Books for Craftsmen

Like a Master Machinist in Your Shop
Machine Shop Essentials
$29.95 + FREE Shipping
Like a Master Machinist in Your Shop
Machine Shop Know-How
$29.95 + FREE Shipping
Your "Buzz Box" Can Make More than Just Noise
Welding Know-How
$29.95 + FREE Shipping
A photo showing all 3 books in the bundle.

3-Book Bundle

Buy all 3 of our books together for incredible savings!

Incredible savings!

Welding Know-How
With this book you'll finally gain control of your stick, TIG or wire feed outfit and learn how to get your "Buzz Box" to make more than just noise.
Machine Shop Know-How
If you've ever wished you could take all of the knowledge of a master machinist and pour it directly into your brain, here is your chance.
Machine Shop Essentials
Using machine tools - lathes, mills and drill presses. The book explains how they operate, how to set up work, and how to safely use these tools.

Why Traditional Machine Tools Remain Important

The economics of NC machines has driven manually-controlled lathes and mills from the production floor, but these traditional machines still play a critical role in many applications. When prototypes or just a few parts are needed, a traditional machinist will be done long before a programmer has entered his last line of code. This makes manual machines more cost effective. Here are some more examples:

A man working in a machine shop.

  • Machinery Repair
    As old-line machinery companies disappear, their machines outlive them, but not their parts departments. Finding parts for an old, but still hard-working, Linotype machine, Maserati or Cessna can be nearly impossible, but can be economically repaired with custom machine parts. When parts availability and speed of repair are critical, nothing competes with manually-controlled lathes and mills.
  • Jigs and Fixtures
    Modifications of existing­­ tooling can be made quickly and easily and changes can be made incrementally to “sneak up” on the best design.
  • Product Designs
    Industrial model makers and inventors produce their initial designs with traditional machine tools, which allows them the flexibility to modify them many times until perfect.­­
  • Gunsmithing
    Because each job is unique to each firearm, writing NC programs is a waste of time and money.
  • Instrument Fabrication
    Precision instruments for medicine and scientific research are often one-of-a-kind, made to order devices that, unless you are rolling in money, are best produced on manually-controlled machine tools. The quality can be the same and the delivery time shortened using manual tools.

Why Our Books are Special

Our books are easy to understand because they are written for craftsmen, not academics. There are no confusing theoretical discussions, just good, solid information that even beginners can grasp. Our books can be read cover to cover or in short bites, whatever your schedule allows. Here are a few features:

Book excerpts.

Each book has 500 to 600 custom line drawings—one on nearly every page—not blurry, old stock photos from machinery manufacturers and Army manuals.  These detailed drawings make even complex concepts understandable.

Diagram showing changing a bandsaw blade.

To save you time and trouble, our books have step-by-step procedures for operating machine tools based on the knowledge, short cuts and techniques of more than a dozen toolmakers, moldmakers, welders and fabricators. They learned from their mistakes so you don’t have to.

Diagram showing the anatomy of a thread.

Dozens of detailed instructions for useful jigs, fixtures and shop-made tools designed to improve your skills and make your shop projects come out right.

Photo of a man working with a lathe.

Our books teach you how to fix what’s broken without calling a repairman.

Contact Us

(714) 444-2220

  • Metal Arts Press
  • 175 Paularino Ave., Suite A
    Costa Mesa, CA 92626