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Good books on machine design and with machine plans or building instructions

drogus

Aluminum
Joined
Aug 12, 2018
Hey,

I recently started machining as a hobby and I got really interested in machine design and machine building from practical perspective.

I’m not necessarily looking to build any machines at the moment, but I feel that knowing how machines are built an why are they built in a certain way would make my machining knowledge much broader and it might make it much easier to do any machine maintenance when needed. And it also seems very interesting.

I know about the Gingery series, but from what I understand his designs are aimed at a low cost aluminum machines and I’m looking more at a design used in professional machines. It doesn’t have to be anything recent, though, old designs are also welcomed.
 
Gingery's machine tools are not very practical in that you can't remove much metal with any of them. They're more an exercise in mechanical improvisation—which is not to say the projects are without value. If you have absolutely nothing (beyond access to a university student shop or the equivalent) they look like a way forward to starting your own factory. For that you need a practical education, and those projects are not a bad way to get one. Another useful research tool is older machine tool parts manuals—which can be expensive but provide some insight into the design thinking of the manufacturer. The period following widespread adoption of carbide cutting tools is the best; machines built before then occasionally fell victim to some serious misconceptions.
 
My first serious metalworking project was a built-up-CRS lathe based on Dave Gingery's design. No castings other than the Cummin's pistons used as head- and tail-stock, and I did cheat and have a local machine shop cut the end of the spindle 1.5-8 to fit real chucks. When I got to the point of adding change gears for thread cutting, I figured I'd gotten my apprenticeship at hacksaw+file and dodgy light cuts, and moved on to professional machines. At the time, I was a semi-serious woodworker and this was a nice hands-on introduction to metalworking. So while discussion of the Gingery machines doesn't fall within the PM guidelines, I do not sneer at his books. They are good learn-by-doing start-with-nothing material.

Most of us, however, are not starting with nothing. I have a couple of shelves full of machining texts (many of them from about 100 years ago) which are favorite bedtime reading. (I make no apologies for being an engineering geek.) Lindsay Publications (now sadly out of business) reprinted many of these. Most of them are still available through print-on-demand services, almost all of which fail utterly at the curation, description and promotion of the material. When all you are given is the title and author, and you're not already familiar with the book, it's pretty much impossible to choose.

I will make a list in the next day or two of my favorites. Slightly tangential to the "machine building" request of the OP is "fixture building", and Albert Dowd wrote many, many articles on this topic, which have been collected into at least four books. Much more directly applicable, and almost much more expensive (!) are the books by Moore on their precision machine construction (and use). Also, Precision Machine Design by Slocum.

Let me add that there is a gulf between a 1900's text on machine design, and a 2010's text on machine design. The 2010 text is considerably more abstract, assumes either a much higher or a much lower level of basic engineering experience, and probably spends more time on strength-of-materials and production cost optimization than it does on the actual machine functionality and layout. The 1900's text probably has more outright bad advice in it (depending on the author, of course), but is unquestionably closer to the actual use of the final machines.
 
There are some references that may be useful in this old thread. https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...ory/looking-machine-design-chronicles-347775/

Thanks for the link, a lot of awesome titles there.

Oldwrench said:
Gingery's machine tools are not very practical in that you can't remove much metal with any of them. They're more an exercise in mechanical improvisation—which is not to say the projects are without value.

That's what I heard as well. I still might buy the books to see the thought process on designing those machines, but I think I'll start with other books first.

Oldwrench said:
Another useful research tool is older machine tool parts manuals—which can be expensive but provide some insight into the design thinking of the manufacturer. The period following widespread adoption of carbide cutting tools is the best; machines built before then occasionally fell victim to some serious misconceptions.

Thanks, that's a great idea, I'll see what I can find.

johnoder said:
Is 140 feet long and many tons of weight professional enough?

Way too professional for me, but seems super interesting :D

sfriedberg said:
I will make a list in the next day or two of my favorites. Slightly tangential to the "machine building" request of the OP is "fixture building", and Albert Dowd wrote many, many articles on this topic, which have been collected into at least four books. Much more directly applicable, and almost much more expensive (!) are the books by Moore on their precision machine construction (and use). Also, Precision Machine Design by Slocum.

Let me add that there is a gulf between a 1900's text on machine design, and a 2010's text on machine design. The 2010 text is considerably more abstract, assumes either a much higher or a much lower level of basic engineering experience, and probably spends more time on strength-of-materials and production cost optimization than it does on the actual machine functionality and layout. The 1900's text probably has more outright bad advice in it (depending on the author, of course), but is unquestionably closer to the actual use of the final machines.

Thanks for the titles and other insights. That's also a very interesting view about a difference between newer and older books. To be honest I often prefer older books on machining in general for a similar reason. And also because I think that hobby machining is in many ways closer to older times. Many of us still own belt driven manual lathes, old milling machines or metal shapers - things that are not used anymore by pros nowadays.
 








 
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