Innholdsfortegnelse for September - October 2021 i Popular Mechanics South Africa

I’ve been an avid reader of PM over the years and always find it very interesting to read about new tech and inventions. Referring to page 61 in the May/June issue, which highlighted various handheld GPS devices, other readers who are hunters might like to know that they can scratch the eTrex device off the list. There is an app available that can do that on a phone for a fraction of the cost. It’s called Buckshot (search your app store for Buckshot hunting or pro, or visit buckshot.co.za). It’s a compass combined with a GPS – once you’ve taken a successful shot, you point your device in the direction of your shot and ‘place your Shot-Line’. It helps you to never lose fallen game, by plotting points at a…

CELLPHONE The original Star Trek’s communicator looks like a flip phone and operates like an advanced two-way radio. It even has voice commands. TRACTOR BEAM In real life, these only work on microscopic particles, not spaceships. But in 2020, they allowed scientists to hold a single atom for the first time. TABLET In 1987, Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced the handheld Personal Access Display Device (PADD), which held reports the crew passed to each other. UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR Google and Twitter have near-universal language detection in text, just short of Star Trek’s convenient, automatic verbal translator. GRAPHIC USER INTERFACE The first primitive GUI predates the series’ iconic computer menus, but most people had to wait decades to use one.…

EVEN IF you’re not a birder, chances are you’ve looked up at a flock of birds flying in formation, and wondered where they’re headed to, or even how or why they do it. Researcher and author of A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds, Scott Weidensaul, makes the science behind it all easy to understand, and accessible. Originally intrigued by raptors, Weidensaul’s interest honed in on migration – not just for powerful birds, but also for those that seem so tiny and fragile yet still cross the hemispheres with a speed and tenacity that boggles the mind. The science and understanding of migration has changed, too. In the beginning of the book, Weidensaul explains that since the 1950s, we’ve known that birds use the Earth’s magnetic…

Working remotely means video calls. Lots of them. And that means battling distracting sounds while trying to concentrate. Logitech understands this, and its solution is the Zone Wireless headset, which enables you to control the acoustics of your environment. Designed for noisy open offices, coffee-shop workspaces, home offices with barking dogs nearby, and wherever else you need to control the sound, this headset is going to be your new favourite work friend. There are buttons on the earcups for volume adjustments, to play or pause the sound, connect to Bluetooth, and control the active noise cancellation (ANC). You can mute the mic via a button, or simply rotate it upwards and it automatically mutes itself. The earcups themselves are comfy, sitting on top rather than covering the ears, a feature…

THROUGHOUT HISTORY, humankind has been joining pieces of wood together. From sailing ships and great cathedrals, to doors, windows, wainscoting and the many forms of fine furniture, wood has been joined together to create both the utilitarian and the magnificent. Every woodworker employs joints, either cut by hand or by machine. These joints often form a visible part of the beauty and class of an item, while other joints are completely hidden. Woodworking joints should be strong and work with the seasonal movement of the wood to allow the piece to last for generations. The strength can be derived from glue, from the specific shape of the joint, or from fasteners such as screws or nails, or a combination of any of these. When parts of the joint are shaped…

REVIEWED Festool cordless plunge-cut saw WHEN I WAS A boy, my dad was always doing woodworking projects, so I was exposed to a garage full of hand and power tools. My dad has a safety-first philosophy, so wearing eye-, ear and body protection when operating power tools was the norm. (He was the operator, I was the helper.) But all the protective gear in the world didn’t make me less afraid of his radial-arm power saw. That thing seemed angry, and the unreasonable sounds it made while dad was cutting certainly backed up my theory. Like an enraged predator, it looked poised to devour a finger, hand or forearm in the blink of an eye. That impression has always stuck with me, when it comes to power saws, so when…

ENGINE 895 cc, water-cooled four-stroke, 4 valves/cylinders, 2 overhead cams, dry sump in-line 2-cylinder 8677 mm 92Nm6 500 rpm 77kW8 500 rpm 1311 PERFORMANCE 210kmh 15litres 42L100km 370kmdependingon riding style TECHNICAL Constantmesh6-speedgearboxintegrated in crankcase EndlessO-ringchainwithshock damping in rear wheel hub Upside-down43mmtelescopicfork Cast-aluminiumdualswingarm central spring strut, spring pre-load hydraulically adjustable, rebound damping adjustable Dualdiscbrakefloating 320 mm brake discs, 4-piston radial brake calipers Single265mmdiscbrake, single-piston floating caliper 12070ZR17 18055ZR17 1521mm 219kg RRP: R195 000 bmw-motorrad.co.za…

