A look back at the glory years of engineering for common folk.
The projects range from the utterly pedestrian, like “How to Weave a Shoestring Watch Fob,” to the ridiculously ambitious, as illustrated by the young lad who is gracefully flying his homemade glider off a cliff The airborne boy. and over a locomotive only to land in his hometown. I bet the girls at his school were mighty impressed. Published in the early These were the glory years of engineering and 20th century, The Boy mechanics for common folk. The Wright brothers Mechanic provides instruc- tions on making “wireless had flown their airplane a few years earlier, the outfits, boats, camp equip- Model T was changing the world, and unlimited ment, aerial gliders, kites, opportunity was waiting in the workshop. The self-propelled vehicles, insanely complicated projects, like the “Homemade engines, motors, electrical apparatus, cameras and Steam Turbine,” are immensely entertaining, but are hundreds of other things they any more enjoyable than the 44 parlor tricks, which delight every boy.” like “Removing 36 Cannon Balls From a Hand Bag”?
lot of work. It can be heartbreaking, wallet-emptying, and full of regret — often all at the same time. In the world of snobs, the most pure would have to be the book snob. Sure, you can spend more money on Tiffany lamps and art from the New York School, but it is difficult to match the mania of a true-blue book snob. To winnow that group of individuals to an even narrower class of snobbery, consider the perfectionist bibliophile who buys books on eBay.
While intoxicated. A surer recipe for regret has never been devised. My own disappointments are manifold — limitless potential and hope that nearly always end in disaster.
As a result of mixing eBay and Scotch, I own the original four-volume set of The Boy Mechanic, which was printed from 1913-1925. Naturally, I paid too much and was terribly disappointed with the condition of the books, but not with the content. Slack-jawed wonder lies within those tattered covers.
Why, the toboggan made of homemade skis and an old ladder, in “Making Skis and Toboggans,” looks to be every bit as good at knocking out front teeth as Making a boomerang Making a boomerang today’s modern version! from a “plank of well-
Luckily, Volume 1 is available for free from seasoned hickory.” It’s noted that “any worker in
Project Gutenberg, so you can dodge the high- wood can turn out a great price-and-poor-condition bullet that nearly killed number of boomerangs me. Furthermore, if you are OK with having a PDF cheaply.” instead of a crumbly, yellowed, chipped volume from 1913, then you will have avoided the dreaded Mister Jalopy breaks the unbroken, repairs the irreparable, fate of the book snob. and explores the mechanical world at Hooptyrides.com.
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