Understanding Wood Finishing by Bob Flexner


rodger.

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Just received this today via Canada post, though I ordered it before Christmas. It was back ordered for a while.

This book was 22.00 CDN on chaptersindigo.ca. The sticker price is 31.95.

When I got the book from th mailbox I poured a cup of coffee with the intention to just "pre-read" or flip though it. 2 hours later I am writing this review.

This book is incredible and worth every nickle. The author goes through excruciating detail on some topics that are common areas of work for woodworkers (differences in finishes, best application methods, common problems and fixes). Lots of great photos and clearly defined ideas and methods.

Should have bought this book years ago. Go get one!

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-pug

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The updated Flexner is a good foundation text. Just a note: even the new ‘completely updated’ version is now rather dated in places. Some of the techniques, workflows and a few products presented are now obsolete or have been superseded… Once you make it through Flexner, I’d get Charles Neil’s new book – it presents some newer thinking, but it’s not a foundation text – you need something like Flexner, Jewitt, Dresdner, etc before you tackle Neil…

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The updated Flexner is a good foundation text. Just a note: even the new ‘completely updated’ version is now rather dated in places. Some of the techniques, workflows and a few products presented are now obsolete or have been superseded… Once you make it through Flexner, I’d get Charles Neil’s new book – it presents some newer thinking, but it’s not a foundation text – you need something like Flexner, Jewitt, Dresdner, etc before you tackle Neil…

Does neil have more than one text? Or is there just "the neil book"?

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==>This has inspired me to want the finishing A to Z dvd set

I'm a big fan of CN, but some might not get the most from his "throw-out as much as you can and see what sticks" style... Production values are very hit-or-miss…

 

For the novice, there are almost always two, or more, layers occurring at the same time… It can be a bit frustrating… He doesn’t work to a tight script – it’s more like a grad seminar where ideas need to be integrated by the viewer… But if you watch a section, then get some hands-on experience, and then re-watch the relevant section; you’ll get far more from the DVDs…

 

 

For the experienced, the real gems are his off-the-cuff, non-sequitur and throw-away remarks – when he says something that doesn’t sound like it fits with the topic and chuckles a bit – stop the disk, rewind about two minutes and listen again very carefully – you just missed a kernel of knowledge gleaned from forty years as a professional finisher… There are a lot of levels to his DVDs – he tosses information out as it comes into is head… There are some real lessons-learned buried in the DVDs, but interspersed with novice info, so you’ve got to work to get it… But it’s there…

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I agree it's a good book. Those of you following my other posts know I'm working on my first "real" project, and this book helped me wade though all of the options and narrow things down to what made sense for me and the look I was going for.

That way I only had two or three finishes to try before committing to one.

I'm sure I'll reference it for many projects to come. Totally worth it.

By the way, anyone have his "Finishing 101" book? Reviews?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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