OK I couldn't help doing some digging it's the bookstore employee in me we get real good at this after the fourth of fifth customer asks for the red book you know it's got a red cover and it's about that guy don't you like read books and stuff. Anyhow your comment reminded me of Conn Iggluden's Dangerous Book for Boys (which I have wholeheartedly reccomended to many parents since I believe a large part of any good boy's upbringing is learning how to blow stuff up, burn stuff, and generally cause mayhem on a small scale
). Anyhow a quick wikipedia search of that book turned up some possible alternatives from the time frame you are thinking of but they were already suggested so I did a wider google search and came across this book Handicraft for Handy Boys
http://www.archive.org/stream/handic...0hall_djvu.txt which seemed like a plausible choice. I'll keep looking though the game is afoot now.