Popular Woodworking has new owner
#20
I think one thing killing woodworking interest is the spate of home improvement / flipping shows. Many have these quick projects where "anyone" can make a bookcase out of a few 2x4's from your local home center. And MDF can be used to make all sorts of cabinets and storage projects. Hardly any heirloom projects or projects that require more than just basic power tool skills. Even Ask This Old House has dummied down its woodworking content with Tommy using 2x4's and reclaimed lumber to make basic, basic stuff. I don't think it matters who owns PWW. At the end of the day, only a few will survive.
Still Learning,

Allan Hill
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#21
After one masters the tubafor and MDF they move on to pallet wood. Perhaps in time they will move up to OSB and then...
Any free advice given is worth double price paid.
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#22
The magazine is TERRIBLY thin and 38% was advertisements. If that doesn't change soon I will not renew. My junkmail has more content than that lol.


Glad its my shop I am responsible for - I only have to make me happy.

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#23
(06-21-2019, 01:05 PM)BloomingtonMike Wrote: The magazine is TERRIBLY thin and 38% was advertisements. If that doesn't change soon I will not renew. My junkmail has more content than that lol.

Couple of other insider comments.   
https://readwatchdo.com/2019/06/popular-...not-clear/

https://readwatchdo.com/2019/03/popular-...ankruptcy/
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#24
To hell with all of them, bring back Woodwork!
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#25
(06-21-2019, 09:49 AM)AHill Wrote: I think one thing killing woodworking interest is the spate of home improvement / flipping shows.  Many have these quick projects where "anyone" can make a bookcase out of a few 2x4's from your local home center.  And MDF can be used to make all sorts of cabinets and storage projects.  Hardly any heirloom projects or projects that require more than just basic power tool skills.  Even Ask This Old House has dummied down its woodworking content with Tommy using 2x4's and reclaimed lumber to make basic, basic stuff.  I don't think it matters who owns PWW.  At the end of the day, only a few will survive.

There is not the interest in making wood items as there was in the past.  If you are living in an apartment and probably will move several times in the next ten years. IKEA is your choice.  How many young people can afford a home and work area anymore?   RE home improvement shows:  The Property Brothers - Everything is WHITE.  They paint over good wood.
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#26
(06-21-2019, 09:49 AM)AHill Wrote:   I don't think it matters who owns PWW.  At the end of the day, only a few will survive.

and down the road (in 10, 15 years?), the few will survive in the digital format only when the current "old" readers who still prefer paper version have died or are done with woodworking. Most new and not so new woodworkers have flocked to youtube or instagram for woodworking content. My neighbors' teens are all digital, and reading something in the book form is becoming less and less common. Paper, printing and distribution are costly. There is no reason why paper and digital magazine subscriptions should cost the same.

Pessimistically, I'd give PWW two years (three at the most) to turnaround under the new ownership. If it fails to improve significantly by then, either it changes hands again, or it will be folded for good, just like AW, WW, Woodworking, SN, WW & C, WT Design, etc.

Simon
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#27
(06-23-2019, 06:52 AM)retrdwoodwkr Wrote: There is not the interest in making wood items as there was in the past.  

I work for a technology company with a lot of young people who are somewhat euphemistically called software engineers (I guess its engineering, but I always think mechanical, electrical, civil, etc.) so I apologize for being old school.  They are very talented, but sit all day in front of computer screens coding, and they complain that nothing is concrete and physical about their work.  Yeah, they do the Ikea thing, but quickly realize after one apartment move that the stuff falls apart, and I've had any number of discussions about how they can build things that last.  Some try, some fail, but the ones that don't are getting the bug, and I'm getting a lot of questions from them about how to work wood in an apartment, which leads to the discussion of hand tools and small benches.

I've found they all start with 2x construction stock, getting sucked in by Ana White designs, using pocket screws for load bearing joinery, then they find out that working with 18-20% moisture levels in wood leads to all kinds of wood movement, then I get the questions of how to fix that, etc., etc.  I try to get them to broaden their horizons beyond 2x, and have made some progress in moving them to 5/4 pine from the Home depot (they like thicker...) and then I'll show them how nice a cherry entertainment unit looks and they are agog.  Most live in urban environments (NY, Chicago, Silicon Valley) and there are "makers spaces" available in some of the areas that I've encouraged them to join.

Anyway, there is a nacent interest by the younger folks, we all started for different reasons, indeed, I still have the pine stool that was my first project at age 14, and its held up.  But Norm was more of an eye opener, as the men in my family were in the "personality" line and not in the "mechanical" line when they were handing out genes, so all I ever saw was wood butchery when I grew up; beyond Norm I've been an autodiadact, simply reading books and doing and practicing (Tage Frid's volumes were another eyeopener) and I've moved on from there.  I think the young folks who catch the bug will do the same.

How this translates into magazines, I'm not so sanguine about; young people live online, its all consuming for them, and I don't see that changing.  The are receptive to books, however, so I think LAP might be moving in the right direction....
Credo Elvem ipsum etiam vivere
Non impediti ratione cogitationis
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#28
(06-21-2019, 09:49 AM)AHill Wrote: I think one thing killing woodworking interest is the spate of home improvement / flipping shows.  Many have these quick projects where "anyone" can make a bookcase out of a few 2x4's from your local home center.  And MDF can be used to make all sorts of cabinets and storage projects.  Hardly any heirloom projects or projects that require more than just basic power tool skills.  Even Ask This Old House has dummied down its woodworking content with Tommy using 2x4's and reclaimed lumber to make basic, basic stuff.  I don't think it matters who owns PWW.  At the end of the day, only a few will survive.

I used to always chuckle at the program where two couples swapped and re-decorated a room in each other's house with help of an "expert."    I noted they never showed any close-ups of that glorious work.   My favorite was the kitchen redesign where they painted kitchen cabinets, then stapled on romex and biscuits painted green to look like vining ivy.  I think occasionally there were a few homeowners in tears to see what a mess had occurred.
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