What do you think?
Rate this book
The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch
Where do our things really come from? China is the most common answer, but Thomas Thwaites decided he wanted to know more. In The Toaster Project, Thwaites asks what lies behind the smooth buttons on a mobile phone or the cushioned soles of running sneakers. What is involved in extracting and processing materials? To answer these questions, Thwaites set out to construct, from scratch, one of the most commonplace appliances in our kitchens today: a toaster.
The Toaster Project takes the reader on Thwaites s journey from dismantling the cheapest toaster he can find in London to researching how to smelt metal in a fifteenth-century treatise. His incisive restrictions all parts of the toaster must be made from scratch and Thwaites had to make the toaster himself made his task difficult, but not impossible. It took nine months and cost 250 times more than the toaster he bought at the store. In the end, Thwaites reveals the true ingredients in the products we use every day. Most interesting is not the final creation but the lesson learned.
The Toaster Project helps us reflect on the costs and perils of our cheap consumer culture and the ridiculousness of churning out millions of toasters and other products at the expense of the environment. If products were designed more efficiently, with fewer parts that are easier to recycle, we would end up with objects that last longer and we would generate less waste altogether.
Foreword by David Crowley, head of critical writing at the Royal College of Art and curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Toaster Project takes the reader on Thwaites s journey from dismantling the cheapest toaster he can find in London to researching how to smelt metal in a fifteenth-century treatise. His incisive restrictions all parts of the toaster must be made from scratch and Thwaites had to make the toaster himself made his task difficult, but not impossible. It took nine months and cost 250 times more than the toaster he bought at the store. In the end, Thwaites reveals the true ingredients in the products we use every day. Most interesting is not the final creation but the lesson learned.
The Toaster Project helps us reflect on the costs and perils of our cheap consumer culture and the ridiculousness of churning out millions of toasters and other products at the expense of the environment. If products were designed more efficiently, with fewer parts that are easier to recycle, we would end up with objects that last longer and we would generate less waste altogether.
Foreword by David Crowley, head of critical writing at the Royal College of Art and curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
192 pages, Paperback
First published September 22, 2007
81 people are currently reading
2581 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 246 reviews
July 6, 2014
Anyone who loves to build things will enjoy this book. Thomas Thwaites was a design student who decided to build a toaster from scratch, partly to see if it could be done but mostly to make a point about how reliant we are on cheap appliances that were manufactured on an industrial scale. (When was the last time you smelted ore?) First he bought a cheap toaster and disassembled it, noting with dismay that there were more than 400 parts. Then he traveled to various mines around the United Kingdom to get bits of steel, mica and copper, all of which had to be processed to be of use. He smelted ore, carved a wooden mold and melted nickel and plastic. In the end, his toaster took nine months to build and cost him more than $1,800.
The book is filled with photographs of his experiment and includes phone and email exchanges with experts. I particularly liked his call to British Petroleum to ask if he could visit an oil rig so he could get some crude oil, which is used to make plastic. (BP refused.) He also met with a professor who tried to convince him not to make plastic because it was too difficult. "That's why we didn't go through the Plastic Age before the Bronze Age."
The last chapter has several thoughtful passages about the collision of industrialization and the environment:
"The real 'cost' of products is hidden. We don't see (or smell) the pollution emitted when iron is smelted or plastics are made. You wouldn't want it happening in your back garden. Equally we don't have to live with all the stuff we throw away. But pollution and rubbish don't just disappear, they end up somewhere, and if not dealt with properly, are costing someone something (their health perhaps)."
Thwaites said he values his handmade toaster and that he'll never throw it away. "Maybe when we're in school each of us should assemble our own toaster, our own kettle, our own little microwave or something, then perhaps we'd be more likely to keep these things for longer, and repair and look after them. This would mean these products would be more than things that just come 'from the shops.'"
Sidenote: Shortly after I read this book and wrote this review, my own toaster died. I don't have the skills to design my own, but I decided to try and buy one that was at least made in my own country. But it couldn't be done. Almost every toaster had been made in China. Finally I had to settle for buying a toaster that was sold from a locally-owned family store, instead of a national chain. Oy, our modern economy is so complicated.
The book is filled with photographs of his experiment and includes phone and email exchanges with experts. I particularly liked his call to British Petroleum to ask if he could visit an oil rig so he could get some crude oil, which is used to make plastic. (BP refused.) He also met with a professor who tried to convince him not to make plastic because it was too difficult. "That's why we didn't go through the Plastic Age before the Bronze Age."
The last chapter has several thoughtful passages about the collision of industrialization and the environment:
"The real 'cost' of products is hidden. We don't see (or smell) the pollution emitted when iron is smelted or plastics are made. You wouldn't want it happening in your back garden. Equally we don't have to live with all the stuff we throw away. But pollution and rubbish don't just disappear, they end up somewhere, and if not dealt with properly, are costing someone something (their health perhaps)."
Thwaites said he values his handmade toaster and that he'll never throw it away. "Maybe when we're in school each of us should assemble our own toaster, our own kettle, our own little microwave or something, then perhaps we'd be more likely to keep these things for longer, and repair and look after them. This would mean these products would be more than things that just come 'from the shops.'"
