Some light reading

 I've seen a number of people ask recently what books they should look into if they're interested in woodworking, particularly without power tools.  I realized I'd never actually done a post on that, so here it is.

This is NOT a list of the best hand tool books out there.  I haven't read them all, and I may be missing something fantastic.  This is a list of some books I've found helpful, and some of why I thought they were worth recommending.  So, in no particular order:

- The Anarchist's Toolchest, by Christopher Schwarz.  This is an excellent book on theory and history, with excellent explanations of all the tools in an idealized English toolchest, and their use.  The toolchest is there, with full instructions, but isn't a great first project.  The rest of the trilogy, The Anarchist's Design Book and The Anarchist's Workbench, are also fantastic, and arguably more useful for a real beginner.

- Working Wood 1 & 2, by Paul Sellers.  This is a much better "getting started" book than the Anarchist trilogy.  It has a good section on tools, a number of starting projects with good explanation and photos, and an appendix on sharpening and tool care.  If I had to recommend just one book, it probably would end up being this one.

- The New Traditional Woodworker, by Jim Tolpin.  I've already reviewed this, here.  Since you already have that link, I'll just say it's a good book, and worth your time.

- The Essential Woodworker, by Robert Wearing.  This hasn't been one of my favorites, since I found the other three first.  That said, it's good enough that I'll recommend it.  It's now in print through Lost Art Press, and worth the purchase price.  It starts out very basic, then walks through building a few things, ranging from simple to complex.

- The Joiner and Cabinet Maker, by Anonymous, Christopher Schwarz and Joel Moskowitz.  This one is a little strange.  It started out as a short book in 1839, disappeared for quite a while, and was eventually found by Schwarz and Moskowitz.  The original book included discussion on how to get ahead in your trade, why you might be interested in woodworking, and basic operations.  It also included three projects:  a packing crate, a box for school books and lunch, and a chest of drawers.  Schwarz and Moskowitz added a preface on what the trades and trade unions in England looked like at the time, footnotes with explanation or expansion in the original text, and a section walking through actually building the projects in the book.  It's not exactly a how-to book, but there's a lot of good advice and explanation in it.  And, if nothing else, it's a good read!  (Also the audio book version was read by Roy Underhill, and although I haven't listened to it it's bound to be fantastic.)

So there you have it: my top choices for introductory woodworking books.  Give them a read, and let me know if you like them!

Book Review 4: "The Anarchist's Tool Chest", by Christopher Schwarz

I have to admit, I'm hesitant to write this review.  This book has generated massive amounts of controversy for some reason, and I'm not really sure why.  It seems like, for most people, it's a love-it-or-hate it kind of read.  I'm going to break that trend, and say that while I really like the book, there are things I don't like about it.  On a related note, this book was purchased before any of the books I've already reviewed.

The standard disclaimer:  I am not an expert.  I'm not even a journeyman.  I'm less of a beginner than I was when I wrote my last book review, but I'd still class myself as a beginner.

First Thoughts:

As you probably guessed from the title, this is a review of "The Anarchist's Toolchest", by Christopher Schwarz.  Overall, I like the book.  It's written well, and I happen to enjoy Mr. Schwarz's writing style.  Mixing the practical text with stories of how he got to that point makes this less of an instruction manual and more of a "here's how I got where I am today" narrative.

As a general rule, I like the discussion of tool types and the section about the chest.  I find the background stories to be mostly interesting, and good background on WHY Mr. Schwarz believes what he does.  Although there are places where I disagree with him, he mostly hasn't tried to set himself up as the One True Source, and agrees that there's room for disagreement on, say, whether wooden planes are better or worse than steel ones.

That said:  I really could have done without the philosophy.  I don't really agree with his labeling of himself as an anarchist, and I really would have preferred a few more pages of tools to the pages of sociopolitical monologuing.   It's not that it was badly written or offensive, I just don't think it added anything to the book.

Details:

I consider this book to contain four parts, although (except for part 4) they're all mixed together.

1) Background

This covers where Mr. Schwarz came from, what his experience is, and why you should (or shouldn't) pay attention to him.  While it's not strictly necessary, I found that it made sense of a lot of other things in the book that might not otherwise have been entirely clear.  This is where the book starts, and pieces of backstory are scattered throughout the rest of the book.

