Three books on metallurgy with similar name

MKP

MKP

Joined
Sep 25, 2011
Messages
150
I was recommended a book. But when I did keyword search in Amazon, I found three books with similar name by three authors.

-Steel Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist, by J. D. Verhoeven; SBN-10: 0871708582; ISBN-13: 978-0871708588

-Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist, by Harry Chandler; ISBN-10: 0871706520; ISBN-13: 978-0871706522

-Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist, Second Edition, by ASM International and Arthur C. Reardon; ISBN-10: 1615038213; ISBN-13: 978-1615038213

So of the three books, which do you recommend? Or should I save up and get all three.
 
MKP said:
I was recommended a book. But when I did keyword search in Amazon, I found three books with similar name by three authors.

-Steel Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist, by J. D. Verhoeven; SBN-10: 0871708582; ISBN-13: 978-0871708588

-Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist, by Harry Chandler; ISBN-10: 0871706520; ISBN-13: 978-0871706522

-Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist, Second Edition, by ASM International and Arthur C. Reardon; ISBN-10: 1615038213; ISBN-13: 978-1615038213

So of the three books, which do you recommend? Or should I save up and get all three.
Click to expand...

I've held all three in my hands.

The clue is in the titles

The one for Steel is steel only, the others do non ferrous metals like brass and aluminum.

Steel Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist, by J. D. Verhoeven; SBN-10: 0871708582; ISBN-13: 978-0871708588
Seems like the most useful for blade use.

You can find E-book copies on the web if you like to read pdf's

You can also get one in a library, with inter-library loans
 
Thank you. I will try the library since the book it fairly expensive.
 
I am sure J. D. Verhoeven is conspiring with the pharmaceutical industry to sell aspirin and similar pain medicine. I am having a headache from reading this stuff. The title says "for the Non-Metallurgist." I am not sure I want to read the one for "metallurgist."
 
Aye, it reminds me of trying to learn Trig, except the metallurgy makes sense eventually. I took trig once, the prof told me I'd be walking across campus one day and I'd just get it--14 years later and as I walk across campus it still doesn't make a lick of sense. With steel metallurgy...I read Verhoeven, then I refer to Cashen to help translate some of the mess in my head, then back to Verhoeven, and then I feel like closing my head in a car door for about thirty minutes...

Here's Verhoeven's HT for knifemaker's .Pdf btw--sort of a follow-up and refresher on most of what he discusses in Steel for the non-Metallurgist. Sorry, I should have attached it earlier too--conveniently embedded to browser. To download to your PC, you should just have to Right Click and "Save Target as"
http://www.feine-klingen.de/PDFs/verhoeven.pdf

Eventually I must read his book on the impurities and flaws of damascus.
 
Which book would best serve you depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Verhoeven's book is a good introductory text on steel metallurgy, and was written with the knifemaker in mind. Harry Chandler's book covers a much broader range of alloys, and is a more general text on both ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy. But it is outdated. That's the reason why ASM International asked me to write the second edition of Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist. It was just released in November of 2011. It's over 500 pages long, and has been selling well. In fact, it's already on the second printing (February 2012). As I was writing it I decided to call Gary Randall directly to ask for his permission to use photographs of one of his knives as the very first figure in the book. And he said yes. But he didn't have any stock photographs of the specific knife that I wanted to illustrate. Fortunately, he was in the process of finishing up one of these knives that I wanted to use, and he actually took several professional grade photographs for me to choose from. He's a great guy. The second edition of Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist contains a great deal more information on metallurgy than either Chandler's book (which is 283 pages long) or Verhoeven's book (225 pages).

What exactly would you like to learn about metallurgy?

Art Reardon
 
Welcome to the group, Art !! Glad to have another metallurgist to answer the questions. You could start with the "tempered martensite embrittlement " thread as I have wisely backed out ! LOL
Knife metallurgy is a bit different and much time is spent debunking the many old wifes tales.
 
Dang, another $150+ book. No wonder so many of us stumble along with this stuff. (Not that reading it would help me much either though!) :o
 
mete said:
... You could start with the "tempered martensite embrittlement " thread as I have wisely backed out ! LOL
Knife metallurgy is a bit different and much time is spent debunking the many old wifes tales.
Click to expand...
I guess I opened a can of worms?... lol. It's all the metallurgists' fault for puting info where ignorant hammer swingers can see it! I was doing just fine with a torch, a magnet and some panther pee-pee in a flower planter pointed North!. I'll read Verhoeven's book several more times as a precursor to Art's new revision of MftNM.... something is bound to stick.

Welcome, Art!
 
Last edited:
Welcome Art,
What more could we ask for, an offer of personal help from the the author. I'm sure we can all learn from discussions with you.

Thanks Mark
 
Thanks Mete. Most of the questions that I am asked involve heat treatment in one form or another, and I would be surprised if heat treatment isn't one of the main topics of discussion on these forums when it comes to metallurgy. I'll take a look at the thread that you mentioned.

Phil, I've devoted two separate chapters in the book to heat treatment: chapter 9 covers the heat treatment of steel alloys, and chapter 14 covers non-ferrous alloys. I also included separate heat treatment sections in several of the other chapters as well. Chapter 12 is devoted to stainless steels, and the heat treatment of martensitic stainless grades is covered in this chapter. Chapter 11 covers high speed steels and tool steels, and I would especially encourage members of this forum to read that chapter. There's a great deal of information in it that I believe you would find useful.

Rick and Mark, thanks for the greetings!

Art
 
Dr. Reardon,

I am honor that you responded to my post. It is a bit of a surprise when an author actually respond to you. To answer your question, my main interested is steel. But I am also interested in other metals, such as copper or copper based metal like bronze. The steel part is pertain mostly to knife making, but the non-ferrous part has to do with learning for learning sake. Thank you.

PS: I hope you stick around this forum.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top