FWW going downhill

Re: Your review was on the money

Russell Seaton

>Woodwork gets me thinking like the old FWW used to.Even if the story of a top WWer leaving the trade to become an OR nurse

I also thought about that article. Based on the pictures and story, this was one of the most accomplished woodworkers around. Nothing was beyond his ability. He could build fine pieces of intricate furniture and manage all of the minute details of large projects. Yet he was going broke as a woodworker.

I decided woodworking is for the high tech modern kitchen/bath cabinet factory, or the home hobbyist who earns 6 figures to the left of the decimal place with his day job.

415/382-0583 subscriptions

Michael-San Francisco

>

Since you asked, Bill...

David Barnett - Venice, FL

>I had to think just how long ago it's been since I even looked at a FWW and conclude that I've bought two issues in the last three years. I have two bankers boxes of old issues dating consecutively from 1993 to 1999, then a few issues through 2000, then about a half dozen to present.

Partly, this reflects my personal saturation with FWW's editorial scope & focus, target readership and advertising. I mean, everyone comes to the craft at a certain point where FWW is porridge at just the right temperature. Everything's new and interesting. Someone just encountering woodworking and FWW who hasn't bought all the tools, router toys, who isn't sure what alternate top bevel grind means, much less a back bevel and why you'd need more than one plane anyway, obviously has some reading to do. I have all the power tools I'm ever going to buy (and a few I'll probably sell). I know enough ways to join boards together to cover all my future projects, have made my peace with a couple finishes, know my lumber and where to get it, and built a joiner's bench that seems like I won't outgrow it. New tools and geegaws? Ways to tune them? I'll hear about it right here.

All that aside, it is true that FWW's not what it used to be. There truly was that early golden age (mostly before I ever started reading FWW); Frid, Kirby, Klausz, and a broad group of woodworkers who produced all those meaty Taunton collections of reprinted articles where I learned at least half of what I now know. And while there are genuinely fine woodworkers writing today, there are many I could do without: rehashers and hacks to outright pedants like Anthony Guidice.

In spite of the inevitable FWW redundancies and recent sloppiness, Taunton has managed to publish some pretty good books, so they still occasionally get my dollars.

Overall, I'm glad FWW was there when I needed it and hope it finds its way to staying useful.

Bill taunts "(what'd you think, David Barnett? Any worthwhile ideas? Mind being teased?)"

A whole lot less than I mind being waxed.

Okay, a positive suggestion

David Barnett - Venice, FL

>Hire Adam Cherubini as FWW Handtools editor. Or better yet, let him edit a spinoff magazine "Handtools", with a total focus on using & user handtools, and making handtools (not just infills, though, and NOT collecting). I'm serious. It took me awhile to latch onto Adam's way of seeing things and saying things. Now I find it informative and refreshing.

Re: Okay, a positive suggestion

Roger Nixon

>But we don't have to pay for Adam :)! All we have to do is toss around a few terms not according to Moxon ("frame saw" on the Old Tools List brought the first his rants I've read) and here comes an article :)!

I, too, find Adam refreshing and informative and I read just about everything he writes.

Metric Rant

Todd Stock

>Let's see...divide a inch into 10, right? I can do that...simply find the halfway point, then do it again for each 1/4", then again for each 1/8"...er, ah, sorry...that would be fractional inches in 8ths.

What you're forgetting is...

HC Sakman

>that metric system have equvalent divisions that are 1/10 or x10 of each-other. You just can't take a unit and divide into 10 and call it a day. For example: What's the relation in between a mile and an inch? That relation is not dividable by a common denominator number. That's the difference.

Chico...

Standard and Metric -- I play for both teams!

Edward Damewood, Northern Alabama

>Well, I resisted yesterday on the standard and metric topic, but I have succumbed now and I'm drawn into the fray.

The thing is this: I'm an engineer by profession and a woodworker (occasionally) by hobby.

At work, it just plain wears me out to have to convert units to feet, miles per hour, and so forth -- because the units and conversions are so darned inconvenient. I can easily do a lot of math without a calculator when the units are metric, because I have all of those powers of 10 to work with. That's quite convenient when I'm sanity-checking a computation and I don't have my RPN calculator handy (geek alert!). The multiplies and divides are much simpler that way, for the powers of ten add and subtract out of the exponents. At work, give me MKS or give me death!*

That said, I am just as adamantly in favor of using inches (and nice binary fractions of inches) when I'm working on some sort of home project.** Now, why is that? (I'm wondering, too.) Well, for one thing, I like the variety of unit sizes it affords me -- quarters, eights, sixteenths, as opposed to different chunks of mm (7, 3, etc.). You may not buy this, but, for me, generally the mm is too small and the cm is too big in doing my little projects. I like to be able to estimate by cutting in half, too. But, I guess the main thing is that typically the math that I am doing on these home projects is just addition and subtraction -- and the power-of-ten conversions that make the metric system so much better for me at work basically do not play. Adding or subtracting fractions here and there isn't that big of a deal once you've done it a few times.

Heavens to Betsy, I need to stop. I hope I have not been offensive.

I haven't read all the threads that are going right now, so please pardon me if I've repeated things that others have pointed out. But, most of all, please pardon me for this endless babble.

