The Weekend Woodworker: Cabinets and Chests, Tables and Chairs, .....

by Rodale Press

Book Overview

A woodworker's sourcebook features forty complete projects--cabinets, chests, tables, chairs, toys, and more--and working drawings, dimensions, details, and specifications. Original. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 087596575X
• ISBN13: 9780875965758
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Rodale Books
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.5" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Techniques you'll need, designs you'll use

It's a shame this book is out of print, while inferior books of similar vintage (I'm thinking of "2x4 Furniture" by Stevie Henderson) still rack up sales and have even spawned sequels."The Weekend Woodworker" contains some nice furniture put together in sometimes sub-optimal but expedient ways that seem to really work. One example is the four-foot-long sofa table. The right way to hold such a thing together is with a 1x2 dovetailed into the top ends of the front legs. Under that, you have drawers and dividers, and then another crossmember under that. But this book shows you how to do away with the fancy joinery by treating the front as a single piece, like a table apron, and joining it to the legs with dowels.How do you get drawers into a solid table apron? You rip an inch off the top and bottom of the apron, giving you the height of the drawer front. Then you crosscut the fronts out of that piece. Then you glue the whole mess back together, minus the drawer fronts. There's your apron, and you stick it to the legs with dowels (or biscuits or haunched tenons or whatever you want). And you have perfectly fitted drawer fronts that match the grain. You have to cut the front piece a little fat to account for the saw kerfs, but the thing is, you can do this with just a saw and some careful planning. Not like dovetails and mortises and tenons.And this book also shows you how to make a table the "right" way. There's a classy little Shaker end table in it, complete with detailed sidebars on all the required joinery-- although I'd build the front differently if it were me.So this book has examples of several useful techniques requiring different levels of expertise and patience, and it gives you a decent overview of what you can do given your tools and your interests.Points off for some of the embarrassing, dated ("contemporary"), clunky, and fruity designs here. More points off for the breadth of projects covered. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think the guy who wants to build the pie safe is interested in building a seesaw or a spoon holder. I'd rather the whole book focus on the furniture projects in more depth, perhaps elaborating on the rationale for certain design choices.Still, this book is more than worth ordering used. It's a good book for a beginner, although it doesn't start from zero. You'll need another book to tell you basic stuff, like how to plug in your saw.