The Woodwright’s Guide


Book Description

For thirty years, Roy Underhill's PBS program, The Woodwright's Shop, has brought classic hand-tool craftsmanship to viewers across America. Now, in his seventh book, Roy shows how to engage the mysteries of the splitting wedge and the cutting edge to shape wood from forest to furniture. Beginning with the standing tree, each chapter of The Woodwright's Guide explores one of nine trades of woodcraft: faller, countryman and cleaver, hewer, log-builder, sawyer, carpenter, joiner, turner, and cabinetmaker. Each trade brings new tools and techniques; each trade uses a different character of material; but all are united by the grain in the wood and the enduring mastery of muscle and steel. Hundreds of detailed drawings by Eleanor Underhill (Roy's daughter) illustrate the hand tools and processes for shaping and joining wood. A special concluding section contains detailed plans for making your own foot-powered lathes, workbenches, shaving horses, and taps and dies for wooden screws. The Woodwright's Guide is informed by a lifetime of experience and study. A former master craftsman at Colonial Williamsburg, Roy has inspired millions to "just say no to power tools" through his continuing work as a historian, craftsman, activist, and teacher. In The Woodwright's Guide, he takes readers on a personal journey through a legacy of off-the-grid, self-reliant craftsmanship. It's a toolbox filled with insight and technique as well as wisdom and confidence for the artisan in all of us.




The Woodwright's Shop


Book Description

Roy Underhill brings to woodworking the intimate relationship with wood that craftsmen enjoyed in the days before power tools. Combining historical background, folklore, alternative technololgy, and humor, he provides both a source of general information and a detailed introduction to traditional woodworking. Beginning with a guide to trees and tools, The Woodwright's Shop includes chapters on gluts and mauls, shaving horses, rakes, chairs, weaving wood, hay forks, dough bowls, lathes, blacksmithing, dovetails, panel-frame construction, log houses, and timber-frame construction. More than 330 photographs illustrate the text.




The Woodwright's Workbook


Book Description

Roy Underhill is America's best-known master of traditional woodcraft. Creator of the popular PBS series The Woodwright's Shop, Roy has inspired millions--from professional craftsman to armchair woodworker--with his talent, knowledge, and enthusiasm. Roy returns here with his third book. The Woodwright's Workbook features step-by-step instructions for a selection of projects from his television series. All projects are illustrated with photographs and measured drawings. Included here are plans for tool chests, workbenches, lathes, and historical reproductions of items for the home: a six-board chest, rustic chairs with cattail seats, a churn for the kitchen, and the Rittenhouse hygrometer. Roy also explores building barns, forges, boats, and even colonial fortresses. A wonderful feature of this book is Roy's own translation of the humorous fifteenth-century poem The Debate of the Carpenter's Tools. He also provides a fascinating and useful 'field guide' to American tool marks that shows how to identify the specific tool used by the marks it left. Whether Roy is an old friend or a new acquaintance, let him be your guide to the world of traditional woodworking.




Roy Underhill's The Woodwright's Shop Classic Collection, Omnibus E-book


Book Description

For more than twenty-five years, Roy Underhill has taught the techniques of traditional hand-tool woodworking. In six books and on his popular, long-running PBS series, The Woodwright's Shop, America's leading authority on old-time woodcraft has inspired millions to take up chisel and plane. This Omnibus Ebook brings together the first three books into a collection of Woodwright classics. Designed for both woodworking novices and for more seasoned woodworkers looking for enjoyable projects, these books feature step-by-step instructions, complete with easy-to-follow photographs and measured drawings. Included in this Omnibus Ebook edition: The Woodwright's Shop A Practical Guide to Traditional Woodcraft Features a guide to trees and tools as well as chapters on gluts and mauls, shaving horses, chairs, lathes, blacksmithing, log houses, and more. The Woodwright's Companion Exploring Traditional Woodcraft Includes chapters on helves and handles, saws, the search for the whetstone quarry, hurdles, whimmy diddles, planes, window sashes, and pit sawing. The Woodwright's Workbook Further Explorations in Traditional Woodcraft With step-by-step instructions for tool chests, workbenches, lathes, and historical reproductions of items for the home. Roy also explores building barns, boats, and even colonial fortresses.




