Cabinets Books

The book is very dated and the projects are not very interesting or unusual, but with children to think about, many of the patterns will have appeal. Surprisingly there are few books on plywood projects.

My softcover version says 1994 and is isbn 1-56158-058-9 with a photo on the front cover of some guy wearing a tool belt and red suspenders. anyway if u want to build some kitchen cabinets out of plywood, this book is for u. i was expecting 'traditional' cabinets from yesteryear not a couple of decades ago. the book does look very detailed, but again not for solid construction, just plywood babies.

Nicely printed but the title is misleading. Half the book is dedicated to materials and techniques. The other half is for projects such as making a giraffe, garden chair, multipurpose box, serving cart, entrance hall table, and finally a cabinet.

This book consists of seventeen articles taken from past issues of Fine Homebuilding magazine. The oldest dates to 1992, but some of the pictures look as if they were taken in the seventies. Given the range of articles in the book, I doubt that many people will find more than a couple of them worthwhile. You would be better off searching the archives of the magazine and buying the past issue or article.

This read pretty much like a text book and it probably should have as I understand that was pretty much how it was used when it was first in print.
If you already own the Tage Frid series don't waste your time and if you don't own the Tage Frid series...shame on you!
There are just so may books that fall into this category a person can start being more critical. I got somewhat "suckered" into this purchase as both Lee Valley and Highland Hardware had some nice romantic text describing this book.

One of the down sides to being a political junkie and having access to Amazon is that you can find and buy almost any book written by anyone that came within 10 feet of the White House. What happens is that you come across books that you might hold a slight interest in, but due to their relative inexpensive price you go ahead and buy the book. This book firmly falls into that category. The author was a long time friend of Jimmy Carters and helped him get into office. As a reward Carter appointed the author to head the OMB. Here lies the first two problems with this insiders tail, first the author is a long time friend of the President so no real hard criticism will be forth coming. Second, he headed the OMB, which is an important position, but lets face it, rather dull. So dull in fact that the author did not spend more the 50 words talking about anything that he did as the head of the department.

So we have a book from an inside player in the Carter Administration, that does not really talk about the job he did and due to his personal relationship with the President, does not really give the reader much more then an exaggerated and cherry picked highlight real. Sure the author put in a few items that he disagreed with the President on, but they seemed minor and forced. So what do we get, about 35% of the book is the author defending himself on the irregular banking charges that drove him from the OMB job and made his name one of the top 5 names from the Carter years even though he was only in the administration for less then one year. Yet at the end of the day I really don't know what he was accused of doing. All I do know is that the author thought it was unfair, that the media hounded him, and that he was acquitted on all counts. Given that it appears to me that the main focus on the book was for the author to clear his name it would have been nice to provide more detail on the charges.

The last criticism I would want to spell out is that I found the author a bit hypocritical on one point. He spent a good amount of time talking about how the press was unfair in the way they reported the charges against him and the trial. I would have to agree that the press can usually trample the weak when it comes to a headline story and the author made a number of good points about putting in print one sided and vague charges. But then he did the same thing in regards to the Reagan Administration and the October Surprise. He repeated the accusation that Bill Casey had made a deal with the Iranians to hold on to the hostages until after the election. This left a sour taste in my mouth, regardless how I feel about the whole hostage / Carter / Reagan issue, for the author to cry fowl on unsubstantiated charges leveled against him and then do the same against others spoke volumes to me about character.

Overall there was not much interesting in the book and I would think that it would only be read by a researcher on the Carter years. I would pass it by unless you are a die hard political junkie like myself.

I bought this book with the hope that by using somebody elses plans (rather than drawing my own) I would not have to worry about calculating all the dimensions and designing as I go along. Unfortunately, this book has so many errors and ommissions in the plans that you cannot trust any dimension he gives. Parts and steps that are necessary to complete a unit are missing. Don't waste your money on this book. They obviously didn't waste time proofreading it...

The description tells of different styles (Shaker, Mission, Country and Contemporary) - this is relatively untrue. They have taken a basic design and reworked it to have a few different designs. This book is good for non-woodworkers who do not want to spend the cash on an entertainment center (actually this is partially true, since you will need a router, a table saw, a band saw, a drill press and clamps... so you might as well buy the entertainment center!)

It has an okay section on making cabinet doors and building drawers.

I guess my major gripe about this book is that I really don't like the basic design, and all other designs are rehashes of this one. I have build my entertainment center without using this book.

If you have a big imagination, you might be able to build an entertainment center with style from this book. All of the plans a basically the same with a few changes to give it a different look. You could say it was not what I was really looking for. I have a widescreen TV that would by no means fit in any of these designs, nor do I even like the "look" of these designs. Too many changes had to be made to give it an up to date size/look.

This book is fine if you want to build old style entertainment centers, but if you want something a little more modern for your Big screen tv or sound system, this is not the book you want.

I may be the only one who liked the illustrations, and the instructions are simple and straightforward (albeit incomplete). But I agree with krhino41 about the cut-charts: the authors apparently made no significant effort to proof their work. Although the vanities I made from this book worked out tolerably well, in the base cab plans I have found five critical design errors so far. As a result I now have a nearly finished base cab carcase in the shop that will be tinder for a bonfire come colder weather, and I'll be taking pages from this book to light it.

This book has little in it. The first large section covers very basic information, including nail sizes. If you need beginer information, that's fine, but there are better books for that than this one.

Most of the projects in this book are simple, and illustrated with cheesy computer drawn images. If you want to build cabinets or built-ins there are much better books than this.

I bought this book about a year ago and after dusting it off I decided to try building the toy chest. After following the directions EXACTLY, I found two glaring errors when dry fitting. 1. Side trim are 3/4 in short 2. Bottom is not even close to the correct size. I have ruined 4 board feet of oak and 1/4 sheet of oak plywood for assuming the plans measurements were correct. I completely agree with the other reviewer. Half of the book talks about very basic areas not even suitable for beginners. There are a lot better books to learn basic woodworking. The pictures are cheesy computer animation with very little detail. Come to think of it, there is nothing good to say.

If you were hoping to gain some knowledge of cabinet making suitable for amateurs, you've come to the wrong place. If you are hoping for some guidance that is less than 100 years old and drawings/pictures that are readable try anything by Danny Proulx, because you won't find it in this book. I guess I should have looked beyond the title.
This book is a collection of very small print articles from the early 1900's. Perhaps they are in public domain now and were "collected" by the editor. The drawings resemble the quality one might find in a paperback version of Gray's anatomy.

Once I got it open and scanned the card to see if my notebook was covered, I found that it wasn't. Waste of my time, and then the hassle to send it back...