Comments on: A question for non-English speaking countries

By: Alexander Schifter

Alexander Schifter — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:06:00 +0000

Dear Paul,

following you and your Blog a few months.
To your Question. Here in Austria, as like Germany, we do not have an Austrian Magazin. I read Holzwerken, as Stefan mentioned.

Woodworking in Austria is old fashionabled, as we think of Thonet, you will know. But this TIme hat sadly gone…..

By: Paul Sellers

Paul Sellers — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 19:21:00 +0000

I had a friend in Sweden some years back called Pere Svensen or Swensen. He taught woodworking. I lost track of him I am afraid, but just in case he is looking in. Hi Pere!!

By: Norbert

Norbert — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:33:00 +0000

Dear Paul,
There is a woodworking magazine in Hungary, it is intended for professionals. As far as I know it sometimes covers traditional stuff as well, a page or two. There are some good websites about carving with good instructions and some cabinetmaking sites but they do not offer training as such. I am lucky to speak English and have access to excellent sites like yours.
Thanks
Norbert

By: Paul Sellers

Paul Sellers — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:06:00 +0000

Yes, there are issues with Europe that the US has no knowledge of and may not have interest in when talking about conversion of measuring systems. I face that every day in some measure (pun intended) Conversion from inches to metric is not really as simple as people think because nominal sizes differ too. A 1″ planed board in the UK may be 13/16″, in the US 3/4″. A 2 x 4 in the US is always 1 1/2″ by 3 1/2″. In the UK it can be 1 7/8″ x 4 3/4″.
Re a magazine. I guess Europe will always be divided by language differences as well as other cultural differences too. It would be wonderful to see some of the better magazines invest in a translation software that would interpret terms accurately for woodworking no matter where in Europe. I’m really talking about quality magazines such as Fine Woodworking, Popular Woodworking. That would inspire a wide audience and get a lot of support. But again, the difference between the UK, mainland Europe and the USA is chalk and cheese. You would be hard pressed to find many Americans that don’t have a quality machine set up. In the UK you would be hard pressed to find a woodworker that did. Totally different altogether.
So, keep working towards hand tool methods and use metric. I promise that I will try to offer metric sizes I think will work in the future. We have a very large following in all of the European countries and may I say a special thank you to my friends and supporters in the Netherlands. Pro rated, the Netherlands has been our largest following and we have no reason we know of for that.

By: Joakim

Joakim — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 20:28:00 +0000

Hi Paul! I’m a bit late on this, but I recently discovered your blog.
We don’t have any woodworking magazines in Norway, apart from imported ones. Also, I have come across quite few norwegian blogs and web pages on the topic actually. We do have a few magazines on home improvement and DIY though. i’ve never thought about it really, but maybe the general interest for woodworking isn’t that extensive here in Norway. That probably explains why it is so hard to find dealers with a decent range of proper hand tools too…

For my own part I read american and british websites, including watching videos on Youtube, and I think there are several good english pages on the topic. The downside for my part would be the english terms I would have no chance in translating into Norwegian. I guess I’ll even start measuring things in inches one day…

By: Juehua Yin

Juehua Yin — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:23:00 +0000

Hi Paul,
I’m from China, as far as I know, we don’t have any woodworking magazines in chinese yet. Youtube is banned, so most of us can’t watch your videos or other woodworking podcast online. But we do have some Chinese websites on which people can learn about woodworking, and your thoughts as well as some other English-speaking craftsmen’s articles can be found on those websites, translated.

We have a slightly different way to do woodworking, like this:

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6cd76d5f0102e0uh.html

Young men use Internet to learn while most of the old craftsmen don’t know how to type. Very few people can make one furniture only using our traditional method now.

By: Paul Sellers

Paul Sellers — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 11:12:00 +0000

I just took a break to look at your blog and felt humbled seeing everyone there. I have travelled and spent time in Monterrey Mexico in poorer communities to give workshops for a few weeks and so enjoyed the receptive way everyone had to my methods and ethos. Seeing you there stirred my heart once again.
Let’s stay in touch. We are planning some things and that includes making my work available in Spanish so we should talk. Please email me your telephone number here: paul@hisbench.com and will find time to call you or skype you.

By: Paul Sellers

Paul Sellers — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:45:00 +0000

I apologise for your comment not being posted earlier. Somehow it went through to spam so in future I will be aware. Please don’t give up. This is all important information to express openly elsewhere so that problems can be addressed and not lost.
Thank you for taking the trouble and once again I apologise.
Paul

By: Paul Sellers

Paul Sellers — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 21:51:00 +0000

Stefan,
Thank you for raising our awareness of this. Pretty much the only reason we give the imperial measurement is for the USA so i will try to give both more =frequently and especially when critical.

By: Stefan

Stefan — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:58:00 +0000

Hello Paul,
I’m from Germany and I can tell you that there is a german magazine which is called “Holzwerken” (as already mentioned in this thread). It is a sister magazine from Fine Woodworking and often has got articles from it.
Most of the hand tools related stuff I try to find in the internet (from sites like this).
The challenges for me are one the one hand the measurements in inches (which we aren’t familiar with) and on the other hand woodworking is not that popular in Germany, so that you can’t buy lumber everywhere. So if there is an article in a magazine with an interesting project, I personally often have got the problem to get that lumber.
It is pretty ususal to use laminated wood here, which makes it difficult to follow the instructions from the english magazines.
Cheers,
Stefan