Modern machine shop practice

MODERN MACHINE SHOP PRACTICE is presented to American mechanics as a complete guide to the operations of the best equipped and best managed workshops, and to the care and management of engines and boilers.

The materials have been gathered in part from the author's experience of thirty-one years as a practical mechanic; and in part from the many skilled workmen and eminent mechanics and engineers who have generously aided in its preparation. Grateful acknowledgement is here made to all who have contributed information about improved machines and details of new methods.

The object of the work is practical instruction, and it has been written throughout from the point of view, not of theory, but of approved practice. The language is that of the workshop. The mathematical problems and tables are in simple arithmetical terms, and involve no algebra or higher mathematics. The method of treatment is strictly progressive, following the successive steps necessary to becoming an intelligent and skilled mechanic.

The work is designed to form a complete manual of reference for all who handle tools or operate machinery of any kind, and treats exhaustively of the following general topics:

I.    The construction and use of machinery for making machines and tools;

II.    The construction and use of work-holding appliances and tools used in machines for working metal;

III.    The construction and use of hand tools for working metal;

IV.    The construction and management of steam engines and boilers. The reader is referred to the Table of Contents for a view of the multitude of special topics considered.

The work will also be found to give numerous details of practice never before in print, and known hitherto only to their originators, and aims to be useful as well to master-workmen as well as to apprentices, and to owners and managers of manufacturing establishments equally with their employees, whether machinists, draughtsmen, engineers, or operators of special machinery.

The illustrations, over three thousand in number, are taken from modern practice; they represent the machines, tools, appliances and methods now used in the leading manufactories of the world, and the typical steam engines and boilers of American manufacture.

The new Pronouncing and Defining Dictionary at the end of the work, aims to include all the technical words and phrases of the machine shop, both those of recent origin and many old terms that have never before appeared in a vocabulary of this kind. The wide range of subjects treated, their convenient arrangement and thorough illustration, with the exhaustive Table of Contents of each volume and the full Analytical Index to both, will, the author hopes, make the work serve as a fairly complete ready reference library and manual of self-instruction for all practical mechanics, and will enlighten, while making more profitable, the labor of his fellow-workmen.


PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

HE vast strides made in mechanics during recent years, make it an urgent necessity to provide a thorough revision of Modern Machine Shop Practice.

American mechanics and engineers excel those of any other country in their efforts to keep abreast of the progress of the age. The latest machines and machine tools are greatly superior to those preceding them; and recent improvements make the engines of only a few years ago seem almost useless.

Realizing this, the author has carefully examined the many claims of mechanical improvement, and embodied in this revision those having the highest practical advantages. As a result of all the changes and additions to the subjects of Lathe Work, Vice Work, Planing, Gear Cutting Machines, Grinding Machines, Milling Machines, and Steam Engines, the size of the work has been greatly enlarged and the number of plates and illustrations increased.

Since the First Edition was published the use of electricity has become so universal and the machinery for generating and applying it so varied and elaborate as to take a very important place in the world of mechanics. In revising this subject it has been found expedient to entirely replace the old text and engravings with new material; and to embody a complete description of the most modern electrical machines and appliances. The aim has been to follow as closely as possible the original intent of the work, and in pursuance of this plan the rules to be observed in operating electrical machines, the details regarding their construction, the use that each part in the mechanism is intended to serve, together with the principles that regulate the movements of the electric current so far as they are known positively, have been explained from the standpoint of the practical electrician and stated in plain workshop language. The author is deeply indebted to the leading electricians in this country who have so kindly aided him in this division of the work; also to engineers having charge of the most important electric plants both at home and abroad. Placing himself in the position of a learner, he has sought from one and another the separate facts that go to make up the complete chain of information needed by practical men. To aid in making so complex a subject clear to the ordinary reader, a free use of illustrations has been made which it is believed will remove all difficulties; and a valuable series of questions and answers introduced, so that any person of average ability, even without any previous knowledge of the subject, can become an intelligent and practical electrician.

Refrigeration and Ice-making, another rapidly expanding industry, is also wholly rewritten and newly illustrated, embodying the latest improvements in machinery and practice. The author believes that the large expense and labor incurred in this revision are amply justified by the enhanced value of the work in its new form.