Any Good Welding Books

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I thought this would be a good place to post this info.While I was at a local bookstore I came across a really nice general purpose welding book.  The title is welding essentials: questions and answers.  It's a bit pricey (cover price $29), but it has info about all kinds of welding methods (even laser welding).  To date, it is the best souce of general info I have seen.  It is cheaper through amazon ($19.77).http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...X0DER&st=booksDoes anyone have other favorite books they use or have, either general purpose welding or specific to a particular process, task, etc?Last edited by smithboy; 07-27-2005 at 03:09 PM.Smithboy...if it ain't broke, you ain't tryin'.
Reply:SmithboyThe Miller Electric site has a good educational package.  I believe it is $25.00.  Check it out when you get a chance.Welder's Handbook by Richard Finch and Modern Welding by Althouse are not bad.  It just depends what specifics you are looking for.I took a few classes from the local college the past 2 years and the text books I had to purchase where decent.  They where recently published and had good pictures and graphics.  I think I paid $60.00 for one used and then they went to a new text and I paid $105.00 for that one.  During the pipe welding class we had a book for laying out offsets, elbows, etc.  It was pretty interesting to see how those joints where figured out mathmaticly.Books are great for refernce but welding is a hands on activity.  The books can get you going in the right direction as far a machine set-up, weld area prep, and technique but until I got in the shop and ran some beads it did not mean much to me.Are there any specific topics you are looking for?Have a great day.BrianLincoln Mig 215Miller 211Victor Torch SetMiller Maxstar 200SDMiller Syncrowave 250DX Tig runnerMiller Trailblazer 302 running on LPMiller Extreme 12 VS SuitcaseEllis 1600 BandsawMiller xmt350 CC/CVLincoln Vantage 300
Reply:I took some of my community college welding classes from Bill Galvery who co-authored that Welding Essentials book.  I'd also collected a bunch of other older texts that they were giving away at school.  While those other texts provided some interesting reading and pictures I thought that Welding Essentials was one of the more practical.  There are also some good free documents out on the web.  For example, I like Millerweld Educations TIG Handbook that you can download for free.TinkerCentury 135GS, ThermalArc 250GTS
Reply:I've got the Welding Essentials book.  It has a lot of good info, but it is annoyingly written.  Most of the information is phrased as a question.  I'm interested in the other book by the same publisher, "Welding Fabrication and Repair" for fitting and fabrication techniques.  Othere than weld prep, I don't really see much information on fabrication.I've also got one of Richard Finch's books.  It's pretty light on information and it's obvious that he's in love with TIG welding 4130 steel.  He also casts MIG in a harsh light when it's apparent that he's not heavily involved in the process.  Given that his book has a lot of details about welding airframes out of 4130, I looked into it for some tips on OA welding the other day.  He seemed to gloss over the whole topic which is odd, given that the process is still popular among the EAA types.One of the best references I've seen thus far is the technical section in the catalog of one of the local distributors, Arc Gas Products.  I'm not sure where they found it, but it has a lot of excellent and very specific details on all the welding and cutting processes that I know of, including the less common ones.
Reply:well if his exp is chrome moly hes gonna be  a major tig advocate.  anyways anyone can write a book,   i mean really loloh well i remember in college the phrase that comes to mind is if you dont know it, teach itchris
Reply:BSOK,I agree, welding is hands-on, no doubt.  However, I was mainly interested in getting a discussion going about weldor's opinions on books as sources of info, both general and specific. When I was getting my training (in the 80's) we used books from the dark ages (some 35 years old at that point, but that may be a testiment to my school).  I still have one that had a copyright in the 1950's.  I wasn't happy with any of my text books or with the materials that came along with them.  Pictures in the books looked as if they had been populated by a bunch of professional models that had no idea what they were supposed to do.  But even though welding is hands-on, I find that I continue to refer to books for info that I either never really committed to memory or just for ideas for doing something better.You're right about the Lincoln site.  I have a few of books from Lincoln that are pretty good.  However, for example, the welding projects 2 and 3 books, maybe the most popular welding books available for ideas for projects are mainly just picture books without a lot of detail (I really like massive amounts of detail) and they are definitely dated, but worth what you pay.  I guess I was thinking of a sort of top ten (maybe more like 1 or 2) or best sellers list among both novices and pro welders as a starting point for folks of all different skill levels (along with a personal review, likes and dislikes).Last edited by smithboy; 07-28-2005 at 09:40 AM.Smithboy...if it ain't broke, you ain't tryin'.
Reply:Have any weldors in this forum ever thought of compiling their welding jobs (photos and description equipment used and of technique) into a portfolio and putting it into a book?  Good architects do this all the time and make lots off their picture books.  Because my day job is in a university, I see the economic incentives that drive teachers/professors to write books, make revisions and come out with updated versions on a regular basis.  There is real money to be made, because there are always new things to cover and better ways to present old stuff.  I dont see why welding would be any different in this respect than other fields.  There is a talent in presenting and describing processes that is not the same talent as doing the process, and like chris says, it isnt always the best that end up writing the books...But, it could be...besides, great books in a field tends to sell for years (maybe that's why my school still had books from the '50s, they were the best books on forge welding that had ever been).  I could see a new projects book series for the beginning and intermediate weldor (like the Ortho books at home depot, project specific with nice detail and maybe plans) or one for the welding artist being a very popular addition to the current offerings.  I have always been kind of hesitant to buy project plans sight-unseen from some of the websites offering them, whereas, if I like an information book on the shelf, I buy it.  In fact, With the addition of some nice drawings, I could even see the contributed projects on this forum making a really nice alternative/addition to the Welding Projects II and III books I have currently.Last edited by smithboy; 07-28-2005 at 10:25 AM.Smithboy...if it ain't broke, you ain't tryin'.
