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Something near and dear to my own heart is reading, and I love reading manuals and how to books about our craft. How would you all feel about a sub forum for reading books for each pertinent forum such as General Woodworking, Turning, Scrolling, etc. In this sub forum we could share the books we read and review them as well and exchange tips on where to find those books for a great price etc etc. Just trying to get a feel for the popularity or not. Thanks for hearing me out.

View File Disston Saw, Tool, and File Manual Publication date 1953 Usage Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International This is from the site WKFineTools.com. Submitter John Morris Submitted 11/24/2018 Category Book and Literature  

Just received my annual MWTCA reprint courtesy of the membership benefits that MWTCA bestows upon its members. I love these old reprints, I am getting quite the collection since being a member of the MWTCA for the past 7 years. Each year, the MWTCA chooses an out of copyright manual of tools, an old catalogue, an old machinist manual of best practices, etc, etc. They run a brand new reprint off their press and they send them out to all members of the MWTCA. Here is our reprint for this year. A Peck, Stow, and Wilcox Co. catalogue of tools, both woodworking and metalworking tools. The cover of the book. I just opened a random page to show the contents. Pretty cool eh! Hey MWTCA members here on TPW, have you gotten your reprint yet?

Not too long ago, I bought a #5 Veritas jack plane from Lee Valley. I'm realizing now that I don't really know how to use this tool effectively. For example, I tried to flatten a board that was too wide to run across my jointer, so that I could run it through my planer, and it came out looking worse than when I started. What I am looking for is a comprehensive guide for someone who is a newby regarding bench or jack planes. Or just planes in general. I realize I have other options, such as ripping the board to fit my jointer, flattening it, and gluing it back together for the planer, or building a "shimming sled" to use on the planer, but I would also like to be able to use the plane to do this. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

For the past few weeks I have been completely engrossed in a book "The Art of Violin Making". Been reading it every night, pouring over the text, and the images, it is a wonderful book that starts off with the history of the violin, the main characters or makers, and of course, eventually a quarter of the way through the book, you get to the actual making of the violin. I love this book, my interest is completely peaked, and I want to make a violin in a big way. I have my violinist daughter encouraging me on my way as well. I have one burning question thus far. I have read in depth about the early makers from Amati, Stradivari, Guarneri, and Stainer. They all used Amati's designs and styles in way or another, and etc etc. It's a great book, so back to my burning question. There is no place in this book that states if these greats ever played a single note on the violin, if they ever slid the bow across a single string. From what I could read, they depended wholly on the feedback of the artists who purchased their violins. So, my question to you is, can you come up with any research, googled, or otherwise, that declares that any of the greats mentioned above, actually played the violin. It's amazing, I have this wonderful book, and again, no where does it state they ever played a violin, or any other stringed instrument. I know if I spent some time I could find the answer, but I just thought it'd be a fun discussion to kick around here. Back to my new thirst for making a violin, it looks incredibly fun, and a complete challenge. Not a single powered tool is needed, obviously, nor is a single powered tool used even by the great makers of today, but they may use a band saw to re-saw their logs for the tops or backs. Beyond that, it's all hand work, I love it. Woodworking, in a big way.

A couple weeks ago I purchased a couple books from Amazon's used book service. You can see the first book that arrived in my mail at this discussion Fine Woodworking Building Small Projects. My newest book arrived in the mail from Amazon, it is simply titled "Tools", by the Garrett Wade Company and some beautiful photography by Dick Frank. This book is awesome, it's a hard cover book in near new condition with over 240 pages of great information about our tools, and some history behind them. The illustrations are wonderful and the images are to drool over. Here is a link to the same book I now have, at Garrett Wade Tools or you can click on the image to the left to view the book. I bought mine for a mere 5 bucks used from a book store in Utah, they shipped it shortly after I purchased it and it arrived in a week. This book normally retails for about 30 bucks brand new in wrapper, if you can even find it anymore, but you can find many at Amazon for less in near new condition. I am very happy with my new found source of used books. For years I bought new books, but not many because they are expensive, now this Amazon used book store has opened up a whole new world of high quality books for me, and I am enjoying it completely. Links of Interest Garrett Wade Garrett Wade Tools Book List Here is a neat excerpt from this book So, now I go lie down in my bed for the evening and flip through these awesome pages of tools!

I love books, I love new smell books, but I don't like the new book price! So in a quest to quench my woodworking knowledge thirst, and for some ideas on crafty projects to build, I stumbled on Amazons used book department. You can find virtually any book used for sale. The conditions range from poor, to like new. Recently I purchased the Fine Woodworking Small Projects book for 0.59 cents, and $3.99 shipping from a seller out of Berkley California. I was so amazed I purchased more used books the same day, all under a buck, most between 0.1 cents and 0.60 cents. I am sure the seller may be getting some profit from the flat rate shipping, but hey, this book for $4.89, that originally cost around 20 bucks, and it's in great shape, you can't beat it. I will be looking into Amazons used book department more and more for my reference and learning material from here on out. The book cover pictured left is the book I just received in the mail today, almost new! Look at that cover, it's flawless. Here is a book from Amazon that is a fine example of some great works for pennies at Custom Woodworking: bookcases, shelves and cabinets. Here is a link to a general search for woodworking books, sort the relevance by price and you'll see the less expensive used books first in the line up at Used Woodworking Books Search. I cannot think of a reason, in my case why I would purchase new books again, unless I absolutely had too because it was not available as used.

Hey big Lew, or anyone for that matters, I am looking for a great book that spells out the basics of turning bowls and vases, like a Woodturning For Dummies, do you have any suggestions?