What book would be most useful to you?

Hello everyone

Thanks for your views and responses on my post calling for authors for our metalworking books.

After picking the brains of ever-patient Neil W this morning, I thought I’d start a more general thread about metalworking books in order to ask the questions: what book would you really like to see published? What would be the most useful book for you?

As noted, our titles are reasonably substantial books at about 40k-50k words, but we’re looking at a wide range of topics, from more introductory levels to quite specialised. Personally speaking, it’s also a brilliant area to commission in – as an editor, you couldn’t hope for a nicer, more engaged and interesting group of authors, and it never ceases to astonish me what people are creating in their workshops. It’s an area we’re expanding our publishing programme in, and your thoughts would be most welcome and gratefully received on what titles you think would be interesting and useful.

I make no promises that if you suggest it, I won’t ask you to write it…as ever, I can be contacted on hannah @ crowood.com or 01672 520320 if that’s a discussion you’d like to have!

Thanks everyone and look forward to hearing your thoughts. All best wishes, Hannah

Edited By Hannah Shakespeare on 09/03/2015 12:38:34

So many times I have seen forum posts along the lines of "I've just bought this machine. Anyone have any ideas on projects?"

Perhaps a "learn by making" guide with useful things produced at each stage. Show people what the machine is capable of and let them decide on the direction it takes. Not always modelling and not always in metal.

Also something less linear than turning only or milling only and carrying on through to heat treatment and surface coatings.

Buying plans is all well and good too but who tells beginners how to read them?

I would love to see Jürgen Eichardt’s books translated into English. Every one of his books is a treasure trove for anyone interested in model engineering. The drawings are highly detailed. The photographs and other illustrations are excellent. The layout is quite professional and pleasing. All of the books are around 150 pages long.

https://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.ship-model-today.de/index.htm

(http://www.ship-model-today.de/buecher.htm)

You might contact his publisher Verlag (www.vth.de) and see if you can’t work out an agreement.

Hans

There are hundreds of projects spread out over the ME magazine issues over the last 100 years

Bringing these together into a single cohesive book of articles for each of these serialised projects has yet to be done apart from a few LBSC choo choos et al

I'll second Han's vote for Jurgen Eichardt’s books.

I have five of them in the original German (and I don't speak German) but I'd willingly buy them again to have them in English!

Although a marine modeller (which I'm not) anyone who wants to build small scale metal assemblies (without using etchings) using a lathe and/or mill will find his work invaluable. That's just the parts of his books that I've translated (via Google Translate - a painful thing to have to do btw!) but I'm sure there's lots more that I've not fully understood (or spotted/translated yet). His books are a goldmine of information and good ideas - much of it original thinking.

I'm not aware of anything like it available from an English or American author/publisher (and I have looked).

Highly recommended.

Regards,

IanT

By the way Hannah - I have a fairly extensive 'technical' library (of both new and old publications), gathered over many years. The "basics" have been covered many (many, many) times over and frankly the "old guys" were very good engineers and are hard to better..

Some of the technology available to MEs might have changed over recent years (and keeps on changing) but I can already get specialist books on much of this stuff elsewhere online (which is good because it changes pretty rapidly).

Regards,

IanT

Edited By IanT on 09/03/2015 19:06:05

Hi all, thanks for your replies. I will look into the Eichardt books. I'll have to send the info to our MD. We don't do a lot of translations but it's always worth investigating.

@Capstan Speaking - can I clarify what you mean by 'plans'? An interesting point that as a beginner, you don't necessarily know how to read the information available, but I am not sure what this refers to - your help on this much appreciated, thanks.

Hannah if you do print any more book that have plans and drawings in them would it be possible to get someone with a technical knowledge to look them over. Its alright for somebody with little technical knowledge to proof read text but errors on drawings need someone who knows the subject to spot the errors.

J

Zeus.

Regards Ian.

Jason,

I think your request is close to impossible to achieve with all but the simplest of drawings. It is all too easy to read what you expect to see and a typo on a drawing, particularly a busy or complex one is very easily read as such. Moreover, who do you choose for the task?

Even the late, great Tubal Cain, in the 3rd Edition of his Workshop reference book, made a fundamental error on a one off drawing of the cone angle for the Myford spindle nose from just such oversight

12 degrees 25 minutes is shown as 2 degrees 25 minutes. Late in the day that might even look right.

Trawling through a minefield of dimensions containing 31/64 and 17/32 with vital numbers missing to read 3/64 and 7/32 instead [just as examples] would be so easy to overlook.

