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HUNGER BUSTER: Assemble the greatest Gatsby P58

L JULY / AUGUST 2021 RSA: R42.90 Other countries: R37.30 excl VAT

The Magnetic North Pole is moving to Siberia!

p16

Taking a random walk using maths is harder than you think

p18

MAKE IT YOURSELF

Oak tree + Ford engine + 1 000s of hours = Home-built classic speedboat

p44

» HE IRLOOM TOOLBOX P64 » DOUBLE-BEAM MARKING GAUGE P68 » STURDY WORKBENCH P77

CONTENTS

COVER: BELL, SIKORSKY-BOEING, GETTY IMAGES, UNSPLASH; THIS PAGE: DR SCOTT BIXLER

Sometimes it’s impossible to resist building that dream project, even if it’s a years-long process.

Turn to page 44 for Jim Eicher’s account of using POP MECH plans from 1935 to construct a speedboat with wood from his own forest, and a straight-six Ford engine.

04

From the editor: At the wheel.

09

Readers’ letters: Email us and share your ideas, projects, or new inventions; include photos. (If it’s good, you might win a great prize.)

12

Calendar: Historic events in July and August.

14

Time machine: Quirky stories from the PM archives.

16

HYWW: Magnetic North Pole is moving; Proceduralgeneration code cracked; Apple iPad vs handwriting.

22

24 28

32

38 44

Book review: The Geometry of Pasta by Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy.

Challenge: Useful things readers have built with LEGO. Games and toys: Hitman 3 is here, and it won’t disappoint; How a devious hack revived the NES.

popularmechanics.co.za

52

64

Master your craft: Create an heirloom toolbox that will last for decades.

68 Defiant vs Valor: Inside the head-to-head battle to replace the Black Hawk helicopter.

Woodworking: Construct a double-beam marking gauge using these eight steps. (Handtool project four of four.)

77

Gear and gadgets: Tools, machines, gizmos and more.

DIY with Kreg: Build a workbench you can be proud of.

82

Be good at what you do: At a Brooklyn vinyl plant, art meets machine.

84

PM Garage: VW’s Amarok now has more power than the rest.

88

Driving: A close-up look at the FordPass app, and how it works with the new Ranger FX4.

98

Do it your way: Submit your tips and you could win.

Reader’s boat build: How a reader used 86-year-old POP MECH plans to make a Gentleman’s Racer.

The future of food: Advancements in tech are completely changing our relationship with food.

56

Drinks: Step up your homebrewing game.

58

Provisions: How to make the greatest Gatsby to satisfy the biggest hunger.

JULY / AUGUST 2021

3

FROM THE EDITOR

AT THE WHEEL Okay, that’s not an objective opinion, but I hope you can take my word for it. However, the evidence might show otherwise – an error crept on to page 87 of our previous issue, stating that the new Land Rover Defender has a 20 litre fuel tank. It doesn’t, I promise.

A vehicle of that size and power with a 20 litre fuel tank would make no sense, and the design engineers are smarter than that. The correct figure is 85 litres.

Apologies for the mistake.

I have been test-driving new vehicles since about 2005, all as part of the various magazine jobs I’ve had. It’s certainly been one of the most fun aspects of doing what I do. Some tests have been short, a couple of days in and around the city, while others have seen me heading out on longer adventures, to northern Namibia, the

central Kalahari in Botswana where lions keep you up at night, thundering Vic Falls, and the towering mountains of Lesotho. I view every experience of a manufacturer’s vehicle as a privilege, not a right, even though I might not always like everything about a specific model.

While testing newly launched cars is not my primary focus in my role as editor of Popular Mechanics, motoring and vehicles has always been an important segment of the magazine, so I jump at the opportunities when they arise. Taking the new more-powerful VW Amarok into the Cederberg mountains for this issue was one of those instances (read about it on page 84). It’ll be interesting to see how this upgraded-engine version of the current Amarok fares, with the next generation of Amarok (interestingly, in collaboration with Ford) due to launch in 2022.

Once again our spread of topics and content in this issue is vast, and we’re confident you’ll strike upon an article (or several) that resonates with you, and piques your enquiring mind. Please keep emailing us (popularmechanics@ ramsaymedia.co.za) about your projects, musings, hopes and dreams. I know I harp on about this a lot, but we thrive on contact from our readers, for whom we create this magazine. (And hopefully you won’t feel too compelled to complain about something – positive stories are what everyone needs right now.)

MARK SAMUEL Editor

PHOTOGRAPHY: GISELLE FLISSAK

I

’M NOT AN IDIOT. I can assure you.

Follow the editor on Instagram: marksamuel.za

4

JULY / AUGUST 2021

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IS EVERYWHERE @popmechsa

popularmechanicssa

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Editor Mark Samuel Chief Copy Editor Roshaan Bouwer Deputy Chief Copy Editor Nicole van der Scholtz Senior Copy Editor Shaneen Noble Creative: Art Director Tauriq Loofer Junior Designer Tyrone Michaels RSA Contributors Tiana Cline, Peter John, Tobias Lochner Digital: Digital Group Web Developer Cicero Joseph Webmaster Lizelle Leonard Ad Sales: Sales Director Ryan Nicolle (ryan@ramsaymedia.co.za) Advertising Sales Jean De Ridder, Callie Romburgh Buyers’ Guide Joanne Thompson Debtors Manager Gasant Brenner Production: Production Manager Rushaan Holiday Deputy Production Manager Maggie Wasserfall Ad Design Manager Brümilda Fredericks Published by Ramsay Media (PTY) Ltd Company registration number 1934/ 005460/07 ISSN 1682-5136. Ramsay Media is owned by Highbury Media and CTP Ltd. Highbury Media holds the controlling interest in Ramsay Media. Ramsay Media is managed by Highbury Media’s Board of Directors.

Highbury Media Directors: Chief Executive Officer Kevin Ferguson Managing Director Tony Walker Financial Director Lindsey Makrygiannis Production Director Bilqees Allie HR Director Rizqah Jakoet Legal Director Tracey Stewart Operations Director Rashied Rahbeeni Chief Technology Officer Adrian Brown CTP Ltd Directors: PM Jenkins, TD Moolman, TJW Holden Cape Town Head Office: 36 Old Mill Road, Ndabeni, Western Cape, South Africa, 7405 • PO Box 180, Howard Place, Western Cape, 7450 • 021 530 3300 Gauteng Office: Caxton House, 368 Jan Smuts Avenue, Randburg, 2196 • PO Box 78132, Sandton, Gauteng, 2146 • 011 449 1100 • popularmechanics@ ramsaymedia.co.za, ramsaymedia.co.za

ILLUSTRATION: TAURIQ LOOFER

Published and distributed by Ramsay Media by permission of Hearst Communications Inc. New York, United States of America. We cannot be held responsible for loss of unsolicited queries, manuscripts or photos. For return, they must be accompanied by adequate postage. As a service to readers, POPULAR MECHANICS publishes newsworthy products, techniques and scientific and technological developments.

Due to possible variance in the quality and condition of workmanship and materials, POPULAR MECHANICS cannot assume responsibility for proper application of techniques or proper and safe functioning of manufactured products or reader-built projects resulting from information published in this magazine. Prices listed in features were accurate at the time of going to print – contact suppliers directly for up-to-date pricing, and product availability.

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JULY / AUGUST 2021

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LETTERS

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND? WRITE TO US

popularmechanics@ramsaymedia.co.za

WINNING LETTER

A flair for solar I’m a great fan of Popular Mechanics. When I read your editorial entitled ‘What’s your plan B?’, I thought I’d share with you and the other readers the details of my solar installation solution that I had put in at our home.

My wife works in the financial world, on a full-time basis from home, and because of the deals and contracts at stake she can’t afford to be offline at any point.

I’m in the electronics field, so, having some firsthand knowledge on the subject, I started researching alternative energy-storage solutions other than batteries for our home off-grid power supply. I didn’t want to have batteries, because their efficiency fluctuates in hot and cold conditions.

Also, over-charging of lead-acid batteries can produce hydrogen sulphide, a poisonous gas that’s colourless and has the odour of rotten eggs. The service life of batteries is around 10 years (or 5 000 cycles at 70 per cent depth of discharge, or DoD).

Batteries have to be cycled continuously, and deep discharge below 20 per cent can damage them.

Batteries work optimally at 23°C. Maintaining this temperature would mean installing an air conditioner in my garage where the battery would be stored, and that just wasn’t feasible.

My online research revealed KiloWatt Labs, a company that makes supercapacitors, so I ordered myself one. Here

popularmechanics.co.za

are the reasons why I went the supercapacitor route: 1. Their temperature tolerance is from -25°C up to 85°C, a much wider range than you’ll find in conventional batteries.

2. They have a round-trip efficiency of 99.121 per cent with 1 000 000 cycles at 100 per cent DoD. 3. They function optimally 40+ years.

4. They are 100 per cent recyclable.

5. They have no capacity degradation.

6. They’re non-hazardous, non-flammable and also non-toxic.

Our system consists of 12 JA 310 W solar panels with a combined output of 3 720 W. We have a Fronius 4 kW inverter for managing the power from the solar panels, a Victron Inverter (with a 48 V input, a maximum output of 8 000 VA, and a maximum charge of 110 amps), and a 6.7 kWh supercapacitor.

Let me use a recent example to illustrate how effective the system is… We experienced a load-shedding event not too long ago (who hasn’t?), from 18:30 to 20:30, and my wife asked if we’d still be able to make supper. She was worried about how much power would be available to run the various appliances. Without any hesitation, I replied that she should go ahead as normal.

I ‘pushed’ the system – we operated the microwave, stove and I ran the hot-water tap for a while, just enough for the heat pump to kick in (it pulls 1.5 kW). The house’s load jumped to 3.3 kW, and the capacitor bank started discharging from the state of charge (SOC) of 100 per cent.

When load-shedding ended, I went to check the SOC, and the capacitor bank was sitting at 49 per cent. The house’s load was back to normal at 290 W. When the grid came back online, the Victron unit immediately started charging

the capacitor bank. It pulled 5.5 kW from the grid, kept the house’s load at 290 W, and pushed 5 210 W straight back into the bank. I timed it, and it took only 28 minutes to fully recharge the capacitor bank to a SOC of 100 per cent.

My intention for writing isn’t to brag about my system, but to instead offer others some solid advice. When it comes to choosing a solution that will protect assets, without the fire risks associated with generators or batteries, I would highly recommend the supercapacitor route.

I have now been running my system for just more than two years, and I haven’t encountered any problems at all.

MARTIN VON GRUENEWALDT

This is a solution that I haven’t heard about before, Martin.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

Reading your letter made me realise how many different factors should be considered when planning an off-grid set-up, including the increased risk of fire. The lesson here is to always address issues such as this with any industry professionals you consult.

Your interesting contribution has won you the WORX 20 V inflator/flashlight, sponsored by Vermont Sales. – Mark, Editor

JULY / AUGUST 2021

9

LETTERS

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND? MENDING FENCES Many South Africans like me have electric fences to protect their properties, and, as with just about anything to do with home ownership, this security feature requires maintenance.

Through my own experiences and a lot of trial and error, I’ve put together a list that might be useful for anyone wanting to do maintenance on their electric fences themselves. After all, it’s not always necessary to call in the experts. (However, always consult a professional if you aren’t comfortable with any of these suggestions.) I’ve included several photos as reference.

First, I highly recommend buying ferrules of various diameters and a ferrule crimping tool. Having these useful items will enable you to perform most wire maintenance jobs.

1. Use strong fishing swivels at the end of the braided-steel wire to replace rusted or broken wires. When reeling off lengths of wire from a 50 m or 100 m reel, it’s almost impossible to avoid having the reeled-off lengths coiling and tangling, a bit like a long garden hose, only worse. This is because the wire is trying to twist itself straight and release built-up tension.

To solve this, simply attach a fishing swivel to the free end and attach it to a sturdy gate or pool fence as you uncoil it. I

used an unclamped new ferrule for the temporary connection of the wire to the swivel.

2. Double up on sections of wire that are prone to rust – for example, around bobbins.

When replacing wires, thread on two extra ferrules near the bobbins for the new wire. This enables you to insert short extra lengths of wire after the new wires are secured (and, importantly, tightened), leaving space on either side for future tension adjustments.

(This tip is particularly useful

for inaccessible areas – in my case, this is on top of my garage roof, where aesthetics aren’t too important to me.)

3. Unwind and reuse stiff steel wires when securing end bobbins and tensioners.

Because new, stiff wire can only be purchased in long expensive reels, I found that the existing stiff wires can be reused if unwound carefully.

4. Wind some extra lengths of wire on to the tensioners.

This enables you to unwind short lengths of wire later, which might be required when joining broken or rusted wires.

BILL MCIVER

All highly practical suggestions, Bill – thanks for sending in your recommendations. I’m sure many of your cost-saving ideas will be adopted by our readers.

– Mark, Editor

WRITE TO US, ENGAGE IN DEBATE, and you could win an exciting prize. The writer of this issue’s winning letter has won a WORX 20 V cordless two-in-one inflator/flashlight sponsored by Vermont Sales (vermontsales.co.za) valued at R5 000.

al d by vermonts

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PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY IMAGES LETTERS ARE EDITED FOR CLARITY, SPELLING AND GRAMMAR

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Unlike some competing jigs with a shallower angle, the K4 Master System has an optimised drilling angle, designed to increase driving efficiency and minimise the overall size of the pocket hole.

Vermont Sales is Southern Africa’s leading tool and accessory wholesaler, and has been providing top-rate services for more than 35 years. Over nearly four decades, the company has grown ten-fold, and now stocks the best international brands, and markets well over 20 000 products. The secret to Vermont Sales’ continuing success lies in its diverse product ranges and effective solutions provided to trades and other customers.

Connect with Vermont Sales by visiting vermontsales.co.za, calling 011 314 7711, on Instagram (@vermontsales), or on Facebook (toolsupplier).

Prize

The writer of the winning letter in September/October 2021 issue will win a Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig K4 Master Wood-Joining System valued at R4 174, sponsored by Vermont Sales.

This is the perfect all-round woodjoining jig, and an excellent choice for any woodworking enthusiast who’s looking for a complete set to get their wood-project building underway. It features a solid clamp, a large clamping recess, a dust-collection attachment, material support stop, and a removable three-hole drill guide. The Master System includes the Pocket-Hole Jig K4, bonus Kreg accessories, a Kreg face clamp, and a portable base.

The three-hole drill guide allows you to drill pocket holes in a variety of material widths and thicknesses, from 12 mm up to 38 mm, in 3 mm increments. The guide has a hardenedsteel core, with a lifetime guarantee.

Email us at popularmechanics@ramsaymedia.co.za. Please include high-resolution photos, wherever possible and relevant. Prizes can only be awarded to South African residents.

10

JULY / AUGUST 2021

popularmechanics.co.za

HOW TO TURN A TV INTO YOUR PERSONAL ART GALLERY: INTRODUCING THE SAMSUNG FRAME TV Say ‘hello’ to something different. Forget what you know about the standard black-box TV. Different is here, and it commands more than a second look.

Samsung’s The Frame TV combines innovative design with stunning QLED picture quality, and the extra magic comes with the fact that this is a TV that can turn your home into an art gallery. Here’s how: TV When It’s On, Art Gallery When It’s Off With its frame-like design, this TV looks great on every and any wall. Clearly, style meets substance with The Frame TV. Turn it on and enjoy your favourite shows in stunning 4K QLED quality. Switch it off and it becomes a virtual art gallery in your home. The Frame is a TV with an elegant and modern frame that seamlessly blends into your decor. You can customise your look with a range of different colour frame options to beautifully complement any space. Imagine easily

hanging a TV close against the wall, just like a real picture. Now that’s innovation.

As your style evolves and home decor changes, so can your TV, with over 1 200 works of art from worldrenowned galleries available at the Samsung Art Store.

You can also choose to display your own photos and memories, which can be easily uploaded via a mobile device or USB drive. It’s all about using the space to reflect your personality and individual flair. Additionally, the Invisible Connection Cable and No Gap Wall-Mount keeps The Frame looking tidy and minimalist. It hangs flat against your wall with no messy wires or cords.

The Tech Matches The Look The Frame’s 4K UHD resolution boasts astounding clarity and radiance. With four times more pixels than Full HD, it’s four times more detailed for a rich,

stunning viewing experience. Essentially, it’s an immersive viewing experience captured in cinematic clarity. You can also easily control all your devices with the OneRemote. This means you are able to seamlessly access all your favourite entertainment and stream content to your TV from your mobile device. Also, in order to conserve energy, the motion sensor recognises when someone enters or exits the room and can put it into a power-saving mode when no one is present, and automatically switch back on when someone re-enters.

THE FRAME TV IS CLEARLY DIFFERENT IN ALL THE RIGHT WAYS.

C A L E N DA R

UPDATE YOUR DIARY • THIS DAY IN HISTORY MONDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

JULY 2021

4 11

18

1609: The Sea Venture is run aground in Bermuda, to prevent it from sinking. The survivors start a colony on the island.

25

1965: Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel Dune is published for the first time. It’s widely regarded as the best science-fiction novel ever written.

1

8

1934: Barton and Beebe descend 923 m below the ocean’s surface, in a submersible called the Bathysphere.

15

22

1900: The cornerstone of Cape Town’s City Hall is laid.

29 12

1687: Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is published.

5

12

1967: A Boeing 727 and a Cessna 310 collide in mid-air over a town in North Carolina, USA, killing 82 people.

19

26 2 National Women’s Day

9

16

1966: Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photos of Earth while in orbit around the Moon.

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JULY / AUGUST 2021

6

2009: After years of war and conflict in the country, Iraq’s national soccer team plays its first game in Baghdad.

13

20

1940: Looney Tunes short film A Wild Hare is released by Warner Brothers. It features the debut of Bugs Bunny.

27

1936: US sprinter Jesse Owens wins the 100 m event at the Olympic Games held in Berlin, Germany.

3

10

1978: Double Eagle II becomes the first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

17

24

1955: The first solar-powered car, the Sunmobile, a 40 cm-long model, is publicly demonstarted for the first time.

1

1940: Ringo Starr, drummer for the Beatles, is born.

7

14

2011: After 135 missions, the NASA Space Shuttle programme ends.

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28 4

1919: The Weimar Constitution is signed into law in Germany.

11

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2012: US astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first human to set foot on the Moon, dies at age 82.

