Everybody has a list of woodworking books they enjoy and a stack of woodworking books that they never should have bought (anything with “Krenovian birdhouses” in the title). And most woodworkers have a list of woodworking books that they wish would get published someday.
That is not what we are writing about today. Below are the books that should never see the light of day. Or are simply ridiculous. Joel Moskowitz, the founder of Tools for Working Wood, came up with 11 sample titles below. Have a look:
“The Complete Guide To Honing Guides”
“Woodworking and Intellectual Property Law for Forum Posters”
“Lost in a Tool Tray – The Search for the Hidden Marking Knife”
“Seven Excuses for not Finishing Your Kitchen Cabinets”
“Tool Purchase Budgeting”
“Interesting Uses for Rarely Used Tools”
“101 Party Suggestions for those ‘I’ve Finished a Project’ Parties”
“Popular Woodworking’s Guide to the Writings of Chris Schwarz”
“How to Increase Productivity When You Have Internet Access At Work”
“How to Make Your Own Folding Chairs”
“A Price Guide to Lie-Nielsen Boxes and Packing Materials”
Of course, Joel’s list prodded me to make up my own. I don’t know if I can top that “price guide” book. That one almost made me soil myself. Here goes:
“$10 Bed Rocks and Unicorns that Poop Rainbows”
“Make Your Own BBQ Grill — From Wood!”
“Craft Fair Crap”
“Still More Craft Fair Crap”
“‘Nice Crotch!’ and 600 Other Naughty-sounding Woodworking Terms”
“How to Murder Trees and Make Stuff With Their Flesh”
“Plywood Silhouettes of Famous French Monarchs”
“I Hate Tools That Cost More than $1 (And the People Who Buy Them)”
“How to Make $40,000 a Year at Woodworking” (Oops, this actually is a real book!)
OK humorous woodworkers. Here’s your chance. Leave the title of your most ridiculous imaginary book in the comments below. By the way, this is all a joke. So if you’re going to leave an angry comment, I’m going to roll my eyes.
- Christopher Schwarz
Building a 6,000 square foot house and all the furniture with nothing more than a scroll saw and a a hot-glue gun.
Tom Sevy
"Drop Your Pants to Count to Ten – Musings From My Workshop"
"Hitchhiking Without Thumbs"
"Picking Your Nose With Prosthetics"
"Top 3 1/2 Reasons To Leave The Blade Guard On"
and the timeless classic…
"How To Dial 911 With Your Nose"
Fighting fires with gasoline or mold remediation in South Texas.
Secrets to making that new expensive tool look old and cheap.
Subtitle : "Honey, I’ve had that tool forever"
1. "I can count to 9 and 1/2" – Shop safety for the ridiculously dumb.
2. Shop jigs that make woodworking as easy as 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8…
3. "Hand tools!? We don’ need no stinking hand tools"
My all time faveourite:
