Which magazine for a beginner?

You should check out the forum on Periodical Opionions.

-- JP, Shelbyville, KY

That’s perfect. Thanks.

-- Jerry L.

Take a serious look at fine woodworking online. When you subscribe you get access to avery issue that they have ever published. It is a great resource.

-- Hope Never fails

Two very good Magazines are “Wood” and “Fine WoodWorking”. jockmike

-- (You just have to please the man in the Mirror) Mike from Michigan -

My suggestions would be, Wood (has patterns in the magazine), ShopNotes and ShopSmith(have a lot of neat ideas and usable designs).

-- Jesus is Lord!

I personally like Wood, ShopNotes, Popular WWing, and FWW. I subscribe to those. I occasionally pick up a copy of ShopSmith or Workbench. Handyman and Family Handyman are pretty good, but their not exclusively WWing. I like their product testing program. I’ve gotten a couple of neat items to test when I subscribed to them.

-- Jeff, South Carolina

hmmm.. I guess the best “magazine” you can get for free is the subscription to the LJ Blogs Feed ;) What do you think?

-- Martin, http://lumberjocks.com | My Facebook: http://profile.to/msojka

To answer your question, I like Popular Woodworking and think it has great content as well as the other’s listed. I read all of them.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

A great magazine for a beginner is ShopNotes. They show you methods of work and teach you how to build jigs, they have good projects to build and they show you the plans and have cut lists/plans online for free, (last time I checked.)

-- John

Let’s see…. $20 for 14 copies of a magazine or a shameless promotion for Lumberjocks.com ;-). I think it’s a toss up between Popular Woodworking, ShopNotes, and the online subscription to Fine Wood Working.

Thanks everyone for your help.

-- Jerry L.

I subscribe to FWW, but I don’t do the web site because I never could get past the fact that you have to pay again to view the web site…I have always felt that subscribers to the magazine should have access to the web site. Just my .02

-- John

I agree with you there John. I wish they didn’t double dip for the online subscription. On the other hand, their online content is far more extensive than any other magazine’s site. They are definitely spending more money to maintain it than the other publications. The video content alone makes it worth it for me as that is the only kind of instruction I have access to. Shopnotes has some great free stuff on their site, though.

-- Jeff, South Carolina

Thanks, Jeff,

Your (and other’s) comments about the content may sway me regarding the FWW web site…

-- John

What about just grabbing whatever woodworking magazine on the newstand that catches your fancy. I have hundreds of woodworking magazines and have never had a subscription. Fine Woodworking is great, and many libraries have years of back issues of this publication and Wood magazine.

-- Phil Brown, Ontario

Hands down SHopnotes