5 comments about Shop Drawings for Greene & Greene Furniture: 23 American Arts and Crafts Masterpieces.

1. The two previous reviews by "experienced" craftsmen are laughable at the very least.
   
   A book of shop drawings is that. And this one is one of the best. It is not a tome for beginners or for those who do not have the ability to infer and who do not have spatial orientation necessary to derive results from DRAWINGS.
   
   The two previous reviewers must be very unhappy individuals to have to be led by the nose so much.
   
   As to this book. If you truly are a woodworker, this is a fine reference work. Not only that but it also deals somewhat with the philosophy of woodworking. That is always a good touch.



2. "Shop Drawings" is little more than it says it is. It would have been nice if it were more but it doesn't claim to be. If you have a background similar to Mr. Lang's as I do with drafting, then there is all you need to reproduce the Greene and Greene designs, at least from a dimensional stand point. You will however need to figure out the details on your own or reference some of the magazine articles on reproducing the Greene and Greene furnature. As Mr. Lang states in his book, it's not a how to guide. It's still a very good and informative book however and one you will want if you have visions of building some of this unique furnature.



3. This book is a welcome add to the many showing the arts & crafts furniture designs. The text and drawings are first rate and guide you through the design process. The author certainly has done a complete investigation to put together this fine review of the many arts & crafts furniture era.



4. This has to be the most beautiful book in the series of Arts & Crafts style shop drawings from Robert Lang, and I have them all. I have to say, almost every piece in this book is one where you have to decide that you are going to devote between 6 months and a year of your life to making. I have not yet made this committment, but I already see how reading this book has influenced some of the details on my other work. Gorgeous color plates of these masterpieces are included and everything is printed on archival quality glossy paper. Drawings are clear and descriptive text is concise and well written. Overall I recommend this to any student of Greene and Green (and Peter and John Hall, the craftsmen who actually built most of these pieces for them!)



5. I am a retired old guy who has developed a real love for the Greene & Greene style furniture. I build furniture for family and friends and almost all pieces have some or all of the Greene Brother's styling. This book has a good narrative about the Greene Brother's, quality photos, and outstanding detailed plans. If you love Arts & Crafts furniture design, this book must be on your shelf for ready reference.

5 comments about Veneering: A Foundation Course: Revised Edition.

1. The author of this book surely has a lot of experience with veneering, but in my opinion there are better ways to do things than some of the ways he suggests. For instance he uses regular wood glue (PVA) to apply veneer by letting it dry and then using an iron to reactivate the glue. I would never trust this to hold over the long run and PVA glue is not the best kind of glue to use with veneer anyway. It is to thin and it doesn't dry to a hard glue line so it will allow the veneer to creep with seasonal changes in humidity. He also never mentions using a vacuum press. While a press might not be for beginners, it is the easiest, best way to veneer a flat or curved panel.



2. I found this to be an exellent source of information on Veneering. I have been a woodworker for over 20 years but am just now getting into Veneering....



3. Nice, relaxed writing style. Good information for anyone interested in learning about veneering from the ground up.



4. This is a really, really good book. The format is excellent (color photos, well organized) and he covers all of the important topics including flattening veneer, substrates, shop-made equipment and of course, cutting and fitting veneer.
   
   However, there is a big gap in his coverage: the use of a vacuum press.
   
   I've used a vacuum press numerous times and have excellent results. Mr. Barton, on the other hand, has never wanted to make the capital investment (~$700) in a quality vacuum press and consequently a lot of his projects didn't go well. Because he didn't have success with a retrofitted vacuum cleaner and thin plastic bags (both are inadequate for the task), he ignores a very useful tool.



5. This book is okay. There really aren't that many new books on this subject, and it's cheap, hence the 4 stars. It's worth buying, though more for non-professionals.
   
   I was hoping to learn more than I was able to in this book. This book covers small veneering projects. If you build cabinets, entertainment centers or other large pieces, you'll find better sources for info online.
   
