Milling for Home Machinists (Fox Chapel Publishing) Project-Based Course Builds Skills with 8 Projects for Clamps, Parallels, an Angle Plate, a Dividing Head, a Milling Cutter Sharpener, and More

At first blush, the reviews of this book appear very mediocre. But if you actually read them, the main complaints are that this book is too advanced for the absolute beginner, the writing style is hard to follow and the book is just reprinted material from the practice series. I agree with all of those sentiments, however, Mr. Halls work is outstanding. Has anyone even tried any of the projects in this book? I'm a hobbyist who took a machine shop class a few years ago, so I have the basics. I think having basic instruction prior to this book is a really good idea because you do need some understanding of how the equipment works before using it. Luckily there are a ton of videos out there on youtube to get one started.My personal feeling is that the writing style is a bit hard to follow owning to Mr. Hall being located in the UK, but not impossible. The projects are also written in metric, so it can be an added challenge if you have an Imperial machine and Imperial cutters/tooling, but you can do some conversions of the plans ahead of beginning. It should also be noted that a lathe is needed for some of the work in this book, but I suppose it's assumed you'd get one well before buying a mill (King of the shop tools, and all that.)I built the boring head outlined in this book. I have not built the dividing head yet, so I marked out the dial using a technique Mr. Hall describes in Practice Series #37. The result was a very high quality tool that will be around a lot longer than I will be.To sum up, the projects in this book are useful items designed to improve your skills with each project becoming more complicated. Materials and sizing are listed in British designations and metric, plans are well illustrated and not difficult to follow. Certainly for the cost, it's well worth having. Mr. Hall has a website with a lot of information and plans. You can get a feel for his writing style there.Good luck with your projects!

If you have a mini-mill for hobby work, this is a great book to get you started

yes it is reviewing a lot of stuff I am currently learning in class with working on mills. I love having information on hand to review if I feel I am becoming stale in machining prompt delivery as well :) I cannot complain

This is not a guide on technique. It gives a project with each chapter and walks you through making it. Granted you will acquire experience doing projects, but if you are looking for anything deeply instructional this ain't it.

Been reading his stuff for a few years and if you are looking for good quality well written and thorough books he is definitely where to go to get up to date and accurate info every time.

exactly what I expected...packaging was excellent... publication quality is very high grade for a paperback printing.

I am reading these books to become s hobby machinist.

good informational book

I will be using often

A good introduction to milling

This must have been written by someone that does not speak English. The grammar is so poor, that it hard to understand many of the sentences.as well the drawings are primitive and poorly numbered. there is no flow in the book and its hard to make sense of most of the drawings as they lake sufficient detail to reproduceDO NOT BUY

All books by H Hall are excellent he has stamped his name on model engineering

Three simple things to know about this book:1) Its badly written - its written in a conversational style with the gentleman more interesting in moaning about something than actually explaining what that thing is.2) Its not really aimed at complete beginners as simple things such as the advantages/disadvantages of collets are not explained. We are just told not to use them but given we have possible just spent £1000s on a machine we are unlikely to want to spend £100s on a collet system on day 1. I accept they might be better but surely as a beginner I can complete some simple projects without one?3) Its exactly the same book as Milling - A Complete Course which is aimed at Milling Beginers with a good grounding in Lathe work.