Books for Beginning Woodworkers

Occasionally someone writes me with a question about woodworking. Sometimes I'm able to give them an answer and other times I enlist the help of others to provide a better and more thorough one.

This is where you come in.

A 31-year old woman from North Carolina would like to get into woodworking, but "knows absolutely nothing." She asked if I could suggest some ultra-basic beginner books and resources.

She has an inkling that she'd like to make furniture, but as she's just getting started, she's not really sure.

The book that changed my life nearly two decades ago is The Complete Manual of Woodworking by Albert Jackson, David Day, and Simon Jennings.  It was the perfect place to start for someone who didn't know the difference between a router and a bandsaw.

Beyond that, here is my short list of beginners' woodworking books (and I know darn well I missed a bunch). Some subjects might not apply to everyone. In no particular order:

1. Foolproof Wood Finishing by Teri Masaschi.
Many will disagree with me about the best finishing book, and indeed, I haven't seen Marc Spagnuolo's soon-to-be-released book, but of the ones I own, this one is the most cut-and-dried and clear to me.

2. The Complete Illustrated Guide to Joinery by Gary Rogowski.
Gary covers all of the most commonly used joints—how to cut them with hand tools or power tools.

3. Complete Illustrated Guide to Sharpening by Thomas Lie-Nielsen
No question about sharpening is left unanswered. Lie-Nielsen is a master sharpener.

4. How to Carve Wood by Richard Bütz
Bütz addresses all types of carving, starting with whittling. I do not subscribe to his lettercarving or chip carving techniques, but for relief carving and others, this book is a good start for beginners.

5. The Complete Guide to Chip Carving by Wayne Barton
Hands down, this is the very best book on chip carving.

6. Handplane Essentials by Christopher Schwarz
Absolutely everything you need to know in order to work with handplanes. This book is the definitive guide.

7. The Fine Art of Marquetry by Craig Vandall Stevens
This book is fantastic. Marquetry is well within your reach with Stevens' guidance.

8. Woodworkers' Guide to Veneering & Inlay by Jonathan Benson
Again, all guesswork is removed with this book. Benson is an expert on the subject.

9. Roy Underhill's books are perfect if you plan to pursue traditional woodworking.

I have no books on woodturning and very few on building furniture, so I'm not able to offer advice on those topics. However, if you are looking for some simple plans geared toward beginners, I encourage you peruse the I Can Do That page on Popular Woodworking's site for free downloadable plans and articles.

For more online help, I suggested she visit woodworking forums, blogs and podcasts—invaluable resources.

There are lots of great books and magazines for beginners. Help a lady out and post your thoughts in the comments.  And feel free to contest any of my recommendations. They are just my opinion and open to debate.

Tree-Hugging Woodworker: Oxymoron?

The wind wasn't blowing and my
hand wasn't shaking. This tree's
leaves were THAT wispy.

Ever since I read A Splintered History of Wood by Spike Carlson, I've never looked at trees the same way.

As soon as I became aware of the herculean effort trees undertake in simply growing, I've thought of them as large creatures deserving of our respect and care.

Certainly, as woodworkers, we revel in the color and grain patterns of boards, and marvel at the way finishes bring out the depth and luminosity of wood.

The Enchanted Woods.

But, let's face it: we kill trees.

Who among us, when watching the movie Avatar, didn't instinctively try to calculate the board feet when that gargantuan tree-dwelling fell to the ground?

This past weekend, while perusing the magnificent landscape at the Winterthur estate, I was awestuck with the beauty of Henry Francis Dupont's gardening mastery.

He designed his 2500 acres to appear to be natural when, in fact, he carefully organized the space so that the visual tapestry evolved throughout every season.  For eight months out of the year, something is blooming at Winterthur.

Besides the colorful azaleas, there were sky-high beech and walnut, and fields of feathery ferns.

There were also some impressive trees of note.

The oldest known cherry trees in the U.S., for example, were planted here in 1918. And they're beefy guys. One is affectionately named The Arnold Schwarzenegger Tree by the caretakers because of its massive flexing "arm."

Another tree appeared to be a grove of a dozen different trees, but all the "trunks" were actually attached to the same arborvitae.

It was hard not to anthropomorphize these characters especially when one was the spitting image of Witchiepoo.

