At the risk of possibly being accused of "doing your homework for you," I'll offer a few suggestions, which is the same I would have done for my students when I taught college:

Take a look at the web page for Backwoods Home magazine. It's a good starting point. Their book section will also provide more information.

Check out the Foxfire series of books (10 volumes) on old-fashioned ways "and other affairs of plain living". They're edited by Eliot Wigginton.

Blacksmithing "how-to" books would provide some info, too, depending on when they were written.

Another old text I've found on-line is at this web page.

If possible, check with a state or local Agricultural museum or other antiquarian museum. When I worked in the Tennessee State Museum, years ago, we had in our collections full sets of millstones, & a complete frontier gunsmith's shop, including a spring-powered lathe & a wheel-driven rifling machine (looked like a part of a spinning wheel on steroids).

Depending on where you're in school, get to a major university's library (frequently possible to check the collections on-line). You should find something useful there. My undergraduate college library was OK for the work I was assigned there, but for real research, I went to Vanderbilt's Joint University Libraries. It was a lot of work, but worth it--besides, the research was fun.

As Solomon said, "There's nothing new under the sun."

Good luck. Please post again with some of what you find. I'd be interested.

David