Andy Miller of Boatworks Today

He spent seven years learning the trade at someone else's marina. Then he went out on his own — and quietly became one of the most trusted voices in fiberglass boat restoration.

Andy Miller isn't the loudest voice in the room and he doesn't hype products. He doesn't chase trends and he won't tell you there's one right way to do something when experience has shown him there are three. What he will do, methodically, video after video, project after project, is show you exactly what he's doing, why he's doing it, and what can go wrong if you don't.

That combination of professional rigor and genuine transparency is what built Boatworks Today into the go-to resource it is for DIYers and working boatyards alike. And it's what has made Andy Miller a trusted name in TotalBoat's world for years.

From the Dock to the Shop: How Andy Got Here

Andy's path into the marine trades didn't follow a straight line which might be exactly why he's so good at teaching others to navigate the crooked ones.

After earning a degree in psychology and sociology from St. Norbert's College in Wisconsin, Andy quickly realized that a career listening to people's problems wasn't going to be his calling. What did call to him was the water. He bought a sailboat, lived aboard for a stretch with his wife, became a certified scuba instructor, and eventually found his way into an entry-level apprenticeship at a local marina.

He stayed for seven years.

That apprenticeship became the foundation for everything that followed. He wasn't just learning how to fix boats — he was learning the pace of the trade, the thinking behind structural decisions, the patience that fiberglass and epoxy demand. When he finally struck out on his own, he knew what he was doing and why.

Miller Boatworks was built on cosmetic repair and restoration: gelcoat, paint, fiberglass, custom woodworking, refinishing, and complete rebuilds. The kind of work that requires you to read a hull the way a doctor reads an X-ray — understanding what's structural, what's cosmetic, what's urgent, and what's going to come back to bite you if you ignore it.

Building the Channel: Teaching the Way He Wished He'd Been Taught

A few years into running Miller Boatworks, Andy started filming his projects. The idea was simple: he was doing the work anyway, so why not document it and see if it helped someone?

What grew out of that impulse was Boatworks Today — a YouTube channel that now spans hundreds of hours of real, unvarnished boat restoration content. The beauty in this channel is that all his videos are just Andy in the shop, walking viewers through the exact decisions he makes on real boats.

"3 Ways to Laminate Fiberglass Patches for Boat Repair (One Works Better)" is a perfect example of what makes the channel work. Rather than simply demonstrating the "correct" method, Andy patches the same area three different ways — starting small to large, starting large to small, and what he calls "door number three" — a hybrid approach he arrived at through repetition, not theory.

"I think there's a door number three that's going to be much more approachable and much more consistent, especially if you've got multiple areas that you're dealing with," he explains in the video. And once he's walked through all three on camera: "To be perfectly honest, I don't know how or why I didn't stumble across this before."

That laugh at his own expense is vintage Andy. He's not just another guy performing expertise, he's doing the work and bringing you along for the discovery.

The channel covers a remarkable breadth of repair scenarios: transom replacements, core work, gelcoat color matching, fairing, non-skid repair, structural fiberglass layups, and complete restoration builds. "Saving A Classic: Restoring A 1970 Westwind Paceship 24" follows a full sailboat rebuild from gutted interior to livable coastal cruiser, showing the kind of multi-week, multi-system decision-making that separates a professional restoration from a patch job.

For a lot of viewers, Boatworks Today is the closest thing to having a mentor in the shop with you. Andy knows that, and he takes it seriously. Beyond YouTube, he runs an active Patreon community where he offers personalized guidance on individual projects and a direct line to the professional mind behind the content.

Coming to TotalBoat: A Pro in the Shop

In spring 2024, Andy brought his expertise to the TotalBoat facility for a hands-on restoration collaboration — working on a 1970 Seacraft center console and turning the entire process into a series of instructional videos for the TotalBoat YouTube channel.

The project covered gelcoat color matching on aged, sun-faded hulls, structural fiberglass repair using unidirectional cloth and epoxy, stress crack repair, and crazing — all documented in the kind of step-by-step detail that Andy's audience has come to expect.

Perhaps one of the most popular videos from this collection was about gelcoat color matching, a process that can stump even the best of us. Andy demonstrated blending pigment dispersions into white gelcoat to match a decades-old off-white hull — the kind of nuanced, experience-driven technique that separates a clean repair from one that's obvious from ten feet away.

The collaboration felt natural because the relationship already existed. TotalBoat has been a longtime sponsor of Boatworks Today, and Andy has worked with TotalBoat products including Traditional 5:1 Epoxy, TotalFair fairing compound, and gelcoat — across restoration projects for years. He knows these materials the way a finish carpenter knows their wood: not from reading the label, but from thousands of hours of application.

Annapolis 2025: Teaching the Trade in Person

Andy's role as an educator extended beyond the screen in 2025, when he partnered with TotalBoat at the Annapolis Sailboat Show — one of the most significant events on the sailing calendar — to lead hands-on instruction for attendees.

That willingness to show up and teach in person, on camera, or in a Patreon thread at 10pm is what separates Andy Miller from a craftsman who simply happens to film his work.

The Philosophy Behind the Work

What comes through most clearly across Andy's content is a deep-seated practicality. He doesn't chase perfection for its own sake, and he's not interested in impressing anyone.

His video on gutting an old sailboat captures this well. While planning the battery bank layout for a 24-foot project boat, Andy talks through competing priorities like weight distribution, access, wiring runs, family use, livability, all with the same matter-of-fact clarity he brings to a fiberglass repair. "There's always going to be some level of concessions," he says. "It is what it is."

That's the mindset of someone who has built enough boats to know that the goal is a good outcome, not a perfect one, and that getting there requires honest assessment at every step.

He also knows that teaching beginner-friendly techniques doesn't mean dumbing anything down. In his three-patch fiberglass video, after walking through the pros and cons of every approach with the rigor of someone who's run the experiment dozens of times: "In my opinion, for someone that doesn't do this very often, this is a much more reliable way to get it done — and it's going to be done consistently and correctly every single time."

What's Next

Andy relocated from Wisconsin to Michigan a few years back, built a new dedicated shop, and has continued taking on restoration projects through Miller Boatworks while keeping Boatworks Today alive for the community that's grown around it.

He's attended industry events including the Annapolis Sailboat Show, where he had the chance to meet viewers and fellow creators, and continues to expand his presence in the broader marine trades world.

The channel may not always post on a content calendar's schedule. Boats don't either. But when Andy Miller publishes something, it means there's something worth learning, and a professional's hand behind every frame of it.