Fine Woodworking Magazine - 'polite' suggestions for improvement?

[Carpenter Mark]

Sorry, have to agree with most- the content of the mag isn't even a shadow of what it once was. I was a subscriber for over twenty years- think I started at #15 and it was filled with articles by pros and some masters who were willing share the benefit of their experience. They weren't being snobby, they were trying to preserve a craft and lifelong learned skill sets. The ownership changed, they got rid of authors who questioned or critisized an advertisers product- even on safety issues- and bent over to those same advertisers. They more and more move away from time proven methods and tools in favor of the newest and shiniest.
A few years back, I had a guy come in and ask where I bought the router bits I used to make an entry door he saw at a clients- while he was leaning on my shaper. I asked him why did he think I used a router, and he began to talk about the FFW articles on it. He also had introduced himself as a furniture and cabinet maker who was going to build a bunch of doors and put together an article on it for the magazine.....

They really have run their course, they'd be better off to re-issue the early issues at 6 a year and do 1 new mag once a year on the newest and shiniest router, sander and Festool.

[Asa Christiana]

Hi, all--
I'm the editor of FWW, and I wanted to let all of you know that I appreciate your feedback. I dont dig into the various forums very often, mostly because I am so busy making the doughnuts! We have passionate readers, and there are a lot of points made in this thread. I'll try to deal with as many as possible.

For a start my email address is achristiana@taunton.com, and I welcome any of you to contact me that way. It is actually better than calling since I can get to it when I have time, and quickly.

There are some conspiracy theories going here, but I can assure you that we are as committed to providing top-notch, practical woodworking info as we ever have been. One of the things that happens as readers grow with us and become more experienced is that their needs and interests change. They no longer need the nitty gritty details on how to build things, or they want only very high end projects and techniques, or their interests fan out, away from the meat and potatoes stuff we all start with (dovetails, routers, etc.) into more obscure corners of the woodworking landscape.

The bottom line is that it is hard to be all things to all people. While we have a lot of very veteran readers, we also have new people entering the tent, and needing the basic foundational info that is so critical. So, in order to keep as many people in the tent as possible (so we can keep bringing you those beautiful drawings and photos that you love), we present a balance of info, some period, some contemporary; some hard, some a bit easier; some stuff like sanding sharpening and finishing that everyone needs, and some stuff closer to the fringes like complex marquetry and how to use a compass plane.

But what we never compromise on is taste and construction. Everything is built to last generations, and designed to look beautiful just as long.

Also, we are always listening and always shifting, surveying our readers constantly and making changes accordingly. Close readers will notice we have a bit more high end techniques, including a bit more hand tool coverage, plus more "I'll bet you've never seen this before" stuff, so we stay relevant and useful to our readers, who, on average, are getting a bit more experienced as the years go on. Unfortunately, not as many new people are entering the craft as they once did. That said, to encourage and feed those newbies, we always make sure we keep the door open for them too. And where we can't quite stretch to give them the super basics, we created StartWoodworking.com, a totally free site that many of us built and fed on our weekends.

Last, I want to point out the FineWoodworking.com let's us go places the magazine can't, for simple space reasons. Check out Jon Binzen's wonderful Masters of the Craft audio slideshows and blogs, which are a continuation of the Back Cover features! Hope all this helps. Keep letting us know what you like and don't like, and feel free to email me personally!

[Pat Barry]

I like FWW and think it is the best woodworking source available on the newstand. It is clearly better than anything else on the shelf. It may be the perceptions of the magazine being something less than it was are more a reflection of the skill set of the people here getting better because of the magazine. You have learned and improved and now you think the magazine has gone backward but you have gone forward.

[James White]

Asa,

Thank you for jumping in here. I for one agree with Pats Barry's comments. FWW is the best woodworking magazine available. I hope it stays that way. See my comments about the pop ups.

I would also like to encourage the members here to take a look at the content you recommend below. Jon Binzen's wonderful Masters of the Craft audio slideshows. It reminds me of the late Woodwork magazine. I watched every one of them just last week.

Last, I want to point out the FineWoodworking.com let's us go places the magazine can't, for simple space reasons. Check out Jon Binzen's wonderful Masters of the Craft audio slideshows and blogs, which are a continuation of the Back Cover features! Hope all this helps. Keep letting us know what you like and don't like, and feel free to email me personally!

[Asa Christiana]

Good point, James. we are redesigning the site to get rid of some of those annoying popup windows. Stay tuned.

[Kenneth Speed]

I think we as readers and woodworkers change and evolve and I think the magazine has changed.

There is no doubt that print media are struggling to survive in the electronic age and I think FWW is struggling as well.

On the other hand, I allowed my subscription to FWW lapse quite a while ago because it seemed every issue was a repeat of one from the recent past. How many sharpening articles can one read? How many, "tune up your bench plane" articles does one need? It also bothered me that the contributors to FWW seemed to be gifted with some sort of God like prescience and were inherently incapable of making a woodworking error- ever.