Sidenote: Shortly after I read this book and wrote this review, my own toaster died. I don't have the skills to design my own, but I decided to try and buy one that was at least made in my own country. But it couldn't be done. Almost every toaster had been made in China. Finally I had to settle for buying a toaster that was sold from a locally-owned family store, instead of a national chain. Oy, our modern economy is so complicated.
June 5, 2015
If you’re wondering what the puddle of goo is lying on the floor beside me, it’s what’s left of my broken brain. Yes, this book mushed my head up like it was making Kool-Aid.
The high concept synopsis of this book is that the author wanted to build a toaster, from scratch. You know, kind of inspired by a line in one of Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s novels where the inability to build a toaster from scratch while stranded on an alien, and primitive, world was meant to insult the intelligence of the stranded person.
So, the author figured, how hard can it be? He started with a toaster he paid $8 for at the local big box store and disassembled it. He figured he needed just a handful of raw materials and he’d be good to go.
Steel, mica, copper, nickel, and plastic.
And this guy took his project to an extreme I don’t think any normal person would go to. He figured that if he went down to a store and purchased his items and assembled them then he was already cheating. No, he had to really make this.
So, step one, he needed to make some steel. Which meant he had to get hold of some iron, which meant digging it out of the ground, extracting it from the ore, putting it into a forge (which he would also create) and making the heating element necessary for his toaster.
As an aside, this was a book, obviously, but it was also his final project for his degree, so he was on a timeline. He had 9 months to make this toaster from scratch.
From here on out, hilarity ensues.
This book struck a nerve with me because it’s something I think about, a lot. If I were either shuttled back in time, or dropped off in a jungle somewhere hopelessly remote, what level of technology should I realistically be able to recreate? I mean, seriously, what if it’s up to me to reeducate the world after the apocalypse?
In fact, I’m terrified about how precarious our entire way of life is situated on thousands of little pieces that all come together in order to make living possible. I eat food imported from all over the globe on this impossibly complex transportation network. It enables me to pay less for a tomato grown 2500 miles away than I would for one grown 10 miles from my house.
I’m doubtful I could start a fire unless I had a lighter and some gasoline. So how far away am I from reproducing the iPhone in my pocket? I can’t just MacGyver together some combination of tree sap , orange juice, and turtle shells. This stuff is complex.
So, I lost my train of thought. You’d think I’d go back and reread until I got back on track, but that’s ridiculous. I’ll just power right on ahead.
My favorite part of the book, or rather, when all my different brain parts where firing the hardest, was when he was making the outer casing of the toaster. He’d decided to go pick up a bucket of crude oil to turn into his plastic, and went through this hilarious exchange with the folks at BP about picking up a bucket while they were scrambling with the whole spill in the gulf. He was trying to pitch them on BP helping out the little guy who wanted to make a toaster while they were spewing a bajillion gallons of crude into the ocean ever few seconds.
In case you were wondering, they didn’t give him what he wanted. He’d heard about making plastic out of potatoes, and so tried that. He made the mold himself, or course, by taking a fallen tree from across the street and carving it by hand.
The potato plastic did not work out.
He ended up figuring something out, I forget what it was. But I was also appreciative of the chemistry lesson of plastics too. I didn’t realize that at room temperature, most of the stuff of plastics would normally be a gas, but that under pressure the atoms start lining up and bonding with one another, it’s apparently very complicated, and as was explained to the author by one chemist, ‘there’s a reason we weren’t making plastics a thousand years ago: It’s really hard to do.”
So, as much as I loved this, it wasn’t perfect. Once he got to assembling his power supply and he had to get his copper and nickel, well, it’s hard not to talk about that without talking about industrial mining techniques, and here the book really screeches to a halt. It gets very heavy, even if it’s understandable, and I started to feel like I was being preached at, at least a bit.
In the end, despite the rather somber last couple of chapters, I really enjoyed this, it’s a brilliant concept that I have thought about a lot over the years (not building a toaster, specifically, but about how hard it is to really make something from scratch), and loved to see it broken down the way this toaster problem was here.
Reading this is a treat. I wish it were longer.
The high concept synopsis of this book is that the author wanted to build a toaster, from scratch. You know, kind of inspired by a line in one of Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s novels where the inability to build a toaster from scratch while stranded on an alien, and primitive, world was meant to insult the intelligence of the stranded person.
So, the author figured, how hard can it be? He started with a toaster he paid $8 for at the local big box store and disassembled it. He figured he needed just a handful of raw materials and he’d be good to go.
Steel, mica, copper, nickel, and plastic.
And this guy took his project to an extreme I don’t think any normal person would go to. He figured that if he went down to a store and purchased his items and assembled them then he was already cheating. No, he had to really make this.
So, step one, he needed to make some steel. Which meant he had to get hold of some iron, which meant digging it out of the ground, extracting it from the ore, putting it into a forge (which he would also create) and making the heating element necessary for his toaster.
As an aside, this was a book, obviously, but it was also his final project for his degree, so he was on a timeline. He had 9 months to make this toaster from scratch.
From here on out, hilarity ensues.
This book struck a nerve with me because it’s something I think about, a lot. If I were either shuttled back in time, or dropped off in a jungle somewhere hopelessly remote, what level of technology should I realistically be able to recreate? I mean, seriously, what if it’s up to me to reeducate the world after the apocalypse?