Among the trees was The Enchanted Woods, created for children.  Kid-size medieval chairs with leaf carvings, an upside-down tree, and a human-size birds' nest brought out the kid in a certain blogger's middle-aged partner.

Henry Francis Dupont designed the landscape in three tiers: ground cover, bushes, and trees. Many of the trees are not native to the area, but were brought from other countries. Hence, the variety.

As woodworkers, we love variety—in grain pattern, color, texture, density. We notice things that non-woodworkers do not.  How many times, when milling boards for projects, do we stop to admire these features?

I suspect we have more reverence for wood than others. We're careful not to waste it, as evidenced by all the piles of tiny offcuts we keep stashed away. And we develop a personal connection as we work with it. We're also concerned with future woodworkers and would like for them to have the same resources that we enjoy.

So I ask you, can a woodworker also be a tree hugger? Are those terms at odds with one another?

My answer is thus:

More Traveling Benches

Years ago I took a class with Tod Herrli at Olde Mill Cabinet Shoppe on making a panel raiser plane. When Tod teaches on the road, he brings with him a petite, but fully functional workbench (first photo). 

The removable shelving unit underneath the benchtop adds weight when handplaning. The face and tail vises are beefy. Cubbies of tool holders hang on the back edge of the benchtop by way of hooked arms.  


After my last post about portable work surfaces, I got an email from Greg Miller of Western Australia who shared with me some of the cool workbenches he's made (remaining five photos). You can read his posts here and here.

Greg writes:

I call it my “Saw Stool on Steroids”. When I am doing joinery repairs on site, it is just perfect. Plenty of holding power with two vices, solid as a rock, and the right height for hand planing, chopping mortices, etc. I also use it for teaching, as people can easily gather round it. Since I wrote that post I have added wheels on one end. These are arranged so they engage when you lift one end by the tail vice handle. It works like a steering wheel!  Wheeling it around my customers’ houses to get nearer to the action was made easier by sticking a pair of wheels on one end. 

I also do woodworking with kids and have cooked up a bench that works really well for the stuff I do with them. I now have 5 of them, and they are portable in that they are not too heavy – but they stack really nicely, too. They are a range of heights, as I do woodworking with kids from about age 3 upwards.   

Now that we have so many choices in building our own portable workbench, the question remains: Where should we add the handle so it can be designated as "carry-on luggage"?

Have Bench, Will Travel

You've felt it.

That moment of panic when, while planning for a family vacation, you realize you're going to be away from your workshop for an extended period of time. An excruciatingly long period of time.

It's the very reason I learned to carve and whittle. For times on holiday when I can't bear to relax for one more second, I have a set of carving tools and chunk of wood at the ready.

As woodworkers, no matter where we go on our travels, our brains are conditioned to search for objects made of wood, tools, and workbenches.

Yesterday, while perusing the sutlers' sundry wares at the Fort Frederick 18th-century Market Fair, I was drawn to the various devices the woodworkers brought with them so they could continue to work while away from home.

The top photo is a toolbox and low bench with storage beneath. The large dovetails that join the boards are pegged, and one of the two legs has a pedestal foot.

Below that is a skinny bench, also with only one pedestal foot. This one has a little face vise attached to one side. The skinny top makes it easy to clamp a board from both sides. Add a bench stop and start planing.

The third photo is a simple and handsome shaving horse.

Beneath it is a truncated shaving horse which is sort of a cross between a shaving mule and a shaving pony. The man who made it is a spoon carver. The L-shaped metal bar that's attached to the pivoting head holds the workpiece in place.

What looks to me to be an exaggerated angle on the wooden legs would help keep the bench stationary in use; the carver's weight can't be used since there's no seat. The metal front leg digs into the ground, further anchoring the mule-pony.

The final image is one I found online and was designed by a member of the Lumber Jocks community.

This saw bench is great as is, but you can easily make adjustments and add accessories based on the type of work you do.

I can see this doubling as a bowl bench. With a short-handled adze, you can straddle the bench while the workpiece is secured by a bar clamp equipped with tall wood pads.  You can add a little tool box underneath so the weight of the tools help keep the bench from sliding.

Lots of a clever ideas to take woodworking on the road.  Now maybe a beach vacation won't seem so torturous.

