Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #91740 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-02
• Released on: 2008-09-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781561589548
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Richard Raffan has been internationally acclaimed for both his turning and his teaching. Well-known for his gallery-quality production work, he is the author of Turning Wood, Turning Boxes and The Complete Illustrated Guide to Turning.

Customer Reviews

A good outgrowth of his earlier book on design
If you have his earlier (now out of print) book on bowl design, this book is an outgrowth of that book. The first several chapters are just an expansion of that work, down to using some of the same photos and drawings.
For people that don't have the first book, this books is 100% a great read and recommended.
For people that have the first book, your real treat is the later chapters, which contain much new information.

If you are serious about turning a well shaped object, buy, read and study this book

An essential book for any woodturner
"The Art of Turned Bowls" by Richard Raffan is one of the most important and useful books ever written about woodturning. Its predecessor, "Turned Bowl Design" (1987), now out of print and selling for a premium on the used market, was excellent, and until now, the best book on woodturning design ever written. I read or referred it repeatedly over the years and will undoubtedly do so for this new version.

If you are a woodturner, you will learn, in detail, what you can do to design well-proportioned and aesthetically pleasing bowls and vessels. It doesn't teach you how to turn; there are numerous other good books for that, the latest edition of "Woodturning With Richard Raffan" and its companion DVD are excellent. I taught myself how to turn with the first editions of those. Presented are not only basic general principles of design, like the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Mean, but detailed guidelines on how to prepare bowl blanks from the tree or the lumberyard to show grain patterns to best effect, generate smoothly flowing curves, find the most pleasing relationship between the diameter and shape of a bowl to its base, add interest to your turnings with color, carving, piercing, and other techniques, and a lot of other useful information.

For those unfortunate souls who are not woodturners, this book is good for you too. It is chock-full of beautiful color photographs of Raffan's world-class turnings, as well as those of other expert woodturning artists, an improvement over the mostly black and white photos in "Turned Bowl Design." More importantly, this book will help you understand, when you look at a wood (or ceramic, or glass) bowl that you like, WHY you like it, and why a lot of bowls out there are not well-done.

Overall, "The Art of Turned Bowls" is a peek inside the mind of one of the world's best woodturners (and a very nice and interesting man in person). If you appreciate art and craft in any of its myriad forms, this book will leave you with a good feeling.

Any woodcrafting library needs this
World-class turner Richard Raffan provides a fine guide to turning bowls in his ART OF TURNED BOWLS, a tutorial teaching bowl design and longevity of product. The focus is on creating lovely shapes and wood which continues to delight as it changes and ages: first published as TURNED-BOWL DESIGN in 1987, this new edition has been completely updated with new information and color photos. Any woodcrafting library needs this.