Customer Reviews

Fine Woodworking On Joinery: 36 articles selected by the Editors of 'Fine Woodworking' magazine

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I am pleased to find a single title that includes a variety of instructive articles applicable to one interested in improving craftsmanship. The text contains a good balance between "how to" and "why to" articles. One comes away from the book with a better understanding of the complementary rolls of hand and power tools. Perhaps most importantly the reader will understand that there is almost always more than one satisfactory way to perform an operation and frequently a variety of tools that can be used to get excellent results. I am recommending this book as supplementary text for my advanced woodworking classes.

Much like Fine Woodworking Magazine, this is a tremendous resource for beginning and experienced woodworkers alike. The book is a collection of articles taken from the 25 year or so history of FWW magazine. There work contains the opinions of many different authors and at times these authors tend to have opposing views on the topics of joinery. As most woodworkers know, there are often several ways to do something and rarely is there just one correct method. This book is a good way to explore alternative techniques and gain a better understanding of what type of joinery is best suited for a particular task.

I recommend this book to anyone who has passed basic woodworking and simple projects like birdhouses and spice racks. This is a good resource for someone looking for ways to expand their woodworking through the application of different joinery techniques. I don't recommend this book to professional cabinet makers or the weekend handyman as the book, much like the magazine, focuses on the art and craft of woodworking then the business of woodworking or the quick and dirty tricks used to slap things together around the house.

Joinery provides a good all around overview of the subject. Masters like Tage Frid and Ian Kirby discuss the basics, and more advanced topics and methods are also covered. Glue is also covered, which is useful to someone deciding which adhesive to use.

This is not an organized text, but a loosely connected set of articles from Fine Woodworking Magazine putting the reader at incredible disadvantage. Although there are some exceptionally well written articles (Boardman, Kirby etc.); all were written and edited to fit into a limited magazine spot resulting in omissions, duplications, and some extraneous material. The end effect is a text that tends to cover specific topics with great detail in some areas, and inadequately in others. As an example, a thorough treatise on joinery might introduce the topic of accuracy and precision (perhaps briefly emphasize stock preparation), and then address marking out in detail before going into common woodworking joints. This text does not follow any such logic in layout; likely due to the chapters effectively being written for a magazine.

Even more disconcerting is what I call the " fan boy effect" - each article's author endorsing a particular subject that they are writing about over other generally more acceptable technichs. For example, even in 1985 I am a sure that the radial arm saw was not the first choice of machinery for most makers of fine furniture; yet there are not one, but two articles on using the radial arm saw for joinery. Then there are the articles on "Pole-and-Wire Joinery", "Louvered Doors" and other odds and ends that Fine Woodworking tossed into this book.

I cannot recommend this book given the wealth of truly excellent texts on joinery available: Robert Wearing's classic "The Essential Woodworker"; Jim Kingshot's "A Woodworkers Guide to Joints"; Yeung Chang's "Classic Joints with Power Tools" and others.

This book gives excellent examples of several types of joinery. The pictures are usually more than adequate to help the reader understand, and there are lots of them. The book often shows multiple ways to make the same joint (some with hand tools, some with power tools, other variations). If you are a beginner or a master craftsman I would highly recommend this book.