Customer Reviews

Classics from the New Yankee Workshop

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

 

 

I bought this book at my local book store the other day. I must say it is excellent. It is mostly for non-amateurs, but they can give it a try. It says on the book, a companion to the series. I totally agree. Though you can probably make the projects from the book, it will be much easier to follow along with the specific episode. Nice illustrations. Scaled down plans are included.

If you are a fan of the New Yankee Workshop, then you have to get the book.

He's got this book laid out so that each chapter is it's own project. That's a good way to do it to make sure there's enough info to do it right. However, That means that in this relatively fat (expensive) book there are only 10 projects or so. The only project I really liked was the Adirondack chair, the others were too specialized for my simple tastes.

I enjoyed reading and studying some of these projects. Each one of Norm's books have something new and interesting to learn about. My only question is when will there be a next issue? The TV projects are great and it would be nice to review the available plans and be able to order them on the net.

Excellent book! Well laid out and thought out plans. Now if only we could have Norm to run the band saw for us and cut out those curves for the chair.

Anyone that has seen the New Yankee Workshop on PBS knows of Norm Abram. He is a Master Carpenter and has been making furniture and wood working projects for years. I bought the book to make an Adirondack chair. The instructions are detailed and includes pictures of each step. Plus there are 10 additional projects. There is also a section on techniques and finishes. Great Book!

Norm is an excellent carpenter/cabinetmaker. I'll leave all of the hand tool/ power tool arguements out of this. Needless to say, carpenters brought about the invention of power tools and a tool is only as good as the user. This all being said, this book is not a perfect book if you want to make furniture like Norm. In defense of the book, it is listed as being a companion to the series, and in my opinion this book is really most useful if you have the show on while using it. I made two projects from the book and while the instructions were decent it was almost under the assumption that I had a tape of the show on as I was working.
I have many other woodworking project books and they are all at least as good as this and most are much more clearly written. After watching Norm for all these years and seeing how good a teacher he is I thought the book could have been better.