After over 30 years of being a subscriber, and buying most of the early issues I could get my hands on, I finally let my subscription lapse last year.   While looking for some reading material this week, I picked up a couple of the recent issues at the library, which is what I've been trying to do.   My wife thinks that I know have read it all, before, but I'm just not finding much of interest in there recently.   One article in an issue I picked up was how to cut a half-lap miter.  It went on for six or seven pages.  No offense to Steve or other hand-toolers, but the guy cut the whole thing by hand, then (even as he says in the article) does a lot of fine smoothing, trimming and fitting with a plane or chisel.   Geeze.    I would do this on my table saw with a miter gauge (or miter sliding table) and a tenoning jig and be done with it before he roughed it out.  Some operations are more efficient with hand tools than setting up a power tool operation (and jigs!) but this ain't one of them.

ah, what to do:  we have 8 pages to fill, but no ads to put in them, so we need to create some content.  hopefully something we haven't done in the last year or so.  can you stretch a 1/2 page of material to cover 6 pages?  cool, do it.  lots of pics too!

21 minutes ago, kmealy said:

I'm just not finding much of interest in there recently.  

You're not alone there, Keith. I have tons of back issues with all kinds of interesting projects and ideas, but haven't seen anything interesting in a recent issue in quite some time. And FW isn't alone in that regard.

John

The other issue I saw had another article that no less than Paul Sellers panned.https://paulsellers.com/2017/05/re-easy-angled-tenons-article-fine-woodworking/

I have been playing around in this hobby for a bit more than 20 years and I understand what Kmealy is saying. 

But I have a similar experience with wood working stores. or the woodworking shows, (when they actually come to a town close enough for me to go) I walk in with a bit of giddy expectation and either I already have a version most of what they are offering or it's in an area of interest that has i have no interest in. Over time I have aquired most of what I need for what I like to do.

 

There was a time that almost every magazine had a kernel if wisdom or insight that appealed to me, but  now, I have some experience in the craft, but by no means any sort of expert, and much of what I find is a rehashing of something I have already seen. 

 

Speaking for myself alone, I think it's that my perspective has changed rather than the content of the publication as a whole. it can not be easy to find subject matter to put in between the covers every issue that will keep both novice and experienced practitioners engaged. and most magazines will ebb and flow in terms of quality, and my subscription habits tend to follow accordingly. 

I have found popular woodworking to be refreshing recently as there is a lot more text than photos and drawings than in the past and on subjects related to the wood working hobby yet not just "cut these pieces and join them this way"  project instruction manuals.

Edited June 30, 20178 yr by joe the gas man

Have to agree with Joe. Been doing this for over 40 years in some form or another and there is just not that much in the mags and journals that interests me anymore.