One thing I'll address here.  I've heard (or more accurately read) people saying that Mr. Schwarz "isn't really a woodworker", or that he's clearly a writer and not a craftsman, or something similar.  I think this is nonsense.  There are very few people who are full time woodworkers these days, and it's true, he's not one of them.  But then, the people who are mostly don't have time to write books.  That's just kind of how it goes.  But he's built a fair amount of furniture for his house, and he knows enough to teach classes;  as far as I'm concerned, that's real enough.

2) Philosophy

This is where the book loses me.  I don't argue that none of it is interesting -- I'd never heard of the Cincinnati Time Store before -- but I don't think it adds much to the book.  Some of the it, such as his discussion of why he prefers to use furniture he has made himself, is interesting.  Some of it, such as the discussion on what it means to be an Anarchist, feel out of place.  It sort of feels like he inserted a lot of this to justify his use of hand tools;  I feel like "I got interested in the history and decided I liked them" would have been an adequate justification.  That's really all I have to say about this section, except that while I don't like it, it doesn't leave the book unreadable;  it just means there are more pieces I skip on re-readings.

3) The Tools

This is, to me, the most interesting part of the book.  This is a list of the tools that Mr. Schwarz considers "essential";  the "if I have this, I can build almost any piece of furniture" list.  The list is based, for the most part, on historical records:  the tools listed in "The Joiner and Cabinet Maker", Josoph Moxon's writings, Andre Roubo's writings, and so on.  There are, of course, exceptions -- the block plane is too modern to have made it into any of those sources -- but that's the base.

What I most appreciate about this section is that there is some guidance on finding tools and rehabbing them.  Yes, the advice is sometimes "Don't bother, just buy a new one", but there are places where he says "Don't worry about this type of defect, here's how to fix it."  While he does highly recommend buying a lot of things from modern manufacturers, he also acknowledges that not everyone can drop $300 on a hand plane, and so buying an old one is likely and not a bad idea.

There are also a few tools in here -- winding sticks, a 2 or 3 foot straightedge, and so on -- that he advocates making for yourself.  The instructions are a little bit sparse, but should be enough for anyone but a raw beginner to manage.

4) The Chest

This is the part most people will buy the book for, but in all honestly I'll probably never use it.  The fact is, my shop space is tiny, and I can't afford to give up the floor space.  Instead, I build a Dutch-style chest, and I'm planning on a low cabinet to set it on top of. 

That aside, this section is fascinating.  It's a solid, step-by-step guide to building a traditional joiner's toolchest, and well worth it even if you're not planning to build one.  There's a lot of good general information on building boxes or any type of carcase, and a lot of tips on tool use that I have found useful in other projects.

There is also another subsection here, on use of the chest and design for tool chests generally.  While I haven't worked from one of these, I've tried some of the motions involved in retrieving things from the bottom.  It feels to me like it would probably work just fine, unless you have a particularly bad back.  I was also interested by Mr. Schwarz's take on dividers and French fitting:  he's fairly opposed to both.  Given that just about every other book on tool chests or tool storage is in favor of both, I found his logic interesting. 

Final Thoughts:

As I've said, I like the book.  I have a suspicion, though, that a lot of people will find the writing style to be annoying enough that it detracts from the value of the book for them.  Similarly, this is not a "do this to be a better woodworker" type of book.  You won't find (except in the chest-building section) clear "do this, then do this" steps.  But there are a lot of books that do that.  I've reviewed a couple of them.  What this book does is try to demonstrate that we've fallen into the trap of "more is better" when it comes to tools, and that "mass produced is better" when it comes to furniture.  I can agree with the basic concept, even if I don't entirely agree with how bad those things are.

This book did one critical thing for me.  It gave me a starting point.  I read the book just about the time I was starting to move my shop indoors, which meant giving up the majority of my power tools.  I knew I needed hand tools, but I didn't know which ones, or really how to pick them.  I'd bought a few, but I didn't really know what I was doing.  Between "The Anarchist's Toolchest" and "Woodworking 1 &2" (by Paul Sellers), I learned how to get started, and I learned that yes, there are other people doing this crazy thing I'm trying to do.  That last one alone made a huge difference.  It meant I knew I could go looking for modern sources for information about what I was doing, and not have to figure it all out for myself.

Would I recommend the book?  Yes.  In point of fact, it's currently one of my three main recommendations for people who want to start working with hand tools.  It's less process based than the other two, but the information on tools is far and away the best of the books I've read.

Book Review 3: Civil War Woodworking

The third in a series of book reviews.

