Media
I've gotten the question, "What kind of media do you consume" countless number of times. By countless, I mean zero. Still I figured I'd share what I'm watching and reading now and what I've done in the past.
Workshops / Training
Bear Mountain Boats
I got interested in boat building a number of years back. I found a two day weekend workshop at Bear Mountain Boats given by Ted Moores. If you are interested in building a cedar strip kayak or canoe and are too intimidated to start it without getting some hands on instruction first I highly recommend their course.
BOCES
Here in NY State our continuing education is called BOCES. I had already been doing some basic woodworking when I took the first of two courses they had (Basic and Advanced). The basic course was pretty basic and mostly involved tool safety. I was already well past what the course could teach me. I decided to not take the advanced class because it was apparently taken mostly by woodworkers who wanted access to the shop tools and there wasn't really any instruction. (This was well before the concept of maker spaces was well established.)
John
I got my first real training - as an adult - from my friend John. John has provided lots of advice, help - he helped me build my dust collector closet - and acted as a sounding board for my ideas. I suggest everyone find their own "John" as he has been an invaluable resource to me over the years.
Magazines
Shop Notes / Woodsmith
Shop Notes doesn't exist as it's own entity any more; however, the same kind of content has been rolled into a bigger Woodsmith magazine. These were - and still are - my favorite magazine(s). There are beautiful projects in them that are of interest to me.
Popular Woodworking
Popular Woodworking used to be one of my favorites. Unfortunately to my tastes they merged with a sister magazine and changed their format and writing style a few years ago. I've found that since then when I am grabbing a magazine off the stack to read I'll go to my other publications first. I now have about a three year backlog of these to read. I'm sadly letting this subscription expire. It's a good magazine with good articles, they just aren't engaging my tastes.
Wood Magazine
Wood Magazine is a close second to Woodsmith in terms of my preferences. I've made lot of projects from this magazine including my nightstand and dresser combination.
Fine Woodworking
This was the first subscription I let go. This magazine has many beautiful examples of woodworking and more advanced plans. Unfortunately it was among the pricier of my subscriptions at the time and the woodworking was more advanced than my skill level.
YouTube
April Wilkerson
April Wilkerson is more of a maker than a woodworker. I make this distinction because you won't see her making many fine woodworking projects and some of her builds. That said she does make some very nice things
Matthius Wendal
He's popular, he's prolific, he's created a lot of neat things. He's also not a fine woodworker. He creates functional and often nice looking things from pine and hardwoods. I think he gets all his hardwoods from salvage. He uses a bunch of traditional joints and also some very non-traditional assembly techniques. It is a very interesting mix.
