This book is packed with information on various woodworking tools, their purposes, how they are used, as well as care and maintenance suggestions. Further, the author has added a variety of tips and suggestions to make hand work more accurate and efficient. This book is one of the best at clearly explaining the included topics. This primarily stems from the fact that concepts are well illustrated and the illustrations are placed with the corresponding text (no flipping back and forth required).
The author further ventures to give the reader some suggestions on the basic set of tools required for woodworking. However, I would have to disagree with some of his suggestions (such which set of saws and which hand planes a beginner should start with). I would also debate his statement that a rip saw is not able to crosscut. Overall, I feel the drawbacks are minor compared to the information that is provided and I plan to keep this book on my shelf for reference as I build my skills and fill gaps in my tool collection.
As someone raised primarily on power tools this is a great book for building an understanding of the purpose of many hand tools as well as how they should be operated. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to use more hand tools but may not be well versed in their ways or maintenance.
This book is primarily geared toward novice hand tool users and as such it could be compared to works such as The Essential Woodworker, however, the primary difference here is that the book under review here focuses more on the tools themselves as opposed to the basic techniques required in woodworking.
Pages: 416 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN-13: 978-0-393-32276-7