Forty Power Tools You Can Make (1944)
Popular Mechanics PressTom Brokaw here: Want to know just how lazy this nation has become? Here's a book instructing men from the greatest generation how to, not just make things, but how to make the things that make things. In the time it takes a modern city-dweller to park and get lost in Home Depot, men of the 1940s could assemble their very own 3-Wheel Band Saw. Or perhaps a 10" Roller-Bearing Disk Sander. And the genius of it all--the more of these tools you make yourself, the more tools you can make in the future. It's like re-enacting the history of the Industrial Revolution in your very own garage.
Even more humiliating, not only could these men build their own industrial-strength tools, they did so while still wearing a tie! Just because you are all alone in the garage building a new Sliding Table Saw so that you can build a new dog house for Sparky is no reason to look like a Communist.
Sure, wearing a tie around spinning and slashing power tools might not be all that safe, but you never know when General Eisenhower might stop by to recognize your heroism for having stopped a German tank in the Ardenne with only a tin can and a couple rubber bands. As they say, dress for the tools you want, not the tools you have!
