The Woodwright's Guide: Working Wood with Wedge and Edge [Paperback]

Roy Underhill (Author), Eleanor Underhill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 22, 2008

For thirty years, Roy Underhill's PBS program, "The Woodwright's Shop," has brought classic hand-tool craftsmanship to viewers across America. Now, in his seventh book, Roy shows how to engage the mysteries of the splitting wedge and the cutting edge to shape wood from forest to furniture.

Beginning with the standing tree, each chapter of The Woodwright's Guide explores one of nine trades of woodcraft: faller, countryman and cleaver, hewer, log-builder, sawyer, carpenter, joiner, turner, and cabinetmaker. Each trade brings new tools and techniques; each trade uses a different character of material; but all are united by the grain in the wood and the enduring mastery of muscle and steel.

Hundreds of detailed drawings by Eleanor Underhill (Roy's daughter) illustrate the hand tools and processes for shaping and joining wood. A special concluding section contains detailed plans for making your own foot-powered lathes, workbenches, shaving horses, and taps and dies for wooden screws.

The Woodwright's Guide is informed by a lifetime of experience and study. A former master craftsman at Colonial Williamsburg, Roy has inspired millions to "just say no to power tools" through his continuing work as a historian, craftsman, activist, and teacher. In The Woodwright's Guide, he takes readers on a personal journey through a legacy of off-the-grid, self-reliant craftsmanship. It's a toolbox filled with insight and technique as well as wisdom and confidence for the artisan in all of us.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I own all of Underhill's books. . . . So it is no small thing when I say that Underhill's new book (his first in 12 years) is his best. . . . Unlike his previous books . . . The Woodwright's Guide is focused entirely on technique. . . . Underhill's other great strength is his ability to explain extremely complex ideas in a way that makes it feel like you've suddenly achieved Buddhist enlightenment."
—Christopher Schwarz, Woodworking Magazine Weblog

"The Woodwright's Guide captures the true glory and mystery of the material that built this country, from the first swing of the axe to the final shaving of a smoothing plane. Roy Underhill's impressive technical knowledge, respect for traditional methods, and amusing storytelling make this his finest effort to date. I devoured every word and enjoyed it immensely."
— Christopher Schwarz, editor of Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine

About the Author

Roy Underhill is host of the popular PBS show "The Woodwright's Shop," now approaching its fourth decade of production. He is author of six previous books, including The Woodwright's Shop: A Practical Guide to Traditional Woodcraft and The Woodwright's Workbook: Further Explorations in Traditional Woodcraft (both from the University of North Carolina Press). He lives in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (October 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807859141
• ISBN-13: 978-0807859148
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #138,709 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He's captured my imagination again!!, October 26, 2008

By 

George Mckinney "The Wood Shepherd" (Center Point, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Woodwright's Guide: Working Wood with Wedge and Edge (Paperback)

"It's just a piece of wood, but let's see what your axe handle has to say." (p.4) From the opening sentence of St. Roy's latest tome exudes the essence of Underhill, both myth and man. As a young boy, my grandfather had me chopping wood for my breakfast, and the only thing I remember my axe handle saying were words not fit to use here, but when Roy visits an axe handle, it suddenly springs to lively discussion, relishing it's job in the Feller's hands. And therein is the first thing I learned from this book; he (historically speaking) who is a "Feller" is not necessarily the good old boy on the next bar stool at some back-road greasy spoon diner, but is in fact he who fells trees. Aha!

Underhill's most recent work is self-admittedly a re-visitation of his prior books (of which I have all, somewhere in a box...) It is organized in such a way that we follow woodworking from the forest all the way through the joiner's work with stops along the way to learn the tools of the craft and to take surveys of the bodger's art, timber framing, ship building, and wood turning. Written in Underhill's inimitable and inevitably right-brained style, it is laced with the imagery and humor we've come to be addicted to. The reader finds himself mired in nostalgia, picturing himself in colonial breeches and turning the spiral auger to drawbore a mortise and tenon joint in huge oak beams, while the author himself is chipping away at a nearby beam with an adze and explaining, "Of the 23 known woodworking puns, a fair share involve the adze." (p. 19.)

We work wood because we love wood and we love making things with it. Underhill has given proper acknowledgment to the fact that most of what is covered in this book is not hobby, but mankind's way of life not so long ago. For Underhill, the Wooden Age hasn't quite come to an end, and as I read this latest Woodwright's episode, I begin to feel that perhaps it hasn't ended for me, either. For any of us who find any joy at all in transforming wood, this is mandatory reading. I defy you not to let your imagination wander!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book he has written yet I think......, November 25, 2008

By 

Dennis G. Nelson "Iron Weaver" (Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Woodwright's Guide: Working Wood with Wedge and Edge (Paperback)

I have been watching The Woodwright Shop on TV for 30 years. I have purchased all of Roy's books as they came out. At first I thought this was just a selective reprint of the others but now that I have read it I truly believe this is his best one yet. It covers the topics of the other books and pulls out the true "liquor" of knowledge of the other books. Certainly it is because of this person I have been doing blacksmithing and traditional woodworking for decades now. He is a wonderful and steadfast inspiration.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating #6, November 2, 2008

By 

Dick Johnson (Oklahoma USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Woodwright's Guide: Working Wood with Wedge and Edge (Paperback)

This, the sixth in Underhill's Woodwright series, is more tool and process oriented than the others. I really like this one for its practical teachings.

I do have an axe to grind, however. The Product Description above says "A special concluding section contains detailed plans for making your own foot-powered lathes, ...." Aah, I thought, I'll finally get plans for building that treadle lathe Underhill has been teasing me with for five books. If you, like me, think "detailed plans" will give you true shop drawings, lists of materials, and instructions that, if you follow them will give you a working lathe at the end; then you, like me, will be very disappointed. He does give you more than in the past, but be prepared for much head scratching and trial and error. If I do go ahead and try to build one, I'm going to make sure I have at least three of everything on hand.

Over all, this is perhaps his best book yet. I just don't understand why he's so stingy with his plans.