Customer Reviews

Making Authentic Craftsman Furniture: Instructions and Plans for 62 Projects (Dover Woodworking)

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

 

 

This book is a collection of articles/plans that originally appeared in Gustav Stickley's THE CRAFTSMAN magazine near the turn of the century. It has several plans for "classic" Mission/Stickley furniture. Unlike a Norm Abrams (New Yankee Workshop on PBS) book, there are not detailed instructions on HOW to make the joints and features shown in the drawings. Nor is any assembly sequence given. How people knew HOW to do this stuff back then is unknown to me. I love this book. However, I would not recommend it to a novice woodworker. Stickley furniture is all about joinery. This book does not explain HOW to create any of the marvelous joints. Unless you already know how to make pegged mortise and tenon joints, before you grind a lot of oak or cherry into sawdust and eventually firewood, consider buying books by Norm Abrams, Tom Moser, or Tage Frid first. If you aren't a builder and want to look at interesting pictures of Mission furniture, consider buying one of the many reproductions of Arts and Crafts furniture catalogs. A favorite of mine is the "Arts and crafts furniture, the complete Brooks catalog of 1912" by Dover Press.

As a guide to making funiture for the home craftsman, this book should get either zero or one star. It includes a couple of dozen projects which consist of line drawings, a brief description, a parts list, and minimalist plans - just an elevation or two, poorly done.

HOWEVER, these are, by definition, authentic Stickley designs. If you are an intermediate or expert woodworker and a good designer, you can take these plans and drawings and then make your own detailed production drawings.

In summary, what you get in this book is a couple of dozen drawings of furniture and some commentary, both of which are of historical value and of interest to the woodworker. Incidentally, I have seen at least two of the designs in some modern mission furniture construction books.

This book has great elevation plans for authentic craftsman furniture. A good number of plans are included. However, if you are looking for a book to teach you the basics of furniture making in the craftsman style, this is not the book for you. There are no exploded views of the pieces and no real description of the process.

My husband bought this book because of the variety of projects it includes. There are smaller projects like 3-legged stools and hanging bookshelves as well as very involved projects like cabinets and bedsteads. He commented that, as the other reviewers have noted, the directions are MINIMAL. But if you are familiar with the techniques and construction, the designs make absolutely spectacular items, that look exactly like the designs.
He made me the hanging bookshelf for Christmas and it is stunning. A great value if you're looking for design ideas and have the technical know how.

What you'll get with this book are some fairly good illustrations of authentic Stickley furniture. You also get a pretty good materials list with each project. You do not get any fully detailed working plans. You'll have to generate these yourself, but the illustrations with each project make this an uncomplicated task if you are handy at drafting or know AutoCAD. Some of the projects have more complete plans than others. Some of the plans might be a pair of dimension elevations, others may include all elevations, plan view and details. From what they do provide, any capable woodworker can build any project within this book. It's not a bad book to have with you if you go to a lot of garage and estate sales. It might help you recognize a treasure unknown to the seller. Fortunately, this is an inexpensive book, so go ahead and order it.

This book is a great "helper" for those who make Stickley inspired furniture. It has nominal dimensions for most pieces, which is a plus in helping with getting the proportions correct as well as milling lists for the projects. If you are looking for a "how-to" or complete plans you are in the wrong place. The illustrations in the book are straight from the original "The Craftsman" series.

The book doesn't tell you how to make the joints. If you're looking for good information on how to build mission furniture look elsewhere.

The 62 proects are only a small picture of each final project with couple of drafted views of how the piece of furniture looks from different views. There is a parts list of materials needed, but no help in how to construct the furniture whatsoever. Any magazine or anything else out there has to be better than this. Everyone else has far over rated the book. Instead, subscribe to a good magazine like Popular Woodworking or something like that.

This book turned out to be even better than I'd hoped. I can't wait to get started building some of the pieces. Easy to read and understand the diagrams. Condition of the book was great, and I've read it over and over as I plan the remodeling of my "new" old house.

This is a great book for someone with shop skills and tools. The book shows a good variety of furniture most likely to be of interest to a person building furniture for their own home (or perhaps a gift!).