Hybrid Woodworking: Blending Power & Hand Tools for Quick, Quality Furniture (Popular Woodworking)

I got into power tools a while ago without a huge budget, and often felt limited in what I could do without some of the more expensive, high quality machines I couldn’t afford or fit in my shop. I casually mentioned these limitations to my father one day, who pointed out that my great grandfather spent his life as a cabinetmaker without using a single power tool. Seems obvious but it just clicked for me that anything is possible when you go back to the roots of this craft.This book was exactly what I needed to help me balance the use of both power and hand tools—not so much for the sake of doing things the right or wrong way, but for the purpose of getting the best possible results with what I have at my disposal. Though the focus of the book is not so much about supplementing large, high quality power tools you can’t afford (if you watch Marc’s YouTube channel, you know he has pretty much the dream power tool assortment) it was helpful to me in this regard, and has allowed me to expand my capabilities using hand tools I previously disregarded.Marc is a great source of knowledge, and this book was a helpful expansion on the valuable information he shares for free on YouTube.

I've just started woodworking as a new hobby. I've got most of the power tools I need, but this book gave me some great ideas of how to make better projects by incorporating hand tools. I need to pickup a few more of them.

Its good, to be fair its almost entirely the same subjects he's covered in his podcast but it does have more detail. I would rate the first 1/2 of the book as a must read for anyone thinking about getting into woodworking as it applies to furniture building. It has some really good advice on how to decide what equipment to buy based on you desires and budgets and its easy reading. If you like Marks podcast then you'll be fine with this book

If you are new to woodworking, read this book first. Or maybe Woodworking for Dummies, then this book, if you're totally new. It will save you a lot of money and eliminate spending money on tools that duplicate functions. There are a million ways to do everything in woodworking with basic tools and a few jigs. Marc does a excellent presentation on what you absolutely need to scratch your initial woodworking bug, and then where to go from there. I'll admit I bought some of the specialized hand tools he said could be put of just so my shop wall looked cool, but with his advise I made my shop set up work really well for the dollars spent, and I can do just about anything I need to with exactness. I will add other tools as I go along to speed up some processes, but don't need to. The Hybrid Woodworking style he describes is exactly what I was looking for. I am NOT going into business. This book showed me how to stretch my initial investment to get a set of tools that gets the job done without being frustrated.

Including step by step directions with pictures I feel I can even tackle making a bed now! 🤣 But I won’t. My husband has enjoyed looking through it and the kids have marked what they want built.

As a self taught new generation "internet woodworker", I don't buy many woodworking books. It's not my preferred format and there is simply too much good freely available info out there that I generally don't pick up enough from them to justify not putting the money towards tools instead. Being a big fan of Marc's wood whisperer stuff and having read positive reviews from other woodworking names I respect I decided to buy this book however. I'd already come to the same conclusion as Marc on my own, my power tools are nice but I can't get the level of accuracy I'd like out of them and learning how to use good quality hand tools is the answer for that last 5-10%. Took me a few days to read through this book and I'm glad I bought it. It's an easy read with a good level of detail of what Marc uses for his work, how, why, and what tools you really need. I learned several clever new tricks and have added a router plane to my tool wish list!

I'm still pretty new to woodworking beyond the shop classes I took 20 years ago and have mostly read about turning, but this book is, in my opinion, brilliant. First, Marc clearly knows what he's doing and how to pass pass that along. He combines clear teaching and humor which I like. But most of all I like the concept of using power tools like apprentices for grunt grunt work and hand tools for finness work. My only real real complaint is that it's the only one. Maybe a sequel with more variations or or something at some point. Also, Marc seems like a stand up guy who cares more about the the craft than himself and and his ego which is refreshing in a day when everyone is most concerned about number one.

I listen to the author Mark on the Woodtalk Podcast all the time, so when I read this book, its like Mark is speaking to me personally. This book is so well done, and well written that I just can't say enough good about it. I've been working with power tools for a long time, but over the last couple of years I have strived to improve the quality of my projects, and one of the ways I've done that is by incorporating hand tools into the process. This book has become a valuable resource in achieving the results I was hoping for. Well done Mark, and keep up the good work.