Magazine Recommendation?

[Mike Rees]

Hey Gang,

As some of you may know from prior posts of mine, I'm going to be building some things in the coming months (shed, deck box, another work bench [need to change some things about my first one], trim molding, crown molding etc.). Than today my wife hits me with "I'd like to put a island in the middle of the kitchen" and I'm thinking 'there has to be plans for that somewhere ...'. Than I'm thinking 'If I found a plan, could I actually pull it off?' SO ....

I'd like to subscribe to a magazine that can show me how to do things - preferably in terms and steps that a beginner can follow and grow into. My joinery consists of but joints (butt?), my background is pretty much my first and only work bench (a success though !).

Can somebody point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Mike

[glenn bradley]

Workbench Magazine is home improvement oriented and has pretty detailed plans for their projects.

[Denny Rice]

Both ShopNotes and Popular Woodworking are both excellent magazines. If I had to choose just one and was just starting out, I think I would choose ShopNotes.

[Montgomery Scott]

I'd recommend scrapping the idea of buying magazines. Buy books instead that are much more exhaustive on every topic than a three page article. Books like the FWW series on cabinet construction and shaping wood, Tage Frid or James Krenov on the same but also include design concepts, finishing books from Jeff Jewitt or Bob Flexner are going to give you the best bang for the buck. I have many issues of FWW and Wood and I'll still go to the books first for methods, techniques and designs.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

+1 on books/DVD's on your subject of interest. In a mag, you may get an article on a kitchen island once a year. Unless of course, you need to buy new stuff, and I find the ads very informative.

[Chris Tsutsui]

I havn't been to the public library in years, but I went to one last weekend and there was a whole shelf dedicated to construction, cabinetry, and woodworking.

I was expecting books 20-30 years old but it felt like I was at a Barnes and Noble because they had some fairly recent publishings.

A magazine is good for entertainment, tips, and if you're lucky you will find a project that suits you.

But if you want a comprehensive book on something specific such as kitchen cabinets, then either order a book on Amazon, or borrow one from the library. :)

Also, I would make sure you take things ONE project at a time and don't start the next one till you are finished with the first project. Otherwise you will run out of shop space fast and then nothing will get done. :D

[Prashun Patel]

If yr gonna try doing more and more stuff around the house, I suggest a 2-yr subscription to the Family Handyman. There's a lot of great info in there, and some good projects, including a major shed project each year. It's always a good read, and an excellent 2-year value, IMHO. After that, I'd cancel the sub, since the articles tend to repeat; I mean, how many shed plans and garden fountain plans do you REALLY need?

I'd describe all of their projects as quite 'buildable'. And none require fancy tools beyond a tablesaw and router.

Wood Magazine is also a great 'intermediate' level ww mag. The plans are good, and there are a lot of good tips in there (although ALL these mags have good tips sections). The paper subscrip of Wood includes the online version which is available before the paper copy hits the stands. I'm already on the Dec/Jan version.

Fine Woodworking is really the next level up from there. Great for ideas and building legacy pieces. I prefer the online subscrip, though, with excellent, deep searchable articles.

Shopnotes is great for building stuff for your shop. The projects there can be involved and beyond the effort you might want to put into jigs and shop stuff, but there's always one gem.

IMHO, Workbench isn't that good. The plans aren't written too well.

[Eric Roberge]

Wood Magazine is also a great 'intermediate' level ww mag. The plans are good, and there are a lot of good tips in there (although ALL these mags have good tips sections). The paper subscrip of Wood includes the online version which is available before the paper copy hits the stands. I'm already on the Dec/Jan version.



I like WOOD also. In fact, I'm looking for a new project right now and I'm sorting through all my old WOOD mags from the 90's... just for the fun of it.

[Jerome Hanby]

Norm has a whole series on doing a kitchen. One of those included building the island.

[Mike Rees]

Norm has a whole series on doing a kitchen. One of those included building the island.

Norm? Who is Norm?

[Fred Voorhees]

Norm? Who is Norm?

Heathen!!!!!!!

[Kent A Bathurst]

Mike - I can get you started a bit - maybe.

I have about 10 years of Fine Woodworking magazines that are yours for free, with three caveats:

1) you have to pay the shipping charges from Atlanta (or come get them - don't know where you are located)
2) I don't know the exact date I started my subscription (it was before my first tool purchase, though), and I can't guarantee there are no missing editions, and I am not going to sort through those boxes. As Is. You get everything that is there, with my compliments and best wishes.
3) I will only give these to a contributor, so you gotta pop for the measly $6.

You get first dibs before I open it up to the gen pop of contributors in 48 hours. I subscribed to FWW when I first got started, and this mag, plus other research (including kind souls on sites like SMC...ahem...), did an excellent job pulling and pushing me through not only designs-projects-plans, but more importantly the techniques required to do a good job, and explaining what I did that caused my screw-ups, and how to correct that.

