[.ca] Creating Beautiful Boxes With Inlay Techniques (ISBN 1558704434)

Nice boxes but.......:
I bought this book sight-unseen hoping it would provide me, a novice woodworker, with plans and ideas for small boxes. It has some very nice boxes and good ideas, and all the information required to build each box is there (somewhere), but it is the "bare minimum" required to do the job. An experienced woodworker may not have problems, but to a novice like me, the instructions are often unclear and confusing. He also does many things in ways I'd rather not do or seems more difficult (using a table saw to cut finger joints instead of a router table for one example). It is totally lacking in dimensional and design information There are only a couple of simple illustrations of each box with little more than overall dimensions and many of the details are unclear. More photos of each box showing all its features or an exploded-view drawing would make things a lot easier. As an example, the sculpted pecan box has a secret drawer. There is no drawing showing it although you can see it partially opened in the photo of the box at the start of the chapter. One must figure out what the entire drawer looks like and construct it from rather vague instructions. Bills of materials are vague and cutting lists are non-existant. For example, with the CD Cabinet the material list starts with: Elm 6 b.f (for sides, center divider, bottom and top) This is only useful in cost estimation as a board foot is any combination of length x width x height that equals 144 cubic inches (eg. 1" x 1" x 144", 1" x 6" x 24".....). The reader has to figure out the size of each piece to be cut and determine rough stock size needed - and without detailed dimension drawings, that can be annoying or even very frustrating. Definitely not for the beginner or one who needs a good set of drawings to work from - without having studied the insructions for the tea caddy for about a week and creating my own detailed drawings, I would have a pile of scrapped parts (and at the price of wood nowadays, I can't afford many mistakes).

Woodwork as art:
A woodworker with little experience with inlay technique often thinks these beautiful projects are beyond their capabilities. This book takes the mystery out of inlay design with its copious photos and descriptions of work in progress. As a modestly experienced woodworker, I found the projects somewhat challenging, while the end result was truely magnificent. The book is a course in appreciating wood for its natural beauty. The boxes are relatively plain, however the projects represent nature's most beautiful art form. A definite must for any wood library.

The one box book to get:
Doug Stowe's beautifully photographed book clearly stands heads and shoulders other woodworking box books. Stowe's designs range from the simple to the complex, in a variety of styles, with an emphasis on contemporary and Arts-and-Crafts. I am usually suspicious of books with step-by-step instructions, as I am a relatively advanced woodworker. However, I found Stowe's construction hints helpful and decidedly not tedious. Stowe also breaks the book up with personal essays, which make it a big step up from an arm-chair picture book. The book is fun to read, as well as look at. Stowe appeared to also write the book to give confidence to the novice. The photography is excellent. One thing I found especially good is one can get a feel for tolerances required for given operations by looking at the photos. One can tell that the finished product is going to be a success, even if a splinter is off here and there, which gives confidence to the novice-- reason being that too often those lacking experience put off trying harder techniques because they have feel for how "perfect" work must be in order to achieve success. Another strength of the book is that the boxes made are all significantly different, embodying different techniques. This is a good step in the right direction from previous box books, which give umpteen variations on a single theme. If you're going to buy one book about making wood boxes, this is the one to pick.

Not as in-depth as I hoped:
I bought this book hoping to cull some ideas for an idea I have for a box with inlay. However, this book is just straight ahead projects. The book does cover other things, like hand made dove tail joints, and making wood inlay - but they weren't as in-depth as I was hoping. If you have a shop full of various power tools and chisels and saws, etc - this book is for you. If you're looking for ideas on box designs/construction, and have a limited set of tools - I wouldn't recommend this one.

Great book:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, not only for the techniques and beautiful boxes, but also for the sidebars on the philosophy and observations on woodworking. It stirred my soul, and I want to go out and build some more boxes now. I'm glad the publisher convinced the author to write this book.