Customer Reviews

Ultimate Garage Handbook (Motorbooks Workshop)

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This book is designed for people who truly appreciate the garage--enthusiasts who love cars, motorcycles, and other cool stuff that resides in garages. If you want to know how to plumb a compressed air system into your garage, this book is for you. If you want to convert your garage into a cute office or scrapbooking nook, look elsewhere.

This is a great resource. I had been searching for a good bok to help me outfit my garage into a race shop. Most of the books out there on this category are more feng shui and organized oriented (not really what I was looking for). This books helps with overall layout, equipment reccomendations, and useful weblinks to help with your project. It even has some cool garage projects as well. Definitely worth buying and keeping!

The author upfront says he believes the primary purpose of the garage is to work on cars, with other things to consider. If you want some very good ideas on how to set up your garage to do car work, mechanic, restoring, then I think you would like this book for you.

A well planned garage workshop makes the whole car-as-a-hobby experience mush more enjoyable. Richard Newton is a guy who has obviously spent a lot of time in the garage working on cars and is kind enough to share his accumulated knowledge. The book walks you through the entire process, from the planning to the final touches.

The short "Projects" are among the touches that make working in the garage easier. I have already added a wheel rack to my own garage based on that project from this book.

The only place where I disagree with Newton is on the electrical wiring. I believe ALL wall outlets should be wired for 20 amp service. The electric motors in power tools can draw a lot of electricity, especially on startup, and having to re-set the circuit breaker due to a +15 amp spike is annoying. The cost of adding 12-gauge wire (20 amp circuit) instead of 14-gauge (15 amp circuit) is very little in the grand cost of outfitting a garage.

Motorbooks calls this "Ultimate Garage Handbook" based at least partially on the success of Phil Berg's Ultimate Garages (Motorbooks Classic), however, the two books are not similar. Newton's "Handbook" helps guide the garage owner/builder through the steps to create their own useable workshop.

Great book. Ideas abound with a balance of written text and photos. Some ideas are ones that I've had in the past but taken to the next level. Would highly recommned this in preping or redoing your man cave.