Customer Reviews

David Charlesworth's Furniture-Making Techniques: A Guide to Hand Tools and Methods

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I am a big fan of David's and I must confess that I was a little disappointed in this book. I also own the first two, and the material there seems much more common and useful. This book includes material such as making a metal plane from a kit. The company that offered the kit is no longer in business, so the material is somewhat less relevant. There is an article on making a spokeshave adjuster for the Boggs shave. In my opinion, this is a solution looking for a problem. A small tap with a hammer like with any wood plane is a simple adjuster for the spokeshave. I just didn't find much of the material useful overall.

I guess I would much rather see more material on furniture techniques such as drawer fitting, veneering, dovetailing, and hardware fitting. But I guess this would be a different titled book!

I eagerly anticipated the arrival of David Charlesworth's third volume, and was not disappointed. It is, in my opinion, even better that his first two excellent books on the "art" of fine woodworking. He explains in clearly understandable detail the use of "cutting edge" (no pun intended), state- of-the-art tools by Lie-Nielsen. David's books are a necessity in any workshop intent on exhibiting fine workmanship in its products. As an avid woodworker, I look forward to future volumes from David Charlesworth. I have Charlesworth DVD's which are instrumental in maintaining, sharpening and properly using Lie-Nielsen planes. No shop should be without these "learning tools". Keep up the great work, David.

Even though I like reading about David's woodworking abilities, I didn't much care for this book. Wasn't much in it for me.