Material of Machines

Abstract

As the life of a machine tool very largely depends upon the nature and quality of the material used in? its construction, it is evident that a treatise on this important subject will be of much use to machine-tool makers. The book under notice is well worth studying; it gives an able description of the metallurgy of iron and steel; it deals with the subject in a concise manner and contains much useful general information. The subject is approached from a scientific point of view, and this is as it should be. Special tool steels are now coming very rapidly to the front; in fact, “Mushet,” so long the sheet anchor of the machine shop, is being displaced by these special steels, which only require hardening in a blast of compressed air, thus getting over the risk of cracks due to water hardening and doing infinitely more work. Machine tools have now to be designed to meet the requirements of these new tool steels, more power being required to take the heavier cuts rendered possible by their use. The volume contains much unusually accurate information, but in section 72 we read that the piston rod of a steam engine is of “mild steel”; if a forty-ton steel can be called “mild,” then the reviewer is with the author; the same may be said of material for crank pins. Taken as a whole, we can recommend this book. Students of machine design should study it, and those of metallurgy will not waste their time by doing so.

Material of Machines.

By Albert W. Smith. Pp. v + 103, (New York: John Wiley and Sons; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1902.) Price 4s. 6d.