Plough Book Sales

Every metal worker must have a copy of this. This 1907 American edition of "Metalworking" has 760 pages and 2,206 illustrations covering just about any thing you would want to do to a chunk of metal.

This covers so much I don't know where to begin. Under "foundry" you'll learn about building Faraday's blast furnace, a gas injector furnace, a brick-built furnace, an oil furnace, crucibles, flasks, sands and on and on.

"Smiths' Work" is not about the farrier's trade, but about decorative iron work - making beautiful iron flowers, gates, plant stands, fireplaces firedogs, brass fire screens, fireplace fenders, and a score of other Victorian blacksmithing projects. You get descriptions of the tools and anvil, of course, but you'll also find an interesting bending jig. The smithing chapter alone has 274 illustrations!

And on it goes: files, scrapers, buffing wheels, annealing furnaces, hardening and tempering equipment, drills, boring bars, and much more. You'll learn about the torches, bellows, furnaces, hearths for brazing and riveting.

The chapter on forging is more what we consider blacksmithing today: the basics of manipulating iron by heating and hammering.

The sheet metal chapters is a gem. With 177 illustrations you'll learn to make everything EXCEPT ventilation ducts. You make a small oil cook stove with oven, a deed case, a "coal vase" (decorative coal scuttle), a sizeable travellers trunk, a drainer, a square tea kettle, and much more.

You can learn to repousse (the decorative embossing of sheet metal). You can make decorative picture frames, lock plates, canopies for fire places, and more.

You get brass work, discussions of lathes and their tools and uses (over 230 illustrations in this section), metal spinning techniques and projects, tool construction, and more.

You'll be shown how to build the treadle-driven 4 1/2" lathe with a 4'6" bed complete with headstock, tailstock and slide rest. This chapter could be a book in itself, and I don't know where you'll get the castings unless you make them yourself.

The is a section on making jewellery, a simple eight day, 18" high skeleton clock. Its mechanism includes a pendulum and fusee. The plans are not dimensioned and discussion is necessarily brief. But there is enough for a clock fanatic.

Fortunately there is much more detail when it comes to building the horizontal steam engine. With a 2" bore and 4 1/2" stroke at 50 psi, you should get 1/4hp from the 16" flywheel.

The vertical steam engine can be built on a 3 1/2" back-geared lathe, and generates 1/4 hp at 60 psi, 300 rpm and a cut-off at 5/8 of the stroke. The 1 1/2" diameter piston travels 2 1/4" on each stroke. You get loads of dimensioned drawings. And this is a governed engine, too.

Build three different boilers. You can build a model horizontal boiler 13" long and 7" in diameter. Or fabricate a small vertical boiler 24" tall and 12" in diameter that can generate 1/4 hp of steam. There is also a 8 hp boiler that stands 8' tall with 4' stack on top of that, 3'6" in diamter, is riveted.

Build a gas engine with a 2 1/2" piston and 2 1/2" stroke. This 1 1/2 hp air-cooled engine weighs about 25 lb. and is suggested for use on a bicycle.

There is a 18" diameter water wheel that will develop 1/4 hp at 30 psi and as much as 3/4 hp at 90 psi. A dynamo/motor will generate or consume 50 watts of power.

There is talk about silver, copper, and gold plating and brass gilding in the electroplating chapter. The wire working chapter is incredible in that you will learn how to make fancy wire screening of different lattices that we, today, think can only be made by machine. After you make the electric bell, you can make a brass stand microscope, and a four-draw telescope with an erector for terrestrial viewing. Any one who works with metal must have a copy of this.

Dave Gingery, who as many of you will know, is the author of many how to metal working books, including some on building furnaces and doing home foundry work, making lathes, milling machines, and many other useful home workshop accessories, has had the following to say about this book: "Metalworking is nothing short of a dream-come-true for anyone beginning to put together a home shop... I thought the Foundry Work section lacking in some details of practice and procedures. But the discussions of various types of furnaces makes up for any lack elsewhere. Wish I had seen this section when I was putting my foundry together years ago...Naturally I appreciate the section on lathes and lathe work. And the chapter on building a lathe is by itself worth the price of the book. So also the details on tooling, attachments and accessories...

Every shop bird should order a copy of this one. And if he's dumb enough to lend books, he should order two or more copies because few people would return this one..."

Code No. 005417