25

SATURDAY

FRIDAY

1863: Often described as the turning point in the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg begins, and lasts for three days.

1848: Designed

by William Tite, Waterloo railway station in London opens.

AUGUST 2021

TUESDAY

8

2003: American nonprofit company the Mozilla Foundation is established. It leads the open-source Mozilla project.

15

22

1979: It’s reported that the South African government pays compensation for the death of Steve Biko.

29

1861: The US Army abolishes the punishment of flogging.

5

12

1580: French mathematician, Pierre Vernier is born.

He later invents the vernier scale used in measuring devices.

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2

1991: After years of sanctions, South Africa is granted permission to participate in the Olympic Games.

9

16

1903: The Ford Motor Company sells its very first car.

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2008: US swimmer Michael Phelps wins his 11th career Olympic gold medal, the first athlete to achieve this feat.

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1939: The Heinkel He 178, the first jet aircraft, makes its first flight.

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1969: Regarded as the biggest explosion in the history of rocketry, the Soviet N-1 rocket blows up on the launchpad.

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1984: The national drinking age limit in the United States is changed from 18 to 21 years old.

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1790: The first patent in the US is issued to Samuel Hopkins for his improved process in the making of potash.

31

1974: High-wire performer Philippe Petit walks between the twin towers in NYC, 411 m above the ground.

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1888: Inventor William Burroughs receives the first US patents for four calculating machines.

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31 popularmechanics.co.za

TEXT: MARK SAMUEL; PHOTOGRAPHY: BUNDESARCHIV (BILD 141-2505/CC-BY-SA 3.0), NASA, PIXABAY, PUBLIC DOMAIN

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T I M E M AC H I N E It made per fec t sense at the time

1 V

2

ion diver 6 it 6 d d l 9 e r 1 p o x Y e W L e n 1 JU ldest Swim in th sue was told by a to Antarctica on is ed from this team that ventur the Weddell seal. y r o t s r e v h s of arc The co t of a rese re audio recording e in sub-freezing r a p s a w ic d u who ns to capt eployed below the OC) was positione io s a c c o o s d S t ( s c tw chamber n to diver heir subje In additio ub-ice observation ientists to study t ical cabin. c r s waters, a surface, allowing s e reinforced cylind below the elative safety of th r from the The Co

3

5

2 JULY 1968

3 AUGUST 1970

How Engineers will save Niagara Falls

How to do a complete Disc Brake Job

A full-colour illustration and black-and-white photos accompanied this detailed write-up, which explained how a large-scale construction project was going to rehabilitate the famous waterfalls on the United States-Canada border, preventing erosion from further damaging the base rock layers.

Having stated that all cars will soon have disc brakes on their front wheels, this tutorial story went into meticulous detail on how you can fix and maintain your vehicle’s disc brakes yourself. Captioned photos explained the process, step by step, mentioning how to clean the components and reassemble the parts.

14

JULY / AUGUST 2021

4 AUGUST 1980 Cameras for the deep

Long before GoPros or even digital cameras were a thing, this article highlighted some of the best products on the market for capturing stills and video underwater. The features on the various cameras were assessed, and editors put several models through their paces ‘at a depth of eight feet’.

Photography and videography has come a long way since then.

5 JULY 1986 Planes

Woodworking has always been a core theme in Pop Mech. This feature described the many different types of hand planes on the market, explaining their various applications, and highlighting the best brand offerings available. It also advised how to care for these types of tools, and the differences between steeland wood-bodied options. popularmechanics.co.za

TEXT: MARK SAMUEL; PHOTOGRAPHY: POPULAR MECHANICS ARCHIVES

4

H O W YO U R W O R L D W O R K S

SCIENCE / BY JENNIFER LEMAN /

The Magnetic North Pole is racing towards Russia 16

JULY / AUGUST 2021

T

HE MAGNETIC North Pole just isn’t where

it used to be.

Scientists have measured the location of the Magnetic North Pole since James Clark Ross first identified it in Canada’s Nunavut territory in 1831.

The pole has moved several kilometres annually, but in recent decades, it has been racing towards Siberia at an unprecedented rate. A team of researchers from the UK and Denmark say they’ve uncovered the cause of this rapid shift: popularmechanics.co.za

PHOTOGRAPHY: WORLD DATA CENTER FOR GEOMAGNETISM/KYOTO UNIVERSITY, GETTY IMAGES

Two writhing lobes of magnetic force are duking it out near Earth’s core.

Our planet’s protective magnetic field, which keeps deadly cosmic rays at bay and serves to orientate our navigation systems, is generated in Earth’s outer core, more than 2 900 km below the crust. ‘You’ve got these sorts of swirling hot masses of molten iron, bubbling and moving around,’ says Phil Livermore, PhD, a professor of geomagnetism at the University of Leeds.

These molten blobs of iron generate an electrical current, which in turn creates a magnetic field. In regions on Earth’s outer core where magnetic force is strongest, the magnetic field pokes out. ‘That’s what we call a flux lobe,’ Livermore says. These shifting lobes of magnetic force determine the location of the planet’s magnetic poles through a magnetic tug of war.

Thanks to geological samples of magnetised rock, we know that the magnetic poles have periodically drifted and even flipped throughout Earth’s history.

Polar reversals occur when Magnetic North and South switch places over the course of thousands of years.

(Imagine a north-pointing compass arrow facing Antarctica.) This happens roughly every 200 000 to 300 000 years, with some exceptions. The latest reversal occurred around 780 000 years ago, so, technically, we’re overdue for a switch.

Magnetic North’s recent migration has been happening faster than at any other time since it was first measured in the 19th century. The acceleration began in 1990, when the Magnetic North Pole went from moving on average about 15 km each year to as many as 60 km by 2005.

In an effort to understand why this is happening, Livermore and his team created a series of computer models using data from ground observatories and satellites, and found that between 1970 and 1999, the flow of magnetic material at the surface of Earth’s outer core changed. These changes were also reflected in the strength of the magnetic field.

Until the 1990s, the Magnetic North Pole was controlled by two fairly balanced patches of magnetic field beneath Canada and Russia, Livermore says. Then the patch under Canada started to stretch out and become weaker, shifting the balance of power to the patch in Siberia. To Joseph Meert, PhD, a professor of geology at the University of Florida in Gainesville, who was not affiliated with the study, it’s as simple as playing with magnets: ‘If we remove all the maths and just think about how magnets work, it is very straightforward.’ If two magnets are pulling on an popularmechanics.co.za

IT WOULD BE GREAT IF WE COULD

"

SOMEHOW INVENT A DEVICE TO

GO VISIT THE EARTH’S CORE, TO HAVE A LOOK AT WHAT THESE LOBES OF MOLTEN IRON ARE DOING.

object, and one magnet weakens, the object drifts towards the other magnet.

The wanderings of the Magnetic North Pole have significant consequences for global navigation. Every five years, agencies in the US and UK produce the World’s Magnetic Model, which lets you calculate your position based on Magnetic North’s location. Anyone who uses a compass – from military navigators to commercial airline pilots – relies on the model to pinpoint their location around the globe. As the Magnetic North Pole slides across the Arctic, the model becomes less accurate, which poses a problem for anyone requiring an ultra-precise reading. These errors are more pronounced in latitudes above the 55° parallel, including places such as parts of Scandinavia, Greenland, Russia, Canada, and Alaska. To account for the accelerated motion, the agencies had to release an emergency update to the 2020 World’s Magnetic Model a year early.

Researchers are racing to understand what Magnetic North’s movement may mean for the magnetic field as a whole. Livermore doesn’t think a polar reversal is imminent because, while the magnetic north pole is sliding around, the global structure of Earth’s magnetic field has remained relatively stable.

The greatest challenge in studying Earth’s magnetic field, Livermore says, is making sense of what’s happening in Earth’s outer core. ‘It would be great if we could somehow invent a device to go visit Earth’s core, to have a look at what these lobes of molten iron are doing and see how they interact with the magnetic field,’ he says.

JULY / AUGUST 2021

17

H O W YO U R W O R L D W O R K S

DEEP MATHEMATICS / BY CAROLINE DELBERT /

Uncovering the hidden secrets of procedural generation 18

JULY / AUGUST 2021

M

from the California Institute of Technology have solved an age-old problem related to ‘random walks’, a mathematical process that traces a path based on random decisions at various junctions. If you’ve played a procedurally generated video game such as Minecraft or Stardew Valley, you’ve encountered a random walk in the form of a dungeon or terrain. Biologists use random walks to model how animals move and behave, and physicists use them to describe how particles behave.

In a random walk, the ‘walker’ can move in any direction at any point, so there’s an assumption that the walker will eventually revert to the mean and end up near its place of ATHEMATICIANS

popularmechanics.co.za

popularmechanics.co.za

PHOTOGRAPHY: CREATED BY ALYSE MARKEL USING MARCO BOTTIGELLI/GETTY IMAGES

have even more complex properties, like a graph called a tree that’s used extensively in programming.

Ultimately, the researchers found that no matter how wayward a random walk is in the early steps, it will almost always correct itself over time and come back to the mean.

On some walks, it just takes a little more patience. ‘Imagine I do a random walk that started from some very faraway point,’ Tamuz says. ‘Can you tell that I started this random walk very far away? At “time 1” you can tell. But can you tell after “time 1 billion”? It all eventually looks the same.’

So the next time you play Stardew Valley, consider all of the paths you could have taken to return to your farm from the town centre, or perhaps the fishing pier. The journey might look different each time, but in the end, you always make it home.

Take a random walk Imagine you are sitting in a circle of n + 1 friends, and positions are labelled 0, 1, … n, and so on. The B in Fig 1 represents a pizza box held by person 0, who can pass the pizza to the person on their left or right with equal probability.

That person randomly passes the pizza to their left or right, and so on.

After a given number of passes, everyone in an arc of the circle has touched the pizza, and everyone outside the arc has not.

The arc grows until all but one person has touched the pizza – and they are the winner. Where in the circle should you position yourself to maximise the probability that you win?

– Courtney Linder

Figure 1

0 B

n

1 2

n -1 •

3

•

•

•

• •

•

Answer: You should sit as far away from person 0 as possible.

That spot can be represented as n/2 or (n+1)/2, depending on whether n is even or odd.

origin (because it’s less likely that chance would urge the walker in a single, focused direction over and over). Some random walks seem to behave with this assumption in mind, ‘realising’ they’ve taken a detour before reverting back to what is expected – mathematicians say this behaviour is ‘path-dependent’. Other walks, however, seem to ignore their histories. They just go rogue, persisting as outliers and converging with other random walks that had much different histories.

The team from Caltech – plus a colleague from BenGurion University in Israel – investigated and explained these two differing behaviours in a ‘remarkable’ rush one evening, according to lead author Omer Tamuz. The key was blending probability theory and ergodic theory (the study of statistical properties in dynamical systems) in an approach that combined spatial analysis with likelihood.

In other words, the team had to figure out how a walk’s history affected the chance it would take any given next step in the walk.

When you program something such as a video game using random-walk theory, you can code in a limitation to make sure the outlier paths don’t encounter the more history-considerate, mean-adhering paths (otherwise, there would be no meaningful in-game consequences for wildly unusual ‘walks’ taken by the game). But true random walks don’t have those limitations, so Tamuz asks: ‘What happens at the beginning of the random process [that] has an effect that lasts forever?’

The Caltech team discovered you can combine ideas from algebra and geometry to investigate the differences in walk behaviours. They found that those renegade random walks that intersect with the path-dependent walks fall within a certain criterion, based in vector geometry.

But different dimensions and scenarios lend different properties to the random walks. On a flat, one-dimensional number line counting from zero in either direction, random walks are much more likely to revert to the mean.

It makes sense: A five-step walk that can only go left or right at random is more likely to stay close to home than to go five straight steps to the right.

When the walk takes place in a two-dimensional coordinate grid, with four directions to choose from, it still reverts to the mean. ‘I’ll revert to the point where I started again and again,’ Tamuz explains. ‘I’m guaranteed to return to the point where I started.’

But in three dimensions, everything changes. ‘There, you don’t keep on coming back to where you started,’ Tamuz says. ‘In some sense, there’s no reversion to the mean.’ There are other geometries where random walks

Source: Mathematics for Computer Science/MIT OpenCourseWare

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H O W YO U R W O R L D W O R K S

TECH / BY ALEX ANDER GEORGE /

The iPad’s handwriting recognition tech shows how Apple does machine learning

T

HE MORE INTUITIVE A TASK IS FOR

humans, generally, the harder it is for artificial intelligence. Think of when Alexa can’t hear your commands, or when your spam filter traps an important email. A computer’s ability to read handwriting, then translate it into letters and numbers it can understand, has been a challenge going back decades. Think of the hit-or-miss capabilities of the Windows Transcriber in the early 2000s, or the PalmPilot in the late ’90s. Handwriting is so nuanced that just analysing a static letter’s shape doesn’t work.

Apple, it seems, found a solution. In the newest update to iPadOS, when you write with the Pencil stylus, the iPad can understand your scrawl. It works like most machine learning – examples inform rules that help predict and interpret a totally new request – but taps into a smarter data set and greater computing power to do what had stumped generations of previous machines. While Alexa and Siri rely on a connection to faraway data centres to handle their processing, the iPad needs to be able to do all that work on the device itself to keep up with handwriting (and drawing – machine learning also helps the Notes app straighten out an imperfect doodle of a polygon, for example).

That takes way more effort than you’d think.

‘When it comes to understanding [handwriting] strokes, we do data-gathering. We find people all over the world, and have them write things,’ explains

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popularmechanics.co.za

PHOTOGRAPHY: APPLE

Craig Federighi, senior VP of software engineering at Apple. ‘We give them a Pencil, and we have them write fast, we have them write slow, write at a tilt. All of this variation.’ That methodology is distinct from the comparatively simple approach of scanning and analysing existing handwriting. Federighi says that for Apple’s tech, which the company calls Scribble, static examples weren’t enough. They needed to see the strokes that formed each letter. ‘If you understand the strokes and how the strokes went down, that can be used to disambiguate what was being written.’

That dynamic understanding of how people write means Apple’s software can reliably know what you’re writing as you’re writing it, but combined with data on a language’s syntax, Scribble can also predict what stroke, character or word you’ll write next. The massive amount of statistical calculations needed to do this are happening on the iPad itself, rather than at a data centre. ‘It’s got to be happening in real time, right now, on the device that you’re holding,’ Federighi says.

‘Which means that the computational power of the popularmechanics.co.za

device has to be such that it can do that level of processing locally.’ The use cases for Scribble: You’re handwriting notes on your iPad with the Pencil during a meeting, and you want to see a map of Zanzibar. You can now swipe to the Maps app and write ‘Zanzibar’ into the search field, rather than pecking at the screen’s keyboard. Or, you want to email a few lines of those handwritten notes. You use your finger to select that section, copy, then paste into an email, where it shows up as if you typed them. Or you write down a phone number, and you can tap to call it.

If you spend R2 300 on an Apple Pencil, Scribble’s precision offers an additional method of input, along with speech and the keyboard, to communicate with the iPad. The use-case is narrow, but it’s a digital bridge for handwriting diehards, and easier than carrying a keyboard with your tablet. It works so well it makes translating your writing into functional text feel like a natural behaviour. This is the kind of novelty Apple introduces often, one that feels so organic, you’ll look for excuses to use it.

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BOOK REVIEW / BY TIANA CLINE /

Pasta’s backstory

T

HERE’S MORE to

pasta than penne.

Spaghetti? Too simple. Fusilli?

Don’t be silly.

Each shape has its own unique history and in The Geometry of Pasta, you’ll not only discover the sheer variation of pasta out there, but also the perfect way to make it and eat it.

Italy’s staple food varies from region to region, so whether you’re looking at a basic semolina dough or something more extravagant incorporating refined flour and expensive egg yolks, there’s an (almost) infinite amount of noodle knowledge to learn from this book.

The Geometry of Pasta begins with the basics – salt, fat, quantity and method. You’ll learn how to achieve ‘al dente’ (‘to the tooth’, or ‘with a little bite’) and how to avoid mush.

While there are a variety of pasta recipes and three tomato sauces (subtly different in the making but quite different to

‘Every cook – from the novice to the seasoned chef – will learn something from this exquisite and delightful book.’

– Jack Monroe 22

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eat), this coffee-table cookbook is all about the shape of pasta.

There aren’t any photographs, but instead beautifully detailed drawings by none other than the award-winning designer Caz Hildebrand. The words are by well-known London chef Jacob Kenedy.

Starting at agnolotti and working its way down to ziti, you’ll discover a perfect sauce, soup or broth, why it works for the shape and the origin.

Tortellini, for example, is the pride and joy of Bologna along with tagliatelle. They require a certain skill – and a whole lot of patience – to get right, something Bolognese women have been perfecting for decades. The history of tortellini is a little unsettling. As the story goes, Lucrezia Borgia (a SpanishItalian noblewoman and daughter of Pope Alexander VI) stopped at an inn. The innkeeper was so besotted by her belly button that he created the pasta to commemorate its beauteous shape. The sauce for this elite pasta must match – the book suggests Parmesan, white-truffle shavings and double cream.

Far more than just a simple cookbook, The Geometry of Pasta is an encyclopaedia of food, design and Italian history.

It took five years from concept to print, and will teach you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Italy’s most mathematically perfect food.

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY IMAGES

The Geometry of Pasta is a book that adds deeper meaning to our love affair with this Italian staple.

The Geometry of Pasta

by Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy (Pan Macmillan) is now available in most good bookstores, and online.

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BUY THE BOOK NOW! ONLY

R149 ‘My Chosen 23 is a selection of those players whose performances I won’t ever forget and, in each position, I discuss the merits of the very many outstanding players in that position.’

Available to purchase online at www.hmshop.co.za For more information: info@hsm.co.za

CHALLENGE / BY ANDREW DANIELS /

Reader challenge: Build something useful with LEGO

T

HE MISSIVE TO P OP M ECH US READERS,

via Instagram, was this: Make something with LEGO that will make your (or someone else’s) life easier, and show us the results. We weren’t looking for the complexity or aesthetics you see in expert LEGO builds – even though those are awesome. We were looking for utility. Plastic bricks, Technic gears, and mini figures from existing kits were allowed, but we asked that builders steer clear of any instruction manuals. The job was to engineer your own solution. As one builder put it, ‘I just see any box of LEGO as a box of parts.’ Another worked from the same philosophy: ‘I love the concept of hacking items to get more uses out of something you already own.’