I occasionally buy an issue although the price is an atrocity but I doubt that I'll resubscribe any time soon.

[michael case]

How about some big boy tool reviews and some big boy woodworking? I'm tired of such inanities as "which table saw had its table aligned most precisely out of the box?" Who cares I'm going to tune any saw I buy anyway. How about something meaningful about the heft and precision of the machining on the table saw. How about having the motors stripped by a qualified tech (not Roland Johnson) and tells us about the quality of the windings and electronics. Maybe the projects should be something beyond "how to make a crosscut sled" - (the wrong way!). The last thing they did that impressed me was a couple of years ago now when they had a properly equipped university lab test the strength of about seven different glue joints. Interesting articles and reviews are getting to be few and far between.

[James White]

"How about having the motors stripped by a qualified tech (not Roland Johnson) and tells us about the quality of the windings and electronics."

Or they could focus on producing content like this.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/arts-...orking-eletter

[phil harold]

I would agree with most on how the magazine has changed...
but
I also think most readers have changed too.
After 30+ years of woodworking and reading FWW I have become more educated in woodworking, while retaining much of the information it is hard to find a new method or knowledge from magazines in print. During the past 30 years Box stores are trying to sell the idea that anyone can be a woodworker or homebuilder and many magazines are tapping those customers too.
I think tool reviews need to be done buy various people in the trade and use the item for 6 months to provide a realistic opinion of the item and comparison to similar products.
In reality in six months a new version would be out

What we need is a professional magazine/forum where if you are not in the professional side of it you dont get in. Just like some of my suppliers that require 3 years verifiable references and professional accounts before letting you buy from them.

For some reason I canceled my FWW subscription for the same reasons posted here, yet I keep my Wood subscription.

[Brad Pickens]

I'm a bit perplexed by this thread--I'm not entirely clear what the complaint is. Which issue was it again that had the birdhouse plans? I must have missed that one. And the low quality work on the hay-rake table or the screens from the last issue, sure, those are aimed at the novice woodworker and the magazine has clearly gone downhill. I was able to get some pine one-bys from the local big box and whip both of those projects out in a weekend, one project for Saturday and one for Sunday.
I have every issue of FWW and regularly re-read them at lunch, just to brush up on skills, find a piece I'd forgotten about, and I'll often find a technique that is useful for something that I'm currently working on. Is. 35 is the one I'm currently reading and it has some pretty high end work. It also has a cover article on picture framing, tips on making router jigs, and wouldn't you know, an article on how to tune a bench plane. Sounds pretty comparable to what is in there now. Now that we all have Asa's e-mail, Id' say that we've put that complaint to rest. In terms of the quality of the contributors, it seems to me that Garrett Hack, Christian Becksvoot, Phil Lowe, and Steve Latta, among others, manage to put together some pretty decent pieces. I guess it's not the same as the early issue Tage Frid articles on using bandsaws, jointers, and routing mortises, but it'll have to do. And if you dislike the tool reviews now, try to make sense of some of the ones from the mid-eighties. Re-reading the old issues reveals the same complaint that comes up here occasionally about the current issues--there was some repetitiveness even in the early years (you can't expect a magazine that's been around for over 30 years to have nothing but uniquely new content) and the second time around lends itself to skimming articles that were read straight through the first time.
There may be some soft focus nostalgia at work in the notion that the early issues were somehow more focused on the "purity" and beauty of the craft (or whatever magic it was that they had that is supposedly missing now) or that they focused strictly on the highest end of the woodworking spectrum. Part of that perception is no doubt linked to the state of the industry then and now. The 1970s were the beginning of the craft revival and it was breaking new (old) ground to describe how to sharpen a chisel or go into the woods to make a chair from a tree. There were guys like Frid (who taught an awful lot of people the basic movements of woodworking through those articles and through his books), and other guys like Wendell Castle, or Art Carpenter who were really exploring new forms and doing exciting things with wood. But now an lot of people manage to do all that in their garage over the weekend and it's lost some of its uniqueness. There is an entire industry dedicated to providing the tools and know-how to allow anyone willing to invest the time and money to do just about anything they want. The world of craft is simply different today, the perception is therefore different, and what will get written about is different. (BTW, the same things can be seen in Fine Homebuilding--the early issues had a lot of really innovative articles on rammed earth construction, "earth ships", and the like. Cool stuff, but thoroughly a product of their time). Neither publication is particularly better or worse than it was, it is just focused on different needs.
I also subscribe to Popular Woodworking (which seems to be strongly appreciated around here). I have to say that I've never given any consideration to the "You Can Build It" section, since I don't need a square footstool or a shelf held together with nails, I'm perfectly happy with my workbench (which like all workbenches has its compromises), I don't have a need for a $4,000 smooth plane (even if I want one), and I'm not sure that I want to give up my calipers or Starrett square for a 19th century way of doing the exact same thing, just because that was how it was done in the 19th century.
Not everything in either publication applies to me, and I don't find stunning insights from every article. Some get skimmed through, and someone might complete a simple process differently than I would, but that might be a valuable way to accomplish a particular goal on a different project. Who knows, someday I may even need to use some 150 year old layout technique to solve a problem. As several others have pointed out, our skills change over the years and what was fresh information when we started may be pretty tired when we see it again. If we develop the skills for that to happen, then that is good, but not everyone is in the same place in their journey. FWW is what it is, and there are places where it could surely improve itself. Like anything else that we become familiar with, there are likely to be some diminishing returns, but that doesn't negate the overall value of what it offers. Some of the suggestions made here are good, but I do wonder if the needs expressed might be better accomplished through a local woodworkers guild or the like that focuses on professional or high-quality amateur work and production processes, rather than expecting a magazine to do all that? Or perhaps a webzine that focuses on that end of the spectrum and that provides what is lacking?