In fact, I’m terrified about how precarious our entire way of life is situated on thousands of little pieces that all come together in order to make living possible. I eat food imported from all over the globe on this impossibly complex transportation network. It enables me to pay less for a tomato grown 2500 miles away than I would for one grown 10 miles from my house.
I’m doubtful I could start a fire unless I had a lighter and some gasoline. So how far away am I from reproducing the iPhone in my pocket? I can’t just MacGyver together some combination of tree sap , orange juice, and turtle shells. This stuff is complex.
So, I lost my train of thought. You’d think I’d go back and reread until I got back on track, but that’s ridiculous. I’ll just power right on ahead.
My favorite part of the book, or rather, when all my different brain parts where firing the hardest, was when he was making the outer casing of the toaster. He’d decided to go pick up a bucket of crude oil to turn into his plastic, and went through this hilarious exchange with the folks at BP about picking up a bucket while they were scrambling with the whole spill in the gulf. He was trying to pitch them on BP helping out the little guy who wanted to make a toaster while they were spewing a bajillion gallons of crude into the ocean ever few seconds.
In case you were wondering, they didn’t give him what he wanted. He’d heard about making plastic out of potatoes, and so tried that. He made the mold himself, or course, by taking a fallen tree from across the street and carving it by hand.
The potato plastic did not work out.
He ended up figuring something out, I forget what it was. But I was also appreciative of the chemistry lesson of plastics too. I didn’t realize that at room temperature, most of the stuff of plastics would normally be a gas, but that under pressure the atoms start lining up and bonding with one another, it’s apparently very complicated, and as was explained to the author by one chemist, ‘there’s a reason we weren’t making plastics a thousand years ago: It’s really hard to do.”
So, as much as I loved this, it wasn’t perfect. Once he got to assembling his power supply and he had to get his copper and nickel, well, it’s hard not to talk about that without talking about industrial mining techniques, and here the book really screeches to a halt. It gets very heavy, even if it’s understandable, and I started to feel like I was being preached at, at least a bit.
In the end, despite the rather somber last couple of chapters, I really enjoyed this, it’s a brilliant concept that I have thought about a lot over the years (not building a toaster, specifically, but about how hard it is to really make something from scratch), and loved to see it broken down the way this toaster problem was here.
Reading this is a treat. I wish it were longer.
October 7, 2011
Like Douglas Adams made speculative fiction absurd by brutally acknowledging that (in all *probability*) humans are not very important nor will be in the future, Thwaites (intentionally imitating Adams) has made science writing absurd in a similar way. I mean, he doesn't start his book with the casual death of all human beings save one, like Adams did. But he does begin by proposing a ridiculous project, proceeds to break all the rules he has set for himself, and finishes by acknowledging that he has accomplished little except generated a narrative and gathered enough documentation (photographs, interviews, etc.) with which he can write a book. Only by acknowledging the absurdity of his own project can he adequately express the contemporary world that his book embodies, our world of incomprehensibly complex modern supply chains, of intractable conundrums like that of environmental degradation versus consumer demand, and of the emergent (and, I think, disconcerting) literary interstices inhabited by self-bloggers. None of this is to say that Thwaites's book isn't outrageously informative and interesting, scientifically and culturally speaking. It is! But the entire thing is so tongue-in-cheek, so obnoxious about narrative and the process of book-making, so consciously un-serious and apolitical, that the overall message is not (for me) really about science or globalization or environmentalism, but rather the message is the absurdity of being a writer in a world made of chains, problems, and trends too large and complex for a single writer to understand, let alone express. All that's left to be explained is how absurd it is that nothing can be explained fully. Am I saying that narrative non-fiction is dead, and that The Toaster Project has killed it? I might be saying that.
February 14, 2025
This is exactly what I needed. A nice short book about stuff I think is super interesting that doesn't take itself overly serious.
I think the whole economic side of this is so interesting. How the procedures and technology of capitalism have become so effecient that making these rather complex items can be sold for (relatively) so cheap to consumers. That along with the actual process of building a toaster from "scratch" is just a pleasure to read.
Quick read, no notes.
I think the whole economic side of this is so interesting. How the procedures and technology of capitalism have become so effecient that making these rather complex items can be sold for (relatively) so cheap to consumers. That along with the actual process of building a toaster from "scratch" is just a pleasure to read.
Quick read, no notes.
March 8, 2025
A very charming journey to read about. I enjoyed his photos and learning about where he got the materials, as well as how challenging it is to get them if you're just one guy with not a lot of money. His struggles made me think about how different this project would be if someone attempted it in our current year, with all sorts of different technologies available to assist them. As a project, I think it's very well done and I hope he graduated from his MA with distinction!
As a book, I think it's just okay. I felt myself losing interest during big blocks of informative text and then I'd get drawn back in when he added pictures and started talking about his own anecdotes. The only way for me to really lock in and care 100% about all the facts is if this had been in documentary or YouTube video format.
As a book, I think it's just okay. I felt myself losing interest during big blocks of informative text and then I'd get drawn back in when he added pictures and started talking about his own anecdotes. The only way for me to really lock in and care 100% about all the facts is if this had been in documentary or YouTube video format.
