Disappointed with Fine Woodworking Product Review

[Steve Mathews]

I was just gifted a subscription to Fine Woodworking magazine and in a recent review of midi woodturning lathes Vicmarc was omitted. As far as midi lathes and possibly other sizes I would consider them one of the best. Why would I take any of their other reviews seriously?

[mike stenson]

Never heard of them (but other than tool handles and small knobs I don't turn stuff). But, a philosophical question: Does every review require every brand to be useful?

[John Kananis]

Not every brand but Vicmarc isn't just any brand.


Never heard of them (but other than tool handles and small knobs I don't turn stuff). But, a philosophical question: Does every review require every brand to be useful?

[Brian Tymchak]

I just searched for a U.S. vendor for a VicMarc VL 150 V2 EVS, which admittedly I did not adequately vet as an equivalent in class to Rikon or Jet (etc) midi lathes. But that seems to be VicMarc's offering for that class. I could not find a U.S. vendor in the first few pages of results. I found one in Canada selling the lathe for $3600 Canadian dollars (~$2700, U.S. dollars). Mostly I found Australian vendors, which kinda makes sense as VicMarc is an Australian company.

I haven't read the FWW review, so my guess is that the VicMarc was excluded based on availability and price, if they even knew about the lathe in the first place.

[mike stenson]

Not every brand but Vicmarc isn't just any brand.

Then the OP should demand his money back.


There's a tongue and cheek involved. Lest anyone become offended.

[Edward Weber]

When magazines do reviews, there is a criteria for participating.
What range of tool, what price range, did the manufacturer donate one for review and on and on.
Just because they committed one brand/model you thought should be included, doesn't mean it's a shortcoming or conspiracy. It's just how things work.

[Steve Mathews]

Vicmarc equipment is available from at least Craft Supplies, Packard Woodworks and Woodturners Wonders. A quick visit to Vicmarc's website would reveal that. As far as the range of prices in the review Vicmarc lathes are at the upper end but less than the most expensive Robust offerings. I have Oneway (Canadian), Vicmarc (Australian) and Jet (Taiwan) lathes and find the omission of Vicmarc in the review to be a fatal flaw.

[Richard Coers]

Rarely do magazines represent every machine made in the world. Often the call is put out to the manufacturers and not all can or will send a sample to be tested. Did you call Vicmarc and ask them?

[John TenEyck]

Vicmarc equipment is available from at least Craft Supplies, Packard Woodworks and Woodturners Wonders. A quick visit to Vicmarc's website would reveal that. As far as the range of prices in the review Vicmarc lathes are at the upper end but less than the most expensive Robust offerings. I have Oneway (Canadian), Vicmarc (Australian) and Jet (Taiwan) lathes and find the omission of Vicmarc in the review to be a fatal flaw.

If you didn't own a Vicmarc would you feel the same way?

John

[Steve Mathews]

[/COLOR]
If you didn't own a Vicmarc would you feel the same way?

John
More so. Had I relied even partially on this article and missed knowing about a product that I might have found more to my liking I would've thought why wasn't this included in the review. I can understand not including some of the lesser known lathes, and there are some of those not mentioned, but Vicmarc is such a prominent figure in the woodturning world that its omission questions the integrity of the author or at least its competence.

[Edward Weber]

Contact Fine woodworking and complain
Not everyone or everything acts as you would like them to.

[Richard Link]

These are some remarkably strong views concerning the omission of Vicmarc in a magazine review. Sure, I understand that we all want the magazine authors to be omniscient and it's reasonable to be irritated if you were using the review as your sole source of information before a $3000 purchase or perhaps associated with the company. Obviously, the original poster was not in that category and just wanted the review to reflect the available machines in the market. Rather than "complain," though, why not just send them a friendly email highlighting the omission and they will likely post an errata in the front of the magazine as I've seen them do many times before. I guess my point is that we don't always have to be angry when somebody else makes a mistake or an omission but we can be positive and constructive and maybe everybody gets their boat raised. My guess is that editing a woodworking magazine as a viable business can be challenging (they did after all just have a big shakeup) and the editors are likely very dependent on subspecialty specific authors particularly for reviews of things like lathes, CNCs, etc. So sometimes things will fall through the cracks.

