×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

What is in your toolbox
6

What is in your toolbox

What is in your toolbox

(OP)
Just curious, what is in everyone's reference binder? The binder that you always refer too the most.

Right now mine is mainly piping specifications
When I did MEP work I had a binder full of equipment sizing charts (VAV, diffusers, AHU's) and heat load calculation go-bys

Future PE Engineer
Pet project I am working on to help other engineers, not much yet hoping to get it grow as I learn more
http://www.peexamquestions.com

RE: What is in your toolbox

For machine designers, the bible is Machinery's Handbook. I also refer regularly to a handy dandy screw and thread data slipstick I got years ago. A good decimal/fraction/metric equivalents chart is very useful. My Ryerson (or other) steel handbook is well worn.

RE: What is in your toolbox

My lunch.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

RE: What is in your toolbox

ANSI/ISO 9899-1990

If it's not in there, don't use it.

- Steve

RE: What is in your toolbox

A couple touches on the iPhone screen, it's all there. Except the Machinery's Handbook, I have a hard copy.

Chris, CSWA
SolidWorks 14
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

RE: What is in your toolbox

'Machinery's Handbook', 'Marks Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers', 'Ryerson' and 'Reid Tool' catalogs, 'Rinehart Mathematical Tables, Formulas and Curves' (although many of them are in the 'Machinery's Handbook'), 'Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain' (again some of this is included in the 'Machinery's Handbook'), an old 'Rexnord' catalog that's got a good set of sprocket and drive chain specs as well as an old 'Boston Gear' catalog that has a crap-load of stuff on gears, sprockets, bushings, etc. And while not engineering specific, I'd never be caught, at least not in my office, without my tattered old 'Webster's Dictonary' and my almost as tattered 'Roget's Thesaurus'.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: What is in your toolbox

"binder????"

Aren't we in the paperless age yet? winky smile Sounds to me that useful tools would be a scanner and Adobe Reader!

I find that even a figurative binder is too small for anything I would put into it; my job tends to meander across a bunch of different disciplines, so every time that happens, I wind up collecting a bunch of articles and books. They used to be paper, but that got too silly, so, now, I only collect digital stuff. My portable HDD (electronic binder) is pushing past 3 million files. and even the 2TB drive is getting a bit cramped. Of course, being a pack rat isn't helping, but at least, everything fits inside a nice 2.5-inch format HDD, regardless of how many documents I have. I'd get a solid-state drive, but they're not cheap enough for the capacities I need.

But, the portable drive isn't really the tool, per se; Google Scholar is the prybar for finding articles on the stuff I'm generally looking for, as is CiteSeer. FreePatentsOnline is useful for getting PDFs of patents.

TTFN
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers

RE: What is in your toolbox

I've got about a trillion files, ~100 of which are useful. Often my first stop is my paper collection of self-written summaries of FADT and stress analysis methods, ideas I've had along the way, a few of MSC's PATRAN tutorials, & some helpful papers. My mini-library of Broek, Niu, & Bruhn is always nearby.

RE: What is in your toolbox

I started with a binder...now I have a bookshelf! But with structural guys it's a little different. In my Masonry binder, I keep all NCMA TEK bulletins and a half dozen pages of notes I created for bending formulas, etc. In my concrete binder, I keep a pho table and another set of handwritten notes on design equations. For wood and steel I usually go straight to the NDS or AISC which contain many handwritten notes in the margins.

PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

RE: What is in your toolbox

Pipe size table, B16.5 flange P/T tables, and a few pages out of B31.3 table A-1 for stress values. Yeah, we have spreadsheets with all that info in them, but I still reach for the tables. 2nd most reached for binder has about 10 different material compatibility charts. Machinery's Handbook is in reach too, as is Perry's. The rest is all on bookshelves, but doesn't get reached for quite so often.

RE: What is in your toolbox

Three binders - one for hardware, fittings and hoses; one for technical articles and papers; one for engineering process and management articles. The nucleus of the three binders was a photocopy of a reference binder given to me over 25 years ago when I was a summer intern. I've started a parallel digital version but still add hardcopies to the binders; easier to reference when you are using the computer for other work

RE: What is in your toolbox

For a mostly retired 86 year old in order of use: it is e mail (both ways) and the phone. An occasional computer program. The memory bank where still somewhat functioning. Bookshelf and binder when memory totally fails. Computer off switch as last resort.

RE: What is in your toolbox

ductulator, steam tables, Crane 410, ACGIH Industrial Ventilation and all the ASHRAE books.

RE: What is in your toolbox

Ohh and a whole lot of analogies...I frequently refer to standard bathroom exhaust fans and how efficient (or inefficient) they are.

RE: What is in your toolbox

Books/notes: Preservation Briefs, brick tech briefs, loads of various materials, and my historic construction books. In my real toolbox: awl, flashlight, headlamp, hardhat, gloves, tape measure, and stupid moisture meter that won't hold a battery.

RE: What is in your toolbox

Pad of psychrometric charts, ASHRAE Fundamentals, Geick's Engineering Formulas, National Electrical Code, ASHRAE 90.1, The Dilbert Principle, and Alcoholics Anonymous.

Best to you,

Goober Dave

Haven't see the forum policies? Do so now: Forum Policies

RE: What is in your toolbox

Now nothing - I ate my lunch.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

RE: What is in your toolbox

My toolbox.........35 years experience.

RE: What is in your toolbox

Machinery's Handbook, Marks Standard Handbook for MEs, Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain, Steinberg's "Cooling Techniques for Electronic Equipment", Steinberg's "Shock and Vibration for Electronic Equipment",

Tunalover

RE: What is in your toolbox

Magazines.

RE: What is in your toolbox

Add a moisture meter and torpedo level to Greg's toolbox and you have mine....except I have 8-1/2 x 11 pads rather than A4.....I wouldn't know what to do with the extra 0.2 inches of width.

RE: What is in your toolbox

A 5/16" nutdriver. That's the size that always seems to be missing.

old field guy

RE: What is in your toolbox

Wrong way round Ron. US paper is shorter and fatter. Easy to remember winky smile

- Steve

RE: What is in your toolbox

Steve... I resemble that remark! lol

RE: What is in your toolbox

4
A piece of 2x4 that's sized so when I put it on the ground and stand on it, it exerts 2000 psf to the soil below. I use this to convince inspectors how conservative this soil bearing value is.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources