The Complete Manual of Wood Bending: Milled, Laminated, and Steambent Work

After getting in over my head, I bought three wood bending books: this one (Schleining), Zachary Taylor's "Wood Bender's Handbook" and "Fine Woodworking on Bending Wood." Taylor is slightly more recent, but it omits many pertinent aspects. For example, he doesn't cover milling (cutting) or coopering (low-angle joints) wood as a way to obtain curves, and he gives little attention to some practical aspects, such as drawing plans. Taylor is relatively superficial and focused on making musical instruments. The Fine Woodworking book is spotty (magazine articles from 1975-1984) and covers many advanced topics (e.g. Lapstrake boatbuilding, tapered laminations, violin making). Schleining is by far the best choice for the intermediate-level amateur that needs advice from someone with a lot of practical experience. His sidebars and outlines really help a woodworker make good decisions. He gives extremely helpful details on glueing, jigs, and routing. He shies away from steam-bending, because it gives such variable results, but he finds that it can often be combined profitably with follow-up milling or laminating. He gives superb practical advice on which machine to use in what combination, he has excellent jig plans, and many hard-won safety recommendations. He does not provide project plans (Taylor does for oval boxes, walking sticks, boat ribs, and chair backs). Luthiers will enjoy this book, but also find more detail in the other two.

Overall great resource with a ton of information. The only area of disappointment was the absence of any plans or projects. I also would have liked to see examples of bending jigs or forms; otherwise I would have rated it four stars.

Good book on bending. It covers a lot, and I have already used some of the methods with success. This is detailed enough to get you going if you've never bent wood before, but have general wood experience. I find it almost too detailed, as I already understand the characteristics of wood grain and how it behaves. But, I recommend it to all.

I bought 3 books on Wood Bending and this was a nice one as well, great illustrations and showing methods to make bending wood easier and with less waste of wood.Must get for those wanting to learn bout bending wood

Great book! Informative outline at the beginning gives the bullet points for each method; the body is chock full of details.

Good manual for those who makes chairs, etc.

This book is a good book for wood bending, but not as good as the other book by the same author Lon Schleining: Wood Bending Made Simple.The book is detailed and descriptive, but lucks good pictures in colour and the CD, which helps a lot and gives more real sense of the techniques used and the wood.I will recommend to purchase the book if you need all the basics and do not need support of a CD.

I have worked in wood projects and art since college and wanted to expand my knowledge foe future projects.