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mech. parts - description needed 2

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I will immigrate to Canada and now I'm searching a dictionarry or glossary with mechanical parts and their description in english or french. Something like "shaft- a cylinder that transmit moment; tap, pin, insertion..." will be wery helpful.
If anyone know links to these resources let me know.
Thanks to any which can help!
 
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An English-version Machinery's Handbook would be a good general purpose book, which you will be able to use for this purpose, and for it's 'normal' uses.

Curmudgeon
 
I once worked with a some visiting Japanese Engineers. The level of their knowledge of English was what they had learned in high school. A great source of 'definitions' for these Engineers was a McMaster-Carr catalogue( or 1-732-329-3200) which contains over 3000 pages of mechanical and industrial components WITH ILLUSTRATIONS along with very good descriptions. Request the catalogue, as you will easily be able to thumb through it, find the illustration of the item you are looking for, and then identify the item with it's description.

I would recommend the catalogue be used as a 'picture dictionary reference' only as McMaster-Carr specializes in immediate shipment, which is reflected in their part cost.
 
Excellent suggestion, peterson!

I've used McMaster-Carr for much the same purpose. Also, Grainger catalog is good general-purpose catalog(s), and they also have some 'local' stop-in stores. Yeah, they're pretty pricey also - - but sometimes you need that darn thing (whatever it is) yesterday, and waiting 4 to 8 weeks is unacceptable.

Curmudgeon
 
McMaster-Carr and Grainger both have searchable web-sites. Why bother with the catalogue?
 
One more tool that may be of use is 'Babelfish', a digital translation tool (not a 'dictionary') that translates text between various languages. Some of the translations are very literal, but in general babelfish works at least good enough that you can ferret out the intent of the text.

Click on:
and give it a try

Ciao! - PeterN
 
Babel Fish - that's pretty funny. In the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy (a good book by Douglas Adams, the first in an increasingly improperly named trilogy), the Babel Fish was a little yellow fish that you put in your ear so that you could understand alien languages. It was cited as proof that there was no god - to paraphrase, the discussion in the book went something like this:
the babel fish could not possibly evolve
this suggests that the fish must have been "created"
if the fish must have been "created" then there must be a god
if you know that there must be a god, there is no need for faith.
god realizes this, so he ceases to exist.

anyway... I think I learned enough in my first philosophy class to poke a few holes in that argument, but I thought it was funny enough to mention.
 
BillBirch
Sometimes, having a picture you can point to (like in a Chinese restraunt) can save a lot of time when discussing things 'across a language barrier'.
The catalogs are a handy item on the shelf -- especially when the computer system goes down.

Curmudgeon
 
Thanks to all. The URLs are very helpful, I visited them and added to my favorities. Thanks again!
 
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