Carpentry Books

Building Kitchen Cabinets

Udo Schmidt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Build Like A Pro-just like says!! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book is well written, and easy to understand. The author gives you a solid understanding of the basics and some of the more advanced "how-tos" of cabinet making. I would recommend this book to people who have some knowledge of power tools and want to learn how to build kitchen cabinets.

Excellent book if you actually want to build cabinets 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book and Danny Proulx's Build Your Own Kitchen Cabinets (Popular Woodworking). Proulx's book focused on particleboard construction and mostly 32mm cabinets. I was very dissapointed as I was anxious to start building cabinets and particleboard is not what I was looking for. This book however, was just what the Dr. ordered. I'm very comfortable with my tools and have been woodworking for years now, but I still found some usefull tips in the book. I skimmed the book without reading all of it and immediately bought the lumber I needed and began construction. I had a completed bathroom vanity cabinet in 1 afternoon (not including stain and finish). As others have mentioned, his dimensions are not perfect, but since my house doesn't perfectly match the book, I used my own tape measure.

Even with the dimension issues here and there, I highly recommend this book for anyone who actually wants to make cabinets. I have a few other books that discuss the "idea" of making cabinets. This one tells you the tools you need and how to do it. It focuses on pocket-hole joinery but it also shows how you can use other joinery techniques as well. I can't stress this point enough... if you are planning on building cabinets, you will love this book. If you just want to read about building cabinets, this book isn't what you want.

I'm off to buy more lumber for more cabinets!!!!

Editorial Review:

Building instead of buying cabinets means not only cost savings but also better materials and a truly custom kitchen. This book shows anyone how to build a complete set of kitchen cabinets. Professional cabinetmaker Udo Schmidt covers the entire process, from preparing materials and selecting the right tools to finishing and installing hardware.

Trim Carpentry and Built-Ins (Build Like A Pro)

Clayton Dekorne

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Taunton Amazon Marketplace: 72 new & used starting at $3.20

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Beginner to Expert, Something for all. 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I am a firm believer in the KISS method of doing things. (Keep It Simple Stupid") Every step is covered in this book so that anyone can learn from it. The "Build Like A Pro" series of books are all laid out like this one. The "Expert Tips" are great. They show you short cuts to help you do the jobs right, but in less time. This is stuff you only learn by doing the job everyday. They are trade secrets.

Good overview book sometimes misses the basics 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book is very attractive and informative, but I found it lacking some of the very basics, and the production steps are often not laid out chronologically. In the crown molding section, there is no suggested nailing plan, so as someone who has never done crown molding but is planning to attempt it, this book alone does not suffice.

Editorial Review:

Installing trim requires precision and know-how. This is the book that shows how to handle all common trim projects, including window and door casings, baseboards, wainscoting and crown molding -- and get professional results every time. This is a complete do-it-yourself book written by a professional carpenter and presented in a highly accessible format.

Graphic Guide to Frame Construction: Details for Builders and Designers (For Pros by Pros)

Rob Thallon

Amazon Price: $23.07 List Price: $34.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Taunton Amazon Marketplace: 52 new & used starting at $14.78

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great basic reference for residential building 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Have been using this reference for years as an Architect. Probably the best one out there that covers all the basics. Not overly complicated. Could use an advanced version for more complicated details, especially in roofing (half-hips, etc.) and foundations.
Great reference for the nomencalture of all the parts.
Do not expect to build from it as codes and structural sizing are required and vary too much, but good, basic detailing and understanding overall with plenty of illustrations.

Great 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I do a lot of non-professional new construction. For me, visualizing the right way do do something is the problem. Once the skin is on a building I have no idea what lies underneath -- I have no 'guide' to model my construction after. Also, building according to convention is useful -- for instance, it's good to know that you can expect to find a vertical stud in a wall every 16 or 24 inches, regardless of who built the building and when -- and this book clarifies what those conventions are.

This is a great book. The graphic representations are exceptionally clear and detailed. Many alternatives are given, and in building you simply choose the alternative that gives you the most of what you want and follow the diagram.

Editorial Review:

Teaching through hundreds of meticulous drawings, Rob Thallon's guide covers foundations, roofs, building systems and materials, durability, energy efficiency, and more.

Tree Houses You Can Actually Build: A Weekend Project Book (Stiles, David R. Weekend Project Book Series.)

David Stiles, Jeanie Trusty Stiles

Amazon Price: $11.70 List Price: $18.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Mariner Books Amazon Marketplace: 61 new & used starting at $4.88

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Tree houses capture the imagination of the child in all of us, and they have never been more popular than they are today. This inspirational yet thoroughly practical guide shows even the most inexperienced weekend carpenter how to design and build a lifetime of memories for the entire family. With more than 200,000 copies of their popular Weekend Project Books sold, David and Jeanie Stiles have become America's First Couple of do-it-yourself woodworking. In Tree Houses You Can Actually Build, they explain basic building procedures through clear, simple instructions and non-technical line drawings that illustrate every step of the project, from the earliest sketches to the final cedar shingle. The authors outline five basic designs that can be adapted to virtually any set of conditions, and throughout the book, they emphasize safety for both adults and children. In addition to line drawings, the book contains a section of full-color photographs highlighting a variety of tree house projects, plus helpful building tips based on interviews with their owners.

Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build

David Stiles, Jeanie Stiles

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Gibbs Smith, Publisher Amazon Marketplace: 58 new & used starting at $6.96

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Perfect for the young builder 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This is the latest installment in a long string of wonderful books from David and Jeanie Stiles. Inside you won't find glossy, double page spreads of extravagant treehouses ... this is not a coffee table book. Rather, it is a how-to book, and the best one available for those that want to build their own whimsical play structure. Inside you will find excellent line drawings and readable explanations of intelligent, creative, and well though-out designs.

David starts with the basics: tools. From there you follow a complete and logical progression to completed treehouse. In between you'll get solid building advice. David has built his designs. He knows how to make life easier for you by using common materials and minimizing cuts. The building advice is spot on throughout.

The huge, huge, huge problem with this book is the 20 or so options David gives you for connecting lumber to tree. They are almost all bad. Never girdle a growing limb with rope or cable. Never use nails. This leaves you with only lag bolting. To be sure, there are other ways. But the only safe and tree-friendly way presented in this book (and any of his other works) is to use lags.

This is the by far the best book to give to a young builder and is probably a treasure to any 8 or 9 year old lucky enough to have a copy. It will get their mind working. The crazy schemes they come up with will amaze you.

The ideas inside this book are great. Fun, imaginative, unique. If you know a young boy (or girl) with a tree, get him this book. And when it comes time to actually build their creation, call an arborist and he'll set you straight about properly attaching it to a tree.

Editorial Review:

Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build shows how average "do-it-yourself" families can easily and affordably bring to life a "Hobbit's Treehouse," a "Pirate's Playhouse," or a "Crow's Nest" in their own backyards! There are a lot of books out there filled with enchanting photos of elaborate treehouses and playhouses built by professionals and costing tens of thousands to build. For the rest of us, there's bit of elbow grease, a lot of imagination, a trip to the hardware store-and Treehouses & Playhouses You Can Build.

The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker: Shop Drawings and Professional Methods for Designing and Constructing Every Kind of Kitchen and Built-In Cabinet

Robert W. Lang

Amazon Price: $15.61 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Fox Chapel Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $14.48

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

An outstanding book 5 out of 5 stars.
104 of 104 people found this review helpful.

I have years of experience in residential carpentry and furnituremaking, and I've installed dozens of kitchens, but I had never actually made a set of kitchen cabinets. We are renovating our house, and replacing our cheap cabinets is one of the items on the list. I spent hours at my local Barnes and Noble and Borders stores looking for a comprehensive book that focuses exclusively on kitchen cabinetmaking, and couldn't find one out of the dozens of books on cabinemaking that thoroughly covered both the cabinet design and production processes. Then I took a chance and ordered The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker, and found exactly what I was looking for.
Lang writes well and, just as important, is a good teacher and explainer. The book is well organized, and the abundant illustrations, both photographs and drawings, are clear and detailed. Measured drawings abound. He describes both general types of cabinet, frameless and face-framed, and lays out efficient production processes for both, indicating where potential problems lurk and the consequences of inaccuracies at crucial points.
This is head and shoulders the best book I have seen on the subject. If you are even considering building your own kitchen cabinets, or starting a small cabinet shop, this book should be your first purchase. It will be the best money you spend on the project.

Editorial Review:

Demonstrating how woodworkers can approach the complex job of designing and making built-in cabinets for kitchens, family rooms, and home offices, this technical handbook provides meticulously detailed shop drawings, instructions, and hundreds of professional tips for saving time, materials, unnecessary aggravation, and money. Bob Lang covers building traditional face-frame cabinets as well as constructing contemporary frameless Euro-style cabinets. Woodworkers will learn how to measure rooms and design fitting cabinetry that considers both function and aesthetics, how to develop working shop drawings and cutting lists, and how to work with materials as varied as solid wood and plastic laminate. Technical instructions for cutting and joining the basic box, as well as for fitting it to drawer stacks, sinks, corners, appliances, and islands, are also included, as are detailed steps for sanding, finishing, and installing each piece.

The Complete Japanese Joinery

Hideo Sato, Yasua Nakahara

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Hartley and Marks Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 10 new & used starting at $17.90

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

This is a really neat book 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This book is really neat--definitely worth $16. There are dozens and dozens of joints detailed but almost all of them are for framing buildings. Even so, these multitude of ideas presented can really start the creative process for furniture makers, like myself. In fact, this book provided a joint that solved a problem that I had dwelled on for months. Without this book, I never would have thought of this joint.

