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.

For the 80’s car crowd you get specialized topics such as repairing vinyl and fabric-covered tops, interior and exterior trim, convertible top servicing, etc. Then we head to the paint shop circa 1980, where much has changed…

You may wonder why I recommend the book. First off, it’s available cheaply on the used market (Amazon, ABE). Modern auto body books tend towards the expensive. Second it covers repairs to metal body work, not the modern plastics. Even if you have no intention of doing auto body repair the book is a great general guide to sheet metal processes. It’s a cheap, good read.

Via Amazon [What’s This?]

After this comes a chapter on drilling, where the making of drills figures prominently. Having drilled deep holes in quartz with a piece of tubing and grit, I can say that this information is very handy. The book moves on to cabachon grinding, cabachons being those domed stones found in the majority of jewelry. We then get tons of information on faceting, which is the grinding of stones with facets (like that fake ruby in your class ring). After many chapters on that subject we move to spheres and beads, tumbling, carving and engraving of stones, mosaic and inlay, and finally specific details on each of the major types of precious and semiprecious gemstones.

While you may not be considering lapidary work the book has techniques that can be applied to any hard materials such as glass, and shows tools such as wet sanders that are very handy for metalwork. If only every craft were covered in such exhaustive detail!

According to Amazon the book is out of print [What’s This?] but used copies of older editions are affordable.

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.

The books are cheap — Carroll’s website retails all five for just under $100, and as usual, Amazon undercuts that by a few dollars a piece. While most technical manuals are written in a dense, scientist-y prose which is as difficult to understand as the appeal of celebrity tabloids, Carroll’s books are like a conversation at lunch hour. He sticks to simple statements, doesn’t worry too much about the underlying mathematics in what he’s learned, and isn’t afraid to drop the occasional swear word. Every one of the books is an entertaining and very useful read. Engineer to Win, for example, contains one of the best introductions to metallurgy and materials science I’ve ever read.

The Carroll Smith Library Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Books [Carroll Smith Website]

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.

The many pictures allow you to look at your own failed component and see what type of failure occurred. If you find yourself constantly wondering why you have broken parts, this might be a helpful book — likewise if you seek to avoid having broken parts! There is no math but each chapter ends with a long bibliography for further research.

The book has a “limited” preview on Google Books should you wish to see what’s inside. The book is fairly expensive but you can find cheap copies from time to time. It’s certainly a candidate for inter-library loan.

Understanding How Components Fail Via Amazon [What’s This?]

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.

The book pretty much covers every possible use of the small lathe in the home shop. The only drawback is that the lathe used in the examples is the British workhorse, the Myford, which is pretty rare here in the states. But pretty much everything else is applicable to used U.S. lathes or newer imports. I often dig the book out when I’m having a creative block and trying to figure out how exactly to go about a particular odd piece of work. It’s also been lent to several friends who are starting out in the rewarding practice of home shop machining. The book is still in print and available for $10-$12 from various online sellers and Amazon UK.

The Amateur’s Lathe [Special Interest Model Books]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon
Lawrence H. Sparey Author Info [Website]

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.

This is complex, time-consuming, and extremely skilled work. You have to have all your procedures down, a collection of accurate measuring tools and the ability to understand and verify your work along the way. If anything the book should be subtitled “maybe you should rethink this project before you get in too deep.” But I have seen some great examples of people applying the knowledge in this book over the years, and if done properly you end up with a machine that is equal or better than any new machine you can buy.

The measuring techniques are also helpful in the diagnosis of problems with your machine tool’s alignment since many tests are shown. If you’ve ever struggled with workpieces that don’t come out square when they should have, this book may help.

Scraping is a fascinating subject in and of itself, and it is a great skill to work on over your lifetime. The ability to make a flat surface is exciting, and to generate true right angles? Priceless.

The book is insanely expensive, unfortunately; new it’s $92.95 with used copies from the usual suspects [What’s This?]hovering around the $89.00 mark. It should also be available at your local library, or one of your home shop machinist buddies may have a copy laying around.

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.

Several chapters discuss forming with brakes punch presses. Then we get to chapter 5, “Rubber Die Forming,” a great chapter on the low-cost hydraulic die forming techniques of the Guerin and other techniques. It translates well for those who use hydraulic die forming for jewelry work.

Chapter 6, “Spinning,” is an excellent guide to metal spinning of aluminum forms on the lathe — it includes some of the best tool pr0n we’ve seen, like the picture of two men spinning an aluminum form 12 feet in diameter!

After spinning we get other chapters on forming, forging, embossing, bulging, and sundry other techniques to bend aluminum to your will. Chapter 12, “Tube and Shape Bending,” contains great information for those with tube bending machines (Hossfeld, Diacro, etc).

As I said, it’s just a wonderful reference for anyone who works in aluminum. The best part: you can find a used copy for between $6 and $10 through Amazon and other online book dealers.  I searched Alcoa’s site but didn’t turn up anything except this cool aluminum notebook.

Forming Alcoa Aluminum [Google Books]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]
Street Pricing [Google Products]

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.

The book covers each component of a CNC system, detailing the hardware and software involved. The making of a homebrew machine and conversions of existing benchtop machines are shown in detail. Other topics discussed include designing and building the controller box, selecting the proper stepper or servo motors, and power supplies. The Mach3 control program, the primary piece of software used by homebrew CNC systems, is also covered in detail.

The book is not a set of plans for any particular controller or machine, but it goes a long way in bringing you up to speed on all that’s involved in building one. It’s not an instruction manual on machining, setups or other practical matters. You can find most information covered in this book by searching multiple sites on the internet, but the book brings everything together into one place and allows you to focus your efforts on specifics. It’s a good read for anyone starting out on their first CNC conversion or build project.

