Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2018 i Popular Mechanics

OUR FLIGHT WAS AT 8:30 P.M. We—me, my older son, and his friend—had just spent three days thoroughly enjoying Universal Orlando’s theme parks, and we had a day to kill before flying home. As it turned out, SpaceX was scheduled to launch one of its amazing reused Falcon rockets from Cape Canaveral at 4:30 that afternoon, carrying supplies to the International Space Station. That would give us four hours to see the launch, get in the car, drive through post-launch rush-hour traffic to the airport, return the car, ride the shuttle to the terminal, check in, get through security, and board the plane. Almost perfect. We would be cutting it close. I paced around a parking lot outside a sandwich shop in Titusville, Florida. I tortured the traffic apps on…

We, proud soda-sipping Americans, use more than 500 million plastic straws every day. They’re too light to pass through recycling sorters, resulting in 275 tons of daily trash. Too much of that ends up floating across our lakes, rivers, and shores. If you haven’t seen the viral YouTube video of biologists pulling a straw out of the bleeding nose of a turtle, note that scientists have also found plastic perforating the stomach of penguins, and estimate that more than a million birds die each year from plastic consumption. Experts estimate that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. With a few medical exceptions, straws are entirely and incontrovertibly unnecessary. And yet, I can’t live without them. When I order an iced coffee or a movie-theater…

1 MIXING A small sample of a cannabis product is placed in a tube with a mix of DNA primers, nucleotides (the building blocks of DNA), and polymerase, an enzyme that builds DNA. 2 DENATURATION The chamber heats up to denature the tags, splitting the double-strand DNA tag into two separate strands. 3 COOLING After the temperature drops, the DNA primers are attracted to the strands’ ends, attaching themselves. 4 EXTENSION The polymerase sees the primers as starting points to complete a new double strand, and rebuilds the double strand with available nucleotides. 5 REPEATING One tag has now become two tags. The SigNify repeats this cycle over and over to multiply every parts-per-trillion tag into a billion easy-to-identify tags.…

A LOT OF AMERICAN craft distillers enter the aged-spirit business by way of bourbon or rye, two great drinks that date to our Colonial agricultural past—and that are considered whiskey in much of the U.S. But more than a decade into the craft renaissance, we are seeing true American single-malt whiskeys, historically Scottish and made only from a single malted grain like barley. (By law, bourbon must be distilled from a grain mixture containing at least 51 percent corn, a crop native to the U.S.) In a pleasantly crowded brown-spirits market, these American additions stand out. “I began making single-malts as I’d grown to appreciate the Scottish whiskeys, and thought we could do something just as creative here in the U.S.,” says Colin Keegan, founder of Santa Fe Spirits. His…

A Rallying Cry By Caleb Paine, 2016 Olympic Medalist in Sailing I GREW UP in San Diego, and I feel about sailing the way surfers talk about surfing. “Just out there with the waves, man…” I actually live on a boat. Sailing is especially exciting for first-timers. One of the coolest things is sailing upwind, even just around the bay. You’re going to feel the wind on your face, you’re going to hear the sail. A big boat comes by, and there’s a wake. You hear the waves splashing and feel the boat heel to one side. All of a sudden a couple dolphins pop out of the water. And all this stuff is sensory information that helps you determine what to do. The sound of the sail tells you…

Old timber-framed barns and buildings want to stand up. Their massive eight-by-eight timbers yearn to lie straight. Seth Kelley’s job is to help them return to the right angles they had held for a century or more. His one-man operation restores timber-frame barns, and occasionally churches, built with hand-hewn lumber that predates the two-by-four and what he and his peers deride as “stick construction.” The buildings are held together by wooden pegs—no nails or screws—in interlocking joints so tight you can hear the air pushed out as they come together. Kelley gets most of his jobs from word of mouth. He has restored and repaired more than a hundred timber frames since 1998, working with teams or solo. He began working alone after realizing that running a crew made him…

THE FIRST RULE of treehouse building is that it all kind of depends on the tree. You can model yours on this one, or on your neighbor’s, or on one you saw on Treehouse Masters, but the tree (or trees) in your yard will be different—thicker, farther apart, closer together, stronger, weaker—so your design will change accordingly. The second rule is, the kids should be involved. The building of a treehouse was an important selling point when we told our boys we were moving out of the big, exciting city to a sleepy rural town. I still have our older son’s hand-drawn plans for what he wanted it to look like. (It’s close.) And they both drove some nails and screws and found some cool branches that we incorporated into…

