Born in London, I apprenticed under cabinetmaker Hugh Harris before moving to New York to study at Juilliard. Subsequently pursuing a career as a professional musician, recording and playing with groups including Van Morrison, Razmataz, and Full Tilt Boogie, I built a house in Woodstock, NY. In addition to operating my own custom-design furniture-making shop, and lecturing and teaching extensively from coast to coast, I’ve written and illustrated many more books on woodworking. I’ve served as Contributing Editor to Fine Woodworking (1985–1999), and Popular Woodworking (1987–1996), and as Editor-in-Chief of Woodwork Magazine (1991–1994) before becoming a featured speaker and presenter at the National Woodworking Shows.
Traditional Woodworking Handtools describes all the major hand tools that were used by cabinet-makers, furniture-makers, carpenters, and numerous other woodworking trades in the centuries before the introduction of power tools and machinery. Every aspect of choosing, rehabilitating, and getting the most out of traditional handtools for woodworking is covered and puts the tools in the context of the complete woodworking process.
In our present age of machines, handtools remain the best and often the only way of creating beautiful details, perfect fit, and an enduring finish. Handtools liberate the furnituremaker, builder, and general woodworker from the limited artistic vocabulary of machinery.
Shepherd is readers supported. When you buy through links on our website, we may earn an affiliate commission. This is how we fund this project for readers and authors (learn more).
Published in 1881 this is an absolutely fundamental book for the beginner. Amply illustrated, you will learn important details such as how to hold tools and what to expect from them as well as how basic joints are formed and made. Focused on wooden tools this is information not commonly reproduced in more contemporary books.
This book is not currently available.
The most prolific woodworking writer of the twentieth century, Charles Hayward spans the era that started with hand tools and saw the introduction of the first electric tools thus making clear the advantages of the traditional methods. Profusely illustrated with drawings of joints, tools, and actual techniques, this is truly one of the most complete books on the basics of traditional woodworking.
Photographs and detailed line drawings cover virtually the entire history of European furniture construction. Not merely a catalogue this book goes into minute detail about construction of the finest furniture that was ever made by hand from clockcases to bedsteads. It explains stylistic details as well as actual methods.
Known primarily as one of America’s foremost Windsor chairmakers Michael Dunbar’s book is a great guide to the purchase, restoration, and use of old traditional wooden tools for today’s shop. This book explains and illustrates how and why so many apparently ‘antique’ tools still do the job they were designed to do, often much better and faster than many contemporary tools.
From witchets to moulding planes, from Roman tools to eighteenth-century American tools, this was my first "bible" on the subject. A more thorough grounding — with amazing photographs — would be hard to find. Reading this book puts two millennia of woodworking into a useful perspective. Once read it will illustrate in greater detail every other book on the subject. Totally essential.
5,215 authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about woodworking, carpentry, and furniture making.
We think you will like By Hound & Eye: A Plain & Easy Guide to Designing Furniture with No Further Trouble, Solid-Wood Cabinet Construction: 70 Contemporary Designs with Details, and The Complete Japanese Joinery if you like this list.
From Michael's list on The best books for woodworkers to expand their horizons.
Forget the tape measure. Leave the fractions, decimals, and mathematics behind. Long before the tape measure was a universal adornment on the woodworker’s belt, people designed furniture, houses, bridges, and cathedrals using nothing more than simple whole number ratios. This slender tome will show you how to do just that and will entertain you along the way.
From Scott's list on The best books to kick your woodworking up a notch.
Franz Karg's book is a challenge: Design and build cabinets without any sheet goods—all solid wood— and make the designs exciting, the joinery accommodate stress and expansion and contraction while adding to the quality of design, or even inspiring the design. Working your way through these designs will kick your thinking and your construction approach up a notch!
From Azby's list on The best books on Japanese carpentry and construction.
This book, first published in 1995, is a detailed how-to guide that answers a lot of questions about how carpentry is practiced in contemporary Japan. The drawings and plans are fabulously informative. It does not focus on tool use per se, but beautifully conveys the structural logic and reasoning that lie behind the joints and connections themselves. I keep it handy as a reference.