The Woodwright's Companion


Book Description

With The Woodwright's Companinon, Roy Underhill continues to demonstrate "how to start with a tree and an axe and make one thing after another until you have a house and everything in it." This volume features chapters on helves and handles, saws, the search for the whetstone quarry, crow chasers and turkey calls, hurdles, whimmy diddles, snaplines and marking gauges, candle stands, planes, window sash, riven shingles, and pit sawing. The final chapter offers a glimpse of traditional woodworking techniques still used by the Colonial Williamsburg housewrights. More than 260 photographs complement the text.




More of Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s Shop Classic Collection, Omnibus Ebook


Book Description

For more than twenty-five years, Roy Underhill has taught the techniques of traditional hand-tool woodworking. In six books and on his popular, long-running PBS series, The Woodwright's Shop, America's leading authority on old-time woodcraft has inspired millions to take up chisel and plane. This new Omnibus Ebook brings together the final three books into another collection of Woodwright classics. Designed for both woodworking novices and for more seasoned woodworkers looking for enjoyable projects, these books feature step-by-step instructions, complete with easy-to-follow photographs and measured drawings. Included in this Omnibus Ebook edition: The Woodwright's Apprentice Twenty Favorite Projects From The Woodwright's Shop The Woodwright's Apprentice begins with directions for building a workbench. Each successive project builds new skills for the apprentice woodworker--from frame construction to dovetailing, turning, steam-bending, and carving. Among the twenty items featured are an African chair, a telescoping music stand, a walking-stick chair, a fireplace bellows, and a revolving Windsor chair. Designed both for woodworking novices and for more seasoned woodworkers looking for enjoyable projects, the book includes step-by-step directions, complete with easy-to-follow photographs and measured drawings, and an illustrated glossary of tools and terms. All of the pieces presented here are based on projects featured in past and upcoming seasons of The Woodwright's Shop television show. The Woodwright's Eclectic Workshop This book features step-by-step instructions for such popular projects as the Adirondack chair, tavern table, folding ladder, rocking horse, lathe, and kayak. All projects are illustrated with photographs and measured drawings. The book also includes colorful descriptions of what it was like to be a tradesperson who made a living by hand, working with the tools and methods Roy describes on television and in his books: carpenters, joiners, wheelwright, millwrights, chairmakers, and blacksmiths. As Roy puts it, he wants to examine 'the old paths in the way that they were originally taken: not as adventuresome recreations but a profession that put food on the table and clothes on the kids.' The Woodwright's Guide Working Wood with Wedge and Edge Roy shows how to engage the mysteries of the splitting wedge and the cutting edge to shape wood from forest to furniture. Beginning with the standing tree, each chapter of The Woodwright's Guide explores one of nine trades of woodcraft: faller, countryman and cleaver, hewer, log-builder, sawyer, carpenter, joiner, turner, and cabinetmaker. Hundreds of detailed drawings by Eleanor Underhill (Roy's daughter) illustrate the hand tools and processes for shaping and joining wood. A special concluding section contains detailed plans for making your own foot-powered lathes, workbenches, shaving horses, and taps and dies for wooden screws.




Khrushchev's Shoe


Book Description

During an impassioned address to the U.N. General Assembly, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, irritated by the indifference of his audience, astounded his peers by taking off his shoe and pounding it vigorously on the podium. His indelible gesture not only captured the attention of the audience, but it also transformed their lack of interest into outrage.In Khrushchev's Shoe, Roy Underhill recounts this incident and offers dozens of other stories to illustrate how our efforts to engage an audience can make or break a presentation. With pointers that show you how to bring the intimacy of small-group interaction to every event, Khrushchev's Shoe reveals the principles that make interaction both more meaningful and more enjoyable. Filled with wit and insight, this thoughtful guide will seize readers' interest from start to finish because it practices what it preaches--it engages the readers' intelligence and rewards it generously.




