Popular Woodworking Pocket Shop Reference

Your personal research assistant

Anyone who works wood knows that the craft veers into math, biology and chemistry. You often have to compute some odd joint angle, calculate the amount of wood movement in a panel, choose appropriate metal hardware, or select the proper adhesive or finish for the job at hand, to name just a few examples.

Fortunately, you no longer have to spend hours laboring over magazines and books for this kind of information. A quick look at the table of contents in this little compendium shows that it's crammed with exactly the kind of answers a woodworker needs to have on hand. It includes common geometry equations, math conversion tables, standard furniture dimensions, shelf load limit charts, a glossary of joints, properties of various woods, adhesives, finishes, and lots more. The best thing is that all the information is at your fingertips and easy to find, making this one of the hardest working little shop helpers you could hope to have.

Tom Begnal was managing editor of The Woodworker's Journal magazine for more than fifteen years. He has written or edited woodworking and how-to books for several publishers including F+W Publications, McGraw-Hill, Rodale Press and Sterling Publishing, and is presently an associate editor with Fine Woodworking magazine.