The same disclaimer as usual applies:  I am, if no longer a beginner, then nowhere near a master.  Not even a journeyman.  I have a little experience, a lot of theoretical knowledge, and loads of opinions.  So take these reviews with a grain of salt.

First Thoughts:

This review is of Civil War Woodworking, by A. J. Hamler.  It's not quite the same as the other two books I've reviewed so far.  Those were really focused on teaching you about hand tools, and how to use them.  This book, despite discussing projects from before the age of electric power tools, assumes the use of power tools almost exclusively, and doesn't talk much about technique.  Instead, it's a collection of 17 plans for furniture and camp equipment from the era of the American Civil War.  

Overall, I like the book a lot.  Several of the projects are now on my "Try to get around to this sometime" list, and some are on my "Do this as soon as your new shop is set up!" list.  While the suggestions for how to use power tools to achieve results that look like they were done with historically accurate tools occasionally irritate me ("Look, if you'd just use the right tool, you wouldn't HAVE to spend time making it look right!"), that wasn't the focus of the book, and I was able to ignore it. 

Now, on to the details!

Details:

The book is basically divided into two main sections, plus a list of references and resources at the end.

The first section begins with historical information, and a discussion about "authenticity" and the idea of a "historically correct" campsite.  I enjoyed the discussion, and found some of it useful in a general sense, but I really wanted a book on woodworking:  Going through the first section (about 10 pages) had me a little concerned that this was going to be a book about reenactment, with a few nods in the direction of woodworking.  Starting around page 11, there's discussion about historical woodworking, and how the stock and tools have changed since the Civil War (spoiler:  not as much as you might expect, advent of power tools notwithstanding).

The real meat of the book, for me, starts on page 28, with the first of projects.  The projects in the book range from the quick-and-dirty (five-board bench, hardtack crate) to somewhat more complex (officer's field desk, Lt. Kelly's camp chair).  Some of them build on earlier projects:  the field desk, for instance, is designed as dividers and modifications to a hardtack crate, since that's how some of them would have been built.

One detail I enjoyed was the sidebars:  for instance, in the section on building a hardtack crate, Mr. Hamler included a recipe for hardtack.  Do you need one?  Probably not.  Does it have anything to do with woodworking?  Nope!  But it's an interesting addition, and if you're really planning to do reenactment, having hardtack available might be useful, so why not have some?

Each of the 17 projects begins with a description of its historical provenance:  where Mr. Hamler found the description, where the photos (if any) came from, and how it would have been used.  For some things -- most notably the hardtack and ammunition crates -- he is able to quote Army regulations on construction technique and sizing.  In other cases, he has existing historical artifacts to draw from, or sometimes just photos.  One of the projects on my "Do it soon!" list is Lt. Kelly's camp chair, which he found three photos of from different angles.  While the original is almost certainly long gone, the photos gave enough information to produce a good replica.

From historical information, Mr. Hamler moves on to materials and construction.  For the most part, standard 3/4" stock is perfectly usable, but Mr. Hamler pushes the idea of using different sizes.  Why?  Well, because 3/4" wasn't really a standard, historically.  So if you're going to use it, that's fine, but it shouldn't be everywhere.  That's one of his complaints about the camp furniture that's so common with reenactors;  too much of it is made from standard sized lumber.  Once he's explained what lumber to use, he moves on to layout and technique.  This is possibly where the book is most lacking.

Mr. Hamler is mostly concerned with historical information.  That's not a bad thing, necessarily, but it means that many of the projects are a bit sparse on construction detail.  There's plenty of information to figure it out if you have a little experience -- I didn't have any trouble reading between the lines, and I'm barely an apprentice, skills-wise -- but don't expect layout diagrams and cut-lists like you'll find in a woodworking magazine.  They don't exist, for the most part.  He does discuss each component necessary, and the joints used, and usually in quite a lot of detail, but the instructions are sometimes a little disjointed.  Really, though, that's my only complaint with the book, and I certainly feel confident that I could easily come up with a plan for any of the projects in the book.  And if I can, then anyone with the skill to use the necessary tools should really be able to.

Final Thoughts:

So what else is there to say?  I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to do reenactment.  Whether they're planning to build their own furniture or not, there's a lot of excellent information here.  If you plan to build camp furniture for Civil War reenactment, I'd say buying the book is a no-brainer.  There's good historical information, there's good construction information, and the photos give a clear sense of how things were actually used.

