Time goes on for all, but I would like to list the woodworking greats from whom I learned the most, particularly in the earlier years of my development. These are among the many more from whom I learned and still do.
James Krenov (1920 – 2009): I think there is no more influential woodworker for those who make unique pieces of their own design. His first three books (of five) helped form and guide what I really wanted out of woodworking and where I was going with it. Having only met him once in the early 1980s at a show-and-talk lecture, I still feel his influence in the shop.
Earnest Scott (I cannot find life years) and author group of the book: Working in Wood. I got this book the year it was published, 1980, and from it, I got more serious about woodworking after years of low-key enjoyment. I also moved up to more serious hand-cut joinery as Fine Woodworking Magazine helped me along.
Ian J. Kirby (1932 – 2022): Master woodworker and author of many books and articles. My favorite: Making Joints. Also, he wrote perhaps my all time favorite Fine Woodworking Magazine articles. I would say his theme was: do it correctly and you can do it.
Tage Frid (1915 – 2004): Here was a way to cover most of the woodworking skills I needed. His three books are over 40 years old and I still refer to them. Probably no one taught America woodworking more than Tage Frid.
Bob Flexner (1940 – 2024): There is no more clear, accurate, and complete wood finishing explanation and how-to work to be found than his books and detailed articles. His main book is invaluable. I also use one of his other books of assembled articles
R. Bruce Hoadley (1933 – 2019): a professor of wood science and a member of the Fine Woodworking Magazine group from the start in 1975. His main book, Understanding Wood, first out in 1980 and redone in 2000, did just that for me. I always felt that until I really understood the nature and science of wood, I could not be a good woodworker.
Charles H. Hayward (1898 – 1998): the author/contributor of at least 30 books and hundreds of magazine articles. Yet, it is the little 126 page book, Woodwork Joints (1975), that covered for me so much of hand-cut joinery. I had to study it a lot.
Much of the technique explanations in these early books actually can be updated. Yet we have excellent sources of all sorts – magazines, books, online video and writing, classes, and schools. For me, it was books and FWW magazine that advanced me from hacking on my own.
There was more. From the old A&P supermarket stores, my family got the series of books Mechanix Illustrated How-To-Do-It Encyclopedia 16-volume series from 1961. Lots of woodworking was in the series. I recall lying on the carpet looking at page after page before I went to the basement, sometimes as a little kid with family help.
And I have been enjoying it ever since.
