No More Magazines For Me

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Rob

New User
Rob
I still get the turning magazines, as I love to see what other people are making. The only two magazines I still get is Woodsmith and Shopsmith because I love the hints in them.
 

jbrphil

New User
JP
My father has many different magazines and found them very little useful. He always go to workshop to learn about something new. His club is great because they invite some people who is expert in specialized area which member learn better.

If you really need magazines, go to library to save money. My library has two different wood working magazines. I would review to see if there is any interest. If there is one, make copies or ask library to reserve the magazine when they are in trash which is about 6 months later.
 

merrill77

Master Scrap Maker
Chris
How can I live with myself duplicating projects out of a magazine?

That's an interesting viewpoint - I found myself thinking about it on the ride into work this morning. I can see both sides of it. On one hand there is creating your own designs...and the other is appreciating excellence in others. I've built three projects exactly from other people's plans. In each of those, the original design was (IMO) visually perfect...I could not improve on it. In one case (my coffee table entry from this year's calendar), the design was not in a magazine but from an amateur WWer who shared his design sketches and measured drawings with me. It is a work of art (if you happen to like that style). I think it would a pity for there to be only one in the world...so I made another...and it's better than any design I had sketched for myself. The third project I only changed a minor element due to a flaw in the original plans not compensating for wood movement properly (a WoodSmith plan for barrister bookcases). It was one of my earlier projects and designing it myself would certainly have been a learning experience, but I am sure the final project would not have come out as nicely. Even working from plans, I still learned a lot.

I've also designed things completely from scratch to my own specifications. In the case of my workbench, I went my own path and the result is unlike any other workbench (AFAIK)...time will tell how well that works out :)

My next big project will be a 5-piece casework set and it will be the most challenging project I've taken on (and certainly the largest). If I found plans that fit the requirements and had the visual style we're looking for, I'd use them. There would still be plenty of challenges for me just executing somebody else's plans -- my joinery skills have a long way to go. But, it looks like I'll be designing it myself, simply because I haven't found plans for what I want. I'm an engineer and excel at designing for function. Designing for form, however, is an area where I'm weak, so I'll be scouring my magazine stack (and the Internet) for visual inspiration.

And some days...well, I spend every day designing software that is unlike any other. When I go into the workshop, especially after a stressful day, sometimes I enjoy just building something. Just the building, without thinking about the design details...and comfortable that someone else with more knowledge than me (maybe) has put a lot of thought into it.

Chris
 

wwidmer

New User
Bill
Since I found http://archive.org/details/magazine_rack (Ebook and Texts Archive > Additional Collections > The Magazine Rack)
my desire to subsribe has dropped. Among the many entries they have issue #1-221 of Fine Woodworking Magazine spanning from 1975 to 10/2011 available online, or in pdf, kindle & ebook formats as well as:
American Woodworker Magazine - 164 entries
Today's Woodworker Magazine - 57 entries
Wood Magazine - 202 entries
Woodsmith Magazine - 189 entries

I like the mags for tips & ideas. Also, just don't have room for storage of all that paper. Wish could get them to list entries by issue #, but a minor beef. Knew about Project Gutenberg in this site for books but had no idea it was tip of the iceberg.

- Bill
 

DavidS

David
User
I have also decided not to renew my subscriptions to all of my woodworking magazines - with the exception of FWW. I have also stop buying DVD's of magazines as they are hard to use and locate articles that you want or need.

I think the future for woodworking and all hobby magazines is electronic tablet editions. I get the FWW digital edition, but find that it does not work very well since they do not reformat the content for tablets, but use photocopies of their print edition. This requires you to move around and then zoom in to be able to read the content. This is far from the ideal of content formatted for a tablet screen size.
 

Flootsie

New User
Milissa
quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by Mike Davis
How can I live with myself duplicating projects out of a magazine?



That's an interesting viewpoint - I found myself thinking about it on the ride into work this morning. I can see both sides of it. Chris

We were talking about a related subject this morning, in that we weren't sure that everyone understands (because we haven't explained it well!) that the turning skills you learn in the Build a Chess Set weekend seminars are the bulk of exterior spindle turning skills for anything & everything. So, to a great degree, if you can turn a pawn, a bishop, and a rook, you can do the exterior turning for most solid-body lathe projects.

BUT FIRST YOU HAVE TO TRY REALLY, REALLY, REALLY HARD TO TURN ALL 16 PAWNS JUST EXACTLY RIGHT.

And then the four bishops, four rooks, four royals,

No innovating.
No, "Okay: I got this."
No swerving from the plan.

Alan & I are great "wing it" types, but just as students in our classes need to first do what they are told/taught to do, so do we. So I truly need the discipline of following someone else's ideas for a little while......................and then their ideas become my skills, and I can incorporate them any way I wish.

However, if I had a larger skill base, I probably wouldn't need to "see one, make one" so much. Mike, for example, has a very large skill base. Plus he HATES HATES HATES to do exactly what he's told to do. :rolleyes:
 
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Gotcha6

Dennis
Staff member
Corporate Member
Years ago, Grainger tried to go to catalog on a CD. It was hard for maintenance guy to take a disk out to job and see if the needed part, especially electric motors, was available. Experiment only lasted a couple years.

I think Grainger's abandonment of the CD version of their catalog was more because ISPs have increased their bandwidth to the point that catalogs can be accessed (and updated) in real time. I can remember when Home Depot did this as well. Maintaining CD production for such services has become antiquated. Nowadays, one can go online to almost any vendor offering it and not only view everything they sell but have it being sent to you, tell you which branch has it in stock closet to you, or on a 'will call' cart at their nearest branch very quickly.
 

jbrphil

New User
JP
I remember some magazines offer online subscription instead of getting magazines in the mail to save trees. It will be good idea for Fine Woodworking mag to offer it or they have already done it? I am in NY for salmon fishing.
 

wwidmer

New User
Bill
I remember some magazines offer online subscription instead of getting magazines in the mail to save trees. It will be good idea for Fine Woodworking mag to offer it or they have already done it? I am in NY for salmon fishing.

Looks like FWW only offers the digital copy free with a print copy subscription. I prefer the digital pdf format on a good sized screen (my eyes are not what they used to be) as this retains picture dimensions better than Kindle & Ipad formats.
 

Gotcha6

Dennis
Staff member
Corporate Member
While I am still adjusting to the use of digital formats for these particular magazines as well as others, I'm afraid I don't have a desk or charging station strategically placed in my bathroom and thus I'll keep getting at least one paper copy of something...... besides, it would seem a little unsanitary to take my notepad EVERYWHERE. Research has shown that most people's smartphones are already crawling with e. coli........ :eek:
 

Flootsie

New User
Milissa
Aside from thanking Dennis for his timely reminders about E. coli..........................................

I was on this thread to say that if anyone wants to donate or sell (for small dollars!) their old mags, I will take them. We don't have cable TV, so just watch movies. In the winter, we try to read each evening in the parlor. A huge stack of mags sounds cozy and perfect!

I will be in Hickory next month, or if you're close I could come by. Also media mail is pretty cheap, and I would pay postage, of course.

Thanks!
 
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