Reddit reviews Fine Woodworking

Let's ask the bot. http://www.amazon.com/Taunton-Press-Fine-Woodworking/dp/B000063XJH/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?ie=UTF8&dealid=a2242d57&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&ref_=gbmh_mob_s-1_8822_a2242d57

If he's going back to school, he won't have time or space to truly use tools, so don't buy those with the intent that he'll use them at school.

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Get him a subscription to a woodworking magazine or two. My brother got me a subscription to Wood Magazine, and I called it "woodworking porn."

These will have projects he might actually do some day, projects he'll never do but will aspire to, projects he might adapt to something smaller.


They will ALSO (importantly) have info on tools he can dream about buying in the future, or decide he doesn't need. Info on helpful gadgets to buy, jigs to make.

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I found them VERY inspiring. They were fun to read, they didn't take a long time (wouldn't distract him from the school stuff), the pictures were great, and I got itchy to do stuff.

I learned things far beyond what actually making anything would have taught me (I'm never going to buy a lathe or a bandsaw, but I loved reading about them--and I'm much smarter now).

Many of the same principles (how to care for the tool; how to get things square; others) are actually applicable when I use other tools.

They had plans and cut lists, which were educational to look through, even if I never make that workbench or children's playground. I got a sense of how to construct something sturdily. And what order to assemble (the MOST important part).

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Get them in print form!

a review of several of them, with recommendations:http://www.mechanicalcaveman.com/best-woodworking-magazine-reviews-beginners-wood-working/

Another review, with a longer list (some of the same names)

Some titles I would personally recommend (most are on those lists):

https://www.popularwoodworking.com/

Woodsmith

Fine Woodworking

Woodcraft Magazine

Family Handyman might be good if he's kind of a fix-it-up person; a slightly different way of looking at it (cabinet inserts more than midcentury modern tables)

maybe get him a bit of a variety--a cabinetmaking one, a straight woodworking one, a "turning" one--to give him exposure to different ways of working with wood.