The Complete Woodworking Guide

Well written, full of pictures, high quality designed. It worths every penny.

Provides a lot of knowledge and ideas

My son absolutely loves it and uses it often. It’s very easy to use with great pictures and detailed instructions. It has lots of tips and tricks and ideas of all sorts. It’s exactly what he wanted, needed, and now loves.

It shows multiple tools that I didn’t even know existed so that’s cool. It also shows multiple different joints you can make which could come in handy but the building options it shows are just so ugly nobody would ever want. Just YouTube some stuff and make something worth $20 at least

He loves to woodwork and has been keeping his hands busy. Free time is woodworking. Love that. He also loves to read books. This was very helpful and he had knowledge of woods and said it was the best book

Solid book. Received yesterday and paged through it last night. Sturdy binding, good paper stock and print. Detailed descriptions and pictures. Good knowledge base.

Lots of info on how to do anything working, a great tool to have!

A great reference manual for any wood shop. Well illustrated, straight to the point, with good example projects and many tools explained.

Another good resource for our shop.

Picked up this book see if there are any projects that might be fun to build. While the info on wood and tools is helpful, many of the projects use a Festool Domino (a $1000+ handheld tool ) and/or a dedicated mortising machine,. While I appreciate the info, this is not geared towards beginner woodworkers if you are requiring that level of investment.

Got this book for a present for my husband who is a woodworker. He is consistently recommending this book to other people who do woodworking. He feels it’s a great resource and also helps to further educate the woodworker

Good Book on Woodworking, very comprehensive in scope. The illustration pictures and diagrams in this book; help to bring in the concepts covered to the uninitiated. Wonderful reference book to the accomplished woodworker as well.

covers nothing modern. mostly hand tools , not modern or electric or battery tools. obsesses with mortice and tenon for all the projects.great book about the past.

As a beginning woodworker, I bought several books. This one has become my “go to”. From setting up your shop to what tools you need to step by step project instructions. The text is clear and the pictures are excellent.

Lots of pictures and very good, basic description. Just what I was looking for.

Much more thorough than the handful of books I previously waded through. Got well reviewed books but all of them lacked a true focus towards the learn-as-I-go woodworker, throwing around terminology that was never well explained (if explained at all), and using it for the basis of divulging new info without ever giving you the building blocks so to speak. Great explanations and plans

I just loved the easy, step by step guide for joinery and basic techniques.

Nice to read because of all the pictures and illustrations.

Projects could be better but a great addition to my woodworking books.

I haven't finished reading the book yet, but what I've read so far is exactly what I've been looking for. Been getting the bug to do some wood furniture repair and this book will help tremendously.

They chose a fairly small font and printed it in less than full black, so it’s a little faint even directly under a bright reading lamp. Makes it annoying to read. The information is dated and examples are geared towards non-power tool user.

The Pacific Northwest is a notoriously “wet” region. Amazon could do their clients a service by packaging items so that they arent damaged by the persistently inclement weather. You’d think a hard-bound book would warrant such care

Great book to get some ideas. Used is as a gift and it was very well received. Would recommend this for a beginner.

Any questions you come across, the general answers are in this book. Another great book to have in you woodworking library.

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.

This book will make a great gift for the woodworker in your family or among your friends. It is substantial and quite beautifully done.

What a great book and when you combine with the other books I got "the sky is the limits" freakin' great. I will be ordering their tool book too!!😜