Spindles for Small Shop Metalworkers is a comprehensive guide to creating metal spindles for using in lathes.

It is a well- written, accessible text while being at the same time an incredibly technical book. The book opens with an introduction into spindles, their uses and the materials and tools needed to create them.

The next sections have an introductory tutorial to firstly design and then make a basic spindle. There are clear steb-by step drawings showing the design process before creating the completed technical drawing. Subsequent chapters detail different types of spindles, how to make them, how to mount them into the lathes, and how to assemble them, and all accompanied by clear technical drawings.

I am not an engineer so I cannot speak to the accuracy of the content.

The text is written in a conversational tone, making the book accessible for this starting out in this craft, and the technical drawings both within the text and in the appendicies are clearly laid out. It is a niche book for an engineering audience.
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~Many thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review~

Spindles for Small Shop Metalworkers is a well written accessible tutorial guide with schematics for machining custom spindles for lathe work. Released 1st Feb 2022 by Fox Chapel, it's 160 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is precisely as described on the cover. The author is clearly experienced at engineering and gives precise instruction with clear and detailed drawings throughout. The introduction gives a good overview over expectations and the scope of the book, what the resultant spindles are for, and materials and tools required.

The following chapters cover the design process, a basic tutorial for creating a general spindle, and specific more specialized spindles of differing diameters, shapes, and uses. The final chapters cover setups for driving the spindles created in the book with specific info about motor speeds, power delivery, and safety. The book is very well illustrated throughout with clear high contrast sectional drawings which are clearly captioned. Measurements are given in both standard (metric/mm) and American (imperial/inches). The author also gives specific information about fitting bearings, as well as specs for nuts, pulleys, caps, and clamps used. I was also impressed (and charmed) that the author included his specific contact information (email, phone, etc) in case readers find errors in the text.

Five stars. Clearly a niche book, but one which does a very good job of what it proposes to do. This would be a good choice for public or school library, workshop, makers' workshops, classroom use, or for the DIYer's home library.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.