This comprehensive guide is an invaluable resource for both new and experienced woodturners. It covers all aspects of woodturning, from working with the lathe and tools to preparing wood and planning your designs.

Woodturning expert Carol Rix answers the questions most commonly asked by turners and will tell you everything you ever wanted to know, including:

- Choosing and buying a lathe
- Setting up your workshop
- Sharpening and maintaining tools
- Identifying and preparing timbers
- Basic turning techniques
- Finishing turned work
- Advanced techniques

Carol Rix has been a woodworker since childhood. A scholl teacher for many years, Carol became a professional woodturner in 2001, working mainly with locally salvaged and recycled timbers on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Austrailia. Now she combines the things she loves most: teaching, writing and woodwork.

Both new and experienced woodturners will appreciate this guide to woodturning, which covers everything from using a lathe and wood-making tools to planning designs. Carol Rix is a woodturning expert: her years of experience enhance a discussion which covers everything from setting up a workshop and choosing and maintaining tools to basic turning techniques and projects – all packed with color photos throughout to illustrate each step. Any newcomer to woodturning, as well as crafts-oriented libraries, will want this.

Rix goes from setting up, to basic tools, to advanced work. All along are beautiful pieces to inspire, and a gallery of ideas under 'planning and design.' There are practice projects for end grain and face grain work, with detailed action shots so the reader can view the sequence of cuts in the author's procedures. She outlines the uses of each tool, with cautions and tips to avoid trouble. She discusses grain direction and lathe speeds, reverse chucking, jam chucking, sanding and finishing. She has a chapter on sharpening and one on using shop-built jigs. There is a nice glossary of terms with thumbnail photos to illustrate differnt items.
Rix shows examples of decorated surfaces, carving, piercing and burning. One chapter goes 'beyond the circle' with nested work, off-center turning, natural edged work and cut shapes. The author shows her own work and draws from the work of others to create a book rich with ideas, tips, and a lifetime of woodturning