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The Complete Book of Woodworking: Step-by-Step Guide to Essential Woodworking Skills, Techniques, Tools and Tips (Landauer) 40+ Easy-to-Follow Projects and Plans, 1,200+ Photos, and Carpentry Basics
The ultimate step-by-step guide to essential woodworking skills, techniques, tools, tips and tricks. The Complete Guide to Woodworking features detailed plans for 40 stunning projects for woodworkers of all levels, plus more than 1,200 step-by-step illustrations across 480 pages. For beginners and experienced woodworkers alike, this is the ultimate step-by-step guide. New woodworkers will learn how to set up shop, understand the tools, learn the principles of basic design, and practice essential woodworking techniques while creating home accessories, furnishings, outdoor projects, workshop projects, and more. Experienced crafters will enjoy enhancing their skills and learning something new. From the principles of basic design to techniques to a gallery of 40 complete plans for fabulous woodworking projects, this thorough and attractive book provides all the information you need to become a master woodworker and have a houseful of fine furnishings to show for the effort! "If you are going to buy only one woodworking book, this should be it."
—Library Journal
—Library Journal
480 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2002
10 people are currently reading
184 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 18, 2017
The blind trying to lead the blind.
The first third of the book is an unstructured infodump that repeats the same shallow 101 stuff a million other woodworking books do, but, like most of those million books, doesn't demonstrate more understanding than the guy who attended a single woodworking workshop and thinks he now has things to teach the world. Representative: for edge-jointing, the only two options mentioned are a power jointer and a jointer plane (with the footnote that power jointers are expensive so you may want to start with a jointer plane—which, incidentally, will also set you back hundreds of dollars—and ``upgrade when the time is right''), which, yes, that's very by-the-book, but also not helpful when by far the most convenient, affordable, and realistic option for edge-jointing in a small workshop is your table saw.
Other money-wasting aspects include the usual parade of electrical hand tools all implicitly given equal weight which will inevitably lead people to believe a jigsaw is a sensible thing to own (it's fucking not), advertiser-supplied misinformation suggesting pocket hole jigs are convenient and biscuit joiners do anything at all (including the bizarre claim that they're stronger than dowels), and a comically underinformed discussion of wood movement that would almost be funny if I hadn't already had to argue with a dipshit who bought it in the past.
Arguably the biggest problem, though, is the complete disregard for safety around, of course, table saws. There's next to no discussion of it even though table saws are responsible for more injuries than all other woodworking tools combined, because the authors specifically don't understand what causes kickback and therefore assume it must not really happen; the term ``riving knife'' is mentioned in the text exactly once (though it's not explained what it does, obviously), but not a single table saw photographed has one, and there are a lot of photographs of table saws being used. This is beyond reckless.
The remainder of the book is a bunch of plans, almost all of which are bad in a variety of ways, but usually for no reason. A lot of them seem to be designs that were once sensible but have been ``adapted'' to replace good joinery with screws and nails (and, in one case, pocket screws) for absolutely no reason other than, I guess, to look but not actually be simpler to make. Many are salvageable, though the instructions are not. That's true for even the worst project plans collections, though.
Books like these make the world—or at least my world—a worse place to live. They waste their readers' time and materials and fingers, and eventually my time as well, when those readers come to me. If I'm being fair I'll grant that it's not actually (much) worse than the vast majority of Woodworking 101 books, and on a good day I might have given it two or maybe even three stars. Everyone else also being shit doesn't make this one any less so, though, and good days don't happen anymore.
The first third of the book is an unstructured infodump that repeats the same shallow 101 stuff a million other woodworking books do, but, like most of those million books, doesn't demonstrate more understanding than the guy who attended a single woodworking workshop and thinks he now has things to teach the world. Representative: for edge-jointing, the only two options mentioned are a power jointer and a jointer plane (with the footnote that power jointers are expensive so you may want to start with a jointer plane—which, incidentally, will also set you back hundreds of dollars—and ``upgrade when the time is right''), which, yes, that's very by-the-book, but also not helpful when by far the most convenient, affordable, and realistic option for edge-jointing in a small workshop is your table saw.
