Wood Working Magazines - Any recommendations?

[Steve N]

What format are you reading? PDF is a good format, it's just most folks read it on Adobe reader which is a pigboat of bloated bloatware, it can crash of it's own weight. If it is PDF try Foxit reader it's a flyweight compared to Adobe, freeware, and comes with 0 added malware, or junk software. You need to pay if you publish on it, but it's a free reader.

I found it back when a lot of the magazines first offered digital back copies. I tried a few, and could barely keep my computer running with 32 gigs of SDRAM using Adobe. Made the switch to Foxit, and actually like PDF now.

[tnff]

It's not PDF, but rather a digital magazine.  I can download a PDF of the magazine if I want, but the actual version is an interactive page of some kind.  Part of the problem is it tries to fit an interactive image of the page into the screen.  Add all the controls, and white space around it and essentially trying to fit an 8.5 x 11 image into 3x5 space.  Zoom in and get a paragraph in the middle of the page but can't see the whole page, esp if it refers to images at once and be able to read it.  So it becomes an exercise of zoom in, zoom out, scroll, zoom back in.  Kind of like fitting a standard magazine into a paperback book, but rather than formatting for the new size, just cut the page up and fit each part onto a different page.

I think electronic publishing will be good, but they need to reformat and update styles and content to fit the new media rather than just forcing the square peg into the round hole so to speak.

jim

[bhh]

Here's another approach.

An acquaintance from many years ago (actually a father of my daughter's school chum who have remained friends for 20+ years) gave me several boxes of old ww magazines that he's downsizing.   I've been reading some of them.

Shop Notes (I think is the title) was all about making your own tools, you know stuff like "make a table saw from your circular saw,"  or "turn your portable drill into a spindle sander."  No interest in that since I have a 40-year collection of tools and machines.

Woodsmith is the one I'm working on now, issues from the early '90s.   I quit this one in the '80s because I found that they did a suite of projects in the same style and function in each issue and that if I was not interested in a Danish Modern coffee table/end table/lamp, that issue was of no interest to me.   But they seem to have changed in the '90s.   A few projects that are broken down by components, like how to make the drawers, how to make the carcass, how to make the crown molding.  Maybe another side article on how to do the specific parts such as a joint or construction technique and a number of process oriented articles.  I think these would be a perfect guide for the beginner or as a refresher.

Now, at the woodworking club meetings, someone is almost always bringing a whole box of old magazines of one sort or another for give away.   What used to be a serial collection of Fine Woodworking or other magazines 15 years ago that would sell for $400+ now people just give away because there's no market with CD-ROM collections available and easier to store.  If so little content has changed and people think "they don't write them like they used to,"  maybe this is a better approach -- look for collections being discarded, post wanted ads on Freecycle or Craig's List and read them at your leisure.

[Steve N]

Woodsmith is the one I'm working on now, issues from the early '90s.   I quit this one in the '80s because I found that they did a suite of projects in the same style and function in each issue and that if I was not interested in a Danish Modern coffee table/end table/lamp, that issue was of no interest to me.  

Every furniture piece I have seen from them seems to be either red, or white Oak. Most of it is what I call contemporary, and I don't go there