Interesting Book
Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA
>I've just finished an interesting book, "The Seven Essentials of Woodworking," by Anthony Guidice (why does that remind me so strongly of Greek mythology or something similar - oh yeah! The Seven Wonders of the World, that was it).
He's VERY opinionated - putting him in the same room with Krenov would make for a fascinating conversation, though I think you'd want medical help standing by, like at a football game or maybe more accurately hockey match - and seems to contradict himself in spots. In the chapter on sharpening, he says, "Eighty to ninety percent of problems when using planes, for example, come from a dull blade." But then we come to the chapter on planes, where he recommends Lie-Nielson and E.C. Emmerich as the only good planes, and he spends quite a bit of time dissing "modern standard-grade planes" and implies that you can't do good work with them because of various structural and tuning defects. But wait, says the innocent reader...earlier, you said if I just got the iron sharp...I'm confused.
I disagreed with a lot of what he said, but it made for a lively read, and got me pondering some of my less productive practices.
Don't pick this up as a book you will treat as your sole source of knowledge (I'd make the same statement about almost any author, but especially those who Know the Truth and are here to share it with you), but you might find it worth reading.
no affiliation, other than I was in upstate New Yawk, where he makes his home, once, 30+ years ago.
