Customer Reviews

Jim Tolpin's Table Saw Magic

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoy Tolpin's books. Like his toolbox text, this reads well and has helpful photos and diagrams. It covers purchase, setup & maintenance, and common operations. Even if your saw manufacturer had included a decent manual, this book would be better. Like Lonnie Bird's new Bandsaw Book, this book represents a new generation of workshop guides--a worthy successor to de Cristoforo's "The Table Saw Book". The language and style is more appealing to a younger audience, and the use of modern materials, such as mini-trac, is helpful. Tolpin doesn't assume that the reader will make all of their own fixtures from scratch. He not only provides complete instructions for making fixtures, such as cross-cutting sleds and high-accuracy miter gauges, but he also gives equal time to commercial equivalents. Providing helpful guidance on both commercial and home-built accessories is a great approach--he does it in the setup section also. This enjoyable book won't spend much time on your shelf--it'll be scuffed up & dusty in your workshop where it belongs.

Excellent book that starts with a description of what to look for in the selection of a table saw and blades/accessories. I thought it did a better job of explaining how to care for and maintain a table saw than did my owner's manual - I have probably saved the price of the book in saw blade resharpening already. Thouroughly covers basic and advanced table saw cuts and how to do them safely. Describes a number of jigs based on his design of a rip-fence accessory attachment and makes complex cuts and joinery look easy. I'll soon be throwing away some of my more awkward mitre-slot jigs.

As noted in some of the other reviews, Mr. Tolpin is not a Pulitzer prize winning author. But he is a hell of a woodworker. I lucked out and bought this book at my local library's yearly book sale. I got it and four other related books for five bucks. I would buy it at full retail just for the jigs and sled diagrams. Some have complained that there are no measurements included, well how could there be? The idea of the book is to give you ideas for your own applications. I don't have the room for all the jigs shown in this book, nor would I ever use em all if I did. But I did glean enough from this book to make it worth having in my woodworking "library". I would reccommned this book to everyone who uses a table saw, beginner or pro.

I'd consider myself to have an intermediate level of woodworking skill - I'm not a novice or an expert - and this book is just right for me. I've built two of the jigs and love them. The general info on setup, blades, and technique is just what I need. I'm working through it, about half way so far, and thoroughly enjoying myself.

This book is a more a of brief review of table saw technique and jigs. The chapters are not very detailed and don't actually contain any directions for doing most of the cuts or processes. The most frustrating thing is where he will say "just use this very handy jig" and then gives a very crude drawing of the jig with no explanation of how to build it or even a basic layout. A MUCH better book is Kelly Mehler's The Table Saw Book.

Several other reviewers have commented on the value of the jigs, and I agree. I wish Tolpin would have presented an overview of his fence jig system early on, it would have been easier to grasp the concept BUT unlike one other reviewer I certainly did not have to go through the book several times to get it.

Besides the jigs, I appreciated the discussion of blades (design, choice, and care), ripping, and setup. Having read the section on setting up my saw, I went out to the shop, tuned things up and it has made a big difference in my work - everything fits together better!

Finally, the person who said that this book is of no use to the beginner with a beginner's saw: think again. My Bosch 4000 is pretty basic, but I was able to apply 98% of Tolpin's advice to my unit.

If he would just add an overview of his fence jig system I could give this 5 stars!

Tolpin's advise on a wide range of table saw topics and issues is very good. His fence jig system is excellent for anyone using a Biesemeyer-style rip fence and adaptable to others. While not the finest writer, he does know his subject. This book and his "Measure Twice, Cut Once" title are essential for any woodworker's personal library.

While I still recommend this book, I have several complaints. First, it is poorly indexed. There are only vague cross-references in the book: "See Chapter Nine". In one case, I wasted probably 45 minutes scouring Chapter N only to discover the reference was in Chapter N+1. I believe this involved the discription on making a featherboard using an indexing jig the reference for which was wrong.

I'm in the process of trying to duplicate his featherboards (as shown on the cover). His instructions though don't include the aluminum mini-tracks as in the photo. Instead, they tell you to route a T slot, which is more complicated and NOT what the author did. Furthermore, for the miter slot featherboard he tells you to buy a certain size hex bolt and grind the cap down to fit! That seems like an inelegant solution. I've since discovered that toilet bolts work better.

He should have at least mentioned a source to get the aluminum mini-tracks since they are useful in a wide variety of jigs. It would have saved me some time in Home Depot staring at cabinet hardware and wondering how it could be munged in some way to work. ...

In balance, it's a good book. I agree with the points made by the other reviewers. The organization is logical and the information is generally well presented. It may not be THE table saw book, but I don't regret buying it.

Good news first:

The maintainance information and Jigs presented in this book are very useful, it's obvious tolpin knows what he's talking about.

The bad news:

It took me forever to figure out what the heck he was talking about! The jig construction drawings are somewhat confusing. They present an entire system of jigs in a piecemeal fashion through the course of the book. In order to decipher them you really have to go through the book several times, cover to cover, cross referencing all the way.

That said, I chosen the jigs I needed and made them, and they work great, even adapted for my Bosch benchtop saw. What a headache figuring them out though!

This book does three things and does them reasonably well. It gives you a lot of information on what to look for in a table saw and how to set one up and how to use one. There's a lot here that you probably already know if you've done much woodworking, but if you're going to write a book on the use of the table saw, it's information that really needs to be present. It explains how to use various jigs and fixtures, some basic, some more complicated to hold your workpiece where you want it with minimal likelihood of your hands straying into harms way or the back of the saw blade playfully throwing your work at your head. Finally, it shows you how to make those jigs for your shop. The book is well written and the illustrations, particularly the photographs, do a very good job of showing you what you need to see.

My complaint is mostly with the organization of the book and some of the jig construction details. Rather than putting the jig diagrams in line with the information on their usage, I thing it would have been clearer if Making the Jigs was its own chapter. I'd also like to have seen a few more details on some of the jigs, some advice about what aspects of the jigs you will have to scale for the saw you are working with and maybe a parts cut list. This is hardly a fatal flaw, though, and once I've finished making the jigs I want, I'll probably forget all about why this was even an issue for me.

If you want to learn how to put your saw in good trim and do more than the basics, or even if you just want to do the basics, this is a book worth having.