Dyke's Automobile and Gasoline Engine Encyclopedia + Practical Blacksmithing
Pre-1930 trade publishers; hosted by Internet Archive / Library of Congress / Project Gutenberg
Genuinely PD deep-skill texts: forge work, welding at the anvil, wheelwrighting, early engine repair — fits the 'grid-down artisan skills' theme and is fully redistributable, including commercially.
Editor's notes
SAFETY: 19th/early-20th-century practices predate modern safety knowledge (no eye/hearing protection culture, lead/zinc exposure, period electrical practice) — ship with a prominent historical-reference disclaimer. Antique auto content is useless for modern cars; position as heritage/skills content. Use the scans, not modern reprints (reprint publishers add no rights but sometimes add copyrighted forewords).
PDF/DjVu scans, some plain text/EPUB (Gutenberg #69488 for Googerty; archive.org/details/practicalblacksm01richuoft for Richardson vol. 1)
20-100 MB per scanned volume; Gutenberg EPUBs <5 MB
This work is available at no charge from its publisher at the link above. Members get our cleaned, searchable offline edition, plain-text version, and update tracking.
Source & license
Public domain (US copyright expired, pre-1930 publication; LOC: 'no known restrictions'; Gutenberg items verified PD).
Use of this material does not imply endorsement by its publisher or any government agency.