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List Price: $34.95Price: $18.99 You Save: $15.96 (46%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 674
EAN: 9780918804051
ISBN: 0918804051
Label: Taunton Press Inc
Manufacturer: Taunton Press Inc
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: November 01, 1980
Publisher: Taunton Press Inc
Release Date: November 01, 1980
Studio: Taunton Press Inc
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In this essential reference for woodworkers, R. Bruce Hoadley explains everything from how trees grow to how best to cut, season, machine, join, bend, and finish wood. Why do miters open and glue joints loosen? How do you get a really sharp edge? Examples of problems and solutions help woodworkers puzzle through their own projects, while 325 full-color photos and helpful tables illustrate key points. Updated information on composite materials, adhesives, and finishes included.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
At some point in his education, a woodworker must learn about the structure and varieties of wood. This is a good place to start.
Rating: -
Hoadley's Understanding Wood provides an excellent if somewhat technical overview of the properties of wood. It's written with woodworkers in mind. Beginning with an anatomical view of the parts of a tree, the author gives a cogent summary of the functioning of a tree as a system. This is not easy reading, but it's worth the effort. Almost everything in the remainder of the book has some relevance to woodworking whether it's his essay on knots and why they behave the way they do (Chapter: Figure in Wood) or understanding tear out (Chapter: Strength of Wood) or the ultimate questions of moisture content (Chapter: Water and Wood) and wood movement. But beware, although the author is a woodworker himself, he's also a professor of Building Materials and Wood Technology at the University of Massachusetts, and he's not writing for "dummies". Wading through the technicalities of the first chapter's anatomical study will bear fruit (or maybe nuts?) when dipping into the later, more practical chapters. In those he presumes your understanding of wood's structure. The book is well-illustrated with color photos throughout, although there are times that you wish you had the actual piece of wood in your hand. Highly recommended for motivated learners!
Rating:  -
Excellent book about all things wood. Should be required reading for anyone working with wood.
Rating: -
I'm 66 years old and have been a carpenter (structural and finish) all my life. Being semi retired I'm now doing a lot of rustic furniture and antique reproductions. I wish I had this book about 40 years ago. I could have eliminated "OOP's" from my vocabulary. The book is explicit in explaining how to read wood so that you choose the proper pieces for your project. It's required reading if you don't want your finshed piece to warp, crack, shrink or generally go south.
Rating: -
I would consider myself new to woodworking, but not a complete novice. I have read a few books about the principles of woodworking, and all of them contained very little information about the nature of wood. These books left me with many questions about why certain methods are used or when to use one method over another. Understanding Wood answered a lot of my questions. Most importantly I now understand how to take into consideration the nature of wood when I am planning a project. The most important thing that I learned in this book was about the importance of moisture content. Sure I knew that wood expands or contracts with humidity levels, but now I know how to plan for it and work with it and I also know how detrimental it can be if you don't consider the relationship between water and wood.
What I really liked about the book is that the author did not pull any punches in his exposition meaning that this is not written for someone who prefers a "for dummies" book. This is the real deal, it contains some equations, it has many tables and graphs. Don't be too intimidated though, because it is not as dense or dry as a standard textbook. I think for anyone who enjoys woodworking this would be a great read.
My only complaint is that I wish the author could've gone into more detail on a lot of the subjects. He often wrote that a detailed discussion would fill a whole other book or even volumes. The problem is he's right, so the trade off is that some information is left out since the book can't be thousands of pages long.
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