Shopsmith Forums

When it comes to price there seems to be 3 tiers.

Top Price Tier - No discounts on subscription roughly $4 to $5 per magazine on subscription
- Fine Wood working

Middle - Some discounts - Usually in the $2-3 range per magazine
- Woodsmith/Shopnote $28 when you buy 2 years, Popular Woodworking $21.97 for 7 issues (hoever, they did send me a 2 year deal in the mail - probably due to Rockler or Woodcraft selling my name)

Lower - Often can be had for less than a $1 a magazine
- Woodcraft - Occasionally comes up for $6 a year, Wood Magazine (due to mailing lists) offered my 3 years + 1 issue for $24, in August for one day a magazine site offered $4 per year, up to 3 years. Woodworkers Journal $10 in Rockler Feb Catalog

Most of the Top/Middle magazine offer a DVD with their archives for the last 20-30 years for around $99 when if you don't care about the timelines of the info gives you access to 100 of older magazines.

I take three magazines: Woodsmith, Shopnotes, and Wood. I used to get Popular Woodworking, Woodworker's Journal and Woodcraft but have dropped those for reasons I can't recall at this point - that was years ago and I've slept since then.

I was also a subscriber to the DVD mag - "Woodworking at Home" while it was around. It was an idea just ahead of its time I believe. There were some good projects in every issue but I believe the cost of production made the mag too pricey. I'm hoping to see a similar new mag surface sometime in the future (and I hope I'm around to enjoy it for a while).

I currently subscribe to most of magazines mentioned above. I have all back issues I purchased and a large number of old issues I have picked up at various times. With retirement I have decided to drop most. Some seem too expensive. Most keep sending me notices that my subscription is due to expire when it is not, a practice that drives me nuts and places them on the drop list. There is one that I spend a great deal of money with both local store and online that I dropped because they insist I pay for the printed magazine even though I am a good customer. The only two I intend keeping are Shop Notes (yeah I like making jigs) and Wood (also a great idea producer). With a greatly reduced income and more magazines on hand than I will ever read. I don't find wisdom in purchasing others anytime soon. Jim

I subscribe to Woodsmith, Wood and just started one for ShopNotes.

I recently bought the Woodsmith & ShopNotes DVD libraries. It sure is nice to be able to find something quickly without going through a stack of magazines or have to get a back issue. I can now just print the pages as needed and not worry about losing my only copy.

I am a real fan of Fine Woodworking and I have a great fondness for Popular Woodworking. I have taken most of the other magazines mentioned by others but FW and PW are the one's I keep around and would miss the most.

I have also been purchasing a few books (mostly those put out by FW (Tauton Publishing) and Popular Woodworking).

American Woodworker is online at Google Books. About 10 years, 1989-1999. You can read for free but can't download.

Hopefully a link
http://books.google.com/books/serial/IS ... =N&start=0

Larry Hargrove
Rock Island,Ok

500, 520, 10ER and so on.

You can also use that link to search for Shopsmith. 99% of the mentions are in Popular Mechanic. A good portion of the results will be ads, but they do have a few mentions of the Mark V, Mark VII, Marking a MarkVII-like stand for your Mark V and the Pro Planner.

Thanks for all the great feedback from folks - definitely not a lot of concensus on the preferred magazines but great info on people's preferences and why. I think I'll poke around at the local used book stores and/or online to pick up a few past issues of the various magazines and see what suits my fancy before I commit. The no ads approach of Woodsmith and ShopNotes is definitely appealing...

You can also use that link to search for Shopsmith. 99% of the mentions are in Popular Mechanic. A good portion of the results will be ads, but they do have a few mentions of the Mark V, Mark VII, Marking a MarkVII-like stand for your Mark V and the Pro Planner.

1967 has a Mark II on a wood MarkVII-style stand. Might be able to make it for a Mark V.
http://books.google.com/books?id=rtMDAA ... CE0Q6AEwBw

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dgale wrote:Currently I'm only subscribing to Fine Homebuilding but want to add 1-2 woodworking magazines, so I thought I'd check what folks here like the best. Woodsmith? ShopNotes? Fine Woodworking? Wood? Others? Ideally magazines that are consistently interesting, informative, and include adequate details (i.e. don't just show off an item that's been made but include adequate designs or details to either reproduce it or at least fully understand the techniques utilized).

Anyway, I'd love to hear what folks do and don't like about the above magazines or any others I didn't list.

My only subscription is to WOOD, I do occasionally buy 'The Family Handyman' when it is on the newstand if I like the content. I like to look at 'Fine Woodworking', but my skill level is not there yet. Of all the ones I have purchased, I enjoy Wood magazine best.

Todd