Making It Shine

After Polishing

The scratches on top of my cherry and brass level were really distracting and made it look a little slipshod.

So, I took friends' advice and ordered polishing papers, which worked really well.

I went through these successive grits: 400, 600, 1200, 4000, 6000, and 8000.

The level is much shinier than before, but I could have spent a few more minutes on some areas where light scratches still remain.

And there they shall. I've moved on to other fun projects.

Paint, Pattern & People: Exhibit

The best way I can describe the work in the gallery at Winterthur that displays the 18th-century southeastern Pennsylvania furniture from the Paint, Pattern & People book is this: the pieces simply glow.

The combination of the lively painted surfaces, gallery colors, wall hung paintings and deep, rich tones of the various woods make this collection a warm and vibrant experience.

There is nothing that compares to seeing these pieces in person. While the photography in the book is wonderful, a two-dimensional image cannot convey the full impact of the actual work.

Granted, this is my favorite time period and these are pieces from the area in the U.S. that I love most, but I'm quite sure that any woodworker can appreciate the craftsmanship and skill that built them.

The fact that you can get so close to the furniture that you can look beneath and behind some of them means discovering things such as the cross-wedged through-tenons in a Moravian chair seat; the points made by compasses as they scribed arcs for line and berry spice boxes; pencil lines that sketched the initial designs for painted chests; and table tops rubbed smooth and shiny by a thousand hands.

All the marks left on the furniture give us a window through which we can imagine the time when they were made and used. The worn corners on the feet of a chest-over-drawers brings to mind an image of a woman sweeping the wood floor beside it while children rough-house a bit too energetically in its vicinity.

By following the lines of a carved pediment on a high chest of drawers, we can envision the movement of the woodworker's hand as he slides a gouge along the rim. The slight inconsistencies in the flow of the curve confirms that it was made by hand; the subtle imperfections forever capture the marks of the craftsman who made them.

As woodworkers, we know what tools were used to make various cuts, and we instinctively "build" the piece as we study the tool marks. So this exhibit becomes an interactive one for us.

One thing that struck me about many of the pieces is the attention to detail, even in the smallest elements. A tiny door within the gallery of a writing desk displays delicate, yet complex moulding. A small box showcases row upon row of detailed inlay made from hundreds of pieces of contrasting wood.

Even the iron work is artistic. While these country craftsmen were influenced by their big city counterparts and brought with them styles of ornament from the countries from which they emigrated, it seems evident that they applied their own creativity to the mix, making each piece one-of-a-kind.

The items in this collection are the very finest I've seen from this era and region. The colors are so bright as to look newly-painted, both on the furniture and in the framed illustrations of the region.

For centuries, these pieces absorbed and reflected the lives of the people who made and owned them. Perhaps that's why they seem to have so much personality and soul.

Our projects are part of us. The things we build today will document details of our lives and leave future woodworkers to wonder about us. We are part of a continuum.  And these 18th-century pieces remind us to build something worthy of bearing witness to our history.

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Please note that photography is not permitted in this exhibit. I'd like to thank the Winterthur Museum for allowing me to photograph these marvelous pieces.

Wood Carving: Where Do You Start?

A Variety of Carving Tools

Disclaimer: I am not an expert carver. I don't even play one on TV.  Feel free to challenge, contest, throw tomatoes at, or add your thoughts to any of the following.

There are several types of wood carving: chip, letter, and relief carving; and carving in the round.

Chip Carved Box

Carving tools include knives, chisels, gouges, and mallets. For carving in the round, rasps and files are helpful.

Gouges come in many shapes and are gauged by their width and sweep (the amount of curve on the cutting edge). Included in the mix are straight, bent, fishtail, in-cannel (the bevel is on the inside rather than the outside), spoonbit, and V-gouges.  Many are also available with short or long handles.

Chip Carved HandPlane

Like any new woodworking venture, it can be a little daunting to know where to start.

Several woodworkers have emailed me with questions about which tools they need to carve wood. They ask if it’s best to invest in a set of carving tools.

My response is always the same: find a project you like—from a book or magazine—and purchase the tools you need to carve it. Publications will often provide you with a checklist of tools for the project. Chances are you’ll use those tools again because you used them to carve a project you like.  Whereas, when you buy a set, there will be one or more tools you will never use.

