Fine Woodworking 1989 *LINK*

Re: Fine Woodworking 1989

John Jardin

Bruce, you are right on.

I consider FWW the Bible of our craft.

20 years ago, I studied for 2 weeks under Bob Van Dyke and Garrett Hack. There I learned the difference between woodworking and fine woodworking. WC has also been an inspiration to learn new ideas and methods from some very talented people.

As an example, Jack Guzman recently posted pics of a new Windsor rocker he finished. Jack inspired me to climb a new mountain and attempt Windsor chair making. In fact I'm up in PA this weekend at a tool auction buying some chair making tools. We are both around the same age but like many in the recent pole stated, I don't feel that old.

Re: Fine Woodworking 1989

ken ca

While many dispose of theirs and go digital, I still maintain the first 230 or so FWW in my shop. Great magazine (although I stopped getting it at about the 230 mark). Took me along time to acquire the early issues but they are so worth having.

Re: Fine Woodworking

Bruce McCrory

I acquire FWW individually, having abandoned subscriptions to magazines many years ago. I have certain issues that offer perennial inspiration. They are nearly worn out.

Digital vs print

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I have the 1975-2009 Digital version as well as hard copy. My digital resolution is inadequate for some needs, which is why I preserve the hard copy. Are the more recent Digital versions any better resolution?

Re: Fine Woodworking 1989

Dick Coers

You read all the time about others like us. Fine Woodworking and James Krenov sparked an entire movement. I was influenced earlier than you. I started subscribing in 1977 and ordered the back issues. I went from making horribly heavy furniture, into doing real joinery and much more delicate work. By 1987 I had a successful part time business going and left my corporate drafting and designer position to open a full time shop. I did that for 8 years until I finally got it through my thick skull that I was a much better craftsman than businessman. Too bad FWW didn't have articles on business operation and marketing! But it served me very well for the rest of my life. I held the position of Designer/Craftsman at Woodworker's Journal Magazine until it was sold for the 2nd time, and latter went back to the same corporation I had left and secured a job in the model shop. I also had the opportunity to meet James at a weekend design lecture at the school on assignment for WWJ. It's been one hell of a run for me, thanks to FWW and JK.

Re: Digital vs print

William Duffield

I have the …through 2013 digital edition. I find it's resolution to be inadequate. I speculate that they will not rescan the issues they have already done in any future digital editions, and thus no improvements in resolution to them will be made. Maybe some time in the future, they might improve the resolution of new issues, but not the old ones. Further, it seems to me that any additional investment would be better spent on 3D (e.g., SketchUp) files.

Re: Fine Woodworking 1989

TomD

I had a complete set up till about 10 years ago, or maybe longer. Now I just have the digital copies. The mags took up too much space.

They were far better than anything before or since, but they got progressively worse over the year, as the explosion of competing magazines drew their competent writers aside, and left them less real estate to explore.

Recent copies are full of errors including lots of material that was originally correctly covered in the pages of FWW.

iPad library

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

I have the FWW CD-rom and extracted all the PDF files. These are now on my iPad (in iBooks), which makes for a terrific transportable library. Really wonderful when making long intercontinental plane trips (as I was doing pre-Covid). I do have the original magazines, some going back to the first edition, but have not "collected" them. I just like re-reading FWW - there is always something new to learn, see in a different slat, over time.

The other magazine I cherish is Fine Furniture, which went out of production a long time ago, and Woodwork magazine, sadly also out of production. I would say that this is my favourite of all (I have the CD-rom - again transferred the PDF files - and the originals)

The downside to iPad is there is no way (as far as I know) to organise and index the PDF files in iBooks. Let me know if you have a method.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: iPad library

Stuart Johnson

I bought the thumb drive archive and downloaded it to OneDrive. You have to step through the Tauton folders but will find one called Data-FWW. This has a folder called Issues that pulls up all the files. The issues folder is very large around 3.5 GB so it will take some time to download when you select make available off line. I doubt it is much larger than the current pfds you have. The issues are searchable.

Re: Digital vs print

ken ca

I wouldn't care if the resolution were adequate. Sometimes a print copy is just nicer. I spend too much time in front of a screen as it is.

Re: iPad library

Jerome

Bonjour Derek,

You can create "collections" in your iPad books library and add your pdf to those collections by drag and dropping them in the sidebar.

A book can be added to multiple collections but the collections cannot be nested.

The search feature is rather limited as far as indexation goes.

I have not found anything except google drive that allows for searching within the documents, but well, it’s not offline and it’s google.

Re: iPad library

Jerome

TIL that the app I use to organize the content for the classes I teach actually allows to import PDF, organize content in folders, annotate and search the pdf content and the handwritten notes with the pencil.

The app is GoodNotes, another is notability. Both are popular amongst students to organize their notes.

They cost less than 10euros (which is not that far from a usd) and great value for money.

Thanks Jerome. I will look into these.

Re: Digital vs print

Joe Fleming

Several years ago, I asked for the digital archive for Christmas. I then donated the hard copies. Although I prefer hard copies, I was forced to store them in the attic. Consequently, they are not very accessible. I find that the digital index from FWW is excellent to find archive articles. Maybe the graphics are not as good, but access is the most important attribute.

I subsequently bought another archive from a competitor and the index sucked. I rarely go to it for information. Waste of money.

Re: iPad library

Jack Dover

The best you can do is to create a collection. Files within that collection could be sorted by a date or a title only.

Generally speaking PDFs aren't that great for searching specific bits, this is why all the digital archives came with their custom UI\shell kind of thing. FWW has a small database that matches individual files to keywords + some metadata, you could use any iPad sqlite explorer to figure the file you need, but the whole process might be way too annoying.