Feb 2010 Fine Wood Working mag

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I've been on FWW's case here recently about what I perceived as a decline in the quality of the magazine. To be fair to FWW, I ought to also compliment an improvement when I think I see it, so after finally getting a chance to thumb through the new issue, I have to admit, I think it's much better than the last!

Becksvoort uses a technique that I want to look at further, Bird has a interesting article on carving a shell, Hacks cabinet looks like it should yield a few ideas, and quite a few other little things caught my interest on first glance. I'm looking forward to spending some more time with this issue, something that hasn't happened in a while.

Anybody else have an opinion on it? I might just be in a good mood today!

[glenn bradley]

I had been looking at it online and even built one of Garrett's wall cabinets the other day. Nice offering this time out.

[Dan O'Sullivan]

I think the online Hack presentation is far better than the article. Step by step with him talking you thru the cabinet process. Take a look

[Peter Quinn]

Haven't looked at it yet, but I hear your complaint about the general decline and second the opinion. I was given a crate last year from a closed WW'ing business with an almost complete subscription of FWW going back to the late 1970's. My favorite is the old adds. Prices of tools haven't risen much! Of course nothing is made in the USA anymore either. In any event, it seems to me that FWW used to be a pretty rigorous magazine with a very few basic how to's, like it was aimed at a fairly advanced audience who'd learned their basics else where. Perhaps in school shop class?

The drawings and pictures have gotten much better, but the balance has shifted to include generally more rudimentary material and less advanced topics per issue. To balance that there are now more issues per year. I'd guess if the want to reach more people the content needs to appeal to a wider range of skill levels, and that can bore some at the more advanced levels. I always find at least one article per issue to grab my attention, but it has been a while since an entire issue struck me as compelling. Perhaps this is the month?

[Kent A Bathurst]

Steve - I agree 100% with everything you said - a complete 180 from previous year or so editions. I am still planning on letting subscription expire. Will scan new ones at Borders to see if they have made this a permanent change. If so, will reconsider.

[Jeff Nolan]

Just when the magazine is experiencing a revival their Knots online forum has really gone to *rap. They migrated to another software platform and introduced a new design that is, well to put it mildly, controversial.

This is the primary reason why I have been posting here recently, I am a refuge looking for a new home.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Just when the magazine is experiencing a revival their Knots online forum has really gone to *rap. They migrated to another software platform and introduced a new design that is, well to put it mildly, controversial.

This is the primary reason why I have been posting here recently, I am a refuge looking for a new home.

Jeff there are more than a few of us Knot refugees here! It's not a bad place at all. :D

[Gary Curtis]

One of the restrictions I detect in FWWing, is the limit of 6 pages for projects. Some things simply warrant and demand more dicussion and/or photographs or drawings.

Mark Duginske was once editor of FWWing, and I asked him about this at a woodworking show. He said something surprising. There is a big dropoff in numbers in the woodworking community. i would have thought it was increasing. But it's going the other way, so of course readership and subscriptions are way down.

And I think it must be challenge to find contributors who know woodworking, know how to write, know instruction the photography technique.

Gary Curtis

[Bill Wilcox]

I don't have a subscription to the magazine however I heard there was a good article on a band saw fence in there. Is this true and if so how was it?
I thought about getting a subscription but have heard similar comments on it.

[Bob Falk]

Haven't looked at it yet, but I hear your complaint about the general decline and second the opinion. I was given a crate last year from a closed WW'ing business with an almost complete subscription of FWW going back to the late 1970's. My favorite is the old adds. Prices of tools haven't risen much! Of course nothing is made in the USA anymore either. In any event, it seems to me that FWW used to be a pretty rigorous magazine with a very few basic how to's, like it was aimed at a fairly advanced audience who'd learned their basics else where. Perhaps in school shop class?