Letter Carved Symbol

Now, what type of carving would you like to try?

Chip carving is the easiest. You need only two tools—a primary knife and a stab knife. Chip carving consists of three basic, rather shallow cuts. Once you master them, you need only arrange them to create your own designs.

Letter Carved Sign

Lettercarving can be complex or easy. You can use a large variety of chisels and gouges which match every conceivable shape you need.  Or, you can simply use a chip carving knife. With chip carving, however, you will be limited by the type of wood (certain hardwoods can very difficult) and the size of the letters. I use a different technique which requires only one chisel and one shallow-sweep gouge.  The size of the tools depends on the size of the letters. With this technique I can carve just about any type of wood and any size or shape letter.

Relief Carved Box

Relief carving is where you start getting into some money. I do not have a huge variety of gouges, and try to make do with what I have. As you begin to carve, you will realize what you’re missing from your collection. Keep in mind, just as you don’t need to have chisels ranging from 1/16” to 2 1/2” and everything in between, you can often get by with less.

Relief Carved Cross

Carving in the round is like relief carving only the project is carved on all sides, as with a ball-and-claw foot. Rasps can remove lots of wood in short order, and files refine the shape. There is nothing quite as luminous as the smooth facets left by a chisel or gouge however, so I remove all rasp and file marks with them.

I do not use sandpaper to smooth portions of carved pieces—the abraded areas have a different appearance than and don’t blend in with the sheared surfaces created by cutting tools. Plus, sandpaper rounds over crisp edges.

With any carving, you must have sharp tools. I can’t stress this enough. Dull or semi-sharp tools will only frustrate you and you’ll never produce the results you want. I use ceramic-, water-, and slipstones, and strops charged with honing compound. It’s much easier to maintain an edge by frequent honing than it is to completely resharpen a tool.

You must also learn to read the grain. The “petting-the-hair-on-a-cat” analogy never resonated with me. Maybe I’ve been petting cats the wrong way all these years (which might explain the scars), but I came up with a different image—that of a skier.  Always carve downhill—with the grain—and the trail you leave behind will be smooth. If you carve against the grain, the direction of the cut will leave the fibers that are ahead of your chisel or gouge unsupported, resulting in tearout. And you'll fall off a cliff. And die.

If that visual isn’t working for you, think of grain as walking up or down steps—it’s much easier to walk down a flight of stairs. 

If you'd like to read more of my blog entries about carving, key in phrases such as these in the search box: “chip carving,” “lettercarving,” “relief carving,” and “sharpening gouges.”

If you’re looking for good books, I recommend Wayne Barton’s book “The Complete Guide to Chip Carving”and Richard Butz’s book “How to Carve Wood.”  I have not found any reference that shows the exact lettercarving technique I use (which was taught to me by a sign carver), but I plan to make more videos on the subject in the future.

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I wrote the above entry for Marc Spagnuolo, The Wood Whisperer, who invited me to be a guest blogger on his website. Thanks, Marc!

Making a Level: Glamour Shots

Well, as glamorous as I'm willing to go without the assistance of a boa and leopard-print fabric.

The level is sanded to 400 grit and has four thin coats of wipe-on polyurethane and two coats of dark paste wax.

Over time, the brass and cherry will darken (my preference).

One person asked in the last post what happens if the wood moves over time. How will I fix it so it's still level?  I'll either lay a sheet of sandpaper on my table saw and rub the bottom of the level back and forth until it's flat again or I'll handplane the bottom.

Thanks to another commenter for this idea: you can check for level by laying it on your table saw, taking note of the position of the bubble, spinning the level 180º, and checking the location of the bubble again. If it's in the same place, your level is level. 

The brass is not polished as smoothly as I'd like. I rubbed it with 220, 400, 1200, and 4,000 grit sandpaper and still there are scratches.

I asked an old college chum who now makes jewelry (and some very cool tags for dogs) how she achieves a mirror polish on metal.

She uses polishing papers, working through the entire set, then puts the jewelry in a tumbler. While I'm not planning to invest in the last item, I am going to try the paper.  I don't know if it will also work on wood or not but I'll give it a try. The fact that the sheets are washable and reusable (and inexpensive) is pretty enticing.

Now....what to build next?