Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"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!

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.

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.

This is another excellent book Roy has written. The plan for the Roubo workbench in the back is worth the price alone. It is a quick, enjoyable read where you can easily tab back to any page to review a certain woodworking technique. Excellent reference book.

I am a big fan of Roy Underhill. As soon as his DVD's are ready I plan on purchasing the whole set. I have read all of his books and enjoyed them greatly except this one. I felt like I was experiencing Déjà vu as I read this book. The only redeeming part, I could find, was the addendums in the back. They made the book worth the read even if it seems it was just rehashing all the previous titles. All in all, I'm sorry to say, this was not one of his best efforts.

The book is driven by a very simple thesis: there are two ways to cut wood, with an edge and with a wedge, and every possible woodworking operation uses one or both methods. Beginning with the tree in the forest, the book moves through the tasks of the feller, the sawyer, the timber framer, the joiner, the turner, and the cabinet maker. At each step, the workmanship becomes more precise and refined, though not necessarily more skillful or complicated. It helps that the author has direct experience in all these areas, so he speaks from the point of view of the craftsman as well as the historian.

As some of the previous reviewers point out, this book does repeat a lot of information that is scattered throughout Underhill's earlier books. For those who have read and digested his previous books, there won't be a lot of new information or techniques here, although there is some. But the advantage to Underhill's approach in this book is that he takes more time to explain techniques in detail than he has in the earlier, project-focused books. Want to know how to make a lapped dovetail joint in a timber frame with just a saw and axe? A hidden dovetail in a miter joint? Or a rule joint for a drop-leaf table? This books gives you the details, complete with line drawings that show important steps. I should emphasize, though, that these are not the step-by-baby-step instructions of conventional woodworking literature. Underhill is content to explain the crucial principles, guide you around common pitfalls, and let you work out some of the details on your own. But that has always been his ethos, and anyone already familiar with Underhill, either through his TV show or his books, will know already. Implicitly, the book shows that once you master the basic principles of a process, you become free to improvise at any number of levels.

Readers of Underhill's previous books will no doubt recognize a lot of the drawings, many of which are crendered from photos that appeared in the older books. I happen to like the drawings better, since they tend to be clearer and less visually cluttered. Plus, there are a lot more images than in previous books, so the book is on the whole much better illustrated than previous works. The layout is very effective, with the images confined to the wide margins and the text in a single column. If you happen to be in the habit of annotating your books, the layout offers amble opportunity.

An added bonus is a short essay, "The Great Wheel," which originally appeared in Woodworking Magazine. The book's appendices have some otherwise hard-to-find information on making taps and dies for wooden screws, as well as spring-pole and treadle lathes. (There is also an appendix on making two traditional workbenches, which are helpful if not revolutionary.) The lathe "plans" are minimal; Underhill sets up the crucial details and lets you figure out the rest yourself. Many woodworkers are uncomfortable with this approach, but I think that any experienced woodworker should be able to build either lathe successfully without further directions. Underhill's spirit in this books is very consistent with his earlier work--he combines historical research, traditional techniques, and American-style improvisation to inspire the woodworker to discover woodcraft afresh.

Roy Underhill is very entertaining both on tv and in print and this book in no exception. Highly recommended.

This may be another one of those "you either get it, or you don't" items, but anyone that loves the Woodwright will love this book. It's all forgotten technique explained, just as his PBS show was, and Roy Underhill always does such an exemplary job of it.

Very interesting and easy to read. Good practical information.
Historical information of older woodworker methods, good instructions for projects using hand tools.
Good addition to my collection of books dealing with working with hand tools.

I'm just getting into "no power tools" woodworking, and this basic guide to all classes of such woodworking was extremely helpful, especially the plans for the spring pole lathe (which I plan to build shortly) and the treadle lathe. A great book that's entertaining and informative at the same time.