Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements

February 7th, 2007

Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements: Embracing All Those Which Are Most Important In Dynamics, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Steam Engines, Mill and other Gearing, Presses, Horology, and Miscellaneous Machinery: and including Many Movements Never Before Published and Several Which Have only Recently Come into Use by Henry T. Brown:

Over five hundred simple mechanical movements from America’s first one hundred years of the Industrial Revolution. For those who share an interest in mechanical things, this book is addictive. Through the use of simplified, concise drawings, here are 507 of the small components which make up complex machinery in areas as diverse as C.R. Otis’s safety stop for the elevator, Pickering’s governor for a steam engine, Arnold’s escapement for watches, compound parallel rules, piston rod guides, the grasshopper beam engine and a self recording level for surveyors. The list goes on and on in fascinating variety, with each movement explained and illustrated.

Amazon Review:

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….

Note: Cryptogon Reader P found a cheaper/smaller version of the book.

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2 Responses to “Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements”

  1. p says:
    February 7, 2007 at 1:37 pm

    if you like mechanism design, check out the “Rolamite”:

    http://rexresearch.com/wilkes/1wilkes.htm

  2. p says:
    February 10, 2007 at 3:31 pm

    I am not sure if you are still reading comments this old but Dover Publications has a cheap paperback version of this book:
    http://store.doverpublications.com/0486443604.html

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