Derek, I think you sell yourself a bit short. You may only be able to do woodworking outside of your professional field, but you have produced some fine pieces that many of us have been happy to see come together.
My only reason for having a current woodworking magazine subscription is because of the lowball offer one of them recently made for a two year subscription.
My excitement grew while walking back from the mail box over the cover banner "Cut Cleaner Dovetails." There was nothing on the contents page that led me quickly to the article. The first page of contents listed an article on making a dovetailed dustpan. A quote from its pages, "There are thousands of tutorials on cutting dovetails out there. So I am not going to waste precious ink and paper explaining fundamentals of you can find in almost any book. But I would like to point out what I consider to be the critical aspects of the joint - so read the captions in "The Finer Points of Dovetails" below."
The side article didn't offer any revelations to me for improving my dovetail cutting. It didn't explain about the difference of cutting to the line and cutting through the line. To me that was one of the most important aspects of cutting dovetails that improved my efforts. There was nothing in the article telling readers the line made by transference from the tails to the pin board, or from pins to tail board, is outside of the waste area. This was another important step to improving my dovetails. So many sources say "split the line." Do that with the transferred mark and even your best sawing will leave dovetails with gaps.
On the second page of contents there was "Sliding Dovetail Waste Removal" in the letters section. This piece also didn't contain any earth shattering revelations on making better dovetails.
A promise on the cover not being satisfied by something inside has left me disappointed all too often with more publications than woodworking magazines.
One of my favorite parts of woodworking magazines is the readers tips and techniques. In many issues these have been the most informative parts. They often provide an insight into different ways of thinking and doing things.
I submitted an article on how a Stanley #45 can be used to make stopped cuts. It was rejected with the reasoning being there wouldn't be much interest. Maybe there aren't a lot of folks out there who, like myself, want to learn how to get more functions out of their tools. When a magazine is starting to become thinner over the years one would think they would welcome some different content. Maybe it would have been better to look through some old issues and rewrite an old article for submission.
Occasionally I will still purchase a FWW. The main problem with them for me is everything seems to be about using power tools. The most recent issue was purchased solely because it had an article on shave horses, something I want to learn more about.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)