Thread: Machinery's Handbook - which edition?

​I'm due a birthday present. Does anyone have a 'toolbox edition'? I'm guessing it would annoy me. How does the text size and clarity compare with a phone book? And is it worth getting the CD? It seems to add quite a bit to the price. At Booktopia it's $194 with disk / $123 without. That's $71! Finally, can anyone comment on the companion guide? Thanks.

PS: I'm not looking for alternatives. I already have the Black Book.

I looked at the Toolbox edition and decided against it, the volume thickness to page size ratio makes it hard to handle, the standard edition is much easier to manage for me. I subsequently was given a Toolbox edition of a much older generation of the book by my daughter's father-in-law-to-be and it confirmed my original decision.

I thought about getting the CD for ease of searching etc but couldn't afford/justify the extra cost. As it turns out it's not a big deal - when I look for things in the book I often stumble across other interesting information anyway....

I find the cd vexing to use. I have an edition 15 toolbox book that I find hamdy for resting a hot mug on. Pete F just bought the latest edition full size book and he reports that they have finally embraced metric in a big way...a noteable improvement.

GQ

I have the toolbox version....

I find it adequate for the couple of times a year I use the book...

Yes I have both the regular size and the cd. I find the latter useful as I travel so much, indeed I'm typing like mad right now as they will soon tell me to turn this off.

I find MH useful as my knowledge of the field increases and I start to concern myself with things like class of thread fit, 3 wire measurement and the like. If I was just home I wouldn't buy the cd.

oops gotta go!

p

I use the toolbox version of the 29th edition a few times a week. I find it a handy reference and not too hard to read but I have good vision, if you need glasses to read I would go for the large edition. Paper is very thin though and could be easily damaged. I will also attest that they have embraced metric standards kind of; they swap between DIN, ISO IS, JIS standards throughout the text which is a bit annoying.

-Josh

I dislike PDFs. I would prefer a hard copy every time. My reason for considering the CD was the material missing from the book.

Besides the full print edition, the CD-ROM includes over 500 pages of additional data, mostly material that was published in previous print editions but subsequently removed due to space restrictions. The 29th Edition CD-ROM also provides an expanded array of the popular INTERACTIVE MATH EQUATIONS. Users will be able to instantly calculate cutting speeds, dimensions of bevels, moments of inertia, the measurement of various screw threads, the center of gravity for any shape, hardness of material, volumes, taper angles, matrices, … and much, much more.

I bought the toolbox version several years ago. The writing is indeed very small. Ordinary text letters are about 1.8mm tall, the small print letters are about 1.1mm tall. Very much like a telephone book. The pages are delicate wafer thin paper, the book is 60mm thick for 2700 pages. 0.02mm thick paper. Think of cigarette paper, or the pages of a pocket sized bible. But it works. It works because one only looks up very specific and highly condensed information. Like what is the angle of a #3 morse taper? Or a quick look at a sine bar constants table. That said, on rare occasions when I tried to read more than one whole page of this handbook, my eyes would burn.

I recently also got to try a .pdf copy. I have to say, if you have a notebook or PC handy its much much much much easier to read than the small print book, as you can zoom in at will. Also the .pdf reader search function is much faster, than first searching the index pages and then flip through the 2700 pages of the hardcopy. Another incentive is of course cost, since the .pdf version can currently be found for free download if one searches for it.

Originally Posted by cba_melbourne

. Another incentive is of course cost, since the .pdf version can currently be found for free download if one searches for it.

Thanks Chris.....But be warned, there are many blind and fake links out there.....

Sorry by the time I finally got a computer to work properly I needed to turn it off again. To elaborate on what I was hoping to say in my previous post, whether MH is right for anyone will depend on the sort of work you're doing and that in turn will determine what format is best. Personally my go-to workshop book is the Black Book, I don't think MH is at all designed to be used in a workshop, even the large print version has very thin and fragile pages and it simply wouldn't last with serious workshop use. When I use it I go to my study, find out the details I need while having a cuppa or similar, then return to the workshop. Somewhat paradoxically I'd suggest if you were doing a lot of work where you needed to be referencing things in MH often, then the CD version is probably better. That way you can print off the relevant pages in a decent sized print as you need them and they can get as oily and filthy as they like, and it doesn't matter.

I have MH29 on this computer so just checked the "additional material" that's there. Consider that a bit like the late night tele telling you "But wait, there's more! You also get a free set of steak knives ...". MH is not the sort of book you sit down and read. There may be a section containing a process or whatever you'll read, but nobody in their right mind gets the book and starts reading it from page 1. It's an encyclopaedia of machining data, that's it. So any "extra" material is all a bit superfluous in my mind, sure nice if it's there, but I wouldn't pay extra for it. I've never referred to any of the "extra" material when looking for information.

I agree with Josh, while they've definitely fixed up the metric side of things and it's a huge leap forward compared to previous editions, it's still made very much for the US market.

Finally, if it's a present for yourself you're after, maybe there's an alternative I can suggest looking at. I was chatting to Nick Mueller from Germany last week about some thread wires and he put me on to a specialist machinist calculator called Machinist Calc Pro.

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I had a couple of apps for my iPhone, but had not seen or heard of this until he mentioned it. I've been working pretty hard lately so thought "bugger it, I'll treat myself" and bought it through a company in Melbourne selling through ebay. It was about a hundred bucks including postage. I was previously using my iPhone as a calculator and it was getting covered in crap every time I needed to do any calculations, conversions, etc. which I wasn't very happy about. I've only just begun using it, but it's something that will definitely live in the workshop and handles automatically some of the calculations you may go to MH to look up the data. It is surrounded by a very good protective case and would definitely survive workshop use with a bit of common sense usage. Just be sure to get the international version. On the link above you can download the manual for it, which I did before I bought it to see exactly what it can do. It seems to be exactly as advertised and I'm so far quite happy with it. The only bug with it I've found is that when entering metric drill sizes it thinks you're talking US drill number sizes. There's a leaflet in the box that explains to just use the mm key in that case. Once I did that it all started making sense.

Anyway, another alternative to consider, and hope the info is of some use.

Pete

Ok thanks a lot guys, great input. I will certainly cross the toolbox version off my wish list. Still thinking about the other questions.

Bryan, Book depository UK charges around $153 for the full version with cd and FREE shipping. We tend to buy most of our books there...

Machinery's Handbook (Industrial Press, Inc.) : Mixed media product : Erik Oberg, Franklin D. Jones, Henry H. Ryffel, Christopher J. McCauley : 9780831129057

Greg

Thanks Greg.

Hi

Is there anything worthwhile in the latest edition , that is of more value than what was included in the older editions ?

I am asking because the older editions( some going back to the 1940's ) are available in second hand book shops for a fraction of the cost of the latest edition.

has the basic stuff like sine tables etc changed that much over the years

Mike

Hmmm....
I'm looking at the PDF version now. Specifically the cutting speeds and feeds for turning plain carbon steel, page 1026. I really like they way metric is covered here.....
Anyhow, for plain steel most of the feed rates appear to me to be "Opt" (optimum?) 17 thou per rev, and even 28 thou/rev? Are we talking serious heavy industry here? I'm not sure what feed rates the LeBlond can do, but i don't think most sub 1ton lathes would even be able to feed that fast, or can they?