35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, May 29, 2006
This review is from: The Real Wood Bible: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Choosing and Using 100 Decorative Woods (Spiral-bound)
I bought this book because a quick glance showed the the photos are very good. As one reviewer noted, most woods includes a full page photo that is split in half, one showing unfinished, one showing finish.
However, the book doesn't offer much practical advice for working the wood. A lot of the lesser used species include advice like "Gluing: Little is known, best to experiement on scraps." Uhh, thanks?
The reason I purchased a reference book was so that if I use something uncommon, I could look up things I don't know. Instead, the author, an editor of a woodworking magazine no less, tells me that the only thing his book is good for is the pretty pictures. This is especially true of the section called "Secondary Woods"--substamtially lacking in useful information.
Why isn't there a book that compilies USEFUL information about a wood?
Some of the photos on unique aspects, such as quarter sawn surfaces and figure, do not illustrate the wood well. For example, the photos of figured cherry, curly maple and crotch mahogany don't even start to illustrate the beauty of these woods. The spalted maple photo makes one think that spalted maple should be used for heating the house. The burl photos do a very good job however. (Why is bog oak listed under diseased wood?)
Also, there are inconsistent names used. For example, American elm is listed with the note that it is "often referred to as white elm" but later in the description it is referred to as "gray elm". So, is this just a typo or is there another type of elm called "gray".
Finally, the information provided is not very consistent. For example, Some woods have information regarding assembly (screwing, nailing, gluing) others don't. The omission of assembly information is inexplicable and rather unforgiveable. Anyone who buys woods will assemble it, won't they?
Another example, under Dutch elm, it says that it must be given "the opportunity to move when used as a panel or tabletop". Don't you need to do this with all wood? And if so, why isn't mentioned with any other wood? Is Dutch elm special?
And here's a list of woods not covered that probably should be: aspen, big leaf maple (aka oregon maple), ipe, lyptus, pernambuco, myrtle, claro walnut, peruvian walnut, granadillo, black acacia, red gum, canarywood, regular/american chestnut, mesquite,, goncalvo alves, cypress, box elder, lacewood, leopardwood, olive, lauan/phillipine mahogany, kwila, doussie, alaskan yellow cedar, port orford cedar, vera/argentinian 'lignum vitae' and sycamore.
If I could, I change my rating to 1 star.
BTW, the picture for horse chestnut is wrong.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Likable, December 17, 2005
This review is from: The Real Wood Bible: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Choosing and Using 100 Decorative Woods (Spiral-bound)
This is a likable book, with plenty of color pictures of a nice quality, that present the true colors rather faithfully. I can well imagine this will be a convenience for somebody who is thinking about selecting wood for a project.
However, this is a book written by a woodworker for woodworkers. By this time I can make a list (prior to opening the book) of the errors that are likely to be in such a book. Opening this book I find all these errors faithfully perpetuated, as expected. A rather spectacular new blunder is made in the entry for /Aniba/ (in this case /Aniba rosaeodora/ under its synonym /Aniba duckei/) where the text points out that there is an African "pau rosa" and a South American "pau rosa", and then blithely combines the name of the South American "pau rosa" with a picture of the African "pau rosa" (to be clear "pau rosa" is a vernacular or trade name attached to several woods: the two woods that are linked in the book have less in common than a Boeing 747 and a Rolex watch).
Another quible is that $30 is rather pricey for a middle-of-the-road book, that offers nothing new. Still, all in all a likable book.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good reference book for the beginner and expert woodworker, March 16, 2006
This review is from: The Real Wood Bible: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Choosing and Using 100 Decorative Woods (Spiral-bound)
Very good book, can be used as quick reference guide when trying to choose a wood to build any furniture, I found very useful the fact that it shows the wood appearance with and without finish so one figure out how the colour will change when a finish is applied.
For the ecological concious woodworker it tells you those species that are endangered. It describes the characteristics of each wood, hardness, grain, workability etc.
The only drawback I found was that I would have appreciated that in addition to the latin name and english one it should show the name of the wood in other languages
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