Good Woodworking Magazine - What the....

[Doug71]

Just looked at the magazine and at the end of the article they actually make a round trolley by cutting a circle out of plywood so come on give them some respect =D>

Also picked up a top tip, apparently "it's important to switch on the router before plunging it down into the workpiece"! I learn something new everyday

 

[Mike Jordan]

As Steve has mentioned above they won't pay a reasonable price to contributors for decent material.
If you pay peanuts you get ---------- monkeys!
Don't waste your money on magazines, everything is on the net somewhere.

 

[ColeyS1]

I think when they put an article like that in a magazine you pay for, it's time to review your subscription !

Coley

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[Droogs]

@ Steve M - The title is grammaticaly correct, just not very factual - sadly :/

 

[Steve Maskery]

I would say "How to do woodwork", or "How to work wood". As a sentence it lacks a verb.

I have a copy of that book somewhere, though I've not seen it for years. I have several boxes of books that were packed away over 5 years ago, it must be in one of them. Or do I mean "One of those"?


I wrote the chapter on Computer Aided Design.

 

[Keithie]

I would scan the article but it looks very technical and I wouldn't want someone to attempt such a complex build and then sue me when it goes wrong.


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I guess to avoid being sued like that it might be safer to provide details on how to make something simpler like a boomerang .. seems pretty unlikely that would come back to get you

 

[ColeyS1]

Has anyone got any plans for this please ?

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[skipdiver]

Has anyone got any plans for this please ?

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No, it's a clever ruse to get you to buy the magazine. Only then can you get to learn how the thing is made. I'm going down to the newsagents to get mine before they sell out.

 

[graduate_owner]

Some further advice please -
1. what size castors should I use?
2. Do I have to use 4 castors, or would just one castor work? If so, should I put the castor in the middle or at one corner?
3. Regarding using this once it is made - Which way round should this be used? Does the load have to go on the opposite side of the base to the castors, or could I use it with castors facing upwards, i.e. same side as the load? Could I put the trolley on top of the load?
4. does this have to be mdf or ply, or could I use solid wood? If so what wood would (?) be suitable, and how would I fix the planks together to form the base? What finish is recommended for this? Would French polish be suitable?

K

PS. Have we exhausted this post now?

 

[Jacob]

I stopped buying mags about 30 years ago.
Yawn.

 

[ColeyS1]

Some further advice please -
1. what size castors should I use?
2. Do I have to use 4 castors, or would just one castor work? If so, should I put the castor in the middle or at one corner?
3. Regarding using this once it is made - Which way round should this be used? Does the load have to go on the opposite side of the base to the castors, or could I use it with castors facing upwards, i.e. same side as the load? Could I put the trolley on top of the load?
4. does this have to be mdf or ply, or could I use solid wood? If so what wood would (?) be suitable, and how would I fix the planks together to form the base? What finish is recommended for this? Would French polish be suitable?

K

PS. Have we exhausted this post now?

Question 2 made me proper giggle :lol:

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[graduate_owner]

Coley - that is the one question I was serious about!!!

K

 

[Steve Maskery]

It is a pity that standards are now so low, but I think that we are the architects of our own demise.
No-one likes to pay out for anything if they think they can get it for "free" and we are all so used to being able to get anything on the internet for "free". Too few people are prepared to pay for intellectual property.

So magazine sales drop, so they have less money to pay contributors, so the contributors jack it in, so the quality falls further, so readership falls further and so on.

I do still write. Not as much as I used to, but I do it because I enjoy it. I get published in Italy by Legnolab. I've just received the PDF of my Gentleman's Residence Shutters, which I posted on here as a project. But. I get paid 1/3 the amount I used to get 10 years ago. I bet not many people here have had a 66% pay cut in the last 10 decade! I have.

I shall get a couple of hundred Euro for it, I guess. It's quite a lot of work for that amount of money, as those of you who have produced articles will know. When Nick was publishing, this was just the icing on the cake, but now, if I want people in the UK to read it I pretty much have to give it away for free on here as a thread. It doesn't really have a monetary value any more.

I don't want this to sound like a whinge, many industries come and then go, magazine journalism is not unique in that respect, not by any means, but it is a fact that our attitude to intellectual property is the root of this problem.

If anyone reading this does have an article that they think is good enough to be published, please get in touch. I can help you.

