Magazines

Welcome to the first issue of The Woodworker, now incorporating Good Woodworking. This new ‘super’ magazines combines the best elements of both titles to bring you a publication that is bigger and definitely better. Now comprising 100 pages, we hope you enjoy the new articles we’ve got in store for you. You can expect to find content from your favourite authors, as well as a whole host of new ones.

Les Thorne’s cloche box presents and hides a lucky golfer’s hole in one ball

In our new ‘projects & turning’ section, Colin Simpson takes an age-old magic coin trick and incorporates the concept into a turned cylindrical box design; Niall Yates introduces us to his ‘elephant in the room’, a Baroque cupboard that, despite many hours of work, is still only three quarters finished; Les Thorne comes up with a novel way of presenting a hole in one ball to a lucky golfer, and after undertaking a course at The Rocking Horse Shop, Chris Finch gets inspired to build his own heirloom, which he sends to his granddaughter in Canada. And last but not least, Phil Davy takes us through the steps for one of his recent commissions, which involved replacing one of several Victorian church windows.

John Bullar rips a solid billet of oak on the bandsaw into strips thin enough to bend in a shallow curve with moderate hand pressure

On the technical side of things, Robin Gates describes some favourite hand tools and shares tips on using them to advantage, and in the borderlands, Dave Roberts finds, the space to shape your own identity brings new meaning to the ‘self-made man’. In ‘Home truths’, Edward Hopkins throws a curver before John Bullar considers the advantages of laminating over other bending methods, and in the next of his ‘understanding wood’ series, from woodworm to wood rot, Peter Bishop looks at what happens when timber comes under attack.

Rick Wheaton and his one-eyed workshop companion, Billy

Our ‘features’ section is certainly packed and kicks off with Robin Gates looking at an emergency food safe from the May 1944 edition of The Woodworker. Next, a project to make good use of wood scraps turned into a lesson on how businesses and schools can collaborate to help solve the industry’s skills gap, explains Ben Naylor, MD of Jack Badger Ltd, and retired boat builder and WW author Rick Wheaton shows us around his South Devon workshop. Peter Sefton Furniture School graduate Simon Denton tells us of his plans to forge a successful career combining his two lifelong passions: music and furniture making, and in ‘End-grain’, Edward Hopkins discusses the need for correct footwear when woodworking.

On the new Makita LS1019L 260mm compound mitre saw, mitres can go up to an impressive 60°

Our ‘on test’ section is bigger and better, featuring a whole host of brand-new tools and machinery for you to lust over, starting with the Bosch Professional GOP 55-36 multi-cutter, which is highly impressive and suitable for all manner of woodworking tasks. Next up is the exciting new Makita LS1019L 260mm compound mitre saw with laser, which combines capacity, accuracy and efficient dust extraction, all with a reduced footprint. If carving is more your thing, then take a look at Axminster’s range of Japanese carver's files, which are invaluable for producing decorative pierced work as well as sculptural pieces, and lastly, Phil Davy puts the new Ryobi R18BS-0 cordless belt sander through its paces, but as he discovers, battery run time does prove to be an issue.

Despite the merging of our two magazines, you can still expect to find all your usual favourite pages, plus some new ones to boot, including welcome, news and courses, archive, marketplace, next month and timber directory. And for those new readers, we have a great prize up for grabs: send in your top workshop hint or tip and you could be in with a chance of getting your hands on a magnificent Veritas low-angle jack plane, worth over £250. See our letters page for details - good luck! All this and much more in the first issue of The Woodworker, now incorporating Good Woodworking, which is now on sale!

Enjoy!
Tegan Foley, Editor

If you don't have a subscription and would like to know where you can buy a copy of The Woodworker close to you in the UK, try our Store Locator