Via Amazon [What’s This?]

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.

The series is up to Volume 4.  Brownells online pricing is $30 a volume, or $110 for the four volumes together, but if you check the latest catalog you’ll find a coupon for phone or mail order that gets you all four volumes for only $77.  Even if you don’t care about the coupon, it’s not a bad idea to get the catalog — it includes tons of tools that are unavailable from other sources.

In any case, the books will certainly contain a few tips that’ll be of great use to you. Lately Brownells has been publishing monthly tips on their site as well, which also features a slew of other technical articles.

Gunsmith Kinks [Brownells]

One of the books on my “buy if I ever find it cheap” list is Oppi Untracht’s Jewelry Concepts and Technology — possibly the best textbook on jewelry and related decorative metal techniques ever written.  Untracht traveled the world documenting both modern and ancient practices, and the only flaw in the book is that it’s now somewhat out of date, having last been revised in the 1980s.

It’s definitely one to check out from your local library (as I have, often).  At 860 pages, there’s something in here for every metalworker.

Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Taunton Press is having a May-long 50% off sale on many of their books on woodworking and other subjects. It’s certainly a good time to fill out the library with Fine Woodworking compendiums and all the classics by authors like Raffan, Bird, and Conover.

Taunton Press 50% Off Sale [Taunton]

Popular Mechanics used to release an annual book containing all their shop tips and tricks, appropriately called “Popular Mechanics Shop Notes.”  I own several original volumes from the ’30s and ’40s which make for entertaining bedtime reading.  Now the folks at Lee Valley Tools have reprinted every volume between 1905 and 1930 at a low cost — $7.50 each or $32.50 for 5-year increments.

You can find used original copies at around the same price or more, depending on condition and year. There’s even one copy fully scanned on Google Books, from 1921.  Topics vary from year to year and decade to decade, but each book contains at least a few items that’ll solve a problem or spur a solution — a highly recommended bit of reading.

Popular Mechanics Shop Notes [Lee Valley]

You’ll see checkering most often on firearms, where a good grip on a tool is highly desirable, but you can add this “finish” to any project you want to look beautiful.  As with so many arts, artists seem to be divided by their choice of media, wood and metal being the most popular.  If you’d rather do it yourself instead of paying an artist for a slick checkering job, you can check out some DIY books and videos on the subject.

Checkering files run $30 and up on the street, and groove-cutting tools are similarly priced.

Metal Checkering Files [Brownells]
File Street Pricing [Google Products]
Wood Checkering Set [Wood Carver Supply]
Checkering Tool Street Pricing [Google Products]
Checkering Book Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Bookholders.com is selling a number of copies (most seemingly unused) of the latest edition of Machinery’s Handbook for only $57.34. If you don’t own a copy of Machinery’s Handbook, what can we say? It’s the bible of the metalworking trades and contains just about any information you’ll need in the shop. If you want to save even more money, look for earlier editions, which you can often find for as little as $5-10 at used bookstores.

Machinery’s Handbook, 28th Ed. [BookHolders]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] [What's This?]

Metallurgists combine metals to create alloys that work differently than any of their components. Woodworkers might find this idea alien — mixing two woods just doesn’t go. Machinists might not even appreciate the beauty of this fantastic art and science, unless they carefully select the metals they work with. But the choice of a metallic alloy for a project or a part can make even more difference than a woodworker’s choice of species.

Metallurgists know how to achieve the desired blend of color, texture, hardness, stretch, deformation, brittleness, and other measurable qualities. They also add non-metals to the mix — carbon to make steel, silicon to make semiconductors, and diamond dust to make cutting tools. If you want to take a closer look, check out the link below for a fun place to start.

Photo posted on Flickr by catbutler.

Powder Metallurgy Diamond Tools [Elsevier]
Toolmonger Photo Pool [Flickr]

Remember that time you asked your algebra teacher when you’d ever need to solve for X in real life? There’s a good chance you still haven’t found a use for your higher math skills, but Toolmongers will likely encounter plenty of practical math issues during a project. This handy book’ll show you how to calculate roof pitch, lay out stairs, make sense of a scientific calculator, and lots of other stuff.

The guide contains 256 pages of facts, figures, and conversion tables aimed at industry, construction, and home projects.  The book outlines simple projects that allow you to apply your newfound math skills using basic materials.  It also includes reviews and testing material to keep you sharp. It measures 10.6″ x 8.7″ x 0.4″ with precut holes, so you can keep it in a three-ring binder out in the shop for easy reference.

All this knowledge will run you about $20.

Chenier’s Practical Math Application Guide [Official Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] (ISDN: 096260612X) [What's This?]

Have you ever watched a how-to video and wanted to jump right into a new project as soon as it was over? That’s how I feel after watching part of Taunton’s three-DVD set on house building.

The set consists of Framing Walls, Framing Roofs, and Framing Floors and Stairs.  Larry Haun, a production framer, and his brother Rob go over the basics of framing a house, from the slab up to the roof. They clearly explain the steps and tools necessary to do the job, and they even show techniques to speed the process.

Larry presents everything in such a way that even my wife — who had to watch it because I had the remote — ended up being interested.  You can get the three DVDs for $20 apiece from Taunton, but I was able to borrow mine from the library. They’re really worth watching for the chance to hear a professional speak about and perform his trade.

Framing Walls [Taunton]
Framing Roofs [Taunton]
Framing Floors and Stairs [Taunton]
Via Amazon [What’s This?] (1561587184) [What's This?]