Recommended Read: The Boy Mechanic

I recently got my hands on a borrowed copy of:

The Boy Mechanic

Book 1: 700 Things For Boys To Do

800 Illustrations Showing How

1913

This is really an eye opener of a how-to book. It is quite the reminder of just how much we have lost, as a culture, of very basic but useful skills- how to make things, fix things, improve things, make things for sport, or just make things for the funny of it. Whatever you needed or amused you: simple things, complex things, durable things- this book has it all. From carpentry, to electronics, to metal work, to mechanics, to drawing to sailing and much more... lots and lots of rounded skills involved. And remember, this book is targeted to “boys”. Boys seemed to have a whole hell of a lot more skills than the boys of today, let alone adult men and women of all ages now days!

Most of the “how to” descriptions simply refer to what to do, often assuming that the reader already knew how to do these things. Things such as sawing, or cutting dovetails, or lathework, or leather work, or filing or wiring, bending wood, or making a sail... the list goes on.

What really strikes me while perusing this wonderful book is just how much more skilled people were back then. A lot of the projects in here require immense skill. Maybe a “boy” doing a project wouldn't know how to do some particular step, but his Dad would, or perhaps his uncle or grandpa, and his grandma probably knew how to do anything and everything.

Just some perspective.

I highly recommend checking this series out. There is a free .pdf of this volume to download available at www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12655.

This book is a jewel, packed with all sorts of fun and great projects. I’m going to have to indulge in some boyhood fun!