Any good machining books out there?

I need to start by saying I am not a machinist, I can make what I need to for my racecar/streetrod fab shop the most part but need info that is not in my head quite a bit (feed rates and speeds, what incert to use on what material etc.). So I bought the machinery handbook volume 26 a few weeks ago and I am on information overload this thing is 2700 pages long. I find most of what I need but it takes me about 30 min. most times. Is there another book I can buy that is a little more basic for a beginer?

Thank you for all the help in the past, Mike

Mike:
My wife bought me "Machine Shop Practices" Volume 1 by Karl Moltrecht and it is a very good book on machining. A couple other basic books are "Machine Tool Opertion-Part 1" and Henry Ford's Trade School Book, "Shop Theory." You learn what is in those three and you will be way ahead of the pack.

I looked on amazon before posting and there are about 20 that sounded good but need to narrow the field a little.

Thank you for the help, Mike

I recently picked up a copy of "Machine Tool Practices" which is a trade school text. Mine is an older 6th edition, paid less that $20 on eBay. Highly recommended.

Advanced Machine Work at Lindsay Publications. Don't worry about the "advanced" it is all step by step from the old days.

John Oder

stuball48 said:

"Machine Shop Practices" Volume 1 by Karl Moltrecht

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Excellent reference work, in two volumes. I have a couple of different editions.

Lindsay Publications (mentioned above) has a lot of "how to" books. You can download their catalog at www.lindsaybks.com

One of the standards is "How to Run a Lathe", originally published by South Bend. Lindsay has it as a reprint.

- Leigh

Machinery's Handbook from Industrial Press
Pocket Ref by Glover from Engineering Publications Group (Especaiily for the conversion tables)

Tom

stuball48 said:

"Machine Shop Practices" Volume 1 by Karl Moltrecht

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Get both volumes. Excellent references.


Rex

I 3rd or 4th the Moltrecht series recommendations. Also, Audell's has a similar series of books...Basic Machine Shop, Advanced and Automated, I believe. I bought them at Barnes & Noble some years back. They are somewhat cheaper than MSP if your looking to save money.

Good Luck

Mike

I'm not sure if you actually need another book, maybe just an easier way to get at the info.

Having a fair few machining related books about the place I'd say that, in general, books are good for the how to's, set-ups and for gleaning some of the info your mentor would have passed on (assisted by obligatory head slaps) if you'd been lucky enough to get proper training in your youth.

What they are not very good for, unless they are true references like Machinery's Handbook, is specific info such as speeds and feeds. If you collect books you will find there is an awful lot of repeated info plus each individual writers 10 % extra. Frankly what I usually want from purchases is the 10% extras not umpteen variations on the basics. One very disappointing purchase was Machine Shop Essentials by Frank Marlow. The write ups suggested that it was heavy on the extras, the practice showed it to be mostly yet another iteration on the basics plus 10% extras in a format that may have looked good in theory but actually makes for a hard read and inconvenient references. The Ford shop theory book suffers in similar way due to the chapters being written as lesson support / crib sheets not as either a book to read or one to look up. Best way to use the Ford book is to read the appropriate chapter then go do the job.

I have both volumes of Moltretch and found them useful and interesting sit down reads. Would have got much more out of them if I'd got them 20 years ago as I already had a fair bit of content elsewhere. I got both Elements of Machine Work and Advanced Machine Work cheap and still felt I'd overpaid. I found them an interesting read but more from a historical / general interest angle than as a workshop bible, to my mind much of it is just too far out of date now.

When you have a certain knowledge about your subject, especially if its been built up over many years, its incredibly hard to assess how a book will appear to and how useful it will be to a less experienced, but not rank beginner, person.

I suggest that you first need to sort out what you need information on. Basically make a note of everything you have to go and look up and every time you find a job difficult.
Won't take long before you have a fair idea of what you need to look for. For specific info, such as feeds & speeds, get hold of data charts or copy them out of Machinerys' Handbook and make up your own folder. Use the transparent document wallet thingies in a loose leaf book to protect against grubby fingers. There is a lot about on the net, sometimes its the only easy resource for slightly off beat stuff so ramp up your searching skills, save useful sites and print off what you really need for your folder in case the site goes down. Three useful things I culled recently (and wished I'd had these past 20 years) were:-
1) a copy of American Machinist Cutting speed Chart (no 30) which is a nomogram sorting materials, diameter & rpm
2) a surface speed calculator graph scaled in Diameter & RPM with lines for various SFM speeds
3) a milling feed calculator graph scaled in teeth pre minute (i.e. RPM x no of cutter teeth) and feed in inches per minute with lines for the various tooth loads.

I also have a couple of cardboard slide & window type calculators giving milling cutter feeds and speed for various size cutters which I wouldn't be without as being the first port of call when I'm unsure after setting a job up on the mill. I'd miss the Cleveland Oracle data book and a similar publication from Presto for tap, thread, drill and some cutter info too. Like pretty much every UK based machinist I have a well foxed (pocket) and better (desk) copy of the Zeus data charts, first port of call for threading data, comparative drill sizes, bending allowances and aide memoir for sorting out what those pesky fit codes mean. Other stuff in there too.

Tubal Cains Model Engineers Handbook is useful too as it readably makes some stuff accessible which is normally, in the pro world, buried in detail.

I managed with How to Run a Lathe, Machinery's Handbook (late '40's vintage) and a Zeus for years until I could afford to buy books in quantity.

Clive
(who has done enough writing to know that producing a useful & informative book is a darn sight harder than any critic allows).

http://metalwebnews.com/machine-tools/fmt.html

Free, too. I had the various machine sections printed out and in ring binders in teh shop at the museum. If any of the volunteers wanted to learn to run the machines, they had to read the book first.

