Where have all the sawdust makers gone?

[tfischer]

I started a very similar thread a couple years ago after coming back from a multi-year hiatus from the forum (and woodworking in general). So I don't think this is (primarily) due to the site changes, most of which I endorse.

When I brought it up, the most common answer was "I don't really do woodworking anymore, but I still follow this group". At one point I was even making a concerted effort to try to start woodworking-related topics, but when one in particular took an especially sour turn (who would have thought a "what woodworking stuff did you get for Christmas" would go badly... we used to do those every year back in the day...) I kind of just gave up.

I've done more woodworking in the past year than any year of my life, really, but there doesn't seem to be much interest in sharing projects here anymore. I do come back and read the posts every few days though.

What set this group apart in the past, was a group of woodworkers that were creating quality projects on a budget... the whole group was centered around a $399 table saw, and there were many threads regarding which Harbor Freight items were worth buying, etc. These days in the handful of woodworking topics that appear, you're more likely to see a review of a $1500 Festool or SawStop item. Nothing wrong with that, I just can't relate nearly as much.

[capncarl]

I wonder if the site is plagued by the old BT3 name and saw? Like others I have problems moving around in the new format, and find looking for older posts and information much more difficult. I sometimes stalk several of the big green egg and bar-b-q sites and find their format repulsive, although that may be the way I opened up the site or maybe it is the non member version, don't know, but that is the reason I don't join any of them!

[capncarl]

Cwsmith, I've never seen a portable ac that cools as well as a window or split unit of the same btu. 14000 should cool 500-700 sf, but if it's not insulated well you are fighting a loosing battle.

[JoeyGee]

For the record, I don't like the new layout. Don't like it at all. No offense at all to all who put a ton of work into it. I do appreciate your dedication to the site. Please don't take offense. I already found myself visiting here less and less before the change, but now it's rare that I stop by.

I have done more woodworking in the past 6 months than the past 5 years combined. I'm having a blast.

As far as forums, I don't participate in many anymore. My online woodworking time is filled with YouTube. I spend hours on there and get inspired daily. The maker movement in this country is inspiring. The "YouTube Community" stretches over all social media platforms, so that is where the new interaction lies.

Woodworking is not dead, but woodworking forums may be on life support.

[tfischer]

I wonder if the site is plagued by the old BT3 name and saw?

That was the whole point behind the "rebranding" to sawdustzone... it's hard to gain any new members with a saw that has been OOP for 10 years or so.

But the rebranding wont't be enough if there isn't plenty of new woodworking content to support it.

[Pappy]

A lot going on with family and the home front so I haven't done any woodworking in almost a year. I check the site daily but I don't log in very often because it is easy to keep up by clicking the "Recent Posts" button.

[capncarl]

I think the new site is more difficult to learn and use than the old site. I see very few using the avatar. I haven't figured it out yet, I gave it a few tries and just gave up. I suspect a lot of other features don't get updated as well.

You can't draw new members with mere chatter amongst the existing members. One problem I see with a forum of this type is the difficulty to share project information in a thread. If you can't describe it in a paragraph or two in the write something box it don't get done. Photos now are difficult. There needs to be a way to describe a project using photos, add some text to the photo, maybe a few pointer arrows. I know you can edit photos elsewhere and insert them, maybe do a Sketchup drawing or add some links. This requires more effort and time than most will or can do.

I say this not to criticize the administrators or anyone else, that's just the way the site is designed.

I visit several boating and shooting sites that are formatted similar to this site. They have similar problems with difficulty researching subjects previously discussed and archived somewhere. Invariably someone will start a thread seeking information or wanting to discuss something and some old coot will reply that this subject has already been discussed 2 years ago. At least our old coots are helpful and glad to help.

capncarl

[LCHIEN]

Does VB give us any statistical plots/data? Some interesting data would be
number of posts per day vs time
number of visitors per day vs time
number of new visitors per day vs time
number of return visitors per day vs time
Distribution of posts vs time by forum

I know most categories will be way down esp if you can go back and plot it for a few years
But are we on a steady declining level or are we in a death spiral?

