Customer Reviews

Woodworking For Dummies

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I think the Dummies series really dropped the ball on this one. Woodworking for Dummies is written by a guy that tells you that he wants to start from scratch; later in the introduction he refers to himself as a tool collector and a gear junkie. That might be ok, I thought; surely he'll start from the bottom and explain the basic techniques before he gets into using the specialized equipment - the Dummies books are good at that sort of thing. Right?

Wrong. Although there's a whole mini-chapter listing his assumptions - among which he tells you that he assumes that you want to learn woodworking from scratch - he never tells you that the entire book depends entirely on your already having a basement or garage workshop full of power tools. He assumes at every step that you have a table saw, a router, a router table, a compound miter saw, a drill press, a jointer, and a 12' planer.

Not once does he mention the simple, traditional way of doing things with handheld tools, except to snidely deride it and say he does it "the faster, easier way." Everything in this book is written for an audience that has already accreted ten thousand dollars worth of power machinery. But here's the catch: how many people do you know that buy that many specialized power tools before knowing how to cut a straight line on a table saw? As far as I'm concerned this book is fairly worthless. Dummies, my faith in you is shaken - I'm returning this book.

Great for the starter or occasional woodworker and a resource for the rest of us. As with all "Dummies" books, it is clearly written and gets right to the point of using tools, design, and choosing what wood and joints to use.

This is a good book to get into the hobby, but then join a woodworking group in your area to really learn. Worth the money in my opinion.

Being a late in life beginning woodworker, I needed something that didn't assume I knew all there was to know about the tools I had and how to bend the wood to my will in order to end up with items I could be proud of. This book helped a lot in that regard. While I won't always use some of the shortcuts and techniques the author recommends, knowing that you can get from point A to point B professionally was a big help. This is a valuable addition to my woodworking reference library and I will refer to it often.

This book is an OK start. Not a lot of pictures of the projects. The colored panels of the wood species is OK, but not very useful.

This guy *REALLY* likes his biscuit joints. It like he's a cheer leader for them. Got tiring after a while.

The table saw section is poor, misses a lot of information on the most important machine in your shop (zero clearance inserts, what makes a good fence.. etc).

Does not really cover finishes that much.. touches on them but the most important part of any project after construction is the finish and again, very limited, basic information is given.

Not a terribly bad book, but not a great one. Good buy used for abut $8-10.

One SMALL nit pick - on the cover, there are many errors with regard to safety: long sleeves, wearing jewelry... even if all you are doing is gluing joints that stuff should come off at the door.

A great guide for a novice woodworker. Tons of information about types and grades of wood, glues and sealers, finishes, different joints and how to use the tools you have to create them. It also includes a few project plans designed to give the reader the experience they need applicable to the lessons learned. Well written and enjoyable to read.

I've only been woodworking for a few months and am still very much a novice. I bought this book hoping to learn some creative, but easy methods or time saving tips, but as my title implys, this book contains only the most basic of techniques. However, this book is very good for understanding basic terminology. This was my first "for dummies" book so maybe I was expecting too much. A few episodes of the New Yankee Workshop and/or a few hours of browsing the internet and you can learn the majority of what this book covers.

I bought this for my fiance and he is just starting to be interested in woodworking. He found this to be very helpful for a person new to the topic of wood and all it's details. It explains what the different tools are and how the work. It explained the different kinds of wood and what they are most useful for. It was a very useful beginner book for someone looking into woodworking from a novice point of view. I would recommend it and definatly give it as a gift.

This was the perfect book for me as a complete amateur in any type of woodworking. All the basic information I needed and direction to a lot more information if I wanted. Written in an easy-to-read style with a little humour - great book!

It's "Ok". some usefull things in there but a lot of bias towards power tools. I've found other books I've liked more.

If you are a complete newbie to woodworking, this would be a good read. I was out of the game for 20+ years, and just needed a refresher. It gave me enough detail to get going again. But then again, the online woodworking forums were far more helpful...