Set the Wayback machine for 1984 and read “Auto Body Repair” by Duenk, Williams, and Brooks. The book is a comprehensive manual for auto body repair as done in the 1980’s. The book has it all, starting with an overview of the construction and assembly of the auto body. Then we move to chapters on body repair tools and shop equipment, use of hand tools and techniques including specialty tools. Frame straightening and underbody repair are covered along with welding, brazing and heat shrinking. Minor and Major repairs are covered along with the types of accidents that produce the need for such repairs.

(more…)

Gem Cutting, A Lapidary’s Manual by John Sinkankas is one of those great books that provides a solid introduction and guide to a craft, in this case lapidary work. “Lapidary” is a fancy way of saying (gem)stone cutting. The book covers many topics, starting with sawing gemstones to rough size, both with professional and DIY equipment, including the use of very large saws for cutting apart boulders. Then the book moves on to grinding, tool selection, maintenance, selection as before. Later chapters cover lapping, sanding and polishing.

(more…)

While the Carroll Smith collection may sound like a range of crockery from Sears, it’s actually a series of five books which are the testaments of race preparation. Smith was a racing legend who passed away in 2003 after working with everything from an MGTF to a Formula 5000 car, and was the team leader for Ford’s all-conquering GT40 program. A part of the vast knowledge he accumulated in his years is presented in Engineer to Win, Tune to Win, Prepare to Win, Drive to Win, and the Nuts, Bolts, Fasteners, and Plumbing Handbook.

(more…)

Understanding How Components Fail by Donald J. Wulpi is one of those rare texts that takes a complex subject and makes it understandable to the layman while preserving that complexity. The book is, as the title suggests, an examination of the types of failures that mechanical components undergo and how to examine those failures. The book covers distortion failures, fractures of so many types, stresses, wear, corrosion, and high-temperature failures.

(more…)

The Amateur’s Lathe by L.H. Sparey is possibly the best book for the home shop machinist on getting the most out of your smaller lathe. The book was first published in 1948 but it’s held up well over the years.

The first few chapters cover what a lathe is, choosing a lathe, typical and useful things to look for in purchasing one, and setup. The book then has a chapter on accessories both bought and shop-made with engineering drawings of several useful accessories. Grinding lathe tools, drilling, and other lathe operations are covered. The chapter on work holding is incredibly useful with many setups for faceplate work and mandrel use. Then we get a chapter on boring, another on taper, crankshaft, disk, and ball turning. Screwcutting is covered in its own chapter. Milling, shaping, and grinding are covered along with the drawings for a simple dividing head. As if that’s not enough, the final chapters cover lapping, metal spinning, spring winding, rubber and leather turning, and production techniques.

(more…)

Lee Valley offers 6 reprinted volumes of vintage Bull of the Woods cartoons. Drawn by J.R. Williams, the cartoons come from his real-life experiences working in an Ohio machine shop (several cartoons are shown in that link to a Popular Mechanics article). The cartoons highlight the hazing, injuries, management issues and other day-to-day hilarity found in the early 20th century machine shop. It’s excellent reading at the end of the day or while sneaking a rest behind the planer. The books serves as a history of sorts as well, showing machines that no longer exist in most machine shops and practices that only the most experienced old timer machinists know.

Bull of the Woods [Lee Valley]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

While researching the DuraGear Flexible Shaft Screwdriver, I saw a reference to this book by Witold Rybczyski and wound up getting a copy through PaperBackSwap. It’s fascinating (well, for me at least, but then I really enjoyed the “History of Engineering” course I took lo those many years ago in college) account of when and where the screwdriver and screw were invented. No mention is made of the illusive laser-guided screwdriver, but it does offer lots of other interesting historical information starting with Archimedes and progressing through Peter L. Robertson* and beyond.

Given that you can pick up a copy for $5 or less, I would say this is a good and economical read.

*including his invention of the Wrench-Brace (apparently an early multi-tool combining a brace, monkey wrench, screwdriver, bench vise, and rivet maker); if anyone has any information about this device, I would be interested, as my web searches for details have been futile.

Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

Inspection and Gaging by Kennedy, Bond and Hoffman (and others depending on edition) is a good read about how to use precision measuring instruments and take precise measurements of parts. The book covers everything from the simple steel rule to CMM (coordinate measuring machines).

While most machining textbooks cover the basics of precision measurement, this book delves into how to use measuring tools, how to calibrate and verify measurements with those tools, and many ways of measuring all sorts of features such as holes, slots, flanges, threads, and anything else on a part that needs to be in the right place or the right size. The book also shows how not to make errors in measurements, which becomes more important as the desired tolerances grow finer (and the book tells how to properly measure in the range of millionths of an inch). The book is affordable new [What’s This?], but is available used for very little in older editions.

