This book is included in the Family Affairs - Children, Parents & Home Economics section.
Foreword
This is a play-book and not a text-book of engineering - a book full of fun, not
fun at the expense of another, but the real fun and joy of making things.
It is characteristic of the real American boy to design and fashion things with
his own hands. To be sure, the creative instinct is more conspicuous in some
than in others, but, be it apparent or latent, the instinct is really there in
every boy and needs but the proper stimulus to bring it into active evidence. It
is this stimulus that the following pages seek to furnish.
Engineering is a very broad term that covers many fields of human activity.
Obviously they cannot all be treated in detail within the covers of a single
volume; but the purpose of this book is to offer practical
suggestions. In other words, the object is to develop the boy's own
ingenuity and resourcefulness. The chapters on Mechanical
Engineering tell how to construct a workshop and simple foot-power machine tools.
This furnishes the boy with an excellent equipment, and if he will use his
faculties he will become a fair or an expert mechanic. Under the subject of
Surveying directions are given for the construction of simple instruments with
practical illustrations of their use. They furnish the boy with the rudiments of
this branch of Engineering and are calculated to stimulate his interest further.
Even a boy who is not possessed of an inventive instinct will find plenty of
interest in following out the constructional details exactly as given, but the
boy with a mechanical bent will use the text principally as a foundation upon
which to do his own building.
As far as possible subjects that are common to other "how-to-make" books have
been avoided, and new fields are opened in which the boy may develop his
mechanical and scientific bent.
In the preparation of this book the author has received many courtesies and much
valuable assistance for which he takes this opportunity to express his
appreciation and thanks.
The Scientific American has been drawn upon
rather heavily. The method of determining true north is based upon an article
that appeared in that journal some time since. The idea of using an auxiliary
portrait lens for a telescope was suggested by Mr. C. Kiplinger, and the
hedgehog transformer was designed by Mr. Frederick E. Ward. Both of these items
are reproduced with the permission of the publishers of
The Scientific American.
The Editor of The Youth's Companion very
courteously gave the author permission to republish material regarding the
sounding apparatus described in Chapter IV. "The War Manual," by Lt.-Col. C.C.
Anderson, furnished the idea of the single-barrel raft, the straw loom and the
charcoal pit. Finally the anemometer and the sunshine recorder were designed by
Mr. John R. Weeks, and were taken from the Year Book of the Department of
Agriculture.
Some author (Notes and Queries will perhaps find him
out for me) has said that "Youth are alike in all nations" - that the children
of the Chinese, that the boys of Boston, that the lads of Lapland, or the youths
of Yucatan all play alike and at the same games, and that the same things amuse
them.
Backed by this assertion, and knowing how well I have pleased my own children, I
now send these puzzles, experiments, recreations, and magic legerdemain on the
errand to amuse others who have not yet smiled at them.
If I succeed in giving entertainment I shall soon have to increase the circle of
my little friends, and, when I am borne to the grave, may children be my
mourners.
A few of these pastimes were in print before the writer was born, and will be
found in Hooper's "Rational Recreations," published in the last century. All
such are, however, rewritten, not better, perhaps, but in a modern style.
Many readers of the popular periodicals will recognize in the following pages
much that has already passed before them, from the fact that I have from time to
time "contributed" these articles for their amusement. Herein I have brought
them together to please the present and future generations of youth, who seem
determined to make their appearance in geometrical proportion as Time produces
beards, that he may cut them off with his ever-whetted scythe when they become
grey.
A. Russell Bond; New York, August 7, 1918
CONTENTS
Preface
Chapter 1. - Fitting Up the Workshop
Location. Tools. Trestle. Workbench. Tool Racks.
Chapter 2. - Machine Tools for the Workshop
Foot-power Grinder. Scroll Saw Attachment. Drill Press.
Spring Board Lathe. Speed Lathe. The Forge.
Chapter 3. - What a Boy Should Know of the Stars
The Great Dipper. How to Find the Pole Star. Cassiopeia as a
Star Finder. How to Find the True Meridian. How a Telescope Enlarges an Object.
Construction of a 2 ¾ Inch Telescope. A Mounting for the
Telescope. Adjusting the Mounting. Setting Up the Telescope. Some Uses for the
Telescope.
Chapter 4. - Surveying, Sounding and Signaling
Single-barrel Raft. Plane Table Surveying. The Alidade.
Surveying the Pond. Traversing. The Pace Scale. How to Make an Odometer. Flag
Signaling. The Signal Gun. Sounding Instruments. Clamshell Sounding Lead. The
Sounding Skipper. Sounding Big Bear Pond.
Chapter 5. - Roads and Railroads
Corduroy Road. A Simple Cableway. Cableway Operated from One
Side. A Dumping Skip. The Wire Railway. Water-Cask Car. The Gravity Railroad.
The Railroad Car. Laying the Track. The Starting Hill. Railroad Switch. The Hand
Car. The Boy-Power Train. Gates for the Railroad Crossing. The Turntable.
Chapter 6. - Navigation Improvements on Big Bear Pond
Rocky Point Light. The Flashing Lantern. The Siphon Feed.
Filling the Water Cask. The Chain of Pots. The Belt Stretcher. Chinese Water
Lift. The Treadmill. The Bucket Dredge. Construction of the Scow. The Dredge
Derrick. The Derrick Boom. The Swivel Table. Hoisting Drums. The Clam-shell
Bucket. The Dumping Scow. Dredging a Channel into Briar Cove.
Chapter 7. - Wharves and Bridges
Four-Handled Ram. The Pike Pole. Construction of a Pile
Driver. The Concrete Ram. The Tower of the Pile Driver. Construction of a Wharf.
Construction of a Bridge. How the Swing Span is Made. The Lift Span.
Chapter 8. - Water Power
Cribwork Dam. The Pile Dam. The Overshot Wheel. The Sawmill
Wheel, The Boat Elevator.
Chapter 9. - Building Construction
Wicker Hut. The Straw Loom. Straw thatching. Straw Hut.
Masonry. Stone Chimney. Brick Making. A Flat Brick Arch. A Bottle Window.
Chapter 10. - Electric Power
Volts, Amperes and Ohms. Electro-magnets. Induction.
Detecting Alternating and Direct Current with a Magnet. Transforming High
Voltage into Low. Construction of a "Hedgehog" Transformer. Shell Type
Transformer. How to Make an Arc Lamp. Electric Welding. Motors and Dynamos. A
Prony Brake. Hydro-Electric Power.
Chapter 11. - Weather Bureau
Electric Weather-vane. Weather Signals. A Home-Made
Anemometer. Rain Gauge. The Sunshine Recorder.
End of Preview.
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