Take a guided tour through a stunningly beautiful array of fine tools. This collection of more than 250 masterpieces features unique tools built with sumptuous materials, lavished with artistic decoration, or made for remarkable precision. Locked away in the vaults of private collectors, many of these exquisite tools have never before appeared in publication.

Included in this beautifully photographed book are measuring instruments, handplanes, saws and other cutting tools, striking and drilling tools, Asian treasures, incredible miniatures, ingenious foot-powered machines, and improbable combination tools. Each photo is accompanied by detailed notes that provide intriguing historical and technical details about the tool.

The Art of Fine Tools will delight anyone who works with tools. For collectors there is a wealth of historical and technical information. But this is also a book for anyone who appreciates practical objects imbued with beauty and crafted with care.

"The Art of Fine Tools photographs clapboard planes and hand adzes, British spokeshaves and Japanese ryoba saws as lavishly and seductively as a display of tarts in Martha Stewart Living."

-- Newsweek

"If tools are your meat and potatoes, this book is dessert." -- Leonard Lee, Lee Valley Tools

Hardcover, 10 x 10 in., 240 pages, with color photos and drawings,

Published 1998, Softcover, ISBN 1-56158-361-8, # 070493