Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i Popular Mechanics

The town of Cushing (population: 7,826), Oklahoma, is nicknamed the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World.” It’s home to 307 oil-storage tanks, one of the largest facilities in the country. The price of oil delivered daily to Cushing has determined crude oil’s valuation on the New York Mercantile Exchange for decades. But that benchmark may be changing: Recent drilling in the Southwest’s Permian Basin has boosted domestic production, and a 40-year ban on crude oil exports was lifted in 2015, lowering demand for storage. Although the Cushing complex can accommodate more than 80 million barrels, its reserves dipped as low as 21.8 million last year. As the holdings change, so do the tanks themselves. Most in this photo belong to the SemGroup company; they were constructed with external floating roofs, which…

PICTURE A CHAOTI C Venn diagram with hundreds of circles representing the world’s knife laws. California’s limits on button-release switchblades. U.K. laws restricting lock knives. Japan’s ban on blades exceeding six centimeters. Now imagine the middle of that diagram as the only sweet spot for legal knives. Inside it you’ll find the compact Benchmade 380 Aller ($160), a new everyday-carry (EDC) knife designed to keep travelers in compliance with local regulations virtually everywhere they land. It’s the latest product from Benchmade Knife Company, one of the leading knife makers in Portland, Oregon. If that doesn’t sound like a fully formed endorsement it’s likely because you don’t know that, goat yoga and hemp beer aside, Portland is known in blade circles as the knife capital of the country. Seki City, Japan,…

The Blazer Returns Well, the name anyway. The new Blazer isn’t a truck, but it likes to have fun. Just like the originals. Base price: $29,995 The base 2.5-liter four-cylinder: Makes 193 horsepower. You want the V-6. Best version of the previous Blazer: Glad you asked. It’s the 2005 ZR2 two-door, with low-range 4WD and 31-inch tires. YES, THEY SLAPPED the hallowed Blazer name on a crossover. So what? Just as the original K5 Blazer was a product of its time (namely, giving Chevy a Bronco competitor), so is this one. Which means it’s more car than truck, a tall wagon bred with a few strands of Camaro DNA. Hey, the real Blazer purists gave up when GM killed the full convertible top in ’76. I can’t speak to the…

1. SCALE Peter Giuliano, chief research officer at the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), says most people like their coffee best when 1.15 to 1.35 percent coffee solids make it into the brew, and it has an extraction of 18 to 22 percent. What that means in practice is that you should have a ratio of about 60 grams dry coffee per one liter water. (For a stronger cup, don’t brew it longer—that’ll turn it bitter. Just add more grounds.) Your scale should measure over one kilogram, to at least one decimal place. Most jewelry scales will do the trick; we also like the Acaia Pearl Bluetooth scale ($140; acaia.co). 2. GRINDER Get a burr grinder. Blade grinders—which are cheaper and more common—don’t work as well for coffee. They slice the…

PAGE 57 Burton Bayonette Snapback Classic trucker styling with modern stripe trim. Cotton front, mesh back. $28 Pendleton Western Canyon Shirt Machine-washable wool, sourced in Oregon, woven in America. Pearlized snaps. $139 Dickies Coveralls Wrinkle- and stain-resistant cotton/polyester. Elastic waist and plenty of pockets. $35 Pendleton Serape Beach Shirt Heavy cotton weave brushed for softness. Serape-inspired pattern. $119 Red Wing Classic Moc Boots Modeled on a 1950s original. Briar Oil Slick leather, Traction Tred rubber outsole. $280 Dickies Hickory Stripe Bib Overalls Roomy for movement and to fit over boots. Convenient chest pockets. $35 PAGE 58 Costa Rincon Sunglasses Made from bio-based plant resin. Spring hinges, polarized lenses. Great for larger heads. $240 Volcom Solver Modern Fit Jeans 16-inch leg opening to fit bigger. S Gene Superior Stretch fabric lets…

BECAUSE I’VE ONLY ever been at Nascar races to write stories—and Nascar is what you call media-friendly—I’ve never had a true Nascar experience. An experience that was not meticulously scrubbed of inconvenience. So I had questions: How do you rent an RV? Where do you park it? What kind of tickets do you buy so you can see cool stuff but not blow your budget for fried bologna sandwiches? Is there stuff to eat besides fried bologna sandwiches? My first call is to a woman named Cathy, who works in sales for Charlotte Motor Speedway. I’m going to the fall Roval 400 race, which will use the track’s new infield road course to throw a few right turns into the Nascar formula. This isn’t some kind of automated Ticketmaster deal—Cathy…

T’S JUNE 3, 1965, and astronaut Ed White, in orbit over Hawaii, emerges from a space capsule, becoming the first American to conduct an extravehicular activity, or EVA. Connected with a single tether, he maneuvers using an oxygen gun for propulsion, and poses for pictures. “I feel like a million dollars,” White says. These days, EVAs are not done for the photos. They’re required for maintenance and operation of the International Space Station and are planned to the minute. Astronauts seldom have time for a selfie or joyriding with jet-guns. “Statistically, doing an EVA is just as dangerous as launching and reentry,” says Garrett Reisman, professor and former NASA astronaut with a seven-plus-hour space walk on his résumé. EVAs are hard, dangerous, and time consuming, so it makes sense that…

ANYPLACE THEY WANT, PAL. And don’t ask questions. It’s disrespectful. End of column. Meet you back here next month, when we’ll help out someone who knows to mind his own business. In the meantime, pick your broken teeth up off the pavement. We don’t need any flat tires. Relax—we’re kidding. Sort of. The world of motorcycle clubs (best not to call them “gangs” unless you work for the Department of Justice) is a byzantine maze populated by diverse enthusiasts who organize themselves in a variety of ways to pursue disparate goals, all governed by an etiquette calculated to ensure everyone’s dental work remains intact. A full taxonomy is beyond the scope of this column, but the most important distinction is between clubs made up of so-called one-percenters, and everyone else.…

