[chrisco255]

YouTube videos are one of the best ways to learn mechanical/material skills. Just start. You'll suck at first. Keep at it and eventually you'll suck a little less. One day you'll be mediocre. And if you keep at it you'll be skilled.

[gnramires]

Can confirm. For general knowledge I recommend two fantastic channels: (1) Click Spring (2) Matthias Wandel. They're always doing interesting things and usually some technique comes up in the videos that I didn't know of. There are probably countless others.

Youtube really shines in this because there is much to see happening. Much of the information is visual and mechanical on how to do things well (or at all).

You generally need lots of tools to build stuff though (you can sometimes trade time for tool cost), but these days finding an equivalent to a maker space or hacker space shouldn't be too difficult.

* ClickSpring's clock series is one of my favorite video series ever.

Wandel is a little unconventional that he builds many of his own tools, but I find he's quite practical and insightful in doing things.