April 13, 2025
Definitely not a masterpiece of a book, but very interesting and grounded information concerning metal mining/processing and plastics creation. I liked the plastics section the most I think, very interesting hearing the multiple different ways some kind of plastic could be made. I thought the copper and nickel sections were missing some information I would have found interesting, and the construction section really doesn't do the process justice. Basically, the book wraps up really fast after the plastic section.
September 20, 2011
I have mixed feelings about this book. The concept of a man making a toaster completely from scratch is definitely interesting, and the author is quite entertaining in his writing.
However, as quick as a read as this book is, I can't help but say I felt 1) a little bored with it and 2) a little shortchanged. The book begins like it is going to be a nice complete document/thesis on his project. He essentially dissects the cheapest toaster he can find in hopes of recreating it from scratch. When I say from scratch, he is going to the point of creating steel from ore and even trying to make his own plastic from oil. He even has the intention of creating a timer mechanism, etc.
The author essentially breaks the toaster down to a handful of raw ingredients, and he does a great job of describing the process of obtaining those raw ingredients. It is humorous at times mostly because the author (this project seems to have been the basis for a thesis in Sociology) has that British sense of humor which includes the ability to laugh at himself and his own naivety. The problem is that beyond those raw ingredients there is little else to this book. I had expected this book to talk about the details that go into making the toaster, but those are mostly limited to the shape of the toaster and its plug. I probably should have expected as much based on the first chapter as it does become apparent (to the reader and the author) that he is over his head before he even starts. Heck he is a sociology student not an engineer, but considering the detail he gives on obtaining steel, nickel, copper, etc, I was left wanting more. I wasn't expecting a recreation of all the parts, but I thought it would be interesting to read about attempts to create capacitors, etc.
Ultimately, the conclusion of his experiment is a bit of a disappointment, after-all, he had lofty goals that feel like he gave up on without really mentioning that he gave up on them.
Never-the-less, the author's strength is in sociology, and the social commentary included at the end of the book is a nice touch although not terribly enlightening. This is a good book for someone who wants a different aspect of social commentary as well as a humorous and low-tech look at technology. It is not a book for those who want to pick on every little detail, socially or engineering-wise.
However, as quick as a read as this book is, I can't help but say I felt 1) a little bored with it and 2) a little shortchanged. The book begins like it is going to be a nice complete document/thesis on his project. He essentially dissects the cheapest toaster he can find in hopes of recreating it from scratch. When I say from scratch, he is going to the point of creating steel from ore and even trying to make his own plastic from oil. He even has the intention of creating a timer mechanism, etc.
The author essentially breaks the toaster down to a handful of raw ingredients, and he does a great job of describing the process of obtaining those raw ingredients. It is humorous at times mostly because the author (this project seems to have been the basis for a thesis in Sociology) has that British sense of humor which includes the ability to laugh at himself and his own naivety. The problem is that beyond those raw ingredients there is little else to this book. I had expected this book to talk about the details that go into making the toaster, but those are mostly limited to the shape of the toaster and its plug. I probably should have expected as much based on the first chapter as it does become apparent (to the reader and the author) that he is over his head before he even starts. Heck he is a sociology student not an engineer, but considering the detail he gives on obtaining steel, nickel, copper, etc, I was left wanting more. I wasn't expecting a recreation of all the parts, but I thought it would be interesting to read about attempts to create capacitors, etc.
Ultimately, the conclusion of his experiment is a bit of a disappointment, after-all, he had lofty goals that feel like he gave up on without really mentioning that he gave up on them.
Never-the-less, the author's strength is in sociology, and the social commentary included at the end of the book is a nice touch although not terribly enlightening. This is a good book for someone who wants a different aspect of social commentary as well as a humorous and low-tech look at technology. It is not a book for those who want to pick on every little detail, socially or engineering-wise.
January 11, 2025
I’ve rarely had the opportunity to look forward to reading a book as much as I have this one. I’ve known about it for years but only had the chance to read it now. I’ve also rarely had a book I’ve genuinely been excited to tell other people about, even if they aren’t as interested in the topic as me. I was relieved to find the humour that the story is written with but I was also touched by the humanity that it includes at times aswell.
March 14, 2025
“Even if we still don’t have to directly pay for what it costs, we can at least value it for what it’s worth.”
What I really appreciate about this book is how digestible it is. I really think almost anyone could read this, understand it, and find enjoyment in it. For a book about mining, manufacturing, and supply chains that’s pretty damn successful. My favorite parts were probably the times the author actually went to obtain the raw mineral materials and when he made the furnace in the parking lot. Along with the crucible in the microwave. Oh and all the great pictures.
I think it’s so cool that this was the authors masters project and it’s actually a real print book. At the same time it’s clear by the end that the book suffers from the time constraints of this being a project for school. I think the ~synthesis~ at the end especially suffers because of this. The author touches a lot of strong points in the last few pages but like…some of the things he mentions (see electronic waste) have entire books dedicated to them and he only gives a sentence or two to ponder the topic in relation to this without even citing any references. Actually lmao I couldn’t get over how few actual references were cited only because I know this was a project for school. Like my undergrad papers had more sources than this book? I wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for it being a school project truly I swear.
I think this book is a very good primer on how stuff is made and the costs of material extraction. It’s a quick fun read.
