Most Helpful Customer Reviews
81 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book - companion cd is "okay", July 22, 2004
This review is from: Complete Metalsmith, ProPlus Edition (Spiral-bound)
This new "pro" edition of The Complete Metalsmith is everything you would expect it to be. Detailed, accurate, and filled with many useful diagrams. It is a significant improvement over the regular edition in terms of topic depth and scope.
The CD includes the full text (searchable pdf) of the pro edition which is very nice to have. It also includes the entire first edition of the Complete Metalsmith AND Practical Jewelry Rendering as scanned pages. The original version is interesting from a historical perspective -- it's amazing to see a handwritten tome of that length.
The application "suite" is delivered as an executable Jar file for Macs and PCs or as a standalone executable for PocketPC or Palm. I've only tried it on my desktop PC so far. The tools include various converters, calculators, and lookup tables that automate some of the calculations included in the book. I would think if you carry a palm/pocketpc it might be a nice add-on -- as a desktop tool, the suite is kind of "useless" since you can find most of this stuff on the web already.
I wholeheartedly recommend the pro edition of the Complete Metalsmith. Is the CD worth the $15 price difference -- I'd have to say "maybe" which is why I gave *this* edition only 4-stars. The searchable pdf of the pro edition will definitely come in handy. I also will make use of the book on jewelry rendering. I don't expect I'll be able to effectively make use of the toolsuite since I don't have a palm/pocketpc OR a desktop computer anywhere near my jewelry studio.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Complete Metalsmith Review, November 22, 2007
This review is from: Complete Metalsmith, ProPlus Edition (Spiral-bound)
This is a great book, well written & easy to understand, Tim writes in plain, conversational English. A book for people with a good solid basic knowledge on metal manipulation/brazing/construction these people will get the most from it & be inspired by the ideas. If you are new to metals then this book will have Big gaps of assumed knowledge (but it is the Pro Plus Edition!)
The spiral binding is not a godsend, it is awkward to use, even harder to close & is leading to burring where the holes in the page for the spiral are.
I have not yet checked out the CD, as mine arrived sans CD, however Amazon have been great about it, so it should be in my post box.Why did I pay extra for the CD? Because (and this goes for the book too) what I have learnt MOST in the last few years of metalsmithing is that Everything is more useful than first appearance... the more you do & learn, the more you will find to do & learn from your refference book collection; and the more you will find in books you thought you knew from cover to cover.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
complete metalsmith, proplus edition, December 16, 2010
This review is from: Complete Metalsmith, ProPlus Edition (Spiral-bound)
12/16/10: Just about 6 months late in reviewing. Received the book without the CD. It seems there are quite a few buyers who did not receive the CD......why? Found the hard cover with the spirals difficult to use. The author had added current information for PMC clay and this may have crowded the inside pages. If they would enlarge the hard cover and give more clearance for the pages there would be room to turn the pages without tearing. Perhaps the book should be in two volumes with room to expand in each volume.
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