Other money-wasting aspects include the usual parade of electrical hand tools all implicitly given equal weight which will inevitably lead people to believe a jigsaw is a sensible thing to own (it's fucking not), advertiser-supplied misinformation suggesting pocket hole jigs are convenient and biscuit joiners do anything at all (including the bizarre claim that they're stronger than dowels), and a comically underinformed discussion of wood movement that would almost be funny if I hadn't already had to argue with a dipshit who bought it in the past.
Arguably the biggest problem, though, is the complete disregard for safety around, of course, table saws. There's next to no discussion of it even though table saws are responsible for more injuries than all other woodworking tools combined, because the authors specifically don't understand what causes kickback and therefore assume it must not really happen; the term ``riving knife'' is mentioned in the text exactly once (though it's not explained what it does, obviously), but not a single table saw photographed has one, and there are a lot of photographs of table saws being used. This is beyond reckless.
The remainder of the book is a bunch of plans, almost all of which are bad in a variety of ways, but usually for no reason. A lot of them seem to be designs that were once sensible but have been ``adapted'' to replace good joinery with screws and nails (and, in one case, pocket screws) for absolutely no reason other than, I guess, to look but not actually be simpler to make. Many are salvageable, though the instructions are not. That's true for even the worst project plans collections, though.
Books like these make the world—or at least my world—a worse place to live. They waste their readers' time and materials and fingers, and eventually my time as well, when those readers come to me. If I'm being fair I'll grant that it's not actually (much) worse than the vast majority of Woodworking 101 books, and on a good day I might have given it two or maybe even three stars. Everyone else also being shit doesn't make this one any less so, though, and good days don't happen anymore.
Want to read
May 25, 2009One day, many years ago, a quaint notion jumped into my head. Let's start woodworking! Never mind I'm a terrible handyman. I thought it would be fun. So I bought this book - and that's it. Never read it, never attemtped to make anything, and most likely never will. But the book is mine forever.
January 22, 2023
Would have been worth the full cover price when it was first published (pre-YouTube), but is now entirely superceded/replaced by online video tutorials. I suppose someone off-the-grid could still find this book invaluable.
May 24, 2022
Solid basics and some example projects.
Overall, this was helpful as a beginner and has enough detail that I'll probably reference it when I need more info on thing, for example different furnishing options.
Overall, this was helpful as a beginner and has enough detail that I'll probably reference it when I need more info on thing, for example different furnishing options.
November 25, 2022
Practical projects in reach for a decent intermediate woodworker. Helpful and worth the time of someone who likes building things in wood.
November 3, 2018
I found it interesting that this book had some very high reviews, and some very low reviews.
I think the key here to understand is the target audience. If you know nothing about woodworking, this is a great book. It'll cover all kinds of joints, materials, and techniques. I didn't know what a rabbet was before reading this book, or what a mortise and tenon, but after reading this book I was able to successfully build a mortise and tenon platform to replace the bottom of a cabinet, and refinish it.
If, however, you already know what different joints are, understand how to do basic woodworking tasks, this book is probably much too basic for you.
But for a complete newbie like me, it's awesome. :)
I think the key here to understand is the target audience. If you know nothing about woodworking, this is a great book. It'll cover all kinds of joints, materials, and techniques. I didn't know what a rabbet was before reading this book, or what a mortise and tenon, but after reading this book I was able to successfully build a mortise and tenon platform to replace the bottom of a cabinet, and refinish it.
If, however, you already know what different joints are, understand how to do basic woodworking tasks, this book is probably much too basic for you.
But for a complete newbie like me, it's awesome. :)
January 29, 2015
A good book to get you smarter about woodworking techniques. Not too advanced, but not to beginner either. If you have some experience, this will make you better. If you are really expert, this book would be below you. It has lots of little tips and stuff for how to deal with typical problems and issues in woodworking. And it has a bunch of plans in the back for making stuff. Not really cool stuff, but more like pedestrian stuff. Tables, cabinets, and stuff.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews