Customer Reviews

Illustrated Cabinetmaking: How to Design and Construct Furniture That Works

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As a novice woodworker, but a professional trades instructor, I found this book to be a wonderful source of information about traditional and contemporary styles and techniques in furniture and cabinetmaking. It introduces the fundamentals of furniture anatomy, styles and wood movement. You are then moved along to joinery and furniture subassemblies with detailed and very readable illustrations. The strength of the book is, indeed, in the illustrations. The project section illustrates, by example, the styles and techniques introduced earlier but allows Woodworkers the freedom to add dimensions of their own. It is a very useful guide for those who are looking for ideas and allows great freedom to customize the design without getting too far off track.

This is an outstanding book. Shows styles and variations of just about all desired furniture pieces. Even though it does not show methods of work or measurments it is a MUST for any woodworker. It is a sure straight line reference to any project of furniture making.

I like to check out books from the library before I buy them. I checked this one out, now I'm buying it.

As a novice woodworker, I anticipate this will be an excellent reference as I move forward with designing and building cabinets, tables, and chairs.

It's not a how-to book, it's a reference. So when I'm wondering how I'm going to design a small cabinet with four drawers and a television cabinet for the bedroom, this book will give me options and ideas from casework to drawers to what goes on the bottom and what goes on the top.

I think it's a great reference.

I have some woodworking experience, the bulk of which was woodshop in high school where I turned out some pretty nice furniture. I thought I knew the basics, but after reading this book I now realize I barely knew anything.

The first third of this book goes over assembly methods in detail showing all possible variations on methods with exploded view line drawings. Its very easy to see what is being explained and how one method differs from the next. There is even a section dedicated to what to do when your drawer sides are too thin to countersink cross members. If you didn't understand that statement, you might want to start with carpentry for dummies or flip through this book to see if the pictures explain it better - they did for me!

The second two thirds of this book are all about different furniture and cabinets, what they look like assembled, some background on them, and then exploded views showing all the assembly required. If you read the first part of the book, these pages on the furniture are very easy to read and its interesting to compare the differences between two pieces that look very similar.

If you are thinking about getting into cabinetry full time, or if you are just looking to save some money and fix up your house's cabinets yourself (like me), this is a great book. The only downside is that it may get you trying to make better furniture than you had planned on! But I don't think that's really a down side.

Enjoy!