A Good Magazine

[Glenn Samuels]

I already get FWW, Popular Woodworking, and Wood (it comes for free) but would like to find a magazine that caters to the Neanderthal. Is there such a magazine?

[Zach Dillinger]

Not that I've found, but PW is the best available when it comes to that demographic. Nothing else even comes close.

[David Weaver]

I can't think of a good magazine for us. I think we're too small of a demographic and the money that flows in the hobby is probably dominated by beginners and new retirees, so the odds of getting a really meaty substantive hand tool publication are not on our side.

[James Conrad]

Not sure it exist, you'll find a few things here and there in the existing rags, but books and the web will probably be your best sources these days. I did like what they tried to do with Woodworking Magazine, http://www.lie-nielsen.com/books/woodworking-magazine/ I think you can get all of the issues in one book as well, perhaps LV or Amazon has that one.

[Mark Wyatt]

The publication of the Midwest Tool Collectors called "The Gristmill" provides some interesting articles on antique tools. No projects to speak of, but I find it an interesting read. Some of the articles have good historical information.

[Chuck Nickerson]

... so the odds of getting a really meaty substantive hand tool publication are not on our side.

David, what would constitute a meaty topic? I'm arranging a handtool get-together in the spring and would like some meat on the bones in addition to the demos designed to set beginners on the slippery slope.

[Tony Wilkins]

Sound like a good opportunity for someone or some folks to get together a webzine for us neander types. Such things seem easier in these daydream of inter webs and personal confusers.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Sound like a good opportunity for someone or some folks to get together a webzine for us neander types. Such things seem easier in these daydream of inter webs and personal confusers.

WK Fine Tools basically does as such. It's sort of a "best of", as a lot of the articles are things that folks published elsewhere in magazines or forum posts, and some articles are more interesting than others, but it's come up for me in a few Google searches, and I always end up clicking a few more links and reading more than I meant to when I stumble across it. Bob Smalser has some great stuff on that site, which reminds me I want to go back and read the bit about the Jaeger rifle he wrote on there. Not really my topic, guns, but I the brief skim I did of that article looked darn neat.

Several year back (I think they stopped publishing in 2008, so it couldn't have been that long) I picked up the hardcover, three-volume bound collection of Woodworking Magazine, the second mag that the PW folks used to do, the one that James mentions above. I really liked it, and particularly liked the writing approach, where all the articles kind of fit together around a topic somehow. It still wasn't 100% neander, but it made a lot of things click for me as far as basics that I had probably missed in my learning. Highly recommended if you can still find it, (I'm sure there's an e-book version as well) and it seems like one of the things that probably gets knocked to super cheap discount prices in the occasional sales that the Popular Woodworking webstore has; if I remember correctly, that's how I got it.

[David Weaver]

I guess, to me, the topics of design either in terms of elements or small things.

A good example is the box that george showed in a thread a couple down now (the one about the narex parers). he could've made it look like a very simple and used purchased hardware, but the design of the hook and the knob on the top (and probably the feet) make it something much better than just a tidily made walnut box.

If you're working with beginners, though, probably the best hook is the stuff that people use to get beginners. Take thin plane shavings, cut a couple of dovetails by hand, sharpen a plane blade or chisel and shave some hair off of your arm. You can switch them over to the meat later, after they've gotten what they perceive as dessert first (and will later probably decide was empty calories).

Once you get past that, the basic question of and "what makes them look like they're done with good professional taste" and "what makes things pleasing to the eye without having to be told about them". Those things are what we dont get too much of. I think a lot of that has to do with none of them being really saleable items. If you write a bunch of magazine articles talking about perspective and very in depth details about design elements, carved elements, etc, what do you sell as a magazine? You can't tell someone that 90% of what makes the work great is little bits, and that having 50 bench planes is a waste of time unless you find joy not related to utility in it, or that everything you will ever need to do with dimensioning can be done by stock planes 75-250 years old - and then put an ad on the next page for LN planes with another ad below it telling everyone about all of the handy dandy powder coated melamine/plastic/aluminum jigs that you need to make a joint.

