Modern Monticello
Technical Library
Free, with the work shown
Everything in the Technical Library is free. Every chapter shows its inputs, its formulas and where each number came from, so you can follow the math and redo it yourself.
These are worked examples for specific Modern Monticello builds, not stamped engineering designs. Some inputs are provisional and are marked that way. Your site, materials and loads will differ, and anything that could hurt someone if it fails deserves a licensed engineer's review.
Method
Soichiro Honda went back to school not for a metallurgy degree, but specifically to learn the metallurgy needed to solve his piston-ring problem. Every guide on this shelf works the same way: theory gets pulled in exactly when a real MM build needs it, in whatever order the build demands — not the textbook's own front-to-back chapter order. Each chapter anchors to one real MM problem, states any assumptions plainly, and ends with a concrete answer to check future work against.
Standard, buildable cases teach the science — a beam, a post, a garden wall. When a build starts getting genuinely ambitious (multi-story, load-bearing retaining walls, anything a permit office would look twice at), that's the signal to bring in a licensed pro, not to push the hand-calc further.
What "verified" means here: the math says a build works if the inputs are right, so it's only the first of three legs. The second is testing the real thing — strength tests on the actual materials, and for anything that holds water, filling in stages while watching for cracks or movement. The third, for the high-stakes builds, is a pro's eyes on the design. A build counts as verified when every leg that applies agrees — this standard leans hardest on testing for ceramics/masonry (Callister ch. 3), since a brittle material fails suddenly, without the sag a wood beam gives as a warning sign first.
On the shelf
Statics and Mechanics of Materials
Hibbeler. Structural and mechanical: beams, posts, walls, joints, shafts. Every chapter starts from a real MM build.
Materials Science and Engineering
Callister. Why steel, geopolymer and rebar-in-brick behave the way they do, and where a real strength number comes from.
Design of Wood Structures
Breyer. The wood side: how a lumber table number gets adjusted for load duration, moisture and sharing, worked on real MM beams.
All 24 calculators
Every calculator in one place, searchable: beams, posts and joints, wind, soil and water walls, and what your test results say. Each one starts on a real build and prints as a one-page worksheet.
Queued: opens when a real build needs it
- Shop/reference: Machinery's Handbook
- Electrical: National Electrical Code (NFPA) + Wiring Simplified
- Agriculture/homestead: The Encyclopedia of Country Living — Carla Emery