I was given "the Seventeeth Edition" of "Machinery's Handbook" by my parents. It was a gift to me when I was a student at Brooklyn Technical High School, and was a required posession when we were in the Mechanical Course of Study. My 17th edition is dated 1964. I worked out of that text thru my junior & senior years at 'Tech. Students who could not afford to buy the Machinery's Handbook or other required supplies like mechanical drawing instruments were given them by the school. 'Tech was a 'specialized high school' run by NY City Board of Education, and I got an incredible education there.
At the end of our time at 'Tech, those of us in specialized courses of study were required to take a NYS 'Comprehensive Exam' in addition to the usual Regents exams in academic subjects. The "Comp" was two days, the first being devoted to Machine Design and Mechanical Drawing along with Strength of Materials and some Metallurgy. The second day was devoted to shop work, and required doing shop math and writing up 'operations sheets' as to how parts would be made and machined, including knowledge of patternmaking and foundry practice.
I still have the pencilled noted and 'shortcuts' in the fly-leaves of that Machinery's Handbook. We were told to write the formulas and information we'd need the most on the 'Comp' in pencil in the fly leaves, since we were allowed to use the Machinery's Handbook. I wish now I had asked my parents to write something in the fly leaves of that book, as they are both gone.
I have several older editions of Machinery's Handbook and a much newer edition I used at the powerplant before I retired. In all cases, the Machinery's Handbook is sized so it fits into the center/top drawer of a Gerstner chest- or, as is more likely- Gerstner designed that drawer around the size of the handbook.
I've never seen a larger sized edition of Machinery's Handbook. I am nearly 71 years of age, and my eyesight has changed a good bit over the years. I take my glasses off for close work and 'reading the fine print'. Machinerys Handbook does have plenty of 'fine print', and occasionally, I will use a magnifier to make sure an exponent on some formula or other is what I thought it ought to have been.
Using the same copy of Machinery's Handbook for 57 years is not a bad record, and no complaints from me as to size of the book. It is a handy size if you take it into the shop or place it on your drawing table ( I still do my mechanical drawings on a table with triangles, drawings instruments, and pencils) to get data. I am something of a stubborn dinosaur, and do not have a 'smart phone' or 'iPad' (wife, who is 66 does have and is quite competent with these devices, as are our children). I prefer thumbing through an old familiar text with the memories of my parents and the years at Brooklyn Tech, working in the shops, and a career as a mechanical engineer all coming to me as I look up what I need. Gear formulas take me back to my junior year at Tech and a few jobs later on where I had to design gears or reverse engineer them. Thread data, 'mechanics' (moments of inertia, and similar), and much else is used by me in 'retirement', and paging thru the handbook brings back memories of jobs and people over those past 57 years.
Personally, I hope Machinery's Handbook will be kept in the printed version, same size, same green covers. It's tradition. I've given a few copies to young people starting in the machinist trade or as freshly minted mechanical engineers whom I've mentored. Even the young engineers agree that being able to page thru a book and see the diagrams and tabulated data and formulas is quite helpful. Sometimes, if a person does not know the name for something in engineering or machine work, paging thru a handbook (or catalog) will put them on the right track. Using 'artificial intelligence', if the correct terms or something close to it, are not known, it seems like a person can be hunting for awhile. Maybe that's my experience doing online research, but then, I am a stubborn dinosaur and proud of it.
