Luke42

I'm a beginning/intermediate woodworking hobbyist. I'm also an IT guy in my day job, and very comfortable with computer-driven everything. Furthermore, I'm involved my local Fab Lab, which is a group intended to provide a CNC-powered workshop to kids (and adult hobbyists), mostly to get kids interested in the engineering process with as few barriers as possible.

So, I can say with some certainty that hobbyist-level CNC machines are not a substitute for basic woodworking skills. I still need to prepare the piece that goes though the CNC machine using my miter saw, table saw, and planer. I still need to do joinery and build any piece that's bigger than the machine's workspace. The small machines that you point out (and there are many others) would allow a woodworker of my level to add carved-looking details to a piece without having to learn how to carve (and I could work from things like photographs and clip-art), but I'd still have to build the rest of the piece the normal way.

A full-sized ShopBot looks like it could cut very cool stuff from sheets of plywood. But, if your furniture is only going to be cut out from sheets of plywood, you're quite limited when it comes to the style.

So, CNC machines are super cool and can certainly open some doors for people who don't have any skills. But they're no substitute for basic woodworking skills (except for a few exercises that the Fab Lab volunteers plan very carefully for kids), and it's certainly no substitute for design expertise. I've sat in front of the machine trying to figure out what I want to make, saying "darn, I wish I had some artistic skill here" -- and there's no getting around that one. But the Fab Lab is really trying to convince people that a career building things or designing things would be worth the education, rather than trying to bypass the skills that engineers and woodworkers have worked so hard to earn. The machines just can't do everything, and even if they could, they still need a skilled designer to figure out what to build.



That said, several CNC machines will find their place in my workshop -- as soon as I have the space/time/money to do so. The Epilog laser engraver/cutter has been very helpful both things like cutting out jigsaw puzzles and burning images on to wood -- but also for making sewing patterns for my wife out of cardboard and more durable materials. A machine like the full-sized shopbot (or the PlasmaCam?) that can cut complex shapes out of a 4'x8' sheet of plywood (or metal?) would also very useful. And something like the CarveWright (which looks basically like a planer, except that it has a 3-d router instead of the planer knives) could be very handy for decorating and personalizing long boards. Also, the MakerBot 3d plastic printer could provide a lot of small plastic pieces for use around the house. But all of this costs money, space, and time -- so I'll be working purely with my saws and chisels for another few years.

The subscription model for the electronic version of Fine Woodworking is a much bigger deal than the individual device support.

The paper subscription is the premium product and, as with most other magazines (like Make and Home Power) should include the electronic subscription by default. The electronic-only subscription is a subset of what you get with the paper subscription.

Beyond that, support for e-readers and smartphones would be appreciated -- especially if the articles are searchable and reformatted for the small screen. But, except for music piped into my hearing-protection-headset, I tend to keep my computers and electronic devices out of my 1-car garage workshop. I bump things with lumber in the workshop, so a device with an LCD isn't going to last long. Also, items with a lot of text are read most easily on the 24" LCD screen that I have attached to my desktop computer, or on the printed page.