Sunday, April 29, 2012

The Workshop Book Craftmans Making Make The Most Of Your Space.

The Workshop Book: A Craftman's Guide to Making the Most of Any Work Space
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This is a great book By A Customer This book is split into comprehensive chapters on layout machinery etc. Covers topics such as ergonomics workflow special applications etc. A practical and useful guide much better than the workbench book by the same author which basically amounts to a coffee table book with pretty pictures.
Disappointing if you're looking for practical advice By A Customer I found this book disappointing but perhaps I was looking for the wrong things in it. I was hoping for some guidance and information on setting up a home workshop but that's not what I found.The book is a sortof survey sortof essay on workshops of various kinds including historical shops dating back hundreds of years. There's a lot of discussion of how various workers have set up their shops but the descriptions are overviews lacking in much detail. And many of the shops described are atypical in one way or another. For example the author returns over and over to the couple who turned their entire twostory house into a guitarmaking shop with separate rooms for shaping finishing wood storage and the like. Interesting but not very helpful to me.If you're looking for a portrayal of and a lot of discussion about workshops in all their variety then you may very well love this book. But if you're looking for something that will help you decide how to set up your own shop you won't find much here.
Make The Most Of Your Space. I've had this book for a few years and I still peek at it occasionally. Scott Landis tells about starting his own woodshop long ago and I can relate pretty well. I actually started without a place working outside in space borrowed in basements off the tailgate of my truck and for a while in a barnwell actually a tool shed open on one sideI had to move a tractor out every dayput it back every night. This book gives examples of shops similar to those and large fully equipped facillities. The COOLEST part of this book to me is the space saving designs and features in some of the shops. This alone has been a help to me in the development of the 900 sq.ft. LOCKABLE shop I have now. The illustrations include floorplans and equipment layouts from daily use shops. Just seeing other peoples workspaces and what works for them and how thier shops grew and developed can sometimes bring about great revelation for your own work space. Two of the shops are in closets or laundry rooms!!!! I like nosing around and looking at other shops and found this book entertaining as well as informative. Thanks Scott.
Read it in the bookstore before you buy it. I did and decided I didn't need it. There is good advice here lots of input on space requirements and lighting but page after page I was just left wanting something more. The shops don't look real to me they are obviously tremendously expensive and usually look sterile and impersonal. The men in them don't seem to particularly enjoy their work. They all look like a bunch of New York attorneys working in their hobby shops at their Connecticut hobby farms. I know that's not a fair characterization and was certainly not the intent but it was my persistent gut reaction. Too many of them looked like Norm Abram's infamous shop where there was a power tool for every purpose. None of them had the warm inviting glow of Roy Underhill's shop which draws you in for a cup of tea and joke by the woodstove.The Workbench Book and The Toolbox Book were both joyful and gorgeous and pulled me along but this one just made me feel like I needed to tear my shop down and start over although that was not what the author was hoping to achieve. But look at it for yourself at the library and see what you think before you buy it.
Woodworking With a Human Interest Side I have bought many woodworking books but this one is a rarityI read it from cover to cover. It has many useful tips for designing a shop but the most interesting part was his focus on the owners of the shops. It describes the wonderful variety of woodworkers as well as their shops and interests.
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