Hey guys! Aaron here from Gough Custom!
I got asked a great question a little while ago, which was whether or not I have any book
recommendations!
And as it happens I think there are a number of really useful books that relate to both
the workshop stuff and to, you know, knifemaking in general.
So this is the first book, it's called "Machine Shop Essentials". And this is just a fantastic
book for anyone that's getting started out with metalworking, it covers everything from
hand tools, like hacksaws and files and screwdriveers and so on, all the way up to milling machines
and lathes. It just gives you a really good overview of what tools are available to you
as a metalworker and how to use them.
I highly, highly, recommend it. It's one of the books that really helped me out when I
was getting started. Very useful!
And then, as an add-on to "Machine Shop Essentials", there's a second book by the same author called
"Machine Shop Know How". I wouldn't necessarily recommend this for a beginner that doesn't
have a lathe or a milling machine, but if you do have a lathe and a milling machine
and you're still learning how to use them, then this book is actually really great! It
teaches you a lot of really interesting things, particularly about work-holding and squaring
up stock and that kind of stuff.
So my third recommendation is actually on a very different note: this book is called
"The New Science of Strong Materials" and it's basically a primer on materials science.
Masonry which is strong in compression, wood which is a fantastic natural material, metals
for cutting tools, so on and so forth... It asks questions and gives explanations about
why these materials are strong, how they actually work on a molecular and atomic level, and
how to best utilize them in a larger structure.
It's a bit of a dry topic but he writes it in such a way that it keeps you entertained,
I really enjoyed this book!
So as a complement to the previous book, the same author has another book called "Structures".
The basic premise of this book is to explain how we can make structures out of various
materials that will support the loads that we need them to.
So, you know, how basic structures, like trusses and so on, how they actually work in terms
of distributing say a hanging force into tension and compression and shear and how you can
design structures around those forces! If you are interested in product design or, you
know, just getting a better handle on why a building doesn't fall down, for instance,
this book is really great! A good primer, it's really really fantastic. Both this and
"The New Science of Strong Materials" both changed how I looked at making things.
So the next book is called "The Design of Everyday Things". The basic idea of this book
is to talk about how the things that are around us, and the things that we design, communicate
to people how they're supposed to be used. This book is probably a little bit more esoteric
than the others, maybe a bit less applicable unless you're designing things every day but
I still think it's a really fantastic book and I would definitely recommend it!
And then the very last one that I would recommend overall is actually not one that you'll probably
have to buy! In fact the company will probably send you this for free. Having a read through
a tooling catalog like this is really fantastic for a bunch of reasons. The most obvious being
that you'll then know what your local supplier has on hand and what you can get to help you
make things. All of a sudden you'll have a much better idea of the just incredible range
of tooling that's used in a bunch of different applications, and how that can be useful to
you at some point!
It's not really a book, it's a catalog, but I still really recommend having a look through
one of these things and just learning more about all of the crazy tooling that's out
there!
So those are all my book recommendations for the moment guys! I hope that some of them
are useful to you, as I said a couple of the books in there really changed my way of thinking
in terms of how I make and design things, and I think that's pretty huge! That's a huge
impact for an author to have, so I hope that some of them have the same effect for you!
To make things easy I've placed links to the books underneath the video, that way you can
just click through to Amazon and get them really easily.
Let me know if they're useful to you. There'll be more videos coming soon!