FOR MOST of my life, I thought of leasing as the thing you do when you can’t afford the car you really want—a way to parlay a Civic payment into a Benz commute. Now that I’m a grown-up, sort of, I’ve realized that it’s more complicated than that, and that leases can actually be a financially savvy move, depending on the circumstances. But leases aren’t your only option. There are also subscriptions, car-sharing services, and my favorite wildcard: certified pre-owned programs. THE BENEFITS OF LEASING LEASES ARE PREDICATED on the idea that car companies can forecast depreciation three or four years out and charge you just for that, with the option to then either return the car or buy it at a pre-agreed price. If the company gets it wrong…

While restoring an old car, reader Jack Sweeney of Westfield, Massachusetts, and his pals came up with a way to muscle around the pristine, newly restored suspension without scratching it: They took a bicycle inner tube and cut it to roughly the length of their crowbar. (They made sure to take off the portion with the valve stem.) Then they slid the tube over the crowbar, giving it rubber padding to keep it from damaging the car parts. Note that this will work for pretty much any tubular object that’s a scratch risk, like a bike lock—a length of inner tube over your lock, saved after a tire change, will keep the lock from scratching the bike frame. BONUS! Even More Uses for Inner Tubes Zippos are great lighters, but…

STIHL TOOL OF THE YEAR BEST CHAINSAW The Stihl MS 500i is the industry’s first electronically fuel-injected chainsaw. That might not sound like much, but when you adjust fuel flow and combustion with a microprocessor, you increase engine power, which improves the power-to-weight ratio. With a 20-inch bar, it weighs 18 pounds—at least two pounds lighter than typical saws in this class. The light weight improves handling, and it enabled Stihl’s engineers to optimize its pivot point. In our tests, it limbed as easily and capably as it felled. We were also impressed by its ease of starting, torque, and ease of shutoff. Starting at $1,210 MILWAUKEE BEST COMBINATION SYSTEM Milwaukee’s Quik-Lok offers an edger, string trimmer, articulating hedge trimmer, ten-inch pole saw, and three-foot extension, and it addresses many…

PISTOL GRIP TOOL DEBUT: Hubble Space Telescope, 1997 NASA commissioned a tool astronauts could use to service equipment while wearing space suits. The PGT is a basic drill-driver, down to the battery that plugs in below the grip, but with a screen that allows precise torque selection. EPSON STYLUS 800 AND HP ENVY ZERO-GRAVITY PRINTER DEBUT: STS-95 Shuttle Mission, 1998, and ISS, 2018 Inkjet printers move ink with capillary action, not gravity. So the Epson 800, the first printer on board the ISS, was mainly modified to keep the paper from floating away. Today’s printer started as an HP Envy 5600—before all the parts for unnecessary functions, like scanning, were removed. The designers also 3D-printed lighter parts, including a tab to point the carriage downward without gravity. They also gave…

MAKE/MODEL 1988 Mustang LX Convertible OWNER Rich Kupelian LOCATION Nashville, Tennessee FOUND ON Craigslist PURCHASE PRICE $7,000 MONTHS OWNED Nine IF YOU’RE BUYING ▶ Fox-bodies rust: the shock towers, the wheel wells, where the door meets the body. Look for signs somebody’s trying to cover it up. ▶ Parts are easy to find, so anything else can be replaced. ▶ This model was easy to customize, so ask about modifications, particularly to the engine, which can affect reliability. Save money on car stuff (so you can buy more car stuff) Whether you’re looking to upgrade your tires, get a car cover or book an automotive experiencem joining Hagerty Drivers Club will save you money on automotive gear and services. Learn more about discounts and the other benifits at Hagerty.com/Drivers-Club. WHEN…

TAXA OUTDOORS’ campers and trailers all have a similar look. They’re alien and angular, like a Lego Bionicle action figure. There’s more than a little Chinese-takeout-container influence there, too. And then, on the inside: pure spaceship. That last one makes sense when you consider that the company’s founder and designer, Garrett Finney, used to be the senior architect at the NASA Habitability Design Center. He focused on making astronauts comfortable and productive in the cramped confines of the International Space Station. “The ISS engineers made something people could survive in. But we had to think about how you could survive well,” Finney says. That meant addressing questions such as where would I put a picture of my family? or how do I change my clothes? without upsetting the tight balance…

Aside from warm weather and no school, one thing you might associate with summer is bees. While bees can sting you—and usually they won’t, if you leave them alone and don’t try to swat them—they do a lot of good things, too. We asked Ian Kaplan and Brock Harpur, assistant professors of entomology at Purdue University in Indiana, to teach us a few facts about these buzzy (and sometimes fuzzy) little creatures. THERE ARE A LOT OF DIFFERENT BEES. There are more than 4,000 bee species in the United States, and over 20,000 in the entire world. Some bees, such as honeybees, live in hives. But most bee species actually live alone and nest in the ground, including this neon green halictid bee (right). HONEYBEES CAN FLY A LONG WAY.…

FIRST, STIR YOUR PAINT. When paint sits for too long, the components start to separate. By stirring the paint slowly, you ensure that its color and shininess will be even. Next, pour some of the paint into a special container called a paint pot. It has a wide mouth to make it easier to dip your brush, and it lets you take only as much paint as you need. Dip your paintbrush into the container so that about a third of the bristles are submerged in paint. Although a lot of people wipe the brush against the edge of the container to remove excess paint, that is a mistake. It removes too much. Instead, tap the wide side of the bristles against the side of your paint pot. (Gently! You…