Monster Garage: How To Fabricate Damn Near Anything (Motorbooks Workshop) [Paperback]

Ken Vose (Author), Discovery Channel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 2005 | Series: Motorbooks Workshop

This fourth book in Motorbooks Monster Garage vehicle customization series takes readers through the basics of making parts from metal, plastic, or composites. When building custom cars or motorcycles, fabricating parts is a necessary part of the process. That is, fabricators must cut, bend, shape, weld, and fasten raw materials to create elements of their custom vehicles. A variety of fabrication processes used by fabricators featured on Monster Garage are covered in step-by-step detail.

This book is loaded with great photography shot on the set of Monster Garage and in the individual fabricators shops. Processes covered include shop set-up, basic tool selection, project planning, sheet metal fabrication, welding, machining, working with plastics and composites, and more.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ken Vose spent 25 years in the movie and television industries before becoming a full-time author in 1985. He has written novels and non-fiction books and for the magazines International Auto Style & Sport, Millimeter, Super Car & Classics, and Cigar Aficionado. He also hosted The Driver's Seat, a syndicated television show, and in 2001, Ken was guest curator for the exhibition "FANTASY AND FINS: The Artist and the Automobile" at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles.

He is a member of The Mystery Writers of America, The Author's Guild, The International Motor Press Association, The National Writers Union, The Dramatists Guild of America, and The Society of Automotive Historians. He lives in a small village in northeastern Pennsylvania.  

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Motorbooks; 1st edition (December 2, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760321949
• ISBN-13: 978-0760321942
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #821,590 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what the title says., February 28, 2007

By 

Michel Fithian (Upstate NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monster Garage: How To Fabricate Damn Near Anything (Motorbooks Workshop) (Paperback)

If you think you will actually learn how to fabricate something, you will be disappointed. It is not a HOW-TO book at all. It's nothing more than a listing of monster garage projects describing things they built. Most is a self-aggrandizement description of how great they are and the wild big stuff they built. Some don't even have a picture of the project. A better title is " Some stuff we built on Monster Garage". There are no tricks of the trade, nothing new or enlightening, most stuff can't be built by the average tinkerer anyhow because of the enormous tool arsenal required. A total waste. Sorry

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not how to do any thing !, November 8, 2007

By 

Don "Don" (WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monster Garage: How To Fabricate Damn Near Anything (Motorbooks Workshop) (Paperback)

Does not tell how to do any thing. Just a list of projects they have done and bragging about them selves.

A list of basic hand tools near the front of book, but no specifics on specialty tools. There are no list of how to use tooling or how to fabricate any thing.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Build a log splitter??, May 20, 2007

By 

R. Simmonds "Life doesn't need me to help it ... (Kapiti, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monster Garage: How To Fabricate Damn Near Anything (Motorbooks Workshop) (Paperback)

As with the other three books in the series there is useful information here, just not a whole lot of it. The attempt to cover so many bases at once causes it to fall short in all of them. Being a Monster Garage publication one might reasonably expect it focus on custom cars, but it frequently digresses with such projects as a tool caddy and bizarrely, a log splitter. Further, if there was less emphasis on the stars of the custom car industry and more on the "how to" this would be a much better buy. As it is, it doesn't even make the grade as a Monster Garage souvenir book as Monster Garage barely makes a mention.