Woodworking: The Complete Step-by-Step Manual

This is a great book for someone trying to understand so many aspects of woodworking.

I love the layout of this book. I am novice woodworker at best and this had everything from start to finish! It was clearly labeled and described everything in great detail. It’s a book you can read from page 1 to onward and feel like each page builds off of the last, but u can also flip to any page at any time and not be lost! This has the most information of any info source I’ve come across and highly recommend to anyone looking for a good reliable source of wood working knowledge.

This book was recommended to my husband from a friend of his, and so it was one of his birthday presents and he was so excited! Can’t wait to see all of the fun projects he makes because of the book’s help.

Really good for beginner wood workers

I can’t imagine the challenge of producing a big “overview of woodworking” tome in the year 2020. It’s almost as crazy as spending hours of your time and tons of money to make your own furniture when you can buy mass manufactured furniture at big box stores for less. Who would buy such an old fashioned book when you can find anything you want on the internet? With videos?I wondered that as I flipped through this book that my well-meaning family gave me, an avid beginner hobbyist, as a gift. While I wouldn’t have bought this on my own, I am nevertheless enjoying it enough to write this review. And I will say this type of book does deserve its place alongside the endless information and content steam of the internet.As a beginner hobbyist woodworker, YouTube is my primary instructor but this book is useful for just flipping through the pages and reading about tools and joints in a relaxed way, with plenty of high quality photos, when I don’t want to look at an electronic device. Therefore this book is an excellent complement to online videos. It’s a good introduction to the basics. If and when I want to lean more, then of course I’ll do that on the internet. But this book serves as a good starting point and as a resource to return to for basic fundamental.If you paid full retail price then this is a bit expensive and you can probably find equally educational books at a used bookstore for a fraction of the price. But many of the used books from years past are older with fewer and poor quality photos, or longer narrative whereas readers of today (including this reader) demand clear photos with explanation. I really do want to give credit to the excellent and thorough photo quality of this book. It’s evident that the internet and its abundance of easy pics and videos has required book makers to work harder to stay relevant and this book does it well.Half of the book is devoted to 28 typical projects, from cutting boards to more complex pieces like dressers and beds. While I might not build any of these, and instead find exactly the plans I want on the internet, nevertheless the plans are very detailed with excellent photos that you rarely see in any plans. As such, I often read through these plans just for the techniques.There is a preference for hand tools but they do cover lower tools and machines a bit as well.As an American (US) reader, be aware that this is a UK book with British authors so there is a fair amount of terminology differences that can be confusing, although not indecipherable, if you are an American. Brits and Americans do work with mostly the same tools and techniques but sometimes use different words. Fortunately the book uses both inches and metric so everyone will be happy. And the section on wood species contains woods from all over the world including North America.

Super cool and informative

As other reviewers have pointed out, this is a UK-oriented woodworking reference, so many of the terms are different from American ones. I considered returning it, since the topics were covered rather basically, but decided to keep it because it is instructive in teaching me the alternate terminology for Anglophone woodworking. I watch woodworking videos from around the world, so this is a good primer. Beyond that, it is a comprehensive look at nearly every topic in woodworking, albeit not it depth (1 page each). It is full color, well-written and a handsomely produced reference. I'm enjoying it.

I highly recommend making this purchase.