Thursday, August 19th, 2010
When I received the package containing the Back to Basics series, I had had a particularly rough day at work. I came home and found it on the kitchen table, and my wife giving me one of those “So, what did you buy for your shop now?” looks. I usually just have to say, these are books from Fox Chapel, and she understands. So that crisis was averted.
I was really excited, because I wasn’t expecting a new book, or books. I opened the package, pulled out the books and was overjoyed! Then a little bit of the mood of the day took over and I was saddened again. Just something about the cover art on the books made me think sarcastically ‘Boy, these are going to be joy to read. And I still have the Missing Shop Manual series to review.’
After looking over the covers of each book, I set them aside until late at night. After the kids were in bed I picked up Woodworker’s Guide to Wood and began leafing through it. Normally when I leaf through a book, I do just that. I look at the pictures, read a few captions, skip a few pages, jump to the index and see what I might have missed. Twenty minutes later, I found that I was reading more than leafing. I had read quite a bit of several pages and actually learned some things about wood that haven’t really been explained all that well in other texts and podcasts that I have learned from in the past.
I was surprised that this book had captured my attention so well. Pleasantly surprised. So much so that I decided to bring the Joinery book with me to work the next day. By lunchtime I had already experienced much the same delight with it.
As someone who really enjoys trying (and usually failing) to cut all kinds of joinery using hand tools and power tools, just for fun, I found this book to be a fresh look at joinery. While there are dovetails on the cover, the book doesn’t over emphasize the use, importance or play to the reputation that the various dovetail joints have garnered. What this book does do is fairly and accurately detail what joints are suitable for which applications, with which woods, and how to go about implementing them. Various tools are used for each joint, and the book doesn’t assume that you have every specialty tool possible for each joint. So, when necessary, jigs, and how to build and use them, are detailed also.
The next day I decided to continue this trend and bring the Setting Up Your Workshop book to work. I ended up getting so much out of it in so little time that I decided to rearrange my shop (1/2 of a 2-car garage) as it was depicted in the book.
I generally regard workbench and workshop books as pretty boring. I get enough advice about how to organize my shop from my wife and father-in-law. The last thing I voluntarily want to do is read about someone’s idea of how I should organize something that they have never seen. But, I was pleasantly surprised with this book, and plan on returning to it in the next couple of years as my shop evolves.
The Woodworking Machines book was next, and while I had already been through other books that gloss over the fine points of every machine you could possibly have in your shop, and probably act as a replacement for Ambien in the process… I was happy with the way this book shows how to setup each machine, describe the most common and best uses for each machine, how to tune and align them, and general maintenance. All-in-all, this one is staying in my shop so I don’t have to keep running inside and down to the basement where I keep my other woodworking books.
Other books in the Back to Basics series are Constructing Kitchen Cabinets, Fundamentals of Sharpening (available to Ship Dec 1st, 2010), Woodworker’s Guide to Carving (available to ship Sept 30th, 2010), and Woodworker’s Guide to Turning (available to ship January 1st, 2011).
It’s funny how these books struck such a chord with me. I was happy to actually read them instead of weeding information out of them. And you know what, that’s what it seems like I end up doing with most of my woodworking books these days. I feel like I need to set aside major chunks of time (because I’m a slow slow reader), just to get one little bit of information from them. With the Back to Basics series, everything you need to know is spelled out plain as day and ready for you in easy to read English.
Like I’ve tried to explain through 2 years of podcasting, I have learned, what I consider, to be a great deal about woodworking over the internet and by reading books. It’s great to see that these new books from Fox Chapel are not just regurgitating the same information that many podcasters, books and web sites continue to cover. These books are finding new ways to impart the same information, but supplement that with new ideas (at least to me), methods and non-mainstream information that may either be new to us all, or forgotten through the ages.
This sentiment doesn’t just end with the Back To Basics series. When I read the Joinery book this morning, I realized that this collection perfectly complements the Missing Shop Manual series, also published by Fox Chapel. The two collections even look similar. While the Missing Shop Manuals books are much smaller, they are all trade paperbacks with rounded outside corners and minimalist artwork on the cover. Both collections are full, and I mean full of charts, diagrams, drawings, and instructional illustrations.
