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I will never actually make anything he displays in here, but I've made everyone of them in my head at least once a winter for a couple of decades. Few books in my shop library are as practically useless for me yet so fascinating as this first Woodwright book by Underhill. Both on the show and in his books, no electricity is allowed, much less power tools. You'll be in nostalgia heaven. I guess it's time I wrote a review, now that the covers are about to fall off of the book. If you've never seen his program on PBS, then please look for it. Start here then get the other five. In my area it's shown Saturday afternoons.
Any of Roy's books are awesome for woodworkers who know how to read. Just make sure you add a box of 80 grit sandpaper for your random orbital sander to your order. Oh sure, you love Norm and his $8000 drum sander, but if you truly want to learn how to work with wood with nothing more than the bare essentials, then pick up this book as well as all the other books Roy has written. Otherwise, just buy all the garbage books about "How to Master a Biscuit Joiner" or "Setting up a Leigh Dovetail Jig".
Honestly, who needs modern woodworking technology when the old methods are clearly better in so many ways. those amazing and elegant hand-cut dovetails, those silky-smooth hand-planed surfaces, those sweet touches that set my work apart as obviously hand-made. I first saw Roy Underhill on a local PBS station back in the early 1980s. Once you've mastered hand-tool woodworking, you see that the products of woodworking machines stand out as brutal and clumsy. Screaming routers, finger-chopping table saws and jointers, and multi-horsepower lathes seemed not just dangerous but downright obsolete after witnessing Roy's talents. Thanks to Roy's books, and others, like Dunbar's _Restoring, Tuning & Using Classic Woodworking Tools_, power tool woodworkers look at my woodworking projects in awe. Roy's wonderful series of woodworking books tell you everything you need to get started.
Instantly, I knew that this was the kind of woodworking for me. Better for your health and the health of your bank account, and better for the environment. Guys, do not hesitate to purchase the entire series of Roy's woodworking books. They will positively change your woodworking, and your life.
I bought this book for my husband for Christmas, as he loves this show and the shows are not out on DVD yet. He advised it is very easy to read and understand. He loves the book and can't put it down.
Instantly, you get the sense that his deep affection for his trade, and the trades that support it, illuminates his life. Dissecting an old piece of furniture or part of a house tells you about the tools that made it, and the men who used the tools, and the community they lived in, and what their lives were like. But all of this could be ponderous and self absorbed if it weren't infused front to back with an infectious sense of humor and a Tom Sawyer/Peter Pan view of the world, where if we're lucky we'll all get to run away and be pirates together.Poetic, lyrical, sad, happy, this book has it all. This book will accomplish both those aims. A true classic from an amazingly talented person. Like ripples in a stream allude to rocks below the surface, he looks at the bark of a tree and understands what lies within - twisted firewood or beautiful furniture. This is one of the finest things ever written.
"Start with an axe and a tree and make first one thing and then another until you have a house and everything in it." It can be (almost) that simple, but you have to restore a fractured culture first, and also learn to speak the language of trees and wood and steel. Underhill, former Master Housewright at Colonial Williamsburg, did the amazing hat trick of turning something as offbeat and esoteric as pre-industrial woodworking into a highly successful career, and became a beloved personality and celebrity in the process. I sincerely hope that a copy of this book lives on the shelf of everyone who has a love for tools and wood and what happens when the two come together. Maybe the 60's hippy culture did ONE thing right - it gave us Roy Underhill, boy genius, and set him loose upon a (hopefully) grateful world. Underhill gives us a look into the world of real hand tool woodworking - no electricity, please. When you read his books, you'll know how he did it. His books, and the first two particularly, make a perfect gift for that tired, world weary person in your life who is thinking that there is something missing in his or her work, that their long days are filled with meaningless seeking, and who might like to turn their hands to something slower, calmer, more beautiful, and decidedly valuable for a change.
He "sees" things, he doesn't just look.
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