Reply:Books are great for refernce but welding is a hands on activity. The books can get you going in the right direction as far a machine set-up, weld area prep, and technique but until I got in the shop and ran some beads it did not mean much to me.
Reply:Halbritt,You make a good point about machine setup being a lot of the problem.  I have a few friends that liked the idea of welding, but after buying a pretty decent consumer-model machine, they just kinda dropped the idea becasue they lacked:1) an understanding of how the machine should be set up for different materials2) a knowledge of what metals could actually be welded with their machine in its current state.3) patience to figure out how to make a nice weldI keep looking back to BSOK's post and wondering what are "THE BOOKS" that welding courses are taught out of these days?  I did all my coursework in highschool at a time when vocational education was still popular.  The guy that taught us was a welding inspector that taught the same courses at a local vo-tech college. But because I was in a public high school, I was unable to keep any of my books.  I am trying to get my son interested in the vocational arts (mainly so we will have some interests in common), and I would like to have a small library of books that we both can refer to, but that will give him some resources to start his own exploration in welding.  I also thought a nice list of some more current good books might be helpful to other new weldors in this forum.(PS:  Halbritt, check your private messages, left you some info you might be interested in)Last edited by smithboy; 07-29-2005 at 09:42 AM.Smithboy...if it ain't broke, you ain't tryin'.
Reply:I've got "The Welders Handbook" by Finch as well.It's a good general book with plenty of practical information and photos covering most processes, but I have some concerns about the accuracy of some of his information.In the section on O.A. welding - shutting off the torch, he says to shut off oxygen first, then acetylene.The instructor on my last course, and everything else I've read including the manual that came with my torch says to do it the other way round, which also makes more sense to me. I think someone else picked a few holes in his facts in a review on Amazon.Finch has no excuse for errors, I've got the revised updated edition and throughout the book he craps on about what a fantastic welder he is.The best book I've ever read on welding was one I had on loan from my local library for about 6 months straight when I was in high school. I'm pretty sure it was a handbook from the American Welding Society, but it covered just about every welding process and had plenty of pictures to hold the short attention span of a teenager, and enough detail and technical information to keep a professional interested. I will try and see if I can find it again, but as it's a techincal publication, it will probably be megabucks.JH
Reply:I'm sure there has to be a few decent textbooks out there.  If they're anything like my machining textbooks, they do a new revision every couple of years and the older revisions get cheap quickly on the used market.  It's probably worth some investigation.I read the chapter on OA welding in the "Welding Essentials" book last night.  This is of interest to me as it's a process I've never tried that I intend to learn soon (as soon as my flashback arrestors arrive).  So, the entire chapter on OA welding covered OA equipment setup, regulators, how to get a neutral flame, but not a single word on actual welding technique.  Once it covered getting a neutral flame, it went straight into the next chapter on OA cutting.The technical section that I mentioned in an earlier post was in an IWDC (Independent Welding Distributors Cooperative) catalog.  Which is apparently Weldmark.  I'd recommend the catalog to anyone.  Aside from details on technique, there's a lot of handy charts as well.
Reply:I just found this:http://www.jflf.org/books/default.aspThe James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation is dedicated to advancing safe, reliable, and cost-effective arc welding design and practice worldwide.Supposedly, "The Procedural Handbook of Arc Welding" is pretty good.  If it is, then it's a bargain for $25.  There are a lot of other interesting books there as well.
Reply:Well you mentioned there halbritt that the fella writing this book was suppose to be a general welding book yet it seems his main thing is on chrome-moly with tig.  I have seen this sort of thing in the past.  I feel the evil here is simple, hes not doing general welding for a number of reasons not the least bit that chrome-moly is one of them specialty steels that the average buyer of this fellas book wont be gettting into.  My opionion here, if they do they got more money than brains, but thats just my opionion.  As you mentioned I personally favor stick, but despite this fact, thats just my preference for what I do.  I think that for the average hobbiest,  a little mig and a small cracker box stick welder are awesome.  The mig is good for the sheet steel, and the stick is good for anything 1/8" and over, which on a really small mig there is a small field of overlap.  Of course there are operators who can thin gauge with stick, and there are those who use a small 115V on 1/4" and even slightly thicker.  Tig is awesome for things that require it. If I wrote a book for general welding,  it would consist of a small amount of tig, and heavy on mig and stick with a pinch of oxy fuel, primarily the cutting.  And throw in a little plasma for good measure.  Of course, the metals to reference would give primary attention to mild steel and pipe, and reference to the cast iron, hardface, alum, and chrome-moly.  But I wonder if Id even give any more to the chrome-moly then a half page.  Alum maybe should take a little more than a backseat too,  but I dont know how popular alum is yet with the average hobby welder, or other looking for help with general welding.  I believe the first thought to someone writing a book in welding is to determine there target market.  Obviously this target was not identified and targeted.  Anyway,  I spoke my mind and im out.  Later alligaters.  CHRIS