My Fine Woodworking magazine

[dennis thompson]

My grandson gave me a subscription to Fine Woodworking. I opened the latest issue and the first article I saw was " How to drive a screw"
I'm sure there must be more interesting articles in the rest of the magazine, at least I hope so☺

[Jim Becker]

If you consider any of the major magazines, both still existing and those ghosts of woodworking magazines past, you'll see that they have "cycles" where a huge amount of basic content ideas are recycled. There may be different authors, projects, etc, but there's not a whole lot new. And understandably there is bound to be a lot of content that is beginner oriented. The cycles and the focus on basics isn't a bad things, but it's what generally gets so many of us to stop taking the publications, so the reader base is also cyclic with new folks coming on and old folks (metaphorically speaking) leaving the ranks. It's probably been a decade at least since I last read a woodworking magazine, honestly. But Fine Woodworking was at least the last one I gave up...

[glenn bradley]

Yes, amazingly enough magazines do not stay in lock step with my progress in the craft . . . . the nerve :D. As Jim points out, there are always new readers and new woodworkers (thank goodness) who need to get on the merry-go-round of information. I have the same reaction when there is an article on turning or marquetry since these are not primary areas of my interest. The guy standing next to me could be reacting to the article on a better way to mount knife hinges that has caught my eye ;)

[Ron Citerone]

I guess it’s kind of like this forum. Everything from beginners to experts. I am somewhere in the middle. I try to help beginners and learn from experts.

[Alex Zeller]

I don't get the magazine but have read a few articles. Often just as they get to what I want to learn the author feels like it's a good place to stop. For example I want to make a curved top steamer truck and was looking for ways to clamp the boards together. One of their articles (I'm pretty sure it was FW) talked about how to figure out how to cut the angles and that was it. Another one that came up while searching was how to use cauls to keep a glue up flat. It would be nice if they could separate stuff for beginners, intermediate, and advanced woodworkers.

[David Publicover]

I’ve sporadically picked up issues of FWW for years but just recently subscribed. I’m not new to woodwork but I am far from being an expert. I have learned a ton here and by reviewing older FWW issues. I decided to subscribe to help out a print magazine as well as educate myself more. I’ve subscribed to many special interest magazines over the years and always considered myself lucky if there were a couple articles per issue of interest to me. It’s tough to please everyone all of the time.
One of my favourite parts of FWW is the Gallery. I find it very inspiring even though I have no real expectations of reaching the levels of craftsmanship displayed in the featured pieces.

[Frank Pratt]

I can see the value in an article like that. We are all at different places in our woodworking journey, and there is a fair bit to know about driving screws, as simple as it sounds.

[Brian Tymchak]

My grandson gave me a subscription to Fine Woodworking. I opened the latest issue and the first article I saw was " How to drive a screw"
I'm sure there must be more interesting articles in the rest of the magazine, at least I hope so☺

Just close the magazine, flip it over, and look at that fluted bowl. That is why I get the magazine. You won't find that kind of work being featured in Wood.

[Andrew Seemann]

I had a subscription for about a dozen years, then cancelled it about a decade ago. I didn't miss it after cancelling. Like most have pointed out, I got to where I had seen a full cycle, maybe two, of the same articles, just written by different people. I do go back and look at old articles from time to time though. They have been a handy resource over the years.

I recently did the unlimited subscriber thing as I wanted to see some specific articles I didn't have, and I found that they send me the print magazine as well. I'm not as interested in the current print magazine as much as access to the older articles and other things on the website. That said, it is amazing they can still offer the current magazine and at the same production values, given all the other WW magazines that have gone under. I do think the magazine was better in decades past, but that may be a combination of having to stay relevant today and with my skill level increasing over the years. Although I admit, I may make the Arts and Craft chairs they had in the magazine last spring.

In defense of the screw article. Many people don't have the background in mechanics or basic woodworking that many of us take for granted, and articles like that can be quite helpful for folks.

That said, I didn't care for that article. It wasted several pages of nice glossy magazine on slotted tapered wood screws, a piece of hardware that is nearly entirely obsolete and serves no purpose other than conveying a specific look. There are soooooo many other better screw options in woodworking. Which kinds? Nearly any other kind really. It also did the typical FWW thing that always turned me off, showing the most overwrought and complicated way of doing something that should be quite simple (countersink on the back of the counterbore? Surely you must be joking; you would get laughed out of most professional shops). I probably would have gone more down the path of here are the main types of screws used in woodworking, these are the advantages and disadvantages of each, typical uses for each, when not to use particular type, maybe some interesting facts/history about them, and the some tips and tricks on mechanical fasteners.

[John Terefenko]

Magazines. Boy that is a problem I am faced with. I use to get just about every woodworking magazine on the market and what I found is many have the same topics over and over and when they do tool reviews it depends on who is the sponsors of the magazine is which way they lean. Now I have an attic full of all these magazines but just can not find it in my soul to throw them out even though I know I will never read them ever again. I now know everything about woodworking so. What are you all laughing at?? :rolleyes: So what is the best way to rid my attic of these. Issues are quite old I am sure. Probably stopped getting issues about 6 or 7 years ago. Anyone tried getting rid of old woodworking magazines???

[Jim Koepke]

Reading the current magazine output has been disappointing for years.

Reading old issues has been educational. In the first five issues there were three with great information on mortise & tenon joints. One was more on timber framing but did have some info on M&Ts.

There were also more small articles on various techniques. One that enlightened me a bit was on putting a curved bevel on a flat chisel to make fluting tool.

The first years of FWW is definitely worth pursuing if one has a chance to pick them up.

jtk

[roger wiegand]

I subscribed from the beginning, and it was invaluable to my growth and learning as a woodworker. I anxiously awaited each new issue. I think my subscription lapsed maybe six months ago and I'm only now noticing. The rehashing of the same material and the shift away from fine woodworking to "build this craft project in a weekend" articles with 14 pages of "measured drawrings" is a big reason I've not been missing it. There's always a lot more to be said about design, not so much on "how to make a M&T joint"; I don't understand why they don't focus on the former. Of course they could just focus full time on sharpening debates :D.

I'd tell a new woodworker to buy the complete back issues on a disk or get the online access and read extensively in the back issues. Or buy a set of paper copies. There is a lot of great content there. The information density in the new issues has become too low to bother with.

I've recently started getting "Furniture and Cabinet Making" and "Woodturning" from the UK. So far they have been more interesting.

[Tom M King]

I was a Charter Subscriber, and stopped renewing sometime in the early '90's.

[michael langman]

I have been thinking of getting the back issues on dvd. I have many wood working books and still like reading different things about wood working.