Edward Damewood, not too far from the Tennessee

~~~

* MKS = meters, kilograms, seconds -- a biggish flavor of the metric system

** And I'm good with feet for some sort of construction project (e.g.) where the number of inches becomes unwieldy.

On the ball....

HC Sakman

>You said pretty much what I was saying. For home improvements and woodworking in general, everything (in North America) is sold in Imperial system. Materials and the tools to work with them. "If one can't beat them, should join them" type of thing, I found agonizing (long time ago) to convert and adopted Imperial for those tasks.

End of the story. (for me.)

Chico...

Oops! (We are agreed.)

Edward Damewood, Northern Alabama

>Chico,

Roger that. It seems that I didn't scroll down and catch the bottom of your upstream post!

Edward Damewood, somewhat red-faced.

Re: Okay, a positive suggestion

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>There would have to be two complementary hand tool editors: Adam for before 1800, and another for after.

Think of the great articles that could be written, with opposing viewpoint sidebars!

Is that another form of bilingual??

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>

I didn't get your comment.

HC Sakman

>What are you saying?

Chico...

Judy McKie *LINK*

Clay C in Miami

>Here's some of what she's been up to ...

(I had to look this up, I know a painter who lived in NZ named Judy McKie.) Below, a link and some URLs to the 'furniture Judy's' work.

(Way OT, 'painter Judy' and her husband have [they hope temporarily] moved back to the states, leaving their 40 gorgeous waterfront NZ acres vacant, because they said that the anti-American sentiment was becoming so strong that they now felt unwelcome. This, in a place they loved and lived for 20+ years, and which is of course one of our natural allies. So sad. And scary.)

Clay

http://www.furnituresociety.org/cs/nov2002/boston.html

http://www.hamptonsart.com/woodscape/judy.htm


McKie 1

LOL

Ryan Stagg -- Cincinnati

>But perfect for 'lectricity hating galoots, right? ;-)

Sounded to me

Dan Donaldson

>Like he was saying being conversant in metric and Imperial, two different systems, just like some can speak two (or more) different languages.;-)

Dan D. (who can speak metric and Imperial, can almost speak English, and a bit of Spanish;-))

Re: I didn't get your comment.

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Dan(see lower post) got my meaning. I know that at least in languages being able to speak more than one language is extremely valuable. I wish I was better at measuring systems and a second language. I am becoming better in the Metric system but my Spanish is ,alas, not improving at all.JR

:-) I've got it now... FYI though...

HC Sakman

>....My native language is Turkish, not Spanish. I don't blame anybody for assuming that though. What else to guess over a nickname like "Chico"? ;-)

Re: :-) I've got it now... FYI though...

Dan Donaldson

>Actually, in my post below, the reason I mentioned Spanish was because I lived in Mexico for a couple of years and did manage to learn a fair amount of it. Unfortunately, I haven't had much chance to use it in the last 15 years or so, so it is VERY rusty.

My kids do better though. My Oldest daughter speaks Spanish and French, One of my sons speaks Spanish, French, and German, and another of my daughters speaks Spanish (She is actually living in Bolivia right now for a year or so). Multiple languages, like multiple measuring systems are a definate advantage.

Re: :-) I've got it now... FYI though...

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>Chico...I'm shagrined to say I assumed(insert quote about making an a__ out of u and me)that your nickname related to your heritage. In extension tho I only have experience in English and Spanish. The 3 years I studied Spanish in high school only provide me with acceptable pronounciation and very limited vocabulary. This does mean that you are at least quadralingual if you lump measurment and language;-)JR

Thanks, though there's one more to add

HC Sakman

>I was fluent in French. As a matter of fact, my French used to be better than my English today. Now most of my French is gone but if I spend 3 months in a French speaking community, it'll come back to me.

So, would that make five-ouple? ;-)

Thanks,

Chico...

Re: 415/382-0583 subscriptions

Rusty Miller

>Another good thing about Woodwork compared to FWW is the subscribition cost. Woodwork is $40 something for 3 years to FWW $80 something for 3 years.

Rusty,Tye,TX

Aye...I believe it would!

Joe Rogers, Northern Virginia

>And I remember the line of the Russian standup comedian (who's name escapes me)that was "If you hear someone speak with and accent it probably means he speaks at least one more language than you do!" It serves to keep me humble.JR

Yakov Schmirnoff

Jack from Maine

>

Re: A newbie's challenge (very long pseudo-rant)

Adrian, Bavaria, Germany

>Dear Michael R,

I think I have to apologize. I dont want to be the smart guy from Europe, who knows everything better. It is like Chico said in responding my mail: I am frustrated by being unable to handle the Imperial system. And all these fine plans in FWW and elsewhere are Imperial!

On the other hand I am absolutly sure that the american success has many keys, but the Imperial system.

Take woodworking for example: Here in Germany you are not allowed to open a woodworking shop unless you have a "Meisterbrief" (cant translate), it means that you have to learn for 3 years, pass a test, work for another 3 years, go to "Meisterschule", and pass another test. Then you are allowed to make a peace of furniture and sell it to a customer.

Over here it is all for machines. A cabinetmaker once told me, if he has to plane something by hand his profit is off and away. Lee-Nielsen goes through the roof and Ulmia is bankrupt, that is the story.

My point is: FWW is better than everything there is over here. And if it comes to handwork almost everything is better in America (if it wasnt for that maesuring!)

I hope I could have made me more understandable.

Cheers

Adrian, off for a beer now (one thing thats better here )