Turning Boxes: Completely Revised and Updated

It arrived in a timely manner and in excellent condition. The book is fiiled with great ideas and applications for turners. It is well worth the price.

Certainly not a "first book", but certainly a solid book for someone still on the learning curve Richard covers all the basics, a lot of great "do's" and "don'ts" and wonderful options. If you want to bet a good grounding in "boxes" this is the book for you Note: Turned "boxes" are round or oval (with special chucks), not square

After reading Turning Wood and "Turning" (Taunton's Complete Illustrated Guide to Turning by Richard Raffan), I was ready for some new information. While Turning Boxes" didn't give me any new ideas on how to use the lathe or turning tools specifically, it was packed with many, many photos of boxes Mr. Raffan has turned. This alone will provide me with ideas on what type of profiles to turn and should keep me busy for hours. The book covered how to turn threaded boxes and hit heavily on how to correctly fit a lid. Mr. Raffan also covered hollowing on end grain which is particularly tricky. A section on finishing gave me some ideas to ponder and the one on off-set turning creates some very unique boxes. There is another section that describes chatter work. And you thought that the tool chatter wouldn't be useful! If you are looking for a book to learn the basics of turning, I would not recommend this one but "Turning Wood" by Mr. Raffan instead. Buy this one after you get a feel for the lathe and are looking for ideas to inspire your work such as making needles or drill cases.

Richard Raffan is a master turner and a better instructor than some others who have produced woodturning videos. The DVD format is great. Raffan very clearly shows how to use a skew chisel and other tools to turn wonderful little boxes. I highly recommend this video to all novice to intermediate woodturners.

170 pages. Black and White photos with Color photo gallery (20 pages). Excellent book on how to make boxes and many example forms. Step by step instructions with photos on making end-grain boxes, what to consider in designs, and many variations on the basic box (needle cases, earring cases, saturn boxes, mushroom boxes, screw-on lids). Many boxes shown throughout the text and a chapter on forms. The Gallery is a little far out, but interesting. The video is also great.