Of all the projects tagged for the #PopMech ProChallenge, here are a few of our favourites, and the story from their creators.

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AUTOMATIC TOILET PAPER DISPENSER The Builder: Steve Guinness @thebrickconsultant Guinness builds commissioned LEGO models for customers, and is the British LEGO Masters champ.

‘I dream in LEGO, wake up with new ideas, and head straight to my studio

and get building,’ he says. But he saves his best ideas for family.

For this build, Guinness wanted to help his 11-year-old son Obby who had just broken his arm. When Guinness came across a LEGO Star Wars BOOST Droid Commander set, he found what he needed for an automatic toilet paper dispenser, including motors and motion sensors that you can control remotely with a programmable

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KICK DRUM PEDAL The Builder: Aygul and Charlie Stevens @myn_syn Aygul Stevens never learned how to build with instructions. Credit her inventor dad, who fashioned makeshift devices out of household items, such as a toe shield built from toy metal construction pieces. Now, Stevens has passed on that DIY ethos to her five-year-old son, Charlie.

When Charlie’s teacher tasked him with building a musical instrument, he decided to make drums. For the pedal that powers the kick drum, he and his mom fetched a few gizmos from Charlie’s Klutz LEGO kit – his edition was filled with tools that help kids learn about physics. With those parts, they built a system that pulls the pedal down, and moves the rubber ball head forwards.

Naturally, Charlie enjoys making plenty of noise with his new gear – ‘but he loves the building stage [of a project] more than the playing one,’ Aygul says.

app. Once he designed the machine, the programming was easy: Instead of an on/off switch, he and his son set a distance for the motion sensor, so when they waved their hands in front of it, the motor automatically started up.

They’ve since dismantled their TP device to concoct the next thing: a contraption that automatically winds spaghetti and feeds it straight into your mouth.

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CHALLENGE

SHIRT BUTTONS The Builder: Carley Lauder @offthepagelearning

TABLET STAND The Builder: Siddhaant Gajendra @sidg_06 When his college campus closed due to the pandemic, Gajendra, an architecture tech student, suddenly found himself reimagining his home workspace. ‘I like things to work the way I want them to,’ he says. And there was one obvious problem: His tablet wouldn’t stay upright, where he could see it. It kept sliding down, interrupting his studying. So he devised a solution.

Using Technic parts, Gajendra grabbed various length beams,

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pegs, and frames, and got to work.

To build a sturdy support base that would stop the tablet from slipping without obstructing the view, he found a few C-shaped parts that fitted just right. And when the parts that connected the stand’s rear leg to the main frame were a bit longer than necessary, Gajendra used those pieces to fine-tune the slant of the stand for the best possible viewing angle.

It was a straightforward fix that settled a pesky problem. ‘I wanted to showcase the effectiveness of simple designs,’ says Gajendra.

‘Things do not have to be complicated to work.’

popularmechanics.co.za

PHOTOGRAPHY: SIDDHAANT GAJENDRA (HOLDER), STEVE GUINNESS (TOILET PAPER), AYGUL IDIYATULLINA (PEDAL), CARLEY LAUDER (BUTTON)

For years, Lauder, a Hong Kong-based educator, has made LEGO part of her classroom curriculum. ‘LEGO levels the playing field in play and conversations between kids and adults,’ she says. However, ‘many adult fans of LEGO make amazing models with skills, time, and money that I don’t have – yet.’

That’s why Lauder, also an amateur seamstress, picked a deceptively simple project for this challenge: sewing round LEGO plates on to a collared shirt, and using them as buttons.

Lauder attached the light-gray plates – a colour that’s ‘not obviously LEGO until you get close up’ – with four main stitches branching out from the centre axle holes, and wrapped the thread around itself between the plates and fabric to form small shanks. The clever hack took one hour, tops.

‘I love builds that do something as well as look awesome,’ she says.

G A M E S A N D T OY S / BY TIANA CLINE /

Dead on target For Hitman fans, the third instalment in the trilogy won’t let you down, delivering nearlimitless solutions to missions, enhanced graphics, and countless plot twists and surprises.

I

F YOU’RE ALREADY familiar

with IO Interactive’s Hitman series, then Hitman 3 – the third game and conclusion to The World of Assassination trilogy – won’t surprise you. And that’s a good thing. Hitman is arguably the best stealth game available.

As Agent 47, you have to act and react patiently. Both the story and the location matter. How you eliminate your targets should be a calculated affair. This game isn’t about running ahead at full force with a weapon in hand to get through the mission. It may be fun to do that, but you’ll undoubtedly fail.

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popularmechanics.co.za

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY IMAGES

Hitman 3 is now available for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC.

popularmechanics.co.za

From Dubai to Dartmoor, Chongqing to Berlin, each mission location in Hitman 3 is breathtakingly detailed. While none of the core gameplay mechanics have been changed from the previous two titles, this new release refines the locations by introducing some rather complex and unique levels.

They’re not necessarily difficult, but the areas are so well designed – with many moving parts, nonplayable characters, and a high level of detail – that they feel endlessly replayable.

It’s not linear or simple, though.

Each level is a puzzle within itself where you’re slowly piecing together bits of the story. A standout of Hitman as a series is that, at times, you’re compelled to go back and try a different style of execution, and that might be hilarious, or serious. How you choose to solve a mission could end up being entirely different to how someone else deciphers it – there are just so many options worth trying. Think of it as a murderer simulator where you can, for the most part, do whatever you want. Sure, a target can be shot or strangled, but there are far more complicated and creative ways to complete a mission, such as electrocution (is that a live wire close to a puddle?), and it only gets weirder the further you progress.

You may end up missing out on some extremely cool gameplay mechanics and dialogue if you only focus on perfection. Indeed, your end score does depend on how many people you didn’t kill while getting to your target, and how stealthy you were overall, but there’s so much more to Hitman 3 than the mission alone.

As with previous Hitman games, Agent 47’s stealth tactics consist of knocking out certain characters, hiding their bodies and using their clothing as disguises. (While everyone’s outfits mysteriously fit your agent, some characters can see through his cover-ups and should be avoided.) He also has instinct, a skill that helps him to see through walls and work out with which

objects he can interact. There’s a lot of quiet snooping involved, where Agent 47 has to discover more about his targets so he can dispose of them efficiently.

Another enticing feature is that the story continues throughout all of the missions – it’s all intricately connected and important to the ending of the game.

Agent 47 is hunting down the leaders of Providence, a secret organisation that’s controlling the world’s affairs. At the end of Hitman 2, Agent 47 and his handler Diana Burnwood joined forces with a rogue mercenary, Lucas Grey. In this instalment, Agent 47 continues his work with Grey to destroy Providence. One of the most memorable missions of the game takes place in southern Devon, London, where Agent 47 has to carry out a kill during a murder mystery. This can mean dressing up as a detective to solve clues while at the same time focusing on the target.

It’s complex, creative and ridiculously fun. Another mission takes place on a train, which feels strangely claustrophobic compared to scaling Dubai’s Scepter (a fictitious version of the Burj Khalifa).

Hitman 3 is the conclusion we have been waiting for. IO Interactive has managed to make it feel fresh and new without changing the formula players know and love.

The game supports all the levels from previous games (if you’ve bought them), meaning you can play Hitman 1 and 2 with new unlocked weapons and some graphical enhancements. And, being able to import locations gives you access to more than 20 areas, from the entire trilogy, in one place.

Expect flawless gameplay, world-class level design, memorable maps and a single-player tactical experience like no other. This is the best Hitman game in the series by far. It’s atmospheric, thoughtprovoking and worth going back to again and again to perfect your performance or simply work out the hundreds of different ways a mission could play out.

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G A M E S A N D T OY S / BY WILLIAM HERK EWIT Z /

Cracking the chip: How hacking the NES made it even better

A closer look at the 10NES chip, the family-friendly gatekeeper for the NES.

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I

N 1985, American video games languished in a wasteland. The gaming giant Atari had just folded in a wave of terrible and unplayably buggy third-party games. In its final throes, the company physically dumped millions of cartridges in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico.

Afterwards, Atari was split up and sold off to competitors.

But that autumn, an 8-bit phoenix rose from these cartridge ashes: the Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES). Soon, the NES would be in one of every three households in America.

In an effort to avoid Atari’s fate, the Nintendo corporation kept a tight grip on what games you could play on their system, so each console came with a top-secret lockout chip, a first for the gaming industry.

Nintendo called it the 10NES. It worked like this: Every NES cartridge needed a paired chip that used an encrypted code to communicate with the 10NES gatekeeper. Without that paired chip, the console would refuse to boot up your game – and Nintendo had a monopoly on manufacturing and licensing these coveted cartridges.

But Nintendo asked third-party game developers for more than just royalties to access the lucrative cartridges. The company demanded games free of vice and adult content.

Nintendo branded itself familyfriendly, and required that games on the NES match these values.

No crude language, sexual content, and booze- or drug-related imagery were allowed.

Nintendo’s rules would cause game designers to cover the topless statues in Castlevania III, to rename Vodka Drunkenski in Punch-Out!! to Soda Popinski, and to change blood to sweat in Mortal Kombat.

For three prudish years, game developers tried to reverse-engineer and crack the 10NES’s code. It never worked. popularmechanics.co.za

PHOTOGRAPHY: ARTIX ENTERTAINMENT (DUNGEONS), CALDWELL (HALLOWEEN), KHAN GAMES (NESCAPE!), MORPHCAT GAMES (MICRO), ROLLIE

But in 1988, Tengen, a defunct Atari offshoot company, hatched a plan. First, it tricked the US Patent Office into giving up the internal specs of the 10NES chip (Tengen falsely claimed these specs fell under a copyright dispute) and used the stolen plans to make their own chip copy called the Rabbit.

Almost simultaneously, a second gaming company – called Color Dreams – discovered another way to work around the chip and installed its third-party games with a circuit that bypassed the 10NES with an armed robber’s approach.

At the right moment, Color Dreams’s chip would jolt the 10NES with a brief zap of electricity, sneaking past its fried defences before the chip

FIVE NEW NES TITLES FILLED WITH 8-BIT GAMING GREATNESS

HAUNTED: HALLOWEEN ‘86 (2016) ‘It’s a beat-’em-up hybrid filled with kitschy horror and a combat system like nothing you would have seen on the NES,’ says game designer Caldwell. ‘We have the benefit of another 30+ years of videogame history.’

popularmechanics.co.za

could shut the bootleg game down.

The rewired Rabbit chip and jolting circuits ushered in a new wave of games that brought sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll back into US video games.

Soon there were NES games with nudity (Peek-A-Boo Poker and Hot Slots), alcohol (Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu), and absolutely terrible game mechanics, like the unfinished Cheetahmen II and Little Red Hood.

Today, retro-minded developers are still using these workarounds to create new games for the NES. ‘Cracking the 10NES [paved the way] so folks like me could come along and start making new NES games again,’ says Greg Caldwell, director of Retrotainment Games. Caldwell says he buys cartridge hardware from a

ROLLIE (TBD) Rollie is a shot of pure nostalgia. A woodland-critter Super Mario Bros with a touch of Metroid movement.

That’s why you’re dusting off your NES in the first place, right?

MICRO MAGES (2019) Grab three friends and power up your old NES Four Score (the console’s original 4-player adapter) for this delightful dungeon crawler. It’s a modern spin on the classic platformer genre, filled with the classic baddies: goblins, skeletons, traps, and snakes!

company that custom-designed its own version of Tengen’s Rabbit chip.

‘I personally like the story of the voltage spike, brute-force method,’Caldwell says. But the circuit-frying solution ‘isn’t very elegant or practical today’.

Thirty-five years after the console’s launch, Caldwell’s newest mystery/ adventure NES game Full Quiet will arrive later this year. And his studio isn’t alone.

‘The popularity of new NES games is actually increasing again. There’s certainly a movement of digging into this retro hardware, and seeing what you can squeeze out of these old consoles,’ Caldwell says. ‘These old machines are the fossil record of where we came from.’

DUNGEONS & DOOMKNIGHTS (TBD) A little bit The Legend of Zelda and a little bit Castlevania, this hack, slash, and spellcasting single-player game has plenty of puns and a giant axe.

What more do you need?

NESCAPE! (2019) If you’re a fan of deviously difficult puzzles, here’s the retro game for you. NEScape! is modelled after the ongoing modern craze of escape rooms and uses your old, retrofitted Super NES Mouse.

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BY

I

n 2022, the US Army will choose a new aircraft to replace the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. Bell’s V-280 Valor and Sikorsky-Boeing’s SB-1 Defiant will battle it out to become the winner of the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) programme, and either the Valor or the Defiant will fly as the army’s next combat helo when it deploys in 2030.

But ‘helicopter’ isn’t even the right word to describe these two aerial beasts.

Bell’s V-280 Valor is a tilt-rotor, similar to the V-22 Osprey currently flown by the US Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy, but smaller and with a V-tail. Rather than relying on a single large main rotor for lift in forward flight and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) like a helicopter, it tilts two large rotors (called proprotors), one at each of its wing tips, 90° from horizontal to vertical and back. It’s essentially an aeroplane in forward flight and a twin-rotor helicopter in VTOL flight.

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ERIC TEGLER

Meanwhile, Sikorsky-Boeing’s SB-1 Defiant is a compound helicopter, with stacked, counter-rotating main rotors, a pusher-propeller, and aircraft-like rudders. The pusher-propeller can provide significant forward thrust, relieving the need to tilt its main rotor for forward flight. Counter-rotating main rotors provide extra lift, stability, and smoothness. They also give the SB-1 speed, climb, and VTOL advantages over normal helicopters.

Both designs stem from the US Army’s desire for a multimission VTOL aircraft that flies much faster and further than the workhorse Black Hawk. The army wants its UH-60 replacement to be capable of a top speed of 230 knots (425 km/h) – a twin-engine Black Hawk tops out at 159 knots (295 km/h).

Despite it being four decades old, bettering the Black Hawk won’t be easy. The helicopter has been built in two dozen variants for the army alone.

‘The Black Hawk is a tall bar,’ says US Army veteran helicopter pilot and Sikorsky test pilot Bill Fell. ‘We’ve been building them for more than 40 years. In my view it’s the greatest helicopter the world has ever known.’

Sikorsky-Boeing‘s SB-1 Defiant

Bell‘s V-280 Valor

popularmechanics.co.za

Defiant and Valor employ programmable fly-bywire digital flight controls, but the way they fly is different. Their respective tilt-rotor and compound helicopter designs allow their pilots to manipulate thrust in multiple axes at once, giving them agility a UH-60 can’t match.

The V-280 gets lift from its wings as well as its proprotors, adding another dimension, says Bell test pilot Ernie McGuinness. ‘Below 120 knots (222 km/h) it flies like a helicopter. Beyond 120 it flies like an aeroplane.’

Since the Valor is a tilt-rotor, it acts more like an aeroplane control yoke in cruise, and a helicopter cyclic in vertical flight.

The V-280 also has a thumb-wheel located on the power lever. Roll the wheel (like the one on your computer mouse) forwards and the 10.5 mdiameter proprotors tilt forwards and down, accelerating the aircraft. Roll it backwards and they tilt back and up, decelerating the V-280 hard. In hover or at slow speed, the foot pedals rotate the nose left or right by commanding differential pitch between the proprotors. At speed, the pedals actuate rudders on the V-tail.

But the SB-1 Defiant is something else entirely.

‘In a helicopter when you want to turn really hard, you slow down,’ says Sikorsky-Boeing test pilot Ed Henderscheid. ‘[With] the SB-1, you can turn as hard as a fixed-wing aeroplane and the prop will maintain your speed.’

The SB-1 has controls similar to the Black Hawk, but designers moved the cyclic to the pilot’s right hand, in sidestick fashion. The SB-1 also adds a thumb-wheel, and two buttons on the collective – the lever that increases/decreases lift – to control its pusher-propeller. Rolling the wheel forwards with your thumb increases propeller pitch, speeding the aircraft up. Rolling it backwards decreases pitch/thrust, slowing things down.

A ‘zero thrust’ button automatically puts the prop in negative pitch, dramatically slowing the Defiant. A clutch button engages or disengages the propeller. Rather than a tail rotor, the foot pedals command opposite pitch on each stacked main rotor, making Defiant rotate left or right at slow speed or in hover. At higher speeds, the pedals actuate Defiant’s rudders like an aeroplane.

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As a medium-lift helicopter replacement, Valor or Defiant will have to haul soldiers, weapons, or gear to battle just like the UH-60. Both teams affirm they can do so faster and more comfortably.

So far, the SB-1 has achieved around 205 knots (380 km/h) top speed in flight testing. Bell says it has exceeded 300 knots (555 km/h) with the V-280.

‘Pilots with pure rotary-wing experience will love it,’ McGuinness says of the Valor’s swiftness.

‘They’ll get addicted to the speed.’

Bell’s pilots relay anecdotes from the field, where the V-280’s operational big brother, the V-22, is the preferred choice for troops because it gets them where they’re needed so much faster than a helicopter.

The comfort of winged-flight during transit is one of the advantages of a tilt-rotor. Valor’s pilots compare it to a turboprop aeroplane. ‘The ride is far smoother than any helicopter I’ve flown,’ McGuinness says. ‘It’s going to be a good ride for the guys in the back, and it’s only going to take half the time to get there.’

In cruise or high-speed flight, the V-280’s pilots use the sidestick, power lever, and pedals as one would in an aeroplane.

The Defiant’s pilots say their compound helicopter flies like an aeroplane in high-speed flight, too, but without losing helicopter tools. ‘If you’re in a steep turn, instead of raising the nose and adding more prop to hold speed, you can add collective. It’s always there,’ Fell says.

With its pusher-prop – about the same size as a P-51 Mustang propeller – engaged, the SB-1’s main rotors don’t need to pitch to generate thrust. As a result, the collective is automated at speeds above 80 knots (148 km/h).

‘Unlike a normal helicopter, where your collective continues to come up as you push the nose down to go fast, in this aircraft the faster you go, the lower the collective goes,’ Fell says. ‘The pilot feels a little tug on the collective. It’s the flight-control system saying, “I got this!”.’

Despite its rigid coaxial rotor set-up, Henderscheid assures that the Defiant is much smoother and less noisy than conventional helicopters, thanks to an active anti-vibration system. Consisting of four force generators that vibrate at a sine-wave opposite to the rotor frequency, it’s analogous to a noise-cancelling headset.

