Re: Woodworking Magazines
Michael Recchione
>I would have totally agreed with you a couple of years ago, and I would still love to see a magazine like that. But now I'm wondering if it's enough. A hand-tool magazine could degenerate into the same kind of boring tool comparison stuff and rehashes of basic techniques that take up most of the space in the mainstream magazines. For me, it isn't only the increased presence of hand-tool articles in PW that makes it so much better than it once was, it's series like Adam's, that get into the philosophy and approach.
I'd like to see more elaborate hand-tool projects. Have you ever noticed that the "real" projects in the magazines always use power tools? I mean, every once in a while you get an article about building a little footstool or small hanging cabinet or other small, simple tchatchke using hand-tools. But I would love to see articles on making big, complicated stuff, say a chest of drawers or a dining room table or whatever, not only using hand-tools exclusively, but also addressing the approach that you would take, i.e. not just substituting hand tools for machines blindly. Things like "Don't bother to smooth the bottom of this board, it's invisible." Or, "Don't bother to four-square this board, it's not important." Or "The exact width of this thing doesn't matter, cut all these pieces from the same board so they match..." In other words, projects that put into practice the "Arts and Mysteries" that Adam was talking about.
What I would also really love to see is a magazine that takes you beyond furniture, and does it using mostly hand tool techniques. Someone reminded me of the early days of FWW, when they would have articles on things like flute-building or spinning wheels or any number of esoteric things. Let's face it - you're probably not going to build 99% of the projects you see in a magazine. Why look at instructions for making the same basic pieces of furniture all the time? I think it would be cool to look at a bunch of more esoteric things (which I still probably won't build), and find out how they're made.
My two cents, anyway.
- Mike
P.S. I passed a milestone last week - I got my final issue of FWW in the mail. I liked Bob Smalser's article, but I'm finding more and more that I maybe like one article per issue if I'm lucky. So right now the only magazine I'm subscribing to is PW.
