An Adventure in the Art of Woodworking: Quickly Learn the Basics

Product Description

This book was written by a passionate woodworker who’s dedicated to your adventure in the craftsmanship and art of learning woodworking.
Have fun and
increase your skills as a beginning woodworker while building 12 different and unique projects including
free SketchUp 3D models.
Much more than a simple project book, the techniques and methods taught are those of
fine woodworking craftsmanship, and can benefit more experienced woodworkers. The extensively illustrated projects include:

Step stool (an easy start)
Workbench (a solid bench for less than $220)
Hallway mirror (with unique curved inlay)
Coat hanging rack (looks like the Eiffel tower)
Veneer hanging lamp (a thin, glowing, translucent globe)
Saddle seat stool (make curved shapes)
Shaker side table (classic Shaker design with dovetails).

This book is a unique learning pathway through the maze of woodworking. We learn by doing, by trying, by figuring out what went right or wrong – we develop unanswered questions. These questions stick in our brains, demanding answers and we learn. These questions are answered (in parallel with building the projects) in 11 different articles which include:

Safety
Wood characteristics (composition, types, grain, color, and seasonal wood movement)
Joinery and adding strength to joints
Sharpening chisels and plane irons
Essential hand tools and power tools
Jig designs (tapered legs, shooting board, tenon jig, mitered joint jig, dovetail jig).

Extensive links to carefully selected woodworking internet sites have been included to enhance your learning experience and provide a wealth of information. Finally, a detailed index and reference for “where to go from here” is provided.

About the Author

Jim Vander Schaaf is a Maine wood artisan and furniture builder. When he was a wee lad, quite a few years ago, he started building wood toys and simple furniture from peach boxes (they were made of wood, not cardboard!). This triggered his lifelong passion for making things in wood, which was interupted by a career in shipbuilding and computer applications.

He loves creating and building unique furniture and art in wood. His work is intended to add beauty, be unique and harmonize with your environment. He uses the finest materials, mostly black cherry, but also ash, black walnut, maple and oak, and achieves a smooth luster and protects the wood with a hand rubbed method.

Jim loves teaching woodworking because it is a craft and a profession, that requires ever increasing skills to produce objects that draw the eye, appeal to the senses, are functional, and give the pleasure of being self-created. In a world which values immediate satisfaction (which seldom is lasting), woodworking provides a longer term satisfaction that comes from relishing the furniture you have created. To see the expressions of delight and pleasure that a piece you’ve created gives others is deeply satisfying.

After a pre-engineering curriculum at Calvin College, he graduated from the University of Michigan (BS and MS degrees in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering and Aerospace Engineering). Later he graduated from Johns Hopkins (MS Computer Science) and studied Law through a correspondence course. His career was with government and industry, lastly as a manager of Advanced Shipbuilding Technology and Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) at Bath Iron Works. He subsequently formed two consulting companies which improved organizational effectiveness (by focusing on people, process and technology).