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When flying the Valor or Defiant, there are two common themes: power and speed.

Despite both aircraft weighing around 13 600 kg, they leap into the air far more aggressively than a 5 445 kg Black Hawk.

Lifting off vertically in the Valor is similar to a helicopter, but there’s a catch. ‘The popularmechanics.co.za

biggest difference that you feel from a UH-60 is the kick in the seat as you [tilt] the pylons forwards and fly away,’ McGuinness says.

‘It put a huge smile on my face the first time I did it.’

Bell test pilot Paul Ryan adds that as the pilot rolls the tilt control wheel forwards on the power lever, the big proprotors come into his peripheral view.

‘It’s neat to see those big ol’ blades spinning by you.’

But the SB-1 isn’t a lightweight either. ‘The SB-1 is so much more powerful than a legacy Black Hawk,’ says Fell.

While the pilot raises the collective to lift the Defiant off the ground in the same way

as in a Black Hawk, the SB-1 responds quicker, thanks to its rigid coaxial rotors and greater twin-engine power, climbing much more dramatically, says Fell. With its counter-rotating main rotors and digital flight control, it also requires less input from the pilot.

When ready, the Defiant pilot can engage its pusher-prop, feeding in thrust to accelerate.

Fell compares the sensation to an aeroplane take-off: ‘At some point you feel thrust from the pusher-prop kick in. It’s like a turbo in a car. That’s a cue to the pilot to pull the nose up and fly it like an aeroplane using thrust from the prop to accelerate or climb.’

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Given sophisticated anti-aircraft threats, the US Army reckons its FLRAA aircraft will need to fly fast and low, figuratively slamming on the brakes as late as possible to slow to a hover or touch down in a hot landing zone (LZ).

Ryan says the V-280’s deceleration is almost more impressive than its acceleration. ‘This thing will slow down like crazy from above 200 knots.’

In flight testing, Bell has decelerated the Valor to a hover from 220 knots (408 km/h) in 45 seconds. The aircraft can slow so rapidly that Bell actually limits its rotor-tilt rate to prevent structural damage. McGuinness adds that you can think of the V-280 as tilting its proprotors or tilting its fuselage. This provides a great view of the hover or landing spot.

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The V-280 is also much smoother than a helicopter in a hover, says McGuinness, and it can rotate and yaw with the best of them. ‘There were a lot of naysayers for the V-22, saying that tilt-rotors couldn’t handle in low speed regimes … it handles great.’

According to Sikorsky-Boeing, simulations have shown the SB-1 can slow from 200 knots (370 km/h) to a hover in a half-mile while remaining largely nose-level. ‘The deceleration capability you get from the pusher-prop is uncanny,’ Fell says. ‘When you decrease pitch or even dial in negative pitch on that prop, you really feel your shoulder straps grab you as you lunge forwards from slowing down.’

Hovering is also a piece of cake in the Defiant, Henderscheid says: ‘Because the SB-1 had to have the power to go fast, it doesn’t even break a sweat to hover.’

It can also rotate at up to 30° per second.

‘If you’ve ever been in a helicopter, that’s an eye-watering yaw rate.’ popularmechanics.co.za

PHOTOGRAPHY: BELL, SIKORSKY-BOEING

Survivability was a concern when designing the UH-60 in the early 1970s, and it’s a challenge that’s only gotten tougher. Whichever FLRAA contender is selected, it will have to survive at the ‘X’ – defined by the army as the terminal area where it needs to go to deliver troops, conduct reconnaissance, or pull off attack missions.

The Valor is designed to sustain battle damage with structures that break away without threatening its passengers or crew. If one engine fails, the remaining functional engine can still send power to both proprotors.

According to Bell, it cannot hold a hover with one engine out, but it could do a short rolling take-off in an emergency.

Bell’s emphasis is on speed, not traditional helicopter strengths, such as hovering, with the V-280.

‘I think the hot LZ scenario is more survivable in a tiltrotor than in typical helicopters. You’re really minimising that time of vulnerability,’ McGuinness says. ‘There’s nothing that I’d do in a [Black Hawk] that I wouldn’t do in this aircraft. I have no trouble taking this plane to the X.’ Conversely, Sikorsky-Boeing has emphasised rotary-wing capabilities. With its pusher-propeller disengaged, the SB-1 is essentially a conventional twin-engine helicopter, its coaxial main rotors notwithstanding. Like Bell, SikorskyBoeing considers the last five kilometres travelled to the LZ the most vulnerable for an assault aircraft.

Randy Rotte, Boeing’s sales director for Future Vertical Lift, explains that the Sikorsky-Boeing team didn’t want to sacrifice helicopter qualities to get speed and endurance. If Defiant loses an engine, for example, it can still hover reliably and fly at up to 150 knots.

‘If we lose one engine or the [pusher-prop], we are still able to complete the mission,’ Rotte says.

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THOSE WANTING A HIGHLY capable multitool that’s also solidly put together, but without a steep price tag, should definitely consider the new Leatherman Bond that launched in South Africa in May this year.

Lovers of Leatherman tools will immediately recognise the classic design, which includes a range of fixed implements.

But to keep costs down, none of the tools lock into place. There is also no wood saw, scissors or serrated blade, and the wirecutting tool doesn’t have any replaceable components, like the Leatherman Rebar, a comparable model with a higher price.

What you can expect, though, is highquality materials and workmanship – traits you can attribute to all Leatherman products.

This is a back-to-basics multitool reminiscent of the first model created by brand founder Tim Leatherman back in the early 1980s. It has 14 robust tools, including needlenose pliers, regular pliers, hard-wire cutters, wire cutters, a wire stripper, a blade, an awl, a can opener, bottle opener, wood/metal file, Philips screwdriver, medium screwdriver, small screwdriver, and a ruler measuring 10 cm (or 4 inches). For ease of carry, there’s a pocket-clip attachment point, or make use of the included lanyard hole.

It might be a simpler Leatherman version to what you’ve seen before, but at only 176 g and made from durable 420HC stainless steel, it’s sure to quickly become your trusted companion while in the garage, doing chores around the house, at the campsite, or performing tasks at work.

RRP R1 200 leatherman.co.za

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MULTITOOL HOME MAINTENANCE KIT LOOKING FOR THE perfect gift for the proud Leatherman owner in your life? Or maybe you want to treat your own multitool to some muchneeded TLC… Arriving beautifully packaged in a branded box, this carefully curated kit includes all the maintenance items a discerning owner might need. There’s a Leatherman licence disc sticker, a Leatherman carabiner, a compact can of WD-40 multipurpose oil, a scouring sponge, Smith’s Sharpener, a soft cleaning cloth, three cleaning brushes, lubricating oil, and a home-maintenance tips brochure.

RRP R380 awesometools.co.za/product/ multi-tool-home-maintenance-kit

ACER PREDATOR TRITON 300 GAMING LAPTOP Choosing a gaming laptop is tricky. Price is important, but performance is key, to make sure what you’re planning to play runs smoothly … but specs can be overwhelming. We were suitably impressed with our Acer Predator Triton 300 (PT315-52) test unit recently, the credentials of which include an Intel Core i7-10750H processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card, 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB solid-state drive. All of this is enclosed in a high-quality aluminium body, which at 2.1 kg feels light and portable.

With connectivity options and ports aplenty (think Kensington lock, Gigabit Ethernet, USB ports, HDMI, Mini DisplayPort) and WiFi 6, and a full-sized keyboard, it comes fully loaded. The WASD keys – which are great for gaming – stand out, but in addition there are customisation options such as a configurable four-zone RGB backlight. There are also two unique keys – PredatorSense and Turbo.

The first opens up the utility app while the latter is all about overclocking and increasing the speed of the (already speedy) Triton 300.

The 15.6” IPS screen has a resolution of 1 920 × 1 080, and super-fast refresh rate of 240 Hz. Cooling in a gaming laptop is crucial – the Triton 300’s fan speed increases when more heat is generated, meaning it’s continually kept cool.

Within the Acer gaming laptop range, the Triton 300 sits somewhere between the less expensive Helios laptops and the pricier (and more premium) Triton 500 series. Overall, it’s a well-priced, powerful and solid gaming machine.

RRP R33 900 shopacer.co.za

KREG POCKET-HOLE JIGS Leading woodworking brand Kreg has recently introduced three new pocket-hole jigs to its range – the 720PRO, the 720, and the 520PRO – all designed to improve the speed and precision of your joinery work.

The 720PRO is the premium choice. Features such as the Automaxx one-motion clamping system (which simultaneously clamps your workpiece and automatically adjusts to the precise thickness of your material, from 13 mm to 38 mm) and Kreg Docking Station with material support wings (which converts this jig into the ultimate bench-top workstation) set this model apart. GripMaxx anti-slip material ensures your project is held firmly in place while you drill the pocket-holes. The kit includes free project plans, 160 Kreg pocket-hole screws, and a clamp to secure the jig to your workstation.

While very similar to the 720PRO, the 720 doesn’t come with a jig clamp or docking station.

One free project plan is included, along with 60 Kreg pocket-hole screws.

Keywords for the 520PRO are versatility and mobility – you’re able take the jig to your project rather than the other way round. Included is a 51 mm face clamp, 100 Kreg pocket-hole screws and a free project plan. Kreg’s VersaGrip 360° handle rotates to suit almost any project, and you simply squeeze it to clamp your workpiece firmly in place.

No matter your joinery needs, you’re sure to find a solution in Kreg’s family of pocket-hole jigs.

RRP from R2 545–R3 819 vermontsales.co.za

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PRODUCTS

HUAWEI FREEBUDS 4i EARBUDS With the many, many options of earbuds on the market, active noise cancellation (ANC) is typically something for which you’ll pay more. Generally only the more expensive high-end brands offer ANC … and then there’s Huawei’s new FreeBuds 4i earbuds.

While they have the look and feel of a premium product and feature ANC, they’re not pricey. So what’s the catch? As yet, we haven’t found one.

Huawei is known for its top-notch wearables and the FreeBuds 4i offer true bang for your buck. Available in white or black, these ergonomically designed and super-lightweight earbuds are really comfortable and deliver great sound.

They come with built-in sensors that detect and minimise most ambient noise, which means they’re also great for making calls (a clever dual-mic system with a slit-duct reduces distracting outdoor wind noise).

Other standout features include how easy they are to pair to your device (simply open the included charging case and they’re connected), and the touch controls. While other earbuds generally use single taps, with these you use a double-tap (along with its advanced AI algorithm), which eliminates accidentally pausing or playing whatever you’re listening to.

Battery life is excellent – 10 hours of continuous play, and if power is running low, charging the FreeBuds 4i for 10 minutes will provide you with four hours of additional playtime. Include the charging case and you’re looking at 22 hours in total. With intuitive touch controls, long-lasting batteries, ANC and highquality sound, the Huawei FreeBuds 4i could just be the budget-friendly fuss-free earbuds you’ve been searching for.

RRP R1 499 consumer.huawei.com/za/shop

BRITA ON-TAP WATER FILTER SYSTEM How clean is the water you’re drinking? Instead of having a Brita water jug in your fridge, perhaps it’s time to upgrade to a Brita On-Tap Water Filter System. Rather than having to continuously fill up that jug or trying to remember when to change the filter (it’s two months, by the way) this neat filtration system connects directly to your kitchen tap. Simply turn it on for filtered water on demand.

Included are five different adapters ensuring a leak-free connection to your tap. Installation couldn’t be easier – no tools are needed – and there is a convenient digital display that counts down the litres of filtered water used. The LCD countdown timer starts at 600 litres, and when it hits zero, it’s time to buy a new filter cartridge. That’s about 2 400 glasses of wonderfully pure water, directly from your tap. Brita says that the hollow-fibre membrane removes 99.99 per cent of bacteria, microplastics, and even hormones.

The filter contains an organic coconut-based activated carbon that removes taste-impairing and odour-causing impurities such as chlorine, pesticides and herbicides. There is also an ion exchange fibre that reduces heavy metals such as lead and chromium but retains healthy minerals such as calcium and magnesium.

The three different modes – filtered, unfiltered and an ‘unfiltered shower’ option (which is good for washing dishes) – let you choose whether to use the filter or not.

This is a convenient and simple solution for better-tasting (and healthier) water.

R999 builders.co.za

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OLARM PRO A PRIORITY FOR all South Africans is to live in a safe and well-protected home. A safe family is a happy family.

Olarm Pro is a smart security communicator device that integrates seamlessly with most existing alarm systems, helping to keep you and your property secure even during load-shedding events. Because of the simultaneous WiFi and GSM signal-routing processes (with dual SIM, so the strongest network between Vodacom and MTN is selected), you can always rest assured knowing that alerts will be delivered via the quickest and most-efficient connection available.

The disc-shaped Olarm PRO device, 125 mm in diameter and 33.5 mm in height, is installed in close proximity to your existing alarm panel (locating this component is typically the trickiest part of the whole process). Once connected, the PRO automatically configures itself to the alarm panel settings, which along with the associated Olarm App gives you full remote control over your property (or properties, if you have more than one linked to your profile). Alerts are sent wirelessly, so severing of land-based telecommunications infrastructure will not interrupt the signal.

The app lets you monitor and control the security of all your sites on your smartphone, including arm or disarm your alarm, bypass zones, check up on historical activity, or even activate SOS panic alarms in emergencies. It also links your system directly to the control room of your chosen response company.

RRP R999 (excludes installation) olarm.co/resellers

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PRODUCTS

SAMSUNG’S A SERIES of smartphones are known as mid-rangers. They have pretty much everything you need in a smartphone but are available at a more affordable price.

With its modern design that’s comfortable to hold, the newly launched Samsung Galaxy A32 is exactly that.

While its plastic back does attract fingerprints, the build quality is excellent and – as odd as it might seem – the 3.5 mm audio jack is a welcome addition. A standout feature is that this is the first Samsung smartphone in the A series boasting a 90 Hz active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) display (expect bright colours and an excellent contrast ratio).

The quad rear camera set-up has a 64 MP lens, an ultra-wide and a macro sensor. The 20 MP selfie camera is pretty good too, and we particularly liked the portrait mode. There are several other camera modes such as panorama, basic pro, hyperlapse, slow motion, AR Doodle and video recording, but without optical image stabilisation we wouldn’t necessarily pick this phone as our go-to for creators.

As expected, it runs Android 11, and the entire experience is mostly lag-free thanks to the MediaTek Helio G80 SoC processor, which may not be a top-of-the-line smartphone processor, but it’s perfectly fine for day-to-day use.

The 5 000 mAh battery keeps the phone powered up for more than a day, even if you’re a heavy user. 15 W fast-charging is supported, so you’ll be able to recharge back up to 100 per cent in about two hours.

With Samsung Pay and a built-in optical fingerprint scanner, you’re getting a few premium features that are often omitted from mid-range smartphones. All of these features together make this a solid choice for its price.

RRP R5 499 samsung.com/za

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LOGITECH Z407 BLUETOOTH COMPUTER SPEAKERS WORKING FROM HOME? Looking to ramp up your PC gaming experience? Then you’re going to absolutely love this 2.1 speaker system from Logitech.

The Z407 is made up of two satellite speakers, a subwoofer and a wireless controller. From the moment you open the box and see the quick start guide printed on the actual packaging, you’ll realise how easy these speakers are to set up.

Sleek and matt-finished, the speakers come with removable (and adjustable) stands – place them upright, or turn them on their sides, a flexibility that makes them easier to fit within your space. Inputs and outputs reside on the back of the subwoofer; you can connect up to three devices using Bluetooth, microUSB, or the 3.5 mm port. The wireless control dial is quite a clever addition.

Powered by two AAA batteries, use it to easily change the volume, skip tracks or hit play/pause. It also lets you roam up to 20 m and still control your audio.

Sound quality is impressive, and even audiophiles will appreciate the clarity.

Logitech’s digital signal processing, 80 W of peak power, and 40 W RMS (the continuous power handling of the speakers) together produce the big, beautifully balanced sound you’ll hear coming out of the Z407 speakers, while the ported, down-firing subwoofer delivers the powerful bass.

For an enhanced desktop sound experience, these speakers pack a solid punch at a rather competitive price point.

RRP R1 958 geewiz.co.za

FUJIFILM INSTAX MINI 40 TEXT: TIANA CLINE, MARK SAMUEL; PHOTOGRAPHY: VECTEEZY, COURTESY IMAGES. PRICES CORRECT AT TIME OF PRINT AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. PRODUCTS AND DEALS ONLY AVAILABLE WHILE STOCKS LAST.

SOMETIMES STEPPING BACK and going a bit retro can be fun, especially with photography.

Fujifilm has launched the Instax Mini 40 instant camera into its burgeoning Instax range.

In spite of how this camera might look and feel – and it really does have that wonderful old-school appearance – it includes a number of useful contemporary features, such as the Automatic Exposure function that automatically takes into account the overall shooting conditions and then optimises the shutter speed, flash strength and various other settings to deliver better image results.

When activated, Selfie Mode – used in conjunction with the selfie mirror (no, there is no swivelling LCD on this device) – sets the camera up for close-up shots of, well, yourself. We’re talking a focal range of 30–50 cm remaining in focus.

It’s powered by two included AA batteries, and at only 330 g (excluding batteries, strap and film), it’s not very heavy to lug around with you. Speaking of film … yes, there’s no memory card in sight – it uses Fujifilm’s Mini Film, which provides photos 62 mm × 46 mm in size. It’s simple to load, and the camera prints beautiful photos in about 90 seconds.

Sure, it’s a bit quirky, and probably won’t win you too many wildlife photography awards, but it’s an endearing device that grows on you the more you use it.

RRP R1 399 instaxsa.co.za/wheretobuy

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I BUILT THIS BOAT WITH A BOOK FROM THE GENTLEMAN’S RACER DESIGN CAME FROM OLD POPULAR MECHANICS PLANS.

BY JIM EICHER

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My family has owned a Ford dealership since before the First World War, but when I was a kid, I loved boats most. Even as I took over the dealership and spent 40 years in the automotive business, I completed a number of boat restorations and builds. Years ago, my mother-in-law gave me a 1935 edition of a book from the Popular Mechanics Press called The Boat Book: Everything of Interest to the Amateur Boatman.

Inside were plans to build a modified recreation boat prevalent in the ’20s and ’30s called a Gentleman’s Racer (or Gentleman’s Runabout). I loved the plans, and after a few years of only imagining the build, I laid out a roll of paper on the dealership’s showroom floor and drew the whole boat, full-size and full-scale, with a protractor, square, and compass. No computer whatsoever.

