Thread: Reading material - furniture making

Hi Dan , Here is a must have . It covers a lot more than Victorian and Edwardian and its about understanding the qualities within each style from poor or average up to the brilliant . How it relates to its value as an antique. It teaches a lot about proportion by comparison . Its very good. There are a lot of editions of it and the first ones are a much smaller book .

This is the latest addition I have . Ive got some of the early ones as well . Not sure how much different later ones are. I cant believe the price on these ones ! so cheap !
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-sear...uthor/andrews/

Read a bit about it here as well.
https://www.bookdepository.com/Briti.../9781851496761

It doesn't cover construction though.

Charles H Hayward is some very good reading on construction with good detailed plans as well. Late Georgian to early Victorian almost . Good quality designs.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Antique-...EAAOSwke9aGY1e

He did other books as well. I don't have them all but the ones I do have are all very good.

https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_...yward&_sacat=0



If I may ramble on a bit
I bought a lot of books on the subject but nothing teaches like inspecting the real thing . Its scattered in books, and MEGA amounts have not been put in books. The style changes and design possibilities, the aesthetics of period furniture I picked plenty up from books , Auction catalogues , Antique shops and auction rooms.
The construction details , the finer points, I stuck my head in the actual furniture. Endlessly .
As an example, there are three or four different ways to make and fit a back on a Victorian bookcase from the 1840 period , same amount of ways the drawer could be made , same as for how to make the shelves adjustable , same as to how to build the cornice and its mouldings. Two or three ways the panels and glass can be held in place. And forty years later this had changed , most, not all had started to get faster and cheaper as it was heading towards the Edwardian period . And it was changing as time went back as well . So that's a bookcase . How about chest of drawers . Same thing with even more options. Or dinning Tables . Side tables. Card tables . Sofa tables . Library tables . All have three or four ways of doing each part of construction from the best to the average to poor even, which was always evolving .

If you see a book on how to build a Victorian bookcase from 1840, It will show one or two ways maybe on how to build one from that date right maybe . Books on that info don't exist in the detail that exists in the actual furniture . Its not endless . And no one ever stops leaning or seeing something new as well .

I did slow right down on book buying around eight or ten years back though. And I see a lot of new stuff from the US has been written since then, as well as English stuff. So try have a look at some of that later info.



Rob

Hi Rob,
Thanks for the detailed reply. I do try and get eyes on as much as possible but between a full time job and 4 little ones I don't get out enough.
Having a look at the links you posted they are exactly the kind of thing I was after, I won't be getting a whole bookcase full but i like flicking through a hard copy while "watching" T.V. with the minister of finance
I've only really started my woodworking journey in the last couple of years so I'm still trying to get my head around the definitions between styles (Although it's obviously a gradual thing not a hard line), and just really want to build a base of knowledge to start from.
For most of my other hobbies I like to pick a project that I have no idea how to complete and just work it through, so it will likely be the same for woodworking. No better way to learn but I just need the image in my head first.
Again, thanks for the links, a 2011 printing of the first one has made it on to the birthday list.

Dan

this is another good resource Illustrated Cabinetmaking - Lee Valley Tools for a large number of design styles it covers how the various components might best be joined together.

Not a book, but a blog that contains very detailed construction information about seventeenth and eighteenth century furniture and examples of reproductions being built: https://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/ . You have to go back a bit in time: he was writing a book, got hit by some ransomeware and didn't have a working backup of the manuscript, and stopped working on it, which I think was a huge loss.

Ransomeware developers/peddlers should be hunted down, stripped of their assets, strung up and left for the birds.

But unfortunately I'm a peaceful person so it won't happen.

Dave,
People die from mosquito bites and get eaten by animals now and then, internet fraudsters are no different. He didn't have a working backup.

Greg

Originally Posted by coffeefro

Dave,
People die from mosquito bites and get eaten by animals now and then, internet fraudsters are no different. He didn't have a working backup.

Greg

Well if we rounded up the internet fraudsters and arranged to get them eaten by animals in an arena every now and then everybody wins. The Romans were on to something.

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