A bunch of public domain blacksmith books on PDF

Atlas Knife Company

Atlas Knife Company

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Feb 16, 2010
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I recently purchased 30 blacksmithing ebooks on eBay for $5. A little research and I came up with some details. All of them are works published prior to 1923, so they are in the public domain. The guy on eBay claims to have all resale rights, but he's full of it. You can find the following titles and more at:

http://archive.org/search.php?query=blacksmithing AND mediatype:texts

1. The Blacksmith's Handbook - 28 Pages
2. The Smith's Pocket Companion - 156 Pages
3. The Value of Science in the Smithy and Forge - 188 Pages
4. American Blacksmithing - 476 Pages
5. Machine Blacksmithing - 56 Pages
6. Farm Shop Work Practical Manual Training - 312 Pages
7. Modern Blacksmithing - 214 Pages
8. The Blacksmith's Guide - 182 Pages
9. Metals and Metal Working in Old Japan - 152 Pages
10. Practical Forging and Art Smithing - 154 Pages
11. Farm Blacksmithing by Friese - 104 Pages
12. Handbook of Practical Smithing and Forging - 314 Pages
13. Standard Blacksmithing - 234 Pages
14. First Lessons in Metal Working - 192 Pages
15. Handcraft in Wood and Metal - 288 Pages
16. The Silversmith's Handbook - 260 Pages
17. Blacksmith Shop Practice - 48 Pages
18. Tool Steel - 248 Pages
19. Practical Blacksmithing Volume 1 - 276 Pages
20. Practical Blacksmithing Volume 3 - 328 Pages
21. Practical Blacksmithing Volume 4 - 298 Pages
22. Forging - 112 Pages
23. Practical Blacksmithing by Richardson - 284 Pages
24. The Modern Blacksmith - 97 Pages
25. Forging Operations - 184 Pages
26. Practical Blacksmithing - 1116 Pages
27. The Complete Guide to Blacksmithing - 236 Pages
28. Forge Practice - 322 Pages
29. Farm Blacksmithing - 108 Pages
30. Blacksmithing - 124 Pages

All of these books are rare and hard to find. They were produced in late 1800s and early 1900s. They are now mostly out of print. I have complete resale right son all these products.
 
The ones by "Bacon, John Lord," are really good

Just clicking the PDF link on the first page takes me to some Google page that I can't' figure out how to download from.




To download the PDF
  1. Click the "All Files: HTTP"
  3. Then when you get the list, right clidk and save the PDF filename in the list.


Those are just blacksmithing books.
You can also search machining, drilling, whatever.

Sure the info is old, but we are mostly using old technology.
I find these old books are written simply, clearly and very explicitly assuming you start from zero.
Sometimes there is old language, or old tech terms but for the most part they are very very good.
 
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I'll look those up. I've got over 7000 pages to read, and I'm not quite the blacksmithing zealot that Sam is, but I do look forward to reading some of them before the hammer-in next month in Mankato.
 
perhaps you should mention the public domain thing when you leave feed back, I really hate people that run scams on ebay
 
Well, unless the guy claimed exclusive rights, he's right. He can charge a fee for distribution of the work, just like a publisher printing copies of the classics can charge for the book even though they don't hold exclusive rights to the core material. For $5 I'd say he's not screwing anyone, that's hardly worth the time involved and you might never have found them without his "service".

If he was trying to claim exclusive rights, well, he's a moron and might very well have gotten screwed by someone else who sold him "the rights" to these works.
 
Pity I can't get the Kindle books to load into my Kindle app. However, the Kindle store did have a free book entitled
The Working of Steel Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel
 
Try searching Google Books for Knife making- lots and lots of stuff there, starting with Loveless' excellent book on fixed blades.

edit- oops, I was seeing "for sale" results
 
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