What I really appreciate about this book is how digestible it is. I really think almost anyone could read this, understand it, and find enjoyment in it. For a book about mining, manufacturing, and supply chains that’s pretty damn successful. My favorite parts were probably the times the author actually went to obtain the raw mineral materials and when he made the furnace in the parking lot. Along with the crucible in the microwave. Oh and all the great pictures.
I think it’s so cool that this was the authors masters project and it’s actually a real print book. At the same time it’s clear by the end that the book suffers from the time constraints of this being a project for school. I think the ~synthesis~ at the end especially suffers because of this. The author touches a lot of strong points in the last few pages but like…some of the things he mentions (see electronic waste) have entire books dedicated to them and he only gives a sentence or two to ponder the topic in relation to this without even citing any references. Actually lmao I couldn’t get over how few actual references were cited only because I know this was a project for school. Like my undergrad papers had more sources than this book? I wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for it being a school project truly I swear.
I think this book is a very good primer on how stuff is made and the costs of material extraction. It’s a quick fun read.
Read
January 17, 2021Great fun! I read this as accompaniment to Cesar Hidalgo's Why Information Grows. This is what happens when you want to build a toaster from scratch. Working on a domestic scale is all but impossible when you want to create something that is only 3,74 in a shop. 'Submerged in our toasters are layers of hard-won and deeply practical knowledge'. Sitting in a cafe, he realises almost everything he can se ' except maybe some woolen clothes and some wooden furniture, began life as a collection of rocks and sludge, buried in different parts of the world.'. The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy serves as an example 'that without the rest of human society he can't actually make any of it himself' .
September 7, 2022
Self-ironic and lighthearted, while making really great points. The author lures you into the book with a promise of entertinment and you end up having a bit of consumerist existential chrisis.
I kinda wish more art students would adopt this approach instead of usual condescending one.
I kinda wish more art students would adopt this approach instead of usual condescending one.
March 3, 2025
A perfectly pleasant short read about the process of building a toaster. I hate capitalism as much as the next guy and was happy to see some critical thinking (being published in 2007 it’s not a given) of its negative impacts at the end of the book. I like how the book was split and organized into the most basic components and the process behind them. Definitely a layman’s approach to manufacturing, would recommend
August 22, 2015
This is quite an entertaining short read, but I did expect a bit more from it.
What you get is mainly a story of exploration and adventure into sourcing the basic raw materials to build a toaster, told from a design student's perspective. This means a lot of detail is missing or skipped, while at the same time the book contains lots of anecdotes, verbatim conversations, etc.
I found it a bit disappointing that the author's aim was to reproduce a 'modern' toaster from raw materials, which turned out to be quite impossible from early on in the book. The author then goes on to cut quite a few corners to 'sort of' make a modern toaster out of raw materials, and the conclusion is rather ambiguous as to the success of his endeavour.
All in all, the premise of the book is, in my opinion, more intriguing than the actual book. The book does succesfully convey how the industrial revolution and manufacturing have fundamentally changed our world, but I was expecting more of an 'engineering adventure' in trying to build a toast-making contraption with materials sourced from nature.
What you get is mainly a story of exploration and adventure into sourcing the basic raw materials to build a toaster, told from a design student's perspective. This means a lot of detail is missing or skipped, while at the same time the book contains lots of anecdotes, verbatim conversations, etc.
I found it a bit disappointing that the author's aim was to reproduce a 'modern' toaster from raw materials, which turned out to be quite impossible from early on in the book. The author then goes on to cut quite a few corners to 'sort of' make a modern toaster out of raw materials, and the conclusion is rather ambiguous as to the success of his endeavour.
All in all, the premise of the book is, in my opinion, more intriguing than the actual book. The book does succesfully convey how the industrial revolution and manufacturing have fundamentally changed our world, but I was expecting more of an 'engineering adventure' in trying to build a toast-making contraption with materials sourced from nature.
November 15, 2015
I recognized this book from an NPR TED Radio Hour. I enjoyed listening to his piece on the show, but the book is even better - funny and periodically mind-blowing. Though I would have enjoyed more information on some of the topics he delves into, this is a great primer on thinking about where the things we use come from and what their real "cost" is in terms of environmental impact.
March 6, 2016
A good little pop-science book. I'll be honest that I wanted something more thorough, but, for what it was, it was pretty good. I read it in one sitting.
Read
May 5, 2025Interesting to a degree but not to my personal taste.
The author set himself the task to construct, from absolute basics, a toaster modelled on the cheapest one that can be found in a discount catalogue store. The book’s a few years old so, after inflation, I find the equivalent now costs £14 in the UK (US $18.6).
‘From absolute basics’ meant even smelting the metals required from the ore, making the plastic casing from natural hydro-carbons, etc. Any design other than the commercial model mentioned wasn’t an option considered. I think at this point I started to have my doubts. If you want to make the valid point about how separated ordinary people are from understanding the daily products they use or being able to make them I would have preferred to start at a less basic, less ‘Stone Age technology’, level.
Some intriguing aspects. The plastics fabrication stage (for the casing) proved more complicated than metal production (wiring, heating elements). Even so, the author has to make major compromises (e.g. the nickel component of the heating element is derived from Canadian nickel coins!). And it is designed to use 21st century generated mains electricity (though the author acceptably avoids that critical test at the end on safety grounds, and uses batteries to prove it works). In the end it didn’t include the pop-up timer option the author had also set himself as a requirement. Which again suggested that an early redesign stage to review what could be constructed would have saved wasted time.
