I'm looking into subscribing to a or several wood working magazines and was wondering what any of you guys recommend? I currently get Popular Science/Mechanics and would like to get at least 2 wood magazine subscriptions. Thanks for the help.
I would get Fine Woodworking for skill building, tool know how and honest tool reviews, and Shop Notes for workshop jigs, storage, etc. I'm sure there are other good choices out there too .
Woodsmith, Wood, Fine Wood Working, American Woodworker, Popular Woodworking, heck, they've all got their pluses. Some are more advanced than others, but, all are good.
I like Fine Woodworking best. Of course I also read all the others. You should check out the online version of Fine Woodworking. It comes with membership to all their online content which includes all of their past issues.
I'm not that big of a fan of Fine Woodworking. My favorite is Wood Magazine, lots of projects that aren't too difficult and they have a ton of tool reviews.
I just got my first subscription recently (to Wood) and had people recommend going to the book store to check out the latest issues of each magazine and seeing which ones were most to your liking. I really like Wood because i feel like it has a good mix of reviews, simple plans, and tips. I'm also intrigued by Shop Notes, and might make that my next subscription. I think a lot of it has to do with your personal preferences, interests and skill level.
+1 vote for American Woodworker. And, I second what others have said about it depending on your skill level and taste. American Woodworker seems to always have a nice mix of projects in it for different skill levels.
I second Stefangs comment. I was going to suggest the exact same thing. I've been a subscriber to both at one time or another. By the way Dan, if you get an (E.S.) Electronic subscription to FWW you can search all their articles and watch all kinds of videos dedicated to different topics. I think its the same price as the paper subscription. I dont think you'll get that with the other magazines.
I have subscriptions to Fine Woodworking and Popular Woodworking Mag. I also buy the annual edition of Woodsmith, it comes in hard cover binder for easier shelf storage. I have had subscriptions to almost all of the others, but had to trim it down after a while. Wood is great for easy projects not that in depth in the writing though, American Woodworker went down in quality (they are owned by Reader Digest) and Woodworker Journal - they are great mid level projects. FWW and PW have more in depth writing and broader range of projects. We several members who have authored several pieces for magazine.
After trying out several mags , WOOD , is the only one that I renew every year : )
ShopNotes and Woodsmith would be my next choices , and although FWW is an excellent mag , I'm not up to that skill level yet. I often go to book stores and "browse" and occasionally pick up something that catches my eye, but wouldn't subscribe to. Some mags are mostly advertisements with very little actual woodworking articles in them. We all are at different skill levels and have different tastes , so you just kind of need to pick the one(s) that make you happy : )
Skip the subscriptions, sign up for the magazines free emails and get access to most all of the articles that come out in the magazines.
Skip WOOD. Been subscribing to them for years and let it run out. They have gone down hill. The shop tips are lame and repeats from ages ago. A lot of the projects look like a high school kid designed and made them IMO.
Apparently I am not alone; their sales have been steadily declining.
Can't loose with Fine Woodworking.
Best of luck.
Fine Woodworking and ShopNotes would be my two. I'd probably add Wood because I jones for info between FWW issues.
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