Carpentry and Cabinet-Making (Paperback or Softback)

Everything an Edwardian householder needed to start working in wood: fitting out a bench, choosing and using hand tools, cutting a joint that holds, and finishing the result properly.

Carpentry and Cabinet-Making was written by W. M. Oakwood and published in London by C. Arthur Pearson in the early 1900s, going through further impressions well into the 1910s. Across thirteen short chapters it works up from first principles: the workshop itself, the tools worth owning, the woods used in carpentry, screws and nails, and the joints that hold a piece of work together.

From there it turns to making things. There are easily made articles to begin on, then a dwarf bookcase and a simple bench, and finally the finer work - fretwork and cabinet-making, bamboo work, staining and varnishing, and French polishing. Ninety-nine diagrams sit alongside the text, and nothing in it assumes a workshop grander than the corner of a shed.

This edition features:

• Thirteen chapters running from setting up a workshop to French polishing a finished piece
• Ninety-nine diagrams and working plans reproduced from the original Pearson edition
• Beginner projects including a dwarf bookcase and a simple bench, explained from start to finish
• Chapters on fretwork, bamboo work, staining and varnishing for the more decorative side of the craft