The Boy Mechanic: Best Projects From The Classic Popular Mechanics Series (Dover Children's Activity Books) Download Free (EPUB, PDF)

                
              
The Boy Mechanic: Best Projects From The Classic Popular Mechanics Series (Dover Children's Activity Books) Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
These vintage craftwork projects date from a simpler time, when people were more likely to make their own amusements rather than buy them. Drawn from Popular Mechanics magazines of the 1940s, The Boy Mechanic features a tremendous variety of well-illustrated projects. They range from the practical to the fanciful, comprising everyday items such as birdhouses and bean shooters as well as unusual ventures, including ice gliders and magnetic theaters.Girls, boys, and adults of both genders will appreciate these engaging projects, which require only common tools and inexpensive supplies. Whether used as a manual or simply read for the pleasure of a look back at the good old days, this book promises hours of enjoyment.
Series: Dover Children's Activity Books
Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: Dover Publications (October 27, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0486452271
ISBN-13: 978-0486452272
Product Dimensions:  6.5 x 0.4 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:  4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #308,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)   #25 in Books > Teens > Hobbies & Games > Crafts & Hobbies
I bought this title with high aspirations, thinking of my days as a youth reading the old "Popular Science" magazines and other how-to manuals. Unfortunately, this book fails miserably in living up to the reputation implied by its previous reviews. The book is woefully inadequate in terms of details on "how" to do the projects/activities it covers and mostly looks like someone just photocopied pages out of an old Popular Mechanics or Popular Science magazine and shrunk them down to fit a small book. The illustrations in the book are far to small to be of any meaningful use in recreating the items pictured and like another weekend project book I bought for my boys, this one would be better suited for the coffee table or bathroom book nook than as a "how-to" manual for dads seeking to fill their boy's idle time with practical activities. It's a great book if you're not really looking for a handy how-to book, but I only gave it two stars, as it's clearly marketed incorrectly as a "how-to" manual when it's more of a nostalgic coffee table book. Caveat emptor...
The old issues of Popular Mechanics stacked in my Grandmother's basement were water damaged, mouldy, and mostly unreadable, but they contained articles that were detailed and left the reader ready to dive in and begin building.I was expecting this book to be a compilation of that sort of article. I was disappointed. A better subtitle might have been "An ABRIDGED ABSTRACT OR SYNOPSIS of the Best Projects...et c....While the articles in this collection SEEM like reprints from Popular Mechanics, they appear to have been severely edited. Very few of the articles contain enough detail to actually guide a "Boy Mechanic" through the construction of the project. The articles are lacking in things like major dimensions, materials lists, and technical drawings. For example, the article on building a model airplane leaves out critical information like outlines of the wing ribs or fuselage formers, wing span, fuselage length, or even scalable three views of the model.This is a lightweight nostalgia trip for readers who want to laze away an afternoon dreaming about things they might have built in an imaginary childhood. But readers who are actually looking for projects to build with their own budding boy mechanic, this one lacks.There are some good ideas, but even a Boy Mechanic with substantial training, prior shop experience, and a well equipped workshop would need to devote considerable time to the design process before attempting most of the projects.
Popular mechanics was the bee's knees as a kid 50 years ago. These little projects seemed to make the amazing possible ... or, most probably, provided the lesson in reality that I was really needing. I think I developed a popular mechanics project worldview for a time. I was on a mission to solve every human mechanical defugalty with a little Rube Goldberg-like solution. MacGyver had to have been a PM and PS reader!These are the originals from PM. One reviewer laments the lack of detail in the projects. That would be correct ... the details are a bit lacking, occasionally the omissions are major but mostly minor. The details, on the other hand, would have spoiled the raw pleasure of the discovery and invention required to complete the project using your own "plan B".I hope my grandkids `get it'!
Fun book to read with many hand built toys and projects your grandpa or Great Great grandfather used as boys! Still viable for today! if you like nostalgic books and your like crafts like making all sorts of toys this is the book. Fun and fun to share with your children / Grandchildren.
I first saw the Boy Mechanic in my school library48 years ago in the 4th grade. I was fascinated by all the thing it explained how to make. Although this is not the same book I saw then, it is of the same quality and is a fantastic buy for any inventor, young or old.
I bought this book to reminisce about my child hood - It has lots of great project ideas - including a model train layout that a father and son could build. I found this to be more of an idea book - some of the projects would take more skill in machining and a more advance shop than what I have at my disposal. My grandson and I have enjoyed looking at the projects and dreaming about building them.
I purchased this book hoping it would have some interesting articles in it. I was more than pleased to find out that it had a lot of old plans one could build from. Granted, These plans are not like modern plans of today but they are more than enough for any person to build from. In fact, I was surprised to find a plan set for a steam engine that I had looked for on the internet but couldn't find. Great reading and if a person wants to build a project with their kids or grandkids it would be excellent!
This book was exactally what I was looking for, scooters, down hill racers, gokarts, boats, sleds, on and on. The directions are detailed enough to build from, but still leave some room for personalization. I liked it!
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