[Richard Coers]

These are some remarkably strong views concerning the omission of Vicmarc in a magazine review. Sure, I understand that we all want the magazine authors to be omniscient and it's reasonable to be irritated if you were using the review as your sole source of information before a $3000 purchase or perhaps associated with the company. Obviously, the original poster was not in that category and just wanted the review to reflect the available machines in the market. Rather than "complain," though, why not just send them a friendly email highlighting the omission and they will likely post an errata in the front of the magazine as I've seen them do many times before. I guess my point is that we don't always have to be angry when somebody else makes a mistake or an omission but we can be positive and constructive and maybe everybody gets their boat raised. My guess is that editing a woodworking magazine as a viable business can be challenging (they did after all just have a big shakeup) and the editors are likely very dependent on subspecialty specific authors particularly for reviews of things like lathes, CNCs, etc. So sometimes things will fall through the cracks.
Well said Richard. FWW doesn't tout the article as a buyer's guide, it's a review article.

[Michael Burnside]

These are some remarkably strong views concerning the omission of Vicmarc in a magazine review. Sure, I understand that we all want the magazine authors to be omniscient and it's reasonable to be irritated if you were using the review as your sole source of information before a $3000 purchase or perhaps associated with the company. Obviously, the original poster was not in that category and just wanted the review to reflect the available machines in the market. Rather than "complain," though, why not just send them a friendly email highlighting the omission and they will likely post an errata in the front of the magazine as I've seen them do many times before. I guess my point is that we don't always have to be angry when somebody else makes a mistake or an omission but we can be positive and constructive and maybe everybody gets their boat raised. My guess is that editing a woodworking magazine as a viable business can be challenging (they did after all just have a big shakeup) and the editors are likely very dependent on subspecialty specific authors particularly for reviews of things like lathes, CNCs, etc. So sometimes things will fall through the cracks.

Well said Richard.

To the OP's defense, I will say that posting grievances like this in these forums is, in my opinion, a very good backup source of information. I've personally "Googled" for something only to find myself directed back at this wonderful site and insanely talented members. So, while FWW is a useful source, I find the sources and experiences here of higher value...just don't tell FWW that :D

[Richard Coers]

More so. Had I relied even partially on this article and missed knowing about a product that I might have found more to my liking I would've thought why wasn't this included in the review. I can understand not including some of the lesser known lathes, and there are some of those not mentioned, but Vicmarc is such a prominent figure in the woodturning world that its omission questions the integrity of the author or at least its competence.
In our woodturning club of over 50 members, 1 has a Vicmarc. That's 2%. They must be more popular in your region.

[Steve Mathews]

In our woodturning club of over 50 members, 1 has a Vicmarc. That's 2%. They must be more popular in your region.

In my region you would be hard pressed to find 50 turners. I suspect most of your members and elsewhere use lathes made in Taiwan and China. More discriminating woodturners I believe have invested in machines made by Oneway, Robust and Vicmarc. This is not meant to be a criticism of the Jet, Powermatic, Rikon type machines. They serve as a price point for those that either can't afford or are unwilling to pay for something of better quality.

I reject most of the comments in defense of FWW. The author of the article, Andrew Finnigan had an opportunity and I believe a responsibility in this assignment to enlighten the readership of FWW of what's available in Midi lathes. I believe he fell far short in that by not even mentioning (he didn't have to review it) one of most prominent manufacturers of woodturning lathes that has had a long history in the craft. I don't know the author's reason for the omission. Perhaps the manufacturer didn't cave into the request for a free machine to review so the author didn't feel compelled to even mention it. Or as a "professional woodturner" as he professes to be he just wasn't aware of Vicmarc lathes. After all, according to his website he only does spindle work. As for the editors of FWW I think they have a responsibility to vet their guest authors more closely. This one I believe slipped by them.

[mike stenson]

So, you've already sent them an email voicing this. Cool.

[Larry Edgerton]

They have never reviewed most of the tools I own, don't care. Camaro, Mustang, but I own a Firebird!

[Josko Catipovic]

This looks like a freebie ad campaign for Vic-lathe.

[Steve Mathews]

So, you've already sent them an email voicing this. Cool.

Nope. Thanks to this forum I'm done venting. Complaining to AWW would only be in part doing the job they were supposed to do. I'll continue receiving my gift subscription but will look at any of their future reviews with a jaundiced eye.

[John Pendery]

I’ll keep an eye out for the Martin T77 in their next table saw shootout…

[Jared Sankovich]

I’ll keep an eye out for the Martin T77 in their next table saw shootout…

Or even something as pedestrian as a scmi.

[Richard Coers]

To support your disappointment, I recently canceled my subscription to FWW that I started with #8. That's like 300 magazines ago.

