The Craft Of Log Building: A Handbook Of Craftsmanship In Wood

Published by Lee Valley Tools, 1982, softcover, A4 format, illustrated, 328 pages, condition: read but as new.

Hermann Phleps was an historian and architect who recorded, in photographs and detailed pen and ink drawings, the techniques of solid wood construction. This book was originally published in German in 1944 and later translated into English. It gives the detailed history of log and solid wood construction techniques used from northern Scandinavia to the Alps and from France to Central Europe. It is a source of ideas and visual evidence and shows that solid wood construction is both a viable body of construction techniques and also a display of handcraftsmanship. And of course "Works of Heart."

It is said that a laborer works with his or her hands; a craftsman, their hands and their head and an artist, their hands, their head and their heart. This book shows how long that has been true and sets a target to strive for once again.