Roy UnderhillCritiques

20 projects and good detailed instruction and photos to show how to do it. all hand tools, all primitive methods

fun, older

great book, lots of fun things to do,
correct cover shown but changed ISBN

easy fascinating reading. hard to apply

If you can work your way, with power or hand tools, all the way through this book, you'll be an excellent woodworker. I know it helped me immeasurably.

Underhill is a very good writer. He's descriptive, clear & concise whether he's describing a bark pattern or a how-to project. Yet, at the same time, he takes time to go beyond the necessities & provide tidbits that made me want to read beyond his books. Often these are historical (e.g. Thomas Jefferson's carpenter) or alternate methods to try. This book is a good reference for any carpenter, history buff or writer. For the carpenter today, with all the power tools, it shows methods that are still valid & often forgotten in the mass of machines & paint-by-number instructions. Historically, he's a gold mine. He helped rebuild Colonial Williamsburg & is well known for his attention to authenticity. Writers can learn how it was really done before the invention of electricity & what kind of trees & wood were available in an old growth forest. Most get it wrong.There are a number of projects outlined in this book, both practical & fun. It assumes you have some knowledge of woodworking, but not a lot of tools are needed.

I reread portions of this constantly. I use a lot of power tools & hand tools in my woodworking, but his methods work well for both. An excellent writer, he covers a lot of projects & it's well worth the read.

I've always enjoyed Roy's way of presenting material. Perhaps his experience will help me see how to keep my children engaged in learning. I didn't know he had written this book until I corresponded with him after meeting him at Conner Prairie. I explained my charge to preserve my children's love of learning and my research into multiple intelligences. He explained that this book acknowledges multiple ways of learning.