YOUR BOOKSHELF IF YOU FIND yourself flipping to our home improvement and project pages every issue, you’ll love our new book, How to Fix Anything. It’s full of our best tips, from quick fixes, like dealing with stripped screw holes and patching drywall, to more involved projects like stopping a toilet leak and replacing a fuel line. Available now wherever books are sold. THE PODCAST On the Most Useful Podcast Ever, we just purchased a brand-new soundboard. The problem is, we don’t fully know how to use it yet. In an ironic episode, we’ll teach you how to start your own podcast, with expert advice from a sound engineer and our own tips from the past three years of recording. What equipment do you need, and how do you make…

All electric cars convert power from AC to DC to charge themselves up. The Leaf, however, can intelligently go from DC back to AC. That means you can power an entire house with one. You can store the energy collected from your solar panels. Or you could charge the Leaf at night, when grid electricity might be cheaper, and run your house off its batteries during the day. Nissan is still figuring out how this will work safely with U.S. power grids. But in Japan, Leafs are already being used this way—part transportation, part generator.…

My business is drone photography. When a house is up for sale, or if someone just needs images of a property that only a drone can get, I shoot it with my DJI Phantom 3 Pro. But I’m going to replace that with the new Mavic Air ($799) I tested, and here’s why. When I go to a job, I want to get in and out quickly. And the Mavic Air is quick. With the Phantom, I have to lug around a big hard-shell backpack and screw on the propellers each time I take it out, which is more annoying than it sounds. The Air folds up into a footprint that’s almost the size of my phone, so it’s easy to carry between flights. And the propellers are fixed, so…

askroy@popularmechanics.com @askroypm What does the notch in the nose of linesman pliers do? Tim K., Raleigh, North Carolina That setup is called a New England Nose. After cutting a piece of conduit to length, you stick the nose into the end so that the notch fits over the ends of the conduit and twist it back and forth. The notch’s sharp edge removes (or reams) the jagged burr left by cutting. Tool legend has it that the technique was pioneered by fast-working New England electricians who ground a notch in their pliers. Manufacturers soon picked up the idea, and the rest is pliers history. My brother says the ivy on our house and chimney is causing damage. We think it’s pretty. Who’s right? Chad Y., Montgomery, Alabama Well, you’re both…

What if there’s a gust of wind? Will the boat capsize? When there’s a big gust, you simply turn into the wind, which stops the boat. And luckily, the heavy ballast below a keelboat’s hull makes them pretty hard to capsize. So while a strong gust may cause the boat to heel, or lean, you’ll be fine. Will I get seasick? You might—though while learning, you’ll be close to shore, and being able to see land generally helps. If you’re about to vomit, for the benefit of all involved, head to the leeward side of the boat. If I fall overboard, can the boat make it back to me in time to save me? Make it known that you’ve hit the water and someone will toss you a flotation device…

OWNER: Andre Tran LOCATION: Huntington Beach, California FOUND IN: Japan PURCHASE PRICE: $25,000 YEARS OWNED: One A FEW YEARS back, a few friends and I went to Japan and met up with some locals who were also into cars and drifting. They were showing us around a garage, and I saw this RX-7 up on a lift. It was like gold, with all the rare parts and body panels you don’t see anymore. They had retuned the rotary engine, the brakes, the suspension, and upgraded everything. It reminded me of the one from Initial D, this old Japanese TV show about street racing. I was ready to buy it, but it was too young to qualify for the 25-year rule, so I couldn’t legally import it to the United States.…

Arborwear Ovalless Vintage Cap Washed cotton and unstructured for a low profile. $20 Arborwear Tech T Loose fit with wicking fabric for sweaty days. $25 Flint and Tinder Waxed Trucker Jacket Fully lined with flannel. $165 Duluth Trading Original Work Gloves Durable protection and impressive dexterity. $30 Mafell LS 103Ec Chain Mortiser The fastest, most reliable way to cut a mortise. $3,478 Arborwear Timber Chamois Shirt Broken-in comfort with midweight warmth. $60 Red Wing King Toe ADC 6-Inch Boots Waterproof and a non-metallic toe cap. $210 Arborwear Cedar Flex Arbenter Pants Heavyweight fabric that stretches as you move. $80 Duluth Trading Everyday Twill Carpenter Pants Triple-stitched seams. $50 ALSO USED Pladra Leon Flannel Shirt Rugged cotton with faux-suede elbow patches. $139 Stanley No. 4 Smoothing Bench Plane So reliable, Kelley…

