[.ca] Standard Handbook of Machine Design (ISBN 0071441646)

thorough and outdated:
I own both Shigley's books on Machine Design, Mechanical Engineering Design (which I would rate 5/5) and this handbook. I find this handbook is very extensive in the topics it covers, just about everything pertaining to Machine Design, but fails to elaborate in many of the key areas. Furthermore, many formulas are presented, but there are not enough examples on their use. My greatest complaint though, has to do with the print, it seems as if I had in my hand a book written out in the 60s. Drawing are dirty and unclear in many situations, tables seem as if they were cutout from another book and pasted here, then photocopied (the first drawing in the book, a man, seems as if it was photocopied on a lousy photocopier from an old newspaper), and the typeface in the graphs is plainly outdated. I understand late J. Shigley is no longer among us, but Mischke should modernize the quality of presentation when deciding to launch new editions. Overall, I recommend Rothbart's handbook over this one.

Excellent Reference for a Machine Designer:
This text is an excellent reference for any design engineer working in the machinery field. It fills in where the Machinery's Handbook falls short. The text is basically (I am oversimplifying) an expanded version of the Shigley McGraw-Hill Machine Design Textbook. My only complaint is that the discussion on the strength of welded joints is missing.