Woodworking magazines?

[Randal Stevenson]

What all do you subscribe too?

Parents are annoyed that I don't have a list (come on, I am almost 40, can't we just eat a dinner), and see me reading ones whenever I find one that has an idea I like.
So instead of fighting over the whole Christmas thing, I thought give them a magazine to appeas (spelling)?
The most common ones I read are
Fine Homebuilding, Fine Woodworking, Shopnotes, Workbench, and the two my father already subscribes to, Wood, and American Woodworker.

Help me get them off my back, thanks

[Doug Shepard]

Right now I'm down to just Fine Woodworking and Wood. I used to get American Woodworker but found it getting increasingly thinner and less interesting so now I just pick it up at the store if it's got something good in that issue. Workbench I occasionally buy but haven't felt compelled to suscribe. I may end up subscribing to Popular Woodworking. I find myself buying more issues at the store. It seems to keep getting better over time and a lot of good authors seem to be migrating from other mags to theirs.

[everett lowell]

I think I tend to buy Fine woodworking, Popular woodworking, and Woodworkers journal the most, BUT I flip through all the ww'ing mags on the rack and if theres something usefull to me I buy it.

[Joe Trotter]

I just subscribed to workbench and like it. I think I may go for shopnotes as well.

Allot of times I just pick one up in line at Home Depot and thumb through it to see if there are any projects that intrest me.

I just started remodeling my garage a few weeks ago so I have been focusing on worbench, cabinet, and storage type articles.

Joe

[Ernie Hobbs]

Fine Woodworking and Woodshop News. Woodshop New is a free subscription. If you look in ebay, you can usually find a FWW subscription for significantly less than the regular price. I think the last time I signed up, the regular price was $34.95/year but I found a deal for about $20.

[Ted Baca]

I subscribe to most of what you mentioned. I would say my favorites are Wood, FWW and Woodsmith. American WW is probably my least favorite. Popular is ok, Shopnotes is also very good. Workbench goes beyong woodworking in delves into home repair stuff too.

[JayStPeter]

I used to subscribe to just about all of 'em. FWW and PWW have survived the test of time and repetition. If you're still putting together your shop, Wood has some of the best tool reviews IMO. Woodwork is also a good mag.

[RichMagnone]

I subscribe to Popular Woodworking. I think that for the "intermediate" woodworker, it is absolutly the top. Frankly, FWW reads a tad "over my head" and I just don't like the snobby tone (despite an obvious effort by the editors to not have a snobby tone!).

As for PWW, they have really captured the "pulse" on today's woodworkers (I am certain that they must troll here and at woodnet). They have a "modernized" interest and respect for hand tools, the pictures are great and they have interesting "articles" (the issue on Norm and his workshop was great - you would not see that in FWW nor Wood).

[Mark Singer]

I get Fine Woodworking and Woodwork...
http://www.woodwork-mag.com/

[Rick Doyle]

My favorite ww mag is Wood Magazine. I also subscribe to Fine Woodworking and Canadian Home Workshop. I used to get Woodsmith & Shopnotes but I let their subscriptions expire this year.

[Jim Becker]

I get Fine Woodworking and Woodwork...

Ditto. Plus the excellent AAW (http://www.woodturner.org) publication that comes with membership in that organization as well as Fine Homebuilding. I used to subscribe to a lot more magazines, but dropped them over time due to redundancy in projects, reviews and other articles. If there is a specific and unique article, I can always pick up a single issue at the newstand. And then there is the "storage" issue with so many subscriptions.

[John Kain]

I have a subscription to Wood. I like it. Nothing over the top. But I'm excited when I see it in the mailbox.

I have a web subscription to FWW. I think it's worth more money than the yearly new issues. You get all the past relevant articles. You get video on instructional tutorials. You get all the new articles about (I think) soon after their release in the magazine.

The videos on the website have been very instrumental in making me a better woodworker. Nothing that changed my woodworking life all-together, but easily changed the way I do things. They make me a better woodworker and more efficient. In fact, I'd say the web subscription to FWW has offered me the most info on woodworking than any other source (and by the way, I'd put this forum 2nd on that list).

[Charles McKinley]

How about a donation to the Creek?????

There will be a contriburer stamp by my name soon.

[Randal Stevenson]

How about a donation to the Creek?????

There will be a contriburer stamp by my name soon.


I can handle that one myself (check is in the mail). That's more then those subscriptions.

[Ethan Sincox]

Unfortunately, they don't offer subscriptions yet, but one magazine you should definitely check out is Woodworking Magazine (www.woodworking-magazine.com (http://www.woodworking-magazine.com)). It is a no-ads magazine done by some of the editors and publishers of PWW (Steve Shanesy, Christopher Schwarz, Robert Lang, Megan Fitzpatrick, to name a few). From cover to cover, it is the absolute best woodworking magazine I've ever picked up. In its current form, the magazine is only published a few times a year, but they've started a few additional features to the website lately. Chris Schwarz keeps a blog now, with new entries every week or so, and his blog topics more often than not discuss some aspect of an article coming up in the next issue.

You can no longer buy the first three issues in a printed version; you can buy the fourth, fifth, and sixth back issues, and they do sell a CD of the first five issues for a nominal fee (under $20! - now that's not a bad gift idea!).

I know in the past they've done a survey about offering a subscription, but it didn't get the response they'd hoped. They might do so again, to see if their audience has grown any. They should be due for it soon.

Their no-bull approach to article topics does a great job of removing the standard opinions and prejudices (the eternal pins vs. tails, for example). They pick a subject, lay out several methods of achieving good results, and then evalute those methods and let you know whichs ones worked best and why. Each issue has several articles, and they all usually tie in to each other (main article on making a display cabinet and then a sub article on making drawers and then a one-page article on making a sliding box as a drawer prep, for example).

I would consider this magazine an essential read for anyone just starting out and trying to get the right tools, as well, since every issue does a fairly in-depth discussion on a specific tool (usually a hand tool) and then offer their suggestion on what you might want to consider buying and what you should avoid. Examples so far include marking knives, 6" rules, and chisels and they even had an article on making your own draw pins (in an issue that covered the construction of the classic work bench, the Roubo, from beginning to end).

Believe it or not, I'm in no way affiliated with them... I just love their magazine and their enthusiasm for woodworking.

Ethan