YOU’LL SAVE UP TO 40% OFF THE COVER PRICE CONTACT US AND QUOTE 21/10/SP/PM HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: ONLINE hmshop.co.za (select POPULAR MECHANICS) EMAIL subscriptions@hsm.co.za CALL 087 550 0329 TERMS AND CONDITIONS: This offer is valid until 31 October 2021 and applies to print subscribers with a South African address only. By providing your personal details, you are giving POPULAR MECHANICS permission to communicate with you via email or SMS. For other great offers visit hmshop.co.za. For foreign rates and queries, please contact Ramsay Media on 021 530 3300 / 087 550 0329 or subscriptions@hsm.co.za.…

The restrictions and knock-on effects of the pandemic lockdown have filtered into the woodwork hobbyist’s world in a number of ways. Exotic wood species have become scarce and more expensive due to import difficulties, so my supply of interesting offcuts has also shrunk. As a family, we’ve adopted a somewhat hermit lifestyle – we don’t visit friends or attend club meetings, and we do most of our shopping online and have it delivered. The positive spin-off is that I’ve had more free time to do woodwork, but because of my resource shortages, I’ve had to adapt what I make. The pile of scrap MDF and melamine offcuts that I previously wouldn’t have touched has become very useful and versatile over the past few months. I’ve made numerous simple toys for…

2021 has been the year of the gamer. With the launch of the highly anticipated NVIDIA GeForce 30 series last year, gamers are slowly but surely getting their hands on the coveted graphics card, which has been out of reach since its launch. But without a monitor to support these performance improvements, there's not much point in owning the latest GPU on the market. This is where the latest additions to the LG UltraGear monitor range come in. Built for gamers, the two brand-new monitors deliver cutting-edge hardware and powerful specs, and are ergonomically designed to help you game what you want for as long as you want. 24GN600-B First up is the 23.8-inch display with an ultra-fast 144Hz refresh rate and realistic HDR10 True Colours. The technology behind this…

IN 2013, A METEOR EXPLODED 22.5 KM (14 MILES) above Chelyabinsk, Russia, knocking out windows across 500 km2 and injuring more than 1 600 people. It was a wake-up call for astronomers to help defend Earth from more potentially hazardous asteroids. Of the almost one million known comets and asteroids in our solar system, more than 2 000 have the potential to be hazardous to Earth. These asteroids are typically 140m wide or larger, on an orbit that swings them within 22.5 million km of Earth’s orbit. ‘Although asteroid deflection might sound like science fiction, it is a serious topic,’ says Flaviane Venditti, PhD, an observatory scientist at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. ‘Out of all natural disasters, an asteroid impact is the only one we have the power…

A MAR BOSE WAS FRUSTRATED. It was 1978, and he’d planned to kill some of the time on his 6 000 km flight from Zurich to Boston by listening to music through some new, foam-covered (read: flimsy) headphones that Swissair supplied to the passengers. His enjoyment was foiled by the drone of the engines, which overpowered the lightweight headset. Fortunately, Bose was a professor of electrical engineering at MIT, and the head of his own electronics company, the Bose Corporation. By the time he had arrived in Boston, he had scrawled the first steps towards a solution to his sonic problem: noise-cancelling headphones. The idea had precedent – scientists such as Lawrence J Fogel in the ’50s and Paul Lueg in the ’30s had applied for patents on their own…

The question is, who doesn’t enjoy a perfectly brewed cup of coffee in the morning? If you have raised your hand, you haven’t tried this compact machine. Often the enjoyment of coffee is more about the whole preparation ritual than it is just about savouring those delicious flavours. Beko’s espresso machine gives coffee lovers a personalised experience. Use it to grind your favourite beans, choosing between five coarseness settings to suit your needs. The integrated steam nozzle produces microfoam, just the way you like it, so you can serve up the perfect cappuccino or flat white. The nozzle height adjustment accommodates three cup sizes, and you can serve single or double espressos, using water from the on-board (and removable) 1.5 litre reservoir. The stainless-steel construction is corrosion resistant, and made…

