Reviews for Making Authentic Shaker Furniture: With Measured Drawings of Museum Classics

The average rating for Making Authentic Shaker Furniture: With Measured Drawings of Museum Classics based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-06-02 00:00:00 Lorraine Mathews Shea's account of the history of the Shakers is almost comically biased, emphasising only the positive aspects of Shaker life without acknowledging that they were, after all, a harmful cult, and bizarrely crediting the Shakers with the invention of dozens of things they had nothing to do with, including the circular sawblade and cut nails. His description of their furniture is somewhat hampered by the fact that he is not a competent furniture-maker, and often doesn't really know what he's looking at or what he should be looking at. The illustrations are good, though (no thanks to Shea; the technical drawings were done by Joseph Romeo (who, incidentally, took a while to understand how dovetails work, leading to few botched cases), and most incidental art (which is actually great) by his daughter-in-law Carol Wright, both of whom are only briefly credited in the introduction), and will certainly serve as usable inspiration. (What sets this book apart from any of the million other books of Shaker furniture diagrams is probably the account of Shaker finishes and how they were made. That's only a short chapter of questionable quality, though, and trying to duplicate those yourself looks like a great way to get cancer/lead poisoning/put on a government watchlist.)

Review # 2 was written on 2016-04-21 00:00:00 Les Herrick More useful as a history of Shaker goods, the plans are decent but made for a community setting and not for private homes in some cases. All photos are black and white but there's a fair number of them.