Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2017 i Popular Mechanics South Africa

ASSERTIVENESS IS A QUALITY that shoppers could use more of. If you’re not satisfied, say so and say why. Demand what you paid for. For that matter, if you are satisfied, say so, too. Don’t be apologetic; be honest. Something like this: “I know it’s been two years, but we’re returning this product and we’d like our money back. The main thing is, it’s just too big. When we buy an M, particularly for this kind of money, we don’t expect a 5XXL. “And – we know it was agreed upfront – but we’ve thought about it and, actually, we think we overpaid. “So please take your trains back. And, before you ask, no, a credit won’t suffice. We’d like a cash refund.” I can attest to the fact that…

The South African 4×4 & Outdoor Show is a jam-packed event that offers live entertainment on stage; stunts; bike, quad and vehicle demonstrations at various points of the venue; and live monster truck shows. Drive experiences include the opportunity to get the feel of a world-class racetrack in SUVs and 4x4s and the thrills of a 4x4 obstacle course in the middle of the main circuit. Or you could be lucky enough to get a ride inside a monster truck. It all happens at the Zwartkops Raceway, Pretoria. The theme of the 2017 Cape Homemakers Expo is: (A Tribute to Your Home). To celebrate that, this popular expo will feature an impressive range of products and professional services under one roof from 31 August to 3 September at the Cape…

Radio and television personality and successful entrepreneur GARETH CLIFF has been a household name for years. He stays on top of things with the help of his iPhone 7 and Apple Watch. iPhone 7 Q How does the iPhone 7 help you in your career? A Cliffcentral.com is an online platform and we have our own app, so the mobile phone is the primary interface for us and our listeners. I use that every day, along with social media apps that allow us to market and connect to consumers. I refuse to use it for email, except in emergencies. How long have you had your iPhone 7 for? Since November last year. Would you say that this is a must-have gadget for a businessman like yourself? I think a smartphone is, but…

MOBILITY + LAUNCHES: HYUNDAI TUCSON, ELANTRA SPORT + BLUETOOTH URBAN WARRIORS SMALL, BUT PERFECTLY FORMED My SUV may be overkill for my 11-kilometre commute, but nothing beats it for turning a muddy field into a bypass, for sneering at storm-flooded roads or for swallowing what seems like an entire garden to take to the tip. It’s thirsty, though, and expensive. My wife’s hatchback is amazingly economical, but after a decade on her 32-k rush-hour trek, her left leg is demanding an automatic shift, or else. Which is the better city car? Clearly, neither. As the world’s population inexorably drifts to the cities, as autonomous vehicles develop along with connected cars and alternative forms of propulsion, the face of mobility will inevitably change. But getting from A to B when we…

IT TAKES ONE bad decision to learn an important lesson about wood: the wrong stain can ruin it. For me, that lesson came with the deck my dad built on our house when I was in high school. After a couple of weekends of construction, he turned things over to the family. We picked a stain, something called cottage grey that must have reminded us of houses we’d rented on beach vacations. Maybe we thought it’d be a constant reminder to relax. It was a poor choice. The grey clashed with the red brick of the house. Selfishly, my dad wasn’t willing to rebuild the deck, so we tried to cover it with a dark brown. That worked, in that it looked… fine. For some reason it was only at…

A few times a season, after my kid’s peewee football practice, we’d have everyone over to a neighbour’s house. He’d set up speakers and a projector, pointed at a wall. We’d watch a classic football movie: We Are Marshall, Rudy, Remember the Titans. It’s a great environment, outside on a summer night. My editors at Popular Mechanics know I like that kind of thing, especially if there are new gadgets involved. So they sent me a modern projector and Bluetooth speaker, and told me to set them up in my backyard. This time without 50 kids. BENQ HT1070 PROJECTOR Projectors are so much easier than they used to be. You turn the BenQ on, navigate a set-up screen for language, input source, and a few other things. You adjust the…

