Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2017 i Popular Mechanics

AT SEA! In an extraordinary effort to diversify the country’s energy options, Deepwater Wind built America’s first offshore wind farm in the chilly waters off Rhode Island late last year. We got the exclusive details on how engineers constructed the massive turbines and the specially designed European vessel that brought them to America. Check out the story, along with the rest of a special series on new American infrastructure, at popularmechanics.com/infrastructure2017 ONLINE! We know our readers are smart. Now you have the chance to prove it. Each week we’re posting a challenge to spur the technical side of your brain. Like this one: You have two ropes that will take exactly one hour to burn all the way through. They do not burn at constant rates—there are spots where they…

Gerber Center-Drive Gerber’s new Center-Drive solves the problem of the multitool screwdriver, where the bit sits off-center. This makes it awkward to twist and slower than a real screwdriver. Here, the tool bit is aligned on the central axis for the feel of a standard driver. Even better, it retains our favorite Gerber feature—a flick-of-thewrist- opening pliers—and adds a 3 ¼-inch blade. ($119) The Center- Drive’s 12 tools include a ¼-inch magnetic bit driver and a 3 ¼-inchlong blade. The Q3’s slim baton shape eliminates the cumbersome feel of a wider multitool. SOG Knives Q3 To redesign the classic multitool structure, SOG Knives partnered with IDEO, a design firm with clients as varied as Fender guitars and the government of Singapore. Instead of a butterfly foldout, the baton shape makes…

I bought some lumber that has cup-shaped marks on its face. The guys behind the counter said it was all like that. What can I do about it? MIKE S., SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA There are two options for how lumber emerges from a log and leaves the sawmill. It can be left as is, rough and damp, or processed to perfection—dry, smooth, flat, and straight. It sounds like you bought wood that is somewhere between the two. The cup marks are caused by a rapid trip through a planer. To remove them, you’ll need to run the boards through a benchtop planer. If you don’t have one, they can be quite useful—and save you money. Check out our December/January issue for reviews of entry-level planers. We preferred the Ridgid R4331…

THIS IS USUALLY ABOUT ALL YOU NEED TO GO CAMPING: A tent, a sleeping bag, a camp stove, a lantern, beef jerky. This is what you don’t really need, but it definitely improves any excursion into the wilderness or hinterlands or the bush or no-man’s-land: a trailer. A caravan that sits up off the ground, that you haul behind your old Subaru or late-model crossover to get you in and out of just about anywhere, and that not only holds your gear but the comfort of a bed—an attractive salve to the creaky mornings after a night spent on the ground. Building out comfortable living spaces for the outdoors and hitching them to the backs of cars goes as far back as, well, cars. Check out this Popular Mechanics cover from…

NORTH KOREA IS going to have a nuclear device on a missile that can reach at least the western part of the U.S.—and they will probably do so within the first term of President Trump. The second challenge with North Korea is their political leadership. Kim Jong-un is more reckless than his father and probably not as smart. He executed his own uncle, his closest advisor. Rumor has it that he strapped him to the front of an antiaircraft gun and then blew him apart. So the question is, what works? The only thing anyone has come up with, other than military action, is somehow persuading Beijing that constraining North Korea is the highest priority. The problem is that the Chinese are more worried about the collapse in the North…

ROYAL PURPLE MAX ATOMIZER Clean clogged and coked injectors to restore injector flow with Max-Atomizer fuel injector cleaner. The result is improved fuel economy, enhanced power and performance, reduced emissions, smoother idle, and quicker / easier starts. visit RoyalPurple.com. SOMETIMES IT DOES TAKE A ROCKET SCIENTIST The only sunglass technology certified by the Space Foundation for UV and blue-light eye protection. Eagle Eyes® Navigator™ Black Sunglasses $49 + S&P PLUS receive the Navigator™ Gold absolutely FREE!—2 pairs for the price of one! 1-800-333-2045 Your Off er Code: EEN530-04 www.stauer.com URGENT: DIAMOND RING RECALL Millions of rings may be “romantically defective” when compared to the spectacular 4-carat DiamondAura® Avalon. When even the skimpiest solitaires sell for as much as $1,200, it’s time to reconsider your relationship... with diamonds. Only Stauer’s exclusive…

PROJECT OF THE MONTH A DECK CHAIR TO LAST FOR AGES After the third repair, Eric Bleak of Washougal, Washington, was tired of having to fix his store-bought deck chair. So he decided to make his own—one that would stand up to the wind and rain of the Pacific Northwest. Inspired by a video on building furniture out of framing lumber, Bleak, a technical writer, designed a chair that would sit higher than a typical Adirondack, accommodate a standard 24-inch-square cushion, and rest on feet that wouldn’t rot in Washington’s wet climate. With the help of his nephew Dan, a glazier, and his great-nephew Isaiah, a journeyman carpenter, the multigenerational trio built the chair for less than $300 in four hours. With its solid construction and flush-folding-cushion tie-downs, the new…