MODERNISING THE ENGINE THE BOOK’S DESIGN WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1931,

so I had to make a few changes. The book outfitted the boat with a Ford Model A engine, but I had my eye on a 250 cid straightsix Ford, the same engine you’d find in an early Mustang, Torino, or Granada.

All due respect to my Ford heritage, a Model A motor is heavy, temperamental, and not particularly safe in a boat – the carburettors tended to leak fuel. My in-line six solved those issues and delivered triple the horsepower, 120 horses (90 kW) compared to the Model A’s, roughly, 40. However, it still fitted well within the rpm range

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PHOTOGRAPHY: JIM EICHER (THIS PAGE), DR SCOTT BIXLER (PREVIOUS SPREAD), COLIN MCSHERRY (PAPERCLIP)

in which the boat would be operating, and it struck a nice balance between nostalgia and reliability. I also modified the original engine installation plans and lengthened the craft by 19 inches (almost 50 cm) to move the engine further aft. This gave the boat better balance and handling.

The engine is basically stock, with the exception of a larger carb from a Ford 300 cid truck engine and marinisation to make it compatible with an open-loop cooling system. There’s a pre-cooler for the transmission and a raw-water pump that circulates water through the engine, through the water-jacketed exhaust manifold, then out to the lake again.

I also constructed a custom oil pan in order to move the oil sump to the back of the engine – that was necessary with my modifications, which had the engine operating at a 14° angle.

popularmechanics.co.za

I installed the engine prior to finishing the deck for easier access to the wiring, cooling, and exhaust systems.

A V8 is the typical engine for a custom After years build, so using the in-line six made things of admiration, trickier, but the old 250 six matched up I used these perfectly to a BorgWarner Velvet Drive plans as my marine transmission. In my experience, blueprints. a Velvet Drive is often paired with a 351Ford engine, common in many ski boats.

In the dash, the tachometer, water temp, oil pressure, fuel, and battery gauges are all era-correct Stewart Warners – but I did a few things ‘incorrect’. There’s a dead man’s switch under the dash and a modern blower system to ventilate the bilge, plus a few other safety items, such as a modern marine fuel tank and a triple-layer epoxy-encapsulated hull for extra strength and durability.

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SHAPING THE BOAT THE DIFFERENT ENGINE CAUSED A FEW RIPPLE EFFECTS

in how I had to alter the Popular Mechanics design.

Because I was extending the length of the boat, it was important to keep the curve of the deck consistent and seamless. I wanted to accentuate the tumblehome – the inward curve of the sides towards the aft – so my son and I developed an equation to ensure the geometries worked out.

You can’t just run a straight line from frame to frame, because the side curves more towards the back, and the deck narrows at an ever-increasing rate the more aft you go. I added another frame at the back to support the extra length, so the boat ended up considerably stronger than the original.

We used the outside dimensions Pop Mech had published, but where the original plans called for 1.5” white pine frames, I used 2.5” oak for additional strength.

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Once the frames were together, I built the keel and epoxied and bolted the seven main frames and the transom to the keel. Then I ran the battens on the outside of the frames, as called for in the 1935 plans. All the frames are white oak, and the exterior is mahogany.

The toughest build area was the wood forming the bow. You can bend a piece of wood no problem, but where you have a lot of flair (like with the curves on the bow of a boat) you have to roll the plank in two different directions simultaneously. I threw a few pieces of mahogany away, thanks to trial and error.

The proper way to shape the wood would have been to use a steam room. But I ended up soaking the wood in my pond, and made a jig where I could bend the wood little by little until I achieved the shape I wanted. Then, I just let the planks dry in the sun.

It took me four and a half years of evenings and weekends to frame; build the keel; complete the hull; install the engine, transmission, and drivetrain; apply a urethane clear coat; upholster the interior; and install the stainless steel trim. I eventually named it Flash, the same name given to the boat in the old Popular Mechanics book.

popularmechanics.co.za

Once I had completed the frame, I applied the mahogany outer layer.

PHOTOGRAPHY: JIM EICHER, COLIN MCSHERRY (PAPERCLIP)

The unique history of the Gentleman’s Racer inspired me to build Flash. My family loves vehicles.

Our Ford dealership is one of the oldest in North America. All together, we’ve been selling cars for 105 years.

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The oak for the boat comes from my very own woods. I cut down the timber a few years ago, and had it aged and dried for the build.

The Flash gold-leaf script is a duplication of what’s in the book.

The 18”-pitch, three-blade propeller passes through the keel at 14°.

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UPDATING A CLASSIC THE BOOK’S MATERIALS LIST WAS A BIT DATED. AN OBVIOUS

PHOTOGRAPHY: JIM EICHER, DR SCOTT BIXLER (BOAT IN WATER), COLIN MCSHERRY (PAPERCLIP)

example: The instructions called for a canvas deck coated with ‘plenty of lead paint’. I wanted to stay true to the original design, but not that true.

I covered the boat with marine-grade mahogany, with each piece coated in epoxy and screwed to the boat. For the finish, I used a conventional wooden stain, with an automotive-grade urethane clear coat for the top surface.

Popular Mechanics purists from the ’30s would probably roll over in their graves upon hearing that, but acrylic urethane is harder than and superior to varnish. If I had used the organic materials called for in the book, the life expectancy of the boat would have been pretty limited.

Many boats in the old Gentleman’s Racer class had two seats: the driver and navigator’s seat aft and a ‘seat’ in the forward deck. Some boats had a hatch to cover the forward seat, but even with the hatch, it was still considered a recreation boat rather than something you’d race for sport, in the same way a hot rod is still technically a passenger car.

Some of my dealership connections came in handy for aesthetics and accessories. A shop in Celina, Ohio, sewed all the vinyl upholstery for the boat. The plans called for leather, but the ride of this boat produces a lot of spray, so the interior was guaranteed to be wet. The windshield and brackets were made by a speciality shop, and an Amish cabinet shop local to my home in Indiana did some of the complex wood-cutting. Other local Amish companies crafted the stainless-steel hardware on the deck and sides, and installed the gold-leaf lettering.

With all the modifications, I had to calculate the displacement of the boat to verify balance and water-line height. Water weighs just more than 60 pounds per cubic foot (998 kg/m3). By calculating the cubic footage of the hull, I was able to establish how deep the boat would sit in the water. When the boat was finally launched, it floated within a half-inch of what my mathematical calculations had predicted. Not bad for a protractor and compass.

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TESTING ITS PERFORMANCE THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN A FAST BOAT BACK IN THE

day. It can be dead in the water and reach full plane in just under two seconds. It’ll never be fast by modern standards because of the old-school hydrodynamics and engineering. New boats have designs that lift them out of the water at speed, and this one can’t achieve that lift.

With the 18” pitch on the propeller – allowing for 15 per cent propeller slippage – and the engine turning at 3 200 rpm, my maths says the boat should have a top speed of around 46 mph (74 km/h). But 40 is probably more realistic. Due to the fresh engine, I haven’t pushed it hard to the top end yet.

As far as driving and handling, Flash is quite wellmannered. Granted, performance isn’t on par with a contemporary sport boat, but a 1930s sedan won’t handle or perform comparable to a modern vehicle, either.

Regardless, cruising at 28 to 30 mph (±45 km/h), this boat is as sweet as can be. It’s an attention-getter, too. Flash creates a huge curtain of spray on both sides, and when I take it out, people on other boats are always taking pictures.

I numbered the boat with G-36 – G for the Gentleman’s Racer classification, and 36 for the rough vintage – and stamped its name, Flash, in gold leaf. Finally, I put ‘AJ Moser’ – my great-grandfather who founded our family dealership in 1886 – on the side. That’s a nod to my father, too. He made things all his life. He told me: ‘Jim, work with your hands. You can do things if you try, and it’s good for your mind.’ Maybe my great-grandchildren will be able to dig out this story in another 85 years and show off the boat again. – As told to Jordan Golson

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TEC HNOLOGY / BY TIANA CLINE /

Where

food

Advancements in technology are changing what we eat, and where our food comes from. Are you ready for the future of food?

A

RTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) is driving the Fourth Manufacturing Revolution –

Industry 4.0. Blockchain is telling us where our produce comes from. Drones have become an integral part of agriculture. NASA is 3D-printing pizzas for astronauts (and you can 3D-print sushi at home). There’s a robotic bartender named Makr Shakr. Everybody has – or wants – an air fryer. Tens of thousands of hamburgers can be grown in a lab using stem cells. It might all sound like sci-fi, but it’s reality – technology is dramatically altering humans’ relationship with food.

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popularmechanics.co.za

While robot bartenders seem like something exclusively reserved for cruise ships, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing, these automated servers are now becoming a very real solution for a ‘safety-first’ future.

From humanoid, tux-wearing robots creating cocktails, to Barsys 2.0 – a smart, automated cocktail-making machine for your home – it’s never been easier to mix a Martini.

MANUFACTURE IT YOURSELF

Right: This 3D-printer turns food waste into attractive, tasty cookies for restaurants.

Below: Tipsy Robots have the capacity to produce up to 120 drinks per hour. Each cocktail only takes 60 to 90 seconds to make.

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3D printing has opened the doors to food innovation, and it’s surprisingly sustainable.

It’s not necessarily about creating a meal in minutes; rather, the fact that a 3D printer uses exactly the ingredients you put into it and nothing else makes the process less wasteful than mass production. While food printers first focused on one ingredient (such as chocolate), they can now work with a number of ingredients.

Foodini, the Michelin-Star-approved 3D printer from Natural Machines – a Barcelona-based food tech company – is focused on sustainability and preventing food waste. Unlike, for example, a coffee capsule machine, where you have to buy the ingredients, the Foodini ships with stainlesssteel food capsules, which means what you put in, you get out.

‘People really want to know where their food is coming from and what exactly is in it,’ says Foodini’s co-founder Lynette Kucsma. ‘It’s about having personalised, customised food and not just relying on generic foods that are on the supermarket shelf.’

An award-winning Dutch company called Upprinting Food has taken this one step further, by taking food waste and turning it into 3Dprinted snacks. They use discarded fruit and vegetables – usually the unpleasant-looking ones that simply don’t sell – to create cookies.

Elzelinde van Doleweerd started upcycling with bread, the number-one wasted food product in the Netherlands. She’s now looking to work with restaurants and show the world how wonderful food waste can be.

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TEC HNOLOGY

ANYTHING BUT ARTIFICIAL

Can you forecast flavour trends using technology?

Well, McCormick, one of the biggest food seasoning companies in the world, has been working with IBM Research to analyse taste data that the company has been collecting for more than 40 years. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and multiple machine-learning algorithms, they’re attempting to predict and create new flavour combinations that consumers will love.

The science behind how people experience flavour is not well researched, and the age-old idea that the tongue picks up four flavours – sour, sweet, salty and bitter – simply isn’t true. Flavour is a combination of art, science and genetics, and AI could speed up product development at a rapid pace.

‘A key challenge in the flavour- and food-product industry is how to create the next icon,’ explains IBM’s Dr Robin Lougee. ‘With the AI system, the time it takes a product developer to create a new food product is reduced by about 70 per cent.’

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Above: Artificial intelligence is being used to develop new, exciting flavour experiences.

Below right: Air fryers use heated circulating air to produce the same taste and crunchy texture that makes deep-fried food so good.

Far right: Cultured meat is created by painlessly harvesting cells from a live animal.

One of the most popular kitchen gadgets today is the air fryer. If you don’t have one, you probably want one. And if you have one, odds are you’re almost evangelical about everyone else buying one. So what makes this countertop appliance that much better than a simple sheet pan?

‘An air fryer is basically a supercharged mini convection oven,’ says Paul Dimaio, the local importer of InstantPot and Instant Vortex in South Africa. ‘Anything you can do in an oven, you can do in an air fryer – it’s just much faster to heat up. Big, built-in ovens take a long time to preheat, so they use a lot of energy. Microwaves make food soggy, and there are some health considerations to take into account.’

Air fryers don’t actually fry food – they circulate very hot air around just like an oven, essentially baking or roasting your food in the process. The main benefits are speed, crunchiness (or texture) and healthiness.

No oil? No problem. According to a recent report, the market for air fryers is growing at an exponential rate. With so many brands to choose from, it looks as if this is one appliance that’s here to stay.

‘Air fryers are surprisingly versatile. The Instant Vortex has exceeded our sales expectations when it comes to small appliances, and it’s going to keep on growing.’

popularmechanics.co.za

Did you know that meat can now be made in a lab? Say goodbye to farms and hello to stem cells. Many proponents suggest cellular agriculture is the future, and it’s hard to disagree that the impact and innovation behind cultivated meat seems limitless. Thanks to advances in biotechnology, companies are popping up all around the world that are committed to making safer and more sustainable meat. We spoke to Brett Thompson, CEO of Mzansi Meat Co, Africa’s first cultivated meat company.

Popular Mechanics: What is cultivated meat?

Brett Thompson: Cultivated meat, also known as cultured meat,

by using science, we can achieve that same great taste we all love. We’re harvesting a few cells and growing meat while using considerably less land and water, ultimately making production less costly.

Consumers will make the final decision on whether cultivated meat is the future – we plan to make our meat widely available and costcompetitive; that’s how we ensure it’s the future of meat.

gets its name from how the meat is produced. Traditional meat production requires animal husbandry and subsequent slaughter to produce what we know as ‘meat’. Cultivated meat production, on the other hand, requires isolating a small number of cells and cultivating them in a controlled environment.

PM: Is cultivated meat better

PM: We’ve read that with one sesame-seed-sized sample of

BT: Animal agriculture utilises

cells a lab can make tens of thousands of burgers. Is this true?

more than 80 per cent of the world’s habitable land, 30 per cent of our freshwater supply, and is a major contributor of deforestation. Cultivated-meat production will use a tiny fraction of the land required by livestock, and that freed-up land could be used for clean energy production and carbon sequestration. By freeing up so much land, cultivated-meat production should certainly be a significant net positive for climate change.

for the environment?

BT: There are around 8 billion cells in every gram of meat that Brett Thompson, CEO of Mzansi Meat Co

we cultivate … so to produce products at any sort of viable scale certain novel techniques will have to be explored, and we’re working on these.

In theory, we’re able to take a tiny collection of cells and grow them over time to produce stacks of burgers. This is because cells have the natural ability to grow and divide over time. So we can take several samples – about 10 000 cells each – and grow them into 8 trillion cells, to give us around 1 kg of meat.

PM: Where do you get the cells from?

BT: Our donor animals live their harm-free life at an animal sanctuary. It’s here that we gently take a few of their cells, which are then fed into a bioreactor to grow. The animal continues its days in peace while we harvest the tissue, and then dinner is served!

PHOTOGRAPHY: MZANSI MEAT, GALLO/GETTYIMAGES, COURTESY IMAGES

PM: What does lab-grown PM: What’s the difference between what your company does and,

meat taste like?

for example, Beyond Burger?

BT: Beyond Burger patties are made from plants – pea-proteins to be exact. This means they’re plant-based or vegan. For many people cutting back on animal products, meat alternatives such as Beyond Burger products are fantastic. We aren’t making an alternative though – we’re making actual meat. We’re using cells from animals without the need to do any harm. It’s real meat made lekker.

BT: Meat! Cultivated meat is

PM: Is cultivated meat the future of food?

BT: When we look at the data, it’s clear that conventional meat as an industry and as a protein source has peaked, in terms of efficiency and output. Cultivated meat has the potential to lighten the load, and

made up of the muscle and fat that is found in conventional meat. If you live in Singapore, you can already order cultivated chicken at home, and yes, it tastes like chicken. We’re going to great lengths to ensure that familiar textures and flavour profiles are identical. So get ready for cultivated beef in South Africa pretty soon.

Cultivated meat isn’t new – the first lab-grown burger was actually eaten back in 2013. According to the BBC, this burger – created by Dutch researcher Professor Mark Post and his team at Maastricht University in the Netherlands – made from billions of cow cells, cost a whopping $300 000 to produce. Five years later, Memphis Meats made its own ground beef in a lab and got the price of the burger right down to $600. A lot has changed – you can now head to 1880 in Singapore and find lab-grown chicken (from an American company called GOOD Meat Cultured Chicken) on the menu.

MAKING HEADWAY

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DRINKS

HOME-BREWING

Calagione and his son, Sammy, brew a beer together at their home in Lewes, Delaware, USA.

DEVELOP YOUR OWN HOME-BREWING PHILOSOPHY

B

EER IS A CATALYST for community building.

At our brewery, Dogfish Head, my wife Mariah and I have tried to show our kids that we make fun, creative, off-centred ales that connect us to awesome people such as the Grateful Dead and our co-workers. We hoped one of them might be interested in carrying on this tradition, but we didn’t want to put that weight on their shoulders.

We expected our kids to get holiday jobs by the time they were 14. Our daughter, Grier, has chosen not to work at Dogfish Head, whereas Sammy started running food at our pub in 2015. After he told us he loved biology and chemistry, we arranged for him to brew a non-alcoholic birch beer at Boothbay Craft Brewery, near Dogfish Head, Maine, where I spent my summers growing up.

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He apprenticed in the Dogfish brewpub’s microbiology lab in 2017 and, the next summer, asked to apprentice at our brewery. My wife and I told him that it wasn’t a budgeted position. He needed to make money. To his credit, he worked nights running food and cleaning tables, then apprenticed at our brewpub during the day.

Last summer, he apprenticed at our production brewery.

Believe me, it’s heartwarming to show up for a brew day and have my son help me crush the grain.

We’ve not had any discussion about ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ He’s only in second-year at Brown University. I try not to force anything, but if you go into his bedroom, he’s dogeared my home-brew books. Sitting in our kitchen for three hours and making an all-grain home brew is super cool, but it’s a means to an end. The end is spending quality time with the person you love.

– Sam Calagione, as told to Joshua M Bernstein

ELEVATE YOUR HOME BREWING

Calagione is committed to unconventional flavour charges, from Icelandic kelp to China’s intensely sweet monk fruit extract. Here’s how you can apply his unique philosophy to your home brewing.

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SEEK INSPIRATION IN THE SPICE CABINET

Calagione assesses spices, herbs or culinary ingredients by making teas or tinctures. To try it, put a small amount of your chosen spice into a bowl and pour a pint of hot water over it. ‘You can usually get a sense of the intensity and characteristics, which will inform how much you want to add when you scale up to your 20 litre batch,’ he says.

