The Woodwright Shop’s Roy Underhill Shares His Latest Book, The Woodwright’s Guide
On UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, December 26, at 9:30 PM

For thirty years, Roy Underhill's PBS program, The Woodwright's Shop, has brought classic hand-tool craftsmanship to UNC-TV audiences and viewers across America. Now, in his seventh book, Roy shows how to engage the mysteries of the splitting wedge and the cutting edge to shape wood from forest to furniture.

Beginning with the standing tree, each chapter of The Woodwright's Guide explores one of nine trades of woodcraft: faller, countryman and cleaver, hewer, log-builder, sawyer, carpenter, joiner, turner, and cabinetmaker. Each trade brings new tools and techniques; each trade uses a different character of material; but all are united by the grain in the wood and the enduring mastery of muscle and steel.

Hundreds of detailed drawings by Eleanor Underhill (Roy's daughter) illustrate the hand tools and processes for shaping and joining wood. A special concluding section contains detailed plans for making your own foot-powered lathes, workbenches, shaving horses, and taps and dies for wooden screws.

In an all-new episode of UNC-TV’s local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch with D.G. Martin, premiering Friday, December 26, at 9:30 PM, the former master craftsman at Colonial Williamsburg and public television personality takes viewers on a personal journey through a legacy of off-the-grid, self-reliant craftsmanship—a toolbox filled with insight and technique as well as wisdom and confidence for the artisan in all of us.

Don’t miss D.G. Martin’s engaging interview with Roy Underhill on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, December 26, at 9:30 PM, with an encore Sunday, December 28, at 5 PM.

During the 26-week season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: Frances Mayes (A Year in the World), Rob Christensen (The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics), Robert Morgan (Boone), Eleanora Tate (Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance), Eric Wilson (Against Happiness), Wayne Caldwell (Cataloochee), Theda Perdue (The Cherokee Nation and The Trail of Tears), Bernie Harberts (Too Proud to Ride a Cow), Therese Fowler (Souvenir), Joe Glatthaar (General Lee’s Army), Nortin Hadler (Worried Sick), Anna Hayes (Without Precedent), Jean Anderson (A Love Affair with Southern Cooking), J.D. Rhoades (Breaking Cover), Nancy Peacock (A Broom of One’s Own), Louise Hawes (Black Pearls), Tony Earley (The Blue Star), Anna Rubino (Queen of the Oil Club) , Clyde Edgerton (The Bible Salesman), Sheila Moses (The Baptism), Martin Clark (The Legal Limit), William Link (Righteous Warrior), Nina De Gramont (Gossip of the Starlings) and Cindy H. Ramsey (Boys of the Battleship North Carolina).

For additional information about series guests and airdates, plus links to the Bookwatch blog and online book club, please visit: www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh’s independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV’s ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV’s other original productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.