Every March, Iditarod mushers making the final push toward the finish line in Nome, Alaska, encounter the barren ice of Norton Bay. They’ve conquered 800 miles of sleep deprivation and bitter cold, but the bay— frozen, flat, white, a 50-mile dash in search of the horizon line—is a brutal test. Humans and dogs become disoriented; every year, teams stall on the ice. Some, in real need of help, decide to scratch. When this happens, in not too long and if the wind is not too oppressive, they’ll hear a dull buzz, slowly growing louder. A Cessna will descend, set down on its retractable skis, and a pilot will get out and load them inside, dogs and all. They will be safe. The Iditarod Air Force is a team of 30…

WE HAVE MORE liquid, gas, and solid forms of energy at our disposal than ever before. We’re using a higher percentage of it, too, burning fuels more cleanly and minimizing waste. Scientists and engineers are even developing ways to make new fuel from the pollutants created by the old stuff. Everything from your new woodstove to your plumbing torch to your car engine is a study in combustion efficiency. So yeah, as they say, we’ve got fuel to burn. Just not to waste. DIFFERENTIATOR: THE -ANES Propane vs. Butane vs. Methane PROPANE, BUTANE, AND METHANE (along with isobutene, pentane, and others that only chemists have heard of) are all forms of natural gas. When natural gas comes out of the well, it’s often damp and dirty. The gases are cleaned…

Wads of Gum Assist With Alignment ON OCCASION, you may have a project for which it’s best to reuse existing wall-mounting holes but have no easy way to transfer them to a new workpiece. For example, reader Charles Mekaru and his helpful neighbor James Eichelberger of Livonia, Michigan, recently found themselves installing a new bathroom basin. Rather than cut another set of mounting holes through the tiled wall surface, they opted to drill holes in the basin to match the existing ones. But how to mark their locations? They came up with a clever solution: After chewing wads of gum, they put them in the existing holes, then pressed the new basin in place against the wall. When the basin was removed, the gum stuck in the locations of the…

Wood Glass silicone sealant Wood swells and shrinks as the temperature and humidity change. Glass, not so much. This puts a lot of stress on the bond, so choose a sealant that is elastomeric (flexible) instead of rigid. Masonry Masonry polyurethane hardscape adhesive Masonry surfaces are often friable (prone to scaling). Get something that penetrates and holds on. Porcelain Porcelain superglue Be sure you have a smooth surface, and that broken pieces are perfectly mated. Most superglues have low viscosity and won’t fill gaps. Metal Wood contact cement Clean the metal first. Otherwise, any dust or oxidation will come off—along with the glue you just applied. If possible, sand or file the surface to rough it up and give the adhesive somewhere to grip. As with wood to glass, you’ll…

Adversary Update THE (NEW) TROUBLE WITH RUSSIA SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILES In modern warfare, owning the sky is everything. And the cheapest way to own the sky is to shoot down, from the ground, anything that tries to fly in it. The Russian military is currently fielding a new midrange surface-to-air missile system, the Buk-M3, that has the potential to change everything. And by change we mean destroy. Start with the eyes: a powerful phased-array radar that steers its beams electronically to track targets. The vehicle has a new digital brain that can accept data from longer-range radar, which means the M3 will be able to shoot before some systems would have even identified the incoming aircraft. It has six radar-guided missiles with a range of up to 43 miles—a huge improvement…

EXPERT: Dale Drew, chief security officer at Level 3 Communications, a telecommunications company and internet service provider what worries him: The accessibility and adaptability of Mirai, the malware used to take over smart thermostats, remote cameras, and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Mirai was used to stage the distributeddenial- of-service attack that took down sites including The New York Times, Netflix, and Reddit in 2016. why: “We typically see evolution of botnets occur fairly slowly over time, but with Mirai, that first code has been released [online, so that other hackers can add their own features]. It’s a fairly sophisticated botnet right out of the gate, and we’ve seen a lot of people evolving it with new capability and new features—not only in acquisition of victims, but also capability…

THE PLACE: LITE BRITE NEON STUDIO THE JOB: Building custom neon signs LOCATION: Brooklyn, New York Buzzing, mesmerizing lights color the old can factory where Lite Brite Neon Studio blurs the lines between art, science, and business. Since 1999, the Brooklynbased collective of artists and technicians shape, form, and fill glass tubes into signs that light up museums and holiday windows. Here, SERGIO ALMARAZ, master glass bender, shows us how. 1 / Ribbon-fire torch Four types of torches heat up the soft soda-lime glass. This is a ribbon-fire torch for soft arcs and curves, while artists use a cross-fire torch to make tight bends. A single- or double-pointed hand torch makes glass malleable. 2 / Soda-lime tubes The average tubing is about half an inch wide by five feet long.…

