American Woodworking Machinery for Vocational Training is an illustrated company publication issued in 1920 by the American Wood Working Machinery Company of Rochester, New York. It combines a machine catalogue with an instructional section and specifications for equipping a school workshop.
Three views of the teaching shop
The introduction explains the book’s three-part arrangement. The first part describes machinery, the second illustrates operations, and the third assists teachers and directors in selecting equipment.
This organization makes the volume more than a list of machines. It moves from the construction and capabilities of equipment to its place in instruction, then to the decisions involved in purchasing and arranging a vocational shop.
The material is also clearly a manufacturer’s publication. Descriptions of advantages and performance represent the company’s presentation of its own products, rather than an independent comparison of competing makes.
Saws and the preparation of stock
The machine section begins with band scroll saws and their guides. It includes equipment associated with maintaining saws, such as brazing, filing and setting machines, before moving through other sawing arrangements.
Rip saw benches, swing saws, variety saw benches and a universal saw bench appear among the illustrated machines. Their descriptions preserve the distinctions manufacturers made between specialized and more flexible shop equipment.
For a reader studying workshop history, these pages help connect a machine name with a recognizable structure. Illustrations and specifications can be compared with surviving machinery, old shop photographs or references in other woodworking literature.
Surfacing, shaping and joining
Planers and surfacers occupy another part of the catalogue. Buzz planers, bench jointers and safety cylinders appear alongside moulders, mortisers, shapers, tenoners, boring machines and lathes.
The range shows how many separate operations could be assigned to powered equipment in an early twentieth-century teaching shop. Preparing a surface, cutting a joint and producing a shaped component called for different arrangements of cutter, table, fence and work support.
The book also covers sanding and grinding equipment. Drum sanders, combined drum, disk and spindle sanders, tool grinders, knife grinders, emery grinders and grindstones extend the account from cutting wood to finishing work and maintaining tools.
Motors and illustrated operations
A motor section follows the principal machine descriptions. Its presence is useful context for understanding a workshop as a powered installation, with questions extending beyond the purchase of individual woodworking machines.
The second part turns to the operation of woodworking machinery. Photographs show work at machines and the position of the student, supplementing the earlier product illustrations.
These photographs are valuable historical records of vocational instruction. They show how the publisher wanted particular operations to be understood and demonstrated, and allow the reader to compare an instructional setting with the equipment descriptions.
They should be read as period documentation. A 1920 illustration is not current operating instruction or a substitute for modern guarding, training and the guidance applicable to a particular machine.
Choosing equipment for a school
The third part gives specifications for purchasing woodworking machinery and opens with advice to the general buyer. It revisits equipment types in a form intended to help describe the desired installation.
This is a useful distinction from the catalogue section. A product description presents a machine for sale; a purchasing specification identifies features the buyer expects the supplied equipment to possess.
Teachers and historians can use this part to study the relationship between educational ambitions, workshop capacity and mechanical equipment. The book records the vocabulary through which those requirements were expressed.
Audience and digital format
This free ebook suits woodworking historians, vocational-education researchers and readers interested in the development of powered workshops. It is particularly helpful when a project requires both pictures of machines and evidence of how they were described for educational buyers.
The PDF contains 169 digital pages, including preliminary matter, machine illustrations, specifications, operation photographs, purchasing material and an index. The copyright is dated 1920. Printed pagination and digital page positions differ, so use the index with the printed numbers and enlarge specification tables when examining dimensions or capacities.
Book details
- Author: American Wood Working Machinery Company
- Publisher: American Wood Working Machinery Company, Rochester, New York
- Year: 1920
- Edition: 1920 issue; no numbered edition stated
- Digital length: 169 PDF pages
- Language: English
- File size: 9.19 MB