   The section on vacuum pressing was a joke. I feel as if he was forced to include the subject by his editor and he made up the most ghetto vacuum press I've ever seen (don't waste your time or your tools following his instructions). On that subject, don't let some moron try to convince you there is something wrong with a vacuum press. It's simply the only economical way for a small shop to properly adhere veneer, especially on large panels. If you hate excellent results, good tools and modern ways, then avoid the vacuum press.
   
   He also makes strong statements, then ignores them in his projects (I'm thinking about facing MDF, specifically). I turn to books like this to guide me with examples and I lose faith in the authority when they cannot follow their own advice.

5 comments about Expedient Homemade Firearms: The 9mm Submachine Gun.

1. This is a must have for all gun fans. It shows exactly how to build an automatic gun any size from 22 caliber to 12 gauge. Can be built by anyone from simple easily found materials, it looks great too.



2. A very interesting read, simple step by step instructions.If you can obtain the materials & trust the authors word-in no time at all you would probably have a neat little weapon on your hands.



3. As this book clearly states: 'This material is presented for academic study only.' It is clearly illegal to build the gun described in the book. And if you have enough money to pay all the taxes, you don't need to build one, you can go buy a real gun. When I say real, I mean that you'd have more confidence it wouldn't blow up.
   
   Having said that, the academic interest in this gun is just to see how simple it is to build a gun, and in turn, how impossible it is to prevent the manufacture of weapons by simply passing a law.
   
   The particular gun described here is the simplest I've ever seen. It's constructed from commonly available steel tubing. (I didn't realize that so many standard tubing sizes were so close to what was needed for gun building.) Strangely enough, you don't even need a lathe or milling machine for this gun. Everything is made using hand tools such as hacksaw and file. Normally accepted things such as rifling in the barrel and sights are simply eliminated.
   
   One final comment. He uses a series of 'steel collars' in his design. I presume that's a British term. If you look up 'steel collars' on Google you get a bunch of bondage sites. Instead look up 'shaft collars.'



4. Luty lays it out like blueprints with specific and informative instructions. Relatively easy to understand for anyone who knows tools or works well with hands. Carbonized steel is hard to get through with hand tools like Luty describes. Power tools help tremendously and most of you probably have these anyway. They are cheap. (Unless you're like me and only buy Dewalt...)
   Bottom line: if you want to build this, you can. metalsdepot.com is a good location to get most of the parts.



5. A very intresting book explaining the workings of the machine gun with easy to understand text however I dont imagine building one is as straight forward as it seems,an excellant book though.

5 comments about Typographic Design: Form and Communication.

1. I am taking a course right now with Rob Carter. So at the risk of this sounding like a biased review, please know that I'm not the kind of person who allows personal feelings to stand in the way of my opinion on what's good and bad.
   
   Professor Carter's ability to effectively communicate is carried over to this text remarkably. Any obscure questions that I've had regarding typography and design have been answered by him personally and he nearly always pulls this text out to illustrate exactly what he means.
   
   Point is, I'm in my third year in a design program and even the "random, not covered by other professor" topics, are covered in this text.
   
   This is a text that designers will be going back to long after they've obtained their degree and are working in the field. It's a fantastic investment.
   
   --s



2. I had to get this book for school and I have to say it is a great book. It is packed with content and examples. Examples are kept to a minimum instead of plastering every page with 90% examples and 10% text. The content is solid and all of the examples have their place. If you are interested in typography don't pass the book up, it is probably one of the best I have seen.



3. I am so happy that i can buy my books and many many things from amazon with good price and amazon surprised me by sending them to me sooner than i expected it .nice job amazon keep going



4. Got the book for a class im taking. It has a decent history of type and is a good book for a graphic designer.



5. The book is great and if you're into graphic design or even want to understand type.If you're a teacher there are many creative exercises you can get out of this book too that students should enjoy.

3 comments about 5S FOR THE OFFICE: Organizing the Workplace to Eliminate Waste.

