have the materials to to get to that point. so that's it's usually where it is, is it's a lot of caveats when somebody suggests something. Are you looking at the numbers and trying to make sure that they are doing well, or do you do more on your gut? Probably a mixture. My gut is usually somewhat right, but definitely not one hundred percent accurate. So I I usually have to see. There's a there's definitely always surprises. Like I did a couple of Da Vinci inspired videos and those did really well. So now I kinda try to lean into that once in a while because it tends to get a little bit more views and a little bit more of a guaranteed hit. But yeah, it's always a challenge. The challenge of the series is it I'm trying to make simple things. So it's hard to sell that to a person of like I'm I'm making this simple thing that you don't think about and trying to find a way to like but the like the process is interesting. So it's always a challenge of finding finding a way to encapsulate that in a thumbnail and title. I think one I've had success with is just like counting the hours and giving using that as a dollar amount that kind of sells it in a a simple premise. I mean that that's what you have to do if you're gonna make clothing, you have to mass produce it, right? If you're going to do just one shirt for yourself, or you're just going to make one sandwich for yourself, it's not going to, it's the cost ratio is too expensive to make that. but you need to be able to figure it out. And as we start to wrap up here, is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't ask you? Nothing comes to mind. you do some fascinating stuff and I think that this is So you teach us how not to appre you teach us how to appreciate this stuff in our lives. And you're showing us how to, I I think one of the things that I wanted to do when I started the podcast was to try to figure out how to talk to people so that we're because we're all living in a bubble and we all need to learn how I I feel, we all need to learn how to appreciate each other more. And I think that that's what your channel does is it teaches us how to appreciate each other. Yeah, definitely. And you George, thank you so much for joining me today. Tell people where they can watch the show. It's how to make everything on YouTube, youtube.com slash at htme. You can go there. I will have the link below so that you can check it out as well. Andy, thank you so much again for joining me out. Thank you out there for listening. As always, let me know what you think. Put your thoughts in the comment section. And until next time, be safe, everyone.