Simple question I guess:
What is your favourite woodworking magazine and why?
(FIL offered to renew a magazine subscription for me for my birthday... decided that New Scientist is a bit of a joke, so figure I might replace it with something a bit more interesting ;-)
Take your pick:
I subscribe to a bunch of them, some UK produced and some from the U.S. and like all of them for different reasons.
The various ones from the Guild of Master Craftsmen are good.
New Woodworking is similar to Practical Woodworking but perhaps a bit higher in terms of typical skill/equipment level; Furniture Making if you aspire to higher things.
All of these have UK ads and sources of things.
In some respects, the American ones are better.
For example, Woodsmith
The other major U.S publisher is Taunton Press, who have Fine Woodworking as their lead magazine. This is a bit higher level (but not hugely so) than New Woodworking/Practical Woodworking and has U.S. ads in it. I feel that it's a higher quality production that NW/PW and there's a bunch of supporting material on the web site in terms of plans/videos/books if you want those. Most of the books/videos are very well done. In the magazine there are sometimes materials and techniques that you can't easily get/do here, but there are alternatives.
If I was restricted, I'd probably pick between New Woodworking and Fine Woodworking.
Fine Woodworking
Expensive aspirational US mag. It's worth reading to see what's _possible_ to make, but you'll have to be pretty good before you're using it as a source of projects.
Furniture & Cabinet Making
Best of the UK mags. Articles are of variable quality, David Charlesworth is usually good on techniques, Kevin Ley has all the deisgn subtlety and flair of Linda Barker.
Good Woodworking
Good beginner's mag. Very short-project based. Different publisher and although it's the only woodie mag they do, they clearly know how to write readable mags. Anyone can make anything from this mag, with no experience, no obscure timber and minimal tools. Those who already know a bit more will find little to interest them.
Practical Woodworking.
Somewhere between the two. Moderately interesting to look through, but not a project-based mag. Projects they do have will be a twenty-issue series on making a violin or a sailing dinghy, not something you might just decide to whip up one weekend on a whim.
I buy every issue of FWW, even if I have to give up food to afford it. I flick through FCW and buy one a year, when something catches my eye.
Mmmm.... I don't hugely disagree. Each of them have something to offer. I'd like to aspire to some of the FCM stuff even though I don't have time/skill to do them, and would like something a bit better than PW and NW. OTOH, some of the articles by David Charlesworth et al. make the hand tool techniques worthwhile.
I tend to take pieces from various articles as techniques and ideas rather than building things verbatim, although I have to say that the Americans are pretty good at producing reasonable follow up plans that work or can be readily adapted.
That one looks good... supprisingly cheap for a mag with no ads as well. Especially at the current exchange rate ;-)
Yup I can see a selection is going to be the order of the day ;-) Right that sorts out some answers to the usual questions - thanks guys!
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