Customer Reviews

Carpentry Essentials: Quick Steps (Black & Decker Essentials)

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I've bought a number of Black and Decker books in the past. Their Deck books especially are a monument to effective printed communication. Every page is color and the color is used with great effectiveness. The text is readable and complete. With minor encouragement, even a beginner can actually build a deck that will not change zip codes in the night.

On the strength of B&D's reputation, I bought Carpentry Essentials. Ewww....

This is some kind of Special Olympics tutorial of home improvement widgets. I don't know who the target audience was - it costs more than most woodworking catalogs and contains less data than you could pick up strolling through the local Home Hell Center.

You tour page after page of beautiful color pictures of screws, clamps, hammers. There are portraits of sheet goods. At the end of, oh, a half hour, you should be able to identify a number of things that hang on hooks or lie around shelves at Home Depot with utter certainty. Alas, if you couldn't already do that, you should not be allowed to have a hammer.

Of COURSE there are 9 used copies for $1. If this title is representative of the series, its highest calling is as kindling. Save your dollar. I wish I had.