The name’s Nokia, Nokia 8.3 5G. Wait … what? It’s true – not only is this an affordable flagship device, but it’s also what British secret agent James Bond uses. Collaborations aside, the Nokia 8.3 5G smartphone is a weighty device (220 g) with an aluminium frame and Gorilla Glass screen that’s built to last. Running Android, it has a dedicated Google Assistant button, and all the expected biometrics, such as a fingerprint reader power button and face recognition. The dual-SIM tray doubles as a microSD reader, if you want to expand the internal storage. But the unique selling point is that the phone is built for creating. From its super-sharp 6.81” extra-large display with HD+ resolution to its PureView quad camera with ZEISS cinematic effects, it’s an on-the-go photographer’s…

It’s hard to believe, but vacuuming is a task some people just love. Others, well, deplore it. Either way, one way to make the job a whole lot easier is to tackle it with a Beko Powerstick cordless vacuum cleaner. It’s powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which, after three to four hours on the docking station, gives enough oomph for a 40-minute vacuuming stint around the house. Included are a host of attachments to aid you in your mission. There’s a crevice tool, upholstery tool, dusting brush, pet brush, soft brush, extension hose and elbow fitting, which, when put to use enable you to deep clean carpets, or hard surfaces. Beko’s PerformCyclone technology provides constant and high sucking power, regardless of how full the 0.5 litre storage container is…

In May 2020, Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov floating nuclear plant (above) started providing power and electricity to 200 000 people in the far-eastern town of Pevek, Russia. The 70 megawatt plant, housed on a non-motorised barge, took three years to build and another decade to begin operations, running up a price tag of $740 million against initial estimates of $140 million, though it has a lifespan of 40 years. Lomonosov is the first floating plant of its kind, but its plans are designed for replicable manufacturing. It is the 11th industrially operated nuclear power plant in Russia, and the northernmost in the world.…

NORTH AMERICAN: INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA 16 447 Including 9 949 P-51 Mustang fighters, 3 208 B-25 bombers, and 2 163 AT-6 advanced trainers Camo: Tone-down LOCKHEED: BURBANK, CALIFORNIA 13 385 Including 9 423 P-38 Lightning fighters and 2 189 Hudson patrol bombers Camo: Urban neighbourhood camouflage CONSOLIDATED VULTEE: DOWNEY, CALIFORNIA 11 687 Including 11 537 BT-13 and BT-15 Valiant basic trainers Camo: Tone-down CONSOLIDATED VULTEE: SANDIEGO, CALIFORNIA 9 630 Including 6 725 B-24 Liberator heavy bombers and 2 833 Navy patrol bombers Camo: Tone-down DOUGLAS: LONGBEACH, CALIFORNIA 9 439 Including 4 285 C-47 cargo planes and 3 000 B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers Camo: Tone-down BOEING: SEATTLE, WASHINGTON 7 340 Including 6 942 B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers Camo: Urban neighbourhood camouflage Source: Army Air Forces Statistical Digest, WWII, Men and…

KIAAT (PTEROCARPUS ANGOLENSIS) Also known as African teak, Mukwa, Muninga, paddlewood and wild teak, this species is closely related to African padauk (both being members of the Pterocarpus genus). Both are extremely durable, stable in use, and easy to work. Kiaat has an impressive strength-to-weight ratio, which makes it a choice timber for a wide range of applications. The heartwood colour ranges from a light golden brown to a medium brown with reddish or purple tints. Grains are straight, wavy or interlocked and the texture varies from fine to medium. Kiaat has excellent working properties, is dimensionally stable, and joints, turns, glues and finishes exceptionally well. FRENCH SYCAMORE (ACER PSEUDOPLATANUS) Like other members of the true maple genus (Acer), European or French sycamore is a hardwood whose sapwood is way…

WE’D HAZARD A GUESS that there aren’t too many South Africans out there who’d refuse a delicious roast chicken dinner – one that’s crispy on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside. However you choose to prepare chicken, it’s important that it’s cooked to perfection… Here are four recipes to get you started on your culinary chicken journey. EASY ROAST CHICKEN Prep time: 5 min Cooking time: 1 hour Serves: 6–8 TIP To prevent the chicken from blackening in the oven, cover it with foil and continue to bake as directed. WHAT YOU’LL NEED: ■ 1.8 kg chicken■ ¼ cup olive oil■ 3 tbsp mustard■ 1 tsp salt STEPS TO SUCCESS 1 Preheat the oven to 220°C. 2 Rub the chicken with olive oil, mustard and salt. 3 Place…

CLUTCHING AT STRAWS Thanks for the free sample of WD-40 that was supplied with my recent subscriber issue. It’s great to have such a useful product in a small can that can be tucked into a pocket in the car or on the shelf of your office. Many of the spray-can products seem to come with a handy straw for spraying into small places. The problem is that once you remove the straw from the side of the can, it gets lost. As a solution, I tape a short length of heat-shrink tubing to the can to keep the straw from getting away. Use a piece that is a loose fit for the straw and tape it tightly enough to the can to grip the straw accessory. You can easily…