[Brian Tymchak]

Vicmarc equipment is available from at least Craft Supplies, Packard Woodworks and Woodturners Wonders. A quick visit to Vicmarc's website would reveal that. As far as the range of prices in the review Vicmarc lathes are at the upper end but less than the most expensive Robust offerings. I have Oneway (Canadian), Vicmarc (Australian) and Jet (Taiwan) lathes and find the omission of Vicmarc in the review to be a fatal flaw.

Well, just to defend myself a little bit: None of those vendors appear to offer the VicMarc model that I searched for. ...A quick visit to those vendors sites revealed that...

Now that I've seen the review, I agree the price point could not have been a constraint.

[Steve Mathews]

I’ll keep an eye out for the Martin T77 in their next table saw shootout…

Come on guys, you can't be this pedantic. A table saw in the same category as the best in the AAW lathe review is maybe $10k tops. Isn't the Martin T77 around $70k? Get real with your comparative arguments. Now I'm really done with this.

[John Pendery]

Come on guys, you can't be this pedantic. A table saw in the same category as the best in the AAW lathe review is maybe $10k tops. Isn't the Martin T77 around $70k? Get real with your comparative arguments. Now I'm really done with this.

I’m sorry I shouldn’t have posted that I was just trying to joke around

[Michael Burnside]

Come on guys, you can't be this pedantic. A table saw in the same category as the best in the AAW lathe review is maybe $10k tops. Isn't the Martin T77 around $70k? Get real with your comparative arguments. Now I'm really done with this.

Not sure why others are piling on. IMHO there was nothing wrong with you posting an opinion with reasonable justification.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I always remember this is just one man's opinion. He's welcome to it. I'd bet that a majority of FWW's readership doesn't know Vicmark exists or can afford one. Maybe they are trying to make reviews that are appropriate for their readership?

[Derek Cohen]

Vicmarc is used by the top turner in the world, Richard Raffan. The range is impressively built, and expensive, even here in Oz. I would have loved to have purchased one when I was upgrading 5 years ago, but it was too much to justify. I purchased another superior lathe - also not in the "review", the Nova Saturn. These lathes are in a different - much higher - price range than the FWW article, which looked at <$1000 and >$2000 mark (but included a few around $2000 and then a $2800 and a $5700 model). This lack of continuity makes little sense.

Further, the lathes all appear to have fixed headstocks, which is becoming outdated.

This begs the question "who chooses the tools for comparison, and based on what criteria?".

Regards from Perth

Derek

[John Lanciani]

"Perhaps the manufacturer didn't cave into the request for a free machine to review so the author didn't feel compelled to even mention it."

Or maybe the author asked for a lathe to review and Vicmarc didn't feel the need to have their lathe included in the article. You don't think that they purchase one of everything that gets reviewed do you?

[Tom Levy]

The fixed headstock is a standard trait of midi lathes that isn't going to change, more for safety reasons. The small lathes don't have the mass to allow large/unbalanced pieces that require pivot/moving heads. Disaster would ensure if you tried rounding a large, unbalanced blank that wouldn't clear the ways with a midi lathe head pivoted 30/90 or moved all the way to the end. Beginners especially that would likely be buying a midi might not understand that just because you can mount something and rotate it, doesn't make it safe to turn.

The magazine has to have a lathe in order to review it. A number of years back when they were still operating full capacity someone asked woodworker's emporium why they didn't stock the vl150 and the response was that the one gathered so much dust over the years it took to finally sell, there was no point in ever stocking another. You can custom order it from any of the vendors named above, but you likely won't find one available waiting to ship. Most of the vendors only stock the two popular big lathes that serious turners spending that much would want (240 and 300).

Not exclusive to WW magazines, most operate on the basis of "send me your model if you want to be included in our review". There is little chance the magazine would actually pay and wait for one to get sent over from brisbane after ordering, it's just not how publishing works. By the time it got to the US the article filing deadline would be way past. They have to fill pages by certain dates and the time frame from article idea to publishing is a small/limited window.

[Randy Heinemann]

I didn't read the other responses so this might be a duplication. I always take reviews of any kind for what they are; one person or group evaluating a selection of the product. I doubt it's possible these days to review all products on the market, so the selection is based on what can be obtained reasonably and, in some cases what can be solicited for testing. I am a turner and do know about Vicmarc; very high quality products.