1. Being a staff working for a Kaizen Company Toyota, Kaizen was so clear to me, yet through this book I have learned how The 5S can be implemented at administrative jobs Lean Office Demystified



2. After going through a typical 5S/Lean orientation at work, I became frustrated that all of the examples of how to implement the system were geared towards manufacturing and warehouse work. I couldn't understand why the typical office worker should care about 5S or Lean. Needless to say, its implementation in my department languished...until I read "5S for the Office." The authors clearly demonstrate how to apply 5S/Lean principles to any office setting, and, most importantly, provide a CD-ROM with sample forms for companies to use. The authors also anticipate employee reluctance to change, and lay out strategies for rolling out 5S/Lean from the top down.



3. I found this book the most helpful when I implemented 5S in our customer service department. We followed it step-by-step and had great results. Now, every department is benchmarking us and beginning to see that 5S is such a fundamental tool to begin with. 5 stars to the authors!

5 comments about Do-It-Yourself Submachine Gun: It's Homemade, 9mm, Lightweight, Durable-And It'll Never Be On Any Import Ban Lists!.

1. he has great ideas for mass underground production. other than that there are lots of usefull ideas, but better guns can be made with less work.



2. I bout this book for a refrenece guide,so I would understand how fullauto weapons worked....



3. very informative,how ever I don't believe that a person with limited machinist skills would ever be able to construct one one of these.The metric system used sucks.



4. This book is by far the best of its kind.
   
   Of course you will need a lathe and milling machine to make this firearm... it would be pure fantasy to expect to build a reliable submachine gun without them.
   
   This book is metric which is great for those of us in rational countries which adopted it long ago, for those who aren't... 1 inch equals 2.54 cm - it's not that hard guys. I've never understood why the U.S., which was the first country in the world to adopt a metric currency (common sense right?) would drag its feet so badly when it comes to adopting metric measurement! Perhaps it would be a different story it they had thought of it first ;)
   
   This gun is built around the Sten magazine, magazine manufacture is not covered in this book, but Bill Holmes book "Submachine gun" has a good section on how to manufacture a Sten magazine if they are not available; so the two work very well together. Regarding the lack of a section on the magazines... no book of this type is ever going to hand you everything on a silver platter, for example it doesn't cover how to deep hole drill a barrel or button or cut rifle a barrel, but that sort of specialist knowledge needed to create a firearm can be found elsewhere.
   
   Also a complete set of exceptional Sten gun blueprints including the magazine can be found in the book "Submachine gun designers handbook" So if you're serious I'd highly recommend it also.



5. If you do any gunsmithing, this book offers usable information that may be applied to many simple projects. Actually building the gun is out of the question because it is against the law to build, but still a good read.

1 comments about Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Technology: Study Guide/Lab Manual. 5th Edition.

1. the book makes a good guide to practice and will help perpare for any upcomming exams

5 comments about In Sheep's Clothing: A Handspinner's Guide to Wool.

1. I've had this book for a number of years and I've returned to it for information concerning different types of wool. I believe that this book is supposed to help a spinner choose a fleece when purchasing either whole or partial fleeces for spinning. However, I've been disappointed that the information is too incomplete to be really helpful in that respect and the format isn't conducive to quick cross referencing or making comparisons.
   
   At the beginning of the book there is a short primer on wools, in general. There is also a short explanation of woolen vs. worsted yarn and the different types of fleece, whether fine wools, long wools, or down wools. I'm not sure why this information is being given in a book that appears to be directed at a spinner who has sufficient experience to consider purchasing an entire fleece.
   
   The authors give a very nice summary, or reference guide at the beginning of each chapter that rates the softness, elasticity, staple length luster and felting properties. I liked the chart format here. If the information for each fiber type had been summarized in this format throughout the book, it would have made it more of an "at-a-glance" type of reference and the spinner could have made comparisons between fibers.
   
   The photos show a lock of each type of fleece against a contrasting background, several sample projects from each division of fiber and now and then, a photo of an animal. The information is short and covers only the basics. There are suggestions for possible uses for each type of fiber. I appreciate that, especially considering that the authors are attempting to describe something that only a hands-on experience can confirm. To only see pictures of single locks isn't nearly enough to get a good idea of what a type of fiber is like. It's kind of like trying to describe what an orange tastes like without actually getting to taste one. To actually make this book more user friendly, I've put all of the Louet wool sample cards that I could get my hands on in with the appropriate pages. It makes the book easier to use if I can actually touch a sample of what is being described.
   
