As more and more people join the do-it-yourself revolution, they are breathing new life into many time-honored skills and crafts. Blacksmithing is among the trades that are enjoying a resurgence for both practical and artistic uses, yet there is not an abundance of readily accessible information available to beginning blacksmiths to help them get started and understand the craft. Author Ryan Ridgway, a veterinarian and blacksmith with more than fifteen years of metalworking experience, hopes to fill that void with this comprehensive volume geared toward answering the many questions that new blacksmiths often have. By explaining the physics of moving metal, the different styles of anvils and forges, and alternative fuel sources, Ridgway sets his book apart from less detailed volumes. Forty practical, easy-to-follow projects are presented, showing aspiring blacksmiths how to make tools, such as hammers and chisels; farm implements, such as gate latches and hoof picks; and items for home use, including drawer pulls and candle holders. Inside The Home Blacksmith: The evolution of blacksmithing around the world and the differences between the tools specific to each region The behavior of heated metal and the science of metalworking Setting up a shop safely and economically The heart of your shop--the anvil and forge--and the other essential tools Working with different types of steel, including how to salvage steel for different uses Techniques from beginning to advanced Step-by-step instructions for forty blacksmithing projects: tools and other implements as well as decorative pieces for personal use or sale

Known as pyrography, which literally means "writing with fire," woodburning is a rewarding art that is practically infinite in its applications. This book shows you everything you need to get started in this fun and expressive craft. Award-winning artist and pyrographer Simon Easton takes you from basic woodburning concepts to tips and techniques that encourage your creativity and help you develop your own individual style. His expert lessons teach you all of the essential techniques, from making simple marks to texturing, lettering, shading and finishing. Learn to Burn offers fifteen step-by-step projects for making decorative gifts - from spoons and spatulas to bangles, bowls and bookmarks - illustrated with clear how-to photographs. Fifty bonus patterns will allow you to unleash your creativity on hundreds of additional woodburning projects.

Robert Crumb first began drawing record covers in 1968 when Janis Joplin, a fellow Haight Ashbury denizen, asked him to provide a cover for her album Cheap Thrills. It was an invitation the budding artist couldn't resist, especially since he had been fascinated with record covers-particularly for the legendary jazz, country, and old-time blues music of the 1920s and 1930s-since he was a teen. This early collaboration proved so successful that Crumb went on to draw hundreds of record covers for both new artists and largely forgotten masters. So remarkable were Crumb's artistic interpretations of these old 78 rpm singles that the art itself proved influential in their rediscovery in the 1960s and 1970s. Including such classics as Truckin' My Blues Away, Harmonica Blues, and Please Warm My Weiner, Crumb's opus also features more recent covers done for CDs. R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection is a must-have for any lover of graphics and old-time music.

With this pocket-sized guidebook and a trusty Swiss Army Knife, readers will be ready to whittle wherever they go. World-famous whittler Chris Lubkemann shows how to carve 43 useful and whimsical objects using nothing more than a stick and an Original Swiss Army(R) Knife. Chris offers step-by-step instructions for all the traditional whittling favorites like spoons, forks, and flowers, plus some decidedly funny animals and the classic curly tail rooster. He also provides sage advice on how to choose wood, sharpen a blade, and safely control your knife. Published in collaboration with Victorinox(R) AG, makers of the Original Swiss Army Knife.

Including previously unpublished and recently re-discovered designs for the interior of the Museum, Olivia Horsfall Turner's fascinating new book, the latest in the V&A 19th-Century Series, looks at the relationship between architect and designer Owen Jones and the South Kensington Museum (later the V&A) in the period from the Museum's establishment in the 1850s to Jones's death in 1874. It focuses on key moments in Jones's relationship with the Museum: the creation of his well-known publication The Grammar of Ornament (1856) and his less widely known Examples of Chinese Ornament (1867), and the decoration of the Museum's so-called Oriental Court between 1863 and 1865. Jones's collaboration with the Museum over a period of almost 20 years is of special interest not only thanks to his status as one of the most influential design theorists of the 19th century, but also for the light that it sheds on the identity of the early Museum and its imperial context.

Temples have been places of worship, a focus for spirituality and a place for communities to gather since the earliest days of human civilisation. The first temples date back to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, deriving from the cult of deities and residing places for gods and immortals. Today, temple buildings remain lively focal points for the Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Sikh religions. Organised by continent, Amazing Temples of the World offers the reader an intimate portrait of some spectacular and unusual places of worship dating from the fourth millennium BCE to the present. Ornate or spartan, immense or intimate, from the Middle East to California, this book features such impressive places of worship as the Mahabodi Temple, India, built in the location where Buddha is thought to have achieved enlightenment; the fifth century BCE Temple of Confucius in Qufu, China, the largest Confucian temple in the world; Abu Simbel, in southern Egypt, the great carved monument to the Pharaoh Ramses II; the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, the spiritual home of the world's 25 million Sikhs; and the Shri Swaminarayan Temple in Neasden, London, the biggest Hindu temple outside India. Illustrated with more than 180 photographs, Amazing Temples of the World includes more than 150 places of worship, from Ancient Greece and Rome, through traditional synagogues to modern Buddhist, Taoist and Sikh temples.

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Against the backdrop of an alienating, technologizing and ever-accelerating world of material production, this book tells an intimate story: one about a community of woodworkers training at an historic institution in London's East End during the present 'renaissance of craftsmanship'. The animated and scholarly accounts of learning, achievement and challenges reveal the deep human desire to create with our hands, the persistent longing to find meaningful work, and the struggle to realise dreams. In its penetrating explorations of the nature of embodied skill, the book champions greater appreciation for the dexterity, ingenuity and intelligence that lie at the heart of craftwork.