Less is best with spices such as cardamom seeds (30 g), fresh ginger (60 g), spruce tips (60 g), and cinnamon sticks (two), all of which you’ll want to add towards the last 10 minutes of the boil, the stage when you sterilise the wort and add the hops. Steep the spices in a muslin sack or speciality grain bag for easy removal. Also, consider how ingredients might create bridges to food.

To create a perfect pairing for raw oysters, for example, Dogfish Head collaborated with Maine’s Oxbow Brewing Company on Kelp! I Need Some Honey, a saison with brininess and minerality from dried, crushed Icelandic kelp that’s added during the whirlpool, a step at the end of the brewing process that spins the wort to separate out hops and other solids. This maintains the oceanic aromatics and sterilises the seaweed. ‘We don’t pasteurise,’ Calagione says.

LOOK TO FRUIT FOR FLAVOUR

For stone fruit and berries, Calagione favours fresh produce or aseptic (contaminant-free) frozen purees added at the boil’s finish and simmered for around 20 minutes at 70°C to 76°C, then strained out before fermentation. You’ll use more fruit than you might think: around 4.5 kg of crushed blueberries and sour cherries (or half that amount if you’re using a puree).

The bright acidity of a kettle-soured German ale plays especially well with berries, as in Dogfish Head’s SuperEIGHT gose, which contains blackberries and raspberries, among other fruits. If you’re using citrus, peel the zest from the middle white layer (or pith). ‘I’ve never found a recipe where the pith adds positive characteristics,’ Calagione says. Add 30 to 60 g of zest in the boil’s final minutes for a citrusy pop. ‘The essential oils don’t get fermented, so they stay on the top notes of the beer and contribute more aromatics.’

TEXT: POP MECH EDITORS; PHOTOGRAPHY: LAKOTA GAMBILL

TRY A BARREL-AGED SHORTCUT

You likely can’t age your beer in 40 000-litre tanks hewn from fragrant Paraguayan wood like Dogfish Head does.

(Those tanks produce the brawny caramel-accented Palo Santo Marron brown ale.) Instead, develop barrel flavour by dropping several oak chips in a mason jar with 120 to 150 ml of a strong, neutral spirit such as organic foodgrade ethanol to serve as a solvent. ‘Shake it every morning for a week to expose another layer of resin-rich wood,’ Calagione says. After the beer finishes fermenting, add drops of the tincture to taste before bottling.

TREAT SUGAR AS A TASTY ADDITION

Dogfish Head uses molasses, maple syrup, and brown

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*Suggested measures are for 20-litre batches.

Feel free to experiment.

sugar to boost a beer’s flavourful complexity. Calagione recommends keeping adjuncts to less than 20 per cent of a beer’s total fermentable sugars to avoid an unpleasant dryness. Retain maple syrup’s delicate characteristics by adding it after the boil, during fermentation. ‘The brewer’s yeast eats the sugars at the same time it’s eating sugars from grains,’ Calagione says, leaving flavour and not sweetness.

Sometimes extra sweetness is essential, especially when brewing light, low-calorie beers with amyloglucosidase enzymes. They break complex sugars into simple sugars that yeast converts to alcohol, but the trade-off is no body. ‘That’s why industrial light lagers taste so watery,’ Calagione says. One breakthrough ingredient is unfermentable, zero-calorie monk fruit extract, which is hundreds of times sweeter than table sugar. As with spices, assess monk fruit’s intensity by making tea or tincture before adding it during the sterilising whirlpool, and ‘recognise that a little goes a long way,’ Calagione says.

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P R OV I S I O N S

MAKE A GATSBY / BY P M F OO D TE A M /

Take your sandwich-making skills to the next level, and master a South African staple.

THERE’S REALLY NO STANDARD

recipe for a Gatsby. It’s more than just a sandwich – it’s a Cape Town institution that’s supposed to be large, overflowing with ingredients, and shared by friends and family.

Originating in the Mother City, it’s typically a foot long, packed with delicious fillings, and dripping with spicy sauce. While it might be the city’s ultimate takeaway meal, and there’s nothing quite like buying a freshly made Gatsby from your local corner shop, there’s definitely another way to get them – make them yourself at home!

Here’s a slightly healthier approach – three different Gatsby recipes designed to hit the spot and satisfy those urgent hunger pangs.

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Lamb Gatsby with tzatziki and zucchini fries

PREP TIME 35 min COOKING TIME 30 min SERVES 4

STEPS TO SUCCESS

1 2 3 4 5

WHAT YOU’LL NEED For the lamb meatballs 500 g lamb mince 1 slice white bread 1 onion, finely chopped 1 egg 1 tsp cumin 3 garlic cloves, grated ½ tsp cinnamon 1 tsp dried mixed herbs ½ tsp paprika Oil, to fry For the tzatziki ½ cup double-cream yoghurt ½ cup sour cream ½ cucumber, diced ½ tsp ground cumin 1 garlic clove, crushed ½ tsp salt

For the zucchini fries ¾ cup cornflour 1 cup flour 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 2–2½ cups ice-cold soda water Oil, for frying 6 zucchinis, cut into batons To serve 1 large baguette Sriracha or hot sauce, to taste Medjool dates, halved Handful mint, to garnish

TIP To make this a quick and easy cheat ‘home-made’ Gatsby, use store-bought meatballs and tzatziki, and takeaway slap chips instead.

6 7

For the lamb meatballs, place all the meatball ingredients in a bowl.

Using your hands, combine until fully incorporated.

Measure out 2 tsp of the meat mixture and roll into a ball.

Repeat with the remaining mixture.

Heat oil in a frying pan on a high setting. Add the meatballs to the pan, then reduce the heat to medium. Cook for 2 minutes, then flip over and cover to cook until done.

For the tzatziki, combine all the ingredients together.

For the zucchini fries, combine the cornflour, flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

Pour in the soda water, stirring constantly, until the consistency of the batter is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat.

Using a fork, dip the zucchini strips into the batter, shake off any excess batter and fry until crisp and golden brown.

Drain on paper towel.

To serve, slice the baguette in half, spread with some hot sauce and fill with meatballs.

Top with tzatziki, dates, zucchini fries and mint leaves, and cut into four.

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CA P E TO W N F O R C A PE TO N I A N S

COM

Ca p e To w n’ s f a vour ite s ite fo r t h e rea l s co o p o n w ha t ’ s h a p p e n in g in t h e Mo t h e r C i t y

NEWS. WE ATH E R. F O O D & WI N E. TR AV E L. A DVE NT UR E .

EN T ERTAI N MENT. WH AT’ S ON .

SCAN HERE

capetownetc.com

capetownetc@hsm.co.za

P R OV I S I O N S

MAKE A GATSBY

PREP TIME 35 min (+ 2 hours for marinating) COOKING TIME 45 min SERVES 4

STEPS TO SUCCESS

1 2 3 Butter chicken Gatsby with pickled spring onion

WHAT YOU’LL NEED For the spring-onion pickle 1 bunch spring onions, thinly sliced ¼ cup lemon juice 3 tbsp sugar 1 tbsp salt For the butter chicken 1 kg chicken pieces, on the bone ½ cup plain yoghurt 2 garlic cloves, crushed 1 tsp grated ginger 2 tsp cumin 2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp garam masala ½ tsp chilli powder 2 tbsp butter 1 onion, sliced into thick wedges 410 g tin tomato puree 1 cup chicken stock ½ cup thick cream For the curly fries Oil, for frying 3 large potatoes, peeled To serve 1 large seeded French loaf, split open Coriander, to garnish

TIP Come lunchtime, use takeaway or leftover butter chicken from the night before to make these satisfying Gatsbys quickly and easily.

4

5

6

For the spring-onion pickle, combine the ingredients with ½ cup water. Cover and set aside for 30 minutes.

For the butter chicken, marinate the chicken with the yoghurt, garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, garam masala and chilli powder for 2 hours.

Heat butter in a pan and fry the onion until soft. Add the marinated chicken and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the tomato puree and stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15–20 minutes until the sauce has thickened. Stir in the cream and simmer for another 5 minutes.

For the curly fries, while the butter chicken is cooking, heat oil in a large saucepan over high heat. Using a vegetable peeler, peel the potatoes into thin ribbons. Fry in batches until they are golden brown and crispy.

Drain on paper towel.

To serve, remove the meat from the bones, and mix the meat back into the sauce. Fill the French loaf with butter chicken and top with spring-onion pickle, coriander and curly fries.

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P R OV I S I O N S

MAKE A GATSBY

Roast vegetable and mozzarella Gatsby

WHAT YOU’LL NEED STEPS TO SUCCESS

1 2 3 4 5 6

For the roast vegetables, preheat oven to 200°C. Toss the vegetables and potatoes with the oil and seeds. Spread out in an even layer on a large roasting pan and roast for 35–40 minutes until soft and slightly charred.

For the mozzarella balls, heat the oil in a pot over mediumhigh heat. Meanwhile, combine the breadcrumbs and the flour in a shallow dish.

Dip each block of mozzarella in the beaten egg, then coat in the breadcrumbs.

Lower the mozzarella balls into the hot oil with a slotted spoon.

Fry in batches until golden brown. Drain on paper towel and season with salt.

To serve, slice open the French loaf and spread with mayonnaise and some peri-peri sauce.

Place basil leaves, roast vegetables and mozzarella balls inside.

For the roast vegetables 800 g mixed vegetables 2 potatoes, cut into chips ¼ cup olive oil ¼ cup mixed seeds

For the mozzarella balls Oil, for frying 2 cups breadcrumbs 3 tbsp flour 1 block mozzarella, cut into cubes 2 eggs, beaten

TIP You can buy bags of pre-peeled and chopped mixed roasting vegetables at most supermarkets, or make your own with a variety of your favourites.

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To serve 1 large wholewheat French loaf ¼ cup mayonnaise Peri-peri sauce, to taste Handful basil leaves, to garnish

RECIPES AND STYLING: AMERAE VERCUEIL PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREAS EISELEN/HMIMAGES.CO.ZA

PREP TIME 25 min COOKING TIME 40 min SERVES 4

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CRAFT A

P R AC T I C A L K N OW L E D G E

MAKE A WOODEN TOOLBOX

BY MAKING SOMETHING THAT’S BUILT TO LAST

CREATE AN HEIRLOOM TOOLBOX / BY BR AD FORD AND ROY BERENDSOHN /

W

e designed this toolbox to be as attractive as it is durable, and capable of holding and protecting some of our most prized tools. But more than that, we wanted to build something our children will cherish long after we’re gone.

To do that, we created a design that prioritises precision and patience during construction. The joinery for the corners, handle and uprights have to fit together tightly to be structurally sound.

The box sides and ends are joined with dovetails – the strongest corner joint you can make without fasteners or hardware in a home workshop. The uprights are inset into the box ends. Done neatly, the wedging action of the joint is strong, especially when glue is added, and this holds the two pieces together firmly. Even more strength comes from the tenon that connects the handle to the uprights.

Lastly, note that the handle is made up of three pieces – a lamination. This crucial detail enables you to form an attractive compound curve without a weak boundary area created by the handle’s shape. At the point where the grain is weakest, another piece of wood with a different grain pattern reinforces it. The difference between the two grain patterns interrupts the forces that would normally crack the handle.

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P R AC T I C A L K N OW L E D G E

MAKE A WOODEN TOOLBOX

The dovetails used to join the sides and ends are the strongest corner joint you can make without fasteners in a home workshop.

HOW TO CUT DOVETAILS

It’s possible to hand cut the dovetails, but it takes a lot of practise to make them fit well together. We used a dovetail jig to cut the box corners. The jig will let you do it on your first try, and templates are available online to make a variety of dovetail patterns (we used the Rockler brand’s Distinctive Template A for this box).

If this is your first dovetail joint, practise by making two or three test cuts on inexpensive, knot-free pine. Then cut and dovetail together two pieces of scrap hardwood, of the same type you’ll be using for the box.

Once you’re satisfied with the results, dovetail the box ends and sides.

Cut the box sides and ends to length and stand them up as they will fit together once assembled. Label them so that they go into the jig with matching corners routed together.

Cut the tails first (the part of the joint orientated on the long sides of the box), then the pins (the pieces of wood that will fit into the spaces of the tails). Cut the tails about 1/16-inch (1.58 mm) longer than they need to be, allowing them to stick out of the joint. This ensures they won’t be too short. You can trim them flush once the box is assembled.

This is the project outline.

To see the full instructions – with suggested wood types and measurements (you’ll need to convert to metric) – go to popularmechanics. com/toolbox.

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popularmechanics.co.za

THE SIMPLIFIED PROCESS 1.

Prepare your stock.

2.

Cut the dovetails.

(See instructions on facing page.)

3.

Dry fit the box pieces together.

4.

When everything fits tightly, glue and clamp together the box sides and ends, and insert the bottom panel.

The mortise should fit snugly into the tenon.

5.

Glue the handle lamination.

6.

PHOTOGRAPHY: TREVOR RAAB; ILLUSTRATION: GEORGE RETSECK

MAKING THE HANDLE

The handle is made from three pieces of wood glued together to form a single lamination. Rip and cross-cut the pieces for the lamination slightly oversize, then glue and clamp them together. Drive screws into the lamination in areas that will be sawed off to pull the parts more firmly together. When the glue is dry, make one or more ripping passes on the table saw to ensure the long edges are parallel.

Mark the location of the handle tenons on the short edges of the lamination using a square, a marking gauge, and a sharp knife. Dry assemble the box sides, ends, and uprights. Rest the bottom edge of the lamination on the top edge of the box ends. Lean the lamination against the uprights with an equal amount of overhang at each end; using a sharp pencil simply draw a line on the lamination at the inside of each upright. Remove the lamination and scribe on the pencil line with a knife.

That knife line will mark the inside corner where the handle tenon meets the upright. Mark the tenon’s width, thickness, and shoulders, on the short edge of the lamination and scribe with a knife.

Next, design the shape of the handle. Mark the centre of the long side of the lamination – this will be the

popularmechanics.co.za

middle of your handle. Create a curve you like, making sure it’s high enough to remove trays or bulky tools if you’ll be carrying those. Draw the curve on one side of the centre, then trace and copy on the other side (or download our online handle template) to be sure that it’s even.

To make the tenon, carefully remove the wood around the area you have scribed with a table saw, making it slightly oversize (by about 1/64-inch, or 0.4 mm). You’ll want the mortise and tenon to fit snugly together, and you should always fit the tenon to the mortise, not the other way around. (It’s very difficult to trim wood evenly from inside the mortise.)

Complete each tenon by working down to the scribe lines using a rabbet plane, block plane, and a chisel.

Once the tenons are complete, cut out the rough shape of the handle on a band saw. Mark the shape of the handle on the shoulder of each tenon – this will give you a target as you remove material. Remove equal amounts of wood off the corners, until the handle profile is roughly octagon-shaped. (We used a variety of planes and chisels to shape the handles.) Remove material on the corners, down to the outline on the tenon shoulder.

Sand by hand until smooth.

Cut the uprights and fit to box ends.

7.

Shape the handle.

(See instructions on this page.)

8.

Dry fit the uprights to the handle.

9.

Glue and clamp the handle and uprights in place.

10.

Build tray(s) and blocks to fit the interior dimensions of the box and the tools you intend to carry.

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P R AC T I C A L K N OW L E D G E

WOODWORKING

CREATE A DOUBLE-BEAM MARKING GAUGE 68

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Exceptionally handy in many applications, a double-beam marking gauge is a tool every avid woodworker should have in their workshop. This is how to make your own.

/ BY TOBIAS LOCH NE R A ND M AT T H E US OD E NDA A L ( T E CH NICA L) /

DIY PROJECT

4 of 4

Y

OU MIGHT’VE BEEN

expecting this article to cover wedge-based clamps. We did mention that in the last issue, after all. But a reader and keen woodworking enthusiast wrote in requesting a feature on double-beam mortise marking gauges. This is a wonderful tool, so naturally we obliged. The double-beam marking gauge will be the last ‘how to build’ article in our current series, where we’ve explored the centuries-old use of wedges in making our own woodworking tools.

This gauge is highly functional and useful in the workshop, especially when laying out mortise and tenon joinery. I find that mine is employed for various other applications too, such as inlay stringing channel layout and scribing. And, when I require a few gauges at different settings for a project, the double-beam gauges get pressed into service alongside a few single-beam gauges.

Left: Our double-beam marking gauge, made with wild olive and stinkwood, sourced from Rare Woods South Africa. (Some people also refer to this tool as a dual-beam marking gauge.)

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WOOD FOR THE BUILD

Search through your box of off-cuts for some really nice wood, or better still, head on over to the Rare Woods website (rarewoods.co.za) and order several striking pieces for your tool-build project.

For ours, we chose exquisite indigenous old-growth wild olive for the headstock, and air-dried stinkwood for the two beams.

Thanks to owners of Rare Woods, Brendan and Seamus Harcourt-Wood. They’ve been the generous sponsor of all the beautiful wood species used in the four projects.

Almost any wood will work for the beams and stocks of the gauge, but hardwoods are recommended for all the parts. The tool will just last so much longer.

WILD OLIVE (OLEA EUROPAEA SUBSPECIES AFRICANA) Olive wood has carried great cultural and religious significance for millennia, especially in the Middle East. Its exquisite appearance typically includes a creamy, golden brown base with darker streaks, with highlights augmented by spectacular figures and areas of burling.

Wild olive trees have many uses, including tea made from the leaves, ink from the juice of the fruits, and traditional medicines. The early Cape settlers used the fruit to treat diarrhoea. The wood is hard, heavy and absolutely beautiful.

Grains range from straight to completely wild, and sometimes interlocked.

STINKWOOD (OCOTEA BULLATA) Indigenous to South Africa, stinkwood’s fine, tight and typically straight grain has made it popular for fine furniture making.

Its resolute durability is often compared to Burmese teak. The heartwood varies in colour from almost black to dark brown, through to medium-brown tones with a reddish tint.

The sapwood is beautifully contrasted to the heartwood with its pale colour.

The species works easily, possesses a rich natural lustre and finishes exceptionally well. Despite its odd name, due to the awful smell when it’s first cut, stinkwood remains a highly popular wood in South Africa for cabinetmaking, doors, decorative trim and gunstocks. Properly dried, stinkwood exhibits a warm, pleasant smell when cut, quite different to when the tree is initially felled.

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P R AC T I C A L K N OW L E D G E

WOODWORKING The hand tools used in the making of this project.

