The Joiner & Cabinetmaker: Buy this book
If you not a fan of book reviews then just follow the advice in the title and skip this post…still here…well then let’s talk about this book.
Joel Moskowitz and Christopher Schwarz make a great authoring team in this work. They are like a good comedy team with Joel playing the straight man and Christopher the comic relief. The opening chapters of the book are written by Joel and he gives us a very thorough account of the trades and environmental pressures present in the early 1800s in England. Joel’s excitement about the revelations found within the pages is contagious and you eagerly dive in ready to be astounded. I’ll admit that you really have to be a scholar of esoterica like Joel to really be blown away, but essentially with his commentary and subsequent footnotes throughout the story of Thomas the apprentice you get a peek inside Joel’s mind and begin to understand why this work is so groundbreaking. By the end of the opening chapter and the story itself the reader has a great understanding of what the apprentice system looked like in the late 1700s to early 1800s from how the apprentice is picked to what is expected of him throughout his typical 7 year apprenticeship. We even get a villain in the guise of another apprentice in the shop who is portrayed as careless, lazy, and one who doesn’t take care of his tools.
For those of you who have dared to read the original Moxon or Nicholson have no fear. The language of the original text is quite a bit more modern seeing as the work was published in the 1830s. What’s more it is easy to follow and really engaging like good fiction should be. The details of each build and the atmosphere of the shop is told in great detail that has you smelling the hide glue and slipping on shavings.
This quaint little story would be reward enough, but the the Lou Costello of woodworking steps up (Christopher Schwarz) and walks us through the build process of the packing crate, school box, and chest of drawers. This section of the book is complete with plenty of Christopher’s trademark black and white photos and his signature small town newspaper man tone with a lot of dry wit thrown into the mix. We get to meet Katy Schwarz on several occasions and discover that this 8 year old prodigy is a better woodworker than most of us which plays nicely as a modern day side story of the apprentice system within the Schwarz household. I have no question that you can take this book as is and build all three of these projects in your own shop with no further instruction.
However, Christopher is packaging this book with an accompanying CD-ROM which has full color slide shows and audio commentary of each project build. If you’re a technogeek like me you will quickly find a way to burn these slide shows onto your mobile device so you can watch them on the go. I was making pegs for draw boring the other day in my shop, a truly boring (pun intended) task especially when you have to make 48 of them. I plugged my iPod into the TV and watched all three presentations (a total of around 90 minutes).
Essentially the projects presented within could be considered your correspondence woodworking course to teach you the ins and outs of hand tool cabinetry. And you don’t even need Sally Struthers to host it!
I read this book in less than a day and was captivated by it. Upon the second read, I picked up a few more tidbits that have me reconsidering how I approach projects in my own shop. I have to figure out when I can fit them into the que, but I really would like to build all three of these projects in order, consecutively, to see how it can improve my own work. I’ll be sure to keep you all informed once I decide to get started.
In summary, if you know a woodworker, get this for them for Christmas. If you are a woodworker, don’t wait til Christmas to get it, there are tools mentioned inside that you will want to make these projects that you can ask for instead.
The book is of course available at either The Lost Art Press or Tools for Working Wood, what are you waiting for???
Happy reading!