PEOPLE DON’T LIKE taking out cellphone contracts anymore. Odd then that the one reason for getting into the twoyear lock-in is now attacking the low end of the market. The tale of Nokia’s return is one of a slavish devotion to build quality and the quality of the customer experience, as well as placing the aftermarket responsibility in the hands of the people who hold those contracts. Let them tell it in their own words: AARTO NUMMELA, CEO HMD GLOBAL “Personally I have to say that the Nokia 5 is the most Nokia phone out of all of these because of how we captured the humanness in the design. It’s a pure 3D shape, which is very difficult to manufacture because it’s like a pillow with the back also curved.…

“MY NAME IS GEOFFREY NYAGA KINYUA and I’m 25 years old. I was born in a village on the slopes of Mount Kenya, about 400 kilometres outside of Nairobi,” says a tall, slender, unassuming-looking man. The auditorium seems unmoved by his story. Understandably, because it’s day two of the conference and it’s right before the lunch break. The professional drone industry in South Africa is also dominated by the kind of men who went all-in on the idea of South African engineering excellence leading the continent. The speaker tries again. “From a young age, I was always fascinated by technology, particularly aircraft.” It’s a fascination that turned into practical experience, he explains. He recalls how he was the first person in his country to successfully design, build and fly a…

Mustang! An aviation fanatic wanted a painting of a classic aeroplane to fit into an existing frame for a specific space in a house. “As the size of this frame dictated a picture larger than any paper size available, I had to ditch my usual watercolour approach and go with acrylic on canvas.” The MG (main picture) wasdone for the same client. AS A KID, Steve Erwin drew. Cars, a lot of the time. Now, he paints automotive artworks that are starting to feature on more and more mancave walls – even on living room walls. Art is clearly in the genes: Erwin’s brother, also an artist, paints fish (not the actual fish, pictures of them). Sport angling fish, your trout and all that. “Between the two of us, we’ve…

There’s a clue in the hair, which is streaked with grey and the stubble that’s pretty much all white. The wrinkles. And now and then, in the wince that’s the response to a stabbing pain erupting from a creaky joint. But always, always, there’s the desire that burns like a white-hot flame: beat the other guy. If growing old is not for sissies, motocross is a whole other level of unsissy. *** "Y ou’re getting older and it’s getting harder,” says Gavin Williams. He’s been riding since the age of seven. Always motocross, enduros, trials; not super-elite or anything. At age 53, Williams says he races more or less at a modest Clubmans level. “I’ve accumulated some bumps and bruises. I’ve broken a leg, I’ve broken a shoulder.” In between…

CHALLENGE 1 Someone stole my Alpine. Dual XDM16BT receiver Okay, nobody stole my 1993 SUV’s stereo. It just doesn’t work, and I’ve never bothered to replace it. Because then I’d worry about someone stealing it. Head units are around R5 000, right? They were when I last bought one in the ’90s. Well, deflation has hit the head-unit business same as TVs and solar panels. I bought a Dual XDM16BT Bluetooth receiver at Walmart for all of R250. After some light wire-stripping and crimping, it works. But only out of the right front speaker, because all the others are either shorted out or not hooked up. There are some fitment issues I need to take care of, and I should probably tidy up that rat’s nest of wires that I…

1939 Selfie sticks are not a millennial invention. They’ve been around since the late ’30s in the form of a stick, rather like a fishing rod, set up to be able to take pictures from odd angles and capture perfect selfies. In a perfect illustration of necessity being the mother of invention, a photographer came up with this idea after falling out of a tree while attempting to take a complicated shot. 1962 Making planes is no easy job and in the throes of the Space Race and the Cold War 1960s it seems that many unconventional materials were being used to gain an edge over the opposition. Everything from cupcake tins to tennis balls was harnessed as part of the planemaking process. In this issue, our Super Planes feature…

NORTH KOREAN DICTATOR Kim Jong-un can launch a short-range missile with a nuclear warhead, but the United States remains at a relatively safe distance. For now. North Korea enjoyed several milestones on the way to a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile in 2016, including a warhead test and the successful launch of a satellite. According to John Schilling, an aerospace engineer and consultant to the North Korea-monitoring website 38 North, Kim could achieve “initial operational capability in late 2021”. Which, when you’re dealing with a maniac, is much closer than its enemies would like it to be. NUCLEAR WARHEAD Ready: now or soon Experts surmise that North Koreans put nuclear warheads on short-range missiles in 2013. That technology can be used on an ICBM. “Most North Korean nuclear-capablemissiles seem to have…

THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW when scaling the heights of Vergelegen farm on the banks of the Lourensford river: • It was the last Cape Colony farm owned by a Dutch East india Company employee. • Willem Adriaan van der Stel’s extravagance on the estate is what got Adam Tas locked in the Castle of Good Hope’s “Black Hole”. • The farm is the unofficial genesis of Cape Dutch architecture. But none of that matters right now. My only current concern is the contrast between the destruction caused by the 2017 #CapeFires at Vergelegen versus the charred remains of Lourensford, its neighbour on the west bank of the Lourensford river. While the vegetation is recovering nicely on the slopes of Vergelegen, Lourensford is mostly scorched pine trees. The difference? Vergelegen has…

THE CHALLENGE: CREATE OUTDOOR GEAR THAT WORKS LIKE IT SHOULD, WHILE LOOKING GOOD A JACKET FOR RACING Most people who do trail running are in good shape. But even so, AJ Calitz recommends you ensure that your racing jacket has a snug fit, yet with a cut that allows relative freedom of movement. “You’re not going to be able to do gym in it, because that’s not what it’s intended for, which is lots of running miles in cold, severe weather. Shoulder articulation is important. “The Race Shell was designed with the sole purpose of making it as comfortable, as light and as race ready as possible. The designers had to bear in mind that the user would be wearing a pack. Hence the vents, high up on the back.…

A concert stage is tied to a mixing board and a giant lathe, so live shows can be cut directly to acetate just a short distance away. FRIDAY OUTSIDE THE THIRD MAN RECORDS’ STOREFRONT on Detroit’s long, lonely Cass Corridor, a line of tents, sleeping bags, and lawn chairs stretches fifty metres. Many of the people who crawl in and out of the tents and who sit in the lawn chairs wear shirts bearing the logo of Third Man Records, the independent label founded by Jack White, frontman of The White Stripes, the band that emerged from this very neighbourhood. The men have hip beards and the women wear flannel and beanies; it’s cold, Detroit in February. Some rub sleep from their eyes even though it’s three in the afternoon.…

DO IT YOURSELF? Hell, yeah. They’ve been at it for a decade now and it seemed there was no better time for Popular Mechanics to meet the woman who started a kind of DIY revolution, founder of Homed- zine and general hands-on maven Janice Anderssen. Into DIY from an early age, Anderssen is driven in particular by helping women achieve their home improvement goals. This is what she had in mind when, back in 2005, she started Homedzine.co.za. “There was nothing like it in South Africa at the time. You could find DIY projects online, but there was nothing for women specifically and not much for a South African audience.” Anderssen has always been interested in making her own furniture and being the handy-woman of her own home. She credits…

A 50 mm putty knife The small width makes scraping paint a little easier to manage. B Ratcheting magnetic screwdriver Multiple screw heads in one tool. Plus, the crisp ratcheting action makes driving screws easier and less tiring. C 475-mm steel toolbox Big enough to fit their tools, small enough that they should still be able to pick it up. And it looks good covered in stickers. D Ryobi HJP004 12-volt compact -cordless drill driver This 12-volt drill packs a punch, but it’s also small and easy to handle. E Stanley FatMax 20-220 Cushion Grip Multi Saw Mount a metal-cutting or a wood-cutting blade from a reciprocating saw in this handle and you have a hacksaw and a wood saw, all in the same tool. F Locking pliers It has…

WINNING TIP COMPUTER GARDEN Being a pensioner, reading the hard copy of Popular Mechanics with a couple of cups of tea is magic. That’s because computers are getting everywhere, particularly when it comes to the news media. Which brings me to my tip. The pigeons are eating my Brussels sprouts, with a hors d’oeuvre of peas and beetroot toppings. I know we all have to eat; but surely, they could eat something else. So, I had to scare them away when I was not there. I hung old redundant CDs on a trellis of fishing line in the hope that it would work like those rotating, flashing Sun reflectors on the top of tall buildings. It worked and my sprouts are growing like a Boeing. Check out the sprouts before…