Customer Reviews

I Can Do That! Woodworking Projects (Popular Woodworking)

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

 

 

This book is designed to allow people with limited tools to create "real" projects from wood. All the projects assume the builder has a small set of tools that are described in the early sections of the book. In general, the authors focus on some hand tools and a few "smaller" power tools: drill, miter saw, and jigsaw. This tool section describes what the reader should look for when buying new tools and has a nice discussion on their use. Overall, this section is quite useful.

Projects are specifically designed with home-center materials in mind, focusing on oak, plywood, poplar, and dimensional lumber. They are, as you might expect with a limited toolset, relatively spartan designs. They do look nice, and seem to serve their intended function. Generally the build instructions are good and stick to the assumed toolset pretty well.

Unfortunately, there are also a few flaws. It doesn't take long to see the limitations of the chosen toolset and get awfully bored with the plans. Squarish designs are typical -- the cover projects are by far the most interesting, yet I could not see these occupying a place in my home. The two chair plans are particularly odd, and looking at them made me wonder if anyone had actually used them. I cannot see wanting to sit in either one.

Finally, a large number of these project plans are available on Popular Woodworking magazine's website at no cost. The early section describing the tools, which is probably the most valuable section of the book, is also available on their website.

Overall, I found this book to be disappointing, and my frustration reached new levels when I realized that much of its content can be downloaded free.

As a novice wood worker I have really enjoyed this book and can start on projects without buying thousands of dollars of tools. Great introduction on how to use the tools and easy to understand intructructions for the projects.

Lovely book, lots of projects from very simple to a bit more difficult. Good for learning some techniques.

If you don't find yourself nodding when trying to watch the DVD, all power to you.
The content of the DVD is great, but the individual putting on the DVD is a sleeper.
We laughed many times and had to watch it to the end, just because of his lack of enthusiasm and stage personality.
The BOOK is well written and contains many wonderful project ideas, although watch for many areas that your own ideas will improve on.

John

I gave this to my Dad for Christmas. He does woodworking as a hobby and gives away his projects to friends and donates many to the YMCA. He makes the parts of projects for the Y kids camp during the summer so they can complete and finish their own woodworking projects. He's always looking for new ideas so I thought this would help. He really likes the ideas and instructions.

I bought this book for my husband for Christmas and he was very happy with it. It gave him many more ideas. Great purchase.

I bought this book for my 13 year old son and after I received it I realized that it didn't give a lot of direction for tools and wood. It has some great projects but we need to learn first. Otherwise, I really like the projects and the directions given on how to create the projects. We may get to this book after some practice.

I usually rank a book like this by how may projects I will actually attempt. I go through,bookmark the projects, and then compare how many projects there are with how many I will try. I went all the way through this book and ended up with ONE bookmark! I went back through to see if I had missed something. Nope, only one was of interest. On another critical review I noticed that the projects lean heavily to the Arts & Crafts type items. A lot of these items would be things you would see on sale at a craft show or maybe a more upscale flea market. I like to make items that are of higher quality from more exotic hardwoods. If you want to have a little fun in the garage making knick-knacks, give this book a try. If you are an advanced woodworker or are looking for more artistic projects, pass on this book.