Customer Reviews

Moving Heavy Things

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

 

 

I have owned and used and loved this book for years, and have given copies to good friends because I knew they'd love it too.

The anecdotes the author uses to explain the ingenious tools and techniques people have come up with to "move their heavy things", are so well written and sometimes humorous you'll find yourself reading them just for entertainment, even if you never have a need to move anything. With drawings as witty as the writing, this book honors the ingenuity of our forebears, before the age of the hydraulic brutes that do all our work for us today. Farmers, sailors, pioneers, builders of all kinds, have solved these problems, and this book passes on this clever heritage.

The pen and ink drawings are entertaining, and illustrate clearly how these tools and techniques work. One beauty is the trick of standing a tombstone up on ice cubes to facilitate positioning it over its base stone as the ice melts... without a scratch!

Adkins outlines a number of principles our grandfathers followed to arrive at elegant solutions, while minimizing sweat and risk of injury. Two of my favorites are "Applied Sloth" and "The Geezer Ploy". I could go on, but why give away too much? Treat yourself or your favorite "mover of heavy things" to this little gem. It's worth every penny! I tried to buy a copy a few years ago, but was told it was out of print. I'm delighted to see it available again. I have a few more friends in mind...

This book presents knowledge that is uncommon in our power tool saturated world. I think the greater value however is in the way that it encourages the reader to think outside the box that modernity puts us in. It includes a good foundation of technical information on the subject of moving heavy objects including the use of leverage, wedges, and rope etc. But it also emphasizes the use of creativity in solving problems that inspires the reader to cast off any assumptions of infeasibility and find the way our grandfathers would have gotten the job done.

This is a charming "physics 101" book for CHILDREN who are interested in moving heavy things. I'm surprised that the other reviewers who HATED this book didn't understand that the audience is CHILDREN, but don't let the nay-sayers deter you if you are buying for the intended audience. It's a charming, brief look at the history of power-schlepping simply written and nicely illustrated for the under-12 set. My son is interested in science and has found this to be an entertaining book. Most importantly, it is as much information on the subject as he requires at 9 years old. I recommend this book!

Moving Heavy Things is one of the top "Young Adult" (JR High School and up) books in each of several subcategories of Amazon's "Books > Children's Books > Science, Nature & How It Works" hierarchy. The simple, yet to the point title has the classic feel of a children's "how to" book, yet the book is far from fluff.

The focus is on simple mechanics, and manages to cover a broad range of concepts through explanation and illustration rather than with discussions of vectors, equations and complex formulas. Without mentioning terms such as kinematics or dynamics, it gives readers a feel for what the real life effects of weight distribution, centering, friction, pulleys, and wedges are on moving day to day objects of the larger varieties.

It covers everything from block and tackle to enough different knots to impress a Boy Scout. Some of it might be too advanced for many pre-teens, but even older teens and "young adults" might consider it a fun casual read. It's not meant to be a scientific or field manual in any literal sense, but even a non technical adult might be able to walk away with a better understanding of the world because of it. It's not completely free of formulas or calculations either, but a solid foundation of arithmetic is all that should be needed to make sense of them.

If you are a tinkerer or do-it-yourselfer then spend the $$$ on this book. I learned many things that I have started using and hope to use.

Pros:
-Well-designed; simple layout, good wording and good illustrations.

-Great general info and advice for approaching projects.

-Great specific advice about materials, methods and techniques.

Cons:

-I really wish there was about twice as much info. I would have preferred to pay twice as much for even a third more info. I get the feeling that the author had a lot more to say but decided to keep it short.


Overall a great experience, I plan to buy more from the series, starting with the ones on knots.

Not only are the black and white penned illustrations wonderfully clear in demonstrating how folks once accomplished very hard work, but each picture is entirely lively. It feels as if you could be standing alongside, wondering what they're going to do next. And of course, Mr Adkins shows you exactly that, next.
One lovely change of perspective: we wait for summertime to get things done outdoors, starting up generators, renting big machinery. Of old, they'd let things wait til winter. That's when carefully maintained snow beds allowed sleds and sleighs smooth passage, and very heavy things very moved easily. All of Jan Adkins' books show delight in such unexpected sleights of perspective- and how would we know, having not lived then, if Mr. Adkins hadn't looked into old-fashioned ways so carefully?
Another pleasant aspect of Mr. Adkins' drawing is his draftsmanship of precise, deftly drawn, believable scenes of olden country days. I usually have a hard time puzzling out the movements signified in most mechanical diagrams. Mr. Adkins seems to divide up the stages of cause and effect into stages perfectly sized for my mind to easily connect them into smooth-flowing chains of action and reaction.

I really hope you enjoy this as much as I have. I've bought it several times by now, just to give it away to loved ones who'd appreciate this marvelous visit to the cleverness of our forebears.

A little book about big stuff. How to use knots, ropes, chains, blocks, tackles, wedges, jacks, levers, ramps, motors and even, in worst case scenarios, your muscles, to levitate the lumps of matter that matter to you. Grand piano in a garret? Barrels of flour in a schooner? Cannon on a peak? Adkins is your man. Aptly illustrated by the author.

This book is good but too short and has what I consider some 'filler.' It must have been a stretch to make 50 pages. The illustrations are clear, B&W only, and sometimes a key element is a little on the small side. Nevertheless it is a good review and overview of many clever methods of moving.

There is much that could have been added on block and tackle. In fact each of the topics has the minimum information. Some expansion certainly would be warranted. For example the hoisting of an injured person could have shown more detail on rigging the victim and some idea regarding the suggested overhead hoisting tools, presumably it is a block and whip arrangement, but tyro, that I am, I don't know.

Considering the cost and the volume of content I rated it at three stars. The content itself, aside from the cost and volume, is very good. Except for the 'filler,' that is. I like the writing style, spare and to the point on technical matters.

I'd buy it again for about $6.00 but not for the $11.00+ I paid.

I enjoyed reading this book, but I was disappointed at how short it was. I guess I didn't pay much attention to the description of it. The information that is in the book is fun, interesting, and useful, but I would have liked to see a lot more.

There are some great examples of clever things people have done, from tricks for reducing friction to examples of using levers and pulleys. But there are only a few of each, and the description of the principles is rather thin.

Because I love books so much (and because I have relied on them so heavily for information throughout my life), I am always disappointed by a book that promises things it doesn't deliver. Sadly, this is such a book. Though the publisher promotes it as "A practical field book...[that]...presents the tools and...basic procedures to multiply strength and ease burdens...", that simply isn't true, in my opinion. Not even close. This book is superficial and incomplete, as I should have suspected from the fact that it's less than 50 pages long. The reader will find no systematic discussion of pulleys, levers, or lines here, but only sketchy text that serves as little more than caption for the many entertaining, but largely unenlightening drawings. My sense is that if this book has any legitimate role (a possibility of which I am profoundly skeptical), it is as a sort of "coffee table book", the sort of thing a visitor might pick up and browse through while waiting for you to serve them a beverage. Or on second thought, the book resembles nothing more closely than a children's book: interesting, well executed drawings accompanied by a simple text that can be skimmed in ten minutes or less. Readers who seek hardcore information about the tools and techniques needed to move heavy objects should definitely pass this book by. I found it to be a complete waste of my time, and I sincerely regret every penny I spent on it!