Machinery's Handbook, 29th

I bought this for the Mechanical Engineering Machine Design PE Exam. It's a solid reference with a ton of data in it. With it handy I feel very confident that I will not be lacking in the details that I might need to look up for the exam. I think its time to upsize this one to a fullsize book. It currently a small paperback size but as thick as two bibles (or 1.75 George R.R. Martin Clash of Kings books for you heathens) with very thin pages. No one is even pretending to slip this in their pocket. Just make it a full size hardback book already and it would be even more useful. So the 30th edition will be full size right!? If it was bigger it would be my backup to the MERM, as it is the pages are so thin and small I cant take notes in it or highlight or anything. This NEEDs to be full size.

I swear by this book. Granted I haven't had many editions in my possession but everything I have to look up on the Internet for my job as a mechanical/process engineer is 98% in this book. It takes almost all textbooks I've had for my degree specific classes and compacts the information into 2800 chock filled pages. It will soon be filled with stickies and post its for critical info areas. Equations, stress, strain, deflection, material selection, grades, fasteners, gearing, cross section analysis, conversion tables, machining processes, it's all here. It has earned a permanent spot on my desk at work. I use it every chance I get.Shell out the extra bucks for this thicker page version as I've heard bad things about how bad the page bleed is from the original edition. Every mechanical, design, industrial or process engineer or machinist should have this book on hand!!

Update 7/30/12I have received my new copy with the improved paper, and have uploaded a photo of the same page as my previous book with the lesser quality paper. You can see that there is a significant improvement in the opacity of the paper and a reduction in the amount of bleed through from the following pages.Is it as good as my 24th edition? It's close, but no.Is it good enough for daily use? Probably.The text has gone from unreadable in the first printing to tolerable in the second. I've spent quite a bit of time today looking at various pages, and while distracting, the text from following pages doesn't completely overwhelm what you are trying to read. We shall see over time, but for the moment the larger text wins out over the tiny text in my 24th edition. The large print book will be kept with me at work and my old book will go in my toolbox at home.Use your own judgement before buying this book. Take a look at the photos I have uploaded and see for yourself if the bleed through is more distracting than you can accept.I've changed the number of stars in the review from one to three. The book should still be more readable considering its use.==============================Original review:Twenty years ago, I bought the 24th edition after graduating from college. It has served me well over the years but I wanted to give myself a treat this year and buy the updated version. I went with the large print since it was going to be my last one, and I wanted to make it easier on my eyes to read it later in life.I had read that the pages were thinner in the last few editions making it more difficult to read, but I decided to buy it anyway. How bad could it be? Well, I found out how bad. With luck, Amazon will publish my photo on the product page and you can see for yourself how thin the pages are. You can see the back of the page clearly, the front and back of the next page, and sometimes even the next page! This book is vastly more difficult to read than the 24th edition I have, and despite having some additional information I would like to have at my fingertips and the larger type, I just can't keep this book.What good is a reference book if you can't read it? What good is having super thin and super delicate pages on a book that you will use the most?Please, do yourself a favor and find a good used book. The information hasn't changed much, and your eyes will thank you.

A lot of reviews I saw before I bought this stated the pages are so thin that they are unreadable. I won't argue that may have been the case for the initial release. I didn't get a copy printed during the initial release. I think the pages look great. I saw a lot of people saying older editions were better quality, especially as far as the paper was concerned. To test that, I compared the copy I got (29th Edi.) with my father-in-law's copy (24th Edi.). I found a page in each that had the same information printed on it. I compared and asked my wife to compare. Neither of us could see a discernible difference between the two.

If you think that owning a toolbox that has wheels is akin owning a car that has an engine, then you will be happy to know that this book fits neatly in the narrow draws. My copy was clean and without any opaqueness to the pages. I highly recommend nearly any edition, but if you are going to have one at a desk, get the newest and register for web access. If, on the other hand, you need a field copy, this is your Huckleberry.

this book is full of math which i used like crazy at home, but in class i had to use the full blown text. the price for this is amazing, it covers much of the information you need to complete complex projects but again, if this is what i think it is, it is edited and not the full blown manualwould i recommend it. YES, as it has the essential, and the other stuff would probably only be encountered rarely and usually the product of a sadist professor

The book is damaged on the outside

La verdad este libro se lo regale a alguien que lo estaba buscando hace mucho tiempo y le ha resultado muy util.

This was purchased for my machinist husband, and he loves it.It's all gibberish to me, but makes perfect sense to him :)The pages are fairly thin, but there are almost 3000 of them, so kind of expected.

I read a review on here for this book saying the print was too small. This is not the case if you have seen the standard size book you would understand. This book is 10-1/4x7-1/4x3 inches. The paper is improved from the previous versions as well. This is a good buy.

Was worried about other adverse comments on thin paper. However this "Improved Paper" version is great. I can see why they tried very thin paper:- there is such a HUGE content of information. All-in, the book is A4 size and some 2,800 pages 75mm thick. Immense piece of work.

This is a must for any mechanical engineer, and for many machinists and others who regularly work in a mechanical or design capacity. Excellent number of tables and figures to use as a quick reference.