Inspection and Gaging [Industrial Press]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

If you’ve ever struggled to express that strange something which draws our kind into the shop, Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft is worth a read. The book is designed to explain the importance of the manual trades and the deep satisfaction to be had in applying one’s self to mechanical problems. Crawford has many an unkind word for the circumstances that led us to a “knowledge economy,” arguing that such a system is crippling to the human spirit. In other words, desk jobs drive men mad. Sound familiar?

Hit the library for this one, or go to Amazon with $17.13 for your own copy. No tradesman, mechanic, builder or laborer will ever feel like they’re missing anything in the white-collar world once Crawford’s wisdom is absorbed.

Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Machine Tool Reconditioning by Edward Connelly is the standard work on the reconditioning of machine tools through the applications of hand scraping. What is scraping? It is the controlled removal of tiny amounts of metal using a scraper, as applied towards gyrating surfaces that are flat and in alignment in relation to the other surfaces of the machine.

Often you’ll hear of people “restoring” a lathe or milling machine. What they usually mean is that they cleaned it up, restored the bearings and other missing parts, removed rust and gave it a new coat of paint. What this book does is show you how to restore the accuracy of a machine back to factory specifications. There are sections for the most common machines so treated, the Engine Lathe, Horizontal and Vertical Milling Machines and Cylindrical and Surface Grinders.

(more…)

Forming Alcoa Aluminum, an older book published by ALCOA Aluminum, covers all aspects of forming aluminum. I’m frequently led back to this book because of the breadth of techniques it tackles.

The first chapter discusses what alloy and temper to choose for your project. The second, “Blanking and Piercing,” explores the typical industrial methods of punches and shears as well as other techniques such as router or circular saw.

(more…)

The Principles and Practice of Ornamental or Complex Turning by John Jacob Holtzapffel is one of those rare books that will completely blow your mind. A compilation of techniques for doing ornamented woodturning, which is dependent on a highly complex apparatus for the wood lathe, ornamental turning is to regular turning as a Rolls Royce is to a Taurus.

Half of the techniques are routing around the periphery and across the face of work held in the lathe, using chucks and spindles that can eccentrically, geometrically, linearly, spherically present the work to the cutting tool. Oh right, I forgot, and elliptically! True Victorian madness. A great read for its own sake as well as for techniques that you can add to your “simple” wood turning.

Full Text Via Google Books
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

I recently read The CNC Cookbook by E. Hess and thought I’d mention it here. The book contains most of the information needed to get started designing and building a small CNC machine, and is pretty easy to follow. (more…)

This anonymous British text from the 1860s was designed as “an instructive text on the importance, dignity, and techniques of labor.” It details the work of over thirty trades including millers, sugar refiners, and shoemakers, with over 700 illustrations — many of tools of the time period. If you’re into antique tools or the history of hand craftsmanship, this book is an inexpensive (street pricing runs around $11) and interesting guide to the kind of work your great-great-grandfather might have done.

Book of Old-Time Trades and Tools [Dover Publications]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Street Pricing [Google]

Edward G. Hoffman’s Jig and Fixture Design is a great introductory text on the principles and practice of designing jigs and fixtures for parts machining. While oriented towards the machine shop, the book is handy for those making other sorts of fixtures for woodworking, welding, etc. While you rarely need a jig or fixture for making a single item, when making multiples of a given part, a jig or fixture often reduces the amount of setup time and ensures consistency from part to part.

The book is insanely expensive new, but you can find used copies of the current edition for a manageable sum, and earlier editions are often available for next to nothing. I paid $5.50 for my copy of the third edition at a local book shop.

Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Street Pricing [Google]

The Lincoln Electric company sells a series of books titled Arc Welded Projects.  These great books contain a variety of projects for the home, farm, and shop, and for the artistic welder.  You get a bill of materials for each project and relatively detailed instructions.

For some reason, Lincoln Electric doesn’t offer Volume I, but you can likely find it used.  In Volume II you’ll find plans for a hydraulic press, forge, welding positioner, bench vise, band saw, and other tools. They also feature some projects up on their website.

Arc Welded Projects Vol II [Lincoln Electric]
Arc Welded Projects Vol III [Lincoln Electric]
Arc Welded Projects Vol IV [Lincoln Electric]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

For decades now, Brownells gunsmithing supply has been saving tips from gunsmiths and publishing them in fat volumes titled Gunsmith Kinks.  The tips run from general shop practice, toolmaking, metal finishing, wood finishing, and specific firearms techniques to a host of incredibly bad jokes — so bad you’ll be reading them aloud to friends and family.

(more…)