Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2016 i Popular Mechanics

TO-DO LISTS February. First issue of Popular Mechanics to hit your mailbox (or your friendly neighborhood airport newsstand) in the new year. The beginning of a new year, for a lot of people, is full of excitement. Possibility! I find it daunting. We make lists of things we want to accomplish, but there’s too much to do and not enough time. And then this reminds me of all the things I need to accomplish in my daily life, and then I get despondent, and then I look for the bourbon. Take the other weekend. It was unseasonably warm, so I planned on replacing the broken windowpane in the mudroom that had shattered when my son kicked his sneaker off. And the windowpane that my other son broke when he was…

Agent Jose Verdugo’s workplace is vast: 1,100 square miles of hilly, sandy terrain surrounding Nogales, Arizona, the second-largest border-patrol station in the country. Depending on the day’s assignment, he’ll hike trails or drive along the boundary between the United States and Mexico. Some days he investigates human trafficking or drug smuggling. (Half of the marijuana that crosses the southwest border is captured in the Tucson sector, where Nogales is situated.) Other days Verdugo investigates a suspicious blip on a radar system that often turns out to be foul weather, or a rancher tending his land, or a stray cow. Over the years, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has used a series of strategies, some more effective than others, to monitor huge swaths of rugged terrain along the border. It…

Late last year at the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, at least 30 people— including doctors, nurses and patients— died during an American firebombing. Investigators suspect that Taliban fighters may have established offensive positions in and around the hospital and Afghan National Army soldiers—American allies—were allowed to call in help from an American AC-130 gunship. The help they received would have been close air support, one of two types of combat air support the U.S. military commonly uses. The other is deep air support. 1 Close Air Support (CAS) is used by combat units to call in air resources when friendly ground units are involved in direct fire with enemy ground units. Ground units usually radio the aircraft, providing coordinates or directing it with a laser. Most combat…

Forest Grove High School , class of 2016 Every fall since 1974 at Forest Grove High School in Forest Grove, Oregon, the students in the Viking House project have begun the school year with nothing more than a plot of land. By June they have a completed house. The program was started by Birt Hansen and is now run by a local contractor turned teacher, Chris Higginbotham. In four decades, it’s remained completely self-sustaining: The profits from one house pay for the materials for the next. The labor, of course, is free. And grateful. One student shares his experience. I DON’T COME from a particularly handy family—my parents have no trade skills whatsoever—but I have always been curious about building things. When my two older brothers went through the Viking…

Q My frequent remodeling jobs make our house filthy. The dust bags on my power tools don’t help. Neither does hooking them up to a shop vac. Are there any other solutions? LARRY T., DES MOINES, IOWA A The dust bag and shop vac ideas are a good start, but you need a multipronged approach. If weather permits, do your wood cutting outside. Sweep up any loose sawdust that you’ve created before it gets blown all over the yard or back into the house. If you are working inside, use a ZipWall to contain dust and debris in the work area. The sophisticated pole-mounted system ($140) suspends plastic sheeting from the ceiling to the floor, isolating the work area from the rest of the house. Plus, the static cling on…

IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ONE OF THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES SPACE PROGRAM. A civilian—a schoolteacher, an emissary of the hope for tomorrow—was going to space. Christa McAuliffe, a thirty-sevenyear-old mother of two from Concord, New Hampshire, had been selected from eleven thousand entrants to NASA’s Teacher in Space contest. She became a symbol of optimism and progress amid Cold War tension. And the rest of the shuttle crew was itself a representation of the strength of American society: Gregory Jarvis, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Michael Smith, and Commander Dick Scobee. Two women, one of them Jewish. An African-American. An Asian-American. They were the most diverse group of astronauts NASA ever assembled. On the morning of January 28, 1986, despite concerns within…

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MODEL: DEWALT D25980 PRODUCED: PERUGIA, ITALY TIME TO DISASSEMBLE: 3 HOURS, 40 MINUTES, 29 SECONDS NUMBER OF PARTS: 224 NOTES: The first U.S. patent for a “percussion rock drill” was awarded to Joseph J. Couch in 1849. His drill, invented for mining, was powered by a steam engine and repeatedly threw a bit, javelin-style, at rocks. In 1895, a patent for a tool most of us would recognize as a jackhammer was awarded to Charles Brady King (incidentally, also the first guy to build a car in Detroit). Like many pavement breakers in use today, it was pneumatic, tethered to a hose that delivered compressed air. In comparison, other modern pavement breakers, like the DeWalt D25980 pictured here, are downright refined: electric, relatively lightweight, and compressor-free. So the next time…

FREE MONEY: We give $100 for reader projects that we publish, and $50 for original reader tips that we run. You can send both to editor@popularmechanics.com. PROJECT OF THE MONTH A HOT-ROD-INSPIRED SMOKER Josh Wolfe of Linton, Indiana, does what we all do—watch cooking shows and pine for the food. After watching a few too many episodes of BBQ With Franklin on PBS, Josh wanted in. Since smokers are expensive, he decided to use his 20 years of experience as a maintenance worker to build his own. An admitted junker, Josh had an office-file cart on hand that he had salvaged from a dumpster. The bottom shelf fit perfectly as a lid once he added a set of hinges. For the firebox he cut a door in the side of…