Most of the joints described are described well. But you will need to read the material carefully because some of the joints are quite complex. A lot of the joints are described with "drafting style" drawings--a front view, side view and top view. The book could benefit from more drawings that are in perspective.

The description of the use of Japanese tools is brief. In fact, if I were the publisher I'd delete "Japanese Tool Use" from the title because this book really doesn't focus much on tool use. Yeah, it's covered but there are other, more detailed texts n the topic.

At times, the text is awkward. If I recall correctly, this book was translated from Japanese, which likely accounts for the awkward phrases.

Hardwood Floors: Laying, Sanding and Finishing

Don Bollinger

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good Book Overall, But Some Flaws 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Overall, this book will give you the information you need to install and finish a new hardwood floor or re-finish an existing hardwood floor as painlessly as possible. The subject is covered thoroughly, from choosing lumber types and patterns to types and methods of finishing. However, I strongly suggest that one hint made by the author be ignored completely. On page 111 and perhaps other pages of the Sanding and Finishing chapter of the 1990 edition of the text, the author proposes the use of a floor buffer to fine screen between coats of finish to take the tops off and help successive coats of finish adhere. What this did for me, even with the finest grit screen available, was leave lots of spider web type scratches in the finish that reflected artificial light in every direction at night, and made what was supposed to be a high gloss polyurethane finish look dull in the daylight. This tip wasted two coats and two days of finish work. My suggestion is to use a drywall pole-type sander with 220 grit or finer sandpaper and always sand in the direction of the grain. This method takes much longer than the buffer method, but won't produce the spider web scratches that the buffer does. One other suggestion the author makes is to mix fine sanding dust with a water-based filler base called Wood Stuff to make perfectly matched filler. I thought that this was a great idea, because you'd get the closest match and you could mix a huge batch of filler right on the floor and trowel the entire space very quickly. I wanted the water-based Wood Stuff because I was using a water-based polyurethane to finish. The problem was that I couldn't find Wood Stuff or any comparable water-based product online or in any hardware or woodworking store. I ended up using several one-pint batches of Famowood filler hole-by-hole, which took days because my salvaged hardwood was full of tack holes. I'm just commenting on the suggested product's availability, here, which is not the author's fault. Maybe the book is a little out of date. Ultimately, with the other information in the book, my floor came out great. I just wish I used the floor buffer for the final wood sanding only (not on the finish).

Editorial Review:

Using crisp photos and drawings, Bollinger goes step by step through the process. You will learn how to estimate materials, select the right kind of wood, prepare the subfloor and achieve a blemish-free finish for an old or new floor. Bollinger also provides numerous tips and tricks, and sources of supply. The book is indexed for easy reference.

Timber Frame Construction: All About Post and Beam Building

Jack A. Sobon, Roger Schroeder

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Storey Publishing, LLC Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $10.73

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Off to a good Start. 4 out of 5 stars.
48 of 48 people found this review helpful.

" Timber Frame Construction " provides a good basis of knowledge for the expeirenced builder intrested in learning post and beam joinery , from the history of the craft to tools and joints. I found the book a valuable source for my project.

On the down side I could have used more explanation on what joints to use, the best cutting sequence and a greater description of where not to use them.

Overall though I recommend it.

Editorial Review:

If you have only dreamed about the beauty of building with timbers, this book will open your eyes. It will convince you that this method is not only practical today for homes and other buildings, but often is less expensive than "stick building." Timber frame builder Jack Sobon and writer Roger Schroeder offer a book for builders as well as those wishing to have the work done for them. Here is practical how-to for both beginners and experienced carpenters who want to try this method. It offers: The basics of timber framing. How to design for strength and beauty. How to combine modern tools and time-tested methods. A starter project: How to build a 12 x 16 garden toolshed. Dozens of illustrations and photos that make it all easy to understand. "A sprightly manual on post-and-beam building techniques, well-illustrated with sketches and photos." (Popular Science) Author Biography: Currently a self-employed architect and builder of timber-framed buildings, co-author Jack A. Sobon holds

Building the Timber Frame House: The Revival of a Forgotten Art

Tedd Benson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The details on this are excellent. Sketches, plans, perspectives, maths, tables, formulas, theory, you have it all. All graphics hand-drawn! Each joint has a photo, a drawing and cutting details and dimensions. Focused too: nothing outside the scope of the *classic* timber frame.

Editorial Review:

For centuries, post-and-beam construction has proved to be one of the most durable building techniques. It is being enthusiastically revived today not only for its sturdiness but because it can be easily insulated, it is attractive, and it offers the builder the unique satisfaction of working with timbers. Building the Timber Frame House is the most comprehensive manual available on the technique. In it you will find a short history, of timber framing and a fully illustrated discussion of the different kinds of joinery, assembly of timbers, and raising of the frame. There are also detailed sections on present-day design and materials, house plans, site development, foundation laying, insulation, tools, and methods.