But what if you're not a reenactor?  Well, then it gets a little more iffy.  I'm not, and I don't expect to be.  I'm still planning to do a few of the projects:  that camp chair would go quite nicely on my front porch, and the stool would make a nice foot-rest to go with it, or just as extra seating.  While I don't need a folding camp mirror, I have friends who would probably enjoy having something like it as a simple portable mirror.  I've already got a five-board bench on my porch, made by my grandfather, and making another to match it would even out the porch quite nicely.  So sure... if you're not into reenactment, but you are a woodworker, you may well get value out of the book.  I certainly have, so I can recommend it whole-heartedly.

Book Review 2: "The New Traditional Woodworker"

So this second review will be a lot more positive than the first one.

The same disclaimer as last time applies:  I am, if no longer a beginner, then nowhere near a master.  Not even a journeyman.  I have a little experience, a lot of theoretical knowledge, and loads of opinions.  So take these reviews with a grain of salt.

First Thoughts:

The second book I got was "The New Traditional Woodworker", by Jim Tolpin.  Again, let's get the first response out of the way:  I quite liked this one.

"I didn't think I would need to write another book on woodworking" starts out Mr. Tolpin.  "I figured the ten other books I wrote on the subject pretty much covered it..." 

As you might expect, Mr. Tolpin figured out he was wrong.  All those earlier books focused on power tools, and he found he wanted to write one on hand tools.

While much of the information in the book is fairly general, Mr. Tolpin covers a lot of ground in a fairly limited amount of space.  I think his decisions about what to include and what to leave out, while not always the ones I would have made, were mostly good ones  He manages to cover enough information that someone completely new to hand-tool woodworking would probably be able to at least figure out how to get through it, and someone with power tool experience would have no trouble at all.

Details:

Let's talk for a minute about the structure of the book.  The book is roughly divided into three sections.  The first is what you might call philosophical:  the mindset involved in using hand tools, and why you might want to acquire that mindset.  The second is equipment:  descriptions of types of tools.  The third section is project-based:  tools you can make for your shop.  Now, for a bit more detail.

1) Philosophy

"My five-year-old son learned in less than ten minutes how to cut accurately to length using a backsaw and bench hook.  The dog, however, took a little longer..."  (p10)

This section was the shortest, and is the one I have the least to say about.  Mr. Tolpin talks a lot about why you might want to work with hand tools, but it all boils down to things other people have said:  it's quieter, it's cleaner, and if you're not trying to mass produce, it's usually more fun and not all that much slower.  I like it, but if you're reading the book you probably already know most of it.  He does talk a little about shop layout here, as well as types of benches, but it's mostly old news and not very technical.

2) Tools

"When you pay home and garden store prices, what you get are tools that are -- how can I put this delicately -- garden variety." (p29)

This is where the real content begins.  Mr. Tolpin discusses both general classes of tools and specifics within those classes.  The classes he uses are:

• Layout Tools
• Tools for Changing the Size of the Board
• Tools for Creating Planes and Angles
• Tools for Joinery
• Tools for Shaping Edges
• Tools for Smoothing the Wood
• Tools for Making Holes
• Tools for Assembling Parts
• (Non-Human) Powered Tools
• Sharpening

For each of those categories except the last two, each is broken down into smaller subsets ("Tools for Laying out Curved Lines") and specific tools ("Marking Gauges").  For each tool, there are three sections:

• What They Do:  This section explains exactly what the tooldoes, why you want one, and gives some specific examples of use.
• How They Do It:  This has details of how the tool is designed, and sometimes why it's designed that way, and how you make use of it.  Sometimes that's simple (marking gauges) and sometimes it's a little more involved (bench planes), but he keeps to a fairly low level of detail here.
• Which Ones You Need:  This is basically a bare-bones list of the minimal kit you're going to want of this particular tool, with some sketchy explanation of why.

As seems to be common among hand-tool woodworkers, the two places Mr. Tolpin compromises are a bandsaw and a drill press, both of which speed up and simplify things that are hard or tedious with hand-tools (ripping or resawing long boards, cutting long curves, or drilling large numbers of accurate holes).  

As for sharpening, he covers the basics.  What is a sharp blade, why should you grind a blade, why is hollow-ground easier to sharpen, and things like that.  He uses a combination of sandpaper, waterstones, and powered grinders and sanders, depending on what he's sharpening, and gives at least enough information to get started.  I cant' really judge the accuracy of a lot of his instruction here, because I don't use any of those methods these days.  For what it's worth, nothing he said struck me as inherently wrong, just not the way I do things.

