Customer Reviews

Wood Bender's Handbook

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After getting in over my head, I bought three books on wood bending: this one, Schleining's "The complete manual of wood bending" and "Fine Woodworking on Bending Wood." This one is oriented towards building guitars and other fine instruments. It omits coverage of milling and coopering wood to obtain curves, and the coverage of planning and drawing is superficial. One potentially useful section covers computing the length of a radius from the shape of the curve. The book has an okay narrative with a pleasant writing style, but I found it short on practical knowledge. Some of the writing is cute. For example, the author pushes homemade hot pipe irons, because the commercial ones cost "what one could dine on for a week." I would rather have been given an actual dollar figure. I've since learned that a good commercial one can be had for about $.... Unless you eat at Taco Bell... Overall, I recommend that most woodworkers will get more out of Schleining's book, which is filled with easy-to-read advice gleaned from years of practical experience. Schleining does not focus on building instruments, however. If you are looking for plans, this one has them: oval boxes, walking sticks, boat ribs, and chair backs.

I bought this book for my boyfriend who is starting his own drum making company. He found the information on steam bending to be very helpful. The table at the back which details the possible bent radius of different woods was also a plus. There's a good section on creating a steam box. It is simple to read with some projects at the back. Very condensed infomation. The boat building section is also a positive if steam bending is what you're interested in. Very Good

I picked this book up mostly to learn more about steam bending, and found a lot more. The pictures and diagrams are very helpful, and there are a wide range of ideas which make construction of even very complex pieces sound easy.