   If this book had a photo of each type of animal, both before shearing and in full fleece, along with the fiber photos, I would place a higher value on it. As it is, I use this book as a starting point and go to the internet or library to find out more information on a breed type or a fleece type. To be honest, finding detailed information about all breeds of fiber producing sheep in one single volume is impossible, so I know I'm asking a lot. To find samples of each type of fiber is an heroic task as well, so I understand how difficult it is to produce what I'm asking. However, it seems that the authors went to a lot of work to research and photograph all of these types of fiber, only to leave out about half of what they had to have learned during their research.
   
   Throughout the book, there are suggestions for specialized spinning techniques and possible uses for each type of fiber. The book ends with a short primer on hand carding, hand combing and spinning. Again, I'm confused as to why beginner information is being included in a volume that appears to target the more experienced spinner.
   
   Overall, I think this is a noble effort, but it falls short of being the spectacular volume it could have been. Including animal photos and extending the information to cover more than the bare bones would have been a wonderful addition. It would have also raised the price astronomically. Condensing the information into chart form for a spinner to use for the purposes of comparison and contrast would have been a practical addition. I use this book and I will always have it as part of my library, but it's just not the reference I was hoping for.



2. Amazing book that details the different types of sheep and the types and quality of wool that they produce. Now when I go to Maryland Sheep and Wool festival, I'll better understand what I'm looking at, and understand better what wools will satisfy my requirements.



3. In Sheep's Clothing: A Handspinner's Guide to Wool
   Absolutely essential for handspinners that are deciding on which sheep breed to buy.



4. This book is a must for the spinner who wants to spin natural wool straight from the sheep. It not only describes each variety of sheep, but has tables that make it very easy to compare the various breeds for their different characteristics. It is an invaluable reference.



5. Great book for old and new spinners. A lot great information about different breeds of sheep and the wool they produce.

5 comments about Product Development for the Lean Enterprise: Why Toyota's System Is Four Times More Productive and How You Can Implement It.

1. Even in the academic literature, there is no better reference. Note: do not buy the book "the minding organization" where the author refers to in the book.



2. For anyone interested in the next stage of Product Development -- this is a must read. The Toyota system encorporates what I felt has been missing in the product development process for so long. It takes into account the chaos that exists during development and actually encourages it instead of covering it up.
   
   I've beginning to incorporate these concepts into our process and am excited about the results I'm seeing.



3. Thumbs up, but I'd recommend you attend his workshops over the book if the opportunity presents itself.
   
   The book is written as a fictional account of a company's journey from process hell to an environment where engineers can devote themselves more completely to the craft they love. It is complete with protagonists and antagonists. The many men and women who have devoted large portions of their careers to wrestling with new product development process issues and trying to improve the quality and efficiency of product development processes may justifiably take offense at being cast as the antagonist, but it wouldn't be much of a story without the villains.
   
   The book raises some very good issues and points out some very good practices that have contributed to Toyota's success. Toyota's design philosophy is optimized for lowest possible risk to model year goals. American management teams would do well to think about optimizing for low risk instead of highest efficiency and lowest development cost. For many companies the cost of developing a new product is a fairly modest portion of their overall cost structure and the price they pay for missing new product introduction dates is far greater than the gains from tailoring their internal processes for the lowest cost development.
   
   The implementation of highly redundant development paths (called sets in the book) will be far less revolutionary than the book would have you believe. It really comes down to a willingness and ability to make the necessary investments. Readers who have studied Japanese companies will find much that is familiar. Publicly held Japanese companies are far less driven by quarterly results than are their American counter parts. Japanese companies typically have few (if any) small stockholders looking for short term gains. The largest stock holders in a Japanese company are often other Japanese companies. They tend to set long term strategic goals e.g. to dominate the world car industry in 5 years. While these businesses must make money to sustain themselves they are content with smaller earnings than their American counterparts making it possible to re-invest larger portions of their revenues back into the company. Some of that reinvestment shows up as investment in engineering work that reduces risk to new product introduction dates. But make no mistake about it, there are no miracle cures. During the initial stages of introducing a risk adverse strategy you are getting less (new features) with more (investment), but on time, likely with better quality, and you can build economically on that investment for a future stream of new products.
   
