Practical Projects: 8 DIY Influential Books for the Hands-On Enthusiast

Vintage DIY Manuals for Science, Campcraft, Seamanship, and Home CraftsBy Alfred Powell Morgan, J. Harrington Keene, H. S. Norrie, Captain Jutsum, Daniel Carter Beard, Arminta Neal, Samuel Evans Clark

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Length18h 7m

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Practical Projects gathers eight influential manuals of making into a capacious portrait of hands-on learning. Across experiment, construction, outdoor skill, domestic ingenuity, and workshop instruction, the volume ranges from concise procedural guidance to more expansive invitations to observe, improvise, and repair. Its varied prose—technical, conversational, pedagogical, and adventure-minded—situates practical knowledge within the popular instructional literature that helped make self-reliance a civic and imaginative ideal. Standout project sequences illuminate how ordinary materials can become instruments of discovery, play, and useful design. The contributors—Alfred Powell Morgan, J. Harrington Keene, H. S. Norrie, Captain Jutsum, Daniel Carter Beard, Arminta Neal, and Samuel Evans Clark—represent overlapping traditions of scientific popularization, handicraft education, outdoor culture, and accessible technical writing. Collectively, their work belongs to the broader late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century enthusiasm for practical education, amateur experimentation, and constructive recreation. Their differing emphases reveal that "do-it-yourself" practice has long encompassed both disciplined instruction and creative independence. Recommended for makers, educators, historians of material culture, and curious readers, this anthology offers an unusually rich encounter with practical writing across genres and generations. It invites readers to compare methods, assumptions, and aspirations while gaining usable insight into the enduring pleasures of learning by doing.

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Audiobook details

GenreOther, Literary Classics

Length18 hrs 7 mins

Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices

FormateBook with Audio

Publish dateMar 4, 2025

LanguageEnglish

1Learn to Invent, First Steps for Beginners Young and Old

2PREFACE.

3Home-made Toy Motors

4CHAPTER I. EXPLAINING HOW AN ELECTRIC MOTOR OPERATES. SOME PRINCIPLES OF MAGNETISM. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SHUNT AND A SERIES MOTOR.

5CHAPTER II. THE CONSTRUCTION OF SIMPLE TOY ELECTRIC MOTORS.

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6CHAPTER III. A Magnetic Attraction Motor. A Motor Having a Laminated Field and Armature Frame. How to Make an Experimental Induction Motor. How to Make an Electric Engine.

7CHAPTER IV SMALL POWER MOTORS

8Electric Gas Lighting: How to Install Electric Gas Ignition Apparatus

9PREFACE

10CHAPTER IV. Primary Coils and Safety Devices.

11Cigar-Box Dioramas: A "How-to-do-it" Handbook

12Cigar-Box Dioramas: A "How-to-do-it" Handbook

13YOU WILL NEED ...

14Shelters, Shacks and Shanties

15Shelters, Shacks and Shanties

16Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties

17V

18XII