I wrote a book. It's about welding

Education
1

Shameless plug time. I finally finished writing my book about welding 4130 tubing!

I’ve published it on KDP (amazon) and it’s live now. A good while back I made a post on here titled TIG Welding Bicycle Frames for Dummies, and @Modulus-Dave gave me the idea to self-publish a book about welding. (and helped tremendously with the process).

The scope of the book creeped quite a bit while I was writing it, while originally going to be only about thin-wall tubing for bicycles I ended up going for motorsports & experimental aircraft as well, because those are essentially the same thing as far as welding is concerned.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all beginners guide, I really focused on a lot of the technical aspects and differences of welding 4130 compared to mild steel (where everyone starts welding in trade schools and such). So if you’re just getting started tig welding there’s definitely better resources out there to begin with.

I figured I’d go ahead and post it here, since I’ve talked about it a few times in the process of writing it. If I’m honest with the community, there’s not necessarily any new information that you couldn’t find on this forum or elsewhere. Although I will say some of the conclusions I came to while researching could be considered ‘hot takes’ in the online welding hive mind. I definitely learned a whole bunch, and even changed my own stance a few times after learning more. But if you want to support me and this idea of writing welding books, I’d appreciate it if you grabbed a copy. :grinning:

Here’s a link to it on Amazon US : Amazon.com
But it also should be easily searchable by the title if you’re not in the US : Tig Welding 4130 Tubing For Motorsports, Bicycles & Aircraft

Now for future plans, I’ve been debating making an electronic version available, possibly even selling outside of amazon, that way It can be much cheaper. I’m still investigating the logistics of that.

Future me edit: It’s available on my website for download: eglfabrication.com

Also, I’ve already started outlining a book for Titanium. That will be fun. I’ve also got a few ideas for other welding books, but they wouldn’t necessarily be relevant for the bicycle framebuilding community.

IMG_20240131_072447590_HDR
IMG_20240131_072447590_HDR2296×4080 2.36 MB

32 Likes
2

Just ordered a copy!

Thanks for all the great info you share here!

2 Likes
3

I’d really like a copy as well! But there are two problems: I don’t like Jeff Bezos and the shipping/Customs is almost half the price. Can I just send you 25US$ and you email me the pdf? :wink:

6 Likes
4

Onya mate! Would love to purchase a copy. Ideally a PDF version and not through Amazon . I remember buying Roger Musson’s A Professional Guide to Wheelbuilding as a PDF many years ago and it’s still a great resource to turn to, especaily when teaching others. I can imagine this ends up being something similar. The book (now just called Wheelbuilding) is still availible through his website for roughly $10 so maybe something similar works for you.

1 Like
5

Thanks for the kudos Ben! Glad to help out with the book.

I can understand not wanting to give Jeff Bezos more business, but Amazon’s direct publishing pays the highest royalties vs. publishers and you basically get your book distributed world wide. It’s Amazon’s world, we just live in it.

1 Like
6

I mean kinda. I know one person hardly makes a difference but I’ve actually never purchased anything from Amazon, despite their strong push into the Australian market in recent years. So to some extent you do get to choose whose world you live in, at least on an individual level.

@ben.land101 if you can tell us what you get from Amazon for each hardback sale I’ll happily send you the same amount for a PDF copy. Cheers!

2 Likes
7

The two of us may be the last ones on earth that have not purchased from the Evil Empire.

4 Likes
8

So we are three!

3 Likes
9

Ordered.

FWIW, if there’s a way for you all to rate/comment on Amazon when you get the book that will help Ben out with placement on Amazon’s site.

1 Like
10

Congratulation on being a published author! I’ve helped a friend publish a cookbook and it’s not an easy task! So much work! Hooray for getting your product out there!

Don’t mind the peanut gallery, I know that you selected this venue to publish and sell because they gave you the best rates and support.

2 Likes
11

it’s in my cart ready for my next order, thank you!

1 Like
12

Thank you all!

I’m definitely investigating making an e-book / PDF available semi-officially (likely just on a simple website of my own). Should be trivial with the program I used to make the print-ready version. I’ll just spend some time researching the transaction side of things and copy protection, etc. I’ll post here once I get something setup!

5 Likes
13

This looks interesting. Would you recommend it for someone who is experienced at brazing and working with 4130 in that context, but who doesn’t have experience with TIG welding? I’ve been mildly interested in switching processes and this might help me make that leap.

14

No objection to Amazon here. Their global reach means I ordered my copy on Amazon UK today and it’ll be here on Friday :+1:

1 Like
15

I’d say so, yeah! I did try to give good overviews of things like machine & related equipment, different types of tubing, and things like that. I tried to have a good mix of deep-dive going down the rabbit hole things, as well as just some overviews of what equipment is needed and such.

So, it’s definitely not everything you need to know to get going with tig welding, but there’s certainly still some good info of what you’re getting into.

3 Likes
16

Lost count but a vote for a PDF or non-Amazon option would be great and I’d be interested! Thanks!

2 Likes
17

Well, order placed!
I had another book about welding but it was too generalist, useful but a dedicated one about tig and tubing is what I needed.

1 Like
18

Ordered a copy and will consider purchasing the PDF as well if it becomes available later on.

2 Likes
19

After reading this book, I desperately wish I had this before I started welding!

There is a lot if information I learned the hard way in the last year! If we can get copies in the hands of new builders, they will be so greatly advantaged from the start.

I appreciate how you clearly state best practices (er70s-2 :grinning:). This takes so much guess work out for people not in the industry.

5 Likes
20

I’d love a hard copy (Luddite) but hate Amazon. Do you have any hard copies that I could buy directly from you?

1 Like