Did you know? The three most fundamental and essential tools can't be bought. Sanding is the slowest, most tedious, and most counterproductive way to prepare a surface for the clearest, richest finish. The absolute strongest bends are made without bending the wood. A scrap of tarpaper and a chunk of scrap wood comprise one of the most precise layout tools available to a woodworker. There is no such thing as a mistake in woodworking. Well, neither did I when I started working wood more than 30 years ago. But I sure wish I had learned these and a host of other essential woodworking concepts and techniques a lot sooner than I did - it would have saved me much anguish and frustration. However, I wasn't able to learn these fundamentals from books, shop classes, or TV woodworkers.

Instead, I was fortunate enough to work with and learn from members of the last generation of traditionally apprenticed cabinetmakers and boat builders. The 60 essential lessons from the trade that I have recorded in this book are the first things I teach to my own kids in the hope that they will enjoy, as I have, a life of working wood with immeasurable pleasure, passion and purpose - and a minimum of wicked awful mistakes. Jim Tolpin.