Book about precision

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Mr Ron
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Book about precision

Post by Mr Ron »

Many years ago (maybe 40), I came across a new book of great interest in a San Francisco bookstore. It was a coffee table size book and the title, I can't remember exactly, was like "the precision of things" or something along those lines. It was quite expensive so that is why I didn't buy it at the time. I wish I could find that book. Does anyone have knowledge about that book and where I could buy it? The SF bookstore specialized in technical publications. It may have been Barnes and Noble. I seem to remember it was about the history of metrology.
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
pete
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Re: Book about precision

Post by pete »

Possibly the book put out by Moore Tools "Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy"? An extremely good book imo if it wasn't. That one does fit all of your description.
John Hasler
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Re: Book about precision

Post by John Hasler »

pete wrote: Sat Dec 29, 2018 4:11 pm Possibly the book put out by Moore Tools "Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy"? An extremely good book imo if it wasn't. That one does fit all of your description.
Amazon has that for $5001.00 (used hardcover).
pete
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Re: Book about precision

Post by pete »

Amazon and a whole lot of Ebay book "re-sellers" have unbelievably high opinions of almost any technical books worth. Moore Tools will sell it directly to you. I bought mine from them some years ago and at that time it was about $120 ???? I can say reading that book just once should change anyone's perceptions about machine tools. :-)
Mr Ron
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Re: Book about precision

Post by Mr Ron »

That could possibly be the book I saw, but the price nixes my interest in it.
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
12L14
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Re: Book about precision

Post by 12L14 »

Few years ago someone here(or at practicalmachinist) post a link to quality scans of this book.
Keep in mind it is(more or less) "trade catalog" - but rather in good way(like J. Martin "Tabletop machining" - just pleasant to read).
Tool&die maker since yesterday ;)
John Hasler
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Re: Book about precision

Post by John Hasler »

Mr Ron wrote: Sat Dec 29, 2018 6:17 pm That could possibly be the book I saw, but the price nixes my interest in it.
That Amazon price is ludicrous. I'm sure it's available at more sensible prices elsewhere. PDFs are available free.

[Edit]
http://mooretool.com/publications.html
SteveM
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Re: Book about precision

Post by SteveM »

I have all three of the Moore books ("precision hole location", "holes, contours and surfaces" and "foundations of mechanical accuracy".

Each one has a coupon in it to send in for a new copy for $35.

We had a copy of "foundations" in our local public library, donated by Wayne Moore himself, but the library can't find it and has no idea what happened to it. It is a VERY interesting book.

I was going to have Mr. Moore autograph mine (I know his nephew), but he passed away several years ago before I got around to it.

You can find them occasionally, for much more reasonable prices, but you have to be on a constant lookout.

If you just want to read it once, see if your library can get it on loan from another library.

Steve
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tornitore45
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Re: Book about precision

Post by tornitore45 »

When a price looks ridiculous is probably a space holder for an non available item. The seller expect to have some in the future and does not want to go through the hassle of removing and restoring the listing.
Mauro Gaetano
in Austin TX
Mr Ron
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Re: Book about precision

Post by Mr Ron »

I checked the Moore site and the book is available for $150. That is still a substantial amount to consider seeing as I am on a fixed income. Books are very difficult to buy. One doesn't know if he/she will like the book Once you buy it, it's yours whether you like it or don't. I tried the free download, but got the warning message, the site wasn't secure.
Oh well! Have aHappy and Safe New
Year.
Last edited by Mr Ron on Sun Dec 30, 2018 12:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
John Hasler
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Re: Book about precision

Post by John Hasler »

tornitore45 wrote: Sun Dec 30, 2018 10:07 am When a price looks ridiculous is probably a space holder for an non available item. The seller expect to have some in the future and does not want to go through the hassle of removing and restoring the listing.
Amazon normally lists such things as unavailable.

At one point it was a common practice among online booksellers to inflate their listings with books they didn't actually have by searching the Web for a competitor who did claim to have it and then putting it on their list at a price just above that of the competitor. Then if someone ordered it they would simply have the other guy drop ship it. They automated this, the practice became common, and the obvious pathology ensued. I thought they had fixed this, but maybe not.
pete
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Re: Book about precision

Post by pete »

12L14 wrote: Sat Dec 29, 2018 7:21 pm Few years ago someone here(or at practicalmachinist) post a link to quality scans of this book.
Keep in mind it is(more or less) "trade catalog" - but rather in good way(like J. Martin "Tabletop machining" - just pleasant to read).
True for the most part, however I'd very much agree with SteveM's point about it being a very interesting book. That would depend on what anyone actually finds interesting or not of course. There's a great deal about the past history and the development of various techniques and methods to obtain high level accuracy limits that were done by numerous people well before Moore Tools. But Moore along with possibly a few other company's such as SIP, Brown & Sharpe etc. probably pioneered a great many methods that are now industry and government standards. That would certainly be true for how most calibration labs are built today. I'd guess Moore spent multiple millions in there research during the age of manual machine tools. Now a lot of the mechanical accuracy problems Moore couldn't 100% solve are simply compensated for with the high accuracy CNC machines in there programs. I haven't seen the 3 dimensional concepts about machine tool alignments clearly explained in the Moore book done anywhere else half as well. That alone was a large and crucial educational step for myself. Books like this one do create a problem though, you become a lot more critical of what you own for equipment. Moore's books, the Connelly Machine Tool Reconditioning, and Schlesingers Testing Machine Tools PDF did teach me the importance of and how how to run a proper series of alignment checks and adjustments where possible. There's a hell of a lot more to it than just leveling a lathe bed or tramming the head and vise on a mill. Knowing exactly what your equipment can and can't possibly do, or at least trying to adjust for it's built in inaccuracy's to get the best out of what you have is imo just as important as anything else in the shop. Even going through a library to read the Foundations book once would be well worth the minimal effort.
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