Given my career as an engineer and scientist I kept thinking of alternative ways I would have done this and this just prejudiced me against the concept chosen here.
Why I chose the book, after some research, came from the current topical discussions on how much manufacturing could potentially be restored to developed countries in The West that has been contracted previously to China and Asia generally. I wanted to review a basic manufacturing process. A long period associated with engineering manufacture meant I was well aware of the division of labour benefits starting with Adam Smith and his pin factory description showing the efficiency aspects it gives. But I also recall the incredibly tedious side of unskilled manufacture on a factory line in my first summer job between school and college where one regular daily job required me to cut a coil of spring into 1” lengths on a hand guillotine (a part of a gas valve assembly)! Something that bored me beyond measure and cried out for automation. You never know - maybe sadly that task is still cheaper to be done manually somewhere in low wage economies…
But this book didn’t really help my thoughts on that other than reminding me of the obvious - how many diverse components and materials, sourced from around the world, are required for such a basic domestic appliance.
No rating - probably interesting for some people, but not something I could get much from.
The author set himself the task to construct, from absolute basics, a toaster modelled on the cheapest one that can be found in a discount catalogue store. The book’s a few years old so, after inflation, I find the equivalent now costs £14 in the UK (US $18.6).
‘From absolute basics’ meant even smelting the metals required from the ore, making the plastic casing from natural hydro-carbons, etc. Any design other than the commercial model mentioned wasn’t an option considered. I think at this point I started to have my doubts. If you want to make the valid point about how separated ordinary people are from understanding the daily products they use or being able to make them I would have preferred to start at a less basic, less ‘Stone Age technology’, level.
Some intriguing aspects. The plastics fabrication stage (for the casing) proved more complicated than metal production (wiring, heating elements). Even so, the author has to make major compromises (e.g. the nickel component of the heating element is derived from Canadian nickel coins!). And it is designed to use 21st century generated mains electricity (though the author acceptably avoids that critical test at the end on safety grounds, and uses batteries to prove it works). In the end it didn’t include the pop-up timer option the author had also set himself as a requirement. Which again suggested that an early redesign stage to review what could be constructed would have saved wasted time.
Given my career as an engineer and scientist I kept thinking of alternative ways I would have done this and this just prejudiced me against the concept chosen here.
Why I chose the book, after some research, came from the current topical discussions on how much manufacturing could potentially be restored to developed countries in The West that has been contracted previously to China and Asia generally. I wanted to review a basic manufacturing process. A long period associated with engineering manufacture meant I was well aware of the division of labour benefits starting with Adam Smith and his pin factory description showing the efficiency aspects it gives. But I also recall the incredibly tedious side of unskilled manufacture on a factory line in my first summer job between school and college where one regular daily job required me to cut a coil of spring into 1” lengths on a hand guillotine (a part of a gas valve assembly)! Something that bored me beyond measure and cried out for automation. You never know - maybe sadly that task is still cheaper to be done manually somewhere in low wage economies…
But this book didn’t really help my thoughts on that other than reminding me of the obvious - how many diverse components and materials, sourced from around the world, are required for such a basic domestic appliance.
No rating - probably interesting for some people, but not something I could get much from.
May 27, 2022
Never finished a book in such short time frame. It’s a lean volume with touches of hilarious (rationalized) absurdity. (Some) level of insanity (and grit) appears to be a must have to to get to the bottom of just anything.
The environmental
angle comes through as the book progress toward the later chapters. It’s fair to say it barely scratches the surface on that subject or dips into the complex and interconnected waters of vast forces behind the issue yet still manages to render lingering thoughts. One star is earned back by providing recommended reading.
Does some basic household stable like a toaster epitome the marvelous technological advancements in simplifying modern day living or is it a little white elephant sitting on our kitchen counter as a daily reminder of the destructive power released upon our planet to meet just one seemingly innocuous need?
Is it a book, a journey, or a prototype?
I rather like the idea that all of us, …manufacturers….consumers…should all be part of the journey. We should all know and be involved in seeing things through and through on a much more personal level. What comes from planet earth will return to it. In what shapes or form?
Each consumer product should come with an (electronic) booklet specifying everything involved in producing it. Here is where smart home devices could come in, in informing and educating by gamifying this learning process for everyone on a regular basis, via offering in an entertaining format such as this project. Maybe this type of projects should be in school curriculum, much more effective in teaching and learning through investigative efforts.
We need to know. …Do THEY want us?
The environmental
angle comes through as the book progress toward the later chapters. It’s fair to say it barely scratches the surface on that subject or dips into the complex and interconnected waters of vast forces behind the issue yet still manages to render lingering thoughts. One star is earned back by providing recommended reading.
Does some basic household stable like a toaster epitome the marvelous technological advancements in simplifying modern day living or is it a little white elephant sitting on our kitchen counter as a daily reminder of the destructive power released upon our planet to meet just one seemingly innocuous need?
Is it a book, a journey, or a prototype?
I rather like the idea that all of us, …manufacturers….consumers…should all be part of the journey. We should all know and be involved in seeing things through and through on a much more personal level. What comes from planet earth will return to it. In what shapes or form?
