Customer Reviews

Tauntons Complete Illustrated Guide To Finishing

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At over 300 pages of superbly illustrated information, this book is the new bible on wood finishing. The words "Complete" and "Illustrated" in the title tell it all.

Just about everything you need to know about finishing from basics to advanced is covered. Every topic is illustrated with full-color photos and line drawings when needed.

Plenty of hints, off-page references and guidance.

Topics are covered in anywhere from a half-page with three photos to whole chapters. Jeff and his wife, Susan, the photographer, have gone out of their way to show every process and product talked about. Every chapter is organized the same way, which may be the way of Taunton's new, "Complete Illustrated Guide to..."

If you are only going to buy one book on finishing, or if you have a whole shelf full, you need to buy and read this book.

Great job, Jeff and Susan!

Now that I have a bit more time, I thought the table of contents would be interesting and tell more about the wealth of information in this book:
1) The finishing environment
2) Tools for surface preparation
3) Finishing Tools
4) Preparing Flat Surfaces
5) Preparation of Curved and Complex Surfaces
6) Fixing defects
7) Stain Basics and Application
8) Glazes, Padding Stains and Toners
9) Natural Dyes, Chemical Stains and Bleaches
10) Controlling Color
11) Filling Pores
12) Sealers
13) Choosing a Finish
14) Reactive finishes (including new conversion finishes)
15) Evaporative finishes

16) Water-Based Finishes
17) Rubbing out Finishes

This book lives up to its name. It is "complete". If you are looking for a straight forward explination of how to do certain finishes this is not the book for you. The book is around 300 pages and you can expect to read most of the pages before you get a good idea of how to "completely" finish a project. This is more like a college text book rather then a finishing guide for dumbies. For me I like this kind of approach since I want to know why I am doing a certain process rather than just what is the next step in a finising process like a french polish for example. The only reason I didn't give this a five star is that the explinations are not very clearly stated. Like I said you have to do alot of reading of different sections before you can put things together. I hope this helps someone to decide if this is the book for them.

I've read a bunch of finishing books in search of the perfect finish. This book is by far the most thorough, best organized book out there. The quality of the images and illustrations are outstanding and the books is packed full of useful information. I love all of the high quality images they use to show you errors in finishes and then go on to show you how to resolve the problems. They give pluses and minuses of each finishing technique and show you the best ways to apply them. All in all, A GREAT BOOK.

Overall this book cover everything you need to know about finishing.
It is illustrated with wonderfull color pictures.

The text is clear and complete, it cover methods appropriate for the hobyist up to the industrial shop.

All the aspect of finishing are addressed.
If I had to buy one book about finishing that would be the one.

I would have given it 5 start if the book was organized in a more chronological fashion. I would have put the section talking about would conditioning, filling pores etc before the staining which would in my opinion would have make the reading easier.

Unlike the other books in the Taunton's series, this one seems to jump around. The presentation is complex. This book may be useful to a more advanced woodworker. As a novice I found it daunting. It is, with out a doubt very thorough.

The Taunton's Guides are well written and illustrated with many color images. This one has a tremendous amount of information, but beginners may be put off by the large number of finishing materials and heavy machinery that are discussed; if you've just built a table and want to know a couple of ways to finish it, this book may be excessive. But if you want a full discussion of finishing techniques and you can sort out which ones are for you, this book is fine.

Finishing is one of the few areas in woodworking where modern technology can add to the craft. It's also an area where I know many woodworkers start to scratch their heads over the options available. This book does two things very well.

Firstly it outlines all of the different finishing option available today and considers their pros and cons and explains why you would use one on a particular project instead of another. The finish on an outdoor teak bench will likely be much different than that of a display case. Reading the book will give you an excellent understanding of why.

The second thing I especially like about the book (and all Taunton books) are the great pictures that outline each project. By following the techniques and pictures you have an almost foolproof guide to great results.

An excellent addition to any woodworker's library.

Before I read Jeff Jewitt's book on finishing I knew almost nothing about the finishing process. After reading this book cover to cover almost five times now, I feel confident about applying a finish to my first project. Jeff's writing style and knack for explaining make learning the often misunderstood art of finishing a pure pleasure. You will learn all types of finishing and application styles from padding, wiping, brushing and spraying. Jeff covers preparation of the wood surface all the way through staining, filling, sealing, top coats, and finally buffing. The plethora of color photos really gives you a good idea of what he is describing and enhance the text tremendously. You will not be disappointed with this encyclopedic description of wood finishing.

I started doing refinishing work and woodworking when I was about 10 with my father. Now being somewhat older and getting back into it, I started looking for good resources to expand my abilities with wood finishes. Not to mention the fact that I ran into a few finish issues rehabilitating some birch cabinets in my kitchen.
Jeff Jewitt's book not only presents a very good overview of wood finishing, but also high quality photographs of the processes he is using to accomplish the finishes. This book coupled with Bob Flexner's book Understanding Wood Finishes are my two main resources for wood finishing now. There are wonderful tips and suggestions, along with detailed, step-by-step instructions for the different processes. The Taunton's Illustrated Guides have got a new fan.

Great book. Presents all the tricks of the trade for finishing wood projects. This book helps me to manage all my finishing tasks much easier. No longer do I "hope" for a match when it comes to staining. Through the techniques presented I have been able to take most of the guess work out of the process. I highly recommend this book for those serious about their project finishes.