Customer Reviews

Arts & Crafts Furniture: Projects You Can Build for the Home (Woodworker's Library)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a nice presentation of fifteen projects in the Arts & Crafts style. Designed from pictures in old catalogs, the problems in construction are solved by Blair Howard as he guides you through each project. The first chapters deal with the designers, their furniture, construction techniques, finish techniques, and materials. The remaining chapters are devoted to the actual pieces. Accomplished woodworkers might find the detailed instructions excessive, but beginners will appreciate the explanations. An excellent beginner's book for Arts & Crafts reproduction at home, with a few designs not seen elsewhere.

I enjoyed Blair Howard's writing style and as a beginning woodworker, appreaciated his completeness and that he went over the techniques he used for every single project, rather than leaving it up to the reader to decide which techniques to use. The book focuses a lot on mortise+tenon joinery, which I appreciate, and does go over the various ways of creating mortises and tenons with machines, though it does not do any more than mention how one would go about making mortises and tenons with hand tools. The projects are rather unique and I am interested in making virtually every one. I appreciated the variety of designers, instead of only presenting Stickley pieces.

As other reviewers have noted, a good book of A&C furniture plans. For example, it has a plan for a Stickley bench, that I haven't found elsewhere. But, some of the finer details needed more explanation. For example, on the Stickley bench, there is a drawing of what the through tendon should look like, but it needed a close-up picture instead.

There is just a mention in the book of using house hold ammonia to fume in color, I'm going to try that on some scrap and see how it works out.

A minor nit - the author's wood choices are just plain bad. If you are going to make items like this, go spend a few more bucks and buy quarter sawn white oak. Better yet, make the entire piece from wood of one tree.

A good book, good plans with almost enough details. Worth your time to take a look.

This book has some good ideas and nice pictures but the plans are not as detailed as I thought they would be. If you are just looking to add to your book collection this would be an interesting filler.