Customer Reviews

Complete Idiot's Guide to Woodworking

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

 

 

As a Middle School and High School Woodshop Teacher, I can tell you that this book does a good job of defining wooworking terms. However, it provides no how-to information. For example, if you would like to know about a biscuit joiner and the joints it creates, all you will find is a verbal description of what it is and a drawing of the joint that looks more like a mortise and tenon than a biscuit joint. Biscuit joinery is not clearly depicted pictorially and there is certainly no information about when to use them, how to use them, or how to do them. Need a wood dictionary? Buy this book. Need a how-to guide for woodworking? Buy something else.

No, if you're looking for a book to "teach you how to build stuff" or give you step-by-step instructions for cutting a beveled half-blind dovetail joint, this one ain't for you. But if you're a beginning woodworker--or thinking about becoming a woodworker--this book will give you a thorough and detailed overview of all aspects of the craft. Karen explores topics ranging from setting up your shop, types and uses of tools (both hand and power), properties of wood, wood selection and storage, types and applications of different joints, adhesives, mechanical fasteners, basic door and carcass construction, milling, building procedure--drafting, cut lists, assembly sequence, finishing, etc. A very good list of resources is included as an appendix. The book is well-written and entertaining, and packed with information--much of which would probably be useful for more seasoned hobbyists as well as the beginners for whom it is intended.

this is a good book if you want to see if woodworking is for you...but if you want to start, this will introduce it to you, but not well enough for you to start out successfully. or well at all for that matter... but it will introduce you, but, unless you know how to use the tools and machines, you might as well take a class.

I've had poor experiences with Idiots Guides in the past, you'd think I would have learned my lesson. As with pretty much every other Idiots Guide I've read, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Woodworking never bothers to touch on the subject listed in the title. Perhaps a better title would have been The Complete Idiot's Guide to Wood, or The Complete Idiot's Guide to how I'm in love with Tage Frid.

The book does offer some good detail in picking out wood (although something as simple as "What to look under in the Yellow Pages for wood suppliers" would have been nice). It also waxes poetic on japanese chisels, and describes the physics of woodworking and jointery, but it doesn't mention squat about how to actually do anything with the wood. The author almost seems obsessed with how "the only way to do a dovetail joint is by hand", but he never bothers to tell you exactly how to do it.

If you need a reference on the physics and qualities of wood, and have no other resource which you can ask (heck, Norm has covered pretty much every detail of wood that this guy mentions), then maybe this book is for you. If you already have a good knowledge of wood and the general tools in a shop, and are looking for a book to teach you how to build stuff, find something else.

Lacked the one piece of info I was seeking. How to measure and cut mitre corners.
Actually geared more to "idiot " with quite a bit of knowledge. Not a whole lot of " How to " info.

I will tailor this review solely for any fellow Kindle lovers who're interested in woodworking. I'm new to woodworking as a hobby and needed something very basic.

This book fits the bill, but having compared it to the print version, it simply does not work on the Kindle.

So, if you're looking for a well-written book on basic woodwork, purchase the dead-trees edition, not the electronic one.