507 Mechanical Movements: Mechanisms and Devices (Dover Science Books)

This book is a joy to browse though. It is a little gold mine of ideas for the mechanical designer. Yet, anyone with mechanical aptitude should enjoy it. The many crisp line drawings are presented with a minimum of explanation and no dimensioning. You see, it was assumed back in those days that a person with natural mechanical aptitude could look at a diagram, or a machine, and figure it out. Not only that, but it was assumed that once you had the idea, then you could work out all the details for yourself without having to be told everything down to the last screw size. While there is a descriptive paragraph indexed to every drawing, most of the time you don't really need it.

This book comes from an age when engineers and designers had to have the talent and the knowledge to use the mechanical principles of levers, linkages, cams, gears, etc. to produce a given motion- and to link together many such elegant little mechanisms to get a bigger job done- reliably. This isn't done much anymore. Now most machines are huge, cobbled-up, Rube Goldberg devices of pneumatic or hydraulic cylinders, screw actuators, or servo motors- all interconnected by electronic controllers. The whole thing is controlled by software of even more dubious reliability.

Up to the "digital revolution", this book shows how it was always done- it's how I learned it. Of course, once upon a time, a mechanical designer actually had to understand machinery, and the basic principles of physics, and not just how to write code....


A concise catalog of mechanisms   November 25, 2004
Dug North (Harvard, MA United States)
25 out of 26 found this review helpful

If you are looking for mechanical inspiration and are short on shelf space, cash, or time, this book is a really good choice.

The left hand page of each spread shows 6 to 9 mechanisms (or "Contrivances" as they were called). The Right hand page gives a short description of the mechanisms.

Almost all of the mechanisms shown in this book are very practical and straightforward. I have no doubt that they represent tried-and-true solutions to real-world problems.

You get a lot for the price with this book!




4 years in engineering school, and I never saw anything this cool.   November 9, 2006
C. Cantrell
8 out of 10 found this review helpful

I spent 4 years studying to be a Mechanical Engineer, and during that time, I never came across a book this freakin' cool. If you think any kind of mechanism is cool, you'll fall in love with this book. A must buy for mechanicians everywhere.


The Most Useful and Handy Book I Bought All Year!   May 27, 2006
Olaf Johnson (Greystone, NY)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

Boy,
There is alot of information in this book. I'm an Engineering grad student and I write Science Fiction stories in my spare time. So I used this book in my labs as well as a technical guide for my writing. I'm sorry that I didn't have this book when I was younger, because it is useful for people of all ages and would be extremely in introducing young people to very relevant traditional science & engineering ideas that are not taught in public school.
Movement in very important on all domains of science, technology and engineering. This book will make you understand how the different movements evolved from simple one pulley systems in the pre-industrial era, to complex multi gear systems found in modern machinary such as watches, cars, oil drills, and trains. It also shows the many similarities between completely different looking devices.
Suprisingly the non-color pictures that accompanies each 507 movement are decriptive, well drawn, to the point and easy to grasp. Unlike all my college textbooks.
The movements begin as simple movements, mostly pulleys and as the book progresses, movements gradually become complex and this allows anyone to read and understand the idea behind movement without getting confused and disinterested right away. In fact, this gradual pacing is what makes the book fun to use. As you flip through from beginning to end you see a beautiful picture unfold as the movements evolve. And the author does not fail to explain what the movements is used for. He also includes links to other movements so that readers can go directly to another movement and compare/contrast them. The book is so well organized that it's impossible to forget what is where. And that helps when going back to it for reference material.

Only negative is that I wish the book was perhaps re-edited and updated (refreshened) for 2006.




Perfect book for inventors and makers   July 20, 2005
J. Cyphers (Wichita, KS)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

This is a dictionary for basic mechanical engineering. Schools have ruined physics and engineering by drowning the core material in math. This book is a simple "I need this motion to cause that motion handbook." If you are familiar with Arthur Ganson's sculpture, you will find many of the common joints he uses in this book. [...]

I'm in electronics, and I needed a little bit of help with gears and adapting motion from motors, and this book is perfect. If you need to calculate torque or really get into the math of things get a textbook (or a real mechanical engineer). But if you like to tinker this book will open up your imagination to many different solutions.

For the price you can't beat it.