Manufacturing plans of historic industrial or military goods
Upvote:1
That is actually a rather good question.
Is there some national or international organization that collects information like that?
Sadly, the answer is no.
If the organisation that created the goods (or its successor) still exists, then they will often still hold the original blueprints etc. in company archives. These may or may not be accessible to outside researchers.
If the organisation the created the goods no longer exists, and where the information survives, it is generally collected (and curated) by museums and libraries (which may be local or national).
To give a few concrete examples.
Plans for many British World War II aircraft are held by the Imperial War Museum. The Imperial War Museum also has plans for examples of captured German military aircraft (including, for example, captured A4 / V2 rockets). These can all be consulted at the Museum's reading rooms. Details of their holdings can be searched in their online catalogue.
Plans for many British military (and civilian) ships are held by the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. These can be consulted at the Caird Library and Archive, located within the museum. The Caird Library also has a searchable online catalogue.
(I did a research project into the British First World War K-Class submarines some years back. At that point, the plans were stored at the museum's offsite store (together with most ship plans) located at the Brass Foundry at Woolwich.)
The Science Museum in Kensington holds an extensive collection of blueprints, engineering drawings, ships' plans, etc. These are stored offsite, but can be ordered and consulted at the museum library.
These are just a few examples of the museums and archives in London. There are many more around the UK, and thousands located around the world.
If you are interested in a particular item, your first step would be to try and find out whether the company that created it still exists. If so, try contacting them to find out if they maintain a company archive and - if so - whether that archive is open to outside researchers.
If the company no longer exists, try to discover what happened to their records. You will find the websites of local and national museums of particular use here.
Unfortunately, a lot of plans and blueprints were simply destroyed when they were no longer required. In those cases, we can attempt to re-create the plans from surviving examples of the object (car, plane, etc.).
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