 

[lurker]

Being a bit weird I prefer the written word on paper.
It was a sad day when Nick could no longer carry on. I have never bought a mag since then.
I have every one of that mag and still pull them out for a browse

Rather than buy mags I just buy 2nd hand books from the well known tax dodger.
These are generally 1p plus £2.80 p&p

 

[Selwyn]

Its the way of the world - not necessarily to do with intellectual property. Stuff that we used to have to pay for is now free and I don't mean stolen - its on youtube, pinterest etc. I used to like a magazine but other stuff has generally taken its place. I only say that its slightly sad because magazines aren't great value in general (even though I appreciate they are expensive to produce)

 

[Jacob]

Being a bit weird I prefer the written word on paper.
It was a sad day when Nick could no longer carry on. I have never bought a mag since then.
I have every one of that mag and still pull them out for a browse

Rather than buy mags I just buy 2nd hand books from the well known tax dodger.
These are generally 1p plus £2.80 p&p

Yep. I got several copies of Joyce for £2.81 and sold them on ebay for a fiver or so. Not a way to get rich quick!

But I buy expensive books too and they are much better value than mags. The price of a few cheapskate mags which you'd read once and chuck, would buy you a classic like this, which you'd keep for life:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Irish- ... 0300063962

Write a book Steve!

 

[Mike Jordan]

Like Steve I have given up writing for woodworking magazines, in my case the beef was their reuse of work they had previously published. This was done without permission or payment in most instances. In one instance the article has now appeared three times in the same publication. Even better the captions and drawings have been wrong three times! It's most unlikely that anyone could make the item featured using the information published. Hardly value for money for the magazine purchasers.
This bears out one of my theories that most editors are not skilled woodworkers who can appreciate good work when they see it but are only interested in filling space and selling adverts.
These days I only take on the most interesting pieces of work, many of which would be ideal for publication but I don't consider it worth the effort.
Few young people seem to be taking up woodworking as a hobby probably because many schools are unable or unwilling to incorporate it into the syllabus. My experience of school workshops fired my interest and led to a career in various parts of the trade.

 

[Lons]

There is another reason for the demise of magazines and that is because if you wait long enough the same project is repeated even if a different writer or just altered a little and when you've read it previously it irritates a bit to pay for it again. I still have a lot of old copies which I dig out occasionally and rarely find enough of interest these days in current mags to motivate me to buy one. Jacob is right in saying that books are much better value.

I had this conversation with a magazine editor last year and he reluctantly agreed with me.

The whole printed industries are in decline. My son is a senior commercial training development manager for a huge national company and has had enough so gave 3 months notice last week and will be moving to a growing business instead.

Bob

 

[Yetty]

Interesting thread, thought I'd add my experiences. I also gave up writing projects for a magazine after providing 40 odd articles over a 5 year period.

Generating a decent project package required a huge amount of work. It wasn't just the text writing and proof reading, there's also the provision of a tidy CAD model, supporting illustrative images, taking photos, their captions and cutlist. Together these just seemed to eat eat time.

At the time I enjoyed the challenges, diversification of work, extra cash, vanity, and working with an interesting editor who seemed to be a genuine and nice person. Although I did take a 12mth break when the magazine had a change of editor [who I didn't rate], so I stored my new project articles and waited until there was another change, and then released the articles for publication!

I stopped writing for a bunch of reasons that all seemed to coincide together at around the same time. There was yet another editor change who seemed a tricky to deal with. The monthly editorial budget was slashed by headoffice - less money for authors, key magazine staff let go, reuse of old articles, vague indications when article might be used etc. Also, I was finding the article writing more difficult, probably due to my having fewer useful brain cells, and finally I had a change in work direction, so it was me over-and-out.

Reflecting back, the memories are fond, but I'm also glad to have been able to move on.

 

[graduate_owner]

I have to agree about the value of magazines. For about £3 I would get a magazine with some articles that do not interest me ( for example I am not into carving), some articles featuring things I could never hope to make with my skills, some which are trivial, as in the OP post, and if I'm lucky, some articles of real interest. Obviously I would not buy such a magazine if I could browse it first, but if I had a subscription then I'd be stuck with it. So for years now I have not bought magazines. Books on the other hand are usually pretty good value, especially when bought second hand. Plus books tend to be more dedicated to a particular area of woodworking, so you can choose the area of interest. I say usually good value, but I have some which are pretty poor.

I have one on built in cabinets - think 10 chapters on the same basic kitchen unit type carcasses with minor variations for bedroom, cellar etc. I have another on outdoor structures, again repetition, repetition, repetition. My worst of all is an A to Z of the most moronically obvious workshop hints under the name of inventive jigs and fixtures. Each page has an accompanying picture, so there is a picture of a can of WD40 and a plane - the tip being to use WD40 for removing sticky labels from, um, planes ( did you guess that?). There is also a picture of a group of tins with nails, screws etc in. This time the tip is - if it's a rainy day, why not use the time to sort through your tins of oddments and put them into separate tins? I really needed those pictures, they helped me enormously to understand the concepts. What really amused me was the comment on the cover to the effect that this book was not designed for beginners, but for the more advanced woodworker. (All 3 are American books, strangely).

Sorry for the essay.


K