Second, FWW has never been focused on woodturning. I don't believe I would consult their archived articles for woodturning. In recent years they have done more about turning but really it still doesn't seem to be their focus. Your best bet for product reviews on turning is the internet (as hopeless as that can be).

In the end, reviews can be helpful but the help from them usually is the "negatives" of a product for me. Such things as possible design flaws or things that users, in this case turners, should be aware of for their use. I wouldn't think you'd go wrong with any of the major lathe manufacturers and I'd seek reviews that specifically deal with those you have an interest in. If you want reviews on tools used for furniture making, cabinets, joinery, sanding, sawing, etc. FWW can be a good source. They aren't biased since they acquire the tools themselves and don't appear to play favorites no matter who is manufacturing the tools.

[Steve Bujalski]

If you know about Vicmarc....you probably know more already. Its a first class lathe and FWW opinion would not have any weight with me anyway.

[James Jayko]

This is the weirdest troll thread I've seen.

The vast majority of FWW readers are in the US, and are hobbyists. I don't see any point to adding a tool most can't afford (and if you can, most of the magazine's demo likely wouldn't), and you can't even buy in the US if you wanted to. There is a lumber yard near me that has a big Martin sliding table saw (costing...who knows...$30k?)...I'm not surprised that it wasn't in the review which included a Ridgid hybrid saw. I would say that magazines review those things which are most likely to be on the radar of their demographic AND generally available to their readers. Pretty sure Consumer Reports doesn't review the Bugatti Cheryon, because...why?

Or did you just want FWW to tell you that you already have the best lathe?

[Jimmy Harris]

Print media is dead!

Not really, but it's not bringing in the big bucks it once did. And it's not just print media, but all traditional media. So with such tight budgets these days, no one is going to be able to do a comprehensive review of every make and model of just about anything, and still have money left over to pay the bills. So most magazines and what not will just review what they can get their hands on at no or minimal cost. So in all likelihood, Vicmarc isn't represented because Vicmarc didn't want to be represented. Maybe they didn't think there products would compare favorably. Maybe they didn't have the time or stock on hand to get a sample over, maybe they didn't want to waste the money on sending out a freebie, maybe they didn't think they needed the press or believe anyone reads "that" or maybe "any" magazine anymore, or maybe they just didn't want their brand associated with "lesser" brands that it would have been compared to. It's hard to say without knowing the facts.

But this is the world we live in now. More and more companies are getting away from traditional forms of advertising and moving into the world of social media influencers as their main source of advertising.

[Ray Newman]

Do believe that Jimmy Harris is onto it!

[Pat Germain]

I can understand the OP's disappointment. But we should also consider there are very few print magazines still in business. I recall Chris Schwarz shut down a newsletter because the only feedback he ever got was a bunch of hostile complaining. No constructive advice. No helpful recommendations. Just a thousand different variants of "YOU'RE WRONG!". Schwarz finally got sick of it and said, "Buh-bye".

Again, just something to consider.

[Mel Fulks]

I think you gotta pay to be advertised.

[Derek Cohen]

I am a regular subscriber to FWW and the Australian Wood Review magazines. My expectations now are not the same as 20 years ago. Now it is interesting to read some of the hobby news and reports of tools, innovations and build techniques. All more casually than seriously. I have been around long enough to know the brands and their offerings.

Still, when a tool collection review is presented, I would like some justification for the tools chosen. This may be "these are some of the offerings in the price range, but it is not exclusive", or "these are the very best or most popular tools in the price range", or "these are the F1 tools to which we all aspire". The problem with that FWW article is that it did not set the parameters, and instead stated "best tools". What could have been added is "these are some of the tools available we were able to test".

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Ken Fitzgerald]

In the past, I bought the online Version of Dave Richards first Sketchup videos. I prefer the memory stick or DVD personally. Sure enough, when my computer crashed, I requested a DVD version as it's easier to load than going through the hassle of downloading it. Regaining my downloaded version of Cutlist was a pain! The guy provided the necessary link and scolded me to make a backup copy.

[Randy Heinemann]

Vicmarc does make great lathes and great chucks. I'm sure they would compare favorably with the brands reviewed in FWW. I'm also sure that there are some negatives as there are with all tools. Whether a tool is for you or not depends on whether the negatives are important to you.

I think FWW does great reviews of tools and runs them through a large number of tests.

Based on information I have, FWW does not get the tools reviewed for free. Whether that will change with the acquisition of Taunton by AIM I don't know but, till now, it is.