Using a double-beam marking gauge to lay out a mortise and tenon joint.

PROJECT 4 OF 4

DOUBLE-BEAM MARKING GAUGE

Woodworkers use this tool to scribe lines for sawing and chiselling joints, as well as for planing boards down to specific thicknesses. Only three pieces of really nice hardwood are required – one for the headstock and two for the beams – and then small, sharpened steel pins or screws for scribing. While you’re at it, why not make two gauges, and give one to a woodworking friend?

LOCKING MECHANISM The power of wedges is again being used to lock and unlock the positions of the individual gauge beams. Each beam has its own small wooden wedge that locks or unlocks it, positioned on the side so that either beam can be adjusted independently.

TOOL LIST Tackle this project with hand tools, or the majority of it at least. You’ll improve your muscle-memory and skill set while you work, and you’ll gain a whole lot of satisfaction once the finished product is in your hands. In short, you’ll become a better woodworker in the process. » Marking/cutting gauge » Marking knife » Steel ruler, 300 mm » Mechanical pencil, 0.5 mm » Japanese dozuki or Western tenon saw » Coping saw » Mallet » Low-angle block plane » Jack plan and rebate plane

» Shoulder plane » Spokeshave » Bevel-edge bench chisel » Mortise chisel » Small try square » Cabinetmaker’s rasps and files » Cabinet scrapers » Compass and dividers » Junior hacksaw » Router and 45° router bit

MATERIALS FINAL STOCK DIMENSIONS » Headstock: 100 mm long × 80 mm wide × 40 mm thick » Beam A: 280 mm long × 18 mm wide × 14 mm thick » Beam B: 280 mm long × 18 mm wide × 18 mm thick

SCRIBING PINS » 2 small steel nails or short drywall screws, sharpened to a fine point

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Left: Handsawing the headstock to size. Above: Removing the waste from the headstock aperture with a Forstner bit on the drill press. popularmechanics.co.za

PROCESS

STEP 3: Headstock wedge apertures (one for each beam) – Once all of the waste is removed from the main aperture, remove the waste from the two sections into which the locking wedges will fit. Crucially, doublecheck the layout lines for the wedges.

The wedge slots should taper by 2 mm over the thickness of the headstock (40 mm), otherwise the wedges will not work properly.

On one face side of the headstock, the knife lines should create a rectangle that is 6 mm wide and 6 mm deep. On the opposite face, the knife lines should form a rectangle that’s 6 mm wide and 8 mm deep.

When you’re entirely sure that your measurements and lines are correct, proceed to excavate the cavities for the locking wedges, taking special care not to bruise the walls of the main aperture.

This will result in a slope of 2 mm from the one side of the headstock to the other side, which is a sufficient-enough angle to allow the wedges to lock and unlock perfectly.

STEP 1: Headstock preparation – For the headstock of the gauge, we used a simple, large curve on each edge of the fence, giving the two scribing pins a solid foundation on the workpiece. This shape fits comfortably in the hand and allows for easy control of the tool. If you’re using a darker wood species for the headstock, make use of 3M blue painter’s tape and lay it carefully and firmly on to the two faces of the workpiece.

Once you’ve scribed your cut lines for the beam aperture, simply remove the tape from the intended waste areas, leaving well-defined and easy-to-see layout lines on both sides of the headstock.

STEP 2: Headstock main aperture – This should be 28 mm long by 18 mm wide, through the 40 mm thick headstock.

Once you’ve marked the aperture out with a marking knife, use a drill press and a 16 mm Forstner drill bit to remove the bulk of the waste from the aperture, taking care not to get too close to the knife lines. Drill just over halfway through the headstock and then turn it over and complete the process by drilling the balance of the waste out from the other side.

With the headstock firmly clamped on to the workbench, excavate the side walls of the aperture at 90° to the faces, working from both sides with a chisel and mallet.

Check regularly with a small try square, finishing exactly on the scribed knife lines.

Above: How the final headstock aperture will look once it’s complete.

HEADSTOCK LAYOUT 50 mm

18 mm

5 mm

4 mm 6 mm

A

that the starting dimensions of the two beams aren’t the same. The beams slide along each other, the joint keeps them straight in relation to each other, and there’s a groove along the length of beam A and a matching tongue along the length of beam B. This sliding joint is a specific form of tongue-and-groove joint, designed so the tool will continue to work efficiently within any seasonal expansion and contraction of the beams. Create the sliding joint with a table saw, a router fitted with a 45° bit, or by hand. For efficiency, we used the router method to create the 45° cuts (refer to the CAD drawing) and we finished the joint with a shoulder plane and a pair of side rebate planes.

4.1: Creating beam A – The final dimensions of beam A must be 18 mm thick by 14 mm wide. This beam features a 4 mm-deep centre groove cut into the face that will slide against beam B. Use a 45° chamfer router bit. Check that the router bit cut is absolutely dead centre before you embark on the cut. Cut in steps down to the final depth of 4 mm.

4.2: Creating beam B – Again, the centre of the beam is critical to the sliding joint. The thickness of beam B is exactly the same as beam A, but the starting width is 18 mm, so once your excavations are complete, the shoulders of beam B will be at 14 mm with a triangular tongue protruding 4 mm from the centre of the beam, which allows the tongue to slide effortlessly in the mating triangular groove in beam A.

14 mm

80 mm

28 mm 14 mm

STEP 4: Beams A and B – Note

40 mm

PLAN VIEW OF THE COMPLETE GAUGE

4 mm 18 mm

B

280 mm

5 mm 8 mm 6 mm

100 mm

66 mm 40 mm

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PROJECT 4 OF 4

WOODWORKING

STEP 5: Making the locking wedges – For the locking wedges (two of them), laminate up a simple plywood of good, close-grained hardwood. We used three pieces of straight-grained hard maple. We hand-planed the maple to just proud of 2.5 mm, and then cut two long-grain pieces 30 mm wide by 250 mm long, and a matching crossgrain piece with the same dimensions.

Glue the three pieces together, with the cross-grain piece in the middle.

Sandwich them between two flat pieces of wood and clamp them until they’re dry, creating an extremely strong thin plywood.

Once out of the clamps, plane the faces of the sandwich to fit exactly into the wedge apertures in the headstock.

Divide the sandwich into two 125 mmlong pieces. Using thin double-sided tape, attach the two sections to each other, face to face. This lets you cut both wedges simultaneously and easily separate them when complete.

Following the CAD drawing of the wedges closely, lay out the wedge cutting lines on both sides of the assembly. We used a tenon saw, coping saw, chisels and a file to shape the final wedge forms. Once you’re satisfied with the wedges, separate them and test their fit and working action until they run smoothly.

It shouldn’t be necessary to hammer the wedges into place to lock them; a firm push with your thumb is all that’s needed to lock and unlock a wedge.

Initial test-fitting of the locking wedges.

ROUTER BIT CUTTING SEQUENCE OF THE TONGUE-AND-GROOVE SLIDING JOINT

45° 4 mm

18 mm

14 mm

A

B

B

A B

4 mm

18 mm 18 mm

PLAN VIEW OF THE WEDGE LAYOUT 54 mm

12 mm

8 mm

6 mm

6 mm

4 mm

6 mm 66 mm

Left: Glueing up of the wedge laminations.

Below: Cutting out the wedges using a coping saw.

Right: All of the parts complete, with scribing pins ready for fitting.

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popularmechanics.co.za

STEP 6: Test-fitting and tuning the assembly – Now, clean up the headstock aperture walls with a fine file and testfit the action of all the parts of the gauge. Go slowly and test often with your final adjustments, because if you remove too much from any surface, you’ll create a sloppy fit.

STEP 7: Making and fitting the scribing pins – We used thin black drywall screws as scribing pins. Take two 30–40 mm drywall screws and cut their heads off. It’s quite easy to shape them by using a drill press or electric hand drill and a file. Once shaped, cut them to length so the pins protrude no more than 5 mm from the surfaces of their respective beams.

After hand-filing off the thread and achieving the correct shape, use wet-and-dry sandpaper to finish each scribing pin. Drill a small hole on the outer face of each beam, 10 mm from the ends. With a little epoxy, glue the pins into their holes.

STEP 8: Finishing – Once you’re entirely happy with all the surfaces of the finished gauge, the action of the wedges and their beams, as well as the overall efficiency of the tool, it’s time to apply your preferred finish. We chose Osmo Wood Wax 1011 ‘Clear Extra Thin’ satin finish, using two coats with a curing time of eight hours between coats. After the final coat had about eight hours to cure, we applied a very thin coat of clear paste wax to all of the surfaces, and buffed the tool up to a good, protective shine.

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 the Rare Woods newsletter and receive a R100 discount off your first order of R1 000 or more. All online purchases to the value of R1 000 or more qualify for free delivery throughout South Africa.

Left: Finishing the headstock with Osmo Wood Wax 1011.

Bottom: If made well, using durable wood, you can expect many years of service from your double-beam marking gauge.

PHOTOGRAPHY: HENK VENTER

WRAP-UP We hope you’ve enjoyed the four recent DIY hand-tool build projects as much as we have. Send any suggestions or requests about future woodworking articles to the editor (popularmechanics@ramsaymedia.co.za), and we’ll do our best to assist you. popularmechanics.co.za

IN THE NEXT ISSUE: We start a fresh six-part series focusing on traditional hand-tool woodworking.

First up, we’ll explore the three main woodworking joints.

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PA R T N E R P R O M O T I O N

WD-40 SPECIALIST

GET THE SPECIALIST FAST ACTING DEGREASER

To quickly remove grease, oil, dirt and grime, without leaving any residue behind, this should be your go-to product. You’ll notice that it works immediately, on contact, and then rinses off easily. Can be used on a variety of surfaces.

When expert solutions are needed, turn to the new WD-40 Specialist range.

AVAILABLE AT LEADING STOCKISTS, NATIONWIDE

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U S E S : • Hand- and power tools • Engines • Stainless-steel hobs and extractor hoods • Chains and gear mechanisms • Industrial machinery

FAST RELEASE PENETRANT

If you have a stubborn part that’s seized, or a nut that won’t release, grab this can. The fastacting solution penetrates hard-to-reach places, and loosens fixtures that are locked up tight. It can be used on metals, alloys, rubber, plastic and most paints, is water resistant, and can withstand temperatures of -20°C to 90°C.

U S E S : • Screws • Nuts and bolts • Locks and chains • Pipes • Taps • Bearings

HIGH PERFORMANCE SILICONE LUBRICANT This solution prevents parts from sticking, providing lubrication that won’t attract dirt.

It protects against moisture, is non-staining, handles temperatures from -35°C up to 200°C, and can be used on wood, plastic, rubber and metal, as well as high-pressure equipment.

U S E S : • uPVC window and door latches • Car door and window seals • Garage-door runners • Fishing reels • Plumbing fittings

popularmechanics.co.za

TREATMENT ANTI FRICTION DRY PTFE LUBRICANT

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY IMAGES

This product provides enhanced lubrication and protection, in the form of a quick-drying clear film that’s resistant to dust, dirt and oil. Its anti-friction formula is ideal for high-use or repetitive mechanisms, shielding them from wear and tear. It works through a range of temperatures (-45°C to 260°C), and is safe to use on metals, glass and plastics.

U S E S : • Conveyor belts • Rollers, chains, cogs and cables • Window tracks and hinges • Locks and latches

popularmechanics.co.za

FAST DRYING CONTACT CLEANER

Fast-drying, this contact cleaner spray is nonconductive, so it’s suitable for all sensitive electrical components. It removes dirt, dust, condensation and flux residue simply and easily; just spray it on and let it dry, before powering up. The fastacting formula removes contaminants that can cause current leakage.

U S E S : • Circuit boards • Tape heads • Printers and copiers • Switches and controls • Electrical components

HIGH PERFORMANCE PTFE LUBRICANT

When you want to keep your tools and machinery working smoothly, reach for this product. From garden implements to car parts, it’s designed to keep mechanical components working properly, for longer. The lubricant is non-stick, works in a broad temperature range (-20°C to 100°C), and is safe to use on metals, glass, vinyl, rubber and plastics.

U S E S : • Hedge trimmers, power-tool blades and drill bits • Garden and hand tools • Axles • Hydraulic systems • Cranks and cogs • Wire ropes and pulleys

HIGH PERFORMANCE WHITE LITHIUM GREASE To get the benefits of conventional grease, and more, without the mess, this is the product you’ll want. It offers heavy-duty protection for metal-tometal applications. Used outdoors, no matter the temperature, the thick water-resistant formula won’t drip or run, keeping components moving smoothly and friction-free.

It also protects against rust and corrosion.

U S E S : • Gears and brakes • Bearings • Winches • Garden tools • Motor pivot points • Pistons • Water pumps • Latches • Hinges • Cables • Chains

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P R AC T I C A L K N OW L E D G E

DIY WITH KREG

WHY BUY A WORKBENCH, WHEN YOU CAN MAKE ONE?

E

VERY WOODWORKER needs a sturdy work-

WHAT YOU’LL NEED TOOLS:

» Circular saw » Drill/driver » Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig » Mitre saw » Sander » Tape measure

bench. This particular DIY workbench, from Kreg, is easy to build, and designed to withstand heavy-duty use. In addition, it offers a versatile bench top, thanks to Kreg’s Universal Clamp Trak Kit that’s mounted along the front and one end.

Combined with several Kreg Bench Clamps, this makes for a slick home set-up that will hold your pieces firmly in place while you work.

PARTS LIST: Quantity

HARDWARE: 16 24 40 1 2 1

Kreg HD pocket-hole screws Kreg 64 mm coarse-thread pocket-hole screws 65 mm flathead wood screws Kreg Clamp Trak Kit: 27” × 45” (686 mm × 1 143 mm) Kreg Bench Clamps: 3”-reach (76 mm) Wood glue

WOOD: 6 1

38 × 89 × 2 440 mm stud 19 (thick) × 1 220 × 2 440 mm MDF

popularmechanics.co.za

Name

Material

4

Leg

38 × 89 × 889 mm

4

Long leg filler

38 × 89 × 508 mm

4

Short leg filler

38 × 89 × 203 mm

2

Bottom rail

38 × 89 × 965 mm

2

Top rail

38 × 89 × 1 168 mm

4

Side rail

38 × 89 × 483 mm

1

Shelf

19 × 559 × 787 mm MDF

1

Sub-top

19 × 743 × 1 200 mm MDF

1

Top

19 × 686 × 1 143 mm MDF

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P R AC T I C A L K N OW L E D G E

DIY WITH KREG

PROCESS 38 × 89 × 2 400 mm 89 mm

STEP 1: CUT LEG PARTS

Long leg filler

Long leg filler

508 mm

Long leg filler

508 mm

Long leg filler

508 mm

508 mm

38 × 89 × 2 400 mm

Cut four legs, four short leg fillers, and four long leg fillers to length from the 38 × 89 mm boards, as shown in the cutting diagram.

Sand all the parts smooth.

89 mm

Top rail

Top rail

1 168 mm

1 168 mm Short leg filler

38 × 89 × 2 400 mm 89 mm

Side rail

Side rail

483 mm

Side rail

483 mm

Side rail

483 mm

483 mm

203 mm

Short leg filler

38 × 89 × 2 400 mm 89 mm

203 mm

Bottom rail

Bottom rail

965 mm

965 mm

203 mm

203 mm

Two – 38 × 89 × 2 400 mm 89 mm

Leg

Leg

889 mm

889 mm

STEP 2: MAKE THE BOTTOM RAILS 965 mm 177 mm 25 mm

483 mm 178 mm Bottom rail

89 mm

25 mm 6 mm-diameter hole

STEP 3: CREATE LEG ASSEMBLIES

Spread glue on the back face of each short leg filler, and then clamp them to the legs so they are flush on the sides and one end. Secure each short leg filler to the leg from behind using four 64 mm flathead wood screws. You shouldn’t even need to drill pilot holes. Next, position the bottom rail so it’s resting on the short leg fillers, and clamp it in place. Make sure the distance between the leg assemblies is correct, and attach the bottom rail with large screws. We used Kreg HD screws. Now you can add the long leg fillers in the same way as you added the short ones, attaching each one with six 65 mm flathead wood screws.

Leg Third: Glue and screw long leg fillers to legs Second: Glue and screw bottom rail to legs

Long leg filler Drive 4 mm x 64 mm screws into the leg fillers from behind

JULY / AUGUST 2021

BE PICKY WHEN PICKING BOARDS

The base is made from 38 × 89 mm timber. While these boards are generally inexpensive, sturdy, and easy to cut, they’re not always pretty.

When buying wood, take your time. Find boards that are straight, clean, and don’t have torn-up edges. Even if you have to spend a while digging for boards, it’ll take a lot less time than you’re going to spend sanding to try and make bad boards look good. You’re also going have an easier time building, and you’ll end up with a much better-looking bench.

STEP 4: MAKE THE TOP RAILS

508 mm

1 168 mm

Pocket holes on inside face

279 mm

First: Glue and screw short leg fillers to legs Short leg filler

TIP:

70 mm

Cut two top rails to length, as shown in the cutting diagram.

Trim off the corners, as shown. Next, drill 6 mm-diameter holes at the location shown. Then, with your pocket-hole jig set-up for 19 mm material, drill pocket holes along the long edge of each top rail. Sand the top rails smooth.

965 mm

78

25 mm

Cut two bottom rails to length from the 38 × 89 mm boards, as shown in the cutting diagram.

Drill 6 mm-diameter holes where shown. Then, with your Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig set-up for 19 mm material, drill pocket holes along one edge of each bottom rail.

Sand the bottom rails smooth.

152 mm

25 mm

127 mm

89 mm Bottom rail

64 mm HD screws 965 mm

44 mm

25 mm 6 mm-diameter hole

165 mm

203 mm

popularmechanics.co.za

483 mm

STEP 5: ATTACH THE TOP RAILS

Glue and clamp the top rail to the leg assemblies as shown. Make sure the bench legs are parallel and that the distance between them is correct, and then secure each top rail to the legs with four Kreg HD screws.

89 mm

Side rail

Drill end pocket holes for 19 mm thick material

STEP 6: MAKE THE SIDE RAILS

102 mm 965 mm

Cut four side rails to length, as shown in the cutting diagram. Then you can drill pocket holes in the side rails where shown. This requires two pocket-hole jig set-ups. For the pocket holes along the edge (which will be used to attach the shelf later), drill the holes with your Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig set up for 19 mm material. Then switch your jig (and drill bit) set-up to 38 mm material, and drill pocket holes in the ends of each side rail.

