Green Woodworking: A Hands-On Approach

by Drew Langsner

Learn or improve upon basic green woodworking skills with this revised, updated edition. Use timeless techniques to make a post-and-rung stool, a bentwood firewood carrier, or handsome hewn bowls. A great introduction to using hand tools

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0937274828
• ISBN13: 9780937274828
• Release Date: December 1995
• Publisher: Sterling
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.5" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Practical, traditional, green, healthy

This book (2nd & updated edition) is about "Green woodworking". What is this? It is working on freshly cut wood, which has a lot of advantages (e.g. the wood is softer). The wood is also not sawn along its length, which results in much greater wood strength (no fibres cuts) and makes it less prone to deformations following variations of moisture. If thin pieces of wood are required, then they are obtained by splitting the wood along its fibres (grain). However, as the author honestly admits, it does not allow to build some styles of furniture that one can make with conventional woodworking (but I can imagine a combination of both kinds of woodworking should be possible for making at least all kinds of traditional furniture.) But, as the author makes clear at the beginning of the book, green woodworking is much more than a mere technique. It is first of all a tradition : a know-how transmitted from generation to generation in traditional places such as the European countryside, since ages. Being a real tradition it is also a natural, green way of life: it requires using one's muscles in a natural manner (no need for "fitness" or diet), does not pollute the environment (no production of electricity required nor burning of gas). As it does not involve any dangerous machines, nor motor noise nor production of cancer-giving wood micro-particles, it does not imply a high risk of harming the woodworker's health as is the case with conventional (modern) woodworking. And is more pleasant : no need to wear ear protections or a particle filter... but instead using traditional, charming tools and performing those same gestures our ancestors have performed for so many generations. It is nice to read that the author learned this tradition in the correct manner : from an old woodworker (in spite of the language barrier!), in a remote place high in the Swiss mountains. Throughout the book, I discovered that he also learned, although not directly, from other branches of traditions, such as Mennonite woodworking or Indians. The major part of the book is about how the techniques themselves : materials (wood in general and different kinds of woods), knife-work, hewing, riving (splitting), shaving, boring, bending, joinery. All of the this is very seriously exposed, with many practical details but also some theoretical background. However I think he should also have covered working with wooden planes, such as the excellent planes manufactured by the German traditional company E.C.E. The book teaching also various things, such as making a shaving horse, and covers also more than woodworking, showing how to use bark to make some kinds of Indian sacks, or how to use the inner bark to make the seating part of a chair. I found this book excellent. It could have been even better if the author knew German (what a pity it does not, you really need to know German for such a subject), as the tradition of green woodworking has remained alive in Germanic countries. Some