You have read on SMC how a number of us have grown dissapointed-disillusioned at the recent downward spiral of FWW content. Most of these are from an earlier time, and - in all honesly - today's content would have connected with me better. I was a little overwhelmed as a newbie, but my attitude was "this stuff is knowable, so I am gonna figure it out".

I don't want your money. I did not subscribe to FWW to gain a profit. I subscribed to learn, and learn I did. I have seen your name as an OP on SMC a number of times, so I assume you are learning as well - and would be happy to become a contributor.

[sean m. titmas]

building a cabinet or piece of furniture from a set of drawings out of a magazine will work ok, but it wont teach you anything about woodworking or cabinetmaking. Magazines are a good source for current trends in tools, processes, and design ideas but magazine articles are by nature, too shallow to cover any subject in any great detail.

Reference books are a better source for the actual construction methods used in cabinetmaking and woodworking. Books like "building kitchen cabinets" by Danny Priloux will cover the details of cabinetmaking. Once you learn the construction methods you will than need to design a work flow. Your "work flow" is basically a series of sequential steps that starts with your raw materials and arrives at the final end product by cutting, milling, assembling and finishing.

Also books about kitchen design and design software ( Google's SketchUp) will help to round out your skills. This way you will learn how to handle all of the aspects of cabinetmaking and woodworking by yourself and you can design/build cabinets and furniture that are custom tailored to your exact needs and specifications.

[Mike Rees]

Mike - I can get you started a bit - maybe.

I have about 10 years of Fine Woodworking magazines that are yours for free, with three caveats:

1) you have to pay the shipping charges from Atlanta (or come get them - don't know where you are located)
2) I don't know the exact date I started my subscription (it was before my first tool purchase, though), and I can't guarantee there are no missing editions, and I am not going to sort through those boxes. As Is. You get everything that is there, with my compliments and best wishes.
3) I will only give these to a contributor, so you gotta pop for the measly $6.

You get first dibs before I open it up to the gen pop of contributors in 48 hours. I subscribed to FWW when I first got started, and this mag, plus other research (including kind souls on sites like SMC...ahem...), did an excellent job pulling and pushing me through not only designs-projects-plans, but more importantly the techniques required to do a good job, and explaining what I did that caused my screw-ups, and how to correct that.

You have read on SMC how a number of us have grown dissapointed-disillusioned at the recent downward spiral of FWW content. Most of these are from an earlier time, and - in all honesly - today's content would have connected with me better. I was a little overwhelmed as a newbie, but my attitude was "this stuff is knowable, so I am gonna figure it out".

I don't want your money. I did not subscribe to FWW to gain a profit. I subscribed to learn, and learn I did. I have seen your name as an OP on SMC a number of times, so I assume you are learning as well - and would be happy to become a contributor.

This has got to be one of the nicest out of the blue things to happen to me in a long time. Thank you !

[Mike Rees]

If yr gonna try doing more and more stuff around the house, I suggest a 2-yr subscription to the Family Handyman. There's a lot of great info in there, and some good projects, including a major shed project each year. It's always a good read, and an excellent 2-year value, IMHO. After that, I'd cancel the sub, since the articles tend to repeat; I mean, how many shed plans and garden fountain plans do you REALLY need?

I'd describe all of their projects as quite 'buildable'. And none require fancy tools beyond a tablesaw and router.

Wood Magazine is also a great 'intermediate' level ww mag. The plans are good, and there are a lot of good tips in there (although ALL these mags have good tips sections). The paper subscrip of Wood includes the online version which is available before the paper copy hits the stands. I'm already on the Dec/Jan version.

Fine Woodworking is really the next level up from there. Great for ideas and building legacy pieces. I prefer the online subscrip, though, with excellent, deep searchable articles.

Shopnotes is great for building stuff for your shop. The projects there can be involved and beyond the effort you might want to put into jigs and shop stuff, but there's always one gem.

IMHO, Workbench isn't that good. The plans aren't written too well.

Family Handyman ordered - sounds like a good place to start and pretty much where I'm at w/ things right now.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Mike - your PM returned. You are welcome. They were just taking up space and not getting used. I got my money's worth out of them, don't need to try to recoup any of it, and am happy someone starting out can make use of them. No doubt there will be places where you see red ink and a newbie's notes along the lines of "whiskey-tango-foxtrot?" in the margins - but that was part of the fun of learning.

I was considering making nice pull-out shelves for them, organizing them, etc. - then realized I had not been through that stack in years, so decided to spend my time on something I would actually use.

Tangent story - some years ago, my wife and I were having a couple drinks in a bar in Vienna, Austria around Christmas. We struck up a conversation with a young, newly-married American couple at the next table. They were making an abbreviated tour of a few European spots, on a very limited budget. When my wife and I left, I stopped at the bar, paid their tab, and sent them a note on a cocktail napkin: "Merry Christmas. You need to find a young couple someday and buy them some drinks."

Mike - the mags are just passing through you hands. Someday, you need to find someone give them to.

And - thanks for becoming a contributor. I notice you took care of that before replying - nice touch.