Basic Lathework for Home Machinists

Good book for learning the basics.

As a new hobby machinist, I read everything I can find. For the money there is a lot of information that will help me learn about using a metal lathe. I still learn a lot from You Tube, but having a book is better when I am in the shop using the lathe.

I purchased this book to enhance my knowledge of working with a small lathe in my own shop sometime in the future. As the description of this book states, it does deal with all aspects of the lathe. Almost overwhelming the novice learner in comprehending what one must know to learn the essentials to select their own machine, but athough there are several models now to choose from, I feel it will most likely be how much you want to spend and whether or not you will indeed go out and buy a lathe for your home shop and actually start doing your own home lathework. Modelers and builders, and surely inventors, who want to make their own machined parts will benefit from owning and studying this book, as by studying it, is what you are going to have to do in the beginning to learn this craft. It does cover machine construction and goes even farther back into earlier models to explain why they are simpler and more basic than modern tools. The depth of the explanations concerning tooling will require additional information as lathework and modern lathes are covered in depth. Many of the actual machining operations are covered, including general machining, taper turning, threading and boring. Mr Bray explains the modern conversion of power supplies from single to three phase which for someone in a home environment will find tedious as three phase powered needs are few outside of industrial use of lathes and will require you to go to a large expense to provide this source of power. The use of digital equipment is explained to some degree and one will need to study their own machine's owners manual extensively to master this at home. I feel this book is limited for use by the beginner with no knowledge at all of lathe work, but will surely help along the path of learning something of lathe basics and any hands on work will be required to develop understanding in this field. For more advanced students of lathework Mr. Bray offers much knowledge for them to improve upon the skills they will need in the future and help them to improve.

good book

Good beginner guide

basic generic beginner text

This book is written for the British beginning machinist. Everything is in metrics and to my mind doesn't cover real basics such as feeds and speeds, grinding tool bits. Well written but would not be again.

Great book for novice like me. I enjoyed the easy to read content and the book was illustrated well. Lots of helpful tips for a beginner. I should have bought this book before I purchased my lathe.

Perfect for someone just getting in to lathe work and not sure on aspects from tool types/shapes through to speeds and feeds etc...

good

very interesting

Stan Bray has written many books on engineering and this is another good one for those starting out. Buy a lathe and start enjoying life.

As an old and now somewhat crusty marine engineer and offshore mechanical engineer I'm very familiar with machining and tooling. But, that's not to say I know enough to consider myself fully competent and if I can add to my knowledge I will. Mind you today, the majority of manual machining seems to be with the hobbyists - and I throw myself into that now. Whilst my day job might be offshore construction I like to keep my old skills alive in my own workshop at home. And I bought this book to help and hopefully learn a bit more. And honestly if you were a complete novice then it would be excellent as an introduction. However, if you already have some skills then most of what is in this book is familiar. And if you have worked in industry then chances are you may have come across some techniques that are not in this book. Most of all, what is evident, is that this kind of book is less relevant than it used to be. Having discovered that YouTube is more than cat videos and rap, there are some properly good videos made by both professional and amateurs alike that cover all the ground you need to cover and then some. So, fundamentally I'd consider this book to be a general help but is looking overall a bit old fashioned and less useful than it would have been a few years ago.