Just about everything you need to know about finishing from basics to advanced is covered. Every topic is illustrated with full-color photos and line drawings when needed.

Plenty of hints, off-page references and guidance.

Topics are covered in anywhere from a half-page with three photos to whole chapters. Jeff and his wife, Susan, the photographer, have gone out of their way to show every process and product talked about. Every chapter is organized the same way, which may be the way of Taunton's new, "Complete Illustrated Guide to..."

If you are only going to buy one book on finishing, or if you have a whole shelf full, you need to buy and read this book.

Great job, Jeff and Susan!

Now that I have a bit more time, I thought the table of contents would be interesting and tell more about the wealth of information in this book:
1) The finishing environment
2) Tools for surface preparation
3) Finishing Tools
4) Preparing Flat Surfaces
5) Preparation of Curved and Complex Surfaces
6) Fixing defects
7) Stain Basics and Application
8) Glazes, Padding Stains and Toners
9) Natural Dyes, Chemical Stains and Bleaches
10) Controlling Color
11) Filling Pores
12) Sealers
13) Choosing a Finish
14) Reactive finishes (including new conversion finishes)
15) Evaporative finishes

16) Water-Based Finishes
17) Rubbing out Finishes

37 of 37 found the following review helpful:


May not be the best book for beginners  Nov 15, 2006 By Caleb James
This book lives up to its name. It is "complete". If you are looking for a straight forward explination of how to do certain finishes this is not the book for you. The book is around 300 pages and you can expect to read most of the pages before you get a good idea of how to "completely" finish a project. This is more like a college text book rather then a finishing guide for dumbies. For me I like this kind of approach since I want to know why I am doing a certain process rather than just what is the next step in a finising process like a french polish for example. The only reason I didn't give this a five star is that the explinations are not very clearly stated. Like I said you have to do alot of reading of different sections before you can put things together. I hope this helps someone to decide if this is the book for them.

38 of 40 found the following review helpful:


The current BEST of the finishing books  Jan 24, 2005 By AK
I've read a bunch of finishing books in search of the perfect finish. This book is by far the most thorough, best organized book out there. The quality of the images and illustrations are outstanding and the books is packed full of useful information. I love all of the high quality images they use to show you errors in finishes and then go on to show you how to resolve the problems. They give pluses and minuses of each finishing technique and show you the best ways to apply them. All in all, A GREAT BOOK.

13 of 13 found the following review helpful:


A beautifull book, a little disorganized.  Jan 09, 2007 By E. Weber "woodworker"
Overall this book cover everything you need to know about finishing.
It is illustrated with wonderfull color pictures.

The text is clear and complete, it cover methods appropriate for the hobyist up to the industrial shop.

All the aspect of finishing are addressed.
If I had to buy one book about finishing that would be the one.

I would have given it 5 start if the book was organized in a more chronological fashion. I would have put the section talking about would conditioning, filling pores etc before the staining which would in my opinion would have make the reading easier.


13 of 14 found the following review helpful:


Not well Organized  Apr 10, 2007 By Jay H. "Eclectic"
Unlike the other books in the Taunton's series, this one seems to jump around. The presentation is complex. This book may be useful to a more advanced woodworker. As a novice I found it daunting. It is, with out a doubt very thorough.

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