The Complete Guide to Joint-Making

Explains joint making for beginners. Easy explanations and pictures. Will need to add more router bits.

This can help one take their joint-making to another level! The images are helpful, and this is the sort of book you may want, one in the workshop and one inside (without sawdust) to read and plan.

This is a fascinating book. It is fun just to study, or at least to consider how I will use the various joints. This book shows and tells how to improve the beauty of a project. There are things I knew little about...it is especially helpful to know which joints are strongest and how to properly strengthen them by making a few variations. It is very nice to have the binding the way it is so I can take it into the shop and not fear it being beat up by using it there. I wish I had purchased this book 30 years ago. My wife is amused to repeatedly find me sitting on the love seat looking at this book! I have shown her a few of the joints and she is impressed...even asked me if I needed a new tool to make the joints. (How many men have a wife like mine for 44 years? None!)

I like this book for what it contains. I do take issue with the word "complete" in its title. Maybe "compleat" would work in the way it has been used to convey a sense of competency with one's craft. It is certainly well written and well illustrated. That said, it has a pretty strong bias toward power tools. Some of the hand tool techniques are crude at best, for example the suggestion to drill holes and then use a paring chisel to cut a mortise. What you wont find is how to do the task with a mortising chisel alone. Similar lapses, or omissions if you prefer, apply to other hand tool joinery techniques as well. But, this book will be hard to beat as a guide to techniques that make use of a router, table saw, and drill press.

Another good reference book in my library for woodworking. I suck and Joint-making and this book has got me closer to quality woodworking than I was before. Patience is the key!

Done well!

Perfect gift for a friend who is a self-taught furniture maker.

Gives only brief steps for different joints. Useful, but a beginner will run into problems like a loose fitting joint. Need tips on how to avoid or fix common problems to be a good book.