This was the first book I bought on knifemaking, and my copy is falling apart (it's 28 years old!) I absolutely love David Boye's sense of design, and his work has inspired my own considerably. That said, I learned a great deal about knifemaking from other sources, and I use few of his methods. Specifically, I would never use a wheel grinder on knife steel, it generates a great deal more heat than a belt grinder, isn't nearly as accurate, and the cutting surface is smaller. I would NEVER cut out blades with a cutting torch, unless you wanted to grind away at least 1/4 in from the cut edge, you're messing up your steel's microstructure doing this (see p. 111 under grain growth!) I appreciate the lengths he's gone to to describe heat treating, but had little luck with it myself; I would strongly advise against trying to heat-treat complex steels like D2, 440C, or 154CM yourself, unless you like throwing your work away. Finally, though I absolutely love the acid etchwork in the book, the beeswax/asphaltum etching ground recommended here is a very tempermental one, I would use commercial etching ground if I were doing this. Since messing with aqua regia at home is not the safest thing, I'd suggest looking into some of the other methods, such as electrochemical etching. So, I would say to the beginning knifemaker that I'd use this book for inspiration, but go elsewhere for methods. If at all possible, talk to someone who's been doing it a while.