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At the amateur level few home shops would really need complex strength, fatigue resistance, tensile, young's modulus, engineering data etc unless your planning on something fairly unusual for a home shop. But who knows. If you really do need that, then it's going to be awhile just learning enough before it's ever going to be required. I still don't and never will do automotive brake or steering components even for myself since I'm not and never will be at the required mechanical engineering level to do so properly.

http://www.opensourcemachinetools.org/archive-manuals/Hercus_TextBook_of_Turning.pdf That PDF seems to be rarely mentioned probably because few know of it. But it's what the South Bend How to run a Lathe or the Atlas books should have been but aren't.

https://pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archi...s/Schlesinger_Georg/Testing_Machine_Tools.pdf Maybe some would view this PDF as unnecessary at the home shop level, but in my view the basic understanding of the fairly complex machine tool requirements for accurate machining and checking or adjusting for alignment is extremely helpful and something I very much wish I knew about when I first started. For myself it was a massive step up in what I was really trying to learn about.

While machinist type forums and Youtube are a great resources, neither for obvious reasons can properly get into the more technical details good reference books can for those much more specific areas. There's been quite a bit of North American written information meant for more amateur levels, but it still doesn't come close to what's been written in the UK. https://www.teepublishing.co.uk/books/in-your-workshop/

Thinking you can just use these forums and YT without spending a dime to help educate yourself literally slows your learning rate that's still going to take multiple years even with that reference information to actually get any good and repeatable at it. Machining is nothing like teaching yourself to be a fairly good woodwacker. It's vastly more involved. That's also why even a basic machinist apprenticeship in most country's is at least 4 years and the theory being taught in formal school settings as well as mandatory on the job training during those same 4 years. And at the end of even all that your still classed as an entry level machinist who's then going to spend the rest of there career learning even more.

All of my reference information I've been collecting for the last 40+ years are tools and imo are just as important as anything else in my shop that cuts metal. These forums and YT can help fill in some details that might be not quite clear enough in those reference sources, but there not and never will be a replacement for that hard copy information. You also have to learn enough on your own just to properly judge and pay close attention to Guythatbrews 100% true warning about all the probably well meant but still "idjuts" out there.
 
VERY WELL SAID, Neanderthal;

I came into the manual Machinist world about the time Tech schools were shifting to CNC training and Manual Machinist training had all but completely disappeared; so I can assure you I have spent countless hours deep in a priceless collection of many training manuals that were used in the 40's through the 60's to teach some of our finest Machinist ever; I am also grateful there was one die hard cocky 55 yr retired Master Machinist who took me under his wing and guided me through my earlier yrs. All the videos are great today, but you HAVE to bury your head in those older books to get the real understanding of the very Basics you'll need to venture into this field as a manual Machinist. CNC work is a great career path, but there will always be a passion for the manual machine work that brought us to where we are today!! Sadly, we lost that fine Machinist a few yrs ago but his guidance and a huge collection of remarkable Machinist handbooks will keep me flying Until-----------
Many of your strong and guiding statements remind me so much of those shared often by Mr. PAIS!! A caliber of Machinist we can never replace!
 
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Thanks W2S, but I'm only passing along what all the authors in my reference books have somehow managed to teach me and the same for the many helpful forum posts I've found, as well as what quite a few YT videos have also done. Their the one's who should get the real credit.

And I'm more than envious of your Master Machinist mentor, I'm probably still making mistakes that he would have caught when they should have been. That kind of training is literally priceless.
 
Somewhere - I thought at first it was from one of the 'bedside readers' - there was a story about a guy that had a way of cutting a .001" slot. Written in a similar way to the bedside reader - I remember something about he wouldn't tell the other guy at the cost of getting kicked. I've looked for hours - racked my brain - where did I see this? Any clues would be appreciated.
 
If my memory isn't faulty? One of the Guy Lautard Bedside Reader books. And if I recall the details correctly, they sheared the end off a hardened feeler gauge leaf and used that spun in a shop made holder in the mill to cut that slot.
 
Gordy, send me a PM, I'll get you a list of some 15 to 20 books I have come across on ebay that have guided me over the last 20+ years, in addition to the priceless instructions from the veteran Machinist I was so fortunate to be exposed to. I believe their were 1 or 2 manuals that focused on those Metallurgy issues.
Good luck! Johnny
Hey man would you mind sending me the list as well I am also interested, Thanks
 
"Machine Shop Training Course" Jones
https://www.makeitfrom.com/ Strength, and properties, of materials.
The Lincoln Bible (go find it, not my thing to give you ice cream on a stick)
Machinery's

All of this crap is available if you LOOK for it. If you are truly interested, let your fingers do the walking on the keyboard.

Keywords................properties, machinability, weldability, ductility, heat treating, etc etc etc. It's all out there if you look for it. No skin in the game, means no real heart felt interest. IMHO. You can't let other people do this for you. Go out, and beat the bushes. What you learn will be as much as your level of curiosity. It's some cool sh!t once you get into it.
 
I was in your situation a few years ago, purchased almost 100 books, many of them excellent. That being said, the very best book I've come across is the textbook used at my local community college for their beginning machinist classes:

"Precision Machining Technology" by Peter Hoffman and Eric Hopewell

This textbook was developed with the help of 100s of machinists, and follows industry recommended practices throughout.
 
For a good program for fabricating..................BeamBoy V2.2

If you get an understanding of underlying principles, and problems to be solved............you can literally translate most structures to a simple beam, or moment. MOST. Not all.

There's programs out there that can take any drawing, and do a stress analysis..........but I feel this is cheating. I think you have to have some understanding of the underlying principles before you waltz out, and make something that can cause personal, or property, damage. The software is simply to verify what you already know, or have some inkling of.

If you have the confidence to stand under what you built, without doing the best you can, to verify the properties of what you built..................you ain't there yet.
 








 
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