This is a pretty impressive book. Instead of focusing on the specifics of a few common finishing topics the author provides a fairly broad and comprehensive coverage of the topic. The author's approach is to educate the reader about the primary differences between various finishing options and products since the marketing efforts of many products obscure these details. This effort has the affect of breaking down the wide variety of options into a few structure categories from which the reader can then weigh the pros and cons of any specific choices to be made.
This book will likely remain on my shelf as a reference and I even found myself referencing back to certain topics before I had completely finished reading the entire book (given that this books is more structured as a reference I am not sure I would recommend reading it cover to cover). Through out the book the author interjects safety tips as well as dispels common myths.
As good as this book is I do have a few criticisms. First, despite the effort to boil down the wide variety of commercial products into their categories I wish the author had provided a more concise guide of the pros and cons of each categories as well as the identifying features for each category. I have often found myself at the hardware store needing to purchase a finishing product and wishing I had remembered these details. My other criticisms is of the quality of the printing. The price of my hard cover version was fairly affordable however, this seems to come at the cost of the printing. Being a reference book I think I would prefer a book that would seemingly hold up to decades of use. However, my copy of the book creeks every time I open it which worries me that it will fall apart at some point.
The author is regarded as one of the best for wood finishing. The author's book Wood Finishing 101: The Step-by-Step Guide also seems to be highly recommended (however, I have yet to read this book).
I would highly recommend this book as a reference for any situations in which you may want to compare various finish types or staining/color options available. This book can transform a woodworker that knows next to nothing about finishing to someone that knows more than the average woodworker does on the subject.
I would further strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in using Linseed oil, wax, or salad bowl finishes on their projects since this book does a good job of comparing these finishes to more modern finishes as well as dispelling the myths about salad bowl finishes.
Pages: 308 Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing ISBN-13: 978-1565235489