Customer Reviews

Shop-Made Jigs and Fixtures (Art of Woodworking)

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

 

 

If you need to cut, sand, route, shape, or clamp, this is a great reference book. I have read many shop tip books, and there are ideas here I've never seen anywhere else. And the illustrations are superb.

I've already made several jigs and used this book as the reference. There is enough detail to guide a user to completion, and more than enough jigs to cover all the situations you might encounter where a jig is required.

Great book... strongly recommend it !

I must echo the other FIVE STAR reviews and give these reasons:

1- This is THE MOST concise and well-organized book on the subject. The very first page on the inside cover shows an ILLUSTRATED list of common parts, fasteners and doohickeys you need to quickly build jigs. After all, it defeats the purpose of convenience if you must run out to the hardware store or order online every time you need a new jig. Therefore, lay in a supply of these inexpensive components before you begin.

2-Further organization of this reference makes it easy to FIND the jig you are looking for. In forty plus years of woodworking, I have seen a ton of jigs in many books, but HOW CAN I REMEMBER all of them, much less find them? This book has every TYPE of jig organized by its general function, a feature other publishers have copied. But it goes one step farther by showing mini-illustrations of the jigs at the beginning of each chapter. Each illustration has a PAGE NUMBER so you can find what you need instantly. I have yet to see another publication that has utilized this crucial detail.

3-Though you may find some of these jigs in other publications, it is obvious by the publication dates which books came first. As I look at "new" books by famous "popular" "fine-woodworking" publishers, it becomes glaringly clear that they ALL have "borrowed" ideas from this work. Perhaps "plagiarized" is too strong a word since the industry is rife with such "information-overlap." (really... "information overlap" is an actual euphemism that these publishers use!) I'll let you judge that for yourself after you read this book and compare it to others.

4-ILLUSTRATIONS... Time-Life hires professional illustrators that know their business! Illustrations are far superior to photos when describing the FUNCTION of jigs. We get to "see inside" the parts, how they fit together, and get an intuitive instantaneous understanding of their functions without tedious extraneous step-by-step instructions.

5-This is NOT a "for dummies" style book. You have to figure out your own dimensions for YOUR tools and YOUR operations. Every woodworker MUST do that anyway because no two woodworkers are the same or have the same tools. Personally, I find this clarity of purpose and simplicity a refreshing foil to "dummified" manuals. You get more info with fewer words. That's one reason this book packs so much information into such a skinny package.

6-This book has some photos instead of illustrations whenever photos are better, but it does NOT look like a glorified advertisement for sponsored brands. All the tools, photo-angles and cropping are for the purpose of demonstration, NOT "product placement."

Time-Life photographers and editors chose the most descriptive / explanatory shots possible, so jig-functions are immediately clear. All the illustrated tools seem "generic" in the sense that we rarely see anything to indicate a specific Brand. One of the few things that might indicate a brand-specific tool are the orange colored ends on pipe clamps. Anyone who knows woodworking will recognize that design and color of these clamps. Other than that, we seldom see any blatant advertisements which I personally find insulting. That's like Comcast selling advertising on cable that you already pay for, then advertising their crap on their own medium!

Most books on woodworking are published by publishing houses that get the majority of their revenue from advertisers, so it is no surprise those books are rife with brand-name products. These Time-Life books are focused on giving us solid, useful information. That's why we get so much more from this book's 144 pages than we get from thicker books. Absolutely every page of this has something useful. It is NOT "fattened-up" of advertising "fluff." That's another reason why this book is more useful than others but not so cumbersome. This book is "lean, mean and shows the machine!"

Over decades of woodworking, I have used MANY of the jigs found in this book, and that's a ton! Though I did not learn every trick in this book FROM this book originally, it is very convenient to have this as a reference. The organization and clarity have helped me countless times, save me countless hours of research and saved me THOUSANDS of dollars. I am NOT exaggerating in the slightest... I mean THOUSANDS.

As you read this book and see the illustrations, you will undoubtedly recognize MANY manufactured products that are a direct rip-off of ideas in here. There are boatloads of jigs, fixtures, gizmos, gadgets that have been blatantly taken from this work, mass-produced, then marketed as overpriced gimmicks that uninformed neophytes mistakenly believe they must buy. For that reason alone, this book is worth its weight in silver to anyone who plans to purchase woodworking tools. You will definitely SAVE BIG BUCKS making your own jigs from designs in here.

Obviously, other publishers do not want to discuss THIS book or THIS publisher in their on-line blogs or forums when they have their own rags to hawk. That's OK when their content is original, but it's also obvious that MUCH of what they are selling came directly from Time-Life; in particular from THIS book.

I recommend that you buy this book, look at it, and keep it by your side as you peruse woodworking websites. Keep it handy as a reference as you check out online tool-sellers. You will see what I say is true. After an hour or so of this exercise, you will understand that a huge percentage of the stuff they try to "sell us" is nothing more than a plastic mass-produced copies of ideas in here. You will discover, (if you haven't already) that all the woodworking websites are "borrowing" a significant percentage of their content specifically from this book, and in general, from Time-Life.

Whilst typing this review, I started to count the number of jigs and tips I have used that are in here. I stopped counting after one-hundred.

Since its original publication, I have purchased several copies of this tome. Why? I have also "lent" it to woodworking friends. So recently I had to buy yet another volume to replace those that never seem to migrate back to my shop.

Perhaps that can give you another way to gauge the usefulness and value of this book! ;-)

This is the best book I've bought in a long time. It is informative, easy to read, and gives you information you can use. Unlike other books I've bought in the past on making jigs, this book gives you illustrations that are easy to understand and to make.