Sand the parts smooth after you drill the pocket holes.

102 mm

Pocket holes on inside face

Top rail 64 mm HD screws

Leg assembly

Bottom rail

TIP: STEP 7: ATTACH THE SIDE RAILS

Drill end pocket holes for 38 mm thick material

Attach the side rails to one of the leg/rail assemblies by driving 64 mm coarse-thread Kreg Pocket-Hole Screws into the top rail and bottom rail, as shown.

Then attach the other leg/rail assembly.

LEARN TO WORK WITH MDF

MDF (medium density fibreboard) is a great material for making a workbench. It’s dense, durable, and very flat. MDF does present a few challenges, though. First, the sheets are big and heavy. You may want to have the hardware supplier cross-cut the sheet into two pieces – making the cut at about 1 500 mm from one end – to make it easier to haul home. Or, for a small fee, you can have them cut the parts from the sheet at the sizes needed. When you cut MDF, it produces a lot of fine dust, so be sure to wear a dust mask when making cuts so you don’t breathe it in.

STEP 8: MAKE THE TOP AND SHELF

From the sheet of 19 mm MDF, cut out one top, one sub-top, and one bottom shelf to size, as shown in the cutting diagram. The dimensions shown accommodate the Kreg Universal Clamp Trak Kit we selected. If you’re not going to add this feature, make both top layers the size shown for the sub-top.

Side rail

Side rail 19 × 1 220 × 2 440 mm MDF Top rail Leg

Bottom shelf

Bottom rail

767 mm

1 143 mm

1 200 mm

559 mm

686 mm 743 mm

popularmechanics.co.za

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P R AC T I C A L K N OW L E D G E

DIY WITH KREG

STEP 9: ASSEMBLE THE TOP

Spread glue on the underside of the top, and then glue it to the sub-top keeping one edge and one end flush, as shown. Clamp the parts together while the glue sets, or drive a few 32 mm screws in from the underside instead of using clamps.

STEP 10: ADD THE TRACK

Once the glue is set on the bench-top assembly, install the Kreg Clamp Trak Kit to the sub-top following the manufacturer’s instructions.

1 200 mm

743 mm

1 143 mm

686 mm

Top

Sub-top

TIP:

SIMPLE FINISH FOR A BETTER BENCH

To finish our workbench, we simply wiped on a few coats of naturaloil finish. An oil finish is great for a bench because it’s easy to apply, it resists glue, and, best of all, it’s easy to renew. As your bench gets worn and scratched, you can just give it a light sanding, if needed, and then wipe on more oil. The MDF will soak up a lot of oil, so you’ll probably need to apply two or three coats to the bench top and shelf. One or two coats should do it for the bench base.

16 mm

MDF (MEDIUM DENSITY FIBREBOARD) IS A GREAT MATERIAL FOR MAKING A WORKBENCH. IT’S DENSE, DURABLE, AND VERY FLAT.

Sub-top 92 mm Overhang Top rail Side rail

Bottom shelf

Side rail

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JULY / AUGUST 2021

STEP 11: INSTALL THE TOP AND SHELF, THEN FINISH

Install the bench top assembly by first positioning it, and then checking for equal overhangs at the front and back, and on each end, as shown. Then attach the top assembly using 32 mm coarse-thread Kreg Pocket-Hole Screws. Install the bottom shelf so it fits flush with the outer edges of the bottom rails and the side rails. Then you can apply a protective finish.

Bottom rail

popularmechanics.co.za

KREG PRIZE GIVEAWAY

WINA

KREG MULTI-MARK

TEXT, PHOTOGRAPHY AND ILLUSTRATIONS: KREG TOOL COMPANY (PROJECT COPYRIGHTED; USED WITH PERMISSION; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)

tool!

Tackled any home DIY projects lately? Have you refurbished your bathroom, built a jungle gym in the garden, or made a bedside table out of wood? We want to hear about it!

Send an email with the subject line ‘Kreg prize giveaway’ to popularmechanics@ramsaymedia.co.za, detailing the steps of your project and how it turned out, and you could win a new Kreg Multi-Mark tool. Be sure to include high-res photos of your project’s progress (if you can) and, importantly, of the finished product. (Original pics snapped with a cellphone are fine, but don’t reduce them in size when you attach them to your email.)

THE PRIZE Kreg’s new Multi-Mark is a highly versatile marking and measuring tool, ideal for a variety of household or job-site applications. It’s accurate, adaptable, and will have you covered in most measuring and marking scenarios in your workshop and on DIY projects.

The Multi-Mark simplifies laying out and measuring. It has three scale configurations, offers both imperial and metric measurements, has a handy built-in torpedo level, a 5 mm reveal gauge for trim and casing, and it boasts a durable compact design.

So whether you’re transferring a measurement, laying out mitred corners, aligning project parts, or setting bit and blade heights, the Kreg Multi-Mark will help you to get the job done.

BUY KREG: Kreg is one of the leading brands at Vermont Sales, the generous sponsor of this prize. Look out for Kreg products at most of the top specialist outlets countrywide. For more information contact Vermont Sales on 011 314 7711, or visit vermontsales.co.za. popularmechanics.co.za

JULY / AUGUST 2021

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O C C U PAT I O N

HOW TO BE GOOD AT WHAT YOU DO Thomas Bernich, 4 8, Owner of BrooklynPhono, Brooklyn, New York

Watch the complete MADE HERE video series on YouTube: youtube.com/popmechshow

W

MADE HERE

HEN I visited

HOW IT’S DONE

82

Sound engineers produce the lacquer or copper discs that are electroplated to make nickel copies that will act as top and bottom moulds. Those discs – or stampers – go into our presses.

We sandwich extruded polyvinyl chloride, copolymer preforms in-between them, and heat and compress them. Finally, we cure the finished product and trim the excess material.

JULY / AUGUST 2021

popularmechanics.co.za

PHOTOGRAPHY: POP MECH EDITORS

a vinyl plant in Queens, NY, in 1998, the product consumed my whole life. Something about seeing the process up close and holding a record captured my soul.

I didn’t have a career at the time, but I made money working for electrical and mechanical contractors. I solicited money from family and acquired the equipment needed to make vinyl, including two more-than 100-ton hydraulic presses. Their condition wasn’t great, but they allowed me to get started.

That first batch took a tremendous amount of energy.

The system crashed after making two records. It was, of course, disheartening, but I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Everything I’d read indicated that it was like jumping through hoops on fire that got higher and smaller as you went. Once you get through them, though, the feeling is beautiful.

I may not be the artist, but I do feel connected to the art through what I do. You are creating the vessel for an artist to generate their idea. When it goes out into the world and people enjoy it, nothing could be more rewarding.

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DRIVING

PM GARAGE / BY MARK SAMUEL /

Volkswagen’s formidable Amarok double-cab now boasts a brawnier 190 kW engine. We sussed out what that means for South Africa’s bakkie-loving public.

T

HE VW AMAROK is a big

bakkie. It’s always been that way, and nothing about that has changed. Right from when it was first launched in South Africa a little more than a decade ago, it’s consistently been among the most popular pick-up contenders with South Africa’s bakkieloving buyers, of which we have many.

Unlike some of its competitors, there’s no mistaking this bakkie for anything else on our roads. Its look is unique, in several ways – no mean achievement in an age of seemingly ubiquitous double-cab designs.

The blunt front end flows effortlessly into exaggerated wheel arches, and the high door-line amplifies its muscular posture.

The unmistakable VW headlight and grille architecture enhances the commanding presence, subtly yet distinctively. I’m a tail guy (interpret that how you will), and in my opinion the Amarok’s rear is somewhat subdued; a bit more could be happening in that department. But overall, the people who dreamed up this vehicle did an excellent job. It’s a boxy yet timeless design that’s aged well, aided through the years by the occasional nip ’n’ tuck and timely cosmetic enhancements.

Some would argue, though, that where this considerable bakkie has been lacking is in the engine department, a trait not evident to admiring eyes. This is where

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While it’s undergone several cosmetic enhancements over the years, the Amarok is still ostensibly the same design that was released a little more than a decade ago. But, it’s a look that’s aged well, and still looks good among its peers.

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bakkie lovers, and Amarok fans in particular, need to sit up and take note. If there’s ever been an argument for ‘underpowered’, that issue’s been well and truly quelled – the V6 TDI power plant has been bolstered, now kicking out a whopping 190 kW (or up to 200 kW for 10 seconds, with its overboost feature) and 580 Nm of torque.

You read right: With these credentials, this is now South Africa’s most powerful stock-standard bakkie.

To get a proper feel for this up-tuned engine, we headed for the gravel roads of the Cederberg, three hours inland from Cape Town, in a Double-Cab Highline 4Motion derivative.

While the initial impressions of the throttle response didn’t necessarily have me extricating myself from the seat upholstery, it is swift – a claimed ‘7.6 seconds on the zero to 100 km/h sprint’ swift, and a top speed a hair more than 200 km/h.

The acceleration seems measured though, which might sound incongruous with the sprint result, but it isn’t. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that, as the needle on the speedo climbs and the roadside scenery begins to blur, gear changes via the eightspeed automatic transmission are velvety smooth. You’re just not squished into your seat in the process.

Ride quality too is good. I wouldn’t say cushy, because I’ve driven the Cederberg roads in off-roaders that entirely iron out the corrugations. But, with the cunning 4Motion all-wheel-drive system doing its thing, handling felt sure-footed on the gravel surface, and even on the slower rock-climb sections. The launch control system plays a big part in that control.

It ensures the vehicle’s reactions to your throttle use remain mostly civil. Steering is well-weighted and precise; body-roll while cornering is minimal, and the tail, for the most part, behaves and doesn’t swing out, a mannerism to which not all large doublecabs can lay claim.

Let’s mention the giant elephant in the room – the price tag. The starting figure for this double-cab, in Highline guise with some of VW’s comprehensive list of optional extras omitted, is R921 900. That, for a bakkie, is no laughing matter. The ‘Extreme 4Motion’ model tips the price scale at R996 000, a few tanks of diesel short of a million. You’ll indeed need to do some thorough homework to decide between this, the Toyota Hilux, and the countless Ford Ranger derivatives out there, because many of those options will leave several more rands in your wallet once all is paid up.

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1. While comfortable, some of the finishes inside feel rather plasticky. 2. The 8-speed automatic gearbox is silky-smooth.

3. Front seats boast a heating function, for those chilly mornings. 4. The 4Motion Amarok is highly capable on loose surfaces, performing well in the stability and handling departments.

5. The 3.0 L TDI turbodiesel engine now puts out 190 kW and 580 Nm. 6. The cabin is spacious up front, but legroom is tight at the back.

7. The headlights and grille are unmistakably ‘VW’. 8. 18” alloy wheels come standard, but can be upgraded.

While the interior is generally well turned-out, sedan-like (a description almost expected these days for upmarket double-cabs), and functional, some of the surfaces don’t compare too favourably with those of a few of its peers. Some of the plastics are hard and, well, plasticky – slightly peculiar, as I’ve always associated the VW brand with class-leading interiors.

On the features front, everything you might want is present, including Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and a comprehensive popularmechanics.co.za

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FIGURES 7

Vehicle tested: VW Amarok Double-Cab Highline 3.0 TDI 190 kW 4Motion Price: From R921 900 Engine: 3.0-litre TDI, V6 Max power: 190 kW @ 3 000–4 500 rpm Max torque: 580 Nm @ 1 400–2 750 rpm Top speed: 207 km/h 0–100 km/h (claimed): 7.6 seconds Warranty: three-year/100 000 km Service plan: five-year/90 000 km

PHOTOGRAPHY: GISELLE FLISSAK, NICKY LLOYD, PEET MOCKE/HMIMAGES.CO.ZA

vw.co.za

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infotainment and navigation system, but at only 6.3” in size, I did find the touchscreen interface smaller than expected. The reverse camera ensures better visibility for tightspace manoeuvring.

The seats are comfortable, boasting neat leather upholstery, and up front, the driver and passenger can indulge in the bum-heating function on cold days.

While the dimensions of the cabin are generous, especially in the shoulder region, legroom at the back isn’t, which popularmechanics.co.za

is a hindrance if, like me, you’re long in the leg department.

The Amarok proved to be a capable companion on our Cederberg escape, and if we’d decided to tow a braked trailer, it could’ve weighed up to 3 500 kg – the towing capabilities are up there with the best in class. At 2 520 litres, the load bay is voluminous and coped easily with all our equipment and baggage, yet not having a standard tonneau cover back there was an issue, as we had to scrounge up an old tarp

from a friend to protect our camping gear on the journey. At that price, it would be nice to have a cover included as standard, or even a secure roller shutter of sorts to keep gear safe.

If I had the money, would this big and powerful bakkie be on my shopping list of potentials? Yes, absolutely. But I’d likely spend a lot of time pondering a detailed pros and cons list, assessing exactly what that high price tag is getting me over its competitors.

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CAR CONNECTIVITY / BY PETER JOHN /

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NCLUDING THE NEW FX4, there are 34

With the FordPass app, you’re more connected to your vehicle than ever, and Ford has taken us a step closer to making the car key obsolete.

POP MECH got to experience the app first-hand on the launch of the new Ranger FX4.

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derivatives of Ford Ranger available in South Africa. This relentless expansion of the Ranger family, which includes three new derivatives launched in the last six to eight months, not only highlights South Africans’ seemingly limitless appetite for bakkies, but also hints that the Ranger is reaching the end of its wonderfully successful life cycle.

The latest of these bolt-on model extensions has been introduced to help Ford maintain traction and consumer appeal during a time when a pantheon of competitors such as the new Hilux, Navara, P100 and unknown outliers like the Peugeot Landtrek, are trying to needle their way in. Determined to keep them at bay, Ford SA arranged a trip down the Wild Coast taking in some jaw-dropping views where untamed ocean batters resolute headlands, and peach sunsets cast soft, soothing shadows on watery reflections.

According to the lanyard around my neck, this is truly #LivingTheRangerLife.

But I digress. The launch began a few days earlier when Popular Mechanics was asked to download the FordPass app, which is available as a free download on IOS and Android app stores. With our username and password giving us a first taste, we let the app idle on the home screen until it could be paired with the new Ranger FX4 – a quick verification that requires the vehicle identification number (VIN).

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Above: The lean and clean home menu on the FordPass app is simpler than fumbling about for your keys.

Right: Vehicle location, vehicle status checks or climate control presets… Nice or necessity?

First impressions with any new technology happen in milliseconds; any error message and users are ready to send the app to the virtual bin. Yet, even though we began this digital dance on the top of a mountain, wind gusting and the signal mercurial, the connection and integration between phone and vehicle were flawless.

Within minutes and without having turned a wheel, the Ranger FX4 was proving to be more than a casual ‘sticker and bumper upgrade’, but it was yet to be seen if FordPass would serve a credible everyday purpose, or whether it would fade away as another fleeting novelty.

The FX4 nameplate returns to the South African motoring landscape after a brief hiatus. If there’s one comparison to be made, it’s that the previous FX4 was rather underwhelming; Ford has bigger long-term ambitions the second time around. A few details that set the FX4 apart include popularmechanics.co.za

18-inch alloys, black handles and door mirrors, black mesh grille and a drop-in bedliner with power socket. However, the extended sports bar running down the flanks of the loadbox is a messy design that hinders your access from most angles.

The Ranger might be getting on in years but nothing about the way it drives or looks would give that impression. This is still a compelling bakkie that successfully echoes several tropes of passenger-car refinement

under most circumstances. The 2.0-litre single-turbo engine with 10-speed gearbox is still used as a segment benchmark, and being able to choose between 4×2 and 4×4 derivatives gives you cost options for your needs. The FX4 certainly feels premium on the inside thanks to the same styling overtones and soft-touch points found on the flagship Wildtrak. This is complemented

by Ford’s SYNC 3 system that seems a little slicker in the aura of FordPass.

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Starting with the FX4, and standard on every Ranger derivative produced after February 2021, FordPass is not an aftermarket accessory. Instead, the small modem is fitted at the local Silverton Assembly Plant east of Pretoria as a standard item, deeply embedded in the main electronics harness. It’s this detailed installation that precludes earlier production Ford Ranger derivatives from being able to receive the same FordPass functionality. Providing there’s some cellular network coverage, the modem then communicates with the clean, intuitive user interface on your smartphone, irrespective of geographical distance between your car and phone. The vehicle’s owner is able to set up their profile and permissions (including personal data collection) as well as authorise other smartphone devices.

The launch event gave us ample time to put these to the test and not one glitch occurred during the two days out in the 92

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field. That’s rather an impressive feat, considering our test route deliberately pushed the boundaries of cellphone signal – communication times in the city should be even quicker.

I wasn’t alone in letting off a whoop of excitement as I managed to remote start the FX4 with a simple tap of the app’s home screen, or lock and unlock the doors from a similar menu. This excitement – let’s call it digital adrenaline – continued as I discovered settings for scheduled start and vehicle location tracker – the former particularly useful if you want the car’s climate control to be on by the time you climb inside. Only when the actual key is present can the car’s engine be started and the gear lever moved out of park.

Ford has an incredibly robust and user-friendly connected service in its stable. While it might not be entirely groundbreaking, it’s reached a level of design maturity to do exactly what it

promises, and in some less-than-ideal conditions. Yes, the functionality compared to what FordPass can do in other global markets is still ring-fenced, but these will inevitably open up once our market is ready. This market-by-market roll-out ostensibly provides customers with the safest and most balanced set of features, which was certainly confirmed for us during the launch.

App quality and functionality aside, is FordPass a game changer or something of a gimmick? There’s no doubt its potential is almost limitless – from over-the-air software upgrades to bigger-picture autonomous command – and it does enhance the FX4’s value proposition. But at this stage, the tech is unable to replace the vehicle’s physical key. Until that happens, a connected car hasn’t quite provided the full one-stop ownership solution many of us are seeking.

But, watch this space – innovation is happening, fast. popularmechanics.co.za

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY IMAGES

Clockwise, from top left: Losing connection of a different kind, but this time easily regained with a nudge of the throttle. » The gloss-black grille will greatly appease the aftermarket crowd. » The racy FX4 lettering on the doors hints at 4×4 capability. » The Wild Coast living up to its name, and the Ranger managing to tame it. » Ford’s SYNC 3 systems gets a subtle software tweak for the FordPass app.

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