- Product # 070435
- Type Paperback
- ISBN 978-1-56158-305-8
- Published Date 1999
- Dimensions 8 1/2 x 10 7/8
- Pages 208
- Photos 242
- Drawings and drawings
Jointing a smooth face on a rough-sawn board is a particular woodshop joy. It offers the first sight you get of the true run of the grain and color. With a small dab of mineral spirits, the board will reveal itself completely. Sometimes you uncover treasures, such as unexpected curly figure. But whether you find unexpected beauty or not, the smooth face is a window on the final piece of furniture. And that’s fun to see.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much more good to be said about milling rough lumber. It’s tough, repetitive work, even with a well-tuned jointer and planer. By hand, milling can be described charitably as a healthy workout and drudgery after you’ve flattened a stack of boards. The far more enjoyable work comes next in shaping parts and cutting the joinery. Consequently, buying lumber premilled can seem a wise course to save yourself a lot of work and to make time for the fun parts.
Still, milling lumber to dimension has an important place in the woodshop. It is the first of five essential steps in building furniture, and it’s the basic foundation on which everything else rests. The other four steps are shaping dimensioned stock into parts, cutting joinery, assembly, and, finally, finishing. This book covers the first three steps in building furniture: milling, shaping, and joinery. These are the cutting stages; beyond them, you put down your chisels and saws and pick up clamps, glues, and finishes.
You should be able to come away from this book with a solid foundation of techniques and options for making a wide range of furniture parts. However, remember that the articles collected here from Fine Woodworking magazine don’t try to have the final word, or even list all the possible techniques. You might find some favorite technique missing; then again you might find something neat that you didn’t expect.
