The Best of Christopher Schwarz CD-ROM – January 27, 2014

I first encountered Christopher Schwarz via his appearances on Roy Underhill's great public TV series "The Woodworker's Shop." Schwarz shares both Underhill's commitment to hand craftsmanship and his offbeat sense of humor; watching and reading him is as entertaining as it is informative. That led me to Popular Woodworking, which Schwarz edited for several years, and where these writings are taken from.While the publisher states that this CD contains "213 of Christopher's best articles," calling them all articles is a bit of a stretch. What you get is a mix of 53 projects, 28 technique articles (some of which contain small projects), several tool reviews, and 62 short editorial columns. The editorial material is mostly just a collection of Schwarz' musings. The real meat is to be found in the project and technique articles, and there's a lot of value to be found there. Even if you just bought this disk for the projects you'd be paying only 28 cents per, which is a lot less than the cost of a single issue of the magazine. If you're a fan of Schwarz, or of hand tool woodworking in general, this is a great way to get a lot of good information at a bargain price.

Awesomeness! A collection of this writer's works just makes sense. Always interesting; always informative; always fun. Not to mention, rather often thought provoking -- in a good (if a bit addicting) kind'a way. What's not to like?!

A wealth of knowledge that has been packaged for quick navigation