I am more inclined to expect the author to have done that sort of proof reading as thoroughly as possible, perhaps with the help of a friend or knowledgeable acquaintance, than hope someone else entirely remote from the concept is sharp enough to spot such errors. Authors should be traceable from the publishers in any case to answer queries that arise on the work they have had published.

Regards

Brian

As you can see, I've edited this once,no, twice already

Edited By Brian Wood on 11/03/2015 16:33:33

Edited By Brian Wood on 11/03/2015 16:34:46

Brian without going into too much detail after having read one of the recent offerings and finding things like the boiler barrel thickness given as two different sizes depending on where you look or the bolt centres on eccentric straps different to the centres on the mating rods right next to them. Then this is more than just a typo especially as the book is aimed at a beginner the wrong boiler material could have dangerous as well as costly implications.

I could spot many more but what hope the beginner?

J

Edited By JasonB on 11/03/2015 16:41:09

Hello Jason, thanks for your feedback. It is concerning to hear that errors have been published in our books and we are always pleased to receive any corrections, which can be emailed to me via hannah @ crowood.com (no spaces). We will then incorporate those into any reprint (authors are always contacted before a reprint for the same purpose, as inevitably, some usually text errors do creep in, it being impossible to spot everything).

Largely, Brian is right - this being a technical area, we do have to rely on our authors and their contacts to check their drawings and highlight any inconsistencies. I do appreciate though that the consequences in a technical area are potentially more serious than in others, and will see if there are any adjustments we can make to try and accommodate further checks at production stage.

I'd be happy to answer any further queries, but to prevent this thread drifting off-topic, please may I ask that further comments be emailed to me, as above - thank you.

One area that I think is currently missing from the series is a decent treatise on carbide inserts and inserted tools. With some background on those inserts likely to be of use in the home workshop and lots of design information relative to practical tools .... along with specific examples of designs.

Other than some rambling articles on the numbering systems for these inserts there hasn't been a great deal published of practical use in amateur journals.

Don't ask me to write it though .... logically if I knew enough to write it I wouldn't be requesting it.

The point about looking for drawing errors. When I had to work for a living, I would get involved in the buildup of drawing office estimates. The general allowance for "checking" drawings was 30% of the actual drawing time taken. This was for drawings prepared by professional draughtsmen, not enthusiastic amateurs. I very much doubt if any drawings likely to be under discussion here have ever undergone any sort of formal checking.

About book topics, the idea about inserts sounds good, although as Bandersnatch has hinted, that could be a nightmare that (might be) rapidly made obsolete.

Material properties, written by someone who knows, for those that don't, would be good. Especially if it included equivalents of UK, US, European, Japanese specifications. It's a big topic though!!

cheers

Bill

Hannah,

I also have the two German language books on milling by Jurgen Eichardt but would prefer to have an English version. I can understand some words but it takes quite a while to translate all the unknown words in only the most interesting parts of the books.

For those unaware of these books, they are; "Frasen fur Modellbauer" Band 1 and Band 2, meaning Milling for Modellers , Part 1 and 2. The Author has written more books on various subjects but I am only interested in the milling ones.

John

I think you read more into it than I intended, Bill. Although I'm sure new insert shapes/sizes/types are probably popping up every day there are some common ones that have been around for years (CCMT, TNMG etc) and show every sign of being around for ever. Besides which, if the book, as I would hope also contained generalised tool design guidelines it should be useful for mosty new inserts too.

(If any books in the series are in danger of becoming obsolete it the ones on machinery (mills. lathes) that focus exclusively on current models at the time of writing)>

As said above, a lot of obvious titles are already well served. So maybe engineering practices with a different focus would be interesting.

How about a book on restoring old machine tools? Including evaluation, disassembly, cleaning, scraping, measuring, bodging (joining cast iron, fixing broken teeth, properties of materials), finishing (painting etc), lubrication, assembly, installation and set up, expected performance (accuracy), how to improve. Similar subjects for electrics: motor, switches.

Thanks all - interesting to follow the discussion, particularly on looking at things with a different focus. I'm making a list so will look into carbide inserts and restoration topics.

The last person to proof read anything is the author or magazine layout coordinator. Having written and read more contracts (ie written word) than a lot of people, it is always easier to spot other people's errors.

They shout out at me from every publication I see, drawings are more difficult and take longer. I often redraw items to prove the measurements and also assemblies are checked to ensure compatibility of say hole centres between variously drawn parts. I could go on but I will not.

MEW 226     Fig 1 and Fig 2   transposed for instance, sorry Neil.

Edited By KWIL on 12/03/2015 19:09:09