Woodworking Basics: Mastering the Essentials of Craftsmanship Reviews
Woodworking Basics: Mastering the Essentials of Craftsmanship
- ISBN13: 9781561586202
- Condition: New
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Based on a two-week course in woodworking fundamentals offered at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Camden, Maine, this book takes a traditional approach to teaching, with the idea that learning basic skills is essential to craftsmanship. In the process, the book covers all the bases–from working with hand tools to cutting dovetails. Includes two complete projects: a bench and a small cabinet.
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The Complete Manual of Woodworking
With more than 1,800 drawings, diagrams and photos, this authoritative guide encompasses the whole art and craft of woodworking. Designed to instruct and inspire every woodworker from the beginner to the most exacting expert, it has become a classic. It includes a discussion of all the principal hardwoods and softwoods, how to choose and use hand tools, detailed information on every woodworking technique–jointing, bonding, fastening, laminating, and much more.
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Tags: BASICS, Craftsmanship, Essentials, MASTERING, reviews, woodworking
Very Good For the Self Taught Woodworker,
I have found it difficult to find a book with actual exercises to build hand skills in an organized manner. I think many self taught woodworkers have peaks and valleys of skills due to the nature of “solo woodworker” learning (project plans and piece meal magazine articles). Sometimes my inefficient methods have taken more time and wasted more wood than I would care to admit.
This book is based on a course taught at a school under the author’s direction. Though I am sure the live course would be vastly superior, I find this book to be an excellent guide. I would not pass it by if you are completely self taught with years of experience and/or successful projects under your belt. It is a great reinforcing tutorial. If I could have done it all over again I would have started with the course or bought this book.
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|Read this book first!,
Having muddled my way through about 6 years as a hobbyist woodworker, I wish I would have found this book first. It provides excellent instruction on basic woodworking techniques, but it also unashamedly recommends the surprisingly few, but high quality tools one needs to produce beautiful furniture. Had I read this book first, literally hundreds of dollars in unnecessary or substandard tools wouldn’t be cluttering up my shop today!
Additionally, this book will teach you how to hand and machine cut several woodworking joints using step-by-step narrative and clear, color illustrations. Not only will the book serve the beginning woodworker, but will challenge the more experienced craftsperson to take his or her work to the next level.
I just had the pleasure of taking Peter Korn’s class at his school in Maine, and was surprised at how closely it follows this text. While no book can substitute for the interactivity of a two week course, actually going through the process of completing each one of the projects in this book will be time and resources well spent. Even experienced woodworkers would not be wasting their time in going back to the basics and perfecting their techniques and execution.
I highly recommend this book.
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|More of a project book,
This book is basically a collection of projects, and then explanations of the various techniques used for each step. Good if you want to make an end table, but not that useful overall. A better book to learn all the different woodworking techniques would be The Complete Manual of Woodworking by Albert Jackson, et. al., which contains everything this does (explained and illustrated much better), and much more.
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|A Good Reference Book,
This book reminds me of several other books in my collection: The Readers’ Digest Complete Do it Yourself Manual, and similar books being published by Home Depot and Lowe’s. The book attempts to cover an astonishing range of topics, and what it lacks in depth is made up in encyclopedic coverage. It is well done, but shows both the strengths and weaknesses of the genre. If you are looking for something along this line, you won’t be disappointed. It is a useful reference, which will probably see a lot of use. On the other hand, if you are looking for in depth instructions on how to do something in particular, you are better off looking elsewhere.
The book begins with a very strong section on the properties of wood, discussing 20 distinct types of softwoods, 56 types of hardwoods, as well as veneers, plywoods, particle boards and fiberboards. Each type is discussed with comments on sources, characteristics, workability, weight, and common uses. After a brief section on furniture design, it proceeds to three sections on tools. These take up the bulk of the book. There are few recommendations on which tools to buy first, or which to put off until later. The authors don’t tell us much about what to look for when choosing a tool. Each tool is recommended just as highly as all the others, with sections on typical uses and how to perform them. On the other hand, the coverage of techniques is incredibly thorough in the handful of pages devoted to each tool. There are also a number of techniques here specifically aimed at those of us who have a less than complete collection of tools.
The authors follow this with a brief section on setting up the home workshop, and then a chapter on joinery. Like most older books, the construction of dovetail joints is shown entirely by hand, rather than with a router and set of dovetail jigs. This is followed by sections on wood bending, veneers, carving and finishing.
My copy, though printed in 2000, was written in 1989. The book is showing its age, particularly in the sections on power tools. The most striking examples are the pictures of DeWalt power tools in a sickly green color, which must have preceeded their current trademark yellow. In most sections, this makes very little difference, but in places one wishes for a second edition. The authors discuss combination tools and radial arm saws in great depth, while ignoring modern additions like the compound miter saw. The book reads like one written by a committee, with bland, unopinionated language. This is not a book you would enjoy reading from cover to cover, but that is probably not the intent. It is properly viewed as an encyclopedic reference work.
This is a good book to buy in the early stages of learning about woodworking. I would recommend this book as a good second book, rather than a first book, because there is too little guidance for the neophyte.
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|Good, but not as good as “The Basics of Craftsmanship”,
I got this book shortly before getting “The Basics of Craftsmanship”, and enjoyed the detailed discussion of wood types. However, I was looking for a little more “how-to” information. It’s not enough to say how such-and-such a tool is good for ripping; as a beginner I want to know WHAT ripping is, and how to do it with different tools. I found that “Basics” gave more coverage to this kind of information. With all its pretty pictures I’ll probably be more likely to put this book on my coffee table than in my shop.
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|A Must For Both Beginners and Professionals,
This book is an A to Z guide describing topics as diverse as the type of woods, their uses, power and manual tools, fittings to be used, wood carving, veneering, joinery, designs etc etc.
I will guarantee that this is an investment – a fully illustrated (in colour) reference book – a complete manual.
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