[Keith Hankins]

I have to credit FWW with getting me back into WW about 7 years ago. I had loved it put everything away for years when a casual conversation with my brother it was suggested to check it out as the "best" WW mag out there. Second the forum knots was the best source of information and assistance around. I happened to go there and the rest is history. I can remember this very thread when I started from the "old timers" and wondered why, it was all new to me, but I'll admit I was green. I subscribed to all the mags I could slowly built up my tools and here i am today with some nice pieces under my belt even one from plans (cherry hutch) from FWW. In the beginning being green i soaked it up but found as I developed my skills i relied less and less on the mag but the forum was fantastic. I used to go there several times a day just so I would not have too many messages to read. I subscribed to the online content when that first came out as well. Well here I sit today and I have to agree that it's not what it was even when I started. I could not waite for the copy to arrive and cover to cover was the plan. I can scan in about 15 - 20 min now and while the pictorial quality is great, it is not too challenging. However is that because of content or my skill has advanced and the things what would interest me 7 years ago is old hat now. I don't know. However I will say that after that first flourish into all the ww mags, I've dropped them all except popular WW as I have found it's gone the opposite, its articles hand tools etc writing seem to be getting better over time. Dropped FWW couple years ago. Now I know that knots was a freebee but they killed that forum with the change in systems. I still go there once every few days and see only a hand full of new messages and all the old timers that shared so much and I learned from are all gone. Sad but true. Anyway I hope FWW comes back but It's not looking promising. I do miss it dearly it was the best.

[Roy Turbett]

Asa-

My woodturning club recently issued a challenge to turn a croquet mallet and ball to be judged and used during our summer picnic. A fellow woodturner told me about an excellent out-of-print FWW article on Malletsmithing that wasn't available through the website. The staff at FWW were gracious to send me a clean copy of the article and permission for our club to make a limited number of copies. On behalf of the Michigan Association of Woodturners I want to thank you and your staff for this kindness.

[Matt Day]

I haven't been ww'ing as long as a lot of folks on this site (about 7 years for me), but I still get very excited when a new magazine is in the mailbox (my wife teasingly calls it wood porn)! I grew up seeing the magazine in the mail for my father.

The main request I have is less Arts & Crafts style furniture! Maybe there are a lot of people out there that like it, but I'd like to see some different styles more often. Still, I read the articles and usually pick up a trick or new method of doing something.

I say keep up the good work!

[Pat Barry]

There are three things I look forward to in every issue: The reader projects; the back cover and master class; I would love to see more of each of these..

[Van Huskey]

First, I still enjoy FWW and constantly read back issues (from DVD-ROM) and look forward to the new issues. I never fail to see something that inspires me.

There is one thing I would really like to see though, I would like to see a running series (always one going) which builds a "masterpiece" or "bucket list) piece maybe take a year (7 issues?) or more to do it. Stuff like a Maloof Rocker or Newport Secretary etc. It could inspire the newbies and push the old farts to try something new and different. Each issue could move the piece forward and have a "master class" on one or two of the unusual or difficult details or just a new way to accomplish one the the core steps.

As most of you know I love bandsaws but I devour every BS article since I have yet to find one that didn't show or suggest something new or challenge one of my beliefs. Though not a FWW thing when I saw Ng sharpen a card scraper (something I have been doing fairly succesfully for a long time) it opened my eyes in a whole new way that makes them a far more quick and useful thing for me. Just because it is another article on "fill in the blank" doesn't mean you won't learn something. That useful bit here and there is worth the price of admission for me. If nothing else just seeing the trends in furniture (especially since I am not a period kinda guy) is worth it to me.

To people that think the reviews are poor, try to do one yourself and open it up to peer review. You will never make everyone happy, people defend their purchases and bias. Look at cars... people used to complain the magazines were in BMWs pocket due to ad space, however when ad space was quantified it was clear US and Japanese manufacturers paid them far more money.

Also add the UK published Furniture & Cabinetmaking to your tasting menu, I like it too.

Finally, if you think FWW is too basic what magazine do we have that isn't, even if the food chain has gotten lazy to me it still stands head and shoulder above the rest in FINE woodworking.