by Stephen | Jul 3, 2021 | Books
The Workbench Book
by Scott Landis
Very thorough treatment of benches.
To order, click here. This will take you to Amazon.com where your order will be taken.
The 1987 classic from The Taunton Press. High quality production and very good photography make this an attractive book to show off on your coffee table. But the real value of the book is how it documents a variety of bench designs, giving you many good ideas for building your own. An indispensible reference if you plan to build a serious bench.
Landis begins with the history of benches, with photos and drawings of older designs. Then he looks very closely at several of these older designs, detailing how they are built and used. Then he looks at various benches made and used by contemporary woodworkers, all incorporating traditional ideas with unique features. Chapters on both shop built and store bought vises cover this subject well. Final chapters cover specialty benches such as Japanese designs, country shaves, boat building etc. where the bench is designed for the particular needs of the user.
In the appendices are 19 pages containing measured drawings for 4 of the bench designs covered in the book. From these drawings and the info in the book you can build a bench, but you will have to fill in a lot of the details. This is not a book of thorough, specific instructions for building each bench, because the focus is on presenting as many different design ideas as possible.
A beautiful book and worthy addition to any woodworking library.
Chapters include:
- The Evolution of the Workbench
- 18th Century- The Roubo Bench
- 19th Century- The Shaker Bench
- An Old-Fashioned Workhorse
- A Modern Hybrid
- A Basic Bench
- A Workbench Sampler
- Benches to Market
- Shop-Built Vises
- Off-the-Shelf Vises
- Japanese Beams and Trestles
- Country Shaves and Brakes
- Boatbuilding
- Lutherie
- Carving
- The Workmate
- Appendices
by Stephen | Jul 3, 2021 | Books
The Toolbox Book
by Jim Tolpin
The ultimate toolbox book
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This might have been titled ‘The Ultimate Toolbox Book’, but I suppose someone else has the rights to that name. It’s published by Taunton Press (Fine Woodworking), who have long been known for the exceptional quality of their books, and this is one of their best. Though the intention is to give woodworkers a wealth of info on toolbox design, the beautiful photos make this something you may want to
Tolpin starts off with a look at the history of toolboxes, with treatment of both simple and complicated historical examples. Then he looks at several traditionally inspired designs. A chapter on work from the North Bennet Street School of woodworking in Boston shows pieces that look more like fine furniture than something you would dare take into the shop and risk scratching. Then the bulk of the book covers different box types such as wall cabinets, floor standing designs, rolling carts etc. A chapter on a tricked out van and a photo of the Space Shuttle tool box round things out.
All the box designs covered have excellent photos and/or drawings with overall dimensions, but few have much in the way of specific details for construction. This is not a project book, it’s an idea book for you to use designing your own box. You can easily use one of the drawings with overall dimensions as a start, but you will have to fill in all the details yourself.
A beautiful, well executed book that will make a worthy addition to any woodworking library.
Chapters Include:
- Tool Boxes and the Building of a Nation
- Traditional Style Tool Chests
- A Student Tool Chest Project
- Designing In-Shop Tool Storage
- Wall Cabinets
- Standing Tool Cabinets
- Rolling Tool Carts
- Designing Site Boxes
- Open Shoulder Totes
- Lidded Totes
- Wheeled Site Boxes
- A Toolbox for the Road
by Stephen | Jul 3, 2021 | Books
Woodworking Shop Tips
by Numerous Woodworkers
A whole book devoted to nothing but tips, tips and more tips.
To order, click here. This will take you to Amazon.com where your order will be taken.
A number of years ago I got a call from an editor at Rodale books, claiming he’d pay me $25 per tip for a book they were doing on tips. Okay I said, and 10 days later I sent him 200 tips, most of which he bought. He bought bunches from many other woodworkers too, and assembled this 300 page book containing only woodworking tips.
A few years later I was talking to some local woodworkers and one told me he had read this book 3 times. I was amazed, but it was a good lesson- dedicated hobbyists like tips and advice, and you’ll find over 1,000 here.
Each tip gets a paragraph or two and a drawing if necessary. As well, there are sidebars and short articles on subjects that require longer treatment. But nothing is longer than a couple of pages, meaning you can pick this up for a two minute quick idea or gorge yourself on woodworking wisdom for hours if you so choose.
The book is broken down into 20 chapters so you can easily look for advice on a specific subject if you like, making the book a useful in-shop reference as well as general guide. The drawings are always simple and to the point, showing just what you need.
Compact and brimming with info, you’ll learn a lot of things you’ll actually use from this book.
Chapters include:
- Layout and Measurement
- Hand Tools
- Clamping and Gluing
- Sharpening and Grinding
- Joinery
- Workbenches, Materials Handling and Storage
- Designing and Building Your Own Workbench
- Bending
- Sanding
- Hardware and Fasteners
- Dust Collection
- Table Saw Tricks
- Router Rodeo
- Band Saw Boogie and Scroll Saw Sashay
- Drill Press and Drills
- Radial Arm and Chop Saws
- Planers and Jointers
- The Lathe
- Finishing
- Carving
by Stephen | Jul 3, 2021 | Books
Japanese Woodworking Tools
by Toshio Odate
Excellent intoduction to Japanese tools.
To order, click here. This will take you to Amazon.com where your order will be taken.
If you have an interest in Japanese woodworking tools, this is an excellent place to start. As the name tells us, the focus of this book is on the tools themselves, how they are made, their various forms and configurations, and how they are used. This book is not about Japanese woodworking per se, so you won’t find information on all the marvelously intricate joins made with these tools. But you will get an excellent introduction to the broad range of tools used by the Japanese craftsman, and that subject by itself is enough for one book.
Chapters are organized by tool type, each containing both black and white photos of the tools in use and drawings of the tools. The drawings were done by the author, there are hundreds in the book and they give the book a comprehensive range of detail.
Odate was trained in the traditional ways of Japanese woodworking, and the text is sprinkled with ancedotes about his career in the trade. This book is an excellent intoduction to a tradition that is very different from ours, but still approachable to us.
Chapters Include:
- The Workshop
- Marking Tools
- Saws
- Chisels
- Planes
- Sharpening Stones
- Sharpening
- Adze and Axes
- Hammers
- Gimlets
- Knives and Other Tools
by Stephen | Jul 3, 2021 | Books
Dictionary of Woodworking Tools
by R.A. Salaman
Definitive reference for tool identification.
To order, click here. This will take you to Amazon.com where your order will be taken.
This amazing 500 page compendium describes almost every woodworking hand tool that has been used in the European woodworking tradition in the last several hundred years. This book is recognized as a definitive reference work on the subject for its breadth of scope. The number of tools listed here is staggering.
Of course a great deal of the book is devoted to presenting all the variations on standard tools that the author could find in his research. The subject of planes is 80 pages long with hundreds of illustrations.
The illustrations are copious throughout and obviously necessary for such a comprehensive work. You’ll be amazed at how many different ways people have configured wood and metal for the purposes of working wood. When you find those odd looking tools in antique shops and want to identify their use, this is the book to use.
This is a descriptive compendium, not a handbook for using, so little space is devoted to how the tools are used, though the author usually tells what specific tasks a tool was intended for. If you want more information on how to use hand tools, see Graham Blackburn’s book, Traditional Woodworking Handtools.
This book is alphabetically organized and has no separate chapters.
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