Customer Reviews

Making Marble-Action Games, Gadgets, Mazes & Contraptions: Designs for 10 Outlandish, Ingenious and Intricate Woodworking Projects

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I am used to making projects for which dimensions for the various pieces are provided. Not only does the author fail to provide dimensions but he also fails to even talk about some of the pieces that are part of a given project.

This book was a terrible disappointment. I wanted to give it no stars but that didn't seem to be an option. For most of these gadgets he begins the chapter by explaining that they don't actually work very well, they tend to jam and clog up requiring a certain amount of tilting and tapping to clear the device. Many of the mazes and such are non-functional - they are there to make the contraption look complicated. It's clear to me from looking at it that the dice substitute will never generate a 1, 2, or 6, and the thing is definitely not uniform like dice would be. The spirit of Rube Goldberg is represented by contraptions that do a lot but accomplish very little. The mechanisms in this book just don't do anything. I didn't find a single satisfying project in here and felt like it was a waste of twenty bucks. And what are metric conversion tables doing in here? An embarrassment if you ask me. If you like this kind of stuff get Making Wooden Mechanical Models by Alan and Gill Bridgewater. It is far superior.

I was disappointed as well. I expected projects I could build, but nothing struck me as worth the time. The basic ideas are OK, marble rollers, and so on. But I would only use this stuff as a departure point for my own designs.

This book contains 10 ideas for games which seem to be what every child would enjoy. The problem is that most of the figures used in the book to give construction details leave a lot to be desired. Most of the photos are black and white and difficult to see any detail. The drawings are also in black and white and are also very difficault to follow.

In today's world not many woodworkers make things by hand. The book is hard to work with, difficult to find basic stock requirements and measurements. I would not buy again.

While depicting interesting marble-action games, the lack of dimensioned drawings and detailed construction instructions make the book pretty much useless for the casual woodworker interested in constructing the toys.