Fine Woodworking 1975-2015 DVD

[Dale Murray]

This might not be the appropriate forum to post this but I received my Fine Woodworking 1975-2015 DVD yesterday and am so excited. I started looking through that magazine when I was 7 or 8 years old; my grandfather had a subscription.

Just looking at some of the early covers really brings back memories.

Just looking through a few issues solidified when/where my aesthetics were formed, the work of Tage Frid and Krenov's cabinet work.

Am I alone in this?

[Jay Larson]

Nope, not alone. But I am fortunate enough to have a complete set minus a couple of issues. I subscribed from year 2, and picked up the first year shortly thereafter.

Over the years many things changed. The first few years had people making tools and machines. Safety? Guards, we don't need no stinkin' guards... Ha.

The most fun is the ads, and how everything has gone through cycles.

I need to go back through a few of those first years again.

[Daniel O'Neill]

I just picked up 5-6 books from their clearance and had to hold my hand back from adding this to the cart. I'll read what I have but if you want to share feel free to PM me.... LOL just kidding. Enjoy your purchase! I do think it's one of the most quality WW mags out there. IMO

[Bruce Mack]

I agree. I have the earlier CD to 2013. Though way older than you, I recall my admiration of the craftsmen who could match and join wood beautifully. Today the black and white of the earlier issues is like an Old Testament of woodworking, authoritative but not quaint.

[Dale Murray]

I was 8 in 1978 so I had little control of getting a subscription back then.

I do like the black and white photos, I feel you get a better sense of form and shape via B&W photography*. I also that the articles were actually written, not just captions and a lot of photos.

The covers that brought back memories are Issue 1, 7, 8, 25, 30, 35, & 36. I dont know why those are the ones that stick out, but they do.


*A graphic designer friend of mine told me "a really good logo is one that looks as good in B&W as it does color".

I suppose that is the same logic a recording engineer uses when he plays a mix back over a really crappy pair of speakers, "if I can make it sound good on these then I know I have a good mix".

[Daniel O'Neill]

I was 8 in 1978 so I had little control of getting a subscription back then.

I do like the black and white photos, I feel you get a better sense of form and shape via B&W photography*

A photography major (good friend at the time) told me the same thing.

[Tim Bridge]

I was also thinking of getting this CD also.

I have the digital subscription for the current issues.
Is there a way to save the issues that I am subscribing to PDF so I will be able to read if my subscription ends? It's the same as if they mailed me the magazines.

[Robert Payne]

It is a great investment into one of the very best publications on the topic we love the most. The DVD has a great search engine and allows individual articles to be printed when desired. Our woodworking club has the full set of FWW magazines, but the DVD gets one to any issue immediately.

[Mark Henshaw]

I have had the DVD for a year now and use it quit regularly. I do a significant amount of travel to both Europe and Asia and find that I can pass a couple of hours on each flight by having the entire collection of these magazines on my laptop.

[Jamie Buxton]

Does anybody have a way to read this archive on an Ipad? Or maybe the USB version of it?

[Charles Taylor]

Does anybody have a way to read this archive on an Ipad? Or maybe the USB version of it?

At least on the 1975-2013 DVD, which I have, the issues are PDFs. You can transfer them to the PDF reader of your choice on the iPad. You will lose the search engine, and the task of transferring them may not be quick and easy (the path I chose wasn't), but you'll be able to read them.

[Jon Endres]

Does the DVD contain copies of the complete magazine, including advertisements, or is it just articles? I have almost every issue except for a few from the early 90's, and they take up so much space in my library that I was considering getting rid of them all and going with the DVD/CD version.

[Dale Murray]

Each magazine issue is a single PDF that can flipped through like a regular magazine.
You can easily copy complete issues to the reader of your choice.
Yes, it would be nice to have the database and search engine available on a nook/kindle/ipad/galaxytab but I can live without it.
Yes, the advertising is present in the issues I've viewed (mid 80's and earlier) but this may not be the case in later issues when photographers became aware of digital content use and changed their licensing structure.

[Charles Taylor]

Does the DVD contain copies of the complete magazine, including advertisements, or is it just articles? I have almost every issue except for a few from the early 90's, and they take up so much space in my library that I was considering getting rid of them all and going with the DVD/CD version.


Speaking again of the 2013 edition, they are full issues, ads and all. One gripe I have, though, is that the quality of scanning and OCR can be less than desirable, especially with the older issues. Some of the scanned illustrations are blurry and difficult to read. There's a lot of convenience to the electronic archive, but I'd be inclined to keep the old paper copies in order to be able to see the illustrations.

[Mark Henshaw]

I have the Microsoft surface tablet. It is of course windows based and I have downloaded the entire DVD onto it. Running the software from this tablet is no different then from the DVD. The search engine works fine. I do have an Ipad at home but have not tried to download onto it.

[Frederick Skelly]

Does anybody have a way to read this archive on an Ipad? Or maybe the USB version of it?

The files are .pdf. i transferred mine from the disk, to my computer. Then copied from computer to my pad. YMMV.