Review of John Davenport's Classic Book on Making Miniature Furniture

Classic reference book for anyone interested in making high quality hardwood miniature furniture who is not coming from a wood working background. Tools, woods, joints, cleaning and finishing are clearly presented and four excellent beginners projects take a novice woodworker through the main skills they will need to tackle any future miniature woodworking project. Well worth seeking out through a library or second hand if you want to start making quality miniature furniture.

The problem with many books on miniature furniture is they assume you are downsizing from full scale woodwork and already possess all the skills and tools necessary to be a successful miniature woodworker, once you learn a few tips about scale and use of wood. John Davenport's classic book How to Make Miniature Furniture was originally published in 1988 as Making Miniature Furniture. He is one of the few writers who assumes you are beginning in the hobby and need help with everything from choosing tools, to learning the language and the various styling points and how to create them.

This is not a book of beautiful furniture projects that require experience with lathes, bandsaws and years of carving skills. It is a clear discussion of tools, techniques, wood and joinery which demonstrates how to make the best use of the particular piece of wood you have, as well as the tools you need to begin, and which tools are the most important to add as your interests grow.

Of the book's 152 pages, only 26 are used for projects. The rest outline tools, techniques and examples of miniature work. The four projects are chosen for the techniques most useful for a beginner. The simple door and drawer are then shown first on a simple nightstand, a kitchen dresser, and a washstand with a shelf. More detailed drawers and doors are used for a chest of drawers with an inlaid top. There are clear instructions for making joins, including dovetails and mortise and tenon joints. The using veneers and banding to decorate tops is also clearly shown.

The third project is a collectors cabinet, which adds shaped legs to the beginner's repertoire, an area which is expanded for the fourth project, a Davenport desk. All of these project can be built with the use of hand tools only, although a band saw or a table saw will certainly make cutting the parts much easier.