Thread: Best book/s on finishing

Originally Posted by Arron

Hi. Can I have recommendations on the best book for finishing. I want something simple and practical and local.

I have seen many recommendations for 'A Polisher Handbook'. The title scares me off a little. Is it still the best. Any other recommendations.

Simple? How simple do you want? A "do this then do that" book that doesn't really teach you anything... or this book which explains why you do this, then do that...?

Practical? What's more practical than a book designed to be used in the workshop rather than just be another reference book which rarely gets taken off the shelf?

Finally... you can't get much more local. The names it uses are all Aussie, not some medieval English reference (when was the last time you saw Coltsfoot or Tincture of Anise for sale?) or obscure US/German/Czech brand name.

Buy it. You'll like it. (I gotta order another one myself... sadly, they're not indestructible. )

What Skew said - and you will be supporting the guy that lets us play on this forum.

Originally Posted by Arron

I have seen many recommendations for 'A Polisher Handbook'.

Arron,

You will probably get a biased opinion here, as that book is written by the owner of this forum, but that being said the book is great and well written (Is my nose brown enough yet) I got mine for my birthday this year, was the best present I got.

Dont let the title scare you neil explains it all very well, and what you cant understand just post a message here and you can have the author answer your questions, what more could you ask for...

When I first got back into woodwork I wasn't aware of this site or Neil's book. I bought "Understanding Wood Finishing: How to Select and Apply the Right Finish" by Bob Flexner. I found this immensely useful as it is an excellent description and overview of the many options available for finishing wood. And it is definitely a book that gets taken off my bookshelf quite a bit.

At this year's Sydney WWW show I bought A Polisher's Handbook from the U-Beaut stall. As with the others who posted here, I found it incredibly useful as it would have to be the most practical approach to teaching how to finish wood that I've seen (and I did a lot of research into wood finishing books before buying Flexner's book). I started tagging important pages with sticky notes but gave up because pretty much every page needed a tag.

Flexner's book is not as practically useful as Neil's, but the combined information from the two books certainly made me much, much better informed about wood finishing. Unfortunately they haven't made me a much, much better wood finisher And Neil's book has plenty of jokes to cheer you up when you've stuffed up the finish

I second both of these books - they compliment each other very well, as Bob gets right amongst the theory as well as being an accomplished finisher, and Neil's has a grerat in-the-workshop approach. They have so much information that a re-read every now and then is advisable. Try here for good prices and dependable service:

http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm

"Understanding Wood Finishing" by Bob Flexner is a good read.
more directed at teaching you what each breed of finish is and exactly what it does to the wood fibres.
I found that I have a much better success rate since reading it. I also now ignore 95% of the instructions on the bottles, cans, whathaveyou.

Have you downloaded Neil's talk on finishing from our Video section of the forums? If not, i suggest you do.

Then order that book. It's the best.

Buy 'the bible', read it, pour shellac all over it, read it again, drip some shellawax on it, read it again and repeat.

... and after it becomes a very solid poster - stick it up on the wall in the shed - great piece of Shed Art... then go buy yourself another copy

- good subject for practicing picture frames

Neil's book in my experience is useful but as a restorer rather than finisher it wouldn't be my first choice. That said, it captures a heap of experience, and yes the terms are local, but for a restorer you have to do a deal of digging.