Bill writes –
I recently came across a 4-volume set of the Popular Mechanics Illustrated Home Handyman Encyclopedia & Guide (from 1961) in the bargain bin at a local used book store. Of course, I grabbed them.
The ~4000 pages of projects are amazing – it’s basically your grandparents’ equivalent of MAKE Magazine. Tons of the projects wouldn’t even be printed today due to liability concerns.
Everything from planning/building/remodeling a house, woodworking, metalworking, making your own boat/go-cart/children’s playground equipment, indoor shooting ranges, to gardening, farming, and equipment to make handling your animals easier.
Over the past four days I’ve taken pictures of the title pages and illustrations for the most interesting articles, and put them up on Flickr. I’ve also contacted Popular Mechanics to see about getting permission to break out the scanner and make proper PDFs of the best projects.
Popular Mechanics Illustrated Home Handyman Encyclopedia & Guide (1961) – Link.
There are over 300 images from the pages of the encyclopedias, great stuff.
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