The Metal Craft Book

Rating:
Summary: the metal craft book
Review: I thought this book had alot of very good information for someone new to metal work. I loved the instructions for how to achieve different patinas. Most of the 50 projects were very good, and the instructions were easy to follow. All in all it is a fun craft book.

Rating:
Summary: the metal craft book
Review: I thought this book had alot of very good information for someone new to metal work. I loved the instructions for how to achieve different patinas. Most of the 50 projects were very good, and the instructions were easy to follow. All in all it is a fun craft book.

Rating:
Summary: Girly book
Review: It is a measure of the depravity of industrial culture that "craft" -- which once connoted such things as blacksmithing and making violins -- has taken on the connotation of making trinkets.

I once knew a welfare slattern who lived in a trailer and kept the windows shut. She spent the day sticking beads and sequins into styrofoam shapes with pins to make things she said were "cute". This book is her, but on glossy paper.

The closest you'll come to making anything at all functional is a picture frame -- rectangular. The whole book really drips with violent prejudice against anything except decorative whimsy.

Look around your house -- look how many crummy things are made of metal that you could make much better, and much more attractive, yourself -- but not with this book.

Why the retreat into trinketry? Are you afraid to make the things you use? How, exactly, did you come to believe that industry and technology have legitimately confined your creative impulses and abilities --- which would otherwise produce objects which give some of YOUR character to YOUR environment -- to that which merely decorates? The creative urge seeks to supply that which your soul perceives to be lacking in your surroundings. Do you really believe the longing can be filled with baubles?

How about a doll made out of a spoon with steel wool for hair? A bracelet made out of a tin can? Or -- I swear to God -- a coin purse made out of a cough drops tin?

If that's your idea of metal craft, look no further. If you want to learn hand tool techniques, joining, and all that "masculine" stuff -- i.e. the low down on how to craft metal into something ...USEFUL ... forget it.

Rating:
Summary: amazingly inspiring
Review: Making jewelery, sometimes limit imagination at only looking for a way to make metal wearable... Opening this book was for me a revelation about a wide possibility of using metal in other kind of crafted objects.Awesome presentation and pictures. A reference book.

Rating:
Summary: stimulating the creative juices
Review: This book has made it into my bathroom bookcase. We all know where the best books are kept. Whether you are a beginner at metal smithing or a pro looking for inspiration, this is an excellent book. There are some wonderful projects with detailed instructions. The projects range from tin can jewlery to cosmic copper table tops. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is or wants to be creative.