The Boy Mechanic (free download)

[Wallenstein]

Over in this thread from 2007 a couple of people mention a great book called "The Boy Mechanic".

Originally this was a series of books published by Popular Mechanics magazine between about 1900 and 1920.

There are 100s of great things to build - proper old school hands-on projects. They are a great read in general, but there's some good bushcrafty stuff in there (igloos, skis, pot holders, camp furniture etc etc), as well as mechanical and electrical projects.

Some people in the other thread were trying to buy the reissued version of the book but you can now download the originals as free PDFs from the Project Gutenberg website.

Links here:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Might be of interest to those of you with kids (or those who still act like kids themselves!).

NB. These works are out of copyright which is why they're available to download, so I hope this doesn't break any board rules.

 

[Bothwell_Craig]

Or who run Scouts groups!! Thanks for this, good find

 

[Trunks]

Excellent bit on "how to make snow shoes" in book 2

Thanks for posting.

 

[sandbender]

Great stuff! thanks.

 

[Biker]

Thanks for the info. I love those old type books. Saved all three PDF's and will have a gander at them later.

 

[PREPER]

Thanks for the heads up,

PREPER........

 

[Spikey DaPikey]

I have the book, its excellent

 

[Whittler Kev]

Downloaded and saved....thanks for the links