Hats off to Fine Woodworking Magazine

[Bob Oswin]

I picked up the Feb 2003 volume of Fine Woodworking last weekend and haven't put it down since.

It is so nice to see timely articles with excellent pictures and good dialogue.

This is by far, the best issue to come along in some time and definitely sets the bar for other publishers.

I had quit subscriptions to all magazines recently due to what I percieved as poor value relative to the information provided.

A couple of issues like this one could definitely change my mind agian.

Great job gang! Thanks.

Bob

:D

[John Piwaron]

I think FWW is a publication I'll never stop. Certainly not because of content. Every magazine always has interesting informative content. I'll agree that some issues don't appear to be particularly interesting at first. And there are articles I'd skipped because the subject was of no interest when I first saw it, but became interesting when I began doing that kind of work and looked back for information.

From my point of view, FWW has set a high standard that they're living up to. It's like a top notch textbook that's enlarged a little bit every couple of months.

[Herb Blair]

I agree. FWW is the BEST!
Thier website is also the Gold Standard for Woodworkin websites.

:)

[Carl Eyman]

I've been a subscriber since issue 1. Obviously some issues are of more interest than others to me, but what a resource it is to have a library of 160+ issues, well indexed, and as handy as my attic.

But I visited their forum "knots" last night and was astounded to see some of the most idiotic political comments you could imagine. Woosh!

[John Piwaron]

I mean really off topic - politics, subjects that "don't belong in a family newspaper" and so on are the death of groups organized around a common interest.

[Bob Lemon]

We have FWW back to Issue 1, but in 1990 we decided to drop the subscription because of the lack of original content at that time. About 3 months later we had a long conversation with the editor at the big woodworking show in Anaheim. They admitted that their magazine had become 'a little weak' in content as compared to their earlier years. Since that time we have only picked up issues of interest at the store. Their latest issue is one of the best we've seen in years.

Bob Lemon

[Jim Iwanicki]

Did the same as Bob Issue one till 1990 then dropped it and only picked ones that had content I liked. They have gotten better recently but the older issues had more meat to them.

[Jim Izat]

It's kinda funny that my experience with the magazine is opposite to a couple other folks. I started with the magazine in about 1990 when I started getting really interested in woodworking that involved species other than pine or fir. I went through Ebay to finish out my collection because is like a four foot long encyclopedia of woodworking. No matter what kind of question I have I can usually always find fove or six answers there. The only problem is that if they ever shut down their website, I won't be able to find what I'm looking for without their handy dandy "search the back issues" tool!

Jim Izat

[John Piwaron]

I agree. Searching for a particular article can be difficult. Right after issue 120 they published a spiral bound index for issue 1 to 120. There's a lot more issues since then and I had been hoping for an updated spiral bound index. Or at least a CD.

Instead, they came out with that CD containing the most popular articles. That might be good, but for someone with all or most of the issues it's a bit less useful.

And at the heart of the matter is how good the search functionality is. There are times I went to Badger Pond to ask about a particular story because I just couldn't remember when it was published. And searching wasn't working all that well. So it comes down to asking if someone remembered.

[George@Colonel's Workshop]

Good Afternoon Bob,

I can't say my collection goes back to the first issue, nor am a a current subscriber. Your comments piqued my interest, however. I was given a couple cartons filled with early FWW mags, all black and white and chock full of wonderful articles addressing the complete woodworking spectrum. They are so completely different than the dumbed-down offerings currently sold by other pubs. With my diabetic retinopathy problem I can only browse them with a magnifying glass, and that is tedious but still absorbing. I saved many of the other more recent mags to which I subscribed, and it is amazing how many acticles are restated/revised over the years. Like watching Norm do another mortise and tenon joint! I'd as soon read them first in an early FWW. Bettefr prose and better content.

George