Hand tool book review

I just finished this book by Popular Woodworking. Like most of their books, this is a group of articles previously published in the various magazines they have a hand in. If you are a Christopher Schwartz fan, you won’t be disappointed – there are 15 articles by Chris, not including the book’s introduction.

Overall this is a very good read. The “chapters” are small enough to make it an easy “pick up when I have a minute” type of book. It’s packed with a lot of basic information and gives a good overview of hand tools as a whole. Several different methods/theories of sharpening are discussed. Of course, everyone wants to know about hand planes and these are covered pretty well. What I appreciated the most about this book though is the articles on chisels. The group of articles were well written, informative and has given me a good idea of what I need to do to improve my chisel use.

There is a lot of good information to digest and is a good first book on hand tools and will certainly make you want to learn more.

For me this will be a good basic reference book that I’ll keep around. It’s also a book that can be read several times and get something out of it each time.

I only gave the book three stars because I’ve not read that many hand tool books to have anything to compare it to. However, from a novice hand tool user, I thought it was a good buy.

(PS – I have no idea how to get a picture of this book – perhaps one of you can educate me on this point.)

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!