re: Is Scott Phillips (American Woodworker) preventing new wood workers from learning proper Joinery ?

Interesting subject Jim. You and I both are members at the “other” woodworking site, I’ve been there for 6 years and you for ?10 years; I’m not sure how many thousands of projects we’ve both seen posted there, from beginners to well seasoned professionals to master woodworkers. It seems like most of the members that I’ve seen as brand new beginner woodworkers start with really simple projects, glued, screwed, nailed together. Then they either continue with simple stuff like that or those first simple projects are an inspiration and stepping stone to gradually pick up more complex projects and joinery. I started that way, and gradually have tried to build my skills. My grandfather, uncle and my wife’s grandfather were all very competent hobbiest woodworkers but 99% of what they did was with pocket screws, brad nails and glue. That was the era that they learnt woodworking, unless you were fortunate enough to have someone to teach you otherwise, you were stuck with learning from watching guys like Scott Phillips. Now I think the internet and the multiple woodworking forums online are a huge influence on many beginning woodworkers; it exposes us to multiple different ways of doing woodworking. In some ways, the old model of learning woodworking from a PBS show and a set of books ordered from Popular Mechanics is extinct. So, I think we’re in a new era, and yeah, some will continue to learn solely from PBS shows and then go into their basement and fire up their radial arm saw (no offense to radial arm saw users!) and pocket screw the heck out of some face frames, but the majority will be inspired by the mass and volume of fantastic and varied woodworking that there is online.