   Efficiency can be a huge problem, but not always. In many organizations engineering efficiency is disappointingly low. The book tries to make the case that Toyota's engineers are 4X more productive than the engineers of the fictitious company in the book (approx. 80% productive compared to ITRs 20%). The measure of productivity is not explained, but it is implied that it is simply the number of hours/week that engineers spend engineering instead of (presumably) unnecessary process compliance. It is unlikely that Toyota's engineers are on average really 4X more productive than the best of American engineering teams. A comparison between Toyota's engineering and one of America's best is probably a better comparison than a fictitious engineering team. The book does not sight any objective evidence for the 4X claim. Although few companies share their productivity numbers, 65% is a widely accepted number for staff utilization. If Toyota's staff utilization really is 80% then that would put them about 1.23X more productive. In actual fact productivity is far more complex to measure and since it is so complex many observers chose a metric and then measure changes rather than focus on an absolute #. Lack of evidence aside, the book does highlight some interesting opportunities for improvement in the area of knowledge retention and reuse.
   
   I have no doubt that there are companies whose developers are 20% productive. Lack of stability in the organization is certainly a contributor. The ineptitude and unending churn of engineering management teams is a frequent cause. Many companies have suffered at the hands of corporate management teams looking for quick fixes to the perception that their projects take too long, cost too much, and fail too often. They are often executives who have no engineering experience and no way to objectively assess the performance of their teams. They are driven by fear and uncertainty. They have often set goals that are hopelessly impossible to begin with. The result from the engineer's perspective is an unending stream of organizational change meetings to roll out the new engineering management team, introduce their dramatic new ideas, and get the teams trained. This is immediately followed by or coupled with a call to heroic self-sacrifice in an effort to meet the hopeless goal with the new structure. Sound familiar? If you we're drawn to this book it probably does.
   
   The first thing that any student of Japanese industry learns is its strong reliance on life-time employment. While there has been some decline in longevity in recent years it remains the expectation for most Japanese employees entering the workforce. The long-term expectations and thorough understanding of the company and its markets which the most senior managers obtain during their long careers fosters more emphasis on incremental improvement rather than radical re-birth. Either strategy can work, but the highest probability of long-term success is with the incremental improvement paradigm.
   
   Mr. Kennedy is a joy to talk to with a refreshing directness and wealth of experience. The book has a "sensational" tone, but you'd expect that in a work that was intended to get your attention and interest. The advice he offers in person is well reasoned and sound. Well worth the price of admission.



4. Everything written is a bullseye with the exception of glaring ignorance regarding Six Sigma - what it is and isn't. What is written relative to Lean here should be taken verbatim as applying to Six Sigma also - there is no difference. Similarly, the written characterizations of Six Sigma should be ignored. To quote Senji Nihwa, Taiichi Ohno's lieutenant at Toyota for decades, in a good-natured ribbing, "You Americans, always trying to categorize things. Call it Lean, call it Six Sigma, it makes no difference to us...it's all the same." And so it is.
   
   The book is extremely well written and accurate with the exception noted above. If readers can simply meld the descriptions as also being characteristic of a Six Sigma organization, and discard the mischaracterizations of Six Sigma as written, they are in for a very positive learning experience.



5. This book, as others have said, is much like "The Goal". It is not a silver bullet, not the final solution or even the best business book ever written. It is a clear concise way to explore a more realistic paradigm than the one you probably exist in now. It coaches you on implementation, partcipation and collaboration. It is simply right on and it will drive your mind to next level of understanding.
   I recommend this for everone at any level. It re-states the power of synergy and how to tap into it. Get your 80% work product efficiency and 4X improvement now - it works.

5 comments about Systems Thinking, Second Edition: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business Architecture.

1. This is really aimed at the reader who wishes to work on the transformation of whole organisations. Demonstrating the multi-dimensional relationships between organisational design, performance and behaviour.
   
