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Reviews

This book really takes the mystery out of making an open segment vessel. My first attempt came out great thanks to having read this book.

This book is well written and targeted specifically towards Open Segmented Turning. If that is what you're after than this will be a valuable addition. Tim

I was intrigued by the possibility of turning a bowl with "holes" in it, so I purchased this book. Mostly out of curiosity... "How do they do that?" was my question. This book shows the process in very helpful steps with good pictures and jig ideas. It's not my "go-to" book for wood turning by any means, because the open segmented style is not my favorite. But I do intend to add some of these elements to my turning over time. I'm glad I bought the book.

I was fortunate enough to see a live demo that the author gave at my turning club's meeting. Prior to that, I hadn't had much interest in open-segmented turning. It's not that I didn't think it was interesting, I just didn't think I had the equipment needed for such precise work, or the patience or time needed to devote to it. But seeing Bill's work, as well as seeing how easy he makes it to do this type of work, changed my mind completely! I immediately bought a copy of his book (which is a steal considering the detail he put into it, and how well written it is!) and set about making my first piece, following the example he includes in the book. My friends and family were amazed when they saw this first piece and encouraged me to do more of them! And I couldn't believe how easy it was to do. My hat is off to Bill. He's a great demonstrator, and does a phenominal job putting that skill into words and pictures. This book is a must own for any turner! Be sure to check out the author's website: http://www.smithart.us to learn more about Bill and his work.

This book is very well written and easy to understand. It is the book I recommend to anyone just getting into segmented wood turning. William takes the reader through jig making to final product in a down to earth approach to the subject.

Reviews

I didn't read the reviews before purchasing this book. I agree, it is very technical and there are more books available from Amazon that are easy to follow and worth their purchase price.

This subject matter covered by this book would normally be of interest to most wood turners, but it is a real pity it is so poorly presented. The text does not live up to the pictures on the front cover. In short this book is a sequence of pictures and because none of them have a single caption, it is almost unreadable (if not exceedingly frustrating) dispite many attempts to extract something from the book. The pictures, for example have a reference, e.g., Fig 3.2 in bold, but the text has not bold reference to the figure so if you come across a picture that appears interesting, it takes many minutes to look through the text for a reference to the figure, in time you will give up. Don't waste your money - if you want a good book that covers just about all the topics covered in this book and has far better ways of holding the work, then have a look at Tibbet's book, Segmented Turning....that is a gem of a book. Alex

I am really surprised this book is still in print. I purchased it thinking I would at least get a few new ideas on advanced techniques and perhaps some real interesting gallery photos to reference for inspiration. I was a bit disappointed. Jack Cox is obviously an extremely talented mathematician and a talented turner as well, but the book proves itself difficult to follow and a bit too obscure. Much of the information, while interesting if you can understand it after reading it several times, is outdated. There are many other books out there on advanced turning and a few on segmented turning, I have all that have been in print in the last twenty years and would recommend ANY of them over this book. It seems to be too complex and hard to follow with little in the way of "user friendly" instructions....Sorry Jack. You are talented, have someone else help write the next book.

I was looking for a book to enable me to take the next step in segmented turning. The book I desired should feature jigs and techniques used to make laminated, coopered, and cut compound angled segments. I feel that "Beyond Basic Turning" by Jack Cox to have fallen fell well short of the mark.I found the documentation wordy, and extremely difficult to follow. This book was written more along the lines of a high school calculus or algebra book than a book on turning (and it was just about as interesting).Numerous references in the documentation to figures, tables, and photos arranged haphazardly through the book required that I constantly flip back and forth between pages while reading. This was very distracting.As far as the jigs the author uses to assemble his turnings; I've seen less complicated structures used in the space shuttle.I attribute this book's total failure on getting the author's point across to its relative age. This book is approximately 10 to 15 years out of date. Numerous advances such as desk top computers (for spreadsheets), hand held calculators, and high quality after market miter gauges for saws, make these arduous tasks much easier than as detailed in this bookAfter attempting to read the entire book on 3 separate occasions, I gave up. It now exists as a monument to never buying a book without actually reading a detailed review, or physically picking it up in a store.

Book is very much into engineering math. I only had 1 year of algbera and I would have spent all of my time trying to figure it out and not making anything. I returned the book.