Your First Workshop: A Practical Guide to What You Really Need

This book labors on educating the reader with the NECESSARY tools for your shop and is written in layman's terms and understanding. It is therefore directed to the individual who is starting to set up his shop and lacks the knowledge as to what tools he/she may REALLY need to begin acquiring and to start woodworking and why. In this scope, the book will be good for the reader to have. This book has helped me and guided me into rethinking my tool acquisition strategy. The book has a few spelling and grammer errors but does not distract from the worth of the information. The book gives some very good examples and recommendations for tools but does not go in depth on the explanations. For example, she does recommend that a workbench be acquired and why but does not go into all the different types of vises that a workbench can incorporate. She does not into a depth discussion the pros and cons of how to construct the top from which materials or how to construct it. She recommends some hand planes to have in the beginning woodworkers collection and why, but not why the differences between a number 6 and a number 7 hand plane. From time to time the author will talk about a tool to acquire and state that it should be acquired later on when the skill and budget of the woodworker can use it. In other words, don't get all the fancy or timesaving tools now. Get what you need now, get the window dressing later. She briefly discusses how to set up the tools in your workshop according to the steps required by the flow of work, from bringing in the wood, tools required to square the wood through to the finished product. She talks about some skills that should be acquired and briefly well give the steps to accomplish that particular skill, but again not in depth. Other books should be acquired that does go into more depth. The deep depth is out of scope for this book and its intended goal.

I bought this book out of curiosity even though I have a well-equipped shop. Looking back at almost 15 years of random tool purchases, I'd say that many people like me end up having a lop-sided set of tools. For example, I have lots of power tools but my first decent bench came together only 2-3 years ago. I have four corded and four cordless drill/drivers, but some essential small tools suggested in this book are missing. With the benefit of hindsight I'd say that it is more important to have a wide array of the right things, rather than few high-end things. To that extent, this book is right on and a good place to start if you are setting up your (first) shop. Now I await the sequel to this book "...now that you have finally set up your first shop, The Shop you really want to have and why". You know, the one with all the cool tools and set up. Seriously, I'd like to see a shop book that tells you about the higher-end version of every item it suggests. That said, I do realize that the preceding approach would create an intimidating atmosphere for the builder of the first shop rather than the inviting, simplifying, and "you-can-do-it" approach of this book. Overall, this book is a job well done and will serve a first-time shop builder well.