Tell them to hide the dovetails and the ends of the tenons, too, for furniture that's going to end up in nice places. Save that kind of stuff for shop tool caddies, etc.

(Of course, for every crab like me, there are probably some folks who don't mind running to "conventions" and other such things designed for beginning woodworkers even though they've been woodworking for 10 years).

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Actually, now that I think of it, if you want a good magazine that isn't aimed halfway at the beginner and the sorts of topics that David mentions, either get an e-subscription, by a back-issues book or go to a library with a good back-issues collection and check out the *old* Fine Woodworking Magazines - especially the black and white stuff from back when. I'm sure I'm remembering it with rose-coloured glasses looking backwards, as I haven't actually read a lot of those issues cover to cover, but when I had access to the online site, I found all sorts of really interesting articles in those old issues, that the new stuff just really doesn't compare to if you have some modicum of what you're doing.

Honestly, though, i tend to gravitate towards books - the sorts of things that I find interesting don't lend themselves to magazines, both because the audience for a magazine is different, and the types of things I'd like to read really seem like they need a little more meat than a short article can provide.

[Zach Dillinger]

Honestly, though, i tend to gravitate towards books - the sorts of things that I find interesting don't lend themselves to magazines, both because the audience for a magazine is different, and the types of things I'd like to read really seem like they need a little more meat than a short article can provide.

This is the biggest problem with magazine articles. It is really tough to write "the meat" when you only have 5 - 7 pages minus photos to get the point across. When I wrote up my spice chest, I found it very difficult to pare down my 12 page initial draft to 7 pages minus photos.

[george wilson]

I've about had it with the magazines. Especially the ones who hire beginning woodworkers to write articles that have inaccurate info in them. And, why should I pay subscriptions for magazines that continually feature articles for the guy cutting his first dovetail? I'm SO tired of that. We need a magazine fort more advanced woodworkers,at least!

[Brian Holcombe]

I guess, to me, the topics of design either in terms of elements or small things.

A good example is the box that george showed in a thread a couple down now (the one about the narex parers). he could've made it look like a very simple and used purchased hardware, but the design of the hook and the knob on the top (and probably the feet) make it something much better than just a tidily made walnut box.

If you're working with beginners, though, probably the best hook is the stuff that people use to get beginners. Take thin plane shavings, cut a couple of dovetails by hand, sharpen a plane blade or chisel and shave some hair off of your arm. You can switch them over to the meat later, after they've gotten what they perceive as dessert first (and will later probably decide was empty calories).

Once you get past that, the basic question of and "what makes them look like they're done with good professional taste" and "what makes things pleasing to the eye without having to be told about them". Those things are what we dont get too much of. I think a lot of that has to do with none of them being really saleable items. If you write a bunch of magazine articles talking about perspective and very in depth details about design elements, carved elements, etc, what do you sell as a magazine? You can't tell someone that 90% of what makes the work great is little bits, and that having 50 bench planes is a waste of time unless you find joy not related to utility in it, or that everything you will ever need to do with dimensioning can be done by stock planes 75-250 years old - and then put an ad on the next page for LN planes with another ad below it telling everyone about all of the handy dandy powder coated melamine/plastic/aluminum jigs that you need to make a joint.

Tell them to hide the dovetails and the ends of the tenons, too, for furniture that's going to end up in nice places. Save that kind of stuff for shop tool caddies, etc.

(Of course, for every crab like me, there are probably some folks who don't mind running to "conventions" and other such things designed for beginning woodworkers even though they've been woodworking for 10 years).

I'm sure a design topic could be started here and you would get a good response. I'm not sure I agree entirely with hiding the dovetails, they are occasionally nice to see on an otherwise simple project.

[lowell holmes]

I miss Woodworking as well!

Pop Wood is not much different from Fine Woodworking these days.

I have some 1980's Woodworkers Journal magazines. They were not slick paper nor color, but much superior to the current versions.

I guess market pressures dictate what we get.

