Woodworking Magazines

[Wally]

Is it just me or the woodworking magazines didn't come up with anything interesting in the last few months? I suscribe to Wood Magazine and Fine Woodworking and I buy several others at the newstand but didn't find anything really exciting lately.

It's really depressing to see the Mission style bedroom set that Wood Magazine will come up in the upcoming issues.

What kind of wood furniture you guys like?

Do the Mission, Shaker and Arts & Crafts style are the bulk of the projects you're doing most of the time? I have the feeling that those style have been around for hundreds of years and that every single woodworking magazine offered many version of them in the past few years. You'll never find that kind of furniture in Fine Woodworking.

Thanks for sharing your design opinions and appreciations.

Wally

[Phisherman]

[Basic Wedge]

Summer issues are usually pretty lame. Just wait for the annual biscuit joiner review which ought to be out in October!

Rob

[Swingman]

Mission and A&C for the most part. ;>)

Could it be that you've outgrown the mags like Wood with your skill level? It happens to most who stick with it sooner or later.

Like hell you won't!... take a CLOSE look at the outside back cover of the August FWW. Study the detail of the piece ("acoustic armoire") carefully, then run over in your mind what steps, and what joinery methods, you would take to duplicate that piece without plans. What you see is an absolute masterful execution of A&C craftsmanship that most any woodworker worth the moniker would be proud to have the skill to accomplish.

Much of the furniture I see in the "Current Works" section of FWW, while impressive for it's artistic craftsmanship, is NOT something I would want to build for my own consumption ... and another reason why all cars aren't black.

[Wolf Lahti]

Why copy any style at all? Design your own. Through a more-or-less random method (What can I make out of the stock at hand?), I've developed my own style, which magazines like Popular Woodworking and Wood will be publishing plans for long after I'm dead.

Uh-huh.

[Wally]

Not really... Usually when I flip through magazine pages, I see many articles of a certain interest for me on topics like tool tests, woodworking projects, finishing products + techniques, wood characteristics, new techniques or/and fields I didn't started yet (carving or turning for that matter), etc...

It just happens that I didn't see anything interesting since around March.

I think it's because they start to repeat themselves... I've heard once that readership has an 18 months turnover... So you can start repeating articles after 2 years and the vast majority of your suscribers will see the "repeated" articles for the first time... Not only that, I flipped through some books and realized that projects that was once featured in a magazine were all grouped in a book... When you have all the magazines, you don't want to spend 30$ to get the book version...

Anyway, I've already about a dozen projects that I need to complete before looking for something else. I should have for a year or two at the speed I work... Then I should be ready to design my own stuff afterward.

Wally

[patriarch]

Wally wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Woodwork came in today's mail. Once again, it's well worth the time and the money. Jon Arno had an excellent, well-researched article on various types of walnut. Michael Cullen did a great article on how to use knife hinges, which I've only skimmed so far. Someone else wrote an article I have yet to digest on making and using magnetic switches for various power tools. I'll look more closely at that one, since I determined by accident that my bandsaw doesn't have one. An article on a Greene & Greene inspired lamp that actually looks like a work of art. Building a harp. A review of a major museum show on modern furniture. A presentation on a Japanese wood sculptor. A couple of other how to articles, well illustrated. A letter and response on sustainable bubinga and other 'exotic' woods, and understanding the influences on their uses and misuses. Lists of clubs and classes and shows.

$4.99 on the newstand. More inspiration than I can use in a year or two. And an excellent counter balance to the ShopNotes/Woodworker's Journal publications, to which I also subscribe.

Raise your sights, once in a while. Do something artsy. Worst case, it becomes firewood, and no one will know.

Patriarch

[Swingman]

That's about right. The repetitive nature of the mags is what stopped me a few years back. FWW is about the only one I pick up at the news stand anymore, and that just when something in it interests me.

There are a couple of books on design, while not the cat's meow, are worth reading at the library, or over coffee at Barnes and Nobles. One that comes immediately to mind is "Furniture Design" by Graham Blackburn. I've read it cover to cover a couple of times in the last couple of years and get something out of it every time.

Although I don't think I will ever be very good at design, I rarely use plans and almost always design custom pieces these days. I still pay attention to all the furniture I see, analyze the design elements of each piece, keep notes, and critique and try to learn from my design mistakes ... it is an apparently never ending learning process.

Good luck.

[DarylRos]

Magazines tend to run in cycles. FWW got way too mecahnical some years ago. I remember an article on making your own table saw fence that required the machine ability of Boeing.

However, when you think about it, styles like Mission will always be published, because most woodworkers are either beginners or some form of intermediate. You can make mission furniture with a table saw and router. Krenov type stuff tends to be more specialized. FWW and Woodwork have more of those; consequently their readership will be lower, since they appeal to a smaller area of interest. They will rarely run a "How to make a great hall bookcase" type of feature.

I used to get Woodsmith and ShopNotes every month. I stopped them for two reasons: The projects repeated with different features, and my method of work (more hand work, or whatever was needed to work swiftly) began to vary from theirs. I frankly think some of their machine operations run a bit too dangerous for me, and I can now do many things by hand faster and better.

[Rich]

I thought the "glue testing" review was pretty interesting. Wood mag I think.

Shocked and confused that the polyurethane glues are weaker than yellow glue except when submerged under water for 24 hours.

Rich