The Boy Mechanic
by Popular Mechanics · first published 2006
8mentions
2recommended by
2HN commenters
2021–2026first – last mentioned
100% recommend
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
There must have been a different mindset in the early part of the 20th Century. "The Boy Mechanic" [1] book series from Popular Mechanics are of the same pedigree. And a little later, the German "The Way Things Work" [2] twin set of books (sorry, not the newer books by Macaulay with the same name).…
on “Spinning Levers – How a Transmission Works (1936) [video]” ↗Yes, that is where I just saw this book mentioned. Absolutely love these kind of books. I became fascinated as a kid when I stumbled upon the unfortunately named The Boy Mechanic [1] at a friend of the family's farm house. I later found that there were a whole series [2]. Popular Mechanics did a newer version in the 1940's as well [3]. I discovered the two volumes of the mazing…
on “Magician's Own Book: Experiments in Electricity (1862)” ↗If you like this, then you will love this 1913 Boy Mechanic series. The Boy Mechanic Volume I: 700 Things For Boys To Do https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12655 The Boy Mechanic, Book 2: 1000 Things for Boys to Do https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44585 One…
on “The Book of Experiments (1958) [pdf]” ↗…(I'm happy it still exists though.) Man, I love that "Age of DIY" that "Modern Mechanix" and other publications of that era reflected. I remember when I was a boy discovering volumes of the book "The Boy Mechanic" (yeah, that title: they were published around 1900 though) on the bookshelf of a friend's home. I was captivated. I think the articles had just enough diagrams, photos, description to give you a nudge…
on “You Can Learn Glass Blowing (1938)” ↗I've moved enough times to have thinned my book collection down quite a bit. Books that I can't quit, the original "The Boy Mechanic" books, "The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus", "Jingo Django" (I have quite of few of Sid Fleischman's books, actually), a set of "The Book of a Thousands Nights and a Night" (the Arabian Nights) ... to…
on “Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?” ↗I admit the mill+lathe has probably always been a small crowd, but there definitely were a lot more "tinkerers" in the heyday of "Popular Mechanics" (and their entire press: "The Boy Mechanic", "Shop Notes", etc.).
on “Dell to layoff 6,650 employees as demand for PCs plummets” ↗Scored a lot of Lindsay's books when you still could (lot of build-your-own regenerative receivers and similar, reprints of "The Boy Mechanic", "5 Acres and Independence", etc.). I would suspect (hope) many have been "archived" at "the org". (EDIT: I see for example "The Impoverished Radio Experimenter Vol. 4": https://archive.org/details/impoverishedradi0000lind/mode/2u...)
on “Long live American Science and Surplus” ↗…https://coimages.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/128/977/large_190... A clever one that, while different than my dad's, likely gives similar results: http://pedrotucker.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/harmono... (A "Boy Mechanic" book from the turn of the 20th Century depicts a harmonograph with I believe a double-pendulum: a pendulum hanging off a pendulum. That too would have added some interesting chaos without the expensive…
on “Experiments with Plotter Art” ↗