22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing: NOT an instructional book!, 4 Oct 2003
By Mr. Anderson - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Chainsaw Carving: The Art and the Craft - A Complete Guide (Paperback)
Disregard the comments "until now there has been very little, if any, how-to information for beginners" or "Excellent resource for the beginner" noted in other reviews. They are WRONG! I am a beginner, and after reading this book cover to cover I don't think I am anything more than the same beginner I was when I started. Here's the breakdown of the book:
140 pages total. 60 pages are just color pictures of what I would classify as very advanced carvings and no info or details on how they were made. 28 pages are chainsaw facts, including 9 pages of color chainsaw pictures (no comments or advice on one model vs another, just lots of pictures of chainsaws...big deal). in the remaining 47 pages dedicated to "carving", there are only four actual projects. Of these four, just two have multiple pictures and step-by-step instructions.
For a beginner who is looking to learn this beautiful art, I estimate there about 30 pages of actual content you are interested in. Save your money and look for something else! That's exactly what I'm going to do right after I post this review.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Where would we be without Hal?, 13 Dec 2008
By Karen Tiede - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Chainsaw Carving: The Art and the Craft - A Complete Guide (Paperback)
Hal Macintosh predates the internet, predates Photoshop, predates MS Paint. This book shows the field before information was readily available, when the only way to learn how to carve was to watch carvers at contests. Many carvers in the field got their start from Hal's books, when this was the only source of written information about the field.
Learning to chainsaw carve using Hal's books alone is a total immersion process, wherein you are not sure how the parts you're seeing quite fit together until one day you carve something new and step back and say, "I didn't know I could do that!" Then you look at the pictures of other people's carvings and realize yours are just as good.
No chainsaw library is complete with only these books, but no library is complete without them, either.
5.0 out of 5 stars
chansaw carving, 8 May 2001
By Richard Shockley - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Chainsaw Carving: The Art and the Craft - A Complete Guide (Paperback)
Excellent resource for the beginner, step by step photos take you thru the entire project. Excellent section on tools. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to get into chainsaw carving. Cant wait for his next book