Working Wood 1 & 2: The Artisan Course with Paul Sellers

Working Wood #1-2

by Paul Sellers

This series represents the distilled experience and knowledge, developed over 47 years, of Woodworker and Master Craftsman, Paul Sellers. His remarkable journey saw him learn his trade as a traditional apprentice in England during in the 1960s, and then progress, many years later, to design and make furniture for American Presidents.

The clarity of Paul's teaching is quite exceptional. Founded on twenty years experience during which he has taught over 3,000 woodworkers, the series progressively introduces new skills and techniques through projects, and then reinforces and expands on these through as the reader and viewer progresses further. With over 800 color photos, diagrams and illustrations in the book and extensive use of close-ups in the videos, every stage and technique clearly is clearly explained and discussed.

This comprehensive course in hand tool woodworking is perfect for beginners, just starting out, and is also invaluable resource for more advanced woodworkers to develop their skills and knowledge further.

The first part of the series introduces the mantra of "sharpness, accuracy, technique". Focusing on the essential joints and hand tools.

Part 2 is all about truly mastering the core skills through a series of hand built projects. Focusing on each of the three joints in turn, you will learn to master dovetailed boxes, bookcase making and the principles of table making. By using a combination of these joints, you will learn how to make your own European Workbench. Central to this entire course is a very thorough and comprehensive explanation of how to sharpen your tools, simply and quickly.

Most importantly, this series will teach you how, with just a few groups of basic hand tools, you will be able to make hundreds of projects, and acquire the skill and confidence of a real Artisan.

Note. The DVD collection that accompanies this book is also available on Amazon under Film & TV.

Genres: Woodwork, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[John Rowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Working Wood 1 & 2: The Artisan Course with Paul Sellers by Paul Sellers is a good place to start if you want to learn how to begin a foray into woodworking the right way, at the ground floor. This book is strictly about hand tools and techniques that do not involve electricity, so it is not for many. Since hand tools have to be sharp to really work, this is actually mostly a book about sharpening tools. Again not for everyone.

But if you want to *try* (if you are like me) to learn how the craftsmen do things, this is your book, supplemented by Mr. Sellers' Youtube videos.

4 stars.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Sellers is a master craftsman who is also an excellent teacher. This book is very clear and serves as a great resource for people who watch the author’s excellent woodworking videos.

[Koen Crolla · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've watched one of Sellers' Youtube videos (which you should), you'll know exactly what the expect. It's pretty clear he isn't a writer (his relationship to punctuation strays into tenuousness), but he's passionate about his craft and about communicating it.
The specific aspects he's passionate about may not match up perfectly with yours, however; for Sellers, ``new genre'' woodworking is also in large part about maintaining and restoring old tools, and that shows in the disproportionate attention he gives certain topic. Over a third of the book is dedicated to sharpening tools, which is certainly an important subject even for a beginning woodworker; however, much of the reason this section is so long is because he also deals with restoring antique tools to functionality. And while knowing how to sharpen a saw is kind of useful (even though many modern saws aren't particularly amenable to it), I don't agree that it's seven times more important, by page count, than knowing how to cut a decent dovetail.

Still, it's a very solid book full of feasible, practical projects, all well illustrated. You probably won't learn much that will particularly impress anyone, but the groundwork is mostly all there; you'll definitely be made aware of what hand tools are available and set on the road to becoming familiar with them.

[Stephen Houser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Highly recommend supplementing the content with either the DVDs or Youtube videos if you are working on a specific project.

[Cesar Landin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent guide. It takes you step step on projects that build upon each other, and it is also an excellent rererence book for going back to check a specific step or technique.

[Jeremy Pate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huge fan of Mr. Sellers. I've "read" through the entire book in a day and find it's everything I expected when purchasing the book. I plan to make each of the projects in this book starting with the Spatula and working up to the various furniture pieces (I've already built a traditional workbench before purchasing this book).

The best part of this book in my opinion is the projects. Starting with the very simple spatula, each project builds on the techniques used in the project before. This book to my understanding is the same curriculum as Paul's in person classes at the New Legacy School of Woodworking in the UK. Although many of the projects are complex works, everything in the book is done with @ 10 hand tools and 3 types of wood joint.

I'll likely purchase anything this guy writes. I find the traditional hand tool woodworking to be fascinating and I just want to learn everything this author knows (however unlikely).