Top Woodworking Mags?

Cuedog

Cuedog

CUE BALL INCOMING!!!
Silver Member
Are there any good woodworking magazines that are helpful to the cuemaking trade? Are there some that touch on cuemaking related subjects more than others?

Now I know that my questions sound like I am asking about magazines that write about cuemaking specifically, but I doubt any do that on a regular basis. My questions are directed to cuemaking related subjects such as staining, types of wood and the characteristics, etc.

Finally, do any of the cuemakers subscribe to woodworking mags and which ones? Thank you for any help you can provide.

Gene
 
I've enjoyed woodworking as a hobby since I was literally 5 years old. I've also subscribed to many of the magazines over the years, including: Wood, American Woodworker, Fine Woodworking, Home Furniture (a spinoff of Fine Woodworking...my favorite but no longer published), This Old House, Shop Notes, Woodsmith, and a few others I can't remember. I used to read them cover to cover for quite a few years. Now I just skim through them to see if anything interests me.

The ones I still subscribe to are Wood, American Woodworker, and Fine Woodworking. It is not uncommon for them to have the exact same topics and tool tests within a few months of each other.

Wood seems to be geared more to the novice. They have detailed cutting lists and patterns of their projects and hold your hand more, IMO. American Woodworker is similar, but I think they take on better and more challenging projects. They also have a monthly section devoted to finishing. Fine Woodworking is a bit different than the other ones. They have many high level projects with less instruction on the rudimentary tasks. The magazine is written by contributing authors, rather than a staff.

All of the magazines about once every two to three years will cover staining, dyeing, spraying, spray booth setups, clear finishes, finishing figured wood, and all the tool tests. I have 15 years of back issues that show this repeating pattern.

You probably can't go wrong with any of them, but my favorites are Fine Woodworking and American Woodworker.

Fine Woodworking also has a few volumes that gather all of the best articles over the years into one book. They have this for finishing, among other topics. That might be a quick way to get you started on one specific topic.
 
I forgot to add that I have never seen anything specific to cues except on a Fine Woodworking issue from the late 80's I believe. I read it years ago, but as I recall, its not really the best of information and was written by a woodworker building one or two cues, not a cuemaker.

I also subscribe to Home Shop Machinist (HSM). A lot of cue work is more inline with metalworking than woodworking. HSM is a good magazine for metalworking that can be accomplished with minimal equipment. It is also written by contributors, like Fine Woodworking.
 
Cuedog said:
Are there any good woodworking magazines that are helpful to the cuemaking trade? Are there some that touch on cuemaking related subjects more than others?

Now I know that my questions sound like I am asking about magazines that write about cuemaking specifically, but I doubt any do that on a regular basis. My questions are directed to cuemaking related subjects such as staining, types of wood and the characteristics, etc.

Finally, do any of the cuemakers subscribe to woodworking mags and which ones? Thank you for any help you can provide.

Gene
Click to expand...

The woodshop news, it's the best and you can get it free if you are in the trades. I think they have an online one as well. Maybe do a google search. They did a piece on Dale Perry a while back and cover all aspects of woodworking even cnc.
 
Excellent info

That is exactly the type of info I was looking for.

Thank you very much for your extremely helpful input guys. With so many sources on woodworking out there, I knew this would be the place to narrow down the field.

Thanks again!

Gene
 
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