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Rating: 
Summary: The Best Windsor Chairmaking Book
Review: Drew has spent years studying, building, and designing Windsor chairs. His book goes into great depth on Windsor chairmaking history, styles, and constructing techniques. He takes you step by step until the chair is fully completed. One needs to read and reread to fully grasp all given details on chairmaking. He is perhaps the only chairmaker which has spent the time getting all the information one needs to determine such custom features as setting the seat and leg angles for each type of chair made to fit your needs. You will be sure to try your hand at making your own Windsor after reading Drew's book.
Rating:
Summary: Worth every penny.
Review: I thumbed through this book in a store. It is amazing. It has so much detailed information. Not only does is show you how to build a few different chairs, it shows you plenty of techniques that would be useful in other areas of woodworking. There are lots of sidebars on making tools, a chapter with tips for sharpening various tools with strange profiles, it even goes into great detail on how to split up big logs into the various pieces one needs to make a chair.The only reason I didn't buy it was that my lunch hour was over, and the checkout line was way too long. I'll get it tonight on the way home from work.
Rating:
Summary: We need more woodworking books like this one!
Review: There are few woodworking books that cover a subject as well as this one. It isn't so much the depth of the coverage, but the completeness with which this book gives you the necessary information to cover the projects in question. The book deals with tools, techniques, and has plans for just the chairs the average person drawn to this subject will want. That may sound fairly typical, but take tools. We don't just get a few pictures and lines per tool, we get information on how to build tools like a travishers, shaving horse, how to grind drill bits, or sharpen the specific tools the chairmaker will use. You get all the information you will need, and none of what does not apply to the subject. Drew is a retailer, teacher, tool designer, even takes tours to tool makers, so when he tells you about tools that's it. Every part of the book has that kind of focus and concision. There are instructions on a workbench, but it isn't the usual kind, but obviously a chairmaking bench. I have a cabinetmaker's bench, and don't need one for chairs, but if you did, it's there. Drew is an authority on certain chairs, and they're covered here. He isn't perhaps as much of an expert on Windsor chairs. But he brings all the necessary info into the book. I have a set of plans from Dunbar (the authority), but these plans leave all the critical measurements out. To get those, you have to take a Dunbar course. But the dimensions are here, and there is a chapter on how to develop your own plans, with an exhaustive table of angles that you can apply to any design. No nonsense, no holding back. I wish more woodworking books were like this one. All the necessary information, on a prime topic. No necessity to bring together 5 other books to cover related topic. A large number of detailed plans for the most important pieces. As technical or as direct as you want. This book has book-depth information, with magazine like style (meaty sidebars) and currency of information. The author holds nothing back, even though every word he writes might take away from his opportunity to sell you a tool, or a course. He just tells it straight regardless. A masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: We need more woodworking books like this one!
Review: There are few woodworking books that cover a subject as well as this one. It isn't so much the depth of the coverage, but the completeness with which this book gives you the necessary information to cover the projects in question. The book deals with tools, techniques, and has plans for just the chairs the average person drawn to this subject will want. That may sound fairly typical, but take tools. We don't just get a few pictures and lines per tool, we get information on how to build tools like a travishers, shaving horse, how to grind drill bits, or sharpen the specific tools the chairmaker will use. You get all the information you will need, and none of what does not apply to the subject. Drew is a retailer, teacher, tool designer, even takes tours to tool makers, so when he tells you about tools that's it. Every part of the book has that kind of focus and concision. There are instructions on a workbench, but it isn't the usual kind, but obviously a chairmaking bench. I have a cabinetmaker's bench, and don't need one for chairs, but if you did, it's there. Drew is an authority on certain chairs, and they're covered here. He isn't perhaps as much of an expert on Windsor chairs. But he brings all the necessary info into the book. I have a set of plans from Dunbar (the authority), but these plans leave all the critical measurements out. To get those, you have to take a Dunbar course. But the dimensions are here, and there is a chapter on how to develop your own plans, with an exhaustive table of angles that you can apply to any design. No nonsense, no holding back. I wish more woodworking books were like this one. All the necessary information, on a prime topic. No necessity to bring together 5 other books to cover related topic. A large number of detailed plans for the most important pieces. As technical or as direct as you want. This book has book-depth information, with magazine like style (meaty sidebars) and currency of information. The author holds nothing back, even though every word he writes might take away from his opportunity to sell you a tool, or a course. He just tells it straight regardless. A masterpiece.
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