Each consumer product should come with an (electronic) booklet specifying everything involved in producing it. Here is where smart home devices could come in, in informing and educating by gamifying this learning process for everyone on a regular basis, via offering in an entertaining format such as this project. Maybe this type of projects should be in school curriculum, much more effective in teaching and learning through investigative efforts.
We need to know. …Do THEY want us?
July 3, 2020
Originell, intelligent, unterhaltsam und regt zum Nachdenken an. Das Buch zeigt sehr schön, wie die Errungenschaften unserer modernen Gesellschaft auf einem Kartenhaus aus hoch spezialisiertem Wissen und filigranen Fertigungsprozessen ruht. Und wie fragil dieses Konstrukt im Grunde ist.
Gleichzeitig wirft es (gegen Ende) zurecht die Frage nach den wahren Kosten unserer Produkte sowie der Wertschätzung gegenüber den Dingen unseres Alltags auf. Wie kann ein Gerät aus so vielen Materialien und komplex gefertigten Einzelteilen so günstig sein? Das geht nur, indem der Naturverbrauch nicht berechnet wird.
Alles in allem ein sehr lesenswertes Buch und nicht zuletzt aufgrund der vielen Bilder auch eine sehr kurzweilige Lektüre.
Gleichzeitig wirft es (gegen Ende) zurecht die Frage nach den wahren Kosten unserer Produkte sowie der Wertschätzung gegenüber den Dingen unseres Alltags auf. Wie kann ein Gerät aus so vielen Materialien und komplex gefertigten Einzelteilen so günstig sein? Das geht nur, indem der Naturverbrauch nicht berechnet wird.
Alles in allem ein sehr lesenswertes Buch und nicht zuletzt aufgrund der vielen Bilder auch eine sehr kurzweilige Lektüre.
November 16, 2023
Great exploration of modern materials and our (over) use of them.
I enjoyed the environmental perspective taken from this exercise in producing a common appliance from “scratch”.
It’s incredible to see how difficult it is to produce things we see in our daily lives.
Made me consider how I understand very little about the materials and production of most of my daily tools.
Scary!
I enjoyed the environmental perspective taken from this exercise in producing a common appliance from “scratch”.
It’s incredible to see how difficult it is to produce things we see in our daily lives.
Made me consider how I understand very little about the materials and production of most of my daily tools.
Scary!
November 26, 2018
The Toaster Project was an attempt by Thwaites to build a modern appliance, in this case a toaster, from scratch. Starting with digging up the required ores and fabricating plastic and electrical cables etc from the raw materials. The concept of this book is incredibly interesting, but the author failed in his attempt to build a toaster from scratch, without making use of modern equipment such as a leaf blower instead of the usual old-fashioned bellows, a microwave instead of a furnace etc. I also got the impression that the author got bored with his project halfway through and lost interest. The writing isn't all that eloquent or explanatory either, with a half-hearted attempt at reflecting on the cheap consumer culture. The book is amusing and does make a valid point, but this was a missed opportunity to write a great book to explore modern consumer culture, the advance of technology and the creation of the modern age.
January 12, 2023
Quirky and fun, less a serious analytical experiment and more like one of those YouTube engineers who build wild gadgets, blowing several breakers along the way. An interesting commentary on where we get our stuff, and what does it really cost?
November 18, 2019
Cracking little read, as my toast gets buttered on both a Tuesday and Thursday basis, Thomas Thwaites' certainly isn't.
sony-or-android
November 15, 2022hoopla ebook
June 10, 2025
výborný príbeh len trošku anticlimatic
September 18, 2023
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
October 14, 2015
The Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaties
First impressions aren’t everything. The Toaster Project’s title, cover, and the toaster itself don’t showcase the stories true potential . The Toaster Project was definitely more than an attempt at making a homemade toaster. I would call this adventurous nonfiction a success.
The Toaster Project is a wonderfully written story about Thomas Thwaites’s journey about making a toaster from scratch. The adventure takes place over a nine month period where Thomas follows a set of three rules on a death defying journey.
Rule 1. The toaster must be like the ones they sell in ordinary stores
Rule 2. The parts used to make the toaster must all be made from scratch
Rule 3. The toaster must be made on a domestic scale
I would definitely recommend this book to others who are needing a nonfiction book to read. The book has a flow to it that makes it easier to read and is shorter than most books. Young adults would like this book more than children because there are times where you need to have a longer attention span. I loved how Thomas Thwaties, the author, added emotion and character into his narration. However, I didn’t really enjoy the random letters or interruptions of the book because it interrupted the flow of the journey. I thought this was a fantastic nonfiction book that held my interest for the most part of the book.
First impressions aren’t everything. The Toaster Project’s title, cover, and the toaster itself don’t showcase the stories true potential . The Toaster Project was definitely more than an attempt at making a homemade toaster. I would call this adventurous nonfiction a success.
The Toaster Project is a wonderfully written story about Thomas Thwaites’s journey about making a toaster from scratch. The adventure takes place over a nine month period where Thomas follows a set of three rules on a death defying journey.
