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4 books match the query 'Woodwork'

cover of Chainsaw Love: Field Notes on the World's Most Dynamic Power Tool

Chainsaw Love

Field Notes on the World's Most Dynamic Power Tool

James Card

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2025

Behold the mighty chainsaw and discover its history, its influence, and its people 

Considered the most powerful of all hand tools, the chainsaw has been vital to contemporary life in ways large, small, and sometimes surprising since it first came on the market in the 1940s. In Chainsaw Love, author James Card celebrates this formidable implement in unflinching style, sharing stories and reflections about the world of chainsaws and the people who use and appreciate them. 

Card describes the personal freedom that comes from harvesting your own trees for firewood and introduces readers to lumberjack competitors, hot-saw builders, and the sculpture carvers who take sawing to new heights. Chainsaw Love asserts the key role chainsaws play in clearing the right-of-way for powerlines to keep the electrical grid humming; in forestry and conservation efforts to maintain desirable ecosystems; and in the sciences, where ecologists and astronomers use chainsaws to age trees for scientific research. Card also considers the chainsaw’s place in pop culture, from movies to rock songs to presidential photo ops. 

Readers of Chainsaw Love will discover the lore and terminology of forests and wood cutting— widow makers and windthrows, witness trees and barber chairs, pumpkin pine, devil’s forks, cat faces, and schoolmarms. Additionally, the book offers insights into chainsaw variations and parts, guidelines for saw care and maintenance, safety recommendations, and other hard-won tips and tricks. Dozens of photos from the field, as well as helpful diagrams, add to readers’ understanding of the saw’s evolution and modern use.  

Part homage, part social history, and part field guide, Chainsaw Love is the perfect book for chainsaw users of all stripes—from loggers to conservationists, woodworkers to weekend cabin-dwellers—and anyone curious about this magnificent and underappreciated machine. 

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cover of The Amateur Wind Instrument Maker

The Amateur Wind Instrument Maker

Trevor Robinson

University of Massachusetts Press, 1980

In The Amateur Wind Instrument Maker, Trevor Robinson provides clear, practical instructions for building a wide variety of wind instruments using materials and tools accessible to the dedicated amateur. Beginning with an introduction to the principles of wind instrument design and the basic woodworking materials required, Robinson proceeds through detailed plans and step-by-step guidance for constructing instruments including flutes and fifes, recorders, clarinets, shawms, and oboes, among others. Each chapter combines historical context with hands-on instruction, offering dimensions, bore specifications, tone hole placement, and finishing techniques that allow the builder to produce genuinely playable instruments. 

Compact and accessibly written, the revised edition of The Amateur Wind Instrument Maker remains a foundational reference in the field of amateur instrument building, enabling generations of amateur builders to craft their own instruments, from straightforward projects suitable for beginners to more demanding undertakings for experienced woodworkers.


 

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cover of True Faith, True Light: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley

True Faith, True Light

The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley

Kelly Mulhollan

University of Arkansas Press, 2015

In 1979, Ed Stilley was leading a simple life as a farmer and singer of religious hymns in Hogscald Hollow, a tiny Ozark community south of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Life was filled with hard work and making do for Ed, his wife Eliza, and their five children, who lived in many ways as if the second half of the twentieth century had never happened.

But one day Ed’s life was permanently altered. While plowing his field, he became convinced he was having a heart attack. Ed stopped his work and lay down on the ground. Staring at the sky, he saw himself as a large tortoise struggling to swim across a river. On his back were five small tortoises—his children—clinging to him for survival. And then, as he lay there in the freshly plowed dirt, Ed received a vision from God, telling him that he would be restored to health if he would agree to do one thing: make musical instruments and give them to children.

And so he did. Beginning with a few simple hand tools, Ed worked tirelessly for twenty-five years to create over two hundred instruments, each a crazy quilt of heavy, rough-sawn wood scraps joined with found objects. A rusty door hinge, a steak bone, a stack of dimes, springs, saw blades, pot lids, metal pipes, glass bottles, aerosol cans—Ed used anything he could to build a working guitar, fiddle, or dulcimer. On each instrument Ed inscribed “True Faith, True Light, Have Faith in God.”

True Faith, True Light: The Devotional Art of Ed Stilley documents Ed Stilley’s life and work, giving us a glimpse into a singular life of austere devotion.
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cover of Wood Engraving: The Art of Wood Engraving and Relief Engraving

Wood Engraving

The Art of Wood Engraving and Relief Engraving

Barry Moser

Brandeis University Press, 2021

Written and illustrated by master wood engraver Barry Moser, this primer on the art of wood engraving is filled with valuable knowledge including how to prepare a printing block; how to think in the medium’s properties of line, shape, and ink; and how to transfer a drawing onto a block. It also offers practical advice on which tools to use for a project and which ink works best. A highly illustrated guide to this art form, Wood Engraving will be useful to experienced and beginner engravers alike. This book features stunning examples of Moser’s art and skill to admire and inspire.

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