As quickly as the Islamic State can destroy ancient relics, researchers are trying to save them. Early last year, the Institute for Digital Archaeology, a partnership between Harvard University and Oxford University, started the Million Image Database project in an effort to collect 3D records of endangered archaeological sites all over the world. The group developed specifications for a stereoscopic camera with the plan to distribute it to people who would have access to sites threatened by conflict, natural disasters, climate change, or lack of resources. When ISIS attacked and partially destroyed millennia-old ruins at Palmyra in Syria last summer, it imposed a new sense of urgency. The IDA began distributing cameras in August, ahead of schedule. It also sent out three different camera bodies in order to make the…

Q How do you know if a car mechanic is on the level or scamming you? Are there telltale signs? A IF A MECHANIC suggests replacing more than four wheels, two axles, or one steering wheel, you may wish to investigate further. Repairs that propose to employ “an X-Acto wrench,” “liquid staples,” or a microwave oven should be declined. Also, note: No current production vehicle requires dilithium crystals to function correctly. Actually, despite the old stereotype, the kind of mechanics, or to use the preferred nomenclature, “technicians,” who run up your bill aren’t trying to scam you. They’re just numskulls. “There’s a fair amount of incompetence, particularly in smaller shops where people are trying to work on newer cars that they don’t understand,” says AAA’s manager of technical services Michael…

01 / Mechanix Wear FastFit Insulated $20 Thin and comfortable gloves that provide some warmth and excellent mobility. Great for hand tools or driving that truck you still keep despite the busted heater. Works on touchscreens. 02 / Carhartt A513 Insulated Leather Work Gloves $24 Moderate dexterity and warmth with classic styling. The Thinsulate lining made these the softest gloves we tried. Like slipping your hand into silk. Very manly silk. 03 / DeWalt DPG750 $35 Midweight, durable, and puncture-resistant, thanks to PVC-reinforced palms. The tight fit at the trigger finger means you’ll still be able to operate a circular saw. 04 / Duluth Trading Winter Work Gloves $40 Lightweight but warm, with an almost sandpaper finish on the palm that provided the best grip. A little too much space…

MY DAUGHTER ELIZABETH stood on the frozen surface of a lake near our home, peering intently at the hole at her feet. It was a Saturday during the bitter winter of 2015, and she was holding a remarkably short fishing rod, dangling a metal jig down into the gin-clear water. The jig, spiced with a mealworm, was perhaps 16 feet beneath her, just above the lake’s bottom. Under a roof of ice, this little lureand-bait combination was darting upward, then fluttering and falling, again and again. Elizabeth was trying to entice a fish to strike. I had turned away to scan rows of fish traps when she called out. I looked back to see the little rod bent, Elizabeth cranking on its reel. Soon she hoisted a fine yellow perch…

In 2013, Arvind Thiruvengadam and Marc Besch, engineers from West Virginia University, took a road trip from Los Angeles to Seattle in the hope of logging the exemplary efficiency of diesel passenger cars. What they found ended up exposing VW’s unconscionable deceit. Volkswagen was never on the initial proposal. We just chose the vehicles based on the technology they contained. The Volkswagen Jetta was the only one that had the technology we needed to assess. For the other tests, we were able to procure a Volkswagen Passat and a BMW X5. Before we actually took the vehicles out on the road, we tested them in the laboratory. They were working as they’re supposed to. Emissions were low. Immediately after we left the California Air Resources Board facility, we started seeing…

COMPANY Woodstock Soapstone LOCATION West Lebanon, New Hampshire FOUNDED 1978 AS LONG AS MAN has burned wood, that wood has released hazardous substances into the air—naturally produced, sure, but still awful for you. Benzene. Formaldehyde. Ultrafine flecks known as particulate matter that burrow deep into the lungs. And until the Environmental Protection Agency finally took action in 1988, woodstoves spewed the stuff at an incredible rate. A single one could pump out 60 grams of particulate matter per hour—nearly twice that of a 14-ton diesel truck. The EPA’s intervention set the legal limit at 7.5 grams per hour. An improvement but still too weak considering the agency released an unrelated study around that same time suggesting that the cancer risk from woodstove emissions might be 12 times greater than that…

FEATURING THE INCREDIBLY SPECIAL EFFECTS AWARDS! EVERY YEAR, THE MEN AND WOMEN who make movies possible are only briefly recognized, relegated to a two-minute capsule presentation during the Oscars telecast. You know the part of the show: The host mentions the Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony that was held two weeks before, then the broadcast cuts to a young actress shaking hands with older men who look like they’d enjoy doing your taxes. These older men (and a few women!) are geniuses, and they deserve more. This year, in honor of the technology, equipment, lens creators, and software developers behind the people who are behind the people who make our favorite movies, we decided to focus on them. On their achievements. We’re also cohosting a cocktail party for them with…

When we set out to design an indoor firewood rack, we wanted it to be sturdy and made from materials you can buy at any home center or lumberyard. So we designed our rack from ordinary 4 x 4 lumber, steel angles, and flat stock. To turn a rough 4 x 4 into flawless 2 x 2 stock is no great mystery, and we show you how. But you do need a table saw and a benchtop thickness planer. If you don’t own those machines, you can still build this rack by ordering clear 2 x 2 stock from a lumberyard. This material is quite attractive and will make the rack look lighter since its actual dimensions are 11/2 x 11/2 inches, whereas our material measures a full 2 inches.…