Rule 1. The toaster must be like the ones they sell in ordinary stores
Rule 2. The parts used to make the toaster must all be made from scratch
Rule 3. The toaster must be made on a domestic scale
I would definitely recommend this book to others who are needing a nonfiction book to read. The book has a flow to it that makes it easier to read and is shorter than most books. Young adults would like this book more than children because there are times where you need to have a longer attention span. I loved how Thomas Thwaties, the author, added emotion and character into his narration. However, I didn’t really enjoy the random letters or interruptions of the book because it interrupted the flow of the journey. I thought this was a fantastic nonfiction book that held my interest for the most part of the book.
June 25, 2012
This book chronicles the Master's project of a British design student to make a toaster "from scratch". By from scratch he means that he wishes to take each component from its natural state to whatever form it needs to be in to be in a toaster. He starts off well enough by disassembling a cheap toaster. He then proceeds to jump in the deep end. He warned off by many well intentioned experts but pursues his dream.
The story lacks a coherent flow and isn't especially compelling. We learn early on that even he doesn't really know why he's doing it and he's unwilling to say that it just sounds neat. His research into the topic is anemic at best. He ignores various experts he contacts when they warn him about pitfalls he's up against. In the end he arrives at conclusions that one doesn't need to do the impossible to arrive at, we have many specialized products in our lives that we can't make on our own because the skills are too unique. He also has a short diatribe about the impacts of resource harvesting for the volume of these products made and used in the world.While a worthwhile message, it's out of place in this book.
The story lacks a coherent flow and isn't especially compelling. We learn early on that even he doesn't really know why he's doing it and he's unwilling to say that it just sounds neat. His research into the topic is anemic at best. He ignores various experts he contacts when they warn him about pitfalls he's up against. In the end he arrives at conclusions that one doesn't need to do the impossible to arrive at, we have many specialized products in our lives that we can't make on our own because the skills are too unique. He also has a short diatribe about the impacts of resource harvesting for the volume of these products made and used in the world.While a worthwhile message, it's out of place in this book.
December 27, 2022
I loved the idea of this book. However, this book is actually about 2 things, neither of which is making a toaster from scratch.
1) All the ways the author had to cheat, take shortcuts, and bend the rules to accomplish the project. For the budget, timeline, and level of effort the author was prepared to invest, making a toaster from scratch is utterly infeasible. At almost every step as difficulties arose, rather than upping the investment, he chose to cheapen the achievement instead.
2) The author's pontifications on the economics, psychology, and environmental impacts of free market consumer culture. While his writing on this theme is not some extreme ideological hack job, the simple fact of the matter is that the author's experience with this project does not actually provide him any special insight into these topics. What the author says on these topics could equally well be offered by any person on the street interested in taking the time to commit the ideas to paper.
1) All the ways the author had to cheat, take shortcuts, and bend the rules to accomplish the project. For the budget, timeline, and level of effort the author was prepared to invest, making a toaster from scratch is utterly infeasible. At almost every step as difficulties arose, rather than upping the investment, he chose to cheapen the achievement instead.
2) The author's pontifications on the economics, psychology, and environmental impacts of free market consumer culture. While his writing on this theme is not some extreme ideological hack job, the simple fact of the matter is that the author's experience with this project does not actually provide him any special insight into these topics. What the author says on these topics could equally well be offered by any person on the street interested in taking the time to commit the ideas to paper.
February 27, 2016
This is one of my colleagues' favourite books and as it only has 525 ratings on Goodreads, I though it'd be a great start to the #UnderHypedReads readathon!
This is an interesting non-fiction tale about a Masters student who decides to make a toaster from scratch. Part travel writing, part scientific study and part environmental essay, this book discussed important themes such as the environmental damage of our consumer culture and the effects of this on the price of goods.
Although I was expecting more about the science behind this project, I found Thomas' rationale behind the experiment to be important and believable. There was an element of humour throughout as the author has a very dry sense of humour and isn't afraid to laugh at his own mistakes.
Overall this was a short and enjoyable read with plenty of pictures and food for though.
This is an interesting non-fiction tale about a Masters student who decides to make a toaster from scratch. Part travel writing, part scientific study and part environmental essay, this book discussed important themes such as the environmental damage of our consumer culture and the effects of this on the price of goods.
Although I was expecting more about the science behind this project, I found Thomas' rationale behind the experiment to be important and believable. There was an element of humour throughout as the author has a very dry sense of humour and isn't afraid to laugh at his own mistakes.
Overall this was a short and enjoyable read with plenty of pictures and food for though.
November 17, 2017
The premise of this book is simple--build a toaster from scratch--and Twaites' writing style is similarly straightforward. But what Thwaites is up to here is deep, nothing less than undermining (at one point, literally) the foundations of the throw-away culture upon which both late consumer capitalism and the ongoing rush to wreck the planet depend.
Thwaites tells the story in a matter-of-fact, at times deadpan, voice, punctuating the tale with fun facts, amusing email, and quick character sketches of people met along the way. It's a fun, fast read with a powerful message made palatable by the breezy style.
Don't undercut your own enjoyment by reading too many reviews that might reveal key events or conclusions too soon. Just jump in and enjoy the ride.
Thwaites tells the story in a matter-of-fact, at times deadpan, voice, punctuating the tale with fun facts, amusing email, and quick character sketches of people met along the way. It's a fun, fast read with a powerful message made palatable by the breezy style.
Don't undercut your own enjoyment by reading too many reviews that might reveal key events or conclusions too soon. Just jump in and enjoy the ride.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 246 reviews