Clive603 said:

Mike


Having a fair few machining related books about the place I'd say that, in general, books are good for the how to's, set-ups and for gleaning some of the info your mentor would have passed on (assisted by obligatory head slaps) if you'd been lucky enough to get proper training in your youth.


I suggest that you first need to sort out what you need information on. Basically make a note of everything you have to go and look up and every time you find a job difficult.
Won't take long before you have a fair idea of what you need to look for. For specific info, such as feeds & speeds, get hold of data charts or copy them out of Machinerys' Handbook and make up your own folder. Use the transparent document wallet thingies in a loose leaf book to protect against grubby fingers. There is a lot about on the net, sometimes its the only easy resource for slightly off beat stuff so ramp up your searching skills, save useful sites and print off what you really need for your folder in case the site goes down. Three useful things I culled recently (and wished I'd had these past 20 years) were:-
1) a copy of American Machinist Cutting speed Chart (no 30) which is a nomogram sorting materials, diameter & rpm
2) a surface speed calculator graph scaled in Diameter & RPM with lines for various SFM speeds
3) a milling feed calculator graph scaled in teeth pre minute (i.e. RPM x no of cutter teeth) and feed in inches per minute with lines for the various tooth loads.

I also have a couple of cardboard slide & window type calculators giving milling cutter feeds and speed for various size cutters which I wouldn't be without as being the first port of call when I'm unsure after setting a job up on the mill. I'd miss the Cleveland Oracle data book and a similar publication from Presto for tap, thread, drill and some cutter info too. Like pretty much every UK based machinist I have a well foxed (pocket) and better (desk) copy of the Zeus data charts, first port of call for threading data, comparative drill sizes, bending allowances and aide memoir for sorting out what those pesky fit codes mean. Other stuff in there too.

I managed with How to Run a Lathe, Machinery's Handbook (late '40's vintage) and a Zeus for years until I could afford to buy books in quantity.

Clive
(who has done enough writing to know that producing a useful & informative book is a darn sight harder than any critic allows).

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I have a few of the pocket sized notebooks "Machinist practical guide, Machinist tooling carbide guide, Machinist tapping guide, a Sandvik machining caculator (nice little tool) the before mentioned book and the Lathe operaion guide from Atlas, (from my 12X36 Atlas)

I bought these last night to add to the confusion, Machine shop Practice Vol. 1, Machine Tool Practices, Audel Machine Shop Tools and Operations, and Machine Shop Trade Secrets: A Guide to Manufacturing Machine Shop Practices

I will give these a whurl and see,

I have not had much "formal" machine training outside of HS metal shop taught by a coach that needed another class to be full time. I am pretty sure I was a better welder than he was at 17. I worked at a College teaching Auto tech before the job I have now doing the same thing and we had a machine shop I would spend time in and ask questions taking in as much as I could. Sometimes it was with a grain of salt. But for the most part I am a common sense kind of guy and I think most things using your hands benifits from this kind of thinking. I have quite a few street rod customers that tell me " I would have never thought of that" but alot of them are enginers and such so they were trained to overthink things.

I do have three good friends that are machinist's two of who will help me out anytime I call. The third is kind of guarded with info I guess he thinks I am going to take away buisness from him. And I have a customer that is an area sales rep for Kennemetal so he has been a good source for incerts and what does what. But for the most part I am a trial and error learner.

This site has been a great information source and I thank all you guys for the help. Mike

I am a tool and die moldmaker by trade and I think I have my books from my college course. I will look in my basement next week when I get back from vacation. If I still have them, and your willing to pay shipping their all yours.

Ohio Mike said:

I recently picked up a copy of "Machine Tool Practices" which is a trade school text. Mine is an older 6th edition, paid less that $20 on eBay. Highly recommended.

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Not just trade schools. When I was at Ohio State University in the late '80's the Industrial Engineering department used it for some of their manufacturing lab courses. This was when the IE department had a foundry, machine shop, and wood shop available to students and used for teaching.

yes to _Machine Tool Practices_

AndyF said:

Not just trade schools. When I was at Ohio State University in the late '80's the Industrial Engineering department used it for some of their manufacturing lab courses. This was when the IE department had a foundry, machine shop, and wood shop available to students and used for teaching.

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I agree with Ohio Mike and AndyF that _Machine Tool Practices_, by Kibbe and Neely, is an excellent all around book. Currently, it is in its 8th or 9th edition, according to www.amazon.com, with a retail price of about $100.

If you buy an older edition, you will get pretty much the same useful information, for much less. I have the 6th edition, which is modern enough for me. I see that on www.bookfinder.com, the 6th edition (which was printed in 1998) can be bought for under $10, with shipping included.

The great manufacturing reference

Check out AJ's reference page, it's everything you need online and more:

http://www.mfgx.com/docs/DOC-1321

5 axis Fidia guy said:

I am a tool and die moldmaker by trade and I think I have my books from my college course. I will look in my basement next week when I get back from vacation. If I still have them, and your willing to pay shipping their all yours.

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If he doesn't,,,I do!!

I have the seventh edition of machine tool practices, by Kibbe, Neely, Meyer and White. As someone mentioned above, this is the one of the books we used in teh school. I still refer too now and then. I graduated in 2005 at 42 years old. It's never too late to learn.

Rick

Boy looking at my spelling, i guess it's time for glasses.

Pet Text

I have a few editions of Technology Of Machine Tools by Krar and others. I taught from the original and have since picked up later versions. The latest one I have has an ISBN # 0-02-803071-0 Picked up from Alebris for $20 Covers all you will need. Peter