3) Projects

"Because it is your body that is providing the energy source for the tools (all 1/5th horsepower of it!), the ability to sharpen and properly set up or configure a tool becomes paramount..." (p73)

Mr. Tolpin starts this section with a lot of general information, including a chart on "Handtool-Friendly American Furniture Woods", with comments, species name, specific gravity at 12% moisture, stability, strength, and hardness.  He also includes information on selecting wood, why it warps, and how to figure out which way it warps.

He then moves on to the projects.  In order, they are:

• Straightedge
• Try Squares
• Winding Sticks
• Face Planing Stop
• Bench Hook Pair
• Edge Planing Stop
• Sticking Board
• Workbench Tote
• Oiling Pad (probably the simplest project in the book!)
• Diagonal Testing Stick
• Vise for Sharpening Saws and Scrapers
• Sawbench Pair
• Waste Backing Block
• Drawing Bows (for drawing curves)
• Sticking Board for Dowels

For each project, he moves through a similar set of sub-sections to the tool section.  He starts by explaining what the thing is used for, and why it will be useful to you.  He also lists what skills he introduces with the project, and what tools it uses for the first time.  In several cases, the project uses the tools from earlier projects, and the skills generally advance from the first project to the last.

Mr. Tolpin then goes through the process of actually building the thing.  For some projects -- like the Oiling Pad -- that takes up about two paragraphs.  For some, like the bench hook pair, that's 15 pages of detailed text and photos.  His approach mostly works for me;  there are a few places I find his explanations to be too vague or too in depth, but since everyone has a different background, I can't say how it will work for you.  In general, I'd say anyone with a little experience should be able to work through all the projects in order.

The Projects section ends with a description (again, with photos) of the process of squaring and truing all six sides of a board, which is a nice addition. 

Final Thoughts:

So what else is there to say about this book?

There are a few problems with it.  The big one as far as projects go is the old paradox of woodworking:  you need a square to make a square, and the same holds true for a lot of projects here.  It's hard to figure out if your straightedge is true if you don't have a straightedge, it's hard to build a sawbench without a good place to make cuts in large pieces of lumber, and so on.  Mr. Tolpin does make some good suggestions about how to work around some of these problems, but there's only so much you can do about others.

The only other real complaint I have about the book is the editing.  There are a number of typos, misuses of apostrophes, and things like that.  Does it detract factually from the book?  No.  Will most people notice them?  Again, no.  But sloppy editing in a published book bothers me.

The book is somewhat limited by space;  there are places where the discussion of a tool or project is a little bit sketchy, but if he'd gone into full detail about everything this would have been an encyclopedia, not a reasonably priced book.

Overall, I can happily recommend this book.  It's got a lot of good information in it, and it's mostly well written and useful.

Book review 1: "The Seven Essentials of Woodworking"

I got a handful of woodworking books for Christmas, from my family.  I guess this is an easy hobby to buy for, at least when you're as much of a beginner as I am.  Anyway, all of them were interesting, and I decided I'd write reviews of at least a few.

First, the disclaimer:  I am, if no longer a beginner, then nowhere near a master.  Not even a journeyman.  I have a little experience, a lot of theoretical knowledge, and loads of opinions.  So take these reviews with a grain of salt.

The first book is The Seven Essentials of Woodworking, by Anthony Guidice.

First Thoughts:

I'm going to get this out of the way, right up front:  I didn't like the book.  I can't honestly recommend it to a raw beginner, and it's arguably too basic for a non-beginner.  However, that isn't due to factual content, or technique.  Within my experience, most of what he wrote is true, or at least not untrue.  The techniques he discusses are good ones, the tools he recommends are, to my knowledge, excellent, and he makes some good points about some of the common beliefs in woodworking.  And yet...

What I can't get past is Mr. Guidice's attitude.  Look, I'm an IT guy in my daily life.  I've told people, fairly seriously, that every IT person knows there's only one appropriate response to a problem.  Now, if only we could get any two IT people to agree on a response...  Much the same is true of woodworkers, or at least woodworking books.  Crafters in general tend to separate into camps more than IT people do, but there's still a sense of "Other ways work, but mine is best."  I'm used to that.  It amuses me more than anything.

