The Handyman's Book

Paul N. Hasluck

Reviewed by:

Ken Greenberg

In the early days of the 20th century, people in the United Kingdom seemed to have come up with an unusual compulsion to publish books containing everything known about a subject, or even everything known about all subjects. I have one of the latter, brought back from Hay-on-Wye. It covers everything from how to educate your children and pick a wife (presumably not in that order) to how to prevent and cure all known diseases. Paul Hasluck's The Handyman's Book reminded me very much of this guide to all knowledge, albeit restricted to what every man ought to be able to make around his own home. Even in paperback, it is a massive tome - 742 pages and 2,545 illustrations. This is not suitable for bedtime reading (as is my habit) not so much due to the weight as that it is about as entertaining as reading an encyclopedia. In my estimation, that is its best use, although it takes pains on occasion to point out that it is structured with increasing complexity, thus making it suitable for use as course material for self-taught home woodworkers. Perhaps, but none of us would live long enough to make it through the projects.

It starts out with about 125 pages on tools themselves, covering a wide variety of tools in several chapters. It them moves on to "project supplies", including a rather nice description of wood and how trees work. Given that we understand tools and wood, we can move on to joinery, and the book provides a good introduction to the basic joints. You are now 225 pages in, and it's time to move on to some actual woodworking. It starts out with simple projects like breadboards, and moves on to some complex furniture. Along the way are a few detours for such everyday needs as backyard poultry coops. Who knew there were so many? And ferret houses? There is a chapter on turning once all the straight-line projects are done, as well as a little trip through rustic carpentry. As I said, Hasluck tries to touch all bases here.

Much of the last half of the book is devoted to furniture. The chapters are arranged by rooms of the house - offices, libraries, and studies are in one chapter. This is followed by chapters on kitchen furniture, hall furniture, bedroom furniture, and drawing room furniture. Frankly, the furniture may vary in complexity somewhat, but it is pretty much all in one style. If you like English furniture circa 1903, then you will have many projects to complete after working your way through the text. For the rest of us, it becomes tedious quickly. I fund that I pretty much ran through the pictures, skipping all those pesky words until I saw something that was either interesting or that I had no idea how to build. I then read the text associated with those projects. This approach allowed me to get through the book in only a few weeks (and I am a very fast reader when I can stay awake).

To sum up a bit, there is useful information here, but you have to work at it. I'm happy to have the book and thankful that I found it in a used book shop, although even new ones are fairly inexpensive. There are a few clever projects I might build some day, like the combination chair and ladder. I've seen these at Biltmore, and thought they were a pretty good idea then. I got some ideas on how to build fences and gates from that chapter of this book as well. So it was a good investment, although much of the introductory material was information I already knew. While not the most experienced woodworker in the world, I have been using hand tools extensively for ten years or so. Someone with less experience could probably get more out of that material than I could. The obvious comparison here is to the pair of Bernard Jones books from the same publisher. I find I rather prefer the Practical Woodworker/Complete Woodworker pair as an alternative, since it seems to cover things in somewhat better detail. It also covers furniture (and airplanes, which had not quite been invented when this book was written) but has more of a focus on techniques. I prefer my own designs which are quite different from Mr. Hasluck's, so much of this book was wasted on me. I'm happy to have it in the library, though. You never know when a ferret might show up.