[tfischer]

My online woodworking time is filled with YouTube. I spend hours on there and get inspired daily. The maker movement in this country is inspiring. The "YouTube Community" stretches over all social media platforms, so that is where the new interaction lies.

I also spend hours per week watching woodworking and subscribe to numerous WW channels. Frankly it's what's inspired my recent burst of woodworking. However, I don't feel it has replaced forums for me. To me, forums are about interaction, someone posting, others replying, building on a group's knowledge. A YouTube channel is pretty much one person showing something. Sure there are comments, but the signal-to-noise ratio in YouTube comments is worse than awful... I rarely even read any of them.

One problem I see with a forum of this type is the difficulty to share project information in a thread. If you can't describe it in a paragraph or two in the write something box it don't get done. Photos now are difficult. There needs to be a way to describe a project using photos, add some text to the photo, maybe a few pointer arrows. I know you can edit photos elsewhere and insert them, maybe do a Sketchup drawing or add some links. This requires more effort and time than most will or can do.l

This is exacerbated by a seeming lack of interest (or lack of enough of a critical mass of folks still active here actually doing woodworking) in project-related discussions. If I post a project, it's nice to get a "that looks good" or three, but what I'd really like is to spark a discussion: "How did you do that?". "What sort of joinery did you use?" "What technique did you use to create that?" etc.

Last time I made a project-related thread, I got a few "nice jobs" but not much else. A few weeks ago I posted a couple pics of a finished project (feeling it wasn't worth it to post a big write-up with so little response in the past) and got exactly one response over it.

[vaking]

Cwsmith, I've never seen a portable ac that cools as well as a window or split unit of the same btu. 14000 should cool 500-700 sf, but if it's not insulated well you are fighting a loosing battle.

Window AC has coils inside and coils outside. This allows it to circulate coolant between inside and outside and transfer heat from inside out without exchanging air. Exchanging air reduces efficiency, it is only necessary if you have a small well-sealed room with many people in it - then you need to exchange some air to get more oxygen. Window units have a small window with the flap which allows you to control when to exchange air but even with air-exchanger open - window unit recirculates most air and exchanges only a small part. Portable AC on the other hand has no coils outside. The only way for it to operate is to heat air and exhaust hot air out. It means portable AC exchanges a lot of air which makes it less efficient. Among portable ACs most have only one hose in the window (exhaust) and there are few that have 2 hoses (intake and exhaust). Units with 2 hoses are considered more efficient but still it cannot compare to window units.

[JimD]

I don't like change but the only big thing I see "wrong" with the new layout is the lack of a home screen with the active threads. I can still find things, however.

I haven't been making much furniture recently because of a move which temporarily eliminated my shop and resulted in the need for a LOT of work on the new to us house. Some of that involves sawdust but it is mostly installing hardwood floors and trim.

My shop is hot but is fully insulated. By opening a door at each end I can usually get some air moving and do work. But i need hydration breaks every couple hours in the afternoon. I think a little 5,000 but window unit may be in my future, however. Insulation makes a HUGE difference. That was another thing we had to work on in this house - and we are not done yet. But the bills are down by at least 25% and the heat pump can maintain temperature now. I would not make a sizing decision based upon usage before insulation was installed and covered up.

[capncarl]

JimD, one thing I found out quickly when I installed the ac in my shop, leave it running when you are not there. If I turned it off when I went in for the night and started it back up the next day when I got off work it would not cool off in time to get anything done. My wife and I had quite a discussion over leaving it on all the time. Letting it run continuously only raised the utility bill $20-$25 a month in the hot months and $10-$15 in cold months.
capncarl

[Bill in Buena Park]

Mostly too hot right now for woodworking in my non-AC shop, but I do have another blanket chest build coming up. Most time of late spent doing little projects around the house. But I check in here a few times a week, to see if there's been any activity, which does seem pretty low this summer. I've noticed the same trend on another site (woodturning) I visit, which I attribute to the summer.

