Teaching you how to make a classic plane yourself (it takes only a day or so) and how to use it in a refined manner.

Everything you need to use your handsaws! There is no woodworking tool that's more satisfying, quick, and precise to use as a handsaw. This tool can process timber in its rough state, bring boards up to a glimmering smoothness, cut rabbets, dados, grooves and other joints, and trim wood with a precision that has yet to be matched by power tools. Yet many woodworkers--both beginners and professionals--are intimidated by choosing the right tool, sharpening its cutter and putting it to use. Handsaw Basics contains everything you need to choose the right tool for your budget and projects, take it out of the box, sharpen it, and use it successfully. The chapters in this book have been compiled from more than 10 years of the author's writing on the subject of handsaws in magazines, trade journals, and blogs.

Presents an introduction to woodworking, covering wood, joinery, woodworking machines, and hand tools, and including illustrated, step-by-step instructions for five projects.

In a woodworking world replete with power tools, many woodworkers--both beginner and professional alike--are skeptical of or intimidated by handsaws. Yet, once put to use and mastered, the simple power of these humble hand tools can both awe and inspire. A handsaw is woodworking in it's most pure and minimal form. If you can see and follow a line--any line--you can cut the line. There's no need for crazy setups or jigs; just grab the right saw and start cutting--any angle, any shape. Complex joinery becomes no more than a series of lines to cut on your stock. Compiled from more than a decade's worth of Popular Woodworking material, The Essential Handsaw Book provides all the information a woodworker needs to choose the right saw, use it successfully, and keep it razor sharp for years to come. In the end, using a handsaw to stay on the straight and narrow when tracking any line will become a successful and satisfying endeavor.

For woodworkers, hand tools put the emphasis on the process of woodworking rather than the result. Yet hand tools also are essential to the highest level of craftsmanship, bringing a refinement to work that machines alone cannot produce. Whether using hand tools alone as a source of pleasure, quality, or efficiency, or in combination with machines, woodworker can trust the information in Woodworking with Hand Tools, a collection of 35 articles from the experts at Fine Woodworking magazine. In Woodworking with Hand Tools, expert craftsmen explain how they choose, sharpen, and use every kind of hand tool. There's advice on tool maintenance, techniques for getting the most from the tools, and projects made using hand tools. With clear photographs, drawings, and step-by-step instructions, Woodworking with Hand Tools will be a useful and necessary resource for anyone who works wood.