Customer Reviews

Machining Fundamentals: From Basic to Advanced Techniques

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"Machining Fundamentals" by John R. Walker is a quality production. What I mean by that is this hardcover book is printed on good paper stock, the text is very descriptive and it is filled with an appropriate number of illustrations and photographs. In addition, the coverage of various topics is scaled to provide information consistent with what a typical reader of a "Fundamentals" book needs. Yeah, I know, what does that mean? Only that lathe, milling, drilling, and grinding operations, including relatively elaborate setups, are covered extensively, while manufacturing automation received a well written single chapter.

What is the value of all of this information ? I purchased the book in anticipation of buying a bench lathe. I found myself reading the book in front of the TV, nodding in acknowledgement, and verbally expressing in ways I'm sure were irritating to my wife, "Oh, so that's how they do that. Duh! Of course that makes sense. Gees, you're kidding me. Why didn't I do that?" And when I was done, I realized how far off the mark I had been in assessing what I would need to upgrade my shop area; better now than after those trucks dropped 20 tons of less than useful equipment in my driveway.

"Machining Fundamentals" won't replace equipment shop manuals, or classroom training and shop experience, but it is a good reference book. As an example, it does a good job of explaining the differences amongst 3 and 4 jaw chucks, Jacobs chucks and collets. The book even explains when they apply, why they apply and how to clean, maintain, inspect and install/remove them. Still, 9 very good pages on lathe cutting tapers, from setting up to measuring and checking, 10 pages on thread cutting, and even a few on cutting threads on tapered surfaces, will not qualify you to knock off a related project. But there is enough there to illustrate how the job is done, which may steer the reader to further detailed research, armed with enough conceptual information to attempt the job, and maybe practice the same type of work for a non-critical purpose while developing hands on experience. I liked the book.

Joe

From the moment I opened the cover of this book, I knew I had to own a copy. Over the years, I have compiled a fairly complete library of books dealing with machine tools and related topics. However, I have never run across a text which covers the subject with such depth and clarity as this fine text. Every page is not only filled with useful, practical information - but also beautiful color illustrations, charts, and photographs. Rarely have I seen a book in any field which has been so carefully designed and beautifully executed - the author of this book REALLY cared about the subject matter at hand. Although the book is not as complete a reference as, say - Machinery's Handbook, that is not it's purpose. If you are looking for a clearly written, well illustrated book from which to learn the art of machining - look no further! If I were to choose only one book from my library to recommend to a novice machinist, this is without a doubt the book I would choose - and that's the highest recommendation I could give to any text!

This book is very good and when you ask yourself what is missing to make it complete encyclopaedia for the field, you see that you only need more tables and data for specific appilication.
But.
Concept of technical encyclopaedia that gives you all available data related to some field NEVER has invaluable features that this book offers: clear and patient explanations, extremely well illustrated, allways beginning "from the bottom" (very basics) to a very reasonable level of sophistication. If you start form zero level knoledge or if you need pragmatical reference book that covers whole field, choose this book. All you further need to master machining is: some good desk reference book i.e. collection of practical table data (there are couple of them very useful at really modest price), manual of a particular machine that you have and practice, practice.
That combination is, in my opinion, of muche more value then some hard-stuff encyclopaedia.

This is a basic introductory textbook of machining. It explains what most machine tools are and how they work in simple language and padded with copious, though often uninformative pictures (e.g. the cover page for the chapter on CNC machining shows a picture of an old manual Bridgeport). It also includes some elementary instructions on common machining operations like using a center finder, cutting threads on a lathe, etc. However, it is much too brief to be considered an actual manual of machine shop practice.

It is in textbook format and has simple questions at the end of each chapter. It seems like it would be a suitable overview text for a high school machine shop class. I think the title, "...from basic to advanced techniques" is misleading. There are no advanced techniques here, unless you consider the several paragraph descriptions of things like EDM and explosive forming to be advanced techniques.

As some of the other reviewers have already noted, this isn't the book you'd use to start up your own machine shop. Of course it's title says "fundamentals", and I believe it does a good job explaining them. I'm a design engineer in the aerospace field and it seems like there are young, fresh out of college engineers everywhere I've worked that can make a pretty part in the computer that a machinist would find almost impossible or at least very costly to make. I've loaned the book out on multiple occasions and find it is very helpful.

I was given this book by the author, my high school teacher in 1969. This is an excellent text for the machinist, and home shop machinist. The first addition was written many years ago, and geared to the manual machinist. Even the cnc machinist needs the basics contained here. Mr Walker did a fine job writing this book, and preparing me for a lifetime of work as a professional, and home shop machinist. I recomend it for anyone striving to learn the trade as a profession, or a hobby.
Kap

The previous reviewer probably never read the book very closely. There is no cover page picture for the chapter on the computer numberical control. The chapter starts by describing the differences between manual and computer controlled machining -- hence the picture of a machinist on this page operating a manual machine.