I have a band saw mill to setup this spring so I can saw some lumber to fix my barns. Having never run a mill before and only having an ok understanding of different species of wood and lumber I have been doing some reading.
Understanding Wood a Craftsman’s Guide to Wood Technology
by R Bruce Hoadley
This is my latest book to expand my understanding of wood it is really well written with an amazing depth of information not only about the wood structure and specie but also about how to look at the structure of the wood when you saw it and work with it to get the best quality out of each log. I am very impressed with this book but I will have to go back several times and re read it because there is alot of information in it.
Another good book
Permaculture
Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainable
By David Holmen
Co-Originatior of the Permaculture Concept
This is more like a text book really. But it is a very interesting read if you want to know what permaculture was originally ment to be. It goes into detail about how the author lives in Australia and seeing Australia as a resource depleted landscape form just natural causes over time he was inspired to design natural processes to preserve resources into every day engineering problems he faced. It is about working with nature and allowing it to do work for you. I love the concepts and honestly don’t use them as much as I would like to where I approach things. This book challenged my way of looking at things about 10 years ago and tonight I was thinking I should read it again.
I am suggesting this book REVIEW because someone wrote about problems with Chinese products and someone else commented about their not-so-good personal experiences in working with the Chinese within their own country. And since we (almost) all have to deal with Chinese stuff, one way or another, I thought that having some insight to their culture might be beneficial
This is indirectly a “book to read by the fire”, but it’s really the link to an excellent book review video about doing business with China. What makes this review so good, in my mind at least, is that the reviewer talks about her actual experiences in dealing with China on a day to day basis and demystifies some of the reasons why things don’t turn out as westerners might expect. As she reviews the book, she adds personal anecdotes to support the ideas brought forth by its author.
Limor Fried, the reviewer, is the owner of a successful electronics design/ retail sales company in NYC, Adafruit.com
(I buy stuff for my electronic controls and I use their EXTENSIVE library of tutorials for my woodgas stuff).
Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAXNv_rNGcc&index=3&list=TLWMDWOduZXP0wNjA2MjAxNg