Complete Metalsmith: Professional Edition

I have purchased MANY books over the past year because I need hard copy verses internet/device use. This book, although published a bit ago, is so well organized and thorough. If there is any one book you choose to help you learn the craft this is it. First, my copy is hard covered with spiral bound inset. The pages are of good print quality and weight. Clear graphics with detail versus photographs help you see what is needed. Soooo much information is well organized and charts are easily found. As one who can be very judgemental on quality of educational books, i wish I had gotten this from the start. If you are new to this caft, I don't think you will be disappointed I would post pics, but it is copyrighted and I honor that. I will be looking at Tim's other works and hope they are just as wonderful.

Recently I have returned to playing with metal in designing jewelry, mixed media art, and fine art. The author of this book - Tim McCreight is world-known for his work and providing books to help others learn the basics and some of his own "tricks" in manipulating metal. I have to say this book is one of his best and probably the one I hold in highest regard. It it thorough. It is well written. It is full of high quality, often with color to help know which piece is what when working an item. It is well organized. The appendices are SUPERB - from safety (ventilation, repetitive motion, chemicals) to suppliers to geometric formulas to melting points to conversion factors to properly photographing jewelry AND MORE! It is a great starting point for all those who are seriously interested in pursuing this type of work as a hobby or art. Some of McCreight's other books (e.g.Practical Joining) are often rehashes with a bit more thoroughness of this book, while others (e.g. on PMC - precious metal clay) cover other topics. Of the numerous books by MeCreight in my library, I refer to this one first. The spriral binding is great and thus when I have to review something when working, the book lies flat and doesn't need to be held down in order to stay in place. The only drawback is that the cover (at least my version) tends to attact fuzz or dog hair when I take it from my work area to review sections in my home. Weird...luckily tape takes care of that problem for I don't want to give up my pets! So for beginners to advanced workers in metal - get this book first...or second if you want a more beginner book to see if this work is really for you. Other books by McCreight should be considered IF you are interested in pursuing various aspects of metalwork in detail (e.g. "Metals Technic" - book based on his workshops and focused on producing quality pieces in various methodologies...but some of the images in it have much to be desired - ?new addition might help that???).

I am an artisan jeweler. This book has a plethora of information that I refer to more than I can say. **I also own 2 copies. This is a must have reference book!

This is my first go-to book when I am doing something new and need to know how to get started. It is encyclopedic in that it covers everything, but it does not go into a lot of detail on some subjects. It seems to have enough to get you started, and a lot of details on setting up workshop, tools, etc with less coverage of the more advanced techniques. The pro edition is a spiral bound hard cover, and it also has more pages and more subjects than the cheaper student edition. I bought the pro version since I would would hate to end up buying both if I find out it had something essential. There is also a super-deluxe version that has a DVD, The Pro edition is the one you want. The book has lots of reference material, details on tools, metals, techniques, etc. so if you are doing jewelry work or metalsmithing it has enough in it to make it worth buying. It does not have pretty pictures, and does not have a lot of details for the more advanced techniques, but in those cases you really need to buy a book devoted to a single technique to get enough coverage. I bought this and Jinks McGrath's The Encyclopedia of Jewelry-Making Techniques: A Comprehensive Visual Guide to Traditional and Contemporary Techniques and they are a good pair. McGraths's book is less thorough but he has a different perspective on things and also includes lots of nice photos. It is more visual and maybe that is more useful for some people, but I find them both essential. If I had to buy just one, it would be the McCreight book since I can live without the photos, but for the very beginner I think the McGrath book may be a little easier to get into.

This new "pro" edition of The Complete Metalsmith is everything you would expect it to be. Detailed, accurate, and filled with many useful diagrams. It is a significant improvement over the regular edition in terms of topic depth and scope. The CD includes the full text (searchable pdf) of the pro edition which is very nice to have. It also includes the entire first edition of the Complete Metalsmith AND Practical Jewelry Rendering as scanned pages. The original version is interesting from a historical perspective -- it's amazing to see a handwritten tome of that length. The application "suite" is delivered as an executable Jar file for Macs and PCs or as a standalone executable for PocketPC or Palm. I've only tried it on my desktop PC so far. The tools include various converters, calculators, and lookup tables that automate some of the calculations included in the book. I would think if you carry a palm/pocketpc it might be a nice add-on -- as a desktop tool, the suite is kind of "useless" since you can find most of this stuff on the web already. I wholeheartedly recommend the pro edition of the Complete Metalsmith. Is the CD worth the $15 price difference -- I'd have to say "maybe" which is why I gave *this* edition only 4-stars. The searchable pdf of the pro edition will definitely come in handy. I also will make use of the book on jewelry rendering. I don't expect I'll be able to effectively make use of the toolsuite since I don't have a palm/pocketpc OR a desktop computer anywhere near my jewelry studio.

This book has an extraordinary amount of information in it and I highly recommend it for beginners and advanced metalsmiths alike. It is a definite must have any any metalsmiths library. What this book is: This book is a reference book which touches on many techniques used within the field of metalsmithing and jewelery making. I've been a silversmith for over 15 years and I learned quite a bit from this book. Personally, I think the title of the book is a bit misleading. Though it does touch on an enormous amount of invaluable information, that's pretty much all it does is touch on it. I certainly wouldn't call it "Complete Metalsmith". The book is illustrated by very small basic drawings, some of which can be a little bit hard to understand. What this book isn't: This book is not a typical How To book. You're not going to see illustrations or instructions on how to make specific jewelry pieces. And you're barely going to see much in the way of drawings on how to actually do the techniques described. It's more like a text book of techniques without much in the way of visuals. If you are the type who learns better by illustrations, then I would suggest The Workbench Guide to Jewelry Techniques by Anastasia Young, which I received yesterday and is an absolutely beautiful book with loads of information and gorgeous photographs. And the price is extremely reasonable for such an excellent book. But if you can swing it, I would recommend both of these books. I wouldn't want to be without either of them.

This book was my first purchase when I discovered jewelry making. This is the book that everyone references when I was asking questions. Jammed packed with useful information. Gave me a very firm understanding of what I could do, how to do it, and what I needed tools and material wise. The perfection addition to the work bench library of reference materials.

I keep picking this book up and studying a random page. Always learn something new (I am new to this). I love the illustrations that are in here. It’s organized well, colorful and you can learn a lot from it. Excellent reference.

Everything about metalsmith! Great book!

I love it. It contain everything that I need. Thank you very much.

New forging hobby, this book has it all, tools, methods, metal specs, and much more. Will be my guide. Thanks Tim :)

What a fantastic resource! Pretty much everything you need to know in a logical order and full of interesting background info as well. It would make a brilliant compliment to a course or to a teach yourself book. Very good, highly recommended

If you're looking for a general reference book as a student for Jewellery making, or silversmithing. If you're confused by all the books out there, wondering which one to buy, which one you'd keep referring back to in the future as an invaluable source? This is the one! Highly recommend.