Everyday Woodworking


Book Description

Get started with simple, useful, handcrafted woodworking projects for everyday people—with only 12 basic tools! Lots of people want to try woodwork, but they get intimidated by dangerous power tools and difficult techniques. Good news: there are lots of ways to work with wood and anyone can get a few tools and start making projects. Everyday Woodworking starts at the very beginning—with wood. How can this common material make everything from furniture to houses? What makes it so strong? Why does it break? More importantly, what can you do to a piece of wood? Sometimes we cut it with a saw. Other times, we split it with an ax or shave it with a knife. This book explains why we choose each tool and how to pick the right cut for any project. As Rex likes to say: "Trust me, it’s not hard." Once you get a few tools and learn some simple techniques, you’ll start making things right away. You’ll begin with a simple mallet and some wooden wedges and then advance to splitting green logs into usable lumber. Next you’ll pick up a knife and a drill and after just a little practice, you’ll be making things you can give to your friends; things they’ll actually use: A wooden butter knife A desk organizer A few pieces of sturdy furniture Sawhorses A small workbench Each project is shown step-by-step with the beginner in mind. The projects are simple but not primitive. Everyday Woodworking will give you skills that you can build on as you grow as a craftsperson.




The Woodwright's Eclectic Workshop


Book Description

For more than ten years, Roy Underhill has taught the techniques of traditional woodcraft, or 'how to start with a tree and an axe and make one thing after another until you have a house and everything in it.' Through his popular PBS series, The Woodwright's Shop,' and his previous books, Roy has inspired millions--from professional craftspeople to armchair woodworkers--with his talent, knowledge, and enthusiasm. Roy returns now with his fourth book, The Woodwright's Eclectic Workshop. It features step-by-step instructions for many projects featured on the television series in recent years, including such popular projects as the Adirondack chair, tavern table, folding ladder, rocking horse, lathe, and kayak. All projects are illustrated with photographs and measured drawings. The book also includes colorful descriptions of what it was like to be a tradesperson who made a living by hand, working with the tools and methods Roy describes on television and in his books: carpenters, joiners, wheelwright, millwrights, chairmakers, and blacksmiths. As Roy puts it, he wants to examine 'the old paths in the way that they were originally taken: not as adventuresome recreations but a profession that put food on the table and clothes on the kids.'




Calvin Cobb


Book Description

Roy Underhill of PBS's 'The Woodwright's Shop' has written what could be the world's first-ever woodworking novel: 'Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker!' It's a screwball comedy set in 1937 about a woodworker who heads the U.S. government's agricultural 'Broadcast Research' division. Along with his staff of four women (all severely injured WWI volunteers), Calvin studies 'broadcast seed, nutrient and amendment distribution technology and practice' -- that is, what happens when the poop actually hits the fan. But the four women are more interested in developing the world's first supercomputer (using abandoned punch-card machines), and Calvin is more interested in woodworking ... and in one particular woman: Kathryn Dale Harper, host of the radio program 'Homemaker Chats.' How best to woo her? Why, a radio show: 'Grandpa Sam's Woodshop of the Air!' It's an almost-overnight sensation (for measured drawings, write to 'Grandpa Sam's' and be sure to include a 3 cent stamp to cover the cost of duplication). But -- as Calvin discovers -- success breeds jealousy ... a dangerous thing when one's enemy has friends in high places. Can Calvin and his friends save the world through woodworking, one listener at a time? Perhaps -- but first, they'll have to save themselves from Nazis, the clutches of the FBI, bureaucracy and wooden legs that break at inopportune times