[Zach Dillinger]

I've about had it with the magazines. Especially the ones who hire beginning woodworkers to write articles that have inaccurate info in them. And, why should I pay subscriptions for magazines that continually feature articles for the guy cutting his first dovetail? I'm SO tired of that. We need a magazine fort more advanced woodworkers,at least!

Agreed 100%. I was leaning that way when I started looking at creating my own magazine. I quickly realized that there wasn't enough hand tool woodworking content to keep up with necessity, so I expanded the scope to include all sorts of early craftsmanship.

It would be nice if one of the magazines would do an article with you George. Just to make us non-beginners happy.

[Curt Putnam]

Hand tool woodworking is a pretty small demographic to begin with. If you then segment that small demographic into beginners, intermediates and experts you wind up with 3 very tiny demographics that have different interests. The beginner's focus is on tools and techniques. The intermediates have the broadest range; an interest in tools and techniques that they don't know about, a more intense interest on what to build and the ways to build it. The experts mostly focus on design and design comparisons although they have been known to endlessly debate the minutia of tools and their use. An overly sharp focus on one segment will likely lose the others.

In this day and age I suspect the winners will be subscription blogs focusing on design with links to all the tools, techniques, and how-tos that being written and rewritten. That way, if you know how you can still focus on the design. If you don't know how, you wander through all the how-to links. We'll see.

[george wilson]

I will be happy to contribute Zach!! The bad parts are my miserable pictures. Perhaps I could pry my wife out of her business long enough to get her to make suitable pictures. She's a pro photographer.

[Bob Jones]

I enjoy my pop ww subscription, but for the last year or two I've gotten much, much more from recently out of print books. When it comes to working wood, there just isn't much new. Get every book written by Charles Hayward and it will be 10x the info in the same number of magizines pages. Most of his books can be found on amazon for less than $15. Practical veneering is one of the more enjoyable hand tool centered readings. Get all of his books you can find and you will cease to be impressed with many of the "modern" hand tool books. LAP books are the exception.

[Adam Maxwell]

I enjoy my pop ww subscription, but for the last year or two I've gotten much, much more from recently out of print books. When it comes to working wood, there just isn't much new.

Amen to that! Zach Dillinger pointed me at George Ellis' Modern Practical Joinery when I was doing some scribed mortise & tenon work, and there is so much good stuff in that book that I learn something ever time I crack it open. Maybe that tells how far I have to go, but still… As far as I'm concerned, the best part of modern magazines (and some books) is the photography; aside from being inspiring, photos capture detail, and should more truly represent proportions than old engravings.

[Zach Dillinger]

I will be happy to contribute Zach!! The bad parts are my miserable pictures. Perhaps I could pry my wife out of her business long enough to get her to make suitable pictures. She's a pro photographer.

Sounds great George! It would be an honor to have something from you.

[george wilson]

You PM'ed me about this some time ago. Let me know when you get the magazine going and want an article.

[Chris Griggs]

You PM'ed me about this some time ago. Let me know when you get the magazine going and want an article.

Oh yeah, he mentioned it to me too. Thought it was a really good idea. You still working on that Zach? How's it coming?

[Zach Dillinger]

Slow, but I'm trying Chris. Right now, I am just trying to make sure I have enough interest to contemplate taking it further. I've had some, but not nearly enough to make a print run viable.

[Chris Griggs]

Slow, but I'm trying Chris. Right now, I am just trying to make sure I have enough interest to contemplate taking it further. I've had some, but not nearly enough to make a print run viable.

That's smart. Market research is important. Too many people get a a good idea but then fail to execute becasue they don't take the time to plan there product and adapt it too the market or make sure there is even a market. Glad to hear you still have in the works to some extent.

[Zach Dillinger]

That's smart. Market research is important. Too many people get a a good idea but then fail to execute becasue they don't take the time to plan there product and adapt it too the market or make sure there is even a market. Glad to hear you still have in the works to some extent.

Thanks Chris. I'm usually all for the 'rip it and grip it' style of project management, but this is kind of a big deal.