Popular Science

[Banks]

A little FYI.  You can search the entire Popular Science archives. I've found a lot of neat stuff there. Including Trains

[Firelock76]

There's no way of knowing, but I'd guess a lot of those homebuilt articles made possible by the Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines wound up in the trash when the ones who built them passed on.  Sad if that's true.

Then again, who knows what's hiding in the basements and attics of 80+ year-old houses waiting to be discovered?  I don't know how many times I've driven through an old, early 20th Century neighborhood and wished I had the ability to pick it up, turn it over, and give it a good shake just to see what falls out!

[WILLIAM LAUGHLIN DC]

Everytime I see one of these old articles that had "construction projects" with detailed dimensions, etc. I have wondered "Did anyone actually ever MAKE one of these?" I was born in 1952, well past the depression years, when the homebrew stuff WAS about the only way to go, and I just have never seen any of it crop up at train shows, or even heard oldtimers talk about building small items like that themselves. Of couse, there WAS the amazing Frank Ellison layout in which everything WAS constructed by hand (or kitbashed) so maybe there were many more folks than I imagined, going to these lengths.

[thesiding]

Popular Science or Mechanics Also at times would insert a booklet on repairing toy trains

 

Many articles appeared in both about real and model trains

 

ALSO the cover with the RED Virginia Rectifier from 1959

[Firelock76]

What a find!  There's gold in those old books.

[Penny Trains]

I discovered this book recently down in our basement and thought a few things were worth sharing.  It's titled the "Amateur Craftsman's Cyclopedia" and was "Prepared by the editorial staff of Popular Science Monthly", copyright 1937.

Lots of good stuff in this volume, just about every kind of project you can think of and many you wouldn't.  Worth picking up if you like making stuff and are lucky enough to find a copy.

Becky