Best books to start my collection

[jbk]

Hi All,

Newby woodworker here aspiring to make furniture as a hobby. I'd like to get a few nice books on the Christmas list and wanted to ask your opinions on some nice titles to add to my current tiny collection of; 'Working Wood 1&2' Paul Sellers & 'The essential woodworker' Robert Wearing. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[ED65]

Thread from just a few days ago: introduction-and-search-for-books-t114979.html

 

[MikeG.]

The Village Carpenter.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A wonderful book (as is The Wheelright's Shop by George Sturt) but I don't know if it's really relevant.

 

[JimB]

The Woodworker annuals are great value but have to be bought second-hand.

 

[Racers]

A Cabinetmakers Note Book By Jim Krenov.

Pete

 

[DTR]

The Village Carpenter.

A wonderful book (as is The Wheelright's Shop by George Sturt) but I don't know if it's really relevant.

+1 to both of those, both great books. In a similar vein, I'm a fan of The Joiner and Cabinet Maker. It was originally written in 1839 but is annotated with modern commentary, and the commentator then goes on to build the projects described in the original text.

 

[AndyT]

Hi All,

Newby woodworker here aspiring to make furniture as a hobby. I'd like to get a few nice books on the Christmas list and wanted to ask your opinions on some nice titles to add to my current tiny collection of; 'Working Wood 1&2' Paul Sellers & 'The essential woodworker' Robert Wearing. Any suggestions?

Thanks

You'll get much more useful answers if you say a bit more about what intend. If you want guidance on using a tracksaw and an electric router to make furniture from MDF then the answer will not be the same as if you want to make furniture from native hardwoods using hand tools. I guess you're more on the latter side than the former, based on the books you already have, but that's only a guess.

If you do want to explore what has been written about hand tool woodwork, many of the out of copyright books freely and legally available online will be of interest - this post leads to some more information - free-downloadable-woodworking-books-plans-ref-sites-t82220.html

I'd also recommend using the Open Library site as a guide to books held in the Internet Archive - for example, this search gives you books available as ebooks and tagged with the subject of woodwork - but experiment with other keywords such as furniture or cabinet to find more:

https://openlibrary.org/search?q=title% ... ltext=true

But if it's physical books for presents and your family are generous, look at the Lost Art Press titles, available in the UK from Classic Hand Tools, or anything by Roy Underhill.

 

[jbk]

Thanks for all of your input folks. That was really helpful and I've now a list for santa. I'll report back with my spoils if I've been well behaved this year and feedback on my thoughts as to what's been helpful and enjoyable for a newbie hand tool woodworker such as me. Merry Christmas to you and sharp plane irons to you all.