Simon St.Laurent
03-14-2003, 7:40 PM
I was in a used bookstore today and found a stack of old Fine Woodworking magazines. I picked one with an article on 32mm cabinetmaking and bought it for a grand $3.00. It's the Nov/Dec 1987 issue, and has plenty of useful information. I'll be going back for more of these.
Most of the shocks aren't in the articles, but in the advertising. The prices for equipment that's still available are very close to current pricing, especially for larger items like cabinet saws. (A Hegner scroll saw for $849 would really nice, I'll admit, but everything else seems within 20%.)
A lot of the ads are for the same companies - Grizzly, Wilke, Jet, Delta - but there's all this Jet blue instead of white, Grizzly shows factory shots as often as equipment (and advertises throughout, not just at the front). Black & Decker still sells higher-end equipment that I guess is now in DeWalt yellow. There are lots of companies that seem to have disappeared, and no .com addresses. There aren't even many 800 numbers! Router tables apparently weren't as popular either, judging by the ads.
The one I really want to know about is "KUFO, King of UFO", a dust collector series from Sunhill. It must still be out there somewhere, judging from this:
http://www.dbkeighley.co.uk/masters/sk28sp.htm
Fine Woodworking itself was $3.75 at the newsstand, $18 a year, and Taunton was renting videos for $14.95/21 days.
I also like the furniture made from partly burned matches on the back cover.
If I'd only known woodworking would be this interesting, I'd have read this issue when it came out, during my senior year of high school. Lost opportunity, but still fun to think about.
Most of the shocks aren't in the articles, but in the advertising. The prices for equipment that's still available are very close to current pricing, especially for larger items like cabinet saws. (A Hegner scroll saw for $849 would really nice, I'll admit, but everything else seems within 20%.)
A lot of the ads are for the same companies - Grizzly, Wilke, Jet, Delta - but there's all this Jet blue instead of white, Grizzly shows factory shots as often as equipment (and advertises throughout, not just at the front). Black & Decker still sells higher-end equipment that I guess is now in DeWalt yellow. There are lots of companies that seem to have disappeared, and no .com addresses. There aren't even many 800 numbers! Router tables apparently weren't as popular either, judging by the ads.
The one I really want to know about is "KUFO, King of UFO", a dust collector series from Sunhill. It must still be out there somewhere, judging from this:
http://www.dbkeighley.co.uk/masters/sk28sp.htm
Fine Woodworking itself was $3.75 at the newsstand, $18 a year, and Taunton was renting videos for $14.95/21 days.
I also like the furniture made from partly burned matches on the back cover.
If I'd only known woodworking would be this interesting, I'd have read this issue when it came out, during my senior year of high school. Lost opportunity, but still fun to think about.