AGE: 44 WORKED AS A: Material specialist and team leader I was there 19 years at UTEC, 15 as a material specialist. I was over being in the manufacturing work. I wanted to switch gears. So that’s when I started going to school. I didn’t do it because of the plant closing, I didn’t see that coming. When the housing market collapsed and GM was laying off big-time, we were still standing. I never would have imagined in a million years UTEC would close. Especially in Huntington. Because we put out good products. I went to work, took care of a family, and did online classes. It was not easy. I got an associate’s degree in health information technology, then a bachelor’s in business administration with a concentration in healthcare…

FOUNDED: 1931 MAKES: Travel trailers U.S. FACTORY: Jackson Center, Ohio MANUFACTURING JOBS: 761 FOUNDED: 1922 MAKES: Shoes and men’s apparelU.S. FACTORY: Port Washington, Wis.MANUFACTURING JOBS: 345 FOUNDED: 1908MAKES: Small enginesU.S. FACTORIES: 8 MANUFACTURING JOBS: 2,300 FOUNDED: 1969MAKES: GrindersU.S. FACTORY: Spring Lake, Mich.MANUFACTURING JOBS: 24 FOUNDED: 1889MAKES: Work apparelU.S. FACTORIES: Edmonton, Ky.; Irvine, Ky.; Madisonville, Ky.; Camden, Tenn.MANUFACTURING JOBS: 1,100 FOUNDED: 1925MAKES: Construction and mining machinesU.S. FACTORIES: 51MANUFACTURING JOBS: Not available FOUNDED: 2006MAKES: Industrial toolsU.S. FACTORIES: Lakeland, Fla.; Rockford, Ill.MANUFACTURING JOBS: 35 FOUNDED: 1919MAKES: Diesel enginesU.S. FACTORIES: 11MANUFACTURING JOBS: 9,500 FOUNDED: 1946MAKES: Electric guitarsU.S. FACTORY: Corona, Calif.MANUFACTURING JOBS: About 500 FOUNDED: 1871MAKES: DinnerwareU.S. FACTORY: Newell, W. Va.MANUFACTURING JOBS: 550 FOUNDED: 1903MAKES: AutomobilesU.S. FACTORIES: 24MANUFACTURING JOBS: 56,000 FOUNDED: 1952MAKES: Precision grindersU.S. FACTORY: Ramsey, N.J.MANUFACTURING JOBS: 60 FOUNDED: 2001MAKES: Craft vodkaU.S. FACTORY: Alameda,…

SPOTIFY APPLE MUSIC As an iPhone loyalist, I have the $99 per year Apple Music subscription that gives me the radio stations with human-selected new music that come with the $10 monthly subscription, plus the ability to use Siri in the car. But if you already have Spotify, stay with it. Most won’t miss the exclusives it lacks, and suggestion algorithms like Discover Weekly are reliably great. WINNER: DRAW UBER LYFT Now that Uber has scheduled pickups, an option to add stops, and tipping, Lyft doesn’t win for features. It comes down to Lyft having always had tipping, better customer service for drivers, and being generally less evil. Sadly, drivers for both make a paltry median wage of $3.37 per hour. So definitely tip. WINNER: LYFT DARK SKY WEATHER CHANNEL…

In my December column, I answered a question about a mysterious thumping noise in a reader’s house. I suggested loose siding or trim, a loose vent cap on the roof, or even a grill bumping against the house. Many of you had experienced your own strange sounds and wrote in to share what caused them. Shingles that would bend up in the wind, then slap down with a thump. —Bob Newman, Outer Banks, North Carolina Rafters and framing contracting in the icy cold. —David Gangemi, Camillus, New York Dryer vent or a bath fan damper. —Mike Beumeler, Boise, Idaho…

