| 
 enlarge | Author: Garrett Hack
Publisher: Taunton
Category: Book
Buy New: $41.50
New (4) Used (6) from $11.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 613407
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 11 x 9.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 1561581550
Dewey Decimal Number: 684.082
EAN: 9781561581559
ASIN: 1561581550
Publication Date: September 1, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NEW - pages are clean and binding is secure. Dust jacket is in good overall shape with some shelf wear including a tiny tear at one corner and some edge creasing. Have questions? We're happy to provide more information about any item in our store. We pack carefully, ship daily and email tracking numbers to US buyers. Our customer service is friendly and we comply with all Amazon return policies. International & APO orders are welcome!
|
| Customer Reviews:
Best "Plane" Book there is May 13, 2007
This book is essential for a serious woodworker. I learned more from this book than any other book on this topic. The tune up tips are very helpful and the explanations are easy to understand. The photographs and illustrations are highly useful and really aid a reader. Because of this book I went out and bought some planes that ought to help me accomplish what I need to do better.
Handplane book review May 13, 2007
I am new to woodworking and find this book a great reference that I continue to refer to and learn from. It is filled with excellent color photo graphs that make it a coffee table style book (albiet smaller and softcover), but it also contains excellent drawings depicting techniques and supporting jigs that are useful. It is broad in scope addressing the history and development of planes, chapters on a broad array of handplanes, and even a chapter on buying old handplanes.
 Plane Fundamentals May 9, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Garret's book covers the theory and operation of most wooden and metal planes. It's a good reference with a lot of good information. You might want to consider it as a starting point or foundation of your plane library.
To round out your library, I would recommend buying books dedicated to sharpening or to just wooden planes. These are not covered in enough detail in the book. Also, buy other books on the operation of the planes. Hack has his way of doing things - be sure to read other books for alternative methods.
One major part of the essentials for handplaning March 9, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Hack presents a job far removed from his name. Another pun: this is no hack job; this is a meticulously shaved job. Now, on to the review.
Hack is part of the essentials for handplaning; there's no doubt about it. When I decided I wanted to learn to use a handplane for serious hobbymaking, I was unable to make shaving number one, even after buying two planes. Along with a few forums, a good friend and, above all, Hack, I'm turning roughsawn oak into lots of long, thin, beautiful shavings.
As noted elsewhere, the history helps in understanding the plane. The descriptions and photographs bring the plane to life. The comparisons and contrasts among the innumerable planes help in choosing the appropriate plane for the job at hand.
The photographs and diagrams are especially helpful, and this feature really is the crown of this book. Quite frankly, other books don't meet Hack's standard, and the web is limited, still, by bandwidth and amateurish production quality. Without the text, Hack's photographs and diagrams, with their accompanying notes, are an achievement by themselves.
The text is easy to read and very descriptive, but I do have some quibbles.
Although Hack is careful to distinguish between planes which are collectible and those which are useable (or both), I wish that he had disentagled them from the text, perhaps in different subsections. I found myself mildly annoyed trying to use this book as a reference, e.g., looking for a tip on using a plow plane, but having to extract the tip from descriptions of some interesting, but basically unuseable specimens from an age gone by.
Now, Hack's technical writing is excellent, above all, bar none. It's the real McCoy. In several succinct pages, complete with photographs, the reader can take a hunk of useless wood and/or metal, analyze its parts, make a few adjustments, do some basic calibrations, and emerge at the end of the chapter with a plane, a working plane, a finely tuned working plane.
So, in conclusion, the photographs and diagrams with their notes are awesome, the technical writing is lucid and accurate, but discussion of the various planes is a minor--minor--blemish. In fact, what handcrafted wood product is flawless from start to finish? Likewise Hack's excellent book. He's a good friend who knows more than you about handplanes.
Excellent and useful - a classic February 3, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Another modern classic in the making. My guess is that even Thomas Chippendale could learn a thing or two from this excellent book. Every detail of planning and planes is made clear. The illustrations are superb and the writing is clear. The help on setting up and using planes will be worth the cost of the book for most people. Good book for any woodworker's library.
|
|
|