MODEL: AMAZON ECHO PRODUCED: CHINA TIME TO DISASSEMBLE: 59 MINUTES, 30 SECONDS NUMBER OF PARTS: 50 NOTES: How do you make an affordable device that can help with anything you ask it? It requires two components: a way to communicate, and a way to think. Either one could be expensive or overly complicated. The Echo represents an elegant solution: The small, cheap stuff that never needs to change—microphones that allow it to hear, speakers that allow it to talk—fits in a small package that can sit on a shelf. And the stuff that’s hard, that must evolve, and might otherwise require a computer the size of a car—intelligence—resides on that giant, remote computer we call the Cloud. LISTENING Echo is always listening (well, unless you press the microphone off button…

A / Ridgid R86036K 3.75 lb LIKES: Equipped with a quiet and powerful hydraulic drive. The separate trigger on the handle for the three LED work lights at the base of the chuck allows you to light the LEDs without turning the tool on, so you can use it as a flashlight. DISLIKES: At 1,700 impacts per minute, it’s the slowest of the drivers we tested. (The others ranged from 3,800 to 4,000 ipm.) $179 (tool, charger, and two batteries) B / Milwaukee 2760-20 3.0 lb LIKES: The test’s quietest and smoothest tool has a hydraulic drive mechanism that helps it excel at driving hex-head sheet-metal screws. Nobody comes close for such a tight, fast, and consistent drive. DISLIKES: The forward-reverse switch doesn’t stand out very far from the body,…

Carriage Bolt Extends Nail When driving a nail where a longer shank would ease the work—say, into a kitchen toe kick—put a nut on the end of a carriage bolt and place it like a socket over the head of the nail. Then hammer the head of the carriage bolt. C-Clamp Drives Nail You may be able to drive a nail in a tight spot using a C-clamp. Hold the nail in place, then put one side of the clamp over its head and the other on the far side of the wood it’s being driven into. Then tighten the clamp.…

A / Anker PowerPort 4 ($26), PowerLine+ cables (starting at $12 each), and PowerCore 20000 battery ($45) In underdeveloped countries, every second with a working outlet is precious. That’s why well-dressed adults will sit on filthy airport carpets to charge their devices. Get Anker stuff. Founded by Google alumni, this company quietly makes the best accessories you can buy. The PowerPort will simultaneously charge four devices at the highest possible amperage and the cables are braided strong enough to pull a stuck donkey. B / Sony HX90V ($450) With a smartphone camera, you shoot predictable, eyelevel photos. With a camera camera, you consider framing, shutter speed— variables that result in shots that stand a chance of becoming, you know, photographs. The Sony’s small size, pop-up viewfinder, and huge 30x zoom…

WHEN I WENT into the CIA, I was told that we were getting somewhere in the vicinity of 100,000 cyber attacks a day. We went through this, frankly, with the nuclear arms race. Countries were in a race to develop larger and more dangerous nuclear bombs. Finally the world realized that we should impose some limits, otherwise we were going to blow up the planet. We were able to develop some approaches to try to limit nuclear proliferation. We are probably going to have to do the same thing when it comes to cyber.…

THEY SAY YOU can tell the make of a man by what he keeps in his garage. Okay, no one says that. But in any case, Michael Hurley’s freestanding garage in Venice, California, is a monument to the sport of cycling. And Michael Hurley is a monument of a cyclist. For one thing, he’s six-four. For another, he’s married to a former professional cyclist with whom he rides constantly. Michael Hurley joined Strava— a cycling tracking app where, instead of checking in to your local café the most times, you try to pick off your friends in fictional group rides—in 2011. Since then he’s ridden more than forty thousand miles. This is at least thirty-nine thousand more miles than I’ve ridden in the same length of time, which is why…

THE BELT IS CUT from a bicycle tire, which provides an interesting texture and adjustability that allows it to fit nearly any kid. The buckle can be any car you want, and is for more than just show: Since it’s hooked on with Velcro, the car can easily be removed when you want to play. Stick it back on your belt when it’s time to go. Instructions 1. Use heavy-duty kitchen shears to cut the tire across the tread. Next, evenly cut along both sides of the tread down the length of the tire to produce the 1 ¼-inch belt width. (You may want to test the width on a favorite pair of jeans to confirm the fit.) 2. Clamp the buckle back to a workbench and enlarge the buckle’s…