Mastering Power Saws One Finger at a Time
First Aid for the Woodworker and the Preparation of a "One Handed" First Aid Kit
1. Memory of the Trees- A Walk Through A Lumber Yard
2. How to Support Your Family Doing Woodworking
3. Freelance Writing for Woodworking Magazines
4. Fine Furniture From Wood Pallets
5. Crafty Things One Can Do with Saw Dust
6. Gluing Your Fingers Together and Other Shop Amusements
7. Music For The Workshop
8. Make A Chair For a 800 lb Gorilla
9. 10 Creative Ways to Stack Cutoffs
10. 100 Excuses For Buying Another Tool
11. 100 Ways to Use Saw Dust
12. Fine Furniture For Your Trashy Neighbors
13. How to Screw Things Up
14. Getting a Buzz From Wood Glue
15. How to Count To Ten After The Accident
16. Creative Ways to Hide Dye Stains On Carpet
17. Proper Attire For the Shop or How I Learned to Love Flannel
18. Setting Up Shop In Your Kitchen
19. The $400 Splinter or How to Spend Saturday Afternoon in the E.R.
20. How to Arrange Allen Wrenches You’ve Collected Over the Years
21. Now What? Or How To Widen the Door To Your Shop
22. How Come Storing Lumber Under The Bed Is Not An Option
23. 10 Tricks to Ungluing A Project From Your Workbench
24. Get On With It or How to Stop Playing With the Hot Glue
25. What To Say When Someone Asks What Is It?
26. What To say When Someone Says; Betcha get 100 Smackeroons For That, After You Show Them Your Maloof Style Rocking Chair You Just Finished
27. How to Keep Your Brother-In-Law Out of Your Shop or Creative Ways To Unfold Bandsaw Blades
28. Creative Ways to Load Lumber in Your Car and What to Say When It Falls Off
- The Complete Guide to Woodshop Wound Care
- 101 Uses for the Ronco(R) Home Rotary Veneer Slicer
- Assuring Ultimate Flatness: A Treatise on the Necessity and Preferability of and Correct Technique for Lapping Metal Plane Soles in the 21st Century
- How to Avoid Dogmatism in on-line Woodworking Forums: 10 Must-Follow Rules
- The Anal-Retentive Woodworker’s Guide to Shop Organization and Wood Scrap Management
- Self-Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder using Power Tools and Plywood
- Yes, You Can Biscuit!
- Stupid Router Tricks for Fun and Profit
- Pimp Your Thickness Planer
- Sawdust is Edible! A Green Earth Recycling(TM) Cookbook
- The Savvy Internet User’s Authoritative Guide to Proper Finishes for Wooden Cutting Boards and Countertops
- Free-Hand Tablesaw Techniques
Repeat Customer: The buyers Guide to Cheap Tools
MDF The Other Hard Wood
Building Pallets Using Only Old Furniture
How to Safely Catch a Falling Chisel, And other Pointy Stuff
Handbook of Useless Woodworking Gizmos
Finding the Real Gems At Harbor Freight
A Study of Quality Chinese Hand Tools
The Ten Finger Myth, Why Nine is Better
"Restoring, Tuning and Hoarding Classic Woodworking Tools"
"Workbenches: from Design and Theory to Redesign and More Theory"
"Soul of an MDF Factory"
"The Complete Guide to Complete Guides to Ultimately Building the Ultimate Shop"
"Out-of-print Books on Antique Tools: a Collector’s Guide"
"Misunderstanding Wood"
The classic trilogy:
A Tool Collector’s Notebook
The Fine Art of Tool Collecting
The Impractical Tool Collector
"Annual Chisel Rack and Saw Till Edition"
Flesh resistant handsaw filing ideas.
By The Powertool Association of America.
These titles should be banned forever:
The Illustrated Guide to Woodworking Injuries
Make a Chair from a Balsa Wood Tree
The Treadle Saw Primer by Christopher Schwarz (The video for this will be banned in all states but Arkansas)
Fine Furniture from OSB
A personal favorite, written by my spouse:
"Why I Spent Over $5000 on Rusty Block Planes, Yet Refused to Let Go of $375 for a Pristine #1 Stanley" – by Al Navas
I’m appointing myself judge. My favorite:
"Bang Your Thumb Slowly and Other Shop Wisdom"
Please send Archae the free autographed copy of "Still More Craft Fair Crap"
too funny!
.0003 tolerance – A woodworking odyssey
A woodworkers primer to electron microscopes
Creating tight joints with a $1300 miter saw the way they used to with a $20 handplane
Woodworking by the sea side. Vol 1 Setting up shop on the shoreline
Vol 2 Tide tables for dummies
The practical guide to hiding new tool purchases from your spouse
Designing and building better toothpicks
Heirloom furniture build with popsicle sticks
The complete illustrated tool guide and price list for Dollar Store tools
Woodworking on a budget : A complete guide to re-mortgaging your house
Confession of a tool porn addict
A wood hacker guide to the galaxy
Grow your own MDF trees
The plane flat sole society guide to sole lapping (comes with a 5 micron sheet of sandpaper)
Reverse engineering 101 : Build a tree from a chair.
How to add a laser guides to almost any tools and accessories
This is a hoot, I love this thread
Bob
Solving the Energy Crisis — How to convert 1500 watts into 6.5 HP. by Sears & Roebuck
"The Impractical Clogmaker"
"’#!$#&(*@!!!!’ and Other Memorable Woodworking Quotes"
"A Backbreaking Work of Splintering Locust"
"Kickback: The _True_ Story of Bernie Madoff’s Tablesaw"
"Horsepower: A History of the American Glue Factory"
"Knot in the Crotch!: Confessions of a Boxing Bodger"