Customer Reviews

Illustrated Sourcebook of Mechanical Components

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I can't thank the author enough for the Illustrated Sourcebook of Mechanical Components. It is as interesting to study as any book I've seen in a long, long time. It is as engrossing as a crossword puzzle can sometimes be. My observation is that the sourcebook presents an almost limitless smorgasbord of engineering examples and principles seasoned with a unique sauce of tinkerer's ingenuity and common sense. Thanks again for the Illustrated Sourcebook of Mechanical Components. It will be the jewel of my professional library.

I am an ME for a company which builds CNC's, and like the book very much. The illustrations show each idea without exraneous parts, and the accompanying explanations are very clear. It also has tables and equations to lay out some of the mechanisms. It is an excellent idea jogger and has good entertainment value for people who are mechanically inclined.

I'm a senior in mechanical engineering and I've found this book so compact and informative that it should be a piece of every mechanial engineers own library. It contains brief-but understandable and also illustrated passages about nearly every mechanical component that one can encounter.

I am a farmer who enjoys making machinery. I design my contraptions on paper, then using a CAD program to refine the designs. Having no training in engineering I am frequently using references such as "Machinery's Handbook" and "Moving The Earth" and "Mark's Standard handbook of Mechanical Engineering" and others.
I have to say, that Parmley's book is a treasure trove of information, with heaps of unusual ideas for common compnents such as O-rings, rubber balls, pipe connections, washers and many others, plus hard information about more complex components such as gearboxes, cams, governors etc etc.
This is a big book, with many pages (numbering within each section only), lovely clear diagrams, and enough but not too many tables, formulae and specifications. It can be browsed cover to cover, (as I am doing for the 2nd or 3rd time), open a page at random and be fascinated, or look up specific topics in the excellent index.
I have read the other reviews on this book, and clearly it is a valuable rescource to professionals. I can tell you that it is also a fantastic mine of information to the interested amateur.

The last few favourable reviews cover my thoughts well, but I would like to add that this large volume far exceeded my expectations in terms of both depth of content and quality. This is an amazing value for anyone who works with mechanical components. While its focus is on illustrations of the components themselves, it also includes detailed explanations with graphs, formulae, etc. So it's also a how-to book of sorts. I also purchased a companion volume "Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook", which I also highly recommend.

Illustrated Sourcebook of Mechanical Components has lots and lots and lots of line drawings of machinery components. The drawings are clear and simple. Each is accompanied by a well written description, usually a few lines but longer if needed. An interesting book for anyone mechanically inclined. For engineers there are tables and formulas where needed. A great book.

This volume contains the most comprehensive list of mechanical components and variations on any given theme that I've seen in one place. Additionally there are significant extensions to computation methods and overviews not found elsewhere. It is an extremely high value book.

The Illustrated Sourcebook of Mechanical Components has a great amount of information that is nearly invaluble for practicing engineers. It is a staple of my library and I turn to it first when I need ideas on a new design. However, the quality of the book construction itself is extremely poor. The pages are not sewn in signatures, but are instead glue-backed single sheets as you would see in a perfect bound paperback. Unlike a paperback though, the spine is hollow, so there is no support for the text block. Intended as a reference book, the construction is more suited to a mass-market romance novel, and will not stand up to the rigors of the intended usage. Even with careful use, I've had pages fall out and the text block separate in the middle. For $130, McGraw-Hill should be ashamed. I will not be buying any reference book from them without being able to see it in person first.

It is mind boggling to think how much time it took the author to find, let along compile in a useful form, all the information in this book. Unfortunately, most engineers today bypass this kind of info altogether, in favor of electronic devices and their design in the never ending quest to become the next Bill Gates. In my mind it is a case of having thrown the baby out with the bath water, we have forgotten about the analog baby and went directly to far more complex, black box, technologies that may be a step backward in efficiency. Less and simpler might be better. My thanks to the author for providing a concise study of useful devices and methods.

As the title states, "Mechanical Components" is what this book is all about. This book contains a wealth of information for anyone in the engineering, machinery design, or troubleshooting arenas. It is not only limited to the aforementioned users but also to the home user who wishes to make repairs to home, car, boat, etc. At just under 7 pounds and 3 inches thick, this is a massive manual to read through any specific areas of interest or to simply use as a reference when needed. The reader will find many graphs, illustrations, and explanations for almost every type of mechanical component, sub-assembly, and individual parts in this book. Typical uses of parts as well as unconventional ideas are thoroughly detailed. This is not a book for anyone seeking information or ideas for "mechanical movements", but it will greatly supplement any other mechanical reference books you may have in your library. Before reading only 2 pages of the book, I had no idea how many ingenious uses that a simple flat washer could be applied to!