Customer Reviews

Taunton's Complete Illustrated Guide to Routers (Complete Illustrated Guides)

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

 

 

Overall, I liked this book. It's right on and serves as a great introduction if you are new to routers. It's well laid out and has great chapters on the different types of routers, what to look for when purchasing. etc. It gives a nice comparison to aid you in determining which of the three basic types of routers is for you (If you haven't bought one yet). The book has super chapters on Basic Operations and the Joinery section is quite good, too. If you are completely new to routers or if you have garnered information piecemeal from reading posts in woodworking forums, this book walks you through the basics very nicely and completes the picture on topics like motor options, adapter sleeves for collets, guide bushings, how much wood to take off for the first cut, how to plunge, etc.

He provides great insight that only an accomplished router user and woodworker can: Variations in bit shank diameters, horizontal versus vertical panel-raising bits, using woodworking double-sided tape instead of carpet tape and safety. I truly like how he routinely brings safety to the forefront and doesn't just have it set off in a chapter by itself where it is presented and then forgotten. He also shows how to make easy safety devices and jigs without much effort.

A couple of caveats about the book so that you won't have any surprises if you decide to pick this up: The author expects you to have some basic knowledge about woodworking. There are sentences such as this one in the first chapter, "The plunge router is the best choice for routing mortises..." He doesn't explain what a mortise is as he expects you to know. So, if you know what mortises, beading, rabbets, bird's-mouth joints, drawer lock joints, finger joints, coreboxes, stiles and rails are, or if you don't mind looking them up as you read, then you won't be put off as you read. I hasten to add that this terminology is pretty much thrown at you in Section 2, when he introduces different types of bits and what they do. For some of these joints, he provides page references to sections further into the book where he explains how to accomplish these joints/items so, you can glance ahead to see what he's writing about. After this chapter 2, the term-slinging disappears and he wholly explains each topic and provides descriptions and diagrams for new terms right then and there. The only term that is not explained anywhere in the book that needs to be is, "climb cut." The extent of this discussion was "Don't do this!" but it is left to the reader to interpret what a climb cut is. A more through presentation of this is a must in any introductory router book. I should hope that in the next edition, a more obvious description and the requisite cautionary notes are discussed.

There is also some contradictory information. For example, Bird mentions a couple of times that bit with a skewed flute will cut more cleanly. He states this on one page and on the same page has a photo of a non-skewed rabbet bit with the caption, "This large rabbet bit can make smooth rabbets..."

The photography was all professionally done and is equal to that of other Taunton publications. There are numerous photos and captions for each topic. Diagrams were nice and clear. I will probably be taken to task on this, but I didn't always understand what I was supposed to be seeing in each photo. Some photos, I thought, were taken from too far away and others were zoomed in too close to understand what the author was trying to convey. I wish the pencil had made an appearance in more photos, pointing out what I was supposed to be seeing. After reading a confusing section, I just went through the photos and captions again, which aided in digesting it.

So, this review may seem a tad harsh but I did enjoy the book. I definitely got a lot out of it and I truly enjoyed how Bird really explained things well and made all the jumbled pieces I had floating around in my head fit together and solidified my knowledge base. It's a very good read and an excellent intro book. Even if you know a bit about routers, I bet you can breeze through this and glean a little of Lonnie's knowledge. I'm glad to have it on my shelf.

This book has the best illustrations I have ever seen in a book of this type. I probably own about fifteen books on routers and jigs that use routers. Most have similar content. This book has most everything the others have with better illustrations.

What sets this book apart is the quality of illustrations and that it has some information that none of the others cover. The issue covered here and in none of my other books is how to use the router as a prelude to hand woodworking.

For dovetails, no router jig can match the versatility a skilled woodworker can obtain by hand with a Japanese saw and a good set of chisels, but even a person making hand dovetails can save time and do some prep work with a router for some, but not all, dovetails.

I took a class on woodworking essentials, including hand dovetailing, at Lonnie's woodworking school in Dandridge, TN. Many of the time saving techniques he taught in his class are in this book. In his class a router was not used to make dovetails, but but was used to remove excess wood where convenient so that time was not wasted in getting down to the hand work. I might add that I had a week to read and look at the book at his school before buying it. I added it to my collection of router books because of the quality of the book. I have no other relationship to the author or publisher of this book.

I strongly recommend this book and also Lonnie's school. He makes museum quality work by hand but knows how to use machines where they make sense. Although I was not one of the best students in his one week class of seven students, the dovetails I made were better than some I have seen as illustrations in books on how to hand cut dovetails. That he could teach me is a testament to both his patience and skill as a teacher. He is an equally good author.

Machines can take over and make pieces for you. Every book on routers seems to teach that approach to woodworking. This one goes beyond and teaches things useful to those of us who want to learn fine hand woodworking also.

When I buy a book on woodworking I want to learn skills that will last and not information that will be outdated in a short time. It bothered another reviewer that this book did not cover routers from other countries. The features offered by manufacturers of woodworking machines change so frequently that no book could be up to date for long about such matters. Reviews of the relative merits of one router over another can best be obtained from magazines. Even then by the publication date the information will likely have changed.

In summary this book is complete and well illustrated. If you will own but one book on routers this one is as good as they get.

Jim Fuqua

There is some good info in here and certainly lots of nice photography, but it's not clear to me who would really benefit from this book. The topics are not covered in enough detail to really be useful to a beginner, but they also don't feel advanced or complete enough to be appropriate for advanced users or reference materials. It could probably be useful as a supplement to a more complete book (Hylton?) but I don't think it stands on its own very well.

I have also read Lonnie Bird's book, "The Bandsaw Book"--and I would rate that book 5 stars. This book had so many references to it's pictures (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M ),that I found it awkward to follow. To read it, you'll often have to jump back and forth between your place in the text and an image--one sentence after another. It DOES contain a a lot of useful information, but I gave up on it yesterday, just half-way through, because I disliked the method of learning it was inflicting on me. In fairness, the book's title IS "Taunton's Complete ILLUSTRATED Guide to Routers"--and it contains illustrations as advertised. I learned a lot previously from Bill Hylton's book, "Woodworking with the Router" and I would be eager to rate that book 5 stars. I found that book to be a great read! I hope these comments are helpful to someone.

I have been tinkering around with woodworking projects for years, with much more time spent remodeling than furniture building. I had a cheap handheld router and small router table for years as well, but I really didn't use them a lot. Since I got a better router and table, I wanted to learn a little more about what I can do with them, and this book has been a great resource. For someone relatively new to woodworking with a router and table, I think this is an excellent book to have on your bookshelf. Once you start a project though, it will probably end up on your workbench for reference.

As a beginning woodworker, this is a great book covering all aspects of the Router. The bits (no pun intended) and pieces Ive read online and through amazon all come together in this book. The pictures are very clear and informative. The suggestions and recommendations all make good sense. For $16ish, a very good buy imho.

As someone who has never used a router before, I found this book to be a great beginner's guide. As a beginner, I found it easy to follow. The examples and pictures are very clear and the tone of the book is such that it doesn't assume you are a know-it-all or a complete idiot :)

This book is great for beginners and experienced woodworkers alike. If you want to know all there is to know about routers then this book should be in your library. I highly recomend this for anyone who uses a router or is considering buying one. I wish I would have read it before I bought my first router and router table it would have saved me a few dollars and a bunch of frustration. Buy with confidence this book is great.

Taunton's book are excellent. Wood workers of all types will benefit from having these books in their collections.

This is an excellent book, overviewing all the basic techniques. Lonnie Bird really knows his stuff and this book is as good as his bandsaw book. you'll learn alot.