When you purchase a new bench plane, it would be nice to have a woodworking professional right in your workshop to explain how to best use it. What's the most efficient way to sharpen and hone the blade? Are there adjustments to make for top performance? What are the correct techniques for using my new bench plane? The Missing Shop Manual: Bench Planes delivers all the information you need--and brings Ernie Conover right into your shop to explain it. Includes a 55 minute DVD. A complete overview of bench planes and their accessories from master woodworker Ernie Conover. I love woodworking. I'm not great at it - I figure it'll take me another 15+ years to hit that magic 10,000 hour mark in the shop to reach an expert's level of craftsmanship. But in the meantime, I try to always have something going on in the shop that either allows me to learn a new skill or get a bit more practice with an older one. Right now, I'm enjoying learning how to properly use my router table. I know how to use a router as a stand-alone device, but the table is going to allow me to branch out and really do some interesting stuff. But mounting the router underneath the table brought with it some questions that required me to dig out the router manual a big white heap of pages that answered my question but not with a lot of enjoyment. I've done this in the past, breaking out my stack of manuals to remind myself how to tune my table saw or replace the blade correctly in my band saw. The operator manuals that come with tools are definitely useful, but they have one glaringly obvious drawback - the manual will tell you how to properly and safely operate a tool, but it won't tell you how to really use it. You won't get the advice that a pro can offer when you're first getting your feet wet with a new tool (well, unless you have access to a few pros). This is exactly the situation I found myself in when I first purchased my circular saw, my table saw, my band saw, and my router. I tell you all this so you'll understand (and not poke too much fun at me) why I grabbed the box from the UPS guy and beat a path to my man cave to tear into the care package sent to me from Fox Chapel Publishing. They've got books on a lot of different subjects from Mennonite Cookbooks to Sewing to Winemaking to Woodburning. But it's their woodworking titles that make me drool, with subjects ranging from furniture making to pinewood derby cars. Tucked in the box were ten little books I've been itching to read and review, and I've just completed the entire set after just a little over a week. If that sounds like a lot of reading in a short time, rest assured that these ten little books are short, easy to read, and sure to be of interest to anyone who has stared at a power tool and wondered how to operate it, how to maintain it, and ultimately how best to use it. The series is called The Missing Shop Manual, and while I certainly hope the library continues to grow, you'll likely find at least one of the books that matches a tool in your shop maybe more. The series claims you'll wish this was the manual that originally came with your insert-tool-name-here. I can't speak for all ten books as I've not yet got a jointer, shaper, or lathe (my wife is grimacing right now as she realizes I don't yet have all the tools I really want), but I can tell you that the claim holds true for my band saw (2-page manual, I kid you not), my router (a bit better manual, but no actual usage examples), and my drill press (a little better with a 3-page manual but half of it was warnings and troubleshooting steps). I'll go ahead and say it - I wasn't really certain how much these little books (most of them averaging less than 150 pages) were going to really help me when I started reading. But after completing the Router and Table Saw books, I couldn't stop smiling. I had already picked up on some of the advice in these books, but there was new stuff in there (to me). Stuff I know I would likely never have figured out without someone with experience telling me. But since I typically work alone and am of the I'll-figure-it-out-on-my-own mentality, I tend to make mistakes often. That's how I learn, I guess. But let's take the Band Saw book, for example. I thought using a band saw was pretty straight forward. I knew how to operate it, how to tighten the blade, and how to do a few tricky cuts. But I never thought to check the blade wheel alignment. I guess the manufacturer just figured it would be perfect from the factory. (Wrong.) This little book even showed me how to test for (and fix) an out-of-round blade wheel. There was zero mention of this in the manufacturer's manual fortunately my blade wheels were round but the alignment was a bit off. I fixed it per the book's instructions and did a test cut on a piece of hardwood that had been giving me trouble. Immediate improvement that I could tell just by feel. I can go on with more examples. The Circular Saws and Jig Saws book (two tools in on