I'm going thru some of my collection and currently have a stack of late '70s and early '80s issues.   Some things:

• Lots of how-to articles
• Articles by some of the classic writers, Tage Frid, R. Bruce Hoadley, and others
• Some very classic articles that came in my early woodworking education and I still use.
• Ads for lots of "mail order" suppliers
• Full page ads for Shopsmith
• Ads for machinery no longer made
• Lots of letters to the editors asking questions, criticizing prior columns, or adding advice or techniques.

Ahhh, the good ol days of interesting magazines.

In the 80s our library had a subscription, I would check it out and copy those articles of interest. I kept them in a ring binder for a long time. Now I have no idea what happened to it.

I've got a stack.  Nearly threw them out a few days ago when going through the contents of a basement closet.  Couldn't throw them out, yet. Likely from the late 70s and early 80s.  I suspect some bored day I'll dig them out to peruse before finally tossing them.   Fond memories. 

4D

3 hours ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

In the 80s our library had a subscription, I would check it out and copy those articles of interest. I kept them in a ring binder for a long time. Now I have no idea what happened to it.

Check under your benches. Probably with the pencils.

I have several file boxes of Wood,  Woodsmith, Shop Notes and Family Handyman stashed away in the garage attic. My wife thinks I got rid of them.

I still have a shelf full of the old mags.  Never look at them.  Should probably reread one a week and toss it.

Also, amazed at the number of "handy hints" that I thought were pretty obvious or maybe just been around a long time.

 

Ads for Inca tools, Shopsmith full page ads, AMT cheap tools (just add a motor, available for $50), and Williams & Hussey saw chip ejector (planer-molder0

I started with Pop Mechanics cutting articles out and kept them in a file cabinet. Then Wood and instead of cutting I made a card file with categories and write in article issue and page with stars if I planned to do the project. Still have most of the wood along with Shop Notes (all of them) , Woodsmith, Family handyman was separated out (not much in it). Then here is that case of Organic Gardening I inherited from FIL.OH forgot all those NRA mags and American Woodturner. 

 

Ok looks like I have a problem only a bonfire will solve. Sure don't want to move all this to new shop maybe in the next year.

When we were preparing to move from the mountains to Tucson, I gathered up all my woodworking mags and gave them to a local woodworker. Many years worth of Pop wood, Wood, FWW, Woodsmith. He was happy but I don't think his wife was.

 

I had a big collection of wood and Woodsmith, along with odd and ends copies of others....they filled the 2 bottom drawers of a 3 drawer file cabinet. I moved twice taking them with me, and then decided that won't happen again. So i bought the Wood and Woodsmith thumb drives and tossed the magazines (recycled). Another thing it eliminated was the twice-a-year or so sorting I would do to get them in order of published date. that allowed me to find things a little easier.

12 hours ago, Gerald said:

I started with Pop Mechanics cutting articles out and kept them in a file cabinet.

My first exposure to the value of magazines was finding a stack of Popular Mechanics in a basement cabinet of my grandfather's house.  Grandpa was delighted that I'd found them and let me take them back home after our visit. I know I went through every one.  When I started earning my own money I subscribed to both Popular Mechanics and Popular Science.   They were the web for me those days, bringing info from the world for me to peruse each month.  I've been slowly evicting them from my house over the last few years since I retired.  Emptying Rubbermaid bins that I'd been carrying them from house to house in. 

Over the past year or so, I have recycled enough magazines to give the garbage collector a hernia! Seven or eight woodworking types, fishing, hunting, aquarium, ponds, astronomy and probably a few others. Somewhere around twenty a month, from the early 70's until magazines went out of favour a few years ago. Started to go through them, but soon realized I wasn't going to live long enough to read then all. After all, I'll be 75 soon! But I DID save around 100, just to give the LOML something to do after I'm gone. 

Sadly any body damage caused by getting rid of my collection will be on me.    Left knee reminded me it isn't 100% these day by complaining after I cleared the driveway and sidewalk of snow. 

Edited January 11, 20251 yr by 4DThinker

Had to laugh at this ad.

Penultimate def.

pe·nul·ti·mate

adjective

last but one in a series of things; second last.

 

and an ad for the local dealer where I had bought all my equipment

Well, today I saw an article on cutting box joints on a radial arm saw.  Skipped that one.

Can't say that I blame you. Honestly, as a big RAS fan I don't even see how that's possible.

Edited January 14, 20251 yr by Fred W. Hargis Jr

10 hours ago, kmealy said:

Well, today I saw an article on cutting box joints on a radial arm saw.  Skipped that one.

I can see how, and I've used my RAS for a few crazy stupid cuts, but I'd use glue and screws rather than a RAS to cut box joints if that was my only option. 

4D

I've got the full set of FWW magazines along with a few duplicates of their early issues.