Awesome Reference

An essential reference guide for setting up your own blacksmith workshop and working with metal. The first half of author Nicholas Wicks’ book covers shop safety, equipment, and techniques, while the second half offers 55 simple projects like tools, hardware, utensils, and decorative objects you can create.

This series of infographic posters offer an artful presentation of useful knowledge at a glance. Etsy seller Christie Gift Shop carries them in a variety of designs, including carpentry, photography, scuba diving, golf, scouting, quilting, and more. They’re available in 12″ x 18″ and 16″ x 24″ sizes, unframed.

This series of reference books helps electricians, contractors, students, and DIYers navigate the complexities of working with electricity, and within National Electrical Code (NEC) rules. One book covers general electricity topics, and others include residential wiring, conduit bending, and motors and controls.

Whether you’re a DIYer or a construction pro, understanding math and geometry is critical. DEWALT’s reference guide includes 42 pages of useful equations and rules which will help you measure twice and cut once. Made from durable, toolbox-friendly materials with a spiral-bound edge. Also available for plumbing and wiring.

CheatKard expands its reference card series with a set of pocketable, waterproof cards with useful info for photographers. Facts include aperture, shutter speed, and exposure charts, tips on composition, using filters, and more. Personalized engraving is available as an option, as well as a green Kickstarter Edition.

This thick, but still pocketable reference book has more than 700 pages chock full of useful charts, tables, and information for carpenters, engineers, handymen, and anyone else who builds, makes, or maintains things. It’s not an instructional book, but it’s great for looking up figures, equations, and conversions.

This set of reference cards is a great addition to a toolbox or workbench. Card 1 includes a wire gauge, nail gauge, hole gauges, and a pipe gauge; Card 2 has a compass and shape stencils, and Card 3 has equations, conversion charts, abbreviations, and more. Made from durable plastic with a protective coating.

If the only knots you know how to tie are your shoelaces and a necktie, then you need this book. Authors Geoffrey Budworth and Jason Dalton provide helpful hints on picking the right knot for the job, along with detailed instructions for tying 200 practical knots used in boating, hiking, fishing, climbing, and more.

Engineers, makers, and anyone else who works with circuits will love these pocket reference cards. The durable card set includes measurements, schematic symbols, a component value calculator, SMD footprints, laws and theories, and more. It comes in black and gold or a Kickstarter limited-edition PCB green.

While Google is our go-to for many answers, we still keep a copy of Thomas Glover’s Pocket Ref on hand. It’s loaded with more than 850 pages of reference tables, formulas, constants, and conversions, and is one book we’d want in our bug-out bag if the internet ever blew up. The larger Desk Ref has 1280 pages.

Ever thought about what might happen if we lost everything and had to rebuild the world from scratch? This 400-page book is designed as a reference to give our society a fighting chance, with illustrations and information on everything from vehicles to shelters to medicines and agriculture. Available in digital or print editions.

Originally published back in 1953, Hervey Garrett Smith’s book The Arts of the Sailor: Knotting, Splicing and Ropework is a great reference for mariners of all experience levels to learn about shipboard skills, along with detailed illustrations and directions for working with rope and tying various useful knots.

This unique deck of playing cards isn’t just fun and games, it’s packed with useful knowledge about photography. Each suit is dedicated to a theme: Spades are camera basics, Hearts are composition, Clubs are technical, and Diamonds are shooting styles. They come with a black back, or a limited-edition Kickstarter green.