I sometimes wonder if we still have the right mix of forums on this site, since the transition away from BT3Central. As a sharing and discussion resource, are the categories too broad, and should we consider a different cut on topics that would be more intuitive for new users to navigate to for questions they have? Or maybe it would be helpful to rename some of the forums. Maybe "Finished Projects" becomes "Show off your projects", etc. For the wood turning craft, I enjoy navigating the layout of the site at Woodturner's Resource, where some of the topics are around specific phases of the project, such as segmenting and finishing. I think a forum on "Finishing and Refinishing" might be a good add here, maybe one on joinery, etc. They also have a great collection of easily navigated library of tutorials and videos contributed by the membership.

But I think the important features on a site like ours for new and old users alike is in ease of navigation, and the power of the search engine, which I feel we've somehow lost in the recent upgrade. I found the search engine in the previous versions more intuitive and useful - i.e., I could find posts going back to the inception of the site, and I just can't seem to figure out how to do that now.

[JimD]

capncarl,

We have two acs each with 2 zones in the house. The finished rooms over the garage only get cooled to 85. I would turn it off but LOML wants it on and just turned up. 85 is a compromise. But I'm starting to think she's right. I would probably do something similar in the shop. Turn it way up when I'm not there and down when I am. It would probably work like her office. She used to keep it turned up but is dissatisfied with how quickly it cools down so she turned it back down. As long as the bills stay OK.... A significant advantage for the shop of leaving it on, even if turned up, would be humidity control.

I will try a fan before adding the AC however. I don't consider the shop too bad now. It is shaded and normally there is a breeze off the lake. With a fan, it may be OK. I think the air movement helps with dust too. So I am still figuring it out.

Jim

[cwsmith]

I like YouTube as a learning media, sort of show and tell stuff. But frankly it doesn't replace the forum for good experience and personal exchange. You just don't get exchange and interaction by watching a video and it is the comradeship of the forum that I enjoy most... and SawdustZone provides that better than any forum that I'm familiar with.

However, as a magnet I don't think the name has the same attractive appeal as the "BT3Central" name did. With "BT3Central" it drew many BT3 owners in, simply because we either owned the saw or, like me, was looking to own that particular saw. It was seeing it in the store or bringing it home and knowing that it was different than anything else out there.... and where can I find out more information, support, etc. A quick search on the Web, brought most of us to this forum for that particular reason alone.

But of course, the saw is no longer in production; hasn't been for some time, and as many of us have said, "The dark side" has won out. (It would be interesting to know how many actual BT3 owners are still here, and what percentage of BT3 owners have left these saws and moved on to another brand...and whether they then left here for that reason alone. Subsequently, there are few who might still be looking for anything regarding a "BT3" and thus we have lost perhaps the "magnet" that might bring in new members.

None of this said is meant to detract from the new name, "SawDustZone"... as I really do like it. But, there's not the same draw, the same search and find, that the old forum name had. We're now in the same search realm as other woodworking discussion sites and I'm not sure how, by name alone, we can distinguish ourselves from those, by someone just doing a search.

But does that really matter, as those of us who are here do seem to have a loyalty and we do offer a friendly welcome to everyone who wants to join in. Of course we'll have low traffic periods, I think every interest and covering forum will. It's just the nature of most of us as are activities, interruptions, and distractions are many, especially in these troubling times. The one big advantage (and perhaps attraction) for this site, is the lack of conflict here. No politics, no bias, no heated discussions with hurt feelings and anger. We come here with a geniune interest and here we can express our experience or our lack of experience without being intimidated... it's just a great place to share and that's pretty much the attraction and why I try to check in every day, even though I dont have anything particular to share everyday.

Final thoughts on this "attraction" thing. I know many members post pictures... but can we some how single those out, classify them into a "projects" category, even have those interested in presenting their projects with plans of a sort, something that might attract others. Perhaps we might not want to "share" some of our best stuff, (craft secrets, don't want others to duplicate what, as an artist or craftsman, is your "propriety" (I full understand that).

CWS