The Unplugged Woodshop: Handcrafted Projects for the Home & Workshop
Author: Tom Figden
Published by: Taunton Press
Published: 2013
Hardcover
Pages: 223
Cost: $45
OK darksiders, here’s one for you. This eclectic selection of furniture and hand tool projects will give you the peace and quiet that woodworking without power tools and machinery guarantees.
Tom Fidgen is a Canadian furniture maker who specialises in ‘unplugged’ work. Tom’s book Made By Hand was published in 2009 and he also writes a blog at www.theunpluggedwoodshop.com
Tom starts right at the beginning with a chapter on smoothing and squaring roughsawn stock. Selecting wood, effecting basic joints and shaping operations are soon after covered, as are selecting appropriate glues and finishes.
Make the first project (a sawyers bench) and you’ll be set up to dock and dress (and you can skip going to the gym if you follow this book).
Next project is a little sad. Folding ‘funeral chairs’ are ‘perfect for unexpected gatherings’ says Tom… but this is a sweet and structurally simple piece with a slatted seat. Yessss indeed.
An ‘architect’s table’ follows that you might make for sketching and designing on. This is a vintage style piece that will teach you how to make curved and shape support structures, bracings and stretchers, as well as a drawing board surface with breadboarded ends.
There’s a ‘lying press’ – in truth an attractive bookbinder’s vice which shouldn’t be too hard to find a purpose for, and also a ‘pochade’ box; a kind of artist’s carry-all. Instructions for a medicine chest, gentleman’s valet and a ‘card catalog’ add to this unusual project collection.
Tom shows how to make jack, smoothing and kerfing planes, a frame saw, scratchstock, shooting board, benchdogs and more, and writes about their usage as well.
The explanations in this book are comprehensive and well illustrated. This is a book for enthusiasts by a like-minded author whose passion for woodwork comes through very strongly.
We have one copy to give away so be quick! Email: competitions@woodreview.com.au with your name and address and the reason you need to be ‘unplugged’. See here for terms and conditions. No more entries please, the free copy has gone to D. Davidson, SA