Master Lock M1 Excell Padlock: The boron-alloy body is 50 per cent stronger than standard padlocks, while the octagonal boron-carbide shackle provides maximum cut resistance. Master Lock Excell Discus Padlock: The Tough-Cut octagonal boron-carbide shackle is 50 per cent harder than normal hardened steel. Master Lock Keyed Locking Cable: The 1.8 m-long self-coiling braided-steel cable is designed for maximum strength, while the vinyl coating protects the cable. Master Lock Tower Combination Lock: Set your own combination on this sturdy padlock featuring a 37 mm-wide zinc body. Master Lock 4-Dial Combination Lock: The 6 mm-diameter and 26 mm-long shackle is made from cutting and saw-resistant chrome-plated steel. Set your own combination. Send your tips to popularmechanics@ramsaymedia.co.za with the subject line: ‘Do It Your Way’. Regrettably, only South African residents are eligible…

I took a slightly different approach to solving the locker prank riddle published on page 18 in the May/June issue earlier this year. I regard myself as sometimes being intellectually lazy. I really wanted to solve it but didn’t want to do all the thinking. I also needed some coding practise, so I wrote a little JavaScript… When I got it working as expected for the first two students, I ran it for all, and, ta-da! Riddle solved. Happiness on all accounts. ABIGAIL BALL I think you’re less intellectually lazy than you might think, Abigail. You came up with a fresh way to solve the riddle, which in itself is pretty smart. Next time, include your code, so we can share it with the other readers.…

WIND/SHOCK WAVE A simulation of asteroid impacts on land revealed around 60 per cent of fatalities would result from organrupturing shock waves and wind gusts some call ‘hypercanes’, which reach speeds of 800 km/h. FIREBALL Thermal radiation generated during some asteroid impacts can reach as high as 260°C, more than hot enough to melt your skin. Overall, the study showed exposure to this heat would cause about 30 per cent of deaths. TSUNAMI An asteroid crashing into the ocean could create 120 m-high waves, according to a 2003 study from UC-Santa Cruz. Overall, the 2017 simulations indicated such tsunamis would only cause one in five deaths. FALLING DEBRIS When an asteroid slams into Earth, it could send a torrent of rocks showering down upon the surrounding region. Stand back –…

OPPO might not yet be a household name here, but in China and beyond it’s fast becoming one of the most popular smart device brands. The A74 5G is a good option, especially for those wanting a smartphone at an acceptable price that boasts next-gen connectivity. In the box is a set of wired earphones, a protective case, and a USB cable. At 6.5”, it’s a comfortable and usable size. It runs ColorOS – OPPO’s mobile operating system – which is essentially an Android skin. It’s fast, light and easy to navigate, and excludes unnecessary bloatware. There’s 128 GB of expandable storage, more than enough for all the photos and videos you’ll be taking with the AI quad camera, which includes a 48 MP main camera and an 8 MP…

There are generally two types of wearables: watches and bands. The former are typically more expensive, with a bigger screen and more features, while bands keep things simpler. Huawei’s Band 6 offers the best of both worlds. It’s a smart fitness band with smartphone-like functionality – a ‘smart band’ if you will. It has a bright and responsive 1.47” AMOLED rectangular display positioned on a skin-friendly silicone strap that’s comfortable and customisable. Though an entry-level device, it’s still a water-resistant tracker that will keep you up to date with all the necessary metrics: step count, calories, heart rate, stress levels, sleep performance, and – quite trendily at the moment – Sp02 or ‘blood oxygen monitoring’. Amazingly, battery life is around two weeks while all of these are being tracked 24/7.…

STARTED BY Seamus and Brendan’s dad Rory Harcourt-Wood back in 1982, and based in Epping Industria in Cape Town, with a branch in Knysna, Rare Woods has the largest and most diverse selection of timber available on the African continent. There is more than 8 000 m³ of timber available, made up of more than 130 domestic and exotic species. Whether you need large slabs, turning blanks, lutherie parts or anything in-between, you can order your timber online and it’ll be delivered by courier to your workshop door – it couldn’t be simpler. If you’re looking for some really special woods for your latest project, log on to rarewoods.co.za or ring the Cape Town office on 021 535 2004, or the Knysna team on 044 382 6575. Sign up to…

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