IF YOU’VE EVER, like me, relied on an Advil bottle to get you through a weekend project, you know how frustrating back pain can be. You don’t need to be a bricklayer to feel beat up. Being handy is tough on the body. I’ve learned to be good to my back now and can work as hard as ever. But it took some painful lessons. In 2002, years of ignoring lower-back aches and shooting pains came home to roost at 2 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I was woken by sudden shooting pain in my hip so severe, I thought someone had broken in and stabbed me with an ice pick. I was practically paralyzed. The physical therapist I went to told me that intense physical labor, combined with poor…

THIS WEATHER ISN’T what Southern California promised. It’s cold and overcast with a chance of “Why is this happening to me?” My trusty passenger/wife, Jess, and I are ready to ride north along a foggy patch of the Pacific Coast Highway on the newest edition of Honda’s sofa on wheels, the 2018 Gold Wing. The rain suits are in our hard cases, the heated seat and grips are warming up, and the power windshield is fully extended. With a 1,833-cc flat-six and a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission (no shifting) beneath us, I wonder when luxury cruising got so good. In 1975, the new Honda GL1000 was a normal, stripped-down, street-style bike. It housed a kick-start 999-cc flat-four and five-speed transmission mounted on a steel frame. Although it wasn’t intended specifically as…

Factories have no windows. It’s a mind-your-own-business kind of architectural gesture. You could stand on South Girls School Road on the far western edge of Indianapolis, under the slate-cloud ceiling of an Indiana winter, and regard the sizable Carrier air-conditioner plant for days on end, and you’d never see a thing that was going on inside. You’d be out there looking at the end of things. The end of a half-century of work in fan assembly for commercial and residential air-conditioning. The end of work, or a certain kind of work. Labor. Assembly. Manufacture. You’d be looking for the sense of what was lost over there when the company decided that they could do this work better somewhere else. Or maybe something was gained. Maybe something really was saved by…

AGE: 55 WORKED AS A: Machine operator and team leader I was a machine operator. And then insertion—I inserted components and resistors into the boards. They told us it was not our quality of work, we were the best around. We were told it was not our people, we had the best workers around. They called everybody in and told us our product was great, we couldn’t ask for better quality. I thought I would retire there. Now I’m in a class for entry-level programming. TAA [Trade Adjustment Assistance] paid for it because my job relocated, but it’s hard. The math I learned 40 years ago is not the math they use today. I go four days a week. Fridays are my day off, but I don’t do anything but…

READER NOTE Clean Stuck-On Frying Pan TO REMOVE STUBBORN grit from frying pans, reader Daniel Simmons of Port Jervis, New York, remembers an old family trick. He pours enough leftover coffee or Coca-Cola into the pan to cover the grit, then heats the pan on medium-high for a few minutes. After removing the pan from the burner, the grit can usually be scraped off with a plastic putty knife. FROM—THE—ARCHIVES (1955!) Waterproof Matches If you’re heading out for a backpacking trip to the lake but are out of waterproof matches, you can make your own. Safety matches dipped in melted candle or paraffin wax resist moisture and are ideal for the outdoorsman. Heat the wax until it flows, then dip the matches so the head and stems are entirely coated.…

You’ve probably seen him on CBS’s Saturday-morning show Lucky Dog, on which he trains shelter pups and matches them with families who need them. He also works with other animals, including lions, tigers, and …sharks! How did you learn to train animals? My entire family were all wild animal trainers. They learned from a very famous animal trainer from 60 years ago, named Gunther Gebel-Williams. He was the most famous lion tamer in the world! Have you worked with animals other than dogs? The first animal I ever trained from start to finish was a tiger. I was probably 18. I raised her from a baby, and she became one of our best cats. You might recognize her from the movie The Hangover. I also have a show on Shark…

Which household items could stop an intruder’s bullet? ▪ YES ▪ NO We hope this is a strictly theoretical question—or that you have plans to move to a better neighborhood shortly. Assuming the former (and, admittedly, there is a morbid entertainment value in fantasizing about extreme self-defense scenarios), the first thing we need to establish is what sort of bullet are we talking about here? If an ISIS terrorist, say, were to drag an AK-47 or any rifle suitable for hunting man or beast through your unsecured doggie door, you’d be pretty much out of luck. Rifle rounds travel with sufficient velocity to penetrate virtually anything you might put between you and them—including many “bulletproof” vests. The good news is that rifles of any sort are seldom used in crimes,…