The drawings and pictures have gotten much better, but the balance has shifted to include generally more rudimentary material and less advanced topics per issue. To balance that there are now more issues per year. I'd guess if the want to reach more people the content needs to appeal to a wider range of skill levels, and that can bore some at the more advanced levels. I always find at least one article per issue to grab my attention, but it has been a while since an entire issue struck me as compelling. Perhaps this is the month?

I was an original subscriber to FWW and have every issue in hardcopy....I have been pondering this question of quality at FWW the last couple of years.....IMHO, Shopsmith and American Woodworker have gotten consistently better in quality as FWW has declined....I know there has been a change of the guard and a shakeup at Taunton and a lot of good people have left....seems to me they are becoming more focused on glitz and less on solid technical content....but then, maybe I am finally older and wiser and a lot of the content now seems lame. I am finding that there are less and less articles that intrigue me.

[Jim Becker]

I read it yesterday and today...'tis a fine issue with lots to think about.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Readership and subscriptions are down - mainly because of sites like this. Ask a question, and thirty minutes later have a dozen answers to pick from. I have noticed that FWW is going to more of a "coffee table book" format. Lots of glossy pictures. Still one of my favorites though. The ads are worth the price of the magazine. I don't know if the numbers of woodworkers is in decline, or we all have "stocked up" on needed tools. Our local WW assoc. membership is down almost 50% from ten years ago.

[Leigh Betsch]

I'm a subscriber. The magazine came the other day but I haven't opened it yet. There was a time when a new mag came I wouldn't move until I read it cover to cover and then I would spend the next week re-reading it. Not any more. I don't think it's because of the content I think there is an evolution in these things. Same happened when I was training bird dogs, couldn't wait until Gun Dog or Pointing Dog Journal came. I haven't seen a Gun Dog or Pointing Dog Journal in 8 or 9 years. I still train dogs and still hunt birds but I just don't need a mag to take up my time.
After you've been in the sport for a while mag articles get old and redundant. Books are next, I'm still reading quite a few good WW books but I suspect they will get old too. Now I just go out to the shop and start to work on something, come inside for a break and check the Creek. Sometime this month I'll open up the FWW and peruse the articles for inspiration. Just the natural flow of things.
Now a book on furniture design, that's some thing all together different..........

[Cody Colston]

I think a lot of the perceived drop in quality at FWW is simply a case of the readers becoming more skilled and specializing more on certain techniques and styles.

I even see it on the forums. I started woodworking about ten years ago and everything was new and fresh to me then. A lot of what is fairly mundane now was exciting to learn at the time. There was hardly any article in FWW or any of the mags or discussed online that I didn't find interesting because I had so much to learn.

I'm still learning but my focus is narrower as a result of what I have already learned. How many times can an article on hand cutting dovetails be fresh to someone who has mastered the skill? Yet, there are probably thousands out there who have never hand cut a dovetail and are happy to soak up everything they can about it.

Right now, my primary interest is on marquetry and inlay so that's what I want to see articles on. Fortunately, as a FWW online subscriber, there are plenty of archived articles on the subject that I've been accessing.

If I live long enough, I may get to the point where there is not much in the magazine to interest me, although I doubt it. Until that time comes, though, I'll just enjoy what's there, even if my interest is in an area that isn't covered in every issue.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Leigh, Cody, I agree with you guys. As we mature with whatever we pursue, our needs change. I do think that the decline in FWW quality outpaced my increase in skill though. This current issue seems to have more interesting stuff in it though, so it might support my theory that the intangible and completely arbitrary "quality meter" was rapidly falling, but has shown a bit of an uptick for an issue at least.

[Mick David]

I think a lot of the perceived drop in quality at FWW is simply a case of the readers becoming more skilled and specializing more on certain techniques and styles.



I second this -- as someone fairly new to woodworking, I still get excited when my copy of FWW arrives, and pretty much always find something interesting and new. I can certainly imagine in ~10 years, all this will seem old hat and I won't be nearly as excited about it, but rather will focus on more advanced fare.