What bothers me here is that it's taken to an extreme in this book.  Mr. Guidice appears to take the attitude that no one who disagrees with him can be considered an expert.  Really.  A quote from the book:  'I am very much aware that some of the precepts in this book are contrary to what is often written in woodworking books and magazines, and may be challenged by "experts."'  (p 12)

Right there, in the introduction, he's set up the claim that no one who challenges him can be an expert.  That bothers me, because it denies any chance for discussion.  Someone who says "Other people may disagree with me.  That's fine, but this is my way, and here's why I like it." opens the door for discussion or debate.  This closes that door, and sets up the author as the ultimate authority.  This isn't an isolated example, by the way, it's just the one that I happened on first when I went looking for a quote.

So if you're a beginner and you're reading this, remember:  his techniques are good, and his information is good.  But other people also have good techniques and information, and it's not always the same as what you'll see in this book.

Details:

The book covers, as you might guess, seven general topics.  In order, they are:

1. Wood, gluing, and joint strength.
2. Measuring and marking.
3. Sawing.
4. Sharpening
5. Hand planes.
6. Mortise and tenon joints
7. Finishing.

While people might argue about order, and whether there should be other things on the list, I think most woodworkers would agree these are all pretty important.  I'm not going to try to talk about every section here, but I'll touch on a few things.

I've got no argument with anything (except the aforementioned attitude) in the first two sections.  What he says about how to handle things makes as much sense as anything else I've read, and more than some of it.  (The internet is a truly vast repository of badly written garbage.  My hope with this blog is to increase the average quality of the garbage.)

In the third section, though, I have some questions.  Mr. Guidice is very firmly opposed to what I think of as traditional saws;  he makes no bones about the fact that he hates backsaws ("Backsaws are heavy, difficult to balance, and unwieldy... And it doesn't cut well, either." p 26) and carpenter's saws ("The backsaw does not have the worst design I've ever seen; the standard carpenter's handsaw... has a thicker blade and bigger teeth, whips and kinks in the cut, and cuts even more slowly." p 26).  What does he like?  Bow saws.  I've never used a bow saw for woodworking;  I have one I love for cutting up downed trees, but not for anything finer than that.  He may well be right, but I find it interesting that he so despises tools that so many woodworkers love.  My handsaws don't seem inclined to "whip and kink in the cut" unless I do something wrong, and they cut quite quickly.  I can't help wondering, in fact, whether his hatred of the form has more to do with early bad experiences than the form itself.

Once that's done, I really run out of problems with Mr. Guidice's ideas.  Again, he frequently includes short complaints about people who disagree with him, but his facts and techniques seem to be fairly standard.

My one other note comes mainly from the section on planes.  One argument he makes, which I have trouble arguing with, is that beginners who want to do serious woodwork should just buy good quality brand new planes, and not mess around with trying to restore vintage ones.  Just about the only specific tool he recommends in the book is the Lie-Nielson low angle jack plane.  It gets fantastic reviews from everyone I've seen review it, so I can't really fault him.  But... well, not everyone can afford to spend $200+ on a hand plane.  That's more than I've spent on all my planes put together, and possibly more than I've spent on all my hand tools put together (though I was helped out there by some nice tools being passed down to me).

And really, that's my problem with the whole book.  I've read other authors who say things like "The best choice is to go get a new plane from a good manufacturer.  You'll find out what a really good tool feels like, and you won't have to mess around with it.  It'll just work.  But if you can't afford that, here are some resources for helping you tune up an old plane into something quite good."  That, to me, is reasonable.  Mr. Guidice says, in essence, "Go buy a new plane.  If you're not going to do that, stop wasting my time and go find a different hobby."  Again, shutting down discussion rather than encouraging it.

Finally, one positive note:  His section on finishes is the clearest I've read.  Seriously.  Low on attitude, high on information.  It all backs up other things I've read, with a good organizational structure.  It worked for me.

Final Thoughts:

As I said initially, I can't recommend this book, really to anyone.  The author is just too opinionated, and that colors the whole book for me.  I've found most of the information (though he talked more about bow saws than anyone else I've read) other places, with less "I'm right and everyone else is dumb" attitude.

Is it, though, actually a bad book?  I'd have to say no.  The information is clearly presented, and the author appears to know his subject.  He's opinionated, not wrong.  The fact that I don't like it doesn't change the fact that, for many things, his methods will work, and work well.  If you're willing to overlook the slanted opinions, or if you don't have easy access to another book, give it a read.  If you want something balanced, go read something else.