Woodworking for Drooling Lobotomy Patients
Back in ‘the day’, if you wanted a basic overview of a subject like woodworking, you might find yourself looking for a book titled something like this.
“Introduction to Woodworking”
“Get Started in Woodworking”
“Woodworking for Beginners”
(Note that while all of these books are listed at Amazon, they are all out of print.)
That was before the ingenious discovery by the book industry that people prefered to buy introductory reading material from authors who considered the buyer to be “a person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers.” Who would have thought? Taking a lesson, I’m currently raising capitol for a national chain of beauty salons to be called “Gilding the Pig: Beautician Services for Disfigured Cheapskates with No Self-Esteem”. But I digress.
Back in the Old Days, before readers were being compared my nephew whose most recent accomplishment was wearing Big Boy Underpants*, a book called “Basic Woodworking” was published by Sunset Books. I picked it up at the used bookstore for a couple of bucks when I needed something to read. It wasn’t terribly promising, what with no author listed, and some pictures of hand tools and a router on the cover. But this book is AMAZING.
It devotes 1-5 pages to each major thing you might consider doing with your dead tree, but each of those pages covers the most absolute, essential information on the subject. Whenever I need a reminder about something or a piece of basic-but-new-to-me information, this is the first source I check. How wide should a table be to seat 8 people? Check. Took my hand plane apart and I’m not sure how to put it back together again? Check. Which way do you run a router around the interior of a picture frame? Check.
All this information plus loads of simple illustrations that get right to the point. This thing is an absolute gem.
It’s tricky to find, but Amazon has 5 copies used right now. I strongly suggest you go get one before some other reader with the cranial capacity of a toddler beats you too it. Go on. You’ll thank me for it.
* Not to diminish in any way his achievement
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