And sturdy? Let me tell you about these… I usually ride around with a book or two in my laptop bag for about a week or two. By the time I take the books out, usually because I haven’t read them yet, they are mangled. I’ve done the same with the Missing Shop Manuals books, but they are still in great shape. The sturdy trade paperback covers have kept them mostly unmolested – except for a few dents on the covers from spiral notebooks.
Probably the most useful book of the Missing Shop Manuals series is an unassuming title Glue and Clamps. Seriously, this book is worth it’s weight… It solves the ever frustrating adage that you can never have enough clamps.
Well, it doesn’t solve it in that it supplies you with enchanted clamp racks that magically fill themselves, but it does show you how to improvise and build your own, new, clamps out of the clamps you already own. Specialty clamps, clamping jigs, frame clamps, carcass clamps, improvised vises, clamp extenders, you name it, it’s probably in there.
The Drill Press and Table Saw books are also extremely helpful, in that there are tons of simply made jigs documented that you could easily pay for down at the local (or not so local) woodworking store. They also go over the machines, and the different categories of each machine in pretty fine detail. Even that’s not too boring 
The lathe is still a small mystery to me, so I can’t really comment on that book right now, but it available also. So, you can imagine, if I’m as happy as this with the other books, then if you are really into turning, you might do well to pick up the Missing Shop Manual on the Lathe.
The final book in the Missing Shop Manual Series that I have, but haven’t mentioned is Circular Saws and Jig Saws. I don’t really have a comment about this book. I looked it over a few months ago, and it didn’t leave a lasting impression. That’s not to say it was terrible, it’s just that I wasn’t jumping around saying ‘I’ve got to get into the shop right now!’ I’d bet that if you do a fair amount of circ and jig saw work, this book might do you some good too.
I think what I like most about these collections, and I think Fox Chapel has hit on a veritable gold mine here, is that I like my information in personable – meaning, in plain English – relatively small chunks with examples that I can see, and accurately explained. I’m a hard sell when it comes to books. At least informational books. And I have to admit that I probably would not have even picked these unassuming books off of the bookstore shelf to thumb through, but that would be my loss. These are exactly the types of books that I have needed since I took up woodworking.
Though the Missing Shop Manuals can, and should, find a place in every woodworker’s shop library (I’ll be building a special bookshelf for mine inside the shop), I can see the immense value of having the Back to Basics collection in every new and intermediate woodworker’s shop. Some of the information may be a review, but there are definitely caches of knowledge in the books that most people haven’t seen before.
Tags: book review, Fox Chapel Publishing, Rick Waters, Tools, wood, Woodworking
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Saturday, January 30th, 2010
I’ve had RW Anderson stop by and review the Fox Chapel Publishing book, ‘Zany Wooden Toys that Whiz, Spin, Pop, and Fly’. Enjoy
I’ve received several notes that people have been having problems with videing the video for this episode. Please try downloading it from iTunes, or choose from one of the three below. Thanks!
Tags: book, Fox Chapel Publishing, toys, wood, woodwork, Woodworking
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Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
I had the pleasure of interviewing a modern day renaissance woman, Carole Rothman, author of Wooden Bowls From the Scroll Saw. We discussed how Carole got into woodworking, and scrollsawing, her challenges and triumphs in perfecting the scrollsawn bowl, jar and vase.
Tags: bandsaw, bowl, Carole Rothman, Fox Chapel Publishing, jar, Rick Waters, scroll saw, splintered board, vase, wood, woodwork, Woodworker
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Friday, August 28th, 2009
I had the opportunity to review one of the best How-To woodworking books I’ve ever read. Carole Rothman makes a seemingly impossible task utterly simplistic through her many step-by-step bowl, jar and vase projects in Wooden Bowls from the Scroll Saw.
I was impressed with how detailed each project in the book was so intricately laid out and explained, but what really made me fall in love with Carole’s how-to writing style, was that she must have her beginner readers’ best interests in mind. In the first chapter she discusses the pro’s and con’s of several species of wood and encourages the woodworker to try other types also.
Carole discusses all of the possible tools needed and how to use them. She even includes templates for how to build your own bowl glue-up clamps.
Tags: book review, bowls, Carole Rothman, crafts, drill press, Fox Chapel Publishing, glue, inflatable ball sander, interview, lamination, laminations, lathe, oscillating spindle sander, Rick Waters, sander, scrollsaw, splintered board podcast, wood, Wooden Bowls From the Scroll Saw, Woodworker, Woodworking
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