Comments on: Designing Furniture (New Best of Fine Woodworking)

By: Thomas( Doc Savage 45)

Thomas( Doc Savage 45) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:53:03 +0000

Review by Thomas( Doc Savage 45) for Designing Furniture (New Best of Fine Woodworking) Rating: Other reviewers have described the content of the book, the excellence of the pictures and that some parts are dry to them.

For me, I am prone to "make mistakes" and with guidance I may make fewer.

What I appreciate about all the articles is learning from a person/master in his/her craft, about methods they have evolved to design furniture.

For me, it is complex, and this helps simplify it.

Mostly it is about developing good work habits, making fewer mistakes and ideas. Some woodworkers copy others and learn from the assembly. Some make prototypes and modify the next one. Model building and miniatures may not be as much fun, but wastes less material, gives three dimentional perspective and lets the designing process be more fluid.

Do you draw? What happened to that great idea? What idea? Suggestions help me to use my strengths in a better way.

Would have given this a five star but I tend to read the reviews about what isn't right.

For me it is a great handbook to model my designing. Have started my idea book and figuring out where to put the cardboad, and modeling materials!

By: Dick Johnson

Dick Johnson — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:10:26 +0000

Review by Dick Johnson for Designing Furniture (New Best of Fine Woodworking) Rating: I just about decided to skip writing a review on this. While there is interesting and practical information; it just didn't seem to really come together. Most of the Fine Woodworking books are compilations of disjointed articles about a subject, and I usually like them a lot.

This book is also a compilation but the title would have you believe they had added material to join the articles together into a continuous study of the subject. The result is somewhat disjointed and incomplete.

The value of some of the material is the reason for the four stars overall.

By: Randy Fratzke

Randy Fratzke — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:06:58 +0000

Review by Randy Fratzke for Designing Furniture (New Best of Fine Woodworking) Rating: The book is Fine but I bought it as a package deal with it's companion book (Practical Design Solutions and Strategies) and many of the areas are identcal - right down to the photographs a furniture pieces used. The information is good and is useful - clear and concise.

By: Scott Pointon

Scott Pointon — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:07:52 +0000

Review by Scott Pointon for Designing Furniture (New Best of Fine Woodworking) Rating: Though its no secret that I am a big fan of the Taunton Press, I feel that this book stands out as one of their best. Having been a serious home woodworker for a decade now, I benefitted greatly from the information contained in this book. As always, the illustrations and color photography are well done and often stunning. The editors did a great job of deciding what subjects to cover and then finding just the right articles to cover those subjects.

The five major areas covered in this book are: design inspiration, design development, "construction by design", designing furniture, and designing for style and function. In just these five areas, there is a wealth of information that will help woodworkers of any level, from understanding elements of style to designing your own sideboard. I especially liked the tips given in the article "Models Help Projects Succeed".

No matter if you are a novice or a self proclaimed expert, there is something of interest here for you. Highly recommended!

By: Marc Ruby™

Marc Ruby™ — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:15:43 +0000

Review by Marc Ruby™ for Designing Furniture (New Best of Fine Woodworking) Rating: As I've mentioned before the good thing about the 'Best of Fine Woodworking' series is that the articles are almost consistently good. The authors are drawn from the best of today's practitioners and teachers of woodworking, the writing carefully crafted for depth and clarity, and the quality of illustration is outstanding. In fact the only complaint I have ever had is that articles are often presented in a disorganized fashion, which can be frustrating for the reader with some specific information need in mind.

This time I can't even complain about that. Instead the articles are divided up into sections on 'Finding Design Inspiration', 'Developing Designs and Organizing Projects', 'Construction by Design', 'Designing Furniture', and 'Designing for Form and Function.' Admittedly, these are not perfectly clear distinctions, but as you look through the volume you can get a feel for why the distinctions have been made.

The design application articles are really the meat of the book. Articles like 'Joining Legs to Aprons' and 'Side Board Strategies,' are breathtaking and their detail. Be warned that Fine Woodworking doesn't believe in cutting corners. The joinery is both traditional and painstaking and nobody balks at a complicated task. But whether you are reading for inspiration or for good practical guidance, you will fine much of that here.