Machinery’s Handbook has served as the principal reference work in metalworking,
design and manufacturing facilities, and in technical schools and colleges throughout the
world, for more than 90 years of continuous publication. Throughout this period, the inten-
tion of the Handbook editors has always been to create a comprehensive and practical tool,
combining the most basic and essential aspects of sophisticated manufacturing practice. A
tool to be used in much the same way that other tools are used, to make and repair products
of high quality, at the lowest cost, and in the shortest time possible.
The essential basics, material that is of proven and everlasting worth, must always be
included if the Handbook is to continue to provide for the needs of the manufacturing com-
munity. But, it remains a difficult task to select suitable material from the almost unlimited
supply of data pertaining to the manufacturing and mechanical engineering fields, and to
provide for the needs of design and production departments in all sizes of manufacturing
plants and workshops, as well as those of job shops, the hobbyist, and students of trade and
technical schools.
The editors rely to a great extent on conversations and written communications with
users of the Handbook for guidance on topics to be introduced, revised, lengthened, short-
ened, or omitted. In response to such suggestions, in recent years material on logarithms,
trigonometry, and sine-bar constants have been restored after numerous requests for these
topics. Also at the request of users, in 1997 the first ever large-print or “desktop” edition of
theHandbook was published, followed in 1998 by the publication of Machinery’s Hand-
book CD-ROM including hundreds of additional pages of material restored from earlier
editions. The large-print and CD-ROM editions have since become permanent additions to
the growing family of Machinery’s Handbook products.
Regular users of the Handbook will quickly discover some of the many changes embod-
ied in the present edition. One is the combined Mechanics and Strength of Materials sec-
tion, arising out of the two former sections of similar name. “Old style” numerals, in
continuous use in the first through twenty-fifth editions, are now used only in the index for
page references, and in cross reference throughout the text. The entire text of this edition,
including all the tables and equations, has been reset, and a great many of the numerous
figures have been redrawn.
The 28th edition of the Handbook contains major revisions of existing content, as well as
new material on a variety of topics. The detailed tables of contents located at the beginning
of each section have been expanded and fine tuned to simplify locating your topic; numer-
ous major sections have been extensively reworked and renovated throughout, including
Mathematics,Mechanics and Strength of Materials,Properties of Materials,Dimension-
ing, Gaging and Measuring, Machining Operations, Manufacturing Process, Fasteners,
Threads and Threading, and Machine Elements. New material includes shaft alignment,
taps and tapping, helical coil screw thread inserts, solid geometry, distinguishing between
bolts and screws, statistics, calculating thread dimensions, keys and keyways, miniature
screws, metric screw threads, and fluid mechanics.
Other subjects in the Handbook that are new or have been revised, expanded, or updated
are: plastics, punches, dies and presswork, lubrication, CNC programming and CNC
thread cutting, metric wrench clearances, ANSI and ISO drafting practices, and ISO sur-
face texture.
The large-print edition is identical to the traditional toolbox edition, but the size is
increased by a comfortable 140% for easier reading, making it ideal as a desktop reference.
Other than size, there are no differences between the toolbox and large-print editions.
TheMachinery’s Handbook 28 CD-ROM contains the complete contents of the printed
edition, presented in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. This popular and well known format
enables viewing and printing of pages, identical to those of the printed book, rapid search-
ing, and the ability to magnify the view of any page. Navigation aids in the form of thou-
PREFACE
Machinery’s Handbook 28th Edition
Copyright 2008, Industrial Press Inc., New York, NY – www.industrialpress.com