   This work has had a profound effect on my thinking and development of management ideas. It integrates many concepts into a systemic whole. I have used this book with many management teams in recent years.
   
   If you are venturing into the world of systems thinking then this is probably the most accessible in terms of simplicity and breakthrough applications.
   
   Putting these ideas into practice with your colleagues or management teams might seem a little daunting but it's the only way to learn and master the concepts which will bring deeper insight into organisational change and provide you with better solutions to some of your more persistent management issues. Don't be afraid.



2. I used this for a Ph.D. level course in Leadership Studies and can honestly say that, in almost three full decades of teaching, it was the worst mistake I have made in picking a textbook. Besides the above comment that it is low in definitional accuracy, it is just self-indulgent beyond words. I had the picture of a puppy bringing me a chewed newspaper and waiting to get petted for doing so. The author goes to great pains to demonstrate how bright he is, while demonstrating that his "brightness" is in the manipulation of words and other tools, not in understanding what he is talking about or in helping others to understand what he thinks he is saying.
   
   Unless you like "buzz words" and jargon and the good feeling that comes from superficiality, stay away from this one.



3. Jamshid Gharajedaghi has presented a very nice introduction to a very difficult and complex problem. He has correctly identified the need for thinking about complex systems. The one really valuable insight is his discussion of the evolution of systems philosophies in Chapter 1.
   
   Unfortunately, he does not truly present a unified approach to solving problems. He does explain rather well that choice is a very important component of complex systems, and that a well designed system incentivizes decision makers to do what is best for the group. His idea of holistic iterative design is a correct approach to solving complex systems problems. Yet clear methodologies and simulation approaches are lacking in their discussion, presentation, and illustration.
   
   Simulation is a very important tool for understanding the behavior of complex systems. It should be used as extensively as possible. The presentation of systems dynamics in the book was very, very poor. It was too weak to be of much use to the designers and managers of practical systems. Yet models are not reality, and in the words of Richard Bandler, "the map is not the territory." There was no discussion of model validation. This is a clear fault of this book.
   
   I do think that the idea of starting from the ideal scenario is of absolute importance in solving problems. It may be desirable or even necessary to alter the structure, function, and process of any organization in order to achieve the best results for the overall system. Yet Gharajedaghi does not provide a clear framework for doing so.
   
   The case studies in this book are valuable, because they do give important insights to the application of systems thinking to practical situations. They will be valuable for researchers and managers who must start thinking holistically about practical business problems.
   
   All in all, this book is for managers who need to pick up some kind of insight about practical systems problems, but it does not live up to the reputation of Jay Forrester or Russel Ackoff. The problem presentation is good, but the methodological sections are very, very weak.
   
   I believe that the book is a very good start toward making an important contribution to the management science literature, but it is half-baked at best.



4. This is one of the most important books written in the last 30 years. It is about moving beyond process, synthetic and analytical thinking as singular means of improving business. It is a key to understanding that all of these methods are insufficient on their own as a means of creating optimum results, continuous improvement and business development.
   
   We all understand that in the greatest of companies, musical ensembles, theatre troupes, and sports teams, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. However, we remain mystified by that elusive "chemistry" that actually is the necessary final ingredient needed to move beyond simply being very, very good, and becoming extraordinary.
   
   Dr. Gharajedaghi reveals to us that "chemistry" remains elusive because of the way we see it. He demonstrates that it is not an ingredient that we can insert, but it is a product of the interaction and interdependence of the other ingredients that we are using. Additionally, we learn that the ingredients must be put into the right mixing bowl, or operational environment, which he defines in general terms as "context".
   
   With this book, Professor Gharajedaghi provides us with a very clear understanding as to how chemistry can be created and recreated within any organization, and how to sustain it. This book is a key that will allow you to actually implement process improvement theories such as TQM and Lean, that have been at best a disappointment and at worst a failure in corporate America over the last 20 years.



5. I could not get the essence of this book. There is not a coherent framework, nor ideas are applied in a way that I would find useful. Please try to peruse a copy before purchasing it - in my case it would not make my first cut through the "search inside" feature.