Vintage Wood Machining Books

[PAC1]

I cannot see any of the Radial Arm Saw books. Is this an oversight or are you avoiding
a. USA books
b. DIY
I have several starting with Dewalt Powershop Handbook and The Magic of the Radial Arm Saw
They are an entertaining source of what was considered good practice post war with a few toe curlers especially turning the saw horizontal and anything to do with turning it into a spindle.
That said I do own a RAS and use it all the time.

 

[Trevanion]

I cannot see any of the Radial Arm Saw books. Is this an oversight or are you avoiding
a. USA books
b. DIY
I have several starting with Dewalt Powershop Handbook and The Magic of the Radial Arm Saw
They are an entertaining source of what was considered good practice post war with a few toe curlers especially turning the saw horizontal and anything to do with turning it into a spindle.
That said I do own a RAS and use it all the time.

I just haven't come across any! I'll basically buy any machinery related books for a fair price. I've got a few USA books, namely:

Machine Woodworking by Herman Hjorth 1937
Operation of Common Woodworking Machines by Herman Hjorth 1942
The Hanchett Saw and Knife Fitting Manual 1956
Information and Operation Units in Machine Woodworking by Robert Smith 1938
Woodworking for Industry John.L.Feirer 1963
Machine Woodworking by DeWitt Hunt 1956

Some were already in this country, some actually got shipped over from the US at a ridiculously cheap price. Operation of Common Woodworking Machines came from Christian Brothers College Library in Memphis Tennesee and Information and Operation Units in Machine Woodworking came from New River State College Library in Montgomery, West Virginia. Kinda weird to think I own books here in my little wild corner of West Wales that originally sat in a library thousands of miles away.

I really enjoy the old RAS videos on Youtube from Wadkin and Dewalt, some toe-curling practices you'd never see today (hopefully!)

 

[PAC1]

In which case look for Christoforo The Magic of the Radial Arm Saw
The Dewalt Powershop books are available as pdfs
look for How to Master the Radial Arm Saw by Wallace Kunkal and Fine Tuning your Radial Arm Saw by Jon Eakes

 

[Trevanion]

In which case look for Christoforo The Magic of the Radial Arm Saw

Ah, I've got Cristoforo's "The Complete Book of Stationary Power Tool Techniques" which is an interesting book of some somewhat questionable practices!

Fine Tuning your Radial Arm Saw by Jon Eakes

Oh, that's got to be a great book when this is the cover image

 

[AJB Temple]

This is a brilliant collection. Probably worthy of a museum library. You must know a lot about old machines by now. Where on earth do you find them all?

When I first started woodworking I bought Joyce. Still refer to it.

Adrian

 

[Trevanion]

You must know a lot about old machines by now.

I know a lot about stuff that is no longer relevant

Actually, having read quite a bit there's a lot there to be gleaned that's been lost to modern machinists and joiners in a world where everything is basically static, IE, planer blocks that don't need adjusting, spindle moulder cutters that have fixed knives and bought off-the-shelf profiles and just generally using yer noggin' to solve problems.

Where on earth do you find them all?

When I first started woodworking I bought Joyce. Still refer to it.

eBay, Amazon and AbeBooks for the most part, I just have a search every once in a while although I haven't found anything new for a good while now. I haven't paid what I'd consider a massive amount for most of them over the last couple of years but I did add the cost of them all up once and it did scare me a little.

I also have Joyce! I bought it when I was doing my first year of Furniture-Making in College, although I have strayed from the furniture side of things it is a handy reference to have on hand when I do divulge on occasion.

To be honest, I may have a book collecting problem, I even have a book on biscuit joining for god's sake...

I have no idea where the biscuit joining book came from, I certainly didn't buy it!

 

[Droogs]

Is it the soft cover one that used to come occasionally with British Woodworking or one of the other mags in the 90s

 

[Trevanion]

Possibly! I think I got it off an old fella who gave me a lot of old magazines when I was younger, how you can write 150 pages on such a simple machine is beyond me!

 

[Inspector]

Ah but if you gave away the book you would be Lamelloenting the loss to your collection.

Pete

 

[Droogs]

yeah looks like on of that type. The 101 Things to do with your biscuit joiner & how it can replace all your other tools

 

[rogxwhit]

Two Hundred Years of History and Evolution of Woodworking Machinery by William L. Sims

I have a copy of this in good nick ... a quick google suggested that there aren't many about.